A Sanctified Life | Sunday Sermon

A Sanctified Life | Sunday Sermon

Series: Acts: The Story Continues...

What does a Spirit-filled life actually look like?

After the power of Pentecost in Acts 2, the story doesn’t end with a moment - it continues into everyday life. In Acts 2:42–47, we see a beautiful picture of the early Church: devoted to the Word, united in fellowship, living life together, and walking in continual prayer.

This wasn’t a strategy.
It wasn’t a program.
It was the result of hearts transformed by the Spirit of God.

In this message from our series “Acts: The Story Continues,” we explore:

What true devotion to Christ looks like
The meaning of biblical fellowship (koinonia)
How the Holy Spirit shapes everyday life
Why there is no divide between “sacred” and “secular”
How God builds His Church through ordinary, faithful lives

The early Church didn’t grow because they had the right strategy…

It grew because God was present among them.

And the same is true today.

The question is not how we can build the Church…

…but what it looks like for us to become a people fully devoted to Christ in every part of life.

Scripture: Acts 2:42–47 (ESV)


Join us Sundays and Thursdays as we continue walking through the book of Acts together.

Transcript

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In Acts chapter 2, we're gonna read what we do that stand for the word. You're gonna need some Bibles today too, so hope you're wrong. In Acts chapter 2, verse 42, it says, And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to 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 they had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and their belongings, and they were distributing their possessions and 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 people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved. Church, this is the word of the Lord. Amen. Thanks be to God, indeed. You may be seated. Every week I get a little better at that. You can be seated thing. So if you were here last week, you remember that in the um Acts chapter 2, which we started last week, we went all the way from verse 1 all the way to verse 41. And in that section, the um the disciples had gathered in Jerusalem because the Jesus had told them, I want you to go to Jerusalem and I want you to wait. I don't want you to depart from Jerusalem. I don't want you to start planning and strategizing and you know and going on missions, trips. I don't want you to do anything else. Just wait for me and don't depart, because the Holy Spirit's gonna come. I'm gonna send you my spirit, the promise of the Father, and when he comes, you're gonna receive power, and the Holy Spirit's gonna come upon you, and you're gonna be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. And so over this period of ten days, they had all been gathering in Jerusalem, and they were devoting themselves to prayer, and they were being faithful and obedient, and they were waiting for the coming of the Holy Spirit. And finally, on the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came. And it says that they heard the sound of a mighty rushing wind that filled the whole entire house where they were staying, and then these tongues of fire came and they settled upon each one of them, and they were filled with the Holy Spirit. And as they were, they began to speak with other tongues as the Holy Spirit gave them utterance. They were just speaking other languages that they had never learned before. They're just coming out of their mouth and they're just praising God, right? And so at some point they must have gone out of the house because the people in the surrounding area come running when they hear this commotion and this sound, whether it was the wind or whether it was just them all, you know, speaking all these languages and praising God in these other languages, but they come and they're like, What's going on? Like, we don't understand. Why are we hearing these Galilean Hebrews speaking to us in our own native languages from all these different places over the earth? Like they're they're they're praising God. They're declaring the mighty works of God in our languages. And there was others there that they said, no, they're just drunk. Don't worry about them. They're just babbling, rambling, a bunch of drunks. And so the apostle Peter stands up with the 11 apostles and he says, Men and brethren, hear my words. These people aren't drunk as you suppose. It's only nine o'clock in the morning. But this, what you're seeing right now, is the thing that was prophesied of by the Holy Spirit through the prophets, where he said he was gonna pour out his spirit in the later days. And you were gonna see signs and wonders and vapor of smoke. He was gonna give young men vision and old men dreams. This is what you're seeing. And he says, and more than that, this Jesus who was attested to you by the signs and the wonders that he did in the presence of you all, that was the Messiah. That was the promised one, that was the Christ, and you delivered him over to be crucified to evil men. But God has raised him and he's exalted him to the right hand of God. And this that you're seeing right now, all these people speaking in these languages they never learned, that is Jesus working. He's poured his spirit out upon us. And these people that are listening, this says they're cut to the heart. And they said, brothers, what should we do? Peter says, Repent. Repent. And that means turn around. Stop going in the direction you're going and turn around and go the other way. Stop running away from God and turn toward him and bow down before him and turn from your sin. Repent of your sin and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And then he says, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. You're gonna get the Holy Spirit, just like all these people did. And it says that day, 3,000 people are added to the church. 