Do vs Done (Derik Fuller) | Devoted

Well, good morning church. Special welcome to those who are

joining us for the message at Kitchener this morning.

Glad to have our Kitchener congregation joining us.

If you're joining us online, welcome to you as well.

Can I ask you to turn in your Bibles to Acts Chapter 2?

Acts 2 · chapter mention

If you don't have a Bible with you, we've got some Bibles under

some of the chairs here in the auditorium.

We would love that to be your gift.

If you don't have a Bible, take that with you.

If you're opening up there, you'll find Acts 2 on page 967.

So you can flip over there. Students and teachers headed

back to school this week. The NFL has kicked off.

The Cowboys have already lost their first game of the season,

Rich Huseman stop Pumpkin spice is in the air and Costco has

their Christmas decorations up and ready to go.

So it must be fall and that means we've got a new ministry

year kicking off here. So you're going to be receiving

a brochure that has all of the different activities and classes

and events that we have going on.

And is, if you've been here for a while, you'll know this.

If you're new here, we're so glad that you're here.

But if you've been here for a while, you know, we'll say all

of these are to help you grow as a disciple of Jesus who loves

God, loves others, and serves the world.

And we want you to participate in these activities, but a lot

of you maybe skip to the inside and forget that there is a front

page. And these things actually are

the most critical things. Those things that we put on the

front, those are like the core, They're the priorities.

They're the things that we think everybody should participate in.

The rhythms of life and the disciplines of life that really

do open up space for the grace of God to enter in and help.

Shape us as disciples and so. We have a September series.

This September, we're calling it devoted, and in it we want to

look at those different things, those things that we do that

help open up space for us to grow in our love for God, grow

in our love for others, and grow in the way that we serve the

world. And I can't wait to enter into

that. But there's a problem if I do

that right away. And here's the problem for a

bunch of us. If I jumped into those things

immediately, you're going to be tempted to think the following.

You're going to start thinking, here's a list of things that I

can do that will make God love me more.

Here's a list of things that I can do that will make God happy.

Here's a list of things that I can do that will secure my

salvation. Here's a list of things that I

can do that will make up for my mess ups.

And there is something hardwired into us as human beings that

just wants to reach up inside of us and say that our relationship

with God is dependent on what we do.

Angus Reed in 2024 did a Canadian survey and they found

the majority of people in Canada strongly believe in an

afterlife. Over 70% of Canadians would say

they believe there's something beyond this life, whether that's

heaven or paradise if you're a Muslim or Nirvana if you're

Buddhist or Hindu or mukti if you're sick.

And if you ask the question to those people, what determines

whether you're going to get there, it always ends up the

same thing. Because if you're a Muslim and

you believe that you're going to go to paradise, the answer you

would give is, yeah, I'm going to go to paradise because of my

righteous deeds, because of my justice, because of the fact

that I give to charity, because I fasted, because I've made the

pilgrimage to Mecca, because I say prayers at the proper times,

therefore God will honor me. And for six, in the Hindus, they

would say, well, if I get to the point where I finally live the

right life after so many lives of being reincarnated that I

come to the point where I have perfectly followed in the steps

in the teachings of the guru, then I will achieve Nirvana.

I will be connected and made one with the God and the oneness of

God in the universe. And if you just go up to the

average person on the street, many of them who would claim to

be Christians, and you ask them this question, why would God

allow you to? Go into heaven.

I can guarantee you that the vast majority of them will

answer. This well, I'm a.

Pretty good person and time after time in all.

Of those situations. Here's what we see.

We think that salvation depends on us.

We think it's rooted in what we do.

But the core message of Christianity is this salvation

depends on what? Jesus has done.

And when we believe that it will begin to change what we do.

I just this this truth is so incredibly important.

Like if you're here and this is the the first, maybe the only

time you think you'll ever be in church, I couldn't think of a

better thing for you to hear. This is what is at the core of

the Christian faith, that salvation depends not on what we

do, but what on what Jesus has done.

