The Stoning of Stephen

Good morning, church.

Today's scripture is from Acts 7, verses 54 through 60.

Acts 7:54–60

The stoning of Stephen.

Now, 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 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 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 out with a loud voice, Lord, do not hold the sin against them.

And when he had said this, he fell asleep.

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Thanks for joining us this morning.

It's great to be back together with you.

My name's James Rathword.

I'm the pastor here at Redemption Church Denver.

It's uh I was out of town last week, I was at my cousin's wedding in Georgia, which was a really fun thing to do.

And this is the third uh uh cousin who I got to perform their wedding, so I got to use the joke this is the third time that I've married my cousin.

So that was fun.

So let's uh pray together and we'll move through our text this morning.

Holy Father, you are gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

Lord, this is shown to us in your giving of your Son, Jesus Christ, that he might pay the penalty for our sin, so that we might be washed clean and made righteous in your sight.

Lord, you have given us your Holy Spirit that works in us so that we might more and more die unto sin and live unto righteousness.

Lord, we praise you that you are accomplishing these things in our hearts.

Lord, we praise you that you have allowed us to gather together as a church this morning, that you have given us these means of grace that are ordinary.

Lord, they're singing together, hearing your word preached, Lord, reciting the creeds and confessions, receiving your holy sacrament.

Lord, we praise you that you use these things to build up your spirit within us, to restore us and conform us so that we might be more and more like the image of God, that we might be more and more like our brother Jesus Christ.

Lord, I pray that you would attend this morning in order to accomplish those incredible, glorious promises that you have given to us, that those would be accomplished in our hearts this morning, that you would be honored by our praises, and that in worshiping you we would become more and more like you, just as we were made to be, although we fell into sin.

Lord, you have restored us.

Lord, I pray for those especially who are feeling surrounded by difficulties in life that they can't seem to find their way out of, Lord.

I pray that you would meet them this morning so that they might be lifted up and encouraged in you.

Lord, I pray for those who are far from you, that they might be brought to you.

Lord, that you would give your effectual calling, so that by the work of your Holy Spirit, Lord, they might see the misery of their sin, that they might hear the gospel and come and receive the gospel of Jesus Christ by faith for eternal life.

Holy Father, I pray that you would give us wisdom and courage that we see modeled so wonderfully in the story of Stephen.

That the wisdom and courage that he demonstrates might be an encouragement to our hearts.

Lord, we pray that you would strengthen us because there's a spiritual courage that we see demonstrated in Stephen that is almost unimaginable.

Lord, it's humiliating even to look at it.

But Father, we pray that the same Holy Spirit that is in him is in us.

And so, Lord, we do not look to ourselves for that strength, but we look to you.

And we pray, I pray, Lord, that you would strengthen us here.

You would strengthen Redemption Church Denver with that, with your same Holy Spirit who you gave to us to strengthen us, to remind us of you, Jesus, and to work in our hearts so that we would be like you, even to die like you.

Lord, we lift these things up in Jesus' name.

Amen.

So here we are.

Stephen has concluded his speech, and this morning we're looking at the response of the Sanhedrin to Stephen's speech.

Stephen was arrested by the Sanhedrin.

He was uh there were some men that were working together who to cook up false charges against Stephen.

Stephen was a deacon in the church, and that means he didn't hold a teaching office, but he uh nonetheless made use of his public witness.

He was a true evangelist.

And so he would meet with others, he would meet with his uh Jewish brothers in particular to share with them the news that he had received of Jesus Christ and how the Holy Spirit had worked in his heart, the good news of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

But this news was met with a strong backlash, such that he was arrested and brought before the Sanhedrin, which is the very same court, even the very same people who Jesus was tried before.

And we see that Stephen's trial matches almost precisely the way in which Jesus was tried.

And today we see that Stephen's death matches almost precisely the way in which Jesus died.

Because he was so committed to the Lord, because the Lord had done such a great work in his heart in converting him, he was able to walk in the very same footsteps of Jesus and to die in a way that was like the way Jesus died.

