SPEAKER_00 0:08

The only thing I've been reading is in the book of Deuteronomy. Chapter 15. Verses 135. Every seventh year you must cancel. This is how the cancellation is to be handled. They won't demand repayment from their neighbors or their relatives because the Lord's year of debt cancellation has been announced. You are allowed to demand payment from foreigners. But whatever is owed you from your fellow Israelites, you must forgive. Of course, there won't be any poor persons among you, because the Lord will bless you and the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess as an inheritance. But only if you carefully obey the Lord your God's voice by carefully doing every bit of this commandment that I'm giving you right now the word of the Lord.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

The New Testament reading is found in Acts chapter 4, verses 32 through 35. It was one and heart in mind. None of them would say, This is mine about any of their possessions, but held everything in common. The apostles continued to bear powerful witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and an abundance of grace was at work among them all. There were no needy persons among them. Those who owned properties or houses would sell them, bring the proceeds from the sales, and place them in the care and under the authority of the apostles. Then it was distributed to anyone who is in need. The word of the Lord.

SPEAKER_02 2:20

If you are able, please stand for the gospel reading found in Luke chapter 16, verses 10 through 13. Whoever is faithful with little is also faithful with much. And the one who is dishonest with little is also dishonest with much. If you haven't been faithful with worldly wealth, who will trust you with your wishes? If you haven't been faithful with someone else's property, who will give you your own? No household servant can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be loyal to the one and have contempt for the other. You cannot serve God and wealth, the gospel of the Lord.

SPEAKER_03 3:06

Alright, let's remain standing as we pray this morning. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we're gathered again together as your people in your place, in your presence, asking that you would once again speak to us. So would you open our ears to hear, our minds to understand, and our hearts to receive everything that you want to say to us today? Would you help us follow in the way of Jesus together? In your name we pray, and all God's people said, Amen. You may be seated. Good morning, everyone. It's good to see you, Saints. As I said before, this is the fourth Sunday in Easter tide. We have a few more weeks to keep the feast. My name is Jason. If you're new or newer, you're visiting with us this morning. We're so grateful that you're here. If you're watching online, uh, maybe watching the recording later. Well, uh, welcome to you. Hope that you are all doing well. I know there is like nasty stomach bug stuff just going around uh in all kinds of places. So uh be healed in Jesus' name for those of you that are dealing with all of that. Uh, a couple of quick announcements really quickly. Uh last week we did a brief congregation meeting after our service uh to give everyone an update on a few key areas, uh including where we're at in our search for a permanent facility and uh where we were going to be at for the summer. So we learned just a couple of weeks ago that they will be killing the power to Palmer High School for the summer. Uh, and we will then be relocating to uh Mitchell High School for from June 14th until the end of July. I recorded a lot more information about that, sent it on the pastoral email, posted it on our pastoral uh on our um Facebook group. Uh so if you didn't get any of those messages, please let me know and we'll make sure we get that uh video to you so you can know more information. And then, second quick announcement tomorrow night we start our first ever membership course. Uh so maybe you've been coming for a while and you're like, oh yeah, I forgot about that. There's still time to sign up. If you go to our website, cosdowntown.org, uh, you can sign up. It's a three-week course uh for two hours, uh, free dinner, uh, and just talking through uh what it means for us when we talk about common faith, common life, and common good. So I'm looking forward to being with whoever's able to be there uh the next couple of Mondays. There is perhaps nothing more inspiring to us than when we hear stories of tragedy to triumph, whether that is from rags to riches or geek to chic or commoner to king or whatever language that we want to use, when we hear like a great underdog story or a situation where this wasn't supposed to happen, this wasn't how things were supposed to be, this story was heading in a downward trajectory, and then all of a sudden there's something beautiful uh that happens, something good and joyous. We get inspired by those kinds of stories they tend to make for really popular books and really popular movies. And we can all maybe think of like, oh yeah, right now I'm holding like that particular story that resonated even with you. And then there's probably nothing more troubling to us than when we see the story go the other direction. When we see something that looks like it's all up and to the right, and everything is triumph, and everything is just seems to be good, and all of a sudden, like the main character breaks bad, right? Or there's this fall from grace. And there's