Pastor Bryan Grant | Devoted | June 14th, 2026

What a morning.

How are we doing, church?

So before I I get to my message, um, I'm uh there's two things.

One, I'm a proud dad, because I had two of my kids on stage this morning, Ezra and Amrest, and then my oldest son is actually in the back running our camera team this morning as well.

So I was I was having a moment uh and it was uh it was quite a moment for me.

And I'm also a really proud pastor.

I was really excited and just it was so great to see just the intensity and the worship.

And the word I had for them this morning, just before we started prayer, was just you're gonna lead the church in worship, but I want you to share what God's given you and just push it out to our church.

And they did such an incredible job leading us this morning, and so um I love what we saw.

I love what we saw.

Are you with me?

I love what we saw with their church.

We had that they they ran worship, they helped with the transitions outside of Lindsay, who is no longer a youth.

Um that's right, you're with them five days a week, so it might be it might be the same.

But we just it was an amazing time because we heard testimonies.

We got to see what God is actually doing in our youth group, and we saw changed lives.

I can attest to the fact that uh when our youth kids go to camp and they come back, something changes in them.

Like last year I got to be out there for my nephews being baptized because God is doing amazing things.

Every year there's baptisms, every year there's salvations.

This is an amazing opportunity, and so I love watching what God was doing through our kids.

And I'm not doing this just so to you know talk up Pastor Malachi and his team or talk up the youth group.

I realized that this transition and with the team really works with my message this morning because what I I've seen, I spent some time over the last month or so with our youth group, just coming to the closing party, and there's testimonies, and I love being around the youth kids.

Um, I feel exhausted after the end of a youth night, and I didn't really just watch.

And I'm just you guys have so much energy all the time, it just never ends.

Um, but what I saw this morning and in youth group and the way Pastor Malachi leads his teams is that we see young people that are devoted to Jesus.

We see young people that are devoted to worship, we see young people that are devoted to each other.

Like today, guys, they're gonna be taking up their Sunday afternoon to wash cars in hopes that that money that comes brings another kid to camp that may not know Jesus, may want to come to camp and can't do it.

They're giving up their time to be able to support someone else.

Amen.

So, this is why I love what they were doing this morning.

And so they already were kind of my message.

Their testimony, their worship, what God did, that was a bit of my message this morning.

So we've been in this series about build the church, advance the kingdom, and what did we see?

We see a generation of kids that are being raised up to build the church and advance the kingdom.

They're gonna go into schools, they're gonna go into their workplace, they're gonna go into churches, they're gonna go into other countries, and they're gonna build the church, and they're gonna advance the kingdom.

Amen.

What an awesome time this morning.

So if you want to turn with me to Acts chapter 2, and we're gonna go through 42 to 47, and you'll see why I'm excited about this message about devoted and seeing the youth kids, and this is what it says.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

We'll start in 42.

And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and prayers, and awe came upon every soul, and many signs and wonders were being done through the apostles, and all who believed were together and had all things in common, and they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as any had need.

And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people, and the Lord added to their number day by day those who are being saved.

Let's pray.

Lord, you're so good.

Lord, we see just a generation that are being raised up in this church to lead, to build the church, to advance your kingdom, Lord, wherever they're gonna be, Lord.

So we want to hear what your word has to say, Lord, that our eyes are open, our hearts are open for what you want to share and what you want to teach us and what you want to press on our heart this morning.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

As I said, our series is Build the Kingdom, Build the Church, Advance the Kingdom.

And I want to start with this.

We need plans.

Amen?

We need good plans, we need to be good stewards.

Something that we've been learning in our foundations class.

And Pastor Ed comes in and he teaches us what the Bible says about being a good steward.

We need to be faithful.

We need to be committed.

We need to be honest.

We need to be men and women and youth of integrity.

That's who God's called us to be.

Amen?

And if we're not careful, the reality is that sometimes we can focus on the wrong things.

Church can focus on the wrong things.

And so we see right away in this passage of scripture, right in verse 2, there are four things I want to go through this morning.

