My friends, I'd like to draw your attention to Acts Chapter 7
this morning, the back end to Acts Chapter 7.
You might remember that Stephen has been dragged before the
council that is the religious and the political leaders of
Jerusalem. He is dragged before the council
and is accused of proclaiming the name of Jesus Christ in
defense. He highlights how the whole
scriptures point to Jesus Christ beginning in Chapter 7 verse 54.
Now when the council had heard all these things, they were
enraged and they ground their teeth at him.
But Stephen full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and
saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of
God. And he said, behold, I see the
heavens opened, and the Son of man standing at the right hand
of God. But they cried out with a loud
voice, and stopped their ears, and rushed together at him.
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 in a loud voice, Lord,
do not hold this sin against them.
And when he had said this, he fell asleep.
And this is the word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God, the grass Withers and the flowers fade,
but the word of our Lord, it stands forever.
Please be seated. Today we are wrapping up the
first part of the book of Acts. We're going to return to the
Book of Acts again next winter and can pick up the story from
where we are going today, but we are picking it.
We are closing up the first part of the book of Acts, which has
been focusing upon the spirit, the church, and the world.
In specific, the spirits, empowerment of the church to
reach the World. That's been our focus at this
point and over the past couple of weeks we have highlighted and
had purpose to highlight some of the satanic counterattack that
has occurred as the church has sought to be faithful to witness
to Jesus Christ. As they have been filled by the
Spirit, there have been pushback.
That pushback has happened by virtue of their own moral
corruption. Think of Ananias and Sapphira
and how then Satan used that in order to force a division within
the church or with internal divisions that already happened.
Think about the Hellenistic and the Hebraic conflict that took
place between the widows and how the church had to handle that or
external opposition, the arrest and the beating of Peter and
John and the other apostles for witnessing to Jesus Christ.
So there have been external problems, there have been
internal problems, there have been moral corruption problems
within their own hearts, and yet all of them culminate to some
extent in the experience in which we just read here in
Stephen's story. As we hear a little bit about
Stephen's story, we are essentially hearing about how an
individual, a central individual in the storyline of Jesus
Christ, argues for how we are to respond when we are challenged
and when we are proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ.
How do we respond in faith? Now?
There is very little possibility, I suspect, and I
hope and pray for each and one of us, that we will ever find
ourselves exactly in the situation that Stephen is in.
There is a frustration that Christians have in the American
Society that we are not well received by the world, where
there's a mocking that has to take, that has to be dealt with.
There's frustration that happens along other levels and
appropriately so many Christians get very frustrated about that.
But the possibility of persecution that results in
something like what Steven experienced here, a mob
execution, is hard to imagine in American Society as we exist
today. And because it is so far from
our thoughts, it might be very easy for you to assume that it
is far from that. This is a historical experience
that when we're reading about the martyrdom of Stephen, we're
reading about something that is far in the past, and we don't
necessarily have to focus our attention necessarily upon it
with any expectation that it is going to speak meaningfully into
our own lives. If so, we forget the reality
that it is a pretty easily demonstrated reality that more
Christians were martyred for their faith in the 20th century
than all of the previous centuries combined.
Now when we think of martyrdom, when we think of Christians
being eaten by the lions or going to being nailed on the
cross, we very frequently think of what happened during the
early Roman Empire. And that's certainly the case,
the suffering of the early church and persecution.
The persecution is not something that happens in the distant
past. It is something that the church
today experiences in the first decades of the 21st century.
There is an estimated 5005 thousand Christians who die
every year for their faith, 5000 per year.
Now, as I said, it's highly unlikely, God willing, that we
will experience that kind of persecution.
And so it's easy when we read a story like Stephen's story and
we hear it as an inspirational story of something that happens
in the past, something that maybe will happen around the
world. Maybe it's something that should
guide our hopes and our prayers for our brothers and sisters who
are scattered throughout this world, as Jerry so eloquently
LED us in our morning prayer for those people.
And yet maybe there's not a whole lot for us personally to
be gained in light of this. I would encourage you to take a
look at how Stephen responds to external persecution and realize
that the tools that he employs, the methods that he uses to deal
with this horrific experience that again, by God's grace, none
of us will have to experience in that same way.
