MOVED TO AWE

INTRODUCTION

Good morning! I’m excited to open up the Word with you this morning—so right off the bat I want you to open up your Bibles to Acts chapter 5. That’s where we’re going to be continuing our study today on this Father’s Day.

But before we get into it, I want to share with you a quick story about my daughter Arden. A couple of months back Arden got really into watching this tv show about a hamster going through a maze, which seemed harmless enough. The only problem was that Arden didn’t understand what a hamster was, and so in Arden’s mind, this furry creature that’s walking through a maze and performing Mission Impossible-style feats is clearly a mouse. And you can see where she’s coming from, you know? It’s got the whiskers, it’s small and furry, it has pink paws.

But like the good dad I am, I tried to correct her thinking and explain to her that actually, it’s not a mouse, it’s a hamster. But that didn’t exactly settle things. I said “it’s a hamster,” and she said, “no, it’s a mouse.” And I said, “Well, honey, I know it looks like a mouse but it’s actually not it’s something else called a hamster,” and she said, “no, it’s a mouse.” And then I was like, “honey, if you look--see it doesn’t really have a tail? That’s because it’s not a mouse. Mice have long tails—this here has a short tail and it’s called a hamster.” And Arden got realy quiet, and she really thought about it. And then she said, “Why does the mouse have a short tail?” And that’s the point where I gave up.

See what was happening is that Arden had a category in her mind for a small furry animal—a small furry animal is called a mouse. And this is the way that we all think and learn—we learn in categories and patterns and models, and sometimes these are called paradigms. A paradigm is just a pattern of something, or a box that we’ve created that helps us make sense of the world around us. But the problem for Arden, and for us, is that sometimes we run into something that doesn’t really fit into the boxes that we’ve set up in our minds. And when this happens, a part of our learning and growth is having these “paradigm shifts” where we learn that the world is more complex than we thought.

We all, for better or for worse, have these boxes that our minds create, these paradigms. And when it comes to matters of faith, whether you’re a Christian or not, you have an idea of who God is and what He’s like. You have an idea of what the Church is and what it means to follow Jesus. And just like Arden learned some new information that challenged her, we also need to be willing to have our paradigms changed so that they can reflect what’s really there. And that is what our passage today will do for us if we will let it.

What we’re going to read today is in a lot of ways a troubling passage that raises a lot of questions for people. Some of the commentaries I read said that this is the most difficult passage in all the New Testament for Christians. Happy Father’s Day! We’re tough—we can handle it.

But I want to invite you to lean into what God says today. Because when we come to a text like this one, there’s a temptation to keep it at arms length because it’s difficult to understand. We want to insist on our box because that feels more safe, more comfortable. And in America, what we want is exactly that: A God who makes us feel safe. A God who makes us feel comfortable. And we focus so much on a certain image we have of God that at times we can blind ourselves to things that challenge that sense of safety and comfort.

And that’s why we need to come back to the Scriptures. That’s why we preach the Bible. Because when we see the move of God happening in Acts, and when we look at what God has revealed to us about Himself, if we will let it, the move of God will challenge our paradigms. And rather than us taking a red pen to Scripture, this morning we need to allow Scripture to take a red pen to us.

PASSAGE SET UP

Last time I preached we were looking at the beginning of Acts three, and up until that point we saw that things were going really well in the early Church. But then when we come to Acts four, and we find that there begins to be some opposition to God’s move. After healing the lame beggar, Peter and John are thrown into jail and threatened by the religious leaders. There’s this outside pressure to stop talking about Jesus. And yet the Church continues to grow.

And then as we turn to Acts five, we go from seeing opposition to God’s move from the outside, to seeing opposition to God’s move from the inside. For the first time in Church history, things start to go wrong. And that takes the form of sin within the Church community. And as things go wrong, we’re going to find two things—our main two points. First, we’re going to see that sin stands in opposition to God’s move; and then we’re going to see that God’s move confronts sin among His people. So with all that in mind, would you find Acts 5:1-11, and once you have it, stand with me to honor the reading of the Word of God. Let’s read together.

Acts 5:1–11 (NIV)

Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property. 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.

Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied just to human beings but to God.”

When Ananias heard this, he fell down and died. And great fear seized all who heard what had happened. Then some young men came forward, wrapped up his body, and carried him out and buried him.

About three hours later his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. Peter asked her, “Tell me, is this the price you and Ananias got for the land?”

“Yes,” she said, “that is the price.”

Peter said to her, “How could you conspire to test the Spirit of the Lord? Listen! The feet of the men who buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out also.”

At that moment she fell down at his feet and died. Then the young men came in and, finding her dead, carried her out and buried her beside her husband. Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events.

