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Speaker 1: Life Audio. Thank you for listening to your Daily Bible Verse,

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Speaker 1: the podcast that examines one verse each day to learn

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Speaker 1: more about God and his will for our lives. I'm

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Speaker 1: your host, Kyle Norman. After a brief messages for one

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Speaker 1: of our sponsors, we will continue with today's verse. Today's

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Speaker 1: verse can be found in Acts two, Verse forty three.

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Speaker 1: Awe came upon everyone because many wonders and signs were

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Speaker 1: being done by the apostles. When you go to church,

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Speaker 1: what do you expect will happen? When you walk through

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Speaker 1: the doors of your local gathering? What do you expect

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Speaker 1: will take place? Now? There are certain practical ways that

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Speaker 1: we can answer those questions. You might say, well, I

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Speaker 1: expect someone to read from the Bible. It is church,

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Speaker 1: after all, so scripture will be read, and then somebody

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Speaker 1: will offer a reflection or a sermon. Similarly, you may

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Speaker 1: say that we will meet other people in the community,

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Speaker 1: we will have a time of fellowship, we will worship

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Speaker 1: together in song or maybe in the celebration of bread

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Speaker 1: and wine. And because it's church, somebody will pray, somebody

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Speaker 1: will lead us in prayer, and there will be this

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Speaker 1: time maybe of some silence, and this call and response.

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Speaker 1: All these things happen in church, and so we expect

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Speaker 1: that they will take place. But do you ever expect

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Speaker 1: that something more will happen? Do you expect that you

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Speaker 1: might expects or witness something deeper, maybe more wonderful, because

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Speaker 1: the early Church did. The Book of Acts is this

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Speaker 1: important look at the first century church and what the

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Speaker 1: community of faith looked like at its very beginning. And

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Speaker 1: one of the things that we hear is that when

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Speaker 1: the early community gathered together, awe came upon every soul,

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Speaker 1: and wonders and miraculous signs were being done all around them.

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Speaker 1: The early church community, they saw people's lives change, they

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Speaker 1: heard continual answers to prayer, they saw miracles happening over

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Speaker 1: here and over there. And because of all of this,

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Speaker 1: they were constantly awe struck at what God was doing

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Speaker 1: all around them. And the good news is that so

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Speaker 1: can we, because the reality for the faith community hasn't changed.

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Speaker 1: We too can be struck at what God does in

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Speaker 1: people's lives and in our own lives. But if we

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Speaker 1: want to be awe struck as the early Church was

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Speaker 1: awe struck, then perhaps we need to take on some

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Speaker 1: of the practices that they had at the center of

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Speaker 1: their life. Because this experience of awe coming upon every

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Speaker 1: single one of them, it didn't just come out of

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Speaker 1: the blue. It came from the community dedicated themselves to

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Speaker 1: practices that connected them to God and to each other.

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Speaker 1: Verse forty three flows out of verse forty two, which

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Speaker 1: says that they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching, to

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Speaker 1: the breaking of the bread, to the fellowship, and to

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Speaker 1: the prayers. And the word used for devoted simply means

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Speaker 1: they persisted in. They kept it up. They were diligent

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Speaker 1: in these practices, and the early church they experienced feeling

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Speaker 1: awe in God's presence because they were intentional about living

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Speaker 1: their faith lives together. They persisted in the apostles teaching,

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Speaker 1: which meant that He desired to know the truth about

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Speaker 1: Jesus by the people who knew him. They persisted in

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Speaker 1: the fellowship, in sharing their life together. Fellowship means having

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Speaker 1: a deep connection in faith. Doesn't mean just socializing or

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Speaker 1: shooting the breeze, but this willingness to be vulnerable with

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Speaker 1: each other, to support one another, the willingness to describe

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Speaker 1: what is happening in their spiritual lives to one another.

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Speaker 1: The Book of Acts goes on to describe how people

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Speaker 1: ate in each other's homes and how they cared boldly

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Speaker 1: for all who were in need. They persisted in the

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Speaker 1: breaking of the bread, which means this dynamic of christ

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Speaker 1: honor worship all centered around the re enacting of the

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Speaker 1: Lord's Supper. And they persisted in prayers. They radically pray

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Speaker 1: that God's spirit could be known in people's lives. They

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Speaker 1: brought their prairie quest to others. They had people pray

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Speaker 1: for them, and they prayed for others. And because they

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Speaker 1: lived in this way constantly, devotedly, Awe came upon every

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Speaker 1: single one of them. As they opened themselves to this

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Speaker 1: new way of life, united by Jesus and empowered by

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Speaker 1: the spirit the community of faith, they witnessed wonders and miracles.

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Speaker 1: They saw God at work in people's lives. You know,

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Speaker 1: there's a famous definition of insanity which states that insanity

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Speaker 1: is doing the same things over and over but expecting

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Speaker 1: different results. Well, churches today we do the same thing

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Speaker 1: as the early Church, So why do we expect a

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Speaker 1: different result? Why don't we ever expect that we can

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Speaker 1: witness God do something amazing all around us? When we

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Speaker 1: are united under the shared desire to be together in

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Speaker 1: the presence of the Lord, we have the ability to

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Speaker 1: witness the Spirit in our lives. We open ourselves, and

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Speaker 1: what happens is that even though individually we might be

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Speaker 1: struggling with prayer or feeling disconnected from God, or struggling

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Speaker 1: with questions or discouragement, the community itself bosters us, and

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Speaker 1: through their witness we see God at work. So what

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Speaker 1: might it look like for us to engage in the

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Speaker 1: practices of the early Church, to gather together with the

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Speaker 1: expectation that we might witness God do something As we

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Speaker 1: learn with each other, as we connect with each other,

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Speaker 1: as we worship with each other, and as we pray

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Speaker 1: with each other. What might it look like to dare

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Speaker 1: to believe that when we gather together in the presence

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Speaker 1: of the Spirit, at any single moment, we might hear

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Speaker 1: God's voice and we might feel God's Spirit. And if

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Speaker 1: we do, if we do actually incarnate that reality in

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Speaker 1: our churches together, then maybe we won't be surprised when

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Speaker 1: we are awe struck by the wondrous activity of God.

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Speaker 1: Maybe we will actually begin to expect it