When the Church is on Fire - Acts 4 - 2/12/17
Turn with me this morning to the book of Acts, chapter 4. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts - the 5th book of the NT. If I asked you what an ideal church looked like, what would you say? We might start thinking about what type of building it would be - traditional or contemporary - or what type of music we would sing - hymns or choruses. But the truth that we sometimes forget is that this building is simply the place where the church meets - WE are the church. So when we think about the ideal church, what we are really thinking about is what WE as Christians should look like. Sadly, we have to admit that sometimes we are not the faithful Christians we should be. God wants to change us to become more than we are right now.
Here in Acts 4, we see the continuing story of the healing of the lame man, which took place in chapter 3. But in this chapter we can see several characteristics in the apostles of what it looks like when the church is on fire, when we become passionate followers of God. A small town once had several church attenders, as well as one outspoken atheist. One day the town church building caught on fire, and the whole town ran toward it to help extinguish the flames…including the village atheist! Someone hollered out: “Hey, this is the first time we’ve ever seen you running to church!” He replied, “This is the first time I’ve ever seen the church on fire!” When we are spiritually on fire, and have a burning love for God in our hearts, others will take notice!
Sadly, if we admit the truth, many times when we come to worship we have to admit that our church is not on fire. We are not the passionate Christians that God wants us to be. In Revelation 2, Jesus writes to the church at Ephesus and says, Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. There once was a time when they had a passionate love for God, but their love for God had grown cold. And sadly sometimes that is the story of our lives as well. We think back about how “on fire” we USED to be - but if we are honest we admit that the fire has grown cold. But there IS good news in all of this: if you have lost your fire for God, you CAN get it back.
Paul writes to Timothy, his young disciple, in 2 Timothy 1:6 and tells him, I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you. He is telling him to stoke up the fire, blow on the coals, get the fire rekindled. And for many of us here today, maybe you still believe in God and love God, but what you need is to fan those glowing coals back into a blazing fire again. Allow God to stir your heart once more. Don’t worship God because it’s Sunday and you know you ought to; rather acknowledge all that God has done for you and allow that to stir your heart in a spirit of praise and worship.
God wants a church on fire. So as we come to look at the scripture today, let’s pray that God would stir our hearts once again. Let’s pray. PRAY
Our scripture passage this morning is Acts 4 - I’ll begin reading at verse 1. READ 4:1-31
Here in this chapter we see several characteristics of Christians who are on fire for God. We want to consider them today. The first characteristic is this:
• Powerful Presence - When you are on fire for God, the Holy Spirit rests upon your life with great power. Who is the Holy Spirit? God Himself! Remember that God is one, but He exists as Father, Son, and Spirit. Can I explain that? No. Do I believe that? YES! And when the Holy Spirit empowers you, that is God at work in your life.
So how do we get the Holy Spirit? We receive the Spirit at salvation, at the moment we place our faith in Christ. Romans 8:9 - You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. If you are a Christian, then Scripture says you have the Holy Spirit. If you don’t have the Spirit, you aren’t a Christian. There is no “2nd blessing” or “second work of grace” - when you get saved you get all of the Spirit that there is to get.
So what is this we see here in Acts 4? In Acts 2 the Holy Spirit came, just as Jesus had prophesied. Remember this is a transitional book. So all the believers already have the Spirit here in chapter 4. But here it says they were “filled” with the Spirit. The idea is not that you get more of the Spirit, but that the Spirit gets more of you.
The filling of the Spirit is when we give complete control of every area of our life over to God’s control. Sadly, many times we want to only give God a small part of our life. We say “God, you can have my church life; I’ll worship you Sunday mornings for an hour and a half.” But we want to hold on to the rest of our life. After all, we like certain sinful parts. We find them pleasurable. And God might want us to give them up. But when we do that, we are falling for Satan’s trap.
Natives in africa catch monkeys by placing a few beans in a gourd. They drill a small hole, just large enough for the monkey to stick his hand in. When he grabs the beans, he can’t get his hand out with his hand in a fist. But he refuses to let go, because he wants them so much, so he ends up being trapped by his selfish desires.
It’s the same way with sin. If you want to be on fire for God, you need to relinquish control of your life over to the Holy Spirit. There are many who know they need to turn from their sin, but the don’t want to give it up. If we would turn every area of our life over to God, He could take complete control of our lives. God would clean up our lives, give us wisdom to deal with the problems that plague us, give us boldness to become the person we’ve always wanted to be, but sadly we never experience the powerful presence of the Spirit because we refuse to yield to God’s control.
