Well, happy birthday. It's exciting to celebrate birthdays. It's amazing how many people in our congregation have birthdays in December. Tonight, we're gonna celebrate a birthday. And so I'm gonna invite you to turn in your Bible to the birthday of the Lord's Church in Acts chapter two. Acts chapter two. While you're turning there, I'm going to just take care of a couple of things that I just need to remember. One is it's good to have the Farnsworth family with us from Massachusetts. How wonderful to see them. And then also you will see all around here, you'll see these poinsettias. And you are welcome to take as many of these poinsettias as you want for yourself. If you want to give them to somebody. Some of these are still in good shape. Some of these I'm not sure if you want to give to anybody. In fact, if you gave some of these to somebody, they may not think of it as a good thing. They might think of it as, what do you think of me? So, but they are available for you because this is all gonna be taken down this week, but they're all available for you. All right, so we're gonna talk about the birthing, the birthday of the church. When the Lord, in Acts chapter 2, God the Holy Spirit came down in his fullness and the church was born at the same time as the Jewish celebration of Pentecost. There were people, if you read Acts chapter 2, 13 different language or people groups that are represented that are there in that congregation. When the gospel is proclaimed, every man hears it in his own language. And there are many multitudes who come to the Lord and are saved and become his disciples And as the Lord added to his church on that day, it is that the Lord is still working and adding to his church and still making disciples. Now I want you to notice in your Bible, Acts chapter 2 verse 41, I want you to notice, then, they that gladly received his word were baptized. Now, this reminds us of and tells us about the disciples' conversion. Peter had been preaching, and he has a very strong and powerful sermon. The Holy Spirit of God was wonderfully working. And these who hear the gospel of Christ and then respond to him, receive the word, they are baptized. Now their baptism does not bring their conversion. In fact, they are baptized as disciples of the Lord. Isn't that what Jesus said? Go ye therefore and teach, literally teach disciples of all nations. And then he says, to be disciples, it means you are baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost. So there's an identification with God and his truth. You're teaching them to observe whatsoever I've commanded you. That's really discipleship. And then, lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world. So you would expect that as Jesus commanded, these who understood coming to Christ meant that they had now turned from their old religion to a relationship with the true God through Jesus Christ. in identification with Christ and following him were baptized on that day. Now in Acts chapter 2 verse 38, this is one that can give some trouble because you'll notice in Acts chapter 2 verse 38 when Peter is preaching, He says to this congregation or these who have assembled, then Peter said unto them, repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins. How many of you have ever talked to somebody who says, see, you have to repent and be baptized in order to receive forgiveness of sins? How many of you have had that discussion? And if you have had that discussion, you know that the group that really is strong on that, this is, I think it's about the only thing they know, but they are well-versed in their rationale for it. But understand that this does not tell us that you have to be baptized to receive. In fact, you are baptized not in order to receive, but you are baptized because you have believed. And that's really the sense of it. Baptism is an identification. It is not a means by which to receive your salvation. So there's this baptism as a follower of Jesus. Now let me stop and ask you this question. Have you ever experienced a disciple's conversion? Well, I go to church, my family goes to church. Well, I've been in part of religion. But I'm asking not about your religion, I'm asking about a personal relationship where you have been transformed, being born again by the Holy Spirit of God, putting your trust in Jesus Christ alone. Well, I've professed the Lord. I'm not asking if you profess the Lord. I'm asking, do you have new spiritual life, truly converted? So there's a disciple's conversion. And oh, if you've never been truly converted, I can't think of, there's never a bad time to get saved. There's never a time like now. What a time right now to call on the Lord and ask him to save you right now. But then after the disciples' conversion, this portion of scripture tells us about the disciples' commitments. And I'm going to start reading then Acts chapter 2, verse 42. And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship and in breaking of bread and in prayers. And fear came upon every soul and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles. Now, this shouldn't surprise you because Jesus said, whenever the gospel is preached, Mark chapter 16, verse 15 through verse 18, Jesus said, these