Rooted - Courage in Christ: Embracing “Good Trouble”

Welcome to South Sub Church. We are so glad that you've decided to worship with us today. Whether you're in the room right now or watching from home, wherever it is, we're just so glad that we get to spend this time together and worship the Lord together as one. Here at South Sub Church, we believe we are one church with two expressions of worship. But we have one mission to bring people to Jesus Christ and together become passionate followers of him. Another way that we worship is through our ti offerings. And here at South Church, we believe that we give the Lord back what he gives us. And there's a couple ways that I want to invite you to do that this morning. One is giving online at southub.urch/give. Another way is by texting the number that's on the screen right now. Or there's an envelope in your seat back pocket. And here's what I want to invite you to do. No matter what gift you give, big or small, we believe that whatever we give, the Lord multiplies that and we are able to be the hands and feet of Jesus here where we are right now. If you're new, we invite you to fill out a connect card. We would love to get to know you, pray for you, and find a way for you to get more connected with our church. And if you're watching us online, make sure you leave a comment wherever you are. Maybe you're going to the mountains, maybe you have a soccer game to go to. Whatever it is, we're just so glad that you've decided to join us for worship. You picked a great week to be here. Let's jump into God's word together. Let's worship him today. [Music]

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Well, good morning again. Uh, nobody panic. I'm not giving the message. Uh, I wanted to introduce our guest pastor today. uh his students at Denver Seminary call him Professor Dodson. His our our student director here, Kenan, calls him dad. His grandkids call him pop. Uh but we get to call him our honored guest. Uh it's a pleasure and a privilege. Would you help me welcome Pastor Joey Dodson?

Thanks, Steuart. Appreciate it. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Thank you so much for allowing me to come and share with you. Thank you for investing in my son and daughter-in-law and even more so my grandchildren. Uh I walked in today and Mona looked at me and said, "Oh, I thought you would be taller." I was just waiting for her to say, "I thought you would have hair." So, thank you at the very beginning for just the Lord's humility coming in uh to this place. Uh, as Stuart mentioned, I teach at Denver Seminary. I teach New Testament, although my area of expertise is actually kind of the world surrounding the New Testament, the Judaism before Jesus and kind of the Greco Roman story and how that makes an influence on the New Testament. One of my favorite characters uh in that era is a guy named Rabbi Akoba. Sounds like a Star Wars character. It's a trap, but really it's a just a really good rabbi and has a lot of legends around his name. And one of those is that one day he was walking home on the road to Damascus and as kind of a professor theologian he got lost in thought and highway hypnosis thinking about the things of God and rather than taking the right to go to Damascus uh he kept going until presently he came upon a Roman garrison. There was a Roman guard that saw this wandering rabbi coming his direction and as was his duty he cried out, "Who are you? What are you doing here? The rabbi awakened from his highway hypnosis, looked at the guard and said, "How much are they paying you?" Taken aback, the Roman soldier looked again and said, "Who are you? What are you doing here?" One more time, the rabbi said, "How much are they paying you?" Finally, the Roman soldier says, "Who who are you? What are you doing here? And one last time the rabbi said, "How much are they paying you?" The guard gave in. He acquiesed and said, "Two dinari." And Rabbi Acrib without batting an eye said, "I tell you what, I will double that if you'll come to my house every day and ask me those two questions. Who are you? What are you doing here?" two of the most important questions that we have uh in this world. And I love the Bible. I love the New Testament. And particularly I love the book of Acts because page after page, story after story, verse after verse, we hear it giving us the answer of who we are and what we're doing here. Pastor Keith said, "You guys have been walking through Acts." He says, "You've been getting your Acts together." and uh he asked me to preach Acts chapter 5 uh verse 17-42. So if you have your Bibles uh you can turn there or scroll there if you're on your phones. Um Acts 5 17 through uh 42. And as you're turning there, let me kind of give you just a quick review uh of what we've seen in Acts. Um if you remember, Luke is the author of not only Luke, but uh he has the sequel and that is the book of Acts. And at the very beginning of Acts, he kind