Sermon Tone Analysis

Overall tone of the sermon

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Introduction
Have you ever heard the phrase, “put your best foot forward”?
What that really means is that we let others see the very best of us.
This happens all the time in our culture.
If you don’t believe just look at social media.
Most people only put things up on Facebook or Instagram or another one of the million social media apps that show the world that we’ve got everything together just perfectly.
We do not share the “real pictures” or “real instances” many times of the dark underbelly of our lives with the world wide web.
We do not want our “dirty laundry” aired for all to see… at least most of us don’t.
There may be some that do, but that’s a whole different sermon.
One of the things that I love about the Bible is that it tells everything… the good… the bad… even the ugly.
Though the main character of the Bible — God — has it all together and is perfect, the people that He chooses to redeem and work through do not.
Noah = survived the world-wide flood and then got drunk
Abraham = The father of the faithful — chose to lie about his wife to protect his own life… twice
David = the man after God’s own heart — committed adultery and then had the woman’s husband murdered
Simon Peter = the one who spoke up first and confessed that Jesus was the Messiah — in the very next breath told Jesus that He would not go to the cross.
If I was writing the Bible, I’m not sure that I would have put those details in there.
The Holy Spirit inspired the human authors of the Bible to include those details though.
Through the Bible, God was not trying to make Himself look good but to proclaim truth and the fact that while we are all messed up by sin, we can be made new and whole through Him and His plan.
We are in a sermon series called “Unhindered,” and we’re looking through the New Testament book of Acts.
We have seen how God launched His plan of the church with the purpose that His church would take the gospel to the ends of the earth and let the world know that God is calling us to Himself.
Up to this point, things have been pretty good.
We see God using the church in mighty ways and many people coming to faith in Christ and joining the team.
Last week, we saw that the church began to face some challenges from without as the religious leaders arrested Peter and John and told them to quit preaching about Jesus.
Though they were threatened, we see that the early church kept doing what God had told them to do.
The end of shares about although the church had some challenges from without, they kept moving forward and seeing God do great things.
Satan wants to silence the witness and work of the church because he knows that it is God’s plan.
While his first attempts by using challenges from without didn’t work, we see that he moves to a different strategy: attacking the church by using those within its fellowship.
In , we see a different set of challenges arise.
These challenges came not from outside, but they arose from within the fellowship.
Satan
[PRAYER]
We can see that the early church came out of the first attack from without stronger and doing pretty well.
The gospel was being shared wide, and those who had needs were finding hope and help from those within the church.
Joseph (Barnabas)
We first are told about how a man named Joseph used his resources for the Lord’s work.
Now, we probably know him better by his nickname — Barnabas.
This man was highly respected within the early church.
His nickname means “Son of Encouragement” and was given to him by the apostles.
How would you like to be known as one who is always encouraging others?
Barnabas was a person who had great wealth.
We see this in that he owned land and enough of it to be able to sell off some to help others in need.
Owning land in any time or culture shows that someone is doing pretty well in the financial department.
Barnabas was a cheerful giver as well.
He was willing to part with his treasures to take care of the needs of others.
The church had people from all walks of life in it.
There were both “have’s” and “have not’s” within the church.
We read about how they would take care of one another’s needs as the needs arose.
Barnabas was willing to part with some of his land and use the proceeds to help those with needs within the church.
He was able to do this because he had an understanding that all that he had was given to him by the Lord to steward.
When we realize that all that we have comes from the Lord and that He has a purpose for it, we can be more open to using our resources to further God’s Kingdom and do the work that is needed to be done.
When we realize that all that we have comes from the Lord and that He has a purpose for it, we can be more open to using our resources to further God’s Kingdom and do the work that is needed to be done.
Ananias and Sapphira
As we move into chapter 5, we notice that there was another couple mentioned that gave in a similar way that Barnabas did.
Their names were Ananias and Sapphira.
This was a couple that was part of the early church in Jerusalem.
Like Barnabas, they possessed some wealth because they also sold some of it and gave some of the proceeds to the church to meet needs.
This was a very generous gift, but it had a very different result.
We see that while Barnabas was praised over his gift, Ananias and Sapphira lost their lives over their gift.
Why would the same gift bring about such different results?
The answer to this question is an issue of motive.
An issue of motive
Two types of givers
Motive can be a very tricky thing.
Most of the time, there is no clear way to see what a person’s motives are behind his or her actions.
Motives lie deep within a person’s heart and only God can look into those depths.
While we may not always be able to identify a person’s motives, we can see what those motives are by the fruit that comes from the actions.
In this passage, we see that as Barnabas gave out of his blessings, he did so with the intent to solely help those in need and be obedient to what God was telling him to do.
There is not much mentioned about the results of Barnabas’ gift other than the assumption that the proceeds helped meet the needs of those within the church.
When it comes to Ananias and Sapphira’s gift, we get a peek behind the curtain per se into their hearts and motivation for giving as they did.
It is apparent that they noticed the recognition that Barnabas received for his generosity.
They wanted a piece of that pie.
Barnabas didn’t want the recognition, but it came his way anyways.
It is not wronged to be recognized for your obedience.
That may not set well with us, but it is the truth.
While we want to make sure that we are walking humbly before God and keeping our egos in check, it is good when others acknowledge God working through us.
It is not wronged to be recognized for your obedience.
In , we see that Ananias and Sapphira concocted a plan to sell a piece of their property and give a portion of the proceeds to the church for benevolence use.
There was nothing wrong with that other than they told the church that they were giving all the proceeds.
Satan had tempted this couple’s hearts to lie.
Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote one time:
Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all.”
Satan filled the hearts of this couple with his native language.
In this passage of Scripture, we see two types of givers that were present in the early church.
Joseph (Barnabas)
The first type of giver that we see in this passage is a man named Joseph.
Now, we probably know him better by his nickname — Barnabas.
This man was highly respected within the early church.
His nickname means “Son of Encouragement” and was given to him by the apostles.
How would you like to be known as one who is always encouraging others?
He was highly respected in the early church.
We can be tempted to think that a little lie won’t hurt, but that in itself is a lie as well.
One problem with a lie is that is never comes alone.
There are always more that have come to cover up the previous ones.
We may know this guy better by his nickname = Barnabas.
He was given this nickname that meant ‘Son of Encouragement’ by the apostles.
Joseph was a person who had great wealth.
We see this in that he owned land and enough of it to be able to sale off some to help others in need.
Owning land in any time or culture shows that someone is doing pretty well in the financial department.
nickname means “Son of Encouragement” and was given to him by the apostles.
He was well respected within the early church.
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