The Biblical Foundations of EVBC, Part 1
Tom Shrader opens a series on East Valley Bible Church's DNA by first grounding the conversation in Acts 2:42-47, arguing that any honest assessment of a local church must begin with God's blueprint for the church universal. He walks through the four core activities of the early church—apostolic teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayer—explaining how each element contributed to a community that grew not through strategic planning but through obedient, Spirit-empowered living. He also identifies six dangers of knowledge without transformation and closes by promising future sessions applying this biblical model directly to East Valley Bible Church's own strengths and weaknesses.
“The Bible does not envision a Christian life lived outside of community. The Bible assumes that we live in community with fellow believers who are in our life and in community with a lost and dying world.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: The Biblical Foundations of EVBC
Recorded: 2008 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 52 min
Themes: church community, fellowship, prayer, teaching, church planting, spiritual growth, obedience, transformation, new church member, church planter, pastor, new believer, seeking community, young adult, church leader, feeling disconnected from church
Scripture: Acts 1:4, Acts 1:6, Acts 1:8, Acts 2:14, Acts 2:22-24, Acts 2:37-38, Acts 2:41, Acts 2:42-47, Acts 4:4, Matthew 5, 1 Peter 2:2, 2 Timothy 3, 2 Timothy 4:1-2, 1 John 1:3, John 14:13-14, 1 Corinthians 3:6
Theological Themes: ecclesiology, church structure, apostolic teaching, koinonia, fellowship, means of grace, spirit-empowered living, biblical church model
Full Transcript
DNA of EVBC, Part 1
One of the things we have talked to you about over the years, but really with a lot of emphasis in the last year, is one of our core values that says we want to be an influence beyond this generation and beyond this campus. Church planting is a key part of that. Earlier this year we had an opportunity to tell you that we were ready to embark on a church plant and gave you some tentative dates. We said that after summer we would be back with more details, and now we have those details.
With that, please welcome Luke Simmons, who is here to tell us more about the church plant.
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**Luke:** I am glad to be here. It was late May when we announced that we were going to start a new church out in the Williams Gateway and Queen Creek area, and that is now underway. The church is called Second Mile Church. In case you are scratching your head wondering what that means, it comes from Matthew 5, where Jesus is talking about loving your enemies. He says, "If your enemy forces you to go one mile, go with him two." We believe that at the heart of the gospel is a man dying for His enemies, and so we want our church to be about that same thing — that we would go the extra mile, so to speak, to love people.
Things are going well. If you follow the news at all, you have heard that the Mesa Gateway area has some huge plans coming, and we are thrilled to be out in that direction. We actually moved in just yesterday, with a bunch of people helping us get into our new house. We are now part of that community, living there, and really excited about what God is doing.
When most people think of church, they think of it as only the Sunday gathering, the Sunday event. As Tom will teach you today, it is much more than that. The church is actually the people of God, and so any time you are with the people of God, loving one another, you are being the church. When people ask me when our church starts, I tell them it sort of already has, and yet it sort of already hasn't — what they really mean is, when is the first service?
What we are going to do is hold our first monthly service on October 26th. We will have a Sunday worship gathering in October, November, and December. Our meeting space is the ballroom at ASU Polytechnic. It is a great facility for worship gatherings, children's ministry, and everything else we need. We are not necessarily trying to reach only college students, though that would be wonderful — it is simply a great space for us. This week, however, we are also launching our through-the-week ministry with five smaller groups we are calling missional communities, groups of people who view themselves as missionary teams. So in one sense we start this week, and in another sense we don't.
After the October, November, and December monthly gatherings, we will evaluate where things stand and potentially launch into weekly services in January. We feel that doing life and ministry the other six days of the week is a lot harder than meeting just once a week, so we want to start with the hard work first and lay a good foundation.
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**Tom:** We really do want to walk alongside these folks and stay in connection with them rather than simply sending them off. We have been thinking of ways to involve all of you. We assume the majority of you will remain here at East Valley, though many will leave to be part of the plant. So how do we all stay connected? We came up with what I think is a great idea — East Valley Bible Church is going to throw Second Mile Church a church baby shower.
