"One Heart, One Mind, One Body" (Acts 4:32-37)

Transcript:

Well, in verse 32, we read that the church was united. The full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul. Now, this description that we're going to consider more fully through the whole working through this text is a metaphorical way of talking about the unity of the church, but it's tapping into imagery, to ideas that are contained and considered at many points, through the letters of Paul, particularly Paul, is always emphasizing the way that the church is the body of Christ, so that we are all the various individual members of Christ, the limbs and organs of the body of Jesus, as one commentator put it. Now, I think one of the best ways and illustrations that have been helpful for me to think about the body of Christ is a little bit from Martin Luther, where he talked about thinking about what happens when even the smallest member of your body is injured. A couple of.

Well, last week, not the previous week, but the last week before that in the dark, I was walking around and I stubbed my toe really hard, and I think I broke it. And it. It's not the first time I break my toes more commonly than I would like to admit. But when I do so, these tiny little things. Oh, do you ever know how the.

The whole body just jumps into action? Martin Luther says, think about what happens when the smallest members of your body are injured. He says, the eye looks dour, the nose draws up, the mouth cries out, and all members are ready to rescue and help, and none can leave the other because it is not just the toe that is injured, but the entire body. Well, in this passage, we are seeing that kind of connectedness, that kind of connectionalism, that kind of unity within the body of the church. And it's moving from just sort of a theoretical understanding of what that metaphor might mean.

The many members of the body of Christ. It's moving from the theoretical into the intensely practical, as the pain suffered by the arising of needs among some members of the congregation causes the other members of the body to jump into action. The eyes being dour, the nose being drawn up, the mouth crying out, and all the other members jumping to assist as any has need. Now, this is so important as we think about what the giving of our tithes and offerings, which we just did a moment ago, does. It's not just an external compliance issue.

This is not like paying our taxes, but it's the actions of members who are united as members, one of another, as one body in Christ. Now, this is an incredible reality that we experience in the church. And it does not happen by accident. It's Not a natural thing. In fact, it goes against all the natural things according to the flesh that we might do.

So how does it happen? How does this arise? How does this grow in the body of Christ? Well, the Holy Spirit makes this happen. And so our theme this morning as we study this text is that the Holy Spirit unites the Church in one heart, one mind and one body.

The Holy Spirit unites the Church in one heart, one mind and one body. And those last three elements, those are going to be the three sections of our text. One heart first of all, one mind second of all, and one body third. So let's consider first the one heart nature in verse 32. But before that, I want to remind us of where we were last week.

In verse 31. Again, they had this great prayer meeting in response to the persecution of the world against them. And we read that when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness. In verse 29, they had prayed that the Lord would grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness. And now that is exactly what they are doing.

They are continuing to speak the word of God with all boldness, being people who are filled with the Holy Spirit. Now, when we consider the way in which this boldness might play out in the church, part of it we are told in the previous passage. And what we are going to continue to see through the Book of Acts is that this is an external boldness, a boldness that empowers and enables the members to speak what's on their mind and on their hearts, burdened with the gospel of Jesus as they look out upon a lost world of people who are dying in their sins. And so we might expect then a story to follow this up, where we see just an example of that. And we are going to see many stories of exactly this in the Gospel or in the Book of Acts, where people are very bold, even in the face of increasing persecution over the life of the church.

But what the next story is given to us is not a story that deals with boldness of outreach and evangelism. Now, certainly, again, that's going to be part of it. We are going to see this at many points, that prayer is going to be continued to being fulfilled in that way. But here we see Holy Spirit forged boldness that is shaping the life within the church, not so much life outside the church, moving out, although that's a part of it. But here we See how their boldness influences and shapes the life within the church.

And so we are seeing, first of all, the way, the full number of those. Now, we were told back in chapter four, verse four, the most recent count that we have received, that this full number would include 5,000 men. And the language there of 5,000 men means that that number probably did not include women and children. So the church is growing. We don't know exactly how many, but at least 5,000 men.

And we read that these 5,000 of those, or the full number of those who believed. So what we are reading about here is a church that is united on a common faith. Their union was on the basis of their belief and their faith of Jesus Christ in him crucified and resurrected. But we see the nature of this unity in the description that Luke gives us now. The full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul.

