Bold Acts

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Welcome, church.

Welcome to Awakening, like Chris said.

If it's your first time here or we haven't gotten a chance to meet yet, my name is Roland and I am the youth director here at our church.

Man, I'm so excited that you're joining us this 4th of July weekend because we are in the second part, like Chris said, in a two-part series called Bold.

And last week, Felicia, our pastor of spiritual formation, she started off this conversation and talked about the necessity of starting in prayer.

And, you know, if you haven't gotten a chance to listen to that yet, I strongly encourage you after this, at some point, you need to go back and just hear her challenge to us, because that's really where this conversation needs to begin, is in prayer.

Yeah, her challenge, especially right now, both uh on our own but with others, to pray.

That if we want to be bold in the midst of fear, which we recognize we need to do as a church right now, we need to start in prayer.

Um so if you haven't done that yet, you you gotta go there uh and know that this series starts off with prayer.

But you know, as I've thought about um being bold, I I thought about this story that I had when I was 11 years old, and especially because the sun's out and it's been so nice, um, it made me think back to when I was a kid.

Um back in the day before there was social distancing and and stuff like that, we had this thing called summer camps.

And at a summer camp, a whole bunch of kids would get together and get to do some fun activities.

And one of my favorite things that my parents signed me up for uh was something called sailing and kayaking camp.

I grew up in a little beach town called Ventura where we also had a harbor, so that's where I would go um once a summer basically.

And I remember vividly just one day.

One day where uh at the end of the week, what we would do is we would kayak across the harbor uh and end up at this like little place where there's an arcade and an ice cream shop.

Um so me and my buddy paddled out so easy.

I remember the sun just being so nice, like gliding across the water.

It was no big deal.

Um, not hard at all.

I barely even had to like paddle.

Like my friend was doing all the work, and all of a sudden I was in an arcade.

It was a sweet, sweet deal.

And um, we did our thing.

I we we played games, won a bunch of prizes, got a lot of red and green tootie rolls, ate too much ice cream, got back in the kayak and started our way back.

Um so full of sugar, me and my friend made our way back to this the part of the harbor where we started, um, and we were just paddling.

And all of a sudden, uh the wind started to shift a little bit.

The wind picked up and it started to change directions.

And there my friend and I were in our kayak, and we started to like realize it was getting a lot harder to go forward.

Um, and I gotta be honest with you, man, it was so tough for me that I wasn't used to it.

I remember we were going there and there was no problem at all.

But all of a sudden there's some resistance, the wind was kind of pushing against us that I didn't think I could do, and I kind of just gave up.

Um, and my friend who's doing a lot of the work, he also gave up because he couldn't carry both of our weight.

Uh so there we were.

So there we were, uh singing in kayak, really going nowhere, well, actually going backwards, uh, until it was close to us getting picked up.

So my friend's mom, she sees us and she she sees that we're kind of just stranded and kind of stuck in the harbor.

And she frantically like goes to our camp counselors to go get some help.

And all the all the like, meanwhile, while we're waiting for help, we see some of our other like camp uh friends like just passing by us, kind of just wondering like what's happening, or not even recognizing that we were having trouble.

Um, so along comes some camp counselors, grabs us and takes us over, and we kind of just did the walk of shame and had to admit that we kind of gave up and gave in.

Um, and kind of just had to admit that we admitted defeat because we couldn't, uh we weren't used to paddling against resistance.

And the funny thing about that silly story about me as an 11-year-old is that it actually really speaks to this pervasive perspective that we have as Christians sometimes.

That when the winds change and there's resistance, when we start to feel uncomfortable and there's some kind of opposition, our our tendency is to fold or to give in.

Our natural reaction, and I know this is true for me, like thinking about that story, is that we just want to give up.

We want to shrink back when we're afraid.

And I don't think I'm too far off when I say that living as a Christian in America, like that it's kind of amplified a little bit.

Right?

We're not too accustomed to living like Christians in the rest of the world who have faced certain persecution, a lot more hardships, um, are outside of the majority.

And man, like even just living like an American, we are told that we should chase comfort and prosperity.

And when we're not getting those things, that we start to feel uncomfortable.

