Deacon Justin Shaffer preached from Acts 2:42-27, and taught how the church’s worship tells the story of the gospel. Then he challenged us to read and pray through the Daily Bible Readings on our app for one week. Lector: Erin Warmbier
Deacon Justin Shaffer preached from Acts 2:42-27, and taught how the church’s worship tells the story of the gospel. Then he challenged us to read and pray through the Daily Bible Readings on our app for one week.
Lector: Erin Warmbier
Acts 2:42-47 NLT
42 All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, and to fellowship, and to sharing in meals (including the Lord’s Supper[i]), and to prayer.
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. 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[j]— 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.
Big idea: How the Church’s Worship tells the story of the Gospel.
Peace be with you, Sojourn! I’m Justin, I’m one of the deacons here, and I am both honored and mildly terrified to preach the last sermon before we welcome pastor Jonah back to the pulpit after his sabbatical ;-) Jonah, your absence has been felt, we love and appreciate you brother, and we hope your sabbatical richly renewed your body and soul and blessed your sweet family ☺
Every superlative you heard these guest teachers bestow on Jonah is true… he’s as rare a combination of compassionate & empathetic shepherd and compelling storyteller as you’ll find. Not many churches of our stature can fill the pulpit for three months with such godly and gifted teachers and that is a testament to the relational capital Jonah has within our broader church family.
Finally, I’m personally very proud of you church - You have carried on with strength and joy – you’re doing a GREAT job being the church and I just love you dearly. I see the way you are spurring one another on, and care for one another and the neighborhood. You’re a gift and a blessing to me and my family, to one another, and to this community. (personal note to the staff) ☺
Yikes
Sojourn exist to reach people with the gospel, build them up as God’s church, and send them wherever God leads, to be champions of truth, beauty, and goodness. We have covenanted to have a fair bit of influence over each other’s lives to this end, but do you ever wonder what kind of effect social media and the entertainment we consume has on us and our mission? (((Pause))) At the risk of coming across a bit like this guy (Insert Clint Eastwood GIF): Social media is a cesspool . . . ;-)
We can joke about it, and a few of us abstain altogether, but most of us still use these platforms daily. Now, some of you are thinking; “hey, I use Facebook to keep up with family and friends in a way that I couldn’t otherwise,” or “I’m careful in how I curate my twitter feed.” Maybe Instagram is a godsend for marketing your small business or you love unwinding by keeping up with your favorite sports team, band, chef, auto-enthusiast, or fashion designer.
For years, Bobby Gilles has used social media as effectively as anyone I know. He’s thoughtful, charitable, humble, and mindful of the impact his posts will have on others for the sake of the gospel. That’s the good, and if you’re looking for a strict ban on social media, you will not hear it from me, but I’m telling you; social media absolutely effects the way you think and feel about yourself, others, and the issues.
-#1 Bestselling author Adam Grant says this is why social media becomes a cesspool:
(2) Contagion: incivility attracts more likes, and when even 2 comments normalize toxicity, others jump on the bandwagon.
I don’t have enough time to go into this date in-depth… feel free to do your own research… but it’s pretty overwhelming: The media we consume informs us in ways which are dynamically imbalanced, partial, and toxic.
Woof
So the answer is simple: Put down your phones! End sermon and queue the band ;-) The church has a long history of prohibiting things that the Bible doesn’t prohibit. Maybe it fills us with self-righteousness or it’s just easier than getting to the heart of the matter, but deep down, we know better, don’t we?
Things started to go wrong all the way back in Genesis 3 when the serpent started to question and twist “did God really say_____??” I want you to see the turn from the word of the Lord, to the word of Satan here. I mean literally (((pause))) the word of Satan! Now, I’m not saying your favorite show or the folks you follow on twitter are Satanic, but they are shaping your thoughts and ideas and this problem is age-old and it is profound.
In Romans 1, when Paul is making his case for God’s just and righteous wrath against sinful humanity, he lists a number of specific deviant behaviors that can be summarized by verse 25:
They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen -Romans 1:25
He goes on in verse 28:
28 Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind,
-Romans 1:28
When we put ourselves in Eve’s shoes or Adam’s shoes we’ve got to own the reality that it would not have gone any better for us. We too, would have exchanged the truth about God for a lie.
