Summit Life with J.D. Greear

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Today on Summit Life with JD. Greer.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
The Jewish priest had been very antagonistic towards Jesus, had
they not. Now their hearts are changed from being antagonizers
of Jesus to instead being believers in Jesus.

Speaker 3 (00:11):
How did they change?

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Was it because of some unbelievable apologetic sermon that Peter
got up in priests where he defended the resurrection. No,
their hearts were changed by seeing the Church pour out
itself in service to the poor around them. That's what
changed the hearts of the antagonists.

Speaker 4 (00:35):
Welcome to another week of Biblical teaching on Summit Life
with Pastor JD.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
Greer.

Speaker 4 (00:40):
As always, I'm your host, Molly Videvich. You know, one
of the outworkings of the Gospel is that it will
inevitably reorder your value system. Things that weren't important become important,
and all of the other stuff kind of fades into
the background. This is exactly what we find in the
Book of Acts as we continue our teaching series called Scent,

(01:01):
and it's what we see in the life of an
ordinary man named Stephen.

Speaker 1 (01:04):
He realized the value of the Gospel.

Speaker 4 (01:06):
And was willing to risk everything to preach it. It's
because of common people like Stephen that the early church grew.
Today we'll explore Stephen's ordinary life and his impactful ministry.
So grab your Bible in a pen and let's get started.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
So, if you have your Bible and you want to
take it out and open it or turn it on
to Acts chapter six, we are going to come today
to the story of the very first Christian martyr, the
very first Christian martyr. And in the story of this man,
you were going to see the profile of the ordinary.
If I could say that the profile of the ordinary

(01:43):
Christian man. This guy is not an apostle, he's not
a church leader, he's just an average guy. But it
is because of guys and girls like him that the
church grew so quickly. You see, in case you can't
remember what happened in Acts one through five. By this
point the church has become a huge movement. The Jerusalem

(02:05):
Church at this point is more than ten thousand people
big at least, and that's all in one city, Jerusalem,
the population of which could not.

Speaker 3 (02:15):
Have been more than forty thousand people.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
If we know that from this point, it's going to
spread like crazy all around the world. So the question
that you have to ask is why is it growing
like this? Kenneth Scott Lataret, who was a noted history
professor at Yale University, said, never in so short a
time has any other religious faith, or for that matter,
any set of ideas, religious, political, or economic, ever achieved

(02:42):
so commanding a position in such an important culture without
the aid of physical force or social or cultural prestige.
Other movements spread by conquest or politics. But that's not
true of Christianity. They had no congressmen, they didn't have
any actors, the people of influence.

Speaker 3 (03:01):
They were a group of, if.

Speaker 2 (03:02):
You will, blue collar people that changed the world.

Speaker 3 (03:05):
How and why.

Speaker 2 (03:07):
The answer, in part is the profile of the man
that you're going to see today. Stephen has one principle
that he lives by, one principle that makes him the
kind of guy that's going to hold the church together
when it's in real danger of fracturing.

Speaker 3 (03:21):
I'll show you that in a minute.

Speaker 2 (03:22):
He's one principle that causes him to help everything keep
moving forward when the enemy is pushing with great strength
against them. That one principle, I would say, has probably
made him a lot of fun to be around. It's
a principle that if you've ever met somebody like this,
you recognize it immediately in them. That principle I would

(03:43):
summarize in one statement, it's this he said, it's not
about me. He knew from start to finish. You'll see
this in his life. It's not really about me. Acts
Chapter six, verse one. Now, in these days, when the
Disciples were increasing in number, complaint by the Hellenist which
refers to Jews that come from Greek cultural roots. The

(04:06):
Greek word Hellos refers to the geographic region of Greece.
So a complaint against these Greek cultural people arose against
the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the
daily distribution. Now, this is a pretty dangerous problem because
there's an edge to it, isn't there.

Speaker 3 (04:25):
It's a racial problem. There's a group of people.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
Saying, you're prioritizing this group over here, over this group
over here because of their cultural ethnicity.

Speaker 3 (04:35):
You see.

