[0:00]good to have you guys here. I invite you if you have not already, open uh your Bibles with me, the book of Acts chapter 1. And uh we uh in this month leading up to uh moving all of our gatherings and and our offices and kind of all of our activities over to to Northeast, we uh it occurred to us that this is such an important teachable moment for us as a church. It's a time of transition and it's a it's the perfect time for us uh to to refocus our our understanding and our vision of what uh the biblical vision of the church is. What on earth are we? And what do we think we're doing? And what does it mean for us to be faithful to uh our calling and so on? And so we just this is a just a great time for us all to think through, what does it mean to be a part of a church? What does it mean to be a part of this church? And what do we think that we're doing? And and what does it mean for you guys to participate? So this this great. So what we're going to do is uh spend the next few weeks uh camping out in the first chapters of the book of Acts, which is like it's like a foundation story of the Jesus movement and how this whole thing got started and why how we're sitting here uh today. And so uh we got some ground to cover and we're going to learn about the the idea and the reality of discipleship in uh the New Testament tonight. So, you guys ready for action? Oh yeah, okay, Acts chapter 1, let's just dive in. Luke, Luke, uh who is the author of both of the gospel after his name, this is his part two. This is a two-part work, Luke Acts, and so he opens up here just like he did the Gospel of Luke and he says, in my former book, Theophilus, the Gospel of Luke, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day he was taken up to heaven after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen. After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of 40 days and spoke about the kingdom of God. Oh, to have been a fly on the wall at those Bible studies, you know, with the risen Jesus. And what's interesting is you there's a number of passages in the New Testament that refer to this little period here after the resurrection, uh but before his ascension. And uh Paul, like for example, in 1 Corinthians 15, he mentions that one of these appearances was to a group of 500 people at once who were eyewitnesses to the risen Jesus. So, this isn't like Jesus occurring, you know, appearing to little small groups of five people in a closet or something like that. This is a very public over period of like over a month, hundreds and hundreds of people are seeing Jesus. And what is Jesus doing? He's eating with people because that's what you do when you're alive from the dead, I guess. So, verse 4, on one occasion while he was eating with them, he gave them this command. He said, you guys don't leave Jerusalem. But wait for the gift my father promised, which you heard me speak about. John baptized people with water, but in a few days y'all are going to be baptized or immersed with the presence of the Holy Spirit. And so, you can imagine, I mean, this, this remarkable, incredible thing has happened that not even death gets the final word in God's good world anymore because of the good news about Jesus. And you can imagine, they're rering to go, they're run to tell people and Jesus essentially says, hurry up and wait, and just stay put right here. They gathered around him, verse 6, and they asked him, Lord, is this the time you're going to restore the kingdom to Israel? And he said to them, geez, you guys, you know, come on, it's not it's not for you to know about the times or the dates the Father has set by his own authority. Just forget about the timeline here, that's not the main thing, oh, that many Christians throughout history would have heeded these words, right? So, verse 8, he says, here's the point, and here's what I do want you to do. You're going to receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you all will be my witnesses. Starting right here in Jerusalem, so these this is a a community of of Jewish followers in in Jesus, the Messiah of Israel. But then it's going to break out of the boundaries of just the tribe of Israel that's going to expand their cousins up north in Samaria and then just outside the bounds altogether to all the nations of the earth to become included in the people of Jesus. Okay. So, this connects with what Josh uh was talking about last week. When when Josh opened up this series about the the mission, the vision, the nature of the church, he gave this uh this wonderful definition that the church is uh a community of people who are gathering around, not a religious idea, not a philosophy of life, not a certain mode or practice of spirituality. We gather foremost around a person, around the risen Jesus, the crucified, risen Jesus. And we believe that he's alive and that he's real and that we're looking towards him at the center, and we believe that he's real and that he's looking back at us. And that he's guiding us as a community. We gather around the risen Jesus who's present with us uh uh by the Spirit of God. And particularly, the church is a community people around Jesus, who are in a living, vital, relational connection to Jesus and with each other. And we are a group of people empowered to become, what does he say here? The Holy Spirit empowers Jesus' followers to become what? There's We just read it a second ago, here, so it's uh it's to be my witnesses. Witnesses. To bear witness to the reality of the kingdom of God breaking into our broken screwed up world, changing us individually. And we bear witness to that. How does the church bear witness? Turn to chapter 2 with me. So, uh these uh, you