Devoted Disciples (Acts 2:42-47)

Hey everybody, welcome to Vita Springs.

If we've not met, my name is Gordon, one of the pastors here,

and I get to teach. Go ahead and open up your Bibles

to Acts 2, Acts 2, and I got a quick announcement that I want

to add. I help a lot with our youth, our

middle school and high school groups.

So an announcement for you. Middle school and high schoolers

are back to school fall party, even though that's been a couple

weeks ago. We are having a volleyball

cookout, 20 foot water slide all out there next week, free food,

volleyball water slide. And I texted a lot of your dad's

because all the families are invited.

And I said your kids need to be humbled and this is a good

chance to do it. And one of them responded back

right away, said, oh, I have a lot of ways to humble kids.

So anyway, I hope that you're there.

And then also middle school high schoolers, if you've got friends

you've been hoping would come to church with you, this is like

one of the easiest ways or things to invite them to come to

church with me next week and stick around after free food,

volleyball, 20 foot water slide. All right, all right now into

the teaching for today. We are in a series called Church

Anatomy One O 1. If you have taken a high school

anatomy class, most of you, except for the middle schoolers

in, in an anatomy, like a true anatomy class, you're getting a

foundational understanding of the body.

And whether you go to Med school or not, it's helpful because you

have a body and you're going to have a body for a while.

And so it's good to understand how it works and how it

functions best and what's going on.

Similar. If you're a Christian, whether

or not you ever like go into full time ministry or work at a

church, if you're a Christian, you're part of a body, the

church, and you're going to be in it for a while.

And so it's good to understand how it works, how it functions,

And then as parts of that body, what we're to do.

That's what we're going to be looking at a lot today.

So today we're actually able to go back to a picture of the

original church, the first group of people after Jesus.

So that's why we're in Acts 2. Some fun things about being able

to look at an original version. It's not always possible to look

at an original version, but when you look at an original version,

it's helpful because it offers a direct, unfiltered glimpse at

the creator's intent for that work.

If you think about a painting, if you think about a recipe, it

gives you a direct, unfiltered glimpse at the Creator's intent.

If you look at the original, we look at the original church, we

see that a direct, unfiltered glimpse at the the Creator's

intent for his church. How does Jesus want his church

to be? What are the key ingredients?

What are they to do? How are they to do them?

Those are some things I hope get answered today.

You know the term bread and butter, It's like this is our

bread and butter. It refers to like bread and

butter or things that most people have in the house

everyday, their everyday ordinary.

We're looking at an original church and we're looking at like

some bread and butter everyday, original things.

That just got me thinking about bread.

Some of you think about it random times throughout the day

too. My great grandma, I called her

mom, Mom. She made the best bread.

I came from Both sides of my family are Mennonite, which is

like right next to Amish. And they know how to build

things and they know how to cook things and they know how to cook

bread. And so my mom had the best bread

and I actually have the original recipe a family member put

together compiled like all these recipes from my family.

I could sell this for a lot of money today.

I bet my grandma my mom's bread recipes in there and it gives me

a original, direct, unfiltered glimpse at how bread was

supposed to be made. There's pictures in there,

there's recipes, there's details, there's directions for

how it was made. This shows us recipe for the

original church. So before I start reading

through the verses and teach, I want to, as is our norm, just

give us a couple moments to quiet our hearts, get away all

of our distracted thoughts and really prepare our hearts to

hear from God. That's what's that's what

happens when we open the Bible. And so after a few seconds of

that, then I'll read and we'll dig in.

All right, Acts 2, verse 42 And they devoted themselves to the

Acts 2:42

apostles, teaching, and the fellowship, to the breaking of

bread and the prayers, and all came upon every soul.

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. 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 are being saved. Jesus, help us to hear from you

now. Give us ears to listen, help me

as I teach. And more than anything, I pray

you would build up our church, build up all the Christians

here, and build up the ones that are part of Vita.

We want to be strong and healthy.

We want to reach maturity. We want to become everything you

want us to be. And little by little, week by

week, day by day, you build us up into that.

So we look forward to what you're going to do on US today.

Amen. All right, So if we were to just

like jump into verse 42, we're missing a lot.

And so there's just a simple question that was coming to my

mind, which is, OK, this is the church.

We've been talking about the that the last two weeks, the

people of God. Now this is what they do.

But first, how, how do I get in? How do I get into the church?

