Good evening, everyone. Good evening, everybody on Zoom. It's good to see y'all this evening. Somebody forgot to pay the electric bill because it's cold outside. But it's good to see each of you here tonight. Well, we will jump right into our subject matter. If you will turn in your Bibles to Acts chapter 2, Tonight, as promised, we are going to begin a series that's gonna last us probably nine or 10 lessons long through the end of May on the subject of the public means of grace. And so we're gonna begin here in Acts chapter two, verses 37 through 47. The Spirit of God moved Dr. Luke to write these words, beginning in verse 37. Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, men and brethren, what shall we do? Then Peter said to them, Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children and to all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call. And with many other words he testified and exhorted them, saying, Be safe in this perverse generation. Then those who gladly received His word were baptized, and that day about three thousand souls were added to them. And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and the fellowship, in the breaking of the bread, and in the prayers. Then fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done to the apostles. Now all who believed were together and had all things in common and sold their possessions and goods and divided them among all as anyone had need. So continuing daily with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved." Let's pray. Father, we would ask that the Holy Spirit be poured out upon us, that you would be our teacher, that you would anoint my heart and my lips, but also anoint the hearts and ears of your people. Teach us things and show us things which perhaps we've never seen before. And if we have seen these things, then Lord, we pray you refresh our memories and renew our souls in our vigorous commitment to them. And we ask these things in Jesus' name, amen. Now, in saying that we are going to be talking about the public means of grace, it would probably be helpful to begin with something of a definition. What do we mean when we speak of means of grace? Someone tell me. Not quite, not quite. The mechanisms God uses to grow you in faith, that's a good definition. The illustration I always like to use is one of the great technological wonders of the Roman Empire was their system of aqueducts. What did aqueducts do? They brought water to an arid region. from a place that had a lot of water to a place that didn't have any water. And so it was a very innovative system at that time. And that's the way I like to think of the means of grace, that they bring God's grace, they bring water, life-giving water from heaven to earth. Now, if we say that they're public means of grace, what does the word public imply? That's right. It's in the church, not in yourself. So that implies if you say there's public means of grace, that also means that there's such a thing as private means of grace as well. And we actually talked about some of those things a few months ago in a series where we were working through private Bible reading and daily prayer and what that should look like in your day. But then the public means of grace are connected to the local church. In fact, you really can't find them outside of the local church. The local church is absolutely essential, it's absolutely necessary. The only institution that Jesus said he was going to found was the church itself. I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. So these are things found within the local church and we find a great hint of them right here in Acts chapter 2. when we have the inauguration of the New Testament Church with the giving of the Spirit at Pentecost. So, this first session that we're gonna talk about, we're gonna focus in upon the centrality of the local church. And that's really foundational to everything else we're gonna say. Now, we, in the Faithful Men, this past Sunday afternoon, we studied the regular principle of worship, or the regular principle of the church. Why do we worship God the way that we do? God willing, those will be uploaded pretty soon, and it wouldn't be harmful to hear that, to listen to that, to understand there's a connection. What are the means of grace? Well, the regular principle tells us what those means really are. But what I want to do tonight is survey Acts chapter 2, and under eight one-word headings, give you something of a summary of what the public means of grace are. So I'm going to go ahead and give you what those eight words are, and then we'll work through them one by one. They are conversion, secondly, baptism, third, membership, fourth, teaching, fifth, fellowship, sixth, bread, seventh is prayers, And eighth is hospitality. All eight of those things we see in the text that I've read in your hearing. So, let's begin with the first one, and that is conversion. It's obvious that Peter was preaching in the power of the Holy Spirit, preaching the gospel, and he was searching out the consciences of men who literally just two months earlier had been shouting, crucify him. These are people who voted in favor of Jesus being put to death. But then as he testifies in the power of the Holy Spirit, not only that Jesus is the Messiah, but that this one you have killed is now risen from the dead and has ascended to the right hand of God the Father, they are cut to the heart. And they cry out and they say, men and brethren, what must we do? That is, what must we do to be saved? What must we do to be forgiven? Which is one of the most important questions anyone can ever ask. As a matter of fact, I'm getting ready, God willing, to start preaching from John. And I'm counting down the days. I can't wait to start preaching from John. In fact, I'll probably introduce John on a Wednesday night and then start preaching from John 1-1 the following Sunday. But one of the things I'm excited about as I'm thinking about it is John's purpose is specifically evangelistic. He says, and what his purpose is, I want you to know that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing, you may have life in his name. That's the purpose of his entire book. But what he's saying here is this, he's answering the question, who is Jesus Christ? And my point is this, there's a connection between those two questions. What must I do to be saved? and who do you say Jesus Christ is? Those are the two most important questions that any person can ever ask in this present age. So that's a question that they ask, and Peter says to them, repent, in answer to their question, repent of your sins and be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is, be identified unashamedly with the very Christ whom you have crucified. Put your faith and your trust in Him, and of course you know what happened. 