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There's a little bit more of maybe a little chaos in a normal morning. We are really blessed with students from Concordia University of Ann Arbor, Michigan. They are here for a week to be on mission, and they have been with us for every service, serving in a variety of different places. They are here to be trained, and then they're going to go out each day and do missionary work in the area. So, we are really excited to have them with us and actually have them up here leading worship too. They are in the children's ministry, and they're in the front row, they're in the back row, they're in the tech booth. They're everywhere, so it's great.
You'll be able to connect with them after worship for a little reception, and we invite you to do that. I do want to recognize your presence with us. In your worship folder, there is a connection card. If you don't mind filling it out, especially if you're a guest, we really love to be able to recognize your presence with us. We truly believe you're a gift from God, and God brought you here. It's one of the ways we can recognize your presence with us when you fill that out.
As we begin, we are in Acts, and we've just been walking through chapter by chapter. Today, we're going to see how an ordinary guy is an important part of this movement of the church that God uses for His kingdom. Hopefully, that will not just be an inspiration for you personally, but also connect us more and more with Jesus and the mission He has for us and for you.
So, let's invite you to stand and rise as we begin our worship together.
God, we thank you for the ability to come into this place with you. It's not like you need our praises, but you invite us and command us to praise. Why? Because you want our hearts to have our attention turned to you, so you can speak to us, you can shape and speak into them.
So, Father, we recognize you're here, and you're here to do your incredible work, and we invite it into our hearts and lives. We do this in the name of Jesus. And all God's people say, Amen. Let's give Him praise.
You know that one line in that song is pretty... I thank you for the heads nodding, but we can vocalize that here, okay? So you can say, "Amen." Amen, because Amen, let it be so with me and also with you. Amen. Amen. Now be seated.
That's a good song, great for more. If you want to open up your worship folder and follow along, man, we've been going through Acts, and we are continuing on, going chapter by chapter. Today, we have a story of the first Christian martyr, and we see in him a brilliant profile of the common Christian guy.
Okay, this guy's not an apostle, he's not a church leader. We might want to use the term in our culture, "average Joe," right? Because he's a guy, but he's a guy that like him is the reason the church is growing.
Let me give you a little context here. At this point in the church, the church has been this movement, remember, from unlikely people like the first apostles. They didn't have any prestige, power, buildings, leadership roles, or influence, and yet God is doing this incredible movement in this town from this little group of people. Now it's grown to 10,000 in a very short amount of time in a city of about 40,000 at that time.
In fact, even historians have kind of observed this incredible growth. Like, why is it growing like this? Why is it doing this? Kenneth Scott Latourette, he's a noted historian and professor at Yale, said, "Never in a short time in history has any other religious faith, no matter what other movement it's been, whether it's idea, religious, political, or economic, achieved such a commanding position, such incredible growth in the culture."
The only other times that maybe we could see some kind of growth was through conquest by military power or force or political will, maybe forced upon the people. But this is the first time there's been a movement that's been totally free of this Christianity.
So how and why is it growing so far, so much? The answer, in part, is in the profile of the man we're going to learn about today, Stephen. Stephen has one principle in his life that really drives him and makes him. This principle, like Stephen's, is the kind of guy that keeps things together. He keeps unity, keeps things moving forward.
The principle of his life that is guiding him, that we'll see from start to finish, is that his principle is, "It's not about me." It's not about me. If you know a guy like Stephen who lives that "it's not about me" kind of life, you'd like to be around that kind of guy. You recognize that kind of guy.
So let's get into this guy. Here it is in verse one of Acts. It says, "Now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution."
Now, this might be a glance over, like it's a little detail, but this is a serious problem. This is a huge problem here because there's an edge to it. It's a racial problem. They're saying, "Look, you're prioritizing one group over another, over a cultural ethnicity."
There are exactly two problems, though, with this complaint. One of the problems with this complaint is that it assigns motives. The text assumes that Hellenists complained against the Hebrews. In other words, they assumed the Hebrews were doing this because this was a racial cultural reason. They assumed the worst.
Secondly, they didn't go to the apostles directly. It says a rumor arose. In other words, people were grumbling and complaining, backstabbing in their little small groups in their homes all through Jerusalem. Now this grumbling has made it to the leadership. It surfaced.
