What Made The Early Church Great!

What Made The Early Church Great!
Acts 2:42-47


July 5, 2009

Today begins a series of messages on the topic: What Made The Early Church Great!. I would like to challenge you to think about the concepts and principles that were in place in the early church, and why we need to recapture those principles and put them into place today. The early church had a force that catapulted them into the world and they made a difference in their culture. I will be presenting some principles from the early and church from this passage and I believe:

The Early Church was great because:

They Were Committed To A Cause

The apostles were committed to a cause greater than themselves. They were not committed to a building, or a place, a worship style, but committed to the Great Commission. Matthew 28:19-20 19")Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations,) baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." The apostles were committed to what Jesus had told them to do.

They Kept Things Simple

They did 4 things. Instruction in the word, fellowship, sharing together (eating together), and prayer. They did not do everything. They were not overburdened, their focus was not on doing everything, and their focus was on the essentials. When you try to do everything you do nothing well. It is better to do a few things with excellence than to do a lot of thing with mediocrity.
Look at the shelves of Wal Mart. Recently while looking for something in our local Wal Mart I asked an associate where something was located. (They have been redoing the whole store and every time we have been in there things have been moved around. It has been like the little plastic puzzle we had as kids. You know the square one that had 8 tiny squares and you had to put the numbers in order. You move one square to another slot; move this one over here, etc…). This associate mentioned to me that they have eliminated some things as they moved the store around. They have quit carrying quite a few things. Someone has figured out they are carrying too many things.
Look at what GM and Ford have done. They have eliminated brands, sold off or closed divisions so they could return to the core of their business.
What I would like to see the church do, is to focus on the things that made the early church great. The core values of Acts 2. What would happen if the church returned to do doing just the 4 things that the apostles were doing? What would that do for us and what would that do for the ministry of the local church?
Recently our family was in Dallas and we went to a place to eat after watching the stage production of Chitty Bang. We went to a burger place. Not any burger place, but at this place they only do one thing: Burgers. They do not do chicken, fish, or BBQ, they just do burgers. (The counter had a bumper sticker on it said: McDonalds is not real food!) The place is packed out during the supper hour, (supper is the evening meal in the south, and dinner is lunch.). Why, because they do what they are the best at, burgers! (BTW the buffalo burger is the best!)


They Had Power

The Holy Spirit worked through them. The NASB translates verse 43 like this:
“Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe; and many (wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles.” The apostles were the instruments of God. The Holy Spirit was flowing through them. They were not doing things in their own strength or power, but they Holy Spirit was working through them. The greatness of the apostles was not what they accomplished but what was working through them. They Had Power, power to change lives, to make an impact. They did not have money, they did not have a big or pretty building or talented musicians but they had power. Later in the book of Acts we read about Peter and John going up to the temple to pray. There was lame man who was there begging and evidently had asked for something from Peter and John. What happened shows to us that these two men had no great wealth, or resources, but they had power, the power that comes from God and flows though us. In Acts 3:6 we read: But Peter said, "I do not possess silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you: In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene--walk!" The man did walk. Wow. They had power. What the church needs today is the same power Peter and John had. We don’t need money; we need the power of God.

They Expected God to Do Something

They were living in expectation and hopes God would do something, and God did do something. They not only had to expect God to do something, they were dependent for God to do something. They lived each day expecting God to move. Someone once said: “We get what we expect.” Do we come to church expecting God to do something? Or do we come with the same expectation: We come to church, to hear some singing, to hear a prayer, to give an offering, and hear some scripture read, and maybe a sermon. Usually that’s what we get, because that’s what we expect. However God can, and will exceed our expectations if it’s our desire. Here the apostles were living and expecting God to do something. The rest of the book of Acts is full of incidents where God did something. Peter and John, not only healing a man, but receiving boldness to preach, an angel coming to let them out of prison, a dead man brought back to life. The book of Acts is full of this, because they were expecting God to do something.
What do you expect of God as you come to church each Sunday? Do you expect him to move? You need to, because God is not the god of the mundane. God specializes in doing the unexpected, and the impossible. Are you ready for Him to do that?

As we begin this series, I would like to challenge you to think: what do we need to do to be great like the early church?

Next week we will look at the subject: What made the early church great: They were unified!