**Luke:** East Valley Bible Church could have simply written a check, but instead they are giving all of you the opportunity to partner in it so that your hearts and your energy are invested as well. On September 28th we will have the big baby shower celebration. As you can imagine, there are a lot of expenses on the front end, particularly when you think of the equipment and gear it takes to do church, and so we do need to raise funds for that.
Starting today, in both lobbies — both here in the chapel and in the conference center — you can pick up one of these paper bricks after the service. We want you to write a prayer, a verse, or something you want to see God do in this new church. You can be as creative and decorated as you like, or as simple as you like. Bring it back on the 28th, and we are going to have a big wall in each lobby where we will display all the prayers that the people of East Valley have written for this new church. It is going to be an incredible time of celebration. There is also a sheet available that gives you a sense of the practical needs and how you can give toward them.
Laying the Groundwork
We would love for you not just to pray for us, but also to contribute financially and to really own this with us. That will make it feel like you are part of that church and have made a real difference. We had some really cool ideas early on — we started thinking about having a list where you could go in, buy things, and bring them back. Then we realized that could get confusing, so what we are really looking for is money rather than chairs, gifts, or microphones.
If you have specific items, don't just bring them. Contact me and I will be able to tell you whether we could use them. It is a little bit like registering for a wedding — it is nice to get gifts, but when you have the money, you can prioritize and make sure you get the most important things first.
We continue to try to understand what God would have us do in church planting, and I think you can see we learn a little bit along the way. Our desire is really to continue having a relationship not just with Luke, but with the church. Luke came down here after he graduated from college to be part of East Valley Bible Church and then to go to work here, so to see God use him in this way is really exciting.
Father, thank You for Luke and Molly and the kids, and for the gifts You have given these two — a love for Your word and a love for people. Thank You for the core group You have brought around him and rallied to him. We pray for those that Second Mile will touch, even now, those living out in the community who don't know You, that they will be infected and affected by this church. Give him strength and wisdom, and allow him to be encouraged in moments that are discouraging. God, thank You that we as a group of people here can come alongside and provide support in prayer, finance, and encouragement. We pray that in that area that is booming in terms of people, the gospel would boom right with it. In Jesus' name, amen.
A Message for the Congregation
You should have gotten an email from me the other day — did you get it on Friday? If you did not, there are a couple of possibilities. You may not be registered in our database, in which case you need to complete something to get that done. Or you may be registered but have some kind of spam filter on your computer that is stopping it from coming through — and if that is the case, we cannot bypass that on our end.
The email was a summation of something that happened right before I left. On Tuesday mornings here, a senior leadership team meeting starts at seven o'clock and runs from seven to nine. At nine o'clock we go into a general staff meeting — that is all the staff people on campus together in the same room. It has morphed over the years, but it is now primarily a time of prayer. There is a time where we exchange some information and get that out of the way, but the real purpose is to keep us on the same page through prayer. We aim for an hour together, and sometimes we go longer.
After that we break into another meeting — the pastoral staff meeting, with sixteen or seventeen of us. In that meeting we do what you would expect: we talk about individual ministries, where we are going, what we see, all the things you would anticipate.
What Is in the Water at East Valley Bible Church
Right before I left, Tyler posed a question in that meeting. The question was this: what phrase — maybe a sentence, but no more than that — have you heard repeatedly at East Valley Bible Church that you would say is really associated with this church? These are my words now, but he was asking about words or phrases that are part of our DNA — things you have heard repeatedly that you now associate with the church, and perhaps broadening a little into perspectives that you see here.
In that room were guys who have been at the church over ten years and some who had been there less than ten months. We sat around and essentially brainstormed that question, and I found it to be a genuinely fascinating time. I had these moments almost like a father moment — where you are sitting around with your kids and you have been saying the same things over and over and over, and you think it is a total waste of time and none of it is getting through. Then to hear back some of those very things that we have been saying for years and to think, "Oh my goodness, they really are kind of in the water at this church" — so many of them are just wonderful things.
