Summer of Fellowship

Hello, and welcome to the Salt Church Podcast. Thank you for tuning in to this week's message. Join us as we explore God's Word, providing practical teaching for day-to-day living. The message you are about to hear was recorded live at our Sunday morning worship experience. If you would like to learn more about Salt Church, please visit us at saltchurch.

org. We hope that you are encouraged by today's message. Well, good morning. How are you guys doing this morning? Awesome.

Glad there's one other person in here doing awesome. So, I wasn't supposed to be here today. I now know what it feels like to be a backup quarterback in the NFL who gets the phone call, like, with no time to prepare whatsoever. Got the phone call last night. It was actually a text message at like 1030.

My wife and I had been at a concert in Williamsburg. And then gone to the beach to hang out with friends on our way home at 1045. Leon is at the emergency room. And tell Chris to get ready. I'm like, oh, man, great.

All sorts of time to prep. Because Doug, we're down two guys on our setup team this week. And so Doug had already texted me and been like, hey, man, I really need you on Sunday to help with the setup. If you can stay a little longer than you normally do before you go home and get ready so we can get the chairs. And so I already in my mind, I was like prepped and ready to like rock on setup and then got that phone call.

But God is good. And I believe that we actually have Leon on Skype. Am I right? We're going to have him on Skype here in just a second. Live look at Pastor Leon at home.

Are you there, Leon? Leon. This is what he looked like last night. So when you see him next week, give him a hard time. I've given him a hard time.

I'm sure everybody else here will give him a hard time. I'm just grateful, you guys. It's funny how God works. Next week is going to be the kickoff for our small groups. And so I knew immediately when Leon called me last night exactly what the Lord had already been laying on my heart for the last couple of years while I've been here at Salt Church.

And so immediately knew exactly where to go and exactly what to talk about. I want to reiterate real fast the two things that Tim talked about. Summer of Salt. This next series is going to be awesome. The cool part, God has just gifted our ministry with a lot of talented teachers and preachers who have a lot of passion for different things.

And so it's awesome to get to have different people up here. I know for me, I love a couple weeks ago when Tim got to bring the word. It's just awesome to hear his passion for God's word and for different things. And I know that there's a couple of guys. I know Alex is in the mix coming up.

And I know what the passions that he has. It's just going to be awesome to hear these things and really get to just kind of soak in these different little nuggets that God has for us in our lives. And also, the July 15th deal, man, if you have something on that day and it's not like a vacation to the Bahamas or something, reschedule it. You're going to want to be here. It will be impactful, but it is going to be a blast.

So just make sure that that's not just some like slide by announcement thing, like make sure you really grab on to that and hold on to that and plan for that. It's going to be a lot of fun. So today we are going to be talking about the fellowship of believers. And we're going to be really just hammering home Acts 2, 42 through 47. We're going to I am not going to you can if you have your Bible, open it up.

I apologize. There's no note cards today. I literally had no time for anything. Went to bed at midnight, woke up at three, was here at six. So I didn't have time to do the note cards this time.

But just open up your Bible, grab your phone, open it up to Acts chapter 2, verse 42 through 47. We are going to sit right there today and we're going to break that down and talk about the fellowship of the believers. I believe personally that this is something that the church has forgotten. It's funny because the world has it figured out. God gave us this amazing example in his word about what we're supposed to do as the church, the way that we're supposed to live our lives out, the way that we're supposed to act as Christians, the relationship that is supposed to be there for us as a church, as Christians.

And we have run from that and forgotten it, but the world's got it figured out. They constantly are trying to get together. I mean, how many people have driven by Back Bay on a night when they have the trivia night over there? It's packed out. I went to Gringo's one night.

I was like, what the heck is going on across the hallway? I look in the door. There's like 100 people in Back Bay having a great time hanging out together. How many people here have heard of North End Run Club here in Virginia Beach? It's this running club that most of us would not want to be a part of because it would require us to actually run.

