Dear Friends in Christ,

 

Today as I attended a Veterans’ Day program at JWP, I was impressed once again by the willing sacrifices our veterans have made on behalf of all of us.  I don’t think many would disagree with me when I say that so many of us so much of the time take for granted what our military friends have sacrificed in the years gone by.   I was also impressed at the obvious comradery and sense of mutual admiration those who have served have for one another.    I read about a study that was conducted among former American prisoners of war to determine what methods used by the enemy had been most effective in breaking their spirit.   The findings revealed that they did not break down from physical deprivation and torture as quickly as they did from solitary confinement or from disrupted friendships caused by frequent changing of personnel.  Attempts to get the prisoners divided in their attitudes toward one another proved to be the most successful method of discouraging them.  It was further learned that the soldiers were not sustained primarily by faith in their country or by the rightness of the cause for which they fought.  They drew their greatest strength from the close attachments they had formed to the small military units to which they belong. I also received an email today that reminded me that “only two have ever offered die for you.   One is Jesus and the other is the soldier.   One died for your soul and the other for your freedom.

 These observations help us to understand why Christians need the group experience of fellowship with other believers to help them sustain the new life in Christ.  OUR SERMON THEME TONIGHT IS TOGETHER!   We invite the Holy Spirit to guide us tonight as we consider four important pillars of togetherness in the early Christian Church and as we pray for God to strengthen in this place our sense of belonging to Christ and to one another.

First of all, together the early Christians learned and lived the apostles’ teachings.  These early Christians were not drawn to some man or personality.  They were drawn to the teachings of the apostles.  There was an objective basis for their subjective experience of being together. They were thoroughly rooted in the Old Testament Scriptures and in what the New Testament apostles had proclaimed to them on the basis of those writings and their first hand witness of Jesus crucified and then resurrected. 

 

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching. The original language carries with it the idea of being persistent listeners. They were not passive listeners, but active.   There was a thirst to hear and learn more about their new found life of spiritual freedom in Jesus Christ.  The Bible says that blessed are they who hear the Word of God and keep it, and again blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be satisfied.  My wife Debi and I would testify to how much more satisfying life has been ever since we started listening to God’s Word and worshiping Him on Wednesday nights as well as on the weekends.    I am sure many of you would agree as well.   We also have found in marriage that in the times when we did have devotions together our souls and spirits were so much stronger and more resilient to the troubles of the days than when we did not find the time. Eugene Peterson said it this way, “Worship does not satisfy our hunger for God; it whets our appetite.”  Key #1 to a strong and growing togetherness here at Trinity Lutheran is being devoted to the teachings of the Holy Bible.

Key #2 in the early Church was that together they traveled through their joys and woes, their needs and opportunities.  Acts 2 teaches us that they devoted themselves to the fellowship.  Luke writes that all the believers were together and had everything in common   Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone, as he had need.  Church attendance is often substituted for Christian fellowship, but they are not necessarily the same.   One preacher wrote it this way, “To some fellowship is like a jar full of marbles. The marbles are in the same jar but there is little togetherness.  The marbles have little effect on each other as they roll around in a jar.   They just bump into one another.   But real fellowship is more like a jar of grapes that bleed on one another.  Fellowship should allow our faith to rub off on one another. The first believers had real spiritual needs that led them into fellowship with others. 

 

Too often church attendance turns us into iceberg Christians where we just float around and bump into each other. There are at least two kinds of fellowship in the church – warm and inviting and then cold and not so inviting.   One fellow visited a church and gave his description of those in attendance.   He said, “I don’t want to say that it was a cold church, but the ushers had on ice skates.”   We’d all love to help our congregation be a warm and inviting fellowship where we always know there will be people to laugh with us when times are good and cry with us when times are not so good.   We’d all love to help this place be a refuge for the hurting and a stronghold for the weak, and please remember tonight as you leave and next time as you come that strong Christian relationships don’t just happen.     They happen when we take a few minutes here and there to introduce ourselves to each other, to know each other by name, to find out where people work, to figure out who is brother or cousin or in law to whom, to dare I say find out if people have a dog or a cat – in other words to have those seemingly insignificant conversations about the dogs and the cats and the children and (I can’t believe I’m saying this) about the weath……..and to remember that significant conversations have their source in the lesser conversations.   Key #2 to a strong and growing togetherness here at Trinity is that we travel together through our smooth times and not so smooth, through our needs as well as opportunities.

Key #3 to the early Christian Church’s attractiveness was that together they ate and drank, especially at their Lord’s Supper. Acts 2 says that they were devoted to the breaking of bread.  Bread and wine were common fare at a Jewish table   These were the emblems used for the purpose of focusing their minds on Christ.   Their focus was on Christ’s sacrifice winning the victory for them.   One of the reasons some of us appreciate the Wednesday evening service so much is that we always celebrate our Lord’s Supper in this service.   Every Wednesday we have a chance not only to hear the Word of God and not only to confess our sins and not only to hear the lessons and the sermon and the absolution and the benediction, but always we eat and drink together.   Always we receive our Lord’s very body and blood together.  Always we taste with our lips and not just with our ears and see that the Lord is good.   Every time we eat this bread and drink this cup we proclaim our Lord’s death till He comes again.    Every time we are forgiven and refreshed and strengthened and sent forth with a new lease on life.  Every time as we gather together we do so as the body of Christ.    We are the body and He is the Head.   Key #3 to a strong and growing and attractive body of Christ is eating and drinking together at our Lord’s Table as we receive and celebrate and proclaim together the forgiveness of sins.

Key #4 - Together they prayed, on the basis of what they knew to be true. Acts 2 says that they devoted themselves to prayer.   The Bible has much to say about where and when and how to pray.     We may pray anywhere and everywhere but especially in the company of one another in Divine Service.     We may pray privately or publicly, as long as we do not make a pretense and a show of our prayers.   We may pray anytime and at all times, but especially in the house of God on the basis of what we have heard in the appointed lessons and the sermon for the day.     Christians in every generation pray on the basis of what we know to be true.   We know that every Word of Scripture is true and in this Church we believe that the words of our catechisms and hymnbooks and creeds are true.  We pray with the sure knowledge that God has created us marvelously and wonderfully in the first place and that He has redeemed us with His own Son’s precious blood in the second place and that He will work all things out for our eventual and eternal good in the third place.   As a family prays together in time of trouble or in time of thanksgiving so do we pray tonight as a congregation.  We pray about our future on the basis of what we know to be true from our past history with God.

 

The kingdom of God is like a large Church in a small town that is famous not so much for their good behavior as they are famous for traveling through life together.  They are not so famous for always following God’s path as they are famous for admitting and confessing that they have gone astray.   They are famous not so much for having their act together as they are for listening carefully to God’s Word.   Together they cry and laugh and are quiet together.   Together they worship and repent and praise and thank and serve.  Together they eat and drink and pray and are blessed.    They don’t really know what the future will bring, but they do know what the past has brought and that in Christ they are together.   Amen

 

 

 

 

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