- I wanna encourage you all to make capacity.
If you don't have it already,
try to create capacity to be here on Thursday nights.
We have a midweek gathering.
It's really rich.
Pastor Justin opened Galatians chapter one on Thursday,
and we're gonna be in Galatians chapter two this week.
And I'm speaking and I'll probably mess up the flow,
but I'm speaking and I'm excited.
But come and be a part of that.
If you got youth or children,
there's ministry opportunities for them as well.
We want them to come and be a part of that.
So at 6 p.m., if you missed this last week,
go back online and watch it,
and come and join us for Galatians chapter two.
And then also, if you are new to Springhouse
or new word of Springhouse,
and have not had an opportunity
to participate in a newcomer lunch,
our pastoral team's gonna be gathering on September 8th,
and want to eat lunch with you,
and want to tell you about Springhouse,
want to tell you about us.
And so this is an opportunity,
if you are new here, to come and learn about us,
meet our pastors, and we want to meet you.
Now, we would like you to register in the app.
And if you don't know what I mean when I say the app,
one of our leaders will help you.
There's some placards out there in the foyer.
But even if you don't register,
I still want you to come and you can have my sandwich, okay?
But come and be a part of that.
We wanna feed you and just spend some time with you.
Does that sound good?
All right, great.
Well, we have been in this series called His Church.
We've been really leaning into the Holy Spirit
and what He does in His church.
So have you ever, who here reads the Bible?
- Yeah.
- Who here's a liar?
No, okay, put your hands down.
Who here reads the Bible?
Okay, if we read the Bible,
have you ever read the Bible?
You got to a portion of Scripture,
you're reading the Bible at home,
you're sitting up maybe on your couch,
or on the floor, or in the hot tub for some of you.
If you're there, you're reading the Bible
and you come upon a part of Scripture
and you're like, I don't like that.
Does that ever happen to you?
Okay, we're gonna be reading one of those Scriptures today.
And let me tell you, if it's one thing
where you don't like to be on your couch reading it
and being like, I don't like it, I don't wanna teach it.
But I'm gonna teach it.
You know why?
Because here at Springhouse,
we believe in the entire Word of God.
Here at Springhouse, we believe that we teach,
we don't just parcel out the things that we like,
we believe in the whole Word of God
and we need to teach from the whole Word of God, amen?
So those of you who are clapping,
we're gonna be especially convicted today.
Okay, right, go, let's stand and we're gonna read.
Also, I do know like Pastor Justin last week
gave a little short Scripture for us to read
and the week before we read a real short Scripture,
we're gonna make up for that today, okay?
Here we go, let's read with some gusto church, here we go.
"All the believers were one in heart and mind,"
stop, we're gonna read that one more time.
"All the believers were one in heart and mind.
"No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own,
"but they shared everything they had.
"With great power, the apostles continued to testify
"to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.
"And God's grace was so powerfully at work in them all,
"that there were no needy persons among them.
"For from time to time, those who own land or houses
"sold them, brought the money from the sales
"and put it at the apostles' feet,
"and it was distributed to anyone who had need.
"Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus,
"whom the apostles called Barnabas,
"which means son of encouragement,
"sold a field he owned and brought the money
"and put it at the apostles' feet.
"Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira,
"also sold a piece of property.
"With his wife's full knowledge,
"he kept back part of the money for himself,
"but brought the rest and put it at the apostles' feet.
"Then Peter said, 'Ananias, how is it that Satan
"'has so filled your heart that you have lied
"'to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself
"'some of the money you received for the land?
"'Didn't it belong to you before it was sold?
"'And after it was sold, wasn't the money at your disposal?
"'What made you think of doing such a thing?
"'You have not lied to just human beings, but to God.'
"When Ananias heard this, he fell down and died.
"A great fear seized all who heard what had happened.
"Then some young men came forward, wrapped up his body,
"and carried him out and buried him.
"About three hours later, his wife came in,
"not knowing what had happened.
"Peter asked her, 'Tell me, is this the price
"'you and Ananias got for the land?'
"'Yes,' she said, 'That is the price.'
"Peter said to her, 'How could you conspire
"'to test the Spirit of the Lord?
"'Listen, the feet of the men who buried your husband
"'are at the door, and they will carry you out also.'
"At that moment, she fell down at his feet and died.
"The young men came in and finding her dead,
"carried her out and buried her beside her husband.
"Great fear seized the whole church
"and all who heard about these events."
