Ananias and Sapphira

Today we’re going to look at two characters, Ananias and Sapphira, who didn’t have the courage to do what God asked them to do. And the devastating consequence they suffered as a result.

This is a story about a husband and wife who tried to deceive God and the people in their church. They lied to God and the people in their church and the consequence for their dishonesty was death.

Now, just out of curiosity how many of you are glad God doesn’t respond that way today?

Yeah, because we would all be dead. This place would be completely empty.

I’d be here all alone.

In the research I’ve done recently, I found that, generally, every human being — every person sitting around you right now — at least from time to time has this sense of being a fake.

We all wear masks.
We all carry around the knowledge that we’ve pretended to know things that we really don’t know; or pretended to achieve things that we really haven’t achieved.
We all pretend sometimes that we’ve spoken out bravely, when in truth is we were timidly silent.
We all pretend that we were hard at work, when in fact, we were wasting time.
We all pretend to be smarter, happier, kinder, stronger, humbler, and better than we really are.

One of the things I’ve been thinking about is how many opportunities there are in a day to be dishonest — every phone call, every conversation, every interaction.

We have dozens and dozens of opportunities to be fake, or to wear a mask, or be dishonest.

Sociologists tell us that we either lie or hear someone lie to us over 300 times per day.

Actually it was 200, I just wanted to show you how easy it is to lie.

So what I would like to do is mention a couple ways in which people commonly lie – some common ways that people fake it and wear masks to cover up their true identity.

And I’m going to ask you to raise your hand if you’ve ever done one of these things.

Confession is something that takes great courage. And it’s a mark of a biblical community.

Alright, first category:

Have you ever been watching TV and hear a car pull into the garage — it might have been your parents, your spouse, your roommate or someone — and you quickly turn off the TV and pretend you’ve been busy doing something productive?

A show of hands — has anyone ever done that? Alright, I’m not the only one.

How about this one? Have you ever had someone mention to you a person, a book title or something that you felt like you should have known? Even though you didn’t, you pretended like you did.

Anyone? I’ve done that. I know how that feels.

Okay, have you ever been driving, and the person in the other lane is trying to catch your eye so that you’ll let him over. You have no intention of letting them in. You pretend like you don’t see them.

Instead of looking like a jerk, you look like an unobservant nice guy. Has anyone ever pulled that one?

I’ve done some pretty nasty things in my day, but that one is low.

You see, the choice to be inauthentic and wear a mask and pretend to be what we’re not happens everywhere. It happens even in the church.

If you have a Bible, and want to follow along, I’ll be reading starting in Acts 4, verse 32.

All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had.

With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them.

For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.

Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas (which means “son of encouragement”), sold a field he owned and brought the money and put it at the apostles’ feet.

Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property. With his wife’s full knowledge he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles’ feet.

Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied just to human beings but to God.”

When Ananias heard this, he fell down and died. And great fear seized all who heard what had happened. Then some young men came forward, wrapped up his body, and carried him out and buried him.

About three hours later his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. Peter asked her, “Tell me, is this the price you and Ananias got for the land?”

Now you can imagine that the people gathered there at this point are thinking, “Please tell the truth. Please tell the truth.”

“Yes,” she said, “that is the price.”

Peter said to her, “How could you conspire to test the Spirit of the Lord? Listen! The feet of the men who buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out also.”

At that moment she fell down at his feet and died. Then the young men came in and, finding her dead, carried her out and buried her beside her husband. Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events. (Acts 4:32-5:11)

Now, of course, this is not about how much they gave, or what they gave, or how much they kept for themselves.

Here’s what’s happening in this story.

This church that has experienced new life in Jesus Christ is being formed, and lives are being changed — people are being spiritually transformed.

People who were disconnected to God are getting connected to Him in this dynamic community of faith.

People who used to hate each other are becoming one. Walls of hostility and social, economic and cultural barriers are being broken down every day.

