Joy in the City
Download MP3There is a cost to following Jesus. There's a cost. In the end, it's always worth it. I've been thinking a lot about the cost that we looked at last week. The the cost, that Stephen gave in giving his whole life.
Joel Brooks:And I've been pondering the question, just what would have happened to the church if Steven wasn't willing to pay that cost? What would have happened to the church if the church's early prayers were not for courage and boldness, but they were for comfort and protection. What would have happened to the church? You would have probably had, you know, your first bible church of Jerusalem. You know, led by a few godly gifted men.
Joel Brooks:A safe church, great place to raise a family, but they would have been pretty inert, and they would have let the world die. And one of the things that we see as we're going through acts is that God used the persecution of the church. He used the persecution of Stephen as a way of fulfilling the great commission. Of stirring up the church to get out there and to share the good news of Jesus. And that's what we're gonna look at this morning.
Joel Brooks:If you have a bible, I invite you to turn to Acts chapter 7. Acts chapter 7, and we'll begin reading in verse 54. Now when they heard these things they were enraged and 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, 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.
Joel Brooks:Then 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. 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.
Joel Brooks:And they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. Devout men buried Stephen and made great lamentation over him, but Saul was ravaging the church. 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. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Joel Brooks:You would pray with me. Lord, my heart's desire for this place, for Avondale, for Birmingham, for the communities in which we come is that there would be much joy in the city. That your church would bring your joy to the dark and hurting places of this world. So, Lord, I ask that in this moment, we would hear from you how we can do that, how we can bring gospel joy to this world. I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore, but, Lord, your words would remain, and they would change us.
Joel Brooks:We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. The 19th century, Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, who many of you have or at least somewhat familiar with. He once said that the problem with Christians is that no one wants to kill them anymore. I love that quote.
Joel Brooks:The problem with Christians is that no one wants to kill them anymore. When I first came across that quote, I thought I'm not sure if that's true because I know a lot of Christians who I wouldn't mind if they disappeared at least. Christians who are kind of rude and obnoxious, but but that's not, I think, what Kierkegaard was talking about. His point was that as a whole, Christians have become so lukewarm, so much like the world, so so vanilla, if you will, that the that the world's not angry with them. Produces no emotion in the world at all as they encounter Christians.
Joel Brooks:So they're they're not even annoyed, let alone want to kill Christians. Now there are times, I think, you know, maybe we do some Facebook posts or we do some Instagram photo of a Bible and coffee, that that the world gets annoyed at us. I think we we can do a pretty good job of of the world kinda rolling their eyes at us. But as a whole, I don't think people want to kill Christians. But Nate Make no mistake that when we read this, the people wanted Stephen dead.
Joel Brooks:People in the 1st century in Rome, they wanted the church dead. They did not want it to exist anymore, and as a result, Christianity exploded in growth. They exploded in growth. History has repeatedly shown us that the biggest obstacle to the church doing its mission is not persecution, but is prosperity. History has repeatedly shown us this.
Joel Brooks:Prosperity is a far more lethal weapon when it comes to hurting the mission of the church than persecution ever is. You'll see that safety and freedom often cause this inertia within the church. And I gotta acknowledge this is counterintuitive because, I mean, I'm pastoring a church and I like to think of, you know, as a church, if we just we just get the right systems in place, if we just make this, you know, a smooth oiled machine, if we if we just get all the perfect leadership in place, if if we combine all of that with the freedom we have, and if we no longer have to stress about meeting a budget and we have everything, we're safe and we're secure, then we should really be able to get out there and make a difference. That's that's what we all think, but history has shown time and time again that's not the case. That a church that's safe and is secure is often a church that ceased to take risk.
Joel Brooks:It's a church that becomes inert, lazy, lethargic. And the irony is this, that a secure church, one that's safe and secure, has a good reputation, has a good budget, you know, a safe and secure church often becomes obsessed with its own safety and security. They begin freaking out if if they're no longer growing or no longer retaining. They begin to circle the wagons. Trying to create their holy little huddle while they let the rest of the world burn.
