Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Foreign.
[00:00:10] So here's what I want us to think about this morning Through Acts, chapter 2, verses 42 to 47. So we are just slowly walking through the book of Acts, line by line, chapter by chapter, really talking about this theme of what it means for us today to be the church.
[00:00:28] What does it look like to be the people of God? For those who have put their faith in Jesus by God's grace, what does it look like for us to be the people of God in this place at this time for the glory of God? So I was talking to a good friend last week over lunch, and he brought up this point, and I thought, yeah, that's a great point. He said, it's really easy to look out at the state of the world and be like, gosh, if only we lived at a different time. But think about this reality. Like you, you're here today. God. God has put you here today sovereignly. He determined this from before the foundation, the earth, long before you lived. He put you here today. He put you here today.
[00:01:03] He could have put anybody here, but he put you here.
[00:01:06] Okay, so if you have kids, you're the. You're the only parent to your kids that they have.
[00:01:12] If you're married, you're the only spouse to your spouse that your spouse has. If you're single and you're working in your job, you're the person in that job to be a minister of reconciliation. That's the theme of the week, sent to reconcile God. God has put you here for this time so that we can say, as is said in the book of Esther, for such a time as this, to proclaim the name of Jesus, to show people the glory and grace of Jesus. Like God could have put anybody here, but he put you here. That's an amazing. That's an amazing thought to consider. So here's what I want us to think about this morning as we study a passage that I have had the opportunity to preach on many times and study. But it felt like it hit different for me this week, light of things going on in the world.
[00:01:56] Okay, is. Is this question, what does it look like?
[00:02:01] I'm sorry. As our culture continues to spiral, so as we look out at the news and regardless of where you are politically, I want you just to think about this question. As a Christian, as we look out at the culture and we see the culture spiraling, we see, you know, I think, in some unique ways, a society unraveling.
[00:02:24] So as we begin, as we see this happen, what does it look like? What. What are the people of God to do?
[00:02:32] So what are we as a church, those who follow Jesus? What are we to do in the midst of this time?
[00:02:40] How are we to engage? Are we to engage? What? What are we to do? And I think Acts, chapter 2, verses 42 to 47, offers us a really. A really beautiful picture of what God has called his people to always be about.
[00:02:56] And as we've talked about through our study of the Book of Acts, there are lots of things in Acts that are prescriptive. I'm sorry, that are descriptive things. So things that happen in the Book of Acts that aren't necessarily to be expected to happen throughout the life of the church.
[00:03:13] But there are also things in the Book of Acts that are prescriptive that the people of God are always to be about and always to do. And this passage, maybe more than any other in the whole Book of Acts, shows us what those things are. What are those prescriptive things that the church is always to be about and always to do? And the phrase that I want to highlight for you, that I want to encourage you to circle, if you're writing in your Bible, or maybe if you're writing on a notepad or whatever you're writing on, is this phrase devoted.
[00:03:42] That could also be translated continually or continuously devoted. This is the key phrase in the passage.
[00:03:48] They continually, continuously devoted themselves to what?
[00:03:53] Because. Step back here. Because those things that they, in the first century, the followers of Jesus, continually, continuously devoted themselves to are the things that you and I, in the midst of a spiraling culture today, are also to continually devote ourselves to. Does that make sense?
[00:04:10] So let's look at the passage together. What do they continually devote themselves to? There are four things mentioned in verse 42 that really could be seen as pillars of sorts to the church for all ages.
[00:04:27] Jesus is the cornerstone of the church. So we ask, what's Redemption Hill about? Redemption Hill is about Jesus exalting the name of Jesus, the person of Jesus, the work of Jesus. Everything else we do and say should flow out of that centrality. We're about Jesus. We always want to be about Jesus. Everything else else we do is secondary and tertiary to that.
[00:04:48] But these four things can also be seen flowing from centrality to Jesus as what the church should always do and always be about. And just to get us caught up on a little bit of context.
[00:05:00] Guys, I'm sorry, could y' all actually turn me down a little bit? Am I loud to y'? All? I'm loud to myself. Y' all. Turn me down just a little bit. Is this better?
[00:05:09] I promise I could talk quieter, but I'm not going to.
[00:05:12] I'm going to start preaching and it's going to get louder and louder. I think that's better. Is that better?
[00:05:16] Praise God. All right, so here's where we are in the Book of Acts.
[00:05:21] In Acts, chapter one, verse eight, you get kind of the theme verse of the whole book. So Jesus says that you are talking to his.
