Missions Paul

Hidden Agendas
Acts 5:2
With his wife’s full knowledge he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles’ feet.

They sold their property and they received the money.
Then they talked.
At some point in the conversation they began to think about themselves.
But of course they have a problem because they are in a move of God when everyone is giving everything they have.
‘Kept back and brought the rest’ was not happening when people sold their property.
It wasn’t a wrong thought. They no doubt had lots of justifiable reasons why they needed some of the money.
They should have been honest and spoke with the apostles to see if they were happy to receive ‘the rest’ of the money.
But they wanted people to know they were 100% givers. What people thought of them was more important than truthfulness.
There are givers for self-promotion.
Many years ago in my early days of pastoring a member offered me £20,000 so long as I told the church who had given the gift. I knew this request was revealing a hidden problem the man had of ego and control. I thanked him and refused the money.
Ananias and Sapphira chose to pretend they had given all when they hadn’t. Their decision revealed an underlying problem in their lives that was at odds with where the church was at in this move of the Spirit.
It still happens today sadly.
Not every pledge is fulfilled. Even in a mo e of the Spirit there can be hidden agendas.

Titles and Names
Acts 5:1 Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property.

Without doubt the Church was in a season of a strong moving of the Holy Spirit. This manifested itself in an unprecedented extravagance of giving from the Church.
The same Spirit who enabled Jesus to give everything on the cross was here in the church once again moving the believers to surrender everything for other people. As this happened the testimony of the church grew.
The church has withstood the attacks from outside and inside they are experiencing the mercies of God. Their world may be ugly but inside the community it was beautiful.
The irony of the story that we begin to read today is that the name Ananias means ‘God is merciful’ and Sapphira means ‘beautiful’.
This couple (and nothing else is known of them) were members of the Church witnessing the Spirit and they became participants of this move of God. God is merciful and Beautiful acted like everyone else was doing who had property, they sold theirs.
What we will find out is even people who benefit from the work of the Spirit and who carry titles and names that suggest they are being used by the Spirit can be nothing more than fraudulent members of the body of Christ. It is shocking, the darkest of times for any church. We must tip-toe through this story with a renewed sense of the awe of God. Earthly titles and names are no guarantees of heavens approval.

The fields of destiny
Acts 4: 37 Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas (which means “son of encouragement”), sold a field he owned and brought the money and put it at the apostles’ feet.
Judas had a field.
Joseph had a field.
Judas received a reward of money and bought the field.
Joseph had already owned it but then sold the field.
Judas had money.
Joseph had money.
Judas fell to the floor.
Joseph knelt at the floor.
Judas had everything taken from him.
Joseph surrendered everything.
Judas’ field was given a name, the ‘Field of Blood’.
Joseph was given a new name, ‘Barnabas’, the ‘son of encouragement’.
The fields of destiny.

Encouragement
Acts 4: 36 “Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas (which means “son of encouragement”)”
Whenever God’s people did anything significant in the Bible they needed encouragement. Are you an encourager today? Do people talk of you in such a way?

Encouragement is powerful.
1. Encouragement will take someone to a place they thought they could never enter and get them to do something they thought they would never do.
“Your assistant, Joshua son of Nun, will enter it. Encourage him, because he will lead Israel to inherit it.” Deut 1:38
2. Maybe you should look around at all that people do to make your church a great church, look at their faithful service and encourage them to continue to do that work.
“Josiah appointed the priests to their duties and encouraged them in the service of the Lord’s temple.” 2 Chronicles 35:2
3. Encouragement takes the time to listen
“You hear, O Lord, the desire of the afflicted; you encourage them, and you listen to their cry.” Psalm 10:17
4. Encouragement is a gift that we need to ask God for.
“We have different gifts, according to the grace given us … if it is encouraging, let him encourage.” Romans 12:6,8
5. Encouragement leaves us with hope for our future.
“For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.” Romans 15:4
6. To be an encourager means that you will have to be strong at times.
“Gently encourage the stragglers, and reach out for the exhausted, pulling them to their feet.” 1 Thess 5:14 Msg.
7. Encouragement gets people to the places where they should be – church services!
“Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another – and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” Hebrews 10:25

