It is no secret that Satan has had our church in the crosshairs for a long time now. Since before we became Christ Fellowship, since we were in Runaway Bay as First Baptist Church, we have seen Satan attack our body of believers. We have seen attacks come from within when members turned on members forgetting that our battle is not against flesh and blood.
We have seen the attacks come from the outside when members of the community had such ill will towards our church for things that had happened in the past. We have seen the attacks come in the form of disappointment. We have seen Satan attack our finances. We have seen him try to attack our morals, our unity, our doctrine, and our fellowship. And a quick look around will verify that lately he has attacked us physically.
How does all that make you feel? Does it make you feel scared? Maybe it should. These are dangerous times with a lot on the line. Does it make you feel mad? I don’t know about you but I have lost some good friends due to these attacks and that makes me mad. Does it make you feel confused? Sometimes it does because we don’t know where he is going to attack next and we know Satan is powerful.
Or maybe it just brings you joy. Does it make you excited? Does it make you smile to think that our little group of Jesus-followers can take up so much of Satan’s resources? It has been non-stop for years now. Satan attacks us but we have been obedient and then what happens after that? God blesses. We have talked about that cycle for years now too. It is biblical for Satan to attack but when the people are obedient, God always blesses. It just goes around and around but it is always worth it to see God bless His people in His own time and in His own way. I mean, it’s like He’s trustworthy or something!
So, it’s good news that Satan is attacking us. And I think it has something to do with that passage we looked at for a while in Sunday School not long ago in James chapter 1 that says to consider it all pure joy when you face trials. We know that God is faithful and trustworthy and as long as we stay obedient and in His will, we know He will give us everything we need.
It’s also good news because it puts us in good company. I say all the time that this church is very similar to the first church in the book of Acts and they had to go through horrible times as well. In fact, they went through much worse trials than we have ever been through, thank you Lord. During the Watergate scandals, Nixon supposedly had an “enemies list” of people he didn’t like or he felt had not done what he wanted. Most of those people actually felt like it was an honor to be on that list because it was a credit to them and their integrity.
That’s how we feel about being on Satan’s enemies list. It doesn’t always make it easy though. It doesn’t always mean it’s going to be ha, ha, happy rainbows and lollipops. We know that Satan is powerful and that he prowls around like a lion waiting to try to kill us. So we can expect difficulties, like everyone can. And that first church was no exception.
We are going to be reading from Acts chapter 8 this morning. Here we see that first church just starting to grow and mature. They were seeing the Lord move and provide and the Gospel was spreading all over Jerusalem. They were just getting their legs under them and starting to grow not just in number but in wisdom. Some of the apostles were really starting to blossom and come into their own as leaders of that church.
And then the unthinkable happened. Some of their group had been persecuted and even arrested before but this time it went too far. Stephen was one of the first deacons of the church and he was highly respected and well-loved by everyone but he got arrested for preaching the Gospel one day and refused to back down. And it cost him his life.
The leaders and rulers stoned him to death just for preaching the truth. He wasn’t even the pastor of the church. He wasn’t a professional preacher but he preached the Word that day. He preached the truth…and they killed him. And you remember the story how they laid their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul who was there giving his approval of Stephen’s death. And that wasn’t the worst of it. That young man Saul started to viciously attack the church.
This is where our passage starts this morning in Acts chapter 8:1-8. It looks like this could be the end for the first church. This is by far worse than anything Christ Fellowship has ever been through. Will they survive? Will the Gospel continue to spread? Will the first church be killed off and destroyed? Stay tuned as we read Acts 8:1-8.
And Saul approved of their killing him. On that day a great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria. 2 Godly men buried Stephen and mourned deeply for him. 3 But Saul began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off both men and women and put them in prison. 4 Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went. 5 Philip went down to a city in Samaria and proclaimed the Messiah there. 6 When the crowds heard Philip and saw the signs he performed, they all paid close attention to what he said. 7 For with shrieks, impure spirits came out of many, and many who were paralyzed or lame were healed. 8 So there was great joy in that city.
With the death of Stephen and the persecution of the church by Saul, I would imagine that the words of Jesus at the beginning of Acts might have seemed to have been said a long time ago in a land far away. I wonder if the apostles even remembered what He said to them just before He went back to Heaven. You remember how Jesus showed Himself to the apostles after His resurrection and gave them some last-minute instructions. That powerful and popular verse in Acts 1:8 says, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
I can hear the apostles asking themselves questions. How could that be? How could the Lord say that we will be His witnesses in Jerusalem and all over the country when it looks like we can’t even have a church in Jerusalem? Didn’t God know this would happen? Why would Jesus say that when it is obvious that Saul is going to kill all of us? He said we would receive power but we can’t fight Saul. What are we going to do?
