Four Foundations of the Church

Cornerstone Chapel - Audio Podcast

Cornerstone Chapel

Religion & Spirituality, Christianity

4.9 • 900 Ratings

🗓️ 19 February 2023

⏱️ 45 minutes

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Summary

In 1869, the tallest lighthouse in America was built in Cape Hatteras, NC. It was built ½ mile from the coast, but after more than a hundred years of beach erosion, the Army Corps of Engineers had to relocate the lighthouse another ½ mile inland. The erosion threatened the foundation of the lighthouse. In a similar way, the Church is to be like a lighthouse—guiding people, warning people, and helping people to get safely home to Jesus. But unfortunately, there has been a slow erosion of some of the foundational elements of the Church that threaten the Church’s ability to be that beacon of light that we are called to be. In Acts 2:42, we learn about four foundational elements that defined the Early Church—things that should still define the Church today. Find out what they are and how our church endeavors to stay on solid ground.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Let's go here now to Acts chapter two as we open up our Bibles and we'll close out chapter
0:04.4	two of Acts. We're going to be looking at verses 40 to 47. So if you'll follow along as I read,
0:11.5	Acts 2 starting at verse 40. And with many other words, he, that is Peter, who has been
0:19.5	preaching here, with many other words, he testified and exhorted
0:24.0	them saying, be saved from this perverse generation. Then those who gladly received his word were
0:30.0	baptized, and that day about 3,000 souls were added to them. And they continued steadfastly in the
0:36.6	Apostle's doctrine and in fellowship,
0:39.6	in the breaking of bread, and in prayers. And then fear came upon every soul, and many wonders
0:46.3	and signs were done through the Apostles. Now all who believed were together and had all things
0:51.3	in common, and sold their possessions and goods and divided them
0:55.4	among all as anyone had need. Now, I'm going to pause there for a quick commentary and then we'll
1:01.5	finish reading the rest of the chapter. But those few verses there sound like socialism, doesn't it?
1:07.2	It's like, okay, well, the early church practiced this thing about selling all their possessions, pooling it together, and then distributing to people as they had need. And this kind of
1:16.5	thing, you know, feeds people like Bernie Sanders who are like trying to convince you, like,
1:20.1	we want free health care, we want free education, we want free everything for you. You know,
1:24.4	just socialism, that's the way our country needs to go. Like, stop it, Bernie, because that's not the way we need to go. Socialism is not in the Bible. This is not
1:31.7	socialism here. Look, you know what the Bible says? The Bible says, if a man works, he shall
1:35.6	not eat. You know what the Bible says? If a man does not provide for. Okay, there's a strong work ethic in the Bible. So let me couch this in the
1:45.3	context. When they're selling their possessions and distributing to everybody in need, they're not
1:50.3	doing it because of socialism. They're doing it because of survival. This is a first century church.
1:56.3	If you're particularly a Jew who believes that Jesus is the Messiah, you're likely to be killed.
2:02.3	And if you're not killed, everybody's going to shun you.
	...

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