3,000 people professed faith in Christ that day. 3,000 people were baptized. 3,000 people passed from death to life. Now, it's stating the obvious, but let's go ahead and say it anyway, that the first step of becoming a part of the church is being converted. You must become a member of the invisible church first by being born again, and then you become a member of the local church, the visible church. So very important that that's the first thing first. So when someone comes to us and wants to apply for membership, we ask them to tell us, how did you come to know the Lord? And what we are looking for is a sense of, do you understand the gospel? And is there an experiential sense that you have experienced its transforming power for yourself? The genius of the Baptists in history has been their view that the membership of the church should be made up of a regenerate church membership as much as possible. It goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway, that regenerate church members make much better church members. And so the very first thing is they were converted. But what happened then? What happened after they repented of their sins and put their faith in Jesus Christ? That leads us to our second word, which is baptism. Look at verse 41. Then those who gladly received His word were baptized. Now as a church, we vigorously refute the heresy of baptismal regeneration. Baptism doesn't save you. Observing the Lord's Supper doesn't save you. Joining a church does not save you. If you say any of those things, then you're adding works to faith. Faith alone in Christ alone is what saves us. But that being said, that doesn't mean that baptism is not important. Jesus commands His followers to be baptized. And if you're in Christ and refuse to be baptized, you're living in sin. Because it's being unashamedly identified with Christ in the waters of baptism. It's confessing Jesus as Lord. We believe in credo baptism. What's the word credo mean? create or to confess. It's to confess Jesus Christ is Lord. Now, I was talking about this this past Sunday afternoon. How do you profess faith publicly in modern Baptist churches? Walk down the aisle, right? The altar call. Does the Bible ever give any commandment that we're supposed to give altar calls? Does it make a requirement that you need to walk down an aisle, pray a prayer, and there's some magic grace up here on this step that's not out there in the pew or something else? The altar call is actually strange fire that God did not command. I would actually say it's sinful to have an altar call because it's not something God himself has commanded. But the way that we confess our faith, God has given us a means to do that, and it's through the waters of baptism, where we confess Jesus Christ is Lord. And what we're saying is, He's my Lord. God is my God, and I am His servant. I am His disciple. And baptism is about two basic things in the sense of identification. It identifies us with the Lord Jesus Christ. It also identifies us with His bride, the church. So, identifying us with Christ, there's four basic things there. Baptism is, first of all, a sign of regeneration. When someone's baptized, they're professing, I have experienced the new birth. I have been born again by God's Holy Spirit. Secondly, it symbolizes the washing away of sin. I'm identified, I have union with Christ in His death, And by that, I have experienced the forgiveness of my sins. God has granted me forgiveness, and that's symbolized by my union with his death. But when we baptize someone, do we leave them under the water forever? We pull them back up, and what does that symbolize? His resurrection, they're united with Him in His resurrection. And what that's saying is, I have experienced the new birth and I have been given by God's grace a new nature. And I can be expected to walk in accordance with that new nature. I'm not gonna walk as I used to walk because God has made me a new person. Doesn't mean that I'm gonna be sinless, but it does mean that I'm gonna be walking upon the difficult path of discipleship because I'm identified by union with Christ with His resurrection. And then the fourth thing that we're identified with is the church. Paul says in 1 Corinthians, you were baptized by the Spirit into one body. You cannot be identified with Jesus and not be identified with his bride. If you want to know the bridegroom, and you have to have a connection to the bride as well. But again, it's this whole idea of being identified with Christ unashamedly. So in the early church, the very first thing that happened was the people were converted, then they were baptized, and that baptism was so very important. And by the way, who does the text say was baptized? Does it say the believers and their children? Does it say the believers and their babies? What it says is specifically, then those, verse 41, then those who gladly received His word were baptized. We believe in the baptism of disciples alone, that only those who have a credible profession of faith are to be baptized. So what have we seen thus far? We've seen conversion and we've seen baptism. The next thing we see in the third place then is membership. membership. Look at what it says. In Corinthians, Paul says you're baptized into one body. So it's not just that we're identified with Christ, we're also identified with his people. But notice Acts 2, verse 41. Then those who gladly received his word were baptized, next phrase, and that day about 3,000 souls were added to them. Added to what? added to the membership of the local church. What were they added to? They were added to a number that was already established. Let's look at this pattern throughout the book of Acts. Look at Acts 1 verse 15. Jesus has just ascended to the heavens. The angels have appeared and say, why are you looking up at the sky? The same Jesus who has ascended will descend again. He will come again the same way you saw him leave. Verse 15, and in those days, Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples, and then notice in parentheses, altogether, the number of names was about 120. It's a very fascinating statement, isn't it? The number of the names. Somebody took a roster. They literally had a list of names. There's Sally and Susie and Bobby and Fred and Joe and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And you could literally take that roster and go, let's see, how many people are here? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, about 120. There was a specific number that were counted as the membership of the local church. So when we get to Acts 2, verse 41, in that day about 3,000 souls were added to them. So roughly 3,120 members of the church now. But then if you go to Acts 2, 47, and the Lord added to what? The church daily, those who were being saved, Acts 4.4, another instance of preaching, many of those who heard the word believed and the number of the men came to be about 5,000. Now it's not even telling us all the numbers of women and of children who had believed in Christ, but just the number of men alone was 5,000 people being added to the church. And then when you get to Acts 5, we read the story about Ananias and Sapphira. This is the first recorded instance of church discipline that ever takes place in the New Testament. But in this case, it wasn't restorative church discipline. It was lethal church discipline because they lied to the Holy Spirit and God made a public example of them by striking both of them dead within three hours of each other. Literally, the men who had buried Sapphira's husband were standing at the door. Peter says, those who buried your husband's body are standing at the door and they're going to bury you now. And she dropped dead. And notice what it says down in verses 11-14 of Acts 5. So great fear came upon, first of all, who did great fear come upon? The church. The church. It made the church, the members of the church examine their own hearts. Maybe there were some who said, you know what, the only difference between Ananias and Sapphira in me is they got caught. Maybe I've been guilty of the same sin. And every time discipline is practiced in the church, it should make us sober. We shouldn't gloat, say, well, I didn't like so-and-so anyway. It should make us examine our hearts and say, oh Lord, what if the same fate came upon me? What if the same sin is upon me? Oh Lord, have mercy upon my heart and show me, search me and see if there'd be any wicked way in me. And that's what happened in the church. So great fear came upon all the church and upon all who heard these things. So there was fear in the church and there was fear in the world. Right? And through the hands of the apostles, many signs and wonders were done among the people, and they were all with one accord in Solomon's porch. Look at what the next phrase says. Yet none of the rest dared do what? join them. They didn't dare become members of the local church. But the people esteemed them highly, and yet, look at what the next phrase is, and believers were increasingly added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women. By this act of discipline, a clear line of demarcation existed between that which was the church and that which was the world. How much discipline is practiced today in modern church? Very little, I would estimate 95% of churches in the United States do not practice any kind of discipline. Does the church look like the world today? It does. And they look upon churches that do practice discipline and call them cults. Well, no, it's what Jesus has commanded us to do, not because it's fun, not because it's pleasant, but because for the honor and glory of his name, we must do it and for the purity of the local church. If you don't deal with problems and sin problems in the church, those sin problems are going to show up at your door because it's going to be a little leaven that leavens the whole lump. But here, the world knew better than to falsely profess they love the Lord and to add themselves to the church because they knew there's a price for following Jesus. There's a cost to discipleship, and if I name the name of Jesus, I am expected to walk worthy of the name by which I am called, and I since fire didn't, and God made a public example of them that kept the church pure. But here's the thing. Without this clear line of this thing called church membership, discipline has no meaning whatsoever. We can't discipline you or hold you accountable if you're not formally connected to the local church. We have no authority to do that. I once had a man who was visiting our church many years ago. And he said to me, I was preaching on the necessity of church membership one Sunday morning. And he came up afterwards and said, I don't have to be a member of the local church because I'm already a member of the invisible church. And my response to him was to say, okay, does that mean that the elders of any local church in any place in the world can place you under their discipline? immediately stopped and didn't know what to say to that, because if you're not under their formal authority, then they can't discipline you. And there's no clear line of you're inside or outside of the church. So formal discipline is so important, or formal membership is so important, because we all need that accountability. I wouldn't be without that accountability for the world. I trust y'all know this, but we've told it to you before. You realize Pastor Matt and myself are also under the accountability of this church? That we could be disciplined if we were living in sin? And I praise God that's the truth, because I wouldn't have it any other way. My soul's not safe. if I don't have that accountability. I bless God for that. It's not a threat to me. It's a comfort to me to know that it's there. And so there's a number of reasons why professing Christians will not join churches. Sometimes people have been deeply hurt by abusive elderships and pastors who were authoritarian tyrants and who abused their authority in different ways. And I understand that. And people are scared. They're scared of that happening again, and so they're hesitant to join a church. Well, my counsel to you would be, first of all, don't let a negative experience in your past keep you from being obedient to Christ in the present. Furthermore, don't make the mistake of imputing to your current elders what may have happened in previous elderships. The big question you have to ask is, if I'm going to submit myself to a local church, I want to look at the leadership and say, is the leadership accountable to anyone? And if they're not accountable to anyone, that's a place I need to run away from. But if they're accountable to others, in other words, they're not just holding you accountable while no one else holds them accountable, that's what dictators do, right? Then you've got a problem. But if there is a