6/22/14 YEAR OF EQUIPPING TO SERVE

Acts 5 -- Whose Way?  How are you going to live life?

    A very famous song recorded by one who sold more than 150 million records.   Frank Sinatra – My Way
    And now, the end is near;
And so I face the final curtain.
My friend, I’ll say it clear,
I’ll state my case, of which I’m certain.
    I’ve lived a life that’s full.
I’ve traveled each and ev’ry highway;
But more, much more than this,
I did it my way.
    Regrets, I’ve had a few;
But then again, too few to mention.
I did what I had to do
And saw it through without exemption.
    I planned each charted course;
Each careful step along the byway,
But more, much more than this,
I did it my way.
    Yes, there were times, I’m sure you knew
When I bit off more than I could chew.
But through it all, when there was doubt,
I ate it up and spit it out.
I faced it all and I stood tall;
And did it my way.
    I’ve loved, I’ve laughed and cried.
I’ve had my fill; my share of losing.
And now, as tears subside,
I find it all so amusing.
    To think I did all that;
And may I say - not in a shy way,
“No, oh no not me,
I did it my way”.
    For what is a man, what has he got?
If not himself, then he has naught.
To say the things he truly feels;
And not the words of one who kneels.
The record shows I took the blows -
And did it my way!
Songwriters: JACQUES REVAUX, CLAUDE FRANCOIS, GILLES THIBAUT, PAUL ANKA
My Way lyrics © CHRYSALIS MUSIC GROUP, S U I S A, COOPERATIVE SOC. OF MUSIC AUTHORS & PUBLISHERS, EMI Music Publishing
    This is a theme of a man who was arrogant and demanding that things go his way.  This message says “I am the standard for life”.  Get out of my way and let me live my life.
    This is the theme of people everywhere.  It is a popular theme of our modern culture.  I’m going to do what I want to do.
□    You can’t tell ME what to do.
□    I need my freedom.
□    That’s just the way I am.
□    God wants me to be happy, doesn’t He?
□    Since God is love He accepts me just the way I am, so leave me alone.
□    I don’t want any restrictions.
    This hunger to do anything we want is infiltrating churches across our nation.  Many things that the Bible calls sin are now accepted and promoted.  People have forgotten that God pays attention to what they do and holds them accountable.  It seems that the word “judgement” has been deleted from the dictionary.  Acts 5 gives us an amazing story of an attempt to deceive God and steal glory.
    At the end of Acts 4 we see a spirit of generosity and giving that came over the church.  They were giving many gifts to help out.  There was a couple who wanted to get in on the giving, but they weren’t really sold out to the sacrifice.  They thought they could get away with lying and deceit.
Acts 5:1-11 NIV
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 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.
    What can we learn from this story?
    They schemed to lie and deceive, thinking they would get away with it.  The Bible says they lied to the Holy Spirit. Their desire was to gain honor and recognition (can you say pride?).  Ananias and Sapphira lied to the church about their giving trying to make themselves look very generous.
    Note: they did not have to give.  This was an offering the church was receiving.  God took note of their deception and  considered their lie a serious offense against the Holy Spirit.  This shows us a very important truth: sin is always against God.
    The deaths of Ananias and Sapphira show us God’s attitude toward pride and deceit among believers.  They forgot
Proverbs 16:18 NIV  Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.
    This couple was guilty of conspiracy.  And they thought they could get away with it.  The basic cause of their sin against God was their love for money and the desire to receive praise.  When these prideful things take over -- the love of money and praise -- people become open to all kinds of evil influences.
I Timothy 6:10 NIV
10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.
Matthew 6:24 NIV
24 No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.
    In verses 5 and 10 we see God’s judgement.  It happened right there and then.  Ananias fell over and died. God did this to show His deep hatred of sin, of deceit and dishonesty.  This has no place in His kingdom.  God despises self-promotion and a claim of deep spirituality that is not there.  This sin shows an absence of the holy fear and awe of the Lord that believers must have.  It brings dishonor to God.  As a result, these offenses bring God’s judgment.
    God has always judged sin.  Look at these biblical examples from the very beginning.
Genesis 3:23 NIV
23 So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.
Genesis 4:13, 16 NIV
13 Cain said to the LORD, “My punishment is more than I can bear.”
