Missions Paul

Jealousy
Acts 5:17
“Then the high priest and all his associates, who were members of the party of the Sadducees, were filled with jealousy.”

What fills you will flow from you.
Luke particularly is keen in his writings to speak of ‘filling’.
So he wrote of a man filled with leprosy in Luke 5:12.
In Acts 2:2 he wrote that the sound like a violent wind filled the whole house.
We have just seen how Peter in 5:3 asked Ananias why Satan had filled his heart.
The word ‘filling’ then that Luke uses indicates that this is not something that occurs on the inside but flows out of and effects the shape and destiny of that person’s life.
We may have all experienced jealousy at some point in our lives. But did we let it dominate us?
You see what consumes you will plot your course.
The high priest and his religious leaders saw the excitement of the crowds gathering around the church and it would lead them to action. This jealousy was centred around their understanding of the law of God. They were zealous for the law and would do anything to protect it. They were jealous that all they could see were their people drifting from the truth. Today we live with religious terrorists who believe they are protecting the law of God by committing hideous crimes. On a much lesser scale but still destructive some will wake to another day of battling this enemy.
Here are 7 helps I have learned.
1. Be thankful for what you have.
2. Learn to celebrate other people’s successes.
3. Stay healthy physically (you can do this, it is not complicated) and mentally (think well, keep destroying negatives)
4. Something has to die to kill jealousy and it has to be your surrender, let it go.
5. Inject new inspiration into your life either through culture, arts, music, books etc.
6. Serve somebody, love your way through this season.
7. Don’t feed the jealousy, don’t find sympathisers, stay away from those who will keep you locked in.

Crowds
Acts 5:16
“Crowds gathered also from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing their sick and those tormented by evil spirits, and all of them were healed.”

Just picture yourself in the centre of such commotion.
Crowds coming into the city. Word has got out. Jerusalem has become a hot-bed for healing. Physical bodies, disturbed minds, all of them healed.
The people had their own remedies for sure. They would use the inner parts of fish and animals to make concoctions and potions so that on the consumption of such the evil spirits would leave. Many today have found their belief-trail that takes them down healing from their troubled lives. For many people they just go deeper into their trouble.
May our prayer be that crowds gather at the Church with their trouble and dysfunctions. May our prayer be that people will bring the unclean to the Church and the Church doesn’t focus on who is unclean or clean. The Church doesn’t reprimand the unclean for their wayward lives. But that the Church welcomes them with the same love that God has for them. May our prayer be that all of them be healed in such an atmosphere.
Come Spirit come.

Shadow healing
Acts 5:15
“As a result, people brought the sick into the streets and laid them on beds and mats so that at least Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them as he passed by.”

Peter wasn’t the person announcing a new ministry style, that of shadow healing.
God hadn’t spoken to the Church prophetically telling them that a day would come when shadow healing would be the way to go.
This was the people’s decision. It was based on Jewish superstitions of which there were many. For example, why does Jesus spit on a man’s eyes in order to heal him? It was because of the superstition of the healing properties in the spit.
But even in the Roman culture the people held to superstitions. The statues of the gods were not just images as we would think, they were actually the gods. So if you approached the statue you were before the god itself. The shadow of the statue carried the presence of the god.
So this is the people using their superstitious minds for their benefit, hoping for healing.
Luke doesn’t record whether or not people were genuinely healed. Neither does he repeat this peculiar practice. Though later he would write of Pauls handkerchief having healing powers, again a superstition of the people.
If we presume people were healed under Peters shadow then it would indicate the willingness of God to move into a person’s life and their beliefs no matter how weird and fanciful they are and lovingly heal the person. God healed simply out of love without conditions, taking the risk that people would not follow Him even after they were healed.
Friends we have a loving God who loves people more than we do.

Acts 5:14
“Nevertheless, more and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number.”