Speaker 2 (04:35):
I would say there are two problems with this complaint. One,
they assign motives that they have no way of knowing.
You see where it says the text says the Hellenists
complained against the Hebrews. In other words, they assumed that
the Hebrews were leaving them out for racial or cultural reasons. Second,
they never brought this to the apostles. When the text

(04:58):
says a complaint arose, it implies there was this general
murmuring and backbiting going on that finally surfaced. There's a
lot of conversations happening in small groups that were like, well.

Speaker 3 (05:08):
You know, they don't care about us church.

Speaker 2 (05:10):
This is a significant threat because there is nothing that
is used by Satan more effectively in a church than
distrust and resentment. Satan's This is, by the way, Satan's
third major attack on the church. Acts four Satan attacked
it through a persecuting government, and Acts five he attacked
it through the embezzling hypocrisy of one of its leaders
and an iis and Saffi or his wife. Now in

(05:33):
Act six he pulls out his most insidious attack, and
that is he attacks it through an inward spirit of grumbling, distrust,
and backbiting. And this might be the most serious threat
that endangers the church. In fact, this is a tabbit
off topic, but you might want to jot this down.
A spirit of grumbling and complaining kills more churches than persecution,
they survive Acts four and five just fine. Acts six

(05:55):
threatens to undo them. Some of you been from churches
where you've seen this happen, have you not? It was
not persecution that killed your church. It was a spirit
of distrust and backbiting and murmuring, right, because that's just
some of the cultures that we come out of. Some
of you know all too well what it's like to
be in a church where you saw this kind of
distrust and murmuring destroy the church. Do you understand that

(06:19):
when you speak evil of your brothers and your sisters
in Christ, especially when you judge their motives, you are
being used by Satan.

Speaker 3 (06:30):
And I'll tell you something.

Speaker 2 (06:31):
That is a couple of rules that I live by
because I hate the work of Satan so badly.

Speaker 3 (06:36):
You might think this is naive.

Speaker 2 (06:37):
You might think it's overreaction, but I think it's appropriate
given how our enemy operates. Here are two of my
life rules. I try to teach them to our staff
team as well. Number one, always give people the benefit
of the doubt and the church about their motives when
you can. Until you prove to me that your motives
are bad, I'm going to assume they're good, all right,
So when I read your email and I'm like, I'm
assuming their motives are good, and so I'm gonna answer

(06:58):
it as if their motives are good. Number two, My
second rule that I am try to teach our team
to live by. It is, when you do have a problem,
always go straight to the source. Do you know how
much disharmony you would avoid if you operated that way?
So how did the church leadership respond? Defensively? Oh no,

(07:19):
you didn't.

Speaker 3 (07:20):
How dare you? Verse two?

Speaker 2 (07:25):
And it's well, some in the full number of the
disciples and said, it's not right that we should give
up preaching the word of God to serve tables. Therefore, brothers,
pick out from among you seven men of good repute,
full of the spirit and of wisdom, whom we will
appoint to this duty. But we will devote ourselves to
prayer into the ministry of the Word. And what they said,
please the whole gathering, now, please don't hear that as

(07:45):
the apostle saying this is beneath us. In fact, think
about this, the fact that they had to call these
extra leaders to do it when the load of widows
got larger than it had been implies that the apostles
had been the ones doing it in Acts one through five.
You see that they were the ones that were doing
it in Acts one through five. That's why they had
to call in reinforcements when the load got larger. The

(08:08):
apostles were doing that because they thought of themselves as servants.
They were followers of a man who had washed their feet.
So when there were widows that needed to be taken
care of in Acts one through five, naturally they assumed
that's our job. But now they realized that the load
is too heavy and it would consume their time. And
they know that the greatest act of service they can
provide the church is teaching the Word accurately, seeking God's

(08:31):
face for the will of God for the church in prayer,
and teaching other.

Speaker 3 (08:35):
People to teach the Word as well.

