Proof

Grace to you and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. It is a privilege to share the Word of God with the Saints of Durbin Memorial Baptist Church. Our church exists by grace for glory in love.

As we come together each week, it is helpful to be reminded of the mission of the church, that is the purpose of the church. Now fortunately for us, we don’t have to get too creative here. We are gathered here today because as a collective group we claim faith in Jesus Christ, seeing that He lived and died and rose again to pay the cost of our sins and promised us, those who believe in Him as Lord, eternal life. That same Jesus, the second person of the Triune God, gave the church its mission. We call it the Great Commission. This Scripture will be familiar to many of you, but allow this to be a refresher for some and an introduction to others.

Matthew 28:18–20 ESV

18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

This is the foundational text for the mission of the church. Jesus gathered His people, have just previously formed His church, and then leaves them by saying, do this! The key command that everything banks of is “Make disciples!” The church exists to make disciples and we accomplish this by Going forward with the gospel, baptizing believers who respond to the gospel as a profession of faith, and teaching believers to grow in obedience to the commands of Christ.

That’s the mission! That’s what we are called to do. Make Disciples. Part of what we forget sometimes is that the call to make disciples isn’t limited to just the pastors, elders, deacons, or Sunday School teachers, but the call of the whole church. All of us in this church, or in any church that exists in the name of Christ, the mission is to make disciples.

However, while all churches have, or at least should have, the same mission, the approach to that mission can vary greatly and can even change over time. And some are more effective at it than others.

From a secular perspective, I’m reminded of when my dad bought in the Sonic Franchise here in Lexington. Now all Sonic’s have the same mission. They all want to sell cheeseburgers and frozen treats. But there is variance within that mission to accomplish their mission. It’s rare now a days, but some Sonic’s still have servers that ride your food out to you on roller skates. Some Sonics are beginning to have an indoor eating area. Some owners are better than others with advertisement or customer relations. And some Sonics like the one I loved dearly on the Northside in Lexington growing up, don’t make it and have to shut down. They all carry the same mission, but the execution is different.

From a modern church perspective, we see a number of different ways in which churches go about making disciples. Some churches are heavily focussed on international missions. Some churches put a large portion of their emphasis on reaching the local community. Some churches run particular ministries for people who have particular struggles. And some churches turn their focus on internal maintenance. Now this is intended to be an exhaustive presentation of every church, but I just want to illustrate that different churches have different approaches to the same mission.

This also isn’t something new to our day. It may be exasperated by the large amount of denominations we have, but a quick scan through the New Testament epistles will show that different churches were focussed on different things. Like the Macedonian church is commended for the way they gave to missions, that distinguished them from the other churches in the area. In the book of Revelation, there are 7 letters written to 7 different churches. Each of them is shown to have different challenge or positive emphasis in the functioning of their church.

The reality is that every church shares the same mission, but it is applied differently in the functioning of the church. This is not to say that every church gets it right. Remember most of those New Testament Epistles are corrective, especially the letters to the churches in Revelation. But just as living out faith looks differently in each of our lives, (all believers are called to be ambassadors for Christ, but not all are called to be Pastor elders, or deacons. We all fight against sin and pursue righteousness but we are gifted differently) so just as there is variance in our lives of faith, there can be variance in the practice of the God-honoring church.

With this in mind, turn if you have not already to Acts 5. Today we are going to look at verses 12-16. The book of Acts is a History Book. It is the historical recounting of the earliest days of Christ’s Church. There are detailed descriptions of specific events, like that of Ananias and Sapphira that we looked at last week, and then interspersed are these summary accounts like we are looking at today. Often times, these summary accounts are ways of showing us the general trajectory of the church in between very detailed stories. For instance, Acts 2 focuses on Peter’s sermon at Pentecost, then the end of the chapter gives a summary of the general practice of the church. Chapters 3 and 4 speak of specific healings, sermons, and persecution, then ends with a general statement on practices in the church in verses 32 and 33. As a I mentioned, last week we looked through the specific account of Ananias and Sapphira and today we will be looking at another general presentation of life in the church as a whole.

As we look through these four verses, it is important for us to recognize that our church, Durbin Memorial Baptist Church, holds the same mission, the same great commission as the Jerusalem church we’re reading about in Acts. This doesn’t mean that we should expect the exact same application, but that we can learn from the principles running underneath. We’re not attempting to replicate practices that were specific to the church at Jerusalem, we’re learning from principles to help us accomplish the same mission by grace, for glory, in love.

Let’s begin in verse 12

Acts 5:12 ESV

12 Now many signs and wonders were regularly done among the people by the hands of the apostles. And they were all together in Solomon’s Portico.