[00:05:29] His first disciples.
[00:05:31] You are going to be my witnesses. Everybody say witnesses.
[00:05:34] Witnesses. That's who you are. If you're a follower of Jesus.
[00:05:37] That's not what you're called to do. Primarily. You are called to do that, but that call to do flows out of who you are in Christ. You're a witness.
[00:05:47] You're a witness to something.
[00:05:49] You're a witness to someone.
[00:05:51] We're either going to live our life being witnesses of ourselves and. And being all about ourself and our own little kingdom that will perish when we perish.
[00:06:01] Or we'll be witnesses to the king.
[00:06:03] And there's only one king. The King of Kings, the Lord of Lords. Jesus, the God man. He's the king.
[00:06:11] They're to be witnesses to the risen King Jesus. So the book of Acts is not primarily about the apostles.
[00:06:18] It's not primarily even about the person of the Holy Spirit. The Book of Acts is about Jesus. The. The risen, exalted, ruling and reigning king Jesus. That's who the Book of Acts is about. And the reigning king, Jesus from heaven sends his spirit to live in his people, to lead his people.
[00:06:36] But that's what the Book of Acts is about. You are to be witnesses, he tells them, in Jerusalem and then in Judea and in Samaria, into the ends of the earth. This is kind of the theme verse. But he says, I don't want you to go yet. I want you to wait. Because you're going to receive power from on high. And. And then in Acts chapter two, we see the disciples gathered around and we don't know what all they're doing, but they're praying. And as they're gathered, praying. God the Father and God the Son from Heaven send God the Holy Spirit to indwell their hearts. And something new and redemptive history happens at this day called Pentecost in Acts chapter two. That's never happened before in the history of the world. God Himself comes to dwell in his people.
[00:07:18] Not just with his people, in his people. That the law of God that was once written on stone, given to Moses to be preached to the people of Israel, is now written on their hearts. And so from their heart, their sin has been forgiven because Christ died on the cross. Their sin has been defeated because he's been resurrected from the dead. And now as he's ascended to heaven, ruling and reigning on high, he sends the person of the Holy Spirit and the ability to, to love God with all their heart, mind, soul and strength, and love their neighbor as their self and live as witnesses has been embedded upon their heart.
[00:07:52] Isn't that amazing? And so that's where they are in Pentecost. And as the Spirit fills the disciples, Peter, this broken, imperfect man that I totally love and relate to puts his foot in his mouth all the time. This Peter, who denies Jesus three times, stands up boldly in the midst of a crowd of thousands and he preaches Jesus.
[00:08:11] And as Peter proclaims Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit, 3,000 people come to faith.
[00:08:17] And so they say, what do we do? And Peter says, you need to repent for the forgiveness of your sins and then be baptized.
[00:08:25] 3,000 people, that's a massive, that's insane church growth.
[00:08:31] 3,000 people come to faith in Jesus, are saved from their sins, given new life by the person and power of the Holy Spirit.
[00:08:38] And now what do they do? They. They gather.
[00:08:42] And so when we ask the question, what are the people of God to do?
[00:08:47] What has always been the thing that God has declared and desired for his people to do in the midst of trying times, in the midst of the unraveling of society? As we're going to see, as we read through the Book of Acts, we're going to see growing opposition for the people of God. It's not quite there yet, but once Christianity becomes a threat to the Roman Empire, guess what happens?
[00:09:07] Opposition comes.
[00:09:10] There's a lot to relate to in the Book of Acts.
[00:09:16] And so what are the people to do?
[00:09:18] Are they to protest?
[00:09:20] Are they to pick up arms and fight? What are they to do? This is what they do.
[00:09:27] The people of God gather by the power of the Spirit, with eyes fixed on Jesus, they gather.
[00:09:37] And as the people of God gather, darkness trembles.
[00:09:42] This is where the hope of the world is proclaimed. It's not to say that Jesus is not proclaimed in our individual lives. He certainly is. But there is something unique and special that when the people of God gather together and non Christians come in the door, there's something unique that happens there, something special that happens there.
[00:10:03] And so what do they do? What do they do when. When they gather? Look at verse 42.
[00:10:09] Remember the phrase continually devoted, verse 42 says they continually devoted themselves first to the apostles teaching. This is the first thing that the people of God devote themselves to.
[00:10:25] They devote themselves to the apostles teaching.