Father, I thank you for your word,
and I thank you that all of it is true.
I pray, Lord, that you would be with us this morning,
that our hearts would be in a posture and a condition
to receive what you have from your Holy Spirit this morning.
We love you today, in Jesus' name, amen.
You may be seated.
We live in a culture and a time and a society
where we have a tendency to believe
that what is mine is mine and what is yours is yours.
What is mine is mine and what is yours is yours.
And we work hard, we work hard.
♪ Work hard for the money ♪
Work, we work, we work hard so that we can build our house,
we can build our lives, we can build our palaces,
we can build our mansions, and we could have more,
more, and more, and more stuff.
Anybody got a storage unit?
It's gonna be a convicting morning this morning.
We live in a society that says give me, give me,
give me, give me, and when it comes to me noticing
your need and me noticing the thing that you need,
I don't want anything to do with it.
'Cause I did what I was supposed to do to get mine.
You need to do what you need to do to get yours.
Boy, is that not the culture we live in,
but that is not the kingdom we live in.
That is not how the kingdom of God operates.
It's not the kingdom we live in.
School started this week.
These are my four girls, and that's a picture of them
on the first day of school.
Look at their innocent smiles.
Look how precious they are.
Do you know that these girls fight?
These girls actually do sometimes fight.
And if I were to give you the top number one reason
that my girls fight with each other,
could you guess what it was?
Over their?
Over their stuff.
I had it first.
You had it first.
Give it back to me.
That doesn't belong to you.
It's mine.
And I've resolved in my houses
that when my kids fight over something,
we don't put the girls in timeout.
I put the toy in timeout.
It works every single time.
All of a sudden, the matter gets resolved real fast
when the stuff is taken away.
I wonder how many of us need some of our stuff
taken away so that we can be liberated
to actually build relationally.
Build relationally.
Our scripture this morning talks about the early church,
and it says that they were in one heart
and they were in one mind.
They were postured together in a position of unity.
Psalm 133 says, "How good and pleasant it is
"when God's people live together in unity.
"It's like precious oil poured on the head
"running down the beard, running down Aaron's beard,
"down the collar of his robe.
"It is as if the dew of Herman were falling on Mount Zion."
Listen to this.
"For there the Lord bestows his blessing, even life forevermore."
Where does the Lord bestow his blessing?
Where there is unity.
In the early church, first century church,
the church was under grave persecution.
Anybody who called themselves a Christian,
it was a derogatory statement.
If you were called a Christian, it was not a good thing.
Now here in the Bible about myself,
you're a Christian, I'm a Christian,
everybody's a Christian.
Not really, but we are Christian, right?
It's an okay thing to just announce and say
there's not really a problem, especially here in the South.
But back in this time period, if you were a Christian,
it was you were persecuted.
This was not something,
this is something you certainly could be proud of
because you knew who the king was,
but it wasn't something necessary
that you wanted to go out and be like,
"Hey everybody, I'm a Christian,"
unless you were ready to lose your life.
They were under persecution.
They were under grave persecution.
And at this time, the numbers had grown
to the point when Acts chapter four,
between Pentecost and the gate beautiful
and the numbers of thousands that were added,
this would be almost be considered a mega church.
There were thousands and thousands and thousands
of persecuted Christians meeting in homes
all around Jerusalem, the church of Jesus Christ.
And they were meeting, they were persecuted.
And I don't know about you,
but when I think of persecuted people,
I do not associate in my mind a persecuted population
with having everything that they need.
When I think persecution and I think persecuted people,
I think they are fighting for the things that they need,
but not that they have everything that they need.
But a spirit of generosity hit the first century church.
A spirit of generosity and being others' focus
because of the power of the blood of Jesus Christ
and his resurrection and the gospel
that was being preached and the belief
that this God of the universe would supply every need
according to his riches and glory,
the people of the first century church
were willing to rend their resources available
for whatever was needed in the church.
Imagine church, to have a church population
where every need was met every single time.
Some of them sold fields and sold houses
and they were rendering all of the things of their wealth
in order to lay it up, listen to what it says.
It says they laid it at the apostles' feet.
It didn't say this.
I sold my property and I looked around for a need
and I went and I gave my stuff
to who I thought it should go to.
It says I rendered my resources
and I laid it at the apostles' feet
because the Lord had established the apostles
to be in charge of where the funding and the resources go
so that everyone's needs are met.
You see, sometimes when we designate what we're doing,
it brings a lot of glory to us.
