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Have you guys ever been on a losing team for anything? Steven's like, no, I've never been on a losing team. You know, if you I I played a lot of sports growing up. I love sports. I enjoy the comp competition. And and uh thankfully um I'm not as competitive as I used to be. Uh in fact, the other night we went and played basketball up at uh Manchak Baptist over here off 1626 on Tuesday nights, they have it just piled up, and you come hang out with us and play. Um and it's it's a blast, but you know, if that had been like about seven or eight years ago, um, and I'd have been out there killing myself, but now I maybe I just wiser and more mature or something, or maybe I'm just uh aware that I could really hurt myself fast because I'm older. But I'm really more cautious. I'm winning, I'm not near as focused on winning. I'm I'm more like I just want to get home in one piece, you know, and not be like um sacked out with the big with my my ankle, you know, iced and sticking up or something like that. Um so I just want to take care of my body now. So but I can still enjoy the game. I like to be competitive. But I've been on some losing teams, and it stinks to be on teams that lose all the time. Okay? No, even if you're not competitive, I mean if you lose, it just starts to wear on you, right? And uh and so I played Church League softball in uh Georgetown uh when we were in Round Rock, we were living there, and we went and played Church League softball, and there were like eight teams, and uh needless to say, we didn't win a game. You know, like it was like a round robin kind of thing where you play everybody uh twice, and uh and so we play everybody, and like our team was terrible. Um and they didn't tell me this ahead of time, right? And and it was funny because there was me and this other guy who played college baseball. Um we were halfway decent, you know, and uh or may I maybe I just think in my mind, because you know how men are, we think we're better than we really are. Um and and we get out there and we just got murdered, you know? And our kids and wives are trying to come support us, and we're like, you don't even want to come watch. It's just bad. Okay, we're getting run-ruled every game. But there's something about being on a losing team, it just it just wears on you. It's just not fun at all. But have you ever been on a winning team? Have you ever been on a team that really wins a lot? Even if you don't win every game, but you you win a lot? Have you ever been been around one of those situations or been on a team? Man, it's so much fun. Or for that matter, what if what if like your team, um, your favorite sports team, what's your favorite sports teams? Holler them out. Rangers, okay? Rangers. Um, I remember the Rangers were the losing team, right? I mean, you stuck it out. You were a diehard fan because you you were still a fan even when they when they sucked. I mean, that's just that's just how it was, right? Okay, but then they start winning, and like the whole community, all these bandwagon fans jump on, right? All these people, they're excited. It's like momentum's building. Whenever, whenever things start going good, and you're around a winning team, it's like awesome. Well, I've been in several different communities in Texas, and I've been in some communities where they had like a losing team. Like we moved to Pampa, Texas, in the panhandle. It is freezing cold up there, especially after you live in Houston, you move up there. And they had like they were like gone 0-10 for like three years in football when I got there. And everybody's just like, it's just, you know, they just go to the games and they just like, please, uh, please, we got to cheer because this is what you're supposed to do, but we really don't want to be here, and this is terrible, and they're just like, they're just it's not fun to watch at all. But then they got a good coach that came in and he started coaching them up, and within a few years, like they were won. They went to the playoffs, they almost made to the state, and I mean, like, the whole community, the the attitude changes. Like the whole community is excited and happy. For those of you who didn't grow up in a small town, you don't know what I'm talking about. That's okay. But it's crazy, like the whole persona of the community changes when they're when you're winning. And everybody wants to be a part of it. And everybody's wearing the jersey, and everybody they don't may not even know anything about the sport, right? But they act like they're excited. I lived in Houston whenever the Astros went to the World Series. And uh, I mean, I I can't tell you. Harley was around. They can't tell you how many people they didn't have a clue about baseball, hadn't even been to a baseball game, and all of a sudden they got Astros stickers on their cars, you know, they got the flag and they're driving down the road, you know, at the club. It's just there's just all this excitement energy that comes when you're winning. When we look at the book of Acts tonight, we're gonna look into the early church, and you're gonna see signs of this momentum because you know what? The gospel is going out, and God is doing incredible stuff, and everybody's like, this is amazing, this is awesome, this is the greatest thing ever. And it's like there are people on this bandwagon, they're just so fired up because things are going well. Now, listen, um, things don't keep going