We are currently working our way through the book of Acts in a sermon series entitled “You will be My witnesses”. Last week we examined 4:32-5:11. In our time together we saw how the early church was living out the faith biblically by being unified and generous and then two members, Ananias and Sapphira, who were filled with sin, tried to bring their sin into the larger body but were stopped by the Holy Spirit and the apostles. God struck them down for their un-holiness and impurity and then used them as an example for the rest of the church. Fear came upon the rest of the body as well as outsiders.

As we begin this morning, I believe that the Holy Spirit is directing us to look a little closer at Ananias and Sapphira. He wants us to focus on how their sin affected the church. Last week I was pretty well convinced that they had been stopped before their sin could cause any trouble but after studying this week, I’ve become convinced that it did. The affects aren’t plain to see in the text but a careful analysis reveals them.

Read Acts 5:12-16

Pray

Examine

Verse

12 Now many signs and wonders were regularly done among the people by the hands of the apostles. And they were all together in Solomon's Portico. 13 None of the rest dared join them, but the people held them in high esteem.

Commentary

Prior to the Ananias and Sapphira incident, the apostles were engaged in their ministry by preaching the resurrection of Jesus Christ in boldness (4:33). Things were moving right along, God was being glorified, and God was pouring out His favor on every member. And then the anomaly came, Ananias and Sapphira. And then the storyline shifted off of the ‘church on mission narrative, which is what we’ve been marveling at, onto two self-absorbed, self-seeking people, who were about to infect the church with sin and deception. Once Ananias and Sapphira were out of the picture, the ‘church on mission narrative’ started back up.

Verse 12 shows that the apostles went back to doing what they were commanded to do by working signs and wonders that were meant to authenticate their testimonies about the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Bottom line: Ananias and Sapphira’ sin created a pause in ‘church on mission narrative’ because it created a pause in the ministry of the church. I’d like to spend some time illustrating how pervasive and impactful their sin was on the body of Christ. I’m going to identify 4 affects that their sin had on the church.

Affect #1

Their sin caused a shift of focus.

The apostles had to focus on Ananias and Sapphira rather than on the mission of the church.

The author, Luke, shifted his focus off of the ‘church on mission narrative’ to the Ananias and Sapphira incident.

Church folks probably became focused on the incident rather than on the mission of the church.

Affect #2

Their sin caused a consumption of time.

Affect #3

Their sin caused a depletion of physical energy.

Affect #4

Their sin caused emotional pain in their families, church, and relationships.

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When you combine these things you end up with a church that puts its focus, time, and energy into rescuing ‘believers’ who already have the ‘Holy Spirit’ and the ‘power’ to deal with sin and to make right choices, rather than staying on mission by reaching the lost with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Ultimately, sin in the church, distracts the church from its mission.

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Now this is not to say that the Ananias and Sapphira incident did not produce some good things, because it did. This is because our God can take the worst case scenarios and weave something beautiful out of them. The first good thing to come from it was fear or reverence for God as illustrated in verses 5 and 11.

Reverence is really-really good because it produces holiness. Holiness is completely necessary in the fulfillment of the church’s mission. A church must be holy or set apart from the culture in order to effectively communicate the gospel in word and deed. The gospel is a holy divine message given by a Holy Divine Messenger. The carriers of the gospel must therefore be holy and set apart. Listen to how the Apostle Peter put it in 1 Peter 2:9-12

1 Peter 2:9-12

9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. 11 Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. 12 Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.

How can we effectively communicate a ‘holy divine message’ while living and acting just like the people of this world? We cannot. In order to do so we ourselves must be holy and set apart, unlike those around us. We must be different. Fear and reverence for God is what inspires holy living. The second good thing that the Ananias and Sapphira incident brought was purity in the church. This is seen in the second half of verse 12.

12 And they were all together in Solomon's Portico.

“All together” is a tricky little phrase. It infers that everyone was in the same place, Solomon’s Portico. This is true but there is a deeper meaning. “All together” is meant to denote two things; the geographical location where the church met and the unity of the hearts and minds of all the church members. Immediately following the deaths of Ananias and Sapphira, the church as a whole, learned by example, and committed themselves to purity out of reverence and love for God.

Purity is instrumental to the mission of the church. Purity is as essential to the church’s mission as soil is to plants. In order for the church to effectively engage in its mission, its members must be committed to purity personally and collectively. . If the people of God trivialize sin and do not take it seriously, they will allow it to perpetuate in their lives and they will bring it into the body where it spreads like a disease causing the church to become weak, ineffective, and sometimes just plain dead. Incredibly, many pastors in the church today do not take purity serious.

They dislike preaching on purity because they are afraid that it will drive people away from the church. They feel the same way about church discipline and have thrown it out as well.

Church Discipline

Church discipline is the primary means by which God keeps the church on mission. Church discipline consists of several stages that are designed to get disobedient members back on gospel mission. If a member remains unrepentant and continues to reject the measures they are eventually removed from the fellowship so that they can no longer hamper the mission.

