NEW NORMAL | Week 4 | Sermon

incredibly serious. The story even goes dark real fast. And I just wanna take this apart because what I wanna show out of this passage in Acts today is simply this big idea. A transformed heart acts from love, not lies. Meaning, I'm truly transformed, what I mean, if I if I know Christ,

I will begin to act from love. I will not act from lies that I'm believing. And we'll see what I mean as we go through this passage. It's in Acts chapter four, the last couple verses, and then the first 11 verses of chapter five.

And all I wanna do is is walk through this and just talk about this story and point out what's really go on here and what does it mean to us. If you if if we've been in the book of acts, the series called New Normal. If you haven't been around or you just haven't been paying attention, that's where we're at. And New Normal just means, hey, the church age is now formed. Jesus is now no longer walking with disciples physically,

but he the Lord lives within us by the holy spirit is inside of us, and that's changed everything. The church is exploding. They're baptizing a ton of people. They're just you know, people are coming to Christ left and right.

And and what we're gonna see in the story part of the issue is they're reaching people so rapidly and so fast. The New Testament church was not small. It was big. At this point, it's probably 15,000 people already in a in a city that only had a population of a 100,000.

And they're becoming a threat. They're starting to get persecuted a little bit because now they're big enough that it's scaring the religious people in control that that don't like them. And one of the things they're leading to the Lord is they're leading tons of of of

of poor people, and people in struggles, and and and things like that. And so it's creating needs within their community. And so that's kinda what's going on. But I wanna share as as they grow and form the church, the church is only months old here.

And in verse 32, it starts with saying this. All the believers were united in heart and mind. Now what does that mean? It's This is laying out everything after this that we're gonna read is actually illustrative of what that means.

What is going on in this church and what should be going on in the church and the principles that are behind it. And the first thing is says it's all believers. If if if you underline belief, what does it mean in the in in the book of acts when it says a believer? What's it saying?

It's not just talking about, I I believe there's a God. I believe Jesus is is real. What it's really saying when it describes the believers is these are people that believe in Jesus as savior and lord. Meaning, they trust him for all they need and they're satisfied with all that God is for them in Christ. They realize that

Christ is the source of life, not just a resource for my life. It's deeper than that. And that is the key to what's going on. And it says, when you are truly a believer, it says they were united in heart and mind.

That means heart and mind. Mind was the purpose. They they thought the way God thought. They saw what God they knew what they were united for.

If you if you didn't listen to last weeks, you need to go back to this. It'll make more sense. In other words, they understood that being a believer is not just about the personal gain of knowing Jesus. It's not just about personally growing spiritually. My spiritual journey may be very personal, but it's not private. I'm supposed to be a part of something bigger to be united in heart and mind. Meaning, it's not just about the personal gain is I hop on the purpose train.

That I become a part of what we're supposed to be a part of. That's what's happening. That's what what it means. They're they're hopping on board. In other words, that this heart and mind means when you become united to Jesus by faith, you become united to people by love.

In other words, they understood that they weren't people just going to personally learn about what are these principles of spirituality I need to know and believe for my own life. I don't just go to a church, They understood I am the church.

And that's what the challenge is for all of us that sit in here. That most of us and the way it's set up in our culture and the way you The US

The United States is run, the way we see ourselves, the way we view ourselves, we struggle with that. I just read an article this morning about how there's there's 12% less adults.

Just adults like you're in their forties, like not and we're not going kids to walk away, but people are going to church 12% less. That's about 40,000,000 people than were like ten years ago.

And when they analyzed it, looked at everyone says, oh, people are just less spiritual. People still believe in God. But the problem they're discovering is the way our culture has set up. Our our our America culture is set up is we have elevated work to an area of identity.

And so we are so busy about building our identity, is work and building things. It's not just even being materialistic. We are so wrapped in this model of I gotta figure out who I am and what I do. And that's why we come to church. I'm trying to figure out my purpose. When I keep saying, here's the purpose, we're supposed to be the church. No. No. No. No. I mean my real purpose. What am I supposed to do with my life? You're supposed to be a follower of Christ and be a part of the church. That's no. No. No. I mean, well, who I really am. And we're out there trying to build that and church attendance. Coming here gets in the way of that. Cause not only do you do it for yourself, you feel like that's what you're supposed to build into your kids.

