Gledens dynamitt

Good morning, friends. Our topic this morning is "The Marks of a Renewed Church." In the New Testament, church means "people," not "buildings." The church lies at the very heart of God's eternal purpose. God's purpose is not merely to save isolated individuals and so perpetuate our loneliness. God's purpose is to build a church, to build a redeemed people for his own glory. We're very concerned about the renewal of the church, and we're concerned about the biblical vision of what the church is intended to be.

So I want to ask this question this morning: What are the chief distinguishing marks of the church? It would be interesting, if we had time, to sit down alongside one another and answer that question. What are the chief distinguishing marks of the Christian community?

One of the best ways to answer the question is to take a fresh look at the first Christian community as it came into being in Jerusalem on and after the day of Pentecost. Mind you, as we do that this morning it's important to be realistic. There is a tendency to idealize or romanticize the early church, to look back through tinted spectacles, to speak of it with bated breath as if it had no blemishes. Then we miss the heresies and the hypocrisies and the rivalries and the immoralities that troubled the early church, just as they trouble the church today. Nevertheless, one thing is certain: the early church was radically moved and renewed by the Holy Spirit.

So let me rephrase my question. What does a Spirit-filled church look like? What evidence did that first century church give of the presence and power of the Holy Spirit in its midst? If we can answer that question we're well on the way to asking what the marks of a renewed church should be today.

Acts 2:42 says, "They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, and the fellowship, and the breaking of the bread, and the prayers" and so on.

A learning church

In this passage from Acts 2 the first mark that Luke gives us of that early renewed and Spirit-filled church is that it was a learning church. It was a studying church. They devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles. That's exceedingly significant. One might say that the Holy Spirit opened a school in Jerusalem that day. Jesus had appointed the apostles as the teachers in the school, and there were no fewer than 3,000 pupils in kindergarten. It was a remarkable situation. These Spirit-filled converts were not enjoying some mystical experience which led them to neglect their intellect or to despise theology or to stop thinking. On the contrary, they devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles. Moreover they didn't imagine that the Holy Spirit was the only teacher they needed and could dispense with human teachers. Not at all. They sat at the apostles' feet. They acknowledged that Jesus had appointed the apostles as the teachers of the church, and they submitted to their authority, authenticated to them by miracles.

John Stott was the former rector emeritus of All Souls Church in London, a prolific author and scholar, and a mentor to many Christian leaders around the globe.