Let's turn to Acts chapter 8. We'll look at verses 8-15 this
morning. The lesson this morning is on
Stephen, an example of faith and boldness in the preaching
of the gospel and witnessing of the Lord Jesus Christ. Stephen
is singled out here as a witness of the Lord Jesus Christ. We saw previously in this chapter
that he was one of the seven that was chosen as a deacon to
distribute the money and take care of the widows and to do
that so the apostles could give themselves to prayer, study,
and preaching of the gospel. But here he is set forth to me
and you as an example of faith, as an example of boldness in
witnessing of the Lord Jesus Christ. Stephen, like Paul, did not count
his life dear unto him. try to save his life and take
the edge off the gospel, but he preached the gospel boldly.
And in that day, as we will see in the next chapter, preaching
Christ, you better be very serious because
you're gonna lose your life. All the apostles were martyred. Stephen, we will see in chapter
seven, is stoned to death. He's stoned to death for the
preaching of the gospel, the preaching of good news. Isn't
that amazing? He preached the good news. He set forth Jesus
Christ as Lord and Savior and Messiah, and he was stoned to
death for it. But he counted not his life dear
unto him. And I would to God that we could
come to the place in our life that we don't count our life
dear unto us, whatever the cost is, in preaching the Gospel and
getting out the Gospel, that we would do so, as he did. Now it says in verse 8 that Stephen
was full of faith and power, and he did great wonders and
miracles among the people. God put His hand to Stephen's
message by the miracles that he performed. You know, you and
I have the word of God. We don't need miracles. We have
the word of God. You can take what I say and you
can open the word of God and find out whether it's so or not.
Be like the brave Bereans who searched the scriptures to see
whether those things be so. But the Lord attended his preaching
by miracles. But it says here, first of all,
that he was full of faith and power. Stephen believed God. He believed the gospel. And he
was not afraid nor ashamed to own Christ as Lord and Savior,
to own Christ as the Messiah. He was not afraid to do that.
And he was standing in their synagogue. He was standing in
the enemy's territory, and boldly stood up and preached the gospel.
Did I say chapter eight? Well, that won't be the first
time, and it won't be the last. Good. I'm glad you told me that.
Vicki told me here, oh, it's been a few weeks ago. She said,
you never did tell us the chapter we were preaching in Psalms.
She said, you never did tell us the chapter. Well, I hope
you get the message. I might get the chapter wrong,
but I tell you this, you won't get the message wrong. And that's
what's important. Chapter 6, verse 8 through 15,
and I'm not going to start over. Stephen here, he believed the
gospel. Christ was his life. And when I think of that and
studying the scriptures, Paul said, for me to live is Christ
that dies again. What is it for me to live? Is
it to lay up for retirement? Is it to have a comfortable life?
Is that what it is for me to live? Or is it Christ? No matter whether I live in a
comfortable home or in a shack, does it really matter? It doesn't
matter. Christ is my life. That's more than saying that
Christ has given me life, though He has. But He's not only given
me life, He is that life. Without Him, I don't have it.
And with Stephen here, Christ was his life. And everything
else took second place. Everything else took second place.
And it says here, he was full of faith. That means he was a
faithful man. You know, faith and faithfulness
always go together. You cannot be full of faith and
not be faithful to the gospel. Not be faithful to Christ, not
be faithful in attendance to hear the gospel, not be faithful
in supporting the gospel. Faith is evidenced by what? Faithfulness. It is written in
the Scriptures, it is required in a steward that he be found
faithful. And Stephen was found faithful.
God blesses faithfulness. He blesses faithfulness. Unfaithfulness
shows that we have greater interest in something else than we do
Christ. It's evidence that I have a greater
interest in something else or some other thing than the Lord
Jesus Christ. You know, our Lord said this,
He that loves mother, father, sister, brother more than Me
is not worthy of Me. That's a powerful statement. He didn't say, He that loves
mother, father, sister, brother as He loves Me, because there's
nothing wrong with that. We ought to love one another
as we love Christ. He said, more, more than me. That's a problem. That's a problem. You know, we, as I said here,
unfaithfulness shows that we have a greater interest in something
else than Christ. Something else has come along
and taken our attention. Martha, Martha. Thou art comforted
about with much service." She was upset about Mary not helping
her, and the Lord said, Mary has chosen that one thing needful,
and that was sitting at His feet when He was there and learning
from Him. We are here this morning. Let's
sit at His feet this morning, and as much as possible, let's
cut the cares of this life off. Ask the Lord to enable you and
me to focus on Him this morning, to seek after Him and to worship
Him, to truly give unto Him the glory that's due unto His name.
