Just the other day I saw an advertisement which was marketed to women (and I think that women today have become very susceptible to this marketing ploy in particular) and this ad was declaring that yes, women, you can have it all. I’m not sure what they were selling, but I understood the message they were conveying very well. When I saw that ad I couldn’t help but think that Christians are especially vulnerable to this type of thinking as well. The idea that somehow being a Christian will bring about both spiritual and physical blessing in my life, and so I can have the best of both worlds. I can have the best of heaven, and the best of this world. Even as a pastor, I find myself falling victim to this type of expectation.

But I am here to tell you today that while there is definitely a physical as well as spiritual blessing that comes from being born again, at the same time there is a real cost to being a disciple of Christ.   Paul said in Phil.3:7, that “whatever things were gain to me, I have counted as loss for the sake of knowing Christ.”

He goes on to say in the next verse; “More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.”

Now of course Paul was the same as Saul who we looked last week as we studied his conversion on the road to Damascus. His conversion meant that he left all that he was as a Pharisee, a member of the Sanhedrin, his position of authority in Judaism and his station in Jewish society. Once he realized who it was he was persecuting, none other than the Messiah, the Son of God, he gladly left it all to serve Christ.

The church that Saul had been persecuting had counted the cost of being disciples as well. The whole reason that they ended up in Damascus and Lydda and Joppa and such places was because Saul had hunted them like animals. Many of them had left their jobs, their homes, and their families and fled to these cities to escape the persecution which had started in Jerusalem, and then continued to follow them to other regions. It’s important to realize that the early church counted the cost of following Christ and many paid dearly for that decision.

But an unusual thing happened as a result of Saul being converted. Suddenly, the major enemy of the church had been converted to it’s greatest ally. Saul had been the authority of the Sanhedrin who had been hunting these early converts. So when he became a Christian, there suddenly was a peace that enveloped the church from a lack of organized persecution.

And there is another thing which is helpful to realize. The emperor of Rome at that time was a horrible ruler by the name of Caligula. Right about the same time that Saul was converted, Caligula decided that he would put his statue in the temple at Jerusalem. After all, the Romans believed that the emperor was to be worshipped as deity. And so he decided to set up his statue in the Jewish temple which would have effectively desecrated the temple. To make sure this happened, he sent an army to Jerusalem with orders to kill or enslave anyone that opposed his orders.

Ultimately, Caligula did not achieve his goal of erecting his statue in the temple. Josephus records that Herod was able to dissuade Caligula from going through with that plan. But not without throwing all of Judaism into an uproar. If his plan had gone through he whole system of Judaism would have been desecrated, and consequently the power base of the Sanhedrin and the priesthood would have been overthrown. And so there was quite some time there when the Jewish religious leaders were too busy with Rome to worry about the Christians. So there ensued a period of peace in which the church now found itself after much persecution.

Now that is the context which we come to in our text today. And we are going to be looking particularly at vs. 31 which describes what the church did during this time of peace. The remainder of the chapter which we read is really just illustrations of what is described in vs.31. But to start with, I want to spend some time looking at this very important text in vs. 31, and to help us understand it better, I am going to read it again, but this time using the NKJV which I think employs some better word choices.

“Then the churches throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria had peace and were edified. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, they were multiplied.” This verse is really a key verse in all of Acts that we have studied thus far. It is like a vantage point on a mountain path where you are able to stop and rest for a while and survey the vista that falls away behind you. And as such, it sets forth some important doctrine in regards to the church that we need to look closely at if we are going to replicate the pattern of the first church of the apostles. It really gives us a simple outline for success in the church, not according to what society might deem success, but according to the Lord’s template for success as evidenced by the first church.

Someone was asking me the other day if I had other pastors that I could talk to and fellowship with. And I told him that though I really desired such fellowship, I rarely am able to enjoy it, because I do not share many of the accoutrements of what is considered to constitute church today. I don’t have a permanent building. I don’t have any paid staff. And there are several other things that seem to be lacking from what is considered “church” that seem to set me apart from other pastors which serve to inhibit developing that kind of fellowship.

But I find myself encouraged in our study of Acts as we look at the churches that are pictured there, because I feel that our church more closely resembles their pattern than what is commonly considered church today. These early churches met outside, or in homes. They had little external signs of organization, and yet according to scripture, they were successful, vital, living temples of God that operated in the power of the Spirit. And so I find comfort in that association.

So we’re going to see in this verse an outline of God’s plan for a successful church. First of all, notice that the verse starts out by saying that they enjoyed peace. I’ve already explained how that happened on a physical level, by the conversion of Saul and the aggression of Rome against the temple. When Saul is taken off the scene there is no one hunting the church anymore. They are able to meet openly in relative peace. And since the Jews are busy defending their own religion against the Romans, the church is able to continue to enjoy that peace for some time.

But there is another type of peace that needs to be understood that is more important than any sort of physical rest or the cessation of hostilities. And that is the peace that can be had with God. Without knowing Christ, you cannot have peace with God. Last week I talked about Saul being an enemy of the church, and by extension an enemy of God, and how we all as well are considered enemies of God in our natural condition. But conversion means that we are made friends of God. Just like Saul was an enemy of God until he met Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus and then he became a friend of the church and a son of God, so we that were once considered enemies now have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Rom. 5:1 says, “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” What that is talking about is that Jesus paid for our sins on the cross. He took on Himself the penalty that was due us, and died in our place, that we might be made righteous through His blood. We are justified by faith in what Christ did for us on the cross. This is what conversion means. This is what it means to be born again. To call upon the name of the Lord Jesus for the remission of your sins, and by faith in Him, as the Son of God, receiving the adoption as sons of God as a free gift.

When this happens in your life you automatically are born into the church. You don’t have to be baptized or circumcised or be voted in or anything but be born again and you become part of Christ’s body. Baptism does follow salvation, but each in it’s order. We are justified by faith alone and are made part of Christ’s church by birth.

So as a result of salvation there is a peace that passes all understanding. There is peace with God that is better than world peace. There is a peace with God that is better than the absence of wars. In fact, as a Christian, even in persecution, even in wartime, we can be at peace because we know that we belong to God, and God has promised that He will never leave us or forsake us, and has promised us resurrection from the dead into eternal life with Him.

But oftentimes physical peace can be a mixed blessing. Times of peace tend to be dangerous to the church. It is easy at those times to be lulled into a sense of complacency. We have to guard against abusing whatever peace God gives by idleness or serving ourselves, but use that time wisely to do the work of the kingdom. I’m afraid that the relative time of peace that the church has enjoyed in America has only served to make it indolent and lazy, so that we are glutted on the fatness of the church to our ruin, rather than using that time to be employed in service to it.

But not so in the first churches. They were industrious in this time of peace, so that it became a productive time for the church, rather than a time where they thought they might relax now that hostilities were ended. You know, I have nothing against vacations or taking time for a sabbatical. It can be very beneficial. However, I am dismayed to see Christians often only become zealous for the things of God when they are in a crisis. And then as soon as the heat lets up, they start to drift away. They use that time of peace to serve themselves and basically reward themselves, often at the expense of the church or the things of God. Consequently, a lot of Christians live in a see saw state, going from crisis to crisis, interspersed with periods of self indulgence and never grow into maturity and bear fruit.

So the first characteristic of these successful churches was that they used this time of peace for the good of the kingdom. They showed their love for God and their gratitude for His providence by responding in this time of peace with greater industriousness for the things of God.

The second characteristic is described in the next phrase; being edified. Edified is a Bible word. And some think that we should avoid Bible words. I don’t subscribe to that view, obviously. If God said it, I think we should learn what it means and use it. But simply put, edified means to build up. The church was built up. It was strengthened, it matured. It grew up, if you will. Man, if there was ever a day when the church needs to grow up, it is this day and age.

We’re going to look more fully at Ephesians 4 in a moment, but for now look at vs.14. “As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ.”

Edification then comes as a result of learning sound doctrine so that we are not deceived by every false doctrine, but grow up into maturity in Christ.   Now how is that maturity as a result of sound doctrine accomplished in a practical way? Back up in Eph. 4 to vs. 11 and we see how Christ has gifted his church with pastors/teachers who will teach the church, equipping them for service. Eph. 4:11-13 “And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up/edification of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.”

The gifts Christ has given to edify the church are first of all a firm foundation in the apostle’s doctrine. This is nothing less than the scriptures of the New Testament. The apostles were given the words of Christ and wrote them down through the agency of the Holy Spirit for our edification. You cannot be built up in your faith without a firm foundation of the Word of God. Our faith is not founded upon experiences or feelings, but on the promises written in Christ’s blood.

And then Christ gave to the church pastors/teachers, that’s really one office, not two, who teach the word to the church in order to equip them to do what? The work of service, for the edification of the body of Christ. Folks, one of the faults with the modern church today is the attitude of consumerism that pervades it’s congregations. The attitude that somehow there is this great divide between the clergy and the congregation. And so the congregation just shows up, gets a spoonful of something resembling baby food stuck in their upturned mouths and then off they go back to the world for another 6 ½ days. But that is not the way God designed the church. Peter says in 1Pet. 2:5 that God deigned the church to be constituted by members who are “living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” The work of ministry is to be performed by the saints in the church.

So edification then results in mature Christians who are equipped through sound doctrine and teaching so that they might be the instruments by which God builds the church, to offer up spiritual sacrifices. They are the church, not just going to church.

And how is this done, practically speaking? Well, as you are taught the word of God, you then walk the word of God. To walk means to live it out. And that is the next point of our text; “walking in the fear of the Lord.” I’ve mentioned the fear of the Lord in a lot of sermons lately. But what I want to make sure is not missed is the word “walking.” It means to live out in day to day life what you have been taught. I believe this is the greatest disconnect between the church and the watching world today. The church is far too often rightly accused by the world of being hypocrites. We claim the power of God to deliver, and yet we live as if we are still in captivity to sin. We claim that Jesus is able to save, and yet we seem powerless to be able to live godly lives. The fact is, I cannot believe that many people who profess to be Christians are indeed born again. They obviously have not died to the old man, to be raised to new life. That is how the scripture defines being born again. But some seem to have not died to anything. But like the example I made at the beginning, they think that Christianity is a means of great gain, that they can gain the world and gain heaven as well. But that is not the doctrine of Christ who said, “take up your cross and follow Me.” We must die to sin, if we are to live with Christ. We must repent of our sin and call upon God to remake us, to give us a new heart, and new desires. When that happens, old things will then pass away, and all things become new.

We must walk in the fear of the Lord. If I am a child of God and walk contrary to His commands, then I must expect that He will chasten me. Heb 12:6-8 “FOR THOSE WHOM THE LORD LOVES HE DISCIPLINES, AND HE SCOURGES EVERY SON WHOM HE RECEIVES. It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.” But we aren’t supposed to remain children, remember? We are to grow up into maturity, after the example of Christ. So then what do we do? We do like Christ, we do all things to please the Father. We do His will. We don’t do anything that He would be displeased with.   As mature Christians, our fear of the Lord is not of being punished, but of disappointing Him, or displeasing Him, or bringing shame upon His name. And that becomes our motivation.

When I was a child I feared the paddle of my dad when I did wrong. But when I became older I feared the shame that I might bring upon him. So it is with God, I love Him, and I know He loves me, and yet I reverence Him so much that I dare do nothing to displease Him or bring shame upon His name.

I’m afraid the church today in many circles cares nothing about pleasing the Lord. The consumer mentality is all about the Lord pleasing me, and pleasing myself. I’m not suggesting that we all go join a monastery and wear long robes and take vows of silence. On the contrary, I am suggesting that we all walk in this world circumspectly, reverently, living holy lives that will be a testimony to the watching world and not bring shame upon the cause of Christ.

And we do that by the power of the Holy Spirit. That brings us to the next phrase in our text, “and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit.” Walking in or by the comfort of the Holy Spirit. Comfort may give the wrong idea, it is not speaking of cushions, but the prodding or encouragement of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit urges us on. Comfort is translated from the Greek word paraklēsis, which means to come alongside. As we are taught the word and apply the word in the fear of the Lord, then the Holy Spirit comes alongside of us to help us, to encourage us, convict us, prod us, as He sees fit.

We have comfort in the Holy Spirit because we know that we have the power of the Holy Spirit to enable us to do whatever God tells us to do. That is the way we are able to walk in the fear of the Lord. We can walk according to God’s commands because He has given us the Helper, to strengthen us, to empower us, and equip us with the gifts of the Spirit. That is our comfort, our encouragement, that whatever God has called us to do, He will empower us to do if we but yield to Him to walk in the power of the Spirit.   It’s not talking about some mystical euphoric or ecstatic feeling that may come and go, but it’s talking about the steady help of the Holy Spirit as we yield to His urging, to do whatever it is that God desires us to do.

Now when we are at peace with God, employing ourselves in that peace to be about the things of God, when we are edified by the teaching of the word of God, when we are walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort and strength of the Holy Spirit, then the church will be multiplied. The last point of our text; multiplied. This is the pattern for church growth. It is not necessarily in some program, or some church ministry, but it is one person at a time becoming built up, and living out what they believe through the power of the Holy Spirit, and that testimony multiplying to bring about the conversion of another person. I’ve said it many times before in various ways, but the testimony of a transformed life is the greatest witness of the gospel of all.

We are testaments to His grace. This is the answer to the rhetorical question I asked last week, which was why does God choose frail and failing men to be His ministers? Why not let angels write upon the sky in flaming letters the merits of His gospel? And the answer is that angels have never been redeemed. We have known the depths of depravity, having been enslaved to sin, and now we have been supernaturally exalted to become sons of God by the graciousness of God and the atonement of Jesus Christ. That transformation is what makes us much better witnesses of His grace than angels could ever be. If God can save a wretch like me and make me a minister of His kingdom, then there is hope for anyone.

Now then in closing I will just mention the two miracles that the author Luke includes in this passage by way of illustration of this power of a transformed life. In the first example, a man laid paralyzed for eight years in his bed. And the Apostle Peter comes by him and calls out to him, “’Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you; get up and make your bed.’ Immediately he got up.   And all who lived at Lydda and Sharon saw him, and they turned to the Lord.”

This miracle simply illustrates what we have been discussing. The power of God to make a man that could not walk, walk once again, became the testimony of a transformed life that turned everyone who lived in the towns of Lydda and Sharon to the Lord. Don’t get so enamored at the thought of a miracle that you miss the greater miracle represented here. God is able to make Christians to walk in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort and strength of the Holy Spirit, so that He might cause many people to come to the Lord. That is the power of a transformed life. The miracle of my salvation and your salvation is to make us walk in newness of life, and those who see that transformation as old things pass away and all things become new are encouraged to come to Christ themselves.

And the second miracle illustrates pretty much the same thing. Peter is called to the house of a believing woman that had died. And Peter goes there, perhaps not knowing how God might use him, but being willing to be used, he was available. Such an important principle by the way. That we might just be available and show up when we are called. Don’t let the devil convince you that you have nothing to offer to the service of the church. If God can use 2 fishes to feed 5000 then He can use you in His service if you will just make yourself available.

So after Peter arrived, he put everyone out of the room, and prayed, and said, “Tabitha arise.” And she arose and Peter presented her alive. Once again a mighty miracle authenticating the doctrine of the apostles. But I think the point that Luke is making again is the power of God to transform a life. To take what is dead and make it alive. That is what happens in conversion, is it not? We who were dead in our trespasses and sins have been made alive unto Christ. And what is the result of this conversion? The testimony of this woman’s new life caused many to believe in the Lord.

You may say, well do we have the power to raise the dead or heal people? No, and neither did Peter. God has the power to heal and raise the dead. But we need to realize that Peter was not sent to every home in Israel where someone died. God used this miracle to illustrate the power of God to save. Which is the greater miracle? To raise a person to life again only to have them die once more in a few years time, or to raise a person to life again so that they may never die? I would say the greater miracle is the miracle of salvation. And that miracle is available for you today if you have never received it. Simply call out to God in repentance and faith in Christ that you might be born again. Whoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

And then Christian, if you have experienced that miracle of salvation, you’ve been transformed from death to life, then you need to walk in the fear of the Lord and the power of the Holy Spirit that you might multiply that salvation to others. You do that by submitting yourself to the preaching of the word by a Bible teaching pastor, and be edified, built up in maturity, doing the your work of service as a part of the local body, walking in the fear of the Lord and in the power of the Holy Spirit, and in so doing make disciples. Multiply yourself over and over again, by the testimony of the supernatural transformation of your life.

Acts is an account of the birth of the church. God called out a people who would be the body of Christ by great power and signs and wonders. In Acts we see something of a New Testament parallel to the Israelites coming out of Egypt by great signs and wonders of Moses. And in yet another parallel, we also see that the devil attacks the congregation of the Lord in various ways, through persecution, and through corruption from within.

