Non-Anxious Church: Power vs. Influence

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 Hey, if you have a Bible, uh, go ahead and open to Acts chapter seven. Uh, We’re continuing our series, I’m gonna do my best not to make, like, make this an egg. Is that, is that the thing? Alright. Uh, Acts chapter 7, we’re continuing our series, actually we’re ending our series, on, uh, being a non anxious church.

Uh, so our whole, um, kind of working theory is that we are in, uh, a highly anxious culture. Uh, we experience anxiety as individuals, but also as a, as an organization, as a church. And we’re trying to sort through what it looks like to, uh, deal with and handle anxiety well. And the good news is nothing that we’re going through now is new.

Uh, so as we’ve been journeying through acts together as a faith family, uh, we’ve found a lot of parallels that the early church dealt with issues similar to issues that we’re dealing with today. And so, um, we’re wrapping that up this morning. Uh, we’re going to look at acts chapter seven. So. So, um, let me pray, uh, over our time together and then we will get going.

So Father, we, um, just take a moment, um, to lay before you everything that we’re coming in with. Uh, all of us, um, are bringing with us now to this moment, um, anxiety, um, worry, fear, Some of us are bringing anger, uh, or doubt. Um, some of us are bringing in grief. And others, uh, we’re bringing joy. Um, we’re bringing expectation and we’re bringing, uh, hope.

Uh, so God, whatever we’re, we’re holding in our hands as we, um, enter into this space, I just ask that you would, uh, invite us now to, um, lay that before you. That we would be able to just put those things aside for the next few minutes and turn your attention, uh, turn our attention to you, um, as your attention is always towards us.

So God, I ask that you would, uh, teach us something, that you would encourage us, challenge us, and convict us with your word as you’ve always done. And we pray all this in your name. Amen. Well, there’s a scene in, uh, the 1997 Italian movie, Life is Beautiful, that, uh, I Think about I can’t get this scene out of my head.

Um, how many of you guys have heard of that movie? Life is beautiful. You guys have seen it. Okay. Well, the movie if you haven’t is about a Jewish man named Guido. I’ve only seen the Italian version. So I don’t know if that’s how you pronounce it, but his name is Guido and he falls in love with a woman named Dora and Dora is actually engaged to another man and it’s really a comedy.

It’s a rom com about Guido. Who’s kind of this Jim Carrey type figure. He’s very comical very witty trying to woo and win over Dora Get her to not marry this man and be with him instead. And that’s exactly what he does. So eventually he gets the girl, they get married and they have a son. And halfway through the movie, uh, that’s everything that’s going on.

The movie then takes a time jump, jumps ahead five years. Uh, their son is five years old, uh, and they’re about to prepare for his fifth birthday. And so, so here’s the scene, uh, Dora. The wife is coming home, and she’s expecting to find her husband and her son, uh, preparing for his fifth birthday party.

Instead, what she finds is her home has been ransacked like it’s been broken into, everything’s thrown all over the floor, the decorations and all of those things are just scattered everywhere. And then the movie cuts, uh, and it shows you all of a sudden, uh, Guido and their five year old son, uh, in the back of a Nazi truck being taken to a concentration camp.

Now, if you’ve seen the trailer, or if you know anything about the movie, you’re, they don’t hide the fact that this takes place, uh, in Nazi occupied Italy during World War II. So, you’re kind of expecting it to have something to do with Nazi Germany, and, and how Guido and his family are gonna, uh, make it through the war.

In fact, the rest of the movie is really about, um, it’s still kind of a comedy, but it’s about, um, uh, Guido doing what he can to, to um, protect, maybe not physically, but with the power of stories and imagination, his five year old son from the reality of what’s going on around them in this death camp. It’s a beautiful movie.

You should watch it. But that scene is the ultimate, like, stuff hits the fan moment. So even if you’re expecting, like, this harrowing story of survival and hope in the midst of hardship, uh, you’re kind of inundated the first half by this love story between Guido and everything seems good. Everything seems like it’s supposed to be doing like what it’s supposed to be doing.

