Devoted
Summary
Acts 2 closes with a portrait of the earliest church: a community marked by generosity, joy, and goodwill, to which the Lord added daily. Pastor Dominic Jackson asks whether this picture merely describes a distant moment in history or still shows God’s design for his church today. Tracing how the focus of Christian gatherings has shifted over the centuries, Dominic returns to the four things the first believers devoted themselves to: the teaching of Scripture, fellowship, the breaking of bread, and prayer. The word “devoted” means to hold on tightly. He invites us to consider whether we simply practice these things or truly cling to them, and what God might do through a church that does.
Questions for reflection
When you read the portrait of the church in Acts 2:42–47, does it feel like a description of a distant past or an invitation for today? What parts seem most relevant to your life now?
The sermon distinguishes between doing these practices and being devoted to them, holding on tightly. Which of the four do you simply do, and which do you truly cling to?
Of Scripture, community, communion, and prayer, which comes most naturally to you? Which needs more attention in your faith right now?
The early church gathered both in homes and in large public spaces. Do you tend to favor one over the other? What might you be missing by neglecting either?
The believers had “everything in common” despite deep differences. How diverse is your circle of friendship within the church? Who could you include who is in a different season of life than you?
What have we placed alongside, or even above, these four devotions in our lives or in the church? What would it look like to return to them?
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Dominic Jackson:
We continue moving through the book of Acts. And as we’ve been slowly moving through, I’m curious—as we’re reading about this early church, or this passage that Karen just read for us—I’m curious if you have the same question that I have as I’ve been revisiting this account. As I’m reading it, I can’t help but ask: how did we get here? How did we get to this modern moment in church history, compared to the picture we have there?How did the church go from about 120—and then last week, if you remember Matt’s sermon, right, a few thousand come and join the party—where they had, quote, “everything in common”? Their possessions, how they spent their time together, their mission, their homes, sometimes even their deaths, right? How did we go from that to a specific day of the week? Or 501(c)(3) nonprofit statuses, right? Seminary education? Trunk-or-treats in a parking lot? The Instagram account PreachersNSneakers, if you’ve ever seen that one. It’s pretty interesting—and then it gets really sad when you start to think about it. Me and my $30 shoes have not been featured on it, for some reason. I don’t know why.
But the question remains: when you read the book of Acts, is this the picture that you see? Is this the picture that you get? Now, to state the obvious, it was a very different world. It was a very different culture, on the other side of the world, a different environment. In many ways, what works here would not have worked there. And taking a carbon copy of that picture and dropping it off here also would not work, in plenty of ways. But there are some things that could—or, I would even say, should.
Something I’ve encouraged us to do as we move through this book, the book of Acts, is to continually ask the question: is what we are reading in this passage, in this moment, prescriptive or descriptive? Is this for us? Is God prescribing something that he did 2,000 years ago that he wants us to hold on to? Or is this simply an account describing what was taking place at a specific time?
And so we looked at, like, the believers’ faithfulness to the Great Commission. Or we looked at—and we’re going to be revisiting this a few times—how that inner circle got really big and opened up, and then Gentiles and outsiders were welcomed in. And we read that and we say, yes, I think that is still God’s heart for the church today. We read that and think, yeah, that sounds pretty prescriptive. We should do the same.
But then there are other things, like prison sentences, or supernatural snake handling—that’s going to come up. Or picking leaders by drawing straws—remember that? And we read that and say, “Thank you for including that, Luke. We will not be doing that at the Gateway Church.” Though I’m sure it would make the sermon a lot more interesting if I brought snakes up here or something. But we’re not going to be doing that. So we read that and we think, okay, this is an account. This is being described to us, not prescribed.
Well, today we’re going to read a text, and as we move through this account, all of us are going to have to ask the same question. Is this God’s design for the modern church? Or, even closer to home, is this what God wants for the Gateway Church? Or is this just a history lesson?
And the truth is, I think many church leaders would approach our passage as descriptive. Maybe even some of you would read this and think, “Wow, those first Christians were kind of crazy and radical. Good thing we have evolved from that. Good thing we have figured out how to do church better,” right? I believe that is, in many ways, the problem. I’m going to suggest that, in many ways, our text is not only what God desired for the early church 2,000 years ago—a lot of it is also his plan for the church today. Before we hop back into our text, let’s pray together.
