How Seriously Do You Take Personal Hypocrisy? (PM Lesson Outline)
GIST: God takes our hypocrisy seriously; we should too.
SCRIPTURE: Acts 4:36-5:11
For tonight’s discussion, I want to look at a more difficult passage of Scripture. What happens here is serious, and honestly should make us feel a little uncomfortable. In fact, when my dad saw the topics for today’s messages, he smirked and called me brave. I’m not. These are just the next two passages we’re coming to. Nonetheless, this morning we talked about money and tonight we’re looking at hypocrisy☺️. Nothing lightweight!
Let’s pick up where we let off in chapter 4 verse 36 and read through chapter 5 verse 11.
"36 Thus Joseph, who was also called by the apostles Barnabas (which means son of encouragement), a Levite, a native of Cyprus, 37 sold a field that belonged to him and brought the money and laid it at the apostles' feet."
1 But a man named Ananias, with his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property, 2 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. 3 But Peter said, "Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land? 4 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." 5 When Ananias heard these words, he fell down and breathed his last. And great fear came upon all who heard of it. 6 The young men rose and wrapped him up and carried him out and buried him. 7 After an interval of about three hours his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. 8 And Peter said to her, "Tell me whether you sold the land for so much." And she said, "Yes, for so much." 9 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." 10 Immediately she fell down at his feet and breathed her last. When the young men came in they found her dead, and they carried her out and buried her beside her husband. 11 And great fear came upon the whole church and upon all who heard of these things."
Let’s just break this down by asking three basic questions and then looking at two takeaways.
I. What Was The Sin?
We have to remember, this is not about how much they gave. Peter tells them they had no obligation to sell anything. The context is very important here. Barnabas was praised for being willing to sell his field and give it to the Church. It seems pretty straightforward here: Ananias and Sapphira wanted that same kind of recognition without the same kind of sacrifice.
This is the sin of hypocrisy. They went through the motions, but were not really changed on the inside. They were trying to claim to be something they weren’t. I love Matt Chandler’s quote on this. “Hypocrisy is saying the words without understanding the truth or performing actions without having the heart.”
II. Why Does It Fill Our Churches?
How often have we heard people talk about the level of hypocrisy in churches? There’s a reason for that. Hypocrisy is a reality. Why? Because churches are full of sinners! Many of us might be covered by grace, but we’re still wretches in need of a Savior! Often we’re quick to condemn hypocrisy in others, but really we would do well to do some self examination. We need to get the plank out of our own eyes☺️.
Again, Matt Chandler made the following observations about the prevalence of hypocrisy in churches that I found extremely helpful and convicting this week...so I’m going to share them with you.
1. Hypocrisy is often a cover for weakness. We’re weak, but we don’t want everyone to see that. We struggle, but we don’t want to lay out our baggage. We’re supposed to be the saints, right? We’re supposed to be the ones who have it all together...but we don’t. So we’re left with two broad options. (Yes, I realize there are nuanced approaches that could be pursued☺️.) Option one is some form of hypocrisy. Cover up your failures with projected righteousness. Option two is being honest with the people around you about your brokenness. Let me be honest with you right now, that’s not easy for me either. But (observation #2)→
2. Hypocrisy will flourish if we don’t encourage sincerity and accept brokenness. This one really hit home with me, especially when Chandler used the following examples to hammer home his point...because I’ve been there: “You won’t grow more bold in your evangelism if you pretend like you’re already bold. You won’t grow past your struggle with lust if you pretend you don’t have one.” We’re never going to grow together if we don’t think we need to grow! We’re never going to be a church that grows together spiritually if we don’t make it abundantly clear that it is part of the process not to be fully grown yet! It just struck me as I typed these notes up that if we parented like this, we’d go insane...and cause serious harm to our children. We couldn’t expect our kids to just automatically act like adults instead of training them to be adults. Sadly, that is sometimes how we try to live our Christian lives.
And guys, I get it. Vulnerability is hard. It’s uncomfortable. But let me just say, I might be the pastor of this church, but I’m still a sinner. I still struggle with so many different temptations every day. I don’t always get it right. In fact, I probably get it wrong far more than I get it right. I’m not better than you. We all need Jesus to transform our lives daily, and we all need each other as encouragers along that way!
III. What Is Its Result?
Well, here it was death. Let’s be honest about this. There is a good chance our gut reaction is to ask, “Isn’t that too severe?” The point is that hypocrisy is itself destructive. It leads to disunity amongst God’s people and mars our witness. God does not take it lightly. Does that mean you’re going to be killed for your hypocrisy. Not necessarily. If God continued with this method, the world population would be much smaller. However, this serves as a warning. Hypocrisy is more serious than we likely assume.
TAKEAWAYS
1. God takes our hypocrisy seriously.
2. We should too.
I’m not sure I’ve ever had more succinct takeaways, but, man, how I need to apply these!
For more on this topic, please see this sermon from Matt Chandler:
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