Well, good morning. It’s good to be with you this morning, and thank you for the invitation to come and to preach the word and to preside over the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. It’s good to be with you here this morning. I want to begin by just before I read the text, I want to just say a word about how I chose this text. It’s coming to fill in at different churches.
It’s always a challenge to know exactly what do you preach from if you’re not told specifically what the passage should be. And so my rule of thumb has simply been in order to simply to turn to the revised common lectionary for the Sunday. and choose one of the passages from there.
And the reason I do that is it keeps me honest. It keeps me from trying to figure out, oh, this is what these folks need, or riding my own particular hobby horse of what I would like to preach on. It just keeps me focused objectively on a text. And the other thing that’s nice to know is that, There are a lot of other Christians all around the world today actually reflecting on this same passage as we do here this morning. And so with that as an introduction, I’d invite you to turn to the text, which is from Acts chapter 7, beginning at verse 54. And let us hear the word of the Lord.
Now when they had heard these things, they were enraged, and they ground their teeth at Stephen. But he, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. And he said, behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.
But they cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears and rushed together at him. Then they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul. And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. And falling to his knees, he cried out with a loud voice, Lord, Do not hold this sin against them. And when he had said this, he fell asleep. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Well, Jesus repeatedly told his disciples that they would face persecution. Perhaps you remember at the end of, toward the end of John’s gospel in chapter 15, Jesus said to his disciples, Remember the word that I said to you, a servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will persecute you.
And we see this fulfilled in the book of Acts. Begins in chapter four when the religious leaders gather the apostles together and warn them not to teach in the name of Jesus. They disregard that warning, and in the next chapter they are gathered together again, and this time they are beaten again with the same warning. And then we come to chapter seven, and it escalates here to a full-blown execution of Stephen, who becomes the very first martyr of the church.
And what we find is that this is a tremendously important turning point in the life of the church. This is a significant change that takes place here in the direction of the church, which we’ll be looking at as we go forward. There are tremendous ramifications. But as we look at this, there are three things I would like us to see as we consider this particular passage.
And first, I’d like us to see how God works in and through what seem like defeats in order to advance his kingdom. Second, I’d like us to see the important role of what I might call bit players in the drama of God’s redemption. And then thirdly, we’ll see Jesus the Lord presiding over it all. And so first, let’s take a look here at God’s work through defeats to advance his kingdom.
There’s no disguising the fact that the moderatum of Stephen has all the appearances of a great setback. The religious leaders here, having just heard Stephen in the earlier part of chapter seven, bring his charges, his convicting charges against the hardness of their hearts. They determine that they are not backing down. Their hearts are even further hardened in response to what Stephen said. They’re determined to squash this burgeoning movement of Christ followers to the point of executing Stephen. And it doesn’t end here. If you go on and read what follows, you find in the next chapter there’s a widespread persecution of the church that begins with this martyrdom of Stephen.
The Christians find it necessary to leave Jerusalem, to flee Jerusalem, and they go to safer regions, and they’re scattered. And in their scattering, they’re separated from the apostles who remain in Jerusalem. They’re separated from their teaching. They’re separated from their care.
And then we see Saul, who is here standing, approving of all that’s going on. He begins a campaign to drag any Christians he can find into prison. And so when you look at this whole thing, on the surface, it’s all bad news. It’s all bad news for the followers of Jesus. And no doubt, I don’t know whether they did this in their day, but you could perhaps imagine the religious leaders giving fist bumps to each other. Hey, look what we just did. We just squashed this disciple of Jesus. And the disciples are fleeing. They must have been pretty happy. with what they did. But although this looks like a defeat, the reality is far different.
Two things are happening which serve to advance the gospel. And the first is that though the Christians may be scattered, they are not silent. They continue to bear witness to Christ. We’re told that In Acts chapter, in the next chapter, chapter eight, verse four, now those who were scattered went about preaching the word. They’re scattered and they preach.
Philip, for example, goes to Samaria and he preaches the Christ to the Samaritans and many believe and rejoice. The book of Acts begins, and you probably remember this, the book of Acts begins with Jesus gathering with his disciples before his ascension and he says to them, You will be my witnesses, beginning in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. And now, as a result of Stephen’s death and the subsequent persecution, that promise, that prophecy is being fulfilled. The disciples are moving out beyond Jerusalem and beyond Judea, and they are beginning to preach the good news to other parts of the world. It’s not a defeat for the gospel. It is, in fact, an advance. And the second way we see this is the stoning of Stephen has a profound effect on this young man named Saul.
It first appears that the effect is negative. He begins, we’re told, in Acts, in chapter 8, verse 3, ravaging the church. He decides he’s going to pick up the mandate here and go and do as much harm as he could. We’re told later that he does much evil against the saints. But behind the scenes, something is going on in Saul’s life. Later in Acts, when Saul becomes Paul, and later in Acts, when he is standing before Agrippa and is giving testimony of his own conversion.
