Representing Christ - Acts 6:8-8:3

Some really exciting things to talk about before we get rolling this morning. Number one, every week, we talk about continuing in worship with the way that we give of tithes and offerings. We've been talking a lot about generosity over the last few weeks and how generosity is really a result. It's just a natural byproduct of living in the spirit. When you spend time in living in the spirit of generosity is a result of that. When we struggle to be generous, it's because we're living in the flesh.

I would just invite you to consider as we take our next steps of faith, and we always want to be taking next steps of faith that generosity is a piece of that. We have black boxes mounted to the walls at every exit out of here. You can drop anything in there that you would like to give, or you can jump online. If you're watching online, or if you're in the room, but you're tech savvy, you can get on your phone and go to southeastcc.org/give and you can give their or you can give on our app.

If you're going to download the app, make sure it's Southeast Christian Church in Parker, Colorado. There are a couple of other Southeasts that will not let you know if you gave to the wrong one. Rude. Or you can download the Pushpay app and you can get from there. But we'd love for you to do that just to be able to continue and it is an act of worship. It is a way to say to God, "Thank you for how good you've been to us."

Now, I will also have a really, really big announcement. As of March 1st, Israel will no longer require vaccination to get into the country. That's a big deal. Because some of us are wanting to go to Israel in May. The vaccination has been the big like, "Well, I don't want to get the shot for whatever reason, doesn't matter." Good news, you don't have to choose that now.

If you want to go to Israel, and you don't want to get vaccinated, you can go in May. We'd love to have you. That being said, March the 14th is the drop dead signup date for that trip. I know that that feels like, "Wait, that's so far away from May." Well, first of all, notice it. Secondly, we have bookings for hotels and plane tickets and all that stuff. It all has to be reserved. When we don't use it, they want to release it so that they can repurpose that to somebody else. That's that.

Turkey is in June. You know what's fascinating to me about Turkey is its people like, "Why would you go to Turkey?" Here's why I go to Turkey because it's the early church. It's the New Testament. People ask me all the time, because since 2013 I've been leading study tours to Israel state tours, to Turkey. People are like, "Which one do you like better?"

If I had to pick one, I would pick Turkey. People go like, "Wah, it's Israel." Israel is amazing. As long as I have a choice, I will always have trips to Israel. Israel is incredible. It really is. But Turkey is the concrete execution of the early church. All this stuff that they learned in Israel, all the stuff that that Jesus taught them, the metaphors and the lessons that they want to build on, they actually took it and used it in Turkey.

They used it in Asia Minor. They used it in a specific way up against a real specific set of obstacles that you go, "How in the world did the church ever move forward?" You get to see how it happened. Which by the way, is a particularly relevant conversation for the church in America today. How are we going to move forward based on what we're up against?

If it was me, if I was only going to go there one time, I'd go to Turkey. I just offer that to you. But we'd love to have you on both of those. Neither one of them now will require a vaccination. That is pretty positive step forward in returning to "normalcy" until the next crazy curveball. Life is not normal. I don't know if you guys picked up on that. This just managing curveballs.

But anyway, we'd love to have you sign up. Also for that trip if you want to go March 14th is the drop dead date like, "That's even further away from June." Just sign up. Just get your name on the list. Let's go. You'll love it. You go to Turkey with me, you'll walk away with a master's in church history, I promise you. You will walk away with a master's degree in church history, which I never wanted that.

But what I do think is particularly relevant is going forward as a church in America we're going to have to figure out how to wrestle with a lot of these issues that they wrestled with. It's just a really relevant time in history to be able to go there. The other thing that I would continue to say to you guys is there's never going to be a better time to make a trip to the biblical lands. There's just never going to be a better time to do it.

The reason is because nobody's there. Our access to sites and stuff is just unprecedented. It is really, really incredible. I really want you to come with us, and you can go to Israel, and then Turkey. You can do both. If you have that kind of PTO, you can do both. We'd love to have you on both. But anyway, that's all I have to say about that.

We are going to talk about two chapters of the Bible today. It's a good thing, we don't have another service. I don't know what to do with this. I feel I'm just getting warmed up and we're landing the plane already. It's fun only having two services. I want to talk about the second half of Acts chapter 6, all of chapter 7 and the first half of chapter 8.