Speaker 2 (08:38):
Right, they know that's the greatest act of service they
can do, and so they've got to focus their time
on that. They're not graduating out of service to some
higher level. They're just focusing on the most effective kind
of service that they can give. But that means to
somebody who's got to do this other part of the
church ministry. So they chose Stephen Verse five, a man

(08:58):
full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip,
and a bunch of other guys whose names are really
hard to pronounce.

Speaker 3 (09:05):
Verse six.

Speaker 2 (09:07):
Then they set these before the apostles, and they prayed
and lay their hands on them. What's the result verse seven?
And the Word of God? Instead of a church split,
the Word of God continued to increase, and the number
of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great
many of the priests became obedient to the faith. Here's
a question, why the specific mention of priests. If a

(09:28):
great number of people are coming to faith, why I
single out this one group and comment on them. I
have a speculation that I think is accurate. You know
whose job it was in the Old Testament to take
care of poor widows priests.

Speaker 3 (09:40):
Now you've got an entire nation of people the church
acting as if they're priests, doing the job that priests do.

Speaker 2 (09:48):
The priest, the Jewish priest had been very antagonistic towards Jesus,
had they not They were the ones who led in
jesus crucifixion. Now their hearts are changed from being antagonizers
of Jesus to instead being believe in Jesus.

Speaker 3 (10:00):
How did they change?

Speaker 2 (10:03):
Was it because of some unbelievable apologetic sermon that Peter
got up and preest where he defended the resurrection. No,
their hearts were changed by seeing the church pour out
itself in service to the poor around them. That's what
changed the hearts of the antagonist verse eight. And Stephen,
who was one of those guys full of grace and power,
was doing great wonders and signs among the people. Evidently

(10:24):
Stephen was personally involved in a lot of the conversion
of many of these priests. Will these conversions, as you
can imagine, cause an uproar. When the city council gets saved,
that causes an uproar. So Stephen gets called before the
other religious leaders, which is another group of priests, to
answer for this. And in response, he preaches a sermon
that's going to be Acts Chapter seven. Acts, Chapter seven,

(10:45):
And that's the longest sermon, by the way, recorded in
the Book of Acts, which kind of makes me laugh
that the longest sermon the Book of Acts is preached
by a lay person, not like a professional, all right,
because you always complain about how long I preach. One
of you gets up here. It's going to be an
hour and a half. I guarantee it all right. But
which is the longest sermon in the Book of Acts.
And in that sermon Stephen makes basically two major points.
Number one, Israel, you've always resisted the prophets.

Speaker 3 (11:07):
That God sent to you.

Speaker 2 (11:08):
And number two, your law can't save you because a
you've never been able to keep it and be the
law can't give you a new heart, which you desperately need.
And then Stephen ends that long sermon with this rousing
word of encouragement verse fifty one. You stiff neck people,
uncircumcised and heart and ears.

Speaker 3 (11:25):
You always resist the Holy Spirit as your fathers did,
so do you? Sorry? Stiff neck?

Speaker 2 (11:31):
That's a Jewish metaphor for somebody that hardens their heart
against God. I think I've told you the story before,
but I was at a church leader gathering where there
was a guy speaking.

Speaker 3 (11:40):
Who they worship. I guess a little differently than we do.

Speaker 2 (11:43):
Get a little you know, they kind of probably have
running lanes built around the church and you know, things
to swing on, and and so at the end of
his talk, he said, I want every church leader to
come up here because I'm gonna pray for you, and
so you know, I'm a church leader.

Speaker 3 (11:54):
So I walked up there and that was about you.

Speaker 2 (11:56):
Know, I noticed him praying down the line, and I
noticed that everybody he prayed for would collect on the.

Speaker 3 (12:00):
Floor, and he was coming toward me.

Speaker 2 (12:02):
Now, I grew up in a little conervative Baptist church
and so we don't play like that. So he's coming
to me, and I was like, I said this to God.
I'm like, God, if you want to knock me on
my back, knock my shirt off and tattoo Jesus Loves
Me on my.

Speaker 3 (12:14):
Chest, I will gladly receive it. I will.

