This is Church(?) ... Acts 2 (Pt. 3/5)

The only place I knew where to start was Acts, I knew there was a passage on the church in it. So I start in Acts 1. We're not going to go through all of it in detail today, but I do want to walk you through what was the beginning of the church. So flip to it, and try to stay with me.

Jesus told them to wait for Holy Spirit (1:4). He told them, don't do this without me, without my power, without my blessing. Subsequently Jesus returns to heaven, and they choose Mathias to replace Judas, who hung himself.

We go on to chapter 2, and things just explode. The Holy Spirit rained down at Pentecost. Tongues of fire came, and each disciple was communicating in a foreign tongue. No matter how you interpret the whole situation on speaking in tongues, you got to admit they were given power to proclaim the gospel, not just in word, but in power, that something astonishing to the outside world was going on. You see that theme all throughout the new testament, also shown later on in recounts of people being healed, raised from the dead, and of Luke speaking about many signs and wonders performed among them.

Still at the end of that, some people didn't get it. They thought the disciples were drunk. So Peter addresses the people with this simple message. First explaining that the power that is displayed has been foretold by the prophet Joel, that they're not drunk. Then explaining to the men of Israel, who already knew about their sins and already were expecting a saviour, that Jesus was it (2:22).

Peter concludes with a call to repentance, baptism, and the receiving of the Holy Spirit.

36Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified."

37Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, "Brothers, what shall we do?"

38And Peter said to them, "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself."

40And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, "Save yourselves from this crooked generation." 41So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.

Here's the part that really dawned on me as I looked at this passage early in the school year. People always ask, well what does it mean to repent? What does it mean to be baptized? What does having received the Holy Spirit look like day to day? And I finally realized is that the answer is right in the next passage, the fellowship of the believers, a birds-eye view of how the first Christ followers lived. These people heard the gospel, these people repented, these people were baptized, these people received the Holy Spirit, and they lived this way. See the flow?