Acts 2:42-47 | Two Ways of Church Growth

Sunday Morning | July 7, 2024 | Colby Flowers | Louisville, KY

Guest speaker Colby Flowers makes two points regarding church growth: First, that biblical doctrine, fellowship, communion, and prayer are the core principles that helped the early church in the book of Acts to grow spiritually. And they will be the same core principles that will grow us spiritually today.  Secondly, when we are willing to sacrifice what God has blessed us with, people will notice and they will want to have what we have. And the church will grow in numbers.

You can join us on Sunday mornings at 11 AM for worship. We are located at 8911 3rd Street Road, Louisville KY 40272.

Transcript

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Good morning. Church. How are we doing? It's good to be with you. We had a little bit of a hiatus. We were away at camp with our students, and my wife and I decided we needed to take a Sunday off after camp, but we had, so much help with camp. It's been a great summer thus far. I hope it's been a great summer for you all. And after getting back from camp, we, we had tons of leaders that helped support us in that. And in fact, they're not here today because they needed a vacation. As you can imagine, after a camp with students. So they're away. And I just want to say publicly, I'm so thankful for all that our church does to provide for our student ministry, our children's ministry, and that be financial. That's through time and effort and who actually are dumb enough to come on a week long trip with students. But we are so thankful for all of that. Thank you. And ironically, we actually have staff from the camp that we attended here in attendance this morning. I want to give a shout out to my few staffers up here. Can we give it up for them as well? And what's funny, you know, our adults are dumb enough to go a week. They're dumb enough to do, like, a couple months with these kids. Like, you all are crazy. But I see my man Nick up here and Jake Josiah, like Brandon, are our AMC for the week. We just had an incredible staff. This group of people, young adults who give up their summer to pour into our students and they grew. Coming back from church camp, we had tons of students who rededicated their life, students who wanted to give their life to Christ, students who started getting back into God's Word, who sparked a fire. And that is the growth that we strive to have in our student ministry and at Valley View. And this month, we're going to be talking about this idea of grow, and we're going to have a couple speakers come and we're going to have, Andrew Harrell and then Troy Kolb. We're going to speak into this series, and we're all focusing in this series about this idea of growth. And some of you this morning are thinking, well, what does that mean? What do we mean by this idea of growth? And honestly, there's a lot of things growing in my life right now. I can tell you one thing that's not growing is my hair, obviously, but there's a lot of even a lot of weeds in my backyard that is growing right now. And my impatience for this hot weather is growing right now. but I know some of you all have asked. And so, I mean, just to say it publicly, and I'm thankful for this, but my wife is growing, a baby. And so we're thankful for that. And God's blessing. We're so thankful for that. but today in this series, we're going to talk about growing spiritually and the church growing. In fact, we're going to be in Acts chapter two. So if you want to turn there with me, Acts chapter two, we're going to work through verses 42 through 47. And as we look at this passage, we're going to be talking about two ways in which the church grew. They grew numerically, but they also grew spiritually, personally. So there's this corporate numerical aspect in which the church grew, but also this individual, spiritual, one on one relationship with God that they grew. And so we're going to deal with this idea. And so as I was preparing this message, I was thinking about how I have grown in my life. And early on, baseball was a huge part of my life. And so I devoted a lot of time and attention to that. My parents can even vouch for their bank account, how much money they devoted to this, to this, experience of my life. And so I love baseball, I enjoyed baseball, and I remember there is a particular aspect to baseball that took me a little while to grow and learn. And so I was an infielder by trade when I played. And there is this certain play that it took me a lot of practice and devotion to figure out. And it's called a do or die play. So I'm gonna nerd out a little bit here with baseball, but bear with me. There is this play in which if a ball is hit, a ground ball that rolls slowly, you already only really have one chance to get the runner out. If you're playing, and to get it, I would have to run full speed, catch the ball on a full speed run, and then get rid of it while I'm running. You don't have time to stop your feet and slow down. So in other words, it's a play that's common, but it's hard to make. And so it took me a long time to figure this out. I remember I had a coach that devoted, a specific time in practice to this one play that we had to practice and learn. My dad spent hours hitting ground balls and helping me learn how to do this play, and