But our Lord Jesus is far more tenacious in His care of us and in accomplishing His purposes. May the Lord today give us grace for an opening of our eyes, that we may see what God is after in these days—in this day of recovery.
May we begin with prayer this morning.
Lord, we first of all acknowledge that the words of men—of flesh and blood—avail nothing. But there is a Word that has come from heaven and manifested Himself in full measure in our Lord Jesus Christ, who fully reveals the Godhead and has, in mercy, allowed us to be a part of His kingdom, to be in His fellowship, and to have His life.
Lord, how merciful You have been to us men, who from the very beginning rebelled against You, chose our own way, and determined that we knew what to do. But today, Lord, we are the ones who come and testify that we have no confidence in the flesh, but only in our Lord Jesus Christ and in the work of Calvary’s cross.
Lord, we announce that there is none like Jesus. No man can come to salvation except through Him. Lord, You have declared Yourself the way, the truth, and the life. That pretty much sums up everything.
And we bow before You and humbly ask that You anoint us as we speak and hear Your Word today; that, Lord Jesus, the seeds might be planted that will bring forth much fruit. For we ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has the power of all things in His hands. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Let us begin by reading Acts 2:42 and Acts 2:46. This is the key passage from which I began sharing last time concerning the truth, or the apostles’ doctrine.
And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.
—Acts 2:42
And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart,
Praising God, and having favour with all the people.
—Acts 2:46–47
They continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine, fellowship, and breaking of bread.
One of the principles I shared last week, which is essential for us to grasp as we read Acts 2:42, is to realize that a tremendous event had occurred prior to Acts 2:42. That event—or series of events, I might say—was, of course, the manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Secondly, He gave His life on Calvary’s cross for us: to redeem man from the sins of man and to become the sacrifice for your sin and mine. But even more than that was accomplished. It says He has brought us into His kingdom.
On the cross of Calvary, the Lord did a work that resulted in what we refer to today as the church, the body of Jesus Christ. For out of His side came blood and water: the blood for redemption, and the water for the life that would flow forth, from which His church would be built. These were the seeds planted at Calvary.
At the Day of Pentecost—after our Lord Jesus ascended back to the Father—the church was brought forth. I am getting it mixed up: He ascended to the Father, and forty days later it was Pentecost. Pentecost is known today as the birth of the church. The Holy Spirit was in travail; there was a deep breathing, and the church was brought forth. It says in Corinthians that we were baptized into one body on that day.
A spiritual being was born on that day. We need to understand that the church is not an organization of men. It is not a confederation of Christians or believers. It is much more than that. It is a living, organic body of Jesus Christ, and it came into birth on the Day of Pentecost.
Because it is living—because the church is the living body of Jesus Christ—it has the life of Christ. That life manifested itself in the days of the early church. The way that life was manifested was that they steadfastly continued in the apostles’ doctrine, fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayers. This was the life of the early church.
I shared last week how the enemy began to attack the life of the church. This is very important for us to understand, because the enemy has done such a tremendous job in decimating the church of Jesus Christ down through the ages.
For you men, I doubt many women ever look at boxing. I am not trying to lift up boxing by any means, but it is a good example. In a boxing match, if you have two opponents, one of whom is very tall and powerful and another who is very short in stature, it is almost impossible for the one who is short in stature to get at the head of his opponent.
He cannot really get to his head. The other one has too long a reach; he is able to bob and weave, and the shorter opponent cannot seem to strike the head, which is where the real knockout punch is. So what is his strategy? If he cannot get to the head, he goes for the body.
He is tenacious. He works to get inside so that he can decimate the body to the point that eventually the head drops and he can get to the head.
Brothers and sisters, we need to understand that we have a great adversary. He has been working from the day the church was born to attack this body of Jesus Christ. Now, he cannot get to the Head. The Head has ascended. Once Calvary’s work was over, he could no longer get to Jesus Christ, the Head of the church. But today, he can still attack His body.
And he is ferocious. He attacks without mercy. There are no rules of engagement with our adversary. He uses all the deception that he can muster. He has a great intelligence, far more than we have. Frankly, we are up against an adversary that there is no way we can defeat.
