When God Stands // Pastor Judah Smith

hey today we're in for a treat those are those of us who were with us last week we had our friend pastor jimmy rollins with us and just blew the roof off man if you didn't get a chance to watch that message want to encourage you to go back and listen to it we more than made it was the name of the title of last week's message i was so incredibly encouraging me too and i asked actually two friends to come in pastor jimmy last week i got another friend of this week to share uh with us as i'm getting ready for vision sunday and everything's going on in february and march i'm excited about this upcoming year so we've got one of the best communicators literally in all the world uh that is a friend of ours and someone we value and appreciate a ton his name is judah smith he pastors our church home and uh gabe gave him a text said hey man you would you be willing he was like earl let's do this so he took some time out put a message together from the book of acts because we are in and reading through the book of acts as a church family so i want you to stay leaned in and locked in today as pastor judah smith brings the message today let's go church family hey shoreline city i'm so glad to be sharing this message with you and a big hello to pastor earl and onika love you both thank you for your friendship hear so many great things and hey i'm excited to add a sermon and a perspective from the book of acts as you're studying this together it is such an extraordinary book i want to speak to you for the next few minutes on the subject when god stands and i want to show you a story a portion of scripture in the book of acts chapter 7 that shows us why and when god actually stands up and what the significance of that is i will never forget when i saw shaquille o'neal for the very first time that's right the seven foot phenomenon that is shaquille o'neal now this is back in his rookie season he had come to the city of seattle where um our church started and he was playing the late great seattle supersonics which ended up moving to a different city but anyways i was walking around what was called the key arena and i couldn't wait to see shaquille o'neal play basketball he had just graduated or moved on from lsu drafted number one in the nba draft and the whole world wanted to catch a glimpse of shaquille o'neal i got to the arena early wanted to see the shoot around wanted to see number 33 for the orlando magic i heard he was a giant of a man and had seen so much content about them i was so excited now we had nosebleed seats at the very top of the arena but i said hey let's go down right by the court and just walk in a circle for as long as we can to get as close as we can to the great shaquille o'neal now when i arrived at the arena we got down to the court and we started walking and we finally spotted the man number 33 shaquille o'neal and he was seated at the bench for the magic and we walked around and i was right behind the orlando magic bench this is 150 years ago in seattle washington which is the west coast united states of america and i couldn't wait to see this mammoth man shaquille o'neal stand up and i'm standing behind the bench and we're kind of supposed to keep moving and the security guards were a little hard-pressed a lot of work to try to keep people moving everybody wants to catch a glimpse of goliath i mean shaquille o'neal and all of a sudden i'm standing behind the bench i will never forget this i'm probably like barely not a teenager and up from the bench comes the seven foot plus giant shaquille o'neal and i'll never forget watching him stand up i remember i must have looked so silly as i stood there just gawking truly at probably the largest human being i had ever heard of seen and certainly ever been close to i was flabbergasted i was gawking i was speechless i was stunned i was stuttering to say anything as this massive human being is before me he would go on to have a hall of fame career and now uh host one of the great tv shows in in in all of america maybe around the world inside the nba shaquille o'neal i'll never forget it in fact every time somebody says shaquille o'neal i remember that moment had the privilege later with a friend to meet shaquille and be around shaquille and didn't actually tell him that story because i'm sure a hundred million people have the same story the first time they were close even in proximity to shaquille o'neal is nothing short of stunning when shaquille o'neal stood up i'll never forget it now that brings me to another unforgettable moment in scripture and that is we have a man by the name of stephen if you don't know who stephen is he is essentially a volunteer for the first church the early church the christian church the beginning of the christian church he's a volunteer he's a deacon he loves jesus loves the story but stephen comes under some criticism in acts chapter seven and it's basically around judaism and the laws of judaism and christianity and are they at odds and let's make sense of this and people start getting upset and so stephen starts to tell the narrative the story jesus and israel and what he's done and what his plan is and it's amazing and by the time we jump in on the story we find it in acts chapter 7 and verse 54 it says now when they heard this extraordinary story and explanation of what jesus had done and how it affects judaism and how it's no longer about systems and and sin and shame and self and it's all about jesus and forgiveness and love and acceptance they were overtaken with violent rage filling their souls and they gnashed their teeth at him which means they were very very angry and it goes on in the next verse and says they but stephen they grasp their teeth but stephen verse 55 was overtaken with great faith was full of the holy spirit he fixed his gaze into the heaven realm and saw the glory of god and splendor of jesus and he saw jesus standing up he saw jesus stand up at the right hand of god when god stands it's one thing when shaquille o'neal stands there's a whole nother thing when jesus stands look look stephen says i i can see the heavens opening in the son of god the son of man standing at the right hand of god to welcome me home his accusers covered their ears with their hands and screamed at the top of their lungs to drown out his voice then they pounced on him and threw him outside the city walls to stone him his accusers one by one placed the outer garments at the feet of a young