Acts 6:8-7:60 | The First Christian Martyr

Drake Daniels continues a series on the book of Acts.

Transcript

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Good morning. Hope you're doing well. Happy Mother's Day. There's a you know, there's a lot of uh holidays, uh April Fool's Day, Groundhog's Day, Pi Day, that just don't make a lot of sense, and I'm questioning why we celebrate them as a culture. That is not Mother's Day, okay? Um love Mother's Day and uh appreciate it just to echo all that Zach said. Uh moms, we see you, we love you, we absolutely need you. And uh yeah, shout out to my mom who will uh listen to this in about four days when she can figure out Spotify and podcast. Shout out to my wife, who is certainly uh the best disciple, evangelist, teacher in our house. I may have to answer some deep theological questions, but she has to answer 52,000 questions about why the food isn't ready and why can't I hit my brother every single day. And so uh shout out uh to you, Brittany. Love you so much. Um well hey, I'm excited to dive back into the book of Acts. Um we've been going through this uh for this spring semester, and if you guys have your Bibles, uh, and to the delight of the middle schoolers and Roderick in the room, we're gonna be in Acts chapter six and seven this morning. Um so I had to do that for him. Um but go ahead and open up your Bibles uh there. We only have two more um sermons in this Acts series before we take a quick break in the summer, going through uh something for our uh summertime. Excited for that. Uh but today we're jumping back into the book of Acts, and we're gonna be at a major pivot point uh in the book. I think if uh if you remember, uh we've mentioned this a few times in our study through Acts, but really kind of the anchor, the mission statement for Acts can be found in Acts uh chapter one, verse eight, where Jesus is looking at his disciples, and he says, Hey, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you'll be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. And the reason that's kind of the anchor, the mission statement for the entire book is you can you can trace the book of Acts just following that verse. Okay, chapters uh one through seven is about the kingdom of God expanding into Jerusalem. Uh chapters eight through twelve is about the kingdom of God going forth uh to Judea and Samaria, and then uh chapters 13 through 27 is about the kingdom of God going forth towards the end of the earth. And so you'll see uh even right here, where we're going to be jumping into today, we're kind of at that first major pivotal point in the book of Acts. Right at the end of chapter 7, going into chapter 8, uh it's the first time we're seeing this major pivot point, a moment where the entire story suddenly changes direction. And every single great story, great movie has this pivot point, right? Where a new character, a new mission, a new stakes enter the scene, and some things begin to change, okay? You think about uh the movie Shrek. Shrek is just a grumpy ogre in isolation until he meets Donkey, right? And then all of a sudden they are making waffles in the morning and they're going to get Princess Fiona. Uh or you think about Harry Potter, Sorcerer's Stone, he has a just terrible life living under uh the stairs until Rubius Haggard comes in and he says, You're a wizard, Harry. And then all of a sudden, that was a horrible accident, I'm so sorry. Um but then all of a sudden he gets opened up to this magical world of Hogwarts, right? Every story has a pivot point where the story gets bigger, the stakes are higher, the mission expands, and that's where we are at in the book of Acts, because what Acts 1.8 shows us is that the kingdom of God was always. Jesus has left his disciples with this incredible mission. Take the gospel and go to the ends of the earth with it. But so far, all we've seen in the book of Acts is the gospel staying in Jerusalem. It's been amazing, it's been fruitful, the church is growing, but it's been staying in Jerusalem until the point that we see here at the very end of chapter 7 where it finally will expand towards Judea and Samaria. And another reason that this is kind of a pivot point in Acts is because so far the main character has been Peter. Okay, Peter is filled with the Spirit, Peter is preaching, Peter is the one healing dudes, Peter is the one going to prison, Peter is the one getting freed from prison, Peter is the one preaching again. It's been Peter, Peter, Peter. But a shift happened last week in Acts chapter 6, where we were introduced to this man named Stephen. Okay, if you remember the church was growing like crazy. Uh and uh typically uh when things grow, problems arise, right? Like news flash, when more sinful people join a group, more problems are going to follow it. And so the apostles they wanted to care for these widows who were feeling neglected, and so they basically did like almost this staff reorganization. They introduced this new level of leadership to help with the bread distribution for the widows, and the very first person that we were introduced to last week was Stephen. As they chose some of the faithful men that were in the midst, they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and full of the Holy Spirit. Now, Stephen is the main focus of these two chapters in Acts. He is sort of like this bridge from uh the ministry of Peter to the story and ministry of the Apostle Paul. He's kind of the bridge between them, and so his story is short in the book of Acts, but his story