Transcription
Good morning L one family. Um, hey, let me just say this. The brave, the proud, the thunderstorm church attenders, come on, man! I love y'all. These are, these are my favorite church, uh, church members. Y'all the best. Hey, um, as you're going to notice in the next few minutes, uh, my heart is uniquely full for this morning. Um, and here's why. It's a couple reasons. Um, but one of them is we've got a command in the scriptures to make it on Earth as it is in heaven. And what the Bible says is that anytime even one sinner repents, that there's great rejoicing in heaven. And, uh, guys, today, across all of our campuses, we'll baptize between five and 700 new believers. Man, come on, man! Let's go! Go! Let's do that, man. Just come on. Let's celebrate that. And, um, dude, uh, I, I just, hey, you guys know that's not normal. Do, do we know that? I just need to make sure we know that that's not normal. And so when I get done, we're going to make it on Earth as it is in heaven. And, and it's going to be a day. Um, but let me jump in, um, to a message that is, is very, uh, it's almost like pregnant in in my heart. That's a weird saying. I didn't say that in any other service, and I'm glad. Uh, uh, right now, we're hopping back into the book of Acts. We're preaching verse by verse of the book of Acts, um, in a series called "There Is More." And let me just set the tone for the morning. What I'm supposed to do on a, a weekend like baptism weekend, we're going to have tons of guests, people bringing family, people never been to our church before. What I'm supposed to do is preach a very light-hearted, felt needs, uh, you know, let's laugh and applaud and, uh, and, and, you know, just encourage your soul type of message. Um, instead, what I'm doing is preaching Acts chapter 5, where God kills Ananias and Sapphira as they fall under his judgment. Welcome to Lake Point.
Okay, uh, let me explain why I'm doing this. Um, I'm doing it for two reasons. Number one, we've got a deep conviction at Lake Point that it takes the whole Bible to make a whole Christian. And that, actually, what I've noticed is that whatever are the passages in the scriptures that I struggle with the most, those are, those are the ones that I need the most. And so I've noticed that, man, when there's something in me that struggles with something, I need to run towards it, not away from it. And so let me just say it like this: most churches, uh, could not handle this sermon. Um, it would be too, uh, theologically deep, too emotionally challenging. It might be a little kind of contrary or, you know, offensive, contrary to the the preferences of of the people that that that were around. So at most churches, I would not preach this sermon. But Lake Point Church is not most churches. And so we're just going to lean in and and go right at it. And I do just want to say this, if if you're visiting with us and maybe you're not, maybe you're not a Jesus follower yet, and in the next few minutes you're like, "Bro, that is extra. This was extra." Um, let me, here's what I want you to leave saying: "At least that man was honest with me about what the Bible said." So that said, let's get into Acts chapter 5. Here we go.
Acts chapter 5 is starts like this: "But a man named Ananias with his wife Sapphira." You're going to notice three things. Number one, they sold a piece of property. And I need you to bookmark these in your head. They sold a piece of property, and with his wife's knowledge, he kept some back for himself. He kept back for himself some of the proceeds. And number two, he brought only a part of it. So number two, they bring some of the proceeds. And then number three, they laid it at the apostles' feet. So this is what's happening. You have those three things. Those three things are happening. Now, there's something that you didn't notice. And don't switch it yet up in the tech. Oh, they did it. They went ahead and switched it. Look up at that first, that first word. I didn't highlight at first, but I want to make the, but it's a really big "but." I just want you to notice that. Now, what's happening there is that's a conjunction. A conjunction always links what comes after to what comes before. In other words, because that word is there, we know we can't understand the beginning of Acts chapter 5 until we understand the end of Acts chapter 4. So let's look back at the end of Acts chapter 4. Here's what happens. Some things are going to sound familiar to you. It says this: "Barnabas," which means son of encouragement. Number one, he sold a field. That sounds familiar. Number two, that belonged to him, and number two, brought the money. So he brings all of the money. And then number three, he lays it at the apostles' feet. So this is what you're seeing right here. Is this contrast?
