The Tale of Two Offerings

Go ahead and turn to Acts chapter 5 in your bible this morning. We will actually be starting at the end of chapter 4 but it is right there at chapter 5 so you will be where you need to be. Last week, we looked at verses 32-35. And you may have thought that it was strange for me to stop 2 verses short of finishing the chapter. If you didn’t know, chapters and verses were not in the original text. They were not added until a few hundred years ago. So this would have been read as one continuous story or thought. When studying the text, I felt that it would be beneficial for us to put these last two verses with the first 11 of Acts 5. In this passage today, we have “The Tale of Two Offerings.” Lets start off today by reading our text.

Acts 4:36–5:11 ESV

Thus Joseph, who was also called by the apostles Barnabas (which means son of encouragement), a Levite, a native of Cyprus, sold a field that belonged to him and brought the money and laid it at the apostles’ feet. But a man named Ananias, with his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property, and with his wife’s knowledge he kept back for himself some of the proceeds and brought only a part of it and laid it at the apostles’ feet. But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land? While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal? Why is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to man but to God.” When Ananias heard these words, he fell down and breathed his last. And great fear came upon all who heard of it. The young men rose and wrapped him up and carried him out and buried him. After an interval of about three hours his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. And Peter said to her, “Tell me whether you sold the land for so much.” And she said, “Yes, for so much.” But Peter said to her, “How is it that you have agreed together to test the Spirit of the Lord? Behold, the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out.” Immediately she fell down at his feet and breathed her last. When the young men came in they found her dead, and they carried her out and buried her beside her husband. And great fear came upon the whole church and upon all who heard of these things.

Here is the sermon for today. God kills liars. What we have in this passage today is the Tale of Two Offerings.

One thing that is carrying over from previous verses is this idea of generosity. Of people selling their property to help minister to one another. But in the text today, it goes into the heart of the matter and less about the action of it. When studying this text, I see something that is very glaring, even blinding. We have these two offerings that were given to the church to distribute. But both of these offerings have two totally different outcomes. Why is that? The question that this text answers today is “Why does the state of our hearts matter in our offering?”

I am going to break this text up for us into 3 different sections as we look at this question.

A Desirable Offering

How many of us here want to please God with what we do? Of course, we all do. At least we all want to say that we do since we are in church today. We want to please God. So the question would be how do we do that?

Growing up, most of us can probably remember a time when we would have done everything that we could think of just to have our parents be happy with us. Maybe we would try to be better about keeping our bedrooms clean. Maybe it would be taking the trash out. But some of these things would take place outside of the home as well. Maybe you thought that playing a certain sport or a certain position would please your parents. Maybe it was learning a particular instrument to play. Even as we get older it may even continue. Maybe you go into a certain profession because you think it would please them. Or take a certain job.

This may be reality for many of us here today. But our relationship with God is not based on merits. Our relationship with God is based on love. And God’s love for you does not grow when you try to earn God’s love. But many professing Christians live their life this way. They try to earn their way into heaven instead of resting in the love of God that was shown to us by Jesus going to the cross in our place. This is the gospel.

Gospel presentation.

There is this teaching in our culture today, and I would say in many churches, called Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. This term was coined when a man named Christian Smith and other researchers at UNC Chapel Hill studied religious beliefs held by American teenagers. This goes beyond teenagers though. In the words of Smith, Moralistic Therapeutic Deism consists of beliefs like this: (1. "A god exists who created and ordered the world and watches over human life on earth." 2. "God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions." 3. "The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about ones self." 4. "God does not need to be particularly involved in one's life except when God is needed to resolve a problem." 5. "Good people go to heaven when they die.")

These ideas go against the teachings we see in scripture that one must repent and believe the gospel to go to heaven. Remember the sermon at Pentecost in Acts 2 when Peter answered the question from the people when they heard the gospel being preached. Acts 2:38 “And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

We have this desire to please God. But where does the root of this come from? Is it from selfishness of us wanting to earn our way into heaven? Or is it because our hearts have been forever changed by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We start this passage off with the story of a man named Joseph, but you may recognize him by the name that is used for him throughout the rest of the book of Acts as Barnabas.

Acts 4:36–37 ESV

Thus Joseph, who was also called by the apostles Barnabas (which means son of encouragement), a Levite, a native of Cyprus, sold a field that belonged to him and brought the money and laid it at the apostles’ feet.

Barnabas decided to sell some land and give the money to the church. We know by his name that he was someone that was well thought of. His name means son of encouragement or maybe your translation says son of consolation. We know that he was there for people. He wanted to help. As we venture through the book of Acts, we will see the great role that he played in the early church and in the life of Paul. In Acts 9, after Paul was converted and tried to join the other disciples, they wanted nothing to do with him. So Barnabas stepped in and took him under his wing.