well the same way as they are doing in the book of early, early uh chapters of Acts here. Things go up and down, and there's times where it seems like it's going better than others, but man, when it's when it's going good, it's awesome to be a part of that, isn't it? And can I just say, before we even get to the text tonight, I want to be a part of a church that senses the reality that we are winning. That we are winning, and here's why, because we are. Because we are, we are a part of something where we win. And in fact, if you haven't read your Bible all the way to the end, you probably should. Because at the very end of the Bible, we get to read this story, we get to read this narrative that John is writing as he gets this glimpse into heaven in Revelation, and guess who wins? We do. We do because we're a part of Jesus' family. If we put our trust in Christ, if we have put our hope in Christ, guess what? We win. And so I think sometimes I go into churches, I'm around Christians, and I feel like they think we lost. It's like they're just sad and hopeless, and I'm like, we win. It's great, it's awesome. Now, don't be obnoxious about it, you know. Have you ever been around obnoxious fans when their team's winning? They're like pushing you, you know, went to the Wyoming game. Um this made me think I gotta say it. Well, Aaron over here, he got some tickets because his uncle is like a Wyoming alumni, right? Or Haley's uncle. And so he got these tickets to the UT game this year. And he said the only thing is we had to sit in the Wyoming section. And so Wyoming's not a winning team. I mean, they're just not. But they scored a touchdown one time, and this lady behind me, she's like 50 years old, and she just like boom, she pushes me, and I'm wearing my Texas jersey, and she's just like, boom, she pushes me. I turn around. I was like, if I wasn't a Jesus follower, I would punch you out right now, lady. You know? But the thing was you get excited when your team does well. Hey, listen, we know that, yes, the church is in decline in the U.S. We know that there are people walking away from organized religion and organized church in the U.S. But let me tell you something. Uh globally, Christianity, the cause of Christ, the gospel, is going forth and we are winning. But not only that, but we win the ultimate war because of Christ. And so we should be hopeful, we should be excited, we should be glad, we should. And this isn't something we have to manufacture, it's something that like, it's true. And we get to be a part of that. And I want to be a part of a church that praises God and reminds each other regularly, because let's be honest, life can be really depressing, can be really hard and difficult when you just feel hopeless and helpless. But we have hope, we have help, we have power in Christ, we have power in the Holy Spirit as we talked about last week. And so um, as we transition into the text this tonight, um, may we remember that we are a part of this, that this is our heritage. This is a group of people that we are still connected to today, and that the victories they were experiencing are our victories. And that the advancing of the gospel is the reason we're here today. And that we're praying that God will continue to advance the gospel in and through his church, in and through us. So, um, if you like I said, if you don't have a Bible, there's a Bible there in front of you. If you need a Bible, take it with you. It's yours, it's a gift from us. I want to read the text, Acts 2, 41 through 47. Flipped over my chapters there. Acts 2, 41 through 47. Here's what it says. So those who accepted his message were baptized, and that day about three thousand people were added to them, and they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to the prayers. Then fear came over everyone, and many wonders and signs were being performed through the apostles. Now all the believers were together, and they held all things in common. They sold their possessions and their property and distributed the proceeds to all, as any one had a need. Every day they devoted themselves to a meeting together in the temple complex, and they broke bread from house to house. They ate their food with a joyful and humble attitude, praising God and having favor with all the people. And every day the Lord added to them those who were being saved. What an awesome text. What an amazing description of what was going on in the early church. Our first picture of what's really happening in the early church post-Pentecost, when Peter gets up with the apostles and speaks, and they speak in different languages so that everybody can understand the gospel in their own mother tongue, their native language. They hear the gospel, 3,000 people respond to the gospel in one day. Right? And they come to faith, they come to be a part of the church. And then Luke gives us this little glimpse into what it was like in the early church. Now, what I think is interesting as you read this is he's given us really the glamorous flyover, right? Um, because here's what I know. When there's people involved, it's messy. Right? So everything looks better than it is from a distance. Now, I'm not trying to undermine what's going on here at all. Okay, and don't hear me say that. This is amazing what's going on in this text. But let me also remind you that this is dealing with people. And can I just say people's lives are messy. And sometimes we read the Bible and we act like people in the Bible are