Witness Pt. 13

A study into the book of Acts with Pastor Jesse Carr

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

As we think about Mother's Day, I want to ask you a question. If you could condense motherhood into one word, what would that word be? Sure. That's appropriate. Love. It takes a lot of love to be a mom, doesn't it? It takes a lot of patience to be a mom. Takes a lot of devotion to be a mom. Takes a lot of cleaning products to be a mom. Sometimes it takes a little bit of medication to be a mom. Moms wear a lot of hats, don't they? Moms are expected to do so many things. We know that a mom often has to be a chef, business finance manager, guidance counselor, and an ER doctor all rolled into one. You've got to be able to juggle all of these things. But for me, not that I am a mother, even though I do have one and I'm married to one, if I could sum up motherhood into one word, it would be the word sacrifice. Sacrifice. Because moms are on a journey of sacrifice that changes and shifts, but really never ends. During pregnancy, a mother sacrifices her body, her energy to form a life inside of her own body. During childbirth and delivery, a mother sacrifices, often very comes very, very close to sacrificing her own life to bring life into the world. During those months of infancy and early childhood, a mother sacrifices sleep and sanity to bring that child up into maturity. And then what's left of the sanity gets sacrificed during the teenage years. And motherhood is one of those relationships, perhaps better than any other human relationship, that reminds us that there are relationships and connections we have with one another that are so primal and so essential that there are actually some people that we would kill or be killed for. And moms know this, don't they? That dear lady that you bought flowers for and are going to take to Olive Garden here in a little while, if the wrong person wronged her babies, she would disembowel them and think nothing of it. So moms do. But on the other hand, if circumstances demanded that a mom lay down her life for her children, she would eagerly do that because she understands sacrifice is the burden of motherhood. And so, as you think about that sacrifice, it may be worth asking today if you made a list of people that you would be willing to lay down your life for. Literally die for. It's a pretty short list of people that I would literally die for. You would probably die for your spouse. Maybe die for your parents, certainly die for your children, maybe your pastor, there are people that you would lay down your life for. We know that people do that from time to time, even for total strangers. We know that our community and our country regularly call upon first responders or military personnel to give up their lives for the safety of our citizens. We understand that. But as hard as it may be for us to wrap our minds around this Mother's Day, as American Christians in a Baptist church, comfortable and safe, there are times when people have been called upon to lay down their lives for Jesus. And we're going to read about the first person who ever did that in the book of Acts this morning. We're going to read about the martyrdom of a man by the name of Stephen who found in Jesus the one who had given him life to such a degree that even if he laid down his life, laid down everything for Jesus, he would lose nothing. He found so life-giving that even if Jesus asked him for everything, he would lose nothing. We're going to read part of his story this morning, try and talk about all of it. Join me in Acts chapter 6 and verse number 8. If you have a Bible with you, Acts chapter 6 and verse number 8. Acts chapter 6 and verse number 8. The word of God says that Stephen, full of faith and power, did great wonders and signs among the people. Then there arose some from what is called the synagogue of the freedmen, Cyrenians, Alexandrians, and those from Cilicia and Asia, disputing with Stephen. And they were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he spoke. Then they secretly induced men to say, We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God. And they stirred up the people, the elders, and the scribes, and they came upon him, seized him, and brought him to the council. They also set up false witnesses who said, This man does not cease to speak blasphemous words against this holy place and the law. For we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs which Moses delivered to us. And all who sat in the council, looking steadfastly at him, saw his face as the face of an angel. Now, skip ahead all the way over chapter, all the way over chapter 7 to Acts chapter number 8 and verse number 1. Acts 8 and verse number 1, maybe just a page or two in your Bible, which says that Saul was consenting to his death. At that time a great persecution arose against the church which was at Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria except the apostles. And devout men carried Stephen to his burial and made great lamentation over him. The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of the Lord abideth forever. Acts chapter number six both starts and ends with the church on trial. The beginning of Acts chapter number six, the church is on trial by some disappointed