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Your slow to anger. Your name is great, and your heart is kind. For all your goodness,
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I will keep.
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Alright. Good morning. It's nice to see you guys this morning. I'm happy to be back and I just want to say a quick thanks to all of you who've been praying for my family, my father. His situation remains the same but we appreciate the prayers.
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With saying that, let's get excited and sing a little bit this morning. Let's stand together.
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Out of darkness, out of shame. By the cross, you are the truth. You are the light. You are the way. I once was father fatherless, a stranger with no hope.
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Your kindness waken me, awaken me from my sleep. Your love it beckons deeply. A call to come and die. By grace now I will come and take your life take your life has lost its from the My dead heart now is beating, my deepest stains now clean. Are the life, you are the way.
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Into marvelous light I'd run-in. Out of darkness, out of shame. By the cross you are the truth, you are the light, you are the way.
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Alright. Let's open with a word of prayer. God, thanks for this morning. Thank you for those who have come this morning. I pray that you'd be with us as we open our hearts to worship and to raise message.
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We love you. Thank you for being present with us today. In Jesus' name, amen. And stay standing you guys up here in the front row. We're gonna keep on singing.
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Oh, Lord my God. When I am awesome wonder, consider all the worlds thy hands have made. How great thou art. And when I think that God, his son not sparing, sent him to die. I scarce can't take it in.
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That on the cross my burden gladly bearing he bled and died to thee. How great thou art, how great thou art. When Christ shall come with shouts of acclamation and take me home what joy shall fill my heart then I shall bow
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Amen. Come on in. We might have to squeeze in a little bit today. If y'all haven't noticed, we've got a group here with us. Oh my goodness.
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That's cool. A little group I wasn't expecting. How are y'all? The are back with us right now. That's cool.
7:46
Very good. I was expecting the Rio Hondo prep school that was right here because they have a bus and they showed up yesterday. They spent the night last night in the church and they are on a tour all around and I think this is probably one of the most well behaved groups of middle school boys I've ever seen in my life. So, yeah. Glad you're here and welcome to First B.
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Got a few announcements. Yesterday, the inaugural event in Jackson for the River Run for Morphins, and that was about half the field right there. But next year, we're gonna be pushing towards this, I think. Pascal, if you can't tell from that picture, won a second place ribbon.
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Yeah.
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She was one of two in her class. I came in dead last of the whole field, but we had a great time doing it. We're actually raising awareness and the way that the system works is that people can donate basically directly to an orphanage. It's a rallying point. So next year, we're gonna be pushing towards this.
8:55
We might even get a chance to do a rerun for orphans. That's what I'm thinking. Because it's great in spirit, few in number, but fervent. Anyway, moving on. There's a change of plans for the Solid Rock Youth Group meeting tonight.
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It will be meeting instead of at the Grouse's House as the bulletin says. It is not like the bulletin says. It is like this. It's meeting here at the church from 05:30 to 07:30. So the youth group tonight will meet here 05:30 to 07:30.
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That's for middle school and high school. Monday nights at first b will be tomorrow night, Monday night. Makes sense. 06:15 in the evening. 06:15, you'll get a meal, music, and a message.
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Now, we have lots of visitors in town right now, but tomorrow night is potluck. So potluck is variously translated all over the place, but there's plenty of fried chicken at Smith's and Albertsons. So if you're gonna come in and you'd like to come be a part, please plan on bringing a little something for folks in attendance. Meal first, then we'll do music and a message. It's a very community oriented alternative service.
10:03
The Tigone key team for Kenya 2013 is going to Africa in about five weeks, heading out to do the Everywhere Fun six five and a half weeks. To do the Everywhere Fun Fair, same VBS module that we did here, we're gonna be doing that in Lomuru, Kenya. And fundraising is going well. There's still some fundraising efforts scheduled. July 4 is a big well, tell you what, There it is.
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Come join the Togoni team. They're putting on a bake sale and a parking lot party. It will be during slash after the parade from nine to twelve tomorrow morn to Thursday morning, July 4, right out here. It's to benefit fit stateside and international missions. It's not just for that trip, not just for that team but if you wanna come along and buy or bring cookies, cakes, that sort of thing.
