Acts WK4: So we're continuing our walk through the book of Acts, and our core verse through this whole look that we're going to be focused on for this year is Acts chapter 1, verse 8. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea, in Samaria, and to the end of the earth. You will be my witnesses. It is the job of the church. We are to be his witnesses. Witnesses everywhere we go. Last Sunday I I missed. I was in Nashville enjoying a day with my son. We we take a trip about once a year and just get away and spend some time together doing things that he likes to do. And I'll do that again. So as you hear me dig into this message today, I want you to know this is not about getting a perfect attendance pen at your church. Because we are going to talk about the importance of church this morning. We all miss occasionally. Missing a Sunday does not make you a bad Christian, and missing a Sunday is not a sin. But this is about what happens when we miss the point of it all. When it becomes secondary for us. So here's what I want you to do this morning. Think back over the last three months. Maybe you need to pull your phones out and look at your calendars and see what it is, but over the last three months, when you look at Sundays, what had the priority? What took precedence over your church on those days? Now, some of what may have caused us to miss church are doing fun things or important things with our kids. Or maybe it was a sick house. We didn't want you here that day. Or maybe it was a job responsibility that you just couldn't get out of. All those things that's life. We are all going to miss occasionally, but some of what you may look back on your calendar, some of them it was just a choice. Anything. Nothing was wrong, you just had something better to do, and it happens more often than not. You see, an occasional Sunday, we should take those. We spend that time with our family or maybe the other things that come up. There's nothing wrong with those things, but when a pattern shows up, that shows a priority. The pattern shows where you value the church of Christ in your life. But here's the reality of it. When those things come up, most of the time, you're not choosing between church and sin. You're just choosing between church and something that is good, other good things. But when the other good things win every single time. Well, that's a pattern. And that tells you what the church is really worth to you. Parents listen. Your kids are reading that calendar too. It may be not physically reading it, but they see how you treat the church and the priority that you put on the church. They are learning what is more important than the church. And let's be honest, when you're 17 years old or 12 years old, everything's more important. There's always something that comes up. If you wonder, if you're a parent of older children, you wonder why are my kids not engaged in the church? Why do my young adults not engage in the church? Maybe we start by looking back on what we taught them. Maybe they're following our pattern. I've been a pastor long enough to know that nobody walks away from church on a single Sunday. Nobody walks away from Jesus just because they missed a Sunday. The drift, though, it's from his people first. We miss a Sunday, two, three, miss life groups. And we drift from the people, we drift from the relationships, and when that. drift happens, we begin to drift from him. It happens almost every single time. I have done it myself. I know what it's like. So what do we do? We hold our calendar up or our priorities up next to his. And before we dig into our passage from Acts today, let's look at what his priority is of the church. Let's look at Paul's letter to the Ephesians, chapter 5 In verse 25, husbands, he says, love your wives. How? As Christ loved the church. How did Christ love the church? He gave himself up for her. That he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. You see, the church, according to Scripture, we are the bride of Christ. He is the groom. And it's really hard to love a groom when you're ghosting the bride. When the bride is not a priority. Think about it in your own marriage. If someone speaks ill of your spouse, it's really hard to have a relationship with that person. It's hard to love Jesus if you ghost the bride. problem though it's not that you don't love Jesus, it's that our view of church is way too small. We look at the church and not see the priority of it. It's just such a low view of the church that it has become just something you do on Sundays, a place that you go on Sundays, a building that you attend. It's not who you are. But Scripture teaches clearly you are the bride of Christ and you are the church. The church is not a building, the church is God's people. It's who you are. if we look recently, the Disney has been coming out with all the remakes of the good movies. And if you disagree with me, then you're wrong. the old Lion King is better than the new one. Can I get an amen on that? The old Little Mermaid is better than the new one. I didn't even bother seeing the new Moana because I could just tell from the