Acts 5 - Mistaking Control for Ownership
Tom Shrader explores the story of Ananias and Sapphira from Acts 5, who died after lying about their land sale proceeds to the early church. He emphasizes that their sin wasn't keeping money for themselves, but deceiving the church by claiming to give everything while secretly withholding part. This tragic account illustrates the fundamental principle that we are stewards, not owners, of what God has entrusted to us.
“You're not an owner. You're a steward. And God has given you incredible gifts, incredible talents, opportunity.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Dumb Mistakes: How to Avoid Them (2004)
Recorded: April 08, 2004
Duration: 42 min
Themes: stewardship, honesty, deception, integrity, ownership, giving, pride, accountability, struggling with dishonesty, managing finances, new believer, church member, dealing with pride, giving decisions, leadership accountability, married couples
Scripture: Acts 2:41, Acts 4:32-37, Acts 5:1-11, Matthew 22:15-22, Ephesians 5:18, Matthew 18
Theological Themes: ecclesiology, church discipline, biblical stewardship, sanctification, holy spirit, spiritual authority, church community, divine judgment
Full Transcript
This session comes from the same series, recorded February 26th, 1998. We are at session six today of an eight-session series entitled "Dumb Mistakes and How to Avoid Them."
The premise is really simple. We learn in a variety of ways. We learn through books and personal experience. But we can also learn by looking at other people's lives or situations, watching what they went through, and then simply not doing that. It's not a bad strategy at all. It's the least painful way to learn. So that's what we're examining.
We've looked at individuals. We looked at a guy by the name of Ben Haddad who had a dumb mistake - he thought a couple of drinks weren't going to hurt anybody, and he lost everything over that. We looked at Samson, who confused lust and love. We took a look at David, who, if we said David and dumb mistakes, you might think of Bathsheba or others. But David's dumb mistake is really a classic. He took a census. As a result of him taking that census, 70,000 people were killed. We get a great illustration of God and how God thinks. What God said to David, and all the kings, is "I don't want you to do this. I don't want you to number these armies, because I want you to be dependent on Me. I don't want you to know what's out there in the field."
After we looked at some individuals, last week we examined a dumb mistake of a group called "the crowd" - just a bunch of people who were hanging out, who looked at Jesus and refused to believe that He was the Son of God in spite of the overwhelming evidence.
Today's Focus: Ananias and Sapphira
Today we look at two people, Ananias and Sapphira. For years I thought they were Marvin Gaye's backup group, but they aren't.
Here's the deal. Early on, when I first became a Christian, I would go and listen to Larry Wright teach two and three times a week. I am convinced, if you went back and got those tapes of Larry Wright, that every lesson he did had some reference to marriage in it. You just couldn't listen to Larry and not hear it - it didn't matter what he was talking about, it ended up with some application to marriage. I remember talking one time and Larry said, "After a while, there are certain issues that when you touch upon them, you just feel so passionate about them, that everything goes through that grid."
Well, this is not one of those situations where everything goes through this grid. But the background information today is so close to my heart, so close to what is a passion for me, that I can't just gloss over it. The good news for me is that we have something I feel real passionately about. The bad news for you is you have to sit and listen to it. But that's part of the deal. Don't leave in the middle of it. Be courteous enough to just doze off where you are, and then we'll go on from there.
The Beginning of the Book of Acts
To get to Ananias and Sapphira, to really understand their story, we have to go through the beginning of the Book of Acts. We pick up in the 2nd chapter, verse 41, and we're going to break this apart. We're going to spend some serious time on this.
"Those who accepted His message were baptized." The "His" there is Peter. What has happened is simply this: Jesus has died on the cross. He's been buried, which is pretty typical - that's what they do with dead people. But unlike any other dead person, He rose from the dead, proving to us that indeed He was the Son of God. He then was on this planet, and He visited Peter and James and John and Paul, and then He made Himself visible to 500, and then He ascends into heaven.
