Keep it Simple

A Bible. A church family. Maybe a songbook and a catechism. And plenty of time. Can you think of anything else you absolutely need in order to walk with and grow in the Lord? Other things can be beneficial, of course (like good Christian books, which would be a big bonus item on the list!). But we really don’t need all that many resources, events, activities, and plans in order to bask in the gospel and move forward in the faith, do we? Indeed, there is a tipping point at which addition eventually becomes subtraction! A kitchen, or a tool shed, can only be so full of equipment before the clutter begins to be unwieldy and inefficient. Now, with more gear, you’re actually getting less done!

The same is true with our Christian endeavors. Too many resources, activities, and irons in the fire is a recipe either for burnout, or for hop-skipping from thing to thing without ever drinking all that deeply at any of them. Either way, you end up with diminishing returns – more activity, but less fruit. Which is better – to dip your toe, week-to-week, into a dozen different books, reading plans, devotionals, studies, small groups, podcasts, and blogs? Or to drink steadily, deeply, and (sometimes) even slowly at the same life-giving streams at which the saints have found their thirst quenched for century upon century?

Many of us, of course, are hustling and bustling over things far less valuable, even, than the spiritual game of hopscotch I’ve just decried. And when we realize that we are chasing our tails, the tendency is to think that, instead of all this secular busyness, we need to get spiritually busy instead! But the solution is not to just baptize your frenzy. The solution is not to just leap onto a different and more spiritual sort of hamster wheel! Delightfully, the solution to the delirious pace of modern life is to take a deep breath and slow down; and to clear out the tool shed, so to speak – to streamline; to get back to basics!

So what are the basics? What do you really need to be doing, on a regular basis, to bask in the gospel and to grow in grace? Space forbids me elaborating, but (fitting for an article about simplicity!) how about a bullet-point list?

• Corporate worship and teaching, weekly (Heb. 10:24-25)
• Corporate prayer, weekly (Acts 2:42)
• Meaningful Christian fellowship, weekly (Acts 2:46)
• Meaningful Christian service, periodically (Eph. 4:11-12)
• The Lord’s Supper, periodically (1 Cor. 11:23-26)
• Family worship, daily (Deut. 6:6-9)
• Personal worship, daily (Mark 1:25)

I hope the simplicity here is refreshing! Very few resources are required for such a regimen, right? A Bible. A church home. Maybe a songbook and a catechism. And then a few other incidentals, like maybe paper, pen, etc. Other things may be helpful. But they are not usually needful!

But what definitely is needful is time! You cannot follow through on these basic biblical commitments if your life is so frantic that you only have 5 and 10 minute windows in which to try and wedge your spiritual disciplines. You must have blocks of time – uninterrupted and unhurried! Time! This is the resource that we moderns need to stock up on most of all! All the other resources are easy enough to get our hands on. But will we carve out time for using them? Will we stop running the American rat-race, or sitting down all night in front of our American TV’s … and streamline our schedules so as to drink deeply at Christ’s well? We’d find such simplicity refreshing if we did!

And, while we’re talking about the refreshing streamlining of our lives, can I say that so much of our time and busyness problems would be solved if we would only “remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.” If we’d set Sunday aside – free from work, shopping, laundry, chores, ballgames, TV, and so on – we’d have all the time in the world for the first five bullet points above! Even if we hadn’t time to get together with other believers, or visit the sick, or serve the church during the week … we’d have a whole day for doing so every Sunday! We’d often have time for the ‘bonus’ resource of good Christian books, too!  And so, if the seven bullet points above seem like a lot ... the reality is that, if we just kept the sabbath, most of these blessings we would be able to provide for ourselves in a single, unhurried, restful day!  That's why the Puritans called Sunday 'the market day of the soul'!  Because, if we use it as it was intended, we will be able to garner, in one trip to market (so to speak), so much of what we need to live on for the rest of the week!  Talk about simplifying our lives!  And if we trained ourselves to say ‘no’ to the hamster wheel on Sunday, then we’d find it even all the easier to jump off of it, at the appropriate times, during the rest of the week as well … making family and personal worship not so difficult-to-find-time-for as we might currently think!

There is a rhythm to the Christian life – both daily and weekly. And it’s generally far less like the frenetic beat of techno music, and far more like the gentle, steady lapping of waves upon the seashore. I hope that’s a relief to you! Jesus’ yoke is easy, not hard-driving; and His pace is usually steady, not hurried! And so get into His steady, slow, and simple rhythm, and you will find that the Christian life is not all that complex. Difficult sometimes, yes! But not complicated! Just keep it simple.

