(This transcript was generated by AI. Apologies for any inacuracies)

Today, we're gonna continue to talk about why Valorous matters and why the church matters.

You know, the church isn't your idea, the church isn't my idea.

The church is actually our creator's idea.

The church is what we would refer to as a covenant community.

It is a community of people that are brought together and they're under assignment together.

And the church is God's idea.

And you need to also understand that it's not only God's idea, but it's for your own good.

Look at your neighbor and say, the church is for your good.

Go ahead and tell them, the church is for your good.

And then the church, this covenant community of people, is also a group of people that brings hope and healing to a hurting world.

And so we're framing this whole series, Valorous Matters, on that principle.

It's God's idea.

The church is God's idea, it's to bring him glory.

The church is here for you and for me.

It begins to be for our good and it brings hope and healing to a hurting world.

And so if we put that framework in our minds and we begin to attend church and participate with church with that at the backdrop, then things begin to change.

In other words, when I believe that it's God's idea and not just my idea, I participate sometimes when I don't want to, right?

And then it's for my good.

You ever had a spanking where your parents told you it's for your own good, come on, for your own good.

And sometimes it is for our good and we don't even realize it.

It's what begins to develop us and help us be strong and courageous in difficult times.

It's God's idea for us to join up with other people to get through very challenging circumstances in life.

And then as we do that together, everybody say together.

Together.

Bound by what Jesus has done for us, then it begins to shine and it begins to be a city on a hill and it begins to shine to the greater community where people are hurting and they need healing in their heart and they begin to, hey, I wanna be a part of that family.

And then they begin to look to our same heavenly father and it glorifies him.

And so the church is the most important thing in your life.

The church, the local church is the most important thing in your family's life.

And so we have to understand that.

It's because it's God's idea.

And so today we're gonna continue to look at the early church.

We're gonna look at our Bibles in Acts chapter two and we're gonna see where the church started at Pentecost and we're gonna learn some really cool things today about being a part of this community of people.

Remember Jesus said in Matthew 16, verse 18, he says, I will build my church and the powers of hell will not conquer it.

Jesus declared to his disciples before he went to a cross and he rose from a grave that he was going to build a church and the gates of hell would not hold it back and it would not conquer it.

And so we see this church birth after Jesus rises from the grave, 50 days later at an event called Pentecost.

We see the church birth, the church that Jesus was going to build.

It came alive and this is where we pick up the story in Acts chapter two, verse 32 and Peter, the speaker there, reminds the people of what they are seeing in that moment.

And he says this, he says in verse 32, God raised Jesus from the dead.

That's what we celebrated a couple of weeks ago, the resurrection of Jesus.

And he says, we are all witnesses to this.

Now he is exalted to the place of highest honor in heaven.

In other words, he's left us.

He's ascended into the heaven and he's at God's right hand.

And the father, as he has promised, gave him, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the third person in the Trinity to pour out upon us.

It's what Peter says to this early church.

So he says, look, what you're seeing here this day is evidence that Jesus has poured out the Holy Spirit on us here today, just as you see and you hear.

He says, for David himself, who was a king early on, never ascended into heaven, yet he said, the Lord said to my Lord, sit in the place of honor at my right hand until I humble your enemies, making them a footstool under your feet.

I wanna stop right there for just a second, because that's really something important for us to understand today.

Jesus has ascended to heaven.

Jesus has poured out the Holy Spirit.

And early on in this same chapter, in Acts chapter two, it says that he pours out his spirit on men and women alike in this age, the church age.

So Jesus has ascended.

He's defeated death.

He's rose from the grave.

The Bible says he sits in the heavens right now, right now, and he's poured out his spirit on his church.

And as he sits in heaven, look what it says.

He's gonna sit there until, you know what?

The father says, until I humble your enemies, making them a footstool under your feet.

So literally Jesus is sitting there right now, humbling his enemies.

And by the way, I used to be an enemy of the cross of Christ.

And you did too.

He's humbling his enemies, and he's using it like a footstool to rest his feet on.

That's fascinating to me.

So what that means is Jesus is working through his Holy Spirit in this world to change things that were once his enemies, and those things become humble, and then they become a resting place for Jesus to rest upon.

And I really do believe that that means that that's you and me, we're where God is resting.

