Sermon Tone Analysis

Acts 2:41-47

Marks of the New Testament Church

 

Those who accepted his message were baptised, and about three thousand were added to their number that day./

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.

Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles.

All the believers were together and had everything in common.

Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need.

Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts.

They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favour of all the people.

And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved/.

| C |

hristians today have the greatest advantages for spreading the Good News of Jesus Christ ever afforded any generation.

In North America we Christians have greater wealth, greater access to mass media, greater opportunity, than has any generation before us.

Yet it is fair to say that compared to the churches of centuries past we witness one of the greatest failures to evangelise our world.

The church is becoming more like the world and the world is becoming less godly.

Quite often Christians ask me, “How would I recognise the church where God would have me serve?”

Perhaps they are leaving the fellowship where they have worshipped heretofore or they are new to town and seeking to honour the Lord through affiliating with a Bible-believing church.

The answer to that question is provided in the Word of God.

Join me in an exploration of the marks of the church which are provided in the account of the First Baptist Church of Jerusalem as given in the Book of Acts.

I am able to simplify the message considerably by the observation that even a casual reading of this account alerts the reader to the fact that the New Testament church is marked in the broadest sense by three elements.

The New Testament church is marked by *commitment*, by *devotion* and by *transformation*.

We shall look at each of these elements in turn, noting the particular aspects to which that church is committed or devoted or in what ways that church is transformed.

If our church is so marked we will be following in the lineage of those earliest saints, a worthy goal for which any church may aspire.

The New Testament church is marked by commitment.

Carefully note first that The New Testament Church is Committed to the Christ.

The members of that first church were those who accepted Peter’s message.

That message separated any who might be merely religious from those who would be saved.

That great message was a clarion call to faith in the Risen Son of God.

Peter cited the prophecy of Joel as having been fulfilled on that glorious day when the Spirit of God was poured out on the nascent church.

He pointed to Jesus as the Messiah appointed by the Living God in fulfilment of prophecies delivered throughout the Old Testament.

He presented this Jesus as crucified because of the sin of all peoples and risen to give forgiveness of sin just as prophesied by the prophets of the Old Covenant.

/This Jesus/, Peter trumpeted, is both Lord and Christ.

This Jesus is both ruler of all and the promised Messiah.

Thus all who heard Peter’s message were called to faith in this Jesus of Nazareth.

They were called to nothing less than commitment to Jesus as the fulfilment of prophecy and as commitment to Him as Master of all.

The precise words to the people that day were: Repent and be baptised, every one of you, in the Name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.

One of the awful hurts to be imposed on the church was promotion of the thought that people could be members of Christ’s Body through performance of a rite or through observance of a ritual.

Though one may have had a ritual performed by his or her parents many years ago, such individuals cannot be members of the New Testament church.

The New Testament church calls people to commitment to Christ as Lord.

It is not commitment to a ritual which brings us into a right relationship to God, but it is submission to His Son.

The New Testament Church is Committed to Obedience.

Those who accepted Peter’s message—that is, those who repented—were called to obedience.

Those believing were baptised.

The first command of Christ to believers is to confess Him and the means He has given for that initial confession is baptism.

Here is where the hurt is perpetuated on multitudes to this day.

Having had a rite performed by their parents when mere infants they assume they have been obedient to the command of Christ.

Yet there is no sense of personal obedience born out of love, but rather a mere clinging to the promise that their parents performed a ritual during their infancy.

In Valemount I received a call from a young woman asking if I would baptise her children.

She had been married in the church building some years before.

Now God had blessed her with two beautiful daughters and she was concerned that they were not baptised.

I asked to meet with her that I might explain the biblical model for baptism.

*Those who accepted Peter’s message were baptised*.

There is no word in the whole of the New Testament to indicate that infants were baptised.

This was the awful hurt imposed on the church of Christ early in the history of this dispensation.

Baptism does not make one a believer, but because one is a believer that one will want to be obedient to Christ.

Baptism is, as Peter states so well in his first letter, the pledge of a good conscience toward God [*1 Peter 3:21*].

Listen again to the words of Christ recorded in *Matthew 28:19,20*.

Make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.

Discipleship is not complete until the one believing the message is baptised and taught in the truths of Christ the Lord.

Obedience for the twice-born child of God begins with identification with Christ in baptism and proceeds through receipt of instruction in the things of God.

The New Testament Church is Committed to Christ’s Community.

Those who accepted his message were baptised, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.

In the pages of the New Testament there is not to be found even one unchurched Christian.

Those who were saved through faith in Christ the Lord were baptised and also added to the church, just as in this instance those who accepted Peter’s message were baptised and about three thousand were added to the church roll that day.

I am frankly astonished at the attitude of modern westerners.

Though professing to be saved too many can treat the church with despite.

They are hesitant to unite openly with the people of God.

They make excuses for their refusal to join.

Do such people not realise that each excuse is a slander against the Son of God who purchased the church with His own blood?

Do they not realise that when they resist the instruction of the Word which calls each believer to open union with the Body of Christ that they are showing that they despise the sacrifice of the very One they call Lord?

We are called not only to salvation but also to service through the church of the Living God.

As a Christian you received a call both to profess Christ and to honour Him through service in His Name.

Have you never read the Word of God which states, /it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.

For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do/ [e[rgoi" ajgaqoi`" – *Ephesians 2:8-10*].

Paul, writing near the end of his service to the Lord instructed Titus that believers are /to be ready to do *good works*/ [literal translation of e[rgon ajgaqo;n – *Titus 3:1*].

Again, in that same letter the Apostle insisted to Titus that Our people must learn to devote themselves to doing */good works/* [literal translation of kalw`n e[rgwn – *Titus 3:14*].

An old adage says we are *saved to serve*.

The New Testament Church is Committed to One Another.

All the believers were together and had everything in common.

Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need.

Of the early saints it was said, *Behold how they love one another*.

Indeed the saints in that early day had no one to look to except for one another.

The mere fact that we can afford to squabble over issues of no great moment reveals that we know little of the instructions of the Word to love one another deeply from the heart [*1 Peter 1:22*].

Were we committed to one another in love the vast majority of internal dissension would evaporate overnight.

In my childhood my brother and I fought like … well, like brothers.

We were extremely competitive with one another—and we still are, I suppose.

Though to the uninitiated we no doubt appeared intent on exterminating one another, it would not have been wise to try to harm either of us.

Though permitting ourselves the luxury of internecine combat we would not tolerate an outsider trying to come between us.

We were like a pair of scissors.

Though the blades seemed to be moving apart at times it was dangerous to come between us because the blades would move quickly to put an end to any such interference.

We were committed to one another and to our family name.

I should hope that in this church we are committed to the Name of our Sovereign Head and that we are thus committed to one another.

The New Testament Church is Marked by Devotion.

The *forty-second verse* of our text speaks of the devotion of that New Testament Church.

That verse notes four specific areas in which the devotion of the congregation was exhibited.

These marks should yet characterise the church which is pleasing to God and in which His Spirit lives.

The New Testament Church is Devoted to the Apostles’ Teaching.

/They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching/.

That which the Apostles taught received the most careful attention of the membership of that New Testament congregation.

What, exactly, did the Apostles teach?