The Beginning of Jesus Ekklesia

Introduction

If you’re not already there, you can be making your way to the book of Acts, where our scripture reading was this morning. We are going to start in chapter one and read a few verses there in just a moment. We’re going to begin a new series this morning called The Way Forward. We’ll be looking at what the disciples believed and taught over many weeks at this point. We’re going to spend some time looking through the book of Acts and maybe break away into some of the epistles here and there and see the things that these inspired writers were teaching, what they were practicing, what they were encouraging others to practice. I want to talk about this in the sense of why this matters first. Why is this important?

I would say we all have inherited some assumptions about what church should look like. We’ll talk some more about that word church here in just a moment. And some of these assumptions are biblical. Some are just opinion or tradition. Some of those traditions are good. I would maybe even say ideal. When we look at scripture and we understand what God is wanting, and some maybe sometimes we lay some concepts down in an effort to do things in a way that’s going to honor God, and they may be ideal for our circumstances. Sometimes they’re just formed through culture and the way society works in our day and age. And so what I really want us to work on as we work through this series of lessons is coming at the text with fresh eyes, letting the text challenge us, surprise us, or even correct us when we haven’t thought about things the right way.

Asking as we work through the book of Acts and through some of the epistles, what does Jesus reveal that is truly important for following him? What is it that Jesus and his inspired writers teach us? What we’re not going to do is be trying to replicate miraculous signs. The apostolic witness is extremely unique, as the book of Acts, I think, makes abundantly clear. I’m not going to be encouraging some kind of time-traveling concept where we try to live just like the first century Christians. I don’t think that’s what God calls us to do. We’re not trying to decode the Bible. Some special decoder ring that we look and we find all the right answers everywhere. That’s also not the way the Bible is written or what is expected from Scripture.

But instead, what we’re going to be looking for are timeless truths, observable principles and practices that we see the first century disciples using in their life and living according to the will of God that we can then take those ideas and principles and use today. We’re going to follow the story of Acts and the epistles, looking for those truths and those realities, asking, what did they believe? And how did they function? And what did they prioritize? And at the same time asking, what do I believe? How do we do things? Is it in accordance with what we’re seeing in Scripture? And what is it that we are prioritizing? Is it aligning with what we’re seeing in the pages of Scripture? Or is it something else? And maybe the big question, as I’m thinking through this, is if a first century believer walked into our assembly today, or if a first century believer followed me around day to day in my daily life, would they recognize that what we’re doing is the same faith?

Where would they nod in agreement? Where would they look and see what we’re doing and say, yeah, that’s that’s what the apostles taught. That’s what the apostles wanted. Where would they be confused, thinking, why are they doing that? Where would they challenge us about the things that we’re doing? Whether it’s in a place like this or as we live day to day in our lives? And so I want us to think with that kind of mentality, both as maybe you read this text on your own and you’re thinking through scripture, but also in our time together, as we work through this, these concepts, the idea of the way of Jesus and his first disciples, what they deem to be extremely important through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, enough so that they reveal in pages of scripture that are preserved even today, that we’re reading and studying even this very moment this morning.

1. Upon This Rock I Will Build My Ecclesia

I want to talk about Acts chapter one, but I would then want to go back to a promise of Jesus and sort of build the groundwork there. It says in Acts chapter 1 and verse 1, in the first book, O Theophilus, this is probably someone who helped Luke write his writings, Luke and Acts, and so he’s writing to him. I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach. That’s what we are looking at in the Gospel of Matthew. The things that Jesus did, the things that Jesus taught. How do we follow him? Right? This is what Luke wrote about in the Gospel of Luke. Now he’s gonna write this second book, right? So he’s I wrote about all the things that Jesus did, what he taught, until the day he was taken up, after he had given commands to the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen.

He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during 40 days and speaking about the kingdom of God. And while staying with them, he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which he said, You heard from me. For John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. I would encourage you on your own to be reading through the book of Acts and kind of get the full context. There’s a lot of content here, and I’m not going to read every verse of every chapter as we work through this. That’s just not going to be feasible for what we’re trying to accomplish. But I want us to see this is the next phase of God’s plan that he’s working through the Messiah.

