Living Water Church

Good morning, Sauldam Baptist. >> Thank you, Matt. I appreciate that. Morning. There we are. Good morning, guys. Welcome to Sauldam Baptist Church, the smoothest operating show in town, man. Here we are. Thank you all for being here today. If you are a guest, want to say good morning. Yeah, if you’re man, if you’re with us every Sunday, good morning to you, too. Love you also. We’re coming to our time of the service where we just spend a few moments praying. You know, I heard someone say one time that, try something in your power and you can get what man can do. Try something in God’s power and you get what God can do. And around here at Sauldam Baptist, we are way more interested in what God can do than what we can do. So, we spend a part of our service every Sunday morning praying that God would work according to His capacities and His wisdom, not ours.

We’ve been praying for over a month now for Vacation Bible School as part of our kind of praying for the next generation. And I want to take a few moments this morning, just pray one more time for VBS. If you’ve still got your wristband on, you pray for that. You pray for the three students that said that, they want to talk more about giving their lives to Christ, you pray about the adults that got to serve, the middle and high schoolers that got to serve. You take it however you want to take it. Just take it for a few moments and I’ll put a bow on it. Thank you guys.

Holy Spirit, thank you for today. This is Your day. It’s not ours. Doesn’t belong to us, but to You, Lord. Vacation Bible School. It’s not for us. It’s not ours. It’s Yours. The families that entrusted their kids to us for the week, they belong to You. The volunteers and all the volunteer hours that were put in, those belong to You. Three potential decisions to give their lives to Christ by these kids, those belong to You. God, this is all Yours. We’re just stewards for a few moments of this fleeting life that we have. Help us be good stewards. Help us to take it very seriously to pray for the next generation to come alongside those that are younger than us, both in life and in the faith, and to help them come to a place of maturity with You. Help us to take it seriously to invest our lives into other people, Lord.

God, I want to thank You for Mickey and her stepping up and her leading VBS. She did a fantastic job. I pray that she can get some rest this week after all of the hard work she’s put in over the last few weeks and especially last week. Lord, I want to thank You for all the other folks that put in unseen hours and money to make this happen for us. I want to thank You for the other churches, Lord, that we got to share some of these decorations with. I want to thank You for the fact that Sauldam, we got to participate in giving decorations away and there’s other churches now that are going to use these things. Lord, I want to thank You for all that. But God, I’m I’m praying as well for right now. God, over the next few moments as I just get to share from Your Word, Lord, would You clarify my mind? I feel like I’ve got a million thoughts racing around. Personally having a hard time just kind of settling myself, and I need You to do that.

I don’t know what everybody walked into here with this morning. God, I trust some of us had a hard week. I trust some of us had a great week. Others of us, we’ve got lingering questions about life or we have these intense personal things going on right now. I’m really grateful that You meet us in each and every one of those situations. We don’t have to button ourselves up to come to You. We don’t have to get ourselves right in order to come to You. We just give ourselves to You and You You accept us, Lord. Thank You for that. Holy Spirit, I pray You would take You take control over the next few moments. You would open my heart to receive this message. You would open the hearts of everybody here to receive this. That You would You would propel our lives after this. That we would go and be Your ambassadors, Your missionaries wherever we are. Lord, we love You. For the person that came in this morning who still has yet to give their life to You, please let today be the day. Let today be the day of salvation for somebody in this room. I need You to do that. I can’t do that, God. But You can. God, we love You and it’s in Your great name that we pray. Amen.

Amen.

As is typically happens with things like VBS, there is one volunteer or one type of volunteer that usually doesn’t get their flowers as well because they are always in the back of the room. If I could have everybody turn around and say, “Thank you, AV team.” Can you just do that with me? Thank you, AV team. Man, man, Brent, you in particular, man, you were here, man. You were every day, all day. He was one of the first to arrive. He the nature of running this always one of the last to leave, keeping everything running smoothly. And not just because I’m married to her, but Becca wants you to know that you did a great job with the AV stuff and all the music. So there we go.