And we'll see that it was fruitful and victorious, just like the way Jesus' death was, because Christ met him in it.

The danger that Stephen had in his speech was that he would win the argument.

Because the dangerous thing is not to lose the argument from the enemies of God.

If you lose the argument, then they have nothing to punish you for.

But if you win the argument, then what you do is you reveal the true state of things.

And the Holy Spirit was working in Stephen's heart so that he would be like a prophet revealing the truths of God.

And as the truth of God, which is revelation, he reveals the truth of God.

And so what's what happens in this scene where Stephen is finally stoned to death, is that the glory of heaven is revealed, and the insanity of hell is revealed.

Everything is laid bare, is made plain by the Word of God.

And that's what happens in this scene with Stephen.

It's it's fundamentally the results of true revelation.

It's like a mini little judgment day.

That's what the hopes of all of our evangelism, all of our sharing the gospel, is the hope of creating, of fostering the conditions which might create this little mini judgment day as the truth is revealed.

And in that little mini judgment day, what's revealed is the reality of sin.

This is probably how you became a Christian.

Something like the reality of your sin was made plain to you in a way that it hadn't been plain before.

And with the reality of your sin, what was also made plain was the reality of the glory of Jesus Christ, who stands as your advocate in the heavens, that if you turn to him, you will be saved.

And in seeing those two things made plain, the depths of the insanity of sin and hell, and the wonders of the glory of Jesus Christ, you are drawn to him.

That's what many had the opportunity to see here, but it's laid plain, is my point, that the Word of God makes things plain.

It reveals the reality of what's going on.

Here, the all the masks, all the veneers are removed.

There are three points that are sort of mixed up in my sermon.

I have this dream of being like a great three-point sermon preacher.

But I'm I'm not, I don't think like that.

It's very hard for me to think like that.

I think much more, sure, you know, like that, as you know, as many of you know.

And so there are three points in here, but but they're all kind of, they're all so interconnected.

But the first one is that Satan breeds madness.

The results of obedience to Satan is madness.

It it can't it sin can't be reasoned with.

It is fundamentally irrational.

And so it breeds madness.

And that's what we see take place within the Sanhedrin.

They become they become mad.

They become almost like subhuman in the way that they're described.

They're just uh uh uh an outburst of rage.

Secondly, my second point is is actually just a word of advice, which is when you are surrounded, look up.

That's the advice that we that we can gain from this.

That's the model that Stephen gives us in this.

When you're surrounded, you should look up.

And the third thing is an exhortation, which is that we are called as Christians to die like Christ.

Christ's invitation is to come and die.

But the good news in this exhortation is he calls us to come and die, is that when when we die, we are victorious.

In Christ, you can't lose.

You can't lose in Christ.

That's what we see modeled for us in Stephen.

All right, so let's let's begin to look through this final scene of how Stephen has revealed what was really going on in the court, and the madness is revealed and the glory is revealed.

Acts 7.54 says, Now when they heard these things, they were enraged, and they ground their teeth at him.

So what's interesting about this is Stephen's speech is really long.

If you were to preach through the whole thing, it would take like five weeks to preach through all of Stephen's speech.

Which you may know.

Some of you know that from experience.

It's a very long speech, and it begins with the promise that's given to Abraham, and then it moves on through the story of Joseph, and then the story of Moses, and then the story of David, and the building of the tabernacle, and then the building of the temple, and he describes the story of the promises of God to the people of God that are constantly rejected by the people of God.

And then it culminates in Jesus Christ, because the whole story of Scripture is summed up in Jesus Christ.

And so the story culminates in Jesus Christ, and he's standing before the men who gave the orders that Jesus would be killed.

The very men who charged Jesus with blasphemy, and he accuses them of charging the Son of God with blasphemy and of sentencing the Son of God to death.

And that accusation is where he is finally interrupted.

But you'll notice he's not interrupted by a counter-argument.

There's no counterpoint that's been made by Stephen.