know, couple hundred, uh on this day, 120 uh Jewish uh believers in Jesus, they're gathered in Jerusalem on one of the great feast of Israel. Uh of of Pentecost. And so tens and tens of thousands of extra people would have been packed into the city of Jerusalem. It was a pilgrimage, um pilgrimage feast. And so they're gathered there and what Jesus said was going to happen, happened. They have this profound, mysterious and very powerful experience with with the Holy Spirit. Who who mediates the presence, the very presence of the Creator God and of Jesus himself to uh to Jesus' people. And and what happens? What happens is they begin to bear witness to Jesus in a really remarkable way. So there's all these different uh Jewish people but from different parts of the world, from different languages. And so you have a group of 120 believers in Jesus and then all of a sudden they start sharing the good news about Jesus, but in languages the people can understand, but that they've never learned before. That's remarkable, you know, that doesn't happen every day. And and it it draws a huge crowd. Huge, huge crowd gathers. And who stands up? Who sees a moment here and stands up to address the crowd? Look at verse 14, chapter 2, verse 14. Peter stood up with the 11, the other who were eyewitnesses and followed Jesus both before his crucifixion and now after. Peter stood up with the 11. He raised his voice and he addressed the crowd. Fellow Jews and all of you living in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you, listen carefully to what I say. And what goes on, what follows is one of uh it's one of the first, it's one of the most profound, compelling, amazing uh sermons. This is one of the first Christian sermons ever. And what it is, is it's a Jewish believer in Jesus addressing a whole bunch of other Jewish people. And so this is not like street preaching in Portland or something. This is a this is thousands of Jewish people who are devout uh Jews. They're they're followers of Yahweh, they're devout, they pray through the scriptures, they they hear the scriptures in synagogue, they're waiting for the Messiah. They already have all the pieces in place and Peter presents to them and demonstrates from the very Hebrew scriptures that they all agree are God's word that Jesus was in fact the Messiah. And how effective is his witness here? Look at look, so the end of the speech, he goes down, look at verse 41, after the Peter's sermon is is over. Verse 41, it says, those who accepted his message, they got baptized on the spot. And how many people are we talking here? So about 3,000 were added to their number that day. Now, as someone as a pastor who works at a church, that just stresses me out to think about. I was like, how would you even deal with that? That is so that's awesome. And it's so many people, like, how do you responsibly take care of something like that?
[9:13]The grows that much in the day, but they're that's what happened. So, so look at what's Luke's done here. He gives you the story, you're going to be empowered to be my witnesses. What's the very next story about? It's about both this group being empowered to be witnesses through their words as they tell the story in languages they didn't know. And then Peter gets up and he shares verbally the story of the good news about Jesus and that's a very effective witness. The church continues to witness, keep reading. The witness does not stop, keep reading. Verse 42. So they, the 120 and now 3,000 at least 3,120. They devoted themselves. They started a new life of of habits and routines together. They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together. They had everything in common. They were selling property and their possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day. They continued to meet together in the temple courts. They were breaking bread in their homes and eating together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God, enjoying favor of all the people, and the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. So, people are added to the number of Jesus' people through the witness that's empowered by the Spirit. You guys with me? Here? That's what these opening chapters of Acts are all about. And that's the church fulfilling its mission. How does the church bear witness to Jesus in Acts chapters 1 and 2? Well, a couple different ways, doesn't it? So through through verbally telling people who didn't know the story of Jesus, tell like telling it, right? Telling the story of the events of his life, his death and resurrection, the meaning of those events and why they're significant for everybody, everywhere and for all of human history. Right? So that's one way of bearing witness and when it's empowered by the Spirit, it's effective. But it is not the only way to bear witness. Because what happens, the gospel is is a story that when you when you're faithful to tell the story, to just tell what happened and why it's significant, and why the story of what happened with Jesus is precisely the answer to the human condition and what what wrong, what's wrong with our world and what God is doing about it. When we when we're faithful to tell that story, not be ashamed of it, just talk about Jesus and what happened. Things happen. Stuff happens when you tell that story. Things click with people and conversations and stories that you have no idea about in people's lives, you know, in their past leading up to that moment. You have no idea. Things happen. And so that is one way that the Holy Spirit empowers the witness, but here's what's interesting, is that this paragraph that we just read about the life of the church is also a form of witness.
