Acts 5 - The Norm

Intro

We’ve learned a few things in our study through Acts so far, haven’t we?

The Holy Spirit came

And we immediately saw the effects of that with the apostles preaching to people of many different nations

God was working through them

And the believers were all together in one mind, one spirit, giving generously to each other

And they were taking the “work” God was doing, and were spreading the good news of Jesus Christ

We saw about the lame man being healed, and how that wasn’t the greatest miracle, but the greatest miracle was God healing man’s sin problem

And then we’ve also seen the persecution start to set in against the apostles, where we looked at Peter and John, and how they refused to back down

Why? They knew who God was, and they understood it, and their hope rested in that, and nothing else

Let me be honest with you....

I’m very burdened for you guys tonight, and so I ask that you will give me your full undivided attention as we look at this passage.

What’s Happening

So, when we left off in chapter 4, I mentioned briefly a man named Joseph, who was also called Barnabas.

Now this guy, had sold a field that he had owned, and had brought the entire amount of money and laid it at the apostles feet to distribute among the body of believers as needed

This practice had become very common among the believers as we’ll read.

They valued Christ above everything else, and they loved others as they loved themselves, and so they were giving what they had, selling property they owned, and giving it to the church for distribution.

What a radical idea right? How many people would even entertain the idea of doing this nowadays?

Maybe when we die, but not while we are alive

But Barnabas, whom we will come back to in a couple of minutes, had sold a field that belonged to him, and brought it all before the apostles.

And so, we come to the story of Ananias & Sapphira, two members of the church, who as we are going to read, sold a piece of property as well.

Read -11

So, here’s the first thing we need to realize from the church in Acts, and the thing you need to ask yourself tonight:

When you fall in love with Jesus, you fall out of love with worldly ambitions, you fall out of love with the love of money, and you fall out of love with selfishness and pride.

When you fall in love with Jesus, you fall in love with Him and with each other

Verse 32 tells us that.

One way that is demonstrated is how the believers acted.

This is kind of one of the themes we see from Luke’s Gospel.

But Matthew as well, teaches you cannot serve both God and money.

Teaches this idea that God becomes our supreme treasure.

And so we read this story of Ananias and Sapphira, and we at the surface level can walk away and miss the point.

The point of this story is not this:

“Well, they were killed because they kept some money back for themselves.”

Yes, that’s partially true, but the true sin is that they lied about what they were bringing

And that’s the deepest sin, and that’s what we’re going to look at tonight

And so I want you to ask yourself, are you guilty of lying about what you are bringing before the Lord?

Voluntary Giving

Ananias & Sapphira, we have no reason to think they weren’t a vibrant part of the church.

And so they would have seen this radical giving mentality that their friends would have been engaged in.

We’re not really told much about them

But what we do know is they were part of a church body that was extremely selfless and extremely giving....BECAUSE THEY WANTED TO BE

The people in the church were not required to give a certain amount of money each week

They weren’t required to sell excess property and give the money

They weren’t required to live on a certain amount of money and give the rest away.

This isn’t socialism

Look at verse 4 with me where Peter is talking to Ananias, “ 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.”

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

And so what I see happening here is this desire inside Ananias & Sapphira to give like everyone else, but at the same time, this internal struggle to hold on to the things and comforts of this world

And you guys, I’m going to be really really honest with you all tonight:

I see this very same struggle in many of your lives, and I fear for you and I pray for you often that you will let go of the things of this world.

Sure, your struggles are not in regards to selling a piece of property that you own.

But in regards to letting go of the world and giving all of yourself to Christ, there are a majority of you who aren’t doing that.

I see this battle going on in your lives where you are trying to keep a foot in both worlds, and I worry that you haven’t experienced true freedom in Christ, that you haven’t experienced salvation.

And here’s why......True faith brings Freedom

But when you come to faith in Christ, you are freed from the offers of this world.

There is a parable in Matthew (13:44) that talks about a man who finds a treasure buried in a field. And when he finds it, he goes and sells everything he has and buys that field, so he can have that treasure.

This is a picture of us with Christ

If you, if I, truly find Christ, then everything else should lose it’s value, we should be willing, we should be happily willing to give up everything else to have Christ!!!

Deceiving Themselves

Now listen to me carefully, if this is you, you are deceiving yourself, just like Ananias & Sapphira were deceiving themselves!

Read verse 1 & 2

Ananias

Can you picture this with me. Here is Ananias, he just made the sale, and is holding all of this money in his hands

And they convince themselves

And he and his wife, decide that they would only bring part of the money to the apostles, and that they would testify that this was how much they got from the property they sold

I mean, that’s what everyone else is doing, isn’t it? They’re all bringing the entire proceeds before the apostles, so Ananias and Sapphira had to follow suit, they had to be like the other Christians.

And so, they were going to fool people, and maybe they did fool some people, until they got to Peter.

