So it's Acts chapter 4 and verse
23. And being let go, they went,
that's Peter and John, to their own company and reported all
that the chief priests and elders had said unto them. And when
they heard that, they lifted up their voice to God with one
accord, and said, Lord, thou art God, which hath made heaven,
and earth, and the sea, and all that in them is, who by the mouth
of thy servant David hath said, Why did the heathen rage, and
the people imagine vain things? The kings of the earth stood
up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and
against his Christ. For of a truth, against thy holy
child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate,
with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together. For to do whatsoever thy hand
and thy counsel determined before to be done. And now, Lord, behold
their threatenings, and grant unto thy servants that with all
boldness they may speak thy word, by stretching forth thine hand
to heal, and that signs and wonders may be done by the name of thy
holy child Jesus. And when they had prayed, the
place was shaken, where they were assembled together, and
they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the
word of God with boldness. And the multitude of them that
believed were of one heart and one soul, neither said any of
them that aught of the things which he possessed was his own,
but they had all things common. And with great power gave the
apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great
grace was upon them all. Neither was there any among them
that lacked, for as many as were possessors of lands or houses
sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold,
and laid them down at the apostles' feet. And distribution was made
unto every man according as he had need. And Joseph, who by
the apostles was surnamed Barnabas, which is being interpreted the
son of consolation, a Levite, and of the country of Cyprus,
having land, sold it, and brought the money, and laid it at the
apostles' feet. Amen. May God bless this reading
to us. So Peter and John had been at
the temple, they had healed this man at the gate of the temple
called the Beautiful Gate, and then the chief priests and the
scribes, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, all these high up religious people
there at the temple, they found fault with what Peter and John
had done. They didn't want the name of
Jesus to be preached. They saw that the man was healed
and there was nothing they could do about that, but they didn't
want the name of Jesus to be preached. So they warned these
two apostles, don't preach in Jesus' name. Don't do miracles
in Jesus' name. And they sent them away. Peter
and John returned to the other apostles and to the followers
of Jesus. Now I don't know whether it was
just the apostles or whether it was the 120 or maybe even
the 8,000 people that we have already seen who believed in
the Lord Jesus Christ. But what I do know is that there
is a lovely expression used in these opening verses that we
read today to describe the people of God whom they went to speak
to. And that expression is their
own company. They went to their own company. They went to the fellowship of
the saints. You know, have a wee look around
and see the people that are here today. This is your own company. These are your people. This is the group of believers
that the Lord has been pleased to gather in this place. This
is our own company. These are the people that we
share things with. These are the people that we
fellowship with. These are the people that we
speak to and spend time with. These are the people that we
take time to love and care for and respect and honour. This is our own company and the
Lord be blessed that he has given us one another. These people
went to their own company. Peter and John went to their
own company. their brothers and sisters, their
family in the Lord. And there they spent time talking
about what had happened, talking about what had been said, the
threats and the warnings that had been given, probably the
answers that had been returned to these chief priests. And the reaction of the company
of the believers, I think, is very interesting. You know, there
may have been, as I've said, thousands of them there. Do you
know what I think I would have done if I was one of those thousands
that were believers in Jerusalem at that time? I think I would
have stood up in the midst of the people and said, we need
to have a demonstration that this is not the way that these
chief priests are going to talk to us any longer. We're too powerful
for that. We've got enough people here
that we can make our own demands. We'll march right to the temple
this afternoon and we will tell them a piece of our mind. You think that's what the disciples
did? Do you know what they did? They took it to the Lord in prayer. They took it in prayer to God,
their problem, their troubles, the opposition that they were
facing. They took it to the Lord because
they knew that the Lord was the one that had all power. In fact, when we look at these
verses, it's very interesting in the way in which the people
first express the power and the authority, the control that God
had. Because they said with one accord,
Lord thou art God, which has made heaven and earth and the
sea and all that in them is. If you've made everything, then
you're in control of everything. You know what these people have
said to us. You know the threats that have
been made against us and we are asking for your help. I think that's lovely. I think
there's a lesson there. That the very first thing the
disciples did when they were brought into trouble was they
took their problems to the Lord. They didn't rest in their own
strength. They didn't imagine that they were powerful enough
to change the government, change the law, change the circumstances. They took their situation to
the Lord. And it's interesting the way
in which they expressed this need that they have. Quite a
large part of this portion that we've read is taken from the
writings of David in the Old Testament. where David speaks
about the things that were going to happen in the future. We call
that prophecy. And the prophecies of the Old
Testament spoke about what was going to happen when the Lord
Jesus Christ came. And it's very clear from what
these believers said is that they began to realize that the
very things that David had spoken about in the Old Testament were
happening before their eyes. I think that must have been a
very blessed time. They saw that Pontius Pilate
and the chief priests, they saw that the things that were being
said against them had been spoken of by God thousands of years
before. And that gave them reassurance
that the same God who told them all those years ago what was
