Sermon Tone Analysis

DEVOTIONS

When you hear the word devotions, what comes to mind?

Morning devotional time?

Readings:

Bible reading - through the bible in a year

We have a group of ladies doing the bible reading challenge

Our Daily Bread - Monthly devotional books, I remember these growing up

My Utmost for His Highest - Oswald Chambers

Charles Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening - God used this in my life to bring me back to Christ.

Prayers:

The Valley of Vision

Prayer lists

Journaling

a time to write down thoughts and prayers

These are all great devotional habits - but when we think about the word DEVOTION, there should be more to describe our devotions than just quiet time with God.

The Apostles Teaching in Acts

To be devoted to something is to be fiercely committed, it is to continue in something despite how difficult it might be.

It is to be loyal, to hold fast to something.

We see this with professional athletes who devote themselves fully (their mind, body, diet, time, everything) to perfecting their craft.

If you read about folks like Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs you’ll see that they all fully devote themselves to their work.

Every habit in their lives are purposeful and are put in place to cultivate success.

To be truly devoted is not a casual thing, but rather it is a life submitted in its entirety to the purpose or calling.

Paul tells the church in Corinth that he wants them to have an undivided devotion to the Lord.

(1 cor 7.35)

To be devoted to the Lord is to be fully committed to him, in every way, for all of life.

So what does this look like?

what does it look like to be a devoted follower of Christ?

What are the habits of those who have been redeemed in Christ?

How are we to live with an undivided devotion to the Lord?

Over the next few weeks we are going to looking at and discover how the word of God describes devotion to King Jesus.

After Peter finishes preaching his great sermon at Pentecost, the scriptures tell us that 3000 people were added to their number.

That is, 3000 people repented of their sins and began following Jesus Christ as King.

And then Luke tells us in v.42

2

So using as a foundation and a launching pad, We will look at six habits the people of God, the people of Exodus Church, are to be devoted too.

We will see…

DEVOTIONS: The Habits of the Redeemed

The Apostles Teaching

The Fellowship

The Breaking of bread

The Prayers

The Offerings

The Mission

And when we look at acts 2:42

******We see that this word devoted is a present-active verb, which means they constantly devoted themselves, they persisted in devoting themselves… This is an ongoing action… These are devotions that really direct and form their lives.

The fellowship

- κοινωνία - the community of believers

fellowship” (κοινωνία)

The Breaking of Bread

- This is a reference not only to eating meals together as a community, but also eating the Eucharistic meal together.

The Prayers

Prayers

So this morning we will begin with the Apostles Teaching

DEVOTIONS: The Apostle’s Teaching

Luke makes three points.

(1) The apostles regarded teaching as one of their main responsibilities (cf.

6:1–6).

(2) The believers continuously listened to the apostles.

(3) The believers practiced what they heard the apostles teach (otherwise they would not “persistently devote” [the meaning of the periphrastic here] themselves to their teaching).

The apostles were the first teachers for the church after the resurrection of Christ.

They built a the foundation of teaching that all pastors and teachers are to build upon.

The 12 apostles were given the great responsibility to preach, teach, pastor, lead, and disciple those who pledged their allegiance to Christ. .

We see throughout Acts, that the Apostles (mainly Paul) traveled throughout the roman empire teaching and preaching and planting churches.

And when people turned from their sins and followed Christ they then devoted themselves to the teaching of the Apostles

So for us to devote ourselves to the apostles teaching, we must first know what it was that they taught.

So first we want to know

So what was it that the Apostles were teaching?

One thing worth noting, all the apostles were either imprisoned, tortured, or martyred for their faith,

In chapter 6 we see the apostles appointing deacons for the purpose of taking care of the people and free up the apostles to devote themselves to the preaching of God word

The believers continuously listened to the apostles.

When the apostles taught the people they were affected, the power of the word of God changed

The believers practiced what they heard the apostles teach

This is what it means to be devoted,

To be devoted to the apostles teaching was not to make sure they showed up at 9 or 11 to hear the sermon, rather to be devoted to the apostles teaching was to obey their teachings as they were teaching the very words of God.

not only would they obey or practice their teaching, but they were formed, they were changed, by the teaching of Gods word.

This is one thing we need to understand, the Apostles teaching that the believers are to be devoted to is indeed the teaching of God’s word.

They were not teaching their

It was through the word of God that the universe was created

Isaiah says that t

As followers of Christ

so they were not teaching some sort of health and wealth, your best life now sort of stuff.

They were not teaching some sort of self-help guide.

What were the apostles teaching?

In fact, they were not teaching from any new source, but rather they were teaching from the word of God, what we would call the Old Testament - however they were teaching with new eyes (but we will get into that in a few min).

The Apostles were devoted to the teaching and preaching of God’s Word.

And to be honest, they made a really big deal out of teaching God’s word.

In Acts 6 we see the apostles call for deacons to help with the ministry so they could focus on the preaching and teaching of God’s Word.

In acts 6 they appoint deacons so they can focus on preaching the word of God.

They knew, and the people who were devoted to their teaching knew, that word of God is what brings life out of death.

It is the word of God that revives the soul

if we were to follow the apostles teaching throughout acts we would see people deeply affected, changed, and excited to hear the apostles teach them the word of God.

The Apostles understood the life and even world changing power of the Word of God.

It is the word of God that has the highest authority

For the word of God is able to

It is through the word of God that our eyes our opened and our hearts are changed.

It is through the word of God that we are conformed into the image of Christ.

I love how David talks about the word of God in

What were the apostles teaching?

The Word of God

Church, like David we are to be devoted to the word of God.

For it is far more desirable than an abundance of gold, and far sweeter than the sweetest honey.

David sees the word of God not just as a book of helpful advice, but he see’s the scriptures as life itself, as the very words of life.