Lord, I have felt convicted as I reflect on all the information out there for churches and church leaders—looking at trends and models and formulas and leadership seminars and strategy sessions. And as I look at all that is available for us to study to help us, quote, “do church better,” I just can’t help but wonder how far we have drifted from you and from your original design for your church. And so help us, Holy Spirit. Help us sift through this passage with an understanding of what it is you are leading us back to, and where we might have lost our way—or what should stay in the past. Give us discernment and wisdom and understanding—not for better metrics or preferences or trends, but to remember why we’re here to begin with. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
We are, of course, going to be moving through Acts 2. If you have a copy of the Scriptures, you’ll want to turn there. If not, the words will be on the screen. Before we do, back to that original question: how did we get here? How did the church go from a small gathering to a larger one, to hundreds of thousands of different churches and denominations—and even smoke machines and celebrity pastors and church branding, right? How did this happen?
If you’ll give me two minutes to be a nerd, I just want to talk a little bit about church history, and then we’ll hop back into our text, I promise. If you have ever taken a church history class, you must also be nerdy. But if you’ve ever taken one, and your studies were anything like mine, you’d probably discover that many historians focus, of course, on people and on movements, which you would expect. But another area of focus is actually architecture—specifically, buildings.
So, a brief history of church gatherings—and I am completely stealing this from Joseph Hellerman’s amazing book When the Church Was Family. I would highly recommend it. If I sound smart for the next two minutes, I stole it from him. But what he and other historians note is that the Christian church can actually be separated into four main movements, with four different areas of focus: the home, the cathedral, the chapel, and the theater.
First, we’ve got the home. The church, of course, started in a home, and the center of these gatherings was the table. They shared meals. In many ways, they shared a roof. They were like family. And at the center of that was the table. We actually see this even before the church is launched—even before that first church plant. We see Jesus in the upper room, right? The Passover meal. And what are they gathered around? A table.
Continuing on, we’ll jump ahead a couple hundred years, to the legalization of Christianity. The church then moved to the cathedral, and the focus—the center—was the altar. I’m, of course, oversimplifying here. But even today, you can go to some of these giant, beautiful cathedrals, especially if you’re in Europe, and you’ll notice many of them are shaped like crosses. And at the center of the cross is the altar. Services were typically in Latin, even though nobody knew Latin except for maybe the priests. And what you’ll notice is that as the buildings grew larger and more beautiful, the separation between the religious leaders and the common man often became clear—except when it came to the altar, where they would meet.
Then, jumping ahead, you move into the farmhouse or country church, or chapel. There are various versions of this, especially if you go to the East Coast in this country. You’ll notice many old denominations—the old Methodist churches, or Presbyterians—their buildings are often made of brick. They’re still standing today. But many of them were actually converted barns. And so you would be in the middle of nowhere, in a barn, worshiping. And regardless of what the building looked like, now the focus became the pulpit. It’s really interesting. Not the table. Not the religious ritual surrounding the altar in a language you didn’t understand. Now the focus was on the pulpit, and with it, doctrine and theology and, of course, preaching. Many people didn’t read, and almost none owned a Bible. So if you wanted to hear the Word, you would show up here, and a pastor or preacher—sometimes for hours on end—would preach the Word of God. And this was the focus.
And then lastly, where we are today. And again, I’m not making moral judgments or social critiques with this—just sharing a little history. The modern church today is more like a theater. There are many different opinions about what inspired this. The timeline is typically the beginning of the last century. With entertainment more available—the radio becoming a thing, local theater expanding, Hollywood, access to live performances—basically, a night out on the town slowly started to impact the Sunday gathering the next morning. Music begins to take as much focus as preaching, or the pulpit—in some churches, even more so. And the central focus is not a table, not an altar, not even a pulpit. Now the focus is on a stage.
The point is, there were many pros and cons, in my opinion, to all of these movements and all of these buildings. And it would be easy to say that some were more spiritual than others, and some were wrong for how they gathered. I think God is much more interested in the hearts that are gathering than in the buildings or the expressions of church themselves. But it’s really interesting to see these changes, and how they can best be seen in buildings.
