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How many of you had a bad day this
week? This month? Today?
How about a good day? Is today a
good day? Or perhaps you’re waiting to
find out…
We have good days and bad, but the
thing that makes the days good or bad usually revolves completely around us,
right? We can admit that, can’t we? If you had a good day this week, was it
because the US Ice Dancing team won a gold medal, or was it because something
good happened to you? Did anyone here
have a bad day because they were so upset by the violence in the Ukraine
capital, or did you have a bad day because someone said something that upset
you? Our emotions usually revolve around
what happens to us—we notice other things in the world, and often we’ll react
to them, but the primary determinant about how we really feel usually revolves
solely around us.
The world encourages this
viewpoint. Advertising certainly does—it
sells us a world of which we are the center.
Companies are eager to cater to what you want, eager to encourage you to
pursue your own wants and desires regardless of the effects on others. It’s all about creating a customer-centered
experience, in which one’s own happiness is the center of attention. The world reinforces that it needs to be all
about us.
And I’m not here to say that we are
bad, or that it’s bad to think about ourselves or to seek our own
happiness. What is bad is when we lose
perspective and forget about everything that is bigger than us. What’s bad is when we forget about the larger
world and the larger church.
What I want to focus upon today is
the central idea that each and every one of us is a critical part of the church,
the Body of Christ. Christ has redeemed
you, called you by name and wants to use your life as a part of the tapestry he
is weaving that will comprise the Kingdom of God.
And not everyone is thrilled about
this.
To better understand this, we need
to turn to Revelation 12. In it, there
is a woman who has given birth and a dragon.
This is a very important image.
What happens is the child, which symbolizes Christ, is caught up to
heaven, and the woman flees into the wilderness. The dragon, which symbolizes Satan, tries to
attack the heavens but is rebuked, so since he cannot defeat Christ, he goes
after the woman, which is a symbol of the church. Verse 15 tells us that the dragon tries to
flood the church, but that doesn’t work.
Then Satan gets mad, and decides that since the whole church seems
impregnable, he’ll go after her offspring, those who keep the commandments of
God and hold to the testimony of Jesus. That’s
you and me.
See, what’s happening is that the
Devil wants to destroy the church. But
Christ is too strong, and Satan recognizes that the church will stand
forever. But he knows that he can pick
off individual people.
It’s like a horror movie. How many of you have ever watched a scary
movie? They are all the same,
right? There is a person lurking,
waiting to kill people, but he knows that if he attacks 12 of them at once he
will be defeated. So he waits until
people are alone. We all know what’s
going to happen when the group of 12 are together and one person announces they
need to go get something from the dilapidated old shed out back, and that they’ll
go alone. We know that is the moment
when they will be attacked. Even the
ominous music starts.
The Devil is doing the same. He isolates us from the community and then
attacks us, knowing how much weaker we are on our own. He assumes that if he can eliminate us one by
one, then the overall church will be much weaker. Even if he can’t defeat the whole church,
this is a strategy to do as much damage as possible.
And that’s where we turn to the
story of Stephen, the church’s first martyr.
Let me just say this: it’s not so
much a story about Stephen as it is a story about the Devil’s hatred of the
church.
How do we know this? Acts 6:8 tells us that Stephen is doing great
wonders and signs among the people, and we know that he has just been assigned
to feeding the widows in the verses prior to this, so it doesn’t sound
objectionable, right? Those who oppose
him are enraged by, we read in verse 10, the wisdom and Spirit with which he
was speaking. These were the things God
had given him. In other words, Stephen’s
opponents hated the news of God that Stephen was delivering. They despised the message, but Stephen was
just the messenger.
What happens is that they bring him before the
council and set up false witnesses to accuse him. The entire thing is rigged from the start,
because the opponents of the church need someone upon whom they can take out
their aggression, their anger. Stephen
is just in the wrong place in the wrong time.
He just happens to be the person available when their anger boils
over. They’re not angry and Stephen in
specific—they are furious at what God is doing in the church.