As He's preparing to leave for heaven, something happens. He says to His people gathered there, "You'll be My witnesses to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth. And the Holy Spirit's going to come upon you, and you'll have power." It will be transforming power. It's not just physical power - it's not that you're going to bend steel with your bare hands. You're going to have a power, a supernatural power, a power that transcends understanding. What will happen is your life will be changed. Behavior change, yes, but a power beyond that.
The Power of the Holy Spirit
You live in a country where we have laws. But the laws don't change your heart. The laws are there to restrict your behavior. Hopefully, they're there to help us provide an environment where people live in a moral and ethical way. But the law can't change your heart.
What God says is the Holy Spirit's going to come, and the Holy Spirit's going to change your heart. By the way, when the Holy Spirit changes your heart, He will then subsequently change your behavior. But as He, God, is in the process of changing people, He takes this guy Peter.
When we look at Peter, we're just in the process at church of studying the Gospel of John - we're right at Jesus' betrayal and arrest. We're probably two or three weeks away from looking at Peter in the typical light that Peter is viewed: poor, dumb, stupid fisherman, no guts, denied Christ three times. We never let Peter get to Acts chapter 2.
When we get to Acts chapter 2, we have a whole new Peter. He stands up, and Peter, under the power of the Holy Spirit, now a believer, indwelled by the Holy Spirit - by the way, the same Spirit that lives in you, the same power that's available to you, no different, same power - now Peter stands up and delivers this message. That day, they heard this message, they were baptized, and about 3,000 people became Christians that day.
Let me add one other thing. In these studies, we meet a lot of men and women who become Christians as adults. Maybe they're in a church where baptism's not really a big deal, or maybe they're just ignorant about this, or it doesn't come up.
get plugged into the church. Now they're around a while, now they're teaching Sunday school and they're leading men's groups, but they've never been baptized. And there's a little level of embarrassment in there. It seems to me that the Scripture is clear. If you're a believer in Christ, you should be baptized.
Here's the way I say it. If you take communion at communion time, in other words, you're saying, I'm one of His. That's why I'm communing with Him. That's why I'm going through this. This is why I'm remembering. If you're taking communion, there should be in your life baptism.
Are you a believer and have you been baptized? Not because you'll go to heaven. If you're a believer, you'll spend eternity in heaven. The issue is baptism - it's an issue of obedience. And if what you're saying is, you know what, I was never baptized and now I have a position, I'd be embarrassed to go back and be baptized, then you're disobedient. That's all. And you're prideful. You need to contact that church and say, put me on the rolls, it's time to be baptized.
The Formation of the Early Church
And that's what happens. Three thousand people come. Now, here's the formation of the church. They devote themselves to the apostles' teaching, to fellowship, to breaking of bread and prayer, and every one was filled with awe. Miraculous signs and wonders were done by the apostles. All believers were together and had everything in common, selling their possessions they gave to one another as they needed. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in homes and together were glad and sincere, praising God, enjoying favor with all the people, and the Lord added to their number daily those being saved.
Here's what happens. Remember the context now. About two million pilgrims are in Jerusalem for Passover. They plan on being there a week or ten days. It is now into the sixty days that they've been there. In this process, they've understood who Christ is. They are Christians today, but they are flat out of money and there's no ATMs.
And there's two million of them, and there's no place to stay, and the Christian community is saying, come stay with us, but they didn't have an excess of money. They're selling what they have to accommodate these people. In the context of this, we see the beginning of the church. We see the church coming together in its very earliest form.
What Should a Church Be?
A typical question we'll get is, I'm looking for a good church. Where should I go to church? What should I do? How should I find a church? Well, the inference of that is, what should a church be?
Statistically, we know the number one reason people choose a church is to have their needs met. Is that important? Because what they'll say is, I feel a part of this, and they meet my needs, and I feel like I'm one of the guys. Hey, you can get that at the Elks. Go to the Moose Lodge. They do that at the Moose Lodge. Come in here. Hey, they'll meet your needs. They'll make you feel like you're part of it right here, tonight at 4.30.
What should a church be? Four things. The Apostles' teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayer. When you say, I'm looking for a church, these four elements should be there.