is intense. Because in it, in this story, we're going to see what a life of power, a life of wisdom, a life fully yielded to the Spirit looks like. Okay, and here's why I think we need to tune in this morning. Like, I don't this just think this story is a placeholder in the book of Acts. No, I think it's significant, and I think it is because one quote that changed so much of my life in college that confronted me and just how I was living kind of this lukewarm style of Christianity. One quote from a pastor just rocked me where he said, My biggest fear is that I will hear Jesus' words and walk away, content to settle for less than radical obedience to him. You see, Stephen's gonna show us today what a life of radical obedience to Jesus really looks like. We're gonna see a man who looks more like Jesus than anybody else in Scripture up until this point, a man so filled with the Spirit that everywhere he goes, he looks like Jesus. He's gonna look like Jesus in his life, in his preaching, and ultimately even in his death. And so Acts chapter six, we're gonna be start in verse eight. It says this now, Stephen, full of grace and power, was performing great wonders and signs among the people. Opposition arose, however, from some members of the freedmen synagogue, composed of both the Cyrenians and the Alexandrians, and from Cilicia and Asia, and they began to argue with Stephen, but they were unable to stand up against his wisdom and the spirit by whom he was speaking. Okay, so again, the last week we were introduced to Stephen. He was the first among the seven appointed by the apostles to help with the bread distribution among the widows, to make sure that they were seen and cared for. But now we see him doing something just a little bit different, a little bit more than just some administrative tasks. Actually, we see him doing something right here that we had only seen from the apostles at this point. We see him doing these incredible signs and wonders where he is showing off his power by teaching other people about the grace available in Jesus. And I just want to point out, maybe you've caught this from last week and then this section. But Stephen, this is how he's been described so far in the section. In verse 3, uh we know that Stephen, he is full of the Spirit and full of wisdom. In verse 5, we see that he's full of faith and the Holy Spirit. In verse 8, we see that he is full of grace and power. Okay, Mamas, if you're looking for a list maybe to pray over for your kids, this would be a phenomenal place to start. Uh, but it's interesting, if you're like me, you're pausing here and you may be thinking, man, why does Luke single out some of these characteristics to describe Stephen like this? Like full of faith. Which seems interesting, right? Like, doesn't every single Christian uh like filled with faith? Like that's kind of a defining characteristic of someone who's placed their faith in Jesus, is to have faith. Or or or even here, he is full of the Spirit. Luke mentions that twice. Like, doesn't every Christian have the Holy Spirit? Well, yes, and and we've already done this before, but just so we're on the same page, a quick theology around the Spirit. You see, every single Christian everywhere has the Holy Spirit dwelling inside of them. Okay, Romans 8 says that if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. Uh, in fact, if the Holy Spirit of God, many times in Scripture we see, if the Holy Spirit does not begin to change your heart, we would have never responded to the gospel in the first place. Okay, and there's times in the Bible where we see, we've already seen it in Acts, we see it a lot in the Old Testament, where sometimes the Holy Spirit comes upon someone to empower them for special acts of service and ministry. But what we have to see here is that Luke is honing in on Stephen because there's something different, right? Remarkably different about Stephen here. You see, Stephen, he's actually a step further than someone who the Spirit just empowers for something. No, Luke wants to make sure that we know Stephen is filled with the Spirit. He's full of the Spirit. And so I want you to see, yes, when you place your faith in Jesus, you have the Spirit. That is true for all Christians everywhere, but how much you live your life according to the Spirit, you actually have a pretty significant role to play in that equation. Right? And so the question is, it's not how much of the spirit do you have? That's 100% for every believer, but it is how much of you does the spirit have? Right? That's the question. You see, Stephen, he didn't get a special dose of the Holy Spirit that's only for varsity Christians. No, Stephen got the same spirit that we have. But what we see is a life totally surrendered to Jesus and what that looks like. You see, every single person in here this morning will have a choice. We have the flame of the Spirit of God, and the reality is that you can either spend your life, you can spend this year, you can spend this week, either fanning that into flame more and more, or you can spend your life dumping water on it. And I think the reality is that Stephen just took that really seriously. Well, more than anything else in his life, what we see from Stephen is that he just wanted this all-consuming passion to know Jesus, to make him known, to think of Jesus as worth it. So he oriented his whole life around this idea, whether he was serving bread to the widows, whether he was teaching people, or like what we're about to see, whether he is bowing up to some of