For a piffin' ebolo shifts podcast, where our goal is to see people everywhere, show off the glory of Christ in every area of word of God. Sex today acts chapter 2 verses 42 through 47. Acts chapter 2 verses 42 through 47. One, two, three, read. Amen. Amen. Well today in our culture shift segment of our series, this segment of our culture shift series, I'd like to talk about commitment. Commitment. Somebody say commitment. Father God, what a God we have. Who has shown time and time again his commitment to us. And so God as we talk about this piece of a culture shift in our life, commitment. Commitment. Help it to fall on the ears and hearts of grace, not ears and hearts of the Lord. Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in thy sight. God, our strength and our Redeemer in whom we trust. In Jesus name we pray. Everybody agree that's it. You may be seated. Commitment. Commitment. As you know, real quick, if you have a chair beside you, a seat, empty seat beside you, if you don't mind raising your hand, we have the overflow. But if you have a empty seat, raise your hand so I just can see that. So one of the things that we realized after the pandemic is we had a 75% person shift at our church and our ministry. And then after the pandemic, it re grew and then some more. And so in light of that, we need to be on the same page. I'm going to give you know, we need to be on the same page. And and and being on the same page means that we have to agree on what we believe we're here for and what things are about. And so we have something called core values or core competencies or core convictions. These core convictions are what we would say are the distilled down DNA that we utilize as ways to not say everything that's in the Bible. But some of the DNA of what God wants from us focused from the scriptures. Okay, so so it's a concentrated form. If I if I can make it plain, I remember back in the day, my grandmother, I would try to go to the the section with the milk is and I would try to buy orange juice from there. My grandmother didn't want that orange juice because that orange juice was too expensive. So we would go to the freezer. I see some of y'all don't even know about this. And and in a biscuit looking can was orange was orange juice concentrate. And you get a cool a picture and you dump it in there and then add water. That was like 50 cent for that, right? And it was way way cheaper. Well, it's still orange. It's just a concentrated form of it. That's what our core values are. Our core values are concentrated form of the Bible DNA of what we should be as a believers and who we aren't to be and we'll explain all this in a second. And so we had a word commitment, right? We can hear it in different ways because commitment can be a scary word. Am I right about it? But it could also be a comforting word. I mean, when somebody because you know when as messy as you and I can be when somebody rides for you and they committed to you, you love that, don't you? Y'all like that. So you're like when someone ride with you, but the question is, are you a rider? The commitment is not merely shown by whether or not you receive commitment, but it's also by your commitment to the reality of the fact that we should be committed ourselves. Stay with me. So commitment is the state or quality of being dedicated to a cause or activity and engagement and obligation that listen that restricts freedom of action. So sometimes commitment means you can't do everything because because because many of us don't recognize and understand that that that when you're over committed to things that you shouldn't be committed to, when ends up happening is you have life lag. So my computer the other days told me that there's too many things running because it wasn't moving as fast and as efficiently as I wanted it to. And it said, so there's some things running in the background that need to be turned off. And so what I had to do was I had to go to this option. I went to the apple. So no, hey, I go to the apple and I go to force quit and everything that's on there that's running it lets me know and because of you just push out the thing, it'll still run in the background. So you got to go to the force quit menu to make sure that it's fully off so that all of the power can go to the things that you wanted to function on. Let me see if I can make it plain. 10 years ago, the Holy Spirit, I was running ragged, I was on boards and I found my importance in how much I was doing. And the Holy Spirit said, I want you to write down everything you're doing. I was like, okay, you all heard this before. I wrote it all down. And God said, how many of those things did I assign you to do?
