A Church’s Sin and God’s Amazing Grace, Part 2

Today on Summit Life, a compelling message from Pastor JD Greer. Sin is a deadly serious matter to God. Can we be honest with each other for a minute? If we are offended by the swift judgment of God described here, it simply reveals our ignorance of God's holiness, our sinfulness, and the seriousness of our sin in relation to his holiness.

We should not ask the question, why did they die? We should wonder, why do any of us remain alive? As flawed human beings, our natural tendency is to focus on ourselves as we try to look good on the outside. That's our subject today on Summit Life as Pastor JD Greer reminds us that outward appearances can be deceiving.

And instead of making things better, thinking only about ourselves can result in some pretty serious consequences. We're continuing our series in the book of Acts titled, Scent. If you've missed any of the previous messages, you can hear them again free of charge at jdgreer.com. Pastor JD titled today's message, A Church's Sin and God's Amazing Grace. Today you're going to see a moment of failure and tragedy in the early church. And I believe that God is warning some of us, some of you, specifically in the story that you're going to see recorded in Acts chapter 5.

Acts chapter 4, let's start there, go back a couple verses in Acts 4, let's begin in verse 34. You see, there was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. And they laid it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed from there to each as any had need. These were the most generous people on earth. And nobody was like, hey, that's my car, hey, that's my house. Everything they had, there was a sense of commonness about them, their properties, their possessions, their toothbrushes.

I'm sure they had limits to this. Keep reading here, verse 36. Thus Joseph, who was also called by the apostles Barnabas, a Levite, a native of Cyprus, sold a field that belonged to him and brought the money and laid it at the apostles' feet. Now Barnabas has to be one of the coolest figures in Acts.

He is always laying his money down and picking people up. That's Barnabas, because his hold on his stuff had loosened and his grip on other people had tightened. Chapter 5. But, but a man named Ananias, whose name, by the way, means God is merciful, and I'll show you in a few minutes why I think that's significant. With his wife, Sapphira, sold a piece of property, and with his wife's knowledge, together, he kept back for himself some of the proceeds and brought only a part of it and laid it at the apostles' feet. Verse 3. But Peter said, Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit, Peter says, and keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land? Why is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to men.

You've lied to God. What was wrong with what they did? Was it that they kept back part of the proceeds of the land for themselves?

Not at all. The problem was that Ananias presented the gift as if it was the full amount. When Ananias heard these words, he fell down and breathed his last, and great fear, underline that word, great fear came upon all who heard of it. Verse 7. After an interval of about three hours, his wife came in, not knowing what had happened, and Peter said to her, tell me whether you sold the land for so much or not. She said, yes, we sold it for so much. But Peter said to her, how is it that you have agreed together to test the Spirit of the Lord? Behold, the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out.

Immediately, she fell down at his feet and she breathed her last. Let me ask a few questions of this text, can I? Here's the first question. Why did Ananias and Sapphira do what they did? Their lie was symptomatic, hear this, of a much deeper problem. They loved money and they loved the praise of people. And they knew they could not get the praise of people unless they, in their minds, gave away all their money, but they didn't want to give away all their money because they loved money, so they lied about giving away all their money so they could keep the praise of people and have both of those things. They're kind of like the opposite of Barnabas, right?

Barnabas is filled with the Spirit and gave away his stuff to bless people. They're filled with the love of money and the love of the praise of people, so they lie about their generosity to obtain praise from people. Sins like lying, here's what I want you to see, sins like lying always come from somewhere.

These lies went all the way down to the deepest parts of their heart. Here's my second question. Why did God strike them dead? Does everyone who lies in church get struck dead? You're here, aren't you?

I'm here. There's a couple of reasons. The first one is that these people have been really close to the activity of God. And whenever you're close to the activity of God, the seriousness of sin increases.

But more importantly, the reason that God killed them is this. Do you remember the concept of sign that we talked about a couple weeks ago? A sign is a temporary manifestation of something that God will one day do with everyone. And we applied it to healing, remember? Healing, God does not heal everyone now in the church of every disease they have.

One day he will do that. And so every once in a while, he did this a lot in action, he still does it today too, but every once in a while he will break in and miraculous heal to give us a glimpse of what one day he will do with everyone. Well, in the same way, what you see in Ananias and Sapphira is a glimpse of what God will one day do with everyone who has the heart of Ananias and Sapphira.

Just because it doesn't happen all the time now. Do not think that this is not a picture to you and a warning to you of what one day will be the reality for all of us. Which leads me to number three. What is God, or the third question, what is God teaching us through this sign? What's God signifying? What is he trying to teach us?

