Be the Church: Committed God, Committed People
Pastor Tyler Speck from CoaH Brookline continues our sermon series on the early church from Acts 2:42-47. Discussion points: The church is built on God’s commitment to us rather than us doing the right things, because of his commitment to us we must commit our hearts fully to him, committing to each other invites vulnerability and accountability which is needed for spiritual growth.
-
Scripture reader: [Acts 2:42-47] And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers, and awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles, and all who believed were together and had all things in common, and they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as any had need. And day by day attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.
This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Preacher: Good morning. Good to be with you all. My name is, Tyler. I've been with you all a number of times over the years, and I'm always grateful to be back. I'm a pastor on staff at, at City on a Hill Brookline, one of your sister churches. anyone here running the marathon tomorrow? Anyone? Anyone? No. What? Oh, I see you. Alright, alright, yeah, yeah, yeah, let's go. I think it's supposed to be a little rainy. I'm sorry.
I, I like to brag and make the joke that I, ran a whole marathon to win my wife Ashlan over. I moved up to, to Boston and, saw this girl on stage who was my future wife, and found out she likes running so then all of a sudden I like running and, found out she was training for a marathon and all of a sudden I too. Was training for a marathon. It enabled us to to run together for hours at a time and actually it worked, so. So if you have your sights set on someone. If, if they're a runner.
Anyways, that's moving on, yeah, like I said, I'm a pastor, at, at CoaH Brookline. My, my wife Ashlan and I and our family, we're actually in the process of planting a new CoaH church in Newton, which we're super excited about. Yeah, it's exciting to, to, to see that, to see kind of God's kingdom, go forward through a new church in, in a new way, and so we're aiming for, for next year, and, things have been really encouraging so far.
I, I have seen and know that things often are not encouraging, and are discouraging, but it is nice to be in a place where things have been encouraging, right? There's a good, good core team that's kind of forming already. There's a potential building that we're talking with that we could potentially rent from, fundraising is going well. We have various meetings each month that, that things, things overall are heading in the right direction and I've been super encouraging, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't, nervous or anxious. And and this ties into the sermon I'm not just like talking about my life.
That, and actually what, what kind of keeps me up at night, the, the thing that makes me anxious is not this is this even gonna get off the ground, because I, I do know and trust that this future church, whatever ends up being is in the hands of God. I know that, but what kind of keeps me up at night is what is the church going to be like. Like what, like this, this new church, this new people, what's, what's the culture of the church gonna be like when someone comes into the church that, that doesn't know Jesus, does or is not sure what they believe or hasn't been to church in a long time? Like, how are, how are they going to feel? How are they going to experience the people of God, either loving them or failing to love them, right? What, what are they gonna walk away feeling? How is that people going to love, the person far from God, but also their brother and sister in Christ? How are we're gonna care for each other? What, what is it gonna look like when we worship together, right?
Those are the questions that, if I'm honest, those are the questions that kinda keep me up at night, not are we gonna raise a bunch of money, although we do need to raise a bunch of money. But I, I, I worry about that now, because it's, it's kind of in the early stages that we really set the trajectory for what the church will be. And that's not to say that you can't change course later on of course you can, but it becomes much more difficult, and so it's kind of like I'm, I'm super conscious of the fact that that the core people that are committed now, the core people that are are and are going to be leaders, they're really setting the tone like they're really, we're really setting the tone for what this future church will be.
And I was thinking about that in, in light of our passage, in light of your sermon series, and, and realized that the church in Acts is actually at the exact same spot. An early young, like barely a church church. And just like CoaH Newton under the umbrella of God's sovereignty, the first few steps this young church takes sets the trajectory, yes, for the next few years for this church in the Book of Acts, but actually for the church for the rest of time because what they did, how they lived is, is written down in scripture.
So if you weren't here last week, just to catch you up, we're, we're on week 2 of a sermon series called Be the Church. Last week Fletcher opened up the series by talking about the early church and Acts being joyfully expectant. And I love that, by the way, because to be honest with you, when I read that passage in Acts 2, or even when I think about what, what, what should a church look like, I, I actually don't think of that, but it's so true, right? We should be joyfully expectant of what God will do, right? He, he focused in on the, the fact that they were in awe of the works of God, and I love that that's how the sermon series kicked off because it roots ourselves in what God has done as the expression of why we're here, not so much what we're doing.
