All right, good morning, because it's good to see everybody. I'm glad you're here. Welcome to Calvary Chapel. I invite you to stand with us. We'll pray and we'll get started.

Father God, we give you praise for the day. Lord, we have so many reasons to praise you. Lord, you are worthy of all of our praise. Lord, we give you thanks for another opportunity to be here, Lord, to lift a joyful noise to you and to spend some time in your word. Lord God, let your Holy Spirit move through this place this morning in a big way. Lord, we love you and we praise you in your precious name. Amen.

But we'll continue on. When every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that you... Lord God, we just want to take a moment, Lord, and just offer up some simple praise to you, Lord.

Lord, you're the one who gives us breath. You're the one who gets us up each morning, Lord. We want to use that breath to return praise to you, Lord.

Lord God, we have so many reasons to praise you. Lord, just for the simple fact that we are awake and here today, Lord, is reason. Lord God, we have so many reasons to praise you. Lord God, you are worthy of all of our praise. Jesus is... Praise you. God, we have many, many reasons to praise you. Thank you for your faithfulness this morning, Lord God. Thank you for how you are always faithful in our lives.

And what I know is there's a lot going on in the world, but we know that you're faithful. We know what's going to happen. Lord God, we know that you have a plan and a purpose for everything. Lord, there's nothing that happens that you don't know about.

Lord God, help us to rest in that fact, that what you say you're going to do, that you are faithful in your word. You are faithful even when we're not, Lord. Even when we fall short, when I fall short, Lord God, you are still faithful in my life. And you are still faithful in our lives, Lord. This morning as Pastor Ryan comes, Lord, I just pray that your Holy Spirit would

just do something awesome and mighty in this place, Lord. Lord, fill us afresh. Fill us anew. Fill us with your holy fire. We love you, Father. We praise you. And we thank you in Jesus' name. Amen. Let's have some fellowship.

Good morning.

If you could begin the process of finding your seats. Grab a bulletin. We'll get ready to go over some announcements.

Welcome to Calvary Chapel. I'm glad that you have joined us this morning. A handful of things to take note of over on the left-hand side of the bulletin. Are the things that go on throughout the week. And I really would encourage you to take a look at that and find a spot where you can get plugged in. Over in the middle section of your bulletin, a couple of things to pay attention to.

First of all, usually the first Sunday of the month is our intercessory prayer time. But with it being Labor Day weekend, we are going to move that to next Sunday. So next Sunday at 6 o'clock, there will be the intercessory prayer time down at the other end of the hall. Also, a couple of cancellations. College group is canceled for tonight. We'll be back in action next week, and then men's study is canceled for Monday.

So just for Labor Day, with family in town and things like that, that's what's going on there. But then also, I need to announce that we have two new home fellowships getting ready to start. Sarah Manske is going to be hosting a home fellowship at her house, and the address is right there. And Rick Hawkins will be teaching that study. It will be 6.30 p.m. every other week, beginning Tuesday, September the 10th.

And then Jared and Alyssa Doyle are going to be hosting one over in Dexter. The address is right there. And Jared will be leading that one, and it will also be at 6.30 p.m. the second and fourth Mondays of the month, beginning September the 9th. So take note of that. If those look like something you want to get plugged into, you can come talk to either Jared or Sarah about that afterwards.

So those are the things that are going on. Thank you. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. We're going to be, for our responsive reading this morning, we're going to be in Psalm 121. Psalm 121. I didn't turn that on yet. We'll be looking at the New American Standard for this part, so if you need a copy, there should be one in a row around you.

And as you are turning to Psalm 121, if you are able, please stand in the honor of the reading of God's Word.

I will read the odd verses if you will follow along with Jared and the even verses. Psalm 121. A song of ascents. I will lift up my eyes to the mountains. From where shall my help come? My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth. He will not allow your foot to slip. He who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.

The Lord is your keeper. The Lord is your shade on your right hand. The sun will not smite you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord will protect you from all evil. He will keep your soul. The Lord will guard your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forever. And Father, we do praise you for being our helper, Lord. The one who is our greatest strength that gives us everything that we need.

So Father, as we prepare to spend some time in your Word this morning, I ask that you would speak to us by the power of your Holy Spirit. Father, draw us near to you and reveal to us exactly what it is that your church needs. What is it that your church is supposed to be doing so that we can fulfill the vision and the mission, not only that you have given to us locally, but what you have given to your church globally. And so, Lord, we thank you and we praise you in Jesus' name.

Amen. You may be seated. And if you would, open up in your Bibles to the book of Acts, chapter 2. Acts, chapter 2. We're doing something just a little bit different this morning. Last week we finished up Colossians. And before we jump into the next book study, I wanted to take a couple of weeks. And kind of talk about vision and mission. What it looks like for us at Calvary Chapel of Ark City and what we feel like God wants us to be doing.

The direction that he wants us to be going. While we were on vacation, my wife and I spent some time talking about politics. Because a lot of political things took place while we were on vacation. And we were talking about slogans that politicians have, right? Like politicians always come up with kind of their vision slogan for what it is that they want to do.

Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? That's the fact that there's one particular politician that when you hear that slogan, you know who it is. And when you hear that person, you know what their slogan is. Because it is said so often. And we were talking about that in terms of what our vision is here at Calvary Chapel.

