Intro
So…I’ve been on a bit of a high lately. Like, for the last three months. Ever since we began in-person services for the first time since the pandemic began, and at the same time opened up our brand new building at The Bridge, pastoring has been a lot of fun! Sunday after Sunday has been exciting. New people coming in and becoming part of our church. Kids, youth, and young adult ministries, seniors ministry, community groups and discipleship groups all taking off. Last Sunday we also did a newcomers’ lunch for the first time since pre-Covid, which is one of my favorite things to do. Eating a meal together and then sharing about our church: where we’ve been, who we are, where we’re going? It just gets me charged up!
However, in spite of all of that and my overwhelming gratitude for what God is doing here, there’s this thought that persists: there’s so much more. So much for us to know of Jesus, so much more for us to see Him do, so much more He wants to do through us. So many who need healing in Jesus’ name. It’s like that song we sang before, the greatest days are still to come, He’s just getting started. It’s like I said a couple of weeks ago, I’m more convinced than ever that God is preparing us for a fresh outpouring of the Spirit and a new passion for sharing the good news of Jesus with a world that desperately needs it.
And I’m convinced that to get there, we as a church need to share this conviction that there is so much more. If you get our newsletter, and you read it, a couple of weeks ago I talked about this need to have an enlarged vision. This is one of the reasons I love sharing stories of revival like I have recently about the Welsh revival and the 100 year prayer meeting in Herrnhut, Germany. To stir up a hunger to see God move like that again. And it’s the reason I love preaching through the book of Acts. I love it because it paints this vision for us of what the church is called to be. It’s our origin story, right? We are not striving to match up to what other churches around us may or may not be about, as great as they are. We are striving to match up to the early church, the church we see in Acts. Let’s increase our vision, and let’s cry out to the Lord together in prayer because that’s the only way we can see it happen in our day.
I don’t know if that vision is painted as clearly and compellingly anywhere as it is at the end of Acts 2. This is one of my favourite passages in all of Scripture. It is a bright, shining example of what happens when Jesus grabs a hold of a group of people through the Holy Spirit. Here’s the context. The Holy Spirit is poured out on the early church at Pentecost as the crowds swell Jerusalem from all over the Mediterranean world. The Spirit inspires the disciples to speak in the languages of these people, languages a bunch of Galilean hillbillies would have no way of knowing on their own. The crowds are intrigued, and so Peter, acting as the leader of this band of disciples, preaches a masterpiece sermon. He shows how through his life, death, resurrection, ascension, and giving of the Spirit, Jesus has fulfilled the promises of Scriptures and the longings of the people themselves. And he points out that while the people had not believed Jesus while he was with them, God had made it clear that Jesus was Saviour and Lord. Here’s what happens next.
37 When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” 38 Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.” 40 With many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.”41 Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day. 42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.43 Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. 44 All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45 They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need.46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
Acts 2:37-47
1. The response of the crowds: 2:37, 41, 47
Let’s start by talking about the response of the crowds. Verse 37 says that they were cut to the heart. The heart is pictured here like a rock. It’s hardened, it’s resistant. Which is what we do, right? We get calloused, we feel the need to protect ourselves, to protect our hearts, including from God. We want to preserve our pride and our self-dignity. But the hearts of these people were cut, they were pierced, by the jackhammer of God’s word through Peter. Their hearts were penetrated, the hard shell broken through.
But what were they experiencing in that? I’ll tell you, it wasn’t just that they were simply moved. It wasn’t like when you watch some sappy romantic movie and you get all teary-eyed, and you go, “Leonardo di Caprio just pulls at my heartstrings, that performance just broke my heart!” And it wasn’t just that they perked up and said, “ok, I believe you, how do I get in on this?” No, they were cut to the heart because Peter had just told them, “you crucified Jesus!”