like some super hero Christians and they didn't have the problems that we have. Guess what? These people that got saved, these people who came to be a part of the early church, I have a feeling that they were, some of them are having marriage problems. I have a feeling that some of them were struggling with their jobs. I have a feeling that some of them were going through hardships in their life with their kids trying to parent them. I have a feeling that this early church, that they were dealing with all the things that you and I deal with. Of course, not without, not with the technology, right? Not with a lot of things that we have as far as our advances, but with just relationships in life. And the reason I say that is because sometimes we can read the Bible and we can act like, you know, these people, they weren't normal people. They didn't have really our issues, they didn't have our challenges, they didn't have our difficulties. No, absolutely they did. But Luke has given us a quick picture to say, here's the beauty of what the gospel can do. In the midst of the mess, in the midst of people's lives, God can still work and he can move and he can show up, right? And isn't that cool to know that even in people's lives who seem like they are hopeless and helpless, God comes in and he moves. He works. In fact, just think about the apostles. We brought this up a couple of times already. That these guys were dudes. I mean, they were they were men's men, most of them. They were they were fishermen, they were guys who were not your not the guy probably that you would have selected to be your disciple. I mean, I probably wouldn't have picked these guys because they didn't have all the intellect and all the head knowledge about the Bible, and that's who Jesus picks to be his disciples, and he trains them, equips them, and then they desert him in his most in his in his darkest hour, they leave him. And now the the church is built on their backs. It's amazing. But what's interesting is that as we've talked about the last few weeks, um, the church is really a phenomenon that has never been replicated before. Uh again. Not replicated before, that doesn't even make sense. And not been replicated again. Because look at it. What's going on? You've got this small band of people who are just following Jesus, trusting in Jesus, trying to obey Jesus, and this movement just explodes on the scene. And today, again, we are still hearing about their story. We are still living out the gospel that they preached and taught. The first week we talked about how that the unstoppable church, the unstoppable church is a church that is focused. Focused on what? Focused on the mission that Christ called us to, right? Not focused on our stuff because we get distracted by all of our stuff. But focused on the mission that Christ has given us, which is to what? What's the mission Christ has given us? Okay? In Acts 1.8, he said, You're going to receive the Holy Spirit, that power will come on you to be my witnesses, right? Witnesses of what? The gospel. The resurrection of Jesus Christ. That he died, but he didn't stay dead. He came back to life, and he is alive, he is well. And uh in his gospel, his message, that message changes everything, right? To be witnesses. In Matthew 28, 19 and 20, as Christ's leaving, he gives them the great commission, which he says, go into all the world and make disciples of all nations. Okay? So that's what we should be focusing on. So we've got to be laser focused. The unstoppable church is a laser-focused church to say we're gonna we're gonna focus on what really matters. We're not gonna get sidetracked by all the issues we could get involved in and invest in and we're gonna stay focused on the gospel, keeping that front and center, the person and work of Jesus, right? The second week we talked about not just being laser focused, but saying we've got to be spirit-filled, spirit-empowered. Like, I don't have the strength to do what Jesus has called me to do on my own. I could do it for about that long and then I'm done, right? I run out of energy. I get physically tired, I get worn down, and I'm done. But thankfully, we have a God who never gets tired, who never sleeps, never slumbers, and is his endless, his endless energy. Not just that we can say, hey, God gives us power, you know, and feel good about it, but he really does empower us to avoid temptations, to live as gospel witnesses for him in all of life. He gives us that strength to be bold like Peter was bold, to declare the gospel without fear, and then we get to see the response that the Spirit can bring. And so we talked about that last week. This week I want to say that the unstoppable church is a transformed church. The unstoppable church is a transformed church. So if you're following along the notes, that's your first blank, just in case you don't want to miss that. All right. It's a transformed church. Now let me what let me explain what I mean here, because um I don't think I got this when I was part of church growing up. Uh I think because of the culture that we grow up in and we're around, um we are a very knowledge-driven culture. Would you agree? Uh we have knowledge, uh, information everywhere. And you can Google anything. It's great. You know, you just Google it on your smartphone. And uh we were talking about platypuses at the um dinner table. You're like, what are we talking about, platypuses? And and and I don't it's an Australian, right? Yeah. And uh