Let’s pray.
Father in heaven, thank you for the work that you do to call people to yourself in midst of hardship, pain, and suffering. We don’t always understand it and we can’t even fathom it sometimes, but what we do know is that you have a plan, no matter where that plan takes us here in this life, we know it’s to call us your own and to bring us into your heavenly kingdom where we have a place besides your son Jesus, as heirs.
Lord, I lift up David, Chandell, and their kids to you. As they minister your gospel in California and across the United States and around the world, bless them, be with them, sustain them for your good works that you’ve prepared before hand.
I ask that you also go forth with our partners at Compassion, and Pastor Paul in Kenya. You’ve already charted a path, you have stepped before them and the work that they see needing to be done, we know in you that’s already yes and amen. Give us a heart of generosity and let us see the vision you have for these kids that are being ministered your gospel.
As we open our Bibles today, illuminate our minds, convict hearts and move our hands into action so we can embody the culture you give to your family. In Jesus name. Amen.
David, can you please read our Scripture this morning from Acts 2:42-47.
42 And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. 43 And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. 44 And all who believed were together and had all things in common. 45 And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. 46 And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, 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. [1] (Acts 2:42-47 ESV)
Amen.
Today we’re wrapping up our series by exploring the non-negotiable rituals or customs we regularly practice in faith. Let me give you an example.
One of the non-negotiable rituals and customs we do in my house at every meal is praying together before we eat. No matter the chaos that’s happening we pray as a family to bless the meal, each other, and whatever that comes to mind at mealtime.
Now we’ve been teaching our youngest, Clara, to practice this with the family.
But she’s been taking this ritual to another level. She’ll sit in her seat with her hands folded grunting at each person not seated to get into prayer position because she’s hungry. And if it doesn’t happen at the speed she likes, she raises her voice, yelling and pointing at the person not positioned to pray.
If that wasn’t enough, during our mealtime prayer she’s policing us, making sure everybody is praying. And if it’s not done to level of expectations of our one year old, we have to pray again until we’ve sufficiently met the expectations of prayer. That’s just pure passion up to that point. Now, if the food is good and to her liking, she’ll demand we do a spontaneous prayer mid-meal, she takes passion and makes it zealousness.
This non-negotiable ritual in praying before meals expresses two of our family values:
- First, that we need to thank God because eating isn’t guaranteed.
- Second, our family is a family that prays.
Does our 1 year know that yet? Probably not, but she will practice this ritual and custom until one day she can articulate those values. Having non-negotiable rituals or customs is important because rituals and customs are the tangible expressions of a person or family’s core beliefs and values. If you have rituals and customs in your life, it’s time you evaluate whether they align with the values and beliefs you want to embody. If you don’t have rituals and customs, the Bible gives us some that we can practice as part of God’s family.
Let’s get right into it. Verse 42.
And they [these are the 120 disciples that were originally in the upper room plus the 3,000 that came to faith after Peter’s sermon] devoted [circle that word] …
The word “devoted” here really doesn’t do the justice that the Greek word used by Luke expresses. “Devoted” simply means to be loyal, committed, or dedicated to something.. But the word here in the Greek, pros-kar-te-re-o that’s used, has a stronger meaning. It means “to persist obstinately” to the point where the activity becoming stronger and prevalent in your life to the point of defining your life. So, the more “devoted” or obstinately persistent you are about doing something, the more pronounced and present that practice should be in your life.
With that understanding of the word devoted, I’m going to read this verse again from the beginning, verse 42.
The family of God were obstinately persistent in practicing the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. So…
Big Idea: God’s family is committed to practicing the apostle’s teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayers
Our spiritual family’s culture and values are best expressed through the regular practice and presence of these four non-negotiable customs and rituals in our lives.
I want to show you why and how these customs and rituals causes us to live out God’s values and culture.
The Apostle’s Teaching
By “apostles teaching” Luke is referring to the authoritative, doctrinal, explanation and application of the words and works of Jesus.
What becomes apparent in reading through Acts, and the New Testament, for that matter, is that the apostles were anchored and tied to explaining and developing the Christian faith in accordance with the already established in the Old Testament. Instead of detaching themselves from the OT, the apostles explained Jesus’ words and works in light of the Old Testament Scriptures. The reason they did this was because Jesus told them that he came to fulfill the word of God through Moses and the Prophets. This is evident in the first two of Peter’s talks that we covered in chapters 1 and 2.
We commit to regularly studying the word of God because the source of our culture and values is the Bible. God gave us the Bible to share his values and cultures with his family. So as his family, we study His Word to understand and live in a way reflecting His values and culture. Hear me out, when we regularly commit to studying something, it means we study all of it, not just the parts we want. All of it.
Until you prioritize studying the Word of God, you will never fully embody the values and culture of God. And if you’re not embodying the values and culture of God, then you’re embodying the values and cultures of something else. Just so we’re all on the same page, that’s exactly why people sin. because the values and culture we embody in practice lead us to distrust God and have hostility toward God. Committing to the regular study of God’s Word transforms you to become more like your father in heaven.