And that's the major problem. So the problem it's gonna talk about here today, we still have. Is this idea of do we really know? Does it mean are we really believers who are united in heart and mind? Do we know that we've become freed? Our faith in Jesus frees us to love God, but it also frees us to start loving others.

But then it says the first thing they do with that freedom is it says, and they felt that they what they owned was not their own. So they shared everything they had.

They felt like what they owned wasn't their own. One of the first results of being freed by a faith in a God who loves you and takes care of you and he is the source of life, is it freed them to really love others like God's called us to. And in loving others, the first thing they realized the practical application of life is we are just stewards of the things we have. We are not owners.

That God we do not own what we have. God has given it to us to manage.

And they see life that What does it mean to be united in mind? The mind of God, to think of it that way? When we try to Americanize our Christianity, we say, well, I believe in Jesus, but it's still my stuff. I wanna take this path and this path, a cafeteria plan. And that drives us to basically be people that think about our faith as I come and I sit in a a row, but I refuse to get into the circles.

And it fights against it. Our culture fights against us being connected in community. And we don't even realize. And then we become a people that if it's about our identity and our jobs and our things, we become more about things. And you know what we do? The world's way of living is we love things and we use people.

It's supposed to be the other way around. We are called to love people and just use things.

And that's what happens. That's the first thing. It gets reversed. How's it gets reversed? I realized life really comes from Christ. I realized that I do have a purpose that's beyond my job and my comfort and and and and and all of that. There's a greater purpose that what I really long for is more, more of everything because I've long for eternity. God planted eternity in our hearts. We are meant for eternal relationships and eternal things, but we try to film with temporal things, it'll never work.

And once we realize that, that frees us to start to see our life, the mind, for the way God's point of view. And we start to understand that all this stuff is not what makes me happy. All this stuff is not what I do with it, what I live, what I trust, that I realize this is God's. He's given me everything and I'm gonna give all because he gave me his own life to save me and I realized that grace. And now I wanna be a part of this bigger mission.

That's what it means to be a part of a church. You don't go to a church. You go to a campus of a church, a building where we can assemble. But this place, when we're all not here, this is not church. This is just a building.

That's why people often ask, why don't I have a cross on the wall? As if it's gotta be some holy we got a huge one right out of two of them. It's in our logo. I mean, it's like you act like, oh, you guys don't love God enough. Your your holy ground isn't holy. This isn't holy. You know where the holy ground is?

This place becomes holy ground when we're sitting in here. And so that's really what it's saying. It's I just wanted to land that because everything that happens is a result of that. And so then what it is, so they shared everything.

And it says the apostles testified powerfully to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus and God's great blessing was upon them all. So they're sharing the gospel, they're pointing people to Jesus by loving them like Jesus and people are coming to Jesus.

And it and it says, they were there were no needy people among them because those who own land or houses would sell them and bring the money to the apostles to give those in need. They took care of the needs, they met the needs, they they they they they what they needed they had.

And and and and here's the thing. When you first read that, I do need to set up one thing. I I like to say this, don't hear what I'm not saying. Don't hear what this is not saying either. When we hear that, some say, so what you're about to say is if I'm gonna act like my stuff's not my stuff,

then God doesn't like me unless I sell everything and give it all. No. God is not saying we should all be socialists. This is not talking about wealth redistribution. Not at all.

What we need to get out of this is the principle of what's going on. Because by the end of acts, they weren't even given that way. It's not the method of what they're doing. It's the principle on the heart of why they did it. The principle doesn't change.

We come to know the love of Christ. We are free to now love God, which drives us to a purpose of our life is to love people and use things. We understand our things are not ours. They're given to us to be stewards, and we go all in with the purpose of God, with our time, our talents, our treasure, our testimony.

And and and we make it about what God's made our life about. And we do that. But that's not out of force, it's out of faith. It's not out of law that you have to do it or God doesn't like you, it's out of love. That's the whole point he's trying to say.

And it's important because this is about to go crazy in a minute. So then they give a good example of what was going on. So they start with a good example. For instance, it says, there was Joseph, one of the apostles nicknamed Barnabas, which means son of encouragement.

That's a cool nickname to have. You know what this means? If you know who Barnabas is, the first time he shows up in scripture, Barnabas is a cool guy.

And his nickname was son of encouragement. He was one of those guys that I I I I pray that every one of us has a Barnabas in our life. There's that person that no matter how you feel when you're around them, you just feel better. They encourage you to do the right thing, but they do it in a way that you just want to.

