Published: October 15, 2023 | Speaker: Chuck Hartman | Series: Worship 1 - Part 6 | Scripture: Acts 2:42-47
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so continuing our discussion on worship and Acts chapter 2
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42 we spent uh I mean I've I've already warned you we're not going to go through this passage that's kind of the framework uh the outline of the whole series this whole session but we'll be going to other passages certainly um but
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we spend two weeks talking about the word continually that's almost worthy of Martin Lloyd Jones uh another five or six weeks and we we'd exhaust the meaning of that word but the idea of of
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how often we should meet but I want to move on to the next word devoting now it appears um from the structure of the
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sentence and even in in the English I'm not I'm you know I'm not trying to pull Greek on you here here um but it appears that the word devoting uh which is a um
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participle governs the next three next three items so they were devoting themselves to three to three things uh actually Four excuse me the
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apost the apostles
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prayer one of the um It's relatively minor it seems inconsequential but one of the subtle changes that has happened in modern
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American evangelicalism is the um the Advent of the of the church office called the worship leader or the worship
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team what does that what does that do what does a worship leader do in most churches what does the worship leader do music right the worship leader leads
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the music and what does the worship team do perform perform perform yeah most many churches they perform but they
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perform music okay they they play the instruments they lead the songs from the stage but what has happened and the reason I call it subtle
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is it's pretty much defined Worship in our minds with singing and when we talk about the worship Wars we're talking about the different types of music that different
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churches use um to worship God but as I mentioned last week it's not even mentioned here you know singing isn't even mentioned in the four items
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that they devoted themselves to which again should not in the in the least be interpreted as singing being less important but it's almost as if the Holy
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Spirit anticipated the place that music would usurp in the minds of of uh of many was just mening to me it's even
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become a place of division like they have a contemporary hour right you have different Services contemporary traditional yeah the traditional is always the earlier one because old people get up
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earlier but yeah it's it's a div it's a divisive thing but the the worship that we see here if we if we assume that they are gathered to worship which I think is a very safe assumption they are
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assembling together to to be in the presence of God we talked about the church as a temple coming together to be in the presence of God that is worship
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and the word devoting again um I think is it's important to recognize that they were not devoting themselves to any one of these items
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exclusively but nor did they leave any one of these items out it seems like Worship in terms of music I'm not defending it but we are woring God we
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are thees that are singing so we're singing to each other more churches talk about and worshiping God we are going
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but but when you are preaching you are lecturing right that but that there in lies a problem but it's a very true one okay the what Yuri is saying is that we
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we tend to consider worshiping in music because we're all doing it which that is not necessarily true in many churches okay um that happens to be true
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of of our congregation but I know that um in in many churches most of the singing and and throughout history um most of the singing is done by the choir uh so but nonetheless in our
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context we consider it worship because we're participating now the question is um of these four that are up here do any of them require the
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participation of the congregation yes all of them actually
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okay that see that's a it is a real but false perception that we have that the congregation participates in worship when we're
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when we're singing but that's not what we read they were devoting themselves to the apostles teaching to Fellowship which is kind of
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held to to Fellowship one you know in as a Unity the breaking of bread that's table fellow fellowship or communion however you you interpret it it's nonetheless
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it's it's got a corporate context to it and then um prayer again this can all be done singularly in the Roman Catholic Church the priest places the wafer on
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your tongue the only thing you do is swallow it and you don't even get to drink the wine okay um I don't know how you do Fellowship by yourself but some people probably pull it off again a lot
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lot of churches even Protestant churches prayer is a sacerdotal it is a mediatorial act that is done by the clergy the senior pastor prays so yeah
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that we we do uh perpetuate this this idea that the worship of God is is for the most part something that the priesthood does but then we get to sing
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and that that I think Yuri's right that um culturally Church culture that's why music has become so important uh not only that but also because music is in
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and of itself a very powerful medium a very emotional um medium more so than sermons okay sermons don't really get people going like you know foot tapping
