Even the most perfectly balanced engine won’t do anything without fuel. What is the fuel of a revival? It is the obedience of a Christian in several key areas.
Acts 2
Speaker: Kurt Goglin
Bridgewater Tunkhannock’s Podcast
Under the Hood: The Fuel
Good morning! Welcome to Bridgewater. My name is Kurt. I'm one of the pastors here. I'm so glad that you decided to join us this morning. It is September, and it does feel a little cool. It's supposed to be a beautiful week. I'm looking forward to it. Every time I watch that video, I think of a time where my sister-in-law had a Dodge Charger, and I was like, "This is cool." I wanted to not just go for a ride. Of course, I wanted to drive it. So I got all excited about it, and I had the opportunity, and I'm not a car guy, so actually everybody involved is pretty surprised, you know? And they're like, "No way." But who doesn't like to drive a fast car, right? So I had the opportunity, and I got inside, and I laid on the gas, and burned out of the parking lot, and flew down the street very fast. Now, I do want to say, I didn't go too much over the speed limit. I just got to the speed limit very quickly. Okay, all right. But every time I see that car up there, I'm like, "Yeah, that's cool." And everyone was all surprised, because they just saw this smile on my face. I was like, "This is great. Don't try that at home." So we've been going through this series. We've been talking about Under the Hood, and the first week we talked about the chassis, which represents the foundation of the Christian face, the death barrel and resurrection of Jesus. And then week two, we talked about the spark plug, which represents the Holy Spirit. Without the spark, the engine will not start, right? And without the Holy Spirit, our journey with Christ cannot begin. And then last week, Kevin talked about the engine, and how we need to be willing to share the bad news, as well as the good news of the gospel of Jesus, and understand how to do it. And that gets the engine going. But this week, we're going to talk about fuel. We can have the chassis, we can have the spark, and we can have the engine. But we need the fuel of devotion to God to keep things going. We need to fuel the devotion to God to keep things going. So this morning, I want you to think about, what do you spend your time doing? If someone took a snapshot of your life and they would see, what does this person spend their time doing all day long, right? So I gathered some statistics according to the American Time Use Survey, and I came up with some statistics to see what the average person in the U.S. does. And the first one is this. We sleep an average of eight hours and 33 minutes a day, on the weekdays, and then on the weekends, nine hours and 28 minutes. Those who work full-time jobs, an average of eight and a half hours each day, 31 percent of an average five hours and 24 minutes of working on the weekend. Then, 28 minutes represents the amount of educational activities we do in a given day. Now, this doesn't count for those who are in school, right? For elementary and high school and even in college. But your average adult is not in school, about 28 minutes a day. Then, everyone's favorite one, 11 minutes per day doing laundry, right? Because I know everybody loves that, right? Then 34 minutes prepping and cleaning up dinner. And then, 14 minutes per day of indoor or outdoor home care followed by 45 minutes of paying your bills, taxes, or finances. This is assuming you're not sticking your head in the sand and you're paying attention to these things. And then, five hours and 16 minutes per day on leisure activities. That's watching TV. That's scrolling on your phone. That's doing some sort of sports or recreation. Five hours and 16 minutes a day the average American spends on those things. And then, for all the parents out there, here you go. Two hours and nine minutes. Parents with at least one child under six care for their children. That's two hours and nine minutes spent caring for your child. Then we have 45 minutes walking or exercising your pets, right? What happens if we don't walk them? What happens if we don't take the dog out, right? We got a mess in the living room, right? So we spend that time with the pets and we walk them and we play with them and all that. Then, 18 minutes a day, volunteering or religious activity. 18 minutes a day doing volunteering or religious activity. Nine minutes per day, phone calls, texting, mail, email, that sort of thing. And then finally, 51 minutes per day grooming. Okay. Now, so this is average. So there may be some on the way high end of that. I don't know. All right. 51 minutes per day on average. Basically, this is like time spent in the bathroom. Okay. So, I looked at some different statistics regarding this one because there's some disparity there, especially related to men and women in the bathroom. So, and that has to do with this device right here. All right. So, this is actually called the Royal Golden Toilet. You can buy it for $1,200 if you're interested. I thought that was appropriate for the amount of time spent there sometimes. So, actually, it's always, it's assumed that women spend more time in the bathroom prepping and doing their makeup and hair and everything that the total time is more than men. But it's not true. It's not true. On average, men spend more time in the bathroom because of that device right there. They spend statistically a more, a significant more amount of time on the toilet. So now, guys, you can't complain to the women anymore about taking too long because statistically, they don't take as long as you do. All right. So, what do we, and now given the whole smartphone, I couldn't find a statistic on how that's changed, but I am sure that is increased with the invention of the smartphone the time spent there. Okay. So, but when I do couples counseling, I have this form that I use that helps people with their priorities. The first line on that form takes them through hours and minutes they spend doing different activities throughout the day. And then there's a goal line where you evaluate how much time you spend doing things and then you put in, oh, this is what I'd like to do. This is what my priorities, I want my priorities to be. This is what I'm devoted to. And then the last line says, how am I going to make that happen? So, the idea is, it gives everyone an