Made to Make a Difference: Acts 5
Scott Bayles, pastor
Blooming Grove Christian Church: 7/17/2011
This series is inspired by and portions adapted from Max Lucado’s Out Live Your Life.
Even after their first taste of persecution and prison food, the message of the resurrection of Jesus continued to spread rapidly throughout Jerusalem, as Spirit-empowered believers shared the gospel with a spiritually lost and lonely populace. The church was making a difference in the lives of untold thousands, and Satan wasn’t going to stand for it. He wanted to see the church divided, disgraced and destroyed. In chapter 4, he tried to destroy the church from without through persecution. But in chapter 5, he’ll try to destroy it from within through hypocrisy.
Acts 5, like the other chapters before it, offers us continued insight into the priorities and principles that guided the early church. Because of what they believed and how they behaved, this grass-roots movement propelled by tax collectors, net casters and soccer moms exploded into a world-changing force for Jesus Christ. Like them, you and I were made to make a difference. When we follow in their footsteps, believing and behaving like them, we have the potential to make a real difference in the world.
Last week, in Acts 4, we learned that the apostles were fearless with persecution, faithful with prayer, and free with possessions. This week, in Acts 5, we find one simple message: Do Good! And while it a good thing to do good things, we also find three qualifiers to that imperative. Rather than just doing good, we are called to do good authentically, abundantly, and adventurously. So let’s get into Acts 5, and start exploring the call to do good authentically.
• DO GOOD AUTHENTICALLY
As Acts 5 begins, we find the startling story of a married couple named Ananias and Sapphira, who were not so authentic. Last week we discovered that the early church just exploded with generosity. Wealthy Christian who owned extra fields or houses were selling them and giving the money to the apostles to share with less fortunate believers. Ananias and Sapphira must have seen what was going on and maybe they got jealous of all the praise and appreciation being lavished on these generous donors. One of them remembered a piece of property that had probably been in the family a while and they decided together to sell it, give the money to church and maybe they’d get a foyer named after them or something.
Now, I don’t know exactly why they did it, but the Bible says, “He brought part of the money to the apostles, claiming it was the full amount. With his wife’s consent, he kept the rest” (Acts 5:2 NLT). When he presented his offering to Peter, the apostle responded with four questions.
Question 1: “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land?” (Acts 5:3 NIV). So much for the cover-up. Peter’s phrase for “kept” actually means “misappropriate.” The apostle’s sniffed out the couple’s scheme for what it was: financial fraud.
Question 2: “Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold?” (Acts 5:4 NIV). No one forced the couple to sell the property. They did it for the glory and recognition.
Question 3: “And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal?” (Acts 5:4 NIV). At any point the couple could have changed their minds or altered their pledge. The sin wasn’t in keeping a portion of the proceeds, but in pretending they gave it all.
Question 4: “What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied just to human beings but to God” (Acts 5:4 NIV). This wasn’t an impulsive stumble, but a calculated, premeditated swindle.
Once the interrogation was over, God rendered the verdict. The Bible says, “When Ananias heard this, he fell down and died” (Acts 5:6 NIV). The message: doing good for the wrong reasons, isn’t good. Jesus had a word for such behavior: hypocrisy. The Greek word for hypocrite originally referred to a stage actor—someone who wore a mask and pretended to someone he wasn’t.
Jesus wants us to do good deeds. He even said, “let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:16 NIV). So it’s good to do good deeds publically—as long as God is the one who gets the credit. When we pretend to be someone we’re not and do good to get the praise and glory for ourselves, we embarrass God and give a black-eye to the church.
Hypocrisy turns people away from God. When God-hungry souls walk into a congregation of wannabe pretenders, they know it. I love how the Message translates Jesus words: “Be especially careful when you are trying to be good so that you don't make a performance out of it. It might be good theater, but the God who made you won't be applauding” (Matthew 6:1 MSG). Bottom line: don’t make a theater production out of your faith. Do good authentically. Also, we should do good abundantly!
• DO GOOD ABUNDANTLY
As the story of the Jerusalem church continues we find this amazing anecdote of the apostles’ accomplishments:
“The apostles performed many signs and wonders among the people… As a result, people brought the sick into the streets and laid them on beds and mats so that at least Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them as he passed by. Crowds gathered also from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing their sick and those tormented by impure spirits, and all of them were healed.” (Acts 5:12-16 NIV).
The early church was doing so much good, healing and helping the surrounding community, that people started showing up in droves from far and wide seeking their help. They did good abundantly and people noticed! This is exactly the kind of activity Jesus was talking about when he said, “let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:16 NIV).
