The Christian Handbook - What Christians Do

Father God, we need you desperately. As we open your word, we

want to receive from you. So we asked that your spirit would be here

already working on our hearts. You've been already working on us all week,

all day, all morning, all afternoon, and now that we are here

in your presence as your people, we just ask that we'd be ready,

ready for the word that you have for us, ready for your scripture to

challenge us, to shape us, to mold us, and help us to

understand it clearly and know how to apply it to our lives. This is

not something that we want to do alone. Lord, and so we just

asked that you would have your presence be among us, that we would be

edified as your people, as your body, and that you would be glorified

in all of it, to your glory and Jesus name. Everyone said amen.

All right. So we have been in a series called the Christian Handbook

Fundamentals of the Faith. In this series, our goal has been very simple.

We just want to know what the foundational beliefs of Christians are and how

those foundational beliefs impact and influence or drive how we live our lives. The

way we've been saying it kind of over and over because again has been what

we believe drives what we do, right, so we need to examine what

we believe these those it's those beliefs that are always going to be what drives

our actions. Recently in our series, we've been talking about the topic of

the church. This is our final kind of big header that we are under

looking through what the foundational beliefs of the church are. And so the last

several weeks we've been looking at the topic of worship, and we've been looking

at worship as it not just being the songs that we sing, but it's

the lives that we live, is the way that we serve one another in

service to God, the way that we give of ourselves and of our resources

that have been given to us by God to give to others. And we've

been looking at those different things. Now today we're gonna shift a little bit,

still talking about the church, but we are going to be more looking

specifically at what can be referred to as the spiritual disciplines. Spiritual disciplines.

Now, discipline is not always a fun word, right, It depends on

how you use it. Well, this isn't talking about that we're in trouble.

Spiritually, we're spiritually in trouble. It's more of the idea of being

spiritually intentional. Okay, not spiritually in trouble, spiritually intentional. So as

we at the beginning of talking about the church, we had a text that

we were looking at, and that was found in Matthew twenty eight. Let's

look at that again together. It says, then Jesus came to them and

said, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name

of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Catch this

and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you, and surely I am

with you always to the very end of the age. Now, in this

text, Jesus tells his disciples to go into the world and make disciples.

And what is a disciple. It is someone who follows Jesus, or it's

just someone who follows someone in general. But in this context we're talking about

Jesus is telling his disciples to go make more disciples of Jesus. And it

was Jesus's disciples and all future disciples who are the church who make up the

church. We are those future disciples who've heard the good news, put our

faith in Jesus, and now here we are in church at four pm on

a Sunday, right we follow our Savior. So after about several weeks or

some time after Jesus gives us command, he ascends into heaven and his disciples

are waiting in Jerusalem. And what are they waiting for. They're waiting for

the Holy Spirit to come and empower them to do the very thing that Jesus

had called them to do. So finally, at Pentecost, the Holy Spirit

comes fills the believers. Peter, one of the disciples, one of the

apostles, stands up and starts to preach to all the people who are around

who are witness sing the Holy Spirit move in them. I'm not going to

read that portion, but we're gonna read the response to his preaching and kind

of get the main idea of his message. There and Acts two thirty seven.

When the people heard this that was Peter's preaching, they were cut to

the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, brothers, what shall

we do? Peter replied, repent and be baptized, every one of you

in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins, and

you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promises for you and

your children, and for all who are far off, for all whom the

Lord our God will call. With many other words, he warned them,

and he pleaded with them, save yourselves from this corrupt generation. Those who

accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number

that day, checking so far okay, goes on. They devoted themselves to

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

of bread, and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe with the many

wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had

everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had

need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They

broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising

God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to

their number daily. Those who were being saved. So that's a hefty chunk

of scripture. But I have some good news for you. Maybe it's good

news. I don't know. It depends on how you feel about scripture.

I'm not going to be preaching on this entire text. In fact, I'm

only going to be preaching on one tech on one verse today. Okay.

