Let's pray together, Lord Jesus this week, in a national week that we have set aside to give thanks. Lord Jesus, we as your people just want to submit to you and tell you how incredibly thankful, we are. God, we're thankful for the gift of salvation, we're thankful for the redemption in the name of Jesus, we're thankful to know that our sins have been washed by the lambs blood, we're thankful that we know that our eternity, and then our hope, and then our promise, and that our tomorrow, all rests on you, the giver and the maker and the sustainer of our faith.  Lord Jesus as we come around tables all over this nation this week, Lord, I just pray for the hearts of our country, the minds of our country, the people in our country and God, we just pray that in your name, King Jesus that we as a country, would see that you are the answer, for every question that we have.  Lord Jesus, thank you for this place. Thank you for this body, called the church. We give you this day. Amen, and amen.

You guys can have a seat, I promised myself today, I was not going to go hard in the paint during worship. Because when you do this thing three times on Sunday, and then you get up here for a solid 20 minutes and preach. Maybe 40, it gets a little crazy. But hey, welcome to church today. So glad you're here. I know, it's Thanksgiving week. And I know there's a lot of you guys joining in online, there's a lot of you that are in incredible locations all over. There's a lot of you that are at grandma's house. And we just want to say thanks for being here. We're in this little miniseries called The Church. And we're looking at this idea of the churches and we realized last week real quickly, that there's a lot of different mindsets, when it comes to the church. There's a lot of history behind the church, there's a lot of feelings, there's a lot of wounds, there's a lot of just preconceived ideas of the church. And as a result of that we all carry in this idea of what it is with us when we come to a place like this. And we also know there's lots of commitments to the church, there's lots of levels of how people are involved. Some of you, man, you're all in this is home. For some of you, this just gets your wife off your back just for a few minutes this week, a little bit for some of you, you're a teenager and your parents are making you come to which I say Hallelujah, why?  They aren't gonna push you away? If you don't want to come, you're already away. Yeah, you're not gonna go any farther away. But the church is incredibly special to God. And we said last week that the definition of church is not a place that we go to. But it's a called-out body of believers, that represents King Jesus. And we said that if we can grasp this idea in our minds a little bit stronger, that a church is not an event, a church is not a necessarily a location, but the church is the group of redeemed people that God wants to speak to and through. And as a result of that, the reality is the church is the hope of the world. It's the hope of the world.   I got to thinking this week about, here's what happens in a pastor's mind. You go home on Sunday, and after you just have a feast and you take a little nap, then you start thinking about all the things that you just wish you would have said, it's just kind of how it works. And I got to thinking this week about the church and I was like, man, how can I describe what the church just really is to everybody that's listening.   Here's what kind of came to my mind this week, the church, in a lot of ways is like an embassy. Now, before this whole pandemic thing, we used to get to do this thing called travel to other places, I remember these things you get on called planes, you go to other nations before they hated us because we have more cases of COVID than anyone else. And so before you did that, if you were in another country, if you were in another place and if something happened to you as a United States citizen, what you can do in almost every civilized country in the world is that if something happens to you, let's just say that you have 100 of your best friends traveling with you and they're all teenagers and something goes down a little bit crazy and someone loses their passport, or someone has a death in the family or someone has an emergency to where you need to kind of have a little power you can do something and you can go to the American Embassy.   You know you've seen the movies, right? You see the movies where Jack Reacher or whoever it might be maybe running from the law in whatever country and all of a sudden as long as you can make it to where the gate of the embassy right, if you can get through the gate you are now on the sovereign territory of the United States, and you are safe from the KGB, right? That's just kind of how it works in most movies.  I want you to think about something just for a minute. And I know that's kind of funny, but that's really what the church is.  Do you know what an embassy is?  An embassy is a recognition, or it is a place, or it is an organization, or it is a spot that represents a kingdom in which it is not in. 

