The Apostles' Teaching || Towards Strength Ep. 1

All right, guys, we are beginning this series called Towards Strength. And what we're going to be looking at over the course of these four weeks are the spiritual practices of the early church, right? These are the things they did that helped them grow closer to God, closer to one another. And the book of Acts gives us a really good summary statement at the end of Acts chapter 2, beginning of verse 42, Luke tells us that all the believers devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, and to sharing in meals including the Lord's Supper and to prayer. A deep sense of awe came over all of them, and all the apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders. And all the believers met together in one place and shared everything they had. They sold their property, possessions, and shared the money with those in need. They worshiped together at the temple each day, met in homes for the Lord's Supper, and shared their meals with great joy and generosity, all the while praising God and enjoying the goodwill of all the people. And each day, the Lord added to their fellowship those who were being saved. So this is right after Peter's sermon on the day of Pentecost. So this is day one stuff, right? Like, immediately they accept Jesus, and this is who they are as individuals, who they are as a community. So as you guys hear that passage, like, what do you notice about this church? Like, what would make you want to be a part of it? For sure. Yeah, I think verse 45, chapter 2, verse 45, when they said, and they began selling their property and possessions, and were sharing them with all, as anyone might have need. And that's just, that's convicting to me, like, when I think about generosity, I know that for us as a church, we're in this kind of to-your-journey-at-this-moment, walking-through-move, but at the same time, like, I think a lot of times I think of, like, oh, what do I have left over to be able to give, right? And yet this community of believers, you know, right after the Spirit of Jesus has ascended,

the Spirit of God's been poured out on all of them, the Lord's adding to their number. And they weren't just generous, they were, oh, they were abundantly generous by literally selling their own possessions so that no one in their community had need. And that's just, that's so different. That's so different than what I think how we're wired, how our culture is today. Yeah, it kind of strikes me that it wasn't, they're just going to church one time a week, and then they go home to their lives. You know, I think that it truly encapsulates that this wasn't just something that they did once a week. This was something that was their entire lives. And they built everything that they knew around this practice of following Jesus, or the way, as it was called back in the day, we're going to follow the way, and we're going to make our lives around this. And I love that they were creating this model for us without even realizing it, right? Like, this is how we look back and see how the church started. But they didn't know they were starting the church. They were just living their lives and following Jesus because they saw the way that He lived. And then they're thinking, okay, well, if He did it this way, I guess we should live this way. And so I think it's so interesting that every single facet of their lives was just modeled around Jesus and what He taught. And I just think that it's so different from our, we're going to go to church, then we're going to live our lives. And that's kind of how we view church today. Yeah, I think that's so much the key to this community is that they are, on the one hand, knowing we have to grow much more close to Jesus in this, but we also want to grow closer to one another. For sure. You know, He is building us into this community as we kind of do life together in this new Christian way that we're walking.

So the title of the study is Towards Strength. We're taking that from that word in 242. They devoted themselves to those things. That word in the Greek is a compound word. It's pros kratos, basically, towards strength. What it denoted in terms of devotion and perseverance was, I'm going to put all my strength in this, like until the very last bit of strength is gone, this is what I am devoted to. And we kind of have this modern parlance where we talk about leaning in, but that's not what this is. These are the things they leaned on, right? This is what we are spending every bit of energy we have to chase. So those four practices, apostles teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, prayer, what is so important about those? Why are they natural rhythms of grace for us individually and as a community? I think that they're really practical and we've all talked about within the three of us together, they're not secretive things, right? We know what we should do, but sometimes we just don't do it. I think of them being just rhythms of life. I think we all want this communal way of living, but we're all so isolated and in a way self-centered that we just don't think of living that way. Our entire society is built upon independence and being self-sufficient. I think of, I just moved into a new apartment, I'm like, do I know my neighbors? I don't know a single one of my neighbors yet and I've been there two weeks and I'm kind of ashamed of that. But it's a complete contrast to how we live today. is what this looked like, to where they were sharing everything together, had everything in common. They were selling property for each other to provide for one another.