He gets the girl, they have a family, and then all of a sudden you see that shot of him starkly contrasted just a scene ago with the party, uh, celebrating this fifth birthday, um, with the dull gray inside of a Nazi truck. And you’re kind of suddenly awoken to the reality of like, this is the story that we’re actually in.

Even if you knew about World War II, you knew what the movie was going to be about, you thought just for a minute that this was all it really was, was a family rom com. And then that scene kind of hits you. So Acts 7 is that scene for the Book of Acts. This is the stuff that hits the fan moment in the Book of Acts.

So up until this point, the church has had a remarkable, crazy amount of success. Acts 1 through 7 really are about how Thousands are joining the church, right? So Jesus leaves. He’s on earth. He preaches, teaches, dies, rises again, commissions his disciples to go and form a new community centered around him to spread his goodness around the world.

And they’re doing that. Everything goes really well. Community is created. Miracles are performed. So the disciples are doing the things that Jesus did when Jesus was here on earth. People are being healed. There’s even thoughts. Threats against the Apostles, but they don’t actually end up anywhere. And the one time the Apostles find themselves in prison, they’re miraculously broken out of jail by an angel.

Everything’s going really well. It’s like any good story. This is, like, this is the fairy tale beginning. This is the romantic ideal. Things as they should be. But they take a turn. And so this morning we’re talking about the stuff hitting the fan moment. This is, uh, about the death of Stephen. And from here on out, Acts becomes a lot less about the ideal church and a lot more about, uh, the spread of the gospel.

God is still moving, but also the growth and increase of persecution. How, uh, does the church function when it’s not in the minority and it’s not highly favored like it used to be? And so today we’re finishing that series in Non Anxious Church, teaching through what it looks like for us today, as a church community, to go through something similar.

How do we survive sabotage? And how do we deal with and handle anxiety? And the main idea from last week, if you weren’t here, is kind of key for understanding all of this. Just because we feel opposition, doesn’t mean we’re doing something wrong. So our desire as a church is to integrate this truth into our community.

We want to become a non anxious church, meaning we want to, we want to go somewhere. First off, we want to be a community of people here in this middle school cafeteria who are so committed to following Jesus that we actually face resistance within ourselves as we’re trying these practices, but also outside of ourselves as well.

The way of Jesus will not earn us favor with everybody. And how we react is actually really telling. We can have an enormous impact like Stephen or We can have a very little impact. Motivated by something else entirely. And so, here’s the story so far. As we pick up in Acts chapter 7, we see Stephen standing on trial.

Now, if you weren’t here last week, here’s basically what happened. Stephen, uh, is one of seven men chosen to lead, uh, and serve the church by, uh, serving as a deacon. And, uh, Luke describes him as someone from, uh, full of grace and power, meaning he’s someone that we should emulate. He’s, uh, Trey said there’s a last week sweetness and strength.

I think he’s quoting someone there. Uh, don’t remember who sweetness and strength, uh, wrapped into one person. And the first time you meet Steven, he’s doing the miracles that Jesus did. He’s healing people. He’s teaching, he’s proclaiming, demonstrating the gospel of Jesus. But then he’s confronted. And people like Stephen, uh, everybody likes Stephen, except, uh, the Jewish high priests.

So the Jewish high priests feel threatened because, uh, they see Stephen sort of fueling this movement that puts their authority in jeopardy, so uh, they bring false accusations against Stephen. It says that they, they persuaded people to, to say bad things about Stephen. And he’s, uh, basically accused of three things.

falsely accused of three things. One is threatening to destroy the temple with the help of his dead rabbi. So they, they see Stephen preaching in the temple talking about how the temple doesn’t really, we’ll get there, uh, the temple isn’t really what it, what it used to be. The second thing Stephen’s accused of is threatening the law of Moses, which, uh, the Jews at that time held, like, in really high esteem.

