Sunday Morning Service 8:30AM - The Mission and the Vision Acts 2:42

Good morning. It's good to see everybody. I'm glad you're here. Welcome you to Calvary Chapel and invite you to stand with us.

Father, we thank you for the day. Thank you for another opportunity to be here, Lord, to spend some time in your word, to spend some time praising you, Lord. I know that we have many reasons to praise you, Lord. And we can't even list them all, Lord. But we just thank you and give you praise because of who you are and you are worthy of all of our praise. Father, we ask your blessing upon this time.

Help us to lift a joyful noise and to come to you, Lord, with an open heart and an open mind, Lord. We love you and we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. Yes, Father God, one day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that you,

Jesus Christ, lift praise to you and tell you how awesome you are, Lord. Lord, you're the one. You're the one who gives us breath in our lungs. And we just want to use that breath to return praise to you.

Lord God, we just thank you that you are, Lord God, you are faithful even when we're not. Lord, you are always there even when we don't feel your presence, Lord God. Lord God, you are always kind. You are always good, always faithful. You will never fail.

What's going on in the world, Lord? We know what you're going to do. We already know. Your word says it. We know that you will never fail. I don't care what's going on in our lives, in our own personal lives, Lord. We know that you will never fail. You are always faithful even when we're not. Amen. Let's have some fellowship.

Good morning. If you could begin to locate your seats, grab your bulletin. We'll get ready to go over some announcements.

Welcome to Calvary Chapel. I'm glad that you have joined us this morning. A handful of things to take note of in your bulletin. As always, on the left-hand side are the studies that go on throughout the week. And so, honestly, take note of some of those and find a spot to get plugged into. Over in the middle section of your bulletin, intercessory prayer that usually takes place

the first Sunday of every month is going to be moved to next week. With this being Labor Day weekend, I know we have a lot of family in town. And so, that will be next Sunday evening. And then, also, two other cancellations with it being Labor Day weekend. College group is canceled for tonight. And then, men's study is canceled tomorrow night. So, after this week, everything will be back up in action.

And then, the other thing to take note of in the middle section of your bulletin is that we have two new home fellowships that are going to be starting back up. Remember, we had Rick and Joe did kind of a training session this summer for people that wanted to either lead or host small group fellowships. And so, two new ones are starting up. Sarah Manske is going to be hosting a small group fellowship in her home.

And the address is right there. Rick Hawkins will be leading it. It will take place at 6.30 p.m. every other week beginning Tuesday, September the 10th. And so, all that info is right there in your bulletin. And then, also, Jared and Alyssa Doyle over in Dexter are going to be hosting one. And their address is there. Again, 6.30 p.m., the second and fourth Mondays of the month.

And that will begin Sunday. September the 9th. So, take note of those. If those are ones that you could see yourself getting plugged into, please take note and please do so. And for our responsive reading this morning, we are going to be in Psalm 121. Psalm 121. Looking at the New American Standard for this part so that we sound the same. If you need a copy of the New American Standard, there should be one in the row around you.

And as you are turning to Psalm 121, if you are able, please stand in the honor of the reading of God's Word. I will read the odd verses if you will follow along with Jared and the even verses. Psalm 121, a song of ascents. I will lift my eyes up to the mountains. From where shall my help come? My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth. He will not allow your foot to slip.

He who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither sleep nor sleep. The Lord is your keeper. The Lord is your shade on your right hand. The sun will not smite you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord will protect you from all evil. He will keep your soul. The Lord will guard your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forever.

And Father, we do praise you for your protection. We praise you that you are the God who gives us the help that we need for all of life. And so, Father, as we spend some time in your Word this morning, may you teach us by the power of your Holy Spirit. Father, may you guide us. And Lord, may we learn what we need to this morning. In Jesus' name, amen. You may be seated.

And if you would open up in your Bibles to the book of Acts, chapter 2. Acts, chapter 2. For the next two weeks, we're going to be doing a little something different. I wanted to take us through a couple of weeks' study kind of on the mission and the vision of Calvary Chapel of Arc City. It's political season, and it's never not political season. One of the things I'm always interested in in political season is the slogans that people have, right?

The slogans that candidates have. And while we were on vacation, my wife and I were listening to different political podcasts and stuff because we geeked that sort of thing. And we got to talk. And we got to talking about our church and things that went along with it. And she said, you know what's fascinating? There's one particular candidate that no one has to question what that particular candidate's slogan is because everybody knows it.

It's said all the time. It's said constantly. And so it's just out there. And as soon as that slogan is said, everybody knows who it's talking about. And when you talk about that candidate, everybody knows what their slogan is. And she said, I wonder if that's what people know about our church. Do they know? Do they know that Calvary Chapel's mission and vision statement is reaching in and reaching out?

And I said, well, I probably don't do a good enough job of getting that out there. And so I knew that we were going to be coming to the end of Colossians probably somewhere around this time. So I thought in between book studies, it would be a really good time to spend just a little bit of time talking about what it looks like to be the church and what it looks like for Calvary Chapel of Arc City and what God has for us and what I feel like God wants for us to be doing. And so I did this study about four and a half years ago.

And so I pulled out my old notes, and I got to thinking, maybe we dive just a little bit deeper this time. The first time that I did it, it was just a single study. And so I started looking through, and I just went through one of my Bible study search things, and I just looked for the word church just to see what kind of things pop up in the Bible study thing about church. So I went just a little bit deeper.

And so there's three things we'll look at this morning. We want to look at the church. We want to look at the church. We want to look at the commission. And then we'll look at the first half of that mission statement, which is reaching in. So the first thing that I want to talk about is the church. Before we get into Acts chapter 2, I just spent a little bit of time looking at things.

