The Book Of Acts | What Will Matter Most (October 18th, 2020) - Mike Armstrong

Alright, well let's uh get our Bibles open now to uh Acts chapter 7, gonna be in Acts 7 and the first part of Acts chapter 8 here this morning.

Acts 7 · chapter mention Acts 8 · chapter mention

Uh now we've all been in this situation before.

Okay, you've got a a pot of food uh heating up on the stove.

Okay, so it's maybe something like rice or soup, um, quinoa is a big hit in the Armstrong household uh these days, whatever it is though.

Uh as it's getting warmer uh on the burner, you you tend to busy yourself with another task.

Right?

Maybe for you it's helping the kids with their homework, it's tidying up around the house somewhere, whatever, uh, when all of a sudden you hear that unmistakable hissing noise of your food boiling over the edge of the pot onto the hot burner.

Now, in that moment, okay, as you hear that, we're always struck very sharply by what matters most.

Okay, what matters most in that moment is running over there, getting the pot off the burner, turning the burner off, and getting it all cleaned up basically as as fast as we can.

Okay, in an instant, things like the kids' homework or or adjusting couch cushions in your family room, all of that kind of takes a backseat.

It's not as important as it once seemed a moment ago.

Isn't it interesting how in a mini crisis like that, okay, what matters most all of a sudden becomes crystal clear.

And everything else that seemed to be so important really becomes less of a priority, um, takes a back seat.

Now, speaking of boiling over, okay, I think that's a really good way of describing uh what became of Stephen's dispute with those synagogue leaders in Acts chapter 7 and chapter 8.

Acts 7 · chapter mention

And you'll remember from back and even in chapter 6 how he had been faithfully serving Christ.

He'd been faithfully serving his church, taking care of the needs of people there, which drew in, as he was sharing the gospel, right?

It drew the ire and the hostility of that Judaism crowd.

And of course, as we looked at last week, it led to him, the Holy Spirit through him, rebuking those Jews for their refusal to listen to God and his prophets.

Okay, what happens next, as we're gonna see here uh this morning today, is uh is a major boiling over of persecution towards Stephen and ultimately towards uh his church.

Okay, but in that we're also given insight into what really matters most in the turmoil of intense persecution.

You know, now while I I don't think any of us here are facing a boiling over of persecution to the degree that that Stephen did.

Okay, what we're gonna glean today from the text uh will help us see uh what really matters should you and I face that someday.

Why?

Well, so that we can be focused on those things now, right, and and be ready if you know or or when that day comes.

Okay, so what I want to do is I want to pray for us now and pray that the Lord would kind of reorder our priorities, show us what's most important and draw near to us in his presence.

So why don't you join me as I pray?

God, we thank you for this time together, Lord.

We're looking at a at a particularly intense text.

God, as we look at the very first person who was killed for their faith.

Lord, I pray that as we as we think about this text, Lord, I know that for us we can feel just so removed from the reality of everything that uh that we're about to read.

And so uh, Lord, I I pray, Lord, though, that you would help us uh understand that who knows, this this could, this type of thing could be our reality at some point, Lord.

I pray that as we think about these things, you would you would show us what is most important, Lord.

I think that I pray that as we consider uh persecution ramping up in this country and ramping up towards believers, Lord, that uh that we would follow you.

Lord, we know that uh we don't have the strength for this in and of ourselves, Lord.

We want the cushy life, we want to be comfortable, we want ease, we want that kind of stuff, Lord, but but God, that might not be what's coming.

And so, God, I pray that you would prepare us.

I pray that we wouldn't dread all of those things.

I pray that we would we would move forward in in deep faith in the power of our amazing God.

So, Lord, speak to your church here this morning.

Show us your glory.

We pray all these things in your name.

Amen.

Amen.

All right, well, here is the first thing here, jumping uh straight into it.

When persecution boils over, okay, what matters most is that Christ is with me in the fray.

Okay, now for this we're gonna start uh working our way through this here, starting in verse 54 of chapter 7, again, getting into the first three verses of chapter 8 eventually this morning as well.

Okay, but look what it says.

It says, now when they heard these things, okay, so so when the Jewish council, when the high priest who had been questioning Stephen, or this, they're kind of turning into the into this angry mob, right?