But when we understand what Jesus has done, it begins to

change everything that we do. And it's so essential if you're

a follower of Jesus that you don't get this order mixed up

because it messes up everything. Acts 2.

We're going to be in this passage this morning.

What is Acts 2? Acts 2, Many people would say

this is the birthday of the church.

This is the day of Pentecost, the day where the the church

really forms and takes off. So the Gospels if you're.

Kind of new. To faith, you don't really know

how this all fits together. The Gospels, Matthew, Mark,

Luke, John, the first four books in the New Testament, they

record the story of Jesus, his birth, his life, his teachings,

his death and his resurrection. And then in Acts, Acts is kind

of the sequel. It's it's Part 2 to Luke.

Luke wrote both Luke and the book of Acts.

And so Luke picks up the story in Acts.

And in Acts 1, we see that after 40 days of hanging out with his

followers after the resurrection, Jesus tells him,

I'm heading back to the Father. I'm going back to heaven.

I'm going to be reunited with the Father.

In Acts 1/8, he says this, He says, here's what I want you to

do, all my Father's. I want you to wait here in

Jerusalem and I'm going to send the Holy Spirit down.

And when the Holy Spirit comes and meets you in Jerusalem,

everything's going to begin to change.

Acts 21 is 10 days after that. It's it's now 50 days post Jesus

resurrection. It's the day of Pentecost.

It's a Jewish feast. And we see that's exactly what

happened. So if you start reading in verse

2, it's a suddenly a sound like a violent rushing wind.

Came from heaven. It filled the whole house where

they were staying. They saw tongues like flames of

fire that separated and rested on each one of them, and then

they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.

They began speaking in different tongues as the Spirit enabled

them. What does that word tongues

means? It means languages.

So he's saying what happened was the Holy Spirit shows up, these

disciples who were waiting, like Jesus had said, for the Holy

Spirit to show up. Holy Spirit comes on them and

they start speaking in all of these different languages

because there were Jews from all over the world gathered in

Jerusalem for this feast day, this day of Pentecost as part of

their Jewish belief and religion.

And they're speaking and these people from all different parts

of the world hear the message that they're speaking in their

language. Now, this week it's also fall

because we're going to have an Apple event.

And at the Apple event, I think what they're going to announce

is some new Airpod pros. And and they.

Say what these new Airpod pros are going to have, they're going

to have live translation built into them.

So AI live translation. So if someone speaks in a

different language, it's translating into your language

in your ear, which is just staggering to think of.

But that's basically think of that.

That's what's going on is like you've got a direct receiver, so

somebody speaking a language you don't know or understand, but

you hear them in your own language.

And so people are like, what's going on?

This is crazy. And and a few people began to

say, Hey, I think these guys are drunk now.

I've been around some drunk people.

Before. And I've had trouble

understanding them, but it's never made things clearer for me

when somebody is drunk. And so.

And so that's what Peter steps up to stay in verse 14, Peter

steps up and he begins to deliver the first sermon of the

church. And he starts by saying, hey,

no, no, no, these guys, they're not drunk like you think they

are. What's going on here is that the

prophet Joel had said hundreds of years ago that God was going

to do something great. God was going to do something

special. God was going to do something

incredible and he was going to show up and his Holy Spirit was

going to come in power. And in verse 21, the most

important part of this prophecy, verse 21 says this.

And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord, when this

moment happens, we'll be saved. And then he says this, Hey,

maybe you guys remember Jesus. Remember Jesus, Remember,

Remember 50 days ago, a guy who claimed to be the Messiah was

nailed up to a cross. You allowed him to be put there.

In fact, you're kind of responsible for this whole deal.

He died, but guess what? He didn't stay dead.

Verse 24 Peter says God raised him up ending the pains of death

because it wasn't possible. For him to be held by death.

See, when God raised Jesus up, Peter says he broke the chains

of death itself. Death no longer gets the final

say. And he says that only happened

because God was working out a plan.

