The Book Of Acts | Dead Serious About Unity (August 2nd, 2020) - Mike Armstrong

All right, let's get into God's Word.

If you uh have a Bible, uh you can turn that to Acts chapter 5.

Acts 5 · chapter mention

And again, I would just encourage you to bring uh your own notebook or piece of paper, your own pen if you're a note taker that way, and uh bring that with you uh so that you can take notes and stay connected and be able to go through all of that uh throughout uh throughout the following week.

Now, if you think back to when you were a kid, or if you're a kid in the room, you can think back to right now, uh, and especially if you had siblings growing up, uh, you'll remember those long or even short car rides with your parents.

Remember the kids all piled into the back, and uh you would eventually at some point along the way, in one of those trips, you would hear your parents utter the faithful words, hands off.

It would be yelled into the backseat at some point as you and your siblings uh have been up to some uh shenanigans.

Now, uh what would follow, what would often follow those very clear-cut guidelines, okay, is um is you or likely one of your siblings, they were always the culprit, it seems, right?

Uh you or one of your siblings would um would push those boundaries in some way.

You would you would absolutely do this.

And it would be, you know, you or one of you trying to get that final shot in at your brother um right after your dad says, no, don't do that hands off.

It would be, you know, uh the it all goes silent in the car, and then a few moments later, you know, one of you is doing the finger inching forward along the seat towards your sibling to do the tickle, and it's quiet, and you're stifling those smirks and those giggles as you watch the vein on your dad's neck start to bulge.

Or it's um, this is usually a firstborn thing.

Uh I was a firstborn.

The firstborns are are typically the lawyers of the family.

You know, they're they're the legalistic ones, and and they'll be the ones who will say, Well, well, father, um uh technically you said hands off, and I used my baseball glove to hit my brother, and so I have nothing but respect for you and your rules, father, um, and so I can't get in trouble, right?

It it's all that to say, we love to we love to see how much we can get away with.

Kids do it, adults do it too in our own different ways.

How far, how far can we push?

You know, where is that line and what will happen if or likely when I cross it?

Are mom and dad really all that serious, you know, about this whole hands-off thing?

I'm gonna I'm gonna find out.

Okay?

Well, well, last week, uh, if you saw our service, you'll remember uh that we finished off in Acts chapter 4.

Acts 4 · chapter mention

And we were looking at this great picture of a unified local church.

Okay, they were of they were of one heart and soul.

Remember we read that?

They had all things in common.

They were, you know, together, they were taking care of the needy uh among them.

They were very much unified in their desires, in their mentality, and then in their actions to follow those things through.

Well, today, as we begin chapter five, we are gonna see the opposite of that.

Okay, we're gonna see uh very much uh a picture of something different, that an example of that unity, uh the unity of the church being threatened.

God is sinned against, and and in that his desire for his church to be unified is very much disregarded.

Lines are crossed as Ananias and Sapphira, they're the two uh characters in the story today, as they dare to see how much they could get away with.

Okay, and and man, I just gotta tell you, if you if if you don't know the story, uh the results are, I mean, they are no joke.

Okay, which just shows us, I think, that the that the Lord is serious about sin and the the unity of his church being destroyed by those sins.

Okay, and here's the thing God's still serious about unity today.

He's passionate about that, and very much so.

And so I think a really important question for each of us to ask ourselves today, whether we're actually here or online or whatever it might be, is really do I, do we take the Lord, do we take him seriously when it comes to the unity of our very own church?

Are we as serious as he is about it?

Okay, let's take a look at this now uh in these verses here, starting uh chapter 5, verse 1, reading down to verse 11, follow along.

It says, But a man named Ananias with his wife Sapphira took 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?

Well 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?

You have not lied to man, but to God.

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.

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

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

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 they carried her out and buried her beside her husband.

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

God, as we look at your word here this morning, we see that this is a this is a pretty heavy passage.

This is a serious one, Lord, and it shows us um just how again how serious you take sin and and how important the unity of a local church is to you.

And so, God, I pray that we would truly, Lord, truly take that seriously here.

God, I pray that you would that you would encourage us in this.

I pray that you would bless us in this.

