Review:
Hypocrisy: Just Don't Do It.
- Hypocrisy is a Serious sin. (Acts 5:1-2)
- Hypocrisy always gets Found out. (Acts 5:3-4)
- Hypocrisy will be Dealt with. (Acts 5:5-10)
- We must All be deadly serious about hypocrisy. (Acts 5:11)
Review Matthew 6:2
Review Numbers 32:33
Review 1 Peter 4:17 | 1 Cor 5:11-13 | 1 Cor 11:30 | 1 John 5:16
Review 1 Tim 5:12 | Prov 28:13
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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00:00-00:04
Open up your Bibles with me please to the book of Acts.
00:06-00:07
In chapter 5.
00:09-00:16
Today in this passage we're going to see an extremely memorable day at church.
00:17-00:18
And I was thinking about this.
00:20-00:26
I have been a part of some very memorable church services where some crazy things have happened.
00:28-00:38
My former church, I used to go to different places to preach, whether it was the jail in which we're still involved or different senior citizen housing.
00:38-00:43
One in particular was this home called Classy Country.
00:43-00:45
It was out towards Shakora.
00:46-00:49
And I think that they set me up to fail.
00:50-01:54
They asked me to come to Classy Country speak on a Friday at one o'clock and they put me in this room there's this community room where all the residents would come in and there would sit in these very big fluffy comfortable couches and chairs and there was a TV and they would ask me to come and literally they put a podium right in front of the TV and they want me to preach to these people and I get up and start to speak and I could see everybody like... So I went to the people that ran, the nurses, the staff, said, "Can we turn the TV off? It's a little distracting." You know, I imagine you would be distracted if I'm trying to preach now, and Family Feud was on the screen. Well, the other problem, and having a service in such a facility at 1 o'clock is they had just got done eating lunch.
01:55-01:58
This isn't an age thing because it's the same thing for me too.
02:00-02:04
But when I'm done eating lunch, I get a little drowsy.
02:06-02:06
Anybody else?
02:08-02:17
And if I get done eating lunch and you put me on a big fluffy couch and turn the TV on, guess what I'm going to probably do?
02:18-02:21
I remember the one day I was doing...
02:22-02:24
This is what you call humility in ministry.
02:26-02:31
I was doing the service, and I'm up there, and I had this great message.
02:31-02:32
I'm sure it was a great message.
02:32-02:39
And I'm preaching, and I'm preaching, and I'm about 5-10 minutes into the message, and I look up, and suddenly it hit me.
02:41-02:45
Every single person in the room was asleep.
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about 20 residents there without exception.
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And I don't mean like catching themselves.
02:53-02:57
I mean heads back, mouth open, snoring.
02:58-03:00
Literally every single resident in the place.
03:01-03:06
So I-- at the time, no joke, I said, well, that's-- we're just going to close there.
03:06-03:09
And I remember, see you next time.
03:09-03:13
And just kind of closed my Bible very quietly and walked away.
03:14-03:23
So being an entrepreneur, I just started charging them for my services of putting residents to sleep.
03:25-03:31
One time, no joke, same place, just got there, just ready to start speaking, when one of the nurses came.
03:32-03:33
And she's like, hey, I need to talk to you.
03:33-03:35
And I'm like, church is about to start.
03:35-03:36
She's like, it's really important.
03:38-03:40
OK, what is it?
03:40-04:00
She goes, "I don't want to alarm you, but there's a scabies outbreak here." She says, "All the residents have it and all the staff." I'm like, "And this could not have been communicated in a phone call." To this day, that was the shortest sermon that I've ever preached.
04:02-04:05
I just got up and I'm like, "Jesus loves you, and amen.
04:06-04:07
Read your Bibles and pray.
04:07-04:09
I'll see you next month." I was out of there.
04:10-04:22
And I went home and I took a scalding shower and Aaron said, "That's not going to help if you've got scabies." And I said, "But it's making me feel better." I could go on and on.
04:22-04:27
There were some very memorable services that I had been a part of.
04:29-04:32
Nothing compared to what we see in Acts 5.
04:33-04:44
Remember last week when we were in Acts 4, closed with this commentary on the life of the church, I saw the early church had this unity because it was so unselfish.
04:45-04:52
And chapter 4 closes with the example of Barnabas who was encouraging and who was giving.
04:52-04:54
And then we get to Acts 5.
04:54-04:56
What's the first word of your Bible?
04:56-04:56
What's it say?