Now, remember, again, this is carrying forward what we saw in the previous passage in the prayer meeting in verse 24. In the previous passage, chapter 4, verse 24, we read that when they heard it, when they heard the report about the persecution that Peter and John had faced, they, the church lifted up their voices. Together is what the ESV has. But again, that's singular voice. And that idea of together is probably a weak translation.

It's this idea of with one impulse internally, they were all moved in the same direction to lift up their one collective, singular voice to cry out to God for increasing boldness. Well, here we find that they are still united. And when the way they are united has to do with the era of one heart and soul. Now, this is really important. As we see this whole passage, we are going to see shared activities, particularly shared activities in meeting the benevolent needs of the church.

But this unity begins with a shared sense of one heart and one soul. It doesn't start with the activities. It doesn't start externally. It starts internally, not with external requirements. They're not just trying to comply with tax laws.

You know, we think about paying our taxes, and I suppose paying taxes unites us as a nation. And yet everyone tries to get software that helps you to figure out what kind of exemptions you might qualify for, where you might qualify for a refund based on some kind of windows you may have installed in your home or whatever the case may be. You're trying to find every dollar that you can get out of paying the tax. So we do it externally, but not because it's a driving force within our hearts. This is supposed to be the opposite of that, that we give not under compulsion, but as cheerful givers, where the body is rising up to meet the needs of those who are hurting in our midst.

Now, as we talk about this one heart and one soul, it's important to understand what those terms, terms mean biblically, because they don't quite mean the same thing. When we talk about our heart, we're talking primarily about our feelings. We think of the heart as the seat of our emotions. But in the Bible, there's a book that I read a few years ago called with all youl Heart. And one of the observations that really caught me was he says, if you ask the Bible what the heart primarily does, the heart primarily thinks.

The heart is a thinking thing. And so when we read about one heart, we're talking about the center of. Lensky writes this in his commentary, the center of personality, the seat of thought, feeling and of our will. Not just the centers of our feelings, although that's part of it. But we limit it to that where the heart has a much broader usage in the Bible.

And then when we think of the soul, again, Lenski continues and says, insofar as the soul is animates the body, it's the life of the body. And so Lensky writes this. Luke is presenting the fact that this great outward body of the congregation, the full number of those who believed, had one living personality within it. And again, the way that we are going to see this is this. This isn't just feels that they're all feeling together.

They're all not just having warm fuzzy emoting together. We're going to see this clearly, outwardly displayed in the way they treat their possessions. But it starts with this internal desire, this internal shared heart. And so in the second half of verse 32, we see exactly the way this works out externally. We see that no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but that they had everything in common.

Now, to understand the nature of this, it's very important to see that these are the things that still belong to people. And yet no one is making use of their own belongings for their own personal upbuilding. No one said that anything that belonged to him was his own in the sense that they clung to the private use of their private property. It was private property, but they didn't cling to the use of it. The analogy that we might think of as the analogy that Paul uses in Philippians 2 of Jesus Christ himself, that Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be Grasped by nature, the eternal Son of God could never relinquish anything of his divine nature.

However, as regards the form, the privileges, the glory in which he dwelled, he did not make use of those privileges. He didn't cling to those precisely so that he could empty himself by taking the form of a servant for us and for our salvation, so that the one who is rich by his poverty, we might become rich through him. And so we are seeing here the analogy that the believers are following in this, that they retained ownership. These things still belong to them, but they did not make use of this. Now, again, this, I think, is very clearly connected to the boldness we saw in the previous section.

There is a boldness that we are going to see throughout the Book of Acts in terms of external speaking of the Gospel to those around them. But there is a further boldness that we are seeing where they are putting their money, where their mouth is. They say they are a body of believers, and they actually act that way by when one part, one little toe might be hurting, the rest of the body is springing into action to meet the needs of those who have them. Again, it begins with an internal unity of one heart and one soul, and that flows to the outward caring for one another's needs. But I think here Luke wants us to take a step back and to ask, what is it that forged that unity of heart and soul?

And in the next verse, we're going to see that the unity of the church begins with a unity of the mind. And so in the Second section, verse 33, we see one mind, we saw one heart, and now we see one mind in verse 33. So let me read this, and then I want to make an observation about verse 33. And with great power, the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them. Now, here's my observation.

