A Grace-Filled Community

SERMON: 2011-07-03--ac1164--a-grace-filled-community SOURCE DURATION: 00:44:34.000 PROPOSED CUTS: 1 CONFIDENCE: 0.98 APPROVED: false REASON: The candidates [1] through [15] constitute a continuous liturgical closing (prayers/benedictions), which is considered part of the sermon's conclusion. Candidate 0 is explicitly labeled as MUSIC and represents the first clear non-sermon material following the spoken content. Therefore, candidate 15 is the last segment belonging to the sermon before the music begins. Acoustic segmentation found sustained music at the end edge and moved the boundary to the adjacent transcript segment. ACOUSTIC EVIDENCE: available ACOUSTIC MUSIC INTERVALS: 00:40:53.160-00:44:08.620, 00:44:10.360-00:44:33.920 ACOUSTIC SPEECH OVERLAP: yes ACOUSTIC BOUNDARIES APPLIED: end Inline CUT markers identify each proposed audio boundary after the relevant word. --- ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT WITH PROPOSED CUTS MARKED --- I don't know about you, but when I read Luke's description here in Acts chapter 4 of what life was like in the early church, I can't help but think how different that early church was from much of what passes as church in the world today. In the time that we have, let me try to walk you through some of the characteristics that Luke says were part and parcel of this early church. And as we do that, you will notice that he repeats characteristics that he has already spoken of in Acts chapter 2. And I would conclude from that, that he finds these characteristics so unique and so important that he has no hesitation in repeating them at all. So notice three qualities of life characteristic of the early church. First of all, he says they were a unified community. The first part of verse 32, all the believers were one in heart and mind. Now the heart in biblical thought is of course the seat of personality. It's where you do your real living. It's the place of your passion. It's the place of your desire. It's the place out of which you do your connecting, as people in today's world would say we have a connection. And to be one in heart therefore is to be joined together in such a way as to love each other, care for each other, and to consider the other person's needs and joys and triumphs as significant as your own. They were one in heart. They were like heartbeats in tune with each other. Now the mind, obviously, is the organ of our thought. It's the place where ideas originate sometimes. It's certainly the place where a world and life view is shaped. And to be one in mind is to share a common understanding of life. It's to hold on to a common world and life view. And the Apostle Paul puts it this way in Philippians chapter 2 verse 2. He says, "Complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind." So this is a very unified community. And this unified community, it's unique. And it's unique for two reasons. The first is that our natural tendency, of course, is to go the other way. The natural tendency is towards fragmentation. You can see that how the natural tendency of the humankind is to close off your heart to other people, particularly when you feel misunderstood or misrepresented or hurt. And Paul writing to the Corinthians pleads with him at one point, and he says, "Open up your hearts to me." He says, "I haven't closed my heart off to you, but you've closed your heart off to me. As beloved children," he says, "open up your heart." And in terms of being one in mind, well, the natural drift in society, of course, is towards having a mind of your own. In fact, when people are unified in their thinking, we often write them off as being cultish, even though Scripture places a great emphasis on the fact that in union with Christ, our minds want to be operating according to the truth of Jesus. Any leader can tell you that trying to get people on the same page is a little bit like herding cats. Good luck. It's extremely difficult. And yet, as Paul prayed earlier, "Complete my joy. Be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind." As the church matures, we ought to have the mind of Christ. And as we have the mind of Christ, we will have a similar world and life view because it is motivated by the truth who is Jesus. But there's still a second reason why this unified community is a rarity, because this union that this church experiences here in Acts chapter 4 takes place in the context of religious persecution. You will recall, that's what has led up to all of this. Peter and John healed in the name of Jesus, the crippled man at the beautiful gate, gave opportunity for preaching the good news of Jesus. The religious authorities were badly bent out of shape on account of that, and they threatened them to within an inch of their life. And then they prayed for God to give them boldness and for God to give them courage. And so here in the face of persecution, they stand together, they remain united. And that's unique, because while sometimes persecution drives God's people together historically, more often than not, it drives them apart because it plays on the deepest fears and the deepest insecurities of our lives. You'll know how many of you are familiar with the Xiao Wang Home Church in Beijing, China. It's been in the