Acts 5:1-16
“But a man named Ananias, with his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property, and with his wife’s knowledge he kept back for himself some of the proceeds and brought only a part of it and laid it at the apostles’ feet.”
Sermon Transcript:
I know Mike has already wished you happy mother’s day. I’ll do the same. We’re going to be turning to acts chapter five, verses one through 11 this morning, as we continue in our series in the book of acts, while you’re turning there, I’ll mention to you that I recently got my fish tank in my office.
Operational. I only have three, one inch fish in there. I put them in just a couple of days ago. I have a 55 gallon tank. If you are. Fish tank methodology, which I am learning slowly. You’re allowed to have one inch of fish for every gallon. Right? Well, I have a 55 gallon tank, so I’ve still got 52 inches of fish to put in there.
Figure one big Barracuda should do it. But, but I put these little tiny fish in there and I had brought the bag home, which you do from the fish store, put it in there, warmed it. So it got the, the water was the same temperature and they get used to it and then put it in, then watch these fish for a, in a shameless amount of time, actually float around in there, but watch them get the lay of the land past the pirate ship past the plants, past the garden stones, which I have stolen from faith.
Parker’s landscaping out front of the building. And they’re getting the lay of the land while this morning, before we jump into our passage in acts, I want to just take a couple minutes to remind us again, of the lay of the land of the book of acts. This is a series we’ve been in two weeks ago. Mike spoke in chapter four last week, pastor, pastor Mike, then pastor Ben last week.
And I want to just highlight a couple of things where we’ve come from chapter one through seven of acts. We’re talking about the church as it is developing in the city of Jerusalem and acts chapter one through three, the churches launched the day of Pentecost happens where the spirit of God is poured out on the church.
Uh, there are three sermons in acts chapter two, three, and four, where Peter is speaking and presenting primarily the truth of the resurrection of Jesus and the power that that brings to transform lives. Multitudes have turned to Christ. There is unity in the church. And then in acts chapter four, we beginning, we begin to see the empire striking back.
Satan is now at work. We see that as we look beginning in chapter four, that there are three methods that are going to be employed. The first of those is going to be employed a number of times in these chapters. And that is the method of intimidation. This will primarily come from the religious leaders.
It will happen in chapter four. It will happen again in chapter five. It will happen again in chapter six, all the way to the end of chapter seven in each of these attacks, God overcomes in remarkable ways, but still there is the attack of intimidation. There is the second methodology of infiltration.
That’s what we’re going to look at this morning in acts chapter four. The third methodology, he will use his distraction. And that is in chapter six, where he is trying to get the apostles to, to, uh, be distracted from their primary calling and their primary work as a possibles in, in proclaiming the message of Jesus, um, and others will need to be employed to fight off that and to care for the genuine needs of people in the church, but the apostles need to stay with their primary calling.
What we’re seeing is the empire is striking back and there are inroads that are being developed. And one in the early church, we find that here in acts chapter five, as we begin to look at this methodology of infiltration, with that in mind, I’d like to read verses one through 11 of acts, chapter five, ask you’ll follow along in your Bible or in your external, if you brought up.
But a man named Anna Niaz with his wife Safira they are part of the church, sold a piece of property. And with his wife’s knowledge, he kept back for himself, some of the proceeds and brought only a part of it and laid it at the Apostle’s feet. But Peter said why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the holy spirit and to keep back for yourself?
Part of the proceeds of the, the land while it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal? Why is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to man, but to God, when Anna Niaz has heard these words, he fell down and breathed his last and great fear came upon all who heard of it.
The young men rose and wrapped him up and carried him out and buried him after an interval of about three hours, his wife came in not knowing what had happened. Peter said to her, tell me whether you sold the land for so much. And she said, yes, for. But Peter said to her, how is it that you have agreed together to test the spirit of the Lord?
Behold, the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door and they will carry you out. Immediately. She fell down at his feet and breathed her last. When the young men came in, they found her dead and they carried her out and buried her beside her husband. And great fear came upon the whole church.
And upon all who heard of these things, let’s pray together.
Lord, we come to this hard passage, Lord, quite honestly, it’s a challenging passage for me to preach. Not only because of the difficulty of it, but because in what I’m believing is your Providence and the preaching calendar that we’d laid out months ago. The only lady I’m really talking about, the only mother I’m talking about on mother’s day is a mother that you struck dead.
It’s a hard passage. Present in this context, but Lord, I believe you have a message for us today. And so I’m asking God that you would make yourself your glory known among us. As we look at this passage together in Jesus name, amen.