I'll give you a handful of things. Number one, in the church, there are two kinds of people and it's nearly impossible to distinguish them from the outside. That's what he's trying to show us. In the church, there are two different kinds of people. We have Ananias and Sapphira and we got Barnabas, or however you pluralize that, Barnabai.

And it's nearly impossible to distinguish them from the outside. I mean, Ananias and Sapphira look just like Barnabas, don't they? They're both really involved in church. They both say, praise the Lord, brother. They put their hands up in worship. They're both generous. But underneath their confessions is a world of distinction.

Underneath their confessions is, in Ananias and Sapphira, a love of money and a love of the praise of people that it's never been repented of and is their controlling thing. I was reading this week the letters of John Newton. John Newton wrote Amazing Grace. And he said this thing that just really kind of scared me a little bit, honestly.

It definitely got my attention. He said, you know, we've become great imitators. And so a lot of people grow up in church and they learn to imitate the language of people who've had genuine experiences with God. And then he says this. He says the tragedy is that they think that talking about these experiences is the same thing as having had those experiences. And they just fool themselves into thinking that because they use the language and because they go along, they've actually had an experience with God's glory and had an experience of God's grace.

He said, but they're not the same. What you've got in a church is you've got some people who've genuinely been encountered by the grace and glory of God and you've got others who have learned to imitate. You say, well, how do I know which one I am? You look underneath and you look at the lies. Because Ananias and Sapphira had one confession with their mouth, but then they had some secrets in their heart that they had not revealed.

They knew they were inconsistent. They knew they were hypocrites. I think there's a parallel to this story in the Old Testament.

This is almost always true in Acts. So when God was bringing the children of Israel out of Egypt and he took them into the Promised Land, do you remember the first battle that they had in the Promised Land? Do you remember what it is? It starts with J around Jericho, the Battle of Jericho.

That's right. So they go into Jericho, God, mighty, victory, walls fall down. Boom, it's awesome. It's like the most powerful city in the Promised Land. They just obliterate it. Well, the next battle is with this little town called Ai, which is this little podunk town. And they're thinking, we don't even need to like, you know, we just send out our JV squad on this one. I mean, because it's like, imagine you conquered Washington, D.C., and then the next battle is Roxboro.

So you're like, you know, whatever. So they walk in there, and they just get their rear ends kicked. And so Joshua, the leader of the army, goes to God. He's like, God, what happened? And God says it's because there's a guy in the army who has sin. And so God says, Joshua says, who is it? And God says, well, separate the army into the 12 tribes. He said, all right, now take the tribe of Judah, bring them front and center. The whole tribe of Judah comes up in the army. He says, now separate the clan, which is the family group of so-and-so.

Now separate out of that clan this family, and the group is getting smaller and smaller. Now separate out of this extended family Achan, and I want you to go look in his tent. And they go in his tent, and they pull back the floor, and there is all this stuff that he had stolen that God had forgiven them to take out of Jericho, some of the idols, some of the things that Achan has stolen and hidden in his tent. Here's the thing.

Listen. From the outside, you could not have distinguished Achan from any other soldier, but there was stuff buried in his tent that nobody else could see. What's hidden in your tent?

What's hidden in your tent? Because you know what? I can't see it. Just like I can't see like Peter saw this day in the Ananias and Sapphira, but you need to ask yourself the question of whether or not the confession you make with your mouth that Jesus is Lord is backed up by a life that says that Jesus is Lord. Because if what your mouth says is different than what your life says, what your life says is a better testimony of what you believe than anything that comes out of your mouth.

Which leads me to number two. We cannot hide from God. We cannot hide from God.

That's what this story shows us. The Holy Spirit knows your thoughts as if they were being displayed on a screen or played through a loudspeaker. How would you like that if attached to the side of your head was a little monitor that everything that went through that mind of yours got displayed?

How would you like that? How would you like it if every thought was voiced and known by somebody else? My friend, do you ever stop to think about that that's what it is under the eye of God? There is not a thing that's hidden. There is not a secret.

It is all known as plainly. We are naked and open in His sight, Hebrews 4 says. I know you know that, but do you really think about that?

Because Ananias and Sapphira didn't. In a very serious way, do you understand that there is nothing that is hidden from His sight? That one day He said everything that is hidden in the closet will be shouted from the rooftops? I know that you know that. They knew that. But watch this.

Listen. They were so consumed with the praise of people that they never stopped to reflect on whether or not they were actually right with God. You know what the number one thing that keeps people in the church out of heaven? Is you're so consumed with what other people think about you that you never stop and think about whether or not you're actually right with God, whether you actually know God, forgetting that one day it's all going to be naked and open, and the only question is not what people thought about you, it's what was real.

