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"Continue Steadfastly On This Rock" Acts 2:42-47; Matthew 16:13-26

by Clancy Nixon

Church of the Holy Spirit

Ashburn, Virginia

June 3, 2007

www.HolySpiritAnglican.org.

Have you ever thought about who is your favorite apostle? I'll admit it, Simon

Peter is my favorite. I love this guy. He is so passionate for Jesus and the gospel. He is

just out there - first on the water, first in the water, first to confess, first to be rebuked;

he's so impulsive and fallible and human. In Caesarea Philippi, Peter confesses that Jesus

is the Christ, and Jesus commends and rewards him for hearing and speaking the mind of

God. Immediately, Peter tells the Lord he will never die on a cross, and Jesus says Satan

is now guiding Peter's lips. Peter gets it so right; then immediately he gets it so wrong. I

don't know about you, but I can relate to a guy like that. I have great enthusiasms like

Peter did, and also great failures. Most everything I do, I jump in deep, way over my

head. I denied Christ when I was eighteen and didn't come back to him till I was 26.

That's eight years in the far country as a socialist, bohemian prodigal - seven years of

completeness plus one. Thankfully, I came to my senses when I was confronted again

with the greatest of all questions.

Jesus asked his friends in Matthew 16:15, "What about you? Who do you say that

I am?" This is the most important question that any of us will ever hear. Jesus still asks

that same question of every man, woman and child on this planet. Then, he asked the

apostles face to face; now, Jesus asks each of us from his throne in Heaven: Who do you

say that I am? Simon Peter blurts out the dangerous answer that had never yet been

spoken, the thing that would get them all killed. He says, "You are the Christ, the son of

the living God."

I imagine that there was a long, pregnant pause when this was first uttered. Jesus

extols Simon: "You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of

Hades will not stand against it. I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven...."

Notice the two contrasting Biblical metaphors here the first is steadfast establishment,

on the Rock, a rock of faith which is stable and does not move or change. The second

metaphor is movement in mission to defeat the works of the devil, to break down the

gates of Hell, implying battle plans that change.

One way our congregation is called to move and change is for us eventually to

move to a permanent site to settle in this land of promise, to conquer a piece of it for

the extension of God's Kingdom. In today's terms, ownership is a part of conquest. God

has a permanent place for us, a promised land, just as he has for Israel. Even if we get the

lease at Prison Fellowship - and we have not yet heard from them (keep praying!) still

that would be a temporary place for us. The Lord has moved among us here, he is

building his Church here in Loudoun. Like Abraham and Jacob, we want to join with

God is where he is moving by building an altar to our God in this place for the sacrifice

of praise.

Building a temple takes resources, and building resources takes faith. As your

leaders gathered to pray for direction in the winter of 2005-06, we knelt for over an hour

and concluded unanimously that the Lord was telling us to begin saving for the day when

we could buy a permanent site. That is why we started a Capital Campaign a year ago

called "On this Rock: Building Faith." So far, we have received $450,000 in pledges and

over $135,000 in cash gifts. We are now in the second year of this three year campaign

to increase our faith for the future that God has for us. We are asking every person in our

community to participate in On This Rock in 3 ways: by praying for our community; by

praying about making a capital contribution yourself; and obeying what God tells you to

do. Before I ask you to participate, it's important that we all understand the vision God

has given for this Church. A vision is a picture of a desired future.

I see this church becoming an Acts 2 Church. We are a Holy Community, like the

first Church in Jerusalem described in Acts 2. We're a Three Streams, One River church:

evangelical, charismatic, and sacramental. It's in your bulletin ever week check it out!

If anyone asks you what kind of church we are, you can tell them we are evangelical,

charismatic and sacramental. We move in three great streams of Christianity, believing

that they are better together than apart. First, we are an Evangelical Church, a church that

lives on the same Apostolic and Biblical plan that the first believers in Jerusalem did in

Bible times. We are a reformed church, believing that the Bible is our only infallible

authority. Because it is, we believe in evangelism and repentance and conversion and

new birth by faith in Christ alone. We are a disciple-making church, because that is what

they did in Acts 2 they spent so much time with God and with each other that they put

God first, others second and themselves third, in every area of their lives. Second, we are

a Charismatic Church. We believe that the Holy Spirit still empowers us today in the

same way that He did on the first Pentecost, with tongues and prophecy and healing, as

well as with encouragement and mercy and all the rest of the gifts. Many of us have been

healed by divine power and set free from bondages. We don't want any believer to miss

that. Third, we are a sacramental church, baptizing with joy and celebrating the Lord's

Supper regularly. We are catholic with a small "c," which means universal, connected

with other believers worldwide and through time. We believe in the power of the blood

of Jesus in the Lord's Supper, and we hope for the restoration of the universal, undivided

church of the first millennium. We love it all! So we're a Three Streams, One River

church: evangelical, charismatic, and sacramental. We love all three streams because we

are an Acts 2 Church. It's all in Acts 2.

Please open your Bibles to Acts chapter 2, verses 42-47, which is found on page

1079 of your blue pew Bibles. Acts 2:42-47 says of this first Church in Jerusalem: "They

devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of the

bread and to the prayers. Everyone was filled with awe, and many signs and wonders

were done by the Apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in

common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Each

day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread together in

their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the

favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being

saved."