It brings a lot of glory to us.
You know what, I'm gonna give,
you know, Lord, I'm gonna tithe
and I'm gonna give that check to that church
and I'm sure I'm telling them where it's gonna go
because they're not gonna trust them to do it.
Please, I'm gonna designate a contribution.
It needs to go right here.
This is what I want it for.
Well, good, glory to you.
Now, I'm not saying be disobedient
if the Lord tells you to do something specific
but, but if you don't trust the Lord,
that's another whole thing.
It's another whole thing.
They laid it at the apostles' feet here.
What a surrender, what a trust move
to give something substantial to someone
that you have no idea what they're gonna do with it
but say, God, I trust you.
I trust you, have your way.
Have, have your way.
It's easy to be a part of the church
if your version of the church looks like the world.
It's easy to be a part of the church
if your version of the church looks like the world.
These people didn't have that privilege.
So some of us come into church and we look like the world
and we're a part of the church
and we don't ever have any problems with what we're doing
because we're never really convicted
because it's okay for me to have one foot in the world,
one foot in the church and everything's great
except for you think you're serving God and you're not.
You're serving yourself.
Y'all are so glad you came to Springhouse this morning.
(congregation laughing)
So it specifically mentions a guy by the name of Joseph.
The apostles changed his name to Barnabas
which means son of encouragement.
And Barnabas is going to play a very significant role
in the story as we unpack Acts in the future
and we're going to learn a lot about Barnabas.
Barnabas sells a field and he lays the funding
at the apostles' feet and trusts them
to use it to advance God's kingdom.
But this is starkly paralleled by another story
that picks up in chapter five
by a couple named Ananias and Sapphira.
We just read about them.
They tried to present themselves as wealthy,
as wealthy, as important.
Ananias has this idea and he says,
"You know, we got a field or we have house that we can sell.
"Let's do the same thing, but let's try to infiltrate in
"to allow ourselves to be elevated
"so that we have the influence and the leadership
"and the say of what's going on in the church."
Do you know how easy it is, easy it is,
to take a nudge and a step in that direction?
Man, I've got a big check to write this week.
Here I am, come get my check.
Look what I'm giving.
So Ananias and Sapphira come up with this plan
that they're gonna come and give only a portion
of what is supposed to be due
and what they're going to give.
And here's the thing, they didn't have to give it.
They didn't have to give it.
But Peter asked this very important question, why?
I want you to lean into that question for just a moment.
When you give something or you do something,
it is a great question to ask why.
And who are you asking that why question to?
The Holy Spirit of God.
Not why as in why are you having me do this,
but God, judge the motive of my heart
of why I'm doing this, right?
And so he says, "Why has Satan filled you
"to the point that you are lying?"
Why has Satan filled you to the point
to where you are lying?
I want us to understand, church, that the enemy,
I believe Ananias and Sapphira were believers.
They were going to the church.
They were a part of the church.
So is it possible that we could have Ananias and Sapphira
in this room?
It's very possible.
And so Satan enters the mind.
Do you know that sin and disobedience,
it starts with a thought.
It begins with a thought.
You conceive a thought in your mind.
And as believers, we have been given the power
to take captive the thoughts that we have
and give them to the Lord and be liberated from that sin.
But there are times when we allow that thought
to be conceived and take action in our flesh.
The scripture tells us, "Spirit gives birth to spirit,
"flesh gives birth to flesh."
And so our flesh starts to take over
that thought that was conceived,
and then we begin to put that word into action.
And most of the time, friend,
it starts with something so stinking small,
so small that people would be like,
"That's insignificant, it's not a big deal."
Starts so small, but just like any plant
that gets into the soil and gets watered,
it begins to grow, and it begins to be much bigger,
and it begins to take root.
Why have you allowed Satan to fill you up,
to point you to lie?
How have you allowed this to happen?
To keep for yourself a part of the money.
And then Peter says something strikingly hard.
"You have not lied only to man,
"but you have lied to the Holy Spirit."
Have you ever had anyone attribute a lie
to something that was either inanimate
or not a living thing?
Like, you're lying to the wind,
you're lying to the wall,
you're lying to the chair,
you're lying to the firework, I don't know.
Guys, you can't lie to inanimate things.
You lie to people.
Which that tells me, if you can lie to the Holy Spirit,
it further emphasizes that the Holy Spirit is a person.
The Holy Spirit is not only a person,
but the Holy Spirit is equal to God Almighty.