And he says that when Jesus confronted him on that road to Damascus, Jesus said to him, among other things, it is hard for you to kick against the goads. A goad, it’s a stick. And it’s used to encourage an ox to stay within the furrow as he’s plowing the field. In other words, as Saul was persecuting Christians and he was straying from the right path, the path that God had for him, the path of truth and life, he was experiencing these consequences, a goad kicking at him. Suggests that there was something going on in his conscience. And he was realizing that even though, that what he was doing was wrong. And he was feeling the consequences in his conscience.
And I think reading between the lines, it’s probably safe to say that Stephen had a profound effect on Saul. He saw Stephen’s face, which we’re told at the end of chapter six was like the face of an angel. He heard Stephen’s convicting rebuke of the religious leaders for their hard hearts. And he saw and perhaps heard the truth of that. He heard Stephen say, I see the son of man standing at the right hand of God. He heard him plead for the forgiveness of his persecutors. He watched him confidently and boldly face death and then peacefully fall asleep. All of this must have left a tremendous impression upon Paul. And consequently, while he was persecuting Christians, he had that gnawing feeling that he was wrong.
And eventually it bore fruit when Jesus confronted him on that road to Damascus. Saul then saw what Stephen saw. The heavens opened and Jesus showed himself, revealed himself on his throne. and said, why are you persecuting me? And Saul became Paul and perhaps the greatest missionary of the church.
All this is to say that what must have initially looked at best like a setback and at worst like a great defeat to those first Christians in Jerusalem was actually a major advance of the gospel. And that’s often the way it is in God’s economy. And there’s so many examples we could go back and look at in the scripture. When Joseph was sold into slavery and then cast into prison, anyone looking on, and no doubt Joseph himself, must have thought, this isn’t good. This is a defeat.
But then we discovered that God was using it for good, to bring about that many people should be kept alive, as Joseph would later say at the end of Genesis. And then, of course, the greatest of what appeared to be The greatest defeat of all was when the Son of God was crucified and buried. But then we soon learn that this was all part of the greatest victory of all. God himself triumphing over sin and death and winning salvation for us and to all who look and trust in Christ.
Those things which appear to be defeats are often victories. When we look at things from a limited view of our narrow perspective and circumstances, we are often discouraged by what often seem defeats. But over time, what appeared to be defeats often prove themselves to be God’s providential working for good.
And that’s what we see here. And if we had time, I’m sure that we could probably pause here And I’m sure that you could, many of you could share examples of that in your own life. I know that I could share several in mine where I look back where there at the time something happened and I thought, oh, this is absolutely awful. This is dreadful. This is not what I wanted. This is not good.
And now I look back on those events and you know, I say, thank you, Lord. You worked through that in a way I never saw at the time. to bring about a tremendous blessing that I didn’t anticipate. That’s the way God works, just as he’s working here. The Psalms often encourage us to wait on the Lord, and one of the ways in which we wait upon the Lord is looking to see God’s blessings in the midst of our defeats. Now let us look at another, The next point here I’d like to look at, let’s look at the important role of bit players in God’s great drama of salvation.
When you think of the major characters of the New Testament, Stephen doesn’t usually come immediately to mind. We’re more likely to think of Peter or James or John, perhaps there’s John the Baptist who plays a major role. You almost certainly would think of Paul with his missionary journeys and the letters he wrote to the church. You might remember Mary, the mother of Jesus, or Timothy and Barnabas, who appear with some frequency. And if you want to include the more nefarious characters, you might think of Caiaphas or Pilate or Herod. And all of these have significant roles, but Stephen appears only very, very briefly.
He’s introduced to us in Acts chapter 6 as one of seven men who are asked to wait on tables so that the apostles can devote themselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word. But he turns out to be a good apologist for the gospel. And as we see earlier in chapter 7, when he speaks to the religious leaders. And he gets himself arrested and then martyred. And then after his martyrdom here, he is really heard from no more.
With no disrespect at all for Stephen, but he is what we might call a bit player in this great drama of God’s plan of redemption. And yet in this very short role, Stephen shows himself to be tremendously significant. We learn in Acts chapter 6 that he is a godly man, full of faith and the spirit the Holy Spirit. We learn that he is empowered to do signs and wonders. And the greater part of Acts chapter 7 is Stephen’s very thoughtful and convicting theological indictment of the religious leaders for their failure to recognize Jesus as the Messiah, which of course leads to their great anger and their stoning of Stephen. And then when we come to the final moments of Stephen’s life, In the passage before us, we see the full flower of his godliness here. He again is filled with the Holy Spirit to face this particular challenge of this moment. He’s given a vision of the risen and thrown Jesus Christ.
