A Church of Impact “Gathers Regularly.” If you’re like me, you’ve probably had the value of church attendance drilled into your skull from childhood. Nowadays such an admonition doesn’t even get to the brain, it just of ricochets off the eardrum! The deepest reason some people find for “gathering” is guilt. But guilt is one of the shallowest motivations you can have!
But what if I told you we worship and serve a “gathering God.” We started this series describing God as relational. God is triune. He dwells in eternal fellowship as the Father-Son-Holy Spirit. God isn’t some loner deity, dwelling alone in the dark, cold universe. God is a Father. Our Heavenly Father is a family man, who is not only filled with love, but who acts in love at great cost to himself. He longs to gather his children (his sons/daughters) into his presence.
Maybe you remember Jesus statement in Matthew 23:37 where Jesus says, “How often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.” Or maybe you remember the countless parables where Jesus portrays God as a great King holding a great banquet, or a wedding celebration, or a party. People are invited, but everyone has other priorities, and excuses, and reasons, and obligations.
In Luke 11:23 Jesus says, "Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.” The context of Luke 11:23 is Jesus being accused of driving out evil spirits by the power of Satan. Satan is the one who attacks, in order to scatter and isolate and kill. We see this in the crucifixion. Satan strikes the Great Shepherd, and his disciples scatter. We see this in Acts, the Early Church was gaining strength. Thousands are hearing the gospel and being baptized. Crowds are forming in the temple courts, the sick are being healed, excitement is building. But then persecution breaks out, and the church is scattered throughout Judea/Samaria.
There is no greater threat to the Kingdom of Satan than a gathered church. I think guilt is one of the weakest motivation we have for gathering, of all. Our God is a gathering God. This week I started digging into the Old Testament.
Why Does God Gather Us?
> God gathers us to deliver us, and save us, from the nations (1 Chronicles 16:35). He gathers us that we might give Him thanks, praise Him, and glory in His name (Psalm 106:47). God gathers us like a flock, to care and provide for our needs like a shepherd cares for his sheep (Micah 2:12). Care is something frequently on my mind, as a pastor. Its humanly impossible for a shepherd to pursue hundreds of sheep going in different directions. When we gather regularly, everyone is better cared for. Our energies can be focused. By the way, I love how Micah 2:12 says God wants his assembly to be “noisy with men.” Not just noisy with women/kids, but noisy with men! Did I just get in trouble? When God gets the man, watch out, revival is near!
> God gathers us up to restore our fortunes (Zephaniah 3:20). Think about how honoring God with a tithe, with your first fruits, fuels prosperity. Think about how trusting God reduces anxiety and improves your health. Think about how God’s wisdom enables you to move forward and avoid setbacks. I read that regardless of race, if a young person would do three things there is an exponentially greater chance they’ll escape poverty: (1) Finish High School, okay, that’s not a Bible verse, but the Bible does talk about growing in wisdom/stature/favor of God and men. (2) Don’t get pregnant out of wedlock, (3) Stay married. God gathers us to teach us his commandments, and restore our fortunes.
> God gathers up the outcasts and marginalized and builds them into his family (Psalm 147:2). God gathers us to sanctify us, and set us apart, to mark us holy, to transform us (Ezekiel 39:27). God gathers us to make Himself better known to us, to show us his face, to pour out his Holy Spirit on us (Ezekiel 39:28-29). Could we just be honest a moment? How many of you feel you come to know God more profoundly… how many of you feel you’ve grown more holy… when you haven’t attended to God in worship maybe for weeks on end?
> God gathers us to show compassion on us (Deuteronomy 30:3). God gathers us to give us safety (Jeremiah 32:37). When you gather, how many like-minded brothers and sisters in Christ have your back? You’re going through a hard time, but when we gather, you realize, “I don’t have to do it alone!” When we gather, God has our back!
> God gathers us together to fill the world w/the aroma of his love (Ezekiel 20:34). The church is the one place, the one people, to whom you can go, and experience God’s love. Okay, churches aren’t always so perfect showing God’s love. Maybe you agree though… “I’ll take the imperfect, but ever growing, love of the Church over the cold dead indifference of the world any day.”
> God gathers us to prove himself holiness to the world (Ezekiel 20:41). He takes the worst of all sinners, he takes the outcasts, the broken… and he puts his Holy Spirit in us. When people look at us the only logical explanation they can come up for the change they see isn’t that we went to therapy, but that God’s Holy Spirit is within us!
> Guilt is probably the lamest reason you could ever offer for attending church. If guilt is your only motivation you have no one to blame but yourself. Because all you have to do is open your Bible and explore the thousand amazing reasons God gathers his people.