Nevertheless, are exactly the tools, are exactly the steps
that should guide us when we deal with our own moral
corruption that does happen every day.
The internal divisions that happen within this congregation,
and yes, even the subtle but real external pressure that
happens upon this church and upon you as a Christian from the
outside world, just because that subtle pressure is easy for us
to handle, it's easy for us to be dismissed over.
It might perhaps take us away from the godly example that
Stephen provides for us, for somebody who handles the
opposition of Satan when one seeks to be faithful to their
lives as a Christian. And that's what I'm encouraging
if you are going to be faithful as a Christian.
The Scripture itself says that we will be persecuted.
That is an internal persecution. A more morally corruption is
persecution of our own hearts or the persecution that happens
from the outside. It will happen to you if you are
faithfully following the Lord. The Scriptures proclaim that to
be true. How do we deal with that?
What Steven shows us is not simply how somebody survives a
stoning or how somebody survives spiritually, survives an
external execution, persecution, but rather it shows how
somebody, every one of us survives the kind of pushback
that happens if you seek to live a godly life.
So let's take a look a little bit of what Stephen does here.
In this case, if you look again in the book of Acts Chapter 7,
verse 54 and following, So what we have here is Steven is pulled
before the council and he is forced to defend himself for
proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ.
And of course the Steve, the council, the council is both the
political and the religious leaders of that time and they
have all the power that you could imagine.
And they are asserting all this power against Steven, saying how
dare you proclaim this name when we have explicitly stated that
you are not supposed to do so. And Stephen then defends himself
and as he defends himself using the Scriptures to point to Jesus
Christ, saying, look, even the foundation of what you believe
should have led you to Jesus Christ.
And of course, that's the reality, the foundation.
We can say that about the Scriptures as a whole.
We can say that about all of creation.
We can say that about all of life, all of life, all of
creation, all of Scripture points towards Jesus Christ.
And Stephen makes that point. And instead, this is what the
this is how the council responds.
Now, when they had heard these things, they were enraged.
And the word is as strong, the word is as aggressive as you can
come up with in the in the Greek, it's like they were
enraged. They were enraged and they
ground their teeth at him. Now we use the term ground of
teeth or gnashing of teeth. That's a common phraseology for
us. It comes from the scriptures.
And what is it? It's it, what are they doing?
They're sitting there, they're grinding their teeth, they're
snarling, they're snarling. They begin to.
And here's a reality that as we see in contrast with Steven, his
opponents begin to lose their humanity.
They become like animals. They're burying their teeth and
they're snarling at Steven. They're becoming less and less
human as they are confronted by the gospel message of Jesus
Christ and they respond in unbelief.
They become less and less human. They become more and more like
animals. They're baring their teeth at
Stephen and snarling at him. And in contrast, verse 55, but
Stephen full of the Holy Spirit, they're becoming like animals.
He is becoming what? Full of the Holy Spirit.
We don't need to dissect this term.
You know what it is. You feel it in your bones.
To be filled with the Holy Spirit is to become more and
more the man more and more the woman of God that he created you
to be he created you to be a human being, a full human being
and, and and nothing measures, nothing fulfills that that
humanity greater than the picture than the description
that you are full of the Holy Spirit here being filled with
the Holy Spirit. Stephen does what Stephen gazes
into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the
right hand of God. Now I want you to listen
carefully to that. He gazes into heaven.
You might have heard that if you're in the wilderness
wandering around somewhere and you run into a wild animal, what
are you not supposed to do? You're not supposed to look them
in the eyes. If you look a wild animal in the
eyes that that somehow sets them off, that threatens them.
They feel challenged. They're much more likely to
attack if they're if you're looking them in the eyes and
stuff like that. And here, so you've got these,
this pack of animals, human beings that are turning into
animals that are losing their humanity.
They're snarling at Steven, they're snarling at him.