Now, we need Martha's. We do need Martha's. We need
someone in the kitchen. We need someone who's looking
after the things that we need to look after. But when it's
time to sit at His feet, Martha's, need to set those things aside
and sit at His feet, along with Mary. And then something else here.
Faithfulness shows that a man, a man or a woman, has counted
the cost and has found Christ to be much better. You've counted the cost. You've
looked at Christ. And you've looked at this world,
you've looked at the things that you have, the things that you
are doing, and you have counted Christ to be more precious this
morning than anything else, haven't you? That's why you're here. Those who believe, that's why
you're here. You're here because Christ is
more precious than anything else. And you want to hear of Him this
morning. You don't want me standing up here talking about this and
that, things that really doesn't matter. You want to hear more
of the Lord Jesus Christ. You want me to sit in that study
and then come out here on Sunday morning and Thursday night and
give unto you the unsearchable, unsearchable riches of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And in doing that, That enables
you to grow in grace and in knowledge of Him. And when you do that,
that enables you to set your heart on things above. And when
you do that, that enables you to let the things of this life
go. They're not that important. They're really not that important.
What is important is what I have in Christ. Set your heart on things above.
Your treasure, our treasure, where is our treasure at? Well,
your treasure is, here's how important this is. Where your
treasure is, your heart is also. Now, where's my heart? What is
my heart set on this morning? This very moment, I'm not talking
about yesterday, it's gone. You can't do anything about that.
You can't do anything about the last minute, but what is my heart
set on right now? Now, in verse 9, trouble arises
in the synagogue. Stephen, you know, he goes to
the synagogue. You know, there were 480 synagogues
in Jerusalem. You think there's a church, we
call a church on every corner? Well, actually, there's not a
church on every corner. There's a religious building
on every corner, and there's religious meetings going on on
every corner. But now the church is gathered
in one place. First of all, the church is gathered
this morning in Christ. You know that the whole church
this morning that's gathered to worship is assembled in Jesus
Christ. And then here we are this morning
assembled together in Christ. We are gathered together. But
here there was 480 synagogues and He happens to be in one of
them. And there's trouble, trouble
over preaching the gospel. He's in the synagogue that's
called the synagogue of the Libertines. These were the free, these were
called the free men. These were Jews who were free.
They had been in slavery and they were set free by the Roman
government. And then there were the Cyrenians
and the Alexandrians, and of them, and this is interesting
here, of them of Cilicia. This is a synagogue the apostle
Paul attended in Cilicia. Remember, he was from Cilicia.
Well, guess who's standing in chapter 7. When they go to stone
Stephen and they give a young man their clothes to hold their
coats while they stone Stephen, it's the apostle Paul. He probably is right here in
this group. Paul is right here in this group and probably just
as mad and upset right here as he can be. And Stephen here with
great boldness, stands and preaches and they get upset about it,
they find the message that he's preaching of Christ crucified,
Christ risen, Christ as Lord, they find it offensive. And the natural man does. The
religious man without Christ finds the gospel of sovereign
grace offensive. It's offensive. It offends a
man's thoughts of himself. It offends a man's thoughts of
God, the way he thinks of God. It offends his thoughts of the
way he thinks God ought to save sinners, the way he believes
God does save sinners. It's offensive. It offends his
thoughts. It offends the way he thinks.
We naturally think opposite of God. My thoughts are not your
thoughts and my ways are not your ways. And when God crosses
our path, we find the gospel naturally offensive. It takes
the power of God, the power of the Holy Spirit, to make us willing
to bow to Jesus Christ. It takes the power of the Holy
Spirit to create in us a new heart, a right spirit, where
we fall in love with Jesus Christ as He's revealed in the Word
of God. That's of God. Faith, a new heart, a new nature,
that's a work of God. And until that happens, we find
the gospel to be offensive. But it says here in verse 10,
They were not able to resist the wisdom and the Spirit by
which He spake. And the reason being is this,
the wisdom and Spirit by which He spake was the Spirit of Jesus
Christ in Him. Christ speaking through Him.
If this morning I am truly preaching Christ, if I'm truly preaching,
it's the Lord speaking through me. It's not just me. I pray God it's not me. He's
using my voice. I'm just an instrument. When
they asked John the Baptist who he was, He did not say, I am
John the Baptist, I'm the forerunner. You need to pay attention. But
he said this, I'm just a voice. I'm just a voice. That's all
I am. I am an instrument in God's hand
through preaching the gospel. I'm the instrument God is using.
At this moment, at this hour, I'm the instrument God's using,
but the voice, The message, the voice is God, it's God and it's
of God. It's His voice. Now some will
hear it and some won't. Some will hear it and some won't.
