A Devoted Church

Introduction

There is a tomb in the Arlington National Cemetery called the Tomb of the Unknoown Soldier. And there is an infantry guard there that has been guarding the tomb 24hours a day, seven days a week, for 365 days a year since 1937.

These guards are called Sentinels and belong to the oldest infantry company that exists in the US Army—The Old Guard (3rd Infantry Unit) has been serving the US since 1784. Becoming a Sentinel is rigorous because these men and women must be completely devoted to their duty in guarding the tomb. When they are not on a guard duty they are studying history, service manuals, maintaing their equipment which must be emaculate, and helping prepare other Sentinels for their upcoming shift in guarding the tomb.

The definition of devotion is to be given over to the display, study, or discussion of something.

The Sentinels who guard the Tomb of the Unknown Solider are devoted to their service. It consumes and defines them while they are serving in that role.

We probably expect that a military unit of such high esteem—with such an important task—to honor the unknown fallen soldiers—would be devoted.

But friends—devotion doesn’t just belong to the military. In fact we all probably know someone who is devoted to something? A sport, a game, a hobby, a career, a relationship. People can be devoted to all sorts of things.

The question this morning: Is our devotion rightly placed?

This morning as we turn to Acts 2:42-47 we see that the church was devoted to certain things and then we see the results of their rightly placed devotion.

And our goal this morning Covenant Life is to survey our own hearts and decide what we will be devoted to in 2023.

Turn with me to Acts 2 starting in verse 42 and we’ll see

4 Places to be Devoted

Number 1. Acts 2:42 “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.”

The first place our passage starts this morning is to make the point that the church devoted themselves to the Apostles Teaching. Which is short hand for God’s word. They were receiving what we have received in our Bible’s. They were hearing the word of God from the mouth of the Apostles. But--

They were given over to the display, study, and discussion of it.

The Word of God—the teaching of the word—it’s principles and commands—its wisdom defined their lives and rightly consumed them.

Friends what about us?

Can you truthfully say that you are devoted to the word of God? That you are given over to the display, study and discussion of it?

We don’t want to be legalists here: Well how much study counts as devotion? How much discussion counts as devotion?

Can you say that you are devoted to God’s Word?

Or is God’s word more of a burden on your life? It’s a checklist that causes you frustration. A weight of guilt—something you think you should do but don’t do?

Friends, if the latter is true let me encourage you to repent. And I don’t mean that as judgment. Like your pastor is angry. I say that with compassion—because I have many times in my life—by the ministry of the Holy Spirit—come to realize that I had taken the precious word of God and regarded it as some kind of burden.

So repentance is necessary. And repentance is a relief.

Acts 3:19-20 “Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord...

If that is you this morning then know that just beyond repentance are times of refreshing that come from the presence of the Lord.

And that is what our Bibles are all about. If you missed our conference in November the main takeaway of that conference was that God desires our presence. The Word of God is not a cold delivery of dead words but is an invitation to spend time with the living God in His living Word.

And God wants to spend time with you! He delights in your company! So spend time with Him.

Decide today: if you’re not already—I’m going to devote myself to God’s Word not so I can have a cold dead knowledge but so that I can know my God!

So read the Word, study the Word, discuss the Word. Get a Bible reading plan and read it. Then talk about. Let’s follow the example of our brothers and sisters in Acts and be devoted to it. Amen?

Number 2. Acts 2:42 “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.”

We should be devoted to the fellowship.

The early church was not only devoted to the Word of God but they were devoted to the fellowship.

Well what does that mean exactly? Don’t think potluck. For a lot of the church— “We had fellowship—means we ate.”

No instead think Lord of the Rings. J.R.R. Tolkien’s first book in that series was called the Fellowship of the Ring.

And if you are unfamiliar with that story—I’m sad for you—but it’s about how different people from different backgrounds are all united together and devoted to the same cause. They are bound in fellowship—in meaningful relationship—by a common task. In their case To destroy the One Ring in the fires of Mordor. In our case to be a church where the presence of God is felt among His people.

The church should be devoted to the fellowship of believers. This means that we should have a biblical understanding of what it means to be a Christian.

There are far too many Christian individuals in the church. When God saves somebody he saves them into a body—into a family—into a church.

Are you devoted to being in relationship with the people that are in your church? Do people really know you? Are you vulnerable with them?