Now, I want you to think about this for the church. What is the church? The church is a representation of a kingdom in which we are not in. It's a little slice of heaven. It's a little slice of King Jesus's land, and what do you do when you're hurting? When you need promise, when you need protection? When you need community in a land that just feels foreign? You go to the embassy, that's church. Last week, we looked at this idea of church, and we really just answered the idea of what is church last week, or kind of the why behind church.  I want to take that one step forward this week, and I want to answer the question of what is it that a church does? What is it that a church does, because this is extremely important, because there's a lot of us we grew up in church our whole lives, and we didn't know the why behind the what?  We didn't understand the language.  We didn't understand why is it that these people keep asking me to do this or be a part of this, or jump into this? I want to answer that question this morning and the only way that I know how to do that is by going to the Bible. It's by going to the Bible. So, look, if you've got a copy of Scripture, I want you fire that app up, alright?  Go ahead and get there. You've caught up on the text during the intro. Now let's get to the Bible, fire that app up or if you got a copy of Gutenberg’s, just jump in. I want you to go to Acts chapter 2, once you get to Acts chapter 2, I want you to put a little marker in there if you're flipping the pages, so you can be quick later on. And then I want you to join me over in Matthew chapter 16. So, we're going to be Matthew 16 first, we're going to jump over to Acts chapter 2.  And let me just tell you where we're going today. I want to give you the what.  I want to give you the what.   What is it a church is supposed to do and we're going to show this through the Bible? Now, Matthew chapter 16 that's where we'll go first. Matthew chapter 16, is an incredibly powerful passage of scripture that describes the church. It describes what the church is. Now, there's an important message here because Matthew 16 is the first time that Jesus mentions the church, it's the first time that He mentions the church. Now, if you want to sound really smart at your Thanksgiving table this week, if you want to sound really smart, this week, you can mention to that table that you are a believer in the hermeneutical principle of the first mention. All right?  Now, what that makes you sound like is a really smart person. But let me just explain it to you. Here's what it means. The first time you find something in the Bible, the first time it is mentioned in Scripture is probably most often the clearest, most concise definition of something that you will get. So in other words, when we see blood, in Genesis, we see this the giver of life and the cleanser of sin, we see that all the way through, when we see the first thing mentioned, if it's never been changed from that point, it is the clearest spot you're ever going to see that. So, here's what we're going to do. We're going to look at Jesus's first mention of the church, and then we're going to see how that flushes out in Acts chapter 16, is really important. Here it is Matthew 16. Jesus is talking to his disciples, and He looks at them and He says, Hey, who do all these people that we've been ministering to over here? Who did they say that I am? And the disciples give an answer. And they said, well, some of them, they kind of think you're John the Baptist, and some of them are kind of misled a little bit and they think you're Elijah.  Some of them they may think you're Jeremiah or one of the other prophets and Jesus, I love how He does it, because Jesus doesn't really hammer down on the disciples very often. But Jesus kind of directs them gently in a different way. And he's like, well, that's wrong. Okay, that's wrong. I'm not those people. But then He looks at them and He asks a question. Now, it's important because anytime Jesus, the maker of the universe asks a question, He's not asking it for Him. Right? He knows the answer to the question. And what Jesus does is He looks at these disciples, and He asks them a question in verse 15. 

Check it out. Verse 15, Matthew chapter 16, He looks at disciples and He says this, "But what about you? He asked, who do you say that I am?"  Who do you say that I am? Now, I want you to pause there because I need you see something here. It's unfortunate that the ESB as well as the NIV use the word you.  The word “you” works here. But to clear this up, I want you to draw a line, maybe highlight the Scripture and I want you to write the word "y'all" out there or maybe if you're from the mountains, you're right, "youin's" or if you're from the north to be "you all." I don't know how it works for you, but it's important for you to see this. Jesus is not looking at one person asking this question. He's looking at all of the disciples. He's looking at all y'all. That's what He's meaning right here in Scripture. I want you just to know that and look at what he says, "Simon Peter answered." Now, Paul's there, I promise, we're not going to do this all day because we will never get home. Here's what He's saying here. Simon Peter is about to answer this question.  His name Simon right now, but you're gonna see this in a minute, but he answers it on behalf of all the disciples. This is not just Peters answer, is what I want you to hear. How do I know that?   Jesus, He's looking at all the disciples, He's like, Hey, who do you guys who do all of y'all say that I am? And Peter steps up to answer the question on behalf of all of the disciples.  It's what they felt it's what they had been taught it's what they knew. And so, this is not one guy stepping out and saying something. it's what they were all already thinking. He just clarifies it out loud.  He was the leader, right, and he was kind of the mouthpiece and you see that all the New Testament. Look at this. "Simon Peter answered, You are the Messiah," in other words, You are the one that Jews have been looking for, you're the Deliverer, "the Son of the living God. Jesus replied, blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven."  Now Notice what happened here.  Simon, which is what his name was his birth name. He answers this question on behalf of the disciples. And Jesus goes, Hey, that's an incredible answer. And I know it's incredible. And nobody's told you this, I've been doing this teaching you this. God gave you this. And then Jesus does something incredibly cool. Jesus gives us a play on words in these next verses right here, that really and truly have confused people for about 2000 years. They've really kind of spun off a whole lot of conversation. And I want to show you what He does, because He gives us Jesus right here. He gives us the first sense of the theology of the church as well as he gives us the first sense of the mission of the church. Look at verse 18. It says this, it says, "And I tell you, that you are Peter."  You're Peter, this is the first time Jesus ever uses that name. He renamed Simon; He calls him Peter.  

