What I'd like to do is take us to a passage that may be familiar with us again or familiar to you again. And when we were here last time, we spoke from Philippians chapter two about where our hearts and minds ought to be. If you if you remember that, hopefully that was only two and a half weeks ago, three weeks ago. So we talked from Philippians chapter two that our hearts should be focused on the person of Jesus Christ. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. And so this morning, what I'd like to do is sort of get us back to basics again in Acts chapter two. And let's sort of focus our attention on what the church needs to be and what we need to be about. And so this morning, why don't we pray and then we'll open the word and we'll move our way through this passage of Scripture this morning. And I pray that even though this is a familiar passage of Scripture that we just don't gloss over it or shut down a little bit and say, you know, I know that I've heard that before, but that we might really look at this passage in the context of where we are and you are as a church. Father, we thank you for this morning and the opportunity and privilege that we have to come together to worship you. Father, I pray that you might speak to our hearts this morning. I pray that you might use my attempt this morning to share the message of your word. I pray that our hearts might be open and receptive to your word. And I pray that you might bring our hearts into unison with yours. Father, we love you so much. We thank you for the gift of salvation that through your son, Jesus Christ, that we sang about this morning. And Father, I pray that as we open Your Word, that You might enlighten us, that You might challenge us, and that we might leave this place challenged, rejoicing in what we've learned from you today. It's in Christ's name we pray. Amen. Let's read through this passage this morning and then we'll dig into it. We'll jump right into it. If you would turn to Acts chapter 2, starting with verse 42. We'll read down through the end of the chapter. Luke records this for us. at the beginning of the church and they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and the fellowship and to the breaking of bread and the prayers and all came upon every soul and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles and all who believed were together and had all things in common. They were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as any had need. And day after day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all people. And the Lord added to their numbers, day by day, those who were being saved. We see the beginning of the church. Acts chapter one, we see Jesus ascending. He is there with his disciples. The commission is to go into all the world and preach the Gospel. The Holy Spirit is going to come and He is going to be that One who is going to be a guide and a direction to them. Later on in chapter 1, we see the 120 in the upper room. And the Holy Spirit descends on them and they receive great power through the Holy Spirit. And the Spirit of God begins to move in their hearts and begins to move in their life. And we see this great moving of the Spirit In Acts chapter 1. Acts chapter 2, Peter gets up in front of the multitude and he begins to speak. And he says to them, men, we're not drunk. It's early in the morning yet. We're speaking in your tongue. You're hearing in your language. This was prophesied a long time ago in the book of Joel. And the reality is, is that now the fullness of the Holy Spirit has come and now we are seeing God at work. And Peter goes through and shares the message of the gospel of who Jesus Christ is. That one who was foretold in the Old Testament, who came to earth in the form of a baby in the book of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and how that one grew. and spoke the truth of God to a nation who refused to hear. And then he died. He was crucified on the cross, as was foretold in the prophets. He died on the cross, he was buried, and he rose again on the third day. And now the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ is being proclaimed by these apostles who are in the upper room, fearful for their lives. But now they are speaking with great power because of the Holy Spirit who has come upon them and they are preaching the good news of salvation to a lost and dying world. And what starts to happen is what we'd like to talk about today. We're going to talk about the beginning of the church. We're going to talk about how the church began. and what their process was and how they ministered the gospel of Jesus Christ to those around them. And then we'll see the result. So this morning, my prayer is that God would use his word in our hearts. For us to be able to catch a vision. of what God might have for us, for you as a church. That God might do some great things through Walnut Ridge. I know that there's been scars, but we learn from scars, don't we? I've got scars on my body. I've got one on my foot. I've got one on my knee. I've got one on my finger. I've got one on my head. You learn not to do things after a while. You don't walk through a creek barefoot and come out the other side with a gash in your foot. You watch where you're kneeling down. You don't put up soccer nets and jump up and hook nets over a hook. That wasn't a good one. And you don't run down a hallway and try and jump up three stairs and go through a doorway. You learn. But those scars are there. And when I look at them, I remember them. They're from seven years old up until you don't want