Power to Live: Power to Give

It is good to remind ourselves that, in spite of all that can be said about us, we remain generally a Christian nation, with almost 7 out of every 10 persons in the UK regarding themselves as Christians – a figure that has remained more or less unchanged over recent years! But before we get a chance to celebrate, we learn that church attendance has been falling at a significant rate.[i]

 

What this means is that many of us Christians actually believe that you can simply separate believing from belonging. We’ve all heard people say it: “I don’t have to go to church to worship God.” But while it is true to say that one can worship God anywhere, such a statement betrays a lack of understanding that “(w)e were created for community, fashioned for fellowship, and formed for family; none of us can fulfil God’s purposes by ourselves.”[ii] Our power and usefulness come, not in isolation, but through union and fellowship with others. God intends that as you join your life with other people, they would help you and you would help them.

 

And so, this belief in spiritual individualism – “God and me” – isn’t just a fast growing phenomenon; it is a misleading idea. This morning, I therefore want each of us to know why we are here, why our church membership is important and why our involvement with the church is an absolutely indispensable part of our being Christian.

 

It's not surprising that modern Christianity is largely a matter of "God and me," since we live in a society which worships at the shrine of rugged individualism. We take Lone Rangers and make them into heroes. We glorify self-interest as the moral engine that drives our economy; it produces wealth for some people but also sacrifices community values. We are given this message in hundreds of different ways: "Do your own thing,” the world shouts; “Look out for Number 1”; “I've got mine and you've got yours to get”; “Take care of yourself because no one else will do it for you"; "We're all born equal. After that, you're on your own."

 

No, it ought not to be surprising that modern Christianity has taken on this spirit of individualism, which is a powerful force everywhere around us. But it should be disappointing. The Bible makes clear from beginning to end that true believers are not conformed to this world (Romans 12:2) but are different from the world, so it is disappointing that Christianity has succumbed so thoroughly to the individualism of our culture.

 

Now, let me be clear that I do believe in a personal faith; no one should ever deny its importance. We each have our personal joys and sorrows, our mountains and valleys in life and we each need an active, living faith which believes in "God and me." It's all right to say, "Jesus loves me, this I know" because we have a Saviour who died for each one of us and rose again and we have a God who knows each of us by name.

 

But it is not alright to make personal faith the whole content of Christian faith, as so many people do today. It's not alright because this religion of "God and me" is, by far, the smaller part of Scripture. The larger part of the Bible is about "God and we!" It's about God and a community of His people.

 

This is so fundamental to the faith that many Christians miss it. They read the Bible verse by verse but fail to see the message of its whole. The religion of "God and we" is so basic that Scripture speaks of community on practically every page. Even when Jesus taught his disciples how to pray, he taught them about community. Remember that the words “I” and “me” appear nowhere in the Lord’s Prayer. Everything is “us” and “our.”

 

From beginning to end, this is what Scripture is all about. If you say, "I want to be a Christian, but I don't want to commit myself to the community of Christ," you are saying something which is plainly impossible from the Bible's point of view. Of course, this is precisely what we see in our text from Acts. How could this little band of brand new Christians in the early church ever come to fill everyone with awe; work miraculous signs and wonders, and; enjoy the favour of all the people? I’ll tell you: it was by the power of God’s Spirit; they were now a community! "All the believers were together and had everything in common." They shared their material goods as well as their lives.[iii]

 

As we turn to our text, we notice that it is now the Day of Pentecost. Held 50 days after Passover, Pentecost was one of three major annual Jewish festivals – a festival of thanksgiving for the harvested crops. A significant feature of Pentecost is that, unlike the crowd that had attended the Passover, which consisted of Jews mainly from Palestine, because of improved weather conditions at that time of year, those who came for the Pentecost celebrations came from the world over, swelling the population in Jerusalem from its normal size of about 50, 000 to an estimated 1 million!

 

Unnoticed by the bustling mass of pilgrims, the fragile little band of disciples continued to wait as Jesus had instructed them; to wait for the fulfilment of his promise of power – God’s gift of the Holy Spirit. Discouraged, dejected, disabled, and depressed, they waited. Having a vision and a passion, but with no power to live them, they waited. Then suddenly, like the blast of a hurricane, the sound of a violent wind filled the room; they saw what appeared to be several tongue-shaped flames that divided and descended upon each one of them; even their speech became inspired. The writer’s intention here is to create a vivid impression of the Holy Spirit’s presence among the community of the Lord’s disciples as the fulfillment of God’s promise.

 

Thus, when Peter stood to deliver his first sermon to the crowd that had gathered, he spoke to an international audience, and it resulted in a worldwide harvest of new believers — the first converts to Christianity and the formation of a new community! So powerful was the witness of this new community that we are told that following Peter’s sermon,3,000 were converted to the church. In fact, after that we are told in the closing verse of our text that “the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”

 

Because the community could not continue to live indefinitely by liquidating capital, the distribution of the proceeds from the sale of goods in this case was, of necessity, limited and temporary. You see, this Christian sharing seems to have been confined to the early years of the church in Jerusalem and did not extend to new congregations as the Church expanded into other regions.[iv] And so, after Acts 6, we hear no more of this kind of sacrificial sharing, because by then, it is believed, the severe economic crisis brought on by the enormous influx of converts into the church was already sorted out.^[v] And so, after Acts 6, we hear no more of this kind of sacrificial sharing, because by then, it is believed, the severe economic crisis brought on by the enormous influx of converts into the church was already sorted out.

 

In fact, much of the rest of the book of Acts shows a more realistic side of life in the early church, and it surely was not a time without much conflict. Because of these reasons, there are some who argue that the kind of sacrificial sharing described in our text is an unrealistic, idealized picture, and is therefore not intended to be an example to us. Admittedly, in an economic culture such as ours, which is shaped by individual acquisitiveness, a community in which everything is held in common does seem idealistic…and perhaps even a bit scandalous! After all, all the institutions of the present order teach us to value private property as the principal motive of hard work, invention, and national wealth. 

 

But such reasoning misses the point of the passage altogether. In fact, there are few biblical books that are as important as Acts in providing the church with teaching about, and examples of, the proper use of our wealth. The importance of this passage and others like it in Acts, then, is to provide principles and illustrations that encourage the formation of communities which exemplify friendship and spiritual maturity in the ways in which they handle their wealth.[vi]

 

We certainly begin to see the prominent example of the fact that “the value we place on private ownership is an expression of our inmost and utmost loyalties.”[vii] I am concerned that we have not yet recognized that we would not have to ask for money if we would simply care as God has cared for us. There would be plenty. I am concerned, not simply because there are so many who need to receive our blessing. I am concerned because each of us as Christians needs to claim that we have been blessed and can be a blessing in the ways we give.

 

The Church will be here for you. The question is: Will you be here for the Church? That is what it means to claim our life together as the people of God. What a tremendous claim! What a beautiful opportunity to celebrate[viii] the power of Pentecost, for if we have the power of Pentecost in our hearts, we will have the fruits of Pentecost in our lives.^[ix] the power of Pentecost, for if we have the power of Pentecost in our hearts, we will have the fruits of Pentecost in our lives.

 

Due to the Spirit of God, a new social unity becomes visible among the members of God’s congregation. We share our blessings. We are self-centred people being transformed into self-sacrificing people. We look at our possessions in a new way. With the spirit of God in our lives we rise above "me" and "my" and act on the basis of "we" and "our." What we do with what we have, tells the world what we believe. That’s what stewardship is all about![x]

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