Summit Life with J.D. Greear

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Today on Summit Life, a compelling message from Pastor JD.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Grease and as a deadly serious matter to God, can
we be honest with each other for a minute. If
we are offended by the swift judgment of God described here,
it simply reveals our ignorance of God's holiness, our sinfulness,
and the seriousness of our sin in relation to His holiness.
We should not ask the question why did they die?
We should wonder why do any of us remain alive?

Speaker 1 (00:34):
Thanks for joining us today on Summit Life with Pastor JD. Greer.
As always, I'm your host Molly Vidovich. You know, as
flawed human beings, our natural tendency is to focus on
ourselves as we try to look good on the outside,
and that's our subject today, as Pastor JD reminds us
that outward appearances can be deceiving and instead of making
things better, thinking only about ourselves can instead result in

(00:57):
some pretty serious consequences. We're continuing our series in the
book of Acts titled Scent, and remember, if you've missed
any of the previous messages, you can hear them again
free of charge at Jdgreer dot com. Pastor JD. Titled
Today's message, a Church's Sin and God's Amazing Grace.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
Today, you're going to see a moment of failure and
tragedy in the early Church. And I believe that God
is warning some of us, some of you specifically in
the story that you're going to see recorded in acts,
Chapter five, Acts chapter four. Let's start there, go back
a couple verses and acts four. Let's begin in verse
thirty four. You see, there was a not a needy

(01:37):
person among them, for as many as were owners of
lands or houses, sold them and brought the proceeds of
what was sold, and they laid it at the apostles feed,
and it was distributed from there to each as any
had need. These were the most generous people on earth,
and nobody was like, Hey, that's my car, Hey that's
my house. Everything they had, there was a sense of

(01:58):
commonness about them, their properties, their possessions. Versa thirty six.
Thus Joseph, who was also called by the Apostles Barnabas
a Levite, a native of Cyprus, sold a field that
belonged to him and brought the money and laid it
at the apostles feet. Chapter five. But a man named
Anonius whose name, by the way, means God is merciful.

(02:21):
With his wife, Sephirah sold a piece of property, and
with his wife's knowledge, together he kept back for himself
some of the proceeds, and brought only a part of
it and laid it at the apostles feet verse three.
But Peter said, Anonius, why has Satan filled your heart
to lie to the Holy Spirit? Peter says, and keep

(02:43):
back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land.
Why is it that you have contrived this deed in
your heart. You have not lied to men, You've lied
to God. What was wrong with what they did? Was
it that they kept back part of the proceeds of
the land for themselves, Not at all. The problem was
that Anonius presented the gift as if it was the
full amount. When Anonius heard these words, he fell down

(03:07):
and breathed his last. Great fear came upon all who
heard of it. Verse seven. After an interval of about
three hours, his wife came in, not knowing what had happened,
And Peter said to her, tell me whether you sold
the land for so much or not. She said, yes,
we sold it for so much. But Peter said to

(03:27):
her how is it that you have agreed together to
test the spirit of the Lord. But hold the feet
of those who have buried your husband are at the door,
and they will carry you out. Immediately she fell down
at his feet, and she breathed her last. Let me
ask a few questions of this text, can I Here's
the first question? Why did Anonius and Sephira do what
they did? Their lie was symptomatic, hear this of a

(03:52):
much deeper problem. They loved money, and they loved the
praise of people, and they knew they could not get
the praise of people unless they, in their minds, gave
away all their money. But they didn't want to give
away all their money because they love money, So they
lied about giving away all their money so they could
keep the praise of people and have both of those things.

(04:12):
Sins like lying, Here's what I want you to see.
Sins like lying always come from somewhere. These lies went
all the way down to the deepest parts of their heart.
Here's my second question. Why did God strike them dead?
Does everyone who lies in church get struck dead? You're here,
aren't you? I'm here. There's a couple of reasons. The

(04:35):
first one is that these people have been really close
to the activity of God, and whenever you're close to
the activity of God, the seriousness of sin increases. But
more importantly, the reason that God killed them is this.
Do you remember the concept of sign that we talked
about a couple weeks ago. A sign is a temporary

(04:58):
manifestation of something that God will one day do with everyone,
and we applied it to healing. Remember healing. God does
not heal everyone now in the Church of every disease
they have. One day he will do that, and so
every once in a while he does a lot in action.
He still does it today too, but every once in
a while he will break in and miraculous heal to