In other words, he's getting the enemy, the enemy out of us, and we're becoming his resting place all the days of our life.

He's humbling the enemy that takes over your life.

He's humbling the enemy, getting those things out so that he can rest on your life.

And then the Bible says that he's going to one day return for his people.

So he goes on and declares here, so let everyone in Israel know for certain that God has made this Jesus whom you crucified to be both Lord and Messiah.

Leader and liberator would be two terms that we would be familiar with in this culture today.

Leader, that's what a Lord is.

A Messiah is a liberator.

So Jesus is both a leader and a liberator.

Peter's words pierced their hearts.

And they said to him and to the other apostles, brothers, what should we do?

And Peter replied, here's the deal.

Each of you must repent of your sins as Jesus is beginning to get these things out of you and you need to turn to God and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.

And then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

This promise, he says, is to you, your children, and those far away, all who've been called by the Lord our God.

And then Peter continued preaching for a long time, strongly urging his listeners, save yourselves from this crooked generation.

Those who believe what Peter said were baptized and added to the church that day, about 3,000 in all.

People were responding to this good news, to this gospel. 3,000 that day responded, gave their lives to Christ, repented of their sin, were baptized and added to their number.

And then it goes on to say there in verse 42, that all the believers, any believers in the house today, all the believers devoted, everybody say devoted.

Everybody say devoted.

Look at your neighbor and say, be devoted.

All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship and to sharing in meals, including the Lord's supper and to prayer.

I wanna talk to you for just a few minutes today about the church is the most important thing in your life, depending on your own devotion.

Depending on your own devotion.

It's for your good.

It's God's idea.

It's for his glory.

And it's to bring hope and healing to the world around us.

But we have to make a decision, every one of us, of how devoted we're really gonna be.

Or is it gonna be top priority in our life?

Is it gonna be what our life is centered around?

Is it gonna be what our family is centered around?

Is it gonna be the hub of everything that we execute in life?

The Bible says that these early believers were devoted to the local church.

They were devoted to begin to be all God had designed them to be.

They were devoted to the Holy Spirit that had been poured out to them.

And they began to exercise their spiritual gifts, the gifts that God had given them, the Holy Spirit had given them.

And they began to work those gifts together.

This early church did.

And Peter, Peter stands up, shares the good news, the good news for the first time with a group of people.

And he said, how should we respond?

And Peter said, turn from your sins, repent.

He says, recognize today who this Jesus is and what he came to do for you.

Recognize that he's ascended to the Father in heaven.

Recognize he is sitting there humbling his enemies under his feet.

Recognize he has poured out his Holy Spirit on you to get some stuff out of you, to put some stuff in you and use you in this world as a powerful vessel to do something incredible with your life.

Live life on purpose.

They were devoted.

They were devoted.

They were devoted to team Jesus.

Not the Kansas City Chiefs, team Jesus.

And by the way, if you're playing for the Kansas City Chiefs or whoever it is, be devoted to them too.

But listen, what needs to be the devotion of your heart in life is to be who God has designed you to be.

The church is God's idea.

It's God's idea for your kids.

It's God's idea for your wife, your husband, your aunt, your uncle, your grandma, your friends.

It's God's idea.

And if anybody you know is living outside of this covenant family, it needs to be your heart to invite them to church.

And if this is not a family that you can sync up with, I pray that you do find one.

Find a local church.

The local church is the hope of the world.

There is no plan B. It is how God is working in this earth today.

He calls people out of darkness, places them in the wonderful light so that they can be all God has designed them to be.

Trust Christ.

Trust what he's doing in your life.

I love how it says here, they were devoted.

Devoted to what?

Look what it says.

All the believers were devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching.

In other words, they had a posture, a heart of learning.

They wanted to learn.

They wanted to learn all the things about God.

They wanted to learn, you know, they wanted to learn the ways of God.

They wanted to learn the power of God.

They wanted to learn the mission of God.

See, that should be your heart's posture every time you step into the local church.

God, creator, what can I learn?

I'm submitted to you.

I'm submitted to what you wanna teach us.

I'm submitted to learning how your power operates in us.

I'm submitted.

I'm submitted to learning what your mission is and how I plug into your mission.

And I wanna learn how to do it.

