SPEAKER_02 0:00

Hello, my name is Paula. The Old Testament reading is found in 1 Kings chapter 17, verses 19 through 23. Elijah replied, Give your son to me. He took her son from her and carried him to the upper room where he was staying. Elijah laid him on his bed. Elijah cried out to the Lord, Lord, my God, why is it that you have brought such evil upon the widow that I am staying with by killing her son? Then he stretched himself out over the boy three times and cried out to the Lord, Lord, my God, please give this boy's life back to him. The Lord listened to Elijah's voice and gave the boy his life back. And he lived. Elijah brought the boy down from the upper room of the house and gave him to his mother. Elijah said, Look, your son is alive. The word of the Lord.

SPEAKER_03 1:19

Bonjour. Je m'appelle David. Because we're having a global moment, I just want to say, on behalf of my French friends, if you saw the World Cup yesterday, our French brothers and sisters are saying, On a gagné, which means we won. We just hope they don't beat us. Today we celebrate the global communion of saints across borders, people groups, and languages by reading the scripture in another language. I'll be reading the New Testament passage, Acts 9, 39 through 42 in French. You can follow along on the screen in English. Pierre par avec eux to the sweet. Pierre lui prend la main and appel the croyants and the habitat vivant.

SPEAKER_00 3:20

If you are able, please stand for the gospel reading found in Luke chapter eight, verses forty-nine through fifty-five. While Jesus was speaking, someone came from the synagogue, leader's house, saying to Jairus, your daughter has died. Don't bother the teacher any longer. When Jesus heard this, he responded, Don't be afraid. Just keep trusting, and she will be healed. When he came to the house, he didn't allow anyone to enter with him except Peter, John, and James, and the child's father and mother. They were all crying and mourning for her, but Jesus said, Don't cry. She isn't dead. She's only sleeping. They laughed at him because they knew she was dead. Taking her hand, Jesus called out, the child, get up. Her life returned, and she got up at once. The gospel of the Lord.

SPEAKER_01 4:48

All right, let's freeze remain standing as we pray this morning. Jesus, we do ask that uh you would give our lives back to us as well. That even as we listen to your scriptures being read, as we talk about them together, by the power of the Holy Spirit, would you bring new and abundant and eternal life to us even now here in the present? We pray all this in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and all God's people said. Amen. You may be seated. Good morning again, saints. I want to say a special welcome to all of our kids and teenagers that are in the room, teenagers prepping for despo this week. Uh, so please be praying. Yeah, there's a little bit of excitement in the room. Please be praying for them this week as they set aside a couple days for worship and prayer and teaching uh up at New Life North. Uh, a couple of other just really quick announcements before we dive in. Uh, one, thank you to everybody who's slowly moving toward the front. I was a little lonely up there for a while, but it's slowly happening. It would just help us as people come in uh later to sit toward the front and toward the middles uh that will help us in this new place. Secondly, I want to remind you that we're gonna have a brief congregation meeting immediately after our service uh in two weeks. So on July 19th, uh two weeks from today, we'll have another brief congregation meeting, give you an update on kind of all the things you've been asking questions about. I gave a building update before. I'll give you some other updates uh at that point, as well as some things about this fall. So uh let's dive in. 250 years ago, Thomas Jefferson penned these words. We hold these truths to be self-evident. We know they're not self-evident, they're actually divinely revealed, but we're gonna give it to them for right now, okay? Then all men, and then Angelica Schuyler says, and all women, uh all men and women are created equal, and they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights. Then among these are life, liberty, and the pursuits of happiness. In other words, this very declaration of independence that we celebrated yesterday says that humans have a fundamental right to exist, to live, to have breath in our lungs, and to have that honored, protected, to be treated with a kind of unique dignity that recognizes the image of God in one another. And you have the fundamental right to choose, to make choices, to have freedom and to determine some things in life. And then there's this phrase to go after or to pursue or to seek happiness, which is always the one that kind of like, okay, what exactly is meant by that? What is happiness and how do we pursue it? That if this is kind of part of the declaration, like every person has the right to pursue happiness, what does that really mean? Today, if we were just sort of asked, like, what