Sermon: Marks of the Church (Acts 1-8): A Gathered People Marks of the Church (Acts 1-8): A Gathered People Acts 1:4-14 4 On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. 5 For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. 6 Then they gathered around him and asked him, Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel? 7 He said to them: It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria,
and to the ends of the earth. 9 After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight. 10 They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. 11 Men of Galilee, they said, why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven. 12 Then the apostles returned to Jerusalem from the hill called the Mount of Olives, a Sabbath day s walk from the city. 13 When they arrived, they went upstairs to the room where they were staying. Those present were Peter, John, James and Andrew; Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew; James son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. 14 They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers. I. Introduction When we encounter the disciples in the first chapter of Acts, they seem to be in a state of puzzled shock. They had accepted that Jesus was really risen from the dead and was fellowshipping with them, but they are perplexed about what this means. Some of them were still stuck in their old ways of thinking about who the Messiah was expected to be. Wasn t he supposed to overthrow the rulers of Rome and take over as the new King? Wasn t he supposed to usher in the new Kingdom of Israel? Even though their original expectations for Jesus had clearly been blown away with his death and resurrection, the disciples didn t seem to know where to go from there. When approached about their dilemma, Jesus responded to the disciples in what might be considered a disappointing fashion.
They came to him in verse 6 asking when he was going to make his move, and his response in verse 7 was to say simply that it wasn t for them to know the time and place when God would complete his work of bringing in the Kingdom. In fact, he had just told them to hold their horses and wait in Jerusalem until the Holy Spirit arrived. But the disciples had become impatient. Jesus was still with them, so why weren t they conquering Rome? Perhaps this is one of the reason that Jesus chose that time to ascend to the Father in heaven. Maybe he knew that the disciples would never become truly and fully dependent upon God, learning to live together in unity, so long as he remained physically present with them. They would always be watching Jesus, waiting for him to move, rather than living into their newfound identities and moving in the power of the Spirit. Even as Jesus ascended into heaven, the disciples remained dumfounded, as though they had no idea what was going on. Jesus had clearly told them that he would be going to be with his Father, but they still couldn t picture what life would be like without his physical presence. It wasn t until angels arrived to encourage them that Jesus would be back that they finally listened to his command to return to Jerusalem, where they were to wait for God s next move. Up until this point, the disciples had spent almost all of their time with Jesus, looking to him for their leadership, to make the calls on what they were to do at each step. Now, in his physical absence, they began to come together for the first time as the church of Jesus Christ. II. The Church as a Gathered People Later in the New Testament, Paul began to use the Greek word ekklesia when describing the church. This term is still with
us today, as we refer to our ecclesiology, which is the theology of the church, or our ecclesial structures like annual conferences and districts. But the term was already in use in the Greek-speaking world of the first century. An ekklesia was most basically a gathering of citizens called out of their homes to assemble for the purpose of deliberating, or making decisions for the community of which they were citizens. Paul and the early Christians took this word and injected it with new meaning, in light of their understanding of who they were in Christ. The church, as the ekklesia of Christ, were to be a people called out of the world, who would gather to worship God and then act in decisive ways as citizens of God s Kingdom. As we see in the first few chapters of Acts, the ekklesia, the church, the gathered people of God came together in three very specific ways that should serve as a model for the way that we gather as Christ s church in this time and place. 1. First, and foremost, the church gathers to pray together. Oswald Chambers once said, Prayer is the exercise of drawing on the grace of God. It is not only the primary means by which we make our requests known to God, but is also the primary means by which God extends his grace to us through his presence. Through prayer, we are given assurance of who we are in Christ, we are given courage to stand in the face of opposition, and we are granted peace from the troubles of this world. When we pray, God changes us, so that we can see his perspective on things. When we hit our knees in prayer and seek God, he is able to use us as his instruments in the world. He shows us who he is, and we become more dependent upon him. And as we depend more and more on him, we experience his grace in fresh new ways. So why is it that the church so rarely gathers for the purpose
of prayer? We used to call Sunday services prayer meetings for a reason. But how much of our time together do we actually devote to submitting to God in prayer, asking him for what we need and depending on him to supply it, and seeking his vision for our future? I wonder sometimes if we have become too comfortable in knowing that we can approach the throne of God at any time? Prayer has become an undervalued commodity, because we always have in our minds that we can go to God anytime we really need to, and so we hold our prayers in reserve until we get into a fix that we can t get out of on our own. We need a larger view of prayer. We need to begin seeing it for the value that it offers us. The great Christian author C. S. Lewis once wrote, Relying on God has to begin all over again every day as if nothing had yet been done. What he meant is that we make a daily choice whether or not to depend on God for our strength and purpose. If we would choose dependence, we must do so continually, each day, by cultivating a life of prayer. This choice is personal, but it is also corporate, and we must choose as a gathered people to come together for the purpose of prayer if we hope to receive God s grace in greater measure. This was the posture of the early church, and we can see in Acts 1:14 that they began with constant prayer. 2. Second, the church gathers to wait upon the Lord. In Acts 1:4 we learn that Jesus last command to the disciples was for them to wait for God s gift of the Holy Spirit. He then reiterated this command in verse 8, instructing them to wait until the Holy Spirit came to begin their work of proclaiming the Kingdom to the ends of the earth. Jesus knew that if the disciples ran out and began doing things in God s name before they were living in his power, they would be doomed to failure. And if they took off running in the
