It is wonderful to be back in worship with you. I’ve missed this beautiful sanctuary. I’ve missed preaching and I’ve missed you. Worshiping in a variety of settings this summer was important.  I gained valuable insight which will help me lead our congregation. But something was missing in each place—you. Worship is and should be communal. We worship together as brothers and sisters in Christ. It’s why I ask you to greet one another as we begin worship. It is important to form a community. When we gather around the table, it is as if it is our family table.  I must admit that I don’t understand the need that some people have to be anonymous in worship, to slip in and slip out on a regular basis. As one who was anonymous in all but two of the worship services I attended this summer, I missed seeing your familiar faces, sharing your sorrows and joys, and experiencing your love and support of me.

 

If you were in worship last Sunday, I began a sermon series titled On Promise Road.  Last week’s worship was incredible, a once in a lifetime experience. We can never again say, “This is the first worship service on Promise Road.” Our first worship was thrilling with energy of the worship leaders, the musicians and Zehnder. It was literally a mountaintop experience. If you were unable to attend, I hope you will find a witness. Find someone who was present and hear their testimony. In a week, DVDs of the worship service will be available which will capture a little of the energy and enthusiasm.

 

What do you do after a mountaintop experience? You devote yourself to teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.  There is something very practical about this because you can’t live on top of the mountain all of the time. It’s too exhausting. Last Sunday, someone on our shuttle bus said, “Wow, wouldn’t it be great to do that every week?”  I didn’t answer him but I thought, “No, you couldn’t stand it.” Not only would the staff resign and the volunteers quit, you wouldn’t like it. Always being on the mountaintop wears you out.

 

The first Christians understood this. Over the next three weeks, we will explore the description of what happens immediately after Pentecost. Pentecost was a mountaintop experience, a high energy worship service where three thousand new believers joined the small band of followers of Jesus. The Book of Acts reports that prior to Pentecost the number of believers was about one hundred twenty. A simple math exercise tells us that there is one seasoned believer for every twenty-five new converts. Acts also describes a very diverse group of people with every nation and every language under heaven represented. They have one common experience. They are filled with awe because they receive the promised gift of the Holy Spirit. Now, the challenge is to teach this diverse group to become followers of Jesus. The first thing they did was “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship…” (Acts 2: 43a)

 

Why didn’t they devote themselves to studying the Bible? The Bible wasn’t the Bible until much, much later. In fact, as far as we know, it was at least a decade or more before written documents about the life and teaching of Jesus began to circulate. Paul’s letters begin to circulate in the 50s. Around the turn of the century, ten of Paul’s letters and the gospel of Luke get packaged together. It takes another two hundred-fifty years for everyone to agree upon the twenty-seven books of the New Testament.

 

The Old Testament wasn’t even the Old Testament. There were some books that were considered sacred, maybe as many as twenty-two books of what we now know as the Old Testament. But it took a few years for the early church to read the Old Testament through the lens of Jesus.[1] They couldn’t devote themselves to studying the Bible because it didn’t exist.  They relied upon the eyewitness accounts of the apostles. Who were the apostles?

 

Tradition and the gospels hold that the apostles were the original twelve whom Jesus called as his disciples. But the book of Acts widens the circle to include Paul and Paul’s co-workers, Barnabas, Titus, Silas and Timothy. While we never hear him mentioned in the gospels, James, the brother of Jesus, plays a prominent role in Acts. The author of Acts expands the definition of apostles being those who journey with Jesus from Galilee to Jerusalem and were witnesses to the resurrected Savior. Who were the first witnesses to the resurrection? Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Salome, women were the first witnesses of the resurrected savior. It’s not any stretch of the imagination that women alongside men participated in teaching the new followers of Jesus. When you have three thousand eager souls who want to know more about Jesus, you recruit everyone possible to teach.

 

Imagine how hard this task was. They didn’t have the Bible. They only had the experiences of those who saw Jesus. The gospels do not say that one of the disciples was appointed secretary of the group. Judas was the treasurer but there was no named secretary. No one took notes. So from memory, those who knew Jesus began to present the gospel to those who had him as Savior.  The amazing thing--there were no disagreements. Acts says that “Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles.  All who believed were together and had all things in common.” (Acts 2: 43-44) And “day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.” (Acts 2: 47b)

 

They were a united people because they studied together, living out the promises that Jesus made to them. They were living on Promise Road.  Just think what they might have accomplished if those first believers had a written account. Just think how they would treasure the stories of Jesus if they had the Bible. NBC airs a new television show on Monday night titled Journeyman. The West Wing writer and director Kevin Falls and Alex Graves are collaborating on what their website calls, “a romantic-mystery-drama about a San Francisco newspaper reporter and family man who inexplicably begins to travel through time and change people’s lives.”[2] I thought, “Wouldn’t that be a cool episode to send journeyman back to those first Christians and give them the Bible. The apostles and Pentecost church would be blown away to see God’s Word written down. They would pour over the Word of God. Of course it wouldn’t really work because much of the New Testament happens after these first Christians “devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship.”

 

So, the only way it works is to have new Christians travel forward in time. I think that’s a good idea for a new series too. We could call it Futureman, instead of Journeyman.  Since ever sermon should have a practical application, let’s have Futureman travel to northeast Indianapolis and mysteriously show up on your door.  Do you have the picture? One of the new Christians from the emerging church in Acts is face to face with you and the first question they ask is, “Do you have a Bible?”  That’s not such a hard question. The answer is probably yes. In fact, the answer is probably “Yes, we have three.”  Ninety-two percent of Americans own at least one copy and the average surveyed own three.

