July 13, 2023

Scripture: Acts 2:42-47 – “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common.They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. 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, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”

What it means

This is early in the life of the Christian church, and it was an exciting time to be a follower of Jesus…lots of new, exciting things happening. It was immediately after the introduction of The Holy Spirit during Pentecost, and Peter’s subsequent speech to everybody. The church was busy establishing some structure to its new body of believers, and key to that structure was the teaching of the apostles, fellowship, breaking of bread…and prayer. That formula worked extremely well for them all, and it brought about much fruit – “Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles.” People were being healed and saved, everybody had everything that they needed…“And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.” They were growing…not just little by little, but exponentially…this was big. Verse 41 tells us that 3,000 alone were added to their fellowship immediately preceding Peter’s speech.

What it means to me

What’s the big takeaway from this? Well, lots to choose from…but look again at verse 44: “All the believers were together and had everything in common.” So again, they were all together, and were all on the same page as to what they were to be about. There was a spirit of unity amongst them – and they proved to be unstoppable.

I know this continues to be a difficult time to be a United Methodist. There’s not much unity to be seen these days. And truthfully…I don’t know what the future holds for us. Remaining together as one body will be a challenge to say the least…but let’s try something. Let’s pray. I know many of you are already praying, so to you, I would say keep it up, but for those of you who many not be – join me in praying for God’s perfect will to be done, and for Him to be glorified. I know we’re different in our theology – we have been for some time, but we’ve always been able to still work it out to worship and fellowship together. So let’s pray – we can’t fix this by ourselves. We need The Lord…and He is faithful to meet us where we are and to accomplish what we are incapable of accomplishing ourselves. And like the early church, with God’s help, we could still “add to our number those who are being saved.”

Love you guys, see you on Sunday!

In Christ,

Brian