MAR 20 2016 | Acts 8:1-4

Sea Change Church · "Acts 8:1-4" · Adam Stadtmiller · March 20, 2016
Acts 8:1-4
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

Acts chapter 8, 1 through 4, or just look at the screen. I am going to pray, preach the scripture like I normally do. And to appease my wife and many others, we have someone come up and read the scripture to you now in full because I always hesitate halfway through it. Now you've heard it, and we will preach. God is good. On that day, I love, I think it's interesting, on that day, there was just a moment where Satan struck.

Look on that day, in that moment, and understand that Satan is looking for opportune times. In the book of Luke, it says that he tempted Jesus, Jesus overcame the persecution, overcame the temptation, and it said Satan went away forever and never bothered him again, right? No. It says that he waited for an opportune time. I want to say that as we look at the persecution of the church, I want you to be thinking about how the enemy attacks you, and be able to put yourself, because you are the church, to be looking at it as if you are the person, and understanding the attack against this church is how the enemy attacks you as well.

And so he's looking for an opportune time, and he's looking for open doors as well. He's looking for situations to happen where he can strike an attack. The scripture says, as we'll see in a moment, that we are not unawares. But no, on that day, a great persecution. So sometimes there's these small little attacks, but other times he will strike in a moment, and maybe you've experienced that yourself.

A great persecution, not a small persecution, a great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem. Now we've been talking about this church in the book of Acts for a while now. And all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria. Godly men, I think that's interesting, godly men buried Stephen and mourned deeply for him.

But, and there's that juxtaposition word, we're looking at oftentimes the word but in the scripture shows where there's a contrast. It's a contrast word. So whenever you, most often when you see but in the scripture, you want to look on one side of the word and then what happened on the other side of the word. So you have these godly men burying Stephen, mourning for him deeply.

So they understand what has happened, and they're in tune with what God is doing. They're completely in tune with what God has done. But Saul, who currently is not in tune, he's a new character into the scripture now, into the story of Acts that we're seeing as we have written on the walls behind us. But Saul, and you could finish the sentence, had no understanding what was going on.

He had no understanding of what God was doing, but he would understand it. And the tables would be turned where Paul eventually becomes the one who would be persecuted. And few believers have ever been persecuted like Paul. And he gives his, he gives his resume of persecution. I think three times, Ellie, is it three times he was lashed within one, one lash of, of 40 lashes.

They say 40 lashes will kill a person. Three times he got 39. 39. He was stoned to death. And we know that after he went, well, we believe he was stoned close to death. And many theologians believe he was stoned to death. And he talks about someone going to the third heaven. Many theologians, myself included, but I'm kind of a, you know, comic book theologian.

But I still believe that Paul died, that Paul went to the third heaven. And God said, we're not done with you, sending you back. And it said that he went back there. He rose, I believe, that he rose from being stoned to death. From the dead, it says that he walked back into Jerusalem and went to the hospital, right? Wrong. What does the scripture say that he did?

He went in and preached. Hardcore. Right? If my coffee isn't made right in the morning, it ruins my day. Like, I'm done. I didn't want to come to work. Paul gets stoned to death, raises from the dead. Many theologians think so. I agree. That he's in third heaven. He thinks, I'm done. Jesus says, good to see you. You're not done yet. What do you think you're doing, Diane?

You know, we're sending you back. Sends him back, raises from the dead, goes back in and preaches the word. How do you do with persecution? What do you do when the wind starts to blow a little bit your way? Well, Paul did not understand what God was doing. And he was persecuting the church. And I love the word that Elliot used. He was ravaging the church.

Ravaging the church. And it said, so he went out against them in Judaism. And in verse 3, it says, but Saul began to destroy the church, going from house to house. Why is that important? Because the first church met in houses. So in order to destroy the church, you didn't come here to this little church on the corner, or to Saddleback, or whatever.

You went to people's houses, and you destroyed the church by going to their houses. And so that's interesting, because it said that they met in their houses. So that's interesting, because it's showing the kind of church that was happening in Jerusalem. It's also much harder to ferret out a house church movement than it is to find places on a corner.

