What's the Christian Life Look Like?

Life of the Church

Good morning everyone, and welcome to our worship service. It’s good to have you here and watching online. If you’re visiting us for the first time today, an extra welcome for you. Please fill out a visitor card found in the back of the chair in front of you and toss that into our offering plate to let us know you were here.

I do have just a few announcements I’d like to touch on as we begin this morning.

The men’s ministry will be meeting tonight at 6:30 down at the pavilion. All men are invited to that.

We’ll be having a deacon meeting this Tuesday night at 7:00. If you’re a deacon, please try to attend.

We’re still taking in treats and trinkets to help with Stump Elementary’s Weekday Religious Education. You’ll see a list of what’s needed there in your bulletin.

And just a quick reminder again for our business meeting on September 8 at 6:30.

Also, could we take just a moment this morning to bow our heads in silent prayer for the people of Afghanistan and for the protection of that nation’s Christians.

Amen.

Sue, do you have anything?

Opening Prayer

Father, Thank you that you promise us that where two or three are gathered you are there in the midst. Lord we welcome You amongst us today and celebrate the gift of life that you have lavished upon each of us. We ask that You would open our ears so that we may hear your voice. Open our minds so that we may receive Your eternal wisdom. Open our spirits so that we may know Your leading and guidance. And open our hearts so that we may receive Your wonderful love. We ask all this in the glorious name of Jesus. Amen.

Sermon

What’s the Christian life look like? Serious question. Maybe the most serious question the church can ask of itself since it began about 2,000 years ago.

I looked back through my notes the other night and started counting — it’s always a dangerous thing when I start counting; words have always made sense to me but numbers never have — but if I counted right, this will be my 75th sermon.

I still don’t know what sermons are supposed to be. That’s why sometimes you’ll hear something comforting, because we all need that. Or something inspiring, because we all need that too. Sometimes I guess it’s a little deep, but we need that too — we need to know the reasons for why we believe what we do.

And then sometimes, honestly, there are sermons that are pretty much just for me. Things that I need to do better. Things that I need to learn all over again.

Sometimes God has to give me a good kick in the pants. He’s done that this week. So this is one of those kick-in-the-pants sermons, one of those step-on-my-toes sermons, and I’m just going to hope that while I’m up here kicking my own self, maybe you’ll get a little out of it too.

So what’s the Christian life look like?

Do you read your Bible? Do you have a Jesus fish on the back of your car? Have a sign in your living room or your office at work that says something like “Faith, Hope, and Love”?

When you see something sad that somebody posts on Facebook, do you leave a comment that says “Praying” with that little emoji of folded hands?

Do you vote Republican? Because around here, you pretty much have to vote Republican if you’re a Christian. Do you come to church? Invite people to church? Are you pro-life? Do you support our troops?

Is that what the Christian life looks like? How about the Christian church? What’s that look like today?

I’m going to use that word a lot this morning — church — and when you hear it, I want you to know that I’m talking broadly. Not talking about you, I’m talking about us. Believers. I’m talking about the evangelical church as a whole in this country, and as Southern Baptists, we’re a part of that.

So how do evangelicals think their church is doing in America right now? Two-thirds think that Christianity’s influence is on the decline. Sixty-six percent say that there’s at least some conflict between our religious views and mainstream American culture. One-third see themselves as members of a minority group because of their beliefs.

What about the other side? How do people who aren’t Christians view the church? You ready for this? Deep breath now.

Barna Group is maybe the most influential and accurate polling group in the world when it comes to religion. They did a 12-year study about attitudes toward Christianity that included the pandemic, and what they found is an entire generation of people who’ve grown skeptical and frustrated with the Christian faith.

Not because they don’t believe in God. Not because they disagree with what Christianity teaches. No, it’s because of us. Eighty-seven percent described Christians as judgmental. Eighty-five percent described us as hypocritical. The study ends with a pretty shocking conclusion: a whole lot of non-Christians have a problem with Christians because we act unchristian.

So it doesn’t really matter who you ask right now, the Christians or the non-Christians, both agree that the Christian faith in this country is in serious trouble.

In other words, we’ve screwed up. We’ve screwed up bad, and we better straighten ourselves up, because if we look down our noses even for a minute at those who aren’t Christians and say “They don’t know what they’re talking about, and God’s gonna judge them,” the people who don’t know any better, we better start thinking a little about ourselves, because we do know better. And the Bible says that it’s the ones who know better but don’t act like it who are going to be judged more harshly.

So I’ll ask you again—what does the Christian life look like?