of takes everything that he said in the Gospel of Luke and telescopes that, gives us a summary about how when Jesus was here, he preached about the kingdom of God. He was risen and then he was with his disciples for 40 days. Uh but if you remember in Luke's gospel, in all the gospels, there's this promise that Jesus is going to come and he's going to baptize uh with the Holy Spirit. But if we go through Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, there's no baptism of the Holy Spirit yet. And so we're kind of waiting, waiting, waiting. And as Jesus is preaching to his disciples, he says, "Hey, I want you to wait because the spirit of God is going to come upon you." And the disciples look and say, "Hey, Jesus, is it time to kick the Romans to the curb? Is it time for the world to end?" And Jesus, you don't need to worry about the end of the world. Instead, you need to worry about taking the gospels, the gospel to the ends of the earth. You don't need to worry about the end of the world. you need to worry about taking the gospel to the end of the earth. And then he looks at him and gives us the thesis of Acts. You receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria even to the ends of the earth to Jerusalem and beyond. At this time, if you remember Jesus ascends into the heaven and disciples are just standing and staring and all of a sudden two men dressed in white. It's like what are you guys looking at? Did you hear not want to hear what he said? You just need to go back and you need to wait because he just the way he went up, he's going to come back down. And the disciples go back and we get to Acts chapter 2 and uh early in the morning as the disciples were worshiping and praying, all of a sudden the spirit of God came down in tongues of fire. There was a great mighty wind and all of a sudden the Holy Spirit began to inspire them and they begin to speak in tongues and they were saying, "Ain't no party like a Holy Ghost potty." He goes, "Holy Ghost potty don't stop." And it don't stop and it don't stop. And as they're preaching, all of a sudden, all the people there at Pentecost, they hear and they're realize they're speaking in different languages, but they can understand. And uh some were like, "Wow, what is this that God's doing?" Others are like, "These guys, they're drunk." And uh Peter gets up and was like, "No, no, no. We're not drunk as you suppose. It's only 9:00 in the morning and we're Baptist." Um but but instead, this is to fulfill what has happened to the prophet Joel. Uh Joel said that at the end of the days, God's spirit will be poured out on your sons and your daughters, on your men and your women, on your male slaves and your female slaves, and your old men will see visions and your young men would dream dreams. And God is pouring out his spirit. If you remember at this point, Peter begins to get his preaching on. If we go back to the gospels, the last time we saw Peter, especially in Luke's gospel, he was saying, "I don't know this Jesus. I don't know this Jesus. I don't know this Jesus." to a little girl. But now we see G Peter filled with the Holy Spirit standing up and he's preaching and he preaches so long. Finally the people interrupt and it's like Peter say no more. Stop preaching. Hopefully you won't say that to me today. Um but they just they interrupt Peter like Peter just tell us what we do. What must we do to be saved? And Peter says repent and believe in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and you and your children will be saved. And at that day 3,000 people Israelite were saved. And then we see that the church begin to get together and they begin to uh share bread and communion and dedicate themselves to the apostles teaching. We get to Acts chapter 3 and Peter and John, Batman and Robin, they're walking to the temple and all of a sudden there's a man there who had been a paralytic for over 40 years and the guy looks up and he sees Peter and he says, "Amss arms for the poor. Give a give me something." And Peter looks and he gazes at him and sees something. And he says to the man, "Silver and gold have I not, but what I do have, I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ, get up off your feet and dance. You feel better." And all of a sudden, the the spirit of God came upon this man and he was healed. And he wasn't just healed, but he goes into the temple and he began to jump around. He began to to to rejoice. And the people that saw him realize that this is the man who had been sitting and begging. And now he's jumping and leaping in the house of God. And this leads to another opportunity for Peter begin to pray. And Peter begins to preach. And Peter begins to preach and preach and preach. And the the the Jewish leaders of the day, they're not happy about this. And so they get Peter and John. They seize them and they put them in prison. The next day they come and they bring him to court. And as they bring him to court, uh