previews that the old Moana, which isn't really old, it's like three years ago, is better than the new one. You even think about it with a restaurant when When you have your favorite local restaurant and then they open a second location, the original's always better than the new one. It seems like when the original branches out, there's always something just enough to make it stop being the original. So let's grade the church against the original. We are the remake, we are the second part of it, the sequel, however you want to say it. Let's grade how we're doing against the original church. Acts chapter two, verse forty two. And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers, and awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles, and all who believed were together, and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as any had need, 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 people, and the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved. Now, if you've been with us as we've started this walk through Acts, maybe you remember what's going on when this happens. This is around the day of Pentecost. The city of Jerusalem is packed. Everyone has come in for the festival. There are people everywhere. And as Joey spoke with you all last week, if you were here, Peter stands up and he preaches a message. One sermon, 3,000 people got saved in one day. The church goes from a gathering of about 120 people to To a gathering of three thousand one hundred and twenty people with one sermon. It became a mega church like that. So what do you do when you are a church the size of ours and all of a sudden you got 3,000 people showing up? What do they do? What's their response? You know what they didn't have? They didn't have a building. They didn't have budget. They didn't have any staff to take care of any programs that they had going on. So what would they do? Verse 42, they devoted themselves. devoted themselves. They held fast. Devoted means you hold fast and you keep showing up. It's not just a one time thing, it is a devotion. You always show up. It's the same word that's used about a boat that was kept by the disciples waiting at the shore for Jesus in Mark chapter 3. That's devotion. You're the boat. You're waiting there. It's the same word that's used in chapter 1, verse 14. It's used again here in verse 46. They were devoted. They showed up over and over again. What were they devoted to? They were devoted to the apostles' teaching, first and foremost. Now, they had the apostles, the guys who were with Jesus. These were the men who had followed Jesus, most of them for three years. But they had all been with him as he had risen from the dead and he had shared his last instructions for the church over the course of 40 days with the risen Jesus. He was retelling all that they needed to know about the scriptures. Today, that's the Bible. They did not have the New Testament. It was being written in their midst by these men who they were listening to. Those were the ones who wrote what we know of as the New Testament. They had the teaching of the apostles, they had the Old Testament to go by, and they were devoted to the teaching. That's your Bible. You're stuck with me and our elders to do the teaching. You don't have the apostles. But we are devoted to the word of God. We are devoted to the scriptures. We teach scripture every single week. And I'll tell you now, if you ever hear me give a message that's not central to scripture, please come and tell me. Because we stand on scripture as truth. It is the word of God, unfallible, without error, inspired by the Holy Spirit. Written by men. They were committed to the Word of God. We teach it every Sunday. You should be in it every single day. Are you devoted to the Word of God? Do you have a plan to read your Bible? you ever open it besides on a Sunday or in a small group? Are you devoted to the Word of God? Do you just hunger for His Word? I know how hard it can be sometimes. I get busy. And I'll go through these seasons where I'm studying for sermons or I'm studying to teach a Bible study and all of a sudden it's like there's just this dryness that I feel, this distance from God. And every time I I look back and I'm like, well, I've not I've only been in the Word to study to teach. I've not done anything to feed myself. Do you have a thirst for God's word? This is God's love letter to you. Everything to the Word of God. They thrived on the Word of God. They could not make it through a day without learning something about God. Are you devoted to the Word of God? They were devoted to the fellowship. Not fellowship, they were devoted to the fellowship. Coinania is the word that is used there, and it is a shared life. It's not just a handshake or a how are you doing or a hug at the back of the church. It is sharing life together. Verse 44 says all who believed were together, had all things in common. It was a shared life. The fellowship isn't just gathering around the coffee bar on Sunday. It is a shared life. They were devoted to the fellowship. Do you share life with your church family? This is not sharing