Now, a lot of them didn’t have any direct involvement with the crucifixion. Some of them might have, but the crowds were there for Pentecost, which was two months after the crucifixion. I wonder if Peter would have said, though, that if they had agreed with the human assessment of Jesus, that he was not who he said he was, then they had the same mindset and attitude of those who did crucify him. As we said last week, if you dismiss Jesus’ claims, you make him a liar. Not only that, but Jesus died for sin, and so in one sense all who sin participate in the crucifixion. Peter says, that’s you. And yet, God has made this Jesus known to be Lord and Messiah. Which makes it worse, at first glance! You didn’t just crucify anyone. You crucified the Lord, you crucified the Savior, you crucified the Son of God!
So when the crowds are cut to the heart, this is more than simply being moved. It is deep, deep conviction. It is guilt. It is intense fear! The question, “what shall we do?” is a cry of desperation. If this is true that Jesus is Lord, they are in big, big trouble! They are facing the punishment and judgment of the Creator of all things.
Take note of something here. The crowds begin with being intrigued in verse 12. They see and hear something they can’t make sense of, and they want to know more. But once they know more, it’s conviction and guilt that occurs next. And it’s after that we see salvation. How often do we dismiss the first two movements and just jump to the third these days? We Christians hardly live or speak in ways that spark genuine interest. Often, we neglect the Holy Spirit and His gifts and just aim to fit in. No arousing of interest there. We often don’t strive for conviction of sin either. That’s because in our therapeutic world, that is the one thing that we are told people must not experience. They must never feel badly about themselves. Unless they’re in some leadership position or otherwise in the class of people known as oppressors, of course! Then they can feel bad, but nobody else! Guilt and shame are to be avoided at all costs. So we just try to convince people about the happy news of the Gospel, and we wonder why nobody seems to care very much or why the few disciples we do make lack very much depth!
However, nothing much has changed since the first century. Conviction of sin is still as necessary as ever. One of the books that has formed me the most is from the ‘70s called Dynamics of Spiritual Life, written by a scholar named Richard Lovelace. It’s a theology of spiritual renewal, of revival. He looks at all of these movements throughout history and examines their commonalities. He concludes that one of the preconditions of revival is a growing awareness of the holiness of God and our own sinfulness in light of that. Again, how often do we talk about that in most evangelical churches today? We talk about grace and love, which we should. But do we talk about holiness and sin anymore? According to Lovelace, it’s to our great detriment if we don’t.
I was also recently reading Jonathan Goforth’s account of the revival in China. He was a Canadian missionary there over a hundred years ago. What a name for a missionary, right? Goforth? Come on! In one of the first churches he writes about in the emergence of this revival, an elder of the church stood up after the sermon and tearfully confessed to stealing a bunch of the church’s money for himself.
A few meetings later, another elder confessed not only to taking money, but committing adultery and trying to poison his wife a few times. Hooo boy! He resigned as an elder on the spot, prompting all the deacons in the church to confess their sins and resign on the spot, prompting the pastor himself to confess his sins and resign on the spot! They were cut to the heart! They realized that they were in the presence of a holy God and were unworthy. They realized that they had lived in deadly ways! The people of the church cried out en masse their forgiveness and desire to have them restored, and this beautiful restoration led to new life in the church. I’ll tell you more about that in the second part of the sermon. But notice the importance of conviction of sin.
The crowds of Acts 2 are convicted, they ask what they can do about this, and Peter tells them. We’ll come to Peter’s appeal in a minute, but look at their response. Verse 41 says they accepted his message. They stopped trusting in their own wisdom, their own power, their own abilities, because they had seen where that had led. They believed Peter’s message about Jesus. They embraced it, they welcomed it! And they were baptized. 3000 of them in a single day!
I don’t know if you’ve seen a baptism before, but I will say it’s the most exciting thing that happens in a church. It is someone being born again, it is someone dying to a former way of life and embracing the life of Jesus. There’s nothing like it. It’s just joy. Can you imagine 3000 baptisms in a single day? And then verse 47 says that the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. Daily!
