A Shared Family
Real Community September 1, 2024 Acts 2:42-47 Notes
People today are starving for true and lasting relationships. Yet, Americans are struggling with loneliness more than ever. To attempt to cure our loneliness, we’ve turned to social media. But a 2023 study in the National Library of Medicine concluded this: “This study found that more time spent on social media was associated with higher levels of loneliness… in particular for people who used social media as a means for maintaining relationships.”— National Library of Medicine
In the book of Acts, Luke described the “authentic community” of the first century church. He said they were marked by four “devotions.” We can experience this community when we pursue these four devotions. Today, we’re going to focus on the second devotion, “A Shared Family.”
Audio
Well, good morning, church. Welcome, East Gate family. I'm glad to see you. Hopefully you guys are having a great Labor Day weekend. I am.
We went to the beach yesterday, probably the last hurrah for the season, I'm guessing. It was a beautiful day at the beach, so we spent some family time. It was a good time. So hopefully you guys are enjoying your Labor Day weekend. You're choosing the good thing to be here with us, and I'm excited that you are here.
So we're continuing our sermon series that's entitled Real Community, four shared devotions for real community. And we're unpacking these four foundational devotions that have led to this tremendous growth that happened in the first century. The New Testament church, we're talking about the second one, which is a shared family. Now, speaking about family, Pastor Gary is at a family reunion in Bristol, Virginia, right now. And as a matter of fact, probably right about now, he's preaching in his family church, his home church right now.
So we pray for him and that he would bring the word boldly in Bristol, Virginia. So we're talking about family. What does your family look like? Pop this first one up. Are you guys just barely holding it together like these folks here?
You know, how about this one? Is your family just a little bit goofy? You know, how about this one? Maybe you got some black sheep in your family or this one? This one's just disturbing.
I'm glad we never did this in my family. And of course, one of my favorite families, the tv Simpsons family. You know, it's funny. Simpsons have been going on for something like 34 seasons. 34 years, if you imagine that.
And some of you who have some chrome on the side here a little bit, you can probably remember when that show was debuted, and a lot of parents would not let their kids see this show, okay? And I know a lot of people are like, I wasn't allowed to see it when I was a kid because, you know, Bart was so disrespectful to Homer. Nowadays, though, the Simpsons look like a pretty normal family on tv, don't they? They're actually almost a family that you'd almost want to emulate. Not quite, though.
So our definition of a normal family, it's changed a lot in the last few years. And, you know, society is rapidly evolving. We're seeing what is depicted as normal, really going through some changes, you know, that idealized nuclear family that used to be on tv sitcoms way back in the 1950s and sixties, you know, with leave it to Beaver and Ozzie and Harriet and my three sons and all those kind of things, you know, that mom and dad and 2.5 kids and the dog, that whole thing that is long ago past. And that's not really a lot of what we see anymore either. I mean, not even just on television, but here in our own congregation, in our own body right here.
You know, many of you have probably come from or are part of a single parent family. That was me. I was part of a single parent home. Right. Many of you have experienced, perhaps within your family, multiple divorces with the complications of many step parents and step kids.
And it just gets really confusing and complicated around the holidays. You know, who does. Who do the kids go with this time? Whose turn, you know? And, oh, my gosh, just hard.
It's just difficult. You know, several of you, like me, may not have been born here in eastern North Carolina. You may not have a large extended family around you, and you may be a transplant. And so, you know, perhaps you're nowhere geographically close to your blood relatives, or you may not even be all that close to them. In the closer sense, maybe nothing.
Okay? But some of you all have been born and raised here. And I'm looking at my black creek friends down here. If you don't know, the Sextons are related to everybody in eastern North Carolina, okay? So if you want to know somebody in eastern North Carolina, just get somebody with a sexton last name, and they probably know them.
I can attest to this. And so you might have a large extended family here in this area, but maybe. Maybe your family just causes you more stress than it's worth. Maybe. Ooh, maybe it's just difficult.
I mean, our families can be quite a source of stress, and there may be pain involved with that. You see, people today are starving for true and lasting relationships. Americans, though, are struggling with loneliness. And we've talked about this from the stage recently, but this is happening more and more, according to the Gallup organization. George Gallup says this.
He says, we are physically detached from each other. We change places of residence frequently. Seven in ten do not know their neighbors. Americans are among the loneliest people in the world. George Gallup said that, and that's really telling, okay, because he would know, right?
He's got his finger on the pulse of our society, and we're not very connected anymore. And a lot of times, what we do, we attempt to cure this loneliness by turning to social media. But a 2023 survey, or, I'm sorry, a study in the National Library of Medicine, they concluded this. It said that it found that the more time spent on social media was associated with higher levels of loneliness, in particular for people who used social media as a means for maintaining relationships. You getting that you get on social media with the idea of connecting with other people, it's actually leading to more disconnectedness and more loneliness.
In my opinion, social media probably ought to just be called media, okay? Because a lot of what the early social media platforms, if you go way back to MySpace and Facebook and other ones, pick your favorite instagram, whatever it is that you like to use, okay. The idea was we're going to connect with all these people and we're going to keep up with all these people. And there's still some of that that goes on to most of what happens on social media now is that it's not really used for communication or interaction with others. Most of the time we spend scrolling through videos that are produced specifically for consumption.
So you're watching some person make some video that they thought was screen worthy or whatever so that you would click on them and you'd watch it. Okay, is that social interaction? No, not really. We're more disconnected from each other, and we need family, we need fellowship more than ever. See, you and I were born needing community.
But sin causes us to be separated from God and from each other. When we come to Christ, though, he reconciles us to God and to one another, and causes us to be devoted to God and to one another. And we'll see this in the book of acts. In the book of acts, Luke describes this authentic community of the first century church. He said that they were marked by four devotions.
Four devotions. Last week, Pastor Gary talked about a shared faith. This week we're talking about a shared family. Pastor Steven next week we'll talk about a shared food, and then we'll wrap this up with a shared focus. Faith, family, food, and focus those four devotions.
We can experience this community when we pursue those four devotions. And today we're going to focus, like I said on the second one, a shared family. And the text is going to give us three ways to having a shared family. And what we're going to do is we're going to reread acts, chapter two, starting in verse 42. And they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching, and the fellowship, and the breaking of bread.
And the prayers and awe came upon every soul. And many wonders and signs 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 were being saved.
And may God bless the reading of his word. Amen. All right, so we're looking for three ways on how to share in the family of God. Here's the first way. Choose to belong fully.
Choose to belong fully. Now, you might be asking yourself, why are we rereading acts, chapter two? We're going to do this again. We just talked about this last week. Well, you see, this section of scripture is so rich and so powerful that we're going to mine this for what it's worth, because we're going to come at it from four different angles and look at it through the lens of the different devotions.
And so today we're going to look at this idea of belonging to a family. And let me remind you of something that Pastor Gary taught us last week. And that's that first word, and that's translated, devoted. Devoted. Now, this is the greek word.