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the way a a good uh 50s song will do but the perception is false when we read acts 4 or
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242 they 242 they were devoting themselves okay okay now the they I think should be as you read
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comprehensive but not what's the word exclusive so for example when it's when it says they had all things in common it does not mean that it was a socialist commun socialist commun commune they also own we read a little
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bit later that Barnabas owned a plot of land and ananas and Safa owned some property they sold it they gave half and that wasn't the problem the problem was
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they claimed that what they gave was all of it Peter makes it very clear that it was entirely under their control throughout the whole process so you have this they're all like we said oh meeting
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day by day does that mean every single believer in that whole city met every single day no but it did mean that the church assembled all these times and
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places when they met from house to house does it mean that they met in each individual's house every single day no it doesn't mean that so that's what I mean it's it's it's comprehensive but
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not exclusive okay so but the they is a very important um word there very important pronoun because it it should guide us
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away from the clergy Ley the priesthood mediatorial idea that his con stantly infiltrated into
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infiltrated into churches and it's something that Fellowship Bible Church even as a model from back in the 70s was seeking to get away from to move
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away from the idea however most today most Fellowship Bible churches including ours 30 years ago have a senior
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pastor if they're large enough they have an associate pastor a pastoral staff a youth pastor or a pastor of worship who is the music leader okay so they they've they've got the same um pattern that we
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see in most modern Evangelical churches the word devoting is um a significant word it's not used often in the
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Bible but it's it is used a lot in um extra biblical Greek it means to persist obstinately in
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not well more of a stream of Consciousness and no that's that's not a bad idea the idea of a stream of Consciousness praying um I imagine that that's how Jesus prayed in his spirit but to persist obstinately in the word
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is in other words it's a very strong word um and it can be used um both positively and negatively but it but it means not here and there not um when the
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mood strikes us it it means something that you are I guess like a a modern word be we Obsession it it's it becomes an
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obsession if you can think of an obsession obviously that's a pejorative term but is an obsession with knowing God's mind a negative concept you've heard the
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phrase the you know he's so Heavenly minded he's no earthly good is that even possible there's something else wrong with the person but it's not really
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possible to be so Heavenly minded to be no earthly good because if you are no earthly good you can cannot be Heavenly minded the minded the word makes me think of people who do it
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purposefully and with discipline yes that's a good good combination of words purpose and
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discipline steadfastly this word to persevere putting them together
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continually persevering is almost redundant I mean it is redundant because if you're persevering you're doing it continually but it's a it's a level of
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effort I remember years ago um my brother telling me this was many many years ago he said um you can't expect
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everyone in the congregation to be as interested in the word as you
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are I think he was wrong I think he is that if he still believes that I think is still wrong I don't think that either any that anyone in the pastorate has that
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expectation but I think the Holy Spirit does I think what we read about and we're going to look at this again in in the sermon this morning what we read from the early church and what we read
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from Paul's writings especially to Timothy is an expectation as he writes to the Corinthians he says we have the mind of
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Christ now what my brother was getting at and and well actually no what he said was what he said but it was pretty much like just expect that the majority of any congregation will be apathetic
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toward the toward the word what happens if the pastor makes that assumption and then guides his ministry from that
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assumption he'll either get apathetic or he'll become a pope okay because it will not promote what we're reading here was characteristic of the Believers after
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Pentecost it will promote a clericalism so if you just accept that and usually it's the 8020 you've heard the 8020 split um 20% of the people do
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80% of the work so you know you expect 20% of the congregation to care about God's word um and then you basically focus on that 20% and then the rest of them you you
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give them a sermon and then you shake their hand and they go on their merry way I don't think that's
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acceptable to eat because they need that nutrition they need it they need it now what is true is is that we we cannot expect and this is where some Churches especially in the reformed tradition kind of go overboard and the Pharisees
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did as well we are all gifted differently so for example we cannot expect everyone to become an elder a pastor a missionary or
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whatever okay some Churches believe that you know all you have to do is say yes and you're going to be a missionary you know the spirit is what distributes so we're not talking about individual