And I just think, I would love to live that way, but sometimes I just don't know how that practically looks like. I would love to have those neighbors around me and share in that, but it's hard too when we're not all sometimes following Jesus in the same place. But I don't know, I've always thought about like, what would that actually look like if we played it out every single day of our lives? Because I think we all want that, but we just don't do it well. Yeah, I think that word practical is so great because sometimes we can overcomplicate. Like, hey, what does it look like to follow Jesus? And I think what we're gonna learn over the course of this study is that the early church really did model a very simple way. But one of the things that we're gonna be talking about is this idea of community, right? These practical ways of following Jesus in a community, which I think is gonna be beneficial to us as a culture because we're so individualistic in so many ways. And you know, that's one of the reasons why we're here at this table with this food, because we view these practices so much as individual things, when really what we're gonna see is this is community life for the early church,

that this was, they were gathering in homes and around tables to talk about and live out the way of Jesus. So let's start with the first word, start at the beginning. It's a very good place to start, right? The apostles' teaching. And what they're doing here is they're listening to the apostles, these men who have been with Jesus, share the stories about Jesus, share the teaching of Jesus. And that really strikes me, I think, because it's not that they were just sitting around, you know, discussing theology, though I'm sure they did. They were sitting around hearing the stories of Jesus from the men who lived it, right? They were hearing their firsthand account of, hey, this is what Jesus did, this is what we saw him do. So when you think about, you know, building community around the word, building community around these stories and teachings of Jesus, why is that important? Like, how do we see that in the book of Acts, even? Yeah, you will, first of all, and you'll talk about this in just a little bit, I'm sure, is just the amount of preaching that happens in the book of Acts. Yeah, it's incredible, yeah.

But I think of this word, eyewitness, right, that's so powerful, that these apostles were eyewitnesses to the God of the universe stepping in and intervening into humanity and history to save us. And not only that, but for the Jewish people, it wasn't so much that Jesus had come to establish this new faith. Like, no, he was the culmination of all of the prophets of old, all of these things that Moses, that David, that the prophets, they all spoke about. It was in Jesus. And so even when we think about, well, why should we trust what we have as our Bible? Well, the early church, it was so important for them to preserve the eyewitness accounts of Jesus. And I can only imagine putting ourselves into Acts chapter two in person, feeling like, oh my gosh, these guys have my attention. They witnessed this. And so it makes sense to me that they would fully lean on their experiences and their teaching. Yeah, it's funny, because we think about, they didn't have the Bible yet. Like, it was literally being written at this point. And I think of how the gospel spread, just like you said, by the word of their testimony. And in Acts 4.33, it says, with great power, the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God's grace was so powerfully at work in them all.

And I love just what you said, that the stories were shared by people who had been with Jesus. And I think of myths and legends that have been passed down throughout the centuries, but this is truth. Like, this is the truest legend or myth that you could ever think of, because they were there. Like, there's such a difference in hearing someone's first-person account versus the 10th iteration of it. But I love that this has been proven trustworthy and true, and that it has been the same ever since that eyewitness account. And I love that they were so passionate about getting it right, because it's not just a myth or legend. Like, this is what our lives are built upon. And there's something so powerful, what you said about being eyewitness testimony to Jesus, and then sharing that word wherever you go. You know, one of the things that has stood out to me as we've put this study together and talked about it is just how much preaching, as you said, there is in the book of Acts. Because you get started in it, and you get Peter's sermon in Acts 2, right, where he's recounting, this is what happened to Jesus, 50 days ago. And he's tying it in with, like,