And we talk about church a lot. You've attended a church, clearly, because you're here this morning. But we don't always take a lot of time to figure out, why do we do this? Why do we gather every Sunday morning? Why do we gather as a group of believers? What is our purpose? What is our goal? Is this what God wants us to do? There's all these discussions about what church is supposed to look like.

So I thought, well, let's look into it a little bit. The first time that the word church is used in the Bible is actually in the book of Matthew. And it's used by Jesus. He had asked his disciples, who do people say that I am? And they told him some ideas of what people say that he is. And he says, but who do you say that I am? And Peter said, well, you are the Christ, the very Son of God.

And Jesus said, flesh and blood didn't reveal this to you, Peter. God revealed this to you. And I say that you are Peter. And on this rock, I will build my church. Now, I don't believe that he was talking about building his church on Peter, although I absolutely believe Peter was used for that purpose. I believe that when he says, on this rock, I will build my church, he speaks of what Peter said, that Jesus is the Messiah, the very Son of God.

Because everything about the church was always to be centered upon Jesus. That's why he called it his church. But that word church. But that word church that we just kind of throw around all the time comes from the Greek word ecclesia, where we get the idea of an assembly. The word church was not actually a sacred term. It was actually a secular term at that point in time used by the Greeks to speak of an assembly of people.

Any gathering of people was an ecclesia. But the church kind of took that word over, and it became known as the assembling of the believers in Jesus Christ. And so the idea of the church really carries with it several different ideas. You and I are a part of what's called the universal church. The universal church is anyone who is a believer in Jesus Christ, no matter what your nationality is, no matter what your background is.

None of those things matter. What matters is your faith in Jesus Christ makes you a part of what's called the universal ecclesia, the universal body or church of Christ. So we're all a part of this universal church. Now, this universal church is made up really of two different groups. The visible church and the invisible church. The visible church is pretty easy to figure out because those are the people that you can see, right?

The visible church is every believer in Jesus Christ that is existing on topside of planet Earth today. That is the visible church. And you and I, as we sit here together, are a part of that ecclesia, that visible church presence. But there's also something known as the invisible church. And the invisible church is every believer in Jesus Christ. That is, every believer in Jesus Christ from all time.

Those who are alive today, those who have passed on before us, and those who haven't even been born yet that will one day become believers in Jesus Christ. That's the invisible church. And it's kind of interesting to think about this because sometimes we view, like, the disciples as a part of the early church. And we refer to it as the early church. And we refer to ourselves as a part of the modern-day church.

But do you realize that that's not true? We're all just a part of the church? And Paul and all of those apostles, Barnabas, Silas, all those guys, the whole list of people we talked about last week, they're a part of the same church that we're a part of because we are all a part of this invisible church. It's kind of cool to think about, right? Like, Jesus doesn't just start over every generation and go, well, it's time for church, version 3.0, right?

I mean, we're just all a part of the church. And so we're all a part of this invisible church. But as we look at this universal ecclesia, this universal church that we are all a part of, we run down into individual, what we call, local churches. Now, the local church is the church in your town, right? You may not realize this, but you are actually a part of the entire church of our Kansas City.

And that's one of the things that we miss in today's world. It's one of the things that we miss with denominations, right, is that we are actually all a part of the same church in this town. If you're a believer in Jesus Christ and if you fall into line with the teachings of the Word of God, we're all a part of that church. I was having a conversation with my sister last night.

She had a friend that attended a small group study that was a part of a different denomination that she was a part of. And she reported back to my sister and she said, I had no idea how much denominations hate each other. And unfortunately, that's really true. A lot of times within denominations, there can be real battles between people. And we forget that just because we attend a different localized church

doesn't mean we're not all a part of the church in general. But within the local church of our Kansas City, we're broken up into local assemblies, which is the church that you're attending now or perhaps another denomination, the Baptist Church, the Northside Baptist Church, the First Assembly Church, all these different, the Christian Church, all these different churches in town. That's your local assembly that you attend. And so that's kind of the breakdown of the church.

I probably gave you way more information than you ever wanted, but hopefully that was kind of interesting for you to learn. But how did we end up gathering together as churches? This is something else that I looked at. Well, this idea of gathering together as the body of believers actually started in the Old Testament. It was God's idea. Matter of fact, if you were to go all the way back to the book of Exodus 25,

you would find that when Moses was on the mountain receiving the Ten Commandments from God, God told him, here's something else that I want you to do. I want you to build me a sanctuary where my people can gather and my presence can be amongst them. That sanctuary was referred to as the tabernacle. It was the tent that dwelt in the midst of the camp of the people of Israel as they traveled through the wilderness.

And that tent, that tabernacle, that sanctuary, was the visible presence of God amongst the people. But it was also where all of the people would come together as one to worship God together. Because that commonality, that unity that they had under the headship of the one who delivered them from Israel, was something that God intended for the nation. That they would be one nation under God, if you will, in that way.

And so God was at the center of it there in the tabernacle. Well, after the children of Israel made it into the nation, into the land, the promised land that God had for them, they continued to meet at the tabernacle. And one day David looked out at the tabernacle as he's dwelling in this palace and he says, it's so sad that I live in this beautiful palace and the presence of God is in a tent. And so he said, I would like to build God a temple.

