The Importance of Being Earnest - Acts 4:32-5:11

© April 13th, 2025 by Rev. Rick Goettsche SERIES: Acts

In 1895, the famed playwright Oscar Wilde wrote a play entitled "The Importance of Being Earnest”. The play focused on two men who both pretended to be someone they were not in order to woo the young women in whom they were interested. Humorously, both assume the name Ernest for their deceptions. The play, as you might imagine, deals with the drama that comes from these men’s deception, with eventually them both learning that deception doesn’t pay off—and they learn the importance of being earnest, even if it means not being Ernest.

Our passage this morning has a similar focus. The last several weeks in our study of Acts have taken us through the saga of Peter and John at the temple. They healed the man born lame, preached in the temple, were arrested, then returned to their church family, who prayed together that God would help them to remain faithful. Today we shift to an account of what was happening within this body of believers. We get a glimpse of the early church, a clear picture of what genuine generosity looks like, and a serious pitfall we must strive to avoid as Christians.

The Perfect Church

Many people imagine the church in Acts as the perfect church, the ideal to which we should strive. Much of what we see in Acts should serve as an example to follow, but it would be a mistake to say they were perfect. Nonetheless, they did many things right.

32 All the believers were united in heart and mind. And they felt that what they owned was not their own, so they shared everything they had. 33 The apostles testified powerfully to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and God’s great blessing was upon them all. 34 There were no needy people among them, because those who owned land or houses would sell them 35 and bring the money to the apostles to give to those in need. (Acts 4:32-35, NLT)

There are three things we see about the early church in these verses. First, they were united in heart and mind. Churches often talk about the importance of unity and working together, but often we pursue unity as an end itself. The church in Acts was not unified because they were striving for unity, they were unified because they were all seeking the same thing!

Many believe unity comes from agreeing on everything, having the same interests, being at the same stage of life, being of a similar socio-economic status, or having similar political views. But biblical unity transcends all these things. Biblical unity comes from a shared focus on living out the commands of Christ in our world. As such, we don’t have to agree on everything (the early church did not) to be unified in our purpose of pointing others to Jesus and seeking to be obedient to Him personally. If we keep our focus there, we will find a supernatural unity.

Second, they remained focused on evangelism. The disciples continued to preach about the resurrection. This was the primary focus of the church. If we aren’t careful, we can become so enamored with building our own little kingdoms that we lose sight of our primary task, which is to tell others about Jesus. Churches should certainly be concerned with those inside our walls, but we should not let that distract us from our primary task, which is to reach those outside them with the message of the gospel.

Third, they cared for one another’s needs. We touched on the believers’ sharing of possessions earlier in Acts. They sought to provide for those in the church who were in need. Their generosity was motivated by caring for those around them and recognizing that what they had was not their own. As such, everyone who had needs had them met.

No one required people to give their property or possessions to the church. People did so willingly. Similarly, people did not seem to expect that others would provide for their needs, and thus did not need to work. On the contrary, the principle in the church from an early time was, “If you will not work, you shall not eat.” The church sought to make sure everyone was taken care of. Not everyone had the same amount, but everyone was provided for.

A Positive Example

In talking about this kind of generosity, Luke gives us two examples. The first is a positive example, and the second is negative. We find the positive example in vv. 36-37.

36 For instance, there was Joseph, the one the apostles nicknamed Barnabas (which means “Son of Encouragement”). He was from the tribe of Levi and came from the island of Cyprus. 37 He sold a field he owned and brought the money to the apostles. (Acts 4:36-37, NLT)

Luke introduces us to one of the people who sold property and gave the money to the apostles. We are told his name was Joseph, but he was nicknamed Barnabas by the apostles, which meant Son of Encouragement. Barnabas shows up many more times in the book of Acts, and he seems to live up to this nickname quite well.

One of the ways he encouraged others was by his generosity. We are told that Barnabas was a Jew from the tribe of Levi. But he didn’t live in Jerusalem, or even in Israel. He lived in Cyprus, an island in the Mediterranean Sea. He had apparently relocated back to Jerusalem after the resurrection.

We don’t know much about his property situation and why he chose to sell this field. Maybe he did not plan to return home, so he liquidated some of his assets to provide for others. It may also be that he simply realized the field would be more valuable as a way of meeting needs in the church than remaining in his portfolio, so offered the proceeds from its sale to the apostles. Whatever the case, we see in Barnabas true generosity. There is nothing that gives us the sense that he was trying to make a name for himself. He had resources that could be used to help others, so he used them.

