Good morning to everyone. It's a beautiful morning this morning, about 20 degrees warmer than it was most mornings this week. So that was nice.

We’re going to be looking at Acts 5 this morning, and we considered kind of a difficult text last week in the early church. Primarily described, we were looking at the early church and the events that were described at the end of Chapter 4. At the end of Chapter 4, we saw a group of fervent, genuine, Christ-centered believers who were fixed on preaching the gospel. They were fixed on the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. They were all of one accord, all of one mind, sharing what they had and going out daily to preach Jesus so that men might be saved.

In contrast to those Christ-centered, witnessing, genuine believers, we see in Chapter 5, verse 1, the story of Ananias and Sapphira. If you look at Chapter 5, verse 1, it says, “But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira, his wife, sold a possession. He kept back part of the proceeds. His wife also being aware of it, and brought a certain part and laid it at the apostles’ feet.” 

But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back part of the price of the land for yourself? While it remained, was it not your own? And after it was sold, was it not in your own control? Why have you conceived this thing in your heart? You have not lied to men but to God.”

We saw that Ananias and Sapphira were hypocrites pretending to be something that they were not, falsely representing their giving and seeking the glory for themselves and not for God. As a result, we saw God move in and exercise discipline in the infant church to maintain purity and genuine faith within the body of believers. 

As we consider our text this morning and what occurred after the death of Ananias and Sapphira, I want for us to see God's plan for the church—his purpose as well as his method for the local body of believers. So we're going to look at that, beginning in verse 12, and see a section that teaches us about evangelism, that teaches us about the focus of the believers in the early church.

Let’s look together at Acts 5:12. It says, “And through the hands of the apostles, many signs and wonders were done among the people. And they were all with one accord in Solomon’s porch. Yet none of the rest dared join them, but the people esteemed them highly. And believers were increasingly added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women, so that they brought the sick out into the streets and laid them on beds and couches, that at least the shadow of Peter passing by might fall on some of them.”

Also, a multitude gathered from the surrounding cities to Jerusalem, bringing sick people and those who were tormented by unclean spirits, and they were all healed. 

Then the high priest rose up and all those who were with him, which is the sect of the Sadducees, and they were filled with indignation and laid their hands on the apostles and put them in the common prison. But at night, an angel of the Lord opened the prison doors and brought them out and said, “Go, stand in the temple and speak to the people all the words of this life.”

When they heard that, they entered the temple early in the morning and taught. But the high priest and those with him came and called the council together with all the elders of the children of Israel and sent to the prison to have them brought. When the officers came and did not find them in the prison, they returned and reported, saying, “Indeed, we found the prison shut securely and the guard standing outside before the doors, but when we opened them, we found no one inside.”

Now when the high priest, the captain of the temple, and the chief priests heard these things, they wondered what the outcome would be. So one came and told them, saying, “Look, the men whom you put in prison are standing in the temple and teaching the people.” 

Then the captain went with the officers and brought them without violence, for they feared the people lest they should be stoned. When they had brought them, they set them before the council, and the high priest asked them, saying, “Did we not strictly command you not to teach in this name? And look, you have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine and intend to bring this man’s blood on us.” 

But Peter and the other apostles answered and said, “We ought to obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised up Jesus whom you murdered by hanging on a tree. Him God has exalted to his right hand to be Prince and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. And we are his witnesses to these things, and so also is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him.”

I’ve given you four points on your outline for this long text this morning: First, one accord; Second, believers added; Third, the words of this life; and Fourth, obey Him.

Well, first in our text, building out of the first 11 verses, we see that all the believers in the church were of one accord. The word literally means a unanimity. There was a unanimous agreement. They were of one mind, one heart; they had a common purpose. 

Now, why was it that they were of one accord? How is it that Luke could say this in verse 12? Well, it's because of what happened in the first 11 verses. The sin had crept into the church. We talked last time about the need of the believer in Jesus Christ to know the truth of God's Word, to reckon it, to believe it, to continually renew our minds to it, and to choose to yield ourselves to his life and power in us, abiding in him.

