Fear Seized The Church

In this message, Pastor Kelly tells the story of Ananias and Sapphira.  We discuss the risk of lying to the Holy Spirit and how the church should respond. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

And uh so I get the opportunity to preach today and uh bring forth God's word. We're gonna continue on in our our fear of the Lord series. And you know, Aaron, he names all these sermons before we before we do them. And so, you know, as you can see, there's oh, sunshine kids, get out of here. Get lost. No, I love all of you, get lost. But so we're gonna we're gonna continue on down. And and and Pastor Aaron, you know, he titles these, that's what I was saying. And and you know, sometimes when I get into the message, it's like I just see another another view of it, right? I see another name. And today I'm I'm looking at this and we're gonna look at Acts chapter 5. You can turn there in your Bibles if you want. But what I what God was showing me is this title, and it really meant something to me. It was exposed in the face of holy fear. Because we are, we're opened up. In the presence of God, we're opened up and we're exposed for what we are. So, I want to ask you guys a question today. I really hate this handheld, by the way. Uh, I really can't move both hands. I feel like I'm I need to move around, but we're gonna we're gonna give this a try. So let me ask you guys this question. How many of you have ever told a lie? Huh. I kept my hand down. But what an embarrassing question, right? What what what an embarrassing question to ask in the middle of church of all places, right? Nobody really likes that idea. And I'm sure some of you, and I saw it, and I won't call you out, were looking around at your neighbor before you raised your own hand. I saw it. I saw it. Because, let's be honest, right? We're afraid of what people will think of us, aren't we? People, we get afraid of what they think of us. We're afraid of what our motives will be. They won't think we're so great or perfect, or, you know, God forbid that we have an imperfection. Right? I mean, I'm learning all about imperfections at 50. I got zits again. How does that happen? Right? But weren't we afraid of imperfection? We're afraid that people won't accept us. We're afraid of what they'll think of us. So I want to talk to you guys a little bit about my own experience, and I'll try to keep it quick. As a boy, my dad, my mom had been sick, and all of those things, you've all heard those things, but my dad remarried when I was a boy. And I never lived with a woman before that I could remember. It was a really interesting, unique experience. And with having a woman come into our house, brought all kinds of neat things. Like makeup. All of a sudden, instead of a bar of lava soap sitting on our, you know, y'all know lava soap, right? We went to having lipstick, blush, mascara, all that stuff you you guys, you know, know all about. And I gotta be honest with you, talk about curiosity. But here's my dad, Kelly. Don't mess with that stuff, it's expensive. I know that too, Heidi. I know how expensive that stuff is. I see our Amazon bill. And I know I shouldn't be messing around with it. But curiosity, as it does with most young boys, got the best of me, right? So one day here I am, I'm in the bathroom, and I thought, I'm gonna take a look at this stuff. What in the world is all this stuff? So I start popping open the mask. I'm like seven or eight, so I wasn't like 15 or 18. Don't worry about it. I mean, I was nothing weird was going on. And so I began to look at it, right? Um anybody ever, guys, have any of you guys ever played with a lipstick before? It goes up, it goes down, it you can roll it around, right? It's kind of cool. It's kind of a neat, yeah. I know. Anyways, so here I am though. I thought I was pretty slick. I put it all right back exactly the way it should be. Because I took a mental picture. I took a mental picture, I put everything back exactly how it should be. Door was closed to the bathroom. Nobody knows. Nobody knows. And then I walked out of the bathroom, and about two minutes later, my dad comes over and he says, Hey, were you messing around with that makeup in the bathroom? And I said, Absolutely not. Because let me tell you, the door was closed. I had placed everything exactly back where I knew it belonged. How in the world would he ever know? No way. Bold face looked at him in the eye and said, Nope. Nope, don't know nothing. And then as I began to have another minute, he looked at me again and he said, See this lipstick, it's all smooshed. You know anything about any of this? Again. Everything was placed right back where it should be. Door was shut. Nope. Don't know a thing. Truth has a way of finding you out, doesn't it? And then he proceeded to look at me and my little scrawny big brown eye, big mop of black brown hair, and took my shirt. And he began, this little white t-shirt, you know, his little kids wear a little white t-shirt, and he hands, pulls it over to me, and I began to see the red streak all the way down my shirt. My sin had found me out. Now, now let me just be perfectly honest with you guys. As my sin began to find me out, also following that was corporal punishment. Swift, severe, and to this very day when Heidi pulls out a thing of lipstick, I still cover my rear end. It's instinctual, right? That's the truth of it. But my sin here, guys, wasn't that I was curious. My sin wasn't that uh I had fooled around with this. My sin, truthfully, was the fact that I had deception and a lack of respect for my father and my mother. That was the truth of it, right? This funny, it wasn't funny back then, by the way, but it helped me very quickly develop a very healthy fear of my father, his wrath, his anger, but also his authority and his position. Because it was never about the lipstick, it was always about the deception. So today we're gonna take a look at the story of Ananias and Sapphira, and we'll look at this story and how it teaches us three things. It actually teaches us about 12 things, right? It really does. I gotta be honest with you, I could have wrote like six sermons off of this. And in my notebook, Pastor, I don't know if you've ever done this, I had two different pages to start with. One sermon, then two, you know, and I was like, I better just stop here because I was gonna like, I'm gonna get confused. And so there's just a three things that I've pulled out of here today that we're gonna take a look at about. We're gonna talk about the deception. We're gonna talk about we fear what what we fear is what we serve. And then thirdly, we're gonna talk a little bit about the holiness of God. And I wanna focus in on those. But I want us to take a look again at our scripture, our main scripture for all of this entire this entire series, because it's important. And it's out of Proverbs chapter 9, verses 10, verse chapter 10, verses 9. It says, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. Isn't that amazing? Now, if you want to flip over in your Bibles to Acts chapter 5, verses 1 through 11, we're gonna read our passage today. Have your Bibles, you know, please open that up. I I have it right here on my iPad today, but I