Church On Sunday (Acts 20:1-11)
I mockingly laugh when I pass by a church sign that says something akin to “not your grandparents church” or something similar. And my reason for this is simple. Church on Sunday is something we have done for thousands of years. And while the music may change, the things we do does not. To constantly attempt to keep up with the times in an attempt to attract the cool folks is not the way the church ever operated before the Church Growth Movement that began in the 1950’s but really took root in the 1980’s. And, as advertisements like this show, it still exists today.
These people don’t understand something about their selves. Going to church on Sunday is something we do because we are Christians. We do the things that the Lord has commanded us to do on Sundays whether that draws a big crowd or not. And not only did our believing grandparents, but so did their grandparents that were Christian. And before your relatives became Christian, before they were converted from paganism, Christians were gathering on Sunday doing the things that we do on Sunday Mornings. It all seems so ordinary, so people think they need to create something more exciting.
And this is really what I want us to take notice of today. There are a lot of local churches that decide they really don’t want to be a part of what Christianity has always done. They want to do things in a new way, de-emphasize those things that Christians have always emphasized, and try to build churches on their own ingenuity. But the truth is that the Church is itself rooted in history.
And there are things that the Church has always emphasized in worship together. In other words, we’re not doing a brand-new thing. We’re not chasing after the latest fad to get things done. And we’re not doing church in a whole new way. We are part of the church and have been meeting together on Sunday for thousands of years, emphasizing the preaching of God’s Word and the Lord’s Supper.
Because Jesus rose from the grave on Sunday, the Church came together to worship on Sundays and this has been the case for over 2000 years. And for over 2000 years we have emphasized the preaching of God’s Word, the Lord’s Supper, and fellowship with one another. And for over 2000 years, the Lord has been with us as we have done so.
Worship On Sunday
We immediately understand that this is an official meeting of the church. “To break bread” was a phrase that was used repeatedly to discuss the Lord’s Supper. And this meeting was also accompanied by the preaching and teaching of God’s Word. And this meeting happened on the first day of the week, which is Sunday.
Other Scriptures discuss this as well.
“On the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up, as he may prosper, so that there will be no collecting when I come.” (1 Corinthians 16:2 ESV)
Similarly to how we do it today, they were to take up the collection on the first day of every week. It doesn’t say they were passing a plate, but they were taking up the church collection for the help of other believers.
And then there’s John in the Book of Revelation.
“I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet” (Revelation 1:10 ESV)
The Lord’s Day is an expression used of Sunday. And we understand it to be so because of outside early church writings. For instance, the Didache uses this term to describe the early church’s worship of the Lord. This is important because it might’ve been written around the same time as the Book of Revelation. It is believed to have been written anywhere from 70AD-100AD. It’s not Scripture, but it details what was going on with churches at the time. And they were, worshipping on the Lord’s Day, which is the first day of the week.
You may be wondering why Sunday would be called the Lord’s Day. We believe that it was called the Lord’s Day because it was the day that Jesus rose from the grave. In fact, our church holds to the Baptist Faith and Message 2000. That is our belief statement. And in it there is a description of the Lord’s Day.
“The first day of the week is the Lord’s Day. It is a Christian institution for regular observance. It commemorates the resurrection of Christ from the dead and should include exercises of worship and spiritual devotion, both public and private. Activities on the Lord’s Day should be commensurate with the Christian’s conscience under the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
Exodus 20:8-11; Matthew 12:1-12; 28:1ff.; Mark 2:27-28; 16:1-7; Luke 24:1-3,33-36; John 4:21-24; 20:1,19-28; Acts 20:7; Romans 14:5-10; I Corinthians 16:1-2; Colossians 2:16; 3:16; Revelation 1:10.”
This is not some new thought. This is what Christians have been saying for a very long time. In fact, Justin Martyr says the same thing around the year 150 concerning church services in his day.