Let's unpack this. This word in verse 42 translated devoted themselves is in the

present perfect tense, so it carries the meaning of continually devoting themselves. This is

what Spirit-filled people, people on fire with the Holy Spirit, do. The King James Version

says they continued steadfastly in these things. Steadfast means fixed in place, or

resolute, or committed. Let's look at what they devoted themselves to.

First, they were devoted to, they continued steadfastly in, the Apostles' teaching,

to their doctrine. This is an evangelical emphasis. The apostles had been with Jesus as

eyewitnesses, so their words, and later their writings, became authoritative. Those words

were inspired by Jesus, the God-man, and the recording and compiling of their words

were watched over by the power of the Holy Spirit. We love this message it is life to

us. Even if we wanted to, we could not change the message; we are stewards of the

gospel. We have no authority to proclaim any gospel other than what the early church

proclaimed. It is a scandal that some who call themselves Christian leaders today openly

repudiate what Jesus plainly taught. We must ask, by what authority does anyone preach

a different message? Many of these leaders think they know better than the Bible in

matters of faith. There are bishops who wear miters that symbolize the flames of

Pentecost and receive salaries from the church for undermining the faith of the flock, and

accuse people like us of offering false comfort and false certainties in a complex world. I

question whether these leaders are born again, I really do. I like Bill Atwood's demand

for these pointy-headed bishops: Give back the hat! First John chapter two tells us that

one sign of regeneration is a hunger to know and obey the Word of God. The dangers of

unconverted, unregenerate ministries are plain to see all around us. We are devoted to the

apostles' teaching, we really are. I saw that devotion among us when we voted

unanimously to leave The Episcopal Church, at great cost to our selves and our ministry.

Second, they were devoted to, they continued steadfastly in fellowship. The Greek

word for fellowship is Koinonia, whose root word is common, and it emphasizes how the

believers shared their time, their money and their love. What we share first of all is

fellowship with God himself. They were intimate with God and intimate with one

another. They hung out together daily, and they shared their food together with glad and

sincere hearts. New converts need daily fellowship even more than daily Bible reading,

and these new converts in Jerusalem received it. They were so Spirit-filled that they

believed that God owned their stuff. They made their possessions available for the

common good. Evidently, they still had possessions they still owned their homes in

which they met but some people even sold those. This quality of life, that our lives are

not our own, that we live for others, is what fellowship is all about. I see Koinonia among

us when the Hickeys need money to pay medical bills you rise to the occasion. I see

Koinonia when the Lugos needed support when Benjamin was in the hospital.

Third, they were devoted to, they continued steadfastly in, worship. That is the

breaking of bread, prayer and praise. They worshiped daily in the Temple courts. Then

they gathered in homes to break bread, which meant celebrating the Lord's Supper in the

context of a community meal, called an Agape meal. The earliest records we have the

Didache and the liturgy of Hippolytus tell us that the early church celebrated the

Eucharist at least once a week in obedience to the Lord's command. That's why we do it

because we are back to the Bible people, wanting to restore the New Testament Church.

They had formal worship in the Temple, and informal worship in people's homes. Both

are valuable. I see this in the way many of you enter wholeheartedly into worship. I see it

in the life of our home groups, which are indispensable both to worship and to

fellowship.

Fourth, the Acts 2 church believes for miracles today. Verse 43, "everyone was

filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles."

This is an integral part of this picture. I can't imagine an Acts 2 church where God is not

moving in manifest power. That just happens when we are Spirit-filled. We believe God

for things only God can do, and we've seen him do them. I received word yesterday that

yet another woman, this one at The Falls Church, was completely healed of osteopedia,

bone density issues. That's two in two weeks. These signs bring people into the

Kingdom.

Fifth, verse 47, the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

Evangelism and discipleship, outreach and in-reach, were part of what they did. Jesus is

the evangelist. He is the head of the church. Remember, Jesus said he would build his

church. It is the Lord who saves and adds to our number, not us. John Stott says that

Jesus didn't add them to the church without saving them there is no nominal

Christianity in an Acts 2 church. Neither did Jesus save them without adding them to the

church no solitary Christianity either. Salvation and church membership belonged

together in the Acts 2 church, and they still do today. When I look at how others have

grown so much in their faith people like Rosemary Butt my heart leaps for joy.

When I think of those who have been saved through this fellowship people like Scott

Manley, Glenn Schubert and Jorge and Cristina Lugo nothing else compares to that. As

long as I ma your rector, I will be faithful to continue to ask people, "Who do you say

Jesus is?"

That is our vision. It's to further this vision that we have a capital campaign. Let's

look now at the DVD we made last year for the campaign...

Each family should have an updated FAQ brochure and a 2007 commitment card.

Please read them, pray over them, get agreement with your mate, and them obey what

God says. We are asking every person in our community to participate in On This Rock

in 3 ways: by praying for generosity in our community; by praying about making capital

contributions; and obeying what God tells you to do. As I prayed, God told me to raise

my pledge. He may tell you to lower yours. I encourage you to pray and obey God. In

two weeks, on June 17, I'm asking each of us to submit these cards as a pledge to the

Lord. If you have already pledged, we're asking you to pray again about your

commitment. Jeff Milrod and I will be available to answer any questions you may have

about the campaign today. Just ten minutes after this service, we will meet in the

teacher's lounge.

Now we'll take just two minutes in silence to ask God to tell you what he is

calling you to do. If God gives you a number, write that number down, and then get

agreement with your spouse. Let's pray.