They started out with like three people. It's hundreds of people now. And they get together on Saturday mornings and sometimes in the evenings and they go run together and they have a great time hanging out, doing something that they love to do, something that's good for them. Because they know they enjoy being together. They know that living life alone stinks.

And so they find this group of people that they have a common denominator with and they spend as much time as they can with these people. And that's where the relationships grow. And all of a sudden, it's more than just North End Run Club. There's people I know who are a part of that. And they hang out all the time with this group of people now.

So the world's got it figured out. But we at church here, we like to show up on Sunday morning for 45 minutes, leave as quickly as we possibly can because, man, if Chris or Leon grab you, you're in trouble. Like, if they have the opportunity to say hi to you, they might actually keep you here 10 minutes longer than you had on your schedule. And that's going to back up your beach time or your pool time. And then we don't want to see or talk to most of our brothers and sisters in Christ from our church until the following week.

And then we come back in. We sit in a dark room next to people that are there every week. We say hi. We put on our happy faces. And we do it again and again and again and again.

And then we sit at home and we wonder why we're stressed. We wonder why we're tired. We wonder why we're lonely. We wonder why we're needy. Man, Lord, I just don't understand.

I feel so alone. Man, Lord, I'm so stressed. You've put so much on my plate. I don't understand. How am I supposed to do all this?

But we isolate ourselves. We don't actually have the fellowship of believers as the example here is given to us. We like to go it alone. So we're going to jump into the word fellowship. Before I even read this scripture, I want you to understand what the word fellowship is and means.

And this is a happy message, guys. I kind of hit you a little hard there at the beginning. But this is a great message because there is nothing I enjoy more. This is my passion is the fellowship of the church. Because I believe that, man, once you get it and once you stay involved and once you have relationships with these people right here and other believers, your life will change.

When you give your heart to the Lord, that is just the beginning. And there is this whole other part of life that you miss out on if you do it alone. And so the word fellowship comes from the Greek word koinonia. I love Greek words. Some of you are looking at me like, Greek.

It's like, they don't even have that anymore. You're right, they don't. But it's important to understand, the root of that is koinos. And that means to hold something in common. Fellowship is to find a commonality.

In the Bible it is used to describe different things, corporations, labor guilds, partners in a law firm, the most intimate of marriage relationships. And from the usage of the word, we can conclude that fellowship is a word denoting a relationship that is dependent on more than one individual. This is an interdependent, not independent, interdependent relationship with a purpose. Like, this isn't just a casual, fly-by-night relationship. This isn't just a, hey, yeah, we hang out on the beach every once in a while relationship.

This isn't a, yeah, I sit next to you every Sunday in the same spot, week after week, month after month, year after year, hi, love ya, shake your hand and pat you on the back kind of relationship. This is an interdependent relationship with a purpose. Interdependent. Man, that's a word we don't even like to use. Our pride doesn't want to hear it.

Because when we hear interdependent, that means we are relying on someone else and they are relying on us. And the world tells you that's not good. Because you shouldn't trust anyone but you. You shouldn't rely on anyone but you. It's all about you.

But what God's word time and time and time again tells us is that is not the case. There's some synonyms in the New Testament for koinonia, for fellowship. One word is phelos, which means related by love for outward characteristics. In other words, it's love shown by an outward characteristics. Hetairos, meaning a sharer in a common enterprise.

Sunergos, meaning a fellow worker. And metokos is a participant. Each of these words talks about unity, which is expressed outwardly. See, each one of those things talks about a relationship. When you have a co-worker, you work for a common goal.

If you go to work and you're not working with a common goal, you won't be there very long or the company won't last. If everybody is just going trying to do their goal and have their thing and do their thing alone and you go to your work, you won't last. Because everyone will get tired and no one is working together and no one is helping out. Anybody here worked in a place like that before? I have.

If you've ever been a part of a military outfit, that's not how it's supposed to work, but it works that way a lot of times. You've got 14 captains who all want to do it a different direction in a different way and they don't work together. And you know what happens? You get defeated. It's working together.