The third thing was actually blaspheming Moses himself. And Moses was like their patriarch. Moses was like the one person, aside from Yahweh, that you do not talk bad about. And so Act 6 ends on a cliffhanger. Stephen is faced with these accusations. How does he respond? Now in our language today, this doesn’t really land that well, but to kind of break it down Provide a correlation.

They’re essentially accusing Steven of being a terrorist. This is not a light, like, sort of like, hey, you said some things and we don’t like it. It’s more like, no, we’re trying to convince the world around you that Steven is a terrorist and he needs to be put down. Now, Steven is the perfect example of what it means to be non anxious.

And he has a few choices. We talked about this last week. He can give in to a failure of heart, which means he would have defended himself against these accusations saying, no, these guys are lying. They’re the ones betraying you and actually lying to you. I’m telling the truth. He can give up on those around him.

He can attack and separate himself from his enemies, or he can give into a failure of nerve. So he can give into those around him. He can apologize for disturbing the peace, tone down his message, and just focus on the stuff that won’t get him in trouble. Maybe moving on to another town. Now both of these are instinctive.

I think many of us, if we’re honest, the whole point of the series is to show, like, we would probably do one of those two things. But these are also anxious responses. And so instead, uh, Stephen does what anybody would do in this situation. He gives a speech, a very detailed speech, laying out the foundations of the Jewish faith and religion.

As you do. Now, notably, Stephen doesn’t refute, argue, or defend himself against these accusations against him. Instead, he starts with Abraham. So Acts chapter 7, starting in verse 2, if you have it, you can follow along. Stephen says, Brothers and fathers. Listen, the God of Glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia before he settled in Haran and said to him, leave your country and relatives and come to the land that I will show you.

Make sense? He’s accused of defaming Moses, threatening the temple, so he starts with a Mesopotamian pagan named Abraham. Now what does this have to do with his accusations? Why does Stephen start here? Well, he’s actually starting with a story that goes back to the beginning of human history. You can read about this in Genesis 1 through 15.

So you know the story well. God creates the world in Genesis 1, and it’s teeming with life and beauty, but more importantly than that, it’s defined by peace. The world that God created is defined by a Hebrew word called shalom that we translate as peace or a better translation I would argue is wholeness Everything is as it should be it’s whole it’s complete humanity has relationship with each other and with God But you know the story it doesn’t Stop there.

Humanity introduces sin and disorder into the world by rebelling against that wholeness. And that’s what the Bible calls sin. And so God, as a response to the chaos that humanity has introduced into the world, provides a solution. And a solution is to draw near to humanity. This God, defined by wholeness and peace, steps into a world of evil, sin, death, and chaos, and says, I’m going to restore it.

And he does that by promising to set things right. through a pagan Mesopotamian man named Abraham. And so here’s how it goes, summarized, uh, God approaches Abraham and says, Abraham, you need to leave this place that you’re living in, this pagan land of Mesopotamia, that’s what Stephen’s talking about, and you need to go to a new land.

I’m gonna, I’m gonna bless you in a new land. I’m gonna give you an inheritance. And the entire world is going to know you and your family, but more importantly, they’re going to know me because of you. And so God makes what’s called a covenant with Abraham, basically saying, I’m going to see to it that the world is blessed and that you are blessed.

Now this story is foundational to the Jewish faith and to our faith today. But again, the question is, why wouldn’t Stephen start here? He’s, no one’s accusing him of insulting Abraham. They’re accusing him of insulting Moses. Well, Steven is building an argument. Uh, he’s anchoring his defense from these accusations that we standing on trial, uh, anchoring that defense in Jewish history, uh, that his accusers would have known and known well.

Uh, honestly, it’s kind of like a flex, like he’s basically saying, like, you want to talk to me about Moses. I’m going to show you how much I actually know about our faith together. Notice how he calls them brothers and fathers. This is not failure of heart. Steven is addressing them with honor and respect, but also with commonality saying, I come from where you come from.

Let’s talk about our history. It would be like how I said, Hey, let me tell you about this guy. His name was George Washington. And I just talked down to you like a child. You’re like, I know who George Washington is. It’s kind of insulting. And then I just start singing Hamilton and you’re like, all right, that’s enough.