Speaker 2 (12:17):
But I'm not letting that man push me down, all right.
And so he comes goes on me. He pray, grabs
my head, starts praying over me, starts praying. He gets
a little more intense, and I can feel his hand
pushing me backwards. Kind of, my bro, that's not the
Holy Spirit, that's you, all right. And so he's pushing
and so I start pushing back. I say, you know,

(12:39):
I start pushing back on me. We'll just come this
little moment and for about twenty seconds we just kind
of had this yeah, and he just keeps praying louder
and then he, you know, walks, moves to the next person,
and I heard him muttering something about me being stiff negged,
you know, like like I'm resisting, but see I'm stiffening
my neck because I'm resisting when he's trying to push
on to me, and he What.

Speaker 3 (12:57):
Stephen is saying is that's how you've been toward God Israel.
You've always resisted.

Speaker 2 (13:00):
You stiffen your neck, and what God was trying to
do with you uncircumcised. That's kind of a vulgar statement,
isn't it When you say that about somebody hard or
their spirit. You're uncircumcised in art like your fathers did.

Speaker 3 (13:12):
That's what you do.

Speaker 2 (13:13):
Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? They
killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One,
whom you have now betrayed and murdered. You who received
the law as delivered by angels, and you never kept it.

Speaker 3 (13:25):
You want the truth, you can't handle the truth. That's
basically how he ended that.

Speaker 1 (13:30):
This is Summit Life with JD. Greer.

Speaker 4 (13:32):
For more information about this ministry, visit Jdgreer dot com.

Speaker 1 (13:36):
You know, following.

Speaker 4 (13:37):
Jesus doesn't always seem easy, and if you're like me, you've.

Speaker 1 (13:41):
Run into a lot of questions along the way. But
I've got good news.

Speaker 4 (13:45):
That's why we created a free resource we've recently been
telling you about that's available on demand. It's called the
Ask the Pastor Podcast. Each episode is about ten to
fifteen minutes and features a question from listeners just like
you about life, relationships, theology, the Bible, and so much more,
along with a wisdom filled answer from Pastor JD. You

(14:07):
can listen on your morning, can you, during your afternoon workout,
or any time that you want to hear honest questions
and quick answers from a biblical perspective. To listen to
the Ask the Pastor Podcast, visit Jdgreer dot com, slash Podcasts,
or search for it on your favorite podcasting app and
new this year, you can also subscribe and watch this

(14:28):
podcast on YouTube by searching for at j dot D
dot Greer. It's a great resource to share with others
as well, So continue your growth in the Lord by
utilizing this fun and valuable resource. Now, let's get back
to today's teaching with Pastor JD.

Speaker 1 (14:44):
Greer. Here on summit life.

Speaker 2 (14:47):
Now, when they heard these things, they were enraged, and
they gnash their teeth at him.

Speaker 3 (14:50):
What was that like? Yeah, I have no idea what
that means, but you get the image. They're pretty, They're
pretty ticked off verse fifty five.

Speaker 2 (14:58):
But he fooled the Holy Spirit gay into heaven and
saw the glory of God and Jesus standing in the
right hand of God. And he said, behold, I see
the heavens open, and the Son of Man's standing at
the right hand of God. Here again we see this
theme of priests emerge, because in Israel, the priest were
the only ones who were allowed to go into.

Speaker 3 (15:19):
The presence of God, and only once a year. And
now here is Stephen.

Speaker 2 (15:22):
Not a priest, not an apostle, not a church leader,
a regular guy who has direct access into the presence
of God.

Speaker 3 (15:27):
That which was reserved for.

Speaker 2 (15:29):
A special class of people in the Old Testament priest
has now become standard fair for every believer in the New.
That which was the responsibility of priest in the Old Testament,
which was taking care of the poor, has become the
responsibility of every believer in Christ in the New That
which was called priest in the Old Testament has been
transferred onto the church intotality in the New verse fifty seven.

(15:50):
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 they stoned him, and
the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of
it young man named Saul. That's a strange little detail,
is it not. We'll see this young man that they
laid their close down at his fee their coach to

(16:11):
stone him.

Speaker 3 (16:12):
Saul is going to undergo his own.