Today, how much do you rely on the leading of the Holy Spirit? When God convicts you by His Spirit, do you shrug it off, or do you listen intently? When you sense God impressing a need to you, do you respond or do you ignore the Spirit? What are you selfishly refusing to turn control of over to God? In the bible there are two key sins in regards to the Spirit.
Ephesians 4:30 tells us, do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God. When we choose to sin, in spite of the conviction of the Holy Spirit - we just go ahead and do it anyways, that is grieving the Spirit. But then
1 Thessalonians 5:19 tells us, Do not put out the Spirit’s fire - the KJV says, Quench not the Spirit. That is when the Holy Spirit tries to tell you the good things you should be doing, but you don’t listen. You ignore the Spirit, and the fire in your heart goes out. You put out the Spirit’s fire.
What do we see here in chapter 4? The disciples stirred up the fire, they followed the Spirit. In verse 8, they are filled with the Spirit. In verse 31, it says the whole church gathered for prayer was filled with the Spirit. And what is the result of the filling in 31? They spoke the word of God boldly. The sign of the Holy Spirit is not speaking in tongues, but boldness to speak the truth of God.
So, today take a spiritual inventory: How powerfully is the Spirit making His presence seen in your life? The question is not if you have the Spirit, but does the Spirit have control of you.
The second thing we see in believers who are on fire for God is
• Passionate Proclamation - we see here that Peter and John were passionate about telling everyone they met that Jesus was raised from the dead, that he was the promised Messiah. We see in verse 2 that the Sadducees get greatly disturbed at their preaching. Why is that? It’s because the Sadducees didn’t even believe in the possibility of life after death. Acts 23:8 - The Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, and that there are neither angels nor spirits. So they are greatly disturbed at what Peter and John are preaching. But whether it is embraced or not, whether it is popular or not, whether it is politically correct or not, it is the truth.
To be on fire for Jesus, we need to passionately proclaim what we know to be the truth. We can’t worry about what other people think about the truth or whether it is politically correct. We see their response down in verse 19 - I like the way the NLT states it - But Peter and John replied, “Do you think God wants us to obey you rather than him? We cannot stop telling about the wonderful things we have seen and heard.” When we are on fire for Jesus, we will not be afraid to speak out. Even when it’s not popular.
Look down in verse 18 - they know they cannot change what Peter and John believe - but they try to shut them up. Satan has a great bargain for you - if you leave him alone, he will leave you alone. At least that what he’ll try to convince you. Satan wants to shut you up. He doesn’t want you sharing the truth.
Why? Because as John 8:44 tells us, He was a murderer from the beginning and has always hated the truth. There is no truth in him. When he lies, it is consistent with his character; for he is a liar and the father of lies. He is a great deceiver, and he leads people astray by telling them lies. So Satan’s goal is to get you to shut your mouth, to not speak out, to be silent when it comes time to share the truth.
So let me ask you - Do you and Satan have an agreement? Have you said to yourself, I don’t really need to speak out - someone else will do it - is it really going to make a difference anyway? If you’ve said anything like that to yourself, then you’ve made a pact with Satan, whether you know it or not.
Back in 1985, a celebration took place at a municipal pool in New Orleans. The party around the pool was held to celebrate the first summer in memory without a drowning at the New Orleans City pool. In honor of the occasion, 200 people gathered, including 100 certified lifeguards. As the party was breaking up and the four lifeguards on duty began to clear the pool, they found a fully dressed body in the deep end. They tried to revive 31 year old Jerome Moody but it was too late. He had drowned, surrounded by lifeguards celebrating their successful season.
Many times as the church we pat ourselves on the back. We say how faithful we are because we came to church on Sunday. We stayed awake the whole sermon. We gave generously in the offering. Isn’t God lucky to have us on His side! And the whole time we are blind to those around us who are dying without Christ. Lest we ever forget, people who die without accepting the forgiveness offered by Christ spend an eternity separated from God. And they are all around us!