want you to follow along. If you don't have a Bible, there's one in front of you. It says, But there was a certain man named Ananias, who with his wife, Sapphira, sold some property. He brought part of the money to the apostles, claiming it was the full amount. With his wife's consent, he kept the rest. How many of y'all know husbands? You gotta have the wife's consent to hold on to the money. I was told this week that she was not an ATM. I was a little surprised. Then Peter said, Ananias, why have you let Satan fill your heart? You lied to the Holy Spirit, and you kept some of the money for yourself. The property was yours to sell or not sell as you wished, and after selling it, the money was also yours to give away. How could you do a thing like this? You weren't lying to us, but to God. As soon as Ananias heard these words, he fell to the floor and he died. Everyone who heard about it was terrified. And then some of the young men got up and wrapped him in a sheet and took him out and buried him. And about three hours later his wife came in. Not knowing what had happened, Peter asked her, What was this the price you and your husband received for your land? Yes, she replied, That is the price. And Peter said, How could the two of you even think of conspiring to test the spirit of the Lord like this? The young men who buried your husband are just outside the door, and they will come and carry you out too. Instantly she fell to the floor and died. And when the young men came in and saw that she was dead, they carried her out and buried her beside her husband. Great fear gripped the entire church and everyone else who had heard what had happened. I'm gonna ask you to bow your heads before we get started here this morning, and we're just gonna seek the Lord. Father, I just pray today. I pray for open hearts today, God. I pray that you would open our hearts to see you for who you are, God, that we would begin to get a picture of your holiness this morning. God, we would get a picture of your authority this morning. I pray that you would open our hearts, that you would, and our minds, that you would expose them to your truths, God, and your character. And through all of this, God, I pray that you would remind us of the holiness that accompanies you. Lord, that we would remember that we are in a holy place with you. I just praise you and I thank you in Jesus' name. Amen. That's a heavy text, isn't it? It is a heavy text. And it and it's it reminds us of the holiness of God, the God of who we serve. But as we look into this, I want to talk about, like they said, those three things today. And the first thing that I want to want us to look at today, and we begin to look through, is the fact that God cannot be deceived. I don't care how smart you are, how slick you think you are, even if you think the bathroom door is closed and you've placed every little thing right back where it should be. God cannot be deceived. We we bring this picture up in our heads so many times that we believe we're we're getting something over on God. And I'm here to tell you today that He sees it all, He knows it all. And he knows exactly what's going to happen here. But in this story, I I want to clear up a couple of things because there's some things here that could kind of confuse us a little bit. Because to me, this was always one of the most confusing Bible stories. They just lied. How many, once again, how many of you have lied? Seems a little severe, doesn't it? I mean, I've told a lie before. I'm hoping not to fall over here in any moment, right? But the truth of it is I want to clear up a couple things. The first and foremost is the sin was not that they kept the money. Peter makes that clear. He makes that clear. That's yours to do it. Just as I said at offering today, we want a cheerful giver, right? I don't want you to feel obligated. I didn't want any of that. The money was never their sin. There was no mandate that Ananias and Sapphira had to sell the land. There was nothing in that. So their sin wasn't that they had sold the land. The problem wasn't even their greed here. It's part of the problem. It's a byproduct of a greater problem, which was that they thought that they could deceive the Lord. They devalued his presence, they devalued his holiness, they had devalued who he was. And so within that, they began, that's the real sin, and that's where this story really starts. Because they thought that they could get one over on the Lord. That's the trueness of their sin. I don't know what was going through their mind at that time. I have no idea what was going through your mind when you s when you lied. I don't know what was going on. But there's an interesting little bit in that story. If you all notice that they started, they started chapter five, it says, but. Because in chapter four, what we see is a little bit different story. The generosity of the church rising up, Barnabas giving and selling land and giving money, and we see all of these things happen. I don't know, maybe they felt compelled to show off a little bit, to show that they were just as good a giver as maybe they were just as important. I don't know if that's what was in their mind at them. But I know these these issues are deeper than a simple lie. I believe if we examine our hearts, I believe most of us at some point or another could probably identify. We think we can hold something back from God. We think that we can make ourselves look good in front of people. We believe that we can do those things. And so we, because we've we've devalued who God is. Now, I want to go through that because I said we can probably identify with him. I want to go through some reasons that might sound familiar to you why you think that you can deceive God. And I'll tell you the first and foremost, that is absolutely what we have done, most of us have done at one point or another. We have made our own image of who God is. We've cast him into what we think we're comfortable with. Because Ananias tried to act as though God was filling his heart, but Peter very clearly said, Nope. That's Satan. Satan has filled your heart because we mistake what we believe is God's holiness for something else. We fool ourselves about our relationship with God and his place in our lives, and you go, well, interesting. I've asked Jesus into my heart. We've said that, but then we continue to live in a whole different way. We think that, but I said those prayers when I was eight years old down here at the altar. Or I said them. And let me tell you what Jesus says about that in Matthew chapter 7, verse 21 through 30, 23. He says, Not everyone who calls out to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven. Only those who actually do the will of my Father will enter. On judgment day, many will say to me, Lord, Lord, we prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and perform many miracles in your name. But I will reply, I never knew you. Get away from me, you who break the law. Because they have created their own image. They're serving their own image. They have created a falseness of who God is. We do that all the time. We're comfortable because we like a portion of the gospel. We like something that makes us feel good.

