Christ Our Inheritance and the Fear of the Lord

Our scripture reading this morning will be coming from Acts chapter 4,

Acts 4 · chapter mention

Acts chapter 4 as we continue to work our way through the book of Acts.

Acts 4 · chapter mention

If you're able, would you please stand together as we read?

I will be reading from verse 32 into chapter 5 to verse 16.

Do pay careful attention because this is the holy and inspired Word of God.

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

and no one said that any of all the things that belonged to him was his own,

but they had everything in common.

And with great power, the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection

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

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

or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of that which was sold and laid

them at the apostles' feet.

And it was distributed to each as any had need. Thus, Joseph,

who was also called by the apostles Barnabas, which means son of encouragement,

a Levite, a native of Cyprus, sold a field that belonged to him and brought

that money and laid it at the apostles' feet.

But a man named Ananias with his wife Sapphira sold a piece of property,

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

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

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

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

While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold,

was it not at your disposal?

Why is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? For you have not lied to man, but to God.

And when Ananias heard these words, he fell down and breathed his last.

And great fear came upon all who heard it The young men rose and wrapped him

up And carried him out and buried him.

And after an interval of about three hours, his wife came in and not knowing what had happened.

And Peter said to her, tell me whether you sold the land for so much.

And she said, yes, for so much.

But Peter said to her, how is it that you have agreed together to test the spirit of the Lord?

Behold the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door and they will carry you out.

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

When the young men came in, they found her dead and carried her out and buried her beside her husband.

And great fear came upon the whole church and upon all those who heard these things.

Now many signs and wonders were regularly done among the people by the hands

of the apostles, and they were all together in Solomon's portico.

None of the rest dared join them, but the people held them in high esteem.

And more than ever, believers were added to the Lord, multitudes of both men

and women, so that they even carried out the sick into the streets and laid

them on cots and mats, that as Peter came by, even the shadow might fall on some of them.

The people also gathered from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing the sick

and those who are afflicted with unclean spirits, and they were all healed.

This is the word of the Lord.

You can be seated. Let's pray together.

Father, look down upon us now by your spirit and grace and help us to understand your word.

And most of all, Lord, as we pray from week to week, may we see and love Jesus

Christ in whose name we pray. Amen.

So as we continue through Acts, we're looking now at a new section.

You'll notice in the book of Acts, a lot of the sections will be looking a lot

like previous sections, all being together, all sharing in common.

But this particular section is structured in a way that some of you may ask,

why do you only preach one verse one week and then five verses the next and longer sections?

I hope my answer is that that's because the way the scriptures are structured,

they sometimes will carry a story or a section that's somehow contained.

This particular section seems to be structured in an interesting way.

There's a lot of what we call irony here.

Irony is when something happens in a way that you wouldn't expect it.

And in fact, many times the opposite of what you might expect.

In the structure of the text today, you have basically an introduction.

Then you have two people or two groups of people, Barnabas and then Ananias and Sapphira.

Barnabas gives, lays something at the apostles' feet.

Ananias and Sapphira lay things

at the apostles' feet, but they end up laying at the apostles' feet.

Barnabas seems to give up his life and everything that he has, and he gains it.

Ananias and Sapphira seem to want to hold back in order to advance their lives, and they lose it.

These two people, these two groups are set in In contrast, two people,

two ways of approaching the Lord.

One, again, seeking to advance in life and losing it, and the other giving up

everything they have in life and losing.

Gaining. It's interesting, too, that this is not a, we're about to take up a

thank offering for the OPC.

You might think, what a great way to take up a thank offering because there's the threat of death.

You know, anyone who holds back anything.

This is not a push for the deacons to get more money next week or this week

because it's a very unusual event.

This is the only one of its kind, really, we see recorded like this in the New Testament.

Why is it that this happens? I mean, it should strike you as a bit odd that

all the guy does is sell his land and lie and hold a little bit back. And he struck dead.

Why? Why this dramatic incident?

What I want to do is I want to draw your attention to the scriptures itself,

because you don't have these things happen very often, but they do happen at

the introduction of dramatic new redemptive periods of history.

Like the story we just read in Joshua, very parallel to the story we just read.

