0 00:00:01,000 --> 00:00:04,000 Are you a commune? 1 00:00:04,000 --> 00:00:10,000 I can only think of this question coming up once or twice. 2 00:00:10,000 --> 00:00:20,000 The reason it might be asked is that out of the large number of people who are members of the church here, a hundred-something live in one apartment complex, 3 00:00:20,000 --> 00:00:29,000 across the street there are another 30 or 40 people, and about five miles away there’s another apartment complex with a lot of people. 4 00:00:29,000 --> 00:00:36,000 There are also people who live in all corners of the city in single-family dwellings. 5 00:00:36,000 --> 00:00:45,000 But when you see that many people--one hallway with six units, and five of the households are in the church--you could ask, well is this a commune? 6 00:00:45,000 --> 00:00:53,000 The answer is, emphatically, no. Although I don’t even know what a commune is, and you probably don’t either! So I don’t know if yes or no means anything anyhow. 7 00:00:53,000 --> 00:00:58,000 But let me just mention some things people normally think of when they think of communes. 8 00:00:58,000 --> 00:01:04,000 They think of something maybe called a common purse. In other words, everybody throws all their money in one place. 9 00:01:04,000 --> 00:01:09,000 Well, it is true that in the Jerusalem church no one counted his possessions as his own. 10 00:01:09,000 --> 00:01:17,000 Now why did they think that way? Because Jesus taught that if we have two cloaks, and we have a brother or a friend who has none, we give them one. 11 00:01:17,000 --> 00:01:28,000 We are not to count material possessions as being a mark of success. We’re not to be selfish with our material things. We know that God can provide for us. 12 00:01:28,000 --> 00:01:37,000 We can give all our possessions away today, and God will continue to care for us. We don’t, as the pagans do, greedily run after material-world things. 13 00:01:37,000 --> 00:01:43,000 They don’t mean anything to us. We’re aliens, strangers, and foreigners. We’re sons of Abraham--a tent is all we need. 14 00:01:43,000 --> 00:01:46,000 So, for that reason, we count none of our possessions as our own. 15 00:01:46,000 --> 00:01:50,000 Does that mean that they were a commune in the book of Acts? No. 16 00:01:50,000 --> 00:01:53,000 Ananias and Sapphira provide the classic example. 17 00:01:53,000 --> 00:02:02,000 You remember they were struck dead for lying. But before that, Peter had reminded Ananias, “That land was yours, was it not?” 18 00:02:02,000 --> 00:02:10,000 It wasn’t communal property. There was never any expectation that everybody’s property belonged to everybody in an external sense. 19 00:02:10,000 --> 00:02:13,000 It is true that I shouldn’t cling to my possessions. 20 00:02:13,000 --> 00:02:22,000 I should readily hear God’s voice and from time to time sell lands, possessions, and goods and lay them out as anyone has need. 21 00:02:22,000 --> 00:02:25,000 I shouldn’t cling to anything for myself. That’s true. 22 00:02:25,000 --> 00:02:30,000 In fact, when Paul told the Corinthians they were “not discerning the body” and so were “bringing judgment” on themselves, 23 00:02:30,000 --> 00:02:36,000 the problem had to do with not caring for other people’s needs but only for one’s own. 24 00:02:36,000 --> 00:02:48,000 So, if a commune means you have communal property--and it usually does--then not only are we not a commune, the New Testament church was clearly not one either. 25 00:02:48,000 --> 00:02:55,000 Peter went on to say, “That was your money even after you sold it. You could have done whatever you wanted with it.” 26 00:02:55,000 --> 00:03:02,000 Ananias’ sin was in lying to the Holy Spirit--that was why he was struck dead. 27 00:03:02,000 --> 00:03:14,000 As for people living close together: We have a friend who’s president of a division of a large home builder, 28 00:03:14,000 --> 00:03:30,000 and I’ve probed him about why they choose the markets they select and build in the locations they do. He tells me it has to do with their priority system. 29 00:03:30,000 --> 00:03:37,000 Often times, homebuyers come to the city because of their job, but they come to the neighborhood because of the school district. 30 00:03:37,000 --> 00:03:48,000 There are many other things that could also affect a normal person’s choice of where they might live. 31 00:03:48,000 --> 00:04:01,000 For example, it might be that they have friends in the neighborhood, or that they've always wanted a tri-level or a bay window or some material world issue-- 32 00:04:01,000 --> 00:04:10,000 job, school district, etc. are reasons people get the houses that they do. 33 00:04:10,000 --> 00:04:18,000 “But seek first the kingdom,” Jesus said, in contrast to seeking first housing, clothing and so on. 34 00:04:18,000 --> 00:04:21,000 He said to seek first the kingdom--the expression of the King’s reign. 35 00:04:21,000 --> 00:04:27,000 In other words, seek not only the the King, but also the EXPRESSION of His reign--people who are living for Him. 36 00:04:27,000 --> 00:04:32,000 And Jesus promised that if we seek THAT and His righteousness, then He will care for all our physical needs. 