Beloved, this is the word of God. This is from Acts chapter four, beginning in verse 32. Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul. And no one said that any of these 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 amongst them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them, and because brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles feet. And it was distributed to each as he had need. Thus Joseph, who was 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 apostle's feet. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I pray that you would use this word to build up the faith of your people. I pray that you would even call people to faith through it. I pray that your mercies and grace would be upon us and that we would be faithful, living out our lives as the church in today's world. I pray that you would have mercy upon us in our weakness and work through us, even if it means through our weakness. Pray that you are glorified and honored. I pray that you are praised and proclaimed. And I pray this, that you would do it either through me or in spite of me, in Jesus name, amen. This morning, we really have two things on our plate that we need to deal with. First, we need to talk about Christian benevolence. And really, in a lot of ways, that's what we're gonna talk about in general, but in two aspects. What does that Christian benevolence or philanthropy, if you wanna be fancy in terms of your terms, what does that look like? in the individual's life. But then secondly, what does that look like in the corporate life of the body? A corporate life is made up of individuals, but as individuals are gathered together in the church, we put those ideas together and we put our resources together and we do maybe even arguably behave a little bit differently. than when we just practice benevolence on our own, individually as a society. So we need to look at that. We need to look at what we see modeled for us here in Pentecost, or just certainly after Pentecost, and then apply it and ask ourselves, how do we do that now? And even arguably use it as a gauge. Use it as a way of examining what we do individually, and corporately as a gauge. I'm going to start with individually this morning and to illustrate that I thought I'd bring to you an example that is found in the life of Joseph Scriven. Now, Scriven's a name that you may not be as familiar with, but though you're not familiar with the name, you are familiar with a hymn that he wrote that opens with the words, what a friend we have in Jesus. It was interesting to me, it was fascinating to me really, is that he published 115 hymns in his lifetime. And what a friend we have in Jesus is not one of them. That came as an afterthought. He never, clearly never intended to publish it at all, ever. It was found by a friend after he died. But those 115 that he did publish, We don't have, I mean, well, I mean, some used bookstore somewhere and some museum somewhere has them, but we don't use them in our typical hymnals and stuff like that. It's just what a friend that has made it there. And I think that's ironic that the one that wasn't designed for church use is the only one that we use for church use. But if you lived not too far North from here in Port Hope, Ontario, Well, the rest of the world knows Scriven as the man who wrote, What a Friend We Have in Jesus. Those people who live in Port Hope know him differently. They know him better as a philanthropist. In fact, outside of Boodley, Ontario, which is about 10 miles north of Port Hope, there's a monument in honor of Scriven that reads, three miles north in Pendley's Cemetery lies the philanthropist. Oh, and also the author of the great masterpiece written at Port Hope in 1857. Why is he called a philanthropist? He was actually a very poor man. We usually think of philanthropists as very wealthy people who give money to the poor. But as a poor man, he also gave his wealth to the poor, kind of a widow's mite kind of thing there. But let's step backwards to better understand how this man got to the mindset that he got to. He was born in Ireland to a wealthy military family, but Joseph health-wise was too sickly to follow into his father's footsteps. Instead, he took to books and he took to poetry. He was engaged to be married at one point, but tragically his fiance fell overboard from a boat and she drowned literally the night before their wedding day. It is said that often at times where we face great grief in our lives, spiritual realities are tested The metal of the faith that we have is exposed. His parents and him began drifting away. His parents had more or less a faith that seemed to be more of a Sunday church faith and not much more. But Scriven, through this experience, drew closer to the God that he loved to try and make sense of all of those things. that took place in terms of the tragedy of this young girl. And so they began drifting apart and he ended up falling in with a group that we know today as the Plymouth Brethren. And that drew him further apart as well, not only in terms of relationship with his family, but in terms of distance and location. Because he relocated to Ontario, a place called Woodstock at the time. New landscape to look at, it wouldn't remind him of his older fiance. New place, new start in his life. And while he was there living