You Cant Fool God Series

Acts 5:1-11

You Can’t Fool God

Introduction

A. Let me make a disclaimer here

B. I do not like this passage

C. Now John 3:16 – I like that, it make me feel good

D. I like Romans 8:31-38 “What can separate me from the love of God?”

E. Boy if that isn’t encouraging I don’t know what is

F. Then we have passage like this one

G. Think about it,

H. Two people are struck dead, that is never a good way to start

I. And then as we see in a couple of minute the reason that they were struck dead scares me

J. Because we all deserve the same fate

K. However, because we view the whole Scripture as important, we have to deal with all the passages

L. Even ones we would rather not deal with

M. Today we are going to look at what caused the death of Ananias and Sapphira and what we can do to avoid it

N. We are going to look at

a. Dishonesty is serious stuff

b. The need for integrity

c. And How to grow in integrity

I. Dishonesty is serious stuff

A. Explanation

1. As we talked about last week the New Testament Church was not under a communist practice

2. The people that were giving were giving completely voluntary, they were not required to

3. Now Ananias and Sapphira were jealous

a) Barnabas just gave all that money and was getting a lot of attention

b) They wanted that focus

c) They had some extra land, and decided to sell it

d) They were able to get a real good deal on it

e) Way more then they originally thought that they would get for it

f) So they decided that they don’t need to give the whole amount to the church, so they put some of it an off-shore Swiss bank account to hide the whole amount and present the rest to the church and they would be the ones getting all the attention

4. Obviously this did not fly with God, He got mad at them, and struck them (pause) dead

5. It was not because they were not cheerful givers

6. It was not because they didn’t give 100% of the proceeds

7. It was because they lied

8. Now notice how they all reacted (read 11)

a) This is one of those dahh verses, of course they were scared, I would be to, if God killed them for that, I know that there has been times when I have not been honest

b) Just for a little reference this is the first time the word “Church” is used

B. Illustration

9. When you read Joshua 7 you lean about Achan’s sin

10. Achan sinned by taking for personal use that which had been devoted to God

11. And he was judged accordingly and immediately too

C. Application

12. What can we learn from this?

13. We learn that God does judge

14. That we can try all we want to avoid it

15. To figure out a way in Scripture to avoid judgment

16. But the reality is that he does judge us

17. We will face judgment

18. Now do not think that this was just 2000 years ago and God does not judge any more today

19. That is not the case

20. The only advantage for us is that most of the time the judgment is not made the quick

21. We have been looking at the first church as an example, as a target we are shooting for,

22. We just had that nice passage about everybody being united and living in harmony and stuff

23. Then we have this one

24. If this could happen to the New Testament Church, it is safe then to assume, it can happen to us today

a) Many Christians harbor secret sins

b) The fact that fear ran through the church indicated other felt guilty, too

c) We need enough to fear to consider the seriousness of dishonesty

II. The need for integrity

A. Explanation

1. The first church was ever conscious of their reputation

2. They could not deal with Hypocrisy

3. There is a very important lesson to learn

4. People, even Christians, will always fail you. Only Jesus deserves full trust

5. Yet people cant see Jesus, they can only see you

a) Be consistent as you can

b) Watch your life, for their sake

6. God hates hypocrisy

a) All of us are inconsistent to some extent

b) I would like to stand up hear and say that I am always full of integrity, but I have screwed up too

c) That is why we must never grow complacent in our walks with Christ

d) As we grow we eliminate hypocrisy