This is the Word of the Lord. You may be seated.

As we get into the text, I want to break it down for us into three pieces. The first piece is to look at just what Ananias and Sapphira did, and at their confrontation with Peter. The second piece is to look at how God responded in ending their lives. And the third is to look at the impact it had on the Church, and to ask how we can respond today. And all along the way I’m going to point out things that should challenge some of the paradigms we tend to have about God and His move.

POINT ONE

So if we look back at verse one of our text, notice that Luke writes, “a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property.” What this is indicating is that this story didn’t happen in isolation. There was something else going on here that informs how we understand what happened with Ananias and Sapphira. So if we look back at what comes just before Acts 5, we read another one of these summary statements about the Church growing, and it says Acts 4:32–37,

“All the believers were one in heart and mind… And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need. Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas (which means “son of encouragement”), sold a field he owned and brought the money and put it at the apostles’ feet.”

So the sense that we get from the context is that Ananias and Sapphira were a part of the early Christian community, and they saw others like Barnabas laying money at the apostles’ feet, and the recognition that they were getting, and they wanted to give it a try. They were after the praise and the reputation.

And so just like Barnabas, Ananias sells a piece of property, but then we read that unlike Barnabas he “kept back a part of the money for himself...” And yet, notice that the sin that Peter confronts them with is not keeping the money back. If we look down a couple verses, the sin is lying to the Holy Spirit. Their sin was a LIE, but it was a LIE that was intended to make them look good before God and His people. Their goal wasn’t to help the poor, or to build up the church, or to glorify God; their goal was effectively to buy their way in to being seen as godly people. This means that it was not just deceit, but a kind of pharasaical, hypocritical deceit. So this was the sin of Ananias and Sapphira: they were trying to build their own kingdom, to make much of themselves, to give themselves glory, to gain a reputation, and they were doing it through deception and through hypocrisy. And as a result, they have this confrontation with Peter where he asks them a series of questions.

But before we look at these questions that Peter asks them, I want to point out something else we see in these first couple verses. Notice with me that, even though both Ananias and his wife are guilty, that it says that “he kept back part of the money for himself.” What this is reflecting is that, in the Greek, all of these verbs in verses one and two are singular, which means that Ananias is the one who is taking the lead. He is the one who sold the property. He’s the one who kept back part of the money. He’s the one who brought it to the assembly. He’s the one who publically laid it at the apostles’ feet. We’ve already read that Satan was the one influencing them, and yet that doesn’t take away Ananias’ choice in the matter. So what we see is that Ananias and Sapphira were following Satan’s influence, but Ananias’ leadership.

And as I reflected on this, and on it being Father’s Day, I was reminded of just how profound of an impact the leadership of men in the home can be. There are tons of studies available today that demonstrate the impact of dads in their homes and on their children—both for better and for worse. And for the men in the room, this should be both a challenge and an encouragement. The challenge here for dads today is to ask yourself, “Where am I leading my family?” Even if you think you’ve given up that leadership, and even if you’re refusing to acknowledge it, that choice is having more of an impact than you likely realize. Your children are taking cues from you about what is important, and about what is acceptable. How are you leading them? And the encouragement is this: With the influence, we have an opportunity to lead toward death, or to lead toward life. Ananias made decisions that led his family down a path of destruction. But there’s another example in Acts 16 of a father, who was a jailer in Philippi, who came to Christ and led his entire household toward life. So my encouragement to you is this: As men, we need to take responsibility for the spiritual temperature in our families.

And within the family of faith, that’s what we see Peter doing next. Ananias comes and brings a large sum of money, and lays it at the apostles’ feet, and as he does, Peter apparently is given insight into what’s going on, and he has a choice to make. Does Peter keep quiet and accept the generous donation, and allow sin to go unnoticed, or does he take responsibility for the spiritual temperature and address the problem? And what we see is that he chooses to confront Ananias. And in the end of this confrontation, he says, “What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied just to human beings but to God.”

When they went through with this decision, Peter says that they were not just trying to pull a fast one on the Church, but on the God who was so powerfully at work in the Church. This is the big problem: Ananias and Sapphira were not just trying to build their own kingdom; they were challenging God’s kingdom. In verse 9, Peter says to Sapphira “How could you conspire to test the Spirit of the Lord?” The idea is not that they were quizzing God, but that they are seeing how far God would tolerate their sin. And in doing so, Ananias and Sapphira were provoking God to see how far they could go in building their own kingdom before God stepped in.