Sometimes I feel that we as people reduce the power,
the holiness, and the sovereignty of the Holy Spirit.
We don't give him the same type of reverence and respect
that we give God the Father and God the Son.
But God the Holy Spirit is still God.
He is the same God yesterday, today, and forevermore.
And so yes, he is in your life to be a comforter,
absolutely, but he is also a holy God
to help you walk in conviction and surrender.
And so our job is to lean in, not lean out,
but lean in to the Holy Spirit.
Now, let me tell you the times
when I disobey the Holy Spirit,
the things that come out of my mouth
are justification for the sin that I'm doing.
Because we have to make ourselves feel good
about what we're doing,
especially if there's a thought
of what we're doing is wrong.
The Holy Spirit is a person,
and it says that great fear came upon all who heard it.
Could you imagine just right in the middle of my message,
if I said, "Kurt Bryson, you are living in sin,"
a great hush across the crowd.
Kurt, no.
Great fear, great fear came upon all that heard it.
I believe this morning, not just morning,
but all throughout Scripture,
but this morning in particular here at Springhouse,
the Lord wants to speak to the issue
of us holding onto things like this,
as opposed to holding onto things like this, truly, truly.
It's interesting to me that where we are
in Scripture right now,
God is about to do some mighty things
through the first century church.
But this isn't the first time
that God has done mighty things.
If you go back to Joshua,
the book of Joshua chapter seven,
the Israelites have crossed over
and they are into the Promised Land,
and God says, "I am going to give to you all of the cities,
"all of the plunder, I'm going to make you victorious."
And so they get up to the very first city, which was?
Who reads their Bible?
No, Jericho, right?
They get to Jericho, right?
They get to Jericho and God says,
"I've delivered this city in your hands.
"I've delivered Jericho into your hands."
And so they circle, they circle Jericho
and they begin to march.
And I'm gonna tell you guys,
I am as flawed as the worst person in this room.
I'm gonna tell you, the minute the leader came up and said,
"Here's how we're gonna fight.
"We're gonna walk around these walls silently.
"We're gonna do that for seven days.
"And on the seventh day,
"we're going to do it seven times."
I'm probably gonna be one of those ones,
but this is, have you ever had a leader do something
and you're like, "That is an idiotic move."
Right, I mean, you know I am a leader here.
Okay, yeah, I actually, I hear that quite a bit,
'cause my ideas are kind of crazy sometimes.
But I would be one of those people, so,
but they obey God.
Do you know that there's always victory when you obey?
- Yes.
- When you obey the Holy Spirit?
Even when it doesn't look like it?
Even when it's awkward?
Even when you don't understand it?
When you choose to obey, He will always triumph.
He always, you're always victorious.
And so guess what?
Those walls sure did fall down.
And glory to glory, they were victorious that day,
but there was a man named Achan.
God said, "I want the first of everything,
"so you're gonna give me the plunder
"of everything in Jericho."
Why?
Because God is so broke.
He needs a handout, right?
No, no, God doesn't need any of it.
God said, "Wait, when you are victorious in Jericho,
"I want there to be no temptation for you to think
"that you did this on your own.
"So when you go in there and you see
"all that wonderful plunder,
"you're gonna give it to me.
"You're gonna give it to me."
Guys, part of the reason we tithe
is because we're supposed to,
when we get something, the first thing we say,
"God, it's yours.
"God, it's just filtering right through me.
"God, it is yours.
"I trust you with what I have."
He says, "I want the plunder."
But there's a man named Achan,
and he says, "You know what?
"This is not gonna make it.
"This is a small little."
There is massive plunder here.
Nobody's gonna miss this little trinket.
Nobody's gonna miss this little thing.
And he goes, and I just find it so hilarious.
He goes to his, he hides it in his tent.
Do you ever think that there's a room in your house
that God doesn't visit?
It's like, this is my sin room.
If there's a place in my house, this is where I can go,
and God doesn't see anything that's going on.
He hid it.
Like God wasn't like just watching him.
I mean, just ridiculous, right?
And so they find Achan out, and they get to Achan.
Achan confesses.
He confesses, I did it.
And they said, "Achan, you are just, you know what?
"We checked the tithe records in Utah.
"You're such a good guy.
"You know what?
"Your smile is great, and you're so kind.
"We're just gonna let you go.
"Just give it back.
"We're just gonna let you go,
"and just give it back,
"and we'll put it back here now."
Don't do that again, okay?
No, they killed him.