It's being united. Fellowship is an inner unity. And if you're taking notes, write this down. Fellowship is an inner unity expressed by outward action. So you can't have this inward unity with no outward action.

There's people I love, people I talk to who I haven't seen in years and years and years. And it's, we have this immediate connection. It's a Holy Spirit thing and it's great. But there's no, there's no outward action. Oh man, I love that I can talk to you once every five years.

And it's like, we just, we left off right where we left off. And it's like, hold up. Like you haven't called me. You haven't checked in on me. You know, I've been going through a lot of junk.

I know you've seen it because my sister put it on Facebook. I reached out to you for prayer. Never got a response. And all of a sudden you want to act like we have some unity. Like we have some relationship.

That's not how this works. To truly have fellowship means there is an outward expression. It means that you are willing to sacrifice of yourself for them. They are willing to sacrifice of their self for you. And you both are willing to sacrifice of yourselves for a common goal.

First Corinthians one, nine talks about one of these aspects. And it is God is faithful through whom you were called into fellowship with his son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. God is faithful through the unity of us and the relationship that we have with Jesus Christ. There is a fellowship between us and Jesus Christ. And it's through the Holy Spirit that we have that unity.

And that unity is there because once I give my heart to the Lord, I have a commonality with Jesus Christ. I have a common goal with him. I am there. I'm living now. My life is to be lived for the kingdom.

The moment I stop living for the kingdom, that fellowship ceases. Because we no longer have unity of action. We no longer have unity of goal. Koinonia, fellowship is an action. I think so much, so many times we think of fellowship as just hanging out, having dinner together, seeing each other for a brief period of time.

Man, were you there on Sunday? The fellowship afterwards was so awesome. It was so good. That five minutes that I talked to people before I got in my car and left. That was great.

Man, the fellowship time that they have after church where we have coffee and donuts. Man, that's so awesome. That's using that word way out of context. That is nothing like what God had intended for us to have with one another and with him. He wants something deeper.

Koinonia is used 19 times in the New Testament. In addition to being translated as fellowship, it is also translated by the words contribution, sharing, participation. Now when I say, hey, we're going to have fellowship night at my house, no one's going to show up. You mean I have to contribute? I have to participate?

I actually have to be involved? I just was coming for the free food and leaving. Like, no. That's not what this is about. This isn't just about being in the same room together.

This is about doing together. This isn't just about showing up, eating barbecue, having some sweet tea, and that being the end of it. This is about us doing together. The most important thing that we can do together, and the reason that koinonia exists and fellowship exists, is for the kingdom of God. It is for his purpose and his plan.

So before we read and jump into Acts, I need you guys to get this. That when we hear the words common and commonality in this scripture, when we hear the word fellowship of the believers in this scripture, they're not talking about some jovial donut and coffee time. That is supposed to just be the spark to get you to stick around a little longer so you can get to know somebody better so then fellowship can actually happen. That's just the beginning. That's like the carrot in front of the donkey.

Like if we can just get them to hang out a little bit longer. They might run into somebody that they have something in common with, or someone might ask them a question that opens them up, and they might actually build relationship. And then guess what? You're not alone anymore. You're not living life on an island anymore.

Because what we do, and I'm about to get to the scripture. I know some of you guys are like, man, is all he going to do is talk? What we do is we come to church, we try to get fed, and then we try to go live in the world, on an island, surrounding ourselves with people who do not have a common goal. And we wonder why we're lonely. We wonder why we're struggling.

We wonder why we can't shake the addiction. We wonder why we're having such a hard time living according to God's word, because we come in here for 45 minutes, we think we've got it, we go out there, and we leave the fellowship of the believers behind, and we go hang out with the world. But my best friends, they're loyal. Guys, I've got a lot of really good friends. That I've had to leave behind.

I've had some people that were loyal beyond loyal beyond loyal that I had to say, you know what, I can't do this with you anymore, because I'm fellowshipping with you. I'm attaching my unity with you. And it's changing my goal. It's changing why I'm living my life out. I'm no longer living my life for the kingdom.