The thing is, it doesn’t say anywhere that the apostles said any such thing. It doesn’t say they freaked out and curled up in the fetal position. It doesn’t say that they complained. It doesn’t say that they did anything except to preach the Good News of Jesus Christ. Yes, they were scattered. Yes, I’m sure they were scared and they were mad and sad and confused and all the feelings that we feel when Satan attacks us but I want to look at 4 things that happened to that first church in this passage and they don’t have anything to do with how they felt. These are facts and these facts will help us to decide if Acts 1:8 applies to Christ Fellowship or not.
I want us to see that they were
· Scattered, which led to
· Sermons, which led to
· Signs, which led to
· Great joy
We first see that they were scattered. And this had to be so disheartening to them. Just when the church was starting to make real progress and the people were loving on each other and seeing God work in their lives and people were being changed…and Satan attacks. Why would God allow such a thing? Didn’t He love them? Didn’t He care? Why couldn’t He just leave them where they were comfortable?
Have you ever said such a thing? Have you ever wondered why God has allowed you to go through something or to lose something or have to go somewhere? Why couldn’t He just leave you where you were, you know, where you were comfortable? Well, the problem with that is that God is not near as concerned about your comfort as He is your character and He is not as concerned about your comfort as He is with His Kingdom. So if it is better for your character and better for His Kingdom, then sovereign God may allow you to get uncomfortable.
Oh, hey, did I tell you my idea for the Operation Christmas Child? I’m so excited about our church doing this and I have an idea about how we can save a lot of money and time and still be able to share the Gospel with these kids. Instead of shipping a whole bunch of boxes off to foreign countries, we will just stack them up in the Fellowship Hall and any child from any country can just come and get one. Won’t that be easier? And a lot cheaper? I can just see kids coming from Cameroon or Chile or Uzbekistan to get their special shoebox. And when they get here we can bring them to our worship service and I’ll preach the Gospel. I’ll do it because I’m the preacher and that’s my job, right? What do you think about that?
Pretty ridiculous, isn’t it? It’s really about as ridiculous as us being concerned about our comfort when there are people across the street and around the world that need to hear about Jesus. So, don’t be surprised when God allows us to be scattered in one way or another. Sure, we would all love to stay right here where we can be comfortable in our pews and with no rules and we have heat and a/c and Dr. Pepper and people who love us and accept us. But that doesn’t sound much like Jesus, does it? That doesn’t sound much like Paul or Peter or John or any of the rest of Jesus’ close friends in that first church. They were scattered, not because Saul was breathing out fiery threats but because there were people outside that circle who needed to hear the Gospel.
And that is exactly what happened. They were scattered and that scattering led to sermons being preached. Read verse 4 again. Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went. I remind you that these people were not professional preachers like we think of today. They were farmers, shepherds, fishermen, businessmen and women with no formal training. Their “sermons” were testimonies of what God had done in their lives through their relationship with the risen Christ.
That next verse is pretty incredible when you think about it. You might skip over it but it was included for a reason. Read verse 5. Philip went down to a city in Samaria and proclaimed the Messiah there. To understand the significance of that, let me read John 4:9 to you real quick. The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans).
Phillip was a Jew. What are the odds that the Samaritans would have heard about Jesus if that church had not been scattered? Do you think that if that first church had just printed up some flyers and mailed them out that the Samaritans might have decided to just come to their church some day? Never going to happen. No chance they ever hear the Good News if Philip had not left that church and gone “across the tracks”, if you will. Philip went to the bad side of town to the place where no self-respecting Jew would dare go and what does it say he did? He “proclaimed the Christ there”.
I wonder what we would have done in that situation. How could Philip do that? How was he able to preach when he had no training or preparation? And how could he preach to them? Samaritans were looked down on. They were half-breeds, hated by the Jews and the other Gentiles. How was he able to do such a thing? “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
It wasn’t the power of Philip. It wasn’t even the will of Philip. Jesus said they would receive supernatural power and that is exactly what happened to Phil. He was scattered which led to sermons which then led to signs, supernatural signs. Read verses 6 and 7. 6 “When the crowds heard Philip and saw the signs he performed, they all paid close attention to what he said. 7 For with shrieks, impure spirits came out of many, and many who were paralyzed or lame were healed.” Wouldn’t you love to have been there to see that?
Philip Yancy tells the story of a young man searching for proof that God exists and just happened to catch part of a healing service on TV performed by Kathryn Kuhlman. Some of you may remember her from years past. He saw people getting healed there onstage of all kinds of serious illnesses and he knew he had found what he was looking for.
