The Holy Spirit Shapes New Community

Sermon on Acts 2:1-4; 42-47; 4:32-37

Title: The Holy Spirit Shapes New Community

Sermon Theme: The Holy Spirit shapes believers into a community of fellowship.

Goal: to encourage believers to be shaped by the Holy Spirit into a community of fellowship.

Need: Believers today don’t allow the Holy Spirit to shape them into people of true fellowship.

Outline:

Pentecost
Intro to the next few Sundays
Holy Spirit Moves a community
Holy Spirit Moves a Community to be better
Holy Spirit Moves a community to better fellowship.
Conclusion

Congregation,

Today we celebrate Pentecost. The reason we celebrate hasn’t changed in two thousand years. We celebrate on Pentecost because today Christ sent the Holy Spirit to live in his people.

Some people say the first Pentecost marks the beginning of Church. In some ways that’s true. Today marks shaping of a new community of people. But it is actually God shaping a new community of people from the remains of the old community of people. The Israelites walking through the wilderness were called the church in the Old Testament. God chose them to be his people. He gave the Old Testament church his law so they would know how to live to stay in God’s good graces. The Holy Spirit would be sent in a special way on a certain person to be a prophet to the people, to provide leadership and to return them to following God’s law.

At Pentecost, God reforms his church and reshapes the community. The Old Testament people had grown cold to God. They wandered away from him. We see in the times of Christ ones who were supposed to be closest to God, the Pharisees and teachers of the law were overbearing, pompous, and legalistic. On the other side, the common Jews had turned away from God and weren’t living the way God wanted them to. The Old Testament Church the community formed by following God’s law was dying.

The community turned away from true faith in God.

At Pentecost, God begins shaping a renewed community of people for himself. This time the people will all have the blessing of the Holy Spirit? God forms his people into a new community through the Holy Spirit.

Where do we stand considering this renewed community through the Holy Spirit? What sort of community do we have today? If the Holy Spirit lives in the hearts of Christians today, shouldn’t we mirror those with true faith community?

The broader church today, though, comfortably exists in a state of constantly bad community. We see this break down of community in the denominational splits from centuries and decades past. Denominations break with each other because real community hurts a lot. The hurt rips at relationships so much that it often pulls it right apart.

How about our community here at Ebenezer Christian Reformed Church? Let me ask you, do we exist as a congregation here in a perpetual state of comfortably bad community?

The answer has to be yes and no. As members of this church, many of us have experienced growth and closeness that we have never experienced anywhere else. Some have come here lonely and hurting and found a place where people care because Jesus cares.

But, how many ways in our congregation do we fall short of real community? Maybe it’s no worse than the average congregation out there, but since when does the Holy Spirit inspire a community of mediocrity. We are called to excel by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Do a short little inventory of your own heart.

Learning: What ways have you actively sought out new insight from the Holy Spirit? Are you exactly the same person you were a couple of years ago in your understanding of God, his word and his world? In what ways have you not just experienced passive spiritual growth, but actively dug deeper?

How about in the area of Loving: Are you harboring a grudge against someone? How many forgiveness sermons have you heard and you still don’t talk together? Have you allowed God to challenge your thinking about wealth and helping others through giving?

How about in Worship: Have you pigeonholed the Holy Spirit into inspiring only one type of worship? Have you encouraged others to express themselves in worship? Have you moved any further along the path of truly worshiping in spirit and truth? Where are you at?

The Holy Spirit inspired a new community that experienced radical changes in the areas of Learning, Loving and Worship. Verse 42 gives us a short glimpse of what the first Holy Spirit filled community was like. One writer calls it a cameo appearance in the broader story about the work of the Holy Spirit in the apostles. Verse 42 says, “42They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Learning, Loving and Worship.

I hope those early Christians realized what they had on that first Pentecost. I’m not just talking about the coming of the Holy Spirit. I am talking about the presence of the apostles. They could sit at the feet of the people who sat at the feet of Christ. Evidently they knew Holy Spirit filled apostles were very special.

Talk about learning! They found the best place to learn. They went straight to the source. They devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles. When the apostles taught, they listened. When they had more to learn, they went to the apostles. The Holy Spirit filled teaching of these ordinary men motivated this new community of the Holy Spirit to dig. When it says they devoted themselves to the teaching, they didn’t sit and listen to Peter’s sermon then have coffee and forget it all. This teaching from the apostles was something that they would live by and change their life and habits for. The Holy Spirit moves the early believers to be a better community of learning and living it.

And Loving….these early Christians obviously were moved by the Holy Spirit in the way that they sacrificed for one another. 44All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need.

There are always Christians who will take this passage, look at it and say the pattern for the true Christian life must be selling all your possessions and having everything in common. The simplicity of it. The togetherness of it. I know when I was in university I went along with that sort of thinking. Just share and share alike. All work for the common good.

I have grown out of the phase now. You see all over in the New Testament that believers never were forced to get rid of everything they had. It tells us in the passage they still owned their own homes. They would give VOLUNTARILY to the cause of caring for each other. It was not demanded. It was when their love for each other demanded it.

Perhaps what is demanded is a new way of living with the blessings that God has given you. Is it wrong to own personal property? No. God often uses material wealth as a manner of blessing a person. Is it wrong to consider that property yours alone? Yes. Is that the point that where this passage can challenge us the most. This passage challenges us to discover more daring ways for us to show our love. How would you do in a commune with that person you just can’t seem to get along with? Because we are one in Christ, shouldn’t we be able to live at peace with each other especially since we don’t live together 24-7.

Our view of personal property gives us a chance to love in a daring way as well. How do you think about your money? Do you think you deserve it more than any one else? As the world hits some hard times do you feel like you deserve your wealth more than a person who lost their job in the area. Do you feel like you deserve your wealth more than the teen mom still in high school? Do you feel like you deserve your wealth more than the child born with no parents because of the AIDS crisis?

We deserve our wealth about as much as we deserved to be born with two arms and two legs. We didn’t do anything to deserve it. It was given to us as a gift. And God has given it to us so that we can use the blessing of wealth to serve others with it. So don’t go out and join a commune because of Acts 2. But on every dollar you spend hopefully the mindset of this new community is driving you. Who did God intend for me to bless with this wealth. Myself? Others?

The last characteristic we see in this first gathering of believers is their dedication to worship. Acts 2:46-47 say,46Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

Everyday in the temple courts? Having the Lord’s Supper together with glad hearts? Having one another over for meals with each other with glad and sincere hearts? It sounds in this passage that the Holy Spirit has moved these Christians on to worship that goes beyond what is expected or what is necessary. When Christians are filled with the Holy Spirit, they become the temple of God. Hopefully it means we eager to be involved in all the times our church gathers to worship. Why not come on Sunday nights as well?

This worship is the kind that is way beyond the petty issues of worship that we deal with in our churches today. It is worship that comes from deep in our soul. It is worship that pours out while we do our morning routines. Its worship that flows from us as we pound nails, or make phone calls, or type memos, or take care of children. Its worship that drives the direction of our life completely.

So lets take a look? Holy Spirit where are you at in our lives? How have you moved me to be a part of this new community. Holy spirit how will you move me to learn and devour the truth of God. Holy Spirit how will you move me to find new and daring ways to love. Forgiveness, giving, service. Where? Holy Spirit inspire our hearts to follow Christ in learning, love and worship. Shape our community to be the Spirit filled people of God.

AMEN