something about those stories that are deeply troubling to us, though we turn them into Netflix series uh and watch them like crazy all of the time, but it it hits somewhere in us. And interestingly in literature and entertainment, we find both kinds of stories. And the reason we find, of course, both kinds of stories is because both kinds of stories happen in life. And it's no surprise then we find both kinds of stories in the scriptures. That in the scriptures we find uh stories, moments, events that we read and we're inspired by, and then other events, other stories that we read and we're deeply troubled by. Some that we find they're like, oh yes, I want everything to do with that. And others that disillusion us are like, I do not know what to do with that story. So I'm just gonna skip it and go on to the next one. Um, and we certainly won't include it in the next version of a children's Bible. Um, but today we get one of those texts. Um, but it's gonna have both elements to it. We're gonna start in a place of great joy, great triumph, great beauty, great goodness, and then find a corresponding story that will deeply trouble us in some ways. So if you have a Bible, you can turn with me to Acts chapter four, verse 32, or you can follow along in the screens. We're in a series through the book of Acts, a series called Kingdom Movement. Acts is uh part two of a two-volume work by an author named Luke. He wrote a gospel and then he wrote uh the book of Acts. We are now at the end of chapter four in our very kind of slow movement through this book. And at the end of chapter four, we find another summary statement, another kind of moment where Luke gives us a glimpse into the general sort of life of the early church, the everyday life and witness of Christians among their neighbors as they are living out the way of Jesus in community with one another. And what we see in this summary statement is that the local church continues to be the very epicenter of God's kingdom work. It is in Acts, it is in history, and it is to today that the church plays this really unique and significant role in all that God is doing. And what we get in Acts chapter four is a summary that spotlights one extraordinary practice, something that was mentioned briefly in Acts chapter two, but now we get a little longer uh explanation of it here in Acts chapter four. It says this is that the community of believers, they were in one heart and one mind, and none of them would say, This is mine, about any of their possessions, but they held everything in common. And the apostles continued to bear powerful witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and an abundance of grace was at work among them. And one of the signs of that grace at work among them is that there were no needy persons among them. Instead, those who owned properties or houses would sell them and then bring the proceeds of the sale and place them in the care and under the authority of the apostles. And then the apostles, the church leaders, would distribute those to anyone who was in need. And the next couple verses go on and tell us one particular story of someone who did this, someone whose name is Barnabas, who's gonna play a huge role later on as being one of Paul's travel companions. And so immediately we're kind of thrust into this summary statement where Luke once again describes the church in terms of a unity, a kind of oneness that transcends all of their differences. They are of one heart and one mind. And out of that unity, they start to look and act like family. Sociologists refer to this as fictive kinship, as a deep relational bond between people that isn't rooted in blood or marriage or adoption, but in something else. And in the case of the early church, it's rooted in their shared devotion to Jesus. That because of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, because of all that God has done in and through Jesus, this group of people have come together different and now one. And this unity in this chapter is expressed particularly in generosity. That they held their possessions loosely, that they held them with open hands rather than with tight fists. And so, whenever needs emerged, those who owned extra properties would sell those properties and entrust those proceeds to the church's leaders who would distribute them. And so a few things that emerged from this kind of right away in the beauty and goodness that's happening here in the early church is one is this is that they lived simply and they gave generously. This was a mark of the early church, that they gave their extra, their extra properties, their extra uh possessions. They did not sell their primary residences, okay? They didn't put themselves in a place of need where suddenly they needed to be on the receiving end of the kindness of the local church, but instead they gave wisely, but they also willingly lived more simply so that they could give more generously. They willingly said, I don't need this, so I'm going to sell it and then I'm going to give that for the sake of the community. So, in other words, they lived simply and they gave generously, and not only generously, but they gave radically. Then we look at that like, whoa, okay. But it's really a continuation of the teaching that's found all the way back in Luke that uh even we're introduced to the Christian music uh movement before Jesus, with John the Baptist coming in and signaling the arrival of the Messiah, people were like, okay, we're preparing our hearts for the way