They encourage you, you know, they they throw punch you and you didn't even know you got throw punched. It's because they have their arm around you why they throw punch you. They're hugging, oh, this is as nice. You know, that's kinda what it works.

And and and he was awesome. And he was also the guy that end up advocating for a guy named Paul when he was out killing Christians and came to know Christ. He was with the one that first took him on missionary journeys.

He always believed in people. He always loved them and showed them the way, and they got to the place. Paul ends up becoming the leader, not Barnabas.

Matter of fact, Paul and Barnabas split up after years and they they go on they start doubling their efforts, but they double their efforts in faith and they chose to love each other even though they disagreed. They'd split up because of a disagreement.

On one of their previous journeys, they took this kid named John Mark and he flaked out on him. He's like, this is too hard. I'm leaving. So then when they wanted to go again, Barnabas goes Barnabas goes, we should bring John Mark again. Paul's like, uh-uh. Paul's probably a little bit rougher to live with than than I think I lean a little bit more towards Paul than than Barnabas sadly.

But but because he's just like, no. We don't we don't have the time to do that. We can't afford to take him. He failed. He needs to stay home. And they disputed.

And so finally, they said, know what? Maybe this is God's plan. We'll go or I'll get an I'll take John Mark. You get another partner. He got a guy named Silas, and they went out. What's funny is who was right in the end? Well, this guy John Mark went on to write a little book called the Gospel of Mark.

So Barnabas once again promotes and brazes the skies up. He's mentioned in the bible. This guy John Mark that was a cast off from Paul ends up writing part of the bible. So this guy was a genuine believer. And it says here, he was from the tribe of Levi and came from the island of Cyprus.

He sold a field he owned and brought the money to the apostles. Then the very first word of the next chapter, but.

Those big buts in the bible, man. That means I'm about to show you the opposite.

I'm about to show you something bad. And one of the reasons is I think it's put here because everything's going so great. It's almost like God want us to know for all of eternity that even in midst this fallen broken world, even when we're doing it right,

there's always a battle out there and there's always a temptation and there's always something that could be going wrong. And he gives a bad example. He says, but there was a certain man named Ananias

who with his wife Sapphira sold some property. He brought part of the money to the apostles. Everyone thinks that's a big deal, the most important part is this part. Claiming it was the full amount. With his wife's consent, so they were in on it, he kept the rest.

Then Peter said, Ananias, why have you let Satan fill your heart? There's the lie part. He's saying, why have you let Satan fill? What he's saying is, why have you listened to lies? What you're doing, what you did right now was not an act of love, that was an act of faith. It was an act out of a lie. What does that mean? You've lied. He's about to tell me lied. You you you brought part, but you said it was all of it. You pretended.

You're acting like something you're not. Why? Because you've listened to the liar of liars. What was that lie? I don't know exactly what it was,

but I know what the the the the the category of it was. It goes back to the original lie in the garden. Every sin ultimately comes from that original original lie. That's why we're called sinners and not mistakers. That's why we don't come to church as self help to get a little bit better. We need a savior who transforms

us. Because in our very core, we are designed to do this. Believe this simple lie. You can't fully trust God. The original lie from Satan is he did not try to convince Adam and Eve God didn't exist. He already knew. He didn't even try to convince him to not to leave the relationship.

He just said, you need to go eat this fruit he told you not to because really he's holding out on you. In other words, if you really really wanna be content and happy, you gotta ignore some of what God says. And that is the heart of every sin we make.

I want to know God, I wanna love God, I want I only wanna do part, which is exactly what Ananias and Sons they said it was all. I did all of it, but they didn't. And he goes, why would you listen to these lies? Why? And he goes, because you really you lied to the holy spirit is what he says next.

And you kept some of the money for yourself. There's a clue of why you kept some of the money. For yourself means you just wanted things. But you still wanted to be seen as being more generous than you were. And he goes, but here's where I know it's out of love not law. Look what he says very clearly.

The property was yours to sell or not sell as you wished. And after selling it, the money was also yours to give away. How could you do a thing like this? You weren't lying to us but to God. So he's saying, hey, there was nobody forcing you to do this.

Matter of fact, you could have sold it and even said, hey, I need this other product money, but you know what I'm willing to do? I'm gonna give half of what I sold.