In those days, they conquered the city of Jericho. They were conquering and

they were told, do not try to keep anything for yourself, but give it all to the Lord.

It's all set apart as separate. It's not for you.

And that story, by the way, as a handful of stories, when I grew up in the church

and I grew up listening to Sunday school lessons and preachers,

these kinds of stories in the Old Testament struck me as a bit strange. He's like, wow.

In fact, later in my life, I watched a movie. I think it was a Monty Python

movie where there's this wizard who's there.

He says, I can see you're a wizard. And the wizard is like just randomly throwing

bolts of lightning and bolts of fire, showing you that he's a real great wizard.

I kind of thought of God like that when I was little. Why does God just burn

some people or kill people? Achan was stoned and burned.

Do you think it's a little dramatic for just keeping some silver and some cloth?

At the beginning or the inauguration of dramatic, redemptive periods of history,

God will sometimes display His power in a mighty way to show you that what's

about to happen in this time period is worth paying attention to.

The story of Nadab and Abihu stuck out, stuck out in my mind.

I thought, all they did, it looks like, is add a little pinch of incense,

a little strange fire to that.

And God did what? From heaven, God burned them alive.

Wow. I don't know about the rest of you, but it seems a little bit,

again, as a child growing up in the church, I thought, it's a slight overreaction

for just a little pinch of incense. What's going on?

This was the inauguration of the sacrificial period. God was serious about this.

And these were the new priests who were to do exactly everything God said in

his presence because his presence is holy.

They were about to enter into a new dramatic period.

What about the story of Uzzah when David is bringing the ark back and the ark

is heading on its way back to Jerusalem?

The poor guy, at least from my perspective, the oxen stumbled and a poor guy

just reaches out and touches the ark to steady it.

Didn't even seem to have bad intentions. And what happened? God struck him dead.

Why? The ark and the presence of God was about to enter into its place.

They weren't even to be carrying it on this cart. They were to be carrying it

according to the instructions of the Lord.

It's only at these dramatic points of redemptive inauguration where God is saying,

this period of history is serious.

And the period of history we're entering into now is not just the conquest of

the land of Canaan, but the new conquest of the whole world.

Of the whole world. And the people of God are to be completely and wholly dedicated

to Christ Jesus alone, nothing else, and not holding anything back.

You'll notice in the first example, Barnabas actually gave what looks like everything he had.

Again, there's no New Testament commandment that we all have to give up everything

we have and share everything in common.

See my sermon, later sermon on socialism, communism, et cetera.

This is not about communistic living.

This is about a man named Barnabas who comes forward and wants to give his life

to Jesus Christ and his church and doesn't hold anything back.

It's interesting that Barnabas was a Levite and Levites were not people who

were given the land and the inheritance.

In the stories in the Old Testament, we find that the Israelites were apportioned plots of land.

All the other people who were Israelites who got land would have been apportioned

that land from their family inheritance, but not a Levite.

The Levites were not allowed to have any land, or at least they weren't allotted land.

Here, it's interesting, somehow Barnabas has land. And Barnabas as a Levite

was one of these people who didn't have land. Why didn't he have land?

So that the Levites would know that God was their inheritance.

That was the focus. All the other Israelites were given portions of land,

but God even wanted the other Israelites to know that the land was not their ultimate inheritance.

God himself was their inheritance. The Israelites were promised to inherit the

land, but the Levites were constantly there as a reminder that the land didn't

ultimately even belong to them.

In fact, the gleaning laws were always there to remind them that the corners

of your field were not to be harvested.

You're to give to the poor and give to the needy because your ultimate inheritance

is not the land, your ultimate inheritance is God.

Numbers 18 says to us, Then the Lord said to Aaron, You shall have no inheritance

in the land, nor shall you have any portion among them.

I am your portion and your inheritance among the children of Israel.

Yehold, I have given the children of Levi all the tithes in Israel as an inheritance

in return for the work they perform.

They over and over, and from Numbers 18, 20, verse down to verse 30,

There's the word inheritance is mentioned seven times.

And the Levites were not given an inheritance so that they and everyone in Israel

would realize God is our inheritance.

Deuteronomy 12 says, and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God,

you and your sons and your daughters, your male servants, and the Levite who

is within your gates, since he has no portion nor inheritance with you.