So as the church is growing mightily, there is also strategic attacks on the church from without and within. We saw that played out with Ananias and Sapphira back in chapter 5, as they lied to the Holy Spirit. Their sin was a deadly leaven that threatened to corrupt the church from within that had to be dealt with severely in order to preserve the sanctity of the congregation.

But Satan is a clever and deadly adversary. He like any good general, marshals his forces to attack on several fronts simultaneously. So almost immediately after Ananias and Sapphira were dealt with, Peter and John are arrested and beaten and imprisoned. But that too fails to hinder the proclamation of the gospel. In fact it only serves to embolden and empower the apostles to do more. So Satan enlists his forces from the religious realm to arrest Stephen, one of the seven young men who had been recently appointed as one of the leaders in the church. And as we saw last week, rather than that shutting him up, Stephen took that to be an opportunity to preach the gospel to the high priests and ruling council, convicting them by many Biblical proofs that their belief in God had in fact not saved them, but that they were enemies of God, outside of the kingdom. And what he preached enraged them so much that they rushed on him with one accord and threw him off a cliff and cast stones on him, making Stephen the first martyr.

Now in chapter 8 we see that this young man named Saul mentioned in the previous account who watched over the affair and held their coats while they stoned Stephen was now persecuting the church with a renewed intensity. But rather than persecution shutting down the church, it only served to strengthen it. Tertullian is credited with the saying that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. And we see that seed now being scattered throughout Asia as a result of persecution. Satan thought that he had silenced a preacher of the gospel, and yet he inadvertently helped to spread the gospel from Jerusalem, to Judea, then Samaria, and ultimately to the uttermost parts of the earth. Acts 8:4 “Therefore, those who had been scattered went about preaching the word.”

Last week we looked at the last sermon of Stephen, which illustrated several principles which revealed that the religious leaders of the Jews were not true believers. And those principles were instructive for us as well, as we compared our salvation with the template that Stephen was proclaiming to be the gospel. These religious leaders had a form of religion, they claimed to be worshipping the One True God, they kept the Old Testament scriptures, they were extremely zealous for certain religious rituals and ceremonies, and yet they were not saved. And so I pointed out how we too must carefully examine our faith in order to see if we truly are of the faith, according to the examples given by Stephen in his last message.

And in a similar way, today we will look at the message of Philip, another of the original seven, who has gone out from Jerusalem as a result of the persecution, and he is now called the evangelist. He is preaching the gospel of Christ to the Samaritans and many signs and wonders were happening by his hand, and many people were being saved. But at the same time Satan is attempting to duplicate and deceive through a false prophet named Simon that is also doing signs and wonders, and when he cannot compete with the ministry of Philip, he professes to believe and is baptized. So we are going to examine today in light of this passage the contrast between the true faith and message of Philip and false faith and false message of Simon. I have titled this message, false faith, false follower, and false prophet.

So in this passage the Holy Spirit deliberately contrasts authentic Christianity with that of a false and counterfeit faith. Simon the Magician, or Simon Magus as he is sometimes called, appears in this passage as yet another means of the devil’s attack against the church, this time from within. Remember that Jesus had said in the parable of the tares and the wheat that though He was sowing good seed in the field of the world, an enemy would come at night and sow bad seed in the midst of the wheat, and that they would grow up together. The wheat and tares would initially be indistinguishable. And that is what we see here with Simon becoming identified with the church.

So let’s look at some of these characteristics of false faith, or false Christianity. And by the way this is not just ancient history. We must not be so foolish as to think we are past all of this sort of thing today in the church. No, the devil is continuing similar attacks on the church and even more so today. In fact as time marches on towards the end of the age, Jesus told us in Matt. 24:24 that it will increase. He said, “For false Christs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect.” Deception will grow worse and worse. Satan just keeps repackaging the same old deceptions in new false prophets, and people are deceived and keep on being deceived, often to their damnation.

So to start with, the first characterization of Simon’s false faith was self exaltation. Contrast that to the ministry of Philip; Philip it is said in vs. 5, proclaimed Christ. He preached the gospel of Christ and God validated that preaching with signs and wonders which served to glorify God. But Simon, as a false prophet, glorifies himself. Vs. 8 says that he was claiming to be something great. And his magic arts enabled him to convince the people of Samaria that he was something great. They called him the Great Power of God.

There is actually some very fascinating history written about this man in several contemporaneous non-biblical writings.   But what the text tells us, and from what history tells us, this man practiced a form of magic, professing secret knowledge, whereby he was able to astonish the local people. The word magician is from the root word magi. You remember the three wise men who visited Jesus’ birth? These men were known as magi from the East. They were learned in astronomy and the sciences and some practiced the secret arts as well, such as astrology and the occult. Obviously, Simon is one that has that sort of knowledge which is called sorcery.

Now the text indicates that he did certain feats of magic or sorcery in order to exalt himself. To bring attention to himself and probably make himself money in the process. That is always a characteristic of false prophets, by the way. They are self aggrandizing people who set themselves up in such a way as to bring attention to themselves. They claim to have great power from God. And I want to be very clear; beware of people that focus on signs and wonders as testimony to their Christianity or their spirituality.

Do you know that the devil is able to authenticate his false prophets by signs and wonders as well? There is more hocus pocus going on in the church today than ever before and it’s because our people lack discernment. They aren’t taught what the word of God says. They are taught that we need to experience God. And so whatever experience that comes along in the context of the church they then attribute to God. Today in the church there is everything from people falling down acting like they are drunk, to entire congregations laughing uncontrollably, to gold dust falling from the ceiling and angel feathers floating from the rafters. And all of it is attributed to God. However, it’s nothing short of demonic. It’s blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. God is not the author of confusion. Beware of signs and wonders that are purported to be done today, which are in effect only serving to enable false teachers to deceive gullible and superstitious people who are ignorant of what the scriptures actually teach.

Furthermore, its says in vs. 10 that the people both small and great from all quarters were giving him attention. False prophets are always popular. They attract great crowds even today. Ancient writers such as Justin Martyr, Jerome and Irenaeus give a sordid history of this man Simon and the way he eventually became a great enemy of the truth. He is credited with being one of the forbearers of the great heresy known as Gnosticism which arose in the first century to deceive many people. Simon went on to be one of that heresy’s foremost prophets. He taught that he was the manifestation of God, that divine knowledge resided in him.

Gnosticism comes from the Greek word gnosis, which means knowledge. It is a blend of different religious philosophies that believed in a higher knowledge, a spiritual plane that it was possible to reach that was separate from the body, from matter. They believed that it was possible to exist on a spiritual plane in some measure of godliness, but which was unaffected by the physical. So you could live in immorality or any such sin and yet be unaffected by it spiritually. It bred a false doctrine called antinomianism which is what James and Jude and John were warning against in their epistles, this false knowledge that puffs up. Jude 1:4 “For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.”

But again, I would warn you, that Satan has repackaged much of that philosophy today and sold it to the church once again. There are false prophets who are known for their signs and wonders that are immensely popular in so called Christianity today, that are preaching a form of antinomianism which has it’s roots in Gnosticism. False prophets today like the televangelist Joseph Prince teach that you can be holy spiritually in God’s eyes, but be something else in the physical realm. They teach that you can be a child of God, and yet live in sin and not have any conviction of your sin. They teach that in fact it is impossible for a believer to sin, and you never need to repent of your sins. It’s first century Gnosticism repackaged for the weak, immature and often immoral church of today.

But not only is this Simon Magus an example of a false prophet, he is emblematic of those that are of a false faith. Their faith, as it were, is founded on serving their pride. They are all about self aggrandizement. They practice their religion to be seen of men, to draw accolades to their piety. They are interested in signs and wonders because it pleases their vanity to be seen to have some great spiritual power. They are interested in some higher degree of knowledge that relieves them from the conviction of something so petty as sin. They want to profit from religion, both economically as well as in their social standing. And yet their actions reveal that they are prideful. They have never humbled themselves in the sight of God. They never repented of their sins.

And that leads us to the next characteristic of Simon as an example of false faith, and that is he had a incorrect understanding of salvation. Vs. 12 “But when they believed Philip preaching the good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were being baptized, men and women alike. Even Simon himself believed; and after being baptized, he continued on with Philip, and as he observed signs and great miracles taking place, he was constantly amazed.”

At first glance, it sounds pretty positive, doesn’t it? Sounds like this false prophet, this great celebrity of Samaria actually became a Christian. After all, it says he believed. Isn’t that the requirement for salvation? Isn’t that what is being taught today? Just believe in God and he will accept you just the way you are. But the Bible says that the devils believe and tremble and yet they are not saved. Why not? Well, first of all because salvation is not offered to angels, but only to men. But even if they could be saved salvation would require repentance. And they have believed but not repented. That’s why Jesus went about preaching first and foremost, “Repent for the kingdom of God is at hand.” Repentance is the polar opposite of pride, do you understand that? Repentance is confession that you are a sinner, and that the Bible says that the penalty for sin is eternal death. You confess that you are a sinner and you admit that you are guilty and worthy of the punishment. But there is nothing said of Simon repenting. In fact as you read on, you will see that he had not repented, and when Peter told him to repent, he excused himself.

What Simon did was find himself attracted to the church by the signs and wonders. He liked the display of power. He imagined how that kind of power might benefit him. He might have even had a certain mindset that if you can’t beat them, then join them. He had been duping the people with his magic arts, he had been enjoying this fame and prosperity that came with it, and suddenly along comes Philip with true knowledge, with divine power to truly heal, and so his act is completely eclipsed. So he joins this movement, or appears to, in order to learn and acquire this knowledge to add to his own bag of tricks.

By the way, I don’t doubt but that Satan has certain practitioners that can perform some signs and wonders. But I think that for the most part it is a deception. I have studied a little bit about some well known pseudo evangelists, and I have noticed a pattern in some of being trained in and practicing hypnotism. I think a lot of the fake faith healers set up their shows ahead of time with willing accomplices or they weed out the truly handicapped in favor of those with some sort of psychosomatic disorder. And so these people are selected who might be very easily persuaded by means of hypnosis or some other trick. But it’s not long thereafter until they find they are no longer healed.

One of the saddest tales I have heard on this subject came from the well known Christian speaker Joni Eareckson Tada, who was paralyzed from the neck down in a diving accident when she was a young woman. And in the early years of her illness, one day in desperation she went to a famous faith healer’s service in hopes of being healed. And she relates how that she and other quadripalegics and people who had serious problems were escorted to a special wing and then left there while others with non visible maladies were healed. She relates the horrible feeling of abandonment at the end of the service as they were wheeled out of the back door still in their wheelchairs. Such false prophets are an abomination to God and will one day face God’s judgment for their false faith message.

But back to Simon, he supposedly believed, and he was baptized. According to at least a couple of different denominations out there, that should have sealed the deal. He was baptized. To some denominations, becoming a Christian is like making instant oatmeal. Just add water and you’re good. So he joined the church. He made a profession of faith, he was baptized, he effectively joined the movement. He began following Philip around. Folks, please understand that Satan loves nothing more than to join the church. Jesus taught another parable about the church, in which He said that the kingdom of God was like a mustard seed that was planted in a garden and it grew into a great big tree, so big that the birds of the air came and nested in it’s branches. This parable was taught immediately after the parable of the tares and the wheat. The picture He is giving is that the church will grow bigger than normal, first of all. The church will grow and spread far beyond it’s normal growth into a great tree, instead of a normal bush. And it’s branches extend out so far that the birds of the air come and nest in it’s branches. Jesus said in the parable of the soils that the birds of the air are the devil and his angels. So Jesus is saying that the devil and his angels are nesting in the branches of the church. That is a reality that is true today more than ever before as we see every sort of abomination welcomed and embraced by many modern churches today.

The number one way the church has been rendered weak and ineffective, more than any other, is by unregenerate people coming in and taking on the outer garments of Christianity, calling themselves Christians, but remaining still unchanged in heart and life. That has ruined more churches than any external attack possibly could.

You know, all of the church growth strategy books have got it wrong. The church doesn’t need to attract more unsaved people. The church doesn’t need more pew sitters in the congregation. It doesn’t need more spectators. The church needs holy and sanctified workers for the harvest. Matt. 9:37-38 “Then He said to His disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. “Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest.” The church is the body of Christ, not a collection of the unregenerate seeking validation while still in their sins.

Simon is missing one major ingredient in his salvation. And that is he is unrepentant. He may have professed to believe in God, but nothing had changed. Listen, repentance is a change of direction. It is coming to the end of yourself. It is mourning over your sin. It is realizing that you are depraved and without hope and you need God to transform you. Simon just added the outward garments of Christianity to his carnal nature and nothing had actually changed.

Next, Simon misunderstood the ministry of the Holy Spirit. This is still a major problem in the church today, isn’t it? A complete misunderstanding of the nature of the Holy Spirit and His function in the church. But let’s look first at some background. When the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria was receiving the gospel and people were becoming saved, they sent Peter and John there.

Now the important distinction here is that these were Samaritans. They had traditionally been excluded from Israel as half breeds, half Jew and half Gentile. And so what is being described here is a manifestation of the Spirit upon the Samaritans, to indicate and affirm that they were also now part of the body of Christ. God’s plan was not to have a church in Samaria which had different customs and beliefs than the church in Jerusalem. But as the scripture says there is one Lord, one faith, one baptism. And so that is why it is important that the apostles come from Jerusalem and lay hands upon them so that they might receive the Holy Spirit, to show by the signs that followed that they were all of one body.

But it’s important to understand what is happening; no one can be saved without the agency of the Holy Spirit. They had been saved. They had the power of the Holy Spirit manifested to them when they were delivered from illnesses through the ministry of Philip. And they had the joy of their salvation in vs. 8 which is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. The thing that was missing was that they needed to be baptized in the Holy Spirit to bring them into communion with the church, to make them part of the body of Christ, to show that they were in no way inferior to the church at Jerusalem.

That is the significance of the laying on of hands. We lay hands or even shake hands to show solidarity with other people. So the fathers of the church in Jerusalem came to join hands with the Christians in Samaria in order to show full fellowship with them. And there were undoubtedly certain signs accompanying the baptism of the Holy Spirit similar to what had happened at Pentecost to authenticate by the Spirit what the apostles were affirming, that they were a part of the church. It’s interesting, because in each of the 4 occasions in Acts when this happens, it happens under slightly different circumstances. This is the only time that the laying on of hands occurs with the baptism of the Spirit. And I believe that is because it signifies the right hand of fellowship that is extended from Jerusalem to these Samaritans who had long been estranged from Israel.

So there is the same manifestation of gifts in Samaria that there had been at Pentecost. There would be the same manifestation of signs at the household of the Gentile Cornelius which Peter goes to preach to at the bequest of the Spirit. And all because God is indicating that there is no more Jew nor Gentile nor Samaritan in the church; we are all made one in Christ by the self same Spirit.

But Simon seeing this is moved to approach Peter and ask him if he could buy that ability. There is a word in the English language which is simony. It is the buying or selling of religious offices or powers. This man’s name is the origin of this word. He is attempting to buy the power of the Holy Spirit. He wanted to buy it so that he could profit by it. And while I don’t think many people today are so bold as to try to buy the power of the Holy Spirit, I do believe that many in the church today are trying to profit by the Spirit. They attempt to use a false power that is attributed to the Holy Spirit for ungodly gain. I once personally knew a man that was duped into thinking that Benny Hinn was a great power of God, and he regularly would go fly somewhere to one of his crusades and pay him $10,000 for a private meeting so that he could receive his blessing. He ended up going bankrupt. False prophets like Benny Hinn seek to profit from the Holy Spirit.

Simon thought that he too could profit from being able to administer the gifts of the Holy Spirit. And so Peter’s response illustrates the last characteristic of Simon’s false faith, which is that he lacked true repentance. Simon revealed that he had held onto his sin. He professed to believe, he participated in the ritual of baptism, but he had never truly repented. And that lack of repentance became evident when he tried to buy the Holy Spirit.

Philip may have been a somewhat naïve young preacher, a beginning evangelist that God was using, but Peter had the gift of discernment as we saw evidenced in the passage about Ananias and Sapphira. So Peter says to Simon in vs. 20, “May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money! You have no part or portion in this matter, for your heart is not right before God. Therefore repent of this wickedness of yours, and pray the Lord that, if possible, the intention of your heart may be forgiven you. For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and in the bondage of iniquity.” The literal translation of Peter’s rebuke is “may your silver go to hell with you!” Peter sees immediately that this man is still in the bondage of sin. He never repented. His heart is alienated from God. He describes Simon as bitter, that would indicate he was jealous of Philip.

Listen, the Gnostics, the antinomians, think that as believers you never need to repent, because you never sin. But I would remind you of Psalm 51, a Psalm of David when he sinned against God, he said, “Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against You, You only, I have sinned and done what is evil in Your sight,so that You are justified when You speak and blameless when You judge.” Was David saved when he sinned with Bathsheba? Yes, he most certainly was. Was he saved the same way we are? Yes, he certainly was, he was saved by faith, through grace, just as we are. He looked forward to Christ, we look backwards to Christ, but we are both saved the same way. And yet David by divine inspiration calls his sin, sin. He said against God he had sinned, and his sin was ever before God.

