We Are Church | What Can I Do With My Obsession? - Acts 2 | March 9

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Acts 2. When the day of Pentecost had arrived, they were all together in one

place. Suddenly a sound like that of a violent rushing wind came from heaven,

and it filled the whole house where they were staying.

They saw tongues like flames of fire that separated and rested on each of them.

Then they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different

tongues, as the Spirit enabled them.

Now there were Jews staying in Jerusalem, devout people from every nation under heaven.

When this sound occurred, the crowd came together and was confused,

because each one heard them speaking in his own language.

They were astounded and amazed, saying, Look, aren't all these who are speaking Galileans?

How is it that each of us can hear them in our own native language?

Parthians, Medes, Elamites. Those who live in Mesopotamia, in Judea,

in Cappadocia, Pontus, and Asia.

Two names that I don't know how to say. Egypt and parts of Liba near Cyrene.

Visitors from Rome, both Jews and converts Cretans and Arabs We hear them declaring

the magnificent acts of God in our own tongues They were all astounded and perplexed,

saying to one another What does this mean?

But some sneered and said, They're drunk on new wine Peter stood up with the

eleven, raised his voice and proclaimed to them Fellow Jews,

all of you residents of Jerusalem,

let this be known to you pay attention to my

words for these people are not drunk as you

suppose since it's only nine in the morning on the contrary this is what was

spoken through the prophet joel and it will be in the last days says god that

i will pour out my spirit on all people then your sons and your daughters will

prophesy your young men will see visions your old men will dream dreams.

I will even pour out my spirit on my servants in those days,

both men and women, and they will prophesy.

I will display wonders in heaven above all the signs of earth on the earth below,

blood and fire and a cloud of smoke.

The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the great and

glorious day of the Lord comes.

Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

Fellow Israelites, listen to these words. This Jesus of Nazareth was a man attested

to you by God with miracles, wonders, and signs that God did among you through

him, just as you yourselves know.

That he was delivered up according to God's determined plan and foreknowledge.

He used lawless people to nail him to a cross and kill him.

God raised him up, ending the

pains of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by death.

For David says of him, I saw the Lord ever before me, because he is at my right

hand. I will not be shaken.

Therefore, my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices. Moreover,

my flesh will rest in hope, because you will not abandon me in Hades or allow

your Holy One to see decay.

You have revealed the paths of fire to me. You will fill me with gladness in your presence.

Brothers and sisters, I can confidently speak to you about the patriarch David.

He is both dead and buried and his

tomb is with us to this day since he

was a prophet he knew that god had sworn an oath to him to seek one of his descendants

on his throne seeing what was to come he spoke concerning the resurrection of

the messiah he was not abandoned in hades and his flesh did not experience decay

god has raised this jesus we are all witnesses of this,

Therefore, since he has been exalted to the right hand of God and has received

from the Father the promised Holy Spirit, he has poured out what you both see and hear.

For it was not David who ascended into the heavens, but he himself says,

The Lord declared to my Lord, Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.

Therefore, let all the house of Israel know with certainty that God has made

this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.

When they heard this, they were pierced to the heart and said to Peter and the

rest of the apostle, Brothers, what should we do?

Peter replied, Repent and be baptized, each of you, in the name of Jesus Christ,

for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off,

as many as the Lord our God will call.

With many other words, he testified and strongly urged them,

saying, Be saved from this corrupt generation.

So those who accepted this message were baptized, and that day about 3,000 people were added to them.

They devoted themselves to apostles' teaching, to fellowship,

to the breaking of bread, and to prayer.

Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and signs were being performed through the apostles.

Now all the believers were together and held all things in common.

They sold their possessions and property and distributed the proceeds to all as they needed.

Every day they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple and broke

bread from house to house.

They ate their food with joyful and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying

the favor for all the people.

Every day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

Amen. Thank you, Josh.

Hey, family. Why don't we pray?

God, we just invite you in today. Come, find your place in us,

in our hearts, in our lives together.

Come in nearness, come in power, God.

May we see you. May we hear you.