SPEAKER_00 15:42

Who doesn't like to feel good?

SPEAKER_01 15:46

But sometimes within that comes conviction. Conviction is what brings about change and repentance. Conviction allows us to see the holiness of God. It allows us to see who he is. Because without truly knowing God, how can we ever experience the fear of the Lord if we've created an image that we're not standing in total awe, fear of? How can we ever truly experience that? How can we truly ever understand his holiness? How about this one? We care about what people think of us more than what God thinks of us.

SPEAKER_00 16:28

Ouch.

SPEAKER_01 16:30

You know, we were talking at the beginning here of asking who held up their hand. And there was a few people who looked around to see if anybody else had held up their hand before they raised theirs. Because we cared what we thought, what somebody thought of us. We were more interested in that than we were about being honest in the face of God. Because here's something that I want you to understand when we think about, we place the importance of people over God. It's we desire the praise of man.

SPEAKER_00 16:56

When you desire that praise of man, I gotta promise you, you will fear man and not God. We serve what we fear. Do you guys know that? You understand that? We serve what we fear. When we lose that fear, we've lost that respect, that reverence. Because we've become people who fear the created more than we fear the creator. We value the act.

SPEAKER_01 17:36

Sometimes, guys, I want you to hear this. We value the act of more than we evaluate the holiness that God requires in the act.

