Sermon Tone Analysis

The Spirit at work

The Spirit at work

Last week we saw the impact of being fake, fake Christians do not overcome because their relationship with God isn’t where they like to think it is or should i say have others think it is.

Lets pick up from last week verse 11 said “& great fear came upon the whole church & upon all who heard of these things”.

Not just the church but everyone verse 12-16.

Sometimes God needs to give us a reminder of who he is, that he is God, that we need Him & that without him we are nothing, that we have nothing without Him.

That we find life through Him, our identity in Him & that all the gifting or talents we may have are only because of Him & only used properly in His name & for his name.

That He is God & he can do what he wants.

notice something really important in verse 12, many signs & wonders were regularly done, awesome we want to see this, but something else in verse 12 is they were all together.

it’s a recurring theme.

This says that they were all of one purpose, they had a single mindedness in faith & purpose to see the purposes of God worked out in each others lives, one people one vision.

Often the fact that God’s people are together all with one accord is a greater display of the power of the Holy Spirit than any particular sign or wonder, our selfish hearts & stubborn minds can be harder to move than any mountain, there are people who will try to bring division into the church maybe come & try to divide this church, bring there hurt & disillusionment, their bitterness because that’s what it turns to when things from their past haven’t been dealt with, These people still want to appear to be right with God to others, but if your gossiping about others, spreading lies or rumours, then what you are really up to is division & division is looked upon in the Bible as witch craft.

As brothers & sisters of Christ we need to be people of the Spirit.

watchful not people of fear not letting anyone in but people who ask God for the gift of discernment.

Unity is so important even if you are not the one speaking disunity, but you do nothing to stop it then you are a part of it.

2 John 1

I believe that what happened to Ananias & Sapphira was a cleansing of the church, this is a time of transition in the church in Acts, the church could not move forward with the issue unresolved.

We may think the penalty a little harsh but lets look at another story in the Bible.

Joshua 7:1-26

Achan had transgressed the covenant & because the covenant was with all of Israel, the whole of Israel would suffer because of Achan, which is why they were defeated at Ai.

Achans Sin defiled the other members of the community as well as himself, a similar situation is seen in the Sin of Adam & Eve.

Rebellion destroyed the perfect communion that the Human race would have enjoyed with God.

Achans Sin also caused Gods blessing on Israel to be withheld in the battle with Ai, God explained to Joshua in verse

& also in chapter

& also in

Our Sin doesn’t only affect us, disobedience brings ruin even on the innocent, Sins effects go beyond the initial sinner.

His obedience was also an insult to Gods Holiness.

But God gave Achan a chance, a night to consider what he had done & come in repenting.

Joshua 7:13

Achan did not, the things of this world had a stronger pull on his life than the things of God.

Why destroyed his family,

Proverbs 15:

The nation couldn’t move forward until Achans Sin was dealt with, The same can be said of Ananias & Sapphira.

If we look at these verses we will see that although there was fear, people were desperate for God.

God had shown great power through the Holy Spirit, although it says none dared join them, people held them in high esteem.

The same can be said of Ananias & Sapphira,

people would have been in awe at what God had just done & yet more & more people were converting to Christianity, becoming followers of Christ, filled with the Holy Spirit, doing good works, they were coming from every where.

When God shows up in power & his people are obedient to the call & come under the authority of the church, favour comes upon the church, just look at

-49

Explain where we are at the moment & conversation with Gareth (architect) unlimited & God with us.

Explain where we are at the moment & conversation with Gareth (architect) unlimited & God with us.

we need to pray for the team & for the contract, change of mindset.

In chapter 5 God shows up in power, God is doing something here in Boston, an immense witness to the town of his awesome power, of what God can do.

This was an incredible time for the church, people were being healed, the sick were being brought from all over, people were getting saved & the Jewish leaders didn’t like it, they were angry they didn’t see it turning out this way.

In we read that the early Christians prayed that God would continue to do signs & wonders verse 12 shows that those prayers were answered.

people being healed, people getting saved in great numbers.

Talk about Rory coming up

i believe it will be a significant weekend for this church & this town.

verse 17

The sadducees were filled with Jealousy, the Greek word for filled here is Pimplem.

it’s most been used for referring to a specific enabling of Gods Spirit some other places this word is used is , , .

The writers of the faith life study Bible write that it may have been used ironically, the religious leaders being full of jealousy testifies to their failure to Spiritually lead Israel to the true Messiah or to recognise their own need for forgiveness in Jesus name.

They try to humiliate the disciples by putting them in the public prison, trying to discredit them & their message.

But an Angel rescues them & immediately they start speaking in the temple under the power of the Holy Spirit, they are again taken in but notice now it’s carefully.

by standing & speaking in the Temple they are showing that Gods purposes cannot be overturned & that the Lordship of Christ is the true power in this Spiritual struggle.

Peter again stands before them full of Gods power, & they want to kill them for it.

what we need to understand from this is that we are not always going to be happy with the way things are done, that’s OK, but you need wisdom don’t get drawn into sin.

Gamaliel was very wise you may just find yourself taking the opposite side to God.

as we move into communion i want us to spend some time coming before God asking God to search our attitudes, is there someone we have spoken against, hold things against, maybe we have sinned by agreement because we haven’t brought our brother or sister to account for their actions.

maybe there’s someone that you need to say sorry to or ask forgiveness from.

1 corinthians