near Boodley outside of Port Hope, he would receive word that his mother had fallen ill. This is a number of years later. He wasn't in a place where he could really afford the trip home. And so he decided to pen her a poem to bring her comforts. The poem begins with those familiar words that we just have mentioned. What a friend we have in Jesus, all of our sorrows and sins and griefs to bear. This first two lines from the hymn that we sing were that poem that he sent to his mother to comfort her. About two years later, he would fall in love again, and by God's grace, become engaged once again in Port Hope, Ontario. Sadly, the winter before they were to be married, she succumbed to pneumonia and died. At that point in his life, Scriven was only 41 years old, and two of his fiances had died shortly before their wedding day. One tragic, one disease. That shapes a person's life. You know, that shapes the direction that one lives. And as a result of that, Scriven's life changed. And he took seriously, literally, the language that Paul wrote in Philippians two, verse three, to consider the needs of others as more significant than his own. And so he took to living a poor life, earning what he needed for his keep, but then giving everything else that he made to the poor, including his time. So he would tutor the rich for income, and he would tutor the poor for care. He would occasionally preach. He would donate everything that he earned over what it needed to survive for the poor. The tragedies that lay behind him shaped what would take place. And I'd like to tell you that there was a happy ending to this story. And he may be a bit of an extreme example of that Christian benevolence that we're talking about, but he understood the idea. He understood the idea that this world is not his home. probably more clearly than most of us do because of the loss and the grief that he endured with his fiances. And as a result, then, he wasn't living for things in this world, but living for things in the next, which enabled him, mindset-wise, to take those things of this world and use it to benefit and to build the kingdom of Jesus Christ. But his tragic life would come to a tragic end because as a result of experience, the experiences that he had, he also suffered from bouts of depression, sometimes very serious ones. And during one serious bout of depression, so serious that he was staying with a friend from his church. They took ownership of him as best as they could. They set him to bed one night and after everybody went to bed, he slipped out unbeknownst to his host. And next morning when they went to wake him for the day, they found the room empty and the bed unslept in. A search ensued and a little afternoon his body would be found dead and drowned in the water of the ports. It's uncertain as to whether he had a tragic accident, but many speculated that it may have been suicide caused by his depression. Let me say this, and I say this and bring to your attention this rather sad end to this man's life for two reasons. First is that I do get asked oftentimes, Can a Christian commit suicide? A true Christian commits suicide. Not one in name, but a true Christian commits suicide. Especially one who could pen such words as, what a friend we have in Jesus. Who understands the grace and the mercies of God. Could they ever commit suicide? And the answer is a little bit of yes and a little bit no. A little bit no in the sense that when a Christian is in his right mind, he should never be able to commit suicide because he knows the grace and the mercy of God. But there are times when a Christian is not in his right mind. Mental illness is arguably one of the most prevalent examples of that. The depression that Scriven faced caused him to view the world differently than you and I might view it today. And so, yes, it's possible that somebody who is a Christian can commit suicide. It's not an excuse, it's an invitation, but it is possible. The second reason is that there are different kinds of need. A lot of times when we think of need, we think of just physical earthly poverty, and that's a need. It's a real need. But we forget the fact that there are also spiritual and emotional needs that sometimes the people that live and sit around us have. And one of the things that I, and I've said this for years, but I think the church broadly does not do a very good job of is dealing with mental illness in their midst. People don't understand it. They're oftentimes afraid of it because of the erratic ways that people sometimes can behave. And they're not patient with those around them where we ought to be. And we need to do a better job as a church, not necessarily just ours, but broadly across our land in the West. But we can affect what we do here. And in some cases we've done really, really well. And I've told the story and my friend doesn't mind me using him as an illustration, but my best friend in the world has bipolar disorder. And especially after his last break, going to church again was a very difficult thing. The church that he'd grown up with, everybody knew what was going on and he felt ostracized. Going to a new church, they asked him all the wrong questions, because he's a new guy, you know, you want to know what, and he said, almost always the answer was, you know, the question was, so hi, what do you do? And