Obstacles in Your Life

00:01 Reach you all in the name of Jesus, our Lord and Savior. Let the church say, Amen. It's been good to be together this morning and to sing the songs of Zion. Wish I could sing a little bit better. I'm struggling with a bit of a cold, so I'll try not to get too heavy into coughing this morning. 00:18 If I could ask you a question for you to think about as we turn to Acts chapter six this morning, what would there be in your life or obstacles in your life that if you had a mind to, you could see God using it as an opportunity? 00:40 What obstacles are there in our lives that with a mental shift, a shift in attitude, a shift in observation, a shift in prayer, we might be able to say, 00:55 "God is using this," or maybe it's a situation you can look back on that God has used this as an opportunity to grow, as an opportunity to change, as an opportunity to adjust course, as an opportunity to enter into a season of maybe even ministry that would have been unthought of, 01:16 unheard of. Maybe it wouldn't even have crossed your mind before. And so it is as we come to Acts chapter six, we have the enemy throwing some obstacles in front of the church. Now, he's been doing that in Acts chapter three, four, and five. 01:35 He was throwing persecution up in front of the church at the beginning or in chapter three. That mild, mild opposition by the leaders. And then in Acts chapter five, it became even more intense where they actually imprisoned the leaders and said, "Not only are you going to not preach in this name anymore, 01:55 we're going to scourge you and flog you and beat you to teach you a lesson." So that was the attack of persecution, which more is coming in the book of Acts. And then there was the attack of hypocrisy and of lying to God and Ananias and Sapphira, pretending to be something that they were not, 02:16 lying to the Holy Spirit, lying to Peter, and the crushing discipline that came upon them and upon the church so that great fear fell upon the church. And it changed the atmosphere, "Lest there be grace," emphasized that makes us careless. 02:34 We were being taught in Acts chapter five that God is still the consuming fire and God's grace is not a license to sin and live in sin and practice sin. That God does deal directly with sin. Now, this morning in chapter six, we come to another frontal attack from the enemy. 02:55 And that is found in verse one. "Now in those days when the number of disciples was multiplying, there was a complaint against the Hebrews by the Hellenists because their widows were neglected in the daily distribution. Then the twelve summoned the multitude of the disciples and said, 'It is not desirable that we should leave the word of God and serve tables. 03:17 Therefore, brethren, seek out from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business. But we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word and the saying, 'Please the whole multitude.' And they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, 03:37 and Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Temon, Parmenas, and Nicholas, a proselyte from Antioch, whom they set before the apostles. And when they had prayed, they laid hands on them. Then the word of God spread and the number of disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith." Now, 03:59 up to this point, we've had perfect harmony and unity in the church. It has been a honeymoon period. And there's been a lot of wonderful things happening. The apostles are preaching. The people are responding. The church is being built. There's some opposition coming from the leaders of the community and of the culture of the religion, Jewish religion. 04:19 But basically, they're enjoying a time of great oneness. They were with one accord, one mind, one spirit, one heart, worshiping and serving God together. So it may have surprised them a bit when all of a sudden they started hearing messages of murmuring. Murmuring. 04:39 The new King James here says, "There arose a complaint." A complaint. The Greek word there means murmuring. It has the idea of an internal conflict that is being whispered about. It is a whispered nature of dissent. It is not necessarily loud opposition, 05:01 but an undercurrent that erodes community from within. Murmuring, we find out in Acts chapter twelve as it was read this morning, is a grievous sin. Now, this praise the Lord did not destroy the unity of the church, but it was threatening the unity of the church. 05:21 And so we don't read that this was necessarily had reached the level of sin. And yet, we know what God thinks about murmuring. God thinks about murmuring. It is a subtle but serious sin. The bottom line of murmuring is that it marrs the goodness of God and gives evidence of ungratefulness. 