As I was preparing for the message this morning, as we close out this Living Water series, I started thinking about our tendency to build the homes and the cities where they are. Like, have y’all ever wondered why Charleston is in Charleston? You ever thought about that? Or these just the types of questions only I lay awake at night thinking about? Camden is really smart. You already know the answer, but you’re good. You don’t have to answer it. You know, people, we build our cities and our homes with access to fresh water. One of the primary things a community needs in order to thrive is fresh water. You you need that in order to be able to sustain any type of a population. And for Charleston, our for us, you know, even though we’re on the coast, we have access to two major waterways. You have the Edisto and the ACE Basin down south. You have other stuff up north. People naturally build their cities and their homes where they have access to something that can sustain them. And that’s not just in the physical realm with our cities. It’s also like in the emotional realm. You as an individual, you will build your life on or around what you believe will sustain you. Some of y’all have been taught to think that what sustains you is a good career with benefits. So, you’re going to build your life around that river of a good career. Others of us grew up thinking that what sustains somebody is a family. It’s a community network. So man, you have built your life around getting married, having kids, staying close to mom and dad. Others of us, we build our lives around social media. Man, if I could just get more likes, if I could just be in the know with other people, it might help me escape the the boredom or the difficulty of my own life. So, I’m going to build my life around the river of social media. For some of us, it’s substances, alcohol, pills, over-the-counters, where we think, man, if I could just numb the pain, if I could numb the voices for a few hours, if I could just escape my life situation through this bottle or this substance, then man, that’s going to be the thing that sustains me. We’ve all got ours. On the surface, some of ours look really good. On the surface, some of ours look really bad. But we all tend to build our lives on or around something that you believe will sustain you.

Churches do the same thing. They might maximize and fill up their calendar because they think event after event after event after event. That’s what we need. What will sustain us is busyness. Other churches build their selves on or around the river of money. Save up, save up, save up, save up, never spend, always waiting for that proverbial rainy day. Some churches build their lives around the river of tradition. We’ve always done it one way and it’s gotten us this far. Like, why would we ever deviate from that path? We’ll just keep building around tradition as long as possible. Some of these things are good. Some of them are bad. Some of them are in the middle. There is only one thing that you can build your life on or you can build a church on that will sustain you. It’s the living water of Jesus Christ.

