Introduction
When our children were small, we had a chart on the wall, and we marked their height on it from time to time. If you had kids, many of you will have done the same. Our children always looked so disappointed, crestfallen even, if the mark was the same as the week before and they hadn’t grown at all for seven whole days.
Physical growth is usually a bit more gradual than that. But there isn’t anything particularly strange about a child getting taller is there? Everyone knows that if a child is fed a healthy diet, he or she will naturally grow bigger.
It’s the same with spiritual growth as a disciple of Christ. Church leaders often get fixated with numbers turning up on a Sunday, but the only number Jesus is counting is the number of disciples.
Every follower of Jesus should be growing in love and faith and wisdom and maturity, year on year.
It’s the same with churches too. Healthy churches grow. Sick churches don’t. Sick churches get weaker and eventually die. You can drive round some of our villages and towns in Britain today and see chapels and churches, once vibrant centres of spiritual life, now converted into homes, community centres, shops, even temples for other gods, sometimes just vacant and dilapidated, with boarded-up windows and graffiti.
And you know why? Revelation 2 and 3 says that Jesus shuts down churches that lose their first love, or that no longer contend for the truth. It’s not the demonic that closes churches down, Jesus does.
Because spiritual health really matters to him. When people saw Jesus get upset in the temple they remembered the scripture, “Zeal for your house consumes me.” He still burns with the same passion for the purity and health and strength of his church.
Never forget, Jesus could close King’s Church Darlington down and, if we neglect our love for him and abandon our commitment to the gospel, in time, he will, and he should. So it literally is a matter of life and death for us to examine where we measure up against the standard God sets for the local church in the Bible.
Today, I want to take a look with you at the church described in Acts 2.42-47. It’s the earliest ever description of a local church. And it portrays a Spirit-filled community where people gather regularly both publicly and in their homes.
Let’s read what it says.
They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts [that’s the public space]. They broke bread in their homes [and there’s the smaller group] 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.
Question: Is this just a description of what one church was like ‘way back when’? Or is it in some way a prescription for what all churches should be like? What do you think?
In other words, is this passage just a curiosity, like a faded, black and white photo from the past? Or is it more like a template, a full-colour vision of what every church should aspire to be in the power of the Holy Spirit?
Verse 42 shows that this living, breathing, energetic congregation had four key priorities. It says that those Christians “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.”
I believe that every church in every age must reproduce these four things if it wants to be healthy and therefore growing. And I believe that growth is maximised when we, like them, are in the habit of gathering in a large group, and also in small groups.
Everything else in this passage (the awe, the signs and wonders, the selling property, the giving, the gladness, the public favour, the conversions and the numerical expansion) flows out from v42. So we’re going to look at each priority in turn this morning.
But first, notice three little words that slip in almost unnoticed at the beginning. “They devoted themselves...” To devote yourself means to pour yourself into something or to be dedicated... Another version says, “They committed themselves.” Another says, “They continued steadfastly.” You might say, they were “all in.” This church was serious, full-on and up for it.
A church leader from the American Midwest, where winters are severe, used to apply what he called the 20/20 test for the members of his church. He would say, “Unless it’s 20 degrees below zero outside or unless there are 20 inches of snow on the ground, I am absolutely counting on seeing you here on Sunday. If you are not ready to commit yourself to that extent, then here’s a list of a dozen really good churches in this city. I encourage you to join one of those instead. God bless you.”
That’s pretty hardcore and I’m not suggesting we adopt that approach at King’s, but I hope you are devoted to the Lord and that you prioritise involvement in your local church as a way of expressing that.
If you’re here today because you’re looking for a church and you haven’t decided where you should settle down, you’re really welcome, take all the time you need and be our guest. I always say, “go where you grow” and if you find you’re growing in faith here, maybe this is the best fit for you.
If King’s is your spiritual home – that’s great. The biblical benchmark is “they devoted themselves” so I urge you and appeal to you to be a consistent worshipper and a committed partner. I would love you to use your spiritual gifts to help build up the church’s life and be a regular giver, to be all in. I hope that’s the way you see it too.
1) The Apostles’ teaching
It is significant that the first priority for this dynamic church is teaching.
Note that the curriculum referred to is quite specific. It’s not just the hottest fads and self-help bestsellers. Charles Spurgeon used to say, “Don’t blame the sheep for eating nettles. Give them some grass!” Nettles maybe stands for trash entertainment, tabloid scandalmongering, celebrity gossip, social media drivel, the latest worldly ideas and secular values.
