LOOKS CAN BE DECEIVING

0:00 Church, would you join me this morning in prayer before we dive into the teaching of God's Word? Jesus, we thank you for these moments that we share here together. Let us remember what it is, what a gift it is to gather together. Help us remember that this moment is the only promised moment we have right now. So let us make the most of it. God, I pray that as we open up your Word, that your Word would not return void, that you would open blind eyes, open closed-off hearts to the beauty of the gospel. We ask all these things in your son's name. Everybody said, come on, everybody said. Okay, we're gonna start off this morning a little different and I need your participation. The 9.30 did all right here, but I know the 11.15, you got the extra hour of sleep and you are going to be engaged and locked in. I'm talking to our campuses too at Dallas, Fort Worth, Frisco, and Elasso. Here's what we're gonna do.

0:51 I'm gonna throw up two images side by side and we're gonna do a couple of these and your job is to determine which one has been generated by AI. Do you think you can participate in that? You can say it out loud, saying it's better, or you can hold up a one or a two. Here's the first photo. Can you tell me which one you think has been generated by AI? Say it out loud. You gotta say it at the campuses we're listening. Hold up a one or a two. Okay, one, two, three. Let's see which one it is. It was one. I saw a couple of people that were wrong. Let's go to image number two. Let's see if someone can get 100% here. This is the second image. Can you tell me which one you think is AI generated? Hold up a one or two. Say it out loud. I don't know. Do something. Two. Is that what you think? Okay. We're going to see. One, two, three. And it was two. Correct. Well done. Okay. Image number three. Let's throw it up. Which one do you think has been generated by AI? Say it out loud.

1:42 Hold up your one. Hold up your two. I see a lot of people not participating. That's okay. A lot of twos. Let's see which one. It's two. Correct. Anyone at 100% so far? You're locked in. Ready to go. All right, let's see if you can make it. We've got two more. Which one do you think has been AI generated? This one's a little bit easier. Hold up your one or two. Come on, say it out loud. Turn to your neighbor. Tell them which one you think. I see a two. I see a couple of ones. I see some more twos. One, two, three. Let's see. It's one. Okay, this is the hardest one. This is going to be very challenging. I saved the hardest one for last. Let's throw it up. Here we go. Which one has been AI? generated. But not after this year, because this year's our year.

2:31 Got some Cowboys fans in the house. I was talking to someone earlier this week, and they're like, man, I'm telling you, after this preseason, this is our year. I'm like, because preseason is the determining factor of who's going to win the Super Bowl. Anyways, this year is our year. But isn't it crazy where AI has brought us? Because I don't know about you, but images 12 months ago, it was really easy to spot the fake. Like somebody had eight fingers on one hand. There was like a fourth eyeball somewhere. Someone's ear was on their shoulder and you're like, yeah, that's obviously not real. But now it's like, man, I genuinely can't tell the difference. And I think AI has taught us a lot of things, not the least of which is that looks can be deceiving. And I've found that what's true of images is also true of people. that there are people who externally on the outside, they look like the happiest people on planet earth, but internally they are absolutely miserable. Uh, there's other people that walk through the hallways of your school or maybe your office at work and externally, they look like the most confident people in the building. They walk into every single meeting, like, like they own the building, but internally they are riddled with insecurity.

3:38 than there are those people who everybody thinks like that. That person is like what everybody wants to be. They've got the house, the spouse, the cars, the stuff. And yet the predominant thought when their head hits the pillow at night is I actually hate who I've become. And I would say most importantly and most unfortunately, there's a good group of people who look like they're Christians, but they don't actually know Jesus. And in order to unpack that important reality, we're going to take a dive into a section of scripture that I haven't heard a lot of people teach from. Whenever I prepare for a sermon, I like to read scholarship, read commentaries, and also look at what other communicators have said upon a certain text. And this is one of those texts that a lot of preachers skip over. And in just a moment, you'll see why, but I'm thankful that our church fellowship church, we're going to preach the full counsel of God, the verses that everybody loves and the verses that raise some question marks so that we can wrestle with the word of God. So we're going to turn to Acts chapter five, but before we get there, I've got to give some context. Acts is the book that's speaking about the beginning of the early church. Like this is the start. This is the delivery room. This is after Jesus has died on the cross, risen again from the grave. And for 40 days, he's walking with his disciples. He's teaching. He's telling them what's to come. And that's a great reminder for every single person in the building this morning, because we do not serve a dead God, we serve a living God. Anyone thankful for that reality today?