Now, I, I just need to point something out. Um, and I need to do this. It doesn't really fit in with the rest of the sermon, but it needs to be said. At Lake Point, at Lake Point, we have a ton of guys and a ton of women who you have been gifted by God to build things, to scale things, to grow businesses, uh, to make the deals, to acquire the wealth, that kind of thing. I just want you to notice that right here. What you've got is you've got Barnabas, Ananias, and Sapphira. They are wealthy landowners. And in particular, Barnabas is being used by God in the church for leadership and to scale the kingdom. Now, here's why I say this. I just, really quick, I want to correct some bad teaching that, well-meaning but misguided pastors. Some of you, your entire life, you've been given those gifts. You build things, you grow things, you scale things, and you've accidentally been made to feel guilty for the gift that you have. And it's like nobody said it out loud, but what you felt like was people were always saying, man, um, people who were successful or wealthy are the bad people. And, uh, the people who aren't are the good people. And I just want to point this out to you that the dividing line of the Bible is not between rich and poor. It's between greedy and generous. And then what you're going to notice is that there are, there are generous wealthy people, and there are greedy wealthy people. There are generous poor people, and there are greedy poor people. And so what I want you to notice in the Bible is, man, some of you, like I said, you've been made to feel guilty about your gifts. I just want to point this out. If you're a Barnabas, if you're somebody with those gifts, let me say something to you you may never have heard before. Do you know what the kingdom of God needs from some of you? We need you to absolutely crush it, to scale things to the highest degree of your ability, and then to leverage those gifts for the kingdom of God. That's what the kingdom needs from some of you. So I just need to say that to some of our Barnabases. Thank you. If you're going to clap, you got to commit. Like, you got to go all the way in if you're going to do this. So I didn't need to say that.
Now, number two. So here's what happens. And I want to point this out. So Ananias and Sapphira, they had just seen what happened to Barnabas. So they see, "Oh man, the apostles are proud of him. They even give him a new nickname. Barnabas means son of encouragement." And they go, "Man, I want the affirmation and the status that Barnabas got." But watch this: they wanted what Barnabas got without doing what Barnabas did. Warning, warning! When you start practicing righteousness to be applauded by men rather than to be anointed by God, that is a path to being led by Satan. That's what happens exactly in this passage. Watch the language in this passage. So here's what it says: "Peter looks at Ananias and Sapphira." So we're going back to Acts chapter 5. And the Holy Spirit gives him what the book of First Corinthians calls a word of knowledge. He gives him insight. Even though he didn't know this, the Spirit gives Peter insight into the wickedness that they're committing together. And he says this: "Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit?" That's really important. "And keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land?" So here's what I think happened. I think, here's what I think happened. I think Ananias and Sapphira saw what happened to Barnabas and they went, "Man, let's do it too." And then there was like a gap. They went, like, "Oh man, the zest for our property is like $700,000, but because of the escalator clauses, we got 1.2." And I think they eventually went, "I think they went, 'Hmm, well, let's do this. Let's bring what we thought we were going to get, give it to the apostles, and then we'll just keep the extra 500.' And then, uh, we just won't say anything and we'll act like that was everything." So they, he calls us out. Peter calls us out by this, uh, the revelation of the Spirit. Then he says, "While it remained unsold, wasn't it your own?" Like, dude, you weren't even obligated to give us anything. And number two, "After it was sold, wasn't it at your disposal? You could have given us as much or as little as you wanted. Just don't lie about it." "Why is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart?" Peter says, "You have not." This is important. "You have not lied to man, but to God." Here's why I say that's important. For just for all of our Bible nerds, let's do some doctrine really quick. Earlier, Peter said, "You lied to the Holy Spirit." Now he says, "You lied to God." Implication: the Holy Spirit is God. You, you need to see that that is one of the clearest statements in the New Testament about the deity of the Holy Spirit. "When Ananias heard these words, he fell down and breathed his last." There's a word right here I need you to say out loud with like some spirit in you. "For me, and what came upon them, and fear came upon all those who heard it." The young men rose and wrapped him up and carried him out and buried him.