But praise God, we know that Christ has said that on Calvary’s cross, He stripped the principalities and powers. He has won the victory. The body now has to stand in the victory of the Head, lest it be decimated.
The enemy did such a tremendous work, as I shared last week, in the area of the teaching and doctrine of the apostles—in other words, the truth of the Word of God. He was so good at it that by the fourth century, four hundred years later, the church entered into the Dark Ages. Almost all truth was lost.
Christ was no longer considered the Savior. The only way man could be saved, according to the prevailing teaching, was by giving money to the church or by being good enough to make it there. It was based on good deeds. The fundamental truth of the church had, in four hundred years, been almost totally lost. In other words, the church was on the mat and the count was at nine.
And the Lord, in His mercy, raised up a few men and began the work of recovery—the work of recovering the truth of Jesus Christ and His work on Calvary’s cross.
A man is justified by faith: justification by faith. Martin Luther—the Lord raised up him and a few other men—and this was in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, fifteen or sixteen hundred years later. We went through the Dark Ages for almost a thousand years. Think of that.
This church that started out so gloriously was almost nonexistent. Oh yes, outwardly there were many religious forms, but Christ was no longer a part of it.
So the enemy has done a great work, brothers and sisters. Today, we are still in this work of recovery. That is why I have entitled these messages The Recovery of the Testimony and Life of the Early Church.
Recovery work is bringing out the truth and bringing back the reality of the life that is already there, then going on from that into maturity and growth—into a full-grown man, into maturity—to the point that one day this church, this body of Jesus Christ, can become the bride of Christ. We cannot lose the focus of what the Lord is after.
Has the enemy not greatly attacked the church? Think about it. We are grateful today that we have this Word. For many, many centuries, man did not have it. The truth was almost obliterated.
Consider fellowship among the saints. They would go and have mass, and that was it. Even today in the Christian world, many will attend a meeting once a week, or maybe twice a week. For many, they attend only on special occasions, such as Easter and Christmas.
Fellowship is almost nonexistent in the Christian church today. Meetings are still there, but true fellowship—where is it?
Prayer: yes, we have many brothers and sisters who pray. But what about the corporate prayer of the church—the binding and loosing that we know the church has been called to? This matter of corporate prayer, of church prayer, in Christianity today is almost nonexistent.
Let me say this much: this is how important it is. I hope the burden comes across this morning. This matter of the current war involving Iraq and the United States—outwardly, the nations look at it as a war between Iraq and the United States. But we know that things are going on in the principalities and powers of darkness, in the unseen realm, that need to be dealt with.
Today, the real war is between God’s church and the spirits of humanism and the spirit of Islam. There are dark spirits that drive Islam, which came into being during the fourth century, during the Dark Ages. It almost replaced Christianity. Brothers and sisters, there is a tremendous spiritual darkness driving what is going on today.
I want you to think about it. When I say “humanism,” sometimes that goes over your head: “Okay, what does that mean?” Humanism basically is the Tower of Babel. It says man is god; man is the highest power; and through the reasoning of man, all things can be resolved.
In other words, there is good in man. Yes, there is some evil, but there is good in man, and through the knowledge of good and evil, man can control his own destiny and know what to do.
Does that not ring a bell? Does that not take us all the way back to the Garden of Eden, where the Lord says you have two trees to choose from? One is Christ, and the other is the knowledge of good and evil. How do you want to live your life?
Christ as your Head, Christ as your everything—or do you get your substance from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, go your own course, and try to be god? That is the fundamental essence of humanism.
The spirit of humanism is frankly far stronger than the spirit of Islam because it is much more deceptive. Islam appeared to be a very peaceful religion, unless you go way back in history, until recent years. I think what we are seeing is the drawing out of the real spirit behind Islam. It is now manifesting itself for what it really is.
The only weapon against this spiritual world—humanism and Islam—is prayer in the church: church prayer, binding and loosing spiritual powers. That cannot be done by one person in private prayer. It takes the church, the body of Jesus Christ, responding to its Head.
