Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] What to you makes for a good sermon?
[00:00:15] I would suspect because I know many of you in the room, I know most of you in the room, and you're Jesus loving people. I would expect if I walked around and asked you the question, what makes for a good sermon, you'd give some really good answers. But I want you to think like very functionally, like realistically, like what it is that you're looking for. It might be good illustrations, it might be good stories, it might be humor or good kind of emotional rollercoaster preacher that makes you laugh and that makes you cry. All within like a two sentence time frame.
[00:00:46] And you know, all of those kinds of things. Not bad things, right?
[00:00:50] But I think the thing that we see through Stephen's sermon.
[00:00:54] So I said last week that we're kind of doing a little mini series within the series of acts, talking. We talked last week about what makes for a good life. And I'll recap that for you in just a moment as we look at Stephen. Stephen wasn't a man who was widely known. He wasn't one of the original apostles. Ordinary guy. Okay, what makes for a good life? We looked at Stephen's life and today we asked the question of what makes for a good death.
[00:01:23] So when we think about, as Luther said, that the Christian should always be thinking about two days. We should always have two days on our mind. The day of our death and the day of Christ's return.
[00:01:37] We should always have these two days on our mind. Not to be morbid and depressing, but because there is something about the contemplation of your own death and mine, the day by which we pass from this life into eternity, that adds perspective to today. It actually gives right perspective today. It can actually increase your joy, not diminish it, by thinking about that day, especially if you're a follower of Jesus.
[00:02:06] So what does a good death look like? But prior to getting to what a good death looks like, we get to read Stephen's sermon. Okay, so when you think about what makes for a good sermon, this is what I hope at least is one of the options in your brain is there used to be an old saying, and Charles Spurgeon would say this a lot, that somebody once came to him and said, sir, give me Jesus.
[00:02:32] What makes for a good sermon, although all the things that I mentioned are fine things, what makes for a good sermon is that you leave this place having come to know and experience more of the person of Jesus in a real way.
[00:02:48] Jesus is what makes for a good sermon. And if you Ring out the message that is at the center of Stephen's sermon. It is the person and work of Jesus. And so here's what I want us to do. I want to read the entire sermon to you leading up to the text that we just left off with that Dallas picked up and read. So if you would open your Bibles to Acts, chapter seven. If you're not already there, you should be, because we just read it. But if you're not, open up to Acts, chapter seven, and we'll start in verse one. And I'm going to read through the entirety of Stephen's sermon.
[00:03:29] All right?
[00:03:33] Acts, chapter seven, starting in verse one.
[00:03:38] And the high priest said, are these things so?
[00:03:43] And Stephen said, brothers and fathers, hear me.
[00:03:49] The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia before he lived in Haran, and said to him, go out from your land and from your kindred and go into the land that I will show you.
[00:04:02] Then he went out from the land of the Chaldeans and lived in Haran. And after his father died, God removed him from there into this land in which he are now living.
[00:04:12] Yet he gave him no inheritance in it, not even a foot's length, but promised to give it to him as a possession and to his offspring after him, though he had no child.
[00:04:23] And God spoke to this effect that his offspring would be sojourners in a land belonging to others who would enslave them and afflict them 400 years.
[00:04:32] But I will judge the nation that they serve, said God, and after they shall come out and worship me in this place.
[00:04:40] And he gave him the covenant of circumcision.
[00:04:43] And so Abraham became the father of Isaac and circumcised him on the eighth day. And Isaac became the father of Jacob and Jacob of the twelve patriarchs.
[00:04:53] And the patriarchs, jealous of Joseph, sold him into Egypt. But God was with him and rescued him out of all his afflictions and. And gave him favor and wisdom before Pharaoh, king of Egypt, who made him ruler over Egypt and over all his household.
[00:05:11] Now there came a famine throughout all Egypt and Canaan, and great affliction. And our fathers could find no food.
[00:05:17] But when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent out our fathers on their first visit. And on the second visit, Joseph made himself known to his brothers, and Joseph's family became known to Pharaoh.