Now, just really quick, I want to make a point. Where are all of our greeters, our ushers, our parking lot attendants? Loud and proud! Where, where you at? Lock those elbows, man. Come on. We love you. Now, I want you to imagine if on your volunteer job description, one of the bullets was: "Carry out the corpses of the people who fall under God's judgment." I think a lot of you would be like, "I'm going to do kids ministry." That's what I'm going to do. Okay, well, this, this is literally. They go, "Hey, ushers, we got two corpses of people who just fell under God's judgment. Will y'all come help us?" So this happens here. And then the question is, how did he get so far into rebellion? Well, here's what the passage says: "After an interval of about three hours, his wife came in, not knowing what had happened." And Peter said to her, "Hey, tell me whether you sold the land for so much." In other words, he's testing to see, was Sapphira a part of the sin, or was Ananias, uh, was Ananias leading his wife into sin unwillingly? She said, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, for so much." So she participates in the lie. But Peter said to her, "How is it that you have?" This is important. "Agreed together to test the Spirit of the Lord?" Can I just say something to you? Every relationship you have in your life will either be a holy partnership or an unholy alliance. You will notice this in every relationship. When you, when a godly person is in a relationship with another godly person, and they are committed together in righteousness, the Holy Spirit blesses that holy partnership, and you will go farther in courage and conviction and faithfulness for the things of God because of that holy partnership. But you will notice in your life that there are sometimes when it is not a holy spirit that brings people into your life. It's actually unholy spirits that bring people into your life. And he wants you to conspire together with unholy people to commit, to commit sin, wickedness, and rebellion. And watch this, those relationships are also filled with spirits, but they're unholy spirits. And those unholy alliances will push you to go farther into hard-hearted rebellion and wickedness, rebellion against God, than any other thing in your life. So Peter points out, man, this was an unholy alliance between Ananias and Sapphira, and they tested the Spirit of the Lord. Then he pronounces judgment: "Behold, the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out immediately." She fell, she fell down at his feet and breathed her last. When the young men came in, they found her dead. There it is. And they carried her out and buried her beside her husband.
I want you to say this out loud with me: "And great fear," that's important, "fell upon the whole church and upon all who heard these things." Today, I want to talk to you for a few minutes about a subject that our generation has almost completely lost, and that is the concept of the fear of God. The fear of God. Today, many Christians live in sort of an obedience-optional Christianity, where if I feel like obeying God, I will. But very frankly, we treat him more like a life coach than a Lord. We think of them as suggestions rather than commands. And we call them mistakes rather than sins. And if I don't feel like obeying God, well, then I'm sure he'll understand because we're under grace, and God is love. But what the Bible says is that the controlling emotion of a disciple of Jesus ought to be something the Bible refers to as a fear of God. We saw this twice in this passage. Go back to verse 5. I want to point out the Greek to you. It said, "And fear." The Greek word is *phobos*. That's the Greek word from which we get the word phobia. And a phobia came upon all who heard of the judgment of God. You see it again in verse 11. And I want you to see this. This is interesting. "And great fear." The Greek is literally *megas phobos*. *Phobos*, a *megas phobia* came upon the church. Uh, what is a phobia? A phobia is not a normal fear. It's a controlling fear. The fear of God is something that ought to be the controlling fear of our lives. Now, what's interesting, I did a ton of study leading up to this message. This is really deep in my soul. Whenever Bible teachers teach on the fear of God, one thing I think, well-meaning but misguided Bible teachers do, is they spend the entire teaching explaining how "fear of God" doesn't actually mean fear. It means awe, it means reverence, it means inspiration. Well, that's really interesting to me because there are Greek words for awe, reverence, and inspiration, but it doesn't use those words. The Bible says "fear." We ought to fear God. Jesus told us we ought to be people who live in the fear of God. I want you to see the words of Jesus on this. Jesus says in Luke 12, "I tell you, friends, don't be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more." In other words, don't be afraid of people. "I'll show you whom you should fear. Fear Him who, after your body has been killed, has authority to throw you into hell." When I was a kid, a baby Christian, I thought that was talking about Satan. Can I say something? Satan has no authority to throw you into hell. The Bible says, "It is appointed unto man once to die, and then comes judgment." What that means is that if you're still breathing, there's still hope. But the second you breathe your last breath, you have expunged your last chance, and you will stand before judgment, and you will not be judged by Satan. You will stand before the throne of the Living God. Some people in our generation say, "Hey, Josh, all roads lead to God." That's true. Every road leads to the judgment seat of God. And God will someday, every single person, like the Apostle's Creed says, that Jesus will come to judge the quick and the dead, the living and the dead. And so Jesus is saying, "Hey, live in a fear of God who has the authority to throw you into hell." Yes, I tell you, fear. There's that word again. *Phobos*. Fear Him.