05:42 Whenever you have people that are murmuring, there's a certain amount of ungratefulness and a lack of praise. Murmuring corrodes faith and fellowship. And whether aimed at God or fellow saints, murmuring contradicts God's proven faithfulness, quenches joy, and fractures community. 06:02 The gospel supplies both motive and power to exchange secret dissatisfaction for public praise. If you want to overcome the sin of murmuring, then you must begin to praise because a thankful heart is a heart that doesn't murmur. A murmuring heart is a heart that isn't grateful. 06:22 And to remedy that, there must be praise on our lips, enabling the church to reflect the Lord with unshadowed light. And so the early Christian writers perceived the danger of murmuring. 06:38 And they recognized in the second and third centuries that the apostolic concern that murmuring destabilizes congregations. And throughout church history, revivals have often been stifled by internal gripes that, though quieter than heresy, proved just as destructive. 06:59 So it has the idea of a grumbling, a grudging, a secret displeasure, not open dissent, but it's something that you can hardly get your finger on. It's like the undertow of a community, undercurrent, you might say. This can happen in a home. 07:19 It can happen in a church. It can happen in a business. It can happen in the workplace. It can happen in school where there's just a heart issue manifesting itself in whispered dissent, private fault-finding, or open displeasure. 07:37 The Old Testament background we read about this morning in Exodus chapter sixteen is also in Numbers chapter fourteen, where the Bible says that they were ready to go into the land of Canaan. The spies came back from the land of Canaan, from the fact-finding tour that they had been on, twelve of them. And they came back and said, 07:56 "It's a great land and everything's on track except these people are going to eat us for lunch. They're giants and we can't go up against them." And ten men came from said bad about the land. And two men, Joshua and Caleb, stood up for God really and said, "We can do this. 08:15 God will be with us and God will help us." And the people conducted a murmur campaign. They grumbled. They complained. They murmured. They grudged. They were backbiting. And it destroyed and corroded faith and fellowship. 08:32 Scripture presents it as a heart issue manifesting itself in whispered dissent and is antithetical to our love for God and for others. In John chapter seven, the crowds murmured about Jesus' identity, whispering, complaining, muttering. In Philippians two, 08:51 verse fourteen, Paul commands them, "Do everything without complaining or arguing or grumbling." Now, he was telling that to the Philippian church. And in Acts chapter six, verse one here, we see this thing of murmuring against the Hebrews by the Hellenists. 09:11 We must understand now what the nature of the people that were murmuring and the nature of the murmur and what it was causing, the problems it was causing. But let me just say this: cultivating faith-filled speech is an important aspect of overcoming murmuring, 09:32 replacing hidden complaint with honest, grace-saturated conversion, a conversation that honors Christ and edifies His body. Now, where there's something to murmur about, what should we do? Well, first of all, we should give thanks. And then secondly, we should have a conversation with those to whom we have a grievance. 09:53 And that's the way mature believers handle their issues. I remember having in front of me a poem that goes like this: "Today upon a bus I saw a lovely maid with golden hair. I envied her and, oh, I wished I were so fair. When suddenly she rose to leave, I saw her hobble down the aisle. 10:14 She had one foot and wore a crutch. But as she passed, a smile. O God, forgive me when I whine. I have two feet and the world is mine. And when I stopped to buy some sweets, the lad who served me had such charm. He seemed to radiate such cheer. His manner was so kind and warm. 10:35 I said, 'It's nice to deal with you. Such courtesy I seldom find.' He turned and said, 'Oh, thank you, sir.' And then I saw that he was blind. O God, forgive me when I whine. I have two eyes and the world is mine. Then walking down the street, I saw a child with eyes of blue. 10:57 He stood and watched the others play. It seemed he knew not what to do. I stopped the moment. Then I said, 'Why don't you join the others, dear?' He looked ahead without a word. And then I knew he couldn't hear. O God, forgive me when I whine. 11:17 I have two ears and the world is mine. With feet to take me where I'd go, with eyes to see the sunset's glow, with ears to hear what I should know. O God, forgive me when I whine. I'm blessed indeed and the world is mine." So when you're tempted to complain, 11:38 when you're tempted to murmur, remember that little poem. Remember when you look around, you can see people with far worse situations than yours. And thank God in prayer. And praise God for those people He has put in your life to help you on your way to glory. So how did this church put down murmuring? 