Good evening, it is a pleasure to be back in the book of Acts with you. And if you recall from over the summer, we went slowly through Stephen's sermon before the religious leaders in Jerusalem. And this evening we pick up at the conclusion of the sermon, really the results of that sermon. And we're going to see that there is some comparison, there is some contrast in these verses.
We're going to consider the result this evening. The result of Stephen's sermon will be in Acts chapter 7 beginning in verse 54 through chapter 8 verse 3. This is God's word, but before we read God's word I invite you to pray with me. Would you pray with me, please?
Father, we pray that you would open our eyes and unstuck our ears, that you would revive our hearts, renew our minds, restore our wills that we may love you and know you and honor you and seek you. That we might abide in you even this evening. We might listen. So we pray that we would be reminded by your spirit.
To where it is profitable for reproof and for correction, for training and in righteousness, renouncing and godliness. Father, we pray that you would have its full effect in us by your grace and for your glory. Lord, grant us the greater measure of your spirit. Might we be whole Christ.
And Jesus name me, pray. Amen. This is God's word beginning again in chapter 7 verse 54. Now when they had heard these things, they were enraged and they ground their teeth at him.
But he, 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 gardens at the feet of a young man named Saul. And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out, Lord Jesus received my spirit and falling to his knees. He cried out with a loud voice, Lord, do not hold this sin against him. And when he had said this, he fell asleep.
And Saul approved of his execution. And there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem. And they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. Devout men buried Stephen and made great lamentation over him.
But Saul was ravaging the church and entering house after house. He dragged off men and women and committed them to prison. The grass-witters and the flower falls. The word of our God stands forever and ever.
Thanks be God. You may recall, as we considered Stephen's sermon, he addressed the charges that were brought against him by the Sainthedrin. And turned the table. See, flip the charges upon his accusers.
So as almost as if they didn't let him finish his sermon. As long as if they interrupted his words, there's an immediacy captured in the language that we read this evening. Apparently a mob mentality overtook the crowd and rushes and cashers Stephen and puts him to death after he's thrown out of the city. And this really is the cherry on top of Stephen's sermon.
As the fathers of Israel were known for killing the prophets who were speaking God's word and bringing divine charges before them. So Stephen is killed and finds himself in good company. But before we consider the glory of Christ in these few verses, I want to meditate on a few observations from this bloody conclusion of Stephen's martyrdom. Again, this is the first recorded martyrdom of the church etched into God's word for eternity.
It's worth our time to consider what happened before we consider what it means for us. First, I want you to notice from this text. It may not be immediately clear, but there is some political background that actually makes what takes place here worse than it already is. You understand that Israel, especially Jerusalem, was not a sovereign nation and this was not a sovereign city.
And they were not holy, autonomous, but were under the authority of the Roman Empire. And as such, they were not to carry out capital punishment apart from trial. And we saw it taking place in Jesus. That was Rome's job.
And while there are many who theorized why they were so confident to take matters into their own hands about fear of the state, Soste, the point remains that this brutal act only underscores the violence and hatred that had boiled and raged within them towards Stephen and towards the Christ that he proclaimed. They were not concerned with consequences. They were not concerned with the legality of their actions. They were blinded with rage at the truth that he proclaimed and said they killed him.
Second, I want you to notice that there is a comparison between Stephen and the crowd. Luke's recounting of the event is really masterful. This is right, Stephen, as full of the Holy Spirit who saw not his enraged attackers but saw Jesus as he gazed into heaven, not the world. And yet the crowd was enraged and they ground their teeth at him.
They cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears and rushed together at him. It was Stephen who fell asleep peaceful. Really a peaceful sense of death while the crowd was enraged and through stones. And Stephen we have the picture of perfect peace.
But the crowd we have marauding madness. You see, this crowd was not merely offended or triggered but they were enraged. They were ratted seemingly. And yet we wonder why Stephen is so calm and content.
Surely he wasn't consumed with this world. But the next. I think it's important for Luke to note that when Stephen gazed to heaven he didn't see a place but he saw a person. It wasn't an idea of heaven that awaited him or his own idea of heaven that awaited him.
But it was the identity of his lord. It wasn't a departed loved one or it wasn't an old friend or a dear family member. But it was Jesus that he saw. And now we don't take this passage to teach that this is what happens when every Christian dies.
But if I do think there's a sense in which the Lord supplies and times it needs, surely it's a divine grace to Stephen who's about to be brutally murdered to see his lord. The Lord is near to the broken hearted and saves the crushed in spirit the Psalmist writes. And so calm is the heart in the midst of the storm who knows and serves Jesus as their captain. And so it'd be that as we long for glory and we ask that God would help us to see Jesus exalted and heavens might we know such peace that Jesus rules and reigns.