But Ananias and Sapphira had failed to do this. We see in the previous chapters that they were of one mind and one accord because the whole church was of one accord, but something happened. 

Notice back in the middle of verse 4, Peter said to Ananias, “Why have you conceived this thing in your heart?” He mentioned that Satan was involved in this. There is a constant pressure on believers in this world from without and from within. To think our own thoughts, to listen to the wisdom of this world, to reject what God says based on our feelings or our emotions or our circumstances.

Ananias and Sapphira had conceived this sin in their hearts. I love the description that James gives us in James 1 of how sin comes about, how it’s conceived. Turn over to James 1 with me, please, and look at verse 13.

James 1:13 says, “Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am tempted by God,’ for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he himself tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and sin when it is full-grown brings forth death.”

These are such practical words for understanding God’s call on us to continually renew our minds to his truth, to choose to believe what he says, to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, to reckon, to count up the facts that he reveals to us in his word and believe them regardless of how we feel or what our experience has been.

But here James shows us the opposite of this—a failure to believe in God. He writes that each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Each of us still deals with the sin that dwells in us. There are still desires that rise up in us, and James gives us a picture. He says it starts with these desires in us that lead to temptations. 

You could picture it this way: God’s plan for holiness is a top-down process. We are to know in our minds, we are to reckon in our minds, we are to renew our minds, and we are to choose to believe God. In 2 Corinthians 10, Paul says, “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds and casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.”

We are to choose to take every thought captive. We are to reckon in our minds. We are to pull down the strongholds and fortresses of lies by knowing and reckoning the truth so our minds based on truth are to put our feelings, our emotions, and our desires in their proper place. We are to act on the basis of truth, not on the basis of desires and emotions.

But James says when we have these desires that come from sin dwelling in us, in our flesh, we can be drawn away. We can be enticed. In other words, we can start to inform our minds with the feelings and passions that come from our sinful desires. 

Look at what James says next in verse 15: “Then when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and sin when it is full-grown brings forth death.” If we do not take that thought captive, if we do not reject that desire and put it in its right place by reckoning the truth and yielding ourselves to God, if we in fact begin to entertain that desire and let it begin to be rationalized in our mind, if we are drawn away by it, then this desire will be conceived in our hearts and it will give birth to sin.

This is what happened to Ananias and Sapphira, and this is what happens to each one of us every time we sin. There’s a desire, an emotion, a lust, a passion that rises up in us, and we have a choice in the moment to put that away by choosing to believe God and what he says is true in his Word and yield to him and his power to take that thought captive to the obedience of Christ. 

Or we can choose to entertain that thought, to begin to let that desire influence our thinking and rationalize it as being good and profitable. Ananias and Sapphira wanted the glory. They saw Barnabas and others selling their land and giving the proceeds, and everyone was rejoicing and praising, and they wanted that glory for themselves rather than for God.

It's at this very point of decision that sin is either put to death or it is allowed to be conceived. Once it is conceived in the mind, it will be born. It will have its fruit in our outward action. The battle is won in the mind, my brothers and sisters, and we either make the choice of exercising the discipline to believe God and his truth and trust him, or else we reject his word and choose to believe our own desire or the wisdom of men or of Satan, and we allow sin to be conceived in our hearts. 

Peter tells us Ananias conceived this sin in his heart, and sin grew, and the lies and hypocrisy followed, and sin reigned in Ananias. Contrary to who he was, contrary to the truth, it is true, sin ended in death.

What a picture! Now in this time when Ananias and Sapphira had this desire for glory, for their own exaltation, they allowed sin to be conceived in their hearts, and they lied, they planned their lies, and they put hypocrisy there. There was not unity in the body. The entire body was not with one accord. Part of the body was out of line, off-step and wandering away from the truth, purity, and holiness. 