But we had that happening, because they did not have church buildings at the time. They were still, as Jews, meeting in the synagogue. And they needed a place where Jews and Gentiles could meet. And you know that Jews and Gentiles did not spend time together. And so they were not able to say, well, we'll just rent a room from the synagogue. And we'll have the Gentiles come and bring a pork sandwich while you're at it.

So they had to meet in their houses. And if the Jews and the Gentiles can get along, can we not figure out our issues? If the Jews and Gentiles can get along, can we not figure out our issues? Our issues of equality, our issues of race. And the church, we have got to be able to follow what the first church did. That divide between Jew and Gentiles is as big of a divide as you will ever find in history.

Because God had ultimately originally told them, separate yourselves. But after Jesus came on the cross, he brought a unity. And he said, we call you to be together. And they figured it out. So maybe we need to figure it out. So Paul began to destroy, going from house to house. And dragged off both men and women. And put them into prison. Those who had been scattered preached.

Now this is powerful. Verse 4. Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went. The gospel went forward due to persecution. And so in regard to Johanna's word at the beginning of seeing what's happening in the Muslim world, could it be a reverse representation of what God did 2,000 years ago? And what I mean by a reverse representation, meaning there was a persecution that caused believers to scatter.

And those believers were able, at the right time, to go into all the world. Now if you've ever thought about history, why were they able to go into the whole world? Because 60 years earlier, Julius Caesar had begun to bring a Roman Empire in. And begun to fix the roads. And the aqueducts. And all. And he had created an infrastructure that when persecution happened, Christians had a way out.

Isn't that interesting? That God prepared the way. And he used an evil Roman government that Caesar, and often time, believed that he was the deity. How God puts leaders into place for his reasons. So as a believer, when you see certain leaders that don't go with your understanding of what a godly leader should look like, maybe have a godly perspective and realize that God knows what he's doing.

And no one is in leadership unless God puts them there, the scripture says. And so God used them. Now back to the reverse evangelistic understanding. As the church was persecuted, the believers were sent out onto all these roads into what a word is called the diaspora. It means that those that were sent out to all the different areas, and they were dispersed.

They were dispersed. Diaspora is the word. They were dispersed. What if today, and this is a little bit off topic, but Johanna got me thinking, what if God is using a persecution to send unbelievers this time into a place where believers are? And how important is it that Europe would have kept its Christian roots and been prepared for this? And I doubt that they are prepared for this, but it's not a bad perspective when we look at the immigrant.

Because we need to have eternal eyes. We can so often as people just have, you know, hey, how's this going to affect me? How's this going to affect? And we miss the eternal opportunities. What's God's perspective? In all persecution, this is a mature, this is mature Christianity, is when you have a persecution, is to be able to step aside and say, what is God doing in the midst of this?

Jesus was persecuted, died on the cross. What was God doing in the midst of it? What we sang about it. He was setting mankind free from sin, that we might, that his children might come home. Through persecution, through suffering. Let me say this, suffering is not your enemy. Suffering is not your enemy. And God loves to take suffering, take our ashes and turn them into, he exchanges our ashes for what?

Beauty is the right word, Robert. Beauty. Ashes, and he turns them into beauty. And God wants to take the ashes that are in your life and the suffering that is in your life, he wants you to understand why it exists, and he wants to beautify it. Yeah, praise God is right. And so we see that, and they preached the word wherever they went. We see that the, in your notes, the persecution gained momentum.

And on that day, persecution broke out. It was a gaining of momentum. One of the things the enemy wants to do is get persecution. He will be persecuting you whether you know it or not. He will be persecuting you whether you know it or not. And he wants to get you into a place, whether by your own decision or through an exterior persecution, but he'd rather have it be your own, and we'll talk about that in a moment.

He'd rather have you open doors where he can attack you. The enemy can only attack you, the scripture says, that if God allows it for his purposes, or if you allow it. And when you allow it, you open doors through different things that you choose to get into, or unforgiveness, or things like that. You open yourself up to the enemy has a legal right to attack you in that area.

So, when you have unforgiveness in your heart, he has a legal right to go before God and to say, the thoughts that come with unforgiveness, what would they be? Anger, depression, anxiety, the things. When you have unforgiveness, they cause all these emotions. He can go before the throne of God, because the scripture does say, we see that in the book of Job, that the enemy goes and he argues with God.