The Priority of Bible Teaching
If you're going to a church where the Bible is not taught, now here's what we mean by taught. It's not just that we open it up, read a verse, and that verse spins us into the latest Leo Biscaglia book, which gets us to Time Magazine, and now we talk. That's not Bible teaching. We mean chapter by chapter, verse by verse, or topics where we take a section of Scripture and we look at that section of Scripture. That's the supreme - it's God's Word being taught. That's what you want to see in the church. That's the question you have to ask.
Understanding True Fellowship
Is there fellowship? If you're here for the first time, you may check out here a second, and that's okay, we'll get you in a minute. Those of you that have been around for a long time and you're Christians, this is a huge issue.
I was just teaching on fellowship a couple of months ago, went into the Spurgeon archives. I want to say, what's Spurgeon? Here's a classic guy, one of the giants of the preaching faith. What does Spurgeon say about fellowship? I typed in fellowship, every sermon that I could find that Spurgeon preached on fellowship was about fellowship between God and man. When we hear fellowship, we immediately think of each other. When Spurgeon hears fellowship, he thinks God. This fellowship, my fellowship with God, overflows into my fellowship with man.
When we go to church, or a Christian setting, we talk about fellowship, we even try to isolate it to a place. Where do I have fellowship? Down there, and make a left, you're at fellowship hall. That's where they do that fellowship thing, they do it over there. So then they go in, and how does that happen? Hey, how are you doing? Good, how about you? Hey, great, thanks. How's the wife? Good, yours? Good. Kids? Great. Think this El Nino is real? Yeah, right. Son? Yeah. Amen. And we go, and we say, oh, we had fellowship. Listen, in the old days, we would call that shooting the bull. That's all that's fun.
Fellowship is a sense of where there's a communion here. I have fellowship with God. I pour my heart out to Him in prayer, He speaks to me through His word. There's a sameness, there's a oneness, there's a unity. When I have fellowship with man, I have fellowship around the worship of God, and then I have some interaction with him, that's fellowship. That ought to be taking place in a church context.
The Breaking of Bread
There ought to be the breaking of bread. Here's where we will separate from everyone else. That means communion. One of the great tragedies, and the reason this is so, because I teach in a bar on Thursday morning, a lot of people think I care a lot about being relevant and non-Christian, and I do, but my passion is for the church.
I see a lot of non-believers all screwed up. That's what I would expect. My problem is I see a lot of church people all screwed up. That's not what I expect. They're screwed up just like kids today are awful because the parents are so atrocious. It's not because kids are worse—the parents are so bad. Church people are awful because the churches are so bad.
The Problem with Modern Church Practices
One of the things the church does wrong is this idea of communion. For most churches, we take communion and think we can't be doing this every week. We're going to be spilling. We're going to spend money on this. It's going to take time. We can't be doing this. We'll do it once a month, and let's do it on Sunday night when we know no one's here.
That's not what Scripture teaches. I don't mean this in a harsh way, but we went through as part of a leadership team at a church, and we looked at it and said it doesn't say they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, taking a collection, and prayer. And yet every church I go to takes a collection.
Here's what's so atrocious about that. You can't even do the collection up front and get it out of the way. You've got to wait until the 20-minute mark when all the giving units are there. So what you've got to do is get all the worship flowing, then stop it. Say, "Okay, we need a soloist. Come on, somebody sing while we pass the plate." It stops all that's going on.
The giving is important. The giving is worship—it's an act of worship—but it doesn't need to happen in that context. You can put communion right in there, put boxes by the door, and have everything. That's my own view, but see how that happens?
The Power of Communion
There was a guy in my office yesterday who goes to the church that we go to, and he said, "I was at a church the other day. It was a typical Sunday morning service for them, and they didn't take communion, and I can't tell you how empty I felt."
Communion is a time in our week where we just stand before God and cleanse our heart, and we remember what He did. Communion has a past, present, and future element to it and ought to be an integral part of the body of Christ. I think that's part of what you ought to see in the church. And then this idea of prayer, of pouring myself out to God.