news quite a bit of late, and it's been in the news because it is the single largest unregistered house church in the city of Beijing. It has a membership of about a thousand people, mostly young professionals. In fact, Wiba tells me that when he and I were in Beijing last year, at one of the first seminars we did there, which was a seminar for young professionals, undoubtedly had people present from this particular church. Now the reason it's been in the news is because they've been experiencing a lot of persecution at the hands of the Chinese government. If you know the history of China, the tolerance of the church goes like this. Every so often they just let them be, and everybody has breathing space, and then all of a sudden a thing will happen, and you've got this kind of crackdown, and that's what's been happening this year. And so this particular church used to meet in rented facilities. The government put so much pressure on the landlord that the church said, "We can't let you take the fall for this. The lease was terminated." They said, "Well, the solution to that is for us to buy our own building." So they raised, if you can believe it, four million dollars. That's a lot of money, even by Western standards, let alone by Chinese standards. Four million dollars to buy a whole floor of one of the office towers. They paid for it, and then under pressure from the government, the guy that owned that floor refused to hand over the keys. So what could they do? The only thing that they could do is they began to worship outside. And so here is a shot of the Christian folks in the Xiuying Church worshiping at a park. But of course, that doesn't go over very well with the authorities either, and they have been harassed and they have been persecuted, and their numbers now have dwindled to about 100 out of the usual thousand, because people are losing their jobs, people are being put in prison, and they are otherwise being placed under great stress. And a little while ago, Weiba sent me this email. He said, "Pray for the church at Xiuying," and he included this news item. He says, "Beijing's embattled Xiuying Church has been rocked by a split in its leadership team of more than a dozen, marked by the departure of one pastor, one preacher, and two deacons according to the South China Morning Post. Since early April, Xiuying Church has been holding its services outdoors after the congregation was evicted. Police detained over 100 members. That hasn't deterred the senior pastor, who is now under house arrest, from calling on his members to continue meeting. Dozens were detained during the church's Easter service, and there were also fears of a widening crackdown on other house churches in Beijing and across China. And while some church members remain under house arrest, others are either too fearful to attend upcoming Sunday services, or have decided to leave the church altogether. That's what happens when persecution breaks out." And so the fact that you've got here this New Testament church, one in heart and mind, under the circumstances in which they find themselves, is a most unique gift of God's grace. I'll talk more about that in a little bit. So they were unified, not only. But then Luke goes on to say that they freely shared their resources. Verse 32 goes on to say, "No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had." And a little bit later on in the chapter, it spells out for us what that looked like in the real world. Verse 34 and 35, "From time to time," now get this, "those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need." And so no wonder verse 34, rather, is introduced with the words, "There were no needy persons among them." Can you picture this? So united in heart and mind that nobody considered his possessions his own, but they freely shared what they had to the point of giving it to each other. Not because they had to, not because they outlawed private ownership, but moved by the power of the Holy Spirit and moved with love for each other. Surely they were practicing what Paul later on was preaching when he quotes from the Old Testament, "Those who had little had no lack, and those who had much had nothing left over." God honored that kind of equality in the body of Christ. Now I think you'll agree with me, will you not, that that's sort of an unusual kind of thing. Yes, it's true, there are people in the world who are altruistic, they like to give and they like to share, but it's usually out of a state of abundance, and it's usually to your own kind, and it's usually because you get your plaque on a building or your name on an institution. But to give freely out of your heart, motivated by the love of God, that's most unusual. And so for that reason throughout the course of history, the redistribution of wealth typically only takes place by force, doesn't it? It takes place by violent revolution, where the poor rise up in sufficient numbers to ponder the houses of the rich. That's why in many third world countries, the rich people all live in gated estates and the poor people live off to the side. You go to a place like Mexico or any number of third world countries, you see that if the gospel hasn't done its work in permeating the values of a society, the rich only get richer