An X-Ray of the Early Christians—4 Elements of an Effective Church

I want to invite you to turn to the Book of Acts, chapter 2, verses 41 through 47. Here we have an X-ray of the first Christians at the very beginnings of the Church, after Pentecost and after the apostle Peter’s first great evangelistic sermon, and we know that there was a great harvest of souls through that first sermon that God gave by inspiring the apostle Peter.

Verse 41 says: “As a result of that evangelistic sermon, those who received his word were baptized, and about three thousand people were added that day.” Wow, what a tremendous impact: 3,000 people as a result of a single public sermon delivered practically right there in the street. There were tongues, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, roaring sounds, and people gathered from everywhere.

I always say that the greatest evangelistic weapon is the moving of the Holy Spirit. When a church is filled with the Holy Spirit, when the gifts of God are being manifested, evangelism happens almost effortlessly. And these people gathered, the apostle Peter preached a powerful sermon, and about 3,000 people believed in the Lord and were baptized that very day. Wow, what that first baptism must have been like—wow, incredible.

And here is the heart of what I want to share with you. It is here in verse 42, which says: “And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine, in fellowship with one another, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers.” I see here four characteristics of a powerful church, of a church that is effective in evangelism.

During these weeks we have been talking about how to be effective in evangelism, and from different biblical perspectives we have been examining everything related to evangelism: the attitude of an evangelistic church, its practices, and the biblical elements that undergird the work and practice of evangelism. And here I want you to see what a church that God uses for evangelism looks like and what its internal makeup is.

And then, in the verses that follow, 43 through 47, we see a little more of what the life of those first believers was like. There is no church that better exemplifies what the Church of Jesus Christ should be than that first-century church. We always go to the Book of Acts to look, because God was moving there in a very pure, very powerful way. These people had been there with Christ; the apostles and the first disciples were permeated by the moving of the Holy Spirit; the gifts were being manifested; God was launching His Church and propelling it forward. Therefore, the Book of Acts was written so that we might see what the moving of God was like in that virgin Church, in that Church that was just beginning.

It says that, as a result of what was happening there in Jerusalem, “fear came upon every soul”—verse 43—and many wonders and signs were performed by the apostles. There were healings, deliverance, and manifestations of the power of God. “And all who believed were together and had all things in common”—that had already been stated in summary form in verse 42—“so much so that they sold their properties and possessions and distributed them to everyone according to each person’s need. Continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate together with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people.” And here is the interesting part. It says: “And the Lord added daily to the Church those who were to be saved.”

Do you see here the evangelistic effectiveness of that kind of church? As a result of everything that was happening within them and among them, the Lord added daily those who were to be saved. We are not told so much here that they were sending out pamphlets and conducting well-organized evangelistic campaigns and that they had—no. The Church was in its infancy; it did not even have the structure to do those things. But as a result of its inner life and of flowing according to the principles of the Holy Spirit, it spontaneously drew people in, and people were converted when they observed the lives of these believers.

I have always believed that the greatest evangelistic instrument is not the evangelists or the campaigns, nor is it the technological resources we adopt, although all those things are very good. What attracts people most is the life of the children of God, amen? It is the brothers and sisters who invite others, the quality of life that people find when they come to the House of God, when they observe how people love one another, when they observe the integrity of the children of God, and when they see that here in the Church things are conducted differently from the way they are conducted in the world.

One of the things I like most about our congregation is the tremendous diversity we have as a church. We have Central Americans of different nationalities; we have Central Americans, Caribbean people, and South Americans. We have an English-language ministry that is holding its service in the other building right now. We have young people, adults, and elderly people. We even have people from different denominational backgrounds. We have people from very conservative Pentecostal backgrounds, and we have quieter, more formal evangelicals. And glory to God, here we all make a stew out of different root vegetables and enjoy one another.

And when people come and see the diversity among us and see that we love one another, they say, “Wow, God must be here, because this does not exist out there. What exists out there is division; every group gathers with its own group.” And I forgot—I see Milton and his wife here—the Brazilians are also here with us, glory to God. That does not happen in the world. When people see the love we have for one another, they say, “Wow, I truly want to belong to this community.”

I say that the greatest apologetic of all is the life of the Church. And I see four characteristics of that Church which, together with the moving of the Holy Spirit, was so effective in adding daily to the Church those who were to be saved. Verse 42—and that is why I say it is a portrait—says that they “continued steadfastly in the doctrine.” Underline doctrine here. Number two: “in fellowship with one another.” Underline fellowship. “In the breaking of bread.” Underline the breaking of bread there. And fourth, “prayers.” Let me break this down very quickly, because I have to move at full speed.

