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Christ Community Chapel is a church in Hudson, OH, that invites people to reimagine life because of Jesus. Learn more about us at ccchapel.com.
Acts 7:1–60
And the high priest said these things so.
And Stephen said.
Brothers and fathers, hear me,
you stiff necked people.
Uncircumcised in heart and ears.
You always resist the Holy Spirit,
as your fathers did.
So do you.
Which of the prophets
did your fathers not persecute?
And they killed those who announced
beforehand
the coming of the righteous one,
whom you have now betrayed and murdered.
You who received the law as delivered
by angels and did not keep it.
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 he said, behold,
I see the heavens opened,
and the Son of Man
standing at the right hand of God.
But they cried out with a loud voice,
and stopped their ears
and rushed together at him.
Then they cast him out of the city
and stoned him,
and the witnesses laid down their garments
at the feet of a young man named Saul.
And as they were stoning Stephen,
he called out, Lord Jesus
received 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.
Hey, everyone, and welcome to Christ
Community Chapel.
My name is Mike, one of our pastors here.
Great to be with you.
If you're watching on video, welcome.
My wife and I, Christina,
We have three kids, ten, five and three.
And recently we received what I would say
is the most professional and polite insult
that we've ever gotten.
So our three year old
has been in speech therapy for a while.
And so we had a therapist
come to the house on a regular basis.
And at one point she made the observation.
Your your house is language rich.
Its language kind of sounds nice, right?
To be a language risk rich household.
Let me realize what she meant by
that is your kids are never quiet
and your kids never, ever stop talking.
We are in acts this fall.
This is week
five of ten, calling it room for more.
And from acts one to act 28,
we see God do that.
He makes room for more.
In acts one, there's a 120 Christians.
Acts 28 rough estimate tens of thousands
of Christians all over the world.
He made room for more in the church.
How? Let me show you a phrase
that repeats itself a few times.
Acts chapter six, verse seven. Notice.
And the Word of God increased,
and the number of the disciples
multiplied in Jerusalem greatly.
Acts 1224 but the Word of God
increased and multiplied.
Acts 1920.
So again the word of the Lord continued
to increase and prevail mightily.
You might say
the early church was language rich.
They were never quiet,
and they always kept talking and sharing
what was true about God's Word
in God's Son.
And we're going to see
in our story of Stephen, they did this
no matter the cost,
even the cost of his own life.
Three points for our time, confusion,
courage and challenge,
confusion, courage and challenge.
Let's start with confusion.
There are two types of confusion
generally.
The first is when you are unsure
between two things, right?
Say you're driving and you're not sure.
Do I go left?
Do I go right?
Do I go straight right?
You are unsure of which way to go.
There's a second type of confusion,
a little bit different, right?
If we use the driving example again,
you you make the turn right.
You think you're going
in the right direction, but you're wrong.
It's a little bit different
a little bit deeper.
You think you are right when you're wrong.
And in acts chapter six
we see this kind of
confusion around Stephen and his ministry.
Let me show you acts chapter six, verses
eight through 11,
a little bit of context for our story.
And Stephen, full of grace and power,
who's doing great wonders and signs
among the people,
then some of those who belong
to the synagogue of the freedmen,
as it was called,
and of the sirenians of the Alexandrians,
and of those from Silas in Asia.
They rose up,
and they disputed with Stephen, but
they could not withstand the wisdom
and the spirit with which he was speaking.
Then they secretly instituted
men who said, we have heard him
speak blasphemous words against Moses
and against God.
God is doing great wonders
and signs through Stephen
an amazing, foundational, early church
leader.
Amazing things are happening,
signs and wonders, teachings
and arguments
that he's winning time and time again.
It seemed like it's going great,
except for the response.
Stephen is not making friends.
He's making enemies.
Lots of enemies are rising up,
disputing with him, challenging him
because they are convinced that they are
right about God and He is wrong.
They are seeing signs and wonders.
They are hearing Stephen speak
and still they resist and they reject.
Stephen is surrounded
by spiritually confused people.
They are convinced of their view of God,
but they couldn't be more wrong.
So Stephen is trying to reason
with them and argue
with them and demonstrate
why they are confused.
But they double down.
They bring lies. They bring witnesses.
They end up accusing him of blasphemy,
which is a capital crime
in the first century.
And he heads to trial.
You see spiritual confusion.
The Bible will tell us it's not isolated
to a few people, a few pockets
and a few moments of history.
It's like a hereditary condition.
It gets passed on
to every single human heart,
every single human culture.
Spiritually confused,
think they know what is true about God,
but they could not be more wrong.
Does that surprise you?
If you would look at the culture
around the people around, would you say,
hey, we are spiritually clear
and spiritually confused, right?
There can be a few side
effects, a few indicators
that you can look at a culture around you,
and it'll show you if they're getting God
right or getting God wrong.
