Christian Devotion to Breaking Bread

SERMON TITLE:   “Christian Devotion to Breaking Bread”
SERMON TEXT:    Acts 2:37-47
PREACHER:           Rev. Kim James
OCCASION:           September 11, 2022, at First UMC     (We served communion.)
 
 
INTRODUCTION
 
                Thanks again to David Barron for leading worship last Sunday while I was away on vacation.  With our Ogden FUMC services archived on Facebook, I was able to worship with you all later in the week and be blessed by David’s good message about “Being a Christian 24/7.”  
                You may recall that, during the month of August, I preached a series of sermons from the New Testament letter to the Ephesians on the subject of grace.  God’s glorious grace permeated those chapters and verses and gave us a refresher course on the most basic aspects of our salvation through Jesus Christ.  Now, we’re going to take our Christian experience a little farther.  After we repent of our sins and receive God’s merciful forgiveness, then what?  What does God expect from us?  How are we supposed to practice this newly improved life of Christian faith?
                To get at these next steps, we’re going to spend four Sundays focusing our attention on what the earliest Christians did.  On the Day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came upon the people gathered in Jerusalem, thousands repented of their sins, received forgiveness, and were baptized.  Then those new believers put themselves to some disciplines to help them grow in their Christian faith.  As stated in Acts 2:42, “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and prayers.”  Since we’ll serve communion later in this service and we’ll have a potluck lunch after worship, we’re going to begin this series today with the Christian devotion to breaking bread.

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