And my wife said, I don't know if we get that out there enough. I don't know if we get that vision statement, that kind of mission statement out there enough for what we want Calvary Chapel to be doing. For what we want it to look like to actually be a part of the body here of Calvary Chapel and what God wants us to be. to move forward with. And if you don't know what it is, it's Calvary Chapel of Ark City reaching in

and reaching out. And there's a reason why I came up with that. And I'll explain that kind of as we get into it. We'll cover that first part today. But there's three things that I want us to look at this morning. Because as I got to thinking about this, I did this study several years ago. And so I pulled my old notes out. And as I was kind of looking over my old notes, I was like,

okay, let's go just a little bit deeper. Let's also talk about church. Let's talk about why we gather as the church. Let's talk about what it looks like to have a vision that God has given to us. And so there's three things that I want to look at this morning. I want to look at the church. I want to look at the commission. And then I want to look at that first part of the vision statement,

which is reaching in. Now, again, I kind of did a little bit of a deep dive. So I kind of geeked this a little bit. So please forgive me. And if it's boring for you, then feel free to take a nap. But I thought it was kind of interesting. I went on to one of my Bible study programs, and I just typed in the word church, and I hit search. And the first time in the Bible that the word church is actually

used is in the book of Matthew, and Jesus uses it. He had gone to his disciples, and he had said, who do people say that I am? And they gave all kinds of different ideas about what people said that Jesus was, and most of them false ideas. And he said, but who do you say that I am? And Peter responded, and he said, you are the Messiah, the Son of God. And Jesus says, that's a great answer. And flesh and blood didn't reveal that to you.

Peter, you are Peter, and on this rock, I will build my church. Not that he's going to build it on Peter, although Peter was really important in that. But the rock that he built it on was the truth of Jesus Christ. That's why he called it my church. And so that's the first time that we see the word church used in the Bible. We use that word church a lot. Would you agree? We refer to

it as either the building that we go to or the people that we're a part of. But we don't always know what that word does. We don't always know what that word does. We don't always know what that word does. The word church in the Greek is the word ecclesia. It's actually an assembly, and it did not have at its roots anything sacred in particular. It actually was a secular term that spoke of

any sort of an assembly or gathering of people. And yet the church kind of adopted that term to be who they were, mainly because of what Jesus had to say about building his church. But the church kind of has a little bit of a different view than sometimes we see. The church is the universal body of believers, the universal ecclesia of believers. And so it's everybody

everywhere that is a believer in Jesus Christ. It doesn't matter what your nationality is, what your background is, any of those kinds of things. If you're a believer in Jesus Christ and you are part of this universal church, the universal church kind of takes on two different forms. The invisible universal church and the visible universal church. The visible church

obviously is what we can see. That's what we see. The invisible church is what we can see. It's the body of believers that exists all over the world today, whether it's our brothers and sisters in China, whether it's our brothers and sisters in North Korea, in Africa, in the United States of America. We are all a part of what is known as the visible church. We're alive today,

and we are actively pursuing Jesus Christ as the called out assembly of believers. But there's also what's called the invisible church. The invisible church is every believer from all time, those who are no longer alive, and those who are not yet born yet. Those are all also a part of the invisible church. And it's kind of cool to think about this because usually we divide these up into like early

church and modern church, right? And we think of the early church as the apostles, and we think of the modern church as us. But I'll give you a little bit of a groundbreaking idea that there really is no early church and modern church. There's just the church. And the same church that Peter and Paul and the apostles and Barnabas and all the guys we talked about last week were a part of is the same

church that we're a part of. We're a part of the church. We're a part of the church. We're a part of the church. It's that invisible church because we are all believers in Jesus Christ. We are all a part of the same fellowship of our Savior Jesus. And so we have the visible and the invisible church making up the universal church of God. But then it gets down to smaller things, and we have what's referred

to as the local church. The local church is what we're a part of here. Believe it or not, local churches means the church in your community, not just the one that you attended here this morning, but the church of Jesus Christ in all of our communities. Believe it or not, there are people meeting in lots of different places this morning in our Kansas City, Kansas, that are a part of the same church that you are. They just attended a different

building than you did. And it's kind of hard for us sometimes in our Western culture mentality to remember that. I was having a conversation with my sister last night, and she was telling me about a friend of hers that attended a small group that was a part of a different denomination than she was a part of. And she left that small group and came back and reported to my sister. She said,

I had no idea how much the denominations hate each other. Unfortunately, that oftentimes is the case, is we think, well, if you're not a part of my church, you know, you're garbage. You're not this thing. You're not as good as I am because you're not a part of my church. And we forget that there is no your church or my church. There's just the church, right? We just attend some different buildings. Well, within that local church, which is like

the church of our Kansas City, you have even more local assemblies, which is what we're a part of here at Calvary Chapel. We're part of a local church assembly that's a part of the local church of our Kansas City that's a part of the global church all over the world that's a part of the invisible global church. We're part of the local church of our Kansas City that's a part of the church of all time. Pretty cool, right? That's who we are as the church. And so I also started

asking myself the question, so why do we meet the way that we do? Why do we do things the way we do as a church? You ever ask yourself that question? Every now and then you should ask yourself, why am I doing this? Because maybe it's for a dumb reason, right? And so I didn't want us to be doing anything for a stupid reason. So I thought, why do we gather the way that we do?

And so I started looking back on when believers, if you will, started gathering. It goes all the way back to the Old Testament. God began gathering his people together in the book of Exodus. In the book of Exodus, chapter 25, when Moses had gone up on top of the mountain to get the Ten Commandments, one of the things that God instructed him to do is he told him, I want you to build me a sanctuary, a place where my presence can dwell. We'll call it the tabernacle.

And that would be not only the visible representation of the presence of God amongst the people, but it would also be where the people would be. And so I started gathering the way that we do. And so they built this tabernacle, and the tabernacle was always in the middle of the camp everywhere that they went. It was in the middle of the camp of the children of Israel when they were on their journey, when they would camp, and it was in the middle of the procession when they would pack up camp and leave. God was always at the center, and it was always the place where

all of his people would come and gather. Well, as they came into the land of Israel, and they established themselves in the promised land, the tabernacle was still where they met. First of all, it was in Shiloh, and then David moved it down to Jerusalem. And one day, while David was in his beautiful palace that he'd built, he looked out on the tabernacle, a little tent that probably it wasn't a whole lot bigger than this stage right here. It was a pretty

small place. He looked out on the tent, and he said, why am I dwelling in a beautiful palace while God is dwelling in a tabernacle? I want to build God a temple. And so he went to the prophet Nathan and said, this is what I want to do. And Nathan said, that's a great idea. So he went about to start building a temple, except that night, God showed up to Nathan in a dream and

said, hey, I understand David's heart, but he's not the one that's going to build me a temple. First of all, I never asked for a temple. Second of all, he's a man of war, and he can't be the one that builds my temple. But I'm going to make of him a great name, and I'm going to establish a kingdom through him, and his son, who will be a man of peace, he will build my temple. And that's

exactly what happened. David laid out all the plans, and Solomon, his son, constructed the temple. And in the book of Revelation, it says, the book of 1 Kings, I think it's chapter 8, they dedicate this temple, and it's a really cool place. Matter of fact, if you ever have a chance, go back and read 1 Kings with that dedication of the temple, because it's such a beautiful scene that Solomon is there, and he offers this amazing prayer to the Lord, and all the priesthood's in there, and the glory of the Lord fills the temple with basically smoke that's so thick that they almost can't see anything, because the glory of God has filled the temple. And that temple would be the central meeting place for the nation of