I wanna learn how to participate.

These apostles were the ones sent.

And it says that these new believers were the ones that were learning from them on a regular basis.

In other words, they couldn't get enough.

They were like a hungry kindergartner that wasn't hooked on Xbox or whatever else, their video game.

But they were anxious to learn something.

And again, they were anxious to learn something about how they could grow.

You remember as a kid when you were really a learner?

You remember that?

I mean, you were like a sponge.

And if somebody would teach you how to do something, a new trick or whatever it be, back flip, handstand, they would teach you how to do something.

You were drawn to that person.

You were drawn to those people.

And lots of times what has happened in life is people are learning.

They're learning from the wrong sources and they're drawn to those sources.

And as they're drawn to those sources, those sources begin to shape them.

And as those sources begin to shape them, their life begins to follow apart.

What if, what if we got our kids in an environment where we were truly teaching them the ways of God?

We were truly teaching them about the power of the living God in their life.

And we were truly teaching them that God has a mission and a purpose for them every single day and begin to let them participate in that purpose at such a young age.

What if, what if we really began to take that serious as a covenant family and a church family?

And we began to really take a lot of our resources and pour it into the next generation.

Come on, and really set environments for them to grow in unselfishly, beginning to say, listen, you know what?

It's really about building them up and teaching them about who God is, teaching them the ways of God, teaching them the power of God in their life that God has gifted them in a special way.

And as they participate, they're gonna begin to discover what God wants to do with them.

And God's gonna raise them up to be a businesswoman, a businessman in the local church to help fund everything, help drive everything.

What if we begin to teach our kids that, you know what?

God has a mission for your life and it's to be in church with God's people on a regular basis using all your gifts.

This early church was devoted.

And we at Valorous Church are devoted learners.

I know some of you need to unlearn some things, but the reality of it is we can still unlearn, but we have to devote ourselves to learning the new ways.

And the older we get, the more set in our ways we sometimes become.

And if you ever thought about, sometimes the reason God may be shaking some things up is to get your attention so that you can learn some new things.

He's doing new things, some new things, some new things.

It's not a new message, but he has some new ways that he wants to do some things to get the message out in the world.

And so we have to devote ourself to the teachings of God.

We have to devote ourself to the ways of God, to the power of God, to the mission of God.

These early disciples were clearly taught by Jesus.

Understand this gig I'm getting ready to start called the church, it's gonna have Holy Spirit horsepower, but you need to devote yourself and it's gonna spread and it's gonna move and it's gonna grow and it's gonna exceed what you can do all by yourself.

Jesus clearly taught the church is to multiply.

It is to continually multiply.

Just like many of us want our bank accounts to multiply, God wants his church to multiply.

He wants it to grow.

And if we'll submit ourself to him, he'll begin to grow his church.

Listen to what Jesus said in Matthew 28, verses 18 through 20 he says, I've been given all authority in heaven and on earth.

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

These new disciples, teach them to obey all the commands I've given you.

That was those who were preaching at Pentecost and be sure of this, I'm with you always, even to the end of the age.

Let's go and make disciples.

You know what a disciple is?

It's a learner.

That simple, that's what a disciple is.

It's someone who learns from someone else.

It's a student.

This early church, the first apostles were disciples of Jesus.

They learn from him.

They learn the ways of God.

They learn the power of God.

They learn the mission of God.

And they learn from him.

He pours out his spirit.

He says, go now and multiply and make more disciples.

That's a lot of times what people refer to about the mission of the local church.

Make disciples that make disciples.

Make learners that make learners.

In other words, keep on multiplying, keep on growing, keep on being exponential.

The church is here to help people know who Jesus is and help them understand who Jesus says that they are and it invites them to participate in this covenant family.

We're constantly gonna talk about who Jesus is, but we're oftentimes gonna challenge you to become all God has called you to be.

Because it's one thing to know who Jesus is, it's another thing for you to become who he says you can become.

And you can't become who God says you can become without participating and without learning from him on a regular basis.

I'm a lifelong learner.

That's what a disciple is.

I'm still learning today.

I'm still being corrected today.

Anybody receive correction today?

I can still be corrected today.

I'm a little bit more headstrong than I used to be, but I can still be corrected today.