If you have your copy of the Bible, open up to Acts chapter 2, 37-47. We’ve been spending a few weeks in this little mini disciplehip series called Living Water. There’s multiple times in the ministry of Jesus where Jesus goes to the temple in Jerusalem and He makes this incredible claim and invitation. I’ve got living water. Are you thirsty? Drink. Are you dissatisfied? Come taste and see. He made that original invitation not at the temple with all the busyness and all the people, but at a well with a single woman who had been married five times, divorced five times, living with another guy, and ostracized from her community, that woman at the well, all those people in the temple, and I believe everybody here at Sauldam Baptist Church this morning, everybody on the golf course today, everybody you’re going to interact with at the restaurant later, everybody you’re going to rub shoulders with in your workplace, in community, in the family group text, on social media, wherever it is, we are all chasing the same thing: life satisfaction, flourishing. It’s just a matter of what’s your river, and Jesus already said, “I am your river.” The main point that you’re going to take away from the message this morning is this: living water produces living churches. Living water produces living churches. Say it with me. Living water produces living churches. Acts 2:37-47. When they heard this, they were pierced to the heart. What did happen? I’ll just tell you, Peter, he’s preaching the first Christian message. This is the day of Pentecost. The Holy Spirit has come and fallen on the 120 gathered disciples. Jesus has been with them. Jesus has left them. They’re wondering what did they do? God sends the Holy Spirit while they are having a prayer service. Think that’s interesting. Peter gets up. He starts preaching to all the people gathered. When they heard this message about Jesus, they were pierced to the heart and they said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what should we do?” Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, each of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children, and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call.” And with many other words, He testified and strongly urged them, saying, “Be saved from this corrupt generation.” So those who accepted His message were baptized and that day about 3,000 people were added to them. Let’s just pause. Imagine being a gathered group of 120 and you grow by 3,000. There’d be some administrative issues to solve there, wouldn’t there, Valerie? [snorts] They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe and many wonders and signs were being performed through the apostles. Now all the believers were together. They held everything in common. Get this. They sold their possessions and their property and they distributed the proceeds to all as anyone had need. Every day they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple. They broke bread from house to house. They ate their food with joyful and sincere hearts. They were praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. Every day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved. The first church, Jerusalem, 2,000 years ago, the Holy Spirit falls on those 120 gathered remnant believers just waiting for God’s power to do something in their lives. Peter goes out, he preaches, God blesses it. Thousands of people immediately start following the way. Living water produces living churches. Does anyone else in this room believe that God can still do things like this today? Does anyone else in this room believe that all God needs for a powerful movement in this world is a willing church? Does anyone else in this room wish you occupied and lived in a church that looked like this? I’ll be the first to say I brag on y’all all the time. I think Sauldam Baptist Church is a special congregation. But I also know that we are not yet who we’re supposed to be completely in God. I long for the day where what’s written in Acts chapter 2, we would grow into. See, living water always produces living churches. I want to explain a few things this morning before we really get into what this church looked like. Living water has this distinct relationship to the very word of God. You see this in verses 37-41. Peter gets up, he preaches, and then God blesses it and He uses it. You see, God’s word always produces life. It happened in the very beginning. In the very In the beginning, God said, God spoke. When God starts speaking, life and creation happens. And ever since then, God’s voice has always been tied to His lifegiving creation. Did you know astrophysicists—I’m really going to mess this up. Astrophysicists are discovering that our universe physically, spatially, the way we understand it, is still expanding. How many—How many, you know, if you’re a young earth guy, 7,000 years. Old Earth guy, hundreds of millions. It doesn’t actually matter. What God said in the very beginning when God started creating, that echo is still creating new things on the edges of our universe. Isn’t that crazy? No, I guess not. Okay. [laughter]

God’s word does this. It’s always creating. All scripture is inspired by God. It’s profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. When God speaks, man, God’s voice, it just—it—it can’t help but create things, to give life to things, because God is life. He is the eternal source of life, so that God, when He speaks, life just happens. It’s like that myth of Midas. Anybody know about this? Or maybe you just take your car there for the oil changes. Midas is this guy who’s blessed by the gods so that everything he touches turns to what? >> There we go. Turns to gold. I got a homeschool mom in the room. I got it. Okay.

Now, for Midas, that gift of turning things to gold ultimately becomes a curse because he can’t actually embrace anybody. Everything he loves and touches just becomes a consumable to him. But it’s different with God because God, everything He speaks into it starts blossoming and growing and producing more life. That’s how God operates. And God does this not through just finger zapping us from heaven, but through giving us His word. He speaks. And then when Jesus comes on the scene, you know what? He’s got the audacity to call Himself. What’s He call Himself, Donna? John chapter 1. What’s Jesus called? The word. He is the word. He is the word embodied and infleshed. He is the physical representation of God’s creative power walking amongst us.

What—so next Sunday, whether me or Al, depending on what our fourth child decides to do, we’re going to start this series where we’re going to look at the Gospel of John. And we’re going to spend a couple weeks just looking at John chapter 1 itself, where John the Apostle calls Jesus the word of God, this word that has lifegiving power and capacity. Jesus as the word of God, as the embodied life of God dwelling among us, looks at the woman at the well who is thirsty physically and in her soul, who is poor, who is meek, who knows that she has no righteousness before God. And Jesus, the word, the source of life itself, makes her an offer. Do you want living water, Paula? Do you want living water, man? Dylan, man, do you want living water? Man, if you have the choice between being satisfied forever and for the rest of your life or just living here in this dry desert land of your life, never being satisfied. Truly, which one are you going to have? Which one you going to want? I mean, you’re going to choose satisfaction and joy over here every time. And that’s what God is offering you. That’s what He’s offering Sauldam Baptist Church.

