The Comfort in Knowing Jesus is Standing for Us

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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Welcome back to Coffee with a Calvinist.

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This program is dedicated to helping you better understand the word of God and the doctrines of grace.

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The Bible tells us, do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.

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Get your Bible and coffee ready and prepare to study along.

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Here's your host with today's lesson, Pastor Keith Foskey.

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Welcome back to Coffee with a Calvinist.

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My name is Keith Foskey and I am a Calvinist.

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Today, we're going to be in Acts chapter seven.

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While you're opening up your Bibles, I want to remind you that today is going to be the last of our video for a while.

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Beginning next week, we're going to be moving to an all audio format.

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Now, that doesn't mean that you won't be able to watch it on YouTube.

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You will.

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It'll still be on YouTube, but it will not have the video accompaniment.

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There will simply be a background picture, like the one that you're looking at behind me, but it'll just be the background picture.

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You won't see my face.

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This is going to help me with production time, putting these things together, doing a 10 to 15 minute show every day does take time.

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And August is my time to take an opportunity to rest some.

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So I'm looking forward to having a little bit of rest and I'm going to try to continue to have these every day because I know many of you have told me that you continue to watch these every day, that they're a part of your daily Bible study.

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And that does my heart good to hear that, by the way.

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If you want these to continue, please continue to tell me that you are enjoying them, that they're helpful to you because that encourages me to want to continue.

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So again, this will be the last video.

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And then Monday, we're going to start with our audio.

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So beginning in Acts chapter seven, as I talked about on yesterday's episode, this is continuing on with the situation with Stephen.

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Stephen has been arrested because of his preaching of the Lord Jesus Christ.

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He has been taken and he has been put before the council and he is now being accused of teaching the people against Moses and against God.

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And so he has an opportunity to speak in his own defense and he does that.

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This is a long chapter.

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Yesterday was only 15 verses.

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This chapter is several dozen verses.

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And in this, he begins all the way back with God appearing to Abraham and he takes the people that are listening through a little micro history of the people of God, showing how God has been working all the way up until the time of the coming of Jesus Christ.

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And speaking about the patriarch, speaking about Moses and speaking about the fact that Moses said that God is going to raise up a prophet like me from your brothers.

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He says that in verse 37.

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This is quoting Moses's words in the Pentateuch.

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And this is reminding that even Moses had prophesied the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.

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And then we get, he continues to point to Jesus Christ, explaining Jesus's fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies.

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He says some pretty harsh words, like in verse 51, he says, you stiff neck people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit as your fathers did, so do you.

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Now, some people try to use that verse to attack the doctrine of irresistible grace, which is the fourth of the four points of Calvinism.

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Just a few weeks ago, I preached a message on irresistible grace and I explained how this passage in Acts 7 does not in any way deny the doctrine of irresistible grace.

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And if you're interested in why that is, I encourage you to go back and look up on our sermon audio page, sgfcjacks.org and find the sermon entitled Irresistible Grace.

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It was preached just last week and I explained how this does not deny the doctrine of irresistible grace.

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But what we see is he accuses them of murdering Jesus.

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It says, which of the prophets, this verse 52, which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute and they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the righteous one, that's Jesus, whom you have now betrayed and murdered, you who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it.

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So not only has he accused them of breaking the law, he's accused them of not listening to Moses, he's accused them of being a stiff necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears.

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They may be circumcised physically, but they're not circumcised spiritually.

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He's really come down on them fairly hard.

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And he has said they have murdered Jesus.

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They have murdered the righteous one.

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That's a reference to Jesus Christ.

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So now he's gonna be stoned.

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He is going to be taken out and stoned.

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And it says, now when they heard these things, they were enraged, this is verse 54, they ground their teeth at him, a show of anger, but he full of the Holy Spirit gazed into heaven, and here's the part I wanna focus on today, and saw the glory of God.

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And Jesus standing at the right hand of God.

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And he said, behold, I see the heavens opened and the son of man standing at the right hand of God.

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But they cried out with a loud voice, stopped their ears and rushed together at him.