So Barnabas sold this land and he brought the money and laid it at the apostles feet. This was a common way of bringing money to the church. Passing these plates doesn’t seem so bad now. I bet you are glad we don’t make you put them at someones feet now. We don’t know how much money it was. There is some context here that could give us an idea that it may not have been much at all.

In the Old Testament, Levites were not permitted to own land. There is a chance that by this point, they had abandoned the Old Testament teaching of this. But I don’t think it would be out of the question that Barnabas was still adhering to this. So how could he have sold a plot of land if Levites could not own any. Well this could very well have been his burial site. Yes, Barnabas likely sold the place that he would have been buried so that he could help others in need. Wow.

Barnabas had the correct condition of his heart when he brought his money to the apostles. The condition of our hearts matter when we are bringing our offering to God. And we will see that more clearly when we continue and see a Deceitful Offering.

A Deceitful Offering

I want to start off by reading verses 1-10 again so that we have the entire story together.

Acts 5:1–10 ESV

But a man named Ananias, with his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property, and with his wife’s knowledge he kept back for himself some of the proceeds and brought only a part of it and laid it at the apostles’ feet. But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land? While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal? Why is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to man but to God.” When Ananias heard these words, he fell down and breathed his last. And great fear came upon all who heard of it. The young men rose and wrapped him up and carried him out and buried him. After an interval of about three hours his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. And Peter said to her, “Tell me whether you sold the land for so much.” And she said, “Yes, for so much.” But Peter said to her, “How is it that you have agreed together to test the Spirit of the Lord? Behold, the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out.” Immediately she fell down at his feet and breathed her last. When the young men came in they found her dead, and they carried her out and buried her beside her husband.

We can all remember a time when we tried to be sneaky. I was going to say when we were kids but we still do this as adults too. Maybe it is trying to sneak that ice cream sandwich without your husband or wife knowing. Maybe it is trying to hide the fact that you went out and bought something expensive without your spouse knowing. Kids, maybe it is hiding a TV remote from your parents so that you can wake up in the middle of the night to watch TV. We all try to be sneaky.

This is what you call being deceitful. You hide something in order to benefit yourself. We have this couple here in Acts 5. Ananias and Sapphira. We are told that they did the same thing that Barnabas did. They sold a piece of land. But their motive was different. And we know this to be true because of what they did. I can imagine the conversation between the husband and wife.

“Did you see that Barnabas sold his land and gave the money to the Apostles?” “Yes, I did. They spoke very highly of him.”

“Well what if we did that? But instead of giving all of the money to the church, we lie about it and we just pocket some of it?”

“Oh, that is a great idea. That way they will say good things about us still, but we can still have some of the money. They will think that we are really generous.”

Oh man. And then it happened. It wasn’t just a conversation but it turned into action. The thought of it was sinful too, not just the action. But they really paid the price when they acted on it. You may think to yourself that you don’t see a problem with their actions. But the issue was the deceitful heart they had towards God. Peter points this out to Ananias when he brings the offering.

English Standard Version Chapter 5

3 But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land?

The problem was that he had let Satan fill his heart to lie about it. He was being obedient to Satan in his actions rather than God. So, he lied to the Holy Spirit about what he was going to do with this money. Now, I am sure none of us have ever done this. “God, if you will just get me out of this situation, then I will _________.” But then we never do it. I am making that illustration in jest, but we are lying to the Holy Spirit when we do this. Peter points out to Ananias that the problem wasn’t even him keeping the money. It was the lie and the heart behind it.

Acts 5:4 ESV

While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal? Why is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to man but to God.”

He tells him that it was his property and he had every right to do with it whatever he wanted to. So we know that the issue wasn’t with the offering. The issue was with him and his wife’s heart. We have to realize the weight of our sin when reading a story like this in scripture. We try to play little things off and want to minimize sin.

“Few understand how serious lying really is. Peter says the pair lied to God (implying the deity of the Holy Spirit). That concept is terrifying! It suggests that God takes the untruths we tell as personal offenses. When people don’t value the holiness of God, they minimize sin. And when they do that, they devalue the cross, where Jesus traded places with liars.

Tony Merida, Exalting Jesus in Acts (Nashville, TN: Holman Reference, 2017), 74.”