And that would have been okay. The problem wasn't that he didn't give everything away. Everyone wants to hear like what you're saying is that he wanted to look like he did.

He wanted to look more spiritual. He wanted the praise of the people. He got caught up in, I just wanna look like I'm doing it. And you know who usually does that in church today is when we have this view called legalism.

It's talked about in the New Testament all over the place. You try to read your New Testament, like, is this legalism? Paul is fixated on battling this legalism. I don't get it. It's a dumb word, but we still battle it. Legalism is this idea that I do things for the love of God. You're very contractual in your relationship with God. So when you think, hey, what do I need to do?

But the ultimate goal is not just to experience the joy of being in the purpose of God. The ultimate goal is you have a purpose that you want and you're hoping to do enough good things that God will now bless you with what you want.

The problem with that is when you have that view that it's a force and there's these rules and it's not a relationship and it's law not love, is you will automatically default to what's the minimum I have to do to be seen like I'm right. Instead of saying, you know, how much can I give, we say how little can I give?

Instead of how much can I serve, we say how little do I have to serve? And that's where if you have a legal authority. What you're hearing from me right now is, okay, he's just harping on getting involved again. He's harping on me to get yeah. Because we need it and it's an opportunity.

You're focusing on what you think you're gonna lose. Time, money, have to hang out with weird people in community. Guess what? You're the weird one that's probably in that community. And and we think about that, but you don't realize the other things you lose.

You also lose that materialistic heart that makes you fearful all the time. Because you now understand it's God, not me, and my money, and my stuff. You start to gain

that that that ability to see like, wow, God just used what I would have done over here that would have been a temporary, made me feel happy for a short time. Be a part of all of eternity changing. And the joy and the peace and the power, we miss it. We miss it when we when we focus on the lie and we don't listen.

And he's saying, hey, it wasn't yours. It should come from love, not law. But here's the scary part. As soon as Ananias heard these words, he fell to the floor and died. Everyone who heard about it was terrified, as they should be. Then some young men got up, wrapped him in a sheet and took him out and buried him.

Says about three hours later, his wife came in not knowing what has happened and said, have you seen Ananias? We were supposed to go shopping. No. I added that part. We recently came into some money. No. She just didn't know what's happened. And Peter asked her, he gives her a chance to be real.

Was this the price you and your husband received for the land? Yes. She said that was the price. So she flat out lied. Says and Peter said, how could the two of you even think of conspiring to test the spirit of the Lord like this?

These young men who buried your husband are just outside the door and they will carry you out too. Instantly, she fell to the floor and died. Wow.

I get the irony of on the weekend that we're doing baptisms and we're celebrating, we're going under the water, death, burial, but then resurrection. We're reading a part of scripture that talks about a couple people that went to church that that did the opposite. They came in and got got dead.

But that tells you how serious God takes this issue. What does it mean they lied and tested the Holy Spirit? What does that mean? It's well, they they wanted to look more spiritual,

but they were saying one thing, why is it against the Holy Spirit? Because you did this to God because you made a promise, you made it look like something. You think you're fooling and you probably fooled people, but you're not fooling God.

You're basically whenever we do that as Christians, when we act like we're better than we really are and don't really have faith, we're kind of like

almost trying to discredit those. But that's why Satan lies to us. He knows he can't get away with the Lord. So what he does, he comes to his people and he wants to fool us into acting stupid. And then he points at us and mocks us and the world then looks at us and says, look at those hypocritical Christians.

We're more worried about our politics and our checkbooks as Christians than we are about people knowing Jesus. And we make that very clear. And when it comes to the Jesus thing, we yell at the world and say the reason you're doing this, you're a bunch of sinners, you're evil and you do terrible things.

And we act like we're better than them because we're Christians. We're just saved. And guess what they do? They're not stupid. They see our lives and they go, why do you focus on making yourself better than me? And that's dangerous.

That that that that that that's not the way to go. So how is this discrediting the Holy Spirit?

Because it says this, we know one of three things why they why they did this. When he says you've discredited, you've conspired.

It's one of three things of how they looked at the Holy Spirit. I think there's the three things are still here today and I think we gotta ask ourselves which one am I leaning into. And the first one is they didn't believe the Holy Spirit was actually present in the church.

