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Acts 5:1–11

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But a man named Ananias,

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with his wife Sapphira,
sold a piece of property, and with his

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wife's knowledge he kept back for himself
some of the proceeds,

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and brought only a part of it,
and laid it at the apostles feet.

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But Peter said, Ananias, why has Satan
fill your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit

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and to keep back for yourself
part of the proceeds of the land

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while remain unsold, did it
not remain your own?

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And after it was sold,
was it not a your disposal?

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Why is it that you have contrived
this deed in your heart?

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You have not lied to man, but to God.

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When an honest heard these words,
he fell down and breathed his last.

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And great fear came upon
all who heard of it.

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The young man rose and wrapped him up,
and carried him out, and buried him.

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After an interval of about three hours
his wife came in, not knowing

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what had happened, and Peter said to her,

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tell me
whether you sold the land for so much.

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And she said yes for so much.

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But Peter said to her,

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how is it that you have agreed together
to test the spirit of the Lord?

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Behold, the feet of those who have bury

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your husband are at the door,
and they will carry you out.

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Immediately she fell down at his feet
and breathe her last.

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When the young man came in
and they found her dead,

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they carried her out and buried her
beside her husband.

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And great fear came upon the whole church,

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and upon all who heard of these things.

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Hey everybody, welcome to Christ Community
Chapel,

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my name is Joe.

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I'm one of the pastors here,
and I'm glad you've come.

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If you're seeing me
on the screen, special welcome to you.

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Alright, 

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this is the fourth week of our ten-week
series on the Book of Acts.

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And you just listen to a passage from Acts
chapter five,

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the story of Ananias and Sapphira.

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Let me be the first one to say

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yikes.

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I mean, holy cow,
you have two people dropped dead,

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presumably because they lied
about what they had given.

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It's a wild story.

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It takes 11 verses to tell.

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There's very little detail.

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There's no explanation.

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It's never mentioned again.

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And it's one of the most disturbing
stories in the whole book of Acts.

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And I get to preach on it.

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So let's go.

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All right.

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Let me give you a little background
before I get to the three points,

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so you can understand
the context of Ananias and Sapphira.

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Really it begins in chapter four.

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Oh, I should tell you too that your title

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for this series on Acts
is Room for More and Ananias and Sapphira

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made room for two more,
little dark humor just to get started.

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All right. This is Acts chapter four.

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Now the full number of those
who believed were of one heart and soul.

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No one said that any of the things
that belong to him was his own,

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but they had everything in common,
and with great power.

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The apostles were giving their testimony
to the resurrection

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of the Lord
Jesus, and great grace was upon them all.

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There was not a needy person among them,
for as many as were owners of lands

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or houses
sold them and brought the proceeds

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of what was sold,
and laid it at the apostles feet,

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and it was distributed
to each as any had need.

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Thus Joseph, who was also called
by the apostles Barnabas,

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which means set of encouragement,
a Levite, a native of Cyprus, sold

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a field that belonged to him,

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and brought the money
and laid it at the apostles feet.

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Okay, the church at this time is days,

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maybe weeks old, and it is amazing.

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I hope you can kind of feel
that there is just overwhelming

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joy and love,
and there is just this reckless

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generosity, and there's a purity to
everything that's going on.

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There's no one trying to scam the system.

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Everybody was was sharing
and caring for each other.

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And it ends with the last two verses
with a man named Barnabas,

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who sells a piece of property and takes
all the proceeds, gives it to the apostles

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so that they can distribute it as they see
fit to help the church.

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And then chapter five begins,
and you're introduced

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to Ananias and Sapphira
and Ananias and Sapphira.

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They see what Barnabas has done.

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It appears that they're doing the
same thing, but it's not the same at all.

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This story is not about how much you give.

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You know, Peter makes it clear
when he sells, Ananias was the property,

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not yours.

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Before you sold
it was the money, not yours.

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After you sold it.

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This is a story about lying and pretending

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to be something you're not.

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The title of this message is

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The church is dangerous.

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The church is dangerous.

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It's a it's a tough motto.

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If you have a church

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that you want to have grow,
we're not going to put a banner out

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front of 303 saying,
this church is dangerous.

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What's interesting is that
it doesn't seem to have slowed the growth

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of the early church at all.

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All right. Here are my three points.