idea of what they're truly devoted to. We're going to dive in this morning into Acts chapter 2. I want to talk about how the believers form a community in this portion of Acts. Acts represents the start of the church. Up until this point, we see God primarily dealing with Israel. Although the gospel is initially offered to the Jews here, the church is referred to as a mystery, was not previously known. They didn't see it coming. And it's something that's distinct from God's work with Israel. So, we have the start of the church here in Acts 2. All of these new believers are beginning their journey with Jesus as they're devoting to themselves to the teaching of the apostles, to fellowship, to sharing in meals, and to prayer. So, let's take a look at Acts chapter 2, we're going to read verses 42 to 47. All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship and to sharing in meals, including the Lord's Supper and to prayer. A deep sense of awe came over all and the apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders. And all the believers met together in one place and shared everything they had. They sold their property and possessions and shared the money with those in need. They worshiped together at the temple each day. They met in homes for the Lord's Supper and shared their meals with great joy and generosity. All the while praising God and enjoying the goodwill of the people. And each day the Lord added to their fellowship those who were being saved. So, the first verse there verse 42 says that all the believers devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship and to sharing in meals, including the Lord's Supper and prayer. They started off and they were devoted to the apostles' teaching. They were devoted to God's Word. When and where and how do you read God's Word? You need a time, you need a place and a program. A plan, maybe the U-version Bible app that helps you read, maybe read through the Bible in a year program, maybe even as we're going through Acts, you read through Acts or address a certain topic in the Bible. I'll talk some more about that at the end, but you need a place, whether that's a place in your house, in your car, at your dining room table somewhere where you're going to be studying God's Word. When we talk about the purpose of small groups at Bridgewater, we state that the purpose is to connect people with each other and with the Bible. Part of the way we grow and our connection with each other is when we interact with God's Word, but we must know what the teachings are in order to be devoted to them. If I take this book and I'm like, "Hey, this book is great. There's so many good things in it," but you can't identify specifically what those things are. Can you be devoted to it? If we're devoted to the teaching of God's Word, then that will reflect in time spent. We don't need to get legalistic about it, but if we attend Sunday morning services only and spend no more time during the week, then you're spending an average of eight and a half minutes per day on religious activities. As you remember from the statistic earlier, the average American spends volunteering or religious activities 18 minutes per day. But if you attend one service per week, an hour and a half small group spend 10 minutes a day reading God's Word and praying, that average moves to 31 minutes a day. This is a significant improvement, right? Now, I'm not challenging you to match the time you spent in God's Word with the eight and a half hour workday, all right? I'm just showing this to show what are we devoted to. The time that we spend doing things shows what our devotion is. And what I'm saying is this, devotion keeps everything in motion. Devotion keeps everything in motion. This is the fuel that keeps the car of the Christian life moving, the devotion to God. What we are devoted to is reflected in time spent. And if we're going to keep moving in our growth as a follower of Jesus, we need to pay attention to what we are devoted to. And if we're devoted to God's Word, then we can at least experience some of what is in these following verses here. Verse 43 of Acts chapter 2, "A deep sense of all came over them all, and the apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders." So check this out. "After the new believers devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles, to the community, to sharing in meals together, and to prayer, they felt this deep sense of awe, and they performed these miraculous miracles and wonders." Now this is important to recognize that Acts is considered to be a transitional book that documents the start of the church. There was a purpose for these miraculous signs and wonders to authenticate the ministry. So we cannot expect these miraculous signs and wonders every time we begin to experience community. But this is a good model to use as it relates to what we as believers need to be devoted to. When is the last time you were in awe of God and what He's doing in your life? When have you been left speechless over the awesomeness of God and His amazing love? Pay attention. The good things don't end here. Verses 44 and 45 of X2. "And all the believers met together in one place and shared everything they had. They sold their property and possessions and shared the money with those in need." We see a communion that this new community has, where they are willing to do what it takes to help those in need, to help them get back on their feet. They're devoted to the apostles' teaching, the Word of God. That led to a sense of awe and that God was at work in doing amazing things in these believers' lives. They're coming together. They're sharing what they had. You may often hear me say small groups are the first defense for care in our church. I believe that with my whole heart. When believers come together with a common goal of being devoted to Jesus, this can create a community that truly cares for one another. They help provide for each other's needs. I don't mean a one time, let me throw this money at you or this food at you so I can feel better about myself, but I mean a true assessment of one's needs, coming alongside them and understanding what they need, maybe helping them find a job, maybe helping them learn how to manage their finances or encourage them to attend a financial peace university. But this type of community, this type of connection that you can have in