(05:19):
give us a glimpse of what one day He will
do with everyone. Well, in the same way, what you
see in Anonius and Saphira is a glimpse of what
God will one day do with everyone who has the
heart of Antonias and Saphira. Just because it doesn't happen
all the time. Now, do not think that this is

(05:39):
not a picture to you and a warning to you
of what one day will be the reality for all
of us, Which leads me to number three. What is
God teaching us through this side. What's God signifying? What
is He trying to teach us? Give you a handful
of things. Number One, in the church, there are two

(06:00):
kinds of people, and it's nearly impossible to distinguish them
from the outside. That's what He's trying to show us.
In the church are two different kinds of people. We
have Anonius and Sapharers, and we got Barnabases or ever
you polutalized that barnaby, and it's nearly impossible to distinguish
them from the outside. I mean, Anonius and Safia looks

(06:21):
just like Barnabus, don't they. They're both really involved in church.
They both say praise the Lord Brother, they put their
hands up in worship. They're both generous. But underneath their
confessions is a world of distinction. Underneath their confessions is
an Anonious and Saphier, a love of money and a
love of the praise of people that has never been
repented of and is their controlling thing. I was reading

(06:42):
this week the letters of John Newton. John Newton wrote
Amazing Grace, and he said this thing that just really
it kind of scared me a little bit, honestly, definitely
got my attention. He said, you know, we become great imitators,
and so a lot of people grow up in church
and they learn to imitate the language of people who've
had genuine experiences with God. Says this, He says, the
tragedy is that they think that talking about these experiences

(07:04):
is the same thing as having had those experiences. And
they just fool themselves into thinking that because they use
the language, and because they go along they've actually had
an experience with God's glory and had an experience of
God's grace. He said, But they're not the same. What
you've got in a church is you've got some people
who've genuinely been encountered by the grace and glory of God,

(07:24):
and you got others who have learned to imitate. You say, well,
how do I know which one I am? You look
underneath and you look at the lies. Because Anonias and
Saphirah had one confession with their mouth, but then they
had some secrets in their heart that they had not revealed.
They knew they were inconsistent, they knew they were hypocrites.
Do you know there's a parallel to the story in
the Old Testament. This is almost always true in Acts.

(07:45):
So when God was bringing the children of Israel out
of Egypt and he took them into the Promised Land.
You remember the first battle that they had in the
Promised Land. Do you remember what it is? SARTs with
Jay Rhames of Erko, the Battle of Jericho, That's right.
So they go into Jericho, God mighty vicary walls falled out. Okay, boom,
It's awesome. It's like the most powerful city in the
Promised Land. They just obliterated. All right. Well, the next

(08:05):
battle is with this little town called Ai, which is
this little you know, bow dunk town, and they're thinking,
we don't even need to like, you know, we just
in ou our JV squad on this one. I mean,
because it's like imagine like you conquered Washington, d C.
And then the next battle is Roxborough, all right, so
you're like, oh, you know, you know whatever. So they
just they go walk in there and they just get
their their their rear ends kicks. So Joshua, the leader

(08:25):
of the army, goes to God and he's like, God,
what happened? I mean, we you know, And God says
it's because there's a guy in the army who has
sin and so God says, Joshua says, who is it?
And God says, We'll separate the army into the twelve tribes.
So right now take the tribe and Judah bring them
front and center, whole TRIBA. Judah comes up in the army.
He says, now separate the klan, which is the family

(08:47):
group of so and so. Now separate out of that clan,
this family, and the group is getting small and small,
and now separate out of this extended family Achin, and
I want you to go look in his tent. They
go in his tent and they pulled the floor and
there is all this stuff that he had stolen that
God had forgiven them to take out of Jericho. Some
of the idols, some of the things that Achan has

(09:07):
stolen and hidden in his tent. Here's the thing. Listen,
from the outside, you could not have distinguished aching from
any other soldier. But there was stuff buried in his
tent that nobody else could see. What's hidden in your tent?
Because you know what, I can't see it, and just
like I can't see like Peter saw this day in

(09:28):
the antoniosinse of fire. But you need to ask yourself
the question of whether or not the confession you make
with your mouth that Jesus's Lord is backed up by
a life that says that Jesus's Lord. Because if what
your mouth says is different than what your life says,
what your life says is a better testimony of what
you believe than anything that comes out of your mouth,

(09:49):
which leads me to number two. We cannot hide from God.
We cannot hide from God. That's what the story shows us.
The Holy Spirit knows your thoughts as if they were
being displayed on a screen or playthrough a loud speaker.
How would you like that if it ties to the
side of your head, it was a little monitor that
everything that went through that mind of yours got displayed.