That's the line that says the they're probably not even Christians in the first place. They just saw this as a man made thing. They saw that it was a good thing. They wanted to be a part of it, but they wanted the praises of men. They wanted to you know, like, I wanna join this club and do all this community service, but it's not for the services. It's more for the the the self-service. I wanna look good and feel good about myself. So they didn't even really think about the Holy Spirit. That's why they thought they could get away with this. They just did it. Maybe And you know what? There's the truth. There's a crowd this size, a couple of you in here, you're not Christians. You don't know Jesus. You just come to church.

And you gotta ask yourself, why? The honest question is why are even in here? If you don't know that you gotta surrender to Jesus as Lord and as savior. It's not just a self help thing to look good.

But I think more of us struggle with the next two. The other idea might have been they only believed like they they could be believers, but they only believed in the presence in some theoretical way. And that's what I think a lot of us do. We theoretically on paper say, I believe that Jesus, you know, the holy spirit's in me, the holy spirit's everywhere, God knows all, he's with me all the time, he sees everything, he knows everything.

And and I can't lie to him, I can't get away with it. But then in our practical everyday lives, we act like that's not true. Because we keep doing things.

And we think, if everyone thinks I'm doing it, and I'm just quiet about it, and I'm doing it. It's like, but problem is wherever you go, there you are. So as a Christian, when you just continuously ignore God's word in your life, what you're doing is you're acting as if I believe the Holy Spirit's there, but I live like he's not.

Is that you? Or is it the third one? They thought he was there and they thought he was real, but they didn't think he would do anything about it. And that's where a lot of us are.

And just like last week when I said what you think about God is gonna determine what you think and how you act with everything else, it's a false view of God. You you have this idea of what grace is. Well, God's love. God is love. But that's very different than saying love is God. God defines love,

but that's not all he is. And so when you think, well, if a loving God, meaning a God who is love, wouldn't have two people drop dead for like lying to him and all that stuff. A God wouldn't. So you got this view that what grace means is it's okay to just keep living this way because I got God's grace.

And that's a misinterpret. When you hear a guy like me, some of in the church, you struggle with me because you think, wow, this guy is so legalistic.

He keeps telling me that if I'm gonna come to the church at some point, gotta serve, I gotta give, I gotta get involved. I'm not saying you have to, I'm just saying you're missing out if you don't and that's what God wants you to do.

But I'm also saying God sees it and God knows it and you are actually rebelling against him. And what the problem is, don't force yourself to do it and have a bad attitude. What you need to do is, what is wrong with my understanding of how God loves me? That I think grace means I can accept

Jesus' sacrificial death to die for all the sins and all the things I did, the life I was living, in order to be able to come out of that life.

And this is where we're listening to live saying, because some of you really think that. You think grace means I don't have to give. I'm under grace now. We're not under the old testament. So under the old testament where they had these laws, now we're under love and love is less?

Since when is love means you're less committed? Every time I say, when you love something, you're more committed. You go further than law, love takes you further. But your definition of love means I don't have to. I don't have to. I'm forgiven.

Some of us live that out in our marriages, and that's why you're not married anymore.

And and the reality is that's a lie. And and when you say it out loud, realize how stupid it sounds. But you still believe it, you live it when you say this. So you think the answer, God's grace, what it really means for God to be loved is, I will sacrifice for you for all this and that is an abomination to me.

A holy, righteous, just God, not just a loving mercy and I, but I'm making the way right because of my love. And you think I did that, so you can now just keep doing the very same life I died to save you from. You really think that's what God's love is?

It's just a don't worry about it now, I died, so keep going on. I mean, of you have kids that are living that way, and I wouldn't say you like that very much. You know, you got the kid that keeps coming back and blowing it, and you bail them out, and they don't change.

Cause they figure that's how it works. You love me. I can just keep doing what I wanna do and you're just gonna keep bailing me out. And if you're smart, some of you finally realize this isn't gonna work. So what did you do? I'm cutting you off. Painful, hard,

but that's loving too. And that's what he's doing. I'm cutting this off at the pass. Why? Because look what happened. Look at what the result was. It says, they took her out and buried her next to her husband. And then verse 11, great fear gripped the entire church and everyone else who heard what had happened. Great fear.

Is that a good thing? See, that's another lie. We live in a culture that the only thing we've ever seen of the definition of fear usually comes from abuse.