The Bible is full of stories about death, but there is none more shocking than the account in acts chapter five in the midst of the growth and the blessing of the early church. We encounter sudden bewildering mysterious death. It’s a story of Anna niacin and Safira. And for the first few minutes this morning, I’d like to just think about it because it’s likely it happened.
Very much in this way. It’s Sunday morning in Jerusalem and the city is now coming awake after the Sabbath day. And for them Sunday morning for most of the city is a Workday. It’s the beginning of the Workday. The merchants are uncovering their where’s, the chili, the mothers are preparing meals for their children.
And it’s the beginning of this work week, a day of work, just like every other day. But for a certain group, Sunday is a different day. It’s a special day. They even call it the Lord’s day. And for them working in between their work schedules, they gather to have their time of celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who occurred on a S on a Sunday morning.
And they gather now to. Hear God’s word to be instructed, to be taught, to be fellowshipping together and praying. They also come to give, they love to give, they give clothes. They give food, they give as well as giving their money recently because of the economic hardship of many of the people that have become a part of this fledgling group of believers in Jesus Christ.
A number of the wealthy, uh, members of the church have sold properties and have begun to contribute that money to the apostles, to use it, their discretion, to care for the needs of the congregation.
It’s now Sunday morning again, and a man named comes. He is one of those wealthy landowners with his wife. And he has come to bring a gift as he brings his gift. He knows that the value of the property let’s say it was 25 grand, 25,000 that he sold has brought in this amount. But he’s only bringing, let’s say 10,000 a portion of it, but he’s going to present it with the counsel of his wife and agreement as if they had given the whole proceeds of the sale of the property.
Recently, a guy named Joseph had done just this very thing. He had brought the money, but for him it had been integritous thing. He had brought the whole proceeds of the property. He was a man that was loved in the church. He was loved for his generosity. He was also loved for his encouragement. He was just a guy that was always building everybody up.
So at the end of chapter four, he has described that this Joseph has been given the nickname. Barnabas, which means son of encouragement to the people in the church, everybody knows admires respects and appreciates Joseph. Now Barnabas, he’s a favorite of them. All, no doubt and an Iris hopes for the same response.
He hopes for appreciation. He hopes for esteem. Maybe even he’s hoping for a new nickname that he too can have a nickname that is actually that his, that his ministry becomes a moniker for himself. And he brings his gift and his, his hands over his gift to the apostles, notably to Peter, something goes wrong.
Peter looked seriously at him and addresses him. He stops and an ice dead in his tracks. Maybe he poured out the coins there and announced that this was what he got from the sale of the land. Peter census, through the spirit, within him, that something is a miss. And he says these words to Anna, nice stop on an ice.
You’re lying. You have pocketed part of the land price. Why have you allowed Satan to influence you to lie to the holy spirit? Of course, it was true. And an ice knows this. They’ve decided to do this very thing. They want the admiration of the church, but they also want to have some of the financial resources for their own needs and concerns.
Before on an ISA can think of a word to say, Peter continues. Why did you do. You didn’t have to, you don’t have to give anything. If you did sell your property and you wanted to give some, you could have kept pack, whatever part you wanted, you have not lied to men, but to God, as Anna Niaz hears these words, he does not know that he will be dead in a few seconds.
It is the last words. He will hear people gather round. You can imagine the scene, someone screams he’s dead. Once they have affirmed that he actually has expired Peter calls for some of the men and they wrap him up and they carry them out and take him to a local cemetery and bury him. Every one of course is still in shock.
And the entire event dominates the worship gathering that Sunday. It’s now three hours later. Very few have gone home. Typically it’s a service time where people come and go because they also have to work. Some of them, many of them, but most of them apparently likely are still there. They stay and they wonder, and they process and they talk about it all after three hours in walks.
Safara, they’re stunned to realize she’s not wearing black or sackcloth. Her eyes are not tear stained. She’s not hysterically sobbing. She smiles at acquaintances and she expresses her cheerful. Greetings. She actually seems more confident than usual as if she’s expecting special attention to be paid for her, for something that she’s done.
And all of a sudden it dawns on everyone almost at the same. She doesn’t know
Peter calls to her. She comes and stands before him and to her amazement, he asks you the question. Did you sell the land for 10,000? She blinks. She looks away and then is able to bold to look Peter in the eye and say, yes, yes. That was the price. As she turns to go to her seat, Peter stops her in her tracks and says this.
