Acts Chapter 2:41-47

We need each other. I know as I say that there's just part of you that's just... Not really. Probably more of the guys.

I hate to say that, but I am a man and I realize how we think and, you know, we like to think that we're independent. Even as I was saying, what if there was no gasoline? I'll go make gasoline. I'll make gasoline. No food at the grocery store, I'll go in the woods and kill something and eat it.

Maybe cook it. I don't know. You know.

Rabbit sushi or something. There's just something about saying that and knowing that that makes us feel vulnerable or something. Yeah, and that's a good thing. We need God and we need each other. Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David McGee. David is the senior pastor of The Bridge in Kernersville, North Carolina. As a Christian, it's important to be in a local fellowship. In fact, we all need the fellowship of a local church and the fellowship of the church needs you.

DA is one of our associate pastors here at The Bridge. Can you bring some more insight to us, brother? Bob, we've heard it said, perhaps, if we go eat at a restaurant and we have a bad experience, does that mean we never go eat again? Or do we just go to a different restaurant? You won't find me missing meals.

That's the truth. But hopefully we won't find you missing in church either, Bob. This is a critical teaching about how important church is in the life of a believer.

Well, let's listen as David McGee continues with part two of his teaching, You Will Receive Power. We are in Acts chapter 2, verse 41. Then those who gladly received His word were baptized, and that day about 3,000 souls were added to them. Notice something in verse 41. It says, they gladly received His word. If you remember, if you were here last week, what was the word that Peter gave them? Peter said, look, Jesus was the Son of God, and you guys killed Him. That's a short version, but that's what he said to them. And yet, look what this verse says. It says they gladly received His word. Peter was not like namby-pambian. I mean, he was telling the truth. I was talking to a brother the other day, and he goes to church that's kind of way out in the...

He's involved in ministry at this church way out in the country. He said, I love them folks, but there's not a flat toe in there. I said, what? He said, their toes have never been stepped on by the pastor. I'd never heard that.

Thought that was kind of cool. But here's the thing. At some point, every one of us will hear something. It's going to be hard to hear, every one of us.

It's only a matter of time. If you stay here for very long, I'm not going to peck on you. I mean, I do it to everybody. I won't call your name, but the Lord will speak to your heart through the word, and you can get mad at me if you want.

I'm just a messenger. But the Lord will say something to you, and oftentimes, to be honest, I can see it from up here. I'll say something, and all of a sudden... I mean, it's not like, oh, you know. I mean, I know.

It's obvious. Somebody's closing me off. They're closing to the word of God. Don't do that, and understand. Make the decision that when you hear this thing, that you're going to receive it, and you're actually going to be glad, because the Lord loves you so much. He wants to speak a word to you. He wants to speak to your life, and He wants you to continue to change your life.

You know, if my kids are playing out in the street, I'm going to say, get out of the street. Oh, you're just mean to me. You just don't like me. You're just, you know... No, it's because I love them that I'm saying that, and oftentimes, guys, it'd be easier to not say some of the things I say from up here, but because I love you, I'm going to say them. I want to encourage you, and you have to make the decision, and let me encourage you to make it now, when I'm not necessarily out there dancing on your toes. Make the decision now that when you hear that word, that you'll receive it. The life lesson here, the Word of God, pastors and people sometimes tell us things we don't want to hear, but need to hear. They tell us things we don't want to hear, but need to hear. You know, in my years of being a Christian, I've heard some things that were really tough to hear. You know, I've had some loving brothers sit me down and go, look, I've got to talk to you about this.

And, you know, I've heard things that were like, wow, really? But I knew it was from God. And I said, okay, all right, that's good word.

That's solid, and I need to address this or address that. You see, I made the decision a long time ago in following the Lord that when he spoke to me about these things, I would listen. And sometimes that's hard, isn't it?

I mean, I can pretend like it's not, but sometimes it's hard. Hard to hear these things, and may the Lord continue to soften our heart as we hear these things. Now, this is interesting. It was a long time after I was studying the Bible that I recognized something in here. It says that 3,000 souls were baptized, and that's interesting.

It's interesting. You know why? Because they're in Jerusalem.

What's that have to do with anything? Jerusalem is in the middle of the desert. Where do you baptize 3,000 people? I mean, if you're right there at the ocean, that's an easy one. You just take them all in the ocean, and, you know, you start the baptism thing. But where in the middle of the desert do you baptize 3,000 people? Well, when you're on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, it becomes real obvious where these folks were baptized. You see, because as you look around on those steps, there's at least 50, if not more, mikvahs. Now, that's a Jewish term for a ceremonial bath, and before the people went up into the temple to worship God, they would go into the mikvah, and they would go through the ceremonial cleansing.