And James, forgive me, but Proscar Taro. And I'm butchering that. And he's going to tell me how I'm supposed to pronounce it later on, which is fine, but prostor, this is that idea of facing towards. Facing towards it also, you know, devotion, this comes with this idea, too, of being strong and steadfast and earnestly attending to and to be diligent towards. Facing towards really captures this idea really well.
If I'm devoted to my wife, I'm not facing her by looking at my phone or watching the television or looking at someone else. I'm facing her. I'm devoted by turning towards. That's this idea that we see in being devoted. And you see here that we talked last week about being devoted to the apostles teaching.
But you know what? In this text, it actually says that they were devoted to all four of these things. They were devoted not just to the apostles teaching, but to fellowship and to sharing food and to prayer. Now, that word fellowship, this is one of the greek words that all of y'all should know, should learn. So we're gonna pop this up on the screen.
This is the word. Koinonia. Koinonia. This is this idea of a community, this shared participation, something where we all are related in some way. You can have this fellowship, this cornelia, even in a secular sense, you don't have to have it in a church.
So what do I mean by that? We're looking for groups where there's some kind of common bond. So you could be on a sports team or this could be work associates or, you know, perhaps a club of some kind, maybe a band or whatever it is. You know, you can have a shared ability there that something that connects you, and that is Cornelia. That's legitimate.
Cornelia, okay? That's fellowship. Okay? So physical families, those of you who walked in with your family, you have biology in common, right? You guys have some shared DNA.
You guys have biology in common. But I watched, especially in the first service I saw, we had a number of adopted children within. And honestly, that is an even tighter bond than the bond of biology, right? Because your parents chose you. So physical families have biology in common.
But you know what? God's family shares a common spiritual birth. So all of us who have been born again in Jesus Christ, we share that second birth. We share that idea of the newness that we share in Jesus, and we are born into his family that way. So there's the, there's another fellowship level.
Now something that's very interesting here in verse 42 that you should not miss is that they were devoted to the apostles teaching, but it's also the fellowship. It doesn't say they were devoted to fellowship. It says they were devoted to the fellowship. Now that's really interesting. Why is there a definite article?
Why is the, the there? Why is that there? Well, there's got to be something to it. What is the fellowship? Well, this fellowship is christian fellowship.
The fellowship requires the involvement of the Holy Spirit. So in order to have the fellowship, God's got to be present. And now all those other types of fellowships that can exist, whether you're on a sports team or you have military affiliation or people that you work with and stuff like that, those are all still good, okay? But they're ultimately temporary because they're not going to last. But because the fellowship, the Koinonia that we're talking about is with God.
The fellowship is infinite and it's eternal and it will outlast us. The fellowship is what we're aiming for here. Now, the fellowship that we're talking about existed before our creation. If we think about the nature of the trinitarian God, our triune God, Father, son and spirit of, they exercise perfect communion and perfect fellowship before the creation even happened. So they were there in perfect fellowship and we were created to be part of that fellowship.
You were created to be part of the fellowship with God. That's what makes this fellowship different. And you can see this. When that fellowship broken, when Jesus was on the cross and God placed the weight of all human sin upon Jesus, God the father could no longer look upon sin, and that fellowship was temporarily broken. And you can see what Jesus response was.
He said, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? That fellowship was temporarily broken. See, God wants a family. God wants a family. Look at Ephesians one five.
God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. He planned that from the beginning. He wanted you to be part of his family, and there's only one way to get into that family. John 112 says, but to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. You see that?
You have the right to become a child of God through Jesus Christ. You're part of that family. And if you didn't get it from that, hear the words directly from Jesus from John 14 six. And he said, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except through me.
Jesus is that door. That faith in Jesus is what causes us to be part of God's family. So at one point, we were broken, and we were enemies of God. But that relationship to God has changed. We're not strangers anymore.
Ephesians 219 says, from now on, you are not strangers. And people who are not citizens, you are citizens together with those who belong to God. You belong in God's family. I hope you're hearing that today. You belong in God's family.
That's who you are. See, God wanted family from the very beginning. And if you ever. Have you ever started reading the Bible? Say, a lot of people do this.
They start, like, in the New Testament. Some people try and start in Genesis, and a lot of people get lost along the way, right? But a lot of people will start in the New Testament and say, okay, I think I can handle that. And they start in the book of Matthew. Okay, now, Matthew is written for a mostly hebrew audience.
And what does he start out with in chapter one? He starts with all the begats, right? He starts with all this list of names. And if you're a brand new student of the Bible, you start reading this and you say, wow, this is hard because there's all these hebrew names. I don't know how to pronounce them, and I don't know who they are.
Right? Especially if you're just getting started and you're like, wow, what is all this? But every bit of scripture is inspired, and there's a reason why that's in there, right? Matthew is trying to demonstrate that Jesus had a family tree. It goes all the way back to Abraham.
And before he was part of Abraham's lineage, he was also in the lineage of David of the tribe of Judah, showing I his royalty. But this is demonstrating that Jesus had a family, and we've already seen that we are adopted into that family through Jesus. You know, in Genesis, chapter two, God says it's not good for man to be alone. And a lot of times we use that scripture in talking about marriage, relationships, and how it's important to find someone like that. But you know what?
It also applies in this context, in the fellowship context. It's not good for anyone to be alone. And let me tell you really quickly, you know, I've got a great job, but one of the things that. That I don't like about it is I'm alone a lot, okay? I'm on the road probably 15 days a month, and I'm sitting in some strange hotel room, and my wife is at home, so she's alone.
And I'm out at whatever city we're at, and I'm alone, okay? Now, we try to. We try to fill that in. We'll go to dinner with the other pilot or whatnot and spend some time, but ultimately, I'm still alone. So it's not good for man to be alone.
And God knew that from the very beginning. He made us, for fellowship, think as well about Jesus's priestly prayer just before he suffered and died in John 17, he prays to the father, but within the earshot of the disciples so that they could hear him. And he said to the father, I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Jesus knew he was going to rise to the father and listen carefully to what he says next. Holy Father, protect them by your name that you have given me, so that they may be one as we are one.
So Jesus is praying for us to have that same Cornelia, the fellowship that he and the father already shared. That is that family that we would choose to belong fully to. Now, most of you know that I was in the military for 21 years. We moved around a lot. Okay?
My family and my wife's family were geographically separated from us my whole life. To this day, we are still not close to geographically, at least to our family. And so what we always sought to do was find a church where we could have family. So church family was important to us. And from the first, when I first got saved, we got involved in a small group ministry and we were meeting in the UK, in England, in homes, and I got discipled by the navigators in a small group ministry.
That's been over 30 years ago. For 30 years I've been involved in small group ministry, both teaching. I started three small group ministries in three different churches before I came here 14 years ago. Small groups are something that I'm very passionate about, and people who know me know that. That's why I do what I do, because I think it's important.
I know it's important for us to have the fellowship. The cornenia. Now, perhaps you've walked in this morning and you're just checking out this Eastgate thing, and you go, hey, yeah, there's this building over there used to be a movie theater back behind the Taco bell, and I thought I'd come in on Sunday morning and see and maybe perhaps you don't yet belong to this family of which I'm speaking. Well, your entry, as I alluded to, is through Jesus Christ. Today you can accept Jesus and you can follow him and you can have the entry into that family of God.