So what was David’s solution? Repentance. He confessed his sin as sin, as an affront to God. And then he asked to be changed. “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.” Listen, David was saved and he still sinned against God, he still needed forgiveness, he needed repentance that he might have fellowship with God.   This idea that you can live in sin and be ok, that you can come as you are and stay as you are, is not the gospel. It is not the gospel that Peter is preaching. He turns to Simon and says, “you are still in the bonds of iniquity.” You were never released from your sins because you never repented of yours sins.

I am convinced that the church today is full of people who profess to believe, who have been baptized or been catechized or been through some experience or ritual and they believe they are part of the church, but in fact they have no part at all in the body of Christ. They are still in the bondage of iniquity. That is the only explanation for why the divorce rate is as high in the church as it is in the world. That is the only explanation why our church members are living in immorality. That is the only reason why our people are living fleshly, carnal lives, chasing riches and material things of the world. They have a false faith. They are still in the bondage of sin.

Unfortunately, Simon has no interest in repenting as Peter tells him to do. Instead he says, “Pray to the Lord for me yourselves, so that nothing of what you have said may come upon me.” He wants to escape the judgment of sin, but he is not willing to forsake the presence of sin. There’s no confession; there’s no self analysis; there’s no acknowledging of sin. There’s no trust in the Lord; there’s no asking for forgiveness; there’s no repentance, nothing, but possibly even a scornful comment, “Why don’t you pray for me yourselves, so that what you’ve said doesn’t happen to me.”

Simon is never mentioned in scripture again. But history tells us that his unrepentant heart led him further and further away from the truth and into abject heresy. According to some sources, he became a constant adversary of Peter, going before him into various cities refuting the gospel that Peter was preaching. His doctrine became more and more heretical, even to the point of denying that Jesus Christ had come in the flesh, denying the divinity of Christ, meanwhile making himself out to be god. According to Justin Martyr, there was a statue erected in Rome that bore the inscription testifying that he was a god. He became the father of Gnosticism, which is the grandfather of all heresies.

Listen, there is a great danger in refusing to repent of sin. At the very most you cannot be saved without repentance, without humbling yourself and being willing to forsake your sin. And at the very least, if you are by some miracle a Christian, you break fellowship with God and you blaspheme the Holy Spirit, and you trample underfoot the blood of Jesus by refusing to confess and repent of your sin. Either way your unrepentant heart will lead you further and further away from God just as surely as leaven eventually corrupts all of the dough.

I don’t know whether you folks listening to me today are wheat or tares. I don’t know whether or not you are of the faith, or of a false faith. I don’t have the level of discernment that Peter had. But I do know that Jesus said that by their fruit you shall know them. What is in the heart, eventually comes out of the mouth. Simon should be a warning against a false faith, false followers, and false prophets. 2Cor. 13:5 “Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you–unless indeed you fail the test?” Be sure you are not of a false faith, a faith without repentance. Believing without repentance can never produce saving faith. But as David said, “a broken and contrite heart O God you will not despise.” Let us pray.

There is a well known phrase in religious circles where someone is said to be “preaching to the choir.” The inference is that the choir members are not the sort of people who need to hear that particular message. The choir, as we all know, being the most zealous for the church. And yet I have known some pretty degenerate choir members in my day, so I’m not sure how well that idea really stands up.

But to some extent, any congregation that comes out at 8am on a Sunday morning, especially if you happen to be on vacation, sort of qualifies under the same sentiment. Chances are, most of you are fairly zealous for the things of God, and the fact that you are here this morning is a testament to that. So I applaud you for your zeal.

But I have to say that according to scripture, and which has been verified by my experience, religious regularity, or even a zealousness for church, or a high degree of sincerity does not necessarily qualify one as a Christian. In fact, in my experience, I have found that the choir needs preaching to more often than you might think. And that is because there is a great danger in religion; which is to come to a point of having some degree of faith, and to come to a point of practicing a certain degree of piety, but to never have become converted. Therefore, it is much better to be a sinner, and know that you are a dirty, rotten sinner, than to be content that you are in the kingdom, yet in the end find that you have missed salvation altogether.

I would dare say that if I were to ask for a show of hands in this audience this morning as to who believed that they were Christians, practically everyone would raise their hands. Yet, as I think back on all the years that I have been in ministry, and all the people that once were considered stalwarts of the church and have since gone awol, I have to think that in reality there is a large percentage of people in the typical church audience that have not truly been saved in spite of how they might perceive themselves. And the Bible validates that principle.

Jesus told a parable in Matthew 13 about the wheat and the tares. It was a picture of the kingdom of heaven, a picture of the church. And in this field, Jesus said, the enemy had sown tares among the wheat. All of the time that the tares were growing they were indistinguishable from the wheat. So much so that Jesus said “Do not try to uproot the tares, lest you uproot the wheat as well.” But rather, “Allow both to grow together until the harvest; and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather up the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them up; but gather the wheat into my barn.” The point being that the Lord knows those that are His, but when the time comes to gather the harvest, it will be obvious which is the wheat, because it has born fruit. The tares do not bear grain.

I’ve said all of that to say this; I am very concerned for the state of the church today. I am concerned that we have a form of religion that seems acceptable to us, that seems to be based on scripture, that has a form of worship, and yet many have not been converted. Many who think that they are Christians are in fact not saved.

Jesus said as much in Matthew 7. He said many people will say to Me in that day, “Lord, Lord, did we not do all these things in your name?” And Jesus said, “I will say to them, depart from Me you workers of iniquity. I never knew you.” Many people will think they are saved when in reality they are not. Consequently Jesus spent the majority of His ministry preaching to the choir. He preached to the most religious people of the day. He spent a lot of time preaching in the temple and synagogues where people were essentially coming to worship God. And He was constantly questioning them, constantly challenging them to reconsider, to examine themselves, to see if their deeds matched their profession. His messages were always designed to reveal the truth about the kingdom of God, and turn upside down their self righteous assumptions. And as a result of Christ’s confrontational preaching, the religious aristocracy of the day had Him arrested and crucified.

Now as we come in our study of Acts to this sermon of Stephen, we are going to see how he parallels Christ both in his message and in his death. Stephen is the first martyr of the church. He lived a short life, and he had an even shorter ministry. This is the last sermon that he preached. It is likely that he had a divine intuition that he would be martyred after he had preached this sermon. So he didn’t pull any punches. He told it like it is. And the religious aristocracy rose up and stoned him to death. But if I can learn anything from Steven, it is that I must preach every message like it might be my last. This may be my last sermon I will ever preach, for all I know. Or it may be the last sermon someone in this audience may ever hear. This may be the last opportunity you have to hear the gospel, to examine yourself in light of the truth of the gospel. And so I want to make it count. We should live everyday as if it might be our last day.

Let’s look then at this last sermon of Steven. He is refuting the charges of the Sanhedrin, which was the supreme court of the religion of the Jews made up of 70 men. And many other religious rulers were there. The high priest was there. You could not find a more religious group in all of Israel. These were men that made their living from the scriptures. They believed in the One True God, Jehovah. They knew the Old Testament scriptures forwards and backwards. They had memorized large sections of scripture. They had studied it all of their lives. They practiced strict adherence to the Law – not just the 10 commandments, but all 600 plus laws and ordinances. From the average guy’s perspective, if anyone was in the kingdom of God, then these men would have to have been in the very choir loft of heaven.

But while Steven uses this address to answer the charges made against him, namely, that he had spoken against the law and the temple and against Moses, this message also is applicable to us today, as we examine our standing before God in the light of Steven’s last message. I want to point out five ways that Steven shows that these men, though extremely religious, were not in the kingdom of God. Five ways that we might also use to examine ourselves to see if we are of the faith or not.

Number one, Steven explains that they misunderstood the basis of their salvation. In verses 1-8 Steven starts out by talking about Abraham. I can only imagine the Sanhedrin covering their bored yawns as they must have thought that they knew everything there was to know about Abraham and thought this guy could teach them nothing new. After all, they considered themselves as Abraham’s children. They were God’s chosen people. And they had been circumcised which they thought guaranteed them a place in the kingdom of God.

But what they failed to understand was that the kingdom of God is not inherited by birth. Citizenship in the kingdom of God is not the result of being Jewish, nor from being American, I might add. They thought that citizenship came through association, through rituals such as circumcision, and by ceremony. They failed to understand that the lesson of Abraham was that he was justified by faith. Salvation is by grace through faith. Rom. 4:3 says “Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.” Salvation comes through faith in what Christ has done for us, not from some ritual or ceremony or nationality. They thought it came by birth, by association, by nationality, by ritual, and by ceremony.

You folks here this morning, assuming you would have raised your hands, on what basis do you claim to be citizens of the kingdom of God? Was it through baptism, was it through communion, was it through some sort of membership or ritual or ceremony? If that is what you are trusting for your salvation then you are in the same camp as the Sanhedrin.   Salvation is found only by grace through faith. It is a gift of God, given to us through faith. And faith is believing and trusting in Jesus Christ as Lord. Faith is not just believing that Jesus existed. Or that God exists. The Bible says that the devils believe in God and tremble and yet they are not saved. But I can assure you that though most church goers believe in some form of God, they do not tremble. There is no fear of God before their eyes. They have continued in their sin. They have not renounced their sin in shame and humility. Instead they flagrantly continue to trample underfoot the precious blood of Christ that was shed to cleanse us from sin. Faith is obedience to what God says. That is the lesson to be learned through Abraham. Come out from the world and live as an alien, as a pilgrim, walking by faith, following God’s word, living in the world without possessing it. That is what Steven was preaching, and that is what we all need to consider for ourselves. How do we claim admittance into the kingdom of heaven? It is only through faith and repentance as sinners receive grace.

By Steven’s standard, the Sanhedrin were unsaved, outside of the kingdom of God. And I wonder if by that same standard how many here are trusting in something other than faith and repentance and are by consequence outside of the kingdom.

Number 2, Steven tells them that they rejected the very people God had sent to deliver them. In vs. 9-36 Steven tells an abbreviated history of Joseph and Moses, both of which were a type of Christ. In each case, Steven explains that their brethren initially rejected them. Joseph was thrown into a pit by his brothers and sold into slavery. Moses tried to be the deliver that God had called him to be and his own people turned against him.   In each case the people hated Joseph and Moses without cause, they rejected and rebelled. In each case the people said, “Who made you to be a ruler and a judge over us?” It was essentially the same question that would be asked of Jesus during His ministry.

I wonder how many people in my hearing today have rejected Jesus from being a ruler and a judge over their lives? To call Jesus Lord means to bow to His will, to be conformed to His image, to obey His word, to walk by His Spirit. All of those things mean that we must humble ourselves, that we must die to ourselves and surrender to live for Christ. It means we must stop serving ourselves and start serving Christ. Is that the characteristic of your life? Have you stopped serving yourself and started serving Christ? Or has your feigned love for God provided you with the liberty to live like you want to live, in the false assumption that the love of God allows you to live anyway you want without consequences?

I would suggest that the Lordship of Christ is a key component in conversion. Before you are saved, you served the flesh, you served your passions, you served the world’s agenda. But after you are saved you are to serve God, you should serve the church, you should serve your neighbor. There must be a conversion, a change, a new life. You are supposed to be a new creation, old things are passed away. Or do you refuse to bow to Christ as Lord? Do you, like the Sanhedrin, say “who made you to be a ruler and a judge over us?” “I can do whatever I want. I can live how I want and God will just have to take me the way I am.” I’m sorry, but that is not the gospel. Jesus said whosoever will be my disciple must take up his cross and follow Me. Have you died to yourself? I don’t care how religious you are – have you died to your will to do God’s will? That is the litmus test.

Number three, Steven told these law abiding citizens that in fact they had disobeyed the law in vs. 37-43. They accused Steven of speaking against the law, but in fact they had repeatedly broken the law when it suited their purposes. That is why Jesus called them hypocrites. He said you hypocrites tie heavy burdens on everyone else’s backs, but you are unwilling to lift even a finger.

Steven quotes from Amos 5:25, saying ‘IT WAS NOT TO ME THAT YOU OFFERED VICTIMS AND SACRIFICES FORTY YEARS IN THE WILDERNESS, WAS IT, O HOUSE OF ISRAEL? YOU ALSO TOOK ALONG THE TABERNACLE OF MOLOCH AND THE STAR OF THE GOD ROMPHA, THE IMAGES WHICH YOU MADE TO WORSHIP. I ALSO WILL REMOVE YOU BEYOND BABYLON.” They were guilty of outwardly claiming to worship Jehovah, but in their hearts they were serving idols.

O church, listen to me! Idols aren’t some little figurines that we put on a shelf and rub 3 times when we want to make a wish. Oh no! Idols are much more seditious than that today in the church. Our idols today are our careers, our work, our boyfriend, or girlfriend, our idols are Hollywood movie stars, rock stars, sports stars, our hobbies or entertainments. Our idols are anything that we devote more time and allegiance to than we do to our Lord. If the Lord is not first in your priorities, then you are guilty of idol worship. And you cannot serve God and mammon. You cannot have a divided loyalty. God will not take second or third or fourth place in your life. Jesus said the most important commandment was that you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. That is a new covenant commandment by the way. Jesus has to have first place in your heart. That is why the church today is accused of being full of hypocrites. Because the world can see that we claim to be worshipping God, but actually we are serving idols and that is hypocrisy.

Number four, Steven said that contrary to him profaning the temple as they accused him of, they were guilty of desecrating the temple. In vs. 44-50 Steven reminds them that they were guilty of profaning Solomon’s temple by bringing in idols which led to it’s destruction as punishment from God. He says in vs. 48 that God does not dwell in temples made with human hands.

These very men were guilty of profaning the temple by making it a house of merchandise. That is why Jesus on two separate occasions cleaned out the temple with a bull whip, overturning the money changers tables and driving the vendors out. These very men made money from that operation, and so they would have still smarted from Christ’s rebuke.

But the fallacy is that they believed that God dwelled in the temple. However, Steven makes it clear that God had left the building a long time before. God doesn’t dwell in buildings as if you could contain the maker of the universe in a tiny temple. God dwells in the hearts of His people. His Spirit takes up residence in us, that we might be living stones in the temple of God.

I would ask you then, you that say that you are in the kingdom of God, does the Spirit of Christ dwell in you? If He does, then do you do the works of the Spirit? Is your life evidence of the Spirit living in you? The Spirit of God does not dwell in His people just to make them feel weepy when some worship song plays. He does not dwell in His people just to make them speak in an unintelligible language that does neither the hearer nor the speaker any good. But the Holy Spirit of God dwells in His people that they might do the works of God. That they might bear the likeness of Christ. So that they might speak the gospel to the lost. So that we might understand the scriptures.

I am dismayed sometimes when I hear people that have been regulars at church for some time, and they unknowingly reveal some of their theology in a casual conversation. I am dismayed because I know that I have been preaching the word of God line by line, precept by precept, doctrine by doctrine for so long, and they acted like they were listening, acted like they were in agreement, and yet in their conversation they reveal that they lacked understanding of the basic tenets of the gospel. They show they do not have in them the Spirit of Truth to give them understanding. They reveal that though they have a zeal for God, it is not in accordance with knowledge. And so I assume that they must not really be saved. Nice people perhaps, but lost. There is no evidence of the Spirit in them.

Number 5, Steven reveals in vs. 51-53 that they had stubbornly resisted God and His truth. He says, “You men who are stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears are always resisting the Holy Spirit; you are doing just as your fathers did.” Oh man! I get accused of preaching too harshly, but I have nothing on Steven. He is saying that though they had the outward sign of circumcision, they had never been circumcised in their hearts. Their hearts were still fleshly, worldly, unchanged. They had never been converted, never been changed. They just added religion on top of a dirty, sinful unrepentant heart.

I’m afraid that is the state of the church at large today. We live anyway we want all week, live like the devil if the truth is known, and then we come to church for an hour on Sunday and it’s like putting makeup on a pig. We put some religion on for an hour or so and then go right back to the slimy pig sty of the world that we love so much. We go right back to the sexually explicit movies, the raunchy music, drunkenness, hateful attitudes, the lusts of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life. Nothing has really changed. We are not converted, we’re the same old sinful people we always were, but now we just try to cover it up with a little religion.

The part though I think is really apropos is vs. 53, “you who received the law as ordained by angels, and yet did not keep it.” The Sanhedrin put great value upon the law. The law being the first five books of the Old Testament, the Pentateuch. Yet Steven says that they did not keep it.

