1 Acts 5 Will God kill you if you lie about money? The tragic story of Ananias and Saphira The masks we wear I wear a mask. Not these masks (bring in Iron man, batman, Darth Vader, whatever masks I have) This mask I raise it up sometimes, really quickly, so you can get a glimpse of what I tell you is the real me, but even as I raise that mask, there is another one underneath. Because I don t want you to know the real me. I do want you to get glimpses because deep down I know that all of us need to be truly known, but my insecurity, my shame, my desire for approval, my need to keep my job, they all keep me from being truly known. I don t want you to know the depth of my greed I don t want you to know the anger I feel towards so many Christian friends on social media I don t want everyone to know that I love cigars. I don t want you to know some of the things I have seen on the church computers I don t want you to know that I watched the uncut version of Deadpool the week it came out. I don t want you to know how much of my money that I don t give away that I keep for myself I don t want you to know that I watch Parenthood and cry nearly every time I do. Some of these are sins. Outright blatant sinful behaviors. Some of them aren t. Some of them are just shameful like listening to country music or calling golf a sport.
2 But you see what I have done even here? I have let you peek behind the mask. Just a little bit. The mask is still up. I can probably get out of here with much of my integrity still intact. I probably won t lose my job for these things. I basically get to keep my mask up and some of you might even like me better because I said those things. Because I identified with you. And all of you are okay with me not going deeper than that. You are okay with me deceiving you. You are okay, in fact you would be uncomfortable if I went any further. You are okay with me pretending. The truth is, I will probably keep doing it. And I will definitely deny it if you bring it up. I never cry during parenthood. And I hate it. If there is one thing I hate, its fake Christians. I don t mean people who have honest questions and come to church trying to wrestle with them. I don t even mean honest people who blatantly say they will never be Christians and may even be here just to satisfy someone else. I mean either people who aren t Christians but play the Christian game or even Christians, real Christians, who pretend to be something they are not. Who act all holy but aren t. Hypocrites. People who you don t know who they really are People who say they gave $10,000 last week in the offering plate, but they really only gave 2K. I mean, I am impressed with 2K, but they feel the need to pretend to say they gave 10K Hypocrites. Christian hypocrites. People who deceive you into thinking wrong about them. Our passage this morning is totally about that. It s about a Christian man claiming to give everything but lying. It s about a woman who supports him in his lie. And it s about both of them dying because of it. This is a hard stinking passage This is a hard stinking passage. Because it looks like God is striking down Ananias and Saphira for lying. And if that is the case, what the heck? In case you don t know the passage, let me read it. NIV Acts 5:1 Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property. 2 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.
3 3 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? 4 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 to men but to God." 5 When Ananias heard this, he fell down and died. And great fear seized all who heard what had happened. 6 Then the young men came forward, wrapped up his body, and carried him out and buried him. 7 About three hours later his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. 8 Peter asked her, "Tell me, is this the price you and Ananias got for the land?" "Yes," she said, "that is the price." 9 Peter said to her, "How could you agree to test the Spirit of the Lord? Look! The feet of the men who buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out also." 10 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. 11 Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events. (Act 5:1-11 NIV) Now, I don t know about you, but I have some serious theological questions. I mean, it looks like it s a passage about not lying to God and so that will be the take away, but let s be honest here, is God killing them for lying? Does God do that? What the heck God? I mean, I can handle telling you not to wear masks with God, but should I also say, because he might kill you if you do! Is this the God of the Bible? Maybe, for us to understand the rest of the passage, we have to start there. Was God violent? Did he kill people? Is he still violent? Might he kill me for lying? This is huge and I can t do the hundreds of books, podcasts and blog articles justice here, but I don t feel like I can skip it either. Two (not so) obvious statements: Let me make what might seem like a couple of obvious statements: 1. This passage doesn t say that God killed them. Or that Peter did. I know Peter looks mean I think it s the biker look with the little bit of stubble (and look at that guy in the background. Shudder. And they all have tank top togas which is just weird. Except the weird smiling guy in green in
