MISAPPROPRIATED FAITH

#774                                       MISAPPROPRIATED FAITH

Scripture  Acts 5:1-16, NIV                                                                                   Orig. 2/10/1980

Passage: 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 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 just to human beings 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 some 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 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.”  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.

The Apostles Heal Many

12 The apostles performed many signs and wonders among the people. And all the believers used to meet together in Solomon’s Colonnade. 13 No one else dared join them, even though they were highly regarded by the people. 14 Nevertheless, more and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number. 15 As a result, people brought the sick into the streets and laid them on beds and mats so that at least Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them as he passed by. 16 Crowds gathered also from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing their sick and those tormented by impure spirits, and all of them were healed.

Purpose: To speak yet again from the book of Acts to the needs of my people relative to the stature of the early believers in their responses of faith.

Keywords:                  Bible Study                 Honesty                      Deceit             Faith

Timeline/Series:         Acts

Introduction

            How often do we read  of some person who has risen to a position of trust in his company, who suddenly, without apparent reason, disappears?  His superiors immediately order all financial records to be scrutinized, and more often than not, they discover disorders in the books.  It isn’t long until the entire picture forms all to clearly.  It all started slowly.  A few dollars here.  A stock certificate there.  Then it became necessary to rearrange larger blocks of debits to cover his prior thievery, and to continue to do what has become an insatiable appetite.  Finally, the day comes when he is aware that he can no longer cover his fraud.  He then takes everything that is not nailed down and leaves; sometimes, even his family doesn’t even know what has happened.

            There are a lot of words that define this—thievery, fraud, misappropriated funds, stealing—and they all describe not only an event, but also the state of this person’s mentality.  If he is a so-called “religious person,” then it also shows the utter hypocrisy of his religion.

            It regrettably does happen. [Ex.] Carnes $909,461.  It happened on the level of the SBC back in the 20’s, and a million dollars was stolen.  It happens to churches all too often.  Ann’s uncle told the story of a store owner up in the foothills of the Ozarks.  “He took all our  money.”  “We found him over in Memphis and we brought him back over here and he’s gonna hav’ta preach it out!”

            The sin of Ananias and Sapphira was on a similar vein.  Though it was their own property that was involved, they chose to attempt deceit, and thereby gain for themselves.  They wanted the praise and the acclaim, without the loss of the goods.

            Actually, their sin is more that of “misappropriated faith.”  They are pretending to be something spiritual that they are not.  Maybe that is a good place to begin and end in our message tonight.  Are there ways that we may be misappropriating faith?

I.          For the First Time, We Have to Chase Through the Church’s Dirty Laundry.  V1, And a certain man, Ananias, with Sapphira, his wife, sold a property, appropriated from the price, and brought a certain part of it and placed it at the feet of the apostles.

            It is interesting to compare this misdeed with the prior deed of Barnabas.  The word for the holding itself was different.  Barnabas sold a field—agrou. Ananias sold property, ktēma.  It is the same word used in 2:45 when this commonality of goods is first mentioned.  Both use the same word for “sold,” pōlēsas.  Both place the money at the “feet of the apostles.”  It was for Barnabas, complete surrender.  For Ananias and Sapphira, it was subterfuge.  They wanted to be taken for something they were not.

            It is also interesting to note that our composite picture of the early church begins to change.  Up to now the image of the has been so inspiring:  The prayerful, unified days of meditation; the rapturous moment of empowering; the faithfulness of the leaders and the followers to be true to their calling; the love that was generated for each other and for those outside the faith; the readiness for sacrifice, for the Lord, for each other.             

            The Bible never pretends  to gloss over the humanity of its subjects.  Moses  didn’t make it into the promised land. David was shown in many quarters to be a worldly man.  The thing with Judas is still on their minds.  They will have strong words over John Mark.  Demas will forsake them.

            It is important that this event be aired for its public good.  The Christian must have an innate sense of oughtness about positive faith.  James 4:17, To him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, it is sin.  Matthew 23:3, They say, and do not.  Matthew 25:45, . . . Inasmuch as ye did it not unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye did it not unto me.  We must also know the wrong, and carefully avoid.  Matthew 5:16, Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.  Ephesians 2:10, For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works.

II.         Then We Must Consider the Application of the Cleaning Agent.  V3, Ananias, why  hath Satan filled thy heart, to lie to the Holy Ghost?  . . . Thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God.    

            They, first of all, knew that something was wrong, and through the Holy Spirit, they knew what it was.  Whether this was revealed directly through the Spirit, whether it was reported by some trustworthy person and confirmed by the Holy Spirit, we, of course, do not know.  How often do w in our own human failings stand too ready, too often to believe the worst about someone?  It is as if we choose to administer their judgment.

            It was important that the Administrant of  that punishment be the Holy Spirit.  Simon did not wish or will these people dead.  I suspect that he was as shocked by this turn of events as everyone else.

            Wasn’t this counterproductive to the work of ministry in the early church?  Satan had been unsuccessful in external attacks he chooses to resort to within the family.  Boldness has set the pattern for events.  Pentecost was a “bold” empowering of church.  Healing was a “bold” expression of God’s presence with them.  As far as sin is concerned, the early believers were walking on tiptoe.  Satan did not do this.  God did not will it to  happen.  The burden of a man’s guilt was too much.  Then, the burden of associated guilt, and sudden grief, were too much for the wife.  God allowed it because, again, in the boldness of such an event, the church would be deeply stirred.

            Personal prestige, and human honor and acclaim, was a cancer that could not be allowed to fester in the organism of the early church.  How sensitive to sin are we?  Are we not rather looking away from ourselves to blame others for our struggling faith?  What would happen in our lives if God allowed such a “bold” display of judgment?

            Interesting article in February National Geographic.  Are we creating “superbugs”?  They are becoming immune to our poisons.  Too many Christians are immune to the idea of their own sin and judgment. 

III.       We Then Have Cause to See How this Has Benefited Rather Than Beset the Early Church.  V12, And by the hands of the apostles were many signs and wonders wrought among the people; . . . they were all with one accord.

            We are given, in these few short verses, an abbreviated view of the early church.  The word we use to translate “church” is first used in Acts, here in the 11th verse.  It is the first occasion of identification of the human instrument through which God would choose to continue His work of redemption.

            Jesus twice uses this term in Matthew 16:18 and 18:17, but his hearers could only identify it with the assemblies of the Jews at synagogue and Temple.  In Acts 2:47 “the Lord added daily”  (o kyrios prosetithei kath’ hēmeran).

            We discover where the church met:  Solomon’s Porch has already been mentioned (Acts 3:11), and the temple courts (Acts 2:46).  It tells us how the church met:  They met out in the open where people would take note of them; they were not one day a week believers.  It tells us that the early  church was extremely effective in its labors:  There were bold miracles taking place, but  no  miracle is as significant as when the lives of people are changed.

            We also observe the immediate results of this divine surgery: The purity of the church was preserved—not an institutional entity in Jerusalem, but the people of God.  A wholesome, godly fear pervaded the group—not only the church, the born-again believers, but also the seekers.  New power was experienced in the lives of the believers—v14, . . . believers were the more added . . . both men and women. (Simon’s shadow did not heal.)

            The church grows in the immediacy of its ministry.  We, as the people of God, are either engaged in ministry or we are not.  Ministry is not something that occurs when we “hit the jackpot” by having a paid staff that gets the lemons all lined  up in a row.  It is what we do as a matter of course because we are believers.