Now, perhaps you have been a believer for a while. Well, let's examine the state of that family that you're in. Do you consider those other people who are in the faith with you your family? Are they your brothers and sisters, or is it just something we say? Is church the place you come on Sunday morning?
I've got nothing else to do. 11:00 in the morning, I might as well go to church. Is it a loose collection of strangers who just all happen to show up at the same time? Okay, well, one of the things that we talked about last week is our small group participation rate. And depending upon how you count up those who come here, members and regular attenders and stuff like that, our small group participation rate is somewhere between 65 and 80%, which is really good when you compare us to other churches.
But what it does say to me is that there is between 20 and 35% of people who are hearing my voice right now that are not participating in the blessing that small groups provide. And I would encourage you, I would encourage you to check that out. We've got small groups starting up this week, a brand new one starting this week. Come talk to me after the service. I'll help you get set.
So we want to belong fully to the family. Here's the second thing that we need to do to be part of the shared family of God. Decide to live sacrificially. Decide to live sacrificially. We're in verses 44 and 45 here, and you can see that Luke writes that all believed and were together and had all things in common.
And they sold their possessions and belongings and distributed to any who had needs. What things did they sell or what things did they pool? All things. All things. That's everything.
Okay. All the whole, each and every part. Okay. Your skills and your stuff. Okay.
You could also say time, talent and treasure. Now don't misunderstand what's going on here. This is not a socialist or communistic thing. This is not that. Everybody just pulled it in and it was all sitting in one room and everybody took what they needed.
That's not the way to think. Think of this. The best way to think of this is the early church understood that everything belonged to God in the first place and that we were just stewards of what God had given us. And if I'm just a steward, watching over the stuff that God has given me, and I see a need within the body and I can meet it with the stuff that God has stewarded me to watch over, then I should do that. I should do that.
Okay. This is nothing. This is not, okay. Let's pool everything up and everybody gets an equal share. That's not what we're talking about.
Use what God has given you to meet needs within the church.
Now this is needs, okay. This is not wants. This is not desires. These are needs. Okay, now this is interesting.
If you look through acts and you look at how this started to play out. Okay, so we're in chapter two, right here in chapter four. What we see is the apostles are actually the ones that are validating those needs and they're making distributions and stuff like that. But the apostles very rapidly get overwhelmed with this ministry. And anybody who's been in any of these kind of ministries before, you know that when you start meeting needs, it gets pretty difficult because now people come from all over the place and you're trying to figure out who's really needy, who's not.
What do we do with our limited resources? How can we do this? And so the apostles were, you know, getting overwhelmed. And they said, hey, it's not good that we don't preach the word to take care of widows. And so the deacon ministry started in acts chapter six.
And that's what you see here in this church. That's how we model our deacons. Our deacons, Diakonos, they are servants, they are ministers, they're not a decision making body. They are not a rubber stamp to whatever the pastor says. They are servants.
And so when you see somebody that we've identified as a deacon, we have seen that their life lives up to one Timothy and Titus, that these people, these men are true servants of God and that they go out of their way. That's why they're out here serving all the time. That's what the deacons are for. And so they're meeting needs. Now, how did that early church meet those needs?
Well, they had to know what those needs were. Okay? So it's very difficult. If I have the resources that God has allowed me to steward and I don't know of any needs, how can I meet them? So I've got to know what those needs are.
Now, we here in the south, you know, we like to keep our private stuff private. Right. And we like to be polite and not mention certain things. Okay. Well, within your trusted family, you ought to let those people know when there are needs to be met.
Okay. So being private and polite actually hinders other people's ability to get the blessing of meeting the needs that God has called them to do. So allow people to meet your needs when you are needy, that's not being polite. Look at one John 316 and 17. It says, by this, we know love, that he laid down his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.
But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? And look at Galatians 610. Therefore, whenever we have opportunity, we should do good to everyone, especially to those in the family of faith. Now, charity is a good thing, okay, don't misunderstand what I'm saying here. If you are, you know, reaching out to the community and doing charitable kind of things, great.
Okay? But what the Bible clearly teaches is we should help those within the church first because we're family. You would help your family first before you help somebody on the street. Same thing is applicable here. Why?
Because you already know the needs. You already know what they are. You don't have. Have to go back and do a lot of validation like you might have to do with someone that you don't know. Meet the needs within the church and then meet needs outside.
By all means, please continue to do good charity. Good works of charity, that's a great thing to do, but do those for the family of faith. Now, recently in one of our small groups, one of the members had surgery and this was pretty extensive surgery. This was going to be a downtime for quite some time. It was going to take several months, and this person was going to need care during the recovery and the rehabilitation from that surgery.
Before that surgery even happened, the members of the small group called this family and called this family together and said, look, you need to let us know how we can help you. And do not sit there and suffer in silence and do not sit there with unmet needs because you did not want to bother us. You need to let us know how we can serve you. And now I can report today that not only did that family correctly respond and let the needs be known, but a number of members of that group were able to help out with meals and rides, to medical appointments and social visits and the like. Now, I was sharing this illustration with Adam, who's preaching in Rocky Mount this morning.
I was telling him how I was going to use this illustration. He goes, that's my group. And I go, that's not who I was talking about. Okay, so you know what? That's not unusual because this is a regular feature of our community groups.
This is what they do. So as I thought it was fairly unusual, it was happening exactly as I described it at the exact same time in another group. So that's what we do, live sacrificially. So when we belong fully to God's family, we're able to share our stuff. Are you willing to trust God with all that you are and all that you have?
Will you make your stuff available to God and to his family? Your time, your talent, your treasure? First, you need to decide that God's ownership is encompassing everything you've got and you're just a steward of it. Become a tither first and give recognition that God owns it. Then begin to make your skills and your stuff available to your fellowship.
Addressing needs as the spirit stirs your heart. Make it happen when the spirit is talking to you. Be free to be able to do that. So we want to live sacrificially for each other to build that fellowship. Here's the third one.
We want to commit to gather regularly. Commit to gather regularly. We're in verses 46 and 47 here, and what we see here is day by day they attended temple together, break bread in their homes, and receive food with glad and generous hearts. And they praise God. So day by day, day by day, this is daily.
This is a daily devotion of theirs. It was their routine. It was part of a habit. It just happened because it was such an important part of their lives. And it says here that they attended the temple together.
Now, this is really interesting, and I didn't discover this until we started studying this. And again, I don't speak greek, but I've got some great computer tools that do. Okay, so this word attending is that same word for devotion. Okay. Or devoted.
It's that proscar terraro. Okay. And again, James helped me on after service. Proscar terraro. This is devoted to attending.
It's not just attending. This was something that was so important to them that this was a devotion. They turned their face towards temple and were going to do it regardless of what else was going on. They were not just pew potatoes, right? They didn't just kind of come in and sit.
This was something that was so important to them that they wouldn't miss it. This was a top priority, and they attended together. That word together. This is kind of cool, too. I found this interesting.