What when hardship comes and we're not getting the comfort and prosperity that we're supposed to be achieving, we think that something's wrong, that this pain shouldn't be here.

Uh, that we think that this isn't good or that God cannot use this.

And you know, in this season, for many and again, if not all of us, has been filled with a lot of opposition, a lot of pushback, a lot of fear, a lot to be afraid of.

And the question we start to ask is how how do we live boldly when?

Dot dot dot.

You fill it in, right?

How do we live boldly when the world is facing a global pandemic?

How do we live boldly when my plans have changed?

How do we live boldly when my business is facing extreme hardship?

How do we live boldly when my economic future is in peril?

How do we live boldly when I don't know what to say, or I'm afraid I'll say the wrong thing, or I'll get pushback for saying the right thing against things that are unjust, like racism.

And that's where I want to go to today is in the face of a lot of fear and in the face of a lot of opposition, how do we live boldly?

You know, facing fear has is nothing new for the church.

And where I want to look to today is in Acts chapter 8, just verses 1 to 8, where we see the church is facing opposition and fear, and how their decision to live boldly moved the church forward.

Acts 8 · chapter mention

But really, before we do that, I think we need some context before what happens.

The two chapters before uh chapter 8, uh we're introduced to this man named Stephen, who's kind of this rising leader in the church.

Uh, he's chosen among the people to help lead, um, and what he does is he steps up to help serve the poor.

But at the same time, he's also um going to the temple court and teaching and preaching the way of Jesus.

And the religious group in charge at that time, uh, the ones who had authority, they started to feel threatened by the things that Stephen was teaching.

You see, the things that Jesus, uh the the things about Jesus that Stephen taught was uncomfortable for them.

These temple leaders, they didn't like it because it would utterly disrupt the power structure that they were so accustomed to.

The thing that made them feel comfortable, the thing that made their ways of life easy for them.

It threatened that very way that they looked at the world.

And the way my Bible says it, I love it, is that these men were so fixed on this religious system that was working in their favor that Acts chapter 6, verse 10 says this about these men.

Acts 6:10

They could not withstand the wisdom and the spirit with which he, Stephen, was speaking.

So what do they do, right?

They're getting upset.

They're not realizing that what he's teaching is the way of Jesus.

They have Stephen arrested.

They set up the sham trial where they get these false witnesses to testify against him, saying that he's preaching heresy, that the crowd is starting to get more and more upset.

Uh, and they're saying that he's actually the things that he's teaching will be a threat, that it will end up destroying the temple that they love.

So, what does Stephen do?

Stephen, what he decides to do is he preaches a message, right?

He responds with a sermon and he gives this brief overview of the entire Bible, and he tells this compelling story about Abraham, Joseph, Moses, and all the prophets, how time and time again the people of God, Israel, rejects these teachers, that for hundreds of years God would send these people to teach uh Israel, God's people, about him, and they would reject them, they would persecute them.

And Stephen goes on to the uh keeps going and says, and he brings it to Jesus.

He says the same thing happened to Jesus.

God himself was persecuted by his own people.

And then Stephen brings it all the way home, and he says, In this moment, the same thing is happening.

He he calls out the people that are rejecting his teaching and says, It is happening again right now.

You are rejecting God.

So the crowd, obviously, right, they get upset, anger starts to rise, and they start to pick up stones one by one, and they start hurling them at Stephen until eventually Stephen becomes the first martyr of the church.

And it's at this moment that we start start in the verse, first verse of chapter 8, and it reads like this.

And Saul approved of his execution.

We're introduced to this character named Saul, who on this side of history we would know uh as the Apostle Paul, and more on that later, but we're introduced to him, and the verse goes on and says, And there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem.

Jerusalem is where the story has taken place in Acts so far, up until this point.

And they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles, verse 2.

Devout men buried Stephen and made great lamentation over him.

But Saul was ravaging the church and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison.

Man, if there was ever a time for the young church to be afraid, it was now, right?

It was now.

It's in these first three verses that we see the direct opposition that the church was facing.

This man named Saul from the Roman Empire, he approves of this injustice against the church.

