Gospel, community, and mission are defining features of Crosstown church. We consider them of such importance that every year we dedicate the month of August to reemphasize them as our basics. We are saved by the gospel, into community, for mission. We can see in our Bibles this thread weaved beautifully in the story of salvation. If we neglect either one, we would risk forgetting our first love and neglecting our zeal, on a path toward lukewarmth and sullenness. Gospel, community, and mission are more than basics: they are pillars of truth, tools of discipleship, bulwarks of defense, weapons in our spiritual warfare. The passage before us today contains these three elements, weaved into the fabric of united fellowship of one community which is the communion of the Saints where believers who were once dead in sin and enemies to God, are now alive in Christ and united together in one body where they devote themselves to doctrine and communion, to teaching and fellowship; where united believers have all things in common; where the new life leads to joyful worship; where the works of God are manifested as he brings people to faith through the witness of his Saints.

This short passage is one of several summaries in the book of Acts which give us a behind-the-scenes look at the early church’s characteristics which were part and parcel of the spread of the Christian faith throughout the world, turning it right side up. We would do well to study it and turn our attention to 5 things in this short but rich passage: devotion, union, confession, care, and conversion.

1-DEVOTION

Devotion is a strong word. Devotion means commitment and resoluteness. People who are devoted will not give up easily; they are in it for the long haul; they will dig deeper; they will go to extra lengths; they will spend more time; they will prioritize. With the Olympic Games recently concluding, the whole world witnessed the devotion of athletes who have, in many cases, literally devoted their lives to the activity at hand. They had to say no to a lot of other things, whether good or bad. They had to work hard and prioritize and commit. They had to make tough decisions for the joy set before them. Sometimes it was hard, or messy, or painful; sometimes they nearly gave up; but those who endured and devoted themselves reaped good fruit. This may be a good example of devotion, but it is not perfect, because only a few will reap gold, silver, or bronze; and many do not have the support others do.

The devotion Luke mentions here is not like that. Regardless of background or ethnicity, of support or financial felicity, everyone in the community will reap the fruit of the kingdom. For the believers devoted themselves to good things: to teaching, fellowship, the breaking of bread and prayers. Teaching here meant Old Testament and the sayings of Jesus. For us today, it is essential we learn the whole Bible in both Testaments, sitting under good teaching, but also reading it for ourselves and partnering with other believers as we learn it. Doctrine alone is not enough, because all theology is practical, manifesting itself in living credible lives together in koinonia – in fellowship as in one household and family of faith. And in one household, people should eat together, and that is why we have weekly communion as the church gathered, and this communion is the tangible sign of the grace of the new covenant we have all entered in through Christ.

This Christ intercedes for us. He was and is devoted to prayer and intercession. He prayed for us on the night in which he was betrayed. His supplication was for our unity (John 17). And believers in him should follow suit and recognize that our prayers are symptoms of our devotion and signs of our faith. Our prayers reveal our theology. They can become weaker and rare, but in a credible gospel community, they can become fervent and grow deep. Praying is easier together. In fact, all of these are easier together: devotion, submission to the word, studying the word, practicing our faith, confessing sin (more on that later), living in unity, pursuing holiness, and winning souls.

Such a devotion is a sign of the work of God. It is miraculous to see people saved from death to life, and equally miraculous to see people who were once enemies, now devoted together to fellowship, to one faith, to one body, having the same Spirit, worshiping the same Lord. This devotion will reveal the glory of the Lord and manifest his wondrous works. As we devote ourselves to The Lord’s Supper, we remind one another of the new covenant we have entered in together, and we reveal to the world the grace of belonging to the Savior who died and rose again. (v.43) When people see these signs, they wonder in awe and fear at the God who can do such things, and truly proclaim the Lord is here; he is among these devoted people; and it is exciting and attractive to seek out who he is. Some of the simplest yet most powerful wonders are to be known as devoted in our love for one another in a way that honors God, dignifies those made in his image, reveals his glory, and makes the world startle at the wondrous love of God that brings us together when nothing else could, when everything else is seeking to drive a wedge of separation – even hatred – between people. The god of this world has blinded the eyes of the unbelievers (2 Cor 4:4), and one of the ways the Spirit opens their eyes is through our life together which stands as a witness in deed – and hopefully also in word – revealing the Light of the world who is the Hope of the nations.