So Steven’s flexing a little bit. He’s saying, I, I know, I know I know more than you think I do. Let me prove it. But he’s also making a point. And that point is this. God’s presence was never relegated to a place, but rather to a people. So God doesn’t tell Abraham, go to a new land because that’s where God is.

He doesn’t say, Hey, I’m actually over here in this space, and you need to go find me in this space. No, God tells Abraham to go to a new place because God is going to go with him. Wherever you go, I will go. And I’m going to promise you, not because of some special place, but because I’m with you. And so remember, the high priests were accusing Stephen of wanting to destroy the temple.

They believed that the temple was the house of God’s presence. That the temple, that’s where God was. To threaten the temple wasn’t just to threaten a building or a structure, uh, a faith system or a religion, though it was that. More than that, it was to jeopardize and threaten the very presence of God.

But Stephen’s point is that God is present among and through his people, not stuck in a specific place. Now, hold that thought. We’re gonna come back to that later. So, Stephen talks about the covenant that God makes with Abraham, the sons that Abraham has, and then he moves on to Joseph. And Joseph’s story is told in Genesis 37 through 50.

It’s the second half of the book of Genesis. And Joseph’s story is less foundational than Abraham’s, but it’s actually really important. So to summarize, here’s what’s happening. Joseph, a few hundred years or so after Abraham, I don’t know if that’s right, a little bit after Abraham. Has a gift. He’s one of 12 brothers, but he’s the only one that the story specifies as having a gift.

God gives him the ability to interpret dreams. The problem is that gets him in trouble with his brothers. His brothers are jealous. Joseph, honestly, is like the younger the stereotypical youngest child like he doesn’t have to work in the field as long as his older siblings. He’s any younger siblings.

Anybody is it? Okay, you guys all know this. Alright, uh, kind of spoiled, I’m going to say it, like he was a little spoiled in the story. The youngest sibling typically, stereotypically is spoiled. It’s not true of all of you, but generally that’s kind of who Joseph is. So his brothers don’t like him and he’s bragging about his gifts and all of that.

So this gift gets him in trouble with his brothers, but it actually earns him favor in Egypt. So here’s what Stephen says about Joseph, starting in verse 9. The patriarchs, those are Joseph’s brothers, became jealous of Joseph and sold him into Egypt. But God was with him and rescued him out of all of his troubles.

He gave him favor and wisdom in the sight of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, who appointed him ruler over Egypt and over his whole household. And so Joseph was chosen by God with a gift, but rejected by his jealous brothers and then sold into slavery.

Now when he’s, uh, when he finds himself sold into slavery, it’s the very gift that got him rejected, uh, from his brothers, uh, that gets him favor in Egypt. So, uh, Pharaoh, the story is Pharaoh has a bad dream, he doesn’t know how to interpret it, so he brings Joseph in. Joseph interprets the dream. Pharaoh is so impressed with Joseph and his interpretive abilities that he gives him a high status government position in Egypt.

Now, many years later, a famine forces Joseph’s traitorous brothers, who thought that Joseph was dead, to help, uh, to go get help in Egypt. And they find themselves begging at the feet of their rejected brother. You guys have probably heard that story before. If not, I’m skipping over a lot. Read it on your own time.

It’s a beautiful story. We’re actually going to cover it later in our peacemaking series. So come back in a few weeks for that. But again, why is Stephen talking about Joseph? This is still years before Moses, the law, and the temple. Well again, Stephen’s showing his knowledge of Jewish history. This is how the Israelites become slaves in Egypt.

So a story that starts with Abraham, God saying, I’m going to promise to make you into a great nation, then actually happens. Abraham’s lineage increases. He has a family. Part of that family is Joseph. Joseph is a part of 12 brothers who become the 12 tribes of Israel, who the high priests come from. But this is how the Israelites end up in Egypt.