[00:05:29] And Joseph sent and summoned Jacob, his father and all his kindred, 75 persons in all.
[00:05:34] And Jacob went down into Egypt, and he died, he and our fathers, and they were carried back to Shechem and laid in the tomb that Abraham had bought for a sum of silver from the sons of Hamor and Shechem.
[00:05:48] But as the time of the promise drew near, which God had granted to Abraham, the people increased and multiplied in Egypt until there arose over Egypt another king who did not know Joseph.
[00:05:58] He dwelt shrewdly with our race and forced our fathers to expose their infants so that they would not be kept alive.
[00:06:06] At this time, Moses was born.
[00:06:08] And he was beautiful in God's sight.
[00:06:11] And he was brought up for three months in his father's house. And when he was exposed, Pharaoh's daughter adopted him and brought him in as her own son.
[00:06:19] And Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was mighty in words and deeds.
[00:06:26] When he was 40 years old, it came into his heart to visit his brothers, the children of Israel. And seeing one of them being wronged, he defended the oppressed man and avenged him by striking down the Egyptian.
[00:06:37] He supposed that his brothers would understand that God was giving them salvation by his hand. But they did not understand.
[00:06:45] And on the following day, he appeared to them as they were quarreling and tried to reconcile them, saying, men, you are brothers. Why do you wrong each other?
[00:06:53] But the man who was wronging his neighbor thrust him aside, saying, who made you ruler and judge over us? Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?
[00:07:02] At this retort, Moses fled and became an exile in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons.
[00:07:10] Now, when 40 years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai in a flame of fire in a bush.
[00:07:18] When Moses saw it, he was amazed at the sight. And as he drew near to look, there came the voice of the Lord, I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob.
[00:07:30] And Moses trembled and did not dare to look.
[00:07:34] Then the Lord said to him, take off the sandals from your feet, for the place you are standing is holy ground.
[00:07:41] I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their groaning. And I have come down to deliver them.
[00:07:49] And now come, I will send you to Egypt.
[00:07:54] This Moses, whom they rejected, saying, who made you ruler and judge? This man God sent as both ruler and redeemer by the hand of the angel who appeared to them, who appeared to him in the bush.
[00:08:06] This man led them out, performing wonders and signs in Egypt and at the Red Sea and in the wilderness for 40 years.
[00:08:14] This is the Moses who said, to the Israelites. God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers.
[00:08:20] This is the one who was in the congregation in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him at Mount Sinai. And with our fathers. He received living oracles to give to us.
[00:08:31] Our fathers refused to obey him, but thrust him aside. And in their hearts they turned to Egypt, saying to Aaron, make for us gods who will go before us?
[00:08:43] As for this Moses, who led us out from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.
[00:08:49] And they made a calf in those days and offered a sacrifice to the idol and were rejoicing in the works of their hands.
[00:08:56] But God turned away and gave them over to worship the hosts of heaven, as it is written in the book of the Prophets. This is a quote from Amos 5.
[00:09:07] Did you bring to me slain beasts and sacrifices during the 40 years in the wilderness, O house of Israel, you took up the tent of Moloch and the star of your God Rephaim, the images that you made to worship, and I will send you into exile. Beyond Babylon.
[00:09:24] Our fathers had the tent of witness in the wilderness, just as he who spoke to Moses directed him to make it according to the pattern that he had seen.
[00:09:34] Our fathers in turn brought it in with Joshua when they dispossessed the nations that God drove out before our fathers.
[00:09:41] So it was until the days of David, who found favor in the sight of God and asked to find a dwelling place for the God of Jacob.
[00:09:49] But it was Solomon who built a house for him.
[00:09:52] Yet the Most High does not dwell in houses made by hands, as the prophet says.
[00:09:58] Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool.
[00:10:03] What kind of house will you build for me, says the Lord?
[00:10:06] Or what is the place of my rest?
[00:10:09] Did not my hand make all these things?
[00:10:14] You stiff necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit.