“On the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together in one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits. Then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then we rise together and pray, and…when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president [presider] in the manner offers prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability, and the people assent, saying Amen! And there is a distribution [of the Eucharist] to each, and a participation of that over which thanks have been given, and to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons. And they who are well to do, and willing, give what each thinks fit; and what is collected is deposited with the president, who gives aid to the orphans and widows, and those who, through sickness or any other cause, are in want, and those who are in bonds [prison], and the strangers sojourning among us, and in a word takes care of all who are in need. But Sunday is the day on which we all hold our common assembly, because it is the first day on which God having wrought a change in the darkness and matter, made the world; and Jesus Christ our Savior on the same day rose from the dead.” (Justin Martyr, First Aplology, 67, 1:186)
How long have Christians been worshipping on Sunday? It’s been a very long time. And why have we done so at this time? Because Jesus rose from the grave on Sunday.
On this topic, I do think there are some things to note. The Lord’s Day is not the Sabbath. They don’t seem to be the same thing. In other words, it doesn’t seem like the day just got changed. Jews often kept the Sabbath and then participated in Lord’s Day Church services and they didn’t see a problem with that because they were not the same thing.
So Christians were meeting together to commemorate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Everyday, not just once a year, is Resurrection Sunday.
This leads us to another question. Is the Lord’s Day a Christian Sabbath?
I will be honest, I have wondered this at times in my past. At one point I was convinced that my family should treat it that way. And at we practiced this. We did no work on Sundays, no cooking, no electronics unless it was at church or leading a video driven Bible Study, or something else devotional in nature. And I will say that it was a pleasant experience. But passages like this one made me see that the early church did not do this, probably because they did not have the opportunity.
It is very likely that these meetings happened after folks got off work. Our text is an example of this. Paul preached until midnight and the reason is not that he preached for 12 hours, but because the meeting didn’t get started until everyone got off work.
Roman society did not shut down on Sunday for Christian worship services. The people still had work to do on Sunday. But that did not keep them from meeting together.
In fact, we are not to neglect meeting together. That is commanded. It is sinful to just skip church because you’d rather not go.
“And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” (Hebrews 10:24-25 ESV)
I wouldn’t say that the Sabbath was just gotten rid of. However, I would say that Jesus is Himself the fulfillment our Sabbath rest. And so, today we don’t have the same requirements. But it is an area where we should follow our consciences.
If you feel that Sunday is a Christian Sabbath, then treat it as such. I have and think it was beneficial. You are free to do that. And we see that repeatedly in Scripture.
“Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.” (Colossians 2:16-17 ESV)
“One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God.” (Romans 14:5-6 ESV)
While there is Christian freedom, Jesus told us that the Sabbath was created for a purpose. And the purpose was our own physical rest and spiritual rest in the Lord.
“And he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.”” (Mark 2:27-28 ESV)
We were not created to always be on the go. A day of rest was created for us. It tells us that there should be a rhythm of work and rest in our own lives. And Sunday is a very good day for that because our society was, for a lot of businesses, set up that way for churches. And the people that came over here from England believed that Sunday was the Christian Sabbath and that all business was to be closed on Sundays. So it’s very possible to do that today.
And the truth of the matter is that we need a rhythm of work and rest in our lives.
The first thing I want to note here is that the reason we worship on Sunday is because it is Resurrection Sunday. We typically think that we celebrate Resurrection Sunday one time a year. But if we stop and think about why we’re worshipping today, it’s because of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
For Christians, every Sunday is a celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. If you’re here today, you found it important to be here. But I want to help you see why you should feel like it’s important to be here.
Along with other Christians that have met on Sunday for thousands of years, we believe that God the Son took on human flesh and dwelt among us. We sinned and rebelled against God. And Jesus came for our rescue. He lived a perfect life, died on the cross, paid the punishment for sin, and rose from the grave three days later. Those who trust in Christ have their sins paid for due to Jesus’s finished work on the cross; they are credited with the perfect righteousness of Christ that He achieved in this life; and they are declared right with God because Jesus rose from the grave on that Sunday over 2,000 years ago. Therefore, we celebrate this every Sunday.