So we do not have a good understanding of what it means to fear the right way. We just think fear equals wrong equals bad every time. The problem is in the Bible over and over and says, it says, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Meaning you will not get anywhere

in your understanding of a relationship with God and life without fearing God. Matter of fact, in chapter nine, it goes on to say something that we think is completely contradictory. Is in chapter nine verse 31, I think that we have it in here. It says,

the church then had peace throughout Judea because they were spreading the gospel, And Galilee and Samaria, and it became stronger as well, how they become stronger? As the believers lived in the fear of the Lord and with the encouragement of the Holy Spirit. It also grew in numbers.

So it says, they were getting stronger and stronger and growing in life and wisdom as they feared and were encouraged. Fear the Lord, comfort in the Holy Spirit. Encouragement in the Holy Spirit. Those in our world to humans seem opposite. I don't think you've never seen fear done in a way that's also comfort.

You've only seen it in abuse. And that's our problem. We don't understand what it means to fear the Lord and God's doing. So why did he kill them?

I think for them to experience this true fear of the Lord and to understand who God is. Because what fear really means, the best definition of fear of the Lord means is awe mixed with intimacy.

See, in our culture, we've done one or two things in the church. People either stay fear of the Lord and keep yelling at people like in the abusive way. You ought to be afraid.

And and and make it sound like God's like, oh, you think that hurts? I'll give you something that really hurts. And you think that's what he's saying. That's terrible.

But then we've also gone the other way because we're afraid of how that we've been hurt that we say, well, fear doesn't really mean fear. It just means really really healthy respect. And that's part of the answer,

but there is an aspect of the fear of the Lord that's very present throughout scripture that is kinda like in the Lion King, Mufasa. There is a part of fear of the Lord that does mean you should shake, you should quake, and you should be a little bit scared.

But not in an abusive But in a comforting way, in that we don't understand it. You know why? Because most of us did not have good fathers. Now we come back to why God set relationships up the way he did, and and what a good dad's supposed to do. What he should be in the life of his his children.

If you didn't have that, you think of fears, oh, I had a dad's afraid of, but it was abusive. Can you at least trust me? I had a good dad. And I understand what this means exactly.

It does not bother me at all. I had a dad that I knew I was comforted, encouraged, loved. And anything he did, I knew he absolutely was there for. He would die for me.

But he also had some standards of this is what it meant. And he taught me this is what life is, son. And he would say this is what a man does. He then taught my sister the same things. He says this is what a strong woman does.

And that's what he did. But he also was not to be trifled with. If you stepped over a line he loved and encouraged, but if you kept fighting him in your abode, he would say to me, I've said this before, are we at war? And and and he knew and he'd get that squinty eye at me, and he wasn't gonna abuse me. He never did it out of losing his control or losing temper, but he would discipline. He had a line that you did not cross. And there was a moment that if my dad said, son, and looked at me, I was like, oh, Mufasa.

And then my mom didn't help any because if it looked like I got mad and wanted to fight my dad, my mom would always say, Bill, I was Billy. Bill don't hurt him. My dad's like 68 years old at this time with one eye, had quadruple

heart bypass surgery. I'm a total athlete that's bigger than my dad, and my mom's like, don't hurt him. Moms think your sons can do anything. Right? And in that moment, where do you think the fear went? I'm like, even mom knows I'm about to get destroyed if I if I try to fight my dad.

You know what helped? Help me not fight my dad. There is a sense that we should have fear. You know why? Because you need to see God correctly. That's why awe mixed with intimacy. Intimacy means the more you know God, the more you should be in awe.

The more you're in awe because you're in awe of what You know what? The more you know his justice and the fact that he is righteous and holy and he takes this kind of stuff serious, the more you can be in awe of his love and his grace.

And you don't have this grandpa old man in the sky that just really really wants to be your neighbor. He's like, don't worry I died for you. Just do what you want. Don't worry about it. It's a God who says, no. This is what I think. So yeah, he doesn't kill us every time we're hypocritical. He did this time

because it's the beginning of the church. He's trying to prove a point. He's trying to give us a warning. And what he's saying is, I have a lot of patience and grace and I don't just wipe you out. But you need to know that this is what I think about what you're doing. And don't confuse my patience with acceptance.

That's what a lot of us do. Your life's working right now being half in, pretending like you're spiritual, acting like but not really being a part of what the body of Christ you're not really living like a believer because you're stuck in the lie. You're stuck in the lie. You just feel like you can't.

