It’s All Part of the Plan

Let's take our Bibles.

Let's open to Acts chapter 8.

Acts 8 · chapter mention

We're in Acts chapter 8 this morning.

Acts 8 · chapter mention

If you're like me, you grew up in the 80s, and uh I grew up with a video game called Duck Hunt.

How many of you remember duck hunt?

Do you remember this?

This is a great part of my childhood.

It was just good, clean fun.

You go duck hunting on your TV, and if you miss what happens, the dog pops up and laughs at you.

Isn't that great?

I said, Sean, that's that's really kind of one of the themes of this next sermon series.

I I think it's kind of the duck hunt thing.

I I want you to make me a graphic because that's Acts chapter 8.

Acts 8 · chapter mention

Acts chapter 8.

Acts 8 · chapter mention

I want to call it open season because this is that place where really the disciples are under attack.

They're being targeted, they are being singled out, and and God's doing something, but it's a hard season.

So Sean made this graphic.

He put me in it, popping up and laughing, and then I felt personally attacked because he made another slide that looked like this.

And I said, Sean, that is a lot of gray in that beard.

And then I went and looked in the mirror and I said, don't change it.

It's fine.

It's accurate.

It's accurate.

And then I shaved off my beard this week.

Uh that was that was my life.

And so I I tell you, um, that's kind of the theme that I want us to walk through this morning in Acts chapter 8.

Acts 8 · chapter mention

Pain is a reality for Christians.

You and I will experience pain in this life.

In fact, Jesus promised us that.

This shouldn't be a surprise to you.

Jesus said that you're going to have to take up a cross and follow him.

This is not a pleasant thing.

This is going to be a hard thing.

You're going to have to do it daily and follow me.

Remember those last two words.

Follow me.

Take up a cross and follow me.

He actually said that you're going to be hated in Matthew.

Matthew says that you're going to be hated by this world, by all.

And then it uses the word, but endure.

You're going to have to learn to do this other word: endure the hate.

You see, life is like that.

Life, Christianity is filled with pain.

This is why I constantly tell you that Christianity makes a horrible hobby.

You can't be partially in, because if you're only partially into Christianity, when things get hard, you will fall away.

You will get disillusioned.

You will get angry at God.

We have to learn to follow Him through the hard seasons because the truth, the reality of gospel proclamation is that whenever you proclaim the gospel, someone is going to be upset, someone is going to be hurt.

Someone is going to be angry at you.

And so we've got to learn the basics of how do we endure the difficult seasons.

Why is it so hard?

Well, it's hard because oftentimes we tend to miss what God is doing in the midst of our pain.

We miss his plan.

Last week, true story, another evangelism story.

One of our pastors, Pastor Greg, was out at the University of Memphis.

And he was on that university campus.

He set up a very provocative table, a very simple message on the front.

It simply said, Tell me why you left Christianity.

And we were at pastors' meeting this week, and he was telling us all about it.

He said, Those were some of the best conversations I've ever had doing evangelism.

And there was one young lady, just a nonstop stream of people coming to the microphone, but one young lady stepped up and said, When I was eight years old, my dad died.

And someone told me that this was part of God's good plan.

Never tell an eight-year-old that it's part of God's good plan for your dad to die.

And she walked away.

She wouldn't even have the conversation.

Just filled with emotion.

Now, in one respect, she's probably right.

You probably shouldn't.

Those probably aren't the right words at that moment to say to an eight-year-old.

But I think it really highlights something.

Shows us that you and I need to work hard to reconcile our seasons of pain and what God's doing with a hard plan that God has for us in reaching the world.

See, I think we lived with a faulty view of Christianity.

Even that person lived with a very faulty view of Christianity.

Maybe some of you have thought this.

I'm not supposed to have pain in this life.

When I came to Jesus, I thought it would be sunshine and roses and good times.

It's not supposed to be hard.

But then the hard seasons come.

Many live with a faulty view of Christianity.

And when the hard days come, they get disillusioned.

Many others fall into a victimhood status.

They become so overwhelmed by their hurt, they actually can't see what God is doing in the midst of their pain.

I ask very virtually every counselee, some of you have heard me say this to you.

Where's God in this?

What's God doing in this?