When you're looking at a church, those are the elements you look for because they're biblical elements.
Life-Threatening Diseases of the Large Church
George Barna looked at the church today, and he said here are the life-threatening diseases of the large church—large church meaning 500 people or more.
Number one, their criteria for success is the same as the world: numbers, et cetera. Number two, the church is isolated—isolated from the world, isolated from each other. Number three, there's no social conscience.
It's fascinating to me that you live at a time when the world is looking for a moral compass. The latest issue of Rolling Stone magazine has three or four articles about the president and all this stuff that's going on. These are from liberal authors, and they're all saying we've got to stand up and define what's right and what's wrong. You can't function as a society without it.
The Christian community can go into society, not to try to affect the Christian agenda, but simply say, "Here's something that's right and here's something that's wrong." Then begin to look at the hurt and pain there and do something about it.
The Evolution of Faith Crisis
Here's the fourth thing: the evolution of faith. This is the tragedy. This is where the church has really dropped it. More people go into church than ever before, and yet the faith—the true faith that's out there—is smaller than ever.
Here are statistics I love: 50% of Americans think Jesus made mistakes when He was on earth. 25% of people who said they are born-again evangelical Christians said Jesus made mistakes on earth. One in four—that is amazing.
Two out of three people said all good people go to heaven. Two out of three said it doesn't matter what God you pray to, just that you pray. Two out of three said all religions are the same. 60% said Jesus isn't real—this is my favorite. When asked who delivered the Sermon on the Mount, the second most frequently given answer was Billy Graham. That's not good. Jesus is the answer, by the way, for those of you that are laughing but don't know.
Additional Problems in Modern Churches
Number five, the church is repulsed by technology and innovation. As of a couple of years ago, 50% of the churches in the country didn't have a computer. I have no idea how you do that.
Six, there's no leadership development—in other words, let the pros do it. This is how you see this. By the way, the church I go to, we're as screwed up as everybody in these, but our advantage is we know it.
You go to any church and say, "What do you want me to do?" They say, "I want you to grow in Christ." Here's the question you ask: "How would that happen? What should I do?" Now they're stumped. "Go to a Sunday school class and usher. That'll get you there."
There's got to be something more than this. At least in a place as goofy as ASU, I can go over and say, "If I'm here four years, what should I do?" They say, "What are you interested in?" You say, "Political science." And they say, "Okay, here's what you need to do." We ought to have that in the church.
A Better Approach to Discipleship
Here at Priority Living, those of you that have been here a while know that after about four years, you start to see the lessons again. The reason is these lessons are designed so over a period of four years, we cover theological issues, practical issues, dumb mistake issues, doctrinal issues, 101 issues, 301 issues. We try to put them all together. So if you're here four years...
At the end of it, you've got a very broad, in some areas, but a very in-depth view of the Christian faith. There ought to be there. Here are two more things. The church is missing the opportunity to minister to family by focusing on the typical American family. In other words, 50% of the people there are either single or in blended families. The church is just throwing them under the bus at record pace. Here's the last thing. And now this ties all together, I hope. No evangelism in the church. So here's what the church says, well we're going to do evangelism, bring all your friends here and we'll do evangelism. That isn't evangelism.
True Evangelism Flows from Genuine Community
Here's why I went through all this. Look at what happens. They broke bread together, they're praising God, here's a key phrase, they're enjoying favor with all people. In other words, we're talking here about just secular people. Secular people are looking at the church, and they're looking at the church in a positive light because every person on the planet wants to be loved and be in a place where there is love and see genuine love. And they looked at the church and they saw it and they said, that's what we want. That is evangelism.
Very important distinction here. And I understand this is a little detailed for some of us, but hang with me. Evangelism is not winning souls. Evangelism is not converting people. Evangelism is the sharing of the gospel. That's your job and my job. Converting a soul is God's job.
