Acts 5:11-16
So turn in your copy of God’s
word to Acts chapter five. We’re gonna stretch back one
verse into last week’s passage. Great fear came upon the whole
church. And we’re gonna pick up with verses 12 through 16
also. So make your way there. Before we read God’s word, let’s
one more time go to him in prayer, pray with me. Our God and Father,
we thank you that your word is a lamp to our feet, a light to
our path, that it shows us the way of salvation, the way of
worship, the way of life, the way of faith. And we know that
in our natural state, in our spiritual sloth even, we cannot
see, hear, believe, and do what you ask. So give us eyes that
see now, ears that hear. Give us hearts that perceive
your word to be true. and binding to our lives. We
pray that we would leave here with hands and feet willing to
serve you. Pray that you’d comfort and build
up your saints and convince and convert sinners. And we ask all
this in the name of Christ. Amen. All right. So back to verse
11 in chapter five, it says, and great fear came upon the
whole church and upon all who heard of these things. Now, many
signs and wonders were regularly done among the people by the
hands of the apostles, and they were all together in Solomon’s
portico. None of the rest dared to join
them, but the people held them in high esteem. And more than
ever, believers were added to the Lord, multitudes of both
men and women, so that they even carried out the sick into the
streets and laid them on cots and mats, that as Peter came
by, at least his shadow might fall on some of them. The people
also gathered from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing the
sick and those afflicted with unclear spirits, and they were
all healed. Amen. The word of living God
for us. So a couple days ago, a week or so ago, I went into,
I think it was Walgreens, and I saw a rack of books and caught
my eye. It was rather interesting. And
it was a rack of books of the history of Alamance County, maybe. History of Burlington, you could
get one. Maybe Saxpahaw, Gibsonville, you know, all the surrounding
little towns and villages. These little burgundy books with
black and white pictures. And you could buy copies of these
and flip through them and get a snapshot of what life was like
throughout the history. Maybe some of you’ve traveled
around the world and you’ve been to some old places. you know, that
date back to B.C. or maybe early A.D., something
like that. Well, you know, bigger, better
Burlington, what does it date back to? Like 1875 or something
like that. Not too old. So no big deal. But in these books, mostly black
and white pictures, you get snapshots. You get glimpses of what life
was like in Burlington, or company shops as it was called. And generally
in these books, you know, they’ve only got 70-80 pages, they will
put The important stuff, right? They’ll put the big stuff, unless
they just don’t have a picture of it and they’ll stick in there
what they got, which probably is sometimes the case, but they
put the big significant items of interest. Who are the industries? Who are the wealthy? What churches
were founded? What industries came up? That
sort of thing. Luke is our gospel writer. And
if he were writing today with pictures and whatever, maybe
we would have these little books. Life in the church in Jerusalem. Life in the church in Judea.
Life in the church in Samaria. Life in the church to the remotest
ends. Well, we don’t have a book of
pictures, but we have a book of description. And Luke is very
careful. He’s a medical doctor, remember,
very specific, a good historian. He is giving to us snapshots
into the life of the work of the apostles serving the risen
Christ in the early church. He’s putting these snapshots
into words, and he’s so far been very specific, so far been very
detailed. But we get a little broad stroke
in this little section of chapter five that’s Maybe hitting on
the high marks, not specific, not naming names necessarily,
but it gives us a glimpse of life in the early church in the
early days. Now, remember so far in Acts,
what he has described to us is that the followers of Jesus,
after Jesus’ death and resurrection, they were with him for 40 days
in Jerusalem in the upper room. He was teaching them. He was
preparing them. He was, maybe to use a modern
day phrase, he was coaching them on how to build his church on
earth when he once he ascended and left for heaven. And so Luke
continues his story to Theophilus. Remember, he wrote the book of
Luke to Theophilus to write an orderly account of all that Jesus
said and did. And now he’s writing an orderly
account to Theophilus of all that Jesus’ apostles said and
did. So these followers of Christ
are filled with the Holy Spirit. They’re sent by Jesus into the
world. They’re still in Jerusalem, which
at this point in time is a packed city. It is loaded with pilgrims
from around that part of the world who came to worship. And
there’s quite a buzz going on through the city of Jerusalem.