I pray that you would pour out much of your spirit and much of your grace in us for this, Lord, as as left to our own devices, we will chip away at that unity.

We will sow seeds of disunity in our church as life is hard and relationships can be messy.

And so, Lord, I pray that you would help us, Lord.

I pray that you would protect your church.

I pray that you would foster this unity in us, Lord.

I pray that we would fear you, I pray that we would love you, I pray that we would see how great Jesus Christ is.

And so, Lord, teach us all of these things as we work through these verses today.

We pray it all in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

All right, so first thing here this morning, uh, if you are a note taker, it'll all be on the screen.

We got two points today.

I'm just letting you know the first point's gonna be a lot longer than the second one, but here it is.

The Lord is serious about the unity of his church, and challenging him on that can prove disastrous.

Okay, so for this, let's take a look at verse one.

We're gonna work our way through all 11 verses here.

Take a look.

It says this But a man named Ananias, with his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property, and with his wife's knowledge, all right, so she consents to the scheme here, okay, with his wife's knowledge, he kept back for himself some of the proceeds and brought only part of it, and look at this, laid it at the apostles' feet.

Okay, the last part of that sentence there, laid it at the apostles' feet, that absolutely reminds us, because it's word for word, what we saw last week at the end of chapter four.

Okay, and it reminds us of the example of Barnabas and what he did.

He sold the field that belonged to him and brought the money and laid it at the apostles' feet.

That's verse 37.

Okay, but obviously there, Barnabas, he is he is held up before us as a as a positive example, as someone who did that with the right heart and the right motives.

Okay?

That's exactly what he did.

Um, whereas here, okay, here, Ananias, clearly, he's held up as a as a negative example.

His heart, his, his motives are sinful as the Holy Spirit gives us insight into here through what Peter says in verse 3.

Take a look.

It says, but Peter said, Ananias, why is Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land?

And so Peter, right there, through the Holy Spirit, Peter can't see the man's heart.

It's the Holy Spirit that gives him this insight here.

He can see that Ananias is being, he's being deceptive.

He's not being entirely truthful about what is going on here.

And he's actually accused of lying.

Okay, lying not just to Peter, but ultimately to the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit who is God.

And so what we're to gather here as we read between the lines, we infer that Ananias, obviously, what he's done is he's brought the money forward and claiming, hey, this is this is the entire amount.

This is the full amount that I sold my property uh for, okay, when really was only part of the proceeds.

Now here's the really interesting thing about all of that.

If you uh see how Peter continues, verse 4, look what he says.

He says to Ananias, while it remained unsold, did it not remain your own?

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

Why is it, okay, that you have contrived this deed in your hearts?

You have not lied to man, okay, not primarily, but to God.

Okay, so so understand that that the property itself that Ananias owned, and then the proceeds of that property after he sold it, it was always Ananias's to do with what however he wanted.

To deal with as he saw fit.

Okay, remember the generosity of the church that we saw last week to sell their belongings and distribute the proceeds to all as any had need.

That was of a volunteer, a voluntary thing.

Remember, we talked about that?

They weren't being forced to do this.

And and Peter knows this, of course.

And so if you think about it, Ananias had every right to keep the property.

He he didn't have to sell it, or he could have sold it and kept all the money for himself.

Or he could have sold it and kept part of the money for himself and and given part of the money to the church and to the needy.

Only just be upfront about it.

Right?

Just be honest about that.

But no, no, he doesn't do that.

He decides to lie.

Why?

Well, likely because he just wanted to look good.

He wanted to look good in the apostles' eyes, he wanted to look good to other members in the church, you know, and appear as though he was being super generous and making this public spectacle of laying the money at the apostles' feet and and but at the same time really just keeping a bunch of it for himself.

So he's kind of thinking here, like, look how look how generous I am, church.

Look at what I am doing here.

Give me the attention that I want, give me the prestige and the honor and the acclaim that that I so long for.

Ananias, he wants to be exalted at the end of the day.

He wants everyone to look at him and and he's willing to scheme, he's willing to lie, he's absolutely willing to challenge God to get what he selfishly wants.

And of course, whenever there's a sin like this or any sin, there's there's there's always a component of arrogance in it.

Like, how how much can I get away with here?

Right?