What's the doorway not to the building, but what's the doorway

into Jesus's family? And if you look at chapter 1,

chapter 2 leading up to this, it answers it pretty simply.

We see also an original glimpse into how you get into Jesus's

church. So for sake of time, I'm just

going to do SparkNotes version. So one man came and he turned

the whole world upside down, Jesus Christ.

He transformed everything. He died, He rose, He came back

to life. And in chapter 1, you see him

talking to his 12 disciples, one man, then 12 disciples who are

radically transformed by Jesus. They heard his teaching, they

saw his life, they've received eternal life through trust in

Him. In chapter 1 you also see 120

people, and in addition to the 12 disciples, there's 120 people

that are all in a room devoted to prayer, waiting for Jesus's

promise of the Holy Spirit to be poured out on them.

Then in chapter 2, you've got 3000 people that heard the

spectacle of the Holy Spirit being poured out and in a in a

moment of curiosity and awe and confusion, Peter stands up and

preaches. They too hear about Jesus Christ

and they're transformed. And an excerpt from that in the

verses right before chapter 2, verse 40 and 41, it says and

with many other words, he, Peter bore witness to Jesus Christ and

continued to exhort them, saying, save yourselves from

this crooked generation. So those who received his word

were baptized and there were added that day about 3000 souls.

So now you've got 3120 people and they're gathering and

they're Christians, God's people.

Therefore you have the early church.

So to answer this first question, how do I get in?

What's the doorway into Jesus church?

Receive his words? Or I could say simply believe

and repent and then be baptized. So believe, repent, be baptized,

believe is assumed because you're not going to repent if

you don't believe these things. They believe that Jesus went to

the cross because of their sins. For many of them, they were in

the crowd that told Pontius Pilate, give us Barabbas crucify

Jesus. And they just believe that Peter

said that man that you sent to the cross is God, and he rose

again, and only through him can you come into the family of God.

They're devout Jews. The text tells us they're devout

Jews. They came for this holiday.

And they believe the words of Peter.

He's essentially telling them you're not in God's family.

You killed God. Actually, you're in the wrong.

For us today, we hear it as our sin.

Our sin is still what made Jesus have to go to the cross.

You believe and that's the only reason you would repent.

You believe that Jesus died. He rose.

Death could not hold him through.

Trust in him. He lets us come into God's

family and forgives us of our sin.

Romans 10/9 says because if you confess with your mouth that

Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him

from the dead, you will be saved.

Salvation by grace through faith.

Repent. Part of that is I'm saying I

can't live life the same way again.

Jesus transforms you. Repent is to turn directions.

I'm not going to live my life for myself anymore.

I'm not going to devote myself to the same things anymore.

Jesus, you're my Lord. My whole life is now yours.

Whatever you say goes, Believe, repent.

You're welcomed into God's family right then and there, not

once you get baptized right then and there, Salvation through

faith, you're in. But the first act of obedience

is baptism. That's the consistent message

from John the Baptist, which is caught, why he's called John the

Baptist. Repent and be baptized.

Jesus picks up the same message, and then the apostles and Peter

right here repent and be baptized.

And that's what the 3000 people are told to do.

Baptism is their symbolic entry into God's family.

They participate with Jesus as they are buried and their old

self is dead, their sin washed away, and their new self comes

out of the grave and they're clean, they're pure, they're

made new now they're children of God.

That is why we partake in baptism, because Jesus told us

to. It's our act of obedience and

because it's an incredible symbol of what Jesus does when

he saves us. The ordinances or these two

practices that Jesus tells us to do, baptism and Lord's Supper,

many call them visual sermons. That's what they are.

You watch them and it tells you a lot.

It's your symbolic entry into Jesus's family, the church.

It's also your first practical entry into a local church.

When we're talking about membership in the series at its

base, to be a member in the church, to be a member in God's

family, You've believed, you've repented, you've been baptized.

And then it's so fun to see like a tangible expression of that

when we baptize in a church service where you've got people

that go through that burial, resurrection.

And then you know what, my favorite, one of my favorite

parts is seeing them come out and then they go and start

hugging people like you guys envelope them and there's hugs

and there's tears and there's worship.

And it's an expression of them being added into God's family.

So a quick thing for any of you who you've not trusted in Jesus,

you're not yet in the family of God, believe, repent, and be

baptized. Now some of you, you are in

God's family. You've believed and repented.