5:07 And so he's hanging out and then he promises that the advocate, the Holy Spirit is going to come. And then he does something wild. He literally ascends into heaven and the disciples are like, what is going on? And then in Acts chapter two, we see the Holy Spirit descend and the church begins to spread like wildfire. And one day there are 3000 people that go public with their faith. The church begins to grow. And this community of people called the church begin to take care of each other like the world has never seen. the generosity that they're showing is unfathomable and at the end of Acts chapter 4 there's a man named by his nickname his nickname's Barnabas could you imagine if that was your nickname kind of a rough nickname and so they tell the story Acts the writer his name's Luke he's a doctor and he's intentionally writing this at the end of Acts chapter 4 he speaks of a man named Barnabas who sells a piece of property and brings all of the proceeds to the church just to take care of this community and to take care of others. And Acts chapter five, verse one starts with this phrase, but a man named Ananias. So he is intentionally giving us a contrast of two different stories. We're going to pick up in verse one. It says, 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 is Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back yourself part of the proceeds of the land while it remained unsold did it not remain your own 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 and I want to make something abundantly clear at the beginning of this passage the point of this passage is not to say hey you need to sell everything and give it to the church you can exhale this morning. You're gonna be okay. The heart of this is not simply a generosity problem. It's an honesty problem. Ananias came and presented like he was giving all of the proceeds, but behind closed doors, he kept back some for himself. So the sin here is not that he didn't

7:12 give enough. The sin here is that he wanted others and God to believe that he was something that he wasn't. He wanted the level of recognition that Barnabas got, but he wasn't willing to give the same amount of surrender that Barnabas gave. And that's very helpful and important for us to understand this morning because Ananias and Sapphira looked the part and they played the part well. But how many of us know that the goal of Christianity is not to play a part? The goal of Christianity is to follow Jesus Christ humbly and honestly. Jesus did not die for you to give a good performance on a Sunday. He died in order that your entire life might be changed and transformed by the good news of Jesus. And so I just imagined the scene because Ananias thinks he's fooled everybody. And so he walks into church that day, maybe with a little gangster limp, like, yeah, people are about to be so impressed by what I'm about to do, giving all the proceeds and stuff.

8:11 and he walks in and he's getting ready to impress everybody. But I'll tell you one person who wasn't impressed. The most important person, God, God, God will not be fooled. And that's very important for all of us to understand this morning that you can look the part, you can play the part. Well, you can fool your spouse, you can fool your friends, you can fool the pastor on the stage, but you cannot fool God. And that should deliver a healthy amount of fear into all of us, including the preacher on the stage, but it's also actually the best news ever. Why? Because there are some people who are exhausted in their performative Christianity. Like, like their church friends know them as one person. The friends at the country club know them as another person. The friends at the office know them as another person. And I'm here to tell you that if you find yourself in that category today, one, if not more of those people is just a costume. And Jesus is here today to invite you, dare I say, command us to take the costume off and step into something that's real, not perfection, but honesty, not perfection, but just walking humbly and honestly, because God would rather have your honest imperfection than your fake perfection.

9:29 but there are a lot of people who keep the costume on. And to a certain degree, I understand it because the cost of taking the costume off and living a real honest life is too high. A couple of weeks ago, I took my boys to New York city and it's their first time going there. And so they were fired up. And so we fly on a plane, we land in Newark airport and we are in the airport. We still got like a 45 minute Uber drive to get to Manhattan. But my boys are so excited that my oldest son, uh, Thunder, he's walking through the terminals and we're passing like concession stands and like gate D seven and thunders like New York city is amazing. This place is unreal. I'm like, buddy, this is not New York city as an airport. And so we get into the Uber, we drive to time square, we get dropped off and I bought them like a hot dog at a concession stand. Cause that's what you do in New York city. And, uh, we're walking through Times Square and my younger son, his name's Dodge. He's like sniffing. And I'm like, what's going on? He's like, dad, New York city kind of smells like steak. And I'm like, it smells like something, buddy. Let's keep moving. Okay. And so one of the mornings I wake up and, uh, there's one of those guys on the side of the street selling all the counterfeit handbags.