37 00:04:32,000 --> 00:04:39,000 That is a promise not many people never test, because they seek first their own agenda and then try to add the kingdom in. 38 00:04:39,000 --> 00:04:45,000 They go to a city not because they want to be a part of something God is doing, but because that location is where their job is taking them. 39 00:04:45,000 --> 00:04:48,000 Then they try to add in some good church on the side. 40 00:04:48,000 --> 00:04:55,000 Most people do not seek first the kingdom, so they never see the fulfillment to the promise about a hundred fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters. 41 00:04:55,000 --> 00:05:01,000 They think it’s just poetry rather than a promise. 42 00:05:01,000 --> 00:05:05,000 We do have a lot of people who live close together. 43 00:05:05,000 --> 00:05:11,000 In fact, there’s a joke in one of the apartment complexes about there being some sort of Bermuda Triangle in the parking lot. 44 00:05:11,000 --> 00:05:21,000 One day I called for a brother and his wife said, “He just went out to take the trash out. That could be five minutes. It could be two hours. 45 00:05:21,000 --> 00:05:29,000 You know about that triangle in the parking lot, don’t you?” They may very well end up in the parking lot praying or talking about something 46 00:05:29,000 --> 00:05:35,000 or going to visit somebody that needs some help, either of a physical or spiritual nature. 47 00:05:35,000 --> 00:05:42,000 One might share something he has been learning today from experiences at work or from the scriptures. 48 00:05:42,000 --> 00:05:50,000 If you were seeking first the kingdom and His righteousness--if that was the most important thing in your life, 49 00:05:50,000 --> 00:05:59,000 and it dominated your thinking, your time, your energy--then you would probably not want to spend hours on the road. 50 00:05:59,000 --> 00:06:02,000 You would want to be with others with the same convictions, “daily in public and from house to house.” 51 00:06:02,000 --> 00:06:13,000 You would want to admonish and to be admonished daily, to encourage and to be encouraged daily. You would be responding to God’s command and God’s life. 52 00:06:13,000 --> 00:06:18,000 So why would you want to spend all your time on the road driving back and forth? Why not live close by? 53 00:06:18,000 --> 00:06:24,000 If the most important thing was seeking first the kingdom and His righteousness, you would more than likely choose to live close to others. 54 00:06:24,000 --> 00:06:32,000 Not always. We have exceptions in the church here where people live far away. They need to, and for them it’s right and good. 55 00:06:32,000 --> 00:06:40,000 But they are still daily in people’s lives, just as if they lived right next door. Everybody lives where they live for a reason. 56 00:06:40,000 --> 00:06:48,000 Communes say you have to live in a certain place. In the ekklesia of God, a lot of people want to be as close to the action as they can get. 57 00:06:48,000 --> 00:06:53,000 But it’s their prerogative. It’s their land, their possessions, their money. 58 00:06:53,000 --> 00:07:02,000 There is definitely a major contrast between a commune and the church you would read about in the Bible, and that distinction should be maintained. 59 00:07:02,000 --> 00:07:06,000 Any time you try to add these external, legal regulations to God’s word 60 00:07:06,000 --> 00:07:20,000 (You’ve got to do this in such a way. You must live here. Your money will go into a common purse, and we’ll distribute it) 61 00:07:20,000 --> 00:07:24,000 you are going to wind up with an Ishmael, and it will cause problems later on. 62 00:07:24,000 --> 00:07:29,000 There may be some form of growth in the process, but no matter how wise it seems, that approach will cause problems. 63 00:07:29,000 --> 00:07:37,000 That’s what Paul was addressing in Colossians 2 when he said, “‘Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle.’ 64 00:07:37,000 --> 00:07:43,000 These things have an appearance of wisdom--they look like they could help--but in the end they don’t change the heart. 65 00:07:43,000 --> 00:07:47,000 They don’t curb sensual indulgence, so they are really of no value.” 66 00:07:47,000 --> 00:07:51,000 It’s not Christianity when you start adding all those external things. 67 00:07:51,000 --> 00:07:59,000 “You’re part of this, and you do it this way, and here’s your boss, and here’s what you do with your money”--it has an appearance of wisdom. 68 00:07:59,000 --> 00:08:05,000 It sounds reasonable. You can verse-pluck and find some way to justify it. But it’s not God’s heart. 69 00:08:05,000 --> 00:08:12,000 His heart is “as we rise up, as we sit down, as we walk along the way” to be the family of God, to lay down our lives for each other, 70 00:08:12,000 --> 00:08:19,000 and to let Him direct our steps and our relationships. We allow Him to form our days and our time. 71 00:08:19,000 --> 00:08:26,000 It takes a lot of trust. It takes a lot of relationship with God. We are all just growing in it. 72 00:08:26,000 --> 00:08:36,000 But all these external props that are supposed to be our salvation, end up being an Ishmael to persecute us later on. 73