Good morning.
So for those of you who don't know me, I'm Bernard.
I'm one of the members here at Watermark.
And thank you, Christina, and thank you, Betty, for reading.
It was more uplifting than the Tim Burton edition of what we saw.
If you've been with us for the last few weeks,
you would know we're going through the Book of Acts.
And one of the things that we've been tracking is the growth of the early church in the Book of Acts.
And what we've seen in the first four chapters is really the church growing and growing and growing.
And then in chapter four from last week, what we saw was a threat.
With the growth of the church, there was also some opposition.
But one of the key things behind the entire growth of the church
was we were introduced to the Holy Spirit.
And to be honest, I had a bit of a struggle myself trying to understand the Holy Spirit.
What's the role?
Okay?
I mean, we know, you know, we kind of know God's role in creation
and kind of put everything in place.
And we know Christ's role to become man and to die on the cross.
But why do we need the Holy Spirit?
What's with the third leg?
You know?
So one of the things, and it's key to understand the Holy Spirit as we go through Acts.
And one of the things that helped me was J.I. Packer is a British-Canadian theologian.
And he explained it this way.
And he called it, what he explained is the floodlight ministry.
So floodlights, you know, the lights that kind of light up buildings.
So this is what he wrote.
I remember walking to a church one evening, one winter evening,
to preach on the words, He shall glorify me.
Seeing the building floodlit as I turn the corner and realizing,
this is exactly the illustration I needed for my message.
When floodlighting is well done,
the floodlights are so placed that you do not see them.
You're not, in fact, supposed to see where the light is coming from.
What you're meant to see is the building on which the floodlight is trained.
The intended effect is to make it visible when otherwise it would not have been seen for darkness
or to maximize the dignity by throwing all of its detail into relief
so that you can see it properly.
This perfectly illustrates the Spirit's new covenant role.
He is, so to speak, the hidden floodlight for our Savior.
So let us just start with a prayer.
Lord, we just ask you, Lord, that your Holy Spirit would just come amongst us this morning.
It would shine a light on this message from Acts 4 and 5
on the story of Ananias and Sapphira.
And Lord, we just ask you that you'd be able to show us
what you want us to take away today.
So last week, if you remember, Chris gave a really quite good summary
of the first seven chapters of Acts.
Basically, what he said is, chapter 1 to 4, we saw, chapter 1 to 3, we saw the early church growing.
You see things like there was 1,000 new converts.
There was 3,000 new converts.
And then chapter 3, there was 5,000 new converts.
So basically, it's just growing in the thousands, okay?
Now, chapter 4 last week, you saw was an introduction of some opposition.
Where there's growth, often there's opposition.
And what chapter 4 to 7 tells us is really Luke, the author of Acts,
warning us about the oppositions that the early church faced.
And the reason he told us about this is because we are going to face similar oppositions
as the church grows, as we go into ministry and as you spread the gospel.
So what we saw is initially in chapter 4, the threat was external to the church.
They were kind of the high priests and the establishment and the high priest's family
and basically the Jewish authorities that didn't like seeing this new fledgling faith coming aboard
and then actually people leaving them to go to become Christians.
Now, what we see in chapter 5 is something quite different.
So maybe we can go to the next slide, the table of content.
Maybe I should move over here a little bit.
What we see here in chapter 5 is, so what I want to go through today is in four sections.
One is the sharing community.
We just want to start and explain it at the end of chapter 4 what that looks like.
And then the second is the threat from within.
And then I'm going to talk about the sin beneath our sins and then the ultimate Barnabas.
So let's move straight into the sharing community.
What we see in that latter half of chapter 4 is a new radical community.
You heard Marissa talking about one of the things that she appreciated most about Watermark
was the community that we emphasize on.
So what we saw was a young, faithful community that lived out its faith in a very authentic way.
And what it did was it shared a lot of things.
Now, when you originally read this passage and you say, well, you know, people sold fields and gave to the poor,
the first thing that came into mind is, is this like communism, right?
I mean, it's kind of like, sounds like something Lenin and Marx kind of thought up, right?
Actually, if you just read a little bit into it, it is not, okay?
