A Church’s Sin and God’s Amazing Grace

Today on Summit Life, what are you filled with? See, you're one of two things. You're either filled with the Spirit, and if you're filled with the Spirit, you're characterized, watch this, by contentment and satisfaction and radical generosity. You weren't behind the scenes because you don't need praise. That's one thing. Or you're filled with the love of people and the love of money, and then you're always hungry because it comes out of a heart of dissatisfaction.

Which one of those more characterizes you? Welcome back to Summit Life with Pastor J.D. Greer. As always, I'm your host, Molly Bidevich. Today on the program, Pastor J.D. is unpacking what it means to live a gospel-centered life fueled by the Holy Spirit. And the question we all have is, what does it look like? What are we supposed to do or to be? It's an exciting and practical message from our series titled Sent, and we've been discussing the birth and the mission of the Holy Spirit. Remember, if you missed any messages in this series, listen online free of charge at jdgreer.com. But for now, let's get started as Pastor J.D.

picks up in Acts Chapter 4. There were no priests, no power. There weren't people in strategic positions of influence. They didn't have newscasters and movie stars and congressmen and women. They just were a bunch of blue-collar workers from a backwoods part of the world who absolutely turned the world upside down and changed the course of human history forever.

They had only two weapons in their arsenal. One weapon was that they were deeply devoted to the message of the gospel. They believed it. They believed it with all their heart, and they rearranged their entire life around it.

The other weapon that they had is that they were filled with the Holy Spirit, which makes the things that we're reading here in these first chapters of Acts that much more applicable to us. You see, I don't think you should read these stories of some cool things that happened 2,000 years ago. I believe that this is God's counsel and guidance to us as we experience some of the same things that they were experiencing. This is like God coaching us. These stories are not about them. They're about us.

Does that make sense? And by the way, can I tell you this? This is what I always wanted church to be. I've told you before that church is supposed to be like the huddle in a football game. You're on the field. In this analogy, I'm the quarterback. You come together, and I call the play, and then you go out and run to play.

I've told you that most churches, they don't operate that way. It's like the huddle is the play. Imagine you're watching a professional football game, and they all get together in the field, and Eli Manning or whatever calls to play, and when he gets done, all the players, they're all huddled around. They're like, that was an awesome play. Man, you can call that play all right. Man, just the hair on the back of my neck stood up while you were calling that play.

It was so awesome. Then they all go back, and they sit down at the bench, and then they wait for a few minutes and come back out, and they're like, call us another play. At some point, you're like, hey, the point is not calling the play. The point is running the play.

What makes this so fun is I feel like every week, I'm showing you what's happening so that you can run the play more effectively in our community, and you're doing that, and it's what makes it so absolutely exciting. 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. 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, but they just had a sense that the community, people were more important, the mission was more important than their stuff. By the way, I hear about this a lot in our church. This has got to be one of the most generous places I've ever personally been a part of in how you take care of each other, how you bear each other's burdens, and how you share with each other.

Write this down. The gospel had loosened their grip on their stuff and tightened their grip on each other, because that's what always happens when the gospel gets a hold of somebody. Your hold on your stuff loosens, and your grip on people tighten, because that's what Jesus did for us, right? Though he was in the form of God, he did not consider equality with God something to be clung to, but he divested himself of this privilege and this position and this glory, and he made himself a servant and took upon himself that form of a servant so that he could go to a cross and die for our sin. Though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor, so that we through his poverty might become rich.

Jesus' hold on his position of glory, on his stuff, if you will, loosened, and his hold on us tightened, because he couldn't hold them at the same time, so he gladly let his stuff go so that he could rescue us. That's what happens to them, because that's what Jesus had done for them. I've heard it said that when it comes to generosity that some people are like rocks. The only way for God to get anything out of them is he has to hammer them.

And still, he only gets chips and sparks. Other people are more like sponges. For God to get something out of them, he's got to squeeze.

But the moment he quits squeezing, they go back to their normal kind of selfish, self-centered self. Other people, however, are like honeycombs. They just drip. They just ooze sweetness.

You can't be around them without getting that sweetness just all over you. The gospel takes people with hearts of stone, and it turns them into honeycombs, minus the bees. That's not part of the analogy. But it just turns them into people who just exude generosity to all who are around them. Which one of those three are you like?

A rock, a sponge, or a honeycomb? Keep reading here. Verse 36. Thus Joseph, who is also called by the apostles Barnabas, which means son of encouragement. Have you noticed, by the way, they love nicknames in the early church? I've never noticed that before.

I think it's great. 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.

His name may not sound that cool in English, but in whatever language it was given in, it was just a great name. And every time you see Barnabas, here's why he got that name. He appears six times in the book of Acts.

The first time you see him is here. He's the lead giver. He's the one that's given away all that stuff so that the ministry can go forward and people can be taken care of. The second time you see Barnabas is going to be in Acts 9 when Saul is converted and later becomes Paul. Well, when Saul was converted, remember Saul had killed Christians. And so the early church is like, uh-uh, the other guy's not joining my small group. Because when we're like bowing our heads for prayer, he's going to take out a hatchet and hack our heads off.

