Good morning, Resurrection Church.
I don't have to introduce myself then.
My name is Richard. I'm the high school youth
director here at Reyes. Thank you for that warm
welcoming. A few years ago I had this job
that I absolutely hated. My job was to steam clean oil
filled pumps in the summer here in Bakersfield in a full rain
suit top and bottom with rain boots on and a face shield and a
hard hat. I hated this job because I was
constantly sweating and I couldn't get away from the heat.
Every time I took a break I would take my rain boot off and
pour out the sweat. What I didn't realize is that I
was letting everybody else around me know how much I hated
this by the way my face looked until one day this guy comes up
to me and he says, hey Richard, Co worker of mine wasn't a
Christian. He says, hey Richard, you're a
Christian, right? And I said, yes I am.
And he goes, and why do you look so miserable all the time?
Because the Christians I know are full of joy.
And that cut me deep. And here's the thing, he asked
that question because I was already telling them about
inviting them to church, telling them about Jesus sharing
scripture. But what he was really saying is
what you're saying isn't matching your face.
It made me stop and examine myself.
Are people actually seeing that I'm a follower of Jesus or do
they just see some guy who hates his job?
The question led me to this passage, and I think it's a
question worth asking yourself to.
If someone followed you around for a week, not just on Sunday
morning, would they be able to tell that you're a follower of
Jesus? Not because you wear a shirt
that says Jesus loves you, or wear a cross around your neck,
or you have a nice sticker on your car, or because you have
this nice little scripture in your Instagram bio.
But they would they be able to tell you're a follower of Jesus
just by the way you treat people, the way you spend your
money, the way you show up for your friends, the way you handle
the hard stuff. Would it be obvious?
I'm not asking to make you feel guilty.
I'm asking it because it's the exact question this passage in
Acts 2 raises. Let's look at it together.
Acts 2, verse 42 through 47. They devoted themselves to the
apostles teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of
bread, and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe,
and many wonders and signs were being performed through the
apostles. Now all the believers were
together and had all things in common.
They sold their possessions and property and distributed,
distributed the proceeds to all as any had need.
Every day they devoted themselves to the meeting
together in the temple and broke bread from house to house.
They ate their food with joyful and sincere hearts, praising God
and enjoying the favor for all the people, all of the people.
Every day the Lord added to their number those who were
being saved. We're only a couple weeks out
from the resurrection of Jesus. The disciples.
The disciples watched him die and come back.
They've watched him ascend into heaven.
And on the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit shows up, and I mean
really shows up. Peter preaches this sermon that
cuts people to the heart, and about 3000 people come to faith
in one day. Now, Luke, the guy who wrote
Acts, is giving us a snapshot of what the church looks like right
after that. What do 3000 new believers
actually do? What does this thing look like
on the ground? The answer is right here in
these 6 verses. What we see here is devotion to
Jesus produces a life the world around you can't ignore.
The first word in verse 42 I think is the most important word
of the whole passage. Devoted.
They devoted themselves. In the original Greek, the word
is pros con torontes, and it means something way stronger
than they attended, or they participated, or even they were
committed. It means steadfastly continuing,
and we actually see it right before this passage back in Acts
114 in the days between the Ascension and Pentecost, Luke
uses the exact same word to describe the disciples.
It says all these with 1 accord were devoting themselves to
prayer together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus and
his brothers. It means constantly, urgently,
without letting up. So by the time we get to Acts
242, this isn't a new posture for them.
This is who they already were. It's the same word Paul uses in
Romans 12 when he says, when he says to the believers, he tells
them to be devoted to prayer. This is not a casual word.
This is a all in kind of word. So what were they devoted to?
Well, Luke gives us four things. The apostles teaching, the
fellowship, the breaking of bread and the prayers.
We're going to look at each one because I think we can miss what
they actually mean. The apostles teaching this is
the Word of God. The early church didn't have a
New Testament. It was still being written, but
what they had was the testimonies of the apostles, the
one that walked with Jesus, the one that lived with them, the
ones that saw him, how he interacted with people.
They were hungry for the Word of God, for the testimonies of the
apostles who saw Jesus, who watched him die and watched him
rise again. And these new believers were
hanging on every word. They were showing up.