This leads me. I want to say four brief things about the fear of God. That leads me to number one: Hey, Lake Point Church, you cannot have the presence of God without the fear of God. It's really interesting. When the Bible talks about the presence of the Holy Spirit, one of the ways the Spirit manifests himself in the Bible is as a quote "Spirit of the fear of God." These two things are always correlated to each other. A rise in the fear of God and an awareness of the presence of God. Um, I'm a church history nerd, so I, I like reading about this stuff. Jonathan Edwards, um, uh, preached, uh, was one of the leaders of what's called the First Great Awakening. He preached in the 1740s in Northampton, Massachusetts, and he gave a sermon that ushered in what we now know as the Great Awakening. It was a spiritual awakening in our nation that shook the foundations of our nation and turned the hearts of millions of people back to the Living God. We need another one of those. His concern before he preached this sermon, I'm going to tell you about it in a second. You read it in high school. His concern was that when he preached the sermon, people would have a manipulated emotional response. And so there are reports that he actually practiced reading the sermon without making eye contact with the congregation, and he read it in a completely monotone voice. The title of the sermon was "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." As he preached it, the fear of God rose in the people. And as the fear of God rose, the presence of God came near. There are reports that people were literally grabbing onto the pews for fear of falling into hell as he preached this sermon. These three things are correlated all throughout the Bible: the presence of God drawing near, the fear of God rising in people, and people becoming aware of their sin. These three things are always correlated. You never get one without the others. Um, I'll give you some examples. So in Exodus 33, um, it's like Moses has led the children of Israel out of slavery, and they've been in the wilderness, and they're right at the edge, like right there at the promised land. And then God pronounces this judgment on the people, and he says, "Hey, because of your sin, wickedness, and rebellion, I'm going to give you the promised land. You're going to go up into the promised land." So you're going to get the promised land, but "my presence will not go with you." And Moses grieves. And he says, "Please, no." He essentially says, "We'd rather be in the wilderness with your presence than in the promised land without the presence." And then Moses is like a toddler at a dinner table. If you read the passage, he just blurts something out that makes no sense at all in the midst of the conversation. Moses just cries out from the depth of his heart: "Show me your glory." Watch what the Living God says to Moses. When a sinful man asks to see the glory of a holy God, God says this: "Sorry, Moses, you can't see my face, for no one may see me and live." Sometimes people will say, "Oh, God can't be in the presence of sin." That is exactly backwards. That's like saying the sun can't be in the presence of tissue paper. No, the issue is that tissue paper can't be in the presence of the sun. The issue is that sin can't be in the presence of God. And so God says to Moses, "Hey, Moses, you're a sinful person. If you see my face, you'll die." So if you remember, what God does is he takes Moses in the palm of his hand, he puts him in quote, "the cleft of a rock on a mountain." God turns around, and the Bible literally says that the hind parts of God pass in front of Moses, and God verbally proclaims his name to Moses: "The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, forgiving wickedness, rebellion, and sin, yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished. He punishes the children and their children to the tenth generation." And these three things are correlated in that moment: the presence of God, the fear of God, and an awareness of sin. You see this again in Isaiah chapter 6. Isaiah, the great prophet, is given a vision in the year King Uzziah dies of the Lord, high and lifted up. And the Bible says that he's given a vision of the throne room of God, and it says, "The train of his robe filled the temple." In other words, there was no limit to the power of the sovereign God that he saw. When Isaiah sees God, he screams out in fear. And here's what he screams: "Woe to me! I am ruined." Some translations: "I am damned. I am condemned." Why? "Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell among a people of unclean lips." I'm not joking. People have laughed and over. I'm not joking when I say this. I think Isaiah had a profanity problem. And the second he came into the presence of God, the only thing he could be aware of was the sinfulness of himself in the presence of a holy God. "And my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty." The presence of God, the fear of God, and an awareness of sin.
Now, some of you like, "Yeah, Josh, but that's the Old Testament. And we all know in the Old Testament, God was like, really judgy and cranky and angry. And in the New Testament, you know, he's he's like a modern-day hippie, and it's all rainbows and unicorns and sunshine. And he poops ice cream." Oh, I didn't say that in another service either, and I'm glad I didn't. I don't know why I said that. And so everything's nice, and he's all huggy. Well, actually, no. That's actually just not true. God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And we see that in the New Testament. Uh, remember at the end of the New Testament, the book of Revelation. Revelation 1, the Apostle John sees a resurrected Jesus in all of his glory. This is in Revelation 1. Now, before I show you what John said when he sees Jesus for the first time, you got to have this context. Remember, John was like, BFF squad, ride or die with Jesus. Whenever Jesus went somewhere, there was only three guys he would take with him wherever he went. John was one of them. John was so close to Jesus, he actually had a nickname. Some of you will remember this. John's nickname in the New Testament is "the one whom Jesus loved." Now, little problem, that nickname is written in the Gospel of John, that was written by. You don't get, you don't get to choose your own nickname, okay? Let me just say that. So now, but we know that John was very, very close to Jesus because in John 13, it says at the Last Supper that John leaned back and rested his head against the breast of Jesus at the Last Supper. Now, I just want to say something. I got some close guy friends. I don't have many. I'm not going to cuddle with at dinner. And by not many, I mean not any. That's what I mean. Now, all that in mind, John's that close to Jesus. Let me ask you, pop quiz, class: How do you think John responded when he sees Jesus, his BFF, his, I, I, I cuddle with you at? How do you think he, he responds when he sees the glory of Jesus for the first time in 45 years? Here's how he responds: "When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead." The presence of God draws near, the fear of God rises up, and somebody becomes aware of their sin.