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Wednesday morning prayer group meets every Wednesday at seven: 3zero am and that's just a great group of folks. We usually meet in the fellowship hall or sometimes we meet in my office but it's just a fantastic time. If you're here on Wednesday morning, you're welcome. And there's a congregational meeting between services today at 10:15 probably if the pastor does not go long. So, with that, would y'all all stand back up again and welcome one another?
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I see some cross pollination this morning. If you would, welcome one another to First Bee.
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Alright. Let's come back together and when you find your seat, join back in and sing it.
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Word that will bless your heart. I'll bring you more than a song for a song in itself is not what you have required. I'm coming back to the heart of worship and it's all about you. It's all about you, Jesus. I'm sorry, Lord, for the thing I've made it.
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But it's all about you. It's all about you, Jesus. I'll bring you more than a song for a song in itself is not what you have required and you search much deeper within through the way things appear. You're looking into my heart. I'm coming back to the heart of worship.
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It's Incomparable, unchangeable, you see the depths of my heart and you love me the same. You are amazing. Are you are amazing. Amazing
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quick announcement. If y'all could, could y'all squeeze together or kind of come forward and squeeze together? There are folks standing back in the back. That's a great, great situation to be in. Could we just kind of move forward and fill in all the chairs if possible?
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Thank you.
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My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and when he shall come with trumpet sound oh may
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You may be seated.
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Amen. Let's pray a prayer for the offering this morning. God, I just love you and I'm thankful for you lord. Every day, seeing you and seeing what you're doing in this valley and around the world. God, I'm amazed.
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I don't know why I still am. Lord, but I still am. So, God, I just pray that you would take our wonder and take our delight in who you are and how you are and increase it because you're bigger than even we can ever hope to imagine. God, I pray that you'd bless this offering that's given freely. Not under compulsion, joyfully, and that you would spread it to the ends of the earth, lord, to see your purpose, your king, your kingdom, will accomplished.
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In Jesus name, amen. Amen. Thank you, Kim. I have there are a whole bunch of scriptures up here. I'm going to get to something else.
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This is what we're to look at today. Acts four thirty two through five eleven. Sometimes, in the Bible, the chapter markings really help and sometimes I feel like they confuse the issue. So this one kind of spans over a chapter marking from chapter four to chapter five. Chapter five starts with but.
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It's a big disjunctive. So that but points back to everything that's happened since verse four thirty two. The immediate context is last week, we went over this is that the believers were all together in one place or in one accord and they prayed for boldness. Oh sovereign lord, you remember that? They prayed for boldness to continue proclaiming the wonders of his gospel.
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So, that's where we're going to be. Do my dodger. Not working. So, if we can go back to that scripture, we're going to read through it again or I'll read through it one time but I want you to be looking for hey, now it's working. We're gonna run through some marvelous light.
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I've got it, Larry. We're learning this program. There's a lot of stuff going on here. You got it. I want you to look for something though.
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I want you to look for positive and then negative. It's pretty obvious. But on the positive side, we're going to look for unity, generosity, and then a named example of what that looks like, unity and generosity. And then on the negative side, we're looking for examples to be named and then impure deception and God's judgment. So, this is a pretty extreme passage.
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It's a huge kind of butt right there in the middle. So, all the believers were united in heart and mind. Actually, the Greek right there says, which is soul. I'm convinced that the reason they didn't put heart and soul because of the song.
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Heart and soul.
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It says, all believers were united in heart and soul. That's the only place in the Bible where it's translated as mind. It can mean mind but it is the place where you live. It's about your soul, your inner being. So, all the believers were united in heart.
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The the seed of your emotions, the seed of your understanding in Greek thought and in your soul. And they felt that what they own. They felt that what they owned was not their own. So they shared everything they had. That sounds kind of communism.
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I see a few people starting to bristle already. They felt that what they owned, it says they owned it. It's okay. They did own it. But they they treated it as if it were someone else's.
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So, they shared everything they had. The apostles testified powerfully to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus and God's blessing was upon them all. God's great blessing there. The word is Carus and it can be blessing. It can be grace.
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It can be unmerited favor. So, that's what it is. God's great and the great is Mega Lane. It is mega. That's where we get the word from.
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It is God's mega blessing. Grace was upon them all. There were no needy people among them because those who own land and houses would sell them and bring the money to the apostles to give to those in need. For instance, this is our named example right here. There was Joseph or Joseph in some of your Bibles that might say, Joseph.