and the poor only get poorer. And so sometimes when the poor become desperate enough, they'll rise up in rebellion and you've got a society in revolution and in chaos. The only other way, of course, is by government legislation, as in taxing the rich to pay the poor, or as Soviet Russia did under communism, you outlaw private ownership and you make collective ownership under the presupposition that that will redistribute wealth. Well, it took them 75 years to discover that without a changed human heart, changing an economic system doesn't make it happen because the rich still gathered, the people in power still gathered all the riches to themselves and the poor were still poor and continue to be. Just for the record, one of the reasons, not the only reason, but it's one of the reasons poverty in third world countries is so difficult to deal with. Because as you hear the stories, much of the aid that gets provided to certain nations of the world ends up in the storehouses of the rich who make money off it. It doesn't get to where it needs to go. Now that's a generalization, it's not always true, but certainly one of the struggles that is faced in the redistribution of wealth. And again, what's so unique then about the early church is that without any, you know, authority from the top, without any revolution from the bottom, without any body forcing it to happen, people were generously sharing their goods one with another. And one of the examples that is given here is the man called Barnabas, who later on becomes key in Saul's conversion, who sold some of his property and brought the money and he put it at the apostles' feet. And that, as we'll see later on, sets the stage for the next chapter, which is the story of Ananias and Sapphira, because already then, trouble lurks around the corner given the heart of mankind. So here's this early church, it is unified in heart and mind, it shares its resources freely with one another because they've been motivated by the Spirit of God. And then the third thing that's interesting to note here is they remain committed, they remain focused on their mission. Verse 33, "With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus and much grace was upon them all." I love that phrase, "much grace was upon them all." They remain committed to the proclamation of the good news, and if you want to see what that looks like, then the next chapter gives a good description of how powerful this apostolic ministry was. Let's take a few moments and read these verses together. Chapter 5 from verse 12 on, skipping a few verses in between, "The apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders among the people. More and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to the number. As a result, people brought the sick into the street, laid them on beds and mats so that at least Peter's shadow might fall on some of them as he passed by. Crowds gathered also from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing their sick and those tormented by evil spirits and all of them." That's what's remarkable. Talk about grace being heavy upon them, all of them were healed. What a story and what a dynamic church to be a part of and what a commitment to the mission, what a commitment to the mission of the Lord Jesus. And through it all, they remained focused then on reaching out with the gospel. Now I emphasize that because as you've often heard me say, historically the Christian church discovers a tension between being and doing, a tension between being community, separated from the world and being a community that reaches out into the world. Those forces tend to be opposed to each other because as a community, you want to be a safe community, you want to be a holy community, you don't want to be polluted by the world and so people become Christians, they come out of the world and they find home among God's people and among God's values. But the great commission at the same time is to reach out and to bring in the lost and that means getting your hands dirty, that means getting polluted by the sin that is out there and so historically there is always a conflict between let's keep ourselves safe and let's engage in the mission of our master. And apart from the spirit of God, guess which of those two most commonly wins out? It's the idea of being safe. Somebody has called it koinonitis, comes from the Greek word koinonia, which means fellowship. But fellowship brought to an unbiblical extreme becomes an infection that keeps the church from reaching out. And if you want to see how true that is to human nature, all you have to do is think back to when you've been part of a small group. Many small groups start out saying we want our group to grow. Some groups will have an empty chair to represent the people that we want to reach out to and everybody begins with this great philosophy of can we bring our friends, can we bring our neighbors? But then as the group grows a little bit and people let down their hair and they open up their hearts to each other, they develop a koinonia, don't they? They develop a sense of fellowship, a sense of we're safe with each other, we trust each other, we love each other. And now somebody says well I've got a neighbor that I want to bring along. Guess