Garden City Church Garden City Church Pittsburgh

This week, Julia Allan walks through Paul's story, just before he's shipwrecked on his way to Rome in Acts 27. Paul, who first heard Jesus' voice along the Damascus Road, heard from the Lord that everyone on the ship would survive the storm. Paul said to the crew, "Last night an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I serve..." Even in the midst of an incredible storm Paul could hear and discern Jesus' voice. And that ability to know Jesus' voice is cultivated through belonging and service. Paul belonged to Jesus and served Him. Paul knew the sound of Jesus' voice, even when a literal storm enveloped him. How can we also hear and know Jesus' voice in the midst of the storms in our lives and society? And, in our own and the world's storms, what might God be saying to us?

This week, Pastor Shaq walks through Acts 25:1-12. Paul is now on trial for the third time, now before Festus. The Jewish leaders ask a "favor" of Festus - they want Paul transferred from Caesarea to Jerusalem because they've designed a plot to kill Paul. Festus, newly appointed to his role, wants to do a "favor" for the Jewish leaders. He asks Paul if he'll go to Jerusalem to stand trial. Paul refuses and, instead, demands to have his trial heard by Caesar, himself. It's yet another instance of political corruption in the book of Acts, one group seeking "favors" from a political leader, while that political leader is willing to grant the "favor" so he can extract something in the future. Through it all, Paul is caught in the middle. Yet, despite man's corrupt and evil plans, God's will never fails. It's something Paul knows and trusts, and it's something we can trust, too.

The legal system exists to maintain the status quo; it almost always has. It is often controlled by self-serving, powerful, rich individuals and corporate interests who like how things are and want to keep them that way. When prophets come who point out flaws in the system, it feels threatened, and the system seeks to stamp out critique and dissent with extreme force and a thin veneer of legality. Little did those systems know that the Jesus Revolution could not be killed: crucifixion only paves the way for resurrection, and a people willing to suffer and love against all odds, in the power and name of the Spirit, can endure and overcome injustice. Ever since Pentecost, every time those Spirit-filled people have formed non-violent, enemy-loving movements outside of the system, the world has changed, and the systems have been forced to bow in a prophetic nod to Jesus' second coming. Will you bow? Will you live in Him and for Him, and welcome His soon return? This week, Benjamin Chua walks our church through Acts 24.

This week Carrie Buckner continues our series on Acts, talking through Acts 23:12-22. It's the story of a plan concoted by a group of Jewish religious zealots (or, Jewish nationalists) that reached to the highest levels of the Jewish religious system. The people to whom God entrusted His law and now openly planning to break it. How do people, especially people who claim to love, follow, and represent God, succumb to and participate in the type of zealotry that embraces political violence, bearing false witness, and murder? How do people reach a point of subordinating their religious convictions to achieve their political desires? These are questions that faced Jewish people in and around Jerusalem in the first century, as well as Christians here in America today.

Jesus instructed His disciples to be wise as serpents and gentle as doves. In Acts 22:22-29 (NIV) the apostle Paul is living these words. He was lynched in the Temple and then arrested and at no point did he fight back or physically defend himself. He was gentle. And now, he's about to be tortured by the Roman state when he asks a soldier, "Is it legal for you to flog a Roman citizen who hasn't even been found guilty?" It's a shrewd question. Paul knows it's illegal for a Roman to be flogged when they haven't been proven guilty in a court. He's leveraging his privileged status as a citizen to advance the Kingdom. In our current cultural moment, it's a timely lesson for all of us. This week Pastor Shaq Hager walks us through what it means to be gentle and wise, willing to sacrifice our bodies, like Paul, for the sake of the Kingdom.

Paul knows the Gospel crosses every boundary and eradicates racial and ethnic hatred. He's given his life to proclaiming a Gospel that knits Jews and Gentiles into a new "family" rooted in Jesus. And yet, in Acts 21:37-22:22, when Paul tells a crowd of Jews who are zealous for the law that God sent him to proclaim the Gospel to the Gentiles they shout, "Rid the earth of him! He's not fit to live!" These Jews embraced a segregationist theology that told them who was superior and who was inferior based on ethnicity. It's a theology still at work in our country and churches today. Building a multi-ethnic church is an elusive dream. But it's always been God's vision to knit together a multi-ethnic, multi-racial people founded in Jesus. This week Pastor Dennis Allan talks through how the church is meant to be a signpost to the world that, in Jesus, unity and equality are possible.