I'm not mad at anyone's room. I don't think anyone here well, there might be a few of you like, I know exactly what I'm doing. I don't care. That could be you and and I can't help you. I know that most of you when it talks about going all in and trusting God financially, trusting, really caring about people, really becoming a part of the church, really

surrendering to God's plan of what we need to be. I get that most of you they're struggling, you desperately want to do that. But you just feel like you can't and you're trapped. That is a lie. That's a lie that you do not have to listen to.

The lie of Satan is you can't trust God in this. This is gonna mess you up. It's gonna be so difficult. You're never gonna do it. And on the flip side, he's trying to say, and this is what I think of people that try to look like they're spiritual, but they're not.

The classic we get all clean of, hey, stop fighting. We're going to church. Stop doing that. We're gonna I don't want us to all come in here and start getting in all of our fights at the same time either. I'm not talking about TMI level of realness.

What I'm saying is you hide and that's why a lot of you won't get in community. Well, I don't want people to know what I'm really like. That's a lie. You need people to know. He even gave him a chance. What if it would have been way different if they said, you're right.

We just wanted to look more important because we everyone's doing this, but here's why we're gonna we'll just give. They still gave and yet they died for it. You can do the right thing but not do it for the right reason. And it's still wrong. And what this means is

look at where are you living? How are you living? Which one are you? Because here's what happens when we start to say it's okay to be that kind of a Christian.

And that's what I think has happened in the western culture of The United States. We are Churches are filled with more people that are Ananias and Sapphira than are Barnabas. There's more of us that are sitting here that Ananias and Sapphira ing their life than being a Barnabas.

And Charles Spurgeon said this back in the eighteen hundreds, great theologian pastor, and I think he was predicting today, is when he said this, nobody can do as much damage to the church of God as the man who is within its walls but not within its life. I think he was thinking about this passage when he said that.

That's the problem. Because it gets contagious and other people believe the lie. And then we sit and then the world sees us living that way and sees that we are hypocritical. And they don't see Jesus. Hence, we we're discrediting the Holy Spirit in the eyes of the world. But if you don't care about the mission,

you're just about you don't care. And if you don't care guys, there's something wrong with your understanding of who God is On both ends, you do not understand the depth of his love. And it's probably because you do not understand the depth of his holiness. There is no fear of the Lord that's giving you the wisdom.

Without Christ, we stand condemned before a holy righteous God and we have no right to stand in front of. And we need to know that. And you can fight them all you want, you will not win. You will never win. You'll only lose.

But he's also a God that knows that. And because of his love and his grace, he took care of it if you'll trust him. Awe mixed with intimacy. That's what we need to be. Otherwise, we just do damage to ourselves and we miss out.

We just miss out. I don't if you ever heard a guy named Barry Breeman. Barry Breeman, this is a great story. In the late seventies and the early eighties when I was a kid, I remember this guy. And and he was a novelty salesman and an insurance guy that just he longed for greatness.

But his idea of greatness was he wanted to be he ended up being called the great impostor. And what he would do to try to be great and get in the limelight was he would like fake like he was something he wasn't.

And his first one he did, he pulled off some pretty significant things. Look at this first picture. This is the nineteen seventy nine NBA All Star Game. That's him. He was six foot four. He did play some basketball. He did at least look like he could be a basketball player. But he's in a at the All Star Game, he got a Sacramento Kings, the Kings uniform.

Got down. This is during pregame warm ups. He's down there with the teams. He's shooting. He's in they think he's on the All Star team. They didn't catch him until another Sacramento king, the one that actually was elected to the all star game,

was in his uniform and he got right next to him. He's like, wait. It says your uniform says we're on the same team, but I don't know who you is. This is a quote verbatim.

I mean, so they got security and he got dragged out of there. So he's like, hey, that was fun. I'm gonna pretend like I'm something else. I wanna be seen as great when I'm not. So he went to another major football game full sport. This is this is the Pro Bowl game. And he got himself actually into the game onto the field on the sidelines. And finally, one coach goes, who is this guy standing here? And they finally got some purity security, and they dragged him out. He goes, hey. Let's keep going. I'll go try to finish off the third major sport. So then here's the next picture.

This is the the all star game. He thought another good chance. People are from different teams. You don't know everything's going on. He got himself. This is a close-up of them. If you backed up, it's the it's the American League team photo.