over time, it became more natural. And I. And I figured it out. And I remember my junior year, I played at Tates Creek High School in Lexington, and we were actually playing PRP at our house. Shout out to the state champs this year, PRP. But yeah, yeah, I didn't like them at this point though, in my life. So my junior year, there was a play that I was playing third base and a slow roller was hit to me, and so instinct took over and all of my devotion and time and practice came to this moment in which I was able to do this, do or die play, and I make it and I get the runner out and I was pumped, you know, I beat my chest. I was so excited because it was a big moment. I'm not going to mention the error that I made in the earlier in the inning and the strikeout I had later in the game, but that that's that's for another. Another time. But, I bring all this up to say that if we're going to grow in anything in our life, it's going to take devotion, whatever it is in our life, if we want to grow in it, it's going to require devotion. And so for us this morning, I want us to see in our passage that to grow in Christ, believers must devote themselves to the biblical principles of the early church. For us to grow even today, we must devote ourselves to the foundational, important biblical principles that are found being practiced in the early church. And thankfully, we have an entire book written to focus on this. And that is the book of Acts. So just for some context for us this morning, Jesus has been raised from the dead. He spent 40 days with his disciples and with the apostles, and after that he ascended to heaven. And then he commissioned the church to go and make disciples of all nations, beginning first in Jerusalem to the ends of the earth, because he sends the Holy Spirit, just a couple of days later, and the spirit descends on men and they start speaking in tongues, they have this amazing miracle. And then a guy named Peter, who was a disciple, an apostle of Jesus, he stands up and gives this incredibly challenging, rousing sermon and 3000 souls confess Jesus and give their life to Christ in one day. Talk about a first week in the church. And so from this spans the early church in how they practiced and lived out their faith. So when we're talking about this idea of grow, even today in our modern context, when we're talking about growing in our faith with faith in Christ, when we're talking about growing in faith with each other, we need to go to go back to the early church and see how they did it. Because if we're standing here today, thousands of years later, because of these early Christians, we can look back and say, I think they did it right. So we're going to do that this morning in Acts chapter two. So we're looking here in verse 42, if you want to turn in your scriptures with me, Acts chapter two, verse 42. And this is what it says. And they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. So suddenly we’ve got to point out here already, is that there is four aspects that the the writer of Acts, his name was Luke, four aspects that he details that the early church practiced and held as a principle. These four aspects are crucial and critical for the church. And so I want to go in and just briefly explain each for each of these things, because it helps us set up exactly the principles and practices of the early church. And so the first thing he says is that they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching. So apostles’ teaching is simply describing the testimonies and doctrines of the apostles and this and this teaching in this, these testimonies, they were unique in the sense that they carried an authority that no one else had. See, to be an apostle in the early church, you had to have seen the resurrected Jesus. You had to have been with Jesus to hear from Jesus. And so when they spoke, they carried a unique authority that no one even possesses today. So to be an apostle, you had some weight to throw around, which is why I mention here in a cross reference from Ephesians four for you all. It tells that the apostles were sent by God to build up the church and equip the church for ministry. It's what they were called to do. So this was one aspect in which the early church pursued in practice, and a principle that they had in the early part of their existence. But the next thing is fellowship. So the fellowship is pretty straightforward, but it describes the unified community of the early church who lived out their faith together. Day by day. Because if you know anything in the Old Testament, you know the church faced a lot of pressure from the external world. They faced issues with division in the inside, and the world or the world persecuted them from the outside. And so for the church to it have gone through that stage and even exist today, there had to have been a tight knit fellowship of community and unity within the church. And they practiced this day by day ss we're going to see a little bit later in the passage. Next thing is pretty straightforward too. It's the breaking of bread. This is speaking to the to the aspect of communion that the early church practiced. So the early church constantly held communion. And as Jesus said, and Paul would say, it was all to be done in remembrance of the cross. So obviously they would get together and they