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The the one apostles nicknamed Barnabas. This is our introduction to Barnabas in the book of Acts. He's mentioned like 20 something times but this is the first time that we mention him. So, it's the character showing up on scene for the very first time and the first time they mentioned, what do they say? His name is Barnabas which means son of encouragement.
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He was from the tribe of Levi, came from the island of Cyprus. He sold a field that he owned. Again, he owned it and brought the money to the apostles. But 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 claiming it was the full amount.
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So, what was he doing? With his wife's consent, he kept the rest. Then Peter said, Ananias, why have you let Satan fill your heart? Does Peter have any experience with Satan filling hearts? In recent history, he has seen Judas get up and do what he must do and do it quickly and go and betray Jesus.
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In his own life, when Jesus said, no, surely this will not happen to you. You will not die. I will protect you. You will not die. This will not come to pass and he said, what?
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Get behind me, Satan. That's what Jesus said to Peter. Satan is like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. Ananias, why have you let Satan fill your heart? You lied to the Holy Spirit and you kept some of the money for yourself.
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The property was yours to sell or not sell as you wished. And after selling it, the money was also yours to give away or you could say or not give away as you wish. How could you do a thing like this? You weren't lying to us but to God. And as soon as Ananias heard these words, he fell to the floor and died.
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I told you it's an extreme example. Everyone who even heard about it was terrified. Then some young men got up, wrapped him in a sheet, they took him out, and buried him. That is a very unceremonious burial. They didn't even want to touch him.
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They wrapped him in a sheet, took him out, and threw him in a hole. That's not the way that you want to be buried as a Jew or Jewish Christian. About three hours later, his wife came in not knowing what had happened and Peter asked her, was this the price you and your husband received for the land? He gave her the chance to say, yes or no? And she said, yes, that was the price.
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And Peter said, oh, how could the two of you even think of conspiring to test the spirit of the Lord like this? Think about everything that was going on. I'll keep on going through it. We'll come back and do that. The young men who buried your husband are just outside the door, and they will carry you out too.
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And instantly, she fell to the floor and died. When the young man came in and saw that she was dead, they carried her out and buried her husband, buried her beside her husband. Yeah. They didn't even throw the sheet around her dressing, undressing, that sort of thing is a ceremonial. They would not have done that.
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I'm sure that they were doing it like this. Great fear gripped the entire church and everyone else who heard what had happened. So, that's the scripture. Acts four thirty two through five eleven. Four thirty two through the end of the chapter sounds like, woo hoo.
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Great. Things are going wonderfully. Let's ride this wave. It looks absolutely fantastic. God's power is being shown all over the place.
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It's positive. There's unity. Oh, how great it is when brothers can dwell together in unity. This is great for y'all's little group. That's a song.
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Peter picks it up again. Pure generosity and then those named the named example of Barnabas, the son of encouragement. Oh, the times are great when you're when you're being encouraged but then the negative, the examples are named straight upfront but Ananias and his wife, Sapphire, got together and they did this And their sin, impure deception, and then God's immediate judgment. Let's go through them one at a time. Hopefully, quickly.
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Positive, unity. What kind of unity was this? I think that it's the kind of unity that Jesus prayed for and his high priestly prayer. We just got through with our study of John a while back. In John 17, do you remember Jesus' high priestly prayer in the Garden Of Gethsemane?
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He was praying for believers and when he prayed for believers, he prayed this, to the father, he prayed, I pray that they will be one, all believers, that they all will be one just as you and I are one, just as you are in me, father, and I am in you, and may they be in us so that the world would believe that you sent me. The important part of that passage is not unity like we all think the same. It's not that we all have to get into lockstep with one another and feel like, oh, that's not the company line. No. There is room for descent.
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There is room for, we'll see it in Acts. Actually, through the councils, we'll see how that goes. We'll see how Peter and Paul disagreed and they had to work that out between themselves and that's fantastic. I think that's the way it is. Unity here, what Jesus was praying for is unity among believers that they would feel their connection so closely to him that that would draw them together from divergent backgrounds, from divergent philosophies, from divergent patterns of thought.
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We need everybody in the body of Christ. People who are gifted in administrative things and people who are gifted in artistic things. We need everybody in the body of Christ working together. So, he's drawing us from wherever we are towards himself and the closer that we draw to him, the more we should be able to give leeway. Great love covers a multitude of sins and it casts out fear.