man named saul of tarsus who would later be paul and write more than 50 of the new testament with of course the inspiration of the spirit of god verse 59 as they hurled stone after stone at stephen he prayed this out loud oh lord jesus accept my spirit into your presence he crumpled to his knees and shouted in a loud voi a loud voice our our lord don't hold this sin against them and then he died it's an extraordinary moment in scripture isn't it now what you may not know about church history is it's this extraordinary moment that we'll investigate just a little bit further for the next few minutes that that well became the catalyst for the dispersion the scattering of the christians in the church as we know it some would argue acts chapter 1 2 7 that whole portion of scripture of the book of acts is the establishment of the church starting in chapter 8 and beyond is the scattering of the church it's the growth it's the expansion but the expansion comes from this catalytic moment where a volunteer named stephen sees jesus standing when god stands when does god stand up why is jesus said to be standing why is it so significant to stephen that as he's dying and his skull is being pulverized by rocks why does he get volume in his voice to proclaim i see jesus standing the heavens are open this of course would have been heresy to the persecuting jewish leaders and scholars and teachers in the synagogue and they drowned out his what he's saying what he was saying was so troublesome it was so significant that that it affected even the persecutors they didn't want to hear it they wanted nothing to do with an open heaven and jesus standing in favor and that can't be true see the bible says that we are seated with god in heavenly places when god is seated it's significant when god stands it's significant when he sits it's a portrait in picture that all that has been done is completed the finished work of jesus on the cross he said the six and a half hours he hung on the middle cross between two thieves he said it is finished what is finished the work of jesus is finished forgiveness is available righteousness is available for anyone and everyone not those who believe in their own merits and their own deeds but only jesus merit and jesus deeds so when jesus says seeded its significant and ephesians amongst other letters speak to that but here stephen wants to point out jesus is not seated he's standing and his standing seems to communicate the significance of the moment his standing seems to shed light on what is most important to god his standing seems to tell us what is god's priority where is god in all of this or more specifically where does god stand in this moment what is god's message what is god's passion when god stands do we know when god stands do we know why jesus is standing here in acts chapter 7. i simply would like to suggest that the same reason that jesus is standing in acts chapter 7 still remains the same reason he will stand in 2021 the same reason that the significance of jesus standing at the right hand of god almost standing in attention standing to honor the moment standing to send a message and opening the heavens and allowing stephen to see him and his posture and position which had changed from seated to standing it's as if not only does he want stephen to see it he wants the persecutors to hear about it he wants us to hear about it because it's significant and i wonder if there was a way if we could know that in 2020 or now 2021 is god still standing does he still stand for us does he still stand for others or was this a one-time moment was this just for stephen was this because stephen is so magnanimous and stephen is so uh gregarious and gracious and godly and generous why is god standing and what i love about the story is god's not standing for for saul who later becomes paul god's not standing for a superstar god's not standing for a rock star stephen is not even a main character in the new testament stephen is a volunteer stephen is average and normal like you and me stephen is just an everyday guy but stephen loves jesus and stephen knows the story and stephen defends under the persecution and stephen is overtaken by faith and and and jesus stands for stephen not even one of the 12. not even one of the apostles when does god stand i want to give you three three instances that we can be sure god stands god intends to be seen standing god wants us to know that he stands in these moments here's what god stands for here's what god's priorities are here's where god is focused what does god stand for i want to say number one it is apparent to me that jesus stands for his hurting children it's apparent to me that the injustice of the moment is not lost on jesus as he stands for his son whose earthly experience is being taken from him god stands in empathy god stands in compassion god stands for justice god stands for his children it reminds me of that verse that says god desires all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth that that verse could literally say god desires all his sons and daughters to be saved in comes the knowledge of the truth because what we see is seven billion just seven billion human beings living on planet earth at the same time god sees seven billion sons and seven billion daughters he sees sons and daughters and so he stands for his children he stands for when when his children are hurting and when they are broken and where there is injustice jesus stands well it seems to hint at when jesus stands and what jesus stands for we should too jesus stands for his hurting children number two it's apparent to me that jesus stands for the homecoming jesus stands when we come home this is what stephen says it and i love how the passion translation because it picks up on the nuance of the original language it says stephen said i can see the heavens open and the son of man standing at the right hand of god standing standing standing to welcome me home he's standing because i'm coming home he's standing he's he's like the parable jesus told of the prodigal son and no doubt jesus is insinuating that the father in the story and the son in the story the son is you and me the father is god the father is him the father is to reveal the character of god and notice in the story when his son is wayward the father is attentive the father is watching the father is looking the father is anticipating the return of the son and when the son comes home the bible says the father ran