It's not just that you happen to walk in at the same time like, oh, hey, Joe, you know, not just that. This is that greek word homothumodon. This is of one accord, one passion. So they were so devoted to attending temple and going from house to house that they shared this passion to do it. It was such a part of their lives that they couldn't imagine doing anything different.
And what were they doing when they gathered together? They're at the very end of verse 47, it says they were praising God. They were praising God. So a lot of times we have a mixed or a mist understanding of what it means to worship. We think it's, oh, it's that music that's at the beginning, before that preacher gets on up.
Now we're living a life of worship right now. You sitting under the teaching of God's word. The extolling of God's word is worship. The way you live your life is worship. The way the first century church gathered together was a life of worship.
So part of how they lived their life, when they were committing to gathering regularly, that was building the fellowship. The fellowship was built up by gathering regularly, if you can imagine. Okay, let's say I only saw my wife 1 hour a week. Is that building community? Well, of course not.
We think that's ridiculous, okay? But if you're trying to build fellowship, you're trying to be part of a family, okay? And you only see people time a week for an hour, and you're all sitting facing me. You're not really building a lot of fellowship. Now you're doing something important, okay?
But you're not building a lot of fellowship. A friend of mine likes to say that, you know, if I'm only seeing you on Sunday and on Wednesdays at small group, you're kind of messing up and you're missing out. We should be seeing each other outside of this. And so some of the people that you meet with, and I'm not saying you're going to see all 435 35 attenders of this church, of course not. But you're going to see the people that matter the most to you.
You're going to see the people that you have relationship with. Now, this is important for us because corporate worship that we gather together is for our encouragement. That's the first reason why we want to gather regularly. Look at Hebrews 1025. It says, we should not stop gathering together with other believers, as some of you are doing.
Instead, we must continue to encourage each other even more as we see the day of the Lord coming. We gather together on Sunday mornings to encourage each other. You all are encouraging me just by sitting and listening to me. I can't tell you how much that charges me up. Now, corporate worship is also for our sanctification.
Now, sanctification is one of those theological words which basically means becoming more like Jesus. As we grow in Jesus, corporate worship helps to do that. Tim Keller, the great preacher, says this. He says sanctification can happen on the spot as we sit under gospel preaching and engage in corporate worship. So you are being sanctified right now.
You're becoming more like Jesus just by sitting there. But acts, psalm 542 says, and every day in the temple and from house to house, they did not cease teaching and preaching that Christ is Jesus. You can see that sanctification was played out in the early church because they were always gathering together and they were praising and preaching Christ Jesus. Here's the best and final way that it's important for us to gather regularly because it points to a future reality. Corporate worship points to that future reality.
Look at revelation 7910. It says, after this, I looked and behold a great multitude that no one could number from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the lamb, clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands and crying out with a loud voice, salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne and to the lamb. That is what the future is going to look like. We're going to be praising God together, but with people that you haven't even met yet. The fellowship is involved with this idea of gathering regularly.
Now, I was stationed in Korea in 2006, and I was there without my family. I attended the chapel on base, and one day we had a joint service, okay, where all. All the chapel members went out to the softball field because they couldn't hold it in the chapel because it was huge. And we invited the korean chapel from the base because it was a joint base. We had Koreans and Americans there and a few allied people.
And so we were there having a joint service, and at one point, we all sang the same song at the same time, us in English, them in Korean. And it was the most beautiful thing that I have ever heard because it pointed to that which is coming. And you can imagine every nation, tribe, and tongue singing praises to the Lord Jesus. That's what it's going to look like. It's a future reality.
We are building that koinonia right now, right here, and other churches are doing the very same thing. Now, when I was young, family dinner was mandatory, okay? Before my dad died, he insisted on family dinner, and it was every night, right around 530 or so. And, you know, we were always outside playing, and my dad had that way of whistling, you know, when you put their fingers in your mouth and the really loud one, you know, I can't do it. But when I heard that whistle, I knew I was late and I was bad, and I would hurry up and get back in time for dinner, because dinner was at 530, so we'd get in and, you know, we would do that, and we'd have dinner every night.
We could. Now, I tried to model that as well when I was a young dad. So Cindy and I and the kids would gather every night for dinner. Now, of course, my schedule was a lot more messed up than that. His was much more regular than mine was, so I was either flying or deployed or something like that half the time.
But when I was home, we had family dinner, and it was important. We modeled this from when the kids were very little and there were no tvs, there's no phones. Of course, back when my kids were little, nobody had phones anyway, so, you know, it didn't really matter. But there were no toys at the table, nothing to distract. And we had family dinner.
We interacted with each other. We had conversation. Can you imagine that? Actually having conversation and actually talking to each other? It's kind of neat and, you know, but we were building memories together, and it was important because it was one of those things that the kids knew.
This is part of being part of this family. We're going to gather together, and if anything else, dad's away or dad's you know, doing whatever he's going to do. You know what? When he comes home, we're having family dinner. And of course, Cindy did it, too, when she was alone, but it was a lot harder, you know, because she was working, too, with two littles.
That was. But we still tried to do family dinner as much as we could because that was important. That's an important part of being part of the family. Will you prioritize meeting and worshiping together in the church and in the homes? Will you make attending together that big rock in your calendar?
Like, put the. Put Sunday morning and Wednesday or whenever your small group meets, those are in there primarily first, and then everything else builds around it. Now, this week in our community group, one of the members of the community group said something, and I just made my heart happy because this person said, you know what? We know Wednesday night is going to happen. We're going to small group.
No matter what else happens, we're going to go to small group. Unless we're ill, we're going to small group and everything else. We don't schedule anything else on Wednesday night. And it just kind of made my heart happy because that showed the priority that this person had for small group. And I didn't, it wasn't a.
I didn't prompt it or anything like that. It was just what this person said. It made me very happy. Would you miss a family gathering? Like a family birthday party?
Well, we have a party for Jesus every Sunday. We have a party for Jesus on Wednesdays or whenever your group meets. Don't miss that. Don't miss that party. Make it a big rock in your calendar.
Now, men, let me talk to you specifically right now. I see you sitting up straight. Most men today, you know, you all made friendships probably back in high school, maybe in college, and you thought, these are my bros. These are the guys I'm going to hang out with forever, right? And then you get married and you get a career, and you rapidly find out you don't have time for those dudes anymore.
You really don't. And sometimes it might be months or even years between the times that you see these guys that were absolutely your closest buds, right? Yeah. Well, men need that kind of fellowship. And you know what?
We're providing an opportunity for you to do that. The men's retreat's coming up the fourth through the 6th in October. Now let me ask you men. You like being outside? You like the mountains?
You like the woods? Okay, how about you like food? Okay, good food. Do you like hanging out with other men, maybe throwing some horseshoes or playing a game. But especially, do you like sitting under good teaching?
Well, you know what? All four of those devotions we've been talking about all exist in that men's retreat that's coming up. So sign up. And ladies, encourage your men to sign up, too, because they need this. They're only going to get it, you know, one time a year, and that's not nearly enough, but they need this sign up.
Will you choose to belong fully to God's family? Will you decide to live sacrificially with that family? How about, are you going to commit to gathering regularly with God's family? Well, let's pray. Father, I thank you for today.