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When we talk about the church's dangerous,
I'm going to talk about the danger

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of God's presence,
the danger of pretending

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and the safety of surrender,
the danger of God's presence,

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the danger of pretending
and the safety of surrender.

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First, the danger of God's presence.

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If you've ever taken the Bible
and tried to read it from cover

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to cover,
you start with the Book of Genesis,

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which is the first book,
and it's a great book.

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Great book to start with, super
interesting moves, very fast.

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It's a divided first with four events.

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You have creation fall,
which is when sin enters the world,

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things begin to break up.

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You got Noah and the ark, the flood,
and then you have the Tower of Babel.

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Then you move right into four patriarchs
the story of Abraham,

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the story of Isaac, story of Jacob,
story of Joseph in your through Genesis.

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Then you start Exodus.

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Exodus also moves very quickly.

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At first
you have the Israelites, her in Egypt.

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God is going to redeem them.

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You got the ten plagues, you got Passover,
you got the Promised Land, all of that.

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And then towards the end of Exodus,
and then as you get into the third book,

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which is Leviticus, things
slow way up and you begin to slog

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through pages and pages of detail

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about clean and unclean

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food, about sacrifices, about a thing
called the tabernacle, about a box

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that's about the size of a cedar
chest called

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the Ark of the covenant,
made famous by Indiana Jones.

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And there are pages and pages of detail
about that box,

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about the dimensions of the box,
how it was supposed to be crafted

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and designed, what was going to go
in the box, who could carry the box,

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how they're going to carry the box,
where are they going to put the box?

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Because that box represented
the very presence of God,

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the very presence of God.

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If I was going to sum up
that whole part of the Bible,

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I would sum it up with a single sentence
that God is communicating to human beings,

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that you approach him on his terms,
not on yours.

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That's it.

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God is communicating
over and over again. You.

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You approach him on his terms,
not on yours.

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He is saying something about his nature.

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It helps me to think about electricity
like electricity.

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Super beneficial.

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I would not want to live
without electricity,

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but electricity is also dangerous

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and you approach electricity on its terms,
not on your own.

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Like there was a summer
when I was in college

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where I worked as an electrician's helper.

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That's an overstatement.

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I did not help much,
but I stood around him a lot,

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and he liked to work fast, and sometimes
when it was a simple project,

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he would even turn the breaker off.

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And one day he was up on a ladder
and he made a mistake and the electricity

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blew him off the ladder,
which probably saved his life.

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And he almost bit his tongue in two.

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And that made such an impression on me.

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That's probably why I limit my contact
with electricity

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to changing light bulbs
and plugging the toaster in carefully.

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Right.

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Because I have a respect for electricity.

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Listen, right at the beginning

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in the Old Testament, when God tells,
here's your lights, I will.

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My presence will be with you.

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Huge benefits to that.

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Like electricity,
huge benefits to living with electricity.

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But there's also an inherent danger that
God makes very clear about his nature.

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And one of the things that you cannot have

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a God of infinite power
and have him be so safe,

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you can approach him any way you want,
all willy nilly.

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Like that's a mistake that a lot of people
make, a lot of people.

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We want a God who is who can do things
we can't do,

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change parts of us that we can't change,
transform

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us, redeem us, save us.

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But we also want to him to be so safe
that we can treat him any way we want.

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We can wear t shirts that say,
Jesus is my homeboy.

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I remember seeing a photograph of Ashton
Kutcher years ago

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with that t shirt
on, and I was thinking, what?

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Wonder
if he's talking about the same Jesus

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that Paul
the Apostle talks about in Colossians?

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This is how Paul describes Jesus.

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He is the image of the invisible God,
the firstborn of all creation.

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For by him all things were created
in heaven and on earth, visible

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and invisible, whether thrones
or dominions or rulers or authorities.

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All things were created through him
and for him.

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He is before all things,
and him all things hold together.

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He's the head of the body, the church.

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He's the beginning,

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the firstborn from the dead,
that in everything he might be preeminent.

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For in him all the fullness of God
was pleased to dwell,

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and through him
to reconcile to himself all things,

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whether on earth or in heaven,
making peace by the blood of his cross.

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That is not my homeboy.

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That is the God of the universe.

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You know, two weeks ago

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we talked about Pentecost in Acts
chapter two with the Spirit of God.