Third I want you to see that there is a comparison with Christ. You notice some of the similarities between Stephen's death and Jesus. Read of this account and hear the words of Jesus, right? He says, if the world hates you know that it has hated me before it hated you.
And if you were of the world the world would love you as its own. But because you are not of the world because I chose you out of the world therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you a servant is not greater than his master? If they persecuted me they will also persecute you.
If they kept my word they will also keep yours but all these things they will do on account of my name because they do not know him who sent me. And so about a spirit through faith we are so united to Jesus that we encounter the same reactions from the world we are prone to the same persecution. And so we can't read an account like this without being challenged in our own heart and in our own walk with the Lord and ask ourselves would I be willing to love Jesus even to the point of death. And it seems extreme.
We wonder if this would ever happen in the United States. This is what you hear of things taking place in other parts of the world hostile to the Christian faith. Just to know this is what we do with our youth on Wednesday nights. We take a nation each week and consider how they are being persecuted.
This is not what we experience sweet to think. But if we can't live or don't live for Christ even when it's inconvenient would we ever die for his sake. And I often wonder if the Lord is setting up the United States to be at best ambivalent to the Christian faith as a means of showing his favor but really accommodating our weakness. How glorious is it for our brothers and sisters who gather together in the face of death for the sake of Christ?
Might we be strengthened and emboldened and hear not only the plight of our brothers and sisters around the world but might we pray for them. Might we imitate them. And yet what I want you to see from our text this evening is that even the death of the saints is fruitful. Surely the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church as it's attributed to Tertullian.
This may seem like a setback. But what I want you to see from our passage to the seed make is that the word continues to go forth. But what seems like frustration is merely the fruition of God's sovereign plan. Therefore we should trust that the word is always going forth.
There's two points tonight. I want you to see the first point that the word goes forth even in Stephen's death. The word goes forth even in Stephen's death. What I want you to see is that the word of God never returns void.
Even in this situation with Stephen the word goes forth. The word is proclaimed. It just falls upon deaf ears. This crowd as Luke says, stop their ears and rush together at him.
And when we consider the overarching theme of the book of Acts of the word goes forth by the power of the Holy Spirit we tend to think of something like that dawning of spring. The cold of likely the old covenant gives way to the warmth of the pleasantness of spring. You know, minus all the pollen that annoys all of our allergies. Are these opening days of warmer air and greening trees and blooming buds at the beginning of maybe spring training if you're a baseball fan or the promise of opening day for major league baseball?
Getting outside and enjoying all the things we love dearly we might be tended to think that the word going forth in the power of the spirit is all sunshine and rainbows. But that's not the case as we've seen. Nor is it the case as Jesus has promised. But we may wonder at this passage and ask what does it mean when it appears as if the word did not go forth?
Well, this is the exact opposite response of the crowd at Pentecost. There is not revival over there is revival. Again, what is important for us to see here is that the word did go forth. It just fell on deaf ears.
In fact, what's interesting is that the word of God did, in fact, garner their response. Didn't it? And just as with Peter's sermon the crowd heard that they had murdered the promised Messiah and they were cut to the heart. What must we do to be saved?
They cried out. This crowd heard the word of God and they had murdered the Messiah and responded not with faith but with fury almost as if a proof text to what Paul would say to the Corinthians for the word of the cross is, tholly to those who are perishing. For those who are being saved as the power of God. See the word condemns, pardoned and dead hearts as much as it breeds life and nurtures living hearts.
And when the word is rejected the Father's plans have not been frustrated. The word is not deficient nor the spirit powerless to save. And I don't want you to misunderstand me. When we get down to the brass tacks of God's word being powerful and sufficient that doesn't deny that we shouldn't labor to be better communicators of the word or that we shouldn't sharpen our skills to better know the gospel and the things of God that we should labor to better express and proclaim the gospel.
That doesn't mean that we don't poorly explain things or that I don't preach poor sermons. Hopefully the only time of time. But the word being powerful and sufficient means that we need to be concerned first and foremost with faithfulness to the message, faithfulness to our God. They were startling statistics out there.
They showed the decline of religious identity or Christian identity in the United States. They show a growing disagreement with biblical truths within the evangelical world and even show a staggering decrease of faithful church attendance. Though I think even we might see tonight that our Gen Z disciples seem to be attending church more and more and more than their older counterparts. I encourage you to consider the state of theology that's released by Ligonier every year.
