Being
A Christian Is A Family Affair
Acts
We welcome our new members and children to
our church. It’s always encouraging to
see people who say, “Yes, I’m a follower of Jesus. Yes, this is my church.”
Do you think you can be a good Christian
without being part of a church? I heard
that 80% of people say “yes.” Today it
seems that becoming a Christian is seen as a personal, private, individual
thing. It’s between me and God.
But I’d like to suggest that in the early
church and in church history, that was not the case. To become a Christian didn’t just mean
receiving Christ as your personal Lord and Savior. Becoming
a Christian meant joining the Church.
If you think back to the days of Jesus, to be
someone disciple wasn’t just a personal decision. You would physically go walk around
It’s like team sports. You don’t just decide you want to be a
football player. It’s not just an
individual decision. To be a football
player also means you join the team.
There was a clear community of people who
would meet together, sell their property for one another. They were highly regarded and no one else
dared join them. It was very clear who
was in this community and who was not.
Acts 2:46-47
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, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord
added to their number daily those who were being saved.
Acts 5:12-14
The apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders
among the people. And all the believers used to meet together in Solomon’s
Colonnade. No one else dared join
them, even though they were highly regarded by the people. Nevertheless, more and more men and women
believed in the Lord and were added to their number.
The interesting thing is how the Bible
describes those early conversions. Acts
doesn’t say, “and many prayed to received Christ.” It says, “and the Lord added to their number.” Becoming a Christian meant joining the “Jesus
community,” it meant being added to their number.
Becoming a Christian wasn’t just a personal,
private affair. It also meant joining
the Church.
That mindset is presumed in the NT. No one lives a Christian life by themselves.
Spiritual gifts works like different body parts. We all belong to each other,
we all have to work together. And it’s
only when we all work together, when each part does its work,
that we “become mature and attain to the whole measure of the fullness
of Christ.”
And when someone
doesn’t work well in the community, when there is unrepentant sin, the worst
thing that could be done in the NT was to cut them off from the community: excommunication.
A Christian without his church was like a football player without a
team, a child without a family.
Something very core, very central to their identity was cut.
Sacraments express this communal dimension of our
faith:
Baptism expresses an
entrance into our community (including infants)
Communion expresses
again our connected to Christ and our connected to one another.
It’s a significant
shift, to see our spiritual lives, not just as a personal, individual affair,
but as a community, corporate affair; to shift from “I” to “we.” There are lots of implications from this, but
let me highlight one
Coach Carter
Coach Carter (Samuel Jackson) takes a rag tag
group of attitude-filled street kids and tries to teach them how to have some
self-respect, to work as a team, and to become winners.
Cruz had quit because the Coach’s
requirements were too hard. But as the
team keeps winning, he decides he wants to play again. Coach says to rejoin the team he needs to do 2500
push ups and 1000 suicides by the end of the week. He works his tail off.
[7, 35:00 – 36:08]
Coach Carter relentlessly challenges him,
dares him. And the team just watches,
seeing their friend sweat it out and run himself to
exhaustion. All week long they see Cruz
giving it all he’s got to finish the task.
At the end of a grueling week, the Coach prepares the team for an
upcoming game.
[8, 40:55 – 43:22]
They learn how to be team, learn how to see
themselves as a unit. They’ll do it
together, carry each others burdens.
When one suffers, they all suffer; when one rejoices, they all rejoice.
That’s how it was in the early church.
There were no needy persons among them. For from time to
time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the
sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he
had need. (Acts 4:34-35)
That’s what it means to live in community.
Wouldn’t it be great to be a part of a team, a family, a community
that’s going to work together. Work together to do amazing things that no
one person could do alone.
It wasn’t that the early church was
necessarily more generous and charitable than the rest of us. I think it went down to an identity
issue. They saw themselves as a
community, a family; they belonged to each other.
What
we do flows out of our identity. If you see yourself as a brother, sister, as
belonging to each other, then you take care of each other.
More than saying these are all the things you
should do, I want to say, this is who we are.
We are brothers and sisters, we are the community of the redeemed, we are the “Jesus community.” And then we would serve, even sacrifice for
each other.
Help parents: a very demanding season in life. We’re in community.
Parents: build relationship with others, not just parents. If you believe it takes a church to raise a
child, then live in the greater church community. Build relationships with singles and
non-parents, because they are the ones who are teaching Sunday School and help with babysitting.
Welcome our new members. To our present members, this is a big deal—people
are joining our community, our family.
That’s important because that’s all a church is—the people. The only thing a church really has is it’s people.
We rejoice in salvation testimonies. As Jesus celebrates even one lost sheep, lost
coin, lost son, so we rejoice with Him.
It’s not just a God celebrates, it’s God’s
whole community celebrates too—that was Jesus’ point to the Pharisees, they
should be rejoicing with God.
Someone hasn’t just transferred from one
church to another, someone has transferred kingdoms,
and become members in our spiritual family.
We pray for others who are persecuted. Today is the International Day of Prayer for
the
But before we do,
let me add one more piece.
As nice as it might be, how much benefit is
it to be in community with me. If I said, “I’ll do your push up’s. Let’s join bank accounts.” That’s nice.
What if it were Donald
Trump. What if you married Donald Trumps
son/daughter: we’ll share our resources, we’ll take
care of each other. We’re family
now. What’s mine is yours, what’s yours
is mine.”
What if it were Jesus:
I’ll enter into community with you. I’ll share my resources with you. I’ll do your push up’s and suicides. We’re family now. What’s mine is yours and what’s yours is
mine.
We’re going to end
by praying for our persecuted brothers and sisters. We’re going to watch a short video and then [Lora]
will lead us in a prayer.