Turn in your Bibles to the book of Acts. We’re going to start in chapter 6, verses 8-15:

And Stephen, full of grace and power, was doing great wonders and signs among the people. Then some of those who belonged to the synagogue of the Freedmen (as it was called), and of the Cyrenians, and of the Alexandrians, and of those from Cilicia and Asia, rose up and disputed with Stephen. But they could not withstand the wisdom and the Spirit with which he was speaking.

Then they secretly instigated men who said, “We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God.” And they stirred up the people and the elders and the scribes, and they came upon him and seized him and brought him before the council, and they set up false witnesses who said, “This man never ceases to speak words against this holy place and the law, for we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and will change the customs that Moses delivered to us.” And gazing at him, all who sat in the council saw that his face was like the face of an angel.

Now turn over to chapter 7, verses 54-60:

Now when they heard these things they were enraged, and they ground their teeth at him. But he, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.

And he said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” But they cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears and rushed together at him. Then they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul.

And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” And falling to his knees he cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” And when he had said this, he fell asleep.

And this is God’s word.

Picture of the Christian life, right here. Right here in these verses.

Here’s a man named Stephen, who became the first Christian martyr. He was chosen as one of seven leaders to serve as deacons. He’s described as being “full of grace and power” in verse 8, full of confidence in God and trusting entirely to God’s promises. We don’t know anything about his personal life. Nothing about his parents, his brothers or sisters, or whether he had a wife or children. The only thing we know about him is what’s truly important—his faithfulness, even when facing death.

Verse 8 also says that Stephen did great wonders and signs among the people. His faith allowed him to perform miracles, the sort of which were only able to be performed by the apostles themselves to that point, the ones who had personally known Jesus.

Stephen didn’t. Stephen was never a personal witness to Christ. He became a believer after the crucifiction and resurrection. In other words, he was like us. A believer, but a believer who had no special insight, and who received no special teaching from Jesus himself.

He was responsible for the distribution of food to widows in the early church after a dispute arose and the apostles realized they needed help. And it didn’t take long for Stephen to find opposition.

Verse 9 describes a long list of people who had a problem with Stephen. They were angry at the words he preached, and they envied the miracles he performed. Make no mistake here—if you are a Christian, and if your life looks like the life that Christ says you should live, then you will always find opposition.

Why is that? Because what Jesus teaches is in many ways the direct opposite of what the world teaches.

The world says Love yourself, Jesus says Love God. The world says put your own needs first, Jesus says put the needs of your neighbor first. The world says get even with those who wrong you, Jesus says forgive them. The world says hate the one who thinks and believes and acts differently than you. Jesus says love them.

And when you do that—when you live your life day in and day out in a way that is completely different from the world—people are going to notice. And some of those people will rise up against you.

That’s what happened to Stephen. They belonged to the synagogue of the Freedmen, which is a Roman name. These were either sons of free Jews or servants and slaves who had been granted their freedom. And there were Cyrenians, natives of the country of Cyrene, and those from Cilicia and Asia.

They confronted him. But the men who argued with Stephen were no match for the wisdom that the Holy Spirit had given him. They shouted at him, he whispered back. They showed him rage, he showed them kindness. So they had no choice but to falsely accuse him, calling him a blasphemer, and they had him arrested.

The majority of Acts 7 is a record of Stephen’s testimony during his trial. He represents himself, gives his own case, and I’ll ask you to read that on your own when you get home, because it’s maybe the most detailed and accurate history of Israel’s relationship to God in the entire Bible.

God inspires him to speak boldly, rightly accusing his accusers of failing to recognize Jesus as the Messiah, murdering him just as they murdered Zechariah and the other prophets and faithful men throughout the generations.

Stephen’s speech is an indictment against Israel itself, and their failure as the chosen people of God—people who had been given the law and the promise of the Messiah but who hadn’t lived up to be the people God expected them to be.

All through Stephen’s defense, he reminds his accusers of their continual rebellion against God in spite of the miracles God gave them. He accuses the Jews with their own history. And all through that defense, Stephen has the most amazing look on his face.

Verse 15: And gazing at him, all who sat in the council saw that his face was like the face of an angel.

The face of an angel. The Greek here is translated as awe. It’s the same word for the Hebrew that described Moses’s face when he spent time with God on Mount Sinai.

There was something about Stephen’s countenance that made everyone compare him to an angel who stands in God’s presence and reflects God’s glory. He’s been arrested. He’s been charged with blasphemy, and Stephen knows what the punishment for blasphemy is. It’s stoning. But he stands there and faces them all and gives them an account of his faith not trembling in fear, but with calm confidence.

