Teaching Summary: What Now? (Acts) The Resurrection Community
Acts 8:1-8
They say no good deed goes unpunished. Last Sunday, Pastor Cory taught on Stephen, an irregular guy who made himself available and gave everything to the cause of Christ. And what did he get for it? Persecution. Not by the church he served, but by the same religious establishment that persecuted Jesus himself. Jesus told his disciples this was coming. In John 15: the servant is not above his master. If they persecuted me, they will persecute you. In Acts chapter 7, it begins. The religious leaders drag Stephen outside the city and stone him to death. His last words: Lord, do not hold this sin against them.
What do you do when you feel persecuted? Most of us don't handle it well. When we feel misunderstood, unheard, judged, or excluded, we reach for strategies we've spent a lifetime developing. Some of us defend, explain, make our case. Some of us counter, attack, get bigger. Some of us retreat, go internal, lock the doors. Normal, natural strategies. They've kept us safe. What is persecution? Persecution is opposition, mistreatment, or exclusion that causes you suffering. In all its forms, great and small, it is unavoidable. We experience some version of it every single day.
Each week we've been asking: What now? Underneath that is a more specific question: what effect does the resurrection of Jesus have on how we understand and live our lives? Christians are resurrection people. We don't live as if the resurrection never happened. We try to see everything through the lens of the fact that when the person we follow died, he didn't stay dead. God raised him from the dead. No people in human history have ever made that claim. Only Christian people. And if it's true, it changes everything. The problem is that many Christians live as if it never happened. So here is the challenge: look honestly at your life. Notice the areas where you are still living as if Jesus was never raised. And make whatever change is necessary to live the peculiar way that resurrection people live.
Acts 8 opens on the day Stephen is killed. A great persecution breaks out and the followers of Jesus are scattered throughout Judea and Samaria. The Greek word for persecution here is diogmos, from a verb that means to pursue, to chase, to hunt down. Jesus uses this same word in Matthew 5 to cover everything from violence all the way down to exclusion and insult. Persecution exists on a spectrum. What happens to Stephen is one end. The conversation where you got steamrolled is the other. Both are real. And here is what Jesus never says: if you are persecuted. He says when. Not exceptional. Expected.
The apostles stay. Everyone else goes. Ordinary people, regular men and women, not the trained ones. And then Luke writes this: those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went. They didn't go silent. Philip went to Samaria. Centuries of history between Jews and Samaritans. Mutual contempt. Philip went anyway and proclaimed the Messiah there. The people who scattered him ended up being the reason the gospel reached the people Jesus always intended it to reach. Scattered doesn't mean destroyed. Scattered means spread.
Most of the time we don't choose how we respond to persecution. We just react. We're on autopilot. And autopilot has been running a long time. So here is the interruption: when you feel that pressure rising, stop before you react. Ask yourself one question. Do I believe Jesus is risen? Not in general. Right now. In this. Because if he is, this moment is not the whole story. This person does not have the final word. The outcome has already been determined by a man who walked out of a tomb. Count to five before you respond. Actually count. The pause is the practice. Respond with a question instead of a statement. A question keeps you curious instead of reactive. Say less than you want to. The person who believes Jesus has already won doesn't need to win the argument. And if you need more time, excuse yourself. Thirty seconds to remember who you are before you speak. That is not retreat. That is wisdom.
When the crowds in Samaria heard Philip and saw the signs he performed, they paid close attention. Impure spirits came out. Paralyzed people walked. Lame people were healed. Philip didn't have the apostles or a building or a platform. He had the Spirit that raised Jesus. And he went. Luke ends this passage with eight words: so there was great joy in that city. Not relief. Not survival. Joy. Hold that up against what we see in the American church when followers of Jesus feel persecuted today. Anger. Defensiveness. Bitterness. Contempt. That is a pre-resurrection response. The people in Acts 8 lost everything. They were hunted, imprisoned, scattered. And what they left behind was joy. Joy is the sign of people who actually believe Jesus is risen, the fruit of knowing that nothing, not even this, is the end of the story.
So what now? The Christians in Acts 8 show us the answer. They didn't go silent. They didn't go small. They went. Some of you are in a season of real pressure right now. A relationship gone sideways, a work situation that feels hostile, a family dynamic that has left you pushed to the edges. You may not be able to change the circumstance. But you can change how you carry it. You can defend, counter, or retreat. Or you can go. Take the ground you're standing on, wherever you've been scattered, and bring the kingdom to it. That's not weakness. That's resurrection. And others of you are in a steadier season. The question is simpler: do you believe it? Not just in theory. In your kitchen. In your truck. At your job. With the person who irritates you most. Because if you do, what comes out when you get squeezed isn't anger or defensiveness. What comes out is joy.
