God's Model for the Church
Tom Shrader focuses on Acts 2:42 as the foundational blueprint for the church, unpacking the four elements the early believers devoted themselves to: the apostles' teaching, fellowship, the breaking of bread, and prayer. He argues these are not optional preferences but essential practices for both corporate and individual spiritual health, drawing on Paul, Peter, and John Bunyan to deepen each point. The teaching closes with a call to personal examination, urging listeners to return to these four fundamentals whenever their spiritual life feels dry or stagnant.
“Life is an open book test. All these circumstances come into your life, and the scripture either directly answers them or gives us principles that we can apply to every situation you face so that you can plot a course of action confidently because you've got God's insight to the issue.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Acts
Recorded: 1999 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 39 min
Themes: church, fellowship, prayer, bible study, communion, devotion, spiritual growth, fundamentals of faith, new believer, feeling spiritually dry, struggling with consistency, church member, young adult, seeking community, returning to faith, new to church
Scripture: Acts 2:37-47, Acts 2:42, Acts 2:45, Acts 2:46, Acts 2:47, 1 Peter 2:2, 2 Timothy 3:16-17, 2 Timothy 4:1-3, 1 Corinthians 11:23-27, John 14:2-6, John 14:13-14
Theological Themes: ecclesiology, church structure, apostles doctrine, biblical authority, means of grace, corporate worship, sanctification, breaking of bread
Full Transcript
Introduction: A Verse That Defines the Church
Open your Bible to the book of Acts, chapter two. Last week we examined Acts chapter 2, beginning in verse 37 through verse 47. Today we want to spend time on just one verse in the middle of that section: Acts chapter 2, verse 42. This verse is of particular importance because it provides us God's model for the church.
What should a church be like? What should a church do? We see all these different churches — which one is right? What is essential to a church, and what are strictly matters of preference? At its core, what are the fundamental activities that should be the pursuit of the church? We find that discussion in this section.
John MacArthur writes that the epistles of the New Testament shape the doctrine in the history of the early church, and that this passage describes the historical outworking of God's ideal in the first local church. It describes the newborn church in its prime, when it possessed a purity of devotion to the risen Lord — unmatched, in MacArthur's estimation, in succeeding generations. We look today at four principles for spiritual growth within the church.
Let me remind you of a general principle we return to over and over again: what is true for the church is generally speaking true for the individual, and equally, what is true for the individual is true for the church. If these are four fundamentals for growth within the church, then they are also four fundamentals that are important for you individually. Whether you are a member of East Valley Bible Church, a visitor from another church, or someone passing through from out of town, these principles transcend locale — they are for all time and all places.
Luke tells us in Acts chapter 2, verse 42: "They continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship and breaking of bread and in prayer." That verse is very familiar to those of you who have been around East Valley Bible Church for any length of time.
The Founding Vision of East Valley Bible Church
Let me read to you from this brown brochure. If you are with us for the first time, it is sitting right in front of you, and we encourage you to take one with you. It explains the activities and ministries here, our doctrinal statement, and includes a brief history entitled "Our Beginnings."
It reads: "During the summer of 1991, a group gathered to explore the viability of beginning a new church in the East Valley. Following months of prayer, discussion, and planning, the decision was made to start a new church. That church is now known as East Valley Bible Church." Making the dream a reality proved to be a challenge — a Herculean task, as I remember it. With no congregation, no place to meet, and no financial resources, the organizing committee had much work ahead of them.
Potential attendees, volunteers, and those desiring to exercise their gifts within the newly formed body were interviewed. Information was gathered, analyzed, discussed, and debated, and after a great deal of thought, planning, and prayer, a strategic plan was formed. This plan was not the vision of a few, but of many. Those plans were not considered infallible, nor were they written in stone — they represented a wholehearted attempt to define, direct, and lead East Valley Bible Church in what we hoped God planned for our future.
On November 3rd, 1991, we conducted our first worship service. The brochure continues: "In Acts chapter 2, verse 42, Luke described the activities of the first century church, and they were continually devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching, to fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer. These four elements of teaching, fellowship, the Lord's Supper, and prayer became the foundational components of our corporate worship."