What's He doing to develop your character, to give you a greater witness, to teach you something?

Where's God in this?

That's the question.

It's a very powerful question.

And it reminds us that God is always working in our hard seasons.

And if you can't answer that, what happens is panic comes on your life.

And or maybe you get bitter towards God, or bitter towards someone else.

You become blind to the plan, the good plan that God has for you.

And so today, what I want to do is I want to prevent that.

I want to teach you.

Today we're in a series I've entitled Open Season.

And we're seeing God's sovereignty over our suffering.

We're seeing God's plan in the midst of our pain.

Stephen has just been stoned in Acts chapter 7.

Acts 7 · chapter mention

That's the context.

Don't tell me that's good.

Don't tell me that's a good thing.

Don't tell me the death of one of God's saints is a positive, a net positive thing in my life.

This is bad.

This is hard.

The church is being hunted.

The church is being targeted.

This body that I love is now being scattered.

This is painful.

Homes will be ravaged in Acts chapter 8.

Acts 8 · chapter mention

Men and women will be jailed in Acts chapter 8.

Acts 8 · chapter mention

Don't tell me that's good.

How do I see good and hard seasons?

Well, we've got to learn the lesson.

We've got to learn to say it is well with my soul.

We've got to learn to say it's all part of the plan.

And trust God's plan.

I want to grow your faith this week.

I want to help you to trust the plan that God has for you in your hard seasons.

So let's take our Bibles.

Let's stand together in honor of God's holy word.

Just four verses today, Acts chapter 8, verse 1.

Acts 8:1

It says, 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.

Devout men buried Stephen and made great lamentation over him.

But Saul was ravaging the church, entering house after house.

Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word.

Today the big idea that I have for you is very simple.

What I want to tell you is that without with great pain, we need to look for the greater plan.

That in the midst of all your hard seasons, in the midst of all the hard pains that come upon your life, there is a plan.

And what I want to tell you is three very simple movements to this passage.

First of all, you will be a target.

We need to accept that.

Sometimes God's plan makes you a target, but it will even get personal, but what you need to do is stay focused on your calling.

And that's how verse 4 ends.

Stay focused on the calling, look for the open door, refuse to be a victim.

No one is inspired, no one is moved by victim, no one's moved or inspired by victims.

God wants you to stay focused on the mission.

That's why they went out.

They scattered to share their faith wherever the new open door was.

And that's what I want to teach you today.

There is a plan that's greater than your pain.

So may God bless his word.

May God bless all of you.

You may be seated.

Let's start with that first thought.

We need to accept that sometimes God's plan, well, it makes you a target.

That's a hard truth, but if you can hear it, it'll change your life.

I like the old far side.

I put it up from time to time, the two deer staring at each other, and one of them's got a target on his chest.

And the one on the left says to the one on the right, that's a bummer of a birthmark, Hal.

It's a bummer of a birthmark.

That's what it feels like to be a Christian.

In fact, the Bible tells us that.

It says that you're targeted by the world, the flesh, the devil.

You have enemies.

You will be targeted in this life.

And in this passage, the world is targeting the church.

It's taking aim.

Sometimes God will actually allow that.

Can you believe that?

Why in the world would God allow us to be targets of the world?

I think the thing that I see in the first two verses is that sometimes God uses this targeting season to get us moving.

He wants you to get moving in your faith.

He wants you to get moving in your witness.

He wants to spread the gospel to new places, to shift your life, make you uncomfortable for a purpose.

Without pressure, there's no movement.

If the father of a family doesn't feel the pressure to go to work and to provide for his family, he's staying home and he's watching the Andy Griffith show, right?

He's going to watch soap operas.

He's going to do nothing.

He's not going to get to work.

If a student doesn't feel pressure, the pressure of a report card, they're not going to study.

Pressure always produces good things.

Pressure always produces new expansion, new expanded energies.

Look at verse 1 with me, and we we start with the church in Jerusalem.

That's what we're talking about.

The early days of this church, they were idyllic.

They were just wonderful.

I mean, the first day they grew by 3,000 people.

And then they're growing by 5,000.

Then they're soon estimated at 20,000, 25,000.

This church is expansive.

It is growing.

It is wonderful.

Priests are being converted on the Temple Mount.

