A Great Persecution
Download MP3I invite you to turn in your bibles to Acts chapter 7. Acts chapter 7. And tonight, we're gonna shorten the message a bit because I want us to spend a little more time at the end of the service in prayer. And we're gonna begin reading Acts 7:54. Now when they heard these things, they were enraged and they ground their teeth at him.
Joel Brooks: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. And 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. And they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul.
Joel Brooks:And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. And falling to his knees, he cried out with a loud voice, Lord, do not hold this sin against them. And when he had said this, he fell asleep. And Saul approved of his execution. And there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles.
Joel Brooks: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. Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word. Philip went down to the city of Samaria and proclaimed to them the Christ.
Joel Brooks:And the crowds with one accord paid attention to what was being said by Philip when they heard him and saw the signs that he did. For unclean spirits crying out with a loud voice came out of many who had them, and many who were paralyzed or lame were healed. So there was much joy in that city. Pray with me. Father God, I pray that in this moment, your son Jesus would be glorified, that he would be exalted high.
Joel Brooks:I pray that through your power of your spirit, you would crack open the hardest of hearts. You would invade the dullest of minds. You would allow us to see and to glory in Jesus. God, I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. But Lord, may your words remain and may they change us.
Joel Brooks:And I pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. There's a famous 19th century Danish philosopher called Soren Kierkegaard, which I'm sure many of you have heard about. Here's one of his quotes about Christianity. He says, the biggest problems with Christians today is that no one wants to kill them anymore.
Joel Brooks:The biggest problem with Christians today is that no one wants to kill them anymore. And I've thought about this quote some as I've been studying through the life and the the sermon of Stephen, who was the first Christian martyr. Granted there are today, I would say, many kind of rude and obnoxious Christians, that the world does want to kill. But but that's not what Kierkegaard has in mind. What what what Kierkegaard is trying to do is to make sense of Jesus's words.
Joel Brooks:Words like we find in John 15, where Jesus tells his disciples, he said, if they persecuted me, of course, they're going to persecute you. Or Paul's words to Timothy in 2nd Timothy 3 when he says, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. So if you know and if you love Jesus, of course, this makes perfect sense because, Jesus was was brutally tortured, and he was killed. And so we should expect a similar hatred and hostility directed at us being his followers. As I was reading through, I was reading through the gospel of John this week.
Joel Brooks:And as you get towards the the latter half of John and you get to all of those words of red, it kind of struck me how you cannot understand that high priestly prayer and and all of Jesus's huge sermon there. You cannot understand that apart from persecution. A lot of quotes are pulled out of that, you know, to put on bumper stickers or that we memorize or for everyday life, but really the setting of it is persecution. And so when Jesus says things like in John 14, peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you.
Joel Brooks:And not as the world gives to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. And we love this this verse, but in the context, the reason he says that my peace I give to you is because he knows the world is going to give violence. And so he offers peace. In John 15, Jesus says that he will send the helper, the spirit of truth who proceeds from the father and he will bear witness about me.
Joel Brooks:And we and we love this verse. Jesus is going to send us the helper. But the reason he needs or he's going to send us the helper is because just a few verses earlier, Jesus says, you are gonna be hated on account of me. And yet, I still want you to testify. And in order to do that, you are going to need help.
Joel Brooks:You go to John 16. Jesus says, once again, he says this, to your advantage that I go away so that I can send my helper or his helper, the holy spirit. And once again, right before this, he says why the helper must come. He looks at his disciples and he says, you're gonna be kicked out of synagogues. You're going to be killed because of me, and you're gonna need help in order to boldly testify about me.
Joel Brooks:In chapter 16, Jesus says, ask and you will receive that your joy may be full. I remember having a Vacation Bible School about this verse, you know. Ask and you will receive that your joy may be full. We love quoting it because who wouldn't love quoting this? But in its context, Jesus is telling his disciples that that they that he they need to ask and they will receive that their joy may be full because right before this, he says, truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and you will lament and the world will rejoice.
Joel Brooks:And and so even as you're just going through John and you're getting all of these words already, you have to understand they only make sense in light of a persecuted church. Perhaps the most famous passage we get concerning this is Philippians 413, otherwise known as Tim Tebow 413. I can do I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. And, you know, people love quoting that meaning, you know, they can bench press a car, they can run a faster 40, they get they can do all these things through Christ who strengthens them. But Paul is saying in context, he's talking about being persecuted, talking about not having anything, lacking sleep, lacking comforts, lacking all this.