Now names in this time they meant something. It wasn't where you were conceived. Alright, that meant something. It was it wasn't a fruit. Alright. It meant something about you. The word here that He used for Peter, he renamed Simon Peter, the word here literally means you are a small rock. You are a Petros is what that means. Your small rock right here it says in you are Petros and on this rock, notice what He does. Jesus calls Peter a small rock. And then He says, "And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock," it's not the same word. The second word that is used for rock here literally means and you are part of a formation that is built together that built structure on My name that will form the church. That's what it's saying right here. Look at what it says. "And on this rock," of him being a disciple of the Messiah, "I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed on heaven." What did Jesus do? Jesus asked Peter asked the disciples, who am I? And when they answer his question, Jesus looked at me says, Yes, I am the Messiah, I am the deliver. I am the king. And it is on that thought, that foundation that rock, which is the same word that's used in the parable, the sand and building my house on a sand versus the rock, and it is on that foundation, Jesus says, I will build my church. So, what is Jesus's church built on? It's built on the foundation that He is Jesus. And we are a collection of small stones that are built to lay the foundation on Him being the cornerstone, the solid foundation, that's the church and what's the church role, He shows us He gives the church the keys. Now, what do keys do?  The key opens things, right? So, what is Jesus saying?  I'm giving you the keys. In other words, I'm opening up the kingdom of heaven to the representative on this earth to the embassy, the church. And here's what he said. It's not only just to the Jews, now, it's to everyone. It's to everyone. I want you to feel the weight of this, because this is what the church is built on. The church is built on a bunch of small stones Petros built on Petra, the big stone of Jesus the Messiah.

That's the church. So, what did Jesus do? He gives him the mission of the church, open the church, let the church loose the church, have the church be the representative of God on this planet. And the crazy thing is, this is really and truly about the last time that we see in Scripture that Jesus talked a whole lot about the church. We don't have a whole lot of Jesus; it gives him this mission. Just go start the church, go be the church, let the church be my representative form the body, and who wants to see in the Bible Jesus, He goes about from this point on, He lives the rest of His life. He dies on the cross, He is resurrected, He lives for 30 days. And He ascends back to the Father and we next see the church in the last chapter of Luke and Acts chapter 1.  Now, Acts chapter 1, I love this because Jesus looks at the disciples, prior to ascending to heaven, He looks at these disciples and He says, Hey, I want you to go to Jerusalem, I want you to get together in Jerusalem, and I want you to wait on the Holy Spirit, I want you to wait in the city, I'm going to be sending you the Holy Spirit and what happens in the book of Acts, I want you to flip over there. So, I want you to see what happens. The promise of the Holy Spirit happens. And when it happens, the Holy Spirit says you're going to be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and Judea, and Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth. What is Jesus doing? He's giving them the keys. He's giving them their message. He's giving them what they should be doing. And now you have this 120 people, they're meeting in this upper room together. And they're praying together, and the church is born, the church is born.  You say Matt, why why does it matter where the church is born? It matters because this prevailing thought that is sweeping across our culture, this isn't the church, it's this antiquated deal that is out of date, that's just kind of out there, that doesn't matter. No, you are watching the Messiah, King Jesus say that He is the foundation and the church is what is the keys to the kingdom? What is it telling us it's telling us that the disciples through the leadership of the Holy Spirit, with their foundation in the temple worship, and with their foundation and synagogue worship, with the charge by Jesus, they started the church, the church.  In Acts chapter 2, we get to see what it looks like, we get to see this model of what I'm just going to call the prototypical church. That really means the prototype, it really means if you really want to know what something is, go back and look at the original church, and I want to show it to us this morning. Because it's important for us to have an awareness of what is it that the church does, because here's what I know. If I don't believe in the cause. And I don't know why they're doing what they're doing, I'm never gonna give my life to something. And I'm never gonna jump in and commit to something. So, I want you to see this in Acts chapter 2, Peter has just preached the Pentecost message. He's just preached this message and 3000 people gave their life to the Lord, 3000 people.  