One of the most amazing things is that people — normal, ordinary people who are greedy, possessive people — start to see other people who are in need.

As their minds are transformed, they take their stuff and sell it. And they give it away in Jesus’ name.

And the community is amazed. People look at this behavior and think, “Wow! Wow!”

Luke tells us about Barnabas who we looked at last week.

Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas (which means “son of encouragement”), sold a field he owned and brought the money and put it at the apostles’ feet.

Barnabas takes a field and gives it away. He sells it and gives the money to be used for whoever needs it.

The Apostles are so grateful that they say, “We need to express our gratitude.” So they say, “The name Joseph doesn’t cut it anymore. We want to give you a new name. We’re going to call you Barnabas, which means son of encouragement, because you’re a source of joy to us.”

This is a good thing. But then a bad thing happens. Ananias and Sapphira see what’s going on. To them, it doesn’t bring joy.

They become resentful because they’re not the ones who are receiving the praise.

They think, “We want people to say, ‘Wow!’ about us. We want the disciples to change our names. We want to have that kind of praise and honor.”

They didn’t long to become generous people. They longed to be known as generous people.

They thought, “We would like to have a reputation for spiritual greatness.”

They weren’t interested in building their character. They were interested in building their reputation.

Let me point out the difference between character and reputation. This is important to understand.

Reputation is what you think about me or what I think about you.
Character is who I really am when no one is looking.

Now honesty and integrity is when reputation and character come together and they’re consistent—that’s honesty!

And your character is actually something you’ll take with you into eternity.

And so this kind of self-centeredness of Ananias and Sapphira became a great danger in the first church. And it’s been a danger ever since.

And what happens is — some people become self-centered in their spiritual life because of their search for significance.

A guy by the name of Harold Kushner writes about a young Stanford premed student.

He’s competitive and driven. His parents wanted to get him to relax, so they sent him out East on vacation between his sophomore and junior year.

“While he was out East,” Kushner writes, “he met a spiritual guide who said to him:

Don’t you see how you’re poisoning your soul with this success-oriented way of life? Your idea of happiness is to stay up all night, studying for an exam so you can get a better grade than your best friend.

Your idea of a good marriage is not to find the woman who will make you whole but to win the girl everyone else wants.

That’s not how people are supposed to live. Give it up. Come join us in an atmosphere where we all share and love each other.”

“This young man,” Kushner writes, “had completed four years at a competitive high school to get into Stanford, plus two years of premed courses at the university.

“That summer, he called his parents from the East and told them he would not be coming home. He was dropping out of school to live at a religious commune.

Six months later, his parents got a letter from him:

“Dear Mom and Dad, I know you weren’t happy with the decision I made last summer, but I want to tell you how happy it has made me. For the first time in my life, I am at peace. There is no competing, no hustling and no trying to get ahead of everyone else. Here we are all equal and all share.

“This way of life is so much in harmony with the inner essence of my soul that in only six months I have become the number two disciple in the entire commune. I think I can be number one by June.”

You don’t know whether to laugh or cry when you hear that. Because it happens. And it happens in churches.

We’ve talked in here about the difference between the kingdom of God — a biblical community, the way God intended it to be — and the way things generally run in this world, the kingdom of this world.

And one of the primary ways that life in the kingdom of God differs from life in the kingdom of this world is that life in the kingdom of this world is built on competition.

Life in the kingdom of this world is the constant struggle to be smarter, prettier, richer or stronger than someone else and, therefore, to be special.

Jesus comes along in the human race and says, “Life doesn’t have to be that way. There is a better way. You don’t have to do life like that. You can die to all of that. This is a deep part of what it means to die to yourself and die to this foolish, idiotic and destructive struggle to prove your superiority or your worth.”

The kingdom of God is made up of people who decide they want to die to themselves.

Then one day, one of them gets this idea — “Maybe I can die to myself better than anyone else. I’ll be the deadest person in the whole community.”

