Maybe seated.
So when I was in the ninth grade, my friends began to split.
Often the time in life when a particular group of people go one way and another group of people go another way.
And for my friend group, that meant kind of half my friends were headed towards partying their way into acceptance, and the other half were trying to find a little bit healthier ways for acceptance.
So in that kind of indecision for me, I decided that I would go attend this Christian club meeting at my school, at my high school.
It was for athletes, and it was called FCA.
Within the first few weeks, they had this event at the University of Georgia called the prayer breakfast.
And so they said, hey, anybody wants to go, you know, come up here at the school, you know, Saturday morning.
It was something super early, like 7:30, and we'll get in cars and we'll we'll ride out to Athens for this prayer breakfast.
And so I got my mom to drop me off as 14 years old.
Got my mom to drop me off there at the spot where to be dropped off and nobody else was there.
And then finally, one kid showed up.
It was a popular, a popular 11th grader at the time.
His name was Kevin.
And then his girlfriend that went to another school was with him.
And the two of them took me to Georgia.
I sat in the backseat of his tutor black Chevy Blazer, which was so awesome at the time.
And these two older kids, they, you know, they talked to me and they loved on me and they were kind to me.
And I was a little lowly ninth grader at the time, and he didn't realize it.
He didn't realize it.
But it sealed the deal for me.
Because for me, what it did was it was like it I saw an older kid who was navigating his way through high school as a Christian.
And so his name was Kevin.
He later became my brother-in-law.
Much longer story there.
But he didn't know.
He didn't know I was hurting.
He didn't know my parents had just divorced.
He didn't know any of that.
He just showed up.
They needed somebody to drive.
Any kids who needed a ride, he just showed up.
He didn't know any of that.
And the entire ride, he and his girlfriend treated me with kindness.
And I tell you that because we often wonder what we're doing with our lives.
Like, are we just getting like a high school degree and then maybe a college degree, maybe a graduate degree if you're like super motivated?
Are you just like starting Roth IRAs and doing that?
Are you just buying more stuff?
Are you just attending more and more church?
And somewhere along the way, all of us start to go like, is this just like one day after the next?
Or does it mean anything?
Does my life mean anything?
Do I matter?
Do I matter in this world?
Can one person matter and mean something in this world?
So there's this strange story in number 16 where the people have despised the Lord, right?
That's the Old Testament.
The people of God going, hey, we're for you, and then they go and they do something else.
And in this, uh, the people begin to die.
It's a strange story.
A plague begins on kind of one side of the crowd, it's making its way across the people, and it's killing everybody it touches.
It's a crazy story.
I don't understand all of it, but I do understand how it stops.
One person, this guy named Aaron, he takes a censer, which is like this little vessel that they would burn incense in.
He takes a censer, he runs to the altar.
He runs to the altar and he gets some fire.
And then he runs into the crowd.
He runs between the living and the dead, and where he stands with that fire, the death stops.
The only thing that stood between the living and the dead was Aaron and fire.
So does one person matter?
Well, if I'm on the front row of the living, and I'm looking across, and I see Aaron holding fire, and then I see a whole bunch of dead people, my answer is yes.
That's the only answer I can come to.
See, you think you're just showing up to give a kid a ride to a prayer breakfast in Athens.
But you're not.
You think you're just showing up to watch a baby.
But you're not.
You think you're just showing up to teach a Sunday school class.
Ah, it's another week, or to open the door at the front of the church to welcome somebody or to lead a small group or to host something.
I mean, you think that's, but you're not.
You are standing between the living and the dead.
And I understand you can't see it all.
I can't see it all.
It's not how it works.
You don't even know the effects of truth and grace you're having in people's lives as you're having them.
And when you make a meal for your neighbor, or you offer to pray for your coworker, or you just stand and listen to somebody dump on you their entire life's anxieties and problems, and you stand there and you say, That must be really, really hard.
You are standing between the living and the dead.
You are a person of truth and grace, and it means something.
So there's this other guy in the New Testament.
Sam just read the reference in Acts 6 and 7, this guy named Stephen.
And this is a great reference for us as we're working our way through the book of Acts of how the church starts.
And in Acts 6, there's so many people ready to serve the arising needs that are occurring.
There's so many people that the church leaders get together and go, like, hey, we gotta we have to organize a little bit because we gotta sort this out.
And so the leaders say, all right, we're we're gonna stick to prayer, the ministry of the word and teaching, and we're gonna start to delegate some like practical needs to some other people.
And so they start a group of people called the deacons, and so all this organization begins there at the beginning.