And of course the prophet said, that's a great idea, why don't you build God a temple? And God showed up to the prophet that night and said, hey listen, I don't need a temple. And you need to tell David that I don't need a temple. I want to build him a great house, but I don't necessarily need a temple. He can't be the one that does it because he has blood on his hands,

but if somebody's going to build a temple, it can be his son. David was a man of war. The one that will build the temple will be a man of war. The one that will build the temple will be a man of peace. And so David made all of the preparations for his son Solomon to build the temple. And the temple in the book of 1 Kings, matter of fact, the reading of that section in 1 Kings where the temple is dedicated,

I think it's chapter 8 of 1 Kings, is such a phenomenal chapter because they build this beautiful temple for the Lord. And Solomon has this great prayer of dedication and when that prayer of dedication takes place, all of God's people are gathered there in the temple. And it says that the prophet said, the presence of the Lord filled the temple so thick that you couldn't even see because the cloud of God's presence was there. And that temple would be the central meeting place for the nation of Israel throughout their history until they were taken captive by the Babylonians.

And so that was the place where they would gather. Oftentimes it's where education of the kids would take place about different religious things. It's where they would come together for their feast days when they had their holy feast days when they came together. It was the place where the nation met together to worship God. Well, the children of Israel unfortunately fell into idolatry

and they were taken into captivity. First of all, the northern tribes were taken into captivity by the nation of Assyria. The southern tribes were taken into captivity by the nation of Babylon. And when they were taken into captivity by the nation of Babylon, they could no longer gather at the temple because they were carried basically from modern day Israel over to modern day Iran.

So they could not go back to the temple all the time. And according to Ezekiel, it was at that point in time that there began to be what's referred to as synagogues. And the synagogue would be a gathering of Jewish men and oftentimes women where someone, a rabbi, some sort of a teacher would take a reading of scripture and he would read somewhere from the Torah and he would stand in front of the people and he would teach them what that meant and how they could apply that to their lives. That's what's referred to as the synagogue model.

That synagogue model was brought back to the nation of Israel when they came back into the land and that's what you saw Jesus and his disciples doing. They would meet in the synagogue. Remember, Jesus stood up in a synagogue and he read the statement out of Isaiah that referred to the Messiah and he said, this is now fulfilled in your presence. And then he closed the scroll and sat down and everybody freaked out because they knew he was saying that he was the Messiah.

That was at a synagogue where he gathered. Everywhere that Paul went, he would find a synagogue. And so Jesus, in the early church, the disciples, they used this model where they would hopefully, first of all, meet in a synagogue in order to get out the word of God. And that's why we gather kind of in the way that we do today. We gather in a building. Someone stands up. That's me.

Somebody stands up and they read a passage of scripture and then they tell you what that means and they apply it to your life. Now, I asked myself another question. I thought, well, we do a lot of worship, which is what we did ahead of time, praise music. Did the children of Israel do that? Well, as a matter of fact, they did. A lot of the Psalms were actually the songbook

for the children of Israel. This morning, for our responsive reading, we read Psalm 121. You may have noticed in the title it said, A Song of Ascents. If I remember correctly, there are 15 of those Psalms. And those Psalms would be sung by the children of Israel as they were coming to the temple for their worship days, as they would ascend to Jerusalem, because Jerusalem sat higher

than everything else in Israel. As they would ascend to Jerusalem, they would sing these songs together. And many of the Psalms became hymns that they would sing together. And as a matter of fact, when you move into the book of Acts, and the early church would meet together in these synagogues, they would sing hymns of praise to God. And so that's why we do things

kind of the way that we do. That's why within the church today, there's usually some time for some singing, and there's usually a great deal of time for giving out the Word of God, because we follow that exact same synagogue model that they have back then. Now, I hear people try to say this sometimes. They say, well, you know, if we really want to meet the way the early church met, then we have to abandon big church buildings, and we have to meet in the homes.

And my first question is, why does it say that? And they say, oh, well, you know, sometimes they met in homes. Yes, sometimes they did meet in homes. You know where else sometimes they met? Synagogues. You know where else sometimes they met? Sometimes they met just outside of the temple. You know where else sometimes the church met? The church in Ephesus met for two and a half years

in the school of Tyrannus, essentially a meeting hall in a college. So, do we have to meet in homes because the early church did? Well, the early church met all kinds of places. They met anywhere that they could. And if somebody comes in and tears this church down and says, you can't meet here anymore, then we will go back to that sort of thing. And we will say, okay,

well, then we'll have all of these homes throughout the community where we can meet. That's part of why we wanted to establish home fellowships. And so if something happened again, oh, I don't know, something where they shut the church down, not that they would ever do that, 2020, but if something like that ever happened again, we could have places where we could all go meet. That way, that's all we need.

That's already sort of established. So we have to be careful when we start saying things like, if we really want to do it right, we have to do it this way because we should always make sure it lines up with what Scripture says because according to Scripture, they met all kinds of different places as long as two things were true. Number one, Jesus was at the center. Number two, God's Word held sway.

So, as long as those things are true, we could be just about anywhere that we wanted to. Right? So, that's sort of the background of church and kind of why we do church the way that we do today. But now we get into the commission because Jesus commissioned his disciples to do something. Actually, a couple of things. If you were to take all of the great commissions

from the book of Matthew, from the book of Mark, and from the book of Luke, you will find, and a little bit in Acts in the very beginning, you will find that there's a handful of things that Jesus told his disciples that they were supposed to do. Remember, a disciple is a learner of Jesus Christ and so while he spoke to the disciples, he was also speaking to the disciples. Right? Because if you're here this morning and you're a born-again believer, you're a disciple.

