Acts 4:32-37
Please remain standing and turn
in your copy of the scriptures to the book of Acts. Our reading
will be Acts chapter 4, verses 32 to 37. Hear the word of the
living God. Now the full number of those
who believed were of one heart and soul. And no one said that
any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they
had everything in common. And with great power, the apostles
were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord
Jesus and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy
person among them for as many as were owners of lands or houses
sold they brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it
at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any
had need. Thus Joseph, who was also called
by the apostles Barnabas, which means son of encouragement, a
Levite, a native of Cyprus, he sold a field that belonged to
him and brought the money and laid it at the apostles’ feet.
Let’s ask for God’s help and blessing. Lord, this is your
word. Write it on our hearts. Make
our hands and feet ready to leave this place this day to go and
do what is expected of us all for the glory of Christ and by
the power of your spirit, we ask and pray in Jesus name. Amen. You may be seated. If you were to take a camera
and march your way through the history of the early church,
you could do that by reading through the book of Acts and
see these descriptions. You could take snapshots of the
church at work. There would be a snapshot of
a prayer meeting. There would be a snapshot of the apostles
teaching. There would be a snapshot of
the family of God eating together. There would be another snapshot
of the worship service, a snapshot of the Lord’s Supper, a snapshot
of offerings being collected. There would be snapshots of miraculous
healing, such as the man born lame, who Peter and John healed
in recent studies. There would be snapshots of trials
and persecution and hardship. And all of these snapshots, when
put together, make up a wonderful album, a wonderful picture book
of the life of the early church. We get a new snapshot today.
And in this snapshot, we see the people of God living together
in community. And we see gospel grace, gospel
generosity as each One ensures that everyone’s needs are met
in this wonderful family of Almighty God. Today, we want to think
of this passage. We want to think of the gospel
of grace. We want to think of gospel generosity. We want to think of. assistance
in the covenant community. We want to think about the visible
church. And we don’t want to think of
it just in the sense of snapshots for us or for our posterity. But what does the world see when
they look in and see a snapshot of the church of Jesus Christ?
You know, you know the reason most people don’t go to church
these days. It’s not the NFL. It’s not because the shopping
centers open. You know what they say. The church is just full
of hypocrites. And what’s our response? Well,
there’s always room for one more. Come on in. We’ll take you. But if you if you take a true
snapshot of a true church, a church striving to grow in grace, a
church striving to read the word and allow the spirit to do his
work, you’ll see quite A different view than our pessimistic outlook
from many of our friends and neighbors. In fact, if you look
inside the church, you will see a community of grace. You will
see a community of people who possess new life in Jesus Christ. You will see a people who are
living letters, giving testimony. to the generations of good parenting
and good pastoring. You will see in the church a
people concerned for one another. You will see a people living
the answer to Jesus’ high priestly prayer. Remember John 17, one
of Jesus’ great prayers in the scripture. I pray for them, Lord. I pray for them who live now.
I pray for them who will come in generations to come. I pray
that they will be one. He prays for unity. He prays
for what we have in our passage today. In fact, it says it so
well in verse 32, the full number of those who believed were of
one heart and soul. Other translations say one heart
and one mind. There was a beautiful picture
of marriage, of oneness, we might say, within the church of Jesus
Christ. Now, sadly, there is in the church,
particularly in America, a lot of hypocrisy. The church in America,
the church maybe around the world, I don’t know, but I’ll speak
for 21st century American Christianity. There’s an integrity issue in
the church of Jesus Christ. Many are uninvolved. We are there,
but not there for each other. And so the testimony of the church
in our day has fallen on hard times. And so I want our passage
of scripture today to say to each of us, There’s some work
to do. There’s some witness to be doing. There’s some steps to take in
order that we might be a more faithful witness. to almighty
God. I want us to think of this. I’ve
got, I’ve got three G’s for you today. How’s that? We’re, we’re,
we’re, um, it’s different in here. The sound’s not working.
We’re, we’re, we’re missing our pianist. Um, uh, my wife’s not
here today. It’s a, it’s an odd day in the
life of the church. Um, so let’s make something easy.
Three G’s. How about that growth? The beginning of our passage
tells us the full number of those who believed were of one heart
and one soul. Well, you don’t have to look
back very far to see. The early church was somewhere
around 5,000 people. It had been the 12 apostles,
the 12 disciples, added to that number by the time Jesus is meeting
with them in the upper room, 120 souls. Remember the first
day Pentecost? Couple thousand added now, now
it’s 5,000 people. Now I’m going to stop and be
a little personal here for a moment. I have served in big churches.