would meet and they would partake of communion. Because one thing the early church did not want to forget was the cross of Christ. And so to keep that at the center of everything the church did, they practiced communion on a regular basis. And we as the church, if we ever forget this aspect of the gospel, we have lost the gospel. And so the early church kept this at the center. And last but not least, the prayers. The prayers were the public prayer ministry where the people of God were calling upon the power and provision of God. We see this in Acts chapter four, when Peter and and John were being persecuted for their faith. But then they pause and they pray for boldness, and God sends a attitude and and power of boldness in their hearts, and they start spreading the gospel even more. And so it's a routine for them to pray, not just personal prayers, but the public prayer ministry that they had and praying for one another. And so I want to make this point this morning, that biblical doctrine, fellowship, communion, and prayer are the core principles that grew the church. And I'm here to tell you this morning that those will be the same core principles that will grow the church today. The beautiful part about the gospel and about Christianity is the message hasn't changed. The principles have not changed. Yes, the method in which we do things changes, but the principle and practice of the church remains the same for thousands of years, which is why we do what we do in the church, which is why we have life groups on Sunday mornings, which is why we meet and we talk about God's Word, which is why we pray with one another. It's why we partake of communion. All of these things are central and core to the church, because if you've ever played the game of Jenga and you start knocking out one of those pieces and the whole structure starts to move right, you have to pause and be like, okay, I can't touch that piece. I can go over here and find something else that I can knock out, right? But if you start hitting on that piece in the game of Jenga and it starts shaking the whole structure, you got to stop. When we talk about things that uphold and make up the church, there are certain things you can't take away or else you cease to be the church. And at the core of the early church, I pray at the core of our church, are these four things of biblical doctrine, fellowship, communion, and prayer. And so these same principles are the same tools that God uses today to work in and through his church. We can't forget them, we can't overlook them. And sometimes there's this there's this temptation to allow this, these same things to become mundane or overlooked, and we want to push them to the side. But we have to keep these things at the center of who we are at Valley View Church, which is why I'm thankful for Pastor John and our elders and our deacons who strive so hard to keep the main thing the main thing. Amen. But I'll come back to this verse because this is important. Because notice the word that Luke uses. He says in verse 42, and they devoted themselves. It's one thing to know the what. It's another thing to know the how. Yes, we know what they devoted themselves to. But Luke says it's how they did it. I want you to think about something that you have devoted your life to, that you've devoted your time to, that you have devoted your money and energy towards. When you've devoted yourself to those things you've wanted to accomplish, meant to grow in them to, to, to learn them. And the same is true of our walk with Christ and our Christian faith, that if we are going to grow in anything, we need to be devoted to it. And here's the reality this morning you will devote yourself to the things you most desire. The things that you desire the most in your life. You will devote yourself to them. And the temptation is instead of us devoting our lives to Christ and His church, other things try to get in the way of it. And so we have to be careful, because the early Christians, the early church, they didn't have time to play, they didn't have time to sit off to the side. They had to get on the right track and devote their entire lives to God and his church. And I got a quote for us this morning that helps me. It helps me process this, and it may help you all too this morning, but this comes from William Law. He wrote a book called ‘Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life.’ And this is what he says. If you will look into your own heart in utter honesty, you must admit that there is one and only one reason why you are not even now as saintly as the primitive Christians. You do not wholly want to be. This is a humbling reality. He's getting at this important idea that the reason, at the end of the day, that we don't become more like these early Christians and ultimately more like Jesus is because we wholly don't want to. It's not a sorry, it's not our greatest desire. And I'm up here saying the same thing. There are seasons and moments in my life when I have gone off and derailed, or got my attention focused on other things, and I haven't devoted my life to Jesus because it wasn't my greatest desire. But for us as Christians, for us, as believers, our greatest devotion, our greatest desire should be to God and His church. And I had this verse for us this morning, which will be helpful.