So when Kuhlman came to a neighboring state, he made the long drive to see the service. In this service, he saw lots of people healed of all kinds of maladies including one case that really stuck with him. A medical doctor had been taken onstage on a stretcher and Kathryn Kuhlman healed the man of terminal lung cancer right then and there and he walked off the stage feeling great and walking for the first time in months.
This young man was so uplifted and his faith had been so empowered that the next week he decided to call the man who had been healed and tell him what it had meant to him. So he called directory assistance and got the number to the man who lived in Milwaukee. He called the number so excited and anxious to talk to the man. But it was the doctor’s wife who answered. And when the man asked to speak to the doctor, his wife informed him that the doctor had died a couple of days ago…of lung cancer.
What do you think happened to that young man’s so-called faith then? He was devastated! His proof of God was shattered and he would never again have anything to do with Christianity. He wanted to see miracles and signs like Philip had performed but all he got was smoke and mirrors and deception. People today are like little kids who want candy for breakfast but mama says no and gives them solid food. They want the miracles and the magical healing but what they need is the truth of God that they find in the Word of God.
Warren Wiersbe (Be Dynamic, p. 100) says, “It was the apostles who had majored on miracles, yet both Stephen and Philip did signs and wonders by the power of God. However, the emphasis here is on the Word of God. The people gave heed to the Word because they saw the miracles, and by believing the Word, they were saved. Nobody was ever saved simply because of miracles.”
We know that God still heals. He never changes and what He did then He can do now if He chooses to. But part of that power that Jesus promised them included the power to heal and it was given to be used as a sign to point the way to Jesus since the New Testament had not been written at that time. We have the whole Word of God and so, while we can’t heal like Philip and Peter and the others did, we have the power of prayer and the power of the Holy Spirit to do even greater things through faith.
Through prayer and the Holy Spirit we have seen miracles right here, haven’t we? Through prayer and the Holy Spirit we have seen lives changed. We have seen people healed. We have seen marriages restored, bills paid, people getting jobs, relationships rekindled, eternities changed and properties leased! He says, “I, your God, do not change!” So when Jesus said we will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon us, we can testify to the people of Lake Bridgeport and Wise County and to the entire world that is still true. Thank you, Jesus!
That ought to make you smile. That ought to make you say, “Amen.” That ought to bring you great joy! It should because it did for the Samaritans. The scattering led to sermons and the sermons led to signs and the signs led…to great joy. That’s what it says in verse 8.
There was a conference at a Presbyterian church in Omaha. People were given helium filled balloons and told to release them at some point in the service when they felt like expressing the joy in their hearts. Since they were Presbyterians, they weren't free to say "Hallelujah, Praise the Lord." All through the service balloons ascended, but when it was over 1/3 of the balloons were unreleased.
If you can’t get excited and have great joy about what God has done in your life and in the life of this church then how are you going to tell your neighbor about Jesus? Because unless your relationship with Him brings a smile to your face then maybe you ought to just keep your mouth shut and go find your prayer closet and lock yourself in there for a while.
The psalmist, who knew pain and disappointment and frustration, also knew God to be a Healer and a Provider and a Sustainer. He says in Psalm 98, “Sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things; his right hand and his holy arm have worked salvation for him. The Lord has made his salvation known and revealed his righteousness to the nations. 3 He has remembered his love and his faithfulness to Israel; all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God. 4 Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth, burst into jubilant song with music.”
Matthew West has a song out that says, “Hello, my name is child of the one true King
I’ve been saved, I’ve been changed, and I have been set free
“Amazing Grace” is the song I sing
Hello, my name is child of the one true King.”
I’ve been saved, I’ve been changed, and I have been set free
“Amazing Grace” is the song I sing
Hello, my name is child of the one true King.”
We may be persecuted. We may get scattered. We may be attacked. But if we are scattered we will continue to preach. And those sermons of what God has done for us and through us will lead to signs and miracles performed through prayer and the Holy Spirit. And those signs will point the way to Jesus and a relationship with Jesus leads to great joy.
So, does Acts 1:8 still apply to us here at Christ Fellowship? Well, it was spoken by Jesus to His apostles. And He gave them specific power for a specific time and place. So to say that we are called to Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria would not necessarily be true. But just like the Great Commission in Matthew 28 was spoken to the apostles but should be our model, this passage, too, should be our model.
Jim Denison is quoted as saying, "If you were holding the only flashlight in a dark room, whose fault would the darkness be?" In Matthew 5, Jesus tells His followers that we are the light of the world. We have the light that the world is looking for whether they know it or not. It’s time for us to preach it with great joy to Lake Bridgeport, Wise County and to the ends of the earth.
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