They're actually meeting in the temple courts.

I mean, this is a great season of ministry.

It's wonderful.

But what's the problem?

Well, it's the church in Jerusalem, and that's it.

That was never God's design for the church to just stay in Jerusalem.

God's design was for the church to go out.

Notice with me that it says here that those there arose a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem.

What's the result?

They were all scattered through the regions of Judea and Samaria.

Now that's that's really important.

In fact, something should be going off in your head when you hear those two places.

I've heard that before.

In that order.

You can't understand Acts 8.1 unless you understand Acts 1.8.

You've got to go back to Acts 1.8.

This was the Great Commission.

This was what Jesus wanted for his people.

You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem.

Check.

Got it done.

The church is established, but they have not done this or this.

They've not done the Judea or Samaria, and they certainly haven't accomplished the ends of the earth.

We're still working on that today.

See, God is using this hard season to actually accomplish something good: Judea, Samaria.

God uses targeting to create a movement.

And you'll be targeted with the same things that they were targeted with.

I see enemies, I see exile, and I see emotions.

You might even write those three words down.

Enemies, exile, and emotions.

Those are the things that target us.

Notice the enemy.

Who's the enemy in this situation?

Saul.

He will become one of the greatest defenders of Christianity, but he starts off one of the great persecutors of the church.

It says it's in verse 1, Saul approved of his execution.

The word here for approved is the idea of delight, actually.

When you read it in the Greek, it's actually he delighted in it.

He got a twisted pleasure out of this approval of the death of Stephen.

That's the idea.

What's going on here?

Well, I actually, when I read Acts chapter 7 and Acts chapter 6, I actually believe that Stephen is being stoned and executed, and actually the main ringleader is Saul.

Acts 7 · chapter mention Acts 6 · chapter mention

I think it was Saul who was that first guy arguing against Stephen.

He seems to be the leader.

In fact, you know that because in Acts chapter 7, it says of Saul, they lay their coat at his feet, at a young man named Saul.

Acts 7 · chapter mention

What's the significance of that?

It's a recognition of who's in charge.

See, in Acts chapter uh Acts chapter 5 through 6, we see kind of the establishment of the church, and we see them, you remember when we were in Acts 6 through, or Acts 4 through 6, there's this picture of the church giving to different needs?

Acts 5 · chapter mention

What did they do when they came and gave their gift to the church?

First of all, they gave it to a one fund.

That's a good pattern for giving.

They gave it to the apostles and they said, Distribute as the Lord leads you.

And then it says they laid it at the apostles' feet.

That's the pattern for giving.

You release it, you give it, but it's a recognition of these guys are in charge.

These guys are praying about how to use that money.

These guys are the ones with authority.

It's the same thing in Acts chapter 7.

Acts 7 · chapter mention

They laid their coats at Saul's feet.

It's a recognition that he's the guy leading the charge.

He's the guy doing all this.

And so this is an attacker on the early church.

And this is a recognition of his authority to attack religiously.

And Saul was in charge.

And this is just the truth.

You're going to have to recognize this.

The longer that you are a Christian, the more bolder that you become, what will happen is the bolder you become, you will expect these kind of enemies to arise.

And you might even pause and evaluate.

This may mean that if you do not have enemies in your life, that's a bad thing.

I mean, if you're this is the normal path of following Jesus.

That if you're not experiencing some measure of pushback, right, you need to get a little bit more bold in your faith.

This was normal.

And it gets us moving.

Winston Churchill or Victor Hugo, one of these two guys, said this phrase.

History is not clear on who it belongs to, but I love the phrase.

Do you have enemies?

Good.

That means you've stood up for something once in your life.

When you stand up for something, the enemies will come out.

But take heart.

God uses those enemies to get you moving.

God uses those enemies to encourage and push.

It's all part of God's plan.

We've got to learn to say the title of this sermon.

It's all part of the plan.

And it's even inspirational.

I want to be the kind of person that people do want to take out.

I want to be the kind of person that Satan really rejoices when I'm taking off the chess board.

I was playing my son in chess yesterday.

We had our day of rest, and I was just playing my son in chess.

And when I took his queen, I did some rejoicing.

Like a good father, right?

Did some celebrating.

I want to be that kind of chess piece.

