Ruth 1

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Now we're going to hear from the book of acts, chapter four. Starting at verse 31, the words will come up on the screens. But if you'd like to follow along in your bibles, it's on page 1096. So Peter and John, they've just been released from prison, haven't been proclaiming the gospel in there, and they've come to join up with their disciples and followers of Jesus. And then we get to verse 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. All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had with great power, the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and God's grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there was no needy person among them. For from time to time, those who owned land or houses sold them, bought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles feet. And it was distributed to anyone who had need.

Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, whom the apostle called Barnabas, which means son of encouragement, sold a field he owned and bought the money and put it at the apostles feet. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Thank you so much for reading that for us, Sam. Let's just quickly pray as we look at that passage.

Heavenly Father, I pray that now you by your spirit would bless us, that we might hear your word, and that we might therefore be ready to bless others by proclaiming it. Amen. We're in a series at the moment thinking about church, who she is, what she is, what it looks like for us to be a part of church. We thought about church as a forever family. Last week, we thought about church as a body and church as a bride.

And today we're going to be thinking about a generous church. And it's important, as we start to talk about this, that I just quickly, upfront tell you two things. Firstly, I don't know what any individual in the church family gives financially. That's not data that I have access to, even though actually it does show us quite a bit about the state of our hearts. I don't do that.

That would be unhelpful. Secondly, before we start, I just want to say my own salary, my stipend, is not dependent on how much we give as a church. It doesn't go up if we're giving more or down if we're giving less. I want to say that because sadly, in our world there are all sorts of corruptions to do with money. And I want to highlight that before we dive into a passage that does speak about money.

In fact, it speaks about a really exciting time in the early church. And I'd love you just to think yourself back there. Imagine what it was like. We hear that there is persecution and yet they pray. And there is a filling of the Holy Spirit, a tangible sense that the Holy Spirit is at work in theme.

And it results in what? It results in them boldly proclaiming the word of God. What does the filling of the spirit do in acts more so than anything else, boldly proclaims God's word. What's a spirit filled church look like? One that's boldly proclaiming God's word.

But more than that, we see that the believers are united. We see that. Verse 33. With great power, the apostles continue to testify for the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. We see that this is a church that's filled with the spirit, that's boldly proclaiming God's word.

And as the proclaiming of God's word is happening, it's happening with great power. This is a church that's growing, where people are being released from captivity to all sorts of sin and people are coming to know the Lord Jesus Christ. How exciting would it be if we could say of Totley, this is a church where we know the Holy Spirit of God living in us. We're boldly proclaiming God out about this community and we are seeing God work powerfully through God's word being preached and through us teaching God's word to other people, the word of the apostles. Wouldn't that be exciting?

Doesn't that thrill you, the idea? It would be amazing, wouldn't it? Like our headaches with space would be way bigger and it would be wonderful. Our children's ministry would be way bigger and it would be wonderful. Think of the transformation that would have on Topley.

Think of the transformation that would have. When we don't see cars being burnt out on Green Oak park, but we see people gathering and impromptu praying for one another, sharing the good news of Jesus. Isn't that exciting? I think that's really exciting. Look, though, what else is happening here?

You see around those exciting things. See, it's cocooned with this talk about giving. Verse 32. All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had.

Now, it might be that you're fairly new to church and you're thinking, wait a second, this sounds kind of weird and cultish is this, that they kind of sold up everything and went and lived in a little hut with everybody else. It's not like that. And we know that because if they were selling up everything and living in a little hut together, then they wouldn't have possessions to sell, would they? They wouldn't have possessions about which they would call them their own. It's not weird like that, but it's weird that it's incredibly generous.

Some of you will have seen the video that I sent round, the Richard Garnett video this weekend. I. And one of the things that he pointed out to me and I felt quite convicted on, is that we are among the most selfish group of evangelical christians that have ever walked on the planet, he said, looking statistically at the most generous wing of the church, evangelicalism. But at western evangelicals, he said, on average, western evangelicals give about 2.5% of their earnings away, not even to church, just away. In other words, for every pound that God gives to his people in the west, we give less than 2.5 pence away.

And I was quite shocked by that, quite struck by it. Now, I'm not saying that so that if you're here and you give less than 2.5%, you think, oh, I feel bad. Or in fact, if you give more than 2.5, if you say, oh, I give five or ten or 20 or 50% that we consider. I'm saying that because compare that 2.5% evangelical christians in the west with evangelical christians in the first century, and there we see that the credit limit on what they are going to give to God's kingdom wasn't 2.5%, it was 100%. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own.

It was, hey, look, God, you've given me this. You need it, it's yours. But how? How is it that they got to that point? Let me tell you, it wasn't through somebody with a dog collar standing up and saying, come on, you need to be giving more.

It wasn't by a plate coming round and somebody sort of, you know, of you. It wasn't through somebody saying, oh, I've seen those nice trainers looking forward to the increasing giving that's coming from you. It wasn't through being guilt tripped, in fact, cocooned in the middle of that passage from verse 32, right the way through to verse 37 is this beautiful, beautiful line. Johnny, read it for us earlier. End of verse 33.