So we're not going to do that. Barnabas is the one in Acts 9 who stands up and says, no, no, no, I sense God doing something in him. I feel like we ought to give Paul a chance. And I feel like we ought to bring him into our fellowship. That's the second time you see him. Third time you see him is in Acts 11 when the early church is beginning to diversify by reaching out to the Gentiles.

Guess who's leading in diversification? Guess who's befriending and pastoring all the Gentiles? Barnabas. When it comes time to go on a mission trip and Paul says, I'm called to go, guess who the first volunteer is to go on that mission trip?

It's Barnabas, right? Well, later in that mission trip, a guy named John Mark joins them. John Mark travels with them for a while and then John Mark gets scared and goes home, abandons Paul.

Well, John Mark, after a few months at home, repents and comes back and says, I want to rejoin the team. And Paul says, uh-uh, no way, no how. Fool me once, shame on me.

Fool me twice, shame on you. You're not rejoining this team. And Paul, who liked to talk a lot about grace, evidently was not very gracious himself at different points. And Barnabas was the one who said, no, Paul, we need to bring this guy back in and we need to give him a second chance. Paul, Jesus gave you a second chance.

I gave you a second chance. Maybe you should give John Mark a second chance. And Paul rejected that counsel and Paul and Barnabas went in separate ways, not in anger, but just said, well, let's do it. So John Mark and Barnabas went together and Paul took Silas and that was the expansion of it. By the way, Paul would come around later at the end of one of his letters and admit that Barnabas was right. All right, so those are the six times you see Barnabas in the book of Acts.

Here's how I'd summarize his life. 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.

Now, here's the other thing. He's one of the first guys you get to know that's not an apostle. We've kind of seen the awesomeness of the church and we've seen an apostle, Peter and John. Now you've got just the profile of a gospel-transformed man, what the normal Christian is supposed to look like.

Chapter five, 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 apostle's feet. Verse three, but Peter said, Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit?

Who is behind this? Satan. By the way, did you know this is the first post-cross appearance of Satan in the Bible? Last time we saw Satan, he was killing Jesus. After he killed Jesus and Jesus resurrected, Satan came up with a new strategy.

If it's not going to work to kill the church, he is going to work to destroy the church from within. So Satan fills his heart to lie to the Holy Spirit, Peter says, and keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land. While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? After it was sold, was it not at your disposal? 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. In fact, Peter says that directly. You could have done whatever you wanted with it.

There's no requirements here. 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. The young men rose and wrapped him up and carried him out and buried him. These were the interns of the early church because interns always get jobs like this.

Isn't that right? You're listening to Summit Life with Pastor J.D. Greer. For more information about this ministry, visit jdgreer.com. We have an exciting new featured resource for our listening family this month. It's Pastor J.D. 's brand new book, 12 Truths and a Lie, Answers to Life's Biggest Questions. It's normal to have questions about life and many of us have the exact same questions. Questions like, how do I know if I'm going to heaven?

What's my purpose and why isn't God answering my prayers? In 12 Truths and a Lie, Pastor J.D. points us back to the gospel to help give us the answers. And with your gift of $35 or more to this ministry, we'll send you the book as well as a family-friendly discussion guide to go along with it to help you unpack what you're reading. This is a great resource for someone you're discipling or to help facilitate conversations with your children or to walk through with a small group. To receive your copy of 12 Truths and a Lie and the accompanying discussion guide, give us a call at 866-335-5220 or visit us online at jdgreer.com. Now let's get back to today's teaching. Once again, here's Pastor J.D.

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. Talk about a tense moment, right? Everybody's watching like, should we say something? Should we not say something? What do we do here? What was she supposed to do?

Right? I mean, she's supposed to be a good wife and just kind of, you know, submit to her husband? Ladies, let me ask you this directly. What would you have done in this situation? You and your husband, it was his idea, but you've agreed together to misrepresent yourself, and then you're asked publicly about this.

You have no idea that anybody knows. You're asked publicly, what would you have done? Submission never means following your husband into sin. It might mean following your husband into a mistake, like he thinks you should move and take a new job, and he thinks you think you shouldn't, and you think it's a mistake, you go along with it. That's submission. But submission never means following him into sin.

Here's why I make a big deal out of this. If you just let me be very candid, it seems to me in my observation that when some ladies get married, they relinquish all responsibility for their lives and just go along with their husbands as if it's all on him now. But what this story shows you is that there is a day coming, ma'am, when you're going to stand before God all by yourself, like Sephira did, and your husband's not going to stand with you, and you're going to give an account of the decisions that you made. Do not let your husband replace the Holy Spirit, because you're going to stand before God by yourself. You're going to have to give an account of your life. You're going to have to give an account of your lifestyle choices, of your generosity, of how committed you were to Christ, of your involvement in the church, of how you led your kids to be involved in the church.