It's it's walking the fingers towards our siblings.

That that's what we do with the Lord.

See, Ananias and certainly the the church, they would have known that lying is a serious sin.

God takes that very seriously.

And lying is not just a thing between the person lying and God.

You know, it's it's with no effect on anybody else.

But but that's how we treat that's how we think about our sins sometimes, don't we?

We think that, well, there's there's no victim here, there's there's no issue, there, there's no problem.

This is if anyone's gonna hear it, it's just gonna be me, but even that probably not so much.

And so what's the big deal?

There's no victim.

But notice, let's get this verse up on the screen.

Proverbs 26, verse 28.

Proverbs 26:28

And again, this church would have been familiar with this.

It says, a lying tongue hates its victims.

A lying tongue hates its victims.

So there are victims when someone lies.

It says a flattering mouth, which is another version of lying.

A flattering mouth works ruin.

So you see the damage there that happens to others when people lie.

They would have been very aware of that.

How about Proverbs 6?

Look at this verse, that's on the screen too.

Okay?

Here's what it says.

It says, there are six things that, uh, sorry, it says a lying, uh let me just organize myself here.

Okay, I'm back.

Okay, there are six things that the Lord hates, seven that can be an abomination to him.

Now, maybe you're looking at that and you're like, what's the whole six, seven thing all about?

Is it six or is it seven?

Can God not make up his mind?

Well, on one hand, that's just to say that this is not an exhaustive list.

It could be a list of 30 things.

But in six and seven is to say that, but it's also actually a literary device to draw the reader's attention to the seventh item, the final item on the list as particularly egregious in God's eyes.

So let's work our way through this here and notice uh the sins that Ananias himself is guilty of here.

Hey, six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him.

Okay?

It says, uh uh haughty eyes.

Means egotistical.

That's an abomination to the Lord.

It's pride.

How about this?

A lying tongue.

A lying tongue.

We already know lying.

We've talked about that, we know that Ananias has done that.

Hands that shed innocent blood.

That's the one thing that Ananias hasn't done in this entire list.

Okay, a heart that devises wicked plans.

Totally, he's done that.

He's devised a plan, his wife has joined him on it.

Feet that make haste to run to evil, he's done it.

A false witness who breathes out lies, yes.

And then here's the last thing.

Look at this, notice it.

And one who sows discord among the brothers.

One who sows discord among the brothers.

You see the the lack of unity there?

The Lord, the Lord hates that.

See, and these verses, they really get right at the heart of the issue for this church in Acts chapter 5.

Acts 5 · chapter mention

Ananias' lies, they aren't this innocent, not a big deal thing, who really cares?

No.

His lies grieve the Lord, first of all, and that's obviously in view here.

But on top of that, they have a damaging effect on this community of believers, specifically in their unity as a body.

Something that God is extremely zealous about.

He wants to protect that, he wants to grow that uh in any church.

How do we know that God is so serious about that?

Well, I mean, just look at what happens next, verse five.

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

Okay, so he's gone.

And great fear came upon all who heard it.

The young men rose and wrapped him up and carried him out and buried him.

Now, verse 7, keep going.

After an interval of about three hours, his wife came in.

This is Sapphira now, not knowing what had happened.

They may be thinking, like, it's been three hours.

Like, how has someone not not told this woman what it what's taken place?

Well, I mean, keep in mind that they don't just whip out iPhones and text the person and say, hey, we need to chat, something's gone down.

Right?

So it is conceivable in these unique circumstances when it's seen as God's judgment, that these that these men just brought him out and kind of quietly buried him because it was this shameful thing that took place.

That's how the culture worked back then.

Okay, so she, for whatever reason, three hours has gone by, she hasn't heard yet.

Keep going, it says, and Peter said to her, Tell me whether you sold the land for so much.

And she said, Yes, for so much.

So she lies like Ananias does.

But Peter said to her, How is it that you have agreed together to test?

That word is really important, to test the spirit of the Lord.

If you have a pen, like circle that word test in there.

To test means to willfully challenge God to see how serious he is about something.

Okay, that that's exactly what Ananias and Sapphira are doing.

It's not, again, it's not innocent.

They want to see how far they can push, cross those lines, cross those boundaries.

