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Introduction
This morning’s text lead me to title this sermon quite simply, God’s Expectation on our possessions.
I want to begin and start of with a question that can sit in the back of your mind.
Does God truly have an expectation for us in regards to our possessions?
Have you taken any time in the past and thought through this process.
Is God silent on the issue or does He speak.
If He speaks, do we truly listen?
I can tell you the world’s view of possessions.
Here is a story
Heller, the author of Catch-22, once was at a party in the Hamptons.
A guy came over to him and pointed at a young, 25 year old standing in the party who worked for a big hedge fund.
Heller’s “friend” said to him, “see that guy over there?
He made more money last year then you will ever make with all of your books combined.”
Joseph Heller said, “Maybe so.
But I have one thing that man will never have.”
His friend was skeptical.
“Oh yeah, what?”
Heller said, “Enough.”
Enough, is this our view of our possessions?
A disciple of Christ is one who is Seeking to know God, while being transformed into the image of Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit in the context of community.
Simply Put, A disciple’s life is marked by
Knowing, Growing, Giving
How we view our possessions and what we do with them is a part of the disciples life called a Spiritual Discipline.
This morning’s passages gives us a glimpse as to how seriously God takes this
With that, let’s open our Bibles and turn with me to Chapter 5 of the book of Acts.
Let’s Pray
Prelude to the Passage
As I said in weeks past, isn’t it a good thing that some passages in the Book of Acts are descriptive and not prescriptive?
I am sure many of us haven’t been asked to sell all that we have and bring it to church and hand over all of the proceeds.
I am sure I do not have to have each week a stretcher at the front of the church in order to make it easier to carry out those believers who lie to the Spirit.
Folks to fully understand the story here we must first look back a few verses and put this whole story in context.
If you still have your Bible open turn back a few verses with me to Acts chapter 4
As Pastor Josh walked you through last week on the sovereignty of God and challenged you on Boldness in the sovereignty of God.
Fortunately, he stopped at verse 31 and I want to recap the rest of the chapter.
The Health of the Church: Acts 4:32-37
We are going to take a few minutes looking at the current health of the church.
As a pastor, I often attend events with other pastors.
We meet together and one of the often conversation that is bantered about the group is
“How is your church”
I often respond by saying, well it was a perfect church until I arrived and spoiled everything, because I am far from perfect.
We are far from perfect.
This week as I was working on this sermon, the thought came to me and a question I will be asking as we move forward, is this.
Are we a healthy church?
What are the signs of a healthy church?
The Church was United
A sign of a healthy church is that they are united.
United in their purpose, united in function.
If you read these verses, you begin to understand God’s expectation on our possessions.
This begins with us.
How do you view the possessions God has given you?
In one of my jobs in Ontario, I worked with a fellow who was from a culture vastly different from my own.
He recently moved from another country and in moving to Canada he found himself immersed in that culture of the same people group from his birth country that had also moved to Canada.
One day, his car broke down and was past the point of repairing the car.
I asked him what were his plans he simply said, I will go to my friends and ask for money.
They will give me the money to buy a new to me car.
Inwardly, I thought, good luck with that.
BTW the bank is just around the corner and can give you a loan.
The next time I spoke with him, he was showing me the new car in his possession.
His friends had come through.
I had to ask.
How are they willing to give you money, when do you have to pay it back.
He simple said.
There will come a time when someone comes to me and asks for money and i will give it to them.
acts 4:32 “32 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.”
They were inwardly one
They were inwardly one,
said Luke as he described these followers of Christ.
After my encounter with my friend, I began to look at my possessions differently.
I began to be thankful for all that God has given me and there is a willingness to share.
The healthy church at this moment had of a common understanding as it related to the inwardly view of their possessions.
It begins within us.
Allowing the Spirit that is the same Spirit in each one of us to hear what the Spirit tells us on how we are to view our possessions.
They were outwardly one
The second mark of a healthy church is their sign of how they act outwardly.
The attitude of the inward heart became the common attitude of outward action.
How tightly do you hold onto your possessions?
Does God expect you to hold onto you possessions tightly?
Are they His or yours?
The church was blessed (was favored by God) (4:33)
A second thing about a healthy church is the evidence of God’s Grace upon them, not in spite of them.
Acts 4:33 “33 And with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all.”
What a great example of the body of Christ.
We are all in this together.
What one person does affects the whole lot.
When a healthy church is operating as one, God’s grace is powerful.
You see we need to look at these verses in order to understand chapter five.
There is a sharp contrast to what God desires of believers and how we sometimes live.
The church was powerful
A healthy church is described as Powerful.
Their testimony was clear, how they were looked at was clear.
How God worked among them was clear
The health of the church at that moment in time was working powerfully.
It was becoming an unstoppable force.
There was a positive Example
If you didn’t quite catch the unitedness of the church and the people of this movement, Luke puts in a description.
Exhibit A
Here we find the first mention of Barnabas
Did you know that:
Barnabas is an important figure in Luke’s account of the church’s expansion from Jerusalem to Rome; he appears a number of times as a kind of hinge between the mission to the Jewish world and that to the Gentiles (cf.
9:27; 11:22–30; 13:1–14:28; 15:2–4, 12, 22, 36–41; see also 1 Cor 9:6).
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