September 23, 2018 · Acts 2:42–47

Formed Through Community

They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts.

“Sure, it's a little scary, selling all your stuff. But there is a beautiful thing happening to these people. Jesus is pulling them together. And some of them have never even met before, and there's something happening. God's starting to pull them together, centred around Jesus. So how do you get formed by Jesus? It only happens in the community. It only happens with a group of believers coming together and starting to let their centre be Jesus. Iron sharpening iron. (Proverbs 27:17) Now listen to the things that happen here. They are formed, and there's three things it begins with: the apostles' teaching, fellowship, and the breaking of bread and prayer. It begins with the centring around the apostles' teaching — that the word of God is the centre of this community. They are always coming around, and they want to learn more. I want to know more about my God. I want to know more about my Jesus. If we don't have the word, then we don't grow in Jesus. And so we just need to keep learning. It's an important aspect of what it means to follow Jesus in your life — that we have this passion, or at least this daily or weekly habit, of coming to the Scriptures and letting them form us. Sometimes you're more excited about it. Sometimes I open the word and it's kind of like — just. And then I open it, and something hits me. But the idea here is this: people are shaped by the word of God. But they're not just shaped on their own. They're not lone wolves, staying on their own and trying to figure it out. This is a fellowshipping group. What is koinonia?”