04:57-05:02
Acts 5.1 says, "But..." Does your Bible say "but"?
05:02-05:04
That means there's a contrast here.
05:04-05:18
It's like Barnabas, he was so encouraging and he was so giving So we're going to see a sharp contrast here that not everybody in the church was a Barnabas.
05:19-05:24
So let's look at the text, then we're going to go back and pick up some principles.
05:24-05:36
Sometimes we walk through the text together, but I want to read the whole thing today first, because I want to get the flow of the story before we make some applications.
05:36-05:42
It says, "But a man named Ananias, who was a man of great wisdom, with his wife, Sapphira, sold a piece of property.
05:44-05:54
And with his wife's knowledge, he kept back for himself some of the proceeds and brought only a part of it and laid it at the apostles' feet." Very important.
05:55-05:57
We saw Acts 4.35.
05:59-06:01
That's what the early church was doing.
06:01-06:10
In order to meet needs, they would sell houses or lands or whatever they could sell, and they would bring the money and they would give it to the leaders of the church.
06:10-06:28
And that's what's happening here with the exception, this man again, verse 2, "with his wife's knowledge sold a piece of property but only brought some of the proceeds." It says he kept some for himself.
06:30-06:40
"Peter said, 'Ananias, why has Satan You have spilled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land.
06:43-06:45
While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own?
06:46-06:49
And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal?
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Why is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart?
06:54-06:56
You have not lied to men, but to God.
06:58-07:03
When Ananias heard these words, fell down and breathed his last.
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And great fear came upon all who heard of it.
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The young men rose, wrapped him up, carried him out, buried him.
07:19-07:27
Verse 7 says, "After an interval of about three hours, his wife came in not knowing what had happened." Okay, so here comes the fire.
07:27-07:28
Hey guys, what's up?
07:29-07:30
What's going on? What's going on?
07:32-07:50
"And Peter said to her, 'Tell me whether you sold the land for so much?' And she said, 'Yes, for so much.' Peter said to her, 'How is it that you have agreed together to test the Spirit of the Lord?
07:50-08:01
Behold, the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door and they will carry you out.' and immediately she fell down at His feet and breathed her last.
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When the young men came in, they found her dead, and they carried her out and buried her beside her husband.
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And great fear came upon the whole church and upon all who heard these things." That was a wild day at church.
08:21-08:25
And on your outline, very simply, you have one of these outlines.
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Let's break some things down.
08:29-08:30
Hypocrisy.
08:32-08:34
Just don't do it.
08:36-08:37
Let's break the text down.
08:38-08:39
Number one, jot this down.
08:39-08:41
Number one, hypocrisy is a serious sin.
08:45-08:46
Hypocrisy is a serious sin.
08:46-08:48
Again, this is what's happening in the passage.
08:48-08:50
"Yan and Isaac set fire to this husband and wife.
08:50-08:58
They conspired together." Okay, we're going to sell this property, We're only going to bring some of the money.
08:59-09:01
Everybody was selling and bringing all the money.
09:02-09:03
They're like, you know what?
09:04-09:05
We'll sell it.
09:06-09:08
We'll pocket some of the money.
09:08-09:09
We'll bring the rest.
09:11-09:12
Nobody's going to know any different.
09:13-09:14
But understand this, church.
09:14-09:16
I don't want you to misunderstand what's happening.
09:16-09:21
The issue was not that they kept some of the money for themselves.
09:22-09:23
That was not the issue.
09:25-09:28
New Testament giving, as we said before, New Testament giving is voluntary.
09:30-09:32
This was the early church.
09:32-09:33
This wasn't the mob.
09:34-09:36
This was voluntary giving.
09:36-09:37
That wasn't the problem.
09:38-09:41
The problem is obvious from the text.
09:41-09:44
The problem is they were lying about it.
09:44-09:53
They were making people think that they were giving it all, that they were actually keeping some for themselves.
09:53-09:55
The issue was hypocrisy.
09:56-09:57
What is hypocrisy?
09:58-10:00
Hypocrisy is just very simply this.
10:00-10:02
It's pretending to be something that you aren't.
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It's pretending to be something that you aren't.
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And it's obvious from the flow of the text.
10:08-10:09
This is the issue.
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Barnabas sold, gave, and everybody's like, "Barnabas is great!" Ananias and Sapphira are like, "Hmm, you know, I would like people to think that I am great." "Sweetheart, wouldn't you like people to think that you are great?" "We have something we can sell, but we could also use some money." So they decided to put on a show.
