MAR 13 2016 | The Martyr in the Pew

Sea Change Church · "The Martyr in the Pew" · Adam Stadtmiller · March 13, 2016
Acts 7:54-60
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

Do not hold this sin against them. Lord, do not hold this sin against them. What an amazing day this is to say freshly to the Lord, take my life, shape my life, lead me as a faithful shepherd, but also be the Lord of my lips and of my releasing as Stephen did. Some of the old news, some of the things we should just let go into the forgiveness of God. Wonderful day for this.

Acts chapter 7, there is a long sermon that Stephen preaches in this text. We're not going to read that this morning, but it carries us up to verses 53 and 54, which is the focus this morning. Go back and maybe look at the sermon at another point, but it says this. When the crowd had heard this news, they were furious, gnashed their teeth, picture that, at him.

But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. Look, he said, I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. And at this, they covered their ears. Yelling at the top of their voices, they rushed at him, dragged him out of the city, began to stone him.

And meanwhile, the witnesses laid their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul. While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed the lips. Lord Jesus, receive my spirits. And then he fell on his knees and cried out with his lips. Lord, do not hold this sin against them. And when he had said this, he fell asleep. Lord, thank you for your word. We pray for Pastor Adam as he comes to minister here.

That they'll be in what he shares a word for us. And that you'll take our lives, our lips, and make them fit instruments for your kingdom. Yes, in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Thank you, Jim. Right on. Hey, so I'm going to have to, I'm going to start doing something before I start preaching every week. Because it's going to have to reset what I'm saying for those that listen online.

We've got about 135 to 175 people that listen to the sermon online every week. And so we need a spot to start it. So I know we've already read it. But I'm just going to do this. Hey, open your Bibles and your cell phones to Acts 7, 54 through 60. So each week, when you hear me be redundant like that, that's why. And for the media team, that's where we're going to start on that.

So we had three people in Kansas City listen this week. I don't know who they were, but they're listening. So that's cool. So if you have your Bibles, open up to Acts 7, 54 through 60. I'm going to read through this story again. It's a powerful story about the martyr in the pew. And I love that title. It's just the common man, the common person who's sitting in the pew where you are right now who ends up being a world changer.

A person who is remembered, actually makes it into the Bible. Like, if you made it into the Bible, you either did something really good or you did something really bad, right? He makes it, but he is just like you, the average common person who comes to church. And it says in the Scripture, he was among us. Let me read through this, though, because I love to read and preach the Scripture.

Verse 54. When the members of the Sanhedrin heard this, Circle heard this, it's important that people hear the message, as Jim spoke about, that this is a spoken faith. That we don't live our lives silently like Nicodemus did in the Scripture. It doesn't mean that we're constantly on the street yelling out the message of the Gospel. But it's not a silent faith.

It's a spoken faith. And let me challenge you to be a person who speaks the Gospel. We're going to talk about that at the end of the message. But it says they heard this. They were furious and gnashed their teeth at him. And this was a cultural thing that people would do. Imagine, I didn't want to do it because my dentist says that it's not good.

But I even have a mouth guard at night, so I don't chip my teeth. But you can imagine, you know, a couple hundred of the Sanhedrin getting so upset that they start, and you could hear the teeth grinding. Where else is there going to be gnashing of teeth? Scripture said it's going to be in hell. That's right. So interesting, as you look at the Scripture, to use Joe's words earlier, the juxtaposition of a gnashing of teeth happening when Jesus is being, or excuse me, when Stephen is being stoned.

And then we also see in hell there will be this gnashing of teeth. It says, when they heard this, they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him. What did they hear? Stephen had just done a really long sermon about the history of Israel. And he had gone through it from the very beginning before Abraham was even part of the nation of Israel when he was just a Berber person in the Midian walking around.

He started there, and he took it all the way to Jesus. And his main message was this. You, like the prophets of the past who foretold the coming of Jesus, have rejected the Messiah. You have rejected God's Messiah. This is a tough word for them to hear. This is a tough word. And I feel like there's some words that need to be heard in our society today that are tough words to hear.