And what do you think that buzz would be? Well, it’s news of
Ananias and Sapphira’s sudden execution by God in the midst
of the church. And the word on the street is,
These Christians, these people worshiping in Solomon’s portico,
whoever they are, they have a God. And that God, to quote Lucy from
the Chronicles of Narnia, is not safe. In fact, he is the
Holy One of Israel. He is the God of the universe.
And if one wants to enter into the presence of Almighty God,
he must come in reverence and awe. And so, The first thing
we want to think about from this passage today is, well, we want
to think about three of the descriptions of life in the early church,
three of the snapshots. The first one is great fear. It says that
great fear fell upon the church. It fell upon all who heard of
these things. And so the report of the death, the judgment of
God on Ananias and Sapphira, it is spread throughout the early
church, for sure, but it has spread throughout the community.
When I was a seminary student, we were, as seniors, given a
class on how to candidate. Candidate is kind of the funny
word for looking for a preaching job. So we went through this
class on candidating, and we were taught at the time by older
men who had Many of them started their ministry in the 50s. And
so they were a little more old school. It wasn’t about what
internet portal you got onto and how you electronically sent
your resume out and all that. These guys had typewritten theirs
probably and mailed it by US Mail. But anyway, one of the
things they said, when you are gonna look at a church to be
their minister, you ought to go out in the community and ask
about that church’s reputation. Go to the local funeral home.
What do you think of that church? Asked the funeral director. What
do you think of the preacher who was there before? What do
you hear about the people? In this church’s case, you would
have gone to Rego Mart. What do you think about the church
behind you? What church? They’re so busy selling lottery tickets.
You might have knocked on these doors around here. I didn’t do
all this. I knew people here, so I was good to go. But you
might knock on the doors. What do you think of the church?
Do they keep up their yard? Is there a strange smell coming
out of the building at Saturday night that’s not barbecue or
something? You know, are they secret Satanists or something?
Who knows? You get the point. You ask about the reputation.
What if the reputation of the church is they fear God? They believe their God is holy
and awesome and to be feared and revered and adored. How do you instill fear into
people? Well, one way to do that is the story of Ananias and Sapphira. Remember, they held back part
of what they told. Hey, we’re going to sell this
piece of land. We’re going to give the whole thing to the church. Well, they
kept enough for Sapphira to go on a little shopping spree and
maybe him to get a boat or something. But they came to church and said,
here it is, the whole thing. We want to be like Barnabas. Peter
says, why did you lie to the Holy Spirit? Why did you keep
back? Or remember the embezzle word? Why did you keep back? Lie to the Holy Spirit. God struck
him dead. Then his wife shows up about
three hours later. Did you give such and such to the church?
Oh, yes. We’re so generous. We can’t wait to get our plaque
on the wall and be in the hill climbers club and all that. She’s
struck dead. They’re both hauled out and buried.
And so great fear struck out among the people of Jerusalem,
but also the church. Think of tactics used to instill
fear. When I was in high school and
it was prom week, You know, they brought in a crashed car and
some dummies and put the blood all over the place. You know,
somebody hanging out the windshield. And this is what happens if you
drink and drive on prom night. Well, do you think that instilled
fear in very many of the kids down the road at the school I
went to? No, no. There was still the mason jars
and the flask and all the rest going around. It didn’t instill
much fear, but it was meant to say, hey, this is what can happen
to you. What can instill fear in a church about who God is? And God willing, it doesn’t take
an execution, right, or two. But what about the songs we sing,
the words we read, the sermons we preach, the attitude we have
in worship? Today, we’re very informal in
here, right? We’re in the fellowship hall.