[00:10:23] As your fathers did, so do you.
[00:10:27] Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute?
[00:10:30] And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the righteous one, whom you have now betrayed and murdered.
[00:10:40] You who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it.
[00:10:47] This is Stephen's sermon, the longest sermon in the Book of Acts, and it's one of the greatest sermons ever preached.
[00:10:56] So what's Stephen talking about? I want to just break Stephen's sermon down in three points before we get to the big question of the day. Which is? What does it look like to die a good death by the grace of God? Okay.
[00:11:10] To catch us up on where we are in the Book of Acts.
[00:11:13] It's really hard for me not to just like ask you questions and get feedback. Like, I would prefer the stage not even be here and me just be on the floor and we could talk. But we've summarized the Book of Acts like this. The Book of Acts is about the continuation of the rule and reign of King Jesus from heaven.
[00:11:30] So the Book of Acts is not primarily about the apostles.
[00:11:33] We call it the Acts of the Apostles. It's not primarily about the apostles. It's not even primarily about the person of the Holy Spirit, who is himself God. The Book of Acts is primarily about the rule and reign of God from heaven, the continuation of his kingdom being advanced through his broken and imperfect people by the person of the Holy Spirit. That's what the Book of Acts is about. So Jesus has died on the cross for sin. He's been buried. He's been raised by the power of God. On the third day, as we'll get to celebrate next weekend for Easter, it's going to be amazing. And then he appears to 400 people before he ascends back to heaven to be at the right hand of God, where he now, today in 21st century America, rules and reigns over all things. If you look at the news and wonder how everything got so out of control it is today, it's a good thing for you to remind yourself that it's actually not out of control.
[00:12:26] Everything that's happening today is under the control of the rule and reign of King Jesus. He is in heaven ruling and reigning from on high right now.
[00:12:36] So you can breathe.
[00:12:38] It doesn't mean we don't lament and grieve hard things and sad things. It doesn't mean that. But it does mean as Christians, we are the only people group in the world that have the right to not worry.
[00:12:51] Because our God who is alive controls everything.
[00:12:57] And so Acts is the continuation of the story of Jesus that Luke began in his gospel.
[00:13:05] And so where we are in chapter seven is the church is growing by the thousands.
[00:13:12] God is saving left and right because that's what he does.
[00:13:17] Like God delights to save sinners.
[00:13:21] Jesus says that the angels in heaven rejoice over every single sinner who repents. That's amazing.
[00:13:28] So God's not begrudged to save you.
[00:13:32] He's not begrudged to pour out his mercy and love and grace upon you. It flows from the very essence of who he is. He loves to save.
[00:13:41] And so God is saving people by the thousands up to this point in the book of Acts, and the church has gotten so large, there are now internal conflicts happening. So much so to the point where one group of Christians comes to another and says, hey, our widows are being neglected in the daily distribution. So you guys are focused on preaching and prayer and all that's great, but there are lots of practical needs that need to be met within the church. And so the apostles wisely tell this group of Christians, the Hellenists, that you need to choose seven men who fit these characteristics and qualities, and they're going to be the ones to handle these practical needs.
[00:14:15] These are the first deacons of the church, and Stephen is one of those deacons. Ordinary guy.
[00:14:21] We don't know a lot about Stephen, but what we talked about last week is what characterized Stephen's life was he was a man who was full of grace and full of power.
[00:14:30] He was full of grace. And that he was a recipient of grace. He himself had a relationship with Jesus.
[00:14:36] He had been transformed by the grace of Jesus. The grace of God had not only. God had not only forgiven Stephen in grace, but he was transforming Stephen by grace. This is full of grace and full of power. This is what it looks like to live a good life. And he stood for truth amidst opposition. So Stephen. Stephen is arrested. He's taken before the council. And now things begin to accelerate as the high priest, who's the leader of the religious faction of the day, the high priest stands up. Keep in mind, the high priest in the Old Testament was the only one who was allowed to go into the holy of holies.
