THE WITNESS OF THE GOSPEL-COMMITTED CHURCH
Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on August 3, 2022 under AM Bible Study |
AM Bible Study Group: August 3, 2022 from Acts 5:12-16
Theme: When the gospel of Jesus is faithfully honored by the church, its witness to the world is empowered.
(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).
As we’ve been studying our way through the Book of Acts, we’ve begun to see a pattern. That pattern has been showing itself through what one Bible commentator called “alternating pictures of the church as a fellowship of believers and the church in contact with the world of unbelievers”.1
In the first chapter, we saw the believers gathered together waiting for the coming of the Holy Spirit. They were in close fellowship with one another. But then, in the second chapter, the Holy Spirit came upon them powerfully and set them out into the public square—where pilgrims who had come to Jerusalem were amazed to hear the apostles speaking in their languages after the Spirit came at Pentecost. Many heard the gospel and believed on the Lord.
We see this pattern again at the end of Chapter 2. It’s there that we’re once again given a picture of the believers gathered in the fellowship of daily church life. The believers grew in even greater depth of fellowship and love for one another in the context of the teaching of the apostles. And then, in Chapter 3, they were set out once again into the public square through the miraculous healing of the lame man in the temple. The Jewish people once again heard the gospel; and so many people believed that the Jewish leaders came in Chapter 4 to arrest the apostles and threaten them to stop preaching in Jesus’ name.
Then, by the end of Chapter 4, the church was gathered together once again. They prayed and asked God to give them the courage to keep right on preaching the gospel. They grew even more in depth of fellowship and mutual care. In the beginning of Chapter 5, they even dealt faithfully with a terrible sin that arose in their midst—further protecting their commitment to the gospel. And now, in the middle of Chapter 5, the church is once again found in the public square—having contact with the unbelieving world. Acts 5:12-16 tells us;
And through the hands of the apostles many signs and wonders were done among the people. And they were all with one accord in Solomon’s Porch. Yet none of the rest dared join them, but the people esteemed them highly. And believers were increasingly added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women, so that they brought the sick out into the streets and laid them on beds and couches, that at least the shadow of Peter passing by might fall on some of them. Also a multitude gathered from the surrounding cities to Jerusalem, bringing sick people and those who were tormented by unclean spirits, and they were all healed (Acts 5:12-16).
It’s hard to miss the significance of this pattern. What all of this seems to show us is that, while the Lord Jesus desires His church to gather together for fellowship and edification, He also wants it to be out into the world and bear a powerful witness of Himself. These two realities of a healthy, Holy Spirit-empowered church seem to be bound together. The church is gathered by the Spirit for enrichment, edification, and renewed commitment to the message of the gospel. Then, it is sent outward into the public square to impact the unbelieving world with the reality of the gospel. As the Lord Jesus had told them,
“But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8).
Clearly, as Acts shows us, the witness for the Lord Jesus through His church was spreading first in Jerusalem. As we will soon see, that witness will also go to places beyond. And as the picture given to us in this morning’s passage suggests — viewed from the context of that ongoing pattern — we find that when the gospel of Jesus is faithfully honored by the church, its witness to the world is empowered.
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Now; as we’ve been seeing from the earlier passages of Acts, the gospel was indeed being emphasized by the church. The preaching of the apostles was clearly the preaching of the gospel. And when they were commanded to stop preaching about Jesus, they made it clear that “there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (4:12); and that they couldn’t do anything else but ‘speak the things which they had seen and heard’ (4:20).
That was the commitment that the early church held to. They were keeping true to the words of the Lord Jesus in Matthew 5:13-16; when He told His followers;
“You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:13-16).
It’s easy for us to forget that. So many in the world tell the church today—just as they told the church then—that we should keep silent about the message of the gospel. The gospel is considered to be a divisive message. It’s thought of as foolishness by the intellectual, and as a stumbling block to the moralist. The church is often under great pressure to be ‘other things’ to this world than a witness for the gospel—things that conform to and affirm this world’s beliefs and values. But that is not what our Lord has made His church to do. He has left the church in this world to proclaim the message that saves souls.
So then; let’s look at what we find in this morning’s passage; and see how the church—when faithful to the gospel—was making an impact in its outreach to the world.
What did the world see from the gospel-committed church? First, it saw that …
1. MIRACLES WERE BEING SEEN (v. 12 a).
Verse 12 tells us; “And through the hands of the apostles many signs and wonders were done among the people.” Now; it’s important to note that these works were being done primarily by the apostles. Later on, there were others in the church through whom miracles were being done. Stephen the Martyr, for example, “did great wonders and signs among the people” (see Acts 6:8). People were also “seeing the miracles” which were being done by Philip the Evangelist (see Acts 8:6; also v. 13). Later on, God “granted signs and wonders to be done” by the hands of Paul and Barnabas in their missionary work (see Acts 14:3; also 15:12). But at first, the miracles were a way that God was authenticating the message of the apostles to the world.
We should be careful about thinking that miracles must always accompany the preaching of the gospel. These were remarkable times in which God was uniquely confirming the preaching of the gospel in a brand new dispensation of His grace—at the commencement of a new era in His redemptive work. But we should be equally careful not to think that such miracles no longer occur. At a time when the church was being threatened to be silent, the believers had prayed earlier;
“Now, Lord, look on their threats, and grant to Your servants that with all boldness they may speak Your word, by stretching out Your hand to heal, and that signs and wonders may be done through the name of Your holy Servant Jesus” (Acts 4:29-30).