One, We're gonna try and keep it short. Error because we're family service,

right, kids get wiggly, and that's all right. We're glad that

they're here, and then we're gonna eat. It's gonna be awesome. But

let's look at that verse that one verse, acts two forty. They devoted

themselves to the Apostle's teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread,

and to prayer. What I've called today's message is this what Christians do.

What Christians do, nice and simple, nice and straightforward. So what we

see happen is that there's three thousand people context in that verse, when the

Holy Spirit first comes on all the disciples, there's one hundred and twenty.

I don't even think there's one hundred and twenty in this room, Okay,

but imagine next Sunday there's three thousand more or tomorrow that there's three thousand more

of us. That is what is happening here, and what happens with all

of these new disciples who have now been baptized and put their faith in Jesus.

Well immediately tells us what they do. It tells him that. It

tells us that they devote themselves, and they devote themselves to what, to

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

to prayer. Today we're gonna break down these four things, and our purpose

will be to see how these things need to be essential and not only the

life of the church, but also in the life of the daily life of

the believer. So let's break this down. If you can go back to

that verse in verse forty two says they devoted themselves and they are all those

believers. It's all of those who would put their faith in Jesus. And

what did they do? They devoted themselves to four things. And the idea

behind the word devoted is to give constant attention to a thing. Constant attention

to a thing. There's a saying that says, show me your friends,

and I will show you your future. You guys familiar with that saying at

all maybe yeah, I don't know. Okay, well we're gonna remix it

for today. And how I want to put it is, show me your

devotions and I will show you who you follow. Okay, show me your

devotions and I will show you who you follow. A lot of times we

think about devotions as the little booklet that's at the store that's filled with other

people's ideas and maybe a little scripture. But our real devotions are those things

that we give our attention to most. That is, it's the things that

we've disciple disciplined our lives around. If we look at what we've disciplined our

lives around, we will start to very quickly see where our devotion, our

true devotion, really lies. We may have devoted ourselves to a football team,

right, pretty easy, it's coming up in a couple of weeks this

week, I think, actually right for those of us who know we're excited.

But we may have devoted ourselves to a football team by watching every game,

knowing every player, knowing every stat from every season. We may devote

ourselves to our careers and do anything it takes and everything it takes to get

ahead and climb the corporate ladder. Do whatever it is to get ahead,

make more, do more, achieve more. We may devote ourselves a fitness

and health, and discipline our lives according to our goals. These are not

bad things to devote time or tension too. We will see very quickly that

they they're too low of a bar. They can't be the main thing.

And why why do we devote ourselves to these things in the first place.

Usually because they're important to us in one way or another, but they're also

it's usually it's because it's the things that we love, the things that we

really care about, that we will make sure to prioritize and devote everything we

have to. And here we see the same exact thing. We see believers

who are cut to the heart by God's word being preached, and they go,

what should we do? Says repent, believe, and be baptized.

And they do that, and then they go on to do what the second

half of the Great Commission, which is what he tells Jesus tells his disciples

to teach those future disciples everything that Jesus has commanded them. We see believers

devoting themselves to apostles, teaching the fellowship, the breaking of bread, and

to prayer. And I want to make the argument today that this is not

only a snapshot in history of what believers once did, but these are things

that all believers do and all and not just do, but they actually devote

themselves too. This isn't a doing for doing sake. There's a greater purpose.

We aren't just doing these things because they're the right things to do.

But there are a means to an end. There's a goal on the other

side of our devotion through these means, and that is that these believers wanted

to know and live for God. They wanted to know and live for God

because they loved God. So they wanted to know how am I supposed to

live? What am I supposed to do? How do I please you?

How do I honor you with my life? And they wanted to know and

live for the God who had saved them from their sins, who had given

them new life and a new hope that's only found in Jesus's name. So

they were dependent on him. They're dependent on God and dependent on these means

to know and live for God properly. And my argument for today is that

so are we and we're not off the hook. It's kind of funny because

this wasn't like this was on the schedule to preach a long time ago.