Deuteronomy 14, the Levite doesn't have an inheritance, Joshua, over and over.

So Barnabas, marked out as a Levite, has this plot of land.

We don't know why or how, but it's interesting that since it was his land,

if he sells it, the apparent consequence is he has nothing.

Are we together? So Barnabas, as a Levite, has nothing, and as he sells it and

brings his money to the feet of the apostles, he's basically saying,

Christ is now my ultimate inheritance.

God was the inheritance of the Levites, and Barnabas here reminds us that now

Christ becomes the inheritance for his people.

But why did Ananias and Sapphira have to die?

You have one guy who comes and does the right thing, and again,

there's no New Testament command that says, sell everything you have and give

it all to Jesus and become poor.

It was simply a free will offering that he did.

But he was acting as a Levite exactly the way a Levite should have reacted in

the response of the coming of Christ and the Holy Spirit.

But why did Ananias and Sapphira die?

And is it really just a major overreaction on the part of Peter and the apostles

to strike down these people?

Or perhaps, maybe it's a gracious and loving warning from God,

as are all the judgments of God.

Some argue that this section was actually a later insertion that the apostles

put it in there to give them a little more cred in terms of,

you know, when the apostles say to do something, do it or else.

We should see in this rather a gracious warning to the rest of us,

because you'll notice one of the things that the title of the sermon is Christ,

our inheritance and the fear of the Lord.

God brings dramatic judgment from heaven at certain times, at certain periods

of history to mark it out saying, this is something new, folks. Take it seriously.

We are all living in the age of redemption, regeneration, and the Holy Spirit.

The kingdom of God has come, And it came with dramatic incidents,

miracles and signs and wonders and tongues, and now a dramatic death.

And that reminds us, those of us who are living in this blessed period of how important it is.

We are living in an amazing story of God's blessings.

Like Achan in the Old Testament, this Ananias and Sapphira tried to serve the

Lord, but also wanted to serve themselves. Guess what? You can't do both.

You can't do both. And it's not about the money actually alone.

It's about a full-hearted devotion to Jesus Christ as your only hope and your only inheritance.

Ask yourself the question, and if you don't, I will. Is this me?

Is this how I am? Am I more like Barnabas? Or am I like Ananias and Sapphira?

Because many of us are like Ananias and Sapphira. Yeah, we want to give to the

church and we want to serve the Lord, but we also want to hold things back.

We all struggle with the same sin. we want to serve God, but we also want certain

areas of our lives to be ordered the way we want them to be ordered.

Reflected in our church attendance, our prayer life, our relationships with

our husbands and our wives.

It's reflected in our relationships with our children, with our families,

with our time commitments, with everything.

Is Christ truly your inheritance? If he is, then all of what you have and all

of who you are belong to him entirely.

We belong to Christ and Christ belongs to us as our inheritance.

And we're commanded in that sense to give up everything for Jesus Christ,

everything, because he is our inheritance. Listen to Peter, what Peter says in 1 Peter 1.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his

abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection

of Jesus Christ from the dead,

to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled that does not fade away,

reserved in heaven for you.

This is our hope only, not our money, not our jobs, not our time.

One member of the early church was coming to a theologian or a pastor named

Tertullian and said, Pastor, if I don't do what he said, what the Romans said to do, I'll lose my job.

I'll lose my job and I'll lose my ability to care for my... And a man must have

a job, mustn't he? And Tertullian's answer is, must he?

Really? You are going to lose your life in Christ for a job?

You're going to lose your life in Christ for a compromise?

No. Tertullian said, no, you don't need. What you need is Christ as your inheritance.

And it's an incorruptible and undefiled inheritance that doesn't fade away like

our money and our cars and our homes and our jobs and all that we have here in this earth.

Barnabas recognized as his inheritance, Christ is the center and he gave up everything.

And Ananias, on the other hand, sought to gain his life and he lost everything. thing.

He who seeks to gain his life will lose it. He who loses his life for Christ will gain it.

And as God initiates this new period of redemptive history by a rather swift

and amazing judgment, we have this pattern of fear, fear.

Now I wanna go over this because as Barnabas recognizes Christ as his inheritance

and Ananias and Sapphira, like a lot of us, one at both.