[00:15:14] And so the high priest stands up and he tells Stephen to give an account. And Stephen just launches into a sermon.
[00:15:22] And so what's Stephen's sermon about? He really kind of has three points.
[00:15:27] He's a typical Baptist, some would say.
[00:15:30] So Stephen has three points, verses one through 19. Stephen talks about the land, this idea of the land. The Jews in this day were obsessing about the physical land that God had promised them. And the point of Stephen bringing up the land in the way that he does, where he talks about the calling of Abram, which was outside the land, and all these different things, is to communicate this reality that God is not confined to one geographical location.
[00:16:04] God is God over all.
[00:16:07] He's not confined to just the Middle East.
[00:16:11] He's the God of all peoples and all places.
[00:16:15] And then in verse 20 through 43, Stephen transitions into talking about the law.
[00:16:22] Now, what's so fascinating oftentimes about the Jewish leaders in this day is there was an obsession about the law. And what you see contrasted here is you actually have the Jewish leaders accusing Stephen of breaking the law, while they themselves were breaking the law.
[00:16:41] They weren't upholding the law that they were accusing him of not upholding. They were bearing false witness against Stephen. Stephen didn't do the things that they were accusing him of doing that he was actually on trial for. So that's verses 20 through 43, when he brings in Moses and he says that Moses was giving living oracles by God to give to you, but you thrust him aside.
[00:17:07] And then in verses 45 to 50, he talks about the tabernacle and the temple again to reiterate the reality that God's presence not only is not confined to a geographical area, that the law was not given to save or to justify, but to reveal the reality of their sinfulness and ours, that we might run to the Messiah, the Savior. And then the third is the temple and the tabernacle, that God's presence is not confined to a building.
[00:17:35] And so in this, he quotes Psalm 11, verse 4, when he says, heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house will you build for me?
[00:17:47] Says the Lord.
[00:17:49] His presence is not confined to a geographical area, and his presence is not confined to a building. So what were these first century Jewish leaders doing? They were missing the point of all three of these things. The land, the law, and the the temple. It's kind of like, have you guys ever seen the Princess Bride?
[00:18:09] Some of you said, no, Nikki Gosh McGowan's, that's tonight. You got to watch the Princess Bride.
[00:18:14] It's a great movie. And one of my favorite scenes is when the guy in black is climbing up the rock face. You know what I'm talking about? And the bad guys are looking over the edge. And the one bad guy comes up and he says he's alive, inconceivable. And the other guy comes up and he says, I don't think that word means what you think it means.
[00:18:31] It's like you keep saying this word. I don't think that means what you think it means. This is kind of what's happening with the Jewish leaders of the time. Like, they're looking at these three things that God had given the land, the law, and the temple. And it's like, I don't think these mean what you think they mean.
[00:18:46] Like, you're kind of missing the point in all of these things. You're making all three of these things the ultimate thing.
[00:18:54] And so he's saying that this, this is not the case. And then in verses 51 to 53, he leads into the application.
[00:19:06] Because a Christian sermon is not one of just information, it's one of application. It requires a response.
[00:19:13] Just like the gospel. The gospel is news. The gospel is good news. That's the best news in the world. That, that God sent his Son in love to seek and save the lost, to die in our place for our sins, and to be resurrected on the third day, that through faith in him we might have eternal life with.
[00:19:29] That's the best news in the world. And it calls for a response. It's not enough for you to just hear us say this from the stage and say, yeah, that's awesome. Like it requires a response.
[00:19:40] And so Stephen's sermon in a similar way requires a response. He calls them stiff necked people, says that they're uncircumcised in heart. There was this obsession around physical circumcision. And he's saying, you're missing the point even of circumcision.
[00:19:59] Like you're uncircumcised in your hearts.
[00:20:03] Why? How, how is it that they're resisting the Holy Spirit? What does that mean?
[00:20:08] What does that mean to resist the Holy Spirit?
[00:20:12] They're stiff necked people. They're uncircumcised in their hearts and ears. And they're resisting the Holy Spirit because they're rejecting the righteous one.