He he stands over Stephen's body and says, I approve, right, that this is good.

And as a result, the the Jesus followers are also scattered throughout the region.

And more than that, that same authority figure, Saul, he's going around continuing in injustice against the Jesus followers.

Their own brothers and sisters in the faith who were committed to the way of Jesus and his upside-down kingdom being declared to this people, they're thrown in jail as they stand up against the authority in that day and they're met with incredible resistance, much to be afraid of.

And you know, when we when we look at passages like these, we we have to remember, like, they're they're describing to us what's happening.

They're not exactly prescriptive, something that we've taught at a wake here before, right?

It's not like I'm not saying that for you to experience opposite opposition or persecution, you have to be um, you have to be stoned or thrown into jail, or a guy named Saul has to come and like take you and throw you into a prison.

No, but but instead we learn about what we can do in the face of fear.

We we learn God's wisdom in that.

And when we think of the many things that we can be afraid of right now, instead we learn that in the face of fear, in the face of these people seeing that their dear friend being murdered, other loved ones being thrown in jail, we learn that we should expect resistance.

Right?

What when we are committed to Jesus' way, there will be opposition.

There will be things that we will fear, there will be certain pushback.

And and I don't know what what it is exactly for you right now, but but I do want to give us two camps to kind of like put them in.

Right?

Maybe it's external opposition.

A lot of my friends, maybe you you guys are engaged, right?

And your plans to be married are turned upside down.

You don't know how to move forward.

Maybe you've lost significant income because of COVID-19.

Maybe because of the current climate, you've had to move to a different part of the world.

Um, maybe you have to reconsider your career.

Maybe you've had to lay people off.

Maybe as you speak, for those without a voice, you're taking shots left and right.

And maybe as you speak out against racial injustice and the oppressive systems in our country, you are risking relationship and financial security.

All this, right, is obvious external pushback, obvious external opposition.

And this passage, what what we what we're learning so far is that we should expect it, right?

That this passage is actually an echo of what Jesus says in John's gospel, that in this world you will have tribulation or great trouble.

Right?

Jesus promises us that.

So we shouldn't be too surprised by it.

But you know, there's also a second camp of resistance that I think we need to be aware of.

I want us to also be aware of internal opposition.

You see, because there's this propensity that we all have towards sin that we carry.

And saying it, it's not just like an action or a thought or something we do or say, rather, it's more like a disease that we carry.

And that disease, sin, moves us towards comfort or complacency or apathy or selfishness, especially in the middle of a global pandemic or when there's there's civil unrest in our country.

And it's because of that disease that we tend to move towards selfishness and comfort, which is an often direct competition with the sanctification or the forming of Jesus that God wants to do in our lives, that God wants to do in all of Jesus' followers.

Sanctification, right?

It's it's the work of God making us more like the men and women we were created to be.

And because of sin, that when God is doing that work in us, we reflexively want to shy away.

We don't want to be uncomfortable.

We we like the way things are.

Uh we don't want to sacrifice or sacrifice more.

We're satisfied with the lives that we have.

But you see, God wants to do far more in us and with us.

And he has this far better vision for our lives than we often have for ourselves, for the life, for our own lives and for the lives around us.

He wants us to be more like the people we were created to be, and we are often resistant to that.

We want to cover our ears, shield our eyes, um, and just refuse.

And that's why we need the church, right?

That's why we need brothers and sisters who will help call us out of these ways of sin.

When we refuse to see these things on our own, we need brothers and sisters who will lovingly call us into the kingdom of God.

Because when the Spirit is working in us, we need to understand that we're gonna have internal opposition that wants to be resistant to it.

And I I love verse 2, right?

It says this in opposition, we feel uh we can still feel all of our human emotions.

Verse 2 says, Devout men, they buried Stephen and made great lamentation over him.

I mean, the church was facing a really tough blow, right?

A dear friend, this leader who stepped up to serve the poor, they lost, they lost Stephen in an evil and terrible way.

And what I love is that the early church, they weren't forced to move past the lament that was necessary.

They got to feel the pain that comes from evil and embrace the sadness that accompanies it.