signs are gonna follow them that believe or follow them that preach the gospel. And in those early days, remember, there are these signs that are given to authenticate that this truly was a word that came from God. And so the apostles performed these signs and these are healings that are done so that there was no question to this Jewish audience that this was something that is of God, not of men. And then you'll keep reading and you'll notice that verse 44, and all that believed were together and had all things in common and sold their possessions and goods and parted them to all men as every man had need. Now remember there are 13 language or people groups that are identified in Acts chapter 2 who were part of this congregation, this multitude that heard Peter and the others preaching on that day. And many of these were not from Jerusalem. They were people that were from all over the place. and they had come in worship of the true God, and they'd come to this place, and at this time, they were people that were not residents of Jerusalem. These are people that were guests of Jerusalem, and they visited, and as they come, they were not necessarily planning on staying a long time. There were 3,000 people saved. Now, 3,000 people's a lot of people. And if you have 3,000 people and they don't all live in that city, what are you going to do with these 3,000 people? How are you going to feed them? They've come to Christ. Now they are learning as disciples and this from here, they would eventually go back to their places and they would be witnesses of the Lord. But at the exciting time when the church is begun, what are you going to do with all these people who don't have a long-term plan to stay, long-term plan to eat? What are you gonna do? And so what happened was these believers were willing to share of themselves and sell what they had in part to help these other believers as they are being grounded in the faith and before they would return to their homes as disciples of the Lord. Now, this is descriptive of what happened. This is not necessarily prescriptive, meaning that this isn't a principle that God says, what you need to do is everybody at Stanley Heights needs to join in a commune and we all need to sell all of our stuff. We need to then live off of all of our stuff. Now, we ought to help each other when there's a specific need, when we can, but this is not necessarily prescriptive. It is descriptive of what happened at that time in the need of the church in those early days of its birth. You'll notice what the Bible says, verse 46, And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved. From this portion of scripture, I want to share with you tonight. I don't plan on being long. I want to be helpful and I want to handle this passage thoroughly. But really, my goal is to help you as you think about the new year. and your plans for the new year and what you are going to become, the person you're gonna become in the new year. And I wanna give you some tools to help you to become the person God wants you to become. But tonight I'm gonna share with you four commitments in which disciples continue because you will notice in verse 42 that they continued. You'll notice in verse 46, and they continuing daily. So these are four commitments. If you're going to continue as a disciple of the Lord, these four commitments will help you to continue. First, the first commitment is a commitment to the word. So you notice in verse 42, they continued steadfastly in the apostles doctrine. So when you think about continuing in the ministry or a continuing commitment to the Word, I want you to think about the public ministry of the Word. So when we gather, there's always a priority of biblical truth. Now for us, that is Bible preaching. In a class, it's Bible teaching. It is biblical music that presents biblical truth that feeds the soul. All of this is part of the priority of biblical truth accurately handled, accurately applied, and personally applied. And then there is the appropriation of biblical truth. Because I want you to think about how do I hear preaching? How do I hear preaching? Well, hearing preaching is really a lot like how we pray. When we pray, and I've talked to you about this before, when somebody is leading publicly in prayer, you are listening to that person pray. And as they pray, you are praying what they are praying with them. And sometimes when people are praying, you might say, amen. Not at the end of the prayer, but in the middle of the prayer. Why is that? Because as this individual is praying, you are affirming, yes, I agree. And I'm praying that with them. But at the very same time, while you are hearing that person pray in a public way, at the very same time, you are having a prayer conversation with the Lord. And God is speaking to you, and you are speaking to God. So that there is a symphony of prayer, albeit quiet, there's a symphony of prayer that goes on, because this is a dynamic fellowship with God and with brothers and sisters. And you know, Bible preaching is the same way. Because as you listen to the preaching, you're listening to the preacher and you're looking at the text and you're saying, okay, I see what the preacher is saying from that