I want you to picture this. I want you to imagine that every week at The Bridge Church, we were baptizing people who were surrendering to the life and joy found in Jesus. I want you to imagine that every day there were people coming to our leaders asking what they could do to be saved. I want you to imagine that at our community groups, at our children and youth ministries, at anything at all we did as a church, people were coming to seek salvation in Christ.
Can you imagine it? Can you picture it? Maybe it seems like a flat out impossibility to you. There’s no way. That would never happen. But it did. And things like it have happened other times too. Do you not want that? Do you not desire that? If you are a follower of Jesus, this should be your desire! It should be the greatest thrill to your heart to think of people giving their lives to Jesus, because it gives Him more joy than anything else! He’s the shepherd who leaves the 99 to find the one lost sheep! Do you desire to see people being saved daily, to witness baptisms week after week?
2. The appeal of the early church to the crowds (2:38-40)
If the answer to that is yes, if that is an attractive vision for you, then the next question should be, how do we get there? One thing to do is to look at the disciples’ appeal to the crowds.
Peter starts in verse 38 by telling the crowds to repent. To repent is to do a 180. To turn around and live differently. The Greek word involves the idea of thinking especially. You thought this one way, repenting is turning and thinking in a different way. For some strange reason, you might have once thought McDonald’s was good. Until you embarked on a road trip to California, ate at In ‘N Out Burger, and repented of your former flawed ways of thinking. The crowds had thought one thing about Jesus: that he was just a man, just another teacher. That allowed them to live however they wanted, because there was no need to follow Jesus. But Peter is telling them that the right response i to change in their disposition towards Jesus. They are to agree with God that Jesus is Lord, and therefore to live the Jesus way. Repent.
Peter says, repent and be baptized. This is so interesting in all kinds of ways. Baptism is named as a necessity, as the initial public demonstration of faith in Jesus. It is not something you do 5 years or 50 years after belief, once you’ve reached a certain level or figured out how to respond to every single question someone might ask you about the Bible. It’s not something you work up to. It is part of repentance, part of saving faith. And it’s public and external right from the start. Baptism is by nature public, it is done with other people present. Being a Christian isn’t a secret thing that you just do in your heart, it’s something you express physically and tangibly through baptism.
Evidently, baptism is also done in response to faith. Notice that. Repent and be baptized. It is an outward expression of a change of mind and life. And this is why we, as a church, are convinced that baptism is not something infants can do. Because an infant cannot repent. An infant cannot submit to Jesus as Lord of their life. I understand that there are major traditions within the church that believe otherwise. I don’t question the salvation of those who practice infant baptism. But I disagree with them. I believe biblically, baptism is the response to faith by someone who has trusted in Jesus. And so if you were baptized as an infant but later came to a personal faith in Christ as Lord, I think it’s appropriate and even right for you to be baptized as a believer. Obviously, you’re also free to disagree with me!
Repent and be baptized. A couple of verses later, Peter pleads with the crowds to save themselves from this corrupt generation. The appeal is to be marked out. To live and think differently than the world. If you are to be a follower of Jesus, you will not fit in. You need to know that from the start. Of course, the question is, do you want to fit in anyway? This generation, every generation, has turned away from God and insists on living in its own crooked way. It never works out. So don’t be part of it!
And Peter pleads with them for this. The appeal is not a passionless, whimpering thing. It’s done with tears. It’s done with a desperation to see people find salvation. Let’s go back to Jonathan Goforth and that church that experienced mass confession and restoration. On the last day of their meetings, the pastor reminded the church of all those who had left their church and their faith. Goforth wrote that “they prayed as if the souls of those wandering ones were the only things that mattered. It was like a mother pleading for the return of her rebellious son. That year hundreds of members, who had drifted away, returned to the fold. Most of them confessed that they did not think that they had ever really been converted before.” (Goforth, By My Spirit) They prayed like this was all that mattered, like a mother pleading with her son.
The world has had enough of self-righteous Christians fighting culture wars with anger and indignation. What it needs is soft-hearted Christians humbly and passionately pleading with a generation to repent of ways that lead to death and to find life in Jesus. The world needs to see that our appeal is driven by love and genuine concern.