I wonder if that is true of the church today? Do we revere the Bible as God’s word, as inspired, God breathed, the actual words of God? And yet we let it sit on a shelf. We are content to let others read it and tell us what it means. We are willing to abrogate it’s authority but we submit to the authority of tradition. Some of you are unwilling to relinquish church traditions that have no basis in scripture whatsoever. You put a higher premium on what some church leader says than what God Himself has said. Some of you are running around seeking a new word of knowledge, a new vision, a new wisdom found in some spiritual experience, while ignoring what the word of God clearly says which was written down for us as a much sure word.

Israel had long before replaced the authority of God’s word with the word of the High Priest, the word of the rabbis. They had the Mishna which reinterpreted the law, and effectively altered the word of God. And I’m afraid that modern Christianity has replaced the simple preaching of God’s word with every conceivable contrivance, so that we learn our doctrine from Hollywood movies, we read so called Christian books which promise to teach us the secrets of financial success and health and prostitute the gospel to do so. Churches used to have 15 minutes of music and 45 minutes or more of preaching and reading the word. Now they have skits and dancing, and endless song after endless song and everyone just sits there looking at a movie screen. There is no need to bring a Bible to the modern church anymore. At best, people are looking at a Bible app on their smart phone, in between checking out facebook. And the preaching of sound doctrine is a thing of the past or denigrated to a brief entertaining social gospel sound byte.

Well, that’s Steven’s last sermon. Some of you are probably hoping it’s my last sermon as well. I hope you don’t feel that way. I hope that you look earnestly and examine yourself honestly to see if you are of the faith. To see if there is enough evidence to convict you of being a Christian, by the same standard that Steven raised in this message. I hope that we would look earnestly into the mirror of God’s word and see if we measure up according to the picture Steven has presented us with.

In closing, I want to mention that there were four responses to this sermon. The first response was from the Sanhedrin. Vs. 54, “Now when they heard this, they were cut to the quick, and they began gnashing their teeth at him.” They were convicted, but they did not repent. Rather they hated him, they gnashed their teeth at him. That means they were pretty mad, so mad that they rushed at him with one accord and threw him off a cliff and cast stones down on him to kill him.

The second response we see there was from Christ Himself in vs.55, “But being full of the Holy Spirit, he gazed intently into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God; and he said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened up and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” As I said last week, in most other scriptures they always speak of Jesus seated at the right hand of God. But here in response to this last sermon of Steven, and the life of Steven, Jesus stands up. I believe He leads the hosts of heaven in a grand standing ovation for Steven as he yields up his life in service to Christ. He gave everything to serve Christ as an example of how we should live our life.

The third response is that of Steven. Vs. 60; “Then falling on his knees, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them!” Having said this, he fell asleep.” Steven was received into the presence of the Lord, saying much the same thing that the Lord Jesus said on the cross, “Lord forgive them for they know not what they do.”

The fourth response was that of a young man named Saul in vs. 58. But if you look at the text you notice that he doesn’t make any response in our text. However that young man named Saul would one day be renamed Paul, after he repented and was converted on the road to Damascus. I’m sure that the death of Steven was something that haunted Paul for all of his days. I’m sure that it spurred Paul to greater heights of service to God.

The only question left then today is what is your response to this last sermon of Steven? Maybe your response is to grind your teeth and run out of here with your hands over your ears. But I would pray that you have taken this opportunity to examine your citizenship in the kingdom of God in light of God’s word. And if so, how do you fare? Are you truly a child of God? Have you been born again by grace through faith? Or do you reject the words of this preacher, just as the Sanhedrin rejected the prophets? Are you a trespasser against the law of God? If you recognize that, then there is hope for you if you will repent of your sins. But if you do not recognize that you are a sinner, then you cannot be saved. Have you defiled the temple? 1Cor. 6:19 says, “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? Therefore, glorify God in your body.” Or have you stubbornly resisted God’s word? How can you say you believe the word of God and yet deliberately rebel against it?

I don’t know how you answered these questions. I don’t know whether you are a wheat or a tare. But the Lord knows, even if you don’t. I hope that you will make sure of your salvation today. Today is the acceptable day of salvation. None of us have been guaranteed tomorrow. This may be my last sermon, or it may be your last sermon. I pray you evaluate your salvation today in the light of God’s word.God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. A broken and contrite heart He will not despise. Make sure of your salvation today.

The most popular message in Christianity today is perhaps best captured in the title of a book by the pastor of the largest protestant church in America, entitled, “Your Best Life Now,” by Joel Osteen. That book stayed at the top of the New York Times bestseller list for 200 weeks. His sermons are televised to over 7 million viewers in over 200 countries. His church services in Texas are held in a former sports arena which held 56000 people at it’s dedication. His net worth is estimated to be 56 million dollars and he lives in a 10.5 million dollar mansion. So yeah, from the perspective of the world’s view of success, I guess Osteen is living his best life now.

But of course his message is that you can live your best life now as well. And just to give you a microcosm of his doctrine, I’ll read you a few quotes from his website. He teaches things like, “God’s people should be the happiest people on earth. So happy, in fact, that other people notice. Why? Because we not only have a fabulous future, we can enjoy life today!” Sounds good doesn’t it? I mean, everyone wants to be happy. He certainly looks happy. So I guess he is saying that God just wants you to be happy more than anything else.

He describes that blissful existence in this statement; “Living your best life now means being excited about the life God has given you. It means believing for more good things in the days ahead, while living in the moment and enjoying it to the hilt.” So live in the moment. Enjoy it to the hilt. Enjoy all that life has to offer, because that will produce happiness, and happiness is the goal in life.

Third, he says no matter how bad your circumstances might be now, you need to believe that you can be happy. Your belief that God wants you to be happy means that you should say, ““Enough is enough. I’m going to start believing God for bigger and better things.” “Dream bigger dreams. God wants to do more than you can even ask or think. Start living your best life now!”

For example, Osteen says, “God doesn’t want your business to merely make it through the murky economic waters. He wants your business to excel!” He says, if you believe enough, and have enough faith to release the power of God in your life, (because he says your faith activates the power of God,) then “you will have the best this life has to offer — and more. You can start living your best life now.”

Well, anyone should be able to see why that is a popular message. Be happy, enjoy life, move from poverty to success, live your dreams, dream bigger dreams, get everything this world has to offer. Because that is what God’s desire is for you, and if you will just believe it, then that will release and activate God’s power for you, so that all your dreams will come true.

That sounds good, doesn’t it? There is even some hints of Bible verses thrown in there for good measure. It is a message that appeals to our carnal nature. It appeals to our flesh, to the desires of the flesh and the lusts of the eyes and the pride of life. But I am here to tell you today that is not the message of the gospel. God’s plan for you is not to give you a bigger paycheck, to give you a bigger house, a nicer car, and to fulfill all your dreams and ambitions. That is not the gospel, nor is it the plan of God for your life. That is not the way to live your best life now.

No, I’m going to suggest today that the example given to us in the life of Steven here in chapter 6 and 7, is emblematic of living your best life now. And though the scripture makes it clear that Steven’s life was full in every way possible and was precious in the sight of God, yet from a human perspective Steven’s potential was never realized, his life was tragically cut short, and his career came to an unfortunate end almost immediately after it started. Steven’s life is the antithesis of every thing that Osteen’s book claims is the plan of God. And yet Acts 7 vs.56 says when Steven found himself at the end of his short life being pummeled to death by stoning, he saw the heavens split open and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. In several other places in scripture Jesus is described as sitting at the right hand of the Father. But when Steven’s life comes to a close, Jesus stands up. I believe that the life of Steven so fulfilled God’s design for living his best life, that when his brief life came to a close at the hands of evil men, Jesus stood up and led all of the heavenly host in a standing ovation.

I don’t know about you, but I want to live a life like Steven. I want the end of my life, whenever it comes, to be the fulfillment of God’s plan for me so that Jesus might stand up and say, “Welcome home, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your Master.” By the way, the name Steven is from the Greek Stephanos, which means “victor’s crown.” He was victorious in the sight of God and he certainly received that crown upon his martyrdom.

Contrary to popular Christianity’s message, we can either spend our lives trying to find happiness here on earth by accumulating earthly treasures, or we can spend our lives in service to God and reap eternal rewards in heaven. I don’t think we can do both. I believe that they are diametrically opposed. One life makes God your servant, working diligently to fulfill your dreams and ambitions, and the other life makes you God’s servant, working diligently to fulfill His plan and purpose. One life leads to the victor’s crown given by Christ himself, and one life leads to gaining temporal treasures here on earth which can never bring true happiness and fulfillment but only eventual death.

So what I want to show you from the scripture today is that in spite of the fact that Steven died a martyr, in spite of the fact that we only have one message preserved for us of his sermons, in spite of the fact that his young life seemed to be tragically cut short, Steven lived a full life, full in the best sense of the word. In fact in chapter 6 there are five times that Steven’s life is characterized as being full, being complete. He is described in vs. 3 as full of the Holy Spirit, and full of wisdom, in vs. 5 as full of faith, and in vs. 8 as full of grace and full of power. Five characteristics of a full life, a life pleasing to God, a life that prompted Jesus to stand and celebrate his victorious life. And I think that these five characteristics are possible for each of us here today, that we might live our best life now, just as Steven did.

So we are going to look briefly at these five factors of a full life as evidenced by Steven. But there is a prequalifying element of Steven’s life that must not be overlooked. And that is that Steven was first of all a servant. That is what they were selecting the seven men to do back in the opening verses of the chapter. The apostles wanted to select 7 men who would serve the tables, serve the widows and serve the needs within the church. To be a servant.

The primary quality of a servant is that they must first of all be humble. Jesus Himself was an example of that, and I believe that Steven followed His example. Phil. 2:7 says that Jesus “emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.” Moses, the greatest prophet that ever lived was described in Numbers 12 as the most humble man that ever lived. If you want to be great in the eyes of God, if you want to be filled to the brim by all the goodness of God, then you must first humble yourself. James 4:10 “Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.” “Therefore,” James says in chapter 1 vs. 9,in direct contrast to the teaching of Joel Osteen, “ let the brother of humble circumstances glory in his high position; and the rich man glory in his humiliation, because like flowering grass he will pass away.”

So the prerequisite to a full life is submission to serve Christ and not yourself. And as a result of that subordination, then the first component of a full life is to be full of the Holy Spirit. This is such a major factor in the life of Steven that it is mentioned twice as a characteristic of his life. He was first of all selected because he fit the requirement of the apostles in vs. 3 that he must be full of the Holy Spirit, and then in vs. 5 he is listed as the foremost of the seven and it indicates that being filled with the Holy Spirit was especially a characteristic that he possessed.   So number one Steven was full of the Holy Spirit.

What does it mean to be full of the Holy Spirit? We alluded to it in the characteristic of a servant – that is to be a servant of Christ rather than a servant of your flesh. It means to be controlled by the Spirit of Christ, rather than controlled by the weaknesses of the flesh. Listen, all Christians have been given the same Spirit. The Spirit is a person, so you either have Him or you don’t. The Spirit is not a power or a force that you can get more or less of. But you can be more or less submitted to His control. And when you let go completely of your own will, and seek to do His will, then you are under the control of the Spirit. You are filled with the Spirit. So the way to be full of the Spirit is to die to the flesh, to die to the world. Gal. 5:17 “For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please.” So rather than do as Osteen says, that we need to dream bigger dreams and get more and more worldly possessions in an attempt to find happiness, if we want to live a full life that is pleasing to God then we must die to the world and the lusts of the flesh, so that we might be full of the Holy Spirit, led by the Holy Spirit, under His control. Gal. 5:24 “Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”

Secondly, the characteristic of Steven’s full life is to be full of wisdom. We need to know first of all that being full of wisdom is the outcome of being full of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit gives us a wisdom that is not of this world. It is the wisdom of God and not of men. 1Cor. 1:20 says, “Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?” And in 1Cor. 3:19 “For the wisdom of this world is foolishness before God.”

So wisdom comes from God, which comes as a result of being under the control of the Holy Spirit, which means being submissive to the word of God. Paul told Timothy that the scriptures are the source of God’s wisdom. 2Tim. 3:15 “from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.”

Next week we will look at the wisdom of Steven in his message, which shows the incredible depth of knowledge that he had of the word of God, starting with the Old Testament and how that was fulfilled in Christ. But though it is unlikely that Steven had any formal training, his wisdom was unanswerable in his debates with the Jews. Vs.10, “But they were unable to cope with the wisdom and the Spirit with which he was speaking.” Steven not only knew the Author of the scriptures, but the Spirit of the Author indwelt him, so that he was full of a wisdom which the wisdom of the world could not debate.

Thirdly, the next component of a full life as exemplified in the life of Steven is to be, according to vs. 5, full of faith. What does that mean? Does that mean what Joel Osteen suggests, that if you just want something bad enough, name it and claim it, believe hard enough, then God will be obligated to grant you what you want? Is that it?

I should say not. But rather it is to follow in the pattern of the other components we have already seen. That means to be fully yielded in faith to trust God, and be content with whatever lot He chooses for you, rather than to try to control God. If we are controlled by God, under His leading, led by His Spirit in all that we do, then we can fully trust Him to do what is best for us and for His kingdom. It means, to paraphrase the words of an old country song, to let Jesus take the steering wheel. To trust Him to provide what is necessary for our needs. To believe that He knows what is best for us. To trust Him enough to wait on Him, rather than try to force Him to accommodate us. That is a life full of faith. Completely trusting Him, rather than trying so hard to do get Him to do what we want Him to do.

Prov. 3:5-8 “Trust in the LORD with all your heart And do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He will make your paths straight. Do not be wise in your own eyes; Fear the LORD and turn away from evil. It will be healing to your body And refreshment to your bones.”

I am reminded of the Psalmist David’s comment in Psalm 131:2 “Surely I have composed and quieted my soul; Like a weaned child rests against his mother, My soul is like a weaned child within me.” That is what it means to be full of faith, completely trusting, leaning on the Lord. Not striving with God by some means of forced faith to get what you want, or get what you think is best, but to rest in the assurance that God knows best and He will do what is best for those that love Him.

Fourthly, a full life is a life characterized by being full of grace, vs. 8. Full of grace means what exactly? We hear a lot about grace today in the church. Grace means gift of God, and we all want to receive gifts, don’t we? But as we consider the words of David, as we quiet our soul, when we stop being infantile in our neediness, always wanting something from God, then we come to the point of being satisfied with God. Where we can crawl up on His lap so to speak and be content. We come to the point where we are full of His grace. So as Paul said in 2Cor. 12:10 “Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.”

And when we are full of grace, then it stands to reason that we give grace. When we realize we have all we need in Christ, then that spills out in generosity towards others, to show grace towards others. We become gracious, long suffering, patient, forgiving, merciful. Those are all the product of a life full of grace. Grace is not some selfish pursuit of what God will give me, but what I can give back to God. When you are full of grace, ladies and gentlemen, then it starts to spill over into the lives of the church.

That leads us to the last characteristic of a full life, we are full of power. “Oh boy, finally! Let’s start running around now healing people, casting out demons, calling down fire from heaven.” Is that power? Is this talking about the power to get all the things that I want out of life? No, I’m afraid that spiritual power starts out a whole lot more practical than that. Let’s look again at 2 Cor. 12, this time starting in vs. 9 Paul said, “And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness. Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.”

Here is what it means to be full of power; it means to be emptied of my strength, of my resources, of my wisdom, of my will, and then when I trust in Him I can trust in His power to accomplish in me and through me what is pleasing to Him. It means according to 2Pet. 1:3-4 “that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.”

Did you get the last part of what Peter said? We like to camp out on the first part, the part about God granting us everything pertaining to life. That is where Joel Osteen stops. “God’s power has granted everything pertaining to life, now all you have to do is claim that in order to unleash God’s power in your life.” But that is missing the point. Peter says, God’s power has granted everything pertaining to life AND GODLINESS. So that we might partake of the divine nature. That means that we have the power to live godly lives, the power to live according to God’s nature, not according to the lusts of the flesh. But rather escape the corruption of the world. Bottom line is that God has granted us the power to live godly lives. To live sanctified, separated lives, consecrated wholly unto God. That’s what we were saved for. To live godly lives in service to God. Not to live out our idea of our best life now. But to live out God’s plan for our lives.

That plan may one day call for you to give up this life in service to Him, just as Steven did. We may not all end up as martyrs, but we are all called to take up our cross and follow Jesus. To die to the world so that we might live for Christ. To crucify the flesh. To die, that we might live forever. That is what it means to live a full life. Whatever Joel Osteen and the like are selling is not seen anywhere in the scriptures, especially in the lives of saints such as Steven. They were willing to give all to serve Christ. They are written to be examples for us, that we might live lives that are pleasing to God.

When you live a life that is first of all submitted to serve Christ as a servant, when you are truly full of the Holy Spirit, full of wisdom, full of faith, full of grace and full of power, then you too may receive the crown of righteousness, the victor’s crown which Steven received.