[12:40]Did you guys catch that here? So, so the Spirit-empowered witness, it happens through word and deed. That's what I'm getting at here. Actually, that's not what I'm getting at, that's what Luke's getting at, here, right? So it's through word, and and that word creates and brings into being a community of people who are being transformed by that word. And then whose common life together reinforces the message and itself becomes a message. Just the common life of the church itself when it's faithful to living out the story of the gospel, itself is a an effective witness. So what we're going to do in the next few weeks is really dive into this depiction of the church here, in this paragraph, and explore what is it mean for us and kind of let it kind of reinspire us uh as a church in in this time. Look at verse 42 with me. What marks this community and their common life as as a witness? And we read that they this was a community was marked by something. It's that they devoted themselves to something.
[13:45]Now, that word devotion there, what part of what makes the Bible so difficult to read, I think for us sometimes is that there are certain words that just become charged Christian subculture words. And then they kind of they get used so much we don't know what they mean anymore. This is a horse I like to ride, right? And so and so I think it's very important for us to recover these terms. So when you hear the word in the Christian setting of like devotions, I do devotions, have you been doing your devotions? That has a very specific meaning, doesn't it? It's like a code word, right? And so and so like when when people are new new Christians are coming to our church, it's like, what what is what is this code language? So what that means is establishing a rhythm of reading your Bible and prayer on some kind of regular basis, right? So that's not what is not what he's talking about here. That's a very good thing to do. That's not what he's talking about here. So this is not actually particularly a religious concept at all that you devote yourself to something. He's just they this is a group of people who became marked by a new set of habits. By a new set of routines that was generated as a response to this announcement, the good news about Jesus. And so they devoted themselves. And so we all have these, these are things just think through it. Like, what do you what's something you do every day? You do it every day, hopefully brush your teeth or something like that, you know, or like basic hygiene, you know, it's Portland, some of us drink a lot of coffee every day, multiple times per day. And so we all we all have and orient much of our lives around habits. Rhythms and routines. You can tell an enormous amount about somebody and about what they value and what their priorities are by looking at their habits. Because it's clearly what they prioritize and repeat and do and repeat. And what marked this community was a a community of people who individually and collectively adopted a whole new set of habits. And this itself is an interesting angle of vision on what it means to be a church. Group of people around Jesus, who if I've become a Christian, I'm adopting a new set of habits. And if I'm growing as a Christian, it's about constantly refocusing and recentering myself on a core set of habits together. And I want to focus on these habits tonight. And I'm going to uh write them up here, kind of translate them, so we can really get our our minds around this here. There's four things. Did you see them here in verse 42? What are the four four things? What's the first thing that they devote themselves to? Okay, the apostles' teaching. So, really think through what this means. So, this community of people just exploded from a couple hundred to thousands overnight.