it's a wrong answer to give to somebody who's just out of the hospital from mental illness. It's like, mine wanted to say, well, I live at home with my mother. Yeah, that doesn't always go over so well. Kind of awkward. We need to be sensitive. We need to ask better questions. One of the things that he suggested at one point is that we teach ourselves to ask the question, wow, it's great to see you here. You know, what brings you this morning? Different question brings about a different answer, but it also requires us to pay attention to the answer that is given. Different perspective on the world. We need to do better than we do because there are a lot of people out there in need of the hope that can only be found in the gospel of Jesus Christ. So approaching mercy ministry as an individual, Joseph Scriven, I think is a good example of that. Joseph Scriven's friends in the church, even at the end of his life, even though they weren't able to prevent suicide, assuming it was a suicide, were still a good example of that. They moved him into their house. They opened up their doors to him. They reached out and embraced him as part of the family. That's what needs to happen when we're struggling with mental illness. We need to be welcomed into something and taken seriously and genuinely loved upon. No change is going to happen unless we are engaged in doing that, folks. And so how we model that in terms of economic needs is to be generous. We all know where those spots in the city are, where there's always going to be somebody standing outside looking for a handout. Sometimes we avoid those spots, right? We don't want to give them some money. We don't want to feel guilty about not giving them some money or the other. Now we might not have money to give. I get, I grant that. But even at that, it's easy to hand a 10 or a 20 buck, you know, dollar bill out the window. maybe be more intentional about showing up a little bit early and saying, Hey, my friend, can I take you to lunch? Tell me your story. You know, I promise you every single one of those homeless guys have a story. Some of those stories will shock you. Some of those stories will shock you only because they're not that different than your story, except for a couple of bad turns. I spent three and a half years working with homeless guys in Jackson, Mississippi, and I tell you what, it was a learning experience, a growing and humbling experience doing that with those men. Take the time to look for folks. Scriptures are filled with the commandments to take care of the poor, the traveler in our midst, and many of the homeless or travelers are moving from point A to point B to provide for the widow and the orphan and things along those lines. Leviticus 19 is a great example of that with repeated admonitions to provide food and justice. for those who fall into those categories, even for the handicapped. James states that religion that is pure and undefiled includes visiting orphans and widows in their affliction. That's James 1.27. We can talk about even the Sabbath day where it commands us to the strangers in our gates, rest. Kind of funny how that works. They're to benefit from our practice of worship. But this morning I want to focus on Micah 6, 8, part of it at least. This is one of those passages that we all ought to know as a Christian, because it begins with this question, you know, what does God command of you? Oh man. And God says, this is what I expect of you. Here's my expectations in your life. Three things. You should know what those three things are. Do justice, have mercy or grace, and walk humbly with your God. I want to focus on that justice part. Because justice is not just punishment for wrongdoing, but it's also honoring right doing and seeing that those who are victims of injustice have justice done for them. has its roots in the idea that people are made in the image of God. And as a result, they have dignity, no matter who they are, no matter their skin color, their social standing, their educational background, the mistakes that they have made, the diseases that they have, whether they have faith or no faith. or whether they have misplaced faith. Many people don't even know that they're made in God's image and don't treat themselves as such. You who know it must not only treat them as image bearers, but protect the image of God in them, which is why not only abortion, but things like assisted suicide in our country are against the law. Next time you see that homeless man, ask, how can I engage this image bearer one way or the next? How can I be the good Samaritan in their lives? But that's individual. We still need to move to the church. And that's where our text is particularly focused here. Verse 32, describes the church as a whole. This is the church located in Jerusalem. It says that there are one heart and soul. There are faith. And remember I told you last week that without bold speaking, not plain speaking, they can never have gotten to this place. Well, they couldn't have. You'll never be truly unified as a body. so long as you put your personal needs, your personal agendas, your personal preferences ahead of one another's. It's Philippians 2, 3 again. Never gonna happen. Gotta be of one mind. And that mind has to be boldly speaking God's word as God's word is meant to be spoken. As a result of this unity, we're