That is why this verse is so important. Anyone who seriously thinks about the church inevitably lands here. Some of you may remember the old banner that now hangs in my office but once displayed at the front of the church — the first church logo, designed by Virgil Stevens, which appeared on the bulletins. That logo captured the idea of Acts chapter 2, verse 42: the elements of the Lord's Supper, prayer, the breaking of bread, the preaching of the Word, all done in a spirit of fellowship. Acts chapter 2, verse 42 became a defining verse for us, and we return to it again and again because we understand why it was given — to show us what God had in mind for the church.
The Context: Three Thousand Souls Saved
Here is the context. Peter had delivered a message to a group identified as the men of Israel — a group of Jews, male and female. They were cut to the heart. They were pierced and convicted of their sin. They asked, "What do we do?" And Peter said, "Repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins. Receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." That day, about three thousand souls were saved — three thousand people who were headed to hell, redirected toward heaven.
When we arrive at Acts chapter 2, verse 42, the word "they" refers to these three thousand plus the original core group. This body of people were together. That point is critically important, and we need to spend a moment on it.
We live at a time in our culture where many churches not only attempt to reach lost people — which in and of itself is fine — but attempt to customize worship services to accommodate non-Christians. While that may on its surface seem appealing, it is absolutely —
The Church Is Made Up of Believers
Are you saying everybody in the church should be a Christian? Not necessarily. But here is what I am saying. Those who are a part of a local church body are Christians, or at least should be. That is the definition we use. The church is believers.
Does that mean everybody at East Valley Bible Church is a Christian? I would not say that for a second. Does it mean we are not concerned about lost people? Absolutely not. We go out of our way to try to make everyone feel welcome and comfortable.
I saw last Sunday that Christine Devine was working at the front door as a greeter. The crunch time had passed and people were trickling in, and in came a family — mom, dad, a couple of kids. Christine recognized they were new and started talking with them. She said, "We have classes for the kids," and you could see the kids were apprehensive.
Here is what she did. She did not say, "The education building — go through here, make a left, go up there, second grade, upstairs, I think it's 205." Instead, she said, "Let me take you up there." She could see one of the kids did not want to go, so she said, "Let me tell you something — you are going to love this. My daughter goes to these classes and she loves it here." That is the way it ought to be.
Notice what she did not say: "Before we go too far into this, let me ask — are you a Christian? Are you a believer?" If you are here and you are not a Christian, we hope you feel welcomed. There is a sense in which you ought to feel comfortable, but there is a greater sense in which you ought to feel a sense of discomfort. It is wonderful for you to hear the music, hear the sermon, and watch communion — but you ought to be looking around and saying, "Something is wrong. I do not fit here." Not because anyone tried to make you feel that way. In fact, they have gone out of their way to make you feel comfortable. But you do not fit because they are singing songs to a God you do not know, about sin that, frankly, you do not feel that bad about.
Not Anti-Evangelism, But Committed to Truth
The church at its core is made up of believers — Christians. Does that make us anti-evangelism? Absolutely not. Do we not care about a lost world? We care desperately about a lost world. But we care more about the truth, and there is no way we would compromise the worship service or alter the message on Sunday morning to accommodate a non-believer.
Coming back to the passage before us — Acts chapter two, verse 42 — they were continually, steadfastly devoted. The word carries with it the idea of persistence. They were unrelenting. They would not stop. They would not stop in four areas: the apostles' teaching, the fellowship, the breaking of bread, and prayer. Those are the four essential elements we see in the church, and we will spend this morning on each one of them.
The Apostles' Teaching
First, the apostles' teaching. When the early church spoke of this, it was clear what was happening — Peter stood up and Peter taught. I am not an apostle. But we do have the apostles' teaching today. James Boyce helps us here. He writes: "When it came time to collect the books that were to become our New Testament, the criterion by which this was done was whether they came from the apostles or bore the apostolic blessing. It is in the New Testament that the authentic teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ is found." So when we talk about devoting ourselves to the apostles' teaching, we are talking about the teaching we find in the Holy Scriptures, especially in the New Testament.
This church came together and they were continually, staunchly, unrelentingly pursuing the teaching of the apostles. Peter speaks to this directly: "Like newborn babes," he says, "you Christians should desire milk" — not mother's milk, but the milk of the Word — "that you may grow." If you have a baby who does not seem to be progressing physically and you go to the doctor, the parent will typically say the baby is not growing, and the doctor will ask, "Is she eating? What is he eating?"