I thank you for this beautiful Labor Day weekend that we gather together. And I thank you especially for your word that is so rich that we can mine it for that which you want us to know. And so, father, I want to pray first for that person that may have come in that right now does not have a relationship with you. And if that's you, if you are not yet part of the family because you've not made that commitment, would you pray with me? And there's nothing magic about my words, but it's the heart that you share.
And you can just pray where you are and you can pray and think, father, I need you because I'm missing out on that family. I'm missing out on that fellowship that I could have. I'm a broken person. I'm a broken vessel. I haven't been following what you had to say, but, jesus, I know that you have died for me and that you can forgive me of my sin and I can live forever with you.
Would you please become my lord and savior? If you prayed that with me, you're now part of the family. Welcome. We're so excited that you're here. Now.
Perhaps you are within the sound of my voice. And you are a Christian. You've been walking with Jesus for a while, but you're really missing out on that fellowship. You're missing out on that koinonia that can be available to you. Let me pray for you, too.
Father, I pray for those who are missing out, who for various reasons, for medical reasons or their busy kids schedules or their work schedule or whatever it is, it's difficult for them to make that kind of commitment, to really experience the koinonia that you offer. Father, would you help them to find margin, find space in their busy calendar, find priority for you and for God's people, help them to get the connection that they so desperately need. We love you, Father, and we pray this in Jesus name. Amen.
Audio
Good morning, east gate. How y'all doing? It is so good to be here with you this morning. I I've never taken into account how complicated Finny's life is playing guitar. He has an electric, too, so he's got even more stuff.
Like, I'm going through a checklist up here. Like, am I unhooked? Okay, this wire's out. All right, this switch goes off. This, which goes on.
This is complicated. I feel like robocop up here. I've got earbuds in. I got a mic on. This is nuts.
I'm so blessed. I'm so happy to get to be with you guys today and hang out with you guys. We're continuing in a sermon series, and today we're going to be talking about a shared family. And I bring that up right up front. Shared family.
I bring that up right up front because I'm actually covering for Finney because they're at a family reunion, so they're getting to hang out with their biological family. They're doing a, you know, a Labor Day get together in Bristol, Virginia. So I'm happy to get to jump in and cover for him. They do have a couple of. They sent me some family pictures.
Is that. Do I have those? Yeah. So this is. This is actually this one.
One of my favorite pictures that we have hanging up at our house. Mandy had a photo shoot with Kylie, and the photographer was just shooting and shooting. She was, like, this big, and there's a. She was sitting in a chair, and she had a cookie, and I guess the ground was soft, and then it. So there's an action shot hanging up on our wall at home.
Kylie's got this, like, crash, the cookies still in her hand. That's what that picture reminds me of. So these are just some looks into families, what families can be.
Sometimes you get the one.
We tried to figure out what in the world is going on in this one for, like, 15 minutes. Laramie's preaching at the Wilson campus. We're like, what is this? They're always on his mind. Very good.
All right, so what does your family look like? It might look like some of those families up there. It might look very different. Family is a very different thing. One of the things that we run into today in America is that our families.
We've kind of separated from families a little bit. We tend to get a little more distant from our biological family today. We are actually one of. There's a Gallup poll that came out, and the thing that they discovered was this. We are physically detached.
From each other. We change places of residents frequently. Seven in ten do not know their neighbors. Americans are among the loneliest people in the world. So we've got all this cool stuff, and we've lost all our cool people.
We don't have a village anymore. We've gotten rid of that and replaced it with convenience of a car, convenience of Netflix, all that kind of stuff.
There was a study done that's in the National Library of Medicine that found this. This study found more time spent on social media was associated with higher levels of loneliness, in particular for people who use social media as a means for maintaining relationships. So social media has sort of historically gotten a bad rap, and I think it's pretty well earned for kind of the degradation of some of our cultural, societal fabric. It started off, I think, with a good idea. It started, like, if you remember way back in the day, it was a good way for me to keep up with my cousins, people from high school just kind of keep track of who was where and who's doing what.
It started with an idea of connecting, but I don't think what they thought about was, whenever I'm seeing social media, what I'm actually doing is looking at the experience that they are having that I'm not, that I'm not part of, that I'm not included in. And so somewhere subliminally in my brain, I know that they're distant from me. And me getting to see them doing all this stuff that I'm not included in actually has the opposite effect that I think we intend to use social media. And if you kept track of social media as it's evolved in the last decade, I would argue it's not even social media anymore. It's just media now.
Like, most, like TikTok and Instagram and those, like, quick hit YouTube shorts, those are actually produced to be consumed. So there's not even a social aspect to it anymore. We still call it social media. It's not. It's watching 32nd tv shows.
That's what it is. And so when we try to bridge that community with social media, you can see why it fails. Because what we did was we replaced our family, our community, our village, with Netflix. Think that maybe that will fix that gap. It doesn't.
In America, family looks really different right now than it did a decade ago, two decades ago, certainly three decades ago. Families can look like anything now. There's not a. In american culture, there's not, like, a family that we would say, like, this is what a family should be. You're not allowed to say should because you're not open to everybody's way of life.
And me saying it should be a particular way, the America views it as saying, like, well, that means this way is wrong. And if they do it that way, then why are you better than them and all of that which is true? If I'm only saying something's true and somebody else is saying it's false and it's just our opinions, then why is my opinion more valid than them? That mindset, though, gets rid of the possibility that there is actually a God that wants things a certain way. And he's told us how he wants things done.
It gets rid of the idea that there is an instruction book. So America, the system that we currently have presupposes no God, that God doesn't have a particular way that he wants anything done. And so by doing that, we've gotten farther away from God as we retreat into our families, especially if we have maybe an alternate looking family. We can only do that by running away from God, by putting distance. And so then now, man, we're lonely because we don't have our family.
Our biological family network is maybe far away or maybe we've burned some bridges there. We don't have that support. Our community, family is gone. I don't. I'm guilty of it, actually, I'm pretty proud of myself that I know two of my neighbors.
That's doing good for me. And when I say know them, I mean know their names, I know their first names. I know one of them a little bit, the other one I've talked to a couple times. And no clue to all the rest of them. No idea I'm guilty of it.
That's how life is here. It's different in other places of the world. We don't live in other places of the world. And so we're lonely in the community sense, we're lonely in our family's sense. And then we live lifestyles that take us away from God.
We feel ashamed of the way we live, we feel ashamed of the thoughts we have, we feel ashamed of the anxieties we feel or whatever it is. And then we want to get ourselves right before we even go back to God in prayer. And so then we get really far away from God. And so now we're lonely. Spiritually, we're lonely.
But there's a medicine for that.
In the book of acts, Luke describes the authentic community of the first century church. And he said they were marked by four devotions. A shared faith covered that last week. A shared family covering that this week, a shared food that's next week. And a shared focus.
Spoiler alert, week after next. So we can still get that community that they had. Let's get into our text here if you don't know where we're going. Acts 242 through 47. If you're part of a community group, you're probably pretty, pretty familiar with this one.
Acts 242 47 and they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers, and all came upon every soul. And many wonders and signs 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 belonging. You ready for this one? And distributing the proceeds to all as any had need.