Hmmm
…it wouldn’t have gone any better for us because in a one-on-one war of the words with our enemy the devil, YOU LOSE. EVERY TIME. We know this instinctively don’t we? What happens when we flirt with temptation? What’s your thing? Think about it… what happens when we flirt with temptation? Think about the subversive case it makes. Now consider the instructions we hear in Proverbs: If sinful people entice you, don’t give in, eschew simple ways and mockery in favor of knowledge, don’t argue with a fool, don’t get anywhere near an adulterer, shun evil, and so on… you get my drift. We just. Can’t. Handle it. The deck is stacked against us.
The deck was stacked against Jesus too as he was tempted in the wilderness… (can you imagine how hungry he was after fasting for 40 days? How’s your self-control when you’re tired and hungry?) But in a key battle in the war to dethrone our enemy the devil, he handled his business, amen? He faced our old adversary head-on in a way we never could and the temptation he faced, frankly makes our petty vices look like an extra scoop of ice cream.
Aha
But the good news, Christian, is that you’re not alone to face Satan’s twisted words any longer! Amen?! You’re not alone because:
14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. -John 1:14 NIV
You’re not alone because:
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome[a] it. -John 1:1-5 NIV
You are not alone because:
63 The Spirit alone gives eternal life. Human effort accomplishes nothing. And the very words I have spoken to you are spirit and life. -John 6:63 NLT
And so we come back to our text:
42 All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, and to fellowship, and to sharing in meals (including the Lord’s Supper[i]), and to prayer. -Acts 2:42 NLT
Our triune God has given us himself in the person of Jesus! JESUS is the word that stands against the lies of Satan, JESUS is the Word that combats the lies of our culture, JESUS is the Word that shatters your shame, JESUS is the command that calms the storm… and so we put on the full armor of God. How do we do it? Well…
Yeah
…Jesus is the Word we proclaim every Sunday when we gather. We rehearse the whole Gospel; Kingdom, Cross, and Grace. We proclaim the truth, beauty, and goodness of God in the movements of the liturgy. Our worship is an embodied experience that literally changes and rewires our brains, transforming us body and soul and training us how to live Monday thru Saturday.
We begin with a Call to Worship. Think of the Call to Worship as God’s invitation for us to spend time with him together. Mike Cosper says “We don’t gather because we’re clever. We don’t meet because we’ve figured something out that the rest of the world has missed out on. We come because God is the great initiator. He made the world, he made us, and he is remaking us in Jesus. Our gathering, our songs, our sermons, our fellowship around the table — all of it is a response to his initiation and invitation.” (Rhythms of Grace, 125)
We respond with a song of adoration. I was at Hazelwood and then Slate Run on awards day at the end of last school year celebrating Ireland, Luna, and Moses and their accomplishments. They may as well have been up for a Grammy… I was SO proud y’all. When I got to Moses’ classroom and he noticed me there amongst the other parents, his whole face lit up, he grabbed his friend’s hand, he pointed at me, and said: “that’s my dad! Do you see him?!?!” That moment is forever etched in my memory and I think that’s what it’s like when we worship – A proud papa beaming over his adoring child.
And we adore God, maker of heaven and earth for ALL he is and ALL he has done. As God is infinite, so his praise is infinitely diverse, variegated, and inexhaustible… it’s never stale or rote because we will never run out of things to say or notes to play about God. I want to take just a moment to speak about preferences on style here. In our 11 years together as a church, I can probably count on one hand the number of complaints I’ve received about song selection, style, etc., and as best as I can recall they’ve mostly been fair. So think of the following quote from theologian Marva Dawn as a preventative measure. She says:
“A lot of tension between contemporary and traditional [worship] arises because we didn’t have enough theological muscle to hold them together. We need to realize that every service is contemporary, because we’re doing it now, and every service is traditional because we’re based on the faith of our forebears. So I believe that we can use the music of the whole church for the sake of the whole world… God is the subject and object of our worship and we get into trouble if we make it utilitarian, because then we’re not free to really royally waste our time in worship of God. So I’d like to see the two joined together and make use of a hymn now and then and a new piece of music with new choruses and new music so that we can help the congregation realize we’re always reforming and we’re always based on the tradition of the faith.”