So that was week 1 and then week 2 this week, we're also gonna see that the church was absolutely committed to each other. Out of a commitment to God and out of God's commitment to you, to us. And so our main point for today is just this, a committed God creates a committed people. A committed God creates a committed people. We'll just look at three different things to, to see this in our passage. We'll first look at God's commitment to us. We'll look at our commitment to God, and then we'll look at our commitment to each other. So to dive in, in our passage, it's actually not directly stated, or it's, it's, it's maybe not super obvious, but it's, it's assumed and it's super important that we get the idea that before we're committed to each other, and before we're committed to God, God is committed to us.
Fletcher said this last week and it and it bears saying again and surprise I'll be here next week too and I'm gonna say it again next week too. That all of this, of all we're doing here today, all that we see in this early church, all of this starts with God and what he's done for us. Right, if, if, if you don't get that and I don't get that, we're gonna get this, we're gonna get this whole thing wrong. What it becomes if we kinda move the goalpost from the work of God that has already been accomplished in Christ and the work that he's doing in and through the church. We're, we're just gonna transition to a list of do's and don'ts as a way to accomplish church, as a way to live the Christian life. It's called legalism, it's called moralism. Right, you don't become an act to church by what you do, but rather first what God has done.
And yes, that ultimately finds its place in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, but also in realizing the kind of church God calls us to be finds its definition in the kind of God God is. If that makes sense. Right, God calls us to be a generous church because he's a generous God. God calls us to be a loving church because he's a loving God. God calls us to be a church that is committed to one another like we're talking about today, because he is a God who's committed to us.
And so again, if this isn't the starting point, then the pathway to becoming the type of church we see in Acts 2 is just do this. And don't do this. Believe this, don't believe that. It doesn't actually capture what we see in Acts 2, the heart of the church in Acts 2, which is God Himself. This picture, this idea of God's commitment to us, it's, it's one that's not new to the New Testament or new to this church in Acts 2, it's actually something we see all over our scripture. It's all over the narrative of scripture and all in your life too.
In fact, a great way to summarize the storyline of scripture is God's continuous commitment to his people. It starts all the way to page one. First few pages. Genesis 12 and 3, did you realize actually. Starts all the way in the garden and actually when I learned this a few years ago my mind was blown. That, that God kicking us out of the garden after we sinned against Him was actually an act of mercy and an act of commitment to us. Right, for one, yes, he commits that the the future one to come will will crush the head of the serpent and the relational separation we feel from God because of the fall will be undone, yes, but then he kicks us out of the garden for our own good. And it's actually an act of commitment towards us.
Look what it says, Genesis 3:22. Then the Lord God said, behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, Not because of what he did, but lest he reach out his hand and also take the tree of life and eat and live forever. In other words. Unless he take from the tree of life and eat and live forever and live in this fallen state for the rest of his life, that's an act of mercy. He's preventing us from living in a sinful fallen state forever. And really from this point forward, what we tend to think of is, is a long, when it comes to the scriptures and the storyline of scripture is a long winding path of, of humanity's sin just wreaking havoc. Which is true but alongside it is a long winding path of God's commitment and faithfulness to us. From Abraham to the Israelites wandering in the desert to God's kingdom Israel to God's people in Babylonian captivity. Right? The, the, the narrative scripture has a great dichotomy of our inability to be, to commit to God, but God's ability to continuously always commit to us.
And so the one thing you cannot say when you read the scriptures is that God doesn't love his people. Or that God isn't committed to his people. Extrapolate that to to today, here and now, to you and your life, and the message is actually the same. But beyond the narratives and the storylines we see in scripture, there's also a lot of descriptive verses that talk about how God feels towards us today. Read some of these with me.
Deuteronomy 31, describing how God feels and is towards you, right? He will never leave you nor forsake you. Isaiah 41, I will uphold you. God will uphold you with His righteous right hand. Matthew 28, He is with you always to the very end of the age. Jeremiah 31, I have loved you with an everlasting love. I love the message translation. It's so poetic. I have loved you with a forever love. Actually I can't remember if that's the message or that's the Jesus storybook Bible that I read to my child every night, but it's one of those. 2 Timothy 2, if we are faithless, he remains faithful. Friends, if you're here and you're following Jesus and you're unsure about how God feels about you. Hear this, the God of the universe is completely committed to you. The God of the universe is completely in love with you through Christ. And out of that, you can be completely committed to him and to his church, to his people.
Speaking of this, JI Packer says there's a tremendous relief in knowing that his love to me is utterly realistic. The quote ended there, that would not be fantastic news. Based at every point on prior knowledge of the worst about me so that no discovery now can disillusion him more about me, in the way I'm so often disillusioned about myself. In other words, his commitment to you, his love for you is not based on what you do or don't do. That'd be conditional. Right, when we look at the scriptures, the, the verses we just read, the stories we just heard about, we read about an unconditional commitment, an unconditional love that God has for his people. In other words, when it comes to you and your life, the sins and struggles you bring into this room, the sins and struggles you both confess to the person sitting next to you and the ones that you don't talk about out loud. In light of all that, he's, he's not going anywhere. The way he feels about you because of Christ won't, won't be changing. Nothing you could do can make God love you more than he does right now. And he loves you a whole lot right now.