Peter appeals to them, but he also gives them a promise. He says that if they repent and are baptized in the name of Jesus, they will have their sins forgiven and they will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. We’ve talked plenty about the Holy Spirit recently. He is the fulfillment of our longing for the presence and power of God among us, the fulfillment of our longing to have direct communication with God. An amazing gift, right? An amazing promise!
Peter also says they will have forgiveness. Forgiveness means nothing if you don’t think you’ve done anything wrong. That’s no longer the case for these crowds. They are now deeply convicted about their sin. But here it is. Forgiveness. Freedom. Liberation. Release. All that shame, all that guilt, borne by Jesus at the cross. That is incredible! They were partners in the crucifixion of Jesus, they had rejected God, but that same Jesus wanted to forgive them. That same Jesus was uniquely able to forgive them. To remove that heavy, heavy burden of sin and to set them free! Can I say that if that’s you today, if you are burdened by sin, there is a way to be set free, and it’s all Jesus!
Do people today realize that following Jesus means true, authentic freedom? That it is not a list of do’s and don’ts, but that it is freedom from the guilt of sin and freedom from the tyranny of sin going forward? That it is release from all of this into life, abundant life with Christ? We will not see anything like the disciples did that day if our appeal is not driven by love, if it is not a call to repentance and baptism, and if it is not accompanied with the promise of forgiveness and the Holy Spirit.
3. What the early church was devoted to (Acts 2:42-47)
The way to lean into that vision of revival is if we learn from Acts about the nature of our appeal. But that appeal is given authority by how we live. The world can see past empty words, it needs to see what the church is about, what Christians are about.
Acts 2:42 might be one of the best summary statements about what the church is to be about in the whole Bible. Here it is again: “they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.” They devoted themselves. Let me ask you: if you spend one hour a week doing something, and even that one hour is negotiable, are you devoted to it? Could anyone say, that’s what that person is all about? That’s what they are passionate about, that’s what they can’t live without? The early church was devoted to, zealously committed to, uncompromisingly and joyfully dedicated to at least three things: the apostle’s teaching, fellowship (including the breaking of bread, which may refer to shared meals or to the Lord’s Supper), and prayer. These were the central practices in their lives.
a. Apostles’ teaching
Let’s talk about each of them briefly. First, the apostle’s teaching. That’s Peter in verses 14-36, showing how the Scriptures find their fulfillment and climax through Jesus. It’s what the apostles recorded for us in the Gospels. In fact, it’s what we call the New Testament, which in turn is based on what we call the Old Testament. The apostles’ teaching is essentially equivalent to the Bible.
I preached on this verse just over 4 years ago at The Bridge. And I’ll say again what I said then. At The Bridge, we are unapologetically biblical and we believe in the transformative power of teaching God’s word. We are not interested in being a social service. We are not interested in telling a bunch of funny stories. We are not interested in being relevant. We might be those things at times. We might be funny (not me, but other people) and relevant and serve some felt needs. However, none of that can compare to our immense interest in the cross and the empty grave and helping people know the forgiveness and life that comes through Christ. Every single Sunday I will proclaim this. I will tell you about Jesus, I will tell you of his forgiveness and mercy and goodness in light of our sin and unworthiness. I will never tire of Him as long as I stand here and speak the word to you.
But that devotion must go beyond one sermon, once a week. It’s got to be a whole life orientation around the word of God. It means gathering with others and digging deeper in community groups and discipleship groups. It means reading the Bible with your families. It means growing in your understanding. It means regularly reading it on your own and searching out answers for the questions you have. That’s what it looks like to be devoted to it.
b. Fellowship
The early church was devoted to fellowship. This is a bit of a church-y word that makes me think of dusty church basements and bad coffee, so let’s clarify. The Greek word, the original language the New Testament was written in, is koinonia. It was a word that meant “sharing in common”. It was even used to describe the way a married couple shares life together.