I want to be the kind of chess piece that Satan rejoices to get off the field.

I want to be that dangerous.

I want to be that useful.

This is inspirational.

Causes enemies to arise.

Number two, not only does God use enemies to get us moving, he uses exile.

Look at this.

Verses 1 and 2.

They were all, there's the word scattered.

That's an agricultural word.

It's the idea of seed going out.

It's the idea that the seeds are going out now to the regions.

They're going into exile, but God was actually behind it to get them moving.

It's the idea that seed can change the world.

Jesus spoke about the gospel in terms of seed.

A good seed lands on good soil.

It yields 30, 60, 100fold.

And notice this is just ordinary, everyday people being seed.

It wasn't the apostles, it was the church.

It was all except the apostles.

The apostles stuck around, everybody else scattered.

That's quite a thought.

You can be faithful.

You don't have to be a pastor to be evangelistic.

This is the priesthood of all believers.

My wife and I took our kids some time ago to Yosemite National Forest, and the beauty of God's creation was just incredible.

It was breathtaking.

We saw those groves of the redwoods and the sequoia tree.

I don't know if you've seen that, but it's it's really incredible.

And you you see the pine cones of other trees, but then you see the pine cones of a sequoia.

It's really quite small.

This giant tree, very small pine cone.

And for a while they really struggled to understand.

How come these trees aren't, we're not seeing more of them come up?

We're not seeing the little saplings.

What is going on?

We've prevented the forest fires.

We've done the deforestation in the right areas so that these trees are protected.

We're protecting these trees, but they're not multiplying.

What's the problem?

Here's what they discovered.

They discovered that forest fires are actually used to open up the pine cone because they're sealed with kind of a wax layer, and that their act of preventing the fire was actually preventing the spread of the sequoia tree.

And so fires, actually, the fires will burn around these trees.

They're so high in the air and their bark is so thick, it really doesn't hurt the sequoia tree as much.

It can endure the fire.

It really can.

They've endured many fires.

But for the seeds to open up and to scatter, it takes heat.

And that's the way that God looks on the early church.

He says for their faith to actually take off, they're going to have to have some heat.

And so God actually allows this and uses this.

You will have enemies, you'll have exile.

And you need to ask that question: how is God using the heat, the pressure on my life to multiply his church?

Notice the third enemy.

God allows his church to be targeted by emotion.

This one is hard.

Look at verse 2.

Devout men.

These are godly men.

They buried Stephen and made a great lamentation over him.

Here's the first thing you need to know.

The Mishnah makes it very clear that if someone blasphemes, what you need to do is you need to bury him in a grave as soon as possible.

And you're not allowed.

It's against the law to make vocal, uh, visible, audible lamentation.

It was against the law to lament a blasphemer.

This is boldness.

And that's one of the things God does in the midst of something incredibly painful.

That the church actually becomes more bold.

This is what happened when Charlie Kirk actually was murdered, right?

I saw people like on social media coming to church with the freedom shirt, right?

And they were all wearing that shirt.

And it's like people would start to sort of rise up in their boldness.

They became less ashamed, less fearful.

That's happening here.

This also teaches us the eternal priorities we should have.

Write that down.

The eternal priorities that we should have.

Man, emotional week.

This was a week full of ministry.

There was something going on pretty much every night of the week for my family.

Monday night we had um I went to the home of um a man in our church named Gary.

Dear Saint, love this brother.

He's gone on several of the trips with us.

And um Gary went to be the with the Lord on Tuesday.

I was with him Monday night, and I sat by his bed and I just held his hand and I prayed over him.

And uh, you know, we we had all the conversations you need to have in those moments.

Gary, man, are you are you trusting in the Lord?

Are you putting all your faith on Christ?

None of your faith on your works, your deeds, but trusting fully in the work of Christ?

He said, Yes, Pastor.

It's all about Jesus.

I'm just trusting in Jesus.

If you died today, and and you may, what will you say when you appear before the Lord?

It's all about Jesus.

He is my all in all, he has done it all.

And that was his confession.

I said, Yes, praise God.

You're trusting in the death, the burial, the resurrection of Jesus, his work, not your work.

Gary, we'll see each other again then, brother.

And we had the most intense conversations.