May your voice be clear this morning through these words in Acts chapter 2.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

For all that you would have for us today, God, come.

Make yourself known to us today.

May we have open hearts to receive, Jesus.

Come as you did before and ignite our hearts and our passions,

set our hearts and our lives on fire for you, Jesus.

May we be devoted to you. May we be obsessed with the things of your spirit, God. Speak to us.

Amen. Sorry. So if you're just tuning in, we are rushing through the book of

Acts like a mighty wind. And that's called foreshadowing.

We're in chapter two, so we're really blowing through it. Catching on. See what I did there?

Some of you aren't very big fans of these puns. Get some laughters though.

Don't worry. I see I'm disgusting people.

I'll stop. Just be patient. It'll all blow over soon.

I had to keep going until at least some of you laughed. So we're there.

But in all seriousness, last week, we talked about how the spirit of God falls

on the hearts of man and empowers them to be his witnesses. How his power is for his purpose.

And his purpose for his people is that we would be carriers of his message.

Carriers of his message of grace, of love, of forgiveness, of salvation, of freedom.

And we would carry this message to the ends of the earth.

Jesus promised this to his disciples as he left them. He said,

but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you and you will be

my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere in Jerusalem and Judea.

Throughout Judea and Samaria and into the ends of the earth.

He said, you will be my witnesses, but wait for the gift.

You'll be my witnesses, but wait for the gift. Well, today, the wait is over.

The Spirit has arrived. The Spirit has come. The gift is here.

Acts 2 says, On the day of Pentecost, all the believers were meeting together

in one place when suddenly, on the day of Pentecost, all the believers are gathered

together. They're in one room.

They're in one place. There is a unity of desire, a unity of purpose as they seek the Lord.

Last week, we talked about how the church is not a place that we go to,

a building that we attend. It's not an event that we sit through,

but the church is a people we belong to. It's a movement we belong to.

You combine those together, it's a movement of people which we belong to.

That's what the church is.

It's funny that Sandy's been using that. I am in...

You were in me and what is it? I am in him and the father's in me.

I was listening. I swear I was listening. But it reminded me of that old thing

that we grew up doing in church, right?

Here is the church, here is the steeple, open up the doors and nerd all the people.

It's funny because I heard a pastor talk about this a week or two ago and he

was using it because I guess somebody,

one of his elders in Sunday school used it as this illustration to talk about

how he, what we're really, what's really being communicated in this heresy is

here's a building, here's an outdated cultural symbol.

And then I don't forget what they say about the people, but it's funny.

And I appreciate the, the, I'm in the father and he is in me.

And then if you do open up, then we realize that we are in him as well.

We are a movement of people and that's what the church is. We are the church. We are church.

We are a whole, the holy ones of God called out of our professions called out

of our individuality, the pursuits of our individuality.

And we're called to gather together in an assembly or to assemble together in

a gathering, whichever you prefer, to be his family for a shared purpose.

And that shared purpose is to carry out the family business,

to be with his witnesses.

So the spirit has arrived. The gift is here. Great purpose and all-sufficient power.

Power on display in these math-defying events of Pentecost.

And I say math-defying because there's a beautiful equation here.

And I know that not all of you are into math. Some of you are more into grammar and language and stuff.

But Torrey, that's why he became an accountant. It's all about the numbers,

right? It's all about the numbers.

So for some of you, you're really into math. So there's this beautiful equation that takes place.

It reminded me of a math equation that sort of broke, it's one of those things

that broke the internet several years ago.

I don't know if you've seen it before. I'm going to put it on the screen.

Does anybody want to risk trying to solve this or attempting what the answer

is? Anybody got an answer for what this equation is?

Somebody said one. About 60% of people say one.

This is something that for a decade, for a decade, mathematicians and mathematical

educators have kind of debated, mostly because it's a poorly written equation,

which is why the answer is sort of ambiguous.

So it's not as easy as you kind of think when you just look at it.

Here's a funny group message that ran around the Popular Mechanics staff.

I'll just read a little bit of it.

