Acts 5:12-16 | The Ministry of an Effective Church

We're going to find the answer today in Four Characteristics of Effective Ministry. Please stand with me in honor of God's Word as we read Acts 5:12-16.

12 Now many signs and wonders were regularly done among the people by the hands of the apostles. And they were all together in Solomon’s Portico. 13 None of the rest dared join them, but the people held them in high esteem. 14 And more than ever believers were added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women, 15 so that they even carried out the sick into the streets and laid them on cots and mats, that as Peter came by at least his shadow might fall on some of them. 16 The people also gathered from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing the sick and those afflicted with unclean spirits, and they were all healed.

Our passage begins by telling us there were "many signs and wonders" being done by the apostles. This isn't new. It's a continuation of what they'd already been doing back in chapters 2 and 4. This ministry isn't unique to the apostles. It's evidence of God's continued work through them, for a purpose.

It's the same in Christ's own ministry. Why did Christ work miracles? To validate His message, to prove the Gospel was true. The apostles' signs and wonders are doing the same work here, authenticating their witness.

8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

This kind of work was regularly done by the apostles, and it was done "among the people," out in the open, in front of the general public in Jerusalem. And here's a detail worth catching, they were all together in Solomon's Portico. That's the same place where the lame man was holding onto Peter while Peter preached the Gospel back in chapter 3. And that phrase "all together"? Does anyone's translation say something different? It's not a bad translation, but the Greek word is “homothumadon”, and it means more than just being in the same location. It means being unified in purpose, in thought, in spirit. It’s being of one accord.

So this shows us the first characteristic of effective ministry

I. Effective Ministry Is Marked by Unity and Power

Luke keeps pointing to unity because unity is the soil that power grows out of. Ananias and Sapphira nearly destroyed the unity the early church enjoyed. But God preserved it by the power of His Holy Spirit. Unity in a church is more than doctrinal agreement. Unity exists where the Holy Spirit reigns. A body without breath is a corpse. A church without the Spirit is dead. Even if we got everyone on paper to agree with everything, but the Holy Spirit wasn't involved, that's not unity. Real togetherness like what we see in Acts 5 isn't agreement on organizational structure, or how much we give to the Cooperative Program, or what songs we sing, or whether we homeschool or send our kids to public or private school. We don't find our unity and togetherness in those things. Those aren't ultimate things. We can't find our identity in being a Baptist. I don't believe for a moment only Baptists will be in heaven, and neither do you. So please understand what I'm saying: effective ministry here on earth is marked by unity through the Holy Spirit, and the power He provides.

And I want to be careful here. I'm not saying unity somehow forces God's power to appear, as if we can become unified enough and God becomes obligated to bless us. God is sovereign. The power belongs to Him. What Luke shows us is a Spirit-filled church that is together, and the power of God being displayed through the apostles in the midst of that church.

Unity is something the Holy Spirit brings, because we are unified when we are unified in Him. It's when we get disunified with Him that we experience disunity amongst ourselves. Isn't this true even in our homes? Men, how many times have you sinned against your wife or children? Perhaps it was because you didn't want to do something, or perhaps you were hard hearted. Wasn't the ultimate cause the result of being out of step with the Lord? Didn't you fall out of fellowship with Him by seeking your own benefit or goal? What was the answer? It wasn't faking peace until it got better. Lord knows it takes repenting and apologizing to make that relationship right.

In the same way, we fall out of fellowship with the Lord long before we fall out of step with our brothers and sisters in Christ. This is what happened with Ananias and Sapphira. They sinned and lied to the Lord before they ever brought their offering to the church. God removed them from the fellowship, and the church is still experiencing togetherness and unity at Solomon's Colonnade. And here's what's important: this death in the new faith community didn't make the church seem safer or more casual. It helped people understand that we don't approach God carelessly.

What's interesting is that "none of the rest dared join them." Don't join them, you could die. That's not a hyperbolic statement. It's literally what happened. That word "dared" is the Greek word etolma, which means to act rashly, to put away presumption. It's like what Charles Spurgeon said: "In proportion as a church is holy, in that proportion will its testimony for Christ be powerful." The world needs to see authentic Christianity, and authentic Christianity is holy Christianity. That's what gives weight to your testimony.

Think about the hymn Amazing Grace without its benefits: "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound... I once was lost... was blind..." Doesn't that sound incomplete? It should. Because what makes it amazing grace isn't just the wretch who was lost, it's the wretch who was found. Not just the blindness, but the sight that follows. So it is with a Christian who doesn't abide in Christ and grow in Him. It’s not complete. Its not grace. Grace changes things.

Look at

13 None of the rest dared join them, but the people held them in high esteem.

Second Characteristic:

II. Effective Ministry Produces Holiness, Not Casualness

What do you think the Church's greatest need is? I asked a question on an SBC page: "If you could immediately make one change in your church that you knew would be positive, what would it be?" Two hundred forty comments came in. Here's a few: more hymns (actually, only hymns), Sunday night hymn sings, more evangelism, four part harmonies, a different senior pastor, eliminate committees, a church bus ministry, better attitudes, sell the building and meet in homes, turn the A/C down, turn the A/C up, remove the Calvinists. Some were pretty good, though: "start with changing me, help me live out the Word, help me make disciples."