[17:01]So what does that mean that they devote themselves to the apostles' teaching? Well, it means that they're gathering. Look down at verse 46. Look what it says. Verse verse 46, Every day they continued to meet in the temple courts. Which temple courts, it's massive. Think of a a large open space, a few football fields size and there's a big building, the temple, but there's all this open meeting space. It's the largest open space still in Jerusalem today. And so this is where you can gather 500, 800, 1,000 people, which clearly they did. But they're not just meeting in large gatherings. What are they also doing? What does it say? They're meeting in homes throughout the city and and the region. And so what does it mean that a community of thousands of people devotes themselves to the apostles' teaching? They're clearly gathering, the simple way of saying this of their absorbing and hearing teaching, this is a community that's marked by learning. This is a what is a church? It's first and foremost, it's a community that's learning something. It's devoted to becoming learners. Now this is a big, wide, expansive concept that we're going to explore for most of the rest of our time here. But this is mentioned first. The apostles' teaching. We'll talk about what that means in a second. What's the second thing they devote themselves to? The second habit that marks this church. Fellowship. There's another churchy word, right? So fellowship, which I think for most of us just means hanging out, right? So this was the great time of fellowship or whatever, but it just means it was great to hang out with you and talk and catch up. Here your story. So that's included in uh fellowship, but that's not primarily what this word means. This word's actually so significant, uh this is what we're going to camp out on next week. The habit of of fellowship. And uh essentially, some of you know the Greek word underneath this because it was kind of a popular one, especially in the Jesus movement in the '70s. Some of you have the wood etching plaque on your wall. Koinonia, anybody? Koinonia, it means a commitment to share. To to share your life and your time, I mean, and hanging out, but more profoundly your stuff. And your energy, your time and your resources and your very life itself. And it's a commitment to shared life and shared stuff. What's the third thing? Look at verse 42, the third thing, somebody, the breaking of bread. So eating together. And eating together as it is kind of for us today, if you invite someone to your place and, you know, you you buy the food and prepare it for them, you have it at your table, at your apartment or your house or whatever. That's a that's not simply being friend. There's a symbolic statement being made there of of sharing and opening your life. And for the for the early Christians, we know this was the setting in which what we call communion and we do in our in our large gatherings with the bread and the cup. This was the setting at at meals when Christians would gather. They would have as part of their uh time of prayer or something as a part of the meal of taking the bread and the cup together to remind themselves of the broken body and the shed blood of Jesus. And so this is about creating relational connections and inviting people into each other's lives. And so how do you I'm just going to say being together. But it's not it's not just casual, it's a commitment to sharing life and and investing in relationships with each other. And what's the last thing they dedicate themselves towards? Prayer. And uh some of you actually have different. Some of you have prayer singular. Does anyone anyone have prayer, the prayers, plural? Mhm. Yeah, some of you who do. So that's literally what Luke says here. He says, they dedicated themselves to the prayers. And this is still almost entirely uh a Jewish community in which there is already a 2,000 year old tradition of the prayers that you say at morning, noon, and evening. You say the Shema prayer, Yahweh, Yahweh alone is our God, love Yahweh your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. You pray that three times a day. And then there are cycles of praying through the book of Psalms, on different cycles. And the early Christians adopted these. They also adopted the prayers of Jesus. This was a really what we could translate this is they gathered to worship. To pray to Jesus and pray to God the Father in the name of Jesus, empowered by the Holy Spirit. Worship. And so here you go. Whatever a community of Jesus is according to the vision here, it's a group of people who are gathering in all kinds of different ways, big, big gatherings, throughout homes. For these core sets of purposes here, learning, and we'll talk about what they're learning in a minute here, specific focus, they're they're humbling themselves and letting their minds be remade with a whole new story. They're sharing their lives and their stuff together. They're investing in relationships with each other, and they're doing it all as a response of worship and gratefulness to Jesus. There you go. That's church. That's church right there. It seems very simple, doesn't it? And it is kind of simple actually. Facilitating gatherings for these purposes. Now, just stop and and think this through with me. So, I'm sure there are already lots of communities in Jerusalem, and there are many in Portland that do this kind of thing pretty well, you know, just the second and the third, you know? So sharing your stuff, particularly food together and hanging out. You can do that like any street corner in Portland, you know what I'm saying? So