First Peter 2: 17:53

2-3. It says this-- like newborn infants long, crave, desire, for the pure spiritual milk. Spiritual milk. Here's talking about God's Word craving and longing for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation. If indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. So Peter is telling his people, you need to long and crave and desire for God's Word, for relationship with God. And you can even add to this through prayer and through all the various principles that the early church had, that for us to grow, we need to have this craving in us. And notice the conditional clause in verse three. Notice verse three if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. But this is also true this morning, that you cannot long or crave for something that you have never tasted. You can't long or crave for something that you have never tasted. You know, within my first year marriage, I discovered one of the greatest blessings my wife's cooking. She is an excellent cook, and there are a couple dishes that I. I just will stay up at night thinking about. And that is her lasagna and her chili. She. I, I just don't know what it is. It's it's just so good to me. And you all can think of a dish or a meal that you have at your house that you just think, oh, man, I need to have that soon. Quick in a hurry. For my mom, it was chicken and dumplings. But we all have these cravings. Why? Because we've tasted it. We know what it tastes like. We know what to expect, and we develop a craving because we have tasted that it's good. So my question for you this morning is, have you tasted and seen that the Lord is good? Because before you can grow in anything, before you can grow in a relationship with Christ, you need to first taste God. And for the you. This morning you may be coming and you have never tasted that the Lord is good. Well, I've got a couple of things to say. One. The Lord is good, and if you would just taste and see, your life would be forever changed. So don't leave this place without first getting that experience with God. And I pray that worship introduced that to you. I pray that God's Word introduces it to you, but have a conversation with someone before you leave because you need to taste and see that the Lord is good. He goes on in verse 43, Luke continuing on, he says, and awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. So catch this. 3000 people were just accepting Christ. The church started being the church. They devoted themselves to these core ideas and principles and the response not just of the believers, but it says every soul was awed. They were filled with fear. So the opponents of Jesus just crucified him. Not too long ago. The other people in Israel hated this movement of Christianity. But when they see 3000 lives change, their mouths close and they're in awe and they don't know what to say or what to do. Because here's the thing you can't argue against the changed life. And lives are being changed. The gospel was flourishing, the early church was moving, and people stood in awe. So listen church, when the church is devoted to biblical principles, the world will take notice. You want to make an impact in our community and in our world with the gospel? Devote yourself to God's Word, to God and His church. It is a core principle that the early church possess, and for us to have the same type of impact today, we need to be devoted to the same things. Amen. So my first point this morning is you will grow when you devote yourself to biblical principles. So you want to know how to grow in your faith, in your walk with Jesus. Devote yourself to what the Bible teaches. Don't stray away from my students to TikTok. Don't go after the the, the, the things of this world. The things that try to tempt you don't even go after the incredible marketing strategies of these big, giant marketing companies. The way we're going to grow the church, and you personally are going to grow so that we can reach this world, is by devoting yourself to the biblical principles in God's Word. And some might say, well, I know I got to read my Bible, but what else? What else should I do? No, no, no, don't get ahead of yourself. You need to get in God's Word and get God's Word in you. You can't take any steps of faith and growth without having God's Word in you. You can't take steps of faith if you don't have fellowship in your life, which is why we push for life groups, which is why we push for dgroups. Because life is already hard. But why would you want to make it harder by trying to do it yourself? Get into a life group. Have a group of people come alongside you to pour into you, to lift you up when you don't have the strength to and to, and to direct your life with wisdom from God's Word. Spend your life in prayer. Spend your life meditating on the sacrifice of Christ. By taking communion, all of these principles are set up and given to us by God so that we would keep growing. And I pray that for you. I pray that for Valley View. So Luke goes on here in verse 44, he says, and all who believed were together and had all things in common. It's a beautiful picture of the unity of the church here when it says that they they were they were together, meaning they had the same mind. They were in agreement. They