Number one, they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine. A church that is effective in evangelism has to be a biblical church, amen? It has to be a church that continues steadfastly in the teachings of the Word of God. If a church has false doctrine, convenient doctrine that has been adjusted to please people, that church will not be evangelistically effective.

Today in the United States there are many evangelical churches called mainline churches that have changed their doctrine in many different ways: celebrating homosexuality, placing social justice ahead of a solid, biblical, healthy spirituality, changing many different aspects of biblical teaching in other areas—moral and sexual liberalism, and things like that. And instead of attracting people, which is what is supposedly meant to happen when doctrine is watered down, those churches are dying—exactly the opposite—one after another. They are the churches that are ceasing to grow, while the biblical churches that insist more strongly on the Word of God and remain faithful to doctrine are the churches that prosper here and anywhere else in the world.

Wherever you see evangelistic growth in this day and age—whether in Africa, Asia, Latin America, or even in the United States or Europe—you will find churches that insist on remaining firmly attached to the Word of the Lord.

“They continued steadfastly in the doctrine,” glory to God. And that is why I emphasize so strongly the importance of our church adhering to the Word of the Lord. That is why we emphasize discipleship programs. This week we recorded about 180 people at different levels of discipleship; on Wednesdays there are more than 200 people taking the various biblical instruction classes we provide. Our children are also being educated, and we greatly emphasize the importance of the Word of God because we know that the foundation is there.

I love it when our children, for example, memorize verses from the Word of the Lord in I Wanna, because it stays there; it is engraved upon their hearts. They grow, and their neurological system is formed in the Word of the Lord.

When I was a child, I attended Sunday school, and I believe that was where my spiritual sensitivity was imprinted upon me. I still remember Miss Cora, a Canadian missionary. Back then none of these technological aids existed yet. She used those—and here I am giving away my age—she used those little pieces that are placed on boards, the little figures of Daniel and of David killing the giant. Those things were engraved upon my heart, and a love for the Word of God was engraved there as well. So I encourage you to be people of the Word.

I love those people who walk down the street with their five-pound Bible tucked under their arm and say, “I am an evangelical—so what? You don’t like it?” This Bible of mine is almost falling apart, but I love it because it says right here: Pentecostal Study Bible. And I believe in the gifts of the Holy Spirit. I believe that Bibles should be big, heavy, a little ugly, and underlined for them to be truly anointed. That is who I am. I know that young people nowadays use iPads and iPhones; I use them too. But there is nothing like a good, worn-out Bible to remind you that the Word of God is important.

These people continued steadfastly. I like the use of the verb persevere; it is a substantial verb. I looked it up in the dictionary, and it means to remain attached to something. It denotes passion, insistence, persistence, and intensity. Do you know why, brother? Because remaining faithful to doctrine comes at a cost. You will face a thousand temptations to depart from doctrine. In your life, your hormones will push you to depart from doctrine; your temperament will push you to depart from sound doctrine; the difficulties of marriage will push you to depart from sound doctrine; and temptation among the brothers and sisters will as well. We pastors also feel the temptation to depart from sound doctrine because we want to attract people so that they will be saved, and suddenly I am going to change this, I am not going to say this, I am going to say something else.

We must persevere. In other words, we must say, “I am going to bind myself to doctrine, and I will not depart from it, no matter what tries to pull me away from it.” We must stand firm, and if you honor God’s doctrine, God will honor you as well. A church that honors sound doctrine is a church that will prosper and be blessed.

I was thinking about what Paul told Timothy in Timothy—I believe it is chapter 3—quickly, 2 Timothy 3:14. Paul tells Timothy: “But continue.” There it is: persevere. You see that wherever there is this call to doctrine, the call is to persevere, to remain, not to turn away from it, because the temptation will be to turn away from it.

By the way, I am getting bogged down here. It is just that the Word of the Lord is so rich, so good, that you want to move away from it but cannot. There are many seminaries today that depart from sound doctrine. Our daughter Sonia has just graduated from Yale’s School of Management, and while I was there waiting for the graduation and everything else, I remembered that Yale, one of the greatest universities in the world, was founded in the eighteenth century because Harvard—which had been founded as a seminary to prepare men for ministry—had become too liberal and had abandoned doctrine. So the first Puritans and Christians here in the United States founded Yale as a replacement and an alternative to Harvard, so that it would be more doctrinally sound, because even in universities the Word of the Lord was widely taught. They founded Yale; over time, Yale also became liberal, and then they founded Princeton so that it too would be a place where biblical intellectual and spiritual teaching was preached and taught. And over time, Princeton also departed from sound doctrine.