And what do you think those Jewish leaders thought when they saw Stephen standing there like that? Talking to them like that? You think they changed their minds?

No. It’s rare that people change their minds. That’s half the problem in this world. We get stuck on one way of thinking and they’ll die that way rather than look at another way of thinking, because they’d rather be dead than admit they were wrong.

Here’s a man telling the truth. Here’s a man sharing the story of the Jewish people that leads them straight to Christ, but they’ve already made up their minds about Christ, so they refuse to listen. Refuse to even consider that this man who looks like an angel might have it right, and maybe they have it wrong.

They’re enraged. Chapter 7 verse 54 says they’re so mad they’re grinding their teeth. They can’t wait to tear this sinner apart. They lead Stephen out, form a circle around him. Pick up those stones.

Is Stephen afraid? No. Here’s a person who doesn’t have to be afraid of anything, because he has what we have—the same amount, no more. Verse 55: “But he, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.”

He says it out loud, not to brag, but in joy and for one last chance to change the minds of the people ready to kill him. But it doesn’t work. Won’t work, can’t work, because these people who have stones in their hands, these people are God’s people, these people have the truth, right? They’re God’s people after all, and they have it all figured out, and verse 57 says “they cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears and rushed together at him.”

And as those stones rained down, even as God’s people, the elect, murdered Stephen by slamming those stones one by one into his body, smashing his face, crushing his bones, he calls out in verses 59 and 60, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. Lord, do not hold this sin against them.”

You let someone who isn’t a Christian read that passage of scripture, ask them what they think. I don’t know what they’ll tell you, but I know what they won’t say. They won’t say here’s a judgmental man, which is how non-Christians describe a lot of us. They won’t say here’s a hypocritical man, which is also how non-Christians describe a lot of us.

And you know why? Because Stephen’s life looked like the Christian life. Stephen’s life looked like the life everybody in this room should be living, me included.

I want you to think about something, something important. I want you to look at this story, look at the death of this man, the first Christian martyr, and then I want you to look at the death of Jesus. Because what you’re going to find is that they’re both awfully the same.

What does Stephen say as he’s dying? Verse 59: “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”

What does Jesus say as he’s dying? “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!”

What does Stephen ask of Christ when it comes to the people who are murdering him? Verse 60: “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.”

What does Christ say to his Father about the people who are murdering him? “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

Stephen, after he said this, died. And in his dying, verse 60 says “he fell asleep.” It’s almost peaceful, isn’t it?

Christ, in his dying, breathed his last. That sounds almost peaceful too, doesn’t it?

It needs saying that the writer of Acts was Luke, who also wrote the Gospel that bears his name. So here’s a question: Why did Luke make Stephen look so much like Jesus?

And here’s the answer: Luke didn’t have to make Stephen look like Jesus at all, because this is exactly who Stephen was. This is how he lived and died. Stephen as a Christian is deliberately trying to imitate Jesus. If, when facing death, he forgives his enemies in the way that Jesus does, it’s because that’s exactly what Stephen is trying to do. He means to do that.

Luke is making a very obvious but very profound point: the Christian life looks like the life of Jesus. If the life of Stephen looks like Christ, it’s because Stephen had the spirit of Christ living inside him. If the life of you looks like Christ, it’s because you have the spirit of Christ living inside you.

It isn’t that Stephen himself becomes Jesus in any way. It’s that he becomes someone who knows that his complete dependence is on Jesus, and that the spirit of Jesus has become the shape of his whole life. Christ has become his entire hope. Stephen remained himself, only filled with Christ. And that made all the difference.

To so many of us, the Christian life is something we put on and take off like a pair of clothes. We get dressed in them on Sunday morning, only to take them off on Sunday afternoon. We put them on during little moments all through the week, but hide them away in our closets much more often. That’s not being a Christian, that’s being a convenient Christian.

To Stephen, living the Christian life wasn’t like a coat you can put on and take off, it was like his skin. It was who he was. He was a Christian before he was anything else. That was his identity. That was who he was. He could die much in the same way that Christ died because he lived in much the same way that Christ lived, and that’s exactly why to Stephen, it’s not a waste that he’s dying. It’s glory.

To Stephen, dying is a wonderful thing. He’s being murdered and yet he looks up and sees heaven itself, sees Jesus standing at the right hand of God. It’s not a waste that he’s dying because he’s going to be with Jesus, and that gives him an enormous power to die in a way that we should want to die and live in a way that we are supposed to be living.