The teaching they devoted themselves to is the apostles’ teaching, that is to say the teaching of the twelve chosen by Jesus to be with him, to listen to him, to be eyewitnesses of his resurrection and to receive authority from him. They transmitted Jesus’ words orally at first and then wrote it down to form the New Testament.
Jesus never said, “The words I speak to you are very interesting.” He said, “The words I speak to you are spirit and they are life.”
On a scale of one to ten, one being not at all and ten being very much, how devoted do you think you are to taking on board the teaching of Scripture? Would you say you devote yourself to sound Bible teaching like they did?
After decades of being a Christian, I’m realistic enough to know that some of us here won’t have read a single line from God’s word this week and a few of us probably never do apart from Sunday. Would you have to blow the dust off the Bible on your shelf before opening it?
You are what you eat. Filmmaker Morgan Spurlock ate nothing but McDonald’s for 30 days to make his 2004 documentary film, Super-Size Me. His bodyweight rocketed 10% in just 12 days, and he started suffering from depression, lethargy, mood swings and severe headaches.
It’s really not surprising that what we eat affects our bodies. But what we give our souls to eat affects our spiritual lives too. And here’s what I’ve observed; the most fragile Christians, those most defeated by spiritual attack and crises of faith, are invariably those who open their Bibles least.
This is why we place such a high value on expository Bible teaching on Sundays. But in Life Groups you can go deeper. You can ask questions about things you don’t understand. You can work through how God’s word applies to your life.
2) Fellowship
The next priority is fellowship. Kathie and I love it when we go on holiday and find another church somewhere. I never understand people who avoid church when they’re away from home. We have found all sorts of churches on our travels. Sometimes it isn’t even in a language we can speak, but there are two words that all Christians say in every language. “Alleluia” and “Amen.” So you can always praise God and know when it’s the end!
But there’s a body language, there’s an understanding, there’s the hallmark of joy and love in a gathering of Christians. And, like a mobile phone picking up a Wi-Fi signal, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit starts when the Holy Spirit in me says hello the Holy Spirit in you, and we’re at home, it’s family.
In his book Autopsy of a Deceased Church Thom Rainer takes ten actual churches that had recently closed down and examines their stories to try and find any common denominators for why these churches became sick and died.
Some focused too much on a golden age and were stuck in the past. Some had unhealthy attitudes about money. Many showed apathy towards prayer. But more than any one item, these ailing churches died when they focused on their own needs instead of others. They lost the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.
Fellowship is not just friendship, though the church is a place for friends. It’s more than companionship or relationship.
Sharing the fellowship of the Holy Spirit together is a profound thing. When they wrote the New Testament down they had to pick a word to describe what they saw in the Christian community. There were other words for sharing, community, friendship etc but the only one that adequately depicted what was happening was the word koinonia.
It is the same word they used to describe the condition of conjoined twins, where two individuals share the same bloodstream and even some vital organs. In fact, so dependent are conjoined twins on each other, it can be very dangerous (and is often fatal) to separate them surgically.
I can’t think of one instance in the New Testament where the word “fellowship” describes fun and hanging out. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot about friendship and joy in the Bible - and the early church was full of both - but that’s not even the beginning of what the fellowship of the Holy Spirit means.
Verses 44 and 45 add some detail. “All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need.”
John Stott in his commentary on Acts qualifies these verses as “disturbing.” Maybe, but I think there’s something liberating and exhilarating about not being wedded to accumulating stuff.
On dozens of occasions, I’ve known Christians voluntarily give away books, washing machines, furniture, cars, property – you name it – when they could have kept them or sold them for money. I’ve known Christians struggling to pay the bills checking the mail and finding an anonymous envelope full of banknotes for exactly the sum they needed. And, I’m sure there’s a lot more that goes on that no one ever hears about.
And you can see how effective this fellowship was; by the time we get to chapter 4, it says in v34 that “there were no needy persons among them.” People shared their lives so generously, that no one wanted for anything.
No wonder pagan observers of the first Christians are recorded to have said, “Look, how they love one another and how they are ready to die for each other.”
Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that being a Christian is just Jesus and me. There is in our reading about self-fulfilment. In fact, surprisingly, the Bible doesn’t anywhere contain the phrase “a personal relationship with Jesus.” That’s not to say you don’t need one – you do. But the focus in the New Testament is on the new community of people of God, joined together and members of one another.
Here’s a test. When you read Paul’s letters do you read the word “you” as “you the individual”? Because most of the letters were addressed to churches. There are 44 “one another’s” in the New Testament. Again, this is why life groups are so important. Where else can you love one other, encourage one another, spur one another on, carry each other’s burdens, accept one another, build one another up, bear with each other and so on? There’s hardly time for that in the large Sunday gathering.
