Acts 2. We'll be looking again
at the last few verses of this chapter. We'll begin in verse
41, and let's read down through the end of the chapter, verse
47. Acts 2, 41-47. The title of the
lesson this morning is, Steadfast Continuance, Part 2. Continuing
from last week, verse 41 says, Then they that gladly received
his word were baptized. And the same day there were added
unto them about three thousand souls. And they continued steadfastly
in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship and in breaking of
bread and in prayers. And fear came upon every soul
and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles. and all
that believed were together and had all things common, and sold
their possessions and goods and parted them to all men as every
man had need. And they, continuing daily with
one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to
house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart,
praising God and having favor with all the people. And the
Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved. Steadfast
continuance. Last week, we were looking at
these verses and we saw that these believers in Christ, these
that heard the sermon that the Apostle Peter had preached to
them, by the grace of God, they had come to know Christ. They
had come to believe the Gospel. They received His Word. They
received the Word of God and they were saved. And we saw that
they were baptized. They that were saved were baptized. And we saw that baptism is a
confession of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is nothing more than
a confession. It is an ordinance of the Lord.
It has no part in our salvation, but yet it is commanded of Christ. It is an ordinance that every
believer should partake of. Every believer should identify
with the life death and resurrection of Christ. We saw that church
membership was important. You see, these people gathered
together, they joined together in a local assembly. They continued
to do this, as you can read, we're going to go through the
book of Acts, you're going to see this time and time again, that they joined
themselves together. They came together in a local
assembly to worship God. And last week, thirdly, we saw
that they continued steadfastly in the doctrine of the apostles.
They didn't continue steadfastly in science or any of the politics
of the day. They continued steadfastly in
the doctrines of the gospel of Jesus Christ. They continued
to hear the preaching of the gospel. Now, today we're going
to look at A few more things that they continued steadfastly
in. First of all, we want to see that they continued steadfastly
in fellowship. Let's go back to our text and
read this. They continued, verse 42, steadfastly
in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship. We must see, as believers
in Jesus Christ, By our own experience in this life and walk with Jesus
Christ, we all need encouragement. There is not one of us here that
does not need encouragement. We do. We need encouragement
through the temptations and troubles and trials of the day. We need
encouragement to help us through the griefs and pains of this
life. And our Lord, by His grace, has
left us the means. He's left us the means by which
we receive encouragement. And that is by the fellowship
of hearing the gospel together. Every time we meet together,
I am encouraged. I am encouraged every time I
hear the gospel preached. I'm encouraged. And I know that
it encourages you who are believers. And we gather together with one
purpose, one accord, one reason you're sitting here this morning,
I pray, is to worship God with me. To worship God through Christ
with me. And by this, we are encouraged. We are encouraged and strengthened.
How many times have we said this? Woe is me. Woe is me. Oh, look at me. Something's wrong
and I'm the only one that has ever experienced such grief.
I'm it. Nobody else can really enter
into what I've been through. Well, you're not alone in that
either. because the prophet Elijah did
the same thing. In 1 Kings 19, if you read that,
you'll find Elijah, he had just come from that great experience
of fire coming down from heaven and consuming the sacrifice.
All those prophets of Baal were jumping around and cutting themselves
and beating their heads against the wall, and he was kind of
making fun of them. He said, Joey, where's your God?
He must be taking a walk or something. He's not coming. And God, at
the time of the sacrifice, at the appointed time, Elijah prayed
to God and fire came down from heaven. And they poured water
over all that thing and it licked up the water, it was so much. And not only that, he killed
400 prophets. That's an amazing thing. That's
an amazing miracle. But if you'll notice what happened
immediately after that. Immediately after that, that
queen Jezebel, that wicked woman says, I'm going to have him dead.
