January 23, 2005 Sermon

Stephen and Paul II
Acts 7:54 -8:3

Last week we read the long sermon Stephen gave in front of the Jewish Council in Jerusalem . This same council had helped to humiliate and execute Jesus a scant few weeks earlier. Now Stephen stood before them, accused of stirring up trouble in Jesus’ name. His life was in their hands. Make nice to them and he might—might—survive. He chose instead to accuse them of murdering the Son of God. Today we learned that after they killed Stephen, too, they made life a living hell for the few remaining followers of Jesus.

At the close of last week’s sermon I briefly mentioned that God calls us to witness, to speak about Jesus boldly. But why would anybody want to take such a risk?!?

According to the book Full Pews and Empty Altars, by Schoenherr and Young, in the year 2002 France had over 1,800 Roman Catholics for every one priest. Rural priests served as many as 40 parishes. When asked how he could possibly perform the duties required by so many village churches, one priest responded, “Oh, it is not so bad. Nobody attends mass in all but a few of them. It is mostly a matter of performing the last rites for the old ones.”

Christianity has lost its grip on the western world. Europe is notorious for “leading” the way when it comes to the death of Christianity. Some years ago Linda and I had a few hours to kill during a layover at Heathrow Airport , in London . We found the information desk and asked for help in finding a local church we might attend while we waited. After some head scratching (the man behind the desk thought it an odd request) he said he thought there was a church just around the corner. We walked out of the terminal and down the street. We found a large Church of England sanctuary. It was closed. Permanently.

Here in America the Roman Catholic Church faces a critical priest shortage. The old mainline Protestant churches are slowly dying. Disciples of Christ, Methodists, Lutherans and others have all lost more than half of their numbers since 1962. A Presbyterian leader in our region has privately told me, “We’re just performing hospice services for the Presbyterian Church.” The long, slow demise of our part of the Church moves me to speak boldly for Jesus. I hope it moves others, too.

But as important as the health of the church may be, we can name a far more compelling reason for witnessing to Jesus: Knowing Jesus as your Lord and Savior changes your life. People need to know about the love of God in Christ. People are looking for true love, for hope. Even the hardest cases, the people who seem least likely to thirst for love, do.

Exhibit A: Saul. Saul appears at the tail end of Stephen’s story in the book of Acts. We first meet him as he held the coats of the men pelting Stephen with stones. Luke (the author of the Gospel bearing that name and of Acts) tells us, “Saul approved their killing him.”

What’s worse, Paul proceeded to, “ravage the church by entering house after house; dragging off both men and women, he committed them to prison.” Later in chapter nine we learn that, “Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord . . .” We have no parallel character to Saul in modern America . Certain Muslim clerics train their followers to persecute non-Muslims in such a terrible way in other parts of the world, but the closest we might come to Saul in the U.S.A. would be an attorney for the A.C.L.U.

Saul started a career as an attack dog against Christians. He started as Jesus’ worst enemy. He ended as Jesus’ greatest advocate. What happened? We will examine that next week. For now, all we need know is that he experienced the love of Christ and it changed him forever. The love of Christ still has the power to change people. But most people in our lives think they already know Jesus. At least they know about him. Or they think they do.

Do they? They may not. We can never know for sure what another human being truly believes. We struggle to understand our own motivations, our own beliefs. What we can do is observe others’ behavior. Do they act like they know Jesus? As we read the Book of Acts let us dedicate ourselves to speaking the truth about Jesus, in love, trusting that the Holy Spirit of God will help people hear us.

But how and when can we speak the truth about Jesus? How can we witness in a way people can hear? First, we need to act like we believe what we say. Next, we need to pray for the right timing and the right words. Finally, we need to speak.

Ralph Waldo Emerson coined the saying, “Who you are speaks so loudly I cannot hear what you are saying.” First, we need to act like we believe what we say. In fact, this church needs to act like it believes what it says. Do we welcome visitors with genuine joy? Do we do real mission work: do we actually respond to human need in our community and do we give meaningfully to support mission elsewhere? Do we accept all kinds of people into our inner circles—including the hardest group of all, new people? Most importantly, do we really praise God? Do we really worship Jesus not only for one hour on Sunday but every hour, every day?

Our personal spiritual lives need to reflect the same integrity as our church’s life. If they do not, any witness to the love of Jesus we try to make will get drowned out. Studies have shown that people cite two main reasons for staying away from church: money and hypocrisy. (Hypocrisy about money might be the biggest problem of all!) If we are hypocrites people will see it. They’re looking for it. Live the love of Christ and your words about it will ring truer to those who most need to hear them.

Next, we need to pray for the right timing and the right words. Martin Luther once said, “I shall be especially busy today. I will need to pray twice as long.” This seems nonsensical until we think about it. Prayer gives us clarity and energy. How can we hope to accomplish a job as tremendous as witnessing about the love of Christ to another person without prayer? When the job gets as big as witnessing we need to pray before we start. Then we need to pray again.

Finally, we need to speak. Let’s get back to Stephen and Saul. Saul was not the only one breathing threats and murder against Christians. The Jewish priests and their Roman masters feared those early followers of Jesus—the Jews because they denied that Jesus was the Messiah, the Romans because they tolerated no unrest in their empire. Stephen had many reasons to close his mouth. He had just one reason to open it: to witness to the love of God in Christ so other people might have their lives changed by it. Stephen spoke.

We face no life or death threats. We face no serious reason to keep our mouths closed. So long as we live like we believe in Jesus, and so long as we pray for the right timing and the right words, anything we choose to say will give others the chance to have their lives change.

If you knew about a diet that would change a people’s lives, would you tell them? If you knew about a pill that would change people’s lives, would you tell them? If you knew about a love that would change people’s lives, would you tell them?