SPEAKER_00 17:46

How many of you ever go to Starbucks? Yeah, I go to Starbucks. I go, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:53

Tiffany, raise your hand high. I know better. You know the tip jar that sits at the cash register? Y'all know what I'm talking about, the tip jar? Right? When you pay in cash, which I know not many of us pay in cash anymore, but I still pay in cash on occasion. How many of you wait to make sure that the but Barista watches you put your money in there? Because I'm pretty sure she's gonna spit in my coffee, if not, but I watch to make sure she watches me place that in there. Now she didn't know whether it's a dollar, whether it's $5, $20, but I want to make sure that she knows that I did because I want her to know the act of it. It really didn't matter. I just wanted her to know it. And that's how we become. We think that our actions in front of people are more important than the heart that performs them. Leviticus talks about this. And it's a harsh story, but it's it really talks to the condition of our hearts. And it's out of Leviticus chapter 10, verses 1 through 3, and speaks to us about all the condition of our heart is. Pastor already knows what I'm talking about, don't you? It says, Aaron's sons, Nadab and Abuhu, put coals of fire in their incense burners and sprinkled incense over them. In this way they disobeyed the Lord by burning before him the wrong kind of fire, different than he had commanded. So fire blazed forth from the Lord's presence and burned them up, and they died before the Lord. And then Moses said to Aaron, This is what the Lord meant when he said, I will display my holiness through those who come near to me. I will display my glory before all people. Sacrifices are useless when unaccompanied by hearts that fear and love the Lord. What you do in here doesn't matter unless your heart is correct. I don't care. Well, I better be careful here, Aaron, if you're listening, I'm sorry. But if you are the biggest tither in here and your heart is not for the Lord, it means nothing. It means nothing on judgment day. What we do, how we act, is all predicated on the condition of our heart. Our heart has to be turned to the Lord, which then allows us to live in fear of the Lord, which leads to awe of the Lord, right? Here's one that I think maybe all of you need to listen up closely. We've treated God's holiness as common. We have treated God as common. We take our familiarity with God and we make it common and it devalues our relationship with Him. Now, I don't want you to think that God doesn't want us to be familiar with Him, He calls us into a relationship that's called friend. But when we make it common, when we make it the same relationship that we have with people, we have lost the importance, the reverence. We've lost the holiness of that relationship. Don't mistake that familiarity with commonality. God desires you to be close to Him, He wants you to walk much like Moses did, much like Abraham did, much like David did. But they all have something in common. They fear the Lord. Though Abraham felt comfortable asking God to spare Sodom and Gomorrah. He also understood all of that he did with reverence. Moses standing before the Lord felt like he could actually have a conversation with the Lord, but he always did it with reverence. Church, I'm afraid that we have no longer value God's holiness because we've made in common.

SPEAKER_00 21:53

We relate God to another person rather than to the great I am that He is. That allows you to deceive him.

SPEAKER_01 22:07

When the church then saw the power, God's power, they were reminded, we see at the end of that scripture, they're reminded of his holiness because sometimes it takes a great action to be reminded that we can't be deceived. Much like my story at the very beginning. It took a great amount of discipline to make me understand the position of my father and that I couldn't deceive him. The second part of this story that we can see today that I think we can relate to, that we're called to live our lives with the knowledge and the reverent fear of the Lord. We're called to that. Ananias and Sapphira had lost that. But we're called to it. It's not just a it's not just a simple, well, you should live your life that way. It's a mandate. It is an absolute mandate for a life lived with the Lord. We're called to have a relationship with God. We're called to, but we're also within that, it's to be balanced with the fear of who he is.

SPEAKER_00 23:19

We should be standing in his presence in total and absolute of who he is. You should be so afraid of losing his presence that it motivates you to life.

