The Book Of Acts | Fighting Dirty (September 6th, 2020) - Mike Armstrong

Alright, well let's get our Bibles turned open now, if you would, to Acts chapter six.

We began chapter six uh last week, and uh we're gonna finish it off uh here today.

Um, as um you are getting your pages flipped there or your phones open to that, uh when you hear the words fighting dirty, uh what comes to mind for you?

Perhaps for you, your mind is drawn to uh some kind of sport.

And you think about somebody getting sucker punched or cross-checked from behind, or you think about you know that time that Mike Tyson bit off Evander Holyfield's ear during their bout in '97.

Maybe you think about that.

That you think fighting dirty, that's where your mind goes.

Uh for you, maybe it's uh it's a workplace situation and your mind is drawn to that time you worked with that guy or that that woman who uh seemed to always just want to get ahead and would do whatever it takes, scratch and claw, uh, no matter who he or she hurt or had to climb over uh to get there in the process.

Maybe that's what you think.

Perhaps when you think fighting dirty, uh it strikes maybe even more close to home for you.

It's maybe the family member who knows you all too well and uh seemingly does not hesitate to use uh their words to hit you where it hurts most and inflict as much damage as possible.

Uh regardless, um, as you were gonna see here today, uh fighting dirty is not just a sports thing.

It's not just a corporate ladder thing or even a family tension and harsh words thing.

Unfortunately, it's also uh an I'm a Christian and the world will hate me thing as well.

Okay, where there will be those who fight dirty against us because we believe the Bible and choose to stand on its truth.

Okay, so so the question for us then, if that is true, the question then is how are we gonna handle that?

In those moments, when those times come and people treat us badly, how are we going to respond?

Will we cave in to them?

Will we give in to fear?

Will we buckle under the pressure when they fight against us?

And maybe just for the sake of ease in our minds, we just we just go along with what they say.

And yeah, you're right, I shouldn't believe what I believe, and I'm just gonna do what what you say I should do, and I'm gonna fall in line with that.

Is that our move?

Um will we will we fight dirty back?

That's a thing that Christians seem to love to do, and that the world treats us terribly, so we'll treat them terribly back, and that's essentially Christian Twitter.

If you're on Twitter, you know exactly what I mean uh by that.

But when we when we fight dirty back, what does that do?

Well, that that ruins the quality and the effectiveness of our witness.

It brings shame to Christ and the gospel.

Okay, will we respond in those ways?

Or or will we be spirit-filled in our response?

Will we be uh full of wisdom, godly wisdom?

Will we be mature?

Will we be godly?

Okay, these are crucial questions, right?

These are crucial questions to ask ourselves these days as the world turns up the heat and starts to fight dirty in its opposition to Christians or towards where the church has always stood historically on such issues as you know, biblical marriage and sexuality or or abortion, to name just two of the more hot-button topics of our day.

Okay, well, Stephen, okay, who is a guy that we were introduced to just last week, in last week's passage, uh, he was certainly no stranger to being attacked unfairly.

He dealt with with a crew, a mob of people that certainly fought dirty against him in multitude of ways.

And so let's just kind of take a look at this right now, because I think there's so many key things that we can learn uh from uh this passage here.

So follow along with me.

This is Acts chapter six, reading through to the end of the chapter.

It says, And Stephen, full of grace and power, was doing great wonders and signs among the people.

Then some of those who belonged to the synagogue of the freedmen, as it was called, and of the Cyrenians and of the Alexandrians, and of those from Cilicia and Asia, rose up and disputed with Stephen.

But they could not withstand the wisdom and the spirit with which he was speaking.

Then they secretly instigated men who said, We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and against God.

And they stirred up the people and the elders and the scribes, and they came upon him and seized him and brought him before the council.

And they set up false witnesses, who said, This man never ceases to speak words against this holy place and the law, for we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and will change the customs that Moses delivered to us.

And gazing at him, all who sat in the council saw that his face was like the face of an angel.