Peter looks and says, "Hey, we have to serve God, not you. We're here to obey God, not people." And uh he begins to preach uh once again. This time they uh give they browbeat Peter and John and they command them do not preach in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John they go out rejoicing because they had suffered for the name of the Lord. They go back and they tell the church guess what guess what we are suffering with the Lord. We're suffering for his people. And all of a sudden as the church was praying uh they're filled with the spirit again. Then we get to chapter five and the story that you covered last week of Ananas and Safh where all of a sudden they begin to church members begin to lie to the Holy Spirit and the judgment of God comes down upon Ananas and Safara and a great fear begins to spread because uh they had lied to the Holy Spirit. But then we see that the apostles continue to follow in the ministry of Jesus and that they begin to heal those that are sick and people came from all around to be healed in the name of Jesus. And that gets us to our passage today. Acts 5:1 17. When the chief priest and all of his associates, those who were members of the party of the Sadducees heard about this, they were filled with jealousy and they went out and they seized the apostles and they grabbed them with their hands and they took them and they threw them into the public jail. But during the night, the angel of the Lord appeared and he opened up the doors and he brought them out. Go into the temple courts, he said, and tell the people all about this new life. So at the break of dawn, the disciples went into the temple courts and they began to teach the people as they were instructed. When the chief priest and all of his associates arrived, they called up the Sanhedrin. The Sanhedrin is a fancy name for all of the elders of Israel to come and they sent the officers to go get the apostles and bring them to court. The officers went to the prison, looked inside the jail, and Kadis say awkward. the disciples weren't there and so they had to go back and report and said um uh so we went to the jail and the doors were securely locked and the guards were standing there but when we opened the door there was no one inside and the captain of the guard and the chief priest they were astonished and they wondered what could this mean about this time a guy comes and says, "Hey, look. Aren't those the guys that you put in prison last night? They're in the temple courts preaching and teaching the people." So, the captain of the guard and his officers went and they nicely, politely asked the apostles to join them because they were afraid of the crowd stoning them. And so they brought the apostles before the high priest and the Sanhedrin and they began to answer ask questions. The high priest said, "We told you to stop preaching in the name of that Jesus. You but but you haven't stopped and said you've taken this all over Jerusalem and you are determined to make our hands guilty bloody of this man's blood." And Peter looks and says, "Hey, we must obey God and not you. The God of our ancestors raised Jesus from the dead. The same Jesus you crucified. The same Jesus you killed by hanging on a cross, but God exalted him to his right hand. And he made him prince. And he made him savior so that the people of Israel would repent and be forgiven of their sins. and he's given us the Holy Spirit. We are witnesses of that. And he'll give the Holy Spirit to all who believe. When the chief priests heard of this, they were full of anger and they wanted to kill the apostles. But at this time, a man named Giliel who was an OG. He was a chief of the Pharisees. He was a teacher of the Old Testament law who was really renowned during that time. And he stood up and in the Greek he says, "You need to calm down. You're being too loud." He gets up and your kids will get that. He he that's for your youth. He he gets up and he says, "Hey, hey, hey, whoa, whoa, whoa. Let's take these guys out for a minute. Let me have a talk with you." So they took the apostles out and he said this, "Hey, I want you to be very careful what you decide to do with these men. Do you remember Judas and Judas? A guy named Thudas who a while back thought he was something and he got about 400 followers behind him but then he was killed and his followers just scattered. Then there was Judas from Galilee. Not that Judas but a Judas from Galilee back during the time of the census who he led a revolt a band of people but then he was killed and his followers scattered. So also with these men if their movement is from human origin then it's Pup, it's going to putter out. But if it's from God, nothing will be able to stop it. And you will find yourself not only unable to stop them, but you yourself fighting against God. Well, the Sanhedrin agreed with Gilio. They decided to let the apostles go. But first they fgged and they beat the apostles and they commanded