When the church gathers together are you excited to gather with them? Or are the people of God your “church friends”?

1 Corinthians 12:7 says “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”

Believers are given gifts by the Holy Spirit for the good of body. And that doesn’t just mean for the functioning of the activities of the church.

It’s that…but it’s more than that. Who Doug is…His gifts as a person…are good for me. They minister to me. Who Rosie is. Who Dave is. Who Noah is. How God has made them and gifted them is meant for your good.

And when we “protect” ourselves from really knowing each other we are missing out of the blessings of God that He means for us to receive as we are in meaningful fellowship with one another.

This is something we should be devoted to.

And I could go on longer on each of these points but for times sake let’s keep moving. (If encouraged—talk about prioritizing your schedule in the right way—making rooms for these things.)

Number 3. Acts 2:42 “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.”

Our text also says they were devoted to the breaking of the bread. Okay, now you can think potluck.

In it’s most obvious sense this means they were devoted to eating together. To feeding each other. To spending time at the table.

So for us what does this mean? I think first it means in your own home—if you have a family eat meals together as often as you can.

It is easy to be a house full of people eating meals at separate times. And sometimes that is necessary given schedule conflicts or whatever, but as often as it can be done…Pause the activities of the house and eat together at the same table without the T.V. on.

Be devoted to the breaking of bread with your own family.

I think another application is that we make space in our lives for breaking bread with others in the church. Is it more hassle to invite people into your home after a long day and feed them? Yes! Absolutely. Let’s not be holier than thou church.

But is it worth it? Yes, absolutely. A lot of the time it is more of a hassle because we don’t want people to see our mess—or we feel that our home must be clean and tidy to host others. Hospitality doesn’t require you to have a Better Homes and Gardens showcase house.

I’m not saying go out of your way to have a messy house, but don’t keep yourself from breaking bread with others because you live in your home.

We do Family Meal once a month here because there is something intimate and special about eating a meal with other people. There is something relationship building about preparing or buying food for others—to feed them and then sitting down with them to eat.

But don’t let the only time you eat with each other be at Family Meal.

There is a generosity of time, resources, and relationship that is built into eating together and so we do a good thing devoting ourselves to it.

It builds fellowship in the church.

Number 4. Acts 2:42 “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.”

Our text tells us that the church was devoted to the prayers.

Let me encourage you to be devoted to prayer.

Let me encourage you: every believer struggles with prayer. Of the spiritual disciplines prayer is probably the hardest.

But I think it is hard because we think about prayer wrongly.

Prayer is hard for us because we are so often focused on us—even in our prayers—even if we are praying for others its from a view that prayer is about what we have to say to God.

Prayer—like Bible reading and study—is not a cold task but is meant to be time spent with God.

Burn Parson’s writing for Table Talk says,

“Thus, Christians don’t actually believe in the power of prayer—we believe in the power of God, and that is why we pray. So, when we pray, we are reminded of who we’re not—we’re reminded that we’re not God and that we’re not in control. We’re reminded that God is sovereign and in control, and so we must recognize that prayer is our daily and continual surrender of our perceived control over our lives to the One who has control of them and cares about them more than we do.”

When we have the right focus of prayer—God— and that prayer is an act of our dependence on Him and our trust in Him—prayer becomes easier.

It’s not going to God with the right combination of words so that He’ll move and act on our behalf.

It’s going to our Father in desperation because we want someone to be healed, to know Jesus. It’s going to God and saying help me with my heart. Help me with my finances. God move in me. Let me behold your glory.

It’s recognizing our dependence on God and his Love for us.

Do you pray to God like he loves you?

Prayer is such an important part of the church and it is the easiest to neglect.

I must confess that I, as your pastor, have done a poor job by my own estimation in leading you in prayer. We can look forward in 2023 to more opportunities of gathered prayer as the body of Christ.

Because we should be devoted to prayer like we see the church devoted to prayer in Acts.

But why all the devotion?

Transition: Okay, so far, I have spent half of my time telling you what we should be devoted to as followers of Jesus. Let’s spend the rest of our time seeing the results of having our devotion cast in the right places. In the rest of our text we see 8 results of the church in Act’s devotion to God’s Word, fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayer. Look with me at the next verse.

Acts 2:43 “And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles.”

1. We see in the early church that the first result of their devotion cast on God and the things of God is that “awe came upon every soul...”