According to the Barna Research Group, nearly half of those that were surveyed believe that “the bible, the Koran, and the Book of Mormon are all different expressions of the same spiritual truths.” In other words, to many people it doesn’t make any difference what you believe as long as you believe in something. Because of that, there are some who say that Christians are a little narrow minded– thinking that they are the only ones who will get to heaven. People say, “Do you mean to tell me that those that follow the ways of Islam will not get into heaven?” “Do you mean to tell me that those that follow the ways of Buddha, or Wica, or even Joseph Smith (the leader of the Mormons) will not get into heaven?” The good thing about it is that I don’t have to give you MY opinion on that, because the Bible answers it for us. Here in Acts 4:12 it says, Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved." Now that’s not me talking. That’s not simply what this church believes. This comes from Jehovah God Himself! In John 14:6, it says Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
You can say, That’s awful narrow-minded! Well, Jesus said in Matthew 76, Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. It may be narrow-minded to believe Jesus is the only way -- but He IS the only way - whether you believe it or not - it’s still the truth! Don’t be blind to those around you. Talk to your neighbor, your co-worker, your relatives and ASK them whether they are trusting in Christ for salvation. Because there is NO other way.
So when you give control of your life over to the Spirit, He will lead you to proclaim the truth of God’s way of salvation. You might say, I can’t do that - I’m not a talker - I’m shy - I wouldn’t know what to say. That leads us to the third thing we need:
• Personal Transformation - look with me in verse 13 - When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus. What’s going on here? Here are Peter and John - fishermen - they’re not Harvard MBA’s - they don’t have a seminary degree from the rabbinical school in Jerusalem - they are common, unlearned, untrained men - at least untrained in all the accepted rabbinical schools. But there was something that had changed these men. The Sadducees had to step back and take note - and what did they note? They noted that they had been with Jesus. They were different. You would never expect them to be preaching at the temple, or healing a lame man - or defying the authorities. You might have expected them to apologize and slink away. But not Peter and John.
It says in verse 13 that they noticed their courage. They were bold! Proverbs 28:1 says, the righteous are as bold as a lion. Naturally? By no means! After all, this is the same Peter who denied the Lord 3 times - this is the same Peter who was afraid to admit who he was to a young servant girl. But he had been transformed by the power of the resurrected Christ.
If you say you can’t speak out passionately to proclaim anything, then you need to pause and ask God for personal transformation. Romans 12:2 - Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. The word there is metamorphosis - like the butterfly - to be changed from the inside out. God doesn’t want you to just pretend to be something that you’re really not. Instead He wants to empower you to be the person you can become and He wants to equip you to face any task He has in store for you.
That’s why these disciples who had been huddled up in Jerusalem after the resurrection suddenly went everywhere preaching the word. Because the Holy Spirit came on them in power and transformed them.
How have you seen God’s transformation in your own life? Can you see God at work changing you and empowering you to be the follower He desires you to be? If not, then that leads to the fourth mark of a dynamic Christian:
• Corporate Prayer - Look down in verse 23 - On their release, Peter and John went back to their own people and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said to them. When they heard this, they raised their voices together in prayer to God. You might say, Pastor Dean, I pray every day! Four times a day actually - before every meal and before bed at night! But that’s not what I’m talking about. While each one of us should spend time personally coming before God, we also need times of corporate prayer when we join together as one is asking for God’s help.
What does Jesus tell us in Matthew 18:19 - Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them. While I believe that God hears our individual prayers, He also calls us to corporate prayer. And notice what they prayed for. Look at verse 29.
What do we typically pray for corporately - we pray for our church, we pray for the sick to recover, we pray for safety for those in harms way, we pray for wisdom and blessing. And all of those ARE good things to pray for. But once again, it’s like the party at the pool with all the lifeguards. Instead of praying just for the things we would enjoy, we need to be praying corporately for the things that are close to the heart of God. We need to be praying for God’s help to be the witnesses He has called us to be!
Look down at Verse 29 - Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Their prayer, the thing they wanted God to do for them, was for boldness in witnessing. Typically, if we had our way, we would be praying for God to give us an excuse so we don’t have to be a witness. It’s sad, but the one thing we know God wants us to be is the one thing we try to avoid like the plague. But just a minute - did you see what’s going on here? The disciples think about all the threats they face from the Sadducees, and their prayer - notice - is NOT for deliverance - NOT for God to overthrow the Sadducees - but for endurance - to be able to speak the word of God in the midst of all the opposition.
As Christians far too often we are “wimpy” - we want God to “get us out” of difficult situations - instead of praying for God to strengthen us to face and conquer the hardest of situations.
Look at verse 30 - Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” Why do they pray for healing? Not for the relief of the sick, but to show the power of God. They want everyone to see that God is a great and powerful God.
The early church had their priorities right: they wanted God’s power to boldly preach the word. So what happened when they prayed? Look at verse 31 - After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.
