SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the City Covenant Podcast.
SPEAKER_00: We are a warm, welcoming church located in downtown Spokane, dedicated to practicing the way of Jesus in the heart of the city.
SPEAKER_00: Please join us as we dive into the Word of God together.
SPEAKER_01: Um hey, welcome.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, just just so you know, um, we're doing something different today.
SPEAKER_01: Um it's not just that like Dan and I broke our legs or something, but we're doing something we're we wanted to share, and I think this is actually really helpful connected to even Dean, your your prayer request.
SPEAKER_01: We're talking about how to pray in the midst of persecution, in the midst of oppression.
SPEAKER_01: Um, Dan and I are gonna share together because Dan has so much experience living um in in parts of the world that have become so tribalistic, right?
SPEAKER_01: Have become so divided, and looking and saying, how is it as Christians we we live in the midst of that, right?
SPEAKER_01: Because um we live in a world right now, even here in America, that um I remember hearing this years ago from Tim Keller, and he's not the only person who would say this.
SPEAKER_01: I read some articles from David Brooks, like lots of periodicals, right?
SPEAKER_01: All over the spectrum saying, hey, if it feels to you like America's becoming more conservative, um, it turns out you're right.
SPEAKER_01: And it in the end, if it feels to you like the war America is becoming more liberal, you're right.
SPEAKER_01: And here's why.
SPEAKER_01: Um we're actually moving further and further apart, right, as a as a country.
SPEAKER_01: Um and and what happens is people move further and further apart, you know, you end up losing this middle.
SPEAKER_01: Um, you end up m losing this middle that actually kind of holds everything together, right?
SPEAKER_01: And so the thing is what we're talking about today is as as culture tends to move toward tribalism when that happens, right?
SPEAKER_01: You start disliking the other, you start vilifying the other.
SPEAKER_01: And so Dan and I, um, you know, it's funny, we we look similar, right?
SPEAKER_01: There's we have the bald white, you actually have more hair than me, you just cut it short.
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: You know, but you do have more hair.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
SPEAKER_01: We look similar.
SPEAKER_01: You know, here's the thing though, guys.
SPEAKER_01: Dan and I aren't, you know, we aren't twins, you know.
SPEAKER_01: And um we have a lot of things that would actually, by the world standards, not make us natural friends.
SPEAKER_01: Um politically, we'd be natural enemies.
SPEAKER_01: But here's what's amazing is Dan and I are not only friends, we're brothers.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, we we became blood brothers.
SPEAKER_01: We're blood brothers.
SPEAKER_01: And we did the whole thing with your thumb.
SPEAKER_01: We did.
SPEAKER_01: And so um no, I'm teasing.
SPEAKER_01: We don't worry, we didn't become.
SPEAKER_01: I did that.
SPEAKER_01: Do you guys remember that?
SPEAKER_01: Like prior to like the 80s, people became blood brothers.
SPEAKER_01: Man, after like, you know, after the 80s, you can't become blood brothers.
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, and here's what so there's this guy from the covenant named Dominique Gilliard.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you guys have heard of this guy.
SPEAKER_01: Dominique would say what's amazing about the gospel is actually that on the the waters of baptism are actually thicker than blood, right?
SPEAKER_01: And so what unites Dan and I together is that we have the same father, right?
SPEAKER_01: That we've we've been called children of the same father.
SPEAKER_01: And so we're not just we're we're not enemies.
SPEAKER_01: Not only we're not friends, you know, we're beyond friends, we're we're brothers.
SPEAKER_01: And so we wanted to talk about this together as we look at Stephen, this fellow who went through um intense persecution and ended up losing his life because of the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: And so what we're gonna do is um Dan's gonna read a section from um Acts 7, and then I'm gonna read a section from Acts 7, and then we'll pray together and we'll talk, and we'll kind of go back and forth, and I think we're all gonna be able to keep track of it.
SPEAKER_01: So, Dan, do you want to start reading those?
SPEAKER_01: Reading for us?
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: Starting at verse uh 54.
SPEAKER_01: No, no, no.
SPEAKER_01: Well, three.
SPEAKER_01: Three.
SPEAKER_01: Wait, what is that?
SPEAKER_01: I know.
SPEAKER_01: It's a very small number.
SPEAKER_01: It's see, it's all us not being twins.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I know.