They're testing the Spirit of the Lord.

Okay, still in verse 9 now.

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

Okay, so Peter prophetically is announcing what God's about to do.

Verse 10.

And immediately she fell down at his feet and breathed her last.

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

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

Now, whether their deaths are the result of cardiac arrest or or or something like that, or or God just took them out supernaturally, uh, isn't stated here.

But obviously, what we're to understand is that what happened here is a result of either God's judgment on unbelievers.

Okay, we don't actually know if Ananias and Sapphira were Christians.

Okay, it's either that, or, or it's very severe discipline of true believers for the sake of God's glory and the unity of this church.

Now, as you and I absorb all of these things, okay, as we think about this passage and and we hear those verses, I think a good question to ask is like, what is this all telling us here?

Okay, well, certainly that God's not playing around when it comes to us developing a casual attitude towards sin and how that sin works to harm a community.

Okay?

The unity and the togetherness that God is working to grow and foster in a local church like ours is, listen, do we realize this?

It is so special, it is it is so unique even, so so unlike anything that the world can hope to offer us, that He is zealous, zealous, okay, to protect it.

Okay, now as we think about that, that should that should strike us deep.

Okay, that should strike us deep.

Because maybe as you read through this passage, maybe you wouldn't say it out loud, but you're thinking it, okay, maybe you've been kind of wondering, like, man, it it seems like like this is a bit of an overreaction on God's part.

Right?

Have you thought that when you've read this passage before?

Like, like is God, is God overstepping here a little bit?

Like this seems a little bit a little bit harsh.

But I think that the natural way that we might look at this passage and we would read it, okay, is just looking at how disastrous this situation proves to be for Ananias and Sapphire.

Right?

And on on from that angle, that's absolutely true.

I mean, they they lose their lives over it.

Okay, but here's here's the thing, church.

Here, here's a better way of us looking at this.

Really listen to this.

Okay, God views disunity in the church as the truly disastrous thing.

Okay?

So much so that he was willing to teach them this very serious lesson about it.

I'm gonna repeat that again because I think it's bare uh worth repeating.

Hey, God views disunity in the church as the truly disastrous thing.

Hey, so much so that he was willing to teach this group of people a very serious lesson to show them that.

Which should really, I think, get us, get us thinking about the unity of our church.

Right, as we're reading this, we ought to be thinking about ourselves, right?

And and and seeking this to apply, seeking to apply this in our lives.

Right?

How how are we doing it this?

How are we doing in terms of unity?

Now, on one hand, I think it's kind of an interesting day to be asking that question.

It's the first day that we've all been back in in months and And it's finally live, and here we are, and we can actually see people, and all of that is really great.

And I think uh it would be safe to say that we've all felt a certain level of disconnectedness from each other over the last five months or so.

And so maybe some of what we're feeling is is some of that, right?

And we're feeling this disconnect and and this distance between us and people, and maybe that's what we we feel, and we might chalk some of that up to disunity, and maybe some of it is, okay?

But but beyond that, are are you and I, are we doing anything that is actively promoting disunity uh in our church?

Are we doing anything that that's doing that?

And is it happening in in blatant ways?

Is it happening in in subtle ways?

I mean, if you think about it, really any sin disrupts unity.

Any sin at all.

In some way it's it's working to do that.

I'll just cover a couple here really quickly.

Lies.

We've already talked about the lies of Ananias and Sapphira.

So they're being dishonest.

They're acting as though they're they're on the same page as everybody else, but they're really not.

And so, in that, there's a there's an inherent selfishness in what's going on in Ananias and Sapphira.

They don't they don't truly love people, they don't care about the needs of the church.

They they care about themselves.

They want to look good.

That is the opposite of what God desires his church to be.

Right?

So that disrupts uh the unity right there.

Another couple of maybe obvious ones in terms of sins that destroy unity.

Gossip.

Okay, gossip and and slander.

Okay, slander is like gossip on steroids.

Okay, gossip is where you're you know whispering kind of in back channels about people, and you know, you love to share juicy bits of details that you've heard about this person, her, him, that family, whatever.

Okay, and and and some they love to do that.

