Howdy Mars Hill church and our extended family
of Mars Hill Global.
Pastor Sutton here and I'm really, really thankful
that you have decided to join us for our Global services today.
Our Global services broadcast all over the world
based on your time zone so that you can see
all that Jesus is doing at our local church.
Let me first say, you should be a part of a local church.
Fellowship and community is super important.
So not only are you attending,
but you're giving to your local church.
Above and beyond that we want you to be a part
of the extended family of Mars Hill Global.
Jesus is doing some crazy awesome things through Mars Hill
and we want you to be a part of that,
not only with your prayers, but with your gifts,
sowing above and beyond offering to Mars Hill Global.
So welcome to the Global services
and thank you for joining us.
[music]
You will receive power!
Alright, close your eyes.
Close your eyes and envision yourself late at night,
long road trip.
Very dark, remote area.
You're tired, you're hungry, you still got quite a ways to go,
and your car starts giving you trouble.
Eventually you lose power, pull over to the side of the road,
and it's dark.
And you're hoping, anticipating
that someone's going to drive by,
pick you up, take you to the next town
a few miles down the road.
You wait what seems like a very long time.
Car won't turn over, you're getting cold,
a little frustrated, impatient.
You decide, "I'll throw my coat on
and walk the few miles into town."
You start walking.
Pretty soon you can't see your car behind you,
you can't see anything in front of you.
You're walking along the shoulder of the road
trying to stay close to the white line.
And then you hear this.
[wolf howling]
OK, open your eyes.
OK, you laughed because you're not there,
but hypothetically--
hypothetically, you're there.
What do you do?
What do you--
"Run," says the dead person in the third row.
Because what did we just hear?
A wolf. A wolf.
What do you do when a wolf comes?
What do you do when a pack of wolves comes?
What do you do when a howl is responded to
with a series of howls, and they're around you?
What direction do you go?
I'm not suggesting you watch it.
It's got a deplorable view of God, but did you see the movie,
"The Grey"?
Guy's plane crashes, and the wolves encircle them,
and one by one, devour them.
One of the story lines of the Bible is that God
is a Good Shepherd.
Jesus says he's the Good Shepherd.
That the church is a flock of sheep.
That you all are like sheep.
Some of you say, "I'm tough."
For a sheep, maybe you're tough.
But if I change the story to you're walking alone
late at night and you see a flock of sheep,
you would pet them.
They're not terrifying.
That God is good a shepherd, that Christians are like sheep,
that the church is like a pen where we have some protection
together, that pastors and other leaders
are supposed to be shepherds,
and that conversely, there are wolves,
and they run in packs, and they devour flocks,
and they attack shepherds.
It's in the Old Testament, the teachings of Jesus,
and the New Testament.
And we're in the book of Acts.
We started this book a few years ago
and we take a chunk every year after Easter,
and we go through the book in the order that
the Holy Spirit chose for it to be written.
And today, in God's providence, we find ourselves in
Acts 6:8 through Acts 8:3.
Empowered by the Spirit to face wolves.
What's happened is that the Lord Jesus has come
for his flock as the Good Shepherd.
As he promised, he laid down his life as the Good Shepherd
for his flock.
That the wolves surrounded him, that they attacked him,
that they crucified him,
and he laid down his life for the sheep.
After his resurrection, he commissioned his leaders
to be shepherds, to care for his people.
He ascended back into heaven, and we saw Christianity early
in the book of Acts exploding and expanding,
and lots of people became the people of God.
And so the flock is growing, the church is growing,
the number of shepherds is increasing.
One of them who is appointed is named Stephen.
And now today, we see that the wolves are coming,
that they are fast approaching, that they are planning
and plotting, that they soon will be attacking.
And so we pick up the story in Acts 6:8-15,
and herein, we meet the wolves.
"And Stephen"--this man who was just appointed to leadership
earlier in the chapter-- "full of grace and power"--
that's Luke's language for the Holy Spirit.
The third member of the Trinity who empowered the life of Jesus
empowers the life of Jesus' people.
And so here, the Holy Spirit is in and through Stephen
in a supernatural way.
He's a natural man with a supernatural enablement.
He's like you, and he's like me.
He's just a regular guy until the Holy Spirit fills him,
and he yields and submits himself to the person,
the presence, and the power of the Holy Spirit.
And the great wonders and signs are done, people are healed,
the Bible is taught, people become Christians,
demons are cast out--some of the things that I've seen in my
tenure here at Mars Hill Church by the power of the Holy Spirit.
"Then some of those who belong to the synagogue of the Freedmen
(as it was called)"--
these are people who were slaves and then freed,
and they apparently had made their own synagogue.
What you're going to see here are a bunch of packs.
Here come the wolves.
Each pack has its alpha.
It has its male leader,
the strong one who in every way leads the pack.
And now all of the alphas are leading all of the packs to
encircle Stephen, the shepherd, and they're going to attack him.
"Then some of those who belonged to the synagogue of the Freedmen
(as it was called)"-- there's a pack--
"and of the Cyrenians"-- another pack--
"and of the Alexandrians"-- another pack--
"and of those from Cilicia"-- another pack--
"and Asia"--more packs--
"rose up"-- with their alphas--
"and disputed with Stephen."