SPEAKER_01: You're I have better eyesight.
SPEAKER_01: I know.
SPEAKER_02: And said to Abraham, Go out from your land, from your kindred, and go into the land that I will show you.
SPEAKER_02: When Moses was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brothers, the children of Israel.
SPEAKER_02: And seeing one of them being wronged, he defended the oppressed man and avenged him by striking down the Egyptian.
SPEAKER_02: He supposed that his brothers would understand that God was giving them salvation by his hand, but they did not understand.
SPEAKER_02: And on the following day he appeared to them as they were quarreling and tried to reconcile them, saying, Men, you are brothers.
SPEAKER_02: Why do you wrong each other?
SPEAKER_02: But the man who was wronging his neighbor thrust him aside, saying, Who made you a ruler and a judge over us?
SPEAKER_02: Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?
SPEAKER_02: At this retort, Moses fled and became an exile in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons.
SPEAKER_02: Our fathers had the tent of witness in the wilderness, just as he spoke to Moses, directed him to make it according to the pattern that he had seen.
SPEAKER_02: Our fathers in turn brought it in with Joshua when they dispossessed the nations that God drove out before our fathers.
SPEAKER_02: So it was until the days of David who found favor in the sight of God and asked to find a dwelling place for the God of Jacob.
SPEAKER_02: But it was Solomon who built a house for him, that the Most High does not dwell in houses made by hand, as the prophet says.
SPEAKER_02: You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in your hearts and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit, and as your fathers did, so do you.
SPEAKER_02: Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute?
SPEAKER_02: And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the righteous one, whom you have now betrayed and murdered.
SPEAKER_02: You who received the law as delivered by angels did not keep it.
SPEAKER_01: So that was Stephen part portions of Stephen's sermon.
SPEAKER_01: And then this is the response.
SPEAKER_01: When the members of the Sanhedrin heard this, they were furious.
SPEAKER_01: They gnashed their teeth at him.
SPEAKER_01: But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God.
SPEAKER_01: And he saw Jesus standing at the right hand of God.
SPEAKER_01: And look, he said, I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.
SPEAKER_01: At this, they covered their ears and yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him.
SPEAKER_01: They dragged him out of the city and they began to stone him.
SPEAKER_01: Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul.
SPEAKER_01: While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Then he fell on his knees and cried out, Lord, do not hold this sin against them.
SPEAKER_01: When he had said this, he fell asleep, and Saul approved of their killing him.
SPEAKER_01: On that day, a great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria.
SPEAKER_01: Friends, this is the word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Thanks be to God.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_01: Father in heaven, you've called us as your witnesses.
SPEAKER_01: You've called us as your disciples.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, you've called us as people that speak the truth.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, who who um live out the truth.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, because we are not just your messengers, Lord, but we're people that first and foremost are shaped and transformed by the Holy Spirit because of Jesus, led to the Father.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, we know we live in a fractured world.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, teach us to pray in the midst of those fractures.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, and draw us closer to Jesus in all of it.
SPEAKER_01: In Christ's name we pray.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: So, guys, what we're gonna do in a minute is we're gonna just look.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna look at the background, right?
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna look at um Stephen's sermon, and then we're just gonna look at a couple of the pieces of his prayer, right?
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna see in his prayer the way that Stephen looked up.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it just feels like one short little line, but it kind of changes everything.
SPEAKER_01: It's this hinge point for the whole section of Acts 7.
SPEAKER_01: And then ultimately we'll see him as he he says to Jesus, you know, as he prays, as he's literally dying, and he says, Don't hold this sin against them, right?
SPEAKER_01: And so there's this guy who has um is immensely persecuted, yet even in all of it, has his eyes so firmly focused on Jesus that he's able to live in the midst of it.
SPEAKER_01: Um I I know, Dan, you and I, one of the things that got us to say, hey, let's do this together, is some of your background, working with Middle Eastern folks, right, living in North Africa.
SPEAKER_01: Tell us a little bit, you know, when we think about some of the problems we have nationally and worldwide, about as we're pulling further and further apart.
SPEAKER_01: What what was it?
SPEAKER_01: What happened?
SPEAKER_01: Tell us a little bit about what happened when you guys moved overseas.
