Stephen’s Martyrdom and Call to Witness

Remain standing and we'll be reading the Word of God, Acts chapter 7,

Acts 7 · chapter mention

and I'll be reading verse 51.

I'm not going to go back and read the whole sermon for Stephen,

but we'll be starting with verse 51 and we'll work our way down to 8, chapter 8, verse 8.

Listen now, because this is the holy and inspired Word of God.

You stiff-necked people, 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 have received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it.

And when they heard these things, they were enraged, and they ground their teeth at him.

But he, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God

and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.

And he said, Behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.

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

Then they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down

their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul.

And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.

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

And when he had said this, he fell asleep.

And Saul approved of his execution.

And there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem.

And they were scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles.

Devout men buried Stephen and made great lamentation over him.

But Saul was ravaging the church and entering house after house.

He dragged off men and women and committed them to prison.

Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word. Philip went down

to the city of Samaria and proclaimed to them the Christ.

And crowds with one accord paid attention to what was being said by Philip when

they heard him and saw the signs that he did.

For unclean spirits crying out with loud voices came out of many who had them,

and many who were paralyzed or lame were healed.

So there was much joy in that city.

This is the word of the Lord. You can be seated.

Let's pray together. Father, we ask now that you would send us your spirit,

in such a way that we could see in this story what we need to see and hear what

we need to hear so that we might be called to follow after Jesus Christ,

even, Lord, at the expense of the giving up of our own lives,

which is what you call us to in Christ after his own image and pattern.

This we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

So we're at the point in the book of Acts, end of chapter 7,

beginning of chapter 8, where the conflict comes to a final point.

Those of you who have been with us so far, we've seen it was really beautiful.

First, Acts chapter 1 and chapter 2, that's where we want to stay.

Acts 1 · chapter mention

Yes, we're waiting for the promise. The promise comes. Flames of fire.

People are speaking in tongues. People are listening. Peter's preaching. Hallelujah.

Everybody's listening, coming to the Lord. And in fact, they're begging the

preacher, just like happens every Sunday here at Wilmington.

They're begging the preacher, what do we do to be saved? And there's revival.

And then chapter 3, 4, 5, and 6 are a little bit different because even though

we have healings, and remember, this is what's provoking this,

just as it is in our days today.

Don't miss the context that we're living in. Sometimes when I preach sermons, I'm going to say,

I've been in the past, remember, and I've been preaching sermon.

I'm thinking, wow, I wish the sermon could fall down about election time.

You know, I try to stick to the text and I don't just jump off.

I don't preach election sermons per se.

But sometimes as a preacher, you think, boy, I wish the context could line up with this.

And I'm telling you, brothers and sisters, and if you're watching any of the

news today, if you have a pulse right now, you know that the context that we're living in,

with people like Charlie Kirk being shot and killed in public and churches being

stormed by radical protesters interrupting a worship service much like this one.

We're not very far from the context, is what I'm trying to say,

and God has put us into a context where it's not far-fetched.

I mean, there's a reason we're having a security meeting after church.

It's not far-fetched to imagine that churches anywhere in any place,

even in small towns in Ohio wouldn't receive serious persecution.

So that's the context. And we see that the church now increasingly follows this,

where Peter heals someone, that's someone, the preaching curse.

There's conflict, but it comes in where they're like, okay, guys, cut it out.

Cut out this preaching stuff. Cut out this stuff about Jesus.

Stop telling people he was raised from the dead. There's too many people believing you.

This is going too well. And so they said no. And then it happened again and

now they arrest them they beat them, put them in jail, they come out of jail

and now you'll see by the way through the book of Acts there's step by step acceleration,

they're not, what do you call it they're not de-escalating.

And Peter, nor Stephen, Stephen in particular, doesn't preach a sort of de-escalatory sermon.

He doesn't say, all right, let's bring the temperature down, guys.

In fact, Peter approaches these guys with what I would call prophetic denunciation.