to know when the last one was. But we learn from those scars, don't we? They're things we don't want to go back and repeat. We don't continue to dwell on those scars. We don't continue to focus our attention on those scars. But every once in a while, we see them, and they're a reminder of, oh, yeah, we were there. But we don't want to go back there again. We don't want to allow those things to hinder us from doing what God would call us to do. So this morning, as we look at the book of Acts again, back to basics, back to some of the simple things that were there going on in the church at this particular time that that God used in a tremendous way to advance the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Were they hurting? They were. They were scared to death. That one who came and was leading them for three and a half years, that one that they hung on every word, that individual that was so real to them and so much of an encouragement to them was gone. Now what do we do? What is our next step? They were fearful. But as they yielded themselves to the spirit of God and the movement of the spirit of God in their lives, God said, here, let me open the doors for you. And there's a great world out there. And we've got a big job to do, and so let's go at it. And that's what the apostles did. So in Acts chapter two, starting with verse 42, we sort of get the idea of the four things that we're going to talk about this morning, what the church was about and what the church did and how the church ministered and what they accomplished. So in this first verse, we read of four things. First of all, they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching. The next thing that we see is that they devoted themselves to the fellowship. The third thing they did is they devoted themselves to the breaking of bread. And the fourth thing we have is that they devoted themselves to prayers. Four simple things that the church was about. Luke recorded those things for us so that we might have a record of here's the pattern. Here's what the Church of Jesus Christ should be about. Here's what the Church of Jesus Christ should be focusing their attention on. And therefore, things for simple things. And so we see first in verse forty two that they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching. What is the apostles teaching? Well, basically, that's the fundamental truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Paul wrote in first Corinthians chapter 15 that of most importance of first importance is the gospel of Jesus Christ, the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. There is no way that we can enter into a relationship with God without that relationship and that understanding that I'm a sinner, that I'm lost, that I'm separated from God because of my sin. We are in a transitional period in the book of Acts. They understood that when I sin, I come to the temple or I come to the synagogue and I make an offering. The priest is there or the high priest is there on the Day of Atonement and he goes in once a year for the nation of Israel. But daily, people were bringing sacrifices to the temple for sin. And they understood that there needed to be a sacrifice for their sin. There was something that needed to cover their sin. And now we see in the person of Jesus Christ, that one who became that propitiation for us, that sacrifice for us so that we are no longer under the condemnation of sin. The condemnation of that. Life that is apart from Jesus Christ, that's the foundational truth, isn't it? the message of the gospel of Christ, the death, burial, and resurrection, and my need of a Savior to right this relationship between my heavenly Father. And the apostles' teaching probably included all of those things that they heard for three and a half years as they walked with Christ, as they lived with Christ, as they heard Him speak the truth, of what he was about, about what the kingdom of God was about, what God was trying to accomplish in this world. And the basic teachings of Jesus were part of that apostles teaching and what they devoted themselves to. And what does it mean to devote yourself to that? It's to be all in. It's to be all in. Everything that they did revolved around the apostles teaching. They devoted themselves to that. It was going to be a part of their life. They were going to do everything to learn that they were going to do everything to apply that truth. They were going to do everything that they possibly could. To allow God to use them. to proclaim the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And as we mentioned, part of that apostle's teaching was the gospel. Acts chapter 1 in that speech or that sermon that Peter gave, verses 22 through 36. We're not going to look at that. But here is Peter sharing again the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the centrality of the person of Jesus Christ. Well, that we might have that type of relationship That type of heart that we're devoting ourselves totally and completely to the person of Jesus Christ. That everything we do is oozing Christ to the world around us. That intimate, personal relationship. A four-year-old grandson, he's four and a half, almost five now, was in his room singing one day when he was supposed to be taking a nap. And our son-in-law went in to talk to him and said, Nehemiah, what are you doing? Nehemiah, four years old, said, Jesus asked me to sing him a song. And he said, what song did Jesus ask you to sing? And he said, Jesus told me to sing, Lord, I need you. And Nelson asked him after that, he said, well, what