The second thing that I want us to take note of is that we are doing something that has been done for a very long time. In a world that seeks to break us away from every tradition, this one is thousands of years old and one we need desperately to hang on to.
There is something special about traditions. They draw us back to our foundations. That is why Thanksgiving and Christmas meals are so special. These tend to draw us back into these special moments with our families.
Your hometowns had traditions, no matter where you’re from, there is something peculiar about the place you live that you participate in that brings your community together, or that used to be the case. These sorts of things are rapidly disappearing from our society.
The differences between town events like Conway’s Toad Suck Daze and Harrison’s Crawdad Days are disappearing. They look like virtually the same event. And it seems to be that way with many of the things in our society.
But there are peculiarities about the Church’s worship that needs to remain in our worship. These peculiarities are special to Christianity, and they have remained in our worship for these many years.
One of them is the preaching of God’s Word.
We Preach And Teach God’s Word
What was Paul talking about for so long in our text? Obviously, he was preaching and teaching God’s Word. It’s what Paul was always talking about.
At this point, I would like to look again at what Justin Martyr said was happening with the church services around the year 150.
“On the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together in one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits. Then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things.”
In the Book of Acts the Church met in houses that could accommodate everyone. It was the same in Justin Martyr’s day. And it remained this way until the mid 200’s when there was a little more freedom for churches t be out in the open.
Even though things were so different. What has always been a part of the church’s worship? It wasn’t buildings. It wasn’t pews. It was the reading and preaching of God’s Word.
In the Didache, written between 70-100AD, we see the priority of having the right people in church leadership. And the reason was because they “render to you the service of prophets and teachers.” In other words, these are the people that are preaching and teaching God’s Word. That is the service they render to you. They need to be able to do it.
“Appoint, therefore, for yourselves, bishops and deacons worthy of the Lord, men meek, and not lovers of money, and truthful and proved; for they also render to you the service of prophets and teachers. Therefore do not despise them, for they are your honored ones, together with the prophets and teachers. And reprove one another, not in anger, but in peace, as you have it in the Gospel. But to anyone that acts amiss against another, let no one speak, nor let him hear anything from you until he repents. But your prayers and alms and all your deeds so do, as you have it in the Gospel of our Lord.” (Didache 15)
In our day this has not been so common among churches. I have repeatedly heard people complain about how things go in different churches concerning the preaching of God’s Word. I have repeatedly heard complaints about pastors that just set aside God’s Word and start preaching their own thoughts about certain topics.
That is not what the Church has done or been about historically.
God’s Word is central to what we do, and it is central to who we are.
We are in the month of October. And at this time my mind often wanders to the thing that happened in Church History on October 31st of 1517. That is the day that Martin Luther nailed the 95 Theses onto the door of the Wittenburg Chapel. That is the event that started the Protestant Reformation.
At that time, the preaching and teaching of God’s Word was not central to the activity of the Church. In fact, it was done in a language that no one knew or understood, Latin. A poor German that didn’t know Latin would go into a church where the songs and sermon were in a language he didn’t understand.
Protestant Churches returned the placed the pulpit in the middle of the church because God’s Word was central. They preached and taught in the common language they lived in. Germans heard God’s Word and were preached to in German. And they wrote music that would be sung in the common language.
Martin Luther himself wrote a lot of music, one song of which is still in most hymnals today, “A Mighty Fortress”. He busied himself with translating the Bible into German and writing music for the German people to sing. And this was something that a lot of these people did.
Why? Because God’s Word is central to what we do as a church. It was central in Scripture, in the Early Church, and it is central to what we do today.
The Protestant Reformers saw themselves as returning to the priorities of the Early Church. And I wholeheartedly agree with that sentiment. Central to the endeavor of the Church is the preaching and teaching of God’s Word.