We’ve got our coffee cups. I mean, just look at me, so dressed
down. I’m not wearing my robe. The
pulpit’s not elevated. We’re not in the the room with
all the reverence and all the high ceiling. That’s one helpful
thing, right, isn’t it? To have a sanctuary, a special
place. It’s helpful to have a certain
attire we wear in that sanctuary, a certain behavior that we have
in that sanctuary. It’s helpful to read things with
reverence. It’s helpful to stand when we
sing or to sit or to kneel or to have all these postures of
faith, but what can bring great fear of God into our midst? How
can we come to understand the weightiness, the thickness, the
heaviness of the holiness of God? Well, I think one way to
remember is to think of the cross and to think about how our sin
took Christ there. How at the cross, when Jesus
had all our sins placed on his shoulders, the wrath of God,
the weight of God, the heaviness of God fell upon Jesus completely. That’s one way that we can do
that, not just in our church behavior, our church architecture,
but remembering the cross and what it took to take away God’s
wrath. So there was great fear that
fell upon the church, but it also fell upon the surrounding
community. So it’s one thing for the church
to sense the weightiness of God. It’s another thing, though, for
the surrounding community. Did you catch what it said? No
one dared to join them. You know, we’re in a day and
an age, a time where we want as many people as we can get
into the church. And what have we done in order
to do that? We’ve watered down the gospel. We’ve watered down
church. It’s really turned into a concert
and a show and a fun event. We’ve circused up the church
where there’s something for everybody under one big tent, except one
thing is missing. Worship and reverence and the
radical revelation of God through a simple reverent service of
worship. Back in the day of the early
church, it says, no one dared join them. Everybody knew this
group gathered in Solomon’s colonnade at the temple. These are a separate
people. These are a called out people. These are a people who
have a border around them. And remember, that’s the way
it’s always been. Remember when God called Abram
out of Ur of the Chaldeans, stop worshiping idols. move to the
land of promise, build there an altar and worship me. Abraham was living surrounded
by Canaanites, but what did he do? He worshiped the one true
living God. They did their Canaanite thing,
their Philistine thing. They did their Sodom and Gomorrah
thing. They did all the things that
they did, these nations that were in the promised land until
God ran them out later under Joshua and David and others.
But there was Abraham, Contra, Munda, right, against the world,
worshiping Yahweh. And that’s the sense that these
people in Jerusalem get of the early Christians, and no one
dared join them. There’s another little phrase,
though. They held them in high esteem.
They held them in high esteem. They respected them. Are Christians
very well respected today? Well, not when we have that old
guy. I think he’s dead now, but he would go to all the funerals
of soldiers that would come back from overseas dead. He would
protest with those signs that said really vile things about
people and all the rest. We don’t get a good reputation
there. What do people say about the churches? Oh, it’s a bunch
of hypocrites. Churches do goofy things that
bring shame to the name of Christ, but not so this church. They
were well respected in Jerusalem. People held them in high esteem,
but no one dared join them. And so there was great fear.
The other thing we see, another snapshot, is signs and wonders. Signs and wonders. Now think
about the early church. They were with Christ. They saw him crucified. They
saw him in the grave. They saw him raised from the
dead. And remember those 40 days they were with him in the upper
room. He taught them how to, how to do church, how to, how
to, how to bring the name of Christ to the ends of the earth.
And they have these prayer meetings. They pray and they say, Lord,
give us the strength to preach your word. Give us the strength
to tell the good news of Jesus. Give us the strength to, touch
people’s lives in a meaningful way. Give us the strength to
heal, to take back what the fall has broken in human bodies. And
so throughout the book of Acts, you’re going to see miracles.
There’s going to be lame people that walk. There’s going to be
blind people that see. Peter and John are going to get
out of prison by the angels opening the doors. Paul is going to be
warned in a dream to leave a city and go to another. On and on
throughout the book of Acts, you’re going to see Miracles. You’re going to see signs and
wonders. And why is it that these things
take place? Well, remember that Luke wrote
the Gospel of Luke to show all Jesus did. Now he’s showing all
that the apostles did, serving in Jesus’ stead. Jesus has ascended
to heaven, given the apostles all authority and power in heaven
and earth. to do his continuing work on earth. Jesus is on the
throne of glory, high priestly ministry, but the apostles are
down here at work on Jesus’ behalf and they are in an uphill battle,
right? They’re doing ministry, they’re
building a church against odds. The world is against them, the
devil’s against them, and even their own weak flesh is against
them at times. And yet they carry the presence,
the name of Jesus Christ to the ends of the earth. The divine
is at work. And in chapter four, verse 30,
we have a description of a prayer meeting. And what did they pray
for in chapter four, verse 30? They said, Lord, look upon the
threats from the church officials, the Jewish officials, that is,
look upon the threats and grant 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. And so this is an answer to their
prayers, the signs and the wonders. And it’s not just a miracle here
and there. This is many miracles, many signs,
many wonders. Now remember, Jesus shows the
authenticity of his servants through signs and wonders. Remember
when he told Moses, go to Pharaoh and say to Pharaoh, let my people
go. And what does Moses say? I’m not very eloquent. Why should
Moses, or why should Pharaoh let his people go? And God says,
I’m going to give you the words to say, did I not make your mouth?