When when they heard Stephen's sharp rebuke that we looked at last week, okay, when they heard these things, it's picking us up right off where we left off, it says that they were enraged.

They were enraged, and they ground their teeth at him.

All right, so pretty obvious that Stephen's rebuke from earlier in the chapter, it had completely fallen on deaf ears.

You might remember from back in verse 2, Stephen had pleaded, he said, Fathers and brothers, hear me, right?

Hear what I have to say, what the Lord has to say through me.

But because of their pride, Stephen's words, rather than softening them, it incites their rage, and the whole thing just begins to boil over and get worse and worse.

Now, verse 55, we start to see this rolling out.

It says, But he, this is Stephen now, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God.

Okay, so as this crowd is raging, they're grinding their teeth, they're about to like really snap and and fully lose it here.

In the moment of this, God gives Stephen this vision.

He sees the glory of God.

It says that he sees Jesus standing at the right hand of God, and he said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man again standing at the right hand of God.

Now, interestingly, this is the only clear example that we see in the scriptures of Jesus actually standing at the right hand of God.

Okay, in all other examples that the Bible mentions, it talks about Jesus sitting, right?

Sitting at God's right hand.

Okay, so the fact that he is standing here in this vision is best understood as the Lord giving Stephen this strong assurance that Christ has stood up to welcome him into glory as Stephen is about to be killed.

You think about it, this vision is such an incredible act of God's grace, right?

A way of showing Stephen that the Lord is right there.

He's right there with him in the fray, in the in the turmoil, in the middle of literally, I can't think of a worse situation you could possibly face.

It's again, the whole thing is just deteriorating and getting worse.

And again, we see it here, verse 57 continues.

It says, but they cried out with a loud voice and and stopped their ears.

Okay, so they so they take Stephen's words here, they they take Stephen's rebuke as as blasphemy.

Okay, they can't believe that he's that he's seeing this, saying this about Jesus and really about uh them, and and ironically, they they actually they plugged their ears, right?

They stopped their ears from hearing what they deem to be evil, even though it couldn't have been more of a God-ordained moments.

And so the rage here has been boiling, and now it just spills over as it says that they they physically they they rushed together at him.

They're so upset that this mob just runs at him.

Now, verse 58.

It says, and they cast, or they they throw him out of the city and stoned him.

I'm sure I don't need to describe how awful of a death stoning would have been.

And that's exactly what they do.

It says there, and the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul.

All right, so this is the first instance that we're introduced to uh Saul, right?

Or Paul as he would become known as, who obviously he goes on to have his own radical transformation.

He is saved radically.

We're gonna see that in a short time in uh in Acts chapter 9.

Acts 9 · chapter mention

Paul, Saul, he obviously goes on to play a massive role, a pivotal role in the expansion of the gospel as he goes primarily to Gentiles, and we see churches and leaders pop up all over.

Now, when it says here that they laid their garments at Paul's feet, you might be wondering what that is.

Well, well, it means that that Saul was guarding their clothing, like their outer layers, while they carried out uh their execution.

Now, what I don't want us to miss here is that in what becomes the final moments of Stephen's life on earth, God shows him through this vision, and then of course, us as we're reading it today, uh, that he'll never leave us.

He's not gonna abandon us.

He's right there, even in Stephen's excruciatingly painful final breaths.

He's manifesting his presence to Stephen.

He's giving him a powerful sense of, awareness of his glory, right?

His grace, his nearness to him.

Which, if you think about it, that's exactly what would have mattered most to Stephen.

That's the exact thing that he would have wanted more than anything else.

See, see, Stephen was a he was a Jew, right?

Which means he he knew the law.

And so I guarantee that he would have known that this whole encounter with these Jews was gonna go one of two ways.

Either he was going to rebuke them, and the Lord would soften their hearts, and they would repent and they would get saved.

That's obviously what he was he was going for here, okay, or they'd they'd brand him a blasphemer and put him to death.

And so think about it.

As they're enraged, as they're grinding their teeth, as they're rushing towards him here, Stephen knows.

He's like, it's it's it's over for me.

Right?

This is it.

There's no getting out of this.

