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Published July 11, 2022

Contrasting Characters in the Early Church

This morning we are continuing our look at the book of Acts – specifically we will be looking at the last few verses of chapter 4 and the first few verses of chapter 5. Last week Mike took us through the bulk of Acts 4 as Peter & John boldly proclaimed the resurrection of Jesus Christ as they stood on trial before the temple authorities. They had earlier been arrested after healing a lame man and preaching to the crowds that Jesus was the Messiah who had been raised from the dead.

Well, the religious authorities at the temple didn’t appreciate that kind of preaching, and so, upon being released from prison, Peter & John were strongly warned to never to preach again in the name of Jesus – but of course, the apostles stated quite emphatically that they could never stop speaking about what they had seen and heard. In fact, as soon as they were released, they met together with the rest of the church to pray for even more boldness in sharing the Gospel.

And of course, God was quite happy to answer their prayers. In fact, the last verse of that passage says this:

31 After this prayer, the meeting place shook, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. Then they preached the word of God with boldness. Acts 4:31

Undeterred by the threats of the authorities and empowered by the Holy Spirit, the disciples faithfully continued to carry out the mission they had been given by Jesus Himself – to go into all the world and preach the Gospel.

And of course, as they did that, the church grew by leaps and bounds. Back in verse 4, Luke gives us a numbers update and he says….

“…the number of men who believed now totaled about 5,000.” Luke 4:4

5000 men had put their faith in Jesus in just a short time – in probably just a matter of days or weeks. And that’s just the men. There were undoubtedly women and children as well, so the total number of those in the church could have been around 10,000 or more by now. What a church! And even more amazing is how Luke describes this enormous group of people… Look at what he says in verse 32:

32 All the believers were united in heart and mind.

Acts 4:32a

Now that is an amazing statement! All the believers – some 5 to 10,000 of them – were all united in heart and mind. That’s almost hard to believe!

Most of us know from experience how hard it is to get people on the same page – whether you’re trying to do something as a team at work or as group of kids for a class project or even just trying to decide what movie to watch as a family – it is a rare thing that people are united in heart and mind!

But that’s exactly what God intends for his church. In fact, this is exactly what Jesus prayed for when He prayed for his disciples back at the last supper. If you remember from John chapter 17, Jesus said:

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David Talks To Himself

Last week we saw David at quite possibly one of his finest moments! King Saul was once again on the hunt for David, but one night, David snuck into his camp, and stole the spear and water jug that were by Saul’s head as he slept! And even as David stood above his sleeping nemesis, David refused to harm Saul – and instead chose to leave the fate of Saul in the hands of God.

As we’ve been going through the book of 1 Samuel, there have only a handful of times like this where David has displayed such boldness, such unwavering faith in God, such resolve to do what is right no matter the consequence….

It truly was an incredible mountain-top experience for David!

But of course, you know what Satan likes to do after those mountaintop experiences. After moments of great triumph and clearly seeing God at work, Satan loves to immediately come in a fill us with doubt and discouragement.

Take Elijah for example. Remember what happened after his mountaintop experience? Let me refresh your memory.

In the book of 1 Kings, we read about the time Elijah had the incredible experience of proving to Israel that the Lord alone was God – and that the false god Baal and all of his prophets were just a bunch a fakes! In fact, the Lord proved Himself by sending down fire from heaven – burning up Elijah’s offering in front of all the people. What an incredible experience! Elijah had faithfully stood on Mount Carmel as the lone representative of God as he faced off against 450 of the prophets of Baal – and God came through for him BIG time! That was certainly an incredible mountain top experience. But what happen to Elijah right after that? Do you remember?

Just a few verses after that story we read this:

3 Elijah was afraid and fled for his life. He went to Beersheba, a town in Judah, and he left his servant there. 4 Then he went on alone into the wilderness, traveling all day. He sat down under a solitary broom tree and prayed that he might die. “I have had enough, Lord,” he said. “Take my life, for I am no better than my ancestors who have already died.”

1 Kings 19:3-4

Man! What happened to Elijah? Where’s the boldness we saw just verses before? Where’s the unwavering faith? Talk about doubt and discouragement! But that’s exactly what Satan loves to do after those mountaintop experiences.

You’ve probably experienced that yourself, and that’s exactly what we see in today’s story with David.

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Believing Lies

After a two-week break, today we are getting back to our story of Joseph. We began looking at the life of Joseph back in May, so we’ve already covered a large portion of his story. By this point, we’ve worked through most of the Sunday school stories that are usually associated with Joseph.

We’ve talked about how he was his dad’s favourite and how he had that beautiful coat of many colours that gave him special status far above his brothers.

We’ve talked about how his brothers hated him and how they sold him as a slave into Egypt when he was just 17 years old.

We’ve talked about how, even as a slave, he prospered in the home of his Egyptian master, Potiphar, and rose to to be the head of the whole house. We also talked about how he stood up for what was right when he refused to sleep with Potiphar’s wife and ended up being falsely accused and thrown into prison because of that.

We also talked about his dreams. You’ll remember that he had those dreams way back before his brother’s sold him as a slave – dreams that seemed to indicate that one day he would rule over his entire family.

But not only did Jospeh have these dreams about his future, he also also interpreted the dreams of others. While he was in the prison in Egypt, he interpreted the dreams of Pharaoh’s chief cup-bearer and his chief baker. Both of those interpretations came true – the baker was executed and the cup-bearer returned to work for Pharaoh – just as Joseph had predicted.

And it was through that cup-bearer that Joseph was called on to interpret Pharaoh’s dreams. You’ll recall how God had warned Pharaoh through dreams of cows and grain that there would be 7 years of great prosperity in Egypt, but afterwards, that prosperity would be followed by 7 years of terrible famine.

Of course, when Joseph explained to Pharaoh what his dreams meant, Pharaoh recognized Joseph’s God-given wisdom and He put Joseph in charge of the entire land of Egypt – giving him full authority to collect grain throughout Egypt during the 7 good years and then to distribute it to everyone during the 7 bad years.

And that almost brings us to where we left off. Just before we ended last time, we saw Joseph’s brothers actually come to Egypt to buy food – because they were facing the same famine as everyone else. Of course, they had no idea that Jospeh was alive – let alone that he was the 2nd most powerful man in all of Egypt and they had to buy food from him!

So when they showed up, they didn’t recognize Joseph, but Joseph recognized them. Taking advantage of the situation, Joseph decided to put them to the test to see what kind of men his brothers had become in the 20 years since they had sold him as a slave. So he accused them of being spies and he threw them all in prison for three days. After those three days, he told them that one of them had to remain in prison while the others could go home and take food back for their families. But they had to return with their younger brother, Benjamin, to prove that they were not spies, and that their story about having a younger brother at home with their father was indeed true.

So we ended last time with Joseph sending his 9 brothers home, still with no idea that they had been dealing with their long lost brother Joseph, and with a strict warning not to return to Egypt unless they had their younger brother, Benjamin, with them.

So off they went, with Simeon left behind in prison. Joseph supplied them with food and supplies for the journey. He also secretly returned the money that they had paid for everything – and snuck it back into their sacks of grain.

And that’s just where we’ll pick it up today. The 9 brothers have just started their journey home and we read in Genesis chapter 42, verse 27….

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Tag: lies

Contrasting Characters in the Early Church

David Talks To Himself

Believing Lies