When Stephen begins to speak, which
he does for all of chapter 7, what he is doing is telling his opponents that
the truth of his message, of his proclamation, is rooted in the texts that the
chief priests hold dear. God hasn’t done
something to break away from tradition—it is anchored in tradition! The chief priests just need to open up their
deliberately closed eyes to see this.
But they don’t want to see it. They have made the world their own, and they
have found their place in the church, and they don’t care what God has in store
for them. Furious at all of this, they
interrupt Stephen’s message at the end of Chapter 7, stopped their ears and
rushed at him, stoning him to death.
They plugged their ears, unwilling to hear what God might have to say to
them through Stephen. They didn’t want
to hear, so they killed the messenger.
Stephen was just playing his role in the bigger picture of the church’s
work in the world.
Friends, you and I are part of
something much bigger than ourselves.
The church is a huge organization, spanning millennia and including
billions of people. As I mentioned a few
weeks ago, it is an organization that is eternal, lasting forever. It is the bride of Christ.
We often feel so small within it,
but let me assure you that each and every person that bows the knee to Christ
and his Lordship are vital players within the church.
That fact enrages Satan. He hates you, and he will work to destroy
you.
So when you have a bad day, when
things seem to turn against you, when it feels like life itself is fighting
against you, recognize that it’s not because you’re a bad person. There is a force of evil that is opposing us,
trying desperately to strip away all that is good. Our physical struggles with health, our
relationship struggles with each other, our personal battles within ourselves—all
of that is because of sin, the war that Satan is waging against God. But this is a war Satan cannot win, and God
cannot be defeated, so he comes after us.
When we choose despair and hopelessness, we’re falling prey to the lie
that the Devil is telling us that we cannot win, that evil will triumph, that
chaos will win out. When we lash out
against each other or choose to ignore the needs of our neighbors because we
want to accumulate more for ourselves, believing it is all about us, we’re
buying into the lie that our lives are only about us, that we aren’t part of a
bigger community where we depend on each other, that this life is all that
matters. The Devil is the Father of
lies, and the lies are easy to believe because of the despair all around us.
On a similar note, we need to
recognize that we are part of something bigger than ourselves, and that this
will win. It’s not us against the
world. We’re not on our own. We’re not isolated. We don’t have to face the world all by
ourselves. God is with us. God will give us victory, in this world and
the next. God will never abandon or
forsake us, and life wins out. The team
on which we are a part will reign victorious forever, and that needs to remind
us to be a people of hope, joy, light and life.
God wants to remind us of this constantly so that we don’t despair when
things turn against us. Our opponents
are momentary—our victory is forever!
Notice, here, how this story
ends. Stephen is about to be stoned to
death because his opponents despise the Good News of God with such energy. Even here, though, God is reminding Stephen
that he is part of something bigger, that this isn’t the end, that there is Good
News even in death. God gives Stephen a
picture of heaven as consolation, as hope in the midst of despair, pain and
death. Stephen sees Jesus standing at
the right hand of God.
This is meant as a reminder to
Stephen that the fight is worth it, that our lives are worth it, that the
choices we make are worth enduring any persecution. Don’t give up. Don’t give in. Don’t buy into the lie that we are small and
insignificant, that we cannot possibly triumph over evil.
Christ already has, and he will
share that victory with you. He will
walk with you through every day of your life, through every valley. Do not despair. He wants to give you hope, strength and
endurance, and whenever you face hardship, Christ wants to reach out and remind
you that you are not alone, that God is with you, and that he will never
abandon or forsake you. Christ conquers,
and because he does others will hate you, but they cannot defeat you or him, so
take hope, find joy, and life a life courageously dedicated to the selfless
love of God, and we will finally recognize that we are part of something much
bigger than ourselves, in which we have a unique role to play. Let us play our part with faithfulness and
integrity, trusting in Christ in all things.
Let us pray
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