The Breaking of Bread || Towards Strength Ep. 3

All right, so guys, week three of Towards Strength. We're going through the spiritual practices, spiritual disciplines practiced by the early church. Acts 2, 42, they devoted themselves. They put strength towards the apostles' teaching, the fellowship, the breaking of bread, and prayer. You know, this third one we're talking about today is the breaking of bread. It seems a lot like fellowship at first, right, because that's how we use that terminology. Like if we're breaking bread, it's we're building relationships around a table. And that's part of it for the early church, I think, but it's not just any meal, right? It goes deeper than that. We're talking about communion or the Lord's Supper. We're talking about the ways in which the early church used to worship with one another. You know, throughout the New Testament, we read about, you know, what's called the agape feast, basically, is where the early church would gather together because they don't have buildings yet. They don't have fellowship halls yet. They are meeting in people's homes, and they're sharing a meal. And after the meal, they'll sing songs together. They'll hear from Scripture. And at the close of the night, they'll pull out the bread and the wine to celebrate communion and recognize Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection. So it was part of their rhythms of worship is this is how we gather together to remember, to physically remember the spiritual realities we hold on to. So Derek, when you think of our practices of worship, what comes to mind to you? What do you think of? Yeah, when I think of our own practices of worship, I think what comes to mind is literally a weekend worship service, right? That's one day a week. I think of, you know, at some churches I was at in the past, we'd have like a Wednesday

night gathering, and there'd be some worship and some teaching there. But I think like from like a heart level, I think when I hear worship, I think of it's a posture that we should have with everything we do in our lives, knowing that we can't pay Christ back. And that's not what he's asking us to do. But I think when we are able to respond to the gospel by posturing our lives from a place of worship, I think that is pleasing to God. And there are many different ways that I think that can flesh itself out. But those are the few things that initially come to mind. Yeah, I think we do usually sequester worship to like just songs, right? It's like, I'm going to do my worship, and then I'm going to do my quiet time, right? Or however that looks like, or we have worship during a service, and then we have the preaching. And you know, I think kind of the same thing you said, Derek, like our posture of our hearts. And I think of, you know, the verse of whatever you do, work at it for the Lord and not man. And so if we're living our lives submitted to Christ, then everything we do should be worshiped to him. Like the way that you guys parent your kids, like the way that we love our friends, the way that we work here. Like everything we do should be an act of worship to him as a sacrifice back, right? Like again, like we can't repay Christ back, but if we're following him, then we should live our lives in step with what he says in his word and as worship back to him. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's the hard part for us when we think about worship, because certainly the worship service and singing, that's worship, but it goes beyond that. It is not less than that, but it is more than that. You know, the worship is something that we do outside of the times that we worship together as well. So in terms of some of the, you know, modern day worship service elements that translate over into how the early church practiced these things, I wanted to talk about those for a little bit.

So we have singing, obviously, like, you know, we get together, we sing songs together. We break bread and share in communion, remember the Lord's sacrifice. We have teaching and sermons. We have baptisms that we celebrate as we welcome people to be a part of the faith community with us. So when you guys think about those different elements of a worship service, like how do those practical elements, how do they bring spiritual growth? How do they put flesh on, you know, even the spiritual realities that we're talking about when we gather together? Yeah, I think in a way for me, it helps ground myself, like doing something in the physical to connect, like what's happening in the spiritual. There's something about like physically taking communion and raising your hands in worship and then the physical act of baptism as well. I think there's something really powerful of, okay, we have this hope of heaven and this kingdom that's coming one day, but it's sometimes hard for us to wrap our minds around, okay, what does that actually mean? But I think that all of these different elements of the worship service help us think, okay, this is what I can do now in this temporary world to kind of ground myself in the reality of what's to come. You know, I just think for me personally, it helps, even when I can physically connect in some way with what is happening spiritually in my heart and with our community, like in the church service as well. Yeah. Yeah. I think. There's something unique that happens when, at least for me, whenever I'm singing, sitting in a worship service and, you know, I'm singing these songs that are declaring truth about what God has done, who He is, and what He's going to do, and what He's going to accomplish, and what He has accomplished, and hearing other brothers and sisters in Christ that are singing these same things. Like, it's

