I've been planning the series for a year over a year, and it's a real kind of bummer for me sometimes to be this far in advance with planning because there's no way I could have planned to have the year I've been having and have to do the series for the next five weeks. I wouldn't have planned it that way. More on that in a little bit. I know you know what it's like when life shifts beneath your feet. You thought you were standing on something solid. Sometimes it's cracks and you can see it coming. Like you can see the floor is about to give out. Sometimes you have a chance to move. Sometimes there's not a good option or a place to move to. And other times the floor just drops out from under you. You didn't see it coming. There was no way you could have known it was coming. You thought you were doing all of the right things. It's when, like one moment everything is just steady and going according to the plan, the rhythm that you've built. Everything in the schedule is just full force, clicking. And then something changes. It's a phone call or text message. It's a diagnosis. It's a friendship that quietly fades, or maybe not so quietly fades. Sometimes it's the loss we never expected, and some of you are very vigilant and you think through all of the things that could go wrong, and yet something went wrong that you never expected. And again, other times it's this slow realization that what once worked so well just doesn't anymore. And suddenly something that you once found security in isn't secure anymore. That's not just you, and it's not just me, it's every person in the room watching, listening online. We all know what disruption feels like. To be human in this room is to know that pain, that suffering. Sometimes it's a personal relationship ending, a dream falling apart, your purpose or your sense of purpose slipping away. Other times it's in the realm of community. A collective church is stretched. We've been through that before together. It's a community or a neighborhood changing. It's a world that shifts faster and faster and faster, and not in the direction any of us want it to go. It's in these moments, moments like where you might find yourself today, where you wonder if you've lost the plot or if God is still writing the story. And if you're being honest, as I've had to do this year with myself, you're not sure God is doing anything at all. But it's in moments that feel like this, those breakdowns that when we look at the scripture, when we look at the gospel, the life and legacy of Jesus, we see that the breakdowns are often where Jesus has his breakthroughs in our life. And I want you to consider for a moment that the disruption that you didn't choose might be the very space God wants to move. And that's why we're doing this new series, holy disruption. And that's what it's about. We're continuing our long series through Acts. We're going to Acts chapter 8, if you want to follow along today, just a few verses. But the story of Acts is about the church being scattered. And they're scattered because of persecution, challenges, and trials, and all of the things that you wouldn't necessarily choose. And it's through this chaos that God's spirit continues to move and do some of the best work that He's done in human history. We start off by seeing those first few chapters that the church in Jerusalem is thriving, right? Peter preaches a message. People are speaking in tongues and worshiping, and people are being baptized. It's like they can't keep up with all of the church growth. It's a good time to be a believer by every metric. And then all of a sudden, something changes. Everything familiar vanishes. But Acts reminds us, Luke, as he writes, he reminds us that what feels like disruption is God preparing us for what is next. Now they couldn't see it. Don't kid yourself. We got the whole story. But as they were living in it, they could relate to you, and you can relate to them being in the middle between chapter one and chapter 28 and not knowing how it's going to end. But what we see, what Luke records, is that God sovereignly works through disruption and suffering to advance his mission and to form his people, his community, his family. And what looks like a collapse actually is a catalyst. You might remember it was a few months ago, but Kyle closed our last series in Acts and he was talking about Stephen. And Stephen's story fills the two chapters before Acts 8. So Stephen gets two chapters all to himself. And he was chosen to serve the community. He was picked. They're like, hey, you, you're a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit. And by every measure, the information we're given in Acts is that Stephen was a very good person. And yet, something very bad happened to him. I know we say it, you know it, but let me say it again. Good things happen to bad people, and bad things happen to good people. It's just the way it is. But here's where we often get it wrong, even inside the church. Religious consolation says there must be a reason for this. I mean, there has to, God has to have a plan. Why else would this happen? And so religion comes in and it tries to put an arm around you and say, well, maybe this or maybe that. And we find a little bit of peace in that. Well, if there was a reason for all of this bad stuff, I guess I can be okay with it. But Christian Revelation says something different. It doesn't put an