The Acts of the Apostles 19

Subtitle: A Powerful People

Acts 5:12-16.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on October 2, 2022.

What does it mean to be a powerful person?  If we use the world’s definition of a powerful person, then we are focused on someone who is in control of their life personally, who is financially powerful, and who has powerful social influence. 

It is easy for Christians to simply “christianize” these concepts rather than seeking God’s word for His definition of a powerful people.  The above concepts are focused on manipulating the world around us so that it conforms to our desires.  Using religion to do this is the very definition of witchcraft.

Don’t get me wrong.  God made us with a powerful ability to affect the world around us.  However, when we use those abilities for self-serving purposes, even to the point of co-opting religious garb to do it, we have prostituted God’s purpose in it.  Christians are those who wrestle with God in prayer over how to impact the world around them.  We don’t always perfectly understand it.  However, we must be convinced that He is the only leader that can teach us in this life.

Our passage today focuses on the powerful work that God was doing through the early Jewish believers in Jesus.  Let’s look at it.

Powerful things continue to occur (vs. 12-16)

So far in the book of Acts, we have seen some powerful things.  In Acts chapter two, we saw a powerful outpouring of the Holy Spirit, followed up by Peter’s powerful sermon.  He challenged the people, “Be saved from this perverse generation...”  This led to 3,000 people being saved.

In chapter three, we saw the healing of the man in his forties who had been lame from birth.  Again, this was followed up with a sermon from Peter saying, “Repent and be converted that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the LORD, and that He might send Jesus…”  Peter clearly saw a connection between the repentance of Israel as a nation and the return of Jesus.

In chapter four, Peter and John are arrested, threatened, and released.  However, they were not intimidated and continued to preach powerfully in the name of Jesus the Christ.

Chapter five explains the powerful deaths of Ananias and Sapphira.  This made sure that the believers and the unbelievers understood that God was at work in this group.

These verses here are another one of Luke’s summaries of how things were going with the Church of Jesus.  We are going to sift these verses into three categories: statements concerning the Apostles, statements concerning the believers, and statements concerning the others.

The Apostles-

After his death, Jesus sent his disciples to call all people everywhere to repent and believe on him.  He was God’s Anointed One, God’s savior for our sins.  He was also God’s anointed ruler for our world.  They are called apostles at this point because the term means “sent-ones.”  They are sent by Jesus to establish His Church, which means the “called-out-ones” by the way.  We are called out from among the world, but not to go away.  We come out from the spiritual prostitution of this world into the chaste life of a bride of Christ.  Our work is to pull others out from the cesspool of this sinning world.

Verse twelve reminds us that God did amazing signs and wonders through the hands of the apostles.  These are things that caused people not only to be amazed, but also to recognize that God was in them.  These apostles were just like Jesus, the same Jesus that was executed.

Healing was one of those ways that God got the attention of that first century.  Verse fifteen tells us that the apostles were healing people so much that others would bring their sick out to the street and lay them on beds, hoping that Peter’s shadow would touch them and make them well.  Now it doesn’t actually say that someone was healed this way, but that is what the people thought.  It is possible that something like this happened and word spread.  Desperate people will try anything that even has the faint odor of hope.

Yet, this is not about Peter, but rather about God’s call on his life, and his faithful, bold obedience to do what God’s Spirit led him to do.  If looking at Peter diminishes our understanding that it is the grace of Jesus that is doing this, then we need clarify the way we are looking at this.  Conversely, if we completely disregard that this is done through the hands of Peter, i.e., through his obedient faith, then we miss what God is showing us.  There are some things that God wants to do, but He has decreed that they would happen through the prayer of faith, and the actions of faith.  In short, Peter is cooperating with God, co-laboring with Jesus Christ, by the enabling of the Holy Spirit.

Verse sixteen also tells us that people from the surrounding towns and villages were coming to Jerusalem bringing sick people, and some who were tormented by evil spirits.  “They were all healed.”  This is a sign in itself.  Jesus was powerfully healing people and then the leaders pushed to have him executed by the Romans.  Yet, his disciples were now doing the very same thing.  This was getting the attention of the people.

Let me just say that it is clear that God used the Apostles in a way that was greater than those who were believing in Jesus.  It is also clear that Peter was used to a greater degree than the other eleven.  The apostle Paul was powerfully enabled among the Gentiles similar to Peter.  As Pentecostals, we can overly focus on the power aspect while missing the more important point.  The goal of the Good News is not to get more and more people doing what Peter and Paul did.  The goal is to change your mind about your sin, and about who Jesus is.  It is about surrendering your life to the Lord Jesus Christ.  It is about trusting him to cover your sins, and empower you to fight sin in your life, walking in his righteousness.  It is about that sorrowful pricking of the heart, where we turn away from rebellion against God, and turn towards faith in Jesus.  The one who believes in Jesus will walk as he did.  They will obey his word and the word of his apostles.  God will work powerfully through them, but it will not always look the same and be at the same scope.  We must quit worrying about the scope of His power in our life and simply cooperate with it.  Jesus did only what his Father had for him to do.  So, we too must not put our ego ahead of ourselves with dreams of parting Red Seas.  Instead, we are to be faithful and let God lead us in His powerful works expressed in our life.