I’ve served in medium churches. And I love the small church.
It’s great. Most churches in America, 80%
are under 100 people. It’s where the meat and potatoes
are. You hear about Big Church A, Big Church B, Big Church C. They have their place. I’ve served
in one. It’s a bunch of rah-rah. You get known here. You get cared
for here. You get tailor-made spiritual
help in a small church. It’s a wonderful thing. You can
see, though, that big things bring hard problems. We’re gonna
see that in the weeks to come. But to have what is listed, what
is told to us, testified to us in verse 32, the number of those
who believed, 5,000, were of one heart and soul. Well, they
hadn’t tried to pick out carpet yet. They haven’t had a deacon
board meeting yet. And trouble is going to come.
I think I was telling Doug Hamilton, he used to live in Mooresville,
and I used to preach in a church outside of Mooresville. When
I was a seminary student, it was called Faith. And Faith left
Shearer. Shearer needed an air conditioning
unit, and there was disagreement on which vendor to use, and so
out of that hardship, tongue in cheek, right, Faith was born. So I used to preach at faith.
It was a little church. I preached there on Sunday night some, and
I used to hear this. Yeah, we got started because
we couldn’t agree on which kind of air conditioning unit to purchase.
And so sin will come into the early church. Disunity will come,
but at least for now, there’s growth. And that’s the first
thing I want us to take a look at here is the growth of the
church. There are 5,000 people in this early church, and by
God’s grace, they are of one heart, one mind, one soul. But what brought their growth?
What brought their growth? I want you to think about this
for a moment. There was no building. There was no band. There was
no Tuesday night Bible study. Well, maybe there was. There
was nothing, there was no coffee bar. You get to see the picture
here, right? This was just preaching, this
was just prayer, and this was just being together, and it was
growing like wildfire. We get these magazines in the
mailbox out here every week, and they make it down the hall
to the little blue file, recycle bin. Church growth, gotta turn
the music up. Preacher needs a hairstyle. I
mean, it goes on and on and on. And you know what’s missing from
every one of these growth magazines? Preaching. It says nothing about
the word of God. And one of the things you’ll
read throughout the book of Acts, as the word of God is preached
and proclaimed, the church grows. And the church grows monumentally. And we like to say two things
about preaching. It does two things. It builds
up and comforts saints. So those of you in church who
are already believers, already followers of Jesus, preaching
comforts and builds you up. But for those who aren’t saved,
it may be that day through the preaching of the word by God’s
spirit’s power that you are convinced and converted. You are convinced
of your sin and misery and converted from worldliness to godliness. And so the word of God spreads,
the church grows, And it grows to 5,000 people through the preaching
of the word, through the faithfulness of the apostles. In fact, we’re
told in other places in the book of Acts, they were filling up
Solomon’s portico in the temple complex. And so that’s the first
thing we want to see in this passage. There’s growth. It’s
gospel growth. It’s growth through the ministry
of the word. The second thing we see is grace.
There’s growth. But there’s grace. In fact, our
passage tells us about grace. Great grace was on the people
of God. Now, if you want to be really
technical about it, it’s speaking of great grace being on the apostles
as they preached and proclaimed and told about the resurrection
of Jesus. But I think as you look through
this passage, you see evidence of grace in the lives of those
5,000 people. They were of one heart, of one
mind, of one soul. You can’t explain that except
through grace. Just go join an organization,
not a church, but go join a lion’s club, go join a woman’s club,
go join a country club, go join a school club, go join any other
club and just hold elections. Who gets to be the treasurer?
Who gets to be the president? Who gets to be the vice president?
Who gets to spearhead the fundraiser? Who gets to write the newsletter?
And what do you have automatically? You’ve got strife. You’ve got
heat. You’ve got fire. You’ve got smoke.
And people start looking for the doors. And it’s that way
in the church very often. It’s sadly that. But in this
instance, as we look at this snapshot of the gospel community,
as we look at this picture of the church, the early church,
we see grace and we see it in a couple of ways. The first way
we see grace in this church that has grown is they’re saved people. God did not leave. them dead
in their sins and trespasses, but made them alive in Christ
Jesus, the word of God, which was preached and proclaimed the
witness, the eyewitness testimony from the apostles to the resurrection
of Jesus had done its work. Numbers were added. And so we
see grace in the transformed lives of the people. So you look
in the, around the church. I sit in a company of saints.