So in this moment, Peter is preaching the first Christian message about Jesus. And he’s saying He is the very life of God. He’s the word of God. He offered living water to us. And what happens when God pours that living water onto ready soil? Life. 3,000 people that day embraced the message of Jesus. Salvation strikes on those temple steps where Peter was preaching that first message. You see, salvation can’t but happen whenever God pours living water onto the souls of people who are ready to receive it.

Look at how these people responded. Verse 38, they said—sorry, 37, “Brothers, what should we do?” Verse 38, Peter replied, “Repent, be baptized each of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” My more theological Christians in the room right now are probably wondering, “What’s this highlighting? Divine sovereignty or human responsibility?” Peter’s saying, “You got to repent. You got to be baptized.” And then you look at the other side, in the Holy Spirit though, He’s a gift and we certainly can’t earn our salvation. We can’t earn our forgiveness. Which one is it? If you’ve ever wondered this question, I’ve got the answer for you. It’s both. The Bible presents salvation both as this work of divine sovereignty and this reception of human responsibility. It’s a it’s a two-sided coin that no theologian can ever split in the middle. The Bible doesn’t seem to try to do that, so I won’t try to do that either. Maybe that really dissatisfies you. That’s okay. I’m the one with the microphone.

So, Peter says, “Repent, be baptized, embrace forgiveness for sin, and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” But look at verse 39, because someone in the room needs to hear this. This promise, it’s for you. It’s for your kids. It’s for all who are far off, i.e. Gentiles. In a room like this, man. It’s for you. It’s for your family member, and it’s for the person that doesn’t dress like a church person. It’s for you. It’s for your brother. And it’s for your cousin who has made a royal mess of their life. It’s for you. It’s for your mom. And it’s for the guy down the road that votes differently than you, that has the flags in his yard that you don’t agree with or understand. That’s what this is for because the message of God is for it’s the same for everybody in verse 40. Be saved [snorts] from this corrupt generation.

I really want to sit here for a moment, man. If you’ve never given your life to Jesus, what are you waiting for? Be saved. You know, without God, our our souls, like the Bible says that we’re we’re dead on the inside. We can’t make life come up in ourselves. We can’t do anything to make ourselves come alive. We’re like Lazarus in the tomb before Jesus calls him out. We’re on the gurnie and the heart has been stopped beating for days. That’s who we are. Yet God has you here this morning because He wants you to give your life to Him. He wants you to come home to Him.

Like in the parable of the prodigal son where this dad has two boys and one of the boys spurns his father’s love, takes his inheritance and runs off. Waste all the inheritance on reckless living in a foreign country. Comes to the end of himself in the bottom of a pit and he recognizes that he needs to go home to his dad because at least his dad’s hired workers lived better than he was living. So he goes home ready with this speech to make things right and just try to become an employee of the family business. But when dad sees him from a long way off, dad leaves the house and runs and embraces his dirty, sinful, destitute son.

That’s who we are. We are the child that has ran away from God. And God is the father on the front porch just peering out at the distance looking, craning, straining to see where is my boy, where is my girl? Ready to leave the house to come and run and embrace you on the road. Come home. Be saved.

And we all need that, too. Peter says, “Be saved from this crooked generation.” Guess who was part of that crooked generation? The people he was talking to. Guess who is part of today’s crooked generation? >> We. Us. We are.

I’m going to burst somebody’s bubble, but you’re part of the problems in this world because of sin. We all have the problem living inside of us. The man, the problem, it’s not it’s not the difficulty of getting affordable housing. It’s not crime rates in Chicago. The problem is my selfishness. The problem is my gluttony. It’s my bend toward comfort and people pleasing. That’s the problem. The problem is your desire to find life in alcohol. The problem is your need to find likes on social media. The problem is your need to find security in your finances. That’s the problem because God has made us for Him and we trade Him for literally anything else. That’s called sin.