But if we're honest, it’s not about us. It’s not our desires and preferences at all. If I were to boil it down, I think our greatest need is God. All of Him. Every bit as much as we can handle. God.

I mean, think of all the adjectives people use to describe a church. Right now, how would you describe First Baptist Church of Camdenton? Friendly? Welcoming? Biblical? Generous? Why do you think holy is such a distant word for so many churches?

Let me tell you what I don't mean by that. I don't mean serious and cold, that's not holiness, that's just being unpleasant. I'm not asking us to become the frozen chosen. And I don't mean pretending to be a church with no sinners in the pews, because there's no such church anywhere. Holiness doesn't mean perfect. It means increasingly conformed to Jesus who saved us. It means we take sin seriously, we take repentance seriously, we take grace seriously, because we take Christ seriously.

This isn't an unhealthy dread either. There's a wrong kind of fear, the kind fixed on torment and punishment, that pictures God as just waiting to strike. That's not what fell on the early church. The early church had a right view, and a right fear, of God.

Holiness, and the fear of the Lord that goes with it, is something largely missing from Christians and churches today, or at least tragically neglected. We don't come to God expecting to actually meet with God. We show up in the hurry and bustle of our schedules, if our schedule allows, and if the worship runs long or the preaching gets hard, we leave disgruntled. We've stopped sensing the weight of God's holiness, and we've traded it away in the name of busyness.

10 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding. His praise endures forever!

The fear of God isn't the enemy of Christian joy. It's one of the foundations of it. When we understand who God is, we understand the wonder of His grace toward us.

Let's look at verse 14 “And more than ever believers were added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women,”

It's a strange strategy for church growth, isn't it? Think about the 80s and 90s, how big churches got, and how quick we are to credit that to programs and ministries. Programs can gather a crowd. Programs can serve people well. Programs can even become wonderful tools in the hands of God. But programs cannot regenerate a sinner. Methods cannot produce the new birth. Only God can do that, through the preaching of the Gospel.

This is exactly what happened in the early church. Real growth continued right alongside holy fear. The fear didn't slow it down, it was proof God was actually present among His people. How counter is that to the way we usually think about church growth?

I was watching an interview with John MacArthur one Sunday, a few months back, and he was talking about how his church got through COVID. They didn't meet for a couple of weeks while they figured out how serious the threat actually was, but once they saw it wasn't what people feared, they started meeting again without fear of the sickness. And the church grew rapidly, not because they'd found some clever workaround for sickness or lawsuits or legal trouble, but because they feared the Lord more than they feared any of that.

People told him, "But the lost don't feel comfortable coming." His answer: "It is absolutely bizarre to want to make unsaved people feel comfortable in a church." Now don't hear him wrong. We don't intentionally make unbelievers uncomfortable. We don't treat visitors poorly. We don't get weird for the sake of being weird. We love people, we welcome people, we serve people. But we also don't sand down the offense of the Gospel just to make it go down easier. Before you were saved, the very conviction of the Holy Spirit that eventually drew you to Christ was, at the time, offensive to you, because it exposed sin you didn't want exposed.

Jesus isn't a product we need to market. The Gospel isn't something we need to soften. The cross is offensive because sin is offensive, and grace is amazing precisely because the sinner really is guilty.

III. Effective Ministry Still Draws Genuine Converts

When the church is serious about God, He empowers our ministry. He causes growth by bringing strong believers to the church. He brings new birth at His pleasure, and God is glorified. But when a church is focused on itself, it isn't the glory and fear of the Lord driving things anymore. It becomes about cultural preferences, comfort, and ear tickling. A.W. Tozer said, "The church that can't worship must be entertained." That's why so many churches lean on entertainment, and so many pastors lean on stories and jokes. It may draw a crowd. It doesn't bring life.

Notice Luke's language here too. He doesn't just say more people started attending. He says "believers were added to the Lord." That's the difference between attracting a crowd and seeing genuine conversion. We aren't trying to get people into this building. We want people reconciled to God through faith in Jesus Christ.

15 For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, 16 to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things?

The only barrier to the Gospel is Christ. That's it. Christ, rightly presented with a holy fear and love for the Lord, paired with a clear Gospel, produces disciples. Even two supernatural deaths in the church didn't slow its growth. That's because God was the one doing the work.

So effective ministry is marked by unity and power. It produces holiness, not casualness. It draws genuine converts. And lastly, it meets real need through Christ's power, not human techniques.

IV. Effective Ministry Meets Real Need Through Christ's Power, Not Human Techniques

People thought Peter had power, and that his shadow, which in the first century was viewed almost as an extension of a person's own being, could heal them. On the surface, that's superstition. Nobody's shadow carries power. And yet look at what happens: God meets these people in the middle of their imperfect theology and heals them anyway. That's grace. He doesn't wait for us to get our doctrine sorted out before He shows us mercy. Whatever exactly these people understood about Peter's shadow, Luke is very clear about one thing: Peter's shadow was not the source of the power. God was. The apostles were instruments. God was the healer.

