Lessons from the First Church:Stained Glass and Dead Fig Trees (Acts 5)

Green Leaves

The day before, Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey while the crowds shouted, “Hosanna,” welcoming Him as the Messiah. The next day, He was headed to the temple, and He was hungry. Up ahead stood a fig tree covered in green leaves — a promising sight. Surely it would have fruit. Maybe even breakfast.

But when He reached it, He found nothing but leaves.

Jesus cursed the tree and went on to overturn tables in the temple. Later, when He passed by again, the fig tree had died.

What does that have to do with the rural church?

I’m afraid we can be much like that fig tree. Only instead of hiding behind green leaves, we hide behind stained glass windows named after our founders. We preserve appearances. We protect reputations. We maintain the look of health.

But leaves are not fruit.

If we refuse to drop our facades and confess our sin to one another, we risk becoming spiritually lifeless while still looking established and respectable.

And that is serious.

It Really Is That Serious

“Aaron, it doesn’t seem that serious…”

Tell that to Ananias and Sapphira.

In Acts 5, the church is exploding — not only in numbers but in power and generosity. Believers were selling land and homes to meet needs within the body. The Spirit was moving in extraordinary ways.

Ananias and Sapphira sold a piece of property and pledged to give all the proceeds. But they kept part of it back while presenting the gift as complete.

Peter confronted Ananias: “You have not lied to man but to God.”

Ananias fell down and died.

Three hours later, Sapphira repeated the lie. She too fell down and died. And great fear came upon the whole church.

Why such severity? It was just a lie?

No. It was about appearance.

They wanted to look more sacrificial than they really were. They wanted the reputation of generosity without the reality of surrender. Their sin wasn’t merely deception toward people; it was hypocrisy before God.

The fig tree had leaves but no fruit.
Ananias and Sapphira had an offering but no integrity.

God takes fruitlessness wrapped in religious appearance seriously.

If we want to understand how dangerous it is to present ourselves as polished stained glass while hiding our depravity, we need only look at the fig tree and at that couple in Acts. They are dead.

Churches can die the same way — not from persecution, but from pretense.

What Authenticity Looks Like

So what does it mean to live differently?

It looks like honesty.
It looks like real community.
It looks like believing and applying the gospel.

Think about the people you go to church with. How long have you sat beside them? Five years? Ten? Fifty?

Every week we sit near the same people for an hour or so. We say hello. We talk about our week. We debate the State and Carolina game. But do we actually know one another?

It’s possible to spend decades in the same sanctuary and never move beyond surface-level conversation with the very people we will spend eternity with.

That kind of distance may preserve comfort, but it does not produce fruit.

Authentic community isn’t built side by side in pews. It’s built eye to eye around dinner tables. It forms when we begin sharing victories and struggles — not just prayer requests that sound polished, but the real battles underneath.

We need brothers and sisters who know what sins we wrestle with. People who hear our confession and remind us of grace. People who lovingly hold us accountable when we drift.

It won’t be everyone. But it must be someone.

And it won’t happen quickly. Real community requires commitment over time. We commit to a local body, and within that body we find the smaller circle God gives us to follow Jesus with closely.

That kind of church life can feel uncomfortable at first. But discomfort is often the soil where fruit grows.

The Gospel That Binds Us

The reason we can live this way is the gospel.

Jesus lived the perfect life we could not live. He died in our place. He walked out of the grave. Because of that, we no longer have to pretend. We no longer have to project strength we don’t possess.

We are already fully known and fully loved.

The gospel frees us to be honest about our sin because our standing with God does not depend on our performance. It frees us to confess because forgiveness has already been secured at the cross.

When we live in that reality, church becomes more than a weekly gathering. It becomes a community where we pick each other up when we fall, dust each other off when we fail, and preach the gospel to one another again and again.

That is how fruit grows.

When we begin sharing our lives instead of guarding our image, not only do we grow individually — our churches grow healthier as a whole.

This is how the fig tree stays fruitful. It is how the church stays healthy.