And the problem of sin is so bad that once you get into it, you can’t get yourself out of it. God knows this and bridges the gap between what He made us for and what we actually are. And do you know the name of that gap? What’s His name? What’s His name? >> Say it like your church people that you’re proud about it. What’s His name? >> Jesus. >> Exactly. His name is Jesus. Jesus Christ came and lived the perfect life in your place. You were designed to but utterly failed to. And He died a sacrificial death on the cross for your sin. A death that you should have died. The consequence, the punishment, the wrath that you deserved, God did not put on you, but instead put on His perfect Son. So that when God looks at us, He doesn’t see our junk and our sin, our mistakes, our wickedness, our crookedness. He sees Jesus’s perfection.

Anybody in here ever told a little white lie? Anybody in here ever had a little bit of road rage? Perhaps at the person driving the car you’re sitting in? Anybody in here taken something that didn’t belong to you? Wanted to? The Bible says each and every one of those moments is death. But the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Christ comes on the scene and guess what He offers? Living water. Peter preaches about that living water. Guess what happens? 3,000 people take Him up on the offer. Look at how it totally dismantled and disrupted life.

I’m going to read verses 42 through 47. Again, remember, think about think about it this way. The church as an organization doesn’t exist yet. They weren’t used to gathering on Sunday mornings for a Christian worship service, though they did have their Jewish rituals and such. Think about how disruptive embracing the message of Jesus was for these people.

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching—people they were trying to kill. They were trying to enslave these people. They’re trying to imprison these people. They’re trying to kill these people. They’re now devoted to their teaching. They’re devoted to the fellowship. Carry that forward. They’re devoted to breaking of bread. They are devoted to prayer.

Everyone is filled with awe and many wonders and signs are being performed through the apostles. Now, all the believers were together. They held all things in common. They sold their possessions and their property and distributed the proceeds to all as any has need.

Man, this just grabs me. Living in America in 2026. The fact that these people were selling their possessions and their property and just freely distributing the proceeds according to need, that’s wild.

46. Continue. Every day they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple. Every day. Every day. They broke bread from house to house. They ate their food with joyful and sincere hearts. They were praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. Every day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

Man, if the offer of salvation is for anybody, then the disruption of salvation should be seen in everybody.

There were five devotions of this living water church. Five devotions that my prayer we come to embrace ourselves. People ask me sometimes, “Jeremy, what’s your plan for Sauldam Baptist Church?” And it always comes, I’m be honest, with a bit of an edge to it. This is my plan. This is my prayer. This is my hope.

I pray that we would be devoted to transforming truth. You see what that happened immediately is that all the people who believed devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching. They were gathering up with John and James and Peter, Jude, these early followers of Jesus and everything that these men taught. These early Christians were devoting themselves to—they were consuming the Word of God. They were consuming this. They understood that God’s Word was living and active. Not because they had the letter of 2 Timothy yet. They didn’t have that. They were experiencing it firsthand. They were hearing the Word being taught and the dead spaces of their lives were coming to life. And all the evidences of sinful death were being eradicated as the wake of God’s living water washed over every part of their life. That’s what was happening in the early church. They found themselves devoted to truth.

Man, I think about my friend Owen. Owen by his own admission has come to faith in Jesus in the last year or so of his life. And you know what’s happened for him is that as God has turned that light bulb on for him, He has grown to have this insatiable appetite for God’s Word. You know he texts me every Monday or Tuesday wondering what passage are you going—are you or Al going to preach this Sunday because he’s reading it ahead of Sunday morning. He’s priming himself for it so that when he’s here he’s like, “Man, I want to get everything out of this. I want to squeeze this lemon for all the juice it’s got.” Good for you, Owen. I’m super proud of you, man. You are embracing transforming truth and I am watching it happen in your life and it’s awesome.

