From the sermon preached on June 29, 2025
Have You Ever Gone Through the Motions of Faith Without Really Meaning It?
The fear of the Lord is not about being terrified of God — it is a deep, honest awe of who He is that makes pretending feel impossible. When grace and holiness work together in a person’s life, the result is authentic worship, genuine surrender, and according to Acts 5, the kind of spiritual power that changes everything around you. If you have ever sat in a church service, said the right words, and quietly wondered whether any of it was real — this post is for you.
Most of us know what it feels like to show up somewhere and perform. You smile when you don’t feel like smiling. You say “I’m fine” when you’re not. You give the impression of togetherness while something inside is quietly unraveling. That dynamic doesn’t stay outside the church doors. In fact, Acts chapter 5 — one of the most jarring passages in the entire New Testament — suggests it may be the single greatest threat to a church that’s actually trying to move in the power of God.
Why Did Ananias and Sapphira Die — and What Does It Have to Do With Us?
To understand Acts 5, you need to feel the momentum of what came just before it. Acts 4:32 describes the early church in Jerusalem at full spiritual ignition: believers were united, sharing everything, and a man named Barnabas — a Levite and early church leader — sold a field and laid every dollar at the apostles’ feet. Nobody asked him to. The generosity was contagious because the presence of God was real and people could feel it.
Then came a husband and wife named Ananias and Sapphira. Their names carry remarkable meaning: Ananias translates to “God is gracious,” and Sapphira, linked to the blue sapphire gemstone described in the prophet Ezekiel’s vision of God’s throne room, carries a connotation of holiness. Think of them as Mr. Grace and Miss Holiness. They sold a piece of land, kept a portion of the proceeds for themselves, and brought the rest to the apostles — while letting everyone believe they were giving it all.
The apostle Peter, one of Jesus’s closest disciples and the leader of the Jerusalem church, confronted them separately. His charge wasn’t greed. It was deception: “You have not lied to us but to God.” Both Ananias and Sapphira died on the spot. The sin was never in the portion they kept — Peter made that explicit. The land was theirs, the money was theirs, they could have done anything with it. The sin was in the pretense: they wanted the credit for full surrender without actually surrendering.
What Does It Really Mean to Worship God in Spirit and Truth?
Jesus told a woman at a well in John 4:23 that true worshipers would worship the Father “in spirit and in truth” — meaning your outward expression and your inward reality have to match. Ananias never said a word in Acts 5. He simply laid money at the apostles’ feet and let the gesture imply a devotion he hadn’t actually given. Sapphira did all the talking, and not once — even when confronted and given the chance — did she repent.
Two different failure modes, one shared result: worship that lacks truth is not worship. It is performance. The Greek word for hypocrisy literally comes from ancient theater and means “performing under a mask.” It is the number one reason people in Miami — and everywhere — say they won’t set foot in a church. Acts 5 doesn’t argue with them. It agrees, and then it goes further.
Performance without repentance is not just ineffective — it is spiritually deadening. It is possible to carry a church title, attend every Sunday, and speak the language of faith while being completely cut off from the living voice of God. The hard question this passage forces is not “did Ananias and Sapphira deserve what happened?” The hard question is: where am I doing the same thing?
How Do Grace and Holiness Actually Work Together Instead of Against Each Other?
After the judgment of Ananias and Sapphira, something unexpected swept through the Jerusalem church: “Great fear gripped the entire church and everyone else who heard what had happened.” And immediately following that fear — that reverent, humbling, I-am-not-God kind of awe — signs and wonders multiplied. Miracles broke out. The church’s authority expanded. That sequence is not accidental.
Grace gives you access to God, but it was never meant to replace holiness. Ephesians 2:8–9 (NLT) is clear: “God saved you by his grace when you believed — and you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift of God.” And 1 Peter 1:15–16 is equally clear: “You must be holy in everything you do, just as God who chose you is holy. For the Scriptures say, ‘You must be holy, for I am holy.'” These are not competing ideas. They are two rails on the same track.
