Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – Acts 2:41-47

Sermon text for today is Acts 2:41-47. If you have a handout, you can sort of see how I’ve laid out the text. I provided this same outline a week or so ago. This portion of it we did not speak on, so we want to do that today. Please stand for the reading of God’s word.

“Then those who gladly received the word were baptized. In that day about 3,000 souls were added to them. And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine, in fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers.

“Then fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles. Now all who believed were together, and had all things in common, and sold their possessions and goods, and divided them among all, so as anyone had need. So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God, and having favor with all the people and the Lord added to the church daily those who are being saved.”

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for this wonderful depiction. We thank you for the depiction earlier of the gathered saints being together in the upper room when the Holy Spirit came upon them. We thank you for this fuller description of the unity of the church, specifically following the gift of your spirit. We thank you that your spirit indwells us individually and corporately. And we do pray that spirit would use the word of our savior here to transform us to mature us, Lord God, individually and corporately. Particularly help us to attend to this word steadfastly, paying close attention and going away from it with great joy and praise to you for it, in Jesus’ name we ask it.

Amen. Please be seated.

Today is Trinity Sunday, and as I’ve mentioned, this is kind of the hinge between the season of Pentecost and the days—the Lord’s days—numbered focusing on the work of the church. And so this is really sort of the first day, the first Sunday after Pentecost. So the life of Jesus Christ has been portrayed for us liturgically from Advent through the Pentecost season and the coming of the Holy Spirit, and then the last six months of the church year focus on the life of the church, the acts of Jesus Christ really through the church. And it’s appropriate to talk about Trinity here.

For a few years now, or a number of years, this Sunday has been celebrated as Trinity Sunday. And while it seems to be kind of a throwback, you know, to talking about the person of God rather than the church, it really isn’t. I wanted to talk today about the trinitarian unity—that’s the wonderful blessing of the Holy Spirit that we see pictured for us here.

I wanted to begin by quoting from an RCC auxiliary catechism question. Haven’t done many of these. This was Brad Hangartner’s idea—an excellent idea—that as we memorize the Westminster Shorter Catechism in our Sunday school program, we write auxiliary questions and answers that reflect what we believe to be important doctrines and maybe places where the catechism could use some addition or clarification.

So, I’m ahead at the top of your outline. I’ve got this RCC auxiliary catechism question and answer number two. So the Westminster talks about the knowledge of God by man and talks about the covenant of life, but what does that mean? So we had a question: “What is the covenant of life?” And the answer given that we wrote out at the time: “The covenant of life is the bond of union, communion, and self-giving love between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”

So we begin by talking about the covenant in terms of the so-called intertrinitarian covenant, the covenant life, the perichoresis—the indwelling of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit by each other, the community that exists in all eternity in the triune God before anything is created. So this is where the covenant of life is. And a catechism question could be talked about at great length, and we could talk about it.

The union that they have—they’re one God and three persons. The communion—they’re still distinct persons and have communion with each other, communication and self-giving love. So they’re giving of themselves. They’re not putting themselves first. They’re considering each other as more important. So that’s the nature of the relationship of the triune God. That’s the covenant. And the answer goes on to say: “Into which God sovereignly and graciously brings believers and their children so that they can live with him in the bonds of mutual love and faithfulness.”

The bonds of mutual love and faithfulness. There’s a structure. There’s bonds, right? But it’s bonds that are in the context not just of structure but of mutual love relationship and then faithfulness in those relationships. And you can see kind of a trinitarian emphasis on those three points of the answer that we provided. So this is what we see, I think, pictured for us in this section of scripture at the conclusion of the events of the day of Pentecost.

We see the kind of rejoicing life together that the triune God exists in eternity, which he has brought us into relationship with him and how it works its way out in the context of the body of Christ in Jerusalem. And so I want to talk then about this kind of trinitarian structure and relationship and love and fellowship that goes on in the context of the local church.

Now, page two—I provided you again, like I did last week, the overarching outline from Acts chapter 2, where the chapter is segmented up into seven sections. Because we’re dealing with the last section that matches up with the first section, right? So the first section says, “When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place.” So this all-togetherness in one place is then matched with this further depiction. This kind of like what does it mean all together? Well, now it means all of this and they’re growing. So a structure such as this moves you—you know, it isn’t a mirror image. Something better is happening as a result of the center of such a structure.

The togetherness in one place described geographically and, of course, in terms of their prayer and unity—I don’t want to leave that out. But now we have this wonderful depiction of that growth. Now we’ve got 3,000 of them and more being added every day. And we have this wonderful picture of the sort of intertrinitarian covenant being played out in the context of the church.

It’s moved, and it’s moved as a result of the center hinge point of the structure. And remember what I said was the center of the sermon that Peter gave was all about the humanity of Jesus. Of Jesus, and he talks about him being Messiah in the fifth section, but in the middle, fourth section, the humanity of Jesus Christ is the center—it’s the hinge for what happens. This is what’s changed, right? Humanity now has come of age. Matriculated—a lot of graduation ceremonies going on these days this time of year. Well, man has matriculated. He’s gone up. He’s ascended. Through the person of Jesus Christ, and this is what’s being described to those that were there.

