All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had. With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all. There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time 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. Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas (which means Son of Encouragement), sold a field he owned and brought the money and put it at the apostles' feet.
Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property. With his wife's full knowledge he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles' feet. Then Peter said, "Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? Didn't it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn't the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied to men but to God." When Ananias heard this, he fell down and died. And great fear seized all who heard what had happened. Then the young men came forward, wrapped up his body, and carried him out and buried him. About three hours later his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. Peter asked her, "Tell me, is this the price you and Ananias got for the land?"
"Yes," she said, "that is the price." Peter said to her, "How could you agree to test the Spirit of the Lord? Look! The feet of the men who buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out also." At that moment she fell down at his feet and died. Then the young men came in and, finding her dead, carried her out and buried her beside her husband. Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events.
(Act 4:32-5:11 NIV)
We found the church praying a few verses ago in unison, and now we find that unison extended to more than just their prayer life under pressure. This church was of one heart and mind. They were all working towards one end. The change that the Gospel had effected in their lives was so great, that they didn’t even consider that any of their stuff was theirs anymore. Let’s stop for a minute and examine that.
This was a culture was radically different than ours. First, the poorest American makes you average citizen of the world seethe with jealousy. Our section 8 housing is your average upper-middle class in most other countries. Even the well-to-do in Europe don’t have what your standard American considers their right. We think that 1 bedroom per child is the minimum; most of the world would consider themselves fortunate to have a master bedroom to themselves. To give you an idea of how rich you and your friends are, they say that if you have spare change in a bowl or bucket somewhere in your house, you are in the top 8% income bracket of the world. How many people do you know that don’t have a penny jar lying around somewhere. Chances are that everyone you’ve ever met is sitting in the 92nd percentile or above. We, in this country, do not know what poor is, we’ve never seen it.
Back then, there were no 80/20 loans, no sliding scale interest. Banks weren’t even invented yet, we can thank the Knights Templar in the middle-ages for that. There was also no reserve to issue notes. Money was worth what it was made of, and how much it weighed. Paper money would have been worthless. Land and houses were the only thing that people could hold onto. You could lose crops to the weather, the Romans could take your gold, food got eaten by vermin, family members were lost to disease. Land and houses could only be obtained by an outright purchase or by inheritance. They were your only points of stability.
In that context, when we look at what the early church considered its normal mode of operation, we see something so radical that it’s easy to miss it. These people didn’t tithe, they surrendered. The change in their lives was so complete that they didn’t consider their stability stability any more. Instead they put their trust in the Lord God and in Jesus Christ, having all things in common. Remember the Jews were commanded to make the outsides of their land available to their brethren already by the Law. These men and women were so filled with love for one another, that they didn’t even hold back the part of the land that was theirs. This wasn’t an early form of communism, either. The goods and possessions were not distributed evenly, though it was available to all. No, the Apostles gave it out on a needs basis.
So does that mean we are supposed to sell our houses and become itinerant monks? If we look carefully, we’ll see that’s not the case. First off, we see the Church at the end of chapter 5 preaching and teaching in the temple and in every house. They couldn’t all have sold their houses or it would have said at the Temple and on the street corners. Also, the context of selling the houses was so there would be none who had lack. They did consider everything they owned community property, but I don’t think they sold it unless there was a need, the same way you’d sell a car to pay for your kid’s kidney operation.
The ancient Greeks, in writing about the early church said time and again that the Church loved each other in a way that the Greek mindset couldn’t quite get their hands around. Greek culture was everyone for themselves, you only loved those who provided benefit to you. In fact the word that the Bible used to describe Christian love, agape, is only used in Christian writings. It seems that the Church had a concept that wasn’t expressed in the language, so they created a word for it. Since this agape is something distinctly Christian, we’d better take a look at it. When you start to look through the bible to find out about this concept, you might notice something distinctly missing. Nowhere will you see love being described by its emotions. You’ll not find any exhortations to “feel” for each other. In fact Jesus said:
Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.