Look at this. They won favor with the people, that's evangelism. The Lord added to their numbers daily, that's conversion. If Billy Graham goes and gets America West Arena, puts 17,000 people in there, does this thing, everybody call publicly, now come. If all 17 don't move an inch, they stay right in their chairs. They're singing just as I am for the 28th time and nobody's moved. Billy Graham is still a successful evangelist. Because evangelism is to deliver the message. He's done at that point. At this point, now it's God's job.
Understanding Our Role vs. God's Role
So we don't have to sit down and debrief it and say, man, was the message not connecting? Was the video off? Did I not have it today? You know what we got to do? We got to go pray, have a cup of coffee and say, God, I guess that just wasn't what you were going to work in today. See that? As long as you're winning souls. I was in this church not long ago where they were having soul winner week or whatever this was and I stayed out of it and I stayed out of it and I stayed out of it until the guy introducing me just kind of shoved it in my face and I just made one simple point. You can't win a soul. We don't want the souls you'd win. God wins souls. You don't.
Do you share the faith? Yep. Do you live the faith? Yep. That's evangelism. We do that. But God is the one who determines people coming into the kingdom. See that? And what do I do to evangelize? We don't need to bring Him into the church. We've already infiltrated the marketplace.
Look here. If we collected calling cards here today, this morning, we would look around and we would see that we've invaded businesses all over this valley right here. We don't need to bring those people in. We just need you to go be what a Christian looks like in that environment and then share the gospel boldly. This is not hard.
Flashy Events vs. Real Evangelism
I'll tell you what it is. It's not flashy though. It's a lot more flashy to have 500 people come together and sing a bunch of songs and blow up hot water bottles and do all these things. That's flashy. I don't mean that critically, but I'm saying that's flashy. And then at the end of the year, you can point back to that event and say, we did that. The problem is the evangelism that I see takes place one-on-one with touching the soul and following up. That's what's happening here, isn't it? Look at they continue.
We're still in the introduction here. But I told you, you got to admit, my real estate business did me well, I believe in full disclosure and at least I told you up front. All the believers are one heart. Now I'm going to just go through this. They sell. Barnabas sold His field and He took the money He had and brought it to the apostles' feet. That seemed to be what was happening. As things were being liquidated, the money was being brought to the apostles for distribution.
Ananias and Sapphira's Dumb Mistake
That sets up the story of Ananias and Sapphira. Now here we go. Dumb mistake number six. They thought that because they had control, they had ownership.
So here's what's happened. There's this guy Ananias. He and His wife Sapphira sell a piece of land. With full knowledge, in other words, the two of them together, in a premeditated way, a way they had already thought of, premeditated way, they took the money, they brought part of it for the church and kept part of it for themselves. That's not the problem, by the way. These people are apparently very generous people.
But here's what they're doing. They're coming into the church and saying, we sold this piece of land for a million, we sold this piece of land. They had sold it, as we looked at the records, for a million bucks. They sold this piece of land and we want to give all the proceeds, all 250,000 of it, right here to the church. That's the problem. That's the problem.
Peter's Confrontation
And Peter says, Ananias, what are you doing? How has Satan so filled your heart? The word filled in the Greek is the same word that's used in Ephesians 5:18 to speak of the filling of the Holy Spirit. That is how filled Satan has. Most scholars would agree. Most scholars would agree that Satan, at this point, has invaded Ananias' life, and this is just an outpouring of one of many sins in this guy's life.
How come you've lied to the Holy Spirit? How come you kept some of the money for yourself? Didn't it belong to you before it was sold, and after it was sold, wasn't the money yours? What made you think of doing such a thing? I want you to see, it's not the money. The money's
The Lie That Led to Death
His, to do what he wants with it. The problem is, he lied to God. That's the problem. Again, for those of you that are into this kind of stuff, I want you to see, up here, he lies to the Holy Spirit. Down here, he lied to God. That's because the Holy Spirit and God are the same. We believe, as Christians, in one God, we're monotheists, and that God manifests Himself in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
So that's the mistake. Here's what he said. He said, because I own this, I can do whatever I want to do with it. Because I can control it, I own it. That's the mistake. And the result is catastrophic.