We see teaching, fellowship, breaking in bread, and breaking of bread in prayer.

So I want to start with this.

The very first word, before we get to those four, is this devoted.

Devoted is not a light word.

Devoted is a word that has a lot packed into it.

The Greek word is it is prescritario.

I pronounced that a long time at home.

Making sure I could say that one.

Prescotario.

And this is what it means when you see the word devoted in the Bible, steadfast in the Bible, this is what it means.

It means to devote yourself to something with persistence, with steadfastness, with ongoing commitment, to cling to, to refuse to let go.

Devoted is not a light word.

It was used earlier in the book of Acts when the disciples were in the upper room.

They were praying and they were worshiping, they were devoted, they were presbyterial, they were standing together, they were refusing to give up, they were waiting on God to move.

So when I say this, I want you to understand when you see devoted in the Bible, it's not a casual attendance.

This wasn't a show-up when it was convenient.

This was a scripture that talked about white knuckling, going all in.

I'm never gonna quit.

I'm gonna give everything I have, I will not let go, and God is gonna do something, I'm gonna wait for him to move.

That's what it is when it says the word devoted.

So this begins our whole process for what we want to learn today.

Is if we can latch on to this one, this is what devoted.

It's not casual, it's not easy, it's a thing that God is calling us to do as believers, is we need to be devoted to him.

Amen.

So I want you to hear me also when I say this.

This is not about me trying to get you to serve more at church.

To do more or to step into things.

This is God's way.

These four steps, starting with devoted, these four pillars, are God's way of transforming our life.

Transforming our families, transforming our schools, transforming our city, transforming our nation.

This is God's way.

Are you with me?

The question for us this morning, and me included, is not, are we going to be doing all these four things?

The question is, what are we actually devoted to?

The truth is that we're all devoted to something.

Sports teams.

What takes your focus?

What takes your calendar space?

What you're focusing on, what takes up your bank account?

The Bible says where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Jesus is saying that wherever our deepest uh love is, our deepest loyalties, our deepest our thoughts, where we're going, what we value most is what we treasure.

So if we value money, status, position, material, things like that, our inner thoughts, our attention, well, who we are on the inside, will actually go towards that.

Amen?

Is that true?

But if our treasure is God and his kingdom, advancing his kingdom, building his church, that's where our heart becomes anchored.

That's where we're anchored in, we're locked in, and this is where God's called us to.

So here's where we're going with this.

When the church gets devoted to the right things, God advances the kingdom.

So when you hear me when I say this, plans are not the enemy.

How many of you are the really spontaneous ones that are like, I gotta go to another country and I'm not even gonna plan for it?

Hands up?

There's like six of you.

How many of you are the ones that went with a full-blown itinerary and know what's gonna happen beginning to end?

That's everyone else.

Right?

But God's called us to build his plans, what he wants us to do.

We are stewards of that plan.

We plan the plan that God gives us the plan.

It's a lot of planning.

But the truth is the plan never once saved a soul.

It's not the plan that saves people, it's the people that are devoted to Christ that show the love of Jesus to people, that experience God, that now have a relationship with Jesus.

The plan serves the devotion, it never replaces it.

Oh, that's good.

The plan serves the devotion, but it never replaces it.

We get devoted, we disciple people, we watch what happens.

You saw in verse 47 where it says the Lord added to their number daily.

That lines up with what Pastor Brody was saying last week.

All about he will build, because I will build the church.

It's not us that builds a church, we do what God calls us to do.

We're not building the church, and nothing can prevail against the church when God builds it.

When we build it, it's a little more subject to change.

So what happens is that we can get so into building and building our family, building the business, building these things that we actually forget the builder.

That we actually remove the builder out of what God calls us to, that we remove the builder and we do things the way we want to do it.

We're not building it with him in mind.

Your strategy will work up to a certain point, and then God's gonna be like, hey, this wasn't my plan for you.

So the first thing that we see right from the very first is now we know what devoted means.

