We need to get back to the church as a fellowship centered on the living Christ. Acts 2:42-47 shows us how. Hear the Word of God from that passage:

If there is one word that characterized the first church in Jerusalem, the word devoted would be a good candidate. As we move through this text together, I have six questions that I want us to ask ourselves which will help us determine how we are measuring up to the devotion of the early church. The first question is this: are we devoting ourselves to the apostles' teaching? That was the first mark of devotion in the church at Jerusalem. All the believers who were added to the church on Pentecost, plus the original 120, devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching.

A pastor was asked the perennial question: "What's the size of your congregation?" The pastor's answer was unique. He said, "Twenty-five miles wide and one inch deep."

That is a danger for many churches. It was certainly a potential danger for the first church in Jerusalem. The most important question in terms of church growth is not: how many people do we have? but rather: are we growing deeper in a spiritual relationship with Jesus Christ?

The primary way we grow deeper in a relationship with Jesus Christ is by devoting ourselves to the apostles' teaching, by devoting ourselves to the hearing, reading, studying, memorizing, meditating and obeying of God's Word given to us especially in the New Testament.

How are you doing at devoting yourself to the apostles' teaching on a personal basis? Do you spend time daily reading God's Word in the Bible for yourself?

How about in your family? Do you take any time as a family to read God's Word together? Do you read God's Word with your children? There are many resources available to help you with a personal or family time in studying and applying God's Word to your life, but you have to take advantage of the resources available. We try to take time, just before bed, on most nights, to read the Bible and talk about it together. We use the Family Devotional Bible and it is a great resource, given the present ages of our children.

How are you doing as a church when it comes to devoting yourselves to the apostles' teaching? If our devotion to God's Word stops in the sanctuary, then we are in trouble. James 1:22-25 says,

A former park ranger at Yellowstone National Park tells the story of a ranger leading a group of hikers to a fire lookout. The ranger was so intent on telling the hikers about the flowers and animals that he considered the messages on his two-way radio distracting, so he switched it off. Nearing the tower, the ranger was met by a nearly breathless lookout, who asked why he hadn't responded to the messages on his radio. A grizzly bear had been seen stalking the group, and the authorities were trying to warn them of the danger.

Any time we tune out the message God has sent us through the Scriptures, we put at peril not only ourselves, but also those around us. How important it is that we never turn off God's saving communication, but rather that we take every opportunity to hear what he has to say to us!

The second question which this text raises is: are we devoting ourselves to the fellowship?

This church is obviously filled with people who care about one another and that is good. As Jack R. Van Ens has said, "People join churches more because they want warmth than light. We like to think it's our stunning proclamation of the truth that keeps them in the pews. Sermons may get them into the church the first time, but what keeps them coming are friendships that foster inward awareness and support."

I hope that in this church you never draw a circle that says, "Us four and no more!" The first church in Jerusalem didn't do that. Think of the tremendous job those first 120 believers had following Pentecost. They had to welcome 3000 new people into the church! Are you open to welcoming new people into your fellowship?

I also hope your fellowship is more than Sunday-deep. As Kent Hughes has said, "Fellowship is not just punch and cookies." Fellowship means sharing in common. One way you can grow in fellowship is by inviting each other over for meals or dessert in your homes. We read in Acts 2:47 that the first Christians "broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts." They showed hospitality to one another, and so their fellowship with one another grew deeper.

Small groups provide an organized way for the church to grow deeper in fellowship. There was no way that all the people at the first Church in Jerusalem could get to know each other just by worshiping together in the temple. There were too many of them. That's one reason why they met in homes in addition to their worship time in the temple.

Are you giving to others as they have need? That's another part of fellowship. The story is told of two boys trying to ride the same tricycle at the same time. One boy says to the other: "You know, if one of us would get off I could have a lot more fun."

That's the way some of us go through life. We put ourselves first. If your wants and needs conflict with my wants and needs, it's my wants and needs that are going to be met first.

That was not the attitude of the first Christians in Jerusalem. "All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need." This was not an early form of communism. These first disciples maintained private property. But as there were needs in the church, people in the church would sell their property and bring it to the apostles to distribute to those in need. These early Christians had fantastic attitudes. We read in Acts 4:32, "All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had." I hope that this church will always live by the motto: "Find a need and fill it. Find a hurt and heal it."