When Ananias and Sapphira arrived before Peter separately — Grace disconnected from Holiness, Holiness disconnected from Grace — they were destroyed. When the two work together in a person’s life, the result is the fear of the Lord: a reverent awe so real that the mask becomes unnecessary, and in that space of honest surrender, God moves.
What Is the Difference Between Grace and Holiness in the Christian Life?
|
Grace |
Holiness |
|
|
What it is |
God’s unearned gift of access and forgiveness |
A life shaped by surrender and truth |
|
What it is NOT |
A license to keep pretending |
Perfectionism or superiority |
|
The danger without the other |
Spiritual entitlement |
Joyless, consuming self-righteousness |
|
Together they produce |
Authentic worship |
Revival and real spiritual authority |
How to Apply This to Your Life This Week
Name the thing you are holding back. You don’t have to announce it publicly — but get honest with God. Is it a habit, a relationship, the gap between who you are at church and who you are at home? Unnamed compromises have more power than named ones.
Choose repentance over performance. Repentance is not a feeling of shame — it is a decision to turn. The only reason we can even say the word is because of what Jesus did, which means repentance is not the end of something. It is the beginning of something better.
Give something that costs you. The early church’s generosity was never primarily about money. It was total — time, attention, presence, talent. Ask God honestly: what do I have that I have been holding back? Then give it.
Stop spectating and make a choice. Acts 5 ends with a Pharisee and respected Jewish teacher named Gamaliel telling the council to leave the apostles alone. He acknowledged the movement. He just wouldn’t commit to it. Caution without conviction is still compromise — and you cannot encounter a moving God by watching from a safe distance.
What Does It Mean to Stop Pretending and Give God Everything You Have?
The fear of the Lord is not the dread of punishment. It is the awe of standing before someone so real, so whole, so unlike you, that all the pretending becomes pointless — and in that honesty, grace finally has room to do what it was always designed to do. Acts 5 is not a story about a God waiting to catch you. It is a story about a God so present that the mask stops working, and so gracious that when it comes off, restoration begins.
What is the fear of the Lord? It is the moment you realize God is not a concept, a tradition, or a Sunday habit. He is alive, He sees everything, and He is not impressed by your performance — but He is relentlessly, patiently pursuing your heart. If something in this post stirred you, don’t dismiss it. That is worth paying attention to.
If you are in the Miami area or watching from anywhere, we would love for you to take one step closer. Come find us on a Sunday, or submit a prayer request and let someone walk with you.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is the fear of the Lord, and why does the Bible say to fear God if He loves me?
The fear of the Lord is not terror — it is deep reverence and awe for who God truly is. Far from contradicting His love, fearing God is actually the natural response to understanding how real and holy He is. Proverbs 9:10 calls it the beginning of wisdom, and Acts 5 shows us that it is also the beginning of revival.
Why did Ananias and Sapphira die for lying about money in Acts 5?
The issue was never the money itself — Peter made that clear, stating the land and the proceeds were entirely theirs to do with as they wished. The sin was the deception: they claimed to be giving everything while secretly holding back, lying not to the church but to the Holy Spirit. Their story is a sobering picture of what happens when performance replaces genuine surrender in a community where God’s presence is actively moving.
What does grace and holiness mean together in Christianity?
Grace is God’s gift of access and forgiveness — freely given and completely unearned. Holiness is the shape of a life that responds to that gift with honesty and surrender. Ephesians 2 says we are saved by grace through faith, not by works; 1 Peter 1:16 calls us to be holy because God is holy. One without the other leads to either entitlement or exhaustion — together, they produce authentic worship and real spiritual power.
How do I stop being a hypocrite at church?
The path out is not trying harder to look better — it is repentance. Start by getting honest with God about the gap between your public faith and your private life, then make a decision to turn. The same grace that exposes hypocrisy is also the grace that heals it, and the church is meant to be a community where that process happens together, not in isolation.
What does it mean to be the temple of the Holy Spirit?
The apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 3:16 that believers are God’s temple — that the Spirit of God actually lives within them. This means the church is not primarily a building or a Sunday event; it is the community of people in whom God’s presence dwells. When that temple is compromised by pretense, God’s power is diminished. When it is purified through honest worship and repentance, revival follows.