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So, I pray that they will all be one just as you and I are one. This has been used against people in the past. When someone disagrees, it's been used against them to just kind of shun them and push them to the side and that's not cool. It's just not cool. This is not an organizational unity that he's speaking of.
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It is being so close to Christ that you cannot think of turning your back on him. It is being so close to Christ that you admit your humanity to be able to see that you might be wrong. It is being humble and Jesus was and these guys were. Jesus knew he was right. He was right.
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Period. He was God but he did not consider equality with God something to be grasped. That makes sense? He didn't grab hold of his rights and hold on to him. He allowed that other people would say what they wanted to say and he would live with the consequences.
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And like a sheep before his shearers was silent, Christ spake not a word. What draws people to Christ? What draws people to to God? Christ does. He made the ultimate sacrifice and when we are willing to put down our rights, that draws people too.
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So, it's not an organizational unity. If you think back to all of these guys that we're talking about, the Peter and the Paul and the almost everyone of all the apostles. None of them ever turned their back on Jesus. Some of them were murdered. Some of the early guys, polycarp, and others of the church were murdered.
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They would rather go to the stake or go to be burned then they would turn their back on Christ. It is union with Christ that matters. So, unity, if we are united with Christ and that is the most important thing, then we will become more and more united to one another. It is primarily though about our union with Christ. So, in the this case, all believers, it starts off.
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I said, be looking for unity. All the believers were united in heart and mind, soul, and they felt that what they own was not their own. So, they shared everything they had. So, generosity, that's another positive attribute. You don't usually hear of somebody saying, well, they're just generous.
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Poor thing. They're just generous. It's not usually it's an endearing quality, not a negative quality. This is a positive attribute. So how does the text characterize this generosity?
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They felt that what they own was not their own. You heard people say probably before we hear it in church circles, it all belongs to God anyway and that's a good way to think. It is a good way to believe because where does every good and perfect gift come from? From God, from above. So, we as administrators of what he has entrusted to us can give or not give.
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They shared it. It was their own though. I want you to see that and I'm going to say it again on the negative side. It was their own. Why would you have a thou shalt not steal if everything belonged to everybody?
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Right? Ownership is okay. That's alright. This is not preaching communism. It has been taught that way in the past.
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It is not that. So, they shared it. Voluntarily, freely, and the apostles powerfully shared the gospel. The gospel is the resurrection of Christ, the perfect life, the perfect death, the perfect resurrection, and the perfect redemption that is available through belief in just that. And great grace, like I said, or blessing was upon them all.
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The great grace, mega grace, mega charis was upon all of them. When it gets to the butt, Ananias and Sapphire were part of this group. The grace of God had been shed on them. It was covering them too. So, we have to keep that in mind as we go through the passage because for us, the worst thing that could happen is being struck dead.
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Great grace was upon them all. Those with means gave to provide for those in need. That's what it says about the generosity in this passage. It is a very short vignette. It doesn't give a whole lot of details about exactly how that looked.
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In the past, this has been called admirable but impractical. It's admirable to live that way but it's impractical because people start to take advantage. That's true. It's still a worthwhile goal. It is the picture of the early church.
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This is the closest that we can get to the unpolluted and undiluted church and gospel. So, positive example is named. For instance, in the in the new new living translation, it says, for instance, there was Joseph or Joseph, the one the apostles nicknamed Barnabas which means son of encouragement. So, what do we know about him? So far, we've got unity, generosity, and then this guy is the example of how they did what they did.
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He had, he was one with means and he gave it. So, his real name is Joseph. He is a Levite and this is interesting too. I'll get to this in a minute. He is a Levite of the tribe of Levi.
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If you know anything about the Old Testament and Old Testament law, that's interesting because of what it says right down the line. He is a Levite. He's also from the island of Cyprus which makes him a Hellenistic Jew. Hellenism or Hellenist are Greeks. They are culturally Greek.
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So, it's somebody that was not culturally Jewish. He identified more with the Greeks because he's from the island of Cyprus, most likely. Not probably orthodox in the sense that he lived right there in Jerusalem and did everything that the other guys did every day. I can tell that because where he's from for one thing but also that he's a Levite and he sold attractive land that he owned. Levites were not supposed to own land.