[00:20:24] What were the land, the law and the tabernacle and temple, all pointing to the righteous one.
[00:20:35] So now God's presence wasn't to be found in a particular place.
[00:20:43] God's presence is to be found in a person, the person of Jesus.
[00:20:52] So God can be accessed anytime, any place, anywhere from anybody.
[00:20:57] Not by traveling somewhere, but through faith in a person.
[00:21:01] This is the point of what Stephen's communicating. And he's saying you're stiff necked and you're resisting the Holy Spirit because you've rejected the righteous one. You've rejected your Messiah.
[00:21:13] This is a sermon of judgment.
[00:21:17] You'll notice in the sermon text, he doesn't even call them to repent.
[00:21:22] It's a sermon of. He's. He's pronouncing judgment upon these people for killing the righteous one, for missing the righteous one. And they did not, they did not respond well to this sermon.
[00:21:37] So now we get to the text that Dallas read for us. Let's read it one more time.
[00:21:46] Verse 54.
[00:21:48] When they heard these things, they were enraged and they ground their teeth at him.
[00:21:56] Have any of you have any of you ever been so angry that you have ground your teeth?
[00:22:05] Maybe you haven't. I don't know.
[00:22:07] Thank you. Okay.
[00:22:10] Or ever maybe been on the other side of somebody who was so angry that they ground their teeth?
[00:22:17] Like. It's almost a monstrous thing, isn't it?
[00:22:21] What can happen to our bodies physically when we get to a point of being so enraged over something that we grind our teeth like, this is one of Jesus descriptions of hell, by the way.
[00:22:34] He says that hell will be a place. We think about Dante's Inferno. When we think about hell.
[00:22:40] He says that hell, the place reserved, which the Bible unequivocally teaches, by the way, that there is a place called Hell, that people will go there one day.
[00:22:52] Anybody who rejects Jesus rejects the good news of the message of the Gospel of God's grace, which is available to you today, anybody who rejects that and dies will go to hell. And Jesus says that this place called hell is filled with weeping and gnashing of teeth, the grinding of teeth.
[00:23:12] That whatever it is, it's so excruciatingly bad that people will be grinding their teeth.
[00:23:22] Okay, so these religious leaders began with jealousy.
[00:23:27] That jealousy turned into contentment, that contentment turned into bitterness, that bitterness led to rage, and now that rage is manifesting itself by the grinding of teeth.
[00:23:43] Like they're so angry with what Stephen's saying that they begin to physically exert this kind of rage in this way. They're grinding their teeth at him.
[00:23:58] But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, like, the contrast between Stephen and the religious leaders in this text couldn't be starker.
[00:24:14] Enraged, grinding their teeth, Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.
[00:24:38] What does it look like?
[00:24:40] What does it look like to die a good death?
[00:24:45] Like, to die to death? Maybe you have, as a pastor, been a pastor for over a decade. And I've been at the bedside of people who have passed from this life into the next multiple times. I've done many funerals. I've done funerals of Christians. I've done funerals of non Christians. I've been at the bedside of people who have died who are not Christians, and at the bedside of people who are Christians. And the difference could not be starker.
[00:25:10] And a lot of the time, it's very intangible. You can just feel it in the room.
[00:25:18] So what makes for a good death? Well, the first thing to note with Stephen's example is that Stephen kept his gaze on Jesus.
[00:25:29] There are multiple things that are happening in this passage that are amazing and supernatural. 1. I mean, God parts the heavens for Stephen in this moment.
[00:25:38] Talk about God coming through for his people in a moment of need.
[00:25:42] Like, what better, what more gracious thing could God have done for Stephen at this moment than to part the heavens and give him a glimpse of what's really happening behind the scenes.
[00:25:56] Like Psalm 23 says that God is our good shepherd and that he walks with us in the valley of the shadow of death so we don't have to fear.
[00:26:06] I mean, this is like real time example of that.
[00:26:13] Like to die by stoning.