I said five. He said, okay, let's get to work. Get the 15 away. And I can tell you that when I removed the unassigned things off my plate, the things that were assigned to my plate began to flourish because I was able to put all of my spiritual energy into what I was called to do not what I was trying to create to do. And I'm trying to let you know that God has you in particular in a season where he wants to focus your commitment that he wants to dethrone some things off your plate that's unnecessary so that you can be more peaceful. Because God is God's not, let me just say this. I didn't say this in person. God's not just concerned about your output. He's concerned about your input. Not in what he's doing in you. You got to protect your piece biblically. I'm just an introduction. And listen and you, some of the ways to protect your piece, there's a selfish way to protect your piece, but then there's some of that selfish humanism. But then protect my piece means I don't deal with nothing hard. No, that's not protecting your piece. Protecting your piece is removing anything in your life that corrodes God's purpose and God's power and God's identity on your life. And I'm telling you, you have a better life when you make the decision to have peace on God's terms versus your terms. And so when it comes to commitment for me, I'm funny about this. I know I got to have a full illustration once a sermon. I don't like much to go to franchises to eat. It has to be a really good franchise. When I'm in that mood, when me and my wife going on a date, we got to go somewhere where not there's a cook. There has to be a chef now. And not just a chef, but the chef who created the menu. I'm talking about the type of chef that takes two days off to go down to the Italian market as I'll fill it. Y'all know hear me and go get their ingredients because they want fresh ingredients. In other words, they're not using ingredients from a warehouse kitchen center that's already got bagged soup in it that you pour in and heat up. No, they got fresh ingredients because they're committed to making sure that you have the most full-bodied food experience that they want you to have. With the best ingredients and the best experience. And this one I like about them. If they make a mistake, they'll do whatever they can to make sure that you feel like the mistake didn't happen because of the way they took care of you in their commitment to serving you. I wonder if our lives were a restaurant. And God was coming in for a meal. How would the service be? What review would God give you on Yelp? Y'all are required right now. Would he recommend you to others based on your commitment? Would he come back and would he invest in the business? So if Christ's centeredness is our central core value, commitment is our personal responsibility to respond and be obligated to God and others. And what a book to lay that out in in the book of Acts. I can't wait till we go through it. Y'all want to go through the book of Acts? I don't hear y'all. Y'all want to go through the book of Acts? I've been shopping at the bit. Now, the y'all got the stamina. I haven't done like a book that long. The y'all got the stamina to go through 28 chapters. All right. All right. That's someone to look through it. So the book of Acts is actually, it's called Acts of the Apostles, but actually it's the Acts of the Holy Ghost through the Apostles. And what's interesting about the reality of this book is it's a book that shows the indispensable relationship that God's people must have with the Holy Spirit. Your life must be intertwined with the Spirit's activity in every single area of your life. When you what's called a good spooky Christian, you talk to God often and hear from him often. You know, and people may think you're crazy and talking to yourself, but really when you love God, you just talk to him. That was for free. So the passage that we're about to dive into is a passage almost like Genesis 2 for Acts. Because in many ways, it's the preamble to the nutrients of what the believers and Christian community and Christian life should beautifully look like. And on the tail ends of Jesus Christ's ascension in chapter 1 where he restates the great commission. We see that through this book God shows his beauty through many ways through the coming of the Spirit in a unique way three times that only happens like this three times fundamentally in history. He first comes to the Jews, then he comes to the Samaritans and then he comes to the Gentiles. Those signs of the Spirit coming to those people groups was a fulfillment of Acts 1.8 to show that God was about each group and to show the Jews that it's not just about you, but it's also about the Samaritans who you hate and the Gentiles who you hate. You don't hate them, you hate hate them, right? And so now it shows us that the Spirit of God and the gospel of God is for all people. So now in the preamble and working out of this community, we see something beautiful in the text. We see a beautiful idea which points me to my first point. If you're going to be committed, God's people are called to listen to definitive commitment. Now this is interesting because we're really only going to spend most of our time on one word devoted devoted this one word that's what the sermon is about. Since then they devoted themselves talking about that's when we get our idea commitment everything in this passage modifies this verb. It