As Steven faced his accusers who end up stoning him to death it says in vs. 15, “And fixing their gaze on him, all who were sitting in the Council saw his face like the face of an angel.” What is Luke talking about? I don’t think that Steven’s face had some unearthly glow. Angels have seen God. Angels continually gaze on the face of God. So to have the face of an angel is to have a countenance that reflects a perfect trust in God, because you know God perfectly. Steven was so full of the presence of God, so submitted to God in every area of His life, that he faced his accusers with a serenity that can only come from an intimate relationship with God. He could trust God. He had given God all of his life and consequently the fullness of God was sufficient. It was enough. He was satisfied with Christ and willing to face anything, because he knew with the certainty of the angels the sovereignty and the love of God.

I believe that the serenity of Steven is available for us as well. I trust that you will submit your soul, your life, your all to Jesus Christ to serve Him, to sacrifice everything for the joy of knowing Him. And if you do that, He promises to fill you completely. To live inside you, filling you with His Spirit, His wisdom, faith, grace and power. Let us pray.

As we have been looking at the formation of the first church in our study of Acts, we have seen that various demonically inspired attacks on the church were occurring through persecution, through hypocrisy, and through intimidation. But in each situation we have seen that rather than these attacks defeating the church, it only served to make it stronger, make it increase, and make it more effective. We see the church becoming as a result of various trials more united in doctrine, more purified in spirit, more bold in preaching the gospel, and more effective at winning the lost.

Now as we enter chapter 6, we see the devil continue his relentless attacks on the church and it’s disciples, and yet in spite of that, the word of God increasing. It reminds me of that secular saying you sometimes see in gyms, “whatever doesn’t kill me, makes me stronger.” In a similar fashion, God uses trials and tribulations to strengthen the church. Our sovereign God even uses things which are meant to us for evil, for our good. As Romans 8:28 says, “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” The trials and attacks on the church will not prevail against it, even as the head of the church, Jesus Christ, promised, but will only serve God’s purposes to purify and prove and profit the church.

So it is the case in the passage we come to today. Satan works through the selfish desires of men to provoke them to jealousy, to cause factions to develop in the church, to cause grumbling to begin in what up to this point has been the honeymoon period of the church, and yet God will use it for good, to bring about ever more consecration, more effectiveness, and more participation. He will use it to multiply the ministry of the apostles in an even greater way.

And this is the desire of God for all men, that they grow into maturity in Christ. Far too many people think that coming to Christ is the end of their journey rather than the beginning of new life, the beginning of a journey of faith. If you ask the typical person about their conversion, chances are they will spend an inordinate amount of time telling of all their exploits and sordid details of their life before they came to Christ, and then in a dramatic flourish, wrap it all up with a description of the moment that they were born again. And then that’s it. When you ask them what they have done since then with this new life that they have in Christ, a lot of people can’t add much more than they now belong to such and such church, and they go there every Sunday or so. That is the extent of their conversion experience.

But that was never the full intent of God saving us. God didn’t save us just so we could go to church, but so that we might become the church. The church is not a organization, but an organism. It is made up of living stones, Peter says in 1Peter 2:5, which “are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” So the principle then is that once we are made alive in Christ, we become united in a spiritual body with other believers, which congregation constitutes a temple of God, where we offer up our very own lives as sacrifices to God for service. That is true worship. I’m afraid that the idea of worship in modern Christianity has been tragically distorted today. Worship is not just showing up once a week and singing a few songs and clapping your hands. But worship is bowing your knee to Christ as Lord, consecrating your life in service to God, sacrificing your life for His purposes and serving His body, doing His will. That’s what Romans 12:1 says is our purpose now that we are saved, “to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.” So our salvation is not the ending point, but the starting point of our walk of faith.

So that is sort of what was starting to happen in the church in Jerusalem. There had been an explosion of growth, maybe 20,000 people were now part of the church. And it says in the closing verses of chapter 5 that the apostles were continuing to preach the gospel in the temple daily and from house to house. But what was also happening was a tendency on the part of some of the congregation to come to church, to hear the message, and to receive the ministry of the apostles, but yet to stop at that point. They were sort of stuck at the level of infancy as a new born in Christ, and were not pressing on towards maturity. They saw church as how it benefitted them, and they had not progressed to the point of benefitting others.

You know, this progression kind of parallels the great commandment of Christ, the summarization that He gave of the law. Jesus said the greatest commandment was to love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your mind, all your soul and all your strength. That was the foremost commandment. But then the second great commandment is like unto it, that is that you love your neighbor as yourself. And that is sort of represented here in this problem that surfaces in the church. They are all together worshipping God and listening the preaching of the apostles, but some were falling short of the application of the gospel, which is to love one another, even as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her.

And see that is the progression of maturity that was lacking at this point. The point where you don’t just go to church, you start being the church. Where you don’t just receive grace, but you start showing grace. Where you don’t just come to be served, but to serve. And that is where God wants us to be, and where we start bearing fruit. Where we don’t seek spiritual gifts for how they might edify us, but we seek spiritual gifts that edify the church, that build up the body.

So this is the problem in the church at Jerusalem. Let’s break it down somewhat and then see how we might apply what we learn from this to our church, to our lives.

Luke says in vs. 1 that at the time when the church was increasing, it was growing, things were happening, the problem surfaced. As I said, God will use even this problem to further the church and His purposes, but at this point we see that grumbling and murmuring spring up because there is a complaint on the part of some in the congregation that their needs weren’t being met the way they thought they should. It takes the form of a complaint, of murmuring and grumbling. I think that Satan had filled the hearts of some of the congregation there with jealousy. Oh, their motives sound righteous enough. I mean, who can fault them for being concerned about the needs of widows? But I don’t think that their complaint was much more than a self righteous covering for jealousy on the part of the Hellenistic Jews towards the Hebrews.

This is actually similar to what happened with Ananias and Sapphira. They were really jealous of the attention that Barnabas and others received from the church when they brought in their proceeds from selling their property. There was nothing wrong with bringing in money and giving it to the church. That is a good thing. What was sinful about it was that they were jealous of the attention that others received, and they wanted to get in on it, and so they lied about how much they were giving. But the root of their sin was jealousy, which lead to hypocrisy and pride.

There was nothing wrong with caring for widows either. James says that pure and undefiled religion is caring for the widows and orphans. So that is a good thing. But if the Hellenistic Jews had really cared that much about the widows not receiving as much as the Hebrew widows, then why didn’t they do something about it themselves? Why didn’t they take it upon themselves to personally provide for the Hellenistic widows? Well, the answer is that the widows needs weren’t really the issue. The issue was that they somehow felt shorted in the church, they somehow felt slighted because they were not native Hebrews but had been raised in Greece and spoke Greek, and they developed a certain degree of jealousy towards the native Hebrews. And so I think they used the issue of the widows as a pretext for their grumbling, which was really directed at the apostles leadership. That was the real issue. I can’t know the exact reason, but it was probably ethnically motivated. The native Hebrews would have been people who lived in Jerusalem. The Hellenistic Jews were people who had been dispersed throughout Greece and the surrounding areas. They had been visiting Jerusalem during the feasts, had been saved perhaps on the day of Pentecost or when Peter preached following the healing of the lame man. And so they had not gone back home but stayed in Jerusalem. Some may have had legitimate needs that were provided for when people brought in money to the church during the initial services. But here it is a few weeks later, or maybe even a few months later, and maybe they weren’t getting the money given to them that they once received. And maybe they became jealous of the people who were still receiving financial help from the church and they wanted to attribute it to some sort of favoritism on the part of the apostles. Rather than realizing that by now they should be giving rather than receiving, they became jealous of those that were receiving. They were jealous because some people had more than they had.

And so they murmured against the apostles. That is what happened when the children of Israel left Egypt, remember? They ended up murmuring and complaining and grumbling against Moses because they were not eating as well as they would like. They said they had eaten better when they were slaves in Egypt, and now Moses had brought them out to the wilderness to starve. They complained against Moses leadership. And that murmuring spirit caused God to discipline them and ultimately did not let the original generation enter the Promised Land.

So that is what was going on in the church. Everything is going great, God’s word is abounding, people are coming into the church, and then suddenly selfishness and petty jealousy works it’s way into the congregation and the whole congregation goes from being of one accord and having all things in common, and being of one spirit, to suddenly being divided, being jealous towards one another and complaining about the leadership of the church. Sounds like a pretty typical church, unfortunately.

So let’s look at how the apostles handled this problem. They show a sense of discernment that is really amazing, and could only be wisdom given by the Holy Spirit. Their answer to this complaint, which is really against them as the leadership of the church, is found in vs. 2; “So the twelve summoned the congregation of the disciples and said, “It is not desirable for us to neglect the word of God in order to serve tables. Therefore, brethren, select from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we may put in charge of this task. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.”

I love these guys. They were just uneducated, humble fishermen, but now they have been filled with the Holy Spirit, that means controlled by the Holy Spirit by the way, and so they now have the wisdom of Solomon. And that wisdom is amazing. Rather than getting defensive, rather than striking the complainers dead on the spot, rather than even confronting them in their sin of jealousy, they put the ball squarely back in the court of the complainers.

But first of all they establish their priority. They say right off the bat, that their priority is the ministry of the word and prayer. That is the priority of a pastor, by the way. I used to be confused when I was first starting out in ministry by people telling me that if I wanted to be a pastor then I had to have a pastor’s heart. I wasn’t sure what a pastor’s heart was, but I was led to believe that it was characterized by someone who enjoyed going to hospitals and visiting sick people and liked funerals. I know how that sounds, but that is what I thought. And it took me a while to understand that is not the primary ministry of the pastor. That sort of thing may happen in the process of being a pastor. But it is not the primary purpose of the pastor. The primary purpose is to preach the word of God. And the study of the word and prayer is the means by which God accomplishes that, by submitting to the word of God and seeking to be filled by God so that we might speak the word of God. Everything else a pastor encounters in ministry flows from first being filled with the word of God and praying for God’s wisdom and strength to do what He tasks us to do. Recognizing that it is not about my articulation, my ability to capture and hold and audience, my skill at oratory, my compassion to the sick, my ability to be a good listener, or my training in counseling. None of those things are worth anything if I am not preaching the word of God, the whole counsel of God.   That is my first priority, to preach the word, be instant in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke and exhort with all longsuffering and patience.

So I love the apostles because they won’t accept the complaint made against them. They say it is not desirable that we should wait on tables and neglect the word of God. You know, I have wrestled with that one from time to time. I used to be in the restaurant business. And there was a time in the beginning of this church when I had to work part time jobs in order to support myself. And to tell you the truth, I could still benefit from that today many times and still find myself doing side jobs occasionally to try to make ends meet. But there came a time in the ministry of this church when I said that it was not desirable to neglect the word of God in order to serve tables. And when I made that commitment, to give the Lord all of my time and resources and trust Him to provide, then not only did my finances improve, but my preaching improved, and the church was benefitted.

Paul said in 1Cor. 9:14 “So also the Lord directed those who proclaim the gospel to get their living from the gospel.” And I will not apologize for that. But more importantly I cannot let myself get distracted by the pursuit of money or trying to live according to some standard of living that the world puts out there as normal. I must keep my priority in line with God, and let God determine my standard of living.

So the apostles said this is what we are going to do, this is our priority, the ministry of the word and prayer, and this is what you are to do. Select 7 men, of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom whom we may put in charge of this task. So they essentially say, there is a physical need here in the church? Great, select some people from among you to take care of it. But we are not going to be distracted from our duty. Your duty is to love one another, to serve one another, to think more highly of one another than you do yourselves. That is the commandment, to love one another. To serve one another. So then do it. Select 7 godly men from among the congregation to take the lead in this.

Now there is a debate in theological circles as to whether or not these men were appointed as the first deacons or was this some other position. But the fact is that the title of deacon is not used. But diakoneō is used, which means to serve, to be a servant. And that is the same word is sometimes rendered as deacon later in the epistles. We do know that they were called the seven in Acts 21, as Philip was at that point an evangelist, but he was still called one of the seven.

So I tend to think that these men were more than deacons, because as we have seen Philip was an evangelist, and Steven was a preacher and worked great signs and wonders, and we will be looking at his brief but powerful ministry next week. I think that they were specially appointed representatives of the apostles themselves, who were granted a similar ministry, with similar gifts as the apostles were given. Furthermore, though we don’t know anything about the other five, we do know that Philip and Steven had been part of the 70 disciples that Jesus commissioned and sent out ahead of Him. So these were men that had been with Jesus just as the apostles had.

But what I think is instructive here is not perhaps readily apparent in the text, but it is there nonetheless. And that is this, these men were the foremost members of the congregation, who rose to fill the need of the body from the ranks of the body, and as such were examples for the rest of the church to emulate. This was the means by which the apostles worked to bring the body of the church from the position of mere spectators, to engaging in the life of the body.

And when I say that they were examples for the rest to follow that is backed up by the word that bookends the passage in vs. 2 and vs. 7, which was disciples. The early Christians were not yet called Christians, they were called disciples. And so these men first of all were disciples of Christ, and so they became examples of servants that the rest of the church could emulate and follow.

That is why the apostles set such high standards for this position. By the way, they were not necessarily waiters, who waited on tables. That is not what is being described here. What tables indicates is money tables. As the money was collected into the church it was disseminated to the needy, the widows being most emblematic of the needy that were in the church, but not necessarily just widows, but anyone that needed assistance.

But notice the standards that the apostles set for this position. First of all, they specified that it was to be men. God has ordained that men are to be the leaders of the church. It doesn’t mean that women can’t serve the church, but these leaders, these diakoneo, these servants, should be men. And that is a pattern that is followed throughout all the epistles. It was the pattern of Jesus who commissioned 12 men to be His apostles, and 70 men to be His disciples. And I do not think it is up for debate. I don’t think it’s just a cultural issue. Paul makes it clear that it is a theological issue in 1 Timothy 2:12, where he says, “I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man” speaking of in the church. The men are to be the spiritual leaders in the home and in the church, and when that gets out of order, then you are asking for trouble. I’m sorry if that offends your cultural sensibilities. I didn’t write the Bible, I merely tell you what God says in the Bible.

Secondly, they were to be men from in the church. “From among you…” See, the apostles are trying to teach them that the work of the ministry is to be performed by the church body, the saints. It’s not just clergy that do the work of ministry. But God has called every part of the body to participate in the working of the body. There are a variety of gifts, because there are a variety of things to be done in the church. The apostles are bridging the gap between the laity and the clergy. There really is not supposed to be a situation where the clergy does everything and the laity just shows up. But the church is a living organism, made up of living stones which are built up together into a temple unto God.

Thirdly, they were to be men of the church, of good reputation. This is so practical. How can people emulate someone who doesn’t have a good reputation? How can you follow the example of someone who has a bad reputation? And it’s not just a good reputation in the church either, by the way. It’s a good reputation in the community, in their business, in the marketplace. So that they will not be a stumbling block to the gospel. That is why purity is so important. You cannot claim God and live like the devil. You cannot be a leader in the church and continue in sin. Your testimony is important to the church body, that you do not bring shame upon the cause of Christ.

Fourthly, they were full of the Holy Spirit. How can a man have discernment? How can a man have wisdom? Only when he is filled with the Holy Spirit. We aren’t talking about some holy roller running around speaking gibberish or talking about some weird vision he has seen. We are talking about someone who lives a life under the control of the Holy Spirit. That’s it, plain and simple. He is not characterized by a life in the flesh, a worldly life, but a life dominated by the Holy Spirit. To be filled with the Holy Spirit is like a ship under sail, moved along by the power of the wind. That is being filled with the Holy Spirit. God will not contend with the spirit of the flesh. We crucify the flesh so that we might be filled with the Spirit, be under the control and guidance and power of the Spirit.

Fifthly, they were to be men of wisdom. Wisdom comes as a result of being filled with the Spirit. Relying upon the word. Crucifying the flesh. Not dependant upon the carnal wisdom of this world, but submissive and obedient to what God has told us in His word. Wisdom is the application of knowledge. That is simply being obedient to the conviction of the Holy Spirit through the word of God.

Now those are the kind of leaders you want in a church. Those are the kind of servants you want in a church. Those are the kind of men that you can emulate, that would serve as examples to the rest. I saw a post yesterday which quoted John Wesley, who said, ““If I had 300 men who feared nothing but God, hated nothing but sin, and determined to know nothing among men but Christ, and Him crucified, I would set the world on fire.”   If I were to change that at all, it would just be to scale it down a little bit. If I were to have just 7 men who feared nothing but God, hated nothing but sin, and determined to know nothing among men but Christ and Him crucified, I could turn this community upside down. We could pack this beach on Sunday morning. God give us a few good men who fear God, men of good reputation, men that are filled with the Holy Spirit and wisdom, and we will turn this community upside down.

