Enjoying God's Growing Family (Acts 4:32-37) | Pastor Mike Fabarez

[Music] they're building a six billion dollar stadium up there in la as i'm sure you've heard and one part of that stadium i know is going to be really nice is the locker rooms they don't even call it that they call the clubhouse that's where the professional athletes hang out and prepare it's where they change of course it's where they come back to during half time as a matter of fact if you go to any major stadium around the country and you get a chance to tour that stadium be sure to get to those clubhouses within those stadiums they're very nice matter of fact even in college sports the college arenas around the country uh they're cherried out they have wood paneling they've got obviously climate control a lot of free food flowing around there it's a it's a nice place to hang out and i guess that's a good thing because you hang out there just before you go out onto the field uh and uh and and it's not quite as tranquil they're out on the field it's a a respite it's meant to be that i mean leather chairs comfortable place and you get a little bit of uh that that recharging that you need to get back out into the battle in the book of acts there has been from chapter one to chapter four a lot of battling going on as a matter of fact the section that we are finishing up today as we get to the end of chapter four has been a section that began with an opportunity for the apostles to preach the gospel and as peter stands up and the record of his preaching is there he doesn't pull any punches and as a matter of fact he goes all in in trying to make sure that the people know this is no optional thing we're not presenting you some kind of self-help improvement this is like heaven and hell life and death you need to respond rightly to the god who has created you and sent his son to redeem you and to have you forgiven from your sins this is essential well the authorities didn't like that and of course what we saw there and this all started in chapter three and i should say that's where the record of his preaching is and then in chapter three and four we see all the opposition to this the council that actually turned jesus over to the romans to have him crucified now is calling peter and john before them and and they're telling them you got to stop you cannot keep preaching in the name of jesus and of course you might remember their response as uneducated fishermen from galilee with an accent and a twang in their voice here they were with courage and boldness standing up to the authorities and the highest court in the land for them as jewish people and they were saying listen you might tell us to be quiet but we can't be quiet you may tell us that we've got to stop preaching but we can't and then that great line here in chapter 4 where it says there's no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved we're going to preach this message and they engaged in that battle of ideas as second corinthians 10 says this argumentation that's a lot like warfare saying to our culture christianity is not an option it's mandatory it's an imperative it's not an offer it's a command that we submit to the lord jesus christ because it's the only hope that we have there's no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved this is critical and urgent and in that battle as they are incarcerated and they're threatened they go back to the church as they're gathered together in the verses just proceeding where we've reached at the end of chapter four and they pray together for boldness they ask god to enrich them with a kind of strength and courage to have this emboldened strong courageous faith-filled attitude that they're going to get into the marketplace every day they're going to go into their secular jobs and their relationships and they're going to do whatever they can to be a good and faithful ambassador for jesus christ that is the church that we left last time we studied this passage together and then in verse 32 as though we've gone from the stern coaching in that locker room as they're gathered together they had been praying for peter and john and now you kind of get the camera that's panning around this clubhouse and you get to see how nice it is in there you get to see how comfortable these leather padded chairs are and the paneling on the walls and and and the climate control and the and the free cashews and the bananas and oranges that are there and all of this is just around and you get you get this sense of what an oasis this must be now the rest of the book of acts we're gonna get back on the gridiron through the tunnel back onto the field and to fight for the gospel but right here in these verses verses 32-37 you get a picture of how nice it must be to be a part of this harbor this safe haven this oasis in the midst of the battle and it's one that every generation of christian must have and you and i must have one and we've got to have it here it's the church of jesus christ and if it's not an oasis if the harbor is choppy right if there's a storm and turbulence here we have no hope really to go down that corridor and out on the field and fight for the gospel monday through friday we've got to have a church that functions like this church it's the difference between us hearing at the end of our lives well done good and faithful servant or those that unfortunately were so embittered and embattled in our churches that we never got out there empowered and emboldened to do the work that god has called us to do so we must study these verses luke chapter four i'm sorry acts chapter four written by luke acts chapter 4 verses 32-37 with an eye that we might replicate this in our church but even before we kind of lay that emphasis on us i want to step back and say isn't it good to the extent that we experience it to have this experience just like they had at least to whatever level we say yeah i can identify with that i've been in the church long enough to know with all of its warts and wrinkles there's a lot of good that's happening in the church and there's a lot of things we need to think about and consider and highlight to make sure that we appreciate the church for what it is and then we can end with a little bit of a push to say how can we make sure it stays that way and maybe even in our case improve and get a little bit better so take a look at this text with me it's an important one acts chapter 4 look at it with your own eyeballs please acts chapter 4 verses 32 through 37 i'm going to read it from the english standard version as we return to this great book in this great chapter taking a little look around as the camera pans around and looks at the safe haven the harbor the good respite from the battle and the war the shelter the refuge and oasis that the church ought to be verse 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 and with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the lord jesus and great grace was upon them all there was not a needy person among them for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the feet of the apostles and it was distributed to each as any had need verse 36 thus joseph who was also called by the apostles barnabas which means son of encouragement a levite a native of cyprus sold a field that belonged to him and brought the money and laid it at the apostles feet i want us to start at the bottom of verse 33 just we look at these first two verses i want to see that last line and then i'm going to go back and see why this statement can be said truthfully of the early church look at that last line so important even the prepositions that help us see this kind of imagery this analogy i want you to kind of personalize and objectify even this virtue this great thing called grace that it says in this text was set upon the church it says the bottom of verse 33 and great grace was upon them all this corporate group of people and remember when you start in verse 32 with this statement