(Joh 15:13 NIV)
Jesus said that the highest height of love is the action of self-sacrifice to the point of death. In 1st John, the author would clarify a few things about this:
This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
(1Jo 4:10 NIV)
John said that love is God acting in sending His Son, and notice it wasn’t conditioned on any response from us. We did not love God when God was loving us, for, as John explains:
This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome,
(1Jo 5:3 NIV)
Yet all have fallen short of the Glory that is God. Every man has turned to his own way. There is none that is righteous, no not even one. So, therefore, no one loved God when God sent His son. God’s love was unconditional and action oriented. In 2nd John, we see how the human component of love is defined:
And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love.
(2Jo 1:6 NIV)
This is love, obedience. God’s love came to our stony hearts that did not love Him. In fact, the bible puts those who have not placed their faith in Christ as being enemies of God and haters of His word, regardless of what they “feel” about it. It was not until the saving love of our Savior came that our stony, unloving hearts were even capable of loving God.
This word, love, was an expression, you might even call it a state of being, that showed itself by its actions. The kind of love that they talked about in those days was agape love, which is entirely unconditional. That means it is not based on our feelings about it or one another, nor on our ability to accomplish it, because those would then be conditions and agape has none. Since this is so foreign to our sinful selves, one can quite quickly become frustrated trying to produce this ex-nihlio. Where do we even begin? I would suggest that we start here.
All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had.
(Act 4:32 NIV)
They didn’t claim their possessions as their own, because they knew they were God’s. When we say that God is the Lord of Heaven and Earth, of all that is seen and unseen, we are making a statement about property rights and ownership. Our stuff is not our stuff, its God’s stuff. He made the atoms that they are composed of, and they were always His. If we have surrendered our lives to Christ, we have only given back what we took.
This is where love for one another in the Church begins. We first recognize that we are not our own, we are somebody’s creation. How deep does that go? Consider this:
For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.
(Psa 139:13 NIV emphasis added)
That phrase “inmost being” is the Hebrew word for kidneys. The term itself means the seat of our emotions, where our entire emotional response comes from, kind of equivalent to “deep down in my soul.” When we surrender to Christ, we give Him back that part of us, as well. Notice the text even starts with the heart and soul, then moves on to our stuff.
How can we be of one heart and one mind with the group if we cannot even name three emotions of the person sitting across the room from us? Now there is a listening aspect to this that is our responsibility, but I want us all to notice something profound. Right now, we are on the other side of the room. The reason that the person opposite cannot name three of your emotions is because you never share them. Not in any meaningful way. Oh, sure they get the surface, but what about the inmost being? Do we dare to truly share our lives with one another? Not just a meal when someone is sick or out of work, but a purposeful involving of yourselves in the lives and families and drama of the fellow members of Southstrand Community Church. Does God’s word demand any less?
So, how do we do that? Well, here in the text we have 2 examples. Joses, I believe your version says Joseph, they are the same name, was a Levite from Cyprus. Joses was called Barnabus by all of his buddies, which means Son of Encouragement. That was his name, son of encouragement. We’ll see a lot more of him later, so remember his introduction to us. He had land, probably in Cyprus, and he sold it. He brought all the money to the Apostles and said, here, do with this as you will. The words are “having land, sold it” which implies that he sold everything. I think that the fact that Barnabus is mentioned here is further evidence that not everyone was selling everything they had, why else introduce him here in this context? I think that Luke is making the specific point that Barnabus gave everything he had and that it was a special show of surrender in order to contrast it with our next example, Annanais and Saphira.
This is one of those stories that everyone knows. Husband and wife, sold A possession (again the contrast with all) and kept back part of the money, laying the rest at the Apostles feet. So what really happened? At first glance, Peter’s reaction seems a bit harsh, certainly it’s not something we would associate with the death penalty. To see what happened we need to look at the whole story. First look at what Peter said about the money:
Didn't it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn't the money at your disposal?" (Act 5:4a NIV)
It was his to do with as he pleased. In other words, holding back some of the money wasn’t a sin, it was his money. Later Peter asked his wife whether they had sold the land for so much indicating that it was the lie he was concerned with. What we’re dealing with here is, in a word, hypocrisy, spiritual hypocrisy. They wanted the acclaim of being like Baranabus, possibly hoping to be remembered by future generations. Well, if that was their goal, they did achieve it. We’re here talking about them now.