You've not been baptized. This is the first simplest thing

that Jesus asks you to do. I, I heard one pastor said it

this way, The easiest thing Jesus ever asked you to do is to

get in the water. So really practically, if you're

interested in that, it might just be as simple as I'm not

sure where I'm at, but I just want to talk.

I want to have a place where I can ask questions or you can

explain things or or maybe you're confident and you're in

and I need to be baptized. Here's what you do.

Your program has AQR code. It says new here, scan that,

fill out our welcome card. And in the bottom line it says

interested in just say I'm interested in baptism and one of

our pastors will reach out. We would love to talk with you

more about that. And our hope is that in the

coming weeks, this fall, we can do a baptism service again.

All right, so that's how I get into Jesus's church.

Now our verses, what do we do as members of God's family?

Verse 42, they devoted themselves.

Pause. We're really quick to just

jumping the task. Give me the formula.

What am I supposed to do? I want rules before any of that.

Just they devoted. I want to make a point here

because that's uncommon today, but this was common.

This was bread and butter for the early Christians.

This is just what they did. They devoted that word devote.

It actually means to continue steadfastly in a thing, to

continue steadfastly in a thing, or to give unremitting care to

and more definitions to continue steadfastly to endure, to

persist, to keep going. There is no such thing at well,

hopefully you'll understand what I mean.

To devote to something for a little bit, that may be what our

word devote means. That's not what this word devote

means. This means to continue

steadfastly unremitting is to continue with the same strength,

to not weaken. So this is like a captain going

down with the ship, continuing steadfastly unremitting.

This is a marathon runner making it to the finish line at a

steady pace, not limping or crawling.

That's devotion for Christians, for disciples now as a kind of,

by the way, a group of devoted people is not a pipe dream and

it's not a fairy tale like something you only hear in

movies or books. It's not a fairy tale like

something was special about these disciples way back then.

That's unrealistic for us today. It's not a pipe dream.

It's not a fairy tale. You've got people that devote

all the time yesterday on a football field for a sport you

had, I looked it up for all of college football.

You have 15,900 and 6018 to 24 year old men who devote

themselves to a sport. Devotion is not a fairy tale.

I was also looking up, I was thinking of other ways that

people devote. You have approximately

16,000,000 living Americans who have served in the military,

living Americans. That's a 16,000,000 who have

devoted, sacrificed for, continued steadfastly under

emitting to A cause to their country or to a sport or to a

hobby. And you could think of lots of

ways that people devote. So devotion in and of itself is

not a not a fairy tale. It's not unrealistic for us

today. You devote to what you love and

you devote to what you deem is important.

Think about Jesus as disciples. There are many practices that we

see in the life of Jesus that we want to adopt.

And that's right. Like we want to pray because

Jesus prayed. We want to be in community.

Jesus was in community, but have you thought about the

characteristic of devotion that's in Jesus?

We're going to imitate that, too.

Jesus was devoted to his task unremittingly.

He did not weaken or lose strength.

He continued steadfastly till the end for the joy that was set

before him. He endured the cross.

He went all the way for his task.

You devote to what you love. He loves his people, He loves

his church, and you devote to what's important.

The local church is important. God's family, creation, being

redeemed, people coming in is important.

As disciples, we imitate Jesus because he devoted to us, as

orphans, you could say, freed from sin, adopted into a family

because of Jesus's unremitting care to us.

We love him and we devote ourselves back to him.

His church is the most I mean, we're doing the most important

work ever. And I might sound extreme to

some of you, but I hope you'll be convinced by the end of the

series. The church is the most important

entity doing the most important work there is.

We devote to what we love. We devote to what we deem as

important. Now, devotion in and of itself

is not enough. And like a recipe, there's some

like main ingredients, but you got to mix some stuff together.

So devotion plus I'm going to add two things, devotion plus

heart and devotion in the right things.

Devotion in of of itself is how you get a devout person.

That's where that word comes from, Devout to devote to.

You have a lot of devout athletes, you have a lot of

devout patriot soldiers. You have a lot of the devout

religious people. That in and of itself not enough

for the full recipe for the original church.

You devote with heart. That's what any coach wants and

his players, they don't just want hours, they don't just want

drills. They want heart.

And that's what any commander would want is heart.

And that's what Jesus wants. It's not just that you do all

these things. He wants your heart.