SPEAKER_02: Well, you can't help but notice in the incarnation, where it says Jesus did not consider his prerogative to stay in the comfort of the Trinity, but entered into this world, uh, that he says our attitude should be the same to go.
SPEAKER_02: And so when my wife and I packed up our four kids and we moved to Morocco, it's like you boarded a plane in one culture and you landed on a different planet.
SPEAKER_02: And uh and so what it helped for me in doing that was to begin to examine the place that I came from at that time was Bozeman, Montana, and and uh what that culture looks like uh juxtaposed to the kingdom of heaven.
SPEAKER_02: Because in the in the familiar, it's it was easy for me to say, oh, this is what I'm familiar with, and kind of layer my interpretation of uh scripture, of relationship with the Lord on what was familiar.
SPEAKER_02: Moving to Morocco, there was nothing familiar.
SPEAKER_02: The language was different, it was beyond a post-Christian country, probably 15 years of Islamic uh rule.
SPEAKER_02: So it was very different.
SPEAKER_02: But it also gave me an opportunity to see in that culture, though it was a post-Christian culture, ways that the culture was diametrically opposed to the kingdom of heaven and ways that it wasn't.
SPEAKER_02: And to realize that for me, it's to re-examine the truth of of who Jesus is and and how he compels us to move about people that are that are different than us, uh, that it was just it was illuminating for me.
SPEAKER_02: And it it took a lot of unpacking in that season of learning to live in a culture that was not my own.
SPEAKER_01: And I will say, remember the the time that when our family went to Europe and you tricked us into going to Morocco?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: And you said, like, oh, we'll really like it.
SPEAKER_01: Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_01: And then we went and we didn't.
SPEAKER_01: Um and it really was like going to another planet.
SPEAKER_01: It was the most foreign country I've ever been to.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, for sure.
SPEAKER_01: Including Canada.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: Wait, Canada's a country?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: And so, okay, no, okay.
SPEAKER_01: So here's the thing.
SPEAKER_01: So let's look at this though, right?
SPEAKER_01: I think for maybe some of you guys, you're looking and saying, what happened, right?
SPEAKER_01: What happened where Stephen, if you look in chapter six, Stephen just like minded his own business.
SPEAKER_01: He's a nice guy, right?
SPEAKER_01: And you look, this is, friends, this is one of the challenges of the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: We have these moments throughout scripture.
SPEAKER_01: We certainly see it with Jesus, and now we see it with Stephen, where one of the errors that people make about Jesus, I think at times, is that Jesus was just like this really nice teacher who taught people how to be like kind and warm and fuzzy and help people.
SPEAKER_01: Who crucifies somebody who, if that's the only thing that they're teaching, right?
SPEAKER_01: That wouldn't make sense.
SPEAKER_01: The same thing.
SPEAKER_01: Stephen is literally in Acts 6 has become a deacon, which means he's hanging out at old folks' homes a lot, right?
SPEAKER_01: And helping people.
SPEAKER_01: Why would you kill somebody who's hanging out at Rockwood retirement home?
SPEAKER_01: Like, that doesn't make sense.
SPEAKER_01: He's just a nice guy.
SPEAKER_01: And so something then happens, right?
SPEAKER_01: Here's what happens is he starts saying, friends, we've missed something.
SPEAKER_01: And I will tell you, go back and read it for yourself.
SPEAKER_01: What you're gonna notice in Act 7, this is what's wild.
SPEAKER_01: He keeps using we language.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't say you, by and large, throughout Act 7.
SPEAKER_01: He's saying we missed the boat, right?
SPEAKER_01: He's including himself on this.
SPEAKER_01: So this is his him giving like critique from within.
SPEAKER_01: He's not just like pointing the finger at them.
SPEAKER_01: And and at it, he brings up three folks, and that's the parts that Dan was reading.
SPEAKER_01: About, he talks about three patriarchs in particular, if you notice this, and it's much longer, but you can key in on three patriarchs: the Abraham, Moses, and then David and Solomon, right?
SPEAKER_01: So as you see, um, Abraham, Moses, and Solomon, here's why those three.
SPEAKER_01: Because Abraham represents the land, Moses represents the law, and and Solomon represents the temple.
SPEAKER_01: These are the three things that to an Israelite, they would have looked and said, this is what shows us that God, we're like the special people.
SPEAKER_01: God loves, right?