I mean, if you're going to rile someone up, right? I've heard of this happening.

I don't do this, by the way.

Never plan to, but I've heard of Puritan preachers who are like,

you know, you, Jane, on the front row, you, and call out sin,

you know, publicly and say, And then so the person's, you know, wow.

But Stephen is like that. You guys, this council, this Sanhedrin,

you arrogant, hypocritical people.

This isn't just like, this isn't a Charlie Kirk interchange.

You know, people are saying, Charlie Kirk was so controversial.

He was so provocative. No, he wasn't. Not compared to Stephen.

Stephen was, you guys are the devil.

You did this. You're murderers, blasphemers. Accused me of blaspheme,

you're the ones who did this.

So he didn't read, what was it, Zig Ziglar? He wasn't trying to win friends and influence enemies.

This was prophetic denunciation, the likes of which we read from Matthew 23.

As prophets of old, so Stephen stood before these men and denounced them.

That's why he says, you are a stiff-necked, uncircumcised people. Whoa.

The leaders of the party of circumcision, the Pharisees and the Sadducees,

are now called uncircumcised.

That's a big hit.

You always resist the Holy Spirit as your fathers did so to you.

Now, remember, they think of their fathers differently.

They read the Old Testament like we always do. Remember, I've told you when

we read the Old Testament, we say, well, had I been there, I never would have.

You know, I would have been Joshua and Caleb for sure. Right.

That's me right there. I wouldn't have been afraid of those giants.

So when they're reading the Old Testament, they're saying, we're the good guys.

And Stephen's saying, you were the bad guys. You're the ones who killed people.

And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the righteous one.

This very person who came in fulfillment of that promise, you killed him.

You betrayed and murdered him. You who received the law as delivered by angels

and did not keep it. See, this is not something that a salesman does to try to close the deal.

Unless you want killed, unless you want to provoke what he was doing.

He connects the present Sanhedrin with stiff-necked enemies of God from the past.

Stephen was so filled with the zeal coming from thousands of years of prophetic

denunciation to this point when Jesus was here and Jesus was killed,

and now these same foolish people stand to judge them.

And I think that's what we're supposed to see, by the way. We are definitely

supposed to see the connection between the Jesus life and Jesus ministry.

I've been saying this all along. Please don't miss it.

Hello, don't miss this. What happens to Jesus happens to the apostles and will happen to the church.

As Stephen completed his speech, the council became so enraged,

they were grinding their teeth.

Enraged. And so they're enraged at him.

His forerunner, one of the forerunners

of this, by the way, this sort of pronunciation, was John the Baptist.

He warned them, saying, And do not think to say to yourselves,

We have Abraham as our father, for I say to you that God is able to raise up

children from Abraham from these stones.

So John the Baptist, the baptizer, he comes along. He's prophetically denouncing

them. And then Jesus follows in suit, Matthew 23, that we read.

But do not do according to the works of the law.

He said, these are the Pharisees, Sadducees, for they bind heavy burdens,

hard to bear, and lay them on men's shoulders. These are the bad guys.

The religious leaders that are standing there judging everyone else are actually the bad guys.

They're claiming a moral position of authority, and they're the ones who are immoral.

They're claiming a position of superiority, and they're the ones who are inferior

in reference to God's prophetic word.

Blind guides, Jesus said, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel.

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees and hypocrites, you cleanse the outside of

the cup and dish, but the inside is full of extortion and self-indulgence. And on he goes.

He goes on not merely to say, hey, you're bad, but he says multiple times, woe.

And it's not like my grandma used to use it. I had a grandma on my dad's side

every time she'd come in.

How you doing, grandma? Oh, woe is me. She always say, woe is me.

I mean, you know, I'm in a bad state.

This wasn't a grandma's like, woe. This was a prophetic woe, like cursed.

Cursed are you. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees. Woe to you. Cursed be you.