(10:10):
How would you like that? How would you like it
if every thought was voiced and known by somebody else?
My friend? Do you ever stop to think about that?
That's what it is. Under the eye of God. There
is not a thing that's hidden. There is not a secret.
It is all known as plainly we are naked and
open in his sight. He four says, I know you
know that, but do you really think about that? Because
antonysins a firey didn't in a very serious way. Do

(10:36):
you understand that there's nothing that is hidden from his sight?
That one day he said, everything that is hidden in
the clauset will be shouted from the rooftops. I know
that you know that they knew that watch this listen.
They were so consumed with the praise of people that

(10:56):
they never stopped to reflect on whether or not they
were actually write with God. You know what the number
one thing that keeps people in the church out of
heaven is you're so consumed with what other people think
about you that you never stop and think about whether
or not you're actually right with God, whether you actually
know God. Forgetting that one day it's all going to

(11:18):
be naked and open and the only question is not
what people thought about you, it's what was real.

Speaker 1 (11:24):
You're listening to sum at Life with Pastor J. D. Greer,
and we'll get right back to today's teaching in just
a moment, But first I wanted to take a second
to shout out a very special group of people are
Gospel Partners, the team that gives so generously to this
ministry each and every month. It's not an exaggeration to
say that they are the financial fuel behind everything we do,

(11:46):
including broadcasting Summitt Life every weekday. We call them Gospel
partners because that's exactly what they do. They are actually
partnering with us to help make the Gospel known around
the globe. This month, we're sending each of our faithful
givers a copy of Pastor JD's newest book, Twelve Truths
in July and a discussion guide to go with it.

(12:06):
This ministry couldn't exist without our gospel partners, and it's
always a privilege to say thank you with our specially
curated featured resources each month. To give a one time
gift or to join us as a monthly gospel partner,
call us right away. The number is eight six six
three three five fifty two twenty or you can visit

(12:27):
us online at Jdgreer dot com. Now let's get back
to today's teaching once again. Here's Pastor JD on Summit
Life number three.

Speaker 2 (12:37):
The closer we are to grace, the greater the offensive
set some And again I don't want to be overly
dramatic on this, but God has made us privy to
some unusual movings of His spirit, and with great grace
comes great responsibility. I'm not talking to those of you
right now listen, who are guests at our church. Maybe

(12:58):
you're here because somebody invited you, and maybe you're just
beginning to investigate Christianity. I'm not talking to you. I'm
talking to those people who are here because you think
that this is the most entertaining church that you can find.
It's the way you can go to church and come out.
You laugh a little, you sing some great songs, and
music's awesome, and so this is your preferred TV program
of church. I'm talking about what it means to be

(13:21):
in the presence in a place where God's spirit is
moving and for you to just play at it. That's
what I'm talking about. And I'm saying that with this
great outpoint of grace comes great responsibility. And when you
are privy to it, when you see it with your
eyes and you sit in the background in the distance
and you do nothing, the greater the experience of grace,
the greater the offensive set. Number four, Fear is a

(13:45):
part of worship. Now that might be an unusual idea
for you, but you notice how much the word fear
repeated itself in this passage. Did you notice that verse five,
great fear came upon all who heard of it Verse eleven.
Great fear came upon the whole church, and all who
heard these things. What was the result of that fear?
Verse fourteen. More and more people believed in the Lord.