the full number we've gone from three thousand we've gone from 120 to three thousand and now in chapter four we've learned that there's five thousand men heads of households so this is a big mega church that's meeting on the vast environs of the temple mount in jerusalem in the first century to gather together to sit under the preaching of the apostles so this is a big group and yet that whole group there was something that the bible says was set upon them great grace was set upon them i think it's helpful for us to stand back and to think of that in our case because we as a church representing the same christ that was represented by that group there in the first century is what we are living for what we stand for we're ambassadors of the same message in our generation and so it'd be good for us number one on your outlines if you're taking notes jot this down to think of the favor that is set on god's team important for us to see that we have the higher up so to speak in this team and if you have a jersey with your name on the back of it and you're on the team you're on team christ if you will there is a blessing that has been set a favor a goodness the grace that has been set on this team and it's good for us to revel in that for a minute and stand back oh that's a good thing that's a big thing that's a big statement it's a big statement that distinguishes us and differentiates us from any other group you might be a lot you might be a part of a lot of things a business association some kind of club some kind of hobby you know alliance or whatever and your kids might be in little league or in you know boy scouts or whatever they're a part of but there's no organization like this one that the bible says right here we see within the church a special distinction of god's grace being on the mall and that's true not only of us in the church it was true in the old testament and when i start thinking about the preposition of setting this love and this grace upon a group of people i think of the old testament statement that i have to have you look at because the logic here is helpful and the parallels are clear to the new testament church and therefore to us so turn with me to deuteronomy chapter 7 and i want you to look at this passage in light of the fact that it's true also of the church of jesus christ of course the church did not replace israel but the church certainly just like a called out group of people in the new testament can be looked at in parallel to the called out group of people in the old testament book of deuteronomy of course was written there in 1440 bc coming out of the land of egypt moses had led them out in the retelling of the law the re speaking of the law to a new generation that's what deuteronomy means second law the second giving of the law you have in this setting a important reminder that the people that were about to enter the land of canaan that had come out of the land of egypt they were special to god and look at this statement as it relates to who the people of israel should view themselves to be starting in verse number six deuteronomy chapter seven verse six moses is the mouthpiece for this truth and he says for you are a people now look at this phrase holy to the lord holy to the lord you think of the word holy i don't know what you think of you probably think of a set of moral standards and it is true that oftentimes the bible speaks of holiness in terms of reflecting the character of the god who has set you apart but the word itself means to be set apart the word holy means that you're not like the rest he has taken you and distinguished you from the rest you are a people this group of people israel here is set apart or holy to the lord your god and therefore that's why we should in our behavior reflect the one who has set us apart and therefore it takes on an ethical or moral character so often in the bible but at its base the idea of what it means to be holy means you're a group of people that is set apart different look at the rest of this verse verse six the lord your god has chosen you well there's a thought to be a people for his now you get the sense of the completeness of this idea a treasured possession your mind this is my group this is my people this is my team out of all the peoples that are on the face of the earth right i mean god's taken individuals and called them out and put them in this group now of course that providentially happened through genetics right primarily you've got the descendants of abraham god made a promise to abraham 2000 years before christ came this here is 600 years later as moses is reminding them that you are a group of people descended from abraham and god has chosen you as a treasured possession this is his group his team now why would he do that verse 7 it was not because you were more in number than any other people that the lord set his love on you and chose you i just there's that preposition i can't help but think of deuteronomy 7 his love set upon those people just like it says in the new testament church his grace was set upon the people all the people his grace was upon them all and here it is the picture of god's love he he loved you he set his love on you now why did he do that well not because you were the biggest group around matter of fact when he started this thing we had a an infertile couple named abram and sarai and they couldn't even have any kids what kind of nation is that well god doesn't pick them because they were the most it says it's not because you were the most matter of fact you were the fewest of all people well then why did you choose us why did you set your love on us why did your favor rest upon this group of people verse 8 it is because the lord loves you well that's kind of circular reasoning i'm asking why do you love us why do you just well because because i do right i mean that helps us understand something of we use the word all the time the sovereignty of god god decides to love these people he sets his love on these people but then he gives us a little bit of an explanation he says keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers to your patriarchs who are the who's that abraham isaac jacob joseph the patriarchs in the book of genesis god makes a promise to abraham he reiterates it to successive patriarchs of the fathers so 600 years before moses writes this he says well god has set his love on you and he did that pulling you out of egypt and he's going to bring you into the promised land and he's doing that because he's keeping a promise that he made to abraham so long ago so that's helpful i suppose he swore an oath to the fathers to your fathers that's why he's brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery from the hand of pharaoh king of egypt know therefore that the lord your god is god he's in charge he's the king he's a faithful god and he keeps covenant he keeps his promise and steadfast love there's our word we see a lot in in the old testament his his hessed his consistent faithful loyal love with those who love him and keep his commandments that's a great reminder that god sets his love on people not because of the virtue or lovability of those people and he doesn't set his grace on us because he goes the best group of people i could find on earth i'm going to set my grace on them but if you're part of the church you're part of an organization that god has set his grace upon the grace upon the organization and it's not because he's keeping a promise in this case to our biological forefathers but because the parallel you might want to take the note down at least in ephesians chapter one he makes it so clear that he's keeping a promise to his own son you've been chosen in him from the foundation of the world chosen in christ god said i'm going to pull a bunch of people together from every tongue tribe nation they're going to come this eclectic group of gentiles and he's going to pull them together in a thing called the church he's going to set his love on