Where is this kind of prayer in the church today? It is almost lost. You see how the enemy has attacked everything.
Look at the Lord’s table. In many churches in Christianity today, the Lord’s table has been reduced to tradition and symbolism. It is often celebrated only at Easter and Christmas. Some do it once a month. We have the table weekly.
I do not want to get into that fully now, but I want to say that the Lord’s table is for us. Think about it: one of the pillars of the life of the early church was the Lord’s table. Is it indeed merely symbolic? Is it something we simply take as tradition? Oh, the work that the adversary has done concerning this matter.
Brothers and sisters, the teaching of the apostles, the fellowship we have together, and prayer are mostly for us—somewhat for the Lord—but the Lord’s table is for the Lord.
Now, we need it. We need to participate in its spiritual reality; we need to take it. It is for our health and good. But it is really for the Lord. To the Lord, it is most precious.
Remember when He gathered His disciples in Luke 22—I think it is Luke 22; I may be wrong. He said:
With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer.
—Luke 22:15
I want to tell you that the desire of our Lord has not changed down through the centuries. He still desires that we have this meal with Him. He comes as our Elder Brother to that table. It is all about Him.
He is the center of worship. That is why the table is here in the center, brothers and sisters. That is why the table is so precious to the Lord. May the Lord touch our hearts so that we can really enter into the spiritual reality of that table. I hope to share on that in a few weeks.
So where are we today as a church? We need to recover the life of the church. We are in the day of recovery, and that is what the Lord is interested in.
All four of these things are essential to the life and testimony of Jesus Christ. We are weak in all of these areas. Here in our midst—we, the church—are extremely weak.
But you know what? The Lord said:
I will build My church; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.
—Matthew 16:18
So do not think that the little we are engaged in, and trying to recover—these essential basics of the life of the early church—is insignificant. Not at all. It is most important and necessary if there is to be a testimony to the life of Christ on this earth.
We covered last week this area of truth. The Lord Jesus Christ is truth, and through the ages it was almost as if that truth had been lost. But praise God, as I have said, during the Reformation many truths were recovered. Truth has continued to be recovered down through the ages, and the church has been growing in this area.
Now, this matter of the fellowship of the apostles: it says they persevered in the fellowship of the apostles. This matter of fellowship is singular. It is not plural, just as the teaching of the apostles was not plural but singular. So is this matter of fellowship.
The word fellowship there is singular. In other words, there are not many fellowships. Peter did not have a fellowship. Paul, John, and all the other apostles did not have their own fellowships. It was one fellowship.
They were in different places. Churches came about in many places; the testimony of the church rose up in many places. But, brothers and sisters, it is all one fellowship.
Unfortunately, the enemy has worked very diligently in this area and has divided the church of Jesus Christ through the years. Many gather around certain teachings or certain men. It has really broken fellowship.
There is only one fellowship. Listen to this:
God is faithful, through whom ye were called into the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
—1 Corinthians 1:9
You have been called into a fellowship. When you are born again, you are immediately called into fellowship. I think most of you realize that as soon as you accepted Jesus Christ, you knew it. There was something there. It was obvious in your spirit. You touched Him: fellowship with Jesus Christ.
In 1 John 1:3, John says:
That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you also, that ye also may have fellowship with us:
Yea, and our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.
—1 John 1:3
That is the fellowship we have been called into. There is fellowship among the triune God—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It has gone on forever. In fact, it has always been. I have not got words for it, but it has always been. That is the fellowship we are called into.
The fellowship of the apostles was none other than the fellowship of Jesus Christ. That is important to remember. Our fellowship is with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and we are all called into that fellowship.
It is precious because the Lord died that He might have fellowship with us. You might remember that in the Garden of Eden, it was important to the Lord to come and speak with Adam. He wanted fellowship with man, but sin blocked it.
Praise God, through His work on Calvary’s cross, we can now have fellowship with Him. As we fellowship with Him, we can have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin.
But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another,
and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanseth us from all sin.