told that no one said of any of the things that belong to him, that they were his own, but they had them in common. Now, we've said this before, and I'll say this again. This is not a model of Christian socialism. Socialism is enforced by some kind of a government coercion. You go to jail if you don't play by the rules. And notice that the words are singular. No one said, that the stuff was theirs. Each person looked at their own worldly goods and said, what is needed for the church is more important than what is necessary for my comforts. And so let's benefit everybody as a whole church. And the focus here is on the church right now, not necessarily all the poor, poor are reached out to, but the focus here right now is on the church. Does this mean that they impoverished themselves to come about this end? No. We still see people who have wealth and resources at their disposal as this book continues. Does that mean that they shared with all of the poor of the city? No. What we're talking about here, what is mentioned in the text here is the church alone. Is there a precedent that can be drawn from this? Yes. Precedent is this, those who are in the church, who are members of the local body of Christ should not go without their needs being met. That means no member of our congregation should ever go hungry. And it's not just around Thanksgiving or harvest home, but that's all year round. They should never go hungry. No member of our congregation should ever go bankrupt even if they make some stupid mistakes. and no member of our congregation should ever go homeless. There's a higher standard for members than there is for non-members. We see this in Galatians 6, verse 10. Paul writes, as we have opportunity, notice there's no coercion here, as we have opportunities, let us do good to everyone, that's all people broadly, but, especially to the household of faith, that's the church. Focuses on the church first, everything else secondarily. Whose task is it to do that? Well, we see them laying down their wealth when they sell stuff at the feet of the apostles. And that's because we haven't gotten to chapter six yet where the deacons are going to be installed. And they will be given the task to do. Deacons, pay attention. It's part of your job. Become an objection to this model of the church truly taking care of the needs of their own, is that it'll produce laziness. That's the wrong way of thinking. Laziness is not a fruit of the Spirit. In fact, it's just the opposite. That'd be something like Titus 1.12. And so as Christians, we should want to grow in the fruit of the Spirit and not in laziness. Secondly, Paul has a solution. Those who do not work, At least you should say you are not willing to work. Don't let him eat. 2 Thessalonians 3.10. What does that look like? Well, basically says if that person is so darn lazy that they refuse to work, don't let him eat. That'll get rid of and cure some laziness. And lastly, you know, once you see it practiced, you know, it's a whole lot better than give to receive. Jesus said something like that, didn't he? And if it's better to give than receive, then we should want to be, we should recognize that at times we're going to be on the receiving end, but our aim and goal should be to get it back on our feet so that we can become, be people on the giving end, primarily. It says the church also has historically done a wonderful job of creating jobs give people the dignity of earning their keep where they need it. Not just giving the handouts, but saying, okay. We want to give you a hand, we want to give you resources, but we're going to give you the dignity of earning that. One of my favorite illustrations is in Geneva, Switzerland, under Calvin. They made prostitution illegal. Good thing. Good thing to make prostitution illegal. It's bad stuff. It's immoral. It's sin. But now all of a sudden you have these prostitutes who don't have any other way of means of making a living. So they didn't just stop there. They basically created an industry. And in Europe in the 16th century, one of the things that were in high demand were ribbons. The ribbons were used for all sorts of things. And so they taught these women, these former prostitutes, the art of ribbon making. And Geneva, as a result of that, would become the ribbon-making capital of the world for over a century. It's the work of the church creating an industry. When I was in seminary, deacons in our church would create odd jobs for me to do so that I could earn some extra money, because as a seminary student, you're always looking for an extra buck here or there to pay bills. but giving me the dignity of being able to work for that. We talked about Trade for Freedom and other micro-business kind of loans, Food Resource Bank, which is now called Growing Hope Globally, they follow the same approach. Biblical times, with the exception of widows who were 60 years and up, or didn't have family to support them, they were expected to go to work and find work to do. The church wasn't necessarily running these businesses, isn't running these businesses today. But the church was providing the worldview that created that mindset. And oftentimes the capital and the financial and the human being in terms of people being involved thrust to bring about that end. And then they got out of the way and let businessmen in the