I want to start with a question. You think back to when you were maybe younger and in middle school or maybe even before that in elementary school and you start out and there's always that question that kind of gets thrown out there like, "What do you want to be when you grow up? What are your goals going to be?" And depending on where you are, maybe it's what your upbringing is or even if you're a little boy or a little girl, those things are going to vary, right? But typically a little boy is going to have, "I want to be a firefighter. I want to be a policeman," kind of things like that. For me it was like, "I want to be in the Army." Like I just wanted guns. That was what I had. Had in mind. Or you have that sense of, "I want to win the Heisman Trophy," or something like that. But nobody sits there and thinks of those questions, and when the teacher asks, or mom and dad asks, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" They look mom and dad in the eye and they say, "I want to be mediocre." My goal in life is, I really, really, really want to kind of slack off and I want to be subpar in everything that I do. Like when it gets to the end of my life, I want it to be as if people could look back and think, "Wow, it's almost like the person wasn't even there." Nobody thinks that way, right?
There was even, I think, a commercial a few years back where it had like a litany of kids, like little kids, like it was kind of one of those like, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" And it's like the little kid's like, "I'm gonna be—" and like every little kid like really passionately was saying just that. "I'm gonna be average." When I grow up, I wanna be forgettable. It was humorous and you laughed, but it struck you because you realize nobody thinks that way. If life got graded on a grading scale, you shouldn't be thinking of life like, when I come into life, if there's an option, I wanna take life as a pass/fail course. And then my goal, my whole purpose of doing the pass/fail is because I wanna get in there and I wanna do as little as possible just to stay above the failing point of life. And that's all I'm looking for? I mean, like, if it's a D that's failing, like, I'm gonna constantly keep my eye on it and do just enough to make sure I don't fail at life. That shouldn't be our mentality or approach. It would be a sad way to go about living. And it would be a truly sad way to approach our walk with Christ as well.
Pushing back against some of the strange notions of our age, D.A. Carson, Don Carson, has correctly and forcefully concluded that in the New Testament, when you look at the New Testament, the New Testament knows nothing of this concept that's growing in popularity today, nothing of this concept of a churchless Christian. Dr. Carson says, you look at the New Testament, And if you were to ask a person in the New Testament or ask Paul or ask one of the authors or just the average Christian of that age, "Is it possible to be a Christian and not be connected with God's body?" They'd look at you and be like, "What on earth are you talking about?" It's just a totally strange concept. And he's right in his assessment. That idea is totally foreign to what it means to be a believer in Christ. But I think we can take that further. The New Testament, and particularly today's passage that we're going to turn to in a moment in Acts chapter 2, it also never embraces a sort of nominal churchianity. If there's no sense in the New Testament of Christianity divorced from the church, there's also no sense of just a nominal going through the motions. A Christianity sort of reduced down to just sort of sleepwalking through church life.
The antidote to people thinking they can pursue Christ without the church is not simply to get the bar lower so that people just show up at church. Originally, when we envisioned this series we're going to start today throughout the month of December or January, We thought of doing a series on spiritual disciplines and Dave and I in our staff retreat prayed about it and thought about it. We thought it would be good to start out the year recalibrating our hearts and thinking of what does it look like to consider again these disciplines that God gives us so that we can walk in grace. But as we considered it and prayed about it and as I talked to some of the care group leaders, the vision for the series grew. And it grew in a good way. Because you can't think about spiritual disciplines and For some people it's like, oh yeah, and some people it's like, mm, okay. This shouldn't be a dry series. We don't wanna start off the year in a dry way, and so we started to think about what are spiritual disciplines really about? Well, it's about engaging your heart and your life in the call to follow Christ. It's about looking at your normal everyday life and thinking, what does it look like to be captured, to have my eyes set on the glory of Christ, on the glory of the gospel.
That's what we're gonna do in this series. We're gonna consider the disciplines. We're gonna consider them with a sense of how do they help us to make disciples for the glory of God? Discipleship is not just about being mediocre. Discipleship is not just about doing just enough to avoid the failing grade. Discipleship is also not about working to earn God's favor. It's about resting in the grace of Christ and being transformed by the grace of Christ. It's not about going from spiritually dead to life support. Discipleship is about going from lifeless to flourishing, going from wanting nothing to do with Christ to being a fully engaged follower of Christ. That's the vision of Acts chapter 2 at Providence.
Turn with me now to Acts 2 and we'll look at the passage today. Acts 2 starting in verse 42, we're dropping in right after Peter has given his sermon. And Peter has given his famous sermon at Pentecost and as we drop in, here's what Luke gives us as a description of what's taking place. Starting in verse 42, hear God's holy and authoritative Word. And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to 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. God's holy Word. May He write truth upon our hearts.