But don't rush past this, because Luke isn't wasting ink. The word behind "fall on" is episkiazō, "to overshadow," and it's a word Luke is careful with. He only uses it three times in his writings. The first time, an angel tells Mary, "The power of the Most High will overshadow you." That's the incarnation, God being robed in flesh. The second time, Peter, James, and John are on a mountain, a cloud overshadows them, and the Father's voice says, "This is my Son." The third time is right here, when Peter's shadow overshadows the sick in the streets of Jerusalem.

And that word reaches further back, all the way to Exodus 40. Israel had just finished the tabernacle exactly as God commanded, down to the last curtain and clasp.

34 Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. 35 And Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled on it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.

The Shekinah glory, rendered into Greek with this same word, overshadowed. Do you see what that means? At Sinai, God's presence was so holy, so overwhelming, that even Moses, the mediator, the man who spoke with God face to face, could not go in. The glory that filled the tabernacle kept people out. That is exactly the fear we saw back in verse 13, "none of the rest dared join them." Same holiness. Same trembling distance.

God's holiness has never changed. What changes in the New Covenant is that God has acted through Christ to bring His holy presence near to His people. The veil is torn. Christ has come. The Spirit has been poured out. God's people become His dwelling place.

Watch what happens to that same overshadowing presence in Acts 5. It does not wait behind a veil for people to work up the courage to approach it. It gets up and walks into the street. It goes to the sick lying on their cots and mats. It goes out to the towns surrounding Jerusalem, where people are streaming in now from outside the city, the Gospel reaching further than it ever had before. What excluded at the tabernacle now goes out to find people in Jerusalem. Isaiah had promised a day like this.

16 And I have put my words in your mouth and covered you in the shadow of my hand, establishing the heavens and laying the foundations of the earth, and saying to Zion, ‘You are my people.’ ”

God's own shadow, once reserved for a tent in the wilderness, now resting on His people as they carry His word into the world. That's what the psalmist meant when he wrote that the Lord would cover you with His wings, not confinement, but shelter that moves, shelter that is sent.

This is the whole story of the New Covenant compressed into one image. God's presence is no longer fenced off in a single building, entered by a single priest, once a year, on pain of death. It has been poured out by the Spirit into ordinary men, and it goes where they go, into the street, into the towns, to the sick who could never have come to the tabernacle themselves. The holiness that kept people out at Sinai is the very same holiness that now reaches out to heal in Jerusalem. Not two different churches. One presence, one glory, doing what it has always done: too holy to approach carelessly, and too gracious to stay away.

And that is the wonder of the Gospel. God is still holy, but in Christ He has made a way for sinners to draw near. We don't approach God carelessly, but neither do we have to stay far away. We come through Jesus Christ, our great High Priest, who has made peace between God and His people.

So what do we do with all this? Notice what Peter is not doing. He's not running a healing campaign. There's no strategy, no committee, no rollout plan for reaching Jerusalem's sick. He's just walking to the temple, like he did every day, faithfully doing the next ordinary thing, and the presence of God resting on him does what no strategy ever could.

That should terrify you and free you at the same time. It terrifies you because it means the fix is never a better program. You can improve the website, strengthen the sermons, add a coffee bar in the lobby, and none of it will do what verse 15 describes. Only God's presence does that. But it frees you too, because it means you don't need a platform or a title to carry that presence somewhere. Peter didn't do anything special. He just showed up, filled with the Spirit, and let God be God.

That doesn't mean we stop working. It means we stop pretending that our work is what produces the results. We preach. We pray. We disciple. We evangelize. We visit. We serve. We carry. And then we trust God to do what only God can do.

And look at what the people do in this verse, not just Peter, "they carried the sick out into the streets and laid them on cots and mats." The sick couldn't get themselves to where the power was, so somebody carried them there. That's the whole method this text gives us. Not a technique. Just people willing to carry a mat.

That's what carrying the mat looks like today. So who are you helping to hear the Gospel?

Maybe it's a neighbor who's never once heard it clearly. Maybe it's the coworker you've prayed for but never actually invited into the conversation. Maybe it's someone in your own house. You can't save them. You can't regenerate their heart. You can't make them believe. Only God can do that.

But you can bring them. You can put them in the room where the Word is opened, whatever room that turns out to be. And then you trust God to do what only God can do. Oftentimes He does what He did here and people’s lives are transformed forever by His grace and they join the family of God.

That’s effective ministry. Not a perfect church or a performative church. It’s not clever. It’s faithful. It’s being holy. It’s Spirit-filled! I want to be a church that helps people carry the mats and trust God to do the work.

Head: God wants you to know that His church has never grown because it made holiness optional.

It has never lost people because it made holiness real. Every bit of it, the unity, the conversions, the healing, came from one source: His presence among His people. Nothing else produced it. Nothing else ever will. A holy church the only kind of church that has anything worth carrying to them.

Heart: God wants you to believe that His presence is enough.

Enough to make holiness safe to pursue because of Jesus. Enough that you don't have to manufacture what only He can produce.

Hand: God wants you to walk close enough with Christ to have something worth bringing to someone else.

See who needs it. Bring them. Trust Him to do what only He can do."