That the disciples that Jesus specifically chose who were going to be witnesses, as he talks about, if you keep reading, witnesses to Judea and Samaria and ultimately to the ends of the earth, they’re going to receive a special power from the Holy Spirit, and they’re going to witness in a very special way. And while we can bear witness to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, they did so in a very unique fashion. And we see that throughout the book of Acts. But with that, we’re going to see some really core principles and ideas. Maybe next sermon, we’re going to talk about the basic gospel sermon. What is it they were preaching and teaching? And we need to look at that. But this morning I want us to think about just the beginning of what we call the church.

The ecclesia is the Greek term. It’s a term that is a little bit tricky, and I’ll come back to that here in just a few minutes. But I want us to first go back to the promise of Jesus when he’s with his disciples. And he takes them, they’re in Caesarea Philippi, and he’s speaking with them. Who do people say that I am? And they give some answers, you know, they think you’re Elijah or prophet or that sort of thing. And then he says, Well, who do you say that I am? And you remember these confession stories in all the gospels. They kind of follow a certain format. This is the moment in which they’re recognizing that Jesus is the Messiah. He’s the Christ. Peter speaks up and says, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.

And then you were probably remember how he responds to Peter. Interestingly, he says, flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. We’ll come back to that thought in a later point. But he says, You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my ecclesia. Jesus promised he was going to build a community of people who were going to follow him. This is where all of this begins. The disciples don’t fully understand it at the moment, and there’s a lot of things they don’t understand. And when he comes back for 40 days, he’s explaining to them things about the kingdom and how this is all going to take place. And he has them wait in Jerusalem. Wait here, all these things are going to happen.

And so that’s what they do. And as we see the situation unfold in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost, the Spirit then hovers over them in tongues like fire. And these people are filled with the Holy Spirit, and they begin preaching and speaking in the languages of all the people who are there so they can all understand this gospel message.

As we’re seeing it begin to be fulfilled at the beginning of Acts. The first is what is this rock he talks about? And there’s all sorts of discussion we could go into with this. I think it’s a simple word play. But what Jesus, I think, is really getting at too is either that it is that Jesus is the Messiah, he’s the rock, Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of Yahweh, or it’s the confession that Jesus is the Son of God. This is the foundation. This is what he’s going to build on. This is what his people are going to be centered around. This reality, a promise that God made from the beginning, that through the seed of Abraham, all nations of the earth would be blessed.

And of course, this is then get being carried out by Jesus, the Messiah. This is the whole argument. It’s the point that’s going to be made in many of the sermons that are preached, in the discussions that are had, that Jesus, as Peter says, is both Lord and Christ. That’s the confession. He is Lord, He is King, but He’s also Messiah. He is the one God had talked about for so long, who is going to come and change everything. And on this foundation, his ecclesia, his community, his group of people are going to be founded on this reality. Jesus is not building a physical building at some location in Caesarea Philippi. That’s not what’s being talked about here.

2. What Does Ecclesia Mean?

That’s not the point he’s making at all. If so, he wouldn’t have told his disciples to wait in Jerusalem. He would have told them to wait in Caesarea Philippi. But this in essence is not what the ecclesia is at all. Which comes back to the second thing I want to talk about. What is the rock? I think the rock is that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, He is the Messiah. The second item to consider in this statement by Jesus in Matthew 16, 18, as it’s beginning to be fulfilled in the beginning of Acts, is what does ecclesia mean? What does this word have to do with who we are and what we are now? I think church is a word that can work. I use it, you use it.

I’m not going to be difficult about it. There’s some difficulties with it. I’ll just start with the most simple and basic, and I’m not even going to get into all the other ones. We’ll talk about it in the class in the back if you’re in that class in the back. It’s tricky because a dictionary definition can be very misleading. If you were going to look up the word church in the Webster’s dictionary, or whatever dictionary of choice you have, and you read all the different meanings of that word, just understand that is the meaning that we put into that word. And it gets to be very confusing about what’s actually being talked about. For example, people often refer to structures like this as a church that is not ecclesia.

Jesus is not building a physical structure of any kind. That’s not what he’s promising, right? Very basic. It’s also not any kind of church authority or church leadership. He’s not building some kind of hierarchy. Now, that does come along the way as a way for people to function, but the promise he’s making here is not that, you know, I’m going to put some people in charge and they’re going to run things. That’s that’s not what he’s talking about here. Ecclesia is not an event. you don’t go to ecclesia in the sense of that’s all it is. It’s just some sort of event you participate in. The ecclesia is a covenant community. That’s the idea of what Jesus is getting at here as he uses this phrase in Matthew 16, 18.