Now, there are also some things in the water that are contaminants, and we have to deal with those as well. But that exercise was so powerful for me individually that we talked about it afterward. I said I did not think we had exhausted the question, and so they took — I don't know how many —
Introduction and Background
It had been a few weeks, and that would be part of a pastoral staff meeting. I asked if they would talk to other people, summarize their findings, and send me the results. At first it was all just for me — purely selfish. But when I got it and read through it, I thought: this is something we need to do corporately. These are things we need to talk about together.
Even once I arrived at that idea, my original intention was to take those phrases, group them, move them around, remove duplication, and then talk through them with you. I also wanted to address what was not on the list that should be on the list. Then I sat down and realized there was actually a step before we got to East Valley Bible Church — and that was to talk about the church universal before we talked about the local expression of it.
I then received an email from one of the men who had been in that room who said essentially the same thing. He said he had always thought about Acts chapter two, verse forty-two, and always considered it the powerful passage that simply outlines God's model for the church. So that is what I want to do today. We are going to spend about forty minutes looking at Acts chapter two, verses forty-two through forty-seven.
God's Model for the Church
What you have in this passage is a model God has given us for the church. Do not conclude from that, however, that this is a perfect church — it is not. Later in the book of Acts we see hypocrites, doctrinal problems, sinful people arguing and bickering, divisions, and all that goes with it. But there is here a model.
Interestingly, commenting on this passage, James Boice offers this observation about the church we are looking at. It was an inner-city church, and it was a large church with multiple staff ministries — which it needed, given that three thousand people were added to it on Pentecost. It began with the twelve apostles, and when the twelve found there was still more to do than they could handle, they began to add deacons, so there were at this point nineteen officers.
The success of this church — and this is exactly why I want to use it as a lead-in to our discussion about East Valley Bible Church — is what Boice points out next. The success of the church, as we soon discover, was that all the believers, not just the leaders, not just the elders, not just the paid staff, but everybody in the church, were doing the work of ministry. That is the model you see here.
Context: The Beginning of Acts
Now let us go back to the beginning of the book of Acts to get the full context of what we are going to look at this morning. This is, in essence, Luke's gospel part two. Luke writes this book and picks the story up where his gospel left off — Jesus has been crucified, died, buried, risen again, has begun making His appearances, and is now about to ascend.
He gathered them together — verse one of chapter one — and He commanded them to do something that is really difficult to do: wait. We want to act, we have a strategic plan, we want to get moving — but first, wait. Wait for what? For what the Father has promised, which, He said, "you have heard from Me" — and what He is talking about is the coming of the Holy Spirit upon them.
They said in verse six, "Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom of Israel?" He told them it was not for them to know, but then came the promise: "You will receive power" — Acts one, verse eight — "when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you shall be My witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth." And then Jesus ascended into heaven. They gathered together and they waited — waiting for what had been promised, which was the Holy Spirit.
The Day of Pentecost
In chapter two, the Holy Spirit arrives. It is the day of Pentecost. They are together in one place, and there is this outward expression — they hear it, there is a wind, it fills the house where they are sitting together, and what looked like tongues of fire are distributed upon them. Verse four: they are filled with the Holy Spirit.
Now, let us make sure we understand — this is not normative for us today. We receive the Holy Spirit at the moment we believe. The moment you and I come to Christ in repentance and faith, we have the gift of the Holy Spirit. But here this outward manifestation is taking place. These pilgrims are gathered together, still in Jerusalem, and they begin to hear the apostles speaking in their own tongue — a known language, but unknown to the speakers — as people from all over the area with many different dialects listen in.
Peter's Sermon: The Cross
Peter then gets up to deliver this incredible sermon, beginning in verse fourteen. The essence of the sermon is the cross. Chapter two, verse twenty-two: "Men of Israel, listen to these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst, just as you yourselves know — this Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death. But God raised Him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in its power."
The essence of Peter's message is the cross — that Jesus was crucified for sins, so that we might be delivered, or saved, from the agony of death. Now clearly he is not talking about physical agony, is he? Many godly men and women — you may have had friends or relatives in that category — have experienced horrifically painful, agonizing physical deaths, yet they loved Christ and knew Him in an intimate way. The agony that Peter is speaking of is something else entirely.