does it mean in our culture and our time to pursue happiness? The kinds of answers that we might get really are probably related to the idea of self-actualization. That really to pursue happiness is for me to be who I want to be, for me to do what I want to do, for me to be able to pursue my satisfaction, to be able to increase my pleasure and reduce my pain at all cost. That's really what the pursuit of pleasure is. It's entirely subjective to how we might define it and radically individualistic. That would be very different for every single person in the room in terms of how they would define it. It is actually not what the founders had in mind when they were writing those words. They were writing those words from a really classical lens coming from Greek philosophy from Plato and Cicero and all the other O's. They were thinking about what does it mean to practice virtue and to contribute to society? They would have seen it in the lens of holding together both rights and responsibilities to pursue what it means to live a temperate life, holding together reason and passion, and performing one's civic duty. A very different idea than the way that we might define it today, and still a radically different idea than the way that the script the scriptures would define it. The scriptures say things like happy, blessed is the one who loves the Lord's instruction, whose delight is in the word of the Lord's. Scriptures say things like, seek or pursue first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and then everything else will be added onto us. The scriptures say things like, whoever wants to find their life should give it away. Scriptures invite us to take up a cross and follow Jesus and to trust on the other side of a long obedience in the same direction with Jesus, that that's where we'll actually find fullness of life and joy. An even more radical idea presented to us by how the kingdom defines happiness. If you have a Bible, turn with me to Acts chapter 9, verse 36, or you can follow along on the screens. We're going through this long series in the book of Acts because it's a long book, so it just takes a while to get through. The series is called Kingdom Movement. And really what it's kind of trying to capture is the very sense that what Acts is doing as a book is narrating the expansion of the kingdom by the power of the spirit through the church in the early sort of decades following Jesus' death and resurrection. It starts in Jerusalem and then tracks the story through Judea and Samaria all the way to the ends of the earth as they were known at that time. But the first few chapters are all centered in Jerusalem. And then there's a shift that happens to Samaria and beyond. That shift happens with the martyrdom of Stephen, that because of the intense persecution that's happening for the church that's being led by Saul, also known as Paul, the church begins to scatter into different directions. And when the church scatters, of course, it takes the gospel with them. And so we have this sort of movement outward, and then the persecution begins to move outward as well, until that moment in Acts chapter 9 that we've talked about the last two weeks, where Saul encountered Jesus. And the church's great persecutor becomes its great preacher and has this fundamental transformation of life at every level. And then we read that the church entered into a time of peace and continued to grow. What we oftentimes hear is that the church only grows under persecution, but Acts actually shows the church growing under persecution and under peace in both scenarios. That the church grows because God is at work and moving by the Spirit in and through his people. So at the end of chapter nine, all of a sudden we leave Paul behind for a little bit. We get all this like Paul Saul conversation, like, okay, here we go, we're gonna get Paul for the rest of the book. Instead, we go back to Peter, just suddenly a shift. And yet, as we often see in the book of Acts, that this is really not just about or even primarily about the leaders of the church. Though the apostles, particularly Peter and Paul, will play these really key roles in the book of Acts. Luke continually draws our attention back to the community. He continually draws us back to the everyday lives and faithful witness of ordinary saints, of common followers of Jesus, those who devote themselves to the king and to the kingdom, those who are devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the breaking of bed, of bread, to the fellowship, to the sacraments, to the prayers. And Luke, for the very first time in any of his writings, uses that word translated saints in this chapter. And interesting, he doesn't use it for Saint Peter, and he doesn't use it for Saint Paul. That's not who he's referring to. He uses saints for the people that Paul was persecuting and for those that Peter goes to visits. And later he uses it for a group of widows. He's referring to everyday Christians, to common saints, to people like you and me. And this is one of the really rich aspects of Acts is that