members. We find out that there are widows in the church who are not receiving their daily distribution of food and they're not happy about it. It's hard for me to be happy when I'm hungry. I get it. And they begin to complain and judge and criticize and critique the leadership of the early church. The leaders of the church come together, they make a recommendation that seven men who have exceptional wisdom and exceptional faith, with exceptional probably administrative abilities, that they solve the problem in the church. And we're told that one of those men is named Stephen. When you come to the end of Acts chapter number six, it is Stephen himself who is on trial. As he has gone about preaching and proclaiming the gospel, he becomes the flashpoint of controversy that will lead to his trial and then lead to his execution. Stephen has believed the gospel so deeply. He has proclaimed it so convincingly. He has lived for Jesus so deeply, believably, that there are people that can't handle it. And in Acts 6, he finds himself on trial. In Acts 7, that we did not read, we will look at. It reminds me of a piece of advice that I received on the day that I was ordained. I was ordained to the gospel ministry on Sunday, June the 1st, 2008. That's the day that I stopped being Mr. Jesse Carr and became Reverend Jesse Carr. Now, that's not important, but that's the day that I was ordained. And on that date, when I was ordained, one of the men who was on that presbytery, the ordaining council, gave me a piece of advice. And this brother said this to me. He said, Preach and go home. What he meant was you discharge your duty as a preacher of the gospel, you put it in God's hands, and then you go home and let the Lord worry about it. Preach and go home. Well, in a different sense, Stephen is going to preach and then he's going home. And so what does his preaching look like and sound like? Well, notice with me there as we begin in verse number six, Stephen's last sermon has an invitation or has an introduction that cannot be ignored. Stephen's sermon has an introduction that cannot be ignored. You see this there in Acts chapter 6. Depending on who you ask, when a preacher or any public speaker gets up to speak to an audience, because our modern American attention span is so diminished by social media and brain rot and television, we have between seven to thirty seconds to grab your attention, or we don't have you at all. You've got to do something to bring people in. You've got to tell a stupid joke, you've got to give a funny story, you've got to give a compelling statistic, or you've got to talk about the sacrifice of motherhood. You've got to do something to bring people in. How does Stephen bring people in? Well, it's not so much what he says, but it's what he's doing there in Acts 6 8. The Bible says that he's going around doing good, he's doing miracles. He is a miracle worker, full of faith and full of power, doing incredible things in the name of Jesus. This is amazing about Stephen, that he is a powerful man, able to do the unexplained as the Spirit of God works through him. But we also know about Stephen from earlier in Acts chapter 6 that this is a man who cared about the people in the church that really didn't have a voice. He cared for the widows. He was taking meals to widows, knocking on their door every day. Mrs. Johnson, we've got your chicken castle or whatever it was. Stephen was able to serve without being noticed. And he was able to preach without being scared. He's a unique man, a unique mix of gifts. And he's an inspiring man. But as I thought about Stephen's life studying this sermon this week, I thought it's an important observation that I want to give to you today that these things that were written about Stephen that make him appear so incredible and make him appear so unique. You know, they were written long after he was killed. They were written long after his death. Several years ago, when I pastored a different church, I called in all of our staff members and a lot of the key leaders in the church, and I sat them down at a table, and we were going to talk about some major decisions, and I gave everybody a piece of paper, and I gave everybody a pen, and I said, I want you to write your obituary. And they looked at me like, what? They thought I was gonna kill them. I said, I want you to write your obituary. And they started to write down the kind of things about themselves that we won't set in our obituary. He was a loving father, caring mother, avid pickleball player, whatever. They write all this stuff down. And then I made this point to them. I said, if you want these things said about you after you're dead, you need to get to it while you're alive. Now I thought that was a really good point. I thought it was a valuable teaching moment. But I also don't work at that church anymore, so I may have missed it completely. Nevertheless, I do think there's something to be said for stopping every so often in our lives and taking inventory of where we are and saying, what are people going to say about me after I'm gone? I want people to say I'm a devoted father. Am I a devoted father? I mean, who do you think is going to write the obituary? Those two are. I want people to say that I love Jesus and I serve him faithfully. Am