The Call to Repentance and Baptism
Peter delivers this incredible message, and picking up at verse 37, we see the response: the people are pierced to the heart and ask, "What shall we do?" Peter answers, "Repent, each one of you, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sin, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." For us today, it would be a mistake to say he is setting baptism up as a requirement for salvation — he is not doing that. What he is saying, and what we see throughout the balance of the New Testament, is that there is this moment of conversion, this moment where I repent.
The word "repent" carries with it literally almost the idea of an afterthought, or a second thought. It is a reversal of thought — a change of mind that is accompanied very quickly by a change of behavior. True repentance is therefore both a change of mind and a change of action.
True repentance has in our life this past component — we are forgiven — this future component — heaven is secured — and this present state in which God, through the Holy Spirit, empowers us to live lives that are holy and pleasing to Him. He allows us to live not naturally, but supernaturally, so that in all we do we glorify Him, even in the most mundane things of life. We glorify Him as we become the men, women, and students that God would have us be.
Peter delivers this message to repent, and that day, verse 41 tells us, those who received the word were baptized. Let me add parenthetically: some of you here have received the word and believed, and perhaps you have been around church a long time, but you have never been baptized. Is it important for you to be baptized? The answer is yes — not for salvation, but as a testimony to life change, identifying with the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. That day, three thousand souls were saved.
The Question of the Church
So the question becomes: now what? What do you do then? Many of my friends who became followers of Christ as adults have very little to do with the church. They see it as a place filled with hypocrites — which it is — with simple people — which it is — with leaders who make bad decisions — and they do, we do. All of those things become an excuse, and they constantly say to me, "Can I be a Christian and not be in church?"
My answer is not a good one for them, because what you see immediately here is the birth of the church. And if the response is, "Can I just be part of one of these smaller communities and have my own group?" — so did they. As you look at these few verses, it is really interesting: you see a large corporate gathering, much like we have here on Sunday, and then in verse 46 you see that day by day there is also a meeting going on in homes, with people living life together. In our context, that is reminiscent of our small groups.
The Four Activities of the Early Church
Here is what is happening in verse 42. These three thousand — along with the original one hundred and twenty — were continually devoted. It was an ongoing process. It was not just something they needed to get their life with Christ started and then outgrew. I was talking to a gentleman who told me he has outgrown the church, that he does not need it anymore. But what we see in Acts is that the early believers never outgrew it. It was a continual, ongoing interaction.
That interaction was comprised of four activities: the apostles' teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayer. As this passage continues, everyone felt a sense of awe — something very special was happening, and it was flowing out of those four things. Wonders and signs were also taking place through the apostles, but there was this overarching sense that God was there, that God was doing something, and that is an awesome thought.
All those who believed were together and had all things in common. They began selling their property and possessions and sharing them with anyone who had need. Day by day, continually, with one mind, they were in the temple and breaking bread from house to house, taking their meals together, with a spirit of gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God.
The Church Living Before a Watching World
What is happening here is this internal — this communal — activity of the church being the church. Day by day, corporate gatherings and small gatherings alike are marked by the apostles' teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayer, and much more than that. The result is a people praising God while others are watching them.
And what does that tell you? It tells you they were in contact with the community. They were living this life right where they had been placed. They did not cloister themselves away — the people around them saw them, and those people were finding favor with them. People looked at them and said, in effect, "This makes no sense. No one acts this way. Why?" The answer is that they were indwelt by the Holy Spirit. They were not living naturally — they were living supernaturally. So there was this powerful witness and evangelism taking place, not as a program but as a way of life.
The result was that the church was growing. Verse 47 tells us the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved. Notice that word "daily" — you see it throughout this passage. There is a continuing, a day-by-day rhythm that signals this is normative. This is the normal Christian life. This is not the exception — this is how those who say Jesus is Lord are supposed to live.
And I do not mean to be cynical or sarcastic, but the church was growing not because they had some massive church-growth strategic plan. It was because they were simply being the church. And there is something deeply compelling about that.
The Four Building Blocks of a Church
By Acts chapter 4, verse 4, the group of three thousand has now grown to five thousand. Tucked in the middle of all this growth are four activities we see in verse 42 that become the model for a church — these are the ingredients we see in a church. Every church is going to find its own personality, and one element may overshadow the others. You may find a church that is really a community and fellowship church, where all the others are present but that is simply their personality, or perhaps it is a teaching church, or a praying church. But all four components are in place.