The Prayer Meeting

My friend Anthony recently commented that:

True churches are sustained by prayer meetings.
Churches are strengthened by prayer meetings.

I assume, since he’s recently begun preaching on the book of Acts, that his study of that book is what prompted these observations. And they are right on! For, when one reads the book of Acts, the importance of corporate prayer is an inescapable theme. Gathered prayer is vital to the health and strength of the local church! And so, allow me to make three pleas regarding the prayer meeting:

1. Start a prayer meeting. Every church should have a prayer meeting. That may sound a little strong, me suggesting that every church should hold this particular kind of service (especially when many churches do not). But it seems an inevitable conclusion that we must draw if we believe that the book of Acts gives us a paradigm for church life. The church, as God designed it, includes regular gatherings for corporate prayer. Maybe in larger churches, that will mean having several smaller prayer meetings available throughout the week (or corporate prayer as a significant component of small group meetings). In smaller churches, church-wide prayer meetings are easily feasible, and greatly helpful (nor are they impossible in larger churches). God hears prayer! Christ is in our midst when even two or three of us are gathered! Fellowship is strengthened as we pray together! And on and on we could go, listing the benefits of a prayer meeting … such that, if you are in a position of influence in your local church, I plead with you to try and begin a prayer meeting. Not a Bible study with a little prayer tagged on somewhere, but a whole meeting (or a very significant portion of a meeting) dedicated entirely to prayer! Maybe only a few people will come at first. But all you need is “two or three”! So get going, and see what God does!

2. Attend the prayer meeting. Can I urge you to make use of the prayer meeting that your church (hopefully) provides every week? Prioritize it. Venture out to it. Give it a try! Even if you don’t say anything out loud for the first little while, you will benefit so much from hearing other saints pray; from learning on what is on your fellow believers’ hearts; and from discovering needs in their lives that you can both pray for, and sometimes that you can ask about or help meet throughout the remainder of the week. Iain Murray has said that no pastor has ever come to his death bed lamenting that he prayed too much. And no Christian, I think, will come to his dying day thinking he spent too much time praying with other believers. So prioritize the prayer meeting. You won’t be sorry!

3. Actively participate in the prayer meeting. I said, under the last heading, that you can benefit greatly from the prayer meeting even if you don’t pray aloud yourself. Just hearing the prayers is worthwhile! But let us not stay, forever, in hearing mode only. Let us also join in! We can do this in two different ways. 

One is simply that, even without praying aloud, you can add your quiet agreement by praying along with brothers and sisters silently, and ‘amen-ing’ their praises and petitions quietly in your own mind and heart. Indeed, you should do this even if you do pray aloud! Let not your out-loud prayers be the only ones you offer when the saints are gathered before God’s throne of grace! 

But then let me also urge you to participate, if you don’t already, by praying aloud, too! Bless the gathering by allowing others to hear you pray. Not for the sake of attention (Matthew 6:5-6), or because your prayers are so exemplary and awe-inspiring! But so that others can quietly ‘amen’ your humble and simple requests, and be encouraged by your heartbeat for God. Your vocal participation need not be long or eloquent – just Christ-reliant and sincere. At PRBC, it is a blessing, during the first (large-group) part of our prayer meeting, that we have a handful people who are always willing and able to participate in this way. But there are many others – who have something to contribute, and whose hearts we would all benefit from hearing – who remain almost perpetually silent during that time. If that is you, know that we want to hear you pray, and to join in quiet agreement with you! Indeed, it is to the group’s loss if we do not benefit from your prayers. So I urge you, those who often remain silent in the large group time – chime in! God delights when His people come to Him in prayer. And so do the rest of His people!

"Prayer"

Prayer is the final item in Luke’s listing of the core commitments of the early church at Jerusalem:

“They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.”

And thus it is that prayer will also be the subject of the final article in this series on what I have come to think of, from the verse above, as a blueprint for the church. Life in the first church in Jerusalem was so dynamic, so attractive, so powerful … and yet so very simple. Luke simply tells us of four key – but very ordinary – means of grace to which the disciples devoted themselves. And in the hand of the Holy Spirit, these commitments made for a mighty testimony to the goodness and power of God in the gospel! And I am convinced that something similar will happen today as churches return to these very simple Christian basics – “the apostles’ teaching … fellowship … the breaking of bread and … prayer.”