10:38-10:40
Their lying was the issue.
10:42-10:45
And Jesus actually warned about hypocrisy and giving.
10:45-10:47
Matthew 6, verse 2.
10:47-10:58
Jesus said, "When you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others.
10:59-11:11
Truly I say to you, they have received their reward." Jesus said some people when they give, it's not because they care about the needy, it's because they care about their reputation.
11:12-11:15
And they metaphorically are sounding a trumpet before them.
11:15-11:21
You know, "Brrp, brrp, brrp, brrp, brrp, brrp, brrp, I'm about to give!" Everybody have your applause ready.
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Is this about giving because you care about people?
11:28-11:32
Or is this about giving because you want people to care about you?
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Jesus said when you do that, you're being a hypocrite because everybody thinks it's about the giving when it's about yourself. So why would Ananias and Sapphira do this conspiracy? Obviously they wanted the kudos, they wanted the acclaim, they wanted the recognition, they wanted the church to think they brought it all when they didn't. We'll get credit and we'll get profit at the same time. The issue here, church, is the deceit. The issue The issue wasn't that they kept some of the money.
12:10-12:26
And hear this, the issue wasn't even that a sin occurred in the church, because sin is going to happen in the church, but there is a difference between confessing a sin and being a hypocrite.
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There's a difference between, "Look, I sinned. I did something wrong," versus I did something wrong and I'm going to lie about it.
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And the difference is heart attitude, and it boils down to two words.
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You're either repentant or you're unrepentant.
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That's it.
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You're going to sin. You're going to sin.
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Why? Because you still live in this fallen flesh.
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You and I are going to sin.
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The issue is, are you willing to confess and repent and deal with it, or are you going to lie about it and be a hypocrite?
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Because you see, we can, as a church, as leaders, elders, we can address and minister to you through any sin. Whether you're dealing with lust or pride or anger or whatever sin, we can deal with any sin. But the one sin that we can't work with you on is the sin of hypocrisy. Because if you're unwilling to own up to your own sin, there's really not much the church can do to address it. So what do we do at Harvest Bible Chapel? Understand that we have tried and we have worked so hard to to create a culture where we can safely deal with sin.
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We've tried to create a culture where you have opportunity to come clean and to deal with sin.
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If you're part of a small group, that's what breakout time - where men and women separate.
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That way we can confess sins to one another and pray for one another as the Bible instructs us to do.
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It's a safe place.
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We have vaguest rules.
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We're talking about in breakout time, stays in breakout time.
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And we confess our sins.
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Hey guys, I need you to pray for me.
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I need help because I'm struggling with this.
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And we are very honest with each other.
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The point is we're dealing with it.
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Also, up front, after every service, we have elders and people from our prayer team that will be glad to pray with you and deal with whatever it is you need dealt with.
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There are opportunities here.
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Do you have any areas of hypocrisy in your life right now?
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Right now, do you have a secret sin that you are refusing to deal with?
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Instead, you've been covering it up.
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Because according to this passage, and we're going to see as we march through here a little more, that pretending only makes it worse.
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Sin - bad.
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Trying to cover it up, Hypocrisy always gets found out.
15:33-15:39
Again, verse 3 and 4, "Peter immediately, Ananias, why has Satan killed your hearts in light of the Holy Spirit?
15:41-15:47
And keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land." How did Peter know that?
15:47-16:06
that. It had to have been spiritually discerned. That's the only thing I can think of. I don't think he looked him up on Google or you know he didn't get on their Facebook page. Ann and I's had this Facebook page like about their you know about the line of the church BRB LOL. It wasn't that.
16:09-17:11
Somehow the Holy Spirit revealed that to him. Spiritual discernment that Peter knew. With everybody else doing it, Heater knew that this couple was up to something and he knew very specifically what it was. But I want you to notice in verse 4, Heater says, "Why did you do it? I know what you did." But verse 4, Heater says, "Why did you even do it? Because it is completely unnecessary." That's why the question is, he says, "While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own and after it was sold was it not at your disposal?" He says, "It was yours as land, it was yours as money, it was yours to do with whatever you wanted to do with, so why did you lie about it? It doesn't make any sense." He says, "Why is it that you've contrived this deed in your heart?" He said, "And here it is, you've not lied to men but to God. You thought you were walking in lying to people, you're lying to God.
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And He's taking it very seriously.
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At Harvest Bible Chapel, you've heard me preach this before, but we are simply trying to be authentic.