“And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”” (Matthew 28:18-20 ESV)
If it’s disciples we are supposed to make, which is a learner, then it is teaching that we are going to be doing.
And this is where we see a lot of problems today. There really are a lot of churches out there that do not have God’s Word as central. And the temptation is always there to remove God’s Word from its centrality.
We live in an era in which the average person watches short videos, less than one minute long, for their entertainment and a lot of their information. A 5 minute news clip seems long today. And here I am, week after week, preaching a sermon that is about 30 minutes in length…sometimes longer. And in doing so, our church is participating in the very thing that churches have done since they began.
And in our text today, it’s something that they did for hours. It went on into the night, in a room filled with oil lamps and a haze from their burning. I’m sure it was the perfect time to fall asleep. Which one person did do, to their death that we will talk about later.
We Participate In The Lord’s Supper
The people gathered together to “break bread”. As I’ve already mentioned, this was used to describe the Lord’s Supper. And we see that after Eutychus was brought back to life, which we will discuss in a moment, they went ahead and had the Lord’s Supper and a fellowship meal.
They were meeting together for this purpose. It was central to what they were doing. And we find this same thing to be true as we read from early church texts outside of Scripture.
There is a segment, again from the Didache, that is very enlightening on this subject. Notice what is happening between 70AD-100AD.
“But every Lord’s day gather yourselves together, and break bread, and give thanksgiving after having confessed your transgressions, that your sacrifice may be pure. But let no one who is at odds with his fellow come together with you, until they be reconciled, that your sacrifice may not be profaned. For this is that which was spoken by the Lord: “In every place and time offer to me a pure sacrifice; for I am a great King, says the Lord, and my name is wonderful among the nations.” (Didache 14)
In the Book of Acts we see hints of the Lord’s Supper being taken weekly. But when you read it, you have some doubt that this is really what is taking place. But then the evidence seems to be clear when we read from other sources to help bolster the evidence. It seems that they participated in it weekly and it seems that it was central to their church service.
First, I will say that we saw this in the Book of Acts and moved our frequency up quite a lot. We saw then that the Lord’s Supper was very important to the life of the Church.
Why is it so important?
It is important because it is commanded to us by our Lord for the remembrance and proclamation of the salvation He accomplished for us.
In the Lord’s Supper there is remember and proclamation.
We remember what Jesus did for us. We remember the sacrifice he made for our sins. We remember His broken body, symbolized by the bread broken. And we eat that bread, making it a multisensory remembrance of what Christ did for us. And when we drink the cup, we have symbolized for us the blood poured out for the forgiveness of our sins.
We also proclaim what Jesus did for us. We proclaim to everyone around us what Jesus did to save us in His sacrificial death.
And we also have this glorious salvation proclaimed to us. As humans, we have times of doubt. We sometimes need to have a physical sign to touch, see, and taste after having heard the promises delivered to us from God’s Word. In the Lord’s Supper we have that. In the Lord’s Supper, a message is proclaimed to us of the great and glorious salvation that has been delivered to us in Jesus Christ. We are reminded once again of God’s love for us and the sacrifice He made for us.
It’s important because it’s a message we need to hear over and over again.
And we get it over and over again in the Lord’s Supper.
We Have Fellowship With One Another
They broke bread and then they ate together. They did both in the meeting in Acts 20 and elsewhere in the Book of Acts (Acts 2:46-47). But we also find this elsewhere in the New Testament. Feasting together seems to also have been a weekly practice.
In Jude 1:12-13 we are introduced to “love feasts”. This was the term for the Christian meal. In Jude there were false teachers eating at their love feasts and everyone was just allowing it to happen. But what we notice for our purposes today is that they had them.
