Sunday, April 26, 2026
Fourth Sunday of Easter
Text: Acts 2:42-47
Sermon Audio
As we gather… “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers” (Acts 2:42). After the Holy Spirit entered the hearts of those listening to Peter’s sermon on Pentecost, about 3,000 people were baptized. This became the jumpstart of the church. Acts 2:42 discusses how the earliest church worshipped. Key to their worship was the apostles’ teaching, the fellowship, to the breaking of the bread, and the prayers. This describes the basic outline of the earliest services. When the Bible discusses the breaking of the bread, it is not simply a snack. The breaking of the bread refers to Holy Communion. The Lord’s Supper was a key part of early Christian worship. In today’s sermon, we will examine the benefits of offering the Lord’s Supper every Sunday, and how this could be a practice that serves us at Faith Lutheran Church.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! Grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
What is the source of our life? Our life here on earth is full of different things that lay claim to us. Much of which is good and even necessary for living. We have to work to put food on the table and keep a roof over our heads. It is good to rest from our labors and enjoy the little things in life. But, these things aren’t the source of our life. It is easy for the ebb and flow of work and leisure to take over and to start to look like our life. The boss is asking for extra hours and things are tight in this economy. It won’t hurt if I pick an extra shift or two, I will be able to afford everything I need and pour more time into the things I want to do on the weekend. I can spend all weekend at the baseball tournament for my kids or on a fishing trip with my buddies. Our lives begin to get ordered around working for the weekend and finding rest in our pleasures. We end up finding fulfillment in these things and making room for God when it fits our schedule. We can begin to forget where life truly flows from when we order our life around things that aren’t truly life, no matter how good they may be. In our Gospel reading from John 10, Jesus tells us that He is the door that His sheep enter through to be saved and go in and out of to find pasture. He tells us that He came so that His sheep may have life and have it abundantly. Where is our pasture and source of abundant life today?
In Acts 2 we see how the church after Pentecost ordered their lives around life in Christ. First, it is important to note the verse that comes right before our Epistle reading: “Then those who gladly received his word were baptized; and that day about three thousand souls were added to them.” The church was a gathering of baptized children of God who gladly received the word of the Gospel that Peter preached on Pentecost in Jerusalem. A person must believe and be baptized to be a sheep that goes in and out of the pasture of abundant life that Jesus brings. The gift of the Holy Spirit that is given through the Word and the water brings faith to God’s people and always leads them to the pasture to be nourished. I see a bunch of sheep that are added to them in this pasture as I look over these pews of Faith.
“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” After the baptized faithful were added to Christ’s flock they went to the Divine Service, which is what we call our service with Holy Communion. This is what their lives were devoted to. It is in the Divine Service that we find our pasture in our risen and ascended Lord. The church devotes itself to the apostles’ teachings (Holy Scripture), fellowship found in the breaking of the bread, and to the prayers.
If you were to open up your hymnals to one of our Divine Service settings; any of them, from 1-5, is set up in reflection of these first church services. We begin by approaching God in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. This acknowledges that we are baptized children of God and are entering into His pasture as those that He has placed His name on. We continue with Confession and Absolution as we enter through the Door. We understand that if we say we have no sin and the truth is not in us. We confess our sin in the presence of God and one another. We receive the absolution from God’s ordained gatekeeper, as from Jesus Himself, as we enter into the pasture of His Word and Sacrament ministry.
The service continues with the Service of the Word. The first half of the Divine Service is oozing with the apostles’ teachings. If you flip through the hymnal you will notice that almost every song that we sing in one of our settings is either directly the Word of God or close paraphrases as indicated by the red Scripture passage references to the right of the songs. The Service of the Word continues with different texts of the Bible and culminates in the reading of the Gospel, then the sermon. The sermon is meant to bridge the gap between God’s Word and the Lord’s Supper. It is to prepare our hearts to receive Christ’s body and blood with thanksgiving by placing the text in your heart and pointing you to where Christ physically comes to you today for the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation.