church, Christian businessmen go forward. Well, some joined the church just to get a job. Okay. Is that such a bad thing? I don't think so. Who knows? God may use that to bring them to saving faith. Verse 33 is very important here. In light of some of these people's objections that the common sharing was some sort of a communism and things along those lines. Because we're told what attracted the people And what attracted the people was not their sharing everything. And it was not the fact that everybody had no needs. The Bible tells us that what attracted the people was that with great power, the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection. Not even working miracles, but the testimony to the resurrection. You see, in Christianity, everything revolves around that event. Pagan groups can do good work. Secular groups can do good works. There's lots of them. I was part of the Kiwanis club for a little while. There's the Boy Scouts and there's the Shriners. There's the Lions Club. They all do good works. They're not necessarily Christian, but they all do good works. Pagans, non-believers even can do good works. Non-Christians can do good works, at least societally speaking. What sets the church apart is that we have a witness to the testimony or to the resurrection of Christ. There is no other body, no other religion that can claim that. And that's what built the church. That's what drives us and makes us different. And that's what drives us to even be sustaining our existence throughout the years is because God's doing it. And we have a testimony that is supernatural and unprecedented in all of human history. So it was a testimony of the resurrection and God's grace was upon them all. How are people saved? by God's grace through faith. Ephesians 2.8, you should know that by heart. If someone comes to faith, it's not because of your great testimony, but because God has joined your testimony with the grace that regenerates sin-dead lives. And so as a result of sin dead, former dead, spiritually dead people selling their homes, their lands to provide for the needs of others, the church grew through this testimony. And I want you to understand how significant this is. in terms of as an earmark for the last days, the Eschaton, if you will, the end times, that begins with Pentecost or the Ascension. Because for the Jew, the land that they had was considered an eternal inheritance. Ownership of the land symbolized your eternal security in God's hands. In fact, you couldn't even in Moses's day, even sell that land or in Joshua's day, even sell that land because after 50 years, your Jubilee, it would come back to you. That's Levitical law. Part of the significance of the punishment of exile is that God was removing people from their eternal inheritance. the removal of the land symbolizing a kind of warning that they could lose their place in a sense. Yet the prophet Jeremiah is called upon to buy property in the land as a sign that they're coming back, that they're under God's wrath, they're under God's discipline, but they're not removed entirely from the land. But here we see something different taking place. The Jews are selling their land now. They're recognizing something. I mean, think about it this way. If Barnabas had done what he did in Moses' day, or in Joshua's day, early Israel day, that would be a scandal. He'd be condemned for that behavior. because he would be seen as despising the eternal inheritance that he had been given. But one thing that we see as we move into the Christian era is that that eternal inheritance no longer is built or based upon the land, but it is based upon the promises of Christ. And the inheritance that we have is being preserved in heaven. free from being defiled, free from being ruined. There are a lot of folks in our world that are very misguided and have been investing a lot of money into preserving Israel for one reason or another. If the reason is simply because they're our only ally in a very dangerous place in the world, I say more power to you, and that's great. But for a lot of them, it's based on this idea that the promises are still somehow connected to the land. What we're seeing here in the book of Acts testifies otherwise. They're selling their land. I'm not worried about buying it back up because national Israel is no longer the place where the promises reside. The promises reside in the gospel, and thus we can be scattered across the world for all we care, and build communities wherever God places us. Focus on the building of Christ's kingdom, as this church did. Being the church, not just calling yourself church, but really living yourself out like this church did in radical ways, which includes looking for those around you. And you don't have to look too far, but looking for those around you who are in need and reaching out and meeting those needs. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we come before you and we know that we oftentimes fall very, very far short. of the things that you have done, called us to do, and I pray that you would forgive us of that. Pray that you forgive us of falling short of being your church, and that we would faithfully walk before you. So our lives are yours, Father, and we set them in your, just in your hands. We pray that we would live accordingly. All these things we pray in Jesus' name, amen.