He had a plan this whole time. Because here's the thing.

Jesus just wasn't some man as you suppose.

No, in verse 36 he says this, Let all the House of Israel, let

every Jew and ultimately let every Gentile, let every person

in the world know with certainty that God has made this Jesus who

you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.

That word Lord is absolutely critical because that word Lord

is reserved only for God. So the implication of what Peter

is saying here is that Jesus through his death and then his

resurrection proved that he was not just some human, not just

some good man who who died. No, he was God.

He was Lord and he was the Messiah.

He was the Christ. He was the rescuer that God had

sent, the one who was meant to save and redeem his people.

And then listen to the response of all of those people who were

gathered there, listening to Peter as he stood up, being

amazed at the power of everything that's going on.

It says this. When they heard this, they were

pierced to the heart. When they heard this, they were

pierced to the heart. When they heard Peter saying

what he was saying, here's what they knew.

That's true. This guy's saying it's true.

It lines up with everything that we're experiencing.

Joel said that this was going to happen hundreds of years before,

and look what's happening. In fact, we've heard stories.

We've heard rumors of all of these people who've seen Jesus

arise from that, and now they're saying it's true.

The story that they were telling lined up with the facts.

And I just just want to say to you, if you're here today and

you're not sure whether this is true, I want to give you an

invite to a program that we run called Alpha.

And Alpha is just a place where you can begin to explore and

see, is this really true? Are these true things?

Are they true statements? And, and I would say to you, you

need to go to Alpha if you think there might even be a

possibility that this is true. Because if there is a

possibility that what I'm telling you is true, it changes

absolutely everything. In fact, there's nothing more

important that you could invest time into figuring out if it

would. We invest time into figuring out

whether all sorts of stupid things are true, right?

We asked ChatGPT all sorts of stuff.

We Google all sorts of stuff. Listen, nothing is more

important than figuring out whether what Jesus claimed about

himself and what his followers. Claimed about him was.

True, so I'd invite you to encourage you to.

Sign up for Alpha. They believed that Jesus had

done this. They believed that what Peter

was telling them was true. And that poses a problem because

how do you fix being the person who nailed God to a cross?

How do we get right with God? And so they said to Peter and to

the rest. Of the Apostles brothers.

What should we do? We got to do something.

Yeah. We got to get right with God.

What do we do? That's the question, isn't it?

How do we? How do you, how do I, how is it

possible to get right with God? But Peter had already told them

it was right there in that prophecy from Joel in verse 21.

Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord, who was Jesus, Lord

and Messiah, everyone who calls on the name of the Lord, who

calls on the name of Jesus will be saved because salvation comes

not through what they're going to do, but through what Jesus

had done. The only thing that could be

done to save them had to be done by Jesus.

See, at the core of our problem is this thing called sin and

sin. If you just want to get really

basic, it's our failure to obey God.

It's our actions and our attitudes that put us in the

place of God, where we act in rebellion to the one who is in

the creator and sustainer and designer of the entire universe,

where we say God, I'm going to do my thing, not your thing.

And that has put us in this place of rebellion where we're

separated and cut off from God. And all of us are in that place.

By nature. We're all sinners.

In first John 1/8, it says, hey, if we claim to be without sin,

we deceive ourselves and the truth isn't in US.

And I don't even think that I need to take the time to to

convince you that you're not perfect.

I'll let your spouse or your child or your friend do that for

you. I think most of us realize that,

right? Most of us know, hey, hey, we

dropped the ball on something. I mean, we don't even meet our

own standards, let alone whatever God's standard of

holiness is. I don't even live up to my own

expectations of myself. But we think if I just do enough

of the good things, maybe that will kind of scrub out and

outweigh the bad things that I've done.

Maybe it's just a giant scale and I can kind of weigh this out

in the end, but that's not how SIN works.

See, I think that we think I was just on a cruise recently.

