Organic Christianity: Awestruck

I. Introduction

A. We have been looking at what the early church was like without manmade changes or additions, and up to this point we have focused on verse 42. Today I would like to move on to verse 43 and look at a specific response of the early church to all that was happening around them.

B. Read verses 40-47.

II. God is present, and He is working

A. Just think about all that is going on among our earliest brethren again, all that we have talked about in this series so far…

1. The Gospel was preached

2. Thousands of souls came to repentance

3. Lives were changed

4. There was great devotion to hearing and applying the apostles' teachings

5. There was such Christ-like, sacrificial love being seen in the sharing that was going on

6. They were praying together often, spending a lot of time together at the temple and in each other's houses

7. And to top it off, we see in verses 43 that the Apostles were working miracles, which was a sign that God was working and speaking through them...

B. With all of these things going on among God's people, what kind of response would you expect to see?

III. The Response: Awe or Fear

A. Title Slide: Awestruck! "And awe (fear) came upon every soul..."

1. My translation uses the word ‘awe’. Your translation may use the word ‘fear’ I love the idea of being “struck with awe” at what is being done because that mixes the idea of the ideas of wonder and fear; of being amazed by God’s work but at the same time sobered by what He is capable of.

2. This is the proper response to God's presence and His works in this life! We need to think about this more often than we do. We tend to focus on the attributes of God that make us more “comfortable” and feel love for God and neglect things like the power of God, the holiness of God, and the wrath of God; all attributes of God which should fill us with awe and fear of God. It is no small thing that as God’s people that we have Him dwelling among us through His Spirit and working among us. This should be a sobering idea to us. He knows and sees everything. We need a healthy dose of love for God as a motivation, but we also need a good dose of fear for God as motivation. As we see God at work among his people, fear and awe is a proper and good response as we see with our earliest brethren.

B. Let’s look at how Luke uses the word for fear/awe in His writings:

1.

a) Take note of the emotions that the disciples of Jesus have in this passage… Jesus wakes up during this great windstorm. His disciples are scared to death… They are afraid they are going to die, and they think Jesus doesn’t even care that this will happen… Then, all of a sudden, Jesus just rebukes the sea and the storm stops! How amazing. Look at the disciples’ response in v25, “And they were afraid, and they marveled, saying to one another, "Who then is this, that he commands even winds and water, and they obey him?""

(1) This work of Jesus, this great miracle/wonder, what does it do to them? It fills them with great fear… Now I don’t believe they were afraid of Jesus in the sense that they thought Jesus would kill them or something, but instead, this idea of awe at what this man is capable of and what the miracle may mean about who He is… only God can do these kind of things!

b) : After Jesus forgives the sins of the paralytic and then heals Him, we are told of the people in the crowd “amazement seized them all, and they glorified God and were filled with awe (phobos), saying, "We have seen extraordinary things today”.

2. ,

a) Here, the Lord punishes two disciples, Ananias and Sapphira, for lying to the Holy Spirit. Here is how everyone who heard responded.

(1) "And great fear came upon the whole church and upon all who heard of these things." ().

b) The heard of what happened to Ananias and Sapphira and were probably very sobered by it. What happened to them showed how big a deal it is, even for those who claim to be disciples, to sin against God’s Holy Spirit.

3.

a) This comes after Saul (Paul) comes to Jerusalem sometime after his conversion. He tried to join himself with the disciples in Jerusalem, but they were afraid of him. But after Barnabas brought him to the Apostles and told them what had happened on the road to Damascus and how he had been boldly preaching after he had obeyed the gospel, even in the face of persecution, we see the response of the churches in the region in v31:

(1) "So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied." ()

b) Hearing about how Saul/Paul had been converted and what he was doing in proclaiming the Gospel must have been comforting, but also, it would have emboldened you even more to serve the Lord. We are told that they walked “in the fear (phobos) of the Lord.”

(1) We see in this that this fear/awe is not something that you feel, it is something that changes you and leads you to action. Walking in the fear of the Lord is a way of life.

(2) This is the response that should be natural to those who see God at work, but it is also the response that is commanded to us...

4. – “So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; 13 for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.”.

a) I believe that Paul shows us here what it means to walk in the fear of the Lord… with “fear/awe,” living in obedience to Christ, knowing that God is at work in us.

b) As we devote ourselves to the Apostles’ teaching, learn more about God and His will for our lives, we see here that God’s desire for us is to grow in our desire to do His will and to please Him through obedience. This is what happens when we learn about who He is, we learn to love Him and to be in fear & awe of Him, and it shows in our lives as we grow in our desire to do His will and please Him.

c) It is no surprise that this is how we see the Christians in the book of Acts respond to all that was being done by the Lord among them.

(1) – What followed their sense of awe was service. They continued to sacrifice for one another, knowing that God was at work among them as they did.

d) But they were not only moved to serve, but they were also moved to worship by their awe and fear of God

(1) V46-47: They went to the temple daily and were going from house to house, sharing time with one another, but also spending time praising the God who was at work among them. Their worship was not a 1 or 2 day per week thing. It was a daily thing because the God whom they were in awe and fear of was worthy of worship daily.

IV. Would we describe ourselves as being awestruck?

A. Are we filled with awe over what the Lord has or is doing in our lives and the lives of His people?

B. Do we know the Lord?

C. Does the awe/fear that we experience compel or motivate us to further action... to service and worship, to walk in the fear of the Lord?