somehow at the dinner table we got you know into this conversation about platypuses the other night, and and I was like um trying to figure out what they're called because they're the only mammal that lays eggs. And I know y'all wanted to all know that, right? And and so like we're like trying to look up something. So I pull out my phone, bust it out, and in 10 seconds, you know, it's like all of a sudden we've got all these information about the platypus. And it's fascinating, you know, but it's right there at your fingertips. And we're having this great conversation about platypuses, because uh if you if you're uh if you if you have kids, they probably watch Phineas and Ferb, and you gotta know there's Perry the platypus and Phineas and Ferb, okay? So if you don't know that, you gotta check it out because he's a pretty cool character. And uh, and so what I'm what the point being this, like, information is readily available to us all the time. If we need information, we can get it, we can have access to it. And sometimes the church can be a place where we simply just try to transfer information to people. We just try to get information to people. Listen, catch this. The church is not just a place for information. It's not just about getting information into people. The church, that's God's people, both collected, gathered, and scattered, is a place of transformation. It's a place of life change. It's a place where people aren't just smarter about the Bible or smarter about Jesus or more morally aware. There are people who are truly changed, that their lives are changed by the good news of the gospel. Their lives look different. Does that include some information? Absolutely. But it doesn't stop there. And so we want to be a church that doesn't just focus on giving people a lot of information, but that we truly see transformation. Well, let's talk about what that means because in this early church we saw in the text that I just read some marks, three of them specifically, of transformation. Three marks of the transformation that goes that was going on there. They committed themselves. They committed themselves. Now the word that was used in the text was devoted. Verse 42, they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching. And then later on, verse 46, they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple complex. But they devoted themselves. They committed themselves. They committed themselves to do these things. Now, what's interesting to me is that devotion is not something that you can just conjure up or make happen. Right? When I hear the word devotion, I think about a response to something. A response to something good. I can commit myself, I can say I'm going to be committed, but let's be honest again, because we're humans, um, when something better comes along or when we get tired, we just kind of cut it off, we stop, we do it, go do whatever else it is. And that's why I think a lot of people in church, they they try the church thing, but then as soon as they run out of personal energy and strength to do it or capacity or whatever, they just kind of stop. Because here's what I'm convinced of devotion and commitment to Christ flows out of a response. It's motivated by something in me that says, I see what Christ has done for me, and now I can't shoot, I can't live the same any longer. I can't keep doing the same things I'm doing. I'm truly changed and impacted at the core of who I am by what Christ has done for me on my behalf. And so the point that I want to make in that is that these disciples, these apostles, and then now these 3,000 who came to faith, remember what had just happened. What had happened? They heard the message of the gospel, and the Holy Spirit comes and takes that message, and it transforms their life. All of a sudden, their eyes are open, scales are removed, their hearts are wide open, and they see who Christ is and they are blown away. They are blown away because they have just had an encounter with the living God. And it's no longer just information because remember, most of these folks who came to faith were Jews. They had had information all their life, right? They had information about God. They had studied the word, they had information, but now all of a sudden they had an encounter with God. And they are committed. Committed to what? Well, the first thing they are committed to is learning about the life and teaching of Jesus. They were committed to learning about the life and teaching of Jesus. As believers, as Christians, which by the way, in the early book here in Acts, they weren't called Christians yet, just in case you're wondering. The church was not founded as a church of Christians. That came later, right? And the word Christian means, which means little Christ, uh, is actually considered a cutdown. It was considered, they were trying to say to these folks, you're just like little Christ. And it was kind of a slam on them, right? But what we see here in the text is that they were committed to the apostles' teaching. They were devoted to the apostles' teaching. They wanted to learn. And if we as Christians, as we as Christ followers, when we come to faith in Christ, we need to continue to learn. We need to continue to learn and grow. And if you feel like you don't know everything yet about God and about Jesus, welcome to the club, right? Because you're going to spend your entire life learning about who God is, learning what his word says about him. And what's awesome is