And as a result of the judgment, fear comes. And there's two kinds of fear that

you see here. It's very amazing.

There's a fear that provokes a running away, and there's a fear that provokes humility and love.

It's very ironic because later we'll see that it says two things at once.

It says everyone was afraid and they didn't want to join the church,

and yet the church started growing like crazy. What?

Both were happening. Matthew Henry says this.

He says that those that joined themselves to the church were struck with an

awe of God and his judgments, and with a greater veneration for his dispensation

of the spirit, which they were now under.

It was not a damp or check to their holy joy, but it taught them to be serious

in it and rejoice with trembling.

The church of Jesus Christ, the apostolic church, is to be a church who loves

Christ so much, they fear him, and they're known for their fear.

How can you be fearful and loving at the same time?

This is one of those paradoxes, those ironies. I mean, it's a lot like the Beatitudes.

Blessed are the poor. What? No.

Everybody knows the poor are blessed. That's ridiculous. I mean,

at face value, it seems ridiculous to say, you're going to be really blessed if you're poor, right?

Blessed are those who mourn. No, because mourning is the opposite of what seems to be joyful, right?

Blessed, how about this one? And this applies to acts over and over.

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness. No. No, thank you.

I really liked Thanksgiving. Nobody persecuted me at Thanksgiving.

I ate, I drank, I enjoyed. That's blessed.

But the blessings of Christ come in these ironic and paradoxical kinds of ways.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the poor,

right? Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

This is how the church in the apostles' days grew.

One of the things that I know this church is interested in, I am,

because I'm the new pastor. I want our church to grow.

It's nice to see family here filling up sections of it. I want our church to

be full, but I want our church first and foremost to fear the Lord.

To fear the Lord. That's by way, ironically, that's how the church grows.

How can fear work to attract people in the church, particularly in America?

How can fear grow or cause people to be attracted to the church?

The answer is, well, yes and no.

Yes and no. How does fear work to grow us as a church?

If we start preaching the fear of the Lord, which I am today,

is that a good message for church growth?

Ironically, yes, and also no. It reminded me of a friend of mine in Africa, Dave Eby.

He ran a seminary in Kampala, and when he prayed for new students to his seminary,

it was a very ironic thing. It struck me as odd at first.

He used to pray, Lord, bring the ones we want and keep the ones we don't away.

Boy, that's kind of rough.

Don't you want like everybody to come? No, he said, bring the ones we want and keep the rest away.

That's what the fear of the Lord actually does. It does for churches.

The zeal that came was a peculiar kind of zeal.

The church, the committed Christians in the church all of a sudden were like

laser focused. Wouldn't you be?

I would bet you that if our two deacons were calling everyone up for a thank

offering and someone lied and died, everyone would be serious about the thank offering.

I mean, all of a sudden you're like, where's my checkbook?

All of a sudden, they were laser focused on Jesus Christ and his honor and his

glory and his love and their commitment to him.

Fear of the Lord, in a righteous sense, has that kind of focus.

Fear of the Lord, in a bad way, drives people the opposite direction.

And through the work of the apostles here, we see that the church,

ironically, preached and taught and lived the fear of the Lord, and they grew.

It's exciting, I think. You don't look very excited right now.

Everyone looks tired from Thanksgiving.

But this passage tells us that when we teach and preach and live the fear of

the Lord, the church will grow and the church will grow powerfully and the church

will grow in strength and in the spirit of God.

It's part of what we might call church discipline. Too many people think that

church discipline means you stand someone up front and say, confess to your

sin and we'll discipline you and you'll be excommunicated or whatever.

Church discipline actually comes as the life of the church displays the love

and fear of God and others see it and they're disciplined by it.

They're shaped by it. They're formed by it in all the best ways.

The death of Ananias and Sapphira provoked fear for all who heard it. What?

All they did was lie and they died. Whoa, who are these apostles?

Who are these people with all this power? Who is this Jesus where people are dying?

And fear spread throughout all the community. Great fear, the same kind of fear

that spread among the people at the fall of Jericho.

That's why this reminds us of Achan's sin and Achan's holding back the silver and what he's kept.

