Today we are going to conclude our look at fellowship through Acts 2:40-47 by talking about the outcome of fellowship. A few weeks ago we discussed that the purpose of fellowship, the purpose of these intimate, not casual community spirit relationships is to build our character and to glorify Jesus. What does that look like? What is devotion to God’s Word and devotion to fellowship relationships supposed to accomplish? What does God want to work in and through us? The answers to those questions have to follow the purpose that has been set before us and the answers to those questions are found very clearly in the Scripture. The first church devoted themselves to the Word of God through the apostles teaching. Let’s remember that devotion means “exerting great effort to persist in doing something.” The first church gave great effort and persistence to the Word of God, they lived by it and they lived for it. They chose conversations and relationships based on the Word and fed by the Word. They lived to know the heart and character of God through His Word. As we have discussed for months now we read the Word of God to see the character of God. The Bible is a book that must be read to learn the character of the author and not merely to find out applications for the reader. God knows us, David said in Psalm 139 that He knows our frame; He knows that we are forgetful, that our hearts get weary and that we are prone to fainting and so He chose to write down His goodness, His faithfulness, His everlasting love and His eternal promise to never leave us nor forsake us. We devote ourselves to the Word of God so that we can see the heart of God, when we see His heart He begins to transform ours. The first church devoted themselves to the Word of God through the apostles teaching and to fellowship with each other through relationships that were built on God’s Word, desired God’s character and were lived for God’s glory. They broke bread together as a way of reminding each other of God’s goodness, of giving thanks to God corporately, of sharing God’s blessing and of obeying Jesus’ command that whenever they would eat they would do it in remembrance of Him. Food does not equal fellowship; fellowship happens when remembering Jesus is the focus of our friendship. So, we can fellowship around food but we can also have lots of food but never fellowship; fellowship is when our hearts seek God’s heart together. The first church fellowshipped in the breaking of bread and in prayer. They prayed prayers that sought the heart of God. They lifted up their needs, they made their requests know, they encouraged and strengthened each other in prayer but above all else their prayers were for the heart of God to become the heart of the church. They followed Jesus’ example of prayer in John 17, they prayed for unity and they prayed in unity; that they would be one each other by being one with God; that they would be transformed into the very image of Jesus, that their hearts and their minds, their conversation and their character would shout to the world around them that Jesus is Lord. Devotion to the Word of God was about seeing God’s character and devotion to fellowship was about living in His character together. Seeing God as He is gives us the opportunity to be redeemed; being redeemed gives us the calling of bringing redemption to others. Today we finish this passage of Scripture by seeing that the first church lived lives of devotion to the Word of God and to fellowship and two very specific things happened. One of those things happened to them and the other happened through them. This is the lesson I want us to learn today more than any other, whenever God works in us it is so that He can work through us. Luke writes that fear came upon every soul and that God added to their number. Devotion to God’s Word and to fellowship with each other is supposed to create the fear of God in our hearts and it is supposed to give God the opportunity to add to His number.