Likewise, if you are a Christian and you are not growing — if you stop and examine your life and say, "I have been at this ten years and I am not growing much" — you ought to be asking the question: what are you eating? Are you devouring the Word of God? Are you taking in the Word of God?
Now, when we typically think about that image of milk and nourishment, we think in terms of intake — the milk, the bread, the taking in. That is part of it, but it is not all of it. There is also, and here is the key word, a desire. It is not merely nourishment; it is hunger.
About five or six weeks ago, I was sitting in my usual spot in the second pew, and right across the aisle was a young couple with a little baby. During the music the baby was fussing a little, but you could not really tell with everything going on. When it became quiet, though, you could hear the baby fussing. The baby was hungry. The baby did not know it was church. The baby was hungry. So they got a bottle and gave it to the child.
The Hunger for God's Word
Picture a baby with a bottle. You could almost see the baby lunge for it, and then you would hear it — slurping, slurping, slurping — and then a little breath, and then slurping again. That baby was not trained to do that. The baby's head just went out toward the bottle. That baby simply wanted it. It was cute for a while, cuter still when it happened in the mother's infant care room. That baby had such a desire for that milk.
That is the way it should be with a Christian and the Word of God. There should be a sense in which you say, "I can't get enough of this. I can't wait to get home from work so I can find out — get everything quiet at night, first thing in the morning, or sometime during the day — I can't stop thinking about this." It is deeper than a desire to grow. It is nourishment for life. It is fundamental. Just as the body needs oxygen and blood, it is the Word of God that will move through you, give you life, and bring you to maturity.
And not just in the areas we would typically call theological. Ray Stedman — and Dr. Stedman says it so simply — puts it this way: we will never learn to understand ourselves, or the world around us, or the society in which we live, or what is happening in the world and why it is happening, unless we begin to understand the apostles' teaching. That is the only hope you have of working out your problems in this world and in your life. That last sentence is a powerful sentence.
The Only Place Answers Are Found
You come here today with questions, concerns, hopes, anxieties, and difficulties. There is only one way you are going to get those worked out. There is only one way you are going to find those answers. If you go to the bookstore this afternoon and make your way back to the self-help section, you will see people slopping their way through those shelves — and you have to feel sorry for them — because what they are trying to do is find answers. Who am I? Why am I here? Where am I going? What is life all about?
People are on an endless search for self-understanding. Have you ever noticed that? Someone says, "I've got to get away and find myself." And to do that, they have to go to Vail or Vancouver. Nobody ever says, "I'm going to find myself this weekend — I'm going to Casa Grande." They have to go to Vail to find themselves. Now, those are legitimate questions. I would never make fun of those questions. They are fundamental questions that humanity has asked since the beginning of time. They are core, worthy questions that demand an answer.
And this is so important: the only place you will find those answers is right here in this book. You want to figure out yourself, figure out the world, figure out the culture, and understand why things are happening the way they are? You are hopeless if you try to do it apart from this Word — the apostles' teaching. Why did the early believers steadfastly devote themselves to the apostles' teaching? Because in it, we find the answers to life. The great questions are answered here.
Life Is an Open Book Test
Men and women, life is an open book test. All these circumstances come into your life, and Scripture either directly answers them or gives us principles we can apply to every situation you face, so that you can plot a course of action confidently because you have God's insight into the issue. Where do you find it? In God's Word.
At the end of his life, Paul writes to the person he perhaps loves more than any other on this earth — Timothy. At the end of 2 Timothy chapter 3, he writes this: "All scripture is inspired by God. It is profitable for teaching, reproof, for correction and training in righteousness, that the man of God may be adequate and equipped for every good work." In other words, in God's Word you find what is right, what is not right, how to get right, how to stay right — and now you are prepared for every good work. Now you know how to live a godly life.
A Solemn Charge to Preach the Word
Then Paul writes to Timothy the pastor: "I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is the judge of the living and the dead." If you want to talk about accountability groups, here is the ultimate accountability — you are ultimately accountable to God. He says, "I charge you" — verse 2 — "preach the word. Be ready in season and out." The idea there is when it is popular and when it is not, with a sense of readiness and urgency: preach the word.
