This sermon centers on Acts 2:42, exploring the fundamental question: What is your life about? The speaker contrasts a self-centered life with a life of total devotion to God, using the early New Testament church as a model for true Christian discipleship.

AI Generated Transcript, lightly edited:

Today I would like to direct our attention to a very important text in the book of Acts. If you will turn there with me in your copies of God’s Word—Acts chapter 2.

And I wanted to ask a question to begin with: What should you be about in your life? What’s your life about?

Everybody has something that they give themselves to, or they devote themselves to. Even the listless youth of our generation—Gen Z—even they are devoted to something, even though it looks like they’re devoted to nothing. And what is it that they are devoted to? It’s a four-letter word that is familiar to all of us: self. Really, if you boil it down to the root level, all people that have ever lived are devoted to one of two things: either you are devoted to God or you are devoted to self.

What we see here is the example of the early church about what we are to be devoted to as followers of Christ. We just got finished in Sunday school talking about what it means to be a true disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. What does it mean to be a true disciple? In essence, a disciple or follower of Jesus is somebody who absolutely, with no reservations, gives themselves to Christ Jesus—somebody who is completely devoted to doing what He says and nothing else. The person who comes to Christ and says, “I will follow you with this disclaimer or this exception,” Jesus has very strong words for that person. He says, “You’re not even worthy to follow me at all.”

Total surrender, total giving oneself over to God—that’s the call of discipleship. And we see, although I didn’t plan for it to flow into this message, the disciples giving themselves to Christ, and we see what it looks like. Verse 42 of Acts chapter 2, hear the word of God:

“And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.”

Let’s ask once more the blessing of God upon His Word.

Oh Father, we pray that You would bless Your Word. We ask that You would blow Your Holy Spirit upon us, Lord. If You do not bless us, we will not be blessed. Let us not pretend to come into Your presence as if by some wave of the hand of the minister, or by some magical reading of words, we will be sanctified into the saving of our souls. Lord, it is only faith accompanying the hearing of the Word that is effectual to eternal life, and that faith cannot be created apart from the Holy Spirit whom You’ve given to us. And so we pray that You would bless the means of grace today. Bless the Word of God. You are powerful; we are weak. You have knowledge; we are ignorant. You have wisdom; we are fools. You are the truth; we are in error. So teach us, we pray, and forgive us of our sins. Illuminate our minds by the Holy Spirit You’ve promised. Do what You have said, Father, in Jesus’ name. Amen.

So the Word of God says here that the disciples continued steadfastly in these things. Just to catch you up, what’s happened up until this point in Acts?

Well, the Lord Jesus has risen from the dead. Okay, don’t blow over that, right? Jesus Christ was the only man who has lived on this earth—this little dirt ball that we call Earth—who has walked around, died, and walked out of the grave. He is the only one who has done that, particularly by His own merits.

We see in the Scriptures, “the wages of sin is death.” In other words, what you earn from sinning is dying. God’s justice was worked on behalf of Christ such that when He died, justice demanded that He rise, right? Jesus deserved to live. He was the only person who died—and a horrific death at that—deserving to live. God, according to His justice, had to grant unto Jesus life, and so He raised Him from the dead.

By the way, that means that every single thing that He says is true. What did He say? Well, He affirmed for us the Old Testament Scriptures—that they were the Word of God. He said that eternal life is only in Him. He said, “No man cometh unto the Father except by me.” It is the exclusive way to eternal life. No “generally good people” are going to make it into heaven just by generally being decent people. It is only through confessing their sins, admitting that Christ alone is righteous, and casting your soul upon Him. That’s the only way that anybody can walk out of the grave like Jesus Christ walked out of the grave: through faith in Him, justification by grace through faith in Christ alone.

Jesus rose from the dead and vindicated everything that He said. I mean, you think of the gotcha moment of all time—this was it. He was crucified at the hands of evil men, and then He appeared to them. People saw Him walking around, teaching His disciples with the nail prints in His hands and in His feet. Imagine how it must have been to look upon the Lord Jesus after seeing Him bloodied, beaten, bruised, and naked on the cross. Imagine what it would have been like to see Him risen in glory, saying, “The time is at hand. Repent of your sins. Trust in Jesus Christ. Give yourself wholly to Him.”

So He rose from the grave, He taught His disciples, He was with them for many days, and then He ascended into heaven with His disciples looking on. Before He did that, He said, “Remain in Jerusalem until I send you the Holy Spirit.” And so that’s what they did. He ascended into heaven, and the disciples remained in Jerusalem, giving themselves to prayer in the upper room. There were a little over a hundred people there—a small gathering relative to what we’ll see later in Acts—and they were praying.