the uh most social, uh religious elites of the day, he wants this all-consuming passion to know Jesus and to make him known. And we see that as he begins to spread this message, as he goes from this administrative task to actually teaching people about Jesus, as he spreads the message, opposition begins to come here. A group starts to emerge debating Stephen about some of the ideas that he is preaching about, and they realize in this moment that in the world of debate, they cannot hang with Stephen. They cannot hang with his arguments, and so when arguments fail, these people go to slander. I know we have no idea what that looks like in today's world, right? But that's what they go to here. So, verse 11 says this, and they secretly persuaded some men to say, We heard him speaking blasphemous words against Moses and God. They stirred up the people, the elders, and the scribes, so they came, seized him, and took him to the Sanhedrin. They also presented false witnesses who said, This man never stops speaking against this holy place and the law. For we heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs that Moses handed down to us. Okay, here's the slander. Here's what they are saying about Stephen. They are claiming that Stephen is disrespecting the Old Testament because the Pentateuch, the law, the first five books of the Old Testament was written by Moses, which is why they've mentioned Moses here, and they're saying, hey, he's disrespecting the scriptures and demeaning God. Okay, now these religious elites, they were zealous in their pursuit, but you're gonna see they're not very creative. Okay, because in fact, this is actually the same exact argument that they had just made against Jesus just a few months prior, right? They're running the same play against Stephen that they ran against Jesus. And so, Stephen, he is dragged before the same counsel that Jesus had to stand in front of and that the apostles had already been in front of. And I think Stephen in this moment, he's feeling what Jesus had already said. Where Jesus had said, Hey, if they hated me, they're gonna hate you as well. And Stephen is on the other end of that, and he gets put on trial. And you may be thinking, man, this whole like uh believers in Jesus preaching the gospel and being put on trial, this feels familiar. Like, have we already read this story? Like, this has already happened, and it's because, yes, this has already happened in the book of Acts. In fact, this is already the third time we've seen this idea of believers preaching the gospel and being put on trial. But with one of them, the first one, it was Peter and John, they were together and eventually they were set free. The second time, the believers, it was the apostles together, they were all put on trial until basically a jailbreak comes from an angel and they all get them out. But now it's Stephen's turn. And then you'll notice with him, he's alone. There's no one to stand with him in this moment, no one there to help him, to protect him. Maybe you felt like this standing up for Jesus in the world where you feel all alone. And yet in the midst of the persecution, he's peaceful. In the midst of the chaos, he's calm. In fact, in the very next verse, it says, And all who were sitting in the Sanhedrin looked intently at him and saw that his face was like the face of an angel. Okay, this is not just a random detail here. This is actually reminiscent of Moses, who, again, they're basing a lot of their claims off of, they've already mentioned him twice, and that it's supposed to be reminiscent for the for Moses in this moment. Like these experts in the law, they should have immediately picked up on this. Because when Moses ascended Mount Sinai to commune with God and received the law, he came back down and it said that his face looked like the face of an angel. And so, Stephen in this moment, he couldn't just magically like make his face look bright and shiny. Okay, this wasn't some viral TikTok trend to glow up the face a little bit. No, it's all it's almost like God's way of saying to the Sanhedrin, Hey, I'm going to make the one that you're claiming to be against Moses look a lot like him. Okay, I'm on Stephen's side here. Like, just like Moses has communion with me, and Moses was my servant, so is Stephen. This is my guy. And yet the mob mentality wins, verse one of chapter seven, it says that they bring him before the high priest, and like a good quarterback who begins to feel the pressure from the defense coming in on him, Stephen he stands on his feet and he delivers the ball. Right? Because in the midst of this raging crowd, in the midst of these people who do not like him, he delivers a speech. And what he speaks is actually the longest section, the longest sermon in the book of Acts. It's the second longest sermon in all of the New Testament, only behind the Sermon on the Mount. Uh, and or in order for us to get through this, so you guys can get to your Mother's Day brunch. I'm not even going to read any of it, uh, but if you are following the Bible reading plan, by the way, that Zach mentioned earlier, it just so happens that tomorrow, if you're reading the New Testament in a year, you'll be reading Acts chapter 7. Okay, so quick plug there for you. But here's what we see in Acts 7. Stephen is going to make two major points as he highlights kind of the major themes, the major um plans in Israel at this time, the major highlights. And he talks about Abraham, he's going to talk about Joseph, he's going to talk about Moses, and then he's going