It's much like the physical body. When a part of the body begins to reproduce itself in a malignant way out of step, foreign to the body, a cancer is a plague on the body. It has a corrupting effect on the body and its health, and my friends, in order to maintain purity, in order to maintain unanimity and focus on one purpose, one provision, one plan, the cancer has to be cut out and removed. 

That's exactly what God did—the sin had to be exposed, addressed, and dealt with, or else it would spread and eat away at the fruitfulness and health of the body. We see here that it was God who came in and exercised discipline, taking out the sinful part of the body—the believers who had been led away by their own desire and had chosen to rationalize their sin and reject God’s truth in their lie to the Holy Spirit. God exercised discipline, removing Ananias and Sapphira for the sake of purity of the church and to bring the body back into one accord, one mind.

These aren't very pleasant things to talk about, but God deemed it necessary, and thus in verse 12, we see that they were all of one accord again in Solomon's porch. In verses 13 to 14, we see the effect of this drastic measure taken by God—not only on the body itself but also on the witness of the church.

Look at verse 12. It says, “And through the hands of the apostles many signs and wonders were done among the people.” They were all with one accord in Solomon’s porch. Look at verse 13: “Yet none of the rest dared join them, but the people esteemed them highly.” 

And believers were increasingly added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women. 

There’s a very troubling yet pervasive trend in the evangelical church today that I believe comes largely from the influence of the world, and that is an overwhelming desire not to offend, not to make waves, not to deal with sin. Especially, this comes through in two ways. One is in the Gospel that we preach, how we appeal to men to come to Christ. Because we want to highlight the positive and not to offend men, the sin of man, the need of man, the total inability of man, and the just deserts of condemnation and wrath is not preached. 

In short, the true need of man is not established. Rather, we often opt for telling men what Jesus will do for them—how he will make their life better, solve their problems, and make them happy. Thus, men do not cling to Jesus as their only savior from sin and death and hell and the wrath of God, but rather they take Jesus on as one who can cure what ails them and bring them a better life, one of prosperity, happiness, and fulfillment. 

The second way I think we see this manifest is an unwillingness to preach the truth of God’s Word, verse by verse, in order to teach and build up and equip the believers to go out and preach the Gospel. This is the true purpose of the gathering of believers, as we've seen in the book of Acts already. 

Once we have a church filled with bodies, having won them with something short of the true Gospel and assured them of something that the Gospel does not promise to deliver, then exhorting men to live holy lives, to be witnesses, and to do all things to the glory of God, as comes by verse by verse exegesis of the Word of God—including the hard parts—is a very unpopular message, even within the congregation. 

We are so fixed on building the numbers of our churches and appealing to the carnal men of our communities, drawing them in and keeping them busy and entertained and satisfied, and not driving them away by saying something offensive. This brings confusion across the board. 

But when there is a commitment to the Word of God, starting with a true and accurate presentation of the Gospel and a call to respond, and a faithful, constant, expository preaching and teaching of the Word of God, and an exercising of discipline within the body for open, unrepentant sin, then we see an interesting result in verse 13 of our text. 

It says, “None of the rest dared join them, but the people esteemed them highly.” 

Do you see this? Because there was purity, power, and preaching in the church, because there was a commitment to holiness and discipline where necessary, the tares did not associate themselves with the wheat.

Well, you might say, “If we operate things this way—disciplining sin, preaching holiness, exhorting men to be powerful witnesses in the communities—then we’re going to put everyone off. No one will come to this church.” That may be the prevailing wisdom of the evangelical church in America, as sourced from the world, but it’s quite the opposite of the truth, as we see in verse 14. 

Look at verse 14: “And believers were increasingly added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women.” Notice that it says that believers were added. When purity and holiness and a focus on Christ and His truth reign in the body, then the body grows in a healthy way—believers being added, sheep, not goats.