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The Levites in the Old Testament were not. Now, by the time of Jeremiah, Jeremiah mentions this a couple of different times that the Levites did own land but according to God's law, they were not supposed to. So, this could have been something. This rarely comes up but this could have been something that Joseph, Joseph, Barnabas was thinking of. He was a part of this heavenly for foresight.
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This this little foretaste of heaven. He was a part of this community where they were experiencing God's grace upon them all and then he began to think, I'm not even supposed to own that land anyway. I should give that up and give this to everyone. That hardly ever comes up. It might not have been the case.
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Might have been fine with him. I don't know but it is something to think about. Since Luke mentions he's a Levite and everything that's there is there for a reason. He sold a tract of land that he owned and he brought the proceeds to the apostles which we assume is all of the proceeds from the next story. So, the positive again, we have unity in Christ.
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We have pure, unselfish generosity motivated by God. There's no reason to do what he did if it were not. And the example name, Barnabas. But I love doing that. Positive but we get this negative picture too.
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It's just 11 verses but man, they're powerful and they're confusing. The examples are named first. In Hebrew parallelism and and Jewish thought, they tend to do things. I've told you all about this before. A, B, C, and then they match it.
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C, B, A. So, the examples were named last. In this negative example, the examples are named first and then it gets to their sin rather than their great attributes, you know, the good things and then it gets to not what the men were doing, what was going on, it gets to God's judgment. So, it's a possible example there. Examples are named, Ananias and his wife, Sapphira.
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And what do we know about them? Their husband and wife. It says that in that first sentence talking about them, there was a certain man named Ananias who with his wife, Sapphira, sold some property. So, they own the property too. They brought part of the proceeds to the apostles and they lied.
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After they conspired together, there's no doubt in the Greek at all. There's no doubt in most versions. This one, you could read past it and not see that there were, you know, but it says, with his wife's consent, he kept the rest. So, they both knew it. They kept the rest of the money.
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So, what was their sin? Really, it wasn't about the money. We're not told how much it was. We're not told anything about it. We don't know if they lied and said it was 95% but kept five or if they said it was 10% and kept 90.
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We don't have any idea. That wasn't the point. The point was that they were deceptive about it for selfish reasons and they were a part of this group. We are always going to have that. We're always going to have people, myself included, among us that are flawed.
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And at any point, there's the possibility for sin to enter in to the question, to the context. But Peter's response to Ananias shows three things. It shows the right of ownership which I think I've gone over several times but listen to what Peter said. Ananias, why have you let Satan fill your heart? You lied to the Holy Spirit.
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You kept some money for yourself. The property was yours to sell. Or not sell as you wished. And after selling, the money was yours to give away. How could you do a thing?
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So it talks about the right of ownership, the role of Satan. There's no doubt about it that it's not communism. I'll say it again. Satan does have a role even in the lives of believers to tempt and to try. I won't get into all the spiritual conflict involved with whether they can be possessed or not or oppressed.
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All of the terminology that goes on. There is no doubt. People who believe in Jesus can succumb to satanic temptation. Period. It gets in the way.
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It's ugly. It's dirty. Even when we are doing the best, sometimes when we're on top of the mountain, we'll have that time of, oh my goodness. I slipped up. And ultimately, all sin is committed against God.
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Now, I will say this, that God is gracious. First Corinthians ten thirteen says, he won't put on us anymore than we can handle and he will always give us a way of escape, always. So, there is always before us the chance for that big red butt. Sorry. The big butt that's in there, you can go either the way of unselfish generosity, union with Christ.
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Lord, I do not know how you're going to do this but I'm trusting you. I'm putting my faith in you personally. I'm talking about right now. Or you can say, you know, that does sound like a good idea and it would be more secure if I did this and I don't have to control. I, maybe I can just hold back a bit.
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The sin that's committed ultimately is against God, not against men. They said that there were no needy among them. So, it's not something that It's not something that there was just this great need and they gave. It said that there were no needy among them, and great grace was on them all. The sad part about this is most likely what Ananias and Sapphira were conspiring against.
49:00
And for, is because they saw people like Barnabas that were doing it unselfishly, and they look over and go, I want to be known like that. That's the credit that I want. I want to be known as this is good and they're doing a good thing. And but I don't really I don't really want to pay the price for it. I want to pay part of the price for it and make it look good.