Let's pray.

Lord, as we look at this passage now, uh we see that Stephen was in a jam for sure.

He's trying to be faithful, he's trying to share the gospel, and and yet people distort his words, people are ganging up on him, people are literally grabbing hold of him and treating him terribly.

And Lord, some of us here have perhaps dealt with some of that.

Lord, as we just survey the landscape of our world, it's really not hard to picture that that Christians everywhere are gonna just face more of this.

And so, God, as we think about this dirty fight that we can be in, Lord, I pray that you would help us now to have courage.

I pray that you would give us the humility to rely on you and your strength.

I pray that we would trust you.

Lord, I pray that you would strengthen your church to stand on your word even when it's not popular.

Or even when people will despise us, it might be loved ones.

It might be those closest to us.

God, we will be tempted to back down, we will be tempted to get angry, we will be tempted to doubt you.

And so, God, we recognize that we need your help.

Lord, we thank you for the example of Stephen that we're just gonna take a start to take a look at today.

And Lord, I pray that you would encourage us and fill us with hope and joy, the right perspective, a desire to honor Christ above all.

And so, God, we bring ourselves before you, recognizing our need for grace, recognizing our need for mercy, and realizing that it's you who provides those things.

So, God, give us these things, encourage us today.

We pray it all in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

Well, jumping straight into the first thing here today, three points.

Here's the first one.

As Christians, uh, there will always be those who fight dirty against us.

Okay, but it's ultimately more of a reaction to God than it is personal.

And I think we see this here starting in verse 8, verse 8 down to verse 10.

Take a look with me.

It says, And Stephen, so again, I mentioned that Stephen was this guy that was mentioned in last week's passage, the beginning of chapter six here.

You remember that he was one of the Hellenists, Hellenist meaning Greek-speaking Jews.

He was one of the Hellenists who was chosen as part of that group of seven men that were tasked to go and care for the widows that had been overlooked.

And so you remember he was the first of those seven names.

Okay, so and Stephen, it says, full of grace and power, was doing great wonders and signs among the people.

All right, pretty cool.

Wallace tells us here that Stephen, uh, what he was doing in ministry as he ministered to these to these people, um, recognizes that it's really God bringing the heat here.

Okay, we've talked about that a number of times already throughout the first uh five plus chapters of Acts that we have gone through.

We see the disciples, we see guys like like Peter, all kinds of amazing things are happening through him, but but we realize if we look a little more carefully closely at the text, it's it's the Lord doing it through him.

And uh I think we see that here, right?

He, the Lord, he fills Stephen with grace and power.

We know that Stephen doesn't have that on its own.

He, God, performs the great wonders and signs through his servant Stephen.

Okay, so this is God's mighty power just chugging down the tracks, okay?

This is what is happening.

Now, verse 9, keep going.

Okay, it says, then some of those who belonged to the synagogue of the freedmen, as it was called.

Okay, what's that about?

Okay, well, it was called uh freedmen to refer to the fact that the Jews had been freed, okay, during the diaspora.

The diaspora meaning like the dispersion.

Okay, so you might remember uh from the Old Testament that the Jews were at one point in captivity to the Babylonians, but had been uh freed or released, dispersed, okay, uh, to go and now live where they were.

And so these Jews had settled outside of Palestine, outside of the Jerusalem area.

Okay, so the naming of this synagogue that uh they were a part of just reflected what God had done to free them.

Okay, so you've got some of the Jews from this synagogue of the freedmen, it says, uh, and and keep going, some of the Cyrenians and of the Alexandrians and of those from Cilicia in Asia, a bunch of guys rose up and disputed with Stephen.

Okay, so picture this.

You've got you've got Jews from this synagogue, like we've just talked about here, as well as other Jews from kind of a further reaching area.

It says they're Cyrenians and Alexandrians.

So these were Jews that lived in northern Africa.

The men from Cilicia and Asia were from where, uh from what is now uh modern-day Turkey.