Extravagant giving
Acts 4:35 “for from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.”
Does this happen in your church?
Actually there wonderful examples of such generous giving found in many church building and mission projects.
But the verse is powerful to imagine. Here are some of my reflections on it:
The people trusted the leadership of the Church with their money.
They didn’t lay claim on their gift, they gave it to the leadership to give the gift.
The people saw their money going to meet needs.
This happened on a regular basis, seasons of extravagant giving came upon the church.
The Church leadership was not ignorant of people’s needs.
Any needy person was given money, there was no favouritism.
The people seemed to be giving freely and not after emotional persuasion.

Proverbs 11:24: “There is one who scatters, yet increases more; and there is one who withholds more than is right, but it leads to poverty.”

What stops this kind of giving?
1. The fear of not having enough.
2. The fear of not experiencing it all.
3. The fear of being hurt.
4. The fear of being left alone.
What is your worst fear right now?
It is calling you not to give anything never mind everything.

No need.
Acts 4: 34 that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales

Slow this verse down, read it carefully and ask how does the Church get to this place? It has to be each person decides that others are more important.
At the age of 20 in 336 BC, Alexander the Great inherited his father’s throne of Macedon in Greece. Two years later he was conquering the world. When he died at the age of 33 he had conquered almost all the known ancient world.
One day Alexander and a small company of soldiers approached a strongly defended, walled city. Alexander stood outside the walls. He raised his voice, demanding to see the king. The king, approaching the battlements above the invading army, agreed to hear Alexander demands.
“Surrender to me immediately” commanded Alexander
The king laughed, “Why would I surrender to you?” he asked. He was no threat to the king.
Alexander was ready to answer the challenge. He ordered his men to line up in single file. They were then ordered to start marching. They were marching straight towards a cliff that overlooked rocks hundreds of feet below. The king and his soldiers watched in shock and disbelief. One by one, Alexander’s soldiers marched without hesitation right off the cliff to their deaths. After ten had died, Alexander ordered the rest of his men to stop and return to his side.
The king and his soldiers surrendered on the spot to Alexander the Great.

Oh that we can take away all hesitation to the holding on of our rights, possessions, money and status.

On the 3rd day of her fasting and praying esther went out to die.
Shadrach, Meschach and Abednego went out to be burned to death.
Daniel went out to be eaten alive by lions.

If you stand for Jesus you may lose your life, promotion, friends, family, neighbours. That’s the threat. That’s the possibility. But others are more important.

Grace and Power
Acts 4: 33 “With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all.”

Grace is loving-kindness and favour.
Grace makes you become all that you can become. Grace releases the potential in the person.
“Treat a man as he appears to be and you make him worse. But treat a man as if he already were what he potentially could be, and you make him what he should be.” Goethe.
God doesn’t love us, speak to us, touch our lives, listen to us as we are right now, but according to our potential. As He does that and as we embrace this grace we become what we should be.

What is the worst thing that you have ever done or made plans to do?
How do you recover from that?
When the sin and shame is such that you cannot sweep it under the carpet as in days gone by? Is it over?
Have you lost so much that you might as well quit life altogether? These are real feelings.
But it is NO, for it is at that time that grace steps in.
A grace that is unfair, that seems unjust, a grace that feels like pretence, a cover-up and worst still a grace that would make it look like the bad thing was worthwhile because it turned out so good.

We need great power. When there is no way God will make a way. Through success and failure, a number of options to no options, ill health, redundancy, divorce, heartache after heartache, God will bring you through. But this power is also influence.
The world believes in the power of influence.
It is simply not true that if the cause is good enough, people will automatically buy into it and follow accordingly. People follow people of influence who promote worthwhile causes.
We need the Holy Spirit to so permeate our lives that we become people of influence.
So the prayer is indeed “more grace and more power Lord!”