Why have you agreed together to put the spirit of the Lord to the test? Why have you told this lie looks a Farrah. Look at the door. The feed of the guys coming in are the same feet that have just carried your husband out and now they will carry. She drops to the floor. Stone, dead pandemonium breaks, loose women, screaming, children, crying over.
Everybody’s overwhelmed with fear. Undoubtedly, some people have had it and want to get out of there. Two people dead in one day, and it’s barely mid-afternoon the men wrap her up, carry her out and perform another hasty funeral, hasty burial in a grave next to her husband. They returned to the church gathering hoping no one else will die today.
Acts chapter five, verse 11 tells us what happened when words spread throughout Jerusalem. Great fear came upon the whole church and upon all who heard of these things, it’s still mid-afternoon. The city is filled with the news. And there are two fresh graves in the cemetery. And we’re confronted with a question why, why had God do this?
Why do this to these two people who are apparently followers of Christ, the men, it’s not likely a lot of people are going to buy into the early church community with the animosity that is in the city. Why does God so seriously, so directly, almost seemingly, so recklessly take the lives of these two individuals in the midst of a worship experience.
A couple of thoughts, a wide don’t believe they died. I don’t think it was because Anna Niaz and Safira preeminently were posers. They were posers. They were hypocrites. They pretended to be something on the outside that was not true. In reality, they may have taken it to a more bold, extreme, but they were not the only hypocrites in that church.
They were not the only hypocrites in any church. If God couldn’t abide the existence of people who pretend to be something they’re not, our church would be empty. This warning, we’ve all been there. They lied. But if God routinely kills everyone who lies, most of us won’t survive till Wednesday. They kept back part of the money.
But peanut made it clear that they didn’t have to give it all. This was not a Jim Jones cold, where everybody has to give all their money to the cause. If it was. None of us would have made it through the offering this morning. So what’s going on? Why this response, why Anna niacin and Safira, I would suggest they were very extreme examples of very destructive things coming into the church and God chose to deal with it aggressively to warn the believers that while they serve the God who loved them deeply and devotedly, he was serious about his people living devotedly toward him.
The warning of Anna niacin Safira is for people in the church, not for the disinterested outsider, the more religious you are, the easier it is to be blind to what is going on inside of you. Christianity is both outward and. It is easy to go through the motions with little heart commitment. God knelt dealt with Anna niacin.
Safira for the sake of the whole church. I believe for two reasons. Number one, because the church needed to be protected. They were disciplined in a very exceptional way as a warning of the danger of things that can dominate the lives of any of us who are associated with the church. There’s a website.
Some of us with kind of twisted sense of humor. Like it’s called despair.com. It’s a place that puts together a banner slogan, uh, posters, calendars with phrases, you know, the motivational it’s actually the motivational stuff. It, it has things like tradition. And it’s the picture of the running of the bulls in Spain.
And here are the bowls chasing these guys down the street, and the guys are looking back with terror on their faces of the bowls. And here’s the, here’s the, here’s the poster with that picture tradition just because we have always done it that way doesn’t mean it is not incredibly stupid. There’s another one on individuality.
It’s a picture of snowflakes, you know, close up to show that there, you know, the different shapes they have and it says individuality always remember you are unique. Just like everybody else. The reason I mentioned it is because of this poster that despair.com has and it’s called mistakes. And it’s the picture of a large ship, which is actually, most of it is below the water.
And you just see the bow up above the water line as it’s going down and sinking. And it says this mistakes. It may be that the whole purpose of your life is to serve as a warning to others. I don’t believe that was the whole purpose of life, but I do believe what is taking place is serving that purpose to their church and to the church today, it is warning the church of the need to protect.
Oneself as individuals and participants of the church from three things that they manifested. And again, I’m going to move faster than it looks like. I know if you’re looking in your outline, you think we just finished the introduction? Um, it’s w we’re going to keep moving. First of all, the church needs to be protected from a self absorbed focus of ministry and a niacin Safira wanted to have what Barnabas had respect, praise admiration for their ministry, for their generosity, but their heart was consumed with themselves.
Even their giving was for recognition. They were greedy greedy for riches, but they were also greedy for praise. Their heart was ruled by greed and selfish ambition. Even in their service, this speaks to all of us. God’s starting startling discipline of Anna Naya. Since should remind you that it’s not about you.
It’s not about me. You cannot be seeking both personal glory and God’s glory. At the same time, you can’t be focused on people’s praise and God’s praise in the same ministry. You can’t be driven by your goals and God’s purposes. At the same time, you can’t be consumed by earthly treasure while prioritizing heavenly treasure.