10:42 You know what I'm talking about? If you've ever been to New York city. And so, because I'm such a hallmark husband, I FaceTime my wife and said, Hey, are there any of these fake purses that you would like. And she's like, yeah, show me some. And they're like, you know, the Louis Vuitton, the Gucci, the, you know, all this stuff. And she picked out one and she was like, Hey, how much, how much is that one? Same. That looks unreal. And the guy's like 60 bucks. And so as a man, I'm like, all right, I'm about to negotiate down to 20. Let's go. It's on. And right as I'm about to start negotiating, I hang up the FaceTime and a police car turns the corner and turns on his lights and I see something so impressive in a matter of 0.78 seconds. This man had probably a hundred handbags laid down in a sheet and he grabbed this sheet in 0.34 seconds and starts sprinting down the sidewalk. Probably ran a four or five 40. We should sign him for the Cowboys. It was phenomenal. And my boys are left there like, what just happened, dad? I'm like, well, what he was doing was legal. And they're like, are we doing something illegal? I'm like, You don't need to ask that question, son.

11:45 That's not the point of this moment. but thank you i appreciate that but here's the question because the the counterfeit industry is a big one in new york city and really across the world and to the untrained eye like a lot of them like they look exactly the same what's what's the biggest tell that one's fake other than some random guy on the side of the street trying to sell it to you. It's the cost. If you want the real thing, it's going to cost you more. And the same is true in a true relationship with Jesus. You want the real thing. There's a cost that comes along with it. And there's many people who want the benefits of Christianity without the surrender of Christianity. Jesus in Matthew 16, 24 says, you want to know what it looks like to follow me, pick up your cross daily and pursue me. AKA there's a cost and the cost is die to yourself and follow him. And that cost is why so many people live double lives.

12:53 One way on a Sunday morning, completely different way on a Friday night, because to fully surrender, to give him every space and place of my life. Well, that just, that cost is too high. Back to the scripture. We're going to pick up in verse five. This is where things get real. So buckle up. Here we go. It says, when Ananias heard these words, he fell down and breathed his last. Whoa. And great fear came upon all who heard it. The young man 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. In verse 8, Peter said to her, tell me whether you sold the land for so much. Like you said you give it all. Is this what you sold it for? She said, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Like we're giving it all. That's how much. 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 and found her dead. They carried her out and buried her beside her husband. And great fear came upon the whole church and all who heard these things. I love verse 11. It's like great fear filled the church. Like, yeah, no kidding. Two funerals before the 1115 service let out. I think there would be some fear. I'm also like, could you imagine the Netflix documentary that get made from that? Like pastor kills two members of the church for not giving enough money.

14:16 I'd go viral. But the question that we have to wrestle with is like, why would God do that? This is the new Testament. This is after the resurrection. We're in the period of grace. Like what's going on? And first and foremost, we have to look at the context of what I mentioned earlier. We are literally standing in the very start of the church, the delivery room of the church, this new age that Christ is the bedrock of. And if you know your scripture well, you know that oftentimes at the beginning of something brand new, God has a pattern of making his holiness undeniable. And he is doing so in this moment. and he's trying to help his bride see that a pure church is a powerful church. That if you want power in the house of God, it is directly attuned and tied to the level of purity in the house of God. So Acts chapter five is not merely God protecting his reputation.

15:24 It's God protecting his bride because scripture teaches what parents already know. the Lord disciplines those he loves. This is discipline at its finest. And some people sit back and go, well, seems kind of aggressive. I couldn't even have just given them like a second shot. And to you, I'd say, imagine tomorrow on Labor Day, you are swimming in the beautiful, crystal clear blue waters of Lake Grapevine. I don't know why you're laughing so hard, but Thank you. but imagine you're swimming, like you see like a 14 foot bull shark and there's like a bunch of people swimming in the water. I mean, like, could you imagine them being insane? And I don't know one person that would be like, Hey, Hey guys, how's your labor day going? Like good. Mine too. Hey, um, just can't help but notice something that there is a man eating machine behind you. And I just, you know, if you have the time, you think maybe in the only, if you want to, maybe you just hop out of the water, get in the boat because there's a, well, there's a man-eating machine behind you. No, not going to do that. You're going to yell, shark, get out of the water.