The second devotion of every living water church is to radical community. They were devoting themselves to fellowship. This original word coinia, it means withness. They didn’t view each other Christians as just merely friends or church acquaintances. These new co-believers in Christ became the most important human relationships they had. Jesus Himself said, “Anyone who follows me must be ready to walk away from father and mother and sister and brother. I came with a sword meant to divide so that we who are followers of Jesus would walk away from our old life. We would cling to the new one, and that other followers of Jesus would now become our most important prize-protected relationships.”

Now certainly you know me—I’m the evangelistic guy. I’m not saying that you never stop talking to people that don’t believe in Jesus. But what I am saying is, who are you devoted to? Are you devoted to one another? You think about how you engage in the life of the church of Sauldam Baptist Church. Would you say that your Sunday morning attendance reflects devotion to other members in the room? Your phone calls throughout the week, would you say they reflect devotion to other members of our church? Your prayers that you pray, the thoughts you think, the preferences you feel about how we operate, do they reflect devotion or option? I’ll let you sit with that one.

The early church had a type of community that was daily and deep, not superficial. I think about Miss Donna. Two years now, she’s had a group of ladies meeting in her home every other Tuesday night. You told me it’s called Bible Study at Donna’s. Amy Cordre told me it’s called something else. So, I’m just going to let you guys figure out what it’s actually called. I think it’s called Faith on the Farm or something like that. The Faithful Farm. That sounds cute. Donna’s group’s been meeting for two years now, praying for one another, caring for one another, so that when Miss Diane gets her diagnosis, she’s got a ready group of people she can rely on. Doesn’t have to post it in the bulletin, but we’re happy to put it in the bulletin for everybody to pray about. But did y’all know Miss Donna and her crew have been praying for Diane longer than any of y’all knew that she had cancer? That’s what we’re talking about.

The third devotion of a Living Water Church is to vibrant sacraments. Sacraments, that’s just a theological word for people like me and Al. It means the Lord’s Supper and baptism. It says that they were devoted to the breaking of bread. Says that in verse 42, verse 46, breaking bread comes back up together. Breaking bread is this euphemism for the Lord’s Supper where they would literally have a loaf of bread. They would break it and they would start passing it around. They were devoted to doing this, not because it was scheduled, not because it was the Sunday we do Lord’s Supper again. They were doing the Lord’s Supper every time they would gather, which Acts chapter 2 is telling us was every day.

Imagine this. Tomorrow night, I show up at your house. We pray, we talk for a little bit, and then we celebrate the Lord’s Supper. Tuesday night, I come back, run the same play. Wednesday night, getting a little old. You’re like, “Come on, Jeremy. Like, this is a little bothersome at this point.” I said, “No, man. We’re—it’s just getting good. The—the people smiling are telling me that’s who I need to visit. This who I need to do this with.” Kayla’s like, “Yeah, that would be bothersome for sure.” That’s what their life looked like. They were doing this every day.

Now, I understand society worked differently for them. Like, they didn’t have refrigerators. They’re going to the market every day, seeing each other every day. It’s a little different. I get that. But, man, one of my fears for us at Sauldam is that the way we do our Lord’s Supper, the way we do baptism, man, I never want it to just be a scheduled activity. Man, it’s got to be a sacred activity, a life-giving activity, one that we would be devoted to, not because it’s a tradition, but because Jesus says, “Do this and remember me.”