And then they would go up, and there's lots of cool analogies and pictures there. You know, one of the things they would do is they would wash themselves to go to God, and then the last thing they would do is they would clean their hands, and as they cleaned their hands, they would raise their hands so that the water would not run back on their hands. So after they were clean, they raised their hands. I kind of like that.

Some of you guys raise your hands sometimes. We think of baptism as a New Testament concept. It's not. It's a Jewish concept of being ceremonially cleansed. Now, it's an outward sign of an inward change, but it has its roots in Judaism, has its roots in the Hebrew scripture. It's interesting.

It goes for a long time. I thought, well, you know, that that was a New Testament concept. Well, it's a New Testament slant on a Hebrew scripture thing. So it's kind of interesting, and there's no doubt that that's where they were indeed baptized. Now, it also mentions 3,000 people.

It has lots of stuff in here. It mentions 3,000 people. There's another place in the Bible that mentions 3,000 people. It's in the book of Exodus. After the giving of the law, you probably remember the story, the giving of the law, and Moses goes up to receive the Ten Commandments, and Aaron, in his first role as assisting pastor, leads everybody in the worship of the golden calf. And it's amazing to me that Moses didn't, he comes down, the first thing out of his mouth wasn't, Aaron, you're fired.

Somehow, God still used Aaron, even though he messed up so bad in his first official service. But if you remember, what happens is they come down, and Exodus 32, 28 tells us, so the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses, and about 3,000 men of the people fell that day. Wow. Now, this is interesting.

Why? When the law was given, 3,000 people died. When grace was preached, 3,000 people became alive.

That's important for us, guys. You'll hear me talk about Jewish roots a lot, and some people get nervous, but let me assure you something. I don't want to try to earn my righteousness through the law. I don't wanna submit myself to that sort of torture to try to earn my salvation.

And I totally respect messianic Jewish movements. Some of them guys get into the righteousness through keeping of the law, and we can't do that. Paul addresses that. In Romans 6, 14, he says, For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law, but under grace. We're under grace.

We're not under the law. Galatians 2, verse 21 says, I do not set aside the grace of God, for righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain. In other words, if you can earn your forgiveness through doing good things, why'd Jesus come?

Why'd Jesus die? There was no other way. None of us could earn it through our righteousness. It was given to us by grace. So once we're being given freedom and grace, don't go back and embrace the law.

You can't do that. Paul, Galatians 5, 4 says, You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law. You have fallen from grace.

So again, while I respect Jewish roots and read up and look at Judaism and presented the baptism thing, I will never tell anybody to go back and try to earn it through works or through sacrifices or anything like that. So verse 42, again, a lot of theology in this verse. There's a lot of key verses in here, guys. Verse 42, and they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship and the breaking of bread and in prayers.

So we see a couple things here. Number one, being steadfast or consistent. They engaged in doctrine or teaching and the fellowship where they were gathered and having communion, the breaking of bread, which was like socializing and eating and then praying. Now, all too soon, people will be trying to pull them out of consistent teaching and doctrine, getting away from the main thing.

We want to keep the main thing the main thing. The early church was involved in evangelism. We need to understand that so that we're involved in evangelism. Incidentally, I mentioned communion. If you've only taken communion at church, you've been missing out. Let me encourage you at some point to have communion at home. Have communion at home with your kids or with your wife or neighbors or friends.

It's an awesome thing. See, now, some of you have a religious background. You go, oh, that's wrong. You can't just do that.

It's not open for just anybody. Okay, well, you're deputized and authorized and da-da-da-da and all that to go do communion. You understand that, you know the reason you felt that? That's a remnant from the Catholic church that only the priest can give communion. You don't see in this Bible anywhere that says you can only give communion if you're a priest.

And even if it did, guess what? We're all priests. That's what the word of God says. So, priest, go take communion. Go have communion.

You'll have an awesome time. I want to encourage you in that. Now, it talks about continuing in doctrine. Now, this is an important thing to us because we believe in teaching the word verse by verse, chapter by chapter. Joshua chapter one verse eight says, this book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night that you may observe to do it according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous and then you will have good success. You will have good success. So, teaching, being in the word, those are important things to the believer.

They're not options. They're mission critical for you to grow as a believer. For you to grow as a Christian, you have to sit under solid biblical teaching. with Pastor David McGee. We can pray for them as well, just by simply going to crossthebridge.com and click on the Pray for the Lost button. All you need to do is put in the first names of the people you love that need to know Jesus as Savior, click on submit, and immediately, hundreds of people will begin praying for your lost loved ones. And what an awesome way to bring your loved ones to Jesus. Here's a word from associate pastor D.A.

Brown. We want to take just a couple minutes to pray for some cities in our listening audience, specifically Williston, North Dakota, and Hamler, Perrysburg, and Toledo, Ohio, and Clinton, Elk City, and Carnegie, Oklahoma. Lord, we thank You for everyone who lives in these cities. We pray that You would draw them to Jesus, even right now.

