We pick up tonight seeing Luke’s description of the Church in those early days. The believers had just prayed for God to grant them confidence and that signs and wonders would be performed through the name of Jesus, and God had filled them with the Holy Spirit. And they went out speaking the word of God boldly.
Now, in the next section, which we have just read, we are told about life in the church and a specific incident which happens involving Peter, Ananias, and Sapphira. And by looking at this and what life was like for them, we get a view of what the people of God should look like. And so, I could preach from this a sermon titled, “A Model for the Church,” and it could be good and right. But what I want to do tonight is push beyond that. I want to look beyond the people here and see what is behind them. And the reason I am burdened to do that is because as I was reading and meditating on this I kept asking myself the question, “Why does Luke record this?” What does this story have to tell us? And I eventually returned to verse 1 of the book. There Luke writes, “The first account I composed, Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach …” And, as I have pointed out, because Luke says his gospel was about “All that Jesus began to do and teach,” then we can understand Acts to be what Jesus continued to do as he poured out the Holy Spirit upon his people; for the Father, and the Son, and the Spirit are one.
And yet another reason I believe that Luke is writing to show us what the Holy Spirit is like is because he almost repeats himself in writing the events that happen after the believers are filled with the Holy Spirit in Acts 2:42-47 and 4:32-37. Therefore, it would seem that he is trying to drive home what the nature of the Spirit is by showing us the lives of the believers after being filled with the Holy Spirit. And because of the nature of the Trinity, I think we will find him to be like Jesus. So, let me point out a few things tonight we can learn about the nature of the Holy Spirit as we behold the lives of these early believers and look past them to the one working in them.
We can see this because what happens after they are filled with the Holy Spirit is they begin to love each other so dearly that Luke says in verse 32 that they “were of one heart and soul.” And we also see that their love for people frees them from a love for goods, as Luke writes in the same verse, “And not one of them claimed that anything belonging to him was his own; but all things were common property to them.”
Now, all you have to do to see that this was not the natural inclination of the apostles before the Spirit was poured out upon them is look back at the scene described in Luke 22. In verses 14-23, Jesus describes to them that one of his very disciples—who has walked with them for three years, for whom he has spent hours teaching, and for whom he has endured hardships—is going to betray him. And the apostles begin discussing among themselves which one of them it will be (v.23).
Then, listen to the way the next section begins: “And there arose also a dispute among them as to which one of them was regarded to be the greatest” (v.24). Man, these guys are really full of love, and compassion, and generosity aren’t they? I mean, there is not recorded one word about them asking Jesus what this will mean for him. In what could have been one of his lowest and loneliest hours, they were talking about which one of them is the greatest.
So, when we see them in Acts 4 and they are of “one heart and soul” and are not claiming any of their goods, but allowing all to use them and even selling some of them, we know that something has happened. The Spirit of God is at work within them.
And because this is the nature of the Spirit, then when he fills you, you are so overwhelmed with a love for the body of Christ, that you are freed from your goods. I use the word “freed” because there is something in the heart of man that just wants to hold on to everything we have, in such a way that it is like bondage. We are not free from our love for money. But when the Spirit fills you, then it should unleash you to give in all liberality. The reason being, this is the nature of God and the Spirit is God (notice the connection between “Spirit” and “God” in verses 3 and 4) and the cross tells us that when God loves, God gives. John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son.”
Therefore, when a group of people claim that the Spirit of God is filling them and being poured out upon them and yet they are showing a love for money and a lack of love for people, I question that.
And Luke gives two examples of people to show that our freedom from goods and love for people is something that just flows out of people who know the power of the Spirit of God in their lives. The first is Barnabas. Luke brings him in for two verses in 36 and 37. He’s in, he’s out. And all Luke says about him is that he was nicknamed Barnabas (which means Son of Encouragement), he owned land, he sold the land, and he laid it at the apostles’ feet.
Why? Why does Luke introduce us to this man in such a fashion? I mean, it is helpful because Barnabas is going to play a great role in the church, but why here, why now? I think the answer is in the first word of chapter five, namely, “But.” Luke is using Barnabas to show contrast to Ananias.
And the contrast is seen in the words of Peter after Ananias’ actions. Verses 1 and 2 tells us that he sold land, kept back some of the money for himself, and then gives it to the apostles (apparently telling them that it was the full price he got for selling the land). And Peter asks him why he is lying about this. And listen to Peter’s words to Ananias in verse 4. “While it remained unsold, did it not remain in your own? And after it was sold, was it not under your control? Why is it that you have conceived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to men, but to God.”