The alphas are going after the shepherd.
"But they could not withstand the wisdom and the Spirit
by which he was speaking."
That's the Holy Spirit.
"Then they secretly instigated men who said,
"'We have heard him speaking blasphemous words
"'against Moses and God.'
And they stirred up the people and the elders and the scribes."
More packs, more alphas,
more packs, more alphas.
"And they came upon him and seized him and brought him
before the council."
They're attacking him.
"And they set up false witnesses."
You're not supposed to bear false witness.
Here, they're violating one of the Ten Commandments.
"They set up false witnesses who said, quote,
"'This man never ceases to speak words against
this holy place'"-- the temple--
"'and the law'"-- the Bible--
"'for we have heard him say'"--
they never heard this.
Not like this.
"'That this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place
"'and will change the customs that Moses delivered to us.'
"And gazing at him, all who sat in the council saw that his face
was like the face of an angel."
The goal is very simple.
Discredit the minister, and destroy this ministry.
That's it.
This is always Satan's plot and plan.
And here, those idyllic early days of the early church,
the good old days when all we did was eat meals together,
and study the Bible, and baptize the new believers,
those days are in the rearview mirror.
And now the opposition, the ostracism, it has come.
The packs have found their way to the door of the church, and
the alphas have devised their plan to take down the shepherd.
Oftentimes, Christianity is presented as just
a self-help scheme for you.
Today, I want you to care about the whole church.
Not just our church, every church that loves Jesus
and believes the Bible--
every flock that is under our Good Shepherd.
Here come the packs, here come the alphas,
here come the wolves,
and they start by seeking to discredit Stephen.
They bring charges against him that don't hold up.
They argue with him but they can't win the argument because
he's filled with the Holy Spirit and he speaks words
of truth and wisdom.
They lose their public relations attempt to cause him
to be discredited.
He defends himself, and he holds his ground.
So, they're not done.
They then turn to false witnesses and false charges.
They make things up that he didn't say, or they take things
that he said and they say them in ways that he didn't intend.
They're doing the same thing to Stephen that they did
to the Lord Jesus.
These are the same kinds of people.
The alphas surrounded the Lord Jesus.
Their packs came to attack him.
It started by arguing with him.
When they lost the arguments, then it was instigating him.
And when they couldn't win the fight,
then it was false accusations against him by false witnesses.
And in the middle of it all, Stephen, like the Lord Jesus,
is maintaining his integrity.
He's serving for God's glory, and it says that his face
was like the face of an angel.
He wasn't angry, he wasn't vengeful, he wasn't defensive,
he wasn't accusatory or derogatory.
And they're not done.
And this organized attack continues.
The bloodthirst of the wolves will not be satiated.
And I've wrestled preparing for this section of Acts wondering,
"Lord, should I take it all at once
"since it's a unit of thought, or should I break it down
because it's so incredibly long?"
I've chosen to deal with the entire narrative
so that we could see it all in context.
And this may be Stephen's first sermon.
It is assuredly his last sermon.
He has just officially entered into a leadership position in
the church, and he is now going to preach his own funeral.
He's going to preach his own funeral.
One thing that I've asked the Lord is,
"Let me preach Grace's funeral and my funeral.
"Let me take care of my best friend all the days of her life
"and when my run is done, I hope in many years,
let me preach my own funeral."
I tend to do that on video.
I'll just tell you that right now.
And I will make sure that there is a gospel invitation
at my funeral.
I will make sure of that.
Stephen gets the great dignity and honor in the sight of God
to preach his own funeral, and it's a long sermon.
Oftentimes when we get a sermon in the Bible,
it's a snippet or a summary.
This is actually an extended, maybe an exhaustive transcript
of what he had to say.
So, since these are Stephen's final words,
this is his funeral sermon, out of honor and respect for him,
I'm going to ask you to stand.
All of you.
And we're going to read his sermon together.
I will read it to you.
If you've got your Bible, feel free to follow along.
Paul says to a young pastor,
"Devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture,"
so we'll do that now because faith comes
by hearing the word of God.
Here's Stephen, surrounded by alphas and wolves.
"And the high priest said, 'Are these things so?'
And Stephen said--" here's his sermon:
"Brothers and fathers," he's respectful, "hear me.
The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham"--
he starts with 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 to the land
"'that I will show you.'
"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 you are now living.
"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.
"And God spoke to this effect--that his offspring
"would be sojourners in a land belonging to others,
"and would enslave them and afflict them four hundred years.
"'But I will judge the nation that they serve,' said God,
"'and after that they shall come out and worship me
"in this place.'
"And he gave him the covenant of circumcision.
"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."
He's deep into Genesis.
"And the patriarchs, jealous of Joseph,"
he's at the end of Genesis, "sold him into Egypt;
"but God was with him and rescued him
"out of all his afflictions
"and gave him favor and wisdom before Pharaoh, king of Egypt,
"who made him ruler over Egypt and over all his household.
"Now there came a famine throughout all Egypt and Canaan,
"and great affliction, and our fathers could find no food.
