that chapter beginning in verse 42. If you're using the Black Bibles that are provided for you, it's on page 1082. You might, you know, the title, the full title of the book of Acts is technically the Acts of the Apostles. But we even pointed out how it's sort of a misnomer, because it's really the acts of maybe two or three of the apostles, and we don't really follow most of them. We see Peter and John for a while, and then Paul, and that's the acts of the apostles. Maybe a more appropriate title of the book would be The Acts of the Holy Spirit. Or, to be even cleverer, we could say The Gospel According to the Holy Spirit, since Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, their full titles are The Gospel According to Here in this second half of Luke's two-volume historical look at the work of Jesus and the beginning works of the church, chapters 1 and 2 are all about the Holy Spirit. Chapter 1 is the promise of the Holy Spirit. Jesus ascends to heaven and promises that he will send the Spirit that he has promised in the past. Then in chapter 2, we see the actual pouring out of the Holy Spirit. the explanation of the pouring out of that Holy Spirit and then now at the end the implications of the pouring out of that Holy Spirit or what it looks like now that the Holy Spirit has been poured out onto all of God's people. And it is fascinating to see what it looks like, and maybe not even a little overwhelming as we look at this. So if you are willing and able, I invite you to stand for the reading of God's Word, Acts chapter 2, beginning in verse 42. And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number. Day by day, those who were being saved. The grass withers, the flowers fade, and yet the word of the Lord remains forever. You may be seated. So if I were to ask you to Kind of paint a picture in your mind of paradise. You know, if I were to tell you, just close your eyes and just think of just the perfect utopian setting. You know, what sounds are you hearing? What sights do you associate with celestial bliss? I bet if I asked you to write it down and hand in your answers, or even just shout it out, we might find out that a lot of us, when we think of paradise or celestial bliss, We think of gardens or forests or glens. We think of nature. We think of getting away from people. If I were to ask you to describe the most blissful celestial setting you could think of, I wonder how many of those settings would be isolated. Would be me, and a book, me, and my music, me, and the trees, You know, when God seeks to describe to you and me celestial bliss, heavenly perfection and paradise, He calls it a city, a garden city for sure, but a city full of people. full of people who are themselves full of love for him and for each other. The city so large that it has people from every nation and tribe and people and language. A city so large that if you took the literal measurements, you would realize that's not a city. When John describes the measurements of the city and the walls that surround it and the gates that are always open and the sun that's no longer needed and no more lights in the city because Jesus himself is the light. Like, the size of this city is enormous, but it's full of God's people. Now, we do have to admit that when Jesus describes that through John, there is something not in that city that is still present in this city that makes isolation a little more appealing than a large group of people. When I get together with you all, I am forced to recognize that we, you and I, are not sanctified yet. That when I interact with you, I get to be exposed to your sins, And probably more disheartening than that, when I interact with you, I get to be exposed to my sins. And isolation is easier. Ignorance is bliss. If I could be alone on a retreat, I don't have to see my sin in your eyes. I can convince myself it's really not me. It's them. They are why I act the way I do. Because when I'm not near them, I'm a much nicer person. Have you ever felt that way? Maybe you felt that way in your marriage. When I'm not near this person, I'm nicer. And what strange things we convince ourselves of that clearly correlation is causation. And so we don't think through, I wonder if they're nicer when they're not around me. I wonder what it is that I bring out, or why is it that I bring out struggle in others, and why do they bring out struggle in me? Can we, Is it possible that the communion of the saints, that the community of God's people could be more than that, just more than we just kind of bring each other's sins out? You know, there's a. It almost feels like a utopian picture here in these six verses, doesn't it? It doesn't feel like, do any of you read this and think, Boy, we are close. Like, we are really close on this. And maybe, maybe you do, and I hope you do, and I hope you will see that this isn't meant to be some pie-in-the-sky utopian picture, that this is the actual picture of God's people when they first come to understand that their sins killed their Savior, and yet He offers His name to them and full forgiveness for that. And not just His name to bear, but His Holy Spirit to fill them. And that moves them. That moves them into community with each other. I don't want us to look at this passage without realizing it all flows out of the gospel. Like, don't hear anything that we read in this passage and say, all right, so here's the to-do list, here's how we make a healthy community, here are the things we have to do, without realizing this flows out of the absolute forgiveness of sins that we have in Jesus Christ. This is their response to the two-fold promise that Peter offered. If you will repent, and believe you will receive forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit. And they do. And 3,000 believe. And I realize that some of this, we have to know the difference between when we read the Bible between prescription and description. So you read some