what everybody says? No, because one wrong person who doesn't know how to handle confidentiality or who is of a different spirit will shut your whole group down. Is that not true? And so what happens typically is that everybody says in theory we want to be engaged in mission. But in actual practice the church very quickly becomes a place where it's all about me. I want to feel comfortable, I want to feel safe, and I want to feel secure. And scripture says it isn't one versus the other, you've got to have both. But both will always be in tension with each other. Do you understand what I'm saying? Is it true to your own experience? How hard it is to keep opening your heart to new people and to new relationships when you're fully satisfied with your own family and with your own friends. So here's the early church. Here's the early church. They have wonderful koinonia. They have wonderful fellowship. I mean these people, they stand shoulder to shoulder, they are together, they are one in heart and mind, they share their possessions freely, but they are not ingrown. They continue their ministry and many were added to their number. Earlier the book of Acts says the Lord added daily those who were being saved. Can you see how that might just stretch the fabric of the early church? In fact, you know, the next chapter already we run into trouble with Ananias and Sapphira. The chapter after that we have tension between the Greek widows and the Hebrew widows because people are feeling neglected and you begin to see that the ideal picture of the church doesn't last very long because sin is present everywhere. And yet here we have that model of how the church begins, a community that was just incredibly pleasing to God and incredibly attractive to the world around them. So they were unified, they shared their goods, their resources, they engaged in mission. And so here's the question, what gave them the power to be this way when this is so contrary to human nature? And the answer is threefold and I'm going to wind up shortly with this, let me walk you through this quickly. First of all, the answer is obviously they were filled with the Holy Spirit. Remember verse 31 of Acts chapter 4, we spent a lot of time on it and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit. What happens when you're filled with the Holy Spirit? Your being is overtaken, you are filled with the presence of God. You know that you know that you know that because of Jesus your sins are forgiven. You know that you know that you know that because of Jesus, God grants you the Spirit of Sonship, God is your Father. And because God is your Father and He is Almighty Maker of Heaven and Earth, nobody can touch you outside of His will and outside of His permission. That's how they could stand against the Sanhedrin of their day. They knew that they knew that God was present among them and with them. And guess what else happens when you're filled with the Holy Spirit? You not only understand the things of God, but you're committed to the purposes of God. And one of the purposes of God is that we should love God's people and the people of the world in the same way that Jesus loved. And so the Holy Spirit inside you convicts you of all the places of selfishness, motivates you with love so that you can take your resources, your time, your talent and your treasure and you generously share it. Not because you have to, not because somebody else is taking note, not because you want a better reputation as Ananias and Sapphira try to pull off later on. No, simply because you know God's love has been shed abroad in your heart and you love laying down your life for God's people as Jesus laid down his life for God's people. I could use an amen. That's what the Holy Spirit does. And you know what else the Holy Spirit does? Is he makes the kingdom of God so real that the things of earth grow strangely dim, as the old hymn says, in the light of God's glory and grace. And all through history, when the church has been filled with the Holy Spirit, it has burst forth in new song, it has burst forth in new mission, it has burst forth in passion to reach the world, and as we'll see later on, it has always gotten itself into trouble because the powers that be are often at odds with the manifestation of God's Holy Spirit. So they were filled with the Holy Spirit. And because the Holy Spirit set their hearts on fire, they were brave and they were courageous and they were able to bear witness to Jesus with authority and power. And when they said things and they did things, God was there through the Holy Spirit to confirm his word with signs and with wonders, and people by the thousands flocked into the kingdom. Don't you long for a fresh outpouring of God's Holy Spirit? Wouldn't you like it when you're walking along the street and your shadow has got so much power that the sick get healed and the dead can get raised? That could go to your head real fast, but don't worry, God will keep you humble. I can tell you about that. So they were filled with the Holy Spirit not only, but in addition to that, they were of course in the early stages of community formation, and I talked about that a few moments ago. This idyllic picture of the early church doesn't last indefinitely. In