You know, no, it's not that the high priest stands up and says, Oh, it's interesting that you're using a redemptive historical hermeneutic to understand the uh scriptures, which has been given to us.

You should actually use uh there's a better way to interpret this.

There's nothing like that.

There's nothing like that.

Instead, what he's met with when he lays out this truth is that when they heard these things, they were enraged and they ground their teeth at him.

It's like animalistic.

It's like a pack of wolves.

You know, they're they're they're doing like a snarl sort of thing at him.

There's no rational response.

There's not a there's no counter, there's no counterpoint.

And that's because they have what's happened is their sin has been plainly revealed.

That's what's actually taken place in the room.

They brought Stephen to trial in order to reveal his sin, the sin that they were charging him with.

What happened was at Stephen's testimony, he brought them to trial and he revealed the reality of their sin that was within them.

And you may be wondering, it's kind of like worth thinking, why do they care what Stephen thinks?

Why do they care what his testimony is at all?

He's the blasphemer.

He's the one that they all know is wrong.

So why don't they just say he's insane?

That what he's proclaiming is madness.

We're the ones who know how to handle the teaching of the law and the prophets.

Why do we care what his exposition of it is?

And why don't they just say instead, no, this is false, and move on.

Stop teaching like that.

Instead, there's this emotional outburst from the Sanhedrin.

And that's because what happened is he was speaking in the Holy Spirit the truth of God.

And the truth of God can never, no matter who's saying it, can never be reduced, can never be merely experienced as one man's opinion.

It's just another perspective.

It just happens to be what that guy thinks, but it's not what I think.

That's not the type of thing that the word of God is.

The word of God, when it uh when it is spoken to you, when it's received by you, it always is effective.

It always does a work in your heart.

Always.

And so it can't be denied.

The word of God is never proclaimed like one opinion among many.

Even when it is proclaimed in a position where it seems like it's being demonstrated as just a counter-argument, just a counterpoint, one opinion among many, something that can be argued in some sort of neutral space.

When the word of God arrives, it's never experienced that way.

Because it is, of course, God's word.

It's the word that upholds all of creation.

It's the word by which we were made.

It's the one true judgment.

The word of God is described in Hebrews chapter 4, verses 12 through 13.

Hebrews 4:12–13

It says, For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

Verse 13, I think, really puts a point on it for Stephen's experience.

And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give an account.

We would like for the word of God to simply be one point, one position.

But we know in sharing it and in receiving it that the word of God is sharp and it reveals the truth.

It reveals the fundamental reality that we are all naked before the word of God.

We can have interactions with people, in, you know, great non-Christians that are wonderful people and that that seem to have lives that are great, even, you know, enviable sorts of lives.

They're great friends.

And we can think, you know, their worldview, the way that they understand their life and how it's operating is probably not so different from mine.

It's probably not, there's probably not this great distance that's there.

And they can have one point and I can have another point, and that's it.

And we can we can we can fundamentally ground ourselves or ground the relationship on, well, isn't it great that we can both have different perspectives and and then we can share them with one another?

And isn't that really the great thing?

Isn't that really what's wonderful?

I've said that.

I've said that with people that I've shared the gospel with.

You know, and I I've said you know what's really great?

It's funny now that I think about it in a pulpit preaching.

Say uh to share, like, here's a message of eternal life and and forgiveness of sin.

And uh and uh a message of a message of all that you were created to be can be found and given to you and realized for free from the graciousness of God.

This is the message that we're proclaiming.

But you know what's really great?

What's really great is that we can disagree about this.

That's what's really great.

That doesn't make any sense.

What we're doing there, and the the reason that we're doing that is because I I I don't I don't want to I I don't want to see the sharpness of the sword.

I don't want to experience the the reality of the division that a sword brings.

Because I don't I I would rather it's like a it's like a surgeon who is standing before someone that has something in them that needs to be cut out and saying, I I'd rather I'd rather not heal you than cut you.

That's what it's like.