And once again, life becomes a contest. Only now, instead of seeing who’s the smartest or the strongest the game is…

who is the most spiritual
who knows the Bible the best
who gives the most money
who holds the record for the most consecutive days without missing devotions
who’s the number one monk

Even pastors can play at this game. They can get jealous of other pastors — “He’s convincing more people to die to themselves than I am convincing to die to themselves. That makes me angry. It’s not fair. I’d die to convince more people to die to themselves.”

It’s crazy but it happens.

And when that happens, it’s not the church anymore.

No matter how impressive it may look on the outside, it’s become one more little franchise in the kingdom of this world that uses a religious scoring system.

It’s just one more little franchise in the kingdom of this world. It’s not the church.

This is what’s happened to Ananias and Sapphira. They decide to sell their land but they’re not ready to give up all the money.

They give it some thought and decide they’ll give some money. They’ll give a fair amount, enough so that everyone will be convinced that it was the fair value of their land.

They decide to live a lie.

It’s very important that we understand this to get the story — their decision to deceive the community was not a casual, spur-of-the-moment thing.

This is not simply the slippage in authenticity that every human being is guilty of from time to time.

In verse 9, we’re told that this is a deliberate, premeditated act on the part of a husband and a wife:

Peter said to her, “How could you conspire to test the Spirit of the Lord?

There was an agreement that happened beforehand. They chose it and embraced it.

If you take a look at verse 3, then you begin to see the seriousness of what’s going on:

Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit… You have not lied just to human beings but to God.”

There is a very important point that needs to be made here about the church and about this biblical community in the eyes of God.

And that is — the church and the Holy Spirit are so closely related that when Peter talks about this issue, to say that Ananias lied to the church is to say that he lied to the Spirit.

You see, the church — that is you and me — we are the place on earth where the Spirit resides.

This kind of identification happens several times in the Book of Acts.

Acts 13:3-4. The church at Antioch is commissioning Paul and Barnabas. Luke tells us:

So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off. The two of them, sent on their way by the Holy Spirit, went down…

The church lays their hands on them and sends them out, and Luke says that they are being sent out by the Holy Spirit.

The relationship between the church and the Holy Spirit is intimately related.

To be sent out by the church is to be sent out by the Holy Spirit.
To lie to the church is to lie to the Holy Spirit.
To wound the church is to wound the Holy Spirit of God.

What lies at the heart of this story is not just greed. It’s not even simply deception. It’s the choice to use the church instead of to serve the church.

It is the deliberate choice to violate the bride of Christ and to violate the human beings for whom he died.

Ananais and Sapphira decide that instead of being humble members of this community to serve others, they will use this community to serve their own desires for self-exaltation and self-praise.

And God will not allow his dream for the human race to be destroyed. He can’t. God is committed to the protection of his bride.

Look at these other passages. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3:16-17

Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is sacred, and you are that temple.

A grammatical note here — Paul says “you” and he uses the plural form of the word. It means “all of you.” The church is God’s temple and God’s Spirit dwells in you — the church.

God’s spirit dwells in all of us as his church. The church is God’s dwelling place on earth.

If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is sacred, and you are that temple.

Paul is saying that God’s love for the church is fierce, it’s holy, it’s jealous, it’s wonderful, because God loves people and people are the church.

So if you mess with the church, you mess with God; and God is in the business of protecting his church.

Now, for most of us, this problem has not reached anywhere near the depth that it has for Ananias and Sapphira.

But maybe for some of us — we’ve made a subtle resolution to deceive the church or violate the church.

Let me just run through different ways and different forms that it takes:

When I use the church as a tool to further my own ambitions or to showcase my talents, I violate the church.

When I seek to gain control over others in the church to show how dominant I can be, I violate the church.

When I live as a judge over those who lead the church differently than me, I violate the church.

When I pursue truth, and when I study the Bible simply to be able to win theological arguments and show others how smart I am, I’m misusing the church of God.

When I join a little clique within a church that gossips about, critiques and excludes those outside of my little clique, I’m misusing the church of God.