2-UNION

The communion of the Saints also means union and togetherness. The believers in Acts were together and had all things in common. They were few and under threat. They were a minority and without worldly authority. Persecution was rampant. Their lives were threatened. Opposition was always lurking. The whole world was set against them, ready to pounce and scatter them apart. But they had a unity of spirit, will and purpose. What does it mean for devoted believers to be united?

It might be hard for us to imagine these circumstances and identify with them. But maybe some of my story can help us understand since it is historically closer to where we are today. After my family got displaced during the war in Lebanon, we were few and under threat; a minority without worldly authority. We were poor, in every sense of the word: no safety or security, without money or power, often without food or water; we had no voice, no one to appeal to, no law to protect us. But when the grace of our God brought us to salvation and into the community of believers meeting as a house church, we tasted this communion of the Saints. The other circumstances did not change, and in many ways, became worse with more opposition. Yet we were in one another’s homes, whenever a truce or a ceasefire would allow it; we were craving reading the Bible together; we were eager to learn how to pray; we felt deep joy when we sang; we shared testimonies and works of God in our lives; we had in the same room people who not too long ago were fighting one another as part of opposing militias. But now there was a sweet fellowship and a bond of peace. Sometimes it was hard and not glamorous, because sanctification takes time and people do not change entirely overnight. But seeing people confess sin, ask for forgiveness, seek humility, let go of ethnic pride, and cross barriers of hatred was worth it. The gospel of Jesus Christ was a revolution! And the Lord was adding to our numbers like he did in the book of Acts. And people gave of their possessions and of their own selves to the fellowship of the believers, which strengthened their unity.

Having something in common does not necessarily mean unity. For example, sports fans can flock together to the victory parade of the team they cheer for: old or young, men or women, black or white, urban or rural, poor or rich etc… They can all wear similar T-shirts, don the same caps, sing the same songs… they can, for a moment, put their differences aside and unite in this celebration. But once it’s over, differences can resurface; this so-called unity is all but gone; there is no lasting community.

But the Christian community is not like that. It is a manifestation of the curse being reversed. You see, in Babel people put some differences aside and united in their opposition to God. But then went their separate ways. At Pentecost, God was reversing the curse when people understood the gospel, and believers were becoming united in being chosen and gathered by God (adopted thought from Shai Linne), letting go of expressive individualism to enter the union of believers together in one faith in one Lord. The union we have together in the Holy Spirit who is God’s presence within us all can transcend all differences, and lead us to love one another in a way that defies expectations, transcends matters of tertiary importance, reaches across worldly barriers and individualistic tendencies to pull our brothers and sisters to the center of God’s grace and care toward us as his body, uniting us not despite our differences or in ignorance of them, but weaving a beautiful tapestry as a mosaic of unity where Christ is stronger than any other master.

3-CONFESSION

All who believed were together (v.44), united, and had all things in common. And I believe one of these things is confession, since it is an essential part of life together and a mandate for believers to observe before they partake in worship and communion, as Jesus said in Matthew 5:24. Confession is a pillar of true Christian community, and of living in unity in the new kingdom which is a kingdom of priests (1 Pet 2:9), where our roles are to represent Christ toward one another. We do so by teaching, showing grace, loving, forgiving, and also confessing sin and hearing confession. A Christian community is a confessional community, not one based merely on preferences or affinity, but on what unites us, which is our common salvation, our common hope, and the Spirit who lives in us. Confessing sins to one another is not easy, even more so when we don’t get to choose who we are in community with. Most worldly clubs will go bankrupt if they force people from different walks to be together. But the community of faith is different and that’s what makes it unique and glorious.

