May 3rd Sunday Worship and Bible Study

Bible Study zoom meeting info:

Good Shepherd is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting. https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81337432245?pwd=c01Ta0x5bUlFWm1CbHdmSDlxd3NwUT09 Meeting ID: 813 3743 2245 Password: 082165

TEXT: Acts 7:54ff

54Now when they heard these things they were enraged, and they ground their teeth at him. 55But he, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. 56And he said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” 57But they cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears and rushed together at him. 58Then they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul. 59And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” 60And falling to his knees he cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” And when he had said this, he fell asleep.

THE PERSECUTED CHURCH: Living and Dying Beholding Heaven Pastor Bjornstad, May 3rd, 2020 Grace, Mercy and Peace be unto you from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Let me repeat that.   Grace, Mercy and Peace be unto you from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Yes indeed. So here we are once again live streaming our worship. When will it end? Some folks like to think that everything is going to get back to normal at some not so distant a point in time. Yes, there will be a normal again. But it won't be the normal we have known it. We definitely are going to need the grace, mercy and peace that can come only from the heavenly realms: the grace, mercy and peace that can only come from the throne of God. We are really going to have some difficult times ahead.  Now, I am guessing you are thinking I am talking about the nation and the world. That too. But I am mostly speaking about you and me as Christians together. I am talking about the church. But this is the deal. The difficulties we will have to face as Christians living in these United States of America coming up is nothing compared to what millions of Christians around the world must face every day today. Here are some statistics from around the world from this last year concerning the persecuted church of God: It is hard for us to imagine, but over 260 million Christians live in places where they experienced high levels of persecution Last year 2,983 Christians were killed for their faith and 9,488 churches and other Christian buildings were attacked. Last year 3,711 believers were detained without trial, arrested, sentenced or imprisoned. And those are the statistics that we know of.   To give you an example of real life as a Christian in China, the web page "Bitter Winter" reports on an incident in China that just happened a month ago: A Catholic from the diocese reported that government officials took away Father Huang, a priest from the parish in Saiqi town, administered by Fujian’s Fuan city, on April 2. For four days, the priest was subjected to a torture method called “exhausting an eagle,” when people are deprived of sleep for extended periods. “Fr. Huang’s residence was under surveillance, and that day, at about 4 p.m., the police pried open the door and forcibly carried him away,” the churchgoer said. “More than a dozen personnel took part in the operation.” That evening, national security officers escorted Fr. Huang to a remote secret interrogation facility and confined him to a small room equipped with a surveillance camera. The priest had strong lights shown in his eyes 24 hours a day, as officers took turns watching him, threatening to keep him in detention for as long as he refused to join the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association. CPCA. - i.e. the "government approved" Catholic church. Long story short... it actually seems that the devil won this little skirmish for the moment. This poor priest eventually signed the papers pledging him to the state approved Catholic church. This was April 2nd. Of this year. We could go on and on. You might check out the many websites which detail the great persecutions around the world. But even reading these accounts might leave us still unmoved in our hearts. Personally, there are a couple incidents in my life which I will never forget, which put me in personal contact with the persecuted church. One was getting to know a small group of Indonesian refugee christians in Scranton PA... They had been worshipping at a neighboring Lutheran church and over a bit of time I got to hear their testimony as to how they had come to Scranton. Indeed, they were in Scranton because they had literally been burned out of their homes and their churches in Indonesia. The neighboring Muslim town had put together some kind of mob and attacked their Christian community. They fled that night with nothing except the clothes on their backs. Also, several years back, I was driving home from a conference in Fort Wayne with a couple of other pastors. It was about 2am and we stopped for some gas and a break. I went to the counter with my bag of chips. As I did the clerk recognized my shirt and collar. He stopped the transaction and looked at me. He started tearing up as he, in broken English, poured out his heart and asked for my prayers. His whole family was Christian in Egypt, and just that week there had been terrible riots and church burnings across the country. His family's church had been destroyed and they all feared for their lives. "Pray for us" he pleaded. Was that all I could do? So frustrating! So discouraging! I promised I would always remember his family and his church in Egypt. So I struggled mightily over this sermon. My conviction is that a sermon should be more an exposition based on the Word of God. Am I taking too much liberty in bringing this subject of the persecuted church to the congregation in a sermon? Usually topics such as this might better be address in venues other than the sermon. But since those are exceedingly difficult these days, how can we address this properly? Of course, addressing this issue is not exactly out of the blue. We come face to face with the persecuted church in the account of Stephen in the book of Acts. It is a most profound and powerful account. My hope and prayer is that somehow in connecting the dots concerning