Derek says, eight divided by eight is one. And then Jeff's response, Pimdas, 16.

She writes out Pimdas and then does Pedmas, which is high quality math humor right there.

You clearly didn't listen. I didn't. I was busy correcting her math.

Morgan says, I agree with Derek and disagree with YouTube. And Derek says,

I trust Morgan because she's had a math class in the last decade.

Pat says, Wikipedia says you hate America if you get 16. And then Brad comes back with 42.

And Tyler responds secretly the best answer, which is the answer to the purpose

of life according to some book that I didn't read.

I'm not sure if you've noticed this before. The answer is 16,

by the way, and you could argue with me about that later.

But there's something here you've probably never noticed that there's a more

interesting equation in the book of Acts than even this one.

The believers are all together praying. They're praying for 10 days up in the

upper room. They're together. They're praying.

The Spirit comes and fill the hearts of all believers, as Joel prophesied,

as the Lord spoke through him, saying, I will pour out my spirit upon all people,

on all flesh, and I will cause wonders in heavens and on earth. So the spirit comes.

Peter gets up and speaks for like 10 minutes. At least that's how long it takes

to read this chapter. I think Josh probably did it in seven.

So something like 10 minutes, and then 3,000 people get saved. So here's the equation.

The disciples pray for 10 days. Peter speaks for 10 minutes.

And then 3,000 people respond, give their life to Jesus and are baptized.

This is an incredible equation. This is what I call God math.

And we still have this equation today. This math is still true.

We just mix up the units in a bit.

Today, we pray for 10 minutes because that's all our attention spans can manage.

We have our pastor speak for 10 days and then maybe three people will respond

and give their lives to Jesus. So it's the same equation. We just mix up the

units. We mix up the zeros.

And as a result, we're kind of left wondering in this country,

in our modern age, does God still move this way? Can this still happen?

Maybe we've heard stories. Maybe we've seen video.

But in our life, we wonder, we question, can this really still happen today? How did we get here?

What's the cause? What is the energy? Where does it come from?

Kenneth Scott Latourette, he was a professor, he's a historian,

he was a professor at Yale. I think this is in the 1800s, so he's long dead.

He said, the more one examines the various factors which seems to account for

the extraordinary victory of Christianity, the more one is driven to search

for a cause underlying them all.

It is clear that at the very beginning of Christianity, there must have occurred

a vast release of energy virtually unequaled in history.

Nothing else could explain the surge of the early Christian movement.

What caused this release of energy? It lies outside the realm in which modern

historians are supposed to move.

But before I am a historian, I am a human.

And how can I close my eyes to the obvious explanation that something supernatural

happened? I should say that he was also a Christian.

At the beginning of Christianity, there was a vast release of energy that has

been unparalleled in human history.

Acts 2 says it this way, Suddenly, there was a sound from heaven like the roaring

of a mighty windstorm, and it filled the house where they were sitting.

Then what looked like flames or tongues of fire appeared and settled on each of them.

And everyone present was filled with the Holy Spirit and began speaking in other languages.

So this is the singularity.

This is the unparalleled event.

And yet somehow our English language, our English terminology,

just doesn't come close to what it should be describing.

All of our words, our descriptions, windstorm, a mighty wind,

whatever it may be, fall short of this reality, this spectacle.

Because it doesn't seem like we're supposed to understand this to be just a

breeze that blows back the curtain.

We're not supposed to understand this to be even the rushing of the wind that

we've heard come through the valley the last several days.

This is a tempest that got people's attention. It made a sound that collected an audience.

I think we're more likely meant to understand this as a tornado or as the hurricane

winds that blew down trees on every mountain in the high country.

But this was a frightening event.

Anytime the Spirit comes in the Bible, He comes in terrifying spectacle.

He comes in tornadoes of fire.

He comes in a mountain of flame. He comes in gale and squall,

an unapproachable presence.

Hebrews 12 describes it as a place of flaming fire, darkness,

gloom, and whirlwind as the Israelites came to Mount Sinai.

