Media
Audio
Category: Traditional Worship
The Core 4: Building Community
Dr. Ron Scates
11/01/2009
Scripture: Acts 2: 41-42
Listen to Audio
Right click and select "Save File As" to download this file to your computer.
© Dr. Ronald W. Scates
Our government has done a study on American Prisoners-of-War. They wanted to find out which enemy tactics were most effective in breaking their spirits. What they found was not so much physical deprivation or torture that broke their spirits as it was solitary confinement and/or the disruption of friendships by continually mixing up the population of prisoners and guards. Another thing they found in these studies is that what sustained POWs more than anything else was not faith in their country nor in the cause for which they were fighting but it was those attachments, those relationships they had made in those particular military units that they were a part of.
What better day to talk about community than this day, All-Saints Day, when we are reminded that we’re not just a part of a community of some 1 and ½ billion Christians around the world but that community includes all those who have gone on before us into the Church Triumphant. On this day when we gather to celebrate communion which reminds us that our community is bigger than our families, our small groups, our Sunday School classes or just here at Highland Park Pres. that we’re going to sit at Table here this morning with every other person that has ever followed Christ anywhere, anytime and on a day when we begin a new week after a most horrific week, the horror of the untimely deaths of two of our elders, and yet in the midst of that horror, we and the entire world watched the community in action as the body of Christ gathered around those families, buoyed them, comforted them, prayed with them, cried with them, cooked for them, worshipped with them and in the midst of that horror proclaimed the sure and certain hope of eternal life in Christ Jesus Our Lord.
The very antithesis of what we’re about today is found in the lyrics of Paul Simon’s song, “I am a Rock.” Listen:
“A winter’s day in a deep and dark December; I am alone, gazing from my window to the streets below, on a freshly fallen silent shroud of snow. I am a rock, I am an island.I’ve built walls, a fortress deep and mighty, that none may penetrate. I have no need of friendship; friendship causes pain. It’s laughter and it’s loving I disdain. I am a rock, I am an island.
Don’t talk of love, but I’ve heard the words before; it’s sleeping in my memory. I won’t disturb the slumber of feelings that have died. If I never loved, I never would have cried. I am a rock, I am an island.
I have my books and my poetry to protect me; I am shielded in my armor, hiding in my room, safe within my womb. I touch no one and no one touches me. I am a rock, I am an island.And a rock feels no pain; and an island never cries.”
Today we continue our sermon series on our Core 4; those 4 essentials that we believe set the parameters for a healthy faithful biblical lifestyle of discipleship. And today we come to build community and that core essential of who we are confronts Satan’s lie that you and I can be an island, that we can be a rock and still be a disciple of Jesus Christ. That you and I can go out on a hillside on Sunday morning with just our bible and that can substitute for corporate worship. That you and I can follow Jesus Christ—alone. This morning, I’m going to ask you on this day, the All Saints Day, to jump to Pentecost Day as we watch the Holy Spirit build community in the early church. Something that He is still continuing to do down to this very day, in fact, in this very place!
I invite you to turn with me in your bibles to the Book of Acts, chapter 2; we’re looking this morning at verses 41 and 42. Please pray with me before we read.
Holy Spirit, open our hearts and minds now to Your Word that we might clearly understand it, that we might gratefully receive it and that we might faithfully apply it to our lives. For Jesus’ sake! Amen.
And now, if you’re able, please stand for the reading of God’s Word this morning, beginning to read at Acts, chapter 2, verse 41.
Those who accepted Peter’s message were baptized and about three thousand were added to their number that day. They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.
Please pray with me again. And now Father, as my words are true to Your Word may they be taken to heart but as my words should stray from Your Word, may they be quickly forgotten. Through Jesus Christ Our Lord. Amen.
Please be seated.
You and I are made in the very image of God which means that community, being in community with other believers, is a non-negotiable. It’s an essential to an authentic faith in Christ. I mean think about it. God has revealed Himself to you and me in Scripture as Tri-Unity—as Trinity; a Triune tri-unity community of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And that’s why I chose that first hymn we sang this morning, (Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty!). And to be made in the image of God means that you and I are to be in community and when we’re not in community with other believers, then our lives do not reflect the totality of the image of God.
