First century church vs today's church

My sermon yesterday came from Acts 2: 41-47 in which we read about the rapid growth of the first century church. On the day of Pentecost the church grew from 120 to 3,000, and after that we read that the church grew daily as the Lord added to the church. It seems that it would be wise to see what the church was doing to experience that kind of growth. I'll just highlight four things we see in our text that led to this amazing growth.

• They devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles. This church had absolute confidence in the authority and integrity of the Word of God. They were not dependent on what the media told them. They weren't concerned with the latest poll or what the government thought about their doctrine. They could care less about what the politically correct crowd thought. They were focused on the teaching of the apostles. Remember..they didn't have Bibles. They didn't have Sunday school literature. They had only the teaching of the apostles.
• They experienced life-changing worship. The text indicated they gathered every day for worship, and this was apparently spirited worship that touched their hearts and souls. Worship should be both a noun and a verb. Worship should allow you to not only glorify God but to enable you to experience God in a way that is meaningful to you. Such worship not only blessed the new believers, but the non-believers were touched by it as well. The text said they had favor with all the people.
• They had caring relationships with other believers. They shared meals together; they shared communion together; and they shared their resources with anyone who had need. People were more important to them than possessions. Again, even those outside the church were touched by this generosity they saw in these early Christians.
• They were a praying church that saw great signs and wonders performed by God. Remember, Jesus said His house shall be called a house of prayer. No matter how big or small a church might be, it can never be a great church if it is not a praying church. Maybe you are one who doubts that God does miracles today. Let me remind you that in Matthew 13 we find that Jesus could not do many miracles in some places due to their lack of faith. I wonder whose fault it is if we are not seeing God do miracles today. Has God changed, or have we?

This early church had none of the conveniences today's church has. They had no buildings, no paid staff, no seminaries, no Bibles, no parking lots, no organs and choirs, no social media, and the list goes on. The amazing thing is that the places we read about today where the church is growing the fastest are those places that still don't have many of the conveniences we have today. They have the same things as the first century church. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with what we have, but I am suggesting that it might not be enough. Maybe all our churches really needs is to make sure we are doing the same things the first century church was doing and give the Holy Spirit freedom to work in our midst. It seemed to work for them.