So the focal point is Christ Jesus rather, and this Jesus has now moved humanity along and now brings us in a further way into the union and communion of the intertrinitarian covenant, right? So you’ve got Father, Son, and Holy Spirit eternally. Now Jesus is in there—I know it’s God the second person also—but humanity is brought into that covenant life. And that’s what you see reflected is a growth and maturation of that life by the end of the text, which is what we’re going to talk about today in more specific details.

You know, what we said was that we’ve got to interpret correctly the events of the time, and the events were being interpreted by God’s people going to God’s word. I thought of this when this week Jana Murray sent out an email—the first email about her surgery and the second email is great, joyous news. But even in the first email, she didn’t know what was going on with her. She understood. She tried to interpret the events that she found herself in biblically, you know, which is what the day of Pentecost is all about—what the sermon is all about.

She wrote in the email: “Thank you all for your prayers. God is using this to soften my stubborn independent heart. Sometimes it takes something like this to cause me to rely on Christ and stop trying to accomplish things in my own puny strength.”

Now I asked her permission before I read that. I’m not talking out of class here or anything. And I mentioned it specifically because, you know what, she’s seeing is how God is working on her character and then she’s sharing that with us and we have this prayer unity with her as she goes through this and we learn the lessons too.

So all of us don’t have to go—she went through, maybe we will—but we should learn the lesson, right? Should interpret the events. These things are meant, among other things—a wide variety of things, a lot of which we don’t know—to bring humility to us. You know, as you get old, you get real humble because all kinds of things go wrong. I’m thinking about taking an apartment up there by Kaiser because I’m there so much. That’s what happens. But you interpret those events. You don’t kick against it. You say, “Well, I’ve done everything I could, you know, in this situation, but the Lord God has put me through a tough time.” Interpret that biblically. That’s Jesus doing his work of maturing you into what he expects you to be like, to make you a better Christian and to make you a better churchman at the end of the day. Okay.

Now I want to go through these points. First, I want to look at it as an overview just to help you to see why I think this is the way the text is laid out. And then after that, we’ll go back through each of these seven elements. And what I want to talk about are characteristics of trinitarian unity in this new creation that’s being celebrated. Okay.

So, you sort of see some bolded letters if you have the outline on sections 1 and 7 of that first page of the outline, right? So in section one, you’ve got people being added. That’s the way it starts. And at the end, you’ve got people being added, right? The Lord is adding daily those who were saved. So there’s a mutuality there. There’s linkage up there. And it shows us that those are bookends to this particular text.

Now there’s differences too, because in the first section, those who are being added are those who received his word—not capitalized his. That’s Peter’s word. So the apostles’ word creates additions to the church at the beginning of this section. And by the end, it talks about that the people are praising God and having favor with all the people—the congregants. Now the average lay person. And the Lord added to the church daily those who are being saved in response to the life of the church. That doesn’t mean the apostles won’t be evangelizing. It just means that there’s a balance here between apostolic proclamation of the gospel and God adding members. And at the end, the lifestyle—this incredible, miraculous unity that they have together, practical unity that could be observed—is also leading to evangelism. So we’ve got evangelism at the beginning and at the end.

And then we have a common thing going on in verses 42 and 46. Verse 42 begins by saying they continued steadfastly in certain things. Verse 46 says they continued daily in certain things. Now the description in verse 42 is of Lord’s day services. I’m convinced of that. It’s the breaking of bread in verse 42. And in verse 46, it’s they’re going—they’re breaking bread from house to house. This is the breaking of bread. And then tomorrow you’ll go in your houses or go over to see other people and you’ll break bread from house to house. You’ll eat a common meal together.

But it starts here. So these sections are again little bookends moving toward the center, right? Now it’s talking about the apostles. You know, think of the apostles—the original, you know, elders. They were the elder elders. They were, you know, they were different from elders. But the elders, the pastors of the church are the segue. Those are the new office holders in the church who conduct Lord’s day worship and all that stuff.

So we’ve got the proclamation of the word by the special officers of the church and producing evangelism. We have the lifestyle of the Christian. You know, you always hear this: how do we evangelize—lifestyle or proclamation? Both is what this text says. And then we’ve got special Lord’s day services overseen by the special officers of the church. And then you have the normal fellowship that goes on in the context of the congregation.

You see they’re matched up. Apostle, congregation. Apostle, congregation. And then the third bookends is 43 and 45. So in verse 43—and this is a little harder to see, I know that—but still I think we can make the point. There are these wonders and signs which the apostles were doing. Awe came upon them, or fear. Wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. So we’ve got his sermon. The apostles’ sermon. We’ve got the apostles. We’ve got the apostles—that’s being stressed in the opening sections of the text.

And then in verse 45—rather I said 46, verse 45—these people, the congregants now, are being stressed as they are in the rest of this second half. And they sold their possessions and goods and divided them among all as anyone had need. They’re engaging in some sign, wonders stuff too, right? As we’ll, you know, signs and wonders refers to apostolic works. But the visible evidence of the work of the Holy Spirit that is the same evidence that the apostles are engaged in—in terms of signs and wonders. It’s that Jesus by his spirit is present, is seen as Jesus by his spirit being present in a congregation that looks to each other’s needs, that looks to each other’s needs. This is observable evidence of the sort of thing that actually is at the center here.