Number three. The closer we are to grace, the greater the offense of sin. Some, and again, I don't want to be overly dramatic on this, but God has made us privy to some unusual movings of His Spirit.

And with great grace comes great responsibility. I'm not talking to those of you right now, listen, who are guests at our church. Maybe you're here because somebody invited you and maybe you're just beginning to investigate Christianity.

I'm not talking to you. I'm talking to those people who are here because you think that this is the most entertaining church that you can find. It's a way you can go to church and come out, you laugh a little, you sing some great songs, the music's awesome, and so this is your preferred TV program of church. I'm talking about what it means to be in the presence in a place where God's Spirit is moving and for you to just play at it.

That's what I'm talking about. And I'm saying that with this great outpouring of grace comes great responsibility, and when you are privy to it, when you see it with your eyes and you sit in the background in the distance and you do nothing, the greater the experience of grace, the greater the offense of sin. Number four, fear is a part of worship. Fear is a part of worship. Now that might be an unusual idea for you, but did you notice how much the word fear repeated itself in this passage?

Did you notice that? Verse five, great fear came upon all who heard of it. Verse 11, great fear came upon the whole church and all who heard these things.

What was the result of that fear? Verse 14, more and more people believed in the Lord. God is infinite in love, yes. Listen, but you can only know that love as you know the magnificence of His glory and the might of God's power. The love of God, listen, the true love of God grows out of the fear of God.

Hope turns fear into a trembling and peaceful wonder, and fear takes everything trivial out of hope and makes it earnest and profound. Many of you have never really learned to love God because you've never learned to fear God, because it is the fear of God that makes the love and the pleasures of God intense. The terrors of God make the pleasures of His people intense. The fireside fellowship is all the sweeter when the storm is howling outside the cottage. Think of my favorite definition of biblical fear, awe mixed with intimacy.

It's awe at the glory and the majesty and the magnificence of God, mixed with intimacy that comes from the fact that the Almighty has called me Son. The comfort of the Holy Spirit came out of the fear of God, and when those two things are present, that's when the church begins to grow. You want to know one of the reasons our church doesn't grow more?

I mean, it's growing, but you want to know one of the reasons it doesn't grow more in our community? It's because the fear of God is absent. God's first work is to help you see the magnificence of who He is. John Newton again, "'Tis grace that taught my heart to fear."

You ever think about that phrase? "'Tis grace that taught my heart to fear. Then grace my fears relieved." How precious did that grace appear? The hour I first believed. You want to know why the grace was precious?

Because the fear was real. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. Do you know there's kind of a movement in Christian contemporary music? They want to change that phrase. I've seen several versions of it. They've rewritten that first verse.

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound. They don't like the phrase wretch like me, because in our positive, you can do it, you got potential kind of culture. Oprah, Dr. Field, they don't like that. We don't start anywhere calling anybody a wretch. Can I tell you something? If you don't see yourself as a wretch, God's grace will never be amazing. You want to know why amazing grace doesn't have a sweet sound to you? You want to know why your eyes have not wept as long, maybe never, over the cross?

You want to know why? Because you have no fear of God. Because you have no fear of the storm. It's grace that teaches your heart to fear, and then grace, your fear is relieved. Number five, sin is a deadly serious matter to God. Sin is a deadly serious matter to God.

Can we be honest with each other for a minute? Many of us find God's actions in this story offensive, do we not? God, come on, right? I mean, they're trying.

They're doing their best. They made a little mistake. God, why you so cantankerous? Listen, if we are offended by the swift judgment of God described here, it simply reveals our ignorance of God's holiness, our sinfulness, and the seriousness of our sin in relation to his holiness.

We should not ask the question, why did they die? We should wonder, why do any of us remain alive? Listen, God is indeed long-suffering, patient, and slow to anger. In fact, he is so slow to anger that when his anger does erupt, we're shocked and offended by it. We forget rather quickly that God's patience is designed to lead us to repentance, to give us time to be redeemed. But instead of taking advantage of this patience by coming humbly to him for forgiveness, we use this grace as opportunity to become more bold in our sin. We delude ourselves into thinking that either God doesn't care about it or that he is powerless to punish us. The supreme folly is that we think we will get away with our revolt. Friends, do you not understand that this season that we are in where people don't die for their sin is designed by God in his patience to give you space to repent?