And this ought to be the thing that comforts us and allows us to enter into a space of commitment to God because that means we're entering into a safe space of covenant, unconditional commitment. That it's, we, we have things that God asks us to do, but whether we do or don't do them does not orient or rearrange or reorganize the way God feels about us. If we're in Christ So this is the foundation Right, for our understanding of who God wants us to be as a church. This is really our foundation for who God wants us to be as individual Christians, not just a collective together church. This all flows out of who he is, which is fully committed to us. And so that's God's commitment to us, and remember the progression. God is committed to us, which leads to us being committed to God, which leads to us being committed to each other.
So let's talk about our commitment to God. If God is absolutely committed to us, it ought to move us to be absolutely committed to him. Look at our passage, verse 42 says, and they devoted themselves. That word matters devoted, committed, those are super interchangeable when it comes to this translation. They devoted, they were committed, it's not occasional interest. But it's not kind of spiritual dabbling in the buffet of religions that exist. Right, this is not God kind of getting whatever leftover attention we happen to have left. This is, this is wholehearted devotion and wholehearted commitment. To what? Well, the apostles' teaching. Meaning they wanted to sit under the word, the scriptures. To the fellowship They didn't treat church as an event. Right, but as a shared life, right?
That's why I actually, and if you use this phrase, I'm not dogging on it, that's why I actually don't like the phrase you're going to church, you're not going to church. You're going to a worship service. You are the church. Right, that's why this series is called Be the Church. Yes, we want Sundays to look a certain way, but what's actually more important is the kind of people we are. That's what informs what these, these moments look like or what we want them to look like. But the church is not something you go to, you go to a building with the church, and then you worship God with the church, and then you live the rest of your week with the church. To the breaking of bread. Right, what was Jared saying? Like, I got some people too. I know if I'm going to their house, I'm eating good, right? He was, he was nice though, because he then went on to like say like the other people's houses that he goes to, it's like I know I'm gonna laugh, I'm gonna take my shoes off. There's some people's house I know if I'm going to your house, I'm not eating good. I can say that because like I don't, I don't pastor here, right? So like. I, I, I actually, actually, now I'm, now I'm like wondering like what was this bread good?
But they devoted themselves to the breaking of bread. Which does have implications on the Lord's Supper, yes. But that also includes shared meals that in the early church they call them agape meals or love meals. And yes it was literally eating together, but what's actually kind of more the undercurrent of it is is fellowship and time. And shared experiences and shared life at a at a table. They devoted or committed themselves to the prayers, right? They were a praying people. Not just a programmatic people. In other words, their, their commitment to God, it, it was not vague. And I think some of us, if I, I, I, I think some of us would find ourselves in the vagueness of commitment to God. When we look at that passage and we see commitment to God has, has shape and it has substance, right? It showed up in habits, it showed up in gathered worship, it showed up in hunger for the word of God, it showed up in prayer. Right, it showed up in a life completely rearranged for Jesus.
If I can be blunt, myself included here, this is where many of us need to be challenged. Right, just to put it bluntly, does your life, your calendar, the things you care about, what you spent your money on, your thought life, your love of neighbor. The way you spend your doubt time. Does your life reflect an absolute commitment to God? Or does your life reflect a 9:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. on a Sunday? And then a 2 hour time slot throughout the week for CG commitment to God. Right, we, we often say we're committed to God, but that usually means we have warm feelings towards God and he occupies maybe 10% of our calendar. And I'm not saying that the church calendar wise should occupy more space than something else, but what I actually mean is your heart posture, the reason you're doing the things you're doing. When you're not with the gathered church, when you're in your workplace. You don't pause your beliefs and check them out of the door.
I'm not saying be a weirdo and go share in really weird ways, but I am saying God has you there for a purpose and a reason and a mission. Right? We need to reorient, re-enter all of our life, birthed out of a God's commitment to us, to a full commitment to God. Right, not just Sunday mornings, not just stop sinning in a few different ways, not just a prayer when you wake up, and then a 32nd prayer when you go to bed, right? No, all of life. You look at Acts 2, the passage we read, the things we just described, that's all of life committed to God. And I'll be clear if, if, if you're here and you consider yourself a Christian and, and you, you feel like you kinda step back and survey your life, your calendar, the things you're doing, you're not doing, and, and, and think, I, my life is actually not oriented around Christ, it's not actually oriented around the scriptures and the teachings of God and the people of God and reaching people far from God. If it's not oriented around those things, I just wanna remind us what our first point is, and that is to change your life, to be oriented around the way God wants you to live. It's not simply behavior, it's revisiting the fact that God loves you. And he's committed to you.