You know, sometimes I get to thinking that I’m a little too narrow-minded. That I’m just not really with it, that I should maybe be a little more open to some newer methods, popular ways of doing things to bring people into the church. But the problem is that every time I open the Word, every time I study what God says, as we look at the example of the early church, these fleeting thoughts get driven away. 

I was wondering if it’s just me or if this is common to preachers, and I came across an excerpt from one of Charles Spurgeon’s sermons this week that encouraged me, and I think it’s so applicable to the church today. This was preached in the 1800s, but I want you to listen closely to his words because they’re so important today.

The sermon was entitled “Feeding Sheep or Amusing Goats,” and it made me think of Acts 5 as an example here of the early church. Listen to how Charles Spurgeon felt about these things in the 1800s. He says, 

“An evil is in the professed camp of the Lord, so gross in its impudence that the most short-sighted can hardly fail to notice it during the past few years. It has developed at an abnormal rate even for evil. It has worked like leaven until the whole lump ferments. The devil has seldom done a cleverer thing than hinting to the church that part of their mission is to provide entertainment for the people with a view to winning them. 

The church has gradually toned down her testimony, then winked at and excused the frivolities of the day. Then she tolerated them in her borders. Now, she has adopted them under the plea of reaching the masses. My first contention is that providing amusement for the people is nowhere spoken of in the Scriptures as a function of the church. If it is a Christian work, why did not Christ speak of it? 

‘Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature’—that is clear enough. So it would have been if He added, ‘And provide amusement for those who do not relish the gospel.’ No such words, however, are to be found. It did not seem to occur to Him. 

Then again, He gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers for equipping the saints for the work of ministry. Where do entertainers come in? The Holy Spirit is silent concerning them. Were the prophets persecuted because they amused the people or because they refused? The concert has no martyr role. 

Again, providing amusement is in direct antagonism to the teaching and life of Christ and all His apostles. What was the attitude of the church to the world? ‘Ye are the salt, not the sugar candy’—something the world would spit out, not swallow. Short and sharp was the utterance, ‘Let the dead bury their dead.’ He was in awful earnestness. Had Christ introduced more of the bright and pleasant elements into His mission, He would have been more popular. 

When they went back because of the searching nature of His teaching, I do not hear Him say, ‘Run after these people, Peter, and tell them we will have a different style of service tomorrow, something short and attractive with little preaching. We will have a pleasant evening for the people. Tell them they will be sure to enjoy it. Be quick, Peter, we must get the people somehow.’ 

Jesus pitied sinners. He sighed and wept over them but never sought to amuse them. In vain will the epistles be searched to find any trace of this gospel of amusement. Their message is ‘come out, keep out, keep clean out.’ Anything approaching fooling is conspicuous in its absence. They had boundless confidence in the gospel and they employed no other weapon.

After Peter and John were locked up for preaching, the church had a prayer meeting. But they did not pray, ‘Lord, grant unto Thy servants that by a wise and discriminating use of innocent recreation we may show these people how happy we are.’ If they ceased not from preaching Christ, they had no time for arranging entertainments. Scattered by persecution, they went everywhere preaching the gospel. They turned the world upside down. That is the only difference. 

Lord, clear the church of all the rot and rubbish the devil has imposed on her and bring us back to apostolic methods. Lastly, the mission of amusement fails to affect the undesired. It wreaks havoc among young converts. Let the careless and scoffers who thank God because the church met them halfway speak and testify. Let the heavy-laden who found peace through the concert not keep silent. Let the drunkard to whom the dramatic entertainment has been God’s link in the chain of the conversion stand up. There are none to answer. 

The mission of amusement produces no converts. The need of the hour for today’s ministry is believing scholarship joined with earnest spirituality, the one springing from the other as a fruit from the root.” 

Listen to what he says: “The need is biblical doctrine so understood and felt that it sets men on fire.” Spurgeon’s words are so needed today, my friends.