It's interesting to read. Sometimes oftentimes very disheartening. But the question that the church is faced with is what do we do? When we look at these statistics and we see things trending in directions we don't necessarily like.
Well, what do we do? Well, I think we can start with what we don't do. We don't dilute the word God as to make it more appealing or palatable. Less we diminish the work shy away from the scriptures.
There's an industry dedicated to this and the children's frozen food world, which although in bears I know way too much about. I don't know if you've ever had dino nuggets, but they make dino nuggets that are filled with vegetables that you can convince your children to eat them. I have eaten them and I can assure you and attest to you that when you make vegetables more appealing by stuffing them in dino nuggets you make a whole thing. Holy unpalatable.
In fact, it's an abomination and doesn't taste good at all. Does justice neither to the chicken nugget nor the vegetables? And you see that when you dilute the truth of the scriptures we end up making something wholly different and abomination that neither reveals to us the glory of God in Christ. It does not save nor does it nurture.
It's not revealing to us God. Something wholly different in abomination. We also don't try to rationalize the spiritual things for the sake of something like scientific theory and thought that would deny the supernatural world that the Bible reveals to us. And when the Bible is made subject to prevailing thought and theory loses, the very authority it claims.
We can no longer have confidence in anything the scriptures say. All truth is God's truth. We believe this. But that which would disregard the supernatural and the Bible undercuts the very salvation that Stephen here proclaims.
If there is no creation out of nothing, if there is no parting of the Red Sea or Jordan River, if there is no manna from heaven, if there is no axed floating, if there is no Jesus walking on water or Jesus turning water into wine or Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead or even especially the resurrection of Christ from the dead, then there is no salvation for your name. There is no means to which God saves sinners and no assurance of hope. We also don't humanize the divine or moralize the truth or take the scriptures and make them into some sort of self-help, which is usually what follows from the other two. Similarly and oftentimes, as a result of submitting the scriptures to scientific theory, we tend to lean into the Bible as a good and right moral document.
This was Thomas Jefferson's intent in editing out the miraculous and supernatural from the Bible, leaving us with two volumes of philosophy of Jesus Christ and the life and morals of Jesus and of Nazareth, both devoid of the power of God's safe. To promote the beauty of more living apart from the power of the spirit, that fruit in us and deny that the chokehold sin has on us only continues to bleach our tombs. And when the word of God meets a hard heart and rejects them, the problem isn't God's word. When we see this response and reaction to Stephen, the problem isn't God's word.
The problem is the hardness of heart and the sin, which would lead us to stuff our ears and cover our eyes and it would lead us to be angry and respond with such hatred and violence against the one who would proclaim God's word. God's word always goes forth, even if it's among deaf ears. And I think we stand upon the sum of the scriptures. We are granted a unique perspective that is instructive to us and it's good news because it's God who opens deaf ears.
What's the hope of us? If we might ask it this way, why might I listen in other stuff their ears? In fact, it's the hope of Stephen's final prophetic word. I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.
This is one of the only instances in which the identifying terms Son of Man is used outside of Jesus' own use of the phrase. And it's an Old Testament, Messianic designation associated with Daniel's prophecy that alludes to both Christ's suffering and his exaltation. And it's Jesus who ever lives to intercede for you, who is seated at the right hand of God. And yet here he's standing.
Here he is on his feet and acts probably both receiving Stephen and his testimony of himself in rising and judgment. And it's Jesus by Stephen's own vision that shows that he is in fact our Lord who is standing and exercising dominion, that he is at work. And it's not alone who makes dead hearts alive in Christ. And just as the word goes forth even when it's rejected, we need to have an eternal perspective with the word God.
For it's hard hearts that are softened by the Scriptures. I wonder with bear Thomas if in his dying Stephen so to seed in the heart of one of his accusers Saul that would reap a harvest greater than he would have ever imagined. So it looks like failure in the moment reaps exponential results and success. And would it be that Stephen's faithfulness by the power of the Spirit planted the seed that would grow and bear much, much fruit?
For just as this text is known for its somber account of the death of a saint, it's also known as the First Prince of Saul. And you may know that Saul, which is his Hebrew name or better known as Paul, which is his Greek name, comes on the scene here in Acts chapter 7 as a part of a mob, stoning Stephen. In fact we go on chapter 8 which is that he was instrumental in the persecution of the church. And it's noted that he's not necessarily taking an active part in his execution but he is present and that he later notes that he does approve of this execution that he would be involved again in this persecution of the church.