Chuck Colson says that the second most dramatic event in his life (the first was his introduction to Jesus Christ) happened while he was serving time in prison after the Watergate scandal. During that period his family was having some serious problems. So the 18^th ranking member of the House of Representatives, a former political opponent but a member of Colson's prayer group, came up with a way to solve the problem. The man asked permission from the President of the United States to serve out Colson's term in prison for him. At that point Colson knew he belonged to a new kind of society.

That's fellowship. Can we say, like the early church: "What I have is yours. Let me give you what I have to give, whatever you need"?

Let me ask another question: are we devoting ourselves to Communion? When Luke says that the first Christians in Jerusalem devoted themselves to the breaking of the bread, he's talking about Communion, the Lord's Supper, the Eucharist.

Why do we need to be devoting ourselves to Communion?

How are we to devote ourselves to Communion? We do that by preparing for it. Next time before you have Communion in this church, take some time to examine your life. Ask God to turn the search light of his Word upon your heart and show you any sin that is in your life. Then confess that sin to the Lord. Ask him to forgive you through Christ. Ask him for the grace to change your ways. Then come to the Lord's Supper ready to receive the tokens of the Lord's forgiveness.

But more than anything I think that understanding WHAT Communion is will really transform your experience of it. I love what J. B. Phillips once said about Holy Communion:

Phillips invites us to imagine what it would be like if we possessed some of Jesus' actual clothes, or a lock of his hair or a piece of furniture he made. If we had such, they would be relics of enormous historical value. But our attention would be drawn only to the past, not to Christ's living presence with us today. In Communion we have so much more than a dead relic,

Wow! When we come to the Lord's Table we need to be prepared to be touched by the hand of Christ. And if we really realize it is his hand which touches us, we will naturally devote ourselves to Communion.

Another question we must ask is this: are we devoting ourselves to prayer? When Luke says that these early Christians devoted themselves to prayer, the word for prayer that he uses is in the plural. They were continually devoting themselves to the prayers. Luke is probably talking about the stated times for corporate prayer in the temple. In Acts 3 we see an example of the apostles going up to the temple at the time for corporate or group prayer, public prayer.

Jim Cymbala has written, "The Christian church was born not in a clever sermon but in a prayer meeting." In Acts 1:14 we read that the disciples "all joined together constantly in prayer."

This is an area where most churches need to grow. Many of us are committed to praying by ourselves and that is wonderful. Prayer in the regular worship services of the church is essential. But these times of prayer are not enough. As I said a couple of weeks ago, there need to be times where the church gathers just to pray, nothing else.

Prayer meetings often have the lowest attendance of any meetings in the church because prayer is hard work. It is hard work to concentrate and to pray for an hour, especially in our pragmatic society. It is hard for us to see the value of prayer because it is so spiritual in nature and we seldom see immediate material results from prayer. Perhaps that is why Jesus said to his disciples, "Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak." (Mark 14:38)

In "Total Eclipse" Annie Dillard writes: "The Ring Nebula, in the constellation Lyra, looks, through binoculars, like a smoke ring. It is a star in the process of exploding. Light from its explosion first reached the earth in 1054; it was a supernova then, and so bright it shone in the daytime. Now it is not so bright, but it is still exploding. It expands at the rate of seventy million miles a day. It is interesting to look through binoculars at something expanding seventy million miles a day. It does not budge. Its apparent size does not increase. Photographs of the Ring Nebula taken fifteen years ago seem identical to photographs of it taken yesterday.

"Huge happenings are not always visible to the naked eye-especially in the spiritual realm. How often it is that this nebula resembles the process of prayer. Sometimes we pray and pray and seemingly see no change in the situation. But that's only true from our perspective. If we could see from heaven's standpoint, we would know all that God is doing and intending to do in our lives. We would see God working in hearts in ways we cannot know. We would see God orchestrating circumstances that we know nothing about. We would see a galaxy of details being set in place for the moment when God brings the answer to fulfillment."

When you look at prayer that way-does it make you want to be more devoted?