did Jesus say? So Jesus said, thank you. It's hard to get upset when your kid's not sleeping and taking a nap. But do we have that kind of sensitivity as we devote ourselves to the truth of the word of God? That God could speak to us that way? that God could speak to our hearts and ask us to sing him a song. I pray that that is the truth, that we never grow out of that, that we never become too spiritually minded, that we forget about listening to God and the Spirit of God in our hearts and lives. The next thing that we see is that they devoted themselves to the fellowship. You phrase this many different ways, but the reality is it's just doing life together. As people came to know Jesus Christ as their personal Savior, many were thrown out of their homes. Many of them were struggling. Many of them lost their jobs. Many of them had issues once they walked away from whatever life they were living before and now totally committed themselves and gave themselves over to Jesus Christ. And so they devoted themselves to the fellowship. Where do you go then when you need something? Where do you go when you're struggling with something? Where do you go when you have a hurt? Where do you go when you have a need? You go to the body, don't you? You go to the body. And you say, friends, brothers, sisters, I need some help. I'm struggling right now. I need you to come around me. I need you to pray for me. I need you to be part of my life today because I need a brother. I need a sister. I need somebody to pray for me. And what we see in Acts chapter two is they devoted themselves to that. They said, we are going to be a body, we're going to be something different than what we see in the world, we are going to minister to those who have a need. We see that it became such a problem. It wasn't a problem, it was a good problem. But in Acts chapter 6, all of a sudden we have too many people and we just can't minister to them anymore. We need some help. And we see the election of those individuals who were there to help distribute the food. But what was doing life together all about for this body? Well, in verses 44 and 45, Luke describes that for us. And we see, first of all, they've started selling land. Those who had it sold it and they brought it to the church. In Acts chapter five, we see that happening, don't we? Start off with Barnabas bringing that sum of money. Ananias and Sapphira thought that was a good idea. They brought it with the wrong heart. And God dealt with that quickly and severely. But they had those things in common. Let's bring it together. If we've got it, we're going to share it. They had all things in common, materially, spiritually. I'm going to sit down and I'm going to pray with you, brother. Call me anytime. Let me be a part of your life. Let me help you through any situation. Let's be a body. Let's be a family. Let's work together for the cause, for the cause. And brother, if you need help, let me know. That's what the fellowship is all about. Now, we as good Baptists, fellowship usually includes a meal, doesn't it? You know, when we talk about fellowship, we're going down to the fellowship hall because usually there's food down there. You know, if we're going to get together, we're going to eat. And that's a great part of it. Because it gives us an opportunity to do life together. To be a part of one another's life. To learn about one another. The joy that Chris and I have had over these past days is the opportunity to hear stories. To hear about your life. To hear about what God's doing in your life. How God is ministering to you. How God is working through your life. Sometimes we've heard some of the hurts. And we heard some of the struggles and we heard some of the difficulties. But it gives us an opportunity to pray more intelligently. That's what the fellowship is all about. That's what being brothers and sisters are all about. That takes us back to Philippians, chapter two, verses one through four. And Paul reminds us that we are to be looking out for the interests of everybody else before I'm looking out for my own interests. I have to put my preferences and I need to put my needs and I need to put this stuff aside because I'm lifting up my brother and I'm deferring. What would happen if a body of believers came together and everybody decided that they were going to defer? And we were going to fellowship together and we were going to look out for one another. We'd be tripping over each other. To do something for someone else. My prayer is that that would be the mark. Of our church. Of this church. that we are here, we're putting ourselves aside, we're putting our preferences aside and deferring to our brothers, deferring to our sisters and allowing God to do his work. But the only way that we can have true fellowship together is if pride is gone. If self is gone. And we are humbling ourselves and realizing our need apart from Jesus Christ, which is great. We're all sinners, aren't we? We've all been separated from God because of our sin, but by the grace of God, we have now come into infinite personal relationship with the creator of the universe. And my prayer is for my own life, that I would be willing to defer, that I would be looking out for the needs of my brothers and sisters in Christ before my own needs, that I would not allow pride to become part of my life, that it doesn't have to be done my way, but that we're doing it God's way and we're allowing God to do His work in and through us. The next thing that we have is that they devoted themselves to the breaking of bread. And that's I think we can