We see examples of that right here in this passage. They were together constantly, sharing meals together, worshipping together. They must have been a very open and welcoming group as well if the numbers grew every day! No cliques, but genuine joy at welcoming new people into fellowship. However, this sharing went further than spending time together because they were even selling property so that they could share the proceeds with those who needed it! Listen, there was nothing imposed about this, and many people didn’t do this. After all, they’re still meeting in homes in verse 46. But worldly possessions simply didn’t mean what they used to for the early church! They didn’t matter as much because they had the Holy Spirit and freedom in Jesus! And so if somebody else needed what they had, if someone was hungry, sell, give, do what it takes!
Can you imagine one of these early disciples visiting most churches in Canada? “So, you gather together once a week, for an hour and a quarter, you get out of there as quick as you can, and you never see anyone from the church until the next Sunday when do the spiritual dine and dash again? That’s what you call church?”
Now, I’m going to say something, and I recognize that we have a lot of people live-streaming these days for very legitimate and understandable reasons. These are exceptional circumstances, that’s why we keep the live-stream going. But there may very well be people out there who could and otherwise would participate in-person but would simply rather stay at home and not see people. That’s a whole other level! How would the early disciples respond to that? Honestly, I think they would weep. I think they would mourn over the state of the church in the modern west, including in the kind of “fellowship” that is experienced. We were made and saved for more than this!
c. Prayer
Third, the early church was devoted to prayer. We’ve talked about that often and we’ll continue to, because the book of Acts is saturated by it. But take note that it’s not just that the early disciples prayed on their own lots. They probably did, but the accent, the emphasis, is on their prayer together. I promise you that no church will see genuine renewal, no church will even glimpse Acts 2, unless prayer is front and centre. You know this. You know that the typical North Vancouverite recognizes little to no need for the good news of Jesus. What changes that? Only the power of the Holy Spirit at work in the heart, and the way we make room for that is through prayer!
Here’s what the great preacher Charles Spurgeon said about prayer:
“The condition of a church may be very accurately gauged by its prayer meetings. If God be near a church, it must pray. And if he not be there, one of the first tokens of his absence will be a slothfulness in prayer.”
Charles Spurgeon
I can tell you that The Bridge Church is committed to growing in this. 4 years ago, when I preached this text, I promised that if even two people came to me and committed to praying together weekly, we’d start a prayer meeting. And now, for 4 years, we’ve been meeting on Mondays at noon and we pray for revival. We pray for the Kingdom. And I know prayer is happening elsewhere. This is what we want to be about. Devoted to prayer.
There’s a lot more in this passage we could look at. There’s the worship. There’s the favor of the people. There’s the signs and wonders. We’ll look at that next week. But if you asked what the early church was all about, here it is: the apostles’ teaching about Jesus, sharing life together, and making room for the Spirit through prayer. I don’t know if any church can match the Acts 2 church in their commitment to these practices. But I’m confident that the more a church does, the more of the fruit of Acts 2 it will see.
Conclusion
Let’s recap where we’ve been. The end of Acts 2 presents us with an incredibly attractive image of the church. This wasn’t a mass evangelism event where a bunch of people bowed their heads, said a prayer, and walked away never to be seen again. Disciples were made, people repented and were baptized, their hearts were softened, they entered into this joyful, vibrant, grace-infused community of Jesus followers. I want us to want that. I want us to yearn for that. And if that is what we want, then we know what we need to do. By the power of the Spirit, our words, our actions, our commitments, need to look more and more like those of the Acts 2 church. This may involve laying things down. It may involve some dramatic re-prioritizing. That’s not easy. But I’m pretty sure if you were to ask any of the early disciples if it was worth it, their response would be: “are you kidding me? A thousand times, yes!”
Pingback: Origin Stories: The Miraculous Healing (Acts 3:1-10) - Craig Thiessen
Pingback: Origin Stories: The Life and Death Choice (Acts 3:11-26) - Craig Thiessen