Dangers From Within
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Introduction
Introduction
Last week we saw the attack of the enemy upon the early church, we saw the the arrest of Peter and John and the threat.
Peter and John were charged not to speak or teach in the Name of Jesus any more.
Of course as we saw last week, Peter and John stood faithful in the face of opposition and
But Peter and John answered them, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.”
Acts 4.19
But then in v.21 we are told that the leaders of the day threatened then further and then let them go.
Peter and John go back and share with their friends what happened and the church prays for boldness to continue to be witnesses for Christ and we are told in v.31
“and they were filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.”
But the enemy does not give up so easily does he.
Do you remember the story of the Trojan horse?
In Greek mythology
After a fruitless 10 year siege upon the city of Troy the Greeks a huge wooden horse and hid select men inside the horse and left the horse outside the gate of Troy.
The Greeks deceived the people of Troy into thinking they had sailed away and so the people of Troy brought the horse into the city thinking it was a gift left by the Greeks
but that was their undoing.
It was from within that the enemy struck the death blow to the city of Troy.
We have a crafty enemy and if he cannot destroy from without then he will attack from within and that is what we see before us today.
Dangers from within
Unity Established
Unity Established
As we begin this section we again are given a glorious picture of the church.
we begin this section we again are given a glorious picture of the church.
Notice that as v.32 describes the church, the members of the church it describes them as what? those who believed, the believing ones
Unity is built on the gospel.
The full number of those who believed, that is who were believing in Christ, believing in the gospel.
One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God, one Father
One heart
The scriptures uses the heart to define the wellspring of our being, it is the central place where religious experience has it’s root, it determines conduct. The heart is the inner spirit, there was a unity in the deepest part of being
One soul
They shared the same focus, the same mind. This was the greatest unity that the world had ever seen.
What the text is not saying
Text is not saying that there were a bunch of Christian clones. That they read the same books, all educated their children the same way, all wore the same clothes, that they all liked and disliked the same type of food, that they all shared the same background.
Actually the beauty of this unity is that it was unexplainable. They had different opinions on food, clothing, language, customs, and the list could go on; but they had all been baptized by One Spirit into One Body, they were all followers of one Lord Jesus Christ.
You know what unity may mean that we don’t even agree on every point of doctrine.
We must agree on primary issues
Within churches there are secondary issues that we need to agree on
Tertiary issues that can disagree on and still enjoy the fullness of Christian unity and fellowship.
I want to say three things about Christian unity while we are talking about it.
It is supernatural
Brothers and sisters, we are all made one and put into one body by the Sovereign Supernatural Work of the Holy Spirit of God.
That the full number were of one heart and soul cannot be explained naturally.
Paul refers to the unity of the Spirit in .
And, it is by the One Spirit that we are baptized into the One body according to 1 Cor. 12:13
It must be protected
Listen to what Paul says in Ephesians
I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
Being eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit
that word eager is translated, being diligent, endeavouring, making every effort
Brothers and sisters we are to make every effort to protect unity, within the body of Christ
Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind.
Unity has it’s benefits
The Lord blesses unity. I think that is what we see in v.33
There was the unity of the Spirit and the Spirit also brought 2 things.
We see great power
The Holy Spirit was working powerfully. God was working powerfully to save sinners, men and women, boys and girls were having the eyes of their hearts open to hear and to receive the Gospel!
If you are here today and do not know the gospel, the gospel is .... Our prayer is that the Holy Spirit will work powerfully within your heart to hear and receive it. We would love to know if He does.
Can you picture it? What a glorious picture we have here.
We see great grace
I think the picture here is that there was grace upon grace. People were growing in grace. The grace of God was evident among the people. Oh what a glorious picture.
Can you imagine it?
Unity Exemplified and Encouraged
Unity Exemplified and Encouraged
We see the unity of the church put on display as we see their care for one another.
Notice v.32b
v.34-35
Interesting point here, This is an echo of
But there will be no poor among you; for the Lord will bless you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance to possess—
So again we see the blessing of the Lord upon the people.
We see a picture of this unity as the church is caring for one another, ministering to one another
But we also see the unity being encouraged or strengthened here in this passage.
Then we have a pa
I would submit to you that what we see in this passage is unity that is being pictured and strengthened by selfless followers of Christ.
Selflessness.
We do not see the church or the state making Christians give to others or sacrifice for the good of others, instead what we see is people joyfully, willfully giving for the good of others, sacrificing for the good of others.
The more I meditated on this passage this week, I thought the reason a gospel centered community is united is because a gospel centered community is full of people that are dying to themselves.
Selflessness is the water that causes unity to grow.
Take the example of Barnabas in v.36 and 37.
All that we know about Barnabas leads us to believe that this was a man who considered others more significant than himself.
He invested in the lives of others 9:26-30
He rejoiced in God’s work in others 11:22-26 (also point out v.24 and how he brought Paul along with him there, his humility, he was an encourager)
He was trustworthy 11:27-30
Much we could say about this brother and his faithfulness in chapters 13 and 14
. Discuss his patience and forgiveness toward John Mark
Barnabas was not a man who wanted to draw attention to himself, he was humble servant of the Lord who served others, encouraged others, he was patient and forgiving.
