Rooted in Acts 2:42 — Worship, Connect, Serve, Go

What does prayer ultimately say about us when we practice it? Here's what it says about us, that we are desperate for God's hand to move. We can't make anything happen. We can walk in obedience. We can walk with him, but we are by prayer saying to him, we are dependent upon you, God, for you to move in our midst. So prayer becomes this priority that's not just a one time thing. It is a consistent practice where we're asking God to do the impossible and move and bring about this great intervention in his power in our lives. [00:41:08] (45 seconds)  #DesperateForGod

The early church was not listen to this. This this is this is a faulty point of the American church today. The church was not sustained, the first church, by creativity or by personality or by programs, but it was driven by the word of God in that proclamation. So when preaching and teaching are minimized, it weakens the church. Here's the third idea. Biblical fellowship should be much deeper than just attendance. We should we should attend. But in our attendance, it should go further than just being present. [00:45:56] (42 seconds)  #WordDrivenFellowship

The actual teaching that Jesus had handed down to the apostles, they are now handing them down to those who are gathering on a consistent basis. Jesus told them in Matthew twenty eight twenty, I want you to go and I want you to begin in Jerusalem telling everybody all that I have commanded you and everything that I have taught you. So note this, teaching and doctrine were not secondary. They were absolutely priority and foundational in the very first thing that they did. And that established the pattern and the rhythm of the first church. [00:36:44] (37 seconds)  #DoctrineFirst

But I wanted us to be a church regardless of our size, anything of that, that we would be grounded in acts two forty two. What the eyewitnesses prioritized as the church was established. So what should the American church today learn and be reminded of? Number one, that we are to be about being devoted to God over any kind of comfortable convenience. They loved God and gathered together. They were devoted. They were not sporadic. Today's tendency within the church is consumer Christianity. [00:43:41] (42 seconds)  #DevotionOverComfort

The church is a people, not a production. This is really important. Everything else in this verse points to a shared life, not a stage experience. The early church was participatory, relational, spiritually engaged, and not built around spectatorship. This is what we learn from them. So Mark's gonna come up now. We're gonna begin to walk through and do something this morning of just reminding us who we are as a church and what this looks like. [00:48:53] (46 seconds)  #PeopleNotProduction

So sometimes we're learning new things. Those who are new in the faith are learning things because they haven't been exposed to them. But for those of us who've been in church for a long time, we're just reminding one another of what has been passed down to us and given to us. So so when they would participate in the Lord's Supper in the homes, likely this is where this took place, they were doing what Jesus had said to them. What did Jesus say? It's it's in all the text. Do this and what? In remembrance of me. [00:39:53] (32 seconds)  #DoThisInRemembrance

They understood that church life flowed from a right understanding of God. This was important, and this is what they devoted themselves to. Secondly, they devoted themselves to the fellowship or community. When you look at this word here in the Greek, this is more than just social connection. Sometimes we come and we go certain places and there's just a social connection there. The word here is a deeper meaning. It is a word called koinonia in the Greek and it literally means this, they came together and shared life together. [00:37:21] (42 seconds)  #KoinoniaCommunity

This is the clearest picture of the church in its simplest way in the very beginning. And it shows us what mattered most to them as they began. This is the first initial spirit formed community that was gathering together. And the verse communicates the priorities of the apostle, the eyewitness led church. This is critical to see what they do. So this phrase, they devoted themselves is key. This word devoted means persistence, to be disciplined about, to have an intentional commitment about this, not casual participation. [00:35:19] (46 seconds)  #IntentionalDevotion

But I wanted us to be a church regardless of our size, anything of that, that we would be grounded in acts two forty two. What the eyewitnesses prioritized as the church was established. So what should the American church today learn and be reminded of? Number one, that we are to be about being devoted to God over any kind of comfortable convenience. They loved God and gathered together. They were devoted. They were not sporadic. Today's tendency within the church is consumer Christianity. We're attending and engaging, is not dependent upon whether or not we are tired or we had a busy week or we had something that night, but we but we belong to one another and so we wanna come together and share our lives with one another. [00:43:40] (62 seconds)

The church is a people, not a production. This is really important. Everything else in this verse points to a shared life, not a stage experience. The early church was participatory, relational, spiritually engaged, and not built around spectatorship. This is what we learn from them. [00:48:53] (31 seconds)

They understood that church life flowed from a right understanding of God. This was important, and this is what they devoted themselves to. Secondly, they devoted themselves to the fellowship or community. When you look at this word here in the Greek, this is more than just social connection. Sometimes we come and we go certain places and there's just a social connection there. The word here is a deeper meaning. It is a word called koinonia in the Greek and it literally means this, they came together and shared life together. They took it also means this, taking mutual responsibility for each other and and being partners in the spiritual mission that Christ set forth for them. This is what glued them together. They were not note this. It's really important because I think this happens in our day and time is that church sometimes is an event that people come to in their mind. They were not coming to an event. They were coming together to share life together under the authority of the apostles as they taught them. [00:37:21] (80 seconds)