The Holy Spirit fell, 3000 people gave their life to the Lord and I want you to think about something you now have gone from 120 people kind of cowering in a room meeting together to now you got 3000. So, when you go listen to this, as a pastor, this kind of worries me, okay? When you go from 120 people in your church one day to 3000, the next day, you're gonna have problems, you're gonna have problems. That's like a 2500% increase in one day. I mean, that's like bonus land, somebody send that man a Longhorn gift card, right? I mean, something worked in that church right there. But now you've got these 12 apostles, that I mean, and here's the deal, only 11 of them original. Matthew has just been brought onto the scene here. They've got these 12 apostles, and they're celebrating over the back of these 3000 people gave their life to the Lord. And then you know, there was a moment and they went, Oh, no. What do we do with these people? How are we going to get these people to where they need to be? Because if you think about it, these people that were Jews, they just gave their life to Jesus, they have just been baptized, and all but the disciples, and 120 that was kind of following them, they didn't have a clue what was going on.  You got 3000 spiritual babies walking around and he starts the body of Christ. Before we jump into what this looks like, I want you to get to questions in your mind just to let them rattle around. I'm going to come back to them later. The first one is this.

Am I faithfully belonging as they did to the called out body of believers, and I just want this rattling around before I show you what this church does? And number two, is this church?  Is Burnt Hickory church, following the biblical model that's given to us. Now, I don't want you to answer number two, unless you're willing to answer number one, all right?  This is why I'm gonna say it. Right here, don't be all up in the business unless you're part of the family. That's what I'm saying right there. But here's what I want you to do. I just want you to examine these five things. I just want you to see where you are.  Let's go to Acts chapter 2:41. It says, this prototype church, the beginning of the church, "Those who accepted his message, were baptized, and about 3000 were added to their number that day.  They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching, and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer.  Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles.  All the believers were together and had everything in common.  They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need.  Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts.  They broke bread in their homes, and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all people.   And the Lord added to their number, daily those who were being saved."  Now I want you to see if you want to know what the disciples did, if you want to know what the church look like, you want to look at the prototypical church, these verses give it to us as clear in my estimation, as any other place in Scripture. But before we walk through the five things that we're going to see here; I want you to see a word that lays the foundation for every other context in this story.  We find it as the third word in verse 42. It says, "and they devoted themselves," devoted themselves. Now this word devoted in our minds, when we see the word devoted, we kind of think of this idea of it was something that I did, and I just checked the box, and I got rid of it right. And I did it, I devoted myself to that task, and I got done with that task. It's unfortunate that that's the kind of connotation that our English language has brought to this, the NIV and the ESV uses the word devoted right here. But if you like, NASB, or if you like NAS, the New American Standard, it says they were continually devoting themselves.  Or even if you're like, old school, KJV, come on, it says this, "and they continued steadfastly." They continue steadfastly, what does that mean? The word devoted here; it carries the connotation of that there is a continual devotion. That means there may be a beginning, but there is never an end. It means there may be a spot where you realize that I need to devote, but when I do devote, there will be a continual steadfast devotion to the church. Now, that's not what culture screaming at our plan, right? That's not the way we look at it, when we look at being devoted to something as some of us would, would make the comment, well, I used to be devoted, I used to be an endurance runner.  That doesn't mean you're an endurance runner now, right? I mean, here's the deal. You can be an endurance runner in the past, but if you don't keep on at that endurance running, you are no longer an endurance runner. You might have been an athlete at one time, some of you dads, you still think you live in that dream right now, you're still taking that shot with no seconds left on the clock on the driveway. Look, you're not an athlete anymore. All right? We have reached that stage of our lives, amen. We're there we sprain our ankles, getting out of the bed. I mean, this is how it works in our lives. 