Listed in verse 42, there is the apostles' teaching — that is the Word of God, learning. There is the breaking of bread — that is communion, that is the gospel. There is fellowship, which has an inward context but also an outward manifestation. And there is prayer. These four elements form the model.
If you were one of the people at Valley Bible Church on November 3rd, 1991, which was our very first service, this is the passage we studied that night. It is not surprising at all, when you step back and think about talking about a church's DNA, that those of us in California and the team here would conclude that before we talk about ourselves, we need to talk about the model God has given us. It would be a mistake to come to you and say, "Here is our DNA," and have you think, "That is really clever — how did they come up with that?" We did not come up with it. It flows out of Scripture.
These four things are the components, the building blocks. There is great variety in how they will take place and how they will manifest themselves. Personalities can emphasize one over another, and the body itself may at different times emphasize different components. But these four must be present.
A Word to Those Who Are Church Hopping
If you are here today and you are church hopping, I meet people in that situation all the time. The faster you can get out of that mode, the better off you are, for a couple of reasons. First, you need to be in a body. Second, as long as you are hopping, what you end up doing is filling out comment cards in your mind and becoming very critical of everywhere you go — not just here, but everywhere. Getting out of that posture and into community with a settled heart is the goal.
How would you know if you were in the right church? You would start to see these things. Number one is teaching — but teaching what? The apostles' teaching. This perhaps does not need to be said, but in 2008, the apostles are no longer here. Peter is dead, Paul is dead, they are all gone. But they left us this work. We are not to study merely what the person at the front feels or thinks. We study the New Testament, the Old Testament, this Bible, so that we have the Word of God. God speaks to us through the apostles' teaching even today, through the teaching of the saints.
A Transformed Heart and an Informed Mind
We study the Word so we can know the God who wrote it, so we can understand how we are to live. The model here in Acts 2:42 is a model of a transformed heart and an informed mind. These are hearts that have been transformed, souls that have been added into the kingdom, and now they are growing — growing in knowledge, growing in learning.
There is some danger in that, which I want to address in a moment. But we are to be learning — learning the Word of God. Peter writes this: "Like newborn babes, long for the pure milk of the word, that you may grow in respect to salvation." Wait — I thought I was already saved. I am saved, but I am still being saved. I am still being sanctified, still understanding salvation, still learning all that it means. I am understanding its past — my forgiveness. Its future — heaven. Its present — how I am to live today. And how do I know that? Through the milk of the word.
And that is not just a start-up position for new believers. Paul writes to Timothy at the end of Paul's life, giving this young pastor advice in 2 Timothy. In chapter 3, he describes the last days — people will be lovers of self, and all that entails. What do you do in a world like the one we live in? Here is what Paul writes in 2 Timothy 4:1-2: "I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction." I love that last phrase. It is not just grinding people down — it is patience, it is instruction, it is grace and mercy.
Paul goes right on to say that there will come a time when people will want their ears tickled, when they will gather around teachers who simply tell them what they want to hear. What do you do in the midst of that? When you study that passage in 2 Timothy, Paul is preparing Timothy to do ministry in the local church. And the essence of that ministry, at its core, is the Word.
It is remarkable when you look at this early church. It is a church of joy, worship, evangelism, and sharing. It is growing, vibrant, and exciting. But when Luke begins to list the defining activities, he starts with this idea of teaching. They continue to learn, and they grow. It is a transformed heart and an informed mind that leads a person to live a supernatural life. That is what He is calling us to be, and it is centered on the Word.
Now, I wrote down six things that are dangerous about learning and knowledge.
The Dangers of Knowledge
Is learning good? Absolutely. Are we committed to it? Sure. But there are at least six dangers associated with this kind of learning.
Number one: knowledge is dangerous if it remains theoretical. If this is just an academic exercise — just gathering information and learning things with no transforming effect on my life — it's just theory. That's why we sometimes use the illustration of a science class, where you have a textbook and you have a laboratory where you exercise what you've studied. If I'm just studying and studying and it's purely theoretical, I can talk about the sovereignty of God, but if I haven't applied it anywhere, then it's not good, even though I'm learning.