Can I say something to you? When we read Acts chapter 5, and the judgment of God falling, and people being struck dead, here is the only reason we struggle with passages like this: because number two, the fear of God, we have forgotten this. The fear of God is the appropriate response to who God is. It is the only appropriate response to who God is. Now, just kind of like, stay with me for a second. I do this about once a year. Whenever I do repetition, I don't do repetition out of laziness. I do repetition for emphasis. This is one of the most important concepts that I ever teach. I find a way to get it in once a year. Here's what's happening in our generation. Is there is a difference, listen, between the character of God and a caricature of God. When somebody is looking at the character of somebody, they're seeing somebody rightly as they actually are. A caricature is an exaggeration of the character of the person so that now you're not actually dealing with a faithful representation of their character. You're looking at a cartoonish caricature. So I just, I, I just, if you don't know what this is, so like this is, you just tell me who this is. This is, that's, that's Tony Stark. Is who you got here. Uh, next one. Now, I'm going to do this one really brief. This is no disrespect. This is President Trump. No, no, no. Don't do anything. No, I don't want anything. This is no disrespect. I'm just trying to show you an example in a caricature. What somebody will do is they'll take one characteristic, listen, one characteristic of somebody and blow it up disproportionately so that now it's not character, it's caricature. Let's get that. It's going to get me in trouble. Let's move to the next one. Snoop Dogg. We all know. Real skinny. One characteristic. We're going to blow that up. Make it, you know, we're going to make that the thing. It's, this is a caricature. Now, before they show the next one, and we actually have a caricature of our beloved teaching pastor, Mike Bro. He sent this to me and gave me permission to use this. This is a caricature of Mike Bro. You got it right here. Here it is. That's, that's it. Now, that's, that's a joke. And Mike gave me permission to do that. Mike actually also wanted you to know. Go to this next one. He, hey, bald lives matter. He wanted you to know that. Now, I'm not going to do the other one. Tech booth, just stay with me.
Now, here's my point. Is that again, what you're seeing, a caricature is an exaggeration of the characteristics of someone so that again, now you're not looking at the character, you're looking at a caricature. Can I say something? What we've done in our generation is we've taken one attribute of God, the love of God, by by the way. And listen, is God loving? Yes, God is loving. The Bible actually says that God is love. What the Book of John says is that "this is love, not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his Son Jesus as the propitiation for our sins." Do you know what a propitiation is? A prop, a propitiation is a payment that satisfies. That because of our sin, we had incurred a debt before the Living God because of his holiness. And that God loved us so much that he sent his only Son who knew no sin to become sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. That he came down, and when he pulled up on those nail-pierced hands, and he cried, "It is finished," he was saying the thing that was finished was the payment for your sin. And his life for yours was the payment that satisfies the holy justice of God. That's how much God loved you. So listen, is God love? Yes, God is love. And yes, he is tender, and he is compassionate. But he is also the God before whom the nations tremble at the sound of whom the earthquakes, and at the sight of whom men die. And we have so exaggerated the love of God that we've forgotten the holiness of God. In fact, when you come to passages like Acts chapter 5, they sometimes, there'll be something in you that rises up, and you'll read about these people being honestly coming under judgment and being killed for, quote, "just lying." And I say, "just," that's from a human perspective. The reason that we think something will rise up in you and you go, "Man, that's not fair." We only think that. We think it for two reasons. Number one, very frankly, we do not actually believe that the wages of sin is death. The wages of sin is death. Some of you might read Acts 5 and go, "The punishment didn't fit the crime." Yes, it did. It did. Check this out. The book of Romans says this: "For the wages of sin" (that was the crime) "is death" (that's the punishment). "But God, out of his heart of love, the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." You must understand this principle: that the seriousness of sin is not just what you did, it's who you did it to. So, for instance, we all understand this principle. If you go out in our parking lot and you kick a car, nothing's going to happen to you. If you kick a pet, you kick your dog, you're going to get community service. You go home and kick your wife, you should be put in jail. You try to kick the president of the United States, you're going to get two in the chest, one in the face. It's going to happen real fast. You kick a cat, they send you a prize in the mail. Like nothing happens. It's like incentivizing. That's a joke. That's a joke. Here's the point. Listen. A sin against a lesser being deserves a lesser punishment. A sin against a greater being deserves a greater punishment. A sin against an eternal and perfect God deserves eternal and perfect punishment. In fact, like, let me just, let me just say this. So like, again, this is one of those things. It's not in my notes, but it's in my