You are a learner of Jesus Christ. And so these are the things that he told them to do. Number one, he told them that they were supposed to preach. They were supposed to preach the gospel. The idea of preach means to declare a message. And so they were supposed to declare the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's one of the things that they were supposed to do.

They were supposed to preach. So that would carry with it the idea of more evangelism, getting out the word of God, getting out the truth to people that maybe have never heard the truth before, especially in a very public sort of way, that aspect of preaching. The second thing that he told them that they were supposed to do is that they were supposed to teach. They were supposed to teach. That goes

from the public proclamation of a message to the explanation of the message and what it means to live out the message. And so he told them there should be a great place in your lives for teaching and teaching people everything that I taught you and everything that I will continue to teach you through the Holy Spirit. The third thing that he told them that they were supposed to do is that they were supposed to make other disciples. They were supposed to make other disciples.

Now that carries with it the idea that preaching and teaching will come together in a very personal way in other people's lives and we will disciple them. We will teach them what it looks like to walk with Jesus Christ every single day. And so there's this daily aspect of being involved in each other's lives to make disciples. And then the fourth thing that he told them that they were supposed to be is that they were supposed to be witnesses.

A witness carries with it the idea of a court of law. Somebody who bears witness to what they have seen. In other words, they were supposed to be witnesses of everything that they had seen and heard from Christ. Just like you and I are supposed to be witnesses of everything that Christ has done in our lives. And so that was the commission that was given to the disciples.

And we have to remember that when we look at disciples, that should be us too. So we should pay really close attention to that commission. But he didn't just send them out and say, hey, here's what you should do. Preach, teach, be witnesses, and make disciples, and gosh I hope you can do it. Best of luck to you. No, he sent them out with everything that they needed. In the book of

John, he told them, I'm not going to leave you as orphans. I may be departing, but I'm not going to leave you as orphans. I am going to leave the Holy Spirit with you. And the Holy Spirit will teach you everything that you need to know, and he will be witnesses with you. He will bear witness with you of everything that you need to know. He will come alongside

you to give you everything that you need. And so the power that they would need in order to be witnesses, to preach, to teach, to make disciples, would come from the power of the Holy Spirit. But now we get down to the purpose. Why were they supposed to do those things? Why does the church exist? I started asking myself these questions early on in ministry, when I was in my

early twenties. Why do we do what we do? Why do we gather as a church? Why does the church exist? When I was in college ministry, fresh out of college myself, too young to be doing anything like that, but it's what I did anyway, there was a big movement at that point in time. It was called the Emergent Church. And they very much tried to change everything about church culture. And there was a really big book

that came out at that point in time. It was called They Love Jesus, But They Hate the Church. And so lots of questions were coming up about what church is supposed to look like. And so I started saying, Lord, why is the church here? What are we supposed to be doing? And I felt like the Lord brought me down to two things that are really important about what the church is supposed to be doing.

Number one, the church is supposed to build up the body of Christ, or to edify the body of Christ. Number two, the church is supposed to take the gospel of Jesus Christ to the world around them. Because you see, as you preach and witness, that's taking the gospel to the world around you. As you teach and make disciples, that builds up the body of Christ. And so those two things are what

the church is actually intended to do. Based on everything that I see from the Great Commission that Jesus gave to His disciples, and everything that was taught in the epistles, all seem to keep coming back to those two things. Build up the body, reach the lost. Those are the two big things that we're supposed to do. Well, I turned that into two little statements

that fit nicely underneath of a little placard that says, Calvary Chapel of Ark City. And I just called it, Reaching In and Reaching Out. We reach in to build up the body of Christ, reaching into the church to build up the body of Christ, but then as we are built up as the body, we reach out to the world that is around us. And so that's the idea, that's the vision, that's the mission of who we are.

And so I want to talk about the first part of that vision and mission this morning, and that's the idea of reaching in. And so I want you to look down at Acts chapter 2, verse 42. I'll let you get your eyes settled back down there again. Acts chapter 2, verse 42, and this is what it says. They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching, and to fellowship,

to the breaking of bread, and to prayer. This is what we call in scripture, especially historical narrative scripture, it's what we call a summary statement. A lot has taken place, and then Luke, who is excellent at these summary statements, gives a quick summary on everything that's going on before he moves on to the next story. So that's what I want to look at, because that verse, verse 42, gives us the four main things of what I think it looks like to reach in and build up the body of Christ.

Let me give you some quick background on what's taken place. The beginning of Acts chapter 1, Jesus is gathered with his disciples. And as he's gathered with his disciples, it's right before he ascends into heaven. And so they go up on the mountain where he will ascend into heaven. And as he's gathered with his disciples, they look at him and they're like, hey, so are you going to start

the kingdom now? Like, are you going to establish yourself in the kingdom now and kind of set things up, or how does this work? And Jesus said, listen, it's not for you to know the times or the seasons which the Father has put into motion, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And when you have received that power, you will go out and be witnesses of me in Jerusalem, in Judea, in Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the earth.