Our Lord can answer that prayer however and whenever He wishes. Our job is to keep preaching the message He gave us to preach—as we trust Him to affirm that message in His way.
A second thing that the world saw was that …
2. UNITY WAS BEING EXPRESSED (v. 12b).
Verse 12 goes on to say, “And they were all with one accord in Solomon’s Porch.” This place—Solomon’s Porch was the same place where Peter had preached a great sermon only a few days before. The people had run together in this place, after the lame man had been healed in Chapter 3, to hear Peter preach (see Acts 3:11). It was also the same place where the Lord Jesus had declared, “I and My Father are one” in John 10:30. It was a controversial place. Given that the apostles had been ordered to cease preaching, it may even have been a dangerous place for them to gather. And yet, there the disciples were gathered together “in one accord”—of one mind, of one heart, of one love—and all in bold, public view.
It’s a great witness to the world when they see a unified church. Jesus had told His followers;
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35).
A commitment to faithfully proclaim the gospel empowers that unified witness to the world. May we strive to preserve that unity by proclaiming that message!
A third thing that happened was …
3. THE CHURCH WAS HELD IN ESTEEM (v. 13).
We’re told in verse 13; “Yet none of the rest dared join them, but the people esteemed them highly.”
Why was it that some feared becoming associated with the church? It may be that word had gotten out of the remarkable thing that had happened to Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5:1-11. They had compromised with sin in the midst of the church; and as a result, Peter confronted their sin and they fell over dead. It may be that unbelieving people saw that the message of the gospel was accompanied by a high standard of holiness—one that God Himself enforced—and they stayed away from it. Sadly today, many unbelieving people are able to make their way into the church family, hold on to their sin, and still ‘fit in’. If they were too afraid to do that today, because they saw that the church treated sin seriously, then the church’s witness to the world would have more integrity—and would be more powerful!
The gospel-committed believers in the early church clearly treated sin seriously. And as a result, “none of the rest dared to join them”. But notice also that “the people esteemed them highly. As it says in Acts 2:47, they were “praising God and having favor with all the people”. This too comes from a gospel commitment. As Peter once wrote;
But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear; having a good conscience, that when they defame you as evildoers, those who revile your good conduct in Christ may be ashamed (1 Peter 3:15-16).
A fourth thing that the world saw was that …
4. NEW BELIEVERS WERE BEING ADDED (v. 14).
Verse 14 says, “And believers were increasingly added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women …” This ‘increase’ was the Lord’s doing. As the church kept true to its message, He blessed the message by bringing about new life through it. As it tells us in Acts 2:47—in the context of the gospel-committed assembly of believers;
And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved (Acts 2:47).
And notice that the world was seeing how the gospel was breaking down cultural barriers. We’re told that “multitudes of both men and women” were believing and becoming a part of the body of Christ. In the Jewish culture in which the gospel was first preached, this would have been a remarkable thing. But as Paul later wrote;
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:28).
The world was seeing people being brought together in a way that the world can never bring people together—and all through Christ.
And finally, the world saw that …
5. AN OUTREACH OF MINISTRY WAS HAPPENING (vv. 15-16).
People of all walks of life—from all regions–were having their needs met by the church through the gospel. Jesus Christ was spreading His love afar;
so that they brought the sick out into the streets and laid them on beds and couches, that at least the shadow of Peter passing by might fall on some of them. Also a multitude gathered from the surrounding cities to Jerusalem, bringing sick people and those who were tormented by unclean spirits, and they were all healed (vv. 15-16).
It wasn’t that Peter’s shadow had any healing power, of course. We should probably understand this in the way that the story of the bleeding woman who touched Jesus would suggest to us. She thought that touching the hem of His garment would heal her. But Jesus told her, “your faith has made you well” (Luke 8:48). Her faith was expressed by the way she sought to reach out and touch His garment; and perhaps, in the same way, the faith of these needy people in Jesus was being expressed by being under his passing shadow. We see a similar thing in Acts 19:11-12. We’re told;
Now God worked unusual miracles by the hands of Paul, so that even handkerchiefs or aprons were brought from his body to the sick, and the diseases left them and the evil spirits went out of them (Acts 19:11-12).
There was no healing power in handkerchiefs and aprons. Rather, it was by faith in Jesus that they were healed—a faith that may have been expressed through items that had been touched by Paul. But however we understand this, note the important point: All who were hearing about Jesus and who were seeking Him were being healed. The Lord was doing through His gospel-witnesses what He Himself had done at the beginning of His ministry:
And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people. Then His fame went throughout all Syria; and they brought to Him all sick people who were afflicted with various diseases and torments, and those who were demon-possessed, epileptics, and paralytics; and He healed them (Matthew 4:23-24).
Perhaps the fact that people were coming from all around to be healed was why the Jewish leaders—once again—arose to try to stop the gospel from being preached. It was proving too powerful.
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So; here is a pattern. The church was gathered by the Lord to be edified and built up in the gospel; and then it was brought out by Him into the public square to bear witness to that gospel.
The world desperately needs to see the power of the gospel at work. But it cannot unless we—the Lord’s appointed ambassadors of that gospel—are faithful to love it, emphasize it, trust its power, and proclaim it. May God make us to be a church that is faithful to proclaim the gospel—knowing that our Lord will give that gospel power before the watching world.
1Everett F. Harrison, Interpreting Acts (Grand Rapids: Zondvervan Publishing House, 1986), p. 104.
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