Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Video: May We Be One?

Did you know that the Bible says that Jesus prayed for you?

We often call it “The High Priestly Prayer” and it is found in John chapter 17, where hours before Jesus went to the cross He prays first for His Disciples that were standing there with Him in this moment and then He prayed for us.

That is you and I.

We believe in Jesus because of the witness, the testimony of these first disciples as it has been passed down for us in God’s Holy Word.

He is praying for us, His Church, and what does Jesus pray for us?

Jesus is praying for us here, and He continues to desire these very same things for us today.

That the “oneness” that His Church displays will be an unmistakable evidence that the one whose name we wear as “Christians” was lovingly sent by the Father.

That our “oneness” would be a testimony of Jesus to the World.

So in his final hours here on earth, Jesus prayed this for us.

This shows us several things.

One that His knew that His mission at the Cross would be a success, but also that it would ignite “The Unstoppable Movement of God” that we call the Church.

That the Ekklesia would be a gathering of people who believe in Jesus because of the testimony of the Apostles and that belief would grow in them the love of God that would be recognized by the entire world.

Jesus continues to pray:

Tension

Is that our experience Church?

Are we here today to satisfy something deep in our souls or are we just here to listen with the ears outside our head.

“I in them” Jesus prayed.

When Christ is in us we have the ability to come together like no other group on earth.

To become “perfectly one” with the brethren, not for our glory or the glory of our little local expression of Church, but that the world would know of Jesus.

It is an engaging questions, isn’t it?

Have we elevated Jesus above everything else in our life?

Our political views?

Many of us stiffened when we heard that one… “What’s wrong with my political views?” maybe nothing - but the point is are you politics subject to Jesus or have we made Jesus subject to our political views?

That is the more important question.

And the same thing holds true for every area of our lives:

Our financial future,

Our career goals,

Our homes equity,

Our family vacation plans,

Our hunting schedule.

(Common Pastor Dan - don’t go there!

Somethings are sacred…yes they are…and that is exactly my point)

I am not saying that convictions and plans for any of these areas are necessarily wrong - I am just asking “Have we elevated Jesus above all of these things?”

How would we know if we have done that?

What would that look like?

Well since the beginning of the Christian Church this has been evidenced by Christians voluntarily choosing to sacrifice anything they have to help out someone else in the Church.

Many of us have John 3:16 memorized but what about 1 John 3:16?

For it says:

The “brothers” means the Church.

Elsewhere Scripture teaches us to feed the hungry, clothe and feed the poor but here the emphasis is not just on anyone who has needs - but specifically laying down our lives for those in the Church.

It continues to say:

How can we wear His name and yet not submit to His lead in this.

All of those other areas are good things to be aware of and planning for (especially the hunting schedule) but are those plans driving our life - or do we hold them with an open hand so that we be willing to sacrifice any of those things to care for the Church that Jesus loves and gave His life for.

This morning we are going to see how the early Church demonstrated this so well…at least for a little while.

We will finishing off chapter 4 of Acts on page 912 in the Bibles in the Chairs.

I’ll pray and then we will read more of our heritage and calling as it was demonstrated through the early Church.

Truth

1. Believers demonstrate biblical community through an attitude of selflessness (Acts 4:32).

Because they belonged to those who believed in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, it now colored how they saw everything else in their life and it drew them together in a bond like nothing else in our world can.

And we know that people can come together around a lot of different issues or ideas but there has never been anything like this.

Whatever divisions they had before they believed, now they were “of one heart and soul”.

It is important that we see more here than just some nice sentiment.

For one thing we can see this as an answer to Jesus’ prayer in John 17, “...that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them”.

But Jesus prayed in line with what God had been doing among His poeple for generations.

God has always desired His people to be of “one heart and soul”.

There were seasons where God had done this same thing in the past.