And the very center then, if I’m right, is: “Now all believing or who believed were together and they had all in common.” Now I said “all” because the word “things” is implied. The word actually is “all.” This is a very simple sentence made up of these seven or eight small Greek words at the in the middle: “All who were believing were together.” That word just means like in—they’re a set. They’re a group of connected things. They’re together in. So if you’re believing, everyone who’s believing is in. And if you’re not in, then the implication is you’re not believing. But you’re all together.

And they had all in common. Now, I think that the verse marks here are good for us. They think they cause us to think about that separately from what follows. I don’t think that the “all things” and things is not much help because it seems to reinforce the idea of possessions. I don’t think it’s limited to the possession selling. It goes on in verse 45. He sold their possessions and goods, their real property and the rest of their property. They would sell if needed on an occasional basis, not perpetually. They would sell their real property and their goods to help other people.

I don’t think that’s limited. I don’t think the center means that. And I think if we look at the structure of the text, what’s going on is the “all” in the immediate application is stressing the unity of the action of the apostles and the lay people. It’s leaders and followers that are the “all” who are believing and all of whom are sharing everything. The apostles’ gift looks differently, but it’s the same sort of gift. They’re doing signs and wonders and healing people. We’re doing—congregations doing signs and wonders—helping people, right? In practical ways, those things are the same. They’re doing evangelistic preaching, you’re doing evangelistic living. It’s the same. See, they’re doing, you know, Lord’s Day breaking of bread, and you’re having that inform your breaking of bread throughout the week. That’s the things we have in common.

So, I think it’s a comprehensive statement here in the middle of this text. And it wants us to focus on it. It wants us to think about it. It’s the center, it’s the hinge point, and it’s a hinge point tying together apostles and congregants. So that’s that’s an overview of the text. And that’s kind of the movement as I understand it, at least that we have here.

By the way, you know, on a day when we’re talking about unity of believers and stuff, my wife actually came up with this outline for me. She noted it, I don’t know, six months, a year ago or something. May mentioned it to stuck it in my head. Let’s check it out. See if I think she’s right. And there she is. That’d be a good text to preach on someday. And well, here we are. And Trinity Sunday seemed like a good Sunday to do this on.

You know, we’ve just gotten the word from the citation of Joel in earlier in this chapter in the sermon that men and women are prophets—young men and young women, slaves, male slaves and female male slaves. That’s an important truth. Okay.

So, we’ll return to that, and I want to go through these seven things now individually, these seven verses, and make what hopefully is a unified comment about that particular verse.

**Verse 41**

So verse 41: “They gladly received his word. That’s interesting. They were happy about getting his word, the apostles’ word. They were baptized and that day about 3,000 souls were added to them.

Now, you’re added to an existing organization. It’s not an amorphous Christian kind of thing. Here we could plug in the title of Peter’s book that I think some of the young women or some of the older women or some women are studying through—against Christianity for the church. That’s what this is talking about. If you’re a believer and I’m glad to receive the word, you’re supposed to be part of the church.

And you become part of the church through baptism. So, you know, this is kind of at the center of some of the controversies that we began to talk about in my Sunday school class today. Reverend Wilkins will be in my class next week. The whole new perspective, Federal Vision, all that stuff—this is part of it. The text begins, you know, it’s going to end up with the sort of wonderful community that we want. But, you know, it’s we always get things flipped up. We always want the fruit without seeing the root of the thing.

And the root of this thing, the thing that develops into the kind of beautiful community that’s portrayed for us that we pray to God we become more and more like—the root of that is this understanding that baptism and formal church membership—being added in some way—is the driving thing to everything else. You know, the reformed confessions—I think the Belgic Confession, for instance, you know—taught that there’s ordinarily God can do what he wants to do, but there is ordinarily no salvation outside the church. And evangelicals don’t like that. A lot of us don’t like that. We thinking in terms of Christianity. Now God can do what he wants to do, and there are other situations, but this text tells us if we want to live in that new creation with the blessings of growth and wonderful life together, we’ve got to start by understanding the importance of institutional organization of the church.

So this trinitarian unity, this wonderful gift of the Holy Spirit, this trinitarian unity requires institution. It actually begins, you know, with organizational sort of stuff. Well, it begins with the preaching of the word. But beyond that, it then moves in terms of organization. There’s this relationship: baptism, and then they’re being added. Those things are put in parallel.

Then the next verse, we’re going to get to teaching. Remember what Jesus—the Great Commission—that they’re fulfilling: disciple the nations. How? Two ways. Baptize them and then teach them. So you bring them in through baptism, and then they attend diligently to the apostles’ doctrine, and then they start living like they ought to be living in trinitarian community here on earth. That’s the process. And we want to skip over this step. We want to, you know, kind of make it all intellectual, all practical, whatever it is we want to do. But this tells us quite importantly that this union comes before communion, right? The trinitarian life is union and communion. You’ve got to be united before you can begin to develop communion.