They got to feel all the all the pain and all that sadness.

And to learn that being bold doesn't mean you have to stuff your feelings.

I think that's another thing that we tend to think of.

It's like being bold means you you just are a robot and emotionless.

No.

What God is teaching us in this passage is we have to embrace the sadness, we have to embrace the hurt, we have to embrace our true feelings, right?

Jesus teaches us that.

When his friend Lazarus dies and he hears of it, he weeps.

Even though a few verses later he knows that he's gonna raise him from the dead, Jesus shows us that we can still experience the full range of human emotion.

And when we recognize that Jesus is doing a work, we must simultaneously move boldly with him.

It's okay to have heartbreak, to mourn the way of life that we were comfortable with.

It's okay to mourn leaving a place that we loved.

It's okay to mourn that we have been complacent and blind to injustice to our black brothers and sisters.

And we can we can mourn all that.

And honestly, I think this is going to be, there's gonna be a great level of humility that this will take for most of us, if again, not all of us.

Like we have to be humbled by the Holy Spirit.

We can hear all of this, right?

We we can hear this message and be like, yes, yes, those people over there, they need to change.

They need to be more humble, they need to extend grace and love.

But if that's what we're thinking right now, I think we need to take a pause.

I think we're missing it.

I think we're not realizing that we need to submit ourselves humbly to God first.

We need to examine ourselves and see where do we honestly need to mourn?

Because there's things in us that need to die, that we need to mourn before resurrection can happen.

And you see, the the the way the early church mourned for Stephen, it would have been crying for days.

It would have been great sadness, an extended time of pain.

And the best part that about lament that we learn is that when we properly express our emotions, is that it allows us to move forward in bold action.

And that's what we see in verse four.

Verse four reads, Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word.

Philip went down to the city of Samaria and proclaimed to them the Christ.

And the crowds with one accord paid attention to what was being said by Philip when they heard him and saw the signs that he did.

For unclean spirits crying out with a loud voice came out of many who had them, and many who were paralyzed or lame were healed.

Gosh, this section blows my mind.

Right?

As all of these Jesus followers were scattered in the middle of their persecution, they went about preaching the word.

That's incredible.

Because if I'm honest in my heart of hearts, if I if I um were just completely real with myself, I want to take care of myself first.

I don't care about what's going on with others until I make sure I'm good.

Right?

But but these Jesus followers, they knew that God supersedes any circumstances.

And you see, up until this point in the story, the church was growing in Jerusalem, right?

But because of Stephen's death and Saul's persecution, they are scattered.

And this is important because the author of Acts, Luke, he's telling us something in this.

Because at the beginning of the book, Luke writes that Jesus tells us this, verse 1.8, you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all of Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

And you know, Luke writing this is telling us that there is nothing getting in the way of God and his mission being accomplished.

That no man made opposition can truly stop what got for or can truly stop God's effort of restoration and healing in a broken and hurting world.

Because even though these religious elites were trying to squash This revolution that Jesus approved of, God uses that evil and does something incredible out of it.

And God's people are willing to be bold and participate in that work and go about preaching the word.

You see, the message of Acts, it's emphatic.

It's emphatic about this.

It shows right, we're introduced to Saul.

That same Saul is the same person that was ravaging the church, would go on to be one of the most influential missionaries and New Testament writers that we know about.

And we learn in Saul's story that he becomes the Apostle Paul.

Right?

Not even he could escape God's movement.

And what we learn is that when Jesus instructs us to pray for our enemies, that sometimes even our greatest antagonist can become the person that God is willing to use to bring healing and restoration.

The same section, right?

Philip, he serves as another great example for us.

We find him in Samaria preaching the gospel.

We see God's mission still being accomplished.

He sees the terrible circumstances in front of him, uh the certain external opposition, right?

He's in a different place, an unfamiliar culture.

And instead of asking, God, where are you in the middle of this, like implying that God is absent, he instead, like Chris said earlier, he seeks God, right?

How do I join God in the middle of this evil?

He instead is more curious and seeks to partner with him to bring about God's justice in the middle of injustice.