For they heard an awesome trumpet blast and a voice so terrible they begged God to stop speaking.

They staggered back under God's command. If even an animal touches the mountain,

it must be stoned to death.

And Moses himself was so frightened at the sight that he said,

I am terrified and trembling.

Even Moses, who lived in the presence of God, who would go on the mountain and

be in God's presence, was terrified at these spectacles of the Spirit's coming.

You couldn't approach it. You couldn't touch it. And yet at some turn of events,

some strange twist of fate, the Spirit comes and this time it rests on the head of every believer.

Have you ever stopped to think about that? That the Spirit of the living God lives inside you.

The spirit of the God the Israelites were so afraid of that they begged him

to stop speaking, that they were afraid that if they came into his presence, they would die.

This same spirit God has fused with your soul, that the spirit of the all-powerful

God has come to dwell in us.

Anyone who avoids the reality that God is terrifying is just deluding themselves

for what the truth of the scripture shows us time and time again.

When Jesus shows on the screen, shows up on the screen, everyone is way more

afraid of him than they are of anything else.

It happens time and time again. There's a beautiful passage in Matthew 17 where

the disciples fall down and Jesus has to come and comfort them and touch them and raise them back up.

We know when he casts out the legion of demons from the demoniacs in the land

of the Gerizines and he sent them into the herd of pigs and they rushed down and died.

When the people found out, they came and they begged Jesus to leave.

They were so afraid of him that they made him go back to the other side of the

lake. And this happens story after story.

The things that we assume we would be afraid of, like a crazy naked guy who

breaks chains or a storm, when Jesus calms the storm, The disciples turn their

fear from the storm to Jesus.

They're always, everyone meets Jesus with fear.

God is terrifying, but God is good. And he loves fiercely.

We can't forget that balance. So the fire of the Lord comes in terrifying display.

It doesn't come onto a building. It doesn't fill a tent.

It doesn't come into a temple, but it lands on his disciples.

It lands on his disciples. So is Christianity for you a belief you adhere to,

a system of beliefs? Is it a lifestyle that you conform to?

Is it a dynamic relationship with the living God who is in you, who is with you?

The Spirit's power in you, which you move in, which you walk in, which you speak under.

You live under his authority in your life. Are you fellowshipping with the present risenness of Christ?

Christ in you, here and now. The cause, this is the cause.

Singularity, the vast release of energy at birth Christianity,

what Rich Mullins has described as the reckless raging fury that they call the love of God.

This is the uncaused cause, as they say. The effect.

The effect is empowered witness, as we spoke about last week. Thank you.

Spirit's power is for his witness. And so Peter's message isn't overly complex.

I will admit that he probably talked for longer than 10 minutes,

so that math wasn't quite accurate.

It does say that Peter continued preaching for a long time.

So in some ways, perhaps even this is a message that has never stopped being

spoken as it finds its ways into receptive hearts.

But it wasn't a message designed for entertainment.

It was the simple simplicity of the gospel, the truth of scripture presented

that we all need, presented and illuminated from the Old Testament and centered

around the person of Jesus and the saving power of his resurrection.

Jesus is alive, that he is, that he's here, that he's with us, that he's for you.

It was an overly complex message, but it struck people to the heart.

He said that the Lord is always with me, he quotes. I will not be shaken for he is right beside me.

No wonder my heart is glad and my tongue shouts his praise.

My body rests in hope for you will not leave my soul among the dead or allow

your holy one to rot in the grave.

You have shown me the way of life and you will fill me with the joy of your presence.

So let everyone in Israel know for certain that God has made this Jesus whom

you crucified to be both Lord and Messiah. And the people are cut to the heart.

They're cut to the heart. Tim Keller talked about how there are these two key

concepts that deeply resonate in the heart of all people.

The understanding of our own deep sinfulness, that there is a problem in the

world, that the world is broken. Everyone can see this.

And we can make that step in our deep sinfulness us to realize that I am a part

of the problem instead of shifting the blame on to everyone else, right?