Are we doing good abundantly? Or are we just doing good sparingly? Let me ask another way. If Blooming Grove was forced to close our doors, would anybody other than us even notice? Would the school principle care? Would the mayor mind? How many lives have been changed because of the good we’ve done?
Jesus calls us to be salt, light and leaven in our communities. The early church engaged their community with the good works and good news of Jesus, and Jerusalem was better for it. Rick Rusaw, the senior pastor at Lifebridge Christian Church, put it this way: “[Churches that make a difference] see themselves as vital to the health and well-being of their communities. They believe that their communities, with all of their aspirations and challenges, cannot be truly healthy without the church’s involvement. It is only when the church is mixed into the very life and conversation of the city that it can be an effective force for change.”
If we want to make a difference for time and for eternity, then we have to do good abundantly. Centuries ago, the prophet Isaiah challenged the nation of Israel, saying, “Learn to do good. Seek justice. Help the oppressed. Defend the cause of orphans. Fight for the rights of widows” (Isaiah 1:17 NLT). He later went on to say, “Share your food with the hungry, and give shelter to the homeless. Give clothes to those who need them, and do not hide from relatives who need your help” (Isaiah 58:6-7 NLT). When God’s people do these things in abundance lives are altered, communities are impacted, God is praised, and the church makes a difference!
Do good authentically. Do good abundantly. And finally, do good adventurously.
• DO GOOD ADVENTUROUSLY
It probably won’t come as a surprise, but wouldn’t you know it—as soon as the high priest and all his Sadducee associates see the impact the apostles are having in Jerusalem, they get jealous and the apostles get arrested… again. Sometimes the old saying is true: no good deed goes unpunished.
However, Peter and his compatriots spent only a few hours in the public jail before an angel of God opened the doors of the jail and brought them out! The angel told them, “Go to the Temple and take your stand. Tell the people everything there is to say about this Life!” (Acts 5:20 MSG). And that’s just what they did.
No matter what kind of opposition the early church faced, they would never quit, never stop, never back down. They weren’t afraid of persecution, because they knew who was really in control. The lives of the apostles read like one hair-raising adventure story after another. The apostle Paul, for instance, once survived a murder plot by the Jews (Acts 9). He was stoned nearly to death, dragged outside the city, and then left for dead. Later he got up and walked to another city (Acts 14). Having managed to get the entire city of Jerusalem into an uproar, he was physically removed from the temple and then flogged by Roman soldiers (Acts 21). He was shipwrecked not once, but three times. One time he was even lowered in a basket through an opening in the city wall, to escape murder.
Some of us may read about the adventures of the early church and think our lives are kind of boring by comparison. But there are spiritual adventures all around us—opportunities to be bold, to step out of our comfort zones, and take some risks. Think about Peter. When Peter and the others saw Jesus walking on water in the middle of a thunderstorm, the rest of the apostles were content to cling to the mast and wait for Jesus to come to them. But not Peter. Peter was willing to step out of the boat into the unknown. Folks, if you want to walk on water, you’ve got to get out of the boat.
Maybe God is calling you to travel to tornado ravaged town and aid in disaster relief. Maybe He wants you to go to Brazil and spend a week with missionaries offering medical aid and planting churches in villages along the Amazon. Maybe He wants you to volunteer one night a week at a soup kitchen or homeless shelter in Springfield. Ashley asked me to add, “Maybe God is calling you to volunteer for VBS.” The same God who called Peter to climb out of the boat and called the early church to bold new adventures is calling you to step of your comfort zone and do good adventurously.
And the God who calls us also empowers us. Remember what Gamaliel told the priest and Sadducees who arrested the apostles? He said, “I tell you, do not take any action against these men. Leave them alone! If what they have planned and done is of human origin, it will disappear, but if it comes from God, you cannot possibly defeat them” (Acts 5:38-39 GNT). In the words of Christ Tomlin, “If our God is for, then who could ever stop us? And if our God is with us, then what could stand against? Our God is greater, our God is stronger, our God is higher than any other.”
CONCLUSION
Here’s what we learn from Acts 5, among other things: Do good authentically. Don’t pretend to be something you’re not. God hates hypocrisy. Do good abundantly. Let your light shine so bright that people see your good works and glorify God because of you. Do good adventurously. Step out on faith, take a chance, and make a difference. The early church new that they were put on this planet for a reason, and so were you. You we made to make a difference.
INVITATION
As our worship team head to the front, I want to you to take this opportunity to examine yourself. Have you been wearing any masks or pretending to be someone you’re not? Now is the time to take off the mask, be honest with yourself and with God and start living the authentic Christian life. If there’s anything I can do to help with that, just come talk to me as we stand and sing.