And God forbid we shrink back from knowing how to be shrewd, as serpents the Scripture says, but as innocent as doves in sharing the spoken message of the gospel, what is truth. And so he speaks out. And then it says, but Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit. Circle that word full. Now, we spoke last week about living in fullness. And a lot of you resonated with that.

A lot of you spoke to me after the sermon and during the week to say, it really made me consider, where's the fullness? Is there a fullness of joy? Remember, Stephen had a fullness of joy. He said he has a fullness of faith. He had a fullness of the Holy Spirit. He was a man that was living filled. And why shouldn't we live filled? Because we serve an eternal God and an open heaven.

Now, remember when Stephen looks to the sky, it says that he can see Jesus. There's almost like a, there's an opening where the veil between the earth and what is in heaven is open. And I believe that is open for believers today. That do you, to understand the fact that there is an open heaven. There is an exchange available to you as believers, should you choose to accept it.

That sounds like MI3, right? Mission Impossible. Should you choose to accept it, you live in an eternal space of an open heaven. That there is peace, that there is enough peace to give you a fullness. Trust me. There is enough peace in heaven to give you a fullness. There is enough courage in heaven. There is enough bravery in heaven to give you this kind of bravery that Stephen shows and peace in the midst of that.

I'm starting the soccer coaching again today. We have a game at 145. So, we were the Rockets last season. Remember the Rockets? I got my team back. We start. If you want to come to Allen Field and watch that today, we'll be coaching. And I have little patches I give out at the end of the game. Now, we were the Rockets and we were one and nine. We weren't very good.

Same team. Amazing how, you know, how much better they've gotten. So, I've got the same team together except for one kid. We picked up Neva and Doug Bradley's kid, Sophia, who's on the stage often or used to be. She's a lefty and she's a striker. So, that's what we needed. A striker who's a lefty. But, okay, nonetheless, I have these little patches I give out.

And one of the patches is a B for bravery. And if you exude bravery in the midst of the game, at the end of the game, I give little patches out. If you score a goal, you get a little soccer patch. But there's a B for bravery. And Stephen was a man who was able to access a fullness of life because he believed, he actually witnessed the porthole.

The wormhole, so to speak, if you watch a lot of scientific, you know, TV shows or what do you call them, science fiction shows. There's a wormhole between here and heaven. And we have the ability to access those things. And when you begin to access what is available to you in heaven, you live in a fullness. I will say that if you're not living in a fullness, it probably has a lot to do with how much you're accessing.

And I was talking to someone this week at a discipleship group. And, well, you know, I'm really struggling. I don't feel like I ever hear from God. Fair enough. My first question is when people say they don't hear from God is ask someone a question. Do you read the Bible? Well, no, not really. You know, on occasion, I hear it on Sunday. I said, well, do you read, you know, it's called God's Word.

Like it's 1,800 pages. There's a lot in there. Have you considered reading the Bible? Well, that's a good thought. I said, okay, let me give you a prescription. Because you go to the doctor, you get a prescription. I had a friend, he was a pastor, he had a prescription desk. Have you seen that, Jim, before? Had a prescription thing on his desk because you want to go away with something.

You know, you need some penicillin. You need whatever you need. So he would come in and he would give people a prescription, you know. Priests are really good at doing this. They give you a couple Hail Marys, you know, you do your whole thing. So I'm not giving Hail Marys up. People come in. I said, let me give you a prescription. I said, get the book of Corinthians and read a chapter a day, okay, and then spend five minutes in silence just sitting before God asking him to speak to you.

That was the prescription. I gave it to him. And so there's this access and accessing the fullness. Let me ask you this. Is, do you have a, let's look at joy in your life. Do you have a fullness of joy? Do you walk around joyful? I don't mean happy. I mean joyful. In the Strength Finders test, it asked about that. It asked, is there a, do you, do you have this attitude of joyfulness?

Do you enjoy your life? And the other, on the other side of the question was, do you like to work to find enjoyment? And I thought, you know, five years ago I would have said I love to work to find enjoyment. But now I feel like I'm just, I loved answering that question. I learned so much during the Strength Finders about answering that question.