I sit with fellow believers. These are not those outside these
walls who do not call on the name of Jesus, but we, we sit
in a room with other believers, one Lord, one faith, one hope,
one baptism. And we come into this building
out of the world, out of paganism, out of ungodliness into this
place where people have been touched by grace. But there’s
another way we can see grace in this passage. Now, Before
I explain it, let me tell you, the Bible here is not promoting
communism. The Bible is not promoting that
we sell all our goods and we put it in a common pot and that
the elders distribute it equally to one another. That is not what
the Bible is teaching. There is an interesting and unique
and special occasion here in the life of the early church.
I think I mentioned it when we read Deuteronomy. It’s a hard
time in this particular era It’s a hard time in this particular
geographical spot in the world. It’s a hard time for those who
leave behind their family and their religion to come to faith
in Jesus and be members and followers of the way. And so as they come
into this community of saints, there is a real need, a real
material need. And people touched by grace don’t
just sing amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a
wretch like me. No, they look around and see others in need
and say, I have resources. I have resources and I will help. I am able to help. And while
that principle lasts with us, we don’t want to say we’ve got
to sell it all and put it all in the common
pot and then redistribute it equally. That’s not here. But
you get the idea. If one in the body is in need. We want to look to those needs.
We want to help meet those needs. We want to care for one another,
whether it’s through joblessness or sickness or heartache or hardship. When the body hurts, we all hurt. And so we see a special act of
grace here where a church of 5,000, they look not to their
own needs. They don’t say, well, I’ve got
a cable bill due. They don’t say, well, the kids are in need
of shoes. I can’t help this week. Give
me a buzz next month. It’s a work of grace here. And
as one has resources and another does not, they begin to meet
one another’s needs through the work and the life of the church.
Now there’s a particular person whose name is brought up here,
Barnabas. Barnabas has a piece of land outside Jerusalem. Barnabas
is a Levite. And some of you are probably
thinking to yourself, Levites don’t own land. Well, it’s a
long time past the establishment of the Levites. Somehow this
Levite named Barnabas, he got a little land and what does he
do? He sells it, gives it to the apostles and they distribute
it among the poor in the church. But Barnabas name is very interesting.
And so we’re thinking here on the growth of the church, the
grace of God in the church, Grace saves, but here’s grace at work
in the community. And then zero in on Barnabas.
Son of encouragement. We got a lot of Joshuas running
around the Christian world. Got a lot of Caleb’s running
around the Christian world. We need more Barnabases. Sons
and daughters of encouragement. I can’t tell you how many times
in my life, both as a Christian in the church, but as a minister
in the church, been blessed by people who say, I see needs and
I want to meet them. I get a, I get a bird’s eye view
of the life of the church. And I’ve seen a lot of things
over my life in ministry that have been a blessing and encouragement
to me. Someone says, I see a need, I have ability to meet it. Um,
I want to do it. I think of a time when a young
family in our congregation were, well, they were about to be homeless.
And a man in the congregation who was a man of means said,
they’re about to be homeless. And unless we do something, they’re
going to be in a bad way. There were a lot of children
in the home. And so he gave me a check. He wrote it to me. He
said, you cash this check and you go to this apartment complex,
you rent this family an apartment and you pay the deposit and you
pay three months rent for them. And then you go tell them, I’ve
got a place for you to live. And don’t you dare tell them
it was me who did it. Those are the fun things that I get to
see from time to time. But I can also tell you personally,
there was a time when my ministry needed to end for a time. And
so I left a call and it was, well, it was before I came here
and I was two and a half years between calls. And during those
two and a half years, I never missed a paycheck. During those
two and a half years, I never missed a mortgage payment. I
never missed a health insurance payment. My family never went
without. And it was through the care of
the church. It was through odds and ends and jobs I could pick
up. But during those times, and I can tell you this with great
joy, it was better than having a regular paycheck because it
was good to see how God takes care of his saints. And so these
are the pictures, the snapshots of grace in the lives of the
church at this particular time, but we ought to be encouraged
to do these things as well. We watch a lot of sports, right?
We hear the analysis. Look at so-and-so. Sports terminology is just funny.