God gave them what they wanted, because it was what HE wanted as well. That’s what it means to ask according to the will of God. We ask God for the things we know that God wants for us, and He loves to give it to us. They asked for boldness to witness, and the Holy Spirit comes on them and they witness boldly.
And that is the fifth mark of a passionate Christian:
• Planned Partnership - When we yield every area of our life to God’s control, we will no longer be focused on ourselves. Instead, we will care about our brothers and sisters in Christ. We see the early church functioned that way. They cared about each other. When one of them had a need, they all felt it. Look down in verse 32 - All the believers were one in heart and mind. No-one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had. Paul tells us how we are to relate to one another in Romans 12 - Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. . . If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.
The early church was all about community. That’s not to say they didn’t have their problems. If you read Galatians 2 you will see that even Peter had problems with community. But the church focused on one another. They shared common goals - they were one in heart and mind. They shared freely. They enjoyed powerful preaching. And everyone received grace, because everyone’s needs were met.
One of the marks of a Christian who is on fire for God is a love for the church. And remember WE are the church - we’re talking about a love for one another. When you love God you will love His children, because they are your brothers and sisters. 1 John 3 reminds us, We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death. . . .Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. Do you hear what that says? It talks about passing from death to life - that’s talking about salvation. We are dead in our sins, and then God steps in to give us life, abundant life, everlasting life. We are passed - John 5:24 - from death to life. But if you DON’T love your brother or sister - you remain in death. In other words - YOU ARE NOT SAVED! 1 John 4:20 - If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.
Now THAT will sure shoot some holes in your eternal security! Christians, you who have been changed by the power of God, you who love God, those of you who are seeking to live for God, MAKE SURE you are choosing to love to your brother and sister in Christ!
So be very careful about slandering a fellow Christian. Don’t say things that are untrue. Don’t say things that imply something that is untrue. Don’t pass on idle gossip. Don’t be grumbling, negative, critical, complaining. Paul says in Ephesians 4:12 - God gave leaders “for the perfecting of the saints for the work of the ministry.” This idea of “perfecting” is the word for “mending nets; setting a bone; making something be whole and work rightly.” The leaders of the church are to help all the believers work rightly together. Paul says in verse 12 the leaders are to help God’s people to serve so that the church can be built up. If we want to see this church grow and be built up, we need to make sure that each of us is doing our part. The reality is that in some churches while part of the church works to build up the church, there are others who at the same time are tearing it down. And it is always easier to tear something down than to build it up.
Make sure you are working with us to build up the church and that you are not doing anything to tear it down. If you want to tear down the church, go somewhere else. There’s the door - leave and don’t come back. Don’t worry, we won’t miss you. We don’t want people here who are just going to gossip and complain and criticize and destroy the church by their sinful actions. I’d tell you to go find another church, but I’d hate for you to take your complaints and criticisms there. So why not just go home and sleep in on Sunday. You will do no good staying here and working against the rest of the body. As Christians, we are to build up the church. And the result of that will be what we see in Ephesians 4:13 - unity and maturity and Christ-likeness. The more we serve using our gifts and work together to build up the church, the more we will be Christlike in all our ways.
That’s what we see the church doing here in Acts 4 - they lived like Christ so they cared about one another. Ask yourself, are you self-centered or others-focused? Do you care only about yourself or do you seek to show love to your brothers and sisters?
Acts 4 gives us some great standards to check ourselves against:
• Do you have the powerful presence of the Holy Spirit working in your life? Are you choosing to turn your life over to the Spirit’s control and to do what He says?
• Do you have a passionate proclamation, choosing to speak the truth, no matter the crowd, no matter the consequences, because you are committed to speaking for God?
• Do you have a personal transformation, have you seen God changing your life to be more and more like Jesus?
• Do you have corporate prayer - do you pray not just before meals and at bed, but do you join together with your brothers and sisters, praying powerfully for God’s will to be accomplished.
• Do you have planned partnership, working together to build up your brothers and sisters and show them love, not attacking and criticizing them and tearing them down?
These are five great checks for each of us here today. It may be that you didn’t get high marks in every area. The good news is that we have a God who is full of forgiveness and who hears and answers prayer. Share with God your shortcomings, and renew your commitment to Him today. Next week we will go on to chapter 5, and we will see how seriously God takes our commitments. It literally is a matter of life and death!
Let’s pray.
As we go to prayer today, if you want to recommit to following God faithfully in these five areas, I would invite you simply to stand where you are as a testimony that you are making that commitment today. I’ll pause for just a few seconds as you think about whether God is leading you to renew your commitment. As you stand, let me pray for you. PRAY
