The Journey: Following Jesus through Acts (4)
Scott Bayles, pastor
Scripture: Acts 5:1-11
Blooming Grove Christian Church: 7/16/2017
If you were with us the last couple weeks, you know we began a ten-week journey through the book of Acts. The book of Acts picks up right where the Gospels leave off and tells of the harrowing voyages and thrilling adventures of Jesus’ hand-picked Apostles. In short, we’re following in the footsteps of those who followed in the footsteps of Jesus.
Last week, we focused on the story of the disable beggar by the Beautiful Gate. As Peter and John passed him by, they stopped, looked at him intently and healed him. When the crowd saw what happened, Peter used the miracle as a springboard to preach about Jesus. Unfortunately, the priests and the Sadducees weren’t happy about Peter’s homily, so they arrested the disciples and held them overnight for trial. Undeterred, Peter and John stood strong and steadfast in the face of life-threatening harassment. My prayer is that all of us might follow the example of Peter and John—helping those in need, witnessing about Jesus, and standing firm in the faith.
Now, as a result of these events people began coming to faith in Christ by the hundreds and the church experienced an unprecedented outpouring of generosity. Luke writes, “God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them” (Acts 4:33-34 NIV).
He also said that some of the wealthier believers who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and laid it at the apostles’ feet, so it could be distributed to anyone who had need.
A man named Joseph, for instance, sold a field that he owned and gave the money to the apostles. This wonderful act of kindness and charity earned him the nickname Barnabas, which means son of encouragement. It’s on the heels of this event that we come to one of the most unforgettable and uncomfortable stories of the early church.
If you have a Bible or an app on your phone, please open it to Act 5 and let’s read the first eleven verses of this chapter together:
But there was a certain man named Ananias who, with his wife, Sapphira, sold some property. 2 He brought part of the money to the apostles, claiming it was the full amount. With his wife’s consent, he kept the rest. 3 Then Peter said, “Ananias, why have you let Satan fill your heart? You lied to the Holy Spirit, and you kept some of the money for yourself. 4 The property was yours to sell or not sell, as you wished. And after selling it, the money was also yours to give away. How could you do a thing like this? You weren’t lying to us but to God!”
5 As soon as Ananias heard these words, he fell to the floor and died. Everyone who heard about it was terrified. 6 Then some young men got up, wrapped him in a sheet, and took him out and buried him… 11 Great fear gripped the entire church and everyone else who heard what had happened. (Acts 5:1-11 NLT)
The church has always attracted people with impure motives: hucksters who want to profit financially from religion, power mongers seeking control, the self-centered who want to be pampered and cared for, and glory-seekers who want to be noticed and affirmed for their “holy” acts.
Ananias and Sapphira fell into this last category.
As we examine this story, I want to highlight four key features to help us really grasp what’s happening here and why this story made it into the Bible. First, is the deception itself.
• THE DECEPTION
Ananias and Sapphira concocted a plan whereby they hoped to give a little and get a lot. The couple had likely been at the worship service when Barnabas laid his gift at the apostles’ feet—a great gift, a great moment. The “wow” of the crowd, who probably knew what the gift was worth and what level of sacrifice it was, caught their attention. The “buzz” probably followed on the streets and in their small group meetings: “Can you believe Barnabas gave all that money away? What a man of God! What a generous and selfless person!” Ananias and Sapphira grew jealous. They wanted the same reputation, but they didn’t want to make the same sacrifice.
Like Barnabas, they sold a plot of land. But unlike Barnabas, when they arrived home that night, they divided the money into two piles—one for the church and one for themselves. Thus, when Ananias went to church the next morning, his money bag bulging, no one would know there was a second pile of coins hidden away in his house. With a flourish and a look of piety, he laid the money at Peter’s feet, saying, “A prime piece of land has been in our family for years, but… we sold it yesterday. Here are all the proceeds.” Then he stood back, ready to receive his applause.
Let’s be clear though—this really isn’t about money. Peter made that clear when he said, “Before you sold the land, it belonged to you. And even after you sold it, you could have used the money any way you wanted” (Acts 5:4 NCV). There was nothing wrong with them keeping some of the money. They could have kept all of it for that matter.
The sin Ananias and Sapphira committed was not stinginess or greed. Their sin was lying to God and God’s people: “You have not lied just to human beings but to God” (Acts 5:4 NIV). I think what bothers us most about this story is that lying is something we’re all guilty of.