Israel. It would be where they would come at least three times a year to make their sacrifices. It would be a place where kids could learn more about the law. It would be a place where the people would gather, and they would seek the Lord together. Now, the children of Israel throughout time ended up finding themselves falling into sin, in particular, the sin of idolatry. And so God had

to deal with the nation of Israel, and when he did, he sent them into captivity. The northern ten tribes went into captivity to the nation of Assyria. The southern two tribes went into captivity to the nation of Israel. And so God had to deal with the nation of Israel, and when he did,

he sent them into captivity to the nation of Babylon. And at that point in time, the temple worship ended, and yet there was still a faithful group of believers that wanted to gather. And we see in the book of Ezekiel that these faithful groups of believers, followers of God, would gather together in what's known as a synagogue. And a synagogue would be a gathering of at least ten Jewish males, and they would come together, and what would happen is either the priest or some sort of a rabbi would stand up in front of the people, and he would open up the scriptures, the Torah, and he would give a reading out of the Torah, and then he would give a reading out of the Torah, and then he would give a reading out of the Torah, and then he would give a reading out of the Torah, and then he would give a reading out of the Torah, and then he would give a reading out of the Torah, and then he would give a reading out of the Torah, and then he would give a reading out of the Torah, and

an explanation of what they had just read and kind of how it would apply to their lives. That's what's referred to as the synagogue model. That same model is what they brought back to Israel when the children of Israel came back to build the temple, is they maintained this synagogue model. And even though they had a temple again, they still had synagogues throughout the land where people would come together, hear the law read, and then hear a teaching about the law. That's what we see Jesus

taking part in in many places throughout the gospel accounts. For instance, in one gospel account, we're told that Jesus stood up and he read, and he read an entire prophecy about the Messiah. And he says, this has now been fulfilled in your hearing. And he closed the scroll, and he sat down, and everybody freaked out because they knew he was saying he was the Messiah. So Jesus

carried on the same idea of the synagogue, and he would teach in these synagogues as a local rabbi. The disciples, after Jesus ascended into heaven, would go into these synagogues, and they would teach. And that was kind of the idea of the synagogue. And they would teach in these synagogues, kind of what the early church model continued to be, is they would meet in locations. Paul did

this. Everywhere he went, he found a synagogue, somewhere that they could meet. And so that's the same model that we follow today, where some guy, that's me, stands up in front of people, and opens up the Bible, and reads a passage, and then explains it. Now the second question I had along those lines is, well, what about worship? Is that in the Bible? Well, interestingly enough, it is.

It's actually everywhere throughout Scripture. There is, this morning in our responsive reading, we read Psalm 121. Do you remember the title right underneath of Psalm 121? I read it. You might have missed it. It said, A Song of Ascents. There's about 15 of those-ish, and they would sing those, most scholars believe, as they were approaching Jerusalem, because they

would ascend to Jerusalem, because Jerusalem sat higher than everywhere else. And they would sing these songs together. They were, if you will, congregational hymns that they would sing together. And then as you look in the book of Acts, you find that the early church, when they would gather on the first day of the week, that's why we gather on Sundays, when they would gather on the first day of the week, they would oftentimes sing a hymn when they took part in their teaching.

Now, the other thing that I tend to hear people say is, you know, if we really want to do it like the early church did, if we really want to be spiritual, we should only be meeting in houses, because, you know, the early church met in houses. House churches is the only way that you're supposed to do it. And you know what I tell people like that? I say, show me where it says that. And they're

like, well, we saw the early church meet in the early church. We saw the early church meet in the early church. We saw the early church meet in houses. Well, Paul taught in a college, basically. When he was in Ephesus, he taught in the school of Tyrannus, not in someone's house. When the Philippian believers first started gathering, Paul taught down by the riverside. I was reminded in between

the services. Do you remember where Jesus taught people? He taught them from the shoreline. Matter of fact, he got into a boat and went out into the boat and taught them from a boat. Really, if you think about it, you can have church anywhere. It doesn't have to be, you know, a church in a house. There's nothing wrong with meeting in a building like this. There's

nothing wrong with meeting in a house. We have to be careful when we say, if we want to do it like the early church, it has to be like this, because you need to know what the Bible says. And so we meet in a building, because it's the easiest way to get most of you in here. I don't think you guys are going to fit in my house. I feel confident you won't all fit in my house, right? And so we meet

in a building like this. And so that's kind of the model that we follow. It's sort of the history of how we got here today. Now, those of you that have been sleeping, if you could go ahead and wake up and join us for the rest of the service. So I also started thinking about the commission. Jesus, before he died, or before he ascended into heaven, gave a commission to all of the disciples. Now,

before you think this was for them and not for me, let's define what a disciple is. A disciple is a learner of Jesus Christ. A learner of Jesus Christ. So if you're here this morning and you're a believer in Jesus Christ, you are a disciple. That means that when Jesus gave this commission to the disciples, he didn't just mean the 12 guys sitting in front of him. He meant the disciples,

right? And so he gives this commission. And so if you look at the gospel accounts, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and then the very beginning of Acts, there's a handful of things that he gives us as far as the commission goes. The first part of the commission that he gives to his disciples is that they are to preach. They're to preach. Preach simply means to declare a message. It's what you

would do if you stood in front of the disciples and said, I'm going to preach. I'm going to preach. I'm going to Salvation. And so you get in front of a handful of people or maybe even just one-on-one, and you declared to them the truth of the gospel. And you said, this is the truth. I want you to believe it. That's preaching to them, right? And that's an important part of the commission that we're given.