weren't disagreeing over silly, trivial things. They were focused on the main thing. They were focused on the gospel. They were focused on the apostles teaching. And so they were together. And if the church is going to be reaching this culture in this world, guess what? We got to be unified because we can't point to the world and say, you need to come to come to church and get to know Jesus. When we're infighting and divided. The beautiful part about this is that all of them were in agreement and had a common understanding of where they were headed, and that was good leadership that was have standing on good principles. And again, I'm so thankful. So thankful for our church here at Valley View that we have good leadership. And because of that, we are in a healthy place and we're heading in a great direction. But the early church was committed to these two things. They were committed to sacrifice and charity to others. See, they would all come together. And there's an old proverb that says, all friend are friends, have all things in common meaning your stuff really wasn't your own, but you were willing to give it up to all those around you. And so the early church looked a little bit like this, where people weren't clinging to possessions, people weren’t clinging to their money, people weren’t clinging to their schedules. People weren’t clinging to the things of this world. They were, in fact, offering them up to the church so that they could be unified and all could be helped, which he explains here in verse 45, it says, and they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. This is a beautiful picture of what it looks like when a church lets go of their their life, possessions and goods and gives it to the good of the church. Now we got to be careful here, because some may read that verse and think, well, I've got to go be homeless now, that's not the case at all. This is not a call to foolishly give, to starve yourself and starve your family for the sake of some religious practice and money grab. This is a call to leverage your entire life for the sake of God. And you say to God, whatever it is that you want, God you take. Because I know at the end of the day you're going to provide for me anyway. And so these people were willing to give up all that they had, whether God took it or not. And they were saying, God, take this from my life. And there's a person in the book of Acts, as we see in chapter four, his name was Barnabas. He was a rich and wealthy man, but he later sells an entire field and gives it over to the church to be given, and the proceeds to be given to those who were in need. And I want to say this this morning that the church was not built on the on the mindset of consumption, but sacrifice. So I think we live in an Americanized culture that is kind of affected the way we do church, in that we are to come to church to receive. I need to come to church so I can feel good. I need to come to church so I can consume. But instead, the early church proved to us that we don't come to to gather together as the body of Christ, to receive, but to give. As the early church shows us, we are called to sacrifice and to give towards the mission of the church and to give our lives to God. Not expect God to give his for us. Now I want to clarify that now obviously Christ died for us, but what I mean is, is we don't come to church expecting God to give us handouts. We don't we don't come to church looking for everyone to serve us. We come to church because we are now in the game of saving souls and I’m going to give it all. Here I am, God. And practically speaking, I think the solution to some of our problems and anxieties is to take the focus off ourselves and look to Christ and others. I think a lot of anxiety and problems that that we may deal with today is because we're so hyper focused on ourselves and we're not looking to Christ and we're not looking to the church. So I would say, if you want to grow, if you want to deal with maybe some of the problems and anxieties you're dealing with, maybe it is that you need to take your eyes off of yourself and lift them to God. So listen, you will increase your spiritual growth in Christ when you release your grip on this world. When this world does not have a hold of you anymore, you will grow in your faith. When we are so focused on holding on to our possessions, holding on to our goods, holding on to our status, holding onto our 401 K, holding on to all the things that this world can offer. Our attention is not going to be on God and His mission to reach this world for eternity, but it's going to be on this world. So my second point for you this morning is that you will grow when you devote yourself to sacrifice. If sacrifice is a part of your life and you're willing to give up what God has blessed you with, you will grow in your faith. Now, for some of us, I recognize that not all of us have, you know, billions of dollars. I get that, and honestly, I didn't join the ministry to make a lot of money either. But here's the thing. God, whatever God has given you, whatever it is that be it time, gifts, possessions, money, leverage, all of it for the sake of the gospel and the glory of God. And I can promise you, you will grow in your faith more than you could imagine.