And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their home, 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 were being saved. God bless the reading of his word. Amen. Amen.
So let's break that down. We're going to break it down into a couple of steps. And the first step is to choose to fully belong. Choose to fully belong.
So check out verse 42. They devoted themselves. This word devoted is to give oneself holy. That's what that word devoted is. You probably have a pretty good sense of devoted.
You would think of it sometimes in interpersonal relationships, somebody is devoted. I'm devoted to Mandy, my wife, and so I'll do whatever it takes except take out the trash in a reasonable amount of time. I, for some reason, don't do that, which it would seem like that would be a pretty easy thing to do since I have to walk past it every time I walk out of the house. But.
And then the fellowship, we're gonna check out the fellowship here. The fellowship is an interesting one. So they're like. They're greek. So Koinonia.
Koinonia, if you're a greek person, this one, at least I do know it's been preached and taught a couple of times. So Koinonia is written like the scribbledy scribble up at the top, but it's pronounced like the words at the bottom there. Koinonia. And so Koinonia is a fellowship. That's what it is.
It's like a coming together. But this one is an interesting one because it doesn't say they were devoted to fellowship in. It says they were devoted to the fellowship. They were devoted to the fellowship. That's interesting.
What's the difference? Then why the. If the word's there, then it's got to be there for a reason. So why is it the fellowship as opposed to just fellowship? This is specifically talking about the fellowship as passed down from Jesus Christ.
That's what they're talking about here, that it's not just kicking it together at a baseball game. It's having relationship with each other, as Christ taught them to have relationship through him. Does that make sense? So this one is not only a fellowship of people, it's a fellowship with people, to God. God is included in this particular version of the fellowship.
So it's important, because a funny thing happens is if you take marriage, for instance, if you both are just sort of moving, how you move through life, you can sometimes find that you get pretty far from each other, and then sometimes you try to get back together with each other, and then you find out the gift of the magi, right. That you end up in the spot where the other person just was, and now they are where you were, and now you're still just as far apart. And then if you're like me, you move in a way that you think is a good direction, but it's a dumb direction. And so then, like, Mandy's chasing me all through the wilderness or whatever, and she's like, why are you being a moron? And I was like, oh, I thought I was doing good.
She's like, no, just take trash out. That's the easy part. That'll fix the whole thing. But there's an interesting thing that does happen, is if God is at the center of your relationship, and this is one of the reasons why godly marriage is so important. All you have to do if you get lost is just go back to God.
Just go back to the word, figure out where you're going wrong, where you're getting squirrely, and move towards God. And even if you're in completely different spots, if you're moving towards God, you're still moving towards each other. That's what the fellowship is so important, because no matter where they go, no matter how lost they get, how scrambled their brain gets, as long as when they get back together, they're getting back together at the feet of God through the teachings of Jesus Christ, through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Then they're moving back towards each other, and they're always close to each other. And all those little cultural isms that they pick up when they move around and go to a different city for a little while, and they come back and they say, you guys, now instead of y'all, and everybody's looking at them weird because, like, don't bring that language in here.
But they know that God is at the center, and that's the important part, that Jesus is at the center, and that's the important part. And so these little things are no longer divisive. They're just funny and quirky. Now I get to say y'all are wanting, even if somebody is watching online in the Canes family house, where they. I don't know what they say in midwest.
What did they say in midwest, y'all?
So this idea, the fellowship, is the blueprint for family. It's the spiritual family. They're all brothers and sisters. We're all brothers and sisters in Christ. So God wanted a family by design.
God wanted a family. Ephesians one five. God decided in advance to adopt us into his family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. God wanted us. He made a way for us to get to him.
No matter how far we ran, he made a way for us to just circle back and get right back to him. How do you do that? If you're feeling lost, check it out. John 112. But to all who did receive him, this is Jesus who believed in his name, also Jesus.
He gave the right to become children of God. God made a way. He made a right for you to become a child of goddess. John 14 six. He did it like this.
Jesus said to him, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except through me. No matter how lost you feel, no matter how alone you feel, God's still there. God still loves you. God wants you to come home.
And best yet, he gave us a blueprint to get there. It's available to everybody.
I always think that that's an incredible thing. It's one of the, I think, major cornerstones that it points toward evidence that Christianity is the correct religion. People always say, like, you know, God has a bunch of religions. How do you know you're not in the wrong one and they're not, you know, whatever that sort of philosophical mind game that people play with me, it's pretty easy. Christianity is the only one that God did all the work, that God made the entire sacrifice, and then just held it out as a gift to anybody that wants it, to everybody that wants it.
You're allowed to reject it because he loves us that much, too. But it's the only one that's inclusive like that. That's all encompassing.
And through that, our relationship has changed. Ephesians 219 for now, you are not strangers and people who are not citizens. You are citizens together with those who belong to God. You belong in God's family. You belong in God's family.
Hear these words. You belong in God's family. No matter what you've done, no matter how badly you think you've messed up, no matter how far away from God you've run, you belong in God's family. You belong there.
I'm just as messed up as you are. I belong there. That's so comforting to me. And to know that we are all in the same boat, all of us thinking ourselves unworthy, rightfully so, and all of us being offered this option to goddess through Jesus. I think God wanting a family, I think is evident.
Have any of you, like, sat down and read the very first part of the New Testament, the very first page of the New Testament, Matthew one, one. The way the whole thing starts, you skim it. Let's be honest, you skim it. You don't go through every begat, begat, begat, gave life to begat, begat. Come on.
God starts the New Testament with a family, a lineage. He draws a line back from Jesus Christ all the way back through David to the abrahamic covenant, that promise that he made way up front. He draws a line back to it so that we can know that he was legitimate, that he was the prophesied one. All the cool prophecies that are in the Old Testament, that's the evidence. He hits all these check marks.
So family is important, but check it out. This is a thought that I had is, that's not where the family tree stops. Because then he passed his, he adopted his guys into the family of God through Jesus. Matthew, Mark, Paul, all those guys are now part of the family. And then those guys went out and they evangelized and they brought more people through Christ to God.
And so that's their family. And so you could actually, right now with me, do the very same thing. A Christian talked to a guy who became a Christian talked to a guy who was a Christian. A Christian. A Christian.
A Christian. And so you can draw a line of discipleship from me all the way back to Jesus Christ, so that the tree is actually a full triangle. Everything before Jesus was building up to Jesus and everything after Jesus hangs off of Jesus, but it's all connected to one guy, Jesus Christ. I think that's pretty cool that if you put that family web together, I am now connected back to that initial covenant through Abraham. That wouldn't have been available to me because I don't know if y'all can see me.
I'm not a whole lot of jew. I wasn't part of that family line, but now I am. I'm adopted in. I have a family. Y'all are my family.
The church is the family.
So what this means, if you're a non believer, is check it out. You have a family. You have a family. You're not alone in this. God is your father.
He's at the head of the family. And we are all brothers and sisters sitting around the dinner table, metaphorically for now, one day, for real. I don't know if they have dinner. I hope so. I like dinner.