we get to hear some of their stories. And there's moments where we get to sort of just glimpse in to the everyday life of common saints in the early church. Through most of church history, the names of those saints are unknown to the world. They're largely unknown. They're well known by God and well known by the people whose lives that they impacted, but largely unknown to the rest of the world. If you stop for just a minute and you think in your own life, if you could tell the story of one common saint whose life of faithfulness changed the trajectory of your life, whose story would you tell? Whose story of the person that if you look back on your life, you're like, man, I wish everybody had a chance to hear this person's story. Maybe it was a parent, maybe it was a grandparent, maybe it was a kids' ministry or youth ministry volunteer, maybe it was a coach, a teacher, a neighbor, a mentor, a friend, maybe it was your spouse, maybe it's even one of your own kids. That the way that you see them live out their life with Jesus is just inspiring to you. Who would those ordinary common saints be? For me, I think of this woman named Maxine Upmeyer. My family sort of just attended church irregularly growing up. We were not a real gospel-centered household, but VBS was great free childcare in the summer. And there was one summer I can't remember how old I was, maybe third, fourth, fifth grade. And I was placed with Maxine Upmeyer in her class for VBS. And Maxine talked about Jesus in a way that I'd never heard anybody talk about Jesus before. She talked about him like he was real. She talked about him like she had a relationship with him. She talked about him as if she was madly in love with this man. And I was like, this lady is weird. And then years later, when my neighbor introduced me to Jesus, I remembered all those moments with Maxine and wondered how much of her faithful life had an impact on me before I even knew it. So I think about Maxine. I think about Ken and Deb, those neighbors who led me to Jesus. I think about Doug Adams, this other man in our town who just befriended me in the midst of real trouble in the midst of my life. And all these people deeply loved Jesus. And they made an imprint on my life. Maybe you wonder 50 years from now if we can imagine that far ahead, celebrating the 300th birthday of the United States. Whose stories do we tell about our life together? Whose names are we remembering and are recounting? Or maybe what are the stories being told about us in the city? What are the things that are being told about this gathering of a communion of saints? I wonder if we'll tell the stories about Ruthie Valdez. I don't think Ruthie's here today, but Ruthie's been setting up communion almost every Sunday for the last 14 years for us. Week in and week out, coming early, praying over the bread and the wine, placing it so carefully and prayerfully on the table that we might be able to come and feast together. I wonder if we'll tell the stories of some of our youth group volunteers who are meeting with teenagers in coffee shops on a monthly basis. Some of them meeting with my teenagers and talking to them about the way of Jesus. I wonder if those are the stories that we'll tell. I wonder if we'll tell stories about first year mentors. Those of you who are maybe new to marriage, who've just finished the first year, you can see Adam and Olivia celebrate one year anniversary today, right? Happy anniversary, you guys. I wonder if they'll tell the stories about people that they met in first year. We've been married 30, 40, 50 years and talked about this is how you walk that long obedience together. I wonder if the city will tell stories about our RFK volunteers, those who take a week every summer and go and volunteer with kids in the foster care system. I wonder if we'll tell the stories of meal groups that showed up in crisis that made food during the midst of a funeral. I wonder if those will be the stories that we tell. Acts chapter 9 tells us the story of one of those saints, her name's Tabitha in Aramaic. It's Dorcas in Greek. The later version is not as popular in uh today's naming of things. People prefer Tabitha over Dorcas. I'll let you put that together in why you think that is. Uh her name means gazelle in both languages, both Aramaic and Greek, which is maybe another conversation for another day. But here is this woman in Joppa, and there was a disciple named Tabitha in Greek. Her name is Dorcas, and this is what is said about her. Her life overflowed with good works and compassionate acts on behalf of those in need. What a description. Like for someone to be able to say, you know what the most important thing about this person is, is they're a disciple of Jesus. And I know they're a disciple of Jesus, is that her life overflowed with good works and compassionate acts for those that were in need. Her life overflowed. It was full of good works and compassion, these good deeds that she was doing and charitable acts. She did good and she gave generously to anyone who was in need, particularly as we'll see in