narrative passages and they are very descriptive But we would admit immediately, well that's not very prescriptive. Like that's, just because it's describing what happened, it's not prescribing that for me and how to live. Like I'm not ever going to face an 11 foot tall dude who wants to destroy all of God's people, and I gotta find five smooth stones fast. Like that's descriptive. There are prescriptive things in there. Do you love God's holiness? Do you defend God's name? Do you trust God? Those are some things that we can take from it, but the prescriptive and the descriptive aren't always together. And so we've got this description of this early church, and we remember there are some things in this gathering that are kind of unique, right? I mean, it is people from all over the dispersion. So remember, people from from all over had come back to Jerusalem just for a month of celebration that kicks off with Passover and ends with Pentecost. So these, you know, these really more than a month, but 50 days of celebration, almost two months. And so they were all in town for these celebrations. And that's when the Holy Spirit is poured out. And so many of them stick around longer. And so some of the hospitality needs are just natural needs because these folks aren't from around here. And they just were overflowing with with love and affection for each other during this time. So some of those things we recognize that's a unique moment in the life of the church. But the attitudes of them toward one another and toward this new life, I don't think that's unique. Because while we might go through the book of Acts and say, well, that describes the apostles, and we get a pass because we're not apostles, and the apostolic age has ended, this passage is very clearly describing not the apostles, or at least not only the apostles. He's talking about all, and you can see it how many times, he says, all of them, all of them, they all were filled, all of them, all of them were acting this way. And so, what do we see in this? We see, we see, first of all, that the receiving of the Holy Spirit and the receiving of the forgiveness of sins that comes in Christ's name creates in them devotion. And that's really the whole point of this passage, the devotion of these new followers of Jesus Christ to Jesus Christ and to each other. And then all of the passage beyond the things devoted to, that they're devoted to, is sort of the application of the devotion. So what did their lives look like? But first we see the description that they are devoted. And we see four things very specifically that we're told that they were all devoted. They devoted themselves, first of all, to the apostles' teaching, the teaching of the apostles, and to the fellowship, to the breaking of the bread and the prayers. Their devotion, you know, if you grew up in like the 70s or the 80s like I did, which so few of you did, Devotion, at least for a junior higher and a high schooler in the 70s and 80s, devotion was such an icky word to me. Because it just reminded me that I was probably not a Christian. Because devotion was always just this shortened word for, and then later in the 80s, it turned to QT. Anyone remember your QTs? You know, did you have your quiet time today? Did you have your devotions today? And all devotion meant to me was I'm supposed to sit and read a book that I barely understand and words that I don't speak. And at the end of that, somehow I'm going to become a better person. And it never happened, probably because I didn't do it right or frequently enough. But devotion isn't about, it's not, devotion is supposed to be like you're devoted. You know, we're devoted to things. It describes your attitude toward others. It's not a noun that describes what you do for 15 minutes while you try to stay awake. Like devotion means that they were committed, this long-term attention Like they, you know, husbands and wives are devoted to each other. You could probably, you could have probably found cards with the words devotion in them this week in the whole pink and red section of the card store. Like it's this idea that you're totally, absolutely committed. Like you are all in, you're devoted. And what is it they're devoted to? First of all, they're devoted to the teaching of the apostles. It's interesting that in the Greek, the apostles is plural because there's lots of them, but the teaching is a singular noun, a singular teaching of the plurality of apostles. Much of Acts is going to unfold what that teaching is. But these folks were, first of all, devoted to learning. They wanted to hear what the apostles were teaching. What was it that Jesus had explained to them in those 40 days that he was with them after his resurrection? What were the things that he opened their eyes to understand scripture? They wanted to hear and to learn and to feed on the truths that the apostles were sharing and teaching. This idea that it's by grace that you've been saved. That it's not a thing that you worked up in yourselves, it's a work of God. It didn't come by works so that you don't have anything to boast in. In fact, the very works that you do even after you're saved are works that God himself has ordained for you to do. This all comes from God. You are the workmanship. Of Jesus Christ, you were created in Christ Jesus. To bring glory to God, God delights in you. As he delights in his son, Jesus, in fact, so much that he adopts you to be his son, to be his child. They were devoted. They were giving long-term attention to the teaching of the apostles. But they weren't just a bunch of bookworms. They weren't just trying to download information. They were also devoted to the fellowship. And it's interesting that these four things, they all use definite articles. So they're devoted to the teaching. They're devoted to the fellowship. They're devoted to the breaking. and they're devoted to the prayers. And so there's something unique about all