We're not going to read all that because it's not all particularly pertinent to what we're talking about. But I would ... In fact, we're going to completely skip chapter 7. That being said, there's some really incredible things in chapter 7. We just don't have time to talk about them. That's another sermon for another day. We're going to talk about Stephen today.

What's so important about Stephen, and why is he such a big deal? Why does he get special reps? There's a lot of followers of Jesus that were killed in the first century. Why don't we have their story, but we do have his story? We're talking about that today. You guys ready to go to work?

Okay. Here we go. Verse 8, and Stephen, full of grace and power, and that's important, because those are two words that aren't often stuck together. How someone's introduced is significant? We want to pay attention to that. Was doing great wonders in signs among the people and then some of those who belong to the Synagogue or the Freedmen, as it was called? What in the world is that? We'll talk about that.

Of the Assyrians and of the Alexandrians and of those of Cilicia in Asia rose up and disputed with Stephen. They wanted to argue with him. Totally different than the world we live in. By the way, speaking of the world we live in, I forgot to mention this. People are already asking me what's the church doing to help Ukrainian Christians, the Ukrainian church?" That's a great question.

We are working on finding what will actually be helpful. Our tendency is just to find the first place to throw money, and then we throw a sack load of cash and hope we're doing well. We're not interested in giving money to somebody who's jumped on a marketing opportunity. We want to make sure that we're actually going to do something.

It may involve dollars. It may not. If it does involve dollars, we'll give money. If it's something else, we'll give something else. But we want to make sure that what we do is helpful. At this general rule about help, it's only helpful if it's helpful. We want to make sure that it's actually helpful. We're working on that. As soon as we have a solution for that, we will let you know.

Let me tell you what is not helpful is to debate the efficacy of Russia and Ukraine on social media, is not helpful. I leave that thought with you. These guys are wanting to debate Stephen, because he's being very persuasive. It says, "But they could not withstand the wisdom and the spirit with which he was speaking." Now, the ESV here capitalizes spirit, as if to distinguish it as the Holy Spirit and that very well could be, that could be that.

My opinion is that it's not that, that this is more just generally the wisdom and the heart with which he's doing it. That these two things the way ... But remember he's full of grace and power. The wisdom that he possesses, but the spirit with which he's displaying that wisdom is actually the thing that's so compelling that people can't come against it.

They secretly instigated men who said, "We've heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God." Okay. Why is that so catastrophic? We'll talk about that. They stirred up the people and the elders in the scribes and they came upon him and seized him, and brought Him before the council. They set up false witnesses who said, "This man never ceases to speak words against this holy place and the law."

Same problem with Moses and God. Why is this such an issue? Why are they so worked up? People were bagging on the temple all the time? Why is this such a problem? For we've heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs that Moses delivered to us and gazing at him all who sat in the council saw that his face was like the face of an angel. I've never been accused of that.

You got the face of an angel. Then in chapter 7, we have the great speech of Stephen. This is entire chapter where he basically goes back and reviews all of Israel's history, but he paints it through the lens of Jesus as Messiah. He reframes the point ... What he's trying to do is to say all these things God did, God did it. All of these things that our ancestors were a part of God did it. It was really. It was good. But it was all about what's being fulfilled in our day. It was all a combination of Jesus coming as Messiah.

The verse 54 of chapter 7, and then leading into chapter 8, it says, "Now, when they heard these things, they were in raged." They ground their teeth at him. I don't know why they did that. I'd be like, "You're going to hurt yourself. Then you're going to have to go to the dentist." We all know that won't be fun. They ground their teeth at him. But he full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven, and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.

He said, "Behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. But they cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears and rushed together at him, which I think would have looked really funny. Ah. That's when you run into a wall when you do that. Then they cast him out of the city, and they stoned him. Now that's not Colorado stone. That's like stone thick. Throw rocks at your head until you die.

We'll talk about what that is because there's a lot of misunderstandings around what it means, what stoning is. The witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul. As they were stoning Stephen, he called out, "Lord Jesus received my spirit." Falling to his knees, he cried out with a loud voice, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them."

By the way, where did he learn those phrases? Jesus said those two things facing his own death. Like Stephen, just like his rabbi. What an animal? When he had said this, he fell asleep and Saul approved of his execution. There arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem. They were all scattered through the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles.