I loving him and serving him faithfully? I want people to say that I'm a devoted member of Mud Creek Baptist Church. Am I a devoted member of Bud Creek Baptist Church? Are we living today so that when we're gone, we have this kind of legacy? Well, Stephen did. And we can read about it 2,000 years later in Acts 6. But that does not mean that everybody liked what they saw in Stephen. In fact, the Bible says there in verse number 9 that a group of people from a specific synagogue that was made up, interestingly, of people that weren't really from the borders of Israel. I think this is significant. And they begin to dispute with Stephen. They begin to argue with him, but they can't win the arguments. Don't you hate that? Don't you hate that? This is what it's like to be a husband. We try to argue and we just never win. And so they realize that because they cannot silence the message, they will silence the messenger. They begin to work behind the scenes to hire false witnesses, and then that spills over basically into a lynch mob. And if you know the story of the life of Jesus, this sounds eerily familiar to the death of Jesus, doesn't it? And the charge against Stephen takes on several layers. They say that Stephen is committing blasphemy, which is not true, but they say specifically in verse number 14 that they have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs which Moses delivered to us. The four pillars of ancient Jewish life were the law of Moses, the temple in Jerusalem, the covenant act of circumcision, and then the weekly Sabbath. They take two of those pillars and they say, Stephen's preaching of the gospel attacks our temple in Jerusalem and attacks the law of Moses. And so they say, if Stephen is right, then he is going to destroy everything that came before, and he's going to build something entirely new that we do not want. And so while they have to lie, and while they have to manipulate, and while they have to hire false witnesses, friends, they're not entirely wrong. They're not entirely wrong. Because if the gospel is true, if Jesus has made a new and living way into the presence of God, then do we need a temple in Jerusalem to know God? If Jesus has made a full atonement for our sins on Calvary's cross through his death, do we need to continually make the sacrifices of sheep and bulls and goats? Do they not rightly understand the moment and say, if he's right, then he redefines everything that has come before and he reimagines everything that will come after. I think they are right, yet they refuse to accept it. They refuse to let go of their old way of thinking and their old life. Since today's Mother's Day, I want to tell you the fascinating true story of a man by the name of Ignaz Simelweiss, who is so influential and so important in the history of medical sites and obstetrics, that I am amazed that there are not some little similvices running around our church. This man is literally the reason that some of you survived childbirth, whether you are a child or a mother. Ignaz Simmelweiss. And you've never heard of him, have you? Here's what he did. Our medical professionals will appreciate this. Ignot Simmelweiss was a Hungarian doctor in the 19th century who practiced medicine, delivering babies, in Vienna, Austria. And he became greatly concerned about the high mortality rates that accompany childbirth. Obviously, a different world, a different time, and we know that childbirth is still very dangerous at times, but it was very, very dangerous then. Most, or not most, but a lot of women, many children did not survive. And so Simmelweiss had a theory. And his theory was that maybe, just maybe, that a doctor who's just performed an autopsy on a corpse should wash his hands before he goes to deliver a baby. Seems pretty reasonable to me. Now, Simmelweiss lived in a time when he did not know about germs. He did not understand germ theory of disease. He lived in a time when the common prevailing belief was that diseases came from miasma or bad air. Or, you know, you had like ghosts in your blood and you had to get leeches to get it out or whatever. They didn't know. And he couldn't prove his theory. But he put it into practice. All the doctors that were delivering babies at his hospital in Vienna, they all had to wash their hands before they went to deliver babies. And the mortality rate of infants and women dropped from 18% to 2%. It's an incredible story. But the medical professionals around him said, this is nonsense. Their argument was, we are doctors, we are gentlemen, we don't need to wash our hands. And so Simovai spent his entire medical career hounded, moved from hospital to hospital, embarrassed, scorned, and humiliated because if he's right, it means you have to redefine medicine completely. If he's right, it gives a whole new understanding to surgery. If he's right, the old way of doing things has to stop and a new way has to be born. Now I know this morning that on this Mother's Day, we're a long way away from 1860s, Vienna, Austria, and we're even further away from Jerusalem circa 30 BC. We don't care as much about the laws and the customs of the Jews in the first century. We don't have their concerns. But I do want to say to you today that the gospel of the Lord Jesus still comes to every single human