THE TESTIMONY OF A GROWING CHURCH

Introduction

What event proceeded the actions in our text today?

After the deaths of Ananias and Sapphira, the church continues its effort. Those outside the church seem to understand the nature of its power more than before. The church’s witness spreads beyond Jerusalem, eventually leading to increased opposition (vv. 17–26)

Wright, T. (2008). Acts for Everyone, Part 1: Chapters 1-12 (p. 84). London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.

Problem

Satan works inside the church and tries to divide it, disgrace it, and destroy it;

Wiersbe’s Expository Outlines on the New Testament Chapter 5

The testimony (vv. 12–16).

The assembly was now unified and magnified, and it therefore multiplied. This will always happen when an assembly is purged of sin. Satan works inside the church and tries to divide it, disgrace it, and destroy it; but if we let the Spirit work, we will detect the devil’s operation and avoid church problems. It is not the church that welcomes everybody that has the best testimony, for the people were afraid to join the church there in Jerusalem (v. 13). A local church must have standards and must let the Spirit lead. Note that Peter is the key man at this period of church history; even his shadow was thought to bring healing.

Satan still opposes the work of the church from within. Paul warned the elders that wolves would come in from the outside to attack the flock, but also that men would arise “from among yourselves” to harm the church (Acts 20:29–30, NKJV). The greatest danger the church faces today is not so much opposition from without, but sin from within. This is why it is important to seek God’s guidance in receiving new members and in disciplining those who stray

A GROWING CHURCH IS UNIFIED AND MAGNIFIED

What must happen in order for the Church to be Multiplied?

The assembly was now unified and magnified, and it therefore multiplied. This will always happen when an assembly is purged of sin. Satan works inside the church and tries to divide it, disgrace it, and destroy it; but if we let the Spirit work, we will detect the devil’s operation and avoid church problems.

Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary Purge

PURGE To cleanse from impurity, frequently in the figurative sense of cleansing from evil (Deut. 13:5), guilt (Deut. 19:13), idolatrous worship (2 Chron. 34:3), and sin (Ps. 51:7). See Clean, Cleanness.

A GROWING CHURCH IS HOLY SPIRIT SENSITIVE AND SERIOUS

It is not the church that welcomes everybody that has the best testimony, for the people were afraid to join the church there in Jerusalem (v. 13). A local church must have standards and must let the Spirit lead. Note that Peter is the key man at this period of church history; even his shadow was thought to bring healing.

What causes a Church to produce “Miracles, Signs, and Wonders” and gives it it’s best testimony?

Answer: Having Standards and letting the Holy Spirit lead.

Acts for Everyone, Part 1: Chapters 1–12 Healed by Peter’s Shadow (Acts 5:12–16)

Peter and the others were continuing to meet in one of the great porches of the Temple. To understand this, you need to remember that the Temple in Jerusalem was not a single building, like a great church or cathedral. It was more like an entire area of the city, covering dozens of acres, walled off and with several gates and porches. There were trees and shrubs and various buildings, houses where the priests on duty would lodge during their days of service and, in the middle, the Temple proper, with its sequence of courts leading in towards the holy of holies. So the apostles had taken up the habit of worshipping in the Temple and then staying around beside one of the porches where there would be plenty of room for crowds to gather around them. The crowds were coming, as they came to Jesus, for healing, but of course for teaching as well. And we would be right to assume that the teaching continued down the lines of Peter’s opening address in Acts 2, drawing together the ancient scriptures, not least the Psalms and the prophets, and the extraordinary new events concerning Jesus.

A GROWING CHURCH’S GREATEST OPPOSITION IS FROM WITHIN NOT FROM WITHOUT.

Satan still opposes the work of the church from within. Paul warned the elders that wolves would come in from the outside to attack the flock, but also that men would arise “from among yourselves” to harm the church (Acts 20:29–30, NKJV). The greatest danger the church faces today is not so much opposition from without, but sin from within. This is why it is important to seek God’s guidance in receiving new members and in disciplining those who stray.

Why is it so hard to reach people outside the Church?

Answer: Sin from within

Conclusion

Our constant prayer should be that God would allow the Church to be a testimony in the world that it did in the 1st Century.

Acts for Everyone, Part 1: Chapters 1–12 Healed by Peter’s Shadow (Acts 5:12–16)

Thus the fact of so many people coming to Jerusalem and being cured was not simply a matter of a sudden burst of healing energy. It was about (and everyone there knew it was about) the establishment of a new reality in a dangerous place: the power of the living God becoming concrete, definite, undeniable, not simply a matter of a few people telling a very strange story and behaving from time to time as if they were drunk. It is when the church, through prayer and wisdom and often in the teeth of opposition, acts with decisive power in the real world—to build and run a successful school, or medical clinic; to free slaves or remit debts; to establish a housing project for those who can’t afford local rents, or a credit union for those ashamed to go into a bank; to enable drug users and pushers to kick the habit and the lifestyle; to see hardened and violent criminals transformed by God’s love—that people will take the message of Jesus seriously. Of course there will then be opposition, because we shall be invading territory that is currently under alternative occupation. But God’s power will be at work, and people will know it.