When I subtly seek to let other people know how spiritual I am, I’m misusing the church of God.

I think we all need a moment of truth here.

We all need moments of truth, periodically in life, to own up to what it is that we’ve done and then to throw ourselves at the mercy and grace of the Father.

There comes a moment of truth in this story. And these moments come for every one of us in this room. They come for me and they come for you. Today might be one of them.

One comes in this story for Sapphira in verse 8. She enters this room and is probably expecting there’s going to be a lot of rejoicing, because she and her husband have planned out this gift that’s given to the church.

Instead of rejoicing, she gets this strange silence:

Peter asked her, “Tell me, is this the price you and Ananias got for the land?”

Everyone in the room holds their breath for a moment to see what will happen, and to see if she’ll own up the truth.

If she would own the truth, the story would have such a different ending. It would mean life instead of death; and grace instead of fear.

She refuses to own the truth about who she is and what she’s done. She chooses death.

In every life there comes moments of truth. And I’m going to invite us to have one of those moments with God in a little while.

But this is what comes out of this story. Look at Acts 5:3.

I don’t know how to soften this and wouldn’t soften it if I could. It’s simply the Word of God.

Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit?”

It’s like Peter is saying here — deceit is much bigger than ourselves, there’s a struggle going on in the spiritual world.

The Apostle Paul says his struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the spiritual forces of evil.

Call it what you will — it’s light verses darkness, it’s good verses evil, Satan verses God. It’s a spiritual fight that most of us are incapable of understanding.

And you and I are the objects of this spiritual battle. And basically it comes down to this — it’s truth verses lies.

The Bible tells us that God is the Father of truth. The Bible also tells us that Satan in the father of lies.

John 8:44 says:

He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

The Bible makes it very clear — God is on one side and Satan is on the other and they’re opposed to one another.

There is a spiritual war that rages. And it rages inside every human heart — inside mine and inside yours. It’s going on right now in this room — spiritual war. And it’s too important to be trivialized.

And the battle is won not primarily in dramatic, powerful encounters, but in quiet, unseen moments.

In the choice for submission over self.
In the choice for servanthood over self-promotion.
In the choice for honesty over deceit.
In the choice for life over death.

Maybe not a sudden, dramatic death, but it’s about life and death for you and for me.

And God is calling us, pleading with us to choose life. Own the truth about the state of your heart and give up trying to fake it.

I heard a story about a ten year old boy who died after Halloween. His name was Timmy. Timmy died very suddenly, unexpectedly.

The family was devastated.

But they really were held together because the dad had just such a strong faith.

People commended Timmy’s dad for how strong his faith was. Even at the funeral, Timmy’s dad got up and he sang an old hymn called “Blessed Assurance.” Maybe some of you know the song.

He got up and sang that hymn, but he changed the words. He sang: This is Timmy’s story. This is Timmy’s song. Praising His Savior all the day long.

A couple of months later, investigation showed that little Timmy had been poisoned in his Halloween candy by his father who had taken out a life insurance policy on his son.

You know what — you may never get caught. And you may cover up your tracks to near perfection. And your life may fool everyone else, but it won’t fool God.

Look what the writer of Hebrews says:

Nothing in all creation can hide from him. Everything is naked and exposed before his eyes. This is the God to whom we must explain all that we have done.

I don’t know about you, but when I read that, it makes me think twice about what kind of life I live, because God knows. He knows everything about us.

Look what the writer of Scripture says in Isaiah 29. This is the New Living Translation.

Destruction is certain for those who try to hide their plans from the LORD, who try to keep him in the dark concerning what they do! “The LORD can’t see us,” you say to yourselves. “He doesn’t know what is going on!”

How stupid can you be? He is the Potter, and he is certainly greater than you. You are only the jars he makes! Should the thing that was created say to the one who made it, “He didn’t make us”? Does a jar ever say, “The potter who made me is stupid”?