In essence, Peter was saying, “There was no constraint that forced you to sell the land and give it all to the church, so why did you give half only to lie about it?” In other words, Ananias was being drawn to such an action by the praise of men. Maybe he wanted the recognition that was going toward this man named Joseph. Maybe he wanted men to call him Barnabas. But at the same time, there was a battle within him because he had not been made free from the love of money by the power of the Holy Spirit.
The contrast between Barnabas and Ananias (and Sapphira for that matter) is this. Barnabas had been made free from the love of money by the power of the Holy Spirit and that is why he gave. Ananias, on the other hand, had simply seen what others were doing, wanted the applause, and yet had not been freed by the Spirit from his love for money.
And I believe that the difference is what Peter writes about in 1 Peter 4:11, “ … whoever serves, let him do so as by the strength which God supplies; so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.” In other words, Barnabas had been empowered by the Spirit of God to serve the church while Ananias had simply tried to imitate such service in his own strength. And when you serve by God’s power, God is glorified and when you serve in your own power, you are glorified; and God will share his glory with no man (Is. 48:11).
In verse five, Luke tells us that after Peter discerned that Ananias was lying that he fell to the ground dead. And then in verse 10, he tells us that after Peter had discerned that Sapphira was lying that she fell to the ground dead. I will look at why this happens in a second, but first let me just say a word about the Spirit’s power.
I was reading something about this passage the other day when one writer mentioned that many thought Peter was just reading their faces and using his natural discernment to say that Ananias and Sapphira were lying. And when I read such a thing, it makes me want to laugh. Why? Because Jesus tells the disciples in Matthew 17:22, “The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men; and they will kill Him, and He will be raised on the third day.” And yet they don’t understand these things until Luke says in Luke 24:44, “He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.” These men, like us, were thoroughly unable to understand spiritual things without the power of God to do it, so to discern something like this tells me that it was the work of the Holy Spirit in Peter.
And then when Peter sees Sapphira, he tells her that she is going to die as well. And she does. What we need to see from that is the power and the majesty of God. And there needs to be a holy fear among us in light of his power and majesty. And when we begin to understand and see the power and majesty of God, there will be. I say this because Acts 2:43 says of the early believers that after they saw the work of the Spirit in their companions, “Fear was occurring to every soul” (literal translation). And verses 5 and 11 of Acts 4 tell that “fear came upon the whole church.”
And when we begin walking simultaneously in the fear of God and the comfort of his Holy Spirit (9:31), then we will find ourselves in the midst of God working greatly.
I said I wanted to describe why Ananias and Sapphira died, as recorded in this chapter, and all I can say is that the Holy Spirit is holy. God says in Isaiah 48:11, “For My own sake, for My own sake, I will act; for how can My name be profaned? And My glory I will not give to another.”
God acted in order that his holy name would not be profaned and that men would marvel at his glory. We should fear hypocrisy in our lives realizing that God has a holy distaste for it. I think this is because we are the body of Christ, and if there is unholiness and hypocrisy in the church then we are sending a message to the world that God is not holy, and God must defend that.
John Stott writes, “If the hypocrisy of Ananias and Sapphira had not been publicly exposed and punished, the Christian ideal of an open fellowship would not have been preserved, and the modern cry ‘there are so many hypocrites in the church’ would have been heard from the beginning” (The Spirit, the Church, and the World, 111). Because the Spirit is holy, we must live holy, and we can only live holy by his power. And a great aspect of holiness is that we live like Barnabas instead of Ananias and Sapphira.
Are we being empowered by the Spirit to love people and be free from money or are we trying to imitate that out of our own strength? If you say that the latter is the case then I exhort you to cry out for the power of the Holy Spirit to be poured out on you. Ask him to fill you and to clothe you with power in order that you may display his love, compassion, power, and holiness to the world.
And let me encourage you with a word of how direction in praying for God to fill you and empower you with his Spirit in quoting Jonathan Edwards on the subject:
“We ought not only to go speedily to pray before the Lord, and to seek his mercy, but also to go constantly. We should unite in our practice these two things, which our Saviour unites in his precept, Praying and Not Fainting … It is very apparent from the word of God, that he is wont often to try the faith and patience of his people, when crying to him for some great and important mercy, by withholding the mercy sought, for a season; and not only so, but at first to cause an increase of dark appearances. And yet he, without fail, at last succeeds those who continue instant in prayer, with all perseverance, and ‘will not let him go except he blesses” (a sermon from Works, Vol. II, 312).
Persevere in prayer for the power of the Spirit in order that all the nations may see our God for who he is. Amen.