Missions Paul

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.

3 hours
Acts 5:7
About three hours later his wife came in, not knowing what had happened.

When Jesus hung on the cross darkness came on the land. What was happening on the cross was hidden by this darkness. For three hours no one knew and no one could see the wrath of God upon His Son.

For three hours Sapphira was out in the cold, she was kept in the dark at what had been taking place. She hadn’t witnessed his lie though she knew he was going to do so. She hadn’t witnessed the judgment of God upon Ananias nor did she know the burial had already happened. A lot can happen in 3 hours.

There maybe things you do not know. Today you may arrive into a situation. You have a chance to put the story straight. You don’t have to do what you had decided previously to do. This is your moment. You are today in centre stage. What will it be?

Let the young come forward
Acts 5:6
“Then the young men came forward, wrapped up his body, and carried him out and buried him.”

Let the young men come forward.
There are some things that just need wrapping up, carrying out and burying!
Not all mistakes are made by young men sometimes it is the older generation that are at fault.
We need a new generation who are tired with the pretence, the razzmatazz and the arrogant lies that are being portrayed today. We need a new generation who will say we want to get rid of that. It has no place in the body of Christ. Let’s be real, let’s be true. Let’s create a new culture.
What has died in your life? Not necessarily a physical death. It could be a whole number of things. Why mourn over what will not return? It has been taken from you. Then wrap it up, carry it out and bury it out of your life. Move on.

Die
Acts 5:5
“When Ananias heard this, he fell down and died. And great fear seized all who heard what had happened.”

What’s it going to take for you to fall down and die?
What do you have to hear?
To surrender your all and die to your self.
I am trying to fall down but I want to stand and run with my life.
I am trying to die but I want to live mostly. I want to experience everything.
Dying is so painful. I don’t want to lose anything.
But that is the heavenly call.
“If anyone would come after me he must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me”
The call has not changed. It is the same today.
So right now learn to surrender and give it all up for Him. Die to your wants and ambitions and desires and plans. Die to you. Die to your reputation. Let it all go.
If Ananias had truly heard from God and obediently fallen to his knees in worship and died to his flesh then He would have lived to give his testimony. But he didn’t and may we all learn from his error.

Thinking
Acts 5:4
“Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied to men but to God.”

What made you think that? This is a big question. It indicates that our thoughts can evolve from something else. That we can be in control of what we think. That we can actually think our thoughts. A thought is a thought but we can ponder on them, we can think on them.
Some of our thoughts are destructive, some lead us to act in ways we never thought we would. What made you think of doing such a thing?
1. A previous thought: the money was at his disposal. He was not forced to give the whole or any of the amount from the sale of his property. So what was he thinking? Most probably he was thinking something along the lines of: “I want to be noticed also for being generous”. What people think of you can sometimes overwhelm your wisdom.
2. A Pressure of circumstance: he was part of the church community where extravagant giving was taking place, people were doing amazing things in the area of generosity. So what was the pressure on him? Most probably other people and their strength of character and perhaps what he saw as some accolade for their giving so impressed him, he wanted to be like them. He wanted what to be like them. The pressure to be like someone else will always lead you to think wrongly.
3. A persons agreement: this was with his wife’s full knowledge. So they had discussed it. When you can find someone to agree with your thought then it can sealed and it won’t be long before it is delivered into an action. An agreement from a person is not an agreement from God.

Get a hold of your thoughts today.

The Lie
Acts 5:3
Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land?

Ananias has just placed the offering at the apostles feet for them to once again to distribute to the poor and needy. His testimony would have been, “We believed led of the Lord to sell our property and give the money in this season of extravagant giving.”
Now whether Peter knew approximately how much their property was worth and could tell they hadn’t given everything or whether it was a gift of knowledge that revealed the truth it matters not. Peter announced that Ananias in lying to the apostles and the church community was actually lying to the Holy Spirit. When we try and make other people believe and look at us in a way which is not real we bring a false testimony of what the Spirit is doing in our life. It looked like the Spirit was moving powerfully through him, he wasn’t. We have lied to the Holy Spirit. Of course the lie never works and the Spirit is never mocked. Peter views this so seriously he calls it a move of Satan in his life. Even when the Spirit is moving powerfully Satan can be prowling looking for someone to devour.