And then he says something prophetic in verse 3. See if it does not sound like the Valley of the Sun in 1999: "For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance with their own desires." Here is what he is saying will happen: there will come a time when people will not want to hear the truth. They will still want to hear teaching — do you see how that works? They will still go to church. They will still ask for counsel. But it will be counsel in accord with their own desires.
So they will go to one person and say, "I'm facing this dilemma — what do you think I ought to do?" And they will receive an answer. And they will say, "I don't like that." Then they will go to another person: "What do you think I ought to do?" And they will keep going until someone finally tells them what they were hoping to hear all along. And then they will say, "Here is the counsel I received" — as if the fact that it happened to be the counsel they were already seeking has nothing to do with it.
Fellowship as Partnership
Not only were they devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching, but to fellowship. For many of us, we cannot even picture that word without the adjoining word "hall." We assume that all of the fellowship we will be involved in takes place in a designated space called Fellowship Hall — a lot of talking and hanging out, lots of calories, eating together. That is what we think fellowship is. That is not exactly the idea we find in Scripture.
Koinonia is the Greek word. It carries the idea of partnership or sharing, of holding something in common. John Stott says the word fellowship was born on the day of Pentecost. One of the derivative words, kononikos, carries with it the idea of generosity — the idea that we are in partnership together, we are sharing together, and we are living with one another in a generous way.
Did that early church get the message? We saw it last week. Here is what it says, verse 45 of chapter two: "All who believed were together and had all things in common and sold their possessions and goods and divided them among all as anyone had need." When we talk about fellowship, we are talking about the spiritual responsibility we have to one another — to stimulate one another toward faithful, holy living.
The New Testament is filled with the "one anothers." We are to instruct one another, love one another, honor one another, care for one another, pray for one another, teach one another, forgive one another. Nowhere in the New Testament do we find a portrait of the normal Christian life lived in isolation. The Christian life is designed to be lived in community — it demands that we have people around us.
The Great Commission to go and make disciples demands contact with other people. The Great Commandment — love God with all your heart and mind and soul, and love your neighbor — requires that there be in our lives a component of active, intimate involvement in the lives of the people around us.
Gifts and Talents in the Body
Let me remind you of the working definition of the church we have been using: a body of believers using their gifts and their talents. Every one of you has a spiritual gift. Every one of you has talents on loan from God, given to you to use. How should you use them? To continue His work — you are His hands and His feet. To serve, to minister to one another, and then to minister to an unbelieving world.
The purpose statement of this church, which you see in your bulletin every week, is to help one another learn God's truths and live biblically changed lives. We are in this together, helping one another. That is why small groups are so important. You need to be in a small group to really begin to experience this body — in an intimate, active setting with other men and women who are Christians, sharing together, talking together, weeping and rejoicing together. That is taking place all over this campus.
Let me encourage you. Some of you are sitting on the sidelines saying you have been here a while and are ready to get involved. If you have been around and have a certain degree of spiritual maturity, we could use you now in the small group ministry as a leader. We have around a hundred people — the number varies, sometimes down to twenty or seventy-five — waiting to be placed in a small group. They are saying, "Take me, I want to be in a small group," and we are saying we cannot, because we do not have the leaders. This is a great place to use your gifts and talents to serve one another and the unbelieving world.
Serving the Unbelieving World
There is a couple in this church, Kim and Fran Martin, whom many of you know — very low-key and unassuming people. Their neighbor's wife started working here in the childcare area. She is not a believer; we would not have a non-believer in a teaching role, but she is working there. Her husband is not a Christian either. Kim and Fran reached out to these people and involved them in the church. They then discovered that the husband has cancer — twenty-seven years old, three kids. The cancer is noticeably growing; you can see it growing, wrapping around his head. It is killing him. He is at most weeks away from death.
Kim and Fran have rallied this body around this man. He is dying and he is hurting, and the only person he will let touch him is Dave Moore. This man has made a profession of faith in the last two weeks. I know how some of you are — you are already skeptical. But when the hospice care worker asked him if he was worried, he said, "I don't need to worry because I'm a Christian." Kim and Fran are serving an unbelieving world. They are taking care of his kids. Those of you who know them know they are tired, and they are working and serving the unbeliever in the name of Jesus Christ. That is what the church ought to be.