I'm no longer living my life for God. And now I'm finding myself living my life just like the world. And so I have to stop. I love you. We'll get up and do beach days every once in a while.

I'll be more than happy to come help you build your Jeep every once in a while. I will have you over to my house when I have three or four other people there from my church who can be there and keep me accountable. Because if I fellowship with you, if I put myself in unity with you, I am going the wrong direction. So God calls us to have fellowship with one another. I'm going to go ahead, open up.

If you've got it, look at it. I think he's going to put it on the screen here for me in just a second. I'm going to be reading it from the ESV. If you didn't know that, that's the same Bible Jesus had when he was on earth. Some of you get that.

Some of you guys don't. Jesus didn't have a Bible that was written about him. But there's some people who think there's Bibles that Jesus had when he was around. And so that's why they like to read those Bibles. I just prefer this one.

It's a personal preference. Matt's probably going to put up the King James Version because I know that's the one he thinks, the one that Jesus had, right, Matt? The fellowship of the believers. Now, I want to preface this by telling you this is directly after Peter got up. Right after Pentecost, everything is going crazy.

Tongues of fire. People are speaking in tongues. There's this whole group of people watching this happen going, what in the world is going on? They must be drunk. Peter stands up.

The coward Peter, who denied Christ three times, the dude who couldn't walk on water, the dude who thought he was legit and realized real fast he was humbled. All of a sudden, Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, stands up and begins to preach the gospel. And people are watching this. And things are happening. And the church is birthed.

This is the genesis of the church. This is the most pure and innocent that we see the church. In fact, just a few chapters later, we see the church has gone crazy. And Paul is having to bring correction. But in this moment, we see what's going on.

We see the Holy Spirit moving. None of this happened until the Holy Spirit showed up, folks. If you think you can be Christian and not have the Holy Spirit, come talk to me afterwards. I'll be more than happy to explain to you that the Holy Spirit's involved. And he came for a purpose and a reason.

Jesus had to leave so that he could come. And so he's involved in this. So Peter gets up. He is proclaiming the gospel. And things begin to happen.

And they devoted themselves to the apostles. This is verse 42. They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and prayers. And all came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common.

And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as anyone had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily, or day by day, those who were being saved. We want to see the church grow. We say, man, we want to see the church like it was in the New Testament right after Pentecost, and it exploded, and there were thousands every day being added to the Lord, to the church.

We want that. We want revival. We want revival. We want revival. You want revival.

Do you want to see this place explode with people who need Jesus? Then this is how we do it. Verse 42. I'm going to go verse by verse. And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.

First of all, the word devoted is a zealous and passionate following. This is not a casual, every once in a while, I'm going to follow the things that I want to follow, but not follow the other things. I'm going to pick certain verses that I want to put on my Facebook posts, and I want to put in these cool framed things all over my house, or these things from Etsy and Pinterest that I put stickers on my walls. That's not this kind of Christianity. These people were zealous and passionate, and they were listening to the apostles' teaching.

They were following the apostles' teaching. They were studying the apostles' teaching. They were devoted. Second part of this is they were breaking bread. This denotes communion.

They were having communion together. They were remembering why they were doing what they were doing. They were keeping their focus on Jesus Christ. That's why we have communion. We take communion to remember what was done for us and why it is that we do what we do.

I almost think we should have communion every morning at 7 a.m. before we do set up, because I know there's days I forget why I'm here at 6 a.m. There's days that I see y'all come in at the Dream Team, and I can tell right away they have forgotten why we are here today.

And maybe we should be taking communion as a group before we'd start church every day so we can remember why am I setting up these drapes? Why am I carrying in 400 pounds of speakers from a trailer? Why are we setting up all these chairs? They were doing this in remembrance of Jesus because they did not want to forget why they were living this life. After they broke bread, they prayed together.

They didn't stop praying. This isn't like a side note. This isn't a, if you feel like it. They did these things. They were zealous and passionate to the apostles' teaching.