It says also in this, I think it's, I don't know where this one is in the New Testament, but you can find it, that he goes before God constantly standing there, and he is accusing the saints, the brethren. Scripture says that Satan goes before God, and he accuses you before God on a regular basis. And God on a regular basis says back to him, but Jesus died on the cross, and I've set them free.

But he's looking to take a persecution, to take a foothold in your life, and to turn it into a stronghold. Are you even aware of what foothold you have given the enemy? Because he wants to take that from a foothold, and the scripture says, do not give Satan a foothold, because a foothold is a place on a wall where you can climb up. I was at the zoo this week on Friday on my day off.

Went with a friend to the zoo, and chimpanzees terrify me. If you have ever seen Google chimpanzee attacks, do not do it, okay? Terrifying chimpanzees. A full-grown chimpanzee has the strength of eight men, and they are nasty. Nasty. Chimpanzees are nasty. And I looked, and they had these high walls, but then I saw these fissures in the wall. And I thought, those look exactly like those cracks that the mountain climbers climb and all that.

And I think a chimpanzee could figure that out. I'm terrified when I go to the zoo. I am always afraid that a chimpanzee is going to get out and come chasing me. Yeah, pray for me. The idea is in the James, I think it's a James passage, or a foothold. If you look up foothold, verse, New Testament, you'll find what the scripture is. And once again, Jesus never gave, he always says the scripture says.

So I'm just trying to follow Jesus, because I don't always know the exact reference. So I'm just following the way of Christ when I say the scripture says. Right? We've become enamored with knowing the exact reference. But it says he'll create a foothold, and the enemy wants to go up and create a foothold so he can climb over the wall into the inner sanctuary of your life.

And not only do that, but eventually to make it into the keep. And do you know where the keep is? The keep is that place where the king would go into the last resort, and they would put themselves in and lock themselves in. And a lot of times there would be a tunnel, hopefully, to get out. But the enemy wants to go over the walls of your life and begin to terrorize and ravage your life to the point where he gets into the keep of your heart.

And he has just an ability to control and terrorize and persecute you from that place. That happens when we allow footholds to become strongholds. I'm not saying you're demon-possessed. What I'm saying is we've given the enemy an opportunity to attack us. And God says, I will protect you because you're my child, but you have left that door open, and there is legal authority there.

And if you've ever studied legal authority in the Scripture, you will know that there is an ability for Satan to attack the open doors that we have. Close the doors. So we see that. Persecution gained momentum. Persecution, what does it mean? Persecution is a systematic mistreatment of an individual or a group by another individual or group. In this case, it is the Jews coming against other Jews who have followed Christ and Gentiles who have followed Christ.

They inflict suffering, mental or emotional torment, harassment, isolation, imprisonment, fear, or pain are all of those factors at once to establish persecution against an individual or people group. Without raising your hand, how many of you feel that way on a regular basis? That there is a fear. There is something that is coming against you on a regular basis.

We believe the enemy wants to take away your joy, take away your peace. And so there is a persecution. I'll tell you this. One thing that is true, and the Scripture is very clear, that if you move forward in your relationship with God, you will experience persecution. Persecution is part of the Christian life. Jesus used persecution. It is the main way that he brought our redemption.

And as you move forward, there will be seasons of persecution. But are we prepared for the persecution that comes? Now let me just say this. Are you, or ask you this, are you aware, are you aware of where the enemy attacks you or how he attacks you? I want to say, so many believers never think about this. They never sit and think, if I, you know, if I was the devil, how would I attack me?

Or how am I being attacked? Or they're regularly attacked in one way or another, and they have no clue that the enemy is doing it. It's almost like when I was a kid, we used to, there's other kids that had bikes, and as they would ride their bikes by, we would hide and we would throw water balloons at them. And then we'd run into the house and this whole thing.

We would throw water balloons at these other kids. It's like constantly getting hit by water balloons and not knowing where it's coming from. Do you have an understanding of the attack of the enemy? And I will say this, that a mature believer understands the elements of attack. Now here's the thing. Give me an example from my own life. One of the things I know is that rest is very difficult for me.