That we are deeply sinful, but at the same time, we can simultaneously experience the,

deep love of God despite that sin.

So those who are listening discovered that they were wrong about Jesus,

that they had misjudged him,

that the wrath of God had come upon them in their guilt, but that they were

loved and they were welcomed and they're accepted.

It's these two things that draw people to Jesus. They drew the people back then,

they continue to draw us today, that we are more sinful than we can ever imagine,

but we are also at the same time more loved than we could ever hope for.

And it's these two aspects of this message that got these people's attention,

that cut them to the heart, that God's powerful saving presence will always astonish us.

It will always change our ideas of who we are.

It will challenge our understanding understanding of who he is,

and it will endear us to his ways.

Cause, effect, and then the result. The result is devotion.

Dare I say obsession, which sounds like perfume or cologne from Dolce and Gabbana.

I'm wrong. It's Calvin Klein. It's not just the confession of these new believers.

It is the power of their conviction, the quality of their conviction.

There's a song I remember from back in the day. I think it was written by Delirious,

but I'm more familiar with the Jesus culture version.

And the verses ask the question, what can I do with my obsession with the things I cannot see?

And then it resounds with this beautiful confession as a chorus that my heart

burns for you, Lord Jesus.

What can I do with my obsession? This outpouring of the spirit didn't just result

in an altar call of thousands. And that was the end.

It continued to burn in their hearts. It continued to burn in their hearts and

resulted in devotion, a fire within.

These four obsessions, when it says all the believers devoted themselves to

these, to the apostles' teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer.

These are things that they didn't have to be reminded to do.

They were devoted to them. They were obsessed with them.

They didn't need an accountability partner to do them. It says as autonomic as breathing.

You don't need someone to ask you every day if you've remembered to breathe.

They were devoted to these things. They were obsessed with them.

These obsessions defined their life. Their identities became built around them.

They devote themselves to the apostles' teaching.

They devoured what was taught. They couldn't get enough of it.

How else can you explain Paul speaking for so long that some young man fell

out of a window? They were there for it.

They were obsessed with it. They were expectant and waiting to hear a word from

the Lord whenever they gathered.

And that's what makes what we do together here on a Sunday morning so important,

is that the Lord is speaking to his people.

We come expecting to meet with God when we show up.

Come as lifelong learners who want to sit at the feet of Jesus and hear from

his teaching and hear from his word.

We want to learn from our God.

And if you're thinking, yeah, I don't have to come here to do that.

I can sit at home under my blanket.

I can pour myself a nice cup of coffee. I can open up my Bible.

I can take pictures of my feet and put them on Instagram.

Hashtag blessed. That's not church.

Church is not a private spiritual experience. It is a movement of people together.

Yes, you can meet with God by yourself, but if we're talking about being the

church, we're talking about movement together.

We come here waiting and expectant to hear a word from the Lord.

It says every day they continue to meet.

Every day, what they would do is they would gather in the temple courts,

and then they would gather in each other's home.

They gathered, they assembled, they belong to this movement of people.

And if you're not devoted to this teaching,

if there's not an anticipation within you every time we gather that the Lord is going to speak,

that God is going to move, if there's not an obsession to know how is God going

to speak through his word today,

how is God going to speak through Acts chapter 2 to us this morning,

Acts 2 · chapter mention

If there's not an anticipation and an obsession as we gather,

it's not a church problem.

It's not a church problem. If you're showing up each week bored to tears,

it's not a church problem.

Here's a question to ask yourself as we gauge our devotion to the teaching apostles,

to the teaching of the good news.

Are you bringing with you a Bible? That's not a requirement.

People have phones. I get it.

Do you have a way to take notes? Are you anticipating that God's going to speak

in such a way that you're going to have to meditate it on the rest of the week?

Do you believe he's going to show up and speak?

Just trying to get in, get out, check it off our box, see the people we need to see?

Does our posture communicate that nothing exceptional will happen this morning?

Or do we believe that we're going to actually encounter the living God?

People who get serious about God become learners.