I just like life. Because I feel like I've at least found the wormhole into accessing God's enjoyment of me as his child. We'll see a verse here in Corinthians in a moment that speaks about speaking the word of Jesus, but all for the point that we can be known as sons and daughters of God. When you access the understanding, the wormhole, the porthole, into an understanding that God is your father and he delights in you.

He's not a father who comes, a draconian type of father who is, who comes with a, you know, a belt in hand and harsh words. He's a father who loves you. When you begin to access that, I gotta say, it'll change your life. And if you spend the rest of your life pursuing the thought every day that you are a beloved son and daughter of the king, of your father God who loves you, you will not have wasted a moment of your life.

And I will say that there will be an overflow that will bring a fullness to your life. Say, find that, find that. Do whatever it takes to search out the pearl of great price. The scripture talks about things being hidden. You know, if you knew that somewhere on this block, there was a massive diamond, somewhere on the block, somewhere within this block, or in a, let's say even this, in the park down the street, you'd find your way over to that park.

You'd search it out. You'd try different things to figure it out. Why do we not do the same things with our life? Because we become satisfied often in living in a subsistence. Christ says, I came to give you life and to give it to you more what? Abundantly, with a super abundance. Why? Because he, think about it, he lives in heaven with an eternity of blessing, and he wants to give it to you.

It doesn't mean that we're not going to have hard times. It doesn't mean that we're not going to face stiff headwinds. Stephen faces headwinds. And in the midst of it, his face looked like the face of what? An angel. Keep reading. In verse 55. But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, once again an open heaven.

And Jesus, standing at the right hand of God, look, he said, I see heaven open. I love that. Circle that. Start living like we have an open heaven. What would it look like if you began to believe that you have access to an open heaven? That healing is available. That love is available. That courage is available. That it's open. As opposed to this far off God.

Just live like you have an open heaven. And the Son of Man, sitting at the right hand of God, and at this, they covered their ears. They were yelling at him at the top of their voices. They all rushed at him. Dragged him out of the city. And began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their feet at the, we're going to meet this guy in a little bit.

A young man named Saul. A young man named Saul. He would definitely mature in the next few chapters as we read. And while they were stoning him, Stephen prayed. Now this is the same thing that Jesus prayed. Because Stephen got his cues from looking at the life of Jesus, which we can do as well. When you are in a situation, try to find somewhere in scripture where Jesus faced the same thing.

And we become replicable. That's the one thing about Jesus, is it's a replicable faith. And I've been saying over and over again, that we want to get away as churches from having the stage be the star. From the church presenting something that you could never replicate on your own. I want to say you're the martyr in the pew. You're the message.

With the message written on your hearts, the scripture says. Not on stone anymore. And you are God's hope that he will send out to a broken world. If we continue to have a barrier between these, you know, pastors on stage and authors and singers. And we do something. You can just sit back and applaud and think, I'm part of something really big.

And I love being a part of it. But we don't encourage and send you out to live as sent people. We've done you a disservice. The scripture is one that sends us out. And it says, so he follows the message of Jesus. Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. Then he fell on his knees and cried out, Lord, do not hold their sin against him. Who said that? Right. And you have to be full of what in order to say something like that when people are stoning you?

Grace. Because we know that he was full of grace. I don't even have that good of a response when someone cuts me off on Draper. Right? It says, when he had said this, he died. Is that what it says? What does it say? Fell asleep. Think about that. They rushed at him. They're gnashing their teeth. They're stoning him. They're yelling. You can imagine this.

He's got this peaceful face. He sees Jesus and he just naps it out. That's the story of what happens when you have an open heaven. And he was the first of many martyrs who have gone before him and looked at his example because he actually saw the example of how Jesus died. No one took Jesus' life. God the Father. No one can take. No one is in charge of life and death.

Only God himself. So this week, talking about the idea of sending you out. Now, I want you to know I announced my run for presidency this week. I don't know if any of you knew. Did anybody hear that? Thank you, Karen. I appreciate that. Yeah, you'd vote for me. That's 15. Right? No, check it out. I just decided. I'm just fed up. Thank you, Karen. I'm fed up.