When Ananias heard this, he fell down and he died. And a great fear seized all who heard this, and the young men came forward and they wrapped up the body and they took him out and they buried him.
The Wife's Tragic Deception
Three hours later, his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. Now when we're talking about fear up here in this second verse, when we're talking about fear, I believe this is paralyzing fear. I cannot imagine a situation where a wife whose husband had been stricken dead in a church service would not have somehow heard that. There's just no way. If we see somebody cut somebody off in the parking lot, we're gossiping about it within minutes. But she has no idea.
And she walks in and Peter says, tell me what you got for the land. She said, oh, that $250,000 piece of land you mean? And Peter said, you idiot, what are you doing? How can you test the spirit? Look the feet of the men who buried your husband are at the door and they're going to carry you away. We got this deal today, two for one on burials and you're out of here. You're gone.
And look it, she fell down dead and the young man came. Now I'm going to add this, this is speculation. But you see the phrase the young men here, you see it up there. Some commentators believe that there was actually an office in the early church of these young men. That what happens here, while it didn't happen regularly, it did happen often in the early church.
The Purifying Power of Holy Fear
And fear seized them. Imagine that. Imagine how pure that early church was when you're dealing with sin in this type of way. Imagine if Sunday they said, here you go, next Sunday, every hypocrite in the church is going to be struck dead. That solves a parking problem. Pass that on to Pastor Darrell. That'll solve the parking problem. We can tease, Darrell. It's going to solve the pulpit problem, it solves all sorts of problems. We're going to say, oh man, that echinacea is not working. I don't think I'll make it Sunday. I'll be there on non-hypocrite Sunday when they have that.
What God is doing, and there's a sub-lesson to this, is what God is doing is purifying the church. God does not want sin in the church. God wants sinners in there. But He wants the sinner as somebody who understands that they've sinned, and they recognize that sin, and they expect that it's sin, they acknowledge it as that, and they're repulsed by it. It's the way that we deal with sin in the scripture.
How the Church Should Handle Sin
If I'm involved in sin, let's pick a sin we don't - I was going to say, pick a sin we agree on. Let's pick a sin most of us agree on, adultery. And I'm involved in adultery. This is hypothetical. I'm involved in adultery. Dan comes to me and Dan says, is it true that you're sleeping with so-and-so? And I go, yeah, whatever, whenever we can. And he says, Tom, that's wrong, that's sin. I go, Dan, Dan, Dan, up your nose with a rubber holder. Now, that's Matthew 18. He's done Matthew 18.
Now he gets Damian. Now Dan and Damian come, and they say, Tom, you know, are you doing this? And I say, look it, boys, buzz off, will you? At that point, they go to the church and to the elders, and then the church to me, and the church comes around and says, are you involved in sin, and they say yes, I say yeah, I am, but it's no big deal.
At that point, what the church ought to do is publicly say, Tom's involved in sin, Tom's unrepentant, we don't want Tom here and we don't want you to do anything with him, leave him alone. Now, let me make clear, we don't do that with non-believers. Non-believers are non-believers and we expect them to have no ethic or moral, but with somebody who says they're a Christian, we deal with their sin.
Love Through Church Discipline
Oh, you don't love them. No, exactly the opposite, because this is not an easy thing to do. We love them so much that if they're truly believers, by removing them from the body, that should make them desire to be part of the body. You cannot institutionally mess around with sin. Does that mean everybody in the church is perfect? No. Does that mean, Tom, you don't sin? No, I sin, but when I do, it breaks my heart and we take it seriously.
There is a reverential awe in this church because God is dealing straightforward with sin. Here is the principle. God expects what's due Him. We're into the fundamental issue that we used at the very beginning of our financial series. The distinction between ownership and stewardship.
Setting a Trap for Jesus
The Pharisees went out with plans to trap Jesus. They wanted to do it in His own words. He's evaded them and they're trying to set a trap. So the Pharisees and the Herodians, background, these guys hate each other. They can't stand each other. This is like Ken Starr and Bill Clinton saying, let's go to Martha's Vineyard for August. It ain't going to happen. They hate each other.