As we evaluate and apply this text, let’s first explain what is being practiced. Through the hands of the Apostle’s God was accomplishing many great signs and wonders. Before we get into the specifics of the signs and wonders, we need to reference two clarifiers in the greater context of our text. First, what we are seeing right here in Chapter 5 verse 12 is a direct fulfillment of the prayer of the church in Chapter 4 verse 30. After dealing with an attempt to silence the early church leaders by the unbelieving Jewish leaders, the church gathered together and prayed for boldness to continue professing the gospel in their area, and they prayed, “while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” So we need to first see this as answered prayer, and then second give credit where credit is due. In our text this morning, we’ve read that the signs and wonders were regularly being done by the hands of the apostles. A quick read may make us marvel at the miraculous seeming powers of the apostles to accomplish such things. But when we read this in the context of their prayer, we can recognize, while these events were happening through the hands of the apostles, they were ultimately sourced from the very hand of God and performed through the name of Jesus.

Before we get into evaluation and application, we also need to note the last sentence of this verse. “They were all together in Solomon’s Portico.” If you were with us the last time we walked through the beginning chapters of Acts, that setting should be significant. This is the same area in which Peter and John were used to heal the lame man and then preached the gospel to anyone who would listen in the bustling center of community. So we might think this is a good place for ministry. But as you read through Acts 4, you come to see that this is also the place where Peter and John were arrested for their preaching!

So what can we learn from this for our application today? Our church sits in a different location and context. As we sift through the details we will see foundational principles for our application.

So let’s break these down progressively through the text and make application. First we see signs and wonders are being done. We’ve already seen that these are the answers to prayer. From that we can be reminded when we pray to God in accordance with His will, He is quick and gracious to answer! Church, are we in continual and persistent prayer? As we desire to see growth in the church for the glory of God, are we making that a continual part of our prayer? And if we are, are we then going forward with confidence that God will work through us? Remember Peter had already been arrested in Solomon’s Portico, but his desire for the glory of God was greater than his fear of man. He continued to go out and share the gospel. He continued to go to places where there was an opportunity to reach others and make disciples, as that was his great commission. We can here both the necessity of prayer and the proactivity of the believer. The two go hand in hand. Church, may we pray and go!

Now, we aren’t given the specifics of the signs and wonders being done. As we progress through the text we will see that miraculous healing was a certainly a component, if not the majority. We can also recognize these as a fulfillment of the prophecy recorded in Joel 2. Signs refer to something that is a pointer to something. Here the signs are acts that confirm the validity of the apostles message, that Jesus is the Christ. Wonders are marvels. They are phenomena that go beyond rational explanation. They work hand in hand with signs and serve to support the message and validity of the gospel. We can today look back and marvel at these occurences, giving God glory for His might. But they were serving a particular purpose in that time, validating the gospel through the apostles for a generation that hadn’t yet received the whole of the New Testament, as we have today. While we can rejoice in reading about these signs, they shouldn’t be our expectation. One pastor put it like this, “In our daily living as Christians, God works through faith and obedience, not by occasional miracles. There may be miracles but these are the exceptions that prove the rule. Too many dear souls would live by fits and starts, signs and wonders, but if everything were miraculously provided, we would need no faith. We live in a world spoiled by sin and subject to all the distempers and accidents and troubles that beset humanity in general. It is a world run largely by the law of cause and effect but the Christian walks by a faith that believes when it cannot see or understand and when no sudden revelation comes to clear away the fog. If God supplied us with instant ready answers to every problem or angel intervention in every crisis, there could be no growth of rugged Christian character in the storms of life. If we must have signs and wonders, then we belong to the adulterous generation that believes only what the senses will accept...Some seek special experiences, signs and wonders, but will not live daily by faith, looking unto Jesus.” God can and does use signs and wonders to accomplish His will, as we have read about this morning, but we better glorify the Lord by living by faith, not by making our faith dependent on signs and wonders.

So we’ve seen that signs and wonders were happening, let’s touch back in on how they were happening. Verse 12 says by the hands of the apostles. This is certainly true. But we cannot forget where the ultimate power came from. It was God working through the apostles to accomplish these signs and wonders. Apostles in the early church, elders of churches even today, deacons, everyday church goers, in and of ourselves are powerless, any good that comes is by the grace of God for the glory of God and accomplished in the love of God.