I’ll help you speak, but take your staff, toss it down. It
becomes a snake, pick it back up. And then he gave them the
plagues, the blood, the mosquitoes, the locusts, the finally the
death of every firstborn, except for those who put the blood over
their post. And you can go through the, the
prophets, Elijah, Elisha. You can go through the life and
ministry of Jesus, life and ministry of the apostles. God gave them
signs and wonders to accompany the ministry of the word that
people might see their works and know that it is, what we
say sometimes, it’s a God thing, right? It’s a divine activity. Now, these things don’t exist
any longer. We believe the apostolic age has ended. There are people
who say, I’m a prophet. They’re not. People will say
I’m an apostle. They’re not. People will say I can heal. They
can’t. What’s the ministry of the church
now? It’s the word read and preached. It’s the sacraments. It’s a prophetic
ministry. But we don’t have faith healing
services and all the rest. There are some that believe they
do. And the Benny Hens of this world have gotten fat and rich
off of that. But it’s not Christ, right? but signs and wonders
authenticated and showed that in and through and by the power
of Jesus, God was active on the earth, letting the name of Christ
be made famous. And so there’s great fear. That’s
one of the snapshots. There’s signs and wonders. The
second snapshot, the third snapshot, I think is the one we ought to
really land our hearts and minds on. It’s believers. were added
to the church. One of the things you’ll see,
and we’re going to get into this more and more in the book of
Acts as we make our way through, one of the things you’re going
to see is that when the word of God is read and preached through
the apostles and then continuing in through the church even to
this day, when the word of God is read and preached and the
spirit attends to that ministry of the word, God himself is speaking. And God himself is speaking into
dead lives and calling them forth from the grave. He’s giving new
life. He’s doing powerful and mighty
and wonderful things. You know, we live in a time that
is, how should we put it, socially sensitive, right? You don’t know
what you can say anymore. And you don’t know what you can
say anymore and to whom you can say it. It’s just a sticky time. One of the things that can be
said about Christians, and it’s right here in little old chapter
five of the book of Acts, is that Christians go anywhere and
they go to everyone. And there’s a little thing you
ought to see at the end here, in this last little point, believers
were added. It’s that believers were added,
not just in Jerusalem, but the beginnings of the nations coming
to the church are here. It says, at the end of our passage,
it says, the people also gathered from the towns around Jerusalem,
bringing the sick. bringing those afflicted with
unclean spirits and they were all healed. And so remember Jesus
told his disciples, you’re going to go to Jerusalem and just stay
there the rest of your life. No, you’re going to go to Jerusalem.
You’re going to carry the gospel to Judea and you’re going to
go from Judea to Samaria. Remember, they don’t like Samaritans.
Remember that? And then you’re going to go from
there to the ends of the earth. Well, guess what is now happening before
our eyes in Jerusalem, The gospel is now going to the surrounding
cities because they’re coming in. They’ve heard, they’ve heard
and they’ve come to even have the shadow of Peter touch them
and make them well. But also notice the church will
go anywhere. The church will go to anyone.
It says that many or multitudes, how does it put it? Verse 14,
more than ever, believers were added to the Lord Multitudes
of both men and women. Remember, we’re talking about
a very patriarchal culture here, not just in the Jewish context,
but even in the Greek, the Roman context. The gospel includes
all nations and all peoples. It includes male and female. And what a wonderful thing to
read that believers were added in multitudes. The word of God
went into hearts. The gospel has no boundaries.