Okay, so these guys all gather together here to kind of come against Stephen, right?

They it says that they dispute with him, meaning that they they want to debate him, they want to argue with him.

Okay, and we'll we'll see in just a few verses that we'll get to uh in a moment that they they were really debating with him about issues of the law and the gospel.

Okay, and we'll get into that, but for now, take a look at verse 10.

Okay, they're disputing with him, but look at this.

But they could not withstand the wisdom and the spirit with which he, Stephen, was speaking.

Okay, so we already saw that that Stephen was full of grace and power, right?

We saw that in verse 8.

Okay, we know that that was from the Lord.

He was doing great wonders and signs.

That too was from the Lord.

God was doing it through him, and now in verse 10 shows us that these men could not withstand the wisdom that he had.

Okay, wisdom also coming from the Lord.

We know the scriptures tell us if we lack wisdom, ask, who gives generously to all.

Okay, so this wisdom is coming from the Lord.

And it says, nor could they withstand the spirit, okay?

The spirit with which he, Stephen, was speaking.

Okay, the spirit there capitalized, telling us that that is the Holy Spirit.

They couldn't contend with the Holy Spirit within him who was leading Stephen and giving him the wisdom and the words to say in these discussions.

Okay, again, so to kind of tie all that up, again, to make it clear, Stephen is the vessel through whom the Holy Spirit or God Himself is working mightily.

Okay, we got that?

Okay, meaning that when these when these men come together and convene and go against Stephen, okay, who are they really going against?

It's the Lord, right?

Their real issue is not as much with the man, Stephen, as it is with God.

I mean, what a vital thing for you and I to realize if and when we are persecuted and oppressed for being Christians.

Okay, how helpful is it for us to kind of recognize and know that at the end of the day, primarily their problem is not with us.

It's just not.

Ultimately, they're reacting negatively to the Lord.

Okay, to his truth about something, whatever the specific issue is, that you know, in their pride and in their blindness, they're they're rebelling against and or refusing to accept or or surrender their lives to.

That is what is really bothering them deep down.

It's just all coming out on you.

I mean, again, how helpful and important is it for us to understand that because if or when someone wants to fight with us or fight dirty with us, you know, over something that we as Christians believe or hassling us for sharing our faith, it can certainly all feel very personal, can't it?

It can feel like it's just all about us, you know, especially if they attack our character or or threaten us personally in some way.

Okay, but knowing that really their problem is with the Lord, I think it really what it does, it gives us some much-needed perspective in those moments.

And that it now kind of allows us to not take the attack, not take the fight quite as personally.

We don't need to get as offended or or or even be as tempted to fight back against them in similar ways that they are fighting dirty against us.

Because at the end of the day, we can we can kind of rest in the fact and realize, oh yeah, like that this isn't really about us.

There's a much bigger picture in view here.

It's what they're doing and how they're how they're treating us, it's really about what God is doing through us to in to engage with a broken and rebellious world over their brokenness and their rebellion.

And we have to understand that that that will offend people.

We have to accept that in many ways, right?

The gospel will always offend people.

Because it what does it do?

It pinpoints our biggest flaw, it point, it pinpoints our our biggest problem, and that of course is sin.

Sin is our biggest problem.

And the gospel shows us, it reveals to us that you and I have no hope of fixing that sin problem on our own, in our own strength.

None whatsoever, no hope of that.

And that really that sin has affected all of our reality, our lives.

It's affected our our thinking, our behaviors, our our desires.

All of it has been tainted in again a multitude of ways, all because of sin.

And so guess what?

People are not gonna want to hear that.

People aren't gonna want to hear that that message.

It causes immense annoyance in people.

It causes immense discomfort and at times wrath and and and fury.

Uh so who do you think they're gonna take that out on?

Well, well, you and I for being the messengers of that.

I mean, again, even though it's the Lord's mess message, we're the ones who are bringing it.

So I think we really need to kind of learn to sympathize with how a person might be wrestling with the with the conviction and and the hard truth components of the gospel.

I mean, I think it would be helpful for us as we're like, why are people attacking us and and and so furious about this message of love and hope and peace?

Well, because part of it is just super confrontational about what's wrong with us.

And I think it's helpful if if if we just kind of put ourselves in their shoes a little bit and think back to when you and I first heard the gospel and how we grappled with it.

And at first you might remember, like, I didn't like that message, and I didn't like that that even though they were kind of they're kind of nice about it or kind in the delivery, it it offended me and it bothered me.

I think if we remember that, we forget that.

If we remember our own wrestling match with it, it might help us as we consider their attacks against us.

Right?

Just think about how you, you know, the position you were in when you first heard that you were a sinner in need of a savior.

Think about that.

When you heard that, listen, like hell is a reality, and and that is where you're headed for eternity, apart from Christ's saving work in your life.

Right?

That is the gospel.

That's that's such a big part of it.

And of course, we know that that there's even more to the story of that, that of course, the the the forgiveness that we can receive and and the grace that God pours out in our life and the reconciliation that that exists for us, but you know, between us and God, because of what Jesus did is all awesome.

But to get to all of that being good news, we have to deliver this hard news.

So again, don't be surprised when people hate that message.

Yes, they're gonna hate it.

Yes, they're gonna hate us.

I'm not saying they won't hate us, but but really, again, recognize that it's the Lord that they have the real problem with.

As we comprehend this, it actually brings, I think, greater clarity to our mission and to our purpose as well.

Where we're reminded that we exist to be ambassadors of Christ.

And not everyone's gonna appreciate that.

Remember, the the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing.

That's 1 Corinthians chapter 1.

1 Corinthians 1 · chapter mention

Let's let's understand that.

Again, let's let's accept that reality and just continue to move forward and be faithful.

Here's the second thing.

As Christians, there will always be those who fight dirty against us, twisting our words and triggering others to pile on.

You know, here in the text is where it starts to get a little nasty, okay?

Verse 11.

It says, Then they, that's the the Jews from all these different areas, okay, they they secretly instigated, meaning that they set in motion men who said, We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God.

And they stirred up, this is what they did, they stirred up the people and the elders and the scribes, and they came upon him and seized him and brought him before the council.

And they set up false witnesses, who said, This man never ceases to speak words against this holy place, meaning the temple and the law, for we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and will change the customs that Moses delivered to us.

Alright, so these Jews, they can't contend, they can't beat Stephen's God-given wisdom here, and so essentially they just decide to play by prison rules.

That's that's how they decide to fight this.

And they they they fight dirty instead, right?

They put false allegations or suggestions in people's minds.

They twist Stephen's words when they accuse him of blaspheming against Moses and God, which he didn't do.

Okay, he didn't trash Moses, okay, or the law of Moses is what that's really getting at.

Moses was the one whom God gave the law to his people, and so they're really talking about the law.

He blasphemed the law, he blasphemed the temple.

Okay, he's not doing that.

He's rather simply would have been proclaiming that the law couldn't save a person.

Okay, obeying the law doesn't save you, it doesn't get you to heaven.

Stephen would have been saying things like only Jesus and his righteousness, which is received by grace through faith, so encourage you to do that today.

Only Jesus' righteousness can make a person righteous.

Okay, but of course, they were twisting that and they were saying something to the effect of hey, this guy, this guy hates Moses, this guy hates the law, he he hates God.

No, he didn't.

He just said that the law couldn't save anyone.

Okay, the law is actually good.

That's what Paul would later say to Timothy in those letters.

The law is actually good in the sense that it it exposes the truth of where we're really at, that we're sinful and that we can't possibly obey the law properly or perfectly.

It's Christ who obeyed the law perfectly, properly, uh, for us.

Right?

And when we confess our sin and invite Christ to be our Savior, our sin goes to Him and His righteousness comes to us.

Right?

His perfect record of obedience becomes ours when we trust Him by faith.