[00:26:17] Like if you think about the level of strength and velocity that had to have happened at the hands of the people killing Stephen in order to actually kill him with rocks, it's a really horrific thing to consider.
[00:26:32] It's a horrific way to die. And so there is no greater valley of the shadow of death than the one that Stephen's in in this moment.
[00:26:39] And in this moment, God shows his love for his child by parting the heavens and giving him a glimpse as to what's really happening behind the scenes. This is happening right now, by the way. But there's something special about this moment with Stephen where he. He parts the clouds and. And Stephen is able to gaze up and to see the glory of God and to see Jesus standing. It's the only time in the Bible that says this, by the way, my kids were asking the other day, like, yeah, but other people saw Jesus in heaven. I'm like, yeah, like Isaiah saw Jesus in heaven seated on the throne, but he was seated on the throne.
[00:27:17] No other example in the Bible other than ordinary Stephen, by which the Son of God stands from the throne.
[00:27:26] And so Stephen had his gaze upon Jesus. This is the first thing necessary, by the grace of God, for those who are followers of Jesus to die well is to keep your gaze upon Jesus.
[00:27:39] The religious leaders of the day, as many of us struggle with, had more of a Christ periphery than a Christ centeredness.
[00:27:50] And what I mean by that is Jesus, not for them, they didn't believe in Jesus, but for us, Jesus. If we're not careful, Jesus can become a byproduct to the greater joy of our hearts. Whatever that greater joy is, he becomes like a part of our life that's good and we love that part of our life. But he's kind of a sideshow to get us to where we really want to go.
[00:28:17] It's a Christ periphery. We've taken our gaze off of the person of Jesus and we put our gaze Upon.
[00:28:25] Upon something else.
[00:28:28] And so Stephen kept his gaze upon the person of Jesus.
[00:28:36] And so I want you to consider, friends, is Jesus a means to your joy or is he your joy?
[00:28:44] Is he a means to your joy or is he himself your joy? Like when you think about heaven and you think about how awesome and wonderful and joy filled heaven is going to be, does it excite your heart to be in heaven or does it excite your heart to be in heaven with Jesus?
[00:29:08] It's a good thing to consider.
[00:29:12] Is he a means to your joy or is he your joy?
[00:29:15] Stephen kept his gaze on Jesus and he sees the Son of man standing at the right hand of God. And in verse 56 it says, and he said, behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God. To keep your gaze upon Jesus is to do what the Apostle Paul says in Colossians, chapter three. It's to set your mind on things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. We are man. We live. You get more information filtered from your phone into your brains on a moment by moment basis than any other generation in history.
[00:29:59] And so our minds are filled to the brim with all sorts of things. And the Apostle Paul saying, like, hey, if you want to know the way of peace, the way of peace is to set your mind on things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of the throne of God, implying this reality that because Christ is seated at the right hand of the throne of God, the work necessary for your salvation and mine has been. Has been totally complete.
[00:30:26] The King came to do what he was sent to do. He lived a life you could not live. He died on the cross for your sins. In your place, he rose from the grave, defeating your sin and defeating death on your behalf. And now he's seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Meaning that when you see with your mind's eye, when you see the Son of God seated at the right hand of the throne of God, you can be sure that your salvation is secure.
[00:30:49] And so keep your mind on Christ. Gaze upon Christ. The second thing it says. And he said, behold, I see the heavens open and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God.
[00:31:01] But they cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears and rushed together at him.
[00:31:06] Then they cast him out of the city and stoned him.
[00:31:10] And the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul.
[00:31:17] 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 him. So if the first point to be made of what it looks like to die a good death is to keep your gaze on Jesus. The second thing is that Stephen loved Jesus.
[00:31:39] And we know that Stephen loved Jesus because in this text, Stephen imitates Jesus.
[00:31:45] Stephen actually quotes Jesus in his moment of death, just as Jesus said from the cross.
[00:31:54] And for us to imitate anything, friends, and you know this, we imitate the things that we love.