Okay, it's not like us looking at the fall going like everyone's about to

start making their routines and schedules. This time to start talking about how to

set up your routines and schedules has already been on the calendar, right.

It's God's providence, God's timing. But we are about to go into the

fall season, right, which usually means we start to find our routines,

find our priorities, we start to organize our lives around our goals, our

priorities for this season. But as believers, our primary focus, our true

devotion is to the Lord. So he is like the center of gravity which

all of our things should rotate and find their proper place. Random, No,

I've been I don't know why. I've just kind of randomly gotten into

playing chess online. Okay, not kidding. It's so random. I just

got like the it's the other day and it's something I started doing, and

now I'm like it's my favorite downtime thing to do. Some might say I'm

devoted to it. I'm just kidding, that's not true. What here's the

deal. I do, I do. I'm not very good, so I

want to know how to get better. So I've been I've been like watching

videos and trying to learn how to get better. And one of the first

like basic things that they teach you is that you have to start studying what

is called openings, which is basically the first several moves that you make at

the very beginning of the game are the most important before you get way down

the line because where you at the beginning of the game, you're trying to

take control of the center of the board, because if you can take control

of the center of the board, it now dictates where every other piece will

end up going. Okay, you guys kind of tracking with me. Yeah,

you're nerding out with me. You're welcome. You're learning about chess.

Now you're on my level, which is not very high. Okay, all

right, it's not. I really didn't want to get better at this.

But it's interesting that the Channa talk about the subject of how we open,

how we get off on the right foot at the beginning of the game,

really does influence an impact how the outcome is later. So as we walk

through these four things, I think that it's important that we see their importance,

that we see the value in them, that they would one day maybe

be the way that we are described as believers, that we would look like

these believers because of our devotions. And this isn't just something that would be

for the next season, right, because it's really easy to kind of be

like, well, this season, this season, no, no, no,

but the rest of our lives. If we are believers, what will

the rest of our lives look like? What will the rest of we will

dictate the rest of our lives. So let's get to the first one.

Can I see your guys? Ears? Were your ears? You're listening ears?

You say apostles teaching. It's kind of mean apostles. I don't know

if that's an easy word or not. It's not for me. The first

thing they devoted themselves to were the apostles teachings. And what is this Well,

in short, it's the scriptures. Okay. The Apostles taught and preached

using the scriptures they taught from the Old Testament, and the New Testament primarily

is the collection of the teachings of the Apostles. Okay, the apostles are

those who followed Jesus and were specifically commissioned by Jesus and an authoritative way to

teach what he had taught. So the believers devoted themselves the scripture in the

early Church, devoted themselves to studying, understanding, believing, memorizing, meditating,

and obeying the word of God. Now we're gonna break each one of

those things down. I'm just kidding. We're definitely not gonna do that.

I'm kidding. But they really they saturated their lives with scripture. They wanted

to know what God had said and not. Those scriptures that we're talking about

can be found in our Bible. It's what makes up our Bible. That's

what they did. And my argument is that so should we. Let's look

at Second Timothy three sixteen. We looked at this verse when we were actually

teaching on the Bible. We're not gonna go super in depth on it today

because we taught about what is the Bible. We also thought about how to

study the Bible several weeks ago, So you guys can go look that up

if you want even more in depth on it. But this is the I

called this the other three sixteen verse that you should know. Right, everyone

knows John three sixteen. This is the other three sixteen verse that you should

know. Second, Timothy says, all scripture is God breathed, and then

listen to this list and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and

training and righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for

every good work. We see. It has many uses, many purposes,

all to do what it intended, which is God's servant, which is us

as believers. We talked about it a couple of weeks ago. We are

God's servants, and he has supplied I don't want to say our marching orders,

because that maybe is a way to put it. But like he has

put in he has spoken to us right, and he has put it in

scripture. He is passed it along to us so that we would be able

to know what God said, how we are to live, what that would

look like. And it's good for all of these things. But we neglect

it, we let it sit around. Its end is to equip us to

live the lives God has for us, and so we shouldn't neglect it.