Otherwise, we start making changes and in your mind, you make those changes to prove a point, or to, to actually prove you're committing to God, which has already been proven, by the way. To the cross of Christ. Right if you're here and and you survey your life and you feel as though you are not absolutely committed to God, the starting point is not do better. The starting point is look up. And realize how much he loves you. And that allows you to move forward in freedom. That's our commitment to God and let's last look at our commitment to each other. I was thinking about this idea of, of kind of commitment in our day and age and our culture and it's, it's something that's actually becoming, I would think this is pure anecdotal, no it's not because I have statistics I'm about to back it up with I don't know why I said that.
Our, it's commitment is becoming less and less of a thing. Right, marriage is down 20% over the last 50 years. The amount of people who are staying with, with one job or one company, for longer periods of time is at an all-time low. Friendship is at an all-time low across the board. Those aren't inherently bad things, and, and all of those things aren't entirely because of commitment issues per se, but they're super related. Right, commitment kind of goes against the, the grain of our culture right now, especially in this city. We perpetually RSVP for birthday parties with what? Maybe right, Facebook, and this isn't even recent, right? Facebook hasn't, it's complicated relationship status. Which I actually did that in high school. It's pretty weird and I look back at that. I'm like, why, why, why do people do that? If you do that in this room, I'm sorry, but like why? It's so like you're broadcasting something that is, I'm gonna stop.
My, my wife and I, we were literally invited to a kid's birthday party this week, and, and we wanted to keep our options open, and we had a problem with commitment, and we said what we said maybe. Now why do we do this? It's and with the birthday party, that one's not as. Substantial, right? But with more deeper things, why do we do this? It's not just lighthearted FOMO. Right, it's not just kind of this generation or this time period or we just want or need more self-care or alone time. No, I think if we're honest, we fear vulnerability. We fear accountability. We fear getting hurt if we open up.
And let me just encourage you or lightly rebuke you. If you're here and you're following Jesus, you need those things to grow in your faith. Vulnerability, accountability, opening up, commitment aren't mere suggestions for the church. It's what God has in store for the church as we attempt to point each other closer to Jesus. Or the Book of Acts, the rest of the New Testament paint a picture of a church that doesn't do that perfectly but is trying to do that. To read our passage one more time, just key in on the kind of together committedness language that exists in our passage. And they together devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship together to the making, the breaking of bread and the prayers, and all came upon every soul and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles and all who believed were together and had all things in common.
Right, there is a genuine commitment to one another rooted in God's commitment to them. And to be clear, there's some commentaries that it's actually like some people think this is kind of early communism, that's not what's happening here. People still had their own things. If you flip forward a few more chapters and Acts, people still own their own homes. No, what we see though is just that they were willing, when needed to sell, to get what was needed for someone else. Because they were committed to each other. Right, part of their commitment played out in generosity, which we'll talk about next week. But this was a group of people that seemed to be, as they were following Jesus, also fiercely devoted and committed to each other.
And here's the thing. To be completely honest with you all, especially if you're here and you're newer. We aim for that, knowing we fall short. Because life's messy. People are messy. Hurt people hurt people, and all of us in some way, shape or form are is a hurt person. The Book of Acts, the early church, as beautiful as this descriptor is, if you keep reading. And then especially when you, you spill over into the New Testament letters to the church, like First Corinthians is wild. And it's messy. And we're no different. The people in this church. People in my church just roll the same page, they will disappoint you. We will disappoint each other. CG's They're messy.
At CoaH Brooklyn a few years ago we actually really started to intentionally shift our language around CGs, you know, we get up, up, up front and then, and one of our core values was, is community and community groups and everyone should join a CG. They're the best thing. It's the, you're gonna make some great friends. You're gonna grow in your faith. You're gonna have a great experience. It's gonna be amazing, you know what was happening is people were joining CGs, as I'm sure many of you have experienced this, and. That's not how they would describe their experience. It'd be the opposite. I struggled to make friends. My doubts remain the same. I didn't have a great time. And I got stuck in one CG where it's just bad food. Like yes, we, we hope ultimately that it's, it's a group that points each other back to Jesus and facilitates the worship of God through commitment to each other. That's what we say CGs exists for now.