And you can't just devote with heart to just anything.

A lot of people do that. You can get a trophy from a

football championship. You don't get to take that with

you. It's not going to last.

But you devote with heart to the right things.

You have a lot to show for your life and your devotion.

Growing up in a church. I grew up in a church my whole

life. One of our new families, their

babies like a week and a half old.

They were here last week with a three day old.

That was pretty much me. I grew up in church.

I was there every Sunday. My both my parents at different

times worked for the church full time.

My mom still does now. It was important.

I saw my grandparents serving. I saw my parents serving just

about every day. I heard my pastor saying

multiple times the local church is the hope of the world and I

believed it. It resonated with me and I saw

it in my parents and those I looked up to.

And so I always knew I deemed it important.

And so church was always just part of my life as a Christian.

I got that when I added the ingredient of doing you devote

to what you love. When I really loved Jesus, like

something in my heart opened up and I knew why I was doing all

these things. It was different, it was

wonderful, it's joy, it's joyful for me and I know my devotion.

At the end of my life, I'll look back and say I'm glad I chose to

devote my whole life to that. And I'm not just saying because

I'm a full time minister. That's what it looks like.

There's a lot of you who devote to Jesus, Church, his people and

to Him, and you'll have a lot to show at the end of your life.

You'll look back and be glad you did.

The original, unfiltered example of the early church calls for

steadfast, unremitting, devoted disciples now devoting to the

right things. There's four things in the text

we'll see. Look at voice, the rest of verse

42. They devoted themselves to the

apostles, Apostles teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking

of bread and the prayers, the apostles teaching, number one.

They devoted themselves to the teachings of Jesus and the

teachings of the apostles. The apostles were eyewitnesses

of Jesus, sent out to proclaim what he said in the Gospel

message. The word apostle just means

sent. So they devoted themselves to

the teaching of the apostles. The apostles appointed by God,

chosen by him to carry out this message, meant that the words

they were speaking were not man's words.

They were divinely inspired words from the mouth of God.

Because they heard it from Jesus himself, God, or because the

Holy Spirit inspired them in their teaching, they laid out

sound truth, pure truth. Not myths, not made-up stuff,

not opinions. Second, Peter, one of the

apostles, writes in chapter 1, verse 16.

For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known

to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

But we were eyewitnesses of His Majesty.

They just told him what they saw, told him what they heard.

Now as we think about this being devoted to the apostles

teachings, I would broaden the apostles teaching and label it

just simply a scripture for us today.

The apostles looked at the Old Testament and saw it as the word

of God and regularly pulled from it, plus Jesus's teachings, the

Gospels, and then the apostles teachings, they're preserved and

recorded their letters and books and the teachings are right here

and that's the New Testament. So to devote ourselves to sound

teaching to Scripture, Old Testament, Gospels, new, I would

say this is what it looks like for us today.

First, John 224 says, let what you heard from the beginning

abide in you. If what you heard from the

beginning abides in you, then you too will abide in the Son

and in the Father. Now, if we think about it like

this, they're devoting themselves to sound teaching.

And I would say the take away here is as disciples of Jesus,

we devote ourselves to Scripture, the original

unfiltered sound, pure, main and plain gospel message and

inspired Word of God as taught by the apostles.

We don't come up with their own myths or opinions.

We don't veer or stray. We go back to what is inspired

by God, true sound, lasting forever, and remember that word

devote. What it means is to continue

steadfastly to abide in what we heard from the beginning to give

unremitting care to this that we don't weaken or shrink.

Instead we grow and strengthen in our devotion to truth, to

scripture. I want to I want to do some

corporate application. I'll call it we application

because these are things that we must do with this.

This is a picture of the church and this point for the early

church to devote themselves to the apostles teaching.

That means that I cannot get us there.

We're talking about Vita Springs and us looking like this church.

I cannot get us there. You cannot get us there, but we

can get us there. So what do we do with this?

We are to continue steadfastly in the simple, clear, original,

true gospel message and teachings of Jesus.

What we see in the Bible. We are as a local church, we the

pastors and teachers and who the people we, we are to guard this,

to hold each other accountable. You are to call like to hold me

accountable that if I start straying or I start veering or

you sniff something out that's funky, it's twisted.

You have to confront me about it.

We have to guard this. Usually we listen to these

things. It's kind of individually, like

I have to devote myself to reading more Bible.