16:39 And no one's going to look at that person and be like, well, that's a bit loud and obnoxious. Oh, you're going to get out and listen. The alarm is loud because the danger is real. Acts chapter five, God is sounding the alarm to his church. Don't mess around with sin. Don't live in the lie of hypocrisy. Do not stand around and play with pet sins in your life. Why? Because sin destroys the thing that God loves the most, which is you. He knows, he knows where that relationship that doesn't honor him leads you in 15 years. He knows where that seemingly harmless habit is going to end in 10 years. It's going to shackle you to addiction. So the alarm is loud because the danger of sin is real. The Lord disciplines those he loves. He's trying to protect his bride. But secondly, the reason why God is doing this is because of something we've lost sight of in 2026 in our Western world. God is holy, which means sin is never small to him ever. And this is a lesson that we can all learn from. And this is what we do as New Testament believers.

18:04 Okay. We have to hold two truths at the exact same time. We have to hold one truth in one hand that God is a loving, gracious, compassionate, forgiving father that desires an intimate relationship with us. And in the second hand, at the exact same time, God is a holy and just and righteous judge. But what we tend to do is we tend to like steer towards the side that we like better, which in 2026 is like the compassion, forgiving father that like just loves us no matter what. And here's what happens. If you lean that way, you will mistake the patience of God for permission from God and you will live in habitual sin that is actually destroying you. But on the flip side, if you lean towards the righteous, holy judge and just go towards that way, sure, you'll live like a moral good life solely based out of fear and you will never have the intimate, real relationship that God desires with you. So what do we do? The truth is found in the tension. We have to understand that yes, he is holy and sin is never small. And yet he is gracious and compassionate. A thing that I think describes this really well as Isaiah chapter six, for time's sake, we're not going to turn there, but Isaiah gets a vision of God. And he says that the train of his robe fills the entire temple. He says that there's angels with six wings, which is just crazy to me are crying one word over and over and over. Holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy. And when he sees God for who he is, he sees himself for who he is.

19:41 The first words out of Isaiah's mouth in this vision are, woe is me. I am a man of unclean lips, AKA I don't belong here. And at that moment, an angel comes down and cleanses his lips. And that is the order and the beauty of the holiness of God. We are exposed so that we can be cleansed. Never one without the other. You experience the magnitude of the grace of God when you understand the magnitude of the holiness of God. A couple of years ago, I had the opportunity to go on a dirt bike trip through the deserts of Arizona and it ended in the Grand Canyon. And I had been to the Grand Canyon before when I was like a little kid, don't really remember much. And so I obviously, you know, growing up, you always like see photos of the Grand Canyon. And I'm just going to be honest, like as a teenager, it's going to like, you know it's a big thing that's deep like not that impressive and so we go on this dirt bike trip and it's like nine hours of dirt bike riding like through the day it was insane it was amazing but the last day ends at the Grand Canyon and I just kind of remember like being like oh when we're here I may as well go look at it and I walked up to the edge and I remember like trying to catch my breath just like beholding this there was a certain amount of awe like oh my good like seeing this in person. It's different, the magnitude of this. Now, how many know the Grand Canyon didn't change? My proximity to it did. And when I got close, I was filled with all.

21:10 I would argue the same is true with our relationship with God. The closer you get, the more amazed you become at how holy and good he is. And you're like, God, why are you trying to hang out with me and he gives us grace. And I'm thankful for that reality. Verse seven and eight is one of my favorite parts of this text. It's really easy to brush over because it almost sounds like a sarcastic question where Peter's asking like, Hey, did you really sell it for this much? It feels like a trap, but it's not. It's a moment of true mercy, a moment for Sapphira to tell the truth. This is a gift. And ultimately she decides to keep the lie. Why? Because Sapphira did something that we convince ourselves of many times. And that is that the consequences for confessing her sin, she thought were going to be greater than the consequences of concealing her sin. And that's not true church. The consequences for confessing your sin are never greater than the consequences for concealing your sin. And God in acts of mercy will oftentimes give us chances and moments to come clean. And my prayer is that we wouldn't make the same mistake that Sapphira did.