—1 John 1:7
Is that not a strange verse? What does that mean?
Well, brothers and sisters, it simply means that you are in fellowship with the Lord. Then you come and begin to share with your brothers and sisters. The light of God shines on your heart, and in so doing, He may reveal something in you that needs to be dealt with.
They may not come and say, “Jerry, you have this problem.” But just in sharing the life of Christ, I realize that I have a problem. Now, that is not easy for me, and it is not easy for you either—to finally come to the conclusion that we really have a problem. Basically, our thinking is that we are really okay; all we need is a little adjustment.
Well, the Lord says no. You have been crucified on the cross with Him. It is not a matter of adjustment; it is a matter of replacement. You are a new creation in Jesus Christ, and that is the one who fellowships with our Lord—the new creation that is in us.
So this fellowship is in life. Teaching brings forth truth; fellowship brings forth life. As we come into that light and fellowship with one another, the Lord will show us something, and that is why we need the blood.
We go back and say, “Lord, I need Your blood. This is not right in my life.” You get that straight with the Lord, and then you go back and fellowship some more. Boy, that is the way the body grows. Fellowship is extremely important.
Just to clarify something: some of you may think that you go to Richmond Christian Fellowship, but that is not right. You do not go to Richmond Christian Fellowship.
Let me tell you what you are. If you have been here for a year and supported it financially, you are a member of Richmond Christian Fellowship, which has a business meeting once a year.
Richmond Christian Fellowship is just a legal entity in order to hold this property. It has nothing to do with the church.
You might be a member of Richmond Christian Fellowship, but your real membership is in heaven. Your real membership is in the church of Jesus Christ. You have membership not because you have a letter from someone, but because you have accepted the Lord Jesus Christ.
So, as the testimony of Jesus Christ here in our midst, it is not really Richmond Christian Fellowship. You are in the church, and that is the difference.
Fellowship was the life of the early church. They were full of first love. They would gather daily. I always think that is amazing. They gathered daily, broke bread together, had the table together, prayed together, and worshiped together. But the enemy began to work.
In Hebrews 4:16, we are told to come boldly to the throne of grace because Christ has died for us and His blood has paid the price for our sins.
Let us therefore draw near with boldness unto the throne of grace,
that we may receive mercy, and may find grace to help us in time of need.
—Hebrews 4:16
In other words, we can come and fellowship with the Godhead. We can boldly enter because of the blood of Jesus Christ. Otherwise, there would be no fellowship. You need that blood because we are sinners.
Without the blood, you cannot approach God. I want you to remember that. We need the blood daily in order to approach God and have fellowship with Him.
God welcomes us into this fellowship, and He says, “Come boldly. I want you to come. I do not want you to hang back. I want you to enter in. I want you to share your heart with Me.” As you come, lift up the blood of Jesus Christ.
It is the only way I can fellowship with You: through the blood of Christ, Your Son. Fellowship is precious to the Lord.
In Hebrews 10:25, Paul—or the writer of Hebrews; not necessarily Paul—says, “Not forsaking the assembling of yourselves together.” Let me read the verses together:
And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and good works;
Not forsaking our own assembling together, as the custom of some is,
but exhorting one another; and so much the more, as ye see the day drawing nigh.
—Hebrews 10:24–25
Hebrews 4:16 deals with our personal fellowship with the Godhead. Hebrews 10:24–25 deals with this matter of assembly life, of our fellowship with one another. The writer encourages us not to forsake the assembling together, but to come together and exhort each other as the day approaches.
The day of the Lord’s return—the day of judgment—is coming, and, brothers and sisters, we need to be encouraged daily. We need that. I am fixing to lose my voice already.
Already in the early church, we see the writer of Hebrews having to deal with a problem. The enemy had begun to get into the minds of some of the saints that all they really needed was a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. All they really needed was personal fellowship with Jesus.
“If you have that, you have it all.” Well, there is a sense in which there is a general truth about that. Obviously, if you do not have any fellowship with Jesus Christ, there is no need to fellowship with anyone else.