(congregation murmuring)
They killed him, okay?
That was Old Testament.
Oh, it's so good that those things happen
in the Old Testament, but never would happen to us.
Oh, wait a minute.
We're in the New Testament.
This is after the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.
We're actually in the first century church,
and Ananias and Sapphira, right?
This is the first egregious act
that is mentioned in the church.
Achan was the first mention of an egregious act
after getting into the Promised Land.
Interestingly enough,
both have to do with possessions and stuff.
Guys, I'm telling you, there is a danger
when you hold on to the materials
and the possessions of the world,
because God is, you do not belong to the world.
You live in the world, but you do not belong.
You belong to a kingdom.
You belong to a kingdom,
and I think for us to come into the church
and lift our hands and sing lyrics that says this,
I stole this from Will's chart.
If he was playing badly, it's my fault, okay?
It says this, "Completely, deeply sold out,
"sincerely abandoned.
"I'm completely, freely, hands to the ceiling, enamored.
"My one life endeavor to match your surrender,
"to mirror not my will but yours.
"I'm completely, deeply, don't care who sees me abandoned,
"except when it comes to my stuff.
"Except when it comes to my stuff.
"I don't know a higher level of hypocrisy in the church
"than to worship a God like this
"and not be liberated to give your stuff away."
There were two casualties on this day,
and it all surrounded money.
Interestingly enough, what is still the most controversial
point in the church today, money.
Money will chase people out so fast.
What's going on with the money?
I am so glad that the Lord has liberated
my thought process about that.
We want to be a church where the Spirit of God is moving.
I heard a pastor say it like this.
If you want a vision statement for the church,
we want Jerusalem 2.0.
We want to see everything, but guys, again,
we cannot cherry pick the things that we see in scripture.
We want God to move in the miraculous.
We want to see him blow over the people.
We want to see him take care of the needs,
healing, all those things that we see in Jerusalem
happening in first century church.
We want to see that here happening in our church,
but it can't just be the things that we really like,
because he is a sovereign, holy God.
So the Bible in the New Testament commands us
to arrive at a place of holiness and devotion,
and for us to understand that this type of thing
that happened to Ananias and Sapphira
could happen in any church.
It could happen in this church.
I remember Bruce Coble, Pastor Bruce Coble,
he was speaking one Sunday,
and he was sitting over here,
and Pastor Wayne was leading worship,
and Pastor Wayne felt like we needed to lean in
a little bit into worship,
and it bled over into the speaking time,
and Bruce started to get steamy back there.
He started to get real upset,
because he was like, man, this is my chance,
my time to speak the word God's given me,
and we're going into this, and it's chopping into my time,
and he was just so upset, and the Holy Spirit of God
fell on Bruce Coble and said,
"Do you want my will, or do you want your own?"
And you know what he told me when he told me that story?
He said, "Kevin, God Almighty could have struck me dead
"at that moment,
"because Bruce Coble has a reverent fear of the Lord."
And so we have to be a people who are willing
to live truth.
So here's three things I want us to glean
from the scriptures that we read today.
Number one, giving is a big deal.
Giving is a big, it's a big deal.
There are very few things that we can do
that demonstrate God's character and His love than giving.
We should be deeply sacrificial givers.
Barnabas is lifted up as an example for us to see.
He is identified as somebody, have you ever,
I gotta really, somebody encouraged me
really greatly this morning.
They came into my office and they said,
"I took somebody to lunch this past week
"and I didn't have money."
And I thought to myself, oh crap, I don't, oh,
yeah, I can say that, I guess.
I don't know if he said that or not.
He said, "I didn't have, I needed about 40 bucks
"to pay for this meal and I didn't know
"how I was gonna do it and I didn't want to,
"I wanted to pay for the person."
You know what he said?
You were one of the first people I thought to call
'cause I knew if I called you,
you'd be right there to give me the money.
I thought, man, what a compliment.
I hope that's my heart.
I hope that's who I am.
I hope that that's really the truth of the matter.
Have you ever taken somebody to lunch
and you know you're gonna be paying
'cause they leave their wallet at home every time
or they leave it in the car?
Right?
That's called forced generosity.
We have to graduate from the idea
that if I give, I'm gonna get.
Generosity, when we read it in the scripture,
was tied to the freedom to proclaim Christ Jesus.
The freedom to proclaim Christ Jesus.
Can you think right now of the most generous person you know?
Think right now.
Who in your life is like the most,
who would you say, man, that is,
that person is the most generous?