This sort of challenges what I learned years ago from R.G. Rushdoony and appreciated greatly. They probably told you he said the church is first an organism and only secondly an institution. Well, this seems to put it the other way around. You’re added to the number of the church and then you organically grow together as people. Okay, we have this nice community here. At least some people like this church because of its community over the last 20, 25 years—community. Okay, we love the community here, and that’s why we’re here. Well, you see that doesn’t work if you don’t, you know, understand that what has driven the community is not that, “Oh gee, we have the best people in the city gathered together and that’s why we have such great community.” Maybe we don’t have such great, but if we do, it’s not because of the composition or the makeup of who we are. In part, it’s because we’ve recognized the importance of this connection—the connection of through faith in Christ with his church. That’s the way it works. We’re Christ’s body. If you’re not part of this, you’re not part of Christ. Now that’s ordinarily we would say. So, you know, trinitarian unity in the church begins with the institution of the church. It begins with the institution of the church.

Now, you know, there’s a sense in which this plays out in other things, right? This is why people should get married and not live together. This is why if we’re doing marriage in a Christian way and entering into a structural bond—that’s what the intertrinitarian covenant, for instance, can be seen—a structural bond. And that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit make an agreement. “All that the Father has given me,” Jesus said—the people that he’s given. The Father promised to give particular people to Jesus. Jesus promises to die for those people. The Spirit promises to bring life to those people. There’s a structure to that relationship that proceeds from the very essence of who God is. And this should flow into our lives.

Documents are important. I know two very controversial cases going on right now as we speak in two churches, and with men that we love and are connected to in the context of the CRC. And in both church—in both situations, one of the essential elements of what’s happening is a rejection of covenants, written constitutions, or simply letting them go away. There’s structure. Institution drives the community relationships of the church. Okay.

**Verse 42**

Next verse: 42. “They continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine, in fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers.

Okay. So now we’ve got not just being added to the church, but we have participation in the worship of the church is the second thing the text is telling us about how we really get along well and how we’re knitted together. Not enough to join the church. You have to continue steadfastly in the formal worship of the church, which includes the preaching of God’s word, which includes the fellowship that we have together here, which includes the breaking of bread and which is summarized in a way the worship is by prayers. We sing prayers, we say prayers, all that stuff.

So you know, if the trinitarian unity that we desire begins with the institution of the church, it certainly is built through the worship of the church. Begins by being added, grows by the worship of the church. That’s the flow here.

They continued steadfastly. This is kind of an interesting word in the Greek. It’s only used a few times. One of the lexicons says that the word means to adhere to one, to be his adherent, to be devoted or constant to something, steadfastly attentive unto something, to give unremitting care to a particular thing. Very strong term. And I want to—I want to quickly go through the verses. The only verses where this is used, it’s used in Acts 1:14. We’ve already saw it. They continued with one accord in prayer. That same word, continued, continued steadfastly. Same Greek word. It means really strongly, you know, “I’m with you. I’m with you, man.”

When we started going to Cedar Mill Bible Church, when Christine and I were young, young in our marriage, I knew I was looking for direction. And God moved. He gave me a sign and a wonder—not in the sense of apostolic sign and wonder, but a congregational sign and wonder. He did a great deal and showed me this thing that I was clearly supposed to go to Cedar Mill Bible Church. It’s a big church. And I told the guy that brought me to the party, so to speak. I told him, “I’m going to be with you. You’ve got a Bible study, I’m going to be there. You’ve got a Bible study in your home, I’m going to that Bible study. You’ve got a conference you’re going to, I want to go to that conference.” That’s the idea here is kind of a stickitiveness.

Well, in Acts 1:14, they said we’re to continue steadfastly in prayer. In Acts 6:4, the next instance is the one we have here, but in Acts 6:4, the apostles want deacons, administrators of the church ordained so that they will give themselves continually—without, you know, give all their attention to, continue steadfastly, same word—to prayer and to the ministry of the word. So again, prayer and the ministry of the word.

In Acts 8:13, we have the discipleship thing. Then Simon himself also believed. And when he was baptized, he continued with Philip. Continued steadfastly. He said to Philip, “Man, wherever you go, that’s where I want to be. I need to learn. I need to be a disciple. I need to follow you along, follow you around and learn from you.” So a continual steadfastness to prayer, the apostles to prayer in the word, and to new Christians to people, people.

Acts 10:7, we have Cornelius, and he’s described. He has some household servants, and he also has a devout soldier from among those who waited on him continually. So Cornelius had a soldier who was devout—kind of committed to the same, you know, the Yahweh of the scriptures—and he’s continually attending. He’s Cornelius’s guy. He’s his attendant. Helps him do anything he wants to get done. He helps him do it. He’s his trainee, right? Cornelius is his mentor. So again, the idea of sticking close in discipleship to a person, an incarnated image bearer of God.

Romans 12:12: “Rejoice in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer.” General instruction to the church. What are we to continue steadfastly in doing? Praying.

Colossians 4:2. Paul writes: “Continue earnestly, same word, steadfastly, continue steadfastly in prayer, being vigilant with all thanksgiving.”

