Missions Paul

We are not there
Acts 5:22
“But on arriving at the jail, the officers did not find them there. So they went back and reported”

We are not in the jail.
We were there but not anymore.
We are not in the darkness.
We are not prisoners anymore.
We are not in the dungeons of despair.
We were chained, lock and key, to the thick walls of banishment.
But you won’t find us there anymore.
We are not there, we are here.
We were in and we couldn’t get out.
But God made a way.
He opened the door.
If we live we walk with Christ.
If we die we live with Christ.
So go to the jail.
Examine those shackles.
We were dead and buried.
But we are now alive forevermore!

Daybreak
Acts 5:21
“At daybreak they entered the temple courts, as they had been told, and began to teach the people.
When the high priest and his associates arrived, they called together the Sanhedrin-the full assembly of the elders of Israel-and sent to the jail for the apostles.”

You may be imprisoned in the night but walking free at dawn.
You can be trapped by the darkness but at daybreak you can be rising again.
Today the dawn will rise on many.
The dawn of resurrection!
The dawn of realisation!
The dawn of redemption!

If you are still here on earth during the daybreak then you had better remember what was said to you in the night time.
Some make promises during the night but then forget their commitment at daybreak.

Daybreak signals activity not apathy. Some go through the day behaving like it is the night. Daybreak is for waking up to work.
Daybreak is for serving. Daybreak is for speaking out again the message of Jesus Christ.

May the dawn rise upon you today!

Speak
Acts 5:20
“Go, stand in the temple courts,” he said, “and tell the people the full message of this new life.”

Go and tell. That was the Angels message.
It is always the message from heaven.
I often find myself on the other side of a table with a para-church organisation wanted partnership.
A lot of the social justice organisations have a Go and Give approach. Social justice will open doors for you to be anywhere in the world and though the original intention may be for the gospel to be known, the fear of reprisals means that social justice has become the central vision of the organisation not in faith but in practice.
Go and Give is not what the Angel commanded.
Social justice needs the gospel.
Take the gospel away from social justice and then no one needs to be a Christian.
Go and Give reaches the poor, lifts burdens off the needy and can release the imprisoned. It is good.
But how will anyone hear unless someone speaks.

Night
Acts 5:19
But during the night an angel of the Lord opened the doors of the jail and brought them out.

What takes place in the night?
1. The enemy can advance against you 2 Kings 6:8-17
2. Addiction and deception can strike Genesis 19:30-33; Isaiah 5:11
3. There can be discontentment Numbers 14
4. Attacks of fear Psalm 91:5
5. Lack of peace Ecclesiastes 2:23
6. Betrayal can take place John 13:27-30
Of course these are the negatives.
However look what else can take place ….
1. Transformation Genesis 32:22-30
2. Salvation Exodus 12:12-13
3. God leading Exodus 13:21
4. God making a way Exodus 14:21-22
5. God’s refreshment Numbers 11:9
6. The power of God Matthew 14:25
And of course … Prison doors are opened!!
Look at all these things!
You may be in a night time and I don’t mean you cannot sleep but maybe you feel that is just the bat way to describe your situation today.
Folks, God can turn nightmares into dreams!
He can turn your night into day. Your darkness into light.
He can bring you out! Amen!

Hold on!
Acts 5:18
They arrested the apostles and put them in the public jail.

We so often see jealousy as a negative. But the Bible says we have a jealous God. He was so filled with jealousy for man’s love that it led to a course of action. He sent our High Priest whose course of action was to lay his life down on the cross that we would be set free from prisons of darkness today.
However this high priest was unlike Christ. He arrested and imprisoned them.
From revival to restriction. How 2 days can be so unlike!
It doesn’t matter what has gripped you or what has trapped you, it will never be over. This is just a season you are in. The apostles who are the sent-ones are going nowhere and maybe you think you are treading water today. You may even be publicly disgraced like the apostles in a public jail. Hold on don’t panic God hasn’t finished with you yet.

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.