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Holy spirit came down, mighty rushing

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wind, flames of fire, right?

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And human beings experienced something
human beings had never experienced before,

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which was the presence of God
actually coming inside of them with power.

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They became like
a a field of burning bushes.

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Listen.

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That is a God who was powerful

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and inherently dangerous.

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And here
at the very beginning of the church, God,

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something happens that reminds everyone
that God's

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nature has not changed,

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that you approach God on his terms,
not on your own.

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That's the danger of God's presence.

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The second point is
the danger of pretending.

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So Ananias and Sapphira,
they see what Barnabas did,

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and then they decide

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they're going to try to show
that they're doing the same thing.

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I'm going to have to make a couple

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of assumptions here, because there aren't
many details in the story.

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And my first assumption
is that when Barnabas did

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what he did, he didn't do it
so that other people would notice.

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They Barnabas did it because he loved God,

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because he was overwhelmed by grace
and because he was full of joy.

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Which is why any of us
and all of us should give, right?

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So he does that.

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But people do notice.

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And when they notice he goes up.

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It kind of in their in his reputation,
in how they think of him.

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And Ananias and Sapphira see that
and they want that to happen to them.

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So they hatch this plan to act like

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they're doing what he did,
but they don't really do it.

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They pretend.

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And there are two dangers
that I can see with pretending,

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and both of them are directly impact
your relationship with God.

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Which is why Peter tells Ananias
you have not lied to people.

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You have lied to God.

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The first danger of pretending of
of acting like I'm someone that I'm not,

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is that I create an image of myself
that is not real.

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Like if I have this right,
there's the real me.

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There's the made up me.

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And this does not really exist.

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And God can do all kinds of stuff
with what is real.

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He can't do anything
with what doesn't exist.

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And when I say that God can deal with
what is real.

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I mean, God can deal with weakness
and failure.

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This is Peter
who is the one who is talking.

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Peter, who failed miserably, denied
Jesus three times, was a coward

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when he should have been courageous,
and Jesus took him and restored him.

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Peter never acted like he was something
other than he was.

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He just said, yeah, I failed terribly

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00:14:19,441 --> 00:14:23,596
and that's all God needed to hear, right?

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God can deal with doubt.

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00:14:25,681 --> 00:14:29,718
You got Thomas, who was the only disciple
to not see Jesus.

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Everybody else is all excited.

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00:14:31,353 --> 00:14:34,590
Thomas says something very crass
to everybody else.

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He says, unless I put my finger
in the wound in his hand, unless

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00:14:38,994 --> 00:14:43,749
I put my hand in the wound of his side,
I will never believe.

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00:14:43,749 --> 00:14:46,318
And then Jesus shows up.

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Jesus restores Thomas.

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00:14:49,588 --> 00:14:53,392
Thomas ends up taking the gospel to India.

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00:14:53,993 --> 00:14:55,477
My point is this there.

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00:14:55,477 --> 00:14:58,998
They're all kinds of us here, myself
included,

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00:14:59,198 --> 00:15:02,601
who made a mess of our lives
in one way or another.

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00:15:02,801 --> 00:15:07,590
But we have been transformed
because God can do all

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00:15:07,840 --> 00:15:11,477
he can do anything with what is real.

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00:15:12,027 --> 00:15:14,630
And one of the dangers of church

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00:15:14,630 --> 00:15:17,633
is that
church can be an easy place to pretend.

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00:15:18,117 --> 00:15:22,321
But Jesus never intended the church
to be a place where you had to pretend.

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00:15:22,638 --> 00:15:27,159
Because the one thing we have in common
in this church that we know

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we are all of us sinners, and all of us
in desperate need of a Savior.

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So this is the one place where you can be

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absolutely real about who you are,

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00:15:39,321 --> 00:15:41,307
right?

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00:15:41,307 --> 00:15:43,709
The first danger of pretending

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00:15:43,709 --> 00:15:46,712
is if you pretend to be
someone you're not,

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00:15:47,029 --> 00:15:51,317
you actually put yourself
out of the reach of God.

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That's the first danger.

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00:15:53,319 --> 00:15:56,922
The second danger is why
Ananias and Sapphira

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00:15:56,956 --> 00:15:59,358
actually did what they did, right?

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00:15:59,358 --> 00:16:03,679
Why did they go through the whole charade
of selling a piece of property and saying

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00:16:03,679 --> 00:16:08,233
it was for so much when they actually
were keeping part of it behind?

