An Original Snapshot of the First Church, Part 1

More than 2,000 years after the inception of the very first church, we find a vast array of expressions.

We sometimes call them denominations. But nothing helps us understand God's design for His church better than reflecting on the first one He created. And today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll is teaching from the book of Acts, where we examine what He created. Chuck calls, an original snapshot of the first church. But we begin with a special musical performance.

With a fitting prelude to Chuck's message, here's the Stonebriar Community Church Choir and Orchestra. He has made all things beautiful in His time. He has made all things beautiful in His time.

It shall be, it shall be, it shall be forever. He has made all things beautiful in His time. He has made all things beautiful in His time. He has made all things beautiful in His time. He has made all things beautiful in His time.

It shall be forever. He has made all things beautiful in His time. He has made all things beautiful in His time. He has made all things beautiful in His time. He has made all things beautiful in His time. It's a wonderful thing to remember that God never loses His way. He never loses His way. He knows what He's doing and He's doing it in His time. Unfortunately, when you're younger, you don't realize how true that is, because everything you want, you want now. You want quickly.

You look upon waiting as a waste rather than a worthwhile way to spend your time, but He does everything beautiful in His time. We're sort of tracing the experience of the apostles. They are disciples turned apostles following Jesus' resurrection and His commission and His ascension and then His sending of the Holy Spirit.

And what happened to those disciples turned apostles? And we come to the third in a group of three messages that have sort of covered those days and weeks following the events that Matthew records. We come to Acts chapter 2 in the last several verses.

I'd like you to turn there. You follow along beginning at verse 41, because here we have the original one and only snapshot of the first church. There's never been a church before this moment.

This is the first one. So what we're reading here, all of this is original work that God has done. And Luke records it for us in Acts 2, 41 to 47. Those who believe what Peter said were baptized and added to the church that day about 3,000 in all. All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship and to sharing in meals, including the Lord's Supper and to prayer. A sense of awe came over them all, and the apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders. And all the believers met together in one place and shared everything they had. They sold their property and possessions and shared the money with those in need. They worshiped together at the temple each day, met in homes for the Lord's Supper, and shared their meals with great joy and generosity. All the while praising God and enjoying the goodwill of all the people. And each day the Lord added to their fellowship those who were being saved.

You're listening to Insight for Living. To search the Scriptures with Chuck Swindoll, be sure to download his Searching the Scriptures studies by going to insightworld.org slash studies. Chuck titled his message, An Original Snapshot of the First Church. One church looms large in most everyone's memory.

Stop and think. It may be the church you attended from your birth on through your childhood and into your teenage and young adult years. In reality, it was your parents' church.

And in a strange sort of way, you were sort of adopted into it. It became your church. And when I ask you to remember a significant church, that's the one you remember.

It looms large in your mind. For others, when you grew and became a young adult and left home for whatever reason, you were then at a place where you needed to make a decision and a change regarding churches. No longer attending your home church, as you might call it, or your parents' church, you're now on your own choosing a church based on where you were at that time in your life. And you looked for certain qualities in that church and possibly that became the most significant of the churches you've ever attended. Because for the first time as an adult, you made that decision, you began to attend, and you derived the benefits of being in that fine church where you grew and you learned much. You became spiritually self-sustaining. For others, it may be the church you decided to attend when you got serious about spiritual things.

Now let me go further. That meant, and now I speak from experience, that meant you needed to leave the traditions of the familiar, familiar faces, long-term friends, familiar buildings, events, memories that had been a part of your life all through those years, and you decided you would find a church that taught the truth. Now that you realize you will never grow in the church you have been attending, you need to make a serious decision regarding a change of churches. For some people, that is a major, major decision, partly because you've been a part of that earlier church most of your life, and it's the church where people assume you will always be.

And when you decide to leave, well, they begin to look at you over the top of their glasses like, what exactly are you doing? We're your church. And you find it hard to say the whole thing because the whole thing would sound negative. You don't want to make waves necessarily.

You just want to go to a place where you can start growing and get serious about your faith because you know that this church where you now want to attend will be faithful to teach the Bible, will instruct you in the truths of what God's word says and what it means, and even if it means walking away from many things you've found comfort in and held dear, you're willing to do that. We did that as a couple. And I remember it to this day. It wasn't easy in one sense because we were misunderstood. Things were said about us, mostly behind our backs, and opinions were shared which were not based on fact, and they had no clue why we would be interested in going to another different church when this is their church and we've always been a part of it with them.

Tell you the truth, we never to this day have regretted making the change. I think I may be speaking to some who need to hear what I'm saying. Wherever you may be and whatever that church you may prefer might be, you might be right there.

Can I say to you, do it. If you are not growing, if you are not being challenged, if you are not being confronted with the truth of God's word regularly, you are missing out. No matter how much tradition or how much comfort or how many friends, you are missing out in the years to come as you begin your walk with Christ seriously if you do not go to a place where you really can grow. Some of you think back to the early church that you think of right now and it was a balanced church and you never had to move anywhere else, it was a great place, and if that's true, how blessed you have been.

Growing up in a place like that, growing strong in the Christian life in a healthy place, how blessed and I might add how rare you are. Maybe your earlier church was a legalistic place and you can still remember the rules and requirements and expectations. You can still remember when you broke with those rules, how you were shunned and confronted and sometimes disciplined because you didn't fall in line with what the preacher said you need to be doing. And it was his list, not a biblical list, but his requirements for your spiritual life. It may have been a liberal church that hardly turned to the Bible. Maybe a half verse here or a verse there or a reference to something from the Bible.

We attended one early in my life when my dad took our only car and went away to work during the war. The only church left was the church down the street. It was a liberal church and I remember the pastor, he would open his Bible and he would read the half verse and go, thus ends the reading and then he would go off on some subject and that was the sermon.