"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.
"And Joseph sent and summoned Jacob his father
"and all his kindred, seventy-five persons in all.
"And Jacob went down into Egypt, and he died, 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 in Shechem.
"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."
Now he's in to Exodus.
"He dealt shrewdly with our race and forced our fathers to expose
"their infants, so that they would not be kept alive.
"At this time Moses was born;
"and he was beautiful in God's sight.
"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 up as her own son.
"And Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians,
and he was mighty in his words and deeds."
Same as Stephen.
The Holy Spirit was upon him as well.
"When he was forty 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.
"He supposed that his brothers would understand that God
"was giving them salvation by his hand,
"but they did not understand.
"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?'
"But the man who was wronging his neighbor thrust him aside,
"saying, 'Who made you a ruler and a judge over us?
"'Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?'
"At this retort Moses fled and became an exile
"in the land of Midian,
"where he became the father of two sons.
Now when forty years had passed, an angel"--
perhaps even Jesus I would add--
"appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai,
"in a flame of fire in a bush.
"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.'
"And Moses trembled and did not dare to look.
"Then the Lord said to him,
"'Take off the sandals from your feet,
"'for the place where you are standing is holy ground.
"'I have surely seen the affliction of my people
"'who are in Egypt, and I have heard their groaning,
"'and I have come down to deliver them.
"'And now come, I will send you to Egypt.'
"This Moses, whom they rejected, saying,
"'Who made you a ruler and a judge?'
"--this man God sent as both ruler and redeemer by the hand
"of the angel who appeared to him in the bush.
"This man led them out, performing wonders and signs
"in Egypt and at the Red Sea
"and in the wilderness for forty years.
"This is the Moses who said to the Israelites,
"'God will raise up for you a prophet like me
from your brothers.'"
That was a prophecy of Jesus' coming.
"This is the one who was in the congregation,"
or the church,
"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.
"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.
"'As for this Moses who led us out from the land of Egypt,
"'we do not know what has become of him.'
"And they made a calf in those days,
"and offered a sacrifice to the idol and were rejoicing
"in the works of their hands.
"But God turned away and gave them over to worship
"the host of heaven,
"as it is written in the book of the prophets:
"'Did you not bring to me slain beasts and sacrifices,
"'during the forty years in the wilderness,
"'O house of Israel?
"'You took up the tent of Moloch and the star of your god Rephan,
"'the images that you made to worship;
and I will send you into exile beyond Babylon.'"
The prefiguring of the temple is next.
"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.
"Our fathers in turn brought it in with Joshua when they
"dispossessed the nations that God drove out
"before our fathers.
"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.
But it was Solomon"--David and Solomon are next.
"But it was Solomon who built a house for him.
"Yet the Most High does not dwell in houses made by hands,
as the prophet say."
Regarding the temple, God goes on to say,
"'Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool.
"'What kind of house will you build for me, says the Lord,
"or what is the place of my rest?
Did not my hand make all these things?'"
You may be seated.
Here's what Stephen does, and let me say this:
You never know when you're going to need to know your Bible.
There's no indication that Stephen was given
advanced warning that this moment was coming.
He knew the Scriptures, and as a result,
when the time came for him to speak,
he was prepared and ready.
Peter says something similar: "Always be prepared to give
a reason for the hope that is within you."
Always be prepared to explain who Jesus is and what he's done.
You never know when the time will come,
so you prepare that you're ready all the time.
Stephen is ready, and when the moment comes,
he respectfully--calling them brothers and fathers--
he walks them through the Old Testament.
And he is leading everything to the person and work of Jesus.
They would have known these biblical stories,
they would have studied them as children,
but their problem was they had missed Jesus.
Let me be very clear.
You can know the Bible, but if you don't know Jesus,
you don't know the Bible.
You can know the Bible, but if you don't know Jesus,
you don't know the Bible.
Jesus himself said that he came to fulfill all Scripture.
He said that the Scripture was about him in John 5:38-39.
"You diligently study the Scriptures thinking that
"in them you'll find eternal life.
"You fail to recognize these are the Scriptures
that testify about me."
Jesus himself taught a Bible study after he rose from death--
two, in fact--at the end of the Gospel of Luke,
showing how the whole Old Testament was about him.
The whole pie, now, the whole Bible is Jesus.
It's all about Jesus.
And they knew the Bible, but they didn't know the Bible
because they didn't know Jesus,
and the whole Bible is about Jesus.
And so what he is doing, Stephen,
is he is taking the Bible that they know and leading them to
the Jesus that they do not know.
And he starts with Abraham, that they would have called
their father.
And he reminds them that Abraham was a pagan.
He did not start as a Jew.
He circumcised himself and became the father
of the Jewish people.
But he was a pagan, just like you and me,
living apart from the Lord, coming from a godless family,
and God chose him.
Before Abraham ever chose God, God chose him, elected him.
God showed up and spoke to him.
Before Abraham ever called out to the Lord,
the Lord called out to him.
And the Lord made a promise to Abraham:
"You're going to become a father."
He and his wife were barren and elderly.
They had no children and no capacity to have children.