The Bible say,
if a culture is getting God wrong,
you're going to see it first
in how they understand themselves.
And if people are having confusion of who
they are,
it's probably an indicator
they don't get God right.
If people are misunderstanding
sex and marriage,
it's probably an indicator
that they are getting God wrong.
If people are not understanding
and handling money well, then they are
probably getting God wrong.
So you look at our culture today,
what would you say?
Are we more spiritually clear
and confused?
Right?
It doesn't matter
how advanced or successful
or educated or developed a culture may be.
Underlying the culture around us
is a deep spiritual confusion.
People think they know
what is right about God,
but they could not be more wrong.
Now. Some confusion, no big deal, right?
If you take the wrong turn
a few minutes a time, you turn around.
No big deal.
Other confusion.
It's costly. It's costly.
I read a story this week.
Woman named Sharon
Jacks had a surgery in Ohio last year,
and the doctor amputated the wrong leg.
She went in, had had one leg amputated.
The doctor was confused
and she had both legs amputated.
Confusion sometimes.
No big deal, sometimes very, very costly.
You know that spiritual confusion
with God is very costly.
If people get God
wrong, they have no chance to get eternity
right.
The Bible is clear
time and time and time again,
spiritual confusion
will lead to eternal condemnation.
Hell is real.
Judgment is in fact true.
And so we, whether we realize it or not,
whether you wake up thinking about it
or not, we are surrounded
by a spiritually confused culture
and the confusion is costly.
The question is, what do they need?
How do we respond?
That brings to my second point.
It's courage. It's courage.
A spiritually confused
culture needs a church of courage,
a courageous church to say what is true.
Not to sugarcoat, not to minimize,
not to downplay, but to tell the truth.
Now, I don't know about you,
but I feel like kids are way better
at telling the truth than adults, right?
They're just directly honest.
At least my language rich kids are.
Let me put it that way.
My ten year old will often tell me
I stink.
I need to shower.
My five year old learn about plaque
recently and now it's very concerned.
Dad, I see plaque.
You need to brush your teeth right away.
And my three year old just says
mom is better all the time, right?
Which no argument.
There she is definitely better.
Steven is an adult.
He is honest, like a kid, right?
He has his moment, right?
This defining moment in his life.
In our story where he's brought to trial,
he's before the religious leaders.
He has his chance to speak in.
What's he going to do?
Is he going to be a coward?
Is it going to be courageous?
Is he going to kind of bend the truth
a little bit?
Is he going to tell it directly,
honestly and truthfully?
And he launches into this wonderful,
amazing 53 verse speech,
acts one, all the way through acts 53.
If you haven't read it before, I'd love
for you to go read it this week sometime.
You can summarize it in two ways Stephen.
Speech. Summarize in two ways.
God is good and you are not.
God is good and humanity isn't that great.
He goes through Abraham and says, God made
and kept these wonderful promises,
goes through Moses and the rescue
and the leading out of Egypt that he gave
talks about the kingdom
being solidified with David,
and then the temple being built with
Solomon.
God is good, God is good,
God is good, God is good,
and you're not.
And we're not right.
Notice how he ends his sermon.
This is the end of his sermon.
Acts 751 to 52.
You stiff necked people,
uncircumcised in heart and ears,
you always resist the Holy Spirit
as your fathers did.
It's a hereditary condition. So did you.
Which of the prophets
did your fathers not persecute?
And they killed those who announced
beforehand the coming of the righteous.
One reference to Jesus,
whom you now have betrayed and murdered.
You know, it's like a godly version
of Clark Griswold's Christmas vacation
tirade, right?
I went familiar with that movie and
that scene right to the end of the movie.
He's expecting a bonus for Christmas.
He's been build a pool,
and instead of a bonus, his boss
gives them a membership
to the jelly of the Month Club.
And he launches into this tirade,
which I can only say half of
if I'm going to keep my job, but
because I want to look him
straight in the eye and I want to tell him
what a cheap, lying, no good, rotten
for flushing, low life snake licking.
Okay, I'm going to stop.
That's Stephen's speech.
You are stiff necked.
You're stubborn,
with uncircumcised hearts and ears.
You don't listen
and you resist the Holy Spirit.
You do what you want to do.
And on top of that, you betrayed.
And you murdered the righteous One,
Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
Why does Stephen do this?
Seems pretty harsh.
It seems almost mean.
It seems judgmental.
Why does Stephen do this?
Well, I, I realized.
What if he didn't say that?
What if he stood up and said,
hey everyone, you're doing great today.
Here's a few minor adjustments
you might be able to make,
but all in all, you're doing great.
Keep living.
Keep trying.
All is well, right?
Imagine you're in a doctor's office.
You're awaiting news of a Pet scan
and trying to figure out
if and where you have cancer.
And the doctor has the results.
And there is cancer,
and it's in lots of places.
