Well, I must confess to you that there are times when I'm overwhelmed with a sense of
nostalgia.
Do you ever feel that way?
There are times I'd like to hear the white sisters sing again, or watch the Palermo
brothers and laugh at them.
There are times when I see a 55 Chevy go down the street and I take a second look.
And I've often thought about those days when you drive into what was called a drive-in
and you actually had your meal brought out to you and put on your glass in the door.
Do you remember that?
With a hang right there?
Nostalgia.
There are some advantages to living in the past, among them it's cheaper.
But we can't do that very long because change presses on us from every direction.
In fact, change comes so rapidly that we hardly have time to live the present moment.
Which leads me to say that if you're a person who by nature resists change, you're probably
living a frustrated life.
Here are some of the change agents that are at work in our culture today and which have
shaped the 90s to be what they are.
The breakdown of the traditional family.
Think of the kind of change that that has brought to us, along with the attempts to
redefine what family means.
The graying of America.
The Rand Corporation predicts that by the year 2000, the life expectancy of Americans
will be nightly.
Think of that.
There are more Americans today, over 65, than there are teenagers.
And yet we have youth pastors.
Think of the change forced upon us by secularized, value-less society.
For the only absolute is relativism.
And the highest value is placed on self-interest.
That has driven enormous change in our culture.
The changing role of women, with unconventional and unnatural expectations being placed upon
them.
Coupled with a bewilderment about what men are and are to be about in our culture.
Then think of violence.
Crime which is perpetrated by youths and others who have no conscience and no concept
of right and wrong.
In the last 40 years, excuse me, 50 years, crime among those who are 18 and below violent
crime has increased fourfold.
Think of the change that that has brought to our world.
I don't have time to talk about drug abuse and cultural and spiritual illiteracy.
People are so ignorant of where we come from as Americans, what our history is.
Not to mention our religious, theistic roots.
The influence of technology and the growth of computers and the Internet.
Privatization.
The ability that we have to cocoon and isolate ourselves from others.
You see, all of these are dynamic change agents that are fundamentally changing the world
in which we live.
And this has precipitated a host of crises, one of which is the crisis of community.
The word community comes from a Latin root that means common.
A community has something in common.
But today in our culture we are so confused by the change that instead of talking about
our commonness, we boast in our diversity.
The notion of community is sinking along with the Titanic.
And the crisis that has affected our culture has affected Christians also.
I believe that the crisis of community is one of the greatest crises that our nation
faces.
And the effect of it has brought isolation, fear and despair to our fellow citizens and
to many of us.
Some church strategists and Christian sociologists are saying that the church is in a prime position
to create new expressions of community in the early 21st century.
In other words, we are in the midst of a cultural crisis, but that cultural crisis is presenting
to us an unprecedented opportunity to create new communities.
And so they say growing churches, that is churches with a vision to fulfill the great
commission in their community and who are therefore growing numerically and maturing
in godliness will provide innovative ways, they say, to provide this sense of community
that people are longing for.
Folks are looking for a way to connect, to escape the loneliness and the isolation of
a collapsing culture.
There are certain questions that are being asked in the midst of this crisis, and these
come out of the loss of community.
Do I have significance?
Do I have worth?
Secondly, how will I survive?
In the midst of all of the pressures and the stress created by this change in my sense
of isolation, how will I survive?
Third, who am I?
And how do I fit in?
You see, community used to provide us a sense of where we fit in the world.
But the loss of community doesn't give us that definition anymore.
And finally, the question, what is truth?
By that I mean what is transcendently true?
What is not true just today but is true tomorrow and it was true yesterday?
What is the truth that holds together community?
And I would propose to you that that is perhaps the central question of the election this
fall.
We have two competing answers to this question about what is truth.
As I've been thinking about this, I've decided that I want to devote a few weeks this fall
thinking about community and particularly the community that God has established.
I'm thinking of the church of Jesus Christ.
I want us to take a look at the heart and the soul of God's new community.
And our key text is going to be in the book of Acts, the second chapter, and I invite
you to open your Bible with me to that text where I'm going to begin reading in verse
41.
So then those who had received His Word were baptized and there were added that day about
3,000 souls and they were continually devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching and
to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer, and everyone kept feeling a sense
of awe and many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles.
All those who had believed were together and had all things in common and they began selling
their property and possessions and were sharing them with all as anyone might have need.
And day by day, continuing with one mind in the temple, breaking bread from house to house,
they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising
God and having favor with all the people, and the Lord was adding to their number, day
by day, those who were being saved.
What we have here is God's new community.
It is rudimentary, it is only primal here, it is not developed, but we find nonetheless
in this first paragraph regarding God's community certain basic ideas that make the church what
it is today.