I want you to think about this sports context. You're not devoted as an athlete, unless it's something you're continually doing. You're continually pressing. The same is true for the church. The same is true in the sense of the things that we're about to see they're not something that used to be in your life if you're devoted.   The truly devoted church we see the first one in verse 42 it says this, "They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and to fellowship."  What does that mean? That means the church is a place that the called out, the ekklesia, the called-out number one are constantly learning the truth. Constantly learning the truth. Now, how are we getting this? What does this say? They were devoting themselves to the apostles teaching.  Now the apostles teaching, what was it?  The apostles teaching was not something you just kind of learned one day and you checked that paragraph off cuz you memorized the Constitution. That's not what it means right here. The apostles teaching was the foundational message of Jesus. Why? Because if you think about this, this is hard to do. But at this moment in Acts, the 27 books of the New Testament were not written the letters to the church. They were in the Gospels. They were not written.  Paul, he was not even a believer yet, so there's no way we could be studying his thing. So, the only thing that these people had, these new converts had was the message that the apostles were bringing them. The apostles were those people that walked with Jesus. They were with Jesus as his resurrection, that his death and his life-giving resurrection. They were teaching. That's the apostles teaching. So that leads me to the question of what is the apostles teaching? The apostles teaching kind of carried this context of three areas. The first one would have been that they taught what Jesus had been teaching them. If you think about it, Jesus had just walked with them for 40 days after being in the grave, he rose from the grave, he walked with them, and what did Jesus teach? He taught during that time period; this will be good Thanksgiving reading for you. He taught that He in fact, was the Messiah. The He, in fact, was the King that has given life.  He tied, listen to this, in the last 40 days of these disciples, He tied the Old Testament with the New Testament and said, every promise that was made every covenant that was made, every prophecy that was made, they were made about Me, he looked at these Jews, He's like, you've been waiting on Me, you've been wanting Me to be here. And now I'm here. That's what He just taught the disciples. And that's what the disciples would have been teaching in this moment to the new believers, they were taking them back to the Old Testament, they were taking them back to the days they were walking, they would have also been teaching, not just the last 40 days, but these apostles would have been teaching them what it was that Jesus said to them, why they were walking on this earth. Think about it, who knows Jesus the best than the guys that walked with Him for the last days, or the last three years of their life. They were teaching the sayings of Jesus, they were teaching the meanings of the sayings of Jesus, they were teaching the miracles of Jesus and what Jesus did.  Matt, how do you know that's what they were teaching?  Because that's what we have, right? It's what they eventually wrote down as their teaching, which is the Gospels you're seeing how this is fitting together, right? That's the Gospels. Now it was the apostles teaching is what they taught people.  And one of the Gospels do?  They point to the Old Testament, they point to the New Testament, and they point to a day that is coming, that we will walk with the King, but they also, I love this, when they also would have been teaching what the Holy Spirit was bringing to their minds. Why?  Because they'd never had the Holy Spirit like this before. And Jesus said, it's better for you to have the Holy Spirit than then to have Me. They would have been teaching what the Holy Spirit was giving them. How do you know that Matt?  I'm glad you asked, John 14:26. It says this, "But the Advocate," this is Jesus at the Passover before he dies, "But the Advocate the Holy Spirit," listen to what he says to the disciples, "whom the Father will send in My name," He just sent Him right, "will teach you all things, and will remind you of everything I have said to you."  Isn't that incredible?   That now you've got this apostles teaching, which was what was being brought back to these disciples’ minds by the Holy Spirit. I say all of this, here's the point, these new believers that were hungry for the Word of God and listen to me really, really, really clearly.  The church's primary role is to disciple its people in the word that is primary. That is, number one. It is the word that gives life it is the word that gets formed. It is the word that gets foundation. Everything else is secondary. You see this in Acts 2:43, what happens when you start to get a hold of it? Verse 43 says this, "Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. What does that mean? It means as the disciples, as the apostles, did more miracles, had more stories did more teaching, you're now finding this devotion and this all come over these 3000 new converts. It means this. If a church is not constantly teaching the Word of God and discipling, its people in the Word of God, it is not fulfilling its primary role.