And actually often we'll we'll say those words from the stages like you'll you'll be disappointed. Right, when we said CGs are fun and they weren't fun, it was viewed as a failure. Cause it was, if the purpose was to have fun. We said you're best friends we made through CG and they didn't make best friends, it was viewed as a failure. If the point of CGs was to make best friends, now I hope those things happen in your experience. Right, I hope you get those things, but the point of Christian community is Christ. And if that's the point, we won't fail. Because it's all up to him. And to expect anything more is actually detrimental to you and the community in which you find yourself.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer says, says this, hang with me here, it's a longer quote. Every human idealized image that is brought into the Christian community is a hindrance to genuine community and must be broken up so that the genuine community can survive. Focusing on this part, those who love their dream of a Christian community more than the Christian community itself become destroyers of that community. Even though their personal intentions may be ever so honest, earnest, and sacrificial. God hates this wishful dreaming because it makes the dreamer proud and pretentious. Those who dream of this idealized community demand that it be fulfilled by God, by others, and by themselves. They enter the community of Christians with their demands, set up their own law, and judge one another and even God accordingly. They stand adamant a living reproach to all the others in the circle of the community.
That's really strong. Those who love their dream of a Christian community more than the Christian community itself become destroyers of that Christian community. What that doesn't mean is lower your expectations, to be clear. But what it does mean is that maybe the purpose of community and the purpose of commitment. To each other needs to change. What it shouldn't be is that you are part of this, you're committed to this because the person sitting next to you in front of you, behind you, you believe to be a certain caliber because you want something specific from them, but rather quite simply. Because God calls us to it and it's how we carry out the worship of God in commitment to each other.
I'm be careful too, I I know you all. I know this church. I love this church. It's a healthy church. I know some of you come from churches that weren't healthy. They were teaching things that were antithetical to the gospel or the scriptures or had abusive leaders. I think that's that's a that's a different scenario. I wanna make that super clear for anyone who's bringing that kind of baggage and and hurt and sensitivity into this room. And I'm not saying there's never good reasons that you should leave or depart or find a different community. But I think what it just means is that we need to reorient our purpose of community and commitment to each other is ultimately Christ, not what we can get out of the other person.
So what does that actually mean for some of you? I think it has great implications for your next step, actually. For some of you, it means putting your yes on the table to Jesus and actually committing and becoming a member of the church. Right, Having been in Boston, this is just a, a plug for membership. Having been in Boston for over 10 years now, I'm convinced that your spiritual growth likely has a ceiling if you aren't willing to become a member of a church. What you'll find in membership is greater accountability, to be honest, mutual accountability. But for others of you, you aren't ready for that yet, right? Maybe you aren't even ready to join a CG. I just wanna encourage you, maybe your next step is to simply open up to somebody here. Like we're talking about the commitment stuff and how it's hard because we don't be vulnerable, we don't wanna be held accountable, we don't wanna open up. Maybe that's your next step, vulnerability, accountability, and opening up. Right at at at the end of the service, there are prayer folks in the back. If you don't feel like you can have a friend, you can do those things with, that's what they're here for. They would be delighted for you to come and share and then to pray with you and for you.
Get vulnerable. Welcome accountability. Start to commit to God and God's people. So as we close, the rest of acts. If, if you follow in in our passage specifically, but then the rest of the book. This, this community, this, this Christian community that is committed to each other becomes a compelling witness to the world. Francis Schaeffer says our relationship with each other is the criterion the world uses to judge whether our message is truthful. Christian community is the final apologetic. Christian community is the final apologetic.
In other words, what we have in here should be appealing to people out there. Right, your life together as a church body is not itself the gospel. But is how some people will come to see the gospel. Right, our, our commitment to each other, the way we treat each other, the way we love each other, the way we kind of survey each thing in this sermon series, and the way we live that out is the way the beauty of Christ is made tangible to people who are not yet in a relationship with God, or in a relationship with a church body. So let's be this kind of committed people. Right? Realizing a committed God creates a committed people. Realizing that our commitment to each other stems from our commitment to God, and our commitment to God stems from his commitment to us. Let's pray.
God, we're thankful for you God, that you are the one upon whom this church rests. You're the one upon whom this church defines itself, so God help us to see you more clearly. Help us to realize that being committed to each other first starts with being committed to you, and beyond that is ultimately dependent upon you being committed to us. God, I pray for anyone in the room who doesn't know that, doesn't believe that, or is hearing that for the first time. The good news, God, that the way we make our, our way into a relationship with you, into your good graces, into your good favor is not by committing to you, but rather realizing you have committed to us, and that out of that, we're able to walk into your love, walk into your grace, and walk into commitment. In your name Jesus, Amen.