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giftedness what we're talking about is hunger a hunger a desire to hear from God through his word and by his Spirit to do these things to
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persist obstinately in learning in Fellowship in in communion and in prayer and I can't see where any of them uh do not apply to every professed
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believer is believer is that is that acceptable I think it is um uh biblical as well as practical we
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read it and when Paul writes about the elders who work hard at preaching and teaching or he writes about those who receive their their income from the word
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that there there's definitely everybody has a an addition to their new life in Christ they have a life to lead Paul says in 1 Corinthians 7 that you know he
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wishes that that everyone was unmarried because then they could devote themselves more themselves more um exclusively to God and to the church
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but that's not the case and so there are there is going to be a difference in vocation but there should not be a difference in
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expectation howship other I'm not really sure um that's why I tend to read this as communion in in the ancient world it
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really is the Mediterranean world to today fellowshipping or in the Baptist World fellowshipping means a meal okay it was table Fellowship that
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was the ultimate form of of friendship I do think that Fellowship has uh more of and this is conjecture because the words don't really say uh
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but it has more of a horizontal the breaking of bread has more of a vertical just takes to do all it takes Fellowship to do it takes yes
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but Fellowship it takes Fellowship to do all the others but all the others are components of Fellowship I thinking
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perow that's ABS that that's that would be very that would be very contextual to say that Fellowship was taking care of one another's needs outside the Gathering because that is exactly what they did so yes that's that is um and
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and we'll try unpack that word because I do think it's more than just getting together and and then the the difference between two and three is subtle okay and I don't want to make it
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I don't want to try to make it so some people say that Greek is a clear and precise language Greek is no clearer or more precise than any other human language there are subtleties in Greek
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as there are in every other language so the the meaning that Luke had in using the these words may not it may not be available to us to to know precisely
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what the differences were but I think Abe has a very good point that the the fellowship didn't stop when the assembly
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ended that they contined to take care of one another's one another's needs so looking at the first um so we're looking at the word devoting um to persist obstinately
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in you know I think we we learned a lot about the modern Church during the coid
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years um and not much that we learned was encouraging so what we what we learned for the most part is that the majority of Evangelical
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churches will endeavor to do to the best of their ability whatever the government government requires them to do and they will do it in the Name of
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Love so we have to recognize that that attitude was attitude was already latent was already within the leadership and the
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congregations before the coid crisis hit because the response resp was fairly
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immediate that that means that we live in that type of culture within modern evangelicalism that most of the professing Believers that we
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meet are not what's the word they're they're going to they're going to generally fall under two headaches the one is a heading this is my opinion
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a heading of fear frankly I think that coid scared a lot of lot of people I I find it hard to believe that what was done was done through careful
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meditation and and thought but rather was done primarily out of fear we still see some of that fear residual you know around us people were afraid to get sick
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and die and die but that there's a there's another group that we'll be talking about more on Thursday evening and that is basically
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is basically rebellious I will not do it because the government tells me too and does anybody doubt that there is that attitude
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in our American our American churches I will not do it because the government is the instit tion telling me to do to do it so you have these two attitudes fear
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and and Rebellion fear and resistance neither one of them are
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biblical toal de whoever de whoever is agree
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with Republican if you are pro Republican you're probably going to be on the on the I'm going to listen to what the president saying and if it's a demat you're not yes that that is true
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except that um much of the coid era was under a Republican president and you still had a great deal of resistance to the CDC you know you you you just had a
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lot of but you're right it does largely it's very political and it does largely come from again it's not just as with the fear the resistance is not well
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thought out it's more reactionary but nonetheless I think do we all agree that neither one of those is a Biblical attitude we we we did not continue to
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meet as a church because we were resisting the resisting the government and we did not cease to meet as a church because we were afraid to get sick and die we we tried to continue to meet
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because that is number one what we were supposed to do and number two what in the Lord we desire to do I think it reveals underlying
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attitudes about what constitutes church and what is important in church so more reformed leing churches thought well church is sermon so we live a sermon
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then that covers the basis that's a very good point and and I I'm glad you brought that out devoting themselves to the Apostle teaching is the first on the list does that make it the the most
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important that's a rhetorical question a what's it question actually all of these four this kind of came out in the discussion about these two these are all
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intertwined okay you you cannot do these three with that one without these three okay um that they're they're not really separate activities but as Abigail was
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pointing out many reformed churches this is somewhat the characteristic of Reformed Church churches and that is the the centerpiece of worship is the sermon
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well it is important and again that was a reaction to the Roman Catholic and the medieval centerpiece which was the mass
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the Eucharist and and it's even in our architecture you go into a cathedral and what is front and center is the altar the pulpit is usually off to the
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side if if you go into a Protestant Church what's front and center is the pulpit and if they do have a communion table it will be in front of it but often at a lower
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level and it's not called an altar so the the idea that even the architecture uh conveyed the attitude of what is Central to worship for the Roman
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Catholic the mass is Central to worship for the Protestant especially the reformed Protestant the sermon and so during coid during coid you had um virtual Church video church
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because what's important is the sermon and as long as you were getting a sermon well you didn't have to be together okay you didn't have to Fellowship
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because you were getting fed you were getting a sermon that was good enough um you know and then when they did start to get together you know he had to be six feet apart wearing masks
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um the church AB was attending in St Andrews uh disallowed singing but you hum I mean they really they put more thought into how to
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obey than they did to How To Worship okay and so that that's what I'm saying what I'm it really unveiled it was very revealing the state of the
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church well I think you're you're talking about the ends of the spectrum though I yes there's fear on one end resistance the but most of us resided somewhere in the middle I would say 9%
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of us did I mean there were there were very good reasons to believe that we should resist because of the ridiculous of the evidence that it was dead so I don't know me bringing out
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the point that some of us were afraid resisting blindly because it's the
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our extremes but extremes but I again it is it's my commentary which is not is not infallible but in in listening to um those churches that did
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meet there is a very strong element of resistance to the political authorities um that's something that
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that we actually try to avoid consciously in fact we did we did not meet for about six weeks trying to see what was going on um but the
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one we were anxious every Sunday the three Elders to get back together and met and talked each
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week and I will say that the the political process did have something to do with when we met because the word was that Governor McMaster was going to
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reopen something like I don't know April 3rd or whatever it was and we consciously decided to meet before he made his made his announcement but I think there are
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others that that do and and I think I'm talking mostly well I mean everybody's experience is different and what what you've heard people in your family
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people in your circle they you're right they're there're these are extremes I I guess what I'm saying is neither element is actually biblical even the resistance
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one but that's you need to come to Thursday night to hear about that one okay um but but you know that that the reason to continue to worship without
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fear and regardless of what the government says either for or against whether it's Constantine or Constantine or Nero the reason is because
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you are the new Humanity you are the people of people of God and you cannot live without one another and him so that that's I guess that's what I'm saying you're right
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they're extremes some were more fearful and and we see that but also some were more just plain rebellious and we see that and then most of us are somewhere
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and and I'm not saying that there's no fear you know when when you people were dying people that we know were
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dying okay uh people maybe even in our extended families we were very blessed we were also blessed in the sense that we live in a a very red
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State there wasn't much but nonetheless we live in a very liberal part of a red State and there was a lot of murmuring going on especially on Buist Avenue when
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we let out after church and everybody was out talking without masks you know enjoying one another's company there was you could you could overhear the overhear the comments kind of got this a bit but the
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more rebellious faction there tended to be the rhetoric of Co is not that dangerous this is silly therefore we should meet but what
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if Co or some other disease really is that dangerous do we still meet I feel like that's that was a struggle
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the congregation the elders may decide not to meet one Sunday that I mean however you feel about that it it's it's like these things do happen okay and and and
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it could have been you know it it was a very very powerful form of the flu and people did did die uh you know I I'm
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somewhere in between in the whole it seems to me that we are
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direction to this yeah but I think that it seems to me and that was just my personal that given enough time some people are not are the true
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Remnant decided this is not right we've got to e right I think some who are just playing Church they kept on going with theal church because not really true I I
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think it's very yeah I think that's what Reve is so disturbing about the whole situation is that after it became more and more apparent that you could you
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could take what were really often just common sense common sense precautions that you would do let's say you ran a daycare facility you know hopefully you would clean the
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tables okay you know when it became apparent that there still many churches did not return and when they did return they still um they returned in a
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manner that was again fearful or slavishly obedient um there's still churches that are doing little
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communions oh really yeah okay communion packets and I guess you could replace the holy water with hand sanitizer
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right oh AB I think it's an excellent point and and um that's that's really the focus of of today's study is what does this mean persisting obstinately and then the the the natural question
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what are we persisting obstinately in are we persisting obstinately in our Disobedience to the government or in the obedience to the government or are we persisting there's a third option and
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that are we persisting obstinately in our fear of dying okay I mean even someone who was ambivalent towards the government one
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way or the other this presented this is how it was presented to us is deadly right um and I I think that that
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that reached um uh kind of a basil emotional level in people and I think that's what brought out the more
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interpersonal conflicts as PE as you see you know you'd see people in in the stores yelling at what one another because so and so doesn't have a mask on the government one has even been being mentioned they're just afraid of
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dying itel and itel and his they would not eat meat but they they were not
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slav andain right they they were obstinate in obeying the Lord they would not eat food that the Lord had declared unclean and he sustained them and yet we're not um
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promised that he will sustain us physically in in disobeying okay there are millions of Christians who have suffered and died
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for disobeying the government and they even if he does not save us yes they knew yeah right they they knew even
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if he does not nonetheless he is still good and he is still God and and so even if we did catch coid and from it die our
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obstinate persistence was in obeying the Lord that's really the focus of the uh the The Mention Of coid of course and I I was well aware that that would get off into you know that's that's something
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but still it's going to go down in history as a very uh revealing era in evangelicalism I guess just a couple the other points up there I know having
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talked with people through work and there were some who were just devastated by not being able to get together with their friends or their Church body uh and express that Devastation
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that they didn't really miss the teaching or breaking bread but not being able to get together with their thing so that was obviously what they were persisting in and you mentioned in the
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past you have mentioned Church you went to where you didn't have communion bring it to you right they'll bring it to you and I feel like that's another yeah Co
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aside you know that could have been caused by caused by sickness where you could you didn't go to church because you were sick and yet that was so important to the body that
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they would bring you communion and I imagine that there were different reactions to co that each one focused on something we we mentioned we'll live a and everybody's
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good and I guess you could do a teams meeting and get everyone Fellowship although right and you could distribute
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commun P but the end day single out of these
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items are we truly following the apostles format what they example that they they pass down this th what you're pointing out is is actually the subject of a very lengthy
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contemporary uh debate and Analysis and that is the impact of the technological Revolution on our life now we're entering into an era
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where more and more people will be working from home and working remotely um the same is true now in the church Co kind of brought that out we wouldn't
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have done it otherwise but we were already doing something a little bit diff like that in the satellite church movement where people are coming
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together as a congregation but the pastor is not there he's someplace else and he'll show up on the screen when it's time for him to bless us with his
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word okay so the idea of remote congregation is was already again these things did not just happen Co revealed attitudes I don't know that
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it made any necessarily but it certainly revealed many we go all the way back to Gutenberg because now everyone owns the