And so if there’s one thing I want you to see in the example of Ananias and Sapphira, it’s this: they dramatically underestimate the gravity of sin. They thought that they could get away with it. They thought that sin could be their secret. They thought that they would have time to work it out. They thought that it wouldn’t be a big deal. They thought that they could be a part of God’s move and still build their own kingdom on the side.

And we get caught up in this same line of thinking all the time. We’re quick to lean on the fact that, “God will just forgive me.” What’s the big deal! Yea it might be wrong, but who is it hurting? I’ll deal with it later. And if we’re honest, there’s a part of us that wants a God who will just sweep sin under the rug and let us do what we want. [[But the God of the Bible loves us too much to leave us to our own devices.]] God sees sin taking us toward a cliff and He’s unwilling to let us go over. He’s unwilling to allow it to run rampant in His Church. [[But we fail to see this and so we make light of sin.]]

So often we can fall into treating sin like it is a trivial, acceptable thing, not remembering that the reality of sin is what cost Jesus His life. If we for one second need a reminder of the cost of sin, all we need to do is look at the cross. There was an ultimate price that was paid to deal with sin, and that price was the life of the Son of God.

There was a time when I was graduating from High School that I considered going to Moody Bible Institute because they offered tuition at no cost to students. But what always struck me is that they wouldn’t say that it was tuition free; they would say that their tuition was paid for. They wanted to constantly remind their students that someone had to sacrifice so that the cost was not leveraged to their account. And the same thing is true for our salvation. Salvation isn’t free; salvation was paid for at the highest price.

This is why there is no such thing as “Cheap Grace.” Because the price of grace was the blood of the spotless lamb of God. And so the first thing that this story can help us see today is that we need a paradigm shift in the way that we think about sin. We need to shift away from thinking that sin is a trivial, acceptable thing. Anania and Sapphira died because of their sin, and we would do well to remember that there is a gravity to sin that we often fail to realize. And if God would let us feel the full weight of sin, it would crush us. This is the weight that did crush Jesus in the Garden, and that He carried in His body on the cross.

And when we expect that we can live however we want, that we can game the system, that we can be a part of the move while building our own kingdom, that we can keep sin a secret, it’s like hopping in a car and speeding toward a cliff. At the last second we believe that God’s grace will catch us, but fail to realize the gravity of what’s happening. It’s tragic. It’s foolish. And as we see in the case of our story, it provokes God.

POINT TWO

That’s what I want to turn to and look at next.And as we’ve read, we see how God responds. God confronts sin among His people. Both Ananias and Sapphira, when confronted with their sin, immediently fall down and breath their last. Their life is over, and it leaves us with so many questions. What’s going on here with God’s response? It seems so harsh, and so judgmental! Why would God do this?

Now, some are quick to point out that the text doesn’t come out and say that God struck them dead, and that’s true. But the impact that it has on the Church makes it clear that there was nothing normal or coincidental about their deaths. The understanding of the Church was that they had provoked God, and it cost them their lives.

And while this is unlike anything else we’re used to in the New Testament, I do want to recognize that this is far from the only time we see something like this play out in Scripture. There are plenty of times in Scripture when sin cost people their lives. In Joshua 7, a man named Achan who took some of the spoils from Jericho, “keeping back for himself” some of the things that had been set apart for God. In the end, he was killed along with his family. In Leviticus 10 we read that Aaron’s sons are serving as priests in the tabernacle, and it says “they offered unauthorized fire before the LORD, contrary to his command. So fire came out from the presence of the LORD and consumed them, and they died before the LORD” (vv. 1-2). And there’s a third example in 2 Samuel 6, where a man named Uzzah reaches up and touches the Ark of the Covenant, and it says in verse 7, “the LORD’s anger burned against Uzzah because of his irreverent act; therefore God struck him down, and he died there beside the ark of God.”

And if we’re honest, these are some of our least favorite spots in the Bible. We’d like to just skip past them in our devotions because really, we aren’t sure where to place them. [[They mess with our paradigms.]]

See, we tend to view God as entirely loving, and to distance ourselves from His justice and wrath. And that’s the paradigm that causes us to ask questions like: How could God do such a thing? How is it fair to these people? Why does God’s move seem so abrupt and harsh? If God is all about love, why would He strike people dead? It just doesn’t make any sense to us!

But what these questions reveal is that, in the same way that we underestimate the gravity of sin, we also dramatically underestimate the holiness of God. In all these stories, that is the one common thread: We are seeing what happens when sinful people come into the presence of a holy God. In Joshua, God was with Israel, protecting them on their way to the promised land when Achan stole what had been set apart. In Leviticus, the priests were entering into the holy of holies, the place where God’s presence was dwelling at that time, and disobeying his command. In 2 Samuel, the Ark of the Covenant was full of the presence of God. And here in Acts, the same Holy Spirit that was dwelling in the holy of holies was now moving powerfully in the Church, and in each case, the outcome is the same.