Now, we can be tempted to feel more guilt or shame; our enemy can use this feeling against us, to hinder us. But we should see this confession as something that strengthens our bonds of fellowship, increases our trust, and protects us from sin itself. If we do not trust our community with our sin, we would be trusting our sin more than our community. And that’s a dangerous place to be. This does not mean we confess to everyone, right or left; but we have been knitted together in groups and families where we can do that – should do that, for the benefit of one another, the credibility of our gospel and our community, and the glory of God. Think of how many of the New Testament letters have been written because of sin and disobedience which have been confessed, which have helped us in our sanctification. And I wonder how much of our sanctification today can grow deeper as we live together in confessional communities. We can do that in our TEAMS, and it can be awkward and uncomfortable but the terrain can be prepared by humbling ourselves, checking our pride at the door, seeking the good of one another, and being the representation of Christ as priests to one another, extending mercy and grace, giving hope, crying together, mourning sin, grieving over shame, yet pointing one another toward the Author of our faith who can be glorified as we have all these things in common, and who is faithful to fulfill that which he has promised: our sanctification.

4-CARE

Another pillar of Christian communion is care – caring enough to act. Now, when we hear community and communion, we hear the stem for these words – common. But let us beware, believers, of 2 things. Community is not a competition, us trying to win over one another, except if we outdo one another in caring for one another. It is a collaboration, a coming together. And the other thing to beware of is that the care of a community does not mean communism. Communism means compelling and compulsion, where sharing is obligatory and passive. There is no generosity in communism. But a community is marked by active participation and generosity, not under compulsion (2 Cor 9:7); it is done willingly and truthfully. We have later in Acts 5 an example of giving untruthfully (Ananias and Sapphira), which was not commended, but condemned. In fact, giving can be very sinful. Giving can be self-promoting, self-justifying, self-preserving. Both giving and the lack thereof can be a sign of pride and love of money which can turn our heart away from faith.

But the passage here speaks of believers who gathered often and lived together; who looked at the needs of one another and helped; who did not consider their own possessions so valuable as to make them treasures on this earth; who practiced a different economy in the new kingdom of the One who so loved that he gave us everything, including his own Son (Kelly M. Kapic with Justin Borger, God So Loved, He Gave: Entering the Movement of Divine Generosity. [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010]). Our men’s TEAMS is reading the book “Practicing the King’s Economy,” and I want to share a few words from it: the community God is creating is not a soup kitchen where everyone gets fed, but it’s a potluck where everyone brings a plate. When we give, the Spirit inhabits our generosity and works to reshape us in the image of our generous God. Giving shapes our hearts when our gifts are given to God; when our gifts reflect the heart of our king; when it builds community; when it follows the way of the cross. When our giving is truly given to God and his people, given in line with the heart of God, given to build the community of God, and given in the sacrificial way of God, then it has the power to shape our hearts toward God who for our sake became poor in order that in him we might become rich, rich in salvation and hope, but also rich in giving and good deeds.

In our world today, it seems to be counted as sin to talk money, while the Bible tells us it is a sin to turn a blind eye to those who are in need. Maybe in a credible gospel community and in a tight-knit communion of Saints – even if only in TEAMS – we can feel empowered by the Spirit and by our love for one another and our union in faith to speak truth to one another regarding our income and our expenses, and together find joy in having glad and generous hearts in practicing a divine economy that is far better than this world with its moth-ridden promises of treasures that ebb and flow with the anxious feelings of daytime traders. All the while we learn from watching these early Christians who seem to say that the goods they had were only good inasmuch as they became good for the community.

In our own day, most of us middle-class Christians would be horrified by the ideas of depending on the local congregation for our needs. But giving and receiving in risky ways was the norm for the early church. Their example invites us to take risks in caring for God’s people, in part because God has promised to care for us through his people in the new kingdom where our new humanity welcomes all to the abundant hospitality of Jesus (adapted from Practicing the King’s Economy).

Brothers and sisters: uniting together in community means caring enough to act generously, hospitably, selflessly, and devotedly toward one another in one body of Christ, revealing by our actions the love we speak of. Just imagine if the world around us saw how radical our care for one another is: the world so often teaches us that complaining is the way to go: we complain of how much needs we have and how much money we must have to fulfill this or that task. But the world also teaches us to keep our pain and our sorrow away from the light. It teaches us individualism and dissatisfaction. And all of these are rancid to our bones.