them because he's keeping a promise to his son jesus christ think back to the picture of him as a shepherd comes to shepherd a group of people and the bible says that the people in his flock that he shepherds are a gift from the father to the son and he gives them this group of people as john 10 says and he says those people are going to hear your voice and they're going to follow you and then you're going to be their shepherd and as jesus is saying all this he says and no one can snatch them out of my hand they will be my treasured possession to use the words of deuteronomy 7. let's step out of that for a second just think of what we're saying we have an organization here it's unlike any other organization there's something divinely unique and profound about the church of jesus christ and if you are a part of this church right now i don't mean filling out a form or having some kind of file in a file cabinet i'm just being you say this is my church this is my organization i like these people are followers and disciples of christ we organized as christ told us under the elders and the deacons of the church we together here are one outpost of the body of christ and this is his organization and he sets his grace his blessing his love upon this group that is a privileged place to be and even if you're not a christian but this is a regular part of your life compass bible church this one outpost of the body price much like we've distinguished between the weeds and the wheat right the old translations the wheat and the tares even if you associate with this regularly you might be a non-christian and here one day at the end of your life depart from me i never knew you and that'd be a horrible thing especially with all the responsibility you'll have for the knowledge you learned while you were here but even if you're just part of the weeds and not the real possessing true converted christian as the book of hebrews says you need to understand there are so many temporal blessings that are bestowed on you simply for being part of the church god's grace is set upon this organization with all the words and wrinkles that we have just like there was in the early church god says these are my people here is my grace my love is set on this organization a parallel to it would be first corinthians 7 when god looks at marriages and said even if there's only one converted person in that household right that whole thing is set apart it uses the same equivalent word in greek uh hagios this group is set apart god sees that family that household differently because his favor is set on that household even if there's conflict and we have christian and non-christians one of the arguments as to why you shouldn't be quick to divorce your non-christian spouse and that you shouldn't do it because there's a sense of grace that comes upon that family and even upon your children because of one believing person in that household well this is so different the church how many people do we have here that are the real deal right real wheat if you will they're not the weeds they're not the tares and i don't know what the percentage is of course i'm always hoping the percentage will go way up i would be great if 99 of us were all genuine believers but even if it was 70 even if it were 60 even if we have in our church 60 of the people that are saved and 40 percent that are just going along and dragged to church because someone told them to come and this is just their regular thing and of course they listen to sermons like pastor mike and they hear the worship and their kids go to awana or whatever even you guys are going to be a part of an organization unlike any other organization you could ever associate with on earth and i don't suggest that you become a fake a phony but even if you were the book of hebrews says the splashing of god's favor on this organization is a blessing in your life in so many ways in so many ways let's work our way backwards through this text so here's the first way look at look at the bottom of verse 33. back to acts chapter 4. it says and with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the lord jesus and great grace was upon them all one of the things as hebrews 6 talks about there's something about the preaching of this ancient book called the bible that becomes an organic if i can use that word blessing to the people that hear it and i say preaching because when you read the phrase they gave testimony to the resurrection of jesus it wasn't just they got up every time they had a chance to speak right and there was thousands of people there and not just peter every time going well you know i saw jesus he rose from the dead you know we can all testify jesus rose from the dead this isn't a singular note right he's not just saying the same thing every time the point is the implication this is a moniker a placeholder some kind of rubric that sets above a whole body and a corpus of information that's being shared in other words we're serving a risen christ we don't follow a dead poet we don't follow some deceased philosopher we're not just gathering around studying someone who's really influential from history we are trying to direct in every preaching of every passage and every testimony of every sermon we're trying to preach about a living christ who is alive today and has a kingdom that he's bringing and he's going to come back and reign on the earth and it's all because of a resurrected christ and that testimony of the apostles is described as great look at the word it says great power we're not talking about miracles here were there miracles going on through the apostles sure first corinthians 12 12 talks about it our passage in chapter four talks about it we'll see more in chapter five and chapter six but that's not the focus here when we talk about great power we're talking about the actual act of preaching that act of preaching we're just building some sub points here under number one the blessing of god the love of god the grace of god set on the church one of the avenues through which he blesses that group is through preaching and that preaching that is brought is a is a preaching of a book that the bible says is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword and it pierces through to the heart divides bone and marrow the interior of bones it takes our thoughts and intentions and it and it divides those up i mean you can listen to ted talks you can go to universities and listen to lectures and lecture halls but there's something different about the preaching of the bible the preaching of god's word it changes lives as a matter of fact here's how it's put in first thessalonians chapter one when paul talks about the great power with which his preaching came to thessalonica he said it came with the power of the holy spirit in full conviction and that's the point when the bible is taught and it's taught clearly by leaders that are gifted to teach that book right it does something in in the interior of people's lives and it starts and is a good word with conviction and that conviction then transforms people's lives and i'll tell you what even non-christians have kind of the spillover of the effect of the preaching of god's word that restrains sin and it prompts a different kind of life but the most important is when you have a living heart like a like a newborn baby peter put it it craves the pure milk of the word and as hebrews chapter 5 says you have then even a growing appetite not just for milk but for meat and in the preaching of that book unlike any other organization a guy stands up and speaks for 45 minutes to an hour from an old book and that teaching that preaching that testifying to the resurrected christ and all that goes with it transforms the whole direction of our lives your life is different because of preaching and god's word nourishes your life the bible says like food to a baby because of the accurate powerful preaching of the word that brings conviction to your life god's favor