And so you see what comes out of him right now is is exactly what he wants.

He would have been so blessed by this vision that God gave him.

Wow, the Lord is there, he's welcoming me into glory.

He's not he's not yearning for for comfort even or or rescue in this moment.

Sometimes it just goes bad, and it obviously was for him.

And and so what matters to him is that the Lord was with him, and he was.

Would have been a great comfort to his soul to to see this vision and and know that God was there in these terrible final moments for him.

Again, he's not he's not forsaken, he's not left out to dry.

He's actually welcomed, Jesus standing there, welcoming him into glory.

What a moment.

Now listen, I I recognize here that I've kind of already insinuated this, that you and I, I think we have a hard time relating to Stephen's experience here.

Right?

We read that, we're like, oh, okay, wow, like that's not exactly what I went through last Tuesday, or or anything like that.

And I think the worst persecution that you and I may face these days at this point is is someone thinking that we're weird for being a Christian.

Right?

And let's be honest, that's not even persecution.

Right?

Not even close.

And like I've said though, you know, in in past days, you've you've heard me say it.

I I think you and I, we really need to start to prepare ourselves for the reality that this really kind of comfortable, easy American or Canadian dream lifestyle that we've become accustomed to living and enjoying as believers in this country.

I mean, it's just not gonna last.

Right?

It's really not.

I mean, it's already in some ways starting to evaporate at the foundations uh as our our our rights and and our and our freedoms, uh they're being questioned.

Right, right?

They're being challenged, they're they're being despised, we're being despised.

Okay, real persecution, I believe, it's on the horizon.

I I think it's coming.

I don't believe it's alarmism to expect that that it's ahead and it could sneak up on us here if we're not prepared as believers, as the church.

Now recognize here, I'm not trying to be doom and gloom.

Okay, I'm not like, wow, thanks.

This is this is encouraging this morning.

That's not the intent here.

I'm just saying that it's certainly possible that that life gets significantly harder for Christ's followers in our lifetime or or or in our children's lifetime.

Right?

And if it gets to the point where where persecution ends up rising to Stephen-esque levels, I'm telling you, what will matter most, okay, one of the only things that you will want, that you will need in those acute moments is a strong sense that the Lord is with you.

Right?

You will want his presence manifest in your life.

You'll want to have a strong awareness of that where you sense his nearness as Stephen did, as you experience the comfort of his grace and knowing that your Savior is there in the fray with you.

That is what's gonna be important.

That's what's gonna matter, that's what's your uh what you're gonna want.

So, hey, if if that's the kind of thing that's gonna matter to us most then, in that day, then it really should get us thinking about what matters most to us now.

Because if we end up facing martyrdom, I mean, God forbid, we're not asking for that, right?

But but if we should face that, we're not gonna care about so many things that we care about right now.

We're not gonna care about the retirement fund that we worked 35 years to save up for.

We're not gonna care about all the hours that we spent devoting our time to our hobbies or to our entertainment.

That stuff's gonna fail us.

We're not gonna think about that stuff in that moment.

We're not gonna care about the you know the the intense, sometimes pressure and emphasis that we put on our kids for for them to succeed in in this world.

It's not to say that that stuff's evil and and wrong, right?

It's not to say that.

I'm just saying none of it's gonna matter worth a lick as you and I face persecution.

It's not.

Christ with us will.

Which I don't know about you, but that is that inspires me.

As I think about that, that kind of that kind of is like a spur in my side in a good way.

I hope it encourages and inspires you too to really consider and take stock of how we spend our days.

It motivates me to continue to develop that that enjoyment of and satisfaction in Christ's presence now, in the day-to-day.

So, what I'm trying to do here is it encourage us to have some vision for our lives.

Don't just think about, don't just think about today, don't just think about tomorrow or or or or 30 years from now in this life, but think about, think about eternity, think about where all this is going and what really, really matters most to us.

Are they the kind of things that will matter most in the final day?

Especially if it ends up looking anything like what we see here in Stephen's life.

Listen, as you're thinking about that and and and you're kind of questioning some things, you're starting to adjust, or you're feeling uncomfortable about where your priorities are at, listen, see that as God's grace towards you.