structure, a system of accountability that these men are pursuing with one another, then that's a safer place to be. A second reason that professing Christians don't join churches is because they're rebellious and self-willed. They don't want to be under anyone's accountability. under anybody else's authority. And men and women like that, they may not recognize it, but their problem with authority is deeper than they realize. It's not just an issue of problems with being under pastors or whatever. At the end of the day, the authority they despise is the headship of Christ himself. They're rebelling against His authority, which is why they refuse to yield to the church, because they don't want to be under the authority of Christ Himself. I once read an article posted by a Reformed Baptist church in the Caribbean, and it said, you know what the problem is with being members of the invisible church only? You have invisible elders, and invisible church services, and invisible accountability, and invisible one-anothering. There's just so many one another in commandments in the scriptures you cannot obey apart from the local church. A third reason that professing Christians do not formally join the local church is because they're not Christians at all. Notice in the text of Acts chapter five, who was it who would not dare join the church? It was those who were outside of Christ. It was those who were unregenerate. And whenever a professing Christian not only refuses to join the church, but even refuses to attend church, well, I'm not religious, I'm spiritual, or whatever the language is. That habitual neglect of the local church may very well be a sign that they don't know the Lord. Because if you don't love the bride, you do not love the bridegroom. Pure and simple. You can't love Jesus whom you haven't seen if you don't love His bride whom you have seen. So, those are some things to contemplate. Now, these are the first three components of what we see in Acts chapter two. We've seen conversion, baptism, and membership, church membership. Now, if you don't have those first three in place, the remaining five things that we have to go over aren't gonna make a whole lot of sense. But really numbers 4, 5, 6, and 7 are all found in Acts 2, 42. And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine, in the fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers. The text specifically uses that word the over and over again to make it clear this is the formal public means of grace that these church members were attending to. And notice that with each one of them, that modifying phrase is, they continued steadfastly. They gave themselves diligently and continually and perpetually to these things. They were things that they didn't do casually. They were things they embraced with their whole heart. So that moves us to the fourth word, which is teaching. They continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine. The word doctrine simply means teaching. That's all it means. The body, the content of their teaching, their preaching and their teaching that they did. These baptized disciples were hungry for the Word of God. They couldn't get enough of it. And they sat eagerly to hear the teaching that they were receiving. The Scripture says literally they continued daily with one accord in the temple. And I'm not saying that that's a normative pattern that we're supposed to meet for church every single day of the week. But what it is saying is in those early days, they were so hungry to be fed from God's Word that they just couldn't get enough. The apostles working extremely hard to prepare to preach the word to them, and they weren't preparing in vain. I can tell you, it's really discouraging when you work hard to prepare to feed God's people because of the sermon that you hear, Pastor Matt can attest to this, it's just the tip of the iceberg. There's so much going on below the surface to prepare and to make sure you're handling the text rightly, to communicate it as clearly as you possibly can, and to make application of that text to your own heart, but also to your hearers. There's so much that goes on, and it's so discouraging if you work so hard to feed God's people, and God's people just aren't hungry. Now, thank God, our church tends to be very hungry for the word of God and clings to the word of God, and we're very grateful for that. But that's how these men were and these women were. They were so eager to hear God's truth because their souls depended upon it and they knew it and nobody had to kick them in the pants and say, hey, get out there and go to church. They wanted to hear God's word. They wanted to be there. And so they sat there underneath it. God has ordained. from the foundation of the world, that you and I are to grow through the preaching and teaching ministries of the church. That is his central way he has chosen to feed us. I had someone tell me many years ago, this was a member of our church, well, my wife and I, we just don't grow much by preaching. And I bit my tongue really hard. I wanted to say, do you read your Bible with a blindfold on? you can say, this isn't how we grow. And they were actually questioning, this couple was questioning, why is preaching so central in this church? And I just was dumbfounded by that. Read your Old Testaments, read your New Testament. Preaching is absolutely central. Do you know what Pastor Matt and I are principally called to do? Pray and preach. That is our calling as pastors. Everything else is secondary or incidental to those main callings. We are to give much time to studying the Word of God accurately so that we can then dispense it to you with clarity and with power. And so what was the very last thing Paul told his protege Timothy? When he was about to die, he's about to die a martyr's death, he's passing the torch to his protege. What is the main thing he wants him to know? He says, you have known from a childhood the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise unto salvation through faith, which is in Jesus Christ. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God. It's profitable for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, that the man of God may be equipped, thoroughly equipped for every good work. In other words, the Bible's sufficient for evangelism, the Bible's sufficient for the sanctification of the saints. So what's the very next thing he says? I charge you, therefore, I command you. It's not a request. I command you before God and His holy angels, preach the word. Preach it in season and out of season. Preach it when it's popular. Preach it when it's not popular. Preach it winter, spring, summer, fall. Preach it in the morning. Preach it in the evening. But whatever else you do, preach the word. Men are gonna look for all kinds of novel things. They're gonna look for all kinds of people to tickle their ears and teach them all kinds of false doctrine. But you keep the main thing, the main thing, and keep on preaching the word when men receive it and when men don't. In other words, preach the word, preach the whole word and preach nothing but the word. And someday you're gonna stand before Jesus and give an account before him. So what was the central and main thing for the apostle Paul? It was the preaching of the word and how good that when you preach the word, you have people who are hungry to have the word preached to them. And I glory and give God grace, give God glory because in this church, there are so many who are hungry for the word. May it continue, may it continue to grow. So, but here's the thing, the best preaching and teaching in the world ain't gonna avail you anything if you don't come to church. So, conversion, baptism, membership, teaching. What's the next thing? Fellowship. They continued steadfastly in the fellowship, in the koinonia is the Greek word. Fellowship means communion. fellowship, intimacy, participation, belonging. Some of its synonyms mean to own, to possess as one's own. When you enter into new life, when you're born again, not only do you become connected with the Lord, you gain a new spiritual family. I preached about this just a few weeks ago in our study on the covenants, that God calls us by His name, gives us His name, and is unashamed for us to own Him as our God. And that means then that you belong to His people, you have a spiritual family. And the reality is, when you have a spiritual family, is it not true that you're closer to them than you are to flesh and blood family who don't know the Lord? Your real family is the family of God. And so they fellowshiped with one another. There's a Colin Brown's Dictionary of the New Testament Theology is a very famous guide that delves into word meanings in the Greek New Testament. And he talks about Koinonia and says this, the rupture of fellowship with God in the Garden of Eden was followed by the loss of unity among men. Think about that. What's the next thing that happens as soon as Adam and Eve are ejected from the garden at the end of Genesis 3? What's the beginning of Genesis 4? Cain murders Abel, his brother. And then as Cain's family grows, we read that violence filled the earth until God destroys the earth with a flood. Then mankind is unified for a short while. He's unified in his attempt to overthrow God. Let's build a tower up to the heavens and make a name for ourselves. And so their sinful disposition leads in what? More disunity. 70 different nations, 70 different language groups are made there, divided because of man's sin. Man's sin always brings division, not just between men and God, but between man and man. But what happens then when God saves us? Suddenly things change. Suddenly we're not only reconciled to God, we're reconciled to one another. Listen to the language of Paul in Titus 3 verses 1 to 5. He's telling Titus what to remind the church in Crete of. Remind them to be subject to rulers and authorities, to obey, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to be peaceable, gentle, showing all humility to all men. That is how our conduct is to be to the lost men and women around us. Then he tells why. He says why. For we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy." What is malice? Anger or hatred, actually. It's hatred inside of you. Malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. He says, that was our characteristic when we were outside of Christ. But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we've done, but according to his mercy he saved us through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit. Be kind to evil men and women. Why? Because you were once just like them. You were hateful and hating one another, and now God has changed you. God was so kind to you, now you show that kindness to the lost world around you. And then when you think about within the church, God has drawn us together. Again, Colin Brown says this, Koinonia expresses something new and denotes the unanimity and unity brought about by the Spirit. The people we're reading about who are unified in Acts 2, Two months earlier, do you know what they were saying? Crucify Him. Crucify Him. Give us Barabbas rather than Jesus. And yet here we are, two months later, and look at the change grace has made. Look at what God has done in them so that they love the Lord and they love one another. And you find that down in chapter two, verse 42, the verses following, down in verses 44 to 47. Now all who believe were together, and had all things in common, and sold their possessions and goods and divided them among all as anyone had need. So continuing daily with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people, and the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved." They didn't see what they owned as their own. They were contributing to one another, taking care of physical and financial needs. In fact, you go on down to Acts 4 verse 32, it says, Isn't it beautiful? The church being of one heart and one soul together. Neither did anyone say that any of the things he possessed was his own, but they had all things in common. When there was a need, that need was met because God's people cared about each other. Now, here's what I'm trying to drive home to you. They gave themselves continually, not only to the preaching of the word, but to the fellowship. They spent time, they invested many hundreds of man hours over the long haul with one another in each other's company. We're gonna get to it in a little bit, but it wasn't just when they gathered on the Lord's day, it was in each other's homes. receiving hospitality, pursuing hospitality, showing kindness one to another. They wanted to be in each other's company. One of the things I love, and I was telling this to Angela as we drove home this past Sunday about our church, is we finished our service about 12.20 Sunday, 1.30, 1.35, we're finally in the car driving home. Because everyone was sitting around, talking to one another, and just enjoying each other's company. And that's a pretty typical Lord's Day. And then if you have an agape feast, it's about 3 or 3.30 then when you're going home. But when there's fellowships, men want