Being the Church
Part 4: A Deadly Game
Scripture: Acts 4:36-5:11
“[Hypocrisy is] the desire to look better than you are; the hiding of things you do, because you would not be supposed to do them, because you would be ashamed to have them known where you are known. The doing of them is foul; the hiding of them, in order to appear better than you are, is fouler still.”
-George MacDonald
Intro: (PRAYER)
The early church was just finding her way in the world. God added new believers into the fold everyday. There was even a man named Barnabas who sold some property he owned and gave it all to the work of God in the early church. Things were going great. Then look at the 1st word in chapter 5. “BUT.” The word “but” always marks a decisive change in the story. And what we see in chapter five is the contrast between the generosity of Barnabas and the selfishness of a man and his wife.
-Really, what we see the is the first example of hypocrisy in the life of the Church. And we see how seriously God takes it.
-Now, before we get into the biblical account, allow me to clear something up. “Hypocrisy” does not simply equate to, “someone who has failed.” A lot of Christians live paralyzed by the fear that if they sin, if they fail God, they have become a hypocrite.
-But that’s not what hypocrisy is. All have sinned and fall short of God’s glorious standard. And even after we have accepted Christ as the new ruler of our lives, there is still our old, fallen nature that will war with us. And sometimes, it may even get the best of us. But through the power of God’s Holy Spirit, we can live holy lives with pure hearts. That does not mean we will never sin again, but it does mean that the intentions of our heart can always be motivated by Jesus.
-But sometimes people deliberately don’t let Jesus rule their lives and still claim Him. Sometimes people don’t submit to His Spirit’s control and pretend that they have. And this is where we see the deadly game of hypocrisy play out.
Illustration: Hypocrisy is like the 12-year-old boy who was waiting for his first orthodontist appointment and was a bit nervous. Apparently he wanted to impress the dentist. On the patient questionnaire, in the space marked “Hobbies,” he had written, “Swimming, riding my bike, and flossing.” That’s a humorous example of how we’re all prone to hypocrisy.
-"Hypocrite" comes from a word which means "to act a part as on a stage." The hypocrite is a play actor.
Hypocrisy is deliberate deception, trying to make
people think we are more spiritual than we really are.
-Hypocrisy is the hiding of the things you do, not
because you were not supposed to do them, but because you would be ashamed to have them known where you are known. Now the doing of them is foul, but the hiding of them, in order to appear better than you are, is fouler still.
-And we are all susceptible to it.
-LET’S READ TOGETHER. (READ ACTS 4:36-5:11)
-We need to be clear on the exact nature of the sin of Ananias and Sapphira. Their sin was not that they had sold their property and had given only a part to the church. In fact, Peter makes plain (5:4) that it would not have been a sin for them to have sold their property and not given anything to the church. Their sin was that was that they conspired together to deceive the apostles and the church into thinking that they were giving the entire amount, when in fact they kept back a portion for themselves. In other words, they were trying to impress everyone with a higher level of spirituality and commitment than they really had.
-Have you ever done that? We’ve all been guilty of trying to impress others with our commitment and devotion to Christ, even though we know in our heart that we are exaggerating.
Illustration: A pastor had been preaching on the importance of daily Bible reading. He and his wife were invited over to a parishioner’s home for dinner. His wife saw a note on the kitchen calendar: “Pastor/Mrs. for dinner—Dust all Bibles.”
-Why did God dealt with Ananias and Sapphira so severely when He does not do so with the hypocrites in the church today? Probably, it was because the church was in its infancy, and He needed to set before us a sober lesson of the seriousness of this sin among God’s people.
-He wanted us to know that the church should live in the holy fear of God and especially should be on guard against this serious sin, hypocrisy. It was one of those occasions when God makes an example out of a case in order to fully reveal what He thinks of a matter.
-And listen, let me calm your fears a little. God is not going to physically kill you if you are a hypocrite. But what He will do, is in my opinion even worse. He will allow you live in your hypocrisy and you will slowly die spiritually.
-So today, I want to remind you of your 3 biggest responsibilities as a Christian. Ananias and Sapphira forgot them, and we are prone to, as well. So let’s take a look at the 3 biggest responsibilities of every believer.
The 3 Biggest Responsibilities of Every Believer
1. You have a responsibility to yourself.
Illustration: When Queen Victoria was a child, she didn’t know she was in line for the throne of England. Her instructors, trying to prepare her for the future, were frustrated because they couldn’t motivate her. She just didn’t take her studies seriously. Finally, her teachers decided to tell her that one day she would become the queen of England. Upon hearing this, Victoria quietly said, "Then I will be good." The realization that she had inherited this high calling gave her a sense of responsibility that profoundly affected her conduct from then on. Source Unknown
Questions: Chances are, somewhere along the way in life, you’ve learned that there are certain things you have to be responsible for, right? (Money, health, relationships, etc.) So why do you think so often we forget the responsibility we have to ourselves to nurture our relationship with God?
Statement: Sometimes we forget that we have a great responsibility to ourselves to stay close to God.
-Today one of the most common complaints against the church is that we are full of hypocrites. The single most cause of atheism in the world today is Christians, who acknowledge Jesus with their lips but walk out of the church doors and deny Him with their life.
-One skeptic, who’d apparently seen hypocritical Christian behavior wrote, “A Christian is a man who feels sorry on a Sunday for what he did on Saturday and is going to do on Monday.”
Motive is everything in the sin of hypocrisy. If Ananias and Sapphira had sold their land and had told the apostles, "We feel led to give half to the church," it would not have been a problem.
-Their sin was the evil intent of their hearts, to make others think that they were more spiritual than they really were. They were motivated by pride not a love of God and others. God, who always knows the motives of our hearts, judged them on the spot.
