Our story moves along.  Peter and John heal the lame beggar in Acts 3.  Peter preachs and they are quickly arrested.  Upon the release of Peter and John the church went to prayer (Acts 4:23-31).   What is it that they pray for?  “Look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.”  They were being arrested and opposed and they asked for boldness to continue to speak the word with boldness.

The role of the church is to speak the word of God with boldness.  God’s role is to do the signs and wonders that reveal his presence among us.  The church was focused on the mission.  It did not turn inward and lick its wounds.  It did not move to a survival mode.  The early church, under stiff opposition, was concerned about the spread of the kingdom of God, the mission.  Jesus last words to us before he ascended was to go and make disciples of all nations through baptism and instruction.  The early church did not lose sight of that commission.

It is at this point that Luke gives us another look at life in the early church.  Everyone was of the same mind.  A mind set on the mission of the church.  They were of one heart and soul.  There was unity in the church.  The question I pose at this point is there unity in the church today?  Do our local congregations experience unity?  The unity of the early church was around the Great Commission.  They had one focus.  The Christ story so caught them up that even their own safety took a back set to what they were called to.

This was not a naive unity.  They didn’t  think that all  would be well for them now that they were followers of Jesus.  Quite the contrary.  They knew the cost of discipleship, there leaders were being arrested and tried.  They faced the opposition head on, unity around a common enemy, and they prayed for boldness to carry on the mission of Jesus.  The cost of obedience to Christ drew them together.  Their servival rested upon their sharing their lives with one another.  Deep relationships develeoped because of their shared commitment to the work of christ.  “…no one said than any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common.”

This is not a discription of a small house church.  This is a discription of the whole church in Jerusalem at the time.  If the world is set against the church of Jesus Christ than it is set against the whole church of God and we must be willing to work with and share our resources with anyone who names the name of Christ.  We have the same mission and the same purpose.

The result was great power coming upon the apostles, the leaders of the community and great grace was upon them all.  Grace, unmerited favor.  Lutheran’s speak of grace often; it is the foundation our our faith.  We are saved by grace.  Luke tells us that as the early church came together they came under great grace; grace to carry out the mission.  Grace is a unifier.  If we understand that we have been saved by grace than we should, must, respond in grace to those around us.  Certainly with our fellow brothers and sisiters but also with those outside of the church.

The idea that freely we have received so freely we should give is seen clearly in this text in Acts 4:32ff.  Understanding what Christ had done for them they reach out to one another in love.  Understanding the pressure each one was under because of their faith they banded together as one people.

Too often the church is divided by race, class, ecconomics, location and who knows whatelse.  The reason these things are so important to us is because we have lost track of the mission.  We do not see the spreading of the kingdom as the think that unites us.  We do not see the world as the enemy of Christ.  Each congregation closes in on itself and seeks to build and independant congregation or moves into a survival mode.  The Gospel reading last Sunday was the Great Commission.  Jesus gave the church only one task from which all else springs; “Go into all the world and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to them to observe all that I have commanded you.”  Let us go forth together, united in mission, to fulfill the Lord’s command.