They heard, "Well, you don't care about us. You prefer those over us," all that kind of stuff. This is serious. This is significant. In the church, we need to realize this because these are things that Satan uses—distrust and resentment—in order to destroy the church.
This is the third major attack Satan has had on the church as it started off. The first we saw in Acts 4 was government persecution. In Acts 5, we see that there is embezzlement and hypocrisy amongst the leadership of the church in Ananias. In Acts 6 now, we see the spirit of grumbling, distrust, and resentment.
Yet, I would say out of all these, this is the most serious one that endangers the church. The spirit of grumbling and complaining kills more churches than any persecution.
It reminds me of that guy who was stranded on an island. He had been stranded there for a long time. He had SOS in the sand. He had bonfires, trying to send smoke signals, get attention. One day, finally, there comes a helicopter, a rescue helicopter, and sees it and lands on the island. The guy comes running out. He's all excited to be rescued.
The people in the helicopter are like, "Hey, is there anybody else on the island besides you?" He goes, "No." He goes, "No, no, no. I'm the only one." He goes, "If you're the only one, why are there three huts over here?" He goes, "Oh, one's my home, one's my church I go to, and the other hut's the church I used to go to."
I mean, even by yourself, you could have conflict, right? We've got to understand, like, when we speak evil, we speak bad of our brothers and sisters, that's Satan using us to bring divisions, to divide the kingdom.
When we sit there and judge people's motives, man, that's Satan getting in to bring hardship and division with you and somebody else. There are like two principles I live by that I really reinforce in my family and in our teams, our church, and that's simply, man, like, do not judge other people's motives.
I mean, love covers a multitude of sins. They might hurt you, they might say something wrong, might have an action that offends you or something like that, but don't go and try to judge their heart and their motives. That's not what we're supposed to be. Put love on it.
And secondly, man, when you have a problem, go directly to the person. They didn't directly go to the apostles. They just grumbled around and told everybody else. I mean, it's the old joke in churches, right? There's the meeting in the building, and then there's that meeting after the meeting that's in the parking lot, where people grumble and complain about stuff, and they don't go.
All that grumbling and complaint really does is bring division and more hurt and doesn't solve anything. I mean, how much disharmony and pain have we carried on that we could have avoided if we would have not assumed the worst on somebody and we wouldn't have gone directly to them?
So how did the church leadership respond to this, really, an attack on them, on their character, who they are? Did they get defensive and say, "How dare you?"
Verse 2: "And the twelve summoned the full number of disciples and said, 'It is not right that we should give up preaching the Word of God to serve tables.'"
Keep going. "Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the Word.'"
And what they said pleased the whole gathering.
Now, don't hear this wrong. What the apostles were not saying is that serving the widows, waiting on tables was beneath them. I mean, the fact that they called all the disciples who were already there implies that, man, the apostles have already been doing this to the Jewish widows. They already valued this. This was significantly important to address. This was not below them.
I mean, after all, the apostles saw themselves as servants. I mean, we've been seeing that through the first six chapters. They are there serving. And they've been serving the people there. And what happened? I mean, their follower washed their feet. Their leader washed their feet. Their leader went to the cross. He was a servant, and they were servants.
But the problem is that this movement has grown, has expanded, and the workload has become bigger. They're sitting there saying, "Man, how do we deal with such a heavy workload? We're so consumed with our time. What is the most important thing? What is the thing that our service can be, the best, what's our best service can be?"
I mean, they were the ones with Jesus. They're the ones that Jesus taught, so it would make sense that, man, they should really use that gift, and that would be their service to continue to teach and continue in prayer and continue to equip the church to do the same.
So this is not like, "Hey, this is beneath us. This is for the other people." This is not, "Hey, we're graduating to something else." This is just like saying, "How's the best focusing our service? What's the best way that we can contribute to the kingdom?"
It's in that teaching of the Word and prayer and helping others. So they commit, devote themselves to it, and then they choose Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit.
Then you got a bunch of other people like... cut out of there because we can't say their names anyway. But just a note, though, that they were there were Hebrews among them. I mean, Hellenists, I'm sorry, Greeks in them, so there was a diversity in the leadership.
Verse 6: "These they set before the apostles, and they prayed and laid their hands on them. And the Word of God continued to increase, and the numbers of disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of priests became obedient to the faith."
Now here's the question: there's been tremendous growth. There's a shift to the Word. The Word grows, the church grows, God grows the church to His Word, and now more disciples have made multiplication. But why was there a mention of priests? I mean, there are other groups coming to faith. Why did he highlight the priests?
My speculation is that in the Old Testament, priests were in charge of taking care of the poor. You had a whole group of people here acting like priests, doing what priests have done by taking care of the poor around them.
So the priests, who were these antagonists to Christ, they were against Christ. I mean, they helped crucify Christ, and yet now they're seeing the hearts of the people who were serving others, which is knitted to their heart and their calling, and they're saying, "This is of God. This truly was God," and they have been converted.
Now, they weren't converted through apologetics. They weren't converted through great preaching. They were converted through the service of the church towards poor people.
Verse 8: "And Stephen, full of grace and power, was doing great wonders and signs among the people."
So all these conversions created an uproar, and Stephen gets called before the other religious leaders, the other priests, to answer for it. He preaches a sermon in Acts 7. It's the longest sermon recorded in Acts.
In that sermon, he makes two major points. The first major point he makes to the Israelites is, "You have always rejected the prophets that God has sent to you. You have turned away; you have actually killed them."
The second point is that the law never is able—you're never able to keep the law, and the law can't give you a new heart. You've never been able to keep God's law that He's given you, and it can't give you a new heart, which, by the way, you really need.
So he continues his sermon, and he ends it and lands it with this great amazing word of encouragement. Verse 51: "You stiff-necked people, you 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 announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered, you who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it."
It continues now.
"When they heard these words, 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.'"
Again, what do we see in this text? We see this theme of priests emerging. You see, Israel had priests, and there were priests that were there to do the temple duties. Priests, by special ceremony once a year, could go into the Holy of Holies, into the presence of God where His glory was.
But now there's Stephen here. Stephen says, "I see heaven open up to me. The glory of God has been made revealed to him." Wait a minute, he's not a priest, he's not an apostle, he's just an ordinary guy. What is this signifying?
There's a shift. The church is—we're all priests. Peter later comes on to say, "What? The priesthood of all believers." So we see this shift in a church of being priests and taking care of the poor, but also what? Communing with the Holy God, being in His presence and not being struck dead, being revealed to Him.
Verse 57: "But they cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears and rushed together at him."
So what did they do? They had a temper fit like little kids. Then they cast him out of the city and stoned him. The witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul. This guy Saul, he was the chief persecutor, will become Paul, right?
Now, as they were stoning Stephen, he called out, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit."
So what are five lessons we can learn from the life of Stephen?
Number one is this: The core Christian commitment is service. The core Christian commitment is service. Stephen is introduced as a servant. His job was not glorious; he waited on tables for widows.
And obviously, from what we see, he's a capable leader, he's a gifted theologian, and a good preacher. But he didn't say, "Oh, I'm not going to do that waiting on tables; that's beneath me." No, he jumped in. He didn't say, "Oh, I don't have that gift." No, he saw a need and he stepped in.
Why? Because Stephen's life is, "It's not about him." It's about being a servant and serving the body of Christ. When he sees a need, he steps in. He did it gladly.
This service that seemed rather insignificant, didn't seem like it was, "Oh my goodness, earth-shattering." This stepping into this moment of pain, this moment of problem within the church that was creating divisions, actually him stepping in and serving, creating unity, brought it together.
It helped the ministry to move forward. It became such a moment that it shaped the church, and the church responded in service to others, and they're carrying out that service that a group of people that were antagonists to Christ, that were against them, their hearts were changed.
These other priests came into the movement because of this. Not only that, but it would end up converting the church's chief prosecutor, Saul. Francis Schaeffer said, "The love of the church is the church's most effective apologetic."
Our desire as a church is that we be characterized by that love. And how do you do that? With service. You serve others.
I told the group, research says that most people decide if they're going to come to this church and come back to church in the first seven minutes of being at a church. And so the first seven minutes is not the sermon. They decide by meeting you, by how you greet them, how you smile, how you welcome, how you serve them.
What's an amazing thing, we see it all over and over again in our reviews, that you do that. You love on people. You serve on people. You care for people.
And not just when there's a program going on, but you know the needs. You see needs. I actually hear it secondhand that, "Oh, so-and-so is going through this." But don't worry, pastor, so-and-so went there and did this and did this and did that and did this.
I mean, I always tell people, like, if you really need help and you want help, just come to this community because they'll just love on you. You don't have to ask. They'll love. They'll notice. And they'll initiate. They'll come around you where you need it.
And I commend you for that because that's been the heart here. Like, church is not about Sunday. It's about how the Sunday is to encourage and equip us, how we live the rest of the week. That's the measure of a good church.
Anybody can do Sunday and try to impress. Impact comes the other days of the week when we're together doing life.
Whether it's doing that or the people that constantly commit to go and take the church to places where people live and work and play, or the people in the office who support it, who are doing it all the time, or the leadership who's showing up during the week, every week to take on things, to carry on this mission that this love goes out. Man, we thank you.
I mean, that's what the church was doing in Acts. This love was not just like in huddle. This was who they were. And it was spreading. It was overflowing into the community.
In fact, even the Roman Emperor Julian, who was the great persecutor of the early Christians, noticed and said, "Man, he had to admit and discuss that, man, these Galileans, these Christians are taking care of the poor around them. Wherever the Christians are, the people that are poor in that area are taken care of."
In fact, the historian Edward Arnold notes the most astonishing thing he has observed as an outsider to the movement is these people didn't just give money to their temple. They gave it to the people in their community. They were generous. They were loving. They were serving.
See, everyone who's a Christian is a servant. That's who you are. The church is not a volunteer organization as some have made it. That is the world influencing the church. You are the bride of Christ.
Jesus came as a loving, sacrificial servant, left heaven, took on the form of a servant, humbled Himself to a single cell to be born of His own creation, took on your flesh, took on your sins, and carried that to a cross as a servant to show His love, to win you over to His bride, the church, to broaden this incredible union with Him.
I mean, one of Jesus' ending prayers, right? "God, let them be one as you and I are one," to be together as one in the body of Christ. That's who we are as Christ is ahead.
So that's who we are, the body of Christ, His bride brought into that union, that covenant relationship with God the Father and His perfect love for us. Then we're made servants.
And as a servant, we're not volunteering. We're doing what we do. We serve where there's a need. Not because it's a gift and ability, because it's convenient.
I mean, in your covenant relationship in marriage, think about if we approach marriage like sometimes we approach things in the church or needs or ministries. Your spouse, you sit down and you go, "Yeah, we got some things we have to do. We got some responsibilities and tasks to take care of."
And you start making a list of projects, and your spouse looks at you and says, "Okay, what do you want to do? What do you want to do together?" Maybe you got to do this or do that. And you just go, "You know what, honey, I only signed up to volunteer once a month. I can't do this."
How good is that marriage going to be? You don't do that. Because you love. And you're there to serve one another. It's the same thing. It's who we are.
And so we're not volunteering. We're not, "Oh, I'm making this incredible, wonderful." That's what a servant does. It takes care of needs around. I mean, I'm sure Stephen didn't sit there and say, "Oh, I had the spiritual gift for this." I think he was gifted way beyond this.
But he saw the need and said, "It's not about me. The church has a need. The mission has a need. And I'm going to step in and fulfill it. And I'm going to be faithful. And I'm going to give myself to it."
I mean, why would Stephen do such a thing? Because he saw Jesus, who's the Lord in Christ, who came and was a servant. And although He should have been served at the Lord's Supper, and instead, at the head of the table, at a seat of honor, He is the one who should be worshiped and glorified.
But what did He do? Jesus got up and grabbed a towel and washed their feet. Trust me, Jesus didn't sit there and say, "Man, I am gifted and I got a passion for feet. I can't wait." He's a servant. And because Jesus served, Stephen served.
And that's who we are. So that's what we do.
Number two: Nothing is more important than the Word of God. Nothing's more important than the Word of God. For the apostles had filled up their schedules, even with something good, like taking care of the widows. It was filled to the max. It would be a disservice to the church if they would stay there and just do that and not reach the greatest need of the Word of God.
Charlie Brown, a beachgoer, he's always told me a story of a guy who went to a conference a long time ago and spent like $10,000. So, you know, this is like 30 years ago at a conference on a weekend. He asked a guy, "You spent all this money on this conference? What did you learn?" He said, "I learned Frank Sinatra doesn't move pianos."
And so Charlie Brown has been coming to the beach, and he keeps coming up to me. He says, "You know, Jason, Frank Sinatra doesn't move pianos."
What he was saying is, like, you can't do everything, and you shouldn't be doing all these things. You've got to stay committed to the Word. You've got to stay high. Your highest form of service that you bring is Word and prayer and to be with people. You can't be getting into all the tasks.
I mean, we started planting this church 15 years ago. I've done everything here because it was a need. Not that I wanted to or particularly gifted in it. It just needed to be done. And we just did it.
I'm grateful that, like, I mean, that's led to some burnout. It wasn't healthy for me. It wasn't healthy for the church. When I brought it up and we talked about it, we adjusted, and we continue to adjust.
We've gotten more staff, and we've repositioned staff, and we've gotten more leadership. The leadership is repositioned in order to free up and say, "Look, we've got to take these areas of service on so you can be freed up for the Word."
And so I want to thank you for that. I want to thank you for making space for that. I want to thank you for doing that for Christi too, and trying to say, "Look, how do we free you up and get you out of running everything so you can be more in the ministry of Word and prayer and with people?"
That's what the church did. It put a priority to it. It put it first.
And so in chapter 7, Stephen's going to preach one of the longest sermons recorded in Acts. Where did he get all this knowledge? Where did he get all this theology? Where did he get it? How did he know everything about the Word? Because he heard it from the apostles.
The apostles may have prioritized it in teaching it, but here's what Stephen did. He prioritized in learning it. He learned it.
So here's my question for you: How devoted are you to the Word? To learning the Word? To being a student of the Word? Would you be ready to preach this kind of message like Stephen did if you were called upon? If you were needed to?
It's not enough for me to prioritize teaching. You have to prioritize learning the Word in your life. I mean, this is why we have life groups. What do we want? Because we're going to learn it here. You're going to do some homework on your own, and then you're going to go in a life group and talk about it more. Why? Because you're going to learn it here.
We're not just here to say, "Oh, this was inspirational. Oh, I got this in my head." We want this in our heart. We want this in our lives.
Because you're going to be in places. I mean, the average person knows like 50 to 100 people that I'm never going to meet. I'm never going to know. But you're going to meet them. You're going to know them.
And you're going to be the person that's there to preach the gospel to them. I'm not there. You are. And so you have to know the Word. You have to prioritize learning it. The Holy Spirit is your helper. The Holy Spirit promises to bring things to memory that you have deposited. But if you haven't deposited it, you can't share it.
You've got to be able to load a gun to shoot it, folks. You've got to have bullets in there.
I mean, for those like, we're a Lutheran denomination. Martin Luther, what did he do? He had this reformation from the Catholic Church. What was the reformation about? Man, restoring people to the Word of God. That's what Luther was upset about. The church had drifted from the Word of God.
People were being controlled, manipulated by a religion, a man. He wanted people to have the Word of God rule in their hearts and have the accessibility to the Word of God. Because that's where the power is. That's where salvation is.
Here we are today. We don't have that problem. We've got the Word of God all around us. On our phone, on our coffee table, on the shelf, in the drawer at the hotel, whatever. I mean, the Word of God is all around us, but unfortunately, it's still not in us.
Because we haven't prioritized it. We haven't said, "Hey, I need to self-feed and do this." Nothing's more important than the Word of God.
Number three: God does His greatest work through ordinary people. Stephen preaches the longest sermon in the book of Acts, with the most powerful effect, which is the conversion of Saul. Why? Why is that so important? What is that Holy Spirit trying to show us?
I think the Holy Spirit is trying to show us that ordinary people filled with the Holy Spirit, with the Word of God, God can use to do everything apostles do.
Look what Jesus says in John 16:7. He says this: "Nevertheless, I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away. For if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you, but if I go, I will send Him to you."
So what Jesus is telling His disciples is, "Look, it's better I go away and you get the Holy Spirit. It's better I'm not right here beside you in a physical form."
Now, just think about it. How awesome would it be to say, "Jesus is on our church staff," right? I mean, come on. We have fellowship, we run out of food, and we just say, "Hey, Jesus, we need some more food." Boom, blessing, bang, you got more food, right?
Man, somebody feels sick and got a headache. "Hey, Jesus, they got a headache in aisle three." He's there. Boom. You're all healed. How great would it be?
"Hey, somebody's got a theological question. Hey, Jesus, you want to answer that?" Boom, there it is. There's your answer.
I mean, you know, if we're out there with the youth and Kate gets hit by a car, "Jesus, come over and resurrect my dog," and the dog just runs and plays. If we're out there playing, a cat gets hit by a car, Jesus can help us bury it. I mean, it's wonderful.
Look, Jesus is saying, "Look, the power of the Holy Spirit, take this in, the power of the Holy Spirit at work in ordinary believers is greater than His presence being right here."
Look, in the church, the culture's kind of messed us up because the culture's kind of flipped us on its head. This is what God intended, and yet we flip it around and say, "Look, what we're going to do is we're going to try to get one gifted, real good leader that we're going to admire and look up to, and we're going to make him the pastor, and he'll do all the work, and we'll just support him in doing it."
What we've done is put this lid on the redemptive potential of the church that God created for all of us to be priests, all of us to have the power of the Holy Spirit, all of us to be carriers and workers of His work, and with the Holy Spirit that changes hearts and lives forever.
See, the greatest miracle to happen was an ordinary guy like Stephen. And there are Saul's in our community who will never come into a church building, and they won't even come to the beach, but they'll come into your lives.
The places where you shop, the places where you work, the places where you live, and you'll have the opportunity to share a gospel that would change somebody who's against the church to be for the church.
Number four: Christians are a perplexed contradiction to the world. Perplexed contradiction. Stephen's life is a contradiction to everyone. I mean, think about it. This guy is really kind and gracious, a servant-like. I mean, he's there with the widows and his heart of service.
I mean, it moves the antagonist priest to love and embrace him in Christ. At the same time, he sets this rebuke to stinging words, right, to another group of religious leaders, and it ticks them off so much that they murder him.
I mean, Stephen looks at people and he says, "You're a stiff-necked, uncircumcised heart and ears." By the way, that's pretty vulgar back then. And they go and they stone him. But why are they stoning him?
Now you see this compassion come out. He says, "Hey, God, don't charge them with this sin. They do not know what they're doing." What gives?
Stephen is speaking in truth and love and truth and grace. And this is the Christian message. It's always with truth and grace. It's with both of them. And that's the formula.
Yet, the world will hate you when you do this and you speak in both. If you speak just truth without grace, you have his moralism, fundamentalism. If you just do grace, you have sentimentalism, and the world will just ignore it. It has no power.
But when you speak with grace and truth, the world will probably hate you no matter how much grace you put on it. And so you've got to look at your actions and say, "Am I approaching the world with grace and truth? Or am I really worried I don't sell the truth? I avoid truthful conversations because I'm worried what people think. I'm worried about my reputation. I'm worried about the world's affirmation."
Look, if you're going to follow Jesus, it's going to happen. The world's going to accuse you. They're going to throw stones at you. And they might be verbal stones. They may call you arrogant, bigot, racist, all these other things. Ignorant.
Perhaps we as a church, we need to do that. We need to keep that mirror in front of us and say, "Listen, is my heart right? Am I a servant, not as one who's better, but one who just serves and brings the word?"
Yeah. But when we do that, like, look, I only have to please one person. It's God. It's not you. And you can say what you want to say, but God says, "Look, this is mine."
So who are you worried about when you speak? Are you speaking truth and love?
Number five: Sometimes God will use us, and we'll use us—martyrdom. Stephen did everything right. I mean, that would be the American thing. Do everything right, and God should bless you. You should have great rewards. And yet what happened? His ministry didn't grow. His days didn't multiply. No, he was stoned.
Verse 58 again: "They laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul." Saul was watching as the stone smashed into Stephen's face and as his body was mangled into a bloody heap.
Saul heard Stephen's plea with God to forgive his persecutors. He saw the glory of God reflected on Stephen's face, and something happened in Saul's heart. He never got over it.
Stephen's blood going to the ground was a seed to the apostle Paul's faith. Stephen's most effective contribution to the kingdom of God came through his martyrdom. Paul was not converted by seeing Stephen delivered. He was not converted by seeing Stephen. He was converted by Stephen.
Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, testifying to Jesus' glory in the midst of his pain and suffering.
So you've got to understand the best sermons that you're going to preach to other people are not sermons of how blessed you are. It's sermons that come out of your pain and your suffering.
From start to finish, Jesus' life screams, "Look, it's not about me. It's about someone who's greater. It's about Jesus." He didn't sit there and say, "Look, I deserve more respect. I deserve better than this."
He didn't wait on tables because it was a gift or, you know, it was this, but he saw a need. And he didn't do it to obtain blessing. He didn't say, "Look, God, if I do this, you'll do this for me." He just did it out of wanting to direct people to Jesus.
What's it all about for you? If you want to know what it's all about for you, if you're really living a life like Stephen, it's not about me, ask your question: What are you doing with your time? What are you grumbling about? What are you complaining about?
I mean, where did Stephen get this kind of courage and selfishness? When he looked in heaven, what did he see? He saw Jesus, right? He saw Jesus with these outstretched arms, these nail-pierced hands to receive him.
He saw the Lord of the universe who's given up His life for Stephen, the one who washed his feet, the one who went to the cross for him to wash him clean of all his sins. And that's why Stephen prayed.
How didn't Stephen know how to pray for these people? He prayed, "Look, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Where did he hear that prayer before? He referred from Jesus, right?
So here's the point: when you're a servant and you're a student of the Word, A is this: those who believe in the gospel and behold the gospel become like the gospel. The gospel shapes our lives.
We take in the gospel, so the gospel will shape us and mold us. And if we behold, believe it, behold it to our attention and to our affection and our devotion, then we become the gospel. We gravitate to it. God moves us to it.
B: If you are suffering, you need to see Jesus standing. If you're in a place of suffering, you need to see Jesus standing.
It's an incredible little detail. It's a little odd in the story, but if you go through the New Testament, Jesus is always sitting at the right hand of God the Father. We profess that in the Apostles' Creed. Jesus is sitting at the right hand of God the Father.
But He's standing here. What is He standing for? I feel like Jesus is looking down at a sporting event. He's like, He's standing in affirmation and cheering. For while the religious leaders, the church, are persecuting Him and throwing stones at Him and calling Him a heretic, Jesus is standing there and going, "No, he's mine. He's mine. He's my child. We love you, Stephen."
You're a beloved child of God. You're mine. The earth is condemning you. Heaven is commending you. The earth is rejecting you. Heaven is receiving you.
And while it might look like the hand of Satan has power and rule over Stephen's life, no, Jesus reminded him, "You're in the hand of God, and God is using us, and He is in charge."
Stephen didn't know, but watching him die was one of the greatest evangelistic witnesses he could do that God would use to convert Saul to Paul, to become the greatest evangelist in the Bible.
Perhaps in your suffering, perhaps in your pain, it's going to be the greatest opportunity you have to witness the faith to other people like Saul in your life.
Because when they see you in that suffering and pain, and they see how you respond, and you respond in faith, and you don't react, and you have this peace and this strength, and you have this trust in God that God can use bad things and turn them out to good, just like He did for Joseph when his brothers threw him in the pit to be good as dead and then used that for His kingdom.
Or here He has, He does with Stephen. He uses even Stephen's death in order to move, to change Saul to Paul to be a great missionary.
It's the same thing in our suffering. The world knows, like, they want to all live the blessed, but they don't know how to live with pain. And the reality is nobody gets through this life without being scarred with pain.
But those who have faith do. And for Stephen, he saw the love and victory of Jesus. He stood in the love and victory of Jesus, who was the King of kings, the Lamb of God, who was spotless, who was righteous, who stands in all His glory, who's unchanging, the Alpha and Omega, who is there saying, "Look, you are mine, you are in victory."
And so we've got to remember, we stand in victory. A defeat on this earth is not the scoreboard; it's what happens in eternity in heaven and God.
The degree you understand that victory that you have in Jesus is the degree to give you, enable you, and encourage you, and equip you to withstand sacrifice and suffering.
See, Stephen overcame the world by dying faithfully to Jesus. The name Stephen means crown in the Greek. In Greece, crowns were given to those who overcame.
Don't miss it. Stephen overcame the world, not by experiencing what we typically call blessings, but by dying faithfully to Jesus, with his eyes fixed upon Jesus, the risen Lord.
And God uses death more than He ever dreamed. For from his death came the greatest evangelist who ever lived. God saves the world through suffering as well in the midst of death.
So the bottom line is this: Do you want to change the world? Do you want to overcome the world? Then serve. Serve.
How do we get to a place of service? We confess it's not about you. We confess it's not about you. It's not about me.
And we submit to the beings, whatever the cost. Whatever it is, God, you call us to. Whatever the cost, that's what you called us to. That's the cross we are to carry.
Not to look left or right and say, "Oh, their cross is lighter than mine." No, whatever God has done you, called you, that's the one.
And we say, "Man, Jesus, it's worth it. It's all worth it."
Let's read our memory verse, Mark 9:35, together: "And he sat down and called the twelve. And he said to them, 'If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and a servant of all.'"
Honey, Father God, God, you went through the world through your people and who say it's not about me. Who say it's worth it. Who pick up the towel. Who pick up the cross to serve whatever the cost.
God, we pray for that. God, we pray, Lord, that we would be like Stephen, more of us, that just to surrender ourselves to whatever the calling you put in us.
That we just take on a servant in all our relationships where we are. And so, Father, we thank you for this grace. We thank you for the amazing sacrifice you did for us that you moved and gave your life that therefore we could be free no longer to live for ourselves but to live for you.
And so, God, may your word shape and mold us, we pray in Jesus' name.
And so, God, as your church and as your children, we come to you with great confidence and we pray the prayer you taught us.
Our Father, who art 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 trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation and deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen.
Hey, in your worship folder, there's an opportunity to continue our worship, and as we do that with our tithes and offerings, you can use the envelope or the text to give or the QR code. But that's the way we recognize, God, it's all yours. You entrusted us for our service as you bless us to be a blessing, and we want to bless you, who is our giver of all things, all good.
And we want to give you praise.
And so also in your worship folder is that connection card. If you could turn to the back side, you can share what you're celebrating today. And if you like prayer or baptism, please come talk to us. Love to do that.
Up as you come up this week, this Wednesday is Ash Wednesday. So I noticed we have two songs with "Alleluia" on it. We're going to bury the "Alleluia" during Lent and bring it back at Easter. Some of the things we're going to do, but there's a soup supper that's coming up, so I hope you want to be part of that. Love for you to do and come for service, and there's opportunities to serve there.
And also, we see we got a Stephen ministry training. The details are in the bulletin, but it's an incredible time. I encourage all of you to come. We're all priests that we can learn to serve and love one another better, and that's what Stephen ministry does. It helps us to love and serve one another better.
We have some great people that are going to come and lead us. And of course, if you want a name tag or anything else...
So, before we do that, I do want to invite us to take a moment. If Concordia students or teams, besides the ones up here, could just stand up. We have some in children's ministry. If you guys could just stand.
I just invite the congregation, you want to reach your hands out. We just want to pray for them. They're going to be here for a whole week of serving and training. I mean, what a picture of what we're talking about. They, you know, spring break, this, you know, the hedonists come to the beach and party life... to bring Jesus here.
So let's just reach and pray for them.
Lord, we thank you, Lord, that you have moved in our hearts and minds to have a week of service to grow closer to you and to come to share your word with people who don't even know and to love on them.
And so, God, we pray you go before them. We pray you go around them, that you would give them favor, that you give them ground and hearts and lives, and that you'd make these beaches and places they go holy and separate, and that they would have these God-ordained meetings and have times to just bring your life, your gospel into the light of people.
So we continue our worship as we do receive the offering and connection cards. What we do here is we just bring them forward as we continue our worship and put them in the plates here.
So you're welcome to do that as we worship.
To rise as we draw near to Him. We draw near in confession together.
If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. The truth is not in us.
But if we confess our sins, God, who is faithful and just, will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Let us then confess our sins to God our Father.
Most merciful God, we confess that we are by nature sinful and unclean. We have sinned against You in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done and by what we have left undone.
We have not loved You with our whole heart. We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.
We justly deserve Your present and eternal punishment. And for the sake of Your Son, Jesus Christ, have mercy on us, forgive us, renew us, and lead us, so we may delight in Your will and walk in Your ways through the glory of Your holy name. Amen.
Almighty God, His mercy has given His Son to die for you, and for His sake forgives you of all your sins. As a called and ordained servant of Christ and by His authority, I therefore forgive you of all your sins. In the name of God the Father, and God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
on Mar 02, 2025