is set on people and it's set on people as often and the puritans used to say through the means of grace of exposition the preaching of the word it's an avenue through which god blesses his church verse 32 to work our way backwards through this i said it started with this idea of a big group of people full number we know it's probably 10 000 people at a minimum who believed were and here's the description of one heart and soul of one heart and soul it's one thing to join an exercise group or to be a part of some hobbyist group or some alliance for business you can share the things that that group talks about and you can say well i'm in agreement with that i like the nutrition that they promote and i'm into that thing there's nothing that's whole life through and through from the interior to the exterior of our life that affects a person like biblical christianity in other words there's something about the unity of not just our aspect of our life some pie shaped wedge of our life but really it's about our hearts and souls being directed in the right way and i'm careful with the word soul because that word soul well not a word that is consistently used in the new testament matter of fact sometimes it's used i think with a reminder of the way it's used in classical greek to talk about something interior in my life that's more than just heart heart is used often to describe the thing that changes when we become christians the interior control center of our lives not just the seed of our emotions but the seed of our values and our priorities and how we think and the bible says you've got old hearts here that are dead to god but they become alive that was the promise of the new covenant in jeremiah 31 and if i have a new heart and you have a new heart then something on the interior of my life has changed and something on the interior of your life has changed and that's true we can say we have one heart because we're all trying now to move toward the same things to be conformed to the image of christ i mean that's a big thing that means we're on the same path in so many ways not just one area of our life and it says of one soul and i say that because in the exterior of the greek language at this particular point exterior from biblical language i mean it's point a greek but in attic greek and ancient greek the way that word soul was used so often had to do with people in corporate settings plato for instance in writing the republic uses the phrase as he talks about a utopian society an idealized republic where the people in that group have one soul their soul is knit together is unified and because of that they create something that's a a perfect community a perfect society because they have that same interior sen set of impulses and so he uses his phrase he enlists this phrase and it gets down even to the closest and most intimate things in our lives um aristotle talked about friendship he said friendship this is a phrase that's made its way down into our english discussions and idioms friendship he says real friendship is two bodies and one soul when people have one soul and they live in two different bodies they have something that knits them together in the interior of their lives that creates a kind of bond that you call real at least the way aristotle talked about it real friendship i even think the highly educated dr luke using this phrase in this way i'm very strongly stated in this text cardia is first heart is first and then it suke soul is next and then it ends with the strong was one their their their hearts were converted to god and their soul their friendship so they were there was one there there was something deep there so when i think about god's favor and his love resting on his people okay he nourishes his people through the powerful preaching of the word that's the centerpiece of gathering together but then what happens we sometimes call it fellowship is that there's a sense of oneness and profound friendship and community that takes place here that these relationships become so significant and central in our lives that jesus says it trumps even our our biological relationships i mean he looks around at those people that are his disciples knit together in heart and soul if you will and he says who are my mothers and brothers right here they are they're right here when his physical biological mother and brothers were standing outside saying they want to talk to you he says right here this is my family a family that is closer to me he says because we share the same heart that it's as though like they said in secular greek we have the same soul real profound relationships you can have connections and friendships in a lot of different circles but the bible says that in the church the blessing of god is when you have the kinds of profound heart-to-heart soul-to-soul relationships that you have i hope you have in your small groups in your sub-congregations and even those you see from week to week in large assemblies like this that you have a sense of here's the real connection the thing that i'm made for i'm made for friendship i made for relationship and god gives us that sense within the church you should stand back and say wow god's favor is set on his team and here's his team when we go into the locker room i hope we can recognize how great it is when the coach gets up and talks and there's transformation in our lives so god is connecting with us through preaching and then our relationships as we turn to each other wearing the same jersey before we go out there where there's all the opponents we have the most profound and tight significant nourishing relationships going on with one another here's a third blessing but i want to tease that out from the outline if you'd let me because the rest of the passage actually unpacks it this way there's the bottom of verse 32 and because verses 34 through 37 expand on it all let's just make this the second point of the outline and know that in detail we'll see it in verses 34 and 35 but look at the bottom of verse 32. it says and now no one said of anything any of the things that belong to him that it was his own they didn't say hey that's mine that's mine that's mine but they had everything in common verse 34 for there's not a needy person among them i guess if everyone thought that way there wouldn't be for as many as were owners of lands and houses they sold them and they brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles feet and it was distributed to each as any had need and then we get a superstar here that's that's pulled out and set on a platform and the the light was shined on him and that's joseph they called barnabas but let's just look at that concept there this concept of people in a big church that you had a sense in which you know what there's commonality among us matter of fact that word common there you might want to star that or highlight it and bracket it and know the underlying greek word because you've heard it many times it's the greek word koinonia poinania the idea of quenani we usually think of if you were to translate that you'd say well i think that's fellowship isn't it and that the word for fellowship it is it's translated that way sometimes but most commonly it's translated pardon the pun common as a matter of fact we get words like commune from that from the word quantity and we get the word communism from from them matter of fact some people have pointed to this passage and says wow that looks a lot like communism okay well you're not reading the text carefully if you want to find communism in this passage a couple of things i want to note just by way of making a distinction and that is that when it comes to a passage like this where you see the word koinonia commonality it's not as though i'm looking at your stuff and saying i have a right to your stuff as a matter of fact look at what's said in verse 32 again the things that belong to him in other words if i have something and i own it i got the pink slip on