Joel 2, and the Psalms, and the prophets, and say, hey, look at what God is doing. But then, just as you continue to flip through Acts, you see sermon. sermon after sermon. You have Stephen's sermon to the Sanhedrin in Acts chapter 7, where he weaves together the entire Old Testament narrative, talking to them about how people have always rebelled against God. You get Peter preaching in the household of Cornelius and talking about how God is accepting, you know, the Gentiles and all these people into the church. You get Paul's sermon in Athens that's, you know, using culture to point people to the gospel. And then, you know, later on in the book of Acts, I think it's twice that Paul gives a sermon that recounts his experience of meeting Jesus on the road to Damascus. That eyewitness testimony, like, I saw him. I experienced him. And I think it's just a testament to us of how seriously they took that. Like, hey, we're gonna look at what Jesus taught, what he did, how it fits in to the stories that were handed down to our ancestors in the Old Testament. And you can't open up the book of Acts without hitting a sermon, I don't think. The Apostles' teaching is all over there. So one of our challenges here throughout this study, I think, is that what Luke says in Acts 2 42 is descriptive. It's not prescriptive, right? He says Apostles' teaching, fellowship, breaking bread in prayer, but he doesn't really tell us. Like, this is how you should do that. So as you guys think about our practice with the Apostles' teaching, what does that look like for us corporately? What does that look like for us individually? Like, how do we pull the Apostles' teaching into our way of life? Yeah, no, I think that we live, I think we're very blessed that as we record this in 2026, that we have many ways of being able to read God's Word, absorb God's Word, you know, on the internet. There's all kinds of options. There's different translations you can buy of physical Bibles. You have an app that you can go on. And so I think that one of the encouragements and challenges for all of us is that, like again, you know, for them back then, like, they wouldn't have been able to go home

and read it in their own home. Like, they had to go be in a community together to hear these stories. But for us, we get to have this great pleasure of getting, even right now, getting able to open up God's Word. And it's like, I think sometimes we can, because of how many Bibles have been printed in our continual access to Scripture, at least here in the United States, that sometimes we can take for granted how powerful and special the Word of God is. But I think the encouragement is that, like, hey, like, we should be in God's Word every day, because it's like, man, like, if your ankle's injured and you're having to walk around with crutches, right, well, the crutch is holding you up. And I would say that, like, the Word of God is much greater than a crutch, right? It's what is literally carrying you in your life. And we can trust it, because this is where eyewitness accounts in the early church preserved that, which I think is just so so cool. Yeah, that's good. I kind of think of what does it look like for us today, like, individually. I think of, it's so important for us to share our stories, because I think that we do forget that the gospel was first spread by eyewitness testimony through those sermons. Like, you know, I think there's something so powerful about your individual story. You know, I think that sometimes people are impacted by a sermon, of course. Like, we have phenomenal preachers here, even at our church, but there's something really special and remarkable when you're saying, hey, like, this is how God has worked in my life. And I just, you know, want to encourage even myself as I think about this, like, do I do this well? Do I share my own story well? And I think of, you know, Ephesians 2, 17 through 18, it says, And that verse has helped me out a lot, because I thought for so long, like, I didn't have a good testimony. Because we hear these, like, crazy life stories sometimes of the Lord radically changing someone's life, but I was like, I just grew up in church. Like, I don't remember not going to church, but every life by Jesus is important. And I love this verse, because it's saying, hey, even if you were far away, and even if you were close, like, the Lord has saved you, and you have access to the same God by Jesus. And so I just want to remind all of us,

like, we have a testimony to share. And, you know, no matter whether you grew up in church, or if you are just now following Jesus, like, it's a miracle story every time, and it's your testimony, and it's yours to share. And so I just look at Acts, and I see their passion for sharing that eyewitness testimony of, look what God did. And I think that's just a reminder for me, like, to share wherever I go. Like, that's how the gospel moved. They were just sharing as they went. And so I think we just need to do a better job of that, myself included. So I'm pointing at myself first, but I think we all, just as a church, like a big C church, just need to be reminded of that. One of the things that I think about when I think about the corporate aspect of the Apostles' teaching is I was reading something by Eugene Peterson a while back, where he talked about the idea that because we have the Bible as a book, we so often engage with it as something to be read. But what Scripture tells us is that God speaks through it, and we need to corporately read Scripture to one another because it is in that that we hear God speaking to us through the Word. And I think that's so powerful for us to remember as we read Scripture to one another, as we hear preaching, is that this is the Word of God being spoken to us. And that's why, ultimately, at the end of the day, I think the Apostles' teaching is so important. I think it's one of the reasons why Luke puts it first, is because when we open up Scripture, when we read Scripture to one another, we're not just reading words, we're hearing the voice of God speak to us.