What I want you to take home today, what I want you to get from this message as we study and see the church’s methods and means of evangelism in this fifth chapter, is that evangelism starts right here in the meeting of the local body of believers. Not that our intent and goal is to bring carnal men into the assembly and entertain them with a view to winning them, but that we come together to worship and praise God with truth in our songs and words of worship, and that we come together to read, study, and preach biblical doctrine and have it so be felt and understood that the result is that it sets us on fire to then go out into this world each day of our lives, in the course of our lives, and share the good news message of Jesus’ death for our sins, His burial, and glorious resurrection from the dead to be our Lord and Savior.

You see, God’s purpose for the meeting of the local church, the body of believers, is for fellowship, for prayer, for worship, but centrally, most importantly, for the apostles’ doctrine, for truth teaching. This method is meant to build us up, to sanctify us, to equip us to go out and do the work of ministry. 

We welcome all men to come and hear the truth. We love it when lost men come to church, and we have the opportunity to show them the love of Christ and share with them the truth. But the primary purpose of the gathering together of the believers is not primarily evangelical. It is to build up and equip the saints through the preaching of the Word of God in its fullness, so understood and felt that it sets men on fire to go out and preach these words of life. 

Evangelism begins in the church by the teaching of biblical doctrine so that believers are inspired to go out into this hostile world and boldly preach the gospel so that men might believe and be saved. 

We see that because of discipline in the church, they were all again of one accord. We see that the lost did not dare join their number and that believers were being added to their number every day, multitudes of believers. Next, we see that they were fearlessly preaching the words of life.

Look at verse 17. Then the high priest rose up and all those who were with him, which is the sect of the Sadducees, and they were filled, controlled with anger, with indignation. They laid their hands on the apostles and put them in the common prison. 

But at night, an angel of the Lord opened the prison doors and brought them out and said, “Go, stand in the temple and speak to the people all the words of this life.” And when they heard that, they entered the temple early in the morning and taught. 

The simplicity of the early church, the focus on teaching and doctrine, on fellowship and prayer, and a heart for evangelism—obedience to Christ’s command to go into all the world and preach the gospel—these things dominated the purpose and intent of the believers in the first days of the church. 

This was the sole mission. They longed to have opportunities to preach Christ, and when the Holy Spirit gave them opportunity, they were filled with the Spirit, and they opened their mouths preaching the resurrection, even in the face of opposition. 

We've seen this before, but it's amazing to consider that these believers were being arrested for their testimony, put in prison, threatened. We’re going to see that they were beaten for their witness for Christ, and yet these events do not deter, they do not dampen the spirit of the disciples, but rather further encourage them to go all the more boldly and preach the truth of Christ, to obey God rather than men.

This is the conclusion that they come to. Being repeatedly arrested, beaten, freed by miraculous events—verse 21 says the high priest and those with him came and called the council together with all the elders and the children of Israel and sent to the prison to have them brought. 

But when the officers went, they didn’t find them there. They had been released, and they wondered what the outcome would be. Can you imagine the perspective of these religious leaders in that time? 

Again and again, there are these miraculous works, and all the people are excited, and these men are preaching these fishermen who had been with Jesus. And every time they try and pin them down, they get foiled. And they’re wondering—they’re not in the prison; the guards are there, the doors are locked, and they’re gone. What’s the outcome going to be? 

And then one came and told and said, “Listen, they’re in the temple. They’re teaching the people.” They bring them in, and they say, “Did we not strictly command you not to teach in this name?” And that’s what it’s all about, my friends. Don’t teach in this name—the saving name of Jesus.

Talk about God all you want. Talk about spirituality, but don’t preach the name of Jesus. Certainly not the truth about who He is and what He’s done. But Peter and the other apostles responded to their threats and said, “We ought to obey God rather than men.” 

And he goes on to preach to them again: “The God of our fathers raised up Jesus whom you murdered by hanging on a tree. Him God has exalted to His right hand to be Prince and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. And we are His witnesses to these things, and so also is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey Him.”