What we have seen in the United States through the centuries is that many of these universities—Dartmouth and Boston University—were founded by Christians who were solid in the faith, but over time they gradually drifted away and abandoned sound doctrine, and we lost those great resources for the Kingdom of God. We built them, and the pagans took them and made them their own because we were not vigilant; we did not persevere. One must persevere in sound doctrine through thick and thin.

And that is why Paul tells Timothy: “But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.” I could preach an entire sermon on that biblical passage right there, but I am not going to—and thank God for that—but at some point I will return to it.

But these Christians persevered, remained steadfast, bolted themselves to sound doctrine, and that is why God blessed them. Second, it says that they also devoted themselves to fellowship with one another, fellowship with one another; that is, there was koinonia—the Greek word is koinonia—deep mutual connection. Koinonia is a very profound word: it is intimacy, companionship, sharing, becoming deeply involved with one another. There was intimate fellowship with one another, unity of mind; they gathered for joint activities for the Kingdom, and there was love among the believers.

Do you know that God sends His blessing where Christians have fellowship, where there is harmony? What does Psalm 133 say? “Behold, how good and how delightful it is for brethren to dwell together in harmony,” and at the end it says: “For there the Lord bestows blessing and eternal life.” No one wants to come to a church where there is gossip, division, criticism, little cliques each sitting off by themselves, conflicts, and simply a lack of fellowship. People want fellowship; the street is cold, and people want a church where people love one another. That is why I tell you, brothers and sisters: love one another.

Invite the person whose ethnicity and customs are most different from your own, because it is very nice when a Dominican invites another Dominican over to eat sancocho, since everyone likes sancocho. But, Dominican, go to the home of a Salvadoran brother and eat some of those delicious pupusas. If anyone wants to invite me over for a pupusa, I will gladly accept; just let me know. Learn to eat the delicious refried beans that Mexicans or Guatemalans make, or the wonderful ripe plantains a Honduran makes with a little cream-and-cheese sauce on top. Learn to eat other people’s food; invite one another over and enjoy yourselves, and learn to eat something different from what you normally eat. Rice, beans, and meat are not everything, brother. There is so much good food in the world. Enjoy yourselves, invite one another over, and appreciate one another, because, as the Lord Jesus Christ says, what good is it supposedly to associate only with people who are the same as you? What merit is there in that? Find someone different from you, live in harmony and fellowship with them, and the Lord will be glorified. Then that becomes a spiritual act, a declaration of the unity of God’s people.

I love diversity; I love trying different foods and seasonings. How many here use cumin in their cooking, or those other flavors from India and Africa? Learn to cook—not everything is garlic, onion, and tomato sauce (laughter). Break away from the ordinary; go to an African store and buy some unusual kind of seasoning there—ginger or cinnamon for cooking. Yes, not only for desserts. It is difficult, but learn.

That fellowship among the brothers and sisters is so beautiful. Philippians 2:3 and 4—Philippians 2, one of the passages I like best—the apostle Paul says: “Complete my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.” That is what God wants from His people, and we must cultivate it. It does not happen by inertia; it happens through intentionality.

“Do nothing through strife or vainglory, but rather in humility let each esteem others as better than himself, each looking not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.” There you have the recipe for a church whose members are in fellowship with one another, and that church then becomes an exceedingly powerful church. Do you know what the greatest apologetic is? Apologetics means that the strongest argument in favor of the Christian faith and the deity of Jesus Christ is the fellowship Christians have with one another.

One of the moving moments in the ministry of Jesus Christ is found in John chapter 16, when Jesus, about to be crucified, prays for His disciples. In that famous high-priestly prayer, Christ says to His Father: “I do not pray for these alone”—John 17:20—“I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word,” those who would come after them, “that they all may be one, as You, O Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us.” Why? “That the world may believe that You sent Me.”

Do you know what? Again, one of the greatest elements of effective evangelism, of an effective church, is precisely that: the unity of the church, the love the brothers and sisters have for one another. And it is not love because we are all the same—the same nationality, the same socioeconomic level or the same color, the same customs. No; it is because, in our diversity, we learn to love and appreciate one another. That unity in the church is tremendously effective. When people see it, they say, “Wow, Jesus Christ truly is who He says He is, because no one else could make this kind of unity possible.”