Joel Brooks:We see over and over again that the fruit of prosperity is a lazy self absorbed Christianity that produces Christians who think that the point in the application of every sermon or every bible story is their own personal happiness or their own personal salvation. And I want you to hear me church, Jesus our risen Lord and savior is calling us to something far greater than just our own personal salvation. He's redeeming the world, and he's called us to be a part of that mission and to be heralds of that good news. That's what we see here in this text. The church was already getting some inertia here, and the Lord actually uses persecution in order to send the church out to fulfill the great commission.
Joel Brooks:After Stephen is killed, we looked at this last week, after Stephen is killed, Paul. He's there giving approval to this. I think his conscience was actually probably pricked as he was watching this. But I don't know if you've you've met people like this who's who are confronted with their own sin and whose consciences are pricked. Often they don't repent right away.
Joel Brooks:Instead they do the exact opposite. They harden their hearts for one last battle, and I think you see that for Saul, who would later become Paul. I think he hardens his heart for one last battle, and he begins ravaging the church. He was all out against it. I mean, there's real pain in this.
Joel Brooks:I mean that word ravaging. You have likely parents being ripped from their children. Having to leave their possessions, leave their homes behind, being thrown in prison. There is real pain happening here, and yet the fruit of all of this is the gospel goes forth and it brings joy to the city. The church has to go through suffering.
Joel Brooks:The church has to be persecuted, but the end result is what I would call gospel joy in the city. Not just joy, but we read much joy. Look at verse 8. So there was much joy in that city. I mean think that, yeah, the church ravaged, Christians being, taken off to prison, the leadership being killed, and much joy coming to the city.
Joel Brooks:Over the years, I have gone repeatedly to this verse. This this one verse here has had a massive impact on me, in the way that I view ministry and and my hopes for this church. As I read through this again, this week, I had to ask this probing question. Have we, Redeemer Community Church, brought joy to the city? Have we brought joy to the city?
Joel Brooks:Have we brought joy to Avondale? Have we brought joy to Birmingham? If we were to be removed from this place, would our neighbors weep or would they rejoice that they now have parking? Finally, that pesky church is gone and we can park. What what would this community feel if if our church just went away?
Joel Brooks:If we went away, would our schools here suffer? Would the homeless be in greater need? Would businesses hurt? Would crime go up? What would be the outcome if our church just ceased to exist in this place?
Joel Brooks:It's a it's a probing question because what I see here is that one of our missions as a church is to bring joy to the city. Jeremiah 29 says to seek the welfare of the city, and here we see that we are to bring joy, not just any joy, but much joy to the city. And so what I wanna do real quick, I wanna give you a summary statement of this text and really of all of acts, and then we're just gonna spend the rest of our time unpacking that. Here's the summary statement. God uses ordinary Christians to bring great joy to our city through the proclamation of the gospel in both word and deed.
Joel Brooks:God uses ordinary Christians to bring great joy to the city through the proclamation of the gospel in both word and in deed. Alright. So let's unpack that. And that's not just the summary statement for this. This is really a summary statement for the book of acts.
Joel Brooks:So let's look at how God uses ordinary Christians. Once again, look at verse 1. 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. Verse 4, now those who were scattered went about preaching the word.
Joel Brooks:That word scattered there, that Luke uses, there's a perfectly common word that you can use for scatter and Luke chooses not to use that. Instead, he uses a farming term that's used for the scattering of seed. What he's saying here is that God is using the death of Stephen, he is using the persecution of the church in order to scatter seed, To scatter the seed of Christianity. This is why Tertullian would say that, the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. The more the church bleeds, the more the church grows.
