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Acts 4:32-5:11_2010
| 23.10.2010, 18:22 | |
| Rev. Tatiana Cantarella Psalm 24, Ezekiel 11:14-21, Galatians 6:1-10 Acts 4:32-5:11 Free Heart and "Holy fear” Previously in Acts we saw a beautiful picture of a first Christian Community: "41Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day. 42They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. 44All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. 46Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved” (2:41-47). When the Holy Spirit descended on those who trusted in Jesus a community was born. That community was structured on four inseparable things: apostolic instruction, communal life, breaking bread, and prayer. If even one of these elements gets lost, the Church and its witness perish. If we consistently neglect instruction about Christ, we soon will fall under the influence of the worldly culture and popular fashion that surround us and Jesus will be left on the curb of life’s highway. If we neglect to live life together as a Christian family, we will end up isolated from one another and unable to preserve a living faith. If we don’t regularly break the bread of our Lord’s Last Supper, we will lose the banner that tells the world how the center of our faith is the death and resurrection of Christ. And when we forget about prayer we forget that Christians are called to be a people of both Heaven and Earth, which the Lord desires to unite under His lordship. These activities defined life for the first church, and they were made into a mighty instrument in the hands of God, an open channel through which the Lord touched the hearts of thousands upon thousands of new followers. As they continuously submitted themselves to Christ’s instruction, as they held everything in common, as they prayed without ceasing and celebrated the Last Supper, the church became an eloquent witness. Those who observed them saw how God really did come to the world in Christ, that God really does pour out His Spirit and gives all who thirst the opportunity to repent and receive new life. People listened to the church, and many were "attracted” by its witness to faith in Christ. And here, at the end of the fourth chapter of Acts, Luke, after having related how God healed through Peter and how Peter boldly preached about Christ despite persecution, repeats himself for some reason: "32All the believers were one in heart and mind [the Russian translation says ‘one heart and one soul (dusha)’]. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had. 33With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all. 34There 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 35and put it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need” (Acts 4:32-35). Why should he repeat what he had just said? It’s obviously not an accident. He is emphasizing that wholehearted belief in Jesus Christ makes a doubly radical impact on those who believe: the heart becomes less attached to things and more attached to people. Notice that Luke is talking about "those who believed.” Faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, complete trust in Him for every need, contentment with God and His provision for your needs -- that is what stands at the center of what happened in this story. All of the other good works are a consequence of that faith, trust and reliance on God. Luke emphasizes that "all the believers were one in heart and mind.” Here one can sense a reference to Ezekiel: "19 I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. 20 Then they will follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. They will be my people, and I will be their God” (Ezekiel 11:19-20). "One in heart and soul” is not just agreement about important questions, but also a readiness to get involved in the needs of others as if they were one’s own. Remember God’s commandment that the Israelites forgive debts every seventh year so that no one would be needy? This promise was fulfilled through Jesus Christ in the early church. That is exactly what happened. Because of the complete forgiveness of sins and debts provided by the crucifixion of Christ, the first Church believed that they had become the genuine community of the Covenant as God had conceived of it from the beginning. Luke is showing us a picture of community in which the hearts of people were revolutionized to such an extent by faith in Jesus Christ that they heard and carried out his message with ease: "32Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. 33Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. 34For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Luke 12:32-34). This is exactly what they are doing in Acts 4. And they’re not doing it in order to earn God’s favor or to follow the decrees of the church, but because they heard the word of the Lord and the believed Him. Faith in the promise of God’s provision gives birth to freedom from fear, freedom from anxiety, and therefore freedom from things and the freedom to love people. In the Church there were no rules, no laws that when a person came to faith they had to give away all their possessions. That is how many understand this passage, but in the text there isn’t a single call to such action by the apostles. It is also clear from Peter’s words to Ananias: "4Didn't it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn't the money at your disposal? In other words, "nobody made you bring your money to church.” All those believers who brought the church their estates did it because they believed that in Jesus Christ was placed the beginning of a new society in which they were all one family. Selling their estates didn’t mean that they were left without a roof over their head. We see from Paul’s epistle that people had homes where they lived, ate and gathered. But they no longer clung to the material as something that is their own but believed that God gave them all things for the benefit of others. Christians, obviously, disposed of their abundance. They had the attitude that "my possessions are not my own,” not because they were obligated to feel that way, but because that was the conviction of their heart. Having trusted in Jesus, they were radically changed on the inside and they did what they did freely. Christianity is not the external observation of religious regulations, but inner freedom. It isn’t a question of strength and law, but one of freedom and love. To be a Christian means to be changed on the inside, all the way through, to be filled with love for people and liberated from the love of things. Luke tells us two stories, about Barnabas who experienced radical inner liberty when he believed in Jesus and about Ananias and Sapphira who didn’t, yet tried to create the appearance of something that they really didn’t possess in their hearts. Joseph, called Barnabas ("the son of encouragement”) was from Cyprus by birth. It is possible that there he owned land, which he sold and gave the money for needs in the church. His name, "son of encouragement” was given to him with purpose -- it was reflected an essential part of his nature. Later in Acts we read about him again, when he stands up for the new believer Saul even though everyone else keeps their distance from him (9:27). It is Barnabas that becomes the pastor of newly converted pagans in Antioch (11:20), where he will serve the poor (11:30), accompany Paul on missionary journeys (13:2) and stand up for John Mark when no one else wanted to give him a second chance (15:37). He