include the ordinances here, the breaking of bread and coming together and remembering the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We're going to we're going to come to the communion table this morning and we're going to come and we're going to take these elements and we're going to be reminded of the broken body and the shed blood of Jesus Christ. and all that that entails. It's a time of remembrance. It's a time of reflection. It's a time for us to get our hearts and our minds right before God. And so they devoted themselves to that. Jesus said as He left His disciples, I'm breaking this bread with you. I'm drinking this wine with you. And I want you to do this as a remembrance of Me. the great sacrifice that Christ made on the cross for us. And as people come to know Jesus Christ as their personal Savior and we enter into the waters of baptism, we remember that act of obedience, that public declaration of faith in Jesus Christ. I remember the day that I was baptized in Pastor Clark when I was 10 years old at Bethlehem Baptist Church. I remember that day walking down into the baptismal pool, scared to death. But excited about what that ordinance meant to me in my life is I declared the message of Jesus Christ to our church, to my friends, to those who were there in attendance. They devoted themselves to that, that was part of their everyday life. That was just normal for them to come together and observe the ordinances of the table to baptize those. To baptize those who have put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ. So you see the simplicity of what was going on in the early church. Devoting themselves to the apostles teaching. Devoting themselves to fellowshipping one with another and ministering to the needs. To seek out one another, to minister to those needs. And then to the breaking of bread, devoting themselves to the breaking of bread. The fourth thing, again, in the simplicity of this passage, is the fact that they devoted themselves to prayer. That was an essential part of the church. Because the early church realized that their power came from their communication with their Heavenly Father. They understood that it was apart from God doing His work in them, they were nothing. And the importance of prayer in our own lives is essential to our daily power and our daily strength and our daily ability to live out Christ as God has called us to be. To be that salt and light. To be the ambassadors that God has called us to be in the message of the gospel. We need that power, don't we? Because the world around us is zapping us daily. The world around us is seeking to pull us apart. Satan is alive and well, isn't he? And he is active. And we see it in the world, but unfortunately, Satan is extremely active within the church. He wants to divide. He wants to conquer. He wants us as a church, as a whole, to be ineffective in the message. Because He knows the power of the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And the one place where He is going to affect us is in our times of prayer. He's going to pull those away from us. We're going to tell ourselves, oh, we don't have time for that right now. I'm going to go. I'll get back to that. And how many times have you walked away from that moment when you should have been praying? And I'll get back to that. Never really quite happens, does it? Satan is one for that moment. That we might be men and women of prayer. That we might be on our faces before God. That we might be humbling ourselves before the Almighty Creator of the universe, continually being reminded of our need that we can't do this apart from God and His Spirit at work in us. So the challenge for the church is how do we accomplish this? How do we get back to what we are called to be as a church? What do we do to get our hearts and minds refocused on the truth of the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ? How do we put aside those things that so easily cloud our mind and cloud our thinking? How do we put aside those scars that have hurt us so deeply so that we might be able to move ahead to do the work that God has called us to do? Well, it comes to a point of yielding ourselves to the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts and lives. Being challenged to live out Christ in every part of our lives. To be men and women of the Word of God. To devote ourselves to the preaching of the Word. To devote ourselves to the study of the Word. To devote ourselves to allowing that word to infiltrate our lives so that we might reflect the image of Jesus Christ. We need to be about the fellowship. We need to be looking out for one another. Not talking about one another. We need to be about ministering to one another. What's been said, the Christian army is the only one that kicks its wounded once they're down. I pray that that might not be a mark of any church that we may be a part of. I pray that we might be meeting the needs of one another, that we might be coming along side our brothers and sisters in Christ. and getting down on our knees with them and putting our arms around them and loving them and caring for them as God in His grace has loved and cared for us. That we have the opportunity to minister God's grace in the lives of those. That's what fellowship is all about. That's what being a family is all about. That's what being the body of Christ is all about. Then we need to be about the ordinances. What an important time for us as a family to come together, to break bread, to drink that juice that represents the blood of Jesus Christ. It's a time for us to reflect