my car i've got the deed on my house this is my house my car now these are things that i can from my perspective being one heart one soul i can look and say you know what my stuff is your stuff my house is your house you need a car you know what just you can have my car and drive it as though it were your car you can have that perspective it still belongs to me see communism and communal living often flips that around and says wait a minute your car especially if you're driving that nice car that your car is my car and your house especially if you live over there your house is my house in other words the demand that you give up your stuff and you have to treat it i i get to treat it like my stuff is not what this passage is saying the arrow is in the other direction you follow that right it's the person who willingly voluntarily generously says hey mi casa su casa you are my house your house it's not that i can drive by your house and go hey well then your house is my house i don't get the right to say that and i know that because throughout the scripture the concept the principle the ideal and the right of private property and ownership is replete throughout the scripture it's before this verse all throughout the old testament and it's after this verse matter of fact it's right after this verse in chapter five when ananias and sapphira try to follow suit and do what barnabas did they lie about it we'll see this next time lord willing and what happens they they get in big trouble with god but in being confronted by peter peter goes well that property before you sold it was it not yours to do whatever you wanted with it and then when you liquidated it that asset right wasn't weren't the proceeds they were yours you could do whatever you want of course it was so we believe in private property we believe in private ownership but that's not the point here the point is people were so moved because of one heart and one soul to be generous with their stuff that they willingly and voluntarily voluntarily gave that as needed they laid it at the apostles feet which by the way is an interesting thing as well because landowners was something that peter james and john didn't know much about right matthew might have known something about it but the fisherman in matthew 19 said to jesus hey we don't have any houses matter of fact we've left everything to follow we left our nets in our you know our galilean uh twangy fishing business we left that all behind rich young ruler he's got land we don't have land here were these guys that just by virtue of them being shepherds in the flock that they are teachers and those who preach the bible and christological truths to them every week right those are people that now are given this fiduciary responsibility as rich people with their real estate are liquidating that and laying it at the feet of a bunch of in this case most of them galion fishermen that's just amazing thing so that they then could in their fiduciary responsibility broker that stuff as was needed nevertheless i want to step back much like we did with the first point and say isn't it great to be a part of a place where god's favor rests upon it through a couple things preaching and the kind of the unity that exists as we all have interior lives that are pulling in the same direction well what about this now i want you to think about how good it is to be a part of an organization where the resources because of generous people are pooled together and if there is a need it's met corporately in that family let's just change the analogy from team to family and let's write it down this way if you're taking notes we need to consider the security of god's family there's another asset you have if you're part of the church you have security because you know that in that church there are generous christians knit together with heart and soul and that they give to the corporate entity here and in that entity that church that's laid at the feet of a bunch of theological eggheads that that lead the church the budgetary issues now can be given as needed so that there's no one needy in the church i don't know how many times i've had this discussion with people they lose their job had one recently terrible situation and it's great to look across the desk and say you know what good thing you're part of the church your neighbor in your scenario in the middle of a crisis like we're going through i mean they might have something to worry about but the good thing is you're you're an integral part of our church you have nothing to worry about as king david said in the old testament i've never seen the righteous begging for for bread right there's not you're not going to live under a a a an underpass why because you're part of the body of christ you're not just a part of a team it's not like we're in the locker room you go to your home house and you deal with that all domestic stuff and you know we never have an interest in that we just come back tomorrow for workouts and the pregame and then we'll go out and fight together no it's we're a family this is a big deal here we care for each other and if there's a need it's met therefore no one is needy among them and that's the way it ought to be someone loses their husband a widow some widower loses his wife some terrible situation happens to a young person loses their parents i mean being a part of the church we recognize i mean when it comes to at least the practical temporal issues of life you've got a security no one else has you're not gonna get that from the boy scouts or the kiwanis clubs or the elk lodge you're gonna get that from the church in the church you're gonna have that kind of connection is there abuse of course there is matter of fact you read your dbr this morning i assume in the pastoral epistles paul has to say well wait a minute i know a lot of people can come and just say well great i'm a part of the church i got a great social security here matter of fact i don't really have to worry about things matter of fact if i run into a problem like become a widow i just know i'm going to go on the payroll of the church even in that he says in 1st timothy 5 we read this morning he said wait a minute there's going to be stipulation they're going to have to have policies in place sure is there vetting of course or how about when he writes the thessalonians is well you know because of this kind of generosity corporately some people just said well i'm gonna give up on working then i'm just gonna be a busybody i don't need to get a job it's fine i'm a part of the church now security can be abused i understand that but i want you to think today about the fact that if you're part of a church you're part of a place where god's favor rests on it not only is there uh unity i hope and a nourishment through preaching but there's a security a kind of commitment that that church has that we're not gonna have a need i've illustrated this way many times that if i'm doing this sermon after the i walk off the platform i find out my house is burned down i got no place for me my wife and my daughter to sleep tonight i bet i got a few spare bedrooms that i'm gonna be able to i bet i got a shower i bet there's a bottle of shampoo somewhere we can shampoo our hair that i don't have to go to costco or target and buy today right am i right i mean i've got that and you've got it too matter of fact if we had someone orphaned if we had someone widowed if we had it doesn't matter what the situation the body of christ steps up and meets those needs and that's an amazing thing that you have the world does not have that you understand that it's not that way beyond these walls and it's that way here and it's important for us to say well that's a great great great great thing and so it is it's something that should be distinguished from communism it's not a demand and it's not a conscription it's not a demanding of your things it's just being a part of the body of christ as we move forward in this life