"And through your line will come a nation of sons,
"the nation of Israel, and through that nation
will come a particular Son."
I'm summarizing a ton of Scripture here.
But it was a promise that this promised Son of miraculous birth
would be a blessing to the nations of the earth.
Ultimately, the Lord Jesus Christ comes.
He is the son of Abraham, and he is the Son of God.
He is fulfillment of the promise to Abraham.
God gave Abraham the son Isaac.
His name means "laughter" because God always gets the last laugh.
And then through Isaac came the Patriarchs,
which he has just mentioned.
Through them came the nation of Israel.
It started as a family of around 70 at the end of Genesis.
By the beginning of Exodus
he says it's a nation of a few million.
Through these people comes one person.
God becomes a man, the Lord Jesus Christ.
He is the descendant of Abraham.
He is the promised Son also born of a supernatural miraculous
intervention and birth by God.
And he is not just any man's Son--he is the Son of God.
And Jesus is the fulfillment of the blessing that was promised
to the nations of the earth through Abraham.
He then proceeds forward to Moses.
First he proceeds, I should say, to Joseph.
And he says of Joseph that Joseph was hated, and despised,
and betrayed by his brothers.
He ultimately was thrown in a hole and left for dead.
That Joseph got out of that hole and rose up from poverty to
luxury, and went from a place of obscurity to a place of
great leadership and prominence.
And that as a result, Joseph used his position
as a mighty ruler with lots of resources
to feed, care for, love,
and ultimately save people.
Not only that, he forgave his brothers,
and his great reconciliation with them,
if memory serves me correct, is in Genesis 50:20,
where he looks at them and he says,
"What you intended for evil God used for good
and the saving of many lives."
And Jesus is the greater Joseph.
Jesus similarly was betrayed by his own brothers.
Jesus was thrown into a hole and left for dead.
Jesus maintained a love for his Father, and his Father maintained
a love for him, as was the case with Joseph.
Jesus got out of that hole and he rose to a leadership position
at the right hand of the king, much like the Lord Jesus sits at
the right hand of the Father.
And he used what was intended for evil,
the murder of God on the cross, for good and the saving of
many lives including our own, and he reconciles with us,
and he makes us brothers.
He looks us in the eye with love and says, "You murdered me,
"but what you intended for evil has been used for good
and the saving of many lives."
He moves from Abraham, to Joseph, to Moses,
and he tells the story of Moses.
That in that day, God's people lived in a land called Egypt.
They were pilgrims and sojourners, and that
they were far from home.
And that God's people were under oppression,
and there was a man who was the pharaoh,
and he ruled over them as a cruel taskmaster.
He had no grace, he had no love,
he had no mercy for God's people.
And so God raised up this man Moses,
and put the Holy Spirit in him and on him,
and empowered him for preaching and for miraculous works,
and signs, and wonders, and deeds.
And Moses as a prophet of God rebuked the Pharaoh,
calling him and the nation of Egypt to repentance.
And the more he preached, the harder their hearts became.
The result was that ultimately God,
through a series of miraculous supernatural events,
delivered his people from slavery and bondage
to freedom and worship.
And Jesus comes as the greater Moses.
Jesus comes as the prophet that was promised to come through
the line of Moses.
Jesus comes to face our Pharaoh, Satan.
Jesus comes to free us from slavery to sin that we might be
free to live new lives as his joyful people, worshiping him.
And this is his sermon, and it's all about Jesus.
Abraham is about Jesus, Israel's about Jesus,
the patriarchs are about Jesus, the Exodus is about Jesus,
Moses is about Jesus, Joseph is about Jesus,
David is about Jesus, Solomon is about Jesus,
the temple is about Jesus, the priesthood is about Jesus,
kingship is about Jesus.
It's all about Jesus.
Even the shepherd boy David pointed to Jesus,
our Good Shepherd.
It's all about Jesus.
True or false, he did a good job?
The wolves have come.
Stephen, by the power of the Holy Spirit,
he's a good shepherd and he's preaching his funeral
to the wolves and their packs.
And then who joins this momentous occasion?
None other than the chief Shepherd.
Here is the final words of Stephen.
Acts 7:51-60, "You stiff-necked people."
The alphas and the packs are the audience for the sermon.
"You stiff-necked people."
Praise God.
I praise God, and we want to publicly honor Stephen today.
He didn't become a wolf;
he stayed a shepherd.
It would have been very tempting for him,
looking at his fast approaching murder,
in an effort to make his life simpler,
to have transitioned from shepherd to wolf
and to become an alpha.
He warns of this, the Holy Spirit does,
in Acts 20,
where, speaking to the Ephesians elders, it is said,
"Men will rise from your own number, distort the truth,
and lead many astray."
The ESV says, "Some of you elders are going to become
wolves and ravage the flock."
Stephen here is still a shepherd,
and his flock is watching, and the pack is approaching,
and he preaches the truth.
Can you imagine how difficult this was?
He is brand-new to ministry.
This is his rookie season.
"You stiff-necked people."
You ever try to walk a dog with a stiff neck?
You realize the dog's trying to walk you.
You ever try and ride a horse with a stiff neck?
Can't make it go where you want.