We can't neglect it as believers. This is how He's laid it out so

that we could understand how we are to live our lives. It would make

sense that these believers, these fresh, brand new believers, would start to

devote themselves to God's word. But this is not only a tool to help

us, it is also how we are literally spiritually nourished. Literally, Okay,

let's look at Matthew four. Four Jesus answered, it is written written,

man shall not live on bretta, but on every word that comes from

the mouth of God. Most of us give thought and intentionality to what we

will eat next. Some of us might be doing that right now, right

we're eating panda in a little bit, and that's just that's right, that's

a reason to praise God. But do we view our spiritual nourishment with the

same amount of thought and intentionality. When was the last time that you ate

spiritually? So just good questions for us, or maybe if you have a

family, when's the last time you fed your family spiritually? Because just like

in real life, just eating on Sundays is not going to cut it right.

We need our daily bread, and not just in a literal, physical

sense, but also in a spiritual sense. I don't know if you notice

this. I did, and you guys might hate me for this, but

whatever, Okay, bear with me. Bread literally has the word read in

it. It does. Yeah, so we need our literal daily bread,

we also need our spiritual daily bread. Right, you're like duncan nut.

Just but that leaves what do we do with the bead? What do you

think the beach stands for? Bible? Yeah, Bible read. Yeah.

So here's the deal. I have to share this because anytime I think about

bread, now, that's all I'm gonna be able to think about. So

when you think about getting your daily bread, it's your Bible reading, right,

You're breading whatever you want to call it. It's ridiculous. Okay,

I know it's ridiculous, but I also want something with handlebars of it being

helpful for us. Understanding that this is important, we can neglect it.

We can neglect eating. You may say that that it's easy to say that

we should read our Bible, that we should eat spiritually, But the difference

is that, like, well, I get hungry for real food, I

don't think I really get hungry for God's word. I think there's multiple reasons

for that. One of the ones that I had kind of thought of though,

And this is just because it's a real thing in my own life.

You guys, ever been so hungry that you're just not hungry anymore? And

you're also happening to be the worst person on the planet. Do you know

what I'm talking about? Lovingly, this is my family, Okay, lovingly,

this is my wife and my children and me. When we don't eat,

we kind of morph into this monster of like hunger. But we're like,

I don't want to eat anything, nothing sounds good, and we're like,

but you gotta eat. It's the only way to bring it down,

right, Like, that's a real thing. So you're so hungry that you're

not hungry, one of the best things you can do is just eat something.

Just eat something or get around food, and hopefully that will start to

actually stir up your appetite. Because at the end of the day, all

believers, all believers are hungry for God's word because we are his sheep and

we depend on hearing his voice, and we love to hear his voice.

Sometimes we just might be so hungry. We just don't realize it, right,

We're just a little things aren't straight in our head. I think most

of us might be in such a bad habit of never eating spiritually that we're

spiritually now are malnourished, that we settle for the little that we do get.

That could be the message on Sundays, that could be the sixty second

clip on the radio. But God hasn't made us to live off of spiritual

fast food. He's prepared a feast for us, and most of the time

we let it sit on the shelf and we starved to death. Scripture is

here is a means to how we grow up in our faith. It's how

we grow up into maturity as who God wants us to be because we're when

we're spiritually nourished, we are learning what God has said, We're starting to

apply it to our lives, and then we can actually help others around do

the same exact thing. And it's all there. We just need to start

eating. It's just a reality. They devoted themselves. We want to devote

ourselves as well, because it is our nutrition. It'd be crazy if anyone's

like, just don't eat it anymore, you don't need that, Like you're

crazy. But we need to be devoted to it because we're dependent on it.

