The Opposite of What You’d Expect

 I recently read a story about a husband and wife who were kicked out of a church in Peaceville for simply misrepresenting to the pastor the truth regarding one of their private financial dealings.  As you know, Peaceville is a small community – one of those places where everyone knows everyone – so it didn’t take long at all for word of what happened to spread.  You would probably expect that the pastor would come under fire from the deacons for dealing so harshly with this married couple, but the church didn’t even have any deacons.  And naturally it would follow that other church members would also get frustrated and leave the church as well, or at least withhold their offering until everything had been dealt with properly.  After all, the personal checkbook of a married couple in the church is really nobody’s business.  It seemed obvious to most outsiders that the pastor had overstepped his authority.

 But strangely enough, the opposite of these things happened.  When word got out of what the couple had done and the pastor’s subsequent response to them, the church actually began to grow like never before.  People in the local community began turning from their sin as the Lord saved them and brought them into the congregation.  It was an amazing thing to see.  They even had enough people to elect some deacons and really begin to take care of the needs of the members of their congregation.  It just became “understood” in the Peaceville area that you don’t even walk through the doors of that church unless you’re prepared to be convicted of your sin and submit to God.

So where is Peaceville?  Turn to Acts chapter 5 and read verses 1-10 and then stop and return here.

Yes, my first two paragraphs are a contemporary rendering of the first Christians in the first church.  You’re probably familiar with the account of Ananias and Sapphira and their subsequent death for lying to the Holy Spirit by lying to Peter.  It is so brief and yet so blunt at the same time.  It makes your jaw drop just a little when you read it.  Now continue reading with verses 11-16.  Why does our jaw drop at this?  And why did the first church grow so much in the aftermath of this incident?  It is because they took sin so seriously.  They did not cover it up or sweep it under a rug.  Lying to God’s appointed pastor of the first church, the Apostle Peter, was tantamount with lying to God.  The result was that they demanded holy lives from one another and would accept nothing less.

What is the lesson for us?  Well, I am certainly not an Apostle (they all died in the first century A.D. of course), but as Christians and spiritual descendants of that first church, we must also take sin with such seriousness and hold one another accountable.  Let those outside our congregation know that to join in fellowship with us means that a life of holiness is taught and expected.  The study of 1 & 2 Peter which Loyd Dill recently led us through on Wednesday nights was a terrific reminder of this.  Oh, and yes, Jerusalem literally means, “City of Peace” or Peaceville.  But it’s not the city of man’s peace – it is the city of God’s peace.

Blessings, 

Pastor Bruce

bruce.cullom@gmail.com