the small group I have described here in this quote by Larry Krab in his book Connecting. It says this, "A spiritual community, a church is full of broken people who turn their hearts toward each other because they know they cannot make it alone. These broken people journey together with their wounds and worries and wash outs visible but are able to see beyond the brokenness to something alive and good and something whole." That's what I imagine happening as we are connected with God's word and we're connected with one another. These are the types of things you might say, "No, no, that can't happen in a small group. No, it can. It has. I've watched it. I've watched brokenness be healed by Jesus in a small group." So, if we notice what they did, they did it together. They did it together. If we look at verses 46 and 47 of Acts 2, they worshiped together at the temple each day. They met in homes for the Lord's Supper and shared their meals with great joy and generosity, all the while praising God and enjoying the goodwill of all the people. And each day the Lord added to their fellowship those who were being saved. Take notice here that these new believers, they worshiped together in the temple each day. I loved worshiping God with you all this morning. Wasn't that awesome? It was just awesome to see not only experience that connection with God, but to watch all of you in the energy that's in here when you're worshiping God together. But we're supposed to do that. We're supposed to worship God together. They met in their homes. They shared their meals together. There was incredible community going on. The focus was on the Lord and each other and people were getting saved. They were coming to know Jesus as their forgiver and leader every single day. Can you imagine if we had one person getting saved every day at each one of our locations? We celebrated for today, which is awesome. I just like, it gets me so pumped. Every time it happens, even one. But just imagine every day. One soul that's no longer on their way to hell, but on their way to heaven. If we did, if we did, if there was one a day at every location for the next seven days, next Sunday, we would be celebrating 42 salvations. 42 salvations. Wouldn't that be awesome? Let's take a look at this progression of what is happening here in this passage. What we have here is broken down. It says devoted to apostles teaching. So they're devoted to God's word. The apostles are teaching the word of God. Then devoted to community. And then devoted to sharing needs. They were generous with one another. They were sharing their needs and they were helping each other out. And then devoted to prayer. All of these things together, right? All these things together led to this sense of awe and where God -- hey, God's doing something here. You ever felt that? Like, man, God's really doing something here. I feel like that -- God's doing a ton of stuff here at Bridgewater and around this community as well. There's this sense of awe as they do all -- are devoted to all these things. And then that leads to being devoted to worshiping together. What causes us to be so excited about worship on Sunday morning? Because what God has done. He's done this in my life. He's done this in this person's life, in that person's life. I'm going to worship him because he's awesome. Right? So we're devoted to worshiping together, which then can lead to great joy and generosity. How about that? How about living with great joy and generosity? Not only you're joyful about life and everything that's, you know, what God is doing and how he's changing lives, but you're generous. You freely give to others. You provide for their needs, which ultimately then leads to people coming to know Jesus as their forgiven leader every day, which is awesome. See, what happens when we are left to our own devices? When we isolate ourselves and get in our own head, what creeps in when we become overwhelmed by our finances or problems in relationships? Health problems are like the political climate that's going on, right? No one feels overwhelmed about that, right? So you could feel in the blink. What are you overwhelmed by? And we can become controlled by fear and worry and we lose track of the purpose for why we're here in the first place. You see, by following this example by the early church, we can understand our identity and stay grounded in God's word and in connecting with others. Here's a passage of Scripture that clarifies our identity as followers of Jesus. First Peter, chapter 2, verses 5 to 10. And you are living stones that God is building into his spiritual temple. What's more, you are his holy priests. Through the meditation of Jesus Christ, you offer spiritual sacrifices that please God. As the Scriptures say, I am placing a cornerstone in Jerusalem chosen for great honor and anyone who trusts in him will never be disgraced. Yes, you who trust in him recognize the honor God has given him. But for those who reject him, the stone that the builders rejected has now become the cornerstone. And he is the stone that makes people stumble, the rock that makes them fall. They stumble because they do not obey God's word and so they meet the fate that was planned for them. But you are not like that. For you are a chosen people. You are royal priests, a holy nation. God's very own possession. As a result, you can show others the goodness of God. For he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light. Once you had no identity as a people. Now you are God's people. Once you receive no mercy. Now you have received God's mercy. This passage is talking about Jesus being the chief cornerstone. A cornerstone is the first stone set in construction of a masonry foundation. Every other stone will be set in reference to that stone. And that determines the position of the entire structure. The entire building, the position is determined by the cornerstone. You see Jesus is a cornerstone by which we must set our lives. We must understand if we are a follower of Jesus that our identity is in belonging to him. And as a result of belonging to him, he has a purpose for our lives. But it's not found in ignoring his word or thinking we can handle life alone. He has called us out of the darkness and into his light. Not for us to remain stagnant. But so that as a result of the light of Jesus in us, we then will be able to lead others to