Okay, So I need those listening years. Again, I don't want

to say apostles teaching, because that's all right, So how about we just

say, read your bible. Read your Bible. The next thing we see

is that they devoted themselves to the fellowship. This means that they were devoted

to being part of the community and fellowship of the believers that is in everyday

life, but also in regards to the gathering of the believers, meaning what

they went to church. That's a way you can put it right. They

regularly had fellowship with other believers, and that does include going to church,

and we'll see in a little bit that that's something that they did. But

they were a part of the local body of believers. They devoted themselves to

the going to church and the fellowship of the believers, And so should we.

Why is this important? Because we as believers are not built or made

to walk this Christian life out alone. We say it all of the time.

We see it in Hebrews ten twenty four says, and let us consider

how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving

up meeting together as summer in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another,

and all the more as you see the day approaching, this is something

that we that is here for us as believers to be built up, to

be encouraged to grow up. Church on Sundays is something that we should look

forward to because is something that we find refreshing. Right. I think sometimes

we have a stigma about churches, and I think sometimes that can kind of

come to our like, like there's a stigma about vegetables, but actually vegetables

are good for you, right, it's just kind of our attitude, right,

Like that that's a real thing coming from a fellow hater on vegetables,

Okay, but it's the gathering of the believers is meant for us to come

together as believers and party might be too much of a word, okay,

but like like celebrate with one another and rejoice and worship our Great God and

not be drained but refreshed. Where we can come together use our gifts for

the purpose God has given them to us, which is to serve each other

and meet each other's needs. That we could love each other, We could

worship our Great God and be build up by His word with one another,

to be edified, encouraged to love one another and then go out into the

world that we live at and be refreshed and ready to pour out into the

world to live for God and his people. Now, some of us might

not think of church as a spiritual discipline. Depends on who you ask.

Really, if you type that into Google spiritual disciplines, it depends on who

you're asking what they want to count as a spiritual discipline. That's why I

just wanted us to stick with scripture. What does it say that they did?

And those things are foundational things. When I say, everything that Christians

do is not listed here. But if you start doing those four things and

devote yourself to them, you're gonna find out real quick what Christians do,

how Christians live, and its entirety. We might not think of it as

a spiritual discipline, but it definitely takes discipline to devote a day to the

Lord. Now, is it wrong to miss church? No, but it

is wrong to make a habit of missing church because it's for us as a

body we are made to come together and worship God. We benefit from it.

To be clear, it's not just because it benefits us that become to

church. Right, there is a real aspect that God has made us for

it, and so to walk out and what He's called us to do and

be obedient to him, we come gather and use what He's given us to

bless each other. We talked about that the last couple of weeks besides once

again, for the believer church isn't just a to do. It's something that

we actually we love, we get to do, and we're so excited to

come together and use our gifts to love each other because we see the value.

We know that we've been called to take part in it, and honestly

we miss out when we don't. Okay, So in the same way where

we talked about the if we don't eat you to die, that's just the

reality. It's a it's a very similar thing that like the picture that we

see used for the body of believers is literally a body with different parts.

And here's the deal. If a hand is not separated from the body for

too long of a time, it's not going to survive very long. Right,

So it's important. And at the end of the day, football is

cool, but worshiping Jesus with other believers will always be better. These football

never saved anyone from their sins. We just gotta remember that football didn't save

anyone from their sins. It probably contributed, you know what I'm saying,

like for the need of salvation. Right, It's okay, So listening years,

where are they? We got our listening years now, we say go

to church, Go to church. The next thing they devoted themselves too was

the breaking of bread. This one's actually kind dissimilar, has a similar point

and heart behind it, And this is referencing a couple different things. This

is the idea of that they shared meals together regularly. This is something that

they did on the regular that they would share meals together in each other's homes,

at the fellowship or at the larger gathering, as well as part regularly

partaking in communion, also known as the Lord's Supper. So not only did

they devote themselves to meeting together at the fellowship, but there was also a

level where it was deeper than that that they shared meals together, they took

communion together, signifying the unity of the Body of Christ. And that's one

of the reasons that we stress community groups. We don't just say like,

all right, you made it Sunday, good job, check the box.