But the word of God that Stephen used by the Holy Spirit, he was willing to say, I'd rather cut you than not heal you.

I would rather you be cut and divided, and I'd rather the wound be brought than you go to eternal death.

Because on the other side of this wounding, on the other side of this cutting, on the other side of the reality, that the great news here actually is not that we can disagree.

That's not the great news.

It's a benefit, but it's not a great news.

The great news is that in Jesus Christ there is forgiveness of sins, there is fullness of life, that our Lord has come and given himself for us, and there is salvation in no other name under heaven.

That is the good news.

That's the good news.

Now we consider Stephen's experience of this moment in the Sanhedrin.

He he uh it completes his speech, he's probably interrupted.

It seems like it was a long speech, but it seems like he was just getting going.

I kind of know what that's like.

And the uh what what's his experience like?

It's like the experience that the psalmist prophesies in Psalm 22, where Stephen could stand there and he says, All who see me mock me.

It says in Psalm 22, verse 7, they make mouths at me, they wag their heads at me.

Psalms 22:7

This is Stephen.

He is alone, standing on trial, before the Sanhedrin.

He can say, Everyone who sees me right now is mocking me, they're growling at me, they're they're clenching their teeth at me.

He is alone in the room.

You know what that is?

That is a nightmare.

That's an actual nightmare, that feeling.

I think that we most of us would do almost anything we can possibly do to avoid that feeling.

That is what middle school is for.

It is to teach you the reality of that feeling, and you then you will make commitments to yourself in as an eighth grader and say, I will make sure that never happens to me again.

That that experience never happens to me again.

It's a nightmare.

I've shared it before up here, but I have I don't I don't have very much anymore.

But especially when I first started preaching, I have to have this recurring dream that I was preaching.

And then this microphone cord, I would get tangled up in it.

It would like wrap itself around me, and then I could and I would lose my knowledge.

As I was trying to untangle myself.

And then one by one, everybody would stand up and leave the church.

And it would look back and be like, this guy.

Unbelievable.

And that's a nightmare.

That's a nightmare.

And it's like I'll do anything to avoid that experience.

It's horrifying to be rejected.

And it's not like these are people that he didn't know.

These are his people that brought him to trial.

He is from the Hellenists.

You know, he is from the synagogue of the freedmen.

There's this heritage that goes back together that they share.

They're his close friends that are bringing him to trial like this.

And now, by the proclamation of the Word of God, he finds that their faces have turned towards condemnation and rejection of him.

Condemnation and rejection.

When I was probably like one of the most formative experiences of my life was uh this this moment that I'll I'll remember forever.

Was um uh my uh my family had like a public incident when I was in high school uh that had to do with our businesses.

And the and it was a it was in the newspaper.

You guys remember those?

Uh but the newspaper also was online, the internet.

You guys ever go on the I love the internet.

I go on it every day.

And the uh so under the article, there was a comment section.

And we were uh my family was in the car business.

And I don't know if you know car dealers, typically people love their car dealer.

I don't know.

But this was an atypical response.

Uh and it was just like this pile on of my family and my my father in particular, and and I learned all of these, I learned what you know people who write comments on the internet think about us, thought about me and my family and my name.

And I just alone at the family computer, I just scrolled.

I just scrolled.

And I was horrified.

Was horrified.

And walked into school the next day, and everybody knew.

And I just looked around and it was like, look at all of these faces.

There's no it I felt like a pariah.

Nobody really cared because it was like high school, and they're like, oh, business stuff with your family.

Like nobody, but it felt like that, you know, the the the depth of that feeling of like a total rejection.

We'll do all kinds of things to avoid a feeling like that.

Many of you have instances of that that are that are far worse, that you can call to mind, that get called to your mind uh when you're trying to fall asleep.

Or after a good day, and suddenly you remember that, and it's like, yeah, but that's what it's really like out here.

That's that's uh more that that feeling is is exposing the truth of who I am.

That's where Stephen is standing right now.

That's what Stephen is experiencing.

He is completely surrounded by rejection.