[00:32:01] We actually become like the thing that matters the most to you.
[00:32:05] We become like that thing. We're transformed more and more into the image of that thing.
[00:32:13] And so all of us, by the grace of God, need our hearts, our loves reordered.
[00:32:18] That's something that the Spirit is faithful to do. But as we keep our gaze on Jesus, and as we keep our gaze on the work of Jesus on our behalf, Jesus in our place, by the grace of God, in our love for Jesus grows. And as our love for Jesus grows, we're made more to. We're made more like him. We're made to be more like him.
[00:32:38] So Stephen quotes two texts, Luke 23:46 and Matthew 27:52, when he says, lord Jesus, receive my spirit. And then falling down, he cries out with a loud voice, lord, do not hold this sin against them.
[00:32:58] Stephen loved Jesus. And so because he loved Jesus, he imitated Jesus. This is a good pastor friend of mine in Central Texas, says he's an older guy. He says that if you don't know what to pray, you can pray these simple words.
[00:33:14] Jesus, live your life through me.
[00:33:18] That's helped me a lot with my ADHD brain. If I don't know what to pray, Jesus, live your life through me. In other words, make me more like you.
[00:33:29] We gaze at Jesus. We love Jesus as we love Jesus. We're made by the Spirit to be more like Jesus. Jesus, live your life through me. And then the final point to be made if gaze upon Jesus, love Jesus. The final point to be made on what it looks like to die well is in the final verse.
[00:33:52] It says, lord, do not hold this sin against them. And when they had said this, he fell asleep. So the final point to be made is to die well. You and I must have a hope of heaven.
[00:34:02] We keep our gaze on Jesus, on the person of Jesus. We don't lose him and make him a part of the periphery. He is the focus. He is the center. We love Jesus and we have our hope of heaven, meaning that if your hope and mine is in anything short of eternity, anything short of the coming kingdom of God that will forever be established on earth, the new heavens and new earth, then we're going to live in despair.
[00:34:34] The final verse, I think, is really significant for us to just kind of land the plane on.
[00:34:40] It says, he fell asleep.
[00:34:43] That's a wonderful statement.
[00:34:47] He fell asleep.
[00:34:51] One way to think about it could be thinking about it like, death is not the end. It's a doorway into the throne room of God.
[00:35:01] So death is not the end.
[00:35:04] It's a doorway into the throne room of God. And this in no way should diminish the severity of death.
[00:35:14] All of us in the room have lost someone that we love and care deeply about.
[00:35:19] And if you haven't, you will.
[00:35:22] I mean, it's. Death is called by in scripture the enemy of God.
[00:35:29] I think sometimes I love doing discipleship with men. It's like one of my favorite things in the world to sit, maybe not across the coffee table, but to sit down and have a conversation with guys over something and have conversations about Jesus.
[00:35:43] And one of the things I think we see in our culture today, especially with men, is because masculinity has been hated on for such a long time. And it has that there's been a bit of, like, an overcorrection maybe with some of our guys, to which we're like, man, if you hate on masculinity, the overcorrection has been this kind of like, stoicism.
[00:36:04] So it's this like any amount of emotion is bad, crying is bad, you know, any of these kinds of things. And so we have to realign ourself and make sure that we're defining masculinity in the person of Jesus, that he is who is a man. Jesus is a man.
[00:36:19] He's the manliest man.
[00:36:22] And so stoicism, pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, kind of a mentality is not going to work for you, brothers. Because if you live long enough, one day somebody you love will be changing your diapers.
[00:36:37] Like your physicality is going to fail you one day. It's going to happen if you live to be that old.
[00:36:47] So it's not about stoicism.
[00:36:49] It's about realigning our vision of masculinity into the person of Jesus Christ. And how did Jesus handle death? He wept over it.
[00:36:59] Jesus knew he was going to raise Lazarus from the dead.
[00:37:03] He knew he was going to do that. And at the same time, in light of knowing that he still wept over the reality of death. So should we. Death is a terrible thing.