12:00 Well, we have to understand the setting here. The setting was that we have the Hellenists and the Hebrews, Jews, and their widows. We've already established in the first part of the book that there was a great philanthropy happening here and sharing. 12:20 And people were providing for the needs of others. But somewhere along the line, some squabbles developed because people perceived that things were not being fairly distributed. You had the Hellenistic Jews. 12:37 The Hellenistic Jews were Greek-speaking Jews who had been dispersed during the Babylonian captivity and had moved in various places from Babylon. And some of them had come back. But they had been deeply influenced by the Greek-speaking world, by the Greek-speaking culture. 12:57 And some had returned to Jerusalem and more or less influenced the larger culture around them with how they debated, how they were educated, how they spoke. You could tell a Hellenistic Jew. It was like maybe like somebody who comes from the south. You know, their speech betrays them. 13:18 There is an accent there. You could tell who was a Hellenistic Jew versus the Hebrew Jews. The Hebrew Jews had come back to Jerusalem after the Babylonian captivity. And they probably came back with Ezra and Nehemiah. And they spoke either Hebrew or Aramaic. 13:37 And they looked at things through the lens of of of biblical Judaism and and and of Hebrew mentality where the Greek Jews looked at things a little bit more open-mindedly, a little bit more with Greek flavor. And so there was a racial component to this. Interesting how the more things change, 13:58 the more they stay the same. There was a racial dynamic to this controversy. And the church had taken on this role to divvy out the things that had been contributed. And they had inherited this from the Jewish community, which was very philanthropic. 14:17 They were very into helping the widows and the poor and the people who needed assistance, both temporary assistance and long-term assistance. And so this was threatening the unity of the church. 14:31 And the twelve disciples, some of the multitude of the disciples instead, "It's not desirable for us to leave the Word of God and serve tables." Now, there's nothing wrong with serving tables as a deacon if that's what your role is and that's what your gifting is and that's what your call is. Nothing wrong with that. 14:50 They just didn't have that in place yet. And there's nothing wrong with having a group of people that are more dedicated to the preaching of the Word, the teaching of the Word, and the prayer and the spiritual atmosphere and spiritual life of the congregation. 15:07 The apostles found themselves in a similar situation as Moses when Moses was told by Jethro, "You take too much on yourself." So find seventy men in that great ancient group of people, millions of people out there in the wilderness. 15:22 Find seventy men that you can appoint over hundreds and fifties and tens and over various responsibilities and judge in your place. And then bring the hard stuff to you. And so they're using that model. And they're saying, "It's not good for us to neglect the Word of God and serve the tables. 15:40 So we want you to appoint seven men." Interestingly enough, that all seven of these men had Greek names. They were all Greek Hellenistic Jews. One of them was a Gentile proselyte. You read that in verse eight, verse five rather. 15:59 "Nicholas, a proselyte from Antioch." He was one who had come from the Greek-speaking world and was probably a Gentile and who had become circumcised and was keeping the law as a Jewish person, had come to faith in Christ. And he was now being selected as a deacon. We would call them deacons. I would look at this chapter six as the first part, 16:20 the first call of the deacons into the church. There's a diversity of opinion amongst the Bible scholars and commentators as to whether or not this was actually the beginning of the deacons or whether... Because the only thing you have here calling them deacons is the word there where it says, 16:40 "Serve tables" in verse two is the Greek word for diaconate or the deacon role, the role of a deacon. So that becomes more enlarged and developed through the years to come. And insomuch that now today many churches have deacons. Many churches have multiple deacons. 