No-one else dared join the church, nevertheless, the numbers increased of those who became believers. The understanding is that the only ones joining the church were the ones who dared to believe, who were so convinced of the gospel that they had to be added into the number, they had to be counted.
I love the word ‘nevertheless’.
‘In spite of that’.
God uses the word ‘nevertheless’.
He will find a way.
He will come through for you.
The Church didn’t decide to change or adapt a different method because ‘no-one else dared join them’. The Church didn’t move venue to attract those who didn’t have the courage to join. The Church continued, relying on Him who cannot be stopped!
Why do so many Pastors panic at the moment of difficulty?
Why do they scramble to get the latest idea off the shelf? Why are they pestered by their members who want the Church to adopt what the church down the road are doing? A programme that guarantees growth. A fool-proof idea. What’s it all about?
When are we going to learn that it is not by might nor power but by His Spirit? When are we going to realise that when the Holy Spirit is the programme and fills our agenda that actually He has some very bright ideas?
And if it is possible to say something even more important than that, when are we going to believe that God specialises in the “nevertheless’?!

Daring to be in Church.
Acts 5:13
“No-one else dared join them, even though they were highly regarded by the people.”

This is a great accolade for what was happening in the church at that time, ‘no-one else dared join them’.
We understand fully through the many disappointments of our witness the many who decide not to join us simply because they don’t want to.
However, that is a long way away from what was happening in this early Church.
Let’s remind ourselves what was happening.
1. Ananias and Sapphira died suddenly because of their lie over their giving. They died on the pronouncement of the Church leader.
2. The church was meeting out in the open in full gaze of the religious authorities worshipping Jesus who not so long ago these same authorities had sentenced to death.
So if you were going to join this church you needed to have great courage. You needed to dare to join because it is likely it would consume your all.
In contrast people can attend church today without joining anything. They attend and throw some coins into the offering plate, they nod at the image of Christ and the miraculous never ends their mind. It is safe.
A few months ago I had the privilege of being in northern Nigeria with the Elim churches. They gather at their buildings on a Sunday at 7am. To enter the building they are scanned by security police. They disperse immediately afterwards at 10am. They do all this because of the threat of Boko Haram who are targeting the church. To join the church in northern Nigeria takes real courage.
“Will you dare join us?” is a question often asked.
It sounds scary and it is. It sounds very risky and it is.
But this is the Church. A Church that is not safe. A Church that demands everything. You have to be strong to be a Christian here.

Coming out.
Acts 5:12
“The apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders among the people. And all the believers used to meet together in Solomon’s Colonnade.”

The Temple wasn’t anything like what we imagine it to be. It certainly wasn’t like perhaps your church building with a hall size room and smaller rooms to the side. The Temple was vast with many sections. Almost like a conference size centre. It was easy to find a space to hold a gathering of people. However, you could not hide. Whatever happened in the Temple eventually everyone would find out.
The church began to meet in Solomon’s Colonnade. they chose not to hide away. They could have gone anywhere. An upper room, behind locked doors, into some Galilean valley, out of sight out of mind. But no, they decided to be in the face of the population.
Solomon’s Colonnade, a grandiose place with high pillars making an inner walkway within the temple courts, the venue for loud praises, fervent praying, miraculous healings, lots of jumping, leaping and praising God moments!
It is time surely for the church to come out of its buildings where only the church ventures and to be in the face of its community.
As a child I grew up in the Salvation Army where every Sunday time would be spent doing ‘open air’ work on the streets of our town. This consisted of loud band music, singing and testimonies through a megaphone. I often prayed that God wouldn’t allow our noise to awake my friends to come and see our performance. A prayer He often ignored.
But yes it is time for the church to come out into the open. Surely this is the mission. However, once in the face of the community we had better have something we can do that will be for their benefit. Let us turn our signs and wonders happening on us Christians whilst getting blessed in our nice Christian buildings into signs and wonders on mission outside the church building in the face of the people. Now that’s called coming out.

