Dear Men of Central,

I like to succeed.  I bet you do too.  I enjoy seeing something I’m working on come to completion in a way that things fit together, they work, they function they way I’d imagined going into the project.  

I try to be a little discerning about the projects I take on, just because I don’t want to see them fail.  Or more accurately, I don’t want to be a failure.  When I do take on a project — whether I’m preparing talks for a retreat or making a plan to re-organize my garage — I want to make things happen in a way that I can feel good about.  I want to succeed.  

When we read about Stephen in Acts 6, we see him lifted up as an example of someone who is full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom.  Because of his integrity, his character, and his skill, he and six other guys are entrusted with a very important job in the early church.  They are given the task of distributing food to those in need.   It was a difficult situation and a job that required all their skill and all their wisdom.  I imagine Stephen stepping up to the plate thinking, “How can I do this job with excellence?”  I’m willing to bet that he and the other six guys had some long conversations late into the night about how best to succeed at their given task.  

It worked.  For a short while, Stephen and his partners in ministry had a great thing going as they oversaw the distribution of food to the widows in the church.

Then the bottom dropped out.  Stephen was at the top of his game when some people started spreading rumors about him.  They attacked his character, his integrity.  They attacked his faith.  Stephen stood up and showed his best stuff — he stepped up with courage.  He gives a speech in Acts 7 that outlines just about the whole Old Testament, not in a boring way but in a dynamic, exciting way.  He springboards off this summary of Israel’s history to lay out a clear appeal why Jesus Christ is the Messiah and why people should not be bound to worship him through the old Temple system.  Stephen makes a brilliant argument that  it makes sense to worship Jesus.

And then they kill him.  At the height of his skill, in the depth of his integrity, at the pinnacle of his excellence and his success, Stephen is murdered.  I’m pretty sure this was not the future Stephen had marked out for himself.  He had plans.  He was in the middle of one of the greatest successful ventures of his life, and he just needed a little more time to make it a true success.  But his life was cut short, and it would be tempting for him in that moment to say, “God!  What are you thinking???”

But Stephen doesn’t question God’s methods or his plans.  Stephen trusts that God is in charge even as he’s taking his last breaths, even as he realizes that his life is coming to a violent end.

It’s possible to look at Stephen’s life as a failure — but if we do that, we miss the amazing thing God does through Stephen.  In Stephen’s Holy Spirit-inspired speech, God lays out a vision for what his church will become.  Up until this time, the whole city of Jerusalem and the whole Jewish race and religion revolved around the Temple.  Even those who followed Jesus spent a great deal of time in the Temple and it was near the core of their faith.  How would it be possible for Jesus’ followers to spread beyond Jerusalem if they were still rooted in the Temple?  

When Stephen says, “the Most High does not dwell in temples made by hands” (Acts 7:48) it seems like just a throwaway line.  But all Stephen’s speech drives in this direction — that is to say, as his life is cut short, Stephen lays out a vision of following Jesus away from dependence on the Temple.  This is a critical piece of God’s preparation for his church to move out of Jerusalem.  

One commentator, writing about Philip’s ministry in Samaria in Acts chapter 8, says, “With his message of a God not bound to one people or place, Stephen had laid the foundation for a worldwide mission ... Philip was the first to put Stephen’s vision into practice.”  Fact is, through what seemed to Stephen like a failure, God does an amazing thing that goes far beyond simply feeding a group of widows in Jerusalem.  As God fulfills Stephen’s dying vision of a God who leads his people into all the world, we can look ahead and catch a glimpse of Martin Luther reforming Europe, Mother Theresa caring for the sick in Calcutta, Martin Luther King marching across the American south, and Nate Saint giving his life in the jungles of South America.  

Are you willing to give God your desire to succeed?  What if your failure will bring God more glory and build Jesus’ kingdom more effectively than your success?  God’s promise is to be there not only in your successes, but in your failures as well.  And sometimes he gets his best work done when you think you’ve fallen flat.  Can you trust him with that?

We’ll be talking about Stephen this Sunday at worship.  Hope to see you there!

Following Jesus with you,

Jeff