Joel Brooks:So in Acts 1:8, we're we're kinda given a a mini version of this great commission. Jesus tells his disciples that they will be his witnesses Judea and Samaria until now. Judea and Samaria are not even mentioned in Acts until finally this point in chapter 8. And what it took was the persecution of the church to get the church out of its comfort in order to start fulfilling the great commission. It's only when the church is forced to leave Jerusalem that they are now scattered like seed.
Joel Brooks:We see Christianity being planted everywhere. Now, I want you to notice one little detail here. It says that as the Christians were being scattered about, the apostles stayed behind. Read that in verse 1. It says, everybody that they were all scattered out through Judea and Samaria except for the apostles.
Joel Brooks:It's an interesting detail that Luke tells us there that the apostles stayed, and the reason he wants to point that out is not so he could then tell us all that the Apostle did as they stayed in Jerusalem, because he doesn't tell us a single thing that the Apostle did in Jerusalem. The entire narrative of acts now shifts away from the apostles. What he's now describing is as the gospel goes forth in the great commission, it's not done by the apostles. It's done by ordinary Christians. Ordinary Christians are the ones who now scatter the good news of Jesus Christ like seed.
Joel Brooks:The apostles stay behind, but the ordinary Christians are sinned. And and I want you to notice, not only do the apostles stay behind, they have nothing to do with these ordinary Christians being sent out. They don't organize it. They don't come up with some strategy. They're not saying, Philip, you go to this city.
Joel Brooks:You know, you go over here. They're not doing anything. It's literally the Christians because of life circumstances being forced to leave, they're finding that wherever they are planted, they're bringing the gospel with them. And so what we see here is the gospel spreads person to person. The great commission is not fulfilled by the, the preaching of a few really gifted men, but instead the great commission is fulfilled through the scattering of ordinary Christians living their lives with an intentionality to proclaim the gospel in word and in deed.
Joel Brooks:And over and over again, acts is gonna drive this point home to us. You're probably gonna get sick of me saying it actually. A few months back, we were talking about church planting, and and I kinda highlighted this story because it's one of my favorites in acts. But Paul, when he becomes converted, you know, he becomes an evangelist, he begins planting churches everywhere. I mean, plants in, you know, Colossi, Philippi, Galatia, you know, Corinth.
Joel Brooks:He's he's planting these churches everywhere, but the one church he wants to go to or one place he wants to go to more than any place is Rome. The great city of Rome. It's like I gotta take the gospel to Rome. I need to go to Rome and plant a church because in Rome, the gospel will really spread. And so you see all throughout Acts, Paul is saying, I gotta get to Rome.
Joel Brooks:I gotta get to Rome. And he's doing every everything he can to travel there. You know, he gets on a ship. He gets shipwrecked. He gets bitten by snakes.
Joel Brooks:I mean he's doing everything to try to get there and after many years he finally arrives at Rome. It's like he gets there, he's like, I've got good news for you. I got the gospel. But then we read in Acts, he was greeted by the church. I love that.
Joel Brooks:The great apostle Paul who thinks it's all on him, I gotta bring the gospel the and the church was growing through unnamed ordinary people who just were living out the Great Commission. We have no idea who started the church in Rome. That's not just a one time occurrence, that is a pattern that we see in acts. And a pattern we have seen over 2000 years. You are God's plan to fulfill the great commission.
Joel Brooks:You are His plan, and you are His plan to bring joy to the city. Now I know some of you are thinking, you know like, I don't know about that. I mean, I really think that's a job for preachers and for missionaries. You know, I'll support you. We'll give some money, we'll listen, but it's really it's the job of preachers and missionaries.
Joel Brooks:That's not the pattern. As much as, you know, I I would like to, you know, pat myself on the back and think that Birmingham is gonna be changed because of my preaching, that's not gonna happen. It's gonna happen through a scattering of you living intentionally out the gospel, preaching in word and in deed. And for some of you who are just so scared and think you're too messed up, you don't know your bible, you don't know what to say, you know, you'd probably turn a person away from Jesus rather to them, and you're having all these things, these excuses, hear me. Trust the spirit of God.