We must cultivate unity, make an effort to love one another, invite one another over, forgive one another, and protect and preserve the unity of the church. That is why, when I see hints of division in our congregation or anything of that kind, when I see the devil trying to sow seed among us, my ears immediately prick up and my eyes open wide. I have no tolerance for it, because the devil always wants to divide the church, and we cannot tolerate that.

When you see something that is a source and cause of division in the church, either flee from it or confront it lovingly in the Name of the Lord, but do not allow it, because the enemy wants to sow weeds and divide the people of God. Fellowship is very important if we are to be an effective church in evangelism.

So we must persevere in doctrine and have fellowship with one another. And there is a third element associated with this, because this is a logical progression from fellowship: it says that they devoted themselves to the breaking of bread. Again, in 2:42: the apostles’ doctrine, fellowship, and the breaking of bread. What is important, what is significant, about the breaking of bread?

Remember that this was symbolic; it was not so much about the bread or even the act of breaking it. There was much more to it than that. Remember that Jewish bread was not like the bread we have, all soft and sliced, bending every which way. It was somewhat harder bread that they broke and distributed. It was also a sign of fellowship and friendship. The father of the household would break that whole loaf, and it carried a host of symbolic meanings. That is why, before the Lord was crucified, when He gathered for what is called the Last Supper, it says that He took the bread, broke it, gave it to His disciples, and said: Every time you do this—breaking the bread in the intentional way in which I am doing it—do it in memory of Me. Remember Me: just as this bread is broken, My body will also be broken on the cross. They will pierce Me with a spear, they will scourge My back and tear open My skin; they will break Me as I am breaking this bread. And every time you perform that act, remember Me being broken for the salvation of your sins.

That is to say, the breaking of bread meant two things to the early Christians. It was social, because Christians gathered in homes to eat together, and that is why I think it is such a beautiful thing for us to invite one another over. Hospitality is important; we should be generous with one another in sharing food and breaking bread. Christians gathered for the meal known as the agape feast to express love and affection toward one another. And the Lord had encouraged this, because, remember, when these early Christians separated themselves from the Jewish faith and identified with Jesus Christ the Messiah, they sometimes lost their family relationships. Their families were like Jewish families today: when an Orthodox Jew, or Jews who take their faith seriously, leave the Jewish faith and convert to Christianity, there are still many Jewish parents who mourn, remove every reminder of that young person’s or that individual’s life, and act as though the person had died. They mourn and tear their garments because that person has left the family, and they reject that person completely. So these new Christians needed fellowship; they needed a family. They therefore gathered in homes to worship, ate together, and shared a social life, but they also remembered Christ’s sacrifice on the cross of Calvary.

But when the Bible says here that they continued in the breaking of bread, a series of associations surrounded that act. It meant expressing love toward one another and having intimacy and fellowship, but it also meant remembering Christ’s sacrifice, remembering the centrality of Jesus, and remembering the saving work of the cross. That is something we too must do continually: remember the centrality of what Christ did on the cross of Calvary, which is what Holy Communion represents—His blood shed for us on the cross of Calvary and His body broken for us. That is what gives us entrance into the Kingdom of God.

And I have no problem with brothers and sisters gathering in their homes, perhaps very deliberately, having a meal, remembering and praying, and saying, “You know what, Lord? We dedicate what we are doing to You, and we remember the blood and the body of Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary.”

The center of the Christian life is the Grace of God being poured out upon us. Salvation does not come through anything we can do, but because Christ gave Himself on the cross of Calvary, because salvation is free. I hope you are saying amen there, even if only inwardly. Salvation is by grace; it is what Christ did on the cross of Calvary. And these Christians broke bread in obedience to what the Lord had commanded them to do. It is important for the church to have these meaningful rituals—Holy Communion, worship, and all these things that are important because they keep us united. And in that act of coming together to remember the blood of Christ and Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, there is great power and great meaning.

Finally, these Christians persisted in the prayers. The fourth element of the effective church is prayer. Now, that expression, “the prayers,” is also very significant, and verses 46 and 47 give us a broader picture of what is stated here in very basic terms. It says: “Continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread,” as it says, “from house to house, they ate together with gladness and simplicity of heart,” and it says: “praising God and having favor with all the people.” That “praising God” also refers to those prayers, because when these people prayed, they did not gather only to pray, but also to praise.