And here's a verse in Proverbs 19: 30:23

7. It says, for whoever is generous to to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will repay him for his deed. When Maggie and I had a season of of of finances in which we were really tight in our finances, we were struggling to figure out what we were going to do. And in this particular instance, we were really concerned about being able to meet some ends and figure out what the next step was for financially. And out of the blue, two of our friends who we'd probably known just a little while, we hadn't really gotten too close to them, but they come and they just hand us a sum of money. That was exactly what we needed. We didn't ask them. We weren't hinting at it. We were just praying for God to provide for us what we couldn't provide in the moment. We were still giving to church. We were giving what we had. But God came in in a way that we were totally unprepared and provided for us exactly what we needed. And so I want to encourage you this morning, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink. God knows that you need all of these things, but seek first the kingdom of God and God will take care of the rest. Amen. Let's look at this last portion here. Last two verses 46 and 47. Verse 46, Acts chapter two says, and day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes. They received their food with glad and generous hearts. This is really cool description here from Luke that we get, and I love that we get these pictures of what the early church did. But this day by day, this idea of them doing something day by day, it really speaks to their consistency. It speaks to their their willingness to immediately start doing something. Because if we can learn of of how to not get caught up in procrastination in our culture and in our in our life, we've won a big battle. Because I think procrastination is a dangerous thing to deal with. But these believers were day by day, consistently and persistently pursuing and devoting their lives to God. And so day by day is a call for you and I as believers to the immediate and persistent devotion to God in this church. And I would encourage you, some of you, or may be in a season of dryness. Some of you are in a season where you've kind of veered off. And I would encourage you this morning, there's no better day than today. Start it up. Get in God's word. Find a life group. Find a way to devote yourself to God in his church today and day by day by day, little by little, you will grow closer to Christ. Because you've heard the phrase before Rome wasn't built in a day, right? I saw an interesting quote from from from a writer. He says Rome wasn't built in a day, but they did lay bricks every hour. So, yes, you're not going to fix every problem in your life. You're not going to you're not going to grow to be the ultimate Christian ever tomorrow. But listen, you can start by laying a brick. You can start by getting in your word. You can start by praying. You can start by finding a life group. I want to come back to verse 46. It says here that they were attending the temple notice together and breaking bread in their homes. So they received their food with glad and generous hearts. What's so cool about this is that the early church, because they had so many people they had nowhere to meet. So you know where they went? The temple where Jewish sacrifices and the Torah was being read, and the Old Testament law. And so what the Christians did strategically is they go to the temple. There's this large forum, and they held these gatherings where they taught the apostles teaching. So it was strategic, it was missional minded because other people would hear and they would join the fold. They would join in with Christ because they would be seeing this, this group of people praying and worshiping Christ. How strategic this was. But notice also too, it says they were breaking bread in their homes. And I don't think Luke's talking about communion here. What it means is, is they have themselves big old meals and talked about the gospel like this was the family environment. This was where believers came together, opened up their houses, and they sat down and ate food and talked about God. And if we are a true Baptist church, all we need is food and God and we are good, right? I'm telling you, the easiest way to get students or college students involved is just tell them food is going to be there. They're there. But this is what the early church did. Isn't this like this practice seems so, you know, like it seems very practical, but like, this is what the early church did. They got together, they ate food and talked about Christ. In fact, that's what Jesus did for so long with his disciples. So notice the church made it a habit to gather publicly in the temple and privately in each other's homes. It's something we're really going to force or not force, but start with our students is we're going to start doing some in-home Bible studies and stuff them with food, and then talk about Jesus. But the reality is, they were building fellowship, building community all centered around the gospel. Look at this in Hebrews ten. It says, and let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works. Notice not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day drawing near. This is why Covid and this, the whole pandemic was so devastating to the function and practice of the churches because they stopped. But we're so thankful for these opportunities to meet on a Sunday morning, but also gather in homes and gather in Bible studies where we can get back to the gospel. Last verse for us this morning,

Acts 2: 36:41

47, and they were praising God and having favor with all the people and the Lord added to their number day by day those who are being sanctified are those who are being saved. I'm sorry. This is a picture of what happens when the church is the church. You see, the church and the gospel is attractive when believers are devoted to living out their faith. Real people want life change. People want to find hope. People want to find a reason to go on. And what better way than to look at the church and see them living out their faith? The gospel is attractive when it's actually lived out. But see, the gospel is not attractive is when we say we follow Jesus, but then we don't follow Jesus. But if we want to to be attractive to the world, not by joining the world, but by being the church. So my third point for you this morning is that you will grow when you devote yourself both publicly and privately. What would it look like if your devotional life and following of Christ look the same publicly as it did privately? What if you lived out your faith in the context of the church and community publicly here, but then you would go back to your workplace and you'd be the same there. You'd go back to school and be the same there. You go back home and live out your faith, because I believe you will grow in a relationship with Christ and grow in your spiritual faith when there's no difference between the two. And something we've been encouraging our students is that you need to be authentic. I'd rather you be the same person in both places than try to try to act different. That's tiring. Like that is exhausting. To try to be two different people at once. But I want to challenge you this morning. How is God calling you today to devote your life? How is God calling you to devote your life today? And what area do you need to renew your devotion? And some of you, you need to taste and see that the Lord is good today. So wherever you are at the same principle applies that you need to get in God's Word. You need to have fellowship in your life. You need to keep the cross at the center, and you need to be in prayer. And so for all of us this morning, my prayers for you all to join in, as we did with early as the early church did, that we would join in those same practice and principles. Let's pray.