The same reasons God gathers are the same reasons Satan seeks scatter us!
Hebrews 10:23-25 says, “Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more, as you see the Day approaching.”
In Acts 2:42-46 we find a picture of what a Gathered Church does together.
#1) They devoted themselves to the Apostles Teaching
Nowadays its fashionable for churches and denominations to cast aside the New Testament Scriptures. The argument is that when the Early Church started, the New Testament hadn’t been written yet. Jesus died after A.D. 30, but many of the books of the New Testament weren’t written and circulated until decades later. Think of how radically you could re-conceptualize all of Christianity if you discarded the whole New Testament! Well this is exactly what churches are doing… they’ve stopped preaching the Scriptures.
I have two observations to make. First, there was a body of Apostolic doctrine and teaching that the early church was fully devoted to sharing. What later spread in written form, first spread verbally, through oral tradition. So for example, in 2 Timothy 3:10 Paul tells Timothy, “You, however, know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance…”
At the beginning of Luke’s gospel he refers to the “things that have been fulfilled (i.e. Old Testament Scriptures, Law, Prophets)” and the “things that were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word.” Luke says, “I’ve carefully investigated everything from the beginning… and I too decided to write an orderly account… so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.” (Luke 1:1-4).
Our Seminaries and Bible Colleges are undermining young people’s confidence in Scripture by telling them the Bible is a later abstraction of Christian faith and probably not as trustworthy, true, and anywhere near as infallible as we imagine. If the church you attend abandons the Bible, or disbelievers the New Testament is a reliable and full account of the Apostle’s teaching, run!
Which brings me to a second point… God’s Holy Spirit removes the lamp from the lampstand of any church that abandons Scripture. Read the terrifying opening chapters of Revelation about how Christ judges the church. This is why so many mainline denominations are collapsing… it’s because wherever Churches have thought it fashionable to abandon the New Testament… the Holy Spirit has decisively scattered people from those churches to gather his people up into Bible-believing churches. If you attend a church and the Bible is not taught there… there is no there there.
#2) They devoted themselves to the fellowship.
By fellowship, we’re not talking about church potlucks. We’re talking about reciprocal relationships, where people truly act as a family, where people share grace, and share truth… where they give/receive love in a personally costly way. Go listen to last week’s message…
#3) They devoted themselves to the breaking of bread.
This isn’t just a reference to hospitality or sharing meals (though that is one of the most incredibly powerful things we can do with one another to build relationships). This is a reference to the Lord’s Supper. Whenever the Early Church got together, they did not fail to make Christ’s life… Jesus’ suffering, his crucifixion, his death…. Jesus’ self-sacrificial love… Jesus death, burial and resurrection from the grave… Jesus’ gift of forgiveness and grace and righteousness to all who believe… the central focus of their gatherings.
If we’re not explicitly point to Jesus, what are we really doing? Pastors these days have a funny way of preaching the Bible, even the New Testament, without ever pointing to the person and work of Christ! We practice the Lords Supper every week so there is never a gathering where we fail to point people to Jesus.
#4) They devoted themselves to prayer.
I think a better way to understand this priority is to say the Early Church hungered for the presence and power of God’s Holy Spirit. This is why Acts 2:43 says everyone was filled with awe. This is why it says many signs and wonders were done in their midst. If going to a church doesn’t rekindle your faith, or heighten your awareness and expectation of God’s power, you might be attending a prayer-less church. Next week we’re going to talk about how a Church of Impact is a Praying Church.
#5) They devoted themselves to generosity.
One way they demonstrated generosity is by coming together and sharing everything in common. I know a lot of people read socialism into this verse, but it isn’t necessary. How much wealth do you waste because you are unwilling to ask someone to borrow something… or because you are unwilling to share? Think of the money that could be leveraged for God’s Kingdom if we’d simply restore the Biblical practice of sharing.
Another way they demonstrated generosity was by selling property and possessions. Many years ago, a lady by the name of Hazel Konrad willed half her estate to this church. Many of you remember how her gift catapulted our ministry forward. If you look back throughout the Old/New Testament Scriptures you will see how at every critical point of revival throughout history, God’s people have sacrificed deeply and personally. They yearned to see the hand of God in their lives and gave accordingly. Through this IMPACT series, we’re asking you to generously enable God’s work in this time/place just as those who have gone before us!
Some people have taken these verses and turned them into a rigid “order of worship.” I don’t think “the order” we do these elements matters near as much as whether we simply “do them.” It’s your duty to make sure the church stays anchored in these practices… so that our gatherings will be redemptive, and Satan won’t get a foothold. Let me conclude by reading Acts 2:46-47.