reminding me, it's increasing my faith, it's almost filling me with courage, and faith, and hope, and joy, and love, and I think over the years of doing that with one another, it's just one of those things that I feel like God, in His creation, knew that that would be such a special thing, and that's one of the reasons why I look forward to that each week, getting to do that with my family or other brothers and sisters in Christ. Yeah, you know, it's interesting, you make me think that as we proclaim, and as we sing those truths, like, you know, we're proclaiming these gospel truths with our vocal cords, and singing in unity with one another. It's interesting that our vocal cords kind of sit between our head and our heart, right? Like, we're connecting, like, this is what I think about God, this is how I feel about God, and it's expressing itself, you know, in the ways that we worship together. So when we talk about why we worship, I think biblically there are all sorts of different reasons that we could get into, but three I kind of want to specifically have us talk about for a little bit. One is obviously exalting God, right? That we gather together because we want to praise God, we want to praise Jesus for who He is, what He's done for us. Psalm 115 tells us, basically, that we become what we behold. Like, the things we worship have a way of forming our life. So we come to worship to be formed in that. We come to worship to encourage others. You know, one of the passages where Paul talks about worship is Colossians 3.16, and he talks about, you know, sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God and to one another. Like, have this be a part of how you encourage each other. And there's something about singing together that I think reminds us of the truths of Scripture. Like, oh, other people believe this with me. I'm not alone in this. And then finally, I think there's an element of worship as spiritual growth, right? That as we worship, it is that becoming. That we are becoming more into the image of God and, you know, being formed into Christlikeness. So when you guys think about the reasons why we worship, why the church corporately, why us individually as believers should be devoted to it, why is worship so important? Yeah, I think for me individually, I've just seen this over

my life, over the last few years of, like, seeing myself into faith. Like, I love that you said our vocal cords are between our head and our hearts, because I think so many times, even in the past few years, like, I'm declaring that God is faithful even when my heart is doubting. Or maybe I haven't seen His faithfulness yet in a specific place in my life. Yeah. And sometimes you just got to proclaim that truth over your life. You know, you have to say, like, I am singing that God is good even when my heart is not quite on board yet, you know. And I think that there's something so powerful about that because, you know, Derek, you like say this a lot. Like, we're always discipled by something, you know. We see that in our culture today. Like, if you're singing songs that are not honoring to the Lord, like, that's gonna do something to your spirit. But when you're singing songs that are proclaiming truth over your life and who you are and your identity and words that are in this book, that's gonna do something to you. And I think just I've seen it personally in my life that, you know, getting on the other side of things, you know, whatever you're walking through, if you're declaring that God is good before you've seen the good in that specific part of your life, it's gonna grow your faith exponentially when you get there and be like, oh yeah, I've known that He's good and now I've seen that He is good. And, you know, there's a reason why I think the song leaders were at the front of the lines in battle, you know. It's so many places in Scripture, like, the song leaders go out ahead. And I think that, you know, there's a song, I don't remember what it's called, but it's like the line is my weapon is a melody. And I think so many times, like, songs can be our weapons to fight against things that we're dealing with, but also like to continue to grow our faith and truly believe, okay, God is good. He is faithful. Yeah, and those songs, they have a way of reminding us, right, that these things are true. They have been true. They're going to be true, whether I see it in this moment or not. I love that image you have. I'm just, I'm reminding myself this is true, like, even when it doesn't feel like it. Derek, what do you think of when you think of why we worship? Yeah, I think maybe from a theological perspective, like, number one, like, He is

worthy, right, of our praise. We see when we get these scenes of heaven in different places of Scripture, like, there's always praise being lifted up to God as holy. I mean, He existed before creation, right? Like, He exists apart from time, apart from who we are, apart from our plan. our desires, and yet He would step in to human history through Jesus dying on a cross for us, right, to redeem a people, us back to Himself. And so I think theologically reminding ourselves, right, through the Apostles' teaching, through God's Word, through communion with one another, of what God has done, who He is, what He's done for us, because, you know, like I think not only are we discipled by something, unfortunately I think we all tend to worship something, you know, regardless of our faith. And so I think the best way and the most God-honoring way we can live our life is to continually be putting ourselves in a posture of worshiping Christ, right, because when that happens we will be blessed, right, and it doesn't mean that God's gonna bless us with all these different materialistic things, but we're gonna be blessed with His presence and His Word, and reminded of who He is, and like that's where joy comes from, that's where contentment comes from, and that's why it never surprises me when people leave a worship service just so filled up and full of faith, because, gosh, they've experienced Him and who He is. Yeah, you know, I think one of the things that most impacts me as I worship is thinking about the fact that we're gathering in, or we're joining in the worship of the church throughout the centuries, right, and the people of God throughout the centuries, that this is something that the first believers did in Acts chapter 2, this is something the Apostle John says, you know, the dead believers are doing at the throne of God already, you know, that when we sing and when we worship, we are joining with the historical church across time to praise God. And I think that's just such a convicting picture of unity to me, is that when we sing, when we praise, we're not just standing in this place with other believers from our own physical location, we're joining the believers across the globe who are worshiping together on the Lord's Day. We're joining with the believers

who are singing God's praises in heaven now, and being a part of this, you know, eternal chorus that's singing to God. You know, but I think that really hits at, you know, worship being the purpose why God has called us together as a people. You know, in 1 Peter chapter 2, verse 9, Peter says that we are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession. That's all good. That's great. He says, so that, so that you may declare the praises of Him who called us, called you out of darkness into this wonderful light. And you know, one of the reasons why we've been called together as a church is fellowship and belonging to one another, but the primary reason is that we've been called together to worship, to praise God, to proclaim His glory across the world and across time.