10/12/25 Sermon
Before we begin this morning, I want to take a personal moment to thank this church—to thank you.
Thank you for your love, your support, and your concern for me while I’ve Been trying to minister at Broadview. I know not everyone here agrees with me or with what I’m doing, and that’s okay. You don’t have to. But please know that I love you—whether you agree with me or not.
And I ask that you continue to love me too. I’m trying, as best I can, to live out the Gospel and the teachings of Christ as I understand them—to follow where I believe the Spirit is leading. I’m trying to err on the side of grace, to live into that grace as faithfully as I can, and to trust that even when we don’t all agree, God’s love still holds us together.
I also want you to know that I’m doing my best not to bring the church itself into the discourse. I’ve made it clear that I speak for myself alone as a member of the clergy, not on behalf of the congregation.
But again, thank you. Thank you for your prayers, your messages, your compassion, and your grace. That’s what a real community looks like. That’s what it means to live out the faith we talk about.
And that’s actually a good place to start today—because what we’re really talking about in our Scripture this morning is what happens when people come together in real community. Not just any community, but a faith community—one where the presence of God becomes visible through our shared life together.
In the Christian New Testament, we have the book of Acts. It’s meant to be an account of what the church looked like and what it did in its very earliest days.
Right before our passage today, there’s this incredible story of the Holy Spirit rushing through people from all different lands—different languages, different beliefs, different political allegiances. Somehow, through the Spirit, they could finally understand each other. You’ve probably heard about it… We call it Pentecost.
At its heart, that moment was both a protest and an affirmation. It was a protest against a world that divides and dehumanizes, and an affirmation that God has something better for us — something rooted in love, in belonging, and in transformation.
That moment gave birth to the church. And the passage we’re about to read tells us what that early community actually looked like—how they lived, what they valued, and how their shared life made God’s presence visible among them. So let us now listen to the book of Acts chapter 2: 42-47
The believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, to the community, to their shared meals, and to their prayers. A sense of awe came over everyone. God performed many wonders and signs through the apostles. All the believers were united and shared everything. They would sell pieces of property and possessions and distribute the proceeds to everyone who needed them. Every day, they met together in the temple and ate in their homes. They shared food with gladness and simplicity. They praised God and demonstrated God’s goodness to everyone. The Lord added daily to the community those who were being saved.
I love this passage because it gives us such a vivid picture of what happens when people really live in community with each other—when they live in what the New Testament calls koinonia.
Now, koinonia is one of those words that gets lost in translation. We usually see it printed in English as “community” or “fellowship,” but it’s so much deeper than that. Koinonia is when a community becomes like family. It’s when people are so bound to one another, so committed to one another’s wellbeing, that the very love of God becomes tangible among them.
The early church believed that you could actually feel and encounter God through that kind of community — through the koinonia. It wasn’t just about believing the same things or attending the same worship service. It was about seeing God revealed through one another.
It reminds me of something the Jewish theologian Martin Buber once wrote. He said that when we can see people for who they really are—not as labels or categories or political identities—but as whole persons, when we enter into that kind of mutual relationship, that relationship is God. Not just “of God,” but God dwelling right there between us.
That’s what koinonia looks like. It’s when we see one another not as “liberal” or “conservative,” not as “us” or “them,” but as precious children of God. It doesn’t erase our differences. It just refuses to let those differences define our worth. It says, “I see you as a person. I see you as beloved. And because of that, your life matters to me.”
And that’s not easy work. It’s one thing to talk about community—it’s another thing to live it out. Koinonia doesn’t happen just because we gather in the same space or belong to the same church. It happens when we choose, again and again, to make room for each other. It happens when we decide that the relationship matters more than being right. It happens when forgiveness becomes a habit, not an exception.
Koinonia asks us to slow down enough to listen to each other’s stories. To sit at the table with someone whose experiences we don’t fully understand. To celebrate when someone else is blessed. To mourn when someone else is hurting. It’s not transactional — it’s transformational. It changes us from the inside out.
In koinonia, your joy becomes my joy. Your sorrow becomes my sorrow. Your need becomes my concern. That’s why the early Christians sold their possessions and distributed to anyone who had need — it wasn’t about charity. It was about identity. They couldn’t imagine being part of the body of Christ while ignoring someone else’s hunger or loneliness. They understood that God’s love only becomes real when it is shared.
And that’s a word we need to hear today, because we live in a world that prizes independence above all else. We’re told that strength means doing it on our own, that asking for help is weakness, that community is optional. But koinonia turns that logic upside down. It says that strength is found in interdependence. It says that asking for help isn’t a failure — it’s faith. It’s trusting that God works through other people.