Why we spend so much time digging into this book, but it didn't end there. It didn't in there. Number two, they didn't just learn the word together. Number two, they purposefully were linking their lives together. They were purposefully linking their lives together. Now what does this mean? That means church is not an event church is not something we show up at hoping to remain anonymous. It means that God doesn't want us to sit and soak alone. They were together. Look at verse 42, our prime text and they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching us the discipling and to the fellowship, and to the fellowship. And let me be super clear, this fellowship led to the ministering to themselves and the community. Now this word fellowship is quite frankly, a super churchy word. This is supercharging where you grew up like me and church, when you hear the word fellowship, all you're thinking is those little butter cookies you can put on your finger in a barrel drink. I mean, that's all you got. A linoleum floor, some metal chairs, plastic table and memos, home cooking. That's all you're thinking about church fellowship, but there's so much more to that now. You might have some coffee and doughnuts along the way. But there's a whole lot more. This word fellowship. If you look back at it the original meaning of fellowship or the original language, if you've been in church, you may have heard this. It's the word koinonia. It's the word koinonia.  It's where we get the word kona, Greek is common Greek, it's where actually we get our word coin, or common currency. The word koinonia means that there was a fellowship among them, that everything was common to them, and that they were linking themselves together, that they had common community or communion with each other. And as a result of that, they linked themselves together in such a way that they took care of each other for the glory of God and for the good of mankind. We see it in verse 44, right? Look at it says this, "All the believers were together, and had everything in common.  They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need."  Don't think of this as a communist society. Nobody's making them do this. I don't go down that train. Here it is verse 46. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts.  Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts.  They broke bread together in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts."  A couple things jumped out at me, here's what happens, when fellowship happens. There was a sense of journeying together, there was a sense of being knitted together, there was a sense of spurring each other on, there was a close sacrifice with each other. It's one thing for me to get up here and say, Hey, we really need you to give to this cause. It's another thing when somebody in your tribe has a need, somebody that you are linked to has a need. That's why they were like, hey, the rest of this stuff, we don't care about it. Our people are hurting, our people are hurting, our people are hurting. So, they started selling stuff off. Not everybody. Everybody didn't sell their house; they couldn't have church in house if they did that. But I mean, some people did, because there was need. And it flowed not only to the church, it flowed outside the church that they were providing for because they were so closely knitted. But I want you also notice that this fellowship moved from just the fellowship hall right, to their homes, there was a level of biblical hospitality that I'm just going to tell you is going to be what reaches this nation, when the believers begin to invite other people into their home and talk about what they believe that's going to be next. And we're seeing it right here. There was a level of fellowship, there was not a burden. They weren't like, Oh, no, another Christmas party at the church. No, they weren't. Why? Because it was a joy to them. It was a joy as to who they were knitted together with doing life together, spurring each other on this is an incredible heartbeat of this church that we're looking at. And let me just tell you this, it's gonna be an incredible heartbeat of this church that we're at right here. Because fellowship is more than just drinking some coffee at a coffee station.  Fellowship is linked in our lives together. And here's what I know some of you, you have this. Some of you have this level of fellowship in this faith family. To which I can say incredible, but some of you, you don't. And look, I'm not gonna rebuke you for it, it's your choice.