I remember years ago when I was in high school and into early part of college, I had one person I was living. And it was the person I walked around with all the time. It was the person in my shoes. I lived for me. I looked out for me, I loved me, then God broke me. And I still remember in the dorm room when I threw myself on the floor.
And I just, I knew it was true. I knew I was a failure in my humanness. I needed grace and I just cried out to God to forgive me, to enter my life. And he did in such a miraculous way as so many of you identify with, but it was a year or two later. Maybe a year, year and a half later, and God was really getting ahold of my heart and I, by his grace, just us pretty hot for the Lord, but still a lot of stuff mixed in there.
Right? You don’t live those years for yourself. And all of a sudden you forget all those practices and tendencies. And I remember being with my dad, who my dad was whole wholly in for Christ for many, many years and was with my father. And I was just really feeling how, how much I loved God and everything.
And I remember saying to my dad, I said, I read about that passage. Didn’t really understand. I misused it where Peter, John and James are talking about being at the right hand of God. And I said, I want to be that guy. I want my life to, to be, to be solid for Christ. That I’ll be at the right hand of God.
And I actually said this, I realized the astounding self-centered ambition a year out there, sink, what are you? But I wasn’t now I’m very grateful that God did not smite me at that moment. That what I had simply done was taken all my self centered. I’m going to be successful. I’m going to be somebody I’m going to make my mark in this world, whether it’s sports or it, then it’s your career.
I’m going to go into law and all these things that I had planned, or, and now I just sort of flipped a lot of it over. Okay. I won’t be the greatest basketball player. I won’t be the greatest lawyer. I’ll be the greatest Christian that ever lived through so much of me.
So much of shifting my selfish ambition and hunger for selfishness, for success in the spiritual, Rina
is something that I still do. I still can do still do do. And we still have hearts and, and God’s response to Anna niacin Safira is a reminder. We must examine our hearts. What’s motivating me, is that the praise of people? It is, it is a being up here and having a crowd of people. And, and, and I tell my story and hopefully somebody laughs or they responder or said, I want God to me.
No, I want God to be glorified. I wanna, I wanna diminish. That he can be exalted. And, and I, our sense of fire reminds us how dangerous we are when we’re living without our hearts consumed that the beauty of Christ that even our ministries can become beautiful, that anything can display Scott. Secondly,
the church needs to be, and when I’m in the church, I mean, us needs to be protected from satanic incursion. He says in verse three and a nice why is Satan filled your heart to lie to the holy spirit and to keep back from yourself, part of the proceeds of the land. Why have you allowed Satan to, to be given ground in your life?
It’s interesting how much in the new Testament, this principle is presented about giving ground to Satan in our lives. It’s a lot of ways that are highlighted here. Certainly it’s greed and the praise of people that opens the door to Satan influencing him. We’re told that in, in, in, in the book of Ephesians, holding onto bitterness and anger can be that in Ephesians 4 26, be angry and don’t sin do not let the sun go down in your anger and give no opportunity to the devil.
He says, when you Harbor that when you hold onto that, when you refuse to forgive, you are, you are giving ground. And then in Hebrews 12, he says the awful result of that in Hebrews 12, he says, see that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and contaminate many bitter.
It’s infectious. It contaminates people around us. It can affect others. And he says, why, how does that happen? It gives ground to Satan in our lives. He talks about other things he talks about. Not trusting God in hard circumstances. Couldn’t give ground to Satan. It’s interesting in Luke 22 verse 31, Peter is praying for Simon right in the, in the final hours before Jesus is arrested.
And Jesus says this to Simon, Simon, Simon, Simon, Peter says behold, Satan has demanded to have you that he may sift you like wheat, but I’ve prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers, the idea of sifting here is just what you do with the wheat.
You just made it all turbulent. And he says, trying to cause in the turbulent. The Jew and the other disciples. Cause the, you, there is in the plural that you will and your difficulty in your confusion that you failed to trust me. And you’ll give way to despair, which is exactly, of course, what Peter does, what the other disciples do.
And P and the Lord has to say, but I’m praying that when you turn back, you’ll be able to strengthen your brothers with your newfound trust. What’s giving ground to the devil. Some of you are in really hard seasons and you’re grumbling and you’re moaning. And the turbulence has caused it to be, it’s all stirred up, but there’s not a quietness.
There’s not a joy in Jesus. There’s just unrest is mumbling grumbling, whether it’s outward or inward. And he says, that’s just giving ground.