The followers of Jesus-

Luke mentions the followers of Jesus, or the believers, in verse twelve.  We are told that they were in one accord.  We’ve seen this word before, and it means that they were focused with one passion as a group.  That passion was to live for Jesus and to do his work.  Luke uses this phrase of the believers seven times throughout the book of Acts.  It is not until the stoning of Stephen that it is used in a bad sense for the crowd who plugged their ears, seized him, and stoned him to death.  They were focused on the one passion of extinguishing the fire of Stephen’s preaching.

Can the Church of Jesus be of one accord today?  We might be tempted to say that the Church is too fractured to be of one accord.  However, remember that Israel was a fractured people at this time.  All of Israel was considered the people of God.  Yet, the ministry of Jesus had polarized society.  Those born of the Spirit were moving to one side of the Sword of the Lord, and those clinging to the flesh were moving to the other side.  Through Jesus, the Father was making a distinction between that which is holy and that which is unholy among His very people.  Thus, Luke is referring to those who are truly following the Spirit of God, not those who only had a profession of being the people of God. 

Can you not see how the Church has progressed to the same state that Israel was in so many years ago?  We have accreted millennia of fleshly institutions and people.  However, within this mass of the Church is a true, believing people.  The denomination doesn’t matter.  If a person is truly born again of the Spirit of God, they will quickly recognize the Spirit of God in another.  I put to you today that true believers across the world are of one heart and one mind to do the will of Jesus, rather than playing a religious virtual reality game.

The caution is that we must be careful about what spirit animates us, and what passion we are unifying around.  There is a sinful passion that operates in the crowd, the mob, this world even, to resist the will of God.  We must unify around the One True Lord, Jesus, and the One True and Holy Spirit of God.

Verse fourteen tells us that multitudes of men and women were being added to the Lord.  This is despite the fear that many felt when news of the death of Ananias and Sapphira was spread.  We should also note that they were “added to the Lord.”  All believers are ultimately added to the Lord within a local context.  No church belongs to the people there.  It will either belong to Jesus or it will not.  Let us strive to be a church that belongs to Jesus alone.

This was not a comfortable time for Christians.  In comfortable times, many people will join the Church, but they can simply be making a casual commitment.  They may join because there is a beautiful girl attending, and they hope to catch her attention.  They may join because they see a promising network of clients for their business.  They may see the potential of a place to amass social pride in religious matters.  The fleshly motivations are unlimited. 

Notice that no one casually becomes a true believer during times of persecution and difficulty.  This is part of the grace of God in it.  It is sometimes led by religious people who have no relationship with God at all.  Let me just say that you cannot have a casual relationship with the Creator of the universe.  You either take these things seriously or you don’t.  A serious believer doesn’t just read the Bible, but studies it as if their life depended upon it, as if it was actually a letter from your Creator to you.  A serious believer doesn’t just say their prayers, but seeks God for direction, wisdom, and guidance daily.  A serious believer goes to war against sin in their life, which begins in their heart and their mind, and affects their outward living.  I don’t know what you are going to do, but I’m going to serve Jesus seriously!

The others-

This brings us to the third group that Luke mentions here, the others.  Verse thirteen says that “none of the rest dared to join them…”  There was a hesitancy and a cowardice that kept them back.  Of course, there were some like the High Priest and others who were taking their stand against this group no matter what.  However, this is the group in between, the almost-persuaded group.

Let me just say that God is real, and therefore, it is a good thing to be careful about jumping on His side.  However, He is not some kind of psychotic parent who is beating people for no good reason.  If God disciplines us, it is to bring us to repentance so that we can have true life.  When we daily walk in repentance, we have fellowship with Him by His Holy Spirit.  It is a relationship that brings us healing from our sins and the sins of others, from the effects of those sins.  It gives us internal peace, true righteousness, and joy like a river in our soul!

The people who weren't joining them still had a respect for them.  They esteemed them highly, held them in high regard.  The word has a sense of honor in it so that the believers were seen as an honorable thing in their eyes.  Not everyone in the world is going to think that Christians are honorable.  It is not our job to focus on what the world thinks.  Instead, we are to live a life that is honorable by God's definition.  When a Christian casts off a lukewarm life and lets God transform their thinking and living, then they will be the hope of Jesus everywhere they go. 

If we are going to be despised, then let it be for following Jesus, not for following our own flesh and desires.  Every time a story comes out of sexual abuse, or financial embezzlement, it only shows that the mentality of Ananias and Sapphira is still with us.  You can't control other Christians, and shouldn't want to do so, but you can keep your eyes on Jesus, and live to honor him!  That will make you a person who is spiritually powerful.

Friend, no matter how bad a sinner you are, you can come to Jesus, that is if you are tired of struggling in those sins, and desire to be free.  Jesus can forgive you of your past, fill you with his Holy Spirit, and enable you to powerfully walk away from your sins!  Let’s be a people of power who are powerfully cleansing our lives of sin, powerfully guarding our hearts from the lies of this world, and powerfully doing the work that Jesus has given us to do!

Powerful People audio