text. And you're even asking, is this preacher being honest with the text? Remember the goal of preaching is to give the preacher a chance to get off his chest, whatever's on his mind. Isn't that the goal of preaching? No that's not the goal of preaching. The goal of preaching is to communicate what God has said in His Word and to communicate this is what God says and then help people to deal with God and interact with God and respond to God. And so you say, okay, is the preacher accurately handling the Bible? How many of you have ever been in a situation where the preacher was preaching, and preaching, and preaching, and going on, and on, and on, and what he was preaching might have been good, it might have been true, but it isn't what the Bible said in the passage he opened to. You ever been in that? Now friends, I try to be very, very careful and gracious with preachers. I try to be. And I know there are different kinds of preachers and different kinds of preaching. How many of y'all know that I probably am not a camp meeting kind of a preacher? All right, understand that. What you want to be is you wanna be an individual that is biblically discerning and you're listening to the preacher and you're looking at the text and you're saying, is this preacher accurately handling the text? And as he does so, what you're learning is how you as a believer in the Lord, how you can yourself by following the modeling of biblical preaching, you are learning how to read and interpret the Bible for yourself. So while all of that is going on, at the very same time you are speaking to the Lord about what God is saying because God the Holy Spirit is speaking to you. And you're saying, Lord, what are you showing me? What do I need to know about you? What do I need to do about myself? How does this apply? And you're asking God the spirit to speak to you as he is speaking. And you're being very critical in the sense that you are being aware that in my life, God has something to say. So what this turns into, this is not like a show, and the preacher's putting a show, and we have an entertainment factor up here. And let's see, at the end of the sermon today, let's all give him a score. Okay, oh, that was a 9.5 today. Everyone, okay, preaching's done, let's hold up the score. Ah, okay, we averaged about 6.5, that's pretty good. That's better than three. It's not a matter of how entertaining is the preacher? Really, what we want to do is we say, God, have we met with you through the ministry of preaching? And so that means that preaching isn't just something you sit there. No, this is something you're involved in as a congregant, as much as the preacher's involved in it. And then for our kids, this is something moms and dads, you want to help our kids learn how to do. There is in the back to your left, in the back there by those five core values. There are those kids' sermon sheets. And sometimes it's in your bulletin every week, get your kid's sermon sheet. And it's easy to forget about those, but they're really a great way to help kids to be involved interactively with what is happening in a service. And it's a great thing for moms and dads to work with their kids. Well, where it's a word that one of the things is, what's a word I didn't understand? What's a song I liked? And there are other questions that are involved. And sometimes the kids will bring pictures of what I preached on, and it's very interesting, their visualization of what was being preached about, very interesting, entertaining and delightful normally, and just really interesting. So that'll help your kids with that. And then something else about it is this becomes a chance for you to have discussions with people in your family. so that the sermon that is preached, the lesson that is taught in the Sunday school, the adult Bible class teaching lesson, these become not just things that happen and then when it's over, it's over. This becomes something that is dynamic, that opens up opportunities to talk about subjects in your family and in your home, in your own life, in other relationships, as you talk about what God has said and then what it applies to you you have questions to ask, and this becomes a wonderful opportunity for you to share and to develop as a believer and helping other believers develop. So it tells us about the public ministry of the Word, but then there's something else, and that is your personal time with the Lord in the Word. I was having a discussion a number of, a couple of years ago with a man and he was caught up in a, in my mind, what is a somewhat of a peripheral issue related to the Bible. And I mean, it's an important issue, but it's peripheral. And he was very worked up about this peripheral issue. And oh, he was, I mean, he was passionate about it. And I said, Mr. So-and-so, I said, here's the thing. I said most people, I hate to tell you this, but most of God's people don't or rarely read the Bible on their own. Now he loved the Bible. It's with the Lord now. a student of the Bible, that's his thing. He's one of those people, and I love people like this, that I mean, they are really students of the Bible. And he couldn't understand it. But if I really, now this week isn't fair, right? This week is