3,000 people. And I feel like this is like this big crescendo moment in the story, you know? You ever watch those movies like Araki or Rudy or I don't know, karate kid, you know, where the whole movie is really kind of building up to the big game or the big fight or the big karate match or whatever it is, and through the whole movie it's building up, and then they get to the big, you know, fight scene, they get to the big, the big World Series game or whatever it is, and they're, you know, that last half hour of the movie is like all this, all the final fight, you know? And so, you know, they're doing it and they're doing it, and then finally they they they win, you know, and they're victorious. And you know, the final scene, it's like they're yeah, yeah, and the final scene is you know, Rocky going, or Rudy on the football field, or karate kid Johnny hands, you know, Daniel Russo's trophy. But it ends there, and and I and you're like, oh, that was cool, you know, you won, and it ended kind of on a high note. But I always wonder when I watch that, I'm like, yeah, but what happened like 20 minutes later, you know? Because, you know, all the excitement dies down, and then they're kind of like, yeah, that was cool, you know, fist bump. Then they probably walked back to the locker room, they probably had to use the bathroom, you know, they got changed into regular clothes, and then they went out to the car, they had to find their keys, you know, and then they got in the car. They're driving home. On the way home, they went through the drive-thru at Taco Bell, picked up like a you know, a crunch wrap and some cinnamon twists, and then they got home and ate their food real quick, got in the shower, watched a little TV, laid in the bed, you know, they fell asleep. They probably slept in because that was like a big night they just had, you know, and then the next day they they went to Denny's to celebrate, you know. Like, did any of that happen? We don't know because the movie ended on the crescendo. And what I love about the book of Acts is that Luke doesn't stop at the crescendo. He he tells us what happened next. Like, we get to see what happened the next day, we get to see what happened the next week and what continued to happen. And so I'm I'm getting away from my notes, guys. Sorry. And so we get to see what happened, and what I love about this, what we see in this passage, is I just love how normal it is. You know? Sometimes we think of the Bible and we think like, oh yeah, it's all this kind of big, crazy miracle, miraculous stuff, but I just love how normal this is. And so the Spirit comes and 3,000 people are saved, and then the Bible says in verse 42, they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and the prayers. Because they devoted themselves. And I love that word. What that means to devote yourself to something, it means to steadfastly continue in something. I've wanted to learn how to play piano like my whole life, okay? There's been times when I've picked up a piano book and I've learned a few things. I can play the opening verse of Cruella de Bill. And then that's it. I can't play anymore after that. Thought you were just gonna tell me don't give up, but alright, Tom. If you want to learn to be a piano player like Mrs. Kim, if you want to play with that level of skill and ability on the piano, you can't just be a casual practitioner. We have a beautiful piano in my house, right? But but I I walk by it once in a while and I'm like, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do. You know, it's like I play a little thing and then I'm like, yeah, I'm good. You know, walk away. You know, I'm never gonna get good like that. You can't get good at playing the piano by just walking by and tinkling with it once in a while, can you? By learning the first verse of one song, and that's all you ever learn in your whole life. You can't get good that way. If you want to learn to play piano the way that Mrs. Kim plays piano, then you have to continue steadfastly in learning piano. This is the apostles continued steadfastly. They devoted themselves to four things. This is they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, they devoted themselves to fellowship, they devoted themselves to the breaking of bread, and they devoted themselves to the prayers. And before I get into those four things, what I want to do is I want to clarify something. I want to clarify what this was not, okay? What this was not is an externally motivated strategy for how they were gonna build the church, how they were gonna grow, how they were gonna expand, you know, the gospel out to Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria. This wasn't a four-step plan for how to be a Christian. And this section isn't about self-motivation, that they were just so self-motivated. And it's also not a guilt trip either. What this section's showing us is how the Spirit of God transforms people. And he transforms them in an instant, and he also transforms them over a long time. See, on