Schuler Example

I recently listened to an interview between Robert Schuler Sr. (Crystal Cathedral/Hour of Power guy) and Michael Horton (Proff @ Westminster Seminary in SoCal). Horton talked about how repentance is essential to the gospel and how pastors must impress the truth about sin upon their hearers in love. He quoted a couple passages that describe our sinful depraved condition and how holiness and purity are necessary for seeing God and entering into His kingdom. Schuler responded by saying, “I would never present those passages to the good people of my church, I would never call them sinners and treat them that way.”

Schuler didn’t take purity seriously. Sin ran wild in his church for years. Attendance and giving eventually dropped. They were eventually forced to file bankruptcy and are set to move out of the Crystal Cathedral in 2013. A Roman Catholic diocese purchased their building at auction in 2011 for about half its value. He plans is to turn it into a ‘central worship center’ for Catholics.

The Apostle Paul explained the importance of purity in the life of the church. He knew that it was essential to mission of the church.

1 Thessalonians 4:1-8

Finally, then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more. 2 For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. 3 For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; 4 that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, 5 not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God; 6 that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you. 7 For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. 8 Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you.

The passage says that it is the will of God that individual believers commit themselves to purity and that each one know how to control his or her own body and that the Holy Spirit has been given so that we can do it. It says that God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. He then gives a warning that anyone who rejects this command rejects God rather than man. Again, what did Ananias and Sapphira do?

They rejected some of the apostles teaching which were the commands of God, they tried to bring sin and deception into the church which caused a momentary pause in its mission, they were exposed, judged and put to death in a public setting by God, and their sin and deaths were used as examples to the rest of the church. How serious is God about the purity of His church? Acts 5:1-11 show us quite vividly.

Out of a desire to get more and more people into their churches pastors today have:

Downplayed sin, reducing it to a mild problem.

Cast away the Scriptures that call for holiness, purity, and church discipline.

Removed God’s more ‘unappealing’ attributes like His justness.

Allowed sin to go unchecked.Jettisoned Christ’s radical call to take up the cross.

Promised prosperity and financial increase.

Exchanged grace for tolerance.

Removed crosses because they are offensive.

Etc, etc, etc…

Their strategies work because their churches are filled. But what are they filled with? They are filled with lots and lots of misled, half-hearted, lukewarm, or even unregenerate people who are in love with a North American version of Jesus. This form of church is the antithesis of the biblical church. It is the antithesis of the 1st century church. The 1st century church was devoted to sound biblical teaching, to reverence for God, to holiness, and to purity. Verse 13 reveals that the half-hearted, the Luke-warm, and the fakers, dared not to enter to the church. They wouldn’t go in. The early church’s commitment to being biblical was a deterrent against those with false motives who loved their sin and weren’t interested in repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.

But their example was also appealing to many people. Look at verse 14:

Verse

14 And more than ever believers were added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women,

Commentary

Verse 14 proves that doing things biblically actually draws people to the church causing it to grow numerically. There are a lot of pastors who need to read this passage, repent of their seeker sensitive ways, and make their churches biblical.

The text says “Multitudes of both men and women” were coming in. In the Greek “Multitudes” means a lot! The leaders of the church couldn’t count them all. Look at verse 15:

Verse

15 so that they even carried out the sick into the streets and laid them on cots and mats that as Peter came by at least his shadow might fall on some of them.

Commentary

The signs and wonders of the apostles gained a lot of attention. People started lining the streets with sick people in hopes that Peter’s shadow would heal them as he went back and forth between the upper room and the temple. These were bona-fide miraculous healings that were taking place here too, not like that stuff you see on TV with Benny Hinn. Peter was anointed with true divine healing power. And he used it to prove that the resurrection of Jesus Christ was true. In a really cool way, the apostle who once rebuked Jesus, denied Jesus 3 times, and fled from Jesus when he was arrested was now truly living and ministering like Jesus. If Peter’s life isn’t a testimony to the grace of God, I don’t know what is! Look at our last verse, verse 16:

Verse

16 The people also gathered from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing the sick and those afflicted with unclean spirits, and they were all healed.

Commentary

The news about the revival in Jerusalem spread quickly to the surrounding towns. Folks started gathering up the sick and demon possessed and bringing them to the Holy City to be healed. And the apostles healed them all. Wow.

Application

I have some questions for us.

Do you revere God?

Have you been living a holy set-apart life?

Have you been walking in purity?

How do you view personal sin? Is it serious to you? Do you trivialize it?

How well do you manage your own life through the presence and power of the Holy Spirit?

Are you a believer who has created a pause or distraction in the church by making people shift their focus on you because of sin rather than on the mission?

Are you a faker? One who plays the church game in order to make myself and others feel good?

Holy Distraction

One of the greatest deterrents against personal sin is what I call “holy distraction”. Holy distraction means to be captivated by God and the mission of the church to the point of being distracted from sin. John Piper summed this up really good in a statement he made in 1983.

John Piper

“We suffer from all-consuming puny problems because we are not enthralled by a great God or swept up in a magnificent cause.”

My heart and passion for this church is that we would all be so captivated by our glorious God and so enthralled with His mission that we don't have time to ponder fleshly opportunities.  May we become holy distracted from this point forward until glory.