Okay, history lesson over. Let’s look back at Acts 2:42. We’re going to keep this in the back of our minds. But before we do, I’m going to read a different translation, if I can. Sometimes we like to read different translations to get a different picture. We’re going to return to the NIV, but first, I’m going to read from the AIV—the American Individualistic Version. Here it is, Acts 2:42:
“And they devoted themselves to coming together whenever they could, fitted in amid their busy schedules—during an off week for kids’ sports, or a lighter work week, or if their favorite football team was not playing, or if the weather wasn’t too bad, or if the weather wasn’t too good, or, of course, if they had gone to bed at a decent hour the night before instead of binge-watching some show on Netflix. If none of these were the case, they devoted themselves to gathering. They gathered in an air-conditioned building, and they nodded to the other people in their row. Some offered a smile, but they hardly looked at each other again. Instead, they fixed their eyes on a stage. They stood, and some of them sang. Then they sat and watched and listened to someone speak for a while, until they stood to sing one more time, after which they tore back some strange cellophane to uncover a small snack. As soon as they finished eating and drinking, they got out of there as fast as possible in order to beat traffic, or the church crowd at their favorite restaurant—or, honestly and most importantly, they left with haste to avoid being forced into small talk after service. And then they waited to do it again the following week. Or maybe the week after that. Or at least once a month, depending on their schedule.”
Okay, there it is: Acts 2, the AIV, the American Individualistic Version. Now, obviously, this is being a little snarky. That’s kind of the point here, right? And I know it’s painting with broad strokes. But I would love for you to compare the version of church that we just heard with one more. Okay, here it is—Acts 2:42, the NIV this time:
“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to 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”—even when there was a marathon going—“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.”
Now, of course, I have to ask: which of these two pictures do you think describes the modern church today? Do you read this version and think, “Yep, Acts 2:42–47—that is the picture I see in the American church”? Or perhaps the first one?
Of course, I think it would be easy for us to read this passage—what Karen just read for us, what we just looked at—and focus on all that came out of these gatherings, right? There were these amazing, almost supernatural results that came from this, right? I think we could read this and focus on that: radical generosity, glad and sincere hearts. They had favor among all the people—it’s talking about outsiders. That’s talking about non-Christians. They were seen as a pillar in their community, not an eyesore. The church continued to grow, it says—not just in size, but in salvations, as the text ends, right? And I have to say, I don’t really think that describes the modern church, the Western church we are in.
But the good news is, we have a model here in this passage. Four steps to this kind of ministry, perhaps. Four ways that God took their attention, their devotion, and turned it into something incredible for the kingdom. And so, what were these four things they were focused on? “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.” Or another way of saying that: Scripture, community, communion, and prayer, right? No campaigns. No celebrity preachers. No record deals, right? No bestselling authors, no controversial viral clips online, no lobbying from outside agendas. They were devoted to Scripture, community, communion, and prayer.
That word “devotion” is a Greek compound word. It comes from two words, pros and kartereō. Pros means “toward,” and kartereō means to be strong, or to hold tightly to something. And so to be devoted simply means a kind of perseverance, or dedication—clinging tightly to something or someone.
And of course, they did other things. We see this all throughout Acts, right? There’s justice, which is incredibly important. Theology. Formation. You see that all over the book of Acts. This list isn’t exhaustive. But this is what they held on to the tightest. Every gathering, every meeting—what four things could you expect? The teaching of Scripture, community, communion, and prayer. And I believe in many ways this is the invitation for the modern church today. Not that we don’t do these things at the Gateway Church. We do, every week. But a question I’ve had to ask myself as I look inwardly is: do I do them, or am I devoted to them? Do I cling to them? Are they the reason that I am here? Or are they just an add-on to my Sunday gathering? So let’s spend the rest of our time moving through these four devotions.
First, we have Scripture. The passage actually uses the language “the apostles’ teaching,” but I’m calling this Scripture, and the reason for this distinction is that the early church—really, the church for most of the last 2,000 years—did not have their own Bibles. They did not have a leather-bound Bible that they carried with them. The Gutenberg Bible was created—I think it was 1450, 1455, somewhere around there. Before that, if you wanted to hear Scripture, you had to go and hear a teacher. And in the early church, it was the apostles. Here they would not only share Scripture; they also shared firsthand accounts. They had walked with Jesus.
And so, in addition to a high view of Scripture and of the apostles’ leadership, there was also a hunger for learning. First Peter 2 says, “Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up.” That is the instruction for followers of Jesus. Think about a screaming, hungering, yearning desire for milk from a baby, right? The church had this same hunger for the Word of God. My prayer is that we continue to hold on to that.
All right, next: community. I’ll spend a tiny bit more time on this one. They devoted themselves to fellowship, it says. Or jump down to verse 46: “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.”