Simon Bikersteth has done studies which show that 85% of people who join a church are unlikely to still be there a year later. Why? Why do so many leave? The answer is to do with fellowship. His research shows that that 90% of new members stick if they:
1) make about six friendships with others in the church
2) belong to a midweek group
3) learn to talk about their faith.
I would say that Life Groups are the most single important way of growing fellowship and I hope that if you are not yet in one, you will seriously think about joining one.
3) Breaking bread
The third thing (and I’m going to go quicker now) is what Luke calls the breaking of bread. Is this just a reference to sharing meals or does it mean the Lord’s Supper? The answer is… “Yes.” Because in the early church the two overlapped. They would eat meals together and then breaking bread and pouring out wine to remember all that Jesus did for them at the end.
It says, “they ate together with glad and sincere hearts.” So there was a great atmosphere but dignity and reverence as well.
Twice in this short passage Luke mentions eating food together – something they learned from Jesus, who sat down to eat with sinners and disreputable people.
Verse 46 says, “Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes.”
So, as I said earlier, they intentionally gathered not just in the place of public worship, but also, more intimately, in their homes, in smaller groups, sometimes round a meal table.
In our Life Group, we do a summer barbecue and Christmas party every year. We also share a simple communion together once a month,
Communion reminds us about what is really important. At the heart of the early church was a regular habit of going back to the cross to remember what it’s all about. Jesus, in laying down his life, opened up direct access to God for us, won our salvation, forgave all our sins, defeated the principalities and powers, secured peace with God for us and much, much more. The cross says it all. It’s got to be at the heart.
4) Prayer
Finally, “They devoted themselves to prayer.” As evangelist J.John says, “If we prayed as much as we worry, we’d have a lot less to worry about.”
The health of a church is measured not in the elegance of its buildings or the effervescence of its activities but in the priority it gives to prayer. The earliest Christians “devoted themselves” to it. That was key to their spiritual strength and growth and without prayer we would not have The Acts of the Apostles in the form we have today.
In 1665 the bubonic plague resulted in an estimated 100,000 deaths in London. Within a year, the fearsome Great Fire of London swept through the city bringing large scale destruction and homelessness. Over 13,000 houses went up in flames.
That year, there was a serious drought and the Thames was reduced to a trickle. The whole nation at that time was in serious moral decline and spiritual decay. The poet John Dryden wrote a poem entitled Annus Horribilis about the misery and suffering of that time.
But on 10 October of that year, King Charles II ordered a Day of Fasting and Humiliation. The whole nation fell to its knees in repentance and prayer, asking God for mercy. That very night it began to rain and it didn’t stop for ten days.
Healthy churches put their trust in the Lord and pray together. And when they do that, God reveals his will, Christians get fired up, things happen and the kingdom advances.
It’s great to join together in passionate, believing prayer – and we do that monthly of course but, once again, Life Groups are an ideal environment to grow in confidence in prayer. One of the members of our Life Group prayed out loud for the first time this week; it was lovely. I remember my first prayer out loud also happened in a someone’s living room. I was petrified and tere’s no way I would have stepped out to do that if Sunday worship was the only game in town.
Ending
As I end, let me remind you that the biblical template is devoting yourself, committing yourself, with others, to the apostles’ teaching, to fellowship, to breaking bread and prayer, both in this public space and in smaller groups. Are you up for it?
Because the alternative to Acts 2.42-47 looks pretty miserable. Listen to the alternative that will not change the world.
Occasionally they spent some time half-listening to the apostles’ teaching. When they could, they met for fellowship, and for the breaking of bread and for prayer. Awe came upon precious few. To be honest, there was a conspicuous absence of signs and wonders. All who believed lived pretty separate lives kept themselves to themselves. They would hoard their possessions and goods and show indifference to any who had need. Day by day, they went about their own lives as individuals, perhaps drifting in late at the temple if they got round to it. They broke bread at home alone and ate their food with cold and empty hearts, giving token thanks to God. No one in the community really noticed them. And daily their numbers dwindled for few, if any, were getting saved.
The Lord is looking for people who are serious about engaging with his word. He wants to raise up a generous and loving community. He calls us to eat together, to share bread and wine together, to be Christ-centred, passionate, believing, praying people. Zeal for his house still consumes him. Are you in?
Let’s pray...
Sermon preached at King's Church Darlington, 11 January 2026