He is watching
Acts 5:11
“Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events.”

Great fear why? Because God was clearly watching. God knew all that was to know.
Growing up as a child I often heard it said, “Be careful God is watching”. The reason why I didn’t fall off the rails as a young man though I often wanted to was because I strongly believed God was watching. If I thought for a moment God’s gaze had not been on me then for sure I would have gone my own way.

Alexander Pope, a famous writer, once wrote: “Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; the proper study of mankind is man.” But an even more famous writer, Charles Spurgeon, responded to Pope’s statement: “It has been said by some one that ‘the proper study of mankind is man.’ I will not oppose the idea, but I believe it is equally true that the proper study of God’s elect is God; the proper study of a Christian is the Godhead. The highest science, the loftiest speculation, the mightiest philosophy, which can ever engage the attention of a child of God, is the name, the nature, the person, the work, the doings, and the existence of the great God whom he calls his Father.” (This came from Spurgeon’s first published sermon, titled The Immutability of God and delivered on January 7, 1855 – when he was 20 years old).

Our Father is indeed watching and we should live our lives in a healthy fear of that fact.

IN and OUT
Acts 5:10
“At that moment she fell down at his feet and died. Then the young men came in and, finding her dead, carried her out and buried her beside her husband.”

There was a lot of coming and going that day.
Sapphira had been OUTside whilst her husband Ananias was INside. Being OUT she didn’t know what was happening to those who were IN. When she came IN she didn’t realise that the young men were OUT burying her husband who was also OUT.
The young men came back IN and went OUT carrying Sapphira’s dead body.
This couple looked like they were IN but they were actually OUT.
If you are IN but not truly IN you will end up OUT eventually.
People in Church appear to be IN but they are not necessarily so.
Christians call themselves Christians but that doesn’t mean they are.

“How could you agree?”
Acts 5:9
“Peter said to her, “How could you agree to test the Spirit of the Lord? Look! The feet of the men who buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out also.”

What are you agreeing to? Who are you in agreement with today? Sapphira agreed on a destructive plan with her husband.
So many don’t finish well because of who or what they have become attached to in life. An attachment of love may appear to be true and beneficial and yet can end up being false and harmful. Jesus said, “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.” Matthew 7. An attachment of love may appear beautiful until one of the partners insists on doing something ugly.
What kind of person do you want to become? Decide to find someone to walk with. Choose to walk with people whose thoughts, words and actions are what you would love to have yourself. Choose integrity, character, wisdom, goodness, truth, discipline, generosity, sacrifice and love. Choose friends whose influence will take you there.
Who you walk with may determine what you agree to.

“Is this it?”
Acts 5: 8
Peter asked her, “Tell me, is this the price you and Ananias got for the land?” “Yes,” she said, “that is the price.”

“Is this everything?”
“Yes it is everything”

Karen Watson, 38, was one of four missionaries who died in Iraq in 2004 after their vehicle was ambushed on March 15.

Karen wrote a letter, dated March 7, 2003, just before Watson left for the Middle East and was meant to be opened only upon her death.

“I wasn’t called to a place. I was called to Him,” she wrote. “To obey was my objective, to suffer was expected, His glory was my reward, His glory is my reward.”

Anticipating her death may cause others to question the need for missionary work in dangerous places to continue, Watson clearly said one of the most important things is to “preserve the work.”

“Keep sending missionaries out. Keep raising up fine young pastors,” she wrote.

Watson quoted The Missionary Heart:

Care more than some think is wise.

Risk more than some think is safe.

Dream more than some think is practical.

Expect more than some think is possible.

I was called not to comfort or success but to obedience.

She listed some of her favorite passages of Scripture, including 2 Corinthians 15:5, which says, “And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.”

In closing, Watson wrote, “There is no Joy outside of knowing Jesus and serving Him.”

“Sapphire, is this everything?”
“Yes it is everything”
Watson gave everything, Sapphira just said she did.