“There was once a woman who was disappointed, disillusioned, even slightly depressed. She wanted peace on earth and a better place for her and her kids. But as she watched television it showed her how far we were from such a reality. So, she did what a lot of people do when they are depressed, she went shopping. She went to the local mall where she wandered into a new store named, “Everything Important.” The person behind the counter looked strangely like Jesus. Gathering up her courage she went up to the counter and asked, "Are you Jesus?" "Well, yes, I am," the man answered. "Do you work here?" "Actually," Jesus responded, "I own the store. You are free to wander up and down the aisles, see what it is I sell, and then make a list of what you want. When you are finished, come back here, and we'll see what we can do for you."
 
So, the woman did just that. And what she saw thrilled her. There was peace on earth, no more war, no hunger or poverty, peace in families, no more drugs, harmony, even clean air. She wrote furiously and finally approached the counter, handing a long list to Jesus. He skimmed the paper, and then smiling at her said, "No problem." Reaching under the counter, he grabbed some packets and laid them out on the counter. Confused, she asked, "What are these?" Jesus replied: "These are seed packets. You see, this is a seed store." Surprised the woman blurted out, "You mean I don't get the finished product, now?" "No," Jesus gently responded. "This is a place of dreams. You come and see what it looks like, and I give you the seeds. Then you go home, plant the seeds and nurture them and help them to grow and someday someone else will reap the reality." "Oh," she said, deeply disappointed, disillusioned and slightly depressed she turned around and left the store without buying anything.” 

I ran across this little story, last week, and it struck me this is what Luke is doing at the end of Acts chapter 2.  Luke is offering us seeds.  The end of Luke 2 is all about the dreams we can have!  Luke has already told us of the birthday of the church. Remember?
-He told us about the wind and the fire and the words.  He told us about how the Spirit would be poured out on all whom the Lord calls.
-He told us about the essence of our witness; Jesus of Nazareth, proved by God through the miracles, crucified by his own people, raised because death could not hold him and exalted to the throne of God. 
-Then as Peter reached the crescendo of his sermon, “Jesus whom you crucified is both Lord and Christ,” the people were cut to the heart.  They believed the words.  They asked, “What can we do?  We have killed our own Messiah?”  Peter tells them to repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus. 
-On that birthday of the church, 3,000 accepted the message and got two birthday presents. Do you remember what they were?  Forgiveness and the Holy Spirit.  What an amazing birthday story! 

But Luke is not finished with Acts chapter 2, just yet. Have I said before that Luke is an amazing writer?  I have mentioned that, haven’t I?  Here is another example.  Luke is telling this story about the birth of the church.  He is explaining what actually happened on that glorious Day of Pentecost.  He is explaining how the church, historically, moved from Jerusalem, on its birthday, all the way to the ends of the earth.  But he is doing so much more.  It is not just a history lesson; he is offering us the seeds of a dream.  I really like Acts 2 verse 38 & 39. 

Acts 2:38-39 Peter replied, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.  The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off-- for all whom the Lord our God will call."

Luke gives us this clue that what he is telling us is more than just history, it is for all those whom God calls, even those who are far off – like us who are far in time and in distance.  These gifts are for all who repent and are baptized; even today!  Let me re-emphasize this.  To all, who are called by God, to all who repent –align your hearts with who Jesus is – to all who are baptized into his name; they still get the two birthday gifts of forgiveness – the erasing of all the stupid things you ever did – and the Spirit which connects you to the power of Pentecost!  Who doesn’t want that?  There are no better birthday gifts than forgiveness and power of the Spirit in your lives?  They are better than HDTV!

Acts 2:40-41 With many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them, "Save yourselves from this corrupt generation." Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.

3,000 got the gifts.  But what happens next is where Luke shows his amazing skills as a writer; or if you prefer the amazing words given him by the Spirit.  I like that too.  In the last six verses of Acts 2, Luke is offering us the seeds.  Luke tells us of those early days in the new life of the church as a dream which we can plant, here at the ends of the earth, 1,978 years later.
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I have worked for the church as a minister since 1974.  Do the math; that will be 34 years this fall.  All of my adult life has been focused on the dream of Acts 2:42-47.  Every preacher knows this passage.  Every preacher, who cares, wants nothing more than these 6 verses to be true in their church.  I don’t want to overstate the significance of these verses, but they are pretty important.  This paragraph contains the seeds which when planted and cultivated and nurtured will produce an amazing church.  First, let’s look at the seeds – there are four of them – then we will look at what they produce. 

Acts 2:42   They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 

4 Seeds

They devoted themselves… Let me read a definition for devoted. 

roskartere,w {pros-kar-ter-eh'-o}   Strong’s Meaning: 
1) to adhere to something,  to be devoted or constant  2) to be steadfastly attentive to, to give unremitting care to a thing 3) to continue all the time in a place 4) to persevere and not faint 5) to show one's self courageous 6) to be in constant readiness,

It is a word that means the church gave their continued focus to the four seeds:

Acts 2:42   They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.