I was like, brother, as it gets harder to breathe, as it gets more and more difficult for you to breathe, you just need to keep it in your mind that you're getting closer and closer to Jesus.

And just coaching like that on his last days.

It was about just a few hours later, he died.

Died in the night, I died the next morning.

I drove home that night and it was a very somber drive.

Just quiet, the radio's not on, just driving.

It was just me and the Lord just thinking about the things that matter the most.

That was actually a good moment for me.

The reason it was so good is because sometimes we can get so caught up in the things that we think matter.

But the deathbed has a way of reminding us the things that truly matter.

Many of the things that you're concerned about, many of the things you're all riled up about, you're bitter about.

What you're angry about, they don't matter.

But death has a way of focusing us.

Death has a way of heightening our senses on the things that truly matter.

This church became bold.

God used this death.

These devout men, they're becoming bold.

They're seeing the only things that really matter are Jesus, heaven, and hell.

Like those are the topics we need to be really worked up about and really animated about.

God uses this in the early church and he needs to use it in our lives.

We need to consider that those moments when we feel targeted are meant to produce action.

We need to remember to honor the saints who have suffered.

I mean, that's what Hebrews is all about, right?

Hebrews 12?

Hebrews 12 comes after Hebrews 11, that that hall of fame of all the heroes of the faith.

And the result of that list of seeing people who have suffered well for the cause of Christ.

What's the result?

Since we're surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely.

There's movement in their life now.

They're hearing the story, they're experiencing movement, and run with what?

Oh, there it is.

There's our word.

Endurance.

That we would endure.

That we would endure, endure the race that is set before us.

No, it produces something in us.

It produces boldness.

It produces dangerous Christians for the cause of Christ.

It teaches us we need to lay hold of those stories that belong to us, the stories of our faith.

Tell our children those stories.

You need to tell and vividly give the stories of the faith to inspire their faith.

Tell them the story of Shadrach, Meshach, Nebedigo, or as we like to say it at our house, shake the bed, make the bed, and in the bed you go.

You need to tell the stories of guys who are standing up to enemies, standing up against the fiery furnace.

You even need to choose to draw some fire this week.

Are you a dangerous Christian?

Are you drawing any fire?

Are you bold?

Like these men became bold, drawing the fire, choosing to draw the fire?

Some of you need to do that this week.

Embrace the targeting and be inspired by the stories that have come before us.

I mean, when I'm afraid to talk to someone in the office about Jesus, well, that'd be a problem.

I work at a church.

If I need to talk to someone about Jesus, that that may be a deeper conversation.

But I'll tell you, if you're at your office and you're sharing the gospel, or you're thinking about sharing the gospel, but you're nervous.

Your palms are sweating, and you're really nervous about sharing your faith, you can actually draw strength from these stories of those who have gone before us.

Man, Stephen stood up.

Shadrach, Meshach, Nabinko, they stood up with death on the line.

I can endure the sweaty palms and the shaky voice.

I can go up to someone and I can share my faith.

I can be emboldened, I can be inspired.

That's what this does for us.

Second main point, if you're taking notes, we need to anticipate, we need to accept that sometimes God's plan makes you a target.

Number two, we need to endure attacks even when they get personal.

That's what verse 3 is all about.

The attacks are actually getting ratcheted up.

These are personal attacks.

Saul is a wild dog.

He's going through and he's ravaging the church.

It will say that he was ravaging the church.

Notice all the personal attacks.

These are savage attacks.

That word for ravage is actually used in Greek literature for a wild boar that's tearing up a garden, just kind of rooting away in a garden and tearing it up.

It's also used of like a wild animal that's just fresh off the kill, like a lion that has just killed and it's just, there's still like blood all over its fangs and its chin.

That's the word.

Saul is ravaging.

He's getting a cruel delight out of this.

He's eating the church, as it were.

He's a wild man on a vendetta out for blood.

He's relentless in verse 3.

Look, he was ravaging.

Look at the tents of that.

It's ongoing.

This is a campaign.

He made it his pattern of life.

It's invasive in verse 3.

Entering house after house.

There's no place of peace.

It's indiscriminate in verse 3.

Men and women.

It's costly in verse 3.

He committed them to what?

Prison.

Prison is so disruptive.