And one of the values that I have instilled into this church is rest. That we want to be a church that has restful increase. A church that has margin. That when you come here, you feel at rest. When we go to heaven, it says enter into where? My rest. It seems to me that the American church model, myself included, has been, you know what? Go work as hard as you can, your knuckles to the bone, and die serving Jesus so you can enter into the rest.

Right? The scripture says we're supposed to make the kingdom of God present where? Here on earth. And if the kingdom of God is entering into rest, then our life on earth should look like rest. And so I have a hard time with that. As our church, and especially as things go well. So our church has been growing. It's exciting. As a pastor, it's exciting to think, we've had, oh my goodness, we've had 20 to 30% growth since January.

I mean, that's, I mean, if it was a business, that's solid. Right? Like, it's solid. It's been exciting. And as I look back, I realize, for me personally, I've kind of started throttling up. This week, I, and I'll tell you what happened. This week, I feel like there was an opportunity where I was, I had, I had lost the understanding of how the enemy attacks me.

I had opened doors by answering emails on my day off. I, so that I would not have rest. I had answered doors by coming in regularly on Saturdays, by not taking a day off, by continuing over and over again. Slowly as the last two months, as we as grown, it's, it's incredible and exciting, and there's a lot of adrenaline in it. It's fun. This church is fun right now.

It is. It's so fun. I love getting a new sound system, and the decorations, and the whole thing. On Sunday night, let me just tell you how attack happens. I feel like after two months of throttling up, and all good stuff, somebody accidentally at 3.30 in the morning calls me, and I get this phone call. Now, my phone was off. I mean, it was on, but I had it on, on, on, on Do Not Disturb.

Boom. 3.30 in the morning, I get a phone call, and I'm up. Can't go back to bed, and I'm like, oh, tired. Next day, Tuesday, okay? Finally, I'm gonna sleep good tonight. I get in bed, nine o'clock, 3.18 in the morning, my cat comes, excuse me, my wife's cat. I hate that cat. Wife cat, cat comes up to me, gets on the bed, and goes like this, in my face. Meow!

Wide awake. Can't go back to sleep. All, all that to say, by the end of the wake, I was extremely tired. Did Satan send the cat? I don't know, okay? Did, it's just odd that there was, there was two other times where I got woken up in the middle of the night, and as I look back, and I tried to trace it, I realized that I, you know, I was exhausted by the end of the week, and I thought, I gotta make some changes, because I'm not gonna be able to survive doing this.

Let me just show you that I realized this, that this was an attack. I began to look back and see, nine to ten decisions I had made over the last two months, that had opened the door to lose rest in my life. And then there came a week where I felt like the enemy said, this is Easter week, and bam, he just hit me, and I was worn out. And I thought, you know what, you're gonna burn out if you don't slow down.

Do you see that? We begin to look back of these little decisions, and I feel like as I look back, God showed me what had happened for the last two months, I never saw it coming. But then when the enemy had an opportunity to come in, and capitalize on that thing, he will capitalize. And hopefully that's an illustration that shows how he can work in your life, or your marriage.

Think about your marriage. Two months ago, three months ago, something was said to you, and you start getting a little bit upset, and then this, and then you're a little bit more upset, and on and on, until eventually something happens, and it all breaks loose. So this persecution broke out against the church. And so we see here, that they understood, a mature believer can understand the enemy's attack.

2 Corinthians 2.11. Let me just give this scripture, it'll clear it up. It says, If I have forgiven anything, I did it for your sakes, in the presence of Christ, so that no advantage would be taken over us by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his schemes. It's a powerful scripture. Now, we are not ignorant of his schemes. Once again, let me ask you, are you aware of the enemy's schemes against your prayer life, against your business, against your marriage, against your family, against your friendships, I want to say he has schemes, and we're not going to focus on the enemy the whole time, but are you aware?

And what are the footholds? Because a foothold will always grow into a stronghold. What are the footholds? Here we see that the enemy, that the enemy is a, is a creature of darkness. I want to say that he will generally begin, and try to attack you, in a way that you don't understand. He'll do, he'll be very subtle. He'll begin to do things a couple months back.