By the way, and I'm not going to say this many spoilers too far right now, because we're going to come back to it over the next few weeks. This spark of the great missional movement of the book of Acts, not a compelling mission that drives me out into the world, persecution. I think historically, what you can observe is that persecution is the catalyst for a lot of the great revivals in church history. Unfortunately, it takes persecution for us to take our face seriously.

I want to be a part of revival. I don't want to have to wait for persecution to kick me in the tush to get me motivated about it. Devout men buried Stephen and made great lamentation over him. But Saul was ravaging the church and entering house after house. He dragged off men and women and committed them to prison. The Saul, we're going to see him in a few chapters. He's going to see a bright light on a road and it's going to mess him up and he's going to change his name to Paul. He's going to become an important guy.

But this is where we're introduced to him. He's a Christian killer. This is not somebody we would have looked forward to seeing come through the doors of our church building. Let's talk about stoning first. The Bible doesn't tell us exactly how people were stoned. But we do have accounts over the centuries that tell us some of the methods used. One account is given to us in the Jewish Mishnah, which the Mishnah is multiple oral Jewish traditions compiled into a single work.

It's a multi-volume work, but in the fourth volume of the Mishnah, in Sanhedrin chapter 6, you're like, "I don't understand any of those words." But now you know how nonbelievers feel when you talk about the Bible. We take it for granted. In Acts chapter 6 they're like, "What? That's most bizarre thing."

Let me tell you a side note, since we got this kind of time. One of the things that really marked me in my ministry early, early on, people asked me a lot like, "Why don't you actually bring the Bible up and read from the Bible, and make us bring our Bible and actually find things in our Bible, and look at it?" But look, there's nothing wrong with that. If you are convicted about that, bring your Bible and check me.

Pull up the reference and read it right out of your Bible. There's not a thing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with that. But here's the thing. I was in a church where we still had pews, just right out of Bible College. My first ministry in less than a year out of Bible College, and I'm sitting in a pew, and next to me is a new family. Then beyond that is a couple that have been coming to the church for a while.

The preacher gets up and he's like, "Hey, we're going to look at this verse and duh, duh, duh." In the book slots him in the back of the pew in front of you there's Bibles if you want to grab one and follow along with us. They grabbed it. They were like ... They were looking at the table of contents, and they're talking. They're trying to figure out how where are we even headed in this? If you've never opened a Bible, and you open it, and you feel how thin those pages are, and how many words are on every page, that's intimidating.

Finally, what happened was this couple that was on the other side of them, just grabbed the Bible and found it real huffy, and gave it back to him. I'm sure that they thought they were being kind. But what they did was incredibly rude. It was condescending and disrespectful. I will never do that. Here's the thing, I want to create a church where people who've been walking with the Lord for a long time can come in and continue to grow in their faith.

But also at the same time, where people who really are just in the exploration phase of their faith, they're like, "I don't really know anything about God or the Bible or anything. I'm just curious." That they can come in and they may not be able to know all the stories or follow along with, but they can exactly understand at least or comprehend what's going on. It makes sense what you're saying.

I don't know if I agree with it, but at least I can understand it. That's important to me. We want to create a space for both. But this is how it feels. Mishnah, Sanhedrin chapter 6, what the what? It's how it feels for a lot of nonbelievers when you say it. Here's the thing, if you're in that space, I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're wrestling with questions of faith because they're important questions.

I pray that we create a space where you understand that you don't have to have everything figured out to walk with the Lord. You come to Jesus and let him help you clean yourself up. You don't have to do it by yourself. It's never too late for that. That's the great news. Never too late to come to Jesus.

Let's talk about stoning. First thing is the place of stoning was twice a man's height. Now, I mean, that's pretty vague. Some rabbinic sources will say exactly 17 feet, but it'd be somewhere between 11 and 17 feet, somewhere in that range is the height and it has to have at the bottom of it rocks. It can't be grass or dirt or water or anything like that. It has to be rocks at the bottom. That when you fall, it hurts.

Number two, when you're on trial, you have witnesses that are giving testimony against you. If you are convicted of what you're being put to trial over then and stoning is the punishment, then the witnesses are the ones who are responsible for carrying out the punishment. What it does is it creates a lot less false witnesses. You're not going to get bought off necessarily, if you know that by testimony, false testimony, I'm going to have to kill somebody.

