Acts: Judgment Kills

I heard some of you say, thanks be to God.

It's kind of a rough story.

But we're going to talk about it and what it might mean.

Because it means something.

So this week I heard several people say, I don't care that the Eagles won the Super Bowl.

I'm just really glad Tom Brady did not win the Super Bowl.

And maybe you're in that camp.

Most of us, at least most of us, I think, sort of nod in agreement because the guy just comes off as so perfect in front of us.

And I've talked about that before because I have a little bit of a man crush on the guy, even though I wanted him to lose because he just keeps winning.

I mean, all the Super Bowl rings, the salary, the wife, the houses, he doesn't eat regular ice cream.

He eats avocado ice cream.

And he doesn't seem to age and he keeps winning.

And you know this, right?

When somebody does something so great and so quickly we skip over like appreciation or, you know, um gratitude for like this great person who's doing these great things, and we just move into judgment.

Not them on you, right?

Like Tom Brady doesn't know who we are, but you on yourself because of somebody else.

And you know this feeling.

This is the feeling of I'm not doing enough.

I'm not enough.

I don't have enough.

And this is where this really incredibly strange story in Acts 5 actually comes into play for us.

So this is one of the stranger stories in the New Testament, this Acts 5 story.

Maybe it's the first time you've ever heard it.

You sort of just want to leave.

You're like, and that's why I don't go to church.

Is that story right there?

That's the kind of thing that gets me to stay away.

Uh it sort of feels like an Old Testament story that slipped in post-resurrection of Jesus.

The kind of story maybe that we've always just read over and been like, and I'm not gonna pay attention to that one.

But what does the story actually teach?

What does it mean?

What could it possibly mean to us who so often so easily live in comparison and in self-judgment?

Now, we need to remember what just happened.

So last week we talked about Acts chapter 4, and in Acts chapter 4, all the believers were from one heart, they were in one heart, they were in one mind, and they had become an incredibly generous people.

Acts 4 · chapter mention Acts 4 · chapter mention

And then it says, this guy, Joseph, pops up, he sells everything he has, and he gives the money to the church.

Then, in a method of contrast, in literary contrast, the writer says, but there's this other guy.

And this other guy, Ananias, he sold a field, he decided to keep back some of the money and gives the rest of the money to the church, but he pretends like he gives all the money.

So Peter, the church leader, he says to this guy, Acts 5, uh, verse 3, he says, Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back for yourself parts of the proceeds of the land?

While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own?

And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal?

Why is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart?

You have not lied to man, but to God.

Then verse 5.

When Ananias heard these words, he fell down and breathed his last, and great fear came upon all who heard of it.

So then three hours later his wife comes in, Sephara, comes in to Peter.

Peter says to her, Tell me whether you sold the land for so much, and she said, Yes, for so much.

But Peter said to her, How is it that you have agreed together to test the spirit of the Lord?

Behold, the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out.

Immediately she fell down at his feet and breathed her last.

When the young men came in, they found her dead, they carried her out and buried her beside her husband.

Thanks be to God.

You're not sure, right?

This is a strange story.

And this is the point where I just have to say, just be really honest, I have wrestled with this story all week.

In part because I don't like this story.

If I was designing the Bible, I would not put it in here in Acts 5.

I didn't design the Bible, though, and this story is here.

I don't view God as vindictive in this way.

So this story challenges me.

Now that's not to say I don't believe God is not the king of the universe, is fully just and can do as he chooses in judgment.

But I just simply believe all that judgment and justice was satisfied in Christ.

So I have a hard time with this story since Christ just died for all sin, including this lie.

So this is where perhaps you will disagree with me for the next few minutes.

Because at this point in my life, I'm wrestling with the common view of this passage.

I even called my friend who's a Greek scholar and professor, and I said, Hey, is there anywhere in this text, so I read all the English versions, and I called him, I said, Is there anywhere, look at your Greek, look at your Greek.

Is there anywhere in this text where it says God did this?

And he said, Well, you know, no, it's but the implications certainly there, all the people in the story are reacting as if this is the implication.

And I said, Well, here's what I'm wrestling with.

He's like, I don't know if I would preach that.

So I'm just saying.

So I just say the next few minutes are kind of ponderings, and then when I'm done pondering, then I'll tell you when we can just all hopefully be in agreement.

So here are my ponderings is this the wrong, the wrong that Ananias and Sephora did was acting like they were doing something they didn't.

It was the lie, it was the pretending.

Then if we follow the text, he's called out, he's exposed, then he dies.

The wife shows up, she's called out, she's exposed, then she dies.

And my pondering on verse 5 is this, and it could be a stretch, I fully admit it.

Is it possible Peter's words and the judgment and the shame these people felt is what killed them?

Now, the people in the story do react as if it is God.

I will fully admit that.

Definitely, the people are reacting, they are afraid as if God struck these people down.

Peter seems to think this.

But does that mean God struck them down?

And that's where I'm off pondering.

Now, what is certain is that we live, we live quite different than these people.

Because we have the full scriptures.

We have the full narrative.

We have Paul's writings of the understanding of the full sufficiency of the grace of God in Jesus.

These people were working off of past beliefs of law without grace, rules and punishments, and then the unfolding implications of Christ's salvation.

So my ponderings have been this: as quickly as we assume it is God's judgment because the people in the text assume it is, we could assume it's not God's judgment because the text never states that it is God's judgment.

Either way, we're making an assumption on the text.

Either way, we're making an assumption that either it's these people's reactions that will inform our assumption, or the rest of the New Testament and Paul's writings will help us make an assumption on the text.

So I see this story through the cross where God already decided how he feels about these people.

So that puts me in great tension with this story.

All the wrath of God was put upon Christ.

It was satisfied.

Our sin was cast upon Jesus, his righteousness is put upon us.

So we are forever the beloved of God.

Ananias and Sephar were forever the beloved of God.

Their sin was as far as the east is from the west.

So what's left is loving discipline.

What's left is consequences, surely.

But this, the seemingly kind of zap them dead judgment.

That's where I'm pondering.

Okay, pondering's over.

All right.

Now I think we can come together on these few points.

Point number one, judgment kills.

Judgment kills.

Maybe God did kill these two people.

I don't know.

I mean, maybe this was him communicating, needing to communicate to the early church the importance that God is still just, even though that justice is fully met in Christ.

Never forget God is just.

To live under judgment kills your soul.

You know what it's like to see a Joseph, right?

To somebody who sells all their land and gives away all of their money, and then you go to sell something and you're like, oh, like I sort of want to be like him, and like the community is really respecting him, but man, hold back a little money would be good.

And so you hold back a little money, which doesn't appear to be the evil here.

What appears to be the evil is when they begin to pretend and act like they do.

Right?

I mean, to have a Joseph around you.

It might feel like Tom Brady's your older brother.

And you are a pastor of a small church in Marietta, Georgia.

And he owns a jet, and I own a mountain bike.

Tom Brady's not my brother, by the way.

I don't want to confuse anybody.

He eats avocado ice cream.

I still don't know how to get into the avocado.

Right?

It's just Ben and Jerry's.

But it's so easy to have somebody in front of you that is judgment, and that judgment kills us.

This week I found myself thinking about that great Seinfeld character, Sue Ellen Mishke, the heiress to the O.

Henry candy bar fortune.

And this lady, she was Elaine's friend, and she's tall and beautiful and graceful, and everything came easy to her.

Everything worked out for her.

And she shows up throughout the show, and she's a symbol, an image of everything Elaine is not.

And she's judgment and she's shame to Elaine.

And Elaine hates everything about her, but for some reason, she always tries to please her.

And then hates that she's trying to please her because that's what we do when we live in comparison.

Sue Allen always sent Elaine into a downward spiral because judgment kills.

And the scriptures will show you.

The scriptures will actually do this.

You read who you should be?

You read how you should act, the motives you should act.

I mean, the Sermon on the Mount is designed to do this to you.

Jesus is doing that when he says, Oh, you haven't committed adultery?

Oh, great.

But what about lust in your heart?

Like he in the sermon, that's what he's doing.

He is putting before you the standard of perfection so that you have no option but to need the grace of God, to need him.