And God's grace was so powerfully at work in theme that there were no needy persons. It was something about God's grace that transformed this church into being a generous church. And in fact, that's always been God's way of working. Right? God's way of gathering a people.

We've kind of done a few times going through the scriptures. Let's do it one more time. Keep a finger in acts. Flick back to Genesis, chapter one, page one of those bibles. It's an easy one to know what page it's on.

And what do we see God doing there? We see God, who is infinitely powerful. And what is he doing with that power? He is saying, let there be light, let there be a vault between the waters and skies. Let there be water under.

Let there be land. What's God doing? Goddesse, who has all the wealth, all the power, funnels it into creation. And then day six, flick over day six. What does he do?

He creates human beings. Verse 27. God created humankind in his own image. Then in the image of God, he created them. Male and female, he created them.

God comes to day six and at the pinnacle he says, I'm going to create humanity. And when God creates humanity, he makes them. We see in his image. Now, this is beautiful because it means that there is an inherent dignity and worth to absolutely every human being, male and female, young and old, from Bulgaria or Bognor Regis, from. From conception to cremation, from the richest to the poorest, from those whose life is easy, to those whose life is hard.

Absolutely every single one of us is made in God's image of inherent worth and value. But it also means more than that. It means that as those who are made in God's image, we are to image God. That's our highest purpose. Not just to be made in his image, but then to image him to other people.

So what is God doing? In Genesis one, he is giving and giving and giving and giving. In fact, he goes on verse 28, straight after this. And God blessed them and said, be fruitful and multiply. So God is a God who, out of his abundant riches, gives and gives and gives and gives.

And his people are those who should image him. Don't believe me? Flick over to Genesis, chapter twelve. We're doing a few flicks today, but Genesis, chapter twelve, a really important passage there. You've got Abram, who will become Abraham, father of the jewish nation, and he's given this incredibly important promise.

Look with me at verse two. It'd be really helpful for you to have this in front of you. In fact, Johnny, what page is it on the 13? There you go, page 13. It says, I will make you a great nation and I will bless you.

This is God promising Abraham, I will make your name great. And what? Read it with me. And you will be a blessing. I will bless you.

I am going to bless you. And what are you going to do? You're going to turn around and be a blessing. And in case Abraham's just a bit slow and missed it, he goes on, I will bless those who bless you. I'll curse whoever curses you.

And all peoples on earth will be blessed through you. This is God's work. He gathers a people and he blesses them. Not so that they kind of just gather up the blessings and sit there, very blessed. They do that, they enjoy that, but then they turn around and they give it.

That's why when God gives the law, he gives the law to God's people in order that the other nations might see the glory of God. When God saves them out of Egypt, he saves them and he saves other people who see that Yahweh is the true king. You see again and again throughout the old Testament, God ploughs his blessing into his people in order that they might be a blessing to others.

Now, that doesn't mean that we never have nice things. I'm not saying that any nice thing that comes to us, we immediately turn around and send away. On Friday night I had a curry. It was absolutely incredible. We very much enjoyed it with a friend of ours.

That curry probably cost a little bit more than it would have cost for us to cook that food at home, but it meant that when we receive that curry, we receive it as a blessing. We go, wow, this is a gift of God. That is wonderful. And anyone who knows me knows how much I think that curries are a gift of God. They are incredible things.

God gave us that gift and what did we do? We celebrated with friends. And actually, I think that as we recognised it as a blessing from God, it helped us actually to then bless others, bless others with chatting about it, blessing others with being together, blessing one another, as Rachel and I enjoyed the feed together. Now, if that's true of the Old Testament, let's come back to acts four. And here we see God's grace was powerfully at work in all of them.

See if that's true of the Old Testament. I'm blessing you so that you may be a blessing. How much more when we come to God's grace? We know the old acronym, don't we? God's riches at Christ's extravagance.

As God looks at me and as God looks at you, those who in our hearts are often those who would love to hoard blessings, those who turn a blind eye to injustice, those who hurt others, and worst of all, reject the God who gives us these blessings, those who stand before that God is guilty before him with a debt that we could never pay off. What does God do? He looks at me and he looks at you and he says, there is no way they can ever be right with me on their own. So what I'm going to do, I'm going to send my son, not one who is made just in the image of God, but one who is God himself. The perfect revelation of God.

Think how precious that son is. Think how precious the blood that flowed through his veins is.

And that blood was spilt on the cross as God the Son shouted, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? How precious. What an incredible gift of the Lord. What an amazing blessing of God. And you see, the reason that often our financial giving shows us something of our heart is because as we see that, as we realise the depth of the blessing that we have received, what do we do?

We find ourselves wanting to give. We want to pass on that blessing. Do you know, a few years ago, I used to do a lot of youth work and one of the illustrations I often used to use of grace was that I'd hold up five pounds. It was a five pound note. And I'd say, God does this.

Who wants five pounds? And generally everyone would put their hand up and I go across and I'd just give the five pounds to somebody. And I say, God does that. Who wants my salvation, receive it for free. And you know what?

