Almost eleven years ago, Jeff and I sat down with the Pastor Nominating Committee of First Presbyterian Church for an interview. As we were getting to know the members of the committee and as we were sharing with them about ourselves, I remember Rick asking me about my hobbies. I told him that I was a runner and I was a writer. I ran about three times a week, and I published something on my blog once a week. He asked me to talk more about those hobbies and how they helped me manage stress and feel healthy in my mind and body–not quite in those words, but that was the general gist of the question. I thought about it for a minute, and then I told him that not only did these hobbies help me to be a well-rounded person and healthier in my mind and my body, they also served as a way to check in on how balanced my life was. If I stopped having time to run, or I stopped having time to write, it meant something was off-balance in my life, and I needed to take time to right the ship and find that balance once again.

I had devoted my life not just to marriage, parenting, and pastoring. I was also devoted to being a healthy person. And in order to be devoted to being healthy, I needed to dedicate myself to pursuing that healthiness on a regular basis. I had to check in with myself regularly and ask, “How am I doing?” I needed to remain curious and be open to critique when I had lost that balance. I couldn’t just decide to be healthy and then walk out the door and live my life in an unhealthy way. If I wanted to be healthy, I needed to be devoted to habits of health and wholeness.

This morning we have before us one of the most familiar passages in the New Testament. We read this passage often when we are talking about the church and what the church should be. We find the passage quoted in books about the church, and we look at this Scripture with awe and wonder because we know the church today is so different from what we read here in Acts 2. We don’t share all our items in common. We don’t have common money. Most of us don’t eat in each other’s homes frequently, though I know some of you are dedicated to this much more than I am. And we don’t always see the Lord adding day by day to our number. We read this passage and we look at it as the honeymoon period of the early church. This is when everything was still new and exciting. 

Or, as we read it, we might feel a bit of sadness. We may not feel this early church excitement every day. We may not always feel like we have community or that we belong. We see this passage at the end of Acts 2 as some kind of divine checklist that’s far out of our reach. Instead, this morning, I wonder if we might take this passage from Acts 2 as an invitation to consider our lives and to devote ourselves to what will bring health, wholeness, and well-being–as individuals and as a whole body.

So, let’s begin with Acts 2:42: “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” They devoted themselves. Devotion means we are dedicated to something, but in this instance, the word means so much more. The word for “devoted” in the Greek is proskartereo (προσκαρτερέω). “Devoted” isn’t a bad translation, but I particularly like the way the King James translation translates this word as “continued steadfastly.” Listen to how verse 42 sounds with this translation: “They continued steadfastly in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” Does that feel different to you? It does to me. 

The devotion of the early church wasn’t something they did one time in the very beginning. It wasn’t something new believers did when they were baptized and welcome into the church. Their devotion was dedication, it was something they chose every day. Every day the believers chose to live as the church where they were, with the choices they made, in the things they were involved in, and how they lived their lives. Proskartereo is less about making a decision for Christ, and more about choosing to live for him each and every day.

I read a story several years back about a woman named Michal and her husband Eli. Over the course of their marriage, Eli and Michael had moved many times, lived in different countries, changed careers, had three daughters, and then moved to Canada to make yet a new life for themselves. Michal’s friend wondered how Michal and Eli had managed to make their marriage work in the face of so many life transitions and so much stress. Michal’s response shocked her friend. Michal said, “I have been married four times.” Her friend stared at her with shock. Michal continued, “I have been married four times–each to the same man.” She then explained that they had faced crossroads as a couple more than once, and each day, she chose to be married and be committed to her husband. Every day was a choice to move closer to him rather than far away. She was living the kind of constant devotion of Acts 2:42. 

The new believers didn’t decide to follow Christ just once. They continuously devoted themselves to it each and every day. Another way to translate the word “devoted” is “persevered.” The new believers “persevered in the apostles’ teaching, in the breaking of the bread, and in the prayers.” They didn’t choose this way of life just once. It was a repeated decision. In fact, back in Acts 1:14, as the apostles realized they needed to choose another disciple to replace Judas Iscariot, Luke writes, “All these were constantly devoting themselves to prayer, together with certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers.” They needed to choose to come back to the center, to the foundational principles of the faith over, and over, and over again. 

They devoted themselves to four central things: to the apostles’ teaching, the fellowship, to the breaking of the bread, and to prayer. And Luke tells us they did these things “day by day.”

Day by day they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, and what was their teaching? Their teaching was the gospel message of Jesus Christ who lived, died, was raised from the dead, and ascended in power so that we might receive the Holy Spirit. This was their central message, and this continues to be our central message. As we seek to be devoted as followers of Christ, this message is what we are called to return to over and over. This is the good news that will strengthen us in hard times, that will fill us with joy during the good times, and that will give us hope during uncertain times.

Day by day they also devoted themselves to the breaking of the bread, which means that they ate together often, and also means that they celebrated the Lord’s Supper regularly. Reformer John Calvin took this devotion to breaking the bread to mean that we should have communion every time we are together as a body of believers. This is one reason why the two central parts of traditions like ours in the Presbyterian church are the Bible and the Sacraments–baptism and the Lord’s Supper. These things remind us who we are called to be. These are places where we meet God, and we see from the very earliest days of the church that the believers devoted themselves to these things every day.

Day by day they were devoted to the fellowship. The word for fellowship is one of my very favorite words in Greek, and it’s really fun to say. The word is koinonia (κοινωνία). This word is a word of active partnership, community, sharing, and commonality. Koinonia isn’t just a collection of people; koinonia is a group of people who have invested in their life together, who share each other’s burdens, who share joy with each other, and who lift each other up. The early church was committed to the teaching of the gospel, to sharing meals and the Lord’s Supper with each other, and to being a vibrant and active community of love and support.

And finally, day by day they were devoted to prayer. They prayed for each other and for the world around them. They asked God to draw near in times of heartbreak and need, and they prayed prayers of praise. This is one reason, among others, that we are working to restart our prayer chain ministry. A church that prays together is a church that stays strong together.

At the end of our passage, the phrase “day by day” is repeated, but this time it’s not about what the church did, it’s about what God did. “Day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.” This isn’t a promise of church growth in numbers, or a promise of daily conversions, but it is a promise that when we are faithful to the central part of what it means to be a follower of Jesus, people will be blessed as a result. People’s lives will be changed for the better, and more and more people will see and experience the goodness of God in their lives.

So, let’s check in with ourselves. I’ve realized lately that I’ve veered away from the running/exercise and the writing practices that were measures of balance in my life. I could also use a fresh return to those four central pieces of the early church – the apostles’ teaching, the fellowship, the breaking of the bread, and the prayers. I am inspired by so many of you who model these things well. Whether you’re devoting yourself day by day to these things, you’ve completely fallen away, or you’re somewhere in between let us hear together the Spirit’s call to walk in God’s ways, by living out the call of the church every day, in the decisions we make, the choices we face, and in the way we do life together as a body. May God give us the grace we need for the task. Amen.