I'm just going to run. So I was at Panikin'. I was at Panikin'. I'm not kidding. I was at Panikin'. And the guy said, well, how are you doing today? I said, well, I'm going to run for president. She said, really? You're going to run for president? I said, yeah. She goes, are you a Republican or Democrat? I said, independent. She goes, oh, great. I'll vote for you.

The guy making a thing behind him says, I'll vote for you too. Nine people said they'd vote for me like that. I'm sitting there, full coffee house. They're all voting for me. And my mom. And Karen. And Karen, are you in? And Glenda, thank you. A few more. Right? Yay! Hey! Power to the people! Zach, you're in. Seriously. And she said, the lady said, what's your name?

I want to write it down. I'll write you in. I think, Alex, didn't you say you'd vote for me at small group? You're not sure yet. You're in. You're in. You're in. You're in too. Where have we come to when at a coffee house and people are frustrated on both sides? Both sides where whatever decision you're going to have to make is the lesser of two evils.

People are frustrated because we've lost our hope in that one person who can change everything. You know what I find what's so interesting about Jesus is he never had that agenda anyways. Now, granted, Paul went to Caesar and he tried to see Caesar get saved and that's awesome. But when you look at Jesus, you'll see in your notes here, Jesus makes regular people the centerpiece of his world-changing agenda.

Did you see that about Jesus? He didn't come and immediately go to Caesar, although he could have. He didn't go pick the best and the brightest for his world-changing agenda. Not that you aren't the best and the brightest, but he went to you. He went to us. He picked me up out of a gutter in 1989. Hey, come follow me. You know? Stumbling. Okay. The next day I said, I'm going to follow you.

I'm going to get sober. I think we're going somewhere around 30 years at this point of following Jesus. Right. Jesus believes in you. I've got to tell you what, and I thought about this for a long time. If I could choose the next president out of the current group that we have to believe that he could or she could change the world, or I could choose to lead you, and we were all on board to try to change the world, I'd choose you.

I'm not kidding. If I could choose the next president, or all of us decided we are going to make a difference for Christ in the world, and we were all on board, and we all wanted to do it, to speak a message of hope and love, I would choose you. I think there's a greater shot that you, as a congregation, that we, because I learned in my strength finder test that I'm a team, I like team, I'd rather win as a team than win individually, that we can change the world.

And I thought about, will I say that on Sunday? And I thought, yes, I'm going to say that, because I firmly believe it. You know, I've just lost the hope in the one, I just don't, not that I'm not going to vote, not that I'm not going to, you know, fight, you know, for freedom and voting and all those great things. Because I just, I just believe in the people.

Because it's by the people and for the people. And that's about as political as I'm going to get. Let me just say, if I'm going to throw my cards in, I'm going to throw it in with you and vote for me. So, Ella Baker, the great African-American activist, said, I would rather have 10,000 candles than one spotlight. I'd rather have 10,000 candles than a spotlight.

And I'll tell you what, I, I, I, I don't say it lightly, team. I believe in you. I believe we're going to change the world. I believe in you more than if I had, if I, I, I, you know, I'll stand here before, my yes is yes and no is no, but I'll stand before the Lord. If you gave me the option to pick the next president or to choose you, I will choose you.

And I mean it. I mean it. I mean it. I believe that we have to get back to being a sent people. We have to get back to social, spiritual, not just social, because social activism is easy. Just pick a cause. But I want spiritual activism. I want us to change the world. Do you want to change the world? Do you want to get on board? I want to get on board.

I want to pray. I want to believe in an open heaven. How are things changed? It's by the people. It's by the people making a difference. It's being the church on the corner where you live. But we're the church on the corner here where you live, and I'll say it over and over. Maybe I'll get redundant, and maybe I'll get boring. But you are the church on the corner, and you've got to change it where you live and go out and make a difference in the world.

We will make that difference. Jesus was the people's Messiah. He was rejected by the religious establishment that he created. He was rejected by his own people. And I'm fascinated by the continued, just look in the notes. I'm fascinated by the continual emphasis upon broken and unknown individuals to become his standard bearer. Does that not fascinate you?