So here in just the first verse of our text this morning, we see a church praying and acting for the glory of God, rejoicing over what God has done in their midsts. I don’t want to skip over the wording at the end of the verse. “they were ALL TOGETHER in Solomon’s Portico.” The group of believers were acting in one accord and communing together. They knew there was risk, they knew they may become social outcasts, but they gathered and praised together. This sets up great contrast when we get to the next verse.

Acts 5:13 ESV

13 None of the rest dared join them, but the people held them in high esteem.

Any time you are studying the Bible, you really have to be careful to identify who is being talked about at a given moment. Reading this from the ESV, we have to ask ourselves who the “rest” are? At first glance it may appear like its talking about the rest of the church. But verse 12 just talked about all the believers coming together. So as read, reread, and even consult other translations, it becomes clear that the “rest” of the folks is referring the the other temple goers who did not share faith in Jesus Christ.

Verse 13 describes the temperament of the folks around the early church in Jerusalem. Notice that it says the dared not to join the church. In the first century it was a costly thing to join the church. There was weight to it. Joining the church was not the cultural norm. It was a radical life decision that could change one’s whole trajectory in social standing. This is certainly a place where we can learn a principle for the church today from the practice of the early church. In our culture, particularly in the Bible belt, joining in or assuming a vaguely Christian identity is the norm. A large number of folks claim some religiosity or identity without weighing the cost of what it means to be Christian.

A good example of this is the recent mockery of the Lord’s Supper during the opening ceremony of the French Olympics. Now let me be clear, that was a detestable attack on Christian imagery that cannot and should not be condoned nor supported. It was certainly an attempt to mock God. And I’ve seen many people rightly voicing their disproval over it. You can add me to that list. But what I found interesting as I scrolled through the pages of social media was how many people that raised their voice in objection, appealing to their Christian roots, but those same people show no interest in actually living a day to day life in submission to the commands of Christ as Lord. Culturally, people in our area join voices to speak against gross displays of mockery, but on the individual level, many show no interest in counting the cost of actually surrendering their life to Christ. Joining a church, or publically professing Christ is about more than a cultural movement. It’s about recognizing that Jesus died to personally and particularly pay the cost of your sins and to desire to live in submission to Him as the Good Lord of your life. In our direct context its easy to feign religious sentiment, but remember from last week, that was the great sin of Ananias and Sapphira. It’s much more difficult to recognize Jesus has commanded His believers to gather together, to love one another, to bear with one another, to live with gentleness, to seek the things that are above. Without adding one ounce of works to the gospel of grace, we need to let people know that claiming Christian faith is not “easy believe-ism”. Claiming true faith in Christ wrecks us to our core and empowers us to serve Him with fervor no matter the winds of the cultural zeitgeist. Church, I hope that we are a group of people who have truly counted the cost, seen that Christ is better, He is worth it! And then live that out together in response to the grace that He exudes!

While people may be quick to express some form of Christian-like identity in our area, we would be doing a disservice to the individual to not explain what it really means to see Christ as Lord. In may ways we have the opposite problem of the Jerusalem Church in our text this morning. People didn’t want to join them but they held them in high esteem. In our context people are quick to claim a Christianish identity but hold Christ’s church in derision. But in both cases, it is important for the church to be unified and rightly express what it means to count the cost. We must be teaching others to hate the sin that is within and love the Lord who washes it with grace and empowers our repentance by the Holy Spirit.

Let’s look now to the rest of our text this morning.

Acts 5:14–16 ESV

14 And more than ever believers were added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women, 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.

The Jerusalem church is on mission, discipling believers and seeing results. “The kingdom is growing and spreading, just as Jesus had said. The excitement and commotion surrounding the apostles is reminiscent of Jesus’ ministry.” When we take a step back to look at the greater context of chapters 4 and 5 as a whole, we see that this interlude of growth in the church is set in between two moments of great persecution. We must not mistake the joyous growth we are reading about today as meaning that living out life as a faithful church should be coasting on easy street. But rather, we should see that God is good and as we continue to rest in His Faithfulness in both seasons of growth and seasons of persecution.

For the Jerusalem church we learn in verse 14 that believers were joining the church hand over fist. Men and women who had every societal reason to reject the church were convinced by the preaching of the gospel evidenced through the works of the apostles. We aren’t given an exact headcount but knowing that there had at least been 8000 new believers thus for, we can see that through this period of time even more than that have come to faith in Christ.