Here's the second danger. If I'm learning and preaching and teaching, but I'm not balancing my knowledge with love and grace, it's very easy to become authoritative — almost like the Pharisees in a way. That's why I'm drawn to what Paul says to Timothy: rebuke, reproof — but how? With patience and instruction. We'll talk about that in the next couple of weeks at East Valley Bible Church.
This connects to something I want to address when we return to the doctrines of grace this fall. Every even-numbered year I teach salvation, and I'll be doing that again — though I won't go back to my old notes. I want to come at it with a fresh approach, and upon examination I think this would be our conclusion: East Valley Bible Church has really held up grace from lostness to conversion. We are strong in teaching salvation by grace. We are not as strong in living by grace. So we need to work on that, and knowledge without that balance can produce exactly that problem.
Here's the third danger. If knowledge becomes the end in and of itself — just to know. Gratefully it hasn't happened to me in a long time, but I used to go to people's houses and someone would say, "Let's play a game," and I'm thinking, great, maybe Twister or something. But it's always a Bible trivia game. I hate those things. I don't know any of the answers. I look like a total doofus. But there are certain guys who love it. The guy that brings the game — you've got to watch out for that guy. He's probably like me with Trivial Pursuit: I just study the cards. I don't really know anything; I just know the cards. And all of a sudden it's, "Look how much I know." There's nothing wrong with that in itself, but if knowing becomes the end in and of itself, Chuck Swindoll calls it biblioidolatry — holding up the idea of knowledge until it becomes the thing you begin to worship.
Here's the fourth danger. Knowledge can become the measure of maturity. "Oh, he knows so much." If I ask someone, "How are you doing spiritually?" and they answer, "I just read..." — I didn't ask what you read. I asked how you're doing spiritually. We need to be very careful there. I know men who know this Word cold — know it exactly that way, just cold — and you would look at them and say they're really mature. No. They're really smart, but they're not mature.
Here's the fifth danger. Knowledge can become an excuse to do nothing. "I just need to learn more. This learning is really important. It's a church where you really learn. They know a lot; I don't know much; I really can't do anything." Here's what we've said: if you know enough to believe the gospel, you know enough to share the gospel. Do you need to keep learning and growing in knowledge? Yes. But it is not an excuse to not share your faith.
And here's the sixth danger. This pursuit of knowledge can keep me away from the most important knowledge of all — the knowledge of knowing God. You know the phrase: I can know a ton about Him, but never know Him. I knew a man whose father had written four or five books on theology, and this man would say quite plainly that his father wasn't a believer. So the father knew a lot. Now — do you understand what I'm saying? I hope you're not getting mixed messages. The one message I'm giving you is this: learning is important, but there are real dangers associated with it. If you're wired to just learn and learn and learn, that's fine — but it had better be balanced with these other things.
Fellowship: Vertical and Horizontal
So they continued to devote themselves to the apostles' teaching, and to fellowship. Fellowship means partnership or sharing — to hold something in common. What's happening here is really important to see. John writes in 1 John 1:3, "what we've seen and heard we proclaim to you, so that you may have fellowship with us, as indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ."
Years ago I was doing research on fellowship, and I had this massive index of Charles Spurgeon's work. I looked up fellowship, and every reference I could find across all of his sermons dealt with vertical fellowship, not horizontal fellowship. When we think of fellowship, we almost instinctively think horizontally, but Spurgeon says, "No, I think vertically." And I think the balance is both directions. Because of this vertical fellowship — you with the Father and the Son, because of this vibrancy up here — you have the horizontal. We are in this body together. There are these "one anothers." Let me read them: be devoted to one another, love one another, be like-minded toward one another, share with one another —
The Bible's Vision of Christian Community
Accept one another, admonish one another, do not devour one another, challenge one another, do not envy one another, through love serve one another — they go on and on. This whole idea of community is taking place. The Bible does not envision a Christian life lived outside of community. The Bible assumes that we live in community with fellow believers who are in our life, and in community with a lost and dying world.