of the Lord. What do we do? And John answered, he said, Whoever has two shirts must share with the one who has none. And whoever has food must do the same. So the church continues to live out the way of Jesus by living simply and giving generously. The second thing that's important to notice here is this is that they gave voluntarily. This wasn't communism. Sometimes we read these passages and we're like, I don't know how I feel about this, because that's the immediate sort of context that we go to. But their resource sharing wasn't regulated, it wasn't mandated, they weren't manipulated or shamed into giving. Instead, needs were known, and then when needs were known, opportunities arose. And then when those opportunities arose, people prayed and they listened to the leading of God, the voice of the Spirit, and then they gave willingly and even joyfully as they were able. So as they prayed, as they were led by the Spirit, they then gave voluntarily and joyfully in order to help meet the needs of the community. And then the third thing we see is this is that their giving demonstrated God's kingdom, that it was part of the kingdom movement in the world. We oftentimes think about the kingdom being demonstrated in the ways that we've seen earlier in Acts, that the kingdom is demonstrated when the gospel is proclaimed and people respond with faith, or that the kingdom is demonstrated when people are taught or they are discipled, or the kingdom is demonstrated when people are healed or delivered. And yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes. And what we also find is the kingdom is demonstrated in the people of God's giving, in their generosity. In our Old Testament reading from Deuteronomy chapter 15, we heard that Moses predicted that if Israel was to be faithful to the covenant, if Israel was to live according to the laws that were being given to them, that there would be no needy persons among them. And that that reality of the needs of the community being cared for would be a signpost to the future, a signpost to the world to come, a signpost to resurrection and new creation, where that is a reality for everyone, where every need is met. And so then Luke comes and he declares that in the early church's practice of doing this, that there were no needy persons among them, quoting Deuteronomy chapter 15. So what Luke is doing is he's making the bold claim that the early Christian movement was fulfilling Moses' words. In other words, they were living out the promises of God and they were partnering with him to make this world here and now more like the world to come. That through their generosity, through their giving, through their simplicity, through their sacrifice, they were participating in the arrival of God's kingdom within their own community. And so from the very beginning, the church has done this. It has been a core practice of the church. The church has practiced regular, habitual, worshipful giving, giving as an expression of our gratitude to all that God has given to us, giving as an expression of our trust in God to continue to provide. And they practice this radical, extravagant, sacrificial giving as the Lord enabled them. And this is one of the ways that they participated in God's kingdom movement together. So they prayed to participate in God's kingdom movement, they worshiped to participate in God's kingdom movement, they proclaimed the gospel, they discipled, they prayed for healing, they did all of these things, and they lived in this generous, extravagant sort of way. And it's still central to the life of every church. It's still one of the core ways that the kingdom is demonstrated. And so you may be new to church and you kind of looking like, why do they have this moment sort of every Sunday where we're invited to give? It's because of this, that this is how the kingdom, one of the ways that the kingdom moves forth in our community, that when we give, we're doing so as an act of worship. And when we give, we're doing so to be formed into God's image, to embody the generous God who has called us and given us everything that we have. We're doing so to be set free from greed and worry, but we're also doing so in order to participate in God's kingdom, to see God's kingdom movement demonstrated among us. So we see that this is the way that the church is living in this incredible way. And that up until this point, these first four chapters in Acts, we get story after story after story like this. We're looking and we're like, this is amazing. The only danger, the only difficulty, the only sort of challenge that the early church seems to be facing is all external. It's all coming from the outside. It's the Jewish authorities, especially the, especially those who are running the temple, that feel threatened by this. They feel threatened by the proclamation that Jesus is the Messiah and the way that people are living. So we do see some leaders arrested and those things. But everything else, it seems to be like the problems are out there. And so it's easy if we just sort of stopped reading at this point to sort of assume that the early church was a perfect community. They had no problems. There were no issues at play anywhere along within the church. And so sometimes we have this idealistic version of church life, uh, where sometimes you'll hear people say, Well, we just need to do is we just need to go back to the early church. We just, we just need to go back and do everything that they did because there was just no trouble