They weren't passive. They treated God's Word like it
was the most important thing in their week, because it was.
Here's a question we're sitting with.
Do you actually believe that when the Word of God is
faithfully taught, it's more important than anything else you
could do with your time? The early church acted like they
believed it. Their attendance wasn't passive.
Their engagement wasn't casual. They were devoted to it.
They were also devoted to the fellowship.
This word in Greek is kononea, and it's been softened over
time. We use fellowship to mean snacks
and coffee in the lobby. I mean, I love snacks too.
Shout out to the baking team. We appreciate it.
But here's the thing, we have group chats, Instagram
followers, more ways to connect than any generation before us,
but most of us are still carrying the hard stuff alone.
If that sounds familiar and community sounds like a church
word or something fake, stay with me, because that's not what
Luke is describing here. Koinonen means something way
more loaded than that. It means shared life.
It means I'm letting you into what's actually going on with
me, and you're letting me into what's actually going on with
you. And you're telling me about the
hard things in life. I'm telling you about the hard
things in my life, the things that we were never meant to
carry alone. They weren't just acquaintances
who happened to show up at the same place on Sunday.
They were in each other's lives. And that's uncomfortable,
honestly, because real fellowship, real Koinonia,
requires vulnerability. It requires you to let people
see the version of you that isn't cleaned up and put
together. How many of us, when we're
having people over, run around cleaning the house right before
they arrive? I know my wife makes me do it
too. We do that because we don't want
people to see our mess. But I'll tell you the truth,
when I walk into someone's house and I see it spotless, I'm
thinking to myself a bunch of liars.
This house was not like that. Especially if you have kids.
If you got like 4 kids and I walk in and I don't step on a
Lego, I know you're lying. But we do that, and we do it
with our lives, too. We want to fake it.
We don't want people to see the mess, so we show them the best
version of ourselves. But that doesn't help me and
that doesn't help. You they were also.
Devoted to the breaking of bread.
This almost certainly refers to both the Lord's Supper communion
and to actual shared meals. Look at verse 46.
They were breaking bread in their homes every day around
kitchen tables with actual people.
This wasn't a program. This wasn't.
This was just life together, eating together, showing up in
each other's ordinary days. I think we miss under
underestimate how powerful a shared meal is.
When you invite someone into your home, what you're doing,
you're you're doing something more than feeding them.
You're saying, I'm willing to let you see how I actually live.
And that's not nothing. A few years ago, I got to the
opportunity to go to the Middle East and I walked into this
home, the home of Syrian refugees who were all from a
Muslim background. And I walked in and they all had
Bibles on their laps, 4 women sitting there, Bibles open and
they said, can I tell you what How I Met Jesus?
And I was like yes, please tell me.
They viewed the word of God like it was the most important thing
that they could share with me. When they opened the door, as
they fed us, they welcomed us in like family.
We were strangers but we shared Jesus and that made us family.
And then to top it all off, they asked how they could be praying
for us. How could how they could be
praying for the American church. And that wrecked me.
You who have so little want to pray for us.
That's Koinonia. That's what it looked like in
Acts 2, and that's what it looks like when the church is actually
alive. They were devoted to prayers,
not prayer in general. The prayers.
There's something communal here. They were praying together.
They were bringing their needs, their fears, and their
gratitudes to God together. Prayer was not a private,
individual, last resort kind of thing for the early church.
It was central, it was constant. It was something they did with
each other. So that's what they were devoted
to. The word each other shared meals
and prayer. And here's what I want you to
notice. None of these four things are
programs. None of them are events you
attend. They are practices, things you
actually do repeatedly with others over time.
And they devoted themselves to these things.
Now look what happens because Luke doesn't just describe what
they were doing, he tells us what it produced.
Verse 43, everyone was filled with awe.
Awe inside the community. Something was happening that
couldn't be explained. The presence of God was real.
The Holy Spirit was moving. The early church wasn't just a
nice group of people with shared values.
There was something alive in them that wasn't there before.
And the people inside the community felt it.
They were in awe. And look, if you're skeptical
about any of this, I want you to stay with me right here.
Just watch what happens to these people, watch what their lives
produce, and then tell me what else could explain it.
