Pastor Tullian shared his 5th message in the “Unstoppableâ€series on February 22nd. As we make our way through the Book of Acts we see that God chooses the weak things of this world to shame the wise. Although this sermon is about the sad story of Ananias and Sapphira, from Acts 5:1-11, Tullian takes us back to Acts 4:32-37 so that we can better understand the context.

Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common. And with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need. Thus Joseph, who was also called by the apostles Barnabas (which means son of encouragement), a Levite, a native of Cyprus, sold a field that belonged to him and brought the money and laid it at the apostles’ feet. (Acts 4:32-37 ESV)

For years the interpretation of this story alluded Tullian. It just seemed so cold-hearted and unforgiving. These are relatively generous people who only tell a little white lie and then God strikes them dead. On the surface this just seems a little harsh, cruel, and unforgiving. But then one day Tullian realized that the cold-heartedness of this passage is intended to show how deadly and unforgiving a life of self-salvation can be.

The fact of the matter is, Ananias and Sapphira are no different than you and me. It might be easy for us to see them as negative examples and separate ourselves from them, but it is dangerous for us not to see ourselves in this passage. They saw this financial transaction as an opportunity to advance their reputation and be thought of as holy and they took it. We do the same thing—pretending to be someone we are not is as natural to us as breathing. However we don’t just deceive others we also deceive ourselves with these lies.

We may say we believe in justification by faith but we live as if we believe in justification by works. We seem to leave the Gospel behind when we become Christians and we mistakenly say to ourselves that we get to Heaven because of Christ’s work, but we try to find meaning, value, significance, love, and acceptance here on Earth as a result of our work. Jesus was relevant in our past and He is super relevant in our future, but we make ourselves most relevant in the present. We believe that it was Jesus’ blood, sweat, and tears that got us in but then we live as if it is our blood, sweat, and tears that keeps us in. So we find ourselves addicted to numerous self-salvation projects.

Thanks be to God in Christ Jesus for loving and rescuing liars because liars are all He has to choose from!

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