Play it up!

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. Yes, we're going to play it up today. It might take a little different tactic than you're used to in the sermon. With the name Play It Up, it sounds like we're going to do some group games, but we're not. Come Wednesday night to Thrive FGC and you'll do some group games, or we'll do them elsewhere. But we do have a good time together because the joy of the Lord and Jesus' presence is here. And that's what we're going to ask for as well, that we are aware of his presence right now. Will you pray with me? Lord God, we thank you for how you have worked, how you lived, Lord Jesus, all that you did and that you taught. And what you began, you continue to do in the book of Acts and through your church that has never ended. It's just not stopped, Lord. You keep working and you keep doing and you keep being present for us and we thank you for that. Give to us that reality today. We pray for all the churches in our area. We ask you to bless them and bless all who worship there that your gospel be proclaimed. There's one church, Lord, and we know that one church on earth in various forms. And we pray, Lord, in this area, you'd create a movement by your Holy Spirit that many, many more people join in with you on your mission. In Jesus, your name we pray. Amen. So our text today, you can follow along either through the app store. You can download the Bible app and look for the notes under Thrive Community Church or get our actual app that we have for the iPhone that Wyatt works so hard on. I mean, it's great stuff and you can get a lot of things there. OK, so check that out. We're going to be in Acts chapter 2, verses 42 to 47. This is kind of been the theme verse of Live It Up from the beginning. The series that we're looking at how the early church was and how we are still today. And now we're going to actually focus on this passage rather than other ones. We're focusing on this today as we play it up. And here we go. They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. So here's a reality. Here's the truth. The Jesus movement grew explosively in the first three centuries A.D. Just explosively on the scene from this small little band. Boom. It took over the entire known world, all of Western civilization at that time. And the question is why? There are many other religions. There are many other mystery cults type things or other things that sociologically look about the same. Why? Why did the church grow? Because let me tell you, they had the worst P.R. possible. Okay. The Roman elites castigated them. They were illegal. Right. On top of that, the Jewish leaders hated them as well. So everybody who was in power didn't like it. They had no marketing plan. There was no Madison Avenue. They had no app. They had no media to speak of. They didn't have any buildings. Just think of all the obstacles that we say, hey, if we we need this, we need that. They had none of them, none of them. And how did it happen that this group that was considered like, you know, if you get into this group, you could die. Become the group you wanted to join. You wanted to be on play on their team. How did that happen? And I think it's this that we see starting in Acts two, but that we actually see throughout the first few centuries is that the Christian church or this movement of people was attractively different. Then what was going on in the culture around them, because they had joy. They had love. They cared for one another like you wouldn't. They had hope. They had a future. As it says here in Acts two forty two, they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer devoted themselves. Now, we went through the apostles teaching last week as we looked at the passage, how God's word, all scripture is God breathed and is profitable. And this week we're going to be focusing on that word fellowship and they devoted themselves. Now, that's an interesting word, and I guess I'm not going to bore you with the Greek behind it. And I don't remember what the Greek word was, but I do know that that tense of the Greek word for they devoted themselves is not just past tense. It was a continual thing. So they continually, persistently devoted themselves. OK, and they kept doing it. When you devote something, this thing just does not w...