I think to me, one of the evidence that a man is sin of God and
that he's preaching under the power of the Spirit of Christ
He's preaching with authority. Preaching with authority is not
speaking loud. That's not preaching with authority.
Anybody can do that. But here's the best example I
can give you. When Mary went and visited Elizabeth
when she was pregnant with the Lord, and she went to visit Elizabeth
as she was pregnant with John the Baptist. When she walked
in the room, What does the scripture say happened? It says with Elizabeth,
the child leaped in her womb. When I hear the gospel, when
I hear the gospel preached in the power of the Holy Spirit,
my heart leaps within me. It just leaps within me. I just
want to shout, that's right, that's it, that's the gospel,
you got it. You got it. As one man that used to work
for me years ago when I had the machine shop, the one saying
he would say was, I hear you, when I'd be telling him something,
explaining something to him. And I knew when I got to the
cross, he goes, I hear you. And that's when someone is preaching
the gospel and I know the Lord is in it, I hear you. But my
heart, I'm telling you, my heart leaps within me. I rejoice, even
if it's rebuking me, even if the word of God is rebuking me,
I rejoice, I hear, I hear. It's like Samuel said, when the
Lord spoke the second time, Eli said, go back. I'm not going
to go through that story. But Eli said, now, when you hear
that voice again, you tell the Lord to speak. And when it happened
again, Samuel said, speak, Lord, thy servant heareth. Speak. Speak to me this morning. Ask
God to do that. Because if not, you're going
to go away just as empty as you came. Ask God to speak to you
this morning. Lord, open my heart. Open my
understanding. Open my eyes. Let me receive
the Word. Let me receive your message.
Open my heart. That's what I want. He spoke
by the wisdom and Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ. It was Christ
speaking through him. And the second observation here
is this, God is our sufficiency in preaching. I don't have the ability to handle
matters of life and death. You know what I'm handling this
morning is the Word of Truth. What I'm handling this morning
is the glory of God. What I'm handling this morning
has eternal consequences added to it. I have a heavy, heavy
weight this morning, and you do too in hearing. Take heed
how you hear. With what measure you meet it
with, it shall be measured to you again. You know, when we,
and this ought to be the attitude. Now we may not do it physically,
but in our hearts, we ought to be up on the edge of our seat
the second this Bible is opened. If I do nothing this morning,
if I do nothing but read the word of God, God is speaking,
I ought to be up on the edge of my seat, at least in my heart
and say, Lord, let me hear what you're saying. Because God is
speaking. This is His Word. It's His Word. And God is our sufficiency in
preaching. Paul said, no man is sufficient
for these things. No seminary on this earth can
enable a man to preach the gospel. You know that? It might enable
a man to learn how to look at the Scriptures and make an outline.
I'm not giving you an outline this morning. I pray, God, I'm
giving you Christ. I'm giving you truth. I'm giving
you something to take home. Something to live by and grow
by. God is our sufficiency. Nobody
can make me a sufficient preacher but Jesus Christ. He's the only
one. You know, most places when they
want to call a pastor, what's the first thing they look at
in our day? His credentials. They look to see if he has graduated
from a seminary. Now, it's good to have an education,
okay? I don't want to grow up and be
a dummy. It's good to have an education. Solomon said wisdom,
you know, it's better to have wisdom. But here is what I need. I need to be called of God and
gifted of God. given the ability to preach.
He's my sufficiency. Stephen preached to them in the
power of the Holy Spirit, and he preached to them in the name
of that name that's above every name, the name of Jesus Christ. He preached in His name. He preached
the substitutionary character of Christ. He preached Christ
fulfilling the law, providing the righteousness for sinners.
He preached Christ King of Kings and Lord of Lords. When you realize,
when you and I really realize, and when it really becomes so
much a part of our thinking, day-to-day thinking, it'll settle
our hearts that Jesus Christ is King of Kings, Lord of Lords,
and He's running this whole show. The president's not running it.
Senate's not running it. Congress not running it. Jesus
Christ is running it. And he's bringing about the very
eternal purpose of God day by day. Day by day. Whether he's bringing
judgment on this country or any other country. Whatever it is
going on, He is bringing this thing to pass. He is subduing
all things to God. He's subduing all things to God. He's bringing everything under
His authority. Then cometh the end. And He'll
deliver all this up, it says in 1 Corinthians, He'll deliver
all this up to the Father. as Mediator, as King, it's all
been turned over to Him. And once He winds it all up and
subdues everything and subdues all power, He's gonna deliver
it all up to the Father. That's what's going on. And it's
what Stephen preached. He preached Christ's resurrection.