If he's not dead by tomorrow, I will be. And he got scared. And he ran
to the cave and he hid himself in the cave. And the Scripture
says he wrapped his face in a mantle. How many times have we wrapped
ourselves in our hands and said, oh, I'm so scared. I'm alone and there's nobody
here to help me. I'm all alone, Lord. You might
as well take me home. Self-pity. We wallow in it many
times. But what did the Lord do to encourage
His prophet? What was the thing that He did
to give him encouragement? He said, I have left for me 7,000
that have not bowed the knee to Baal. I have a remnant, I
have a people, and you're not alone. You're not alone. You see, fellowship is necessary
for encouragement. To know that we're not alone
is an encouraging thing. To know that we don't have to
suffer alone. And this is what we come together
for. We come together to know that
we are not alone. That our problems are not just
isolated. That your problems have been
my problems. And my problems have been your
problems. We've experienced the same. And the same message encourages
us both. The same message. God says I
have a remnant and that encourages me. That gives me strength to
make it from day to day that God has a remnant. Continue steadfastly
in fellowship. It's important. It's important. But I'll tell you this, if we
miss worship, If we are not continually steadfast in fellowship together,
it only leads our brothers and sisters to discouragement. I'll tell you what, when you
are here, I'm encouraged. To see your face, when I come
and I prepare a message, and I seek the Lord as to what He
would have me to preach, and then I come here expecting God's
people to be here, and when you come, I'm encouraged. When you
come, I'm encouraged. But I'll tell you this, when
people are missing worship, are we not discouraged? I'll tell you this, you can't
help it. We are discouraged. When we don't fellowship together,
we become discouraged and we become downtrodden. And we don't
know why. We say, I don't understand why
this is... Have you been fellowshipping
with God's people? Well, no. I've been kind of alone. Well,
that's a problem. We don't need to be alone. You
don't need to be alone. We're here together. I had talked
to my parents this last week. My parents had moved from a blessed
church, a wonderful church family, and they attended services faithfully
for many years at this church, and they were forced to move.
They were forced to move out into the country, into the sticks,
and there was no church around. They finally found one assembly,
and they meet one time a week, just for the first worship service.
They don't even have a Sunday school time, they just have the
worship service. They meet for 45 minutes, and
then they go away. waiting for the next week. And
I've found this to be true, that my parents, from their experience,
have been more depressed and more downtrodden in this time
in their lives than they've ever been before. Why? They have not
fellowship with the believers. My father just went down to Houston
again and he met up with my wife's grandfather and they fellowshiped
together. And when my dad got back to the
house, my mom says, you know, I couldn't get enough of being
around him. That's true of us. When we miss
the fellowship, I'm telling you, it affects every part of us.
Forsake not the assembling of ourselves together. Why? We need
this fellowship. You see, I need this. I need
this. And I know you do. The Scriptures
liken us to sheep for a reason. You ever see a sheep jump through
a hoop? You know, you ever see a sheep at a circus? No, they're
dumb. They can't be trained. And that's
us. And a sheep will sit out and
if he's by himself, he'll eat in this one pasture of grass
and he'll die of starvation because he won't move. You see, he needs
a shepherd. And the shepherd guides him where? To the flock. If a sheep is alone,
he is either lost or he's sick. And my friends, if we neglect
fellowship, we are either lost or we're sick. One of the two.
So they continued in steadfast fellowship. That's what we ought
to do. Number four, the next one. They continued in breaking
of bread. Now this breaking of bread has
reference to the institution of the Lord's Supper. The Lord's
table. These continued the practice
because it was our Lord's ordinance And because it was a wonderful
reminder of the death of our blessed Savior. Last Sunday we
had the Lord's table here together. You know, I enjoy that ordinance
with you. I enjoy that fellowship with
you. We come together and we see the
broken body. We see that the Lord Jesus Christ
gave His life, His body to be broken for us. He gave His body
to suffer and to die for us. And every time we take that bread
and we put it into our mouth, what we are symbolizing is the
union that we have with Christ. When you put a piece of bread
in your mouth and you chew it up and you swallow it, can you
tell you from the bread anymore? No, the bread is part of you,
and you are part of the bread. We are the body of Christ. We
are in union with Him. We are in union with Christ. And wherever the head is, there's
the body. Did you leave your head at home
this morning? Sometimes I feel that way, like I left my head
at the house. But no, we can't leave our head
from our body and therefore we cannot be separated ever from
the Lord Jesus Christ. And when we take that breath,
we remember this. We remember His broken body and
how we are in union with Him. You see, the Lord's table is
not a complicated thing, it's a very simple thing. A very simple
thing. Simple ordinance. We don't add
anything to it. We try not to add anything to
it. We want to do it exactly the
way the Lord did it. Now, when we drink the blood,
when we drink the wine, that is the same symbol. We are in
union with His blood. When the nation of Israel was
in Egypt and they did the atonement, the Passover, The Passover lamb. They slain that lamb. And they
were commanded to take the blood and they were to put it on the
doorpost and on the lentil. This is what is pictured by drinking
the wine. It is a picture of the blood
being applied to our hearts. And that is a wonderful thing.