They become obsessed with learning about the Word of God and what He's going

to speak to us. They devote themselves to His teaching.

They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching. They devoted themselves to fellowship.

And this is about more than mere togetherness.

This is not a substitute or a solution, I should say, for loneliness.

Loneliness drives people together in a place, but that doesn't mean that they're together.

They shared themselves with each other. It says that they all met together in

one place and shared everything that they had.

They were devoted to each other. They gave themselves away.

It's only when you give yourself away that you begin to become more and more like Jesus.

It is in the giving of ourselves that we become like Jesus.

It's in inviting others or investing ourselves into other people's lives,

and it's about opening ourselves up for other people to invest in our lives.

There is an openness. There's a willingness to reach across even cultural barriers

to get to know people who are not like us.

There's an openness for.

This involvement of other people in our lives.

It's not just about making time for other people when it's convenient to our schedule.

It is risking and willing to be inconvenient for the sake of others,

for your brother and sister and Jesus even.

Jesus' greatest miracles wait for us on the other side of inconvenience.

We read through the Gospels, Jesus' greatest miracles then always happen when he is inconvenient,

when he is delayed from some, although they always happen, not usually at some

place, but on the way to some other place.

When he's at a place, we get the summary statements that he taught and he healed

all that they were there.

But it's only in between those travels when he's inconvenienced on his journeys

that we see those great miracles happen.

So Jesus' greatest miracles are waiting for us on the other side of inconvenience.

The opportunity to bring heaven to earth, as we've talked about,

The opportunity to bring heaven to earth comes at the most inconvenient,

unprepared, and unplanned times.

But you make time for what you love. You make time for what you love,

for what you are obsessed with. I've said it before that you do what you want.

That's kind of my phrase for it, essentially.

If people's response to you is, I don't have time for that. I don't want to

do that. you do what you want. You make time for what you want.

So if I personally like to go to the sauna, this is just a dumb example.

If a friend of mine invites me to sauna, I'm going to find a way to get there.

I'm going to find a way to be there. I'm going to do it.

They were devoted to these things.

They were carers. They cared so deeply for one another. So here's a gauge for

our devotion to fellowship.

Are you open to being inconvenient?

You only commit when it fits your availability? Do you live open to give?

Or is your often repeated phrase, I don't have time for that.

Which makes me think of that commercial. I think it's for indeed.com where this

little girl walking with her dad talking about all the stuff she has to do.

And she specifically says something about books being due on Friday.

And she says it really weird. I don't know if you've seen this.

She gets to Sunday and she says, Sunday, that's my me time.

A little like eight-year-old girl. Is that what we communicate in our lives?

It's not, it's my me time. I can't sacrifice that. And you know what?

Our schedules might be the problem. That might even be true.

Not to say that that's not the reality of life, busyness. That's the greatest

difficulty in our culture is busyness.

And if that's the case, there's all the very real possibility that perhaps our

schedules need to shift.

We can't schedule ourselves away from people.

Do you wonder what the value is? Do you judge by what you can get out of it?

It's not about what we can get out of it. You don't participate in your family

based on what you get out of it.

And the church is a family. The church is the family.

It's the people you belong to, whom you give yourself to, whom you share yourself with.

You can't give yourself to people if you're not around people.

And the bad news is, The bad news is if you're not absolutely exhausted by it,

then you're probably not devoted to it.

Because if the church is a family, there's no people on earth that will frustrate

you and exhaust you more than family because they're always there.

Praise God. I'm asking, honestly.

I mentioned that passage in Matthew. We see Jesus comforting his disciples,

lifting them up, touching them.

We see him speak to the woman at the well, talking about how he will give her

water, eternal water that will well up within her and will be everlasting.

If we're not living out of a

well of living water, then how can we exhaust ourselves for other people?

We have to be primed and ready. The church is a family we belong to.

You can't be a disciple of Jesus and be disconnected from his church.

It's just not the case. You can't love Jesus and hate his bride.

For all the people out there who says, I'm spiritual but not religious.

I love Jesus, but I just don't like his church.