That's what it is.

If adjustments are are needed in your priorities or the things that have that have really captured your heart, right, understand that that's his grace.

He desires to be close to you now as he prepares you and I for whatever lays ahead.

All right, second thing here.

When persecution boils over, what matters most is how I love those who hurt me.

And I think we see this very clearly here in starting in verse 59.

It says, And as they were stoning Stephen, I mean, think about what's actually happening here.

A crowd around him lobbing big rocks at him.

As this is happening, he cries out, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.

Which of course is reminiscent of Christ's own words on the cross, isn't it?

Now, verse 60 says, And falling to his knees, he cried out with a loud voice, this is amazing, Lord, do not hold this sin against them.

Again, reflecting Christ's own words.

And when he had said this, it says that he fell asleep.

That's just a biblical expression to show that physical death for a Christian is really just like falling asleep until Jesus wakes us in eternity.

And what really stands out to us in these verses is the frankly shocking love, right?

The heart that Stephen has for his killers.

I mean, as as they're ending his life in those moments, he's praying for theirs.

Amazing how how that mattered to Stephen.

As he takes his final breaths, as he's being murdered by this mob justice, right?

These people hate him.

They hate what he has said.

They're completely driven and fueled by rage and a misguided sense that this is what pleased God.

And yet, yet he loves them anyways.

He loves the very people who are hurting him in the most ultimate way.

Now, where does this kind of radical love come from?

Like, like how is that Stephen's heart in this moment?

Well, I think we can really trace it back to kind of two main things here.

You can trace it back to, first of all, Stephen's deep and profound grasp of the gospel.

As he grasped the gospel, it changed his life and changed his heart desires.

And I think also you can trace it back to his understanding of his purpose in life.

Okay, first of all, as a Jew himself, uh, Stephen had realized what Jesus had done for him personally.

It probably wouldn't have been all that long ago that he would have likely sided with this mob, with their beliefs, with their rage.

And yet at some point, we don't know all the all the details, but at some point, obviously, he'd gotten saved.

Right?

Where he realized, no, wait a second, I'm a sinner in need of grace.

You know, it doesn't matter how well I follow the law, I'm never gonna follow it perfectly.

I I've uh my sin has separated me from God, and and I can't fix myself.

I need Christ and his saving work to get that done for me.

Now maybe that's like you.

Maybe you're a you know, you're a good citizen of Canada.

Maybe you're everyone say you're either he's a great guy, or she's a great girl, and and you're you know fairly churchy and you come or you tune in, but but do you understand that none of your morality, none of your your performance and your goodness is good enough to save you and and and and make you worthy of being in a relationship with God and entering heaven.

Right?

Our sin has warped us, even even a little bit of sin thoroughly warps us and and taints us.

You need Christ.

You need to confess that sin and embrace him as Lord.

Perhaps you're more at the other end of the spectrum and you're like, man, I am I am way too far gone.

I I I've sinned so deeply and I've sinned so so much, and and man, you don't even know what what I've done.

There's no way that God could love me.

Wrong.

He he does.

He loves you patently.

He came to the cross, he loved us while we were still sinners.

You are not so lost, you are not so far out of reach that God can't reach down, grab you, and and say.

I would challenge you and urge you to turn to the Lord today.

Of course, if you have questions, find me afterwards.

Get in touch with us.

We would love to explain the gospel even even further to you.

But obviously, Stephen, he had gone through some kind of experience of this where he'd gotten saved and he realized what Christ had done.

And so, because of that, now he's able to love his enemies out of a recognition of God's love and his grace towards him.

That God loved me while I was still a sinner, while I was an enemy, therefore I can love my enemies.

He knew that the mob killing him, he knew that what their blind was blindness was all about because he himself had been there.

He had been as blind as them at one point and still would be, apart from God's grace, God opening his eyes and softening his heart.

On top of all of this, he was able to truly love his persecutors here because he was so motivated and struck by his newfound purpose in life.

His purpose is to love God and to love his neighbor, to love his enemies.

Matthew chapter 22 tells us that.

Matthew 22 · chapter mention

And again, we don't know everything about Stephen's life, but we we do know some, right?

In Acts chapter 6, he was chosen as part of those seven guys.