So you see, this is the characteristic of the person added to the church: he’s supposed to continue steadfastly in the worship of the church. This is why we keep attendance, because we know it’s not good for you not to be here unless you’ve got a good reason for not being here. This isn’t a drop-in thing. You’re supposed to be continuing steadfastly, not just to come whenever you want to come. It’s not because we think we’re, you know, the big deal or anything. We think in the providence of God, this is what’s going to help you become those wonderful saints by the end of the text that we see, you know, having such great unity that people are looking at it and saying, “I want to become a Christian.” That’s why we do it.

So continue steadfastly. And then notice as I wrote—read those—these are the only places the word is used. Over and over again, you’ve got the discipleship model. People need to be, you know, hooked up with Christians. And you’ve got prayer time.

Family camp this year—one of the new things we’re going to try is we’re going to try to have a prayer time, you know, five or ten minutes before each meal where we gather—get you there a little early, while you know, after the things are set up—and we’re already in little small groups of eight in the table or six, whatever it is at your table. And we’re going to have some, you know, specific things for you to pray about, and we’re going to pray. And we’ll have a sheet—the sheet that I’ve used before—about prayer at We want to be a church of prayer.

Additionally, before the talks, we’re not going to do anything organized with all of us before the talks, but we’re going to remind people all the time: you know, if you want to get together, you know, in the hall or someplace else, we’ll show you places to be—fifteen minutes, maybe over in Hadley Hall—to get together for prayer, for the application of what the last talk was and for God’s blessing on the coming talk. We’re going to want to encourage that stuff. We want to be people that continues steadfastly in prayer.

So we’ve got those two things. Formal—everybody’s got to do it kind of prayer before the meals. It’s more than just praying for the food. And then, you know, informal prayer time set up, you know, prior to each talk. And then, of course, the idea is just like we have this formal meal setting up how we do our meals in our homes, we think that as a result of this, there may well be more prayer throughout the week at camp.

So continuing steadfastly. But you know, again, the point is it starts with institution. This unity is built through worship, through attendance of covenant renewal—Lord’s day worship. They have fellowship. The word means koinonia, or communication. They have fellowship together and the breaking of bread and prayers as part of the mix along with the apostles’ teaching.

This word for fellowship is koinonia. It really has at its literal kind of element communication, communion with one another. You know, there’s a relationship between communication and communion. You don’t have mystical, sweet communion unless you’ve got some communication going on. Married couples know this. They go for a long time without communication. They’ve got no communion really. And that’s bad.

Glory, knowledge, and life. We respect each other in the context of the body. We’re all here. We’re here today, and we give each other glory for being here. But then we want to increase our knowledge through their knowledge. We want to talk to them and get to know them and learn things from them. We want to have communion via communication. And unfortunately, you know, in a lot of churches, there’s significant numbers of people who don’t want to talk, and that slows things down. You don’t get to rejoicing life unless you have that kind of communication and commitment to communicate with each other.

Okay. So you start with institution. It’s built through worship. And then—

**Verse 43**

Verse 43: “Fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles.”

And I’m not going to go through—I’ve got all the verses listed in the New Testament where signs and wonders are talked about. There’s three in the gospels, and they are all negative. You know, you’ll come to me and say, “We did all these signs and wonders,” Jesus says, and I’m going to say goodbye. And you’re going to, you know, the Pharisees, you know, look for a sign and a wonder. That’s what you guys want is signs and wonders, and I’m not going to give them to you mostly. Now he did, right? He did signs and wonders. But in the gospel references, this phrase is always used negatively.

But in Acts and the Epistles, it refers to the work of the apostles—the so-called sign gifts. These are God’s men empowered by Jesus’s spirit. And they’ve got—they’re in essence, you know, we could say Christians carrying Jesus into a particular situation. So this is apostolic stuff. There’s no doubt about it. Over and over again, the word is used of the apostles, wonders and signs. We don’t have apostles anymore. So God’s free to do wonders and signs. But this was part of the normal way in which it was working because of the apostolic stress.

The apostolic sign gifts are given here as well. But what can we say about it? What’s application to us? Well, first it tells us that there’s that fear came upon everybody. And that means in the context of the church, I think that awe, reverence, fear—you know, kind of a fear mixed with joy—as to what God was doing. And that is in relationship as well to the sign wonders.

But I think what it means is we can think of it is a church has to have visible manifestation of the work of God in their midst. Okay. So you’ve got institution, you’ve got growth through worship, but then you need presence in the world, right? It’s built by worship, but it moves on. The third element is that this trinitarian unity can be recognized by others. So there’s a recognized value to what’s going on by other people. It’s visible.

So it starts with incorporation. It builds through worship, and it has to then make itself visible in the people.

**Verse 44**

Next verse is the central verse, as I said before. “Now all who believed were together and had all things in common. Emphasis on unity of apostles and congregation first and foremost.

So, as I said, this word there’s a very interesting verse. It’s unlike the other verses. It’s quite simple—words simply stated. It’s really obviously the center of this text. And it talks about this basic equality we could say in the context of the congregation even though different tasks are being done, right? So the apostles and the congregation are all the same. They all get gifts. They all get the spirit. All God’s people are prophets. But still there’s a separation of function with the apostles doing signs and wonders, preaching and thus evangelizing and leading Lord’s day worship.