On this concept of this idea that I am the Messiah, I’m the Son of the Living God, I’m gonna form my people on that. It’s a formation, it’s an identity. Ecclesia is about belonging, it’s about an identity and connection with something. It’s about belonging and not merely attending. You don’t just attend ecclesia. You are a part of it. You belong to it. You are it. You’re you are what make it up. Right? And so he’s talking about the formation of a people. And we could go into some long explanations of this, which I won’t do this morning. I’ll just reference them. And if you want more information, I’ll be glad to give that give it to you later. But this term is used thoroughly in the Septuagint version of the Old Testament.

And it’s used in a way, actually, in the Jewish thought of this is a little bit nuanced from even the way pagans typically use the word. First of all, it’s not inherently a religious term. The word ecclesia is used all over the place outside of Scripture in the ancient world. The most popular known version of it is in Athens, which is the free male citizens or the ecclesia who came together to vote on political matters, about war, about finances, about all sorts of stuff. It’s a what we would call a secular term. It’s not inherently religious in nature. It then gets taken and used that way by Jewish people much later on. And so in the Septuagint version of the Old Testament, which is the Greek Old Testament, it uses the word ecclesia thoroughly to translate a word that has to do with the assembling of people, but not always literally.

Sometimes it’s conceptually. And so places like 1 Chronicles 28 and verse 8, it’s very clear what David is talking about there is not some literal physical assembly of people. He’s talking about the people of Israel as a whole. The people who belong to God are called the ecclesia. You belong to God, you are part of the ecclesia. Now there are ways in which this is talked about in scripture that can vary slightly. Sometimes it is a literal assembly of people, a congregation.

Church is actually a medieval term. I’m not going to get into that. So it comes much later, and it’s not even found in the Bible. It’s from the word curriculum, so it’s not a word that’s found in Scripture. But it is an accommodative term that tries to give the sense of not just a literal assembly, but also a group of people. So when you leave this place this morning, you are still part of the ecclesia, even though you were not literally physically assembled. And the ecclesia does things even when it’s not physically, literally assembled. And we see that in the book of Acts, and the things that are being carried out among the people who are a part of it. There’s a lot more that could be said about that, and I don’t want to go into that anymore this morning.

We may come back to it at some later time. But I just want us to understand that the ecclesia is something that you belong to. You belong to the people of God. It’s not just an event or something you come to. It’s not just a worship service. That is something that happens because you are part of something bigger than that. But this word has a range of meaning that can is bigger and is beyond just literal physical assemblies. And what we see in the book of Acts is that Jesus is forming this people, and he’s telling his disciples, you are going to be witnesses to go out into the world. You’re going to make disciples, as we saw at the end of Matthew. You’re going to baptize them and you’re going to teach them all the things I’ve commanded you, and I’m with you to the end of the age.

3. He Is Reigning, the Head of All Authority

At the end of this section of the book of Acts 1, Jesus then ascends. He doesn’t, he’s not absent. He doesn’t give off this direction, and then he dies and goes away. No, he is ascended, and now he is at the right hand of the throne of God. He is reigning. He is not an absent ruler. He is the authority. He’s the head. This is the foundational belief of what he’s getting at in Acts chapter 1. There is a kingdom. He’s the king of that kingdom, and we submit and we follow his will. And so he is the head of all authority, and it is to him that we submit. The second part of this within the story is that this community is not something that is formed by human will.

4. A Spirit-Empowered, Gospel-Formed Community

It is not something that some people got together. Disciples get in that upper room and say, you know what we need to do? We need to just get a group of people together and start assembling frequently and honoring it. This is not something that humans decide and come up with. Jesus’ people, his community has a spirit-empowered origin. Remember Peter’s confession and what Jesus says about that? Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you. Even Peter’s confession, he says, it’s the Father. This is of divine origin. This is where you’re getting this. It’s not something you came up with, Peter. It’s something that you’re seeing because of divine revelation. And now when we get to Acts 2, in that moment that we’re probably all familiar with, when this mighty wind comes, and the spirit fills those who are in the upper room, and they begin doing miraculous things, and it’s drawing everybody together, and they’re all noticing the events that are taking place.