life. I love Sundays with you. I love getting to worship with you. This is not sharing life. Sharing life is so much deeper. It happens every day. Do you share life with your church family? They were devoted to the breaking of bread. These are real meals in real homes. It's not just a buffet that we have at church. It is gathering together in each other's home, sharing a meal, and at the center of it was the Lord's table. They would gather around and share a meal together and then they would partake of the Lord's table. We're going to do that here in just a little while. They were committed to it. Fellowship. Meals together. You notice over and over through scripture it's all centered around a table. Jesus would sit with his disciples where? Around a mill. They were devoted to that. They were devoted to the prayers. Not just praying, but set times. They would come together and pray. You see it in chapter 3, the first beginning of chapter 3, Peter and John walk up to the temple at a set hour, 3 o'clock, the hour of prayer. They kept showing up to it. They were devoted to it. They loved each other. And they showed up for each other. Because they loved the groom. They showed up for the bride. It's hard to love the groom if you're ghosting the bride. If there's no priority placed on that. They were devoted to the apostles' teaching, the word of God. They were devoted to fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to the prayers and what grew out of that. All came upon them. Verse 43, awe came upon every soul. Not panic, the weight of what God was doing in their midst. They were seeing God do what only God could do, and they were just in amazement. They stood in awe of who God was. It grew out of that gathering of the bride of Christ. What else grew out of it? Generosity grew out of it. They sold everything they had so that anybody who had a need would not have a need. You know what that's not? It's not socialism. It's not communism. It's not the government doing anything. It is the church doing what the church does. Caring for the needs of others. It's joyful generosity. The church meets needs. And you know what? If the church would meet needs today, we wouldn't need the government to do any of that stuff that they're asking. church was the safety net, not the government. They met needs. Selling land, selling possessions, and the proceeds went to others, and out of that grew worship. So this day by day they were attending the temple together. Day by day. Every single day they're gathering together to worship. We gather once a week. And we make excuses not to show up a lot. Day by day they were gathering together at the temple. To worship, and then they were going to each other's homes to eat, enjoying company with each other. It says, with joyful, glad, generous hearts over a shared time together. Devoted to the apostles' teaching, devoted to the fellowship, devoted to the breaking of bread, devoted to the prayers, and out of that grew awe and generosity and worship and joy. And what came from all of it? People got saved. Praising God and having favor with the people, the Lord added to their number day by day, those who were being saved. The Lord added to their number day by day. The Lord added. They were just devoted. They were faithful. They showed up. And the Lord did what the Lord does. He used his people. And he added to the kingdom day by day. They kept the devotion. God did the adding. It's the same God, the same spirit. You know what the variable is? We are. We are the variable in all of it. It is the same church. We are just the remake of that first church. We got the same name. We even have a building. We worship at the same time on Sundays like they did. But so often we lose the devotion. We just show up on Sundays and the rest of it doesn't really matter. Think about your calendar again. Not the one Sunday that you might have missed. What's your pattern? Is the church important to you? Does it matter to you? The church is more than this. If you look at the church and you say it's a Sunday morning worship service, you've missed the whole point of the church. This is not the church. This is the gathering of the church. This is not the church. You are the church. Sunday morning is the front of the porch of the church where we gather together and just have a good time together, but those serious conversations, just like in your house, they happen around a kitchen table. And your groups are those. We see it. They're meeting in homes. For us, that's life groups. Fight Club Flourish. They were meeting together, committed to being together in homes. In a crowd, you can disappear. I have done that intentionally before. Went to larger church so that I could disappear. But when when you're in a small group, that empty chair gets noticed. You get missed. It adds some accountability to it. And it's not about just doing more and doing more and doing more. Devotion isn't burnout. I've been burned out at churches that were program driven, where I was there every single night, literally six nights a week, to be a part of some program. It's not about a program. It's about a way