4 the back). In fact, Peter just states that Ananias lied to God and upon that statement, Ananias falls over dead. We don t even know if Peter knew he was going to die. It s a little different with Saphira, he questions her too, obviously aware that there was a lying conspiracy here, and he does seem to know she will die, but nothing about Peter or God killing them. Now this doesn t mean that Peter or God didn t kill them. It just doesn t say that explicitly. 2. The Bible speaks about God in metaphor. I mention this because I know that when you are thinking about the question of whether God is violent or not, you can go to dozens of passages in the Old Testament (and even NT) that portray God as a warrior, as battle hungry almost, and words like the wrath of God haunt you. Or at least they should haunt you. Because it sure seems to be a problem with the loving God we see revealed perfectly in Jesus. That s why I bring up metaphor. Whenever we speak of God we have to speak in metaphor. We are trying to say true statements about him, but we almost can t. Metaphor is inherently deceitful and deceptive (Thomas Hobbs). It has to be. If I say God is a hen with his wings over his chicks, you should probably not think he is really a hen. If I say Jesus is the door, you shouldn t think he is actually a door. Jesus is not a shepherd, he isn t bread, he isn t light, he isn t a lamb, he isn t a rock, he isn t a vinedresser, he isn t even a king on a throne. These are all metaphors to get across a piece of the picture of who he is or what he is like. So, too, the wrath of God. So, be careful. I will quote the Bible all day long telling you that God is a God of wrath, that he punishes sin, that he goes to war, but remember, these are metaphors. See, sin has consequences. The wages of sin is death, exile, separation from God. God doesn t have to physically do something for this to be the result. All God need do, is not intrude. Because he set up the world to run a certain way. Let s say I am a fish. God has set up the world a certain way. If this fish decides to try out life on the land, he will quickly find out that this doesn t work. If I decide to try life out as a bird by jumping off a 50 story building, I will quickly find out that God created the world with gravity and me without wings or hollow bones.
5 If I decide to live the way I want and not the way God wants, I will quickly find out that this leads to death. You might say that God is angry at me. And that he has punished me in each of these situations. Because, after all, he set the world up to run a certain way. But the better way of explaining this, is that God removed his protection. In the Old Testament, this means he allowed the Babylonians to do as they wanted. In the Ananias and Saphira story, this means he decides not to intrude on the natural consequences of those who withhold truth. So, is God violent and wrathful. I don t think he is in the sense that he throws a lightning bolt at a person and kills them. I do understand that there are passages, not this one exactly, but other passages that look a lot more like he is actively involved. That there is divine retribution for sin. I would suggest that this is metaphorical language trying to get at something deeper. See, they didn t believe in mere intrinsic retribution, nor did they believe in merely divine retribution. I know, you have no idea what I am talking about. Intrinsic what comes naturally Divine how God actively moves They didn t need an either/or. For them, it was all the same. If you decide not to cover up the giant well in your back yard and your fall in it and die, it is divine intrinsic retribution. It s both God and the natural consequence. Some Christian scholars don t think this actually happened, but rather was an illustration for a larger point. I don t know, but it surely could be a one-time eschatological intrusion. Eschatological intrusion A one-time experience where God allows true future justice to take place so that the church for all time sees the importance of the sin of hypocrisy. I will get back to that in a second. Now I have to go a step further than this. Whew! Because this story is way bigger than that Choosing the wrong path: the fall of the church This is the creation and fall story. Jesus creates the church through the act of death, resurrection, exaltation and the sending of the Spirit. He organizes the pieces of his new creation and gives them tremendous power. Which way will they go? Will they choose their own path, or will they choose the path of wisdom and God?