to skip all the way to David. Okay, so the next time in your Bible reading plan, if when you skip Leviticus, you can just say, I'm just trying to be like Stephen, because he skipped Leviticus 2. But he hits the major movements, and here's what he shows us. There's kind of two big keys in Acts chapter 7 with Stephen's speech standing before the Sanhedrin, and the two major ideas is this. Number one is that God has never been confined to a place. God has never been confined to a place. And so, Stephen, he's going to talk a lot about the law and the temple, and he's going to bring up people like Abraham, the father of the faith, and he's going to say, guys, you think that you have to follow the law and the temple in order to follow God? Guess what? Abraham had neither. Right? And so he's going to point out some of the heroes of the faith and saying, hey, God has never been confined to a specific place. He's so much above that. And number two, he's going to say that God's people have this history of rejecting the deliverers that he sends God's people have this history of rejecting the deliverers that he sends. And even though we won't get into like the weeds of the content of chapter 7 too much, there's actually something pretty significant that I just want to point out and lay upon us this morning. And it's this is that Stephen was this ordinary, common dude. He was a normal guy, right? He wasn't an apostle. He wasn't even one of the two who were chosen to replace Judas as an apostle. He's not a missionary in that sense. He's not the next church planter with this amazing preaching ability. He's just a faithful follower of Jesus who gave himself to the understanding and the study and the meditation of God's word so much so that when the time came for him to preach, he could beautifully articulate all of the Bible that they had up until this point. And it wasn't like he had a week to prepare, like Drake, you're preaching in two weeks. Great, I can have two weeks to prepare this message. No. Stephen was put on the spot. But he was walking with the Spirit so much that he was ready to preach whenever he was called upon. And so here's my question for us is have you devoted yourself to God's word like that? Would you be ready to preach that kind of sermon if you were in the place of Stephen here? You see, I love there's there's a uh large church in our network of churches. They have a bunch of resources and time and staff and everything, so they can do this. But one of the things that they offer at the church is this kind of eight-month-long curriculum called the Institute, where they are going through the story of the Bible, doing a bunch of deep dive on theology, and basically at the end of this eight-month-long curriculum, one of the goals of this institute is for you to get up in front of about a hundred of your other peers and for 20 minutes stand on the stage and tell everyone else about the story of God hitting every single major highlight in the old and the new testament. I was like, man, that would be incredible. Right? Like, even just here, I'm like, man, could I do that right now? Right? And I'm not saying that we have to be those like that type of person in order to like be a mature Christian or anything. I'm not trying to be legalistic at all, but here's what I am saying is why would we not? Right? Because these words are the words of eternal life. Right? It's it's hard to be a part of the story that God is writing if we don't know what story we're stepping into. Or as or as A. W. Tozer once said, is that Satan's greatest weapon is man's ignorance of God's word. Okay, King's Church, we are a Bible church. We want to be a Bible church. It's why we teach through books of the Bible. It's like why we're in uh small groups, we are going through uh the sermon. It's why at men's and women's groups this summer, we're gonna go through uh the Bible. We want to be a Bible church, and in order for us to be a Bible church, we gotta be Bible people. Okay, to be like what Spurgeon said of John Bunyan, that when you cut John Bunyan open, he bleeds scripture. And so Stephen preaches here, and not only does he preach the longest sermon in all of Acts, it's also gotta be the least seeker-sensitive sermon ever. Okay, because look what he says at verse uh in verse 51. This is how he is ending the sermon. If you ever think that Zach and I are difficult, just look at what Stephen says to these guys. Verse 51. You stiff-necked people. I don't think we've ever said that, Zach. I'll be honest. You stiff-necked people with uncircumcised hearts and ears. You are always resisting the Holy Spirit. As your ancestors did, you do also. Which of the prophets did your ancestors not persecute? They even killed those who foretold the coming of the righteous one, whose betrayers and murderers you have now become. You received the law under the direction of angels and yet have not kept it. Stephen, in this moment, I love it because they thought the Saint Hedron, they thought that they were putting Stephen on trial, but Stephen in this moment, he has moved past trying to defend himself, and he has flipped the script on them, and now he's prosecuting them. He's putting them on trial. And he's like, Man, you guys think that I'm against Moses, you guys are the one acting like wayward Israel. Okay, you guys think that I'm the one against the temple, you're the one who's against the God who cannot be contained. Okay, you guys think that I'm against the law, you're the ones who aren't disobeying, or you're the ones who won't