modifies everything hinges on telling you what devotion looks like. So that's what the text lays out here when it talks about devotion. Now this word devotion means to persevere in some activity or cause it means to hold fast to something means to stand perpetually ready. It means to continue in something. In other words one lexicon said it just means to stick. And then let me explain something to you. The beautiful thing about God is God never gives you a command that he hasn't empowered you to do. Let me see if I can make it plain. Many of us and I want to work with you today on your relationship with this because I don't want you to receive this as law. I want you to see this as grace. Now when we look at this idea of commitment and sticking listen. God has already downloaded you to a new operating system. That operating system has commitment on it. How do I know? Because second Peter chapter one verse three says God has given you everything you need for life and godliness. So you can sing this on anointing fall on me but it's not going to happen because John first John chapter two says you received an anointing from God already. So there's no new anointing that's nothing else coming from heaven. You have every single thing when you got saved I wish I heard me today. God gave you everything you need. The challenge though is that we need the anti-virus standing of the blood to help our operating system to work properly. Now one of the ways that I want to help you with a heart check was something like the word commitment and a sermon on commitment. Hear me this is the quarter message and really after this section I can just do the benediction. Why? Because there is a temptation to hear this word and receive it like a law. Listen to me. But we have to view this through the lens of the gospel. Listen to me. What does the gospel say about commitment? That this is a this is what we call a kingdom question, right? Why do I say this? Why should we be committed to God his church and his mission? Simply God isn't commitment isn't to pay God back. Hear me. Hear what I'm saying because when you struggle with acceptance. The temptation is to have a relationship with God that's transactional versus relational. Hear me. Hear me. That doesn't mean I'm going to get to that because there are things that God does won't do until you do it. But it's not a commitment issue to you. Listen to me. Commitment isn't a commitment isn't to get God more committed to you. I want you all to really park on each one of these things I'm saying. Because God is as committed to you as he's ever going to be. God can't. There's some things God can't do like sin. Another thing he can't do is be more committed to you than he already is. Because he's given it all to you. So you're not being committed for him to be committed to you. He's already committed to you first. But you're not being committed to get his commitment. You're being committed because he's already committed to you because the commitment that you even have comes from him. You're only hearing me today. You're not hearing me. God is as committed to you as he ever will be. Listen. And God can't increase his commitment to you anymore than he has. And you have all his commitment and your commitment doesn't earn God's favor. That's the gospel. I want you to breathe and inhale and exhale. Listen. Many of you who struggle with acceptance have a relationship with your sanctification that's based on the law and not the gospel. The law says if I do this, then I get this. The law says, God, if I do this, you owe me this. But the gospel says, I am accepted. Therefore I obey. Not I obey because I'm accepted. To be accepted. Let me say it again. I really want you to get it. I obey because I am accepted. I am accepted. Therefore I obey. My obedience doesn't make me more accepted. It's so important because in our lives, particularly those of you who are bullied when you were younger or struggle with acceptance or about people, body shamed you or your parents are viewed. You came home with 98 and they said, where are those other two points? And you're dealing with some of my African siblings know exactly what I'm talking about. And you recognize that your commitment does not make God more committed to you. That's an extremely important thing for us to wrestle with. Interestingly enough, we got to recognize again that commitment though is a fruit of conversion. Listen, I like the way Tim Keller said it. He said, commitment is a sign of salvation not a cause. I really want us to lean into this. And this is so important in relation to the passage because no one happens in this passage. The people who are devoted to the apostles' teaching, listen, were saved and filled with the Holy Spirit, then got devoted. Their devotion happened because of change. So God doesn't do pre-conversion discipleship. In other words, if someone is struggling with their sexuality, we don't say you need to be a heterosexual. You're not hearing me. When someone's struggling with their sexuality, you don't read them verses on