Imagine the Holy Spirit setting out on His own, for a solo career apart from the Father and the Son. Ludicrous, you may say! Impossible! Yet that’s why the phrase, Lone Ranger Christian, is an oxymoron. You know, one time the Lone Ranger and his faithful sidekick Tonto found themselves trapped in a blind canyon, facing about 100 Apache warriors. Well, the Lone Ranger turned to Tonto and said, “Well, Kimosabi, I guess we’re done for.” To which, Tonto replied, “What you mean “we”, pale face?” You see, even Tonto understood the cruciality, the importance of being in community.
My friends, the word, “saint”, never appears in the New Testament in the singular; it is always “saints.”
Listen to the great 19th Century pastor theologian, Oswald Chambers, “Beware of isolation. Beware of the idea that you have to develop a holy life alone. It is impossible to develop a holy life alone. You will develop into an oddity and a peculiarism, into something unlike what God wants you to be. The only way to develop spiritually is to go into the society of God’s own children and you will find how God alters your set. God does not contradict our social instincts; He alters them.”
And so we come this morning to this whole idea of building community but the first thing we need to understand about that is that you and I can’t build community. Only God, the Holy Spirit, can do that but He chooses to do that through you and me.
Look at verse 41 of your text and we watch Him do that this morning in the early church. The Apostle Peter has been out in the streets of Jerusalem, street-preaching on that Pentecost day, A.D. 33. Which reminds us or ought to, that when the Holy Spirit wants to build community, He first and foremost does that chiefly through the faithful preaching of the Word of God. And that’s what Peter was doing that day. And it tells us in the text that the people accepted Peter’s message and then we watch what happens to those early Christians as the Holy Spirit ushers them then through the front door of community which is called baptism.
You know, baptism is not only yours and my ordination to ministry. It is our welcome. It is our enfolding, our being sealed into a community that’s larger than ourselves. Baptism is all about community. That’s why we don’t do private baptisms. In baptism, the entire body of Christ gathers around an adult or an infant, pledges their coming alongside-ness to them and they say, “We’re going to be your disciplers to help you grow in the Christian faith.”And we see that on that first Day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit doing that in the lives of 3,000 individuals. Amazing! A mega-church is born that very day. 3,000 people come to Christ through Peter’s preaching. Now also remember those same 3,000 or at least probably a goodly number of them were former Christ-killers. They were probably part of the mob, 53 days earlier, that jeered Jesus and cheered the crucifixion. But they were brought together by the Holy Spirit into this mega-church.
You know, there are people today who actually join large churches to avoid community. I was one of those back in the middle 70s. I was finishing my Masters degree in Houston and working full time at Baylor College of Medicine and I was rifle-shot on my Masters to get that done and so I chose, for my church, First Presbyterian Church of Houston which I knew was a large church and I hoped nobody would bother me, that I could go there and nobody would ask me to teach Sunday School or get involved in the youth program and no one ever did; it was great.
Now I wound up actually going to seminary out of that church but sometimes people come to me and say, “Ron, it’s impossible to have community in a church the size of Highland Park Presbyterian Church.” No, it’s not. Verse 41 says it’s not!
The Holy Spirit takes those 3,000 people, remember at the end of verse 41, what we really have here are 3,000 people in spiritual kindergarten. So how does the Holy Spirit take those 3,000 and mold them, build them into a community of saints?
Well, we watch, in verse 42, as this extraordinary God of ours creates an extraordinary community by taking ordinary men and women and forming them into a community through what’s known as the ordinary means of grace. You know, as 21st Century North American Christians, most of us have probably bought into the myth that to become a disciple, to make disciples, probably depends on high-powered, glitzy, splashy programs, conferences, seminars, personalities, etc., etc.