of life. They were in homes together with glad hearts. Devotion is belonging, it's not just being busy. It's about being a family. I get told all the time, well, I can worship God on the lake. with a fishing pole. I can worship God in a deer stand. Can worship God sitting on my couch. You absolutely can and you should. God is everywhere. Worship God when you're doing all those things. The model God built. Churches together. It's not a on your own kind of thing. All who believed were together, not occasionally, day by day, doing life together. You can't love the groom and ghost the bride. And we do it all the time. Listen, this is not about legalism. I'm not saying if you if you're not committed to a group that you're not saved, that is not the point of this. The point is if you're not, if you're not doing this with a group of believers, you are not going to grow the way God is wanting you to grow. You are not going to live the abundant life that God has for you. Everywhere you look in Scripture, it's doing it together. Never once is it done solo. They were devoted to the prayers. Are we devoted to the prayers? When the church calls a prayer gathering and granted we don't do that a lot, but when we do, do you make it a priority? Honestly, by the attendance we have at a prayer gathering, it seems to say no. I'll just be transparent. That's why we don't do it a lot. Because it discourages me to be here with me and five or six other people praying. So I just don't do it and I should. Is prayer a central part of your group gatherings? If you're in a life group, is it a central part of what you do in your life group? Do you pray for each other and together? Are you devoted to the prayer? Are you devoted to the teaching? The teaching of scripture. Are you devoted to God's word? Is it central to everything you talk about? Does it govern everything in your life? When you meet with other believers, do you talk scripture or you talk football or gossip or whatever may be going on in the world during that time? Is scripture central to it at all? Are you devoted to generosity? Money and everybody just tensed up because we don't want to talk about finances, but in the early church that was n nothing was off limits. They talked about it openly. Because they were together in this and generosity, it's not a line item on the budget. It's what devotion does with your wallet when you're truly devoted. tithing is one thing. But this is something entirely different. Tithing is is funding the needs of a church, but generosity is giving to someone who has need, and nobody else may even know it. Do you open up your wallet to help others? That's what love looks like when you live it out. This doesn't earn God's love. It's living out God's love. Listen, you can do none of those things and still be saved, but you will not live the life he's called you to live. You cannot love the groom if you hate his bride. And I'm not saying you hate the church, but so many, so many of us make it way down the priority list. Thing is, the gospel, the question is, are you living the gospel? Is it really your life? Because if you are, you will be a people of awe. Are you a people expectant of God to move? When you walked through the doors this morning, were you expecting God to do something great in you? Were you expecting God to do anything for the person sitting next to you or the person two rows in front of you? Were you expecting anything to happen this morning? Or were you just showing up to sing a few songs and make you feel good because you knocked church off the list this week? Are you in awe of what God is doing? Because God is still at work today, doing things in the lives of the people in this room. Are you in awe of that? Are you a generous people? Your wallet is part of your worship. Standing back looking at it from the bird's eye view, you seem to be a generous people. We have a healthy budget as a church, you give, but I don't know what you do in your personal lives. Are you a generous people? Or do you hold it with a tight iron fist? If this describes you as a church, you would be a worshiping people. Worship is not just what we do here on Sunday mornings and sing 20 minutes of songs or 15 minutes of songs or whatever it looks like. Worship is how you live your life every single day. Are you a worshiping people? Some of the best worship I ever have is driving down the interstate in my truck, listening to worship songs, and thinking about the greatness of God. Are you a worshiping people? Day by day they worship. Every day. Are you a joyful people? Joy in relationships, you don't just find it. It's forged. Through ups and downs, through fires. It's relationships that are built that end up in joy. And joy are those moments where we just love and enjoy being around each other. It's old pastor named by the name of R. C. Sproul, and he was talking about that saying that so many of us have has heard. Family that prays together stays together. We've most of us have heard that. You've probably seen it on a coffee cup or a t-shirt. And he says, I was taught this a little bit different when I was growing up. A family