And he says, hey, you're doing great.
Nothing to report.
Just keep going. Keep living. All is well.
That'd be awful.
That'd be a death sentence.
A diagnosis is meant to lead to the right
healing and treatment.
It's the same thing here.
Christianity is built on two big ideas.
Two big ideas.
Bad news about us, good news about God,
bad news of our sin,
bad news of our judgment.
Bad news of our confusion.
Really, really good news about God
and His Son
and his grace and his love.
People need to know of the bad news
first to get to the good news.
That's the first reason
Stephen leans into them.
And the second reason is people
need help believing it.
They need to know it first and second,
they need help believing it.
Let me tell you a story
from the Old Testament
famous story
involving David and Bathsheba.
Maybe you know this story,
but David is king.
He has all the power,
authority, status, riches that he wants.
He notices Bathsheba
one day, a married woman.
He uses his power.
He uses his status
to have an affair with her.
And then he likes her.
And then he has her husband
actually taken out Uriah and murdered.
He commits adultery and then murder.
And what's interesting is
he doesn't actually realize his sin.
He doesn't own up to his sin.
He has a hard time saying his sin
until God sends
someone like Steven to him.
Let me show you in second
Samuel chapter 12.
And the Lord sent Nathan to David.
He came to him and said to him,
there are two men in a certain city,
the one rich and the other poor.
The rich man had very many flocks
and herds, but the poor man
had nothing
but one little ulam which he had bought.
And he brought it up, and he grew up
with him and with his children.
It used to eat of his morsel
and drink from his cup, and lie in
his arms was like a daughter to him.
Now there was a traveler to the rich man,
and he was unwilling to take one
of his own flock or her to prepare it
for the guest who had come to him.
So he took the poor man's land,
and he prepared it
for the man who would come to him.
Then day with anger
was greatly kindled against the man.
And he said to Nathan,
as the Lord lives,
the man who has done this deserves to die,
and he shall restore the lamb fourfold,
because he did this thing,
and because he had no pity.
And Nathan turns to David, this is
the line, he says, you are that man.
Stories about you write a rich man
who had everything decided
to steal from one poor, vulnerable man.
David, that is that is you.
What's so interesting is David's
anger was kindled
where not to his sin,
but to the man in the story.
David's outrage was not his sin,
but to the other man sin.
And doesn't
that sound like our culture so upset,
so outraged at everybody else
except ourselves?
Does it sound like you?
Sounds like me sometimes.
When was the last time
your anger was kindled?
Was it kindle towards your sin or is
it kindled towards somebody else's sin?
And it is really hard
sometimes for us to say,
I am the man, I am the woman.
It's me.
I'm the stiff necked person.
I'm the problem.
But church,
we have to have the courage to tell them.
People need to know it.
They need help to embrace it.
We need to have the courage to tell them,
to tell ourselves, to tell our kids,
and to tell yourself, lest
we get a little puffed with pride.
Because where does bad news about us lead?
Bad news about us leads to really,
really good news about God.
This was a few months back
and my five year old was in timeout,
probably for talking about
my plaque again, but that's different.
And as I was leaving the room,
he asked me this question.
He said, he said, dad,
do you love me even when I sin?
Do you love me even when I sin?
What was he asking?
Hey, dad, when I am honest
about the hard things about myself,
what are you going to do?
What are you going to say?
How are you going to respond?
Isn't that our question about God?
God, if I am honest about the bad news
about myself, what are you going to do?
How are you going to respond?
What are you going to say?
Right?
God, do you love me in my sin,
in my anger,
in my adultery and my bitterness
and my selfishness and my
greed?
God, do you love stiff
necked, uncircumcised,
stubborn,
resistant to the Holy Spirit people?
One of my favorite psalms is Psalm 51.
Let me read to you a few verses
says, have mercy
on me,
oh God, according to your unfailing love,
according to your great compassion,
blot out my transgressions.
Wash away all my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin.
For I know my transgressions and my sin.
My sin is always before me.
Cleanse me with hyssop,
and I will be clean.
Wash me and I'll be whiter than snow.
Do you know who wrote this song?
It was David.
Do you know when he wrote this song?
After Nathan came to him
and confronted him?
And do you know what David discovered?
That when he admitted
the really hard news about himself,
he found really,
really good news about God.
You see, God is not like us.
God sent his son
and Jesus was not stiff necked.
He was not stubborn.
He was not rebellious.
He did not do what he wanted to do.
He was perfect in every single way.
Full of love and of grace
and of humility and obedience.
Jesus was no coward.
He was king.
He was king.
And his defining moment of the cross.
He showed the courage to say, yes,
I will head to the cross.
Yes, I will die.
Yes, I will take all the anger
kindled up by sin upon myself.
And three days later I will rise again.
Church, you don't need to be confused.
The world does not need to be confused.
The answer to the question,
what will God do when I send guz?
God love me when I sin is yes.
Will God forgive me when I sin?
The answer is yes.
Will he cleanse me from my sin?
The answer is yes.
Will he have mercy on be in my sin?
The answer is yes.
When we
are honest of the hard news of ourself,
it will lead us
to the most wonderful news
of Jesus and church.
We have to have the courage
to tell a confused culture
the truth about Christ,
confusion, courage and finally challenge.
Challenge, right?
This this story is meant to challenge
us, right?
Such an amazing act of bravery
and of courage.
Willing to give his life.
Stephen,
for the sake of God and His truth.
Right? It is an amazing story.
But what's interesting to me is Stephen
is a powerhouse in the face, right?
The text goes out of his way
to say he is full of the spirit.
He is full of power.
He is full of grace.
He even says his face is like an angel.
Not sure what that means,
but that sounds pretty good.
He has this vision of Jesus in heaven
standing up in his throne, powerhouse
in the faith, courageous speech.
And guess what happens
at the end of his speech?
Nothing good,
nothing good.
It's remarkably bad.
He gives his speech.
They chase him out of the city,
they stone him and he dies.
He loses his life.
And no one in that moment
finds their life in Jesus.
Challenges us in two ways.
First,
by what we're willing to lose, and second,
by what we gain, what we lose,
and what we gain first by what we we lose.
Some breaking news, perhaps.
People don't like hard news
about themselves.
No one at your workplace is saying, hey,
you know what?
I really hope you come to office tomorrow
and look me in the eye and say, hey you,
you're a stiff necked, uncircumcised,
stinky, Holy Spirit resisting.
And oh, by the way,
there's plaque on your teeth, right?
Nobody is wanting you to do that
when you correct confused people.
There could be a cost.
There could be a cost. Stephen.
It cost him everything.
It has to cost us at least something.
What are we willing to lose? Second.
What are we willing to gain?
Very little.
Are we willing to gain very little.
This is the most striking thing
about this story.
So acts chapter two, Peter stands up
famous Peter.
He delivers a courageous sermon.
And 3000 people, 3000 people
repent, have faith and are baptized.
He sees it
all right there, right in the moment.
Stephen stands up. Acts chapter seven.
Courageous speech.
Not 3000, not 300.
Not 30, not three.
You know how many people respond to
Jesus in the moment of Stephen's speech?
Zero.
The most faithful display of courage
is seemingly the most fruitless,
except for this verse.
Acts seven, verse 58.
Then they cast him out of the city,
and they stoned him.
And the witnesses laid down their garments
at a young man named Saul.
Saul is an important name.
He was overseeing Stephen's death.
He oversaw
a lot of persecution in the early church.
But then in acts chapter
nine, Saul becomes Paul, and Paul becomes
one of the most effective evangelist
and church planners in the entire world.
Entire history of the world.
He wrote two thirds of the New Testament.
And notice
how Paul talks about his story of faith,
who is included in Paul's story.
Acts 2219 to 21 and I
said, Lord,
they themselves know that in one synagogue
after another I imprisoned and beat
those who believed in you.
And when the blood of Stephen,
your witness, was being shed,
I myself was standing by and approving
and watching over the garments of those
who killed him.
And he said to me, go, for
I will send you far away to the Gentiles.
Paul came to faith because of Jesus.
The starting point of his faith
was Stephen,
and Stephen had no idea he was courageous.
He was faithful, and seemingly
nothing happened.
But he never knew that his life,
his message, and his death
was the beginning point of Paul's story.
You see, God works in two ways
Peter ways and Stephen ways.
We all want Peter's way.
Peter's way. You get to see it.
You're courageous.
You speak the truth.
People respond right away.
More now.
Stephen's is different.
Stephen speaks up.
He's courageous.
And room
for more doesn't happen until later.
We all want Peter's story,
but I can't help
but wonder if he's calling you
and me to be more like Stephen.
We live in a confused culture.
That confusion is more
costly than we realize.
And this story calls us to be
a courageous church
that tells the truth
to a confused culture.
The bad news about them,
leading them to the best news about God.
And I'm not sure what's going to cost.
I'm not sure
what God's going to do with it,
but if we're going to have room for more,
then our courage can't be any less.
Let's pray.
Father in heaven, thank you for the story.
God, thank you
that you are such a great God
that you will put a light into
the darkness of our hearts and our minds.
You will show us
what is not good, but you don't do
is to judge us, to condemn us,
but to lead us to yourself.
God, I
pray that we would be the kind of church
that first experiences
this God, that we would be honest
about our own sin and our own stuff
that would then lead us to enjoy
and experience your grace and your mercy
and your forgiveness. God.
And then second, that
we would be the church
that has the courage to tell the truth,
the bad news about who we are
in such a way that it leads people
to the best news about your son.
We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.