April 16, 2023
Gather Worshipers
Acts 2:42-47
The church has been given a Great Commandment and a Great Commission it must fulfill. We are called to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Then go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Every Bible-believing Christian church has the same mission. How they carry out this mission can be very different and should look different depending on many factors (location, local culture, the giftedness of those who make up the congregation, etc.). Here at First Baptist Church in Bloomfield, we carry out this mission with the simple-to-remember mnemonic device, “Gather, Grow, Serve, Share”. This week we are going to look at what it means to “Gather”.
When we say gather, we are talking about gathering worshipers. It’s the most fundamental and foundational step that our church takes to carry out the Great Commission and Great Commandment. So to understand exactly why the church gathers worshipers, let’s take a look at the most basic church that is found in scripture. That’s the church that was formed after Peter preached on Pentecost in Acts 2. It’s in this handful of verses that we can see what the church has always done, why they do it, and how First Baptist in Bloomfield carries out our mission as we gather worshipers.
We Gather for Teaching - Acts 2:42
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.
The first word we notice in this passage is the word “All”. For many people, the necessity of gathering to learn from teaching and preaching is anything but a necessity. However, that’s not what the Bible says. Hebrews 10:25 tells us not to forsake our meeting together, but sometimes we think that we can live our Christian lives all by ourselves. I’ve heard it said many times that being in nature with our Bible is all we need to grow in Christ, but the Bible says otherwise. While we can use those times for personal growth (and we should be pursuing that every day through Bible study and prayer), the Christian life cannot be lived obediently without regularly gathering with a community of believers. “Because God commands us to” is the only answer we should need when we ask the question, “Why?”. God is gracious and gives us some answers in scripture to understand why we should gather with believers. It keeps us equipped and helps us mature in our faith so we are not tossed around by every new teaching that comes our way (Ephesians 4:11-16). We gather so we can love and honor one another (Romans 12:10). When we gather we can care for each other (Ephesians 4:32), we can encourage each other (Hebrews 10:25, 1 Thess. 5:11), and we can love one another (1 John 3:11). We are ALL called to gather together.
The second word that’s important here is “devoted”. We have to be devoted to gathering as worshipers. It’s not enough that we just come and gather when we feel like it. The importance of meeting together cannot be understated. This is why we see it mentioned so many times all throughout scripture, and that is why we see that the church still gathers and grows even under horrible persecution. We need to meet together for our sake and for the sake of others whether we feel like it or not. It should never be a burden to us, rather something we come together for that is satisfying to our souls. We must be devoted to gathering just like the early church.
We see why they are gathering and it’s to learn from the apostles' teachings. The church at the time had very little to go off of (after all Paul, who wrote most of the New Testament, had not yet been converted), but they still met to learn from the apostles' teachings. They had to do this because they were in their infancy as Christians. They came together to mature, to be equipped to live the Christian life in a fallen world and make sure they were all together when it came to living the Christian life. The church is the body of Christ and a body that doesn’t all move in the same direction is going to have problems. They came together to learn, to grow, and to make sure they were are all on the same page. This is a process that never ends and is a wonder of God’s Word. It’s simple enough for a child to understand it, but it’s also deep enough to keep the wisest scholars busy digging into its riches for their entire lives.
The same thing happens here at FBC Bloomfield. We gather every Sunday to hear preaching from God’s Word and teaching during our Bible study time. It serves the same purpose, it equips the saints, it helps with spiritual maturity, and it causes us to all be on the same page moving in the same direction as the Body of Christ.
We Gather for Fellowships - Acts 2:42
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.
The next thing the early church gathered for was fellowship. This is the idea that a group comes together with a common focus and interest to encourage one another. This can happen in all sorts of ways and does here at our church. Recently we had a paint night for our women's ministry and we had a Lego night for our children's ministry. Now while neither one was specifically for teaching, it still served a great purpose. It gathered together like-minded individuals who enjoyed the same activities so they could talk, encourage, and just love one another like God commands the church to do. Fellowships are important and can be fulfilled in a variety of ways. It did in the early church and continues to do so today.