Because remember — Stephen wasn’t anybody special. He had no special gifts. He had no secret knowledge of God. He was an ordinary person filled by an extraordinary Lord, and we have no excuse — zero — to not be the exact same way, because aren’t we filled by an extraordinary Lord too?

All through the rest of Acts, we see the early church filled with people who are fully themselves, unique individuals, but who fully give themselves over to the Holy Spirit that transforms them into the likeness of Christ. Every word they spoke, every act they performed, everything about their lives, became an offering to Him.

That is what the Christian life should look like. More than that, it’s what the Christian mission looks like, and it’s exactly what the Christian church should look like. And when that happens, extraordinary things follow.

Stephen’s death gave way to persecution. The Christians were pushed out into other parts of the areas around Rome, but because of this, the mission of Christ spread too. Because of Stephen’s faith, because of the way he lived his life, it’s not a disastrous end to a good man, it’s the beginning of the spread of the Gospel.

There was one man who was a witness to all of this. Look at verse 58: Then they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul.

Saul. Saul of Tarsus, who would soon become known as Paul. Later when Jesus comes to claim him on the road to Damascus, Jesus says, “Paul, why are you persecuting me?” And Paul has to think of Stephen, doesn’t he?

One of the issues that Paul faced early on was that he didn’t know Jesus in the flesh like the other apostles, but he tells them that he did see Jesus out there on that road, and there’s an echo that he thinks he even witnessed the death of Jesus in because he witnessed the death of Stephen.

That moment, and it’s just one verse, just verse 58, had a profound impact on Paul. It was Stephen’s death that showed Paul what the Christian life looked like—an imitation of Christ. An imitation of Christ’s love for others. Of his service to others. And of his devotion to God.

So we have to ask the question to each of ourselves: where have we gone wrong? Where have we gone wrong as Christians, and where have we gone wrong as the evangelical church? Because let me tell you something, we’re not acting like Stephen. We’re not living like those early Christians. We’re failing — failing ourselves, failing this country, and failing the God we’re supposed to serve.

“No man can serve two masters,” Jesus said, but we sure do try, don’t we? Jesus says “I’m all you need in this life,” but we think we need Jesus and stuff, and we need Jesus and work, and we need Jesus and money, and we need Jesus and the right guy in the White House.

And if you do that for enough generations, live that way for enough years, and what do you get? You get a judgmental people. You get hypocrites.

We get that because we tell everybody that we’re different, we sit in church and pat ourselves on the back because we’re different, but the bottom line is that the normal Christian lives no differently, talks no differently, acts no differently, and treats others no differently than the person down the street who’s never given a single thought to God.

Jesus said we’re supposed to be salt to the world. Know what that means? Salt had two uses in the 1st century Middle East. One was to preserve food. Our job is to preserve the world from evil. Second was to give food flavor. Our job is to give the world flavor, to make it better. To be peacemakers where there is fighting and comfort where there is sorrow and hope where there’s none.

Are we doing that now? Seriously, is the evangelical church doing that right now? Are we bringing quiet to the world, or are we just adding to the constant noise of fighting and name calling? Are we echoing Christ’s words, or are we echoing whatever we see online and hear on TV?

Are we making things better, or making things worse?

Oh, but these are important times. These are scary times. There’s a whole lot going on. There’s people after us, stealing elections, making us wear masks, telling us to get shots. Don’t you watch the news?

I do.

But I know history too, and I can tell you that the one thing that made Christianity explode over the Roman world and Middle Ages Europe wasn’t just the work of the apostles. It wasn’t the writings of Paul and Peter and John. It was plagues. And the early church’s response to plagues centered on two of Jesus’s most famous teachings: “Do unto others as you would have them to unto you,” and “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

In other words, what the church did in a time of plague was consider the lives of others more important than their own lives.

In 165 AD, an epidemic of what’s thought to have been smallpox was brought to Rome by soldiers returning from war. One-third of the empire died.

The pagans in Rome blamed the government. But when the emperor, Marcus Aurelius, closed the bathhouses to try and contain the disease, the pagans refused.

You can’t tell us what to do, they said. We’re free. So they kept going. And so did the smallpox. When the epidemic finally overran Rome, the pagans fled the city. They said, “I’m just going to take care of me” and left the sick to die.

Only one group stayed behind to care for the sick. To nurse them and help them and bury them. It was the church. The Christians.

Another plague struck in 249. This one was a form of Ebola. It’s known as the Plague of Cyprian, who was a bishop who gave an account of the disease in his sermons.