You are witnesses against yourselves, that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets.

Fill up the measure of your father's guilt. You realize what's happening both

with Jesus and now with the church is that thousands of years of prophetic denunciation

and actions and evil are building up and will come upon them at this very moment.

This is the time period in history where God is rejecting Israel,

saying, I'm finished with this.

There will come a time when God will not tolerate it anymore.

That's another lesson that's woven in between this.

Stop testing the Lord. Stop tempting and repent immediately.

Moses was one of the people who denounced this. Certainly we reminded the mercy

of God. By the way, God's mercy kept coming to them, didn't it?

Even they created a golden calf and God was coming in judgment and the Lord stopped them.

The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord,

merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abounding in goodness and truth,

keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity.

Thousands and thousands of years of forgiveness and love and kindness and grace and mercy.

But their response was, no, we hate Jesus and we hate his people.

It's the same as it had been with Jesus himself. And the trial of Jesus is similar

to the trial that we had here, which really wasn't a trial. It was a sham.

False witnesses saying false things about Jesus. False witnesses saying false things about Stephen.

Okay? The sham trial comes to a climax in Jesus, where Jesus is sitting there and Jesus kept silent.

Jesus now boldly answers the only question that matters in Matthew 26.

He kept silent and the high priest answered and said, I put you under oath by

the living God. Tell us if you are the Christ, the son of God.

Jesus said to them, it is as you said.

Nevertheless, I say to you, hereafter, you will see the Son of Man sitting at

the right hand of the power and coming in the clouds with great glory.

A reference to Daniel chapter 7, which meant he's claiming to be God.

Daniel 7 · chapter mention

Jesus is claiming to be God.

The claim comes from Daniel 7, where it says, I watched in the night visions

and behold, one like the Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven.

And he came to the ancient of days and brought them near before him,

then to give him dominion and glory and kingdom, that all peoples and nations

and languages should serve him.

His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away,

and his kingdom, the one which will never be destroyed.

There's a close connection between Jesus' own words in his own trial and what

we see Stephen say in his own trial as well.

I looked and I saw the Son of Man standing at the right hand in glory.

That's an amazing scene that we'll get to in a moment. but Stephen looks up

and says, Jesus is rescuing me. Jesus is ruling and he's coming to rescue me.

And he's also claiming that Jesus is God as well. There he is in heaven,

the right hand of the Father.

The difference, by the way, between what happened with Jesus and what happened

with Stephen is that there's no one there to receive Jesus, is there?

He's standing silent. He's standing alone for us so that he will become the

one who stands in heaven.

And that's the difference. He was seated in heaven. Now he's standing in heaven

on behalf of his people to defend them and to protect them and to save them and to reach out to them.

Almost every picture, if you look, if you Google, do Google images and look,

you know, the martyrdom of Stephen, you almost always see Jesus from heaven

on a cloud reaching down towards Stephen.

There to catch him, there to pull him up, there to save him,

there to be for him what he couldn't be.

But full of the Spirit, he gazed into heaven. This is Acts 7,

55. 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. It's a little interesting.

The images before this have been Jesus sitting at the right hand of the Father. But now he's standing.

It reminds us of Psalm 109, which says, With

my mouth I will give great thanks to the Lord I will praise him in the midst

of the throng For he stands at the right hand of the needy To save him from

those who condemn his soul to death Jesus is there as our advocate He has been

through what we are going through He has accomplished what we could never accomplish

And now he's at the right hand of the Father To help us make it through,

And none of this will be easy, by the way Nothing that I have to say to you

today Throughout much of the book of Acts is easy It's simple It's easy,

Don't confuse simplicity with ease. I can tell you something simple.

I can say, be faithful. Okay, that's simple, but it's very difficult.

It's very difficult to be faithful to God, depending on your circumstances.

And in the case of Stephen, he had to be faithful to the end,

even unto what? To death, like our Savior himself.

They stoned him, by the way, which is an ugly, terrible, difficult way to die.

Leviticus 24, 14 says, take such a one outside the camp who is cursed,

Then let all who heard him lay their hands on his head.

Let all the congregations stone him.

Deuteronomy 13, but you shall surely kill such a one. Your hand shall be first

against him to put him to death and afterward the hand of all the people.

That's a reference, by the way, to what Jesus will say. Well,

let he who has not sinned cast the first stone.

There's someone supposed to be there saying, I saw it, I'm a witness with a stone.

Daniel 7 or Deuteronomy 17 says, the hands of the witness shall be the first

against him to put him up to death. and afterwards the hands of all the people,

you shall put to death the evil that is among you.

F.F. Bruce comments about this story saying, it says, when a trial like that

is finished, you know, something that will demand stoning, the convicted man

is brought out to be stoned.

And there was a process that he gets from the rabbis.

When 10 cubits from the pace of stoning, they say to him, confess for it's the

custom of all to be about to be put to death to make confession.

And everyone who confesses.

Has a share in the age to come. Four cubit from the place of stoning,

the criminal is tripped.

There's a guy there. There's a whole process. It's pretty gruesome.

The drop from the place where to stone them was supposed to be twice the height of a man.

So they push him and trip him down into this sort of hole area that's been dug.

And one of the witnesses pushes the criminal from behind so that he falls,

hopefully faces downward.

He is then turned over on his back. If he died from the fall, that's good, actually.

If you break your neck in the fall, you're better off than having to get stoned to death.

If not, the second witness takes the stone and drops it on his heart.

Big stone that they just drop on the heart.

If this causes death, well, that's sufficient too.

Rough, again, rough way to die because these are like the first two things when

you get pushed over, break your neck, or a gigantic stone on your heart.

Those are the merciful ways to die here in stoning.

You know, I can see by that look on your face, you're not, you want me to finish?

If this causes death, great, it's sufficient. If not, he is to be stoned by

all the congregation is one by one, they throw their stones as witnesses against

these men, one by one, especially aiming for the head of the victim,

as he's slowly beaten to death by stones from the whole congregation.

And this religious leader, by the way, we're gonna just mention it,

but the religious leader that

seems to be there is Saul, who we now later will find out becomes who?

Paul. So Saul is there. There's so much in that that we'll begin to untangle

as we go through, but Stephen's final words were the same words as Jesus.

The parallel between Jesus and Stephen is obvious.

As Jesus was on the cross and said, Lord, don't hold this against him.

So Stephen said, don't hold this against them. Forgive them.

They don't know what they're doing. They're crazed.

And so with this dying breath of Stephen, the concept of martyrdom is born in the church.

It's not a completely new concept because we've seen it before,

but martyrdom, the idea that a witness for Jesus Christ is one who dies for Jesus.

The actual word martyreo means eyewitness, right?

I may have mentioned it before already in our studies, but when I grew up as

a child, the little Baptist church, we said Thursday night we're going to go witness.

So we knock on doors and we give pamphlets, little chick tracks.

You ever heard of those? Anyway, I don't do that anymore. I've repented of Chick

Tracks, but we give out Chick Tracks and witness to people and usually have

a little, you know, if you died tonight, would you go heaven or hell,

that kind of thing, which is a good form of witness. By the way, I'm not against it.

But witnessing on Thursday nights in my little church was far different from this.

Because the word witness means to become a martyr, to literally now give your life for Christ.

See, it was one thing I was told that, you know, Will you give your life for

Jesus? Yes. What do you have to do? Well, just say this sinner's prayer.

I accept Jesus Christ into my heart as my personal savior.

Wham, it's done. That's it.

Well, with Stephen's witness here, it looks like there's more.

When you follow Jesus, you need to be willing to give your life for him.

Give everything for him.

Stephen's death and Stephen's life here ultimately becomes a pattern of the life of Jesus.

He who seeks to gain his life will lose it. He who gives his life will gain

it for me. It's what Jesus did.

It's what Stephen does. It's what we're supposed to do. It's our pattern.

All of us are called to be martyrs, by the way. Maybe not in the same dramatic

way that a Charlie Kirk or a Stephen or other, not in a necessarily.

There's actually something I was reading this week called white martyrdom.

White martyrdom, isn't that? Well, that's supposed to red martyrdom where you spill your blood.

And all of us are called, the least if you want to call it that,

white martyrdom every single day to give our lives as witness for Jesus Christ.

To the very end, to the very end. So this concept or this idea of martyrdom

isn't just that you die physically, but that now because of the pattern of Jesus

and because of what Stephen shows us, now we're all called to be martyrs.

All, every one of you. I got good news and I got bad news, right? Heard that before.

Good news is Jesus Christ love you. He died for you. He rose again and he stands

there on the right hand to be with you to the end. Bad news,

you have to give your life.

Actually, that's not bad news though, is it? It's really not bad news.

It's a terrifying thing, martyrdom, because it's so shockingly frightening.

But it's also good news because it's not just about the dying, it's about the living.

Surely every one of you have seen the poster for the great Presbyterian movie called Braveheart.

Every Presbyterian I know loves that show And it said somewhere,

I can't remember on the advertisement Every man dies, but not every man really

lives That's kind of the concept here of martyrdom Yes, we're all going to die

How are you going to die? Depends on how you live,

Are you living for anything worth dying for? Or are you just living?

And as you live, you just suck the life out of life.

As Wendell Berry says, you lose the life of life when you're not living for

what life is designed for you to live for.

And his death will be a model for martyrs. It became a model for the church,

the early church. And we'll see it in Acts, but we see it in the early Christian church.

Tertullian, the great North African church father, even said,

the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.

There's two guys you should know from my preaching.

I'll feel like I'm somehow successful as a pastor if you know Tertullian,

North African church father, and Polycarp.

Polycarp is the famous second century martyr.

In 156 AD, the famous Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, which is near Ephesus in Turkey

today, in the region of Izmir, Turkey today.

You can go there today. You can drive by and see his house, and you can see

the house even of Mary, the mother of Jesus, supposedly.

Anyway, we drove by it. We didn't go in it, but we saw it. And so Polycarp of

Smyrna, a bishop of this area, was an old man when he died.

There's a great—there's actually a book, a letter written called The Martyrdom of Polycarp.

And it became a very powerful letter in the early church to encourage early

Christians in the first, second, third centuries, up to the 4th century,

when Constantine made Christianity legal, the concept changed a bit because

there weren't as many martyrs.

There were witnesses, by the way, at the Council of Nicaea.

Many of the men who came, the bishops and the pastors that came to the Council of Nicaea, came there.

Some of them limping, crippled, because they'd had the backs of their legs cut

by a sword out of persecution.

Some of them had their eyes gouged out as a witness.

That ended with Constantine mostly, but throughout the early church,

it was sporadic in the Roman empire.

And Roman Christians knew that there was a possibility they could die for Jesus

just by believing Jesus.

And the martyrdom of Polycarp became like a standard calling card of Christians.

Like we need to be willing to die for Jesus Christ like Polycarp died.

86 years old. And the thing about the martyrdom of Polycarp is that it really

baffled Roman Christians or Roman pagans.

It baffled the person who was killing Polycarp. He kind of begged him like,

you're an old guy just here.

By the way, they made it fairly easy. And I wonder if you could do this.

I mean, all you have to do is take a little pinch of incense.

Go off your fingers into the fire, and you're done. You don't even have to say it out loud.

I denounce Jesus. Just do it, old man. That's what they all kept.

Just put the incense on the fire. You don't have to die. 86 years old.

Supposedly, Polycarp said he

hasn't been betrayed by his Savior this 86 years. How could he do it now?

86 years. That's what was so baffling. Because for the Romans,

like, yeah, kill those Christians. They're our enemies. Wait a minute, an old man?

What's this old man ever going to do? How is an 86-year-old guy going to overthrow the emperor from...

It began to roll around in the minds of the pagans, like, what are we doing here?

Just like I hope it will roll around in the minds of our culture today as we're

engaged in this absurd, like attacking churches.

What did the church, City's church in Minneapolis, what did they do to anybody?

Nothing. And yet we have foolish radicals storming in there,

screaming and shouting, scaring women and children.

What did they ever do to anyone? And the answer is nothing, but love the Lord Jesus Christ.

And that kind of persecution will only inure to the glory of God as people are faithful.

And people look at the martyrdom of Polycarp and they kept thinking,

what threat was this old man to anyone?

Why did you have to kill him? And furthermore, then they kept saying,

why was the old guy willing to die?

It just began to rattle the whole Roman pagan world, this concept of martyrdom,

because they couldn't figure it out.

What would an old man like that die for?

And what threat was he? And what in the world is going on.

And the Christians were always ready to say, because he knew,

as Stephen knew, that the moment he died, he would be ushered into the presence

of God through the resurrection power of Jesus Christ.

There was nothing the pagan world could do to them except kill them.

That's the ultimate thing they could do, take their lives. And all that did

was give them resurrection power to enter into glory with Jesus Christ at the

right hand of the Father there to welcome them.

Polycarp's martyrdom became so powerful in the early church that the early church

fathers had to tell people, wait a minute, don't go turn yourself in on purpose just to get killed.

Okay? Calm down. There were many people who were like, I want to be like Polycarp.

So run to the Roman officials and say, could you kill me too?

And the bishops had to say, no, that's not quite how it works.

You can flee and you can do other things like the early church did.

In fact, we'll see that the fulfillment of the promise to go from Jerusalem,

Judea to Samaria and the uttermost parts of the earth is occurring as Christians now flee.

The persecution and the hatred of the world actually, in a weird,

ironic way, expands the church and broadens the church.

As they go, it says later, from place to place, preaching the gospel,

and many are believing with joy.

It didn't stop the church. It can't stop the church.

Death has no power to stop the church. Persecution has no power to stop the

church because the church belongs to Jesus Christ, who is there at Peter's martyrdom

at the right hand, ready to defend us,

to defeat all his and all our enemies,

whatever it takes in whatever way it was.

Are you a witness for Christ in this sense?

Now, do you knock on doors? And I found it. I went to get gas at Kroger's the

other day and I found a chick track, a chick track stuck in my little handle.

It's like, ah, these guys are good. They're everywhere.

And I'm not talking about just sticking chick tracks. I'm talking about giving

your life for Christ in everything you do.

Are you a witness for Jesus Christ in that? Not so much.

Most of us will not be in the position of a Charlie Kirk or a Stephen where

we're publicly executed and martyred, or a polycarp where we're publicly executed.

But every one of us will be challenged. I promise you this, right now,

you are challenged to be a witness for Jesus because there's something in your

life that's not easy to do, but Christ calls you to do it.

There's something in your life that you'd rather put off. You'd rather not do

that. You'd rather gain a personal pleasure.

Maybe it's a relationship. Maybe it's something bad you have to face because

you're called to face it.

That means you give up your life and you face it in the power of Jesus Christ.

As a witness for Jesus Christ.

It's not always as visible. It's not an easy thing.

White martyrdom, as it were, it's a death to self, right?

And these kinds of martyrs are powerful in our lives as well.

I think I probably told you, I think that she probably gets on my list of most

used example of family member in my sermons is my granny, right?

Bob, you already know my granny. I used to remember as a kid,

like, why does she put up with Babel?

What? What? Papo's like, give me some coffee. You know, growling, growling. Yes, honey.

Serving him love and kindness. And, you know, and I remember the kid thinking,

why doesn't granny stand up to him?