And so what we are faced with is these [[two realities]]: On the one hand, we know that God loves people. The Scriptures testify to this over and over and over again. In 1 John 4:8, it even goes as far as to say that “God is love!” Love is essential to God’s character! When God gives His name in the Old Testament, He calls Himself, “The LORD, the LORD, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love” (Exodus 34:6-7).

But on the other hand, we see very clearly that as a part of His holiness, God hates sin. Sin is consumed in His presence by His holiness. This is why Isaiah, when he is in the presence of God, cries out “woe to me! I am ruined!” It’s because he knows that he is a sinful man in the presence of a holy God. And I know that that’s strong language, but this is also deeply biblical language. This week in our daily devotions we read through Proverbs 6, and in this chapter it says, “There are six things the Lord hates, seven that are detestable to him,” and then it lists different kinds of sin.

And so we know that God loves people, and we see that God hates sin, and we try to hold these two things together, but we can’t see how they fit. And we get to a text like ours and it causes us to ask, “How could God be acting in love when He is judging sin?”

And as I was talking with a friend over the weekend, I realized that this is the same question that we ask all the time of dads. When I was a kid, when my dad would punish me, there were times when I would ask the same thing. And I remember getting so frustrated, and yelling at him, and telling him, “I know you hate me!” But as a dad, now I realize that this couldn’t be further from the truth.

My son Nathanael has this bad habit where as soon as you set him down he heads immediately for the nearest thing that will kill him. Especially when we’re outside, he has a magnetic attraction to roads and cliffs. And if I were just to ignore this behavior, if I were just to let it slide without correcting him, you all would wonder whether I really love my son! To fail to correct his behavior would be to neglect my responsibility as a Father.

As a dad, I don’t choose between punishing my children and loving them; rather, I punish them because I love them. And we read in the Scriptures, the same is true of God: God “disciplines the one he loves, and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son” (Hebrews 12:6 ).

So the reality is this: God’s hatred toward sin is not arbitrary; and His love toward us is not weak. Rather, God hates sin because God loves people! God hates sin not like an angry judge who is anxious to give a death sentence, but like a loving Father who deeply cares for His children.

And because He cares for His children, He also seeks to destroy sin and root it out because of what it does to the ones He loves. So not only does He punish sin, but He hates sin like a husband watching his bride waste away hates the cancer that has invaded her body. His anger burns toward sin because His love burns for His creation! And this is what caused Jesus to go to the cross! God chose the cross so that He could preserve His character, AND pursue His people—so that God could be just, (not sweeping sin under the rug, not pretending that it’s no big deal) AND the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus (Rom 3:26). And so just like it says in Romans 12:9, “Love must be sincere. And a part of love being sincere is that we Hate what is evil.”

So the second paradigm shift we need to make is from believing that God is ONLY love, that He is only comforting, and tame, and weak, to remembering that God is ALSO holy, and that His anger burns toward sin.

And one of my favorite illustrations of this shift comes from The Chronicles of Narnia, in which C.S. Lewis depicts Jesus as a Lion named Aslan. And when the main characters of the book realize that Aslan is a lion, they get concerned. Is it really a good idea to draw near to a Lion? And so they ask Mr. Beaver is Aslan is safe. And in response, Mr. Beaver says...

"Safe?... Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you.”

And throughout the story, you get these different scenes where the children are able to be with Aslan, and to ride on His back, to laugh with Him, wrestle with Him, and cry with Him. And yet they never lose sight of the fact that he’s a lion. And what this image does so perfectly for us is that it helps us to understand the response of the Church in our text. We read in verse 5 that, after Ananias died, “great fear siezed all who heard what happened.” And after Sapphira dies, we read that great fear comes over the Church. Luke repeats the idea to make it clear: fear is the appropriate response of sinful people to the move of a holy God.

But for most of us, once again, this messes with our paradigm. We sing songs about drawing near to God, and wanting to be close to Him. But the key is to remember that [[it’s not one or the other.]] Like it says in Hebrews 12:28–29, “let us be thankful, and so worship God (drawing near to Him, seeking intimacy, but doing so) acceptably (not in terror, but) with reverence and awe, for our “God is a consuming fire.”” So often we want to cut right to the comfort of his mane, and to the warmth of His embrace. And yet when we make the short cut, we lose the reverence that comes from being in the presence of the king. There is a very real danger in becoming overly familiar with a holy God—and even though we’re invited to draw near, riding on the back of the lion should never become routine for us. What we need to remember is that the consuming fire that provides the warmth of His presence is same the consuming fire that burns against sin.