And then I love this, moving into Acts 6, verses 10 through 15, but they could not withstand the wisdom and the spirit which he was speaking, because this guy named Stephen, one of those leaders, he starts to speak to the group of people who did not believe in Jesus, the ones who killed him.
Verse 11, 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, they seized him, and they 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 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.
So chapter seven begins with this high priest questioning him.
This is where the story goes.
And Stephen goes to town on him.
He lets it rip.
And Stephen tells this guy their own story, right?
How does that ever go well, right?
Like when somebody starts lecturing you the story you already know, your story.
He starts lecturing their own story, the story of them being enslaved in Egypt and how Moses liberated them.
And then basically he says, y'all are missing it.
Like Moses, Moses was there to symbolize Jesus.
Jesus is your Moses, Jesus is your liberation.
If you want to work out of enslavement, you have to look to Jesus.
So Stephen stands there, Stephen stands there in between the living and the dead, a person of truth and grace.
He stands there with fire, speaking about fire.
It says in verse 54 of chapter 7, now when they heard these things, as Stephen has just like unloaded, when they've heard these things, they were enraged and they ground their teeth at him.
And I'm thinking that's not a good thing.
I don't know, I don't, I hadn't seen that a lot in our culture.
I don't know what our culture would be.
Maybe a hand signal of some sort could be appropriate to put in there.
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 open, 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.
Stephen called out, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.
And falling to his knees, he cried out with a loud voice, Lord, do not hold the sin against them.
And when he had said this, he fell asleep, meaning he died.
So a few points.
Point number one, serving helps us experience meaning in life.
Serving helps us experience meaning in life.
Now, my phrasing there's very, very important.
It doesn't give us meaning in life.
It's not the core of who we are, but it helps us experience meaning in life.
And maybe you think you just don't have what it takes.
Because if you only knew my issues, Russ, I don't like that or my schedule or my family or my bad luck or my bad back or whatever.
Plus, I wouldn't even know what to do.
I wouldn't even know how to do that.
I probably wouldn't even be good at it.
Isn't that just true?
Maybe you shouldn't be in one area of service.
Maybe it should be some other area.
I don't know.
But listen, Aaron, back in Numbers, he was incredibly unlikely to be the guy to grab the fire and run into the middle of that plague.
He was a hundred years old.
I don't even know how you ran.
I'm not sure how he got there.
But he did.
What's clear is his big faith and strength just doesn't seem to be a requirement for service.
What seems to be the requirement is vulnerability and brokenness and confession and repentance and a little bit of fire in your heart.
And I do know if I'm Aaron, I'm thinking just for myself here, if I'm Aaron and I'm standing in the middle of a crowd of people, and I look to my left and everybody's dead, and I look to my right and everybody's alive, I'm thinking I'm experiencing a little bit of meaning in my life.
I'm just guessing it feels better than eating peanut butter, ordering more shoes, while I watch a house show on Netflix, and I love to do that.
Like I really, I really love it.
Like I just put together my three favorite things all in one sentence.
But I'm thinking standing between the living and the dead and being a person of truth and grace in somebody's life could help me experience more meaning in life than the other.
Point number two, compassion and love are the root of serving people.
Compassion and love are the root of serving people.
The root of Stephen's intensity there in the Acts story, it shows up at the end of the story because the whole story you're sort of like, Stephen, you're you're you're kind of rough.
Like, like, I mean, you're really like giving it to them.
Like this is a bit of a thrashing here you got going on.
But then at the very end, verse 60, and falling to his knees, he cried out with a loud voice, Lord, do not hold this sin against them.
They're stoning him to death.
And his reaction is, God, don't hold any of this against them.
Compassion and love are the root.
This is what's inside of Stephen.
And this is why it shows up at its greatest, his greatest point of stress and brokenness, because he never approached these people out of judgment.
He was approaching them out of love the entire time.
Years ago, when Christy and I got engaged, we were attending a Sunday school class for young singles at the church we were attending in our hometown.
We got engaged, and our Sunday school teacher at the time, it's a big Sunday school class, our Sunday school teacher at the time, he had almost become our pastor.
It's a big church, and so that sort of happens a lot of times in churches, is people get connected to other people in the church.
And this Sunday school teacher had basically become our pastor.
And so it was natural for us when we got engaged, we went to him and said, Hey, will you do our premarital counseling?
He wrote a tractor all day.
He graded dirt.
So that's what he did for a living.
At night, he attended counseling school, he was becoming a counselor.