God says that his people are often, or at least sometimes,
like that, just stiff-necked.
"You stiff-necked people,
uncircumcised in your heart and ears."
Now, the men were all circumcised,
but not in their heart and not in their ears.
They weren't listening, and they weren't loving.
You can go through a lot of religious ritual,
but if it's only external and not internal,
all you are is a religious hypocrite with a stiff neck.
Here's the bottom line.
"You always resist the Holy Spirit."
He's convicted you, he's taught you, he's led you.
"You know what you're supposed to do,
"you know what you're not supposed to do.
"And your fight is ultimately," Stephen is saying,
"not with me, it's with him."
And your fathers, and your grandfathers,
and your great-grandfathers, they've been warring against him
for thousands of years.
"And it's ultimately," Stephen is saying,
"not a battle with me.
It's a battle with God."
"As your fathers did, so do you."
He's insulting their dad
because their dads and their granddads
were kindling for the fires of hell.
Circumcised, Sabbath-keeping,
rule-abiding kindling.
"Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute?"
Stephen is saying, "I'm like Elijah.
"I'm like Jeremiah.
I'm preaching and you're persecuting."
If you read the book, when the shepherd gets attacked,
whoever's attacking is the wolf.
"And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming
of the Righteous One"-- that's Jesus--
"whom you have now betrayed and murdered."
You murdered God.
"You who received the law as delivered by angels
and did not keep it."
The angels brought you the Old Testament
and you murdered Jesus,
the entire point of the entire Scriptures.
"Now when they heard these things they were"--what?
"Enraged."
Maybe if he would have said it differently,
they would have responded differently.
Maybe Stephen just wasn't very winsome.
"Now when they heard these things they were enraged,
and they ground their teeth at him."
You ever seen a dog--hair up, teeth out, what do you know?
You're in danger.
It's an involuntary response of a dog who is preparing to bite,
and devour, and attack.
These men now, demonically Inspired, are like animals.
They are wolves, and their teeth are showing.
"But he, full of the Holy Spirit."
Stephen was a great man
because he submitted to a great God.
Apart from submitting to a great God,
there is no such thing as a great man.
He is now going to be like Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit
as Jesus was empowered.
"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."
They will listen no more.
"And they rushed together at him."
All the dogs off the leash.
"Then they cast him out of the city and they stoned him.
"And the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet
of a young man named Saul."
There's the alpha.
Only one alpha name from all the packs.
That's the alpha of the alphas.
His name is Saul.
"And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out,
'Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.'"
He's saying the same thing as Jesus, isn't he?
"Father, into your hands I commit my spirit"--
the Lord Jesus said from the cross--
"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."
That's the Bible's language for a believer who dies.
When a believer dies, they fall asleep.
Their body lays in the ground
until the resurrection of the dead.
When a believer and an unbeliever dies,
for the believer it is death, physical and spiritual death.
For the believer, it is physical death but spiritual life.
They fall in a sleep and one day that dead body
will rise with Jesus.
These are Stephen's final words.
He is on his knees because the men have encircled him.
The wolves have come for him, and they're going to stone him.
You need to know that there is no indication
that this was legal.
This is illegal.
They had challenged him and failed in their argument.
They had brought charges against him that did not stick.
They brought false charges against him
that did not remove him from ministry.
So now they're going to murder him,
and they don't seemingly have any legal right to do so,
and there is no trial.
This is mob violence.
This is exactly what was done to the Lord Jesus.
Argue with him, can't win.
Accuse him, nothing sticks.
Falsely accuse him, does not discredit him.
Therefore to silence him, we must kill him.
And Stephen is on his knees and rocks are flying at him.
And the men who threw the rocks,
they were like pitchers coming out of a bullpen.
The first thing you do is take your coat off so you
can make sure to throw as hard and fast as you can.
They take their outer garments off.
They lay them at the feet of Saul.
He's the leader; he's the alpha.
This is all--this is all for Saul's glory.
Saul's going to win!
Saul's going to be victorious!
Saul's name will be exalted!
All the alphas will bow down to him!
All the packs will sing his praises!
Lay all the glory at his feet!
And there's Stephen with the face of an angel,
filled with the Holy Spirit,
praying for his enemies to be forgiven,
just like Jesus.
"Father, forgive them."
That's what Jesus says from the cross.
If you want the face of an angel,
you've got to forgive your enemies to the degree
that you pray for them to be saved.
If you want the face of an angel,
you need to pray for enemies to the degree
that you want them to be saved.
Those who are bitter cannot have the face of an angel.
Those who by the power of the Holy Spirit forgive
their enemies are granted the face of an angel.
Who lost?
If you're looking at it, who lost?
Stephen.
Who won?
Saul.
The alpha murdered the shepherd.
Don't be lied to.
"If you love Jesus, you're a winner!"
At the end, you are.
In the middle, you may not be.
Here we see the wolves.
Here we see the alpha.
Here we see the shepherd doing two things.
He's preaching and praying.
That's what a good shepherd does.
Preaching and praying.
He teaching about Jesus and praying that people
would meet Jesus.
And who shows up?
The Good Shepherd.