These are men who stood there and said, crucify Him. These
are men who hated Him, and now they're finding out He's alive? But it says here, "...they could
not resist such wisdom and power." So what do they do? They lie
on Him just like they did the Lord Jesus Christ. You'll see
that in verses 11-15. They said, we heard him say that
this Jesus of Nazareth, there in verse 14, shall destroy this
place and shall change the customs which Moses delivered unto us. Well, first of all, he didn't
change the customs delivered to Moses. He didn't change the
law given to Moses. You know what he did? He fulfilled
them. He didn't change them, he fulfilled
them. That's the difference. They think
he's making a change, he fulfilled them. He fulfilled all righteousness.
That's what the Lord said to John. It becomes us to fulfill
all righteousness. And He did that. And that's our
righteousness. His work, His person, His work
is our righteousness. He fulfilled all those ceremonies
that represented Him. All those that pointed to Him.
You know that Stephen pointed back to the tabernacle. That's Christ. To Passover lamb,
that's Christ. To the high priest, that's Christ. He just reached into that Old
Testament that they read it and knew a lot about it, as far as
what it said, as far as the written Word. They didn't know anything
about the spirit of it, but they knew that. And he'd reach in
there and he'd take this type, this picture, and he'd apply
it to the Lord Jesus Christ. God gave him such wisdom and
power in doing that. They couldn't resist that. His whole message was about the
Lord Jesus Christ. And the only reason that this,
or the one reason, one of the reasons, there's more than one,
but one of the reasons it made them so mad, that they cared
about the customs that they thought was being changed. Do you know
why they cared so much about that? That's what they use to
keep the people in bondage to them. That's what they use. They use the law. That's what
you use. If you want to keep people in
bondage to you, you don't preach free grace. No, you preach the
law. The law says to do this, this,
this, and this. You've got to tithe, and you've
got to give this, you've got to give that. That's how you keep people in
bondage. You know how you set people free? You preach to them
the free, sovereign grace of God in Jesus Christ. You know,
I don't stand here week after week preaching tithing. Give
as the Lord has blessed you. That's different, isn't it? Tithing
is under the Old Testament. It's an Old Testament tax on
the people because they wouldn't give 50 cents. If it wasn't written
down for them to give 10%, but now grace enables us to give. Give from the heart. We don't
put a percentage on it. We give as the Lord has, first
of all, as He's blessed you and as He's laid it on your heart. Big difference, isn't it? That's
a big difference, being set free and being under bondage. And
then it says here, and I'll close, In verse 15, and all that sat in
the council, this is the Sanhedrin. These are the ones you have the
power to, this is the law in the land right here in Jerusalem.
This is it. If they were going to kill you,
you're going to be killed. They're going to execute you.
And it says here, "...and all that sat in the council, looking
steadfastly on him, saw his face as it had been the face of an
angel." First of all, God's preachers
are different than other preachers. They are. They are. They're different. They knew this. They knew this.
There's something different about that man. You remember what they
said concerning the Lord after He had given that Sermon on the
Mount, I believe it was? I believe that's where this is
said. They said, He speaks with authority. He doesn't speak like one of
the scribes. You know, a scribe would stand
up here and just read, and it'd just be the cold dead letter. but he speaks with authority.
And when they are sitting there in front of Stephen, the Lord
made it evident that this is no ordinary man standing here,
this is my servant standing here. There's a difference in God's
preachers and just preachers, those who stand and claim to
be preachers. And then Stephen, listen, it
was evident on his countenance That he believed his message.
He believed his... You know, and I think you can
tell this, when a man's standing here preaching, you know whether
that man believes what he's saying. You know that. By his body language,
by the man's body language, you know if he knows, he believes
what he's saying. And also this, that he has experienced
what he's saying. He's been there. You know, they
took notice of the disciples that they had been with Jesus.
They took notice of that. Listen, in the face of death,
he never wavered. He never took the edge off the
message. He didn't take the offense out of the gospel. You remember
Paul says over in Galatians that the offense of the gospel is
gone, it'd be gone if preaching another message. I'm paraphrasing. Stephen didn't take the offense
off the gospel and he's standing in front of a group of people
that absolutely hate what he's saying. This is the kind of preaching
God honors, and this is the preaching we need to get to in our day.
We need to tell the truth on God. We need to tell the truth. And I pray that God would make
us, in preaching here as I stand here, and in your witnessing
when you're out there in public, you're out there in those different
places where you have to work and where you go, that He would
make us bold. in preaching and witnessing to
our generation as Stephen was in his generation. I pray God enable us to do that.