ends up being one of the most mature, trustworthy and loving leaders of the early church. And here in Acts Luke shows how this worthy ministry of Barnabas began: with a gesture that revealed his freedom from things and the freedom to love those in need. Luke tells us that this was the heartbeat of the first church, and because of this God did many miraculous things through them. But right after Barnabas we run into Ananias and Sapphira. They are an example of people who have experienced no inner change, who have not understood that in Christ a person finds everything. On the contrary, they wanted to occupy a comfortable niche in the church. Following the example of Barnabas they sold their estate, hid part of the money, and pridefully brought the rest to Peter for the church. And then something happens that is very confusing for Luke’s readers. Peter, by the gift of the Holy Spirit, sees the heart of Ananias and confronts him. And then Ananias falls down dead. Later the same thing happens with his wife. Many of us at some point probably wonder what they did that was so wrong. As we’ve already heard, they weren’t obligated to give anything to the church or to sell their estate. From Peter’s words we can see that the sin of these people wasn’t that they brought only a part of what they had received from selling their estate. Their sin was that they tried to lie in order to get a reputation among people as being generous. The problem wasn’t that they didn’t bring everything, but that in bringing a part they wanted others to think that they had given everything. They intentionally lied to get a reputation for generosity, a reputation they didn’t deserve. Everyone who heard about what had happened were afraid. And that isn’t so surprising! We are horrified by the fact that Ananias and Sapphira fell dead upon hearing Paul confront them with their sin. We don’t know what to think about this story. We understand that this type of swift judgment is very atypical for the New Testament. A lot of people who behave sinfully get away with it for a long time. Why is it different here? What was Luke trying to say? First of all, whether we like it or not, the first church was a "Temple not made by hands.” It was a true community, a true place where God dwelled, a place of holiness so unique, that any impurity became immediately noticeable. The church lived with a clear sense of God’s Holiness in their midst. Do you remember how the Temple was built in the Old Testament? Everything was located at a distance from the Holy of Holies. People understood that sin brought death if it came in contact with God’s holiness. But this feeling of "dangerous holiness” was connected not only with the temple, but with the behavior of the whole community. If the Lord himself, by His Holy Spirit, was among them, then how could sin in their lives also be acceptable? Friends, we love to talk about how the first Christians healed the sick, stood up to the threats of those in power, converted people right and left, and shared all things in common, but we’re a little offended when sin has such radical consequences. We need to understand that if people want to be a community that takes the place of Gods Temple, then they shouldn’t be surprised when God takes them seriously and shows that cheap grace doesn’t exist and that conscious sin unavoidably leads to death, even if it is as swift a death as in this story. If people call on the strength of a Holy God to correct every lie and untruth in the world, then they have to be prepared in case He immediately enacts a partial judgment in their midst. Paul tells the Galatians, "God cannot be mocked” (Galatians 6:7). Yeah, we hope that God won’t usually punish sin in such a swift manner so that we have the opportunity to repent and mend our ways. However there is a clear decision before us: either we live in the presence of God the Creator, who intends to make the world right beginning with us, or we fall back into a pleasant paganism with a nice Christian veneer. The heart of Ananias’ and Sapphira’s problem is that according to the words of Peter they have tested the Holy Spirit. This typical, ancient Hebrew expression, "to test God,” meant to "think about what you can get away with.” When Jesus was tempted, He refused to throw Himself from the roof of the Temple to find out just exactly how his divine sonship might save him and earn him people’s veneration. He answered the devil: "do not put the Lord your God to the test,” i.e., "don’t live trying to find a loophole so you can get away with as much as possible.” That isn’t a heart dedicated to God, that is a heart enslaved by lies. Today people, even in the church, are rarely ashamed that they tell a half-truths in order to get what they want. They aren’t ashamed of their sin as long as nobody finds out about it. The early church was horrified at such exhibitions of covetousness and falsehood. They were horrified at the thought about the possibility of sin in their midst. And now in the church almost nothing horrifies us. We’ve lost a sense of "holy fear,” we put up with sin in our life, put up with it in church and then we are surprised when the contemporary church has a weak witness and people don’t come to know Christ! Today’s story cries out to us as a reminder: we can deceive ourselves and those around us for a while, but we can’t deceive God. He knows our hearts and he cannot be mocked. This story reminds us that holiness is not a secondary, optional thing. Hypocritical faith in the presence of God is a terrible thing. The first Christians understood that. To call on the name of Jesus, to call on the Holy Spirit means to make the claim that we are the temple of a Living God and that means we should be ready for the consequences. How serious do we perceive God’s presence to be in our lives, in our church? Are we living, constantly testing God, looking for loopholes so we can get away with as much as possible? Maybe we start thinking that God isn’t really that much against this or that thing anyway, since so far nobody has fallen down dead when they do it. And then we are surprised that God doesn’t act in us as He did in those first Christians, that there isn’t the same great grace on us as there was on them, that our hands haven’t done miraculous deeds, that people don’t join our church even in single digits, to say nothing of thousands upon thousands. Shouldn’t this story move us to fall on our knees and ask, "how is it that what the first church experienced is gone now? Lord, what do you desire to change here among us?” The Good News is the same as it has always been. The power of God has not diminished, people still need salvation. And if we read the fifth chapter of Acts with any seriousness at all then maybe we will see how that other reality about which Luke tells us in Acts 2 and 4 is coming to pass in our community. So what should we do? Repent, surrender to Christ so that we may attain freedom of faith and ask God to show what he can do through our finances for His glory. We should not lie, not put up with half truths, but love the truth. We should not consider sin to be acceptable, but know that the Holy God is alive and real in the Church and that every thought and action is open to the Spirit of Truth. We should understand that the gift of grace in our lives is not permission to live in sin, loving material things, but the power of God that allows us to love people and to leave every sin behind for the sake of life in Christ. | |
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