I'm submitted to be educated by my great God through his word, through his letters.

I'm submitted to be educated to what he wants to do.

I'm submitted to be educated.

You know what?

I don't have my PhD in, but I'm doing God's things.

God's constantly changing and trying and developing me.

And I wanna encourage you, this is why Valorous matters.

It's a place for you to learn who God has designed you to be.

Yes, we're gonna do Bible studies.

We should do Bible studies together.

It's one of the ways we learn from God's word, right?

We should do it.

But I can tell you right now, we're not just gonna sit at the table and eat God's word, feast off of God's word and become just spiritually obese.

We're gonna say, listen, we need you to get out of your chair and do something.

Because the reality of it is you can go to 15 Bible studies a week and it not change anything in your heart and your life and you do anything.

And you know what?

That is not God's mission for your life.

So here's what you need.

You need some cheerleaders and you need some challengers.

In order to be all God's designed you to be.

You need some people in your life that will cheer you on into God things constantly.

That's what Pastor Richard does.

Pastor Richard's one of the biggest cheerleaders in the world.

If you serve on his team, you know that.

Hey, good job.

Awesome, you're incredible.

Everybody loves Pastor Richard.

I told my son yesterday, I want Pastor Richard's job.

Everybody likes him.

They don't like me.

But understand, everybody needs a challenger.

And everybody needs it.

And again, it's all wrapped up in the gift mix.

But this is why you have to make a decision to commit yourself to the local church and what God is doing in you.

Because your gift needs to be challenged and your gift needs to be encouraged for you to grow up and be all God has designed you to be.

And so Jesus was all about this ministry multiplication, evangelize, establish, equip, extend.

I love how he recruited these first disciples.

But it says, it says, one day as Jesus was walking along the shore of the Sea of Galilee, Matthew chapter four, verses 18 through 20, he saw two brothers.

Simon also called Peter and Andrew, throwing an ad in the water, for they fished for a living.

They were grown men, fish for a living.

All they had ever been taught was to fish, catch fish and make money.

Take them to the market and make money.

They were fishermen.

Jesus called them out, come follow me.

Imagine that, unlearn some things.

I will show you how to fish for people.

And they left their nets and at once followed him.

Imagine how hard that was.

All my life, my granddaddy and my daddy taught me how to be a fisherman.

I'm an incredible fisherman.

I've learned, I've mastered fishing.

Jesus uses that analogy.

He says, you've learned all this about fishing now, come leave that behind for just a minute.

Come follow me and I'm gonna show you what a real mission looks like.

Come follow me and I'll make you fishers of men.

I know it was difficult for them to unlearn some things and learn the new ways that Jesus was teaching them to do the things that Jesus taught them.

But the reality of it is, is how they begin to develop and become all God designed them to be.

I'm not telling all of you to walk away from your job.

That's not what I'm saying at all.

But what I am saying is sometimes, you know what, we can become so familiar with life as we have learned it.

And we have to sometimes say, hey, you know what, I'm gonna put that on pause for just a minute.

And I'm gonna begin to follow Jesus and see if he can put some new principles and some new thought processes into me so I can be all God's designed for me to be.

It's the way we begin to learn, it's called submission.

Again, that's the hardest thing in the world.

It's why the Bible tells us in Ephesians chapter five, we are as a husband and wife are to submit to one another.

Because that is hard to do.

It's hard to come underneath each other and learn from each other and let each other speak into our life.

And so God's inviting us to be learners.

Bible says they sit at the pot, they were hungry learners.

But not only were they hungry learners, they were devoted to this community I'm talking about.

Look what it says, all the believers devoted themselves to fellowship, not only to learning, but to fellowship and sharing meals, including the Lord's supper.

Some of you were saying, man, that's the part of church I like.

But understand, it's a gathering of people.

The church is not just gathering of people at a coffee shop.

That could be where the church could gather.

But the church is a group of people that are commissioned together.

Called together, not to just drink coffee or talk about the latest sports statistics or whatever else, but it's a group of people that are commissioned together.

That their own mission together.

They have a mission in life.

And they may have some likenesses in life and it can gather around some of those likenesses, but what needs to come out of those likenesses are we're on mission together to help make the world know about Jesus.

They were committed together to do great things.