fact, most of the New Testament has been written because the church ran into trouble. They not only experienced persecution, but they sinned, they sinned against each other, they sinned against the Lord, and the Lord had a step in. But here, they're still in the early stages, they're in the early stages of community formation. And this isn't the time to talk extensively about Tuckman's four stages of community formation. We've talked about that before in this church a long time ago. But Tuckman says that if you study how groups and teams are formed, they typically go through four distinct stages, which he calls forming, storming, norming, and performing. And what he means by that, what he means by norming, is that when you first become part of a group, whether that's a church or a team, whether that's an industry or whether that's in church or in school, everybody's on their best behavior. And people put their best foot forward and everybody's optimistic and they feel positive. That's where the early church found itself. They were full of love and they were full of grace. But put a few people together for a little while and guess what happens? The rough edges begin to surface and now the group goes through an identity crisis. Whose agenda are we going to follow? Who leads this outfit? Who's the boss? And how do I get along with you when I don't like you and I don't trust you? So that's storming, sorry, storming, is when a group tries to find its identity. If they don't succeed in finding their identity, the group will fall apart or they will remain highly unproductive. But if they can get through it, and sometimes it takes outside help in order to get through it, if they can get through it, they come to a place called norming. And norming is the place where you find your agenda. You know whose leadership you can trust. You know whose character you can trust. And now the machinery begins to work together and it leads to performing. And the early church was a community, as all communities do, that go through all of those stages sometimes repeatedly because it's not an issue that ever really gets settled once and for all every time a new person joins your group. Every time the mandate changes, every time the circumstances changes, you're back to this storming process, this process of trying to determine what's our agenda? What's our mission? And who are our leaders who are qualified and authorized to lead us into that? So here in Acts chapter 4, they are in the forming stage. They know their mission, they know the apostolic authority, they know God's gracious presence, and they with one heart and with one mind, they are determined to fulfill their destiny. Now as I said, and I'll say it again, didn't last long. Next chapter trouble happens, chapter after that more trouble, and after a while persecution breaks out and the whole church gets scattered except the apostles who stay home in Jerusalem. So why were they successful? Well they were successful because they were filled with the Holy Spirit. They were successful because they were in the early churches of community formation. Everybody still loved everybody. It was going to take them a little while to discover just how many strange birds God tried to put together in one community and how much grace it would need, be needed in order to overcome all those obstacles. But there's still a third reason, and that is this, they were expecting the imminent return of Jesus. You cannot read the New Testament without being convinced that one of the reasons they were so generous with their goods, one of the reasons they had so much love for each other, one of the reasons they were so sold out to Jesus is because they figured in their lifetime, Jesus would come back. And if Jesus is coming back in your lifetime, why hold on to your savings? And if Jesus is coming back in your lifetime, who needs a house to live in? Go live with the relatives, switch off them for a while. If Jesus is coming back, why throw myself into my earthly career when it's all going to blow up sometime soon anyway? And do you understand what a difference that makes? Remember Harold Camping? World was going to end, when was it, May 21? He spent $100 million on that advertising campaign. Where do you think that money came from? Came from a lot of his supporters? How did they get the money? Because they sold their stuff. And if you look at the history of millennial movements in history, every time there is this expectation, Jesus is around the corner, people are selling everything off, and then of course when he doesn't come, it's a bit of a problem. Harold Camping just for the record himself just had a stroke and is not in very good shape, as somebody said, well, Jesus may not come back, but he might just come back for Harold. And I'm not saying that to make fun of the man, I believe he used to be Christian Reformed at one point or another, just so you know. That's irrelevant, but I thought I'd throw that out. So listen then to how Paul puts it, and see how you would apply this to your own life. John Corinthians chapter 7. This is Paul teaching in the context of marriage. What I mean, brothers, is that the time is short, the context is persecution again. From now on, those who have wives, try this at