How Far Will Your Faith Take You? Sermon Series: A Firm Foundation Acts 7:54-60

Transcription

1 How Far Will Your Faith Take You? Sermon Series: A Firm Foundation Acts 7:54-60 Rev. Michael D. Halley August 19, 2018 Suffolk Christian Church Suffolk, Virginia Thirteenth Sunday After Pentecost ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This passage we are looking at today is among those I would call hard passages. By that I mean it is troubling. I can only imagine how Mel Gibson would portray these events in a motion picture. Frankly, it is a little brutal. But this passage is, to me at least, another evidence that the Bible truly is the Word of God. God, in his Word, tells it all... the good, the bad, and the ugly. Stephen, as you may recall, was one of the seven Greek-speaking deacons chosen in Acts 6 to tend to the Greek-speaking widows in the early church. Well, Stephen got in trouble with the local Jewish ruling council. It seems that Stephen did not confine his service to the Lord simply in making sure the Greek widows were taken care of. He also began to preach. In the last part of Acts chapter 6, we are told that the local Jewish leaders took his words and twisted them, accusing him of saying things he did not say. So Stephen ended up appearing before the Sanhedrin, which was the religious ruling council. The Romans were the political rulers and the Sanhedrin oversaw religious matters. Stephen s speech before the Sanhedrin is a classic. In it, he gives a summary of the history of God s people. You should read it, it is a grand

2 summary of the Old Testament. In closing, Stephen said (Acts 7:51-53, ERV 1 ), You stubborn Jewish leaders! You refuse to give your hearts to God or even listen to him. You are always against what the Holy Spirit wants you to do. That s how your ancestors were, and you are just like them! They persecuted every prophet who ever lived. They even killed those who long ago said that the Righteous One would come. And now you have turned against that Righteous One and killed him. You are the people who received God s law, which he gave you through his angels. But you don t obey it! Well, you can imagine the reaction to that accusation. They led him out to be stoned. Page 2 That s easy to say, isn t it? They led him out to be stoned. That very sentence is why I said this is one of the hard passages in the Bible. Can you imagine dying by stoning? It must be a long, painful, death by torture. No other way to describe it. Unfortunately, stoning is still practiced in parts of the world today. A hard passage. Savage. Brutal. And all because they didn t like what Stephen told them. Hard passage. Could Stephen have avoided this sentence? Probably. I suppose he could have moderated his words a bit and been less confrontive. He could have said nothing at all, even. But he was consumed with the fire of God s Holy Spirit. His faith took him that far, even to his death. How far will your faith take you? What is it that you are passionate about, so passionate you would put your life on the line? Think about that for a moment. In my devotional reading this week, Oswald Chambers 2 had two days 3 he devoted to another character in the Bible. This man was not named, we

3 Page 3 only know him as the rich young ruler 4. By the way, Oswald Chambers wrote the classic devotional My Utmost For His Highest. He lived one hundred years ago and his theological insights are brilliant, in my opinion. Check it out. The rich young ruler. You may recall the story. He ran up to Jesus, knelt before him, and asked what it would take for him to have life eternal. Wouldn t you know, I got an request this week from our website asking the same question. Then Jesus led him through the various commandments, Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother. Oh, I ve done all those, he replied. And immediately Jesus sensed something was missing. So he says to the young man, One thing you lack: go and sell all you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me. How far will your faith take you? As Oswald Chambers pointed out, Our Lord never pleaded with him; He never tried to lure him -- He simply spoke the strictest words that human ears have ever heard and the left him alone. He also says, Jesus did not show the least concern that this rich young ruler should do what He told him, nor did Jesus make any attempt to keep this man with Him. In church life today we don t do it that way, do we? We make EVERY attempt to keep folks with us. In this day of declining church membership and participation we can t afford to take such a strict approach, can we? Or can we?