Speaker 2 (16:13):
Conversion in a couple of chapters, and God is going
to change his name to Paul verse fifty nine. As
they were stoning Stephen, he called out, Lord Jesus received
my spirit, And falling to his knees, he cried out
with a loud voice, Lord, do not hold the sin
against them, Father, forgive them. And when he had said this,

(16:34):
he fell asleep. There are five lessons that we can
learn from the life of Stephen. Here they are Number one,
the core of Christian commitment is service. Five lessons that
you can learn from the profile of the ordinary Christian.
Number one, the core of Christian commitment is service. Stephen

(16:57):
is introduced to us as a servant. His job was
not glorious. He waited tables for widows. He obviously was
a capable leader, a gifted theologian, and a good preacher.
But he did not say in Act six won, well,
I'm gonna need something a little bit more in line
with my gifts and my passions. Now, he said, it's

(17:18):
not about me, And if this is how I can.

Speaker 3 (17:21):
Serve the body of Christ best, I gladly will do it.

Speaker 2 (17:25):
And that service, though it seems insignificant to you and me,
had a huge effect on the church. Not only did
it preserve church unity at a time when the church
was threatened to be torn apart, it also led to
the conversion of some of the chief antagonists to the church,
the priest, and would lead to the conversion of the

(17:45):
chief persecutor of the church, which was Saul. That's probably
why Francis Schaeffer said love on display is the church's
most effective apologetic.

Speaker 3 (17:56):
Apologetic just means defense of the faith. That is why
some at church.

Speaker 2 (18:00):
Our desire at this church is to be a place
that is characterized by its service.

Speaker 3 (18:07):
More important to me than this being.

Speaker 2 (18:08):
A place characterized by its great music or its preaching,
is that we be known in our community as a
place that watches the feet of everybody. That's why, because
I know that in our community that has the more
powerful apologetic persuasion than even me standing up here preaching
sermons that proved beyond any shadow of the doubt.

Speaker 3 (18:30):
That Jesus was raised when they dead.

Speaker 2 (18:32):
I was talking to some of our campus pastors this
week and one of them shared a story with me.
He said, he said, there was a family of six
that was loosely connected to our church.

Speaker 3 (18:41):
They've been a couple of times.

Speaker 2 (18:42):
Well, something bad financial happened in in their their life
and they lost their home back in November. Well, another
Summit family knew about this, and they said, hey, we're
gonna get We got two or three families together. We're
getting you a place to live. They moved them in
the week before Christmas. This campus pastor said, what was
most impressive is I had nothing to do with it.
I just kind of watched it all unfolding as regular

(19:02):
people were taking care of this.

Speaker 3 (19:04):
When they moved them.

Speaker 2 (19:04):
In, they already had it decorated for Christmas and presents
bought for all the kids under the tree. This happens
repeatedly at our church, and.

Speaker 3 (19:11):
I love it.

Speaker 2 (19:12):
I love it because it is how God uses us
to show the love of Christ or our community. We
want the people to feel that same spirit of service
the moment they step foot on any of our church campuses.
It's why, you know, we tell people that the like
why way we serve people when they come they come
to church.

Speaker 3 (19:29):
Here.

Speaker 2 (19:30):
There's a George Barnam who's a church researcher, did the study.
Seventy percent of new people coming to a church decide
within the first seven minutes of being on a church
campus whether they're going to come back. Seven minutes. That's
a long time before I get up here. That's a
long time for the music starts. That's why we always
say the sermon starts in the parking lot. The sermon

(19:50):
starts as we're receiving their children and taking them in.
It's why we want everything we do to say you
are loved, you are honored, God cares about you, and
you are important. We want that spirit of service to
overflow into the streets, just like it did here in
Act Sets. One of the fiercest persecutors of early Christians,
the Roman Emperor Julian in the second century and in

(20:14):
the church affectionately called Julian. The Apostate admitted in disgust
in a letter, a very famous letter, he was trying
to explaining to a friend that they couldn't stop the
church from growing.

Speaker 3 (20:25):
And here's always said that.