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00:16:08,634 --> 00:16:12,154
Well, I don't think they did that
because they were trying

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00:16:12,154 --> 00:16:13,188
to give something to God.

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00:16:13,188 --> 00:16:16,909
They didn't do it
because of God's grace or other joy

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00:16:16,909 --> 00:16:18,877
they had,
or the love that they had for God.

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00:16:18,877 --> 00:16:22,197
They didn't do it
for the same reason that Barnabas did.

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00:16:22,631 --> 00:16:25,317
They did it because they wanted
to look good to other people.

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00:16:25,317 --> 00:16:28,671
That was more important to them
than anything else.

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00:16:29,438 --> 00:16:34,560
Like if I was going to cast
and make a very simple play about this

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00:16:34,560 --> 00:16:38,747
story and I was going to cast characters,
I would have Ananias and Sapphira.

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00:16:38,998 --> 00:16:41,517
I'd have the piece of property or money,
right?

285
00:16:41,517 --> 00:16:44,153
I would have the group of people
that they were trying to impress.

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00:16:44,153 --> 00:16:46,722
And if somebody said, well,
where's God in the story?

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00:16:46,722 --> 00:16:50,559
I would say, well,
you know, God's kind of God's a prop.

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00:16:50,592 --> 00:16:51,393
He's over here.

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00:16:51,393 --> 00:16:55,531
He's not really important to the story,
not with Ananias,

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00:16:55,881 --> 00:16:58,834
that he is involved with these things.

291
00:16:58,834 --> 00:17:01,837
He's not very involved with God.

292
00:17:02,187 --> 00:17:03,722
It's a very dangerous thing.

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00:17:03,722 --> 00:17:08,027
It's not a small thing to use God
as a prop, like a businessman who joins

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00:17:08,027 --> 00:17:11,947
a church, is to make business connections,
but doesn't really care about God,

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00:17:11,947 --> 00:17:16,802
but acts like he cares about God in order
to get business connections.

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00:17:16,835 --> 00:17:18,353
Like if you were in the Old Testament,

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00:17:18,353 --> 00:17:22,441
that'd be a little like
smuggling an idol into the temple.

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00:17:22,908 --> 00:17:26,962
It is a dangerous thing to do,
to pretend like that.

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00:17:27,079 --> 00:17:31,316
That's the danger of God's presence,
the danger of pretending

300
00:17:31,633 --> 00:17:34,603
now, the safety of surrender.

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All right,

302
00:17:36,839 --> 00:17:38,507
so in the Old Testament,

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00:17:38,507 --> 00:17:40,959
you have the temple,
which is the place of worship.

304
00:17:40,959 --> 00:17:46,632
The temple was constructed very carefully
to communicate something about God.

305
00:17:46,632 --> 00:17:50,803
And when I say the temple was constructed
very carefully,

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00:17:50,803 --> 00:17:54,156
there was an outer court
where everybody could go.

307
00:17:54,389 --> 00:17:57,443
Then there was a smaller court,
like a doorway as you go

308
00:17:57,443 --> 00:18:00,429
through to get into the smaller court,
and only Jews could go there.

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00:18:00,479 --> 00:18:03,232
Then you had a smaller court
where only priests could go.

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00:18:03,232 --> 00:18:08,637
And then there was the smallest room,
which was called the Holy of Holies.

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00:18:08,637 --> 00:18:10,155
That's where the box was.

312
00:18:10,155 --> 00:18:12,875
That's where the Ark of the covenant was.

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00:18:12,875 --> 00:18:18,680
It was behind a big curtain that was
that was as thick as a man's hand.

314
00:18:18,714 --> 00:18:20,599
It was made of wool.

315
00:18:20,599 --> 00:18:22,718
It was super, super thick.

316
00:18:22,718 --> 00:18:25,671
And they the only one person

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00:18:25,671 --> 00:18:29,358
could go into the Holy of holies,
and he could go in once a year.

318
00:18:29,475 --> 00:18:30,843
That was the high priest.

319
00:18:30,843 --> 00:18:33,829
Pages and pages of details

320
00:18:34,029 --> 00:18:38,233
on how the high priest was supposed
to be able to go into the Holy of Holies.