I'm just gonna say this, you're missing it. You're missing it. For those of you that do have fellowship and invite other people into it. For those of you that don't have those who jump in, what does that look like? It means jumping into a life group means jumping into a lady’s group. Means jumping into a men's group, it means putting your kids with a tribe of people that want to follow Jesus because I can guarantee you there's other tribes out there that want them.  That want them right now.  That's what I'm talking about this church, fellowship and link their lives together. But here's number three doesn't stop there keeps going. They were regularly loving God through public worship. They were regularly loving God through public worship. We see this a few chapters over there's like 1000 people at Solomon's calling aid. They were out there worshiping together and praying together. But check it out Acts 2:42. This is our text, right? "They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching," that's discipleship, "and to fellowship," that's that fellowship in ministry, and to what, "the breaking of bread" and the breaking of bread, what is this church doing? They're continually devoting themselves to the breaking of bread to which at this time of the day, I'm like, hallelujah, I'm hungry, right? I'm hungry. But it means more than that. It means more than that. Now, scholar’s kind of get a little bit dicey on this, I want to kind of give you both sides of the coin. So, I think they come together. One, some scholars believe the breaking of bread here would have been the public celebrating of the Lord's Supper together, that they broke the body, and they took the elements of the Lord's Supper as part of their worship as part of saying, God, you are King, and we're celebrating you're coming to a lot of scholars kind of lean that way. But other scholars represent this idea that they would have broken bread at the Agape Festival.  It was a festival a feast, a big meal that happened after the Lord's Supper, that they were celebrating the goodness of God, the provision of God and they would have sung songs over each other.   This is the same feast that in 1 Corinthians Paul rebukes the Corinthians over getting drunk at it and getting mad at the church, there.  It's the same one. But some scholars also said that it was something that they did in the home. So, they broke bread together, and they sang together and experienced God together. Regardless, let me tell you where I land right in the middle. I think it all works. I think it goes all together. Why? Because they're worshiping publicly with each other as the church and every one of these events and telling God who He is. That's worship. We're seeing it all over this. In fact, we see it in verse 46, even stronger, right?  Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts.  They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts."   What were they doing? "praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people."  They were praising God.  If you would have got to sit through part of their worship, it would have looked a lot like ours, they would have prayed together these 18 different prayers, by the way, they would have read together over 10 songs together, that's a long day at church. And then after that, somebody like me, and you would have stood up and if I had anything to say, in any of those passages, I could have brought it to the table and expound upon it. They did all that with the Lord's Supper and they broke bread, representing who Jesus is. And here's the deal, we're going to do it in eternity for the rest of our lives. So let's do it. Now, this church we're looking at was a house of praise. And so, will ours. So, listen, look at it and stop there. Here's number four. These are quick.  Number four the first church was faithfully lifting up prayers to God. They were just faithful.  They were faithful and lifting up prayers to God. Why? Because they knew that it was not by their strength, not by their mind that God was going to move. They knew that if God was going to deliver them and deliver the Roman Empire as a whole, that it was gonna be through prayer. Prayer is not a pregame ritual for your Thanksgiving meal this week. It's more than that. It's just more and that's what it's saying. Right? Look at our text in verse 42. "They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread," and look at this one, "and to prayer."  And the prayer.  Now it's interesting, when you go back to Acts chapter 1.  Prior to Mattheus being chosen as the new disciple to replace Judas, prior to them going to reach their community prior to them meeting together, like we're seeing right here. What is the first thing that the church did after it came back from watching Jesus ascend to heaven? The first thing that Acts 1:14, says this, "They all joined together constantly in prayer." Constantly. Why? Because if a church is going to make a difference, if a church is going to see God move, it's gonna have to be a house prayer. It's gonna have to be a house of prayer. Pray for what? Praying for peace, praying for hope, praying for salvation, praying for our nation, praying for revival to break up, praying for preachers and teachers to be true to the Word of God. Praying for our groups to honor God, praying for needs to be met, praying for the poor, praying for those that need justice. We have to be a praying church, if we're gonna see God move. It was the foundation of everything they did. It wasn't necessarily just the side off ministry that only the super prayers that were part of. No, it was a praying church. Let me ask you this. Are you praying?  Is it part of your morning routine?  Is it part of your evening routine?  Is it part of when you just pause during the day to pray without ceasing that God would move in our lives? Or is it just an emergency call to God when something's going bad? They were a praying church, so should we be praying, listen, we got an incredible prayer ministry here that would love to have you and love to walk with you in what it looks like to be a serious prayer. But if that's not you, pray, that's all. Just pray. Let's watch God moving because here's number five. Number five, the prototypical church, really, this is just a culmination of the rest of them going right. Number five is that we're effectively leading others to Jesus. Now, look, I realized last night about 11 o'clock, I was getting in bed, just kind of a long morning. I was like gosh, I made a mistake on number five. It should read like this, effectively leading many to Jesus. Because here's what I know.  Look at verse 47, "praising God and enjoying the favor of all people.  And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. What does this mean? It means the original church cared about the souls of the people that were around them, cared about the souls of the world, cared enough to do something about it. Let's look at the process. Right? What do they do together? They learned the Word of God together, they were discipled. That's a vertical activity, right? Me and God, we were with each other. What did they do? They linked with each other. That's the support around us. Right? 

