What If Everyone Gave?
Fake It Till You Make It
I was thinking about this the other day…
There were a lot of things I didn’t know when I became a dad.
I didn’t know how to take care of a baby. I didn’t know how to teach a kid to read. I still don’t know how to do 3rd grade word problems in math. There were a lot of things I didn’t know when I became a dad but I got a lot of good advice along the way. One of the best pieces of advice when it came to parenting was simply this:
“Sometimes, you have to fake it till you make it!”
I’ll never forget when our family moved to Atlanta. Our kids were young and the neighborhood we lived in was big into swim team. Practically every kid in the neighborhood was on the swim team and we would compete with other neighborhoods and it was a big deal.
Let it be noted that it was Alisha’s idea for our kids to join the swim team. Something about an important life skill and not drowning later in life. I don’t know. But there was a catch, if your kid was on the swim team, then at least one parent had to help in some way at the swim meets.
Well, I was the parent who got volun-told what I had to do at the swim meets. They made me a swim judge. I had no idea what I was doing. I would say I was trying to fake it till I made it, but I was just faking it!
But Not When It Comes to Faith
Sometimes we have to fake it till we make it, but more often than not, it’s bad advice. Especially when it comes to our faith.
When it comes to faith it’s important show up and keep showing up, even when you don’t have it all together, even when you don’t have it all figured out.
But is there anything that has done more harm to the Christian faith than faking it? Than pretenders? Is there anything that has done more damage to our Christian witness than hypocrisy?
Just to clarify, it is true that we have all failed, we’ve all fallen short of the glory of God. None of us are perfect. And none of us are called to be perfect. You are not a hypocrite if you say you believe in Jesus and you call yourself a Christian and then temptation got the best of you on Tuesday and you’ve got regret because of what you said or did on Thursday.
If that’s you, and that’s me on more days than just Tuesdays and Thursdays, you’re not a hypocrite. You’re human!
A hypocrite is a faker. A pretender. An actor. Someone who portrays themselves as something they are not. And there are pretenders in the church. And they have done tremendous damage to our Christian witness in the world around us. They were not trying to “Fake it till they made it…” They were just faking it.
But God can see right into the human heart. He is a just judge. He knows our every thought, our every intention. He knows the motivation behind every action.
And there is no place for pretenders in God’s church.
The Early Church
You can see this all throughout the pages of scripture, but I want us to lean into one story that you’ve probably read before and just didn’t know what to do with it.
You didn’t know what it said about God. You didn’t understand how what happened, happened. Whenever you’ve read this story or heard about this story, you’ve got more questions than answers. But this story was an important story in the life of the early church and it was God’s way of sending a clear message about what matters most when His church gathers.
There is a movement that has started in Jerusalem. Thousands of people have believed the Apostle’s message that Jesus is God’s Messiah and that Jesus is alive! The church is experiencing exponential growth. Listen to how Luke describes the early church at it’s very beginning…
Acts 4.32-37
32 All the believers were united in heart and mind. And they felt that what they owned was not their own, so they shared everything they had. 33 The apostles testified powerfully to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and God’s great blessing was upon them all. 34 There were no needy people among them, because those who owned land or houses would sell them 35 and bring the money to the apostles to give to those in need.
One of the things Jesus talked about over and over and over again when He went from place to place teaching the people was about the Kingdom of God. He wanted them to know what God’s kingdom was about and what it was like.
One of the things he talked about when He talked about the Kingdom of God, one of the things that characterizes the Kingdom of God so well, is this spirit of radical generosity.
There was one time, Jesus told this story about these workers who were hired to work in a vineyard. (Matthew 20). The landowner hired workers all throughout the day. At the end of the day the landowner gathered all the workers to pay them.
To everyone’s surprise, he paid everyone the same amount, regardless of how long they had worked! It was his prerogative to pay the workers whatever he wanted, and he had decided to be generous.
Jesus was trying to teach his disciples that this is what the Kingdom of Heaven is like, it’s a place of radical generosity.
And these first followers of Jesus who had gathered as a believing community in Jerusalem were putting this radical generosity into practice!
They were actually doing the things that Jesus said to do. And it was having an incredible impact on the church and on the world! Luke tells us, this early church wasn’t just growing, it was multiplying. People were coming to Jesus by the thousands precisely because these people were living out the teachings of Jesus in a radical and real way.
Did You Hear What Barnabas Did?
