11/16/25 Worship Service: Acts 11:27-30 "Giving" Rev. John Black

So the foundation for the church has been laid and therefore no more apostles and prophets. But now we build on this foundation which is Christ Jesus. We being that building that temple. [00:47:11]

And sometimes we'll call somebody brother and we maybe we understand what we're talking about and maybe we don't. But that is a rich relationship. Again, I saw Tony Evans one time. I give him credit. he uh was a black pastor, this huge gathering of people at an auditorium. [00:52:50]

If you're a black man and you're a believer and you're sitting next to Sorry, I started sounding like Barack Obama all of a sudden." He if you're a black man and you're sitting next to a believer who's a white man and on the other side of you is your physical brother who's not a believer then you have more in [00:53:08]

common with the white man who's a believer than your own natural brother who's not a believer because you're united in faith by the Holy Spirit with this white man but you're only rea related by blood to this black man who's not a believer. So let me make sure I said it. Did I say it right? You give me a look. Good. All right. So that struck [00:53:15]

me. And I was like, "Wow, that's that's that's deep." And that's what the church is. People who have been united together by the Holy Spirit with the same father. We've been adopted into the family of God and filled with his spirit. One spirit uniting us all. [00:53:21]

So that when these people heard about their brothers in Jerusalem in great need, their response was natural. We got to help them. What do we do? And so they said um we need to petition the government to put together some structures that uh we tax everybody and give them all money and make sure [00:54:06]

everybody gets enough to eat. Just give them free food. It's like, no, that's not what the Holy Spirit inspires the early church to do. The Holy Spirit says, if you have the ability and you have the desire, give. And Paul in another church says, he told them about the the need in Jerusalem. [00:54:13]

He says, "You guys gave out of your poverty. You g you I got poor people giving to poor people." Which is very interesting. just, you know, in Haiti you see poverty and then you see poverty poverty and and there's a huge difference. And I've seen poverty here, but I've seen poverty poverty in Haiti. [00:54:20]

And I've seen impoverished people with nothing just give you stuff. It's a giving thing. It's like puts you to shame. And I think sometimes the more you have, the harder it is to give because we become more dependent on these things. But it's a family connection that we have. [00:54:27]

And we know that Paul frequently compares the church to the human body. He even calls us the body of Christ. 1 Corinthians 12, he says that the body is not made up of just one part but many parts. that when one part of the body suffers, every part suffers with it. [00:54:33]

So that's true of each individual church, true of our church. I think that sometimes we can think of this as he's talking only about individual bodies of Christ, Second Street, Presbyterian Church, you know, whatever, First Pres, whatever it is that within this local communion, uh, that when one member hurts, we all hurt. [00:54:40]

When one suffers, we all suffer. When one rejoices, we all rejoice. And that's true and it should particularly be evident in a local body where we're sitting next to each other and we know each other intimately. But when we hear about brothers and sisters over here, over there, all the way around the world [00:54:48]

who are suffering, who are hurting, our hearts also should be united with them. If they're being persecuted, we're being persecuted. If they're being blessed, we're being blessed. And that's a thing to struggle with as we think about it is difficult for a church on this side of the world to know how best to minister financially, materialistically [00:54:54]

for a church all the way on the other side of the earth. Our first response is bring them democracy and take them money. And it's like neither of those may be what they need. And so missionaries are called to go, to live, to serve, to get to know, to share the gospel, to report back and say, "Hey, you know what they need isn't a check. What they need is pray for ABC." [00:55:00]

And then maybe the missionaries need support like Luke had support to do the work that he did, but we need to be about trying to know wisely how to help others who are in need, particularly of the household of faith. It is very easy to write a check. It is often the last thing a person needs is money in their hand if you've worked it all. [00:55:08]

And and it's also quite dismissive just to give money to people. It's an easy way just to say leave me alone here and not get involved in the lives of what's happening. I feel convicted of this. I'm a hypocrite up here preaching, but the Holy Spirit hopefully is preaching to me, too. [00:55:15]

But there are ministries in almost every single town and city that work with people to find out what's really going on, what is really needed. and depending on the nature of the Christians that are actually running that ministry is to how well they actually minister to people because only love can limit love and it takes great faith to know what's the right solution for a person in trouble and and that's just something that we [00:55:36]