being and still says, I will rebuild your life. I will tear down everything that came before, and I will establish something new. And some of you today are like Stephen's opponents. You know that. And the reason you don't want to trust Jesus is because you realize it requires stepping into an entirely new way of living. And you've got the same hostility. Now I hope you don't stone the preacher when this is over, but you've got the same animosity or apathy towards Jesus. You have no interest in him because you know he offers nothing less than a new life, and you like your life. So Stephen's introduction that cannot be missed. But let's move further into the actual sermon that he preaches in Acts chapter number seven. And let's talk about the point that cannot be ignored. We've talked about the introduction that cannot be ignored. Let's talk about the point that cannot be ignored. What's Stephen's sermon's about? Well, his sermon is really unlike anything that you would ever hear in church today because Stephen goes through the better part of 3,000 years of Jewish history, just hopping from point to point. All the main characters are here. Abraham's here, Moses is here, David's here, the prophet Isaiah's here, the minor prophet Amos even makes an appearance, and he brings all of that history that his audience knew, he brings it to bear on them. But the way I understand Stephen's sermon, and I may be wrong, but the way I understand his sermon, Stephen really is only giving two points to his audience. For everything that he preaches in Acts chapter 7, he's only preaching two points. Every sermon needs a point. This sermon that I'm preaching to you today has three points. I've preached a lot of them that had no points. Stephen has two points as I see them. His first point is this: He says that God has been uniquely good to Israel, the people. But his goodness, his faithfulness to Israel, the people, is not limited to the geographic borders of Israel, the nation. For instance, he begins his sermon by talking about their common ancestor Abraham. And he says, yes, God called Abraham. God made promises to Abraham. God made Abraham the father of our people and the father of our faith. But here's his point: where was Abraham at when God called him? Was he in Jerusalem? No. He was down slumbering in modern-day Iraq somewhere in Babylon. Earn of the Caldiz, the Bible says. And more importantly, was Abraham a Jew when God called him? Was he a Hebrew when God called him? No, because there weren't any Hebrews. Abraham was the first one. And out of the raw mass of Gentile paganism, God makes a covenant people. He moves forward to talk about Abraham's great-grandson by the name of Joseph, who is imprisoned in Egypt. And yet, even though Joseph suffered away from the promised land, God was faithful while he was away. His presence and his power were not limited to one geographical location. Then he goes further. And he talks there in Acts chapter number 7 about the temple. He talks about Moses. He says, Where was Moses at when God appeared to him? Was he in Jerusalem? No. He was at Mount Sinai, Mount Horeb, where the burning bush comes. And then he culminates this point with what he says in verses 49 and 50, where he quotes Isaiah chapter 66 and says, Heaven is my throne and earth is my footstool. What house will you build for me, says the Lord, or what is the place of my rest? Has my hand not made all these things? The Jewish people had come to believe that the temple was the point and the only point where God's presence touched earth. That everything that God would do would be limited to this geographical mailing address of the temple on the Holy Mount in Jerusalem, and God was not going to do anything anywhere else. And yet now Stephen goes back to their history, quoting their prophets, looking at their patriarchs, reimagining their stories, saying God was never limited to one place. Now you've probably never thought that God's presence was only limited here to 403 Rutledge Drive in Hendersonville, North Carolina. I doubt you've worried about this at all. And yet, there is something important about Stephen's point here today that I think we need to take with us. And that is that Christians today do not have a temple. Have you thought of this? Almost every other religion in the history of the world has a place where people go to meet with the divine. But Christians do not. Yes, we have churches, but that's a different thing. Because we don't believe that God actually just lives here, nowhere else. Where do we believe the temple of God is now? We believe it's inside his people. Christians do not have sacrifices. We don't kill animals to satisfy God. We don't even leave out little bowls of fruit for God to eat while we're in bed at night. Why? Christians do not have priests. Now I know some Christian denominations call their clergies clergy priests, but the New Testament never does that. The New Testament always refers to the Christian clergy as shepherds, elders, or bishops, overseers? Why? Why do we not have priests? Why do we not have sacrifices? Why do we not have a temple? The reason is, friends, because Jesus has become all of those things for us. Because for us, like Stephen, Jesus is everything. He is the sacrifice that has made an end to our