[00:37:14] But the good news for us who are followers of Jesus is that it's not the end.
[00:37:19] It doesn't get the final word.
[00:37:22] It is a doorway into the throne room of God.
[00:37:26] And so I just want to leave you with this, with this one question.
[00:37:31] If death is a doorway into the throne room of God, by which we pass from this life into the next and see the glory of God as Stephen saw the glory of God with our eyes for the first time on that day, whose righteousness will you be standing on?
[00:37:50] And there are really two options for that.
[00:37:54] The first option is, on that day that you pass through the doorway into the throne room of God, you'll be standing on your righteousness.
[00:38:05] All the good things that you did on this side of heaven.
[00:38:09] I just saw somebody in the back make a face like, oof, not a good choice.
[00:38:13] Not a good choice.
[00:38:16] And if you think it might be a good choice, if you're like, yeah, but I've lived a pretty good life and I've done good things, and I haven't killed anybody, and I haven't done these things, then I say this gently, like, friend, you really don't understand the holiness of God.
[00:38:31] Like, the holiness of God is such that you and I, apart from the grace of God, face to face with him, will want to crawl out of our skin.
[00:38:42] Like, we won't be able to take it.
[00:38:45] And it's not because God's harsh.
[00:38:48] It's because he's so unimaginably good.
[00:38:52] Never been in the presence of something so good, so pure, so perfect as God, and you won't be able to stand it.
[00:39:04] I'm from West Texas. You won't be able to stand in the face of God and say, well, I'm going to give God a piece of my mind.
[00:39:12] No, you won't.
[00:39:13] You won't give God a piece of your mind.
[00:39:20] You'll say what Isaiah said, woe is me, for I'm a man of unclean lips. Depart from me.
[00:39:28] I can't stand it. I can't look at you.
[00:39:33] You'll say what Job said in chapter 42 after God spoke to him in the whirlwind and Job said, I despise myself and I repent in dust and ashes. But on that day, friends, you won't be able to repent.
[00:39:49] And so that's one option, is that you stand on your righteousness as you pass through the doorway into the throne room of God.
[00:40:01] But the other option is a much more glorious one, and it's available to all of you.
[00:40:09] And that is, on that day you'll be standing only on the righteousness of Christ.
[00:40:18] And if Christ is yours and you are his, the doorway that is death does not lead to condemnation, but glory and joy beyond anything you can imagine.
[00:40:31] It'll be the best day of your life.
[00:40:34] It'll be a day so great and so weighty that the Apostle Paul says in Romans 8 will make all of the suffering that you've experienced on this side of eternity seem pale in comparison to it. And that doesn't diminish at all the severity of your suffering, it just makes that so much greater.
[00:40:53] Like if you put a 45 pound plate on one side of a scale and a 2 1/2 pound plate on the other side of the scale, it's that kind of a situation. It's just going to be the glory and the joy and the peace and the righteousness and the love that you and I experience on that day is going to be so much weightier than any amount of suffering and weight that you and I experience on this side of heaven, no matter how severe the suffering is.
[00:41:17] And so how might we die? Well, we die well by having our hope in heaven gaze upon Jesus.
[00:41:27] And upon gazing at the person of Jesus, being reminded of his love for you, growing in your love for him. Have your hope in heaven. And by the grace of God, might we die deaths that glorify God.
[00:41:42] He fell asleep.
[00:41:44] He will be resurrected.
[00:41:46] You and I one day will fall asleep and at the return of Jesus will be resurrected to live with him forever. Let's pray.
[00:42:00] Father, we love you. And God, we thank you for the opportunity to to again study your word. God, thank you for the example of Stephen. Thank you that God, by your grace, you've given us an example of what it looks like to live well and die well. And God, we pray that our focus leaving this place wouldn't be on how to better ourselves, but that you would turn our eyes to Jesus, the champion of our faith, the forerunner of our faith, the one who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despised the shame, and is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God as our righteousness. And so, God, we love you. We thank you for loving us and we pray all of this in Jesus name, Amen.