this story, to widows, to those in her community, in her local church who were in need. Widows are, of course, a really prominent group in the early church. In his book, The Rise of Christianity, the sociologist Rodney Stark notes that in the Roman world, women were forced to marry young, typically to older men, and then widows were pressured to remarry as quickly as possible. Some of them faced fines if they didn't uh remarry within two years. That legally and economically they were forced into a second marriage because without a husband in that world, they had little to no access to the financial systems or to the justice systems that they needed to survive, that they needed for protection and provision. They were an incredibly vulnerable group in the ancient world until the church bursts on the scene. And then all of a sudden, there's this group of people following King Jesus who say to widows, we will care for you like you're our own family. We'll provide for you, we'll protect you, we'll be your family. In the Roman world where female infanticide and abortion were rampant, you saw a situation where for every 130 to 140 men, there were only 100 women in the ancient worlds, particularly in the Roman. Empire. So women only made up about 40% of the population. But they made up 60 to 65% of the early church. Because the way in which they were treated, the way they were honored and loved and respected and cared for. Tabitha was one of these. Tabitha was this female disciple of Jesus. We know nothing about her husband. We don't know if she was a widow. We don't know if she was married to an unbeliever. We don't know any of those things. All we know is that her life overflowed with good works and charitable acts because of Jesus. Jesus had transformed her life. And then we'd read this in Acts 9:37. About that time, though, she became so ill that she died. And after they washed her body, they laid her in an upstairs room. And since Leda, which was where Peter was, was near Joppa, when the disciples heard that Peter was there, they sent two people to Peter and they urged Peter, said, please come right away. And Peter went with him. And upon his arrival, he was taken to the upstairs room. And all the windows, all the widows, all these widows stood beside him. And they were crying as they showed the tunics and the other clothing that Dorcas or Tabitha had made for them while she was alive. Can you imagine that scene for just a moment? All of these widows who've been cared for by this woman all gathered around her, holding the very tangible evidence of her care and weeping because of the loss that they felt in that moment. Tabitha died, and Peter's nearby, and they send for him. And he goes into that upper room. And then we find a little bit more of Tabitha's story. Look what she made for me. Tabitha, like so many other common saints, was the beating heart of her local community. She was the beating heart of that place. The beating heart of that people. And I love that Luke here, he zooms past the big cities, he zooms past the crowds, he zooms past all of the elegant sermons inside of the book of Acts. And he focuses on this mid-sized coastal town and a female tailor who used her gift for good. Said, I want to tell you Tabitha's story. Let's just take a moment here and tell her story. Because this is what common saints do. They take whatever they've been given and they give it away. They share it, they steward it, they spend it for the sake of others, not just for the sake of themselves. They believe in a different version of happiness. Some of them, so. Some of them deliver meals to the sick, to the grieving, to those with newborns. Some sit and listen and cry and pray and offer presents to people at any moment in life. Some open up their homes. Some drive refugees to appointments. Some serve a bunch of students grilled cheeses. Some give of the resources, some fix cars, some mow yards, some help with home repair, some brew coffee, some rock babies, some look out for the new and the lonely and the lost. Some create beauty, some build businesses, they all do good work and they do it well. And in every area of life, they pursue the kingdom because they believe that in the king is where they find true happiness. They live these life-giving lives. And when they die, the loss is felt by the church. The loss is felt by those that they've loved. Tabitha dies, and the church is in a genuine crisis. There is a gap. Who is going to care for the vulnerable now? And at that point, there apparently wasn't another leader, so they sent for Peter. They just heard that Peter early in the chapter had uh been present when Jesus healed a man named Anias, who'd been paralyzed for eight years. So, like, let's go get Peter, have Peter pray. So Peter sent everybody out of the room and then knelt and he prayed and he turned to the body and he said, Tapitha, get up. And she opened her eyes and saw Peter, sat up, and he gave her his hand and he raised her up. And then he called God's holy people, God's saints, including the widows, and presented her alive to