Then it says a great rushing wind came through the place, and cloven tongues as of fire appeared above the heads of each one. They began to speak in tongues that they had not known, languages that they didn’t know. That was on purpose, because at that time God had brought together the Jews from the diaspora—Jews from all over the known world were in Jerusalem for Pentecost. So Jewish people who spoke different languages were all together, and these disciples of Jesus Christ came out and began speaking each one in a different tongue.

The people said, “How is it that these men, being Galileans—in other words, backwoods country folk—how is it that these ignorant people are speaking all these different languages, and we hear each one speaking in our own language?” Some mocked it and accused them, saying, “They’re just full of new wine, they’re drunk.”

What happened then? Well, Peter—bold Peter, who had confessed his undying love to Christ, denied Him three times, and then had been restored graciously by the Lord Jesus—stood up and said, “These men aren’t drunk. What’s happening right now is what the prophets said would happen: Your old men shall see visions, your young men shall dream dreams, your female servants shall prophesy, and I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh. This is what’s happening. God is fulfilling His promise.”

And this Spirit that you now see has come at the word of Jesus Christ, whom you killed and nailed to a tree. Now Jesus has ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of the Father, and all judgment, authority, power, and dominion have been delivered into His hand. This Holy Spirit is the sign and seal of His power that you see.

What was their response? It says they were cut to the heart. They realized what they had done. They realized their guilt before a righteous and holy God—that not only had they offended God by sinning themselves, but they had nailed His beloved Son, His only begotten Son, to a tree. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him.

They were in big trouble, and they said, “Brethren, what shall we do? Is there any hope for us? Is there any hope that God would be merciful to us, or are we consigned to eternal perdition and damnation?”

That question right there—“Brethren, what shall we do?”—shows a heart that has been plowed, that is ready to receive the gospel. That is a heart that a Christian must have day by day. Do you see the heinousness of your sins? Do you see the absolute filthiness of them before God? Every sin—even the “little” sins, the white lies that you tell to other people or yourself, the lustful thoughts that pass through your mind, the prideful thoughts that you have every single day—each one of those is a high-handed crime against the King of Heaven.

It should grieve us that we do not grieve for our sin more. We don’t appreciate the gravity of what we have done. There’s blood on our hands, the venom of asps beneath our tongues, and treachery in our hearts toward the living God. I’m talking to you and me, believers. You have remaining sin in you, and each one of those sins is worthy of damnation. You deserve hell. You deserve to be cast away from God. We ought not to bristle at that when people tell us that or when we read of it in the Word.

These sins that we have committed are not just acts or deeds; they are fundamental issues in our own hearts. Where does sin come from? It proceeds from the heart. The fact that you sin and I sin shows us that there is something deeply wrong with us. You need a Savior—just as much as you did when you first came to Christ, even more so now, if possible.

They were cut to the heart. Do you feel the weight of your sins? They said, “Brethren, what shall we do?”

Peter said in verse 38: “Repent”—in other words, turn from your sins—“and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.”

What mercy, what grace, that God would do this for people who crucified His own Son! Such were you, and such was I. But we were washed, we were cleansed by the Holy Spirit. It’s amazing love and amazing grace that has been showered upon us.

Then he says: “For the promise is unto you and to your children”—speaking to the Jews there in Jerusalem—“and to all that are far off”—Gentiles as well—“even as many as the Lord our God shall call.”

And with many other words he did testify and exhort, saying, “Save yourselves from this untoward generation.” He said to the disciples that the greatest danger to them and their walk with Christ was the world they lived in. Don’t you find it to be so with yourself? There’s a constant pulling from the world. They have an ally within you, too: your own flesh, which clamors for the things of the world—the praise and approval of men, positions of prestige, wealth, gratification of the desires of the flesh. Peter says, “Save yourselves from this crooked and perverse generation.”

How did they respond to this preaching? Verse 41 says: “Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls.”

From 120 in the upper room, the Holy Spirit poured out and blessed the preaching of the Word, and 3,000 souls were added. They repented of their sins, were baptized, and devoted themselves. They continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine, fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayers.

What we see here is the church in her days of innocence, with pure devotion to Christ, giving themselves wholly to Him. The church was not sinless; there were false converts like Ananias and Sapphira. The church was not perfect, and there were many battles left to fight down through the ages. But what we see here is the purity and innocence of the church in her infancy.

What did they do in response to the pure gospel—that Christ died for our sins, rose again from the dead, and now commands us to live for Him? That really is the gospel message: Christ died for sinners, now live for Him. If you can say nothing else but that, that’s faithful. Preach the gospel and preach the law in all of its fullness. What does God require of you? You don’t measure up; Christ died for sinners, now give yourself fully to Him.