Pentecost, the Spirit came and filled his people with power, and fire came upon them, and the Spirit filled them, and they were changed. In that particular moment, they spoke in other tongues. They just had this ability to speak these languages, and that was awesome, and it was amazing. I hope he does it here someday. But what happened then was for that moment. It was for the sign that the Lord wanted to do. Why? Because he wanted to bring the people as a witness to them, and he wanted to bring 3,000 people into the church that day. But what we see in the passage is not just what happened on that first moment. We see how the Spirit of God continued to change the people, not just for a moment, but for everyday life. God put his spirit in them, he lit a fire in them, and that fire began to burn inside of them. And the instant that they were filled with the Holy Spirit, the fire changed them. And at this same time, they were they were so they were changed instantly, but at the same time, they also began a long process of being changed, didn't they? Over the past 30 years, since the Holy Spirit filled me, in one sense, it's been a long, slow, agonizing, you know, agonizingly long, slow process of old habits, old desires, old affections, you know, old um um inclinations of my heart slowly being changed, slowly being transformed. But in another sense, also, my family's sitting here, they can tell you, the instant that it happened, I was changed. Is that true? I was one way one day and I was another way another day. All my desires and my affections began to change on that day. I began to see things differently. There was this new hunger in me to be with God and to know God and to be with God's people and to know them and also to learn from them. Like I wanted to be changed by God. I wanted to become what he wanted me to be. I wanted to discover what was the purpose for which he made me and called me and redeemed me and saved me, changed my heart and brought me to himself. And so on Pentecost, 120 people are filled and they're changed forever. And then the same day, 3,000 people repent and they're baptized, and then they're filled by the Spirit and change. And God begins to fill them with new desires and loves and affections, and the Holy Spirit starts producing his fruit in them. Suddenly, love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and gentleness and self-control, faithfulness too. It all starts coming up out of their lives. And as these gifts are being manifested in them, another thing that comes up in them is devotion. And this is why we can't just put some external, like we can't take, we can't take this these four principles and like put them over us and over our church as some external formula that we try to you know put over the top of our Christian lives. Like if we just take these four steps, okay, we devote ourselves and we teaching and we fellowship and we break bread and we pray. Like these four things, and God will be obligated to save us. But maybe we don't even know Jesus. The devotion that we see in the passage comes out of hearts that have been changed by the life within his church. So it says they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching. That's the first thing they did. So at this time they had actual apostles living among them. These were like the real deal, right? They were living with them, praying with them, eating with them. They'd go sit at their feet and learn from them directly, and it must have been amazing. And these were the guys who had been the closest to Jesus. They had been the disciples that had been closest to him, chosen by him, you know, to lay the foundation of his church. And their teachings became our New Testament. If you want to devote yourself to the apostles' teachings today, you just open the New Testament and you start to read and then you never stop. That's how that works. So they devoted themselves to the teachings of the apostles because the teachings of the apostles were the teachings of Jesus. Like we said earlier, he had told them, go into all the world and preach the gospel. I'm sorry, make disciples of all nations. Baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey all the things I've commanded you. Sometimes people like to separate the teachings of Jesus. There's literally people that are like, Well, yeah, Jesus said this. I mean, that was kind of how it was in seminary, actually. It was like the gospels, this is like, you know, the strongest, and then there's like, you know, the the apostle Peter and you know, John, and then there's like Paul, and there's like they're like the the you get further away. But these are literally the people that Jesus empowered to teach in his name. In fact, in the upper room, the night before he was betrayed in John 14, he told them this the helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things. He will bring to your remembrance everything that I've said to you. To devote ourselves to the apostles' teaching is to devote ourselves to the word of Jesus. And devotion to the word doesn't mean walking by once in a while and like do do do do do do do do. Okay. You know, devoting yourself to the word isn't reading a post that one of your friends put on Facebook. Oh, trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your understanding. Okay, cool. That'll get me by for the next four months. Devoting yourself to the word means saturating ourselves in the word. It means immersing ourselves. It's