One of the witnesses, you stand on the height, whether it's a wall or a cliff or something like that, and you have your hands bound behind you, and one of the witnesses pushes you by the hips. They push you out like this. That when you fall, you're going to fall face down, like this. You're pushed by the hips so that he was overturned on his heart. He fell face first on the rocks.

He was then turned, number three, turned on to his back. Then number four, if that caused his death, he had fulfilled his duty. If not, the second witness took a large stone and threw it on his chest. Now remember he's bound ... He's not he's going to be able to roll out of it. If he died, thereby he had done his duty. If not, he, the criminal, was stoned by all of Israel. If he's not dead after those things, then the whole group of people can all get rocks and they're not getting pebbles. They're getting rocks, and they're throwing it until the person dies.

Listen, there's a ton of question about stoning as far as how often did they stone and all that stuff. What I can tell you is the Pharisee said that one stoning every seven years was too many. We don't have a lot of recorded stonings in Jewish history. They did happen. They happened when the Sanhedrin, which is the Jewish ruling council. It happened when they wanted to make a statement. When I want to use this person in their crime to make a statement about how we feel about what they did, stoning was the statement that they made. Does that make sense?

That's what stoning is. It's a nasty, hard, vile way to die. Now, let's talk about the Synagogue of the Freedmen. These people from the Synagogue of the Freedmen are trying to debate Stephen and they can't hang with him. They can't hang with him. There's two options for who the Synagogue of the Freedman is. This matters, actually.

Option A is the slaves of the Romans that were freed, and then became proselyte to the Jewish religion. They were converted, and had a synagogue in Jerusalem. That's Option A is that these are all just Gentile slaves who converted to Judaism and now they have a synagogue. Option B is that there are people who were actually Jews by birth, who had been taken into captivity by the Romans and then set free and this would give them the title Freedmen.

This is actually a class in the Roman caste system, okay, as Freedmen. Now may I ask you this question. You've been put into slavery by a government, how do you feel about that government? How do you think these people talked about the Roman Empire? Real bad. So bad. By the way, these are people who are politically motivated in their conversation. These are people who really care about politics and rightly so.

If it's option B, which I believe it is, these are Jewish people who do not like Rome, and they're very zealous and nationalistic in nature. It makes sense that what upsets them so much is bad talking about Moses and God, because these are the two figures that are really the character identities for the Jewish people as a nation. When you talk against Moses and God, you're talking against our identity as a nation and we won't have that.

We've been in slavery. We care about this. These are two people who must connect the nation of Israel with who they are. This Synagogue of the Freedmen, they want to debate Stephen, but they can't, because Stephen is too full of grace and power. Who is he? Let's talk about him. Who's Stephen? This is the first thing that I really want to focus on. Because Steven is the man and the more I study Stephen, the more I'm like, "of course, he's somebody that God would use."

Remember, he's chosen in this ... At the beginning of chapter 6, the Hellenistic Widows are being neglected in the church. They come and complain to the apostles and the apostles are like, "We're not going to neglect prayer in the ministry of the word. That's our job. You need to select seven men who are full of the Holy Spirit and have a good reputation. You let them take care of the work."

Stephen is in that list. I think he's listed first, and that matters. Why is Stephen chosen? We have a lot of people who persecuted and murdered in the church over the centuries. Why do we get Stephen's story but not theirs? Why is he such a person used by God? Well, how is introduced matters, these full of grace and power? Now, grace is the Greek word Charis. Here's what it means. That which affords joy, pleasure, delight, sweetness, charm, and loveliness.

Now if that's his personality, what do you expect him to be like? You're like, "I just want to nestle in and give you a hug." He's charm and sweetness and loveliness, delight. He's just that guy. This is who he is. But on the other side of it, he's also full of power. The word for powers the word dunamis, which is the modern Greek word for dynamite. That's his inherent reality.

This word means inherent power. Power residing within a thing by virtue of its nature. This is just in him. If you'd like, "I don't know what that means exactly." Think about this. When people ... Let's say we're in a big party and it's a crowded room, there are people that could walk into that room, and you wouldn't remember that they were there if you talk to him. There just is.