whatsoever. Um, and I think it's because they stopped reading at this point. Uh, and as a pastor, I'd like to stop preaching at this point as well, and just sort of say, okay, uh, let's come to the table and we'll go from there. Because all of those illusions are shattered in the next chapter. I mean, they're just shattered. And we're gonna read now, we go from reading one of the most inspiring texts in Acts. We're like, that's amazing, to one of the most troubling texts in Acts. And if you've never read the Bible before, if you've never read this story before, just brace yourself. Um, because in Acts chapter five, we begin this way. However, a man named Ananias, along with his wife Sapphira, they sold a piece of property. And we're like, here we go, not just Barnabas, there's others, Ananias and Sapphira, they're joining in on the kingdom movement. And then we read, with his wife's knowledge, he withheld some of the proceeds from the sale. He brought the rest and he placed it under the care and the authority of the apostles. And then Peter asked, Ananias, how is it that Satan has influenced you to lie to the Holy Spirit by withholding some of the proceeds from the sale of your land? Wasn't that property yours to keep? And after you sold it, wasn't the money yours to do with whatever you wanted? In other words, why are you lying about this? What made you think of such a thing? And then he says, you haven't just lied to us, to other people, but you've lied to God. And then when Ananias heard these words, he dropped dead. And everyone who heard this conversation was terrified. Like, you think. And then some young men stood up and wrapped the body and carried him out and buried him. And then as the story goes on, we read that three hours later that Sapphira comes into worship. And when she's confronted about what happens, she lies and she dies. And so, in a matter of a few verses, we've gone from there are no needy persons among them. Look at all that is happening because of the kindness of God and the generosity of his people to now a situation where we have greed and deceit right in the middle of the camp. What's interesting is that Ananias and Sapphira were under no obligation to sell their property. Peter says, like, it was yours to keep. You didn't have to sell this. And they were under no obligation to give all of the proceeds. They could have kept the property or they could have said, like, hey, we've sold this property and we're giving this percentage, we're keeping this back, and the church would have said, Great, thank you so much. But instead, they were led to sell the property in some capacity. They decided to sell and to give a portion of it, but then they decided to lie about it and say that they gave all. And then we see this sort of devastating consequences. Now, a couple of notes, we're not sure how Peter knows what's happening here, how he knows that they're lying, how he knows that they're withholding a portion. We can assume either A, that someone told him, or B, this is supernational insight from the spirit, which is probably most likely the way that this text is written, that he's getting some insight here. And we're also not told why they withheld, why they lied. We can make some assumptions. Those assumptions are probably based out of our own experiences, out of our own wrestles. Like, well, what would make us, what would make me do something like that? Part of it may have been a fear or anxiety about security, about the future, like, hey, we just we need to control this, we need to hold this back. Some of it could have been that human tendency to sort of hoard as a way to sort of control our lives and to try to prepare for unknown outcomes. It could have been a desire to maintain a certain standard of living that they were like, yeah, well, we we want to do this, but we really also want to do this. And that could have been combined with the desire for status, for reputation. They want to be seen or perceived in a certain way. And they certainly don't want to be embarrassed by saying, well, these people gave everything, but these people only gave a portion. And so whatever it was, they decided to lie to the church and then to, which is lying to the Holy Spirit, which is lying to God. And then Peter says that they were inspired not by the Spirit, but by Satan, by the very enemy of God. And then we see that even in the New Testament, sin has grave consequences. And the trouble is that that just really offends our modern minds. We're like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Like this seems extreme. For us, it's like this punishment doesn't fit the crime, that this is just we we have to do something different than this. Because if we if we're honest, like sometimes we read stories like this, and it's not Ananias and Sapphira who come off as the villains, it's God who comes off as the villain, or maybe Peter. And we we struck struggle, like, what do we do with this? So I want to share a few ideas that might help frame some of that tension, but it's not gonna resolve it. And I actually think sometimes that the tension is really good in our discipleship with Jesus. It's inviting us to wrestle and to say, okay, why is it that this bothers me? Why is it this offends me? Why is it this is troublesome to me? And is there anything going on in my life that Jesus is trying to get my attention about? And sometimes tensions are invitations for us to pay attention and in a prayerful way with Jesus and not simply to sort of dismiss or resolve in