It is a wonderful thing. So when God sees us, believer,
what does He see? He sees the blood. And what did
He say? When I see the blood, I will
pass over you. It is a wonderful picture. A
wonderful ordinance of the Lord's table. And we're to continually
do this. Now this ordinance is one of
remembrance and encouragement for us together. And I know that
the Lord's table is to be performed in the place of the local body,
here in this church, among believers. But one thing this church does
not have the right or power to do is to take away the Lord's
Supper from anybody. You see, I am not called to examine
you to see if you are able to take the Lord's Supper. There's
not a list of questions I can ask. There's not anything I can
do. The Scriptures state plainly in verse 28 of 1 Corinthians
11, let every man examine himself. That's plain and simple, isn't
it? Let a man examine himself. It didn't say let the church
examine him, let the congregation examine him. No. Examine yourself
because it has nothing to do with the church. If you eat and
drink this unworthily, you eat it and drink it to your own damnation. You see, you must make sure that
you are a believer in Christ. Examine yourself. See if you
be in the faith or not. See if God has given you the
faith to believe. Do you rest on Christ alone?
Or is it Christ plus something? Christ plus something, don't
do it. I warn you. Oh, but if you have Christ alone,
by all means, eat and drink the ordinance of the Lord's table.
It's very important. It is not something we are to
underestimate because it is not part of salvation. We are to
do it because our Lord commanded us to. Because it gives us great
joy to do it. It does me enjoy Number number
five they continue steadfastly in prayer Prayer is a wonderful
part of this worship service We worship together. I hope every
time that you come together and I am standing here preaching
the gospel You should be praying You should be praying every time
I'm speaking or every time someone stands up to pray or someone
voices a prayer for us. You should be attentive to that
prayer and also pray within yourself. I remember many times, that when
a person voiced their prayer, I would kindly listen and maybe
listen and I didn't pay much attention. I usually did my own
prayer and that's not what it's supposed to be. Listen to what
the person is saying if someone's standing and praying. Listen
to them. How can you say amen to that prayer if you don't understand
what they're saying, if you're not listening? We should listen
to what they're saying and pray along with them. in that prayer. If it is a good prayer, pray
along. If it is a prayer of praise,
praise with Him. We are to worship in one accord
in prayer. And prayer is vitally important.
What is prayer? Prayer is our communion with
God. It's our fellowship with God.
We are communing with God when we pray. My little girl, the other day,
she always likes to pray, and I know that she does this because
she wants attention, not because she really likes to pray. She
just wants the favor, wants the attention at this point, and
that's fine. She does it every once in a while.
One time she was crying, and just to make her feel better,
I said, did you want to pray? And she says, I don't feel like
praying. I don't feel like it. How many
times have we said that? You know, I just don't feel like
it. My friends, the more we would
recognize our feelings have very little to do with anything, the
better off we'll be. Feelings come and feelings go. Feelings are deceptive. Feelings
are deceptive because our hearts are deceptive. Our flesh is deceptive. And you can get caught up in
emotionalism and not pray at all. I see people a lot of times,
they'll get a good song service and man, they'll be hands in
the air and they'll be singing and crying and all this other
stuff. I tell you what, half of that
is not even praise or prayer at all. It's usually drawing
attention to themselves. Look at me, I'm crying. Look
at me, I'm raising my hands. Prayer is an intimate thing.
