Exceedingly Abundant Love

Acts 4:32-37

Continuing on with the Book of Acts:

Recall that the early church – the first believers – now numbered in the thousands. After the miracles of Pentecost in Acts 2 and the miraculous healing in Acts 3, all of Jerusalem was talking about these things. Included were the Jewish leaders, who saw all this as a severe threat to their positions of authority and comfort. They had confronted the new believers, throwing Peter and John in jail for a night and warning them not to talk about Jesus ever again. Peter and John had received other threats from them as well. After they were released, they went to pray with the other Christian leaders. This brings us up to Acts 4:31.

After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly. – Acts 4:31


No question – this was a wonderful thing! God was with them! They were filled with the Holy Spirit! God was enabling them to speak of what they had seen – most importantly, the resurrected Christ and the call to repent and turn to Him in order to be saved – with boldness and power.

But… they were now living under a threat of bad things to come. They were living in bold, open defiance of the temple leaders, who had the power to have them beaten or even killed. After all, it hadn’t been long ago that they had done this to Jesus. It was the same leaders then as now. Many of them were married, had families… who would look out for them if something happened to the fathers? What if something were to happen to the mothers and children? This is an awful fear to live under. Yet, look at the following verses:

All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had. With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all. – Acts 4:32-33

When I look at this passage, I see three things:

Exceedingly abundant unity. This was not a unity in Peter, or in some other human leader. It was unity in Christ. One in “heart” – they use this word pretty much the way we do. To be one in heart was to be united in passion. They loved the same thing – Christ. One in “mind” – this meant they were united in understanding. They had the same understanding of who this Jesus really was and what it meant to be saved through Him. And they had the same understanding – because of being filled with the Holy Spirit – that despite the threats, despite the potential disaster waiting to happen, they needed to continue to be bold and share the gospel. There was no arguing like this: “Guys, we need to stop! I can’t risk my family!” One could call this exceedingly abundant love expressed through belief.

Exceedingly abundant sharing. They shared “everything they had.” Beyond belief in heart and mind, there was exceedingly abundant love in action. What action? The action of sharing their stuff. There was no thinking like this: “If something happens, I need to make sure my family has enough – the more the better.” John Piper puts it this way: “First, the heart is tightened in its relationship to people, and second, the heart is loosened in its relationship to things. Faith in Christ creates a bond of love to people, and cuts the bond of love to things.”

Exceedingly abundant witness. They “continued to testify to the resurrection of Jesus with great power.” This was exceedingly abundant love in testimony. There was no thinking like this: “I’ll continue to support them, and meet with them, but I’m not going to risk myself out in evangelism. The stakes are just too high.” Instead, they continued to share, in boldness, about Jesus.

It says “much grace was upon them all.” The Greek word for grace is charis. It is related to charisma – the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Grace is a gift of God. It is favor, favor from God. They received “much grace” – in Greek, this is mega charis.

There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need. Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas (which means Son of Encouragement), sold a field he owned and brought the money and put it at the apostles' feet. – Acts 4:34-37

Luke goes on to describe more about how they shared their possessions. They would sell their land and even their houses! Wow! That’s pretty extreme.

Of all things, it reminds me of a story from Winnie the Pooh. Due to a huge wind storm, Owl’s tree house is blown down. The other characters agree to look for a new house for Owl. Eeyore later says he has found one, and they all go to look. Unfortunately, it is Piglet’s house. Most of the others know this, but Eeyore and Owl do not. As they are about to tell Eeyore that this is Piglet’s house, Piglet prevents it and encourages Owl to live there. One of them asks Piglet where he will live. He doesn’t know, and starts to tear up and sniff, and Pooh says, he can live with him. I think it is the most touching moment in the entire Pooh saga. Now, I am hardly sure of Piglet’s motives (it may have just been to avoid conflict) but it is still a grand and extreme act.

These guys in Acts 4 are equally extreme. Selling their houses! Giving the money to the Apostles to distribute to others who have need! Wow!