SPEAKER_01 23:38

It motivates you to how you live, it motivates you to how you worship. Because I gotta tell you, I can't stand a moment of thinking of my life right now without Christ in it. If you can imagine your life without him, and many of us do, because we only imagine him here in this little pocket of time we have on Sunday and by Monday, we've forgotten all about him. We've forgotten all about him. So it's easy to think of that way. But let me tell you, our love for God is limited by a lack of holy fear. You can only love what you fear. 1 Peter chapter 1, verses 15 through 17 says, but now you must be holy in everything you do, just as God who chose you is holy. For the scriptures say, you must be holy because I am holy. And remember that the heavenly Father to whom you pray has no favorites. He will judge or reward according to what you do. So you must live in the reverent fear of him during your time here as temporary residence. We're not excluded from that. We're called to live that way. To live holy, but to live in that reverent fear of him. You know, true love, though, is founded in the truth of who God really is. It really is. Why would God reveal himself to those who take him lightly? Some of you have asked that question before. Where are you, God? Anybody? I would ask you, how are you placing God in your life at that moment? Are you taking him lightly? Are you taking him as just another contributor? Or is he the contributor? God will only reveal himself to those who take their relationship with him as the most important thing in their lives. If he's not the most important thing, he's nothing. Or as Ricky Bobby would say, how many of y'all know love Ricky Bobby? If you ain't first, you're last. If I'm not first, I'm last. He will not take second place. He won't take third place. There is no bronze medal, no silver medal. There's only one medal, and it's gold. That relationship with him has to be viewed as the most important thing. Psalms 25, 14 says, The Lord is a friend to those who fear him. He teaches them his covenant. That's the basis for us to have. If we don't fear him, if we don't acknowledge him, he's making no covenant with us. So if you can go out of here and live your life in any old way you want, I'm telling you, that covenant you think you have with him, I might look at it again. When we discover the fear of the Lord, we find a relasting, a lasting relationship with him. One that can stand the test of time. Because when we have the fear of the Lord, it acknowledges. So that maybe that's something we should talk about. What is fear of the Lord? It's acknowledging him, it's acknowledging his holiness, his power, his love, his judgment, and our loss without him. That's what fear of the Lord is. There is a piece of that is that is trembling, and it always, but it's also being so afraid to be without him. If we treat our relationship with the Father the same as we treat our human relationships, we eventually take his holiness and his presence for granted. You will take it for granted. 2 Corinthians talks about this, chapter 5, verse 16. It says, So we've stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. And at one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now. We have a different life, we have a different perspective. Because the relationship with the cause with the Father causes people to seek a relationship that is holy and not common or ordinary. Those same people I talked about, Abraham, Moses, David, they understood this. They understood that God was not common. They were familiar. We have two choices in this, and I've talked about this before. Love the story of the Israelites at the mountain when God calls them. The Israelites stayed and told Moses to go, but Moses said, I will go. Because they desired deeper relationship with him. He desired a heart that was in connection with him. He did that with trembling and fear, but he was still desiring that relationship. You say, Well, what does the fear of the Lord really do for me? It keeps us our behavior in check. When we acknowledge who he is, when we understand that and we we tremble in his presence, it keeps us out of trouble. It makes us not want to do the things that we used to do. It's the power that breaks addiction. It's the power that changes our lives. Psalms 34, verse 11 through 13 says, Come, my children and listen to me, and I will teach you to fear the Lord. Does anyone want to live a life that is long and prosperous? Then keep your tongue from speaking evil and your lips from telling lies. Oh, isn't that powerful? That's what fear of the Lord does. It causes us to alter our behavior. If you're not, if your behavior is not being altered, I would challenge you to do you really fear the Lord?

SPEAKER_00 29:26

Do you really fear Him?

SPEAKER_01 29:30

Many times we ask ourselves, who hasn't asked this question? Why did I do that? Come on. Nobody's ever asked that. Why did I do that? It's because we lost our fear of the Lord. That's the truth of it. We weren't afraid of losing our relationship with him, the closeness, the intimacy. We weren't afraid of going through life without him. We don't live in awe because we don't really know him. The great story of that is Adam and Eve, when they lost their fear of the Lord, they took it for granted. They didn't fear the consequences. And it pushed them right out of the garden. It pushed them right out of that closeness with the Father because they had lost their fear of the Lord. The only way to approach God is with reverence and fear. Reverence means that He's no longer common, that He's set apart and He's above everything else. We know that godly fear acknowledges the Lordship over our lives. We are acknowledging that you are in charge. You have control in the bad, in the good. In the in-between. You are Lord, and I will do as you direct. I will live as you have called me to live. That's what lordship is over our lives. It means we don't want to live a life without Him. Hebrews chapter 12, verses 28 through 29 says, Since we are receiving a kingdom that is unshakable, let us be thankful and please God by worshiping him with holy fear and awe. For our God is a devouring fire. He wants, I love that devouring fire. You know, I used to just, in my mind, I just saw this flame, right? You know, just burn everything up. But the truth of it is when he says he's a devouring fire, when he lives in your life, when he's part of your heart, oh, he takes over everything. Everything. And he begins to consume your life. He begins to consume who you are. He doesn't want just your finger. He wants everything. He wants your heart, your mind, your body, your soul. He wants every part of it because he's going to devour everything. That's what a true relationship with him does. Finally, I said that last point. That fear of the Lord drives a relationship with God the Father that endures. It endures. Intimate relationship with the Lord is pure of selfish motives and is driven by the recognition of our dependence. Like a child is to its mother. We are dependent upon him. So many of us think we can get away and we can do whatever we want. Ah, I know better. Don. Sometimes I think I know better. Probably some moments where we all think we know better. But the reality is, just like a parent, we have to have that relationship with him that allows us to depend upon him. Psalms 19, 9 says, reverence for the Lord is pure and everlasting. The relationship that stands isn't dependent on what God can do for us, but it becomes focused on who he is. Because we understand who he is in that moment. When we fail to have the proper fear of the Lord, when we don't understand who he is, when we don't fear that loss, it's the kind that lead. I guess I get kind of excited here about this. Failing to have the proper fear of the Lord, the kind that leads us into awe and reverence for him, sets us up for spiritual fail. You will fail. If we do not recognize and acknowledge who he is, I promise you that relationship is bound to fail.

