sharing and unity

Acts 4 verses 32-35
Sometimes when you overhear children playing together you will hear the following phrase "that is mine and I am not sharing it with anyone!" You may hear those exact words or something similar which has the same purpose at its heart: to declare exclusive ownership of something. The sad thing is when it is not children expressing such sentiments but adults. Adults have become very good at expressing such sentiments today. We talk in terms of 'rights,' 'status,' 'respect,' and 'putting down markers' and similar phrases. Now this my intention is not to use the passage we read from Acts as a club to beat you with but to challenge us all afresh about what makes a powerful church. Lets look at Acts 4 verses 32-25.
Acts was written by Luke, originally it was part of a two volume letter but somewhere along the passage of time the gospel of Luke came to be separated and placed beside Matthew, Mark and John. The Acts of the Apostles was written around 64AD and has at its core the following purposes: How the gospel is related to the course of redemptive history. The gospels root and interaction with secular history. The universal character of the gospel. To reveal how the gospel has been freed from the Jewish law. How that behind the proclamation of the Word of God stands the power and activity of the Holy Spirit.
At the beginning of the book Peter dominates and then Paul dominates the scene. So lets look at Acts chapter 4. We have read in the preceding chapters of the ascension of Jesus into heaven, the coming of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost and the first mass conversion of people as a consequence. Then in chapter 3 we read of the healing of the crippled beggar by Peter and his sermon to those who were watching with the consequence that he and John are arrested and put into prison. Their courage in speaking the gospel with boldness before the Sanhedrin and their subsequent release. Then we have these 4 verses, which almost appear out of place but if you turn back to chapter 2 verses 44-45 you will see that this is the second time Luke has mentioned the behaviour of the Christian believers in Jerusalem and their concern for their brothers and sisters in Christ.
These verses fall into three easily remembered areas:
Unity
Generosity
Witness
Unity - if you look at verse 32, we read here that the believers were of one mind and heart. That is a simple statement and yet it is probably one of thee most important, thee most profound and thee most significant statements in the book of Acts. C S Lewis in the Screwtape Letters has the senior devil writing to the junior devil and telling him that if he can keep those within the Christian church bickering over programmes, finance, procedures, status and personal hurts then he will continue to win significant victories and make the church of Christ ineffectual in the world. The outworking of this 'oneness of heart and mind (soul)' is seen in very practical ways amongst the believers in the early church at Jerusalem. But we will look at that in a moment. The effect of this unity of heart and mind (or soul) was that the church was powerful and effective in the spreading of the gospel and in their standing amongst the community around them. When you read Acts you are amazed at what the church was able to do. How effective they were in reaching people with the gospel, in a much more hostile environment than we find ourselves today. Their unity meant they all worked for the same purpose and they all put in the same effort. Unity is a key ingredient in the work of the gospel in Acts, and it is essential today. Let me leave a question with you: What would your curchbe like if everyone was of one mind and heart?
Generosity - Look back at 2.44 - they did not consider their possessions their own - there was personal property but there was not private property in the church in Acts. Do you understand the meaning of that? Do you understand the implication of that for us? There was personal property but no private property in the NT church. The outworking of their unity of heart and mind was seen in their generosity towards one another. They sought to use their property to help those in need. From their riches they shared the blessing with others. I want to say to you that I know that to be true of many churches, I know of many acts of generosity, not just financial, within churches and I want to say to you keep being generous. These NT Christians lived in their own homes and they had their own possessions but they did not see them as being exclusively for their own use but for the benefit of all the community of believers.
Allow me for one moment to take it one step further - organisational property. I may be treading on some toes here but they probably need treaded on, so here goes. There should be no private property in your church. Yes property should be respected and treated properly. Yes permission should be sought before use but there should be nothing in your church building that is not for the common good of all in this community and for the proclamation of the gospel. If such property is here and it is not for the use of all then there all I can ask you to do is to explain it to me, and others, in light of these verses.
Turn with me for a moment to verses 34 and 35. Sometimes we read a bible passage and we take it quite literally and think well there is no way I could do that because it is just taking things too far. I think these two verses are often misunderstood in just such a light. 'From time to time' - that is the important phrase here. The acts Luke alludes to here were extraordinary and voluntary acts of Christian concern done in response to a special need among believers and they involved both sharing possessions and selling real estate. By separating these actions from verse 32 I believe Luke is pointing out that they were never meant to be normative for the church. I think that is why in the incident with Annais and Sapphira at the beginning if the next chapter the disciples state that the property they had sold was their own to do with it as they pleased. So we are not expected to sell all our property and put it into a common purse but there are occasions when God will provide an opportunity for us to express our generosity to brothers and sisters in need and to do so may involve us selling something of value (earthly value) in order to meet the needs of a fellow believer.
Witness - verse 33. Another outworking of their unity of heart and mind was that they were powerful in their witness to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Luke says that this witness was with 'great power.' There is no doubt from reading Acts that some of that 'great power' came in the form of the powerful preaching of the apostles and the miracles that Holy Spirit worked through them but no doubt some of that 'powerful witness' was actually what non-believers witnessed amongst the believing community. Those outside the Christian community witnessed a community that cared for people and that shared what it had with those in need within that community. Some of that sharing was in the form of practical financial assistance but how would you know someone was in need if you did not spend time with them and become intimately acquainted with their circumstances. Were people in Jerusalem any different than you and I today? Do you think some of them did not hide the truth of their lives from one another? Do you think some of them did not put on brave faces and facades? The witness of the church was not just in its preaching but also in its caring pastoral concern for one another.
Should the same not be true today? Should our witness not be powerful in Word and deed? Again I want to encourage you all by saying I know of many who have come to faith because of the caring of others. Are we not trying to do that in the way we seek to use a church building for community use? You see you all work out Acts 4.33 in many simple and practical ways but you just don't realise you are. I want to encourage you to keep at it. To have this unity of heart and mind which expresses itself in financial generosity in meeting the needs of others and in powerful witness in Word and deed of the death and resurrection of Christ.
You see it is the death and resurrection of Christ that is at the heart of all this. It is this gospel which brings unity of heart and mind. It is the death and resurrection of Christ that so changes the heart and mind of a man that he no longer thinks of himself but of others and so radically changes a community of people that they no longer store up treasure on this earth but seek to be generous for the benefit of others and to bring others to the saving knowledge of Christ.
So the application for you is simple this morning - be united, be generous and be a witness to the death and resurrection of Christ.
Amen.