You know, tell him, get your own coffee, old man. Something, I don't know.

It wouldn't be. And then later, it's only later that you realize she was witnessing for Christ.

So witnessing, not giving up her life, not, well, actually, yeah,

dying. You may be in that very relationship.

I've seen it with my own eyes. People in relationships, this is a terrible relationship.

And for the calling and purpose of witnessing for Jesus Christ,

they bear it faithfully.

They give up their lives, literally.

They don't have a right to this and a right to that. We live in a world that

is obsessed with selfishness and rights. I have a right to happiness.

I have a right to even think of myself as a different thing than I am, male or female.

It's grotesque. But being a witness

for Christ means you simply follow him faithfully wherever he calls you.

Whatever persecution that will affront you, and there will be persecution.

And it's not difficult being in a, it's not easy being in a relationship where

you don't get respect and you don't get honor.

Could be the man, could be a wife, could be a husband, where you're literally

required to give up your life.

You're involved in something you never wanted to be involved in.

Serving someone to the very end of their life. What about that?

Where they need you and they depend on you. That's giving up. That's being a martyr.

Total devotion and dedication to Jesus Christ and his faithfulness,

whatever it is around you that you're called to do.

Imitation of Christ. This is how Jesus lived. We don't think of Jesus only as an example.

We think of his atoning work and his blood to cover our sins,

but certainly he was our example.

The great Thomas Akempa's work, Imitation of Christ, is worth reading,

where we live a life of selflessness and death to self and giving up and service,

and a life of hope in the resurrection.

This is why it baffles people And

even is difficult for us We give up

certain pleasures And certain things we would like right here and now

Because we know that delaying that gratification Will

mean receiving a glorious crown A murderous crown Not just because you have

died physically But because you have died unto self And have given yourself

to Jesus Christ And he is there calling us forward Calling us to himself It

also gives us courage in our faith,

But we can stand and we can witness in a world today where it looks like everything's going crazy.

And by the way, if you haven't been watching, and I'm not going to say anything

about the policies of what's going on, go ice or down with ice or anything like that.

But all I can tell you is things I've been seeing is those people who are protesting

against ice are willing to give their lives.

And a couple of them have. Are you?

It's interesting. They are out there, man, and it is cold in Minneapolis,

colder than here. and they're willing to scream and shout and blow whistles

and wrestle with policemen and literally get shot for this cause.

Wow. Are you? Not that cause. That was a bad example. Not that you should go there and do that.

And again, I'm not saying that anything about the policies about ICE or this or that.

I'm just saying there are people out there who are storming churches and getting

killed because they believe it. They're giving their lives for it.

That's what we're up against, in case you haven't noticed.

And we have to have a courageous faith to be faithful in the midst of all of

those trials and all of those temptations.

Martyrdom, therefore, is not just about dying, but about living.

How are you willing to live for Jesus Christ in your relationship right now, in your marriage,

with your family, with your children, with your parents, with your employer,

with your employee, with your community, in every single way?

To be a martyr for Jesus Christ, as Jesus was, as Stephen was, as Polycarp was,

as Charlie Kirk was, and as some of us may be, who knows,

but certainly looking to the hope of the resurrection,

looking to the same image that Stephen looked to when he said,

I see the right hand, I see the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God

there to collect me when I die, to help me when I go.

That is our call. Are you a witness like that for Jesus Christ,

or are you more of a chick track.

That's it. That's the extent of my witnesses, to give tracks.

No, death to self and life unto Christ. Amen. Let's pray together.

Heavenly Father, we thank you so much that we're about to be able to take the

body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, his blood, his death given for us that we might live.

Oh Lord, and help us to be called by this sacrament to live,

to live a life of witness, a life of martyrdom for our Savior,

Jesus Christ, who we celebrate now that He gave His life for us as our martyr, as our witness,

to what He does to save us from our sins. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.