Fear always accompanies the mighty works of God. The people of Jericho,

when Rahab told them of the mighty works of God and others, how God had opened

up the Red Sea and the Egyptian army, the most powerful in the world,

went into it and were crushed by God. Fear spread through the land.

They were afraid of God. They were afraid of the Lord. They were afraid of his

people. They were afraid of his might and his power.

And then the scriptures say here, none dare joined them. What?

How can it say at the same time, nobody wanted to join. And then the very next

verse, everyone started to join. What's happening?

It's quite simple. God was bringing the ones he wanted and keeping the others

away. Just like my friend's prayer.

Suddenly in the hearts, there was this split between the Barnabases and the

Ananias and Sapphira's.

Between those who saw Christ as their inheritance and loved him with all their

heart and sold everything for him and lived for him.

They were literally sold out. and the others who were like, I'm not so sure.

After all, you could die.

Think about that. Does that really sound like a modern day church growth program to you?

Honestly, let's have someone up and see if they die. The rest,

it says in verse 13, seems to refer to people like Ananias and Sapphira.

There's those who are ambitious, hypocritical, dishonest, and impure.

These are the kind of people that are like Ananias and Sapphira.

The ones who, yeah, I want the Lord, but I don't want all of it.

I don't want everything. He can't have everything in my life.

He can't have all that I have.

I want some for me. The Lord doesn't want that kind of person.

He wants them to fear him in a loving, godly, and righteous fear.

People who are like Ananias and Sapphira were deterred now from fear of their own safety.

If you want to live and be rich in this world, you're gonna be afraid of keep losing things.

That's not the kind of person that Christ wanted in his church, nor does he.

Say, well now, pastor, come on. You're just new and we wanna grow.

We want this church to be filled with people.

We don't want you to go preaching the fear of the Lord and damnation and judgment

and death. That's exactly the story, my friends.

And two kinds of people came out of this story. People who had an ungodly,

selfish, hypocritical, self-centered fear of God, and those who suddenly were

drawn to him inextricably because they had a godly fear of the Lord.

We live in times where the church today is convinced that the only way to grow

is to cause people to like you.

I was actually at a meeting once, this was a long, long time ago, wasn't in the OPC.

When I was a youth director, oh my goodness, youth directors, wow.

You go to those youth director meetings, man, and it's like,

how do we get kids to like us?

How do we get people to like us? Because if they like us, they'll come to church

and the church will what? The church will grow.

I read an article years and years ago from World Magazine called Stupid Church Tricks.

And during seminary, I worked as a youth director for a while.

I know I was desperate. You can do what you do, what you do.

And I was a youth director for a while, and I was out of my mind,

like, how do you have fun, but not just do crazy, dumb things?

And I read this article, and it rang true. It's called Stupid Church Tricks.

It says, four sets of parents are suing a church in Indiana for what happened

on a New Year's Eve lock-in.

A youth leader—some of you may want to close—a youth leader chewed up a mixture

of dog food, sardines, potted meat, sauerkraut, cottage cheese,

and salsa, and topped it off with holiday eggnog.

As if this wasn't enough, disgusting enough He then spit out the mixture in

a glass And encouraged members of the youth group to drink it.

Wow. This is some of these, I mean, they were sued for this.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg of youth ministries.

You have to do something. That's why I said the statistic I read earlier.

Children are not kept in the church because of youth ministries.

I'm sorry. This has been one of the largest, most colossal failures in the history of the church.

What keeps children in the church are godly parents who are committed to the

fear of the Lord. And that's now a statistical reality.

Church youth groups do not keep children in the church, especially when they

realize that chewing up dog food in sardines is not mature.

And the Lord wants mature, godly people who love and fear him.

That's why I remember when I was a teacher for a while, I had a student said,

Pastor or Mr. Jackson, what am I supposed to do? What do you mean?

Well, I'm about to leave youth group and go to the big people's church.

Well, yeah, that's good. No, it's boring.

Big people's church is boring. If you've had these games and done these silly

things, another one is the toothbrush games where you brush your teeth,

spit into it, and then pass it, and everyone else is supposed to do the same thing.

Can you imagine? Is this how the church will grow?

By the way, I'm all about having fun. I want to sing carols,

and I want to eat pizza next week. I'm in for that.

I want to be fun, but sorry, this is not my job, not to be fun.