sexuality. You're not hearing me because what you're trying to do is you're giving them the law. You're asking them and anybody else to do what's impossible for them to do. You're saying change and then you can be saved. Telling you all, y'all really got to hear me today. They're going to hear me. In other words, you preach the gospel. And when the Holy Spirit gets inside of someone, he's a better convictor than you. His job is to lead into truth. And so when you treat people, in this very important one, it comes to commitment because this is a short circuit that many of us have, we feel like we have to fix people. Because we believe in a gospel that says you have to stop something before you can be something. But the gospel doesn't say that. That's not what the gospel says. Listen, when you trust Jesus, before you trust Jesus Christ, God doesn't say change before you come to me. He says come to me to be changed. And so that means you can be friends with people that have different lifestyles and love them. Why am I seeming like I'm going off from really not? Because this is helping you and I to understand in our heart that we have a falsie understanding of commitment. Because many of us relate to God like we preach the gospel. If you're telling other people they have to change before God will accept them, you don't believe that you're accepted by God until you change. But the gospel again says, I am accepted therefore I obey. Y'all ain't hearing me today. Like Tim Keller said, he was talking to a woman and she was wrestling with being saved and the grace of God and the law. And she said she was working through faith versus works. I love this. It's beautiful. He asked her, what are your thoughts on it? He asked her, he said, what are your thoughts on it? So she said, if you are saved by works, there is a limit God could ask you for. You're like a taxpayer if if it's based on your works. He said he couldn't ask, he can only ask you certain things but not anything. She said, but if you are saved by grace, there is no limit to what he can ask of you. Because obedience would have to be unconditional. Even in you saying, God, I'll give you my life. You don't pay, you're not paying God back. That's why Romans 12, verse 2 says, it's reasonable. So it's a reasonable service of worship. Okay, now we can hear on the rest of the commitment. Y'all still a trucker with me? I'm just a lecture in the day, y'all don't mind. So from there, we see what their devotion, what God's devotion to them turned into. God's devotion to you. And listen, this is something that I have to preach to myself all the time. Then my commitment, repeat after me, my commitment to God flows from God's commitment to me. So now they were devoted to the apostles teaching. I love this. They were devoted. The devotion wasn't just listening. But it was the empowerment to respond and do what was being said. So he was teaching them all, they were teaching them all that Jesus taught them, right? Then at two stages to the apostles' doctrine, y'all with me still. It's milk, somebody say milk and meat. The problem is that some of us want to get to meat real quick. But you need milk and ministry. You need breastfeeding, you need similac and you need infamyl in your spirit. Why? Because if you feed a baby something too rich or something too that's not broken down to their level, they'll choke. Okay, let me see if I can make it plain. I remember when my man, he was a little, you know, he was little. And my wife said don't be giving him stuff. So I decided that cheesecake was like Gerber. So I said it's a match, he's a match, he's like Gerber. So I'm going to give him some cheesecake. I said come here son. I gave him some, he was on him. He turned that joint up but then five minutes later the fire hydrant ministry began to work his way out with fear and trembling. And he began throwing up and my wife said, did you feed him any, did you feed him any, that's it. Yes ma'am. And so I felt like I was in the principal's office. And what happened is although it was solved the ingredients was too rich for where his stomach was. And it wasn't able to digest it. Therefore it made him sick. And so that's why we have to be careful. This is for free for my disciple makers. Be careful of giving stakes to babes. Okay. So what does milk look like? Now what I say with milk is y'all. Y'all going to think it's me. Because we're so under taught in this world. Wait a minute why y'all started deep. That's deep. When I say this y'all are going to be like, what's that mean? I'm not beating anybody up. But because the way our, like you're going to need more than he woke me up this morning and started me on my way. Yes he did. New mercies is waiting. But you need more than that. So you're going to need so theology. What's that pastor? It's the study of justification. Sanctification and glorification. You understand what I mean? That's basic Christian stuff. How you get saved and eternal security and what you're going to get a new body and all of those different things in return. All of that good stuff. A baptism, basic stuff. You know ritual cleansing is from the law. No longer doing that. You know what I'm saying? I'm eschatology, the return of Jesus. I'm not talking about pre-Millenium, post-Millenium, mid-rad, pre-rad, post-trip raster. I'm not talking about all of that. I'm just talking about the return of Jesus Christ. You should be looking forward to his return. In other words, Christology who Jesus is should be in your understanding of your fundamentals of the faith. Why is that important? Because it's just milk. That means that you can't be trying to do a crossover when you don't know how to dribble. You're trying to do all of this and some of it. Hezzy, hezzy, tween, tween and all of that. Nah. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Only some of y'all know what I'm talking about. But then there's meat. Somebody say meat. Y'all still trekking with me, right? Meat is canonicity. How was the Bible formed? Oh. Missiology, spiritual warfare. Know what the most important one though is? Know what the most important marker of maturity and meat is? The Bible says in Hebrews 5, verse 14, decision making. In other words, they were devoted to growing so that they can make good decisions. Give me the day. Okay. I'm going to give you an example since y'all. Look at me funny. Maturity doesn't mean you know everything. That's not what it means. It means you're willing to access what you need to know to. What you need to know to make the right decision. Okay. I'll make it even planer. That means if you're dating someone, you don't hide them. The immature wants to just be in the institution. You know, because they don't say they don't already pick out where they're going to go. In Turks and Kicos and we're going to be on the stand and we're going to kick the stand and we're going to be having behind my mom and we're going to enjoy that. And you're thinking about that. But the mature sees marriage as not just a place of identity and satisfaction, but a reflection of the relationship between God and His church. So that means when I'm dating somebody and I want to glorify God at max, I'm putting Him around or her around the people that can look into their eyes and have you need some shout out now around you. You need some people around you that's going to be like, I don't know baby. Something in my spirit ain't right and I ain't feeling sure. And I don't even, I don't have a verse for it. It's just something in my soul. See y'all don't hear me today. You need some people around you that got the Holy Ghost. You need some people around you that got some kind of disarmament. You need some people around you that can tell you the truth. And with me, a milky Christian will get mad because you're stamping on the parade of their preference. But I committed much more Christian. We'll say I hate what you saying and they are fine. And I want them. Oh, I want them. The spirit is willing. But the flesh is weak. Maturity being devoted and committed to God means you make mature decisions that your flesh don't like. I ain't talking like I'm, this all coming from modern day stuff. You know, some pastors try to act like this back 20 years ago when I was no. When I was a new kid, you can always tell the story about being a new Christian. Listen, you're always going to be dealing with. The struggle to make mature, gospel committed decisions. And it's a fight every single. Listen, look at me in my face. I'm in my sanctification process too. And so, so, so that's what they did. So they were committed to being growing to the point where they made mature decisions. Now, how did that happen? The next one. We're going to talk about this next week. I'm not going to dive into it deeply. But it says they were committed to the apostle teaching. Milk and meat. And then they were committed to the fellowship. So dope. So dope. The fellowship. Not a fellowship. In other words, they believe in the local church. The fellowship means an official lampstand of God. Every authenticated church has a lamp in heaven that reflects its present on earth. And so they were committed to the definitive fellowship. We'll talk about that next week. Next, they were, this is dope. They were committed to the breaking of bread, which is connected to fellowship. But it also points to them having communion together, worshiping together, and going from house to house. I can tell you real quick, that some of my most formative, beautiful years as a believer was in the context of Godly believers. You know, I'm going to let you know. Let me say something. Now, I know that when I became a Christian, when I became a Christian, I went a little too far. You know, I was legalistic. I got rid of Big Daddy Cain and I got rid of my new addition stuff. And I said, that's second of music. I don't need it. And I'm getting away from it. But there was something. But there were some. I do believe. You know, I miss the season of Martin. Now, I'm going to tell you right now. That's when I knew I was saved. Because I. All right. All right. Now, I'm not saying those things are wrong, right? But