And he does what now? I got to tell you, if
something's coming to hurt me, my eyes on them, I'm looking at
them, I'm paying attention, I'm slowly backing away, my eyes are
on them and stuff like that. Steven confronted with an
opposition to the gospel message of Jesus Christ, challenged by
the satanic opponents of what God is doing in Stevens life
does what he doesn't look at them.
He doesn't focus his eyes upon the circumstances around him.
He doesn't look at his life and says, oh woe was he I'm I'm
overwhelmed with these difficulties.
He doesn't say how much he's struggling with different
things. He instead gazes where he gazed
into heaven. He gazed into heaven.
Why? Because he's looking at Jesus,
he gazes at Jesus. The first thing that Stephen
does that we have to learn to do is to fix our eyes on Jesus in
the midst of the difficulties that are around us, in the midst
of the satanic pushback or our moral corruption pushback or the
internal problems that we have or the struggles that I have
with other people. Every solution starts with the
fixing my eyes upon Jesus. And notice what he said that
says when he does that, he's fixes his eyes on Jesus and he
sees the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of
God. Now, this is a a common phrase
that's picked up in the Scriptures frequently whenever
we talk about the risen Lord Jesus Christ.
Where is he? He is seated at the right hand
of God the Father. The right hand is the is the
position of power. It's a position of authority,
the position of honor. And so by identifying Jesus at
the right hand of God, there's identifying Jesus as the one
that is being honored, being glorified by the Father, being
the one given all authority and dominion over all things.
That's what it's the right hand. Usually in the Scriptures,
overwhelmingly everywhere, but here Jesus is seated at the
right hand of God the Father. I love the fact that Peter,
sorry, Stephen, repeats it twice, that twice he identifies
Jesus not as sitting at the right hand of God, but is
standing at the right hand of God.
And I think what we have here is we have Peter.
I don't know why I'm doing that, Stephen.
We have Stephen who is faithfully stood before the
world and proclaimed witnessed to Jesus Christ.
Now we have Jesus standing before God the Father advocating
for Stephen and for saying here this is my child.
I can imagine this or or the other picture is Jesus is
standing in the same way that I asked us to stand for the
scripture reading or something like that.
It out of respect, out of honor, welcoming Steven into the
Kingdom. It's the one point where where
Jesus is standing, not sitting at the right hand experiencing
all of the glories of of the Father, but standing there
welcoming Stephen into the Kingdom.
And this is made possible because Stephen is fixing his
gaze upon Jesus Christ. What does that do?
That puts everything in perspective.
Is Stephen on the cusp of a miserable experience, a horrific
experience, a terrible thing is about to happen to him?
Is Stephen into the spot where everything in life could be
looked upon as miserable and terrible?
And what is what happens if he looks at the animals that are
surrounding him? If he looks at the circumstances
that are weighing him down? If he is obsessed by his own
brokenness and sinfulness? If he's obsessed by the internal
divisions that are happening within the people of God?
If he's obsessed with this collapse of the moral structure
that guides and directs him? If he is obsessed with anything
else, he's overwhelmed. But instead, by fixing his eyes
on Jesus, the perspective is all set by his authority, by his
glory, by his goodness, and by the eternal promise that when
you fix your eyes on Jesus, he is the risen Lord.
And that eternal perspective shapes and molds everything that
Stephen experiences. Now, what Stephen is
experiencing here is something that the church has dealt with
throughout its centuries. And so we have the passe.
It's, it's almost cliche. It's, it's an easy quip to say,
fix your eyes on Jesus. Just look to Jesus.
But it's, it's a common phrase because it's so true.
It is so very true that fixing your eyes on Jesus changes
everything, and Steven is not the only witness to that.
I know that there are people sitting in this room that can
witness to that. Is there anybody that can
testify to the fact that fixing your eyes on Jesus brings peace
and calm and a change? Your circumstances may not be
any different, but everything changes when you fix your eyes
on Jesus. Now, if you stick your hand in
the air, you are inviting other people who will see you come up
to you and say, tell me about Jesus in your life.
I just warned you about that. But is there somebody here?
I'm not going to call on you to share, but is there somebody
here that has experienced the peace that comes by fixing your
eyes on Jesus in the midst of difficulty?