See you next. Sunday. That's not what we want for you, because

it's not what we see modeled in scripture. It's not what God wants for

us. Bet in community groups, our hope is that you'll meet each other's

homes, share a meal together, and open God's word outside of the normal

Sunday gathering. But not only that, but it's also the reason that we

started doing a monthly meal together. Because that's all fine and dandy to do

separate and smaller groups, but also there is great benefit that we all get

to come together, meet new faces, or just enjoy our fellowship and our

time together over a meal. And then, as we see in Scripture,

we get to model it well and take communing together while we share this meal.

We see them doing this same thing in the verses that we read a

coupled down Acts two forty six or forty seven. So's every day they continued

to meet together in the temple courts every day. Every day, every day

they did this, they continued to meet together in the temple courts, they

broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising

God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to

their number daily. Those who are being saved regularly, going to church and

having day to day ongoing relationships with believers is they must have in our walks

as believers. So once again, let's grab our listening ears. We're gonna

say go to church nice, and then if you have parents who were with

you, you can say go to church, parents, thank you for taking

me to church. Parents. Yeah, it's okay. The last thing that

they devoted themselves to was prayer. Listening ears, you're getting to work out

today, It's good you say prayer. Prayer. This may be the greatest

need of the believer and of the church, yet be the most neglected in

our day to day lives as believers. This one in Bible reading have been

competing for a very very long time. Who gets neglected more? They were

devoted to prayer, and there's no question that we as believers should be.

Two. Let's look at a couple of verses. First, Thessalonians five seventeen

says pray continually, or your verse or your vision. If it's a ESB

might say pray without ceasing. I don't need to go look at any other

verses to pray without ceasing. That's something that believers are commanded to do.

But let's look at a couple more Callousians four two literally just straight up says

it, devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. And then the

last one Philippians four six, do not be anxious about anything but everything by

prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.

Prayer is the great exerciser of our faith. What do I mean? We

pray because we believe God. Let me explain this more. We pray because

we believe in God. We believe God, we believe he is faithful,

We believe that he takes care of us. We believe that he will do

what he promises in our prayer. Life as believers is proof that we believe

he is the source of all good things. It's proof that we believe in

who he is and who he says he is. And it's proof that we

believe that he's real. And why because what we believe drives what we do.

Okay, what we believe drives what we do. If I don't think

he's real, if I don't think he can meet my needs, if I

don't think that he's actually gonna be able to take care of me, change

my situation, help me, provide for me. I would never pray,

but if I think he's the only thing that ultimately can do any of that,

I'm gonna be on my knees every single day. When we believe what

Scripture says, and that is that he is a good father who gives good

things to his children, who provides for his children, and loves his children,

then we will start to approach him as children and bring our requests before

the Lord. When we start to view him as our heavenly father who provides

for us. Those of us with kids or who have been around kids know

that they go to those who they know they can get what they want.

Right, so they have a need mom and dad say no, they usually

run to something else. They might run to someone else. If dad says

no, they run to mom. And mom it's legit she say what Dad

say or vice versa. Right, you always have to You never know because

that's what we do. That's so what we do. It'smeimes. Maybe we

go to God with our prayers and we say I need this, I want

this, Can you do this for me? And he doesn't in our own

and our own way and our own means and our own desires don't get met,

and so we start to run to other places and other things, going

like can you help me? Can you do this? Can you do this?

That said no, but can I do this? Can you do this?

And we pray to him because we know that he gives us what we

really need. We pray that he would do what only he could do.

And we can pray and should pray about anything that's on our mind and hearts.