16:59 Some churches use their deacons like we use our elders. So what is the role of a deacon? Well, in the New Testament, the deacon role is primarily to minister to the physical needs of the people as they arise. So when we called our first deacon here at Living Water back in about 2008, I think it was, we had this responsibility for them. 17:20 This responsibility hasn't really changed. And I'll read it to you. The role of the New Testament deacon is to minister to the physical needs of people as they arise. First, within the congregation. Second, within the larger community of believers. And third, in the unbelieving community. He and his wife are the congregation's chief agents of mercy, 17:43 coordinating the mercy ministry of the church as it reaches out to the poor, the homeless, the shut-in, the disabled, and others undergoing physical trials. The deacon will be available for financial counsel and accountability, balancing financial assistance with God's overall purpose of spiritual growth and maturity. 18:03 Therefore, he shall work alongside the pastors in addressing the needs of the whole person. He shall be active in visitation, giving special consideration to the widow and the fatherless, the shut-in and the sick, offering comfort, encouragement, and Christ-like heartfelt sympathy and assistance. The deacon will be considered part of the leadership team. 18:24 He will be expected to work under the pastors in love and harmony, serving Christ and the church faithfully. Since the New Testament deacons had oversight of the financial resources of the church, he shall serve as a member of the finance committee, which we had made changes in that since then. 18:41 It was now called the Deacon Committee, with primary responsibility for dispersing money from the Benevolence Fund as needs arise and in consultation with the pastors. 18:53 And so I would like to just at this time pay public tribute to our deacons and especially to Brother Lynn and Sister Trina as they've served this role for 18... Going on 19 years, something like that. And have done a wonderful job. And we have had others serve as lay deacons through the years. 19:13 And now it's Brother Leon and Brother Lawrence serving as lay deacons. We want to thank them very much for the role that they fill in our congregation of coordinating the mercy ministries of the church and overseeing the financial life of the church. 19:27 And so it's a biblical role to free us pastors for the responsibility of preaching and teaching and nurturing and shepherding. And so we find that great caution needed to be used in selecting these men. Verse or verse three. What are their reputations? 19:46 What was their character qualities? What were their qualifications? Well, there were to be seven of them. They were to be of good reputation under the control and direction of the Holy Spirit. They were to be wise men who had good sense and spiritual maturity. Reading between the lines, 20:06 we would say that they needed to work well with others. Being spirit-filled will help you to be able to do that, work well with others. And have a good willingness to take responsibility, to shoulder those responsibilities. They were selected by the church, presented to the apostles. 20:24 Hands were laid on them as a symbolic conveying of spiritual authority and responsibility. And the results were... Verse seven. 20:33 "The Word of God spread and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem and a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith." I mean, this was making inroads into into the into Judaism here. The church was on the move again. 20:48 So what had appeared to be an obstacle became an opportunity for God's Word to grow and mature in the church. 20:58 And so maybe that can happen in your life as well, in my life, if we have the ability to see beyond the problem to the to the solution and beyond the obstacle to the opportunity. Now we come to verse eight. "And Stephen, full of faith and power, did great wonders and signs among the people. 21:21 Then there arose some from what is called the synagogue of the Freedmen, Cyrenians, Alexandrians, and those from Cilicia and Asia, disputing with Stephen. And they were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he spoke. 21:36 Then they secretly induced men to say, 'We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God.' And they stirred up the people, the elders, and the scribes. And they came upon him, seized him, and brought him to the council. 21:50 They also set up false witnesses who said, 'This man does not cease to speak blasphemous words against this holy place and the law.' But we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs to which Moses delivered to us. 22:06 And all who sat in the council looked steadfastly at him and saw his face as the face of an angel." And so here we have these seven men. Over a period of time, we're not told how much time has he left between verse seven and verse eight. Over a period of time, Stephen's ministry became a ministry of apologetics in the real sense. 22:28 Apologetics is giving a defense for the faith. And he was an apologist. He was giving a defense for the Christian faith to the Hellenistic Jews that had not become believers. And they had come from the synagogues of the Freedmen: Cyrenians, Alexandrians, Cilicians, and Asians. 