321
00:18:38,233 --> 00:18:40,068
He was supposed to wash a certain way.

322
00:18:40,068 --> 00:18:42,121
He was supposed to put on certain clothes.

323
00:18:42,121 --> 00:18:46,475
He had to make a sacrifice for himself
and a sacrifice for the people.

324
00:18:46,475 --> 00:18:51,113
He would carry a bowl of blood
into the Holy of Holies.

325
00:18:51,113 --> 00:18:54,433
Before he went in,
they attached a rope to his ankle,

326
00:18:54,483 --> 00:18:59,438
put bells on his robe
so that if he dropped dead inside

327
00:18:59,438 --> 00:19:02,040
the Holy of Holies
that could pull him out,

328
00:19:02,040 --> 00:19:04,910
they would know he'd drop dead
because the bells would stop,

329
00:19:04,910 --> 00:19:07,913
and then they would pull him out
by the rope.

330
00:19:08,280 --> 00:19:11,867
The reason they did that is
they knew that the high priest

331
00:19:11,867 --> 00:19:15,871
was going into the most dangerous place
in the universe.

332
00:19:16,271 --> 00:19:18,907
He was going as close
as you could possibly

333
00:19:18,907 --> 00:19:21,910
get to the very presence of God.

334
00:19:21,910 --> 00:19:24,563
It was like the nuclear reactor

335
00:19:25,831 --> 00:19:28,033
when Jesus died on the

336
00:19:28,033 --> 00:19:31,753
cross, when he breathed his last breath.

337
00:19:32,154 --> 00:19:34,756
There's a detail, something that happens.

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00:19:34,756 --> 00:19:38,510
And what happens is that curtain
that is as thick

339
00:19:38,510 --> 00:19:42,798
as a man's hand, tore in half
and splayed open.

340
00:19:42,798 --> 00:19:46,235
It was God visually demonstrating

341
00:19:46,401 --> 00:19:49,955
that the sacrifice that Jesus just made

342
00:19:50,556 --> 00:19:55,477
made the presence of God available
to people like Jesus would be able

343
00:19:55,477 --> 00:20:01,083
to take you by the hand and walk
you into the very presence of God.

344
00:20:01,116 --> 00:20:06,071
And the most dangerous place
in the universe would then become

345
00:20:06,071 --> 00:20:11,910
the safest place in the universe for you,
because you were with Jesus.

346
00:20:11,994 --> 00:20:16,081
That's why Paul the Apostle could write
what he wrote in Romans chapter eight.

347
00:20:16,114 --> 00:20:17,349
This is what he says.

348
00:20:17,349 --> 00:20:19,635
What then shall we say to these things?

349
00:20:19,635 --> 00:20:22,471
If God is for us, who can be against us?

350
00:20:22,471 --> 00:20:26,158
He did not spare his own son,
but gave him up for us all.

351
00:20:26,191 --> 00:20:29,428
How we not also with him graciously
give us all things?

352
00:20:29,678 --> 00:20:32,831
Who shall bring any charge against God's
elect?

353
00:20:32,831 --> 00:20:36,118
It is God who justifies, who is to condemn

354
00:20:36,351 --> 00:20:40,155
Christ Jesus is the one who died
more than that he was raised

355
00:20:40,188 --> 00:20:44,276
who is at the right hand of God,
who indeed is interceding for us?

356
00:20:44,276 --> 00:20:46,962
Who shall separate us
from the love of Christ?

357
00:20:46,962 --> 00:20:49,948
Shall tribulation,
or distress, or persecution,

358
00:20:49,948 --> 00:20:53,068
or famine, or nakedness,
or danger, or sword,

359
00:20:53,118 --> 00:20:56,238
as it is written, for your sake
we are being killed all day long.

360
00:20:56,238 --> 00:20:58,640
We are regarded
as sheep to be slaughtered.

361
00:20:58,640 --> 00:21:02,394
Knowing all these things, we're more
than conquerors through him who loved us.

362
00:21:02,594 --> 00:21:07,115
For I am sure that neither death,
nor life, nor angels, nor rulers,

363
00:21:07,149 --> 00:21:11,670
nor things present, nor things to come,
nor powers, nor height, nor depth,

364
00:21:11,753 --> 00:21:15,440
nor anything else in all creation,
will be able to separate us

365
00:21:15,440 --> 00:21:19,511
from the love of God in Christ
Jesus our Lord.