What about worship? Are we devoting ourselves to worship? We can't just answer this question by the numbers. We also have to ask: are we filled with awe in our worship? We read in Acts 2:43 that the first Christians were all filled with awe at what the Lord was doing in their lives.

Are we truly praising God with joy? Luke tells us that the first Christians ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God! But as Kent Hughes has said about contemporary Christians, Some of us look like someone put Clorox in our coffee when we come to worship!

Bruce Larson has written about these first Christians that: "They were praising the Lord-not because they had no problems, and not because there was no persecution. Not at all. Gladness and joy are the gifts of God, and those early Christians, who had at least as many problems as we do, were known for their joy and their gladness. . . . I would not trust a dreary saint. Grimness is not a Christian virtue."

If you are running low on the joy of the Lord in your life, ask him to give you a new injection of gladness that will overflow into worship. He is the source of joy; he is the joy-giver. Why not ask him for some more joy?

Finally, let me ask this question: are we devoting ourselves to outreach? We read about that first Church in Jerusalem that they were "enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved." (Acts 2:47)

The Lord is the One who can give you a good reputation with outsiders and he is the one who will add to your number. Only God can make someone a Christian and give him or her the desire to get involved in his church. We can't do that. We can pray for people. We can share Jesus with them. We can invite them to church. But we can't make them Christians and we can't grow the church. Jesus said, "I will build my church." (Matthew 16:18) It is God who adds people to the church. Our job is to welcome those whom he adds. As Paul says in Romans 15:7, "Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God." There was a time when each of us were outsiders to a new congregation. Someone reached out to accept us, or else we wouldn't be here. Now it's our turn to reach out and accept someone else who is new. As Gary Harrison has said, "No matter how much the church wants to reach out, growth will not happen if the building and the people fail to say ?Welcome!'"

The best definition of evangelism I have ever heard is that evangelism is overflow! If you are devoting yourself to the apostles' teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer, then you will be so filled up with Jesus that he will naturally flow out of your every day life.

It's like this glass of water. If this glass is filled up to the brim, then when I go through life and bump into other people, the water will naturally overflow. In the same way, if you are filled up with Jesus, through devotion to the Word, prayer, fellowship, worship, then Jesus will flow out of your life to others, and Jesus will draw into the church those whom you are touching with his love.

Devotion to the apostles' teaching, to fellowship, to Communion, to prayer, to worship, to outreach-all of these are essential to Christian and church growth. But the bottom line is this: none of us can be devoted to God in our own power. Unless Christ is at the center, living in us through the Holy Spirit, we will fail. So let us turn to him and ask him to help us be devoted disciples for his glory.

Keys to Growth: Healing

Acts 3:1-26

What would you say to a beggar? There are millions of them on the streets of America today. You cannot go into any major city without encountering one or more.

C. S. Lewis, upon encountering a beggar near his home in Oxford, England, gave the needy person some money. Lewis's friend immediately protested, "Jack, you know that man is just going to go and blow that money on drink!" To which C. S. Lewis responded, "Well, if I kept the money I would just blow it on drink!"

Tertullian, one of the early church fathers, once said: "It is our care for the helpless, our practice of loving kindness, that brands us in the eyes of many of our opponents. ?Look!' they say. ?How they love one another! Look how they are prepared to die for one another.'"

So what would you say to a beggar? I don't know what you would say. I don't even know what I would say in certain circumstances. But we do know what the first Christians said. Let us read their story in Acts 3. Hear the Word of God:

One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the time of prayer--at three in the afternoon. [2] Now a man crippled from birth was being carried to the temple gate called Beautiful, where he was put every day to beg from those going into the temple courts. [3] When he saw Peter and John about to enter, he asked them for money. [4] Peter looked straight at him, as did John. Then Peter said, "Look at us!" [5] So the man gave them his attention, expecting to get something from them.

[6] Then Peter said, "Silver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk." [7] Taking him by the right hand, he helped him up, and instantly the man's feet and ankles became strong. [8] He jumped to his feet and began to walk. Then he went with them into the temple courts, walking and jumping, and praising God. [9] When all the people saw him walking and praising God, [10] they recognized him as the same man who used to sit begging at the temple gate called Beautiful, and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.