with a lot of uncertainties externally hopefully something let you put your head on your pillow at night and say i've got a family and just like my my kids don't worry about whether i paid the car insurance right they when my kids were little get in the car and and and we're off we go so we worry about the issues that are important to the mission of the church and the practical issues are cared for seek first the kingdom of god all these things will be added to you and the means by which they're often added to you as the pagans chase after what they're going to eat what they're going to wear where they're going to live all of that i'm recognizing is something that is given through the means of the local churches that god was going to set up all over the world number three verses 36 and 37 we've got joseph who we learn is nicknamed barnabas which then paul writes i'm sorry luke writes to theophilus in a parenthetical statement here which means son of encouragement well i don't know just for fun as long as you're a bible student if you want to kind of get a little more specific on this let's unpack this barn abyss is a compound word anytime you see the word bar in a hebrew word and this is obviously a hebrew transliteration from a hebrew background we've learned he's a levite from the tribe of levi bar means son like bar mitzvah right son now b you might know that word as we've talked about various things in bibliology and the idea of god sending his prophets now be means prophet or mouth peace nabas right form of the hebrew word nabi bar nabi let's just call it that barnaby is son of the prophet and it's not that his dad was a prophet that's not the point it's that much like they would say in the old testament here's an old phrase we don't see it translated directly anymore in most translations but uh uh son of beel you ever heard that son of bl bl like beelzebub is satan right the translation of that usually in english text is a worthless person a worthless person because biel is worthless he had a job he didn't do it he abandoned it he absconded with you know other angels and then he's a he's a worthless person he's worse than a worthless person he's a counterproductive person in that case uh if you're a son of bl it's translated in the esv at least consistently worthless person when you say son of nabi a son of a prophet a prophet does a couple of things two distinctive things right he uh brings comfort like in the book of jeremiah that we're reading in our daily bible reading in the mornings and when there's need for comfort and then before we got to all the comfort of jeremiah there was a lot of of strong exhortation and correction that comes through the prophet well that's helpful even in the next phrase and if we were reading now in greek you would see this next phrase which means son of encouragement now again that seemed very one-dimensional for us as though nabi you would often think about profit you would think about someone strongly you know exhorting you to do the right thing encouragement translates the greek word paracletos now i know you know that word right we we talk about a lot little compound word in greek uh the second part of this kaleo is is the verb to call comes from the verb to call and the first part is a preposition para para caleo para is alongside of our next two and i often illustrate it and sorry ad nauseam might illustrate it this way it's like if your knee is wobbling or injured right you've got some knee issues you bring in a brace alongside of it's called in alongside of your knee joint and it supports you that's pericleo now it can be when there is a injury that needs help you got wobbly needs you need a knee brace and and that we might think of in terms of encouragement you're kind of shaky kind of worried you're kind of struggling you're anxious you're going through grief and sorrow people come alongside and encourage you but you need to know periclea para para is the word that's used for the spirit cleo claus all of that is um at least in one dimension is is comfort helping and the other dimension it's sometimes translated to exhort matter of fact uh pericleo is is often to exhort someone to correct them uh it's it's a lot the same it's called in alongside of you may have wobbly knees you call it a knee joint but maybe you've got sometimes you see the kids that have issues with their skull as they're forming and they'll put that that hard helmet on them right the doctors will uh or any kind of orthopedic would you know put something if something especially in a growing body to straighten it out like a splint even when you break your arm you put it in some kind of cast or splint it's straightening things out it wants to go this way but you're gonna use something to push it in the right direction well we don't think of encouragement in that regard you might think more like uh bar naby son of a prophet he's telling you what to do he's correcting you now i think we take periclesis in this passage paraklete pericleo in this passage and we think and we translate it encouragement because in this context it sure looks like an encourager he's giving money and it's generous and that's true but we meet barnabas later in the book and barnabas is doing more of the exhorting than he is encouraging because the church in jerusalem when saul of tarsus becomes a christian we know him as paul the apostle the church at jerusalem did not want to accept him they said man he is a persecutor of the church we're afraid of him matter of fact he wants to be a christian let him go to another place and go do his thing somewhere else we don't want him in our church barnabas becomes the son of nibia the bar nabi he becomes the the son of exhortation by exhorting the people you've got it wrong man and he corrects them i guess that's just to fill in this idea here barnabas transliteration of hebrew son of encouragement english translation of son of exhortation or son of encouragement both sides are true but let me say in taking the words son of biel barbiel it's just the opposite of that if satan proved to be a worthless angel and if you're uh a bar bl you're a worthless person to be a parakaleo or a bar and a bee you're a helpful person you're helping when there needs to be a blanket put around a cold shivering person and you are a corrective a splint you're like braces when something's out of whack and you've got to go and straighten it out sometimes that's painful obviously it's always painful if it's your braces right so those are things that barnabas was he was a helpful person helpful in correction and helpful in comfort when it was needed and in this particular context as we'll see both in barnabas life as we study the book of acts we see here how great it is if someone is in need and here was barnabas willing to liquidate his assets to meet those needs we see him in chapter nine strengthening the church in terms of unity we see him here in chapter 4 helping the church in terms of security so i want to put it this way because of course i'd like us all to help the church be more of what god intended it to be and i want the blessing and grace of god to rest upon this church and it's going to be when we have more barnabas is doing what we're called to do so let me put it this way on your ally number three we need to add to the unity and strength of god's church this is his church it needs to be stronger there needs to be more of that security and more of that unity and it's happening when people like barnabas go i'm here to be helpful i want to be helpful and the first thing is is helpful financially and that's a great thing matter of fact when i think about people liquidating their real estate for the cause of christ not only do i sometimes speak to other pastors and they tell their stories but i got a few of my own stories when i talk about the fact that here we were in a situation financially it was a challenge and literally i'm talking about literal pieces of real estate people have said