But if you study church history, you’ll see that over two millennia, what’s carried the freight of the church, what’s made disciples, what’s built community are the ordinary means of grace; carried the church through war, famine, pestilence, economic depression, persecution—the ordinary means of grace—prayer, the Word of God and the Lord’s Supper.If you and I are serious about being in community, then you and I must be devoted as those 3,000 were to pursuing the ordinary means of grace in our lives.
Now, again, you and I can’t control the Holy Spirit but we can give Him something to work with.
James Stewart, the great Scottish pastor and theologian, in one of his sermons, said, “You and I can’t control the Holy Spirit any more than we can control the wind. But if you’re out on a lake, in a sailboat and the wind’s not blowing, you can’t make it blow but you can hoist your sails so when the wind does blow your sails catch it.” When you and I pursue the ordinary means of grace; that’s unfurling our sails. That’s when community is more likely to happen, to be discovered and to be felt by you and me as believers.
Let’s talk briefly about what a life might look like that pursues the ordinary means of grace. Well, verse 42 tells us that these 3,000 devoted themselves to the apostolic teaching. Now that’s a synonym for, “they gathered together to sit under the faithful preaching of the Word of God.” They didn’t go to church to hear funny stories and inspiring stuff to make them feel good. They sought out the exposition of the Word of God. My friends, that is what builds disciples. That is what builds community.
And even in your own quiet time, when you’re reading through the bible, if you do that faithfully, that is going to propel you toward community. Of course, Small Groups, Life-Transformation groups, Sunday School classes where you’re gathered around the Word; that is where community happens as well. Then pursuing a life of prayer! If Jesus’ promise to you and me is true, “I am with you always,” then why not make that a part of the way you live your life, recognizing the fact that Christ is with you 24/7, include Him in to what you’re doing by making your life a running conversation with God? When you’re here in a service like this, rather than listening to a pastor pray, enter into that prayer with that pastor. And in your own quiet time, pray for other than just your own needs; begin to pray for the larger community. You can get the hospital list from the Congregational Care Office as it comes out numerous times during the week. Pray for those folks. Pray for our 35+ missionaries around the world. Pray that God would be forming Highland Park Pres. in whatever-broadening community of believers that He makes us into more of an omelet than a billiard table. You know, in a billiard table, the orbs click into each other and bounce off; in an omelet, the orbs do something else. And then regular reception of the Lord’s Supper.
Again, the Lord’s Supper is…we never serve communion privately. Its very name, “Communion” is a reminder to you and me that it’s all about the community of saints. And my friends, I’m here to tell you that this morning, as you and I come to this Table in just a few moments, as we take the bread and wine, something cosmic happens that I can’t fully explain or understand, where yours and my heart will be knit to Christ’s and to everyone else in this sanctuary, to believers around the world but then on beyond that to those folks whose names are on the back page of the bulletin this morning, indeed anyone, anywhere who has ever bowed the knee to Jesus Christ. We are knit into that ONE community.
You know, you and I should avail ourselves of the ordinary means of grace as much as we can. That’s why I stand with John Calvin in wanting communion every Sunday. If I were pope here and I’m not, we should have communion every Sunday. And I dare anyone to give me a biblical argument against that. You can’t find one in the Scripture. That’s not a hill I choose to die on but I’m just throwing that out on this All-Saints Day and in the 500th year of John Calvin’s birth as something to think about. Avail yourselves of the Lord’s Supper, pray, put your life under the Word of God—those are the ordinary means of grace.
The church in Jerusalem was then built by the Holy Spirit into community but then it moved to Greece and became a philosophy, then it moved onto Rome and became an institution, then it spread to Europe and became a culture. It jumped over the pond to the United States where it became an enterprise. Folks, our Core 4, here at Highland Park Presbyterian Church, is really a back-to-Jerusalem movement where church is all about community and relationships where our hearts are knit together in Jesus Christ.
As you and I come to the Lord’s Table this morning, as we take the bread and wine, intentionally passionately hoist your sail and see what the Holy Spirit might do in and through your life this day and in the days ahead.Join me as we pray.
Lord God, thank You that You have not left us alone; that You’ve included us in Your triune community and in the community of the body of Christ. Through Jesus Christ Our Lord! Amen.