Do You Recognize This Church?

Rev. Debra Cato
Peace Presbyterian Church
Acts 2:41-47 Pentecost Sunday
May 24, 2015

Do You Recognize This Church?

All those who welcomed Peter’s message that day were baptized. The Greek translates this as “gladly received.” All those who gladly received Peter's message that day were baptized. Three thousand. Three thousand persons believed and were baptized. Three thousand persons from the crowd that had gathered. Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, ¹⁰ Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome ¹¹ (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arab. Three thousand people who did not speak the same language heard and believed. Three thousand people from different cultures; different environments; different backgrounds. Three thousand new believers joined the 120, devoting themselves to the apostles teaching; devoting themselves to spending time with one another; breaking bread together; praying.

The Holy Spirit breathed new life into these people and immediately three thousand new believers embodied the gospel. The Holy Spirit filled them with a longing to learn more about this new way of being; this hope in Jesus the Christ. Filled with the Holy Spirit these new believers yearned to be in community with other believers. Filled with new life, three thousand new believers earnestly prayed together. They praised and worshiped God in all that they did. We are told that they were filled with great joy; that they had generous hearts – hearts of humility and simplicity. They stood out from the world around them and their joy and fervor for the Lord was attractive. So attractive that day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

The number of believers grew exponentially. It did not matter that they were from different nations. It did not matter that they spoke different languages; had different customs; different traditions. The Holy Spirit made them one. The Holy Spirit turned this diverse group of individuals into the Body of Christ.

They wanted to go beyond what they learned from Peter’s sermon; from the words that first convicted them. So the new believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teachings. They wanted to know the implications and applications of the good news beyond the new church. They persevered in learning more about Jesus and they attached themselves to those called to teach. They spent time together so that they could learn from one another. They wanted to share the good news they were coming to understand with others. They wanted to know what this sudden transformation meant for their everyday lives back home. They wanted to understand what it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

What does being filled with the Holy Spirit mean for you;
for your everyday life? For the life of this church?

The Holy Spirit produced Koinonia in and through the new believers. Koinonia is a Greek word that primarily means fellowship. It means sharing in common with one another. Koinonia means communion. Here in Acts 2 is the first of 20 occurrences of the word Koinonia in the New Testament. Twenty times Koinonia is taught in the Epistles; the Letters of the New Testament. Koinonia and the Community of Believers goes hand in hand.

Koinonia means more than having coffee together after church and catching up with friends. It means inviting people in – those who are strangers and those who are different than us. It means putting others before ourselves. It means everyone's needs are met. It means a deep communion with others.

     What would true Koinonia look like here at Peace Presbyterian? 

             How might it change our life as a Community of Believers?

                      Who might we be excluding that we should including?

We learn that after that first day of Pentecost, ^“All the believers were together and had everything in common. When someone had a need, they sold what they had to help the person out. No one was allowed to be in need among them. We are told that every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. Together they learned and they prayed and they grew in their faith. The Believers from Jerusalem opened up their homes and welcomed the out-of-towners in. They broke bread and ate together not because they were good friends but because they were brothers and sisters in Christ.

They loved and supported one another. Everyone was included – no one was left out. They challenged behaviors that did not fit in their new life. They encouraged one another to grow and be transformed. They laughed and cried together. They appreciated their differences and worked through challenges, knowing that it was Christ that brought them together. It was Christ they had in common. They prayed together. This was a different kind of community. A community empowered by the Holy Spirit. Because of this, “outsiders” noticed the sense of true community in the believers and they were drawn to it. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

How are we doing? How are we doing in our worship; in our fellowship and care for one another? How do we do welcoming newcomers to our church and to the faith? How is the prayer life of this church? Is our church held in high regard in the larger community? Would the community even notice if we closed our doors?

“How could this be?” you might be thinking. How could these very diverse believers pool their resources so that they could care for each other? How could they spend all their time in worship, in learning, in fellowship, in prayer? How could they break bread with glad and generous hearts? How could these believers behave in ways that strengthened the church and helped it grow? How could they behave in such a way that great numbers continued to be attracted to the truth?