They broke bread together. They had communion together, and they prayed. That denotes the unity, right? Like, that denotes that there was a commonality. They weren't doing this off on their own by themselves.

They were doing this together. It's a whole lot easier to be passionate and excited when you have people next to you that are passionate and excited. Has anybody here ever been to a professional sports game? Any kind. Baseball.

All softball, soccer, football, when you get in there and your team scores and the place goes crazy, you act like an idiot and you wouldn't do it if there wasn't 90,000 other people acting the same way. You definitely wouldn't do it around other people who weren't acting that way. You might do it at home when no one's looking, but you're not going to go out and be sitting on the train or maybe you're standing in line at McDonald's and watching the score and all of a sudden like your team scores and all of a sudden you're screaming and yelling and hooting and hollering and taking your shirt off and whipping it around and doing your terrible tower. You're not going to do that at McDonald's. But man, you get around 80,000 other people who are excited about that score too.

I've done it. I've been at Cowboys games when we beat up on the Eagles time and time again. My wife's not here. And let me tell you, I was screaming and yelling like I had never screamed and yelled before because I'm looking around that beautiful Texas stadium and it is filled with people wearing blue and white stars. But man, I was around all these other people that were zealous and passionate and it helped me be zealous and passionate.

It helped me keep my energy. I also went to an Eagles game at Lincoln. We sat in an area that was season ticket holders, doctors, lawyers. I have never heard so much cursing in my life, by the way. And the Eagles went up on the Cowboys and then the Cowboys came back.

I was not even wearing a Cowboys hat, shirt. I was like in my camouflage. Yeah, go Eagles. You know, like please don't let them know that I'm a Cowboys fan. This entire section is going to eat me alive.

And that's how we are with the world. We get out there and it's like, man, I don't, I can't really show my passion or zeal here because these people will think I'm weird and they might actually like persecute me. You can go listen to that message from last week. Verse 43. I love this.

And all came upon every soul and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. So why were they in such awe? This group was different. Something was happening. They were devoted.

They were zealous. They were passionate. They were being obedient to the teaching of the disciples. There was an awe that allowed the Holy Spirit to do things that he wasn't able to do otherwise. There was the zeal in this passion that allowed the Holy Spirit to move because people were in awe or they were in fear of what was going on.

They're watching these people who act like they're drunk. And then Peter says, no, we're not drunk. We are filled with the Holy Spirit. And so signs and wonders and, man, you guys want to see signs and wonders and miracles? You want to see things happen?

Come hang out at a small group. Watch what happens when you get a group of believers in a room together, unafraid to show their zeal and their passion. Unified. Praying. Laying hands on people.

It's crazy. We think, oh, that's what Sundays are for. Nah. This was going on. They were going house to house as we're about to talk about.

Guys, when we get together and it's more about doing God, doing life, than it is just a casual thing, God can move. Signs and wonders and miracles can happen when we are in unity, when we are in fellowship together. When we try to do it alone, man, it doesn't happen. It doesn't allow the Holy Spirit to move like he was moving here. It just doesn't.

Verse 44. Guys, common here isn't like, oh, we all like surfing or a social status or maybe it's your financial status. They weren't all the same race. They weren't all the same creed. They weren't all the same color.

They didn't all like the same music. No, the commonality that is being talked about here is their purpose. It's their drive. It's why they are doing things. The commonality here was they were doing the work of the kingdom.

When it says they had all things in common, what it's talking about is all of these people who were not alike for any other reason were together, focused, unified. They were in fellowship because they were doing the work of God. And when we're doing the work of God, what that tends to do is it means that everything I have, everything I have, my time, my energy, my family, my finances, my cars, my house, my kids, my wife, my giftings, my abilities are used for the kingdom and they're used for the body of believers. It's amazing what happens when you get a group together who are gifted differently, who have different financial statuses, who have different gifts, who have different material things. And they're willing to be together.

They're willing to do life together. I talk to people all the time who tell me I'm too stressed out. I don't have enough time. I just need help. I don't know how I'm going to do this.