You keep studying this passage in Acts chapter two, it even says that they learned to share their stuff with each other.

It's amazing.

And I realize that it's hard for us sometimes to do that in this life and this culture and the way the world's set up around us and how people take advantage of us and all those kinds of things.

But the Bible says they were on a mission together.

And because they were on a mission together, they put their resources together to accomplish that mission so that everybody shared and shared alike.

In other words, they did that not just so you and your family could have equal living to us and us family, that wasn't what it was about.

It was about, look, we're all hungry to know this Jesus and we're commissioned together to make a difference in the world with the Holy Spirit that he's poured out upon our life and he's given us gift mix and we wanna put those things together and we wanna share those things together to make a difference in the world around us.

Remember Jesus once said, they may know you by your love for one another, by your devotion to one another.

Come hell or high water, I'm gonna be devoted and I'm gonna be a co-mission person.

I'm gonna be on mission with other people doing what God said for us to do.

It was a community of people.

It was a covenant group of people.

It was people that were caught out of darkness into wonderful light.

Remember Jesus said in Matthew 22 verse 39, a second commandment to love in the Lord God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.

He says a second is equally important.

Love your neighbor as yourself.

That's hard.

You don't know my neighbor.

I get it.

But what Jesus is saying is look, sometimes it's hard to love people and sometimes you hard to be loved.

But remember, I called you to come together to accomplish something great with your life.

It's not about your skin color.

It's not about whether you're a male or a female.

It's not about, you know what, if you're 30 or 40 or 90 or eight, it's not about your political party.

It's not about your social status.

It's not about what you wear or don't wear.

It is all about has Jesus brought you out of darkness into the wonderful light and as he poured his spirit out on you, has he poured his spirit out on you?

And if he has poured his spirit out on you, then the Bible says begin to operate by the power of the Holy Spirit.

You got it.

You got him.

He's in you.

He is working in you.

And if he ain't in you and he ain't working in you, then do what the Bible says, repent and believe on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Because when you do that, God will do what he says because in this passage of scripture, he says that this promise of pouring the Holy Spirit out on you is to you, your children, your grandchildren, and for all who will ever believe in this message of Jesus Christ.

The filling of the Holy Spirit is available to you, my friend, the pouring out of the Holy Spirit is available to you, but you as a Christ follower need to submit on a daily basis and continue to let God fill you up.

And if you don't have the spirit of God working in you, I can only tell you one way to get him.

It's turn from your sin and trust Christ.

Ain't no magic words.

Repent of your sin and trust Christ.

And when you do, the prompting and the initiator of your faith, Jesus pours him in you and he will begin to finish the good work he started in you.

He don't let up.

He is a teacher, he is a coach, he is a trainer, he is a challenger, and he is, one of the reasons he has gifted you according to the book of Acts is so that you and I can be witnesses to his power, the power of the resurrection.

So we do that by letting him come alive in us, joining, being devoted to the community, and beginning to challenge one another.

I'm gonna close with this today.

I love Acts chapter two, verse 42, because it says those believers, they were devoted.

They were devoted, what, to learning, they were devoted to community, and then lastly it says they were devoted to prayer.

Everybody say prayer.

Prayer.

For a long time, I didn't really understand the power of prayer.

Let me explain to you what I mean.

I was raised in a home where my mom would tell me, you need to say your prayers before you go to bed because you die tonight, you won't go to heaven.

Four years old, now lay me down to sleep, pray the Lord my soul to keep.

If I should die before I wake, whatever, I don't even remember how it went.

But I said that like 50 times a night before I went to sleep, because I thought I was gonna die before I woke up.

I thought it was about saying the blessing.

Lord bless this food to the nourishment of my body.

I got to think about that one day.

I'm like, how's God ever gonna bless that food to the nourishment of my body?

It might taste good, but he ain't gonna nourish nothing.

But I literally grew up thinking that prayer was just me saying these chants or whatever you wanna call it, these things to God.

But I've come to understand as a believer and as a journey who has been a believer in all my life, what it really means to be devoted to prayer.

And what it means is, as apostle Paul would put it, it's a continual praying.

But prayer is kind of a two-way street.

It's asking God, it's talking to God, and it's asking for direction, correction, connection, provision, all those kind of things.

