Acts 05_12-16 Signs of a Healthy Church

Read Acts 5:12-16 – The nurse burst into the doc’s office. “Dr. Smith!” she yells, “you just gave Mr. Weston a clean bill of health – and he dropped dead in the doorway on his way out. What do we do?” Docc replied, “Quick, turn him around so it looks like he was just coming in.” So, the question this morning is: As a church are we DOA?! There’s a dif between looking healthy and being healthy. This text shows us what a healthy church looks like.

Prayer, ministry of the Word, fellowship and evangelism are key church activities. But what’s a healthy church look like? You can tell a healthy baby from a malnourished baby in one look, right? Bright eyes, glowing skin --signs of health. So, what does a healthy church look like? Here’s an example.

It Was a Supernatural Church

Supernatural activity was evidence in the miracles. God was at work. A healthy church is powered by God, not our performance. But we’ve learned how to build mega-churches on business practices without God at all! We are like the neurotic rooster, thinking the sun is coming up because of our crowing. Ever been driving your car and your passenger wants to help? Like my wife? If she thinks I’m driving too fast, she presses her brake. Only she has no brake! I’m the driver and I have the wheel, the gas and the brakes.

The power in the church is not in our performance, passion or our proficiency. I Cor 1:18 tells us the source: “For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” The very thing we’re sometimes ashamed of – the gospel, that’s where the power is. In far too many churches you could take the HS out, the gospel out, the cross out and God out, and nothing would change! We love #’s more than the gospel.

So, are we to expect the same kind of spectacular “signs and wonders” these folks saw? 15) so that they even carried out the sick into the streets and laid them on cots and mats, that as Peter came by at least his shadow might fall on some of them. 16) The people also gathered from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing the sick and those afflicted with unclean spirits, and they were all healed.” That’s impressive. Healed by Peter’s shadow? Amazing miracles. So, shouldn’t we expect the same?

Well, let’s review what we’ve seen before. There are 3 great periods of miracles: when Israel was delivered from Egypt; the time of Elijah and Elisha; and the time of Jesus and the early apostles. There’s no indication they’re to be expected in bunches all the time. In fact, God often instructs His people to remember – like Israel entering Canaan: Deut 7:18) you shall not be afraid of them but you shall remember what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt.” God didn’t give them a whole new set of miracles, but urged them to remember the old ones. The same God providentially delivered them.

Miracles were to authenticate the messengers and the message. Heb 2:3) “how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard, 4) while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.” Not by our will, by His will. Not our timetable, His. In the early church, the miracles said, “Listen up, people. God is speaking thru these men. Hear them.” These miracles were “by the hands of the apostles” and II Cor 12:12 tells us “The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with utmost patience, with signs and wonders and mighty works.” They basically authenticated God’s messengers, the apostles.

But after a time, the written Word became the accrediting authority. Today, we check the message against the Word for credibility. Is the message biblical? God may still do miracles. But not on the scale they were happening there. Those physical miracles represented God’s greater spiritual work, and that’s what we ought to look for today in a healthy church.

These miracles were 1) attached to the apostles who are no longer around; 2) They happened without fanfare; and 3) “They were all healed – hard cases and all. Not like today’s. The supernatural is seen today in changed lives. That’s what we want to see.

II. It Was a Committed Church

12b) “And they were all together in Solomon’s Portico” -- a public location on the east side of the temple that they’d staked out. They were doing life together -- committed. But note: 13) “None of the rest dared join them.” And yet 14) “And more than ever believers were added to the Lord.” How do these statements fit? Well, the “rest” who dared not join, are in 11) “And great fear came upon the whole church and upon all who heard of these things.” The context is the death of Ananias and Sapphira. That wasn’t a very seeker-friendly act on God’s part. But He’s looking for committed. Prov 8:17: “I love those who love me, and those who seek me diligently find me.” Jer 29:13: “You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.” We trivialize God with our half-hearted worship, and He will not be trivialized. Listen, Beloved – don’t tell me you’re committed and you can’t even make it to church on Sunday. These early Xns were committed. The ones who weren’t, having seen what happened to A&S, didn’t dare come. And God didn’t mind. He was seeking those who really wanted Him. Those who did come committed to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

Are you committed? One pastor found despite his best efforts, the dying church he had taken over had made no progress. So he placed an ad in the paper on a Saturday – “Church has died. Funeral on Sunday.” Got a packed house! No one had ever been to a funeral for a church before. There was a casket down front. People were invited to pay their last respects. The casket was opened and the crowd began to file by. But what a surprise! Inside the casket was a mirror. They were the dead church. When the people are not committed, the church may exist, but it is dead. Not so this early church.

III. It Was a Respected Church

13b) “But the people held them in high esteem.” Their neighbors didn’t want to get too close. Didn’t want to get burned like A&S, but they did respect them. They respected them for their love, purity and holiness.

Too often, it’s the opposite. People find the church full of hypocrites -- people who are harsh and judgmental. Those can be excuses to stay away. But they have a right to judge. Oh, to be a congregation that is held in high esteem by outsiders. That happens when they see we truly love God, and love others.