heart. Um, some of you, this, this principle is why some of you struggle with the passages that unbelieving people incorrectly, they read the Bible and they incorrectly call these passages the quote "slaughtering of the innocents passages." Passages like the flood, where God wipes out like every living person besides eight people, or the Canaanite conquest, where God commands the destruction of entire cities. And people will look at that and they'll go, "Ooh, that's unjust. That's a slaughtering of the innocents passage." Can I give you part of the answer that clears this up for you? Hey, good news, good news. In every single one of those passages, all the innocent ones were spared. Bad news: there were no innocent ones. "For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." Best news: there is only one slaughtering of an innocent in the entire Bible. It did not happen in the Old Testament. It happened in the New Testament. And God did not do it to man. Man did it to God. When God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. That is the only slaughtering of an innocent in the entire Bible. And God did it because he loved you. He did it because he loved you. So listen, you got to understand this stuff. So we struggle with this. We don't think it's fair because we forget the wages of sin is death. And number two, we take God's mercy for granted. So let me say it, and then I'm going to explain it because it won't make sense when I say it. We have received so much mercy for so long that an expectation of mercy has become the default mode of our heart. So that when we actually see God execute justice, we think that's not fair. Um, one of the greatest theologians that's gone to be with Jesus, he's hugging Jesus now. One of the greatest theologians of the last century was a man named R.C. Sproul. One of the most important three books I've ever read in my life is a book by Dr. Sproul called "The Holiness of God." You should all read it. It tattooed itself on my soul. Dr. Sproul described this phenomenon of beginning to expect justice and labeling, be beginning to expect mercy in a way that we, uh, start to view justice as unfair. And he gave this illustration of a time when he was teaching a seminary class through the Old Testament. And he described, listen to the numbers. He said that there were 250 students in his class at St. Andrews, uh, college. And he described very clearly on the first day of class that there would be a term paper due on the last day of every term. And that, for instance, for the first term, if any paper was not, uh, turned in by noon on the last day of September, noon on the last day of September, that the student would receive an F because the assignment was late. So he described what happened. The last day of September came. It was noon. And at the end of that first term, 225 out of the 250 students dutifully turned in their term papers. But 25 walked in with a million excuses. "Oh, Dr. Sproul, my grandma died, and it was a stressful week, and oh my goodness, I had to run home, and I got sick." And all this stuff. And, uh, and they said, "Can, would you please, Dr. Sproul, in your mercy, would you please just let us give us one more day?" And Dr. Sproul said, "Hey, of course. I'll graciously. If you get it to me about noon tomorrow, we're going to be fine." "Oh, thank you, Dr. Sproul. You're so wonderful. Dr. Sproul, praise be your name, Dr. Sproul." So then he describes on the last day of the second semester. He got there, and 200 out of the 250 students dutifully turned in their term papers. The other 50 students, they came in with the same excuses. "Oh, Dr. Sproul, my other grandma died. I got sick again. There was an intermural game, and I was very stressed this week, and I had all this stuff." "Oh, Dr. Sproul, will you please give us an extension?" And he said, "Hey, of course. You know, by by noon tomorrow." And the same thing. "Oh, Dr. Sproul, we love you. Thank you for your mercy. Praise be your name. We love you, Dr. Sproul." But then he described what happened on the last day of the third semester. Uh, that day at noon, only 150 students turned in their term paper, and a full 100 students walked into the class with all the same excuses. As soon as they did it, he grabbed what he called his lethal black grading book, and he started shouting names. "Johnson, has your paper been turned in?" "No, sir." "F." "Mulany, has your paper been turned in?" "No, sir." "F." "Ly, do I have your paper?" "No, sir." "F." And then he writes this. The students reacted with unmitigated fury. They howled in protest, screaming, "That's not fair!" I looked at one of the howling students. "Ly, you think it's not fair?" "Yes," he growled in response. Dr. Sproul said, "I see it's justice you want. I seem to recall that you were late on your last term paper. If you insist on justice, you will certainly get it. I'll not only give you the F for this assignment, I'll change your last grade to the F you so richly deserved." And then he closes with these sentences: "The students had quickly taken my mercy for granted. They assumed it. When justice suddenly fell, they were unprepared for it. It came as a shock. They were outraged." This after only two doses of mercy in the space of two months. Lake Point family, God has given us so much mercy for so long. Every second of your life has been lived under the mercy of God. Every second of your life that you have been a sinful person, and the justice of God has not fallen on you, that has been a moment of mercy. God has given us so much mercy for so long that when we see justice fall in places like Acts 5, we feel it's unfair. But listen, we are wrong, and God is right. Let God be true, though every man a liar.