Now, there are a lot of specific and cultural things happening in these verses. The sick are being carried into the streets. Beds were filled with rich and poor all in need of some form of healing. We see in verse 15 that they thought even the shadow of Peter would bring healing. “Some ancient peoples believed that a man's shadow carried his influence, so parents would place their children into the shadow of great men and snatch them away from the shadow of someone they disliked. The text doesn't say that Peter's shadow healed anyone, only that the people believed so. Their actions display a tremendous respect for Peter.” John Stott notes, “Their action may have been somewhat superstitious, but I see no reason to condemn it as tantamount to belief in magic, any more than was the woman’s faith that a touch of the hem of Jesus’ garment would be enough to heal her. No, the people had been deeply impressed by the words and works of Peter, had recognized him as a man of God and an apostle of Christ, and believed that through close proximity to him they could be healed.”

We are reading about incredible events here in this section of Acts 5. When it comes to Peter and the rest of the Apostles performing these miracles of God, we need to note the purpose God had in this time. As we see this set between two attempts at persecution, we should note that God is creating a contrast between the false and dead faith of the religious elites, the High Priest, and the living and active faith of the Apostles. God is formalizing His church in the early years through these miraculous events and drawing believers together to form the church that would continue through the ages allowing us to enjoy the grace of gathering even today.

So what are we to make of all of this? Should we be expecting a healing ministry to form in our midsts? Should we expect thousands upon thousands to join our church here in the corner of Clay’s Ferry? Well on that last question, my initial response is that it may not be a realistic expectation, but it is certainly something that we can be praying for! “God would you use us to reach the masses around us? Would you keep our church tightly focussed on the mission that you have given us to make disciples? Would you show us how to use our particular giftings to best glorify your name and share you with others?” Then as we pray for growth, you know what we do? Just like the church in Jerusalem, we get to work! You can’t share the gospel with folks if you never go around folks. You can’t share the gospel with if you don’t talk about the gospel! Prayer is not separated from expectant service! Pray and Go!

“But Pastor Brad, the growth in the Jerusalem church was dependent upon the healing ministry. We don’t have that. Should we try to do that? I’ve seen guys on TV that say they have healing ministry.” Now, I’ve shared on this before so I’ll try to be quick and to the overall point. I believe that the gift of healing we see used in our text this morning was particular to the Apostles. Notice in the text how it happens through them consistently. I would challenge anyone who claims to have the gift of healing today to walk over with me to UK Hospital and let’s go clear out everyone. I don’t think they’ll take me up on that. I believe that controlled healing is gone for now with the apostles. That said, God still works in miraculous ways and can do whatever He well pleases in any situation. We see in Scripture that it is not wrong to pray for healing. Bring the elders in and pray over those who are sick. That is not a guarantee that God will choose to provide it, but we can rest knowing that God uses all things together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose, even our sickness. So in short, no, we should not try to contrive some form of healing ministry. Also, I want to make one thing very clear as we read through this text this morning. The success in ministry of the early church was not dependent upon the HEALING ministry. It was dependent upon the God who does the healing. God chose to work in that way for His purposes, for the good of the people, and His own glory. That same God may not be handing out the gift of physical healing in the same ways today, but He is no less powerful, and He is actively pursuing His plan of redemption. We would be lying to folks if we told people that they could come here and have their every ache and pain removed this instance. But we be serving people well by telling them when they come to this place they will hear the Word of God in love and truth, that faith comes from hearing, and by faith in Jesus Christ they are healed from the very sting of their sin. The message we have, the message that we have been called to share is no less powerful. One pastor rightly shared, “Physical healing is a poor substitute for spiritual salvation. Miracles are only truly helpful if they bring us to God.”

We will pray for and support the hurting around us the best we can, but we ultimately want folks to see Christ is Lord and worthy to be served. I’d rather you be spared from an eternity away from the grace of God than spare you a few moments of discomfort in a hospital.

Our church looks different from the church in Jerusalem. The churches in our era don’t have apostles that have the gift of healing. The songs we sing use different instruments. The way we travel to the building looks different and the idea of traveling 70 mph down the interstate would’ve blown the Apostle Peter’s mind. But what we share in common with the church in Jerusalem is the mission to make disciples and the God who works through us to do it. We share the same message. Jesus Christ is Savior and Lord. He stepped out of heaven to live and die and rise again to pay the cost of our sins. That whoever believes in him would not perish but have everlasting life. God showed us His grace, love, justice, and mercy on the cross of Jesus Christ. This church exists today by the grace of God to give Him glory in love for Him, one another, and our neighbors. If you want to know more about what Christ did for sinners, if you want to know what it means to count the cost and follow Christ, you’ve come to the right place. We exist to explain just that. Come ask me during the hymn of response in a moment. Let us point you to the Savior who drives all of what we do. And church, if you know Christ, let’s get to work.

Let’s pray.