of this. It's not just that they were devoted to hanging out. They were devoted to the fellowship. It's the place, or one of the many places that we sort of use the word koinonia when we want to use insider language to describe our love for one another. Because that's the Greek word that's used, koinonia, that means fellowship. Or actually it comes from a business term, it means partnership. You're in partnership with others. You've got buy-in, you're committed to the success of the business. when you're in koinonia with others, when you're in partnership for that business. This fellowship is more than just, we like to hang out, but we're committed, we have buy-in. They were completely committed to each other, to the needs of each other, to the care for each other, to the health of each other. And consider how much they had going against them even as Rich pointed out before his prayer that like I mean the church is a pretty weird place when you think about it I mean we have to admit and maybe we don't like to admit or maybe we shouldn't admit it too loudly or too often but without Jesus most of us wouldn't be friends like without Jesus we would look at one another and say I don't have anything in common with that person. Like, I don't have any reason to hang out with that person. Like, we are on different pages, we're at different stages in life. Like, I don't need another dad in my life. I don't need another mom in my life. I don't need, I don't, listen, oh no, I did the kid thing and I'm not doing that again. Like, I don't need, I got plenty of friends. I got all the friends I need. I don't need any of you all. And like, without Jesus, we would be looking at all the things that make us different. And then suddenly the Holy Spirit shows up and all of those differences are beautiful, aren't they? We look around the church and we're like, I'm so glad they're not all my age. With Jesus, we delight in the diversity, we delight in it, we love it, we love, you know, without Jesus, we're just at a TED Talk. And the people in the back row with all their kids, they annoy the poop out of us because they can't be quiet. But with Jesus, we love you. So stop. No, I'm just making a point. Without Jesus, I get annoyed by our differences. With Jesus, they make me weep with joy. I'm in a church that's so singular in its age, even if it's a young age, is a dying church. But a church full of different ages and different stages and different places and different things and different stories, we can come together and the fellowship of the saints is what draws us together. Not the similarities, but the fellowship that we belong to Christ and therefore we belong to each other. It's interesting that Luke goes on to describe they were devoted to the breaking of the bread. And I think this is more than just eating together. And the reason I say that again, because of the double. Definite article, they were devoted to the breaking of the bread, and later he'll say they were breaking bread in each other's homes, and that was far less definite articles is just a thing they were doing was eating together. This seems to be something more specific. And throughout. The Gospels in the. When we talk about the breaking of the bread, we're talking about communion. They were devoted to the remembrance of the crucifixion and resurrection. They were devoted to coming together, to take communion together, so they were devoted to worship. They were devoted to coming together and worshiping together, not just getting instruction, not just hanging out, but worship, the breaking of the bread and the prayers. It would have made so much sense for him to say they were devoted to praying. You can say it without the definite article in Greek, but he says they were devoted to the prayers. which seemed to be something specific that had to do with this idea of coming together and learning prayers together and worshiping together and following a liturgy as we worship God. And they just, they loved these things, the teachings of the apostles and each other and hanging out and the breaking of the bread, celebrating communion together and the prayers and the worship and all that went on. They were devoted to these things. They weren't just things that they thought about once a week. They weren't just things that they thought, well, let's get a couple hours of that in and then the rest of the week will be mine. It says they were devoted to these things. And the application, the implication, what we see, how we see that devotion is laid out in the rest of the passage. One thing that it shows is the awe that they had. They were filled with awe. They were filled with wonder. It says that all who believed were together, and they had all things in common, and they were selling possessions and distributing to all as any had need. And day by day, they attended temple together, and they broke bread in their homes, and they received their food with glad and generous hearts, and they praised God, and they had favor with all the people. This awe, literally, it's phobos. They had a fear or a holy reverence of God as a result of their devotion. They were overwhelmed to see what God was doing through the apostles. It's interesting that there's two places where the wording indicates it wasn't the work of the people, but God was doing something. First is God was performing signs through the apostles. So the language doesn't say that the apostles were performing these wonders and signs, but that wonders and signs were being performed through them. So God was doing a special thing through the apostles to bear witness to the authority of their teaching. But the second thing is at the end, and day by day, the Lord added to their number. Like, they were simply living out the truth of what it means to be a people saved from their sins. And that was so attractive that folks just started showing up and being saved from their sins. because of what they saw, the