It's most likely that you can also attribute to that person
that they don't think that they're
the most generous person in the room,
that they are working to be even more generous.
But you probably see attributes of kindness
and joy and humility because they're not holding on to stuff.
And generous people are hugely blessed by giving.
Hugely blessed to see you react to their giving.
I was in a church once and they were doing the offering.
And the guy got up and he said,
"I want everybody to pull out some bill, some cash bill."
Okay, if I did that today,
about 10 of you would probably have cash,
it'd be credit cards.
But this was a time where cash
was a little bit more prominent,
but everybody pull out a bill
and people were pulling out dollar bills, $5 bills.
Some people pull out $100 bills.
Look at me, I got my $100 bill.
Everybody pull out a bill.
And he says, "Okay, now what I want you to do
is I want you to keep an eye on your money.
Keep an eye on your money.
And what I want you to do is I want you to take your bill
and I want you to hand it to the person to your right."
And so the church passed their bill
down to the person on the right.
He said, "Now what do you feel
about the bill that's in your hand?"
There was laughter in the room
'cause the person with $100 bill
passed it down and got a $1 bill.
And the person that had $1 bill got $100 bill.
So they were laughing and they were, wow.
And he said, "Okay."
He said, "Now keep your eye on your money.
Keep your eye on your money.
But I'm gonna ask you, pass it one more time,
just down to the right.
Pass it, make sure you don't lose sight of your money."
And everybody's laughing.
And of course the person with a $5 bill now has a $10 bill
and vice versa and there's laughter.
And he said, "Okay, everybody got your eye on your money?
Okay, listen, listen, one more time, just one more time.
Keep your eye on your money.
Pass the money down one more person.
Make sure you see it."
And of course the church is erupting
because everybody's, where's my money?
All this stuff.
And he said, "You know, that exercise was so easy.
Why don't you just keep passing all the way down
and we're gonna collect it at the end of the row?"
And they collected all the cash and walked out that day.
Okay?
I'd like you to pull out a dollar.
No, I'm kidding, I'm kidding.
Now we would never do that here
because that's a bit manipulative, okay?
But there is a principle.
There's a principle attached to that.
Minus the manipulation, the fact that it's nothing
to just allow it to flow freely.
What would it look like if we were just able to freely?
Let me ask you a question.
If God, I'm being serious.
If God Almighty, Holy Spirit said to you tonight,
"I want you to liquidate your savings account completely
and I want you to give it away.
In fact, I want you to come lay it
at the apostles' feet of Springhouse."
How does that hit you?
Immediately, how does that hit you in your mind?
Is it a gut check?
Does it go, "Oh yeah, I'm good with it?"
Some of you said, "There'd be an audible voice."
(congregation laughing)
Right?
Come on, being real.
Some of you wake up and the very first thing you check
is the stock market.
Some of you wake up and the first thing on your mind is,
what does my bank account look like?
Some of us work so hard every day
to make sure we're holding on to everything.
Some of us did not have fathers and mothers
who gave us a whole lot.
And so our life, we have been cursed
with just trying to accumulate, accumulate, accumulate,
and stock and stock and stock and store.
And it is all bathed in fear.
Not trust, fear.
Fear is the culprit when it comes to holding on
too tightly to stuff or money.
Now I don't have a problem with people
having big bank accounts.
What I have a problem is, is when we're not obedient
to the Holy Spirit.
What I have a problem with, because here's the thing,
if you think more about your money, your income,
your 401k, that stock market, all of those things,
if you think more about that, it is an idol in your life.
God says destroy the idols.
I don't know another way to destroy it,
but then get rid of it.
To get rid of it.
God wants us to live a full, abundant life.
That does not mean rich by the world standards.
It does not mean rich by the world standards.
This is what the word says in Matthew.
Jesus is speaking here.
No one can serve two masters for either he will hate the one
or love the other, or he will be devoted to one
and despise the other.
You cannot serve God and money.
And some people think they are.
Have you ever looked at somebody and you're like,
that is the least generous person I've ever met
and they seem so rich.
You know what God says?
Well, yeah, they are rich.
They don't give any of their stuff away.
(laughs)
And he says, they're headed to destruction.
Pray for them.
God is the best giver.
And in fact, we all had a problem.
And his answer to that problem,
God so loved the world that he did what, church?
He gave.
We had a problem, so God loved.
Yeah, he loved.
We had a problem, so God showed up.