(14:07):
God is infinite in love, Yes, but you can only
know that love as you know the magnificence of His
glory and the might of God's power. The true love
of God grows out of the fear of God. Hope
turns fear into a trembling and peaceful wonder, And fear
takes everything trivial out of hope and makes it earnest

(14:29):
and profound. Many of you have never really learned to
love God because you've never learned to fear God. Because
it is the fear of God that makes the love
and the pleasures of God intense. The terrors of God
make the pleasures of his people intense. The fireside fellowship
is all the sweeter when the storm is howling outside

(14:52):
the cottage. Even my favorite definition of biblical fear awe
mixed with intimacy. It's all at the glory and the
majesty and the magnificence of God mixed with intimacy that
comes from the fact that the Almighty has called me
sid the comfort of the Holy Spirit came out of

(15:13):
the fear of God. And when those two things are present,
that's when the church begins to grow. You want to
know one of the reasons our church doesn't grow more,
I mean his growl. But you want to know one
of reasons that doesn't grow more in our community. It's
because the fear of God is absent. God's first work
is to help you see the magnificence of who he is.
John Newton again, tis grace that taught my heart to fear?

(15:36):
You think about that phrase, tis grace that taught my
heart to fear, Then grace my fears relieved? How precious
did that grace appear the hour I first believe? You
want to know why the grace was precious because the
fear was real. Amazing grace, How sweet the sound that

(16:00):
saved a wretch like me? Do you know there's a
kind of a movement in Christian contemporary music they want
to change that phrase. I've seen several versions of every
written that first verse, amazing grace, how sweet the sound.
They don't like the phrase wretch like me, because in
our positive you can do it you got potential kind
of culture you know, Oprah, doctor Field. They don't like that.
Can tell you something. If you don't see yourself as

(16:23):
a wretch, God's grace will never be amazing. You want
to know why amazing grace doesn't have a sweet sound
to you. You want to know why your eyes have
not wept in as long, maybe never over the cross.
You want to know why because you have no fear
of God, because you have no fear of the storm.

(16:44):
It's grace that teaches your heart to fear, and then
grace your fears relieved. Number five. Sin is a deadly
serious matter to God. Sin is a deadly serious matter
to God. Can we be honest with each other for
a minute. Many of us find God's actions in this
story offensive, do we not? God? Come on right? I mean,

(17:08):
they're trying, They're doing their best. They made a little
mistake God. While you sue cantankerous, listen. If we are
offended by the swift judgment of God described here, it
simply reveals our ignorance of God's holiness, our sinfulness, and
the seriousness of our sin in relation to His holiness.

(17:31):
We should not ask the question why did they die?
We should wonder why do any of us remain alive. Listen,
God is indeed long, suffering, patient, and slow to anger.
In fact, he is so slow to anger that when
his anger does erupt, we're shocked and offended by it.
We forget rather quickly that God's patience is designed to

(17:55):
lead us to repentance, to give us time to be redeemed.
But instead of taking advantage of this patients by coming
humbly to him for forgiveness, we use this grace as
opportunity to become more bold in our sin. We delude
ourselves into thinking that either God doesn't care about it,
or that he is powerless to punish us. The supreme
folly is that we think we will get away with

(18:16):
heart revolt. Friends, you not understand that the season that
we are in where people don't die for their sin,
is designed by God in his patience, to give you
space to repent. That's all it's there for. But instead
you and I have used that forbearance of God as
a way to forget about the judgment of God, to
forget that he sees everything, and then to go on

(18:37):
sinning with impunity like it's never really going to come
back to us, Do you not understand that if what
God did to Jesus is true? If God took his
perfect son and put him on a cross, and put
nails in his hands, in his feet, and allowed his
perfect son to be modd, humiliated, stripped, naked, scorned in
front of the eyes of the whole world, allowed Roman

(18:58):
soldiers to spit in his perfect face, to rip out
his beard, and to lacerate his body with whips because
of your sin? Do you not understand how serious He
is about it? And that this season that there is
forbearance and sin and patience is not for you to
use it for impunity, but for you to come home
to God and thank God for his grace and receive

(19:18):
it while there is still time, because this moment of
antoniasim s Offirah is coming for you, and every hidden
thing is going to be exposed. It's all going to
be brought to light. You may have fooled me and
everybody else around me, all our lie. We never know
what's in your tent, but then it's exposed, and it's
a deadly serious matter to God. So here's my last question.

