When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.  When the going gets tough, the tough get going.  Every cloud has a silver lining.  It’s not about the cards you’re dealt, but about how you play the hand. 

Each of these statements are familiar sayings in our society that have to do with making the best of a bad situation.  We have all had to do this at one time or another—we have all had to make lemonade when life has given us lemons.  And all of us know stories of people who have overcome great adversity and have made great work of the worst of situations.  There are many stories in our world of people who played a bad hand well—who found the silver lining in a tough situation.

We learn in Scripture that our God works in this way as well.  We learn all throughout His Word that he makes the best work of the worst of situations.  His book is filled with story after story of Him working in and through dark and difficult situations to bring about the best, most glorious and god-honoring ends.  This is the work that our God delights in doing.  He delights in taking broken and messed up situations and restoring and redeeming them and using them for good and for His purposes and for His glory. 

We are given a great example of this in Acts 8.  After God’s great servant Stephen is stoned to death and Christian persecution breaks out all over Jerusalem, we are told that God works in and through it to take His message of salvation out of Jerusalem and out into the world.  He makes great work of this horrible situation.  He uses persecution to spread His Gospel.  

"QUOTE" OF THE WEEK

“Satan was doing his best (to stop the spread of God’s Gospel) and God was just checking off point two in His outline."  (Acts 8:1-4) –John MacArthur

MISSIONS MONTH

Yesterday we had our missionaries from Nigeria--the Fretheims with us. They head up City Ministries which serves the people of Jos, Nigeria in a number of ways. Some of these include free medical treatments, expanded prison ministries, more than 500 film outreaches and the development of Genesis Farms, which trains people to care for large gardens that provide food and income for the people of Jos.

They have also been involved with several church plants and have trained thousands of Nigerians for evangelism and church planting.  To learn more about their ministry please click HERE.

"QUOTE" OF THE MONTH

"All of Scripture points to the fact that God is a missionary God, that the church is to be a missionary community and that God's people are to be missionary people." -Paul G. Hiebert

MISSIONS MONTH

Jim and Melanie Wilson live in Costa Rica where they serve as full-time missionaries.  Though they are involved in various ministries, their primary focus is upon leadership development.  Jim was with us yesterday and preached from 1 Corinthians and then met with our mission team going to Nicaragua in November.

"QUOTE" OF THE WEEK

 May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face to shine upon us, Selah that your way may be known on earth, your saving power among all nations.  Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you!  Let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you judge the peoples with equity and guide the nations upon earth. Selah  Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you!  The earth has yielded its increase; God, our God, shall bless us.  God shall bless us; let all the ends of the earth fear him!  Psalm 67

MISSIONS MONTH

Scott Yingling visited our church yesterday.  He is the director of the website obrerofiel.com.  Obrero Fiel means "faithful laborer" in Spanish. This site is designed to encourage, educate and equip Spanish-speakers around the world.  There are over 6,000 Christian resources available, and there is also an online discipleship school called Escuela Obrero Fiel which has over 3,000 students enrolled.  His son, Josiah, was also with us.  Josiah recently graduated from Moody Bible Institute and is starting at New Tribes Ministry in the fall.  There he will be trained for mission ministry.  To know more about Obrero Fiel, click HERE.  To learn more about New Tribes Missions, click HERE.  And to hear Scott and Josiah's message click HERE.

"QUOTE" OF THE WEEK

"We must be global Christians with a global vision because our God is a global God."  -John Stott

THE CHRIST-HATING MOB AND THE MAN OF GOD

Then 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.  And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”  And 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.  Acts 7:58-60 

 

At the end of Acts 7 we learn that Stephen was put to death for his stance for Christ.  And as they were stoning him, we are told that he prayed for them.  He says, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.”  In this passage, Luke makes a great contrast between this Christ-hating mob and this man of God. 

We see here in this passage that though this mob hated Stephen, Stephen loved and forgave them.  Christ did something very similar at His crucifixion.  We are told as he was being crucified, Christ prayed for His persecutors and said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

Stephen prays the same thing.  While they are killing him, he prays that God would show great grace and mercy to them.  In Acts 6, we learned that Stephen was a man “full of grace.”  And he shows that here.   As he is being stoned he prays, “Father, please forgive them…show them mercy…show them your grace.”  Only a spirit-filled Christ-like man of God can love like that.

There was a reformer by the name of George Wishart who was to be put to death in the 1500s for his faith and history tells us that before his death he went over to his executioner and kissed him on the cheek and said, “Lo, here is a token that I forgive thee.” 

Jesus did the same thing and so did Stephen.  What a testimony!  There was all this hate toward Stephen and there is nothing in Stephen’s heart but love.  And though we don’t know what happened to most of the executioners after killing Stephen, we do know the fate of one.  In verse 58, we are told that the executioners laid down their garments at the feet of Saul.  This is Saul of Tarsus, latter to be known as Paul the Apostle.  He was there at Stephen’s martyrdom looking on in approval and may have even been one of the ones leading this mob who put Stephen to death. 

And in this book Luke tells us of the fate of Saul.  We learn Acts 9 that God answered Stephen’s prayer.  Stephen prayed at the end of Acts 7 that God would show great mercy and grace to His persecutors and we learn in Acts 9 that God shows mercy and grace to Saul.  Augustine, when commenting on  this verse, said, “The church owes Paul to the prayer of Stephen.”  

"QUOTE" OF THE WEEK

“The church owes Paul to the prayer of Stephen.”  -Augustine