The same spirit is manifested here in Anna and ice and Safara they just gave ground for them. It was there. Great for them. It was their wanting of praise of recognition for others. It’s anger for others. It’s Discontentment but God’s response, tendonitis and Sapphire is just a reminder of the danger of giving ground Satan in our lives.
The third thing we find is we need to be protected from a distasteful view of God. They lied to God. It says when Peter talks to, to Safira, he makes this interesting statement. Why are you testing God? Well, how do you test God? And God is going to get an air an after. Are you going to get this right again?
I think this is what he meant. We’re going to push this and see if God responds. We don’t think you will. You see here was their scenario. They knew that they had given a false pretense. Now, as Peter says, they didn’t have to give the money at all. They certainly didn’t have to give all of it. Their sin was in, in, in deception and all the motivation that was behind this, but they thought, you know what?
Nobody knows. We made 25,000 bucks. I’m just giving an artificial number of that on this. So we’ll say 10 to actually the only person that knows the person that gave us the money. And apparently they weren’t worried about them telling, and God, and we don’t think God’s going to make a deal about it. We think quite frankly, we can give and we can lie and we can even get the praise of other believers because in this reality, God is irrelevant.
He knows, but he doesn’t do anything. He doesn’t care. He’s not really active. And God chooses in a very remarkable way to show. He is actually quite relevant.
The Ana Naya Safira story is a very sobering story. It’s a hard one to put our arms around, but put it in the context of it being a protection for God’s people to say, look, I don’t play. You can’t play. I am devotedly, passionately, compassionately in love with my people, but I do expect my people to be devoted to.
The second thing in here, I’m going to just touch on why I believe this happened with Anna niacin Safira is because the church needed to be odd. I love something I found here in studying this. If you look back at the end of chapter four in verse 33, you will see that the generosity and unity of the church was marked with great power through the apostles, preaching about Jesus resurrection.
And then it uses the phrase in that verse and great grace was upon all the believers, great power, great grace. And now we come to chapter five and here’s what we read in verse five. Great fear came upon all who heard of it. Verse 11. Great. Came upon all the whole church and upon all who heard of these things, there’s a reason that Luke felt compelled to include this event.
I mean, we love the event earlier about how the church has grown his brain power, great grace, but of all the seven years that they were involved in chapters one through seven narrative. Why pick on this one? Because God did not only want his people to experience great power and great grace from him, but great fear for him.
The first time you read story, you feel like God is sending a warning from heaven. Honestly, that is the right response. A warning that God is serious about. His people reflecting the nature and character of his. There are two ways that I think great fear is valuable in our lives. Fear of God. One fear of God turns us from evil years ago.
God prompted me to get a box of nice, nicely bound leather bound books that were actually promises of the scripture. I took a copy. I gave it to all of the township officials. I took it to the police chief. I took it to the, I forget everybody. I took it to, I know one I’ve took it to was the, the judge of our town at the courthouse.
I wrote them a letter and said, I’d like to deliver this to them. And, and most of them allowed me to do that. And with this particular guy, the judge, he actually asked me to join him in his chambers for. And so I joined him for lunch, gave him the book, and then we talked and got to know each other. And he told me a fascinating story.
He talked about his lament over so many young people that he saw in his carts, young adults. And he said, how few of them ever learned to fear the consequences of doing wrong? He told me this story when he was growing up. And he said, back when I was in school, I went to a parochial school and, and the nun was there and she had a yard stick.
And some of you are sweating right now and remembering, but, but she had a yard stick and he said, I was, uh, I was a very talky person. And he said, uh, she, she got ahold of me once and she laid into me. He gave me a couple of good ones with that yardstick. Costs across the butt. And he said, she snapped the art stick.
It broke in half and she left it there. I was so offended, so angry and that I went home and I felt such offense, how dare she do this? And it was in front of people and everything. So he went to his mom and he couldn’t wait to tell her when he got home. He told her the story, he told all about this, this nun who’d broken snap, the yard, sick on his rear end.
And, and she didn’t say much, which was a little disappointing, but the next morning he woke up, forgot all about it. Of course it ready to go to school. And his mother comes in and she has in her hand a yardstick. And she says, give this to the non-Intel her give her my appreciation. She hadn’t. And he said, it reminded me.
That I had people in my life that would hold me accountable for doing wrong. He said, I felt love by those people. God is speaking to his people. He’s not trying to scare you into, ah, he’s a heavenly policeman. He’s just waned to throw me into, into, into, into lockup. He says, I love those people so much.