The Pharisees and the Herodians hate each other, but they got one thing they hate more, Jesus. They hate Him. They hate Him and they want to kill Him. So they go to Him and here's what they say. Teacher, you're a man of integrity. You teach a way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren't swayed by men because you pay no attention to who they are. Tell us your opinion. Let me just hit the button there and have you see what they told Jesus was
exactly true. He was a man of integrity. He wasn't swayed by what the polls said and he did what was absolutely right. I come back to it again. This is how you ought to live in the environment you're in. You ought to be a person of integrity who does what's right because it's right.
We've said this before, but we can't say it enough and some of you know it's true and you come up after it and say, just everywhere I am, they don't say that around the office and stuff and I just need to hear that and be reinforced. We'll reinforce it for you.
The Cost of Moral Compromise
I got no idea what President Clinton did or didn't do with Monica Lewinsky. No clue. But if he did have sex with the girl and then he lied about it, the guy's got to go. You can't have a moral leader.
How can Jimmy Swaggart go do what he did and we laugh at him and we come to the President and say, oh, it's no big deal? How can we take a guy who just got blown out of being Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff because he had an affair 22 years ago while he was separated with somebody else and say, he's not fit to be Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, but this guy's fit to be Commander-in-Chief? There's moral authority that's forfeited when you live an immoral life.
And men and women, the object here is not Bill Clinton. The object is you and me. You can't stand up and be a person of evangelism in the marketplace if your life is one foot in the world and one foot out of it. You can't talk about family values if you're messing around with a secretary or messing around with a boss.
Standing for Truth in Dark Times
This is a picture of how we ought to be. At a time when things are blowing in the wind, at a time when you can't get anybody to say something's wrong, at a time when the politicians are just saying whatever you want to hear. How do we know that? Ninety-three percent of them get re-elected every time. If they were telling you the truth, it wouldn't be anything like that. It's just very simple.
You and I need to stand up and say the truth. Live the truth, not in a harsh way, not in an in-your-face way, but in a loving way, and say, this is right, this is wrong. You know, I kind of laughed when they were talking about how do you talk to your kids about what's going on in the White House thing, until I heard some kids talking about it, and they're just very confused by this. They're very confused by, and I don't mean, it's questions as simple as this. Mom, what would you do if Dad did that? Well, I'd forgive him. I'd miss him, but I'd forgive him. Well, I mean, those are the issues.
You live at a time, and I say this, you live at a magnificent time in history, in this sense. You have an opportunity to be light in the midst of a world that's very dark, and the darker it gets, the brighter even a little light can shine. This is a great time. This is a great time for you and I to say, hey, everybody instinctively knows what right and wrong is. We've got to send them away and educate them to confuse them on those issues. We have a great opportunity here.
Render to Caesar What Is Caesar's
They come to Jesus, we've got six minutes. They come to Jesus and they say, we're going to trick Him. We've got Him now, there's no way you can get out of it. Jesus, should we pay taxes to Caesar? And obviously the thinking is, if Jesus says, yes, pay Caesar, the Jews are frustrated. If Jesus says, no, don't pay Caesar, then the Romans are going to say, He's an insurrectionist.
So Jesus says, give me a coin. They give Him a denarius. And Jesus said, whose image is on the denarius? And they said, Caesar. And they said, okay, then give to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and God the things that are God's.
Here's what I want to do. I get this. We're coming up. Let's see, what do we got? We got about another, well, the sweat starts to hit in about another month, gets intense at the end of March, and then it's very intense those first two weeks in April as every Christian tries to figure out the moral position of the IRS. Look, pay the taxes. And don't cheat and don't lie. They're the government. They can tell you to do that. They own that. Their image is on the coin.
Whose Image Is on Your Heart?
Here's the lesson. The lesson is this. If we took your heart and I said, give me your heart and we held up your heart and we said, whose image is on your heart? What would we see? Caesar's?