And then the disciples go on and they're waiting in the upper room. They wait there for about 10 days, waiting in the upper room, praying together, seeking God together, fasting. And this crazy thing happens. It was the day of Pentecost. And on the day of Pentecost, the disciples are gathered in this upper room and it says, a mighty rushing wind flowed through there, and tongues of fire descended

upon each one of them. Now listen, I am not going to get into an entire study on the gift of tongues right now. We can have that discussion at some point in time. That's not today's message. But tongues of fire descended upon each one of them, and they all began to speak in another language. And the language that each of them spoke, they declared the wonderful works of

God. To where everybody gathered there, because Pentecost was one of those feasts where everybody came back to Jerusalem, to the temple, and everybody's going, wow, it sounds like gibberish. Some were saying, I can hear them speaking the wonderful words of God in my language. Others were saying, that sounds like a bunch of gibberish. They must be drunk. And so Peter

stands up in front of everybody and says, guys, come on, it's 10 in the morning. We're not drunk. We're good Jewish boys. Pay attention to what's going on here. This is the fulfillment of what God spoke about in the book of Joel. That in the last days I will pour out my Spirit upon all men. Your young men will see visions. Your old men will dream dreams. And God's Spirit will be

poured out on all. And that's what was taking place. God's Spirit was being poured out. And on that day, what we would call the church of today was born, empowered by the Holy Spirit, commissioned to get the word of Jesus Christ out. And so as Paul gave that message, they said, what must we do? And he said, repent that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord. And on that day,

3,000 people got saved. 3,000 people got saved. Can you imagine a revival like that that takes place? What a beautiful moment that had to have been for the church. And so now they've got 3,200 people as a part of this church, because there were already 200 that were gathered in that upper room sort of area. 3,200 people as a part of this church, and now they've got to figure

out what to do to disciple these people. And so as they look at how they're going to disciple them, Luke tells us what they did. They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching, and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer. Well, I found that before we get into those four things again, there was another interesting word that we should pay attention to. It

says that they devoted themselves. These four things of reaching in is something that they devoted themselves to. That word devoted means they gave constant attention to. They gave constant attention to. Let me give you another phrase that might make it make even more sense. They made it their lifestyle. They made it their lifestyle. This idea of being a part

of the church, being a follower of Jesus Christ for this early church was not just something they did as a hobby. I actually had a guy tell me that at one point in time. He goes, you know, like a hobby, like your hobby is church. I'm like, dude, my hobby is not church, right? This isn't a hobby to me. This is just something I do on the side to occupy my time.

This is my life. This is everything that I do. It encapsulates all of who I am. And that's the way most of the western culture views church. It's like a hobby. It's something that you do to make yourself feel a little bit better about yourself. And that's not what the early church did. They didn't just have a hobby of coming to an assembly sometimes. They made it their life.

And it's way too easy in the world that we live in right now to turn church into something that you do occasionally instead of being the very thing that occupies every aspect of you. Because you were created to know God. And the greatest way that you can know God is to gather as God's believers and to pour into each other and point each other mutually to Jesus Christ. And so they gave constant attention to these things. It was

their lifestyle. And these are the four things that they devoted themselves to. That they made their lifestyle. Number one is the apostles teaching. The apostles teaching. Now, what did the apostles teach at this point in time? I bet you're asking yourself that question right now. If you're not, you should. Ask yourself that question. What were the apostles

teaching? They did not have Matthew through Revelation. At this point in time. They were either living out or writing the New Testament. So they didn't have the New Testament to teach. What did they have? They had the Old Testament and they had the teachings of Jesus. They had the Old Testament and they knew the fulfillment of Jesus. Can I just say, living at this point

in time as a disciple of Jesus Christ had to be absolutely fascinating. Because when you go through the Old Testament sometimes you're like, what's the point? Until you see Jesus. And then you're like, oh my gosh, Jesus is all over all the pages of the Old Testament. And can you imagine what it would have been like to be one of the disciples who grew up knowing

the Torah, who grew up knowing the writings, the Psalms, the Proverbs, and even into the prophetic writings and the historical things. And every time you opened it up again, something that you'd read since you were a little kid and probably had most of memorized, you would open it up and be reminded of what Jesus taught and you were like, son of a gun, that's Jesus too. Right? That had to have been an incredibly exciting time for them. Because

they realized all of these things pointed to Jesus. And so that's what they were teaching. They were teaching the truth of Jesus as it was reflected in the Old Testament based upon what Jesus had to say. So let's simplify it for ourselves and let's just say they were teaching the Word. Because all of that teaching that they did, they began to put down in the written Word and send out

in letters to other churches. And so what did they devote themselves to? They devoted themselves to the teaching and the instruction of the Word of God. Now there's three ways that you can go about learning the Word. The first way is through what we would call lecture style teaching. That's what you're sitting in right now. This is lecture style teaching. I've heard people say,

are you willing to take comments from the congregation? And the answer is no, I'm not willing to take comments from the congregation because then chaos would ensue. There's a place for that, but it's not now. Right? So this is lecture style teaching. A lot of what you may listen to on the radio or your podcast or things, that's lecture style teaching. You are taking in as somebody

is teaching you what God's Word has to say. It's an incredibly important thing. I actually heard somebody say one time too, eh, it's not really all that important. It's incredibly important. And I'm not saying that because I am one. I'm saying that because I need one. Right? I need that style of teaching in my life. Because we need somebody to systematically go

through the Word and teach us. Right? My formal education, much of it involved listening to Chuck Smith teach all the way through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. And I still remember so much of it because it was impactful upon my life. Because even though I couldn't interject with my ideas and comments, I took in all of what God's Word was having to say and took notes

on it. And that began to form the base for my understanding of Scripture. And so there's lecture style teaching. The second way that you can take in God's Word is through what we would call small group study. Small group study. That's where you gather with a group of people that's much smaller than what we're sitting in now or what we'll sit in in second service. That's where you can begin to

interject your comments. Because it's small enough that it can be a controlled environment where chaos will not ensue. And you look at God's Word together and maybe someone does a little instructing and then asks for questions. Some studies take questions from what we're doing here on Sunday morning and dig a little bit deeper. Some are going through what we're reading through the