That's good, but I think here this is a call for we to guard

this and continue as a church being devoted to Scripture.

If any part of the body starts veering, we will lovingly and

truthfully bring them back in or try our hardest to.

You know, in the Galatian church, the Galatians get a

letter written to them because they are veering from the gospel

message. And you know who's held

accountable? Who Paul writes the letter to,

you foolish Galatians, That's who it's written to, not you

foolish teachers, you foolish elders, you foolish Galatians.

And he calls them back to the original, main and plain, simple

scripture, truth, gospel, in order to be a healthy church

that honors Jesus, in order to get as close to the original as

we can. We're responsible to guard this.

We're just responsible to guard each other.

This is an essential ingredient found in the early church.

Now a question I'll just let you ponder.

How will you know if I'm telling you something wrong?

And how will you know if your friend starts believing

something untrue? And how will you withstand all

of the other teachings and your other 166 hours a week?

I'll leave you to ponder it. The number two practice we see

in this early church, they devote themselves to fellowship.

That word means to share with, to partner, to be together.

And we actually see it in some of these verses, a picture of

what fellowship looks like. So go to verse 44.

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.

Day by day, attending the temple together, breaking bread in

their homes. They received their food with

glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor

with all the people. This is a beautiful picture of

community. It's one of the the things that

most eyes see when you read through.

This is why because it's shocking.

You have 3120 people and earlier it tells us they're all from

different, like nationalities, they're all from different

languages. And now you've put them all

together in a community and they're all getting together.

They had all things in common. They were giving things to

strangers that they didn't know weeks prior.

Beautiful picture of togetherness, fellowship and

this original church. You see all kinds of partnership

and fellowship. If you look at the verses and

pay attention, you see first literal sharing that word

fellowship to share. You see literal fellowship as

they're giving material possessions and they're giving

it cheerfully, voluntarily, because others in their body had

need. They're simply, you could say,

living out the second command that Jesus gave them.

Love one another as yourself. Love one another as I loved you.

They're just doing that. They're not loving themselves.

They're not preferring themselves.

They're saying this is what I would do if I needed.

This is what I would want if I needed something.

Here you go. Jesus shared with them.

Jesus participated with them. He partnered with them to the

point that he withheld nothing from them.

And So what are material possessions?

You see a picture of believers. Aside from literal sharing, you

also see a picture of believers in each other's homes, sharing

meals, having experiences together, worshipping and

praising together. You see them attending the

temple together, day by day, Verse 46.

And that word attending, It's the same word for devotion.

They're continuing steadfastly. I read 111 Way of Reading this

literally would be day by day, continuing steadfastly with one

mind in the temple. They're not just attending

church together, they're continuing steadfastly with one

mind day by day in their House of worship.

They're doing it together. So on a material level, on a

physical level, they're eating together, on a spiritual level,

they have one mind, They're unified in Jesus Christ.

They share the most important things, different languages,

different colour skins, different ages, different

backgrounds. Jesus Christ transformed them.

If you reread verse 44 again, like just read it slow, all who

believed were together and had all things in common.

You don't have to jump there, but I'm going to jump there.

Just a couple chapters later. Chapter 2, chapter 4, verse 32,

it says now the full number of those who believed were of 1

heart and soul. It's not a good way of putting

it. They're of 1 heart and soul.

I would say when you look at fellowship, what you're really

looking at is family. If this kind of fellowship

doesn't seem normal for you, maybe it also feels like a fairy

tale. We don't have a problem with

sharing. You do it for your own family.

This is normal in a biological family, and I know some of you

had difficult families that weren't like this, but in its

design, that's what the family supposed to be.

You share with each other. You have meals together when a

family members down, you lift them up when they have lack and

you have more, you don't withhold.

And so now you're invited to come into the family of God and

look around your brothers and sisters.

Really look around. You think I'm joking?

That's your brother and that's your sister.

That's your spiritual father. That's your spiritual mother or

your daughter or your son. If you're a Christian, you've

been adopted in the God's family and you treat them like family.

And when you have the privilege of being able to be a member in

a local church, those are your brothers and sisters.

When they have a need and you're able to give it, you share.

When you think about how to spend your time, who do you want

to spend your time with the most?

Again, I know some of you didn't have perfect families.

You don't like your siblings, but still it's important that

you're together whether you like it or not.