It’s just wacky. We have some little fun around
the house giving an after-the-game speech, just using all their
goofy phrases. But there’s one phrase that’s
worth thinking about. It’s the phrase unselfish. So-and-so
is unselfish, they share the ball. So-and-so is unselfish,
look at all their assists. And that ought to be the greatest
statistic, not only in sports, but in the church. We’re here
for the team to follow the sports analogy. We’re here for the glory
of God, the name of Christ to be exalted. We’re here to help
in the communion of saints. What’s our assist record? Are we unselfish? Do we share? And so as the church of God grows,
5,000 people, one heart, one soul, one mind, as the church
of God grows and it is full of grace, we also see them carry
on in the great commission. That’s the third thing we want
to think about. There’s the church growing. There’s the grace of
God in the church, but the great commission, verse 30, Three says,
with great power, the apostles were giving their testimony to
the resurrection of the Lord and great grace was upon them
all. Remember in the nitty gritty
day to day work of the church, you know, we have power bills
to pay offerings to collect. We have work days to trim the
hedges. We come to worship services.
We, We got all these moving parts to life in the church these days. We’ve got to remember the main
thing. It’s getting the gospel out. It’s the great commission
churches. Now we, we huddle up, we have our little holy huddles.
You know, we, we get in our building and we say, Oh, how shiny it
is. And we paint the walls for the umpteenth time. But if we’re
not out, if we’re not preaching the gospel, if we’re not taking
the good news to the dark and dying world, we’ve missed the
point of being the church. And yes, there’s times to be
together. There’s times for the holy huddles. Don’t get me wrong,
but the great commission, the preaching of the gospel is of
great importance. And remember in their prayer
meeting and other of the snapshots of the church, what did they
pray for? Did they have an organ recital? Dear God, help Aunt Susie’s big
toe, which hurts. Dear God, help Uncle Billy who
once had a friend who knew somebody who’s got a cousin who has a
broken leg. I mean, those are important things
to pray for, right? But that’s the typical organ recital, church
prayer meeting. What do they pray for? Oh God,
the Gentiles rage against your church. The peoples plot in vain. They hate Christ. They hate us,
his people and his apostles. But nevertheless, Lord, give
us boldness to preach and to proclaim and to give witness,
testifying to the resurrection which we have seen with our own
eyes and whose power now lives in us. That’s the prayer meeting
they had. And so as the church grows, as
grace is on display, we see the Great Commission carrying on
in the life of the Church of Jesus Christ. If the church were
to look in If the church were to look in, they were to peel
back the roof and peek down in the life of the church, what
would they see? Would they see the expected hypocrisy, which
they are so ready to say exist? Well, they’d probably see some,
right? We’re sinners. Or would they see new life? Would
they see great grace? Would they see gospel generosity? What would they see though, if
they followed a handful of us around the community? Oh, we
want snapshots. We want to look in on your church,
but we want to follow a few of your key people around the community.
We want to see what they’re like. How are they different from the
world? What would they see? You know, it’s. It’s important
to ask that question, and it’s really important how you answer
that question, because the public honor of the name of Jesus Christ
is at stake. And just like Barnabas in our
passage today, Barnabas was a son of encouragement. Would it be
said, those people, they love each other, they care for each
other, they encourage one another along the way. I want you to
think about Barnabas again for just a second. Barnabas is gonna
continue to be a key figure in the life of the early church.
In fact, Barnabas will be accompanying Paul on at least his first missionary
journey And Barnabas is gonna be one of those, the without
which ministry could not be done type people. And we’re in a body,
we’re in a church, we’re in a congregation made up of many of you. And you
know the old saying, 80% of the work gets done by 20% of the
people. Wouldn’t it be nice to have, oh, 80% of the church to
be Barnabases? And a good bit of the work of
the church shouldered by a good number of the people. And various
ones of us are at various stages of age and income and ability
and time and whatever. Some of us maybe can pray. Some
of us can give. Some of us can do hands-on, maybe
even a lot of hours part-time-ish per week. We all come with different
abilities, different gifts. But may it be said of us, if
the world were to look in, That’s a place of gospel grace, gospel
growth, and gospel power. And not to pat ourselves on the
back, but so that the name of Christ and the power of the transforming
grace of the gospel is exalted in this dark world. That’s what
the world needs to see. So let’s show it to them. Pray
with me. Our Lord and God, we thank you
for this snapshot of the church. We ask that We would be so faithful
as to serve in such a way that would amaze the world. If they looked
in, they would be amazed, not at the hypocrisy, but at the
grace, at the growth, at the great commission work that is
in our midst. Help us by your power. Give us
that same boldness as you gave your apostles to proclaim the
goodness of God and the resurrection of Jesus. And we pray it in his
name. Amen.