The fourth devotion of this Living Water Church is dependent prayer. Remember, the Holy Spirit didn’t fall on the 120 gathered believers in Acts chapter 2 while they were studying theology. It didn’t happen while they were—let’s think of another good thing we do in church. I can’t think of anything. I’m not creative. I’m too tired from VBS. It happened when they were praying. They’re praying. They’re just praying together. And that’s the moment that the Holy Spirit of God decides to descend on them in His power. Naturally, the early church would continue to pray that same way. Meant utterly dependent on God and communicating to Him in prayer. One of the pastors of my generation, a guy by the name of John Piper, said this: that too often people treat prayer like an intercom walkie-talkie system in a house where you can sit in the den and press the intercom to somebody in the kitchen and say, “Bring me some more chips and a soda.” That’s how we treat prayer. “Hey God, I could really use a little more money. Ding. Hey God, this life situation is pretty uncomfortable. Ding. Hey God, I’m feeling pretty uncomfortable about church.” And instead, John Piper says that prayer ought to function more like a battlefield walkie-talkie. Man, put yourself on the beach of Normandy with World War II and you’ve got to get in contact with your command offshore in the battleship to bring in more air support so that your guys can take the field. Man, you’re not viewing that walkie-talkie as a means to your comfort. You are viewing it as a means to your life for the sake of the mission. Right? That’s not how we treat prayer. I’ll be honest. We don’t treat prayer as this way of accessing the divine power of God so that we can fulfill God’s mission in our lives. I pray that we do. And I’ve got an opportunity for you. Every Sunday morning, there’s a few of us that gather in the old church at 9:15. And you know what we do? We pray. We don’t study about prayer. We don’t talk about prayer. We’re not gossiping about you guys. We’re not trying to solve all the problems of the church. I got called on it. We actually are. We’re praying. That’s what we do. We pray for y’all. We pray for Sunday school. We pray for Celebrate Recovery. We pray for Miss Diane and her health needs. We pray for VBS. We pray for stuff our church is going through every Sunday morning at 9:15. You ought to just come try it with us once or twice. It’s not confrontational. It’s not weird. We just use candles and chant, you know. It’s not weird at all. I’m feeling silly today. I’m tired.

Dependent prayer. The final devotion of this Living Water Church is sacrificial generosity. I think for us in 21st century America living in the West, this would actually be the most beautiful thing you could do. They had all things in common. They sold their possessions, their property. They distributed the proceeds to all as anybody had need. Man, this early church recognized that money was not God, but it was a way to serve God. It was a tool that God could use. And that’s still true, man. Do you know that when your life ends, you can’t take a single dime with you? Now, I do believe you can send it on ahead of you and you can enjoy heaven all the more by how you live generously here. But let’s just establish something. The amount of money that you’re trying to rake and scoop and shovel into your retirement account or your 401k or your nest egg, not a single drop of that will follow you to heaven. And don’t we just feverishly work away our lives trying to just get that pile bigger and bigger? Man, we’re like kids trying to rake leaves in the fall just trying to make that pile a little bit bigger. We get frustrated whenever life blows a little bit away. We’re feverish. We rake again. We rake again. And instead of living feverishly like that, what if you viewed all your stuff as God’s, because it is, and every now and then you choose the radical path of selling it, not for you to get something bigger and nicer and cooler, but for you to take the proceeds and give it away? There’s a family of our church that’s asked to remain anonymous for this one. They sold a piece of property, listed it for one price, it was bought for $15,000 over asking price. $15,000. What could you do with $15,000? I could think of about 50 things I could do with $15,000. That’d be awesome. They take this $15,000 and you know what they did? Stroke a check to Saul. Natural question is what’s the designation? They said nothing. Follow-up question. Do you want your name on something? No. This is anonymous. This is between us and the Lord. I get the sense that the early church, when they were selling their possessions, their property, distributing the proceeds, giving the profits, they weren’t that concerned with who’s going to remember what gift. They weren’t thinking, “How can I make sure that what I’ve done is remembered?” I think they were thinking, “Man, my brother’s got some medical bills. He can’t pay him. My sister can’t keep the lights on. I can help her out. My buddy’s going through this hard life situation, and a little bit of extra money would just, man, free him up.”

This is a pretty prickly one, I’ll be honest. Especially in a church like Sauldam, in a town like Charleston that remembers everything. We put names on everything. I’m going to offend probably everybody. Consider whenever you give to Sauldam, does it have to be anonymous or not? Can it be radical generosity, dependent prayer, transforming truth, vibrant sacraments? These were these devotions of the early church, and I fully believe that these are the devotions that Sauldam is increasingly going to grow into.