For those of you who have taken high school English classes, you may have turned in a writing assignment one time, and maybe your teacher turned it back to you with red ink all over what you had written, which is always a very encouraging thing, just like blood spilled on your paper. It's very encouraging, right? Well, if you had written a paragraph like this, one of the things that your English teacher might have done was to take that red pen and draw through this verse. And she might have said to you, look at the rest of this paragraph. This is all about how the early church was caring for the needs of one another.

And here you have something about the apostles preaching the gospel of the resurrection of Jesus. It's fit in this paragraph. You need to strike this out and put this somewhere else. Now, when we think about the Bible, what we have here was not just Luke writing from his own wisdom and insight and knowledge. Now, Luke brought the fullness of his research into all of these stories, but we know that there is another author writing scripture, the divine author, the Holy Spirit, and he does not make mistakes.

And this verse is here for a reason. Whenever we make an observation like this, that this verse kind of doesn't fit with the rest of the subject matter, that's actually a very red clue, a red flashing light that we should pay extra attention to what is happening here, where all of this is about sharing their belongings, meeting the needs of believers. What we are seeing is that all of this stems from the commonality of their faith. Again, these are the full number of those who believed. Faith has already been highlighted for us.

And what are they believing in? Well, in verse 33, we read about the great power of the apostles who were giving their testimony, bearing witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. When you think about the resurrection, for someone to be resurrected implies a lot of other things with it. First of all, for someone to be resurrected from the dead means that that person had to die. For someone to have died means that person had to have been born and to have lived for a while.

So this phrase, this expression, their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, is one part of their teaching that encompasses the entirety of what they taught about Jesus, about his conception, his birth, his life, his death, his resurrection. And then also it's the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. Well, in the book of Acts, we know that God made him both Lord and Christ. This Jesus whom you crucified at the ascension of Jesus, the one who took for so long the form of a servant, he put that all behind him after he finished his earthly work and ministry, during his estate of humiliation. And now he has entered into an estate of exaltation where he is reigning at the right hand of the Father in heaven.

So we are seeing the entirety of the ministry of Jesus Christ. And what Luke wants us to see, that this, this is the center of their unity as a church. It's with great power. What does that mean? That means that as the apostles are preaching about the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the church is being united by the Holy Spirit to recognize that the only hope they have is in Jesus and that they all bound together as one body in Christ, as their head, who is in heaven, is uniting them as one body on earth.

And this is what is leading them, their one mind in the Gospel of Jesus, to cultivate this one heart that is with one impulse pushing them to act in a certain way. And so this is leading us into the next section we've seen. What starts in their mind prompts a change in their heart that flows out in their external behavior. Now what we have seen so far in these first two verses are really important for framing what we're going to read in this final section. Namely that the care for the external needs of the church is not the absolute core center of the church.

The core attention of the church must never drift to merely buildings, budgets and bodies. The core attention of the church must always remain fixed on Jesus Christ and him crucified, resurrected and ascended as Lord. Yet that one mind of the church which forges us together as one heart and one soul, must necessarily then flow, flow out into precisely those things, into buildings, budgets and bodies. Because within the body of Christ we cannot neglect the external life of people. Those reflect spiritual and eternal priorities that are shaped by our devotion to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

And so now that we've seen the union of the mind and the union of the hearts, now we see the unity of the body of the church, one body. In the third section, in verse 34, we read the result. There was not a needy person among them. This is a fulfillment of an Old Testament promise from Deuteronomy 15, verses 4 through 5. Moses said, but there will be no poor among you, for the Lord will bless you in the land.

The Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance to possess if, if only you will strictly obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all this commandment that I command you today. Well we do not read that that came to pass in the Old Testament, but here we are seeing that in Christ, through the full outpouring of the Holy Spirit, that promise is being fulfilled in the church. Now how was this brought about? How was it that there was not a needy person among them? Middle of verse 34.

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 apostles feet and it was distributed to each as any had need. Now it's important to study, and we'll study more of this in the trajectory of this as we go through the book of Acts, that the early administration of benevolence ministries was ad hoc. You probably have used that phrase ad hoc. That's a Latin phrase that means for this purpose Something arises and you figure out a solution. Ad hoc.