That's where all the little rocks form into the foundation under the what?  Discipling of the Messiah. That's the vertical, it's the horizontal. What else did they do? They praise God together, they got together, they sang together, they broke bread together, they represented the King together. What else did they do? They prayed together, God needs you to move, I need you to move, I need you to move I need you to deliver me, I need you to do something in my life. And as a result of all that, God gave them a heart that was not a heart of stone.  It was a heart of evangelism, to go reach the people around them. Can I tell you the people that don't care about Jesus or the people that Jesus isn't doing anything in their lives? I'm just gonna be honest with that. Look, I know that we read these things right here. But here's what I say. That's a church I want to be a part of. And I can hear you well, Matt, if I could find a church like that, I'd join it right now. Me too!  I'm telling you, me too. Let's go do it. Let's go do this together. Because I'm gonna tell you this, I want to be really clear. This is where this church goes.  It may look a little different, it may feel a little different. You may have to kind of see how some of this happens. But if it doesn't filter through one of these things right here, it ain't happening. Remember, those two questions I asked you today?  Here's the first one, right?  Am I belonging? Like these guys belonged. Let me tell you something. If we want a church that looks like this, we can have people that look like this. This is part of your lives. Number two, I ask you, Hey, does this church look like this? Which I can say this, you know, most of the time? Yes, we do. 

So as we get ready to jump into our invitation song, here's my question. Will you plant and flourish and belong in a church that this is our heartbeat? Look, I know last week, there's a lot of you, a lot of you responding. A lot of you responded. And a lot of you some of, you gave your life to Christ last week, man, welcome to the kingdom. Some of you made the jump last week and you decided to plant your family in this place and quit dating us right you determine the relationship a little DTR. And you're in this is family. Now. Some of you last week took the last the next step and you began to serve here; you begin to link yourself into a life group here. Here's what I'm going to say. Some of you didn't. And you allowed the week to go by. And you thought you were done, wrong.  Can I tell you my prayer today?  It's that the Holy Spirit falls on us like it did at Pentecost in that we as his church. Live this out. Every week we talk about this next step text and it's the invitation of the pandemic, right? Here's what I want to tell you this week. I know it's Thanksgiving week. But hey, if you'll text that number, if you want to join this church, you want to give your life to Christ, if something in your soul is just like, man, I just need to talk to somebody.  Text it.  In fact, I want to do something right now, I want everybody here to just take out your phone, the 12 of you that are already just take out your phone, right? Take out your phone. You're like Matt, are you telling me to take out my phone? Yeah.

Here's why. Because I know that there's some of you in here that are so concerned with somebody seeing you pulling out your phone right now that Satan will use that to not have you take this next step. This is what I want you to do. If that's you today, as we're singing this next song, they don't know if you're checking the scores, they don't know what you're doing. Would you just text us this week and let us know how we can come beside you. And how you can plant yourself whether it's in Christ, or in this church.  

Lord Jesus, walk with us in these next moments. And God I just pray that you would show us corporately, how to be a church that looks like the prototypical model that you started Jesus. Secondly shows how we can belong to a place like this.  Lord, let people meet you today. Let people join up and link arms with us today. Let people step into fellowship today. Let people see how they can minister today and serve today. And God show us how we can reach the nation and it's in Your Holy, Holy, Holy name we pray. Amen. 

Let's stand and sing together and hey, I'm serious, text it.  Somebody is reaching back out in the next 24ish hours.