them. And the news spread throughout Joppa, and many put their faith in the Lord. This moment echoes that moment with Elijah and the widow's son at Zarephath, and Elisha and the Shumanite woman's son, and Jesus and the widow's son at Nain, and Jesus and Jairus' daughter, and Jesus and Lazarus, and just a handful of stories in the scriptures where someone's given back their life in this kind of way. And it echoes a few of those times in church history where we read and hear about the same thing where someone has died and their life is given back to them. And all of a sudden we get this really radical glimpse at the world to come where Almighty Death is rendered powerless. It's like, sorry, Death, you don't win. And it's a signpost to us that there is a day coming where there's a future resurrection that awaits for all saints. That that will someday be all of our story in the world to come where Jesus will grab our hand and say, get on up, my son or my daughter. These moments fill us with hope when we read them. And they bring others to faith. Every time we see a miracle and acts news spread, and people come to faith, and yet they're also deeply shrouded with mystery. Like, why was Annias healed? Why was Tabitha raised? And why not others? Why wasn't Stephen raised after he was martyred? Why wasn't that person healed? Why wasn't that person raised? Why didn't this happen? Why weren't the billions of saints who have lived these ordinary lives of extraordinary faithfulness, who sought the kingdom and gave their gifts and gave their lives away, and they just experienced normal sorrow and joy? They experienced suffering and hope. They left a legacy of faith. And many of them they prayed for healing, they prayed for life to come back, and it didn't happen in this world. What do we do with that? Maybe more pointly, what do we do when it's us? What do we do when we're the ones wondering why our prayer for healing, our prayer for protection, our prayer for provision, our prayer for the people that we love wasn't answered in that same way. It's a question that I'm assuming we've all asked at some point. And it's a question I'm assuming that we will all ask countless number of times between now and the world to come. It's one that will last throughout our lives when our souls will inevitably experience the agony and the ache that comes from this age. This is going to be a part of our story. Where there will be sickness that is not healed, and death that is not immediately restored to life. So what do we do with that? As the worship team comes forward, I just want to offer these couple of thoughts. That I think that what we do is the same thing the common saints before us have always done. We hold fast to the common faith. By doing so, we remember that our hope is not in this life, but our hope is in the age to come. That we hold on to the hope that there is a resurrection of the dead and the life everlasting. We hold on to the faith that reminds us that Jesus also suffered, that Jesus also died, that Jesus was raised from the dead, that he ascended into heaven, he's seated at the right hand of the Father, and someday he will come again and he will set everything right. That day is just not fully this day. We hold on to the hope that it's present in our common faith. And then we continue to persevere in our common life that we do what the saints have always done. We comfort one another, we encourage one another, we care for one another, we pray for one another, we serve one another, we welcome one another, we hold one another, we lift one another up in prayer, we share our stories with one another, both those that are easy and those that are hard. We say that we're not alone as we walk this life of faith. And then we seek the common good. We do it Tabitha did, and we take whatever we've been given and we look for ways to give it away. We say, What has the Lord entrusted to me? What has he given me? Is he giving me time? He's giving me talent, he's giving me treasure, what has he given me? And how can I give that away? How can I spend that for the sake of the kingdom? And at the end of those things, we hold on to the promise that on the other side of death lies a world made new. We hold on to the promise that in front of us at some point in time is unspeakable and unending joy in the presence of Jesus. We say we're gonna continue to pursue happiness, but we're gonna do so as the people of God and pursue it in the way of Jesus, who for the joy set before him endured the cross and scorned its shame. Jesus who went on ahead to prepare a place for us in the kingdom, and Jesus who sets before us a foretaste of that every single week as we come to the table. And remember the one who gave his life away, the one who was raised from the dead, the one who someday will come again to give us our lives back in every way, and then we will know the pursuit of happiness always ends with Jesus. The pursuits of him. So glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, for as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be a world without end. Amen.