So listen, can I just, let me just lean in and say something. When you read a story like this in the Bible, we should not be amazed that judgment fell on Ananias and Sapphira. We should be amazed it has not fallen on us. That's what's amazing. Now listen, I know, let me just say this. I know that preaching a sermon where we were all laughing and applauding the whole time would be more fun today. This is more needed. This is more needed. Number three. Number three. Let me, let me land a plane here. Let me move quick. The fear of God drives out the fear of man. Some of you right now, you're like, "Oh man, like, dude, but but if I live in a fear of God, I got to live my life scared." Wrong, wrong. Have you ever noticed that in the book of Acts, the same people who fall under the *megas phobos*, the mega phobia of God, it's the same church that falls under the great fear of God that lives with a fearlessness before people? For for the rest of the book of Acts, it is the exact same apostles that are gripped by a fear of the Living God. They stand before kings, they stand before mobs, they are unflinching before death. And listen, that is not a coincidence. There are your life will be controlled by one of two fears. You have a choice. Will your life be controlled by a fear of man or a fear of God? They cannot coexist. And one fear will drive out the other fear. It's your choice. I have felt this many times standing on this stage. Will I live in a fear of man or will I live in a fear of God? And here's what you're going to notice is that people, mankind, is unrighteous and constantly changing. But God is righteous and he never changes. So what you're going to notice is if you try to live out of a fear of people, if you try to live your whole life for the applause of people, for the praise of crowds, to pacify mobs, if you live your life like that, it will wear you out. And listen, you will never get the thing that your heart fears and desires because people are unrighteous and they are constantly changing. So you will have to live your life in wickedness and unrighteousness, and you will never hit your target. But God is unchanging and he is righteous. Listen to me, Lake Point Church, you cannot please people. You cannot please people. You can please God. You can please God. You can't please people. You can please God. And listen, there have been many times where I've walked out on the stage. I'm just going to tell you what my life is like. And I've got something in this sermon. I'll have something in a sermon, and I know, bro, when I get to that spot in the sermon, people are literally going to walk out. And I watch it happen. I watch it happen. But here's what I figured out as I walk out on the stage. I figured out, I might have some angry people in front of me, but the Living God is behind me, and the people of God are with me. And what you will notice is that if you live gripped by a fear of God, it drives out a fear of man, and you can actually hit your target.
Which leads me to the last thing. Let me lay in the plane. Living in the fear of God, listen, is knowing that he sees everything and immediately turning from anything in your life that displeases him. Hey, Lake Point, this, this, uh, sermon is very deep in my soul. And here's why I say this. If you've been around Lake Point for a little while, the Spirit is doing something very unique in our church in this season. Hey, hey, guys, it's not normal to baptize seven, six or 700 people in a weekend. But listen, we cannot continue to see a move of the Spirit of God unless we begin to be disciples that walk in a fear of God. What does it look like to walk in the fear of the Living God? You might put it back down there. You must understand that he sees. He sees. But there it is. That he sees everything. One more thing that's not in my notes, but it is in my heart. Ananias and Sapphira thought that they had a secret that nobody saw, and that they could sin with impunity because it was secret. Nobody saw. But listen, listen. The Lord saw. The Lord saw. Hey, Lake Point Church, the Lord sees. He sees. Some of you, and listen, I say this because I love you. And listen, if you don't listen to me, I want you to get, I at least want you to get to your deathbed and I want you to go, "That guy told me the truth." Here's the truth: Some of you right now, you've never crossed the line of faith and given your life to Christ. You've never made this amazing exchange where you go, "Hey, Jesus, will you take my sin, and can I have your righteousness, and can we trade?" And he's, every single time somebody asks, he's going to go, "Yeah, that's why I died on the cross." Some of you have never done that, and right now you are walking in open rebellion against the Living God, and you think nobody sees, and you think you're getting away with everything. Listen to me: you are not getting away with anything. You are storing up everything for the day of God's judgment. The Bible says, "It is appointed unto man once to die, and then comes judgment." But if you're still breathing, there's still hope. And you can make this glorious exchange where you go, "All my sin, every secret I got, Jesus, let me give this to you. You nail it to the cross, and then I get your