So let me give you something from my own life experience.

I think that we think that SIN is like eating on a cruise ship.

Here's what happened when I was on a cruise ship.

I gained 12 lbs in a week. But I knew to my, I said this to

myself, Derek, it's OK. It's OK because you'll get home

and you'll start eating healthy stuff again.

You'll get back in the gym. So take the elevator all you

want. And we think that's what sin is

like. You know, like we did some stuff

over here and it's bad stuff, but but it's OK because I'm

going to do some good stuff and the good stuff will ultimately

outweigh the bad stuff and I'll get myself spiritually fit in

the end. But that's not what sin is like.

Sins like drinking poison. And when you drink poison, you

can pour as much water into yourself as you want.

It doesn't deal with the fact that the poison is in you and

it's going to kill you. You need somebody to give you an

antidote to that poison in order for your life to be saved.

That's what sin is like. You're not going to fix it up on

you. You're not going to dilute it

with the good things that you do.

Sin is there and it's killing you, and until somebody deals

with the sin, you're dead. That's why in Romans 623, Paul

says, but the wages of the wages of sin is death, but the gift of

God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord, that what

we earn through our actions and our sin is death.

But that's not the end of the story because Jesus enters into

the story and does something. He gives us a gift.

He dies so we don't have to see. Jesus was God in the flesh.

He was Lord. He was 100% God.

He was 100% man. He had to be 100% man so that he

could take the place of me and of you, so he could be

appropriate sacrifice, a stand in for us.

But he had to be God so that he could do everything that we

can't do, so that he could live the perfect, sinless life that

you and I are incapable of living.

Jesus died for our sins. He did it so we don't have to

die for our. Sins.

The question is that they were asking how do you get right with

God and the answer was believe in what Jesus has done.

Stop trying to do it yourself. Believe in what Jesus has done,

trust in that, call out to Him, and He will save you.

Brothers, what should we do? Peter replies.

Repent and be baptized, each one of you in the name of Jesus

Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.

You'll receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, for the promise is

not just for you, but for your children and for all who are who

are far off, as many as the Lord will.

There is no end to who the promise is available to as many

as are far off, as many as who would call out to Jesus will be

saved. But you say, wait a second.

Peter started back with something that sure sounded like

do. Did he say?

Repent and be baptized. This is what we should do.

Well, listen, when we truly believe that salvation comes

through what Jesus has done, it will change what we do.

So repent here means to change your mind in such a way that it

changes your heart, your devotion, your allegiances.

Think about it like this. Think about it like driving on

the highway, because I think we think of repentance as feeling

bad, feeling sorry. But think, think, think about

driving on the highway. You're going full speed, but

you're going full speed in the wrong direction from where you

need to be going, and you've been doing this the whole time.

How do you get yourself back? What do you do?

Well, you don't just feel bad about it, you know.

Oh man. Feel terrible about the fact

that I'm heading in the wrong direction and you just keep on

driving along. It's not what you do.

You don't, you don't just admit that you're wrong and then keep

on firing that car down the highway.

No, you take that steering wheel, you get it turned around.

That's repentance. It's a turn around of your life.

So when Peter is calling the crowd to repent, he's saying you

were headed away from God. You were.

You were headed towards death and destruction in your sin.

You rejected Jesus as a Messiah. You rejected him and you put Him

on the cross. Now turn around and recognize

who Jesus is as the Lord and Savior.

And this is not about cleaning yourself up.

It's about handing Jesus the wheel and allowing Him to begin

to turn the thing around and now begin to guide the car as it

goes in the right direction. That's what repentance looks

like. And baptism is the first step of

obedience that marks that I've entered into a life of

repentance. That's really what you saw this

morning. Nothing magical happened in

those tanks except for the fact that there were people here

claiming that Jesus has done everything in their life to save

them, and they're part of his team now.

They belong to him. Baptism doesn't save you.

The thief on the cross was told by Jesus without being able to

do anything for himself, no baptism.