[00:10:31] What is the apostles teaching? Well, if you think about it contextually, remember when we're reading the Bible, we always have to ask ourselves first, who wrote it? Who are they writing it to?
[00:10:42] So doing the work to do some what's called inductive Bible study, what does the text say? What does the text mean? Is super important before you ask yourself the question, what does it mean to me?
[00:10:55] But we typically ask that question first, what does it mean to me? And so we pull verses out of context and we create confusing theologies and we do all these kind of weird things with the Bible. Okay, what does the text say? What does the text mean in its context? Well, what could the apostles teaching be in this context? Well, they didn't have the New Testament yet, did they?
[00:11:13] Right. The New Testament was being written inspired by the Holy Spirit. And so what's the apostles teaching? It's the Old Testament scriptures.
[00:11:21] And what do the Old Testament scriptures testify to? Christ.
[00:11:26] That's what it's all about.
[00:11:28] From Genesis to Malachi, Christ, all the prophets, Christ, the law, Christ, Moses, Christ, David, Christ, Solomon, Christ, it's all about Jesus.
[00:11:40] This is the apostles teaching the life, death, resurrection, ascension and exaltation of King Jesus, the promised Messiah, as spoken and taught through the prophets of the Old Testament.
[00:11:52] This is what they devoted themselves to.
[00:11:54] Charles Spurgeon has this awesome quote where he basically says, and Spurgeon was an avid reader. So if you read a biography on Spurgeon, he read everything. He read science, he read biology, he read botany, he read math, even how you read math. But he read about math, he read history.
[00:12:13] He was a very well read man. So should you and I be friends? You and I should be well read.
[00:12:20] We should fight against a culture that says the attention span of a normal human now is 20 seconds. That doesn't have to be true. Doesn't have to be true for you. Doesn't have to be true for me. We all struggle with that. Okay? But all of us would do well to put our phones aside for a little bit and read a book not on your phone, like a paper book. Okay? Like you should be a well read person. And so Spurgeon, who was a well read person, would say, I have visited many books, I've visited many books. You should visit many books. But I live in one.
[00:12:51] Visit many books of many different subjects. Read history, read sociology, read geopolitical stuff, read all of these kinds of things, that's good. But live in a book like live in one book, there's one book and only one book that's living and active, sharper than any two edged sword breathed out by God and profitable for teaching and training in all righteousness. And it's the Bible.
[00:13:18] Read one live in one book.
[00:13:21] This is what they continually devoted themselves to. They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching Christ through the Old Testament. You and I have the full revelation.
[00:13:32] Everything we need to know about life and godliness is found in this book.
[00:13:37] Living, breathing, empowered by the Holy Spirit. If you want to know what the will of God is, that's a card. If you want to know what the will of God is, read this book. If you want to know what God is like in the person of Jesus Christ, read this book.
[00:13:51] If you want to know what you're to do as a husband, as a father, as a wife, as a mother, as a single person, as a friend, as a neighbor, as a missionary, if you want to know all of these things, read live in this book.
[00:14:05] I mean, Lent is coming up in a couple of weeks.
[00:14:08] What a wonderful opportunity we have for Lent to set aside something that we love to spend more time in. The Bible.
[00:14:15] We say at Redemption Hill, oftentimes Lent is not about losing something, it's about gaining.
[00:14:22] We lose something temporary, momentarily so that we can gain more of God.
[00:14:27] We fast from something so that we can feast on Jesus, the true bread of life, the true sustainer of our souls, the true satisfier of our souls.
[00:14:38] They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching to the Word of God.
[00:14:45] Psalm 119, 103 says, how sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth.
[00:14:54] Some of you and I, we all experience this from time to time. We go through seasonal droughts by which the Word of God does not.
[00:15:02] We. That's not our experience with the Bible.
[00:15:05] Sweeter than honey to my mouth.
[00:15:07] Like, if you think about the things in your life that you crave, that you're like, I just, I just want, I just crave it. I just like, what? What if the Bible were that thing?
[00:15:20] I mean the God of the Bible more specifically were that thing.
[00:15:24] So some of us, even though we don't feel what Psalm 119 says in that verse, we need discipline.
[00:15:32] Because oftentimes discipline leads to delight and other times delight feeling. Psalm 119, 103 leads to discipline. We're like, oh, I just want the Bible. So we're in it and Then we discipline ourselves. But some of us just need to be disciplined in order, by God's grace, to experience some of that delight.