You with me?

Devoted is we cling to, we refuse to let go.

We are gonna give everything we got.

We are devoted.

The first thing he says is that we are devoted to the word.

They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching.

They had access to the Old Testament, the Apostles would teach, and this scripture here is intentional.

It's not an accident and not an accidental scripture.

This is it was listed first.

At least I believe it was lifted first on purpose.

Everything else in this passage stands on they knew what the truth was.

They went back to the apostles' teaching.

They knew what the teaching said.

Before community, before meals, before prayer, there was the truth.

It was the word of God.

The apostles would teach, and they would all gather around and they would listen to them give the word.

Kind of like you're doing right now, except I'm not an apostle.

But you're listening, the one would stand in front and they would teach what they knew.

So we want to take a second right here, and I want to realize this.

Sir Norm talks about this in foundations.

Right now, we are in the most Bible saturated generation of all time.

I have a paper Bible that I sort of know where it might be.

Just being honest, because I do everything on my phone on my digital Bible.

How many of you grew up in a house where they had a Bible right by the door, maybe on a stand with a big one?

I saw a few hands go up.

We always have, my dad had this really thick one.

It was like this big.

But this is that we have access to the Bible.

So we have a buyer bed, I have Bibles in storage.

Maybe there's still, like I said, the massive one sitting by the door.

We have just because we have access doesn't mean we have devotion.

And devotion to the word, as we see here in this word when it's talking about the apostles' teaching, the early church was not devoting itself to sitting around a leather-bound Bible during quiet time.

They were devoting themselves to the authoritative, the communal, the oral instruction of the apostle of the apostles, which was inseparable from fellowship.

Breaking of bread and prayer, all in the same verse.

Devoted to the word was inseparable from fellowship, from breaking of bread, and from prayer.

So this is what there's a few things that actually happen to us when we in we have God's word in our heart.

It shapes what we treat as authoritative.

I say this all the time is that the word of God is authoritative, it has ultimate say over my life.

It means that as a church or as people that know the word of God, we submit our instincts, our opinions, our culture, our preferences to the word of God.

We don't adjust the word of God to fit us, we adjust to the word of God.

This is what it says in John 17, 17 sanctify them in the truth.

Your word is truth.

It doesn't just inform us of something, the word of God actively shapes who we are.

It's an active thing.

The word of God is active, it produces not just not just information, but obedience in us.

But this is what John James 1.22 says but be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.

You can hear and hear and hear, experience worship, do all the things when you walk into the church and leave this place unchanged by the Holy Spirit.

And you know how I know?

Because I did it.

For years, I did it.

For years I could come into service, hear someone preach, someone that was like the great message, and just be like, yeah, that was good, and walk out and not allow the Holy Spirit to work in my life.

For years, church.

This is what it says in Psalms 119, 11.

I have stored up your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.

We don't study the Bible so that we can win the trivia night on volunteer training.

So that we look cool with all the Bible knowledge that we have.

There's, you know, I work with people, Pastor Brody has this weird ability to be able to pull up scriptures that he read one time 15 years ago in perfect context with what you're saying.

Bruce does that to me all the time.

I can study and study and study, and I know generally that it's in between Galatians and Revelation.

I know the words, but somewhere the address is lost.

We don't study the Bible so that we can win the trivia night.

We store it up so that when temptation comes our way, as it will this afternoon, you know the word and it shows you the truth.

You want to hear the voice of God?

Go to the Bible.

The Bible is something real that helps us tow that line that we cease sin and we ruthlessly get it out of us.

We don't want sin.

Sin destroys us, sin is the wages of sin is death.

I want all that God has for me.

I don't want sin standing in my way.

God, I repent.

I want more of your word, more of who you are, more of your Holy Spirit.

I want what you have for me.

And if I don't know the word, I don't know what sin will be.

Oh, that's good.

The word informs me about what sin is, then gives me, then through the Holy Spirit, I get the strength to take that sin and cast it out of my life.