1 Peter 5, Peter calls Jesus the "chief Shepherd."
Jesus says, "I am the Good Shepherd.
I lay down my life for the sheep."
Jesus is saying, "When Satan and demons show up to ravage
"and devour the flock,
"I put myself in the middle, and I am ravaged
and devoured for them."
That's what happened on the cross.
And how does Stephen see Jesus?
It says that he sees Jesus in glory.
I need you to see Jesus in glory,
especially when you're suffering.
Oftentimes, we don't look up until it really hurts.
We're so busy down here.
He looks up and he sees Jesus in glory,
calls him the "Son of Man."
Do you have a nickname?
We tend to give nicknames to those we love
and those we hate the most.
Jesus took for himself a nickname, Son of Man.
It got him in a lot of trouble.
If memory serves me correct, it appears about 80 times.
It comes out of the book of Daniel.
It's a staggering claim.
Son of Man is God as a man,
riding down on the clouds of heaven
into human history to judge and to bring a kingdom.
It's the way that he's revealed in Isaiah 6.
Hundreds of years before Jesus entered into human history,
he says, "The heavens opened.
"I saw the Lord high and exalted.
"And the angels cried out,
"'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty.'
"Heaven and earth are full of his glory.
I saw him in glory."
John 12, he says, "I saw"-- Isaiah saw Jesus
and spoke of his glory.
In Revelation, John gets a picture like that.
He saw Jesus high and exalted in glory.
How do you see Jesus?
Don't see him just in humility, a humble, marginalized,
Galilean peasant.
That was a short few years of his eternal,
unending existence as Creator God.
Today the Lord Jesus is as Stephen saw him,
in glory not humility, being worshiped by angels,
being adored by departed saints.
And Stephen has clarity because he saw Jesus.
There is no clarity down here unless we see him up there.
Unless you know that Jesus is alive, that Jesus is God,
that Jesus is Lord, that Jesus is ruling,
that Jesus is reigning, that Jesus is in glory,
that Jesus sees all, knows all,
judges all perfectly,
until you have that kind of clarity,
nothing here is clear.
And Stephen had that clarity.
And he is the only man in the New Testament other than Jesus
to refer to Jesus as the Son of Man,
because he saw him like no one else saw him.
Some of you who are suffering, you know that you see Jesus
in a way that no one else sees him.
And it was customary in that day that in court the judge
would sit, hear the case, and render the verdict.
The witnesses would stand to testify.
Here, the Lord Jesus is standing.
He's gotten off of his throne for Stephen,
to honor Stephen and to serve as a witness saying,
"I've seen it all. I know it all.
I will judge all."
You need to know that not only is Jesus your judge,
he's your witness.
He sees and knows all-- all that you do,
and all that has been done to you.
He sees the evil that you and I have done, and he sees the evil
that others have done to us.
He's not only the judge; he's the witness.
And either he died in our place for our sins, or we die
in our place for our sins, but there is justice for all.
And it says the Lord Jesus got off of his throne, seated
at the right hand of the Father, and he looked down at Stephen,
telling him, "I am witnessing all of this,
and I will welcome you."
And his arms are out to welcome Stephen home.
And Stephen closed his eyes in Death, and he opened his eyes
to see the Lord Jesus face to face, to feel his embrace,
and to hear, "Well done, good and faithful servant.
Enter into your rest."
Saul was living for his own glory,
and Stephen was living for God's glory.
The wolves, the shepherd, the Chief Shepherd,
and the alpha.
It does not say, "And it got all better."
It does not say, "And they lived happily ever after."
It does not say, "And 3,000 were added to their number
and baptized."
Acts 8:1-3, here comes the alpha.
"And Saul."
Saul, we know his name.
All these groups, all these packs, all these men,
we only know the name of one.
He's the alpha.
"Approved of his execution."
This was his strategic plan.
He had organized this.
He had brought all these angry men together to attack
the minister and the ministry.
"And there arose on that day a great"--what?
"Persecution against the church."
They're attacking the church.
The wolves have gone after the shepherd, and now the wolves
are going after the sheep.
"Against the church in Jerusalem."
This was very strategic.
Jesus already told them early in Acts,
"You'll be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea,
Samaria, ends of the earth."
The gospel won't go forward if the church is destroyed
in Jerusalem.
"And they were all scattered through the regions of
Judea and Samaria."
People stopped going to church.
They stopped walking with Jesus.
They fled, they ran, they scattered.
Do you know how vulnerable one lone sheep is?
"Except the apostles," the leaders, the shepherds.
You know who the shepherds are because when the wolves come,
the Bible says that the hired hand runs
and the shepherd stays.
Oftentimes, you don't know who's a hired hand or who's a shepherd
until the wolves show up.
Let's say I'm sitting at your house for dinner,
and there are two other men there, and a woman and children,
and I don't know which one is the father
because I just met you.
And I hear gunshots, and a banging on the door,
and one man runs. That's not the husband,
that's not the father.
The dad runs to the door;
the other man runs for his life.
You don't know who the shepherds are sometimes
until the wolves show up.
And the hired men run,
and the shepherds hold their posts.
That's what happens.