But this had begun to creep into the early church. The edge on first love had begun to wane. They were no longer so anxious to be together. Some were even forsaking the assembling of themselves together, saying, “It is okay. It is me and the Lord. That is what we need.”
Have you not heard that, probably even within the last few months? Some saints will say, “Look, it is so bad today, so bad in the church, that really I just have to stay at home, and it is just me and the Lord.”
I want to say something: that is totally against the life and testimony of Jesus Christ—the life of His church. He says, “Do not forsake the assembling of yourselves together.” You need that fellowship. You need it together. God says no to that.
Fellowship is critical and necessary. The context of Hebrews is near A.D. 70. The Lord knew that soon Jerusalem would be overthrown, and all that they knew of Judaism would be crushed. They were not ready for it, so the Lord was trying to get them ready for the great shaking that was about to occur in the church.
The Lord’s encouragement through the writer of Hebrews was, “Do not forsake the assembling of yourselves together.” I do not know about you, but my natural tendency, when I am under attack and when I am being shaken, is to withdraw to a neutral corner, cover my head, and hope that it will all pass over.
I can say that because I have practiced that, but so have many of us all. In a time of shaking, everything you thought you had a hold on seems to crumble, and you are not quite sure of yourself any longer. That is a natural tendency.
But the Word of God says no. That is the time when you need to be together, exhort one another, and encourage one another. It is very critical to the life and testimony of Jesus Christ.
In Ephesians 4:14–16, it says that we are to be no more children, tossed to and fro and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive.
But this is the warning followed by the encouragement:
But speaking truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him, who is the head, even Christ;
From whom all the body fitly framed and knit together through that which every joint supplieth,
according to the working in due measure of each several part,
maketh the increase of the body unto the building up of itself in love.
—Ephesians 4:15–16
Darby has a great translation of it: “Holding the truth in love.” Together, you hold on to the truth. Together, you hold on to Jesus Christ.
A lot of people interpret that Scripture to mean that you go around and tell everybody what you think of them, and by so doing you are blessing them and setting them free. Unfortunately, most of the time we are putting them in bondage, and they have a harder time getting free.
No, the correct interpretation is to hold the truth in love—hold on to Jesus Christ in love. Yes, there may be truths brought out in sharing with a brother or sister, but together you hold on to the truth, and that is what really sets us free.
What does that say? It says you are all members of the body of Christ. We are all to be joints of supply. We are all to supply the life of Christ.
It says we all have a measure. No one is exempt. We all have that measure of Christ, and we have a responsibility as joints of supply to share that life with one another. Brothers and sisters, you cannot share that life if there is no fellowship.
How is the body built up? It builds itself up in love by each joint supplying. I know that some feel they are not spiritual enough. Some are more timid than others. But that is not what the Lord is saying.
These are devices and works of the enemy to keep the life of Jesus Christ from growing—to shut down the life and testimony of the church. All he has to do is take out a joint here, a joint there, a joint here, and eventually we become crippled.
Each member is essential. Each member has some supply of life. Yes, brothers and sisters, we all sin, and we need to take care of that before the Lord. Often, that is our hindrance.
But we cannot afford to be self-conscious in the church of Jesus Christ, because it takes from the life and building up of the body in love. The Lord has provided pastors, teachers, and evangelists. These are gifts to the church.
But the church really grows from within, from each joint supplying life. Yes, we need these ministries; we need these helps. But all of those helps are so that you might lay hold of Jesus Christ, I might lay hold of Jesus Christ, and we might share that with one another. Then the body is built up.
I have already mentioned that the edge had been taken off first love. Let me read something out of Malachi. Our brother Ed shared on that whole book at our retreat and called it “The Malachi Papers.” So now I finally understand: it is Malachi. No, it is Malachi, really, but I thought that was interesting.
In this book, the saints are the ones who had come back to recover the testimony of Jesus Christ. These were saints in the recovery work. They had come back to Jerusalem, built the temple, and built the wall. But now first love was beginning to wane.
As you read through this, they began to question God’s love—not overtly, but they began to question it. “Lord, do You really love me?” They began to question God’s work: “Was it really effective?” They began to question the people of God around them: “I am not so sure about this brother.”