 

Futureman is clearly going to be excited to see your Bible or Bibles. It’s only logical that he will pose another question. How often do you read your Bible? What will you answer? Occasionally? About sixty percent of American claim to read their Bibles occasionally. Is your answer occasionally or would it be weekly? If so, you are part of a much more select group if you can claim weekly. Only 37% percent say they read the Bible weekly. Something tells me that our biblical Futureman isn’t going to be terribly impressed by occasionally or weekly. Acts mentions that these new Christians gathered “day by day.”  So, I’d expect the next question to be, “You don’t read the Bible daily?”  If you can answer “Oh yes, I read it daily” you are in rare company. Only fifteen percent of Americans surveyed indicate that they read the Bible daily. The average amount of time given to daily Bible study is eight minutes.[3]

Now if you are the Futureman from the Acts community, you can only come to one conclusion. Most Christians in America don’t read their Bible because they know it so well. Fortunately, the Futureman doesn’t know there are four gospels because they haven’t yet been written when he travels to the future. But if he knew it and he asked, you’d be able to rattle off Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Right?  At least 37% of you can. Only 37% of Americans can name all four Gospels. But there is some good news. Seven out of ten Americans can name the town where Jesus was born.

 

There are four words which I utter carefully in our community. You would think that these would be safe words for a preacher to say in his church. But I know when I say them, particularly in a small group, it strikes fear in many of your hearts.  I can literally see some tremble and quake. What are the four words?  Open your Bible to….

 

For years, I’ve heard every excuse imaginable about studying the Bible. Everyone agrees that it’s important to study scripture. Some of you really want the discipline of Bible study but you think that scripture is too difficult to understand or that you don’t know enough to study the Bible. There once was a time when this was true. The old King James Version of the Bible is, at times, very difficult to understand. Today there are all sorts of user friendly versions for study. Let me read you a passage of scripture from The Message, the Bible many of our teens use because of its clarity. This passage is from 2nd Timothy when the apostle Paul reminds his young protégé’ Timothy of the imperative of studying scripture:  “There's nothing like the written Word of God for showing you the way to salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. Every part of Scripture is God-breathed and useful one way or another - showing us truth, exposing our rebellion, correcting our mistakes, training us to live God's way.” (2 Timothy 3: 15b-17) 

 

Was that confusing? I don’t think it can be said plainer. The Bible is a gift from God, inspired by the Holy Spirit.  It’s given to us to answer two important questions. “Who are we?” and “What are we to do?”

 

By now, I’ve made just about everyone uncomfortable. While I believe that if our congregation was surveyed, we’d do better than a general survey of the American public; I also believe that all of us can improve on our study of scripture. So let me make a challenge to several different groups of those who are here.

 

If you fall into that group of persons who only occasionally read the Bible, I encourage you to find your Bible and sometime this week, go to my blog. I’ve added a section to the blog which will discuss the scripture passages which I’ll use in my upcoming sermon. I also have a few questions for your personal reflection. This will allow you to prepare for the sermon and begin reading the Bible weekly. You might want to pick up a new version of the Bible, a contemporary translation. We’ve got a table in the great hall for you to look at some Bibles. To this first group, my challenge is to get started.

 

If you fall in the category of those who read your Bible weekly then your next step is to consider a Bible study group. The early church devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and fellowship. There are two reasons they did this and they apply to us. First they were a diverse group of people who needed to get to know each other. We too need to get to know each other. Bible study groups allow you to build strong friends and build fellowship which strengthens our congregation.

 

The second reason for Bible study being done within a group is even more important. Interpretation of the Word must always be within a group of believers. Throughout the centuries, the Bible has been abused and misused by those who twist God’s word to fit their own agenda. Some do this purposefully but it can also happen accidentally. A group of believers searching scripture together holds you accountable for interpreting God’s word accurately.  We are forming Bible studies group right now. Sign up for one and go deeper.

 

There are some here who are regular in your discipline. God’s word is your daily companion. Don’t think I’m letting you off the hook. You’re needed. We need you to lead a Bible study group. Just like the Acts community had to broaden the definition of apostles to find enough leaders, we need every available hand. Step forward and lead others to discover the richness of living in God’s word.

 

It really is good to be back home, to study with you, pray with you, worship with you.  Do you know that experience of coming home to your worship services? All of the services I went to this summer, they were all so different. You never knew what was going to happen. Like in one place, just as the prelude was about to be over, the door opened and a whole bunch of people started walking in. It was like a bus had just let off a bunch a people, maybe like one of shuttle buses last weekend.

 

First in the door was a young couple, probably newlyweds by the way they were acting, holding hands and giving each other that silly look. Right after them came a couple that reminded me a little of my parents. Empty nesters but she was wearing one of the turbans like cancer patients wear and her color wasn’t good. Then a family of five and I don’t know what happened in the parking lot with them but it was clear that Mom was angry, Dad was sheepish and one of the towheaded kids was rubbing his eyes like he’d been crying. A bi-racial couple with a baby came in after that and then an elderly man with a white boutonnière in his lapel, and right behind him were the teenagers in black with dark make-up and piercings. I got to thinking, this is a strange bunch of people and then, I got to thinking about you. In fact, I don’t know why but they kind of reminded me of you. And I thought, how on earth is this preacher going to gather such a diverse group of people? As I thought that, the pastor stood up and said, “Open your Bible to…” and I had my answer. They devote themselves to the apostle’s teachings and fellowship. 

             

 

             

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