Do you think we need to do this? Is this a model for us? Is it a command for us? Do you think they were even right to do this? Some commentators say this was a bad thing to do – it is because of this that Paul later on had to make collections for the Jerusalem church. I don’t agree with this. I think the reason Paul had to do this is because later on there was severe persecution in Jerusalem; incidentally, persecution started by the very same Paul. But that’s getting ahead of the story.

Telling and encouraging people to sell all their possessions and give it at their leaders’ feet is a tell-tale sign of a cult. Was the early church a cult? Is this model for us? Is this a command for us?

We discussed this a bit as a body. The answers included the ideas that we should be led by the Spirit. There should be no compulsion to give like this from other people, and it is not really appropriate in situations where there is no great need. But even today God may at times lead indiviudals to what the world would call "extreme" giving.

It is interesting to see what Jesus says in Luke 12. The disciples might have remembered this:

Then Jesus said to his disciples: "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. Life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds! Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest? – Luke 12:22-26

This takes away the excuse of “I can’t possibly do anything like that. What about providing for my family? What will I eat or wear?”

"Consider how the lilies grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith! And do not set your heart on what you will eat or drink; do not worry about it. For the pagan world runs after all such things, and your Father knows that you need them. But seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well. – Luke 12:27-31

This says not to “seek” or “run after” food, clothing, and by extension, housing, retirement, college funds, and so on. It says, in effect, “Don’t be consumed with worrying about these things. Be consumed with His kingdom.”

"Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. – Luke 12:32-34

“Sell your possessions and give to the poor.” That is what the early church was doing! Here, Jesus is saying to do it. It doesn’t say you have to sell all your possessions. It doesn’t say how much. But the implication is generosity. I think the first sentence is the key. “Don’t be afraid! I will take care of you. Don’t live your lives in fear of the future, worrying about what might happen.” Do live your lives as treasure seekers, and do seek to get rich – but not for your age 65 retirement program. Do it for your “age eternal” retirement program. You do this by helping others, by doing many of the things described here at the end of Acts 4.

Let me say that the last thing I wanted to do was to “guilt” someone into doing something they don’t want to do. One of the consequences of doing a teaching series through a book of the Bible is that the Bible then selects your topics for you. This was our topic simply because that’s what it says in the end of Acts 4. And at least some of the time, this is the way each of us should read the Bible in our own quiet times. Read whole books, not just the parts you like. Read the whole Bible. It’s the parts that make you uncomfortable that may do the most good. It is living and active, like a double-edged sword. A sharp one. A real sword, not a toy.

On this Sunday we took communion together. Before we did, I asked everyone to search out their hearts. I asked people if they were fearful, if they were consumed with worry over financial affairs, if they were afraid of an ongoing threat, a health issue, or anything else. Or if their hearts were caught up in the materialistic values of our culture. Are you caught up in thinking about how to get richer? (I say richer because simply living in our culture today means that by historical and pretty much any worldly standard, we are all rich. There is a book at the public library – I forget the name – that shows photographs of “typical” families’ homes and possessions in countries throughout the world. The picture shows the home with all their stuff displayed outside the home. It is a humbling book.) The problem with these things is not that you can’t be rich, and it’s not that it is wrong to provide for your family. We are commanded in Scripture to work and provide for our families. The issue is where is our heart? Our hearts can be consumed with only one thing at a time. If we are consumed with worry, or we are consumed with “counting our gold,” we are not consumed with the things of God. If we are consumed with the things of God, then we cannot be consumed with worry or possessions. “You cannot serve both God and Mammon.”

Whenever we take the bread and cup, we do it to remember Jesus Christ. He died for me, he gave His body for me, he poured out His blood for me, to pay the price for my sin. He bought me back from Satan, who had all rights to me because of my sin. He redeemed me, and the price was steep. It was everything He had. Nobody’s generosity will ever compare with His. In effect, He sold Himself and laid it at our feet. We were the poor ones. Eternally speaking, without His generosity we would have nothing: no place to live and nothing to eat. He sold all He had so that we could be with Him forever.

Following communion, we had a wonderful sharing time where various people shared what God was teaching them, requested prayer, etc. We also had some visitors who shared two wonderful songs with us.