Yeah, he shows up.
No, his action point was he gave.
He gave.
Giving is a big, it's a big deal.
It's a big deal.
God is our source and he is our provider.
Number two, your integrity matters.
Your integrity actually matters.
And here's the problem that I found in my experience.
Sometimes we lie more to ourselves than we lie to others.
We justify in our mind, in our heart and our spirit
that what we're doing is fine, it's okay.
We dismiss the things that we're getting convicted about
because we don't wanna have to entertain them
and we lie to ourselves.
And we order our lives based on that lie.
I was buying a pair of shoes and some clothes
in a store several years ago.
And I walked in and I had some coupons
because I don't like to pay full price.
So I've used the coupons and it was so much less expensive
than I thought it was gonna be.
It was a glorious moment.
And I took those shirts and those shoes
and I almost went back in to get more
because I was like, I expected to spend more
than I spend on this.
I get to my car and I look at the receipt
and the lady forgot to ring up the shoes.
So I took those shoes back in there and I put them down
and I said, "Ma'am, I am so sorry.
"You forgot to ring these shoes up."
And she looked at me and she said,
"Don't worry about it, it's okay."
And I said, "Thank you."
No, I said, I said, "No, I'm so sorry.
"I really do need to pay.
"I really do need to pay for these."
You see, many of us would have said thank you
and said that was the Lord.
I said, "Thank you, but no, thank you.
"I really do need to pay for these."
And she said, "Really, it's okay.
"The manager's not here.
"I just forgot to ring them up, it's on me."
And then I was forced to say,
"I'm a believer in Jesus Christ
"and I can't walk out of here.
"I feel like I'd be stealing."
And she took those shoes and she rang them up
and at the end as she put them in my bag,
she looked me in my eye and said,
"I have never had a Christian do that before."
When we compromise our integrity, we ruin our witness.
Your integrity matters.
This is what Proverbs says, chapter 12.
Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord,
but those who act faithfully are his delight.
Guys, we want to be his delight.
We want to be his delight.
What you say and what you do, it matters.
You need to pay for that streaming service.
(congregation laughing)
You need to stop sneaking in candy
and Coke's to the movie theater.
(congregation groaning)
Should I keep going?
(congregation laughing)
'Cause I can.
(congregation laughing)
Listen, some of you are robbing your businesses
and putting it in your own personal bank accounts.
We had coaches at the school, this was forever ago.
They would coach football and basketball
and stuff like that, and they would get done
with their practice, worked long days, granted.
They worked long days, 12 hour days,
and they would come in and we used to have Coke products
sitting out and they would just go grab a Coke and walk out
and after about three or four months,
we confronted them saying, "Hey, you can't just go in
and steal," and they said, "Oh, well, we're working so hard.
We might as well, we felt like it would be okay."
No, that's stealing.
Your integrity, it matters.
It really does matter.
In Luke 16, it says, "Be faithful in the small things
and He will trust you with greater things."
Third point, the church is very important to God.
The church is very important to God.
Guys, the church is, listen to me, the church is serious.
This is not just a club hangout time.
You know what the word says that God sees His church as?
His church is His bride and we are also His children.
If there's any way that you wanna get my feathers ruffled,
mess with my wife and mess with my kids.
And if that's me in my response,
you can only imagine how God responds
when people mess with His bride and His kids.
Ananias and Sapphira are coming in to wreak havoc
in a place that they were not meant to wreak havoc to
and God said, "You're not gonna mess
with my bride and my kids."
And so we must be careful about the motivations of our hearts
when especially when it comes to His church
and His Holy Spirit.
1 Corinthians, Paul, he's talking about communion.
He says there are people who have defiled
the communion table and you know what
he's bold enough to say?
He says the reason there are people who are sick
and the reason there are people who are dying
is because you are messing around with the communion.
Not, oh, maybe it's this, go get a medical.
No, the reason is because you're messing with God.
He is holy.
Ananias and Sapphira try to get away with something
that God's not gonna let them get away with.
And so they get called out.
You need leaders who are willing to say the hard things.
You need to be a part of a church, a community
where you have leaders able to say this is sin
and this is not.
You need to be, remember a few weeks ago
we talked about body builds up the body.
We need to be in close enough relationship
where you can be with a friend and say,
"Hey, iron sharpens iron.
I don't think that this is right what you're doing."
Even to the point of losing relationships.
I've lost relationships because I've called somebody out
on something real dumb.
You're not gonna tell me what to do.