going to happen and was evidently happening right now, obviously
knew what was going to happen, stated what was going to happen,
prepared for what was going to happen, and now was in control
of it happening. That was a reassuring thing for
the disciples to realise, the apostles to realise. And it shows
us how the Old Testament scriptures were suddenly coming alive to
them in new ways when they realised that these things that were being
spoken were the very things that had been prophesied so many years
before. And in verse 28 of chapter 4,
I think there's a lovely little phrase there which confirms and,
as it were, summarises all of these thoughts. Because it says
there that they knew that by this means God was doing whatsoever
His hand and His counsel, His wisdom, His plans if you like,
determined before to be done. God was in control and he was
doing exactly what he wanted to do, even although they were
being threatened, even although they were being persecuted, even
although they were being told, don't you speak about Jesus,
don't you do miracles in Jesus' name. Here it became evident
to them that all of these things, even the hard things, the difficult
things, the trials and the persecution, were all in the hand of Almighty
God and all being controlled by him. They prayed for boldness
to declare the gospel and they prayed for the demonstration
of the power of God. An interesting little phrase
that's used a couple of times in this passage is the phrase,
holy child, to describe the Lord Jesus. Did you notice that? The
holy child. And that reminds us that while
we are praying to the Lord God Jehovah, the God in three persons,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, nevertheless, we do so because
the Son of God became a little child, became a man like us to
our flesh, entered into the world and joined himself in union with
us in order to be our saviour and our deliverer. When they
prayed for help and for the demonstration of power, we're told that something
else happened. The Holy Ghost We sometimes say
the Holy Ghost, we sometimes say the Holy Spirit. It's the
same person that we're talking about. Sometimes it's called
the Ghost, sometimes it's called a Spirit. But here we're speaking
about the power of God. And the Holy Ghost came again. We talk about the three persons,
the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. Here the Holy Ghost came
again and he shook the building that they were in. He demonstrated
his power and he came as the comforter. to the people who
were feeling discomforted. He came as the provider of the
people that felt a need. He came as the emboldener of
the people that were feeling anxious and frightened. And this
is the ministry of the Holy Spirit to his church and to his people. When we ask God for help, when
we pray to God for help, it's not God the Father who comes
to help us, It's God the Holy Spirit. He is the one who comes
and ministers to our needs day by day. And that is a refreshing
and sustaining and helping and encouraging and a blessing that
comes to those who are the Lord's people. And we should expect
that. I think the fact that he came twice, he came so quickly
after the day of Pentecost, he came again, shows us that we
have a need of these refreshing experiences of God's help and
God's comfort. And it's something that we should
all be aware of and that we should think about. And right at the end of this
little passage, we meet a man. He's called Joses, but there
were a lot of Joseses. So they called him Barnabas.
And Barnabas means comforter or encourager or the son of consolation. And he was a man who we are going
to hear about quite a lot in the book of the Acts of the Apostles. He was a well-respected man.
He was a man of some wealth and some property. And he, perhaps
as an example to the other believers, He sold the property that he
had. I don't know whether it was in
Cyprus or where it was. He was a man from the island
of Cyprus and he sold that property and he gave the proceeds, the
money from that property to the apostles so that the apostles
could distribute to the needs of the poor, the poor believers
there in Jerusalem. And we're told that there was
a time of unity in the church at this time. The believers,
and here's another lovely little phrase, I think these phrases
just jump out of the Bible at you sometimes when you're reading
them. The believers were of one heart and one soul. What a delight to be in a fellowship
that is of one heart and one soul. To be in union together,
to be committed together to the cause of the Lord Jesus Christ. and we are told that with great
power. They gave the apostles witness
of the, or the apostles gave witness of the resurrection of
the Lord Jesus. And there was great grace upon
them all. They had things in common, all
things in common. They shared together as people
had need, not as people wanted, but as people had need. And the
apostles distributed those things which were needful to one another.
In this little incident, we discover that the Lord supplies the needs
of his people. He supplies them with spiritual
blessings and he supplies them with practical blessings. Even the men and women that were
needed to accomplish the purposes of God were provided to the church. You know, the skills that we
have, the resources that we have, the abilities that we have, they're
not ours. If you're really clever, That
cleverness has been given to you by God so that you can help
and bless the church with your cleverness. If you're wealthy,
that wealth hasn't been given to you just for you. It has been
given to you so that you can help the church and the people
who have need in the church. The Lord has given you these
gifts. He calls us to share these things
together with one another as we have need. And all of the
church were united together. All of the church blessed the
Lord together. And the Lord was pleased to minister
to them. Sometimes we worry about the
church. Sometimes we think to ourselves, what's going to happen?
What's going to happen when we get old? What's going to happen
when we get few in number? What's going to happen if I don't
know. The roof falls in someday. What's
going to happen to the church of Jesus Christ? And we worry
about it. We think, is it all going to
just disappear someday? Are people not going to be interested
anymore? Is it all going to close up?
You know what? The Lord provides for his people. He provides for the needs of
his people. And that's something that we
need to remember. This church is not my church. It's not your church. This is
the Lord's church. We are the Lord's people and
the Lord provides for all our needs according to his riches. May the Lord bless these thoughts
to our hearts this morning.