It's a time for us to come together. Maybe a time for us to heal wounds. To go to a brother or sister in Christ that we need to rectify a relationship. Paul tells us in the book of First Corinthians, Jesus tells us, actually, that if we have something against a brother, And we're bringing a sacrifice. Leave the sacrifice. Go make it right. And it's interesting how Jesus says that if a brother had something against you, you leave your sacrifice and you go make that right with your brother. Paul says too often we come to this table. And we eat it in an unworthy manner because there's things in our hearts and there are things in our lives that are unresolved. And that we need to take care of. I spoke at a church in Huntington, West Virginia. It was an interesting church, OK? It was not where my tradition was from. And godly, godly church, fundamental church. But they had a time of making sure that all hearts and minds were free every Sunday before the pastor would get up and speak. And I remember that I was there that one Sunday morning and a guy got up over here on this side of the church and he said, you know what? Before we go any farther, I have a problem with Bob over here on the other side of the church. And I want to make that right right now. And he got up and he left his seat and he went over to the other side of the auditorium and he made that right with that brother right then. That we might be that open. That we might be that willing to humble ourselves and come together as we come to this table and say, you know what? I need to make things right before I sit here. and take the body and blood of my Lord, the symbolic representation of the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. I need to make something right because my heart isn't right. Paul says there's too many times that we eat in an unworthy manner, and that's why there are many sick among you. And some have even gone to the point of falling asleep. that we might be right before God as we come to this table this morning. And we as a church, my prayer is that we would be a church that is known for its prayer. That we are humbling ourselves before God. that we are on our knees and we are on our faces before God because we know that we can do nothing apart from the Spirit of God moving among us. And that only happens as we humble ourselves before a holy God. Those might be the marks of Walnut Ridge Baptist Church. I pray that those might be the marks of every church that preaches the gospel of Jesus Christ, not only in the Cedar Valley, but around this country. We are in a spiritual battle. And we need to be about the work of Christ. We have it written right here at the front of our church. It tells us that we are to be making disciples We're to be maturing disciples. We are to be mobilizing authentic followers of Jesus Christ. We can only do that when we get back to the basics. Allowing the Word of God to infiltrate our lives. Living as a body of believers who are engaged in one another's lives so that we might be able to engage our community and the world around us. That we are remembering what Christ has done for us. That we are rejoicing in what God is doing in individuals' lives. That we come together and we get on our face before God and humble ourselves in prayer. Oh, that that may be the mark of Walnut Ridge Baptist Church. And that God from this point forward might do His work for another 117 years, that we might be rejoicing in seeing God transform lives into the image of Jesus Christ for His honor and for His glory. as we turn our hearts to the communion table this morning. What I'd like us to do is take a few minutes as we pray, as the men get ready to come forward to serve service this morning. I just want to remind us again of what Jesus said. If there is something that I have against a brother, If there's something that I have against the sister, that this morning that the Spirit of God might touch our hearts and that we might take care of that. That we might go and grab a brother, grab a sister. If it means we need to kneel down and pray, that we need to cry, that we need to confess, that we would do that this morning. Before we come to this table, So let us examine ourselves. Let's examine our hearts. And see what God might speak to us. So as we come this morning to this table, we are coming because we're rejoicing in what God has done in us. Rejoicing in what God is going to do through us. as we yield ourselves to Him. Father, I thank You for this morning. I thank You for the privilege of opening Your Word. I thank You for the challenge of Your Word. Father, I pray that You might speak to us this morning in the quietness of these moments. Father, I pray that You might convict our hearts. I pray that if there is something that needs to be said, If there is a relationship that needs to be restored, challenge us this morning. Give us the boldness and humility to take care of that. Father, I pray that we might be a church that's devoted to the Word of God. That we are devoted to the body that you have joined together here. That we continue to observe those things that bring us the reminder of what you have done, the great sacrifices you have paid in sending your son to die on the cross for our sins. But rejoicing in the obedience of those who have followed you. as they publicly confess their inward faith. Father, I pray that we might be men and women of prayer, humbling ourselves before You so that You might do Your work in and through us. We love You, Father. We thank You for that grace that You've shown us. It's in Christ's name we pray, Amen.