that we can learn more and more daily as we seek to be in God's Word. That's why we said it's very, very important for us to be in God's word. Because most people, they settle for getting their information about God from somebody else, from a secondhand source. Which, again, I'm not telling you to shut your ears off and not listen tonight, right? That's great. But listen, if the only time we interact with God's word is through somebody else teaching it to us, or somebody else reading it to us, or somebody else, you know, preaching it to us, whatever it is, listen, um, we're missing out. Because this is this word of God is living and active. And if you if you don't believe God's word, or if you've never interacted with God's word personally, like, let me just challenge you again. Um get a Bible, open it up, pray, and ask God to speak to you and get it and just let Him speak to you. He will. He can. Okay? But they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, to learning about who Jesus was, and learning about his teaching. Because remember, what had Jesus done for the three years of ministry? He got he uh he got uh baptized roughly around the age. Of 30 and then spent three years with his disciples approximately. And what did he do during that time with his disciples as he was doing his official ministry? What was Jesus doing? Healing the sick. And he was teaching. He was teaching. He was downloading. And what was he teaching? He was teaching how all these scriptures that they had known that they knew from the Old Testament, how those scriptures were fulfilled in him. And how that Jesus came to bring more than just a moral code, another, or even just an addendum to it, something just an add-on, but that he came to change everything because he was the Savior of the world. He was the Messiah and He was the King. He came to change everything. And so he was teaching them a whole new way of seeing the scripture. And so now all of a sudden these Jews are like, man, we need to learn whatever Jesus was teaching his disciples. We need to learn that stuff. And so they were committed to learning from them. And the apostles would teach them. They teach them how Jesus had taught them to live. How he had taught them about relying on him. How it was not just about obeying laws, but it was about following him. So they devoted themselves to that. The second thing that they committed themselves to is they committed themselves to living out the way of Jesus together. They committed themselves to living out the way of Jesus together. Now notice what it says here. Not only did they devote themselves to the apostles' teaching, but to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to the prayers. If you look at this in the original language, it says to the fellowship, breaking of bread and prayers are actually describing fellowship. So they're telling us what fellowship means. Now, did anybody grow up where you had fellowships at your church? Anybody around that kind of thing? Okay. I grew up around church where they they had fellowships. And it's kind of funny when I think about it because what all I think about really is food. I'm thinking, whatever, whatever you do, fellowship means food. So that's why I like them. Okay? And it says the first thing here is that they broke bread together. Now, it can be viewed two ways. One is that they actually shared a meal together. They actually spent time sharing the meals together. But two, um, they also shared the Lord's Supper together, like we did well ago, communion. When they did the Lord's Supper and the day of communion, they did it differently than we do. Um, most of the time when they had the Lord's Supper, communion, it was actually part of their meal. And so they would stop what they're doing, their meal time, take the bread, take the cup, and they would celebrate it, right? So if you're at your house and you're eating a meal and some Christians are over, just stop in the middle, take your Dr. Pepper, take your white bread and break it and do it, have communion, right? Sounds sacrilegious? Hey, they just made it part of their meal. They didn't have to have a priest or a pastor or anybody to bring the meal because you know why? They had the Holy Spirit working in them in the midst of them, and they they all believed in this, and they did it. They said, as often as we get together, we're going to celebrate the Lord's Supper and remember what Christ has done for us. And that's what they did. But what did Jesus do a lot of when he was here? What does his ministry consist of? I didn't do math on it or add it all up, but think about how many times we see Jesus eating with people. Um, I'm glad that God gave us that gift of eating, right? Probably in America that's probably dangerous because we eat a little bit too much. But what's amazing is Jesus in his ministry, he knew there was a key to sitting down and sharing a meal with other people. And that's what they did. They followed that tradition that Jesus had set forth. They would have meals together, they would share. Because there's something about sitting down at a table together and eating and drinking and just enjoying the relational part of that experience, right? Now, when I went to China, um, I was kind of shocked because when they eat, they didn't talk. In fact, they they all just got their food and they went over. And maybe this is because they were all single men, and I'm sure that's why they stay single, because they were all