So when Exodus picks up, they’re in slavery. And we’ll get there in a second. But that’s what Stephen’s showing. Stephen’s showing, I know how you, how, we’re gonna get to Moses. But here’s, you have to understand, God has been weaving a story throughout our history. And part of Stephen’s argument is this, part of God’s story is this, God’s people are often marked by rejection.

So the very person rejected by the twelve patriarchs, those are Joseph’s brothers, Joseph’s brothers, The founders, these 12 patriarchs who rejected Joseph, become the founders of the 12 tribes of Israel, whom the Jewish leaders come from. That person that was rejected is the very person responsible for saving those 12 patriarchs.

Now, who are the high priests, the descendants of these patriarchs, rejecting now? They’re rejecting Jesus, the apostles, and Stephen. So Stephen is showing his accusers they’re repeating the same sins and patterns as their forefathers. Rejecting, oppressing, and resisting the very people that the God they worshipped had called to leave and lead and serve them.

So Stephen honestly is brilliant for arguing this way and Luke is brilliant for picking up on what Stephen is doing and recording it this way. So now Stephen finally gets to Moses. And you could read about Moses’s story in the entire book of Exodus, but this is the first part of Moses’s story. He talks about how Moses was born in the height of Israelite slavery.

So, uh, here’s again, to summarize you, this is a lot we’re summarizing this morning. It’s a bit nerdy. Are you guys okay? We’re doing all right. Okay. Thank you, professor. All right. So Joseph, uh, meets his brothers in Egypt. They come, they say, Hey, we need help. They realize Joseph is actually alive and he has the authority, the power and the influence to actually help them.

And so he helps them and they’re welcomed in Egypt. But when Exodus picks up, Joseph has died and a new pharaoh is in charge. A pharaoh who doesn’t know Joseph and notices that the Israelites are becoming, uh, they’re growing and soon they’re gonna maybe they have the power to take over Egypt. And so he doesn’t want to do that.

Moses is born during this, uh, Israelite slavery. Uh, in the middle of infanticide, he’s actually saved by Pharaoh, uh, Pharaoh’s daughter and raised up in an Egyptian house. So Moses is really unique because he’s born an Israelite, but he’s raised Egyptian. He’s the very person chosen by God to lead the people out of slavery.

We know Moses well, even if you’re not a follower of Jesus, you probably heard the story of Moses parting the Red Sea to let his people out of Egypt. He’s the perfect person to do this. Both Israelite. and Egyptian. And so Stephen tells the story of Moses leadership. He talks about Moses experience in the wilderness and his encounter with God at the burning bush.

But Stephen hones in on the fact that Moses was also rejected by his own people. So look at verse 35. Stephen says, This Moses, again, the Moses that they’re accusing him, Stephen, of, of blaspheming. This Moses, whom they rejected when they said, Who appointed you a ruler and a judge? This one God sent as a ruler and deliverer through the angel who appeared to him in the bush.

This man led them out and performed wonders and signs in the land of Egypt. at the Red Sea and in the wilderness for 40 years. This is the Moses who said to the Israelites, God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers and sisters. Who is that prophet? It’s Jesus. I heard you guys whisper it.

Be confident. It’s Jesus. He is the one who was in the assembly in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai and with our ancestors. He received living oracles to give to us. But our ancestors were unwilling to obey him. Instead, they pushed him aside and in their hearts turned back to Egypt.

So even Moses, whom these high priests are trying to revere and defend, was rejected by the very people he was trying to save. And yet, wherever Moses went, God went with him. God didn’t keep his presence on the holy ground by the burning bush when he met Moses. He was present with Moses at birth. He was present with Moses in the wilderness before the burning bush, and he was present with Moses as Moses appeared in Pharaoh’s court, arguing for the freedom of his people.

God remains with his rejected, chosen leader. Now Stephen ends his speech by calling 51, you stiff necked people with uncircumcised hearts and ears. You are always resisting the Holy Spirit. As your ancestors did, you do also. Now, the first time God’s people are called stiff necked is actually in Exodus, after Moses has freed them from slavery.

