Empowered: Check Your Heart

Key Bible Verses

• Acts 4:32-5:11

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Sermon Quotes

From Pastor Josh Laxton

Check your HEART so you’ll HELP His Church.  Check your HEART so you don’t HURT His Church.  

I believe we all want a healthy heart.  Our heart determines the health of our lives, and the health of our lives contribute to the health of the structures in which we are part—family, friends, work, and church.

Hold Jesus tightly and your possessions loosely.

A church with a healthy heart has helping hands.

God hates sin regardless of its size.  

When our hearts beat for Jesus we’ll help the church rather than hurt the church.

DIGGING DEEPER

In Chapters 4 and Chapter 5 of Acts, believers in Christ were alive and active and growing.  Great things were happening.  Peter and John were proclaiming Jesus and His resurrection from the dead. Many who heard the message believed and were saved.  Healings and miracles were taking place.  God was being glorified and praised by the people for all that was happening.  Believers were praying and the Holy Spirit was at work. The Word of God was spoken boldly.

Acts 4:32 shares that “All the believers were one in heart and mind.”  This oneness of heart and mind helped the believers in the early church to be a sharing and caring people.  Because of God’s grace, which was so powerfully at work, no one in the fellowship of believers was needy.  

As a people of God, we have a great opportunity to become one in heart and mind as we unite behind Northland Church’s mission and vision.

• Northland’s Mission statement.

• Northland Church exists to glorify God as we participate in His mission of redeeming a people from all peoples by engaging neighbors and nations to be fully alive in King Jesus through the power of the Spirit.

• Northland’s Vision, The 4 C’s. 

• CONNECT with God and Others.  
• CULTIVATE People and Leaders. 
• CARE for People and Resources.  
• COMMISSION to go to Neighbors and Nations with the Good News. 

We become one in heart and mind as we glorify God.

• By being faithful to read, uphold and obey what the Bible teaches.
• By being faithful in praise and worship.
• By gathering together in fellowship and the breaking of bread and prayer.
• By giving generously of our time, talents, and treasures.

We become one in heart and mind as we participate in His mission of redeeming a people from all peoples by engaging neighbors and nations to be fully alive in King Jesus. 

• By supporting missions—local and global.
• By inviting our neighbors to church with us.  
• By serving others and caring for those who are in need and are vulnerable.

We become one in heart and mind through the power of the Holy Spirit.

• By praying individually and corporately.  
• By asking for forgiveness and repenting of our sins. 
• By asking for the Holy Spirit to teach us.
• By being responsive to the voice of the Holy Spirit as He guides us daily.

May God richly bless us as we are of one heart and one mind, serving Him in love and thankfulness.‍

WHAT NOT TO MISS

Our heart is important.

• Physically - The heart pumps blood throughout the body.
• Spiritually - The heart is the control panel that determines thoughts and actions.  (Proverbs 4:23)

When sinners repent, they become God’s children and are given a new heart.  

(Ezekiel 36:26)

Part of the role of the Holy Spirit is to measure and monitor our spiritual heart. 

TWO MAIN POINTS:

Check your HEART so you’ll HELP His Church.  

Check your HEART so you don’t HURT His Church. 

SIX HEART CHECKS 

Heart Check #1:  Is what’s yours, His?  “No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had.”  (Acts 4:32)

• Ownership determines your stewardship.

• God owns all their possessions.
• God directed how they leveraged and used their possessions.  
• Possessions are tools to glorify God for the good of the community. 
• Giving is voluntary and demonstrates generous giving and mutual sharing.  

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Heart Check #2:  Would you allow a cut in your living for you to increase your giving?  “For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them and brought the money from their sales…..”  (Acts 4:34)

• At times needs in the early church would arise and in order to meet them it required cutting out something from the early believer’s life.  

• Not being able to depart from something or give it up reveals a stronghold that is in your heart.  

• Hold Jesus tightly and your possessions loosely.

•  There is only one person that we are to cling to and His name is Jesus.

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Heart Check #3:  Is your giving an act of surrender?  “...brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet.”  (Acts 4:35)

• Complete trust in leadership to wisely steward the money given.
• Barnabas exemplifies a healthy heart centered around Jesus and brought the money to the apostles.
• There were no needy people in the body of believers.  
• A church with a healthy heart has helping hands.

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Heart Check #4: Am I pretending to deliver what I promised?  “With his wife’s full knowledge he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles’ feet.”  (Acts 5:2)

• Ananias and Sapphira demonstrated an unhealthy heart by keeping back a part of the money they had pledged to the church. Therefore, Ananias lied and embezzled.
• Ananias didn’t deliver what he had promised to the church, which inevitably meant he didn’t deliver what he had promised to God.
• How do we do this today?