This is not just getting together and breaking bread, though that is going on. Look at verse 44: "All those who believed were together and had all things in common, and they were selling their property and possessions and sharing them with all, as anyone might have need." I really tried to find a way to explain that away, but I cannot. I find that to be a very personally painful verse.
I can tell you what it is not. It is not calling for communal living — it is clear they were still retaining some private ownership. It is not communism or socialism driven by compulsion, extracting what people have or taking from the rich to balance things out. There is a lot of that going on even in our culture, a lot of class warfare — the idea that if somebody has something, they are by very definition demanded to share with others. That is not what this says.
What this says is that within this body of believers, without human compulsion but under the compulsion of the Holy Spirit, a transformation was taking place. If you had a need, others would meet it, even if it required liquidating an asset to do so. I find that very hard to live with.
Part of what Susan and I do every year on vacation is talk about retirement — how to do it, how to secure ourselves, how to make sure we are safe. At the same time, you are dealing with that verse. I do not have it figured out. I can tell you what it means, and I just told you what it means. As it starts to flesh itself out in our lives, I find it really difficult. But that is what was going on in that church — they were seeing needs and meeting them.
Worship, Communion, and Prayer
There is worship taking place as well. Literally in the Greek, there is the breaking of bread and the prayer. There is this communion, this moment. We celebrate it at East Valley Bible Church every time we gather together, and the reason is that what we have in common is that we come to the foot of the cross and understand that salvation is in Christ and in Christ alone. There is that moment where we examine our hearts and minds, ask God to purge our lives of sin, and we come back to Him again and again and again.
And they are praying. John MacArthur writes about the Lord Jesus Christ's promise in John 14:13-14: "Whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it." MacArthur writes that the early church took that promise as a source of God's provision for all their needs, and they relentlessly pursued divine help. They prayed.
In the structure of the Greek — and I do not know Greek, so I rely on those who do — the use of the definite article with "the breaking of bread and the prayer" is a reference to the formalized corporate prayer that was taking place. There were also prayers taking place house by house, and obviously individual prayer as well. In verse 46, they are continually meeting in the temple and meeting in the house.
They were likely meeting in the Court of the Gentiles, the largest gathering place in Jerusalem. During a time of pilgrimage, 200,000 people could be placed there. So there is this large gathering where they are receiving the apostles' teaching, breaking bread, fellowshiping, and praying — but that takes one form in the large gathering and another form when they scatter into homes. Church gathered, church scattered, day by day living this out. Our answer to that, when we look at it, is something like an area of ministry. That is the norm.
Gladness, Sincerity, and Favor with the World
They are doing all of this, look at verse 46, with gladness of heart — there is joy — and sincerity of heart. That word translated "sincerity" appears only this one time in the New Testament. It literally means simplicity, and it derives from a root word referring to freedom from rocks. It describes a smooth, sincere, simple gladness of joy that comes from a transformed heart, an informed mind, and changed behavior. And they are praising God. That is the byproduct of all of this.
Something else is happening as well — they are finding favor with people. They are still going to the temple, and apparently people are watching them. Should unbelievers be present in your corporate gathering? They were. Unbelievers were all around them, and when those people looked at this community, they said there is something compelling about the way they live. The way they act is not natural.
This is one of my favorite passages on this point. A second-century historian is looking at the church, commenting on how they do not worship the false gods, how there is a different morality present. But listen to what he says about the practical —
The World Observing the Early Church
When one of their poor passes away from the world, each provides for his burial according to his ability. If they hear of any number who are imprisoned or oppressed for the name of the Messiah, they provide for his needs. If possible, they redeem him — they buy him out of that imprisonment and set him free. If they find poverty in their midst and they don't have spare food, they fast two or three days in order that the needy might be supplied with the necessities.
They observe scrupulously the commands of the Messiah, living honestly and soberly as their Lord ordered them. Each morning and every hour they praise and thank God for His goodness to them, for their food and their drink. If a righteous person in their numbers passes away from the world, they rejoice and thank God and escort the body as it were setting out from one place to another.
When a child is born among them, they praise God. If the child dies in infancy, they thank God all the more, as for one who has passed through the world without sin. If one of them dies in his iniquity or in his sin, they grieve bitterly in sorrow over the one who is about to meet his doom.