It's part of reaching the lost, is that we preach the message of the gospel. The second thing that we're told is we are told that we are to teach. We are to teach those all the things that Jesus taught them. Teaching carries with it taking that message that you have declared explaining it more fully and explaining how that message affects every part of your life. You are

now teaching them. And so there's a discipleship aspect to that, right? So we are to preach. We are to teach. Number three, we are to make disciples. In other words, make other little followers and learners of Jesus Christ. Now, if that's going to happen, it has to start taking place in a much more one-on-one situation. I can teach you, but it's really hard for me to disciple 150 of you

because that's where one-on-one stuff has to take place. That's where small groups come into play, and we'll talk about that a little bit more. And then the last thing that he tells them that they need to do in the book of Acts is he tells them that they need to be witnesses. The idea of a witness is someone who declares what they have seen, someone who bears witness to what they have seen, right? It's a legal term, and that's what Jesus said. I want you to tell everybody what you

saw, what you heard and what you saw in me. Tell everybody else. And so that's what we do. When Jesus has made a difference in our life, when he has changed us, and we have seen what he's done in us, we're to take that and tell other people about it. And they say, well, I don't believe you. It's like, well, you don't have to believe me, but it changed my life. I know it's true because of what God did in me. And the only way you're going to know it's

true is if you see if God does it in you too. That's being a witness. Now, as he sent them out to do this, he didn't just say, hey, you guys should go preach, teach, make disciples, and be witnesses, and sure hope you can do it. Buck up, soldiers, because it's going to be hard work. No, he gave them everything that they needed to do it. The power to fulfill the commission,

came about through the Holy Spirit. Jesus said, I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you, and I will empower you through the Holy Spirit to do everything that you need to do. He will teach you, he will be with you, and he will empower you to be witnesses for me. So they were sent out with the power of the Holy Spirit, and they were sent out with a commission and the power of the

Holy Spirit for a specific purpose. Now, I first developed this idea as I prayed about, what the church is supposed to look like a very long time ago. When I was in my early 20s, and first getting into ministry, I was in college ministry, and when I was in college ministry, the emergent church was really, really flowing strong, and they were very much questioning everything about the church. As a matter of fact, I remember there's a book out at that point in time. It was called, They Like Jesus, But They Hate the Church. And everybody had all these

challenging ideas about what church was supposed to look like, and what's it really supposed to be. So all I know to do in those situations, I'm not a scholar, so all I know to do is just start praying. Lord, what is church supposed to look like? Like, there's a lot of different ideas floating around right now. What's it supposed to be? And so as I prayed, and thought, and read,

and studied, I came up with two things. That really, when you encapsulate it, the church is supposed to do two things. Number one, the church is supposed to build up, or a biblical word would be edify, the body of Christ. To build up the body of Christ. But then second of all, the church is supposed to... Take the gospel of Jesus to the world around them. You see, building up is the teaching and

the discipling. Taking the gospel is the preaching and the being witnesses. Kind of makes sense, right? Would you agree with this? That these are the two things. And so I've encapsulated that into the mission statement for Calvary Chapel of Ark City, which is Calvary Chapel of Ark City reaching in to build up the body of Christ, and reaching out to the lost world with the gospel. Does that

kind of make sense? Reaching out. And so that's what I want to spend the next, today and next week looking at, is those two statements. This morning, I want to focus in on the statement, reaching in. So look in Acts chapter 2. If you have not turned there yet, or you closed the Bible because you thought, he's surely not using this thing today, go back to Acts chapter 2, and look down at verse 42. I'll give

you just a moment. I'll see if I hear pages turning. And they do. Beautiful. I love the sound of Bible pages turning. Acts chapter 2, verse 42. This is what it says. They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching, and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer. Now, I feel like in that verse, we have four things that it's going to teach us about what it looks like to reach in as the body of Christ.

Now, let me give you a little bit of background, because this is what we often call in historical narratives in Scripture. We call it a story. We call it a story. We call it a story. We call it a summary statement. A whole lot of things have taken place. Summary statement, moving on to the next activity that's going to take place. So in this summary statement, a lot's taken place up to

this point in time. In Acts chapter 1, Jesus' disciples gathered around as he stood on the mountain that he would ascend into heaven from. And they look at Jesus, still expecting him to be a political messiah a little bit. And they say, at this point in time, are you going to establish your kingdom here on earth? And Jesus said, it's not for you to know the times or the seasons that

the Father has put into motion. You need to go back to Jerusalem, wait for the coming of the Holy Spirit, and then go and be witnesses of me in Jerusalem, in Judea, in Samaria, and then to the uttermost parts of the earth. And so that's what they do. They go back to Jerusalem, and they hang out in the upper room, probably the same room where they had the last supper together. They hang

out in the upper room together, and they are seeking the Lord. And for about 10 days, they seek the Lord together until a day comes called the day of Pentecost. The day of Pentecost was one of those feast days where everybody came back to the temple to seek the Lord together and to celebrate this feast day. And while they were gathered together in an upper room on the day of Pentecost, it says that they were praying together in a great rushing wind.

The sound of a great rushing wind came through that upper room, and tongues of fire descended upon each one of them. Sidebar, I'm not getting into tongues this morning. That's just all that there is to it. There's a whole teaching on that that I could give you right now, but that's not the point. You can talk to me later. Back. Okay, so tongues of fire rest upon each one of them, and as these tongues of fire rest upon them,

they each begin to speak in lots of different languages, and they speak one thing, the wonderful works of God. So everybody that was gathered, all these different people from all points in the earth are gathered together for the one purpose of seeking God during this feast of Pentecost, and all they hear is a whole bunch of people speaking. Some of them will hear it in their own language, but some people it just sounds like gibberish to. And so some people go, hey, what's going on here? These guys must already be loaded, right?