to the son which is to say god stands and god runs when we come home i want to remind you that earth is not your home i want to remind you shoreline city i want to remind you of what's actually happening in the earth the reason you feel unsettled is because this is not where we get settled the reason you feel uneasy is because eternity in heaven will be easy in the meantime we're trying to be the missionaries we're called to be somebody recently said to me wow you live in l.a another person said how is it in seattle pretty chaotic and that told one sweet lady who i know she meant well but she said i'd get out of la la's getting bad i said man with all due respect i'm a missionary and where there is pain and where there is hurt that's where i get to go so if you don't mind me saying so i love la i love seattle and i love where i live and i love the people there all right all right she caught a back pedal wait this isn't my home let us not treat it as such the goal of life is not to make this my home some people say we got to change the world we got to fix everything yes we do but we won't well judah this is not the most encouraging sermon that you could give to shoreline city maybe we could do an edit on this video i i don't know no no no we we can't change the world today i had a conversation with pastor darius daniels and he we were talking about the sin of racism and prejudice and bias and he he said we don't need everybody to understand agree see hear we just need somebody some group a remnant and then he said go with the goers judah go with the god keep moving sometimes i think we want to cross every t and dot every eye as if we can on this earth there will be pain there will be problems that doesn't give us the right for indifference or selfishness or being lacks or lazy with missionary work but it also puts things in perspective this is not my home but someday i'm going home and paul the same man who stood there when his name was saul and he watched stephen die years later he would put pen to paper and say i'm hard-pressed to stay here as a missionary or go home with my father in other words i want to go to heaven but i'll stay here on earth for a short stay longer it's life's a vapor please don't lose sight of that when does god stand when you come home and you'll be there soon you'll be with loved ones and lost ones they'll be there but in the meantime are we not missionaries wherever we are is it not our privilege to tell the story of jesus everywhere we go for his story is our story and we don't read it we live in it i'm done coming to a close when does god stand well i know he stands for his hurting sons and daughters i know he stands when it's our time to come home but i also know and i'm sure there's other reasons god stands forgive me for not being exhausted because of time but i'll end with one last observation take away in perspective god stands for his image when he sees his image when he sees a reflection he stands for when he made you and me he said let us make man in our image father son spirit one god three persons let us make man in our image i had some parenting advice recently that was so helpful they said a parent should not make their children in their own image you should encourage your children to grow up in god's image it's funny when i think about church home my my goal is the main preacher and communicator and teacher of scripture is not to make people like me it's to make people like jesus he saw his image i can prove to you that he saw his image because luke's gospel and john's gospel and others they they tell us what jesus said when he was on the cross they tell us luke 23 for instance verses 34 and 46 tell us what he said in verse 34 of chapter 23 tells us that that jesus says father while they're nailing them to the cross forgive them they don't know what they're doing listen to stephen now this is not normal rocks are pulverizing his skull the crown of his head is beginning to swell and he will soon begin to experience shortness of breath a concussion i'm sure is already settling in stephen won't live much longer he's dying by rocks crushing his head and while in excruciating pain very similar to jesus stephen a church volunteer says oh lord with a loud voice don't hold this sin against them and then he died you know what jesus stands for forgiveness when he sees his image and you might ask well how do you know you are reflecting the image of jesus here's one way one of many ways but here's one way and i think a paramount way a primary way an important way forgiveness when forgiveness is a theme when forgiveness is practice when forgiveness is a priority when forgiveness is celebrated when forgiveness creates reoccurring feasts food fellowship friends conversation we're forgiven because see the forgiveness of jesus is not earned or deserved or warranted it's freely received or accepted father don't hold this sin against them in other words forgive them for this oh god help us in 2021. i wonder sometimes if we think taking our stand is to stand for truth but the scripture says express your faith in jesus through love that's what galatians 5 says all that matters now is expressing your faith through love through love not expressing your trust in jesus through law regulations rules ethics morals but your faith if legitimate and authentic if you trust jesus you love jesus if you love jesus you love who he loves and so you love people and it says that stephen was overtaken with great faith if you're watching this sermon and you're thinking to yourself i can't live like that i somebody was crushing my skull with rocks i would pray god judge them for the injustice what comes out of stephen is great faith that has overtaken him understand your faith is a gift from god one of my favorite words for faith or definitions for word is divine persuasion it's when god persuades you in his own divine way and it says steven was overtaken with great faith in verse 54 55 he was overtaken he was overtaken he was overcome he was overwhelmed i'm gonna tell you what's gonna happen to christians all over the world you're gonna be overtaken with faith and when you're overwhelmed with a persuasion that's divine when you're overwhelmed with a confidence and an assurance when you feel the persuasion of god settling over you like a warm blanket and it begins to tell you that god is in control you're going to be home soon but this isn't your home you're the righteousness of god in christ jesus there might