So essentially it’s talking about unity. Now, so you know, the sort of trinitarian unity that is given to us here will be—it has to be a unity that recognizes the value of other people. Trinitarian unity is manifested by a recognition of the value of others.

I saw this movie, Benjamin Button, and I’m not necessarily recommending it or anything, but it’s really pretty interesting because the moral of the story is everybody’s put here for a reason. Everybody in this church has been placed here by God sovereignly for a reason. A lot of the times, probably most of the time, we don’t even necessarily know what it is. But the Lord God has placed everyone here for a particular purpose. And you can probably think of people that you don’t know that well and are quite different from you here in the context of this church. They’re here for a reason. And they’re fulfilling a function—unbeknownst to them frequently—that God has given them that’s good for the rest of us.

We all have great value here in spite of whatever gifts or lack of gifts, deficiencies—mental, medical, whatever it might be, training-wise—we all have value here. And it’s really important that we recognize that and we look at that.

You know, Chris W. gave this sermon a while back, and I didn’t hear it. But I guess he wanted you to think at the beginning of the sermon about somebody here—I think maybe or maybe generally—but if it was somebody here, you know, evaluation time, right? How well did you do? Who did you think of? How are you doing on building that relationship? Ask yourself that. That’s the core of the center of this text: recognizing the value of other people, and particularly the ones that we kind of struggle with.

We all have the spirit—operation in common. We’re all here for a reason. We all should be given respect, glory, and if we do that with one another, we’ll begin to understand the knowledge that they have to give to us.

I want to do something a little weird here. And I’m sorry if it’s embarrassing. I’m old enough to where I don’t care. No, that’s not true. I do care. But, no— So we talked about—and really there should be no need for me to say this stuff about women, right? Clearly they’re joint participants of the grace of God and they are called to be prophets according to the book of Joel. All God’s people are now—in the small p sense of the term. My wife has tremendous value in organizational skills and seeing structures in the scriptures that is a great blessing to me. Bible study isn’t just for men, and I shouldn’t even have to say that, right?

But the other that kind of comes to my mind in this regard: Are we really giving them the respect and esteem that they deserve—are the young men, right? I mean, I’ve seen again situations in other churches where young twenty-something guys, single guys, are sort of treated like kids by people. You talk to them like they’re your child. They’re not your child. They’re a full-grown adult. In this case, man. In the case of a woman, woman—I don’t think we have quite as much difficulty. Oh, I don’t know. But what are the things I’ve seen is difficulty talking to single men who are twenty-something. So, you know, sorry, and maybe you don’t want to get up. But this is apostolic elder time. This is the service that we command: get up anyway. Young men ages twenty-something, right? If you’re twenty-something and are single, please stand. Please do it. Stand up.

If you see somebody that’s not standing up, give them a swift kick in the behind. They’re guys, they need it. Okay? And you see these young guys, you know, these are not kids. These are fully functioning members of the body of Christ. They’re adult men. They may be young men. What are they acting unalike? I’m really quite serious about this. We have to have esteem, you know, for everyone in this church. And I think it’s very important that we have esteem, you know, for the young men.

They’re going to be the older guys in 20, 30 years. And they’re already in a position of being those young men described in Joel that, you know, understand and are prophets, just like the rest of God’s people are prophets. So, you know, the center of this text shows us that trinitarian unity is built through a recognition of the value of others in the church—a recognition of the value of others.

You know, I’m probably going to get the lyrics wrong. You know how the Rolling Stones—well, you don’t. Those of us who like—those of us who have listened to the Rolling Stones—know that their lyrics are difficult to figure out. So I probably have this lyric wrong, but I heard this song yesterday on the radio: “Sympathy for the Devil,” and I don’t know if it’s even the right lyric, but it’s an example. Okay, let’s say he wrote it this way, toward the end of the song. He says, and he’s the devil, right? And he’s done all this stuff, and he’s killed the Kennedys, and he created the Russian Revolution and did all this stuff. So he says, “So if you meet me, have some courtesy, have some sympathy, and some taste. Use all your well-learned—and I think it’s politics, but I could be wrong. Maybe polite. But I think it’s politics. Politeness has the same root. But I think it’s politics. If you don’t use all your well-learned biblical politics, or I’ll lay your soul to waste.”

Now that’s true. If you do not use your well-learned biblical politics, the devil will lay your soul to waste. If you don’t know how to live in trinitarian community with others and you isolate yourself from that church, or if the church throws you out of the church, you know, you now are in a position where the devil is empowered to lay your soul to waste.

So this is fun stuff. It’s sort of touchy-feely stuff—this recognition of the value of others—but this is true politics, right? This is the palace. This is the new city that’s developing here in Acts 2. This is politics. It’s how to live together in palace—in the city of God. And in the city of God, we must have a recognition of the value of every other person in that city.

That’s at the core of the development of the work of the Holy Spirit in bringing trinitarian unity to the church in Acts chapter 2 as a result of the day of Pentecost. Institutionally link up, mature yourself through worship, do things that are evident to other people, and recognize the value of everybody else in the context of the church of Jesus Christ.

