Now what?

Some of you have heard this expression “my cup is full” or possibly “my cup is empty”

And really a lot of times it is reffering to how full your life feels.

If your cup is full then chances are:

You feel satisfied

You feel energized

You feel like your life is full right?

and then If your cup is empty you might here the phrases

I am constantly exhausted

I don’t feel like getting out of bed

I feel worn

and you feel empty right?

But when you are living a life where you are full it looks different then when you live when you feel like you are running on empty right?

And really what we are going to be looking at today is a passage of scripture where it talks about what a full life looks like.

And not just full in the sense of “I feel full or complete”, but really what we are talking about is what our lives look like when we are filled with God’s Spirit.

Because if you look at what are lives look like when they are filled with God’s Spirit they look very different then when they are not.

So we are in Acts 2:42-47and if you were here last week you will remember that an event called Pentacost tool place where the people who were following Christ were filled with the Holy Spirit

And because of them being filled with the Holy Spirit what happens is we see them start to fo some really extraordinary things

In fact we are told between last week and this week one of the Christ followers named Peter got up and preaches an amazing sermon and basically in this sermon he just lays out the gospel message as plain as day

and what happens is we are told that 3000 people end up accepting Christ and get Baptized.

And so now you have this small group of Christians who have been filled with God’s Spirit and then this new group of 3000 Christians who are filled with the Spirit.

And what happens in this passage is it shows us what happens now that these people are fulled with God’s Spirit

And what we are going to be looking at today and really asking ourselves is if I believe God has filled me with His spirit then what should my life look like and not just that, but if God has filled our church with His spirit what should our church look like or really any community when it becomes spirit filled.

So once again we are in Acts 2:42-47 and we will be starting in the first part of verse 42. It says this...

Acts 2:42 (NIV)

The Fellowship of the Believers

42 They devoted...

So they are talking what this group of people looks like when they are Spirit Filled and the first thing it says is that they were devoted.

and what we need to understand is each of us have things we are devoted too

and these things we are devoted to actually shape shape what our life looks like.

For example say you said my life is devoted to my kids

Chances are your life might look like a soccer mom,

You might have a mini van, chances are under the seats there are cherios and mcdonalds fries from when your on the go.

and you are probably driving all over the place because of your kids sports, extra curriculer activities or whatever else they are involved in.

But you know if we took an inventory in our life where we said okay what are the things I am devoted to, I can almost guarantee that all of us could think of 3 or 4 things where we would say these are the things my life is centered or devoted too.

And in the same way the people in this passage are devoted

And look at the rest of these verses because really this passage shows exactly what they were devoted to. The rest of verse 42:

Acts 2:42 (NIV)

The Fellowship of the Believers

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

So they are devoting them to to the apostles teaching, meaning they want to learn about Jesus, but not just that it mentions that they are devoted them to fellowship and breaking of bread (which is referring to communion) and then prayer.

And I want you to notice that if you were to summarize the things they are devoted to in this verse you could summarize them in they were devoted to God and to His church.

And can I just point out when you are filled with God’s Spirit you should be first off devoted to God, but then somewhere on your list should probably be His church.

And I know some of you are thinking well can’t I just be devoted to God?! Why does His church have to be on the list?!

Because I lover God, but the people in His church are messy!

But its almost like this: If you have a close friend and that close friend gets married to someone chances are you like the spouse right?

And thats not saying their spouse is perfect, in fact they may have some flaws, but ultimatley you should be able to look at that person and think “wow! I this is what that person see in them”

And really this is true for the church

Because the Bible calls the church the bride of Christ which means if we are devoted to God, we should be devoted to His bride

And look at these next couple verses (verses 43-44) because it says this:

Acts 2:43–44 NIV

43 Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. 44 All the believers were together and had everything in common.

So all of these believes have everything in common, not meaning they all liked the same things or looked the same (in fact they were actually a very diverse group from different nations and ethnicities.

They probably liked different food

They most likely sometimes spoke different languages

I bet they even liked different paint colors or carpet

but the thing that they were common in is what they were devoted to and happened is this diverse group of people were able to be unified

And because of these things and all of the things happening it says people begin to take note

I mean I am sure you at one point have seen a Ferrari drive down the road right?

Because if you have you know that as it makes its way down the road you see peoples eyes start to turn and people start to take note and go wow thats a nice car.

why because its an amazing car

But you know when the church is functioning how it is suppose to it can do some amazing things

And what happens is people begin to take note and be in awe of what God is doing!

Well look at this next point, because they are devoted to God, they are devoted to His church, but then since they are devoted to God they are devoted to others. look at verse 45 because it says this:

Acts 2:45

45 They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need.

So this part makes us a little uncomfortable, because we see whats happening and think they are selling possessions, they are selling their property and they are giving it to others

And we think this is terrible, why would someone do that?

Don’t they know that they worked hard to get a nice property

But can I just say this right here is a symptom of when you are devoted to God.

Because God when you are devoted to God it means that we begin to act more like Him.

And when you think about what God did He gave His everything for us.

And so how can we not give our everything to people who are created in His image.

which is everyone by the way

And we do that by serving, but a lot of times God will call us to do something where we might say “God you want me to do what?!”

But when we do that God blesses you in such an amazing way.

And this is somthing that I have to say a lot of you do amazingly where I have see you sacrafice you own comfort, but the sake of others.

Look at verse 46 and 47 because it says

Acts 2:46 (NIV)

46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts,

Acts 2:47 NIV

47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

I want you to notice that all of this is happening, people are in awe of the church and not just that, and it says that lasted for a week and stopped right?

Of course not! it said they did this day by day

This was not just an emotional responce, but when they were devoted where this was somthing they decided they would make it a priority

And can I just say when we want our walk with God to thrive it is not somthing where we can say okay I will go to church and read my Bible and pray for a few weeks and then disapear for a few weeks, but if we want our relationship with God to thrive and grow then we need to have it where we are pourin g into it day by day.

I mean think of it this way because Arika and I have a habbit where we will clean the house once a week and what happens is th house looks like a tornado went through it inbetween, because of Liam,

But while Arika was pregnant we had to change things a little because if Finn decided to come, we would want a clean house to come back to so instead of cleaning once a week, we cleaned every day.

And can I just say that was the cleanist our house has ever looked!

And for some reason we do the same thing in our walk with God we pour into ita spurts, but the best way to have a thriving relationship with God is to pour into it day by day, moment, by moment.

I mean I want you to ask yourselves am I devoted like that?

Because did you see the end product in verse 47?

Because it says that the Lord added to their number daily

So not only are they growing, but they are seeing God move in such an amazing way!

As we close can I just ask you do you want to see God move in an extreaordinary way?

Because if you believe that God has filled you with His spirit then that means that you have the abilityto see Him move in amazing ways.

What would it look like if you said yes, I want to be devoted to God, His church, the His people?

Will you pray with me?