And then imitating Jesus, he willingly yields the spirit to the Lord, trusting in him and again following Jesus, prays for his persecutors. John Calvin notes that Stephen’s last words reflect a perfection of Christian religion. Commending his spirit to God shows his Godward focus and his prayer for his persecutors reflects his love for neighbor. The perfection of our religion lies in these two directions, Calvin says.
Love of God and love of man. And so we see these things in Stephen. This powerful display of Christian virtue, as we’ve already noted, no doubt struck Paul as he looked on, and it stuck in his memory as he persecuted the church. And I think there’s another important lesson in this for us.
Our official roles are less significant than our hearts’ affections. Stephen was a waiter on tables. He wasn’t an apostle. He wasn’t an evangelist. He wasn’t a prophet. He wasn’t a teacher or preacher. He was simply charged with helping to manage the distribution of food and other goods to the poor and needy. It’s an important job, but it’s not a high-profile job. It’s a back-of-the-scenes kind of job. But although Stephen no doubt did his job well, it’s not what he’s remembered for.
He was remembered as a godly man who loved Jesus, who knew the scriptures, and who proclaimed the gospel of Jesus Christ as he had opportunity to do so. He was a witness, a witness to the truth of the gospel by both his words and the way he lived his life and the way he died. And that is what a martyr is. Martyr means witness. He graciously followed the example of Jesus in his own death, commending his spirit to God and pleading the forgiveness of his executioners, loving God and loving neighbor.
And though his role was just a bit part here in the grand scheme of things, Goss used him in profoundly significant ways. And I can just imagine, perhaps, a scene where, years later, Paul is talking with people in one of those churches that he ministered to in Asia Minor, perhaps Ephesus, or Corinth, or whatever. And he’s relating his own experience and says, you know, one of the most important influences in my life early on was a man named Stephen. And they’re hearing this and think, oh, Stephen. Stephen, that’s part of the reason that you’re here now, Paul, ministering to us.
Most of us here this morning, I’ll dare say all of us, if I can, are just bit players in the grand drama of what God is doing in this world. I know that’s all I am. Just a bit player. I’m here for a brief moment of time, and then I’m gone. Particularly here at this church. One Sunday. Maybe two, I don’t know.
But that doesn’t mean our little bit, whatever it may be, does not have a ripple effect that we don’t see. You know, I expect that one of the surprises and joys of heaven will be those conversations that take place there when we say, do you remember that when you hear someone say, do you remember what you said years ago? What you did, I remembered it, had a profound effect on me, and that’s why I’m here.
Those little conversations, the things that bit players, the role of bit players in advancing the kingdom of God. And the role of bit players in God’s grand design is never insignificant. Whatever role you have in the church or in the world, the important thing is to love God, to seek his face, to bear witness to his grace, and to seek the good of others. You do not know how God in his providence will choose to use you to advance his kingdom in ways you may never see in this life, in your short appearance on the stage of this world. Little did Stephen know the profound effect that his witness on this day would have for the course, the future course of the church. And so we’ve seen here first how God works through apparent defeat to advance his kingdom. We’ve seen how God uses bit players to advance his kingdom. And the last thing I would like us to see is the Lord Jesus presiding over it all. Let me read again verses 55 and 56.
But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God. And Jesus, standing at the right hand of God, and he said, behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” This is one of those moments when the boundary between heaven and earth is breached. It happened for Jacob in Genesis chapter 28 when he saw the angels of heaven ascending and descending on a great ladder. with the Lord standing above saying, I am the Lord, the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac. It happened for Elisha and his servant in 2 Kings chapter 6 when their eyes were opened so that they could see the great army of God surrounding and protecting them. It happened again when Isaiah had that great vision of God in his holy temple and the angels calling to one another, holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty. The whole earth is full of his glory.
It happened for Peter, James, and John on the Mount of Transfiguration when, for a moment, the veil was pulled aside and they were able to see Jesus in all his glory and his radiance. It happened for John on the island of Patmos in the book of Revelation. And it happens here for Stephen, one of those moments when the veil is pulled The curtain is pulled apart so that he can see into the heavenlies. And what did he see when that curtain between heaven and earth was briefly pulled back?
He saw the new reality that has governed our lives ever since Jesus died, rose, and was ascended. He saw the new reality that has governed our lives for the last 2,000 years. is the reality of the risen Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, Son of Man, now in heaven at the right hand of the Father. Reigning, just as we will sing in a few moments, where’er the sun does its excessive journeys, run his kingdom from shore to shore.
Highly exalted, as Paul says to the Philippians, to whom every knee should bow and tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. This is what Stephen saw, and it is the reality of our world now. When Jesus was on trial before the high priest, Caiaphas asked him, are you the Christ, the son of the blessed? And Jesus said, I am, and you will see the son of man seated at the right hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven.