Notice they are gathering in two places: in homes, but there are also large gatherings happening, right, in the temple. There seems to be a place, or a need, for both. And this isn’t limited to Acts. You can look these up later—Romans 16:3–5, Colossians 4:15, Philemon 2. They give descriptions of the church, and what they say over and over and over is that they gathered in homes. They met in homes. There were house churches. But as you’ll see throughout this series—in Acts 13, 16, 17, 19, or even last week’s sermon, right?—we also see huge, large gatherings happening in temples or in fields. At one point, Paul rents a lecture hall in Ephesus, and the church meets there for two years. We’ll see that later on in Acts. And so, in community, we see all throughout the Scriptures and the early church both small gatherings happening in homes, and large gatherings where all of the believers came together in public spaces.
And the reason I mention this is that today, most churches I’ve been a part of will overemphasize one or the other. I’ve been a part of a house church model where we would gather in homes, and once a 10th person showed up, it was like, “All right, someone’s got to go. We’ve got to go start another house church,” right? It was intentionally as small as we possibly could make it. And we worshiped, we took communion, and that was the model. And then maybe once a month, all of the house churches would come together and do something like this. I was a part of that church.
Or even a larger church—the church I was baptized in. My pastor, Mike, would get up and say over and over and over, “Hey, I get it. We’re all busy. Things come up. If you only have one day a week you can dedicate to church, please stay home on Sunday. Get plugged into a small group.” He would say this—at a megachurch. “Please stay home on Sunday.” Because, as the cliché says, right, we learn better in circles than in rows. And so here was a large church trying to overemphasize the small gathering, right?
On the other end, at most churches, the focus is more on what I would call a Sunday-centric model. Church is not seen as a people, or even a building. It’s seen as an hour or two on a day of the week. And who cares if you’re not growing together in discipleship, or pouring into new believers, praying together in homes, or sharing meals? Just make sure you’re here on Sunday so the room looks full, right? And I know I’m being a little snarky in saying that. Maybe I’m inspired by the AIV. But I have to say, neither of these two pictures is what I see in the early church. I see that there was a place, a priority—or better yet, a devotion—for both: for the small, intimate gatherings and the large worshiping community as a whole. And I think we today should prioritize both too. We were designed to be in community—community of all sizes.
In fact, a recent study found that around 50 percent—50—of U.S. adults reported feeling lonely, with 30 percent experiencing loneliness on a weekly basis. And more than a third of Americans say they don’t have a single person in their life they can open up to. More than a third. This is heartbreaking. This is devastating. This is an epidemic. But the problem is, it’s often an invisible one. Because if you’re feeling alone, you can just sign on to social media and have instant connection. Or now you can have an AI best friend, or an AI therapist, or an AI girlfriend, or whatever, right? The digital age has confused connectivity with community.
But hear this. In the same way you could have 5,000 friends on Facebook and still feel alone, you could also show up to a church building every week and still feel alone too. Some of my friends sometimes give me a hard time about how much I talk about community groups. And sometimes we’re in seasons where it’s just not possible. I understand that. When we first moved here, Megan and I would often go, “Okay, is it your week or my week?” right? We had a newborn. We had a toddler. I understand. No judgment. Sometimes it just doesn’t fit into our schedules.
But other times, in my past, it just wasn’t a priority. And I’ll meet with people who say they’re struggling and feel alone, feel lonely—and yet the first time I invite them to something, they bail on it. Or sometimes people will say, “There’s just no one I connect with. I just haven’t found my people at church yet.” To which I would lovingly ask: are there people who love Jesus there? Everything else is secondary, right?
Think about verse 44: “All the believers were together and had everything in common.” But remember, as we saw a few weeks ago, these people were so radically different—culturally, ethnically, religiously. And yet how is the church described? As having everything in common. Or maybe, better yet, the most important thing in common: their faith. If all of the people you hang out with have the same hobbies as you, look like you, and vote like you, I think that’s kind of a bummer.
And one of the areas where I see this the most within the church is season of life. I was a single adult for almost 15 years before I met my wife, and it was so awkward, because the couples didn’t want me to feel awkward, and so they just didn’t invite me to things. And then I was too old for the young adult crew. And the empty nesters, who didn’t have kids in the house anymore, were like, “Oh, this kid probably doesn’t want to hang out with us,” right? And then there were people my age who were married and had kids, and they assumed I didn’t want to hang out with them, right? And so a few of us would all get together and hang out—until somebody got engaged. And then they stopped returning our calls, right? And this is what I see so often.