sins. He is the priest who represents us to God so that we depend on no other man for that. And he is, through his death and resurrection, the means by which we access God and are welcomed into the holy place of heaven so that we do not need a temple to do that. It's an important point. Here's his second point. His second point is that in spite of God's unique blessings and faithfulness to Israel, Israel was never faithful to God. In other words, Stephen says, look back over your history. Y'all are not the good guys in this story. He demolishes their self-righteousness as he rereads the Old Testament and he asks this question: When Joseph was betrayed and sold into slavery, who betrayed him? His brothers, the sons of Jacob. Who was it? When Moses was up on the mountain receiving the law of God, what were the Israelites doing? What were the people of God doing? The faithful covenant community, what were they doing? They were dancing around naked around a golden calf. Then he goes through all of these stories of the Old Testament and says that in spite of God's goodness, in spite of God's faithfulness, and in spite of your erroneous belief that you are the faithful covenant-keeping people of God, you are not faithful and obedient. Culminating with what he says in verse number 51 of Acts 7, you are stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears. And they're not happy about that. Because for them, they read the Old Testament and said, We are the good guys. We are the only people that have God's truth, the only people that have God's law, the only people that have God's covenant. Stephen said, Yeah, you've got it, but you've never been the faithful covenant partner. And so Stephen looks back through the Old Testament and you're left missing something. What you're left missing in Stephen's reading of the Old Testament is this. Who's the good guy? Israel wasn't the good guy. According to Amos 5, which Stephen quotes here in Acts chapter 7, they're not worshiping the moon and stars or whatever else. They're not faithfully being the people of God. Where is the good guy? Stephen's point is that Jesus came to be the good guy that you're not. He came to be what Israel should have been and yet never was, God's faithful covenant partner to bring the blessings that God promised to Abraham to those that were not descendants of Abraham, which is me and you as Gentiles. Now that doesn't land for us because we don't appreciate all the racial dynamics of the Bible, but I'm going to tell you something today. Unless you are here today and you are an Israelite or you are a descendant of Jewish people, then you are on the outside of the Bible looking in. And yet what the Bible says to us today is that even though we may have been segregated and left out, the Lord Jesus came to be the faithful Israel one to bring the covenant blessings of God to all the nations so that those of us who were outside could now be welcomed in. Those of us who are not a people of God are now the people of God so that we can say, God's covenant promises are ours. God's righteousness is ours, and we belong to Him. Stephen is preaching up to this point, and they're not liking it. And the reason they're not liking it is because they don't want to be the bad guy. Do you like to be the bad guy? You know, you are the bad guy in somebody else's story, right? You know, there's somebody that talks about their life, and you're the bad guy. We don't like that. And even though we may not have the same concerns as the Jewish people, the reality is for us today, friends, there must come a moment when we realize that we are the bad guy in this story. That we are not the one who deserves anything good from God, but we are the ones that have to come humbly in repentance, receiving everything from Him. That we are not the people that can put out our chests in self-righteousness like these Jews in Acts 7 wanted to and say, Look at what we've done and look at what we deserve. But we have to look at our sins and say, Look at what I've done, look at what I deserve. But God give me grace. Some of you need to own the fact that you're the bad guy, but that Jesus can become the hero that you need. It's a great sermon, but it's a long sermon, and I'm trying to avoid a long sermon this morning. So let's move to the conclusion. Somebody said, Amen. Stephen's conclusion cannot be forgotten. Because as he preaches this challenging message, saying even in verse number 52, you've killed all the prophets. No, it's true, the people of Israel had rejected the prophets that they claimed to have loved after the fact. He said, Ultimately, not only have you rejected the messengers, you rejected Jesus and crucified him. You rejected the very message. The Bible says, 54, that when they hear these things, they were cut to the heart, they're torn in pieces. They gnash at him with their teeth. Stephen's invitation looks less like people coming to receive Jesus, and it looks more like an angry mob coming to kill Stephen. And they do kill him. But notice what happens in the very, very last minutes of his life. Verse 55 says that he was full of the Holy Spirit. He gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, and he says, Look! I see the heavens open, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.