Joel Brooks:He says, but I can do it all because Christ strengthens me. And so you have Jesus, Paul, you have all of the New Testament writers assuming that Christians will be persecuted. So when Soren Kierkegaard said that the biggest problem with Christians today is that no one wants to kill them anymore. He is saying that Christians are ceasing to live out their calling. They're calling to be radically obedient to the Lord.
Joel Brooks:The life that God has called you to should be impossible for you to live apart from his promises and apart from his spirit. We see here in acts the very first serious, I guess, persecution of the church. It's been escalating for a few chapters, you know. For first, you, you know, you have you have some warnings, then you have some floggings, and and then you have the trial of Stephen and the martyrdom. And now you have this large scale persecution.
Joel Brooks:It's been escalating up to this point. But it was this persecution that we see here in chapter 8 that actually grew the church. It was through persecution. Persecution can, at times, I'm not so naive to say that persecution cannot hurt the church, because it can, at times, hurt the church. But I would say that prosperity is by far a more lethal weapon at killing the church than persecution.
Joel Brooks:Prosperity brings with it this, this this laziness, this inertia to the church. I heard John Piper preach on this text one time and, let me just give you a quote from him that the lesson that he draws from the martyrdom of Stephen. It says, The lesson is that comfort and ease and affluence and prosperity and safety and freedom often cause tremendous inertia in the church. Inertia is the tendency of something that is still to stay standing still or something moving to keep moving. The very things that we think would produce energy and creative investment of time and money and the cause of Christ and his kingdom, instead produce time and time again the exact opposite.
Joel Brooks:Weakness, apathy, self centeredness, laziness and preoccupation with security. I tell you, I I mean, as I read that quote several times and I thought, man, do we not do we not see this in the American church, in which you have many cathedrals to comfort. Not saying these things are wrong, but, but they can make you inert, in which, you know, you have your, your huge cathedrals of comfort with your air conditioning and your, your theater seating and your state of the art lights and your, your sounds. And, and what happens is, you know, instead of Christians feeling that call to take up their cross and follow Jesus, they think, you know, they can just kind of take up their little double mocha soy latte and they can follow Jesus. You know, that that that's what American Christianity is.
Joel Brooks:It's it's this leisure discipleship. And the American church produces this Christian in which they think the point or the application of every sermon, every bible sermon is how God can somehow heal their every hurt. How God can somehow give them every comfort. And yet, when you read through the Bible and you see what Stephen was preaching and what these people lived and died for, you realize God's calling you to something far bigger than just your own little personal life. He's he's calling you to be part of this grand movement, to be part of the kingdom of God, and you are given a mission to proclaim that.
Joel Brooks:I see churches today that are filled with people who know that God is calling them to, you know, what what's been called a radical life or, you know, radical generosity or obedience or serving. And what happens is instead of actually doing that, what what we've done is we've just redefined the word radical to make it look a lot like how we're already living our life. We said that's, that's what it means to be a radical Christian. And so now we're just producing radicals who the world doesn't want to kill because it's become so tame. Make no mistake.
Joel Brooks:These people wanted to kill Stephen. I mean, look at verse 56. It says, behold, I see the heavens open and the son of man standing at the right hand of God. But they cry it out with a loud voice. They stop their ears and they rush together at him.
Joel Brooks:They cast him out of the city, and they stone him. So when Stephen declared what we see as glorious, the world saw it as blasphemous, and that will always happen. If we truly has this this glorious vision of the Lord and we communicate it, there will be many who say that is blasphemous, and there will be a violent reaction against that. Actually stopped their ears and rushed him. And as stones are hitting him, he is becoming more and more like Christ, or I would say, like Paul says in Philippians, he is sharing in the fellowship of his sufferings so that he might become like him in his death.
Joel Brooks:Look how like Jesus Stephen is becoming in his death. Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing. Into into your hands, receive my spirit. He's he's becoming like Christ, as he shares in his sufferings.
Joel Brooks:Now his death resulted in a mass persecution of the church. I mean, his death was just was just the beginning of the floodgates bursting against the church. Look at chapter 8 verse 1. Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the church in Jerusalem. And they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles.
Joel Brooks:Now, Luke tells us that these early Christians, they were scattered. And I don't want you to just jump over that word because there is a lot of heartache in that word scattered. These Christians, they fled for their lives. Their lives were torn apart. Some were, you know, had to leave their family.
Joel Brooks:Many had to leave their homes. Many had to leave all their possessions, flee in the night just to get away. This is real heartbreak here as they are scattered. Their lives changed in a moment. And then we get to verse 4.