Listen to what God tells Joshua. This is Joshua 1:
7 Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go. 8 This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. 9 Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.” (Joshua 1:7-9 ESV)
God tells Joshua to be strong and very courage in studying, meditating, and living out the word of God. It takes that much courage and strength to study God’s word! But God enables us to do so and when we practice that regularly, we will never be frightened or dismayed because we’ll recognize God is with us wherever we go and wherever we find ourselves.
Fellowship
Fellowship is friendship and solidarity between people who have shared interests. Our shared interest is God. Because through Jesus Christ, our savior, we are sons and daughters of God. So because of our shared interest being a family, we are committed to knowing each other (friendship) and meeting the needs of those we are friends with (solidarity). That’s fellowship.
Look at how fellowship plays out in the first church. Acts 2:44
44 And all who believed were together and had all things in common. 45 And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need.
Do you see how they practiced fellowship?
- First they were together.
- Can you count the times you were together with the people in this room?
- Then they took care of the needs of the very people they were with.
- In fellowship, the family of God shared their stuff, their time, their being with one another and met each other’s needs.
Fellowship expresses our value of knowing one another and our culture of meeting the needs of one another. Jesus modelled this in his life and death. He lower himself into the form of a human and then hand his life as ransom to save people who did not deserve to be saved. Fellowship reflects what Jesus did for us on the cross: he knew us, our sins, our temptations, and bore them at his own cost, asking for nothing in return.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, was a German theologian and pastor in New York City when Hitler and the Nazi dictatorship took over Germany. He purposely moved back to Germany to put himself out there and get involved with the affairs of people he left behind. He actively and vocally dissented against the Nazis. For that, he became a criminal of the state and went on the run from the Gestapo. Then, even though he was a fugitive, he showed up to help other German pastors and churches that were being persecuted and pressured by the Nazis. I don’t know about you, but running away from the secret police is incredibly time consuming and important work, but he made time for his spiritual family, risking his very life.
While a fugitive on the run, he wrote a book titled, “Life Together” where he writes, “It is grace, nothing but grace, that we are allowed to live in community with Christian brothers and sisters.”
Family, there is no secret police trying to get us here. We can have fellowship with our spiritual family as we please. Don’t miss out on the grace that comes from fellowship. Put yourself out there and get to know people deeply, empty out your calendar and show up for them, practice fellowship.
Breaking of Bread
There’s a twofold meaning here when Luke says the disciples committed themselves to the breaking of the bread in verse 42. He meant “breaking bread” as both meeting together for communion as worship, and then literally eating meals together. Go to verse 46.
46 And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, 47 praising God and having favor with all the people.
Legit, some of us neglect our spiritual bodies by not regularly breaking bread with our spiritual family at church to worship God and receive spiritual food on weekends. I know why, it’s because you don’t like eating the spiritual food that churches serve. It doesn’t fit your spiritual taste buds because it is dialectally opposed to what you get the rest of the week from the world. Sure, the spiritual food you get at church may not be as mind and heart numbing like the spiritual food offered by the world, but the spiritual food God provides will transform your relationships with other people as you give God praise and worship together.
On the flip side of spiritual food, we have physical food. Some of us neglect to eat meals with other people. You realize that act of eating together with others alters those relationships? It draws the people you are eating with toward you and you to them. Come on, you think I won Michelle over because of my good looks? Sure, of course. But honestly, slowly and steadily I won her heart over by the time we spent eating together.
When we eat of the spiritual food together with glad and generous hearts, we are embodying a culture of God’s favor – that we did not deserve a place at the table of God, but we receive a place as his son or daughter through Jesus Christ, who invited us to his father’s table.
In the same way, the practice of eating with others confers status to those we’re having a meal: that we are connected: they as we, and we as they, accepted as a part of our family because eating together is reserved for those who have belonging with us regardless of their status in the world.
Prayer
We need to regularly practice prayer as a custom and ritual in our lives because prayer is specifically designed for God’s family to communicate with God; to talk, to listen, to intercede. When we commit to practicing prayer, we are embodying a culture of love. You see prayer is love. You pray because you love God and you want to spend time with him. You pray for people because you love them enough to intercede on their behalf before God.
If you don’t regularly pray, ask yourself do you love God. Maybe it’s not that you don’t love God, you just don’t pray because you don’t love other people enough to pray for them. Maybe you don’t love yourself enough to pray to him.
Turn to James 5:13-18 for a moment.
13 Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. 14 Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. 16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. 17 Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. 18 Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit. (James 5:13-18 ESV)
I want you to notice three things in this passage:
- First, James concludes that God answers prayers. He says whether you’re praying for you, or you’re praying for others, or others are praying for you, God answers.
- Second, prayer is an expression of your love for God and for people. You suffer and pray, you love yourself so you pray to God. You are cheerful and you pray praise to God because you love him. You are sick, people who love you, pray for you.