And so we're going to consider this morning the beginning of this new community of God.
What I want you to see is that as one who has been born from above, if you're a Christian,
you have been given status in God's new community, and whether you realize it or not, or to whatever
degree you realize it, that status has given you a radical change in your life.
There are several truths about the community that you are a part of if you're a Christian,
and the first truth that I see in the broader context here is that this new community we're
talking about is bought by Christ's death.
In chapter 1 and verse 3, Luke begins to write this second of his historical books.
He says, the first account I composed, theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and to teach.
Until the day when he was taken up after he had by the Holy Spirit given orders to the
apostles whom he had chosen to these, he also presented himself alive after his suffering.
Luke has written about the suffering of the Lord Jesus in the Gospel bearing his name.
He has spoken about his death, his burial, his resurrection from the grave, and now he
recaps that just in a moment about his suffering and his resurrection.
And in doing so, he reminds us that this new community of God is a community for which
a price was paid.
It is the apostle Paul who states it outright.
When in Acts 20 and verse 28 he says that the church has been bought by his blood.
When Christ died, he died for the world, but he also died so that he could purchase a people
for God's own possession, a particular people.
By the right of purchase, those who are in the community are owned by God.
We are not our own, we are His by right of purchase.
Revelation 5.9 recounts that song that we will sing in heaven, saying, Were the art thou
to take the book and to break its seals, for thou wast slain, and its purchase for God,
with thy blood, men from every tribe, tongue, people and nation.
This new community of God is a community that is bought by Christ's death.
Peter joins and says in 1 Peter 1, You were redeemed, that is, you were purchased, with
precious blood, the blood of Christ.
And so in the next chapter he goes on to say, You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood,
a holy nation, a people for God's own possession.
You were once not a people, but now You are the people of God.
Another way of saying that is, now You are the community of God.
Once You were cut off from God.
You were estranged from God because of Your sin.
You were indeed a slave of sin.
You belonged to it.
God intervened and paid for you the price of Your slavery.
So that now You belong to Him, and You are His community.
He has paid the price and has bought You for Himself.
That's one truth we see regarding the new community and its beginning.
It could not and it did not exist before the death of Christ, because the death of Christ
bought it.
And so in the new community a person has worth, you see.
Jesus Christ died for You.
You have worth in His sight.
There's a second truth regarding the new community and that is, it is based on Christ's ascension.
Acts chapter 1 of course gives several verses to this time when Jesus met with His disciples
in the Mount of Olives and was taken up from heaven out of their sight and the angels announced,
He's coming again, now go to work.
The ascension of Christ.
The church is based upon the ascension of Christ.
You see the distinction of the church in part is that Christ indwells each of His disciples.
That would have been impossible had He remained on the earth.
He could have stayed on the earth and lived through every generation that has lived since
His time.
He could still be alive today on the earth.
The problem is He could not dwell in each of His disciples.
He had to go back to heaven for that to happen.
And when He returned to heaven and sat down at the right hand of the Father in the heaven
lays, He was then able to come and to live in each of us who receives Him.
And there's a distinctive of the church that did not happen before.
Christ indwells each of us, and so Paul says in Galatians 2.20, I have been crucified with
Christ, but it is no longer I who live.
Christ, what?
Lives in me.
Christ lives in me.
In Colossians 1.27, he says the mystery is this, that Christ is in you.
Not merely in heaven, but He's in you, bringing the hope of glory.
And so what we really have in the book of Acts is what Jesus continued to do.
We read earlier in the first verses about how Jesus began to do and to teach.
That's what he wrote about in the Gospel of Luke.
Now he's writing about what Jesus is continuing to do in you and through you, His people.
You see, the church was bought by Christ's death.
It is based upon the fact that He ascended to heaven, and because of that He now dwells
in each of us.
And so in this new community, a person not only has worth, but because Christ is in Him,
He has the resource for living.
Third, the church, this new community of God, is born in Christ's promise.
Now He calls the promise, the promise of the Father in verse 4, but it was also the promise
of the Son, that they would send the Holy Spirit.
Jesus said in John 14, 18, I will not leave you orphanless, I will come to you.
You see, this new community is born in Christ's promise that the Holy Spirit would come.
In John 15, verse 26, when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that
is the Spirit of truth, the promise of Christ, the Holy Spirit.
And that's what Pentecost is about in Acts chapter 2.
We began reading in verse 41 when it said, So then those who had received His Word were
baptized, that is Peter's Word, the sermon, the message he preached at the temple on the
day of Pentecost.
They heard His Word, they received His Word and were baptized, and became a part of the
new community.