SPEAKER_01: And because we're the special people, um, that God, you know, that um that God has given us this land, and and that's why he likes us more than everyone else.
SPEAKER_01: And and the challenges um is what Stephen ends up doing is saying to them, guys, you're taking these good things and making them ultimate things, right?
SPEAKER_01: It's amazing for us, yes, to have this land.
SPEAKER_01: It's amazing for us to have the law, it's amazing for us to have the temple, then when we can go and experience God.
SPEAKER_01: But he actually subverts it and says, But friends, you're missing it.
SPEAKER_01: God, um, in the whole Abraham story, the reason I'm telling you about Abraham, this is like Stephen, you know, winding it back and explaining it.
SPEAKER_01: The reason I'm telling you about Abraham is because it was never actually about the land.
SPEAKER_01: That you we're missing the story.
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't about the land, it was about the blessing.
SPEAKER_01: God called Abraham, and then now he calls us, and we're supposed to go out and be a blessing to folks.
SPEAKER_01: It was never about the land, right?
SPEAKER_01: And in the same way he says, even about Moses, he says, You think our standing with God is because we're good at following the law?
SPEAKER_01: No, we follow the law because we know we have good standing with God, right?
SPEAKER_01: It's not that we're accepted by God because we follow the law.
SPEAKER_01: We follow the law because we're accepted, right?
SPEAKER_01: We follow what God calls us to do out of loving obedience to him because we know he's a loving father, right?
SPEAKER_01: And then ultimately, and he says in the temple, this is when it hits its crescendo.
SPEAKER_01: Guys, the temple was never what it was all about.
SPEAKER_01: It was always, you know, God does not dwell in houses made by man.
SPEAKER_01: He says, ultimately, God dwells ultimately in the person of Jesus Christ, right?
SPEAKER_01: And he says, that's what it's all about.
SPEAKER_01: And and I'll tell you, you know, when he takes on their three idols, they just lose it, right?
SPEAKER_01: When he starts talking about the land, I mean, friends, if you don't think people can lose it about land, go to some neighborhood meeting, go to an HOA meeting.
SPEAKER_01: People get worked up about land, okay?
SPEAKER_01: And that's in the suburbs, right?
SPEAKER_01: That's in the suburbs.
SPEAKER_01: What happens, you know, when you go to the Middle East?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, tell us about, I mean, so tell us about some of these fights, because this is what's happened, right, in the last, you know, kind of since with Jews, Palestinians, Muslims.
SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02: Well, um, about seven years ago, my role in North Africa Young Life expanded to supervise and be a part of of Young Life in Israel and the West Bank and and neighboring countries.
SPEAKER_02: And I remember uh one of my first trips, I can't remember Steph, if you came on that one or not, where we met, we met there's one little spot, uh, it's called Talitha Kumi.
SPEAKER_02: And uh is that like a German school?
SPEAKER_02: I don't even know.
SPEAKER_02: But it's one place where Palestinians and Israel Israelites and Jewish Israelis can meet, but it's like it's still not comfortable.
SPEAKER_02: And I remember I kind of arranged uh this gathering of our our staff from the West Bank and our staff from Israel at this school called Halivakumi.
SPEAKER_02: And before the gathering, um I was with uh our Palestinian staff, and for a few days I just heard him lament the Palestinian plight, as you're many of you are well aware, and how difficult it is.
SPEAKER_02: And some of the the things he said seemed to me that um he didn't really like Jewish people at all.
SPEAKER_02: And and I knew in a couple days we're gonna have some Jewish people at this meeting place.
SPEAKER_02: And I'm thinking, how's this gonna go, man?
SPEAKER_02: He clearly does not like the brothers and sisters in the Lord that are on the other side of that wall.
SPEAKER_02: And much to my surprise, when we were all together, I saw Yusuf always with the Jewish people.
SPEAKER_02: Some of you met I've had uh Yusuf and his family with us a couple years ago.
SPEAKER_02: Um, but he he just the the Jewish young staff had his children on their lap.
SPEAKER_02: I mean, he he hardly talked to any other Arabs the whole time.
SPEAKER_02: He was just in fully engaged with uh his Jewish brothers, sisters in the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: And I just thought that was fascinating.