not a fair week. But if on a regular basis, I ask you on a given Sunday, How many times in the last week have you spent personal time with God in his word, just you and God? I'm not asking for a show of hands, I'm not at all. But what I'm telling you is I think that if we did do a show of hands and we said, how many of you spent zero to one, two to three, four to five? Then we'll just stop at five. On a typical week, I think it might surprise you how little time God's people spend with God in his word personally. And as quiet as Stanley Heights is, it got really quiet here. Hmm. So let me give you some ideas, some help. And we try to give you tools at different times, we share different things. Okay, how many of you know what these are? You see them? Our daily bread, days of praise. And these are devotional guides we provide for you. They come out, you know, they're every quarter they come out and there's a little reading that goes with it. There's a scripture to read. There's a question for you to think about. And, you know, we have a number of our people use these as daily devotional guides. And some of our people like our daily bread better. Then other people have said, we don't like our daily bread, we like our days of praise, or days of praise. So whichever one you like, I'll tell you this much, I would rather you do this and not be at all and spend any time with God. And it may be a place to start. We provide these for you to get started. Let me give you some other things that are made available for you. Excuse me. I'm sorry, I'm still working on this throat. This is, I ran into this a number of years ago, and I really, really liked it. It's called the Five Day Bible Reading Program. This organization puts out, it's called, get this, this is the name of the organization, Lower Lights Publications, and their website is fivedaybiblereading.com. That makes sense, right? Yeah, so I ran into this and I liked it so much because what this does, it does a few things that I really like. One is that it does is it lines up the Bible chronologically. Now our Bible is not all chronological in the way it's arranged in the English Bible. And so what this group does is this list gives you a chronological layout as you read through the Bible. It's really helpful. It's well done. And they give you, every year they update it. And so if you haven't started yet today, you're not too late because they start on January the 2nd. Perfect. And you can read through your Bible throughout the year. And I like the five days, because how many of you know what it's like when you say, read your Bible every day, and you miss a day, it's a little discouraging, and you get a little behind, and then the next day you get a little behind, and then you just after a while give up? Because how many of you have read through the book of Genesis? The most read book in the Bible is Genesis. because I'm gonna start this year and read the Bible through, and I get through Genesis, and then once I start Exodus, maybe, and then when I get into the law, oh my word, and you get lost in it. So I like this because it gives you five days, it gives it chronologically, and you can do Old Testament, but the other thing it does is it gives you Old Testament and it gives you New Testament. And so it will also help you if you just wanna read your New Testament through. So it's very, very helpful, all right? If you read just the New Testament, in fact, you'll read the New Testament, you'll read some other things with that as well. So if you just wanna say, I'm gonna try to read the Bible through. If you've never read the Bible through, I have to say, it's pretty cool when you finish reading the Bible through. It's a great accomplishment. It really is. So if you've never done it, maybe this is the year that God wants you to do it. This is a good way to start. If you have never read the New Testament through, this is a way to do it. You can read through your New Testament in the year. All right. So that's a really interesting and helpful tool that's available for you. Let me give you another one that I really think is great as well. This is the E100 reading plan. The Bible is one book. E100 stands for Essential 100. And the Essential 100 is interesting because it takes the Bible and it puts it into 100 passages. And it pulls out the main things that you need to understand to get an overview of the Bible. How many of you know that the Bible is sort of a big book? It's sort of a big book. And it's easy to get lost sometimes if you're not familiar with the Bible in it. Even if you are familiar with the Bible, how many of you know it's really easy to get lost in it? So what the E100 does is it breaks down the Bible into these readings that are easily attainable into main events and main truths. It works through all the genres of literature in the Bible so you get a good balanced picture of biblical genre. It gives you the narrative of the Bible and you get the big picture. And it is just really, really helpful for you to get a good overview of God's Word, the Bible. And E100 is a great way to do it. In fact, it takes, if you read each of these in a hundred days, you'll get an overview. And in a year you could do as many as you want. If