Understand this is not by human ingenuity. It’s not something that Peter came up with or the other apostles or anybody else in the upper room. This is done by the will of God, the way he wants it done, with the effect that he wants it to have. And in this, he’s taking people from all sorts of places with all kinds of languages, and the truth of Jesus being the Messiah is being spoken to all of them. They’re all being brought back together into one through the will of God. When they hear this message, and I’m going to save more discussion about the message itself until a future sermon, but when they hear this message, the basic message is you crucified Jesus, God raised him up, he’s Lord in Christ, they’re cut to the heart.

When they hear this spirit-empowered message given to Peter, who is an inspired disciple, who is an inspired author who we read within Scripture, and he begins preaching this message to them, they feel guilty. They feel remorse. That’s an easy way to say it. They’re cut. And they realize we need to do something. What is it that we need to do? Peter tells them they need to repent, and each of them need to be baptized for the forgiveness of their sins, and they will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. It’s a changed life. It’s not just sins being forgiven, but I would suggest you that baptism is also a visible, tangible way in which you enter into the people of God. Thousands of people respond to this message.

And then it continues on.

Those who are being baptized into Jesus Christ at the teaching of this message, the Lord is adding them to his people, to the community of believers in Jesus Christ. It’s something you belong to. It’s a new way of life. And as we’re going to see throughout the book of Acts, it’s even called the way. You are part of a movement. You’re part of something different. And although it may not seem this way in our day and time, because we live, I guess, in what you would call a Christian society. It’s questionable what that exactly means. But one thing it does mean at least is that people are more favorable to these ideas. They’re more favorable to the concept of Jesus and to the idea of Yahweh and all of that.

In the ancient world, whether it’s in Jerusalem or in pagan cities, they meet lots of resistance. They are not welcomed with open arms. Everybody isn’t saying, oh, look at these people. They’re so great and wonderful. Actually, it’s just the opposite in many places. And even in the book of Acts, it tells people tells us people don’t join them. This is chapter 5. Even though they hold them in high esteem, why aren’t they willing to join them? Because they know the leaders don’t like them. They know they’re seen as kind of a resistant, rebellious type of group. And so they’re hesitant, a lot of these people are hesitant to join them. Now, thousands continue to join. But what I want us to understand from this concept is that this is not just some easy life decision.

You know, I’m going to go follow Jesus, and everything will be easy now, it’ll be great. I’ll have lots of people who support me. No, this is a life-changing event. An event that ultimately is going to cause many of them to have to flee due to persecution. And we’ll talk some more about what they do later on with that in chapter 8. But this is not a choice that is done out of convenience. It’s not something that’s done part time. You know, I’ll go worship sometimes, and then I’ll just kind of keep my normal life. This is not what’s happening here in the early part of Acts. They are transferred and changing everything about their life. Even the people they’re spending their time with day to day is completely changing.

And some of this is actually gaining quite a bit of favor with the people who see the way that these followers of Jesus live, how they treat each other. That is actually drawing people toward them, even if some of them are a little bit scared to join at first. But all of this is done because it’s according to the will of God. It’s what God wants. The Spirit is empowering these people to begin this process and to speak this message. The message of the gospel, the good news is transforming the lives of people who will listen to it. And so it is a community that is spirit and empowered, but it’s also gospel formed. It’s the message that is changing people. These people don’t have to be told.

You have to meet at the temple. You know, you have to spend time at each other’s homes sharing meals. No one’s beating them over the head to make them do these things. They want to do them. They want to be in the temple every day, worshiping. They want to be going to each other’s homes, sharing meals together.

5. They Devoted Themselves to the Apostles' Teaching

Which then brings us to this statement toward the end of Acts chapter 2. I’m going to read this beginning in verse 42. Acts chapter 2 and verse 42. It says, and they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And all came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs are being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.

These people were devout. Jesus’ followers were willing to sacrifice all the things they had in their life, even monetary possessions for the good of the group for people who had need.

And this idea of devotion, that’s not that they spent some time writing a sermon or putting together a song service or those kinds of things. Those are good things to do. But the idea of devotion here is giving themselves fully over to this new community, this new group, in the fullest sense.

People who are much smarter than me in Greek say pretty regularly that the articular nature of these items say they’re something specific. They all have an article in front of them. So it’s not just random prayers. This is the prayers, the prayers that they are doing together as a community, right? So that’s sort of the idea of that point. That these articles go before each one, and it’s something specific that the ecclesia is doing, that those who belong to Jesus that they are doing together. And so the doctrine that really matters, this the apostles’ teaching. This is their doctrine. It’s like their school of learning. This is the idea. You follow some sort of philosopher or teacher in the ancient world, and you go and you listen to the things they tell you.