It disrupts your way of life, disrupts your job, disrupts your relationships.

My friend James Coates was in Canada.

He was one of the pastors that kept having church in the middle of COVID-19.

I was with him last January.

And I was just quizzing him, like, man, what was that like?

What was that?

That was a crazy season.

Whenever they tried to shut down things, and you said, nope, not on my watch.

We're still going to have church.

That was actually, I was watching you from afar.

I didn't know you then, and it was inspirational.

It was powerful.

And I said, What was that like?

And he said, you know, it was over a month that I was in jail.

It was very difficult.

Actually was arrested twice.

But he said the hardest part wasn't it wasn't just being in jail.

Part of it was the isolation.

That long, just being isolated.

Still, even the jails on COVID lockdown.

And just not having contact with people and nothing to do except pray.

And that was, I mean, that was hard.

He said the other hard part was that my wife, the way the neighbors stopped waving.

My wife experienced some of the pushback.

And my neighbors stopped stopped waving and stopped being friendly.

It changes the home environment.

That's what's going on here.

I mean, these are personal attacks.

Don't tell me there's good in that.

Well, there's something to do.

In a word, what do I do when the personal attacks come my way?

Write it down, one simple word.

You endure.

That's our word.

You endure, knowing it's all part of the plan.

You say those lines.

It's all part of the plan to reach people.

In fact, Paul will experience this when he becomes a Christian.

The shoe goes on the other foot here.

Notice in Philippians chapter 1, when Paul goes to jail, he's at first he's imprisoning people, now he's in jail.

Philippians 1 · chapter mention

And what does he say about his own imprisonment as a Christian?

It's really served to advance the gospel.

The gospel's become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ.

People are actually drawing strength from my imprisonment.

I can endure this.

And most of the brothers have become what?

Confident.

Boldness is coming up because of my imprisonment.

Much more bold to speak the word without fear.

God is doing something in the midst of my imprisonment.

People are becoming bold.

The church is growing.

Christ is getting glory.

He sees it.

Isn't that what happened with John Bunyan?

God used his imprisonment.

If you don't know that name, look it up this week.

John Bunyan.

He wrote something that you've probably all heard of, The Pilgrim's Progress.

Do you remember this book?

Other than the Bible, this is probably one of the most famous books in our time.

It has helped so many Christians.

It's one of the most helpful books.

It really describes the pathway of what it looks like to follow Christ.

And so Bunyan writes this book, but he is imprisoned because he's not allowed to preach the gospel.

He preaches, he goes to jail, and it's, where does he write this book?

Prison.

And that book becomes a bestseller.

And it changes the world.

God can use your hard thing, whatever it is, as a means of grace.

So you need to even write this phrase down.

You need to see that your setbacks are really setups.

The thing that you view in your life as a setback is a setup.

It's an opportunity moment.

You need to endure it knowing that it's all part of the plan.

Also, you need to endure it with this mindset that I'm going to stop hiding my Christianity.

Took a couple out.

We have several couples in our church right now that are wanting to get married.

That's it's exciting.

It's great.

And you can look at these couples and just realize, oh my goodness, they are head over heels in love with each other.

It's really quite sickening.

But it's also quite obvious.

They're in love, they're in love, they're in love.

You just see it.

Love is in the air.

And I would even ask that question of you.

Is this the only place where people see your devotion to Christ Sunday morning, 9 o'clock, 11?

Or when you go out into the world, is it plainly obvious that you love Jesus Christ?

Like if people started rounding up Christians, those who were extremely in love with Jesus Christ, would your name be on the list?

Would they go after you?

We need to be careful that the world senses that the loudest note of our life is devotion and love to Jesus.

And I think this section on endurance, it also teaches us that we need to be praying for our attackers.

This attacker, this Saul of Tarshis, will actually be raised up as an apostle.

He will become Paul and he will be imprisoned.

And what a transformation.

This is like an Islamic jihadist becoming an evangelist for Christ.

He will be brought in before the same groups of people to be attacked.

In Acts 9, he will return to the synagogue where he was starting at, where he was, I believe he was in Acts 7.

He was attacking Stephen.

He will now go into that same synagogue and he will propose that Jesus is actually right.

I've changed my mind.

And he will be attacked.