Okay, that's the type of thing that Stephen would have been debating with them, with these men.

But you see it here, they're just they're just twisting his words.

It says that they're even stirring up, that that word is used there, stirring up this mob of people into this frenzied lather against him, and they just keep kind of piling it on.

Verse 14 shows us that they intentionally incite.

False witnesses who claim that Stephen spoke not just against not just against God, not just against Moses and the law, but against the temple.

They say the holy place.

You see it there.

And that Jesus is going to destroy it, which was really just a failure to properly understand what Jesus meant by that.

Jesus talked about that in Mark chapter 14.

Mark 14 · chapter mention

Okay, but John clarifies it all in John chapter 2 when he explains that Christ was referring to the temple of his body.

John 2 · chapter mention

Okay, not the physical structure of the temple.

He was talking about how his body would be destroyed and how three days later he would raise it up, referring to his death and his resurrection.

But the Jews, they they missed the intended meaning on that, or they're not trying to even understand it or gain knowledge.

They're really, they're just trying to trigger as many people here to pile on and really be on their team against Stephen.

Again, they're twisting his words, they're lying, they're misdirecting, they're misrepresenting him, they're stirring up people's wrath and emotions.

They even physically grab hold of him, it says that they seize him.

I mean, anything to try and win and silence this guy.

Right?

That's that's fighting dirty.

Now, as as you and I, as we think about this happening to us, this kind of thing, you know, you're preparing yourself for that someday, or maybe some of these types of things have even happened already.

You know, as or as you maybe read news articles or you watch the news and you see this kind of thing happening to Christians in the world and churches out there.

How how are you tempted to respond to that?

When you think about the world fighting dirty against you, what's your gut reaction in that?

Is it fear?

Is it I'm gonna cower and just kind of hide in my in my safe house and not engage in ministry?

Is it is it anger and that drives me crazy, and I just I'm gonna fight back and I'm gonna make sure that they understand, and I'm what's what's your response?

I'd like to encourage us to respond in a couple of different ways.

Here are three ways.

One is, first of all, just that we need to expect the world to fight dirty.

You need to have this expectation that this is how it's gonna go at times.

I think we need to have this a category for this in our minds.

If we don't, then we're always gonna be shocked when this happens.

We're all gonna, you know, we're gonna be so blown away and speechless that someone might treat us badly and attack our character and try and shame us and do all kinds of nasty things and go after our business or or whatever it might be.

No, we need to expect that the world's gonna do this.

I love 1 Peter chapter 4, verse 12 and 13.

1 Peter 4:12

Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.

Don't be surprised by this.

Hey, people attacking you and fighting dirty, that's that's absolutely a trial.

Peter goes on, he says, but rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.

Expect the world to fight dirty against us.

I'm not saying we need to love it.

I'm not saying we need to enjoy it, but we certainly need to expect it to happen.

I think that's a good first way to respond, another way.

Love these people anyways.

We gotta love our enemies.

Do we realize that?

I feel like that is a mega lost art in Christianity these days.

We gotta love our enemies.

Matthew 5, verse 4.

Matthew 5:4

Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.

That's Matthew 5, 44.

Okay, being treated poorly never gives us the right to fight back in similar ways.

Again, it doesn't mean that we necessarily need to roll over either and just take it and never say anything or or or never engage or push back with the prevailing thought against the prevailing thought of our of our day or against the treatment that we're receiving.

I'm not saying we need to fold over or fold up like a like a cheap suit, but we need to we need to do it in love.

We need to love our neighbors.

A third way to respond, we need to trust God and keep doing the right thing.

Do we trust the Lord?

Do we trust that the Lord is strong in those moments?

Do we trust that the Lord's gonna be with us?

Do we trust that his strength is sufficient for us?

That he is still good in these moments?

1 Peter 4 9 says, Therefore, let those who suffer according to God's will entrust their souls to a faithful creator while doing good.

Keep trusting the Lord.

Keep clinging to him.

Do good in every situation.