Now what does it mean that the early disciples were committed to “prayer”? Well, surely this meant that the various members of the church were committed to private prayer. Surely we can picture them following the instructions of Jesus to get alone in a private place, and to cry out to God personally. But it’s also worth noting the corporate nature of the other three bullet points in the early church’s list of core values. Surely, in those days before the printing press and the Bible app, much of the Christians' intake of “the apostles’ teaching” took place when they were gathered together in groups. And, of course, “the breaking of bread” (or the Lord’s Supper) is not a private affair. And “fellowship,” by its very nature, must involve a group. And I say all of that to say that, if the other three core commitments were all group-oriented, then it seems highly likely that the “prayer” that Luke speaks of at the end of v.42 was also often a group activity as well!

The early church (and not just in Jerusalem) was committed to corporate prayer; to praying together! The book of Acts mentions a few occasions of this sort. And, as I said last week, it also natural to assume, given the amount of time the believers at Jerusalem spent in one another’s homes, surely these gatherings, too, sometimes became impromptu prayer meetings. And it’s likely, I think, that many such prayer meetings were not impromptu, but planned!

And surely this must be the spirit of the church in every era! Surely the church’s commitment to corporate prayer – whether in homes, or weekly prayer meetings, or in special seasons of prayer – is one of her highest privileges and greatest sources of our spiritual success! Surely it is a praying church that is a spiritually dynamic church! And conversely, it is certainly also many times true that we, as churches, “do not have because [we] do not ask” (James 4:2). And so I plead with you, brothers and sisters, to give yourself to prayer with other believers! Attend your church's prayer meeting (or seek to get one started, if there is no such thing in your congregation)! Pray together when you gather in your homes! Join with your church family in prayer when urgent needs come across the electronic wires during the week. Continually devote yourself, with your local church, “to prayer.”

Spiritual growth is not a complex thing. There are no secrets or hidden keys. We desperately need, first of all, to be born again and united to Christ by faith. We need the ongoing breeze of the Holy Spirit in our sails, empowering us and keeping us moving forward. And we need, very simply, to follow the blueprint of the church in first century Jerusalem – “continually devoting [our]selves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.”

"Fellowship"

Welcome to part 4 in a series of articles on that simple, beautiful summary of the core commitments of the first century church at Jerusalem (Acts 2:42):

“They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.”

Here was one of the great reasons for the dynamism of that church; for its generosity, power, evangelistic success and so on. They simply focused on the main things, and indeed devoted themselves to some basic (and really quite ordinary) means of receiving God’s grace. And there is a lesson in that – especially in our ‘big event’ culture. It’s the ordinary means of grace – practiced week in and week out – that make the greatest impact in our Christian growth. And one of those ordinary means of grace is what Luke calls “fellowship” – or, as we might say it, doing life together.

Here is one of the commitments that was at the core of the Jerusalem church’s spiritual health – simply that its members did life together! And, of course, given the other commitments that we read about in Acts 2:42, I think it is to be understood that doing life together didn’t just mean sharing a meal and chewing the fat; or talking about the game or the weather. Surely the word “fellowship” implies that we do life together in the gospel; that, when Christians gather, they gather as Christians – which doesn’t mean that we don’t talk about the game, or the weather, or the grass we are trying to grow around back of our homes. Of course we talk about these things with those who are our spiritual family! But fellowship surely implies that we talk earnestly and willingly and naturally about other things, too – what God is teaching us, how we need his help, how we can pray for one another, what we got out of the sermon, and so on. And surely if Christians are gathered around the dinner tables and on the couches, doing life together … surely if this is the case, then there will also be occasions for spontaneous prayer! And certainly there will be accountability as well, and sometimes admonishment from one brother or sister to another.

Furthermore, doing life together in the gospel means offering practical help for those in need. Fellowship also means that we will be so involved in and informed about the lives of fellow church members that it will simply be reflex to weep when they weep, and rejoice when they rejoice, and grieve when they stumble – just like these things are reflex in our biological families. One phrase I have used for this, over the years, is that true Christian fellowship means that we are helpfully tangled up in one another’s lives! Tangled up – meaning that what affects you also, of necessity, affects me … because our lives are so closely interwoven. But helpfully tangled up so that our lives are interwoven in accountability, and love, and encouragement … and not in the intrusions of a busybody!