The word, which is never designed to be received alone.

Here's what I mean.

Because if we look at verse 42, I said it earlier, the apostles' teaching was inseparable from fellowship, from the table, from prayer.

All four in the same breath, because truth received in isolation, without community, without accountability, without brothers and sisters that can say to you, hey, I see you drifting, that truth will get picked apart by the devil.

Because it's just you and what you think.

The word drives us into community.

We I can't look through the Bible and think that the word of God doesn't want me to have a relationship with him, but with other people.

This is what we see all the way through.

The Bible, we we say this at KCC.

We want to be fully known.

God has built us to be fully known and fully loved.

That's who he wants, that's what he wants.

He wants to be it wants to be fully known and fully loved.

And this is what we see as we move on to the next one is the uh Acts uh 2.42, just the last part of it, they were devoted to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship.

Now, sometimes when we throw a word around like fellowship in church, it means we stand out in the lobby, drink coffee, have the non-donuts that we're not gonna have today, bags of candy that we're gonna have.

But there's a word that we use in our church, Pastor Dave's spoken on it, Pastor Brody's spoken on it, it's koinonia.

It means shared life, it means common participation, it means everything held in common together.

And we're not even this far yet, but we see in verses 44 and 45 they said they sold their possessions and everything they had and shared with everything, anyone that was in need.

Now, if you feel that to go and sell everything and give it to you, need that's between you and God.

Don't say the pastor said this is okay to do.

But I want you to hear this.

If we were to evaluate, even going against the early church, the culture that we live in pushes the narrative that we need money, finances, stuff, we need things.

And yes, there's realities to finances.

Hear me when I say that.

There's reality to finances.

But oftentimes we hold on to stuff and we put people at arm's length.

When God is all about people.

God is all about people.

This is the scripture, and here is even if we're going through, I'm just touching on a little bit, is that verse 46, day by day, not week by week, not month by month.

The early church we see all the way through was not something that you attended, it was a life that you shared.

We've been a church for how many years?

45 years, Pastor Brody?

43 years.

Two years more.

43 years has been a church because the founders of this church started with the intention to build life together.

Not just to have a church, not just to show up to a place.

They built this place with the intention that you would build your life together.

That you would share your life, that you would live life together.

There's a people in this room I share life with.

Not just family, friends that are close to me, that are from this church, that are part of my community.

So this is what it says.

It says, day by day.

And I love this because it's not just a nice idea that we see in Acts about family or about community or fellowship.

Hebrews 10, 24 and 25 say, let us consider, this is part of community, how to stir one another up in love and good works.

How do you do that by yourself sitting in the dark room eating Cheetos, watching Netflix?

I don't know why I said Cheetos, but always the first one that comes to mind.

We stir one another up for good works.

To love and good works.

I am not always now, I may be.

I was not, my wife would attest to this.

I was not always one who loved easily, or often, or loudly, or to other people, or In any circumstances whatsoever.

She's just nodding her head.

She's like, yep, that's you know, I had someone tell her one time, she's like, boy, you must really see something in him.

It's like, I'm not sure how I'm supposed to take that.

But do you know what happens is I get into a community of people that see my drift, that see my sin, that see my attitude, that see my perspective, that see where I'm wrong, and will lovingly correct me to go towards love and good works.

I had one guy in my life, you probably heard me say this before, his name was Greg.

He pursued me annoyingly, pursued me.

And I did not want anything to do with Greg.

And Greg's like, Brian, let's go for coffee.

I was like, I don't want to go for coffee with you, Greg.

I would, I this is this is where I was.

I said, no, I don't want to go with you, Greg.

For a year, this guy pursued me, would just open my house.

Be like, hey, we should just be friends.

I'm like, Greg, I don't want to be your friend.

I didn't want to be his friend, okay?

It's not me, it had nothing to do with it.

It was me, not him.

Right.

But you know what he felt?

Like there was more to Brian than that angry, bitter, frustrated person that I was.

He saw in me what I couldn't see in myself.