Joel Brooks:Trust the spirit of God. Do you have any idea of the power that God has given you through his spirit? The power to be a witness. And he's not gonna give you the words to say beforehand, but he will give you the words to say as you were speaking and as you were sharing. I love this little story.
Joel Brooks:I hope this scripture connects with you. But in Matthew 11, Jesus, he's teaching and somebody brings up John the Baptist. And so Jesus, he talks about John the Baptist, and he he says this kinda line that it's it's it's a bomb. It's shocking. But he says, you know, there's been no one greater, no one born of a woman greater than John the Baptist.
Joel Brooks:Meaning in all the thousands of his years of history before Jesus at that moment, said there's not anyone greater. Now we're talking Abraham, we're talking Moses, we're talking Isaiah. You know, Isaiah was a heck of prophet, heck of a preacher, and Jesus is like John the Baptist was greater. And then he has audacity to say this, but now, because he has arrived, the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than John. The least.
Joel Brooks:Now, in this room, one of you here is the least. Alright? One of you here is, is the least capable, is not the smartest person. Alright? You're actually the least in intelligence of every person here.
Joel Brooks:You have the least talent and gifting. Alright? Just statistically, one of you has to be the least. Alright? Now we all know who that person is.
Joel Brooks:Some of you are looking around as if like no. Alright. Now all the time, peep people they come up to me and they say like, I feel like you were talking straight to me. This might be one of those moments. Alright?
Joel Brooks:If that is you, hear me. You are greater than John the Baptist, The greatest preacher and prophet that lived at Jesus's time there, 1st century. Let that hit. What Jesus is saying is this, is now we live in the church, because Christians in the new testament church, we live in light of the work of Jesus. We know his what his death and his resurrection has accomplished and unleashed in this world.
Joel Brooks:And not only that, but now we have given his spirit to testify about that. So make no mistake that every person in here, even the least of you, is greater than what John had. So don't tell me that you don't have this within you because my question is, is the Spirit of God inside you? And if the answer is yes, then He has empowered you to fulfill your calling as a Christian within the church. So we go out and we live out this calling and power through the Holy Spirit, the church is scattered.
Joel Brooks:You are being scattered into offices, into the gym you work out in, to your neighborhoods, to schools. You're being scattered all about and you're to be planted a seed. Now one of the things we see in this text is that these Christians were not scattered by choice. Wasn't something that they had decided to do. God used persecution to scatter his people about.
Joel Brooks:And and I know as I'm looking around here, some of you are not in Birmingham by choice. You're not here by choice. I mean 20 years ago is when I told my wife, I don't know where we'll live. I just know we'll never be in Birmingham, Alabama. Alright?
Joel Brooks:And here we are 20 years later. Some of you had a job transfer that brought you here. You're like, really? Birmingham? But you had no other option.
Joel Brooks:I see some, medical students here. Some of you are doing your medical residency here and Birmingham was your 3rd choice. Alright? You're like Seattle, you're like Denver, you know, wanna go to those places, and you got your 3rd choice, and now you're here in Birmingham. God's sovereign over that, and you are here as seed being scattered to bring joy to this city.
Joel Brooks:Don't waste your time here. I know we have a number of college students here and you're thinking, I'm only gonna be here, you know, 5, 6 years. What what whatever that is. Your seed scattered here wherever you came from. And and during whatever period you were here, you were here to bring joy to this city.
Joel Brooks:Not here to just suck the city dry or to suck the church dry, but to give yourself in sacrificially to bring joy to the city. And hear me, when it comes time for you to graduate and leave, our leadership wants to come alongside you and prayerfully guide you as to where you go. We don't want you to just take the best job, you know, the best paying job that's out there or just go back to your hometown because, you know, where else are you gonna go? And like, that's just the next logical step. We really I long to come alongside you and and to challenge you to see your life as seed and to ask the question, where is the best place for me to strategically be planted?