Isn't it fascinating? To sit there, you could think for an eternity on that. Let me read it again. I am fascinated by Christ's continual emphasis upon broken and unknown individuals to become his standard bearers. To bear the standard. Peter, Stephen was just a guy, it said in Acts 6-4, among us. It's so easy to miss things in Scripture. Scripture's so good.

I was looking at the Bible today. That's a hymn. There's the Bible. And I was holding the Bible, and I thought, I love this book. I don't worship the Bible, by the way. I worship the God of the Bible. Make sure you don't start worshiping the Bible. We worship the God of the Bible, okay? But I love this book. I'll die for the message in this book. And it's a great question to ask, what would you be willing to die for?

It's a solid question, because you might be the next martyr in the pew. And I believe we live in an age where it's very possible in the next 50 years that that could be true in our country. I think it could. It doesn't, you know, social change happens quick. Study World War II. Study Germany between 1922 and 1945. You know, 1920, 1945. 25 years. I mean, it quick.

People are so easily swayed. I looked at the things that are happening today. You know, this weekend at different rallies, and people are angry at each other and mad. It makes me sad. What are we willing to die for? What would we be willing to die for? And a better question than this. What are you willing to live for? It's a heck of a lot easier to die for something than it is to live for it.

Let me say that again. If you have a Twitter account, tweet this. It's a lot easier to die for something than it is to live for it. Do you really want in? Jesus asked that. He would look people straight into the eye. He'd square them up in his eye, and he'd say, basically, many times in the scripture, do you really want in? Because I've got to let you know where this is going.

Anybody can come to me. Come as you are. But don't stay as you is. Come as you are. But don't stay as you is. And we have a culture right now that wants the church to say this. Come as you are and stay as you are. No. It isn't come as you are and stay as you are because that's who you were created to be. No. Come as you are and become like him. Come as you are and be willing to sacrifice and let things go.

Oh, wow. That's good for my candidacy. Baby. Yeah, baby. I'll take the babies too. Press the flesh. Kiss babies. You see I was kissing babies today. It's all planned. It's all part of the campaign. I am fascinated by how many people literally said that they would write me in. And the more I tell people, the more people are saying I'll write you in. That's crazy to me.

But it's awesome. I found in order to really run, you have to register and spend $5,000 on your candidacy. That might be a hiccup for it. You can go to WikiHow. It'll tell you how to run for president. I checked it out this week. Here's another. Took a while to get going today, but I'm here. I made it. Listen to this. Following Jesus has a low bar for entry, but a high calling towards ultimate sacrifice.

Tweet that. Following Jesus has a low. How low is his bar for entry? He's come to me. I'll take you all. Prostitutes, come on. Come on. You know, murderers, come on. Come on. Get in. How many murderers are in scripture? Moses? Paul? I mean, Anna, David? A bunch of murderers. You know? In scripture. But then he just brings them on. I want to say, it's such a low bar.

You can easily get in under it. You know? It's such a low bar over it. It's a low bar. You can get in. Trust me. You can get in. But it calls us to the highest of sacrifice. And are you willing to live for him? I talked to somebody this week, and they said, you know, I'm not sure if things get much worse if I would keep my faith. I might just, you know, soften up.

And I love the honesty. It says in the scripture, it says, in the end times, that many people will fall away. And they will betray brother. It says that they'll betray each other. That of this, and I always wonder that. I look at churches, and they're huge. And I just wonder to myself, would I be one of them? I wonder if I'm one. You've got to ask yourself that question.

If you're not asking yourself that question, you're not being honest with yourself. And it's easy to say you'll die for something. Somebody said that to me as I was, I kind of talked to people about my sermon all week. And they said, well, it's really easy to say you'll die for something until you, you don't know until you get there. Well, does that, and my answer was, does that mean we shouldn't have conviction?

Because, yes, you need headwinds to prove conviction. But you have to know what you believe, right? Or at least what you think you believe. And what you think you believe will be proven when the headwinds come. When there is gnashing of teeth. When there is people rushing you. Or whatever that thing is. Or there is that cancer. Or you lose that person in your family.