that prays and plays together stays together. Do you enjoy your church family? Do you have fun being around your church family? Do you look forward to this? You are sent people. Let me ask you this, if you were in a if you are in a life group and someone was to to peek through the window, what would they see? Would they see a people about the gospel? Or about small talk. Are you sharing Jesus with anybody? Jesus does the adding. But we got to be faithful. He uses you. It's your job to be devoted. That's our part of it. Are you seeking any sort of opportunity to share the gospel with anybody? And I know it's hard. I know that opportunities come up and maybe the the timing doesn't feel right. Find the timing. Pray for the timing. I've asked you over and over this year, who is your one? Have you ever spoken to the one? Have you prayed for the one? Have you sought other opportunities with anybody else? We are a sent people. And it's really hard to love the groom when we don't care about the church. Do those characteristics fit you at all? See, some of you you're already in the drift. You showed up today because God appointed you to be here. But you've not been here in weeks. You've not plugged into a life group. You've not made it important. You're in the drift. You you didn't decide to leave, you just missed a Sunday that turned into a couple of Sundays that turned into I'm not going to get into a life group. I'm too busy and now you're drifting from the Lord. The scary part is you don't even see it. Sometimes till it's too late. But this is not a solo thing. And if you are a follower of Christ, if you belong to the groom, you belong to the bride. You are the church. It is not optional. This is the design that he laid out to do life. We do it together as a church. It's not a test. It's who you already are. You are church. Is it a priority for you? This is not a test of salvation. But it is a matter of devotion and obedience. He designs you to be a part of the body of Christ. Are you ghosting the bride? Showing up on Sundays is one thing, that is not being a part of the body. That's just checking off a to do list. They broke bread together. In a few minutes we're going to do that as well. But I have a challenge for you before we get there. Think about your calendar. Next Sunday, the next Sunday. Just think about what you've got planned. Put God's people on it. Commit to the bride. We need you. You need us. We're in this together. Commit to a group. A life group. Fight club. Flourish. None of those fit in my schedule. Okay. Start a group. Find you some guys or some ladies and get a group going. One that starts, it doesn't have to be a church-led group. Find some believers. Get together and do it. Make it a commitment to do this with other people. We move into a time of communion. I'm just gonna ask you to pray with me. So if you'd bow your heads, I'm gonna read a prayer here. I just ask you to pray this. You can say it this way, these words, or you can say it however you feel led to say it. If would just pray. Jesus, I know you built your church and I didn't. You call her your bride. You gave up yourself for her. And I confess That I've treated her like an option. Maybe not now, but I know I have in the past, and I know I may again in the future. And I've let good things crowd out your people. Forgive me for loving you, but keeping a distance from the ones you put me in to do life with. Help me to be devoted to your word. to your people, to your table, and to prayer. If I've drifted, bring me home. Starting today. Maybe you're in here and you're not a part of the bride. But there's something you're missing. The Lord has shown you that you need a savior. Scripture says that we are all broken, sinful people, separated from God, and that there's nothing we can do on our own to fix that. Scripture says that because of that we are separated from God for eternity in hell. Death is the penalty. But Jesus. He took the burden of your sin to a cross. beaten, hung on a tree and left to die. Buried in a borrowed tomb. He took that penalty of death so that you don't have to. Many defeated death three days later he walked out of a tomb so that you could have life in him. Have you ever surrendered to him? Scripture says, all who call on the name of the Lord will be saved. It tells us that if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Have you ever confessed him as Lord? can this morning. Confession is commitment. You are saying, Jesus, you are my Lord. I believe you are who you said you are. And it's not a magic prayer, but it's just a a time of commitment. You could pray something like, Lord, I know I'm a sinner. I know I need a savior, and I know you're the only way. I trust you as my Lord. Save me. If you have prayed something along those lines, you are part of the bride. And I would love for you to share that with me before we leave today. But if not with me, share it with somebody. There are steps to take now. If you are f a new follower of Christ, there are steps along the path of obedience that draw you closer to Him for you to experience the abundant life that He has for you.