you want to do it three times, you have room to do it three times. If you want to do it once, that's great. As many as you want to, but I would rather, but I think this is a really good way to get an overview of the Bible. Now, if you want to go a little to another level, But you say, boy, reading the whole Bible through is a little intimidating. There's something else that we've prepared for you here, and it's called Essentially Old, Entirely New. And in Essentially Old, Entirely New, it follows the pattern of the E100, but what it does is it goes a little further in depth into essential passages of the Old Testament. But then it goes on the other side of it, when you finish those essential passages in the Old Testament, you can read the entire New Testament as well. And so I think that's a really helpful idea for you to get started. Listen, there are all kinds of plans out there and there are websites. And in fact, in your bulletin, you'll see a website you can go to that has, I mean, more kinds of Bible reading plans than you can ever imagine. But in all of it, in the time in the word, here's what you need to know. Whatever way you choose, just get in the word. And let the word speak as God speaks to you through his word. And one of the great commitments that disciples that continue make is to continue in the word. There are three other commitments. Each of these, I will take less time on them. So the next commitment is the commitment of fellowship. So you're in your Bible, Acts chapter two and verse 42, and they continued steadfastly in the apostles doctrine. And in fellowship, The next discipline or the commitment is fellowship. Here are people that have a common bond of faith, the Apostle's Doctrine. They have a common bond of relationship. They're sharing their lives together. They have a common bond in verses 44 and 45 of service, so much so that there are those who are willing to give of their own possessions to help in a time of need and bless others. We read in these words, verse 46, they continuing daily in one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house to eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart. So they're going and sharing their lives and opening their homes and they're sharing their lives with other people. So this year, you wanna ask yourself, how can I contribute to another person's growth? Am I committed to a healthy relational investment in others? Am I building healthy relationships in my home, in my church, everywhere I go in my life? But for a believer, oh, how essential fellowship is. Well, then there's a third essential commitment to continue this year. As you think about your commitment to the word and you think about your commitment to fellowship, then I want you to think about your commitment to worship. So in verse 42, in their worship, they continued in the apostle's doctrine and fellowship and in breaking of bread and in prayers. Now, breaking of bread is interesting because two times in this passage, we are told they're breaking of bread. This breaking of bread seems to be when they were together in corporate worship. What would we call the breaking of bread today? The Lord's Supper. The other breaking of bread is time that they spend in homes eating together. It is not necessarily the Lord's Supper, but when they're together, they are sharing together around the Lord's table, and they're sharing together in prayer. In verse 47, we are told that these were praising God, and having favor with all the people. And that's an interesting expression because why would God make it? Was it so important to God to include that they had favor with all the people? And I'll tell you why, because their time in the word and their time in worship contributed to healthy relationships with people. And there's something wrong with a person who is in the word and a person who is involved in worship but it hasn't transformed their life to where they learn how to get along in a healthy way with people. Because all of this is to be transformational. But for these believers, it was a commitment to worship. In fact, what's amazing is they had church every day. Isn't that what the Bible said? They were daily in the temple. And wouldn't it be something, I've heard people say, we need to get back to the book of Acts. And over the years, I don't know how many times, we need to get back to the book of Acts. I say, I completely agree. We need to get back to the book of Acts. Let's open the Bible and we open the Bible. And they continuing daily in the temple with one another. Let's have church every day. Well, I don't, I mean, every, that's a little much. Every day. Every day. And I said, well, you know, I said the point of it is, right? The point of it is that it is so significant that corporate worship was a priority. And for all of us, I hope that's your priority. Because it's important to the Lord. And it's important to you. Listen, you're here tonight. I'm grateful for that. But I hope for you and your life this year that you will say, Lord, I wanna put your worship as one of those priority areas of my life that I will make sure I schedule in and commit to. "'cause through it you speak to me, "'and through it I bless others.'" And then