22:50 So here we have Stephen, the man full of faith. In chapter six, verse five. He was full of faith. In chapter six, verse three and ten, he was full of wisdom. Verse ten, "They were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he spoke. 23:10 He was full of power, doing signs and wonders among the people. He was full of light, the light even shone on his face." Interesting that they're accusing him of speaking against the law of Moses. And yet he's having the same Shekinah glory on his face as what Moses had. 23:30 It's amazing how that worked. And so they were being condemned even by his very countenance. And then we find that he was full of vision. 23:40 In chapter seven, verse 55 and 56, we read it like this: "That he, being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God and said, 'Look, I see the heavens open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.'" And that really ticked them off. 23:59 And they they became ravenous and took up stones. And we know the end result. They stoned him. But my point is, in looking at this, everything that that Stephen did and what he said and what happened to him was was culminated in people seeing Jesus, 24:19 both on his countenance and him seeing a vision of Christ. Oh, that we might also see a vision of Christ. Not a physical vision necessarily, but a spiritual vision of Jesus and his love and mercy, kindness, and grace and truth. 24:37 And then we see the full expression of his faithfulness. We're talking about the fullness of God in Stephen when he gave up his life as a martyr to the cause of Christ. Now we see in verse eight that he was full of faith and power and did great wonders and signs among the people. I do need to take a step back, 24:57 back up a little bit and say I may have left a wrong impression in my last message because I have been corrected by the Word of God. 25:07 And also by a question from one of our our our members who asked me a question about, "Was it only the apostles who did signs and wonders?" And I was not thinking about Stephen at the time. But Stephen was not an apostle. 25:24 "Stephen, however, had been laid hands upon by the apostles and had conveyed a spiritual authority in the laying on of hands and a giftedness." And so the answer to the question is, "Can signs and wonders only be done by an apostle?" I guess the answer would have to be no. 25:43 Because we do have some other people in Scripture that did perform signs and wonders. So I take a step back from that. That here it was Stephen. 25:53 "Uh Generally, however, the signs and wonders followed a pattern that they were used and especially evident when the gospel was being introduced to a new um field." You'll see it again when it came to the Samaritans. You'll see it again when it came to the Gentiles. 26:12 You see it here as it's coming uh into the the Hellenistic Jewish unbelievers, uh the community of the Hellenistic Jews. And uh you see this happening where the gospel is introduced and there are there are signs and wonders uh that happen that are amazing. 26:30 God substantiating His message and drawing attention to His message and not necessarily to the signs themselves, which is what Jesus, I think, um appealed to when He said, 26:45 " um A wicked and perverse generation seeks after a sign." And so we are not to be seeking after signs. But if signs happen, bless the Lord. Uh But we don't seek after them. A sign... 26:59 The difference is uh a person who's seeking God may be may have an opportunity to see God work in an amazing way. Twice this week, I have heard of people in the context of of searching for God, searching for God, 27:19 who have asked the Lord for a sign. "Lord, if You are real, would You show me?" And God showed them in a dramatic way. 27:32 Missions, evangelism, people hungry for God. That is very different than the crowd in John chapter six who said, "Jesus, give us another sign so we don't have to go to work and bake bread and make make our own meals and we can have uh uh an earthly kingdom. And and we just want to have You just keep feeding us, 27:51 feeding us, feeding us." It's very different, very different. Jesus condemned the one. But when it's done from a heart of sincerity, "Lord, if You are real..." I've heard this over and over and over in prison ministry. People that don't know what to think. They don't know what to believe. They hear about Christ. They hear about God and say, "God, 28:10 if You are real, somehow get through to me." And God does. And so I believe it was Brother Leon who has said... I've heard him say it and I'll say it on his behalf this morning. If you want to see signs and wonders, get involved in evangelism. Get involved in evangelism. 