many temples of food and fellowship, right, in the city of Portland, right? And so there's nothing particularly churchy about that. So what, so what makes this gathering unique? It's the one who's the focal point of their worship that they're looking towards, Jesus at the center. And it's also the Jesus who's remaking them and remaking their minds as they learn a whole new story and a new way of life together. And so this is the set of uh, the set of devotions. This is the set of habits. Becoming a Christian and joining a church involves letting these become habits, that become priorities in my life. That's a that's a part of the vision of the church here. Now, how are you guys doing? Okay. Let's take the next step here to this this first one. They're learning the apostles' teaching. What does that mean and why is it first? Right? It's first because, like I just said, if you didn't have that and you didn't have this, then, you know, you could do this with anybody anywhere. So whatever they're learning and the ones that they're worshipping makes this a whole unique thing unto itself. They're learning the apostles' teaching, which is different. So what did think back? What did Peter just do? He got up, he addressed 3,000 people and what story did he tell? He told the story of the gospel, right? And which is it's telling retells the story of the life, the death, the resurrection of Jesus, what those events mean. How in Jesus God was among us reconciling the world to himself, absorbing into himself the collective sin and the results of humanity's selfishness and brokenness leading towards death. He absorbing it into himself on the cross, overcoming it with his love when he rose from the dead and offering that new life and grace, a chance to become a new kind of new kind of human being again. By Jesus' own personal presence and commitment to me. And so that's the story that Peter tells. He tells that story. And that's different than the apostles' teaching. So think about this. So what the that's just the gospel, that's the announcement of the good news about Jesus. What the apostles' teaching is, is it's it's teaching that helps me explore the million and one different implications of that announcement. So the New Testament doesn't exist yet, right? So it's it's being written, you know, it's it's very time when this story is happening yet. So you have the actual apostles, they're still alive. And so what they're guiding, they're guiding these new followers of Jesus in is explore, what does it now mean to live as if the gospel is true? As if Jesus is truly the risen Lord of the world, who loved me and gave himself for me. What does it mean? And it creates this whole the gospel, it's the it's the a world creating announcement. And what the apostolic teaching, for us, it's in the form of the New Testament. It guides us in exploring what it means to live as a follower of Jesus. Because the gospel creates a whole world that it takes a lifetime of learning to learn how to how to let that seep into every nook and cranny of my life. So think think about it like, think about it like this with me. So I got I got my first um skateboard. I was just thinking about this recently because there's Christmas time. And so I got my first skateboard as a as a Christmas gift. I was 11 years old. And this was very similar to the impact of the gospel on my life, nine years later when I became a Christian when I was 20. And here's why, because I got to, my parents are so rare. They got me my first skateboard, that was epic in and of itself. They got me um a stack of skateboard videos, which was awesome. VHS tapes, actual tape inside, you know, you put them in the VCR, remember that whole thing? And so uh stack of and for those of you interested, Santa Cruz, Street of Fire, anybody? Notis's part? Holy cow. That was incredible. And then a whole series of Bones Brigade videos. The one that etched in my memory is uh ban this and and public domain, anybody? Frankie Hills' part? The opening part. Incredible. Yeah. So, all right. So, uh, what they also gave me was uh a first hip pack because there was this was, you know, this was a time when those not what old women wore. That was a time when like this was cool and it was patterned to match my skull pattern parachute pants, right? And what they also gave me was uh a subscription to Thrasher Thrasher magazine. And so here's here's what happened. This was not just I didn't just get a gift and I took up a new hobby. This was about over the course of that year, I adopted a new identity and a new look, a new way of viewing myself. And a new community, right? A new a new crew of people who were being transformed in a similar way. And then through these videos and through this media and through Thrasher magazine, I was being brought into this world. And what this world is the urban landscape. And when I remember the first time I saw Ray Barbie's part and this is kind of a one of the contributors to what street skateboarding is today. And he just took a normal sidewalk with like bus stop benches and plaid pantry stairs and a handrail and a little curb cuts and wheelchair ramps on the sidewalk. And he turned that into a skate park as he would cruise down the street. And I was like, yes, yes, yes. And it was like this, it envisioned me that all of a sudden, I grew up just two blocks away here on on Hawthorne. And so all of a sudden, Hawthorne from Safeway up 27th, all the way down to Water Avenue for my friends and I. This was our, it it became our skate park. Now, I had been as long as I can remember, you know, Hawthorne Boulevard like riding or walking, riding