SPEAKER_02: I think sometimes when for me, if I can keep people at a distance, I can assume the worst in them, or I can easily place them in their tribal box.
SPEAKER_02: They're that, I'm this.
SPEAKER_02: But when when people come in close proximity, th those walls of hostility begin to kind of break down.
SPEAKER_02: And I saw that in Yusuf in how he engaged with our our Jewish staff at that meeting.
SPEAKER_01: Well, it is amazing to me.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, if we think about it, the the tragedy here with Steven is these folks actually they hear Stephen that he's nearby, but their hearts never get near to his.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's like when I hear you say talking about that, Dan.
SPEAKER_01: In some ways you look and say, oh, the big thing that happened here is the big difference is this guy actually he allowed his heart to be close to these other people.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: Although the the rest of the story, as Paul Harvey would say, yeah, is Saul becomes Paul.
SPEAKER_02: And Saul was in this little gathering, so Stephen was in close proximity to the enemy of his very life.
SPEAKER_02: And I can't imagine uh as Paul writes, hey, you know, I was top of my class.
SPEAKER_02: You know, I I was advanced beyond all my peers in knowing and studying the law.
SPEAKER_02: And can you imagine he likely orchestrated this martyrdom of Stephen?
SPEAKER_02: And he's there to witness it.
SPEAKER_02: And here's Stephen kind of retell the history and how they missed the boat, and that it always pointed to the coming Savior.
SPEAKER_02: And it says that he received the clothing.
SPEAKER_02: And I I wonder in that hearing, even though it cost Stephen everything, he prayed for his enemy in the moment.
SPEAKER_02: Lord, do not hold this against them.
SPEAKER_02: And I imagine Saul, as he went back, he must have started thinking, man, what he said made a lot of sense.
SPEAKER_02: And as you know, he was the author of much of the New Testament.
SPEAKER_01: Well, no, it's so hard when we have those like deeply held beliefs.
SPEAKER_01: So I mean, you can you can almost um empathize with the folks that are so ticked off with Stephen, right?
SPEAKER_01: Because he has just taken, you know, kind of taken the legs out from what they thought their life was supposed to look like, what it meant to be a good person uh that follows the Lord, right?
SPEAKER_01: And I I think it's so hard for us sometimes to be able to navigate that.
SPEAKER_01: I you've got to share, bro.
SPEAKER_01: You've got to share.
SPEAKER_01: Remember that you told me about that story when you were in college about Jim Edwards and under taking the legs out from you.
SPEAKER_02: So you gotta share this.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so some of you know Jim Edwards, he was a professor at Whitworth for many years.
SPEAKER_02: Prior to that, he was my professor at Jamestown College, a little uh unknown Presbyterian school in North Dakota.
SPEAKER_02: Uh I found myself there um and Jim called me into his office once.
SPEAKER_02: And uh, you know, I'm 20 years old or 21.
SPEAKER_02: He says, Dan, I'm I'm concerned.
SPEAKER_02: You seem to have an interest in not succeeding academically.
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, who do you who are you?
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: And I was so uh upset by him speaking the truth, even though I didn't I couldn't unpack it because I didn't know if that was true.
SPEAKER_02: But you know, it took me about 20 or 30 years of reflecting on that.
SPEAKER_02: So, you know, I was and and and now being an old man, I can understand some of my background that may have lent to a fear of success or something I was not familiar with.
SPEAKER_02: And Jim had the courage to say something true to me, even though at that moment I didn't know how to how to process that.
SPEAKER_02: And thankfully Jim is still a good friend of mine.
SPEAKER_02: I saw him this summer.
SPEAKER_02: So um that was just an experience.
SPEAKER_01: Well, no, and see, and that's wild, because I mean, right, I think what's I I think the big hope of the world, I I really do think the Christian church is in so many ways the big hope of the world, right?
SPEAKER_01: Ultimately, Jesus Christ is the hope of the world, right?
SPEAKER_01: But on a smaller level, the church, on a on a local day-to-day level, the church is the hope of the world in that what we bring as we incarnate the gospel, right, is that we're the hope of the world because we we're these people who are not only um showing people the incarnation, right, in living it out, but we're all these people we we show people when we're living out our right lives correctly as Christians, we show people how to live life.
SPEAKER_01: Lives with people that aren't like us, with people who might offend us, right?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that like you were saying before, that what happens when we come to church?