to be at the fellowships and come together and hang out with each other. That is a sign of health. It's a sign of health. Because here's my point. Yes, there are public means of grace like the preaching of the word and prayers and all those things and giving of the Lord's Supper. But I want you to remember something. God's people themselves are means of grace. Never ever forget that. And we need one another. There are times when I've had brothers or sisters call me and and members of the church and say brother this this is what's happened today It's the Lord's Day morning and we just lost our job or we just went through this or whatever and we're just so discouraged we're not gonna be there this morning and I'll say to them. I understand how you feel But don't yield to that temptation You need to come to church You need to come and be under the preaching of the word, you need to sing God's praises, you need to hear the prayers of the people, and you need to let God's people love on you, and weep with you, and encourage you. I said, I understand the desire to stay home, but here's the thing, go anyway. Go anyway, because you're robbing yourself of what you need the most. And every time that that's happened, and it hasn't happened often, but when it's happened, those same people would come back to me and say, thank you so much for telling us to come to church anyway, because this is exactly what we needed. We didn't realize how much we needed God's people just to weep with us and to rejoice with us and cut up with us. And we're feeling so bit more encouraged now. So God's people are a means of grace. And I'm going to tell you something, without the fellowship of the saints, you're not going to finish well. period. You must have God's people to persevere. This is an illustration I've used many, many times in the past, but it's still true. Any of you like to grill out not with gas, but with coal? Have you ever grilled with coal? And you get that coal bed really nice and hot and it's white hot and you're ready to put your hamburgers on it or your steaks or whatever you're cooking. You ever take a tong, a pair of tongs and take one of those burning coals and remove it from the center of all the other coals and set it off by itself? What happens to it? Goes cold. Matter of fact, how long does it take to get cold? Not long at all. Now if you want to warm that individual coal back up, there's one or two things you can do. You can take out a Zippo lighter and hold it under it and keep it lit for a long time and that's going to keep it lit until your lighter fluid is out. What's the best way or easiest way to ignite that coal again? Drop it in the midst of the other burning coals. You and I cannot persevere to the end without holy affections being stirred up in our hearts. And you can't have holy affections stirred up in your hearts without God's people. You can't have it without the church. Not only the means of grace, but the people of God themselves, who are themselves means of grace. So we need one another. So we've seen then, under this one, the fellowship. But then the bread. That's the sixth thing. They continued steadfastly in, it's very specific, the breaking of the bread. What's that referring to? The Lord's Supper. the Lord's Supper. They took the Lord's Supper with great frequency. It's a technical term. They broke bread together. Now, later it's going to talk about breaking bread house to house. I don't believe that's talking about the Lord's Supper. That's talking about hospitality in each other's home. But here, when the church gathered together, they observed the Lord's Supper with great frequency. The Lord's Supper is a means of grace. It is something important for us. Whenever we get together and have the Lord's Supper, Paul tells us that it's a proclamation of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. It is the proclamation of the gospel every time we observe it. But it's a proclamation given to all five of your senses. We hear with our ears the words of institution, without which it's meaningless. The authority for these elements to become representations of the body and blood of Christ are from the authority of the Scriptures. So the words of institution are read. We distribute those elements. You can touch them. You can smell them, particularly you can smell the wine. You can taste it. You can see it with your eyes. Every one of your senses, this is God preaching the gospel to your senses, because he knows how weak we are. And what is it a reminder of? What does it tell us about? It tells us of the active and passive obedience of Christ. Why is the bread without leaven? Jesus was without sin. Why is the bread broken? because his body was broken for us. Do you hear that? He's perfect, that's active obedience to God's law. It's broken, that's passive obedience. And what spilled from his broken body? His blood. The book of Hebrews says without the shedding of blood, there is no remission, there's no forgiveness, there's no possibility for you and I to be forgiven, but Jesus has shed his blood for us. So when you take that supper, What are you being reminded of? I'm dressed in Christ's righteousness and I'm forgiven for my sins. My week has been subpar. I have not been perfect before God. I haven't been a perfect husband. I haven't been a perfect wife. I haven't been a perfect single, perfect child, whatever God's called you to be. I haven't been a perfect employee. I haven't been a perfect pastor. My performance has lacked many things. It's fallen short of God's glory, not just occasionally, but every single hour of every single day. And I look back and regret many sins of commission that I've committed this week, sins of omission, words that came out of my mouth that never should have been spoken, and thoughts entertained in my head, attitudes I've had. And yet it's this opportunity to be reminded my performance doesn't make me accepted before God. but Jesus finished work is why I'm accepted by Him. What's the word that we always use when we take the Lord's Supper? What's the great word, the call that we give to you? Remember, remember. And you think to yourself, I would never forget the gospel. Oh, we do all the time. God doesn't like me today because I wasn't as holy. No, His love for you isn't based on your performance. It never was. His acceptance of you is not based upon your performance. And again, it never was. It's based upon what Jesus has accomplished for you. You are saved by works, but it's the works of somebody else. And the Lord's Supper, every time we take it, is a