Or whatever your thing is. Are we going to live it? Do we really believe it? And are you in? It's a great question. It's not a guilt question. You know, or maybe the answer is, maybe the best you can muster right now is, I just want in. I've had that so many times. Where I'm just Jesus, you know, I just, I don't really want to give you everything.

That's been my biggest problem in life. B plus. B plus. A minus. A minus. But, you know, what's a 3.81? Is that A minus? That's what I got in college, yeah. I could have done way better. That's good enough. Good enough. Surfed a lot. It was fun. Balance. Do you want in? How much do you really want to live for him? Do you want to live for him as much as you die for him?

We all would, most of us, I'll say most of us, would say we die for Jesus, right? Do you want to live for him? What does it cost to live for him? What will it cost you? What, so there's so much joy in living for Jesus? With that open heaven? I want to say the more we, I want to say that wormhole, the more we give over to obedience, to holiness, to love, to kindness, that wormhole just opens up and there's an open heaven and we'll begin to see God step in in little ways in our life.

The scripture will come alive. I remember when I was 19 and I began to read the scripture for the first time where I said, no more drugs. I called friends on the phone, my two best friends, and I said to them, I'm not going to Mexico with you this week. I'm not going to leave campus at Point Loma Nazarene for six months. I would just drive back and forth to my grandma's house and he said, yeah, right, whatever, I'll see you this Friday.

I never went back down. I had to cut off those friendships and not be friends with them and it cost me something. I ended up marrying both of those guys. I didn't actually marry them, but when they found women, I did their weddings for them. You want to talk about God redeeming? You know, when we hung out, you know, we weren't looking, it wasn't match.com looking for wives, but to see that they eventually found women that they wanted to spend their lives with, that they actually rededicated their lives to Christ.

And when it came time to redeem the years that the locust had eaten away, the Tijuana years that we had lived, they called me and said, will you do our wedding? That's how God stores the years the locust have eaten away. And I was honored to do it. Honored to do it. And God will do that with your story. It's just slowly saying, God, I want to be, I want more.

Here's a great prayer. My favorite prayer is what? Help. That's right. Four letters, easy prayer. My favorite four letter word. Help. Next great prayer is, God, I want to follow you. Help me want to follow you. Try that one. Help me want. Increase my want. Because we don't really want. We're not built to want. We're built to reject God. We're built to do what these people did.

But we can go beyond that. We can follow Christ more. We finish up here. Why was Stephen killed? There's a cultural contact. He was coming face to face with a broken theocracy that was longing for its day to return to power and glory. You had a theocracy is a church governance where the entire government is run by the church. Now, I would love to have Christians in leadership positions, but we have proven over history that when Christians get in charge of everything and have ultimate power, it doesn't go so well.

Hashtag Spanish Inquisition. Doesn't go so well. You do not want the church to have governmental power, but you do want to have believers who are influencing the government. Jesus, you know, this is one of the things that Judas, when we talk about this on Easter, four stories, one hope. Judas wanted a king. Peter, when he came with two swords, he came to Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane.

It says that he brought him swords. They wanted a political agenda. Jesus says, I'm not doing that. I came to find fishermen. I didn't find centurions, although a centurion gave his life. We'll be talking about him on Easter. But he said, I came and I got fishermen for a reason. The guy that casts net and then he brings swords. Why? Because he wanted, he believed in a political agenda to change the world.

And I'd say, since the 1970s, the Christian church has gotten drunk on that. That if we can just get the right president and the world will change. As opposed to if I just change my life. If I begin to make sacrifice and care for Christ and churches begin to say, we're going to take social action. We're going to care for people. We're going to love people.

We're going to be a difference in our community. We're going to be a cent people. We're going to live with an open heaven with power. When someone's sick, we're going to pray that they might be healed. We're going to share the message of the gospel. The message of hope. That's the message. Not getting the next guy or woman in the White House. And you know, it would be great.

It would be great. Because the Proverbs, let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater at him. Thank you, Jim, because you would email me tomorrow. The Bible talks about having righteous people in leadership positions. Let's not throw that out. Now, you don't have to email me. Thank you. Thought you went a little heavy on that point there. You could really balance it out a little bit.