[00:15:52] They continually devoted themselves to the apostles teaching. That's. That's the first thing, the second thing that he says, and the fellowship. They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching. And the second thing is they continually devoted themselves to.
[00:16:11] To fellowship. Another way to understand what fellowship means in this passage is the Greek. It's the Greek word koinonia.
[00:16:18] They devoted themselves to one another.
[00:16:21] So they continually, not just one time, they devoted themselves to one another. We have no indication, at least, this wasn't a perfect church. By the way, as we'll see as the New Testament unfolds, there is no perfect church, right? But there didn't seem to be this kind of flippancy to their devotion to one another.
[00:16:39] You made me mad.
[00:16:42] I'm out.
[00:16:44] No, they continually devoted themselves to one another, to the discipleship of one another. This was koinonia. The word koinonia is the experience of having something in common.
[00:17:00] It's the experience of having something in common.
[00:17:05] Luke describes it a little bit further down in the passage of what this fellowship or this koinonia looked like in verse 44. He says, and all who believed were together, so they gathered together, they were together, and they had all things in common.
[00:17:23] This is antithetical to human nature. I have five children, and I would die and kill for all five of them.
[00:17:30] But, man, my kids are sinners just like all of us are.
[00:17:35] And I see this, you know, I have a front row seat to this. Oftentimes I've got two babies in diapers, and when they're on the floor, even though my youngest, she doesn't really know what she. She just grabs that stuff. But the other one hates that it's her stuff, right? This is indicative of who we are, naturally. It's my stuff.
[00:17:56] My life, my time, my money, my comfort.
[00:18:01] It's about me, right? This is. If you were to find sin, maybe in a word, it would be me.
[00:18:08] It's all about me. That's what sin is, okay?
[00:18:12] But these Christians had all things in common, meaning that their perspective and their actions when they were together was the opposite of that.
[00:18:21] It wasn't about me. It was about us.
[00:18:24] It was about you.
[00:18:27] They had all things in common. And there's only one thing that can do something so radical in a person as to take them from being about me to being about us, and it's the Holy Spirit.
[00:18:38] God alone is the only one powerful in the universe to come inside of a human heart and transform it in such a way by which I say life is about me. It's about the glory of God. It's about us.
[00:18:49] It's not my stuff, right? Like every dollar you have comes from Jesus. Every single dollar, the roof over your head comes from Jesus. The breath in your lungs comes from Jesus. None of it belongs to you.
[00:19:07] It's all from him.
[00:19:09] It's all gift, all of it.
[00:19:14] So they were aware of this. Second Corinthians 9, verses 9 through 11. Reality, it says. It is written.
[00:19:22] This is Paul. It is written. He has distributed. That's God has distributed or given freely. He has given to the poor.
[00:19:29] God has given to the poor. His righteousness endures forever. He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way which through us will provide thanksgiving to God. Everything is gift, everything that you have.
[00:19:52] And it's the only mindset given by the person of the Holy Spirit that can lead to the kind of church community by which the people of God have all things in common. There's not a single person lacking in this church.
[00:20:09] If all things in common, you have a need. I'm going to meet that need. Not going to wait for somebody else to do it. I'm going to do it.
[00:20:17] Okay? They had all things in common. This is Christian community.
[00:20:22] Christian community is not a once a week potluck.
[00:20:25] Christian community, as we find here In Acts chapter 2, verses 42 to 47, is not a flippancy of relationship. You make me mad. You say one thing I don't like and I'm out. That's not what it is. It's koinonia.
[00:20:40] It's the kind of community that can only come together because of the blood of Christ and by the power of the Spirit of Christ.
[00:20:47] It looks like Jesus, who in Philippians 2 did not count equality with God while on earth a thing to be grasped, but he emptied himself and took on the form of a servant. He was born in the likeness of men. He humbled himself by becoming obedient even to the point of death on the cross.
[00:21:11] And so his people, filled with his presence, ought to look like him more and more in the way that they treat one another when they're together.
[00:21:22] They had all things.
[00:21:24] They had all things in common, says in verse 45. They were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as any had need. This is koinonia.
[00:21:38] This is fellowship.
[00:21:41] This is the.
[00:21:43] This is the invitation that you and I have now to experience this.
[00:21:50] So their koinonia, their fellowship with one another, was marked by generosity, as we just talked about.
[00:21:58] It was also marked by gratitude.
[00:22:02] It was marked by gratitude. Look at verse 46.
[00:22:04] Day by day, attending the temple together.
[00:22:08] So they met in the temple. This is a descriptive thing. We no longer meet in the temple. We are the temple filled by the Holy Spirit. But at this time in redemptive history, they met in the temple together.
[00:22:23] And breaking bread in their homes, they receive food with glad and generous hearts. So if generosity is one marker of true fellowship, true Christian fellowship, gladness is another marker of true fellowship. Tertullian ancient Christian writer tells of a time in the church when, as the gospel was spreading throughout the Roman Empire, the Roman government would actually send spies into the gathering. And so Roman spies would come into the gathering and they would see what these Christians were about. And some of the observations that they came back with were, they have no idols.
[00:23:03] Like, they look around the room, there's no idols in the room, and they seem to worship a man named Jesus who isn't there.
[00:23:10] Isn't that interesting?
[00:23:13] And then they would go back and they would say, but the way that they love one another is otherworldly.
[00:23:19] Might that be said about us? And I believe by the grace of God, it is, because I hear story after story of the people of Redemption Hill and how kind, loving and hospitable you are. It's wonderful. Such a joy to hear those things.
[00:23:31] But all the more, this is what we want non Christians to say is, when they walk into the room, do they experience something otherworldly, not because of us, but because of the spirit of Christ in us.
[00:23:45] They devoted themselves to one another. They had all things in common. They were marked by gratitude. They were not melancholy. So I heard a pastor, it's actually a pastor who was, who knows, the pastor of the church in Minneapolis where protesters came in and protested.
[00:24:03] And the person interviewing him was asking him, he was saying, what are Christians to be like if something like this happens? And he mentioned a few things, mostly out of Acts 42 to 47. But one of the things that he mentioned was he said, man, we should be a people of joy.
[00:24:20] Like, it's too easy when things get really hard in the world to be very melancholy and, like, serious in the wrong ways.
[00:24:28] Like, we take ourselves too seriously kind of a way.
[00:24:31] You shouldn't take yourself so seriously.
[00:24:34] Our community should be marked by generosity because Jesus is a generous God. And gratitude.
[00:24:42] It only gets better for you if you're a follower of Jesus.
[00:24:46] Like, either Jesus is real or he isn't.
[00:24:49] If he isn't real, then everything we're doing is pointless and we should all go home.
[00:24:54] Like, what's the point of playing church games if Jesus isn't real?
[00:24:58] But if he is real, everything changes. That means there really is a king who's reigning over all things.
[00:25:05] And it means that that king really will return one day and make all things new. He's going to wipe away every tear from your eye.
[00:25:13] Death will be no more. Sadness and sin will be no more.
[00:25:18] His kingdom will be forever and perfectly established. It only gets better for you if you're a Christian.
[00:25:24] So let's, by the grace of God, stop being so melancholy all the time.
[00:25:28] I'm not oversimplifying depression. So that's a different sermon for a different day. Don't hear me say that depression is real. You should lament when sad things happen. You should grieve when sad things happen. I'm talking about an overly seriousness in the wrong way. Does that make sense?
[00:25:44] Generosity and gratitude was what marked these early disciples as they gathered in the midst of the Roman Empire that would soon be in opposition to them and their message.
[00:25:57] Third thing.
[00:25:58] So they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching. They devoted themselves to the fellowship.
[00:26:05] And the third thing is to the breaking of bread.
[00:26:09] Devoted themselves to the breaking of bread. This is.
[00:26:14] It is implied that Luke is talking about the Lord's Supper.
[00:26:18] They gathered together around meals. Certainly this is something they devoted themselves to. But more preeminently than that, they devoted themselves to the Lord's Supper. Jesus says, as long as many as. As often as you gather, do this, do this Lord's Supper in remembrance of me. The Westminster Shorter Catechism defines the Lord's Supper. It says, by faith we are made partakers of Christ's body and blood, with all his benefits to our spiritual nourishment and growth in grace.
[00:26:54] Our spiritual nourishment. This is the phrase that we often use when we talk about what the Lord's Supper is. We believe. And this is I believe. This is why the Apostle Paul says there's such a great significance to the Supper that it's not merely symbolic, though it is symbolic, but there's something unique and special that happens by which the Holy Spirit, through the elements, brings nourishment to our soul.
[00:27:17] That when we take of the elements in faith, we are remembering Christ, his life, his death, specifically his death on the cross, his resurrection from the grave. But the Spirit of God through the elements, is actually growing us in grace in that moment.
[00:27:32] This is why we prepare our hearts for the Supper. This is why, if there's known sin in our life, we repent of that sin. Because we know that at the cross it's already been taken care of in full. So we're free to confess, we're free to repent, to turn from lesser joys to the greater joy, Jesus. And then we come and we taste and see that the Lord is good.
[00:27:51] We ask the Spirit of God through the bread and through the juice, to nourish our souls and to grow us in grace, that we might become more like Jesus. Together, they devoted themselves to the breaking of bread. And then the last is they devoted themselves to prayer.
[00:28:09] Apostles teaching koinonia, fellowship, breaking of bread in the Lord's Supper and prayer.
[00:28:18] Prayer is not an obligation. It's an invitation.
[00:28:23] God does not need you and I to pray, friends.
[00:28:26] He's not missing anything in who he is. We need to pray.
[00:28:33] You need to pray. I need to pray. Prayer in the closet, like prayer in private, is one of the greatest acts of faith that you could ever do.
[00:28:41] Nobody else sees it.
[00:28:43] You can't impress anybody because nobody else is in the room.
[00:28:46] That's why Jesus says, if you do it that way, then your Father who's in heaven, he'll reward you.
[00:28:52] It won't be a fleeting reward that only comes from the praise of man. Wow, that prayer was amazing.
[00:28:58] They're so theological and smart and mature, and you won't get that.
[00:29:04] That's fleeting.
[00:29:05] It feels good for a moment and then it vanishes forever.
[00:29:10] But you do get the reward of the presence of God.
[00:29:14] You do get to pause for a moment. For any of you who struggle with assurance, I love these kinds of things.
[00:29:20] But if you struggle with assurance, like, do I really belong to Jesus?
[00:29:25] The promise of God is that anyone who confesses with their mouth that Jesus is Lord and believes in their heart that God raised him from the dead will be saved.
[00:29:32] So that's the promise of God.
[00:29:35] So again, it's true, because God made that promise to you. When you're on your knees in the closet in prayer, you should just ask yourself, why am I doing this?
[00:29:45] And you're doing it in part because the spirit of God lives in you.
[00:29:49] Otherwise you wouldn't be doing it.
[00:29:51] And then you just get to breathe. Oh, God, thank you.
[00:29:54] Thank you that you've granted me faith, even though my faith is like a mustard seed. A lot of the time, I thank you I'm on my knees in the quiet. Nobody else is around, nobody to impress. And I'm only doing this because there's a part of me that believes in you. And I only believe in you because you've loved me first.
[00:30:12] So the people of God are to be a people of prayer. A healthy church is not necessarily a large one or a small one.
[00:30:21] Neither big nor small means healthy or mature.
[00:30:26] A healthy, mature church is a praying church filled with praying people who know that in and of themselves, they're not strong enough to do anything.
[00:30:36] You're not strong enough. I'm not strong enough to do anything. We can't save anybody. You can change legislation, and that's a good thing. You can do all sorts. But at the end of the day, what we need, what our country needs, is regenerated souls.
[00:30:52] Things are so bleak and dark and sad because people need to be reconciled to God.
[00:30:59] That's the problem.
[00:31:00] It's not primarily geopolitical, it's spiritual.
[00:31:07] People desperately need to be reconciled to God through Christ. That's the only hope, the only hope in the world.
[00:31:15] And so God answers and moves through prayer.
[00:31:19] If you want to know what to do, pray.
[00:31:22] Pray for the world, pray for the country, pray for the leaders, pray for people, pray for your neighbors, pray for your family. Pray for yourself. God answers and moves through prayer. He loves it when his people pray.
[00:31:34] So they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching, to the fellowship, to Koinonia, to the breaking of bread, to the Lord's Supper and to prayer. And as they devoted themselves to these four things, what did God do?
[00:31:53] How did God respond to this? Look at verse 47. And this will be our close.
[00:31:59] I'll start at 46. 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 are being saved.
[00:32:16] The Lord added to their number, day by day, those who are being saved.
[00:32:24] It's the one thing in the passage that the apostles can't control our souls being saved.
[00:32:33] They can control whether or not they devote themselves to the Bible, to prayer, to the breaking of bread, and to fellowship. They have responsibility in all of those things. But the one thing they can't control is that that the Lord added to their number, day by day, those who were being saved. So here's what I want us to think about as we leave. I just want to. I want to give one more verse, one more passage from 2 Corinthians 2, 14, 16, and then just draw out an application as I've been thinking about being in front of you this week, in light of all of what's going on in the world. Okay, so here's. And I hope it. I hope it encourages you. 2 Corinthians 2, 14, 16. This is what it says.
[00:33:15] It says, but thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession. There's a lot of victory in that passage.
[00:33:27] So the church of Jesus is not. We're not a defeated people.
[00:33:32] It doesn't matter if they lop off your head.
[00:33:35] You're not a defeated person.
[00:33:37] God leads his people in triumphal procession like a king, it says, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of Christ everywhere.
[00:33:50] For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing.
[00:34:02] To one, a fragrance from death to death, and to another, a fragrance from life to life.
[00:34:10] So here's what this means.
[00:34:12] The people of God devoted themselves. We devote ourselves to the apostles, teaching to the fellowship to one another, that there's not a single person in need, because that's what Jesus is and that's what he's done for us, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. And it's the Lord's job to add day by day, those who are being saved to save souls from his wrath on the day of his judgment.
[00:34:34] That's the Lord's job.
[00:34:36] And what 2 Corinthians, how it ties together in light of this reality is here's what Paul's saying. There are, though.
[00:34:43] Here's what he's saying. All right, Bottom line, bottom line up front, as Matt would say, what he's saying is that our victory is sure.
[00:34:51] You cannot lose.
[00:34:54] People will be saved.
[00:34:56] They just will be saved.
[00:34:58] People that you proclaim Jesus to, not all of them, but some of them will be saved.
[00:35:04] The Lord will add to the number of his church. He's not necessarily talking about a local church. He's talking about the church.
[00:35:11] This is one of the reasons we pray for churches now every month, because we want to be reminded, like, this is not about us. This is about the church of Fort Worth.
[00:35:19] He's going to add to the number of his people day by day, those who are being saved. And to some who hear the good news of Jesus, it's going to be a fragrance of life, your life and your proclamation of Jesus, even though they're dead in sin now, they're going to respond to it by faith. And it's going to be amazing. It's going to be a fragrance of life, to life.
[00:35:41] And for others, it's going to be a fragrance of death.
[00:35:46] They are going to hate you because they hate Jesus.
[00:35:52] It's not about you.
[00:35:56] This is spiritual.
[00:35:59] Remember, it's not primarily political.
[00:36:03] And so when you proclaim as you live your life, as you prioritize your life differently than the ways of the world, if you're a follower of Jesus in accordance to the word of God, some people are gonna hate it.
[00:36:19] And they might give you opposition.
[00:36:21] And when they give you opposition, friends, remind yourself of this reality because they're giving you opposition. The Bible is true because this is what God told me would happen.
[00:36:32] You don't see the same kind of opposition that you see among Christians, with Muslims, with Buddhists, with Hindus. Why? Because Jesus really is alive and he said it would happen.
[00:36:45] They persecuted me. They will persecute you. This is part of your commitment when you say yes to Jesus.
[00:36:53] Jesus, yes, I'm going to walk through the fire, if that means walking through the fire. Because you're with me and you're worth it. And it's all temporary, but some your proclamation will be a fragrance from life to life. And so with all the confidence in the world, because God himself leads you with and triumphal procession, proclaim.
[00:37:14] Proclaim him.
[00:37:16] Continually devote yourself to the word of God, to the breaking of bread, to one another and to prayer and proclaim. Amen.
[00:37:27] Let's pray.
[00:37:29] Father, we love you. Thank you for the opportunity to gather together. God, we thank you for the gift of your word.
[00:37:39] God, we thank you for the person and power of the Holy Spirit who indwells us and reminds us of all that Jesus has done and said. And God, we pray for those who are not yet of your fold. God, we pray for those in the world. We pray for those in Minneapolis and Los Angeles and New York and Fort Worth and all over God the country, whether they are left or right. We pray that by your grace many would come to faith in Jesus in the coming days, weeks and months.
[00:38:07] Now we pray that you would breathe your spirit out into the hearts of those who are living in darkness, who need to be reconciled to you just as you did us while we were living in darkness, while we were enslaved to sin and dead in sin. You made us alive and you did it by your grace so that we would never boast in ourself, but only in you, Jesus.
[00:38:28] So God, we love you. We thank you for your grace.
[00:38:32] God, I. I pray that you would increase our joy today.
[00:38:36] In Jesus name, amen.