16 So Cain went out from the LORD’s presence and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden.
Jonah 3:4 NIV
4 On the first day, Jonah started into the city. He proclaimed: “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned.”
    The story of Ananias and Sapphira must be told to our modern world, and especially the church world.  It should be combined with the story of Jonah.  Jonah was judged for his disobedience.  God got his attention and he went to Nineveh to give them God’s message.  It was a message of judgement.
    Our modern world needs to respond like Nineveh did.
Jonah 3:5 NIV
5 The Ninevites believed God. They declared a fast, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth.
    There was a call for repentance.
Jonah 3:8-9 NIV
8 But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. 9 Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.
    This message desperately needs to be heard today.  The response of repentance desperately is needed.
    Back to Acts 5.  The response of the church, verse 11.
Acts 5:11 NIV
11 Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events.
    Great Fear!!  I would think this would be an obvious result of two deaths.  It is interesting to note that church growth continued.  Note that this was God’s judgment on sin.  His immediate judgement on the sin of Ananias and Sapphira caused a response of fear among the believers.  They were reminded of their accountability to God.  They were struck with a holy awe and reverence to God.  People need a proper fear of God and His anger against sin.  They must never forget His judgment of sin.
    When believers do forget about God’s judgement and anger against sin, they quickly tend to conform to the ungodly ways of the world.  Then they cease to experience the power and blessings of the Holy Spirit and God’s supernatural presence.  The fear of the Lord is a necessary component of faith.
    We have looked at two different approaches.  Living life:
My Way
God’s Way
    Everyone in the world must make a choice.
    I came across an old story, I can’t verify the source.  It has a good point.
    In the American frontier days, there was a settlement in the West whose citizens were engaged in the lumber business. The town felt they wanted a church. They built a building and called a minister. The preacher moved into the settlement and initially was well received. Then one afternoon he happened to see some of his parishioners dragging some logs, which had been floated down the river from another village upstream, onto the bank. Each log was marked with the owner’s stamp on one end. To his great distress, the minister saw his members pulling in the logs and sawing off the end where the telltale stamp appeared.
    The following Sunday he preached a strong sermon on the commandment “Thou shall not steal”.  At the close of the service, his people lined up and offered enthusiastic congratulations: “Wonderful message, Pastor.” “Mighty fine preaching.” “Keep up the good work.”
    It wasn’t the response he expected, so he went home to prepare his sermon for the following Sunday. He preached on the same text, the same commandment, but gave it a different ending. He said, “Yes, thou shall not steal, but thou shall also not cut off the end of thy neighbor’s logs.” When he got through, the congregation ran him out of town.
Haddon Robinson, “Grace and Truth in Application,” PreachingToday.com
Do we HAVE to do things God’s way?  Can’t we do what we want?

    The Law of the Stop Sign.  This law was written by people to control traffic.  It says the traffic safety requires drivers to stop at the intersection.  Those in authority declare that to run the sign will cost you a specific amount of money.  If the traffic changes, they can take the sign down.  The authorities control the law of the stop sign.
    The Law of Fire.  The law of fire says if you put your hand in the fire, you’ll get burned.  What if legislatures and dictators all around the world voted and declared that fire would no longer burn. What would happen?
    People would quickly discover that the law of fire is different than the law of the stop sign.  Within the nature of fire is the penalty for abusing it.  It doesn’t matter what anyone says or tries to change, fire burns.
    Here’s the critical application of this message:  the moral law of God is like the law of fire.  It doesn’t change.  You can try to break God’s laws.  You will get burned.  God never changes.  He won’t change the penalty, because the penalty for breaking the law is bound up in the law itself.

Discussion
Why is God so concerned with obedience and disobedience?
Where did Ananias and Sapphira go wrong?
What speaks to you about the two laws -- stop sign and fire?
Prayer for our world to see the necessity of repentance.
Prayer for the church world to see the necessity of submission to
God’s laws.