A Follower like Stephen
Notes
Transcript
What’s Going On?
What’s Going On?
Now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution. And the twelve summoned the full number of the disciples and said, “It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” And what they said pleased the whole gathering, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolaus, a proselyte of Antioch. These they set before the apostles, and they prayed and laid their hands on them.
And the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith.
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 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.
Some dissatisfaction has arisen in the church.
Widow. No relatives to care for them. They truly are alone in the world.
Appoint deacons. What is a deacon? The word at is most base is a servant. They are servants of the church. In this context we see that they exist to help the apostles with the needs of the church, and thus freeing the apostles to continue to be able to devote themselves to the teaching of the word of God.
I want to be a good person
I want to be a good person
I think we all want to be good people. I mean, I have yet to meet a person that really sets out and desires to be a jerk. We want to be liked, we want to do good in the world. This passage of scripture sets an example of a good person.
Today we are going to talk about Stephen. We are going to hold him up as an example of the Christian life. I want us to notice how scriptures describes Stephen.
Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty.
What is good repute. It essentially means to be respected. You carry weight. You are someone people look up to. I don’t want to suggest anything about the other deacons that were chosen here, but we learn something more about Stephen.
for he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And a great many people were added to the Lord.
I think to be a good man goes farther than good repute. I have known some been that were above repute, but they might not have been good men.
What we see here is the a combination that should always be true. He is respected, but he is respected because he is good.
I want to be, I hope you want to be a person that is both of good repute and at the same time a good person. Does that describe you? A person that wants to be respected, but respected because you are good. What then does this look like? What does a good person do?
What does a good person do?
What does a good person do?
I want to define a good person by what we learn of Stephen. I hope that as we study his life we are motivated and encouraged to live out our life better.
Full of faith.
What does this mean? I think it means that the only way we become good people is by surrendering our will to that of Jesus’. I don’t white knuckle my way to being a good person, it does not happen by virtue of being lucky. Instead it comes when I come face to face with Jesus, and because I that encounter I see how sinful I am and how holy he is and I can do nothing except believe that he is the son of God who washes away the sins of the world.
As we think about being a good person we have to think to Romans.
For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.
Full of faith is acknowledging that I am not good enough on my own. That I need Jesus. That is is actually Jesus who makes me, gives me, changes me into a person that can and does do good things.
So, I want to pause here. Why? Because everything else I talk about is built upon you putting your faith in Jesus. To be the kind of good person that Stephen is, the kind of good person that God wants us to be, requires, dare I say, demands faith first.
So, will you see that you are a sinner, that you willfully disobey God, that you can’t do anything to change your position. But, thanks be to God, Jesus did it all for you. He lived a perfect life. He took the punishment of sin upon himself, so that you don’t have to, and all that you need to do is believe this. Jesus says that if you believe this, you will be saved. Will you believe?
But if you are a Christian, how is your faith? Are you living what you believe? Are you surrendered to doing what God wants you to do, to live how God wants you to live? Yes. Then lets see what we learn next about Stephen and how we can emulate him.
Full of the Holy Spirit.
The next thing we see about Stephen is that he is filled with the Holy Spirit. This is to be controlled by the Holy Spirit. There are two realities about the Holy Spirit. One, we each receive the Holy Spirit when we get saved. We can’t be full of the Holy Spirit without first being full of faith. Second, we each choose to either walk in the spirit or to quench the spirit.
But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.
Do not quench the Spirit.
that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love,
The progression I am trying to get you to see is that our faith is tied directly to the infilling of the Holy Spirit. That without us first putting our faith in Jesus, we don’t receive the Holy Spirit.
But what I also want you to see is that walking in, being filled with the Holy Spirit, actually grows your faith. Many of us are wondering why our faith is so weak, I would argue it is because you are quenching the Spirit.
It is your choice. God has given you the Holy Spirit to give you victory over sin, we learn this in 1 John, and to empower your Christian walk. It is you that must choose to walk in this.
So, part two of being a person like Stephen is to walk in the Holy Spirit. The last three things we are going to look at today require a combination of faith and walking in the Holy Spirit. If we want to be people like Stephen then we must be full of faith and full of the Holy Spirit.