And we got any prayer request.

We say that even in church, we got prayer requests.

We have prayer request card, put them on there.

We got a prayer team that's gonna pray for your prayer request.

They're gonna pray together for your prayer request.

We're a church that believes in the power of prayer.

But what I've come to understand more about prayer is when I talk to God, his Holy Spirit begins to prompt in my life and talk to me.

God, I need something.

God says, well, why don't you do something?

And I mean that with all sincerity.

You know what?

God, I need you.

I need you to reach every person in this city.

I need the gospel to go to my friends, my family, my neighborhood.

And the Holy Spirit comes back and begins to speak to my heart.

Well, what are you doing about it?

Who are you teaming up with?

I gave you the commission.

I said, go into all the world and make disciples.

Team up with some people and do it.

And then God begins to challenge me to step in and do what I can do and wrap my arms around what he is doing and working together to begin to fill this house multiple times.

You know, I don't want this house just filled so everybody can come hear me up here with my Southern vernacular and all that kind of stuff.

I want this house full because I believe that the teaching of the apostles, the sent ones from Jesus has come down through the ages.

And it is right here, right now.

And I wanna challenge everybody to know who Christ is and become who he says that they can become.

And after you follow that challenge, I'll give you off to Pastor Richard.

He'll make you feel good for the rest of your life.

I'm gonna go ahead and read this verse because it's part of my sermon and I just wanna think it's important.

Isaiah 30 verse 21 says, your ears will hear a word behind you saying, this is the way, walk in it.

Whenever you turn to the right or to the left.

Isaiah is speaking, he said, you're gonna hear this voice as it's coming up behind you and saying, this is the way, walk in it.

Whenever you turn to the right or to the left.

There's a movement notion given in this verse as Isaiah the prophet speaking.

As you are turning to the right or to the left, as you are moving to the right or to the left, you're gonna hear a voice behind, as you are, see there's a faith element in your journey where you gotta be moving by faith.

And as you are moving by faith and you're in constant prayer, talking to God, God is like a guide.

And if you're going to get ready to go to the left, as you're moving, you may kind of do this, but as you're moving, God is saying, no, no, no, this way, walk to the right, as you're moving, no, no, no, walk straight.

Hey, back up for just a minute, look at it.

So here's the deal, prayer needs to be something that you don't just say over your meal or something you say when you go to bed at night because you're afraid you're gonna die.

Prayer needs to be a two-way communication street.

As you are moving on the journey with the local church, paying attention, God is like right there behind us saying, look, as you're moving, no, no, don't go this way, go this way, but you gotta be moving, moving by faith.

See, some of us are waiting to hear from the Lord.

And I believe the word of the Lord for you today is this, I'm here, I have spoken.

Now, are you gonna engage?

And do something with what I have given you.

See, the Bible calls us in 1 Corinthians 6, says we're God's partners.

The writer says, as God's partners, we beg you not to accept this marvelous gift of God's kindness and then ignore it.

That's my challenge for you today.

Don't walk out of this place and ignore what God is depositing in your heart and the good work that he wants to do through you.

Begin to talk to him about it, step into it, and let's see what God can do through us.

Let me pray.

God, I thank you so much today for Valorous Church, for the local church, for allowing us to be a part of something greater than ourself.

And God, I know you have spoken today through the start of the early church, the book of Acts, but God, I pray today, if there's a person in here today that does not know the resurrected Jesus and the power of your Holy Spirit does not live on inside of them, God, I pray today they would recognize who Jesus is.

He defeated sin, he rose from a grave, he sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, and he is waiting and willing to pour his spirit out into their life if they would so repent and receive.

My friend, today, if you need to trust Christ for the first time, right where you sit, I invite you to say something like this.

God, I have messed up all the way along the journey, but today I wanna receive the forgiveness of my sin because of the cross of Christ and what he did for me.

I wanna believe, you know what, in his power and trust what he did through the resurrection.

I wanna make him the Lord and the leader of my life today.

Say, God, today, I want that in my heart.

So today I repent of my sin and I trust Jesus so that I can move forward with the life of purpose that you've designed me to live.

Tell God, thank you for that gift and tell him today, you're gonna commit from this day forward to be a part of what he is doing in the world.

In Jesus name, amen.