Sermon Tone Analysis

Worship is one of the highest acts that a Christian can perform.

When we worship we are communicating to God the idea that we are dependent upon Him for our daily survival.

We are ascribing Him the place of highest position in our lives.

Do not mistake worship as merely singing songs or listening to the preaching of God’s word.

Worship exists in every aspect of our spirituality.

It is the outpouring of the heart’s emotions and the bodily action of giving, singing, or serving in response to those emotions.

We worship when we give to God our money our time and our service.

We pour out in song and word and deed how important the Almighty is to us.

We use our skills playing instruments, our oratory voices in directing the congregation in the act, and we plead with God to accept these tokens that we throw out to Him.

And indeed, He does!

Amazingly we are told that worship, when done in the prescribed manner, is not only acceptable to God but it is also pleasing in His sight.

The Old Testament describes proper worship in this way:

/Le 1:13 it is a burnt offering, a food offering with a pleasing aroma to the LORD./

Worship is such a vital part of life that if done incorrectly and irreverently God acted immediately in the rejection, and usually, subsequent punishment of the one violating His command.

The very first example we see in the Bible of this type is Cain, who brought forth an offering not of the prescribed kind directed by God.

God rejected him and when Cain killed His brother he was cursed by God.

His religion was feigned (hypocrisy)!

And also, Nadab and Abihu, sons of Aaron, are to serve for us an example of the dire consequences of irreverent worship:

/Le 10:1-2 Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it and laid incense on it and offered unauthorized fire before the LORD, which he had not commanded them.

2And fire came out from before the LORD and consumed them, and they died before the LORD./

Even when the sons of the high priest did not approach God in the correct manner they were punished.

Their status as Aaron’s sons mattered not.

The strange fire was not what God had prescribed, and we could muse all day long exactly what they did or didn’t do.

But one thing was very clear: they did not do it the way it should have been done.

Their religion was feigned!

You may ask, “What about those who are sincerely trying to worship God but do not do it in the way God command them?

Will they too, be punished?”

For this I have no answer but will be content to let Scripture interpret what you seek:

/2 Sam6:5-7 And David and all the house of Israel were making merry before the LORD, with songs and lyres and harps and tambourines and castanets and cymbals.

6And when they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah put out his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen stumbled.

7And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Uzzah, and God struck him down there because of his error, and *he died* there beside the ark of God./

It may not seem just that God would put to death a person that was sincerely trying to perform a good action; and no doubt every intention Uzzah had was good for he intended to protect the arc of God from falling to the ground and being injured.

But the arc, it must be remembered, was the place where God chose to place His very presence; His very holy and righteous presence.

It was the very meeting place of God and His high priest on the day of atonement (Ex 25:10-16) to make atonement for the sins of the people and Uzzah’s carelessness, no matter how thoughtful, was irreverent simply because he attempted, as a sinful being, to touch his flesh upon the place of God’s presence.

So you see, friends, God is very serious about the act of worship.

And especially when worship is done irreverently or without thought given to it—feigned religion.

It is religion that is insincere, or faked, or done out of repetitious callousness.

That is why God despises this type of action.

That is why He refused to accept the worship of His own people .

That is why He rebuked them and sent plagues upon them and prophesied destruction upon them.

Their feigned religion led them to a disobedient lifestyle.

But God is pleased when we worship Him in sincerity.

The Greeks had a word for ‘sincere.’

In the ancient days there were many dishonest pottery dealers.

Because pottery was fragile during the firing stage much of it would crack.

This however, would not stop a dishonest dealer.

He would take a hard type of wax and push it into the cracks and glaze over it.

The only true way to see it was to hold it up to the sunlight so that it would reveal all of the faults.

An honest potter dealer would mark his material with the word, ‘sincere.’

The word can be literally translated, ‘no cracks.’

Now we come to our passage and see the act and the consequence of feigned religion.

The fledgling church is breaking out.

The people are worshiping God, the believers are of one mind, and all seems to be going well.

The church has faced its first opposition from the outside.

Chapter 4 finds Peter and John facing the religious leaders after a miraculous healing and are strictly charged to stop preaching and teaching in Jesus’ Name.

They boldly continue to obey the Lord and people continually are saved and added to them.

But now, they are about to face their first inside attack from Satan!

We are told at the end of chapter 4 that a particular disciple, Barnabas, sold a piece of land and brought the money to the apostles.

This is where we pick up our text.

*The Act of Feigned Religion (vv.1-4)*

The hypocrisy begins at the outset of the chapter.

Ananias and Sapphira sell a piece of land and purposely keep back a portion of the money before bringing it as an offering to Peter.

The exact motive behind the couple’s reasoning is left untold.

We are only told that they consulted each other and both agreed to lie about the amount of the revenue given to them for the property.

They purposely, and with full heart, intended to go through with the act of false worship.

Their motive suggests one major thing about them:

/1.

Their motive was an act of self-worship./

Again, we are not told why the couple did what they did.

But I can only imagine that they no doubt thought that mimicking Barnabas’ generosity would bring them some kind of stature and clout with the apostles and the church as a whole.

When Peter first confronts Ananias he asks him why Satan had filled his heart to lie.

It is interesting to note that the word ‘filled’ in this context is the very same word that is used when a believer is filled with the Holy Spirit.

In chapter 2 at Pentecost is said that the apostle were filled with the Holy Spirit.

Paul command s believers not to be drunk but filled with the Holy Spirit (Eph 5:18).

According to translators this word means to be in control of actions and thoughts.

Thus, to be filled with the Spirit is to subject our thoughts and actions to Him while being filled by Satan would be to subject our thoughts and actions to him.

When we seek to “boost” our spiritual acts we are really being filled by Satan and engaging in the act of self-worship.

We intend to fake a level of spirituality that is not present in order that those who see it would endow praise upon our actions.

Those who crave to be well spoken of for their religious deeds are in fact robbing God of the glory that He rightly receives.

This is the very thing that Satan desires.

He longs to be that which is worshiped instead of God.

And if we decide that we should receive the glory then we are, in essence, saying the we are more worthy than God.

And though our lips may never utter those words our motives shout them to others in megaphone manners.

That is why this horrid act is self-worship; but more so than this is what Jesus Himself had to say about hypocrites:

* They have received their reward (Mt 6:1-2).

If the praise of men is what we seek, the praise of men is what we are rewarded with.

Jesus tells us over and over that we are to do our deeds in secret so that He may reward us openly.

* Hypocrites are unregenerate (i.e. they are lost Mt 23:27).

Jesus describes the religious hypocrite as a whitewashed tomb!

This term is best understood when describing the customs of the people of the day.

Touching a dead body was considered to be unclean.

If a person came in contact with a corpse he was not able to participate in the worship ceremonies for the prescribed amount of time, usually the remainder of the day.

He would have to stay outside the camp and bathe and wash his clothes and when evening came he would be considered clean and come back into the camp in time for the twilight sacrifices.

By the time of Jesus the people had become accustomed to whitewashing their tombs in order to warn everyone where the corpses were buried.

This way, a person could easily avoid being defiled by walking over a grave or tomb that was cut inside the mountain.

These tombs appeared somewhat attractive but on the inside they stank of rotting and decomposing bodies.

This is exactly how Jesus described religious hypocrites!

They may have appeared to have some form of piety (2Tim 3:4-5) but they are just as dead and spiritually rotting away as those who were buried in those tombs.

/2.

Their motive suggested they could deceive God./ God is not one that can be fooled.

Scripture declares time and again the omniscience of God.

If He has declared the end from the beginning then He certainly would have been aware of Ananias and Sapphira’s plot.