**Verse 45**

The fifth one: “Sold their possessions and goods and divided them among all as anyone had need.”

Now, again, this isn’t communism. Nobody’s forcing him to do it. The story of Ananias and Sapphira makes it quite clear that apostles tell him, “Hey, you didn’t have to do this. Why’d you do it? Now you’re going to die. But you didn’t have to do it.” It’s a voluntary thing. And it wasn’t ongoing. It’s not that everybody sold all their possessions, real property, and all their goods, other property. No, the indication is in this verse and the verbs that are used is that this happened occasionally, you know, as it was needed—as people had some need for bucks. People other people with bucks and property, they’d sell it and they’d consider one another.

So clearly, the trinitarian unity of this text is developed through benevolence—the benevolent activities of the church, charity, right? We used to call it charity. Helping other people out. We still have, you know, I don’t know, eight, ten people here who are unemployed. Others who are underemployed. They need help. And I know that a lot of you are already doing that. But this is what we’re supposed to do to have that kind of trinitarian unity at play in the context of RCC. We need to have a heart of benevolence.

But I think it’s broader than that because what it’s using is—this is the first example of this commitment to having all things together, right? All things, all commonality of things. The verse last verse just spoke of. This is an example, and it’s a great one. It is a sign and wonder when somebody goes through what Spurgeon called that second conversion of your pocketbook in addition to your soul. And all of a sudden you understand that your money has been given to you as a steward and it’s not really yours. And you know it only lives if you give it away and all that stuff.

So that’s an excellent sign and wonder to see that these people gladly gave up, you know, their money. But why did they do it? Because people had need. People had a financial need. That’s what it says here. They gave to anyone who had need. Now, most of us don’t need you to sell your house or sell your possessions and give us money. Okay, that may come up occasionally. Certainly will come up occasionally. But there’s a lot of other needs here.

Trinitarian unity develops as we ascertain the needs of others and realize God has placed us in this community to help provide those needs. You see what I’m saying? The finances is an example. But what really goes on in a trinitarian community, a church of Jesus Christ, is we’re looking for other sorts of needs. You know, fellowship, physical help if they’re unhealthy. You know, people are in this day and age—it’s a strange thing because we sort of think that we have great community and all, but I will bet you that in this church today, a lot of you people feel kind of isolated. I’m amazed at how many people I talk to in what seems to be vibrant churches, but they sort of feel alone.

You know, well, maybe they should stop thinking so much, or there’s ways you can help meet the need. But it’s a need, huh? It’s a need nonetheless. In fact, it’s the great need. If we’re moving through to a certain extent the age of the Father and the age of the Son and now we’re in this age of the Spirit, right—the Father: right relationship to God. How do we have a clean conscience before God? How can we be saved? The Son: how can we have knowledge of the world around us? The Spirit: how can we have community together?

Is the work of the Holy Spirit, and in our day and age, this seems to be one of the critical areas that God is working in. How can we have community in our marriages? How can we have a marriage where we don’t divorce? How do I know my spouse is going to be faithful after the kids leave? Or in our church, usually it’s how do I know my spouse is ever going to love me again and quit yelling at me? How can we have community? Rejoicing life together?

And here in the church, how can we have a church? You know, you’ve been around a church as long as I have—twenty, twenty-five years here. You see friends come, you see friends go. You see them come and everything’s the neatest thing since sliced bread. You see them go, and they just— it was horrible here. Unrealistic. You go through that stuff. So your tendency is to build up a lot of scar tissue when the lacerations happen. Don’t do it. Bleed. Let yourself bleed. Let yourself, you know, continue to reach out to other people to fellowship together. That’s what they did, right? They broke bread from house to house. They were hospitable. They took time to get together. They did Sunday afternoon into the early evening. They weren’t quick to run home and be just by their family. See, they did that thing. They did that Lord’s Day community thing, and then they carried that into the week. They had people over during the week.

See, that’s what we’re supposed to do. Those are needs that people have. People have a need to know the word of God. And so we should try to try to help meet that need through Bible studies, whatever it is. All kinds of needs. Families have needs to be empowered these days because the state is just crushing, you know, the family as a government. So there’s all kinds of needs. And the trinitarian unity that is the wonderful gift of the Holy Spirit develops as we see and try to meet the needs of other people.

**Verse 46**

And then verse 46: “So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart.”

Now I’m not going to talk about the temple thing. It’s too complicated. I’m not sure I know what it means. I mean, the temple was not destroyed yet. It’s clear. The temple is a big deal in the book of Acts. It’s cited, I think, forty-two times—the word temple is used in the book of Acts. And here in the day of Pentecost, the new temple of the church has been built, right? This is the temple of the church. And still they’re going to the old temple. Now maybe the reference here is to set up that kind of thinking in terms of the temple. I don’t know. It’s complicated. I’m not going to go through. I didn’t want to study forty-two verses out this week and get in a rabbit trail here.

But the important part here is that they continued daily. This is that continuing on thing. It matches up with the continued steadfastly. Breaking bread from house to house. They ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart. So they engaged themselves in hospitality, right?