[11] While the beggar held on to Peter and John, all the people were astonished and came running to them in the place called Solomon's Colonnade. [12] When Peter saw this, he said to them: "Men of Israel, why does this surprise you? Why do you stare at us as if by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk? [13] The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus. You handed him over to be killed, and you disowned him before Pilate, though he had decided to let him go. [14] You disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked that a murderer be released to you. [15] You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this. [16] By faith in the name of Jesus, this man whom you see and know was made strong. It is Jesus' name and the faith that comes through him that has given this complete healing to him, as you can all see.

[17] "Now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did your leaders. [18] But this is how God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, saying that his Christ would suffer. [19] Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord, [20] and that he may send the Christ, who has been appointed for you--even Jesus. [21] He must remain in heaven until the time comes for God to restore everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets. [22] For Moses said, 'The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you must listen to everything he tells you. [23] Anyone who does not listen to him will be completely cut off from among his people.'

[24] "Indeed, all the prophets from Samuel on, as many as have spoken, have foretold these days. [25] And you are heirs of the prophets and of the covenant God made with your fathers. He said to Abraham, 'Through your offspring all peoples on earth will be blessed.' [26] When God raised up his servant, he sent him first to you to bless you by turning each of you from your wicked ways."

In this story we see healing flowing along two pathways. First of all we see that healing comes through the giving of the self.

Peter and John were on their way to the Temple to pray at three o'clock in the afternoon. We have seen already in Acts how important prayer is to the life of the Christian and the life of the Church. Peter and John were on their way to do a good thing. But they were suddenly interrupted.

Their plans were interrupted by a man with a birth defect-a man who was paralyzed and apparently unable to work. And so this man sat at the Temple every day to beg money from the religious people who were entering. Just as he did every day, this man asked Peter and John for money.

And what did Peter and John do? Did they look the other way? Did they brush him off? Did they give him money? None of the above. Peter got the man's attention and then said, "Look, we don't have any money to give you, but we have something better: in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk!" Then Peter took the man by the hand, helped him up, and the beggar was immediately healed.

It would have been a lot easier for Peter and John to have done one of two things: either not get involved at all, or just give the man money. As we will see next week, what Peter and John did do cost them a lot more.

What do you do when confronted with someone in need? Do you count it an interruption and try to get on with your own business as quickly as possible? What we count as interruptions are, from God's perspective, just the daily events of our lives as he sends them to us. The question is: what are we going to do with those interruptions? Are we going to give of ourselves? Or withhold ourselves? Healing only flows through one of those paths: the giving of the self.

It is interesting to note the result of tests run by psychologists and psychiatrists trying to determine the type of counseling most helpful to people in need. When comparing the effect of different types of therapy doctors always set up a control group with counselors made up of ordinary people. Invariably the control group consisting of non-professionals often gets the same results as professional therapy. Why? Bruce Larson gives the answer. "Power for healing is released when you and I simply focus on somebody else unhurriedly, taking him or her seriously and listening. The problem is that we are all so focused on our own concerns we don't take time do this."

Dr. Seymour Diamond did some research on family problems. He maintains, based upon that research, that today's average American father gives undivided attention to his children thirty-eight seconds a day. The average father gives partial attention to his children twenty minutes per day while he is doing something else: watching TV or working on a project. If we are to really love our children and heal the problems we have in our own families then we, as Christian parents, must give significant time every day focusing on them and listening to them. We have to give of ourselves.

Sometimes we hesitate to give of ourselves because we feel like we have nothing to give. This is where spending time alone with the Lord every day comes in. He is the One who can best fill our tanks so that we have something to give out to others.

Peter and John gave what they had. They didn't give what they didn't have. They didn't have money they could give to help others. Maybe you do. I don't think I have the gift of healing like Peter had. Some people have that gift. I don't have that gift to give away. But I can listen. I can pray for people. I can offer wisdom from God's Word. What do you have to give? George Sweeting has said: "When the church stops giving, it loses its power. When the church stops serving, it almost always starts swerving-into the wrong lane."

During World War II, a church in Strasbourg, France, was destroyed. Little remained but rubble. When the rubble was cleared, a statue of Christ was found still standing. It was unharmed except for the hands of Christ which were missing.