I know that where I was, see, I knew me. And I needed to starve myself of certain things. In other words, I had, I knew, listen, can I say, I knew I was, I had addictive tendencies. So I couldn't be around the skunk no more. Smelling the aroma, talking about on witnessing. They tell me they was going to the club. There's going to chapter three in DC. I don't know about that. Three flows with three different music levels. And everybody's in there drinks just everywhere. And bodies is everywhere. And you can hardly get through. Because if somebody rubbed up against me, we was going home together. So I knew that I couldn't be there. Oh, yeah. Y'all better act like y'all know. In other words, their seasons of your life, where you need to communally dismiss yourself. You need to dismiss yourself. Because you need to have a, I can't handle this season. So in these formative years of the church, they overspend time with each other. To get a concentrated dose of gospel community. In relationship. And some of you may need that. And I'm telling you, it helped me so much. And then it says they were committed to the prayers. I like that. It was a house for spiritual formation. Somebody say spiritual formation. It's so, it's so amazing, right? Because we talk about spiritual formation. Spiritual formation or, and or spiritual discipline. Somebody say spiritual disciplines. Are those things that nurture your commitment and grow your relationship with God, right? So they were committed to Bible intake, worship, prayer, evangelism, serving, that's thing. We could even add, for us journaling, there would be remembrance for them. Learning silence. You know, that's the spiritual discipline. Generosity and suffering. And so when we, we as believers, now many of us will think this is a lot, but these are basic things for us to understand. Now look what happens and I'm done. I promise. And all came upon every soul in an environment of commitment. What does all mean? It's, it's, it's fear of God. In other words, taking God seriously. Whenever God is taken seriously, look what happens. And many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. Show me a committed atmosphere. And I'll show you a miraculous atmosphere. Miracles happen when there's commitment. Now listen to me. It's not you earning the miracles. Okay? Let's break this down because some of us are going to say, are we earning this now? No. The miracles are available and you're already in God's house. But you got to do your chores before you get your allowance. It doesn't mean you're not accepted in the house. It's just that some things have to be done before certain things are released to you. And I'm beautifully excited because I believe in this season, Epiphany is a miracle. It's the healthiest it's ever been. Let me let me point out some miracles though. We are in a warehouse that used to be a morgue and mortuary science place. 100 years ago. And a church is meeting in here with no parking spaces. People driving from Maryland, Delaware, Bucks County, North Jersey, to come to North Philadelphia. You feel me? We have in here the generation that people say, don't love God and don't go to church. To me, that sounds like a miracle. To me, last year we had a deficit of over 100K, but they say this generation don't give. But we ended well into the black from the generation that they say doesn't give. Listen, God, I'm in awe of God through y'all. I'm in awe of God's commitment through y'all. I'm in awe of what God is doing through our ministry and through our church. Listen, there's so many of my friends or so many people that have churches for 20 years and they still meet in the movie theater. Don't have a place to be. And we're about to rehab the entire building for the glory of God and God's mission. I am blown away from this corner. 50 churches was planted across the globe. That is a miracle. On the corner of 17th and Diamond, we got well over 100 men meeting for men's ministry. On the corner of 17th and Diamond, we got well over 100 women waiting for women's ministry. On 17th and Diamond, we got a wonderful children's ministry. On 17th and Diamond, we got a big old screen. No one has a miracle, it's couple reasons why it's a miracle. Because it's here. Number two, that ain't nobody took it yet. That's the miracle. But you are, but the greatest miracle in this place, the greatest miracle in this place is a willing people of God. And let's not take that for granted. Amen. Every hit by every eye closed. Maybe you hit a day. Hello, this is Dr. Eric Mason, founder of Passive Epiphany Fellowship. Thank you for tuning in today. Hopefully the word of God was a blessing to you. Also, if you want to help us build a kingdom from Philly and beyond, particularly in the cities, partner with us today. And if you don't know Jesus has saved you, based on his death, bearing a resurrection, place your confidence in him, and go for spiritual death, the spiritual life. Tune in next time so we can see you go for spiritual infancy, the spiritual maturity. God bless you. Take care. We love you.