SPEAKER_01: You come to church, you don't come to church to say, I'd like to come to a church where no one ever offends me, right?
SPEAKER_01: I I'd like to come to church and you'll never ask me to change.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, that that would be a completely unreasonable way to actually function, right, in a Christian church.
SPEAKER_01: Instead, it seems like, hey, come with us and we're all gonna be a little bit offended, right?
SPEAKER_01: Like the gospel's gonna offend everyone, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02: I I think so.
SPEAKER_02: I think the truth spoken in a world, our world or our culture that may be built partially on false truths or lies, the truth is always offensive.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus said, Hey, they don't like me, they're not gonna like you either.
SPEAKER_02: And so we shouldn't be surprised that as we live out the gospel in in our family, in our neighborhood, in our friends, in our community, that at times the truth of who Jesus is uh will make people bristle.
SPEAKER_02: And and but I think we still have the uh you know the requirement of of scripture to go to be salt and light, to be good news, even if, like Jim Edwards truth to me, kind of rubbed me the wrong way for a moment.
SPEAKER_02: And I I don't I don't believe in tough love.
SPEAKER_02: I believe that love is speaking the truth, even if it might cost me something.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: I I just think like what animated Stephen, right?
SPEAKER_01: This is the the big push, right?
SPEAKER_01: We've been looking at prayer throughout the summer.
SPEAKER_01: We see this, it's not a long prayer.
SPEAKER_01: We only are seeing a couple snippets about what he prayed, but these few little lines show us everything about Stephen, don't they?
SPEAKER_01: It says, Stephen looked up, right?
SPEAKER_01: He looked up, he sees these folks who are coming after him.
SPEAKER_01: It feels like the best thing Stephen could have done, his best strategy would have been to run.
SPEAKER_01: That's the best move.
SPEAKER_01: You don't look up, you look out, and you run as fast as you can, right?
SPEAKER_01: Like we've all heard the joke of like you go camping out in the woods, you don't need to be the fastest person out in the woods.
SPEAKER_01: You just need to be faster than the person the bear's gonna catch you, right?
SPEAKER_01: So he just like he should have run.
SPEAKER_01: Instead, he didn't.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, because he's looking and saying, I mean, this is what's wild.
SPEAKER_01: It feels like for Stephen, this is where we see the resurrection changing everything.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: The resurrection changed everything for Stephen.
SPEAKER_01: He's not looking and saying, I must protect and save my own life at all costs.
SPEAKER_01: He says instead, I need to be united to Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, this is what's amazing.
SPEAKER_01: He must have lived a life where he was so constantly led by the Spirit in communion with Jesus Christ that he looks and says, the thing in this moment that makes the most sense, what makes the most sense to him right then, is it to say, hey, I gotta run, I gotta get out of here, I gotta look out for number one.
SPEAKER_01: He looks and says, I'm looking toward Jesus, who's my source of strength in all of my times of trial.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what he does.
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_01: That's what he does at that moment.
SPEAKER_01: That's what's wild to me, right?
SPEAKER_01: And and he looks up and he says, because this is who I am, ultimately more than anything else, it is I am uh a son of the king, right?
SPEAKER_01: I'm related to Jesus Christ, right?
SPEAKER_01: And he's so confident in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Now he looks and says, Oh man, I can make it through anything.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: I just I think about this like culturally, and I know you and I want to talk about this a little bit culturally.
SPEAKER_01: And and I will tell you this, guys, he is so confident in the gospel, he's comfortable in culture.
SPEAKER_01: And some of you guys have heard me talk about this, right?
SPEAKER_01: You you see in this particular moment, he's got this moment where he is so confident in where he's going with Jesus Christ that he he knows he can face death.
SPEAKER_01: Most of us aren't facing death, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Right, right?
SPEAKER_01: Somebody gives you a hard time at work because you're too um clear about the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: Good news, they're not gonna kill you.
SPEAKER_01: But you might, you know, you might get fired or something, right?
SPEAKER_01: Um, you have a a friend um, you know, who you have a uh a conversation with as you talk more about the gospel, right?
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you look and say, Man, as Christians, I just don't know how to live in this contemporary moment.
SPEAKER_01: Do you guys ever feel like that?
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Where it's actually hard to navigate current American culture sometimes as a Christian.