He'll have a long plan. Why? Because the enemy is a creature of darkness. Rarely will a persecution break out just directly in open sight, because he's a creature of darkness. He's a creature of lies. He's subversive. And he'd rather have you self-sabotage yourself, he gets more pleasure out of that, than attacking you directly. He'd rather have you be disobedient to God, than have to just attack you.

And what we have here, is a church that was having victory, that was walking in holiness, that had closed the open doors, that had no longer given footholds, and the enemy says, I've got to give an all-out assault now, and attack them, and sometimes he will. But the beauty about that, is when that happens, you are completely under God's grace and protection, because you have not opened any doors yourself.

And so we see this church that was attacked. It is this church that is disintegrated. Look here in your notes. And it's key to note, that this was an exterior persecution, rather than inward conflict. Like I said a moment ago, the enemy always would rather have, a subversive internal conflict. He would rather have the church be separated, because of disunity, than because of an exterior attack, like we see here, where they were persecuted directly.

He likes both. But he'd rather have you disobey God, and have God's children fight. He loves that. He loves it when the church gets divided. He loves it when your family is divided. He loves it when your marriage is divided, over stupid stuff. Over stuff that is non-eternal, and doesn't matter. He wants to come into your marriage, and take an argument about the toothpaste, or how you this, or how you that, and cause a division, and cause a wedge.

He loves divorce. He loves it. Loves it. Revels in it. It's one of his key things. Destroys relationships. Destroys children. Destroys families. I mean, more than half of us have experienced that in our lives. Loves it. Loves it. So many divorces happen, because people don't have an understanding, of how the enemy attacks, or the little fissures, that led to the break of the dam.

They didn't take care of the small things, and the small things lead to big things, and that little hello at the office, with somebody, or whatever it was, and you just kind of slowly let it happen, slowly let it happen, and the next thing you know, everything's been destroyed and broken apart. It's sad. He'd rather do that. We need to be vigilant, as a people of God.

And especially within the church. Pastor Jim, I love what he says. He says, I have short toes. If you, if I am your pastor, you're going to need to have short toes. Okay? I, I understand my weaknesses. I understand a lot of them. I understand that I'm fast moving, that I'll probably step on your toes, if you're an elder, or a board member, or you work for me.

But I'll also take a bullet for you. And that's true. And as a staff, we are continually, continually working for unity, and favor at this church. And if something really ticks you off, take a couple weeks and pray about it before you have to come and just, you know, invent. Scripture says the righteous person, I read in the scripture this week, is a person with a cool spirit.

I love that. It talks about the hot-tempered man or person. It talks about being contentious. It talks about, about giving a, I had an opportunity this week where somebody told me something that, that, you know, they, that I had done. And I thought, you know what? I called them on the phone. They said, hello? I started with this. You're exactly right. I ask your forgiveness.

I humble myself. Just ask your forgiveness. You know what they said back to me? I love you. A gentle word turns away wrath. I thought, boom, let's keep going. Let's keep going. I don't want to hold on to that. Where, where is the fissure? Where is the fissure in your relationships right now? I feel like this is a strong word for us right now. Not just as a church, but maybe with a family.

Maybe there's a friendship. You know, there's just something little. Think through your life. Think through your marriage. Think through your life with your kids. Think through, where are these fissures? And go back and humble yourself. Or, or, or whatever it takes to have unity, but not for the sake of truth. I want unity, but I'm not going to get rid of truth for unity.

Make sense? And we want to be a church that's unified. Guys, we've got to work together to love on each other. It's so easy to get upset at church. People bail out all the time because, you know, the coffee wasn't hot enough or, or, you know, why don't they ever do that? Or the windows don't get washed or they said something. Fight for unity. Fight for unity.

Going to come in for a landing here. I love this right here where it says that, um, the church was disintegrated. Interesting that the apostles were not scattered this time. Acts, eight, one, part B says, um, they were scattered except the apostles. And where were they scattered? Through Judea and Samaria. Now, why is that, why is that important that they were scattered through Judea and Samaria?

Because the great commission that Jesus had given them said, you will go from Jerusalem, which they did, to Judea, where else? Samaria, and where else? To the ends of the earth. Do you see that persecution is not your enemy? Suffering is not your enemy. And God used the persecution that they, that they experienced to have them walk into his purpose for them.