And it says that “many signs and wonders were being done through the apostles.” All we need to know about that is that we should not look for the “sign gifts” as normative for the church today. If you look throughout the Bible God always validated His moving amongst His people with signs and miracles. When Moses was called— God said they’ll know I sent you when you make your hand leprous or this staff become a snake. When the prophets were called and sent they were often accompanied by signs and wonders that people would know that this was the hand of God.

And when Christ came and established his final covenant it was substantiated by signs and wonders that the people of God would know that this was the move of God. But this does not mean that we should expect individuals to be given the spiritual gift of healing as a regular practice in the church. That was for a time to establish the validity of what was happening.

But we can expect what is first said.

First God’s word says as His people were devoted to Him “awe came upon every soul”.

When we devote ourselves to God we can expect to be awed by God.

Psalm 37:4 “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.”

When your delight is God He gives you what you desire—more of Him. And when you are experiencing more and more of God in your life you better believe that you will be awed!

But we should not think of “awe” as some sort of fascinating exhibit at a fair.

The word translated as “awe” is Phobos from Phobemai which means to be “put to flight”. And the idea here is experiencing the awesomeness of God in such a way that you are aware of His glory and your inadequacy.

It’s the picture of God’s people at the Mountain of God. As God descends on the mountain smoke rises, he speaks in thunderous booms, and the people are distinctly aware that God is awesome in power and glory.

When I was a kid we lived in a trailer with no central heating. We had a couple of space heaters in important rooms. And the one in our bedroom would burn super hot. And I used to see how close I could get to it. The closer I got the more I wanted to turn away because of the amount of heat it was putting off. The heat was good but it was overwhelming if I got too close.

Being awed by God is like that. He is good and glorious and He draws us near but the closer we get—the more of him we feel and experience—the more we have to turn our eyes away a bit because He is so glorious.

When you are devoted to God you are given a clearer and more visceral picture of who He is and who you are and how wonderful the gospel is and how powerful Christ is to save.

Friends, the world needs the people of God to be in awe of God.

It’s right worship, number one, God is worthy of all our praise and the best of our praise in lives lived out to Him in all ways obedient to His revealed word.

But also the world needs to see the people of God living in the power of God. You may have heard me say before that the church needs to stop thinking that looking and acting like the world—who is dead in their sin—is going to draw people to life in Christ.

“Christians don’t need to be weird.” That was said a lot in my youth years and early 20’s. “Christians don’t need to be weird.”

And what they meant was that Christians need to blend in—let people see that we are just like them. Then they won’t be turned off of Jesus.

“Christians don’t need to be weird—but they need to be holy!”

We should stand out. For what does life have to do with death? What does salt water have to do with fresh water?!

How can we go around saying God saves and Jesus changes lives while we try our hardest to cover up all the life and change that comes with salvation?!

We should not be ashamed of God. We need to live in the power of God and God will save all those whom He calls to Jesus and he’ll use the witness of His power lived out in His people as a means to do it!

The world needs to see us devoted to God and the things of God. Amen?! Let it be us Lord.

2. Acts 2:44 “And all who believed were together and had all things in common.”

The second result of devotion cast on God is that the people of God had godly unity.

When the people of God are caught up in the worship of God amongst the people of God we can expect that there will be unity among those people.

Our text says they were together and they had all things in common.

This doesn’t mean that they agreed on absolutely everything. But it means that who they were in God—and their combined worship of God overcame all things so that they had unity.

Paul says in Philippians 2:3-4 “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.”

This is possible when the church as a whole is devoted to God.

3. Acts 2:45 “And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need.”

When the people of God are devoted to God—when their focus and their lives are lived in worship of God they have godly priorities.

This isn’t a proof text saying you shouldn’t own anything and we should all be socialists.

The point is that the people of God in the early church prioritized godly values over worldly values—they loved each other more than their stuff.

They were willing to sacrifice to care for one another.

We can expect as we cast our devotion on God that our priorities will become more godly.

Do you want to be more generous? More loving? Less materialistic? Seek God and communion with God and you can expect that the pull of this world’s priorities will lose their strength.

4. Acts 2:46 “And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts,”

Our text says day by day they were going to the temple together to worship.

As we cast our devotion rightly on God we can expect that daily worship will become the norm for our lives. Not just worship once a week. But daily worship in our homes, at the table, with our families.