They know they're going to get treated like Stephen,
and they stay.
They know that their reputations are going to be destroyed.
They might be arrested and maybe even murdered like Stephen,
and they stay because they love the sheep and because
the Holy Spirit has given them the heart of the Good Shepherd.
"Devout men buried Stephen
and made great lamentation over him."
Funeral.
"But Saul was"--what?
"Ravaging the church."
This is--in the original Greek--I don't do this to you
a lot, but that's the language for what happens
when a wolf gets in a sheep pen.
It's ravaging, it's bloodthirsty, it's ugly,
it's death.
"Saul was ravaging the church and entering house after house,
he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison."
Now he's making his way through the Community Groups.
How many of you, you're going to go to Community Group this week,
and you're advertising it so that people can come,
and if a terrorist showed up, that would be the last day of
your Community Group?
There's three things I want you to see here.
This wolf attack on the flock,
it's relentless, it's religious,
and it's ravaging.
It's relentless, it's religious, and it's ravaging.
It's interesting, we don't deal with wolves a lot in our day,
but in some places they do.
Let me share this with you.
It's from the BBC World Service Podcast.
The announcer asks, "What's it like when you stare
into the eyes of a wolf?"
Caroline Burda knows the feeling all too well.
She's a sheep farmer in the French Alps.
And in the last couple of years, she's been on the front lines
of a battle with the beasts.
The wolf was hunted to almost extinction in France
in the 1930s,
but after being labeled an endangered species it has
made a surprising comeback, with wolves now killing
6,000 sheep a year and the government allowing
some wolves to be shot.
Can't we domesticate them? No.
"The wolves are clever," she says.
"They spend long hours watching, watching,
"learning the flock's movements.
"They wait and attack.
"When they attack a flock, especially when they get inside
an enclosure that's supposed to protect the flock"--this is
the language of the church in the New Testament.
She says--this is Insightful--"They go berserk.
"Once they get in where the sheep are, they go berserk.
"They won't stop killing as long is there is a sheep
or a lamb still moving."
It's not about the food; it's about the death.
"In general, we have one ewe eaten and several others that
"they've killed just for the sake of it.
"What's frightening," says Caroline,
"is the wolf's singularity of purpose."
"She spends a lot of time looking after her sheep,
"but people also do other things--
"send text messages, do homework with the kids, vacuum the house.
"The wolf stays concentrated on how he's going to run amuck
in her flock."
And then the woman says, "All the time,
all the time they are watching us."
These wolves who are now attacking the church,
they are relentless.
They started with Stephen, they've got Stephen dead,
now they're going from house to house.
Do you know how much time, and energy,
and organization it takes to go to this Bible study,
this Community Group, this Redemption Group?
Whatever their groups were, they were meeting in homes,
going through the list of the leaders,
going through the organization of the church, and one by one,
declaring war, and even taking men and women, leaders,
off to prison to punish them.
Well, this obviously causes the rest of the people
to be afraid and to scatter.
Wolf comes in the sheep pen, kills a few sheep,
the rest of the sheep run for their life.
It's relentless, this plan that Saul has overseen.
It is also religious.
Saul is not an atheist.
If you were to sit down with Saul and say,
"Tell me about yourself," he would echo what he says
in Philippians 3:
"I was born into a devoutly religious family.
"I learned the Hebrew Scriptures growing up.
"I had a good, formal Bible education.
"I'm a leader in my religious community.
"I was circumcised on the right day.
"I obey all the rules.
"I'm a good, moral, upright person,
and I am doing this for the Lord."
No one appointed him,
but he believes that God has anointed him.
He could argue Bible with you all day in Hebrew.
He's very religious, but he didn't love Jesus,
and so he's very wrong.
He's not serving the church, so he's very wrong.
It's relentless, it's religious, and it's ravaging.
They're going into people's homes,
they're going into relationships,
they're going into churches, and the goal is very simple:
ravage, scatter.
Ravage, scatter.
What do you do when this is done?
You grieve.
It says that devout men led the lamenting.
The Day of Pentecost was a wedding day, thousands saved.
This is a funeral day.
Stephen is dead, and the church is bleeding,
and the sheep are fleeing,
and the wolves have gone berserk,
and the alpha has come out of the shadows
and is getting all the glory.
We in the West do not lament well.
When tragedy befalls some Eastern cultures,
you turn on the TV, you're like, "They're crying,
"they're out in public, there's days of mourning,
there's a process."
We don't have that.
We celebrate publicly; we lament privately.
We make our wins known to all,
and we keep our losses to ourselves.
What do you do when you're struggling and dying?
What happens when you didn't get cured of cancer,
you're dying of cancer?
What happens when you didn't live happily ever after,
but you got served divorce papers?
What happens when you didn't just get pregnant,
you had the miscarriage?
What happens when it all falls apart,
or at least that's how it feels--that evil is winning,
and you are losing, and your heart is bleeding?
The answer is lamenting.
It's a way of not denying reality or becoming evil,
but walking through it.
And the Bible says we need to walk through
the valley of the shadow of death.
And everybody wants to buy the book that says,
"Here's four, or six, or ten steps
to walk around the valley of the shadow of death."