Let me ask you, what was the fruit that we see from those daily gatherings? From renewing their minds to the words of God, the truth of the apostles’ doctrine? From being built up and encouraged in fellowship and worship and prayer? From continually breaking bread together and remembering what Jesus had done for them on the cross? What was the fruit of a life of prayer and daily, moment by moment, simple dependence on God, and a heart to preach the gospel?

This is the fruit, my friends: clear, confident preaching of the gospel, discernment and determination, even in the midst of persecution and opposition, and purpose and power by the Holy Spirit working in and through them, providing opportunity after opportunity to preach Christ.

You know, had they been doing a million other things, dabbling in the methodology and wisdom of the world, they might not have seen these instances as opportunities. It does go a bit against conventional wisdom to be warned by those with all the power—the government and law enforcement—to be placed in prison, to be beaten and threatened against preaching Jesus, and then having been set free to go right back into the temple and start preaching Jesus again while the council awaits you for your trial.

Think of Paul and Galatia, taken outside the city and stoned and left for dead for preaching the gospel. You probably won’t find in the business models and church growth movements of our day the advice to get back up from that situation of great hostility toward the gospel and go right back into the city and start preaching Christ again. 

But these men were not employing such methods. They had no such philosophy of ministry. They had faith in God. They were believing, depending on the power of the Holy Spirit to make it all work if they were just obedient to the call, to the commission, to the command, to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. They couldn’t see beyond that. 

Praise the Lord! It brings us, this group of believers here at Living Hope Church, to a question, to a decision. What will be our philosophy of ministry? Where will we seek wisdom? 

Listen now, it’s not so much about what methods we employ—whether we do this or don’t do that or have this activity or not or whatever. It’s about what our philosophy of ministry is—why we do what we do, who it is that we trust. 

Will it be in the world of business, marketing, and church growth? Should we all get two or three books written by secular businessmen and worldly Christian leaders, form study groups with workbooks, and have a seminar or two, and learn a system and a method? Will we find our philosophy in psychology, appealing to the felt needs of carnal men, manipulating their emotions and pandering to their fleshly desires with fulfillment and entertainment to draw them in and show them how happy Jesus can make you?

Or will we look to the Word of God? Will we look to the early church, to the commands and examples in this book and employ the methods that God has prescribed? Meeting together for sound biblical teaching, prayer, and fellowship around the truths and promises around the Person of Jesus Christ? 

By these truths, through our growth and unity in doctrine, heart, and purpose, will we be set on fire so that we cannot keep silent in our workplace, in our social groups, in our family gatherings? But rather, we will pray, look for opportunities, and trust God to arrange the details. 

And when those opportunities come, when the Holy Spirit leads us, and we are filled with His power, we will make the message clear, preach Christ crucified, buried, and risen again, and glorify Him. We will trust Him for the results—His working, His power, through our obedience to preach the truth and to live the truth out in our lives as a testimony to the transforming power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

He can do it, my friends. Only He can make it work by His Word, by His gospel, by His power, and only His way. What a joy it is to see faithful men living in obedience to Jesus in this fifth chapter of the book of Acts, purging sin from the body, having a commitment to holy living by the power of God through the preaching and teaching of His Word, praying in dependence on and total trust in God, and then preaching the truth of Jesus Christ no matter the circumstances, no matter the cost. 

This is the simplicity that is in Christ. This is the plan of God to build His church—nothing more and nothing less. 

Let’s close in prayer. 

Father, we thank You for the witness of the early church, and we thank You for the power seen in Your Holy Spirit to produce fruit, to build Your church, to bring glory to Yourself through faithful, obedient witnesses. Thank You for Your Word that sets our minds straight. Thank You for biblical truth that inspires and sets us on fire, that the truth encourages us always. Thank You for Your faithfulness to us, Your grace, Your mercy, and Your power in our lives to accomplish Your purpose. In Jesus’ name, we pray.