In time the church was rebuilt. A sculptor offered to carve a new statue of Christ, one with hands. The leaders of the church considered this. They decided to keep the old statue and they put a sign at the foot of it which read: "He has no hands but yours."

The real Jesus does have hands today. He reigns in heaven and can work from there with or without us. But he chooses to work with us, through our hands by his Holy Spirit to help other people just as he worked through Peter and John. The healing of Jesus flows through us when we offer our hands in his service, as we give of ourselves for his cause.

The second pathway for healing is through the preaching of Jesus. The healing of the man in Acts 3 drew a crowd in response. Everyone who went to the temple knew this beggar. They knew he had been paralyzed, but here he was walking around, even leaping and praising God. What had happened? The crowd wanted to know. And so Peter took the opportunity to explain to them that this miracle had been performed by the power of Jesus and not the power of Peter.

The preaching of Jesus in the apostolic church had certain very definite characteristics. First of all, it focused on the crucifixion of Jesus. Peter made it clear that the sins of his hearers put Jesus on the cross. That is no less true today than it was 2,000 years ago. Ours sins, yours and mine, put Jesus on the cross. But it was also God's purpose that his Son would suffer for our sins. As Paul later said, "Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures." The wages of sin is death, but Jesus paid that death penalty for us.

Secondly, the apostolic preaching focused on the resurrection of Christ. God vindicated Jesus by raising him from the dead. Without the resurrection the Church never would have come into being. But the resurrection was the proof of Christ's indestructible life.

This leads to the third point of apostolic preaching: there is power in the name of Jesus and the faith that comes through him. It was by the name of Jesus that this man was healed. It is in the name of Jesus that healing continues to happen today-whether that healing is physical, emotional or primarily spiritual. So long as we think of what we can do and what we can be, in and of ourselves, there will be nothing but failure and frustration and fear in our lives. But when we think, "not I, but Christ in me" then there flows from us healing, peace and power.

The fourth essential ingredient of apostolic preaching was the call to repentance. Repentance is a change of mind which results in a change in direction. Apart from Christ we are turned 180 degrees away from God. We must do an about-face, by the power of the Holy Spirit, and turn to God and start walking his way. We must change our minds about sin and about Christ and start walking in his footsteps.

Once we do that three results will follow. Repentance has consequences on the past the present and the future. First of all, when we repent our sins are wiped out. The word for "wiped out" is a vivid one. William Barclay tells us:

Evangelist Luis Palau tells the story of being invited to meet with the secretary of the Communist Party in Ecuador. The woman arrived at Luis' office promptly at 9:30 the next morning. After checking Palau's office for hidden microphones she launched into the most vicious tirade Luis had ever heard. For more than twenty minutes she berated everything that stood for Christ, including Luis himself. Bitterness gushed from her and left Luis speechless.

When she finally stopped to catch her breath Luis asked, "Madam, what is your name?"

"Why do you want to know?" she demanded.

Luis replied, "Well, you've said a lot of things here and I don't even know you." After some thought she announced that she was Maria Benitez-Perez. Then, for the next three hours, without pause or interruption, she told Luis her violent, pathetic life story. It sounded like the plot of a grade-B movie, reeking with sin and guilt.

Finally, she paused and asked, "Palau, supposing there is a God, would he accept a woman like me?"

"Look Maria," Luis replied, "Don't worry about what I think; look at what God says." And he opened to Hebrews 10:17 and turned the Bible so she could see.

"But I don't believe in the B-"

"But we're just supposing there's a God, right?" I interjected. "Let's just suppose the Bible is his word. He says, ?Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more.'"

She waited, as if there had to be more. Luis said nothing. "But listen, I've been an adulteress, married three times, and in bed with a lot of different men."

Luis repeated, "Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more." And he began countint the time he repeated that verse.

Seventeen times he responded to Maria's objections and confessions with that verse. It was past lunch time. Luis was tired and weak. He had no more to offer. "Would you like Christ to forgive all that you've told me about and all the rest I don't even know.?"

She was quiet. Finally she spoke softly. "If he could forgive me and change me, it would be the greatest miracle in the world." Within ten minutes Luis witnessed that miracle as Maria Benitez-Perez confessed her sins, asked for forgiveness and received Christ. Today Maria is actively serving the Lord.