allowing it to change us in the way that we think, in the way that we feel, and the way that we see the world, and the way that we live and move and see the world and see the people around us. He said in John 17, in that same conversation, just a couple chapters later, but that was a long conversation that Jesus had with them in the upper room. He prayed for the disciples that were in front of him, and he also prayed for those who would believe through their word. Who's that? Us. Preach, Michelle. Us. Are you guys awake today? Or am I just boring? What's going on? He said, Sanctify them in your truth. He told the Father on our behalf, he said, Sanctify them in your truth. And then he said this, your word is truth. So we're sanctified, we're cleansed, we're changed from the inside out. You know, when we get saved, the moment we're saved, we begin this long process. It's called sanctification. And what that word means, Justin and Avery, is that word means being changed and made like Jesus. That's what that means. Right? Right? Being sanctified is being changed and made like Jesus. So Jesus was praying for us to be sanctified, to be changed, made like Jesus through his word. And it says they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and they devoted themselves to fellowship. And the word for fellowship in this passage is koinanea. And koinanea is a word that is not done justice by the word fellowship. Koinanea is something more than just fellowship, because we have like a fellowship hall over here and we hang out and it's really great. We have cupcakes. Avery made a whole bunch of them, and I also saw a bunch of other goodies, so we're gonna need you in there after service today, okay? But we have a fellowship hall, right? But this is koinania, and what koinanea is, is it's like oneness, it's like partition, participation with. It's unity, it's like having things in common, okay? In fact, the word koine, like the when I studied Greek, it was koine Greek, it's common Greek, okay? So having things in common, having our lives intertwined. The best picture that I could find in the Bible to illustrate what koinania is, is the the when Jesus says, John 15, he says, I'm the vine and you're the branches. Okay, whoever abides in me bears much fruit. For apart from me, you can do nothing. And the picture he gives is of he's literally a vine, and we're like a little branch growing out of the vine. You know, they're not separate things, they're not separate entities. It's not like you can really go, oh yeah, that's where the vine attached on. No, it's like grows out of it, right? Amen. Can I just get like a hallelujah? Yeah, say amen. Say thank you, Jesus. Woo, there we go. All right. We're here, we're here, we're awake. So the imagery is of the branch coming out, it's growing out of the vine, it's a part of the vine. You can't discern the difference there. The life is flowing right from the vine, right into the branch, and through the branch, producing fruit. That's koinanea. And this is the picture of our koinanea with God, with the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. It's like you can't discern the difference. Jesus prayed in that upper room. He said that we would be one, just as he is one, just as he's one with the Father, and He's one with us, that we would all be one: Father, Son, Holy Spirit, you and me. This is koinanea. And so he says they devoted themselves to koinanea. So that's koinanya with God, koinanea with you and me is that our lives are intertwined, that we do life together, that we know each other's strengths, we know each other's weaknesses, that we we stir each other up to good works, that we build each other up in the faith, that we minister to the needs of the body, that we push each other to grow in Christ, that we take up our crosses and follow Jesus, that we laugh together and love together and live together and cry together and suffer together and we die together. Because this is koinanea. So they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, they devoted themselves to koinea, they devoted themselves to the breaking of bread. And this is kind of like one phrase in the Greek: the the breaking the bread and the prayers, okay? And so this definitely has to do with worship. The Lord's Supper, breaking the bread, you know, this is my body that is broken for you, this is my blood that is poured out for you. It's recognizing what the Lord did in communion. But back then, communion was probably, most likely, observed in the midst of an actual meal in Christian community, in the midst of eating and sharing. At some point in the meal, everybody would stop and they would just think about the Lord Jesus and how the Lord Jesus had laid down his own body, allowed his body to be broken for them, allowed his veins to be open and his blood to pour out to pay the penalty of our sin and our debt. This was the breaking of bread, this was koinania, this was this is koinania, in the midst of Koinania, this was the breaking of bread, this was communion. Okay, but so they were sharing meals with one another, they were worshiping together, they were having all things in common, they're devoted to the New Testament, to the apostles' teaching, and it says they're devoting themselves to prayer. In other words, they were praying and devoting themselves to prayer before the Spirit came, and then when the Spirit came, they didn't stop, did they? They just kept on, amen, Harry, hallelujah! They just kept