6 And here comes the false prophet just as he did in the Eden story. The serpent. Satan. How is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit? Satan is telling you that there is a better way. Not God s way of truth, but our way of self. Our way of lies. Our deceit. That s the better way to win at life. We are supposed to be growing in maturity God s way, as Adam and Eve were, but instead they/we choose the quicker path, the easier path. The path of folly. And as we do, we die. In the day you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you will surely die. And they do, they are cast out of the presence of God and into exile. For them that is death. For Adam and Eve. For Israel because they chose their own path too. And now for Ananias and Saphira notice they were carried off just as Israel was carried off to Babylon. The male and female have eaten the apple, tried to hide from God. Once again, all was created right, and then fell. Jesus chose the right path: the fall of the Christ Can I make a HUGE connection which you may already be making, but I don t want to assume? Remember the ultimate creation of God. (I could nuance what I mean by creation here, but I mean whatever Paul means when he says firstborn over creation) The word made flesh. Jesus. Now this Jesus was given a choice of how to live and he submitted to the will of the father. He chose not to eat the fruit. He chose not to walk the path of folly. Which means his natural consequence, the consequence that comes with living in accord to the principles that God has set up in the world, that consequence is life and that more abundantly. A flourishing beautiful life. One of unity (like Adam and Eve and God, like the people in the early church where it says they were all of one mind and all shared everything they had). The natural consequences, or God s action towards him should have been true life. And instead, God abandons him. He backs off. You could use the language (although I don t like it) that God killed him or that God s anger burned towards him but that would just be a metaphorical way of saying that God let him go. The language of the cross is so similar to what we find throughout the Old Testament. He is cursed There is darkness He is handed over to the Gentiles. All of this is a way of saying that the consequence of not living right, is death (darkness, curse, handed over, etc)
7 Does God kill Jesus on the cross? The reality is that God loved Jesus as they pinned him to the cross. In fact, you could even say that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. That he suffered on the cross. And that he did this because he so loved the world. Because he wanted to reverse the natural consequences of sin. Because he wanted to kill death dead. Because he didn t want you to go through all of that anymore. This is the beauty of the Gospel. What God in Christ did for you. But if he did that, why then do Ananias and Sapphira die after Jesus made it all good? Good question. Because the kingdom is here, but it is not yet. Because the beauty has begun to change things, but it has not finished its work. We are still under the fall. And we still lie to the Spirit. If God doesn t plan on killing me, then what s the point of the passage? I don t think God is going to strike you down because of your lies. Because of your masks. If this was a normal occurrence, then this church would be a lot smaller. I know I would have been taken out years ago. But I think this passage is here for a purpose. It ends letting us know that great fear came upon them all. I can t help but go to proverbs, which I still maintain is a picture of the Genesis choice two roads, two decisions and the right road, the right decision is the fear of the Lord. Now this passage in Acts doesn t say they feared the Lord, it just says they feared. But remember the way intrinsic divine retribution works. (What? We already talked about that. Both divine and natural working together) They were afraid of the consequences of sin which they understood as divinely wrought. So if they feared, they were fearing the Lord. There was a new respect. And the masks drop. Notice what happens in verse 13, no one else dared join them, even though they were highly regarded by the people. This doesn t mean no one became a Christian, because the very next verse says nevertheless, more and more men and women believe in the lord and were added to their number. It seems it can only mean that those who signed up were pretty serious. They weren t Christians in name only, they were deeply transformed by Jesus. Transformed so they were selling pieces of property and giving it to the disciples and making sure that everyone had everything they needed and more.