But he swept up with the mob mentality to the point that he will take again leadership role in this organized persecution. But that here he is described as the cokekeeper. As the men would remove heavy outer garments that better and more easily hurled stones at Stephen, it would seem that Saul is watching over the cloaks, which could be of some value in maybe a target of thieves. And while he was not actively hurling stones it seems, according to Luke, he was present, he contributed and he approved.
And I think what we find is that there is an undeniable condemnation of Paul and his actions. There's a spiral so to speak that he witnessed, that he approved, and that he ravaged and terrorized Luke says. I wonder if Luke is trying to get the point across and set us up to understand that the conversion of Paul is nothing short of miraculous. As he was truly an enemy of God's church.
And beloved is we wonder at the miraculous saving of Paul, we wonder at our own miraculous salvation. That God would save a sinner like you and me through his son Jesus. We would be recipients of such divine grace undeserving. Think about this.
What is glorious about this Stephen's last words, even his prayer that he utters before that Lord do not hold this sin against him? Sounds familiar doesn't it? But you hear that prayer in that prayer in echo of Jesus's prayer, Father forgive them for they know not what they do. And with Augustine might we wonder if in God's province we have Paul because he even prayed.
And so the word goes forth here in prayer. And where the word goes forth it lands upon hard hearts. But oftentimes when we pray for those with hard hearts he hears and he answers and he listens and he softens those hard hearts. So grow not higher to praying for those who do not know Christ continue on in person here.
Secondly, what I want you to see is only just the word go forth as Stephen is killed, but the word goes forth as the church is scattered. Second point this evening is kind of a setup. We're going to get back to this. This is really a teeing up a topic and a theme here because in these verses there is a transition.
There is a switching of gears. There is a turning point because again what we see is failure the Lord intends and is brought instead of bringing about his glory. And so Luke recounts and there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria except the apostles. Devout men buried Stephen and made a great lamentation over him.
But Saul was ravaging the church and entering house after house he dragged off men and went in and committed them to prison. Again this tees up the remainder of the book of Acts because here is confirmation of Jesus is promised no longer is the Lord reserved for Israel. His worship is not bound to Jerusalem. Indeed the final remnant has been revealed and the word begins to spread.
But we see here that this spreading of the word is not the product of long range planning. It wasn't the result of an organized front or the work of some committee or weekend pow wow. We know that there wasn't an evangelism 101 class offered at this time but this spreading of the word was a reaction to an outbreak of persecution. And again I wonder like with the death of Stephen if we were to place ourselves in their shoes what would we be feeling as we were scattered to the ends of the earth?
Fear? Confusion? Worry and anxiety? Doubt?
You know we shouldn't read this reflection recorded after the fact mind you and ignore the potential hardship these folks knew as if they were somehow super men and super women. What we read is a comforting reminder that the Lord is with us in the midst of our trials that he does indeed work all things for his glory and our good. And I think specifically what we find comforting these verses is a real account that our suffering and our hardship is never pointless. It's always for his glory and for our good.
And now we need to be real and we need to be honest. If this isn't intended to minimize pain or discount suffering nor do I think we need to search for a reason or a purpose every time we know time to trial or suggest to others a reason or a purpose. But from these verses we can take confidence knowing that the Lord has his purposes and we find them rooted in his promises. And so as we turn this corner and we begin to see the expansion of the church geographically and qualitatively and quantitatively as the great commission begins to gain traction.
People see that just as the Holy Spirit was with God's people in Jerusalem in times of relative joy at ease he will also be with them as they are scattered. The word will go forth. So inclusion we need to remember that this is true for us today as it was for the early church. The word goes forth as we proclaim it every Sunday here at Redeemer.
As you speak about it with your friends or with your spouses or with your family members or with your children or your grandchildren or neighbors. As we join in partner with missionaries and church planners whether it's like a spreading fire or a slow burn whether it's rejected or it changes the heart of the here the word is always going forth. And just one final note about this passage you'll notice that Luke notes they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria except the apostles. It's interesting is that this is a distinction and there are other reasons why I think this distinction matters.
But that seemingly the apostles stayed to care for those who remained in the face of persecution. So who's left to spread the word as they were scattered but wasn't the apostles, wasn't the pastors, but it was the layman. It wasn't the seminary trained in many ways it was your average church member. What I want you to see is that the Lord uses you to spread the good news of Jesus Christ and to proclaim his glory and the hope of the gospel to a lost and dying world.
The word goes forth and he even uses you to do it. Therefore love the word speak of it and live it out and trust the Holy Spirit as with you as he was with the early church. Let's pray together.