Last
Sunday, we began to shift our focus from Peter and John’s being persecuted by
the Sanhedrin to looking more at the formulation of the Church itself. We saw that after the deliverance of Peter
and John from before the Sanhedrin, the group of believers gathered there in
Jerusalem began to worship and work as a Church ought to. We talked about how they prayed with such
force and that the Holy Spirit was so alive and at work within their worship
that the walls of the building where they were gathered began to shake. We noted that there wasn’t fear for their
lives in that moment, but unified worship of God. We also looked at how various people within this
community and religious group were bringing money to the apostles so that it
could be used to care for the poor. We
saw that even those who were wealthy enough to own houses or land sold them in
order to give the proceeds to the apostles.
We were even told specifically about a man named Barnabas (yes, the same
Barnabas mentioned by Paul later on in his epistles) who sold a field and gave
every bit of the proceeds to apostles, laying it at their feet.
In
fact, as our text closed last Sunday, we might have thought that we were
looking at a picture of the perfect church.
Well, the truth of the matter is that there is not, nor has there ever
been, such a church. There is no such
thing as a perfect church outside of heaven.
Charles Spurgeon once said to some members of his church who informed
him that they were leaving in pursuit of a perfect church, “If I had never
joined a Church till I had found one that was perfect, I would never have
joined one at all! And the moment I did join it, if I had found one, I should
have spoiled it, for it would not have been a perfect Church after I had become
a member of it.” Even Spurgeon was well
aware that there was no such thing as a perfect earthly church. Well, the church in Jerusalem was no
different. Just because it was the first
church (as it is labeled in the final verse of our text), led by the apostles,
full of miracles and healings, and came about relatively soon after Jesus’
resurrection, ascension, and Pentecost, it still wasn’t a perfect church. In fact, a church can never be perfect
because it is comprised of fallen men and women; and that fact is present in
the early church here in Jerusalem with the examples of Ananias and Sapphira. Although it is worth noting that they weren’t
the only examples of sin within this church, but just the ones found here in
our text for today.
When
we look at the story of Ananias and Sapphira, it’s a story of the effects of
sin on believers. And we have to
understand that fact first and foremost, that this husband and wife were very
much believers in Jesus Christ and dedicated members of his church and this
family of believers gathered in Jerusalem.
However, they fell victim to a laundry list of sins, some of which we
will point out, but some of which we will not for our purposes today. The first sin, perhaps, that they fell into
was that of jealousy or envy. Now, there
isn’t specific Scriptural evidence for this, but I would imagine based on the
way in which Luke shifts the narrative so drastically from Barnabas’ giving to
Ananias and Sapphira’s story that they were seeing the great praise that was
being given to those who were selling their land and giving all the money to
the apostles. They became jealous of
folks like Barnabas perhaps. Who
knows? Maybe they weren’t jealous at all. Maybe they started out by saying that they
were going to sell their land and give all the proceeds to the apostles. Either way, it is at the very least highly
plausible that the sin of want and envy and jealousy had crept into their hearts
and minds.
Whatever
their motives for selling their property might have been, it isn’t as if their
only sin was rooted in their reason for selling their land. We read that Ananias, with Sapphira’s full
knowledge (a statement that we will see as extremely important in the overall
narrative in just a moment) withheld a portion of the proceeds from the sale of
the land. Who knows why he withheld a
portion of his money. Maybe it was
personal greed or insecurity. Maybe it
was just that he didn’t want to give it all away. In honesty, Ananias was perfectly within his
rights to do so. It wasn’t as if he was
commanded to give everything he had to God.
The issue here isn’t the amount given to the Lord, but the lie about
what was given. We’re never even told
exactly how much he withheld; it may have only been a small portion of what he
sold his land for. Peter even
acknowledges that it is Ananias’ right to give to God whatever he chooses since
it was his to give in the first place.
The problem was that Ananias laid his money at the apostles’ feet as if
it was the entirety of his proceeds.