And I never would have had that had I been in a community.

In this place, there's people that see things in me that maybe I don't see, that are willing to speak life to me, willing to challenge me, willing to say I did something right or wrong.

You need this.

This is the whole purpose of community.

It's to stir one another up for love and good works.

It's not just for us to show up to church on a Sunday and just consume what's happening in the room.

We are here to give, to be a part of it.

Sir Norm says this all the time.

He says, uh he'll say, he'll look at someone in the room and I'll say, Jesse.

He said, Jesse, Jesse has something that I need.

She has an encouragement, she has something that she can give me.

He'll look at someone in the room and say, I have something that you need.

Because we are here in the community, youth, kids, our children, all the way up to our seniors, to support each other and love and stir each other up for good works.

That's the fellowship that he's saying in this.

We're devoted to it.

The author of this chapter's of this chapter, who was writing this uh particular chapter, says, he knows that we can't stir each other up from a distance.

I can't pick a stranger off the street and try and stir them up to love good works.

I might get something bad, might happen to me.

If I'm trying to encourage him the way that I would like, I'm stirring you up to do better than you are, and then I got stirred up, alright.

Right?

But this is the thing, is this passage of scripture is assuming your proximity.

Right.

Devoted to one another means it's assuming that you're gonna be in relationship with people, that you're gonna be in a place where you can be stirred up for love and good works.

It's assuming your proximity.

It's assuming that when you're here, the church or people that are in your community are close enough to see that you're drifting and help you get back on course.

They were devoted to one another, they were devoted to fellowship.

Then we see in verse 25, not neglecting to meet together as the habit of some, but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near.

What I love about this, they already knew back here when this was written that people were gonna drift.

The drift had already started.

They had already seen it happen.

People were already consuming at the gathering rather than giving.

They already had chosen, even back then.

This is what this is for us right now.

They were saying back then, they knew that people were gonna drift.

They knew that people were gonna choose to do life on their own.

They knew.

But God built this community of believers together for a reason.

We can't be devoted to a place that we only visit.

This is when you have a shared life at church, my mom, 12 years ago, 13 years ago, how long have we been here?

About 12 or 13 years.

The first thing she said to me when we rolled in with a U-Haul truck, and it was the first time Sunday we were going to church, she's like, Brian, I'd want you to make sure you plant roots.

I was like, Well, of course, mom.

What do you know?

I'm gonna plant roots.

Thanks.

You know, I'm like 36, I can plant roots on my own without your help.

Don't tell me how to live my life.

Just channeled my inner children.

But what she was saying to me was that if I just visit KCC or I visit another church and I just show up and I keep jumping from place to place to place without ever planting any roots, and finding my roots go deep and they go wide, and they're being watered and they're being fed, that I will always be ripped out at the first sign of trouble.

That's what she's saying.

She's saying when you plant your roots, Brian, you commit.

You prescritorial your way into that.

If I even said that right.

We can't be devoted to the place that we visit.

Where is your shared life?

Who actually knows you?

Not just by name, not just by sight, but who actually knows you.

And then when they know you, we keep deciding that we're gonna show up.

We're gonna keep deciding I'm gonna be faithful.

I don't care what I know about other people, I will keep showing up.

Do you know why?

Because Jesus modeled that for me.

He knew stuff about people that I will never know, and he still wanted to show up.

Jesus loves everyone.

I want to make sure that when someone is in the struggle in the middle of their pain, middle of their things that are happening in their life, that we show up.

We want to be a people that show up.

And this is the thing is that when people show up, it shows up, like I guess, it shows up around the table.

The next one that we see in this was they were devoted to the table.

It was the breaking of bread.

This church is two things at once.

It's communion, it's communion, it's remembering the Lord's death when we're sitting across at Wendy's.

It's communion, and it is the ordinary table.

So we have two.

If you read into the early church, they didn't separate.

Communion just happened on a Sunday at church once a month.

Communion was a part of everything that they did.

So we see in in uh Acts chapter 2, verse 26, and day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts.