Here’s what you really need to know. This is what really matters for life. So it’s not just occasionally listening to a sermon or a Bible class. This is essentially the idea you’re enrolled. Like you are in their school of learning. You want to hear their doctrine. You want to know their teaching. You want to know everything about it because you’re following what they’re saying because you know they’re connected to the master. And they’re revealing the will of God. And so they are devoted to the apostles’ teaching, to the doctrine, to the things that they are saying that are extremely important for living this life the right way. And the fellowship. When Luke says they devoted themselves to Koinonia, he’s not saying that they had some kind of fellowship program.

It’s not a warm, fuzzy feeling. So follow me. You may not know exactly where I’m going here. That’s okay. This is not some feeling, it’s not some program or some building you go to. Just like worship. Fellowship is it is a verbal noun. It’s not static. You don’t have fellowship. Just like you don’t have worship. Worship is also a verbal noun. Worship is something you do. You sing, you pray, you do things. That’s what worship is. Fellowship is also a verbal noun. It’s not, you just don’t have fellowship. It’s something that’s active. It’s something you do together. And what we see that they’re doing together is a number of things. They’re sharing their life together. This is an action. As I talked about earlier, they have changed who they are, and now they are doing life together.

Everything is about this community and how they’re helping each other in all sorts of ways, and we’ll continue to see that throughout the story. So they’re sharing their life together. They’re daily in the temple together. They’re sharing meals together every day in each other’s homes. They’re sharing resources, they’re sharing responsibility. This is the idea of fellowship. It’s not something you just have passively. It’s something that is happening through action. It is something that you do together because you belong together. And so these things are connected to what’s happening with their teaching, with who they are as a people, as a community, whether it’s inside of a worship service or in their daily life, they are acting in a way that represents the fellowship they have through Jesus Christ.

A lot of that has to do with the care they give to each other. They’re providing essential needs for each other, making sure people’s needs are met.

All of this would be a part of the idea of being devoted to the fellowship. The breaking of bread, likely here, has to do with what we often call the Lord’s Supper, or I would call the Lord’s meal as well, in verse 42. It is an exact match to Luke 24.35. It’s the only one that is. So if you go look up these phrases, breaking bread, breaking of bread, all of that. You can say that all sorts of ways. Greek is very different than our language because depending on the case that it’s in, you know, is it a subject, is it an indirect object, an object, it’s going to have a different structure. So what I’m saying is Luke 24.35 has the exact same structure as Acts 2.42.

It’s the only place. And this is a place in which the men who are on the road to Emmaus, Jesus is made known to them in the breaking of bread. Kind of interesting. So is this some way of kind of connecting what’s happening at the end of Luke with what’s happening here at the beginning of Acts? Seems like that might be the case. Could be that this happens in the midst of a common meal. That’s pretty normal in the ancient world. In fact, Tertullian says that in the second century, we take the Eucharist, which is just the giving of thanks. That’s actually a word in scripture in Greek, connected to Jesus instituting the Lord’s Supper, Eucharisteo, is there in the Gospels. So he says, we take the Eucharist, which the Lord both commanded to be eaten at mealtimes and commanded to be taken by all alike.

And it’s interesting the structures we find with this, for instance, Acts 20, 7 and 11, we see this sort of thing happening. It’s not abundantly clear in every case what is exactly happening, but we can sort of get an idea. For example, I think 2.42 probably is a reference to the Lord’s meal, to them commemorating the death of Jesus. But the next use of that phrase, breaking bread in verse 46, is probably just a regular meal. Just regular meals they’re having in each other’s houses. Now, some people will say that they’re also commemorating Jesus’ death as they’re doing these meals in people’s houses. It’s hard to know what exactly is happening here, but if I had to say what I think, that’s the way I would break this down.

And very similarly in Acts 20, we may spend more time there later as well. I think it’s a very similar type format, where I think it is talking about the Lord’s meal in verse 7, and then I think it’s talking about a more common meal in verse 11 of Acts chapter 20. But it is interesting that they’re very combined here in these texts, and there’s a whole context to 1 Corinthians 11 that I won’t get into now, but also seems to be very similar in nature. The bottom line is these people are interested in breaking bread, whatever kind it is. They want to share meals together. They want to be commemorating the Lord’s death together. All of this is very important to these people who have changed their entire life to follow Jesus.