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We can't be perfect because our sin prevents that, but we can be authentic.
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Nothing prevents that.
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So why do we hide sin?
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Why would we hide it?
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Well, it's pretty obvious some of the reasons.
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Shame, embarrassment, fear of consequences.
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What would people do?
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What would people say if they found out what's really going on in my heart?
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Fear of what people will think.
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As the leadership of the church, as the small group, are they going to think less of me?
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If they know that I'm struggling with this sin.
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Sometimes people want to hide their sin because they think they're the only one dealing with it.
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I've got this problem happening in my life with lust or with envy or whatever it is and I can't really confess that because I'm probably the only person here that's really dealing with it.
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Or in this passage, another reason that people hide sin is because they want other people to think that you're something that you're not.
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I want people to think that I'm something that I'm not.
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Hypocrisy is an affront to God.
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Right now, if you're hiding something, I may not know about it.
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The elders may not know about it.
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Your small group may not know about it.
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Guys, your wife might not even know what you're hiding.
18:57-19:02
But I guarantee you, there is someone who knows what you're hiding, and it's God Himself.
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God had said in Numbers 32, 23, "Be sure your sin will find you out." It's going to happen.
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You may get away with it for a week.
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You may get away with it for a month.
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You may get away with it for a year.
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But God's going to make sure eventually this thing that you're trying to hide is going to get found out.
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You're like, "Well, how does that happen?
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this week, do I have an example where somebody was hiding a sin and it was revealed?
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I had to stop thinking of examples.
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I have dozens of them.
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Crazy things.
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I have multiple stories of people who meant to send a message or an email or a text to somebody else, And it ended up going to the pastor.
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That's happened to me.
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I go, "We need to talk." I had a lady one time, I ran into her at the hospital.
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She laughs about it now, it wasn't funny at the time.
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I ran into her at the hospital.
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I was up visiting somebody, and she was up visiting somebody else.
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I just ran into her in the hospital.
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And she's like, "Hey Pastor Jeff, it's good to see you.
20:25-20:30
I'm just really struggling with this drug addiction right now." As soon as she said that, she turned white as a ghost.
20:31-20:36
She said, "Why did I just say that?" And I said, "You tell me.
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Maybe the Lord was wanting you to reveal this thing that you've kept hidden for years." One of the craziest stories, we had a guy whose marriage was on the rocks The elders had met with the man's wife.
20:55-20:57
This was at another church.
20:57-20:58
The elders had met with the man's wife.
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And then the man, the husband, came to the elders in tears.
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"I just want to save my marriage." The elders said, "Well, there are talks that there's an affair going on.
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Do you have a girlfriend?
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Do you have somebody else?" "Oh, no, no, no. Absolutely not.
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Absolutely not. I don't." Right after that meeting, shortly after, several days after that meeting, wouldn't you know it, a teenage girl in our church was at a restaurant, just happened to be the same place this man and his girlfriend were.
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What's your point? The point is you're going to get found out.
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You're going to get found out. So this thing you think you're hiding, you're not hiding it from God. Do you think, after we went through this Isaiah series, Do you think God lacks the power and sovereignty to reveal your sin?
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I just gave you several examples.
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I could keep you here for the rest of the afternoon and give you several more.
21:58-22:00
He's going to let it be known.
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Why?
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Because God doesn't deal in the hypocrite business.
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God says, "Yeah, let's be sincere, let's be authentic, but we've got to at least confess it and deal with it." Then the healing can happen.
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You're not going to get away with it.
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God will sovereignly make sure of that.
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If you have a secret sin in your life, it's not too late today.
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I would encourage you to come clean before God exposes you, because you will be found out.
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Thirdly, hypocrisy will be dealt with.
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Hypocrisy will be dealt with.
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That's something we see in this story.
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That's probably the most graphic thing we see in this story.
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Ananias and Sapphira lied.
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Peter called them on it.
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God executed the discipline.
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Interestingly, Peter even gave Sapphira a chance to repent.
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When she came in, Peter said, "Tell me whether you sold the land for so much?" And she said, "Yeah, for so much." Peter was giving her a chance.
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Like, look, your husband just lied about this.
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You're going to lie about it?
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And she did.
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But hypocrisy will be dealt with.
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in Canaanites and Sapphira, God may choose to deal with it directly.
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And the ultimate form of discipline is death - even for sinning believers.
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You can jot these references down.
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1 Corinthians 11.
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Verse 30.