my tricycle or something around these streets, but all of a sudden the same exact street became my skate park. Because I now lived in this world where the urban landscape is a skate park. And your arch nemesis in this world is the security guards, right? And so, and so, you know, what what is the role? Well, you do what you see them doing in the videos, which is hurl abuse at them, even if they do nothing to you, you know? And so and it's this identity. And so and I I lived in that and I still kind of live in it virtually online. By being addicted to Thrasher magazine.com. Anyway. So, do you guys get what I'm saying here? We we I it brought me into this story world. It was a world creating event for me. The gospel is like that. Where it, we all have stories in our view of of God, or maybe you don't believe in God, or whatever God is, the divine energy in all things, or you're the perpetually ticked off old man, or whatever, like your dad or something, and and so we all come with an angle and a vision about a story of what the world is like. And what the gospel does is it announces to you that the world is different than what you thought it was. And that there are whole ways of viewing yourself and your relationships and God and the world that might just be plain wrong or they're just deficient or they're distorted or skewed. And it reveals, the gospel is this announcement, that the the being who's responsible for this huge, crazy, strange, wonderful world that we live in is not distant, is not aloof. Is is is perpetually and eternally committed to his good world that God has made and revealed God's own self to us in Jesus of Nazareth, uniquely and perfectly. And that God's God's heart is a heart that beats for love and for justice and to set all things right and to redeem and to reconcile sinful, broken humans to himself. Amen. And that that creates a whole different story for your life. And it takes a lifetime to train your mind about what the word GOD means. About your own identity, about your own value that the son of God loves you and gave his life for you, and that you matter and that you have a story. And that you're a part of a community that needs you and needs your story of what Jesus is doing in you.
[30:28]That story is is so precious, it's such a precious gift that you have to share with other people. You may not feel mature or whatever. None of us really are, you know? And so and those of us who think we are, it's just a facade and it'd be better if you just saw through that quicker than we can get on with the real growth, you know? And so and so if you're a new believer, what does it mean to become a disciple? Well, I mean, we have gatherings. Here, it's happening right here. So way to go. You're doing it right now, you know? So we have all kinds of join a community group, you know? And that's one of the ways that we bring people like in Acts 2 into smaller groups together. And it's about learning each other's stories, opening our Bibles together, praying for each other.
[31:21]That's a form of discipleship. We just uh had our first Friday of late night prayer together. That's a form of disciple making because we're learning to pray and learning different forms of prayer together.
[31:49]And that's the whole you're a learner along with us. That's the whole point. And so right from the very beginning, you know, you might be a newer believer, or coming back to your faith after a very, very long time. And you are a disciple in the spirit of God is in you. And you're looking towards, we want to encourage you to look towards Jesus, and we want to remind you that he's looking at you, you know, it might kind of freak you out, but it's true.
[32:43]And and you're growing and you're learning. You have something to offer. You at the very least have your story to offer of what on earth God's doing in your heart that makes the gospel compelling and real to you and how God's changing you. That story is is so precious. It's such a precious gift that you have to share with other people. You may not feel mature or whatever. None of us really are, you know? And so, and those of us who think we are, it's just a facade and it'd be better if you just saw through that quicker and we can get on with the real growth, you know?
[33:55]And so and so this is the who of discipleship, right from the beginning. For someone who's been uh a Christian, a disciple for a long time, there comes there comes a shift, and this is an important one, where the the mark of a growing and maturing disciple is about this shift towards an other centered view of the world. It's a part of the remaking of our minds in community. And so a maturing disciple experiences this shift of seeing the church as helping me grow and about offering things that help me grow to it gets turned inside out. And this now becomes the place where I, the first question I ask is not how can the church help me, it's how can I contribute to the mission of making disciples here? And and so that may be, you know, a part of the certain structures of gatherings that we have community groups, or serving with the kiddo or something like that. It may be just beginning to notice the people around you. If you haven't noticed, there's hundreds of people here right now, right? And I'm guessing that a lot of them you don't know. And I'm guessing maybe some of you didn't even notice that there were some people just sitting absolutely by themselves for the first 10 minutes of the gathering here. And maybe some of you may not notice there's people every week who walk in the front door who are clearly like, where, where do I go, you know?