Joel Brooks:And if it costs you a little bit of your convenience and a little bit of income, so be it. It cost Steven his life, yet Steven got to see the glory of God. I loved it in the song that we were singing. It's like, and we will see His glory. Steven got to see the glory of God through his sacrifice.
Joel Brooks:So we wanna come alongside you and we wanna see you live your life as a seed scattered, Living intentionally out the gospel. Golly, I gotta move. Alright. Y'all put on your seat belts. Alright.
Joel Brooks:We're gonna move. I I tell people that I'm charismatic, but I'm charismatic with a seat belt. Like I'm not that crazy, but I'm gonna be a little crazy. But we're we're gonna go through some things fairly quickly here. Alright?
Joel Brooks:Let's look at the proclamation of God's, proclamation of the gospel through word. The proclamation of the gospel through word. God uses ordinary Christians to bring great joy into the city through the proclamation of the gospel in word. Look at verse 4. Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word.
Joel Brooks:That word preach is an acceptable translation, but it's not the best because the word really means evangelize. When you think of a preacher, you think of somebody like like me. Not not like I'm the preacher, but you know what I mean. You think of somebody up here on, like behind a pulpit, you know, speaking, but that's not what's happening here. It's the word evangelize, which just means sharing your faith.
Joel Brooks:Now you might have heard the phrase, preach the gospel at all times and if necessary, what is it? Use words. It's hogwash. Alright? That is a horrible statement because the gospel always involves words.
Joel Brooks:Not one of you came to know Jesus apart from words. Not one of you. Not one of you had somebody just do good works to you and not say anything to you or you not read anything about Jesus, but you were just receiving kindness and all of a sudden thought, you know what? I do believe that Jesus is the son of God. He died and he rose again for my sins.
Joel Brooks:Like, it doesn't happen. The gospel has to be proclaimed. And once again, as much as I like to think that I could change Birmingham or I could change the city by just getting a lot of people to come and hear and hear me or some other preacher preach. That's not how God fulfills a great commission. He takes what you've received here and the church gathered then becomes a church scattered.
Joel Brooks:And you're scattered like seed and you are sharing your faith. And I know that there's there's some of you here like, you know, well, I believe in relationship evangelism. You know, you just I'm just building a bridge, a relationship bridge. And it kinda reminds me if you remember the the bridge in Alaska that was being built every year. It would come up in the budget and they called it the bridge to nowhere.
Joel Brooks:Alright. Spending 1,000,000 of dollars, but it's a bridge literally going nowhere. And some of you have been building this relationship bridge for so many years and you have deceived yourself thinking that you were building this bridge in order to share the gospel. Gospel comes through the proclamation. I mean, people become Christians through the proclamation of the gospel.
Joel Brooks:We we use words. And hear me, the word is euangelion here, that's gospel. You've heard me say this over and over again at this church, but euangelion, its roots, is when a king gave a message out and it was sent forth by messenger to go into a town and they would say, hear ye, hear ye, thus saith the king. That's the ewinglion. That's the gospel.
Joel Brooks:And because kings were awesome, they said that's good news. Alright? Which later the gospel came to be known as good news. And when that message went forth, it did not depend on the messenger. It didn't matter if that messenger, you know, came on, like, you know, mounted on a great horse and had a great voice and had all this authority.
Joel Brooks:It could have been the puniest little messenger. It could have been the least of these coming and with shaking voice and trembling bodies saying, hear ye, hear ye, thus saith the king. The authority comes from the king, not the messenger. And when we go and we proclaim the gospel even when we're shaking, people say, wow, that must be such a king to send such a weak person. When our boast is not ourselves, our boast is in the cross, and there is power in that.