And I want to just explain that because some people just have this misconception.
Firstly, the people who sold the properties and the land and gave, they did it by choice, okay?
If you read your communist history, there's not a lot of choice involved, okay?
So generally, what happens in a communist state is the state owns everything, okay?
They, you don't, there's no private property, okay?
The state owns everything and then you work a job and you get a salary, okay?
What we see here in Acts is people still own properties, okay?
And people still own private, so private property was still very relevant,
but people gave and sold property voluntarily, okay?
And then we actually saw a little bit later on that it talks about an individual's name is Barnabas
and it kind of uplifts Barnabas as their example.
Now, you wouldn't put somebody up as an example unless they did something voluntarily, right?
I mean, you wouldn't say, well, here's a good example, I've confiscated your land.
Well, that's not an example, okay?
The fact here is in the early church, people voluntarily sold property to cover the needs for the poor.
So what they actually did is they truly owned their possessions and their possessions didn't own them, okay?
So what I want to talk a little bit about is how does this community work?
And I just put a few bullet points there.
A couple of things that in the later half of chapter 4 it talks about,
the community was devoted to Scripture.
It came together and studied the Scripture together.
It was devoted to fellowship, okay?
They met together, not just on the night that their CG met,
they met together throughout the week.
They broke bread together, they ate together,
they also shared communion together,
and then they prayed together.
And I think that's a critical point that we continue to hear, emphasize again and again.
And then they were generous with one another.
But that generosity was really just an outliving of how the Holy Spirit was changing them, okay?
So this is exactly the model we're trying to create within Watermark in the community group.
So if you kind of think, well, where did Watermark get the idea of the community group from?
It's right here in Acts 4, okay?
So this is exactly the model.
And you say, well, that's fine,
and probably in the first century Palestine everything was like that.
You know, this is Hong Kong 2017.
It's different.
We have a complex environment.
Things are harder now than it was in the first century in Jerusalem.
Not really.
And firstly, this sharing community was radical in the first century Palestine.
We know that because when the Romans first tried to basically squash the Christian faith,
we have actually a letter from the Emperor Julian, okay, who was the last Roman Emperor,
stating his frustration.
And this is what he wrote to his governors.
Nothing has contributed to the progress of the superstition of those Christians as their charity to strangers.
Those Galileans provided not only for their own poor, but they provided for ours as well.
So one of the things that helped spread the Christian faith was really the generosity,
how they were able to share.
And this was so shocking to the Roman Empire.
So, you know, you may think, well, okay, once again, thanks, Bernard,
and thanks for the history lesson.
But, you know, we live in Hong Kong.
2017, it can't happen.
This is not a realistic thing.
I want to share with you just a little experience both Angie and I had recently in our own community group.
So a little bit of a shout-out to Breaking Bread community group.
So about a month ago, just kind of just before the Easter break,
we wanted to, we as a family, wanted to take our younger two children for a holiday in Taiwan.
We had one small problem, and our oldest daughter, Abigail, was studying for exams,
and therefore we couldn't leave her at home by herself because there would be no study happening otherwise.
So, anyway, so we said, okay, we've got a bit of a problem.
We can't go away, yet, so what can we do?
So we sent a WhatsApp out to our community group, and we said, look, we have this problem.
We want to go away.
We want to give Abigail some time to study.
Can anybody help out?
I swear, within an hour, this other chat starts up.
Okay, you know there's activity with millennials when a new chat group gets formed.
Okay, and within an hour, they had devised a schedule of different people who will be staying at our place with Abby,
looking after her, and ensuring she studies.
But, and this was a work week.
This was not the holiday week.
This was the work week before Easter, okay?
So, you know, I know we talk about giving, and we immediately think it's financial, it's money.
But you know what?
One thing that we all have the same amount of is time.
And this was just a really touching thing.
And I just want to give a shout out to our community group that they were able to just come together,
and they were able to share, give up, rearrange their work schedules,
so that they were able to come up and be with Abby, and we were able to go to Taiwan.
So, let's move to Chapter 5, our couple, Ananias and Zephira.
I don't know why in Tim Burton-type cartoons, evil people always dress in pinstripes, if you ever noticed.