He was on the field and then he got spotted. Somebody's like, you're not a player. He's like, oh, I'm a batting coach. So they they didn't kick him out. They believed him. They go, well, then just get out of the picture. He was still on the field for, like, another hour. He was shagging balls. He actually, I think, threw some of the the the bowl like, warm up batting practice for some of these guys. And now everyone just assumed he was a coach of some sort until they figured out and kicked them out.

He kept going. He kept going. If you wanna go to another sport, he got himself into two US opens. One, he played two holes with Fred Couples. Got on the field, Fred Couples knew he wasn't good. Wasn't a golfer, but he's like, I'll wait till they figure it out. He didn't care. And

and he got into that. He actually got into one sport in San Diego, I think it was the hockey team or whatever it was, or it was a chicken. He was he he did the mascot. And he has a picture with the team owner smiling and giving a hug. Guy has no idea this guy is not the mascot that's in there.

The last two that like near the end was one of the ones is, he then got even more bold. He got snuck in with a photographer friend and and and and got into a Dallas Cowboys football game. And then right when he, then when they came out in the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders, he had dressed up like a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader

and literally ran over there. He got one go Cowboys out, but that didn't last long because he's six foot four with an Adam's apple. And if you watch the video, can see it. He goes, go Cowboys. And three guys just tackle him into the wall, and he's done and they drag him out. The one thing he did that he regretted,

and not because he did it, but because he realized he's such a I want glory, I wanna be perceived as great when I didn't really do anything, was he did rob someone of their own actual glory. And he did realize that later and felt bad. Is that the Emmys one year,

he got in a suit, got himself down near the front, and it was when the best supporting actress was declared, was the last name I think Thomas, it was for Hill Street Blues. He was down front, he runs up there really fast and just quickly goes, thank you, grabs it. He goes, I've been sent here to accept on her behalf and does this really quick speech. It was and and and and really quick because he knew he didn't have much time because she was actually walking down the aisle. She was sitting far back. She was actually there. So then all of sudden she gets to the front and everyone's staring and they're like, they don't know, well, security doesn't know what's going on. They think this might have been a gag by her. So they just grab them both and drag them both off the stage. She never got to give her speech.

Yeah, now he's a jerk, isn't he?

Here's what's interesting though. He finally stopped doing it. And when asked why, his answer wasn't, it was have you heard of tasers? And then he goes, in 09:11? People shoot first and ask questions later. In other words, not even understanding that it was wrong was what motivated him to stop. Fear of death

is what motivated him to stop. Because what happened is a couple things. First, we realized just how terrible security was in the seventies and eighties at stuff. But secondly, what it showed was it took him to see that what you're doing isn't just a game. What you're doing is actually dangerous.

And now we know nine eleven is a good example because people started pretending there's something they're not and then people die. And that's what happens when we pretend to be a Christian. When we pretend to be a part of the church. When we pretend. When we act as an impostor.

His wife put it this way, Margo, in an interview in People Magazine in 1980. She said she just said, Barry was always fulfilling a grand fantasy to be in the limelight. He wanted the praise. He wanted to be seen as something that he didn't actually do.

And he said she said, he feels if you have no guts, then you have no glory in your life. That's not bad. But his answer of guts to get glory and his answer of glory is, he worked really, really hard to be a fake. And what was that glory? That wasn't real glory. That was false praise.

What if he had actually just worked really, really hard at what he should have been doing? How could it have been different? He could have been a Barnabas. Instead, he was a Barry.

How about you? Which one are you? Are you a Barry or are you Barnabas? Which one do you wanna be?

And what are you gonna do about it? Father God, thank you, Lord. I thank you that you you you do. You love us so much. And even with fear, you are showing us who you are, that you should be feared. You should be because you are holy and you are righteous and we are so far from that.

And Lord, I pray that you would speak to my heart, everyone in this room's heart, anyone watching online's heart, and reveal to us where we're just playing games. We're trying to get false glory. We're trying to be perceived in a way that isn't true.

And in this moment, Lord, may we see from this story just how serious you take that when it comes to our faith, when it comes to what you've called us to be in love, in faith not force, in love not law. So Lord, I pray that we would see your love and your holiness side by side so we would have the

wisdom that that kind of fear brings.

And Lord, allow us to be Barnabas', not Barry's. I pray this in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen. Thanks for joining us online this weekend. Let us know if we can help you in any way. Make sure to follow us on social media and connect with us on We Are Rock Point app for prayer and everything happening here at Rock Point.