The Worship of the Early Church (Acts 2:42-47)
How could the members of the Early Church change the world? They were witnesses to relay the content to the next generation. Were they diligent? God is diligently working and even now, how can I go into the world? The more you think about your own self, the more you’re not going to go to God. The harder you work, the better you think of yourself, then you’re not going to work harder for God. I’m not telling you to go to laziness. I’m saying, how can you go into that? It’s not the fact that the world is important; you need to understand Jesus Christ.
If you don’t understand the Christ, you fail your walk of faith. In Jesus Christ, all of my curses and disasters, every single problem has already been overcome. The Holy Spirit is put in us, guiding us. If you don’t understand this, then no matter what, listen to Christ. What is the diligence that goes into curses and disasters? If you work hard as an unbeliever, you will fall into whatever problems happen. If you don’t believe that He’s with you, that He’s living in you, unseen to your eyes, then you have to wander and struggle with the three problems in their lives.
We live so diligently but we’re facing disasters. We don’t know why and the problem is that you don’t know the spiritual problem. People are struggling and wandering, that’s the problem today in America and that’s the problem of the Roman Empire. However the members in the Early Church were able to understand Jesus Christ and believe in it, that all my problems have been crucified on the cross. So the people who knew the darkness of the world, these people gathered together and they created the Early Church. People want power but their condition is that they are never taken by the word, but if you listen to the Word, the members of the church today don’t have to worry about anything. Otherwise, they worry about everything. You suffer, you have to go to school, but you need to believe in it. You know the words of God but you don’t realistically believe in it. You should enjoy the life given to you.
You need to first believe in Jesus Christ. In order to devote themselves, there are people who study the Bible for hundreds of years. They study the Bible but they don’t still understand; they go to the church but they cannot understand and believe Jesus Christ and they are told other things problems. It’s crucified, and it’s only Christ, but they don’t believe it. That’s the problem. There’s dozens of people like that. Think about it, they have no strength. If you give them a problem, they will all fall over.
People gathered in Mark’s Upper Room and held on to the word of God and prayed. You need to believe in Jesus because you must be a Christian. A Christian isn’t someone who talks about worship. Every time He said you need to begin with faith. This is one who knows and believes the Word of Jesus. Think about it, even people who are talented in playing video games, people recognize that because that’s a person who is especially good in gaming. Even if you’re really good at dancing, it doesn’t matter how you are dancing or if you’re really good at it. People follow you and learn from you.
Therefore if you’re Christian, you must be a specialist. There’s a special luxury watch worth thousands of dollars. Someone looking for a used watch paid $30,000 and that means that the price of the watch is even more than that. Why would someone pay for that watch? Even if I have a watch like that, I would never take it on a run because I have clocks all around me. I only need a watch that is comfortable but there are some people who need a watch they paid thousands of dollars for. There’s some watches they could buy exclusively, that’s the world. Specialize in Christ. You shouldn’t be the Christian that makes very cheap watches and you throw it away. There’s a watch you can buy for two bucks. If you buy a gift, they’re not going to use it. If you’re going to make something special, you need to make something the people will buy.
There’s so many people who are Christian but they are like watches nobody wants, but if you really know what’s possible, then you’re experiencing Christ and you need it. That’s not something that we try. What God has given to us is grace with faith, in other words, what kind of treasure is that? Would you get something like that if you asked the president? For example if you know something valuable is worth everything, you should be elated. To the Early Church, nothing was a problem to them. The Lord was with them so the darkness cannot mess with them, so there’s nothing for them to be afraid of. You need to have a specialty to have continuation, and God promises to give us the Holy Spirit.
What is the reason why God gave us the word? God gives the word to the apostles and it’s the same in this age. Christ finished all problems so you need to see clearly. Why did God give us the method of the church? To you, everything is theory so you’re going to fail in the field; you won’t be able to overcome. When the apostles asked, “What is the word of God saying about what we are facing today?” God has given you the message regarding the field, but if your interest is not like that, it’s on yourself, so that’s what it means devote. What’s the character of someone who works on their field but won’t change? They just dig deeper into words of God and gain knowledge and they try to just looking at one passage. “Today the Word of God seems different today,” but did Jesus change today?
God gives you the Word, “servant” of this age. If you don’t apply the word of God like that, then you may speak strongly and that’s how you die. If you look at the person and say that person will fail a long time and the world’s problem will overcome them and then they die. I don’t know why I keep saying things about dying. The members of the Early Church were released, facing death, and had no choice bit to hold on to the word of God; they depended on Him like life or death, they had no choice to devote their life to receive God’s word.
I’m telling you to receive the word of life as your life and worship. You need to come to the Lord and you have to believe that God is giving you the promise that God will fulfill. That’s the word fulfilled. Hold on to it. That’s the reason why the members of the Early Church are also gathering in fellowship, it says they devoted themselves to the apostle’s teaching, this means that they hold on to the word of God to pray. They didn’t receive to pray separate prayers, but this is making the words yours.
You need to believe that God is giving you the word to fulfill this week and pray with it, and it must take place. That’s the most important thing, first, for believing and knowing the gospel God has already given you and in order to fulfill the gospel, you need hold onto what God has given you for world evangelization. That’s the reason God gave us the Church. Churches to do regional evangelism, that’s the reason we receive the word of God every single week for evangelism of this region, and have fellowship with other people.
A third prayer is called meditation prayer, it is talking about the Holy One deeply. You just think about it as soon as you wake up in the morning. Otherwise, your life problems in the second you wake up are already going, and you have problems in your life. If you think very deeply, the Word is the condition and environment. Currently you meditate with nothing about it, that’s why we need concentrated training, that’s what we do in our training camp. This is the RUTC movement, it’s about remnant of course. “I am a remnant, I am the one who remains,” and you are going to end up in heaven one day; it’s just a journey, it’s not your main life. Otherwise, you have to make it harder because your thoughts are always on money, only on a successful major, so that’s why you need a quiet time for your thoughts and your heart.
Whenever we go into classroom the teacher says, “Be quiet!” It’s the same thing for the church before you come to worship, you stay still and make your thoughts one, and then your condition is ready to receive God’s word because you’re receiving the training of word of God. You do that in your field, this is what the early church did every day, like in Acts 2:46, every day they continued to eat together with one heart with other people. You need to be united with the Word of God. If you want to be the one with word of God you do first you need to receive the word of God.
In today’s terms, it means that they devoted themselves. What do they do when they gather? They receive the word of God and pray. They brought bread in their homes and they go through the Bible verses in their homes too. They’re friends in the Early Church and they had the gospel. It’s not the smartest people, there’s only 120 people, but at this point 3,000 people repented. The word of God is given to us specifically. They worship God, they are praising God, praying and they share the word of God they received together. That’s the members of the Early Church and ordinary church members, all they did was proclaim the word and then when the Word of God gets melted into your life.
If you don’t know the focus of the God’s word, God is giving you this word every week. Church members are the people who are chosen for God’s work! If you’re truly an evangelist then you should be enjoying it. I know if you believe in Bible, but by looking at a non-believer, you judge them with your disbelief and say, “You’re going to go hell.” Receiving the word, covering them and be able to save.
Even if you’re going to a company, you can’t cut quarters because of the Gospel. For example, if I went to a company with my father’s friend, do you think I’ll cut corners? For example I’m standing right here, do I look like a pastor? But when I go to the beach I’m sitting in my swim trunks, then nobody think I’m a pastor there. However if I believe I’m a Christian with a mission of the field, then I will act differently. That will be the reason to concentrate on everything. Everyone else in the world is fighting each other. Even if you listen to the words, do not listen to them, but hold on to the people. I hope that you and I will be the people and stake their lives on the covenant. Even if you fight, stake your life. “I would rather die.”
If you wake up in the morning there are people who comes to Early Morning prayer, and that’s their special system. If you don’t do that, you have to stake your life on the words every day. If you don’t stake your life on worship, then you look for something else, you’re going to stake your life on your system, and you’re going to have problems; you stake your life to survive. When you wake up in the morning, you have to remember the word of God that gave you on Sunday. Every day you take that word and go into your deep meditation, and let your mind go to Word of God, that’s what you have to stake your life on. You need to stake your life on the Word that God. If that doesn’t take place, there’s no doubt about it, everything you try to do will be hard. Everything should give you more faith, even in the middle of your day.