Speaker 2 (20:26):
He said, these infernal Galileans, like Jesus of Galilee, these
infernal Galileans feed our poor in addition to their own.
That's why we can't stop it from growing. Ebrahart Arnold,
the historian, says most astounding to the outside observer was
the extent to which poverty was overcome in the vicinity
of the churches. Christians spent more money in the streets

(20:48):
than the followers of other religions spent in their temples.
Everyone in this church should serve, he said, well, how
do I know exactly where to serve?

Speaker 3 (20:57):
Here's a little grid that I use that.

Speaker 2 (20:58):
I would commend to you. Any one of these three
places is where you should serve. A place of skill,
a place of passion, or a place of need. A
place of skill, a place of passion, or a place
of great need. They might all three come together in
one or they might not. So let me comment on
that last one for a minute, a place of great need,
because I'm not sure, listen, that waiting tables for widows

(21:22):
was a passion or a skill for Stephen. And the
reason I say that is because we have a lot
of you around here who do serve, but we got
a whole nother group of you who don't do anything
in our church because you're like, well, it's beneath me
and it's inconvenient. I don't think my talents and my
teaching ability, and my business skill and my general awesomeness
are being recognized at as church. And so I'm just

(21:45):
I'm not taking care of kids, and I'm not standing
in a parking lot, and in fact, you don't recognize
how awesome.

Speaker 3 (21:49):
I am and give me a job. It's important. I'm
going to another church.

Speaker 2 (21:52):
I'm just gonna go ahead and tell you this is
probably below Stephen waiting tables for widows.

Speaker 3 (21:57):
He didn't do it.

Speaker 2 (21:57):
Because it was a place of skill or passion. He
did it because that what the need was, and he
was a servant. I can't assure you that washing feet.

Speaker 3 (22:04):
Was below Jesus's pay grade, right.

Speaker 2 (22:06):
He didn't do that because it was a play nobody's
got a passion for feet. Oh I just never feel
so alive when I'm watching feet. I mean, nobody says
that he did it because he was a servant. And
you ought to make room in your life, particularly here
in the church, to do things that you don't necessarily
thrill to do, so that you maintain the role of servant.

Speaker 3 (22:25):
That's why I love.

Speaker 2 (22:26):
Pulling into our parking lot on Sunday and being greeted
by guys with PhDs in orange vests. Why is that's
their way of washing feet. We give you chances to
do that all right. By the way, that applies to
me too. What I do up here is supposed to
be an act of service, not self exaltation. It's like
I pointed out to you, the apostles were servants before

(22:48):
they were leaders. So when they quit waiting tables, it
wasn't because they were too important to serve.

Speaker 3 (22:52):
They just found a greater need for their service.

Speaker 4 (22:56):
If God can use an ordinary guy like Steven in
such a mighty way, it serves as a reminder that
he can use us too. If you missed any part
of today's teaching, don't forget that you can always catch
up at Jdgreer dot com. While you're on the website,
we'd love for you to check out the variety of
resources available to you free of charge, including our entire

(23:17):
library of Summit Life sermons, the accompanying sermon transcripts, as
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and especially our Gospel Partners, who are a special group
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(23:38):
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we are sending Pastor JD's latest book, Twelve Truths in
a Lie, and the accompanying discussion guide that goes with it,
designed to help you unpack the truth found within the
book on a whole new level. We'd love to send

(23:58):
it to you as a gift to say thank you
for joining our Gospel Partner team, or for your generous
one time gift this month.

Speaker 1 (24:06):
To become part of our team.

Speaker 4 (24:07):
Just call us at eight six six three three five
fifty two twenty. That's eight six six three three five
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address is JD. Greer Ministries, Pobox one twenty two ninety three, Durham,

(24:27):
North Carolina, two seventy seven oh nine. I'm Mollie Vetevich
and thanks for joining us today. Be sure to join
us tomorrow as we finish our look at what the
Book of Acts has to say about Stephen and how
God used an ordinary man in extraordinary ways. See you
Tuesday here on Summit Life with JD.

Speaker 3 (24:47):
Greer.

Speaker 4 (24:52):
Today's program was produced and sponsored by Jdgreer Ministries.