***

[[So]] in the midst of all the questions, we need to be challenged to remember the gravity of sin, and to remember the holiness of God. But there’s [[one more paradigm shift]] that I want to talk about before we wrap up today. Because so often we can find ourselves reading a passage like this and still asking the question, "Why?” Why weren't they given a chance to repent? "Why them? Why did they receive judgement." And in the end, the passage doesn’t give us an answer.

[[But]] when we ask that question, what we’re really asking is whether God is just in responding the way He did. And even though we don’t know exactly why things happened this way, what specific reason God had, we need to remember that God is justified in requiring their lives, because as we read in Romans 6:23, “the wages of sin is death.” And this means that, at the end of the day, Ananias and Sapphira are an image of exactly what every single one of us deserves because of sin. And I believe that recognizing that fact is what caused the Church to be filled with the fear of the Lord in our passage.

And as we come close to the end of our time together, I would submit to you that there was no one in that room who understood this fact better than [[Peter]]. Notice that Peter never once wished death upon Ananias and Sapphira. He didn’t curse them; He pled with them. Because Peter knows what it’s like to lie to God. He knows what it’s like to deny the Jesus that He loves. Just like every single one of us, Peter had failed His savior. And as we close our time, I want to read you part of a poem by John Piper that presents this account through Peter’s eyes as he sat up all night beside the graves of Ananias and Sapphira:

All through the night, he cringed and saw the men First carry Ananias to The grave, and then Sapphira, through The fading light of day—like two Limp flowers cut from where they grew, And tossed away. But then, as day Began to break, and night gave way To early morning gray, a sound Pierced Peter's mind, and turned around The way he saw the world. A bird, A rooster’s crow. And when he heard The voice of this old friend, the night Came back to him when he, in spite Of all his boasts, fell like a leaf Before a breeze, and his belief Denied. "I do not know the man!" He said. "Oh, yes, you're from his clan." The servants of the priest declared. "We've seen you with him. You're just scared To tell the truth." "I do not know The man," he said again. "You show That you're from Galilee by how You speak." And so he took a vow And, with a curse, said one more time, "I do not know this man." The crime That he committed in those lies, Now rose, before his weary eyes, A thousand times more heinous than Sapphira's lies, or of the man Who put her to it. Peter sat There trembling, weak, and stunned now at The difference. "Lord, why?" he cried? "My sin is worse. Three times I lied While you were suffering for me. I do not know why this should be: That they should die and I should live, Or how you wrath and mercy give." He lifted up his hands and said, "O Lord, why did I not drop dead?"

And then the Lord replied, "It's true, My friend, your sin was worse, and you Deserved the charge of wrath Far more than these two here. Your path Led straight to hell, and if I would Have let you go, no power could Have kept you from the flames. I did Not owe you this, nor is it hid From open sight that you, my friend, Are saved by grace.

Do not make war Against my freedom, Peter. All That I have ever done to call And carry you is free. Receive This gift and tremble as you grieve Beside these graves. If it were not For grace, this would have been your lot. They fell before your feet depraved, That you might know how you were saved.”

CONCLUSION

See, the truth is that, because of sin, and in light of the holiness of God, we “SHOULD” live our lives in fear of God's judgment. That's what we deserve. That's what we’re owed. That's what we've earned. And if God were going to dole out perfect justice, we would all be buried in a shallow grave.

And so with Peter in this poem, we should shift from asking “why them” to asking “why not me?” WHY DO I GET TO LIVE? Rather than being confused by God’s justice toward sin, we should be moved to awe at His grace toward a sinner like me.

See, the fact of the matter is that Ananias and Sapphira are the exception in God’s work in the world and not the rule. And this is a testament to the fact that the God we serve is not eager to cast judgment, waiting for us to fail. Rather, the truth of Gospel is that God delights in showing mercy. That “you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked… and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—it is by grace you have been saved” (Eph 2:1-5 ESV).

And so because of Christ, we can learn live not in fear of God’s judgment, but in awe of God’s grace.

So as we move on from today, I want you to remember the [[gravity of sin,]] and to remember the [[holiness of God.]] Because the truth is that our appreciation and awe at grace will only ever be as deep as our understanding of sin and holiness. We were buried beneath our rebellion. We were lost and without hope of redemption. AND OUR ONLY HOPE is this: That even though our sins are many, His mercy is more! And so what we need is not to minimize sin and holiness, but to have a greater and greater appreciation for God’s unmerited, undeserved grace.

And that’s my prayer for all of us this morning.