And I'm like, call me. When do you need help? What do you need help with? Let me know. I'll find somebody.

If I can't do it, I will call somebody in the church. That's why we're here. Because we're all here to do the work of God. And guess what? It's hard for you to do the work of God if you're trying to live alone.

It's hard to be in the will of God if you put yourself on an island in the world. And what the world is looking for is what we have or should have. If the church acted like the church is supposed to act, we wouldn't even have to go stand on street corners on boxes and preach that hell is coming. Because they would want to be here. What is going on with that group?

Man, I saw them out the other day hanging out at the beach. And it was like, man, they're just like such good friends. They love each other. I saw one. Man, one brought all the sandwiches.

Another one brought all these things. I saw like two people watching all the kids so that the moms could have a break. I want to be a part of that. And then I talked to this lady afterwards and she was telling me how when her husband got sick, people were bringing over meals. Or her husband lost his job and people were anonymously putting money in their mailbox to help him out.

Because the kingdom, the body, was in fellowship, in unity. And they had everything in common. The major theme being the greatest thing we have in common is doing the work of God. And when you have that in common with the people around you, it doesn't matter if they don't dress like you or talk like you or like the things that you like. It's about the kingdom.

It's about the kingdom. And it's about. It's about the kingdom. Your brothers and sisters, it's about living in unity and being in fellowship, and it's a sweet thing. I know I keep talking about it, and I need you guys to understand this.

This isn't like it's because it's my house and the group that I open my home to. I love my small group. The group that we have is awesome, and we're really different. We have a whole bunch of really different people showing up, and we have a blast. And it's not because what we do is just fun.

We have had some really deep conversations. It's not because it's my house. It's because we are working and fellowshipping and in unity, and we are working as a body is supposed to work. And we got people like Ryan, who every week comes with his notes, and he is ready to study. And we have other people who would just sit and eat and hang out all day long.

And there's some of us who would love to go to the beach no matter what the temperature is, and there are some who were not so happy about that. Guys, I want to tell you, the greatest joy that I had this last week we met, I put, you probably saw it, if you are on, if you are here today and you are not part of the Salt church community on Facebook, if you go get a Facebook page for no other reason except to be a part of that, go do it. Because there's a lot of announcements and things that go on on there and postings. I put a poll up for my small group and invited everybody and said, hey, do we want to do a barbecue at my house on Wednesday, or do we want to go to the beach? All sorts of people started voting, and I said, all right, if you voted, you better show up.

So we got a really good group of people, it was chilly. After a large chunk of people left, it was us, Ryan and Cassandra, Tim and his wife Angie, my brother Alex was there, I believe that, who else was there? Solveig and her daughter was there, and my kids, and we're just hanging out, and I can't remember, it was one of my kids wanted to play Duck, Duck, Goose in the sand. I'm too old for that, I'm just going to tell you, Tim's too old for that, Ryan is too old for that, that is a young person's game. But we did it anyway, and it was the most fun I've had and the most laughter I've had in a long time, watching my four-year-old refuse to play by the rules and run around the circle and just jump in chairs or run over people or dive through people or take a cross.

We had a great time, and the reason that that touched my heart is because these adults who really didn't want to do it at the beginning started to kind of get into it, and our kids and our adults are just doing life and having fun, and there was a couple near accidents. Once, Jesus was watching over Cassandra and that baby because I thought for sure somebody was going to run her over, and Alex and Solveig are over here having serious conversations as we like whiz by them and kick sand on them. It was just a sweet time, but the reason we were able to have that sweet time is because we're in fellowship, and that any moment the Duck, Duck, Goose would be over and somebody would say, hey, guys, I need prayer. I'm struggling. Hey, I need prayer for my uncle or my grandfather.

He's in the hospital. Or, hey, guys, man, I need prayer for my job. It's not looking good. And in an instant, we can go from having fun to ministering to one another and caring for one another and loving on one another. And that's because we have fellowship.