awe that they saw in them, the love that they had for each other. Again, remember, there's one side of this that's very simply descriptive of what's going on. There's folks who are far from their homes. They're staying in Jerusalem longer than they expected to because of this wonderful news about the gospel. And so, certainly, hospitality was going to be overflowing. No, you can stay as long as you need to. No, we'll make sure that you have food. I know you're far from home and from your work. We'll take care of it. Let's all just make sure everyone has everything they need. I mean, I know that this is reading between the lines, but do you know the one pretty important aspect of no one had any needs, they were all being taken care of, is that they admitted, this will be weird, their needs to each other. Like they didn't say, you know, I got this. You've got your own problems. You know, I don't want to be a burden to you. They knew each other's needs. The only way for every need to be met is if every need were known. They let each other know what they need needed. We're told that their idea, and I know we're talking a different society, but their idea of worshiping God was not limited to one day a week. And it certainly wasn't limited to two hours that day. But it says they went to the temple every day together. Which, if you think about it, is kind of strange, considering, like, people in the temple don't all like them. And yet they still understood, like, well, that's the place for daily worship. That's the place that we gather for these things. And so they would gather in the temple. But the temple, remember, it's not like just church on steroids. There's no fellowship hall in the temple. And so after they've gathered in the temple, they're like, well, hey, why don't you come over to my place and we'll eat together? So day by day, they were gathering in the temple, and then they were day by day going into each other's homes and breaking bread together. And they're just filled with joy and thanksgiving. They're eating with glad and sincere hearts. And the result of this is that they had favor, they had the favor of all the people. And we kind of assume that all of Jerusalem are all unsaved Jews, despised immediately all Christian Jews, and that's just not true. It's usually the leaders who stir up things like that. It's leaders who stir up any kind of animosity most of the time. But for the most part, as they were living their lives together, They had favor with their neighbors. Their neighbors were attracted to it. And in fact, we're told every day God was adding to their numbers. I know that Sometimes it feels like the church exists just to push its programs. Like, the church is really—all the church really needs from you is your money and your presence in their programs. And other than that, please be quiet. I'm sorry if that's ever how it comes across at Hope of Christ. Every program we do, we only do it because we think it would help. Because we think, hey, this might help with building our love for each other, this particular activity. Or this might help with increasing our devotion to the Apostles' teaching, to do these things together. We don't push these things just so that we can feel like, well, look at how great our ministries are. Like our ministries are nothing other than avenues for us to serve each other. for us to live in partnership with each other. You know, we have that, I don't know if you're like me, maybe you're not, but are you ever shocked when people come to Hope of Christ? Like, why? Look at us. I mean, look around. Seriously, look around. There are so many more chairs than people in this room. And that's like every Sunday. Like on our best Sundays, we get close to filling half the chairs. Close. And people come. And I'm not, at least in this moment, arrogant enough to claim that it's because of me. Now, in other moments, I'm more arrogant than that. But the reality is, do you know why people come to Hope of Christ? You. They come to Hope of Christ because of you. Because they see in you a love for Christ and a love for each other. And they either think, oh. This is exactly what I hoped the church would be, or they think that is so bizarre. I want some of that. I don't know how to get some of that. You know, we're going to We're gonna have a potluck together. So, I don't know, you could call it forced koinonia. But you don't have to stay, but you're invited. So, our potlucks, our dinners, the things that we have, it's just to provide opportunities. The salt shaker dinners, all of these things, all of these activities, and you feel like, oh, the church is too busy. And I get that, and it's just, they're just opportunities. You know, as I've started to learn with my children, as they've become adults, Like when Amy and I want to do something with them, we have learned that we have to say, this is information and invitation and no obligation. Now in our hearts, I want to stop at information and invitation. But because I'd like them to feel obligated for crying out loud. But they don't, and I don't want them to, because I don't want them to feel obligated. I want them to delight in the fellowship of our family. And they do, and I know they do. And we offer these things to you because we think it would help you to delight in the fellowship of your family and the teachings that we offer. You know, we're devoted, as your leaders, we're devoted to the apostles' teaching And the things that we offer through Sunday School and through some of the teachings at Care Group or the Bible studies, these are opportunities for you to be delighted in the gospel of Jesus Christ again that is on full display through the entire Bible. And who knows? Who knows if we were devoted to those things, to God's worship and to God's Word and to God's people. Who knows, day by day, what God would do. And maybe we'd need to buy more chairs, which we'll be talking about soon. Let's pray.