I'm not promising a dinner table in heaven. I don't have biblical authority on that one, but I know it'll be something just as awesome, maybe better. Probably better. So if you don't have that, it's available to you right now through a prayer of repentance to Jesus. And if you do have that, if you have already committed your life to Jesus and you follow him, how do you tighten up that family?
You're starting off nice. Come to church. That's good. We have community groups. Our community group is very, very dear to my heart.
I love our community group. If you're not part of a community group yet, talk to me after. I don't have any answers for you. I don't know how you sign up for it. I think there's a thing in the bulletin.
You can definitely just write it in there. I think there might be a checkbox, maybe. But if you can't figure it out, come talk to me. I'll figure it out with you. We'll figure it out.
But get involved in a community group. It'll add a whole lot of family to your life. It'll add a whole lot of village that we're missing.
Step number two, decide to live sacrificially. Decide to live sacrificially. And they devoted themselves to the fellowship and skip the 44 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 have need. So all things. All things is stuff, but it's also time.
It's also ability you have. It's all of those things. And so what this can kind of look like is that it's not necessarily sell all your possessions and give everybody your money. It's make yourself available. Make your possessions available.
Sure. That's part of it. Mandy and I have a family that's going to be moving in with us today, tomorrow, sometime in the next couple of days. They're going into the mission field to do long term mission work and at least that their house is up this weekend. And they were like, I don't know.
I can't figure out where to stay for the next couple of months. Like, come stay at our house so you can use your possessions without, I didn't give them my house. They got to give it back. They got to give me the room back when they leave. It's not their room now.
It's God's room. I'm just a steward of it. And so it's open to them, it's available to them. But it doesn't necessarily mean stuff, though. It's the stuff you can do with your hands.
If you're an incredible carpenter, helping out your family, fix a leaky sink or whatever. If you've got those kind of skills, using your talents, putting your time into people, sometimes it's just hanging out with them. They just need to talk and cry a little bit. Just make yourself available and just be there. It can look like all kinds of stuff.
So it's not one preconceived notion of sell all your stuff and give all your money away. And this idea of that they had everything in common basically means what it looks like in today's church is every asset that every one of us has available is available to every one of us if we're living in a family way, if we're living in the right way, that every single thing I have is available to you. That includes my time if you need it. That includes my skills if you need them. That includes a room at my house, my car if you need a ride somewhere.
We could figure this stuff out without getting too out of our comfort zone. And I bet what we would find is the more we got out of our comfort zone, the more that would become our comfort zone. And then it wouldn't even be that weird to say, yeah, come live with me for a while. I get some cross looks whenever people like they're tired. They're used to it now.
But like, especially back in the day when we were like, you have another family living with you? Yeah. For how long? A year maybe, I don't know. However long it takes them to get back up.
That's crazy. Are they paying rent? No. If they were paying rent, they wouldn't be at my house first. John 316 17 by this we know, love that he laid down his life for us.
We ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Put another way, if God loved us so much that he laid down the life of his son, and Jesus loved us so much that he laid down his own life, how can that love dwell in me if I'm not even willing to share this temporal dust of stuff that we have?
Galatians 610 therefore, whenever we have the opportunity, we should do good to everyone, especially to those in the family of the faith. So I do want to talk about, there's a couple of little weird, tangential things on this that I do want to hit, and one of them is at face value. They devoted themselves to the fellowship 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. Sounds like a commune. Sounds like it gets used to argue, like, socialism a lot.
Well, look, the socialism is biblical. It says right there, sell all your stuff. I would argue against that, and here's why. I don't see anywhere in here where it says, put the government in charge of all your stuff.
I know that I've been given a certain amount of stuff, and as long as I'm the steward of it, as long as it's in my charge, I know what I can use it for. And I can use it for the kingdom of heaven. Only if I do use it for the kingdom of heaven. But my antisocialism, if you're a socialist, we could talk after. I think there's some good stuff, some good ideas out of it, but I think historically, governmentally, it hasn't worked out that well 100% of the time.
But I think this, I just wanted to throw that in because you might hear somebody use that and you go, wait, is that really what it means? Not really. What it means is all of us use all of our assets for the betterment of everybody around us. What it means. That's a different way you could do it, I guess you could just sell all of our stuff and put all money in the middle of a table, and we just figure it out.
But historically, humans are sinful creatures. Now just take all your money. So, another thing with what this looks like is recently Mandy had surgery. She was down for a while, and so our community group, when she went down, our community group sent so much food to our house, I had to send him a message that was like, y'all have to start sending some other people as well. We cannot possibly eat this much food.
Our refrigerator was all the way up. Cause we had a need. They were taking care of us. They rallied around us. I know there's a lot of community groups that have that very same story.
Somebody went down. Somebody went down with cancer, somebody went down with surgery, somebody went down with some kind of catastrophic injury, and their family came around them. At our church, I think it's pretty cool. I'm part of the deacon body. The deacon body.
In terms of, like, deaths and families and funerals and stuff. The deacon body, we set to rally around that. When someone is not in a community group, it's a hard moment to happen. But one of the things that really lifts me up and one of the reasons why I think community groups are so important is the number of times that all I have to do is just stand there in a suit and point at a funeral. Welcome.
Welcome. Because the group has lifted this family up, and they're taking care of them, and they've handled the whole funeral arrangements, and they're going to take them home after, and they're going to sit with them and pray with them, because they've got that family. It's there, so it's there. If you don't have it, it's there in a broader sense. It's there in the rest of the world.
Mandy and I, we were missionaries in Africa for a long time. I don't know if any of you are new. You don't know that, but we lived there for a couple of years. And one day, we had a little baby that was living with us, and little baby got sick, and little baby got Kylie sick, and little baby got mandy sick and got me sick. And we were all sick.
And I mean, like, sick sick, down sick. Like, can't get up out of bed sick, messed up sick for a better part of a week, a day or two in a little knock on the door, open it. It's like 20 women. It was like a whole house full of women are standing there. They got, like, buckets, and, like, what is this?
They just walk in, they start cooking, they start cleaning. They're cleaning the floors. They take all the linens that were a hot mess and take them out in the back, and they're cleaning those up. I'm, like, lost. It's so befuddling to me.
None of them speak English, so I don't know. They're just like, excuse me. And then they're just in the house doing everything, taking care of us. Some of them run to the market, get stuff if we need, bring it back over, and then once they were done, packed it up.
Clink. What just happened? Well, what happened was our family rose up around us, and when they saw we needed, the funny thing about need, and I think this is an american thing, too, is that we hide our needs as a culture. I think when we need something, we have this mindset of, I'll handle it, I'll do it. I don't want to be a burden on somebody else.
I don't want to bother somebody else. They've got their stuff going on. I don't want to pile on. Oh, we'll figure it out. We'll do it.
We'll figure it out. Can I submit to you an idea when you hide your needs out of maybe politeness? I would submit that it's not actually polite. I would submit the idea that you're actually preventing me from doing the thing that God has asked me to do by helping you, that I'm only able to help you if I know you need help, and I'm charged by God to help you. And so if you hide what you need from me, I can't help you.
I can't do the thing that God instructed me to do.