And I’m going to put them in fear of the consequence of living lives that are cheap and substitutes for the life that they can live in their true humanness, that there are consequences of evil is a gift to learn. It keeps us from so many other things. I remember hearing this story. I mean, I’m really not, this is not about spanking, but this whole sermon, but the, I remember hearing guy many years ago, he was in, he was in school and this was way back in antiquity where they spank kids in school.
And he said, spank one boy. And you’ve got the attention of 300 others. Just the idea that, well here,
fear of God, turns us from evil. Evil is an aberrant life. It is a sub human life. It is not the beauty of the life that God has designed for us humans. The world is not how it ought to be because of sin. The second thing that fear of God does is fear of God replaces our fierce. Fear is our response to danger.
Something’s big threatening, potentially uncontrollable to us. Fear is the most common emotion in our lives. The most oft repeated command in the Bible is, do not fear. Jesus cites that often what God does is present himself as bigger as something to be awed by something. He actually encourages us to replace our fear.
With all to seek God is the biggest, most majestic being in I recently was at a seminar this week and met a pastor I hadn’t seen in a couple of years in the area and evangelical pastor. And we talked just briefly, he was asking and we’re going to get together. And he said, you know, I just love talking to you through the whole pandemic and the whole thing he said back in the summer of 2020, I was so overwhelmed.
He said with the conflicts, you know, over vaccines with the conflicts in the church issues of race, issues of politics, he said, I was so overwhelmed. He said, I started fasting. I just was Fe why? He said I needed a bigger God. I needed to be reminded that I don’t have the resources to, to minister and to care and to lead what God does within an ISDN.
And Safara in a startling, scary seems like reckless. Is remind the people that I, who am on your side and what, but I’m big. I am bigger than anything in your life and in your world, when you’re facing big fears, you need a big God. You need a God. That is not just your buddy, not just your pal, not just your vending machine, that you press the buttons and you, and you get this stuff.
You need a, got a big transcendent. God who is a kind God and who will fight for you. And I believe he took care of it. And I have since of firearm, sure. As they got to heaven, they didn’t mind that they had taken an early trip at all. But what was the impact of all this? Well, acts chapter five, verse 12 to 16 tells us that it caused revival in the community.
Verse 11 in great fear came upon the whole church. And upon all who heard of these things. Then verse 14 and more than ever, believers were added to the Lord multitudes of both men and women, G Campbell Morgan, a great Bible teacher of years past wrote this conclusion to his study on this passage. Here’s what he said.
The church pure is the church powerful. It’s always been so mathematics have no place in the economy of God. Numbers are nothing. Quality is everything. We used to talk about a back door revival where God sometimes cleanse the church by removing some people who didn’t need to be there. That’s exactly what happened here in the Jerusalem church.
Their sudden death was kind of a severe mercy from the Lord. It made the church strong. It caused more people to fear the Lord and led to more people being saved and joining the company of believers and less we get, we need one more thing to just see the positive nature of this. Remember who’s in this church that says they were filled with great fear, all of them.
Well, Peter was there who love Jesus Christ. John’s there the beloved of God who, who leaned against Jesus in the upper room, Mary of Magdalene, is there the woman who had been controlled by didn’t decades by seven demons and lived a hell of a traumatic life all that time until Jesus came into her life and delivered her Mary, the mother of Jesus is there and it says they all.
We’re filled with fear. And I don’t think they’d say, oh man, we, we liked God before, but now that he’s scary. No, they were able to see he’s big, still good. Even in the context of knowing him as big, they saw his goodness acts chapter five can still impact our lives. It prompts us to examine ourselves. It prompts us to see the need of a God that can and does overcome our fierce, that we can replace fear with all
let’s pray together. Lord
We need you to apply this passage to our life. I worship you as the lamb, that was slain, who is also the lion of Judah. I worship you as the servant, who is also the king Lord. Thank you for coming among us to deliver us from a life where we live for ourselves. We look out for ourselves where we love ourselves and we’re miserable in ourself.
Centerdness Lord, you’ve come to rescue us from a life of sin and evil. May we look at an eyes since a fire is experience, not as something that causes us to lean back and dread, but compels us forward to say.
I want to embrace you more. I want to know you more. I want to experience more of you in Jesus name. Amen. May God bless you and keep, you may teach you to fear him. Hold on. Thank you. May teach you to fear him that you may live devotedly with him. May teach you to fear him, that you may be freed from your fears.
May you may, may you be awed by him in thrawled by him walking in him that you may bask in the delight of who he is now going peace to love and serve and enjoy the Lord. Thank you.