“When the day of Pentecost came…” Stop there a moment. Pentecost was not, originally, a Christian celebration, but a Jewish one. It was celebrated on a Sunday. In Leviticus 23:15-16, God calls his people to set aside the 50 th day after the Sabbath of Passover week as a day to offer new grain to the Lord at his Temple. The Sabbath is on Saturday. That means that the 49 th day after the Passover Sabbath would necessarily be on a Saturday, which means that the 50 th day after the Sabbath of Passover week is always Sunday. So the disciples were gathered together on a Sunday morning, just like we are, to celebrate Pentecost.

  It's interesting to note that long after the events of this Pentecost Sunday, the disciples were still meeting on Sunday. In Acts 20:7 Luke tells us that on the “first day of the week” the church in Troas came together to break bread and to listen to Paul preach. Paul preached for so long that a young man fell asleep listening and dropped out of a top floor window where he was perched and died. Paul went outside, raised him from the dead, went back in and kept on preaching. Later in Paul's second letter to the Corinthians (16:2) Paul asks the Corinthians to take up a special collection when they meet together on the first day of the week, Sunday. John received the visions recorded in the book of Revelation on a Sunday after worship. Throughout the New Testament we see that the churches established by the apostles met on Sunday to share communion, hear the word, and give offerings. That's why, if you were wondering, we meet on Sunday and do the same things because that is the pattern we find in the New Testament. Why did they meet on Sunday rather than Saturday? No one knows for certain, but Jesus rose from the dead on Sunday and the event that we're going to speak about this morning, the coming of the Holy Spirit, also took place on Sunday so maybe they wanted to meet on a Sunday in honor of these two saving acts of God.

  In any case, back to the text, the disciples, being Jews, were celebrating Pentecost just as the book of Leviticus commands. The second part of verse 1 tells us that “They were all together in one place.” It could very well be that the “place” was the same room where Jesus celebrated the last Supper. It could also be the same room where the risen Jesus appeared to them on Easter Sunday and showed them his hands and feet. The New Testament seems to indicate that there was central room in Jerusalem where the disciples regularly met to pray and maybe this was it. In any case, whether it was the same room or not, they were all together.

  And the fact that these shared experiences, eating the last Supper, seeing the risen Christ, receiving the Holy Spirit, occurred when they were together worshipping may explain why the apostles were so serious about believers coming together regularly for worship. Whenever the local church met the apostles wanted everyone there. And this was not just out of a human desire for togetherness, God himself, through the apostles commands all Christians to go to church. You can find that command in Hebrews 10: “Let us not give up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing…” Don't be fooled by that “let us not”. It sounds like a suggestion but it's in the imperative sense as in “let there be light.” We aren't invited to church. We are commanded to church.

  But for some reason we've gotten it into our heads that coming together as a local body for worship on Sunday morning is optional. We'll not give up meeting together Lord so long as nothing better comes along. We'll not give up meeting together Lord so long as we don't need to make money, or so long, Lord, as our kids don't have sports that day or so long no football game on TV or so long as we get in before 3am because you know Lord we've got to party Saturday night; or so long as we're not upset at the pastor or bored by last Sunday's sermon or tired or so long as I haven't committed any really bad sin this week…so long as everything else is fine in my life because if there is any reason at all, any excuse whatsoever, people will take it rather than coming together and praising the God who by his blood saves us all from everlasting destruction. Everything comes before worship. And we wonder why it is that our kids don't see the importance of it.

  Why? Why does God care whether we worship together or at home in our beds or off on a mountaintop somewhere? Wouldn't it be great if that's all God wanted, if he just said, “Hey Matt, whenever you feel like it, whenever its convenient, just throw a prayer once in a while.” That'd be great. I could worship on my own schedule. I could call the shots. I could pray when I want to pray, say what I want to say. Read the parts of the bible I want to read. Listen to the music I like. I could do what I want when I want and how I want. Even better, I wouldn't have to deal with you people. No one would get on my nerves. I'd never get annoyed or stressed or angry. I'd never have to check up on anybody or worry about making calls. I'd never have to forgive any one, never have to get along with people I don't like, I could choose who I associate with and when I associate with them. I. I. I. I….that word, “I”, short for “me” is the cry of the church hopper. It's the cry of the believer who wants to worship all by himself. You see the point?

  God gave us the local church, he put us here together, so that we could, at least once a week, do precisely what we were created and designed to do. Love God with all our hearts minds and souls, and love our neighbors as ourselves. You are here this morning to give your heart minds and souls wholly over to the Lord in worship and to love and serve your brothers and sisters in this fellowship. And you know what. That's exactly what you'll be doing in heaven for eternity. If only for a few hours a week our hearts and minds are wholly turned toward God first and toward others second, and away from ourselves, we will, at least for three hours or so, fulfill the eternal purpose of our lives. That's why, if you do it sincerely and in truth, then you find, whether the sermon is good or horrible, whether the music is beautiful or really bad, you find that there's great joy in coming together in worship because, in fact, you were made and designed to do it. That is what you and I were made for, to glorify God, to worship him, and to enjoy him forever.

  Dogs are most satisfied running in packs. Cats when they hunt. Horses when they run. Humans are most satisfied when they worship because that is what we were made to do.

  Some of you are thinking, I'm not satisfied in church. I want to go home most of the time. If that's you, then chances are you're sitting not worshipping. When you come here to worship you don't just read the prayers, you pray them. You don't just sit through the sermon, you take notes. If I am preaching accordance with the word of God, then God is speaking to you through me. You don't just listen to the music, you sing. You don't just take the bread and the wine, you open your heart when you open your hands and receive the body and blood of Christ. You don't watch church like a critic watches a movie. You come prepared and ready like a player comes to a game. You don't go to bed at 3:00am on Saturday. You come ready to give God all that you have and worship him with all your heart minds and strength and love your brother and sister as Jesus has loved you. You come here ready to give yourself, to give it your all and expecting to hear to hear God's voice. When you do that worship comes alive. When you don't its dead, but the reason its dead is because you are.

  Now I've spent most of my time working through verse 1 and we haven't even begun to speak about the coming of the Holy Spirit. We'll come back to this text next week so your homework is to read it. This Sunday we've set the stage for the coming of the Holy Spirit. Next week we'll talk about what happened when he came.

Amen