So much so that they’re willing to be persecuted to even die for this belief. And then the prayers. It’s very clear they spend time together speaking to God. And interestingly, we see this in action pretty early in the book of Acts. After some of the apostles are being persecuted, they go back and they meet with the others in Acts chapter 4 and they pray together using Psalm 2. Applying that psalm to their own situation. And then something similar happens later in chapter 12, when Peter is in prison, he miraculously gets lit out of prison. One of the funny things about the book of Acts, as you begin to read it, Jesus, they find an empty tomb and they keep finding empty prisons. They try to arrest these people and they can’t keep them in there.

Conclusion

Every time they try to go find them, they’re gone, just like Jesus was out of the tomb. This angel comes, releases Peter from this prison, and he shows up, and you remember Rhoda. You know, Peter’s out there and they don’t believe her. They’re all in there praying. So these people are they’re getting together and they’re praying about things that are important to the ecclesia, to the community of believers. And so I want to bring this back to what I asked earlier. And this is not any kind of rebuke or anything like that. I’m not trying to say we don’t do it right or anything. I’m just, I’m wanting us to think through this. I want us to think about what we’re gonna see as we work through the book of Acts and through the epistles and what’s happening with them and what they’re doing, and say, is that what we’re doing?

Is that who we are? So many of us for most of our lives have said we are trying to be like the first century church. We want to look back and see what these people are doing and how they’re living and what they believe, and that’s what we want to do. And so that’s all I’m calling us to do this morning in this process of lurking through looking through this text. Seeing what truly matters to these people, togetherness, commonality, caring for one another, and mutual love. They’re worshiping daily. Now, we could probably say that relates to their situation. They live in a very urban environment close together, which allows them to eat in each other’s homes every day as well. Some of you probably live an hour from me.

And so there are some cultural and lifestyle sorts of things that make some of these a little bit difficult. But it’s at least still worth recognizing how important this was. What kind of effort am I making to make you that much of a part of my life? Where I want to spend time worshiping with you, eating with you on a regular basis, sharing daily lives, sharing our new life together in Christ. Notice the result. It’s quite important. These people in doing all this, all of this at the end of Acts 2, it says they’re praising God. That’s important. God is pleased with what’s happening here. But they’re also having favor with all the people. Even the people who won’t admit it. They look at these people and they think, I like what they’re doing.

I’m afraid to say that, and I’m afraid to join them and belong with them, but I see who they are and how they’re taking care of people and the way they’re treating each other and the kinds of things they’re saying, and those people held them in high esteem. And even in the midst of that, people were willing to fight through their fears and the difficulties of this change, and thousands and thousands are added to this ecclesia, to this people who belong to Jesus Christ. The people were drawn to this new community. This group of people living a new life together. There was something different about them and how they lived. And so I don’t want us to think about is that how we live in this world?

The people look at us and say there’s something different about those people, and I want whatever it is that they have. I hope that’s the case. And I hope for me and you both as we go throughout this week. We’re thinking about that and the various things that we’re doing and how we’re treating people, how we’re interacting with each other, but also interacting with people who are not part of Jesus people. What does that look like to them and what does it say about us? Maybe this morning you realize you need Jesus. Maybe you realize the story, all of this is true. He is the Son of God. He was crucified. God raised him up, and now he is exalted at the right hand, or he is right hand of God, where he’s ruling and he’s reigning, and that I and you have to submit to his will because he’s the head of all authority.

And what he says goes, and you realize you need to start doing that. The beginning of that’s fairly simple, actually. He told his disciples, he said, go out and make other disciples. And you do that by baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and then teaching them to observe all that I’ve commanded you. You can start that this morning. You can be baptized into Jesus Christ, into the name of Jesus Christ, into his authority, submit to his will, and then your sins will be washed away. You’ll have life, which is what the gift of the Holy Spirit is, what God promised in the Old Testament. You’ll have God’s presence with you. You will be reborn, as the text tells us.

You’ll be walking in newness of life. All of these things that we want. You’ll have peace because you’re justified and you stand innocent before God. You can have all of that, and it all can begin this morning, and you can then be devoted to the teachings of Jesus and his disciples and continue growing and becoming more and more like Jesus each day. Can we help you do that? Why don’t you come now as we stand and we sing.