ILL. One Sunday morning, a pastor said to his congregation, "Next week I plan to preach about the sin of lying. In preparation for that message, I'm asking all of you to read Mark 17 this coming week." The following Sunday, he stood up to preach and asked, "How many of you took the time to read Mark 17 this past week?" Nearly every hand went up. The minister smiled and said, "That's very good, but Mark has only 16 chapters. Now let’s talk about lying."
According to a 2006 survey conducted in the United Kingdom, more than 80 percent of people lie at least once a day—and who knows how many people lied on the survey! The study revealed that people tell little white lies to get out of work, to get out of trouble, to spare someone’s feelings and to save their own reputations. Respondents also said technology such as email, voice mail and cell phones make it easier to get away with long-distance fibs.
All lying is bad, but when people lie to try to deceive God and other believers, they destroy their testimony and trustworthiness. That’s why the Bible urges us, “Stop lying to each other; tell the truth, for we are parts of each other and when we lie to each other we are hurting ourselves” (Ephesians 4:25 TLB). The story of Ananias and Sapphira should be a reminder of just how important it is to live lives of integrity, honesty and truthfulness.
Deception is the first essential element in this story; the second is the devil.
• THE DEVIL
Peter suggests that the sin of Ananias and Sapphira was provoked by Satan. He asks, “Ananias, why have you let Satan fill your heart?” (Acts 5:3 NLT).
People’s beliefs concerning Satan range from the silly to the abstract—from a little red guy with horns and pitchfork, to an expression used to describe the personification of evil. The Bible, however, gives us a clear portrait of who Satan is and how he affects our lives. Put simply, the Bible defines Satan as an angelic being who fell from his position in heaven due to sin and is now completely opposed to God, doing all in his power to thwart God's purposes.
The devil is the church’s greatest enemy. In fact, the name Satan means adversary. If Satan can’t defeat the church by attacks from the outside, he’ll get on the inside and go to work. Satan had failed completely in his attempt to silence the witness of the church. However, the devil never gives up; he simply changes his strategy. His first approach had been to attack the church from the outside, hoping that arrest and threats would intimidate Peter and the other Apostles. When that failed, Satan tried to attack the church from the inside and use people who were part of the fellowship.
Jesus said, “The devil was a murderer from the beginning. He has never been truthful. He doesn’t know what the truth is. Whenever he tells a lie, he’s doing what comes naturally to him. He’s a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44 GWT). It’s no wonder that he prompted Ananias and Sapphira to lie.
Satan is a clever opponent. If he doesn’t succeed as a “devouring lion” (1 Peter 5:8), then he attacks again as a “deceiving serpent” or an “angel of light” (1 Cor. 11:3, 13-14). He knows how to lie to hearts and minds of church members, even genuine Christians, and get them to do his work. If he could successfully tempt new believers into pride and corruption, he could destroy the church in its infancy.
Twice in Scripture, Satan is referred to as “the tempter” (Matthew 4:3; 1 Thessalonians 3:5) and that’s his goal. He acts in a way that is subtle and seductive to tempt us step by step away from God and toward a life of sin and self-indulgence. Satan makes sin look sexy. He makes it attractive, appealing, and appetizing.
Imagine Satan whispering in Ananias’ ear, “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if your name was on everybody’s lips just like Barnabas? I can tell you how to do it.” If Ananias had responded with a firm, “Sorry, not interested!” the devil would have fled. In fact, that’s the key to defeating Satan. The Bible says, “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7 NLT). All he had to do was resist. “No way, Satan, I’m not having any of that!” Instead, Ananias opened wide the door of his heart, exclaiming, “Tell me more!” Then Satan swept in and filled his heart. We need to take care not to let Satan get a foothold in our hearts. We need to put on the full armor of God, including the belt of truth, in order to guard our hearts and minds from Satan’s wicked whispers.
In addition to the deception and the devil, the third essential element in this story is the deaths.
• THE DEATHS
While Peter was confronting Ananias, the Bible says he just fell to the floor and died. Now, this wasn’t some extreme form of church discipline. Peter didn’t kill Ananias, nor did he ask the Holy Spirit to do it. He was probably just as surprised as everybody else when Ananias dropped dead. This is an example of God’s personal judgment. God struck Ananias dead. And, we skipped this part in the reading, but He did the same thing to Sapphira.
About three hours later Sapphira came in, not knowing what had happened. Just like her husband, Sapphira lied to Peter and to the Holy Spirit. This time, Peter knew what God was going to do. So, he said, “How could the two of you even think of conspiring to test the Spirit of the Lord like this? The young men who buried your husband are just outside the door, and they will carry you out, too” (Acts 5:9 NLT). Instantly, she fell to the floor and died.