against the wall, and man, they were just like down in their food like this, right? I was trying to talk to them and kind of just engage them, and they're like, almost kind of like, leave me alone, I'm gonna eat my food, you know, and then when they were done, they were ready to talk. But when I think about eating a meal, and like we invite our neighbors over and we invite people into our home all the time, I think about the conversation that happens over the meal table. And so they broke bread together, they hung out together, they interacted together. But they also, it says they prayed together. They prayed together. And I don't think this was just like they prayed over their meal, you know. I think it was that they, when they got together, they prayed. And it's interesting because it says the prayers. They committed themselves to the prayers. What does that mean? Well, the best I can tell from what folks have written about this is that he's saying that these are prayers that they had prayed as part of their community experience as Jews, but now they had a new meaning. It was like they had a whole new meaning to these prayers. Like all of a sudden their eyes were opened to who Jesus was, and they'd been praying these things, and now it's like, wow. These prayers, they're talking about Jesus. And it wasn't just rote religious activity, it was like it had meaning, it had purpose. Can you imagine? But even that, they would pray for each other, and they would pray for the body, they would pray for the group, that they would grow and develop. And so you get to see this window in that they had food together and they prayed together. Notice what else they did. You can't just skip over verse 43 because it says fear came over everyone, and many wonders and signs were being performed through the apostles. So last week we talked about when the Spirit comes, like, miracles happen. And I pray that God would continue to do those things in our midst today. Not because we deserve it, but because I believe that there are a lot of people who are just skeptical and cynical, and I pray that he would break through their lives with miracles. I believe he can do that. Okay. But notice the next thing it says it says, now all the believers were together and they held all things in common. They sold their possessions and their property and distributed their proceeds to all as anyone had a need. I mean, think about how crazy that is. They literally started selling their stuff so to make sure everybody had what they needed. They just started selling their property, is what it says. And their possessions. And they distributed the proceeds to anyone who had a need. Like, that's radical transformation, isn't it? I mean, think about America. Think about the United States and think about the way we function. Isn't life so much in our culture? And this, I'm not down on everything, but I'm just saying, isn't much of our culture just about hoarding and bringing to get, you know, bringing in and accumulating stuff? And it says they literally begin to sell their stuff and give it away. And there's there's some guys who say, well, you know, they thought Christ was going to come back soon, so they didn't really need it anyway. Hey, the bottom line is that these people were so committed to one another. And remember, these were not, these guys weren't all best buddy friends before they started this process. I would dare to say to you that they weren't all like best best buds and friends, and this was like they were giving their stuff to their friends. I think these were just, these were all just ordinary people who all came together and rallied around the person Jesus Christ, experienced the gospel's transformation, and they literally started selling their stuff and giving away so to take care of those who had need. Isn't that amazing? Can you imagine what that would look like today in 2013 in South Austin? It convicts me. Would I be willing to sell my stuff? That's the problem. I call it my stuff, right? But I'd be, would I be willing to sell to take care of the needs of others? I pray that I would. But they held all things in common. Now it sounds like communism, right? Oh, look, they were communistic. No, see, in communism, you're forced to, you're forced to get rid of all your stuff. These people willingly did it. They gave it up on their own because they were like, this is awesome. We want to care for each other. We love each other. There's this amazing fellowship that was among them. There was an amazing connection and community that was going on. But notice it also says that every day they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple complex. So they came together and they worshipped in the temple in the corporate setting, right? But then they didn't just go there. They broke bread from house to house. And they ate their food with joyful and a humble attitude. Let me just say that as Redemption City Church grows, it is our desire to stay small. Now, what I mean by that is not that we don't want more people to come into this room and celebrate. This is a great time to get together. But what we want to do is we want to see people enjoy life together. And you can't do that when you get to a certain size, right? Numerically, as you grow, it's impossible to have connectedness with a lot of people. But what we hope happens is we've just recently started four small groups in the we call them redemption groups in the neighborhood, right? Why? Because that's