That's all it's there for. But instead, you and I have used that forbearance of God as a way to forget about the judgment of God, to forget that he sees everything, and then to go on sinning with impunity like it's never really gonna come back to us. Do you not understand that if what God did to Jesus is true, if God took his perfect son and put him on a cross and put nails in his hands and his feet and allowed his perfect son to be mocked, humiliated, stripped naked, scorned in front of the eyes of the whole world, allowed Roman soldiers to spit in his perfect face to rip out his beard and to lacerate his body with whips because of your sin, do you not understand how serious he is about it and that this season that there is forbearance in sin and patience is not for you to use it for impunity but for you to come home to God and thank God for his grace and receive it while there is still time because this moment of Ananias and Sapphira is coming for you, and every hidden thing is gonna be exposed. It's all gonna be brought to light. You may have fooled me and everybody else around me.

All are alive. We never know what's in your tent. But then it's exposed, and it's a deadly serious matter to God.

So here's my last question. Are you lying to the Holy Spirit? Are you pretending to be more spiritual than you are?

Are you a hypocrite? I know of college students who will come in here, whatever reason, on the weekend. I'm not sure why they come. Maybe you feel guilty. Maybe you don't want to lose touch with God while you're in college. Maybe this is the way you were raised. And you'll confess while you're in here that Jesus is Lord, but how you've lived the other nights of this week, do not confess that Jesus is Lord.

Maybe you're not a college student and so your sins aren't really lasciviousness or partying or whatever. Jim Elliot, the missionary to Ecuador, said this, about this passage. He said this passage in Acts 5 reminds me of the thousands of Christians who sing, I surrender all, but have given an unyielding no to God about giving their lives and their sons and their daughters to go to the mission field. In other words, they say, I surrender all and Jesus is Lord, knowing full well there are multiple parts of their lives that they will not allow God to touch. I have had so-called Christian parents who look me in the face and say, I've been in church all my life, yes. I will never let my son or daughter, grown, go follow Jesus to the mission field.

I just refuse it. Confessing with their mouth that Jesus is Lord, blaspheming the Holy Spirit with their lives by saying no to God. And then Jim Elliot said this passage Christians don't tell lies, Christians sing them. Because the confession they make in church is not backed up by their life. What area will you not surrender to God?

You might look where Ananias and Sapphira started, the love of money and the love of the praise of people. Maybe you won't stand up for Jesus in the places you need to. Maybe you won't share Christ because you're worried about your reputation. Maybe that's an unsurrendered area.

Maybe it has to do with money, like theirs. Maybe you like Jesus as Lord, but he's not touching that. I'm not obeying God when it comes to how I should be.

I'm not doing that. What you say with your life, what you say with your pocketbook, what you say with every part of your life is more significant to God than what you say with your lips. You're treating Jesus flippantly. You're treating the Holy Spirit flippantly.

You're a person who feels like, for example, like Ananias and Sapphira. Like, oh, grace. God, we know that God is gracious. And then they presumed upon the spirit of grace. Are you the kind of person that says, I've trusted Jesus as my Savior. All my sins are forgiven. So I get this, like, heavenly Visa card. I can run anytime I sin.

Finished, paid. God couldn't love me more than he does right now. Have you taken that message of the gospel and then used it as a license to sin? Are you somebody who walks through church thinking, how about this, more about your glory than God's, like Ananias and Sapphira did? You come into church, and what you're concerned with is how people think about you, not what people are thinking about God. This one gets me.

You wanna know why? Because I stand up here every week, and I tremble to think how many times I stand up here more concerned with what you think about me than what you think about God. You come into this place thinking more about your reputation than you do God's glory.

All I'm trying to ask you is what's underneath. I can hear the confession in your mouth, but you know what's hidden in your tent. Now imagine at this point, some of you may, you may be overwhelmed with despair. How can any of us ever hope to stand before God? Which of us is not Ananias and Sapphira, right? Which of us is not Ananias and Sapphira?

Why aren't we all dead? First John 1.9, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If you expose your sin, he will forgive you. If you hide your sin, he will condemn you. God can use us even though we're filled with areas of sin in our lives, as long as we humbly repent.

God has never looked for perfection in order to give his grace and his blessing. We can experience the same blessing the early church did as long as we confess where we fail him and trust him to restore us. We're so grateful for your partnership, and as our way of saying thanks, we'll send you an exclusive resource we created just for you. It's a study guide titled Scent, the Book of Acts, Volume 1. You can use this book in your own personal quiet time or for small group discussion through the first eight chapters of Acts. Get your copy of Scent, the Book of Acts, Volume 1 when you donate today by calling 866-335-5220. That's 866-335-5220.

Or if it's more convenient to give and request the book online, visit us at jdgrier.com. I'm Molly Bidevich, and I'm so glad that you were with us today. Be sure to join us Wednesday when we'll hear about one man who took the risk of crossing cultural barriers for the sake of unity. That's Wednesday on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries.