Sunday, April 30, 2023 AM

Let's go to the Lord together in prayer. Lord, we do thank You for Your promises. They are many, and they are strong. They are true, and we live our lives in their light day by day. And we have this as a promise, that of all that the Father has given to You, You will not lose one.

That being in the Father's hand, we may not be snatched away. Being in Your hand, we cannot be snatched away, for You and Your Father are one. Lord, we believe. Help our unbelief. Strengthen us by Your Holy Spirit.

Lord, as we read Your Word today, as we consider the blessing of our communion with You, we pray all of these things in Your name, our great High Priest, Amen. I invite you to open your Bibles and turn with me to Acts chapter 7.

Christian Courage in the Martyrdom of Stephen

Acts 7, and we'll begin reading in verse 51, and looking all the way through the fourth verse of chapter 8. Acts chapter 7, beginning in verse 51. I hope that you know, that you can see from examples in the Scriptures, and that you have enough facility with church history to know, that Christian courage is central to the story of the church.

Christian courage is central to the way that Jesus builds His church. Christian courage is not incidental, accidental. Every once in a while, we find a story about a Christian somewhere being courageous, taking a stand here and there.

We do not have a story of the body of Christ that is suffering free, tribulation free, persecution free. We talked last time about the way in which, over the last 50 generations, Christ has been building His church upon the rock of His gospel, and it has not been one, this building, this story has not been one that is absent of bloodshed, hostility, persecution.

In fact, Christian courage is central to the story. It has not been one in which there are lots of diplomatic, peaceful compromises, and occasionally having to take a bit of a stand. It's not how Christ builds His church.

You'll not find that as His instructions to His followers when He describes what it means to follow Him. So we need courage. We need courage. We must play the man, as we've seen from the Scriptures. We must, like our brother Stephen, play the man.

I invite you to stand with me and read, beginning in verse 51, the martyrdom of our brother Stephen, of whom the world was not worthy. He speaks to the Sanhedrin, verse 51. You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit as your fathers did, so do you.

Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who foretold the coming of a just one, of whom you now have become the betrayers and murderers, who have received the law by the direction of angels and have not kept it.

When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed at Him with their teeth. But He, being 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, Look, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand.

Of God.

Then they cried out with a loud voice, stopped their ears, and ran at Him with one accord. And they cast Him out of the city and stoned Him. And the witnesses laid down their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul.

And they stoned Stephen as he was calling out on God and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. Then he knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, Lord, do not charge them with this.

Sin.

And when he said this, he fell asleep. Now Saul was consenting to his death. At that time, a great persecution arose against the church, which was at Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout all the regions of Judea and Samaria except the apostles.

And devout men carried Stephen to his burial and made great lamentation over him. As for Saul, he made havoc of the church, entering every house and dragging off men and women, committing them to prison.

Therefore, those who were scattered went everywhere preaching the word. This is the word of the Lord. The Lord thanks be to God. You may be seated. We need courage. We need courage to live as we ought, believe what we must, speak as we should as followers of Jesus Christ in the context of family, work, to our acquaintances, in the context of our own local church, and as citizens of our state and our nation.

We need courage.

It was a helpful context to listen to a graduation speaker yesterday who was trying to give context to these seniors who were graduating and to remind them about what was going on in his day and that every generation looks upon their times with frustration and fear, anxiety and worry.

Those of you who are in my mother's generation remember having to hide beneath your desks and stick your heads in cubbyholes as you ran the drills for when the nuclear blast came, living 13 days or 13 minutes away from imminent doom.

Every generation looks upon their times with fear and anxiety. The Lord knows our frame. He knows we are but dust, and He knows that we need encouragement. We need courage. One of my favorite passages in the Bible is Matthew 11, verses 28 through 30.

We have great burdens ahead of us. If you spend any time listening to the news or listening to podcasts, you might get a weary and heavy laden. Boy, things are really, really bad. This decade's boogeyman is the worst until the next decade.

Jesus says, come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Well, do we really know what that means? Do we have the picture properly fixed in our minds? What Christ is calling us to is obviously communion with Him and learning from Him, following Him in His example, but by relating to Him in a way that means that the burden is light and the yoke is easy and there's still work, but there's also rest all at the same time.

Do we really understand what goes on here? Well, we're not in the habit of using ancient equipment to train beasts of burden, are we? Some of you may know what's going on here. And what goes on here is that the yoke is set for two animals upon the neck of one animal and the neck of another animal, and you've got to put the pins underneath the neck and situate the yoke in such a way that when you hook up whatever the burden is, the plow or the wagon or whatever upon that central ring, that the beasts pull together and do the job together.

But they have to listen to the master as he calls out ha and gi and whatever to turn them right and left, tell them to halt, tell them to go. They've got to know the instructions of the master. And of course, if you have a really good beast of burden, he already knows the ropes.

He already knows the way. He could probably plow the field by himself. But if you're trying to bring a new, inexperienced animal into the arrangement, if you don't train that animal well, you're going to injure both your good animal and your new animal.

And break your yoke.

If you try to put the weight upon the inexperienced one, the new one, the young one.

So what do you do?

You arrange the ropes to be attached to the experienced, full-grown, mature, mighty beast of burden so that that one does all the pulling. That one does all the bearing of the weight, the really important stuff.

And then you put the yoke upon the younger animal and the more experienced animal, but the younger animal does not bear any of the weight. All it is doing is in yoke with the other animal. The burden, therefore, is light and the yoke is easy.

And the younger animal learns from the other one and goes with the other one wherever it goes. Do you see the picture now? Come unto me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. My yoke is easy, my burden is light. This is Christ calling us into communion with Him.

He bears the burden. He plows the field. He carries the weight of it. It's His righteousness that covers us. He's the one who is perfectly submitted to the Father in all things and in all ways, and He's the one who is leading us along to go where we ought to go.

And if we need courage, and we need courage, of course it must be Christian courage, which means not only does this exemplify Christ, not only is this in the pattern of Christ, but this must be empowered by Christ Himself.

We need courage, but we're not going to have courage if we don't commune with Christ. If we're not in communion with Christ, how will we stand courageously for Him? We must be in His example, and we must be in communion with Him.

Christian courage exemplifies Christ's cross empowered by Christ's communion. This is what we see with our brother Stephen. Stephen, who was maligned for Christ, and he defends Christ in his message to the Sanhedrin.

They accused him of being an enemy of his culture, an enemy of his society. They accused him of blaspheming Moses, of blaspheming God. And Stephen addresses those issues by showing that what the patriarchs were all about, and what Moses was all about, and what the temple was all about, is what Stephen is all about in preaching Christ.

And having done the labor of demonstrating how these important themes, these vital themes of the Sanhedrin's concern, are only understood in light of the person and work of Jesus Christ, he now points the prophetic finger at those who had accused him of blaspheming Moses and blaspheming God.

And he says, You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears. Now, where does Stephen get the gall to point at anybody and accuse anybody of anything? Doesn't he know that passage, Judge not. The new John 3 .16 of our age.

Judge not. They don't even know the whole verse. Judge not. Doesn't Stephen know that when he points the finger, he's got three more pointing back at him? How un-Christlike and ungodly Stephen is pointing the finger at these Sanhedrin people and saying these awful things.

He's not being loving. He's not being kind. Isn't that the way we normally interpret situations like this? But have we seen Stephen's labor? How has he labored for those in front of him? You see his labor of love?

He knows what their concerns are, and he addresses them. And he wants to show them that he's concerned about the same things. What were God's promises to the patriarchs? What did God do for Moses? What is the significance of the temple?

And he labors for them, and he shows them the truth of God's word, and he quotes God's word to them, and he proclaims Christ to them. You can't get more loving than that. Patient with those who are accusing him of awful things.

He's patient with them. He shows them the whole thing, and then he calls for their repentance. Jesus, the very definition of God's love to us, says the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel.

He does say repent. He does say go and sin no more. He does rebuke those who teach falsely. And so Stephen says, You stiff-necked and uncircumcised and hard in ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit, as your fathers did, so do you.

Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who foretold the coming of the just one, of whom you now have become the betrayers and murderers who have received the law, but the direction of angels, and have not kept it.

He's got the patriarchs, he's got Moses, and he's got the scriptural information about the temple. He's got himself three witnesses, and they've all declared that the Sanhedrin is guilty, guilty, guilty.

He's got the Torah, he's got the Nevi 'im, he's got the Kethuvim, he's got the Tanakh, he's got the law, he's got the prophets, he's got the writings, and they all declare that the Sanhedrin is guilty on the basis of three witnesses.

They are guilty. It wasn't he that was on trial, they were on trial. He was there to inform them what God thought of them, even as they were there to inform him what they thought of him. Now, he says they're stiff-necked.

Ever wander about that phrase? Calling someone stiff-necked? Sometimes I wake up, I'm stiff-necked. But what is the meaning of that in the Scriptures? The first time God ever called his people stiff-necked was right after they had made the golden calf.

They made a golden calf, and in Exodus 32, verse 9, the Lord said to Moses, I have seen this people, and indeed it is a stiff-necked people. Do you remember Psalm 115 says that those who make idols and worship idols become like those idols?

When you put the animal in the yoke, and the animal does not want to submit to the master's instructions, what does the animal do? Well, it might kick against the goads, but those are pretty sharp. The animal will get a stiff neck, and it won't do anything, it won't turn to the right or to the left, and it is bunched up and it will not move.

Just like that golden calf they made that had a neck that wouldn't bend. You see, in their idolatry, they were stiff-necked. They were unwilling to comply with the instructions of God, willing to go where he told them to go.

They were stiff-necked because they were idolatrous. And here, after showing the Sanhedrin that they were worshipping the temple, not at the temple, but they were actually worshipping the temple, that was their golden calf.

Stephen says, you're stiff-necked, and you're uncircumcised in your heart and in your ears. He refers here to Leviticus 26, where God is describing what's going to happen to his people if they rebel against him.

If you break my covenant, then I'm going to do this to you, and if you don't repent, then I'll do even more to you, and if you don't repent, I'll even do more to you. But you need to repent, you need to have your ears and your heart circumcised so that you will turn away, according to my word which I'm telling you, turn away with your heart, turn away from your sin, and do what I'm calling you to do.

Leviticus 26, verses 40 -42, after declaring all the problems that's going to come on them if they keep on breaking the covenant, he promises them in verse 40, but if they confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, that's how it worked in the old covenant, with their unfaithfulness, in which they were unfaithful to me, and that they have also walked contrary to me, and that I also have walked contrary to them, and have brought them into the land of their enemies, remember they're going to be exiled to Babylon if they rebel, if their uncircumcised hearts are humbled, and they accept their guilt, then I will remember my covenant with Jacob, and my covenant with Isaac, and my covenant with Abraham, I will remember, I will remember the land.

They have to repent and turn back. But he says, you are uncircumcised in heart and ears, they might be circumcised in the flesh, they might be very proud to have Abraham as their forefather, but they've missed the point.

And he says, which of your fathers, which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who foretold the coming of the just one. You always resist the Holy Spirit, as your fathers did so to you.

So you killed the prophets, and you killed those who foretold of Messiah. The Holy Spirit is active, He is active and He is at work amongst the prophets, amongst the authors of the Old Testament, who prophesied and declared the coming of the Messiah.

And what did the forefathers of the Sanhedrin do? They resisted the Holy Spirit, they killed the prophets, they didn't like that message. And they still don't like it, because he says, you now have become the betrayers and murderers of the just one.

Just like your forefathers, so you do now. They resisted the Holy Spirit, you do as well. You reject that marvelous gift of the new covenant, the Holy Spirit. So they are in rebellion against Christ, they persecute, they betray, they kill.

They are breaking the law. You have received the law by the direction of angels, and have not kept it. They were so proud to have the law, but they couldn't keep the law, they broke the law, and so they are guilty.

They accused him of blaspheming Moses, and he's just pointed out that they're worse than the blasphemers. They're absolute traitors to everything God ever said in His word. Now, this takes a lot of courage to say, to a ruling body who, although they are religious, they're also a civil, magisterial body.

And they've been ordering your church to be quiet. You're not allowed to do that anymore. Stephen's been doing it, and now he's on trial before these magistrates. It takes courage to say this. But he is by his words, he is exposing by the light of Christ the reality of their sins.

He is doing as Christ did in His own ministry. He is exemplifying the courage of Christ in exposing sin. He speaks as Christ would have if Christ was standing there at that very moment. He speaks truthfully.

He speaks authoritatively. Now, what gives him such courage? Well, when you go back and you look at the profile of Stephen from the very beginning, and we go back and we read the description of Stephen in verse 5 of chapter 6, it says that he is a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit.

He's full of faith and full of the Holy Spirit. He's in communion with his Lord. He's full of the Holy Spirit. Jesus said, I will not leave you orphans. I will send to you another comforter. Stephen was no orphan.

He was a child of God, and he was communing with his Lord, being full of the Holy Spirit. Thus, he could have courage. This is exactly what Jesus told His disciples. When they drag you before kings and in front of synagogues, when they are accusing you of awful things, you don't have to work everything out about what you're going to say beforehand.

The Holy Spirit, whom I will give to you, He will help you say what you're supposed to say. Your courage is not based on working out a really clever legal strategy. Your courage is going to be based on the fact that you are in communion with God Himself.

And so we see that with Stephen. He has courage because he is full of the Holy Spirit, as we also see in verse 55. So we see that Stephen accuses his accusers and demonstrates that they're the ones in rebellion, and then we see that they respond in anger and in violence, and Stephen is martyred for Christ.

But glory is conveyed here. Verse 54, when they heard these things, they were cut to the heart. That means that you see the wrath of man here. They were cut to the heart. It means that they were mentally sawn in half.

Half is the image of the Greek word. They were mentally sawn in half. And they gnashed at Him with their teeth. And this is the way Jesus described hell. This is the way Jesus described hell. In the outer darkness, there's weeping and gnashing of teeth.

As they were listening to the preaching of God's Word, the clarity and the holiness of God's Word being directed at them, in their rejection of the one mediator between God and man, here comes the unmediated holiness of God straight at them through the preaching of the Word of God,.

And it was hell to them.

They couldn't bear it. They were full of hell. He was full of the Holy Spirit. And so, in their wrath, they cried out against Him. They gnashed their teeth at Him. They stopped their ears and charged at Him.

Why?

Hebrews 4, verses 12 -13 says, The Word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account. And being exposed to the unmediated holiness of God and rebellion against Christ, no wonder they gnashed their teeth.

As the glory of God, the offended glory of God, came down upon them. There was glory conveyed here. And like the Israelites at Sinai who fled and could not bear the sound of God's voice, so also these men of the Sanhedrin, these elders, they could not bear to hear the Word of God about Christ.

So there was glory conveyed as Stephen looks full of the Holy Spirit, gazes into heaven, and sees the glory of God. How does he see the glory of God? He sees Jesus standing at the right hand of God. And he says to them, Look, I see the heavens open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.

The Son of Man to whom has been given dominion and everlasting dominion, a kingdom which will never be destroyed,.

Who has all authority.

They thought they had Stephen on trial. Jesus had them on trial. And He stands on behalf of the one that they have accused. And He stands as the mediator, as the advocate of the one accused. It doesn't matter if the Sanhedrin declares Stephen guilty.

It matters what happens in the court of heaven where Christ presides. So glory is conveyed. The accuser of the brethren may speak. He may speak through many judges and councils and courts. And every day, every day, Christians in various cultures are condemned for a variety of supposed crimes.

But there is a higher throne upon which Christ reigns. And what matters in the end is what He says about what we are doing and what is going on, not what man says. We understand that when we see the glory of God.

Full of the Holy Spirit, Stephen sees the glory of God and Christ standing at the right hand. What kind of courage does that give Stephen? To commune with his Lord in that way at that time. He can stand against anything.

He can go through anything because of the communion that he has with his Lord at that moment, in that situation. Not only is glory conveyed, but grace is communicated. We have a stark contrast between the Sanhedrin and Stephen.

Verse 57,.

They cried out with a loud voice, stopped their ears, and ran at him with one accord. Did you notice that this is not unique to the American culture because it happens in other cultures as well? A missionary is going to attest to this.

If you want a great story about people crying out with a loud voice, stopping their ears, and raging against the gospel of Christ, you can talk to our brother Danny Roten about trying to hand out gospel tracts in South America when the Pope showed up.

They cried out with a loud voice, stopped their ears. Have we seen that recently? Do you see people who don't want to hear anything that disagrees with what they want to believe? And how do they respond?

Do they listen and ponder and consider and weigh the rational arguments and think about the evidence? They scream and they rage and they stop their ears and they seek to do violence. That is not unique to our time.

It is not unique to our culture. But it is the judgment of God. It is the judgment of God for anyone to be turned over to reprobate minds. There's very little difference I see here between the Sanhedrin's actions and the actions of the men of Ephesus who chanted for hours, great is Diana of the Ephesians.

But while the wrath of man goes on and does not achieve the righteousness of God, and we see the wrath of God at work against those who have been condemned, we see Stephen dying like his Savior. Verse 58, they cast him out of the city.

They cast him out of the city and stoned him. Let us too go outside the gate to our Savior Christ. The witnesses laid down their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul. The witnesses were required, those who condemned a man to death by their witness were required to execute the one that they had declared worthy of death.

So those who had brought witness against Stephen, they were the ones throwing the stones. And they laid their clothes down at the feet of a young man named Saul. It looks like they're doing everything right, but their wrath is not achieving the righteousness of God.

Verse 59, they stoned Stephen as he was calling on God and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. How did Jesus die? He prayed to the Father, receive my spirit. Look at verse 60, then he knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, Lord, do not charge them with this sin.

How did Jesus die? What did he say? Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. Do you see how Stephen plays the man.

To the very end?

How did Jesus die? I'll die that way. I'll die trusting God. I'll die in faith. I'll die in grace. I'll die forgiving those who have wronged me. That's how I'm going to go out. Like my Savior. Stephen played the man all the way to his end.

He called upon God. He's praying to his Lord. Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. Lord, do not charge them with this sin. Do you see he's in communion with his Lord? He's not wondering where his Lord is. He's with his Lord.

Why can Stephen be with the Lord in his death while Jesus himself was forsaken of God? Because Christ bore the sin. He bore the exile. He bore the curse. He died in that way so that Stephen would never, ever, ever be abandoned, cut off, lost to God.

Stephen played the man. He emulated the Son of Man, who is the perfect example of courage. We see here Christian courage, born of faith, carried in love, expended in hope. And when he had said this, he fell asleep.

Asleep! Asleep!

What a word! Oh, what a word!

He only fell asleep. What a victorious word! That's how Jesus looks at death. What did he say of Lazarus?

He's asleep. What did he say of Talitha? She's asleep. He's just asleep.

Because when Jesus raises the dead, it's as easy as you waking somebody up from sleep. Just asleep, that's it.

Why?

Because Stephen is in communion with his Lord, who holds the keys to death and Hades, who has been risen from the dead, so that even if Stephen dies, yet he lives.

He's just asleep.

His body's just laid in the ground. Jesus looks at death, and he just calls it sleep. We shall sleep, and Jesus will wake us up. Our bodies will be woken from the grave to be reunited with our inner man.