on praying, they just kept on praying, they kept on devoting themselves to prayer, they kept seeking God, they kept seeking his presence, they kept seeking his will and his purpose and his plan and his power and his direction and his leading in their lives. It says, and awe came upon every soul, and many signs and wonders were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together. And they had all things in common, and they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as any had need. So there was just this common life. It was like, oh, you can't pay your rent. Like, hold on, I got a field. I'm gonna sell it. Okay, here your rent's covered. The family needs some food. Let's let's get them something. Let's provide for the needs of the body. This again, koinania. This is life together in Christ. And sometimes I think this is sort of like imposed upon religious life or church life sometimes from the outside. It's like, you know, you've you've you've got to give and you've got to give this much and you've got to do this, and you've got to, or, or maybe in governments it's imposed, like in the terms of like communism or something. Like everybody has to give of all their stuff and then nobody really has anything. But this wasn't like that. This is coming from the same place as the devotion. It's coming from the same place as the fruit of the spirit, as the joy, as the love, of the peace, as all of that. It's just this this this giving, this generosity came upon every soul, and it says awe came upon them. Have you ever felt awe? Anybody give me an example of when you felt awe? Yeah, I know that one. Yeah. And you saw the light. Yeah. Yeah, Debbie came close. And he wanted her here. He wanted you here, huh? Anybody else? Yeah. Yeah. She was with my sister in the hospital bed. She couldn't move this whole side of her body. And my sister had been receiving healing verses from people over the over the whole last like 24 hours. And as she's, she says, I'm just gonna start reading them out loud. Her mouth didn't work. She's like, I'm just gonna start reading them out loud. And so she starts reading them out loud, and like a few minutes into it, she realizes, Mom, my mouth is working normally. And she just keeps reading and reading and reading, and then her arm, she goes, I'm gonna lift my arm, and her arm raises up, and she's like, I'm gonna lift my leg, and her leg lifts up, and then you know, they're like, Hallelujah, praise the Lord, right in the hospital room, in awe. I've had it before just on the road trips we take. You know, we'd go out to Grand Teton National Park. Clarissa got a picture of me, you know, kind of in a moment of awe. Where we stopped, we see the Grand Teton Mountains, and we stop in this meadow, and I walked out in the meadow, and I'm just looking at them, looking at these mountains, and what came over me was this sense of just how ancient they are. And I'm just thinking, these mountains that fill the whole sky and go every direction both ways, right? And I'm looking at these mountains and I'm thinking these have stood here for a thousand generations in this place. As people scurry through with our little busy lives, our short little lives, and we think we're so important, these mountains have just stood here. Like as a silent witness, you know, uh of our finitude. And then if you go beyond that and you think, well, the Lord that formed them existed for all eternity before he formed those mountains. And we think we can exalt ourselves against him, we think we know more than him, we think we can say, you're not just. We think we can say, you're not fair, because you didn't do the thing I wanted. And in the meantime, our life is a vapor and we're like grass and it just passes away. But he's the ancient of days, he's the eternal one, he's the holy one, he sees the end from the beginning, he holds all things together by the word of his power. He's God. As the apostles saw the work of God in their midst, as the the the disciples watched as the apostles would lay hands on a sick person and they were healed, a lame person and he would walk, a blind person and he would see. They've watched as God just changed people's hearts left and right, everywhere they looked, as they experienced the love of Christ in commonality, in life together, in the body of Christ, as they just experienced what God was doing, awe came upon them. And it says, day by day, attending the temple together, 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. When I was thinking through this passage this week and praying about it, this was actually the part I was the most excited to talk about. I think this is one of the areas where the church has gotten a little confused. And I think when I was even a younger Christian, I had the tendency to sort of think of my faith in like two categories, right? There was the secular, and then there was the sacred. And so if I wanted to know God, if I wanted to serve God, if I wanted to worship God, if I wanted to be with the people of God, if I wanted to do discipleship, if I wanted to hear the word, you know, if I wanted to worship God, I had to go to a church building. And so I would do all the Christian things there, and then when I was done doing the sacred things, then I'd go back to my normal life and I would live my secular life. But I think one of the things I've been the most in awe of over the last 10 years is how God has used my normal, average, everyday life for his own purposes. Like