8 In other words, they dropped their hypocrisy. They no longer said they were doing one thing, but were really doing another. I wonder... What masks are you wearing? What mask are you wearing? I see three groups of people here today. (Actually dozens of in between categories too, but hear me out). 1. The first are Christians. Barnabas Christians. Generous, loving, honest, mature Christians. Those who are walking the path of wisdom and therefore life and not of foolishness and therefore death. Generally, you are truthful and live life in the open. 2. The next group are non-christians. You don t know Jesus and you are okay admitting it. You aren t playing a game here, you are here because you have questions. You don t dislike this Jesus guy, but you don t know if you are ready for a full commitment. But there is no pretense in this area. I mean, of course you wear some masks too, but you aren t claiming any position of holiness. 3. Then there is this group of people who are pretenders. You have been baptized, you give something in the plate each week, you have a ministry, but maybe you don t really know Jesus. You haven t been transformed. So you are always wearing a mask. You aren t growing, you don t seek out your own people, you don t find rest in worship or peace in this life. A word to Christians Let me say a word to the Christians. I think God loves you a lot. I don t know if Ananias and Sapphira fit into your category or not, but I think you have something to learn from them. My guess is that even Barnabas had some masks he wore. I don t know, but I know you and I know you wear masks. Can I challenge you? Maybe Giving is a good area to push you in since that does seem to be the problem for Ananias and Sapphira. Maybe you have turned money into an idol as they have. Maybe you say that if God would just give you a million dollars, you would give a huge portion to the church? Its silly isn t it, that you think you will move from greed to generosity if you just have more money. And maybe you forget that he has given you a huge amount your house or two, your few vacations a year, your retirement package. You know you are supposed to give, that was made clear when you became a member here. And we don t limit you to 10%, but we strongly encourage at least that much. And we emphasize it a lot in the class and in person. So much so that one couple here waited almost a year to become a
9 member because they didn t think they were ready spiritually to give that much. I kind of assume that all of you members are giving at least a tenth. Are you being dishonest? Are you allowing us to think you are giving that much, when in reality you are giving less? Because that sounds like Ananias and Sapphira to me. Of course, it s not just money that we lie about, but money is a good indicator of our true heart. And even us good upstanding, mostly truthful Christians have Satan whispering in our ears. The deceit is small, but it s there. It s the fall story. We are by nature deceivers. Sometimes its small The fish was this big I pray for you everyday I give an awful lot My ministry at the church really takes a long time All to Jesus I surrender, all to him I freely give. Really? Praise God for grace. Because its grace that allows us to shed our mask sometimes. Its grace that allows us, despite our pretending that we don t like Game of Thrones and Orange is the New Black, and despite our enjoyment over hearing that that that person got theirs, and despite drinking way too much cola but only drinking water with friends, despite hiding the cigarettes when your Christian friends are around, despite posting to facebook about your faithfulness to your wife while enjoying whatever youtube smut you can find, despite fudging the numbers just a little for the IRS, its grace that, despite all of this, calls us home. Its grace that reminds us that Jesus still loves us and forgives us. A word to pretenders But here is my fear. My fear is that some of us here have presumed too much. You may have Come to faith 20 years ago and are counting on that moment to see you through. But your life is a constant deception. You are holier than thou sometimes, but deep down you have not experienced God s transforming power. What does God think about you? First, I think you need to know that he loves you too. But directly connected to that, you need to be called to repent. To change. To allow yourself to be transformed by the beauty of the gospel. Because right now you are walking a path of death. I don t want to temper this much, because this passage has two pretenders(?) dropping dead. Please hear the warning about your future. And you are really hurting our testimony. Your hypocrisy is damaging the church and needs to be killed. I am not saying you need to be killed, I am saying your hypocrisy does. Just as mine does. And it needs to be killed by the Spirit of God working within you. And that won t happen unless you confess, repent and follow him. Now is the time A word to non-christians
10 And a word to those of you in this last category Honest but skeptical. Can I tell you that God loves you too? Even with all your doubts. He holds out his hand and says come. He says look at me. In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, rise up and walk. Cease your doubting and come. Be renewed. I am praying for this church. That we will truly understand the fear of God. That we will understand the warning here That the Holy Spirit will transform us. That we will have our number added to. That we will eschew the path of death that comes when we walk in dishonesty and that we will cling to the path of life that comes when we put forward the true human self, asking God to re-form it, so it looks more and more like him. I think he is doing something. I think our church can be overcome with a proper fear of God and a proper understanding of kingdom life. I that we can become the transformative model in Poolesville. Modelling what it means to be huge sinners, open and honest, and pointing people to the only true hope Jesus the Christ