Who are you?
That's so dumb.
Don't call me out on that.
I love you.
I actually love you.
Your unrepentant sin will poison your entire family.
I find it interesting that Sephira,
well, Sephira is running late.
That's kind of funny.
Sephira is running late and she gets there
and she has no idea.
She has no idea what's taking place.
She gets in there and she's questioned
the same way as Ananias and the same penalty as do her.
Let me talk to the dads and the fathers,
the men in the room for just a minute
as covering of your household.
Some of you are announcing every day proudly to your family
that you are a Christian, that you are a believer,
that you're following the Lord,
but you are compromising in small areas
that your children are seeing.
And you think it's not a big deal,
this little bits of integrity that you're chomping off of
and the things that they're seeing.
It's not really a big deal.
But here's the thing.
When you pull out the scope of your life
and you realize your life isn't just about you
and it's so much bigger and larger and longer,
than your life here on earth,
you realize that the sin that you have going on
that you did not address will cause issues to your children
and to your children's children and your children's children
because they are watching the pattern.
They are watching and they are building off of the pattern.
So if you say that you love your family,
start taking care of issues.
You wanna say that you're a man?
Rise up and be a man and get down in the altar
and start surrendering those places
that are hard to surrender.
Start being vulnerable with your wife
and the people around you and say,
hey, I'm struggling in this area.
I need you to call me out in this area
because I love you and my kids so much
that I don't want this to continue.
He calls us to be a holy people.
Yes, are we supposed to have full abundant lives?
Absolutely, but the call is to a call of holiness
so that we can look like Jesus.
And here's the crux of the message today.
This is right, what I'm about to say
is what I want you to leave with right here.
After everything that's happened,
Barnabas sells his land, Ananias and Sapphira,
they drop dead in the middle of church.
Guys, if that happened here, two people drop dead,
we will go right into damage control.
We go right into, I'd be like, okay,
we need you all to not tell this story to anybody
because we want people to still come back to this church.
When they're Googling, they'd be like, Springhouse Church,
two people died last week, not going there, okay?
We would be calling the police and getting a police report,
we try to tell them it was the Holy Spirit,
we'll see how that goes.
I mean, it's damage control.
And here's the thing, they drop dead
and this is what the scripture says
if you continue to read in verse 13, it says,
none of the rest dared join them, go figure.
Listen, but the people held them in high esteem.
Now listen to this, this is the crux,
this right here is what I want you to understand.
Isn't it a shadow on the mercy and the goodness of God
that he would allow two people to drop dead
because of their sin?
Where's his infinite grace and mercy and all these things?
This is what it says in verse 14.
Understand, understand, Pentecost 3,000,
the gate beautiful 5,000, there's thousands of people
a part of this church, thousands, okay?
At this point, at this point in time, verse 14 says this,
and more than ever, and more than ever,
and more than ever, believers were added to the Lord,
multitudes of them, both men and women.
In other words, it wasn't a fall festival
that drew people to the church.
It wasn't programming and great lights
and great musicians that drew people to the kingdom.
It was the purification of the saints.
It was the fact that two people came in in sin
and they had to pay the price for their sin
because they were willing to mess
with the Holy Spirit of God.
Imagine church, if we would clean up our lives,
if we would surrender our lives,
if we would be generous like the first thing church,
and love and purify our hearts,
he who knew a mighty thing and multitudes
would be coming to the kingdom more than ever.
More than ever.
Let's not be a hypocritical church,
though we're filled with hypocrites, right?
The call is a call to holiness.
We don't like it.
Doesn't feel good because I've got crap in my life
I've got to clean up.
That means that as your pastor,
I've got to get down here on my knees.
Every day I got to wake up and say,
I'm gonna pick up my cross and follow him.
I've got to stop dealing with my pride.
I got to address the things going on in my head,
those thoughts, it's a daily battle.
But guys, if I'm so worried about what's happening
three weeks from now, what's happening in my bank account,
I don't have the capacity to deal with my issues.
That's why we were promised today right now.
And you can leave here different than when you came,
but it's up to you.
(gentle music)
But I encourage you stop lying to yourself
and definitely don't be lying to the Holy Spirit.
He is a holy, holy God.
Stand with me church, we're gonna worship.
Here's the call today.
We're not gonna have the people come down
to pray for people.
And I'm gonna make this very short and sweet.
If you need to surrender,
get down in the altar space and worship, let's worship.
(gentle music)
[music fades out]