Dark grey pinstripes, so never wear pinstripes.
So, one of the things, what we've seen up until now, as I said,
the threat to the Christian community was from the outside.
High priests, and there was the authority, Jewish authorities, and so forth.
What we see here is something quite different.
And Ananias and Zephira, Luke wanted to warn us that threats to the Christian community
is not just going to come from the outside, but actually the greatest threat are from the inside.
Okay?
And this was the first time we've seen this.
And I don't know about you, if you've been in churches for a little bit,
could be in Hong Kong, could be in Canada, could be in Australia,
it doesn't matter where it is.
You kind of know, one of the deep, kind of, not-so-secret secrets is internal church politics
is kind of ugly.
Okay?
Somebody once said, there are only two things you never want to see.
One is how sausage is made.
The other is how a church operates.
Okay?
And there's some truth to that, right?
Because it's kind of, sometimes you see the ugliest things that happen within internal church conflicts.
And what Luke is trying to tell us here is,
be careful.
There's threats within a church.
Okay?
Now, just to give you an example, one of the common things is,
I would say, C.S. Lewis kind of warned us in Screwtape Letters,
he said, one of the things that the enemy or the devil will always want to do
is make you dissatisfied with something at church.
Okay?
So if you read Screwtape Letters, this is what he said.
He kind of said, after you start going to church,
and then at some point you say, maybe I don't like the song,
I don't like the worship music,
or I don't like the sermon.
Okay?
So, I don't like the sermon.
Not this one.
I just don't like the sermon.
In general.
You know, how they preach, I don't like it.
I don't like the style.
I don't like the kids program.
Okay?
So what the enemy wants to do is make you into a discerning consumer within the church.
Okay?
If you look at the book of Acts,
you don't see a discerning consumer within that community.
Okay?
You see a community of people that are looking to find ways to serve one another.
Okay?
Now, with Ananias and Sapphira, another threat,
another internal threat is happening.
So, let me just recap the story.
You saw that they sold a field, okay,
and they took some money.
They took the money to the apostles,
but they didn't take all of the money.
They took some of the money,
and they kind of kept some themselves.
So, what was the problem?
Peter, obviously,
had a session with them to say,
Ananias,
separately,
Ananias,
why have you done this?
So, what was the thing that they're being judged on?
Okay?
Now, firstly,
I do want to kind of touch up on this point.
We are not very comfortable with judgment.
In 2017,
we don't like the God of judgment
or the God of anger.
Okay?
We think the God of judgment,
the God of anger,
kind of belongs in the Old Testament.
In the New Testament,
in our time,
2017,
we like the God of love,
the God of compassion,
a very progressive God,
of God of forgiveness.
We kind of like that.
And we have this misconception a little bit
that judgment and anger
is the opposite of love.
I just want to clear up that point.
Judgment and anger
is not the opposite of love.
Hate is the opposite of love.
And the ultimate form of hate
is indifference.
Okay?
So, judgment and anger
is not the opposite of love.
Hate is the opposite of love.
And the ultimate form of hate
is indifference.
Let me just give an example.
Just think about somebody you love.
Okay?
Could be your spouse.
Could be your children,
and if you have children.
It could be a really good friend.
And think for a moment
that there's some bad influences
is ruining his or her life.
Okay?
So, maybe a bad crowd,
maybe some bad friends.
I just...
just leading them astray
down the wrong path.
Okay?
Now,
are you going to say,
well, I'm not going to make judgment.
You know,
you know,
my best friend
is hanging out with the wrong crowd
and just going off the rails,
but I don't want to make judgment.
Okay?
The fact here is
you're not going to say that.
You're going to make a judgment,
and then
you may get angry.
In fact,
you should get angry
if
something bad
is ripping
a loved one's
life apart.
Okay?
So,
the fact here is,
in fact,
if you don't get angry
and you don't make any judgment,
there's probably
a good
grounds
to question,
do you actually love that person?
Right?
Does that make sense?
You know,
do you actually love that person?
You have to make a judgment,
and you have to get angry
if something bad is happening.
This is exactly
what God was doing
in this passage.