But here’s the thing. Single people, folks with kids, divorced people, people with little kids, married people without kids, older people, younger people—here’s what all of us have in common: we all want to be thought about and included. And I think the church has done such a poor job with this. I remember when I would hang out with my friends who had kids—I loved it. There’s nothing better than a four-year-old thinking you’re cool, and then you get to go home at the end of it, right? And then I had my own kids, and my single friends were like this godsend. And now I have friends who are 20 years older and 20 years younger, and it has been so life-giving to me. And this is a picture of the church—at least it should be. Because the truth is, you can’t follow Jesus alone. Not “you shouldn’t”—you can’t. It is a communal practice. And I think a healthy community is one that doesn’t all look the same.
Rant over. Okay, I could spend an hour on community and small gatherings alone. And again, there are a hundred reasons why you shouldn’t ask that person to coffee this week, or share a meal with someone. There are always a hundred reasons. I think there are two reasons you should: to grow closer to somebody else, and to grow closer to God. The early church saw each other as family. They were devoted to it. And this was inspiring to everybody outside.
All right, let’s move on to communion. A couple of quotes. Ignatius of Antioch called the Eucharist the medicine of immortality. Augustine called communion a kind of visible word—the word you hear in teaching becomes the word you can see and taste at the table. And I will admit, this picture of communion isn’t always the one I have when I take the bread and the cup. In fact, one of the convictions the leaders have been discussing is the beauty we see in the Scriptures—the power and reverence and invitation of the Lord’s Table. And so stay tuned. This is something we’re talking about. Is there an invitation here? What does devotion to communion look like for us? What changes might the Gateway Church make when it comes to communion? That’s something we’re praying about.
Here are a couple more quotes on the Lord’s Table. Henri Nouwen wrote that we come to the Eucharist with hearts broken by many losses—our own as well as those of the world. Or N. T. Wright put it this way: when Jesus wanted to tell his disciples what his death was all about, he didn’t give them a theory; he gave them a meal. So stay tuned for more on that soon.
Let’s hop down to the last one: they were devoted to prayer. I’ve talked a lot about prayer in the last couple of years. It’s one of the things I preach on the most. And I’m smart enough to know when I need to quote people smarter than me, so that’s just what I’m going to do here. A couple of quotes on prayer.
Dallas Willard defines prayer as talking to God about what we are doing together. I love that picture of partnering with the Creator of the universe—and prayer is talking to God about that. Richard Foster writes that of all the spiritual disciplines, prayer is the most central, because it ushers us into perpetual communion with the Father. Jim Cymbala, in Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire, asks what it says about our church today that God birthed the church in a prayer meeting, and prayer meetings today are almost extinct. He goes on to add that the more we pray, the more we sense our need to pray. Karl Barth adds, “To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world.”
Or lastly, one more—here’s Paul, in Philippians: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
Looking back at Acts: when the church is thriving, what do we see the disciples do? They get together and they pray. When the church is being persecuted, what do we see the disciples do? They get together and they pray. When they are lost and looking for direction, we find them praying, right? When the mission is clear, there they are again, praying, right? In season and out, in everything, we see the answer for them. The first and last thing they do is pray.
And so, in closing, just a couple of questions for each one of us to consider. These are questions I think we all should be asking. Which of these four comes most naturally to you? Which of the four devotions the early church saw as most important—Scripture, community, communion, or prayer—comes most naturally to you? I think we would all have a different answer. Which could use more attention in your faith journey—not just privately, but also collectively, when you gather with other believers?
Or another question—not just for you, but for all of us: where have we maybe put our attention, our focus, maybe even our devotion, on something that isn’t one of these things the church saw as most crucial? Not that we don’t care about prayer and community and Scripture and communion—but what else have we, as followers of Jesus, maybe put right next to those things, or even above them?
And then the last question—one I will be spending this week asking myself as I pray and reflect, and honestly even repent in some areas, but most importantly, as I dream with God. The question I’m going to be asking myself and God is: what would it look like for a church to have that same devotion—to return to these things? What amazing, mighty, powerful testimonies and stories—what things could God do with this kind of devotion? Let’s pray.
Lord, thank you for this picture of your early church. Thank you for the reminder of what matters and what doesn’t. And so my prayer is simple: help us. Help me. Help me to grow in a hunger for your Word. A longing for community—even when it’s difficult, even when it’s inconvenient, even when it’s awkward. Help me to grow in a longing for community. Help me to grow in excitement and reverence for communion. Help me to have a stronger devotion to prayer—not just in my private life, but alongside my brothers and sisters here. Not just as a gathering, or a day of the week, or as a church, but as a family. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.