23:38-23:40
1 John 5.16.
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Sometimes God disciplines His people with death.
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I can tell you a story about that sometime.
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When God disciplines a believer with death, He doesn't take their salvation away.
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They're still saved.
23:57-23:59
He takes them out of the earth.
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Their salvation isn't in question.
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However, God says I'm not going to allow you I'll take it back." So the question comes up, "What about Ananias and Sapphira?
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Were they believers?
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Were these people believers?" And I studied that a lot this week and I absolutely believe that they were.
24:28-24:30
Let me tell you why I believe that they were believers.
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The passage says that they lied to the Holy Spirit.
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And that's not a phrase that would apply to an unbeliever.
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An unbeliever doesn't lie to the Holy Spirit.
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doesn't have dealings with the Holy Spirits.
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And really, it's the point of the whole passage.
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This passage isn't about unbelievers can do wicked things.
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Like yeah, everybody knows that.
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The world acts like the world.
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That's not the point of the passage.
24:56-25:01
The point of the passage is God isn't keen on His people staining the church.
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In the flow of the text, we've been talking about the church, the congregation, the members of the church, and it just flows right into this.
25:10-25:13
I don't see any designation that they weren't believers.
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It seems that they were.
25:19-25:21
So God can deal with hypocrisy.
25:23-25:28
But also, God has called church leaders to deal with sin in the church.
25:29-25:36
1 Peter 4:17 - I wonder if Peter was thinking about this instance when he wrote this.
25:36-25:41
Peter said, "For it is time judgment to begin at the household of God.
25:43-25:46
It's the most unpleasant part of the job in church leadership.
25:46-25:50
I love preaching and teaching and picnics.
25:51-25:52
I love that stuff.
25:53-25:54
Baptisms all day long.
25:56-26:01
The most unpleasant part of the job is dealing with sin in the church when people refuse to repent.
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But, elders, it's part of the job.
26:07-26:11
We have a God-given responsibility deal with unrepentant sin.
26:12-26:15
1 Corinthians 5, 11-13, do we have that verse?
26:16-26:18
This is what the apostle Paul wrote to the church in Corinth.
26:19-26:27
Here you had a guy that was sleeping with his stepmother and bragging about it and the rest of the church was high-fiving him.
26:28-26:39
And Paul's like, "You gotta get that guy out of there." But at the end of this passage Paul says, "But now I'm writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother, do you see that?
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Bears the name of brother.
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You call yourself a Christian and you're an unrepentant sin?
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Uh uh.
26:46-26:48
That's not how we play here.
26:49-27:03
If he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler, not to even eat with such a one.
27:03-27:09
Somebody calls himself a Christian and they're living with unrepentance, Don't even go to McDonald's with them after church.
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Okay, they're on their own.
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What have I to do with judging outsiders?
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Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge?
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God judges those outside.
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Purge the evil person from among you.
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Our job is not to sort of legislate morality to the unsaved, like go to our unsaved friends and family and say you need to act like a Christian.
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They can't act like a Christian.
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They don't have the resources.
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But it is certainly our job as church leaders in the church when somebody says they're a believer, filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, believing in the Word of God, living in unrepentant sin, we have to deal with that.
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And I know it sounds so harsh in our day of tolerance.
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But this is how serious God is about purity in the church.
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If you sin and you're repentant, ok, we'll work through it.
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If you sin and you're unrepentant and you're trying to cover it up, you're a candidate for church discipline.
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And I don't have to sell you on the truth that if you confess and we deal with it, it's handled in a much different way than if your sin becomes exposed have to deal with it then? Like kids, right? Like kids. If your kid comes home and says, "Mom, I did something bad at school today." You're going to deal with it. Aren't you going to deal with it much differently if the teacher calls you and says, "Hey, guess what Evan did at school today?" Maybe not Evan. Insert name of with your child here.
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Aren't you going to deal with it differently?
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If the teacher has to tell you?
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It's like, dude, fess up.
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Because I'm going to find out.
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And it's not going to be pretty if I have to find out from somebody else.
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So it goes in the church.
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I'd like to remind you that the goal of discipline is correction, not punishment.
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The reason that we don't associate with a Christian in unrepentant sin - and unrepentant sin.
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It's not that we're punishing them.
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We want them to get back on track, but the only way they're going to snap back to reality is if they realize, hey, sin is serious.
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Okay? It's serious business.
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And you're not treating it like it's serious.
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So look, you're not welcome here.
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We're not hanging out.