When we look at certain moments involving these Christians—for example, in Acts chapter 13—we see a time when the disciples joined together, it says, to minister to the Lord. And there the Holy Spirit spoke and said: “Set apart for Me Paul and Silas for the work to which I have appointed them.” There was a moment of prophecy and the laying on of hands, and Paul and Silas went out from there to preach the Gospel.

The early Christians gathered to pray in one place, and it says that the place shook when these Christians prayed and cried out to the Lord. On another occasion, when Peter and John had been imprisoned, the Christians joined together to pray that the Lord would free them and bring them out of prison. In fact, right in the middle of the meeting, Peter appeared there after having been freed by an angel. The Christians gathered for everything; they came together, and that expression, “the prayers,” refers to congregational life, the life of gathering and praying.

These early Christians had a very basic life of prayer, didn’t they? They did not have Bibles; they did not have instruments like the ones we have; they did not have LED screens. No, they gathered, and the only thing they had was—actually, they did not even have the New Testament. What is more, they did not have a scroll containing the Word of God; that was something only the rich or a priest possessed. Nowadays you can buy a Bible for $1.50; back then it cost them a year’s salary. So they simply gathered to pray, to sing something that some little brother.

I remember those beautiful little choruses the church used to sing 50 years ago, and what delightful and anointed choruses they were! Nowadays we have hundreds of songs, and I believe that many of them do not compare with some of those powerful choruses. “There Is No God as Great as You”—they can take all the others, but leave me that one. Those little choruses had testosterone; they had spiritual protein because they were created by people filled with the Holy Spirit. And these Christians gathered like that to worship together in a very basic way, but they prayed and cried out to the Lord.

This Friday we had one of the prayer meetings we have been holding on Fridays. Do you know that we left after two in the morning? I honestly thought it was around midnight; I had not looked at my watch, but it was two in the morning when we left. The Lord manifested Himself with such power in that small meeting that we could almost touch His Presence. When it reached eleven-thirty at night, we were already preparing to leave, and that was when the Lord saved the best wine for last. With my spiritual eyes I could see the Lord in His garment, with a sash fastened around Him. I did not see Him visibly with my physical eyes, but I saw Him with my spirit and felt His Presence there. And we entered into a time of worship lasting more than two hours, simply praising the Lord because we felt that the Lord was there and had visited us. His Presence was there, almost bodily.

And I know that there we accomplished great things; during that time of prayer, we had a time of spiritual warfare, proclaiming the Lordship of Christ over the city and over the region, proclaiming the power of the Gospel, and tearing down principalities and powers. I know that, even if it was only two or three demons, we cut their heads off there on Friday night, you know?

God moved. When the Church of Christ unites, the Lord says: Where two or three are gathered in My Name, there I am, hallelujah, and whatever you bind on earth I will bind in heaven; whatever you loose in heaven I will loose. If the Church only knew the power we have when we come together and say: This session is now open—like when, in a court of law or a government, the presiding official brings down his gavel and, boom, says: We are now in session to deal with the affairs of the Kingdom of God—and when the Church of Christ gathers in session to pray, bind, loose, declare, release, and declare things in the realm of the Spirit, God honors it from His Throne.

If the Church prayed more, if the Church worshiped more, if we devoted more time to coming together as the people of God, the world would change in an instant, evangelism would become much easier, and the anointing of God would flow more freely. Four simple yet very powerful things for a Church that wants to be effective in evangelism: persevering in the doctrine, breaking bread with one another, having intimate fellowship with one another, and, finally, praying and worshiping the Lord in spirit and in truth.

Brother, let that enter your heart right now; receive it in the Name of Jesus, receive it in the Name of Jesus. Doctrine, fellowship, sharing bread, the cross of Christ, and remaining steadfast in that prayer, in that worship which is so important. God grant that, as I point out these things to our Church and preach them, I may say: Lord, make them part of my life, make them part of my Congregation; may we never stray from them, Lord.

Now, Father, let Your Word enter deep into our hearts; we receive it. As I preach it, Father, I ask You to make it a reality at León de Judá until Christ comes. We want to be an effective Church, and we want these qualities to take root and become a structural part of our life as a Congregation. Let it be so, Father. We thank You for what Christ has done on the cross of Calvary, in the Name of Jesus; and we say: amen. I bless you, my brothers and sisters. May the Grace of the Lord be with you this morning.