My job is to preach the Word of God. And here we have a passage where people literally died.

People literally died because they wanted to save their lives and they lost

their lives because of it.

It's the job of the preacher to preach the gospel and the fear of the Lord so

that those of you who love the Lord will seriously be drawn to him out of godly fear.

The early church, you see, demanded respect and preached the holy reverence

of God to her followers and to the watching world.

And ironically, it provoked wide-scale church growth.

Beloved, in this day and age when nobody knows anything anymore,

they don't know the difference between a boy and a girl, they don't know anything,

at one place they should be able to go is right here in the church,

and they know the difference between right and wrong and godly fear and losing your life.

That's how the church grows, by the way. Now, it doesn't always grow as rapidly

as those with massive programs.

That's for sure, I'll grant you.

But the growth is steady and mature and solid and a blessing.

Ironically, the Holy Spirit used this call to call the needy. Guess what happened?

People who were half-hearted didn't come, but people who knew they needed Jesus came.

People who were sick and lame and demon-possessed and couldn't speak,

they came rushing to Jesus because they knew Jesus was the difference between life and death.

And they were serious about the Lord and that God brought many bold signs and

wonders to accompany this message.

They prayed for boldness earlier in the passage. Remember, they were in the

building. They prayed for boldness. The Lord shook the building.

Man, what a great prayer meeting. He shook the building and out they went.

And out they went in the fear of the Lord.

Now look, O Lord, on their threats and grant to your servants that with all

boldness, we may speak your word by stretching out your hand to heal and that

signs and wonders may be done in your holy name and your holy servant, Jesus.

And when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken

and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and they spoke the word of God with boldness.

That's how the church grew. They preached and taught and lived reverence and all to Jesus Christ.

The church has something to offer them.

The church doesn't have anything to offer Ananias and Sapphira's.

And I don't know where you are today.

I don't know what you expect even to hear from me this morning.

Encouraging words of generalities and generic things. No, there's no such thing.

If you're Ananias and Sapphira, you die.

And there's no hope for you. And I have no hope for you. If you're Barnabas,

you want to come to Jesus and see Christ as your only inheritance,

then you will live not only in this life, but in the life to come.

We need reverence, not relevance.

Reverence to God. That brings God's holy people together in strength and blessing

and unity, exactly the way you see it in the book of Acts.

And the miracles, this fear was excited not only by sudden and awful fate of

the guilty pair Ananias and Sapphira, but also of the spirit-searching knowledge

that was imparted to the apostles.

The unbelieving masses who heard the event were awed into respect and reverence.

The Ananias and Sapphira ran away, as they will.

The Holy Spirit confirmed this message by giving the apostles signs and wonders that we know.

Yes, those signs and wonders have faded with the apostles, but they heard the

message and they feared.

And that's the message we need to preach today. And I think more than ever in

times where people are looking for someone somewhere who doesn't lie,

who isn't corrupt, who is serious, who knows the difference between right and

wrong. It's Jesus Christ.

And he's the only one. And he gave his life for sinners.

And he's the only way. When they heard the message, they feared. Where are you in this?

It's the nature and level of your fear. Because if you're holding back like

Ananias and Sapphira, you have a right to fear the judgment of God, and you should.

But if you're like Barnabas and you turn to Christ, you will fear him with a godly fear.

John Gershner wrote a book once, or a small essay called The Fear of God and

the Preaching of Jonathan Edwards.

He went over that famous sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,

which is the only thing people in America ever read because they want people

to think the Puritans were meanies.

The ironic thing about that sermon is that it provoked a revival among the serious

God-fearing peoples of the New England colonies.

People came all the way from Germany and England and Scotland to see what in the world was going on.

And Edwards was preaching a stern, God-fearing word of the judgment of the Lord

who were anyone one who was like Ananias and Sapphira.

Men and women all over the colonies cried and wept and repented and were renewed,

and there was revival. How did it happen?

Edwards and other preachers preached the fear of the Lord. They preached the

judgment and power and mightiness of God through Jesus Christ.

The humble came and repented, and they were flooded with blessings, as will happen with us.

The humble come and repent, and God blesses them. God loves them.

Jesus floods his church with blessings as she humbles herself to his might and

his authority and his power.