Joel Brooks:It says, now those who were scattered went about preaching the word. Preaching is a really unfortunate translation there because, I mean, let's be honest, when you hear the word preaching, you think, okay, that's what that's what I'm doing. You know, and so they went around, you know, 3 points, the sermon, the, the on the street corner. That's not what preaching is here. Actually, the whole phrase, preaching the word is just one word in Greek.
Joel Brooks:It's evangelizo, it's evangelism. They went about evangelizing. They went around sharing their faith. So as everyone fled, as everyone was scattered, we should think of it as they're scattered just like seed is scattered to the ground. All of them sharing their faith as they went.
Joel Brooks:And so God used persecution. God's the one who brought on this persecution. He used it in order to make missionaries of everybody. This is the task of every Christian. We see here, the task of every Christian is to share their faith.
Joel Brooks:And so as these Christians are scattered and they're running into new new cities, they have to get new jobs. And with these new jobs, they get new coworkers who they share their faith with. Everyone is sharing their faith. It's not just for the apostles or for the deacons, it's for all the churches they leave. So Christianity, it it grew before this when the apostles went about preaching in the temple, it certainly grew.
Joel Brooks:But Christianity exploded once persecution hit and people were scattered. And they all shared their faith. As I was just preparing through this, one of the the questions that I wrote down is like, you know, I wonder I wonder what the church would have looked like if Stephen hadn't preached that sermon and hadn't been killed. You know, what would the church have looked like if, if that early church, you know, when months ago we looked at how they prayed for boldness. That was their prayer.
Joel Brooks:What if instead of praying for boldness, they pray for things that we like to pray for? If they prayed for, health and they prayed for comfort and they prayed for, God, give us security and keep us safe. What if that's what they prayed for? And what if God honored that prayer and said, Okay, I'm gonna give you those things. I'm gonna give you health.
Joel Brooks:I'm gonna give you comfort. I'm gonna give you security. What would the early church have looked like in Jerusalem? Well, you would have probably had this enormous church. This one huge great church run by a handful of men, the apostles.
Joel Brooks:There would have been fantastic teaching, drawing crowds. Everybody would have come to just hear these fantastic teachers. There would have been good fellowship. That have been a great place to raise your kids, for them to be in that environment. You would have you'd have little concern over your safety or or the neighborhoods in which you lived.
Joel Brooks:You wouldn't have any concerns about how you're going to educate your children because of the enormous support group that's there. Your thoughts, your, your, your energy would probably not have been concerned with the world outside. It had been completely focused within, and so you would have just tried to bring outsiders into your church. As many outsiders as you could bring in. I think that's what the the early church would have looked like if God had answered those prayers, if they had prayed those prayers.
Joel Brooks:What you would have seen though is the gospel hardly making any inroads at all to the rest of the world. The gospel being very contained into that one city. You would have never seen people reached who didn't know the Lord before. You would have seen a very inert church. Thankfully, God gave the church the wisdom to pray for boldness, and he gave Stephen that boldness to both live and to die for the gospel.
Joel Brooks:And his death emboldened every Christian after that. And so the church gathered, became the church scattered, and the church grew. That should be a model for us right here. As we gather together this week, we become the church scattered in which everybody becomes an evangelist. Everyone shares their faith.
Joel Brooks:Look at where they went as they were scattered. Verse 5 says that they went to the city of Samaria. And this meant that they reached out to a people that were very different from them. You know, the Samaria- Samaritans were those kind of half breed Jews that everybody looked down on. And so the first group that they reach out towards was people who were racially and culturally not quite like them.
Joel Brooks:They also didn't go into the countryside. They went to cities. Now this could be an entire sermon in itself. I have talked about this at other times, but, you can see the early church really focusing on cities instead of the countryside. Actually, we're looking at this for the rest of acts.
Joel Brooks:When, when Paul becomes an evangelist, Paul completely ignores every countryside. He goes straight to city to city to city and it's very strategic on their part because if you go to the countryside, let's say, you might run into a lawyer and you might convert a lawyer, but if you go into the city, you have the opportunity to, to radically change the entire law profession and not just one lawyer. If you're go to the countryside, you might run into a teacher and you might be able to make change with a teacher, but if you go into the city, you could change the teaching profession. You could change how people educate and so they realize if you wanted to change culture, if you wanted to make a and of people. And if you change the city in effect, you would change the countryside.