Nobody--you know, "Here's the seven steps to walk through
the valley of the shadow of death."
We're not going to buy that one.
Nobody wants to go through the darkness, and the pain,
and the grief, and the loss, and the mourning, and the hurt,
but the only way to the other side of it is through it.
You've got to go through it just like Jesus did.
There's a whole book of the Bible called Lamentations.
It's about lamenting.
There are large sections of the Bible
that are journal entries of people who are lamenting,
like Nehemiah.
The book of Psalms is 150 poems and songs,
the largest category of which are laments.
People who are crying out to the Lord in frustration,
and hurt, and anxiety,
and grief, and loss, and mourning.
And it's an act of faith to cry out to God in those moments,
just as Stephen did.
He was talking to Jesus.
If you don't mourn, ladies, you end up in depression.
If you don't lament, you end up in depression.
Men, if you don't mourn and lament, you end up in anger.
And it's a purifying thing for the soul to mourn,
and to grieve, and to lament.
That's what Ecclesiastes says that a sad face
is good for the heart.
It says about the Lord Jesus he lamented over Jerusalem,
wept over it.
When his friend Lazarus died, he shed his tears.
He lamented the death of his friend.
When Jesus knew that the cross was before him
and he was about to atone for the sin of the world,
he had his lamenting moment in the Garden of Gethsemane
with the Father, being honest but humble,
and submissive yet truthful about how this was
all so very painful.
Lamenting is how we deal with evil,
injustice, sin, oppression,
death, grief, mourning, and loss.
And the Bible says, "We do not grieve as ones
who do not have hope."
We know that the Lord Jesus rose from death,
and we will rise from death.
We know that the Lord Jesus sees and knows all,
and so we know that all will be made right in time.
And we know that when we die, we'll stand face to face with
Jesus, and we will see him who ultimately has the face
of an angel.
And so we grieve, but we do not grieve as those
who do not have hope.
I'm not good at this--
lamenting, and mourning, and grieving.
By God's grace, I'm growing in it.
And I find that it has a cleansing
and purifying effect on the soul.
And so I invite you to this great gift of lamenting
and weeping with those who weep.
And this week, when you get together for Community Group,
I want you to be grateful that you're still meeting,
that your leaders haven't been thrown in prison yet,
and that your group hasn't scattered as everybody ran
for their life.
And I want you to treat one another as sheep.
And if you know any wandering sheep,
I want you to invite them back to the flock
because they're in danger.
We love them.
And as we collect our tithes and offerings and we get ready
to partake of Communion, remembering the Good Shepherd
who laid down his life for the sheep, that Jesus,
just like Stephen, he had his body broken and his blood shed,
and the wolves attacked him in our place for our sins.
I want you to get ready for Community Group this week.
A couple questions.
Is your alpha a shepherd or a wolf?
The person you look up to, listen to, and follow--
are they a wolf or a shepherd?
Are you in a pack of wolves or a flock of sheep?
Wolves roll together in a pack; sheep roll together in a flock.
Sheep don't hurt people; wolves do.
And Mars Hill, we don't criticize other churches.
We'll disagree with certain theological content for sure,
but we don't criticize and attack other churches.
We don't.
Are you in a pack of wolves or a flock of sheep?
The people that you run with, spend time with, listen to,
lean on, is it a pack of wolves or is it a flock of sheep?
Number three, how do you lament?
How do you lament, and how can you lament together?
It was a public thing that they did together.
If one of you in the group or more than one of you
in the group is really struggling and suffering,
it feels like a season of bleeding.
What does lamenting look like?
And lastly, is God calling you to be a shepherd?
You say, "Man, as I hear this my heart is for Jesus' people,
"and his church, and the well-being of those
who are vulnerable."
Then by the power of the Holy Spirit,
qualify yourself to be a Community Group leader,
and to be a deacon, to be an elder--
whatever the case may be that God is burdening of you.
As we take of Communion, we honor our Good Shepherd who laid
down his life for his sheep, who from the cross prayed,
"Father forgive them," just like Stephen.
And we're here because Jesus answered his own prayer.
In dying for our sin, he forgave us.
You need to know this.
We're the pack.
He's the Good Shepherd.
And then we're going to sing to Jesus.
We need to see him as Stephen saw him--in glory,
standing up for us
and waiting to welcome us.
Lord Jesus, we ask that you would send the Holy Spirit,
that we would see the ways in which we are relentless,
religious, ravaging wolves,
and that we would see that you are a Good Shepherd
who has laid down his life for his sheep.
And Lord Jesus, we ask for the grace now through the power
of the Holy Spirit to see you in glory,
to see you seated at the right hand of the Father,
to see you on your throne, to see you high and exalted,
to see you receiving all praise and glory,
to see you surrounded by angels and saints.
Lord Jesus, that's where we are going and so in this moment,
let us fix our eyes on Jesus,
the author and perfector of our faith,
who for the joy set before him endured the cross,
scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the Father.
Consider him who endures such opposition from sinful men
that you would not grow weary or lose heart.
Lord Jesus, may we look to you and not grow weary
or lose heart.
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