In this case there was a need that arose and so ad hoc someone sold a property and with the money they laid at the apostles feet that was distributed to meet the need that arose in the church. Now we still do this sometimes. You might start a GoFundMe or contribute to a GoFundMe account for somebody who has medical needs unexpectedly. Or you might attend a fundraising event maybe for somebody who's going on a mission trip or something like that. So we do certain things to meet specific needs.

And in those early days the sense is that that was enough that sufficiently met the needs that arose in the church. But this would not last forever. It would not last forever to meet the needs in the church and it would not last forever for the apostles to be the ones who were personally distributing the benevolent ministries to those who needed it. In just, I mean we're at the end of chapter four, after chapter five we get to Acts, chapter six and there the first deacons are going to be appointed because the apostles can no longer handle the workload. Well let's keep going though.

Let's finish out this passage. Verse 36. We meet Joseph who was called by the apostles Barnabas, an Aramaic name which means son of encouragement. We read that he was a Levite. He's not like the Levite in Jesus's parable of the Good Samaritan that sees someone in need and passes by on the other side of the road.

This Levite saw a need and at great sacrificial expense to himself met that need. We see that he was a native of Cyprus and we see that he sold a field that belonged to him and brought the money and laid it at the apostles feet. Now why this information? Well partially, I think this is a prime example of how this process worked. Again a need arose and an ad hoc solution was set in motion.

Barnabas sold a property, a field that belonged to him and he brought the money and laid it at the apostles feet. So we're seeing that a concrete example of what we've been reading about in generalities. The second thing is as commentators point out, it's really important. And Luke does this several places in the book of Acts. There are key figures in the book of Acts that Luke introduces to us just by a brief vignette.

Later we will read a very negative introduction, for example to Saul, who would later be renamed Paul. The first thing we read about Saul, Saul is that he is present at the martyrdom of Stephen holding the cloaks. And he's approving of his execution. Okay, so that's our introduction to Saul before we read more about him and his conversion later. Well, here, here's our introduction to Barnabas before we read that this man becomes a great missionary in the early life of the church.

Later on, we are seeing early on some of his character in the life of the church. The third reason, and this is a sadder reason, is that he is being held up as a contrast to the negative example of Ananias and Sapphira that we are going to read about in the next passage. Now, as we read about this, though, there's a key question. How should we apply this today? Everybody loves when the pastor talks about money.

So here we go as we continue to study the Book of Acts. Again, the reason for doing this is because we are seeking to discern God's vision for his church. And here we are discerning a very key issue that is central to God's vision. The application is that we are called to boldly build up the body of Christ, and that includes with our finances. But again, let's start where this passage puts the main emphasis.

This starts with minds that are united on the Gospel of Jesus. And so I want to ask you again this morning, do you believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and as your Savior? Let me be very clear, and I will say this again when it comes time to fence the table. If you do not believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you are not a member of the the body of Christ because this is the commonality that we have. The full number of the church is the full number of those who believe.

There may be even members of church who profess this outwardly may confess with their tongues, but do not believe in their hearts that God truly did raise him from the dead. And so I want to ask you, do you know? Are you confident in the fact that the Son of God, who existed eternally in the form of God, that he loved you so much that he was not willing to cling to those rights and privileges that he had in glory, but that rather he humbled himself, he emptied himself by taking up the form of the lowliest of servants, the slave of all, laying down his life not by dying in the common manner by which men and women die in this world, but by laying down his life through the shame and humiliation of death on a cross. Are you trusting then that Christ's death on the cross and his resurrection from the dead on the third day was personally for you, paying the penalty for your sins? So that you might be forgiven and counted righteous.

Do you know that he does this because he loves you? This is not just an impersonal set of principles. This is a person who loves you enough to lay down his life for you. Have you bowed your knee to him and confessed him as Lord to the glory of God? If not, do so today.

Be reconciled to God through Jesus Christ, and be reconciled to the body of Christ through faith in our Savior. Well, it all starts there. But that oneness of mind, oneness in the gospel must then prompt a change of our heart. It's not enough to just have the gospel in our minds, it has to fill up our hearts, uniting us together. Does this gospel message animate your life?

Is this the soul of not only the church, but of you personally as a member of the church? Does the gospel of what Christ has done for you move and motivate you to live in the same way for other people? Not because you can replicate what Jesus has done. What he did was unique. It was once for all.

