The Active Church

The Active Church

Acts 5:12-28

A little over thirteen years ago, the Elder Board of Living Faith Fellowship asked me to write an essay on my ideal Church.

Part of what I wrote said, “The vision of the church is: We exist to bring Praise and Glory to our King, Jesus Christ.

We do this by surrendering to His will and becoming His witnesses (Acts 1:8) in a lost, hurting, and dark world.

By allowing the Holy Spirit to work in and through us, we can fulfill the Great Commission to go therefore and make disciples.

I envision a body of imperfect people growing more and more in the faith and learning to live a life of freedom empowered by the Spirit of God.

I believe the church should be a hospital for the hurting and a training (sending) center for the saved.”

Please open your Bibles to Acts 5

Last time, in the Book of Acts, we studied how Ananias and Sapphira, the husband-and-wife team that died for lying to God.

We learned that Hypocrisy kills our witness, joy, and peace, and it is an imitation. The LORD wants us to be real and transparent with Him and His people.

Today, we are going to learn that one of the primary goals of the Church, after glorifying Christ, is to reproduce and be fruitful!

The Church's main mission is to glorify the Lord Jesus and then to show people how to have a true relationship with Him!

The Church is to be an active, living thing, and with any living thing, there must be some sort of growth, otherwise, it is dead!

If the body of Christ does not grow and change, it becomes stagnant, and we all know what stagnation smells like; it is not a sweet-smelling aroma before the LORD.

We are God’s children, and like in the lifespan of any child, changes happen as part of their maturation process.

I. Power in the Church.

Read Acts 5:12-14

Back in Acts 4, after Peter and John were released from the religious leaders, the Church prayed for boldness…

Acts 4:29 Now, Lord, look on their threats, and grant to Your servants that with all boldness they may speak Your word,

Acts 4:30 by stretching out Your hand to heal, and that signs and wonders may be done through the name of Your holy Servant Jesus." NKJV

The miracles happened as an answer to their prayers, and also because the Church was keeping the main thing, the main thing.

We again see the Church acting in one accord in these verses, as they were all together in Solomon’s porch. What a great move of the power of the Holy Spirit, displayed through their unity.

In verse 13, there is a little confusion as we read, “Yet none of the rest dared join them, but the people esteemed them highly.”

There are different interpretations of this passage.

Some say, the people who were on the fence about following Jesus, would not join the Church after Ananias and Sapphira, but vs. 14 refutes that, because many were added to the Church.

Some say it means the other believers did not do what Ananias and Sapphira did by lying to the Holy Spirit, as they did.

Some say, it seems that the correction and death of Ananias and Sapphira prevented consumer Christianity at least for a time, and those who came to Christ were sold-out believers.

The folks who believe that say the Ananias and Sapphira incident reduced the level of casual commitment in the Church.

Matthew Henry says the passage is speaking about other Christians not wanting to become an Apostles because the other believers had a deep respect for their apostolic leadership.

After the death of Ananias and Sapphira for hypocrisy, the Christians gained a reputation for integrity, as the community realized how serious it was to become a follower of Jesus.

Notice, “And believers were increasingly added to the Lord.”

Even though some people were apprehensive about following Christ after those deaths, the church kept growing.

Being a Christian is costly, but the Holy Spirit was still drawing people to Christ.

The saying, “A body in motion stays in motion; a body at rest stays at rest,” describes Sir Isaac Newton's first law of Motion.

Newton’s law of motion is the law of inertia, which states that an object continues moving in a straight line at a constant speed, unless acted upon by an external force.

A force is a push or pull, such as friction or gravity, applied to an object. While driving, my car will keep moving forward until I apply the brakes, because of inertia.

The Church has many things it should do according to scripture, but again, the Church's main mission is to glorify the Lord Jesus.