This wasn't an accident. Jesus said in Matthew 1618, I
will build my church. And here's what I want you to
see. He kept that promise in real
time. Verse 47 Jesus is building every
person being saved, every outsider getting pulled in.
That's not the early church executing a great strategy.
That's Jesus doing exactly what he said he would do.
He was the engine. They were just devoted to him.
For three years He lived with his disciples.
Same rooms, same meals, same life.
He showed them what real community look like.
Now they're just putting it into practice, not by their own
efforts, but by the power of the Holy Spirit in their lives.
And look what happened, verse 47.
Every day the Lord added to their numbers those who are
being saved. People are on the outside.
They notice the community's life together, their devotion, their
generosity, their joy. The way they treated each other
was creating this gravitational pull.
People were being drawn in not because the early church had a
great marketing strategy, not because they had the best music
or the coolest buildings or the greatest kids camp, but because
their life together was so different, so human, so
authentic, marked by the presence of God that the people
on the outside couldn't look away.
I saw a picture of this in the Middle East on the same trip we
visited this school that was planted right in the middle of a
Muslim neighborhood. Now this in this country,
neighborhoods were sectioned by your religion.
So this school was planted right in a Muslim neighborhood.
And the staff and the teachers begin to tell us that the the
Muslim people around them let their kids come to this
Christian School because they see the way they love their
kids. I was in awe because the love
was visible from this school and the world noticed.
And honestly, Jesus said that would happen.
He said that people would know who we are by the way we love
each other. It would be evident it wouldn't
be by your programs, not by your events, but by the love you have
for each other. That's what was drawing the
people into the early church that was winning the favor of
the entire city. The love was real and the world
noticed them. Verse 47 also says they had
favor with all the people. This is remarkable because
Jerusalem was a a diverse, complicated city, and this brand
new community of followers of Jesus who are themselves diverse
and complicated, is winning the favor of the city around them.
People like them. People are drawn to them because
what they had was real. The early church wasn't trying
to be impressive, They weren't trying to grow.
They weren't running campaigns or strategies or outreach
events. They were just devoted to Jesus,
to his word, to each other. And the growth was a result.
Favour and awe was the result. Which tells us something really
important. You don't manufacture this.
You can't fake it. You can't program your way to
it. A life that the world around you
can't ignore is not something you produce on your own.
It happens when you're devoted to Jesus over time, AW Tozer
said there are rare Christians whose very present incites
others to be better Christians. I want to be that rare
Christian. Me too.
Think about the people in your life who are like this.
You probably know at least one. Someone's whose faith seems
real. Not perfect, not showy, but
real. Someone who, when hard things
happen, doesn't fall apart like you'd expect.
Someone who is generous in a way that makes no sense from the
outside. Someone who just seems to care
about people and what's true and what actually matters.
And when you're around them, you feel it, there's something
different about them. That's not an accident.
That's what devotion produces over time.
Because devotion to Jesus produces a life the world around
you can't ignore. So here we are.
I want to ask you to do something that might be a little
uncomfortable. I want to ask you to hold this
passage up like a mirror and just look at it.
Not in a guilt trip way, not in a you're not doing enough kind
of way. Just honestly.
Paul puts it plainly in 2nd Corinthians 13 five.
He says, examine yourself to see whether you are in the faith.
Test yourselves. It's not a harsh command.
That's an invitation. To be honest.
That's all I'm asking you to do right now because I had to look
at it that way myself. The whole idea of devotion,
being devoted to people, to community, and that was
completely foreign to me before I came to Christ.
In my old life when things got hard or someone disrespected me
or offended me or I didn't, I didn't like something.
I just cut people off. I didn't care who they were,
family, friends, siblings, I'd walk away.
Devotion was not in my vocabulary.
So when I became a Christian and I realized I was supposed to
stick things out with brothers and sisters and work it out to
actually stay when it got uncomfortable, that was new
territory. I had to go to God and say,
Lord, I see this in your word and I see you're telling me I'm
supposed to be devoted to these people.
Help me do this, because I can't, Jesus said.
By this, people will know that you're my disciples.
By the way, you love one another.
Lord, help me love them. That gravitational pull we see
in Acts 2 is exactly what Jesus was describing.
When people see the way we love one another, they think, I've
never experienced anything like that.
That was me when I first came to Christ.