Friends: there’s no believer, or family or missional family without pain, chronic aches, worries, weariness and the many effects of the fall that burden us. Yet a fellowship of believers is the very place where God’s intimate care is felt through life together. Imagine if in our united community, we bring our worries and pains and needs, not as complaints, but as petitions before one another so that we can receive the care of our fellow believers. In one another’s lives we can practice the ministry of presence and the ministry of refreshing the hearts of the Saints (Phil 7), and in this way our communion would be an essential manifestation of the kingdom of God that is in our midst.

5-CONVERSION

We now come to v.47 that ends this passage with God’s work in conversion. We are saved by the gospel, into community, for mission. The communion of the Saints is marked by regular public worship. We all have our individual times of devotion and worship. But if we were to only do that alone, individually, we would soon see our zeal wane. Community strengthens our faith and gives us hope as we worship together. One of the most attractive features to the watching world is our worship together, our prayers for one another, our mutual love, our meals together in missional family, or dinners together with other members of the church [it would be shameful for some of us not to know another member of this church!]. When we first came to faith, we were deeply attracted to these manifestations of the new life in Jesus. And many others were, and witnessed Jesus through his people. In the same way today, I think our public worship, our rhythms of life together, our care for one another, our delving into each other’s lives as we care for one another will reveal the favor of our God to those around us. I wonder how many of the people who are dechurching today have not truly tasted this communion, and they do not feel the loss of not being in one – loss to their own selves, but also the loss others experience because of their absence, just as we might do that here when we are not together in community.

Our communion should be solid and deep, but not self-centered. When Jesus prayed in John 17 for our oneness, he prayed so that the world can see that we are one and be attracted to this, and come to know him. His prayer for our unity was evangelistic. This means that our life together in community is there to show our love for one another, so that the world can see, taste, and come to know Jesus. If our community is only inward oriented, our love will not show to the world, and they will not come to see our unity nor the truth of Jesus. Community that is focused inwardly only is not evangelistic. But a real community in Jesus Christ, a credible gospel community, is by nature seeking unity by showing its love for one another so that the world can see this love and wonder about the Christ who made us one in him as he is one with the Father.

In this way, as we praise God in our worship and communion, we would also be showing God’s grace which opens the eyes of the blind by his Holy Spirit to see that the Lord is truly in our midst. And with a credible gospel proclamation within a credible gospel community there will be credible gospel conversions where the people who were once in darkness will see the light of the glory of our Lord in Jesus Christ who is the head of this body, the anchor of our unity, and the center of our communion.

*****

Brothers and sisters: the community of faith is the place where selfishness comes to die. Practically speaking, our community grows weaker the more we are apart, and stronger the more we are together. I exhort us to try to spend an additional hour of our week together with other believers here, and see this effect on our faith and our mission. Togetherness can be hard and odd; there can be scratches and wounds when sinners try to do this together. But we should trust him who prayed for our unity on the night he was betrayed. He taught us how to confess sin and gave us the ministry of caring for one another in a confessional community where we learn how to be humble, how to awkwardly talk about our sins, how to let go of expressive individualism and consider others better than ourselves, how to receive the ministry of other believers as they represent Christ to us.

The communion of the Saints is the place where the love of God is manifested in our life together, in our communion together here every Lord’s Day but also in our meals at home in our game nights, in our celebrations, in our devotion to life together and in our making decisions about what habits we must do away with in order to be better devoted to teaching and fellowship. In this way we would be revealing his glory in the midst of a dark and weary land. What if we lived together as in the new heaven and the new earth, in a credible gospel community, where we can start to see the effects of the reversal of the curse in our lives together, where the people of God, once enemies, now reconciled Saints, can actually and truthfully live together in peace and unity?

This will reveal that the community of faith is a sanctuary, a city of refuge, a tower of hope, a place of restoration. It ought to be a mirror in which we reflect Christ and Christ is reflected in us, and even more, we become one another’s reflection as we grow deeper together in communion and holiness. We are one another’s sacred companions on this journey of faith in one community where we disciple one another toward Christlikeness, and we run together this race of faith on a mission to proclaim the glory of God, so that the world can see and be drawn to God and be reconciled through Jesus Christ.