A few days ago I opened our refrigerator and noticed it wasn’t very cold. I looked at the butter and it was starting to melt. I opened the freezer and our ice bin had become a bucket of water. The really weird thing was that the light in the fridge was still on. It appeared to be working.
One of the reasons I hear for why people don’t believe in Jesus is that all Christians are hypocrites. People think we look like the light is on, but there is no evidence of God’s power at work in our lives or in our churches. Our actions will proclaim what we believe to be true much louder than anything we say or preach.
My sermon this Sunday at Orchard Community Church is on Acts 4:32 – 5:16 which takes place at a time when God was doing amazing things in the early church. Many people were believing in Jesus and becoming part of the church. Evidently there were also others joining the church for the wrong reasons. They were coming because it made them feel good, made them feel important or meaningful but they didn’t really believe in God.
We are introduced to one such couple. Ananias and Sapphira are part of the church for what they can get out of it and not for God’s glory. They want to look good on the outside. They are a potential drain on the power of God at work in the early church.
But God was present with the early church and His presence in the church then as well as now makes a HUGE difference. Do we live like we are in the presence of God? Do we “do church” with the recognition that God is here? If you are in the Greece/Rochester, NY area and don’t have a church, come Sunday and hear about how God dealt with the power drain in the early church in Acts 4:32 – 5:16 and what we can learn from this key event in the early church.
Oh, and before anyone gets us a new refrigerator… It turns out my 2 year old turned it off using the knob inside the fridge. It had probably been off for a few days without us even noticing. How’s that for looking good but lacking power!?