They must already be lit up for the day. How can they do that on a feast day? And Peter goes, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. We're not drunk. It's 10 o'clock in the morning. Give us a little bit of grace here. Of course we're not drunk already. No, what you're seeing is a fulfillment of what God told us was going to happen in the book of Joel. Because in the book of Joel, God said that

in the last days, I will pour out my spirit on all men. Dream dreams, your young men will see visions, and everyone will experience the wonderful work of the Spirit of God. That's what you're seeing happen today. And then he goes on to preach a message about Jesus and how they crucified Jesus. But Jesus was raised from the dead, and everybody's hearts were convicted. And they said, what do we need to do? And he said,

repent and believe that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord. And in that moment, 3,000 people got saved. And so the church, the ecclesia, the assembling of the brethren went from about 200 people to about 3,200 people in one day. Now, how did the church sustain itself with all of these new people? They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread,

and to prayer. Now, before we get into those four things, there's one more thing I want to point out to you, and that's the word devoting. That word devoted is the word that we use when we're talking about Jesus. It's a pretty powerful word. It means to give constant attention to, to give constant attention to. So let me put it in a little bit of our vernacular that we might use.

They made it their way of life. And I point that out for a specific purpose, because for these believers in Jesus Christ on this day of Pentecost, and many other believers in what we often refer to as the early church, church was not just something that they did as a hobby. I actually worked with a guy one time, and we were talking about hobbies. He goes, well, for instance, your hobby is like church, and my hobby is carpentry. And I said, whoa,

first of all, church isn't my hobby. It's not just something I do because I don't have anything else to do, and I need to find something to fill my time with. Church is my life, because that's where I go and I learn about Jesus, the one that gave himself for me. But too many Christians treat church just like that. It's a hobby. It's something you do when you've got some time. It's something

to do if there's nothing else going on, and all of the stars align, and it's not raining outside, and it's not raining outside, and it's not raining outside, and it's not raining outside, and it's not snowing outside, and it's not too hot, and it's not too cold. And a lot of people treat church, and we got to laugh a little bit, but a lot of people treat church like that, is they say, well, I'll go if it feels okay, right? And it should be a way of life. We should be devoted to these things. Listen, we can really learn a lesson from what we refer to as the early church,

because the early church knew what it was to gather, even when it wasn't a real popular thing to do. And I think that we need to look and say, is it my life? Because if I'm not devoted to it, then am I really believing it? If I'm not devoted to it, is it really something that's made a difference in me? So they were continually devoting themselves to these things. And so now we get to

the heart of it. What does it look like to reach in as a church? If we do it like what it says in the book of Acts, what does it look like to reach in? Well, there were four things that they gave themselves or devoted themselves to. Number one was the apostles' teaching. The apostles' teaching. Now, I hope you're asking yourself a question right now. What did the apostles teach?

That's a great question. I'm glad you asked it. If you didn't ask it, you can ask it yourself now. Self, what did the apostles teach? Perfect. Let me answer that for you. So the apostles didn't teach the New Testament because, well, they didn't have the New Testament yet. As a matter of fact, starting from this point is when the disciples will not only live out what they will write as

the New Testament, but also begin to write the New Testament. So they didn't have Matthew through Revelation to teach to everybody yet. So what did they teach to everybody? Well, there were two things that they did have. They had the Old Testament, and they had the teachings of Jesus, which illuminated the Old Testament for what the Old Testament was supposed to be. I told

first service this. I said, living in the early church had to have been one of the most fascinating times to live in ever. Can you imagine being a Jewish kid who grew up, like the disciples did, hearing the Torah your entire life? You knew the writings. You knew the Psalms, the Proverbs. You knew about the prophecies. You knew the histories. You knew all that kind of stuff

because it was taught to you on a pretty consistent basis. You knew the prophecies. You knew the prophecies. You knew the prophecies. You knew the prophecies. And then every time you opened it up again, you were like, oh, that's Jesus. Oh my gosh. I had no idea. Because everything in the Old Testament points us to Jesus, right? Like it's all revealing those things to us. And I just think

it had to, every day was just a great new revelation for them, right? It's just like, oh my gosh. It's like a, it's like a brand new book that I've never read before. And I think that had to have been a very exciting time. It's kind of like when you're early on in your faith. You know when you're early on in your faith, and you have a question. You're like, Lord, I don't know what to do with this. And

like God answers it for you. And you're just like, what? Was that, has that always been there? Yeah. But now the Holy Spirit illuminated it to you. It had to have been an exciting time. And so they were taking the Old Testament, the Torah, the law, the writings, the prophets, all those things. They were taking those things, and they were giving the teaching based upon how

Jesus not only fulfilled them, but how he was going to fulfill them. So that's what they taught. And then they mixed in all of the teachings that Jesus had given them. All of that truth that Jesus had given them. How do they remember all that, Ryan? Well, remember, God promised to give them what? The Holy Spirit, who would teach them everything that they needed to know. And so

for our purposes, since we do have the New Testament, if we're looking at this as the church today, it means that we need to study the Word. It means we need to study the Word. That's what we do. We give high priority to the study of God's Word. Have you noticed out here that it's a pretty important thing that we do? That we spend most of our service doing that? It's because it's a

highly important thing. The Word teaches us everything that we need to know. And there's three ways that you can take in God's Word. Number one is through what we call lecture-style teaching. Lecture-style teaching. That's what you're sitting in right now, is a lecture-style teaching. A guy is standing in front of you, reading the Scripture, and explaining it to you. I had somebody ask me one time, they're

like, are you okay if we comment in the middle of service? No, I'm not. Okay, that's not what this is for. There's going to be a time for that, and I'll tell you when that time is in just a moment. It's called small group studies. If I start letting everybody get up and talk, well, then it turns into chaos, and then none of you come back, because you were like, that was super chaotic, right? So this is a lecture-style