Same thing happened. The pagans fled. The Christians remained. Cyprian preached that Christians should suffer equally with the heathen, but they should have patience and endure without murmuring. He said there must be a struggle before there can be a victory, and that Christians should not mourn without hope and so become a stumbling block to those who don’t believe.

Dionysius, the Bishop of Alexandria of that time, wrote how Christians showed mercy to others during some of the darkest days in Roman history:

“Most of our brothers showed love and loyalty in not sparing themselves while helping one another, tending to the sick with no thought of danger and gladly departing this life with them after becoming infected. As God causes his sun to shine and gives rain showers to all, Christians as well as aliens, so Christians too should imitate their Father in showing mercy and care to all.”

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Love your neighbor as yourself.

In 1527, the bubonic plague hit the city of Wittenberg, Germany, where Martin Luther lived. He refused calls to flee the city with the unbelievers and protect himself, instead staying behind to minister to the sick. He wrote a tract titled “Whether Christians Should Flee the Plague,” and Luther provided a very clear set of directions of what the Christian life looks like. Here’s what he wrote:

“We die at our posts. Christian doctors cannot abandon their hospitals, Christian governors cannot flee their districts, Christian pastors cannot abandon their congregations. The plague does not dissolve our duties: It turns them to crosses, on which we must be prepared to die.”

I hate to ask this question because I know what the answer is, and it’s shameful. By and large, how has the evangelical church acted during Covid? Like the pagans and the unbelievers of Rome and Germany, or like the early Christians?

But you don’t understand. How dare the government tell me I have to wear a mask, or I have to stay home. I’m fighting for my rights here.

God says how dare you call yourself a servant of Jesus Christ and think you have a right to anything except my grace? My mercy? You give up every right to your own life that you have the second you call me Lord.

But you don’t understand, we’re standing up for our freedom.

God says your freedom isn’t given you to by a piece of paper, it’s in me and me alone.

But we’re living on faith, not fear.

God says show your faith in me by your love for others.

If the evangelical church were in Ancient Rome during the time of plague, acting like we’ve been acting for the last year and a half, arguing and spewing hate, thinking that to inconvenience ourselves is a far worse thing than protecting our neighbors, and a Roman Christian walked up to us, do you know what he’d say? Not, “Hello, brother” or “Hello, sister.”

He’d say, “Let me share the Gospel with you, because I think you need to hear it.”

We have to do better. We have to. As people, and as the evangelical church. Paul watched Stephen die. I guarantee you he was thinking about Stephen when he wrote, “But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.”

Paul never said he was a Christian and so could do anything he wanted. He never said he was a Christian and so the rules didn’t apply to him. But he did say that as Christians we are slaves to God, and that means it’s what God says that goes, and not what we say.

The church thinks this pandemic is over. It’s not. The church thinks it’s a joke, that it’s a cold, the flu, it’s not a big deal, it’s the government wanting to control people, it’s social media wanting to sow the seeds of fear. I wish they could all come with me to work tomorrow, I’d show them a whole floor of people who can’t breathe.

It’s coming back harder. This Delta variant is a terrible thing. So what should Christians do? Stamp our feet and say No, we’re not going to do it anymore? Or be first to stand up and say, We’re going to do whatever it takes to keep our neighbors safe? Because that’s exactly what Jesus says.

The church thinks we can’t live in fear, we need more faith. That’s absolutely right. But we need a whole lot more love for others than we’ve been showing too.

Because the world is watching. Our neighbors are watching. And every unbeliever is judging God based on how those who say the worship him act and speak and live.

It’s not about us. That’s the Gospel in a sentence. It’s not about you, it’s about Jesus. It’s not about doing what you want, it’s about doing what he wants, and it bears mentioning here that the only time in the gospels that Jesus really stood up and got violent, was when he threw the moneychangers out of the temple. The only time Jesus truly lost it was when he was angry at how God’s people were acting. If you’re a Christian, it’s only about one thing—the spirit of Christ within you.

That’s what the Christian life looks like.

Let’s pray:

Father in these times when it can feel like everything is falling apart, we need to remember that Your children are the ones who are called to hold things together. In a time when everyone is divided over the right thing to do, we need to remember that answer is in what You would have us do. So speak to us. Guide us. Give us the strength to act based not upon the words of others, not upon our own fears or opinions, but upon Your holy word and your command to love one another. Create in us a fire like that early church to be a help to the sick, a comfort to the lost, and hope to the fallen. Help us to put off our own selves and put on you. Help us, Father, to live the Christian life. For it’s in Christ’s name we ask it, Amen.