One Year Bible together and they're saying, hey, this is what we're getting. But there's that discussion. There's that banter back and forth. We say, well, this is what I was thinking. I don't know. I'm kind of thinking this. Well, let's see if we can figure out which one's true. Let's dig out a commentary. Let's look at some cross references. That's iron sharpening iron. That's what those

small group studies are really good for. And again, I mean it when I say look at this part of your bulletin because if you're not involved in something else throughout the week look, I'm not saying you're failing as a Christian. I'm saying you don't have as much strength as you could as a Christian because that iron sharpens each other and it makes us better as we gather together as believers in Jesus Christ and sort of bounce things off of each other and then mutually support each other through that. And so it's an important thing to do as you grow in your walk together. And so, you know, we have small

groups. We have men's breakfast. We have women's breakfast. There's all these different things that you can get involved in where we can learn and grow together. And then, of course, the third way that you can take in God's word is through your own personal study. And I highly recommend that. That you should be in God's word every single day. That's why again in the bulletin

there's that section that says hey, if you want to read through God's word with this and you don't know where to start, start with what it says in the bulletin and just do as much of it as you can and be in God's word every single day. But if we are going to reach in as the body of Christ and build each other up, the foundation has to be the apostles' teaching. It has to be the word of God. The second thing that we see is that not only do they devote themselves to the apostles' teaching but number two, they devoted themselves to fellowship. The word fellowship speaks

of community, joint participation, or that which you have in common. It comes from the Greek word koinonia, or to have in common. We all as believers in Jesus Christ have one thing in common. One main thing. And that's Jesus Christ. The thing that unites us all is not that some of us are hunters and fishermen. It's not that some of us really like to work on cars.

It's not that some of us really enjoy sports. That's not our commonality. Is it fun to talk about those things? Absolutely. But the greatest commonality that we have is Jesus Christ. And you know what I find often times within the church? You know what the thing that we talk about the least when we gather together as believers is? Jesus Christ. We talk about

our cars. We talk about our hunting trips. We talk about our sports teams. We talk about all those kinds of things. Maybe even our jobs. And we don't always talk about Jesus. We don't always get together and talk about what God's doing in our lives. Usually because there's some vulnerability involved. But that's one of the things we're supposed to do as believers in Jesus Christ.

We are supposed to fellowship together in that way. That means you getting to know the people that sit around you. Now I hear the same thing over and over again. Over the past few years the church has really grown. We have two services. And I hear people say, you know, I just don't know very many people in the church. And I'm never said it out loud. But I'm going to say it out loud.

And if I step on your toes, I'm really sorry. But not really. Most people say, I talk to the five or six people around me. And that's usually about it. I have a really it's a wild, earth-shattering idea. Sit in a different place every Sunday. Listen. Close your mouths, okay? I know it's shocking. But you could do that. You could sit in a different spot every Sunday morning.

And then you'll get outside of the five or six people that you know. They're like, I never have time to make it to the back. I'm like, well then start in the back. I never have time to make it to the front. Start in the front. Listen. I don't know what I do to the front row people, but they never come back. Okay? You could start here. Just start working your way back. I never make

it to the people in the middle. Absolutely. There's tons of people in the middle usually. Get to know those people. But you have to decide that's what you're going to do. You have to decide that it is important enough to reach in to build up the body of Christ that I'm willing to get outside of my comfort zone, even my own row. Listen, we're not a names on your chair sort of a church, right?

Like, it's okay to sit somewhere else. Get to know each other. Fellowship together. Because you have something in common. And the common bond that you have goes deeper than any other bond that anyone can have. And that's what held the early church together. Is everybody in the world hated them because of Jesus. And the only people they had that they knew they could depend on

was their fellow believers in Jesus Christ. And they found their fellowship that way. One of my favorite symbols of the church has always been the ichthus fish. Have you ever seen that? The Jesus fish. Do you know where the Jesus fish came from? When persecution was great within the church, if they found a group that they thought might be believers, someone would take a stick or their

finger and they would draw half of the ichthus fish in the dirt. And if the other person was a believer, they would complete the ichthus fish and they would know that's a fellow believer. We have fellowship together because we have something in common. I can trust them. And brothers and sisters, we've got to get back to that sort of an idea. That we are each other's greatest advocate.

We are each other's greatest strength because we have a common bond of Jesus Christ. And so, the early church, what it looks like to truly be the church, what it looks like to reach it is number one, to give place to the apostle's team. Number two, to give place to fellowship. Number three, is the breaking of bread. The breaking of bread. Now we're talking. Right?

And so, the idea of breaking of bread kind of carries with it two ideas. First of all, is the idea of sharing a meal together. Sharing a meal together. Now, we try to do some potlucks here, although we don't have a great space for potlucks anymore because we don't all fit in the same space. We try to do them when it gets a little bit nicer outside, but we live in Kansas, so there's like five days

of the year that's nice outside, right? So, it's a little hard to fit a potluck into those days. We've gone over and met at the community building, the pig palace is all I can think of right now. You know what I'm talking about. The Ag building, that's what it is. Thank you, whoever said that. We've done meals over there. It's so fun to sit down and eat together. You know,

the people living in the time of Jesus and the disciples, when you ate together, it was a serious thing. Like, that was family. You didn't just eat with anybody, right? Like, now you go to a restaurant and you may sit right next to somebody you don't know, right? We go to the Chipotle sometimes and Derby. Y'all ever been to the Chipotle and Derby? And it's like, hey, there's

