I Like Jesus. I’m Not Sure About Church - Week 3
Ryan Scott Carrell - July 7, 2024
The following is not a transcript. Ryan preaches from a manuscript but adds a lot each week that is not necessarily from the manuscript. We’re providing this manuscript, and the ability to comment and participate in discussion about the sermon topic, as an additional way to interact with the sermon and with others. As you add your voice to the conversation, you help add additional depth.
Acts 2:42-47
42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43 Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. 44 All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45 They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. 46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
For several weeks, we have looked at this passage, focusing particularly on the last word we read in the last verse. That word saved has a lot of baggage when it comes to how people have talked about it in the church. The primary way we may have heard that word used, from well-meaning people, is that being saved is only about what happens to your soul after you die. Being saved becomes about avoiding eternal judgment by believing or doing the right things. But these verses reveal a very different understanding.
Rather than being saved from a hell to be avoided, this passage shows us that being saved was intrinsically connected to being a part of the community of faith to which these followers of the way of Jesus belonged. Being saved was something that happened to them as they participated in this Jesus-centered community. And as they did that, and as they lived out this new reality, they captivated the people around them.
The harsh reality is that this is not how a lot of people would describe the church today. Due to the reputation of this thing we call church, many people would prefer to be saved from the church and not saved in it. And this is why we’re focusing on these verses. In the words of these verses, we see a picture of the church that redefines how the church seems to be defined in our world today.
What we see in the early church is such a different reality from the experience of so many when it comes to church. That picture we find, as we explore it, can help us and guide us as we seek to continue to be a place redefining the word church. Let’s look at those words again as we continue our series.
Acts 2:42-47
42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43 Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. 44 All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45 They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. 46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
As we continue this week, I want us to shift from the last verse to the first. We began this last week by looking at the first clause—they devoted themselves. We discovered that the they in this passage were people from all over the known world who miraculously heard the message of Jesus on a day we call Pentecost. They were then invited by Peter, one of Jesus’s disciples, to change the direction of their lives, and about three thousand of them were baptized and shifted their lives from an old way of living into this new Christ-centered way of life. From there, the passage tells us what happened next as they devoted, or leaned all the way into this new life with full intention, including a devotion to the apostles’ teaching. And this is what I want to talk about today. What does it mean to be devoted to the teaching of the apostles?
I think one way to think about this, formed by negative experiences, stories, and what we see in the news, is that there is often a vacuum formed in communities of faith. Into that vacuum have stepped countless numbers of narcissistic leaders. These authoritarians have all the answers and none of the questions. They seem focused on platform and power and less on grace and compassion. Sometimes these faces of authority aren’t faces with one name but institutions with rules, policies, and statements that become thresholds to belonging. But is that what the early church was experiencing? Is that what we’re meant to experience today?
I think the next verse helps us as we seek to answer these questions.
Acts 2:43
Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles.
We will discuss in future weeks what the performance of wonders and signs might mean in this verse, but there is something else I want us to see here today. The apostles' teaching wasn’t revered due to positional authority but came about as a result of pastoral presence.
We’re exploring the way of Jesus together. I have an office, a role, and a job in the position I hold in our church, but I’m Ryan. I can’t pastor you from afar. It is an honor to be invited into your life and to invite you into mine. The day that isn’t a reality, is the day I’d have to step back and assess what went wrong. I experienced this during the last few years when we went through some hard times together. I never felt alone. The pedestal is a lonely place. I’m glad I’ve never felt the need to be on one. Unfortunately, that’s not what we’ve seen in so much of what we call the church. Rather than presence, teaching becomes performance.
Now, there is an aspect of teaching that is about engagement. We sit on metal chairs at Southeast, and I fully understand that our butts will determine our focus if our brains are not fully engaged. But my job is not to give an entertaining TED talk, a motivational speech, or, as I’m seeing way too often in the church today, a political position statement. My job here is to make sure that we’re devoted, leaning all the way into the way of Jesus.
If we aren’t devoted to the way of Jesus, we will fill that space with something else. What ends up happening is that Jesus becomes a sticker or a slogan that gets slapped onto the side of opinions and conflated with all kinds of things that don’t look anything like Jesus. And this gets us back to our focus today on the apostles’ teaching.
Acts 2:42
42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching…
The word apostle is what we call transliteration. When a word in one language has a special meaning, translators create a new word that causes us to pause. But, those words can become insider language that loses the special meaning they were meant to convey. An apostle is a messenger sent out. We see how these apostles were sent out in this passage.
Matthew 28:18-20
18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
Jesus’s authority cut through an important dynamic that is so easy to miss. The disciples, in several places, had to be corrected by Jesus when the good news became an inward-focused reality that put them at the top. This was a huge statement attributed to Jesus that the essence of their call was to share the good news with all people. From there, they were to baptize them into this new way of living, and then teach what Jesus commanded.
But what did Jesus command? How can we possibly sum that up? One way to do that is to look at how Jesus responded to that question.
Luke 10:25-28
25 On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 26 “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?” 27 He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” 28 “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”
A few weeks ago, my friend Shannon focused on these two statements that are at the center of what Jesus taught: love God and love others. That’s why, here at Southeast, our mission statement is very simple: Exploring the way of Jesus as we learn to love God, love others, and bring life to our community. To be fair, you’ll find something similar on a lot of church mission statements. But, why then, is so much of the reputation of churches about their their exclusion, their politics, or several other stances that seem to have nothing to do with the way of Jesus? I can’t answer that and be fair. That’s for other leaders in other places to wrestle through. What I can do is talk about what we’re trying to do here at Southeast that came about as I wrestled with being a place where the way of Jesus stayed the focus. And a way that I have found to make sure of that is through the words of the Apostles’ Creed.
The Apostles’ Creed
I believe in God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to the dead. On the third day he rose again;
he ascended into heaven, is seated at the right hand of the Father, and will come again to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the one holy church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.
The word creed is from the Latin word credo. It simply means I believe. And, if we are talking about beliefs, we all have them. Likely written down around the fifth century, the roots of the Apostles’ Creed date back even further, into the first century, when similar words were most likely used as a preparation for baptism for new believers. The attempt was to sum up what was at the center of what these people believed about Jesus.
Now, it’s important for me to say that I don’t see these words as your threshold to belonging to this community. We are all a part of the beauty of the human family. Participation in the life of this church is how you belong to this family as we’re all invited to explore the way of Jesus, a way that makes us a part of a diverse, worldwide family. The words of the Apostles’ Creed are, instead, a reminder to keep the focus where it belongs: on Jesus. As we do that, our focus stays on his good news, his life of grace, love, and compassion, his death as a reminder of the world’s rejection of his message of love, and his resurrection as a reminder that love always wins, death does not have the final word, and that we all can experience the new life promised, and lived out, in a community of faith, hope, and love—both now and forever. Now, that sounds like good news for everyone. And whatever I focus on here as the pastor of Southeast, I promise to never stray from the centrality of that good news.
Rather than allowing all kinds of things to creep in and take away our focus, let’s relentlessly live out the good news—loving God and loving others as we devote our lives to exploring the way of Jesus. And a great gift God has given us is to not have to do that alone but to live out that faith, hope, and love together. And, doing that will redefine the word church.