listen it's a tax problem it's an issue i'm paying property taxes i'm just gonna i'm just gonna give that to the church let me talk to someone at the church how to give that piece of property to you now we're not a property holding company of course so we don't hold them sometimes we hold them for a little bit to see if we can build a church on it or do something with it but usually we liquidate that and it goes into a fund and those funds end up being so helpful in doing the work of god around here as a matter of fact churches have been planted through compass bible church and now a school has been launched to multiply and to supply for the planting of churches and all of that is happening because of the generous gifts of people and sometimes it's boosted like through a turbocharged boost when someone comes and says well i got this piece of land and they give it that's not a seminar about giving property real estate to the church uh but if you got some you want to talk afterwards we will talk about that because that is always a huge help matter of fact we have conversations this week about people saying you know what i have some property and if i can help and and i'm thinking that is a great thing it's a great thing and it's a huge boost and you know what it does it helps us as a church do the work we're called to do of course most of us are giving as i do as most of you do i trust giving incrementally every week as we get a paycheck we give a part of that it goes into a till but you know when the church is stronger and we hit a windfall and we give more to the church i'm just saying think about the needs that are met when i look across the desk at a widow or i look at someone who's been orphaned or i look at a gal who loses their job in the midst of covet and i can say to them listen it's a good thing you're part of the church it's great when i know there's a financial strength as the fiduciary responsibility is given to leaders in the church to make sure there's no needy person among us that there's policies in place so that no one abuses that and we don't just have lazy people that are on the take or people that are you know just trying to take advantage of the system i'm telling you what how great it is when the bank account is at a place where the work can go forward we can move the ball down the field and if someone is injured we can repair it we can fix it when someone's in need we can supply it i mean nothing better than that i mean that's amazing things matter if people just gave 10 and again this is not a sermon about giving but if people just gave 10 of their regular income right i would never have anyone even in the back of my mind start to worry about being unemployed in our church if they were on a hard time and couldn't pay their mortgage i just think about that it would probably and i just say that because in the average church in america evangelical christianity even though we might be above the curve because i think we've got some great godly people in our church uh still if we took 10 percent of everyone's income and said that is now taxed to the church we would quadruple probably triple i don't have to look at the current numbers are our annual budget and think about that if we do that i mean just think about not only what we do in moving the ball down the field in ministry and and planting you know uh training centers or churches or buying buildings for our church plan not to mention buying buildings for us right and and not being renters i mean those are things that would be then handling as people like barnabas step up and say i'm not going to be a son of of a worthless person i'm going to be the son of helpfulness i'm going to be a helpful person son of reflecting this you're an embodiment of it but it's not just about giving to a church budget it's about you looking around at your small group and saying there is a sociological standard and i want to make sure that in our day we're making sure we don't have any needy persons i'll bet if i went back in the old testament i said hey they were feeding the widows in chapter six of of acts uh you wouldn't sit there and say well how many calories does a 65 year old woman need uh i'm just gonna feed her that you you would probably do more than you know one meal of of of rice a day right you would uh you probably wanted to have uh you know three squares a day and be great if you could set her up with some granola bars for snacks in the afternoon if someone in your church in the first century if i'm peter and this is our congregation and i say hey uh someone over here martha does not have sandals we could say i hope she has some sandals because barnabas has a whole room full of sandals uh and his wife's got a ton of them let's give some of those sandals to to martha i could say to martha well you really don't need sandals i mean i know people like sandals and that's good but you know you can just walk a little faster when it's hot on the pavement and the more you walk around in the dirt the the tougher your feet will get and the pain kind of goes away and so you really don't need sandals you know when somebody over here has their house burned down or maybe they get evicted i could say to that person in the first century well you know if you go into the valley of hinnom right there's a lot of little craggy rocks you could really live in the crabbing i know you need a roof over your head but that would shield you from the rain and the wind and just take your cloak you'd be warm enough and i'd go live in the crags of the rocks that could work one bowl of rice per widow right you could walk around without sandals and you could certainly live in the crags of the rocks outside of jerusalem you don't need a house and yet when they said need it was sociologically relatively defined and so it was martha doesn't have sandals needs sandals need food let's get you just more than the minimum calorie count you need a house let's try and get you a place to live i'm just saying in our day you can start to think like well i know they don't have a car but there is public transportation and it works pretty well and i mean you know i know we got three cars but you know come on she gets from place to place i'm just saying it's easy for us to think in a way you would never want them to think in the first century and i want you to look at your lives and it's one thing for you to give to the church which is required and important and if you gave generously and start giving real estate holdings church could be healthy and do great things when the church is flush but i want you to look around the places in the circles and the sub-congregations of the small groups you're in and go now wait a minute i got a lot going on i got stuff where i can take a vacation and i can go here i got points on airlines i got you know but here's someone in our group that does not i know they can do fine without going on vacation take a little staycation you'll be fine or you could say no no no i want to be like i want to be helpful i'm going to be helpful oh i know it's a situation where they could they could ride a bike to work i get that but you know it would be good i guess i've got this other vehicle i i could i could give it to you i could sign it over to you now i know you've got a situation where you could somehow through public assistance take care of this thing in your life but let me take care of it in a greater way than is minimally required i'm just saying there are sociological standards of what you call need and i'm just saying in a county like ours where everyone's got more than they really need and no one came to church without shoes we're not handing out your first pair of shoes to you i am saying you got to look around and really be reasonable about the fact that hey there's a lot we can do to care for the quote unquote needy among us and i want you to look at that close circle i want you to as it says in the book of philippians be able to look out to the