a saving knowledge of him. This passage addresses the word identity. This is a popular word today in psychology. You may hear phrases like, I'm good enough. I'm worth it. I'm strong. And things like these. Their motivational phrases that are designed to help people feel better and to accomplish their goals. But God says you are his chosen person. At the core of your identity as a follower of Jesus is that you are chosen by God for a purpose. But God never intends for us to accomplish this purpose alone. Going back to our chart here. Okay. We can be devoted to God's word and to community and to sharing needs and to prayer. But I'm going to show you how these things need to continue to stay together. And we're going to start with being devoted to God's teaching. And we're all gifted in different ways. And that benefits the body of Christ overall. But sometimes we can be so much in one area that we miss the rest. Okay. So for example, devoting to God's teaching. Some of us, we have a love for God's word, which is fantastic we should. Right. We love it. We soak it in over and over again. Give me more of it. Right. It's fantastic to soak it in to help you grow and take your next steps in your walk with Jesus. But if that's by itself, then there can be a tendency to turn inward and only be concerned with studying God's word and not for the souls of others. Not to see others get connected to know Jesus more closely. And the ultimate goal in the church is that people come to know Jesus as their Savior and Lord. The other one is the devoted to community. Some of us, we have such a love for a community that we crave it so much. Maybe you go and you're like, I'm signing up for five groups and I'm going to go to group every single night. Okay, that's great. Right. And because connection is important. Right. The word fellowship in that passage talks about oneness. It talks about having where we have this closeness together. But the problem is that we can fall short with connection if we're not also being devoted to God's teaching. If we're not being devoted to God's teaching in that small group, but also being devoted to God's teaching in our daily lives every day. Then there's the devoted to sharing meals. Some of us have such a love for sharing meals with others. That's our heart. That's our passion. Right. And you want to make sure everyone in the group has their needs met. And that's fantastic. That should be part of it. Like I said, small groups are the first line of defense. But if that shared of meals overrides the commitment for connection and community and for God's teaching, then we're truly missing the mark. And the last one there, devoting to prayer, some of us are truly gifted prayer warriors. We see the need for prayer. We challenge others to pray. And we've watched God change things through prayer. But once again, this cannot be alone either. This can't be an excuse to avoid community and connection with others saying, well, I'm praying for every. I'm going to isolate over here, but I'm praying for everybody. No, you got to be connected too. You got to be connected and learning God's word at the same time while you're committed to prayer. So devotion to God's word, devoted to community, devoted to sharing meals, devoted to prayer is what led to the start of the church and many people coming to know Jesus. I'm probably going to step on some toes here, but I've done that before. So here I hear people say we need a revival in this country. I think revival can be confused. Sometimes people might mean that when people say that they might mean that our entire country needs to turn towards God. Well, the United States is not God's chosen people. Each individual follower of Jesus is chosen by God. So the church, those who are following Jesus, are God's chosen people. A revival occurs when we get on board following this example that we're talking about today, not just the individual parts, but all together. And true community is created when people and people begin to come to know Jesus constantly. All right. I tell you what, I don't even think we've even scratched the surface of what God can do here at Bridgewater. What if we overwhelmed our small groups of people that came on Sunday morning with this type of devotion? And that type of devotion began to occur on all levels. I believe we could see people come to know Jesus daily. I really do. God says that he will do beyond what we can ask or think. I believe that can happen. So here's my question to you today when it comes to time spent and devotion. If someone took a look at the time you spent, would they say this person is devoted to God's word? They're devoted to connection. They're devoted to prayer. They're devoted to sharing and being generous with others. Are you, would you be ready for this kind of change? What needs to change in your life in order for you to have this kind of devotion? And I have some things for application this morning for you as you go. And the first one there is our website, bridgewater.church/bible, where there are a ton of resources where you can get connected with the truth of God's word. So I encourage you to check that out. All these sources I'm listing are all available digitally on that site. But out at the Welcome Center, we have a 30-day Bible reading plan. We have a 100-day Bible reading plan. We have a build the habit. It's a little bookmark that can go in your Bible that helps you to build the habit of spending time in God's word. And then we have the U-version Bible app that you can use by yourself or with the community of people. And then finally, sign up for our first small group because this is where all of those things, right, all of those things from today can be incorporated in small groups. So I encourage you to sign up for a small group, get engaged, allow God to work in your life in a great way. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you this day, God. I thank you that you love us so much. I thank you that you offer us your word as a guide for our lives that you give us opportunity to get together. Lord, because you did not design us to be alone. You designed us to serve you and to worship you in community. And so I pray, God, that you'd help each of us to have that type of community that we've talked about today and that you would continue to change lives. And we love you. We'll praise you for it in Jesus' name. Amen.