Joel Brooks:And so the early church focused so much on the city. They realized that God has a special love for the city, not because God likes great architecture or, you know, he's like, wow, this is a great building. God loves people. And the city is is a high dense area of people and cultures, And that's what God loves. And the early church loved that as well.
Joel Brooks:And so they went to the city of Samaria. And later in verse 8, you see that there was joy in that city. This is the first of many to come. Let me move on so we can have a time of prayer at the end. Probably the most important thing I want you to take away from this is I want you to see the great reversal that happens.
Joel Brooks:There's a great reversal that happens in chapter 8. You have those first few verses, possibly, some is some of the most saddest verses in all of scripture. Early part of chapter 8, you have in verse 2, Stephen is buried. There is great lamentation over him right after that. And you know, Saul's ravaging the church.
Joel Brooks:So you have one of your, your stellar Christian leaders brutally killed, Persecution is entering the church. This is very dark. And then it ends with verse 8 And there was great joy in that city. So you move from, from this darkness and this death into joy. And what I would say that is here is what I would call gospel ministry.
Joel Brooks:Gospel ministry. This is how God works, and you can see it over and over and over again in scripture. This is how God works. I mean, you look at Jesus, just as the torture and the death of Jesus, it brought about resurrection, life and joy. This is how the gospel advances.
Joel Brooks:You have abundant life, it comes through death. You have joy, it comes through pain. And so the same word that went forth, that brought forth persecution, that same word also brought with it joy. This doesn't mean we we live our lives seeking out persecution. Don't put on, like, your best Christian t shirt, you know, move over to the sedan and start just broadcasting, singing Christian music on the street corners or something like that.
Joel Brooks:Don't, don't do that and try to become a martyr. You don't seek persecution. You do pick up your cross and follow Jesus. I think I think this tells us how how we do this. Actually, acts up to this point tells us how we make a distinction between those 2.
Joel Brooks:The difference between seeking persecution and between picking up your cross and following Jesus, which I see as gospel ministry, what we're called to as a church. When you pick up your cross and then follow Jesus, what you're doing is you're embracing death. You're embracing sorrow in order that God might use that to bring life and God might use that to bring joy. And this is how this plays out. You you can embrace death.
Joel Brooks:You can pick up your cross and follow Jesus by dying to materialism. Dying to your need to have more money. It's a real thing. It's something you really wants, what everybody around you wants, and you can say, no. I'm going to die to that.
Joel Brooks:And through your death, there becomes this radical generosity that will bring life and will bring joy to others. Do you see how that works with Christianity? That's, that's gospel ministry. We, we, we deny ourselves and we take up our cross or we we die. Something in this dies.
Joel Brooks:I'm going to die to, I really want to make more money and I have the ability, I have the education, I I have the setup to do this. But instead, you're gonna deny yourself of that, and you're gonna give that money away. And so through your death, there becomes life and there becomes joy to others. Gospel ministry. You can die to a life of comfort and a life of ease.
Joel Brooks:And instead, spill your life out in service for others. So through your death, there becomes life and there becomes joy. It's It's gospel ministry. You can pick up your cross and die to your need for respect by by maybe the social elite or, or by your peers die to that. And instead, pour your life out to those who can't ever thank you, who can offer you nothing.
Joel Brooks:And you bring them life, and you bring them joy through your death. This is how Christ works. A passage that just kept coming to my mind over and over as I was studying this was Philippians 2, in which Jesus or Paul says about Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God as a thing to be grasped, But instead, he humbled himself or he made himself nothing taking the form of a servant. In gospel ministry is this, I'm so moved by that that I say Joel Brooks, although he was white, he was middle class, he was educated, he he could use the the hard work ethic that was given to him by his dad and he can maybe rise up and maybe some corporate ladder. He could do this.
Joel Brooks:Although he had that, he did not regard it as something to be grasped. But instead, he let go. That applies to, I think, just about everybody here. You've been given these things. You've been given this, your education, the wealth you have, the freedom you have in America, you have all these things, and now you could say, this is something I hold on to.
Joel Brooks:I I grasp this. It's mine, or you can say, I don't consider that worthy to lay hold of. It's not something to grasp. Instead, I will humble myself and become a servant that I might bring life and I might bring joy to others. Gospel ministry.
Joel Brooks:When we think of Jesus and we think of his death and we think of his resurrection, that has such a transformative effect on our heart, that truly we can say like Paul, and when I look at all my achievements, when I look at all this, it's not worthy to be grasped. It's just dung as he would say, that I may lay hold of Christ. He's laid hold of me.