We have koinonia with each other that goes deeper than just hanging out and having fun. There is a unity of purpose for our group. We're doing God together, and then we're doing life together. And we can do life together because we're doing God's work together. And I know there's a lot of you who wouldn't have wanted to play Duck, Duck, Goose, but guess what?

My four-year-old was not going to not hiss a goose to you. You didn't have a choice. Goose, and when a four-year-old runs by and smacks you on the head real hard and says, Goose, you run because you want to smack him back. Verse 45, and they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as any had need God's will. This is hard for us.

As a church, this is like one of the hardest things to get in our minds. Part of the commonality is that it isn't yours to begin with. It's not yours to begin with. And when we understand that what I have is not mine, we share it. And when we see that family that's in need, we give.

When we see that person whose car broke down and they need a car for three or four days, we let them borrow ours, even if it's really hard because we're worried they're going to wreck it. When we find somebody is out of home, we find a place for them to live while they find a new home. This goes two ways. It requires us to act, and it requires others to receive. If you are on Facebook, you saw me post this week about the two suicides that happened back-to-back, Anthony Bourdain, Kate Spade.

And I shared a little bit about my world. I've been through depression. I've been fighting it since I was like 13. Tried to commit suicide when I was in college. After some things in my life have happened after that, I've been diagnosed with PTSD.

If I didn't have other believers around me, I would not be standing here today. Just legit. If I didn't have people who could put their arms around me and tell me, Brother, I got you. I love you. Whatever it is that you need, I will do for you.

I wouldn't be here. That's part of it. And I know it's hard with depression to ask for help, and so I'm not going to sit on that one alone. But I don't care what it is you're dealing with. If you need help with anything, stop trying to do it alone.

That's why you have this. And if you're not in consistent fellowship with other believers and you're feeling alone, that's why you're feeling alone. It's because you're trying to live life alone. You're trying to do it on your own, and God did not intend it that way. He intended you to live your life with this group of believers on a daily basis.

I know we are running out of time. I got about four minutes. And so I'm going to jump to verse 46 and 47. And day by day, daily, they attended the temple together, and they broke bread. And this breaking bread is no longer talking just about communion.

Now we are talking about eating meals together. They were doing life together. Not once a week. Not for 45 minutes a day. Once a week.

Not every other. Not every fourth. Not every third. They were doing life daily together. This crossed familial bounds.

This crossed racial bounds. This crossed everything. They were doing life. They were doing God's work together daily. Guys, if you don't have somebody that you are in contact with daily, that is a brother or sister in Christ, you're doing it wrong.

You should have somebody that you are talking to, fellowship with daily. Even if it is nothing more than a call in the morning to pray for one another, or a text message that says, hey, bro, pray for me. You need to be fellowshipping, and I think it goes deeper than that. Man, there are a couple people in my life that if I don't hear from them on a day, Today, I'm calling them that night. Are you okay?

Is everything good? And sometimes it's trivial. Yeah, man, phone died. Sorry, I didn't, you know, sorry, I didn't hit you up today. No big deal.

No, no, man, no problem. I just want to make sure you're okay. I want to make sure you're doing okay. That's, that, this is where we need to get to, because this is what the world desires. When they come in and they see us, they don't want to see some loose group of people who act just like they do.

They want to be a part of something that will change their life. They want to be a part of something that will change the world. And that doesn't happen. You don't get signs and wonders and miracles if you're living on an island by yourself. We've all seen Cast Away.

We know what happens. You go crazy. You lose it. And at some point, you probably get desperate enough to take your own life because you feel that lonely. So guys, when we look at this fellowship, they received food and they were glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people.

And the Lord added to their number daily. Man, I don't want a church of a hundred. I don't want a church of 200 or 300 or 400 or 500. And it's not because I want to stand up here in front of a thousand people. It's because I want to look out and see a people, a church that are living life together and impacting the world for God.

And I know that it doesn't matter how good a preacher, how good a speaker that Leon is, that I am, that Tim is, that Miranda is, that Alex is. It doesn't matter how good this message is in Sunday. If we don't live life together the other six days of the week, we can't change the world. You can't. And it's not that you just can't change the world.