- Third, here’s who prayer is for. Prayer is for the righteous person. Let me define “righteous,” it’s somebody saved by faith by God’s grace. We are made righteous by the blood of Jesus Christ shed for us on the cross. When we pray as righteous people belonging to the family of God, there is great power. The example James gives us is Elijah. We’re going to look at his life closely this fall. But when we pray like him, that prayer changed the world.
Let me wrap up here. When we commit ourselves to practice of studying the Word, fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayer because these things express our culture and values, as members of God’s family, then:
1. Our family will witness God’s power (v43)
Go back to Acts 2:43.
And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles.
Family, I want to see awe come upon every single one of us. I want to see awe come upon every single person that encounter us practicing our non-negotiable rituals and customs: studying the Word, fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayer. That’s the reason we’re doing summer growth groups.
- Growth Groups provide a structure to practice the rituals and customs we just talked about
- In Growth Groups we will:
- study the word of God together. Let me tell you how easy we’re going to make it for you. You listen to the sermon on Sunday, and then you ask the questions we give you to help you study the word of God we print for you on the page.
- fellowship together. You will get to know each other when you show up. And when you don’t, you’ll know somebody will reach out to you to see if you need something.
- break bread together. You will eat together because you’re all coming to church to listen to the sermon and then you’ll eat food together. You want to make growth groups more fun? Invite some of your non church friends to eat with your church friends, it simplifies your calendar and it joins two very different worlds!
- pray together. because the prayers of righteous people have great power.
[put up G2 sign up slide] Pull out your phone and scan the QR code right now.
You pick a night, you pick a location. Then you enter your name and contact information. That’s how simple it is.
If you don’t like how people lead or you had a bad experience, then you can sign up to be a leader. We’ll teach you how so we don’t get complaints from other people like you about your leadership.
The good news in Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection is reflected in our lives when we are obstinately persistent in practicing these rituals and customs of our culture. The good news of Jesus saves us, first and foremost, from an eternity of death; but the good news transforms us to be more like our savior and unites us as a spiritual family. A family comprised of people of all cultures, all ethnic groups, across the ages, who come to know Jesus Christ as Lord, united by faith in loving, following, and worshipping God together. A family proclaiming the gospel by the quality of their life and love together, for one another.
Here’s my last point. When we live out our values and culture through the studying of God’s word, fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayer,
2. God adds to his family (v47)
Verse 47. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.
The thing about regularly practiced rituals and customs is that the people around us start to witness how much of our life it starts to occupy and they start leaning into our lives. In our commitment to study God’s word, fellowship, breaking bread, and prayer, the people around us will be exposed to see just how the gospel of Jesus sanctifies us to be like our savior. It’s through this exposure that God adds to his family.
Around 360 AD, there was a Roman emperor named Julian. His claim to fame is that tried to stop the growth of Christianity by advocating the adoption of Christian rituals, customs and practices to pagan priests. Listen to what he writes to some pagan priests:
“The impious Galileans not only feed their own poor but ours as well…. They welcome them to their agape; they attract them, as children are attracted with cakes” He continues to write:
“Teach those of the Hellenic faith to contribute to public service of this sort, and the Hellenic villages to offer their first fruits to the gods; and accustom those who love the Hellenic religion to not allow others to outdo us in good works…”
Julian was the last pagan emperor of Rome. It was at this point Christianity just exploded and continued to grow like. Because the family of God had non-negotiable rituals and customs that demonstrated to the outside world that the culture and values they embodied through studying the word, fellowship, breaking bread, and prayer was what they always longed for. So much so that other religions wanted to adopt those practices.
If the culture I just described is something you always wanted, then accept Jesus as your savior today. Accept his sacrifice on the cross to be for you. Accept that his resurrection from the dead makes you an heir with him in God’s kingdom. If you accepted or want to accept Jesus as your savior today, come see our prayer team that’ll be up here on the stage so you can learn what it means to be part of God’s family.
Maybe this morning you already received God’s free gift of grace in Jesus. I’m so glad you did, but you haven’t committed yourself to live out the culture and values of God’s family, then make the decision to commit yourself to studying the Word of God, fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayer. Get into a growth group. Live out your beliefs, values, by being obstinately persistent in practicing the customs and rituals that express who you value.
Let’s pray.
Heavenly father, you showed us that awe will come to us when we commit to regularly and daily practicing the study of your word, to fellowship, to breaking of the bread, and to prayer. Give your family here the courage and strength to boldly commit to these customs and rituals and be defined by how you created us in your image. Make us more like you as the gospel of Jesus permeates our thoughts, feelings, and actions.
Lord, I am asking for special favor to those of who have made the decision to place our trust in you this morning, help them take the next step of faith and choose to be baptized as a public declaration of our faith in your son Jesus. Give them the belonging they have been searching for. Let us welcome them home into this family.
Show us your power, use us, add to your family by our devotion and be with us as we live out your culture in this world.
We pray these things in Jesus name. Amen.
[1] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Ac 2:42–47.
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