6 · The pastor introduces the structure of the series and begins expositional work on Acts 2:42-47
What we're going to do in January is spend a month soaking in this vision of discipleship that we see in Acts 2. It's going to be 4 weeks of catching a vision for devoted discipleship. For becoming a fully engaged follower of Christ. What we see this morning as we work our way through it is that this devotion that Luke lays out in front of us begins with a devotion to the Word of God, to the teaching of the apostles. Now, if you look at Acts 2 and look at what follows it, what Luke is doing in this portion is he's giving us sort of a summary paragraph of the early church. In fact, one commentator says what's going on here in Acts 2 is a paragraph that really describes the first 3 to 5 years of the life of the church. So it's a description of what's happening in the church right after Pentecost, right after Christ is raised, and right up until the point where all of a sudden the Gentile believers start flowing in as well. So it's a pretty remarkable thing.
7 · The pastor explains Luke's narrative pacing and literary strategy in Acts—he slows down for Pentecost, then accelerates into summary paragraphs illustrated by selected episodes
In the first 2 chapters, The pace is sort of slow. Luke is casting a vision. How Jesus instructs the apostles, this little fledgling group of 120 people. And then how at Pentecost the Spirit comes and Peter preaches and thousands get saved. That's a really slow walking through several weeks. And if Luke was going to keep up that pace and continue to give us a preview of what it looked like or give us a view of what it looked like in the early church, he'd need something about 3 times as long as the Bible itself. And so he starts to speed up. And so he gives us this snapshot in Acts 2, and then he follows it up in the chapters that follow with a few episodes and illustrations that show us what this looked like as it was lived out. He wants to give us a glimpse so we can sense and feel and taste what God is doing, how He's active in the ministry of the Word and Spirit in the midst of His people. They're teasing out a description for us. What does it look like? What does it look like to be a Spirit-filled, devoted Christian community? The first thing we see is that a community of that sort is devoted to conforming to the Word. It's devoted to conforming to the Word.
8 · The pastor unpacks the cultural shock of Jewish baptism in Acts 2:41
Now, right before our passage starts, you can look at verse 41. You see how they responded to Peter's message. It says this in Acts 2:41: So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about 3,000 3,000 souls. Now that's one sweet altar call. 120 people to 3,000 people. This amazing thing happens, and you read about it and you say, 3,000 people, and then they get baptized. Of course, right? That's what you do. Jesus got baptized. John the Baptist was baptizing people. So then these people got baptized. That's not the way it normally went. It's not the way it was supposed to go. You see, baptism in that day wasn't actually something that Jews typically did. Baptism existed for the purpose of cleansing Gentiles when they entered into the Jewish religion. And the whole vision of it was you have these Gentiles who need to be cleansed, and so they're, they're coming and being baptized, and it represents that there's a total break with their former life and and they're being cleansed of all that was happening prior to how they've lived as they enter into Judaism. So it's sort of this imagery— you got like a Hells Angel biker who gets saved, and now you have to get baptized. And so you're breaking off from how you used to live, and you're being cleansed from what's happened, and now you're entering into new life. Jews didn't do baptism typically.
9 · The pastor draws out the principle embedded in the Acts 2:41 response: the Word of God cut them to the heart and produced radical, immediate conformity
But when Peter lays the Word of God upon their hearts at Pentecost, notice what happens. Better yet, notice what doesn't happen. They don't hear one of the greatest sermons of all time and nod their heads and shout amen and cheer and cry and clap and sing and then at the end of the service rise up walk out, and go back to their homes. There's no, "Wow! What a sermon!" And then by Monday it's back to the topic of the chief's implosion and another 20 years of impending sorrow. They hear it. They hear the word and it cuts them. And they respond. And here's the thing, they respond in a radical way. Devoted discipleship begins with conforming our lives to God's word. And there's no such thing as nominally conforming to a radical word. Does that make sense? To conform your life to something as radical as God's word and the claim that God's word makes upon us requires a radical sort of conformity. There's no nominal way to go about it. There's no halfway way to go about it. There's no pass/fail way to go about it.
10 · The pastor unpacks the political and religious stakes of the baptism decision—these Jews were publicly rejecting the authority of their leaders and identifying with the crucified Messiah
When this crowd of Jews decide to get baptized in the name of Jesus, what you're reading in the text is craziness breaking out in Jerusalem. That's not what's supposed to happen. This is the guy who all of their leaders just put to death. This is the guy that their leaders have denied is the Messiah. And by being baptized, they're saying, we reject our leaders, we reject all their power, we reject all their threats of following this Messiah, and we want to be claimed by Him. We want to be identified by Him. And we want to be a part of this new community. It's a remarkable thing. John Stott says this, commenting on this passage: Since the teaching of the apostles has come down to us in its definitive form in the New Testament, contemporary devotion— so responding in a way similar to how they responded— Contemporary devotion to the apostles' teaching will mean submission to the authority of the New Testament. A Spirit-filled church is a New Testament church in the sense that it studies and submits to the New Testament instruction. The Spirit of God leads the people of God to submit to the Word of God.