When we repent, God forgives all of our sin. Our sins are wiped out. He forgives our sin and remembers our wickedness no more!

A second result of repentance happens in the present. Repentance brings times of refreshing. Into our lives comes a power that will be a strength in weakness and a rest in weariness. As the hymn-writer put it:

Heaven above is softer blue

Earth around is sweeter green

Something lives in every hue

Christ-less eyes have never seen.

Birds with gladder songs o'er-flow

Flowers with deeper beauties shine

Since I know as now I know

I am His and He is mine.

A third result will flow from our repentance in the future. Peter says, "Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord, [20] and that he may send the Christ, who has been appointed for you--even Jesus. [21] He must remain in heaven until the time comes for God to restore everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets."

What is the connection between repentance and the Second Coming of Christ? C. S. Lewis explains it this way in Mere Christianity. He asks:

Why is God landing in this enemy-occupied world in disguise and starting a sort of secret society to undermine the devil? Why is He not landing in force, invading it? Is it that He is not strong enough? Well, Christians think He is going to land in force; we do not know when. But we can guess why He is delaying. He wants to give us the chance of joining His side freely. I do not suppose you and I would have thought much of a Frenchman who waited till the Allies were marching into Germany and then announced he was on our side. God will invade. But I wonder whether people who ask God to interfere openly and directly in our world quite realise what it will be like when He does. When that happens, it is the end of the world. When the author walks on to the stage the play is over. God is going to invade, all right: but what is the good of saying you are on His side then, when you see the whole natural universe melting away like a dream and something else-something it never entered your head to conceive-comes crashing in; something so beautiful to some of us and so terrible to others that none of us will have any choice left? For this time it will be God without disguise; something so overwhelming that it will strike either irresistible love or irresistible horror into every creature. It will be too late then to choose your side. There is no use saying you choose to lie down when it has become impossible to stand up. That will not be the time for choosing: it will be the time when we discover which side we really have chosen, whether we realised it before or not. Now, today, this moment, is our chance to choose the right side. God is holding back to give us that chance. It will not last for ever. We must take it or leave it.

Keys to Growth: Community

Acts 4:32-37

Chad Reuter, a reserve catcher for the Chicago White Sox back in the mid 90's, severely dislocated and fractured his left shoulder on a play at home base. He underwent surgery, and the White Sox placed him on the 60-day disabled list. That's the kind of thing that makes a backup player feel even less like a part of the team.

But Chad did not feel left out. Apparently his teammates had a strong liking for him; each player put Chad's number 12 on his ball cap to show support. Chad was a member of the team whether he played or not.

As you can imagine, that meant a lot to Chad. Later in the season when he was able to play again, he showed his appreciation by putting the numbers of all his teammates on his own ball cap.

All for one and one for all. That is what makes a team, and that is also what makes the community of Christ known as the Church.

We read about the activities of that community in Acts 4:32-37. Hear the Word of God. . . .

In these brief verses we learn about two essential activities of Christian community. One is sharing and the other is encouragement.

Richard Leakey, famous archeologist who worked in northern Kenya, commented in his book People of the Lake about what separated human beings from apes. He said it was not our intelligence, but our generosity. Our ability to share sets us apart. We are created in God's image, a step above the animals. Being made in God's image we have a capacity for generosity because our God is a giving person.

Jesus Christ came to make us truly human; he came to give back to us the true humanity we have lost. We often slip back into being nothing more than apes. Human beings often act as though "survival of the fittest" was the only rule of life. But Jesus can make us whole people, generous people. In Christian community we are meant to share with each other and with the world.

Acts 4:32-37 expands our knowledge of what the early Christian community was like and builds upon the picture in Acts 2:42-47. The early Christians had a radical attitude which led to sacrificial action. Their radical attitude was that all of them were one in heart and mind. They didn't consider any of their possessions to be their own. In other words, they understood that everything they had was given to them by God in trust, to be used for his glory. It is for that reason they shared everything they had with those who were in need.

I don't know if you have ever heard of The Stradivari Society, but "The Stradivari Society of Chicago performs an important role in the music world. The society entrusts expensive violins into the hands of world-class violin players who could never afford them on their own.