They reject God, they reject God’s chosen leader, Moses, and they go back to their life of sin. And many argue that’s the line that gets Stephen murdered. Calling them back to their ancestral history, not one of pride like they would think, but one of rejection and oppression of God’s chosen people. Now why does Stephen tell this story?

Again, Stephen’s brilliant. This speech is layered with meaning and packed with theology and doctrine and really just a good story. But why does Stephen tell this story? There’s a lot we could say about it, a lot more we could cover, but here’s what I want to focus on today. This is a primary theme of Stephen’s speech.

God is building a new temple. So look at Acts, uh, chapter 7, verse 44. Stephen says, Our ancestors had the tabernacle of the testimony in the wilderness. Just as he who spoke to Moses commanded him to make it according to the pattern he had seen. I’ll explain that in a minute. Our ancestors in turn received it and with Joshua brought it in when they dispossessed the nations that God drove out before them until the days of David.

He found favor in God’s sight and asked that he might provide a dwelling place for God, for the God of Jacob. It was Solomon rather who built him a house. Verse 48, But the Most High does not dwell in sanctuaries made with hands. As the prophet says, Heaven is my throne, and earth is my footstool. What sort of house will you build for me?

says the Lord. Or what will be my resting place? Did not my hand make all these things? Now, why does Stephen bring that up? The primary charge made against Stephen was about him threatening the temple. Remember, he’s, he’s being, he’s being called, accused of being a terrorist. And his main defense is this, the temple doesn’t matter anymore.

The rejected people of God do. So in the Old Testament, the temple, the tabernacle that, uh, Stephen’s talking about here, uh, was this sort of, uh, physical space. It was an actual building. It started as a tent. That’s what the tabernacle was. But eventually, uh, Stephen mentioned Solomon builds a temple. An actual beautifully constructed building that replaces the tabernacle.

The temple, the tabernacle, all of this was a symbolic place that was meant to, uh, represent the overlap between heaven and earth. This was where God dwelt. It was the centralized presence of God and it represented his rule and reign over creation. But, the temple became corrupt. And that’s really what the rest of the Old Testament is about.

All these prophets, Speaking and prophesying, not to the world around them, but to God’s people, saying, if you don’t correct what you’ve done to God’s presence in the temple, there are going to be consequences. So God introduces a new type of temple, a new representation of himself to the world, and it starts with Jesus.

So John chapter 1 says, Jesus dwelt among us. Literally, Jesus tabernacled among us or templed among us. Jesus himself has now represented, uh, replaced the temple from the Old Testament. So where people once had to go to a physical place to have their sins healed and approach the presence of God. Now the presence of God comes to broken, sinful people to cleanse them of their sins and bring God’s presence to them.

But when Jesus leaves the earth, he sends his spirit to dwell in us. Literally, the presence of God, not in a temple anymore, but in us. This is what Acts 1 and 2 are all about, the story of Pentecost that we covered a few months ago. So, if God’s presence was never relegated to a place, but rather to a people, then we today are now God’s temple.

So there’s that famous line we all know, your body is a temple, a temple of the Holy Spirit. It’s from 1 19 and 20. Most of us read that verse individually. It’s something like don’t eat fast food, right, because your body’s a temple. Uh, exercise, because your body’s a temple. All good things. But this is a collective passage.

Paul in 1st Corinthians is picking up on what Stephen is arguing here in his speech. God’s presence is never relegated to a place, but rather to a people, a rejected people. God is gonna stay with his rejected people in the midst of their height and power and influence and in their oppression, in their failure, and in their death.

So when we, Meaning the church live out the way of Jesus today by gathering together and then scattering throughout the world around us bringing the good news of the gospel wherever we go, proclaiming and demonstrating it. God is with us. When we practice the way of Jesus, what our church is all about, by living out the type of community described in Acts 2, sharing things in common, meeting each other’s needs, we do what the temple was originally meant to do.