where you get to do life with people. That's where you get to live out the way of Jesus together. And so I love coming together and celebrating here, singing songs of worship, teaching. But what I love is spending time with people. Being in our homes, eating together, praying together, learning together, living on mission together. Like that's where it's at. That's where it's the bread and butter, if you will, of our church. Because people are longing for real, genuine relationships, and it's so hard to find those in our culture. But the church, we have corner marker on that because we know what Christ has offered us and we know the connectedness we have in Him, right? So that people who aren't even like really would not even necessarily hang out together and be best friends, there's a connection that they have because of Christ. And there's a way that they can live out in community and enjoy one another because of what we have in Christ. So there's a unity that comes in that place. So they broke bread from house to house. I love it how it says devoted twice, but it also says breaking bread twice. So emphasis on eating twice. They ate their food. That's the third time now, with a joyful and humble attitude, right? Praising God and having favor with all the people. So what did they do? They praised God. They praised God. And they just worshiped him for who he was, for what he was doing. And notice that they had a joyful and they had a humble attitude. They had a joyful and a humble attitude. If there's two marks in my life as I raise children, as I have a family, is that I pray that I'm a person who's joyful, and I pray that I'm a person who's humble. And both of those things seem very elusive in our world. Because we get so controlled by circumstances that it's hard to have joy. And then we're so stinking prideful and selfish, it's hard to be humble. I mean, at least I'm speaking for myself, okay. But these guys, because of what God was doing, they were joyful and they were humble. And I think that's why they could actually hang out together. Despite how different they might have been, is because they were joyful and they were humble. You can interact with people that you don't like if they're humble. But if they're prideful, no way. But we get to see a picture of what it looks like to live in community where the gospel is central, where the message of Christ is central. But the last thing you see here, and it's the last L word, in case you didn't notice, these are all L's. They learned about the life and teaching of Jesus. They lived out the way of Jesus together, but thirdly, they were committed to leading others to life in Jesus. Leading others to life in Jesus. Notice that last little section there. They're praising God and having favor with all the people. What a great phrase. Like, think about it. How many times does the church get a bad rap for being, you know, closed off, to being like a clique, you know, to being judgmental, to be in the moral police, uh, to be in a place where people really don't feel welcome. A lot of times that happens, doesn't it? It says in here that they had favor with all people. Not just people inside the church, but people outside the church. All people, they had favor with them. That's pretty awesome. And every day, because of that, the Lord added to them those who were being saved. Which we can read between the lines. They continued to share the gospel. They continued to witness, they continued to tell others about who Jesus was and what he had done for them. And so the Lord was adding to their number daily, those who are being saved. The unstoppable church is a church that's transformed. It's not just about information. And in fact, transformation, your last blanks there, transformation does not start with information. It starts with revelation. It doesn't start with just information, it starts with a revelation. A revelation of what? A revelation of who Christ is and what he has done. When the gospel takes root in our hearts, when the gospel takes root in my life, like I don't have to try to work up some motivation to do something for God. I get to experience the love of Christ in a tangible way through the reminder of who Christ is and what he has done, and now I get to live out a life of obedience to him that doesn't feel like work, it feels like worship. Because that's what he's worthy of. So here's the thing tonight. This picture we get of the early church, this little snapshot, these eight verses here, I pray that we can experience this. I pray that we might be this. I mean, the goal of Luke here is not to say that every church has to look exactly like this. He's describing what was going on then. But I do pray that as we grow as a church and as we cultivate the gospel in our lives, in each other's lives, that this is the kind of attitude that you see. Because notice there's three components. That their relationship with God grew up, right? Their relationship inside the body grew, they're in. And then their relationship in the community grew, they're out as God adds to their number daily, those who are being saved. So we try to use that language as we think about the church that there's those three components. That we grow in our relationship with God, our love for God, that we grow in our care and our interaction with each other, but that we also um have compassion on the world around us and we reach those who are outside of the community of faith, and we point them to life in Christ.