He had been married and divorced, and he was now remarried, had been bankrupt, he had lost a farm, he had been broken, and he was redeemed.
And he knew he was redeemed.
And we asked him to do our premarital counseling, and he said yes, and he said, Well, here's how we'll do it.
You know, on Sundays after church, one of y'all, y'all go grab your lunch, and then after lunch, let's just meet back at my house, and my wife and I, we will talk through marriage with you.
We said, Oh, that's great.
And we sort of thought in the back of our minds, well, this will probably be, you know, four to six weeks.
Eight months later, we finished.
It's been 15 years since that gift.
And it still gives to us.
We are still receiving the life given to us because a man and his wife decided to sacrifice their Sunday afternoon to step into a place where so much death or life can happen.
Point number three.
God's grace is the beginning and the fuel of compassion and love.
So if we go back to Stephen in Acts, you go, how does this guy do this?
I mean, I'd never be like Stephen.
Give me a break.
I'm bailing, right?
I mean, you read that story, you're like, I'm out, man.
Like, I'm not, I am not going through that.
How does he do that?
At the very beginning of that story, chapter 6, verse 8, and Stephen, full of grace and power.
See, it's all from a place of being surrendered to the grace of God.
There's the fire.
If you want some fire to run into somebody's life between the living and the dead, that's the fire, is the grace of God.
And Stephen, full of grace and power.
So in the grace of God, you know you are absolved, you know you are accepted by God in Jesus, his work for you, not your work for him, your sin.
So all your selfishness, your resistance to serve, your just the fact that you don't care, all of that is put on Jesus on the cross, and he gives to you all of his righteousness, all of his right living and right thinking about how you should love God and people is given to you, deemed to you.
This means you are relieved of having to be consumed with yourself.
And now you can finally see other people.
And where judgment used to be, love begins.
Now maybe you hear all of that and you go, well, how do I know I'm serving enough?
Am I changing my neighborhood enough?
Are we a transformative power in the city of Marietta?
Are we changing Marietta enough?
I don't know.
You don't know, we'll never know.
But it's not your love or your fire that saves.
You are relieved from that.
You are free of thinking, you are the lone agent of change to save someone in your family or your neighborhood or your city.
It was the fire from the altar that saved the people.
The story of Aaron's not just for us to try harder to be like Aaron.
Aaron's a lesson, but the story is about that fire.
Where do we find a fire that always stands?
Always stands between the living and the dead.
A writer in Hebrews, the writer of Hebrews writes, Hebrews 12, 28, and 29, therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken.
So we receive a kingdom, we don't cause a kingdom, and it cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.
See, you experience meaning by serving people, but you will never be able to actually know secure meaning in the core of who you are by your service.
And this is good news.
It is good news that you will never be able to serve enough as to feel meaningful enough.
That's a losing game.
You'll be full of hope and pride in one moment, so proud of yourself, and look at the change I'm causing, and then all of a sudden you'll be in despair and exhaustion.
And along the way, you will begin to judge every single person who does not serve like you or does not serve how you think they should.
And the good gospel says no matter how you serve or you don't serve, or if you find traditional ways to serve, or you find creative ways to serve, you mean everything to God because He placed Himself as the fire between the living and the dead.
In grace he placed himself there, and the death of meaninglessness in us is over, and the death of meaning by merit in us is over, and the death of a life of comparison to other people is over.
We don't have to live that way anymore.
And you, like the you right now, right?
Like the you that is beautifully created and bent a little selfish, right?
Just like me, that you, before you do anything good or noble or meaningful, even while you are the opposite of those things, you mean everything to God.
Because in Jesus you are forever absolved and accepted.
So, my brothers and sisters, may you know the grace and compassion of God, which is Jesus, the consuming fire that burns for you to know all absolution and all acceptance and all of our motivation to serve people.
Let's pray.
God, thank you that you are the fire and you stand between the living and the dead.
And for so many of us in this room, we have seen it over and over again.
That you consume all of our sin.
It is gone.
Forgive us for the ways that we keep revisiting it, we keep revisiting our shame, we keep revisiting all the ways that we don't serve enough, and we're not enough change, and we're not enough, and we're not enough.
Forgive us for all of that.
Help us to live in the grace of God, which creates great compassion and love toward people.
Help us to return to the fire over and over again, for it is enough, for it is Jesus.
Sacrificed on the cross, taking our sin, giving us forever life, acceptance, and righteousness of God.
We are forever your children, and for that we are grateful.
And we worship in reverence and in all.
In Jesus' name.
Amen.