The Starting Line

Read

Acts 2:41-43 "Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day. They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles."

Think

Summer is coming to a close. You see the first day of school nearing on your calendar. For some of you there is a duffel bag sitting on a bedroom floor that has been there since Sunday. The clothes inside still smell like lake water and sunscreen and that specific camp smell that you cannot explain to anybody who was not there.

For others there are some who did not go anywhere this summer. Who worked. Who watched a younger sibling all July. Who scrolled past everybody else's photos from a bedroom that got very quiet, and felt something they would never say out loud.

Here is what is interesting about those two students. The most important question in front of both of them is exactly the same. The question is not, “What did you feel this summer?” The question is, “Who are you becoming now that the summer is ending?” Those are two completely different questions, and only one of them will still matter in six months.

Because something has been happening in you this summer, whether or not it came with a soundtrack. Maybe it was a night in a room full of people singing when you finally stopped performing. Maybe it was a conversation at one in the morning. Maybe it was quieter than that, alone in a car or a bedroom, and you just knew God was doing something. Maybe you are still waiting for a moment like that and it has not come yet, and you are wondering if it ever will. All of that counts. God is not only working in the students who had a big week this summer.

But it is August now. Practice is starting, school is coming, and the group chat has already moved on to something else.

Look at where the church actually started. In Acts 2, Peter preaches one sermon and about three thousand people give their lives to Jesus and get baptized in a single day. Three thousand. If you are looking for a spiritual high, this is the biggest one in the whole book. Verse 41 is the mountaintop.

But Luke does not stop writing at verse 41. He writes verse 42. And verse 42 is the one worth sitting with.

"They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer."

Devoted. Notice that is not a feeling word, it is a calendar word. It is a Tuesday afternoon word. Three thousand people had the most emotional day of their lives, and then they went home and rearranged their ordinary schedules around Jesus. They did not post about it and go back to how things were... before this mountaintop moment.

This is where a lot of us get stuck, because somewhere along the way following Jesus turned into a list of boxes. Believe in Jesus? Check. Give your life to him? Check. Get baptized? Check. Show up on Sundays? Check. Show up on Wednesdays? Check. And once the boxes are checked, there is this quiet assumption that the thing is finished.

The day you gave your life to Christ was not the finish line. Baptism was not the finish line. The best night you have ever had at church was not the finish line. Every one of those was a starting line.

Think about a driver's license. The day you pass the test is not the day you become a good driver. It is the day you are allowed to start becoming one. Every mile after that test is what actually forms you. Nobody frames the paperwork from the DMV and calls that driving.

So, whatever this summer actually was for you, loud or quiet or honestly kind of disappointing, you are standing on a starting line this morning. You can let it fade into a story you tell about the summer you were really into God. Or you can start building a normal week that looks like what you say you believe. Devotion is what emotion becomes when it costs you something.

What is one thing about your normal week that would have to be different for what you say you believe to still be true in October, in the middle of the season, when practice is long, when it’s not easy?

Apply

Unpack the bag – Take twenty minutes today and write down one thing you believe God has been saying to you this summer, whether it came at camp, at church, or alone in your room. Not a feeling, an actual sentence. Then write one thing that has to change about your normal week for that to still be true three months from now.

Pray

God, I do not want this summer to turn into a story I tell. Some of my friends had a big moment and I am not sure I did, and I do not really know what to do with that. Show me what devoted looks like on a normal Wednesday when nobody is watching. Help me start something instead of just waiting for something. In Jesus' name. Amen.