When I look at a book like Acts, I look at Acts chapter 2, verses 42-47. I believe I am reading our autobiography in the future. This is our future. Who else wants this? Who else, when you are bragging about Sauldam, you want to be able to say these things with a straight face? Man, God longs for us to be this. God has designed for us to be this.

But for us to grow into this future, I need something from you. I need every person here to ask, “What’s my job? What do I need to be devoted to?” Some of us need to more deeply devote ourselves to transforming truth. That’s going to look like reading your Bible every day. That’s going to look like attending Sunday school. Some of us need to grow in our devotion to our community. So in September, whenever men’s and women’s ministries kick off, you need to be putting your name on the signup list, joining a group, being part of a Bible study.

Some of us need to find more deep devotion to our sacraments. So the next Sunday when we do our Lord’s Supper, you’re not just shooting the juice, but you’re actually thinking about your sin and how God has saved you from it. Or you need to take the step of baptism, and you’re like, “Man, I’ve never actually been baptized before. I need to do this.”

Some of us need to grow in our devotion to dependent prayer, and you need to join me next Sunday morning at 9:15 in the old church. You need to be with us as we are just asking for God’s blessing on our congregation.

Some of us need to grow in our devotion to sacrificial generosity, and you need to bring your giving up to a tithe. A full actual 10% of your income needs to start coming to church or to another Christian organization, and I’ll let you off the hook. Me and Al and Sauldam Baptist Church, if we are not the type of place where you could become that type of person, let’s have that conversation. There’s so many great churches in Charleston. We’re not the only one. Man, if you’re not a member here at Sauldam Baptist Church, my invitation: let’s start the process about you joining, getting committed and devoted to this congregation.

You see, God longs to flow rivers of living water into the souls and the homes of this community, of your neighborhood, even in your own household. While God could use any means possible, God chooses to use imperfect, broken, messed up, wicked generation people like us. So you have a choice. Will you become a living water Christian? Will you help Sauldam become a living water church? And if so, what are you willing to give up for that?

Let’s make it personal. I want everybody to close your eyes. We’re going into a moment of prayer. Take your hands, put them palm up, sitting on your lap. This is a posture of both giving and receiving. This is a posture where you open yourself both to God’s voice to you, and you are offering yourself back to God. And I really want you to consider—I’m going to mention these five devotions one more time—and I want you to prayerfully consider: which of these do I need to grow in? Transforming truth, radical community, vibrant sacraments, dependent prayer, sacrificial generosity. You just pray. Say, “God, which one of these am I supposed to grow in? Holy Spirit, speak.”

God, Sauldam Baptist Church is an—it’s an incredible congregation of people that love You, but we’re Also imperfect. We’re broken, and we’re not yet who we are supposed to be. God, we’ve got lots of rich history and tradition, and I’m not trying to—I’m not trying to belittle that. But God, I know that our best years are ahead of us. Lord, we don’t have to yearn for some glory days to come back. God, we’re going into our glory days. We’re becoming who You want us to be. But God, there’s a gap between who we are and who we’re supposed to be. There’s a gap between who I am and the man I’m supposed to be. Holy Spirit, which one do I need to grow in? And how can I help sought Him? Holy Spirit, I want to give You a few more moments to speak to us as we just sit in silence. If every person in this room could just once again pray that prayer: Holy Spirit, which devotion do I need to grow in? Speak to me now.

Holy Spirit, I—I trust You’ve spoken. I’m begging You would solidify that work. For anybody that does not yet know You as Lord and Savior or have the confidence that they do, You please make it today. Make today the day for anybody in this room who—if we all—I mean, goodness gracious, God, we—we all need to grow in our devotion. You just—man, convict us, encourage us, strengthen us. Whatever—whatever we need from You, do it so that we would be more devoted to You. Please, God. God, we love You. We know You love us. It’s in Your great name that we pray.

Amen.