Okay?
God saw
the early church
was being threatened
by a very serious threat
in the form of
Ananias and Sapphira.
Okay?
In fact,
you know,
he would call it
a clear and present danger
to the early church,
and God acted
to eliminate
that threat,
and he also
wanted to warn
the future generation
like us
that this threat
could also ruin
your community,
Now,
what was
the threat?
Okay?
In the first reading
of the story
of Ananias and Sapphira,
you may think,
well,
it's greed.
You know,
it's greed.
They kind of,
you know,
they wanted to give some,
but they didn't want to give.
And I would firstly argue,
I don't think it's greed.
Okay?
They,
firstly remember,
the giving was voluntary.
If they were really greedy
for money,
they didn't have to give any,
but they actually did
give some money.
Okay?
So,
I would argue,
I don't think it's the greed
of money.
It may be greed
for something else.
I'll come back to that.
Okay?
So,
this,
what Peter actually told us
in,
um,
chapter five,
verse four,
is,
you lied not to man,
but you lied to God.
So,
there was clearly
an integrity issue.
Okay?
So,
it was an integrity issue.
So,
the word integrity
came from a Latin root word,
integer.
Okay?
Those of you who are math majors
or science majors,
you know what an integer is.
Integer is a whole number.
In fact,
those of you who got through
grade five math
should also know
what an integer is,
because if you don't,
that,
there's a slight problem.
Anyway,
an integer is a whole number
versus a fraction.
Okay?
So,
what does integrity mean?
Integrity mean
there's a wholeness.
Okay?
The external
is in line
with your internal.
So,
there's wholeness.
It's not a fraction.
Okay?
There's no fracturing.
There's no disintegration.
There's a consistency.
Okay?
That's what integrity means.
Now,
in Ananias and Sapphira,
when they died
and it was disturbing
and,
you know,
even the cartoon
was a little scary,
when they died,
when Peter questioned them,
what we are actually seeing
is the external reflection
of what's already happened
to them internally.
It's the external reflection
of what's actually happened
to them internally.
There's been fracturing
internally.
And what God is showing us
is
when they died,
there was an external disintegration
of themselves,
but it had already happened
within them.
And what Luke,
the author of Acts,
wanted to warn us against
is
be careful.
There's great danger
in nurturing sin
in our hearts.
Okay?
Now,
that's something
that we're also
not comfortable with
in 2017.
Sin is a virus.
I know there are lots
of medical professionals
within here.
Okay?
And you know,
a virus doesn't stay dormant.
It may take some time,
but it doesn't stay passive.
At a point in time,
the virus will break out
and it will consume you.
Okay?
I think C.S. Lewis
puts it best.
And you heard it
in the little cartoon
that
Anunnites and Sapphira
was unhappy
that Barnabas
got all the recognition
and they were grumbling.
Okay?
And they're brewing about it.
And this is how
C.S. Lewis put it.
Hell
begins with a grumbling mood.
Always complaining.
Always blaming others.
But you are still
distinct from it.
You may not even,
you may even
criticize it in yourself
and wish you could stop it.
But there will come a day
when you can no longer.
Then there will not,
there will be no you left
to criticize the mood
or even to enjoy it,
but just to grumble itself
going on forever
like a machine.
This is not a question
of God sending us to hell.
In each of us,
there is something growing
which will be hell
unless it is nipped
in the bud.
Okay?
In each of us,
there is something growing
which will be hell
unless it is nipped
in the bud.
Okay?
So,
what we see
in the story
of Ananias and Sapphira
is
this sin
is harboring
within each of us.
Okay?
And we've got to be careful.
We don't go and nurture
that sin.
I don't know how many of you
and I've certainly been guilty.
Somebody's wronged me
or somebody's said something.
I've kind of nurtured
that grudge.
Okay?
Just kind of fed it
over time.
And you know what?
It just grows bigger
and bigger
until it consumes us.
And Luke wanted
to share with us
this is serious business.
This is cancer.
This is not just
some little petty thing.
If you don't deal
with those sins
in our hearts,
it will consume us.
Okay?