They began to question the ways of God in their lives. Was God really loving them? Was God really helping them? They began to question the faithfulness of God. These were not overt questionings, as you read this. But it was because first love was waning.
But listen to Malachi 3:16:
Then they that feared the Lord spake one with another:
and the Lord hearkened, and heard,
and a book of remembrance was written before Him,
for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon His name.
—Malachi 3:16
Think of that. Does that not indicate to us how precious fellowship—our fellowship together—is to the Lord Jesus? Yes, there were all these questionings, but there were some who spoke to one another often. The Lord heard it, and He wrote a book of remembrance.
I wonder if we have any thoughts in that book of remembrance. I wonder, brothers and sisters, how precious this matter of fellowship is with the Lord.
As I already mentioned, the enemy attacked this matter of fellowship. Today, in Christianity, there is very little real fellowship where we are sharing Christ with one another. You attend a few meetings.
Just remember this. Go back to Matthew 14:16. You do not have to turn to it. That is when the Lord sat the five thousand down. The apostles came to Him and said, “Lord, it is late in the evening. These people are tired. We need to send them home so they can eat.”
The Lord said, “Wait a minute. You feed them.” They said, “Lord, we do not have anything to feed them with. All we have is a few loaves of bread and a few little fishes.” The Lord said, “Bring them to Me.”
They brought what they had. It was not much to feed five thousand people, was it? Just a few fishes and loaves. The Lord began to bless it and break it—bless it and break it. At the end, they took up twelve basketfuls.
That is what fellowship is all about, brothers and sisters. That is what the life of the church is about. Fellowship in Christ, if it is broken before the Lord and shared, will result in multiplied fruit—more than what you began with.
That is spiritual fellowship. That is why it is so precious to the Lord, and that is the way the body grows.
Our current lifestyle is our enemy. We all know that. In the church today, many of the functions are basically social. Oh, how the enemy loves us to meet socially. Frankly, there is nothing wrong with having a social gathering.
But if the enemy can say, “That is fellowship,” and get us to believe that it is fellowship, then there is a problem. Because that is not fellowship.
Fellowship is sharing Christ.
Brothers and sisters, are we gathering, or are we attending? Let me help us here. The church assembles together. That is gathering.
There is a tremendous difference between gathering and attending. I got this from the dictionary, not the Bible. Listen: this is Webster, and Webster was a Christian, by the way.
“Gather” means to come together in a body. Is that not interesting? It means to bring together the parts, to cluster around a focus of attraction.
“Attending” is to be present.
You see the difference? Fellowship is gathering as the body, bringing the parts together, focused around a center of attention: Jesus Christ. Attending is sitting in the chairs and listening to Jerry’s feet.
Brothers and sisters, every time we gather, we should be looking for Jesus Christ. That should be our focus of attention. I do not care whether it is reading the Word together, sharing together, or praying together. Whatever we may be doing together in our fellowship, the center needs to be Christ.
Let me end by saying this much. Today, we are in the work of recovery, and I hope God will challenge all of our hearts that He is serious about recovering the life and testimony of the early church.
Not to go back, but to go on. But in order to go on, grow, and mature, we have to have the basic foundation, brothers and sisters. These four things are very basic, very foundational pillars of the early church.
Why? Because they came out of the life that was born at Pentecost. They were a natural consequence of life. They started sharing the Word together about Jesus Christ. They began to fellowship about Christ together. They broke bread together, and they prayed together.
They were just full of first love. May the Lord touch our hearts this morning.
Lord, we come to You this morning. We are thankful that You said You will build Your church. Lord, regardless of how the enemy has decimated the church down through the ages, You are recovering.
It began with the Reformation. You are beginning to recover. You are bringing this thing to a head now, Lord Jesus. Lord, we want to be a part of what You are doing, and we do not want to lose our focus on Jesus Christ.
All four of these activities of life are all about Jesus Christ. So, Lord, touch our hearts again. Lord, may we learn to gather as Your people and not just attend. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.