You can't live. You will be alone and you will be tired and you will be sick. Like, if you are not in fellowship with other believers, if you are not doing life, if you are not doing God's work with the people around you, man, it's not good. It's unhealthy. It's lonely.

If you're feeling lonely today, man, find somebody. Grab them. Hey, man, can we get coffee? And if you look around and you think you see somebody that looks a little down, you see somebody sitting by themself, go grab them. Hey, man, let's grab coffee.

What are you doing for dinner tonight? What are you doing for lunch after church today? Hey, my family and I are going to the beach. We're going to be headed down to 42nd Street. Can you meet us there?

I'll provide the picnic. Just show up. We want to just hang out, get to know you. Do fellowship together. Guys, God doesn't want us to be alone.

And I know there's this thing in the Christian world where as long as I got God, I'm not alone. And you're right, you're not. But he didn't intend for you to live on an island by yourself with just him. He intended for you to live life with believers around you, with people around you who are like-hearted, like-minded, and have the same goal and purpose, which is to build the kingdom of God. And if you're not doing that, you're missing out.

You miss out on Duck, Duck, Goose. You can laugh. I would do that every week if I could. I watched my kids having a blast. And you know as a parent, there is nothing more that you love than to see your kids enjoying life.

And I was watching this group of adults that were with me willing to play with my kids. And they were enjoying it just as much. Tripping over chairs, falling face first in the sand. We all went home with sand in places we didn't want it. But we were doing life together.

I want to encourage you guys, before Tim comes out to close this up, two things. We are launching small groups next week. Right now, there's two of them. Mine is going to continue on Wednesday nights. We've had another family step up.

Jessica and her husband, Brian, are going to be stepping up. We're trying to get them with a facilitator to do that. Next week, we will announce days that it's going to happen. Mine is going to continue on Wednesday nights. Listen, guys, I don't care who shows up at my house.

I don't care how many people show up at my house. If we have to like send people over to somebody else's house because we got too many in my house, I'm okay with it. I just want us to do more than show up here on Sunday morning and see each other for five minutes and leave. Because I know the relationships. I know the work that God has done in my life through small groups, through living life together.

I know I use that term a lot, but that's because that's what fellowship is. It is an outward action of an inward unity. And that outward action is you want to be around the people that are like you, that you love, that you care for. If you tell me you love me, but I can't get coffee with you once except every six months, that tells me how you really feel. That's like telling your wife, I love you, honey, but I really don't want to spend time with you.

I love you, honey, but, you know, I'm going to go hang with the boys every night. I love you, honey, but I really like working on my Jeep more. So let's do life together. Let's do fellowship together. Let's be so loving to each other and so intertwined in our lives that we don't have a problem asking for help, that we don't have a problem helping, that we don't have a problem sharing, and that when we go out in the world as Salt Church, people see something different, and they want to be in here with us, and then they get to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ, which will in turn change their life.

If you're here today and you don't know Jesus Christ, I want to give you the opportunity. That relationship with him is first and foremost and most important, but you will feel alone your entire life. You can be in a group of a million people and feel alone. You can be tired your entire life if you don't know him. But if you know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, I can't promise you life won't be difficult.

In fact, it will be difficult. But he will give you the power. He will give you the strength. He will give you the endurance, and you will be attached to a group of people who are willing to help you. So real quick, with every head bowed and eyes closed, if you are here today, I'm not even going to ask you to raise your hand.

If you're here today, I just, I want you to pray this prayer with me, and then we'll close it out. Lord, I am grateful that I've heard your word, Lord, and I'm lonely, and I'm lost. Lord, I, right now, I repent of the life that I've lived, of the life that I've chosen. And right now, I make the decision to follow you. And I ask right now, Lord, that you would come into my heart, that you would indwell in me, that you would place your Holy Spirit inside of me, and that you would take your place in my life as Lord and Savior.

Lord, I want to know you more. Lord, I want to feel your love more. In Jesus' name, amen.