a six months ago, maybe we had this customer, Gigi. She's a retired police officer, and she's just this little, you know, stout little woman, but she's just fun, she's cool, you know. She's like, God, she's happy. And her and her husband were so excited because they were gonna get to like retire and go on trips and all this kind of stuff, and so she brought her trailer in, and I gave her an estimate, and we started doing repairs on it, and we're getting into the repairs and all that, and then you know, she would come in and bring cookies, and she brought a rum cake one time, you know, for the guys. And so we're working on it, and she's all happy, and this is a cool thing. And one day she walks in and she's like sad, and and she's like solemn and she wasn't happy and she wasn't smiling, and you can see her eyes were kind of red-rimmed, and so she was trying to just be you know tough, and she's like, Okay, well, um, you know, we got to talk about the trailer and what's going on. And I just said it's GG, wait, stop. What's going on? You okay? And she started crying. And she said she just got news that she had had a physical, they did some imaging, they found a spot on her kidney that they were gonna have to do a biopsy, they were gonna have to do some testing, and so she's just now she's got fear. She's had family members where this didn't go well for them, and so that she's just got fear on her, and she's thinking, all my plans, we wanted to go, you know, to the mountains and we want to take our trailer, we want to go kayaking, we want to do all these things, and now we don't know what's gonna happen, and I might, you know, I might have cancer and I don't know what to do. And so I just said, Okay, I let her talk for a little bit and said, Can I just pray for you? And she's like, Oh, okay. So I put my hand on her shoulder and I just prayed, just prayed for his peace to be upon her, that he would show her, that he was right with her, that his hand would be upon her, that he would heal her, you know, that the cancer would be gone if it was there. But I even prayed even better that it's not even cancer, Lord, that she's just okay. And then after I was done praying, it was like she had tears and she just was light. She was lighter. She had peace on her. And I'm just thinking, how amazing. I was at Starbucks hanging out with my friend Ryan and my friend Rogi, and we're doing some discipleship stuff, and we're getting ready to leave, and I see this guy with tattoos all over his head and his face, and he's scary looking, you know. And I and I just got nudged by the Holy Spirit. So I went over, I'm like, hey man, you doing okay? You doing alright? You need anything? And then he just starts spilling his guts to me. And I'm thinking this is probably just the normal interaction that we have with guys like that all the time, well, at least I do, you know, and he's probably gonna just want a couple bucks and he's gonna go buy more drugs, you know. But so at the end of it, I gave him some money. I gave him my card, said, You said you want to get off the streets. If that's true, call me. If not, then you can use this for either getting off the streets or you can use the money for more drugs, but it's on you. Two weeks later, he calls me. Now he's been in the I saw him Friday. He's in the Orange County Rescue Mission, he's been there for over two years, his whole life is turned around, and he knows Jesus, and he passes Bible verses out to people. I had a customer the other day found out I'm a Christian, found out my my sister's going through some stuff. She asked if I could call my sister and she prayed for her right over the phone. It's like God's using the normal things of my life for his purposes. See, God doesn't call people out of darkness and into his marvelous light to redeem us and adopt us and transfer us to the kingdom of his beloved son and put his mark on us and put his name on us and fill us with his spirit and his power, his presence, just to only hang out with us when we feel like taking a break from our normal life and visiting a church building. When he heals us, when he redeems us, he redeems every part of us to himself. Our work and our play and our worship and our family and our love and our meals and our hobbies and our social hours, and he redeems all of it because all of it is his and all of it is sacred, and all of it is sanctified, and all of it is set apart for his purpose. And this was the sanctified life of the early church, day by day, attending the temple together, breaking bread in their homes. They received their word with glad and generous hearts, their food, praising God, having favor with all people. In other words, they're just living their lives, devoted to God, right where they were. Going to church together, going to work together, making dinner, having birthday parties, hanging out with their friends. And that was their focus. Just living their lives for Jesus and for one another. And it says the Lord added to their number day by day those who are being saved. When the people are changed by God and when we're filled with His Spirit and devoted to Him, and they devote themselves to the Word and to one another and to prayer. Right in the middle of their normal lives, church, God makes us fruitful. We can't stir this up in us. We can't do this ourselves. This is something God has to do. But we keep ourselves fixed upon Him. Amen. I think that's good enough. Father, thank you. Thank you that you have