If you look at the picture at the head of this blog, the horse is pulling the cart. Good. Because as we all know, putting the cart in front of the horse doesn’t work. But, how often do we Christians try putting the cart before the horse?
So what’s all this about? I was looking at Acts 2 v 42 the other day and I started thinking about how we sometimes take this verse, which is the ‘cart’ and put it before another verse (which we’ll come to in a moment) which is the ‘horse’.
They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.
Acts 2v42
Let’s look at the Cart.The verse describes what the thousands of new believers were doing at the explosive start of the Church. (The Church is always meant to grow explosively by the way, but that’s another story)
We read that they were devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching (biblical teaching), and that they were devoted to close relationships with each other, eating meals together and prayer. All this took place in in small house-based churches that looked and felt like family.
When we see this incredible explosion of church, the single-minded focus of thousands of new believers and the reports of miracles and that God was adding new believers every day to the Church; we say to ourselves “I want to see that happen today”. Church Leaders look and say “that’s what we want our church to be like.”
Here’s where we sometimes go wrong. We say, “if we have more teaching, if we pray more that’s the route to seeing the change that we desire.” Church Leaders say, “if we organise our churches like this with small groups, eating together, having teaching and praying together then that will result in church similar to the New Testament model”
What’s wrong with that you might ask. Well, it’s like looking at what’s in the Cart, and thinking if we just copy that, won’t we get the kind of Church that we know Jesus is after? Hey, perhaps we can do this? If we get these four basic patterns in place then we will be building New Testament church surely? What it boils down to is us trying to replicate an effect in order to build church. Because the four things we see in Acts 2 v 42 are the effect, or the result of something that God did first. Never mind the Cart for the moment; what is the Horse?
The Horse is found in verse 38. The force that propels the Cart. The something that God did first. In verse 38 we see that all of these thousands of people believed the message about Jesus, repented of their past way of life and were baptised. Is that enough to produce a Church that “turned the world upside down?” (Acts 17 v 6). Absolutely not! Churches can be filled with people who have believed, repented and been baptised but yet make little difference to the world. The something is found at the end of verse 38. They received the gift of the Holy Spirit. That’s the Horse that propels the Cart. When this Horse is allowed free rein, it inevitably produces what we see in Acts 2 v 42 and onwards.
We need to be filled with Holy Spirit (a continuous process rather than an historical one-off event). Then we desire to understand the bible and what it has to say to us. We want to pray because we want to chat with the One who loves us so much. We can’t help but want to be around other believers. It is out of people like that, that Jesus builds his Church.
Those of us who are Church Leaders need to make sure the Horse comes first – every time! No Horse, no Cart, or certainly not a Cart that goes anywhere. Simple. The first thing to do without exception is to ensure that as people come to faith they are filled with Holy Spirit, and that they are continually being filled with Holy Spirit.
Verse 42 tells us that the believers were devoted….. Only Holy Spirit living in us and filling us can produce that kind of devotion. The alternative is that we can make ourselves pray or read the bible, we can put people in groups and get them to eat together, but that is only to make lifeless copies of what Holy Sprit does.
God never expects a response from you without revealing Himself to you first.
When Holy Spirit fills you, He reveals to you many things – how much God loves you, how precious you are to Him, how He is always with you, how He gives you power, how He loves the lost and aches for them to find Him…..and much much more. Real authentic devotion comes naturally from within, rather than some lifeless imitation worked up from outside ourselves as we say “I must pray more… etc etc. We need to be people full of Holy Spirit. Nothing of substance will happen otherwise.
Just take a moment now to ask Him to fill you again. It is a prayer that He can’t wait to answer. It only takes a moment, but moments like these will change the course of your life.
Footnote: it might seem odd in our current state of lockdowns and restrictions to be focussing on building church rather than just focussing on getting through our present troubles. Believe me, the day is close when we need to be ready to be the church that turns the world upside down, and it starts here with being filled with Holy Spirit.
[You might want to look at the Articles section of this website where I have written some stuff about what church should look like. Coming next in that section will be a piece about the role and place of women in the church from a biblical basis. Their rightful place I believe is up there with the men, not subserviently in second place].
Church is out there 