home, should live as though they had none. Those who mourn as they did not, those who are happy as if they were not, those who buy something as it were not theirs to keep, those who use the things of the world as if not engrossed in them, for this world in its present form is passing away. Somebody has said, and the argument could be made, and I don't know if it's true or not, that the famine that the Jerusalem church experienced later on was not unrelated to the fact that they sold out on their economic base. I don't know if that's true, but I do know that whenever the Holy Spirit is powerfully present among God's people, there is always a sense of immediacy. Jesus is coming, and because Jesus is coming, the things of this world don't matter, so very much. And so for the New Testament church, as time went on, and Jesus was not coming back as quickly as they thought He was coming back, they had to get their heads around the fact that the Second Coming might be quite a ways away. And so here's what Peter says about it then in 2 Peter chapter 3, 8 to 9, "Do not forget this one thing, dear friends. With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping His promise. As some understand slowness, He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance." Because you see already in Peter's day, people were saying, "Where is the promise of His coming?" And they said, "See, it's just a fairy tale." And he says, "God is not slow about His promise, but God doesn't wish that any should perish, but all should reach repentance," and so he is holding off, because when Jesus comes, it is too late for anybody to come to faith. And so here's the challenge for the church today. We live in this in-between period, and the tension for the church today, as the tension for the church has been throughout the course of history, is how do we live for the future and the values of the future, how do we embody the life of heaven and still live in a world where there is sin and where there is pain and where there are material things that matter, how do we live in the world without being of the world? And the answer, of course, is through union with Jesus, because Jesus knew how to do it. Jesus was as present in the world as anybody that you could find. He wasn't afraid to get His hands dirty. He hung around with sinners. He knew how to challenge religious systems where they needed to be challenged. He was always motivated by love for the Father and love for people. And you and I, when we're joined to Jesus and we have received His Spirit, have His presence in our hearts and in our lives. And if we abide in Him and He abides in us, then He will teach us how to, on the one hand, live for eternal values, to be sold out to Jesus, to be united in heart and in mind, to be so motivated by the love of God that we share our resources freely and at the same time to be so stirred that we will move heaven and earth to fulfill the great commission in our generation. As you know, that's my passion. I hope that's yours. Let's do it together. Join with me as we pray. Thank you so much, Father, for Jesus. And thank you for His Holy Spirit. And thank you for those moments in our lives, those moments when we know that we know that we know that you love us and that you have a calling on our lives individually and collectively and when you stir our passions so that we can be united in heart, we can be united in mind unashamedly, and we can share ourselves freely. And Lord, we can move beyond community into connecting with the world all around us with the incredible saving message of Jesus Christ. Forgive us where we fail. Forgive me, Lord, where I fail. Forgive us for those times and for those places when we place our own interests ahead of your interests or ahead of the interests of the body of Christ. But may we never fail to capture your heart and to capture your passion and to understand why it is that Jesus died. And then, Lord, so move in us that we present our whole being to you as a living sacrifice for the glory of God. We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen. [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 1 START at 00:40:53.160; remove through 00:44:34.000] [MUSIC - "WE CONFESS"] You who confess, we've divided your church through pride and unforgiveness. For we repent of the names we've drawn ourselves, we now choose one name, Jesus. One hope, one faith, one God and Father of all. One truth, we proclaim, one church responding to God. Jesus, we pray that your church would be one as you and the Father are one. Oh, let us see our beauty in you, and heal us with the arms of your love. One hope, one faith, one God and Father of all. One truth, we proclaim, one church responding to God. Lord, we command in the power of your name to stand as one for God. Now send us forth with your whole spirit strength to take your salvation to the Lord. One hope, one faith, one God and Father of all. One truth, we proclaim, one church responding to God. To go into all the world and proclaim salvation, then baptize and preach your word. To prepare one bride for the Son, one Lord and God over all. One Lord and God over all. [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 1 END at 00:44:34.000; resume after this marked segment]