The deaths of Ananias and Sapphira are a powerful reminder that God punishes sin. Some people read the account of these two being struck down and accuse God of being harsh. “I thought God was supposed to be loving and forgiving. I thought all that wrath stuff was for the Old Testament,” they might say. Because the New Testament strongly emphasizes grace and mercy, it’s easy to overlook the equally important reality that God still punishes sin.
The truth is—Ananias and Sapphira aren’t the only ones deserving death. Since the very beginning the penalty for sin has been death. In the Garden of Eden, He told Adam, “You may freely eat the fruit of every tree in the garden—except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat its fruit, you are sure to die” (Genesis 2:16-17 NLT).
And in case we’d forgotten, he reminds us, “For the wages of sin is death…” (Romans 6:23 NLT). And the death penalty that these passages and other like them speak of isn’t just physical death, but everlasting death.
So if we all deserve death, why doesn’t God keep striking people dead every time they lie, or cheat or steal? Two reasons.
First, God made an example of Ananias and Sapphira. If He suddenly struck down every sinner in the church, we’d all be dead. But He made an example of these two at the very beginning of the church in order to announce that God hasn’t gone soft on sin. There will be a Day of Judgment and there will be punishment.
Furthermore, God doesn’t strike every sinner down because of Jesus. Praise God for the rest of Roman 6:23, which says, “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.” Jesus died so that we wouldn’t have to. He paid the penalty for our sins.
Finally, the last essential element of this story is the dread.
• THE DREAD
Upon witnessing the holy wrath of God on sinning people, the church (as well as those outside the church) was gripped with great fear! Luke says, “The whole church and all the others who heard about these things were filled with fear” (Acts 5:11 NCV).
Fear is a tricky human emotion. It can paralyze you. It can keep you from your dreams. It can keep you small. It can also keep you safe, prevent you from doing stupid things. Fear for the right reason, can be a good thing. In fact, the Bible assures us, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 9:10 NIV).
Scripture is full of examples of how fearing God is a positive rather than a negative thing. For example in Genesis 42, Joseph wins his brothers' trust when he declares he is a God-fearing man. It was because the midwives feared God that they obeyed him instead of the Pharaoh by sparing the Hebrew babies (Exodus 1:17). Pharaoh brought disaster on his nation because he did not fear God (Exodus 9:29-31). Moses chose leaders to help him on the basis that they feared God and wouldn't take bribes (Exodus 18:21). The Mosaic Law cites fear of God as a reason to treat the disabled and elderly well (Leviticus 19:14, 32). And lest we think this is only an Old Testament idea, note that Jesus states this stronger than anyone when he says, "Don't be afraid of those who want to kill your body; they cannot touch your soul. Fear only God, who can destroy both soul and body in hell" (Matthew 10:28). So it's clear from these passages, that fearing God is good because it saves us from caving into our own sinful nature.
We need to be careful in an age of marketing the church and trying to make the gospel user-friendly, that we don’t skim over this truth: “It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:31 NIV).
Thankfully, though, Scripture also tells us, “Where God’s love is, there is no fear, because God’s perfect love drives out fear. It is punishment that makes a person fear, so love is not made perfect in the person who fears” (1 John 4:18 NCV). In other words, if fear is the beginning of wisdom, love is the completion of it.
As we draw closer to God and experience the depths of His love, fear becomes less and less important and, eventually, disappears altogether. Fear is a good motivator, but love is far better. Parents know all about this. When our children are young we often must threaten them with punishment to get them to stop misbehaving. But as they mature, we hope that they will do what’s right not out of fear of punishment, but out of love and respect for us. It’s the same with God.
Conclusion:
So what do we do with this striking and startling footnote in church history? I believe the essential elements of the story—the deception, the devil, the deaths, and the dread—work together to remind us that sin and Satan are serious obstacles in our journey with Jesus. If we’re committed to following Christ, then we need to live lives of honesty and integrity, we need to resist the devil and we need to have a healthy fear of God that dissipates only in light of his limitless love for us.
Next week, we’ll continue our journey through the book of Acts.
Invitation:
In the meantime, if you’re struggling with sin—especially honesty and humility—I want you to know that you’re not alone. Thankfully, God doesn’t deal with us the way he did Ananias and Sapphira. He gives us time to work through it—to repent and get back on track. If you need some help doing that, I’m glad you’re here and I’d like to help. You can talk to me after church, call me at home, or come forward now while we stand and sing.