God is not stupid! He knows. He sees. He knows everything.

And the reality is — we can lie and we can cheat and we can fake our way through life.
And we can put on a mask and we can show up for church and we can praise God.
And then we can go out to the parking lot, get in our cars and take off the mask and put it in the glove box until next week and spend the rest of the week living far from God.
And we can quench the Holy Spirit who is in us trying to get us to be honest and real.

Or you can just take off the mask and throw the stinking thing away. Get honest with God and let him love you and let him change you.

That’s what he wants to do.

So why not just take off the mask and stop pretending?

He understands the struggle. He already knows it anyway. So why not just get real and cling to him and let him love you?

Some of us just need to come clean with God.

Look what 1 John 1:8-9 says:

If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteous.

We come to God and just get clean with him. And God in turn cleans us up.

And I just want you to get real honest today.

I’m just thinking that in our church, there might be some of you that are really, really struggling.

Maybe some of you are struggling with a drinking problem. And no one knows. Your spouse doesn’t know. Your parents don’t know. Your friends don’t know. But God knows.

And he just wants you to come clean and let him love you and let him change you.

I’m just guessing that there are a few of us who are living a lie.

You’re lying to everyone around you about something very serious. And no one knows. Your friends don’t know. Your parents don’t know. Your spouse doesn’t know. But God knows.

He just wants you to come clean. Just let him love you. Let him change you.

Some of you might struggle with lying at work. Falsifying a little claim, a little report here and there. No one knows. Boss doesn’t know. Clients don’t know. But God knows.

He wants you to come clean and let him love you and change you.

There might be a few of us who have some web sites you visit or some things you watch. No one knows about it. Your spouse doesn’t know. Your parents don’t know. Your girlfriend or boyfriend doesn’t know. Your closest friends don’t know. God knows.

He just wants you to come clean. Let him love. Let him change you.

So how about it? No more pretending, okay?

It’s a good day when you take off the mask and you stop trying to fool God and you start to respect and love God with all honesty.

I think it’s interesting that Jesus talks about who’s blessed in Matthew 5:8

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

Who is blessed? The pure in heart.

It’s the people that are being genuine, sincere… just honest and real.

Because they will do what? They will see God.

You know what I’ve learned? It’s really hard to see God when you’re wearing a mask. It would be a remarkable thing today if God could hear all over this room just mask after mask hitting the floor.

“God, I just want to be honest with you.”

Where do you need to come clean before God?

This is the moment of truth I was talking about earlier. Own up to the truth about who you are before God.

David is a great example of someone who owned up to the truth about himself. Look at Psalm 51. This is after he deceived God. He cried out to God:

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions.

Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin… Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight.

Surely you desire truth in the inner parts. Wash me, and I will be whiter than snow… Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity.

Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation.

David is crying out to God, “Restore me. Cleanse me. Make me whole again.”

And I believe the Holy Spirit wants to guide us into a moment of truth right now.

Where do you need to come clean before God?

This is called repentance.

The word repentance comes from two words. One of them is “meta,” which means “after” and then “noya,” which has to do with our mind. Repentance has to do with a new way of thinking.

Repent – to change your mind. Renew your mind.

And it’s not just a one time deal. It’s a process that we’re in for the rest of our lives.
It’s a process that we’re in whether you decided to follow Jesus two weeks ago, two years ago or twenty years ago.

So the question I’ve been reflecting on for the last couple weeks has been — how do we know we’re doing it? What marks a person who is genuinely attempting to change their mind to a new way of thinking?

So I want to spend the next few minutes reflecting on this.

Real quickly, I want to talk about four marks of a person who is genuinely repentant — how we can tell there’s real change happening.

The first mark is a conviction about sin.

Conviction

The Bible says if we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves.

John 16:8 is an interesting verse. Jesus says:

When the Holy Spirit comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment.

Now, has the Holy Spirit come? Yes, in Acts 2 right — at Pentecost. We studied this in “The God I Never Knew” series.