We need to see with endurance God's master plan and say it's all part of the plan.

And we need to endure and we need to pray.

And we need to be visibly in love with Jesus.

Final point, we're done.

We need to stay focused.

Know that sometimes God's plan will make you a target.

Endure those moments, even when it gets personal.

But here's what you need to do.

And this is really the summary point for the whole sermon.

Don't be a victory, or don't be a victim.

Pursue victory.

Don't be a victim.

Stay focused.

You need to stay focused on what God's overarching plan is in the midst of your pain.

When someone comes and says, Oh, they hurt me.

Oh, they did this to me.

Oh, I was wrong.

Friends, I just want to tell you that is weak sauce Christianity.

It's milk toast.

No one cares about that.

Victims are not attractive in any way.

Victims do not inspire anyone.

It's those who have victory in Christ.

It's those who have victory in what Christ has done.

Those are the loudest, the loudest notes that our life ought to proclaim.

That we are unshakably positive in Christ, that we are unshakably trusting in Christ.

Man, this is my favorite, my favorite Chuck Swindle sermon.

How many of you grew up on Chuck Swindahl?

Anybody grew up on Chuck?

I did.

I grew up on Chuck, and I he this is the funniest story.

I sent it to Dr.

Allman earlier this week, and we had a good laugh over it.

He was telling a story about this lady that he met on one of his preaching tours, and she was one of the most positive people he had ever met.

And he just found her, he just found her stories and her life just so infectiously charming.

And so he asked her, have you always been this positive in your life?

You've never been overwhelmed by worry or disappointment?

And she said, You know, Chuck, I've always been this way.

I didn't marry until I was 36.

And then I had eight kids in nine years.

A couple of twins in there.

Never worried about marriage.

I was never worked up over marriage.

It never bothered me.

I just trusted the Lord, even though I wish it would have been earlier, maybe.

But I just trusted the Lord.

I trusted his plan.

And in fact, when I was in Moody College, this is what she told Chuck.

She said, I used to pray a prayer every night before bed.

She would say, Father in heaven, hear my prayer.

And she took a pair of pants and laid them across the bed.

And she prayed this, Father in heaven, hear my prayer and grant it if you can.

I've hung a pair of men's trousers here.

Please fill them with a man.

And Chuck told that story to his church.

And it was the whole point of telling that story, he said, That's pretty good.

That's a great story.

I'm gonna tell it to my church.

He told that story to his church, and the whole idea was, you know, don't worry about your tomorrow's.

Don't worry.

God's got this.

Trust the plan.

Trust the plan.

Trust the plan.

And it was all going great until a week or two later he got a phone call from someone in his church.

I think it was a worried mom or dad, and they said, Chuck, I I I just need some help.

I'm very concerned.

My teenage son is acting very strange.

And Chuck said, How so?

Well, the past few days he's hung a women's bathing suit, a bikini, on his on his bed.

What's that about?

And uh I'll tell you.

I was in chapel when Chuck used that story and I laughed so hard.

He was praying, I suppose.

Trusting the plan, I suppose.

Now here's what I respect about that kid the most.

He refused to be a victim.

Look at verse 4 one more time.

How do we refuse to be a victim?

They were scattered.

They saw this as sovereign care.

This is the second time the word scattered is used.

It's the idea that wherever they have gone out, God had a plan for it.

He was throwing them, he was sending them.

It's the idea that the opposition is actually an opportunity.

You have seeds to give away.

Seeds of the gospel.

Just stay focused on following Jesus.

Just stay focused on that mission.

How do we refuse to be a victim?

You follow the Lord wherever he scatters you.

In fact, that is a picture of how the Bible describes Christians.

In Revelation 14, verse 4, it describes believers, how?

Revelation 14:4

As those who follow the Lamb wherever he goes, wherever he leads them.

Your whole life is just following the Lamb.

And so this couple went about preaching the word.

It says that in verse 4.

They went, they were scattered, and they just went about preaching the word.

Wherever they went, that's a travel word, that's a lifestyle word.

Wherever they went, they just went out preaching the word, giving the word away.

Closed door here.

Where's the new open door?

That's how they lived their life.

Back in 1965, as the team comes out, there was an Australian evangelist, and his name was Graham Stane.

