This sermon was preached at WPC Belconnen’s Sunday morning service on November 14, 2021. This sermon expounds Acts 4:32-5:11.
Nikita Khrushchev once said: ‘Communism’s failure is its failure to produce the selfless man’. Communism was an attempt to compel people to share and ensure the equal distribution of wealth. But it fails as a system – because there inevitably has to be someone in charge – and power always corrupts. But here, in Acts 4 and 5, we see in the early Christian church a spirit of self-sacrifice and love that political systems like communism could only dream of. This was no forced socialism – this was a voluntary, self-giving love empowered by the Holy Spirit. In these verses, we see the gathering of Jesus’ disciples who have been radically transformed by the recently given Holy Spirit. This portrait – brief though it is – gives us a picture of what the people of God are supposed to look like. We were made to worship God and love each other.