Both the husband and the wife met the same consequences. Death. This is hard for us to wrestle with. Many people over the years have tried to dispute this as actually happening. They believe that this was a story that was made up by the apostles to teach the church that death would still happen because some believed that they would not die after believing in the resurrection of Jesus. But who are we to think that it is outside of God’s capability to kill for sin. Is that not what Jesus was sent to the cross for. An appropriate punishment for sin is death. Because Jesus took that punishment on our behalf. We need to hate our own sin. We have no problem hating other peoples sin. But it is time we look at ours in the same light.

For us today, we must continuously be evaluating ourselves. We would never want to lie to God about our intentions. We want to come to the altar of God with our offering with a clear heart that is focused on what Jesus Christ has done for us. Let us not have a Deceitful Offering.

A Dangerous Observation

Sometimes when we read stories in scripture, especially ones that is clearly speaking of certain people, we can overlook other characters. That is the situation here if we aren’t careful. Yes, we have talked about Barnabas, Ananias and Sapphira, and ever Peter. You may have heard sermons focused on the men waiting outside the door who would take away the bodies of Ananias and Sapphira. For us, I think it is beneficial for us to look at the church. The very last verse that we will tackle today is Acts 5:11

Acts 5:11 ESV

And great fear came upon the whole church and upon all who heard of these things.

Great fear came upon the whole church. Wow. I think, since we are gathered together today as a church, that when it speaks of the church then, that we should slow down a little bit. Interestingly, we have talked about the early church basically since we have been going through the book of Acts. But here in this verse is the very first time that they are addressed by the greek word, ekklesia. This is the word that we use to translate into our english word, church. This word would go on to be used multiple times throughout the rest of the book of Acts to describe the church. This is would be translated as the assembly or the congregation as a whole. There was a church that was gathered. There were people who joined the assembly. There was a group of people who were set apart through their profession of faith and their baptism. There are times when people like to debate church membership and I like to point them to the early church and verses like this.

They had a way of telling who was in the church and who was not in the church. In 1 Corinthians 5, they had an issue come up and Paul tells them that they needed to remove someone from them. For there to be an outside of the church, there needs to be an inside of church. We become part of the universal church through repentance and faith, but we become part of the local church through baptism and membership. You will not find clear ways in scripture as to how to do church membership. But we do church membership as a way that we feel it suits us best to be able to distinguish who is part of the local church and how to best take care of those people. So yes, being a member of a local church is biblical. My encouragement is that you join yourself with a church. And we know that our church is not for everyone. The gospel and the mission of the church is not about Immanuel Baptist but it is about the kingdom of God.

The author of Acts, Luke, tells us that great fear came upon the whole church. And not only them but everyone who heard what had happened. I think it is safe to say that both Ananias and Sapphira either did not understand the gospel at all or they were not letting the gospel really work in their hearts. Maybe that is some of us today. Maybe we do understand the gospel, and maybe we even believe it. But we are resisting the working of the gospel throughout our entire lives. My prayer for us is that none of us become people like Ananias and Sapphira. That we actually are living a life of repentance and turning away from our sin and turning towards Jesus Christ.

We do not want to experience the same thing that this early church experienced. And I know that someone here is probably thinking to themselves that this would never happen today. God wouldn’t kill someone for something like this. Gal 6:7 “Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap.”

God has every right to pour out his judgment on us for each and every one of our sins. We have this picture of people mocking God and seeing the coming of his wrath in the book of Revelation.

English Standard Version Chapter 6

15 Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, 16 calling to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, 17 for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?”

What we need is the same thing that Ananias and Sapphira needed, a healthy fear of the Lord. When we have a healthy fear of the Lord, our hearts can truly be tuned to the things of God. We will see the world through a biblical worldview. We will see the church as the beautiful bride of Christ. We will see Jesus for the savior that he truly is for us, for living the perfect life that we should have lived, going to the cross on our behalf, and defeating death to prove that he has power over life and death.

If you are someone who has not come to a saving faith, I want you to know that this call to repentance and belief is here for you today. We are all sinners in need of a savior. We cannot do it on our own. So God sent Jesus to live the perfect life we should have lived, to die the death that we deserve, and to be raised from the grave to prove that death has no power over him. And if you believe that Jesus did this for you, and you turn from your sins and towards him so that he is Lord over your life, then you are saved. If this is you, we want to know.

There are people here today that have done this. And I want you to listen to me now. There is always a next step in our walk with Christ. Maybe you have never followed through with believers baptism and that is the next thing you need to do. Maybe you have not joined a church. Maybe you have been coming here for years and it is time for you to make that commitment through joining our church. We will be having a lunch next month if that is you. Please let me know if this is you. But maybe your next step today is taking some time to examine yourself. Taking some time to check your heart to make sure that what you are offering to God, whether it is financial or not, is coming from a clean heart. While we sing our last hymn this morning, I challenge you to take some time to examine your heart.