You see, persecution was the road that led to them stepping into their purpose. Wow. persecution was the tool that Jesus, that God used to have Jesus step into his purpose. That we look at persecution and we never want persecution. We never want difficulty. But God takes those things and oftentimes uses those persecutions to let you become the person that you were called to be.

What's been your suffering? What's been your persecution? And have you been able to use it to parlay it into victory? See, the greatest, the sweetest victory comes after the hardest persecution. And it says that the great commission is being fulfilled here because of persecution. You know the enemy's an idiot? He really is. I mean, crucifying Jesus was a bad call.

Okay? We think he never makes a mistake. You know he's not perfect. We give Satan way too much credit. He's not perfect. And God can give you knowledge like that scripture says in 2 Corinthians 4 that you might outwit the enemy. Because the spirit of God, the eternal spirit of God speaks to you truths that Satan doesn't even understand. You know, we always tend to think, oh, the devil don't come after me.

We have the power of heaven which he doesn't have. We have God. We have strategies. We have wisdom to overcome that he might not outwit us but we might outwit him. He made a mistake. He makes mistakes. He makes mistakes in your life and turn his persecutions into his mistakes. Tweet that. Take God's, take Satan's persecution and turn him into his mistakes.

You shouldn't have done that. You shouldn't have crucified Jesus and you shouldn't have persecuted the church in Jerusalem. Because what happened? The gospel fulfilled the great commission by you doing so. Bad call. Checkmate. Where's persecution in your life? Turn it into victory. Turn it into glory. We read last week the scripture says that the hope of the face, the glory that is on the face of Christ dwells within us.

Let glory come out of your persecution. And finally, I just like, well, I didn't want to hit this. The apostles did not scatter. And I think this is really important because God gave them a chance to redeem something that was broken. Because we know that when Jesus died on the cross and in the Garden of Gethsemane, they all scattered. Every single one of them.

And when they had an opportunity again to scatter and the rest of the church did, they stayed. that is so good. God gives you an opportunity. You know, maybe some of you had a rough marriage and it didn't work out and you're in another marriage now. It's probably no easier than the first one. I've even heard, you know, I've been in this game a long time. I found that the fourth one for some people wasn't as easy as the first one, you know.

It's hard. It doesn't get any easier. It just chains the person. But you're in this one now and something says, you got another opportunity. Make it work. Get Cotton told me the best way to stay married is to stay married. And so it says that in the scripture it had said that Jesus had told them you will fall away. Jesus told the disciples for it is written I will strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered.

And so the sheep were scattered at the cross in the garden of Gethsemane. But when it came to the persecution against the church not long after they stood up and said not this time. And like Gandalf looking at the bar log he looked at him and says this time you shall not pass. You shall not pass. And so where is that second opportunity that God gives you? He will take you to those places and allow it again and you'll be thinking to yourself oh it's happening to me again.

This happened the first time and I'm just bound for this. And no. God is saying here's your opportunity don't scatter. Don't scatter. That's a word of hope there. That's good. Preach that to myself. Well with that God often uses the mercies and things how often God uses excuse me let me read this again how often our God of mercy uses the things that persecute us to lead us to fulfilling his calling for us.

Isn't that a new way to look at persecution and suffering? Let's all stand. We'll have the worship band come forward. That's a good word as we move to Easter. I want to give you a word before we sing do us a favor we need you to take the gospel out. We have created an amazing fun Easter service it's going to be awesome. We've got Donut Bar from San Diego one of the best donut companies around VG's was closed but Donut Bar is also in the running for the best donut place in San Diego.

They're catering Easter morning we're going to have a petting zoo for kids. We made a thousand of these can each of you take five or six? We thought should we put an advertisement in La Jolla Light or should we do these different things? We thought no the best thing to do is to get these give them to our people where they personally hand them to somebody. We spent about 300 bucks making these we want them all to go out and so take four or five that you can invite a personal invite it says that 80% of people if you invite them to church will come.

Invite people next week it's going to be awesome. Let's sing if you've got some suffering let's turn it into victory as we sing this song. Let's go. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.