It was all new, it was foreign, and it was real.
And if you look around this church, you'll see it right here
in this church that we are diverse, just like the early
church. But if you look at Pastor Dave,
Pastor Daniel, Pastor Steve, Pastor Vance, and then you look
at me, we don't look like we'd be friends outside of church.
I'm sorry, but I wouldn't have been hanging on the block with
these guys. But the number one thing we have
in common is Jesus, and that's more than enough because that
makes us family. That means I don't walk away
from these guys. I got to be devoted to my
brothers and sisters. The early church in Acts 2 was a
wasn't a collection of extraordinary people.
These were ordinary people, fishermen, tax collectors, women
who had complicated lives, people from different
backgrounds who would have never chosen each other to be friends.
What made them extraordinary was not who they were, it was who
they were devoted to. In this church we have teachers,
law enforcement, doctors, nurses, ex gang members, field
workers, city workers. It doesn't matter what your
background is, what matters is who you're devoted to.
I think a lot of us, myself included, have the tendency to
slide from devoted to comfortable without even
noticing. We go to church.
We're not bad people. We believe the right things, but
devoted? That's a different word.
That's a different gear. So let me ask you plainly, is
your life producing any of this? Is there all in your life?
Not every moment, not perfectly, but is there something of the
presence of God that is real and evident to you and the people
around you, or has your faith gone kind of quiet and flat?
And look, you don't have to go overseas to be in awe of what
God is doing. I get to be in awe all week long
when I'm just going about my normal day.
And it doesn't happen every day, but I get to be in awe at the
gym, at the barbershop, when I meet people and I get to share
the gospel with them. I share Jesus's love and I can
see hope in people's eyes and I see God transforming them.
I see God transforming myself, everyone around me here in this
church, and I'm in awe. I get to be in awe on Friday
night when I get back from Thrive Conference and I'm
sitting on my couch and I'm breaking down in hives and I
have to go to the ER because I'm having an allergic reaction.
And I'm sitting next to a gentleman who has this nice
ankle monitor on. And I lean over and I start
talking to him and wanting to share Jesus with me.
And he tells me God is great, Bro, I'm in awe.
Tell me your story. And he tells me he just got out
from serving two life sentences. He's out on parole.
And he says God is good because I should have never got out.
That's my brother. I'm in awe of what God is doing
in people's lives. I'm in awe of the presence of
God, and you can have it too. Is your life together with other
believers actually life together, or is it mostly just
Sunday mornings? Do people know what's really
going on with you and you know what's going on with them?
And is anything spilling out? Is any of this visible to the
people around you who don't know Jesus yet?
I'm not asking because I want to make you feel bad.
I'm asking because this passage is not describing something
impossible. It's describing what happens
when ordinary people are devoted to Jesus.
And that's available to you. That's available to all of us.
And here's the grace in this The early church wasn't devoted and
then got the Holy Spirit. They received the Holy Spirit
and then they were devoted. The engine of all this is not
willpower. It's not your effort.
It's the Holy Spirit working in people who say yes to Him who
are showing up to the Word, who are letting people in, who are
praying together, who are being generous with what they have.
The devotion is a response, not the starting point.
You don't manufacture this and then hope God shows up.
You turn toward God in His Word with His people in prayer, and
He produces devotion in you. And here's the thing I want you
to walk away with today. Devotion to Jesus produces a
life the world around you can't ignore.
At the end of verse 47, Luke says every day the Lord added to
their number those who were being saved every day.
Not a big annual event, not in a revival weekend, just
consistently, quietly daily. God was bringing people in
because the community was alive, because the devotion was real,
because the life they were living together with an
advertisement that nobody could fake.
That can be. True of us, it can be true of
you. But it starts.
With the question I asked in the beginning.
If someone followed you. Around this week.
Would they be able to? Tell that you're a follower of
Jesus. And if the honest?
Answer is I'm not sure. Probably not.
That's not condemnation, that's an invitation.
An invitation to look at verses 42 through 46 and ask which one
of these am I missing? Where have I drifted?
From devoted to just attending what?
Would it look like? To actually give myself to this.
To the word. To real fellowship, to the
breaking of prayer with people, to prayer.
And. And see what God does in you and
through you. So here's what I.