So a trinitarian unity here uses benevolence to meet needs, but it must be marked by fellowship, hospitality. Fellowship and or hospitality is what this particular distinguishing characteristic is. And you know, it’s interesting here—there’s an interesting word. This simplicity of heart—only place it’s used in the Bible. And I couldn’t find—there’s no theological dictionary in the New Testament reference to it. It’s really hard to find out what this word means. But apparently what the word meant is it’s a negation, an alpha first, and then another word that means stone. So “not having a stone.”

And the idea, I guess, is that think of a field. There’s a stone sitting up. You don’t see it. You stub your foot, and it’s no fun. And so the kind of fellowship these people have is they have smooth hearts. Now this could be talking—as the word sort of notes—simplicity, not mixed up with stones in there. The word “not having a stone” could refer to the flesh. You know, that God will write his law on our hearts like he used to write it on a stone, the Ten Commandments. Now it’s on our hearts. It’s Christ. But whatever it is, what it’s saying is that our fellowship should be distinguished as having a fully engaged heart or attitude in that fellowship and hospitality.

And I think by way of application, what it means is no stones of a fence. No stumbling stones. Be careful what you say. And if other people aren’t being careful, be careful not to trip. Get the stones out of there. Be sensitive to their presence. Pull them out of the field. Make your heart simple. Simplicity, smooth, engaging in fellowship in a way that’s not easily offended and isn’t insensitive to the other people. That’s rocky stuff.

And God says the model for us here is a wonderful fellowship and hospitality that happens without this stone. And here again, Chris W.’s sermon: you’ve got some stones in your heart relative to somebody, work it out one way or the other. You’ve got to work the thing out.

And then in addition to the simplicity of heart, it says they had gladness of heart as well, right? Gladness of heart. This glad term—gladness is used only five times in the Bible, and it means really big joy. The oil of gladness. Hebrews refers to this as Jesus having loved God’s righteousness done righteousness in Psalm 45. It’s quoting from God has anointed him with the oil of gladness. It means really big joy, great gladness. It’s a very—it’s not used very often. It’s not like normally, “Yeah, it’s kind of fun, kind of joyous.” No, it’s great gladness of heart.

And this great gladness or oil of gladness is referred to in Isaiah 61 where Jesus is being depicted as coming and ushering in the great culmination of all things. And he’s going to give us the oil of gladness. And that oil of gladness will empower God’s people to do particular work. Is what Isaiah 61 goes on to say.

So the work of the church happens as a result of this oil of gladness in our hospitality, in our fellowshipping together. This great joy that we have in engaging in relationships with other people. So oil of gladness. That’s why we’ve got this coloring picture, right? Yeah. They’re eating their bread with thankfulness, with simple hearts of love for each other. No stumbling stones involved. They’re very glad in what they’re doing, and they’re giving thanks. It’s a thanksgiving picture. It’s community together that flows out of the community of the church.

**Verse 47**

Finally, verse 47: “Praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily those who are being saved.”

And so here, the trinitarian unity that the spirit manifests to us results in and is undergirded by praise. Praise to God. So all of this stuff—beautiful picture, right? Absolutely impossible without the spirit of God. This is the end of the narrative of the great movement of the spirit of God in the context of these people’s lives. Impossible without the spirit. But with the spirit, absolutely possible.

It is the very fruit of the spirit. Galatians 5:22 says, “The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. And those who are Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the spirit, let us also walk in the spirit.”

The spirit of God is not manifest in some kind of strange jumping around or this or that or the other thing. It’s manifested usually. The fruit of that spirit is the rejoicing life, the trinitarian community that we see pictured for us at the conclusion of the account of the day of Pentecost.

Begins with organization, begins with forming up in worship. It moves through a visible demonstration to those that are watching of its power. It has as its heart recognizing the value of everyone in the context of the congregation. That recognition of value is in the sense of wanting to meet the needs of the people that God has put us in direct relationship to. And that meeting of the needs results in an overflowing hospitality with removing of stumbling blocks from our hearts—with joy and gladness, fellowshipping together. And that leads us to the praise of God. All that’s the marvelous work of the Holy Spirit in that opening days of the church.

And that’s what will determine the future of any culture or group: the manifestations of the trinitarian community through the power and blessing of the Holy Spirit in that particular congregation.

**Closing Prayer**

Let’s pray. Lord God, we thank you for this church. We thank you, Father, for one another. We thank you for reminding us to be sensitive to each other’s needs. We thank you, Father, for the steadfastness that nearly everyone here engages in—attending the worship of the church and being formed into it and then taking what you accomplish here for us into our homes and into our communities.

We thank you for all these things, but we know we have a lot of areas to grow in. We know that you brought some conviction to our hearts individually and corporately of things that we’re not doing that well, that aren’t that manifest and aren’t that loving toward one another.

Bless us, Lord God. You don’t bring us this word to bring us to conviction without also bringing us to resurrection. We thank you for that. We thank you for what you’re going to do in the context of this church. We pray particularly for our family camp that it might be this place of the evidence of your trinitarian covenant played out, that we’re brought into and manifest here on earth.

In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.