And of course, at that point, they, like these religious leaders block their ears. But this is the reality that Stephen sees and testifies to. It is the reality to which the religious leaders here block their ears then, and to which countless others block their ears today. But it is the truth, and it is the fulfillment of two great Old Testament messianic passages.
I think of Daniel, chapter 7. I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the ancient of days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting kingdom, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom is one that shall not be destroyed.”
And then in Psalm, 110, another messianic passage. The Lord says to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. It’s worth noting here that this is the first appearance of Jesus after his ascension. And what do we see in that first appearance of Jesus after his ascension? It is the risen king, sitting at the right hand of the father, king of kings and lord of lords. It shows his new position of authority over all. All authority has been given to me, he said. He is the one who turns apparent defeats into victories. He is the one who takes bit players and uses them to advance his kingdom.
And it’s not insignificant that after this vision of Jesus on the throne, ruling over all, that the church is scattered to bring the good news to all, because that Jesus is Lord over all. Much has been said about the fact that Jesus is seen here standing at the right hand of God. And the comment is that usually he is depicted as sitting at the right hand of the Father, but here he’s picked depicted as standing. Augustine said that Jesus stands here as an advocate for Stephen. Others have said that Jesus stands in judgment over Stephen’s persecutors. Still others have said that Jesus stands here to welcome Jesus into heaven, and thus is a picture of the welcome all who trust in Christ will one day receive. Still others claim that or say that Jesus’ posture here reflects his keen interest and involvement in what is taking place. I’m not sure why Jesus is standing here. And I’m not sure we have to choose from one of these options.
This is a critical turning point, as we see in the life of the church as it’s beginning to break the boundaries of its parochialism in Jerusalem. And it’s a critical turning point. And I think the Lord and Jesus is standing here at this point saying, This is important. I am in charge. I am ruling over this. I am involved here in the unfolding plan of salvation. He’s not a passive bystander.
I think I would say he’s standing here as our prophet, priest, and king. As a prophet, a prophet reveals truth, and he’s revealing the truth of who he is. As a priest, he is Stephen’s advocate. and savior, welcoming a ransom sinner home. And as king, he is directing these events to his eternal purpose and the advancement of his kingdom. The main point is that this is a revelation of a new reality, the new reality in which we live. Jesus is alive and he’s risen and he’s ruling over all.
I’d like to suggest to you that what Stephen sees here is the primary reason we gather together on Sundays. There’s lots of reasons to gather together. We gather together for fellowship and encouragement, to meet with one another, and to hear what’s going on in one another’s lives, and how we can pray for one another. We meet in order to pray, and certainly we meet to grow in our knowledge and love of the Lord and in his word. But I think we might be able to put at the pinnacle the main reason that we meet is that through the ministry of the word and sacrament, we might get a fresh glimpse of Jesus, the Lord Jesus Christ, in all his glory, that we might again see Jesus.
This is what you and I need for the next week. I don’t know what the next week is going to bring for you or for me, but I know this. I need to enter this next week knowing that Jesus is on his throne. Much has been written lately about our world’s need for re-enchantment. I don’t know if you read any of that. Some of the things that I read talk a lot about that.
Since the Enlightenment, the Western world has been dominated by a materialistic worldview. So many of us in the world today, particularly the Western world, cannot see beyond the natural world. All we see is atoms and molecules. All we see is what we can touch and see and taste and smell. And sadly, that includes many Christians.
We need to continually be reminded that we live not in a mostly empty universe dominated by the vast expanses of space. We live in a created world, which everywhere declares the glory of God. We need to be more heavily minded, seeing with our spiritual eyes that which Stephen saw. As Gerard Manley Hopkins put it, the world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out like shining shook foil. We need to be regularly re-enchanted with the glory of Jesus Christ in heavenly places.
And I’ll just conclude with this as the bottom line of it all. If we are to know that there are no defeats in God’s economy, and that our Lord is always advancing his kingdom. If we’re to know that, we need to know Jesus is on his throne. If we’re to be assured that even bit players like you and me can make a difference by God’s grace, we need to know that Jesus is on his throne.
Let’s pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word which is always true and sharper than any two-edged sword, and for your spirit which helps us to draw from your word as from great wells of water truths that refresh and nourish us day by day. We pray, O Lord, that you will help us today to see again with the eyes of faith our Lord and Savior, at the right hand of the Father in glory and majesty, ruling over all and trusting in him, we will enter into this next week knowing that this next week, whatever events take place in our lives and in the larger world, you are advancing your kingdom. And you are bringing us day by day, one day closer when we will see Jesus face to face. and all will be made new. O Lord, grant us the vision that Stephen had, that we might see it with faith and rejoice in it. We pray these things in Christ’s name. Amen.