About once a month, I get one of those from Jim. Vice President. Vice President Jim. I'm dancing. Yeah, so good. Off the grid. We're going to be out of here in about four minutes. We're going to call the band up. It says that he came in conflict, context with this, that a religion, a group of people, that they wanted God and power. They wanted God and power.

And when we want power more than we want God, then we say to God, instead of you being all powerful, we'd like to be all powerful. And so we'd like to be God. And that's what humanism is. That's what we see. As you look in the different cultural arguments that are happening, we want to be able, as people, to make the decisions of God. When a person should die, when they should be born, on and on.

Just look at all the main arguments. We believe that God makes these decisions. And then humanism believes that humans are the apex of all that. And so we see this theocracy that wanted power beyond God. They weren't willing, you know, they weren't willing to have God without the power. And they fought for the power. When they saw, gee, why did they kill Jesus?

It was about power. Why did they want to kill the apostles? They say regularly in the scripture, we've got to be careful because all the people are going to go after them. It's a power thing. Jesus came in. He was that different kind of power. Power to heal the sick. Power to take your chains away from you. Power to heal your heart. Power to come in and make a difference and see people saved for eternity.

Power of the resurrection. It's a different power. And that's what we've got to focus on. In an open heaven that wants a different power. And so he spoke. And then we're, final thing. Verse 54, it says, when the members of the Sanhedrin heard this, why did they come against him? Because he was willing to speak. He was just willing to speak. To call it as it is.

And I do see a cultural shift trying to get Christians to no longer speak the truth. And I see Christians, and I think it's changing a little bit. But for the last five years, obeying that call to silence. I don't want to offend anybody. God forbid we offend anybody. But Jesus said he's a stumbling block. I don't want to offend you, but you might end up separated from God for eternity.

That's going to be real offensive. He was willing to speak. Now the question is, how do we speak? This is where, this is the great question of our day. How do we speak? Some of the ways that we were speaking before no longer work. How do you speak? And I spoke about C.S. Lewis that said that he wrote the Chronicles of Narnia. Because people have dragons that watch their heart.

And he believed if he started with a children's story, he would be able to get past the watchful dragons in their heart. Because he was so clever. He was so wise. And he took his gift of writing. And he created something that was so beautiful. The story of the Narnia is so beautiful if you watch it. And in the midst of it, the gospel is interwoven.

And he spoke in written word. How are you speaking the gospel? Say, that's your call to go out and speak the gospel. Let me read two verses. How then can they call on the one whom they have not believed in? This is speaking about unbelievers. And how can they believe in the one whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?

Who is that someone? You. You know who we've really been content letting it be? Whoever stands on this stage. Right? As long as that speaker is there and doing a really good job, you can come and listen. And they're preaching the gospel. And they're on TV. You don't ever have to do it. That's not our model here. They're going to hear because you're going to speak the gospel.

And you're going to do it in a way that is so wise. And so clever. And so filled with love. That they're going to come and they're going to see the love of Christ on you, as we'll see in this final verse. You'll say, well, that's not how Stephen did it. He was hardcore. Stephen was speaking. He knew his audience. You see, the people he was speaking to were debaters.

They were people who were religious aristocracy. You see, Jesus spoke so harshly. He spoke so harshly to the religious aristocracy. But the woman at the well, he was so gentle. With the woman caught in the act of adultery. So gentle. Who's your audience? There might be a time where you need to stand up and say, that is absolutely wrong. And you just need to be as bold as a lion in that.

But I would say 90% of the conversations we have are not in this arena. And so don't just take the way that Stephen does and apply it to everybody. Find out who. And then the final verse, 2 Corinthians. For what we preach is not ourselves. I love this. But Jesus Christ is Lord. And ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. For God who said, let light shine out in the darkness.

Who's that light? You. Yeah, and you. Made his light shine in our hearts. To give us the light of the knowledge of God's glory. Just go chew on that for a while. Let light shine in our hearts. To give us the light of the knowledge of God's glory. That you, inside of you, in your heart, have the light of the glory of God's knowledge. The glory of God.