And yet, in our fear of becoming (or worse, being under the surveillance of) a busybody … we must, must, must not throw the baby out with the bathwater! We simply must be woven deeply into one another’s lives! That doesn’t mean that you will have a tightknit friendship with every person in your church's pews. That is probably not possible, even in small churches. But there ought to be a handful of people that you get to know really well over the years; and many others with whom you are regularly in contact, and in prayer; and no one, in a church of small to medium size, whom you do not eventually know by name!

This may sound like a challenge to many of us. And it is! It requires effort and hard work to truly become a church family. But it is well worth it! And it is biblical. And the church in Jerusalem considered it foundational, and normal, and joyful! “They were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart” (Acts 2:46). Let us strive to do the same!

"The breaking of bread"

This is now part 3 in a series of five articles on that marvelous summary of early church commitments, found in Acts 2:42:

“They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.”

Now I realize that, by writing about “the breaking of bread,” I am taking Luke’s four bullet points out of order. I do so because this coming Sunday is the day when we, at Pleasant Ridge Baptist Church, break the bread of the Lord’s Supper – and I wanted the article to correspond to the event!

And this is, I believe, what Luke has in mind with that phrase “the breaking of bread” – he is informing us that the Lord’s Supper was a big deal in the Jerusalem Church! The church family, of course, broke bread in other ways as well – “taking their meals together” in one another’s homes (v.46). But, since v.42 also notes the church’s commitment to “fellowship” (which likely includes such daily meal times), it seems likely that, when Luke says that the Jerusalem church committed itself to “the breaking of bread,” he is now thinking of the communion table, and not just the daily dinner table.

So the Jerusalem church was committed to remembering the broken body and shed blood of Jesus by means of the Lord’s Supper. How often? Luke doesn’t tell us exactly. The word “continually” in Acts 2:42 leads me to think that communion was celebrated quite frequently in Jerusalem. And yet churches today vary, one from another, on the frequency of their own local practice … without, I think, being unfaithful to the spirit of the early church practice. I have known of churches that meaningfully celebrate the supper weekly, monthly, quarterly, and twice yearly. And, so long as the frequency is purposeful and meaningful, all is well. Both the weekly or monthly incorporation of the Supper into the regular rhythm of church life, and the more spread out remembrances which become the focus of an entire service (or even of an entire weekend in some corners of the Christian world) can fit quite well under the description of devotion.

But the big question, in my mind, is why. Why was the church at Jerusalem so serious about the Lord’s Supper? Were they simply lovers of rite and ritual? The other descriptions we have of New Testament church life would not lead us to that conclusion. And so I conclude, rather, that the believers in Jerusalem were so into the Lord’s Supper because they never wanted to forget what Jesus had done for them! They never wanted to forget the cross, and the atonement, and the price of their redemption! They never wanted to forget, in the words of the popular hymn by Keith Getty and Stuart Townend that it is “in Christ alone” that our “hope is found.” In fact, this was one of their key commitments as a church – what we today might call gospel-centeredness!

And, oh, how we in the 21st century church must learn from them! At the very core of our faith is the person and work of Jesus Christ – and particularly His work on the cross! And everything that we do must be flavored with this central reality! Of course that means that we ought to devote ourselves to the meaningful remembrance of His death by means of the communion bread and cup. But the central and simple truths of the gospel must also permeate every service, every sermon, every season of corporate prayer, and even (as my friend Gary Wilkins taught me) every set of songs. Can we gather together as a church – to sing, pray, and preach – and not find some place for singing, praying, and preaching about Jesus and His cross? “This is all my hope and peace” wrote Robert Lowry! And the early church understood that – and worked the regular remembrance of Jesus’ broken body and shed blood into the warp and woof of their church. And, oh, how we will benefit and rejoice if we do the same; if we will be purposefully, devotedly, continually gospel-centered!

"The apostles' teaching"

I began, last week, a series of articles on that marvelous blueprint for the church that is Acts 2:42:

“They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.”

And I said that it seems to me that here the Lord has given us a very simple set or priorities which will make for a healthy, growing church … if we will commit to them, and trim away any fat; any extraneous activities which may seem to some people like good ideas, but which do not actually fit the blueprint for a gospel church. A healthy, dynamic, spiritually-minded church is not a complex thing! If, with the help of the Holy Spirit, we will simply take up the blueprint of Acts 2:42, surely we would be and become what God intends for the church to be!