be pain ahead there might be more problems ahead there might be more quarantines ahead there might be more diseases and wars and rumors of wars and pestilence and fear and hatred and bigotry and injustice there might be more but i am persuaded that he who started a good work we'll complete it oh stephen you you don't know yet do you what you're going to die today and your skull is going to swell and it won't be long now you'll you'll be home but stephen what you made understand because you think of yourself as merely a volunteer i just attend church who am i you are going to be the catalyst for the scattering and mobilizing of the church of jesus christ i wonder and and this is just my thoughts this is just my opinion so in in in [Music] other preachers can fix this part of the sermon but pastor earl but um i wonder i wonder if what we think is causing isolation is also going to cause dispersion i wonder if what we think is going to separate us is actually going to scatter us i would like to predict that the future of the church is just like the history of the church that god will again stand and he will overtake many many many of his followers with his divine persuasion and they will scatter and god will do something miraculous when god stands i got a hunch church he's standing now for his hurting children for those who have already gone ahead and gone home and for his image of forgiveness in the earth i predict the next 10 years there may be challenges and mountains and contrary winds but it will be one of the great decades for the church around the world for what was once siloed will now be scattered god may be speaking to you even while i'm preaching the sermon god has asked you to make a move and step out and he's still asking you one of the ways you'll know it's him one of the ways you'll know is he will overtake you with divine persuasion let me pray for you jesus i thank you so much for your ways who you are i thank you for shoreline city thank you for what you're doing we love you we love you if you're watching this right now and you said judah i would like to receive the free gift of forgiveness that only jesus offers i want to encourage you to do that if you're watching this video and you'd like to receive the free gift of forgiveness and receive a relationship with jesus on the count of three just lift up your hand he said you don't need to lift my hand you don't but i think when you do just makes it more real to you got every single hand and heart i thank you is forgiven forever and i'll never be the same in jesus name once again pastor earl shoreline city i love you very much my honor to just add my voice to this extraordinary study and series on the book of acts love you shoreline city see you soon incredibly life-giving i'm not sure uh what you might be again carrying on your shoulders uh some of you may even have lost a loved one here recently over this last year and even hearing these words can be very very comforting to the soul but i also want to i want to pick up on the challenge as well that this is not our home that we are missionaries on this side of heaven [Music] and i don't want us to lose sight of the fact as we've been reading through the book of acts that these are some everyday people and stephen again he was suppose he was waiting tables he was making sure people got food he was on the hospitality team shout out to the hospitality team he was at a neighborhood gathering and he was responsible to make sure the muffins and the fruit was there and god used him and that same god wants to use every single one of you so i don't want us to step back from this i don't want us to try to avoid this i want us to lean in and i want us to be called higher to not just say well i'm just some spectator i'm just some irrelevant person i don't care if you are a teacher a coach you're the medical field you are at home mom or dad you are a student you are married or single you are a missionary you are on assignment you are on this on this earth for a reason and god has so much in store for you let this be a week we step fully into who he's called us to be i'm gonna invite the worship team uh out here all right now if today uh you said i i want i want to give my heart and my life to christ i want to make him first in your life whether you're online or in the room i i do want to know about that i would love the opportunity to be able to pray for you we as a staff would love the opportunity to be able to pray for you what you're going to do is text sc connect to 97 000 text sc connect to 97 000. i'm sorry text jesus first rather to 97 000. that lets us know that you put jesus first that and and that gives us a chance to get back in contact with your next step i don't want it just to be you pray to prayer and go back to living how you've always lived i want it to be for you to go to the growth track that's your next step i think stephen would have i'm not saying you're gonna get beaten by rocks if you go to growth track definitely not saying that but come hell or high water we're gonna be the type of followers of jesus christ that we are not fair-weather christians we're gonna be christians no matter what comes our way i got a lot of uh fire that's been stirring uh in my heart honestly uh i feel like 2020 exposed a lot of the cracks even in my own walk with god and i cannot wait in 2021 to begin to reinforce so that we are a bunch of followers of jesus that no matter what comes our way hell cannot have us in our sound and our worship and our encouragement and our praise and our money and our time it's like god you've got it all no matter what comes our way but with that being said we we want you to go to growth track wanting to take that next step get on this journey uh with us and we're about to sing a song called praise him on again remind us of all the opportunity that we have to give to us make sure we keep on being generous church it's a part of our spiritual development not only growth trap we learn to serve and who you are but also giving is a huge part of that too so i don't want to shy away from that it's going to be something that will release amazing things in our heart and in our lives but also give us an opportunity to bring hope and life all over the entire globe

Channel: Shoreline City Church

Views: 6,200

Rating: 4.9272728 out of 5

Keywords: shorelinecity, judasmith, whengodstands

Id: agezH_vyWYI

Length: 33min 25sec (2005 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 24 2021