And why why is that? Because he already knows, He already knows

what's on there. Just take it to him. Sometimes we're like I don't

know if I can take this to God. It's like it's not. You're

not hiding it from him, you're not taking it to him. And then

once again this is a lot of times, like kids, they are like

I don't know. I'm not like you were. The kids won't tell you

what happened, right, You're like, what happened, Obviously something happened.

They're like, nothing happened here, and you're like, already know what's happened.

You're just like, I just we need let's talk about this. Is

we're actually gonna get some resolve. We're gonna be able to actually work through

this. He already knows what's on our mind, so just take it to

him. And the early Church was so saturated in prayer. Go read anything,

Go read Jesus life and the gospels, go read any of the epistles,

go read acts, and they were just praying. It was like they

met together, so they were praying. So it was in jail, so

they were praying, and they were praying over and over again all of the

time, for every need. They were so saturated in prayer that I don't

think it's any wonder why we see God move in these dramatic, amazing ways,

And ultimately I believe it's because they were asking him to God really does

answer our prayers. And if you don't believe me, I'd say, pray

and wait. The two big pitfalls that we need to learn in regards to

prayer and how to pray, or usually kind of in how we pray or

what we pray for. But let's just let Jesus clear it all up for

us. Jesus tells us on the Sermon on the Mount about how to pray,

and there's a longer message that Greg did several months ago on the Sermon

on the Mount. That's excellent, he said. And when you pray,

do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the

synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly, I

tell you they've received the reward and full. But when you pray, go

into your room, close the door and pray to your father, who is

unseen. Then your father, who sees what has done in seeker, will

reward you. Why is that because you're not doing it for the show.

You actually come to him because you believe that he can do what he's gonna

what you're asking of him. And when you pray, do not keep on

babbling like pagans, for they think that they will be heard. Because there

are many words. Do not be like them. For your father knows what

you need before you ask him. This, then, is how you should

pray. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your Kingdom.

Come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give

us today our daily bread, and forgive us our debtor, our debts,

as we have also have forgiven our debtors, and lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from the evil one. Jesus shows us that we are

to pray in secret, meaning we're not we don't just pray to make a

show to show other people. Yeah, I pray, but that we pray

in a genuine fashion where we actually take our lives to God. And there's

I can't remember even where I heard it, but people they'll say, like,

who you are when you're by yourself is who you really are. Who

you are by yourself when no one's around, no one's watching you, is

who you really are. And I think that that's part of the idea here,

that when you pray in secret and you're not putting on for anybody,

but because you need God, you're dependent on God. This doesn't mean that

we can only ask what is listed here, so we can. We see

all kinds of prayers all over the place asking for other things, but these

is praying for our needs. But we also need to be mindful about the

reason that we're praying for what we're asking for. We see this in James

four two through three says, you desire but you do not have, so

you kill you cove it, but you do not You cannot get what you

want, so you quarrel and fight and listen to this. You do not

have because you do not ask God. That's fair. When you ask,

you do not see receive why because you ask with wrong motives that you may

spend when you get on your pleasures. Sometimes times we only pray to God

because of what he can give us. We try to make God into a

genie who grants all our wishes, rather than recognizing him as our heavenly father

who directs our steps and our paths and gives us everything we need to walk

out what he's called us too. It's kind of like a side note because

usually when it comes to spiritual disciplines, fastening is kind of tagged on there,

So I'm gonna tag it on there. But I think fastening is the

foregoing of food, usually accompanying prayer, and the idea and purpose behind that

is to humble ourselves, to remember, I'm dependent on you, Lord,

I'm dependent on you God. It's a good way to get our own hearts

and lives in alignment with God's will and to be dependent on him for him

to take care of our needs. So I need the band to come up,

please and thank you. So what we've seen is that the early Church

devoted themselves to four things, and I need the listening years again, let's

see them. We got those listening years. We're going to kind of put

this in our own little terms to make it easy for us. They devoted

themselves to Bible reading, say, Bible reading, going to church, eating

together, and praying, and so should we we have an opportunity to do

so as we start to set our routines and there's these other things that we're

like, oh, well, I already started this or already started this.