Joel Brooks:So we proclaim the gospel. I've got like 3 minutes to talk about proclaiming the gospel through deed. Look at verses 6 and 7. 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.
Joel Brooks:So Philip brought joy to the city through his deeds and in particular, he brought healing. He brought the healing power of Jesus to the city and it resulted in joy. And once again, I'm a charismatic with a seat belt, so I want you to know that I believe wholeheartedly that Jesus still heals physically. That we could come and we could pray to the end and and God at times, he does this. I do believe in Acts that this is an extraordinary way that he has been doing this.
Joel Brooks:It's not ordinary that he would happen in the frequency, those healings would happen in the frequency, then that they would happen now. But Jesus still does physically heal, and we pray towards that end. A number of times, our elders have gone to people and they've gone to their sick people in their homes. We've anointed them with oil, laid hands on them and prayed for them. Some of you are in here healed.
Joel Brooks:You're in here healed and it's brought joy to you. So I do believe that that is one thing that we could do, but if we're not called to do an extraordinary healing, if God chooses not to do that way, there are other what we would see as ordinary ways we can bring healing to a city, thus bringing joy. We could do what we see like just as normal deeds. I just got back from our elders and staff. We had a retreat this weekend, and, it's one of the reasons I'm borderline delirious right now.
Joel Brooks:But, one of the things we did is we just talked about the the deeds, the the ways we've seen the Lord work, this past year. And it was awesome. One of the things that stuck out to me is, just over a year ago, we had only one family in this church that was doing anything towards foster care. Only one. Now we have over a 100 involved in our foster care ministry.
Joel Brooks:That's extraordinary. That's bringing joy in the city. I got an email on Friday talking about what we're doing with Avondale Elementary and how a little over a year ago we were basically doing nothing at that school. But now we had, our last work day at the back to school bash. We had over a 100 volunteers serving in different places in different ways, and donating backpacks, food, supplies, and that has been ongoing and has continued.
Joel Brooks:It's ordinary yet extraordinary. It's bringing joy to the city. One of the things here that we obviously see is there was joy being brought to the city because of racial unity. I mean Philip, a Jew, was now going outside to Samaria. The Jews and the Samaritans never mixed.
Joel Brooks:The Jews saw the Samaritans as half breeds. You went all the way around to not associate. And the Samaritans hated the Jews as well, but now they're coming together and they're calling themselves brothers and sisters in Christ. There's racial unity happening, bringing joy to the city. And there was no program to start this.
Joel Brooks:It was just simply Philip going and sharing the love of Christ with somebody else not like him. And that happening over and over again. So once again, church, are we are we bringing joy to this city? Let me ask you this, what would your neighbors think if you left? They saw the for sale sign go up in your yard.
Joel Brooks:What would they think? Oh gosh, the heart of our community is leaving? I hope. Or would they be like, I'm so glad I'm here. Or I never really even knew.
Joel Brooks:What was the person's name again? What would your co workers think if you got transferred? Or if you went to another school? Would there be a vacuum of joy there? I'm gonna ask you to pray a simple prayer this week as you go about being the church gathered to the church scattered.
Joel Brooks:And the prayer is simple. It's, Lord, as say this as you go into, you know, whatever. Go into your gym, you go into the library, you go into your office, you go home, but pray this prayer. Lord, show me the hurt here and show me how to bring your healing. Show me your the hurt here and show me how to bring your healing.
Joel Brooks:And then, commit yourself to bring that healing in both word and indeed to your community, and there will be great joy in this city. If you would pray with me. Lord, our church exists to bring gospel joy, not just to this community, but to the entire world. And in order to take joy, we've got to be filled with joy. And so I pray in this moment you would impress on us just how glorious your gospel is, that we once were dead, but we've been made alive.
Joel Brooks:Lord, the life that you have given us is not a life that's meant to be contained, but a life that's meant to be shared. And so God, scatter us. Scatter us as seed to make a difference in this city and a difference in the world. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.