Lord, I pray that You would fill them with the faith that they need to say yes to what You're wanting to do in their life. Lord, we pray for the leaders in these cities, that You would give them wisdom and discernment, help them to put their trust in You, help them to turn to Your Bible for answers. And God, we pray that the churches will be full of people wanting to get to know You, to be taught, and to use their gifts to be a blessing to people in their community. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen.

Thank you, brother. And now, let's get back to David Magee as he continues teaching verse by verse. Verse 43. Then fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done through 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. Now, we have in this fellowship, we have a room, it's called the blessing room. What is in it is clothes and shoes and things like that. What's it for?

It's to bless you. There's clothes in there, and we're not selling them, we give them away. You guys bring clothes, we look through them, we sort through them, we put them out, and it's not just for people who are homeless, it certainly is, we give week in, week out, we hook people up with clothes, but if you've got kids and it's just not in the budget to get them some clothes, then go in there.

Or if you're covered, then maybe next time you're at Walmart or something, you want to pick up socks or underwear and bring them, we'll set them out and we'll give them away. Because that's what we're supposed to be doing. And to me, it's amazing that the church has said, well, no, let's not do that, let's just give some organization $5 a month and let them do it.

Now, some of those organizations may be wonderful organizations, but here's what happens. Somebody comes here for clothes or food, all of a sudden everybody on staff knows what's supposed to happen. Somebody's supposed to stop what they're doing, maybe more than one person, and begin to talk to them. What, about clothes and food?

Yeah, yeah, in the beginning. But then find out where they are with Jesus. Because if all we do is give them clothes or give them food, we've done no better than Walmart a food line. What we're supposed to be doing is giving them Jesus.

So we want to give them Jesus. Now, verse 46 says, so continuing daily with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and in simplicity of heart. Do you understand at this point, this church is open seven days a week?

Seven days a week. Why, because this is the body. This is the body. You don't see any lone rangers in this book. And yet somehow we've come to the place, and you've probably heard this before, I don't really need the church. You know what?

You're wrong. Man didn't come up with a church. God came up with a church.

You do need the church, and the church needs you. See, here's the thing. If you're standing with a battalion or division or you're standing with a bunch of guys and you're getting ready to fight me, and there's like 12 of you, you know the first thing I'm going to do?

I'll take you one at a time. Right? Or I'll say to you, you don't need those other guys unless you and I fight. Right. Because it makes the battle easier.

Right. And some, I guarantee you, some people in this very room think, I don't need church. I don't need brothers and sisters.

I can do this myself. How's it been going? It's an honest question. It usually doesn't go so well, does it?

When you try it by yourself. God set it up that we would fit together as the body. And we need the body. Now I know that, you know, all of us like to think that we're very independent. None of us are independent. If tomorrow you couldn't get gas for your car, you'd find out how dependent you were. Or if your car broke down and you don't know how to fix cars. Just think tomorrow.

If electricians, if Duke Power wasn't giving you energy, your plumbing went bad and you don't know how to fix that, and there was no gas in your car, and the grocery stores weren't there, how independent would you be at that point? It's just a fact. And I know we don't like hearing this, but the reality is we need each other. We need one another. I'm grateful there's a grocery store. You know, we used to have a garden, and I discovered they sell that stuff in the grocery store. Who knew? But, you know, so we need each other.

We fit together. See, this rope, you know what this rope is made of? These little strings.

It's easy to sit here and break them. Pull them off. Can you imagine if you were hanging off a cliff and I tried to give you this little string? Here, grab the string. You'd be like, no. But once you begin to combine all these individual strings into a rope and offered you this, you'd take it.

Why? Because this could pull you up. Or if this was around a hole to keep people out, to keep people from falling in that hole, it could keep you out from falling in that hole. And guess what? As we join together, we can pull people up and we can help them avoid the holes in life.

It's like the body of Christ. Now you can continue on with this I don't need anybody thing. But friend, there's gonna be a day where you do need somebody. And at that point, if you've built relationships with the body of Christ, they're gonna be there for you.

Maybe if you've not built the relationship. Hebrews chapter 10 verse 24 says, Think of ways to encourage one another to outburst of love and good deeds and let us not neglect our meeting together as some people do, but encourage and warn each other especially now that the day of his coming back again is drawing near. The life lesson from here? We need each other. We need each other. Now I know as I say that, there's just part of you that's just not really.

Probably more of the guys, I hate to say that. But I am a man and I realize how we think and we like to think that we're independent and even as I was saying what if there was no gasoline, I'll go make gasoline, I'll make gasoline. No food at the grocery store, I'll go in the woods and kill something and eat it. Maybe cook it, I don't know.

Rabbit sushi or something. But there's just something about saying that and knowing that that makes us feel vulnerable or something. Yeah. And that's a good thing. We need God and we need each other. And in order to be a body, you need to understand there's a need.