them no longer preach in that name. But the disciples left rejoicing because they had been considered worthy to suffer disgrace for that name. And every day they went to the temple courts. They went from house to house to house proclaiming that Jesus is the Christ, that Jesus is the Messiah. The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. This is a story of Acts. I want to bring up kind of just three points for today to take from that story, some highlights. And the first highlight that we see from this is that God is with us in our suffering. God is with us in our suffering. One of the uh recurring themes that we see in Acts is prison, prison, prison, prison, jail, jail, jail, jail. We had it already in Acts chapter 4. We're kind of the same thing. Uh the religious rulers, uh they they put the apostles in prison. Uh but gives the apostles an opportunity to be a witness, to testify uh for Jesus Christ. Um they get um persecuted. They get uh uh they they they get um browbeat and persecuted. And then the apostles go away rejoicing and the gospel begins to spread. We see it right here, but we'll also see it a little bit later in Acts chapter 12 uh with Peter once again after they kill James. They throw Peter in prison and guess what? The angel of the Lord opens it up and he gets out um goes to the straight way. Later on, we'll have Peter I mean Paul in Philippi who he and Silas were thrown into prison but in prison in the middle of the night after being beaten. They just can't stop. They just have to continue just to worship the Lord and the Lord miraculously lets them free. Even in Acts 28, um the end, the last chapter of Acts, some spoilers here, it leaves Paul in Rome in prison under house arrest. And the last phrase of this is that even though Paul was in prison, the gospel was unchained. That's how Acts ends. Over and over again, what we see with this prison motif is that even though the apostles have been abandoned to prison, God is with them. Even though they're in suffering, God is with them. They're not afraid. They have a bit of a swagger like, "Oh, you're going to take us back to prison again? That's funny that you think that the this prison bars are going to keep us. That's funny that you think God is going to abandon us behind those bars." Instead, they have this confidence that God is with us. When we think of prison motif um in the Bible uh we think of Joseph back in Genesis kind of the conclusion of Genesis we have this story of Joseph and if you remember Joseph is thrown into prison he's thrown into the dungeon but then you have this great theme and it says but God was with Joseph over and over and over again Joseph is betrayed he's thrown into the dungeon he's thrown into the pit but we have this theme but God was with Joseph so also with these disciples in prison in jail. The Lord is with them. He is Emanuel. It's also with us. We're not in a literal prison, but we have this promise that God will never let us down. He'll never run around. He'll never leave us down or forsake us. That whatever our suffer suffering is, whatever our prison is, whatever our our affliction that we're going through, that God is with us. Later on, Paul's going to say this um who is uh uh about to go to prison. and he doesn't know it yet, but he writes in Romans chapter 5, in the face of suffering, in the face of all of the hard things that happen to us in life, we have a woohoo, a shout of triumph because we know that that suffering leads to perseverance and that perseverance leads to character and that character leads to hope and that hope does not disappoint us because God has poured out his Holy Spirit into our lives with his love. This promise that no matter what the suffering is, that God is with us. He is Emanuel. What about you this morning? What is the suffering? What is the pain? What what is the gel? Maybe you're here this morning for God just to say from this story, "Hey, I haven't left you alone. I am with you in your distress. I see your tears. I hear your cries. I'm the God of compassion and the father of comfort. And I'm not abandoning you." Whatever that is today. The first point that we see in this story is that God does not abandon his people in suffering. The second point is that God allows us to join him in his suffering. In both of these stories, Acts 4 and then here prison break two uh we have um the disciples rejoicing. Yes, yes, yes, yes. We were able to join God in his suffering. We were able to continue in the sufferings of God. This of course reminds us to what Jesus says in the sermon on the mount. Maybe Peter and John and the apostles remembered when Jesus got his boys together and gave his greatest hit in Matthew 5 through7 at the very beginning of that after the biatitudes he says this hey you know what count it joy when you face sufferings of very kind oh wait there's James he comes and says uh hey rejoice and be glad when people persecute you and falsely say all these