Our Redeemer Lutheran Church
Quincy, IL
Rev. Larry D. Troxel
The Fourth Sunday of Easter
Sunday, April 13, 2008 at 8:00 and 10:15 a.m
“Marks of the True Church:
Word and Sacraments Produce New Life”
(Acts 2:42–47)
In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Self-improvement is big business in bookstores, in health care, and in home improvement projects.
I enjoy the home improvement person on television who always concludes his segment by saying,
“You can do this stuff.” Over the years, I have learned that doing home improvement
projects is not one of the gifts God has given me. It simply is a matter of good stewardship that I
contract with the person or groups of persons to whom God has given the gifts and abilities to do
carpentry, plumbing, and electrical work.
The real problem with self-improvement in matters of faith and life is that
self-improvement is impossible. We are powerless to improve ourselves because
we have been corrupted by sin. It is true that we have been born again in Christ Jesus through Holy Baptism1
and clothed with His righteousness.2 It is true that God fully and
completely has forgiven all our sin for Jesus’ sake and never will mention our sins to us.3
Still, the fact remains that as long as we are in this life, we are both sinners and saints at the same time.
The Apostle Paul made this clear when he said of himself, “I know that nothing good dwells in me,
that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.”4
That is exactly where you and I live every day. We have the desire to live a godly life but we do not have
the ability to accomplish it. In spiritual matters, self-improvement is impossible. Clearly,
we need help. We need, if you will, an outside spiritual contractor.
That is exactly what God in His grace has given us. The outside contractor whom God has given us is
the Third Person of the Holy Trinity, God the Holy Spirit. He accomplishes in us what we are powerless
to do for ourselves. So Saint Paul wrote, “If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells
in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit
who dwells in you.”5 What is God the Holy Spirit doing in your life and
mine? He constantly is at work on a complete spiritual rebuilding of our entire being and of our entire life.
And like any expert contractor, He always uses just the right tools in just the right way to achieve the result
that is pleasing to Him and amazing to us.
We see those tools being employed in the very first Christians in the very first Christian congregation.
Holy Scripture tells us that those Christians “devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and
fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.”6
The word “devoted” means that they “continually adhered with strength” to God’s
Word and Sacraments. They were persistent; they were busily engaged in; they were faithful in using
the tools by which God the Holy Spirit was at work in their lives. This involved not just Sunday morning.
They daily gathered at the Temple, most likely at the scheduled hours of prayer, the daily devotional
services at the temple. The reason they did this is the important thing. They were not simply following
the rules, doing what they were told to do. They gathered daily with one another around God’s Word
as part of their thankful response to God for the grace with which He had flooded their lives. God the Holy
Spirit brought into their lives a new motivation and new priorities. He produced in them that continual
adherence to God’s Word and Sacraments.
It was the grace of God that had brought the Gospel into their lives. Through Holy Baptism and through
the preaching and teaching done by Peter and the other apostles, they had received God’s gift of
saving faith in Christ Jesus. Their lives were being changed in ways that amazed them and produced a
positive witness to the Gospel among the rest of the populace of Jerusalem.
So we gather regularly around God’s Word and Sacraments. We do so for the same reason that
those first Christians did the same thing. We are responding to the grace God has poured so abundantly
into our lives. We are hungering and thirsting for the powerful working of God the Holy Spirit to accomplish
His purposes in us.
Four things were the heart and core of the life of those first Christians and of that first congregation.
They remain the most essential part of our individual lives and of the life of this congregation. These four
things set us and any Christian congregation apart in sharp distinction from all human clubs, societies,
and organizations.
God’s people continually adhere with strength to the preaching and teaching of God’s Word.
What Acts 2:42 calls “the apostles’ teaching” is what we know as the New Testament.
What the apostles taught orally in the first congregation is what God the Holy Spirit led them to write in the
books of the New Testament. Yes, there is Law in what the apostles taught and wrote. We need it so that
God the Holy Spirit can expose our sin to us and lead us in knowing and living the standards of the Christian
life. And yes, the Gospel predominates in what the apostles taught and wrote. For it is the Good News of the
great redemption that Christ Jesus, our Good Shepherd, accomplished for us that transforms us, every day
making us new in Christ,7 and giving us both the motive and the ability to live
according to God’s Word and will. God’s people continually adhere with strength to “the
fellowship,” which is something far greater than just getting together with your friends for a potluck
supper or some other activity. The New Testament meaning of “fellowship” is what we have
in common in connection with Christ Jesus, what the Apostle Paul had in mind when he wrote: “There
is one body and one Spirit — just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call —
one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.”8
Because our fellowship is in Christ Jesus, we are a spiritual body, inwardly one in faith in Christ Jesus, inwardly
and outwardly united by confessing Christ and by adhering to the one doctrine of Christ that was taught by the
apostles. That means each of us needs to know in detail the faith that we believe and confess. We need to know
how to share that faith with others. And because we seek to remain faithful l to all the Holy Scripture teaches, we
need to know how the faith that we confess differs from what others who call themselves Christians teach and
confess. It is for the sake of preserving the fellowship, the unity we have in Christ Jesus, that we need to continually
adhere with strength to the preaching and teaching of God’s Word, in worship services, in Sunday School
and Bible Classes, and in during-the-week Bible studies.
God’s people continually adhere with strength to “the breaking of bread.” That is the New
Testament term for the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. The first Christian congregation continually
adhered with strength to the Holy Sacrament by celebrating it every Lord’s Day, every Sunday. We do
the same because we desire and receive the very same thing they desired and received, that is, the assurance
that we are God’s children, born again in Christ, with our sins completely forgiven for Jesus’ sake,
and with the Holy Spirit continuing to live in us to accomplish Christ-centered spiritual growth. And it is in the
Lord’s Supper that we give the most full and profound expression of our fellowship with Christ Jesus
and with one another. It is for that very reason that our communion fellowship is with those with whom we are
in complete doctrinal agreement.
God’s people continually adhere with strength to “the prayers.” By that expression Scripture
means more than our rather limited understanding of prayer. After Jesus’ ascension, His followers included
not just the eleven surviving apostles but also the women and Jesus’ half-brothers and others,9
a group of about 120.10 The Bible tells us that “with one accord [they] were
devoting themselves to prayer.” Certainly, they were approaching God’s throne of grace with
thanksgivings and requests. Certainly they also were reminding one another of what Jesus had taught them and
had done for them. In other words, they were gathering for devotions, for God’s Word as well as for what
we usually mean by the word “prayer.” Still today, both on Sundays and at other times during the week,
God’s people spend devotional time, reading and hearing God’s Word and approaching God’s
throne of grace with thanksgivings as well as requests.
The dominant feature in the life of God’s people always is continual adherence with strength to God’s
Word and Sacraments. And God the Holy Spirit accomplishes in us and through us what He accomplished in and
through the members of that first Christian congregation. With self-sacrificing generosity God’s people care
for one another in our times of need, just as those first Christians cared for one another. And we receive God’s
providential care and His gracious blessings, just as those first Christians received them. We receive God’s
gracious blessings “with glad and generous hearts, praising God,” and living a positive witness to our
Savior in the presence of all the people. And the Lord continues to add to our number day by day those who are being
saved.11
This is something far greater self-improvement. This is the amazing grace of God the Holy Spirit who
is at work in us and through us in our community and world. He does His work in us through His Word and Sacraments
and our lives are filled with the joy that He gives us in Christ Jesus. Amen.