But we must not water down the message to get people to like us. Can’t do that. Priority 1 is get the message right. If people object, it must be because of the message, not because of unloving, harsh, judgmental attitudes. One church just got air conditioning, so they put a sign on the bulletin board, “Cool inside!” Just below someone wrote, “You said it, brother!” We’re often too busy setting the world straight to have time to love them. Rather than cool inside, we ought to be white hot in our love for others, inside and outside.

I was at a conference where Lee Strobel told of a girl who’d been abused in her supposedly Xn home, and thus hated Xnty. She came to a debate Strobel had arranged between an atheist and a believer – hoping to see the believer humiliated. Instead, she was taken with his logic which put her into a state of flux. She eventually accepted an invitation to join a group at Strobel’s church led by a very sweet, yet shy and introverted couple. But they loved her, took her questions seriously, respected her. She said later, “I needed gentleness. I needed to be able to ask my questions and have them take seriously. I needed to see people whose actions matched what they say. I wasn’t looking for perfect, but for real. I needed to see God be part of real life.” The day came when she approached Strobel and said, “Lee, on Tuesday night I gave my life to Jesus Christ.” This comes of showing respect even to those who disagree with us. It’s how they see the beauty of Christ. We should always be asking, “Are some people outside the church because you’re inside?”

IV. It Was a Growing Church

14) “And more than ever believers were added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women.” Multitudes “were added” = passive voice. God was doing the adding. No contests, special events, entertainment. The apostles preached the Word; the HS made it live, and people were being added by the drove. It was a growing church bc it was pure, Christ-centered and HS-driven.

You can build a mega-church be appealing to felt needs, providing quality entertainment and skillfully applying business principles. But if the HS isn’t in it, you have to ask, is it a church, or is it a social club?

Someone asked John MacArthur concerning his mega-church: “Have you always been driven by a desire to build a large church?” He answered, “I have no desire to build the church. None.” Stunned, the guy said, “I don’t understand that.” John replied, “JC said He would build His church, and I don’t want to be in competition with Him.” He wasn’t being funny. He was being dead serious. Contrast that with the mega-church pastor quoted in the Wall Street Journal: “I want to build the biggest church I can think of.” Really? You have to ask, where is Christ in all that? If He’s in it, it will be growing and real – regardless of size. And it won’t be trendy.

V. It Was a Healing Church

The emphasis in this passage is on the physical healing of the sick, and even those afflicted with unclean spirits, demons. We are told “they were all healed.” What an amazing time in the history of the church. And it continued for some time. When the Corinthians questioned Paul’s apostolic authority, he reminded them in II Cor 12:12: “The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with utmost patience, with signs and wonders and mighty works.” In those early days, apostles authenticated by miracles was on full display.

But that wasn’t forever. The divinely inspired written Word became the hallmark for authenticating the message. That didn’t mean no physical healing. Jas 5:14) “Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. 15) And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Jas envisions a sickness as God’s discipline for sin that needs to be confessed. But Jas doesn’t say, “Call the faith healer,” he says, “Call the elders to pray over the sick person.” We can and should pray for physical ailments.

We also have medical remedies to seek that they couldn’t have dreamed of then. But our confidence must be in the Lord. All healing, whether thru medicine or direct intervention is still from God. To chalk it up to coincidence or merely human intervention after praying for healing would show a lack of faith. We can thank the doctors, but praise the Lord.

But physical miracles always point to deeper spiritual realities. Physical healing is temporary at best. No one yet has gotten out alive. Far more important is the spiritual healing that comes with eternal life. That’s where our concentration must be. A healing church will be seeing dead in trespasses and sins coming alive in Jesus; people being transferred from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light; people being released from the guilt of sin and reveling in the gift of eternal life. That is the healing that really matters.

Isa 53:5 is often misapplied in this regard. Isa 53:4) “Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. 5) But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.” The whole context is the spiritual healing from sin and guilt and judgment. This is the healing that will characterize a healthy church – people experiencing healing from the devastating effects of sin. Ultimate physical healing is part of that package as well, but that is when we have a “body like his glorious body” at his 2nd coming. What we have in Christ is priceless, Beloved. And we need to know it and revel in it.

Conc – A healthy church is a church that can’t be explained by natural means. It’s a mystery. By that I don’t mean it’s all spectacular miracles. I mean that lives are being changed and shaped from the inside out in way that defies natural explanation. It’s a result of God’s Word applied by God’s Spirit to lives that are changed forever by the might of His power. A healthy church is one that would die but for the power of the HS.

Kevin DeYoung summarizes this way. He says to reach the next generation is easier and harder than you think. “It’s easier because you don’t have to get a degree in postmodern literary theory. You don’t have to say “sweet” or “bling” or know what LOL or IMHO means. You don’t have to listen to… well, whatever people listen to these days. You don’t have to be on Twitter, or imbibe fancy coffees. You just have to be like Jesus. That’s it. So the easy part is you don’t have to be with it. The hard part is you have to be with him. I’ve got five suggestions for pastors, youth workers, campus staff, and anyone else who wants to pass the faith on to the next generation: Grab them with passion. Win them with love. Hold them with holiness. Challenge them with truth. Amaze them with God.” That’s a healthy church. Let’s ask God to help us be on-fire healthy!! Let’s pray.

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