Christian generosity is not motivated by a feeling of obligation or a desire to appear spiritual, but gratitude and love. It comes from recognizing that everything we have is not really ours anyway—it belongs to the Lord. We should see our possessions and resources as tools the Lord can use as He sees fit, rather than a means to build a kingdom to ourselves or to make ourselves feel more comfortable.

Many Christian preachers today claim that God’s desire is for each of us to be wealthy, and that if we serve Him faithfully, then He will make us so. But the consistent teaching of the New Testament is about the danger of wealth. It’s not that wealth is inherently evil, but that wealth often causes us to turn inward instead of looking outward. Barnabas seemed to avoid that pitfall.

I’m not saying that every person should sell all their land and give the money to church. But we should learn to view our wealth and resources differently than the world does. Generosity comes from seeing ourselves as stewards of what He has entrusted to us. If we believe the Lord would use our resources in a certain way, that’s how we should use them too! When we learn to think like that, we can have the same kind of generosity as Barnabas.

The Negative Example

After introducing us to Barnabas, and his positive example of generosity, Luke introduces us to the negative example, a couple named Ananias and Sapphira.

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.

7 About three hours later his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. 8 Peter asked her, “Was this the price you and your husband received for your land?” “Yes,” she replied, “that was the price.” 9 And Peter 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.” 10 Instantly, she fell to the floor and died. When the young men came in and saw that she was dead, they carried her out and buried her beside her husband. 11 Great fear gripped the entire church and everyone else who heard what had happened. (Acts 5:1-11, NLT)

Luke contrasts the example of Barnabas with the example of Ananias and Sapphira, who also decided that they would sell some property and give the proceeds to the church. I would like to believe that they didn’t set out to deceive anyone. Maybe they planned to donate all the money, but found it difficult to give up such a large sum once they had it in hand. Whatever the case, we know Ananias and Sapphira agreed to hold back some of the money for themselves but that they would tell everyone they were giving the full amount to the church.

People surely marveled at Barnabas’ gift. For days, people were probably talking about what a generous gift he had given and what a wonderful example he was. Ananias and Sapphira surely wanted to be seen in the same kind of light. They may have feared that if word got out that they held some of the money back, it might cause their gift (and them) to be seen in a lesser light. Their gift represented a significant sacrifice on their part. They didn’t want people to think they weren’t generous because they held some back. So they decided to hide that fact from everyone.

Unfortunately for Ananias, when he came and brought the gift to Peter, he discovered that while he might be able to fool others, he could not fool the Holy Spirit. When he told Peter it was the full amount they had received for the field, Peter knew he was lying. Peter condemned this lie, pointing out that Ananias wasn’t just lying to men, but to God!

Peter didn’t say they should have given the whole amount. That was not the issue. In fact, he said Ananias and Sapphira had the right to do what they wanted with the money. The issue was not that they hadn’t given enough, it was that they had lied to look good.

Judgment was swift. Ananias dropped dead in front of them. The language makes it clear that this wasn’t natural causes; it was God rendering judgment upon Ananias for his sin. Some young men of the church were then tasked with taking his body out and burying it.

Three hours later, Sapphira also showed up to the church (looking for her husband?) Peter asked her if the money they gave was the full amount they got for the field. Remember, she had full knowledge of what her husband had done. She continued with the lie, and said they had given the full amount. Peter informed her that she would meet the same fate as her husband, and that the men who had just returned from burying him would end up doing the same to her. She too dropped dead, a result of divine judgment.

Understandably, the church was abuzz with what had happened, but not in the way Ananias and Sapphira had hoped. Everyone was filled with great fear of God, recognizing He would not overlook such sins.

But why did God kill them? It seems like an overreaction. Here were two people who were doing a good thing, but they lied about it. Isn’t the lie a relatively minor thing in comparison to the good thing they were doing?

We are not much different than Ananias and Sapphira. We imagine that a lie (or a shading of the truth, we might say) is not a big deal. But the Lord’s point is that this kind of deception is a cancer that will grow unchecked unless we act swiftly to remove it. The Lord calls us to be honest with one another, because it is only when we are honest that we can begin to address the problems in our hearts. As long as we try to hide them, we will never deal with them appropriately.

I should point out that we have no reason to believe that Ananias Sapphira were consigned to hell as a result of this sin, merely that their lives were ended because of it. As God was helping the new church to be established, He wanted to communicate a very important message: the people of God must strive for honesty. Ananias and Sapphira were a vivid object lesson that no one could ignore.