And the first commitment in that blueprint is a continual devotion to “the apostles’ teaching” – to the words that the apostles preached and taught.

Now, of course, the church in Jerusalem (about whom Acts 2:42 was written) had the apostles with them every day, live and in the flesh. And so their devotion to the apostles’ teaching was, at the first, a devotion to the oral instruction they were receiving from them day-by-day. But we, of course (like every church from the second century on), do not have live access to the apostles. And yet we do still have their teaching! Because we have their writings, on the pages of the New Testament. And we also have the writings from which they did a good bit of their preaching – namely, the Old Testament. And so, in the 66 books of our Bibles, we have “the apostles’ teaching” indeed! And, what with all our modern literacy, and access to the printed page, and phone apps, and online preaching and teaching … we can hear the apostles’ teaching even more readily than the people in Jerusalem! Any time, day or night, we may hear what Paul, Peter, John, Isaiah, Moses, and Jesus said!

But are we devoted to the word of God like the church in Jerusalem? “They were continually devoting themselves to the apostle’s teaching” (emphasis added). Are we? Do we open our Bibles nearly as often as we should? Are we eager to hear the preaching and teaching of the word in our local church? And, beyond just intake, are we devoted to believing and doing something about what we read and hear? Praise God, some of us are! Others of us have been, in the past … but have lost our taste for divine things. The television, the smartphone apps, the hypnotic glow of the electronic screen have deceived us, and taken us away from that which is best. Indeed, I find myself convicted as I type.

And so, is it any wonder if we should not see the sort of dynamic fruit that the church in Jerusalem saw (Acts 2:43-47)? O, brothers and sisters, let us return to that which is most obvious of all – to study, meditation, obedience, and just plain enjoyment of the word of God! Haven’t you known times when, whether reading or listening, the word of God has come to you with pure delight? The more we give ourselves to it, the more often this will happen! And that is what makes for a spiritually dynamic church!

A Blueprint for the Church

One of the first Bible passages from which I ever preached – and one that I have returned to again and again through the years – is Acts 2:42 …

“They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.”

It has long seemed to me that here, in this one sentence, the Lord has given us a kind of blueprint for the church. Of course, there are many other things that can (and must!) be said about the church (see, for instance, Mark Dever’s Nine Marks of a Healthy Church, and also the 9marks.org website). But it seems to me that any church would do quite well by ordering its activities and priorities around the four bullet points in Acts 2:42!

The early church at Jerusalem was perhaps the most dynamic church in history. Read the next few verses after Acts 2:42 … and you’ll find a marvelous description of miracles, generosity, community, joy, praise, respect in the community, and evangelistic growth. What church in its right mind wouldn’t want to be like the Jerusalem fellowship?

But how did they get there? Well, the primary reason for the strength and dynamism of the Jerusalem church was the unusually powerful working of the Holy Spirit in those early days. By blessing them with what we would call revival, God was getting the new covenant community off on a very strong foot indeed! Let’s pray for revival in our midst, too! But let’s also notice that, under the immense blessing of the Holy Spirit, there were also some very practical commitments that enabled the church at Jerusalem to be as strong as it was – “the apostles’ teaching … fellowship … the breaking of bread and … prayer.” And it’s no accident that Luke (and the Holy Spirit through him) chose to tell us of these primary commitments … and to stack them end to end in a list, so that we would notice and remember them all the more easily!

God wants us to have these priorities as well! And it has been my conviction for all these years that, really, everything we do in our local churches ought to fall under one of these four categories. There are many things that a church can be involved in. But, if the activities we plan and the priorities we make do not fit with the blueprint of Acts 2:42, it seems to me that we are spinning our wheels at best, and becoming utterly distracted at worst.

The church is a spiritual body – not a social club, an affinity group, or a political or social action team. And yet churches can easily degenerate into the latter categories, or (more often) into a hybrid of the two. But we must remain focused! And it is not difficult to do, really. The Lord has given us a very simple blueprint which, if followed, will lead to spiritual health and growth in our churches as well. And I say we commit to this simplistic model of church, stripping away all the extraneous distractions. Trim the fat, in other words … so as to be a simple, focused, purposeful, spiritual body of believers.

Stay with me for the next four weeks, and we’ll unpack just what we should be doing. And, by the end, may it be said of us: “They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.”