The Church Is All of Us
I showed up at an emergency room a while ago to see someone, and they said they could not let me in. I told them I was the pastor. They asked, "How many pastors does this place have?" I asked why they were asking, and they said I was about the fourth one there who had claimed that. That is the way the church ought to work.
It is not at all unusual for someone in this church to be significantly sick and never see me — and never feel slighted. Because I am not the church. The elders are not the church. We are the church.
Communion as Sacred Practice
The church is the body of believers using their gifts and talents to serve one another and to reach out to an unbelieving world. That is what fellowship really is. They were involved in the apostles' teaching and fellowship and the breaking of bread. The breaking of bread is the celebration of the Lord's Supper, and it was part of their apparently daily activity. Verse 46 tells us they continued daily with one accord in the temple, breaking bread from house to house, eating with gladness and simplicity of heart.
What is laid out for us in the New Testament when it comes to communion is not something that is optional. It is our sacred duty and our privilege. Communion is something they were involved in day in and day out, every time they gathered together. One of the unique things about East Valley Bible Church is that we take communion together every Sunday.
This practice reflects what the elders and I see as we read Scripture. As the church gathered together on a formal basis for worship, the apostles' teaching, the breaking of bread, prayer, and fellowship carried with them the idea of a formal structure. When they gathered together formally, they took communion. Communion is not something you do once a month on a Sunday night when a handful of people are there. It is something you do every time you gather together.
Why was it so important? Why was it as important as the apostles' teaching? Look at the very words Paul writes in 1 Corinthians chapter 11. "When Jesus had given thanks, He took the bread, He said, take and eat it, this is my body which is broken for you, do it in remembrance of me. In the same manner, He also took the cup after supper, saying, this is the cup of the new covenant in my blood. It's not a covenant in the blood of goats and bulls, but my blood, do this in remembrance of me. As often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes." That is why it is so important.
When we take communion, we commemorate the incarnation of Christ, the atoning death of Christ, the resurrection of Christ, and the fact that He will come again. That is what communion is all about. It is a sacred time for believers.
Taking Communion in a Worthy Manner
Is communion serious? Consider the very next verse: "Therefore, whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord." You must take this — and let me say it positively — in a worthy way. That means with a broken heart, in a repentant spirit, absent any bitterness, absent a spirit of ritual, and absent irreverence.
One of the things we do that is unique is the worship guide you receive every Sunday. You receive it so that through the week you can work your way toward understanding where we are going the following Sunday. That way, when you arrive on campus, you are already in a spirit of worship. It is not the worship leader's job to get you into the mood. You arrive ready to worship, ready to praise God, ready to thank Him, ready to focus on who He is, and ready to receive communion in a spirit of self-examination.
I will tell you what I think is an irreverent way to participate in communion — arriving late and harried. I am not beating anyone up for being late, because I want to be clear: the majority of people who arrive late are late because they have been serving and taking care of your children. But if something has happened on the freeway, you come in having missed the first ten or fifteen minutes, you sit down, the tray passes by, and you simply pluck the elements out and gobble them down — I think on that day you ought to let communion pass. It ought to be a moment where you say, "Father, my heart is not ready right now." This is serious business, and that is why we observe it each and every Sunday we gather together.
Communion is not optional. It is mandatory. It is a time where we stop and examine our lives. In theory, at least once a week you examine your life, you confess your sin, it purifies you, and in doing so it purifies the body. That is why this is so important. One of the most important things we can do is thoughtfully, in a God-fearing and God-honoring way, examine our lives and, the best we can, purge sin from our lives individually and corporately. That best happens in a communion environment.
The Disciples' Prayer and God's Provision
They were devoting themselves continually to the apostles' teaching, to fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer — corporate prayer. The night before He died, Jesus gathered the disciples together in John chapter 14 and told them He was going to leave. He said He was going to a place in His Father's house where there are many mansions, that He would go and prepare a place for them, and that He would come back — and if it were not true, He would not have told them so. He said they knew the way, and Thomas replied that they had no idea what He was talking about. They did not know the way.