So,
now,
we have a bit
of a problem
with Ananias and Sapphira
because
we said
it wasn't greed
but it was
an integrity issue
but
there's a bit
of Ananias and Sapphira
in each of us.
Okay?
Now,
there's something
a little bit deeper.
What is behind
the integrity issue?
Is it just lying,
lying,
you know,
lie, lie,
pants on fire?
No.
It's not just
a lying issue.
It's not just
an integrity issue.
Something drove them
to lie.
What do you think
drove them
to lie?
And this is
something I think
we need to take away
from the passage
because I think
within each of us
there's that
desire
to lie
like Ananias and Sapphira.
Why did they lie?
They wanted the respect
of the community
that
they were in.
They saw Barnabas
was well respected,
you know,
kind of thrown into the air
and celebrated
and they wanted
that respect.
Basically,
what
the root
of why
they lied
was
they saw
that Christ,
what Christ
did for them
was not enough.
They needed
something else.
They needed
something else
other than
Christ's salvation.
They needed
the respect
of the group
that they were in.
Chris put it
in a really
powerful way
last week
and he said
we want
to be important
in the eyes
of those
who are important.
Okay?
So we all
want that.
We all
desire that
and you know,
I think nobody
put it better
than
a famous
20th century
American playwright
Arthur Miller
once said
in his play
After the Fall
his character
was kind of
having a tough time
and he said
for many years
I looked at life
like a case
at law.
It was a series
of proofs.
When you're young
you want to prove
how brave you are
or how smart
what a good
lover
then a good
father
finally
how wise
and powerful.
So
we all want
to feel
we're good enough
and Ananias
and Sophia
also wanted
to feel
they were good
enough
and they were
willing to go
and sell the land
and lied about it
to try to
gather the
recognition
of the group
that they were
part of
part of the
early church.
Now in
2017
in Hong Kong
what does that
look like?
You know what?
We strive for
financial success
so that
we may
have enough
money
make us feel
better about
ourselves.
We strive
to nurture
our talents
so we can be
adored.
We strive
to get our
life in
control
so we
can be in
control of
our lives.
We strive
to be
strong
so that
when tough
things and
challenges
come to us
we know
how to deal
with it.
Now C.S.
Lewis is
probably one
of the best
known theologians
and philosophers
that came out
of England
but there's
one other
that I
greatly
respect
and it's
a group
of philosophers
named
that you
may know
of
called
Coldplay.
So
Chris
Martin
my favorite
Coldplay
song
is
something
just like
this.
Some of
you may
know it
some of
you may
not.
I want
to sing
it but
I will
spare you
from it.
But
the opening
lines of
what Chris
Martin wrote
in the
Coldplay
song is
I've been
reading books
of old
the legends
and the myths
Achilles
and his gold
Hercules
and his gifts
Spider-Man's
control
and Batman
with his fists
and clearly
I don't
see myself
up on
that list.
Now
at one
level
it's
about a
young man
trying to
ask
and to
date this
girl
and he
feels like
he doesn't
have any
of the
qualities
the girl
is looking
for.