Full of power.
Two ways Stephen shows that he if full of power here: great wonders and signs, and also in the way he proclaims the gospel. Not all of us have a power to heal or to cast out demons. But we do all have the power to proclaim the message of Jesus. Stephen proclaimed the message of Jesus with power, another way of saying this would be with boldness.
We have already seen in previous studies of the book of Acts that boldness is what they apostles prayed for and what allowed them to speak with great power as well.
We too should be Christian of great power, and what I mean by this is great boldness. This does not mean to be a jerk, instead it means to speak up even when no one wants to hear what you are saying.
You will be hated by all for my name’s sake.
That is not a promise that we take hold of very often as Christians. But it is primary in understanding why we need power, why we need boldness. If we waited for everyone around us to want us to talk about Jesus, we would be waiting a very long time. Know what I mean.
Stephen has seen the full effect of the anger and vitriol of the religious leaders in Jerusalem. If he was not walking in the Holy Spirit and subsequently filled with that Holy Spirit power he would have cowered and shrank back. Instead he stood up and told about Jesus to all those who wanted to hear, and most importantly to those who did not want to hear.
Full of wisdom.
Stephen was also full of wisdom. What is wisdom? It goes beyond knowledge. It is also experience and good judgement. Wisdom is seeing a situation and not reacting to hastily.
But I think what helps most is that I am sure that Stephen understand that wisdom is only found in God. That he is the provider of wisdom. That if we, if you, want to be a wise person then you must be a person that seeks God and his wisdom.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,
and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.
that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
For the Lord gives wisdom;
from his mouth come knowledge and understanding;
To be wise is to know where to look for wisdom. None of us can be, or are wise in our own regards. The good person, as we continue to look at this idea, is a person that is full of wisdom, but full of wisdom from the right place. Which is found in God and revealed to us through the plain reading and right understanding of God’s word.
If you want to be a person full of wisdom then you must be a person given over to a regular prayer life and a devotion to the very words of God.
Full of grace.
This brings me to the next quality in this passage that is mentioned about Stephen and subsequently should highlight us.
What does it mean to me full of grace? Sometimes an example is better than a definition.
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 this sin against them.” And when he had said this, he fell asleep.
Whoah! What just happened? Well let me explain. Stephen has run afoul of those in Jerusalem who are against the message of Jesus. They have recognized all that we have just talked about that Stephen is a good man, he is a man that is filled with power, he is full of wisdom and they have to know why he is doing what he is doing.
So, Stephen tells them. Essentially he says that they have ignored all that God has been trying to show them and that they have finally ignored long enough and God is doing a new thing. He essentially tells them that they are not good followers of God. This runs all over them, and in their rage they take him our and stone him.
As a quick aside I want to add that this event is a turning point, it is at this point the message goes out to the gentiles because the Jews hearts have been hardened.
What then is being full of grace? I think it is such an overwhelming desire to see people saved that you are filled with compassion and forgiveness towards them even while they are treating you with malice and contempt.
These words though different carry the weight of someone who we desire to emulate even more than Stephen.
And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” And they cast lots to divide his garments.
Let us be full of grace. Rejoicing in Jesus and praying for their eyes to be opened and their hearts to believe. Let us recall that we are not full of grace because we fight the urge to choke out hate. We are full of grace because we are full of faith and we are full of the Holy Spirit, and both of these inform what it means to be full of grace.
Go and Tell
Go and Tell
Finally, our attention is drawn back to the main theme of the book of Acts. To be witnesses for Jesus. Central to our faith is the desire to go and tell others. To go and tell everyone. Even if those very same people are heaving stones at our heads in an attempt to shut us up.
Stephen shows us what a victorious Christian life looks like. He reminds us that sometimes doing all that God wants us to do doesn’t end like we would hope here on this earth, but we are encouraged by what he saw.
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.”
This is our reward. This is what we keep ever in front of us. That one day, no matter what happens here. That one day those of us who are found to be in Christ will enter into heaven and forever be with Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen!