Now there's a flip side to this. You need the body, guess what? The body needs you. And I can say that you need the body and you go, but when I say, you know what, the body needs you, then it's like, oh, okay, I'm needed. God needs me to do something, I need to be a part and that's the final life lesson. You need the fellowship of church and the fellowship of church needs you.

It's a beautiful picture. God set it up that way for us to be part of the body and that you could be encouraged and find a place where you could pour yourself out. And yeah, the church is not perfect. This church is not perfect. Historically, the church has never been perfect, but you know what?

I've never seen anything better. The church is engaged in horrible things with crusades and all such. The most awesome and beautiful things have also been done through the church. Verse 47, praising God and having favor with all the people and the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved. What does it say? Who added to the church?

Programs, advertising, marketing. That's not what it says. It says the Lord added to the church.

I don't have a problem with advertising or marketing or any of those things. You can't depend on those things. Those things will only bring people to church. In order to bring somebody to Jesus, that's a God thing. Only God can do that. And so we're dependent upon God to do that, those who were being saved. And the Lord added to the church.

Who was it? It's okay. Y'all can say amen and all sorts of stuff in here. Who added to the church? The Lord. Okay. The Lord added to the church. That's important to remember.

Why? Because we get confused about that. We get confused about that. But it's the Lord that adds to the church and so we're dependent upon the Lord. Now the other flip side of that is it's the Lord adding to the church. Now here's what I mean by that. When somebody comes forward on Sunday morning, you gotta know I get jazzed.

Why? Because God is adding somebody else to this fellowship. God is putting somebody else's name in the book of life. Somebody that wasn't going to heaven now is. You should get excited about that. If the angels in heaven rejoice over it, can't we get a little bit happy? Can't we take just a moment and go, what, you go, God, and get fired up? I mean, week in and week out, we see people come to the Lord and get saved here on Sunday morning.

That should excite you. If that doesn't excite you, you probably ought to take your pulse, at least your spiritual pulse, because it's an awesome thing. That's God working in our midst. We're allowed to watch the Lord work. And so we see this church, this first-generation church being unified and multiplied. We see the word daily. So it wasn't just a Sunday experience. It was a day-by-day faith walk. Here's our model, loving one another, pouring out to one another.

That's what we're supposed to be doing. And we're supposed to be empowered, not in some weird sort of way, but empowered to live out our lives, yes, supernaturally, in a natural sort of way, walking in the power of the Holy Spirit. When the law came, 3,000 people died. When grace was given, 3,000 people were born again. And some of you have sat in fellowships and you've heard that you need to jump higher and try harder and obey all the Ten Commandments and be at church every Sunday. And if you do all those things, God will be dutifully impressed and allow you entrance into heaven.

Neat notion. It's not biblical. The Bible says, in order to be forgiven, what you need to do is ask Jesus to forgive you. And because Jesus loves you so much, He's willing to do that. As you turn to Jesus and turn away from the stuff in your life, Jesus will forgive you. He'll give you that grace. He died to provide you that grace. He's simply waiting for you to ask. Friend, do you know for sure that your sins have been forgiven?

You can know right now. I want to lead you in a short, simple prayer, simply telling God you're sorry and asking Him to help you to live for Him. Please pray this prayer with me out loud right now. Dear Jesus, I believe you died for me that I could be forgiven. And I believe you were raised from the dead that I could have a new life. And I've done wrong things. I have sinned, and I'm sorry. Please forgive me of all those things.

Please give me the power to live for you all of my days. In Jesus' name, amen. Friend, if you prayed that prayer, according to the Bible, you've been forgiven. You've been born again. So congratulations, friend.

You just made the greatest decision that you will ever make. God bless you. If you prayed that prayer with David for the first time, we'd love to hear from you. You can visit crossthebridge.com to receive our First Steps package with helpful resources to help you begin your walk with Christ.

Or you can write to Cross the Bridge at P.O. Box 12515, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, 27117, and share how God is working in your life. You know, the Bible tells us that the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord. But it does cost for us to come and bring that message to you and to others in your neighborhood, through radio, through the Internet, and through the mobile technologies that God has gifted us to be able to use. So if you'd like to support this ministry, please go to crossthebridge.com, click on the donate button, and ask God how much he would have you give, either on a one-time basis or a continuing basis each month to help ensure that the teaching of God's word continues to go out through Cross the Bridge.

Thank you so much. Well, D.A., before we go, what are some ways that we can bless our listeners? Each day you can wake up with encouragement from Pastor David through the Word of God with his email devotional, life lessons to consider, a daily reading plan, and a thought to meditate on throughout your day from the heart of David McGee. Those are terrific, and it's easy and it's free. So, folks, sign up today at crossthebridge.com. Thanks again for listening, and join us next time as David McGee continues teaching verse by verse in the book of Acts.