But as you were seeking to follow in the footsteps of your Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ. And let me put a really sharp point to this. As you think about giving and meeting the needs of other people, if your heart is cold toward that, if giving to you is like paying your taxes, where you are constantly arguing, whether externally or whether in your mind justifications, well, I don't have to do that because I have an exemption here, or I don't have to do this because I qualify for a refund there. And so therefore I don't have to serve in this particular way. Well, what the biblical remedy is given for that is that we are called to then go back to our mind, to be transformed by the renewal of our mind, to go back to the gospel message, to remember once again that the one who was rich beyond all measure became poor for you, so that you by his poverty might become rich.

And as we meditate in our minds on the Gospel of Jesus, this is to warm our hearts, to prompt us to live in such a way as to bless those around us. Because Christianity is not a cold hearted, white knuckled stoicism where we try to live our lives on legal principles again, if we do, we're just going to try to get out of as much of it as possible. Christianity is not about meeting legal standards. Christ has done that. It's about a relationship with that person, Jesus Christ, who loves you and who gave his life for you and who in turn then fills you with his love.

So be warmed in your Hearts be filled with the love of the One who loved you so much that he laid down his life for you. Why? So that you might be moved in the body. So this is the final application point. Does the Gospel message prompt you to bold living in the body?

We talked about externally sharing the Gospel last week and we will continue to circle back around to that issue. But in this text we are seeing the bold inward living of the of the early church. Now, again here, early on this administration, it's simple, it is ad hoc, but that will not last much longer. Again in Acts 6 already we need deacons who are appointed to manage the growing complexity of administration, demonstrating the receiving of the funds and the management of that so that the apostles can devote themselves to prayer and the ministry of the Word. Now, I'm really happy to report we have tremendous deacons at this church.

I got to sit with them this week at a deacon meeting where they did a first reading of the budget, proposed budget for 2026. And this budget is no longer an ad hoc response. As needs rise, Thanksgiving arises. The budget makes a very detailed plan to steward the resources that are donated to this church for the sake of funding the mission of the church, for the benevolence funds that will be needed to meet the needs as those arise in the course of the year over the church for maintaining the buildings and the grounds that God has given to be a platform here, a foundation for proclaiming the Gospel from here in Lansing, which has been that way for over 160 years, for the salaries of the staff who work so hard for the sake of this church, for the various ministries of the church, for outreach and for discipleship and for fellowship and for everything else we do in the life of this church and for funding partner ministries who proclaim the Gospel on our behalf as we have a partnership with them in other places throughout the world, both to provide for the needs of the members and to proclaim the testimony of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. We are called to give now, right now there is a significant giving shortfall to meet where the budget was sort of anticipating that we would be and we are trusting the Lord for Him to meet every need.

But as a pastor, I'm coming to this particular text. I know everyone loves to hear about money, so you're welcome for this. But I'm not here as a tax collector. I'm not here to sort of squeeze out from you. You're arguing that you're exempt and I'm arguing that actually you don't qualify for that Loophole.

I'm calling us simply to the vision of God for his church to see the unity of the body that's forged from a unity of one heart and soul that stems from a unity of a mind centered on the gospel and wanting to see the gospel advance from Jerusalem and Judea to Samaria to the ends of the earth. And we all have a role in this. Now, I don't know what your contributions are. I don't want to know what your contributions are. Our deacons do a very good job of that.

The biblical example is to give 10% of what we are given. There's a biblical example, an ongoing example throughout the scriptures of this. But here we see something beyond 10%. Surely Barnabas was a very faithful tither in the church. But when a need arose, we are seeing a man who recognized a need and rose up to meet that need with what he had according to his ability.

This is spirit filled boldness. And what starts internally, I don't think there's any reason to doubt the connection that this Barnabas who we see living boldly within the church is the same Barnabas who is going to live boldly, spreading the gospel to the ends of the earth. Those two things hang together. And so according to the word of God, I want to encourage us, let's live boldly, externally to be sure, by proclaiming the gospel to the ends of the earth and also internally by meeting the needs of one another. Sometimes that's by serving someone in need, and sometimes it means internally by meeting financial means according to our ability.

What a blessing we are called to. And it's a blessing that we will then turn around and celebrate here at the table of the Lord when we remember that we are one body in Christ. So let's pray as we prepare to go to this table together.