The Holy Spirit came on Pentecost with the sound of rushing wind and with fire upon
the heads of the apostles as they proclaimed in tongues they had never studied, the message
of Christ.
Pentecost was a feast of the Jews, as you know, that came fifty days after the Passover.
There was God's design and plan that on that day there would be given birth to the new
community, a new entity, a new group would exist that had never existed before.
It existed in God's decree from all of eternity.
But in time and space, in human history, it had never existed before until this day, this
very day that we read about in our text for this morning.
And when the Holy Spirit came, He baptized believers into the body of Christ, that is
the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
Thus some subsequent work that happens after we come to Christ, the baptism of the Holy
Spirit is when He places us into the body of Christ.
But it is that baptism of the Spirit that gives birth to the new community.
If you have been baptized by the Holy Spirit, you are a member of the new community.
If you're not a member of the new community.
So you see in this new community of God, a person has identity.
Now there is a fourth truth that I see arising out of the broader context here, as we see
the beginning of this new community, and that is the new community that is bought by Christ's
death, which is based on Christ's ascension, and then is born with Christ's promise, is
fourthly built on Christ's gospel.
Wherever the church is constructed indeed, it is built upon this foundation of Christ,
crucified, buried, and raised for our sin.
That is the message of Pentecost, as Peter proclaimed to those gathered Jews the identity
of Jesus.
He said to them, He is Lord, He is Christ, and He reminded them that they had nailed
Him to a cross by the hands of Godless men and had put Him to death.
And it says when they heard that, they were stricken in their hearts.
It is the message of Jesus Christ that is the foundation of the church.
This new community is built upon that foundation and there is no other message that can successfully
supplant this one.
If a church forsakes this message, it is no longer a legitimate community of God.
The community of God is based solely upon this message of Christ, crucified, and risen
for the sake of our salvation.
What I'm saying to you is that in the new community, a person finds transcendent truth.
I believe that from its very beginning, God provided for the citizens of this new community
to experience what our culture desperately seeks because of its current crisis.
We have a crisis of community in our culture.
And I said before that there are questions that are brought to the fore because of that
crisis, the question of worth, am I significant?
And you see, God provided in His community, yes, those who are citizens of this community
have eternal worth.
Christ, the Son, died for them.
And there is the question of resource, how will I live?
How will I face the pressures of this world without some sense of community?
You see, in the community of God, we have Christ in dwelling us, and we can do all
things through Christ who strengthens us.
We can be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might we have resource.
Out of our cultural crisis, there is the question of significance, who am I?
And where do I fit?
But you see, in God's new community, He has provided for that.
For we are baptized by the Holy Spirit.
We fit into the body, and we are gifted to play certain roles in that body.
And so we have identity.
We know who we are in Christ, and we can come to understand what our role is and serve out
that role.
And so we have identity.
And then there is the question in our world of truth.
What is truth?
What is the underlying truth that holds us together as a people?
And you see, in the new community, we have that truth.
It is the truth of Christ crucified and risen from the dead.
I hope that what we have learned this morning about the beginning of the new community will
humble us and make us realize anew the grace of God in calling peoples like you and me,
and calling the likes of us who in this world may be zeros, nothings, as He says to the Corinthians,
whom He has called to be a part of the new community, the eternal community of God.
And I hope this truth will also impress upon our hearts the necessity of being a loyal
member of the community of God.
I recognize that we live in a day when we are told there is no more loyalty, and we
see many, many illustrations of that, even in the church, sadly.
You see, God has called us to loyalty.
And that's what this table is about, that we come to this morning, the Lord's table.
It is a table that reminds us that we are a community gathered around Christ, His death,
His ascension, His promise.
We are gathered around this table reminding us of His gospel.
And we are called to come to this table as loyal citizens of the new community, and to
give ourselves afresh to Him every time we partake of these elements, and to examine
our hearts, and to find that disloyalty that has been there, and to acknowledge it and
confess it, and to recognize in coming to this table that God has done a great work
of grace, and that He has selected you, and you, and you, and you, out of this crisis
in our world, to know what community is all about, and to share in communion with Him.
Let's pray together.
And as we share in this communion, it is important that before we say we are loyal because we
partake of these elements, we make sure we are.
That we are loyal to the community that Christ has purchased.
That we are loyal to the community that is called His body.
That our allegiance is to Him.
And so we examine ourselves and confess our sins.
And having examined and confessed our sins, we may claim His cleansing, and we may come
as loyal citizens and partake humbly, thanking Him for His grace.
For Jesus, as we partake of this bread this morning, it reminds us of your suffering by
which you bought the church, and that we are not our own.
We are yours.
We eat it with thanks.