And all who believed were together and had all things in common. (Acts 2:44)

We Americans are generally a religious people. According to a recent Gallup survey conducted nationwide, more than ninety percent of us believe in God. Eighty-four percent of us believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ as the Son of God. Two-thirds of us describe our religious faith as a personal commitment.

Yet that same survey also showed a gigantic gap in the American understanding of Christianity. Only half of the American people thought it is important to belong to a church. Seventy-five percent said it is possible to be a good Christian without going to church. In other words, most Americans think that in religion, we can separate believing from belonging.

This is clearly a pervasive and powerful fallacy in American Christianity, this belief in spiritual individualism. We've all heard people say it: "I don't have to go to church to worship God. I can worship God out here in nature, or on the golf course! I can worship God by watching the preachers on television." Just the other day, as I was in the gym lifting weights, I heard someone say that working out in the gym is like going to church as far as he is concerned. "I can worship God right here," he said.

Of course, many people are shut-in or home-bound and cannot get out to church, so they very well can worship God privately at home, perhaps even in front of the TV set. But if seventy-five percent of the American people believe you can be a good Christian without going to church, it means that seventy-five percent of the American people are wrong. Seventy-five percent of our fellow citizens severely misunderstand the Christian faith as it is presented in Scripture and meant to be practiced.

It is a crucial, foundational question. If any of you subscribe to this popular myth of spiritual individualism - this familiar fallacy that being a Christian can be separated from being in church - I want to change your minds today. The truth will make us free (John 8:32), and the integrity of our faith is at stake. I want each of us to know why we are here, why our church membership is important and why our involvement with the church is an absolutely indispensable part of our being Christian.

It's not surprising that American religion is largely a matter of "God and me," since we live in a society which worships at the shrine of rugged individualism. We take Lone Rangers and make them heroes, from John Wayne in the Old West to the "top gun" fighter pilots of today. We glorify self-interest as the moral engine that drives our economy; it produces wealth for some people but also sacrifices community values. We are given the messages in hundreds of different ways: "Do your own thing, look out for Number 1, I've got mine and you've got yours to get, take care of yourself because no one else will do it for you."

In fact, the Fortune magazine, a well-known business publication, pretty much summed up what we believe as a society with one of its ads: it showed a cute little baby, and underneath it said, "We're all born equal. After that, you're on your own."

No, it ought not be surprising that American Christianity has taken on this spirit of individualism, which is a powerful force everywhere around us. But it should be disappointing. The Bible makes clear from beginning to end that true believers are not conformed to this world (Romans 12:2) but are different from the world, so it is disappointing that American religion has succumbed so thoroughly to the individualism of American culture.

Now, let me be clear that I do believe in personal religion; no preacher should ever deny the importance of it. We all have our joys and sorrows, our mountains and valleys in life and we all need an active, living faith which believes in "God and me."

Let me also say that you can find this faith of "God and me" in the Scriptures: "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want ... The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? ... I know my Redeemer lives." It's all right to say, "Jesus loves me, this I know" because we have a Savior who died for each one of us and rose again and we have a God who knows each of us by name.

But it is not all right to make personal religion the whole content of Christian faith, as so many people do today. It's not all right to reduce the Christian creed to a matter of, "Is Jesus Christ your personal Lord and Savior?" It's wrong because this religion of "God and me" is, by far, the smaller part of Scripture. The larger part of the Bible isn't about "God and me" at all - it's about "God and we!" It's about God and a community of His people.

This is so fundamental to the faith that many Christians miss it. They read the Bible verse by verse but fail to see the message of its whole. The religion of "God and we" is so basic that Scripture speaks of community on practically every page.

It starts right at the beginning. God makes Adam and Eve together because He says that it isn't good for them to be alone (Genesis 2:18). Then comes Abraham, whom God calls to build a nation (Genesis 12:2); and Moses, who is called to gather the people together and lead them out of slavery (Exodus 3:10).

Then God gives His law, that Israel might live together as a society in the ways of love, justice, mercy and faith (Matthew 23:23). And when Israel stubbornly clings to her own selfish ways, God sends His prophets to call them back as a people to repentance and righteousness (Matthew 23:31). God and community: that's the whole Old Testament story in a nutshell.

Now we come to the New Testament and the gospels, and what is the first thing Jesus does as He begins His ministry? He gathers some disciples together into a community (Matthew 4:19)! Then see how often He brings other people together for different reasons: to be healed, to be fed loaves and fishes, to hear Him teach.

And at the end of His earthly ministry, when He is risen from the dead, why do you think He only appears when groups of people are gathered together and never to individuals by themselves? Because He is building a church, a community of people, the Body of Christ in this world! As the gospel of John tells it, this is why Jesus came into the world in the first place: to "gather in one the children of God who were scattered abroad" (John 11:52).

Even when they asked Jesus how to pray, He taught them about community. Remember that the words "I" and "me" appear nowhere in the Lord's Prayer, just as the words "personal Lord and Savior" appear nowhere in the Bible. Everything is "us" and "our." Jesus is consistent with the Old Testament in presenting a religion of "God and we."