there's one more, and that is the final commitment for disciples is a commitment to our witness. So verse 41 in this passage begins with these words, they that gladly received his word were baptized. And then verse 47 ends with these words, the Lord added to the church daily, such as should be saved. so that at the very beginning, there are people responding to the gospel, and at the very end, there are people responding to the gospel, and it reminds all of us about our personal witness, and I've asked you this question many times, but I wanna return to it. Who is the one person that you are praying for to come to the Lord? In a world of all, the people all around us, just that one person, who is that one person? for whom you are most concerned, many of you will have many people you're concerned about, but who's the one person that this year you want to strive to reach them for Christ and share Jesus with them, give them a chance to be saved? And then, As a church, there are many ways that we corporately are involved in reaching out to our community. There are things that take place all throughout the year, and some of it is part of our saturation into our city. Some of it are events that we do. Some of it just some things that are upcoming, like Upward Basketball is a wonderful outreach to our community. There are good news clubs. These are things we've just talked about already today. But there are many ways that you can be involved. But would you say, you know what, this year in my life, in my own personal witness, but how can I be involved with my church family together, we corporately, taking the responsibility of making sure that people in our city know the gospel and how they can be saved? This was a significant commitment that was made by these believers, and it is a significant commitment that is made by God's disciples even today. Now, I'm gonna share with you a couple other things, and I'll be done tonight. Okay, a couple other tools that are gonna help you. Friday night, Friday night, we did something we've never done before. We did a drop-in prayer meeting, very interesting. And people just came in and they prayed and then they left. And so having never done that before, we put together a guide just to think through as a starter for people as they prayed. And you'll find on your way out in the front or on the side here, the doors when you leave, you'll find this list of 10 questions for the new year. And I'll tell you, these 10 questions are very provocative. And it may be something is a great way for you to evaluate where you want to go in this year. And really, more importantly, where the Lord wants you to go in this year. To think about your life and where you're spending your life or investing your life, what God is doing and what you want to see God do in your life. And they're very thought-provoking. In fact, when I went through this in my prayer time, there are 10 questions. I answered five, and I have five question marks because I wasn't spiritually ready to answer this. I needed to think about it a little more. I'll work on it this week. So pick one of these up, and maybe in your own time with God this week, you're reading the word, and as you pray, maybe you just take this and pray through some of these questions, and let God speak to you from it as you evaluate your year. And then there's something else that I do myself because it helps me, and that is intentionally stewarding life. There's a little tool, looks like a bookmark, And it reminds us that life is made up of people to impact, goals to achieve, problems to solve, tasks to complete. And there's just a guide about setting goals. If you don't like setting goals, solve some problems. Because we all have problems to solve, right? And this gives you some help on how to do this. But then there are 10 areas of life your spiritual growth stewardship, your personal growth stewardship, your family stewardship, your time, health, finance, property, evangelism, discipling, professional and personal stewardship, 10 areas of your life, and in a very simple way, say, okay, Lord, what do I want to achieve? If you're smart and wise, you'll put a date on it to give yourself a goal to try to achieve it. Now I'm gonna tell you what happens with these. because I do one of these every year. What happens is when I go through this at the end of the year, I find that I don't reach many of the goals that I set. But I'll tell you this much, the ones that I do reach, it is awesome to reach them, very satisfying. And there's something else, the ones that I don't reach, I'm okay with that. But in the process of trying to do other things, do you know what I find? There are things that never made my list that get done that I wouldn't have gotten done if I hadn't started somewhere. How many of you know what I'm talking about? You know how that is? So this is an idea to get you started and to invest your life this year wisely with God's priorities in mind. and God helping us so that we will live wisely this year. Right? How many of you want to live wisely this year? How many of you know what it is sometimes to live your life foolishly and waste your life? So let's live wisely this year and ask God to help us. Would you stand with