Acts 2:26

Glad hearts.

Not a duty, not a religious obligation, but with gladness.

The table was remembering the cross and sharing your life all landed in the same place.

The sacred side of this table, and we talk about this every single time we do communion church, as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

Every opportunity that we get together, because we're fine, we build this with the truth of the Word of God.

Right?

Then we move into fellowship, part of our truth, building into the table, the communion table, and also the the regular table.

Say regular table, the ordinary table.

Every time we take communion, we're preaching the gospel.

We're sharing the cross over all over again, all over again.

It's not a uh ritual or a thing that we have to do on our service that we do after the third song.

It's something that we get to do in honor of God.

Amen?

But there's a story in Luke chapter 24, verses 30 to 31.

Luke 24:30–31

There's no slides for this.

This is something I studied this morning.

When he was at the table with them, he took the bread, blessed, and broke it, and gave it to them, and their eyes were opened.

They did not, and they recognized him, and he vanished from sight.

If you read further into this passage of scripture, these two disciples walked with Jesus, talked with Jesus, sat and ate with Jesus, and didn't recognize him.

But then it says he took the bread, he blessed it, he broke it, he gave it to them, and their eyes were opened.

Something happens when we sit across with people through fellowship and through the communion table, and we remember what God has done.

God will move.

Things change.

We see in this, on the final, the final part here is that they were devoted to prayer.

So I'm gonna read verse 42 all the way through.

They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, to fellowship, to breaking of bread, and to prayer.

They clung to prayer, church, not crisis praying.

Not the prayer prayer, but the prayer flare prayer.

I got in trouble, so I'm gonna shoot the flare up, and God, I need you to come rescue me.

And I'm gonna be the first one to say that was my MO for years.

I didn't want to get into prayer one because I'm like, if I pray, he may ask me to do something I don't want to do or say something I don't really want to give up.

So if I just don't pray, it's much easier.

My life is way more comfortable.

Right?

But then I realized that his love for me overshadowed my desire to just stay stuck.

Having experiencing God in church through the and it wasn't like one major service, it was like bits and pieces of sitting across from people, someone encouraging me, being in a prayer service, being in a worship service, sitting across at lunch from someone, and they giving me the word from the Lord that they had for me, that slowly shifted my heart to being, God, I want what you have for me.

Take what's not working and get rid of it.

And then to rebuild, and in some, in my case, probably build from the ground floor a prayer life that actually is about praying and getting to know God.

But what we see in here is that when they said they were devoted to prayer, that's that word again, they were clinging to prayer, then it was sustained.

It was consistent, it was day after day.

It was the pray without ceasing type of devotion.

How many of you have read that scripture in Thessalonians where it's like he wants you to pray without ceasing?

And you're like, I can't do that.

If you don't have a relationship with God, then that verse is impossible.

But if you have a relationship with God and you're choosing Him, you're choosing His Word, you're choosing to be in fellowship, you're choosing to remember Him in communion and to do these things, if you're choosing to prayer, then you actually have this opportunity where pray without ceasing becomes a conversation that you and God have on a regular basis, and you actually are living unceasingly with God.

But if you're looking at your faith like it's just a thing that is on the side, that scripture will seem impossible.

See, we see even in going through Acts before 3,000 people got saved in that one single morning.

What were they doing before those people got saved?

If you go through scripture, what were people doing before God's power moved?

In chapter 1 of Acts, when we read through it, they were praying.

In chapter 2 of Acts, the Spirit fell.

The prayer always comes before the power.

They did not pray because the church was already exploding.

The church exploded because they were praying.

This is something.

I want don't want us to this.

This is I'm gonna start closing here in a second, but this was their pattern.

This four things that we're going through was their pattern.

But it's more of a to us, it's more of a uh like here's a pattern, this is the command.

It says, continue steadfastly in prayer, be watchful in it with thanksgiving.

That steadfast has the same root, it's pointed right at us to be devoted to Christ.