Then there are people who for whatever reason, they can walk into that crowded room full of people who are distracted by everything else, and everyone will turn their head without ever ... They just walked into a room and everyone will turn their head. Because there's a command of character that some people have that is just real. I don't know what that is or how to get it. I think it's the one intangible reality of leadership.

But this is a guy who ... He's the EF Hutton of the disciples of the early church. When he talks, people listen. That is who he is. He is a force to be reckoned with. He is the power of like, "Urg, yeah," but also full of grace. What a weird combination. That's the thing that gives his debate with the Synagogue of the Freedmen so much weight.

He's this guy that's like, you will listen to what ... There's certain people that they'll say something to you, and you just want to challenge it. Then there are people that say something to you, and you're like, "Yes, sir. Yes, ma'am." I have a friend, Jim, he's got a really big personality. One of my other friends, one of our other friends I was trying to describe to Jim what his personality is like, because Jim's not super self-aware.

This other friend of ours, he goes, "Hey, you know that guy that's always walks behind Darth Vader? Yeah, nobody else does either." That's Jim. He just Darth Vader. He just cuts a wide swath. Power of personality that is. That part is that's just true. That's just real. Typically, not always, but typically, people with that personality are difficult human beings. They're hard to get along with because they're used to getting their way.

These are people who like ... Why would you even question everything that I'm saying? Why would you even ... Do you know who I am? This is typically who they are. Yet, Stephen is full of grace as well. That's spirit-led. That part of spirit-led. What I love about Stephen is that while he has this tendency to be bent towards being a bit of a jerk, he allows the spirit to take over his heart so that he can be full of grace.

When that's true, the spirit can take that force of character and actually appropriately apply it. That's a really awesome thing. To have a force of character properly applied is a really awesome thing to behold. But when it gets out of bounds, and it's used for selfish or fleshly purposes, that's a real problem. Now, remember who was there watching his stoning, Saul who will become Paul.

Paul writes, this is in Second Corinthians 10. I think that he pulls, he learns this lesson from watching Stephen. Here's my opinion. This is my opinion. But here's what he says, I Paul myself entreat you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ. I who am humble and face-to-face with you, but bold toward you when I am away. I beg of you that when I am present, I may not have to show boldness with such confidence as I count on showing against some who suspect us of walking according to the flesh.

But Paul when he's upfront with people, he's meek, gentle. Now, we've read Paul in the New Testament. What he's saying is when I'm away, I'm pretty forceful, because these letters that he's read in a really ... I'm going to read a really strongly-worded letter. They are. They're strongly worded. We get this impression that he's just this "Rah. Dominate everyone. Football."

We get this impression that that's who he is. But I just wonder if maybe he doesn't come off that way it all to the people that actually knew him. In Colossians 4, Paul writes this, "Continues steadfast in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. At the same time, pray also for us that God may open us a door," for the word, "to declare the mystery of Christ on account of which I'm in prison, that I may speak at clear, which is how I ought to speak."

Listen to this, "Walk in wisdom towards outsiders, making the best use of the time." Now how do we walk in wisdom with outsiders? Here's how. Let your speech always be gracious. There are so many of us there. You know what we need to do. We need to go out and just show the world how wrong they are. No. Walk in wisdom towards outsiders, making the best use of the time. Let your speech always be gracious. Season with salt so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.

You win more flies with honey than you do vinegar. It's just the way it is. I love this about Stephen. Stephen has found a way to say I don't get to make an excuse. Well, that's just who I am. You're just going to have to get used to it because that's who I am. That's just how God made me. Your flesh is your flesh, put it to death. Submit to the Spirit. That's how God makes you.

Second lesson that I want to pull out here is this, doing the right thing doesn't guarantee a particular outcome. Stephen preaches powerfully and out-reasons these people who are trying to take him to school and he's like, "No, no, no." They can't hang with him. What they do? They lie about him and get him killed. That's not how I thought following Jesus was supposed to be.

Hebrews 11, they call it the hall of faith chapter. There's the beginning of the chapter is like, "By faith, this thing happened, and it was awesome." Then "By faith, this thing happened, it was awesome." Then "By faith, this thing happened and it was awesomeness." It just bit like by faith. We can get this impression as we read the first part of the chapter that, man, if you have faith, your life is going to be miracle after miracle. You just got to have faith.