Jesus answered, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through Me." In the midst of high anxiety and great distress for these disciples, He wanted to comfort them. What He told them was that He would meet their need, that He would be their provision. John 14:13–14 records His words: "Whatever you ask in My name, I'll do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in My name, I'll do it."
Praying in Jesus' Name
What does it mean to ask in the name of God? Is it simply a spiritual formula we tack onto the end of a prayer, like an abracadabra that makes the trick work? Can I say, "Father, I need a new Cadillac, in Jesus' name," and expect it to happen? No. To pray in Jesus' name is to acknowledge who He is — His attributes, all that He is. What we are really saying is this: "Father, I'm praying to You, and even though I may not specifically know what I need, I'm praying for Your will and Your purpose."
When we pray in Jesus' name, we are declaring that His agenda is more important than our agenda. What He wants is what we want. What we need is what He says we need. So we come before Him and we worship Him for who He is — an awesome and powerful God. We confess our sin, we offer thanks, and, because He tells us to, we lay our requests at His feet — but we do all of it in accordance with what He wants, not what we want.
John Bunyan defined prayer this way: "a sincere, sensible, affectionate pouring out of the heart or soul to God." I love that phrase — pouring out. It is as though we are sitting before Him and we simply cannot stop it. There is a sincere, loving affection, like a child to a parent, that says, "I love You. I care for You. I want to be with You."
B. M. Palmer describes it this way: "the language of creaturely dependence on God, from Whom being itself was derived." I love that. When I pray, here is what I am saying: You are the Creator, I am the creature. That is the posture of prayer.
Does Prayer Change Things?
Does prayer change things? Not if it runs against the sovereign will of God. Am I trying to convince God? Am I trying to move things in a different direction? We get into all these questions, and they lead to the natural one: why would I pray at all? The answer is this — my prayer is not intended to facilitate some outcome external to me. When I pray, I am not trying to move God over to my side. I am saying, "God, move me to Yours."
Prayer is about saying, "Help me see the world as You see it. I would not presume for a second to know what is best for me." I can tell Him what I think, what I want, what I feel I need. I can say, "Here is this child who is sick, and it seems to me, God, that healing is what I want more than anything." But beyond that, if He does not will it, then I do not will it either. That is how we pray — to demonstrate our dependence on Him.
Consider that Jesus teaches us to pray, "Give us this day our daily bread." It is interesting that God does not simply calculate what we will need for our entire lives and hand it all over at once. He gives it to us day by day, so that every day we return and say, "You are the Creator, I am the creature. Father, I am dependent on You." That is why we pray. We pray to acknowledge that He is God.
What a Life of Prayer Produces
What happens in a life — individually or corporately — that looks like this? Acts 2:47 tells us: "They were praising God and having favor with all the people, and the Lord added to the church daily." As we close, let me suggest that if your life feels spiritually dry, if not much has been going on, if it has been a long time since you have experienced much spiritual impact, come back and examine these four essentials in your life.
Are you following the teaching of the apostles — are you studying? Are you involved with other Christians? You must be involved with other Christians, and I am growing stronger and stronger in my conviction that the primary focus of that involvement needs to be within the body of Christ, specifically in the local church. And you must be a person who celebrates communion and who prays. When a person does these things — when a church does these things — God works. That becomes our model.
Essentials Versus Preferences
Why do we see so many different churches? Because by and large, most of the differences between them are matters of preference. I was at a church once and they asked if there was anything they could do for me before I taught. I said, "Yes — could everyone not wear ties that Sunday?" They agreed, though the worship leader said it was the first time in twenty-five years he had led music without a tie and he felt awful. I told him now he knew how I feel every time I put one on.
Does it matter whether I wear a tie or not? No. That is a matter of preference. Could a church sing different music? Absolutely. All of these things are preferential. Here are the essential elements: the apostles' teaching, fellowship, the breaking of bread, and prayer. That is God's model for the church. It is also God's model for your life. You want to see God work? Those are the things. Those are the basics.
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Father, thank You that we can come and pray to You. We pray not to change Your mind, but that You would work powerfully in our lives. Thank You for what You have done and what You are doing. We pray that we would be a church that follows Your model, and that we would be individuals who follow the pattern You have laid down for a godly life. We pray it to You in Jesus' name, amen.