righteousness, and now I get to walk in the freedom of the book of First John: perfect love casts out fear." And perfect love was demonstrated for us at the cross of Jesus Christ. So a fear of God is walking in the awareness that he sees everything and turning immediately from anything that displeases him. I'm going to show it to you in Acts 2. When the people, Peter preaches, when the people heard this, they were cut to the heart. In other words, the fear of God fell on them. And then they said to Peter and the other apostles, "Uh, what?" Some of you guys are saying right now in your seats as the Spirit of God falls on you and a fear of God rises: they go, "Oh man, well, then what should we do? What should we do?" And Peter goes, "Here's what you need to do: repent." And repent is not a bad word. Repent is an awesome word. Repent just means, "Hey, quit. Quit walking towards those things that steal, kill, and destroy, and turn around and start following Jesus, who came to bring life and life abundant." That's all it's saying. Like, let's turn around. And then he goes, "Oh, what, what else should we do?" And here's what it is: "Oh, and be baptized." "Who should be baptized?" "Every one of you." "Every one of you who has placed their faith in Jesus." This is a command of the Living God. Every one of you should be baptized. Some of you, listen, I love you. Some of you right now, as the fear of God is rising in your heart, that's the love of God coming near in your soul, and you're realizing, "Man, I'm getting ready to watch a bunch of people baptized, and I'm walking in rebellion against God because I've never been baptized after placing my faith in Jesus." So let me just say this is a holy moment. Let me just say a couple things. Number one, at all of our campuses, everybody that's being baptized in the services, I want you guys to go ahead and start moving right now. So if you're scheduled to be baptized, go ahead and start moving right now. You're over here, over here, all our campuses. But hey, Lake Point Church, people are moving, but I need your eyes still. People are moving, but I need your eyes still. You look at me. These people are being baptized. And today, like I said, we're scheduled to baptize between five and 700 people. But I just get the sense that there's at least one more. That there's at least one more that needs to make that decision. And so some of you right now, you have a choice in this moment. Am I going to walk in a fear of man or a fear of God? Can we be honest? Like, bro, getting baptized in front of thousands of people, it's embarrassing. It's like a grown man getting wet in front of people. That's just weird, you know? But you have a choice. Will I walk in the fear of God, or will I walk in the fear of man? So here's what I'm going to say. Some of you, you're realizing, like, literally right now, I need to, in obedience to the lordship of Jesus, be baptized. I want you, literally in this service, to be baptized. To make that decision. Don't start moving yet. And some of you like, "Yeah, dude, I, I want to, but like, man, I don't have any clothes." We got clothes. "You're not going to have clothes in my size." We got clothes in your size. "Oh, man, but I just got my little $200 hairdo." That's not me. That's you. I don't know who you are. That's you. Do, like, what? Listen, we literally got shower caps for you. Yeah, yeah. You, you got shirts. What about shorts? We got shorts for you. Yeah, yeah. But, but I didn't bring any extra underwear. We literally have underwear for you. We literally have them. You name it, we got it. Yeah, Josh, but like, the people that I came to church with, they're not going to wait. They're not going to want to wait for me to go and like check some people be baptized. Listen, if they love you and Jesus enough to come to church with you, how about these people are going to be thrilled to death to watch you walking in obedience to the Living God? They're going to be thrilled to death. They want to celebrate with you. So listen, like one church, at all of our campuses, go ahead and stand. Everybody go ahead and stand. And here's what I'm saying: If you're real, you're coming under conviction. Like, literally right now, you know to walk in the fear of God, I need to be baptized today. Just like in Acts chapter 2, here's what I want you to do. With no fear at all, with no fear at all, except a fear of the Living God, I want you, if you're at Rockwall, I want you to start moving. And right underneath both of these crosses, there's teams that are waiting for you, and they can process that with you. We're going to baptize you in this service, and we're going to celebrate with you. So you start heading, like, literally right now, you start heading to either of these crosses. At any of our other campuses, you just head to the back of the auditoriums right now. Go, like, right now. I want you to start moving in obedience to the Living God. Now, hey, Lake Point family, here's your job. You got a job too. Again, we're going to make it on Earth as it is in heaven. And when one sinner repents, there's great rejoicing. Hey, Lake family, can you help me make sure there's great rejoicing as these folks come out of the water? Will you do that with me? Come on, man.