When the church shows her God, her reverence and honor and all that is rightly his, he blesses them.

It's the fear of the Lord. Proverbs says, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.

It's the beginning of everything.

Blessed is the one who fears the Lord always, but whoever hardens his heart

will fall into calamity. Proverbs 28.

Isaiah 66 says, "'This is the one to whom I will look, "'he who is humble and

contrite in spirit "'and trembles at my word.' "'So again, fearing is corresponding

with humility "'and lowliness and sensitivity of heart.'" Where are you this morning?

The sheer majesty of God, as well as the holiness and justice and power and

wrath and might of God can't be handled with a cavalier spirit.

You can't hold back, not at this decisive point.

Barnabas, Ananias, and Sapphira, where are you?

One believed that Christ was his entire inheritance, his soul future,

his everything. There was nothing else.

Terror and despair will come to those who are like Ananias and Sapphira.

But godly fear, what is this godly fear? I mean, it seems ironic.

It seems interesting because how can you both, how can you fear someone in a

godly way, especially God, Lord Jesus Christ?

It's not a fear in which we cower and run away.

That's Ananias and Sapphira. It's not a fear of a fugitive running from judgment

It's a fear that basically could be translated into love It's a bit,

for a small example It's a bit like sometimes a boy And I was one,

so I know A boy sometimes grows up and his dad He fears his dad because of his physical size,

Sometimes the boys like sizing dad up Boys always want to see if they're taller than dad, right?

Boys And sometimes when you're stubborn, you're like I think I could take him

I think I could take him physically I don't know. I think so.

And then you're like, eh.

As you grow older, grow out of that fast, boys, by the way.

As you grow older, you begin to forget about the physical fear you once have,

and you have a different kind of fear of dad.

Not a fear like, because at certain

age in life, you say, I could take him because he's old and decrepit.

But at that point, your fear has transformed into a godly fear.

You love him. You respect him. You honor him.

You are afraid not of whether you'll get physical harm, but you're afraid actually of offending him.

You don't want to do that any longer. You love him and respect him.

That's godly fear. It's a rich conversion of the awe of God in the presence of his eternal glory.

The creator of the universe, the holy lawgiver, the righteous judge,

the merciful savior, as you contemplate all of that in reference to Jesus Christ's

death on the cross for you, suddenly the whole, the fear of God converges into one word, love.

You are amazed and adore and honor God because he loves you so much.

Love is the word. That's as we get ready to take the Lord's supper,

we come to this table with fear of the Lord, not the fear of a fugitive,

but with the awe and honor and reverence of someone who is overwhelmed by the love of God.

Reverence and awe. Remember, reverence is what we need. And if we have reverence

of Christ Jesus, this church will grow.

This church will grow, I have no doubt. Slowly is slowly.

As we said in Africa, slowly by slowly, all things happen.

But it will grow. And it will not just grow in more people. It will grow in

strength and unity and power and submission to Jesus Christ, which is what we want.

It's exactly how the apostolic church was described later in Acts chapter 9,

Acts 9 · chapter mention

which we'll get to someday.

Says this, so the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace

and was being built up and walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort

of the Holy Spirit, it multiply.

That's how the godly, the church of Jesus Christ grows. The church today needs

this message as much as the people in the days of the apostles.

We need the same thing. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,

but fools despise knowledge.

Revival, people are always talking, We need revival in America.

If you want revival in America, we need the fear of the Lord.

Revival comes ironically through healthy fear. That's what the church needed

then, and that's what we need today. Amen? Let's pray.

Father in heaven, we thank you so much for your word.

Again, we're reminded of how beautiful your word is, real stories with real

people, with real lessons, and the kind of lessons, Lord, that strike at our own hearts.

Why have we come? Why do we fear the Lord? Are we like Ananias and Sapphira?

Yes, to God, but with a half-hearted lukewarmness, or like Barnabas who says,

Christ is my inheritance.

Lord, as we come to the table now and we celebrate your death and resurrection

and love for us, eating and drinking the body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ,

feed us, O Lord, on godly fear.

A fear that is humble and contrite and full of love, overwhelmed by ultimately

your love to us, not our love to you.

Lord, help us, we pray in Jesus' name, amen.