I think the key to understanding this whole story is a single line from Peter:
"Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart…”
The church had just suffered its first major attack in the form of arrests and threats from the Sanhedrin. The net effect was to cause the brothers and sisters to come closer together in prayer. Now we see Satan actively involved trying to destroy that unity from the inside. Why showcase this? Probably because Luke had heard Paul say in 2 Cor:
in order that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes.
(2Co 2:11 NIV)
Luke wanted Theophilus and others to learn of Satan’s schemes so that he might not outwit us.
Honestly guys, this shows up in this church, too. Not because we’re pawns of the devil, but because it’s endemic in our society and we don’t even realize that we’re doing it. I find that it usually shows itself most prominently in group prayers. Have you ever noticed that nobody ever has any problems? God is always blessing them and they just know that God is in control, but could you please pray for my aunt so-and-so, she’s having a bad week. Meanwhile, aunt so-and-so is over at her church telling everyone that she never has any problems, God is always blessing her and she knows that God is in control, but could you please pray for my niece or my nephew in Myrtle Beach, they’re just having an awful time down there.
The opposite of this attitude is equally hypocritical. These are the people who parade their sins around as some sort of Medal of Honor, hoping to gain accolades for being someone who is open and honest, when in reality they’re arrogant and prideful and hoping you won’t notice. This is characterized by someone who begins a prayer request with how sinful they are, and ends with nothing less than gossip, or worse, fishing for affirmation.
Pride disguises itself well. It can often masquerade as humility. It can show itself as shy. It is the root of needy, and it tears love apart at the seams. Worse is that our inner selves are actively trying to prevent honest examination of their reality:
The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?
(Jer 17:9 NIV)
So if we can’t trust our hearts, and hypocrisy is a capital offense, then what do we do?
Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.
(1Co 6:19-20 NIV)
We start there. We are not our own. Jesus paid for us with His blood, we are His possessions. When you start from that position, the heart can lie to you all it wants, pride can don any mask it feels would be most effective. When we put our faith into thought, then we see that we have no rights, we have no ground for being self-possessed. We will then start to see things the Bible’s way and “esteem others more highly than ourselves.” But remember, we’re talking about hearts and minds here. The sharing of possessions was only a by-product of that first verse.
So let’s go back to the question. Can you name three emotions of the person sitting across from you? If not then there are two sins in this. First is their sin of letting their pride prevent them from being vulnerable. Second is our sin of not actively getting involved in their real life, the one they actually live, not the Christian Fantasy World™ they created for you.
This process takes time, and that is our number one excuse for not being obedient to God’s word. We don’t have the time. And in reality we don’t, but whose fault is that. We are constantly fighting the temptation to over-schedule. This is something that our culture just does, and no-one even thinks twice about it. Do any of us even have space left in our day planners to just be available to any of our fellow Southstranders outside of the context of scheduled fellowships? Do any of us have room for the flexibility required to take a younger brother or sister under our wing and teach him what walking as a Christian on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday looks like? Remember, that our time is not our own, it, too, was bought with a price.
On the other side of the coin, are any of us willing to lay aside our pride and admit that we’re drowning? There’s not shame in that, though the devil has lied and told us that there is. Christianity is hard. We are not a social club, we’re an army that’s at war. What’s worse, we fight not against flesh and blood, but against powers and principalities, demons of Hell. It’s no shame to admit that we’re not doing well, because we’re not. Can you consider even your own struggles as not belonging to you, as having been bought with a price?
Tonight I want to end somewhat differently. I want to bring back prayer time, but this time, I want a few restrictions put in place. First off, I would suggest that this church needs prayer worse than any other entity in the world. People may be fighting cancer, political battles, or even fierce mother-in-laws, but this church is battling Satan and all of the arrayed forces of Hell. Because we are a bible believing and gospel preaching church, we are a target. When you look through the history of Southstrand, you can see we’ve been a fairly large target and haven’t really faired well. This church needs prayer, and I don’t know if it’s getting it. It certainly isn’t getting it in any group context. We are going to change that tonight.
Tonight’s prayers are about Southstrand, about us. Tonight I want us to pray for this church, for its preaching, and for the members to be equipped for the ministry. Since hypocrisy is something that is just taught to us as children, I’m going to help by pointing it out when I see it. You know your own hearts, not I and I don’t mean any offense… This is just something that we have got to get under control here, or we are never going to be effective.
No comments:
Post a Comment