teaching. Lecture-style teaching is what a lot of your podcasts are, or somebody that you listen to on the radio, and they are incredibly important. I also heard somebody say, you know, the Sunday morning message really isn't all that important. Really? I'm pretty sure it is. And I don't say that because I'm the one giving it. If one of you was up here giving it, I would say it's pretty

important, because that lecture-style teaching, according to the synagogue, that Jesus followed, was a pretty important thing for them to do. But the second way that we study God's Word is we do it through small groups. That's where commenting is really important, because in a small group, you gather together with a handful of people, 5, 10, 15, maybe 20 people. At that point in time, it may be too many, but that's where you start bantering back and forth about what God's Word has to say. That's iron sharpening iron. That's you coming together

saying, hey, did you hear what he said on Sunday? I don't know if I agree with that. Is it in the Bible? And I'm okay with that. You need to come with some evidence, but I'm okay with that. I absolutely expect you at some point in time to say, hey, I want to know that what he says is in Scripture, and you study it together. Well, this is what I'm going through. Is there a Scripture that

addresses that? Yes, this Scripture addresses it. Does that kind of make sense? That's what small groups are. And again, if you're not plugged into one of those, which we have lots of them there on the left-hand side of the bulletin, I'm not saying you're failing as a Christian. I'm saying you're lacking as a Christian, because that gathering together of the body,

for iron sharpening iron, is an incredibly important thing, because it's part of what helps you to become who God wants you to be. And then you can't get caught up in your own little world of teaching that's completely off-base, because somebody is there to help keep you on track. And then, of course, the third way that we do it is through your own personal Bible study, which you know how I feel about that. And again, if you're new, and you don't know where to start in the Bible, we have a place where we're going through Scripture together, and I always like to point this out right there on the side. And if you

are not involved in a small group, I always say this, but I don't want to just bypass it. On this side of your bulletin are all the small groups you can get involved in at church. And I just want to encourage you to not say, well, it's probably just not for me. It's for you. There's something for everybody here. So the first thing is the apostles' teaching. The second thing that they

devoted themselves to is fellowship. The word fellowship speaks of community, joint participation, or that which you have in common. Brothers and sisters, we have a common bond, a bond that goes very deep, a bond that goes deeper than even the bond of familial relationships, and that's the bond of the blood of Jesus Christ. Because the one place of commonality that we all have is the blood of Jesus Christ. But you know what I find that when we gather together, we oftentimes don't

talk about? The one thing that bonds us together, and that's Jesus. We've got the, I like to work on my car club. You know, you've got the hunting and fishing club. You've got the, I like sports club. You've got the, you know, you name it. I like the music club. And we find our commonality in something of this world, and we forget that the guys that work on the cars and

the guys that like to play the music, they have a bond deeper than cars and music, and that's Jesus. And even though they may never hang out with each other in any other capacity, you still have the bond of Jesus Christ. And that fellowship is so key, and we need it. You need to get to know the people that are around you, because that's fellowship. Fellowship

means all of a sudden you're kind of getting down and dirty, and it's like, okay, we're getting involved in each other's lives now, right? We're getting involved with each other, and it takes a little bit of getting to know each other. Now, I hear the same thing a lot. Church has grown, and that's a beautiful thing, and it's been growing, and I love it. And I hear this from people all the

time. I just, I just can't seem to meet anybody in the church. By the time I get to the church, I'm going to get to the back of the church. Everybody's gone. Do you know what I say? Start in the back of the church. Now, I know what happens, okay? You may not think you're, people may not think your name's on that chair. Your name's on that chair, right? As far as you're concerned, it is. And all of the

people sit in all of the same places. Matter of fact, it screws with me sometimes when y'all change places, and I'm kind of like, where'd they go? Are they here this morning? I'm going to tell you, you can do something really revolutionary, okay? Hold your hats. Hold on to whatever you've got that you might lose. You could sit someplace different every Sunday morning. Oh, the whole balance of church will be

off. Maybe, maybe you choose a different place every Sunday morning to sit. One week it's here, there, there, and pretty soon everybody's going, did you know they go to our church? Yeah, they've been here for like five years now. They just move seats, right? Like, you could get super revolutionary like that. But, but don't come to me and say, I don't have time to meet anybody.

Listen, I try to give you a couple minutes, you know, in between worship and the, the word, and that's mainly so I can put my microphone on and get on stage, right? And give you a minute to say hi to the person next to you. But I'm here to tell you right now, ain't nobody kicking you out after church, right? Some of y'all hit the door like, like you're trying to set a new land speed record to get out the building. And I'm going, you could hang out for a minute. Just, just take

a second. Soak it in, right? I'll say some good stuff. Just let yourself go, how you doing, right? I mean, there could be that moment. Where you just stop and talk to some people. But, but listen, that's fellowship. You've got something in common. You're like, you don't understand. We don't have anything in common. Yes, you do. It's called Jesus. And that is how the early church grew, is that they knew that the

greatest bond that they had was with each other. So, so, you know, the early church dealt with a lot of persecution. And one of my favorite symbols from the early church is the ichthus fish. You ever seen the ichthus fish? It's what we put on the back of our cars, right? And do you know from what I understand from church history, that came about because if there was a person who thought

they might have been talking to a believer, but weren't sure and didn't want to necessarily lose their life today, they would take a stick and sort of draw one half of the ichthus fish in the dirt. And then if the other person was a believer, they would draw the other half of the ichthus fish. And they would know, hey, we're brothers and sisters. We are fellow believers. We have

fellowship with each other. Listen, it's how the early church sustained. If we're going to reach in, then there needs to be fellowship. So, number one is the apostles teaching. Number two is fellowship. Number three, let's all get excited, breaking bread, right? Okay, now, breaking bread can carry with it two different ideas, and I think that they're both important. The first is actually just sharing a meal together. Just sharing a meal together. Now,

listen, I addressed this first service. I'll address the second service. I addressed this service. But let me just say, it's really hard for us to have a whole group meal inside of this building. Can we all agree with that? That it would be, it's hard to find one spot that we can all meet and have a meal. Covered dishes are amazing, mainly because there are people that make some of the, we

have amazing cooks in this church, and we have even better bakers in this church. And I love when we gather together and do that, right? Like, we did this with the baptism, but we have to find some place kind of outside, and we have to try to find a nice day. And so, it's Kansas. There's like five of them a year. So, sometimes it's hard to find a nice day. And so, it's hard to find a nice day.

