 They devoted themselves. They devoted themselves. That's the first three words in Acts 2.42 where historically we have read and used that passage to teach, I think now for generations, that we want the people in our churches to gather around what they were. It says they, speaking of the Testament believers in the early church, in the book of Acts, they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and to prayer and to meeting in small groups and to reaching the poor and reaching out and so on. And then it just adds that God added to the church daily those that were being saved. It was 20 years ago also and some of you may remember me speaking about this at that time as a foundational landmark principle in the new church we became after we crossed the church over to the new church that we became. That I read that again for the first time. I could never see it before. I'd read it thousands of times before. I guess we all have the Bible readers and especially preachers and communicators of the Bible. And I'd never seen that those three words they devoted themselves were not just connecting narrative to get to what they were devoted to. I think most of us felt the idea of Acts 42 was to get to the passage and to what they were devoted to and how do you reproduce that in our churches? How do we get our people to be devoted to the word and to prayer and to small groups and to all the things that we would like them to be devoted and dedicated to in our churches? So we set about, set out trying to build a culture where people were into those things. But the problem was that we tried to generate that devotion from the top down. That we as leaders tried to get the people devoted to the word and to prayer and to small groups and to reaching out and to growing the church and so on. But the they is an essential locating word in that passage. They is speaking of the believers themselves. In the New Testament church, they, the believers themselves were the ones that committed themselves, dedicated themselves. They devoted themselves to this list of things that we would love to see our churches devoted to. The difference between now and then was that then the devotion to those things came from the grassroots up. Now the devotion to those things comes from the top down as we try to use our leadership gifts and skills to persuade people, to convince people, often to manipulate people, to coerce people into being devoted to those things. But I came to see 20 years ago when I began to sit down and decide what kind of church I didn't want after 17, 18 years of the church I had. And now the several years of transitioning to a new church, what church didn't I want? Not what church so much did I want, but what didn't I like about the old church? What didn't I like? What were the fundamental things that I thought were non-negotiables for the new church that would emerge from our reinvention? And one of the things I didn't want is I didn't want to become a leader for the next, you know, how many years, like I saw around the world so many leaders doing what I did, that were exhausted simply trying to get the people to buy in, to commit, to give, to volunteer, to participate, to work, to show up early, to stay late, to help the church grow, to commit and involve in the culture, to carry some weight. So I realized that many of us, most of us had built churches that were like jumbo jets with 300 passengers and 20 crew. That most people were simply sitting back enjoying the labor and the activity of the minority that were producing really everything that went on in that church. And I thought there's something wrong with this because I felt worn out and I'm sure it wouldn't get any better in the years ahead if we continued in this pattern of thinking that all the energy, the drive, the buy-in comes from the top down persuading the people to get involved, to come back next week, to give financially, to help us in volunteering, to help us in some new venture, to help us staff and volunteer and man the stations at some new thing we were doing that we were constantly spending our time front of house and behind the scenes wondering how do we pull this off, how do we get these volunteers, because that's what they are, to commit on top of their already busy lives to helping us do what we're doing in and through our churches in our communities. And then it came to me. They devoted themselves, all the devotion that you see in the New Testament, all the commitment to the Word and to prayer and to fellowship and to reaching out and to helping the poor and to growing the church. All of it came from inside the people, not from the leaders that try to put it inside the people. They devoted themselves, whatever you devote yourself to, no one needs to be devoted for you. Whatever is your self-devotion, you don't need to borrow that devotion from someone else to find it. Whatever is self-devotion doesn't need to be topped up and borrowed from and rediscovered every week by leaders that are fearful that you have weakened in your devotion. You've forgotten to be devoted, so we spend our time sort of jump-starting again the devotion that we feel for whatever reason lacking, whether the giving's down or the volunteering's down or the attendance is down or the growth is down. Then we get busy doing teaching series or we have some kind of drive to bring up those metrics by getting ourselves thrown in, often getting exhausted, trying to get everybody to devote to these things. I want to tell you that if you took a New Testament believer and dropped them into a present-day church, especially a Western church, they would be shocked what leaders spend most of their time doing, because their leaders didn't spend any time virtually doing that as far as I can tell. That a modern-day leader spends so much about time doing what used to just come naturally out of the devotion of the people in the church, and I think the New Testament church exploded so quickly, as we know historically it did. It exploded so quickly, numerically, and in influence around the then non-Mediterranean world where the church was spreading quickly, because I think the flows were right, the energies were right, the devotional roots were right. I think in the New Testament church, the leaders led and the people followed. I think the leaders got to do what they were gifted to do, which was to continue preaching the word, helping the poor, reaching out, spreading the message of the kingdom. And they were not buried under the maintenance, as most of us are today, pastoring, the high maintenance of the daily organizational things of the church. Now I'm not saying that doesn't need staff and a mind towards it, and it needs attention. I get that. But most leaders stop leading some time ago in many churches and got buried under this need to try and get the devotion levels up in the church, the empathy levels up in the church, the compassion levels up, the giving levels up, the attendance levels up. I don't see that in the New Testament. Even when there was a crisis in Hebrew 6 on the administration of food to the widows, and there was a conflict in the church about it, the apostles refused to let that become something that would hijack their momentum. They simply chose the best people amongst them and dedicated this organizational issue, administrative issue to great people, but they would not get involved knowing that the advance of the church would slow down if they were bogged down in things that others could step up and be devoted to. So I want you to rethink again, when you re-read Acts 242, I want you to notice afresh, not just the list of things that we want to see our people devoted to, but where that devotion came from. They devoted themselves, build a church, build a culture, build a team where the devotion isn't from the top from you down as leaders, but the devotion is from the grassroots upwards, the energy, the flow, the commitment, the buy-in, the devotion, the showing up, the giving, the supporting, the love, the commitment, the reaching out is coming from inside the people out and up and through. It's not constantly coming from the leaders down into people that are not devoted at all. So we constantly finish up breathing for people who are not breathing for themselves. We're trying to thrive for people who are not thriving for themselves. I think it's that that I switched the energies off 20 years ago and I've got to tell you the church exploded. Our church exploded by comparison to what we'd had before and I think at the core of that shift in the growth and momentum of our church was this massive adjustment I made when I stopped being devoted for them. And I taught the church and I taught this round the world that they devoted themselves. The devotion has to come from the people to want to do what we are doing in and through our churches. It cannot rest in the hands of leaders to be excited and interested and passionate and committed on your behalf as church members. It has to be generically in the DNA and the grassroots of our cultures or we will have more leaders getting burnt out and exhausted doing for people. New Testament leaders never did for people because the devotion came from the grassroots. They devoted themselves. Think about it maybe in a different way to what you have before. They devoted themselves.