Don't quit, don't give up.

Okay, knowing, again, that your words are going to be twisted, that others might join in the fight, they'll pile on, they'll be triggered to do so.

Okay, but again, but believing and having peace and even having joy that the Lord will be there with you and I, right there in the moment.

Okay, which really gets us to this final thing here.

As Christians, there will always be those who fight dirty against us.

But the Lord will be with us in powerful ways.

It says, and gazing at him, all who sat in the council saw that his face was like the face of an angel.

What's up with that?

Certainly an unusual expression, as I saw one author put it uh this week.

And now, and while we you know we can't be a hundred percent sure of exactly what was happening there, I think when you think of that phrase, his face was like the like the face of an angel, it reminds us of a couple of moments in scripture.

It reminds us of Moses, right, and how his face shone after the glory of God passed by him on uh Mount Sinai in Acts chapter 34.

Right, to the point where he was coming down off the mountain and his face was so shiny that people were afraid and he had to wear a veil to cover his face.

Perhaps for you, it even draws your thinking or reminds you of the fact that Jesus' face shone like the sun, it tells us in Matthew 17, uh, at his transfiguration.

Yeah, there's a couple of moments that are, you know, sort of similar to, I think, to what we're kind of reading here.

But I think it would really seem here that, you know, and certainly in the case of Moses, that it was God's nearness to Stephen that caused his face to be like that of an angel, caused this whole occurrence to happen.

And we already know that that Stephen was full of grace and full of power and full of wisdom and full of the spirit, okay, meaning that the Lord was with him powerfully, and so this was the reaction, this was the statement to those attacking Stephen.

Okay, and likewise, just know that the Lord will be with you in powerful ways when you are under attack and the fight is gritty, when the fight is dirty.

Know that the Lord, He's not gonna abandon you, He's not gonna abandon me in those moments.

I mean, haven't you heard those those stories of martyrs, right, who who marched to their deaths?

They were burned at the stake, they were they were torn apart by lions, they were they were beheaded.

And they would go to this death, knowing that this was happening, and they would be they would be singing hymns.

They would be praying for their enemies.

They would be full of peace and joy in their what would be their final moments.

How is that possible?

It's not because of some inner fortitude that they had.

It wasn't because they were super strong and that was inherent to them.

No, it was the Lord's presence.

The Lord was with them in these moments where it was unfair, in these moments where where it hurt, in these moments where it was downright awful and they were treated terribly.

And we're gonna see that here as we continue later on throughout chapter 7 in the story of Stephen, how the Lord was with him and helped him, even though it honestly didn't have a good ending.

But listen, as we think about that and we consider just the different ways of trying to contextualize this and think about the fighting dirty that will happen against us or is happening in some of our lives here today, let's choose to believe that the Lord is there.

Let's not give in to fear in all of this.

Let's not allow our doubts to be the strongest thing.

Let's believe that God is with us.

He's gonna be with us in powerful ways.

Well, I haven't experienced that yet.

Well, maybe because you haven't needed it in that way yet.

But someday perhaps you will.

And he'll be there.

He'll be there when you need him most.

Let's pray.

God, we thank you for the encouragement that this text is to us.

Lord, we also just confess that we're weak and that we are tempted to fear and we are tempted to doubt, and we are tempted to respond sinfully when we're treated badly, when our names are dragged through the mud, when our livelihoods are being threatened or our families are getting attacked, Lord.

These are things that left to our own selves and our own devices, we'll we'll respond poorly.

And so, God, would you help us?

Would you show us that you are powerful in these moments, Lord?

Would you make us mature, Lord?

Would we be full of of this grace and and and this power and Lord, would we be full of wisdom and be filled with your spirit, God, in these moments, Lord, I pray.

I pray we'd be, that would be the reality of our lives leading up to those moments, too.

And so, God, build your church strong, we pray.

God, help your church, we pray.

Bring glory to your Son Jesus Christ, we pray.

In His name.

Amen.