And we never heard anything further from the Bible, anything near exposition. It was a liberal church. Whatever it might have been, there are mental snapshots that have embedded themselves in our minds.

You have them, each one of you. You have formed opinions about church based on your own experience. My desire today is to bring you back to the original snapshot. And if it's at all possible to have you see the magnificence of the first church that God established. The Holy Spirit was the leader and if I may stay with the word picture of a snapshot, Dr. Luke was the photographer.

He took the snapshots. He recorded what he was led to record and we have it for us in the last few verses of Acts 2. This is the first place the church is on record. These are the first scenes from the very first church.

I love it when I come to a, it's called a passage of primary reference. This is it for the church. There is no earlier picture of the church than Acts 2, 41 to 47. Oh, there had been gatherings and there certainly had been synagogues and there had been believers, groups here and there. But there had not been a deliberate gathering of people in what could be called an ecclesia, an assembly of believers that made up a church until the book of Acts chapter 2 where it is described for us in verses 41 through 47. Now, when we look at these seven verses, I want us to answer four important questions. First of all, I want you to turn to Acts 2, 41 through 47 and I want you to open your mind, do your very best to set aside whatever may have been your opinions, your experiences, if I may, your hang-ups of the things that had turned you against the church and let's let the truth permeate as you hear the click of the inspired camera as Luke records the scene as it took place. Here's the first question.

Who formed the first church? Well, let's go with numbers to start with. How many were there? The first reference to numbers in Acts 1 and 2 is in 1, 15.

Turn there. Look at chapter 1, verse 15. You will read, during this time when about 120 believers were together in one place. So there's 120. They were a part of this church I'm going to show you and read about in chapter 2. 120. Look at chapter 2, verse 41.

Here's another number. Those who believed what Peter said, this is a reference to Peter's first sermon which we've not taken the time to go into. You've read it and we've studied it before. Those who believed what Peter said, that's the gospel. They believed that Christ died and was buried and that Christ rose again from the dead, miraculously and bodily, and was seen by those around him and they believed in Jesus Christ with their hearts and they believed the message that's called the gospel and the result is they were baptized and added to the church that day about 3,000. Now what makes me smile is that I sometimes meet people who frown when you talk about being a part of a large church. The very first church was 3,120, if I number correctly, and since he added to them daily, end of the chapter, it was larger than that. It's a big church.

How big is this? How big is that many people? Well, it just dawned on me while I was in my study, that's the size of this worship center, this sanctuary.

We can seat a little over 3,000 if every seat is filled. So if we fill every seat in this room under this roof and we add a hundred or so seats out in the atrium, we have enough room for this many people who formed the first church. You're listening to Insight for Living. We're midway through a message from Chuck Swindoll called An Original Snapshot of the First Church.

Please stay with us because Chuck is here in the studio to share a closing comment. To learn more about the ministry of Insight for Living, please visit us online at insightworld.org. This passage in Acts chapter 2 describes the dramatic appearance of God's Spirit. At Insight for Living, we often receive a lot of questions about the ministry of the Holy Spirit today. To learn more about the Spirit's role in your spiritual journey, we invite you to visit a dedicated web page at insight.org slash holy spirit. In addition to the resources on this page, I'll also remind you about the commentary series Chuck has written on all 27 books in the New Testament, Matthew Through Revelation. He completed the series by adding his final contribution, two full-length hardbound books on the gospel according to Matthew. For anyone who's curious to learn more about the Bible, you'll love owning these commentaries from Chuck. They're called Swindoll's Living Insights on the New Testament.

You'll find all the details at insight.org slash offer. In fact, while you're looking at the online offers, be sure to check out the selection of great gift ideas for any occasion, including the wide variety of fun ideas for your kids and grandkids. Chuck, you presented a brand new study through the entire book of Matthew. It was called The King of Kings.

That's right, Dave. As a radio family, we spent the last 11 months, January through November, walking through every single chapter in the gospel according to Matthew. It was an emotion-filled journey alongside Jesus. And now I'm devoting the better part of December to applying what we felt during the grand crescendo that swelled in the last chapter. Remember the parting words from Jesus?

Of course you do. He said, Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I've given you. And be sure of this. I'm with you always, even to the end of the age. That's Matthew 28, 17 through 20.

Now wait, wait. Don't dismiss this command of Jesus as though he was singling out the professional Christian, whatever that means. His command was directed to you and to me, people that love the Lord Jesus Christ. So let me ask, how is God moving you right at this moment to live out the great commission of Jesus with your family, with your friends, and even with your neighbors? And what is your part in making disciples in all the countries of the world? As we come to the conclusion of another ministry year, this is the perfect time for you to invest in things eternal. You play a significant role in making disciples. Your contribution to Insight for Living Ministries will be used by God to reach brokenhearted, discouraged people who are burdened down by guilt and confusion and shame. In fact, I can't think of a better way to exercise our God-given assignment than to give generously so these dear people might hear about God's grace and then run into his forgiving embrace. Come on, let's do this together. Let's get involved in this wonderful opportunity to make disciples together. Remember, we don't have to do it alone. Jesus said, I'm with you always, even to the end of the age. So it's you and me and our Lord Jesus Christ teaming up together.

How exciting is that? Well, please jot down this contact information and respond to Chuck Swindoll today. Choose from several different methods for getting in touch. It might be quickest to give online at insight.org slash donate. Once again, that's insight.org slash donate. Or call us if you're listening in the US, dial 1-800-772-8888. Thank you for your generous support. Join us again when Chuck Swindoll gives what he calls an original snapshot of the first church tomorrow on Insight for Living. The preceding message, an original snapshot of the first church and the sound recording were copyrighted in 2018 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for commercial use is strictly prohibited.