arm around you and try to offer an explanation. Instead, it provides a savior who walks with you and has walked before you and will walk after you. It's a God who stepped into suffering himself, not to explain it, but to redeem it. As Tim Keller put it, the Christian faith is the only religion that claims God became weak and suffered, and that that suffering was a way to triumph. It wasn't just Jesus, because we see this in Stephen's story. His ministry begins with compassion, but quickly becomes a bold proclamation. And when his message about the living presence of God, how God is living among them, threatens the religious elite at the time, they accuse him of blasphemy. Stephen reminded them that God's presence was never confined to a place. It was never confined to the temple, a church basement here or there, but that God's presence is everywhere. And they hated that. They hated that truth. And so they killed him. And as they were killing him, Stephen prays, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. And don't charge them with this sin. And what I believe Luke intends for you, the reader, to understand and to make a connection is between not just Jesus' life and Stephen's life, but Jesus' death and Jesus' death. Both of them. How it comes together. The same spirit that empowered Jesus to forgive his enemies from the cross was now empowering Stephen to forgive his enemies who were stoning him. And that is the pattern of Christ's death. It leads to life, it leads to mission. It starts with Jesus and it goes to Stephen. And we're going to see it continues to spread generation to generation. And Luke writes, we're introduced to Saul, one of the witnesses, and he agreed completely with the killing of Stephen. Now, Saul will one day become the person who carries the gospel all over the world. But he begins here by endorsing the murder of a really good person. It's kind of like a little tease for a few weeks when we talk about Saul and Paul, that God can redeem even the worst beginnings. If you find yourself here today, you know, that can never be the things that we're talking about in this series or the things we talk about week to week. Just remember Saul, Paul. No matter what's been said about you or what's been done to you, God can not just redeem those things, but use them for his mission, his glory. Luke adds after this, a great wave of persecution began, sweeping over the church in Jerusalem, and all the believers except the apostles were scattered through the regions of Judea and Samaria. Stephen is killed. Everyone freaks out that that's a really appropriate reaction to that sort of thing happening. The city turns against them. So everyone is running away. The apostles stay behind, but everyone else, families, widows, servants, they run for their lives. And in this, we see that the gospel is being pushed. Not by choice necessarily, but being pushed into uncomfortable places. You see, Jesus in Acts 1 says, one day you'll be my witnesses in all of Judea, Samaria, and the rest of the world. They might have been thinking like an executive or CEO, what's the strategy, Jesus? What's the operation? What's the plan? And we begin to see it here. Well, Stephen is gonna die. That's gonna freak a whole lot of people out. But it's not just gonna be Stephen, they're gonna try to kill you. And as a result of that, you are going to scatter and spread. And that is how this message will get out. You can see why Jesus leaves it at you will be my witnesses till the end of the world, and then zoop, flies away, right? He's like, I'm gonna leave that last part out just for you to find out. But it must have honestly felt like the story was over. Jesus dies, Stephen dies, everyone around us is dying. But what they saw as chaos, heaven sees as choreography, right? What they saw as chaos was actually choreography. God was already turning their scattering into a sending. They thought they were fleeing. God was sending them. The persecution that broke them apart became the moment God's mission broke open. And after the chaos of verse 1, Luke slows the story down. Kind of a sidebar parentheses here. Some devout men came and buried Stephen with great mourning. But Saul was going everywhere to destroy the church. He went from house to house, dragging out both men and women to throw them into prison. In the contrast of this passage, these verses couldn't be sharper. There's reverence and there's ruin, devotion and destruction, lament, and persecution. This line, devout, godly men buried Stephen. It's a quiet line, but as we've learned, Luke is always very intentional about every word he uses and how he sets up sentences. To the original audience reading this, this was courage. It was courageous. To bury Stephen in the mourn deeply was defiance wrapped in devotion, a public act of faith in a city that had called him a blasphemer. He didn't deserve a funeral. And yet that's what they gave him. But notice here, before Luke launches, Stephen is killed, and Paul's persecuting the church, and then they go off. Luke slows down. Because oftentimes before the mission, there's mourning. You see, because our faith doesn't skip the funeral. That's an important word for us today because our culture and and a lot of times within the church, the Christian church, we rush past grief. We call it optimism, we call it trust, we call it faith. But sometimes what we call trust