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Until you deal with this.
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Until you have a repentant heart and you're willing to work with the church It's corrective, it's not punishment.
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Just like with kids, we want to get people back on track.
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So, hypocrisy will be dealt with.
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And finally for today, we must all be deadly serious about hypocrisy.
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Deadly serious, pun intended.
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Verse 11, "As a result of all of this," read that verse again, "and great fear came upon the whole church and upon all who heard of these things." I am not casting doubt on the way God put His Word together, but can we be honest?
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There are some verses that really don't need to be in the Bible.
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I seriously could have assumed this one, you know what I mean, Dan?
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I could have assumed this one.
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You know, two people walk into church and get carried out, and everybody else is like, "Oh my gosh!
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Did you hear what happened in church?" Yeah, I could have put those pieces together.
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But the Lord reminds us here, great fear came upon the whole church.
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What do you mean fear?
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It's reverence.
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It's reverence.
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That's the reason that God had dealt so personally and swiftly with this sin.
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And that's the reason why, as church leaders, we need to deal swiftly and definitively with sin.
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One of the reasons, not just to correct the person that's sinning, but it's also to deter others.
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Paul told Timothy this in 1 Timothy 5:20.
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He says, "As for those who persist in sin, rebuke them in the presence of all so that the rest may stand in fear." is a big deal and we're not honoring God by minimizing it.
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So if someone won't repent of flagrant sin, we deal with it, hoping to correct him, but also, hoping that the next guy that's tempted has one more reason to not go through with it.
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The next guy that's tempted to say, you know what?
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I saw what happened to Ananias.
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How many people do you think were tempted to lie about their giving in this church for like the next foreseeable forever for them?
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Do you think that ever left their minds?
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Do you think they ever for a second considered lying about what they were giving to the church?
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Absolutely not.
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Because they said, "I don't want that to be me.
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I saw the way God deals with this.
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I see how serious it is.
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I'm not going to do it." Again, if you're hiding something, it's not going to take you anywhere good.
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God's going to expose it.
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It's going to be dealt with, and it's going to be much easier for you, if you take the initiative, to deal with it now.
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Proverbs 28, 13 says, "Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who Mercy.
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Maybe there's somebody here today that says, you know what, I'm done holding on to this secret thing.
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I've kept this thing secret for so long, and I know that I should come clean, and I've waited, and I just want to be done with this.
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I want this finally behind me.
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This is a safe place.
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Come to a place where you will be loved, and where people will pray for you, and help you get back on track.
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Because our concern is your personal walk with the Lord.
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And yeah, during this time, it might be uncomfortable, but it's going to be a lot more uncomfortable if God has to be the one to expose it, and He or we have to deal with it then.
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Today can be a brand new day for somebody here.
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If there's anything at all that you're holding on to, there's literally no reason to hold off.
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God's going to expose it.
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You should expose it before it has to come to you.
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Father in Heaven, I lift up my brothers and sisters here.
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This is a very serious passage because it shows us how serious you are about sin.
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I pray, nothing secret here.
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We want this to be a place of transparency and freedom to confess and to deal with, whether it's a besetting sin, whether it's some secret thing that maybe our spouses don't even know about, something we've been holding onto for a long time.
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Let today be the day God, we don't want to be hypocrites.
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We don't want that to be the testimony.
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Certainly, we look at Your Word.
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We'd like to be known more as a Barnabas.
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Someone who's authentic and serves as an example.
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We wouldn't want to be known as somebody who was a phony.
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I thank You, Father, for Your grace.
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We want to extend that grace.
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We want to reflect it.
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Father, I pray for a spirit of authenticity in this church.
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Let this be a new day for someone here today.
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Let this be the start of something new.
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In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read Acts 5:1-11
What was Ananias and Sapphira’s sin? What was the real issue? How do we know it’s not about the amount of money given? (hint: see Acts 5:4)
Do you think Ananias and Sapphira were true believers in Jesus Christ? Why or why not? What difference does it make in understanding the passage?
*What lesson does this passage teach about God’s attitude towards sin in the church
How should church leaders (elders) address unrepentant sin in the church? See also 1 Corinthians 5:11-13 and 1 Peter 4:17.
*Do God’s actions seem extreme in this passage to you, considering the nature of the offense? Why did God deal with this sin so personally, abruptly, and definitively?
Breakout Questions:
This passage is a reminder of how vital this breakout time is. Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another. Sin and hypocrisy are serious matters to God. Make them serious to you.