22:30 I love James, what he says of confession. He says, confess your sins to one another that you might be healed. What does he say is on the other side of your confession? healing. We convince ourselves the opposite and there may be some consequences to your confession, but I'm here to tell you they never outweigh the consequences for concealing the sin in your life. I heard one of the most amazing definitions of growing in your spiritual walk with Christ is closing the gap between sin and repentance. Closing that gap. There are some people before God, they'd never admit that they were wrong. Hold on to wrongs for decades. I'm not admitting that. Heck no. Then they step in a relationship with Jesus and all of a sudden they start to open themselves up to the spirit of God, bringing things to mind that they need to confess, they need to repent of.

23:28 And all of a sudden it goes down to years and all of a sudden it goes down to months and then it goes to weeks and then it goes to days. And then all of a sudden you find yourself mid sentence, like, I'm going to stop. I'm not going to do that. And my, my question to us is this, what would marriages look like with two individuals committed to closing the gap between their sin and their repentance? The thing I can't get out of my mind in this text is how much Ananias desired recognition. He just, he saw Barnabas get named and he's like, I want that kind of recognition. and think about this reality here we are 2 000 years later he got the recognition we're talking about him in dallas fort worth by name just not for what he wanted because if you make recognition your top goal oftentimes you will be recognized it's not for the right things and so when when you live for the applause of people eventually who you really are gets louder than who you're pretending to be.

24:44 The goal of life is not to be recognized or seen by other people. The goal of life is a person. His name is Jesus. And our goal is to walk honestly and humbly before him. So what do we do? Well, I think for some it's time to take the costume off. And count that cost. It's worth it. But take off the costume. For others, it's time to confess that sin. Maybe it's, you need to have a conversation with your spouse today. Maybe it's a friend. Maybe it's a trusted pastor in your life. You need to experience the healing that is found in confession. For others, it might just be continuing to fight to closing that gap between your sin and repentance.

25:40 My prayer is that we would honestly assess our lives and view where do I need to change? Because my question that I'll end with this morning is this. If we were to throw your life up on that screen, what would people say? Real or fake? We don't have to talk about your life. The past seven days, if you call yourself a Christian, we threw it all up there. The stuff that you thought nobody sees, but God sees, what would people say? I'm not talking about perfection. I'm talking about like when you've made mistakes, have you gotten honest with others and with God and owned up to your mistakes? What would they say? Real or fake? My prayer is that we would be a group of people who would chase after purity and after the holiness of God, that we would experience a God who is gracious, compassionate, and desires a deep and intimate relationship with his people.

26:50 And a God who is also a holy and righteous judge. Would you bow your heads with me? Maybe you're in the room and you didn't realize that it was possible to have a real intimate relationship with God. I'm here to tell you it is. and only once you see the holiness of God can you understand how great of a gift this is. But maybe you're in this room today and you've never made a decision to commit your life to the person of Jesus Christ, to give him everything. I'd love to lead you in a prayer to do exactly that today. These aren't magic words. What matters is the posture of your heart. Just say this after me. You don't even have to say it out loud. You can just say it in the confines of your heart. Say, Lord, today I admit that I'm a sinner in need of a savior. I believe that you are a holy God. And I also believe that you desire a relationship with me. I believe you sent your son to die on a cross and three days later, he rose again from the grave.

27:47 And today I choose to follow you humbly and honestly. I take the costume off and I give you everything. Lord, I lift up everyone under the sound of my voice here and at our different locations. God, by your spirit, would you give us the strength to live this out, to not live hypocritical lives, to confess, to repent, to take the costume off, to sincerely follow you and give you every aspect of who we are. That we would look at our lives and say that we are not perfect, but we are honestly and humbly following and pursuing you. We ask all these things in your son's name. Everybody set.