You can't love Jesus and hate his bride. If you have more complaints about the

church than compliments, then you're probably not devoted.

We're devoted to communing with the risen Lord. So they devoted themselves to the fellowship.

They devoted themselves to the breaking of bread. Again, this is about more than just eating.

Although I'm sure most of us would be right on board if God said,

you need to be devoted to eating. You need to be obsessed with eating.

I personally would welcome a command from God to just be obsessed with eating.

When we go on vacation, we plan our entire trip around where we're gonna eat for every meal.

So I'm right there on board with that. But this is about more than just eating. This is about worship.

This is about communing with the present risenness of Christ,

about living in God's presence, being obsessed with the presence of Christ.

They were devoted to communing with the risen Lord.

It was God's presence that they were after. As Augustine said,

the presence of God, which is more intimate with me than I am with myself.

The miracle, the miracle of the gospel is Christ,

risen and glorified, who tracks us, who pursues us, who abides in us,

and who offers to us himself as a companion for the journey.

That is the miracle of the gospel, the present risenness of Christ.

This is the daily reality of the believer, his presence.

So when we come here, we don't come here dry and in need, at least not mostly.

We all have season, but we don't come in here into the presence of our fellowship

of believers and this family on movement together, dry and in need.

We come watered and well-fed, ready to give ourselves and of the richness and

of the fullness and the wealth that Jesus' present risenness in your life supplies,

ready to pour it out into others.

I remember, I think I've said it here before. I remember Francis Jan talked

about this one time. He had like a baby bottle on stage and he was sucking on it.

And he was just like, some of y'all just suck.

And his whole point was you come in here and you suck the life out of everything.

We come watered and well-fed, ready to give ourselves away.

Because that's what his companionship is pouring into you.

His presence, his present risenness

of Christ is pouring into you a wealth that we are ready to pour out.

And if we really want to commune with Jesus, we must devote ourselves to prayer.

They devoted themselves to prayer. It's been said that the vitality of prayer

is the measure of the reality, or sorry, the vitality of the church is a measure

of the reality of their prayers. I think I got it right that time.

Prayer is a radical dependency on the Holy Spirit.

It is submitting to the authority of Jesus in this radical dependency on the Spirit.

And that is the purpose of prayer. It's purpose and power is found in this as we submit to the Lord.

They were devoted to it. They were obsessed with it. They were obsessed with

this radical dependence on the spirit of God.

And it was demonstrated in the way that they prayed and it was demonstrated

in the way that they fasted.

Manning shares in his book, Abba's Child, about this story about an old man dying of cancer.

And the old man's daughter had invited the local priest to come and pray with her father.

When the priest arrived, what he observed was this man lying in bed propped

up on two pillows, and beside the bed next to him, across from where he was

looking, was an empty chair.

There was a bit of confusion between the priest's arrival and this empty chair.

Priest thought that meant that he was expecting him and the guy didn't even know he was coming.

And so after all of this awkwardness goes away, the old man relates this story.

He says, all my life, I've never known how to pray.

At the Sunday mass, I used to hear the pastor talk about prayer,

but it always went right over my head.

So finally I said to him one day, I get nothing out of your homilies on prayer.

And so the pastor reaches into his desk where they're at and he gives them a

book by Hans Urs von Balthasar. and if the author's name gives anything away

about how the rest of the story goes.

The man said, I tried to read it, but in the first three pages, I had to look up 12 words.

He says, I abandoned any attempt at prayer until one day about four years ago.

My best friend said to me, Joe, prayer is just a simple matter of having a conversation with Jesus.

Here's what I suggest. Sit down on a chair, place an empty chair in front of

you and in faith, in faith, see Jesus on this chair.

It's not spooky because he promised, I will be with you all day.

And then just have a conversation. Just speak with him and listen in the same

way you're doing with me right now.

And two nights after the priest visited this man, he passed away.

And in their conversation, the man's daughter on the phone related to the priest

that before her father died, he did something very strange.

He leaned over and he placed his head on what by all appearance to her and to us was an empty chair.