And right, as Luke is writing all this, he's he's trying to put it plainly that we see that this persecution the church faced actually allowed for the gospel to start moving out of Jerusalem to Judea and Samaria and the ends of the earth, just like Jesus said it would.

And what we can glean is that even if our plans change, God's purposes surely will not.

And this is consistent with God, right?

Hardship, insurmountable circumstances have not stopped God's purposes before.

And we see this where?

On the cross.

The tragedy of Jesus being murdered on the cross enabled for God's grace and spirit to be poured out on his people.

And it's it's easy to hear this and say we just need to be bold, right?

We just need to like muster up enough strength.

But moving forward boldly isn't just to flex our muscles or to show that we can grit our way through.

In fact, it's quite the opposite.

It's an invitation to partner with the strength of the Holy Spirit in our weakness.

That the whole book of Acts, right, is showing that the early church being emboldened by the Spirit to bring gospel change to the world, to enliven people in Christ's name, not from any one person's own ability or strength.

So, wherever you are, right, wherever you land in, whatever metaphorical samaria you find yourself in against your planning or will, by choosing, we need to look at Peter's example, right?

And he shows us that we have to figure out where God is in the middle of it, and that we can join him.

And as we go, preach the word, preach the gospel.

The opposition that we face can also be an opportunity.

And you know, working at a church with some pastoral responsibilities, I've had um I've I've had a lot of tough conversations uh recently, namely uh revolving around racism, uh, about the existing prejudice that's been deeply rooted in people and the things around us.

And it's been really painful and hard and heartbreaking.

Many tears shed uh as I've had to confront these things, not just in others, but also in me.

Like I've had to dig deep and see where have I been complacent, where have I been blind uh to the things that have perpetuated uh something outside of God's will or some injustice in our world.

And a lot of these quote unquote bold moments, man, there's just a lot of heartbreak, right?

A lot of resistance, a lot of it'd be easier if I just stayed silent.

But I know that we all know that God is up to something and we are actually being invited to join him in it, that we can be empowered by his spirit to help bring change.

And you know, right now we're all being called a little bit differently.

Maybe in this moment it's to learn, uh, maybe it's to listen, uh, maybe it's to change our workplace practices, to be on the front lines of healthcare.

I don't know.

But what I do know is that as we partner with God, as we enter these hard things, that we can ask, God, how do I join you?

And then what comes about it?

We we see this in verse 8.

We see the result as we as we partner with God's spirit in the face of opposition, verse 8 tells us this.

So, there was much joy in that city.

As the early church went forth, preached the gospel, and shared the good news of Jesus, brought gospel change, there was much joy in the city.

You see, you your job might have changed, that joy might be brought to a new workplace.

You moved that joy might be brought to a new city.

You're having uncomfortable conversations with people that you love filled with grace and truth about injustice, that joy might be brought to the church.

You see, I think that's why James writes, count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.

And you know, in this moment in history, there's a lot to fear.

There's too much to list at this right now.

But there is still a good God that wants to bring joy.

And he's inviting you and he's inviting me to participate in the sure revival that is coming.

And that there's certainly fear and chaos, and man, it feels like the wind is changing all the time.

Like, right, for for if we're in a kayak, it's like the wind keeps changing.

But if we don't paddle, we just start going backwards, right?

That if we are only pushing a little bit, we're still standing still, we're worse going backwards.

Uh, if it's just our our friend in the back of the kayak paddling, we're not really going that far, anyways.

But God is inviting us to partner with his spirit, his spirit's strength, to build that muscle of faith, of the promises that God has given us, and instead to lean uh with one another into the wind and to push forward boldly in the face of opposition so that joy might be brought to the world.

And I can't help but think like, imagine if we were a church where we all leaned into that moment, where we all saw and felt uncomfortable and met that resistance and humbly mourned the things that we need to mourn and let die and acted boldly.

How beautiful the joy that is awaiting the world when the church decides to trust God and his promises.

We're gonna move into a time of worship, and what I want to do to kind of end our time is to just read one uh one passage over you.

It's in Hebrews chapter 10.

Hebrews 10 · chapter mention

It says this But recall the former days when after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated.

For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one.

Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward, for you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what is promised.