After the gospels come the New Testament letters and again, the theme of community. Notice how nearly every letter begins with greetings to the community. Notice how often specific people in the community are mentioned by name, and how often the letters speak about what it means to live together in the community of God's kingdom, which Jesus Christ has already begun in the church with His death and resurrection (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Finally, there is the Book of Revelation, where we see the culmination of this theme of community which has run throughout the whole Bible. In the last days, when Christ returns, the new kingdom will come in its fullness to replace the old. It is the new city, the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven, the new community where all sorrow ceases and every tear is wiped away, and where death shall be no more (Revelation 21).

From beginning to end, this is what Scripture is all about. If you say, "I want to be a Christian, but I don't want to commit myself to the community of Christ," you are saying something which is plainly impossible from the Bible's point of view.

If the Biblical argument is not enough for you, consider the lessons of history. History shows that when the church is merely an organization of individual believers, she is impotent and subject to the world. When the church is a community of people bonded together in common purpose and spirit, she is greater than the sum of her parts and a powerful witness in the world.

Of course, this is precisely what we see in our text from Acts. How could this little band of brand new Christians in the early church ever have survived the onslaught of the Roman Empire? How could they possibly have prevailed against the mightiest power on earth? Because in the Spirit, they were a community! "All of them who believed were together and they had all things in common." They shared their material goods as well as their lives. They lived for one another and not just for themselves. They prayed together and worked together. They bore one another's burdens and so they fulfilled the law of Christ (Galatians 6:2).

Alone as individuals, each of those early Christians were weak, just as we are weak as individuals today. But together as a church, they were strong. Their enemies could throw Paul in jail and behead him. They could nail Peter to a cross. They could put Stephen in a pit and stone him to death. They could kill the members of the church, but they could not kill the Body of Christ.

So it has been throughout history. From the Romans to the Nazis and Afrikaners, the church has been an anvil which has worn out many hammers. From ancient paganism to modern materialism, the church has survived many spiritual challenges as well.

That's why Jesus didn't create a faith for people to be alone, each of them separate with their own "personal Lord and Savior." He created a faith for people to be one new community in the Spirit of a Risen Lord. Indeed, what can possibly prevail against Christ's church when people are living together in Him?

And so it is that even amid the raging individualism which engulfs us, the church emphasizes community at every turn and at every stage of life.

When we are baptized, we are baptized by water and Spirit into the Christian community. When we are taught the stories of our faith as children, we are taught in the community of Sunday School. When we are married, the language of the traditional wedding service says that we are married "in the sight of God and the presence of this company" - the community of the church.

As we live out the days of our lives, we try to keep the Great Commandment of Jesus that we love God and love one another (Matthew 22:37-39), remembering that this is a commandment which can only be fulfilled in the company of others! And when we die, the community gathers around once again, to pay its last respects, to comfort the bereaved and to testify together that death is not the end, but the beginning of a greater life.

You see, everything is done with the community. That's what it all means! Christian life is life together, from the cradle to the grave. We are not alone and everyone needs a home, and here it is in the fellowship of people who live together in Christ.

Perhaps an old story can summarize what I've tried to say in this sermon about the meaning of Christian life.

There was once a preacher who visited a certain man to urge him to come to church. They were standing and talking in front of a fireplace when the man said, "I do have faith and I do believe in God, but I don't think I need the church."

Without saying a word, the preacher reached into the fireplace with a poker iron and pushed one ember off to the side.

The two of them stood there for several minutes and watched the ember in silence. It burned brightly for a while, but then it began to fade. It grew more dim until finally, it went out. The solitary ember was gone, but the fire kept on blazing.

Suddenly, the man understood the preacher's point. The religion of "God and me" is not enough. It may be popular, but it is not Biblical. Real Christianity remains what it has always been: a religion of "God and we."

The secular vision is wrong. We are not meant to be in this society as "a thousand points of light" - each of us separate by ourselves, flickering precariously in the night. A thousand points of light can easily be blown out by a hard, strong wind.

No, we Christians are meant to be a giant flame together, a light which the darkness can never overcome (John 1:5). We are meant to be together in Christ, a flame of faith, hope and love which is large enough to make the whole world bright. Amen

Pastoral Prayer

Faithful and Everlasting God, whose Son, Jesus, leads us by the power of Your Holy Spirit, we pray for this church today and for all Your people who yearn to be one in the Spirit, one in the Lord. Take us by the hand and guide us on our way, O God. Lift us over the hurdle of dying to the old and living for the new. Make us a help to the aged and an example to the young and teach us the joy of bearing one another's burdens, that together we may know the love of Jesus Christ, our Crucified and Risen Lord.

Heavenly God, who watches over us as a mother watches her children; and whose Son, Jesus was given as a ransom for the world; we also pray today for the broken community beyond our doors. Let none of Your children be satisfied so long as any of Your children are hungry and leave no one content so long as anyone is oppressed. Pour upon us the blessings of peace and save us from the bitter scourge of war. Deliver this world from its wages of sin, O God, and hasten the day when every tear is wiped away, when Your new community is established and when only Your love and glory shall fill the earth. In Jesus' name. Amen