SPEAKER_01: So I think it was John Dixon.
SPEAKER_01: I know you and I have talked about this guy.
SPEAKER_01: I think it was John Dixon who was saying, the more confident we are in Christ, the more um comfortable we are in culture.
SPEAKER_01: Because if you believe in the truth of the gospel, you actually don't have to freak out when you're with in a country or with people who are quite different than you.
SPEAKER_01: Because you know, oh, the overriding truth of the gospel, that transforms everything, right?
SPEAKER_01: I actually think it's those people that are the most comfortable or the most comfortable in our current culture, right?
SPEAKER_01: I I'm curious, man.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, when you look at some of the Christians, because you it's facing deep antagonism.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, tell us about that.
SPEAKER_01: Like the folks you've worked with, when they face antagonism, how do they pray?
SPEAKER_01: How do they make it, right?
SPEAKER_01: In cultures that are very difficult.
SPEAKER_02: You know what I would just say, the thing I notice is that they have a tremendous, a deep, abiding understanding of their identity as children of the Father.
SPEAKER_02: And I think for me, when I when I begin to associate my identity with my country or my politics or my you know background, that's when it gets blurry and I don't have the confidence.
SPEAKER_02: I you know, I think if you've met, yeah, C and he's been here.
SPEAKER_02: And uh when we moved to Morocco, we met a lot of well, not a lot because we weren't a lot there, but those that we met that were Moroccan believers.
SPEAKER_02: I we knew some that were waterboarded, electrocuted, you know, sleep deprivation, these are kids, to get information on Westerners that were living there uh as missionaries.
SPEAKER_02: And I remember talking to to you know, some of the the believers that just in spite of those experiences, they they just had a courage that I that I wish that I had.
SPEAKER_02: And I I remember talking to I said, uh and I asking us, I can't remember even the guy's names many years ago, probably 14 years ago.
SPEAKER_02: I said, aren't you afraid of what they'll do?
SPEAKER_02: And that you can go to prison if you're uh publicly proclaiming Jesus in in this country.
SPEAKER_02: He says, The police have to do their job, and I respect that.
SPEAKER_02: I have to do my job as a person of faith.
SPEAKER_02: And if if it it causes me to go to jail, there are plenty of people in a Moroccan prison that do not know the truth, the liberty and love of the Father.
SPEAKER_02: And I'll have an opportunity in those places.
SPEAKER_02: Yassine has been brought before the police multiple times for the things that he does in the city of Fez and beyond.
SPEAKER_02: And I I again I don't have that kind of courage, and he's only his mid-thirties now.
SPEAKER_02: But he goes and he sits and he listens and they say, We know everything about you.
SPEAKER_02: We know this, and and and more often than not, well, without exception, honestly, um that passage in the second chapter of Acts, verse 47, that or maybe it's 46, where it says, The community was blessed by the faithfulness of the fellowship of the believers.
SPEAKER_02: The the country of Morocco is blessed by the faithfulness of Yassin and his band of believers that gather together, worship together, read scripture together, and plan things to where in the city of Fez, they have over 6,000 kids come to a young life Ramadan soccer event throughout the month.
SPEAKER_02: If that kind of gathering doesn't get the attention of the authorities, nothing will.
SPEAKER_02: And it does.
SPEAKER_02: But when he goes and says before the police, they're like, Man, we love what you're doing.
SPEAKER_02: Be careful.
SPEAKER_02: But man, what you are blessing this community.
SPEAKER_01: See, and that's what's incredible to me, where he has these folks who he could easily say, These are my enemies, right?
SPEAKER_01: These are my enemies.
SPEAKER_01: Instead, it seems like he says, I'm gonna be, I'm willing to actually move closer to my enemies, exactly, make them friends.
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: I'm making them friends.
SPEAKER_01: That's what's wild.
SPEAKER_01: Stephen, the end of this prayer, right?
SPEAKER_01: You would look and say, He didn't run, maybe bad strategy on Stephen's part, right?
SPEAKER_01: Could have ran, could have got away, um decide, you know, doesn't run.
SPEAKER_01: He prays instead.
SPEAKER_01: As a Christian, that's a better move.
SPEAKER_01: And then, sorry, that was a joke.
SPEAKER_01: And then um then his prayer.