Okay
he's not
rich
he doesn't
have Achilles
gold
he is not
talented
he hasn't
got the
gifts of
Hercules
he's not
in control
of his
life
you know
like
Spider-Man
and he's
not strong
like Batman
but as you
go down
to that
list
you look
at Achilles
and his
goal
okay
we all
desire
to be
adored
in wealth
Hercules
and his
gift
we desire
to be
talented
Spider-Man's
control
look
we all
know
Peter Parker
has got
control
issues
but
so have
we
and Batman
and his
fists
we all
want to
be strong
so we
can face
anything
that comes
before us
and
the final
line there
is
and clearly
I don't
see myself
up on
that list
I think
those are
the same
words
Arthur Miller
used
you know
I don't
measure up
all these
things that
I feel
like I have
to be
okay
to be
justified
but I
don't
measure up
so
I don't
know about
you
I know
Chris Martin
is describing
me
okay
but
if you
get a
chance
you know
jump on
Spotify
later on
and have
listeners
watch the
video on
YouTube
because it
comes through
quite clearly
what he's
trying to
describe
so
just to
wrap up
now
on this
on what
we want to
talk about
today
what we
saw
was
Barnabas
was put
as an
example
of how
we should
be
of how
we should
sacrifice
our
lives
our
possessions
and
our
time
for
others
and
Ananias
and
Sapphira
the
warning
of how
we shouldn't
be and we
should look
out for
it
but
what
made
what
gave
Barnabas
the power
to put
aside
his own
needs
his own
insecurities
his own
fears
and be
able to
sell the
land
and give
to those
that are
in need
well
two months
prior to
this
incident
on a
hill
on Calvary
Christ
died
Christ
who was
supposed to
be the
ultimate
superhero
to free
the Jewish
people
from the
Roman
occupation
he died
on a
cross
he was
crucified
but three
days
later
he rose
again
and
after that
for 40
days
up until
the
Pentecost
he was
with
the
disciples
he was
with
this
early
church
community
teaching
this
early
church
community
why
he
had
to
die
you
know
Christ
was
meant
to be
the
ultimate
superhero
but
if you
look at
the
superheroes
we
know
of
like
Achilles
Hercules
Spider-Man
Batman
what do
you see
in common
okay
what you
see in
common
is
their
superhero
or their
superpowers
made them
invincible
right
Hercules
you probably
have a picture
of Brad Pitt
right now
from Troy
but they
were invincible
the reason
they were
invincible
is because
they were
superheroes
okay
but what
we saw
in Christ
was a
very
different
kind
of
superhero
okay
he
wasn't
invincible
in fact
he
became
man
so he
was
vulnerable
so he
was
killable
why
did he
have to
do
that
because
if he
came in
strength
to deal
with sin
we would
have to
die
because
the sin
is within
us
we
are the
perpetrator
of the
sin
and if
he came
in strength
we would
not be
able to
survive
the reason
why he
had to
be
killable
is because
his
superhero
act
was to
swap
places
with us
to
substitute
for our
to carry
our sins
and
Barnabas
understood
that
Barnabas
saw that
and what
Barnabas
was able
to do
is he
saw
every day
what Christ
did for
him on
the cross
how Christ
substituted
for his
place
on the
cross
and little
by little
he was
able to
sacrifice
he was
able to
sacrifice
by selling
his land
he was
able to
sacrifice
by really
giving up
his career
and following
Paul
to take
the gospel
into the
new world
in fact
ultimately
it's not
in the
Bible
but the
historians
believe
Barnabas
was martyred
at the
end of
his life
following
Christ
his superhero
into
the ultimate
sacrifice
so
how do
we do
that
how do
we
become
a follower
in Barnabas
footstep
I think
the key
here is
do we
take time
in our
community
do we
take time
ourselves
to look
up on
that cross
and really
understand
each day
what did
Christ do
for us
on that
cross
how he
substituted
and he
stayed on
that cross
he became
vulnerable
he became
killable
so that we
are able to
start
sacrificing
so
in closing
I think I
just want to
say
the way
to achieve
and the way
to head
down the
road where
Barnabas is
is
we've got to
aim for
heaven
and you get
the earth
thrown in
but if you
aim for the
earth
you get
neither
one
so let
us pray
Lord we
just want to
give you
thanks
we give you
thanks that
the apostle
Luke was
able to
pen the
book of
Acts
Lord that
you warn
us that
there are
dangers
within
there are
dangers not
only within
the church
but within
our hearts
that we
are so
hungry
for
recognition
Lord
that
sometimes
we are
willing to
compromise
our
integrity
for it
and Lord
but we
don't need
to do
that
for you
have
already
done
that
you've
already
given us
the ultimate
recognition
by dying
on the cross
for us
that we
are able to
be free
from that
continuous
striving
that we
are so
easily
caught in
in Hong
Kong
in 2017
Lord we
just thank
you for
the Holy
Spirit
that is
able to
shine a
light upon
your word
that we
can see
what you
have done
for us
and Lord
that let
us internalize
that each
day
that we
may be able
to start
sacrificing
for those
that are
around us
all this
we lift up
to you
Lord
in the name
of our
Lord Jesus
Amen
to
you