some way. So here's my attempt at sort of framing all of this. Uh, one is that this doesn't happen every time in the Bible. Um, this is not the sort of usual pattern, but it's also not entirely unique. Um, we have other stories that are like this, and it's important sometimes to sort of look at those other stories and to see if there is any common thread between them. Because there are several echoes here, other hyperlinks back to the Old Testament. One of them is a story in Joshua chapter 7 of a person named Achan. So for those of you who know that story, Israel has just conquered Jericho, and when they were conquering Jericho, they're told that they're not supposed to take any of the sort of proceeds from that victory. But Achan takes a Babylonian robe and 200 shekels of silver and a gold bar, and he hides them in his tents. And this is in defiance of the command that all of those things, all of the riches, were supposed to be set aside in the treasury that will maintain the sanctuary, provide for the priests, and the resources by which they will care for the community. And so there are ways in which we see this echo between Ananias and Sapphira and Achan. The other one is in Leviticus chapter 10, a little bit earlier, the story of Nadab and Abihu. These were the sons of Aaron who go into the temple or into the tabernacle at this point to offer uh offerings. But what they do is they offer a strange or unauthorized or unholy fire, and then they die. And there's a lot of debate about what is that fire, what do we do with all of that? But we see is that there's an arrogance and there's a carelessness by the priests, where they fail to distinguish what is holy from what is common. And again, we see death when they fail to distinguish that. The other one that maybe is an echo here is 2 Samuel chapter 6, the story of Uzzah, who, while they're transporting the Ark of the Covenant on this new cart driven by oxen, the oxen stumble, and Uzzah like reaches out and touches the ark to steady it, and then he dies. So we have Anas and Sapphira, we have Achan, we have Nadab and Abihu, we have Uzzah, all kind of dying in very similar sort of contexts. And NT Wright points this out. He says, all of these incidents come in a cultic, in other words, like a religious or worship context related to the tabernacle to the temple, not so much a moral setting, though there's obviously morality connected to this, but they are not simply about doing something that was forbidden. They are about treating the things of God as though they are just ordinary. They are confrontations with the mystery of holiness. And so part of what we see in the Ananias and Sapphira story is that what's happening here is a clear association between the church and the temple. That in the Old Testament stories of the tabernacle and the temple, we now see similar stories in the life of the church. In other words, what Luke is letting us know is the church has become the people in whom God's presence dwells. The church has become the place where heaven and earth overlap. The church has become a place that is now called by God in such a unique way that it is now a holy gathering, not a common one. That there is something different, that difference matters, and that difference should be handled with a kind of seriousness. And so in the first four chapters, we see that expressed actually on the positive side. We see that because of the holiness of the church, the set apartness of the church, the uniqueness of the church, the call of the church, that the spirit is sent and the church is empowered and they speak in other tongues and the gospel is proclaimed, and people are repenting, they're turning away from evil, they're being healed, the church is growing, people are being added to their number every day, the kingdom is appearing right there in the midst of them. They're devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching and to communion and to the sacraments and to the prayers, and they're seeing all of this miraculous stuff happen, and they're experiencing some resistance from the Jewish authorities, and that's causing some things. But overall, what we see is that over and over and over again that the kingdom is appearing among them. And what we can say from that is it appears that God takes the church very seriously. That for him, the church is the way that he has decided to move his kingdom out into the earth is through the people who've chosen apprenticeship to Jesus. That he's that Jesus is calling people to come and follow him to learn how to live in the kingdom. And what comes with that is all of this beauty and all of this goodness and all of this healing and all of this restoration. They get to be at the epicenter of everything that God has that's doing, that God chooses the church. He chooses this community of Christ followers, living out the way of Jesus to be at the center of everything that He is doing, to work in them and through them to make this world more like the world to come. He's gracing her every sort of interaction and giving the church, giving us everything that we need for life and for godliness, for ministry to demonstrate the kingdom. And we're like, yes, like God takes this seriously. Like He's meeting us, He's filling us, He's present with us, He's doing all this, and we get to be a part. And then correspondingly, what we realize is that the church must also take God seriously. That if God's going to take the church seriously, then the church must also take God seriously. That