Conclusion

So, what are we to learn from this strange passage of scripture? I think there are some very clear lessons.

First, we need to strive for honesty, even if it’s uncomfortable. Ananias and Sapphira’s sin was their deception. They lied because they wanted to appear more righteous than they were. They saw the applause and praise heaped upon Barnabas and wanted people to view them in a similar light. It’s a desire we can all understand.

But, this is what makes this sin so insidious, yet so rampant in the church today. We are so concerned with looking good that we stop being concerned with being good! We would be far better off if we devoted the same amount of time and energy to improving our areas of weakness as we do to finding ways to appear better than we are.

Let me give you some examples of ways we do this.

• We act like prayer warriors, when we actually aren’t. We tell people, “I’ve been praying for you”, when we really haven’t. We claim to be close to God in prayer, but our prayer lives are actually anemic. We would be better served to admit our failures and work to make changes for the better than to pretend to be something we’re not.

• We pretend to be more knowledgeable of the scriptures than we are. I often did this as a child. As a preacher’s kid, I felt I should know the Bible forward and backwards. The problem was that I wasn’t actually reading my Bible. So I pretended to have more knowledge than I did. I remember being at a church event when the youth leader asked if I was familiar with Hezekiah 4:12. He told me to look it up, as he thought I needed to see it. I spent several minutes desperately searching for it to show that I was a good, knowledgeable Christian kid. Of course, I wasn’t fooling him at all. Hezekiah isn’t a book of the Bible. He knew. I didn’t. Be honest about what you don’t know and then work to shore up those areas.

• We misrepresent our service to others. We speak about how we lead a ministry, when we are actually in a support role. We say we are part of a ministry, when in reality, we only helped out one time. We exaggerate our accomplishments, knowing that doing so will cause others to have a higher opinion of us. Be honest about how you serve, and if you feel like you aren’t serving as you should, change how you serve, not how you present yourself.

• We can talk about our generosity in ways that make us look far more generous than we are. This is the same thing Ananias and Sapphira did. We wax eloquently about the importance of tithing, but don’t actually tithe. We want people to see us make a big donation, without them knowing we don’t give regularly, so our “big” gift may actually be less than their regular offerings.

• We pretend we’ve got it all together, when we’re actually struggling. Casting Crowns has a song called “Stained Glass Masquerade” that talks about how we often come into church as “shiny, plastic people”. We are unwilling to admit our struggles for fear of how people will perceive us. The result is that we become a place of hypocrisy rather than healing and progress.

The point is this—we can deceive lots of people. Often, however, our biggest goal is not to deceive others, but ourselves. When we do that, we short-circuit the process of making progress in holiness. Until we are honest with ourselves about what’s really in our hearts, we’ll never see any progress. Honesty is the first step for each of us to becoming the kind of people God wants us to be.

Second, we need to wean our hearts from the things of this world. We place great value on the trinkets of this world. That includes people’s opinions of us, the wealth we amass, the things we buy, and the things we chase. If we want to become generous as the Lord desires, we must learn to see these things in their proper context. We must recognize that these things will not last. What does last are the things of God. We must learn to see that everything we have: our time, our talents, our money, our stuff; all these things should be used in service of the Lord. When we remember we are stewarding His resources, it will change the way we view them, and therefore the way we use them.

Third, we should be unified in our focus. The early church had great unity because they were all aiming at the same thing. They wanted to represent the Lord well in the world and to honor Him in the way they lived their lives. When we fix our eyes on Jesus, we will end up working together, because we’re trying to accomplish the same things. We may not agree on everything, but we’ll recognize that what unites us is far greater than what might divide us. And as we endeavor to serve the Lord as He has called, we will also find grace, patience, and love for those around us.

Finally, recognize we’re all a work in progress. One of the reasons we tend to “fake it till we make it” is because we’re afraid of how others will respond to us. Our goal should be to help each other grow in faith. We once had a church member who was fond of saying that the church should be a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints. He was right! This means we don’t beat people up for admitting their faults—we help people up. We work to help them start on a different, better path. In short, we treat them like we’d hope to be treated when we admit failures. This honesty, care, and grace is what God desires from His church. If we do this, we’ll see great progress in our lives, in our church, and in our world, and we will bring a smile to face of our Lord.

© April 13th, 2025 by Rev. Rick Goettsche SERIES: Acts