a salt and pepper shaker that separates me from the family next to me. And listen, that's terrible for me, okay? Because in my mind, anybody that I sit by automatically becomes a friend. And I listen to everybody else's conversation all the time. And we'll be sitting there, next to somebody like that, and I'll just look at my wife and she's like, no. And I'm like, and I kind of give her

that look, and she's like, and I'm like, but you heard that. And so then I interject whatever it is that I want to say, and she just goes, it is what it is. But in Jesus' culture, that wouldn't have happened. When you ate together, you shared a communal bowl of everything. That's why it was called fellowship, right? Because it was, they had it in common. And you shared this

communal dipping bowl, right? Can you imagine going, like, you leave here, you know, maybe in a couple hours, you go over to the El Maguey or something like that, the El Magway or the El Magooey, I don't know how you pronounce it, I just offended three cultures. However you pronounce that thing, and you get your, they bring you out, do you remember when they used to only bring one dipping bowl for the whole table? Do you remember those days? What on earth were we

thinking? And you know there's double dippers in there, it doesn't matter who, but can you imagine sitting with three other tables and they're like, here, look, here's one bowl of salsa for you five families. And you're like, and then you see their kid dip the same thing in there like seven times, and you're like, I'm good now, right? Fellowship! That's community, right?

And so it was a serious thing when you did this at this point in time, and so that breaking of bread was really important because there was a vulnerability to it. Because you can really be yourself when you have a meal together, right? Like, I spill everything on myself. It's a gift. I actually had, when I worked construction, I got out of my truck one day, and I spill things on me all the time. I always

have coffee stains on my shirt. And so I get out of the truck, and I and of course I'm holding a cup of coffee in my hand because this is what I do. And there was a microburst that came through, and this huge gust of wind hit my hand, my hand hit my chest, it just went all up, and then I dropped my cup and I break it, and I was like, wow. That was impressive. And I go inside

and one of the guys that I work with looked at me and goes, things just kind of happen to you, don't they? And I was like, that is absolutely true. This is a true statement. And then we went on with our day. And you know, when you spill something on yourself with people you've never met before, and you're like, I'm sorry, I'm a little bit clumsy, and they go, it's okay, me too, and all of a sudden

all the walls are broken down. And now you're talking with each other because nobody's holding up pretenses anymore. And listen, I know sometimes it's hard for us to do fellowship meals together, but you can again do something wild and revolutionary. You can invite somebody sitting near you, because you just sat in a new spot, you can invite that person sitting near you and say, would you like to go enjoy chips and salsa with me today? It's okay,

they'll give us our own bowl. Right? We don't even have to share the same bowl. And you can eat together with them. And it would be a beautiful thing. That's reaching in. That's building up the body. But it also carries with it the idea of sharing the Lord's Supper together, which is pretty cool, because we're doing that this morning at the end of the service. But it

means sharing the Lord's Supper together. And they did it much differently back then. The entire thing was a love feast. But today we take it in just a little bit of a different way, but the heart remains the same. That we all join together and break bread together, saying that there is one thing that bonds us, and that's the blood of Jesus Christ. And there's that breaking of bread.

And then number four, the fourth thing that it looks like to reach in is prayer. Now it's interesting, because if you look at that literally in the Greek, when it says prayer, it literally says the prayer. And I appreciate that, because I put the in front of everything all the time, and people mock me for it. I'm completely willing to accept that. But it says the prayer.

And the idea is very formal prayer. Listen, as the body of Christ, each of us individually should be praying together. It's a part of your life. It's just having a relationship with your Savior, right? And we talked about that. But to build up the body of Christ, it means we need to be praying together. We need to be praying with each other, and we need to be praying for each other.

And our goal is to provide lots of opportunities for that to be able to happen. Some people don't know this, but before both services, at both 8 o'clock and 10 o'clock, we have a prayer time back here. 8 o'clock a.m., you can come back in this little room back here, and we'll crowd you in there. We usually have a decent little group, five or six of us, four or five of us, somewhere in that range, on a Sunday morning. And we

pray for the things that I send out on flock note. We pray for things that we all mention to each other. And we just pray over the church service for the day. And I know that I'm able to do what I do, because there's a group that meets there at 8 a.m., and there's a group that meets there at 10 a.m., and they pray for both of the services. And that's something that anybody can come to. You can come be

involved in that. Once a month, usually the first Sunday, again this month we're moving it to the second Sunday, we have an intercessory prayer time together, down at the other end of the hall. And our group for that seems to keep growing. And what we do is we just take the needs of the community, and we take the needs of the church, and we just really take time and we pray about them. And some

people say, an hour to pray. Dude, it goes by super fast. I promise it does. Like, all of a sudden you look up and I'm like, whoa, that's 55 minutes. How did that happen so fast? And I know that I've got to start kind of working towards wrapping this up. But it's such a beneficial time. And anybody can come to that. And it'll be a little bit of a discipline,

because your flesh doesn't want to pray. That's just all that there is to it. Your flesh hates prayer, and the enemy doesn't want you to pray. He'll do anything he can to keep you from it. Those are really important times to gather. And then I hope, I expect, that in every small group that takes place, there will be a time that's given for prayer. That giving out of

prayer requests, and the time of corporate prayer together. Because it's important, because that's the building up of the body of Christ. And I'll use this moment as an instance to tell you, if you are not already signed up to receive our emails with prayer requests, you should do that. You can go to flocknote.com slash ccac and you can sign up to receive prayer requests. And I'll let you know

kind of what's going on. You know, we've had a couple people have heart attacks in the last couple of weeks. We've had some people have surgeries. And I send stuff like that out to say, hey, be praying for this person. And the beautiful thing is, is we've seen so many answered prayers through that flocknote prayer list that goes out. And it's amazing to see how God works.

