Witness and the Satanic Counter-Attack

INTRODUCTION

God is bringing together a group of people after His own name. We do not create unity; God brings unity to the Church.

In 2:1–13, people from “every nation under heaven” were present. People from diverse lands and cultures believed in the risen Christ and enjoyed this God-established unity. This scene is a great reminder that unity doesn’t mean uniformity. Diverse individuals were united in gospel belief.

One of the things I value and love the most about the Journey Church is the diversity that God has brought into this body of believers.

Acts 4:32–37 ESV

32 Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common. 33 And with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. 34 There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold 35 and laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need. 36 Thus Joseph, who was also called by the apostles Barnabas (which means son of encouragement), a Levite, a native of Cyprus, 37 sold a field that belonged to him and brought the money and laid it at the apostles’ feet.

BIG IDEA: ARE YOU SO CONSUMED WITH JESUS THAT YOU CANNOT HELP BUT MAKE HIS NAME KNOWN?

1. UNITY IS STRENGTHENED IN OUR GOSPEL IDENTITY

The church's Unity gets its strength from our Gospel Identity.

The type of unity Luke describes begins with a common gospel identity and a radical practice of sharing. Every member shares a common way of life, one another’s burdens, joys, and their time and possessions.

a) Identity in Heart and Mind.

How hard is it to find a group of people that are completely unified in heart and mind. Remember that there are now about 5,000 men who are now believers.

Even though we can understand what is going on it is uncommon to see such a large group of people who are in complete agreement.

What would it be if mature believers looked at your life and gave you a nickname based on their impressions? For what are you known?

HEART AND MIND

The Phrase one in heart and mind is very Hebraic, we find it used frequently throughout Deuteronomy. It is also shown at the end of Mark’s decalogue in Mark 12:30 “Love the Lord your God with all of you Heart, soul, and mind....” And the second part of the commandment shows that we are fulfilling the first and greatest commandment.

Not only are we to do good to our neighbors through our actions, but we are responsible for our neighbors.

Unity is absolutely essential in the body of Christ. No Church can truly be successful in fulfilling the Great commission without it. The body cannot be in disunity or disharmony with itself. Paul reminds us that 1 Corinthians 12:27 “You are the body of Christ and individually members of it.”

Paul reminds us to consider others' needs above our own. We are to be completely humble and gentle in spirit. This is what the early Church experienced when they were one in heart and mind.

A church filled with such people cannot help but have peace and harmony.

The truly humble person sees his own faults in light of the perfections of Christ; he does not seek to see the faults of others, but when he does, he speaks the truth in love and desires their sanctification so they will be built up in the image of Christ.

He sees his own heart and the corruption that lies hidden there, along with impure motives and evil ambitions.

But he does not seek to notice the errors, defects, and follies of others. He sees the depravity of his own heart and hopes charitably in the goodness of others and believes their hearts are more pure than his.

As Christians, we are to see others in the light of the Cross. When we have a cross-centered focus, we are constantly made painfully aware that we are the ones that Jesus died a painful and horrible death.

When can we possibly defame those covered by the lamb's precious blood?

A Group of such people enjoys their common Salvation.

Jude 3 ESV

3 Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.

The unified church earnestly contends for the Faith Together.

b) identity in sacrificial action

Luke tells us who shared: everyone. “No one claimed” that anything belonged to himself.

Today studies show that only 5% of churchgoers tithe out of 247 million professing Christians.

1). Radical attitude towards possessions.

The radical attitude of the early church led to their sacrificial actions. Very few Christians today truly practice sacrificial giving, as displayed in the Book of Acts.

The same action of selling and distributing are seen in Acts 2:45.

2). Radical attitude leading to Sacrificial Action.

We have a picture here of spontaneous generosity. Luke writes that from time to time, believers would sell land and houses and bring the proceeds to the Apostles for distribution as needed.

God wants His people to be generous, unlike the previous generation, who abused their position to extort money from the people.

Generosity is easy to understand but difficult to apply. We don’t need further explanation of the concept; we need to better apply it.

We can easily become like the lawyer with whom Jesus shared the good Samaritan parable. He wanted to exegete the word neighbor (Luke 10:29). Jesus just wanted him to embrace his neighbor.

Jesus whole point to the parable is that we need to be careful about playing the pharisee. The Pharisee would use kindness and generosity as a talking point but in the real world there was no action to their words.

How much of the time is our rhetoric about generosity a smokescreen for a lack of desire to be generous?

How often do you pray that God will give you a generous heart towards your neighbor?