SPEAKER_01: He has said, these folks aren't my enemy, right?
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we get so locked in on the people that are against us.
SPEAKER_01: What's he do instead?
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't say, in his last final word, he knows he's gonna he's not gonna make it, he knows he's gonna die.
SPEAKER_01: And he says, this is where it gets crazy.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't say, God, get him, bring down the fire now, be like with with Elijah and the the you know, the priest of Baal.
SPEAKER_01: Get him, God.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Lord Jesus, don't hold this sin against them.
SPEAKER_01: I guess this is wild.
SPEAKER_01: So um in this book, some of you guys have heard me reference it before, Bullies and Saints, John Dixon says, what the what happened in the early Christian church that transformed the Roman Empire and then the whole world was that what occurred was that early Christians saw that in the cross Jesus lost, but then in the resurrection, ultimately he had victory.
SPEAKER_01: The way that early Christians saw this and lived it out was they said, sometimes we're gonna have to lose before we win.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Here, what happens is Stephen knows I'm gonna lose today.
SPEAKER_01: But you know what?
SPEAKER_01: Ultimately I'm gonna win because what happened to Jesus on the cross, and then with him being resurrected, that's gonna happen to me.
SPEAKER_01: That was his ultimate hope.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that, friends, that's that to me is the wild part about Stephen.
SPEAKER_01: He has this sure faith, not that he was an amazing Christian, right?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, and what I mean by that is his hope wasn't in that he was a good enough Christian that Jesus will resurrect in him.
SPEAKER_01: His faith was that Jesus was faithful enough and Jesus was so good that Jesus will do the work, right?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, his faith rests on God's faithfulness.
SPEAKER_01: That that's what's incredible.
SPEAKER_01: Um don't hold that sin against him.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, this is incredible.
SPEAKER_01: Let's kill I mean this is thanks, Dan, so much for sharing.
SPEAKER_01: You bet.
SPEAKER_01: Any final words, bro?
SPEAKER_02: Well, I had just one final I think about the big things are the small things we do.
SPEAKER_02: And in in coming in close proximity, those that may be different than us.
SPEAKER_02: And I was thinking about uh Sabrina, uh your grandfather, who uh was with Jim Rayburn, the founder of Young Life at Dallas Seminary in the late 30s.
SPEAKER_02: And and he was called by a Presbyterian pastor to a small town in Texas, I can't remember the name of it, to come and work in that church.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: But unbeknownst to that pastor or Jim or your grandfather, there were two elderly women that lived in close proximity to the public high school.
SPEAKER_02: And they prayed faithfully for kids that they saw going in and going out of that school.
SPEAKER_02: And I'm sure they had no idea that 85 years later that Jim Rayburn and your grandfather, I can't remember his name, would start this movement of young life reaching lost kids in middle schools and high schools, not only in Texas, not only in America, but in over a hundred and ten different nations around the world by the faithfulness of two unknown ladies that just prayed for that school.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: I just think of the power of that prayer and the impact globally out of a small little town in Texas.
SPEAKER_01: But that that's what's incredible.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you look and say the early Christian church to today, right?
SPEAKER_01: These amazing agents of reconciliation, right?
SPEAKER_01: When like people are living into the gospel of saying, wow, they're making peace wherever they go, right?
SPEAKER_01: They're they're bringing folks who would be natural enemies and turning them into friends.
SPEAKER_01: But then not only that, they're because of that, they're showing, hey, you too can be a friend of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: That's our call.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_01: Father in heaven, thank you so much for today.
SPEAKER_01: God, thank you that you call us as your daughters and sons.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, you we are the people of your pasture.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, you've called us to yourself.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, even in the midst of incredible trials, Lord, when we are in times where we feel all alone, Lord, and we feel surrounded, Lord, help us know that you are the one actually fighting our battles.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, that we so often as Christians, we feel like we've got to fight.
SPEAKER_01: But it turns out, Jesus, you're the one fighting for us, and we can trust that.
SPEAKER_01: So, Lord, help us to put our hands down.
SPEAKER_01: Help us with folks that seem like they would be our enemies.
SPEAKER_01: Give us the kindness, the winsome approach that would be able to make them those enemies' friends.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, we love you, God.
SPEAKER_01: In Christ's name we pray.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
unknown: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: All right.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.
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