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Then they cast him out of the city and stoned him.

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And the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul.

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Now, keep that in mind because that particular person is going to become hugely important in the chapters to come.

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That is Saul of Tarsus, who would go on to become known as the Apostle Paul.

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But it says, as they were stoning Stephen, he called out, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.

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Reminiscent of Jesus on the cross, Lord, I commit my spirit.

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And falling on his knees, he cried out with a loud voice, Lord, do not hold this sin against them.

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Again, reminiscent of what Jesus said on the cross, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.

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And when he said this, he fell asleep.

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The words asleep, they're of course, a reference to the fact that he died.

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In the Christian scriptures, the believer is never given to death.

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He is always said to have fallen asleep, but that doesn't mean that he didn't actually die.

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It's just referencing the fact that death for the believer is not the end.

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Death for the believer is going from life to life.

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It's going from life in this world to life with Christ.

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And there is no real death for the believer because we simply go from living to living.

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We don't go from living to dying.

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And that should be a great comfort to us and to all who die in Christ, that we simply move from death to death, or excuse me, from life to life, not from life to death.

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But going back up, I wanna focus on one passage very quickly.

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And this is gonna be sort of the tightening everything up today for a thought to carry you through today.

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It says, in verse 55, it says, "'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.

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"'And he said, behold, I see the heavens opened "'and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.'" Now, the reason why I point this out is because Jesus is standing.

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The typical scene that we see, the glory of God and Christ seated at the right hand of the Father.

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But at this moment, the Son is not seated, but he is standing.

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And someone might say, well, that's just, there's nothing to that.

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It's just another instance of Jesus being beside the Father, beside the glory of God.

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I think there's great significance though in the fact that Jesus is standing.

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Jesus is our advocate, the Bible says.

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And an advocate is one who comes to the aid, one who comes to the defense of someone else.

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And when Stephen is being martyred for the cause of Christ, he is given a vision, a, he's given eyes to see into the heaven of heavens and he sees the Lord standing.

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Why standing? I believe because he is standing as his advocate.

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Much like we would see in a courtroom when a defense attorney is taking the opportunity to defend his client, he doesn't do it while seated.

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He stands in the defense of his, of the person that he is representing.

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Christ is standing and he is in this sense, coming to Stephen's aid.

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You might say, well, he didn't come to his aid, Stephen died.

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No, he certainly did because he welcomed Stephen into the kingdom.

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Stephen was martyred, but he received the greatest blessing of all at this moment.

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Because even though he was killed in a very brutal way, he received a vision right before he was to be killed of the Lord Jesus Christ standing in his defense.

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Stephen knew he was a sinner.

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Stephen knew that he deserved God's wrath as all of us do.

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The Bible says that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, even Stephen.

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But on the day of his death, he saw Jesus Christ standing, not only ready to receive him, but ready to be his advocate.

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Stephen was comforted in death.

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What a blessing it would be in the throes of death to see the Lord Jesus Christ standing in our defense.

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Here's the wonderful thing.

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If you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, he is your advocate, even if you can't see him.

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Even if you can't with the eyes, the spiritual eyes that were given to Stephen, even if you can't see the Lord Jesus Christ standing as your advocate, he is there.

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The Bible says he is always interceding for his people.

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And therefore, in the same way Christ stood on behalf of Stephen, he stands on behalf of us.

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Though Satan may throw his worst accusations, the Bible asks the question, who shall bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies.

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Who is there to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died.

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Moreover, the one who was made alive and is interceding for us.

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Beloved, be comforted today that no matter what you face, if you are in Christ, you have an advocate with the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ, and he stands for you.

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I hope this is an encouragement to you today.

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I hope this will help carry you through today as you read through this text.

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And I hope these daily Bible studies continue to be a blessing to you.

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Again, thank you for watching today's episode and thank you for faithfully continuing to watch our podcast.

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Again, my name is Keith Foskey and I have been your Calvinist.

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May God bless you.

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Thank you for watching this episode of Coffee with a Calvinist.

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On behalf of Pastor Foskey, thank you for watching and may God richly bless your day.