So they nominated 7 men, Stephen, Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas and Nicolas, a proselyte from Antioch.   You know what is special about this list? They are all Greek names. They are all Hellenistic Jews. So here is the wisdom of the Holy Spirit to answer the complaint of the Hellenistic Jews. You want your widows to be cared for? Here then is seven men of your own, men who are from Greece and the surrounding nations, men of good reputation, men filled with the Holy Spirit and wisdom, and they will show you how to be servants of one another. They will show you by example how to serve one another, how to love one another, how to put the needs of others higher than your own. These Hellenistic Jews would come from the back rows of the congregation and come up to the front, serving one another, serving not only the Greek widows, but all the needs of the saints. They were to be the first examples of spiritual maturity in the church, moving from being served, to serving, to feeding, to caring for the needs of others. To loving your neighbor as yourself.

So the apostles show their approval of these men by laying hands on them. What does that mean? It doesn’t mean that some sort of power fell on them. It means that they showed unity with them. What does a handshake mean in our culture? It means that you welcome them, you identify with them, you are at peace with one another. The right hand was the hand that you held a sword in, so to give someone the right hand of fellowship was first of all a symbol of peace and goodwill. And secondly that you were identifying yourself with them. That is what was indicated by laying on of hands. It wasn’t some mystical transfer of power. But it was a symbol of the church’s authority extended to include these men as well as the apostles into leadership.

So what was the result of all of this? Did the devil get what he wanted by instigating jealousy in the church? Did he accomplish his goal of division, and so divide and then conquer the church? Obviously, the answer is no. In fact, because the apostles did not rely on man’s wisdom, but were filled with the Holy Spirit, God used what the devil meant as evil for good, for the good of the church.

Vs. 7, as a result of this trial, this dependence on the leading of the Spirit, and the submission of the church to the authority of the apostles, it says that instead of the church being hurt by this complaint, that “The word of God kept on spreading; and the number of the disciples continued to increase greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were becoming obedient to the faith.” When these 7 godly men stepped up to serve the church, the church increased in effectiveness even more.

So in closing, let me just recap what I said earlier about these men that are examples of spiritual maturity. God used them to bridge the gap between the congregation and the apostles. The ministry would be multiplied by the addition of seven godly men, who understood that we are called to be the church, not just come to church. And the congregation would be blessed and increased by the example that these men showed to the rest. I pray and I trust you will pray with me that God will raise up people like these seven, here in this church. Servants from among you. People of good reputation. People filled with the Holy Spirit and wisdom. If we are going to accomplish the ministry of the church, the mission of Christ to win the world, then we need people such as these to come up from the ranks and take their place as servants in this church. That they might be examples to others. That we all may attain such a standard, to be servants of Christ and His body.

As we have been studying the book of Acts, much has been said about the work of the Holy Spirit. He was the One who the apostles were told to wait for, and His coming was what inaugurated the new church in Jerusalem in a baptism of divine power. Jesus said in John 16:13-15 “But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said that He takes of Mine and will disclose it to you.”

So as we have seen, the Holy Spirit did indeed come in great power and authority, attesting to the truth of God’s word with signs and wonders and miracles. Immediately, the early church saw the result of the Holy Spirit’s power by the fact that thousands of people were saved. The Spirit of Truth convicted men’s hearts upon hearing the truth of the gospel, so that they cried out, “what shall we do?” Upon hearing the message of the apostles the men of Jerusalem’s hearts were cut to the quick with conviction of their sinful condition and they cried out in repentance and faith to be saved. That happened as a result of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and the proclamation of the truth concerning Jesus Christ and His gospel.

Now we know that the devil hates the truth. Jesus said in John 8:44 concerning the devil that “He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” So as the church is being built on the truth of the apostles through the power of the Spirit of Truth, the devil sought to sow lies among the church. To plant tares among the wheat. And we saw the evidence of that in the beginning of chapter 5 with Ananias and Sapphira. Peter accused them of a great sin, the sin of lying to the Holy Spirit. They claimed to be giving all to God, when in fact it was a lie. And Peter said it was not him they were lying to, but they were lying to the Holy Spirit. So God’s judgment fell upon them right in the church and they fell down dead as a warning to everyone, as a warning to those who would subvert the truth of God, either by doctrine or by their life. Because the truth is the foundation of the church. If Satan can shake that, if he can twist that, then it will cause the whole building to tumble.

That is why God desires purity in the church. Truth of doctrine, purity in worship, and purity in the lives of those that claim the name of Jesus. As Paul said in 2Cor. 7:1 “Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.” God saved us to be holy, to be purified from the defilement of flesh and spirit, that we might complete holiness in the fear of the Lord as we walk in the world, so that we might be a testimony to the world of the power of God to transform sinners into saints. That was the testimony that the early church had in Jerusalem. And that was why the church was growing and people were being added to the church daily.

So then as a result of the purifying power of the Holy Spirit, the church is strengthened in the truth and made even more effective in evangelizing the world. But at the same time, the truth is at war with the devil’s lie. And in the remainder of chapter 5, we see this battle between truth and the lie played out in the church, through the persecution of the church. We are going to see in this chapter five consequences of truth as it is employed by this young church in evangelism.

First of all, let’s look at the authentication of the truth. Starting in vs. 12, “At the hands of the apostles many signs and wonders were taking place among the people; and they were all with one accord in Solomon’s portico. But none of the rest dared to associate with them; however, the people held them in high esteem. And all the more believers in the Lord, multitudes of men and women, were constantly added to their number, to such an extent that they even carried the sick out into the streets and laid them on cots and pallets, so that when Peter came by at least his shadow might fall on any one of them. Also the people from the cities in the vicinity of Jerusalem were coming together, bringing people who were sick or afflicted with unclean spirits, and they were all being healed.”

In order to authenticate the truth that the apostles were preaching, God granted special power to the apostles to do signs and wonders. These were uneducated, unqualified men in the eyes of the people. They were preaching a gospel that was foreign to the hearers who were steeped in Judaism. And so God verified that the word that they were preaching was from God by signs and wonders. This was particularly the distinction of an apostle. Paul said in 2Cor. 12:12 “The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with all perseverance, by signs and wonders and miracles.” That was the distinction of the ministry of a true apostle. They were sent by Christ to be His representatives, to speak His gospel, and so He gave them authenticating signs.

That is what the writer of Hebrews says was the purpose of signs and wonders as well. Heb. 2:3-4 “After it was at the first spoken through the Lord, it was confirmed to us by those who heard, God also testifying with them, both by signs and wonders and by various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit according to His own will.” So God testified that the word they were speaking was from Him by miraculous signs.

Throughout all of Bible history, God authenticated the message of His prophets and apostles by signs and wonders, to signify a new era, a new revelation of His word. In Exodus, Moses was given signs and wonders to authenticate that he spoke from God. In the same way, Elijah and Elisha were given the power of signs and wonders to inaugurate the new era of the prophets. Jesus Christ went about healing and working miracles as validation of His ministry that He was sent from God and teaching the words of God. And so in the beginning of a new era, the age of the church, God gave the apostles the same ministry, the same miracle working power so that people would recognize them as being of Christ and that He might validate their gospel as the truth of God. Because the doctrine of the apostles was to be the foundation of the church. It would form the truth that would be written down as Scripture, which is the foundation that the church would be built upon. So God verified it, validated it, and authenticated it by miracles.

However, it was a limited dispensation. As we go on to the latter parts of the book of Acts, there is a fading away of the ministry of miracles. Here in chapter 5, multitudes are being healed. All were being healed. But by the end of Acts, physical healing is no longer the means by which the Holy Spirit authenticates the gospel. The scriptures which have been written by that time are the means that the Spirit authenticates teachers. We don’t always see everyone healed in the latter parts of Acts. We don’t see everyone delivered from prison in the latter parts of Acts. But rather we see apostles dying for the faith, imprisoned and left there to die by the hands of their persecutors. We see people get sick and not always healed. And so it is a special dispensation, a special gift that was given to the apostles and a few other select ministers of their ilk, for the purpose of authenticating the truth of their message for a limited time and a specific purpose.

But even today, though we may not have the power given to the apostles to heal or do miracles, yet the greatest miracle of all is still in full effect as a means of authenticating the truth of our doctrine. And that is the miracle of a transformed life. The conversion of a lost sinner into a child of God is the greatest miracle of all, and one that mere physical healing could only allude to. God is the same, yesterday, today and forever. He still has the power to heal. And God still heals. But do not be deceived, there are no more apostles. We saw earlier that apostles had to be witnesses of the teaching of Christ and His resurrection. So do not be deceived by those false prophets that claim to have the gift of healing, or worse yet, that say you can be healed of any disease if you just have enough faith. Jesus and the apostles raised dead people to life, who had no faith whatsoever. God does the healing, not men. So today, we validate the truth of preachers by the scriptures, not by claims of signs and wonders.

Secondly, we see the attack on the truth. As I said earlier, Satan hates the truth. And in this case, he makes a frontal attack. He works through the religious establishment, the high priest and the Council, who are jealous of the apostle’s power and results and the fact that the entire city was galvanized by their message. And their envy provokes their attack on the truth – they have the apostles arrested and put in jail.

The religious establishment was offended at the truth. The gospel is by design offensive, and so self righteous people will be offended when you tell them that they are sinners. So they locked the Apostles up, to try to shut up the truth. But the truth will not be silenced. God sent an angel to let them out. It’s ironic that God sent an angel to let the apostles out of the prison. The high priests and the Council were comprised of Sadducees, who did not believe in the resurrection, nor a spirit, nor an angel. So God sent an angel, so that the apostles could continue preaching the resurrection. It’s also ironic that the attack was meant to stop miracles from occurring, and in fact it caused another miracle. Satan’s attack backfired. It produced a miracle that could not be denied.

In the morning, the gates were still locked, the guards were still at the door, but the apostles were not there. When they could not find them, some one came and told them that the apostles were right back in the temple preaching again. “Then the captain went along with the officers and proceeded to bring them back without violence (for they were afraid of the people, that they might be stoned).” Satan can attack the church, but as Christ said, the gates of hell will not prevail against it. God can use even that which is hateful for His good, to further the truth.

Thirdly, we see the affirmation of the truth. It’s very interesting to me that when the angel set them free he gave them a divine charge; “Go, stand and speak to the people in the temple the whole message of this Life.”   The apostles were a living demonstration of the principle that Jesus taught in John 8:32 “and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”

It’s also interesting that when they received that charge, they did not hesitate. They did not put it off for a more convenient day. But they started preaching in the temple at daybreak. Wow! And here I was thinking that 8am was too early for Sunday mornings. Perhaps we need to start earlier. But seriously, the apostles recognized the urgency of the message. What opportunities to witness are lost because we fail to realize the urgency of the gospel message to a dying world.

But when they are brought back to the court of the Council, this is where the apostles have a chance to change their message. But they do not. If anything, the power of God to rescue them from prison has emboldened them even more to affirm the message that they have been preaching is the truth, and they cannot change it, and they cannot stop doing it. They say that they had to obey God rather than men. Whether it is accepted or not, whether it is even legal or not, will not impact their message.

Peter had already indicted the leaders for killing Jesus in chapter 4:10. Now he even more boldly affirms that Jesus had been raised from the dead by God, and exalted into heaven. This to men who did not believe in a resurrection.

The words Peter uses to describe this exalted Jesus is a Prince and a Savior. We should all be familiar with the meaning of Savior, but the word Prince bears further scrutiny. It means “a pioneer, one who leads the way, an originator.” Jesus is the pioneer of life. He was the first born of the dead. But He was also the pioneer who leads us in the walk of faith, walking in the Spirit, walking according to the Word of God. Hebrews 2:10 calls Jesus the Pioneer, or the Author of our salvation. Our salvation is not an ending point, it is the birth point. It is not a parking lot, but a launching pad as we follow in the footsteps of Christ. In Heb. 12:2 Jesus is called the author, the Prince of our faith. In other words, He leads us into paths which test our faith and cause it to grow, to lead us into righteousness for His name sake. He leads us into maturity in our faith.

Also notice that Peter’s affirmation of the truth speaks of the need of repentance which God has granted to those that submit to the Lordship of Christ. And that repentance brings about the forgiveness of sins. Faith and repentance, are the keystones of salvation. But be sure of something, while faith is believing in the knowledge of the truth, repentance is acting on that knowledge in obedience by turning from sin. Vs. 32, “And we are witnesses of these things; and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey Him.”   They are witnesses of the truth, the Holy Spirit is a witness to the truth, and He is given to those who are obedient to the truth that they might be a witness. The witness is we once walked according to the lusts of the flesh, now we walk according to the truth of the Spirit.

Eph 2:1 “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.” But then contrast that with the walk of faith in vs. 8 “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” Faith is always yoked with obedience.

Fourthly, we see as the consequence of preaching the truth some avoiding the truth. The temple and the Council was controlled by the Sadducees, but the Pharisees were respected and honored by the people. And there is a Pharisee there present in the Council who is so widely respected that he is able to affect their decision and preserve the leaders position with the people. Gamaliel was the foremost teacher of the Pharisee. And by the way, he was Paul’s teacher.

But though his counsel was accepted, it was not wise. On the surface, his advice sounds good. But when examined it reveals that he had rejected Jesus as the Messiah, but had lumped him along with the false Messiahs. He also assumed that if something fails then it is not of God, or conversely, if something succeeds, then it is of God. That is man’s wisdom. It is not the wisdom of God. From their perspective, Jesus had failed because He had been crucified. From their perspective, Christianity would fail, because it was dispersed in the coming persecution. Mark Twain once said in a bit of wisdom, that a lie runs around the world while the truth is still putting on it’s shoes.  False religion does not lack for disciples and missionaries and evangelists. False teachers often have successful enterprises called churches. But worldly success is no indication of the truth of the gospel.

But the most foolish advice given by Gamaliel was to do nothing. To take a wait and see attitude. To try to remain neutral. And this is exactly the devil’s strategy used to keep so many people on their way to hell. Satan urges them to find a neutral position with God, neither too involved in Christianity, or too much against it. Accept the likeable parts, but don’t adhere to the sticky parts, in effect, avoid making a real commitment. And that is a damnable attitude. Jesus said in Matt. 12:30 “He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me scatters.” One day every man or woman will give an account of what they did with Jesus. And they that will not bow the knee now, will bow their knee then, but it will be too late for their salvation. They will mourn when they see Him who they had pierced.

Gamaliel was a very smart man. He knew the Scriptures back and forth. He was very well respected as a religious leader. He had a great audience of admirers. And yet his counsel was to avoid the truth, and so he condemned his soul and theirs to hell by his wisdom. Beware of religious leaders who sound convincing, and yet their doctrine is not backed up by sound doctrine based on the whole counsel of God, or as the angel said, the whole message of this life. For whoever rejects the truth is dead even while he yet lives.

One final effect of the truth was the apostles continuing to announce the truth. Rather than the persecution shutting the apostles up, it caused them to be even more bold in preaching the gospel. Peter’s message so angered the Council that they were cut to the quick, and wanted to kill them. But God used the foolishness of Gamaliel to cause the Council to let the apostles go free. However, not without scourging them. In vs. 40 we read that they flogged the apostles and told them not to preach any more in His name and they released them.

But notice in vs. 41 the apostles response to that flogging. “So they went on their way from the presence of the Council, rejoicing that they had been considered worthy to suffer shame for His name.” Wow. I wish that could be said of me when I am reviled for the message that I preach. I must confess that it is often not rejoicing that comes out of my mouth when I am attacked. I wonder how you would measure up? I think the problem for most of us is that we might recognize the apostles’ flogging as persecution, but when trials come against us, we often fail to recognize it as such. We respond as if it were only flesh and blood. We fail to recognize that Satan is the instigator behind many attacks perpetrated through flesh and blood. But instead of recognizing it as demonic, we see a coworker, or a relative, or a friend or a neighbor. And we forget that we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers that work through the flesh of fallen men and women.

Someone once said, that the purpose of life is to glorify God as we go through trials which build character as we are obedient to the truth. Therefore we should rejoice in persecution or in trials. James said “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”

I must confess that if I would have been there with the apostles I would have rejoiced when I was released from prison by the angel. That would have been pretty cool and validated my sense of self worth. But I would have had a hard time understanding why I had to undergo flogging. And let me tell you, flogging is not like getting a spanking when you were a kid. Flogging is being stripped of your clothes and being beaten with a bull whip until your back and legs are ripped to shreds. And they rejoiced that they were considered worthy to suffer in such a way for Christ. That alone was a testimony to the world, to see these men who had been beaten to a pulp come out of there praising God for it.

Persecution and threats and whippings did not make the Apostles quit, but it only served to make them even more bold. They were witnessing daily, preaching daily in the temple and from house to house. They used every opportunity to announce the good news of Jesus Christ. DL Moody once said, “the more we use the means and opportunities that we have, the more will our ability and our opportunities be increased.”