Then we receive Him. We have come to the breaking of the bread. This phrase refers to the Lord’s Supper throughout the New Testament. In the Service of the Sacrament in the Divine Service, our Lord continues to place His life in our mouth. In this very moment we are partaking in Christ in a truly physical way; His body and blood, sacramentally present in the bread and wine. In this life, this is where we truly find fellowship with Jesus and with one another. In fact, verse 42 in the Greek reads more accurately, “They continued devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching, and the fellowship that is the breaking of the bread, and the prayers.” True fellowship amongst God’s people is in the Lord’s Supper. Here we are many grains coming together as one loaf in the body of Christ. Here we are many grapes coming together in the one vine of the blood of Christ. From here flows our life. We have fellowship everywhere else in our lives because we first have fellowship in Christ at His table. We are what we eat, and Christ is in you. No matter what we are doing, when we go out of this door and into our daily lives we live as those who first find their life in Jesus. Whether we are at work or at play, we live with joy as those whose life first flows from this altar. We rest here, in Him, before we think about anything else.
We also continue in the prayers. Notice it says THE prayers. Now we certainly can pray for whatever we want in Jesus’ name, but we also have prayers that we can pray together as the body of Christ. We see this in the Divine Service. The Lord’s Prayer, the Prayers of the Church, and the collects of the day form our daily prayer life. These prayers can aid our individual prayer life and teach us to pray. They also give us prayer together as we leave this pasture into our daily lives. Even though we may not be in the same building, we, as the body of Christ, can pray in our homes the same prayers in fellowship. You can take the green sheets in your bulletins home with you so that when you go from here, you can pray the same prayers together, praying for one another. This brings the fellowship from the altar to your homes in a tangible way, as you pray as one body in Christ. Those in fellowship of this altar hold all things in common: doctrine, prayer, and care for one another as one cares for their own body.
The life of the church flows from the Divine Service. Its people come into the Lord here and go out into the world with glad and generous hearts because the source of their life is found outside of the world. When we are united in Christ we serve one another with gladness. When one person is hurting, we all hurt. When one is in need, we fill that need. When we first find our life in Christ and our rest in His altar, the things of this world become less important; “And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need.” When we rest in Christ before we work, God’s good gifts become properly ordered. Our hearts turn towards our brother and sister in Christ and give to their needs before we worry about the fishing trip. When our heart is devoted to Christ first, we can put our wants to the side to make sure not a single member of Christ’s body goes without their needs. They see their earthly life preserved through the actions of Christ’ Spirit residing in you. Then we all rejoice together in the food, games, and little joys in life when our hard work gives way to leisure. When we see our purpose, rest, and fellowship resides in Christ, the overtime, the baseball games, and the fishing trips become secondary to the joy found in our Lord.
If you notice as we move through Acts 2, these early Christians couldn’t get enough of their source of life. “And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.” They kept coming back for more daily! Their daily lives revolved around God’s Word, the Lord’s Supper, and being with one another. The fellowship of the altar is one we hunger for because it is true fellowship. This flows out into those around them. The witness of those who first desire the Lord is contagious. Daily, people were being added to Christ’s flock because of the love of God that flowed from the life that they found in their Lord. They were all of one mind and that mind was set on Christ. This is joy that is beyond comparison. It is one that you bring to the world when we orient ourselves to Christ. In fact as you look through Acts, the church was gathering often around Scripture and the breaking of the bread; especially on the Lord’s Day. They celebrated Easter each week as they abided in our crucified and risen Lord. Every Sunday is a mini-Easter in which we celebrate His resurrection and the victory that Christ won for us over sin, death, and hell; the victory that is given to us in the body and blood of our Lord.
This is why we do what we do, and why it is a good thing that we are moving to every Sunday communion here at Faith. This is not to make a law out of the good gifts of God. On the contrary, it’s so that you can receive the gifts of forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation, and the fellowship with Christ and one another that it brings, as often as possible. This is what the church has always devoted themselves to. We devote ourselves to the same so that we are always rightly ordering our lives to Christ. In Christ, we truly find life. We have been added to the number and we can’t help but desire to always be with our Lord in His pasture and bring His life with us wherever we go. Jesus has opened His door for us to feast in fellowship in Him, now and eternally. Thanks be to God!
The peace of God which passes all understanding guard and keep you in the true faith unto life everlasting. Amen. Alleluia! Christ is risen!