Whether you like it or not, they're your brothers and

sisters. And so you got to go to reunions

and you got to come to family dinner and you got to do chores

and pitch in. This is that's what I see when I

see the fellowship. I just see family as the church,

the family of God. The Creator's original intent is

that we would share with each other on multiple levels, not

just the 10 church together. Jesus is making us into a family

through committed partnership, fellowship, sharing with a group

of brothers and sisters. A heavenly family so take away.

As disciples of Jesus, we devote ourselves to sharing with one

another, to partnering, to fellowshipping.

I can't force you to, but I hope when you see how special it is

that Jesus would invite you into his family, that you would

choose to. And when you look around at each

other, you wouldn't see differences.

You would see that person Jesus also chose and that person Jesus

also loved. And whether I like it or not,

they're my brother and sister. No matter our differences, no

matter quirks, skin color, politics, age, no matter their

sin, I'm committed to you and you're committed to me.

Till death do us part, we'll end up in different churches.

I get that. But we're part of the family of

God. And when death does his part, I

guess we'll still be family, huh?

Now a little devotion disclaimer.

Disclaimer because I think this is something we should all

acknowledge. Realize being in a family is

easier said than done, huh? If it were simple, every local

church would still be like this. In Acts 2 you have unity and

Acts 4 you have unity and Acts 6 you have disunity.

Just read and a lot of the letters written in the New

Testament are to correct our disunity.

Many, many, many, many chapters later in 2025, we still have

Christians who we haven't achieved this, but I would just

call you to as long as Jesus is reigning, He's devoted to his

body and making it, making us into his family.

He's devoted to us. Let's devote with them to each

other. If you've been burned by a

church before, I'm sorry. Don't give up on the church.

Find a good church and devote to those people.

If you're new to this, I'm just warning you, there's bumps.

Stick with it, and if you've been at it for a while, I'd say

just in general for all of us, it's a joyful, fulfilling,

special thing to be a part of Jesus's family.

I've, like I said, I've always loved the church.

Oh, I'm sorry guys, I'm going along.

I got to speed this up. You're with me though.

I can tell when I was, I told you I grew up in the church and

I've always loved the local church.

And I had a moment a couple weeks ago where, you know, when

crisis happens, that's when you really like feel it the most,

either when you don't have support and community or when

you do. And in my case, I did and I felt

it. I had home stuff, house leak.

There were there were worries about money, there were worries

about where do we stay while it's being fixed.

And we had people that had us over for meals and gave us a

room for like 3 or 4 weeks that we could stay in, plus our two

little girls. And we had people checking in

always asking is there any way I can help?

When you need to start doing demo or remodel, just call me.

And they did. I did and they came and helped.

There was 1 moment in particular though, where when I was at my

lowest, some of you heard the story at our Discipleship

community event a while, a couple weeks ago when I was at

my lowest, there was one night in particular I called a friend

and it was one of those moments where before I just wanted to

scream and cry, which you've had those moments, right?

You just want to scream and cry. It's like I shouldn't, I won't

tell you if I screamed or cried or not, but I did end up calling

somebody. I said I could just use some

encouragement. Here's what's happening.

And they spoke truth to me. They reminded me of God's

promises. They told me it's going to be

OK. And I literally felt my like

spirit lift, like it snapped off.

I wasn't discouraged anymore. I felt faith.

It'll all work out. It's not that big of a deal.

And after that, there were moments, I think all of the ways

that the local church cared for me, the family cared for me,

they partnered with me. After all of that, I said, you

know what? This is all in my head on a

random drive through town. I'm in love with the local

church. I don't just love the local

church, I'm in love with the local church.

You know the moment when with your significant other, you go

from loving them to being in love with, it's like, I like

you, I love you, and then, man, I couldn't live without you.

I'm in love with you. I couldn't live without the

local church. I couldn't live without you

guys. I'm in love with you.

I hope all of you get to experience that.

And just quick plug, if you're not a member at Vita, but you

love Vita and you want to be a part of this church, we have a

membership series coming up October 19th.

So keep your ears peeled for that and I hope you'll join.

Maybe you're already in God's family, but I hope you'll join

this local church family. And if not, there are so many

great local church families in our city that it would be so

important for you to. Establish yourself and commit to

a local church family. They devoted themselves to

breaking bread together. This is likely meals together,

but this is also includes taking the Lord's Supper, that really

special practice that Jesus did with his disciples the moments

before he was crucified where he broke bread with them.