- Marva Dawn
You’ve probably noticed that almost every Sunday, we sing at least one hymn, at least once contemporary worship song, and at least one song that was penned by one of our members. That’s by design. Likewise, you’ve probably noticed that the style of our music changes somewhat from week to week. Though the diversity within our church is just a taste of the church at large, did you know that our musicians are into jazz, blues, classical, country, bluegrass, gospel, rock, punk, funk, metal, hard-core, soul, R&B, rap and hip-hop, Latin, fusion… you get the idea. Did you know that Christian Metalcore is a thing and the person sitting in the pew next to you might be super into it? We must always be a church that is easily edified by a morning of heartfelt worship in the music and preaching, no matter the style, and no matter our own personal preference.
Confession and Lament: When we have an encounter with God, we’re overwhelmed by the reality that things aren’t as the should be. We confess and grieve that we hurt and have been hurt. We sin against a holy God and each other and we also experience suffering that is not a direct result of our own personal sin. We have victory in Christ and Jesus will one day return to rule and reign forever, but we still dwell in the land of sin, suffering, and death – our loving Father NEVER runs out of time to embrace his children as we lay our shame, fear, and guilt at his feet.
Assurance of Pardon: We rejoice that we have been rescued, healed and saved. As pastor Jarvis preached last week; “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” -John 3:16 NIV
Passing of the Peace: This tradition embodies our identity as peacemakers… we are the children of THE peacemaker. “The gesture is simple, but the meaning is profound. When we extend our hand to another, we identify with Jesus, who extended his life to the point of death to make peace with humanity” (Col. 1:20-21)
Sermon: We explain and interpret God’s word together. And I want to say something here; preaching and teaching is an essential part of the Christian life… your devotional life, no matter how robust, is no substitute for the careful exegesis of scripture prepared by a Christian who is called, equipped, and gifted to teach. But the reverse is also true: A sermon is no substitute for a robust devotional life or a carefully prepared liturgy. When we neglect these other disciplines, we not only short change our own personal growth and communion with God and one another, we also place an unfair and undue burden on our preachers to “feed” us and so this or that preacher is my favorite or “I wasn’t really fed by that sermon.” I’m not saying that every sermon ever preached is equally compelling or sound, but relying on a 30-40-minute sermon for a week’s worth of spiritual sustenance is as absurd as relying on Sunday brunch for a week’s worth of nutritional sustenance.
Baptism: We are buried with Christ and raised to walk in newness of life!
Giving: As God freely gives to us in Christ, we freely give a portion of what he has entrusted to us.
Benediction: We end our gathering with a Benediction – a blessing for the road and a charge to go and make disciples!
So I have a Monday challenge for you ☺ Now, I looked into this and as far as I can tell, pastor Bobby hasn’t copyrighted the Monday Challenge so I thank that at least for the time being, I’m free to issue one to you here without getting into any kind of trouble ;-) Would you prayerfully consider reading and praying through the lectionary daily for one week? (((plug resources)))
How might beginning or ending your day reading God’s word effect your outlook on life or the way you consume media and entertainment? How might literally getting on the same page with millions of Christians throughout the world lend a broader, more global perspective to your worship, devotional, and prayer life? What if you let go of the pressure you put on yourself to find the perfect Bible-reading plan and instead join in on a thoughtful three-year cycle that Christians have been using to guide their devotional lives for a long, long time? No more failed New Year’s Resolutions to read the Bible forwards, backwards, and upside down this year. Enjoy the ordinary rhythm or reading through the Bible this way.
Most of us know better than to fill our free time commenting on the most charged post on our Facebook feed or falling into a YouTube wormhole, particularly around divisive and caustic topics, but we can’t help ourselves, can we? We need to remember to “Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
(Eph 6:11, 14-17 NIV)
You may have noticed I omitted a pretty important aspect of our liturgy a moment ago …in-between our Sermon and the Benediction, our Sunday gathering culminates with communion. The Lord’s supper, not your favorite song, not even the sermon, is the climax of the story and the crescendo of our service – (transition into the Lord’s Supper)