He was going to die within moments.

And Jesus turned him and said, today you will be with.

Me in paradise. Because you know who I am and

you believe it. But the first thing that we

should do, if this is true, if we've actually received that and

accepted it, what should be, what we should be compelled to

do is obey Him. And the first thing, the first

step of obedience, is to get baptized.

So if you have not been baptized, but you're a follower

of Jesus, you need to get on that, not because it saves you,

but because Jesus has saved you and now you live in repentance

and obedience to Him, not out of duty, but out of devotion.

Verse. 41, says those who accepted his message.

We're baptized that moment, that day, hey, we're in.

We're on Team Jesus. Here we are.

And in October we're going to have another baptism service.

If that's where you're at, you've.

Accepted Jesus. You haven't been baptized.

It's time for you to say I'm in. I'm obedient.

I'm doing it and we'd love to get you hooked up with that.

But baptism? Was just the starting point.

See, when we believe in what Jesus has done, it begins to

change everything we do. All of it.

Look at verse 42. They devoted themselves to the

apostles teaching. Were they doing that before?

Nope to the fellowship? Were they doing that before?

Nope to the breaking of bread into prayer.

Everyone was filled with awe. Many signs and wonders were

being performed through the Apostles.

They had all together things in common.

They they sold their possessions.

It changed the way they view their stuff.

It changed the way they view their money.

They sold their property. It changed the way they acted

towards others. They distributed the proceeds to

all as any had need. Every day they devoted

themselves to meeting together in the temple.

They broke bread from house to house.

They ate their food with joy, joyful and sincere hearts,

praising God, enjoying the favor of all people, and every day the

Lord added to their number. Those who are being saved.

Every single moment of their day became a new type of living

because of what Jesus had done. They didn't do it to make God

love them. They changed the entire

orientation of their life flowing out of God's love for

them. Do it so that God would forgive

them. Didn't do it so that God would

think better. They didn't do it so they get an

extra crown out. No, they did it because Jesus

had done everything for them. For the Christian, it's not

about white knuckling and trying harder so that maybe God will

love me more. He loves you as much as he could

possibly love you. And if you doubt that at all,

just look to the cross. There was nothing greater that

He could have done for you to show His love for you.

But if you believe that, if that's true to you, how could it

not change what we do If we believe we're saved, but what

Jesus has done, it'll begin to change everything that we do,

begin to change what we devote ourselves to.

For those of you in Kitchener. We're going to say goodbye to

you right now. Pastor Steve's going to begin to

talk through in Kitchener what this could look like.

For you. And so just give a listen to

Pastor Steve. He's got some great.

Things to point you towards so you can grow as a follower of.

Jesus here in Cambridge want to share a story with you that

illustrates how we begin to understand what Jesus has done.

It begins to change all sorts of different things, and not all at

once, not immediately, but the work of.

God in US. Begins to change what we do.

And so I'm going to have you watch this video.

Our story begins when we met in 2015.

We dated for two years before officially blending our families

together in 2017. We lived the typical life, work,

kids, school for most of our relationship.

We decided to grow our family and we welcomed 2 more children

in 2020 and 2021. It was somewhere in here we

began to lose ourselves and each other.

I can only speak for myself when I say that resentment was

building up. I no longer cared about anything

except getting through the day. This led to the breakdown of our

relationship. September 11th we officially

called it quits. We still lived in the same house

and had to parent our children together.

After months of living in this less than ideal situation, I

decided to lean on my support group and started to take their

advice. I opened my heart and my mind to

the idea of God. It amazes me to look back and

see how quickly God was working in my life, the people He

brought before me to help bring me closer to my faith in Jesus.

At my new job, I was shown so much grace, not just on a

professional level, but as I navigated my personal life.

I started to see that there were good people in the world and I

wanted to be one of them too. So when I was invited to attend

Forward Church, I decided to go, and I am so grateful that I did

because this is where my belief turned into faith.