And he said, here I give this to you.

This represents my body broken for you on the cross.

And he gave them wine. He said here, this represents my

blood that I spilled willingly so that you could become a part

of my family. And he said, do this and

remembrance of me. He said things like I won't

drink from the cup again until I drink it new with you and the

Kingdom. And so it also is a time for us

to look ahead and remember Jesus is coming back for us.

And also one other thing about Lord's Supper I wanted to

highlight the Lord's Supper is a way that we fellowship with

Jesus. It's really cool.

But that same word fellowship to share with the partner, it's in

another place in Scripture referring to our partnering with

Jesus as we take the bread and the juice or the wine, First

Corinthians 10/16 will be on the screen.

It says the cup of blessing that we bless, referring to the

Lord's Supper. Is it not a participation in the

blood of Christ, the bread that we break?

Is it not a participation in the body of Christ, the fellowship?

Because there is one bread. We who are many are one body,

for we all, all partake of one bread.

When we take the Lord's Supper together as God's family, it

unites us to each other in a really special way and it unites

us to Jesus in a really special way.

It's like if baptism is our coming into the family of God.

This is how we regularly commune with God.

That's why it's called communion often.

And so we're told as disciples to regularly do this and are

really practical application. Today is after the teaching.

We're going to take the Lord's Supper together for all who have

put their trust in Jesus. We get to enjoy this practice.

All right, Lastly, I'm going to keep this one short.

They devoted themselves to prayers short because it's the

most self-explanatory of all. As God's people, we talked to

him and here this is talking to him together.

This is corporate prayer in the temple and in our homes.

Colossians 4/2. I'll just pick one verse.

There were many that use the same word devote and about

prayer. Here's just one Colossians 4/2

continue steadfastly and prayer being watchful in it with

Thanksgiving and it's scattered all over the Bible.

This is our bread and butter as Christians.

My boiled down simple application.

Have other Christians in your home or go to their home and

pray together three things pray that his Kingdom would advance.

Pray for our city and pray for Vita if this is your church.

If not, pray for your church, Kingdom, city, Vita regularly

devote yourself to praying. And if you want a simple for

like a outline, there's three things.

Now I'd sum up all of these areas as disciples devote to

Jesus and disciples devote to his people.

It's our bread and butter. It's part of the original

design. Now, there's some really

spectacular things that Jesus does in the midst of this that I

wish I could highlight. That's for another teaching,

another day. But there is all that grows in

the hearts of the Christians as they enjoy this really, really

special community and as they see signs and wonders, things

that only God can do happening in their midst, and especially

as they see more people being added to the Family Day by day.

God continues saving. So our conclusion, one man

transformed 12 and 120 and 3000 and it's still happening.

And you know how it happens. Ordinary disciples doing bread

and butter things. I pray that we will continue to

be transformed as we devote to these things.

And I pray God continues to add to our number around our world,

around our country. I pray in our city and I pray

here through this church. You want to take the Lord's

Supper with me. All right, y'all can stay

seated. Let me give you some directions,

worship team, you can go ahead and come up.

And for those of you elders that are helping distribute the bread

and the juice, if you would go ahead and pull these things off

for our worship team to grab some and just some notes and

instructions for Lord's Supper believers.

This is for you, all of you who have put your trust in Jesus.

This is a really, really special invitation from Jesus to join

him and the family in a meal. And as you take the bread and

the juice, remember what I was saying.

It's a reminder of what Jesus has done for us.

It's a reminder of what's coming, what we get to do with

him for eternity in heaven at his table.

And there's an actual way that we're communing with Jesus as we

do this. The instruction piece.

When it's time, you'll go out to the left.

Which way to the left just to keep it from bottlenecking go

out to the left and one of our elders will be at the front of

your section to for you to get the bread or the juice and then

take it back to your seat and wait and we'll take it together.

OK and then quickly for those of you that are not members of

God's family. I want you during this time.

I would ask you that you reflect this is a participating with

Jesus. And 1st you have to participate

through that open door which is open for you.

Believe, repent and ask for salvation.

And if you've not been baptized, I would also ask you make that

your first step, talk with the pastor about baptism and then

plan to be baptized. And then this is a way that you

get to continue communing with Jesus.

But this is for believers who have been baptized for today.