We can expect that our lives will be defined by worship. Not because we have to—but because we want to.

As we are devoted to God—as we are given over to the display, study, and discussion of Him we will want to worship Him.

5. Looking at the rest of verse 46 we see that they were content with what God had given them.

When we are devoted to God we can expect contentment.

It was with glad and generous hearts that they broke bread together. They were content with their blessings.

Our whole world economy is built on being discontent. Our lives are filled with clutter and this constant desire for more things.

But when you are devoted to God and your priorities are placed in the right spot you are content with your life because it is filled with God.

It is filled with the people of God and the worship of God and the blessings of God and your neighbor might have a nicer car than you, but you literally have God and so you are content.

When you have everything spiritually you can be content with having little physically. And if you have many physical blessings they aren’t your contentment but instead they are resources that God has given you to be a blessing to others. (Dave Axeselle)

6. Acts 2:47 “praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.”

When we are devoted to God we can expect increased praise in our lives.

When was the last time you praised God? Well we just praised him—we’ve been doing it this whole service.

You’re right. But when was the last time you looked at the circumstances of your life and noticed what God was doing and praised Him.

You stopped and said, “Thank you God. Praise you God. You are good to me. You are wonderful in your care of me and my family.”

When was the last time you were overwhelmed by God’s goodness in such a way that you had to praise Him. Or tell someone what He did?

When we are devoted to God we can expect that we will praise God.

The truth is that God is kind to us in 1000 different ways and when we are regularly living our lives out with God we see more and more of those kindnesses and are genuinely moved to praise Him over it.

7. Verse 27 also tells us that the early church as a result of their devotion to God “had favor with all the people”.

When we are devoted to God we will be a people that love others because they bear the image of God.

All people are image bearers and all people deserve respect and kindness.

And let’s just be honest—the church can be accused and rightly so—of tribalism and a lack of love for the lost.

I witnessed a man standing on a street corner with the angriest face screaming at passersby that Jesus loved them. Someone should have told his face.

It’s about being a good missionary. We are good neighbors and citizens because we love God and we are about the mission of God and we don’t want to put a stumbling block to the gospel before people with the way we live and act.

And when we are devoted to God we are able more to put up with hard people because the Spirit of God works patience, and gentleness, and self-control into us—the fruits of the Spirit.

I want more of that. How about you?

8. And finally verse 47 tells us an amazing result of God’s people being devoted to God.

The word says, “And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.”

And after all that we have been discussing this morning is this a surprise to us church?

How does God draw people to salvation? He draws them to His Son! He draws people to Jesus their savior. And he does this through His people that have already experienced this great salvation.

When the church is devoted to God as they should be the result is that we are in awe of God and we become more godly ourselves and we paint this beautiful picture of otherness—of holiness—that a dying and thirsty world sees.

And as a result they are drawn to the light and life in us. And they hear the proclamation of the good news of Jesus Christ and God awakens them to their sin and salvation and they are saved.

Friends, if we are devoted to God we can expect this in our lives. In the life of our church.

Conclusion

The Sentinels who guard The Tomb of the Unknown Soldied are devoted to a worthy cause.

But friends we have such a higher calling—a purer devotion. We are the children of the Living God. We are the ambassadors of Christ. We have experienced life from death. And we know the good news that saves people.

This morning if you have found that your devotion is lacking don’t be discouraged…I am positive that you and I are not as devoted as we should be. I’m positive that at the end of 2022 and the beginning of 2023 we need to make some tweaks to our worship of our Great God.

And that’s not surprising because we live in this battle against our flesh. So if the enemy is trying to discourage you this morning don’t be.

Instead let our hearts be encouraged. Friends, we really can live our lives this year devoted to God. Devoted to the things of God.

As we draw near to God He draws near to us. Our lives can be filled with the worship of our amazing God and as a result we can become more and more filled with the awe of God. We can live lives praising God in contentment with generous hearts. We can live lives filled with the presence of God in such a way that lost people are drawn to God in us.

We can live lives—not in conformity with the world—but we can be a people set apart and devoted to God and the things of God.

What will you decide to be devoted to this year? What will be the aim of your life this year?

Friends, whatever other goals we had in mind—let our highest desire this year be to be a people devoted to God.

And as we pursue this we can expect that our lives and our church would look like our brothers and sisters here in Acts 2. Pray with me.