and faith is just really the fear of feeling. I don't like feeling that way, so I gotta spiritualize it. We mistake denial for devotion. We think that if we can just stay positive, that that's being faithful. But that's not faith, it's spiritualized avoidance. A strong faith, a mature faith, can look at the facts and not shake. A faith that has to hide from facts is fragile. These godly men weren't going around pretending it was okay. Oh, Stephen died, and but it's gonna be okay. God's about to do something great. They bury him and then they wept loudly for him. Guys, the the level of secondhand embarrassment I have for them 2,000 years later is wild. They're going around crying loudly. Everyone's stopping. What are you upset about? Well, they killed Stephen. Oh. And their grief, it wasn't from a lack of faith. Devoted, godly men. Their grief, their crying, that loud weeping was evidence of the faith. And it's a reminder to us today that lament isn't weakness, it's worship, it's prayer, it's trusting God with what hurts. That's when Luke shifts. Saul's continuing to destroy the church. The Greek word he uses here is to ravage like a wild beast. Paul's destroying the Christian community. He isn't enforcing the law, he's dismantling lives. He's going from house to house, invading the very spaces where believers prayed and shared life. It looked like the story was breaking apart to everyone who was alive that day, yet, even here, devotion continued. God was forming something in them, and he forms something through grief that comfort never can. The same tears that watered Stephen's grave would soon water the soil of mission. And through it all, the spirit was not absent, hovering above the chaos. The spirit was with them. Where they went. Luke continues in verse 4. The believers who were scattered preached the good news about Jesus wherever they went. Three little verses today so far. One, two, and three. Chaos. Murder, lament, persecution. And then Luke quickly shifts gears. It's jarring. While Saul is dragging believers into prison, verse 4 tells us that believers are proclaiming the message. What looked crushed was already speaking again, louder than before. And in the original Greek, the transitional word that Luke uses is so then. So then, as a result of Stephen's death, as a result of burying him, and as a result of our grieving, as a result of Saul going around and ruining people's lives, they proclaimed. Again, what looked like chaos was coordination. God was already using what the enemy meant for harm to advance his purposes. The church wasn't now just led by these 12 apostles, these 12 first followers of Jesus. The church was being led by ordinary Greek-speaking people. The group once seen as secondary was now leading the way on the mission. Just as Jesus left the glory of heaven to dwell among us, these believers left the security of their homes to bring the message to others. They didn't say, Here we are, and this is where we meet. Come join us. They went out on a search and rescue type of mission. They preached the word. Not a new message, not rebranding, not a new logo. The same resurrection story, just carried into new places. Luke is telling us the story continues. Now, for us today, you and me, we're not fleeing from our homes. Paul's been dead for thousands of years. Nobody's coming to pull you out of your house and put you in jail for praying. But we know what it's like to be scattered. That stuff I was talking about at the beginning, the disruptions, when the ground you're standing on starts to shake, starts to crack, or just falls out from under you. We know what it's like. Because in those moments, our faith is tested. And yet we can look back at those folks, those who were driven from Jerusalem and see that they didn't abandon the message that they carried. The mission shifted and changed them. The Spirit empowered them to do things that they never thought they could have done before. What fear attempted to scatter, the Spirit sent. Historically, the early church's growth occurred despite suffering. It endured. Author and historian Rodney Stark observes crisis and disruption became openings to the early church, not obstacles, became openings. Now we'll learn about Saul in a few weeks when he meets Jesus and how his understanding of suffering was turned upside down. But for today, I'm going to jump ahead a little bit. Because one day Paul's causing suffering. And then the next, he's writing to a church in Philippi. He's talking about the communion of suffering. I want you to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death. It's the communion of suffering. It's a community. You're hurt, I'm hurt. It's together. Later, he even says, I'm glad when I suffer for you and my body, for I am participating in the sufferings of Christ that continue for his body, the church. Now, this isn't masochism, okay? And I want to draw your attention here for just a little bit. I want to point out that we can misuse suffering in the same way that in the church we can blow right by those hard feelings of sadness and grief and over-spiritualize it. We can do the same in the other direction. We can deny, pretend everything is fine, and on the other hand, we can deify our pain and suffering, treating it as proof of holiness. Look how much I'm suffering. I must be really doing things right. Now, both are distortions. Suffering doesn't