This is not something that's a team approach. This is just you. You've got to ask the question all by yourself, and submission never means that you abandon responsibility for your walk with God and your discipleship of your children to a husband if he's a deadbeat. Guys, the flip side of this for you is your sin never affects just you. And, ma'am, maybe this providentially, this is the Sunday, this is the weekend that you came. Your sin is affecting that woman.

It is affecting your children. And in this story, a family died, or at least the wife died, because of the sins that a husband led in. 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. When the young men came in, they found her dead, and they carried her out and buried her beside her husband. Verse 11, and great fear, there it is again, underline it, came upon the whole church and upon all those who heard of these things. 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? Why did they 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.

I've explained this, I've used this analogy. Things like jealousy, lying, cheating, not being generous. These are all like smoke from a fire that you need to trace back down to see where the fire is coming from, and the fire is burning at the altar of whatever you worship.

If you've got smoke in your house, you don't just fan the smoke out of the house like that's a problem, you find the fire. When you see these things like lying and jealousy and coveting and cheating, don't just try to get rid of those things, trace them back down to the source, because you'll find they grow out of a heart that loves money and the praise of people more than it loves God. I've explained that for me in high school, I craved the attention of people, and that led me to make some disastrously bad decisions in high school. Well, good news, I matured. I matured and I quit making some of those stupid decisions. But one of the problems was, even though I'd matured, I never really dealt with the root problem, which was being addicted to the praise of people. And so as an adult, it just learned to manifest itself in new, mature ways, like always being obsessed with what other people thought about me.

Overworking to obtain people's approval. I'm being devastated by criticism, being addicted to people's praise, being willing to lie or exaggerate to make myself look better or try to downplay my weaknesses so that people would think that I was a hero. The void in my heart is what drove me, and that void in my heart was the problem. And that void was created by the absence of the love of God.

So what I needed was not to be told, quit lying, quit being jealous, quit overworking. I needed to have that void taken care of, and that happened when I was filled with the Spirit. Because when I was filled with the Spirit, I was filled with the love of God, because that's what that means. To be filled with the Spirit is to be filled with the love of God. And when you're filled with the love of God, you quit needing to use people so much. What you need is not just to quit lying. You need to be filled with the love of God.

You don't need to just fan away the smoke. You need to put out the fire. See, you're one of two things. You're either filled with the Spirit, and if you're filled with the Spirit, you're characterized, watch this, by contentment and satisfaction and radical generosity. You give away your stuff because you don't need it. You weren't behind the scenes because you don't need praise. You're not devastated by criticism.

That's one thing. Or you're filled with the love of people and the love of money, and then you're always hungry. You're always hungry and you find yourself lying and exaggerating and cheating and being jealous because it comes out of a heart of dissatisfaction.

Which one of those more characterizes you? Because it shows you what you're filled with. See? Here's my second question. Why did God strike them dead? 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. Whenever you're close to the activity of God, the seriousness of sin increases. Think of it like the temple. In the temple where the presence of God was, every blemish was magnified. These people are in the presence of the mighty movement of the Spirit of God, and that magnifies things like lying to the Holy Spirit and rebellion.

That's why I told you the meaning of their name to me is significant. Ananias, God is merciful. These people had seen firsthand the unbelievable mercy of God.

It is likely that they had been eyewitnesses to the cross itself. When you are in the presence of God's incredible grace, the responsibility that you have to that grace, the responsibility to that presence 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 Acts, and 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. Everything in these first chapters of Acts, listen, this is very important, everything is magnified. One of my favorite stories is coming up right after this in verses 12 through 16, where Peter, it says that he walks through Jerusalem and his shadow heals people. That has never happened to me, and I'm a church leader kind of like Peter was, but I've never walked down the beach and had somebody spring up off their towel and be like, I just got healed. I grew hair. I was bald.

I've never had that happen. It's magnified. 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?

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've got Barnabases, 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 has never been repented of and is their controlling thing. Don't settle for being a Christian in name only, a cultural Christian. It's time to repent from the hidden parts of your life because guess what?

You can't hide from God. You're listening to Summit Life with Pastor J.D. Greer. Pastor J.D. is helping us explore some pretty weighty topics, and if you need to catch up or if you'd like to download the free unedited message transcripts, visit us at jdgreer.com.

And while you're there, don't miss our new featured resource. The Bible explains so much about the mission of God through the church, and to help you apply these principles to your own life, we'd like to get you a copy of Pastor J.D. 's latest book and a bonus discussion guide that we've created to go along with it. It's called 12 Truths and a Lie, and it covers some of the questions J.D.

gets asked most often as a pastor, some of life's most important questions. This book and its family-friendly discussion guide comes with our thanks when you give a suggested donation of $35 or more. Remember, when you support Summit Life today, you're supporting your fellow listener by providing them free access to resources that will help them to dive deep into the gospel. So call us today at 866-335-5220. That's 866-335-5220.

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It's a great way to stay connected with Summit Life, and it's completely free to subscribe. Sign up when you go to jdgreer.com. I'm Molly Vitovich. Thank you for joining us today, and be sure to listen Friday as Pastor J.D. explains the problem with outward appearances, right here on Summit Life with J.D. Greer.