He is surrounded by rejection and attack.

And so this is my second point.

What do you do when you're surrounded by rejection and attack?

Where do you look when you're surrounded?

Where can you look when you are surrounded?

You can look up.

Stephen was alone.

He was alone.

Some of you experienced that sense of being surrounded.

There's no way out.

Some of you experiencing that financially right now.

You've you're looking at numbers and you're crunching things, and you're saying, I'm surrounded.

I'm surrounded.

There's no way out of this.

I don't know how to shape this.

Some of you are experiencing that in your career.

You've gotten yourself into a place and now you feel like I'm crushed by this.

It doesn't seem like there's a I feel completely backed into a corner.

I'm completely surrounded.

There's no way out of this.

Some of you feel like that in your marriage.

I feel completely surrounded.

I don't know how I've gotten into this, I don't know how to get out of it.

It seems like there's no there's no way through.

I'm completely out of it.

You're surrounded.

When you are surrounded, you, Christian, you can look up.

Because you know what you're looking for.

Well, I'll show it to you in the text.

Acts 7.55.

So he's surrounded by, you know.

But he, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven.

So he he first he he looks up, he gazes into heaven when he's surrounded.

He looks away from their faces and he gazes into heaven.

You know why he does that, what he's looking for?

He's looking for the face that is not rejecting him.

That's what he's looking for.

Because you it there's one way to deal with that surroundedness.

There's one way to deal with that type of rejection.

And one way to do to deal with that is to say, I don't care what anybody thinks of me.

This is like, you know, Facebook level advice.

You don't care what other people think of you.

This is not good advice.

If you if you don't care what other people think of you, you've you've now become like not a human person.

You know, you've become some other type of strange thing.

This is why the only people who can do politics now are narcissists.

Because it's such an insane environment of attack that you you you have to sort of be a type of person who's like, I don't care what people think of me.

This is no way to live.

It's no way to live.

It's denial of what you actually need.

You are a creature who is designed to be in relationship.

You are not sufficient in yourself.

And you think of a situation that Stephen is in, you think, perhaps I could I could be strong enough within myself, finally, I'll feel strong enough within myself to bear a situation like that, to bear a situation of total rejection.

You're not.

You're not.

If you try and bear that just within yourself, what you are what you're actually doing is you're trying to mimic the hardness of heart that you're receiving.

And you will get it.

You will get it.

You will get to have the hardness of heart that you're receiving.

What you need, where the strength actually comes from, is that you need the face that is not rejecting you.

You must receive the face that is smiling down on you with approval, who will advocate for you.

That is where your strength will come from.

You as a creature require that for your strength.

So Stephen looks for that, 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.

What happens?

He gazes up into heaven for his strength, and the Lord meets his gaze.

He looked up and he was not rejected by the God that he was seeking.

The Lord met his gaze.

You have this promise in Christ that when you are surrounded and you look up to God, he will meet you.

He cannot reject you.

Can a mother forget her own children?

There may be a mother who forgets her own child.

But God will not forget you.

Stephen trusted that.

He trusted that in that moment.

And so he didn't say to himself, Come on, Stephen, this is what you've been training for.

You're really good at this.

You've always been pretty strong in situations like this.

He didn't say that.

Stephen wasn't thinking about Stephen.

Stephen looked up into heaven.

He said, There is one who can help me, even when I'm surrounded.

There is a higher court than this court.

And he will vindicate me.

The Lord meets his gaze.

You can look up.

And then he proclaims it in verses 56 through 57.

It says, 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.

Stephen declares what he sees.

You might have been wondering, Luke, the author of Acts, just said that Stephen gazed up into heaven and he saw the Lord standing at the right hand of God.

How did Luke know that?

How did Luke know what he saw?

Well, he knows because Stephen said it.

Stephen declared to the room, Behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.

He looks up and he declares what he sees.

Why does he do that?

Once he has seen the Lord standing as his advocate at the right hand of God, he declares it to the room.

Why?

It is a statement of triumph.

You see, the reality is exposing itself.

The reality is breaking into the room.

The room, taken at face value, looks like this: the Sanhedrin sitting in the position of authority as the judge over the defendant.

Stephen is the defendant who has lost the room.

And so what it looks like at face value is the man who has lost the room, who is certain to die, and his judges who stand over him.

But the reality is breaking in.

The reality is the true judge sits at the right hand of God.

And he is there to advocate for Stephen.

And he will judge rightly this room.

That's the truth of what will happen.

This is why in situations like this, we must train ourselves to look up.

Because otherwise we will be deceived by the appearance of things.

And we will miss the reality that's being revealed, the reality of the glory of heaven and the reality of the insanity of hell.

It's a statement of triumph.

And what he is saying to this room is the man, Jesus Christ, whom you thought you extinguished.

The Jesus problem that this room thought they handled and got rid of, you haven't gotten rid of it.

He has not been extinguished.

He, in fact, sits at a higher court than this court.

The highest court that there is.

You have not extinguished him.

There is a higher court.

St.

Augustine says, because people have wondered, it says that the Son of Man is standing at the right hand of God.

Don't you expect him to be sitting?

Isn't that what he does?

He sits at the right hand of God?

Well, St.

Augustine says the reason that the Son of Man, that our Lord Jesus Christ is standing at the right hand of God in this instance, is because sitting is the position of judgment.

At the end of time, we will stand before the great white throne, and we will all be judged by Jesus who sits on that great white throne.

It was a time of judgment.

But Jesus stands at this moment because the one who stands in the court is the advocate.

And so why is it that Stephen looks up and sees Jesus standing at the right hand of God?

Because Jesus is standing to advocate for Stephen.

This is who Jesus is for you.

He is your advocate in the courtroom that matters.

He is the advocate who will stand with you when you are being persecuted for his name's sake.

Jesus is standing with you.

He is standing to advocate for you.

And what does he advocate?

What does he plead?

His blood on your behalf.

That's what he pleads.

This proclamation of Jesus is the final thing that drives the room to madness.

We have to look closely at what their response is.

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

They couldn't bear to hear it.

They tried to act like they couldn't hear it.

That Jesus was still alive.

That they had murdered the Son of God.

They cry out with a loud voice to stop Stephen from saying whatever it was that he was saying.

And they cover their ears and they rush towards him.

This is the insanity of Satan.

This is the insanity of our hearts in sin.

That we would hear the truth of God and we would do anything we can to just not hear it.

To make that stop, make that noise stop.

We'll do anything to not hear it.

It is insanity.

So this formal institution of the Sanhedrin becomes reduced to a mob.

And all formality is lost.

There is no moment where they take a vote and declare Stephen guilty and then schedule the time where he is to be stoned.

They are driven to this mob violence in their fleshly reaction to the reality of the reign of Jesus Christ.

So in verse 58 says, 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.

No formal ruling.

But what's revealed is heaven and hell.

And then this little detail peeks through.

That the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul.

Saul, who will become the apostle Paul, is here.

He's heard Stephen's speech.

In Acts 22, Paul will recount this as a part of his testimony.

That he looked he will say that he looked on approvingly at the stoning of Stephen.

That's what Paul was doing.

He wrote such works as Romans, which is a great, one of his greatest hits, I think.

Stephen is taken outside of the city and he's stoned.

We have recorded two final prayers of Stephen while he is being stoned.

The first is this in verse 59 and as they were stoning Stephen, he called out, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.

And we've imagined the middle school situations, you know, or those those periods of rejection that we've experienced that we'll do anything to not experience.

But this is the this is the maximal version of that.

What do you do when you are being killed?

It's even hard for us to imagine.

Can't they finally kill you and then it's over?

There's still an appeal you can make.

Even when you are being killed, you can still look up.

This is why we have a hope that cannot be destroyed.

It cannot be destroyed.

There is no situation, there is no situation in which your hope in Christ will not be reward rewarded.

It's a prayer that the Lord would receive his spirit, that he commends his spirit to the Lord, trusting that the Lord will receive it.

Just as Jesus prayed when he was on the cross and he looked up to the Father and He surrendered his spirit to the Father before he died.

He prays the very same prayer that Jesus prayed at his death.

It is a prayer of love to the Lord.

It is obedience to the greatest commandment, that he would love the Lord his God with all his heart, with all his soul, with all his mind, and with all his strength.

He loves the Lord and he prays that the Lord would receive his spirit.

The second prayer is a prayer like the first one, just as the second commandment, second greatest commandment, is like the first commandment.

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

These are the final words of Stephen.

The greatest commandment is that you would love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.

And the second is like it, you would love your neighbor as yourself.

Lord, do not hold this sin against them.

They are the very prayers of Jesus.

He dies like Jesus.

This is our calling.

This is your calling, Christian.

That you would die like Jesus.

It doesn't require a martyrdom, like Stephen's, because you can do this every day.

Every day you can present your body as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

How do you do that?

Well, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

That is how we can do this.

Lord, do not hold this sin against them.

He dies loving his enemies.

And then when he had said this, he fell asleep.

Don't you love the New Testament?

When a Christian dies, he fell asleep.

Why in the New Testament, when someone dies, do they does it always say that they fell asleep?

Well, what's the difference between death and sleep?

You know what you do at the end of sleep?

You wake up.

When you die in Christ, you die with the hope of resurrection.

You'll wake up again.

It's uh it's a it's honestly it's just a nice break.

That's what Stephen enters into.

The joyful presence of the Lord, and then the hope of resurrection.

Stephen fell asleep.

His earthly ministry had ended.

But his ministry, the work of the Lord, was in many ways just beginning.

I've spoken a lot regarding the similarities uh between the book of Joshua and the book of Acts.

And they're they're remarkable.

They're both, the the book of Joshua is the Old Testament book of conquest.

The book of Acts is the New Testament book of conquest.

And they have different areas of conquest.

In the Old Testament under Joshua, Joshua leads the people of God out of the wilderness into the promised land.

And they conquer the nations that had inhabited the promised land and they drive them out so that they become the inhabitants of the promised land.

The book of Acts is the New Testament book of conquest.

And what happens is the kingdom of God is proclaimed and it begins in the Promised Land, but then rather expanding inward to sort of take over the whole of the promised land from the perimeter inward, the New Testament story of conquest is beginning in the Promised Land, moving out to the whole world, so that all the nations of the world would come under the rule and reign of Christ, would confess that Christ is Lord, and he will conquer them all, as he conquers the hearts of their people, as he conquered our hearts.

The book begins with the call of God on Joshua's life, just as Jesus called his apostles at the beginning of Acts.

There is the selecting of the twelfth apostle, and just as there is the collecting of the twelve memorial stones in Joshua when they move in.

There is the baptism by crossing the Jordan.

There is the baptism at the day of Pentecost when they are baptized in the Holy Spirit.

There is the conquering of that first great city just by their voices when they surround Jericho and they conquer it just by crying out.

There is the conquering of Jerusalem at the day of Pentecost in Peter's sermon, when he conquers that great city, and three thousand are added to their number in one day, just by his voice alone.

There is the sin that comes into the church.

There's the sin of Achan, who when they destroy Jericho, he steals for himself possessions which were meant to be offered to God.

And then there's the sin of Ananias and Sapphira, in which Ananias and Sapphira hold for themselves what was meant to be offered to God in order to gain status and reputation in the early church.

The parallels are remarkable.

We're meant to see these parallels.

And then we get to AI, not ah.

The city is called AI.

It's spelled AI, which reminds me of a contemporary technological innovation.

But that's not what I'm talking about.

It's called AI.

That's the name of the city.

This was the next city that they're to conquer after Jericho.

Here's what conquering that city looked like.

They had a first attempt, and then it turned out that their sin that was in the camp with Achan prevented them from conquering the city.