"Top-flight violins made by 17^th and 18^th century masters like Antonio Stradivari produce an incomparably beautiful sound and now sell for millions of dollars each. Their value continues to climb, making such violins highly attractive to investors. But ?great violins are not like great works of art,' writes music critic John von Rhein. ?They were never meant to be hung on a wall or locked up under glass. Any instrument will lose its tone if it isn't played regularly; conversely, an instrument gains in value the more it is used.'

"And so it is that those who own the world's greatest violins are looking for first-rate violin players to use them. The Stradivari Society brings them together, making sure that the instruments are preserved and cared for. One further requirement made by investors in such violins: the musician will give the patron at least two command performances a year.

Like the Stradivari Society, God also entrusts equisite ?violins' into the care of others. He gives us gifts, talents and resources which remain his property. He wants those resources to be used. He delights to hear beautiful music from our lives. And he wants us to play for him.

We need to have the same attitude toward the gifts, talents or resources God has entrusted to us which the early Christians had. We need to have the radical attitude the church in Jerusalem had and not regard these possessions as our own, but as something to be used for God's glory and the help of others. As George Sweeting has written, "We own nothing. It is on loan to us. It is loaned for a purpose: to serve others in Jesus' name."

The result of this sharing in the first church in Jerusalem was that people were more and more attracted to the message of the first Christians. It has been well and truly said, "Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care." Once others in Jerusalem saw how much the followers of Jesus cared for those in need they were much more interested in hearing what the Christians had to say. That is why the apostles were able to testify with great power to the resurrection of Jesus. Communication is a two-way street. You can speak with all the power in the world, but what difference does it make if no one is listening? The first Christians in Jerusalem had earned the right to be heard by caring for those in need.

My father learned this principle early on in his ministry in New York City. After reading an article in Life magazine about the teen gang problem in New York in the late 1950's my father felt called to reach these troubled youth with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Having been a juvenile delinquent and former member of organized crime, my father felt that God might be able to use him to reach teen gang members.

So, Dad moved into a storefront in Spanish Harlem. He got names of key gang leaders from the police department. He set about trying to find the living quarters of these teens, but at each tenement he was told: "No one here by that name." The residents of Hell Gate Station, New York, figured my father was a cop because all white men in Spanish Harlem were police officers.

Finally, in desperation, my father approached the administration of the local junior high school and asked if he might put on an electronics show for the student body. After discussions with three key members of the administration he was granted the opportunity to lead a school assembly. On the appointed day my father single-handedly unloaded two tons of electronic equipment and set it up on the stage of the school auditorium. The students entered the assembly with "show-me" expressions on their faces, but within minutes they were entranced by my father sending bolts of electricity through fellow students' bodies to light up light bulbs. He used black-light to reveal the hidden glories of rocks. And he shook the auditorium with the sound of a steam-engine locomotive which ripped through the center of the crowd with startling reality all due to a then little known device called stereophonic recording and amplification.

The next week my father had a crowd of students show up at his club to learn about electronics, where before he had been all alone. He even had to issue membership cards to limit the crowd in his small storefront operation. Over time, through building friendships and meeting needs in the Harlem community, he earned the right to share the good news about Jesus Christ.

The same principle which worked in Jerusalem in the first century and in Harlem in the 20^th century still works today: we earn the right to share the gospel by caring for those in need. "Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care."

A second result of the sharing of the first church in Jerusalem was that there were no needy persons among them. Can you imagine that? Many people have dreamed of ending poverty. The Greeks of the first century looked back to a golden age in their culture when all property was public and Pythagoras is said to have practiced the kind of sharing which later went on in the church of Jesus Christ. Plato later incorporated this ideal in his vision of a utopian republic. The Jewish historian Josephus tells us that the Essenes of the Qumran Community sought to practice the same kind of sharing as the Pythagoreans. But the inspiration for this kind of common life came from nowhere else but the Old Testament. Centuries before, it was stated in the law (Deuteronomy 15:4) "there should be no poor among you." But when had anyone ever fulfilled this utopian vision? It required the coming of God in human flesh to live out this ideal in his own person. The gospel of the kingdom, which Jesus preached and lived, was good news for the poor. Only as Jesus changes us from the inside-out can we really have the radical attitude about our possessions which leads to sacrificial