But it also makes you get a little bit more plugged in with the body of Christ. Because you know what happens? A prayer request will go out, and I'll get a text from somebody, who is that? Right? Like I don't know that person's name. And I'll usually either pull up a picture on Facebook or Instagram or whatever, and I'll screenshot it, and I'll send it, and I'll say, that's who it is.

And they're like, oh, I have seen them. I just didn't know their name. And all of a sudden, now you have a little bit of a connection to that person. Because now, you not only know that there's a prayer request going around about them, but you just connected a name with a face. And now you could build up the body of Christ. And listen, you could do something really wild. You could start checking in

on those people. Listen, I'm one person. I try to check in on people, but again, I'm only one human being. Right? Like, God never intended for the pastor to be the only guy that ministers to people. God never even intended for the board to be the only, the board of elders to be the only people that ministers to people. God intended for the body to minister to each

other. And the only way that you can do that is if you're in fellowship together, and if you're praying for each other, and getting to know each other, and then you can minister. And then you can support each other. Because that's what God intended for the body to be, is the body to be a self-sustaining unit that takes care of itself. And there's that aspect of

reaching in. And so, as we look at what it looks like to be the body of Christ that reaches in, number one, it means that we will give place to the apostles' teaching, or the word of God. Number two, it means that we will make fellowship a priority. Number three, it means that there will be breaking of bread together. And then number four, prayer is of utmost importance.

That's what it looks like to be the body of Christ. And so, I will close with this challenge. Get involved. Don't just be somebody that shows up here on a Sunday morning, and never gets to know anybody, and tries to break a world record for how fast you can get out of here, or any of those kinds of things. Be those that get involved. Be those that decide that this is not just the building

that you go to, this is the church that you're a part of. And I want to pour into it while it pours into me. Because that's what it looks like to make it your way of life. To be devoted to reaching in as the body of Christ. Amen? Well, this morning is Communion Sunday. As we said, and again, Communion meaning to have in common, to have that koinonia together. And that's exactly what

we want to do. And so, I'm going to invite the worship team to come on up while I give these closing remarks about Communion. And I'll just remind us of what we're doing here. We're told to make sure that when we partake in Communion, that we do so in a worthy manner. I think the first aspect of that is truly paying attention to what it is that we're doing.

Inside of each of these trays, there's going to be two cups that are stacked together. The bottom cup will have the cracker. The top cup will have the juice. And the ushers will hand that out. But we have to understand what those things mean. On that last great night of the feast, Jesus took that bread, and I always like to point out what the bread looked like.

That the bread was, first of all, leavened, which spoke of being pure, which is what Jesus was. He was sinless. Second of all, it was pierced. Speaking of the fact that Jesus would be pierced for our transgressions. And then the bread was striped. The way that it would be baked, there would be stripes on the bread. Speaking of the fact that by His stripes we are healed. So when He took that

bread and said, this is my body, it really truly was symbolic of His body. Because it was pure, and it was pierced, and it was striped, just like He was about to be. So He took that bread and He broke it. He said, take and eat. This is my body which is broken for you. And then He took that cup. There are several different cups in the Passover ceremony. The last cup is the cup of redemption.

And that's what He took, that last cup, that cup of redemption. And He said, this is my blood which has been shed for you. Take and drink. And symbolically, we know that when we do this, we declare the death of Jesus Christ. He told us, do this in remembrance of me. So we declare to everybody the commonality, the communion that we have because of the body of Jesus Christ that was

broken for us and the blood that was shed for us. The second way that we make sure that we partake of this in a worthy manner is that if you're here this morning and you've never accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, honestly, this meal is not going to mean very much to you. Actually, I might even recommend you not do it. But if you're here this morning and you've never accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you're like, you know, I want to be a part of that body.

I want to be a part of that family. I want Jesus to come and make his home inside of me. Then it's as simple as confessing your sins and accepting Jesus as your Savior. And then this meal will be for you too. And then the third thing that we look at when we view this and taking it properly, worthily, is that I think that there should be a time of inspection.

A time to see if there's been any sin that's cropped up. Sin that needs to be confessed to the Lord. As believers in Jesus Christ, when we fall into sin, we don't lose our salvation and have to get saved all over again. But we do cut off that fellowship. The only way that fellowship is restored is through confession. So take that time and confess those sins

to the Lord. Take time to thank him for this great sacrifice that he's made for us. So I'm going to invite the ushers to come down and to hand out the elements. As you receive your elements, if you would please stand, and then we'll partake together.

Father, we come to you. And Lord, I thank you for your body that was broken for us. Lord, I thank you for what you were willing to endure. Lord, for taking the nails. Lord, for bearing the stripes. Lord, for allowing your side to be pierced. All because you love us so much. So Father, I thank you for your body that was broken for us. And Father, I thank you

for the blood of Jesus. The blood of Jesus that's enough to cover all of our sins. Lord, the blood of Jesus that is enough to make us brand new in you. Lord, the blood that you are willing to shed so that we could become your children. Father, I thank you for the blood of Jesus Christ. And Lord, we thank you for the sacrifice that you made for us. And Father, as we partake

together, may we really, truly understand what it means to be bound together to the headship of Jesus Christ. Because of what you've done for us. In Jesus' name. Amen. Let's partake. And if you would, bow with me one last time. Father, we thank you for your word. And Lord, I pray that you would continue to do the work that your spirit has begun in each of our hearts here

this morning. Father, we praise you and we thank you. In Jesus' name. Amen. Be blessed.