the persecuted church, our hearts might be stricken and our faith increased. I would hope that we would sincerely ask ourselves what God would have us respond to what is happening to our brothers and sisters in Christ around the world. WHAT IS TO BE OUR RESPONSE? Are we to feel guilty for all our benefits? Are we to wring our hands and lay awake all night? Are we to find ways to love and support those under persecution? Advocate for them? Pressure governments. Write letters. March on the streets. Perhaps! How about this morning? What is it that our Lord would have us do? PERHAPS FIRSTLY: putting the spotlight on the persecuted church might behoove us to be appreciative of what God has given us here in these United States. We can be so lazy. So what of our worship? So what that we can be free to associate around the Word and Sacraments? Sing praises to God? Bless each other? Pray for each other? Share the Good News with one another? What of the fact that we can teach our children the faith? Some years back, one of the clandestine missionaries of the LCMS in Turkey shared with me how in that country it is legal for you to be a Christian. But! - You can't have a Christian church. Neither can you have a seminary to train pastors. But you CAN be a Christian! Just be warned, dear brothers and sisters, there is something of a trajectory even in this great land of ours where freedom of religion is simply a right to believe what you want, but not have the free exercise of religion. To have a school. To train up a child in the Lord. To have a seminary. To have a local congregation. These are immense gifts that we have in this country. Praise God and hold those gifts tight. Support your church. Support your school. Bring your child to Sunday School. Support those going to seminary. Pray for us all! For heaven's sake, attend your church! Bless your neighbor with the Good News of Jesus, that He is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! Alleluia! Amen! SO FIRSTLY WE MUST APPRECIATE THE GREAT GIFTS THAT GOD HAS GIVEN US... BUT SECONDLY, I PRAY THAT WE MIGHT ALSO be appreciative of the gifts of great faith and example that those being persecuted give to us. Why do we think the martyrdom of St. Stephen is given us in scripture? It is that we might be strengthened in our faith. We are all struggling with our own issues, personal and corporate. We would despair completely if it were not for the great witnesses of faith that have gone before us. As Hebrews states: Heb. 12:1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. The faith of the persecuted reminds us of the powerful truth that our Lord has truly overcome the world. They remind us that Faith comes in Big chunks! Faith comes in chunks as big as needed for any situation... even the situation of life and death. Faith comes not by our own doing, but by the power and breath of the Holy Spirit. It comes at the behest of our Father God through the saving work of His Son, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. FINALLY, MY PRAYER FOR US THIS MORNING, IS THAT WE WOULD BE blessed beyond measure to see the Risen and victorious Christ standing in heaven. The goal of our faith is to see - as St. Stephen did - the Risen Christ standing ready to receive us into His heavenly kingdom. In a certain sense, we are all being persecuted. Our faith is being persecuted by our own sinful flesh. It is being persecuted by the devil and all his demons - daily and moment by moment! The reality is that whether we die by the hands of some government secret police, or by the hand of the coronavirus or our failing body organs - it is all the work of sin and evil in this tragic life.   This past week we have had two deaths in our congregation! We thank God for the witness of Leona Roth and Douglas Wedge. Today we include their families in our prayers. Next week you could be including my family because I am in my grave. We could be praying for your family because you are lying in your grave. Coronavirus or not! But He is Risen! He is Risen indeed! Alleluia! This is the Gospel indeed! This is the song of our hearts! We have the sure testimony of the Apostles and St. Stephen and all the men and women of faith over 2000 years! The goal of our lives is to live the bold testimony of faith in Jesus Christ! The goal of our lives is to die at peace with God and our fellow man - even our persecutors. Notice how Stephen prayed as Jesus did that God would not hold his persecutor's sins against them. the goal of our lives is to look to heaven and see Christ standing, ready to receive us into His Kingdom. The goal of our faith is to believe and trust in the blessed words of Jesus in our Gospel of John reading this morning:  1[Jesus said:] “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. 2In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? 3And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.  Beloved in the Lord! He is Risen! He is Risen indeed! Alleluia! Think about it! Here we are living in a time where the whole world is fleeing a virus of death. Believe me when I say that I am not encouraging anything but a strong medical battle against this scourge of death... but open your eyes! See Jesus! HE is the final answer to our fears and our graves! Lift up the cross, dear church of God! Your savior comes to vanquish death! It just stuns me to think how docile the church is. Have we lost all sense of what our faith is all about? The dire need of salvation is plain every day in our lives. It dominates our days like at no other time in our history! And yet? Where is the church? Where is the Gospel? Is it preached? In its fullness and glory? Where is it lived out in your life and mine? Heaven help us! Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy! Lord have mercy! Indeed thank God He does have mercy! Lift your eyes this morning! See heaven opened and Christ standing to greet you! See his hands. See his feet. See where His crown of thorns bled his head. Your sins are forgiven! As you walk in the footsteps of martyrs down through the ages and even today, may His glory and salvation go with you, even as it went with them!   For you and all the persecuted church -  He is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! Alleluia! Amen!