366
00:21:20,395 --> 00:21:23,999
Listen, the wonder of the gospel is this

367
00:21:25,434 --> 00:21:28,437
you can be your real self,

368
00:21:28,837 --> 00:21:30,122
your real you.

369
00:21:30,122 --> 00:21:33,675
You can be the angry you,

370
00:21:34,309 --> 00:21:37,562
the ashamed you, the anxious you,

371
00:21:37,963 --> 00:21:41,483
the selfish you, the exhausted you,

372
00:21:41,667 --> 00:21:47,122
and all you do is take the real
you and surrender it to Jesus.

373
00:21:47,723 --> 00:21:51,560
Your lifeguards are taught when they swim
out to somebody who's drowning.

374
00:21:51,677 --> 00:21:55,314
The thing they try to get them to do
is just say, just stop struggling

375
00:21:55,480 --> 00:21:57,883
and let me take you.

376
00:21:57,883 --> 00:22:00,068
That's that's the gospel.

377
00:22:00,068 --> 00:22:01,403
That's Jesus.

378
00:22:01,403 --> 00:22:05,157
Jesus said, it will take you by the hand,
and I will walk you

379
00:22:05,157 --> 00:22:08,927
into the very presence of God
in the most dangerous place in the year

380
00:22:09,311 --> 00:22:11,229
will become the safest place.

381
00:22:11,229 --> 00:22:14,232
Because you've surrendered to me.

382
00:22:16,518 --> 00:22:18,353
The gospel is the place

383
00:22:18,353 --> 00:22:21,356
where you can be fully known

384
00:22:21,523 --> 00:22:25,427
and fully loved because of Jesus.

385
00:22:26,511 --> 00:22:27,312
Here,

386
00:22:27,312 --> 00:22:30,432
right at the beginning of the church,
something happens.

387
00:22:30,482 --> 00:22:31,483
Oh, and it says it.

388
00:22:31,483 --> 00:22:35,520
It filled the
the fear of God swept through the church.

389
00:22:35,554 --> 00:22:39,991
And that word, the fear of God,
means that there was reverence and worship

390
00:22:39,991 --> 00:22:43,912
and or and the truth is, the more you fear

391
00:22:43,962 --> 00:22:46,948
God like that, the less you fear

392
00:22:48,200 --> 00:22:50,919
because you're close to him.

393
00:22:50,919 --> 00:22:51,670
Listen.

394
00:22:51,670 --> 00:22:56,108
The church is dangerous status
because the presence of God is here.

395
00:22:56,108 --> 00:22:59,311
There is something inherently dangerous
about the most powerful

396
00:22:59,361 --> 00:23:01,630
being in the universe.

397
00:23:01,630 --> 00:23:06,668
There's a danger in pretending,
but there is a safety in surrender.

398
00:23:07,235 --> 00:23:10,472
If you surrender to Jesus, that makes this

399
00:23:10,672 --> 00:23:16,161
the greatest place in the entire universe,
that's the church.

400
00:23:16,561 --> 00:23:18,680
Would you pray with me?

401
00:23:18,680 --> 00:23:19,748
Father in heaven.

402
00:23:19,748 --> 00:23:20,632
Thank you.

403
00:23:20,632 --> 00:23:24,870
Thanks for your grace through Jesus.

404
00:23:25,754 --> 00:23:28,907
Thanks that we can surrender to you
our real self.

405
00:23:28,907 --> 00:23:32,360
We don't have to pretend because Jesus

406
00:23:32,360 --> 00:23:36,314
makes it possible to take whatever we are.

407
00:23:37,282 --> 00:23:37,833
Bring it to

408
00:23:37,833 --> 00:23:41,603
you and we can stand in your presence
with him.

409
00:23:42,320 --> 00:23:44,356
Prayer for every person here.

410
00:23:44,356 --> 00:23:50,512
You will help us all to stop
wanting to pretend, but be our real selves

411
00:23:50,512 --> 00:23:54,116
and let you transform us
through the love of Jesus.

412
00:23:54,149 --> 00:23:54,883
Thanks.

413
00:23:54,883 --> 00:23:57,119
Thanks for giving us
such a wonderful Savior.

414
00:23:57,119 --> 00:23:59,504
We pray this in his name. Amen.