Young people, I have a burden for this because I wasted so many years of my life. I’ll be 30 years old this next week. From the time that I was 12 to the present day, how much time have I wasted when I could have been devoted to Christ, to the church, to His Word? Part of the folly of youth is that your mind is better now than it will ever be. You talk to people who are older than you, and things fall out. I can tell the difference even just turning 30; I don’t remember or memorize things as easily. But when you’re young, your mind is like a sponge. Soak up the Word of God with it. Soak up the means of grace—get every drop you can out of them. Every time the Word is preached or taught, make it a point to be there. Fill yourself with God and His Word. We should mourn that we don’t have a greater appetite for it.

This is the burden of this text: they continued steadfastly in these things. The ESV says they devoted themselves to these things. They were all in. Do we look at this and yawn? This is life itself!

What were the apostles doing? Their task was to share the whole counsel of God. Paul says to the Ephesian elders in Acts chapter 20: “For three years I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable; I’ve delivered it all to you.” Then he says something very interesting: “Therefore, I am innocent of the blood of all of you.” He loved these people, but he said, “If you disbelieve, leave Christ, or go to hell having rejected the Word, it’s not going to be my fault.” That’s strong.

Scripture says to devote yourselves to these things. Hebrews says to be in one another’s lives, exhorting one another daily, lest anyone be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. Church is not just something we do on Sunday or Wednesday, or something we check off a daily list. View these people like Noah’s Ark—the place where life was. The church is a divine institution, the only institution in humanity that will make it through the fiery day. Governments will perish; the United States of America will go the way of all the nations of the earth. Homes and family names will cease. But what will make it through the Day of Judgment? The church. Jesus said, “I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.”

We are going to stand before God and give an account for what we have done in the body. If we are found outside of the church—not having faith, not identifying with God’s people—we’re in a fearful spot. The church is not just the walls of a building; it is a congregation of people in whom the Holy Spirit lives. The true church is those who have faith and persevere to the end. God says, “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in their midst.”

So the people devoted themselves to the apostles’ doctrine. They also devoted themselves to fellowship. Fellowship isn’t just drinking coffee and shooting the breeze. What is fellowship? The Holy Spirit lives within me and within you; we are heirs of the grace of life together, and God is with us. Let’s be battle brothers! Let’s link arms and shields. Do you view the church in militaristic terms—that we are a battalion of soldiers with a mission, Christ being our Commander-in-Chief, receiving the Word so we can go into the world and do His will? That is what they gave themselves to.

They also gave themselves to the breaking of bread. I think what’s being referred to here is the Lord’s Supper. Every chance I get to partake of it is a reminder of the gospel. Just as my teeth break the bread and Christ was crushed for my transgressions, and just as bread gives life to my physical body, Christ gives me spiritual life by His bloody death. Just as the cup livens my eyes and brings cheerfulness to my heart, Christ has brought joy and vigor into my life. Baptism is the initiatory sacrament of the church, but the Lord’s Supper is the abiding sacrament that continues to feed us along the way. Both sacraments are under the Word in priority; the Word gives them meaning, but the Word in and through the sacrament is profitable for sanctification.

Finally, it says they gave themselves to prayers. Charles Spurgeon said that the quickest indicator of the health of a church is the attendance at their prayer meeting. Why? Because prayer is the manifestation of faith. If you pray truly, it’s because you realize you need God. If a church does not pray, they think they’ve got it on their own. What’s being referred to here as “the prayers” is almost certainly the corporate prayers of the church.

Give yourself to God, which means give yourself to prayer. Don’t say, “Oh, I can miss tonight, it’s only a prayer meeting.” That’s like saying it’s only the lungs in the body, or only the engine in the car—the thing that brings down the promise of God from heaven and applies it to our situation. It’s preposterous to think we can go without prayer, because we can’t go without God. He said, “Apart from me you can do nothing.” You have not because you ask not.

Pray for hearts that feel the need to pray. Look at our Lord Jesus in the garden, sweating drops of blood. Our Lord and Maker, the only begotten Son of God, fell on His face in the dirt, sweating drops of blood, and prayed: “Father, if there’s any way this cup can pass from me—nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done.” Three times the sinless Son of God prayed that prayer. If our Lord saw the need for His Father like that, how much more ought we?

God be merciful to us. May He save us from hardness of heart and the lethargy that drags us down. May He fill us with His Spirit and put it in our hearts to commune with Him more fully. Who is sufficient for these things? Only God. I give my thanks to God, who judges the living and the dead, who sent His Son to die for our sins, and who fills us with His Holy Spirit.

Let’s give ourselves wholly unto Him. Let’s pray.

Father, we thank You so much for Your Word. We ask that You would bless it. Where I have tried in weakness to preach it, we ask that You would water the seed, eliminate the tares, and take away anything I said that was not profitable. I pray that Your Spirit would go forth, that the Word would take root in the hearts of the people here, and that You would blow upon us all and make us more like Christ. That’s our desire, Lord—to be holy as You are holy. Give us this grace to be holy, this grace to be like our Lord and Savior. We know we are not alone, because You have promised. In Christ’s name we ask this, Amen.