direction they thought they were to go, before waiting for God to give them his vision, they would be heading in the wrong direction. So Jesus commanded them to wait. When God s power did finally come on the disciples, through the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, they were prepared for it, because they had waited in prayer for God to move in his own timing. Since they had paused to receive God s vision and his power, their actions were consistent with God s mission, and the results were remarkable, as thousands came to faith. I have often heard it said and have said more than once myself that there is a danger to the busyness of our churches. The danger is that, in our desire to do good things in the name of God, we run the risk of missing God s bigger vision for us. Sometimes, when we are too busy doing good things for God, we miss out on his best. As the church, God s gathered people, we need to cultivate a habit of waiting on the Lord. We need to learn to seek him, before we seek to do things for him. This isn t an excuse for laziness, to somehow avoid doing the difficult work of the church. It is recognition that any work we do under our own power is insufficient, while the work we do under God s power and leading is miraculous. 3. Third, the church gathers to break bread and learn from the Apostles teachings. This is probably the way in which the church more often gets things right. As the global church, we are good about getting together for fellowship and to learn more about our faith. We are doing these things right now, and it is a fun experience. But when we limit the breaking of bread and the teaching of God s Word to something we do on Sundays, because we have always done it, we once again run the risk of missing out on
the greater blessings God has in mind for us. The church in Acts gathered together for fellowship and learning so that they might be renewed, and so that they might become equipped for ministry. We need both renewal and equipping in the church. But too often it seems that we choose one or the other. We have churches that spend so much time equipping the saints to go out and do ministry that they forget who they are as a church and they burn out. Other churches spend all of their time and energy finding new ways to renew themselves, but never quite find the momentum to equip one another properly for the work of ministry. We should be asking ourselves regularly, which sort of church we are, and which sort of church we want to be. If we are to faithfully represent the ekklesia, the gathers people of God, we must be attentive to these things. III. Application Over the next few weeks we will be talking about some other marks of the early church in Acts. As we do, I want to challenge you to consider whether or not we exhibit those characteristics in our church. And then I want for us to begin intentionally seeking ways to cultivate those qualities. My suggestion is that we should start with prayer. The church in Acts gathered together for the purpose of prayer, and so should we. As it happens, we have two opportunities coming up to gather as a church for the purpose of prayer. The first of these opportunities will be the weekend of our Faith Promise Sunday. We will be having a prayer vigil on Saturday, October 25 to support our guest speakers and to prepare our own hearts to hear how God is leading us to give to, and to serve in, the mission of the Church. The second opportunity will be in the week leading up to our revival on November 2. From Monday,
October 27 through Saturday, November 1, I will be asking each of you to set aside time during your lunch break to pray specifically for the revival services. We will pray for our speaker, so that his message for us will faithfully represent God s word to his people. We will pray for those in our community who might attend, asking God to break down any barriers keeping them away. We will pray that through this revival even one person who is living apart from God now would be led to faith in Jesus Christ. And we will pray for our church that we would be renewed by the Holy Spirit and become sensitive to where he is leading us. I would like for our entire church to get involved in this, and there are three ways that we can do so. 1. 2. 3. Pray individually at designated times and as you are led. Pray together as families in the evening. Pray together as the church body in Sunday School and worship. And let s not stop there. Over the next few weeks, I want for us to begin seeking out ways in which we can begin gathering together with purpose, to worship, to pray, and also to wait upon God, to seek his vision for us, to renew ourselves, and to equip one another for ministry. IV. Closing Prayer Kind Father, we thank you that you have called each of us by name, and that you have gathered us together to be your church. We thank you that when Jesus went to sit at your mighty right hand, you did not leave us alone to wander aimlessly, but you sent the Holy Spirit to be with us, to comfort us, and to guide us. Heavenly Father, we confess that too often, we still seek to live under our own power. We get caught up in going things for
you, and so forget to seek your leading in our work. Would you teach us to begin each day afresh on our knees in prayer? Speak to us in those moments and lead us into a deeper understanding of your Kingdom. Father, teach us patience as we wait for you to move, and give us boldness to act once your vision has been made clear. Bind us together, we pray. Make us your church, your gathered people, so that through us the good news of your Son Jesus might be made known in our community. We pray this all in Jesus name. Amen.