Other slander is like straight out eviscerating and ripping people and and shaming people and trashing people, and and and and and obviously these things destroy the unity that God is trying to build in the church.

Some of the things that that I've noticed in 14 years of of ministry is just how twisted we can get when it comes to gossip and slander, and how some people they will do that in the name of love for the church.

Right?

Like, I love this church so much.

That's why I'm going to rip the things that aren't good about it.

Just because I want it to be better.

I want it to glorify God more.

Like, literally, people do that.

And they will they will rip us, or they will, they I mean it's happened to you, it's happened to me, certainly.

That's all, that's all super, super disunifying.

How about one last one here?

Again, we could go on forever, but how about just insisting on your own way?

Right?

We can do that in in very subtle ways.

On the outside, it looks like we're all on board, but but deep down you you just want to you want to buck against the rules, you want to buck against the the way things are done in a church.

You you you you don't really want to get on board, you want to be loved and cared for, but but not in the way that the model that the church is is trying to carry out, and and so you're you're fighting against that.

And I mean that's that's again, you're rowing in opposite directions of what we're trying to do as a church.

Okay, these things destroy unity because at the end of the day, they're the opposite of what God says, to love Him and to love other people.

Okay, and really, if you want to peel back another layer to all of this, they break down the trust that's necessary to foster unity.

Okay, they break down the trust.

Because think about it this way if if you are gossiped about, okay, or someone slanders you, and it's happened to all of us, okay?

But if someone does that to you, instinctively what happens within you?

You you're you're realizing, and you may not have identified this, but you're you know deep down, if this person's willing to gossip to me, they're willing to gossip about me.

And so now what?

I I I don't I don't trust them.

And trust is so crucial in the fabric of unity in a church.

We've got to trust each other.

Okay, if if if someone slanders you and and and and and rips you, okay, the last thing you wanna do is be near to them in fellowship.

Why would you want to be near a toxic person?

A person who's willing to harm and destroy, no matter what they actually say after that about loving the church or whatever.

Okay, all of this stuff destroys, and trust is so important as a church grows in unity.

Listen, when you when you just begin to grasp just how disastrous these things are for a church's unity, and you read a passage like this, I mean it should break our hearts.

It should break our hearts that we would ever see that here in our church.

It should even anger us, I would say.

Righteously so, right uh be angry at what God is doing is being attacked or undermined from within.

To really make us think twice about challenging God and pushing those boundaries and trying to see how far we can get away with, how much we can get away with, minimizing the seriousness of it.

It's obvious by these verses that God is dead serious about it.

And that's somewhat pun intended.

Okay, I'm not trying to make light of this situation here.

It's a heavy situation.

But we should be we should be humbled by this as we read this and think about our church.

We should stand in fear of him, which is really this final thing here, going quickly.

The Lord is serious about the unity of his church, so it's best to recognize it and stand in holy fear.

Now we've already worked through all of the verses, you probably noticed that all the way down through verse 11, but I want us to just circle back here to two uh two verses that we kind of breeze through quickly.

Verse five and then verse eleven again.

Hey, notice the response of those who heard and saw what happened to Ananias and Sapphira.

Verse five.

Okay, when Ananias heard these words, he fell down and breathed his last, and then this, and great fear, okay, great fear came upon all who heard it.

Hey, now verse 11, jump down.

Again, and great fear came upon the whole church.

Okay, interestingly enough, that's the first time that Luke, the author of Acts, uses that word church uh in this in this book.

Okay, great, great fear came upon the whole church and upon all who heard these things.

Now, I think sometimes when we read these verses, verses like this in our own kind of comfortable North American way, we we love to we love to sanitize them a little bit.

Okay, we love to sanitize them so that so that maybe these verses are a little bit more, I don't know, palatable to our our refined sensibilities.

You know, we we take a verse like this, and we're like, oh, that's just you know, that's just referring to uh respect.

You know, these people respected the Lord and and and they stood in awe of him and all of that.

Now, to be fair, that's that's often what it means when it when it says that.

Okay, but here in the language here, okay, it just straight up means dread and terror.

That was these people's response.

I mean, think about it, they just saw two people drop dead at church.

Okay?

Like that that that's what's going on here.

And they were in like panic, like, whoa, panic, like, what is happening here?