When we come together as a corporate body and we pray, it is an intimate
thing with us. We are coming into the very presence
of God Himself. We're not talking about praying,
talking to you or me. We're talking about coming into
the presence of God. This place should be a house
of prayer. And every time I pray, every
time I'm here, I pray you're praying for me. I pray you're
praying for the message. I am. I'm praying God would touch
someone's heart, that His people would grow in grace and knowledge
of Christ. Hebrews 9, 11 says, But Christ,
being come a high priest for good things to come, by the greater
and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is
to say, not of this building, neither by the blood of bulls
or goats, calves, but by His own blood entered once into the
holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us." Why? Having
therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the very presence
of God, the Holy of Holies. That's what you do. When we pray,
that's what we're praying. We're entering into the presence
of God. And we reverence Him. We come before Him. And the last
thing that I want to mention is that they feared. Look at
that in verse 43. And fear came upon every soul. This is not a slavish fear. When we come to worship, we're
not coming to worship in a slavish manner. I don't come here because
I have to. I come here because I long to.
I come here to reverence God in every bit of this worship.
I want to reverence God. I want to reverence Him in all
things. To reverence Him is to want to
love Him and serve Him. See, my friends, it is not this
New Age philosophy of Jesus is my buddy. I had a preacher friend
of mine have this guy walk into his congregation. He had a hat
on. He said, Jesus is my buddy. Oh, no, He's not. You see, that's a lie of this
world to think that Jesus Christ is, that we are equal with Christ,
that we are on the same plane as Christ. You see, He's not
my buddy, He is my God, He is my King, He is my Lord, He is
my Master, He is my Savior. Those are what I think of Him
when I come to worship. See, and that's the Christ I've
come to worship. You remember Esther. In the book
of Esther, when she came, she was asked of Mordecai to go in
to the king who was her husband. But she knew this, when she went
into the presence of the king, if he did not yield his scepter
to her, she was dead. And my friends, she came with
the utmost reverence even though He was her husband. And even though Christ is our
husband, let us not come in with an arrogance into the presence
of God. When it says to come boldly,
He's not talking about coming in chewing bubble gum and, you
know, you would never come into the presence of even an earthly
king in this manner. We should come with fear and
reverence before Him in love. We should reverence Him, bow
down before Him. He is worthy of this. He is worthy
of this. These believers reverenced Him
so much that they gave everything they had. When we come to worship, do we
give everything we have? Do we come giving our whole hearts
in reverence? We should. Is He not worthy of
all of our attention and hope and love and praise? Yes, He's worthy of all these
things. Then bring it! Bring it. Bring all that is worthy, all
that is His. Let us bring it before Him in
love. They loved Him so much that the
things of this world really didn't matter much. Verse 44 says, And they all believed
that they were together and had all things common, and sold their
possessions and goods and parted with them, and gave to every
man that hath need. You see, these believers, like
the Apostle Paul, counted all things but dung that they may
win Christ. My friends, count this world
as dung. All the things of this life are
nothing more than a pile of manure. That's what he likens them to. Why would we care about the things
of this life? Let us enter into His presence
and let go of all the things of this life, all the cares,
all the concerns, and approach before His throne in love. You see, these believers gave
to everyone that had need. And that's what we're to continue
in. We're to continue to give such as had need." Does anybody
here have need? If there's anybody that had need,
we need to give to those people who have needs. To the church
first, to the body of Christ first. Paul said, let us do good
unto all men, especially them that are of the household of
faith. You see, we take care of the members of the church
first, giving all that we have for them and to meet their needs. And if we have any left, it goes
to anybody else that has need. That's what we're here for. This
church, I'll tell you this, this church in this day was a bright
and shining church. It was a bright light in a very
dark place. And I'll tell you, the church
is the brightest not when it's the wealthiest, but when it's
the poorest. When the church has tribulations
and troubles, it is then that the church shines the brightest. I pray that the Lord would give
us hearts to worship, hearts to praise, hearts to pray, hearts
of reverence for Him this morning as we come to worship Him. I've
come to bow down before Christ today. If this is your purpose,
then let us in fellowship bow down together. Let us bow down
together and sit at His feet this morning. I pray that God
will bless us with this message.