Community
Acts 4:32 “All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had.”
This passage is one of the most incredible passages from the New Testament regarding community. They have all been filled with the Spirit again and the outworking was a united church body where no one was in need.
They were one in heart and mind
People are never convenient. If you wait till you feel like it, you will never have genuine fellowship, nor if you wait for things to be perfect. There can be a fantasy of what community should be like.
“He who loves his dream of community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter … If we do not give thanks daily for the Christian fellowship in which we have been placed, even when there is no great experience, no discoverable riches, but much weakness, small faith, and difficulty; if on the contrary, we keep complaining that everything is paltry and petty, then we hinder God from letting our fellowship grow.” Bonhoffer. a German pastor who was martyred for resisting the Nazis
no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own.
We have no claim to anything except we are a child of God, a servant to the King. We have no claim on anything we have or title we have gained. All that we have all that we possess belongs to Him. We do not own a penny. But He owns it all.
Plato, the Greek philosopher of the 4thc.BC saw his ideal republic as one devoid of all private ownership. The people reading this were aware of this theory. The description of Luke of the church would have brought an immediate response from the Gentile readers. What was an ideal is now a reality and it is found in the church. That is still true today. The ideals of the world for peace, happiness and love are a reality and they are found in Christ’s body, the church.

Shaken
Acts 4:31

After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.

They didn’t pray for the threats to stop or that the threats may not be carried out. They prayed for the continuance of the very activity that produced the hostility in the first place.
Luke says the place was shaken. Maybe this was thunder or an earthquake
They were filled and they spoke the word of God boldly.
Sometimes we just need a shaking to take place. We become trapped maybe by fear or contained by doubt or just the weariness and the cynicism of life. We become settled into accepting the circumstance and we lose the cutting edge we once had. We can lose the sense of the supernatural ability of God. Making an effort will not change this position. A new year’s resolution of commitment will not change this position. Change will not happen without a shaking. There are times God allows for our world to shake. It might not be comfortable. We might not like the shaking but it is for our good.
During that shaking everything is coming loose again, the disturbance is freeing you mind body and spirit and you may lose some precious things and some things you are pleased to get rid of. But there is space for God to fill you again, for His presence to become real, active and important once more. He will give you something to talk about again. He will give you the confidence in the gospel message again. No longer will it be dry and a theory, but it will be a living message, a burning message that you just cannot stop speaking about.
He is sending you out shaken, filled and speaking. Amen!

‘Stretch your hands out’ prayer. Acts 4:30

“Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.”

4 words that are so powerful in the Bible, ‘Stretch out your hand’.
It might be that today you need to pray this simple prayer.
You might need figuratively for the earth to swallow the enemy that you are facing right now (Exodus 15:12) or for its authority to be reduced (Exodus 16:27).
You might need saving (Psalm 138:7)
Do not underestimate the hand of God, it has the ability to wipe away nations of people, (Exodus 9:15)
Even Satan knows the power of Gods hand, though he hadn’t anticipated Job’s resolve.

But maybe your prayer should be about agreeing to stretch out your own hand in faith? Maybe God is asking you to believe that His hand can cause your hand to do what may seem unlikely?
God told Moses to stretch out his hand seven times in the deliverance of His people.
To the man with a withered hand Jesus commands him to stretch out his hand for healing (Matthew 12:13)

Finally, maybe the stretching of your hand is not about miracles and your faith doing what cannot be done. But maybe it is about the surrender of your life? Maybe it is about giving to God everything, your very last breath even?
Prophesying how Peter will die, Jesus said he would stretch out his hands at the end of his life. (John 21:18)

So what will your prayer be?
Stretch out your hand.
Is that for God to move powerfully? Or for you to do something that you haven’t done before? Or is that to agree to the surrender of your life?
Whatever it is, the four words will be powerful when you pray and however you pray them.