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So, that's tough. It's a hard teaching. Like I said, it's uncomfortable. Our understanding of grace is challenged especially in this age because we do not see God do this very often. I I don't know a very many people.
49:37
Occasionally, you know, if you're if you're doing something that puts you in danger, a sin that actually puts you in danger, then, yeah, you'll see somebody that dies basically as a result of their sin but it's not usually from lying, usually. I don't think. Our understanding of grace is challenged. Our understanding about how important the church is to Christ. If you're thinking about the times that this happened in, beggars that were lame were being healed.
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They're standing up and walking and praising God. The blind are seeing. The deaf are hearing. Great things are happening. There's a purity to the church.
50:25
There's a purity to God's movement. And the stakes are very very high. This is the nation church. If a scandal were to happen, of the scope we've seen many many times over and over and over in our lifetimes. All of us have seen a Christian scandal where a pastor falls from grace or others.
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If that were to happen at this point, that's a real danger for the spread of the gospel around the world and so, like I said, our understanding of grace, the grace of God is limited and so when we see those two die, we just think, that's scary. I don't like that. But it was more, I believe, and a lot of commentators agree with me. It was about the purity of the church. God was exercising great power and healing but he also would not let people just pollute things.
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I hate to say it that way. God's power comes with his holiness. This quote is from a long long time ago but in the church where the lame walked, the liars died. Holiness is that issue. So, the positive, I want to end on the positive because it's so hard for us to see Ananias and Sapphira's death as a good thing.
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They got what they deserved. No, it's not that. We all deserve nothing more than hell. So, it's not that. They were believers.
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I couldn't find a single commentator that disagreed with it. I was glad to see it. They were a part of that group upon which God's favor was resting. They were a part of the group upon which God's grace was evident. They were believers and when they died, they would spend eternity with Jesus.
52:11
Is everybody okay with that? That's rough for us but the grace was on his church that it did not have that kind of effect. On them. So, unity in Christ again, positive, pure, unselfish generosity. I've heard a whole lot of preachers preach and they'll preach a sermon about money and they said, I never do this.
52:37
But I actually never have. Since I've been here, the last time that we had a sermon about that was before we got here. I chose not to go the route of the money because it's not about the money, it's about the impure deceit. But unselfish generosity is fantastic and it is attractive and we're seeing that happen here and I'm thankful for it. So I just want to say that.
53:00
Praise God that that is going on. And our example should be Barnabas. The confusing story of Ananias and Sapphira is so hard that I would not want to spend a whole lot of time thinking about that, really. I don't want to dwell on it because if you start dwelling on your own sin, it's really really hard to get through this life. You have to be able to get through it, get it confessed, and and live in the forgiveness of it.
53:28
If you're living in forgiveness and God's great grace is upon you, you have the possibility of extending great grace to others. So, our example, let's let it be Barnabas. God's grace was present in the other but it's so much more of an encouragement if it can be through opening up and saying yes when it's possible. So, I'm going to close. We're going to with an invitation hymn.
53:53
We're going to sing Christ is risen because if getting back to what was the main reason that people were coming together and many, many, many were believing was because Christ's resurrection was being preached. He gave the ultimate sacrifice. He did not do anything wrong and yet God still saw fit to have him die. But that's where the the redemption was paid. That's where the ransom was paid for many.
54:21
So, we're going to have, we're going to sing Christ is risen. The altar is open if you'd like to come up and pray and if you'd like to speak with me or with one of the elders after the service, we do have a congregational meeting in between but after that, we're glad to to meet with you, any of you for any questions, problems, that you're going through right now. We'd love to pray with you. So, would you stand with me and we're going to sing Christ is risen.
58:12
Christ is risen from the dead trampling over death by death. Come awake, come awake, come and rise up from the grave. Christ is risen from the dead, we are one with him again. Come awake, come awake. Come and rise up from the grave.
58:36
Christ is risen from the dead, trampling over death by death. Come awake. Come awake.
59:06
Amen. God, would you please make us unselfish people? Would you please bring us closer to you in our union with you, Lord? And as we get closer to you, realize how much closer we are to others and growing closer to you. God, allow us to show the world who you are by the way that we live our lives.
59:29
Attractive, unselfish, generous, and unified. It's in your son's precious name we pray. Amen.
1:04:20
Testing. Testing.