save us, Jesus does. And the cross isn't a contest of who hurts more. It's where love went all the way. And again, I want to come back to this idea that mature faith doesn't avoid reality, but it also doesn't romanticize pain. That's the kind of faith that the world, honestly, today, 2025, going into 2026, would find compelling. A faith that is honest, a faith that is grounded, a faith that is also resilient, not a blind optimism, not performative pain, but a hope that holds steady in both. Suffering still hurts. It still confuses. It makes us ask God, where are you? And it's quite okay to ask. God is not threatened by your aches, He meets us in them. I mentioned we were getting started. Boy, this year sucks. I mean, I that's the cleaned up Sunday morning version. It'll go down as one of the hardest years of my life. There's been a trail, there's been loss, there's been deep pain, the kind that I know you know. It shakes you to your core and it makes you question everything. Some of it was personal, some of it was physical, but all of it has been disorienting. There were nights I would I would either lay awake because I couldn't fall asleep, or I would wake up having a panic attack at like three in the morning, and I would be angry with God. God, where were you in this? Where are you right now? God, what are you doing? I wrestled with my own theology. Now you guys know this. I've thought about theology a lot the last 20 years. Went to school for some of this stuff. And I have built, in my own opinion, a very rock solid theology. I can explain everything. And it's very circular to me. It all comes back and around. But that rock solid theology this summer didn't bring me any peace. It didn't bring me any comfort. I lay in bed in the middle of the night and have an argument with myself. But this is what you believe. Well, okay, well, it still sucks. Okay. And yet, as I wrote the message for today, I realized, and it's still a revelation to me. So don't think I'm on the other side of this yet. But I see how God has not wasted any of it. Now he's used every part of it and little bits and pieces and things I wasn't aware of that were occurring over here and in here, that God is using it. And I'm kind of choosing to believe he's going to continue to use it. Through everything, what I've seen is that he's forming something in me better than I was in the past. Don't get me wrong, I would never ever volunteer to relive this year again. I thought high school were the worst four years of my life. I'd gladly take any one of those four years over this one, okay? But I can say that every emotion I've gone through, I've brought it to God. Anger, sadness, frustration, irritation, joy. I bring it right to God. And I think on the other side of this, as I'm walking away from 2025 and not planning on celebrating 2026, but I am going to have a funeral for 2025 if any of you want to join me in celebrating this year's death. I feel more honest, I feel more grounded, and I can positively say I am more like the person God intended me to be and who he intends me to be today than I was three months ago or six months ago or last year. And you see, that's the paradox of faith. Suffering isn't the shadow side of Christianity, it's one of the ways Christ is formed in us. It's never the goal. Love is. So how do we live this out? I think first and foremost, you listen to your own pain and to the pain of others without rushing to fix it. I know we have good intentions and we hear something, and something's sometimes something seems so obvious to us. But what we learned from this passage was that devout, godly men lamented. They took time. So let us listen to our own pain. Let us listen to the pain of others without rushing in to fix it. We can lament, name what's lost, and trusting that God hears every cry. And it is okay to cry, it's quite healthy, as I've come to learn over the past couple of years. It is okay to cry and lament. Take that time to grieve. And as you do these things, as you listen and as you lament, let God's love move through you, turning hurt into compassion and disruption into mission. Because that's the path that Jesus walked first. He didn't avoid the world's pain, he entered into it. God touches the untouchable, he carried the cross and he let himself be broken on the cross for love, and he still does through us. So wherever you find yourself this morning, whether you're in peace or pain, whether you have clarity or you're confused, be encouraged and be assured. The Spirit is forming something in you. Where God has where has God placed you that you didn't plan to be? How can you love or serve others this week? Acts 8 reminds us that disruption is not the end of the story often. It's where God begins a new one. When life feels scattered, God is still sending. When things break, grace still builds, and when you can't fix what's falling apart, God's presence becomes your teacher, forming patience where you wanted control, compassion where you wanted to have certainty. God's presence, may I remind you, doesn't just comfort us. We pray for that a lot, I know. I pray for it a lot. God's presence also transforms. The same spirit who scatters the early church is still sending us. God doesn't just meet us in our mess, he moves us through it. His grace isn't fragile, it flourishes in the disruption. And maybe what feels like your setback is actually God's sending.