SPEAKER_00 33:46

Look at the story of Lucifer.

SPEAKER_01 33:49

Some of you would be like, wow, why is he bringing that up now? He lost his fear of the Lord. He lost He lost that piece of him that said, God, you are the most important thing. And it resulted in him no longer looking at God in awe, but with contempt. And it directly related to his fall. Now I want you to remember this. He was the head worshiper. He was the lead guy, the beautiful voice. But because he lost the fear of the Lord, it drove him straight to a contemptuous relationship where he absolutely found the Lord. He no longer valued him. Many times we begin to look at God with contempt. Sometimes we do that. Because we think we know better and we have no fear of who God is. We've lost that fear.

SPEAKER_00 34:43

And it drives our relationship to become fractured with him. You know, Jesus, he told the disciples to count the cost.

SPEAKER_01 34:55

To count the cost before following him. Because we're supposed to count the cost when we join into relationship with the Lord. Because it does. It's a change of our lives. Entering into that true relationship with him should be one that we look at deeply, knowing the God that we have entered into covenant with. Because it is it is a serious covenant.

SPEAKER_00 35:22

It is a binding covenant. I told you that God is an all-consuming fire.

SPEAKER_01 35:30

I read that to you. And he wants all of us. He doesn't care what you look like today. Some of you are like, well, I'll get right with God. I'll straighten that out when I get a look at look get a little bit better. Right? When I get that cleaned up in my life, it'll be okay. But God doesn't care because that's the great part about a consuming fire. It consumes all. It consumes every part of us. He's not satisfied unless he has consumed everything. He wants all of you or none of you. There's no halfway in this relationship. There's no, it'll be okay if I give him this, it'll still be alright. I hearken back to Jesus' words. Some of us are going to have done some things in Jesus' name. And there will come a day at judgment where he says, I didn't know you. Because what he values is worship with a true heart, with a heart that's based out of fear, a heart that is rooted in awe of him. Self-seeking relationships are just like self-focused marriages. They don't last. When we enter into relationship with God, it's because of who he is and not for what we can get or what he can do. Fear of the Lord, it leads us to eternal life. Psalms 139-24 tells us point out anything in me that offends you and lead me along the path of everlasting life. When we allow God to take the lead and direct us, we fear what he thinks of us, and it drives us to a relationship that leads to eternity. That fear of the Lord, it drives an intimate relationship leading to a deeper and fuller walk with God. Because God, let me just all these things I've talked to you guys about about fear of the Lord and the trembling, but God still wants that intimate relationship with you. He wants to walk with you just like Adam and Eve. He wants to talk with you. He wants to come and be your friend. He wants to teach you. He wants to comfort you. He wants to hear my favorite word in the Bible is choice. Choose. It's your choice. You choose that kind of relationship that you have with him. Look at how Abraham was freely able to talk with God. Moses was exposed to his glory. Peter in this story, used by the Holy Spirit. Let me tell you who Peter was. He was a dirty old fisherman, rough around the edges, probably from the east side of town. And yet God had used him because he understood who God was. He had that recognition of who he was and then became Peter over Simon. Fear of the Lord drives us not just to eternal relationship, but to an intimate relationship. You know, this is a heavy story, but there's so many things in it. But it calls us to a change. It calls us to action. And that's really what I want to emphasize today is that God is calling us to action to examine our hearts, but not just ourselves, but to allow Him to examine our hearts. I read you Psalms 139, 24. Examine my heart and point out anything that would offend you. Because sometimes, guys, we have a way of fooling ourselves, don't we? We have a way of convincing ourselves that we're okay, that the relationship is okay. But the reality is it's fractured, it's broken. And that's the opportunity we get today. You know, as we look at this lesson from them, I think the truth of it, the central, if you will, if there's one main theme from it, says it's that we cannot deceive the Holy Spirit. God knows who we are, and we are instantly exposed in his presence. So those of us who thought we were hiding, we