The Lord requires us to be kings of generosity, not only by relinquishing our possessions but also by being sensitive to the needs of others.

2. UNITY IS ENDANGERED BY OUR HYPOCRISY

The church’s unity is in danger of falling when it is determined by Hypocrisy.

Chapter 5 Ananias and Sapphira

You have to respect Luke. He didn’t hold back when sharing the shortcomings and high points of the early church.

He is not writing a fairy tale about the early church.

This is a stark reminder that even in the most spirit-filled Churches, the enemy is working overtime to discredit and destroy the church.

a) A Dangerous Holiness is God’s Response to a Determined Hypocrisy.

One of the greatest enemies of the church that Satan continues to wield against the church is determined hypocrisy.

The Story of Ananias and Sapphira

The story goes that a man named Ananias, along with his wife, sold a piece of land. With his wife’s knowledge, he kept some of the proceeds for himself and brought the rest to the Apostles.

Ananias was guilty of lying to the Holy Spirit instead of bringing the total amount to God. His wife was complacent because she knew what her husband was doing and did not protest. This would be considered a sin of Omission. There are sins of commission and omission. Sins of commission are those that someone willfully plans out ahead of time; this would be Ananias.

Being filled with the Holy Spirit, Peter called Ananias out on his sin of allowing Satan to fill him to the point that he did not listen to the Holy Spirit. At that very moment, Ananias fell down dead. You can imagine the response of everyone who witnessed such a response to sin.

Three hours later, his wife came in, not knowing the fate of her husband. Peter confronted her with a chance to come clean about selling the land.

Peter asked her if the amount that was brought to him was the accurate amount. She lied to cover up the sin, and Peter called her out for conspiring to test the Holy Spirit. At that very moment, she fell dead and died as well.

i. don’t be a Spiritual Poser

Ananias and Sapphira were praise seekers. Their great sin was not not giving all of the proceeds back to God. Their great sin was lying about it and pretending to be holier and more righteous than they were.

Perhaps Ananias wanted a nickname, a phrase that would make him sound more important than he was.

Years ago, a familiar face started attending the Journey. One day, he unexpectedly assumed the title of Pastor, despite lacking the confirmation of his calling or a true understanding of the responsibilities it entailed. His motivation was simply the desire for the title.

We see spiritual posers every day. We should take notice of this situation. Because of the drastic measures God took against Ananias and Sapphira, we should assume that God dislikes spiritual posers within the church.

Some of the harshest words Jesus had in scripture for anyone was for the Pharisees and Sadducees, who walked around in their long robes that had bells tied to the tassels so that people would hear them when they came into the temple.

God’s reasons for bringing about the deaths of Ananias and Sapphira involve His abhorrence of sin, the hypocrisy of the couple, and the lesson for the rest of the church, both then and now.

It can be easy today to gloss over the holiness of God, to forget that He is righteous and pure and that He hates sin wholeheartedly. This particular sin of hypocrisy in the church was dealt with swiftly and decisively.

Note: Were Ananias and Sapphira Saved.

Most theologians believe the answer is yes, they were. Probably the best idea that they were saved is that God disciplined them. Hebrews 12:8 “If you are left without discipline then you are illegitimate children.

ii. God looks at the inside, not the outside

When a person is saved, God turns the heart of stone into a heart of flesh. (Ezekiel 36:26)

1 Samuel 16.

People tend to judge the character and worth of a person by the outward appearance.

If someone possesses physical attributes that are appealing to people then they may easily overlook what is going on in a persons heart.

This is not how God operates. Early in the life of the Journey we were just starting community groups. One of our first group leaders came up and declared that he already knew all the people he wanted in their group. All of the people he had handpicked passed the eye test for him.

It is just like in 1 Samuel 16 the time had come for Samuel to go to the house of Jesse to anoint the next King of Israel. Saul Israel’s first king was tall, ruddy, and handsome. God had earlier revealed to Samuel that he sought a man after God’s own heart.

Samuel looked at all 7 of Jesse’s older sons. Many of them passed the eye test but they were not God’s choice. David was God’s choice, imperfect but faithful.

Appearances can be deceiving. To everyone Judas Iscariot may have looked like a faithful disciple, but appearances can be deceiving. How many spiritual leaders in the Church have we seen today that may have passed the eye test but then fall short in the heart department.

The concept of this kind of judgment is terrifying!

It suggests that God takes the untruths we tell as personal offenses. When people don’t value the holiness of God, they minimize sin. And when they do that, they devalue the cross, where Jesus traded places with liars.