evil things about you because in the same way they persecuted the prophets before you rejoice and be glad because great is your reward in heaven heaven. And I think when the disciples as they're swaggering out of that prison, as they're leading the court, they're remembering Jesus' words that, "Hey, guess what? We were able to share in the suffering." Jesus says, "Hey, if anyone wants to follow me, let them take up their cross and follow me." This taking up the cross is not just reading our Bible daily. It's not just praying daily. It's joining in the suffering of God. Suffering for those who are persecute us. Suffering for those who hate us. suffering for those who are poor and powerless. That's why Jesus took up his cross and so also us. And so I think the apostles were realizing that at this point they're continuing to fulfill what Jesus says. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. In this life, you will have trouble. In this life, you have pain. In this life, you have suffering. But take heart. I have overcome the world. The disciples are seeing it in real time that the more they suffer, the more the gospel is proclaimed. The more you push them down, the more Jesus Christ is exalted. And they come and they're like, "Yes, yes, yes, yes. I am able to suffer. God has called me to share in his sufferings." Again, what we see in Romans chapter 8, Paul's going to say, "Hey, guess what? We are hes of God." Amen. We are co-airs with Jesus Christ. Amen. So, we share in his glory. Amen. But to share in his glory, we also share in his suffering. Amen.

for Paul and for the apostles, the way that we share in God's glory as we share in his sufferings. Paul says in Colossians as well, I I I'm full of joy that I get to uh continue in the sufferings of Jesus to fill up in my body what was lacking in the sufferings of Jesus Christ. Here we see that God doesn't abandon us in their suffering, but he also he uses our suffering to exalt the name of Jesus Christ. Paul is going to go before the emperor because he's suffering. an opportunity that he would never have. Now, let me just kind of say this real quick. The disciples, they're suffering for proclaiming this new life. They're suffering for proclaiming Jesus Christ. The disciples aren't being persecuted because they're involved in culture wars. They're not getting in prison because they're like, "Have you looked at Rome? Have you seen that emperor? Have you seen all of the the bad things that are happening in the theater?" They're not preaching against Rome. Disciples aren't coming and getting involved in culture wars like Judaism is bad. you know the temple that is corrupt. No, instead the share of suffering is in preaching the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I grew up in a church where we love to sing hymns and one of my favorite hymn is that you know the things of this world will grow strangely dim in the light of God's glory and grace. Instead of focusing on cursing the darkness and getting involved in culture wars, they're just lifting up the name of Jesus Christ and Rome and the corruption and the culture things of the world, they just fall away. And what happens so often in our world today, we as Christians, we're known more for what we're against than who we're for. We're known more for what we're against. this politician or this group or this cultural fight and this Facebook post rather than being known for the love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. The disciples doesn't the the angel doesn't say go to the temple courts and preach against that, preach against that, preach against that, vote against this, vote against that. Instead, go tell them all about this new life, the abundant life of Jesus Christ. And that's where the disciples want their focus. And I think that's where we should focus as well. And the final point that I want to bring out today is that nothing's going to stop the apostles. God is not going to allow their sufferings to keep the church from being the church, from keeping the church of being the light to the world. It's funny because in Acts one, Jesus doesn't say, "You might be my witnesses to the ends of the earth. Uh if you do this, then you'll be my witness." He says, "No, no. the spirit's going to come upon you and you will be my witnesses to the ends of the earth. What's funny with Luke is that he has this irony that continues to go through where he's like the more people try to stop the church, the more the church keeps on keeps on keeps on keeps on going. We'll even see Giliel who comes up and says, "Hey, whoa, whoa, whoa, y'all better watch out. You better not cry because if these guys are from God, I'm telling you why. Nothing's going to stop him." Now, Gilio has a top student. His valictorian is a guy named Saul, also named Paul, who didn't listen to his professor and instead goes out to try to persecute the Christians. But guess what happens? You know, he becomes the