Sometimes we mistake community for convenience. We think of it as something we’ll participate in when it fits our schedule or when life slows down. But koinonia isn’t a hobby. It’s a calling. It’s a way of being in the world that says, “My life is bound up with yours. My salvation is dependent on your salvation. And I can’t be whole unless you’re whole too.”
That’s what the book of Acts is showing us. The people in that early church saw each other through the eyes of God. They didn’t look at one another from a human point of view but from a divine one. They were koinonia—a faith family who encountered God through one another.
And because they saw each other that way, they acted differently. They set aside their wants to make sure everyone’s needs were met. They pooled their resources so that no one went without. That’s what Luke means when he uses the word koinonia—a community so bound together that love became visible.
Their life together didn’t stop at the doors of the church either. It overflowed. They shared not only with one another, but with everyone they met. Everyone. And that “everyone” didn’t just mean the faithful—it meant the hungry, the lonely, the forgotten, the outcast.
In order to be faithful to God and to each other, they had to care about everyone. It wasn’t enough to build God’s kingdom in their own circle; they had to build it for the whole world.
And when they did that, they weren’t irrelevant—they became terribly relevant. The text says, “The Lord added daily to their number those who were being saved.” Not just spiritually saved, but really saved—fed, cared for, loved, and restored. Mind, body, and spirit.
The first church cared about human need. The first church cared about building a community that was different and better and loving and caring. And the first church understood that it was a community effort—not just the leadership, not just a select few—but that in order to be a koinonia, in order to be a deeply bonded and loving faith family, it took the work and responsibility of everyone coming together, sharing what they had to give. Not in service to the church, but in service to those who needed it most—in service to God’s kingdom and God’s precious children who were in need.
That’s what koinonia does. It opens our eyes. It moves us from “me” to “we.” It reminds us that our shared life together is how the Kingdom of God breaks into the world.
And that’s why this passage is such a good one to start our Stewardship season with.
Because stewardship isn’t just about money. It’s about koinonia. It’s about being the kind of community that makes God visible.
The early church practiced stewardship not because someone passed a pledge card or ran a campaign, but because they understood that their shared life was the Gospel. They knew that generosity was the natural outpouring of love. They knew that faith without community is just belief—but faith with community becomes transformation.
Stewardship is what happens when we start caring more about the needs of the many than the wants of the few. The early Christians didn’t all get what they wanted. They weren’t living in luxury. But they understood something we’re still learning today: that real joy comes from belonging, from sharing, from knowing that our gifts—whatever they are—are helping someone else find life.
When we talk about stewardship here at Highland Park Presbyterian Church, that’s what we mean. We’re talking about koinonia. We’re talking about how our giving—of time, of energy, of resources, of prayer—creates the kind of faith family where God can actually be felt.
And I want you to know that you already live that out so beautifully.
When you volunteer your time, when you show up for someone who’s struggling, when you sit down for coffee hour and share stories and laughter—that’s koinonia. When you give to support our ministries, when you offer your skills to make things happen, when you pray for the people around you—that’s koinonia.
The church becomes richer every time you show up.
Koinonia isn’t easy. It asks something of us. It calls us to live differently — to see one another as sacred, to give even when it costs something, to love even when it’s inconvenient. It pushes back against a world that tells us to look out for ourselves first.
That’s why stewardship matters. Because every pledge, every act of generosity, every choice to give — it’s a declaration of what kind of world we believe God is making through us.
And I want to thank you for the incredible stewardship you already show in this place.
Your giving has made HPPC what it is today — a strong, vibrant, loving community that touches lives you’ll never even know about. Your generosity makes our worship, our outreach, our pastoral care, our witness possible. It makes the Gospel visible in Highland Park.
But more than that — it makes koinonia visible.
Every act of generosity, every shared meal, every note of encouragement, every prayer, every check written, every Sunday morning handshake — it all adds up to something holy. It’s the Spirit of God knitting us together, reminding us that we belong to one another and to God.
So as you think about your pledges and your giving this stewardship season, remember: this isn’t about filling a budget line. It’s about building koinonia. It’s about being the kind of church where love is shared, needs are met, and God is encountered in the faces of one another.
Because when we live like that — when we devote ourselves to the apostles’ teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to the prayers — when we become koinonia — Acts tells us exactly what happens next:
“A sense of awe came over everyone. They praised God and demonstrated God’s goodness to everyone. And the Lord added daily to their number those who were being saved.”
That’s what happens when stewardship becomes love in action.
That’s what happens when community becomes family.
That’s what happens when koinonia becomes real.
Amen.