Instead of just admitting that what he had given was only a part of his
money, Ananias claimed to be following the example of those like Barnabas. However, what he was doing was lying. He lied to the Holy Spirit; he lied God. As Peter rebuked him, “You have not lied to men but to
God.” This is the root of the
sin here and the reason that we see God deal so harshly with both Ananias and
Sapphira in this account.
God
dealt with them by taking their lives, first Ananias and then Sapphira. This is why that phrase “and with his wife’s knowledge”
is so crucial to our understanding of Sapphira’s punishment. She was just as complicit in Ananias’ sin as
he was. Let this serve as an example and
warning to all of us that knowingly allowing sin to take place is equally as
offensive to God as the sin itself. The
blame and punishment placed upon Sapphira is a mirror image of that which fell
upon Ananias. Now, it’s here where I
think that I need to clarify one thing before moving on to the ultimate theme
behind this whole text. Yes, God took
their earthly lives as punishment, but nowhere in our text does it say that
they were thrown into hell. Nowhere does
it say that He turned His back to them and forsook them. One of the 5 points of Calvinism, a set of
beliefs by which we adhere to in various amounts, is known as perseverance of
the saints. In essence, this doctrine
teaches that those whom God has called into communion with Himself will
continue in faith until the end. In terms of Ananias and Sapphira, it
isn’t as if God became so infuriated with them that He cast them aside. Know that there is a great difference between
the ending of one’s earthly life and their being cast into hell.
So
the question that we probably want to ultimately ask is why. Why did God punish Ananias and Sapphira for
their sins by taking their lives? We
have read about and could name numerous biblical figures that did things that
seemed much worse without nearly as severe a punishment. The first one that comes to most people’s
mind when thinking about sin is David.
David committed adultery and his life wasn’t taken. However, we need to remember that his son,
the product of his adultery, did die as a result of his and Bathsheba’s
sin. There were other figures in the Old
Testament who God struck down immediately:
Nadab, Abihu, and Uzzah. What is
the meaning and reasoning behind the taking of Ananias and Sapphira’s lives for
something that seems somewhat trivial. God
took the earthly lives of Ananias and Sapphira to prove something, to teach
something to the first church there in Jerusalem. “And great fear came upon the whole church
and upon all who heard of these things.” God punished them so because He wanted His
church to understand the severity of sin.
He wanted them to see that as His chosen people, that sin, no matter how
seemingly insignificant, harmless, or personal, is just as grave as those
things like murder, adultery, and heresy.
This is the first time in the New Testament that the Greek word εκκλεσια
(ekklesia), which means church, is
used. I don’t think it’s any coincidence
that as God’s Church is sort of officially being instituted, that the first
thing He would choose to do is to teach them about the severity of sin.
Friends,
we’ve all seen what sin can do to our lives and the lives of those whom we
love. We’ve all seen how sin can cause
of strong marriage to crumble into adultery and die. We’ve all seen how sin can take a person of
great character and faith and lead them down a path that we could have never
imagined. It’s no mystery why God would
want to start out at the very beginning of the establishment of His Church by
teaching us about the severity of sin. Sin
is a force that separates us from the glory and love of God. Sin is the force that tries to entice us by
telling us that our earthly and fleshly desires are just as important, if not
greater than, our obedience to God. Sin
is a slippery slope, a slippery path to destruction. Sin takes many shapes and many forms. We must recognize it, identify it, and kill
it as quick as we can. God wants us to
be in communion with Him. However, He
knows that the only thing in this world that can really pull us away from His
communion is the presence of Sin within our lives. Each and every one of us need to pray without
ceasing that God would give us the strength to overcome Sin in our lives. We need God’s help to overcome Sin so that we
may dwelling in His presence forever and ever.
Don’t misunderstand or underestimate Sin, but remember that God has the
power to overcome whatever Sin places in our way. Glory be to God; in the name of the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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