preacher of the gospel. Paul, who tries to stop it, ends up proclaiming it, the gospel. And we see this uh promise again and again is that nothing is going to stop the church. It's more the the government, the more Rome, the more the the persecution. Even Satan who comes and tries to stop the church can't stop the church. And because of that, the church has this bit of a swagger. They have this confidence. They have this boldness that God is with them and that God is going to use whatever is happening to them to proclaim the gospel to take it to the ends of the earth. And we have that as well. I I spend most of my time in the New Testament uh in Paul's letters and even more so in Romans and uh students often ask me questions like hey if you had like just one line uh like what what what verse would you go to to proclaim the truth of the gospel? And of course that sends a seminary professor into great thinking like oh this verse. Oh no. Oh what about this verse? But I think I've got it. I think if I could just summarize the gospel in one verse it would be this. If God is for us,

God is for you. God is for me. If God is for us, then who begin who can be against us? If the almighty God did not even sacrifice his own son for us, how much more will he give us all things? And the apostles sitting in prison, they know that God is for us. The apostles in their suffering, they know that God is for us. Therefore, nothing can be against us. God is going to use us to join him in his suffering and nothing's going to stop us because of that. I love uh Winston Churchill and all the stories surrounding his life. And uh one of my favorites is that he was invited to give the commencement speech at Oxford. Winston Churchill gets up and they give this long introduction to uh Church Hill. And if you've ever been to a graduation, the the students don't want to hear the speech, right? They just want to graduate. They just want to throw their hats. And uh so Churchill is kind of reading the room. And as he's reading the room, he realizes that he probably needs to go off script. And so instead of getting giving up and giving this long pedantic graduation speech, Churchill just gets up and he looks at the students and he says this. Never. That's how he talks. Never, never, never, never, never give up. And he sat down. I think the truth of what we see in Acts five is that promise, that encouragement to never, never, never, never, never, never, never give up. Know who we are. We are the children of God. We've been adopted by him. By his spirit, we cry, "Aba, Father. We have his Holy Spirit." As those who obey so that we can testify what God has done for our lives. And what are we doing here? We are here to be witnesses. And as we try to grab a hold of what God has called us to be, who we are, and what God has called us to do, we have this promise that God has already grabbed hold of that for us. And because of that, no matter what the suffering, no matter what the persecution, no matter what the things that we're going through, never, never, never, never give up. Christ is our prince, the author and perfector of our faith. Let's fix our eyes upon him. If you would bow your heads and close your eyes, I just want you to ask the Lord, what in this message does he have for you? What in it has your name on it? What is it where God just want to go and put it on your heart? Maybe for some of you lately, you just have kind of lost who you are. Struggling with your identity, midlife crisis, not knowing who you are, not knowing what you're doing here. And today, God's just saying, "Hey, who are you? What are you doing here?" For some of you, maybe you've been in a metaphorical jail lately

in pain and suffering in a time of affliction. And God just wants you to know that he has not abandoned you, that he is with you. And like Peter when he was in the prison, you can just rest in him. or like Paul knowing that you can even worship while you're in chains because God is with you. For some, maybe it's that invitation to begin to join God in suffering by teaching people about the good news of Jesus Christ, the light of the glory of the gospel of our Messiah. Or maybe it's just encourage you that your labor right now is not in vain. as you're going through this and you're struggling that God is using it to exalt the name of our savior. And finally this morning, maybe God's saying to you, "Hey, I'm for you. No one can be against you. Nothing's going to stop the church." As we look around and we see our current climate, we look at the violence. As we look at the hatred in the world, we have this promise that we will be God's witnesses. And the more the things of the world try to stop us, the more it propels us upon our mission so that we don't have to give up. Father, add your power and your conviction, your Holy Spirit to your word, God, that we will not be the same, that we will be changed in the name of our savior and our prince Jesus Christ. Amen.