This is this is serious.

Now, before you get thinking here, because I know some of this is where your heads are gonna go, some of you are gonna be thinking here, well, wait a second, that's that's a bad thing.

We shouldn't be fear-driven in our relationship with God.

We shouldn't be in panic mode in our relationship with God.

What about the love and and the grace of God?

Get to that part, Pastor.

Don't worry, we're getting there.

Okay?

But but you need to recognize that that great fear is actually such a good thing for us to have.

When you realize that, okay, when you realize that, that God means business, okay, he is not to be messed with.

The unity of his church is not to be messed with.

Okay, when when you grasp that, that he that he is perfectly, you know, and holy and and infinitely glorious, okay, when you see that and and and and you as you contemplate your sin or or the sin uh of another, and you're filled with that that holy fear, that, that, that dread, that, that terror, those moments, and and you probably experienced it before, those moments powerfully crush the pride and the arrogance in our hearts, like pretty much nothing else.

And you realize, man, this this is the God that I'm that I'm dealing with here.

Right?

They they they they destroy that, they they crush our sin.

They reveal in that split second moment, even the absolute perfection and purity of the God of the universe.

Again, all in a moment's notice.

Okay, and then when you have that, you understand that, and then when you also consider the rest of the story, okay, the the love and and the grace of that same God towards us in the gospel, that he loved us enough to send Jesus to be our rescue from sin.

Okay, despite the fact that our sinful nature, I mean, even still consistently, constantly, challenges his rule and his reign.

When you realize that the fear and dread thing and the love of God all together and and and the totality of who God is, it just makes you think, wow, right?

It it brings you to your knees.

I mean, it really does.

Like, and you think it's just how how awesome is this God?

How unworthy am I to stand in his presence and what a true joy it is that Jesus is the one who enables me to be able to do that.

It's all by his sacrifice, it's all by his love and all by his grace.

And so listen, I would challenge some of us here, I'm sure, uh, to bow to this God today.

Right?

If if you're not a Christ follower, in in holy fear, just recognize that that he offers you forgiveness through his son's life and through his son's death.

He offers you uh uh an opportunity to be a part of a local church and where we're working together to foster uh the sense of unity and community here in the grace of God by his Holy Spirit.

And listen, for those of us who who are believers, right, let's let's remember that if if if we have sinned in this way and we've got into bad habits and and and we have, you know, whatever it is, gossip, lied, slander, whatever other sin you want to talk about, let's let's let's consider that.

Let's let's repent of that and then let's move forward.

Living out of the redemption that Christ has has paid for bought for us.

Let's live as believers, consider ourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

That's not, we don't need to wallow in all of this.

If if you've made mistakes, if if you've crossed the line, if if you've challenged God, I'm not saying you need to live, you know, just crushing yourself and beating yourself up about that.

Live out of the out of the forgiveness that you know you have in Christ Jesus.

Working together with other believers here, learning to love them despite their imperfections, willing to love them despite your own imperfections, and learning to love the Lord as well.

Listen, we're gonna respond uh with a song right now.

John is gonna come up and sing that for us.

But first, I want to pray for us in this.

Again, I'm I'm so tired of using the phrase these are unique times, uh, but uh they are.

And we need the Spirit of the Lord to create this unity uh with us.

My prayer for us is that we would be more unified somehow through this whole time.

Right?

And that's that's gonna be evidence that it's it's God doing it.

Because it's it's harder and harder for us to do that, it seems, uh, but with him it is absolutely possible.

Let's pray.

God, we thank you for again your word and and a stark reminder here of your holiness.

Uh a strong reminder that we can't just play around with sin.

God, lead us to repentance as a church, lead us to repentance as the different ways that we've we cross the line and we challenge you, and we don't fear you, and we don't care, and we want to be comfortable, and all of those things, Lord, come to the forefront.

God, we thank you that through the gospel we find out who you are.

You are loving, you're gracious, you're forgiving.

Or through the gospel we find out who we are.

We're forgiven.

We're redeemed, we are a new creation.

Father, I pray that in these things we withstand, Lord.

I pray that you would grow us in these areas.

Lord, we pray all of this in the name of Jesus Christ.

Amen.