Hands up, look around everybody, look around.
That's the work of our Lord. Thank you very much.
So what happens, Jesus Stephen is here and he says, behold, I
see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right
hand of God. OK, a lot of that passes us by.
He's just repeating what he's seeing.
But he's, he is telling the council, look, this guy that you
killed, this guy that you said was blaspheming God, this guy
that you said is worthy of death is not just raised from the
dead, but he's raised from the dead and standing in God's own
glory. Everything that you thought you
were doing is being proven wrong by the fact that I can see in
heaven the resurrected Lord, not just the spirit of Jesus, not
no, it's the resurrected Lord that is standing there.
The Lord has by Jesus standing there before God.
God is supporting God is justifying everything that Jesus
went through the whole experience that he has.
And so when he communicates this in verse 57, but they cried out
with a loud voice and and again, don't they're not crying.
They're they're they're growling, they're screaming.
They're if you've had kids and when they get screaming, don't
you want to look would you use your words?
You know, just use your words here.
These, they're so worked up that they have reverted not to
children but to a pack of animals.
And so they cry out in a loud voice and they stop their ears.
They can't even hear it anymore. And they rush at him.
They rush together at him. The mob closes in upon Steven.
Then they cast him out of the city and they stone him.
There's so much to that. We could talk about stoning.
We could talk about the person, the nature of stoning, the idea
of it. The picture is that you dig some
kind of a pit or a valley and you stick the person in it and
then you fill that valley with stones you you know you're
throwing and the stones are not pebbles or anything like that.
The ideas would be good size. Think of a softball or something
like that, a softball sized stone and you pummel the person
with stones, not just to kill him and not just to torture him,
because let's face it, after the 4th or 5th hit your unconscious
or something like that. But in order to say, this person
is not worthy of being resurrected.
This person is not worthy of an, of an, of an afterlife pile of
stones upon him because he is so wicked and so guilty.
Now the, the, the Roman Empire had insisted that only Rome was
able to execute somebody. So this is an extrajudicial
execution. In other words, this is a mob
hit. This is a lynching.
And so they grab Steven and they drag him outside, and they stick
him in a pit, and then they start pummeling him with stones.
Then they stoned him, and witnesses laid down their
garments at the feet of a young man named Saul.
That Saul will show up later in the Scriptures as the apostle
Paul. And Paul will reflect back upon
the stoning of Stephen and the witness that Stephen gave while
he was dying and while he was there and they caught and while
they were verse 59 and as they were stoning Stephen, he called
out, Lord, receive my spirit. If the first thing that you do
when you are confronted by these difficulties of life is fix your
eyes on Jesus, the second thing that you do is you entrust your
life to Jesus. Some of you will recognize this.
What Stephen says here when he says, Lord Jesus, receive my
spirit, sounds very similar to Jesus himself while he's hanging
on the cross saying, Father, into your hands I commit my
spirit. What is it?
It is an entrusting of yourself. It is a surrender of yourself.
It is a giving over of yourself completely and totally because
there are so many people that know who Jesus is that can look
at Jesus for as he is and yet still walk away saying, oh, I
believe in Jesus Christ. I understand what he's doing up
there, but I will hold I, but I'm still going to hold on to
this particular area of my life, raising my kids.
It's too important for me to surrender it over to Jesus
Christ. My job is too important to
surrender it over to Jesus Christ.
My marriage, my health, all of these kind of things that oh,
sure, we know who Jesus is and all these kind of things, but
when push comes to shove, we're holding on desperately seeking
to control certain areas of my life.
And Jesus here communicates to Steven that it is time to
surrender all that he has. And notice that this is not a
whimper. I like the verb that he uses
that he calls out. He he verbalizes in a way so
that everybody can hear. This is not Steven.
At the last vestiges of being pummeled by stones, kind of
whispering, Lord, into your hands.
I commend. This is not fatalism.
This is not an expression of the last voice of of a man dying.
This is an assertion. Lord, I surrender my life to
you, Not the just the living of my life, but the end of my life.
Not just the end of my life, but the living of my life.