Then Luke tells this little story in the very next verse…
36 For instance, there was Joseph, the one the apostles nicknamed Barnabas (which means “Son of Encouragement”). He was from the tribe of Levi and came from the island of Cyprus. 37 He sold a field he owned and brought the money to the apostles.
Now this wasn’t the expectation for everyone in the church. Not everyone went and sold their land and gave all the money to church to help those within the church who were in need. But Barnabas did!
He had caught the vision for this lifestyle of radical generosity that Jesus taught, that Jesus lived! And he had found a way in his own life to put it into practice.
Jesus had once said, “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” – John 15.13. His disciples understood that verse even better in light of his crucifixion. Talk about sacrificial love. Radical generosity.
The church was putting into practice what they had learned from Jesus and it was having an unprecedented impact on their believing community and the world around them.
What Happened Next?
But then, the plot thickens… cue the dramatic music.
Here’s what happens next according to Luke…
Acts 5.1-11
1 But there was a certain man named Ananias who, with his wife, Sapphira, sold some property. 2 He brought part of the money to the apostles, claiming it was the full amount. With his wife’s consent, he kept the rest.
So what’s really going on here?
Did Ananias and Sapphira see what Barnabas did and think… Hey, what if we did something like that? Did they see the pats on the back that Barnabas was getting, the appreciation the church responded with because of his generosity, and maybe want to have that same kind of love, respect, and appreciation for themselves?
Who knows?
What we do know is that they didn’t do what Barnabas did. They sold some land. Then they gave SOME of the money to the church. Now, that wasn’t the problem.
Again, there was no expectation that everyone do this. And if someone wanted to do something like this, there was no requirement or expectation that they give ALL the money to the church.
The problem for Ananias and Sapphira was that they claimed they gave the FULL amount to the church, but they didn’t. They LIED. And they kept a portion of the money back for themselves.
3 Then Peter said, “Ananias, why have you let Satan fill your heart? You lied to the Holy Spirit, and you kept some of the money for yourself. 4 The property was yours to sell or not sell, as you wished. And after selling it, the money was also yours to give away. How could you do a thing like this? You weren’t lying to us but to God!”
5 As soon as Ananias heard these words, he fell to the floor and died. Everyone who heard about it was terrified. 6 Then some young men got up, wrapped him in a sheet, and took him out and buried him.
Ok, if you’re reading this story for the first time you’ve probably got questions. Questions like, “Is this what God is like?” “Why did Ananias have to die?” And those are good questions.
Some of you are probably thinking, “This is why you don’t lie in church!” You’ve probably been standing nearby when someone said something that you knew wasn’t true, and maybe they were just trying to be funny, but you took a step back and you said something like, “I’m getting out of the way in case lightening strikes!” If you’ve ever wondered where that fear came from, that God might strike someone dead for lying in church… this is it!
But this isn’t funny. This is serious. And you’ve got real questions about how a loving God could do something like this. And then you keep you reading…
What Happened After That!??
7 About three hours later his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. 8 Peter asked her, “Was this the price you and your husband received for your land?”
“Yes,” she replied, “that was the price.”
9 And Peter said, “How could the two of you even think of conspiring to test the Spirit of the Lord like this? The young men who buried your husband are just outside the door, and they will carry you out, too.”
10 Instantly, she fell to the floor and died. When the young men came in and saw that she was dead, they carried her out and buried her beside her husband.
If you didn’t have questions before, you do now. And if you did have questions before, you have even more now.
Isn’t the church supposed to be a place of love and compassion. Why didn’t anyone go tell Sapphira that her husband had died? And why, when she walked in the room, why wasn’t that the first thing they told her?
Why is it that this church, a church that according to Jesus should be all about repentance and forgiveness, why didn’t Ananias or Sapphira have a chance to repent, be forgiven, and make things right?
Some of you may be looking for a church. Is this the kind of church you would visit twice?
So what happens more often than not, especially in church, is that we skip over stories like this. They are hard to understand. Hard to explain. And even if we can explain it, you’re still going to have questions.
But we’re not going to do that today. We need to lean in. Luke included this story for a reason. He could have skipped over it. He could have glossed over it. But he didn’t. He includes it for an important reason.
What Happened Here Happened Before
In a very real way, Luke was doing something that we see in the Old Testament as well. If you go back into Israel’s history, you find a similar story in Joshua 7.