What a victorious word! In contrast to this glory, we see Saul, and a unique way in which Jesus furthers his great commission amongst his church. You've probably noticed that he gave this great commission in Acts chapter 1 and verse 8.

Let's see what he said. Just to be clear, Jesus says to his apostles, Acts 1 -8, But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem. Check.

And in all Judea.

Not really.

Samaria? Definitely not. And to the end of the earth. Hasn't even come into view yet.

What are they doing?

So far, everyone's been coming into Jerusalem from the surrounding area. People are coming in from the towns and the villages. The new wine and the old wineskins is getting full. Jerusalem is now going to burst.

And Saul is God's instrument to scatter his people. Now Saul was consenting to his death. At that time, a great persecution arose against the church, which was at Jerusalem. And they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria.

Hey, that was the next two, right? After Jerusalem comes Judea and Samaria. What a good shepherd. Only the best shepherd can scatter his sheep while still shepherding them well. And he sends them out because he has a plan to build a church that includes all the nations.

Now all were scattered except the apostles. And devout men carried Stephen to his burial and made great lamentation over him. Just see the courage of the saints here. They were scattered as heralds. Everywhere they went, it says in verse 4, they were preaching the word.

As they were scattered, they went out preaching the word.

What was the word?

Jesus is Lord.

He's King of kings.

He's risen from the dead. All the things that God has said in the Old Testament are true. He is the Savior for the world. He is the Lamb of God. He is our Creator. They went out heralding Christ everywhere they went.

And that had to be a matter of courage. Being on the run, still preaching Christ. Also, the apostles who stayed. Those who stayed in the conflict zone. Well, that was courage as well, wasn't it? We're going to keep on reading about elders of the church.

Apostles. We see in church history how many of them just died trying to preach the gospel to those in this city. A city which would be overthrown in just a few decades. The courage of the church. Look, they carried Stephen to his burial and made great lamentation over it.

They didn't care that that might put a target on their back. They're going to mourn what happened. They're going to make a big deal about Stephen dying. It doesn't matter if it exposes them. Very much like Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus outing themselves by caring for the dead body of Christ.

Saul consented to the death of Stephen. He was all for it. Thought it was right. Thought it was good. Thought it was just. Thought it pleased God. Jesus said that would happen in John 16. He said, They will put you out of the synagogues.

Yes, the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God service. And Saul thought he was offering God service. He was 100 dead set against this Jesus of Nazareth, this wicked cult as he saw it, and he was consenting to the death of Stephen.

Great idea. That's what he thought. Let's do it some more. That's what he thought. He made havoc of the church, verse 3, entering every house. Remember how it was in Acts 2? From house to house, they broke bread and fellowship together.

He's hot on their trail. House to house, busting up every Christian fellowship, dragging off men and women, committing them to prison. That didn't mean they went to prison for 5 to 10. That means that they went to prison for a trial and execution, or trial and exile.

Saul of Tarsus, Christ's cue ball. Saul was doing exactly what he wanted to do, and Jesus was doing exactly what he wanted to do. And isn't it interesting.

That later on,.

After Saul of Tarsus came to Christ, or actually, was it Christ came to him? And the chief of sinners was saved? That Paul went around strengthening the Christians in the churches that he helped to scatter in the first place?

Isn't God good? We don't know what is happening today. We just don't know what's happening. But we can trust, I guarantee you based on the Scriptures, that Christ is going to use it for the good of His church.

He's going to use it according to the plan of God. Things are not out of God's control. And so we need to have that courage. It's a beautiful thing to think that even though the church was scattered, their communion was not based on everybody being in the same city.

And that they could still have communion with one another, even though they were apart, and how precious it was to have communion with those that they were with. Because our communion is not based on us being in the same physical city.

It's based on us having one Lord. Let's pray together. Father, I thank You for the time You've given us in Your Word. I thank You for the courage that we can have in Christ. I pray that You would encourage us as we think about the glory of our Savior.

And I pray that today as we have this meal together, that we would be emboldened to herald Christ. We pray these things in His name.

Amen.