It opens eyes, it unstops ears, it softens hearts. And God is
at work, not only in Jerusalem, but now working into Judea by
those nations coming into Jerusalem and hearing and receiving grace. On Sunday nights, our family
watches, is it Masterpiece, All Creatures Great and Small? And
you know, you have the little commercial before the show, last
time on Masterpiece, and it tells you what happened with James
Herriot and, you know, did he fall in love with Helen or whatever?
You know, did the cow get born? So then you watch the show and
then it says, next time on Masterpiece. Well, last week after Ananias
and Sapphira, you could have had a Next time on Masterpiece,
will the church make it? Is anybody even gonna come? I
mean, God, after all, executes Ananias and Sapphira for, oh,
just a little infraction. They just kept a little money
back. Doesn’t God own the cattle on a thousand hills? Did he need
their money? You know, God, you’ve really
messed up the church here. That’s what we would say in America.
This judgment business is not popular. This judgment business
is not gonna grow churches. This judgment business is not
the way to do ministry, God. It’s too much. You’ve run everybody
off. And that’s what we would say
in the American church. Quit singing hymns, because they’re
too old. Quit saying creeds, because they’re meaningless.
Quit having a confession of sin, because you don’t want to tell
people they’re sinners, because that’s a real downer. Quit having the
Lord’s Supper, because that’s about body and blood. and sacrifice,
and well, we’re just not into that anymore. Quit dressing up
for church, it’s too formal. Just quit all that business.
That’s what we’ve gone through in the last 50, 60, 70 years
of American church, and we’ve cut out everything. But what
do we see here? When we keep our boundaries,
and when we let God do his work of judgment and of blessing,
what happens to the church? It keeps growing. conversation
the elders had this week is that isn’t it interesting how our
church keeps growing the more simple we make it. We take away
all the bills. We take away all the whistles.
We get rid of the, you know, we take away the committees and
all the opportunities for fussing. And we say, we’re just going
to have worship. We’re just going to have preaching. We’re just
going to sing Bible hymns and Psalms. We’re just going to try
to encourage each other to grow in grace. And we’re not going
to have a roof committee and a gutter committee and a Grass
committee and a women’s this and a men’s that and a teenagers
this and whatever We’re just gonna have simple church right
now. And isn’t it amazing to see it’s grown It’s what people
are looking for. It’s what they’re longing for
the circus is Not what’s needed. There’s another interesting thing
to think about here. Remember the officials told Peter
that And his little companion, after they healed the man, remember
they took the man by the hand and pulled him up and he was
walking and leaping in the temple and he was praising God. And
they said, don’t you preach Jesus and mention his name or heal
in his name ever again, or we’re going to kill you. Remember that?
Well, what are they doing? They’re preaching and healing
in the entire city. And you can imagine the officials
who’ve told them to hush are going to be angry and upset.
Yep. We’ll see that in the next chapter when we get to it. or
the next verses. But here’s the encouragement
we need here. We need to carry on as the church of Jesus. We
have the same marching orders as the apostles. Our job is to
lift high the cross and to lift it high in a world that doesn’t
love Jesus, hates Jesus, doesn’t love God, doesn’t affirm Him,
wants to say He doesn’t exist. But our job is to lift high the
cross by having church, preaching the word, and just doing the
basics. And guess what? God can give
us results. We may not be in an apostolic
time where God is building the church, but we read about revivals,
don’t we? We read about awakenings, and
oh, we think we have to have numbers, we have to be Billy
Graham, but guess what? Little by little, one by one,
as God gathers men and women and boys and girls to his church
by faith, we’re succeeding in the Great Commission. So take
encouragement from these things. Let’s pray together. Lord, bless
these your words to us, these snapshots of the kingdom, the
fear, the signs and the wonders and the adding of believers.
Lord, help us never to despise the day of small things like
a small service of worship on a snowy day as today or even
to despise little growth, little signs of faith from the world. But let us, day by day, venture
on, press on, knowing that as we lift high the cross, you will
add to your numbers. We pray your blessings on us
now, in the name of Christ, amen.