unknown 29:36

Amen.

SPEAKER_00 29:37

I love this moment for Stephen. Because here's this brother who probably senses that this sermon did not go real great. And he senses that his life is about to be over. And yet, in grace, God just pulls back the veil that separates this world from the world to come. And he's able to see in his last moments, he sees Jesus standing at the right hand of God. Now, why was Jesus standing? The Bible tells us explicitly in Hebrews chapter number one that our Lord, after he made an end of our sins, went to the right hand of the Father on high and sat down because his work is finished. Jesus is seated today at the right hand of God because there's nothing more for him to do. He's done. So why is he standing here for Stephen? There are a lot of theories about this. I think one way to look at it is that even though the world stood against Stephen, Jesus said, Buddy, I'll stand with you. I think it was an encouragement to Stephen at the very last moments of his life that even when everybody else walked out, Jesus was still right there. I think it inspired him to cross the finish line because he recognized that the one whose approval really mattered was giving him a standing ovation. Maybe he realized that Jesus was just standing up to come unlock the door. I don't know. But I do know that Stephen is given a glimpse here. And in the very last moments, he's able to see with his eyes. This is real. And it's worth it. And God, in his grace, through the Spirit, gave him this vision to carry him over the finish line of his sermon. Now I have to confess to you today that I've never preached a sermon that's ended in an ecstatic vision for me. And the only sermons that I've ever preached that have ended in ecstatic visions for anybody else required medical care. This is atypical. But I do want to say on my part that even though I have not ever seen it with these eyes, I have looked into that other world with the eyes of faith. And I'll take my place with Stephen today and say it's real. And I'll say to you today, it's worth it. That what the Lord has said and what he has done, friends, it will sustain us. And there is in the message of the gospel a message like Stephen had found that will enable us to live and will empower us to die. And once you've looked like Stephen and you've seen our resurrected Redeemer and crucified God, ready to welcome you home, I'm going to tell you you'll find in Jesus somebody you can live for and somebody you can die with. And I'll just say for my part, I found in the Lord Jesus not only the best friend that I've ever had, not only the one that has carried the heavy and the burden, and not only the one who has fought the hardest part of the battle, but I've found in him one that I can live for and one that I am able to die with. But, but Stephen says something far deeper here. Because he says, I see the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God, everybody in his audience, their mind immediately goes to the book of Daniel, chapter number seven, where Daniel himself has a prophetic vision of one like the Son of Man coming where to the ancient of days, to the throne of God, receiving from God, verse 14, a kingdom and power and glory. He says, I see Jesus as the one that has been given an everlasting kingdom by our God. The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, the God of Moses, the God of Isaiah, and the God of Amos. He has given to Jesus a kingdom that will never end. And boy, they don't like that. In fact, that's the comment, that's the comment, verse number 57, that pushes them over the edge into this animalistic brutality. They cry with a loud voice, stopped their ears, and they ran up to him, they throw him out of the city and they stone him. But then at the very, very end, verse 59, he prays, Jesus, receive my spirit. And he gives this wonderful echo of the heart of Jesus with his dying words, verse 60, Lord, do not charge them with this sin. And when he said this, he fell asleep. I love that phrase, he fell asleep. Because my favorite thing after I preach is to go home and take a nap. While wicked and evil men tried to silence his voice. His last words, Lord, forgive them, they're an echo of what Jesus said at the cross, aren't they? Father, forgive them, but they know not what they do. The gospel had changed him to the deepest level until Stephen ultimately, and this is what I want to conclude with today for my part. Stephen ultimately found what every person here is looking for in life. We want to live with confidence and we want to die in peace. That's the whole ballgame. Some of you think, no, no, no, I want to be rich, I want to be successful, I