Now, since we have the Holy Spirit, one of the roles of the Holy Spirit in our lives is to convict us.

And this happens in the moments of truth when we find ourselves saying things like:

I’m not being the friend I should be.
I wasn’t totally honest in that conversation.
I’m not doing business in a way that’s completely honest and honoring to God.
I shouldn’t have said that about so-and-so behind their back.
I cheated on the test.
I’m greedy.
I’m self-centered.

When we have those thoughts — that’s a good thing. That means the Holy Spirit is convicting of us of sin.

And it’s one of the marks of genuine change or repentance in our lives; and it opens the door to a second mark, which is brokenness over sin.

Brokenness

Brokenness is an important part of true repentance.

David was broken over his sin in Psalm 51.

Genuine repentance in your life — genuine change — is marked by brokenness.

Peter is an example of this.

Remember when he was so bold before Jesus? — “I will never deny you, Lord. I will follow you to the death!”

And that night, he denied him three times. And when the rooster crowed, what did Peter do?

He ran outside and wept bitterly. He was broken over his sin.

When’s the last time you were broken over your sin?

Some of us need to pray a prayer and that is, “God break my heart. Allow me to see the sin in my life the way you see it.”

And once there has been conviction about sin and brokenness over sin, it will lead to the confession of sin.

Confession

Confessing our sins to God means we don’t just announce our particular sins to him. — “Well, I’ve done this and I’ve done that.”

It means we agree with God about our sins. It means we agree that we have changed our mind about that sin…

It’s not right.
It dishonors God.
It dishonors other people.
It dishonors my own body.

It means we agree with God that this sin is harmful, and it cost the life of Jesus who died on the cross to pay for that sin.

Now, God knows our motivation when we confess. He knows if we really mean it or not. He knows if we just want to be forgiven to get out of a mess that we’re in, or if we really agree with him, and that we genuinely want this area to change in our lives.

Conviction. Brokenness. Confession.

And there is one more important mark of a person who’s genuinely changing, turning from their sins, and that is the change itself.

Change

Look what John the Baptist said in Matthew 3:8.

Prove by the way you live that you have really turned from your sins and turned to God.

Do you know what will happen in our lives if we get convicted over our sin and we get broken by our sin and we confess our sin, but we’re not serious about changing our sin?

We become distant in our relationship with God.

It’s the same thing that happens when we have unresolved conflict or un-reconciled differences with a person. We become distant in that relationship.

We become distant with God.

Maybe we’re cordial in that we still go to church. We’re cordial in that we still serve in the church and give to the church.

But we’re distant, because when we get too close to real change, it gets too convicting, and so we keep our distance.

You know, churches are famous for being full of people who are distant and cordial with God.

Because people who are distant and cordial with God can get by with anything in their lives, and somehow they still feel good about themselves because they still go to church.

You don’t want that, believe me, I know.

So I’m pleading with you, if God brings you to a point of real change in your life, don’t say no to God.

If you think about it, saying no to God is what got you in trouble in the first place —

Saying no to God is what screwed up your relationship in the first place.
Saying no to God is what got you in that relationship you never should have gotten into in the first place.
Saying no to God is what created all those problems and hurts and feelings and misunderstandings.

If God has finally brought you to the place where you’re ready to change, don’t say no.

Alright, we’re going to give you some time right now to come clean before God.

Christian and the team are going to come play a closing song and while they do I want to encourage you — just come clean before God.

Let God break you. And then let him love you. And let him change you.

Some of you already feel the conviction of the Holy Spirit. The area of sin or deceit is very clear in your mind.

You need to allow yourself to be broken over your sin. Cry out to God like David did in Psalm 51.

And after you’ve been broken, confess your sin. Name your sin. Tell God what you’ve done.

And when you leave here today, leave with a commitment that you’re going to do whatever you need to do to change.

Let me say a prayer before we move into this time of repentance.

Blue Oaks Church
Pleasanton, CA