We cannot read Acts and say, this was just the early church being extra.

We can't read that and be like, this was a different time, or this is no.

This is the word of God for us to pray continuously, to be steadfast in our prayer.

And sometimes I treat prayer like it's a spare tire.

I leave it in the trunk, hidden where I can't see it, and then when something happens, I pull it out.

Then I need it.

I woke up this morning and my motorcycle had a flat tire.

How apt for this morning! Deep sadness, first thing in the morning.

But this is how sometimes we treat prayer instead of it being a relationship between us and God.

This is what we see.

The early church treated prayer like it was the engine.

I heard a pastor say it this way: prayer is the heat that we all feel but no one sees.

So I ask you in this moment, is prayer our first move or is it our last resort?

So I just want to go through this.

I'm gonna call up the worship team.

We're doing okay, church?

So, this is what happened to the church when they clung, they fought for, they they just hung on for dear life to these four things.

They were devoted to it, they were prescritario on these things.

This is what it says, and awe came upon every soul, and many signs and wonders were done through the apostles.

Something settled in on them.

You could feel what God was doing.

God was moving, there were signs and wonders, there was healing, there was lives changed.

Verse 44, and all who believed were together and had all things in common, and they were selling their possessions, verse 45, and belongings, distributing the proceeds to all as many had need.

Generosity overflowed.

Devoted people that we see in scripture, this is not me calling anyone out, devoted people hold on to their possessions with a very loose hand, saying, God, what do you need me to do with this?

Because they know God is a generous God.

And through this, we see God's heart of generosity would move through people.

Then we see in verse 46, and day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts.

They were glad and they were generous, they were in relationship with God.

And then here's verse 47, and this is kind of like the hinge for everything that we've been talking about in this series so far.

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

So hear me when I say this, church.

They weren't chasing a number, they were chasing God.

God produced the growth.

The number was the fruit of changed lives.

You know, you know, one of the markers of a healthy church is baptisms.

You know, in the last like two and a half years, we've had close to 50 baptisms.

That's amazing.

But it's because someone shared the gospel with them one time, maybe two times, maybe ten times.

And they showed up and they experienced God.

Then they decided to vote to devote themselves to God, and their life changed even more.

God produces the number.

The number was the fruit of people that were changed.

In a way, this is the way that numbers matter.

Is that every every number is a name.

So we don't look at people like a corporation, like this is just a number, this is number 27 sitting on this seat.

We look at them like they're have intrinsic value, that they are God's workmanship, that they have value beyond anything that we can we can see.

So every number has a name.

Every name is a soul that needs to know Jesus.

How many of you were lost?

Only some of you.

Sweet.

We're in the right place.

Y'all need Jesus.

I was lost, then I was found.

But lives that are changed, that are transformed, families changed, that matters more.

We're not here to build a crowd.

We're here to be devoted and have a life that's sold out to Jesus.

And when our life, our life, is devoted to him in word, in fellowship, with communion and at the table, inviting people in.

When we are devoted to prayer, that's what's gonna change people around us.

And we get to watch him change one life at a time.

Every time someone comes into KCC and they give their life to Jesus, we praise him.

Baptisms is an amazing thing.

Salvations is an amazing thing.

Youth camp, where kids are being saved and being baptized in the same weekend, is an amazing thing.

But what we have to own is our own devotion to what God's called us to.

We gotta own that we're we're devoted to your word, God.

We're devoted to prayer, we're devoted to just bringing people around, to galvanizing and rallying people to know who God is.

So this is where we land with this is in awe and generosity and growth.

None of what we see in the early church had to do with the program, it all had to do with devotion.

It was an overflow.

Their church growing was an overflow of the people that were the church, not the building, that they were the church, that they took the overflow of what God was doing in them, and they took it out and it exploded.

We can invite people to the building, but if you're not here, this isn't a church.

So, what I want you to not do is leave this place and just add four things to your to-do list.

Brian said we had to do this.

This is not what I'm saying.

You need to have a plan again to steward your time, to steward your word, you need to pray, you need to do all those things.

That's not what I'm saying.

But a full calendar and an empty soul or a lack of relationship with God look the same on the outside.

And this is what it says, he's not after what you do, he's not after what you do for him, he's after who you are to him.

Something we say in our church all the time is it's people over position.

I care more about the person than the position that they feel at a church.

Can you stand with me?

We have to choose to be devoted, we have to choose to read the word, we have to choose these things, they just don't happen to us.

We have to choose it.

I choose to stay devoted to my wife, I choose to still be a good father to my children, I choose to be the best employee that I know how to, I choose to know your word, God, I choose to live my life for you, I choose it.

So there is some work involved in this where you have to get up off your couch, turn off Netflix, change your shirt from the Cheeto shirt, and actually spend time in his presence.

So when I was praying this morning, I felt that there was we're gonna do a salvation call here in a second.

I believe that God there's people in the room that just need to know Jesus this morning.

I think that I say that every time.

So can you just close your eyes and bow your heads with me?

Just want the Holy Spirit just to kind of just speak to us here.

The first invitation that I felt for us this morning is for those of you that know Jesus, that have been Christians for a long time.

Maybe you've been in the church for years, maybe it's just for a few months, but maybe you're feeling like your devotion has run thin.

Maybe you've been intending instead of clinging, instead of prosperous of fighting.

For it.

Maybe you've been consuming instead of sharing.

And I want you to hear me when I say this.

This is not a condemnation, this is an invitation from the Lord for you, and your responses is to say before the Lord, Lord, I repent, and I want to step forward into what you have called me to.

So I just want you to take 30 seconds.

And if that's you and you're feeling like your devotion has run thin, that you've let other things invade your space, entertainment, work, whatever that is, and you're feeling just like you're disconnected from God.

Let's just take 30 seconds right now.

And I want you to be honest with God, no performance, and just tell him the truth.

God, I've not been devoted, I want back.

Just say those words.

30 seconds.

I'm just gonna let the team just play gently behind us.

I just ask that your Holy Spirit right now just connect to where they are at.

Where that devotion is running thin, where there's been a distraction or lack of intentionality with you, Lord.

People have made that choice this morning to run intentionally towards you.

Lord, that your Holy Spirit would just show them real who you are in this moment in Jesus' name.

Lord, that their heart would be filled with joy, with mercy, with grace, with no condemnation in the name of Jesus.

Where there is sin, Lord, that they would repent from that and be washed clean by your Holy Spirit in Jesus' name.

Just keep your eyes closed.

And this second invitation is for those in this room today that don't know Jesus, that have never committed to living a life with Jesus.

Maybe you came this morning and someone dragged you along, or you've been circling our church online or just looking for a place to go.

And this morning you're feeling like the Lord is pressing in on you.

You just don't know, but you want to commit to this.

You want to commit to the word, to the community, the fellowship, the table, the prayer.

None of this is a program you join.

If that's you, and that's what you want, can you just, with all eyes closed in this space, just raise your hand so I can see it.

If that's you and you want to commit your life to Jesus.

Amazing.

Amazing.

All together, church, can you say this with me?

Jesus, I need you.

I believe you died for me.

I believe God raised you from the dead.

I'm not done trying to do, I am done trying to do this on my own.

I give you my life.

Save me.

Lead me.

I am yours.

If that was you and you prayed this now, just look at me.

There's gonna be a number that's gonna come up on the screen.

Fill it out, send the message in.

This is how we can connect with you and get you started on journey, on your journey with discipleship, knowing Jesus, reading the word.

We want to be a part of that, so please fill up, fill that out, and just connect.

I just want to close with this song, just a part of it.

Just gently closing in on this song here, and then I'm just gonna pray and then we'll we'll we'll go.

But let's make this prayer like God.

I where I've been thin, where I've not been devoted, where I've let other things get in the way, Lord.

I want to be devoted to you.

Let's make that our prayer this morning as we worship, just for a minute or two here.