the church must treat the things of God, the things that have been set apart for his presence, the things that have been set apart for his purposes, must treat them with reverence. Must treat our gatherings together with reverence, must treat the sacraments the way he shows himself to us with reverence. We must treat resources with reverence. Sometimes we hear that we immediately kind of think, well, what we're supposed to do is just treat those things with like fear and terror. No, that's the kind of stuff that leads to fundamentalism, the kind of an over-seriousness, right? Some of us have been a part of those kind of movements. We're not talking that, where there's no joy that, you know, Sabbath is just sitting in a chair and don't move ever or say any words to anyone, right? That kind of like over-seriousness that sort of robs the kingdom of all of its joy. It's not that. But we do see a kind of awe or appreciation or wonder or respect that safeguards the church from treating the things of God in a flippant or disrespectful manner, in a way that leads to abuse or mistreatment or even sin. A way that leads the church to commit acts that contribute to the fracturing of the world instead of the healing of the world. Because if the church doesn't take the things of God seriously, then what happens is that those who are called to be the sort of place and people in which the kingdom is moving forward, now it starts to undercut and to compromise that very mission. The mission of God, the movement of the kingdom gets compromised. And we know this. We have seen this so many times. How many times have you opened the news or opened an email or gotten a call from a friend? Or you're reading the story of a high-profile church leader, a pastor, a mentor, someone that was meaningful in your own discipleship to Jesus, and what has accompanied their life is just a wake of destruction, of toxicity, of abuse, of mishandling resources, of all those things. And then if you talk to somebody who's outside of the church and they've heard about that story, they're like, why do you have anything to do with that? We know the heartbreak of it. So this is what we see in chapter five is we see the negative counterpoint to the first four chapters. In the fourth four chapters, we see all of the things where God is taking the church seriously, and the church is taking God seriously, and so the kingdom is appearing in all of these beautiful ways that we might call salvation, that we might call healing, that we might call gospel-oriented things. And then in chapter five, we see God taking the church seriously, but members of the church not. And so now the kingdom comes in judgment. And the kingdom is actually both. The kingdom is God coming to us in Jesus, God coming to restore and to reconcile and to renew and to make everything good and right and true and beautiful again. God coming to us in Jesus to deliver us, to heal us, to make us whole. And the kingdom is also Jesus coming to end evil, to defeat sin, to banish Satan. Creed says that Jesus will come again to judge the living and the dead. And so whenever God deals seriously with sin, it is also a sign of the kingdom appearing. We just prefer the kingdom coming in one way and not necessarily the other. But when God deals seriously with sin, it's a way of him putting the world right again. This is why he invites us to deal seriously with those things as well. This is kind of the challenge of Ananias and Sapphira, is that their acts here are just kind of senseless. They could have been honest, but they were unwilling willing to sort of deal with their own deceit and greed. They were unwilling to recognize it. Instead, they wanted to hide it and to live in that kind of deceit. And so one of the things that we're invited to do is to not hide, but instead to bring all those things out into the open that we might continue to be healed. So as we get ready to come to the table today, this is actually what we do when we come to the table. Sometimes people wonder like, why do we always have this prayer when we come to the table where we are repenting, where we are confessing sin and doing it kind of in a in a corporate way. We do it in a corporate way because we need to in a corporate way, but also that we might learn to do so in an individual way. And we might be invited into kind of reflection of saying, oh man, Jesus treats my life and who I am and who we are together as community with utter seriousness. Like he's redeemed us, he's filled us, he's reconciled us, he's restored us, and he's given us a ministry of reconciliation. And all of that is wonderful and beautiful. And correspondingly, we we stop, we take moments and say, are we living lives that are worthy of the call that we have been given? Because it matters, it matters because God has entrusted us and we want to entrust everything over to Him. And so when we come to the table and we pray prayers of confession and repent, we recognize that this is also a sign of the kingdom. That being honest about sin, by being by asking for forgiveness, receiving forgiveness, and receiving freedom, and receiving the joy that comes with that, those are all part of the kingdom. And we want the whole kingdom to come and God's whole will to be done on earth, as in heaven, in our lives, and in our congregation. We want all of it. So, Jesus, would you come and would you bring your kingdom in every way among us for glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be. World without end. Amen.