We Gather for Meals - Acts 2:42
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.
Meals were important in the life and culture of the first-century church and are important now as well. It was a great honor to be invited to someone's home for dinner. That’s one of the things we are called to do as a church to honor one another (Romans 12:10). It’s during meals that we can encourage, share, disciple, sharpen one another, and just celebrate Jesus. We have meals every week here at the church on Monday nights where we do just that. Many people have come through the baptismal waters as a result of the meal we share each Monday night. We pray, encourage, teach, share, love, and proclaim Jesus to everyone. It’s the same thing that happens when we gather like we did on April 2 for a meal. While walking around in the gym I noticed no one was sad, no one was upset, and everyone was laughing and having a good time over a meal. However, these should not be the only times we gather for a meal. We will soon be having an opportunity to be a part of a Supper Club where we are going to be able to join and host other believers as well as non-believers for meals as we carry out God’s command for the church to gather, not only in church but in each other's homes as well.
We Gather for Prayer - Acts 2:42
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.
In Isaiah 56:7, God calls His house a house of prayer. Jesus even references this during his last week here on Earth when He goes into the temple and upsets the money changers' tables. When we are saved, we enter into a relationship with God and for any relationship to flourish, there must be communication. Prayer is the way we talk to our Father. It’s a privilege to come to Him and bring Him our praise, our problems, our requests, our concerns. While it is something we do in private it’s also something we are called to do together. Here at FBC Bloomfield we pray during our worship services, we meet at special times for special prayer services (such as the one we had on April 2), and we meet weekly at locations around San Juan County to pray for one another, our church, the lost, and our community. When we gather worshipers to pray it doesn’t have to be just at our church building. We are the church and wherever we meet to pray the church is gathered.
We Gather to Give - Acts 2:43-45
43 A deep sense of awe came over them all, and the apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders. 44 And all the believers met together in one place and shared everything they had. 45 They sold their property and possessions and shared the money with those in need.
When the early church gathered together they gave. They gave their tithe so as not to rob God (Malachi 3:8-10), but they also gave sacrificially to meet specific needs in their community. Giving back to God a portion of what He has given us is a major act of worship. Paul articulates this in 2 Corinthians, but even before He wrote that letter, we see in the earliest church that giving was an important part of the gathering of worshipers. This is why we have a time to take up an offering in our service each week. It’s a time to give back to God a small portion of what He’s blessed us with. It’s a time to give as an act of worship and it’s a time to be obedient to God’s word. We gather to give.
We Gather for Worship - Acts 2:46-47
46 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— 47 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.
The early church had to go into the temple every day to worship. Now we don’t have to go into the temple to worship but rather we get to worship every time we gather. We worship through our praise, we worship through our giving, we worship with our preaching, we worship with our teaching, we worship with our prayers, and we worship with our service. Everything we do should be an act of worship to God. Throughout scripture we are told that we are created for worship. Gathering for worship is the most fundamental part of our purpose in life so it makes great sense that we would also gather together worshipers to worship. We are gathering together to fulfill part of our purpose in life as Christians and to honor the one who is the only one worthy of all our praises.
Warren Wiersbe writes “The Christians you meet in the Book of Acts were not content to meet once a week for “services as usual". They met daily (Acts 2:46), cared daily (Acts 6:1), won souls daily (Acts 2:47), searched the Scriptures daily (Acts 17:11), and increased in number daily (Acts 16:5). Their Christian faith was a day-to-day reality, not a once-a-week routine. Why? Because the risen Christ was a living reality to them, and His resurrection power was at work in their lives through the Spirit. When we say we exist to gather worshipers, we mean just what Warren Wiersbe said. Yes, we gather on Sunday to recognize and proclaim the resurrection, but we also gather worshipers daily because the living Christ is a reality to us - His resurrection power is something we see and seek every day of our lives. This is why we all must be devoted to gathering, not just on Sunday, but every day. We need each other, we need encouragement, we need to worship, we need to pray, and we need to gather.