See, the implication is, is that Christ's image is on your heart, and Christ's image is in your life, so then give your life to Christ. Give to Him what's due Him. We've reached a point that is critical, because we have people who say they're Christians who barely understand what it means.
Christianity as Identity, Not Adjective
We've taken Christian and made it an adjective rather than a noun. We don't hear anybody anymore just talk about Christian and what it means to be a Christian. So you got a Christian comic and Christian music and Christian books or Christian plumber.
Look. Let me help you out here. There's nothing Christian about plumbing. You cut it, you wire it, you splice it, you weld it, you flush it. There's nothing Christian about it. Now the person who does it may be a Christian, but I think we do a disservice when we say he's a Christian plumber. I think we do a great service when we say he's a plumber who's Christian. You and I are Christians, and then we do these other things. We don't bring the adjective to it and now say, oh man, here's a Christian.
I had a guy in one of the studies, and this is an honest, I had forgotten about this story until this moment. Honest to God story. We're meeting afterwards, and this guy doesn't know Christ from anything. He's involved in drugs and pornography and everything. I said, have you got a card? He gives me a card, and he's got a card, and I won't tell you what business it's in. But it's a service industry business. And on his card is a fish. And I said, what is the fish? He said, you know, I don't know. But I saw a bunch of guys with it, and I was talking to them, and they were Christians. I guess it's
The Trust Factor
Some Christian thing, but he said it's perfect because it breaks down a lot of barriers when people get my card and see my trucks. There's a sense of trust there. There's nothing Christian about plumbing. You want an honest guy there.
See, the question is, whose image is on your heart? What should a Christian look like? We talked about it last week. Every time He says, "Follow me," Jesus puts incredible price with it. Take up your cross. Deny yourself daily. Take up your cross and follow me. If you want to follow me, leave your father and mother.
Jesus, I want to follow you, but I want to bury my father. Let the dead bury the dead. When we talk about following Christ, there's enormous cost with it.
The Central Lesson
For some of you who will go crazy if I don't get to the last overhead, let me put it up and talk about something else. What He's saying here is, if you make a vow, keep it. Here's the lesson today: Don't confuse control for ownership. God has given you your life and you're a steward.
A Father's Realization
I've got one minute here. I'm going through a real interesting thing. Sarah's 18. Sarah graduates from high school in a couple of months. It's been a very interesting time for me because, number one, I thought I had the parenting thing kind of thought through and figured out. For whatever reason, I kind of thought it was over in a way. And it isn't.
And we're going through all these lasts. We had a game the other night. Cheer's over. This is the last cheer. She's cheering. They're in the tournament. If they lose this game, this is the last game she'll ever cheer for in her high school career.
Thirty seconds left in the game. We're down nine. They got the ball. There's no way we're going to win. And she kind of looked around. And it was like that moment hit her at the same time it hit me.
And I'm sitting in the stands. I'm the only guy. I couldn't care less if we're down one or ten because all I want is more timeouts to see more cheers. That's all I care about. I'm there to see the cheers.
The Heart-Wrenching Moment
And she looks up. And at the same moment it hits me, it seems to hit her this is her last game. And she kind of looks back and her little lip goes down. And she kind of looks and our eyes meet. And then her head drops. And she turns around and does her thing.
And what's killing me here is she isn't my kid. She's God's kid that He gave me to steward. If she was mine, I wouldn't—this sounds silly—I wouldn't even care as much as I do now. But I'm saying God gave me this treasure for 18 years. And now I'm asking myself some hard questions like have I prepared her to be the woman God wants her to be?
Universal Stewardship
Men and women, that's true with your kids. It's true with your house. It's true with your car. It's true at work. It's true with your life. Whose image is on your heart?
You're not an owner. Let me just help you out here. You aren't an owner. You're a steward. And God has given you incredible gifts, incredible talents, opportunity. Some of you have millions of dollars. Some of you are wearing your net worth. Some of you have big houses. Some of you have little houses.
Here you go. All of you have 168 hours this week that God's given you. What are you doing with those? These are profound questions. Don't confuse.