Great Grace Was Upon Them All

I want to begin by saying what a privilege I consider it, to be invited into this pulpit on the occasion of your anniversary. Karen and I have just been attending over the last five weeks and it are clear to both of us that God is doing great things in and through this church.

Thirty-three years! Sometimes (especially when my knees are bothering me!), I wish I could go back to the age I was then. But it excites me that many of you were not even a twinkle in your parents’ eyes back then. Thirty-three years! A third of a century—take a moment to think how much has changed in that span of time! I was still using a typewriter thirty-three years ago! Anyone here know what a typewriter is?

Thirty-three years: the tender age of an innocent man who hung dying on a cross. As he cried aloud, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” the curtain of the Temple was ripped in two from top to bottom, the earth shook, the skies darkened, and the world would never be the same again.

It is in the shadow of that event that we meet Jesus’ followers in the book of Acts this morning. In those final verses of chapter 4, Luke gives us one of his little glimpses into the life of the community of believers that had begun to form in Jerusalem. And a remarkable picture it is! The church was barely in its infancy. But just take a look at it. Luke tells us in verse 32, “The full number of those who believed were one in heart and soul… With great power the apostles were giving their testimony … and great grace was upon them all…”

Now I am convinced that Luke, the author of Acts, has given us that amazing portrait of the church for a reason. It’s not like a picture in an art gallery, where you stand and admire it for a few moments and then move on to something else. No, as beautiful and compelling as it is, this picture is really far more than that.

In fact, it is the second little portrait of the church that Luke gives us in the early chapters of Acts. And, just as with the first, he has written it down for us not only to show us what the church was, but also to teach us what the church is both called by Jesus and empowered by the Holy Spirit to be.

So we can see these verses as a kind of pattern, a model. Not that we’re required to follow it precisely to the letter. But we are to learn from it, to glean principles from it, and then by the Holy Spirit’s power to put those principles into practice. So what are the principles that Luke wants to share with us?

I want to suggest that there are three. And they fall under the headings of community, testimony and generosity.

Community

So, let’s begin with community. We find it right there in verse 32: “Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul.” I believe that that description stands in dramatic contrast to so much of what many people are experiencing in our society today. What we see around us again and again is not community but estrangement. It is not connection but alienation. It is not togetherness but a profound loneliness.

It’s more than twenty years since Robert Putnam wrote his book entitled Bowling Alone. In it he detailed the gradual decline over the previous fifty years in community involvement, in everything from political parties and public meeting attendance to membership in civic organizations and social clubs (and that of course includes the church). In the years since he wrote, the decline has become only more precipitous. Social media for an increasing number of people have taken the place of real relationships. We spend more time texting on our cellphones than in face-to-face conversation. And now, to put the icing on the cake, we have covid, which has forced us even further into our own separate cocoons—where we hesitate to give one another a hug or exchange a handshake. Even a friendly smile is obscured by a mask.

All of this stands in stark contrast to God’s plan. You only have to read two chapters into the Bible, where God has just created the universe in all its complexity out of nothing. Each day God brings more and more things into being—sun, moon and stars, dry ground and seas, plants and trees, animals and birds and fish in all their endless profusion. And at the end of each of those days, what is the chorus that we hear? “And God saw that it was good.” “And God saw that it was good.” “And God saw that it was good…”