Jessica is right saying resentment built and drove us

apart. We were living separate lives

and our world was falling apart around us.

I started going to the church I grew up in because it was the

only place I felt whole but myself.

Righteousness and my anger at God had me believing that I

could do a better job myself and I stopped attending altogether.

It was until Mother's Day. Jess and I had divided out time

with the children in an attempt to normalize us living apart.

This was my weekend and Jess asked if she could have the

kids. I agreed and she got them ready

for Sunday service at Forward. I felt pulled to attend as well.

We sat in the balcony. The service ended with a message

of hope for families and couples.

I left there thinking maybe it's not too late.

It was that afternoon that Joel approached me.

The look on his face told me he had something important to say,

but nothing could have prepared me for what he said.

Next. He asked me if I wanted to

reconcile. It was during this conversation

that we both realized that yes, this is what we wanted, but on

the same condition that God was now an important part of our

lives and we were going to have to make some changes on how we

were doing things moving forward.

Our first step was taking the equipped class habits of a godly

home. This allowed us to have honest

conversations which turned into actions Each day.

We were seeing God work not only in ourselves, but in each other.

When the opportunity came up for baptism, Joel and I locked eyes.

He looked at me and said I think I'm getting baptized today.

And I replied I think I am too. Now we are both building a

relationship with Jesus individually as well.

It's together. Every day we try to show the

grace and love we received when we were doing everything wrong.

We find ourselves turning to God for both the easy and the hard

times. Spending time reading scripture,

praying, and building our community within the church

reminds us to take pause, show gratitude, especially

forgiveness. Well, I have, yeah.

I have Joel and Jessica right here and.

Part of how God is. Changing them.

Is not just in some of the things they do, but in saying

some I do. 'S this morning.

And they wanted their church family to be present with family

and friends as they take this step of.

Committing themselves in marriage to one another.

And so with that. I start with you, Joel.

Joel, will you have? Jessica, to be your wedded wife,

to live together in the covenant of faith, hope and love,

according to the intention of God for your lives together in

Christ Jesus. Will you listen to her inmost

thoughts, be considerate and tender in your care of her, and

stand by her faithfully in sickness and in health?

And preferring her. Above all others except full

responsibility for her every. Necessity for as long as you

both shall live. I do.

Jessica. Will you have Joel to be your

husband? To live together in the covenant

of faith, hope, and love. According to.

God's intention for your lives. Together in Christ Jesus.

Will you listen to His inmost thoughts, be considerate and

tender in your care of Him, and stand by Him faithfully in

sickness and in health, preferring Him above all others

except full responsibility? For his every necessity, for as

long as you both shall live. Then I'm going to invite you to

say your vows to one another. I, Joel, take you, Jessica, to

be my wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for

better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and

in health, to love and to cherish until we are parted by

death. This is my solemn vow.

I, Jessica, take you, Joel, to be my husband, to have and to

hold from this day forward. For better, for worse, for

richer. For poorer in sickness and in

health, to love and to cherish until.

We parted by a death. This is my solemn vow.

In light of the vows. That they have made to one

another, they have also chosen. To exchange a rings as part of a

remembrance. Of these vows.

And so I'll start. With you, Joel.

You can grab Jessica. 'S hand and you can repeat this

after me, Jessica. I give you this ring as a symbol

of my love and faithfulness to you, Jessica I.

Give you this. Ring as a symbol.

Of my love. And faithfulness to you.

Jessica, I'll invite. You to take Joel.

'S ring. Place it on his hand and say,

Joel, I give you this ring, Joel.

I give you. This ring as a symbol of my love

and faithfulness to you as a. Symbol of my love and

faithfulness to. You, I'll take that mic from you

for a second here because in light of the vows that you have

made to 1. Another in front of God.

Your friends, your family, your church family.

And by the power vested. In me by.

The Marriage Act of Ontario, I now pronounce.

You husband and wife. Joel, kiss your bride.