28:28 Because that's where the signs and wonders tend to go out front. And then as you see the gospel being embraced, you see the signs and wonders begin to subside. Even in the by the end of the book of Acts, there are very few signs and wonders being uh emphasized in the book of Acts. 28:49 They have have largely subsided. Doesn't mean that they ended. Uh But they have largely subsided. They are no longer the focus. Uh Some time ago we had uh some folks here from Greece and the gospel being introduced into the Grecian culture and uh immigrants coming out of the Middle East and some of the signs and and miracles that were happening there. 29:11 Let's just say it like this: That God still does miracles. He still He still answers prayer. But we should not seek after that. We should be seeking after Him, after Jesus Christ. And not after something to fill our bellies. John chapter six. 29:31 So the crisis here intensifies these Hellenistic Jews who had returned to Jerusalem. The Cyrenians and the Alexandrians came from west of Jerusalem, from uh North Africa. And the Cilicians and the Asians were from northwest of Jerusalem. 29:52 And uh the Cilicians and the Asians uh came from uh the region of Tarsus. Tarsus was in that region, the region of Cilicia. And who do we know came from Tarsus? Saul. 30:09 What is happening here in chapter six is that Luke is getting ready to introduce Saul, Paul, and the great transformation that will take place in his life. But he will become the villain in this in this account before he becomes the hero. 30:31 And so we find out that Paul... Saul, we'll call him Saul until the Bible changes his name. We'll find out that Saul not only in verse 60 of chapter seven was consenting... uh to the 59 of chapter seven was consenting to... No, it's 58. To the uh uh the death of Stephen. 30:53 But I think that Saul was probably one of the masterminds of the death of Stephen. They used the same playbook that was used against Jesus. You remember the accusation, the false accusers of Jesus who said, "This man spoke against the temple." Because Jesus had said, 31:13 "Destroy this temple and I will build it again in three days." And they said... They scoffed at Jesus and said, "This temple has been 46 years or however many years in the building and you're going to destroy it and then and then build it in three days? You're crazy. Furthermore, you're speaking against the place where God meets with us." And that's not what Jesus was talking about. 31:33 Jesus was talking about destroying the temple of His body. His body... He was the temple of God. Destroy this body that houses the temple of God. And in three days, I will raise it up again. You know, the devil at times is not very creative. He just reached back to that old playbook and said, "Well, I tried it against Jesus. 31:53 Let's see if we can try it against Stephen." And the result was the same. False accusation, believed by the leaders, condemned by the leaders, and death. But that death only spurs new life. So the temple was the most holy place. 32:12 And everyone was to go back to Jerusalem at least three times a year. The men were to go back to Jerusalem to celebrate the feasts, several of the feasts. They went to the temple. Jesus said, "One greater than the temple is here." And so as Paul or as Stephen begins to articulate these things in his conversations with the Cyrenians and Alexandrians and Cilicians and the Asians, 32:34 the Hellenistic Jewish unbelievers, they could easily come to the same conclusion that he's speaking against the temple. And then they brought him accusation that he was speaking against the law. Again, he was following the pattern of Jesus. Jesus did not speak against the law of Moses. Jesus spoke against their law, 32:56 the the law of the Pharisees. He emphasized their their inconsistencies. He emphasized their their false piety and false humility. And he emphasized the fact that their heart was far from God even while they were keeping a ritual. And I think Stephen was doing the same thing, the same thing. 33:18 Jesus, and according to my recollection, never spoke against the Old Testament and the law of Moses. He affirmed that. He said, "I am not come to destroy the law but to fulfill it. 33:34 And not one jot or one tittle shall in any wise pass from the law until all be fulfilled." And so Jesus said, "I will fulfill the law. I have fulfilled the law." And so when when Stephen says up and says, "Jesus fulfilled the law," it again sounds to them like he's speaking against the law of Moses. 33:54 So the long and short of it was they couldn't argue against His wisdom and His words and His argument. So they falsely accused Him and used a power ploy to destroy Him. Isn't that typical of what happens to many in many circles today? When we cannot win an argument, we resort to character assassination. 34:16 You see it in politics, whether those politics be in churches or whether they be in communities or whether they be in politics. He was arrested, taken to the council, falsely accused. But you can literally say he came out shining brightly. 