God had given the people the promised land and by God’s hand, they had defeated the city of Jericho in a miraculous way. God had told Joshua and the people to destroy everything in the city as an offering to God except for the things made of silver, gold, bronze, or iron. Those things would be put into the treasury.
And God told them, if they took any of the things set apart for destruction, they would be completely destroyed. (Joshua 6.18-19).
Everyone did what the LORD commanded except one man named Achan. Achan took some things for himself. He hid them in his tent. He disobeyed God. He betrayed his people.
The next battle Israel went into, they were completely defeated. His sin threatened the whole community of God. The selfish individual sin of one person led to the defeat of the whole people of God. And when his sin was brought to light, he was stoned to death. In the same way, this story illustrates that individual sin threatens the life, the witness, the mission, and the community of God.
This next verse in Luke’s story about what happened after Ananias and Sapphira dropped dead is perhaps the greatest understatement in all of scripture:
11 Great fear gripped the entire church and everyone else who heard what had happened.
You think?
But here’s what’s interesting. You might expect that after this, people would be leaving the church left and right. You might think people would say, if God’s going to strike down everyone who lies, I’m out of here!
But that’s not what happened. In fact, exactly the opposite happened. If you keep reading, the church kept growing. Exponentially growing. (Acts 5.12-16). Crowds of people were coming to believe in Jesus as Lord and Savior of their lives and the ministry of the apostles continued in a mighty way!
You see, the real sin of Achan, the real sin of Ananias and Sapphira, wasn’t that they lied. If liars weren’t allowed in church, none of us would be here today. The real sin was that they had let Satan fill their hearts. They had lied to the Holy Spirit of God. (v3).
The old saying is true, “God hates sin, not sinners.” But you know what else God can’t stand? Pretenders.
Where Is Your Treasure?
The real question you have to wrestle with is this…
What do you do when you realize that God really does hate sin and that you will be held accountable for your actions and not just your actions, but the content of your heart?
What do you do when you realize that God really cares about the content of your heart?
Here’s something else that Jesus once said that his followers believed…
“Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be.” – Matthew 6.21
So when we started with the question, “What if everyone gave?” That question really wasn’t about money, or meeting budget, or funding missions, or paying the light bill. That question is about OUR hearts.
That question is about YOUR heart.
And you can rationalize and explain it away all day, but just ask Ananias and Sapphira. God cares about the content of your heart.
When you practice radical generosity like those first believers in Jesus who were a part of the first church did, like Barnabas did, you reveal the content of your heart. You reveal where your treasure really is.
A $20 Bill
A couple of years ago, my mom started a new tradition at Christmas. Growing up, my grandfather, her dad, used to come around at Christmas when everyone was done opening presents and if you were there, didn’t matter who you were or why you were there, you might have been a friend that came with one of the cousins to hang out and eat, but if you were there then you got a $20 bill from Grandaddy.
So a couple of years ago, my mom wanted to bring back that $20 tradition at Christmas. But she added a twist. She gave everyone a $20, then asked us to give it away at some point over the year and then when we gathered next year for Christmas, our gift to her was to share the story of how we used the $20 to help someone in need.
Why would she do that? What is she hoping to instill in her kids and grandkids? A spirit of radical generosity.
Open Hearts & Open Hands
What if everyone gave?
Here’s another way of asking that same question: What if everyone of us truly and fully and absolutely trusted in Jesus to provide everything we need and so we lived with open hearts and open hands ready and willing to help those around us in radical ways because we followed the example of sacrificial love that Jesus demonstrated at the cross for us!?
We are never more like Jesus than when we give.
And we never declare more loudly our dependance on Jesus than when we give.
What does your giving say about your heart?
What if everyone gave the way you gave?
What would that say about our hearts?
Does the content of our hearts communicate our confidence in Christ?
Or are we just pretending that we believe in Him?
God Cares About Your Heart
There were a lot of things I didn’t know when I became a Christian. But I did know I didn’t want to fake it. My guess is that’s true for you as well.
What if, when we gathered, what if we didn’t fake it? What if everyone gave freely, with open hands and open hearts? Can we be honest? Many of you do! Thank you! Others of us need to examine our hearts today.
Wherever you find yourself on that spectrum today, may you know that God cares about your heart. God cares about our hearts. And when we fully depend on Him, our witness before a watching world is elevated. The church will experience blessing and growth in an exponential way. And it has everything to do with money and nothing to do with money. It has everything to with our hearts and our dependence on Him.
Want more from this Series… Click here.
To hear this message click to watch.