The Early Church's Growth Strategy
Here is the church — just being the church. They are studying and learning and fellowshipping and sharing and praying, celebrating the cross, and the world looks at it. That was the growth strategy of the early church. How were they going to reach the world? How were they going to take this church, this movement, and infect the world with it?
Their growth strategy was simply to be who God called them to be, and to do it wherever they were. They were going to do it at work, at the gym, at the golf course, at the football game, at the market — everywhere they were. They were going to live supernaturally, and people were going to see it. Even those who would never respond were going to see it, be attracted to it, and at least acknowledge that it was something different. That is how they were going to reach the world.
Even then, Luke tells us that this church was not converting anyone on its own. You see that in verse forty-seven: "and the Lord was adding to their number day by day." They had about thirty-one hundred people, and in a short period of time it grew to about five thousand — but this was all because they were obedient and the Lord was blessing.
God Causes the Growth
Does that mean that if I do those four things God will multiply the church in exactly that way? Not necessarily, but it does mean I am to do those four things. I am to be about studying, learning, understanding the dangers to the faith, celebrating communion, fellowshipping, and praying. Then the Lord will do it.
Early on, the church was already getting confused on that very idea. As Paul writes to the church at Corinth, they were already saying, "I follow Apollos," or "I am a Paul guy," and of course there were always those who said, "I am a Jesus guy." Paul addresses this directly in 1 Corinthians 3:6: "I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth."
Nine Characteristics of the Early Church
When you look at the church, these are the elements you ought to see present in it. William Barclay, in summarizing this section, quickly identifies nine characteristics. He says this church was a learning church, a fellowshipping church, and a praying church. It was a reverent church, and it was a church where things were happening — things that were inexplicable, because it was not a move of man or of the Jerusalem church itself, but a move of God in and around and through these people. It was transformed hearts and informed minds living lives that were affecting the people around them.
Barclay continues: it was a sharing church and a worshiping church. He also calls it a happy church — it was a fun place to be, and these were happy people. And lastly, he says it was a church where other people could not help but like them. People were drawn to them. Even if you did not buy what they believed, you thought they were good people. Even if you wanted nothing to do with them, you could not deny that there was something truly special about them.
Applying This to East Valley Bible Church
Now I want to talk about East Valley Bible Church — about our assessment, and indirectly your assessment, of who we are. We will miss some things and highlight others. But against this backdrop, it would be wrong to analyze East Valley Bible Church — its strengths, weaknesses, phrases, and DNA — without first understanding God's DNA for the church.
There is a lot of freedom within this framework. The apostles' teaching — how much, in what style, standing or sitting — that can vary. Communion — what does that look like? Fellowship — what does that mean in the context of prayer? But as you evaluate your life, those components need to be present. That is true of us corporately, and it is true of you individually, so it is always important to keep that before us.
As we look at targets and goals — the mission, the objective, these big long-term overarching things — that is what the church ought to be. And that answers a whole range of questions, including this one: can I be a Christian and not be in the church? Looking at this early church, that is clearly not a very good option. They were right in it — in large corporate gatherings and in everything that went with it.
Our DNA as a Church
There are 3,000 of them and more gathering at a time in house churches, area ministries, small groups, and home groups, living life together. That is what God envisioned for us — slugging this out and living it together for His honor and His glory.
That is what I want to address next week — at least one week, maybe two — on our DNA as a church. I want to talk about it because it is really important. You may even be here wondering why we do what we do, and this will help you understand that.
After that, we will talk about grace. I am planning to address being saved by grace and then living by grace — that combination — and expand the ideas of the doctrines of grace this fall as we look at it together. It should be a great time.
Announcements and Closing Prayer
Let me remind you, ladies, that tomorrow morning here on campus the ministry formerly known as Our Strengths Continuum will be meeting. If you have not registered, get here a little early and we will work through the logistics together. Be patient with us, as we are still working things out — as is always the case the first time we gather. We look forward to seeing you tomorrow morning.
Father, thank You for Your Word. Let it transform our lives. I pray we would be a church known by the teaching of the Word, by communion, by fellowship, and by prayer. We pray that in Jesus' name, amen.