I have a good opportunity to get ahead of that and see what's going to

shape our lives and what we're going to devote ourselves too. We've seen that

the early Church devoted themselves to these things, So are we going to do

the same. What are you going to be devoted to in this next season

as we move into the next season of routine and sports and work and school,

what's going to be at the center of all of it? What is

going to be your center of gravity that keeps everything into alignment. So I've

kind of put up like four questions. They're not going to be on the

screen before questions in regards to these things, to be mindful about these these

these kind of fundamentals, these foundations of what it means to be a Christian,

what it looks like to live out our life, and things that are

going to influence all the little aspects of our lives. So the questions are,

how are we going to devote ourselves as believers to studying God's Word as

our true daily bread. How are we going to make it a priority to

not only go to church but also be an active member, be a part,

serving and using the gifts and abilities that God has given us for the

purposes in us. How are we going to make room an opportunity to meet

and do life with other believers? And really, how are we going to

devote ourselves to prayer showing we really believe and rely on God's word and we

rely on the God who saved us, provides for us, and loves us.

A long time ago, I'd heard a pastor say, and I've always

loved this. It was in regards to going to church, but I think

it actually applies to everything. He said. You can either make fifty two

decisions a year or one every Sunday. I can go like I don't enough.

Today is the day I go to church, or you can make the

decision of it. I go to church every day. I don't want to

just leave it there. This isn't just about going to church. We talked

about three other things. So the other way to put it is that we

can make three hundred and sixty five decisions what we're gonna be devoted to day

by day? What, maybe this, maybe that. But if we've already

made maybe made one big decision on who we are, on what we're committed

to, on what's important to us, what we're devoted to, then all

those other little decisions will be made for us. All our decisions will ultimately

serve our one big decision. We're devoted to the things that we love,

and so if we love the Lord who saved us, we will be devoted

to his word, his people, and his will and the purpose of those

things. The hope of those things is not just to be doing those things,

but the point of them is with the hope that we will grow into

deeper devotion with him. Okay, would you guys fay stand your feet.

We're gonna go into a time of response. We have a connect card so

if you have any prayer requests, we want to be praying with you.

And after this we'll have elders on the side to pray with you about any

needs that you have. But also this gives us the opportunity you can either

if you want to, you can just write private and we'll only go to

the elders, but we send these out to the whole church so that we

can be actively praying for each other. The amazing thing about all four of

those things is that they're all interwoven together. When you have regular fellowship with

other believers, you know what to be praying for. This might sound everybody,

So we don't want to miss out on the opportunity to be praying for

each other because we believe in a God who answers our prayers. And we

know that because of the Word that we've read and we believed that's tells us

that he answers prayers. Also, if you can't prepared to give today,

you'll have the opportunity to do that. You can drop both of these off

in the offering box out there. If you fill this out, Let's pray

and let worship Lord Jesus. We love you, We thank you. That

you died on the cross to save us from our sin, or that as

we call on your name, that you promised to save us, or God,

that you draw us near, that we respond to you. Din.

We hear your voice, and we see your light, Lord God, and

it changes our life. We asked that as we move into this next season

of getting into rhythms and routines, that you would be at the center of

all of those things. You would be what dictates the rest of our life.

You would be what is most important to us our deepest devotion or God.

Because we want to know you, we want to live for you,

and we know that you have given us the wonderful means to be able to

do so. We're gonna ask that we'd be encouraged to know that it's worth

it. It's encouraged that we'd be encouraged to know that we're living out the

life that you've called us for, and that we are being built up to

look more and more like you every day. Help us not neglect these gifts,

Help us not neglect these means of your grace. We love you,

We thank you, and give you this time Jesus name, we pray Amen.