Following Jesus in Holistic Community
I am Stephen
Acts 6 & 7
July 20, 2008
I would like for you to use your imagination. Imagine what it might be like if Stephen from Acts 6 & 7 were with us today talking to us as he might talk to us today.
Hi, I’m Stephen. I understand that Pastor Mark has been talking to you about following Jesus in holistic community. And that last week you heard from Paul’s first letter to the church at Thessalonica on being entirely or completely or wholly set apart for God’s use. You heard that holistic basically means complete or total so that people who follow Jesus have their entire lives—all that they are and all that they do and all that they say—set apart for the use of God. Not our will but God’s be done. I also understand that the sermon manuscript and audio file is posted on your website if you missed it or need to review. This is hugely important for all of us. It is what defined my community and my life.
You see, I am a follower of Jesus. I follow his ways and teachings. But this wasn’t so easy to do in the first century. Once you made the declaration and even just checking out his ways, it was life altering because you became an outcast, a heretic, and even a traitor. You couldn’t follow Jesus on Sunday and continue with your life as normal the rest of the week. It was all or nothing. But when I say, “all,” I mean it was everything. Everything you can imagine and more.
First of all, in the first century and probably two hundred years or so before, there were many groups who claimed that the Messiah had come. They all had a charismatic leader that usually called people to a revolution to overthrow the Romans. But this is what happened every single time. Rome came in and crushed the movements or groups and killed their leader. Cut off the head and… When the leader died, game over. The only thing that you could do was die on your leaders behalf and at least admit that you were wrong. Since the leader died, he couldn’t possibly be the Messiah. Rome won. Rome always wins. Caesar is lord. Caesar is the son of god. Caesar provides all good things.
And Rome killed Jesus. For many people, this was proof that Jesus wasn’t the Messiah. Game over. But a strange thing happened. His followers shortly after kept saying that he was indeed the Messiah. This was a ridiculous notion since Jesus died. But they said that he was physically resurrected. Even the Jews who believed that a physical resurrection would happen at the end, knew this to be ludicrous. Jesus was alive in the flesh. He was not a ghost but living and breathing.
The message then came out that this resurrection was the first sign of what would happen for all those who follow the ways of God as shown through Jesus. This also meant that Jesus was Lord not Caesar. And that was traitorous. Yet that was what we believed. That is what we knew to be true. That was what we experienced.
So we followed the ways of Jesus. We taught people to follow Jesus. We taught them how to teach others. We proclaimed that Jesus was Lord and this is huge, we lived out his teachings. We did life together. We loved one another. We shared with one another. We worship together every day. We prayed. We ate together. If someone was in need in our community, we took care of it. Someone else sold a piece of land or gave some food or gave some money. No one lacked anything because everything was given for God’s use. It all was sacred. Our entire lives were given over to live in the ways of Jesus and everyone was blessed. We saw lives touched and changed. Thousands came to believe in what they saw through our lives and the power of God in our midst. It is wholly a work of God. It was a holistic community. And I was privileged to be a part of it. I was privileged to see God do many incredible things and see many lives changed.
One day a dispute arose, it seems that some Grecian Jews (those Jews who lived adopting some of the culture around them while still trying to be faithful) saw that Hebraic Jewish widows seemed to be getting favorable treatment. Now we lived in this community together. Lots of variety and often diverse beliefs. Hebraic Jews sometimes looked down on Grecian Jews because they were considered “worldly.” This little conflict was carried over even as people in both groups began following Jesus.
We brought the situation before the apostles. The apostles asked us as a community as a body to choose seven men that were full of faith and reliable and trustworthy to look after the distribution of food and such. These men would be set apart for a specific work of God. The apostles said, “Look at what God is doing. See how many people are coming to follow Jesus. We spend day and night teaching people the ways of Jesus and in prayer. It is best for us who were with Jesus to focus on this task and others who God calls and gifts to continue this other work.”
So we talked and my name was mentioned. I was incredibly honored. And finally the community agreed on seven of us and we were brought before the apostles who put their hands on us and prayed for us. They prayed for God to use us. They prayed that our faith would grow. They prayed that God power would be shown in our lives. And it was.
I don’t really know why and how but God did amazing things. He was for us in every way at every turn. There is no limit to God and his resources. He provides for us. He makes a way when there seems to be no way if we just trust in Him. If we are willing to give him control of everything and every area of our lives, God does this!!!
Because I had surrendered control completely of my and I lived with a community of others that did it also, we saw God work in amazing ways. He used me to speak to others. He used me to tell others about this Jesus that we had come to know so intimately and powerfully. But as I had said before, this didn’t sit well with some of the Jewish religious leaders or with the Roman authorities. We were gaining too much influence. We were telling people that Jesus was the true Lord of the universe. The conflict was escalating.
So the Jewish leaders had me arrested since God had been giving more and more opportunities to tell people about Jesus. Except that the “trial” was fixed just it was with Jesus. They had people lie that I was against Moses, against the law, and against God. It didn’t matter because everything I had and everything that I am was God’s.
During the trial, I was asked if this was true so I responded by telling all that God had done in the history of our people, Jewish people, so that they would no that I was being completely (wholly) faithful and obedient to God. I’m not going to go through all that except to remind them that our forefathers had killed the prophets that God had sent to call us back and then that they (those leaders) had also killed Jesus. Even though they weren’t alive for the prophets and even they may or may not have been there when Jesus was killed, they still were responsible. God uses the term “stiff-necked people” to indicating how they refused to bow their necks before God.
You see people can be very religious and maybe even pretty good people but still not surrendered completely to God. Well, you can imagine how that went over. And Jesus did something wonderful for me. I looked up and I saw the heavens open and there was Jesus. Then the crowd became totally consumed by their hatred and their sin. They took me outside and began to stone me.
It didn’t matter because I had surrendered my life to God completely and I had surrendered my death. One day when Jesus comes again, I would get a new body—one that is incorruptible and can never die. Besides I knew that God had more for me than anything that they could take away from me. God’s ways whether or not this body breathes are the ways to abundant life if we are completely or entirely given over to following those ways.
While the stones pelted my body, I saw the rage, anger, and inhumanity of the people. I saw how they just were so far from God’s ways and the ways of Jesus. I saw how desperately they needed a new way of living. And I asked God to forgive them. “Lord,” I cried out on my knees, “Do not hold this sin against them.”
We need to surrender ourselves to God and his use which includes our flaws and character defects because God can bring good out of those as well as the good things about us. And just like that, we also need to surrender not only our life but even our death. For this death is only temporary and not lasting. And God can use even our death for his glory. There was a guy holding the coats of those stoning me named Saul. This even would inspire him to become a massive persecutor of God’s people who followed Jesus arresting and killing men, women, and children. Later God would humble him and show him how desperately wrong he was as he zealously tried to be “right.” God would change Saul’s name to a Greek name, Paul. Paul would learn all this as well for he writes, “To live is Christ; to die is gain.”
It takes a community to help each other become completely set apart. When we allow the grace of God room to work in every area of our life, there is nothing to fear. There is nothing that we can lose that God can not replace with 10 times greater.
There are signs that encourages people to wear seatbelts by asking the question, “What’s holding you back?” It implies that seatbelts are good things to hold you back during an accident. What is holding you back? God and God alone. Anything else will keep you from experiencing the fullness of God and holistic community. Let God have control of your life—all of it.