They were greedy

They were deceivers

They were Satan’s Instruments

They were Spirit Grievers

Satan tempts people to think that sin is no big deal. We allow sin to come into our own camp and make it home. We know that Satan’s whole goal in all of this is to destroy and discredit the Church.

What Ananias and Sapphira needed and What We Need

They needed a healthy fear of the Lord. The God of all the earth demands our respect.

(Galatians 6:7) “Do not be deceived God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, from that will he also reap.”

We should never think that God would not do that to me. Does God every move people out of the way who are lying to the Holy Spirit and standing in the way of God doing what he has purposed to do.

They needed to apply the gospel to their lives

They either did not understand the gospel or had not yet let the gospel work down deep into their hearts. The gospel frees us from looking for the praise that comes from people.

The gospel by it’s very nature is selfless and generous. It set’s our mind on the mission for which Jesus Christ came to the earth in the first place.

This couple needed to learn to live in repentance. We must learn from their mistake. When we are aware of our personal sins, we need to repent and turn to God. We are all guilty of hypocrisy, but when we see our blatant hypocrisy, we should cry out with Paul, “Oh, wretched man that I am.”

Right after this people began to bring the poor, hurting, sick, and enslaved in the community to the apostles.

Do you turn to Jesus in the depth of your poverty and need for him or do you turn to him in the self-righteous riches of thinking you are better than you really are.

We must be committed to reaching everyone with the gospel message. Some people will respond to it in faith!

So, are you inviting people to make Jesus the Lord of their lives?

Are you moved to feed, clothe, and teach multitudes without shepherds?

Don’t fear the small percentage of people who respond negatively to public proclamations and demonstrations of faith. While we shouldn’t expect 100 percent acceptance of the message Jesus entrusted to us, we must know that some will respond in faith.

3. Unity is at its Best When it is Consumed with Jesus

The Pharisees were consumed with pride while the Apostles were consumed with looking for every opportunity to evoke the name of Jesus Christ.

The Church is most Unified when it is consumed with Jesus.

We will always experience hostility when we follow Jesus wholeheartedly.

Acts 5:17–42 ESV

17 But the high priest rose up, and all who were with him (that is, the party of the Sadducees), and filled with jealousy 18 they arrested the apostles and put them in the public prison. 19 But during the night an angel of the Lord opened the prison doors and brought them out, and said, 20 “Go and stand in the temple and speak to the people all the words of this Life.” 21 And when they heard this, they entered the temple at daybreak and began to teach. Now when the high priest came, and those who were with him, they called together the council, all the senate of the people of Israel, and sent to the prison to have them brought. 22 But when the officers came, they did not find them in the prison, so they returned and reported, 23 “We found the prison securely locked and the guards standing at the doors, but when we opened them we found no one inside.” 24 Now when the captain of the temple and the chief priests heard these words, they were greatly perplexed about them, wondering what this would come to. 25 And someone came and told them, “Look! The men whom you put in prison are standing in the temple and teaching the people.” 26 Then the captain with the officers went and brought them, but not by force, for they were afraid of being stoned by the people. 27 And when they had brought them, they set them before the council. And the high priest questioned them, 28 saying, “We strictly charged you not to teach in this name, yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching, and you intend to bring this man’s blood upon us.” 29 But Peter and the apostles answered, “We must obey God rather than men. 30 The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging him on a tree. 31 God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. 32 And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.” 33 When they heard this, they were enraged and wanted to kill them. 34 But a Pharisee in the council named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law held in honor by all the people, stood up and gave orders to put the men outside for a little while. 35 And he said to them, “Men of Israel, take care what you are about to do with these men. 36 For before these days Theudas rose up, claiming to be somebody, and a number of men, about four hundred, joined him. He was killed, and all who followed him were dispersed and came to nothing. 37 After him Judas the Galilean rose up in the days of the census and drew away some of the people after him. He too perished, and all who followed him were scattered. 38 So in the present case I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone, for if this plan or this undertaking is of man, it will fail; 39 but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You might even be found opposing God!” So they took his advice, 40 and when they had called in the apostles, they beat them and charged them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. 41 Then they left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name. 42 And every day, in the temple and from house to house, they did not cease teaching and preaching that the Christ is Jesus.

According to D. A. Carson, more people have been martyred for following Christ in the last century than in all of the first nineteen hundred years of the church’s history (For the Love of God, January 10). And it’s a spreading problem.