1) The apostle’s teaching 
It is important to know the Lord.  It is important to have our theology in sync with God’s.  What we believe turns into who we become.  Being a student of the Apostles is primary. I have to be careful here not to jump up on my soap box and say studying the Bible is the most important thing there is.  That is who I am.  At the same time, it is the first one mentioned.  The early church was committed to learning about Jesus.  They were devoted to the Book. It is the first seed.  We as a church must never get away from being centered on the Bible; having our faith based in the book. 

Don’t hear me wrong.  I am not advocating that we have to do it the same way we have always done it. In fact one of my birthday presents – You did know I had a birthday recently? – was “The Bible Experience.”  The entire Bible read out loud on 79 CDs.   We have access to all kinds of cool tools to learn God’s Word. Isn’t that exciting?  We have the internet. Do you know how much Bible stuff is on the internet?  Tons.  We have software and DVD series and tons of books.  We live in a age where there are no excuses for us not being strong in the Word!   Fundamentally, we must be devoted to the Apostle’s Teaching that is the first seed.  A seed that will grow in both faith and real life differences! 

Acts 2:42   They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 

2) Fellowship
The church is a body of believers.  It is a connection of caring.  It is a woven group of relationships.  God did not intend for you to be solo Christian.  The church is involved in each other’s lives.  What happens to one happens to all.  Pain is passed on.  Joy is shared.  Suffering is spread among the group.  Everyone knows everyone’s business.  We are connected.

It would be fun to do this experiment sometime.  In any given week how many conversations have you had with other members?  If we took a string and connected it to everyone else who you had some interaction with this week, what would it look like?  The web of connections should be dense.  Anytime one string moved with concern, all the other strings would wiggle.  It would be impossible to fall out of our church because too many cords are holding you in.  That is the dream.  That is this seed. They were devoted to fellowship.

Acts 2:42   They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.

3) Breaking Bread
I believe in the context of the Gospel of Luke as it flows into the book of Acts, this breaking of bread is our shared worship.  It is the Lord’s Supper.  But it is more than just that few minutes.  It is our entire worship together; but even bigger than that.  It is our shared hope of the big banquet table in the sky.  Remember how important eating was in Luke?  This breaking of bread incorporates our corporate connection to God.  There is a shared worship of our lives in anticipation of shared eternity! When we break bread together, at this table, or any time, we are stating our connection to each other and to God with big banquet anticipation! 

Any group can study together and even have close relationships.  How many Girl Scouts do we have?  Come on, cookie sellers?  They study together.  They learn really cool things.  They do things together.  How much fun do they have?  Girl Scouts are great!  But what makes us different than the Girl scouts, or most other groups, is we gather at this table, we break bread, we form a worship to God. We are one in worship before God! 

When we break bread something mystical and spiritual is formed.  We, as the body of Christ, connect to our God and the praise and the glory and the power flows between us.  When the body breaks bread the seed is planted! 

Acts 2:42   They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.

4) Prayer
The early church was all over prayer.  One of the things we are going to do, beginning tonight, in the Table of Identity is look at how we pray differently.  Each of us are wired differently so we pray differently.  I think this is important.  Each of us individually and all of us together need to be about prayer, not simply giving our wish list to God, but prayers of confession, and prayers of praise, and prayers of hurt, and prayers of mediation, and prayers of glory, and prayers of protection.  We need to be known as a church who prays.  It is an important seed. 

Prayer is like a campfire.  You can have a one twig fire.  It is kind of hard, but you can burn one little stick.  Or you can put a few more sticks and then a branch and then a log and then more logs and then you can have a bonfire.  Prayer builds upon itself.  Prayer together has the power to change our world.  Prayer is planting the seeds of change for our church!

Acts 2:42   They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.

If you want a formula for church, this is as close as you are going to get in the Bible.  The church plants the seeds of study; we are all over God’s word, The church plants the seeds of fellowship; we are all over each other. The church plants the seeds of worship; we are connected to God.  The church plants the seeds of prayer; we create this bonfire before the throne of mercy!   That is what Luke is advocating that we be all about.  That is what we must be devoted to.
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Now quickly look at what happens to a church who plants these seeds.

Acts 2:43-47  Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles.  All the believers were together and had everything in common.  Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need.  Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

The planted seeds resulted in:
- The demonstration of the Spirit’s power in the body.
- The formation of a community where every need was taken care of and they wanted to be together.
- Glory given to God as they praised him for his work.
- People seeing the Lord in them and loving it. 
- Growth, in numbers, given by the Lord! 

Wow, that is the church I want to work for.  That is the church we are becoming!   That is the harvest we can expect when we are devoted to teaching, fellowship, worship and prayer! 

We can choose to be like the lady who wanted world peace but was unwilling to plant the seed.  Or we can place our faith in the one who offers us the seeds and plant them and nourish them and be devoted to them with the expectation of a great harvest!