The war for our souls in this world is fought on our knees in prayer.

They were devoted to it. They were obsessed. It's an obsession of relationship with the unseen.

It is the expulsive power of a new affection, which takes its root deep in our

hearts and drives out all other loves.

The expulsive power of a new affection. And that's what makes today so difficult

because the application is not for you to make a list of these four things and

then go be devoted to them.

On any normal Sunday, perhaps, I would say, hear what I said and go do it.

But the application is not for us. It's not a doing problem.

It's a gospel and spirit problem. It must start within us and then overflow into obsession.

So we must beg and ask for these obsessions.

The problem is not doing. The problem is that there is not a desperation.

There's not an obsession within our hearts. That must grow first.

Chalmers is another old theologian. He poses for himself this question.

How shall the human heart be freed from its love for the world?

This love is not a duty one performs. It is a delight one prefers.

It is an affection before it is a commitment. He says there are two ways that

one might seek to remove the love of world and attach their hearts to the affection of Jesus.

One is to show that the world is not worthy of our affection and will let us

down in the end. This is not very effective.

The other is to show that God is vastly more worthy of the heart's attachment,

thus awakening a new and stronger affection that displaces the former affection.

I've heard other people speak about this.

Descriptive question from Thomas Chalmers as he evaluates his own life and how

we at times doubt that our affections can be replaced.

And they give the example of how if you are in high school with your significant

other in their bedroom and their father who was an ex-Marine bust down the door,

your affection for staying alive would overrule your affection for anything

else you once desired in that moment.

This is the expulsive power of a new affection.

This is the power of the Spirit of God in us and on us, which removes all love for all other things.

So where do our affections lie? What are we devoted to?

We're all devoted to something. So what are we devoted to?

Where do our affections lie? Often the problem, as we might imagine,

is that we are too devoted to ourselves, our own comfort.

Problem is not a commitment problem. It's just that we're committed to the wrong thing.

What are we committed to? What are we devoted to? What are we going to be obsessed with in our life?

Are we obsessed with these devotions of the early church, to the apostles' teaching,

to the breaking of bread, fellowship, to prayer? Are we going to be learners?

Are we going to be carers? Are we going to be worshipers? Are we going to be prayers?

There's no other way to say a devotion to pray other than prayers.

God has not abandoned the church. So if he can move in the power of his spirit

as he did in this chapter, Pentecost, he can move in the power of his spirit in us as well.

The spirit can fall on us just as it fell back then.

All we have to do is ask. God is faithful, he will answer it.

We need to beg God for a renovation of the heart.

I suppose that there is a way where we can then devote ourselves and structure

our lives around these things and our heart will follow suit.

That seems to be what Jesus tells us sometimes, but that's not the application

for today because it's not a doing problem.

It's a spirit and a heart problem.

So we just ask and we beg that we would be obsessed with the moves of the spirit through his church,

these people on movement together to accomplish his purpose,

that that would be what defines our life.

So we pray, Lord, make us care.

Overcome our culture, overcome our biology, overcome our desires, and just make us care.

Build within us your spirit of devotion, that we in our lives would be obsessed with.

Presence, that we would be obsessed with giving ourselves away to each other,

sharing our lives and our love with one another, that we would be obsessed with

hearing your word spoken to us,

that we would be obsessed with communing with your spirit prayer,

that all that we would do in life would be defined by these devotions,

God, that we would give ourselves to it, that we would give ourselves to you as we seek you,

that you would transform us from the inside out, that we would be a people on

mission together, that we would be your church,

that we would get off the sidelines and get in to all that you are doing around

us, that we would not miss out on the blessing that you promise us in your word,

that you tell us we will see more incredible things than even the disciples,

even the apostles saw when you were on this earth with them,

that we will see more incredible things, that we are more blessed.

I just pray, Lord, that we will not escape that blessing.

So come, Lord, come and fall on us.

Shift our focus, shift our heart, shift our desires, our affection.

Drive out all other loves. Give us an obsession for you. Spirit come.

Music.