Listen, when we come to know the truth, and learn obedience to the truth from the things we suffer, even as Christ did, then we will not be quitters. The apostles weren’t quitters. Everyone of these men save John would eventually die as a martyr for the truth. Some of them would be burned alive. Some would be hung on a cross upside down. Some would be cast from the roof of the temple and stoned. Some would be beheaded. Almost all of them would be imprisoned and beaten many times. But the truth would make them free indeed. Paul spent a large part of his ministry in chains, and yet the word was unchained. The written words of Paul have had more impact than he could ever have had by simply preaching from town to town. God’s ways are not our ways. God has chosen the weak things to confound the mighty.

It’s amazing to me that God did not use angels as the soul ministers of His gospel. I mean why does He deign to use men? Why not just give the ministry of the gospel to His tried and true angels? They have immense power. They are not weak in flesh as we are. Certainly the world would pay attention to an angel speaking from a chariot of fire. But God in His wisdom has chosen man. He chose man to be the way that Christ would come into the world, to be born as a man and suffer as a man. He chose the lowliest of people, fishermen from Galilee, uneducated, rough men, to be His apostles, to carry the message of His gospel throughout the world. Why?

Because men can support their message by their experience and angels cannot. We were depraved, lost sinners when God redeemed us and changed us. We were weak in the flesh and now we have been made alive in the Spirit. We had no interest in God, now we are children of God and do His will. We have a living testimony that angels can never have. Because angels are not redeemed, angels are not converted. But we are. And so we must begin to praise Jesus by our words and our life, while we still are in this life, that we might serve to bring others to Christ.

God used men, not angels to spread the gospel. He may have used angels to release the apostles, but he uses men to preach the gospel. Jesus did not take the form of an angel to perform redemption, but He took the form of a man. In order that redeemed, transformed man should be the utility by which God transforms the world. It is a ministry committed to committed men and women. We too are sinners, but saved by grace and transformed into saints. God has chosen you to be His instrument for bringing the gospel to the world. That God should use man to be such a sacred testament to His power to save must be a blow to satanic pride. The use of feeble men brings glory to God in a way that angels could never do.

1Cor. 6:19 tells us, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.” This is the announcement of the truth of Christ’s gospel. Your life glorifies God. You are not your own, but you are bought with a price. Your life is not your own. You are the temple of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth. Now then, hear the charge of the angel of God to you today, “Go, stand boldly and speak to the people all the words of this life.”   The people of this world are perishing for a lack of knowledge. We have the truth, and God has sent us to proclaim it to the world. I urge you to not neglect this great commission that God has entrusted you with. “Go, stand boldly and speak to the people all the words of this life.”

We looked last week at persecution against the church and how paradoxically persecution actually benefits the church. We found that persecution produces identification with Christ, it produces proven faith, persecution produces allegiance to God, not man, persecution produces effective praying, and so forth. Basically, we showed that persecution tends to strengthen the church and increase fruitfulness in the church. History reveals that persecuting the church only causes the church to become purer and more powerful and more effective.

Now, as we will see illustrated in this passage, Satan changes his strategy. If direct attacks do not destroy the church, he will change tactics. Not only is Satan a murderer, going about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour, but he is also a liar, and a deceiver, and so he disguises himself as an angel of light. In this strategy, he attacks inside the church, even through the church, where he is more effective at achieving his aim. Satan attempts to prevail by subterfuge what cannot be won by frontal attack. And so Satan tempts the members of the fellowship to sin, thus fostering rebellion against God from within the very ranks of the church, and using sin to corrupt the purity of the church, which is the secret of her effectiveness.

The fact that there is sin in the church should not come as a surprise to anyone. It is after all completely evident to the people outside the church. That is why non believer’s consistently say that the thing which turns them off more about the church is not old fashioned music, or even the preacher’s message, or the lack of young people activities, but anecdotal evidence suggests that what turns unbelievers off more than anything else in regards to the church is that it is filled with hypocrites.

And to a certain extent they are correct. None of us are what we should be. There’s sin in the church because there are sinners in the church. But sinners who mourn over their sinfulness and repent of it, trusting in the grace of God for their redemption do not make hypocrites. But rather hypocrites are people who pretend they are righteous, while they continue to live in sin. The Greek word for hypocrite means an actor on a stage. Therefore, hypocrites are people who put on an act in order to receive applause from men. And nothing is more damning to the church’s effectiveness, and it’s witness, and it’s fellowship than hypocrisy. Our Lord was most incensed against the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. He saved His most scathing attacks for those that talked the talk, but did not walk the walk. And the devil knows that sowing hypocrisy in the church will destroy it from the inside.

Jesus said in Matthew 13, that the kingdom of God (which is the church) is like a mustard seed that grew into a great tree. But people hearing that parable in those days understood that mustard seeds do not grow into great trees, but grow into mustard bushes. So Jesus is saying first of all that the mustard seed, the church, grows abnormally large. And then He says it grows so large that the birds of the air came and nested in it’s branches. What does that mean? Well, in another parable when Jesus taught about the various type of soils, He identifies the birds of the air as the devil and his demons that swoop down upon the seed cast into the soil and eat it up. So birds nesting in the branches of the tree indicates that demons will nest in the branches of the church. They find refuge there, they find rest there, because the church does not deal with unrepented sin.

As I said, this is the strategy of the devil. He finds it more effective to attack the church from within than from without. And he does that by tempting us to sin and harbor that sin, producing hypocrisy. And hypocrisy is one sin that Jesus spoke most vehemently about.

Now up to this point, the new church in Jerusalem had been going famously. It was growing, it was vibrant, it was powerful. But suddenly our attention is drawn to this egregious example of pride and hypocrisy in the church, and the Holy Spirit acts swiftly to cut it out of the body. Because unrepentant sin is like leaven, that is if it’s left in the dough it will leaven the whole lump. Unrepentant sin is rebellion towards God, which 1Samuel 15 says is as the sin of witchcraft. It destroys fellowship with God, it destroys unity in the body, it destroys your testimony, and ultimately it destroys lives. And that is why God moves to deal with this sin of hypocrisy in a mighty way before it destroys this infant church.

Boy, if you want to put a damper on your church growth program, you would think that God striking people dead would do it, wouldn’t you? I mean, from our point of view that is the wrong thing for God to do if you want to build a church. But yet God does this for exactly that reason. He knows that if it is to truly be His church, so the gates of hell will not prevail against it, then He must deal with flagrant sin, rebellious, unrepentant sin, and if it takes these two to make an example, to put the fear of God into this church, then that’s what it takes. Because God said we are to be holy, even as He is holy. It is His church. His Holy Spirit indwells the church. The Son of God shed His precious blood to purchase the church. And God knows that for it to be effective, for it to endure, for it to prevail, He must deal with the enemy within, the enemy of impurity which corrupts the church.

Let’s look then in detail as to what happened. The story really starts in the latter part of chapter 4. Barnabas has done what many others were doing in the church, they were selling property and bringing in the proceeds and laying it at the apostle’s feet. No one had told them to do this. This was just the result of their unfeigned love of God. They loved God, so they loved His body. They loved His people and so they wanted to participate in serving them, and they did it by sacrificial giving.

And there had obviously been some recognition in the church of these people that did this. The church was rejoicing in these people’s generosity. People that were displaced from their homes or jobs or families due to their faith were being blessed by these folks sacrificial giving. There must have been a certain amount of accolades and recognition due to these magnanimous gifts. There surely would have been a certain amount of recognition that these people were spiritually mature, and in the case of Barnabas at least, some were elevated to a place of leadership in the church. Barnabas would go on to be one of the great missionaries sent out by the church, responsible for nurturing no less person than the apostle Paul, and also John Mark.

So this couple in the church named Ananias and his wife Sapphira want to get in on this. Let me tell you, there is no righteousness so sweet as righteousness noticed. The church is no stranger to this malady of self righteousness today, even as we see it illustrated in these two people in this infant stage of the church. They wanted to be seen as spiritual, as dedicated, and committed. But in fact, they had ulterior motives, planning to claim something that was a lie.

Now we need to realize that these two people were believers. The text in ch.4 makes it clear that all of the people in the fellowship were of one heart and soul. But at some point the sin of envy, or jealousy, came into this couple’s hearts as they saw the accolades, or respect given to people like Barnabas. And that little bit of envy gave birth to another sin which was pride. They wanted to be seen as spiritual examples. They wanted to be able to go around with people thinking they were especially spiritual.

It’s interesting to note their names. I think they give us a clue to their personalities. Ananias means “Grace with God.” This guy even had a name which denoted his favor with God. And perhaps he leaned a little too heavily on God’s favor, even presuming upon the grace of God to overlook his presumptuous sin. And the wife’s name, Sapphira, is a take on a sapphire stone, which had come to mean beautiful. That probably is not the best name you want to pick for your child. It can’t exactly help a child have a healthy self image if everyone is calling them beautiful all day long. I can’t help but think that both of these people had a pride problem.

And this is purely speculative on my part, but I would not be surprised if they did not see this move as a means to gain a position in the church. You know, there were upwards of 15,000 to 20,000 members in this church at this point. And so it’s not surprising that someone would attempt to gain leadership status through some sort of underhanded approach to win the people’s favor. The sin of hypocrisy often lends itself to a desire for preeminence found in leadership or teaching.

So, in vs. 1 Luke tells us that in response to what Barnabas and others had done, this couple conspired to sell some property that they owned but keep some of the proceeds and yet tell the church that they were in fact giving them the full amount. There was no compulsion to sell their property. They were simply motivated by pride. They wanted to be seen as something they were not. They directly contradicted Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 6:1, “Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven.”

Which sin would you have picked to be the first sin that the Lord disciplined in the church? Maybe you would’ve picked immorality. Maybe you would’ve picked stealing. Maybe you would’ve picked some form of blasphemy. Maybe you would’ve picked some relationship characterized by anger, hostility, lack of forgiveness. Those are all part of life in the church. But the sin that the Holy Spirit places here to teach how God deals with sin in the church is the sin of hypocrisy, pretending to be something you’re not.

That’s why Peter said in 1 Peter 4:17 that it is time for judgment to begin with the house of God first. The church is to be a shining example to the world. God wants to clean out the old leaven which is always a used as a picture of sin in the Bible.. He doesn’t want sin corrupting this new church in it’s infancy. Because as Paul said, a little leaven leavens the whole lump. He says in 1Cor. 5:6, “Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough? Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed.” In the Passover festival, the Jews were to clean out the leaven from their houses. That was meant to be an illustration of searching your heart for sin and getting rid of it. Not harboring it. David said in Psalm 139:23-24 “Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me and know my anxious thoughts; And see if there be any hurtful way in me, And lead me in the everlasting way.”

But Ananias comes to the church and lays the money at the apostles feet in brazen hypocrisy. Premeditated hypocrisy. Unrepentant hypocrisy. You know there are all kinds of ways to sin. But there are some sins that are more dangerous than others. Spontaneous sin, or sin of the passion of the moment is one thing. But deliberate, intentional sin that refuses to acknowledge it as sin is another thing altogether. It’s like the difference between manslaughter and premeditated murder. It’s the most dangerous sin in the life of a Christian, and it’s most dangerous to the church.

And so Peter is given discernment by the Holy Spirit to recognize this. You know, I can’t claim to have Peter’s level of discernment. But I will say that discernment is a characteristic of a godly leader.  And I do believe that God often gives me a measure of discernment or intuition that enables me to see things where otherwise I might be deceived or fall into a trap. I think God given spiritual discernment is the only way a preacher can truly teach the truth of the gospel. And I think you have to rely on that God given wisdom in order to lead the church. But though I may often find myself thinking inwardly that what someone is saying to me is not right, or that it comes from wrong motives, I do not pronounce deadly judgment upon them. I let God be the judge, and I let God deal with them, unless He clearly tells me to confront them.

Notice that Peter does not enact corporeal punishment himself here either. But he does show discernment. He rebukes Ananias publicly. And I think he does that for the benefit of the church. If Ananias just fell over dead from a heart attack without clarification from Peter, the church would likely have erected his statue in the front vestibule. He would have looked like a benefactor who died an untimely death. But Peter, acting on behalf of the Holy Spirit, wants this to be understood, to be an example, a lesson for the rest of the church, that they do not lie to the Holy Spirit. And that is what Peter accuses Ananias of. He says you lied to the Holy Spirit, you have not lied to men but to God.

So Ananias fell down dead at that moment, right there in the front of the church. And Luke says great fear came over all that heard of it. Then three hours later, Sapphira came in. I don’t know why she was late, I guess she was fixing her hair or something. Had to look beautiful, you know. But she confirms the same lie that her husband had given, not knowing that he had just died. And so Peter rebuked her for testing the Holy Spirit and she also fell down dead in the midst of the congregation. Once again, in vs. 11, Luke tells us that the result was that great fear fell on all the church. Twice Luke tells us that great fear fell on the church. That was the goal.

Now fear is another thing that you would think would be bad for church growth. But actually it serves the purpose of God. That the church would have a holy fear of God. You know, as a preacher, every time I talk about the fear of God I am usually encouraged to downplay the aspect of fear to that of just some sort of reverence or awe. But here in this passage, you cannot escape from the holy dread of Godly fear. Heb. 10:31 “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”

Listen, Romans 3:18 makes it clear that the primary characteristic of the unbeliever is that there is no fear of God before their eyes. Then conversely does not that tell you that the characteristic of a Christian should be that they have a fear of God? We should have a holy fear of God. We cannot, nor should we want to live in sin, in flagrant rebellion against God. If He is our heavenly Father, then He says that He chastens those He loves, and He scourges every son.

I don’t know what your childhood may have been like, but I really loved my dad. And I know that my dad loved me enough to lay down his life for me if necessary. When I was a little boy and my dad would come home I would run and leap up into his arms and throw my arms around his neck. I knew that he loved me. But on those days when my brother and I drove my mother crazy, and wouldn’t obey, and deliberately rebelled against her, she would say, “just wait until your dad get’s home.” And on those days when dad would come in the front door I wouldn’t run to him. I was afraid because I knew that I was probably going to get a spanking. It didn’t mean that my dad didn’t love me anymore. It meant that I had a problem and I needed to get straightened out before I could have fellowship with my dad. But afterwards, when all the crying was over, I would find my way back to my dad, and crawl up on his lap, and bury my head in his chest sobbing and he would tell me that he loved me and I would tell him that I loved him too. Now to some people today that probably sounds like a form of child abuse. But I would retort that that kind of attitude is what has produced the kind of society that we live in today. There is no fear of God before their eyes, and as a result the world is in chaos, families are in chaos, because people do whatever they think is right in their own eyes.

God’s family is not designed to be like that. God’s plan of discipline of His family, the church is found in Heb. 12:5-10 “MY SON, DO NOT REGARD LIGHTLY THE DISCIPLINE OF THE LORD, NOR FAINT WHEN YOU ARE REPROVED BY HIM; FOR THOSE WHOM THE LORD LOVES HE DISCIPLINES, AND HE SCOURGES EVERY SON WHOM HE RECEIVES.” It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness.”

That’s what God’s discipline is designed to produce – holiness. 2Cor. 7:1 says, “Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.” See, if we were to examine ourselves, and put away filthiness, put away fleshly defilements, put away sin, and desire holiness, then God will have no need of discipline. But when we refuse to confess our sins, refuse to acknowledge it as sin, and continue in sin, then God will discipline us for our own good in order to produce holiness. So rather than continuing in sin we are to be perfecting holiness in the fear of God. To be striving to be holy, even as He is holy. This is what we were given the power of the Holy Spirit to enable us to do. To do righteousness, to be holy in all our behavior, to be set apart, consecrated only unto the Lord.

Some of you undoubtedly are saying, “Well, I can’t believe a loving God could do something like that.” But in saying that, are you not guilty of defining God? Are you not guilty of making a god in your own image? According to what you want God to be? I would remind you that God is jealous of His church. James 4:5 “He jealously desires the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us.” The church is to be the spotless bride of Christ. And so He is just in His vengeance against those that would bring sin and shame into His church.

This is not an isolated example of God’s severe discipline against sin, but this an ever present reality of the early church. According to 1 Corinthians 11:30-32 there were true believers that God was putting to death because of the way they came to the Lord’s Table. “Some of you are weak and some of you are sick, and some of you sleep.” You’re dead because of how you desecrate the My table. Some of you, Paul says. That means some of you Christians pay the ultimate price for your rebellion.

In 1 Cor. 5, Paul was writing to address an immorality issue that had continued in the church and everyone knew about it, and the person refused to confess it as sin. And so Paul writes in 1Cor. 5:5 “I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.” Do you understand what Paul is saying there? He is saying, I’m going to remove him from the protection of the church, so that he might be destroyed by Satan. This man is going to be destroyed physically, so that he might be saved in his spirit in the judgment day of Christ. This man was saved, and so he was going to enter into heaven, but he would suffer the punishment of God here on this earth by allowing the devil to destroy him.