11 · The pastor introduces the second major movement of devotion: consistency
There is this sense when Peter preaches the sermon and they respond to it that they understand. A claim has been made upon them by the Word of God. And so when Luke says they started to devote themselves, it's a big word. They are devoting themselves. They are submitting themselves. They are conforming themselves to the teaching of the apostles, to the Word of God. Now hold on to that image. We'll go to the next element of their devotion. It's going to build off of that one and it's going to circle back around. So first, there's that sense where they're conformed to the Word in their devotion to it. The next thing is to be devoted is to be consistent in the Word. To be consistent in it. The picture Luke gives us is that there's this obsessiveness to their devotion. There's an obsessiveness to their devotion. I love how he says in verse 43, And awe came upon every soul. You think of what's going on. These people are just coming to Jerusalem for the festival, they're going to celebrate Passover. And then Peter starts preaching. And tongues start falling and the Spirit fills people. And there's these people gathered with all these different languages and they can understand what's going on. And there's this little group of 120 people that explodes to 3,000. Think of, we're here this Sunday and it's us gathered, and we meet up again next Sunday and there's 3,000 people. That's what happens overnight. And they look around and they realize, this is an awesome thing. God has come near to us.
12 · The pastor describes the obsessive, insatiable quality of the early church's hunger for the Word
And so there's this obsessiveness that as they consider what is happening, they want to know what's happening. They want to see it. They want to experience it. And so the summary description of the early church in this passage gives us this picture of a community. It doesn't just trifle with God's word. It doesn't just flirt with it. It doesn't just play with it. It doesn't just sort of fit God's word in around the margins. And they don't leave unchanged after they interact with it. When they interact with the Word of God, written, preached, and taught, they're in awe of its power and effects. It says in our passage that the disciples, the apostles, they're performing wonders and signs. It's establishing the fact that these men are now representatives of the risen Christ. And there's this amazing thing that's going on. And so the people, Luke says, devoted themselves. They come back again and again, day by day, verse 46 tells us. They can't get enough of the Word. A taste of it on Sunday isn't enough. They're devouring it. And they're overwhelmed by it.
13 · The pastor connects consistency and conformity: the reason the early church was so radically conformed to the Word is because they were so obsessively, consistently returning to it
Part of the reason why they're so conformed by it— Peter preaches and says, "Repent and be baptized," and they do this crazy radical thing. They thumb their noses at the authorities. They go and be baptized. They do this shocking thing showing we're breaking from our past and starting this new thing with this little tiny group of 120 people We don't even know what this is going to look like, but we're all in from day one. Well, part of the reason this conformity just pervades the community is because they're so obsessively returning to God's Word. They're so consistently submitting to it. They are obsessed with being transformed By the apostles' teaching.
14 · The pastor identifies the theological reality that explains the early church's obsessive devotion: they understood that the apostles' teaching was not mere human words but the words of the risen, enthroned Christ
Why do we see that kind of consistency? Why do they react that way? There's only one answer. What we're reading about in our passage, what happens in the preceding part of Acts chapter 2, is that these people realize they have been confronted by the reality of the resurrected Christ. They know they're not just responding to mere human words. They're being addressed. And yeah, Peter's the one doing the talking, and when they gather day by day, the apostles are doing the teaching, but they know in a real way they are being addressed by the words of the enthroned Christ. That Jesus has been raised from the grave and He's seated in heaven. And the Spirit that stirs in them is the Spirit that Christ promised, the same Spirit that raised Him from the grave. And so when they gather for this teaching, they realize in a real sense that they're being testified to, they're being preached to, they're receiving the words of Christ.
15 · The pastor unpacks the controlling theme of Acts: the book is not about the apostles' acts but the risen Christ's acts through His Spirit and Word
The story of Acts, if you look at Acts, one of the themes of Acts is this continuation of the ministry and the triumph of the risen Christ. So you have in Luke the inauguration of the Kingdom. And Luke and Acts are kind of two parts of the same book. Well, Acts, you see sometimes in your Bibles, Acts of the Apostles, right? That's sort of the label for it. That's not an accurate description. It's not Acts of the Apostles. It's Acts of the risen Christ. The Gospel of Luke is a description of Christ's ministry on earth. Acts is the description of all that Christ is doing as He sits enthroned in heaven. And how is He doing that? He's doing it through His Spirit and through His Word. And so Luke traces throughout the entire book of Acts the way in which the Spirit and the Word are pushing forward the Kingdom. Here's a great example found in Acts 6:7. Luke says this very intentionally, "And the word of God continued to increase, and the number of disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith." In Acts 12, he says it this way, "The word of God increased and multiplied." What does he mean by that? He means the Word of God is going out, and as the Word of God goes out, it accomplishes all that it purposes. The Spirit of the sovereign Christ conquers hearts wherever it desires.
16 · The pastor extends the exposition of Luke's language about the Word increasing and multiplying: the Word's work is not limited to conversion but continues to seize people with increasing depth
But notice the work of the Word is not limited to merely the miracle of regeneration. The work of the Word continues. It increases and multiplies, not just numerically, but in a sense of depth, in the way in which it seizes upon people. They drink water like they're parched wanderers. Years in the desert. And they receive the water of God's word. And then they cling to the well. It's not like they come out of the desert, they get a ladle full, and they drink, and they kind of pour it over their heads, and then they want to go back out into the desert. The picture we get in Acts of the early church is that when they encounter the words of the risen Christ, the message of the gospel, and the power of the Spirit, They are clinging to the source. They are coming back day by day for the apostles' teaching. They are satisfied, but their thirst is never quenched.
17 · The pastor draws out the shift from law to gospel in the experience of the early Jewish believers: the law had them by the throat, but now the Word of Christ has them by the heart
The consistency of their hunger for the word and the consistency of their response to the word also shows us the consistency of their submission to it. They're devoted to it. The risen Christ has made a claim upon them. These are Jews at this point. At this point the church is Jewish people, right? And before they knew it, they felt it, the law had them by the throat demanding things they couldn't do. And now the word of Christ has them by the heart. And it's sweet. And they desire more of it. And so this word of Christ calls them to a lifestyle more radical and more beautiful and more sacrificial, more compelling and joyful than anything they've ever known or anticipated. And so they respond with wholehearted devotion.
18 · The pastor acknowledges the difficulty of consistency in Bible reading and applies the convicting comparison between our devotion to Scripture and our devotion to social media, sports news, or novels
This consistency, it can be hard, right? I mean, it's that time of year, it's January, so people brush off their resolutions, and a lot of believers brush off the resolution, "I'm going to try and be consistent in God's word." And it can be tricky. And it can fizzle out. I'm with you there. I've been there. I've been in August where you dust off the Bible reading plan and you realize, "I almost made it through March." So I just throw in the towel, or do I try and catch back up to where I am in August, or do I just jump back in in August? It gets really convicting when you think about how does my consistency in coming to God's Word compare with my consistency in Facebook? The days, I mean, the methodical commitment to status updates and to paging through. You can spend 2 hours on Facebook and it feels like 20 minutes, right? Where did the time go? I'm just reading through what people are doing in these sort of like little snippets of their life. Maybe you're not a Facebook person. Maybe it's ESPN. Click, click, click, click. Maybe it's books and novels. If we're honest, if we look at our lives, we realize we know what it is to have a consistency in devouring things, right? Well, here we see a people who have a consistency that goes even beyond that in devouring God's Word.
19 · The pastor uses a hypothetical scenario to expose the celebrity culture of the Western church: if a famous preacher were scheduled to preach, how much more enthusiastic and committed would we be? The illustration presses the question of whether we are more excited about human celebrity than about the Word of the risen Christ
Now there's a little bit of a celebrity culture in the Western church. We kind of get revved up when we hear about big-name preachers and speakers, right? It'd be easy for us. So how would we respond? Picture with me for a second how we respond if John Piper or Matt Chandler or Tim Keller— fill in the blank of like your favorite big-name pastor, if they were going to address us on Sunday morning. Now when I was writing this, we hadn't had the "storm." But if we had told you guys that Keller was scheduled to be preaching this morning, how many people would have braved the inch and a half of snow? Right? If Piper is going to be preaching from this place this morning? How many extra people would we have that we've never even seen before, guests that are sitting in our church? How early do we arrive? How much salt are you throwing down the night before to make sure the driveway is cleared off so you can get here? How close do we sit? How just fixed and rapt is our attention?
20 · The pastor extends the hypothetical scenario with humor and imagination: if we could bring Paul forward in time to preach, lead Bible studies, visit care groups, and even do personal devotions, we would be obsessively devoted
Let's imagine now we've got a DeLorean, Back to the Future, fully functioning flux capacitor. We'll even make it the, what is it, the Back to the Future 2 version where he just like throws vegetables in the top. So it's like, it's not even nuclear anymore now, it's like, it's green. So it's got like a, I don't know, it's like a food processor or like a juicer. Maybe it's a juicer. He like throws vegetables in, it powers the DeLorean, and he gets juice inside of it. So that's what we have right now. And because we've got this DeLorean and the flux capacitor, we get to go back in history and grab a preacher for this morning. Who do we want to get? Should we go grab Spurgeon? Should we have the Prince of Preachers? Maybe we get Whitefield, the great evangelist. Maybe it's Calvin. No, let's go big, right? Let's go get Paul. Let's bring Paul forward. And man, if we're bringing him here in the DeLorean, this whole space-time continuum doesn't matter. We can send him back whenever we want. We can be really greedy with the amount of time we have him, because we can just send him back and it'll be like he never left, right? So we're gonna have him here, and he's gonna be here for the whole month. Paul's gonna do the devoted series. Better than that, he's not gonna just address us every Sunday. Every weekday he's gonna come back to Providence and he's gonna lead a Bible study. He's gonna go to every care group this month and Paul's gonna lead the care. Bring your bruises, baby. Paul is leading care in care group. And then he says, Now, if you look to the back of the room, after the service is over, I've posted a sign-up sheet. And what I'm willing to do this week is a special gift of providence. If you sign up— now there's only so many slots, I realize, you know, I am finite, I only have so much time in the day. There's a sign-up sheet. I'm willing to sit with you in the morning. I'll come to your house and we'll do devotions together. How many broken legs and broken necks are there in the stampede to get to that sign-up sheet. Forget about a Black Friday sale at Walmart. I want Paul at my kitchen table leading me in devotions. It'd be incredible. We would understand the meaning of devoted, right? Devoted to the apostles' teaching.
21 · The pastor delivers the sermon's central theological claim: the apostles' teaching is the teaching of the enthroned Christ, and we have that teaching in the New Testament
Here's what Acts 2 is about. Luke is highlighting. There's no need to put John Piper on the calendar. You don't have to go back through the space-time continuum and grab Paul. The apostles' teaching is the teaching of the enthroned Christ. That's why He grabs people. The reason why Peter stands up before a crowd of people wondering, "Who in the world is this guy?" And 3,000 people respond is not because Peter has the ultimate sermon hook and he gives it and wham! Whoa, that illustration was amazing, Peter! And then you made the application and it was like, man, he was so articulate and incredible. No. It's because the Spirit falls. Everything that Luke says in Acts 2, there's this sense in which the Lord is doing it. There's this passiveness to the verbs. The people aren't doing it. The Lord is doing it. He's the One that's coming and He's the One that's acting. What Luke is doing here, he's not saying, "Boy..." You guys, I really feel bad for you. You know, it's like you got your lattes and like, you know, your cars, which are really nice. You don't have to ride in horses or donkeys or anything like that and whatnot, but man, it really stinks. You guys missed out. Like, here in Acts 2, they get the apostles' teaching. They get to experience this devoted Christianity. Man, you got HDTVs, but you don't have this. No. Luke's showing us these signs and wonders they perform. It's to show those people that the teaching of these men is the teaching of the enthroned Christ. And the church takes that teaching and puts it in this book. And through the testimony of the Spirit says, this is the word of the enthroned Lord. Paul would be great to do a Bible study with, but he doesn't hold a candle to the Spirit. He doesn't hold a candle to the testimony of the Lord.
22 · The pastor applies the vision of Acts 2 to Providence Church: we should come hungry on Sunday mornings, and that hunger should carry into the rest of the week
We should come hungry on Sunday mornings. And the image of Acts 2 is not just the Lord's Day. Day after day, again and again, our hunger should carry over into Monday and Tuesday. Past February whatever where you fall off the cliff of your Bible reading plan. I'm with you, I know how that goes. Consistency to the Word.
23 · The pastor introduces the third movement of devotion: communion in the Word
And finally, they're devoted to communion in the Word. Peter's initial challenge to the crowds is essentially, right here, today, change allegiances. This Jesus, this Jesus who you crucified, to the crowd. How many of the people in that crowd were still around and chanting for the crucifixion? How much does that cut them to the heart? This Jesus whom you crucified. He goes on with the sermon. He finishes and says, "Repent and believe." Specifically, He says— now this is real evangelistic work— "Save yourselves from this crooked generation." Right now, you are a part of the crooked generation. Save yourselves from it. Repent and believe and be baptized. In other words, change allegiances. Change sides. Go from a twisted generation and come to this new community being created. But no, it's not a bunch of nominal Jesus fans. Luke shows us It's a group of fully devoted disciples of Jesus Christ. The call that Peter gives them isn't just private. It's not just internal. It's this astounding public identification with the Messiah. It's why they're initially called believers. That's such a normal way for us to talk about Christians, right? They're believers. You know why they're called believers? They're called believers because belief is so evident in how they live. To believe in the Messiah, Peter told them, is to commit to Him wholeheartedly. And to commit to Christ is to commit to the community of Christ, to the church.
24 · The pastor notes a structural observation: the verb 'devoted' is repeated in verses 42 and 46, showing that their devotion to the apostles' teaching was inseparable from their devotion to the community gathered at the temple
There's this playing out in verses 41-42 and 47. Their allegiances have changed. They've transferred membership. It gets lost in the translation. We start out in verse 42, right, that famous way, "And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, and the prayers." What gets lost is in verse 46, the exact same verb, the exact same phrase is used. This isn't a common verb, it's not a common phrase, and it gets repeated. This sense that they keep going to the temple, what Luke is saying is they're devoting themselves to the temple. Not to the temple in like an old Jewish sense. They're devoting themselves to this place where the community is gathering together to hear teaching. Day after day after day. It's not a jump in your car and whip down the road 5 minutes. It's leave the market, leave the house, walk the streets, pack a lunch. You might be there a while. But they devote themselves to it.
25 · The pastor explains that the four marks of devotion in Acts 2:42 hang together—they are not individualized or compartmentalized
Now, I want to be careful not to cover what we're going to cover next week. But we have to a little bit because these marks that he gives us, Luke gives us in Acts 2, these marks of who the early church was, they hang together. They're not just like individualized. They touch on each other. The picture of them devoting themselves isn't just to the Word. They're devoted to the Word, to fellowship, to the sacrificial generosity, to prayer. And here's the thing, they're devoted to all these things corporately. They're doing it together. Hand in hand. They're going to the temple to worship and be taught. One translation says, They met constantly to hear the apostles' teaching. And it says they gathered in homes to break bread and to share meals. But it's not like these are divorced activities. Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on. It seems like you're about to quote some Scripture. We're breaking bread right now. There's no Scripture during the breaking bread portion. Hey man, I would really like to engage relationally with you right now. We are at the temple, and at the temple it is just a time for teaching, and so I'm trying to be as cold and stoic as possible to you relationally. I want you to feel socially awkward and kept at arm's length because right now this is a time where all I'm here for is teaching. No, that's not what's happening.
26 · The pastor paints a vivid picture of what Acts 2 devotion looked like in practice: the Word spilled over into their meals together
They're constantly gathering for teaching. And their love for each other is being kindled. And when they gather in their homes to break bread, The word is spilling over. What did you think about what Peter said today? I've never thought about that from Isaiah. What do you think that means for us? I don't know, I was thinking I need to share that with my uncle Joseph. He's a crotchety, curmudgeonly old dude, man, and he's not a fan of this thing, but we were having a conversation and he was trying to throw this worldview, an idea to kind of trump what's going on in the church. And there Peter's saying, "No, look, Isaiah's saying this very thing. I need to go talk to him about it. How do you think I should share it with him?" "Hey, can you pass a little more of the bread? I want another slice of pizza too." That's what's going on.
27 · The pastor contrasts the early church's persistent, persevering devotion with the faddish enthusiasm that fizzles after a spiritual high
From the earliest days of the Christian community, they devote themselves to the apostles' teaching. They devote themselves to each other. And this devoting of themselves, it's not a faddish trend. The high that happens after summer camp. I went to Cana Cook and I was like jazzed for a week. I read like 3 whole books of the Bible. 2 of them were really short. One of them was Jude. But I was like, I was going, man. And then it kind of petered out. No, it's this idea of persistence. And perseverance. They come and sit at their feet day after day, hungry for spiritual food. Luke wants us to see this sense of ongoing devotion, and it bonds them together. It marks them. They study the Word. And they don't just study it intellectually. They consume it. They structure their schedules daily and weekly to ensure that they're instructed by it. To ensure that they can process it together. And they submit to it.
28 · The pastor identifies the most significant fruit of the Spirit's work in the early church: they took the Word to heart together
That's perhaps the most significant aspect of what the Spirit produced in the Community of Christ followers. They took the word to heart. They took the word to heart together. They sharpened each other. They encouraged each other. They reminded each other of the promises of God. Man, Judah, it breaks my heart to hear that you just got disowned because of Jesus. But remember the promise. You're now co-heir with Christ. You're a son and daughter of the King. Remember what Peter said at the temple last week? We're elect exiles. We're sojourners. I'm gonna pray that your father repents and takes you back in. But no, Judah, you're bound for a better country.
29 · The pastor shares a personal story about a care group member's invitation to use a Bible reading app together
We need that kind of devotion at Providence. Sweet thing happened this week. Neil Johnson sends out a text— so we had a little care group thing, little text app that James Beecher found somewhere, probably not really technical, I wasn't aware of it, but we can send out texts and it just always sends them to the whole care group. It just flies all over the place. And this week, as I'm preparing the message, even a little bit before it, Neil sends out a text and just says, "Hey guys, it's that time of year. Why don't we try and do this together this year? I found an app, it's called the Bible Reading Plan app. We can actually sign up and give each other our email addresses, and as we go we can just mark off how we're going through God's word, and we can interact with each other." And we can know, like, are we doing it together? Are we staying on task? We can walk with each other in this. You know what my initial reaction was? Ugh. It's a great idea, but if I sign up for it, and what if I fall behind? And now I'm the pastor and I'm behind on the Bible reading plan. And now it's like I'm going to be tempted to like just Get up in the morning just like, "No, look, I did my reading, I swear!" That was my reaction. That was a great idea of Neil. And then my other temptation: fear of man. I want to look good in front of these guys. Actually, there's a little thing on their tracks, like your way through the Bible, when how much you've read. So as of, you know, today, it's like I'm 0.8% of the way through the Bible. But there's a part of me that's just, I want to do it just to keep checking, so I'm going to look good. I'm going to look like I'm devoted. That's not what Acts 2 is about.
30 · The pastor applies the contrast between fear-of-man-driven devotion and Christ-tasting devotion
These people aren't coming to the temple associating with the apostles' teaching so they look good. In Acts 7, one of their own is going to get killed because of his devotion. They're doing this because they've tasted. They've tasted Christ. And He's real. And they've seen the power of His resurrection. And they want more of it. And yes, I want to be a part of the Bible reading plan with Neil. Not so I can look impressive. But because these are the words of the risen Christ. I want to taste Him. I want to be transformed by Him. I want to know Him. I want to have assurance of my union with Him.
31 · The pastor expounds the evangelistic fruitfulness of Acts 2:47: the Lord added to their number daily, not through slick marketing or outreach programs, but through the visible, public devotion of the community
This sweet thing happens. Look at verse 47. They're praising God. They're having favor with all the people. Favor with all the people. So people are seeing this, and this is before the persecution breaks out. They're kind of like, there's something going on here. And the Lord added to their number day by day, those who are being saved. Now here's the sweet thing about this. This is not some sort of like evangelistic outreach plan they put together and they just start like, man, did you hear about Peter's church in Jerusalem? It is exploding. They've got like multiple campuses and and pyrotechnics during worship. Peter does stuff and the pyrotechnics don't come out of the floor, they come down from heaven, it's amazing! And this church is blowing up, man! Peter, you gotta come, these— they call them apostles? They're like the— dude, they can preach, their worship's incredible. No. The Lord is doing it. But He's doing it through them! The whole point of what Luke is saying is the people, they're coming to the temple. They're not just huddled and cloistered and like, "Let's be really secretive. Let's get together." This is like a "we're in club, you're out club." "Secretive stuff we do here. There's secret rituals. You can't know about it. And it really looks cool what we're doing and we really seem to be tight together and man, I wish I was one of them." No, they are out in the open in the temple. They're doing it and people are seeing and the Lord is adding to their number. But he's adding to their number because they're seeing, "Look at this devotion." "Man, they're reading Isaiah and I've memorized Isaiah because I'm a good little Jewish boy." "And it's always just been kind of dry and boring." "And they're reading it and they're weeping!" "And they're changing!" "And they're praising!" "They're saying the Messiah is real!" "I want in on that."
32 · The pastor synthesizes the sermon's vision: devotion should be both radical and regular
Our devotion should be radical, Luke tells us, and it should be regular. Normal for providence must not be nominal. Normal for this church cannot be nominal because this is not a nominal the Gospel. To encounter the risen Christ is to be changed by Him. To be devoted is to hunger for God's presence. It's to respond to God's Word. Before, there's this superficial impact in our lives. We just kind of go through the motions of it. But to be devoted is to have the Word search you, change you, to experience Hebrews 4, that it's living and it's active. Radical devotion.
33 · The pastor offers three examples of radical devotion: a family moving to China for Bible translation, a spouse remaining committed to an unfaithful partner to win them to Christ, and a man (like Wesley) living sacrificially to give generously to the kingdom
Deciding to go to China to help support Bible translation. Long ways away from family. Long ways away from comfort. Case: Mrs. Jackson. And we wrote him a letter that we sent to Caleb when we went over there, and Case said, "I hope they have clementines in China." Case loved clementines. But, you know, there was that sense of, I hope you get to experience— I don't know if they do. I don't know if they have clementines. I don't know what kind of schools their kids get to go to. But it's a radical devotion. Radical devotion. Remaining committed to an unfaithful spouse because you want your spouse to be won to Christ. Earning a million dollars a year and living off of 50 grand a month $48 grand. Remember the illustration of Wesley doing that? Figured out he could live on about $48 grand a year, so he just kept giving more and more away, and at his peak he's earning like $1.5 million, $2 million a year, and he dies and he's just got a few tokens in his pocket, pocket change, and the silverware, I think they said. I know of a guy in the Twin Cities who does that. Not $1 million a year, but it's a massive amount. He's learned to be content and to sow into the kingdom.
34 · The pastor contrasts radical-but-isolated devotion with regular devotion that pervades the body
Radical devotion, but also regular devotion. It's radical, but it's regular. It's just going on in the midst of the body. It's not like the one dude that's really crazy out there, it's like, man, he's really— he's like our— we hold this guy up, like this is how we know we're a good church. We've got like 2 people like, radically devoted. And so when you average everything out, it's like, we are just passing. Because we've got a Paul and we've got a Barnabas, so it's okay that we've got some other yahoos over here that aren't doing anything. It all averages out. No, regular devotion. Committing yourself to the body of Christ in attendance, in service, in giving, in prayer, in evangelism, in fellowship, in mission. You're not the most gifted guy. You're not the most gifted woman. You don't have the biggest bankroll. You've got one of the smallest bankrolls. You committed to giving is just a drop in the bucket. Your gift is mowing the grass. You realize you can't carry a tune, but you can mow straight lines. So you come on those hot days to mow the grass. Regular devotion. Opening God's Word. Man, I'm tired. I was up late last night. The game went long. And you know what? The last 2 days have been kind of dry. But I'm going to open it again in faith that God's going to meet me. That even when it's dry, the words have their effect. I'm going to open it.
35 · The pastor offers George Mueller's practice as an example of regular devotion: reading the Bible until his soul was happy in God
I'm going to do what George Mueller would do. I'm going to read. I love this. He said he made it a habit that he would read. He didn't have a Bible reading plan per se. It wasn't like, I'm going to read half a chapter every day or a chapter from these 4 sections every day. He said, I would read, and my goal was to read the Bible until my soul was happy in God. That's the kind of regular devotion we want. To read till our hearts are happy in God. To be encouraged and convicted and to apply it.
36 · The pastor issues specific, concrete application: write notes during the sermon and review them during the week
Here's one I'm gonna give you guys: Write notes during the sermon. Go back. I totally get the desire just to sit and listen and to be unencumbered. So maybe you want to sit and listen on a Sunday morning, come back on Monday and write notes. Or you want to write notes on Sunday because you're not sure if you'll get back to it during the week, then do that and then return to those notes. I have heard some amazing sermons in my day, and outside of notes, I couldn't tell you even a single sub-point or main point of those sermons. So take those notes and have them and go back over them throughout the week. And assist the body with the word. If you're not in the word, you have nothing to give. You can give a warm hug, and that is something. But you can only come with just sort of pop wisdom. But come consuming it. Come to care group. Imagine if you come to care group and it's like, man, I've made it a habit now, 5 months, my heart is happy in God every day. And you know, there's this weird thing, I used to come to care group and it was like, Somebody would share something and I was like, "Anybody have any advice?" And I would just kind of like sit there and look around and avoid eye contact and, "Oh." I'd be praying, "Lord, let somebody else share," 'cause I had nothing to give. And now, 5 months of making my heart happy in Jesus, this strange thing happens. I go to care group and there's an overflow. The words of Christ pour out of me and I go and somebody's sharing and there's like 4 or 5 passages that the Spirit brings to mind and I start sharing them. You know, it's kind of weird. I never thought I had a prophetic gift but there's this weird thing that happens because I'm in the Word. The Spirit's active in my heart and I have things to share and give to God's people. And they're helped by it.
37 · The pastor states a key principle: radical devotion flows from regular devotion
Here's the thing: nobody goes radical if they don't start out regular. Radical can sound really cool and sexy, but if your devotion isn't first regular and routine—not boring routine, consistent routine—radical is never gonna be more than a cool idea you talk about but never do. And sometimes what seems most routine, eternally speaking, is actually most radical.
38 · The pastor tells the story of Ronnie Smith, a bi-vocational pastor and chemistry teacher who moved to Libya to be a light for Christ and was martyred by Islamic militants
I'll conclude with a story, two stories, to bear this out. First was a man named Ronnie. Ronnie Smith is his name. You might have read about him recently. Ronnie was a chemist, chemistry teacher, intelligent guy. He served, I think, as a bi-vocational pastor at his church. And you saw the display of his regular devotion because he gave a sermon. It's on his church's website. It's a sweet sermon. He goes up and the entire sermon is just a string of memorized scripture. And the sermon is a walking through of the Bible storyline. And there isn't a single word of the sermon that's actually Ronnie's own words. The entire thing is him just memorizing and sewing together the story of Scripture through passages of Scripture, and it tells beautifully the story of redemption. He's not like this overly gifted guy. He's just a regularly devoted guy. But he's also a guy, in the consistency of his devotion, who's being consumed by the Word. And so as providence would have it, he listens to a sermon by John Piper. And you gotta be careful listening to John Piper sermons. They can get ya. And Ronnie got got. It was a sermon on risk. A sermon on boldly making sacrifices for the sake of the gospel that seemed irrational to the unbelieving world around him. And he heard it. And he was moved by it, and he celebrated in the message. But he didn't just go back to living life as normal. He decided he would apply it. So he and his wife and their young son, Hosea, moved to Libya. Not a real peaceful part of the world right now. He moved to Libya to teach chemistry at an international school Because he wanted to be a light in the darkness. He wanted to be a light in the darkness of Libya. He wanted to help the Libyan students. He wanted to fall in love with the Libyan people. And he wanted an opportunity to share the gospel of Christ. Well, just before Christmas, his wife and young son flew back down to Texas, back to their family. Ronnie was staying for a few more weeks to help the students out through midterms, and he was out jogging. And a black Jeep pulled up filled with Islamic militants, and they gunned him down. He risked radical devotion. He died. But his reward will be great for it.
39 · The pastor steps out of the story to address the congregation directly, acknowledging that some may be called to Ronnie Smith-level radical devotion
You can hear a story like that and think, "Yeah! Ronnie Smith! I want to be a Ronnie Smith!" And hear this: some of you in this room might be called to be a Ronnie Smith. To go do something risky and dangerous for the glory of Christ.
40 · The pastor tells the story of Tom Carson, an 'average' pastor whose faithful, regular devotion laid the seeds for his son's influential ministry and for revival in the region where he labored
Another man named Tom, unassuming guy, small in stature, pastor several decades ago, very average pastor. Not average in his faithfulness, loved God's Word, studied God's Word, he labored hard, but he wasn't known as a great orator, wasn't known as a great preacher, wasn't known as a great evangelist. His church never grew beyond 60, 70 people. He labored in a part of the world that was more or less apathetic to the gospel, significantly Catholic area, and he was kind of seen as an odd duck. Labored and labored Very regular devotion. He was faithful to raise his sons in the Word of God, raise his children. He sent them off when they left for university. He did everything he could to be assured they weren't consumed by the world. When Tom died, his church was still small. Nobody in his denomination really marked or made a big deal about his passing. The funeral was just a few people. Tom's name was Tom Carson. His son was D.A. Carson, Don Carson. He's a guy who's teaching, who's influencing a generation of pastors. In Tom's regular devotion, he laid the seeds of the next generation's gospel fruit. In this little area of French Canada that he labored for decades and saw almost no fruit, the next generation of pastors saw revival break out because of the labors he laid. Regular devotion.
41 · The pastor concludes by addressing the guarantee every believer has: not that their regular devotion will produce a D
And you might do regular devotion, and there's no guarantee your son's gonna be a Don Carson. But there is a guarantee that when the Lord returns or you die, He's gonna welcome you home, and He's gonna say, "Well done, good and faithful servant. You were radical in your devotion as I called you to be." Here's your crown. Well done, good and faithful servant. You were regular in your devotion as I gifted you and called you to be. Here is your crown. And I promise you will be satisfied. Let's bow our heads.
42 · The pastor invites the congregation to bow their heads in closing prayer
Let's bow our heads.