obey it. Right? Here's Stephen's argument at the end. He's basically saying, I'm not the blasphemous one, you guys are the blasphemous ones because you don't understand that all of the Old Testament has been fulfilled in Jesus. And so physically, on the outside, yes, absolutely, sure, it looks like you guys are religious people, but in your hearts and in your ears, you don't hear God and you don't sense God. And man, I love that he doesn't walk. Water anything down. He's not scared at all of the truth of Scripture. He doesn't soften it at all. And so if one of my like calls to us is to be a Bible people, here's my other call for us at King's Church is to never soften the gospel because you think it will help people receive it. Do not soften the gospel because you think that it will help people receive it. Don't do that. You see, here's what happens. When we water down, when we soften the gospel, it doesn't make the gospel more palatable. It actually strips the gospel of its power. You see, the message of Jesus is actually very clear. It's that every human being everywhere, that all of us, we are filled with shame and guilt, that all of us, like sheep, have gone astray and we are deserving of God's wrath. Like the Bible is abundantly clear about that, and so we are not helping anybody when we try to minimize that. And yet, the power of the gospel is that while we were weak, while we were sinners, while we were far off, it was then that Jesus came for us, that he went running into the chaos of our world, that he became sin. He who knew no sin became sin for us, so that we can be made right with God by faith in him. That's how God shows his love for us. You see, and what's interesting is that Paul later on will say that when we preach the gospel of forgiveness of God available in Jesus, to some, Paul says, it's like the aroma of life. This idea of, oh man, I know. I know that I'm broken. I can't believe that someone like me can be forgiven. But Paul says, to some it's the aroma of life, but to some it's the stench of death. I can't believe you think I need to be forgiven. And here we see that played out. We've seen that in the book of Acts because we've seen Peter, he preached basically this exact same message, and what happens? 3,000 people come to faith in Jesus, the aroma of life. But when Stephen preaches this message, there's a radically different response. It's the stench of death. Look at verse 54. It says, When they heard these things, they were enraged and gnashed their teeth at him. So Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, yet again, gazed into heaven. He saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. He said, Look, I see the heavens open, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. Then they yelled at the top of their voices, covered their ears, and rushed together against him. They dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. And while the witnesses laid their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul, while they were stoning Stephen, he called out, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. He knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, Lord, do not hold the sin against them. And after saying this, he fell asleep. You see, the religious elites right here, they threw justice by the wayside. Jesus got more of a trial than this, but they just threw justice by the wayside in this moment, and in it we see the very first martyr of the Christian faith, because Stephen in this moment he said things that you were not allowed to say. Right? To say that Jesus was at the right hand of God is to say that Jesus had equality with God. It was saying that Jesus was God, and they didn't like that. Right? You see, in our world, your workplaces, your neighborhoods, your friends and family, they can all kind of handle a vague type of spirituality. Right? Like I go to church or I pray or you know, I even follow God in some sense. That doesn't really ruffle the feathers too much. But you say that Jesus is Lord, you say that Jesus is the one true God, you say that Jesus determines everything about myself, Jesus determines my morality, Jesus determines my views on marriage, Jesus determines my views of life, Jesus determines everything, that's gonna cause some division. And for Stephen, it gets him killed. You see, sometimes when you preach the gospel like Peter, people are gonna celebrate you. But sometimes when you preach the gospel like Stephen, they're gonna kill you. Maybe not physically, but maybe socially they might. And maybe you've been experiencing that even in your workplaces. But like Stephen and the Savior before him, man, you stand in King's Church. We want to be a place where we stand because we don't aim to please man, we aim to please God. And there's some really interesting things at the end of this passage. Verse 59 to 60, maybe some of my favorite verses of the whole part of the story, because it's giving us a window into the soul of Stephen here, showing us what he's thinking about at this very moment of death. Verse 59. Look at this. While they were stoning Stephen, he called out, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. And then he knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, Do not hold this sin against them. Guys, have we heard these phrases before? Like, guys, these sound almost identical to the exact same thing. Some of the last words of Jesus on the cross were this Father, into your hands I commit my spirit, and Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.