Every time, every time, and it totally ruined the illustration. They would try and give me the five pounds back. And when I refused to take the five pounds back, do you know what they did every single time? They said something like, well, I'm going to give it to church or I'm going to give it to a charity. They've received a blessing and naturally they want to bless others.

In this passage we see the Holy Spirit blessing them, filling them, and so they pass on the word of the Holy Spirit to others. They receive God's grace. And so they're naturally those who give.

But you know what? Not only is this good for us, but it's also incredible for the kingdom of God. A few years later, there was this guy, he's going to pop up on the screen. He's an emperor. And he is Julian the apostate, and I love this guy.

Basically, he wanted to turn the roman empire anti Christian again, and so he wanted them to follow pagan gods and he got very frustrated and wrote this. In a letter to one of his friends, he said, the Christians benevolence, that means kindness to strangers, their care for the graves of the dead and the pretend holiness of their lifestyle have done most to increase atheism. By atheism he means Christianity. He's talking about non belief in his gods have done most to increase Christianity. The impious Christians support not only their own poor, but ours as well.

So why can't I eradicate this Christianity stuff? Well, it's because people were seeing, there was a generosity about these people. It's not only true back then, it's true today. I'll show you a few examples for time. I won't show you all of them, but these are just some examples.

Come and chat to me at some point afterwards. Let me give you a couple of that one in the middle, that's from our joy Funday. And I'd love to tell you about Darren. Darren came on the joy Funday. He was one of the first aiders on Joy Funday, and he got to the end of the day, couldn't believe what had just happened, not because he didn't do that kind of event, he did it all the time.

He couldn't believe it was free. And so he got chatting to some of us and he sat down with one of our church family, who explained, look, we're doing this for free because we believe in a God who has given us freely of his grace. They talked about it. Darren became a Christian there and then. He's now a brother in Christ.

The Keswick one at the bottom, right there. I can tell you almost exactly the same story. Another first aider. Something about first aiders, right. He was employed to come to Keswick for a week to look after the young people that I was working with a couple of years ago.

And we chatted a number of times over different kids who needed medical attention. And towards the end of the week he said, ben, why is it that this is happening for free? How can this happen for free? And I said, oh, well, it's because we are volunteers. He said, wait a second, you've got nearly 100 people who've given up their time for a week to come and look after other people's kids.

And we got talking and he gave his life to Jesus. And last year I got back and I spoke with him, and when I spoke with him last year. His now wife has come to know Jesus and they've got their baby and she's going to be baptised in a few weeks time. Why? Because they saw generosity and it opened their eyes to see, look, we can make a real difference.

I had a conversation with somebody about toddler group. It's become part of the church ministry. We've reduced the cost. We now say, well, you can give a pound donation if you like. Somebody said, why are you doing that?

You could make so much more money. Got straight in there with a discussion of what it means to know a God who gives us things for free. See, this kind of generosity opens doors.

Do you know if evangelical Christians in the west didn't give 2.5%, but gave 10%? Just arbitrary figure, 10%. Do you know the difference that would make to the kingdom of God? It would be an extra 4 billion pounds a year that would go into the kingdom of God. Not million, billion.

That's the same amount that Putin is currently spending on his war in Russia. Imagine the difference if that money wasn't going into evil, but was going into the kingdom of God. Imagine what it would look like if we, as Totley, were able to say to David Corretto, what will it take over the next five years to take 500 girls out of forced marriage and FGM and tell them the good news of Jesus whilst you're doing it? What would that take? Dream big, because we'd love to fund it.

What would it look like for us to go to Hugh and Helen? I've got goosebumps just thinking about this. Hugh and Helen Sims Williams people were just onboarding as mission partners and saying, you're just down the road from David. What would it take for you to carry on sharing the good news of Jesus with those 500 young girls, even as you are looking after them from a medical point of view? We'd love to fund it.

What would it look like if we were to say to Totley, we know that as an area where there is a shortage of changing places for adults with learning difficulties and physical difficulties, and so we're going to fund putting one in our church building so that there's somewhere where you can come and be cared for. Or if we were saying to people, come to this place, it will be warm. And when you come and we tell you about Jesus, we are going to give you nice things in a nice environment.

And when they reach for their pocket, we say, no, this is a gift of God to you. Think about the number of conversations that we would have with people.

So I've got a prayer that I've been praying this week and it's a prayer that I'm going to encourage you to pray, and it's a prayer that at first you might raise an eyebrow to.

But it's a prayer that comes basically from recognising God's grace working powerfully in us. It's this God, please will you bless me that I might be a blessing to other people? Not so that I can hoard it. God, please will you bless me that I might be a blessing to others? What would it like for us to church?

God, please, would you bless all saints that we would be a blessing to others.

All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had with great power. The apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God's grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them. Heavenly Father, I pray that you would make us a generous people, not because we feel guilt, tripped or ear bashed into being so, but because we know a God who has blessed us abundantly.

Will we therefore be those who bless abundantly too? Amen.