And when we endure persecution and rejection, just like Abraham, Joseph, and Moses, God is still present among us and working through us. But here’s what this new temple looks like. Verse 54. When they heard these things, they were enraged and gnashed their teeth at him. Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven.

He saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. He said, Look, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. They yelled at the top of their voices, covered their ears, and together rushed against him. They dragged him out of the city and began to stone him.

And the witnesses laid their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul. While they were stoning Stephen, he called out, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. Who else said that? Jesus. Jesus. He knelt down and cried out with a loud voy voice. Lord, do not hold this sin against them. Who said that? Jesus. Jesus.

And after saying this, he died. Some translations say he fell asleep. This is the last idea of this teaching, but also just the series as a whole. The people of God are a new temple marked by influence, not by power. So what’s the common thread that unites all the people that Stephen mentions throughout the Old Testament?

They all died. They were rejected at some point in their lives, but they died. Their power was gone. Any power that they had, Moses was given power and authority. Joseph was given power and authority. But what happened to that power when they were gone? What happened to their influence? It multiplied. See, anxiety comes when we feel our power, our authority, our autonomy, our freedom threatened.

When we feel those things in jeopardy, when we feel power slipping from our grasps, we become afraid. It’s what’s been driving the high priest to persecute the apostles, and now Stephen. They’re afraid that this new Jesus movement is going to threaten and take away their power. They’re afraid of losing their authority.

And I would argue, That much of our collective anxiety today as a church comes from a fear that we will lose power. We’re afraid of losing the power that we hold in public. We’re afraid of losing power in the marketplace. We’re afraid of losing power in schools. We’re afraid of losing power in government.

But what if losing power is exactly what we need? See, uh, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks is a brilliant, he’s not a follower of Jesus, but a Jewish rabbi and a brilliant sort of leadership guru, renowned for his insight into what it means to survive sabotage, live non anxiously and lead as a people for the good of the city around them, argues that power is spread by division.

It’s a zero sum game. If all were, if our answer to anxiety is to seek more power in the places that we feel threatened of losing it The more we share, the less we have. Influence is spread by multiplication. So the more you share, the more you really have. See, power is about dominion and control. And let me be clear, power is not bad.

The people of God have power. We have power. Many of us are in leadership positions where we have power and authority. That’s good, but our hope is not in power. Come on. It’s not in seeking power. It’s in stewarding influence. Power is about dominion and control. Influence is about stewardship and service.

See, power is about position. Influence is about relationship. Power is focused on us. It’s inward and it’s centralized. Just like the high priest, we are threatened when someone comes into our fold that doesn’t agree with us, doesn’t align with us or threatens us. It’s concerned with us. Influence is focused on others.

The well being of our neighbors Influence is Acts chapter 2. It’s the Apostle sharing everything in common with those who come in to their community Power ends when we die influence increases when we die See when the church seeks power we focus on objectives rather than people we operate out of fear rather than love We’re concerned with control not service Winning is more important than loving.

Safety and stability are more important than conviction and truth. We lead by coercion rather than by invitation. Anxiety stays. But when the church stewards influence instead,

Stephen didn’t have power, but he had influence. He didn’t have authority over his accusers, but he had influence among the people that he was serving. See, power is Stephen and the Apostles fighting back. This is Peter cutting off the guard in the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus is arrested. Influence is Stephen’s last words being, God, forgive these people who are murdering me.

They don’t know what they’re doing. Now, from here on out, we’re going to see a church grow by losing power, but gaining influence. And that’s our desire today. We don’t want to be a church clinging to power, afraid of losing it. We don’t want to be a people defined by our fear of losing out on the power we have in the world around us.

If you don’t get anything from our series, it’s this. The answer to anxiety is not to fight back and argue for power. And I think we should have people who are Christians and have power in government and in the marketplace and in the world and the public and all of that. I agree, but that’s not our ultimate hope.

We gain influence, not by fighting the world around us, but by clinging to our savior. We steward influence by serving, loving God, not and serving and loving our neighbors.

So why don’t we stand? We’re going to take a minute and respond.