reminder of that. We humble ourselves before God. We look within, but then we look without and remember what Jesus has done. So, aren't you glad they gave themselves to the breaking of bread, and that we should give ourselves to the breaking of bread? Seventh, the prayers. the prayers, they continued steadfastly in the prayers. Now it's important indeed that we pray each day in our own prayer closets, that's important. Important that we lead our families in prayer, but nothing beats praying publicly either with the church. If you don't believe that prayer is edifying, I know that I don't have to convince any of you, but think about the book of Psalms. You ever get encouraged reading the book of Psalms, show of hands? It's a book of songs, right? But it's prayers put to song, is what they are. How many of you have ever read the Valley Vision? Encouraging? Absolutely. How many of you are encouraged when you listen to our men lead in prayer each week? And edified. And we give a lot of time to it, and we do so on purpose. We were asking this question the other day, in the average local church in the United States, how much scripture is read? in a service, maybe a verse or two right before the sermon, how much prayer is offered. Maybe an offertory at the, you know, oh Lord bless these tithes and offerings to our missionaries that we don't know their names. And that's about it. That's not how things should be. When Jesus cleansed the temple, He said, you've made it a den of thieves, but it was supposed to be a house of prayer for all nations. We need to pray for one another, and we need to hear the prayers of one another, not just our prayers of intercession, but our prayers of thanksgiving, our prayers of adoration. One of the things that blesses me is when I hear the men start off their prayers by enumerating God's attributes and thanking Him for all the great things He's done. And then here's something else, we get together once a month for a concert of prayer. And that has become a delight for me, because we've been doing it for years. I'm telling you, I'm not kidding, it's how we heat the place. how we heed the place, to cry out to God and plead with Him for mercies from heaven, for us and for our sister churches and for our missionaries to have times of confession of sin together as a church, as an association of churches. We've begun the practice that every time we get together for a general assembly, every time we get together for a pastor's fraternal, including, God willing, this coming week, We always have a two-hour concert of prayer. And to hear these fellow pastors interceding and confessing sin and praying for missions, it is just a glorious, glorious time. And we have pastors say to us all the time, this is one of my favorite things about coming together, is to pray together as God's people. So we need to be given to prayer. And the early church gave themselves to much prayer. We should go and do likewise. Final thing is hospitality. Hospitality is found in our text in Acts 2 verse 46, so continuing daily with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house. The Lord's Supper is a church ordinance, it's not a home ordinance. And so it's not right or lawful to take the Lord's Supper privately or as an individual or in a household as opposed to having it when the church assembles. So this is speaking not of the formal breaking of bread that takes place in the Lord's Supper, but of eating together in each other's homes. So the breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart. Now, do you notice all the means of grace have been listed except for one? There's one that hasn't been mentioned. Does anyone know what it is? I'll give you a hint. It's in your pews, it's in your seats. Hymn books. Singing. Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Do you think they sang? Of course they did. And look at verse 46, praising God. and having favor with all the people. I'm sure the praises included their singing of God's praises with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Do you notice in the early church, all the means of grace were in place? That's the thing I want you to see. But they were fellowshipping with one another. They weren't just content coming to the temple together. They then pursued and received hospitality with one another. Last summer, I preached two messages back to back on the subject of hospitality. I'm not going to re-preach those here, but let me just summarize. Hospitality was often used in the New Testament as an opportunity for evangelism. How often did Jesus win tax gatherers and sinners over a meal? In fact, he was criticized because he spent time in the presence of people who the society said, don't hang out with them. It's like, well, this is who I've come to save, and that's why I'm going to spend time with them. Hospitality is set forth in Scripture as a tangible mark of the love of the brethren. Every context where you're told to pursue hospitality is in the context of pursuing brotherly love. Hospitality is a way of receiving and participating in the ministry of God's sent ones, that is ministers and missionaries sent by Him. We're getting the opportunity to do that in the next several weeks as the Gunnups are gonna be hanging out with the Dudeks and then Pastor Limblad's gonna be hanging out with Matt and his family. And then it's an important grace. It's such an important grace that the Holy Spirit tells us it's one of the qualifications for elders. They must be given to hospitality. John commended Gaius' love for the church that was shown by the fact that he was hospitable. Paul could write to Philemon and invite himself to Philemon's house. Hey, prepare a guest bed for me because I'm trust by your prayers. I know you're praying for me. I'm going to be released from prison. I'm going to come live with you. So he knew of his reputation that way. Paul publicly rebuked Peter in Antioch for being inhospitable towards the Gentiles. And he rebuked him for not being forthright about the gospel. You're saying by your sin that in order to be received by Jesus, you don't have to be circumcised, but in order to be received by me, you do. And it was sinful, it was divisive. And so they pursued hospitality one with another. Again, I rejoice that this church is such a hospitable church. I'm constantly hearing of people saying, oh, I was at so-and-so's house the other day, or this person was at my house, and we just need to continue that because that is a sign of love. Well, there's two applications I wanna make, and I trust the Lord has driven home some