Luke tells us that they prayed together. They prayed for good and generous hearts. They prayed for wisdom and guidance and strength. They prayed for one another; not just surface prayers but prayers for well-being; that God would guide them and lift them up. They prayed for their community, for the work of the apostles. They remembered to whom they belonged. They remembered that it was only through the power of the Holy Spirit that their own lives had been transformed. And one result of all their prayers was that they had “the goodwill for all the people.” Goodwill even for those who had not yet embraced Christianity. The community of Christians was a bright spot in the community.

How are we doing? Do you spend time in prayer? Do you pray for the church, for people in the church? Do you pray that God would continue to stretch and grow your faith? Do you pray that you would be open to the moving of the Holy Spirit? While the church has a primary responsibility to help us in our life of faith, we as individual Christians always have a responsibility to our church to help it be a place where the things Peter outlined — the preaching of repentance, baptism, and seeking the Holy Spirit — happen. The church, with our help, should also ensure that the practices of the early converts — worship, fellowship, caring for one another, common goals in mission and ministry, an active prayer life among the membership, a thorough Christian education for newcomers and members alike are carried out.

You can't help but notice that a fundamental element of Pentecost is astonishment. Our God is a God of astonishment. Think about the disciples – the first apostles of the church. No one expected anything more from them: after Jesus' death they were a small, insignificant group from Galilee. But then, an unexpected event happened that astounded a crowd of people. They were astounded because each of them heard the disciples speaking in their own tongues, telling of the great works of God. Only minutes before, they were cowardly, but now they speak with courage and candor, with the freedom of the Holy Spirit. And when Peter opened his mouth and preached the first sermon, three thousand people believed.

How does the Spirit of God astonish you? How does it astonish us? How are we alive and astounding the community around us?

Jews from all the nations of the world were gathered in Jerusalem to celebrate the Feast of Pentecost that day; to commemorate the day that God gave the Ten Commandments to Moses on Mt. Sinai. But the God of Moses is always on the move. He is always doing something different. And so The Holy Spirit surprised them that morning.

The Holy Spirit anointed three thousand unsuspecting people. The passage from Acts 2 says, "Without warning... It filled the whole building... the Holy Spirit spread through their ranks." They didn't look for the Spirit. It came upon them without warning. As a result, their lives were forever changed. They became believers and they were baptized. But that wasn’t the end of the story. The Holy Spirit changed them; it transformed them. And so they stayed behind. These new believers from every nation stayed in Jerusalem and they devoted them-selves to the apostles teaching, to fellowship and breaking bread with one another; and to prayer.

These early believers had a deep sense of awe. They were inspired by the evidence of God’s power and presence through the many signs and wonders He was performing through the apostles. They knew that their Lord was still with them. They knew that He was powerfully at work among them.

What about you? Do you have a deep sense of awe for the presence and power of God around us? Do you believe that the Lord is still with work? Working through us? Do you believe that the Holy Spirit might be about to astound us? To surprise us? To do something new in and through us?

Friends, we have the gift of the very presence of Christ, living within us – as individual believers and as the Body of Christ. Although we may not see tongues of fire or hear violent winds or begin speaking in foreign languages during our worship service this morning, the power of the Holy Spirit has been given to us as the body of Christ. Do you believe this? Do you trust this is so?

Let’s walk in confidence and truth and live into what it means to be His Church; to be followers of Christ; filled with His Spirit. And may we trust and believe that God’s Spirit will give us the same boldness and courage that was given to the disciples and believers on that first Pentecost, over 2,000 years ago as we continue to be witnesses to the good news to the ends of the earth.

Let us pray: Holy Loving God. Thank you for the gift of your Holy Spirit. Thank you for this reminder of that first Day of Pentecost and the power and might that came upon the early church. Help us to remember that we – your Church today, have this same power, this same truth, this same presence. Transform us into all that you have called us and want us to be. In your Son’s Holy name we pray. AMEN.