We aren't always who God asks us to be or who we want to be, not in deed, not in motive, and we pretend to be something we aren't.

That's Acts chapter 5.

Acts 5 · chapter mention

That's what these two people are doing.

And what starts out as a good plan, it just begins to go so wrong and it kills us.

So we compare and then we pretend, we lie, and then it ends in exhaustion and shame and death.

Because it all turns back on you as you can't maintain all of it.

Point number one, judgment kills.

Point number two, the truth about us apart from grace is overwhelming.

The truth about us apart from grace is overwhelming, but the truth about us is God's grace.

See, the gospel says you aren't perfect.

But in the same breath, the gospel says, yet in Jesus all your sin and imperfection and shame has been taken care of.

It's taken care of.

It's gone.

So if all you hear is the exposing truth, which Peter lays on pretty clearly, pretty thick here in this passage, but you don't hear the relief of grace, then death or exhaustion or fear or anxiety will always be the end of the story.

But the truth about you from the beginning has been that you were beautifully created, and yet in brokenness desire to save yourself.

And yet God pursues you in his grace.

And God's kindness leads us to repentance and freedom from comparison to compare ourselves to Joseph or anybody else, which gives us point number three: Christ is your salvation.

Maybe one of the reasons I wrestle with this story so much is I know I am Ananias and Sephora in this story.

If you have to peg yourself as anybody in this story, that's who you are.

I love to be seen as something that's not always true about me.

I love to use my merit as self-justification, and when it's not enough, I'll just pretend like it's enough.

And anytime I do that or you do that, we're on a path of exhaustion and shame and death.

It's a self-salvation project, a rejection of Jesus as enough for you.

And in the process, we lose our freedom because pretending and performing lying.

They're prisons.

God deems it evil.

God is just, and he deems that evil.

And the reason he deems it evil is because it is exhaustion and death for us.

It breaks peace inside of you between you and God.

His kindness leads you to repentance so that you can admit who you are before him as not perfect, as a sinner.

As a sinner who needs grace.

But I don't think he'll kill you.

And I don't think he's waiting to kill you because you're pretending or because you're lying.

I don't.

I just don't.

He killed himself.

He humbled himself into the death we deserve that we might know life.

In a way, when I read this passage, I love Peter.

There's part of me that loves Peter, right?

He's acting pastorally.

He's just putting in front of them exactly what they did.

Like, guys, guys.

I'm this right in front of them.

Here it is.

You were lying.

You were pretending.

That is a horrible thing to do.

And maybe he said more.

It's possible he said more and it's not recorded, right?

I'm assuming this conversation was not, you know, five seconds long.

I'm assuming there might have been more going on in this conversation.

We don't know.

What we have is enough.

We know that.

But maybe he said more, but we don't have it.

But what I what I do feel like is what's recorded is not enough for these people.

It's enough for us now to read the story and learn something, but these people, they needed to hear the truth about who they were, and they either needed to remember what Peter just preached, Christ is your salvation, or they needed to hear it again.

And Peter didn't say that.

Not according to the writer at this time.

And these people needed to hear that.

They needed to hear Peter say again what he had just preached, Christ is salvation.

They needed to hear what Paul expounds on and just stretches out and lays before us the rest of the New Testament.

That Christ is your wholeness, your justification, your righteousness, your absolution, your value, your rightness with God.

You lied to God and you lied to me, you pretended and you weren't perfect, but Christ is perfect for you.

You don't have to pretend anymore.

That's what I want these two to hear.

You don't have to pretend anymore.

Christ is your salvation.

My brothers and sisters, you don't have to pretend anymore.

Christ is your salvation.

Let's pray together.

God, thank you for this text.

That reminds us that you are just and you're the creator of the world, and it is your world, and we are humbled by that.

And in the same moment, it reminds us that we do not have to live in comparison.

We do not have to live lives of pretending and performing, but you have called us in your kindness to repent of such lives, to get honest before you, that your grace is enough for all of us, the good and the bad.

And that's that very confession in honesty is what begins our process with you, of us understanding how beloved we are.

Help us to trust greater in your Son, who paid the full price for us.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.