Acts 6 · chapter mention

He was a man of good repute to care for those widows that had been neglected.

He was obviously seen as a faithful man who had embraced God's calling on his life to love people well.

It's this deep understanding of, first of all, the cross and Christ's resurrection, the gospel, okay, and his embrace of the purpose that God had given him that now carries over into his response in the moments of his death.

As God had not held Stevenson against him, that's exactly what he wishes on the very people who were killing him, his Jewish brothers and sisters.

I mean, that's that's love, right?

That's what mattered most to Stephen at the very end.

All of this is simply a reflection of or of a result of the transformation that Stephen had experienced himself.

That's why we've been talking so much about transformation over the last little while.

As you and I believe or internalize the truth of the gospel, the truth of God's word through the renewal of our of our minds, we're transformed and now live out from that place, live out of the truth, live out of the identity that Christ has given us, out of the purpose that He has given us, which of course is to radically love people.

Even those who hurt us the most.

Now, maybe as you're taking this in, you're thinking, man, like, I don't know.

I don't know if I was in Stephen's shoes, if I would, that's what I'd be thinking.

I don't know if I could love them the way that he seems to.

Trust me, I wonder that about myself sometimes for sure, but listen, I I want to be like that.

I I want to respond like Stephen.

I want my heart to be in that place.

I want to be so captured by the love of God, to love other people well in that moment, should it come to that.

So again, let's allow ourselves here to be spurred onwards, to press into the truth of the gospel, into the truth of our identity, who we are, and the truth of our purpose.

Let's press those things deep into our souls so that all of this loving our neighbor, even in the darkest moments, will matter deeply to us then at the end.

Final thing here.

When persecution boils over, what matters most is God's big picture plan unfolding.

Okay, let's jump into chapter 8 now to see this.

It says this, and Saul approved of his execution.

And there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered, notice this, throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria.

Remember that, we'll come back to it.

Okay, except the apostles.

The apostles remained in Jerusalem.

Verse 2, now it says, Devout men buried Stephen and made great lamentation over them, meaning they grieved deeply, which would have been, you know, really them putting their necks out, saying, We agree with Stephen and not with what happened to him.

Okay, but verse 3, but Paul was ravaging the church and entering house after house.

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

Now, while you read that, while all of it might kind of appear bleak and and fatal for the early church, there's actually an incredible hint of God's sovereign plan unfolding here if we look at this uh carefully.

All right, it says when it says there in verse 1 that because of the great persecution against the church, it starts with Stephen and then just kind of boils over into others as well, it says the believers were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria.

Remember I said we would come back to that?

Okay, that that very disheartening experience.

I mean, think about being chased out of your homes and having to uproot everything that you are about, your your whole lifestyle, your job, everything, you have to move that.

Now it would have been a terrifying experience.

It actually became a major step towards the fulfillment of Jesus' promise to his disciples.

Okay, what promise?

Well, the one that we saw back in Acts chapter 1, verse uh eight.

Acts 1 · chapter mention

And I'll read it for you.

This is where Jesus said, this is before he ascended up into heaven.

He's saying his final words to his disciples.

He says, But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.

Okay, we know that that's already happened.

That happened at Pentecost in chapter uh two.

And then he says, This, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, okay, which had already been happening.

And remember, the the the apostles remained in Jerusalem, so you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all where?

Judea and Samaria, okay, and to the ends of the earth.

Okay, the very regions that chapter 8, verse 1 here tells us they were they were scattered throughout.

That's unreal.

It's amazing.

What these persecutors intended for evil, God used for good.

Okay, for the unfolding of his, again, the big picture here, his ultimate plan, which is the spreading of the gospel across the entire world through those whom he saves.

Right, through the building up of local churches.

I mean, think about Paul.

Paul's the guy who's like overseeing this, or Saul at this point, right?

Overseeing, you know, ravaging the church, dragging believers off.

Pretty soon he's gonna be the guy going out into these different regions, Judea, Samaria, and training up leaders and planting churches everywhere.

Right?

That's awesome.

In the heat of the moment here, it seems nothing like nothing but bleakness and and fatal.

No, it's actually good.