We have people that can look at Jesus and can understand that He
holds eternity in His hands, understand that He is risen and
standing next to the Father advocating for us and still
refuse to entrust their lives to Jesus.
And Stephen at the last seconds, last moments of his life,
reaffirms once again that Christ is not just something to believe
you believed in, but Christ is something to entrust yourself to
surrender all that you have to. Have you done that?
Would the people that know you best say, here's somebody that
has surrendered everything to Jesus Christ?
Because Stephen certainly does. And falling to his knees, verse
60, falling to his knees, he cried out in a loud voice, Lord,
do not hold this sin against them.
Falling to his knees. What is it?
Well, the guy's getting pummeled by rocks.
Of course, you know, the first one hits him, he falls to his
knees. OK, maybe, maybe it's simply the
author describing what he sees. He just sees, you know, Steven
getting whacked by stones and he falls down onto his knees.
But I don't think so. What are you doing when you're
falling on your knees? What are you doing when you're
falling on your knees? Have you ever been on your knees
before somebody? You are pleading, you are
begging. You are almost, in a Worshipful
sense, putting yourself before somebody.
And here Steven is thrown himself in a pleading sense
before God. Please picture this.
The guy's getting hit with stones or is about to be hit
with stones and he cries out in a loud voice.
This is not when I read it. I hope you that that struck you.
You know, I was reading along that I tried to read in really
loud voice. You know, Stephen cries out in a
loud voice, Lord, do not hold this sin against them, which
again, I'm sure you recognize from the cross of Jesus Christ,
where Christ himself said, Father, do not hold this sin
against them. Stephen captures that same idea.
Lord, do not hold this sin against them.
But he doesn't whisper it to Lord.
He doesn't say it just so that this is something that he shouts
out. He shouts out so everybody can
hear it. Lord, do not hold it.
That is radical forgiveness. You have to practice radical
forgiveness if you are going to confront to the opponents the
opposition of the gospel that is working in your life, your own
heart and the sin that is there. What do you need When you are
still filled with rage, when you are still prideful, when you are
still arrogant, when you are still obsessing over different
issues, what do you need? You need radical forgiveness,
gospel driven forgiveness. What do you need when you're
confronted by the frustrations of functioning together as a
community like we are as a church?
When you have a broken senior pastor, when you have a broken
set of elders, when you have broken sets of, when we are
making mistakes so frequently, what do you need?
You need to practice radical forgiveness.
What do we need when we are experiencing hate from the
world, when the mockery is just not mocking?
Oh, you waste your time with that Christian stuff.
Oh, you really believe all that crap?
But it's real hatred that is involved.
You have to practice radical forgiveness just like Jesus,
because that's what the gospel is.
The gospel is fixing your eyes on Jesus, the author and
perfector of your faith. Not being overwhelmed by the
circumstances that around you, but fixating upon Jesus Christ
and the reality that he shapes and defines for you.
A reality that is shaped by the fact that he is standing even
now, the risen Lord at the right hand of God the Father.
You fix your eyes on Jesus, you surrender yourself completely
and totally to Him. You give all that you have to
our Lord and our Savior. And finally, you practice that
core concept of the gospel message, the forgiveness that
God has given to you. How about that for a challenge
when you're faced with the wild animals that surround us?
Jesus Christ, we come to you in need to be directed to be shaped
and molded because of the brokenness in our own hearts,
because of the sinfulness that surrounds us, because of the
external pressures of Satan and his minions.
Lord, under all of that, we could collapse if it were not
the reality that you are reigning in heaven and You have
blessed us with the ability to see you reigning there through
the Holy Scriptures. Lord, we thank you and we praise
you for blessing us with all that we need to, like Stephen,
spiritually survive. Not just spiritually survive,
but to spiritually thrive in the midst of the opposition that we
will experience each and every day.
Lord, we pray that you would hear us as we pray the way that
you taught us to pray. Our Father, who aren't in
heaven, hallowed be thy name, Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be
done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day Our Daily Bread, and forgive us our debts,
as we forgive our debtors, and lead us not in temptation, but
deliver us from evil. For thine is the Kingdom, and
the power and the glory forever. Amen.