When things are going bad, we assume that it's because I don't have faith. But then you get to the back part of chapter 11 and it says this, "What more shall I say for time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets who through faith conquered kingdoms and have forced justice and obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quench the power of the fire, escape the edge of the sword."

"Men, we're made strong out of weakness became mighty in war. Put for armies to flight. Women receive back they're dead by resurrection." Wow. Some are tortured. Huh? Refusing to accept release so that they may rise again to a better life. Others suffered mocking and flogging and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned. They were sawn in two. They were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated of whom the world was not worthy, wandering about in deserts and mountains and in dens and in caves of the earth.

I think we got to be really careful about how we talk about God when things are going well. Because what we do is we say, "Look at my life. Things are good. God's been so good to me." Is God less good when things are hard? Is God less God when the circumstances are difficult? Somehow we get the ... As long as things are going good like "I'm hashtag blessed."

Listen, that you woke up this morning, you're hashtag blessed. We have such a wack perspective of what we deserve, and what we need in this life and all these other things. You need the presence of God. You don't need God to give you a car or cashing. But He may bless you those things. He might. You might get run through the sword. You might get tortured. God's not less God in those circumstances.

Sometimes we testify to who God is by the blessings that we display to the world. Sometimes we testify to who God is by our faithfulness in difficult circumstances. God doesn't promise you anything. In fact, the Bible never says when you give your life to Jesus, you just got to show faith and everything is whoop, unicorns and butterflies, everything is there.

What the Bible says is this life is momentary and full of troubles. Whether you're walking close to Jesus or not, at least when you're walking close with Jesus, you're suffering there's a purpose. I don't know how people do it without Jesus. Why? Why? There's too many Christians in the world today that are trying to avoid pain, to avoid suffering, to avoid all this stuff. What we're doing is avoiding God's work of refinement in our life.

Now, that doesn't mean you got to be sadistic, either, like, "Please," the whole ascetic monk movement was about, "We want to endure pain and the harder it is on ourselves, the more spiritual we are." That's not true, either. Whether God puts you in a time of plenty, or a time of leanness, whether it's a time of ease, or a time of pain and sorrow, regardless of what it is, our job is to be faithful in the midst of it. We spend so much energy avoiding.

Second Corinthians 11 Paul writes this, and this is actually really important. This is to my shame. I must say we're too weak for that. But whatever anyone else dares to boast of, I'm speaking as a fool. I also dare to boast of that. Are the Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they offspring of Abraham? So am I. Are they servants of Christ? I am a better one. What a thing to say.

I'm talking like a madman with far greater labors, far more imprisonments with countless beatings and often near death. Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the 40 lashes minus 1. Five times he was beaten by the Jews. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked, a night and a day I was adrift at sea on frequent journeys in danger from rivers, and danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from the Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers and toil and hardship through many a sleepless night in hunger and thirst, often without food in a cold and exposure.

Apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches. Above all those other things, the thing that troubled Paul most was his heart for the churches. I love it when people start talking about the prosperity gospel. I'm like, "I would love to sit down with the Apostle Paul and ask him how he feels about it," because he was far more faithful than me. I got to be honest and yet treated far worse.

Oh, and by the way, Paul was a Roman citizen. Those five beatings that he got, the five times he was lashed 39 times by the Jews ... By the way, if you don't know what that is that's been cracked with a whip, a bullwhip 39 times. He did that five times. Here's the thing. Any time that Paul wanted to, he could have said, "I'm a Roman citizen. You can't do this."

By the way, does he ever play that card? Absolutely he does. But not in this instance. The question is why? Why does he endure it when he doesn't have to? He does not have ... This is one of those things where I'd be sitting in a jail cell going, I'll tell you exactly how I'm going to get out of this thing, going to hit me one time. I don't want to bear the scars. Nope. That's going to hurt, then I'm allergic to pain.

He took it five times without ever saying a word. Why? Here's why. Because as soon as he claims his Roman citizenship, the Jews have grounds to disregard him as a Jew. As soon as he says, "I appeal to Cesar," they don't have to listen to him anymore. The message was more important than his comfort. He's willing to take their beating in order to maintain his voice in the community. I don't know very many of us that would live that way.