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It seems like Stephen in his dying moments, he's remembering some of the last words of Jesus on the cross, and in essence, the very same prayer that Jesus had prayed over Stephen. Stephen is now using that prayer towards other people, which by the way, that prayer was answered by God when Saul of Tarsus became Paul because of the answer and the fruit of this prayer in many ways. And then honestly, I'm amazed at how calm Stephen is at this moment. And I just like kept stumbling over this this week. This is one of the main things I kept thinking about. How was he able to stay this calm? If I was being pelted with stones, I I don't think I'd be saying this. So how was he able to do this? Well, I want you to see, as they began to rush towards him, what does Stephen do? This is crucial. You see, Stephen in the chaos, he doesn't he doesn't look down, he's not looking outward towards some help from other people. He doesn't even look inward for some own spiritual help. No, in the moment, in the moment of chaos, Stephen looks up and he sees God. And what he sees is Jesus standing at the right hand of God. Okay, now that's interesting. If if you have your Bibles, I'd like to circle, I'd underline that word standing, because that is a very interesting word. You see, because in the Old Testament, there's a great deal of detail about the furniture in the temple and how it was made. Okay, there's a ton of tables and lampstands and altars, but we quickly realize that in those chapters that we skip over because it's describing the temple, one of the things that we realize is that the temple had no chairs. Okay, the temple in the Old Testament it didn't have chairs. Why? Well, because the priests they never sat down. Okay, and the writer of Hebrews in the New Testament leans into that reality and basically he says, you know why they never sat down? It's because their work was never done. God's people were constantly sinning, and so lambs constantly had to be sacrificed because the blood of bulls and goats and lambs can't really cover sin. And so, because there was always so much work to do, the priests never sat down, and yet Hebrews again is going to say that Jesus, who John the Baptist described as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, when Jesus offered himself up on the cross and Jesus said it is finished, the writer of Hebrews is going to say that Jesus, right after, he sat down because the work was done. No more payment to be made for sins. If you place your faith in Jesus, the payment is paid in full. Jesus sat down because the work is done. Jesus' death was sufficient, no more work to be done, and so he sat down. And yet, here in Scripture, this is the only time that Jesus gets up from a seat and he does it to welcome his faithful servant home. And Stephen sees it in this moment. You see, Stephen, he was able to be calm in the persecution because he looked up. Stephen got a glimpse into the throne room of heaven, and to steal a phrase that we've already seen in the book of Acts, he can't help but speak of what he's seeing in this moment. And what does he see? He sees the Messiah, Jesus himself, the one that they killed. He is on the throne of the universe. Okay, guys, and so let me tell you is that you will never be able to live like Stephen until you see Jesus like Stephen did. See, at this moment, sure, absolutely, Stephen got this kind of unique vantage point, unique vision of Jesus. And I get it, but isn't faith, as Hebrews 11 again says, isn't faith the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen? You see, Stephen, he was able to face death, face persecution, face chaos and hardship with courage and calm. And he was able to do that because when he looked up, he saw who was on the throne. He saw who ultimate reality was. Okay, my wife knows I've basically listened to every single Ben Sass interview podcast ever this past week. And if you don't know, Ben Sass, he's the former junior senator from Nebraska. And uh this past December, at the uh age he's in his early 50s, he got diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer. And they said, hey, you probably have a couple months to live. Uh and with some treatment and everything, they're they're saying, oh, maybe now he can live to nine, ten, eleven months from his diagnosis. But basically what they are doing is that they are blasting all those cancerous cells in his body, and in turn, they are destroying all the cells of his body. And so even his face is starting to fall apart a little bit, but he's been on basically every podcast that you can imagine over the past couple of months. I mean, uh 60 Minutes, New York Times, all of these things testifying to the grace and the goodness of Jesus, and almost certainly the last few months of his life. And I want to read you guys a piece from this 60 Minutes interview of what he said. Because I think it's so much. We can see Ben Sass, he sees Jesus like Stephen did in this moment. Here's what the interviewer in the 60 Minutes asked