A growing hostility against the people of God is happening even right here in the States.

At this point it manifests itself as forms of intimidation and threats. There is an increased level of negativity towards anything Christian. In fact there is an effort to push anything that sounds Christian out of our media market all together.

Christian faith is not a private faith.

Remember that Jesus was crucified publicly. His execution could not have been more humiliating, as if it were carried out in a modern-day mall during the holiday season. After rising from the dead, he made a point of appearing to many publicly. He then commissioned them to spread the fame of Jesus Christ publicly to the ends of the earth.

a) The Jesus Consumed Bring the Prideful to Rage

What keeps people from the gospel is pride!

Intellectual Pride - the gospel is too foolish to believe.

Public Pride - people do not want to risk public alienation or losing their power for believing.

Family Pride - they realize that aligning with Christ would damage relationships with unbelieving family members.

Now at this point we come in contact with a group of people who experience one or all of these pride issues.

The Sadducees were the theological liberals of the 1st century.

They didn’t believe in the miracle of the resurrection or the idea of angels. The fact that the Sadducees did not believe in the existence of angels is somewhat ironic that God sends an angel to release Peter and John from their prison.

This large ruling group called the Sanhedrin were not unlike many religious groups today that sought to make everyone happy and ascribe to whatever would keep the Jews in favor with Rome.

If you’re wondering what the apostles did to create such outrage among the religious leaders, here’s the answer: they healed people!

They loved people, and they shared the gospel with them. The religious leaders wanted all of this to stop. Does that mean they wanted more people to be sick or demon-possessed? No. But they certainly didn’t want their own lack of power to grow more evident.

This same thing happens in our modern culture today.

v. 19-21 “Notice that after being released from prison by the angel they were instructed to go and stand in the Temple and speak to the people words of life.” God free’s them physically to free others spiritually.

So, what happened after the miraculous deliverance? In verses 21–23 the officers say something like this: “I’ve got good news and bad news.

The doors were locked, the guards were in place, but the prisoners … weren’t there!” The response of the council sounded like this: “We’re totally baffled by what you’re telling us” (v. 24, paraphrased).

When someone reports the shocking news that the former prisoners are now teaching in public, the council changes tactics and brings them in “without force” so as not to upset the people.

We are all Born Legallist

We are all born believing we can earn and deserve heaven. We are all born resisting the idea of grace because of the awful things that grace has to say about us.

John Piper defines legalism as our conviction that law keeping is the ground for our acceptance with God.

Tim Keller writes about the dangers of Phariseeism today, even in evangelical churches,

We tend to draw conservative, buttoned-down, moralistic people. The licentious and liberated or the broken and marginal avoid church. That can only mean one thing. If the preaching of our ministers and the practice of our parishioners do not have the same effect on people that Jesus had, then we must not be declaring the same message that Jesus did. (Prodigal God, 15–16)

Why would our churches attract the conservative, buttoned-down, and moralistic? Is it because they feel more at home with us than they did with Jesus in his day?

The problem with Pharisees is not simply that they preach a false gospel of works. That is a serious, damnable flaw (Galatians 1:9). But there are plenty of “gospel-centered” Pharisees today. The real problem is the pride, greed, and fear underneath any works-based confidence in ourselves. That pride, greed, and fear (or whatever sin you struggle with) eventually sever our minds and mouths from our hearts.

How do you tell if you Have Pharisee Tendency?

Do you spend more time trying to take the speck out of other people's eyes or the log out of your own?

Do you spend more time elevating your own moral superiority or trying to figure out how to reach the morally bankrupt?

Do you spend more time gossiping about those caught in sin or showing them the love of Christ that covers all sin?

Note: Peter and John were charged with not following the order to stop teaching and preaching about Jesus of Nazareth.

b). The Jesus consumed Energize the Church for Ministry

How do the Apostles respond to the threats and flogging?

1). They rejoice because they are counted worthy to suffer for Christ.

2). They don’t stop preaching the gospel.

CONCLUSION

The apostles are so consumed with Jesus that they cannot help but make Christ’s name known in all the earth.

So don’t waste your Sanhedrin moment. When you have someones ear even in the middle of persecution give them the truth. That is all the apostles are doing. They did not set out to cause conflict.

Revelation 12:11–12 ESV

11 And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death. 12 Therefore, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!”

How do believers overcome the rage of the evil one?

By the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony.

How are you pleading the blood of the lamb by the word of your testimony?

Are you so consumed with Jesus that you cannot help but make His name known? If not why not?