Want to actually ask you to do not in a vague think about it
kind of way specifically. Number one.
Pray with other people, not just on your own.
That matters. Have a private prayer life, but
I want you to pray with other people.
It's out loud. I know that feels.
Awkward. It feels vulnerable.
Do it anyway. There's something that happens
when you pray with someone else that doesn't happen when you
pray alone. You hear what they're?
Actually carrying. They hear what you're carrying
and you realize you haven't been alone in all this.
They're going through it, too. Find one person this.
Week and pray with them. Just one person.
Get vulnerable. Let someone actually know what's
going on with you. Not the cleaned up version.
Not that I'm doing well. Or like Pastor Dave likes to
say. Don't settle for the.
American I'm doing fine answer. I'm doing good.
No get vulnerable. I know it's scary.
It was scary to me too. But you cannot have.
Koinonia, real fellowship without it.
You can be. In the same room as people for
years and still be completely unknown.
Vulnerability. Is what closes that gap.
Let someone. In be known and no others, ask
someone how they're actually doing and then wait for a real
answer. Invite someone into your home
for a meal. Show up when someone is going
through it. Let people show up.
For you. This is what it looked.
Like in Acts 2. And it's still.
What it looks like when the church is actually alive.
Get into a group if you're not in a.
Small group with other believers.
That is the single most important next step you can take
today. Not because it's a church
program. Because you weren't designed.
To do this alone, neither was I the.
Early Church. Wasn't sitting in the department
in their apartment by themselves, trying to be
devoted. They were together every day.
You need people around you who are running in the same
direction. If you're not in.
A group. When you walk out of here,
there's a table in the lobby. Stop.
Talk to them. They will put you in a group.
Or you can come. Hang out with me on Tuesday
nights at 6:30 in my small group.
Don't wait till next. Week.
Do it today. Find a group.
And if none? Of those, feel like your next
step? Maybe it's that your?
Faith has just gone quiet. Tell God that that's a Step 2
ask. Him to feel you again.
And if you don't know. Jesus, if you're here and you've
been watching from a distance. Trying to figure out.
If this is real. I want to speak.
Directly to you, just for a second.
What you just heard? About the early church was not a
performance. It was a community of.
People whose lives were genuinely changed by Jesus.
By his death for. Them, His resurrection before
them, and His spirit in them. And he is still.
Changing people today. He changed me.
I didn't deserve it, I didn't earn it, but he changed me.
And he can change you. Too.
If you want that, If you want what?
That passage describes to be true in your life.
I want you to give. You a chance to respond right
now. 2000 years. Ago God sent his son Jesus.
To live a life. That we couldn't live a perfect
life and died the death that we deserve.
He paid for our sins. He died on the cross, and he was
buried and rose on the third day, defeating sin and death.
Giving us assurance. That if we put our trust in Him
as Lord and Savior. That he would give.
Us eternal life that when we walk out of this life.
We too will rise. And be with eternity, be an
eternity with God. The Bible says you can.
Be saved if you declare with your mouth and believe in your
heart that Jesus Christ is Lord. If you're willing to.
Ask Him as Jesus into your life for forgiveness and salvation.
Would you please bow your head and close your eyes?
If you'd like to ask. Jesus to be your Lord and
Savior. Quietly or even.
Silently repeat this prayer after me.
Jesus, I know I'm a. Sinner I am lost on my own and I
can't save myself. I know I'm incapable.
Of living perfectly. I want.
You to save me. I want to be.
Part of your family. I surrender.
Everything to you. I receive your.
Promise of relationship of adoption as your child.
Of the forgiveness of. Sin of the Holy Spirit and
eternal life. Jesus be my Lord, please.
If you prayed that. Prayer for the first time right
now, would you be brave and. Raise your hand so.
Only I could see. Thank you.
Can put your hands down in.
Jesus name. Amen.
All right, everyone up here. Jesus loves you.
And if you said that prayer for the first time today, welcome to
the family of God. Our prayer team.
Is going to be coming up right now and we'd love to pray with
you. If you raise your hand.
Today we have two tables in the back, one on the right and one
on the left to say I raised my hand.
We have a gift for you and we'd love to talk with you about what
it looks like to follow Jesus and walk with you on this
journey. Please stand and move as the
Lord leads.