interests of others and since we're none of us are starving right and none of us are going you know under an underpass to sleep tonight i just want us to see how can we help be on the lookout for those needs right look out for the interest of those in your church and it doesn't have to be funneled through the church for some tax write-off meet those needs reach out and do what you can so that someone can come to archers and say i see the grace of god on our church not only through nourishing preaching not only through the unity and fellowship that we have in our church but i see it because needs are being met because it's full of a lot of barnabas in our church thus joseph who was also called by the apostles barnabas a levite a native of cyprus who lived in that island or at least he came from there in the mediterranean sea he sold a field that belonged to him he brought the money laid it at the apostles feet i think in passages like this about the church becoming strong even when guys like peter and james and john and thomas and the rest i mean here they were now the last first they are they're leading and and and brokering budgetary decisions and the strength of this because god has called the right people together at the right time and the power of that team that family that was going to go called a church down that that that tunnel to get out onto the gridiron for another week of ministry facing the opposition of the world and the persecution of the world and the battle and the animosity of the world and hostility toward us they're strong even though as it says in first corinthians 1 that there's really nothing quite unique about us god didn't choose as he says in deuteronomy 7 us because we were the most powerful the most numerically great or you know because we were the richest or the smartest he takes the simple things the plain things the small and the weak things and he makes them strong and one of the ways he does that is not through some mystical you know weird spiritual way he does it because he joins us together as a team a team that's more than just a club that's associating to a philosophy or a pattern of life it's it's the heart and soul of who we are we're part of the church i uh moved offices by god's grace we moved our from our old building over here and and got to move into some nicer offices which was good and one thing i wanted i was 14 years in this office across the parking lot here and i never had any uh windows i had windows but they were covered from floor to ceiling with books um one reason i looked so depressed all the time apparently i never saw the outside world for hours and hours a day it was if it was raining or sunny i wouldn't know it's just it was a cave i called it the cave so when we were able to move across the street one thing i asked for i said would be great if i could get some windows you know and not cover them with books so that was one of my goals and so we got over there and i actually was able i now have windows and we're moved in and my computer screen has got two windows next to it and so i get to kind of see the world which is a little distracting i realize sometimes but at least i know if the sun is shining or it's raining and i did that because i donated like half of my library to cbi so my books are downstairs most of them um one thing i get to see now that i didn't get used to see is like the there's there's a tree right outside there i look at branches most of the day and there's um birds that frequent that now i haven't named them or anything i'm not a bird watcher but i i get to see these birds that come and occasionally you know i just glance over there and they're doing their thing doing bird stuff and it's just you know it's just that oh look at the the bird when i you know what sometimes i regress back to my kid days i think about if i had a bb gun it'd be great i could you know take take a shot at one of these birds but so but i would never say that out loud or tell anybody that so i kind of looked down on these birds bird-brained birds well i'm studying for this sermon this week thinking about the strength and the power and the greatness and the grace of god on the church and how the church becomes a fighting force for the rest of this book and how powerful they are and and as i'm thinking about i'm literally thinking about that my i'm jolted from looking at my computer screen because right here next to me this window there is a gigantic you know flock is it flock gaggle of birds i don't know what it is uh army of birds a gang it was trust me it was a gang like a hitchcock kind of thick army of birds flying like right at me i'm thinking about they must read my thoughts and know you know my animosity toward birds and they're now on the attack i literally snapped my head up like oh man you know it's it's happening you know it's the the birds are coming for me now of course i had a window between me but i thought they were all gonna like bam bam bam break my window down and eat my brain or whatever but uh you know and it's amazing how just you know they got i didn't get to see it clearly because it was just so happened so fast but like there's birds in the front and they just turn and right before they got to my window they turned and then they circled back it was like this dark cloud this gaggle gang flock of birds and and i thought wow that kind of frightened me right i would never admit that either but it just like whoa and i thought of that hitchcock movie that i saw when i was a kid that scarred me and i thought it's amazing how birds right become this strong scary intimidating thing when they just work together paul said to the church you've got to do everything you can to maintain the unity of the faith you have to work at being a church which is one heart one soul commitment to the preaching of the word the generosity of of the kind of secure peace inducing emboldening strengthening experience of being a part of this thing that god's favor rests on and i just want us to feel that to sense that and for us in practical and intangible ways to contribute to that this week don't forget who we are and what a blessing it is to be a part of the church of jesus christ let's pray god we do want church to be strong we know we got our problems just like they did in the book of acts we want to get through them as they're going to get through them thankfully we know where this book is going and there's victory here even though the church is imprisoned even though there's complaints about the hellenistic jews not getting the widows getting their food or even as we're about to see in chapter five next week ananias and sapphira being struck down because of their deception and wanting to be you know as great as barnabas and and be perceived that way so there's lots of problems obviously scott and we got our problems clearly but we do pray god that we would be more unified than we've ever been that we'd be growing at a greater pace with an enriching kind of preaching that would change and challenge and affirm and nourish our spiritual lives and that there would not be a needy person among us starting with the need for a peace of mind may everyone feel the security of being a part of the family of god as they function in this church god obviously like every church we need more barnabases that are going to step up and add to those things so i pray that would happen and the sermon would encourage that in jesus name amen you

Channel: Compass Bible Church

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Keywords: CBC Weekend Sermon, compass bible church, compass church, compass aliso viejo, aliso viejo church, compass bible church aliso, expository preaching, expository preaching church, biblical christianity, evangelical christianity, compass church hill country, compass church Tustin, compass church Huntington Beach, compass church treasure valley

Id: 7OuWDEB7O10

Length: 60min 1sec (3601 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 25 2020