But then they repent of that, and God comes to Joshua, and he describes this wonderful pincer movement that Joshua is supposed to make on the city of Ai, and Joshua, they execute it perfectly.

They kill everyone in the city, and then they capture the king.

And they capture the king of Ai.

And after they capture the king, what they do to him is they bring him outside the city and they cover him in a pile of stones.

That's the next city that they conquer.

In the book of Acts.

When the king of the city is covered in a pile of stones outside of the city, that means you won.

You don't have to be Stonewall Jackson to know.

That means you won.

Covered in a pile of stones.

And he won.

He won.

This is our victory in Christ.

This is what it means to have Christ as our advocate.

This is what it means to be in this glorious new covenant age where you can't lose in Jesus.

You can't.

You can be outside the city, covered in a pile of stones, experiencing total rejection, and be victorious because of Jesus' rule and reign.

Because he gives us the victory.

Where is the victory of Stephen in this?

Doesn't it look like if you were to look at it with just the eyes of the flesh, you would look and you would see, well, that Stephen problem is taken care of.

It's done.

The Sanhedrin won.

Isn't that what it's like out here?

That the bad guys always win?

You know, when somebody makes a movie or they like when they make like a movie, and it when it's when they say like, you know, this movie's like just so realistic.

It's just the way things actually are.

Like, and what that means is that the movie is cynical.

It means it just has a cynical ending.

That's what that's what that means.

Like, well, it's real, it's what it's like, it's a real thing.

No, it's not what it's like.

It's cynical.

It's a denial of the reality.

The reality of our world is that the Son of God has come, he has become a man, he has died on a cross to purchase for us the forgiveness of our sins, and we will rule and reign with him forever.

That's the reality of the world that we live in.

And that in him there is only victory.

And so this is what the victories of the book of Acts look like.

This is what the, this is, this is what happens.

There are there are when they preach at Pentecost and 3,000 are added to their number, they win.

So when they win, they win.

When Stephen proclaims before the Sanhedrin, and he is covered in a pile of stones at the end of his truthful proclamation, they win.

When they lose, they win.

This is where we are in Christ Jesus.

This is our strength in Christ Jesus that we have to be able to draw on.

And look at Stephen's final prayer.

As he prays, Lord, do not hold this sin against them.

And who was it that was sitting, standing rather, bearing witness to this, looking on with approval?

We remember?

Saul, who will become the Apostle Paul.

This will become a part of his testimony.

And so the question is, was Stephen's prayer answered?

Yes.

Augustine goes so far as to say the reason we have the Apostle Paul is because of the prayer of Stephen.

That's probably a bit, you know, on the nose, but it'll preach.

Stephen's ministry continued in ways that are more profound than we could possibly imagine.

This is our hope.

So if you are backed into a corner, if you have no place to look, look up to your Lord who stands to advocate for you.

Consider him, trust him.

Die like Stephen.

Not because of your own strength, but because of the strength that's been given to you in Jesus Christ.

He will advocate for you.

The alternative is madness.

It's the only alternative.

So with that, let's pray.

Holy Father, we praise you that in a world plagued by sin and in lives that always end in death, Lord, that we have the victory sealed in you.

Lord, we know the one who has gone into death, and we know the one who can lead us out.

Lord, I pray that you would comfort our hearts by your advocacy for us at the right hand of the Father.

Lord, I pray that you would train our hearts to look up to you and that we would expect your rescue, expect your deliverance.

Lord, I pray that you would strengthen us and strengthen our hearts, strengthen our faith in you so that we might be strong in the way that Stephen is strong, that we might hold fast to your word, knowing that when we hold fast to your word, we are held fast to the comfort that you offer us.

Lord, you are the face that we must look up and see in order to be strong for you in this life.

Lord God, I pray that you would meet our gaze as you met Stephen's gaze.

Lord, you are gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love.

Equip us, Lord, to proclaim your truth.

Lord, provide your rescue.

We lift this up in Jesus' name.

Amen.