things to us already. The first one is this, beware of forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as is the manner of some." I trust you recognize I didn't come up with that. That's a quote. Is it from the Old Testament or New? Just curious. It's from the New. It's from Hebrews chapter 10 verse 25. Proverbs 18.1 is similar. It says, a man who isolates himself. seeks his own desire. He rages against all wise judgment. In Hebrews 10 verse 25, do you know why the commandment is given to not forsake the assembling of ourselves together? What's that? The day draws near. The day draws near of Christ's return. He's been all more than zealous for getting together with God's people. What does he say is going to happen if you neglect coming together? Do you know? Take heed to this lest you drift away. And if you look at the context, he's not just saying, he's not saying, beware that if you begin forsaking the assembly of ourselves, you're going to backslide. Do you realize what he's saying is, beware lest you apostatize from the faith. I've been a pastor for 22 years. I've watched it with my own eyes. I've seen people in the church who begin being loosey-goosey about their attendance, always a new excuse. Pastor Don Shunk, who's preached here recently, he says he's got a name for it, he calls it sabotitis. It's amazing. People just suddenly have all these medical afflictions on Sunday, and then they're magically healed on Monday morning. He says it's hepatitis. It's a disease. Always a new excuse why you can't be at church. And you know, it's one thing to have a legitimate providential hindering. You're truly sick. You're out of town. We understand that. We get that. It's another thing to always have a new reason you can't be here. And sometimes you begin realizing the reason you're not coming is just because you don't want to be here. And I have warned from the pulpit before in years past, brothers and sisters, if you forsake the assembly of ourselves together, if you're not serious about church, not making it a priority of local church, you're making a priority of baseball and bowling and whatever else, whatever else, other extracurricular activity. It's amazing how parents will make sure their kids don't miss those things. but then they won them under the sentence of the gospel. And I said, you know what? Most lessons that you teach your children are caught rather than taught. They see your example. And you know what? Your children pick up when the church and the gospel is not a priority for you. And what you excuse in moderation, your children will excuse in excess. And I doubt your grandchildren will ever darken the door of a church at all. I gave that warning multiple times and I've watched that generation. Some of them don't, their children do not darken the door of a church. They didn't listen. They didn't heed. I've watched many a nature documentary. The Bible says that Satan is like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. You ever notice that when, like in Africa, when a lion is stalking a gazelle, a group of gazelles, do they go after the people who are, after the gazelles that are all clustered together in a big clump? Who do they go after? The people on the outer periphery. Let me tell you something, if you distance yourself from the church, you are prey for the false teachers and the false prophets. And there are people who've been members of this church who I sadly tell you don't even believe the gospel anymore. Some who don't go to church at all. Some of these children are apostates and washed-outs. It's one thing if you've done all you can to teach your children in the way, it's another if you yourself have given them such a poor example that they follow that example and then they don't darken the door of the church. If it really wasn't that important to you, why should it be important to me? Brothers and sisters, it is dangerous to forsake the assembly of ourselves together. Don't think you're strong enough to make it on your own because you're not, none of us is. So don't forsake the assembly of ourselves together. And I wanna end with this, an application, and I wanna thank Kelly Bores for helping me with this. But if the local church and the public means of grace are going to be central then you must remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. J.C. Rowles said it this way. Scripture, history, and experience all combine to teach us that the light in the Lord's word, the Lord's service, the Lord's people, and the Lord's day will always go together. Now here is what Kelly Bores helped me with. What's this? It's a bicycle tire, right? And it has spokes on it. Now let's say that this tire represents our church. Okay? And each of these spokes are the various ministries of our local church. So you have the midweek service. You got the children's catechism class is another spoke. And over here, this is the monthly concert of prayer. And here's the agape feast that we have once a month. And here's a men's fellowship that we have every couple months. And we've had women's book studies that Laura led, and we have a man's book study that goes on right now. and then we have occasionally opportunities to go pass out tracts as an evangelistic ministry. Well, what happens to this tire and these spokes if you take the central hub and crush it? The entire wheel falls apart. I used to do some biking on the Silver Comet Trail and I saw a woman who had been biking and the front tire collapsed. The core of it crushed and it sent her flying. They had to bring an ambulance to her to take her out because she was injured so badly. What I'm trying to tell you is, what's at the central hub of the local church? It's the Lord's Day. If you neglect the Lord's Day, what's going to happen to the ministry of the church? it will fall apart, it won't hold up. Sabbath keepers are always a blessing to the local church. Sabbath breakers weaken a church. Sabbath breakers tear down the church. They wear down the morale and the energy of the church. A commitment to the Lord's Day is absolutely vital to the health of the local church. That is why it's gonna be a few weeks before we get back to, next week we're taking off because of the fraternal. Two weeks from now will be the concert of prayer. Three weeks from now, God willing, we'll come back to this subject. I'm gonna spend three weeks teaching you about the Lord's Day. Because if the Lord's Day isn't central, none of the rest of this is going to fly. That's why it's so important, so vital. So we want to come back to that here in a few weeks.