He moved to India and he took on one of the hardest ministries that you can imagine.

This was at the time when the leper colonies were still active.

He would go into a leper colony and he would bind up the wounds of people who were dying of leprosy and clean them and bind them up.

And as a young man, that's that was his calling.

And he would use that as an opportunity to share the gospel.

He lived his whole life, the rest of his life in India.

He ended up finding a wife, getting married, having some kids, three kids, I believe.

And one night, when he went out on a new outreach, he took his sons and they went in their station wagon.

They drove to a camp and they started ministering, and at night they decided to sleep in their station wagon.

And that's when at nighttime they were surrounded by nationals.

The car was drenched in gasoline and lit on fire.

And the father and the two sons all perished holding each other.

They'd try to get out, but anytime they tried to escape, the clubs would come out.

And they'd be beaten back in until they were burned alive.

We're a sending church.

We're a going church.

It does make you wonder, like, as many people as we're sending out, when we will have a story like that from Central Church.

That's normal for the church.

Always has been.

How do you keep ministering in that moment?

Well, that's the story.

Unbelievably, his wife stayed.

And at the funeral with three caskets, she gave proclamation to the entire nation and she said, Listen, folks, we still love you.

I have no bitterness towards you.

I love you in Christ.

And then she said those impossible words, I forgive you.

And she stayed and she kept ministering to the very people who killed her husband and her children.

How do you do that?

How do you give your life to people who hurt you?

How do you give your life to people who hate you?

She was just following the Lamb wherever he led.

With your heads bowed, with your eyes closed.

Where in your life do you need to consider your setback, a set up?

The hard place that you've come to, it's a stage for God's glory.

For some of you, you need to start by faith sharing the gospel in hard places to hard people.

You need to say by faith, it's all part of the plan.

For some of you, you need to look for the new open door that God's creating.

Is there a disappointment in your life?

You're not getting something that you wanted?

Something that you determined that you must have.

There's a setup.

You need to look for the new opportunity.

Maybe this week, some of you need to just look around your circles and pick out six people.

And here's what you could say: you could say, hey, I'm a Christian.

I just want you to know that.

I have trusted in Jesus Christ.

And if you ever want to have a conversation about that, he changed my life.

And he could absolutely change your life too.

And I just, I don't want us to die not having that conversation.

I don't want us to die with you not knowing who I am and what I'm about.

Maybe you pick out six people in your circles and just say, this week, I'm going to give that sound bite to those six people and just see what the Lord does.

For some of you, you need to stop waiting for a safer season.

For some of you, you need to see God's sovereignty behind your pain.

That the dark clouds in your life, they're actually waves of unbelievable grace.

Would you pray with me?

As we pray, we're going to take just this song to respond.

In fact, let me do this.

Let me have you stand.

We're going to use this song as a moment of response, and we're going to take communion right after this song.

But pastorally, let me just encourage you for just a second.

As we take communion, do not take this in an unworthy way.

Use this song, use this moment to respond to the Lord, to respond to the Word of God, to respond to what you need to do from this sermon.

If you need to come down and pray, maybe you need to lay aside bitterness.

Maybe you need to pray for your heart of unforgiveness.

But don't take the cup, don't take the bread in an unworthy manner.

In fact, let me have our response team go ahead and work their way down to the front.

I see Pastor Greg coming.

I see Dick.

There's several others that are going to come down.

We have people up here.

We would love to pray with you.

You don't have to pray with them.

You can just come down and take a knee and just pray by yourself.

Maybe pray with your spouse.

But use this time to respond to what God is calling you to respond to so that you can take the cup and take the bread in a manner worthy.

Let's pray together.

Father, we thank you.

Even as people are doing business with you right now in their hearts, Lord, I pray, I pray for them, Lord, that they would respond to the gospel.

I pray they would respond to the gospel worked out in their life, to whatever hard thing has come to them.

They would be able to say, with the early church, it's all part of the plan.

The attack, the personal attack, I'm not going to lose focus.

I'm going to keep bringing the gospel.

And so, Lord, do your work.

We come to worship you for what you have done for us by sending your son to die and by giving us a new life to walk in.

We love you.

And we pray these things in the name of Jesus Christ.

And all God's people say it together.

Amen.