34:37 Oh, all that sat in the council looking steadfastly at Him saw His face as the face of an angel. That same Shekinah glory that that came to Moses' face as he gazed upon the backside of God in the cleft of the rock. 34:56 That same Shekinah glory is radiating now in Stephen's face. And there is no way you can take that away from a man. There's no way you can take that away from a witness. And so Stephen has a great testimony he has left the church with. 35:14 A great testimony of how to die well for Jesus. Of how to live well for Jesus. Of how to speak well for Jesus. Of how to give one's life for Jesus. 35:29 So again, we may have asked the question this morning: What obstacles are you facing that might just be an opportunity for you and me to extend and expand the kingdom of God and build the church of Jesus Christ? 35:48 Maybe another way to ask it is this: What would you want to be known by if they were writing your obituary? Or if people were remembering you for who you were and what you did? We remember the strangest things about people, do we not? I remember as a young man... 36:08 a young... probably a boy. I'm a young young teenager. I don't remember what age I was. There was a man in our church. He was an old man, probably in his 90s. Him and his wife... and they had a they had an old car. Uh It was a... um I don't remember if it was a Nash or or what it was. 36:28 But they would they would drive it to church every Sunday. And they'd hobble into church. Skinshrock was his name. And his real name was Elmer. And another thing I remember about Skinshrock... You remember the strangest things about people. But I remember one night after church, he got in his car and his brakes squeaked. 36:48 And so he drove up and down in front of the church. I don't remember how many times. Maybe he was just on his way out. I don't remember. But I he he he intentionally and deliberately just rode the brakes all the way past the church. Just real slow, real slow. Squeaking, squeaking as he went. That's what I remember about Skinshrock. And what about that? 37:08 That's a crazy thing to remember. What do we remember about people? What do you want people to remember about you? We remember some of the strangest things. Wouldn't we want to be remembered for God's wisdom in our lives, faith in Jesus Christ, grace, spiritual power, 37:29 irrefutable proclamation of the truth, and that we pointed people to Christ? Instead, we oftentimes seek fame and we seek the things that the world has to offer. We think, "What if I could remember... be remembered as a great this or that, a good cook, a top-notch mechanic, a great leader, a great singer? 37:48 If I could remember for being a nice man, a nice person who gave out candy?" Nothing wrong with giving out candy. But, uh oh, that we might be remembered for more than that. The being... being the more than just a good mechanic. Nothing wrong with being a top-notch mechanic. 38:04 Nothing wrong with with, uh being known for your intelligence and your and your your your ability to think things through. But think things through for Jesus. Being a top-notch mechanic for Jesus. Be a great leader for Jesus. Stand out for Jesus. Give out your candy in the name of Jesus. Be a nice person for Jesus. 38:23 And whatever positions or possessions that you have, do it for Jesus so that Christ might be seen. So that when people look at us, they might see us shining brightly for the Lord. You see, it all has to do with chapter seven, verse 56. 38:45 Look on Jesus. I see Him. Do you see Him? Can't you see Him, folks? Look, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. But that'll get a response. 39:05 It may not even be a thank you. It might be they stop their their ears with their... put their fingers in their ears and run at you with stones. 39:15 But, oh, better to be stoned for Jesus and to be remembered as one of God's children and God's servants than to be lauded with fame and fortune and and and and popularity from the world. So watch your murmuring. Give thanks. 39:36 Share the gospel. Live for Jesus. Grow in wisdom, grace, and knowledge and power. And let God shine through you. Let's pray. Lord, thank You for this powerful passage of Scripture. 39:55 How did You take even racial issues in the early church and made that obstacle an opportunity? 40:03 And You took the deacons and You used them. And You used the apostles. And You used the congregation to speak in the selection of these men of God. And You even used Saul, the villain that he was, 40:24 to extend and expand the kingdom of God. And to do one of the greatest miracles that has ever been done to a man or a woman: to change us into being like Christ. May we see Christ in one another. May we see Christ in in in our testimonies and in our actions, 40:45 in our responses. And may we show forth the glory of God. Lord, grip us with Your glory and keep us in the grip of grace. Through Christ, we pray. Amen.