The Lord uses it, it's all part of the plan.

It's exactly what happens.

We're gonna see it through the rest of Acts.

We definitely see it through the rest of the New Testament.

Which is a real clear signal here to you and I that when persecution boils over and and you and I suffer for it, God's plan, it always moves ahead full steam.

It's not stopped, it's not hindered, it doesn't catch him off guard.

He thinks, oh no, wow, the the humans, they've they they've got me.

Right?

He's not thinking that.

God's plan succeeds.

That's what matters most.

I'm not sure who needs to hear it today, but but you and I have the real unfortunate tendency of making life all about us.

Right?

It's all about our trivial comforts and pursuits.

It's our plans unfolding, it's it's our kingdom come, our will be done.

That's naturally how we how we operate because of sin, because we've been warped by sin.

When life's just not about that at all if you're in Christ.

If you're saved.

It's about something much bigger than us now.

It's about God's plan to save, to redeem, to gather his children to himself.

Right again, that's the big picture here that you and I need to constantly keep uh in mind.

We need to remind ourselves of that, have that perspective.

And as that begins to lock in and settles on our hearts, then you and I will be willing to suffer for him, to be persecuted, even if it means losing our very lives in the end.

I think it's safe to say here that this was Stephen's heart.

This is what mattered most to him.

I think it's what we're growing in as a church as well.

You know, and as believers.

We're growing, working towards this, having hearts that are more surrendered to Christ and who he is and who he's made us to be and the purpose and plan that he's given us to be a part of.

Right?

It's about getting that again locked down into our souls.

Now, our our role in this as a church, as we like to say it here, is it's about glorifying God, right?

Through the fulfillment of the great commission in the spirit of the great commandment.

Right?

That's our job now.

And God's plan, it's it's us now bringing glory to Him by following the Great Commission, by making disciples, by baptizing, right?

Seeing that that takes place and doing that in a spirit of love, loving people, loving the Lord through that.

Now, how we as a church aim to see that that mission really unfold and happen is through our six distinctives.

And I know many of you have seen these before, but let's get these up on the screen here because I think it's so good for us again to see this and understand that this is all part of God's plan unfolding here.

Of course, it's it's through fervent prayer.

That's what we're passionate about here.

We we want to pray, we want to be people of prayer, a church of prayer.

We're committed to bold preaching, opening up the scriptures and and proclaiming what God has to say.

We're about passionate worship.

We're not just gonna do nothing and not have hard hearts and cold hearts, and we wanna worship the Lord, He's worthy of it.

We wanna be about purposeful disciple making.

Not just like, well, let's get together and see whatever happens and waste a lot of time in that.

No, we wanna be like on like on purpose about that, proclaiming the gospel and and actively trying to grow and being intentional.

We want to be about courageous evangelism, sharing our faith boldly with our neighbors, with our relatives, with our friends.

And of course, strategic church planting as well as all that's beginning here in the book of Acts, that's still God's mission.

I mean, these are the core things that we're about as a church as we join in with the Lord in the advancing of his great plan.

So listen, I want to pray for us right now.

I want to pray that the Lord would again sink these things into our minds and into our hearts, that these things would matter to us truly, right, right, and deeply to us, like now.

Right?

And then, of course, matter to us right into the very end, no matter what that looks like.

Let's pray.

God, we thank you for your word, and we thank you for uh what we can glean from your servant Stephen.

Father, we thank you for the your grace towards him in his final moments and how you use such an awful situation to advance your kingdom and to save many, many.

And Lord, we thank you because we are the results of that.

Lord, our salvation comes because of what you decided to accomplish.

What faithful men and women have proclaimed, Lord, we want to continue to proclaim.

And so, Lord, I pray that these things would matter to us.

Lord, in whatever the future holds in terms of persecution for your church, Father, I pray that you would be making us strong now.

Lord, I pray that you would be getting down into the bedrock of our hearts and reworking what we tend to prioritize and what we think is most important, because in many cases it's just not.

Father, I pray that you would be glorified through this process, Lord.

I pray that you would give us joy in the gospel, joy in our Savior, a heart for you, and a heart for others.

God, we thank you for your grace to us today.

We pray this in Christ's name.

Amen.