-Too often, we neglect this and little by little, start to spiritually rot from the inside out. You see, it doesn’t happen overnight. And for a while you can keep up appearances. But your heart starts to die. Your commitment starts to waver.
-All because we forget what we can be in Christ.
“A man does not become truly motivated until he catches a glimpse of his potential.”
-Don’t ever forget that you have incredible potential when you are completely sold out to God! Your attitude needs to be like the Psalmist who said:
Scripture: (Psalm 139:23-24)
23 Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24 See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.
We must be people of integrity. And integrity begins when you examine your motives.
2. You have a responsibility to God.
Statement:
-Hypocrisy focuses on what people think, rather than what God knows.
Ananias and Sapphira wanted to look good in front of the apostles and the rest of the church. Barnabas had just given the total amount of a sale of some property. Everyone thought highly of Barnabas. Ananias and Sapphira wanted everyone to think highly of them. But, sadly, they didn’t stop to consider what the living God knew about them.
The minute you start trying to look good to others, without being concerned about what God KNOWS, you are headed into hypocrisy.
Peter also fell into this sin The church in Antioch had both Jews and Gentiles together in one fellowship. When Peter first visited there, he ate together with the Gentiles, contrary to Jewish customs. But when the Jewish circumcision party showed up, Peter withdrew and only ate with the Jews, out of fear for what they would think. Paul confronted him publicly, and to his credit, Peter accepted the rebuke (Gal. 2:11-14). If such a godly man as Peter could be carried away by this sin, then certainly we all need to be on guard!
-Hypocrisy focuses on this life, not on eternity.
If Ananias and Sapphira had been thinking about the shortness of life and the certainty of judgment and eternity, they would not have done what they did. But whether we get struck down instantly for our sin or have to stand before God at the judgment, in a few short years we all will face God. Scripture reminds us, “Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.”
- It’s been said that secret sin on earth is open scandal in heaven.
Illustration: farmer once cut down a huge tree that was on his land. It looked good from the outside, but he discovered that the heart of the tree was rotten. He looked closely at it and found a huge old nail. Apparently years ago someone had driven it in the tree and it had caused the heart of the tree to rot. This is how it is with the life of the hypocritical person. Your life becomes a hollow shell as your spiritual life withers and dies.
Scripture: Psalm 32:2-3
“Blessed is the man
whose sin the LORD does not count against him
and in whose spirit is no deceit.
3 When I kept silent,
my bones wasted away
through my groaning all day long.
We are responsible to God for our actions, and though we try, it’s impossible to hide them from Him.
3. You have a responsibility to other Christians.
Illustration: What a sharp contrast with a scene that occurred on a New York street nearly two decades before. Kitty Genovese was slowly and brutally stabbed to death. At least thirty-eight of her neighbors witnessed the attack and heard her screams. In the course of the 90-minute episode, her attacker was actually frightened away, then he returned to finish her off. Yet not once during that period did any neighbor assist her, or even telephone the police. The implications of this tragic event shocked America, and it stimulated two young psychologists, Darly and Latane, to study the conditions under which people are or are not willing to help others in an emergency. In essence, they concluded that responsibility is diffused. The more people present in an emergency situation, the less likely it is that any one of them will offer help. This is popularly called the "bystander effect." (In the actual experiment, when one bystander was present, 85 percent offered help. When two were present, 62 percent offered help. When five were present, then it decreased to 31 percent.)
Lawrence S. Wrightsman, Social Psychology in the Seventies (Monterey, Calif.: Brooks/Coal Publishing Company, 1972), pp. 33-34. quoted in Courage - You Can Stand Strong in the Face of Fear, Jon Johnston, 1990, SP Publications, p. 37.
Statement:
This couple that fell into this sin were professing Christians, “members” of the church in Jerusalem. This means that we’re all in danger of falling into this subtle sin.
We don’t want other Christians or those outside the church to think that we have problems. That wouldn’t be a good testimony, would it? So we put on our spiritual mask when we’re around others, even though we know, and our family knows that we do not live as we profess to live.
-When a prominent Christian is shown to be a hypocrite, the world heaves a sigh of relief, thinking, “Christians are really no different than anyone else. If they’re phonies, then Christianity must not be true.”
Notice that this sin affects both men and women. Some sins may be more prevalent in men, while other sins are more prevalent with women. But both sexes are vulnerable to hypocrisy.
Ananias and Sapphira had agreed together to this act of deception (5:9). Whether you are male or female, you need to guard yourself against hypocrisy.
-Someone has written, “I met the strangest man and woman the other day. They said they believe the Bible but never read it. They said they think well of the church of which they are a member, but they never attend it. They said a man should be honest with God in money matters, but they never tithe. They said the younger generation needs the Lord, but they never show up for visitation. They said the church needs dedicated Christians, but they were not one. They ever said the church should do more ministering to people, but they never lift a hand to help. They are critical of how the church is run, but they never participate. They said that prayer will change things, but they never comes to prayer meeting. They were a strange man and woman indeed!”
It is in authentic loving that the body of Christ unites, and it is in integrity that the world sees Jesus in us!
Scripture: Romans 12:9
“Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.”
Invitation/Response
-If you feel like you need to get right with God at an altar this morning, I want you know you can come down now and pray.
-But I realize that when it comes to this issue of hypocrisy, that can be an intimidating thing to do, because we worry that others will judge us if they see us come. First of all, the only people who would judge you for coming to an altar are the ones who need to be down here themselves.
-But I do want to encourage you to make a commitment today to be a responsible follower of Christ. We’re going to sing a couple verses of a song together, and while we sing those verses, all of you who would come to an altar, do it. After we sing those 2 verses, I’m going to lead us in a prayer for those who don’t come. Let’s commit to giving God, other believers, and ourselves, our best from this day forward.