We see exemplified within this man the kind of selflessness that Jesus and the gospel calls us to.
Brothers and sisters, members like Barnabas encourage and strengthen unity within a church.
Let me ask you
Are you investing in the lives of others?
Are you rejoicing at God’s Work in the lives of others?
Are you making disciples?
Are you faithful and bold?
Are you patient and forgiving?
You know, I understand that Barnabas was a man with a nature just like ours and he had his struggles with sin (he was not perfect), but in all of the text that I read about Barnabas this past week I always see him giving to others, serving others.
He was not worried about himself, he was not worried about what he was going to get, he was not worried about others noticing him, he was not jealous when Paul’s ministry took off and Paul became more popular than him.
Are you like Barnabas?
Unity Endangered
Unity Endangered
The Contrast
If Barnabas encourages or strengthens the unity with his selfless living then Ananias and Sapphira are put here as a contrast.
Notice the first word in chapter 5, BUT
This lets us know that we a connection between the texts
Barnabas did this but Ananias and Sapphira did this.
What did Ananias and Sapphira do?
explain
the event
the problem (they lied v.3 and 4)
Notice something every disturbing here
4:31 church described as filled with the Holy Spirit
5:3 Ananias described as Satan filling his heart
If Barnabas was used by the Lord to strengthen unity then Ananias and Sapphira were being used by Satan to threaten the unity of the Spirit
What was the heart here?
Self promotion
Wanted people to think highly of them
Vain glory
Conceit
Selfishness
Brothers and sisters, if anything will destroy unity it is selfishness, it is conceit, it is self promotion.
This can manifest itself in so many ways:
jealous of others and the attention they are getting
wanting to always be right
cannot tolerate when someone doesn’t agree with you
always wanting to be seen in the best light even if it means making others look bad
You see the big difference is that Barnabas was giving for the good of others and because of his love for the Lord and His church
Ananias and Sapphira were giving for recognition from others and because of their love for themselves. They were not giving to the church, they were giving to themselves.
The Condemnation (judgement)
We read the text and think,
Wow! This seems a little harsh. Honestly the text makes us uncomfortable and we feel sorry for Ananias and Sapphira.
I can’t speak to their eternal state, some say that they were genuine believers, I don’t know if they were or not.
Warren Wiersbe
“It is worth noting that the Lord judges sin severely at the beginning of a new period in salvation history. Just after the tabernacle was erected, God killed Nadab and Abihu for trying to present ‘false fire’ to the Lord (). He also had Achan killed for disobeying orders after Israel had entered the Promised Land () While God was certainly not responsible for their sins, he did use these judgments as warnings to the people, and even to us.”
Brothers and sisters, these are warnings to us
We are reminded of the gravity of sin and selfishness
We are reminded of the necessity of church discipline
The Connection
There is a connection to the OT in this passage
Most of us are familiar with the story of Achan in
In the LXX reads:
But the children of Israel committed a great trespass and kept back part of the accursed thing
This is the only place this verb is used in the LXX and it is interesting that Luke uses it here to describe what is done here in .
Achan knew what God had said when Jericho fell
But you, keep yourselves from the things devoted to destruction, lest when you have devoted them you take any of the devoted things and make the camp of Israel a thing for destruction and bring trouble upon it. But all silver and gold, and every vessel of bronze and iron, are holy to the Lord; they shall go into the treasury of the Lord.”
Joshua 6:
Achan knew he was not to take some of the devoted things, but his selfish heart put himself above God and everyone else and he thought he could do what he wanted.
So he selfishly held back some of the devoted things.
The connection is that Ananias and Sapphira also selfishly help back or kept back some things and lied about it.
We will fill this out some more tonight in our time together
Point
selfishness, lying, hypocrisy; these things are a threat to the unity within God’s community; God’s power and God’s grace will not freely flow where these things abide and therefore these things must be dealt with.
These things cannot be taken lightly.
Conclusion
Conclusion
Selflessness is the water that causes unity to grow.
Brothers and sisters may we by God’s grace be like Barnabas
May we die to self
May we give for the good of others
And May the unity of the Spirit be here among us so that we experience great power and great grace.
If selflessness is like water, then selfishness is the poison that will kill unity. It will enter in and will kill the beautiful flower of unity from within.
Think of football teams,
The best teams are the teams that buy into the selfless team mentality. They are working together for a common goal, for the championship.
But let selfishness enter in, let self promotion enter in, let greed, conceit, envy enter in and a team will tear itself apart.
Brothers and sisters, the church is not a place for self promotion, it is not a place where you are suppose to always get your way or that you have to always be right, the church is not a place for conceit, greed, envy
Those things will kill a church
As the church of Jesus Christ we are to be those who have gathered together for the common goal of the glory of God. We desire the church to shine as a light in the midst of the darkness, we desire for Jesus Christ to be made much of;
May God help us be united around this common goal.