So as an american society, I don't imagine that we're ever going to get past that, but we are first and foremost God's family. And so maybe inside God's family, if you're a closed off person, open up a little bit. Let the people around you help you. Give them the opportunity to do what God's asked them to do.
Step number three, commit to gather regularly. Commit to gather regularly 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 people, day by day. There's that word, devoted. They were devoted to the temple together.
We got a good start here. We get a head start on our weekend. Sunday mornings, we all get together. Everybody, I'll take attendance real quick. Okay?
Everybody gets gold star for attendance today. But there's a lot more week than just these couple of hours.
Commit to getting together with your family more than you do. Whatever that is. Whatever it is. Hear the ideal version of it. Day by day worshiping in the temple.
This is a corporate worship style. It's important.
Corporate worship is different. It affects people differently than private worship. You should also have private worship. Private prayer time, that's good. But public prayers are different.
They're both good. We need both. It's cool to sing worship songs in your shower. It's even cooler to come here and sing it with everybody. It feels different.
It's biblical. Hebrews 1025. We should not stop gathering together with other believers as some of you are doing. Instead, we must continue to encourage each other even more as we see the day of the Lord coming. There are a lot of people in this area that, yeah, I'm a Christian.
What church do you go to? Eh, I haven't been to a church. Okay. How are you growing? I don't fall along the line of you can't be a Christian and not be in a church.
I think you can be a Christian and not in a church. I think you can't be a good Christian and not in a church. I think you can't be a growing Christian and not in a church. You can't be a healthy, functioning Christian and not in a church because without the community around you, you don't have the support, the support to really reach out and get bold and brave and crazy. You also probably don't really know what's going on.
You don't have that network going on. You don't know when you're doing something whack, you don't have your family to go, what is this thing you're doing now? I don't think that hat you're wearing is biblical. You know what I mean? You don't have that somebody to keep you in check when you're getting nuts.
Corporate worship is for our encouragement. It's to lift us up even higher than we could get by ourselves. It's also for our sanctification. Acts 542 and every day in the temple and from house to house. They did not cease teaching and preaching that Christ is Jesus.
Every day they're teaching, preaching Christ is Jesus. And corporate worship also points to a future reality. There is going to come a day when we sit at his feet and cry, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty. Together as one voice in harmony, I in him and him in me, all of us as one entity, one body of Christ. Revelation 7910 after this I looked and behold a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne before the lamb, clothed in white robes with branches in their hands and crying out with a loud voice, salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the lamb.
That's the future we get. The future we get is to sing together, worship God together, be with God together.
Gathering regularly is the practice that we get now, that's the part we get now to spend time together learning all this stuff and getting. And this is the important part. As many other brothers and sisters into the house as we can. That's why we get to run around like this. That's why it's important.
That's why you don't just. The minute you find God and finally figure out your way to God, he doesn't just teleport you back home real quick. Oh, found it. Boop. He gets come back.
Cause you have somebody in your brain right now that does not have what you have, that does not have the gift that you've been given, that has rejected that gift for whatever reason, you know who they are, and you are uniquely positioned to plant a seed, to water a seed, to cultivate a small plant. You are uniquely positioned in some way, in the way that you are the best positioned to reach out and touch that person's heart and to let them know God loves you and you're not too far from God.
Prioritize, worship together. And worship doesn't just happen in this room. It doesn't just happen on Sundays. It can happen any night of the week. It could happen any morning, any lunchtime, any dinner time.
Worship together. It's okay to still get together and just shoot the breeze. Watch a football game. That's fine, too.
And if that's kind of where you are, just throw this little wrinkle in. When whoever you're hanging out with and whenever they're leaving, just say, hey, you know, before you go, can I pray with you? Is there anything you got going on? Let me pray with you. Just start to drop those little seeds, to start expanding.
How much time we spend in fellowship. How much time we spend in the fellowship. I think of it like this, to be devoted, to be wholly in, to be all in. I think about it kind of like this. I imagine if you're in the military, that you go through training.
I mean, you do. I don't imagine that part. You do go through training. I imagine that when you're going through training, you're going through a set of steps. You're working with a set of guys, and you're doing this particular task.
I imagine when you were picked up from training, put on a plane, and dropped into a live fire war zone, and people are now shooting bombs at you, I imagine you're a lot more invested in the guys around you and the tasks that you were doing and the instructions that you've been given and all of the training that you did, you probably were trying when you were training. But when it's succeed or don't go home to your family, those stakes are way bigger. That's wholly all incommitted. And so I use that as this idea of, I can do church, I can play church, I could get up here and play music because I like music. But for me it's so much more important because it is life or death to be wholly holy.
Holy in that to charge myself up when I'm up here, to charge myself up as much as I possibly can, to take that battery out in the world and start using that power wherever I can get it. And I want to be empty by the time I get to come back here and worship with you guys again.
If you're not quite there, I encourage you, take another step. If you take a step and you fall down and you need something, remember you got family to pick you up to help you out. Amen. Amen. So now the question is to you, what do you do?
Will you choose to belong fully to God's family if you haven't already?
Will you decide to live sacrificially with God's family? Give everything you have? Will you commit to getting together regularly with God's family, to lift each other up, to help each other out as any have need?
Let's pray.
Father God, thank you for today. Thank you for this place. Thank you for the opportunity to hear your word. Father God, I ask that you take those words, those beautiful, pure, powerful words, and you embed them into our hearts. Each heart, every heart that's in this room that it can grow.
And Father God, I ask that you don't let it grow like a tree. Let it grow like wild vines in every direction, not just up towards you, but out. That we can tangle our vines together and cover this world, that we can wrap up and embrace in love, in your love, every lost member of our family that doesn't know you yet.
If that's you, if you're hearing my voice and you want family, you want to belong to God, have good news. You do. You belong in God's family. And it's super, super easy to get there. God already did the work.
Jesus already made the sacrifice. All you gotta do is accept it. Father God, I'm a sinner. I've run away from you. I've lived my own life.
I'm ashamed of it. I'm sorry.
I'm sorry I put it at your feet. I'm unclean. Make me clean. Lord Jesus, you made the sacrifice to clean my heart. I accept your sacrifice and I want to follow you.
And if that's your prayer, if that's your heart's desire, have some incredible news. Welcome to the family.
We got a long, long, long future together to worship God.
If you've been saved for a long time, but you just feel distant from God, take this time. Take this idea of reaching out.
Find your brothers and sisters. Get hold of them. Let them pull you back in.
We love you. We still love you. We're commanded to love you as Christ loved you. If you're in some behavior that you're ashamed of and that's what's preventing you, don't try to fix the behavior before you get back to God. Let God work with you.
Be prayerful. Let us help you.
That's what we're here for.
And if you're feeling pretty good, feeling pretty confident in your walk with God, reach out. There's people hurting around you somewhere. Father God, open my eyes to see. Open my ears to hear anguished voices. Father God, let my hands always be available to lift somebody up.
Father God, put people in my path that are going to challenge me. Put people in my path that are hopelessly lost.
Give me the courage and the strength to know that your wisdom through me is working on the hearts of the world around me.
Father God, we love you. Amen. I.