4 The point is, the demands of the Christian life are just that: demands. Strict demands. Harsh demands, even. And I am sure that each one of us here today have experienced the harsh demands of Jesus upon our life. How far will your faith take you? I fear that in too many instances we have reduced Christianity to a smorgasbord. We don t use that term much these days, do we? The word comes from Sweden and means a buffet offering a variety of hot and cold meats, salads, hors d oeuvres, etc. 5 Smorgasbord Christianity, as I would call it, is when we pick and choose from a variety of options. Obviously we would reject the more radical aspects of Christianity, those aspects which would call us to be like Stephen or like the rich young ruler. It s kinda like camping. Camping for Carmen and me is a room at the Holiday Inn. We don t like sleeping on the ground and cooking over a campfire. But camping and Christianity are two very distinct things. Eternity hangs in the balance. How far will your faith take you? Page 4 I often reference Adoniram Judson 6. Adoniram Judson sweated out Burma s 7 heat for 18 years without a furlough, six years without a convert. Enduring torture and imprisonment, he admitted that he never saw a ship sail without wanting to jump on board and go home. When his wife s health broke and he put her on a homebound vessel in the knowledge he would not see her for two full years, he confided to his diary: If we could find some quiet resting place on earth where we could spend the rest of our days in peace... But he steadied himself with this remarkable postscript: Life is short. Millions of Burmese are perishing. I am almost the only person on earth who has attained their language to communicate salvation... 8

5 Page 5 His faith led him to Burma. Not easy. But it was his calling. How far will your faith take you?? Let s bring this home, shall we? What is it in your life that you are withholding from God? What calling are you ignoring or running from? What is it that God is speaking to you about that you are turning a deaf ear to? How far will your faith take you? I wish I could say otherwise, but I must be honest and direct with you. Church life in America is in trouble. Dire trouble, I would say. So many things compete with us. We are mobile. We are affluent. We have choices. And most often the choice is not church. This is a tragedy. People are ignoring the source of life, Jesus. What to do? Just be faithful in your own life. You can t change others. You can just be faithful. You can just let your own faith take you as far as God wants you to go. Nothing else in your life matters as much as this. We all know it, don t we? We re sinners. We fall short of the glory of God every minute of every day. We need a Saviour. We need someone who can pay the penalty for our sins, pay for our failure to live up to the glory of God. And Jesus is that one. He can take our sins and nail them to his cross. He can lift you up from your lowly estate and make you a full-fledged member of God s family. I hope you will invite him in this day. And I hope you will pledge your faith to take you wherever God chooses to send you. Let us pray together: Our heavenly Father, we are so timid with our faith. We shy away from being a full-fledged disciple, ready to go where you want us to go. Give us courage, give us boldness to go where our faith would lead us. We pray this

6 Page 6 through Christ our Lord, Amen. +==+==+==+==+==+==+ All Scripture references are from New International Version, NIV, copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc., unless otherwise indicated. +==+==+==+==+==+==+ Sunday Sermons from Suffolk Christian Church are intended for the private devotional use of members and friends of the church. Please do not print or publish. Thank you. Suggestions for sermon topics are always welcome! +==+==+==+==+==+==+ 1. Easy-to-Read Version (ERV), copyright 2006 by Bible League International 2. Oswald Chambers ( ) was an early twentieth-century Scottish Baptist and Holiness Movement evangelist and teacher, best known for the devotional My Utmost for His Highest. 3. August 17 & Gospel of Matthew 19:16 30, the Gospel of Mark 10:17 31 and the Gospel of Luke 18: Wikipedia. 6. Adoniram Judson, Jr. ( ), was an American Congregationalist and later Baptist missionary, who served in Burma for almost forty years. At the age of 25, Adoniram Judson became the first Protestant missionary sent from North America to preach in Burma. (Wikipedia) 7. Officially now known as the Republic of the Union of Myanmar.

7 8. Quoted from Regions Beyond, Vol. 37, No. 1, p. 2, at Page 7