(19:41):
Are you lying to the Holy Spirit? Are you pretending
to be more spiritual than you. Are you a hypocritic.
Jim Elliot, the missionary to Ecuador, said this about this passage.
He said, this passage in Acts five reminds me of
the thousands of Christians who sing, I surrender all, but
have given an unyield know to God about giving their

(20:02):
lives and their sons and their daughters to go to
the mission field. In other words, they say, I surrender
all in Jesus's Lord, knowing full well there are multiple
parts of their lives that they will not allow God
to touch. I have had so called Christian parents who
look me in the face and say, I've been in
church all my life. Yes, I will never let my

(20:23):
son or daughter grown go follow Jesus to the mission field.
I just refuse it, confessing with their mouth that Jesus's
Lord blaspheming the Holy Spirit with their lives by saying
no to God. And then Jim Elliot said this, Christians
don't tell lies. Christians sing them because the confession they
make in church is not backed up by their life.
What area will you not surrender to God? You might look,

(20:44):
we're in an issense. If I were started the love
of money and love of the praise of people. Maybe
you won't stand up for Jesus and the places you
need to. Maybe you won't share Christ because you're worried
about your reputation. Maybe that's an unsurrendered area. Maybe it
has to do with money, like theirs, what you say
with your life, what you say with your poss book,
what you say with every part of your life is
more significant to God than what you say with your lips.

(21:06):
You're treating Jesus flippantly. You're treating the Holy Spirit flippantly.
You're a person who feels like, for example, like Annis
and Saphara, like, oh grace God, we know that God
is gracious, and then they presumed upon the spirit of grace.
Are you the kind of person says, I've trusted Jesus
as my savior, all my sins are forgiven. So I
got this like heavenly visa card, I can run anytime

(21:27):
I sin, finish paid. God couldn't love me more than
he does right now? Have you taken that message of
the Gospel and then use it as a license to sin?
Are you somebody who walks through church thinking, how about
this more about your glory than God's? Like anonis and Saphari.
You come into church and what you're concerned with is
how people think about you, not what people are thinking

(21:48):
about God. This one gets me. You want to know why,
because I stand up here every week, and I tremble
to think how many times I stand up here more
concerned with what you think about me than what you
think about God. You come into this place thinking more
about your reputation than you do God's glory. All I'm
trying to ask you is what's underneath. I can hear
the confession of your mouth, but you know what's hidden
in your tent? Now? I imagine at this point some

(22:09):
of you may you may be overwhelmed with despair. How
can any of us ever hope to stand before God?
Which of us is not Antonius and Saphira? Right? Which
of us is not Antonios and Sapphira? Why aren't we
all dead? First? John one nine. If we confess our sins,

(22:31):
he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If you expose
your sin, he will forgive you. If you hide your sin,
he will condemn you.

Speaker 1 (22:40):
For we can experience the same blessing the early Church did,
as long as we confess where we fail him and
trust him to restore us. This is Summit Life with JD.
Greer So pastor JD. In your latest book, it says
that you provide answer to life's biggest questions. What does

(23:02):
that mean exactly?

Speaker 2 (23:03):
Well, my guess is that maybe of the twelve questions,
nine or ten of them is one that you have
asked at some point, and maybe you got a good
answer for maybe your answer is better than mine. I
don't know, but these are the ones that I get asked,
most of them by just ordinary people. If God really
is in control, why is there so much evil and suffering? Why?
Why does God care so much about my sex life?

(23:25):
How can I discover my personal purpose on earth? The
lie that we have to address right off is that
the presence of these questions means that there's something wrong
with your faith. Charles Spurgeon always said doubt is like
a foot poised to go forwards or backwards. This book
is for those who have picked up their foot to
ask some of these questions, and we would love to
give you a copy, and we've got we made a

(23:46):
discussion guide to go along with it. It's exclusive for
our Summit Life audience, So go to jdquare dot com
when you donate. When you become a part of our
ministry team, then we will give you these things just
as a way of saying how much we appreciate you.

Speaker 1 (23:58):
We'd love to send you your copy of two twelve
Truths in the Lie and the family Friendly Discussion Guide
that goes along with it as our way to say
thanks for your gift of thirty five dollars or more
to this ministry. And remember each of our Gospel partners
receives these resources automatically for their monthly generosity to this ministry.
To give or to become a Gospel partner, simply give

(24:19):
us a call at eight sixty six three three five
fifty two twenty. That's eight six six three three five
fifty two twenty, or you can always give online at
our website Jdigreer dot com. I'm Mollie Vinevich. I am
so glad to have you with us today and be
sure to join us next time as we look at
one ordinary man who God used in extraordinary ways. We'll

(24:44):
see you next week on Summit LFE with JD. Greer.
Today's program was produced and sponsored by Jdgreer Ministries,