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Bible service right actually that's been done and and um and those of us are old enough to remember the same thing was true uh with the Advent of television and then those of us who are not old enough to remember the Advent of
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telephones um yeah I mean every time technology has advanced there will be those who say this is horrible I mean how many people write letters
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anymore okay now now what that's going to do is in the future historians are going to have nothing to work with because that that the letters of the past are our window but nonetheless
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there's a certain Intimacy in letters that you don't get in emails but now emails have been replaced by texts and we don't even spell out our words
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anymore an oh okay don't you think guess my point my point was this is purifying thing yes this is
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God sh his people what it is just as it was in the the Exile this is a purifying time when
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whenever the church is faced with a a surrounding culture that is inimical to Faith that is a purifying
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time that's not a pleasant time to live in okay now I'm not sure that it's you know that all times aren't in some sense purifying but I think it is it is harder
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to live as an Evangelical I mean in the true sense of the word today than it was 50 years ago there are let me put it this way there are far fewer cultural
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supports okay in place today for someone who is a is a devout believer and is is persisting obstinately in the word in
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Fellowship in communion in prayer there are far fewer cultural supports in our world today than in any time in our country's
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history certainly and for some in some respects for the last 500 years so yeah it is a it's very purifying just like
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clim that is also it is then you realize you know what I can't do anything about people V it tells me that where sense of responsibility is this is my
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church it's it's purifying what's going on again we hopefully we'll be talking about this on Thursday evenings the whole thing about wokeness but keep in mind that that's just the fad dour you know that there's going to be gender
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fluidity there's going to be something else I mean they're getting Wilder and And yet when you see the churches very quickly accommodating changing their message
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just to to to accommodate whatever is going on in culture that's a culling effect those churches are apostatizing I I know that sounds very
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judgmental but they're a they're very quick to abandon the essence of the Gospel in order to accommodate whatever is going around okay and and that is
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very purifying but that's also what happened in Israel you know they they did whatever was going on around them and the prophets constantly Harang them
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for their unfaithfulness it is in a
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adultery there has been a win it it is winnowing yeah there is a winnowing effect um and I think it's ongoing I really do um and I think that uh um it it was to
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be expected because and this again this is getting into the Thursday night discussion that we've had the whole process of modernization the Enlightenment Industrial
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Enlightenment Industrial Revolution everything has been working against the belief in God in Western Society we're reaping the Harvest of seeds that were swn in the 18th century
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and we're now seeing the fruit of that in our modern culture among Evangelical churches though that have an abandoned theology I in my
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church in St Andrew which is quite Evangelical but they're the ones that you know didn't sing when we got back together because there's the loss of
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realization that worship is participatory church participatory church is it's a very top down Church prayers conation get up and say the
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prayers but those prayers I'm 99.9% sure are vetted by the senior pastor or else they are scripted they're from some catechism um yes we sing but there's a
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worship band that leads so even the Evangelical churches that understood that we need to be getting together as soon as possible participation was nice but
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not crucial yeah it wasn't it was an essential element I think to close up today you know when we look at this this structure of of that verse in chapter 2
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of Acts the point I want to leave you with is that none of none of these are
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optional none of them are exclusive I would say none of them can really be prioritized over the others because they they all exist together and
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frankly I think when when these are I don't know I hate to use the word balance because it seems like you know each one even it's not that necessarily that but when these are operating in
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their proper inner connectivity the response is going to be singing the response is going to be the lifting up of voices in praise to God
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who by his grace and through his Spirit has brought this about let's close in prayer father we do thank you for your word and for the depth of it to even a
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word shows us both how how we ought to worship and then also where we fall short and we do pray that you would stir
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in up a spirit of obstinate persistence in our obedience to your word in an in and in our
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assembling and not necessarily just physically being together but as you would have it worshiping you together in spirit and Truth we ask that you would continue to teach us and fill
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our hearts with gratitude for your great grace and love for which