him. They asked Ben, How do you reconcile leaving your family behind? And here's how Ben Sass responded. He said, I'm incredibly blessed. My wife Melissa, we've been married for 31 years, and we're gonna be apart for a time. But she's tough and gritty and theologically rooted, and she's gonna be fine. My daughters are 24 and 22, and they're extraordinary. I want to walk them down the aisle when they get married, but that's not likely. My son is 14, and I know he's gonna be fine. He'll have other wise men and women to put a hand on his shoulder, but I'm super bummed to not be there at 16 and 18 and 20 in his life. I want to give him more advice than he wants. And I want to put my arms on his shoulders and I want to see his shoulders get taller. And then he paused in this moment, and much like Stephen did, you can kind of see that internally he was looking up in this moment, that he takes all of the pain and he's trying to look past just these immediately, immediate circumstances that he's seeing. He's looking up towards Jesus, and he says this in the middle of all this pain and suffering, he says, in all of this, it's not a surprise to God. And the interviewer, he almost kind of stumbles over his words there. He's he you can almost tell he was caught off guard by that answer, and he says, Now, Ben, you you believe that God has a plan? You believe that God has a plan in this pain and the suffering? And Ben Sass says, I love this. He said, Absolutely. There are no maverick, there are no rogue molecules in the universe. You see, he's dying of pancreatic cancer, and what is he saying? He's saying, guys, I've seen it. Jesus is on the throne. Jesus is at the right hand of God, he is in total control, that every molecule in existence, including the cancerous cells in my body, they are all under his discretion. And I want you to see Ben Sass, Stephen, they aren't great because they're like these super Christians. No, they're great because both of them see Jesus on the throne. They see Jesus, they see ultimate reality that my King, the one who I know loves me and died for me, he's on the throne, he's controlling everything. And when you know who's in control, it puts everything into perspective for them. And that's how Ben Sass has been able to deal with this in this time. Regardless of what is coming into my life, Jesus is still on the throne, and so I can be stable in the midst of some unstable times. You see, I don't I don't know if you'll ever get to the point of having to die for your faith. Maybe, maybe not, but here's what I've been reflecting on this week. See, maybe, maybe the question for us here at King's Church, maybe for a lot of us, it isn't, hey, am I willing to die for my faith? Maybe that is a good question that we should be answering, but maybe the question isn't, am I willing to die for my faith? Maybe we should be thinking, Am I even living for my faith now? Am I even living for Jesus now? Because if we aren't living for him, if he isn't like Stephen, the center of our life, that we orient everything around, I have a hard time believing that we'll get to that moment where we would actually die for him. Right? But for Stephen, there was just these faithful, these little faithful, cumulative moments where it was faithfulness and faithfulness. And Stephen's gotten to a point where he says, Man, I've already died to myself, and so whatever comes, I'm good with it, because Jesus is on the throne. I can face whatever is coming at me in this moment. I know Mother's Day brunch is coming, so let me wrap this up really quick. Because Stephen's death doesn't end there, it's redeemed. Stephen's death is actually the turning point for the rest of the book of Acts because you see it here in Acts 8, verse 1. It says this Saul agreed with putting him to death. Okay, that's significant. Can't wait to come back to this and our time through the study of Acts. But it says this, this is the turning point. On that day, a severe persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all the apostles were scattered, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout the land of Judea and Samaria. You see, Stephen's service, it provoked the trial. It was Stephen's testimony that provoked the riot, and it was Stephen's death that was a catalyst to advance the gospel. Because as Tertullian once said, it is the blood of the martyrs that is the seed of the church. You see, God redeems the worst things for good. He did it for Stephen. He is doing it in Ben Sass's life, he's done it in my life countless times. Where what I've meant for evil, God has meant for good, he can do it in your life as well. He can do it, he has always done it. What we meant for evil, God means it for good. When the persecution arose, they thought we're gonna keep this whole gospel Jesus thing in Jerusalem, and God says, nope, this is actually the turning point that's gonna put it forth to the ends of the earth. Right here. So this is the turning point in the book of Acts. Maybe Stephen can be a turning point in your own life. Let me pray for us.