Sometimes it's hard to find a nice day to have an outdoor meal, right? And so, sometimes it's hard, but it's really important to gather together and eat, because all the walls come down when you're eating together, right? So, I'm going to tell you to do something, again, kind of revolutionary. Now that you've already changed seats, ask somebody around you to go to lunch with you that day, right? Be like, hey, let's go get some sweet barbecue together, right? Because

all the walls fall down when you eat together. That breaking of bread together was a serious thing in the New Testament, because in those particular points in time, you didn't just sit down and eat with just everybody in the world, because everybody shared a communal bowl, right? Everybody dipped out of the same bowl. Do you guys remember the days, some of you people that are closer to my age and older, when you went to a Mexican restaurant and everybody did not get their own bowl of salsa? Do you guys remember those days? They just put

this one stinking bowl of salsa, and you're like, really? Like, and then somebody's kid is there, they've dipped, like, the same chips 17 times in the bowl, and you're like, probably not. Probably I'm done with that bowl now, right? And so, now they bring everybody their individual bowls, which is great. Well, that was kind of how it was back in the days. They all shared out of the same

chips and salsa bowl, only it was probably, like, pita bread and oil or something like that, and they'd all dip together, so it was a meal. You know, it's not like restaurants today. Like, go to the Chipotle and Derby. I love the Chipotle. I can't help it. It's the white girl in me, but Starbucks, and I'm just happy. Anyway, so, so you go there, and like, there's the smallest tables

ever, and they sit you, there's a salt and pepper shaker separating you from the family next to you, and listen, sidebar, I can't do that, okay? I can't not be a part of them. They can't not be a part of, I hear their conversation, and I look at my wife, and she's just like, and I'm like, and she's like, I'll let it go for a while, and then finally, I joined their conversation, and then we, we become friends, and we share pictures and things like that. I took a selfie with the girl to In-N-Out one time in Denver as the girl behind the counter. I was just like, you,

selfie now, right? And she was just like, okay. I get to know people. Anyway, but eating together was a big deal at that point in time. You know why? Because eating together is vulnerability, right? Because it kind of lets down the walls. I don't know about you, but I spill things on myself a lot. You may hear spill things on yourself a lot. Like, most of my shirts have

coffee stains on them, if I'm being completely honest. Matter of fact, one day when I was working I got out of my truck, and I got a coffee cup in my hand, and I don't like lids. I'm opposed to them on both a religious and philosophical level, and I get out, and I stretch, and a big blast of wind comes up and catches my door, and it hits my hand, and an entire cup of coffee spills all down the front of me, and I drop the cup, and I break it, and I'm like, oh no. Not very cutesy, not very mindful, not very demure, and, and I was just like, wow, and I go in, and the guy looks at me, and the guy that I work with goes, things just kind of happen to you, don't they? And I was like, absolutely they do, but I'm here to tell you right now, if we're eating

lunch together, the moment I spill salsa on myself, and you're like, hey, you've got a little, I'm like, I know, right? So tell me more about you, and now you're not nervous to tell me anything, because I've got salsa all over my shirt. There's something about eating together that does that for us. Well, not only is it sharing a meal together, but it's sharing the meal together. It speaks of

in the Lord's Supper. That's a really important thing for us to do. We do that at least once a month here, because it's really important, because as we do, we declare the fact that the one place that brings us together is the blood of Jesus Christ, that the body and the blood of Jesus Christ creates the greatest bond between all of us, and we celebrate that all of the walls have fallen down, and we are now one in Christ, and we break that bread together. Well, so he tells us, so we see that, first of all, the apostles teaching, second of all, fellowship, third, the breaking of bread, and fourth is prayer. Prayer. Now, you know that I've taught on prayer

quite a few times here lately, so I'm not going to go into all the prayer things. I think individually you should be people of prayer, but this carries with it the idea that this is corporate prayer. As a matter of fact, if you look in a real expanded Greek translation, it literally says the prayer. The prayer. And I appreciate that. I appreciate that. I appreciate that. I appreciate that.

I appreciate that because I put the in front of a lot of things, but I also appreciate it because it speaks of corporate prayer together. You see, when they gathered together, they prayed together a lot. And listen, we give pretty high praise to that here at Calvary Chapel as well. A lot of people don't realize this, and so I try to encourage you that we have two different prayer meetings that takes place every Sunday morning. One takes place at eight o'clock, a half hour

before the first service, and it meets in this room back here. And we just pray for the service, and we pray for the things that go out on flock note. I'll talk about flock note in just a second. We pray for the things that other people have going on, and we just have time to pray. First of all, at eight o'clock. The second one takes place at 10 o'clock. And listen, anybody can come

to those. You can come, and you can join the battle that takes place in prayer before this actually happens. I am assured of the fact that anything good that happens up here is because of the battle that takes place in there. And so anybody can come join that. Once a month, we have an intercessory prayer time. Again, usually the first Sunday of the month. This week, it's going

to be the second Sunday of the month. And it takes place down at three o'clock, and it takes place the other end of the building down in the agape room. And we have a wonderful group of people that gathers together, and we bring all of the requests of the community and of our hearts and of our church to the Lord. And my expectation is that every single small group also has times of prayer together. If they're not happening, then small group leaders, it better start this week. But

there should be a time of gathering together to pray. You should be telling each other your prayer requests and corporately praying for them. And if you're not, you should be telling each other your prayer requests and corporately praying for those together, because that's how we sharpen each other, and that's how we encourage each other. But it's not just praying together corporately. It's knowing the requests of the people