Isn’t this us, isn’t this you sometimes? We judge ourselves based on Christians around us, and we just try to make it look like we are doing the right thing.

Or maybe he didn’t, maybe it was always in his mind to hold on to some of it

And can you see Ananias walking up to Peter, laying the money down, and feeling good about himself.

You know, “I’m a good Christian, I did this.”

Again, we are very good at this, aren’t we?

Peter

And Peter already knows what is going on, how, we’re not sure, but it’s most likely by way of God through the Holy Spirit.

Read verse 3-6

And the outcome is Ananias dies

Sapphira

Peter actually asks her this time, “Did you sell the property for x amount of money?”

And she responds, yes, that’s exactly right

And, she dies as well

Our Deception

Alright, let’s get real

Some of you are sitting here tonight, probably quite a few of you, and you are guilty of bringing only part of yourselves to God, and you think you’re getting away with it, you think you can fool people and God.

You think you can fool me and the leaders, and maybe you can, but I’m pretty sure you aren’t. We see this deep apathy in a lot of you.

Like, even just looking at your faces, there doesn’t seem to be much interest in this book every week that we open it.

And when I ask questions, hardly anyone seems interested in learning

Here are some other ways that I see this playing out in this very room:

Most of you claim faith, but you’re still in bondage:

To sports, to work and extracurricular school activities, to our phones and social media, to video games and t.v. and movies

1. Sports

Now, don’t get me wrong here, because I love sports, and I played sports all through high school.

But, how is it acceptable to God to say we value Him above everything else, and yet, our daily lives and our daily schedule revolves around a sport instead of around God?

Why does God (via our personal devotional life, via our church attendance), why does He always take a back seat to a sports schedule?

We’re chasing this fame, this look at me, this feel good factor from an ultimately pointless game

I’m telling you right now, my kids won’t miss

2. Work/Extracurricular Commitments

The same can be said when it comes to these things.

Again, why is God always the first thing to take a backseat?

I know I sound like an old fuddy duddy, but we treat God like he’s optional, and if we can fit him into our schedule then we’re doing something good for Him.

If we bring part of ourselves, and hold some of it back, that’s still good enough.

3. Social Media

One of the greatest time wasters in our life is the time we spend on social media. And one of the greatest proofs that we have placed ourselves at the center of our world, and not God, is social media. And one of the greatest causes of sin in our lives is social media.

We spend so much time on all of these platforms, but we come to church, and we sing songs like Lead me to the Cross where we sing, “Lead me to the cross, where your love poured out, Bring me to my knees, Lord I lay me down, Rid me of myself I belong to you.”

And some of you, while I’m up here speaking, are on social media?

How is that ridding you of yourself and saying Lord I belong to you, when we don’t even respect the opening of His Word?

How are you laying yourself down, when we spend hours creating these posts and seeing how many likes we can get, or how long a streak we can keep.

These things are complete crap, if I’m totally honest with you.

And then the things we are actually posting on social media, are bold faced exclamations that we are holding onto the things of this world, and ourselves. Or they are things that you wouldn’t want me, the leaders, or your parents to see.

You think no one knows, or no one that would say anything, like me, or your parents, as long as you fool them, you’re fine.

4. Video Games/T.V./Movies

How many hours do you spend in this virtual reality, pursuing the “achievement” that comes from winning a game, in comparison to how much time we spend with God in our devotional life.

How many hours do we spend watching t.v. or movies that more often than not are full of sexual immorality, full of self-glorification, and full of defaming God himself?

Don’t tell me you don’t have time for God. We waste so much of it on pointless trivial virtual reality.

The Truth

Here’s the truth, one day we will stand before, not Peter, but before God, and He, just like Peter, is already going to know our hearts. He’s going to know what our intentions were, he’s going to know where our focus was.

This book is full of passages that speak to this very issue.

- Many will say, Lord, Lord…did I not do....

- “To me they cry, “My God, we - Israel - know you.” Israel has spurned the good, the enemy shall pursue Him.

And the list can go on and on

You guys are living this comfortable, apathetic, fake Christianity, and one day you will answer for what you did with Jesus Christ

And so I beg with you all tonight, to really, honestly, look at your life and find out if you are an Ananias and Sapphira, or if you’re like Barnabas

“Well, Pastor Derek, I come to church” - congrats

“I read my Bible when I can” - good job

“I sometimes try to tell people something about God” - way to go

That’s not the question I’m asking

The question is, have you found true freedom of faith in your life?

Is your life free of all these worldly distractions, and is God the priority in your day to day life?

Because if it is, you’ll be like Barnabas.

And, without spoiling the story of Acts, Barnabas is a man who will play quite a role in the spreading of the gospel out from Jerusalem.

Barnabas was a man who experienced true freedom from the world and lived a life that was all about Christ.