want to have toys. Yeah, okay, sure. But the reason you want to be rich and the reason you want to be successful, and the reason you want 10 billion followers on Instagram or whatever, is because you want to live in confidence. And you believe that stuff will do it. You believe it'll make you happy, you believe it'll sustain you, you believe it'll give you joy. All we really want is to live in confidence and die with peace, and Stephen had it. He had it. His life looked very different than ours, and yet he had what we're all after. So that he would be able to say what the apostle Paul would say years later, who watched Stephen die, when he wrote his letter to the church at Philippi, Philippians 1.21, to live is Christ, but to die is gained. I submit to you today that we cannot actually say to die is gain until we are able to say to live is Christ. Until Jesus becomes everything to us, we're not really ready to live, and we're not really ready to die. But if Jesus has become everything to us, we can live in confidence and we can die in peace. And Stephen did. And Stephen did. But there's a part of me that has reflected on Stephen this week and thought, you know what a waste this was. Here's what I mean. Think back to how Stephen is described in Acts 6. We know Stephen was a kind man. He cared about widows that were hungry. We know Stephen was a servant who was eager to step in and help solve other people's problems. We know that Stephen was intellectually gifted. He's able to argue with gifted theologians and they don't have an answer for him. We know that he was a history nerd based upon how he interprets the Old Testament. We know that he loved Jesus. We know that he was gifted and passionate in all of these incredible ways, wise and humble and powerful. He's just, he's the perfect man, you would almost say. And isn't it a waste for somebody like that to die so early, so tragically, so violently, to be cut so short. Isn't that a waste? There are clues in the text that tell me, no, there's more happening here. It's not a waste. Acts chapter 7, the end of the passage, verse 58, says that when they cast Stephen out of the city to stone him, the witnesses laid down their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul. Then the Bible tells us, in Acts 8.1, that Saul was consenting to his death. God used this moment to transform the man who would become the Apostle Paul. Was it a waste? Well, ask Stephen after he's been in heaven for five minutes. Was all that worth it? What do you think he would say? I think he would say, you know, the way I had to leave maybe wasn't ideal. There are easier ways to die than being stoned to death. But I think Stephen would say, he was worth it. I did not waste anything when he called me to lay down everything. Now, the likelihood that I will die as a martyr is very, very low, for which I am exceedingly thankful. Most of us are not going to be called on to die for Jesus, but we are going to be expected to live for him. And so, even though I'm in a very different situation than Stephen preaching to a very different audience, I want you to know that Jesus is worth it. That I've known our Lord for nearly half my life. And I've never regretted trusting him. I've never regretted following him. I've never regretted the night at 17 years old when I looked at him in repentance and faith and took him as my Savior and as my Lord. I want to say to you, there have been times when I've been hurt deeply. There have been times when I feel like at least I've suffered greatly. There have been times when I felt like I had nowhere else to turn. And yet in those moments, Jesus was there. He was there to forgive me when I've been wrong. He's there to walk with me when I've been lonely. He's there to comfort me when I'm sad. He's there, the Bible says, to bottle my tears when I weep. And I'm going to go on record publicly today and say, He's been worth it. He's been worth every sacrifice. He's been worth every risk. And I do not regret walking with Jesus all of these years. And I don't know how I would do if I was called to die for him. But I do know if I made it through the other side, I would stand in glory where Stephen is right now and say it was worth it, wasn't it? He would say, Yeah, it sure was. And so I know that there are people that are here this morning that would lend their voice to that course of martyrs and that course of faithful believers, and they would say, Yes, Jesus is worth it. He's worth my life, he's worth my faith, he's worth my journey. I'll walk with him, I'll follow him however he wants me to live for him, and even if he wants me to die for him, I will do it because he's worth it.