“These are hidden reefs at your love feasts, as they feast with you without fear, shepherds feeding themselves; waterless clouds, swept along by winds; fruitless trees in late autumn, twice dead, uprooted; wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever.” (Jude 1:12-13 ESV)
We also see this in a rather lengthy passage in 1 Corinthians. The Christians were eating the Lord’s Supper and then fellowshipping with each other improperly. Some were eating their fill, even getting drunk while others were not getting enough to eat and drink. This was a communal mean that was eaten with the Lord’s Supper. And it is a picture of a church misbehaving badly in a time of fellowship with one another (1 Corinthians 11:17-34).
What we understand form this is that the church came together in fellowship and love for one another often. And it was probably associated with every church service.
I have been in churches where the people didn’t really like one another. They didn’t serve and care for one another. They had potlucks but they didn’t fellowship with one another.
And one of the things I have loved about being here is that the people genuinely love and care for one another. It hasn’t always been this way, but I believe it has been for quite some time now. And it’s a blessing to be a part of.
That is how it is supposed to be. We are supposed to see each other often and want to see each other often. We are supposed to be people that one another leans on in times of trouble. It is supposed to be a family.
This sounds idealistic. But I don’t really care. There is a reason that Christians are called brothers and sisters over and over in Scripture. There is a reason we are called “the family of God”. That fellowship is supposed to be a part of our Sunday gathering, but also our life as a church.
Get in there and love one another. Get to fellowshipping with one another. Get to spending time with one another.
We Have God With Us
Imagine yourself in this warm room during the evening. It’s dark other than the hot oil lamps that are giving the room a haze. And you are a young man sitting on the edge of a windowsill. In this era there were no screens. Windows were just holes in the wall. And if the house was crowded curtains were taken down to allow for seating. And Paul had been preaching for hours.
Eutychus’s eyes grew heavy. But Paul kept preaching. He kept nodding off until eventually he fell asleep. And fell out of the windowsill to his death after a 3-story fall. That’s just about the worst thing that could happen at a church meeting.
Eutychus had probably worked a long day and had the opportunity to hear from Paul. He did not want to miss it. And then he died when he fell out the window.
We are told that he was “taken up dead”. This means he died and it is probably the case that someone picked him up in their arms in an attempt to care for him only to find that he was dead.
Then Paul did something crazy. He laid upon the young man and embraced him. And then he said “Do not be alarmed for his life is in him.” And instead of going home, the group took the Lord’s Supper, ate together, and Paul preached until morning.
In the middle of tragedy as the church was doing the ordinary things it had been called to do, God was with them. And the boy lived.
The things that I have spoken of today all seem quite ordinary. The dedication to come to church on Sunday seems ordinary. There is something rather ordinary about preaching God’s Word and singing hymns that speak His Word on Sunday Mornings. Repeatedly participating in the Lord’s Supper is a fairly ordinary thing to do. And fellowshipping with one another seems ordinary to most people.
In a time period when all of life is thought to be about going from one big event to another, the things I’ve said today seem quite ordinary.
But when we give a little more thought to what is happening, then it doesn’t seem ordinary at all.
We worship on Sunday because Jesus rose from the grave. We celebrate the glorious salvation achieved for us in His life, death, and resurrection every time we meet together. God uses His Word and the work of the Holy Spirit to transform His people, to build His Church, to form us into the likeness of His Son, to make disciples. We partake in the Lord’s Supper, which was given to us by Jesus Christ to tell us repeatedly of the grace and mercy provided to us by Jesus Christ. And we are part of the family of God, being built up together as a temple to the Lord.
In reality there is nothing ordinary about it. But that’s the way it is with our lives. And that’s what so few people seem to understand. It’s the ordinary things that make life incredible. It’s the days eating dinner together with our families that make life meaningful. It’s the rather normal conversations and times of play with our children that mean so much to us and our children. Those are things they will remember. It’s the rather ordinary hours at work that make up a career. It’s the ordinary cleaning and decorating of the house that make a home. And these ordinary things make disciples in a church.
God is with us. And because of that all of these seemingly ordinary things that make up our time at church are the things that make us His disciples and form us into the image of His Son.
R. Dwain Minor