that are in the church so that individually we can be praying for them as well. Listen, we have a communication system here. Flawed maybe, but it's the one that we've got. It's called Flocknote. And if you're not a part of Flocknote, then you can go to flocknote.com slash ccac, and there's a little paper hanging up as you leave the church that'll tell you how to get involved in that. And you can

sign up for prayer requests. And when things go on in people's lives, they text me or they message me on Facebook or something like that, and I send those requests out so that you all can be praying. You know, we've had a couple of people that have had heart attacks in the last few weeks. We've had people that have had surgeries. And I send all that out so that you can be praying

for those things. And occasionally when there's things either going on in the community or in the world that I think needs extra prayer, I send that out on there as well. So I'd encourage you to be involved in that, because prayer is what made the early church what the early church was. And so he says to devote yourselves to prayer, gatherings where prayers are offered. So brothers and

sisters, our role, first of all, as the church is to build up the body of Christ, to build up the body of Christ. And the way that we do that is by reaching in. And the way that we reach in is that

we reach in to the breaking of bread and to prayer, because that's how we reach in and build up the body. So my challenge for you as we wrap up here is this. Are you getting involved? Are you getting involved in the things here at church? Listen, again, it's so easy to show up here, listen to a message, leave and never talk to anybody. And you can do that. There's no condemnation. I'll still

love you. You're still a member of my church, and I will still minister to you to the best of my ability. But the other thing that I want you to do is to pray. And I want you to pray. And I want you to pray. And I want you to pray. And I want you to pray. And I want you to pray. And I want you to pray. And I want you to pray. And I want you to pray. And I want you to pray. Excuse me as well.

And my first question is this. Did you tell anybody? Well, no. I thought you'd notice I wasn't there. Well, I don't take attendance. So if you want other people to know what's going on in your life, you have to be involved in people's lives. Because that's what the church is. And so are you involved? Because you need to get involved and you need to reach in and get to know the body of

Christ. May make it your way of life amen okay I'm hoping that we have a group of children because it's communion Sunday okay I see the line starting so parents if you could kind of keep an eye on your kids as they come in here and they start looking for you we'll try to get all the classes in this time come on in kiddos well one out of three ain't bad okay here comes another one come on down kids and then here comes the last one I know this takes a minute but I love for the kids to be able to hear all this so come on down you were right Dean that way one more little group coming good okay all right so this morning is communion Sunday glad that all these kiddos can be in here

to hear this and in this fellowship this communion is exactly what we've been talking about this morning is that the bond that we have is with Jesus Christ and so as we partake of communion together we're always told that we are to do so wordfully and I think that that means three things number one that we really understand what we're doing here on that last great night of the feast and we've talked about this lots of times Jesus took that bread now the bread that he took was interesting because it was three things it was first of all unleavened meaning that it was pure speaking of the sinlessness of Christ number two it was striped because of the way that it was baked speaking of the fact that Jesus

by his stripes we were healed and third it was pierced again because of the way that they prepared it for baking speaking of the piercings that Jesus endured for us and so when Jesus took that bread and said this is my body there was a lot of weight to that because it was pure it was pierced and it was striped and then he broke it and he said take any this is my body which is broken for you and then he took that last cup the cup of the of the new covenant the last cup of the Passover had several different cups that they drank in the very last day of the millennial one was called the cup of redemption and he said this is the cup of the new covenant in my blood which is shed for you take and drink he said do this in remembrance of me and so inside of

each of these trays are a bunch of cups stacked together the bottom cup has the cracker in it the top cup has the juice in it and that's what those things speak of they speak of the body and the blood of Jesus and we are reminded in scripture that we are told that every time we do this we declare the death of Christ we tell everybody in the world that the way that we're made right is because of the body and the blood of Jesus Christ second way that we partake of that in a worthy manner is we make sure that we are in the faith because this is a meal for believers and so if you're here this morning and you're not a believer in Jesus Christ then then I would encourage you either a don't take part in it or b get your heart right with Jesus

let today be the day that you say you know what I want to be a part of that body I I want to be a part of that group of believers so confess your sins to the Lord and ask him to be your savior and as you put your faith in him he'll come and make his home inside of you that's what scripture tells us scripture tells us at that point in time you are born again and then it's a meal for you but the third thing for those of us that are believers is that we need to make sure that our hearts are right before the Lord as believers when we sin we don't lose our salvation but it does cut off our fellowship the way fellowship is restored is through confession we're told that if we confess our

sins he's faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and we confess to our merciful and faithful high priest which is none other than Jesus Christ himself and so I'm going to invite the worship team to to come on up and the worship team is going to lead us in one last song and as they lead us in this last song I would ask you that you would allow the Lord to search your heart to know whether or not you're in the faith and to know whether or not they're 我是不在 obesidad be anything that needs dealt with between you and the Lord so that as you take this time and as you partake in this meal you can do so with a heart that is fully given to Jesus Christ amen once you've received your elements please stand and we'll partake together

god of your goodness would you bow with me father we come before you and lord i thank you for your body that was broken for us Lord, I thank you for enduring the beatings. Lord, for bearing the stripes. Lord, for wearing the crown of thorns. For allowing your hands and feet to be pierced. And Lord, allowing that blood to flow from your side. Lord, I thank you for your body that was broken for us.

And Father, I thank you for your blood. I thank you for the blood of Jesus Christ that is enough to cover all of our sins. The blood of Jesus Christ that was enough to purchase our freedom. The blood of Jesus Christ that makes us brand new. And the blood of Jesus Christ that has never failed us yet. Lord, we thank you for the blood. And so Father, as we partake in this, may we truly understand the work that you did for us on the cross.

And Lord, the bond that we have to each other because of Jesus. We thank you and we praise you, Father, in Jesus' name. Amen. Let's partake.

And if you would bow with me one last time. Oh, Father, I thank you for the time that we've had in your word this morning. And I just ask that only the things of you would remain. And Father, that you would continue to fashion in each one of us individually the heart of Jesus Christ that you want us to have. And Father, would you fashion in us corporately the bond of Jesus Christ

and the edification of the body that we need. Father, we thank you for who you are in Jesus' name. Amen. Be blessed.