Polycarp - Standing Firm

Polycarp of Smyrna | 86 Years and Faithful unto Death You've probably never heard of him. That's kind of the point. Polycarp of Smyrna was a bishop in the early church, a student of the Apostle John, and one of the last living links to the eyewitnesses of the resurrection. When the Roman Empire gave him a choice between cursing Jesus or dying in a stadium fire, he said eight words that have echoed for 1,900 years: "Eighty-six years have I served Him, and He has done me no wrong." Then they lit the fire. This sermon opens the family album. It asks the question behind all those Ancestry subscriptions and DNA kits: where do I come from? And it argues that your spiritual family tree goes a lot deeper than you think -- all the way back to a fishing boat in Galilee, through a bishop in Smyrna who refused to let go, and straight to you. Same Jesus. Same faithfulness. Same chain. Scripture: Hebrews 12:1-2 | Revelation 2:10 | 2 Timothy 4:7