Yet we see Stephen do it. We see Paul do it. We see a lot of examples in the New Testament of people living their faith out that way. I'm not saying, "I'm going to go find persecution." Listen, if you want to be serious about your faith, persecution will find you. You don't have to go looking for it. Not just from people who don't know Jesus, but from people who say they know Jesus, too.

I think we run too quick from enduring what might be the most powerful testimony of who God is to us. See, in Paul's mind, it was worth the suffering for the opportunity to have to teach the message. It was worth it. All we can think about is ourselves. I've some implications for us this morning.

Number one, you shouldn't use your personalities and excuse to misrepresent Christ. If you're like, "That's just who I am." That's just who I am. You're just going to have to get over. This is how God made me. No, it isn't. I can tell you this, officially ... We're going to make it official. Being a jerk is not how God made you. That's your flesh every time. You can't use your personalities and excuse to misrepresent Jesus.

By the way, something else you can't use as an excuse. Well, they did it to me, therefore I will show them, because their bad choice absolutely justifies my poor choice. Number two, the Holy Spirit will give you what you need to accurately represent Christ in every situation. You can trust that and you can rest in that. That's good news. I think that we have a misunderstanding about spiritual gifts. We'll pull spiritual gifts apart more as we go through this series.

But we talk about First Corinthians 12 says that the Holy Spirit gives gifts to believers as he sees fit. We treat it as if that means that when I say yes to Jesus, Holy Spirit moves into my heart, and I get a gift from Him, and that gift is mine, and I keep it, and I use it. Here's what I would offer to you. Holy Spirit moves into your life the minute you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior.

Then you move into back into the world. As you're going into each different situation, the spirit gifts you to be exactly what you need to be in that situation, which means that your gifts aren't static. They don't stay the same forever and ever amen without change. You are empowered in each and every situation. You don't ever say it was not my gifting. That's a lazy coward's way out of serving the Lord. It's not my gifting.

I'm sure that Paul when he was getting lashed was like, "This really isn't in my gifting. I'm going to have to ask you guys to stop. This is not how I'm going to serve God." No. I do think that that's at least consistent. Even like, "I don't know if I buy that." You can disregard that if you want to. But I do think it's at least consistent with Jesus saying, "When you stand before kings and rulers, don't worry about what you're going to say because the Holy Spirit will give you exactly what you need."

Number three, God is always God. Even when our circumstances aren't going the way we desire, God's always God even when things aren't going ... The same God that leads us through those circumstances may even lead us to those circumstances for the purpose of our good and our development. Last one, God's message is more important than our comfort.

Hear me say this. The church in America will never be what it should be until we're okay with that statement. That God's message is more important than our comfort. As soon as we can take our mission that seriously, things will start to change. But until we do, we're going to struggle. I don't know about you guys, but I think we could all agree.

I'm tired of the church limping along. It's time for the Spirit's power to show up, to dig the knife in even a little bit further. Jesus goes to Nazareth. It says there that he was prevented from doing very many miracles because of their lack of faith. Who are they? These are people who absolutely are passionate followers of God. In fact, prior to Jesus, these would be people that we went to church with, synagogue. These are people who know the scriptures, who know the Bible. They know what faith is. They know how to walk. They know.

Jesus is prevented from doing very many miracles because of their lack of faith. Not because he didn't have the power to do it, but because of their lack of faith. I wonder how many of us are missing God's miracles not because he doesn't have the power to move, but because we don't have the faith to receive it.

As we move into our communion time, I would just ask us to wrestle with a couple things. Number one, what's God's mission for you? Number two, what gets in the way? Beyond that, I would just offer what gets in the way. If you're trying to pinpoint anything outside of your own internal world, you're looking in the wrong place.

Let's take a minute and talk with the Lord about that as we prepare our hearts for communion. Let's pray. On the night Jesus was betrayed he took bread and he broke it and he said, "This is My body which is given for you. Whenever you eat this bread, do it in remembrance to me." Let's remember him together this morning. Then after the dinner, he took a cup and he said, "This cup, this is a blood of the covenant which is shed for you. Whenever you drink this cup, do it in remembrance of me."

Let's pray. Lord, thank you for purpose. Thank you for mission. Thank you for the promise of your presence regardless of our circumstances. Then because of that, we can have peace. Lord, give us peace in Jesus' name, amen.