In 2 Chron 30 it says:

King Hezekiah was faithful to lead God’s people back to a right attitude toward worship, righteousness and God’s holiness and so God worked to again give them all “one heart”.

Later in the history, after God’s people were exiled because of their unfaithfulness to His Word and will, God gave His people hope for a future time when He would again give them one heart.

Through His prophet Ezekiel, God said of that coming day:

And these are just a couple of examples, because this “one heart” thing was something that God has always wanted for His people.

And this is not the last we hear of God’s desire for His people to “be one” as we hear the Apostles calling the Church back to this throughout the New Testament letters.

A few quick examples would be:

And did you notice how in every one of these the unity and oneness is found in the love that comes from the Holy Spirit that dwells within them…as we talked about last week.

So this isn’t something that we should just look back on and sigh, “those were the good ole’ days” but something that we should both expect and invest ourselves toward in our Church today.

This “Oneness” is something that we THE CHURCH should be known for.

And what of the second part of the verse: “...and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common.”

I mean what is going on here?

Is this saying that we should just sell everything that we have and give it to the Church?

Sure, if God so leads you to do so.

That was certainly what Jesus told the Rich Young Ruler that he must do in order to “inherit eternal life”.

But we know that you can’t buy your way in to heaven, so what was Jesus up to?

Well, the full instructions that Jesus gave the Rich Young Ruler was not to just sell all his stuff.

Somehow this young man believed he had a spotless record when it came to obeying the law, but

You see in the end, it wasn’t the selling of all his stuff, it was about this young man’s attitude toward his stuff.

It was to illuminate for the young man where his true treasure lay.

He wasn’t elevating Jesus over everything else in his life, he wanted earthly treasure more than he wanted “treasure in heaven”.

In contrast to the Rich Young Ruler, these believers from the early Church understood the value of “treasure in heaven” and so they treated their earthy possessions of much less importance.

When we realize the great value of what we have been given in Christ then our attitude toward our earthly treasures changes.

It isn’t that having “stuff” is a problem, it is when our attitude toward our stuff is selfish, self-focused or self-sufficient that we miss out on the life that God has for us.

1 Tim 6 tells us:

The “treasure in heaven” was what the Rich Young Ruler left behind when he turned his back on Jesus, but it is what brought the early Church and attitude of sharing generously anything they had with one another.

And as much as we want to apply the title of “rich” to others, we know that on a world scale we are all near the top.

And the point is not about comparing incomes, it is about comparing attitudes toward our incomes.

When we share “one heart and soul” then our attitude toward our stuff is that it all belongs to the cause of Christ anyway.

This brings us to our second theme for the week:

2. Believers demonstrate biblical community by fulfilling their purpose of proclaiming Christ (Acts 4:33).

So between two statements of how the early Church shared together in Community life, is this declaration that the sharing was just an important by-product of the movement but not the end game.

The end game was and is to declare and demonstrate the new life that is found only in Lord Jesus Christ.

It was to share the “life-giving message of Jesus Christ” in both word and deed.

One of the things that we strive to be intentional about here at Friendship Church is that the message of Jesus Christ in some way or form goes out in everything that we do.

Whether that be in the women getting together to paint or the teens going to a night corn maze or the sending of Christmas Shoe boxes.

Whatever we do, we never want to miss an opportunity to boldly proclaim the name of Jesus.

I remember sitting in a large room of volunteers for orientation at a food bank in Minneapolis several years back.

The Host was offering a short history of their ministry and one of the things that struck me was how honest she chose to be about a division they had in their history.

You see at one point their ministry was struggling to meet their financial obligations and one of the struggles that they identified was that many secular companies said that they wanted to send volunteers and donations, but they felt they couldn’t because their ministry was so overtly Christian.

Now you didn’t have to be a Christian to volunteer and there was no high pressure alter call or anything, this ministry just wanted to be honest about why they do what they do.

So in their orientations like the one I was sitting in that day she told the whole room - We do this because of Jesus.