• We don’t do what we promised to do and we cover it up and it reflects poorly on God.
• We don’t honor our covenant when we profess Jesus as our Savior and King and don’t live a surrendered life where He is in charge and we are His child. 
• We don’t surrender all to Jesus and have a totally clean life.

• “The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips and walk out the door and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.” Brennan Manning

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Heart Check #5:  Do I see my small/hidden sins as insignificant to God?  “...how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit…” (Acts 5:3)

How do I know God is serious about sin?

• Because God sent his one and only Son to die for the sin of the world.
• It’s serious, so serious, that Ananias would never get to plead his case.  God struck Ananias dead on the spot.
• God was establishing, in the infancy of the church, that unconfessed, unrepentant sin has no place in the life of the people of God.  
• We have been bought with a price and therefore our life isn’t our own.  It belongs to King Jesus. 
• Small sins are a BIG matter to a GREAT God.
• During this time, God is setting the precedent of how He wants His people to deal with those things that are not pleasing to Him.  There are things that are not glorifying Him and are a hindrance to Him advancing His mission in the world which is redeeming a people from all peoples to reflect His glory in all spheres of life. 

Heart Check #6:  Who are you synced up with?  “...Is this the price you and Ananias got for the land? Yes…that is the price…How could you conspire to test the Spirit of the Lord?”  

(Acts 5:8-9)

• To be in sync with sin is to be out of sync with the Spirit.
• Sapphira chose to be in sync with her spouse rather than to be in sync with the Spirit.

Later in the passage, the apostles are arrested because they are preaching the Gospel.  “We must obey God rather than human beings!”  (Acts 5:29)  They were in sync with the Spirit.

We need to ask God to search and soften our hearts and confess our sins big and small. 

Reverent fear fell over the early church and more people believed and were drawn to the church.  

Individuals hearts that beat for Jesus and churches whose heart beat for Jesus demonstrate the following:

• Focus on the gospel—the resurrection of Jesus.
• Practice radical generosity.
• Let their yes be yes and no be no.
• Give all of what we have surrendered to Jesus.
• Confront sin.
• Confess sin.
• Have soft hearts that practice repentance.  

When our hearts beat for Jesus we’ll help the church rather than hurt the church. That is what makes the church revolutionary!

Life Application

During this week take time to check your heart.  Ask God to search your heart and make your heart soft.  Let God bring about conviction in areas which need to become in sync with the Spirit.  Repent, confess, and turn from these areas of sin regardless of how big or small these areas are.  “If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”  (1 John 1:9).  

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Small Group Discussion Questions

• What was a gift that you gave you great pleasure to give to someone else?
• What might be a a generous gift of time, talent, or treasure that you could give to God this week?
• What are some sins, large or small, that need to be cleaned up in your lives through repentance, confession, and turning away from them?
• Who are the positive and negative people you are synced up with the Holy Spirit and who influence you positively as you walk with King Jesus?
• What are the positive results which benefit God's kingdom that result from checking our hearts and having a heart that beats for Jesus?

Daily Devotional Bible Passages

• Monday- Search My Heart- Psalm 139:23-24; Jeremiah 17:10; 1 Chronicles 28:9; 1 Samuel 16:7
• Tuesday - Cleanse My Heart- Psalm 51:10; Ezekiel 36:25-27; 2 Corinthians 7:1
• Wednesday- Enlighten My Heart- Ephesians 1:18; 2 Corinthians 4:6; Proverbs 18:15
• Thursday - Impassion My Heart- John 3:16; Matthew 6:21; Colossians 3:23
• Friday - Revolutionize My Heart- Proverbs 2:10; Jeremiah 32:38-40; Psalm 37:4

Prayer

Lord, we love you and we reverently fear you just as the early church did. You are a mighty God and we are so thankful that you sent your only son, Jesus,  to the cross to pay the penalty for all of our sins so that we can be forgiven and reconciled to you.  Help us to feel the weight of sin that is in our lives. Let us check our hearts so that we confess, repent and live our lives as your beloved children who are a reflection of you and your glory.  We pray for our world and those who don’t yet know you and ask that you show us ways we can be witnesses to our neighbors and nations so that all will come to know you and be saved. 

Additional Resources

–Sign up for the Northland Newsletter.

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–Learn about Short Term Mission Trips. 

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–Participate in the class "Exploring the Faith."

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–Participate in the class "Sharing Your Hope with Others."