thought we could pull the covers up over, we thought we could pull the blinder over God's eyes, we thought we could close the bathroom door and nobody would see. Oh, you're exposed. There's a stain on your shirt, just like there was on mine. You are exposed in his presence. When we look at this today again, a few things to think about. Fearing people more than God leads to dishonesty. Our lack of fear of the Lord, it limits our love and a full relationship with him. You wonder why the relationship doesn't feel very full? Where do you value him? Where do you place him at? But I have some good news. Holy Spirit produces an authentic relationship, produces a true relationship that's based in obedience and integrity because that's who God is. He's truth. And in his face, we're all exposed. Just like Ananias and Sapphira, we're exposed. But here's the truth of it. We have the opportunity today. Even though judgment comes quickly, today we have that opportunity because of Jesus, because of his sacrifice, to seek forgiveness, to seek that cleansing relationship, to allow that hidden sin to be exposed and for us to repent and change our behaviors, to value God, to know who he is, to begin to have fear of the Lord. So I'm going to ask everybody to bow their heads today. And I just want to ask you a couple of questions. Be honest with yourself. This is not the time to be dishonest with yourself. This is not the time to be Ananias and Sapphira. This is the time to let openness come through, to allow God to work through you. Psalms 139, 24. Let him point these things out to you today. If today you have heard this and you have realized that you do not have a relationship with the Lord and you want to have an enduring relationship with last, you want to know him personally today. Maybe you've never done that before. If that's you today, and you say, I want to get right with this, with a holy God, I want more out of my life, I want more out of that relationship with God. If that's you today, just raise your hand. Keep your hand up. I'm gonna ask you to keep your hands up today. That's okay. There's just another piece of this that God put on my heart. How many of you, maybe some of you, have been pretending to yourself, you've been lying to yourselves or others about your relationship with God. You fooled yourself, but you know that relationship is lacking, and you want to change that today. Raise your hand. Just raise your hand and say, God, I want a deeper relationship with you. I want one that is rooted in fear of you, Lord, because I know that you are the great I am today. And the last question is maybe you have lacked that holy fear. Maybe you have accepted Jesus into your heart, but you are lacking today. And your relationship has become out of balance and false. And maybe today you just want to say, I need you, Lord. I need your presence. I need you as a holy God in my life. Just raise your hand. That's okay. I'm gonna hold on just a little bit longer. I see every one of those hands today. You know, honesty can be hard. Honesty with ourselves. So I'm gonna ask everybody to stand up with me. And I'm gonna ask you to step out of your fear in here in the moment. No longer let your fear of man rule what is what drives you today. But if you raise your hand today, I truly believe that you have a fear of the Lord that says, I can't live without you. I have to be right with you, I have to respect you, I have to have that trueness. If you raised your hand for any one of those questions today, I would ask you to come down to the altar with me. If you raised your hand, I'm just gonna wait a moment or two. And I'm gonna ask you to come forward. Come on, I know there were hands out there today. Don't be ashamed, there's nothing to be ashamed of. Come on, there's nothing to be ashamed of. Every one of us have been in this place. Come on. I'll give it another minute. Because I believe the Lord is still working on hearts right now, because you know that your relationship is not right with the Lord right now. That's the most important part out of all those questions. You know that your relationship is not right. Some of you who who uh who know what I'm talking about, I'm gonna ask you to come down here today and lay hands on these folks. Would you do that with me? Come on, my prayer team. Some of my my leaders, have you experienced this? Because I'm gonna tell you that when you begin to have fear of the Lord, when you begin to understand his presence, when you begin to understand who he is, your life is changed. And this is really what this is all about. This is about changing the trajectory. So we're gonna begin to pray. Just ask if you're here and you want to worship with Kelton, worship with Kelton while we pray.