So we see here in this passage another miracle of the Holy Spirit, empowering the church, but not one that gets all the attention like speaking in tongues, or healing. But this is the power of the Holy Spirit nonetheless. It is the power to discipline the church. The Holy Spirit has that right, and that responsibility, so that the church may be the holy and spotless bride of Christ. He has the right to purify the church.

So what was the result of this purification, this godly fear that fell upon the church? Did it kill the church? Did people stop coming to church for fear that they would be struck dead on the spot? Did the church shrivel up and die because they were too legalistic, or too condemning? No, actually the opposite happened. The church increased in it’s effectiveness. The purity and zeal for God in the church reached a new level and the whole city was aware of it. There suddenly weren’t very many hypocrites that wanted to associate with them, that’s for sure. Look at vs.12-13 “At the hands of the apostles many signs and wonders were taking place among the people; and they were all with one accord in Solomon’s portico. But none of the rest dared to associate with them; however, the people held them in high esteem.”

So here is the result in a nutshell. As a result of purification the apostles were enabled to do even more miracles, the church was unified in doctrine and in fellowship, and unsaved people did not dare associate with them. That means that there was no social benefit to being a church member. And people were afraid to try to pretend that they were righteous when they were still unsaved. But, and this is important, but the people held them in high esteem. The unsaved community watching this church had nothing bad to say about them. They weren’t cursing the church because they were a bunch of hypocrites. No, they held them in high esteem because they could see them practicing what they preached. They saw the purity and commitment and devotion of this early church and it was a testimony to the unsaved world as to the power of the Holy Spirit to transform men and women, to conform them to the image of Jesus Christ.

And then notice another result of the Holy Spirit’s purification of the church. Vs.14 “And all the more believers in the Lord, multitudes of men and women, were constantly added to their number.” The church continued to grow by leaps and bounds. The church’s effectiveness was not hindered, but helped as they continued in the fear of the Lord because it’s light burned ever more brighter.

Listen, in closing I would just ask you today to examine yourselves today in light of this standard of purity and holiness that God expects from us. Ananias and Sapphira were Christians. And even though their motives were suspect, they were giving money to the church, weren’t they? They were involved in fellowship. Wasn’t that a good thing? No, the fact is that God is not concerned about outward signs of religion. He is concerned about the heart. And God sees our heart. David said, a broken and contrite heart O Lord you will not despise.

The sin of Ananias and Sapphira was not just that they kept back some money. It was that they lied to the Holy Spirit. And I would ask you today, are you guilty of lying to the Holy Spirit? Are you telling God that you are His, you have surrendered all, when in fact you are holding back a portion for yourself? Are you holding on to some sin, holding onto some thing that is not honoring to God? Have you come here today with your head held high, attempting to put one over on the church, and in effect you are guilty of not only sinning against God but lying to the Holy Spirit by in effect telling saying that you are good, you are righteous, when in fact you refuse to repent of sin that you are harboring in your life?

If that is the case, then I would “urge you by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Romans 12:1,2) Don’t leave this place today in a spirit of rebellion. Confess your sins one to another that you may be healed. (James 5:16) That the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint.

Come all the way to God. Come all the way to salvation. In Titus chapter 2 we have the full range of salvation delineated for us. Not just one aspect of salvation, but the full range of salvation is given for us in Titus 2:11-14 which says, “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus, who gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds.”

That is salvation. All of it. “Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.” For our God is a consuming fire.

None of us would willingly invite persecution, would we? Our instinct towards self preservation is so ingrained in us that our natural tendency is to avoid anything that might cause us pain or discomfort. If you’re like me, you spend a lot of time praying that God would deliver you from whatever trial you might be encountering. But the fact is that God often uses persecution and trials for His plan.   What seems injurious to us, is often used by God to conform us in the image of Jesus Christ.

That is why James says in chapter 1 vs. 2, “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance, and let endurance have its perfect result so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”

It’s interesting to notice that at the very beginning of the church, when unparalleled growth was occurring, 10,000 to 20,000 people have possibly been saved and brought into the church, it’s ironic that this is also the time that God allowed persecution to come upon the church in order to complete what had been begun at Pentecost. Though God never tempts us with evil, He allowed evil men to bring persecution upon this fledgling body of believers and used it to produce maturity and a greater degree of usefulness and fruitfulness.

Peter in His address to the Sanhedrin makes it clear that persecution of Christ was used by God to work out His plan. Vs. 27, “For truly in this city there were gathered together against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose predestined to occur.”

In the same way, according to the sovereign plan of God, He uses trials and persecutions brought on by evil men to accomplish His purpose; to produce endurance, to prove our faith and to bring us to completeness in the image of Christ. So in this passage today we are going to look at 9 ways that persecution brings about God’s purposes. Nine ways that God uses persecution to perform His purposes. And as we look at these, it is my hope that it would cause us to look at persecution and trials differently, so that we might fulfill James command to endure these trials and consider it all joy, because we know that it will be used by God for His glory, and our good.

First, we should rejoice because persecution produces identification with Christ. Vs.13, “Now as they observed the confidence of Peter and John and understood that they were uneducated and untrained men, they were amazed, and began to recognize them as having been with Jesus.” One of the benefits of persecution is that it draws the line doesn’t it? When Christianity is on easy street and it’s considered popular to be a “Christian”, then many times the lines get blurred between true Christianity that is modeled after Christ’s example and those who just give lip service. But when persecution comes, and suddenly it’s not popular to be a Christian, when professing Christ can get you fired from your job, or even fined or arrested for talking about Jesus, then the fair weather Christians fall away pretty quickly and those that are truly His disciples become evident.

To the Sanhedrin who had arrested Peter and John, it was apparent that these men had been with Jesus. They spoke with the boldness that He spoke. They acted in the power of the Holy Spirit even as Christ had. They showed discernment of the scriptures even as Christ had. And so it was apparent that they had been with Jesus. Hey, is that something that might be said about you, by people you are working with? Do your neighbors say that it’s apparent that you are someone who has Jesus? That should be our goal, to live lives that mirror the life of Jesus, so that people see the resemblance by the way we act, and the way we talk. And persecution has a way of drawing that out, or better yet, instilling Christ’s attributes in us. As Paul says in Phil. 3:10 “that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.” That means that as we submit to suffering for the sake of Christ, and we die to ourselves, we come to know Him more fully, and we receive the power to live as He lived.

Secondly, persecution produces proof. Vs.14-16 “And seeing the man who had been healed standing with them, they had nothing to say in reply. But when they had ordered them to leave the Council, they began to confer with one another, saying, “What shall we do with these men? For the fact that a noteworthy miracle has taken place through them is apparent to all who live in Jerusalem, and we cannot deny it.” What kind of proof does persecution produce? Persecution produces the proof of your faith.

Back in the reference we looked at in James 1:3, the word translated testing is from the Greek word “dokimion” which means proving. That is what testing through trials is referring to. God uses testing to prove your faith, so that you have a more sure faith that is able to endure even greater conflicts, do even greater deeds and win even greater battles in this spiritual warfare. A good illustration of that word is found in the story of David when he was about to go to battle with Goliath, and King Saul wanted David to wear the King’s personal armor. And remember, David tried it on and said, “I can’t wear this armor, for I haven’t proven it.” He meant that he had not tested it out in battle. He couldn’t rely on it. But God uses persecution to produce trials which produce a proven faith. Persecution provides evidence of our faith to an unbelieving world that is watching us and even more importantly, it produces a proven faith in us that enables us to live a more victorious life.

Thirdly, persecution produces allegiance to God not men. Vs.18-20 “And when they had summoned them, they commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered and said to them, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to give heed to you rather than to God, you be the judge; for we cannot stop speaking about what we have seen and heard.”

There really is no such thing as popular Christianity. The gospel by it’s nature offensive to man’s desire for self determination. Peter, in 1 Peter 2:8 says that Jesus as the cornerstone is a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. And Jesus said in Matt. 21:44 “And he who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; but on whomever it falls, it will scatter him like dust.” The gospel is designed to divide the sheep from the goats, light from darkness, truth from error. It is designed to separate righteousness from sin. And God uses persecution to produce that separation.

Today in an age of seeker friendly churches, preachers have tried to take out anything from Christianity that might be offensive in their efforts to woo people into church. But in so doing, the have prostituted the gospel for the sake of gain. And the real danger is that hell is richer for it, as people are lulled into a false security that they are in Christ, when all they have done is align themselves with manmade religion.

But when persecution comes, it suddenly costs something to follow Christ. And then we often find ourselves having to choose between pleasing men or pleasing God. And there must be only one real choice for the child of God. We must give heed to God rather than men, no matter what it cost us.

And that segues nicely into the next principle, persecution produces preaching, not pandering. At the end of vs.20 we read that Peter says, “we cannot stop speaking about what we have seen and heard.” John would say later in his epistle, 1John 1:1 “What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life– and the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us– what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.”

Listen, there is no hope in preaching a half truth. There is no hope in preaching a social gospel. Jesus said in John 8:31, ““If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” The word of God is truth, and only in that truth are we made free. When we water it down, when we deduct things that are onerous for fear of offending someone, then we risk leaving them still dead in their sins. If they are to have true fellowship with the Father, then they must accept the Word of Christ as faithfully delivered by the apostles. We dare not offer a dying world a nice tasting placebo which has no power to save. They need to know the truth of the gospel in order to deliver them from death.

Fifth, persecution produces praise. Vs.23-24 “When they had been released, they went to their own companions and reported all that the chief priests and the elders had said to them. And when they heard this, they lifted their voices to God with one accord and said, “O Lord, it is You who MADE THE HEAVEN AND THE EARTH AND THE SEA, AND ALL THAT IS IN THEM…” It seems like an oxymoron to say that persecution produces praise, doesn’t it? How does persecution produce praise? Well, for one it reminds us that God is sovereign over all. He is the creator, and all things have their life and being in Him. And so there is nothing that happens that is outside of His provenance. God is sovereign.  He is able to cause all things to work together for good to those that love God and are called according to His purpose. (Rom. 8:28)

A good illustration of that was when Joseph praised God even when his brothers meant him harm. He said, “You meant it for evil, but God used it for good.” We can praise God that He counts us worthy to suffer for His name sake. And in Act 16, after Paul and Silas were thrown in the stocks in jail they began to sing songs of praise and God caused an earthquake. When we suffer for Christ, it produces praise to Christ that isn’t merely lip service. Praise in the midst of suffering pleases the heart of God.

Sixthly, persecution produces prayer. Peter’s prayer is continued in vs. 29-31, “And now, Lord, take note of their threats, and grant that Your bond-servants may speak Your word with all confidence, while You extend Your hand to heal, and signs and wonders take place through the name of Your holy servant Jesus. And when they had prayed, the place where they had gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the word of God with boldness.”

In James 5:16, the KJV says, “Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” Persecution produces fervent prayer and righteous men, which produces results. God hears and answers that kind of prayer.

Augustine said, “Pray as if everything depends upon God, and work as though everything depended on you.” Sometimes the work that is demanded is just laboring in prayer. Sometimes it is laborious to pray. And yet perhaps that is when it is most effective. R.A. Torrey said, “Pray for great things, expect great things, work for great things, but above all, pray.”   Nothing lies beyond the reach of prayer except that which lies outside the will of God. Pray when it hurts, and pray until it hurts. Pray until you see results.

Number seven, persecution produces power from God. Vs. 31, “And when they had prayed, the place where they had gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the word of God with boldness.” I can’t help but wonder why the place started shaking when they prayed. But I have to imagine that it was shaken because the forces of darkness were shaken. Eph. 6:12 says, “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” God has given us two weapons to use against these spiritual strongholds; the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, and prayer. When these righteous, persecuted Christians fervently prayed, I believe that God caused the walls of those strongholds to fall down, just as the walls of Jericho fell down. And that produced a shaking that they could actually feel.

Oh, Christians! How I want us to pray like that. I want to see us pray so that God cracks the sky and rumbles forth in power and might to put the enemies of the church to flight, to deliver loved ones from sin, and to bring a spirit of revival upon the church. Notice that when they prayed, God answered with a shaking, but also with power. That is what it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit, is it not? It is the power to be what God has called us to be. The Holy Spirit provides the power to do what God wants us to do. And what God wanted them to do, and what He wants us to do, is to speak the Word of God with boldness. Persecution produces power, the power to boldly proclaim Jesus Christ and His gospel in spite of opposition or what the culture considers politically correct.

Eighth, persecution produces unity. It produces unity in the church. Vs. 32 “And the congregation of those who believed were of one heart and soul; and not one of them claimed that anything belonging to him was his own, but all things were common property to them.” Unity is so important in the life of a Christian. But please understand that unity doesn’t overrule truth of doctrine, but it is the result of truth of doctrine. We never should sacrifice doctrinal purity for the sake of unity. But God often uses persecution to bring differing factions together in unity, because persecution has a way of making the plain things the main things. It has a way of making what is trivial, even more apparently so, to the extent that we forsake the trivial. In other words, some things are worth dying for, and some are not. Some things are worth dividing over, and some are not.

In Jesus’ great prayer in the upper room on the night He was betrayed, He prayed for unity. And He prayed that that unity was founded in the truth. Listen to part of that prayer from John 17:16-21. “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth. As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. For their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth. I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me.”   Our unity is founded first and foremost on unity in the truth, with the teaching of Christ. As we are united in that, then we will be united together in the church.

That is the secret to unity in marriage as well. Marriage unity is not by finding points of compatibility with one another. Marriage unity starts by each person becoming reconciled to God first, and when that is accomplished, then that will automatically result in unity to one another.

Lastly, persecution produces charity. Vs.34 “For there was not a needy person among them, for all who were owners of land or houses would sell them and bring the proceeds of the sales and lay them at the apostles’ feet, and they would be distributed to each as any had need.” I deliberately use the old fashioned word King James word “charity” to describe Christian love. Christian love is not just an emotional response. It’s not just a feeling. Those things might or might not be present, depending on the circumstances. But true Christian charity is the hallmark of the true church and it is illustrated in sacrifice. Jesus said, they will know you are my disciples because of the love you have for one another.

And how did Jesus define that love? He said we are to love one another in the same way that He loved us. And how did Jesus express His love for us? He laid down His life for us. Christian love is sacrificial love. That is what Christian charity is; sacrificial love for one another. And that is what this first church exemplified. There was not a needy person among them. That is an amazing statement. There were upwards of 20,000 people in this church. And yet there was not a needy person among them because of the selfless, sacrificial giving nature of this church.

Persecution had caused many people to not have homes to go back to once they were saved. Many people did not have jobs anymore once they were saved. But what is amazing is that in this dynamic, Holy Spirit filled church, there was such a sacrificial spirit among them that they were even selling off their property, land and houses and bringing in the proceeds to the church. This isn’t tithing folks. This is cheerful, willing hearts that want to abundantly contribute to the kingdom of God and they understand that is to happen through the church. They aren’t trying to see how little they can give, but they are selling stuff to be able to give even beyond their means.

Listen, the Lord loves a cheerful giver. He doesn’t hold us under the Old Testament law of tithing in the New Covenant. But that doesn’t mean that we don’t give because we are under grace. We should give more because we have been given more. Your checkbook is a testament to your faith in Christ. Did you know that? I don’t care to know what your checkbook reveals. But believe me, God knows. God sees the heart, and He sees the secret things. And one day, the God who sees the secrets of men’s hearts will reward the secrets of men’s hearts.

Well, it’s amazing isn’t it, how God uses persecution to bring about His purposes in His people. I don’t know what kind of trials that you may be going through. But I can assure you of this – if you are living godly, then there will be some form of persecution, some form of trial in your life. Jesus said, In this world you will have tribulation. But remember the words of Peter, who was no stranger to persecution, and who would one day be martyred for his faith. 1Peter 4:12-19 “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you; but to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing, so that also at the revelation of His glory you may rejoice with exultation. If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. Make sure that none of you suffers as a murderer, or thief, or evildoer, or a troublesome meddler; but if anyone suffers as a Christian, he is not to be ashamed, but is to glorify God in this name. For it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God? AND IF IT IS WITH DIFFICULTY THAT THE RIGHTEOUS IS SAVED, WHAT WILL BECOME OF THE GODLESS MAN AND THE SINNER? Therefore, those also who suffer according to the will of God shall entrust their souls to a faithful Creator in doing what is right.”

I don’t know what kind of trials or persecution you may be going through, or what the future holds. But let me close by reminding you of the words of the ancient hymn, “How Firm a Foundation,” so when persecutions come, we may know that it is all in the plan and purposes of God. And He says to us;

“Fear not, I am with thee, oh, be not dismayed,

For I am thy God and will still give thee aid;

I’ll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand,

Upheld by My righteous, omnipotent hand.

“When through the deep waters I call thee to go,

The rivers of sorrow shall not overflow;

For I will be with thee thy troubles to bless

And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.

“When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie,

My grace, all-sufficient, shall be thy supply.

The flames shall not hurt thee; I only design

Thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine.