Three Lessons From the Life of Stephen 2

Pastor Mike will be speaking on Three Lessons From the Life of Stephen 2. He will be reading out of Acts 6:8-15.

He doesn’t give you the grace that you don’t need, but what he does give to you in that hour, in that moment when you need to stand strong for God and you need to be courageous, the Spirit of God will fill you and you will speak the words of the Lord Jesus Christ and you will stand firm for him and you’ll look at yourself and be thinking, wow, I can’t believe I said that.

It’s so great to be with you today and it’s exciting to be a part of this great hope worth having ministry and being able to share God’s word with you. My name is Mike Sanders and I’m the host of Hope Worth Having and we’re delighted that we can study God’s word together with you.

We’ve been studying about the life of Stephen in the book of Acts, chapter six. Stephen was an outstanding man and his life impacted many for the sake of the gospel. So I want you to join me in chapter six as we continue this study and let’s learn together.

It’s the word of God. If you wanna know what God is thinking, if you wanna know what Jesus is thinking, then open your Bible, my friends, and you will find out what Jesus is thinking. You don’t have to go to social media, you don’t have to go to the paper, you don’t have to go to the radio or television because you can know what Jesus is thinking by opening your Bible.

The mind of Christ is available to you and you must seek out the word of God. You must learn the Bible. You must saturate your life and the Bible says faith comes by hearing and hearing the word of God.

So if I want that sustaining, growing, serving, sufficient faith, it is essential that I be connected to the word of God. Important. I want you to note a third characteristic of Stephen’s spiritual life, his spiritual character, it is power.

Look again at verse five. We see, we back up again and the Bible says that the saying, please, I’m in chapter… the whole multitude, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit. We jump down to verse eight, and it says he was full of faith and power.

He did great wonders and signs among the people. We don’t talk about it a lot, but you know that God is calling us to build our spiritual character, and he’s calling us to be a powerful people of God.

You wanna know the distinction of the early church. It wasn’t their methods. It wasn’t how fancy or relevant. It wasn’t even their music that made them different and made them so powerful that they turned the known world upside down, that they filled their community with the doctrine of Christ as we learned in Acts chapter five and Acts chapter four.

What is it that made them so profound in their ability to influence so many is that they were people who had the power of God. Stephen was a man who became very active in spreading the gospel. What was the source of his power?

It’s what Jesus said in Acts 1 verse 8, you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth.

Stephen was a man of immense spiritual power in his life and the source of that power was the Holy Spirit. So how can we be clothed in the power of God? What God needs today in the 21st century is men and women who are operating in the power of God.

When I use that word power, I’m not speaking of something that is mystical or magical. I’m talking about the energy of God. I’m talking about the anointing of God. I’m talking about the power of God that is resting upon his people and he is using them everywhere that they go.

How can you be clothed in the power of God? I don’t want to be redundant. I don’t want to be a person who seems to be belittling this, but I want you to know that it is very simplistic and that it begins with prayer.

The church moves forward on its knees, not its feet. You want to see your family changed. You want to see things changed in America. Then get on your knees and seek God. Be a person of prayer because prayer is where the power is at.

Prayer is where the energy is at. Prayer is where the anointing is at. Prayer is where God responds and the heart of God is moved in heaven when he sees the people of God praying. How can we be clothed in power?

It is God’s word. There is nothing that empowers you more. There is nothing that grants you more enablement to be all that God wants you to be. than God’s word. And that’s why you can’t be this kind of Christian that says I’m gonna pop in every once in a while, I’m gonna get a little bit of Jesus, enough to get me into heaven, and I’m just gonna kinda skate in, but I’m gonna live my life however I want to.

I’m certainly not gonna listen to the pastor or the preacher. I’m certainly not gonna obey God because I don’t want any of that. Listen, you wonder why God’s people are impotent and they cannot effectively make a difference for the Lord Jesus Christ.

It is because they lack the power of God on their life. And the reason that they do is that they are so casual in their Christianity. They’re so vague in their commitment to the Lord. There is no devotion into their heart.

They just want a little bit of Jesus. But I tell you friends, I want all of Jesus, amen. I want to be all in for Christ. I do not wanna be offended. I do not want to be a person who’s hopping back and forth and trying to live like the world and trying to live like a Christian and just going back and forth.

I want to be all in for the Lord Jesus Christ. As we already mentioned, the third aspect of how to be clothed with the power of God is through the Holy Spirit. Have you asked the Holy Spirit to fill you?

Have you prayed to the Spirit of God? Some people say, can I pray to the Spirit? Absolutely, you can pray to the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. The Bible teaches us that there are three distinct persons of the Godhead, three but one.

You see, Mike explained that I can’t, people been trying. I just believe what the Word of God says, okay? The Spirit of God, you can ask the Spirit of God to fill you, you can ask the Spirit of God to manifest His power in you and through you.

You can ask the Spirit of God to work in your heart and to help you to be a bold Christian for Him. You can ask the Spirit of God to work in your life. You just have to come to Him and be willing to do that.

The third spiritual character that we see in the life of Stephen, the Bible says in verse eight that he did great wonders and signs among the people. And I want to just help you again, church, because I know that so often there are things we read in the book of Acts that our goal is to duplicate and that we wanna sometimes see it happen over and over again and we get off track theologically trying to replicate all that took place.

The point is not that God is wanting you to go out there and smack people upside the head and do some amazing miracle or that your shadow would cross over somebody and they would be instantaneously healed.

That’s not the point. The miracles had a message and the miracles always. We read in the Bible, especially in the book of Acts, they always manifested the glory of God, not the glory of a person, not the glory of an individual, but the glory of God.

Remember Jesus said, when he was asked the question, who sinned when they looked at a crippled man who was suffering, who sinned? Was it him, Jesus, or his parents? First of all, where does that question come from?

A false teaching that permeated among Judaism in the days of Christ when he walked on this earth, a belief that if you were physically suffering that God was judging you. But that’s not true. It’s not true.

Jesus responded in John 9 .3, neither this man nor his parents sin, that the works of God should be revealed in him. I don’t have all the answers for your suffering, and I don’t have all the explanations for your questions, but overarching of what is going on in your life, and either what God has caused or allowed in your life, that He longs for God and His glory to be revealed in your suffering.

And you may ask the question why. I don’t have the details, and I could never give you a sufficient answer, but let it rest your heart, and let it fill your heart with peace, knowing that even in the midst of this, that God wants to be glorified.

And may it be your heart that in your suffering, in your struggle, that God would be glorified, and how you respond to Him. These miracles not only manifested the glory of God, these wonders and signs that the Apostle did, but the miracles confirmed the gospel.

They confirmed the gospel. Remember that I taught you earlier, church, that the gifts of the Spirit that are given to all who believe in Christ, that they came in three categories. There was the serving gifts, the speaking gifts, and the sign gifts.

The sign gifts for a time, for a season. What was the purpose that the gospel was being transitioned from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant, that now Jesus Christ has come, He has fulfilled all that is required of the law, and now we walk in grace in the New Covenant, and Jesus Christ confirmed His message, and Jesus confirmed His messengers through wonders and signs.

So the miracles confirmed the gospel. Remember what Mark taught us in Mark 16, verse 20, that they went out, meaning the disciples, they preached everywhere. working with them, and confirming the Word through the accompanying sign.

And I know some people wanna manifest these sign gifts today and they gotta do them, that’s all right, but all I’m trying to tell you is that the sign gifts came to an end, they came to a completion at the completion of the Word of God.

And that the sign gifts were unnecessary because the sign gifts were specifically targeted towards the Jewish people. So that they would understand that what was prophesied in Joel, what was prophesied in Isaiah, what was prophesied by those prophets in the Old Testament that it has now come to fruition in the manifestation on the day of Pentecost and through this.

particular age and season as God was establishing his church on the earth. The people of God were now not just limited to a nation that was politically designed in the Middle East but the people of God would now be from every nation and every people group and every ethnicity and every race and now all could come to Christ and all could believe in Jesus Christ and the signs would manifest that the message is true and the messengers are true and the miracles always pointed to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now you might want to disagree with me and I tell people it’s America. You have the freedom to be wrong. Isn’t that wonderful? I mean you have the freedom to be wrong. How great is that? But yet I want you to understand that as you come to the word of God, we understand the seasons, the context of Acts chapter six and Acts chapter seven and what is distinct about Stephen’s life was not that his wonders and signs that God used at a particular time and a particular season to accomplish a particular purpose but that he was a man full of the spirit and the power of God was on him.

And so even today that though you may not have the sign gifts, you do have speaking gifts and you do have serving gifts and whatever those gifts are, the way that you manifest God’s character in your life is to exercise those gifts and to use those gifts.

Don’t be the kind of person who just comes in and plops yourself down on a seat and a pew and says I shall not be moved. But rather, you be the person who soaks up the word of God and you get out and serve God, you find your place, you get involved and then you become a sweet Christian that God can use.

You say well I’m not sure where I can be used. Well you kick and scream until you get my attention and we’ll get you plugged in. We’ll get you in the right place. We’ll get you serving God. I’m telling you.

there’s so many needs, you can’t even imagine it. And people say, why isn’t this going on, Pastor Mike? Why isn’t that? Because during COVID, we lost over 150 volunteers in our church. Not that they left the church, some of you are still here.

It’s just they quit serving in the church. They’re done. But I tell you, as I told the church on Wednesday night, I hope my last breath is serving the Lord Jesus Christ. And I just wanna be more specific.

I hold my last breath, not right now, God. I hope you can hold off right now. But I hope my last breath is while I’m preaching and teaching the Bible to you, and then bam, I’m gone. Now don’t you cry for me, because I’ll be having the greatest time in heaven ever known to mankind.

And I know it’s hard for you to believe, but I’ll be having a better time than you, and I’ll be better off than you, okay? Because my king is King Jesus. Thanks. I don’t want you to be discouraged. and I know that some of you might think that’s really crazy, but don’t worry, the pastor is a little bit loony.

Now we got to get to our second point, we got to hurry here. There’s only three things that I wanted to bring to your attention this morning, but number two is that we’re to boldly demonstrate biblical courage.

So what are the lessons we’re learning? Build my spiritual character, boldly demonstrate biblical courage. We come to verse 9, I want to just read this to you. The Bible says there arose some from what is called the synagogue of the freed men.

The freed men, the serenians, the alexandrians, and those from salicia and asia disputing with Stephen. The Bible says in verse 10 that they were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he spoke.

And then they secretly induced men to say we have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God. And they stirred up the people, the elders, and the scribes, and they came up upon him and seized him and brought him to the council.

They also set up false witnesses who said this man does not cease to speak blasphemous words against this holy place and the law. For we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs which Moses delivered to us.

Verse 14 is just taking what Jesus said out of context. When Jesus talked about he would destroy this place, he was talking about himself. He was the temple of God. He would die and three days later he would rise again.

And yes in 8070 he would destroy the temple because the people had put too much emphasis on a place rather than the person and a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s what happens to believers.

That’s what happens to people. They think that their salvation is in religion rather than in a relationship with Jesus Christ. You’re not getting to heaven because of religion. You’re only getting to heaven because you know the Lord Jesus.

Jesus Christ, Jesus said in Matthew chapter seven, he said, there will be many who will say to me, Lord, Lord, didn’t I do all these wonderful things in your name? And he’ll say, depart from me, you that work iniquity, I never knew you.

You know how you get a job? It’s who you know. You know how you get to heaven? It’s who you know. So I want you to remember that. Now, this situation that’s going on, we’re introduced to a group called the freedmen.

They were descendants from Jewish slaves that were taken captive in 63 BC. And they called themselves the freedmen because they were liberated from slavery. And they referred to themselves as the freedmen.

And here’s what’s going on in verse nine through 14. You may not fully capture it, but when the temple was destroyed, in 70 AD, When the temple was destroyed, the Jewish people set up what is called synagogues.

They were gathering places very much like what we have here today in the church, and they would gather in their communities on Saturday, which they designated as the Sabbath, meaning because of the Old Testament, and we no longer gather on Saturdays, which is the Sabbath, because Christ has fulfilled and our rest is in Christ.

We gather on Sunday because of the resurrection of Christ, which has been the pattern of the early church. We’ll show you that as we track through the book of Acts, and we’ll learn more of that, but I just wanted you to note that, but they would gather in these synagogues.

What Stephen would do, a man of bold faith, a man who was not afraid to demonstrate his biblical courage, he would go into these regions, he would go into these synagogues, and he would preach Jesus unto them, and he would debate with them.

He would argue with them about Christ being the fulfillment of the prophecies of the Old Testament, and these religious leaders got so mad and so angry that they could not even resist. Verse 10, did you see that?

The Bible says they could not resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he spoke. He was bold, he was biblical, he was courageous. These debates led to irrational hostility towards Stephen. They made up false rumors about him.

They made up accusations about him. They did it because, you know what, when you can’t overcome the truth, what happens is liars and slanderers and the works of the devil and the works of the world and the works of the flesh, when they cannot override the truth or conquer the truth, they start trying to attack the person, and when they cannot attack the character of a person, they start making things up because,

I hate to tell you this and I don’t want to upset you, but the average person in the world is naive, and they’ll believe. They don’t believe anything. There’s no discernment, there’s no wisdom, there’s no ability to filter what they’re hearing.

Jesus reminded his disciples in Luke 21, verse 15, I will give you a mouth and wisdom with which all your adversaries will not be able to contradict or resist. And this is the fulfillment of what Jesus had prophesied for his disciples, but it is a promise for us as well.

Some of you are so worried, how will I be courageous? Listen, it’s not that somehow you gotta go through these 10 classes to be a courageous person for God, it’s just that you have to be filled with the Spirit and you just have to trust God.

He will give you the grace at the moment that you need the grace. He doesn’t give you the grace that you don’t need at the moment that you don’t need it. But what he does give it to you in that hour, in that moment, in that situation, in that circumstance, when you need to stand strong for God and you need to be courageous, the Spirit of God will fill you and you will speak the words of the Lord Jesus Christ.

and you will stand firm for him, and you’ll look at yourself and be thinking, wow, I can’t believe I said that. Can’t believe that. You know what, that’s the work of God in your heart. That’s the work of God in your heart.

The Bible tells us in Matthew 26, verse 59, that the chief priests and elders and all the counsels sought false witness against Jesus to put him to death. Jesus reminded us that if they hated him, they’re gonna hate you.

And church, we live in a hostile society that doesn’t like Christianity, doesn’t like us standing up. Listen, I’m gonna just make everybody mad right now, and I’m on the internet, so I know that people are gonna be aflame, but I’m just gonna speak the truth.

God created man, male and female. There’s no in -between. I believe there’s male and female, and that’s it. Now, somebody told me, I read somewhere, somebody told me there was 52 genders, and I told them what planet you’re on.

I mean, there’s crazy people out there, amen. There’s crazy people, and I’m not doing it. I’m not buckling, and they’ve made it. They may throw the handcuffs on me, and they may drag me, and that’s fine.

I’m not doing it, but listen, you may have to, at work, stand up, and they may want you to confess and sign a document that you believe in 52 genders, or else you can’t keep your job. They may limit you.

You know, listen, I’m working right now. Something, I gotta do a presentation, me and Pastor Carl working on property insurance, and it’s gotta be updated and all this stuff, and when I sit down with these people, you know what I’m asking them?

Before I sign anything, you’re not gonna bring any of this mess in here where you’re gonna say I’ll cancel you because you don’t like that I only believe in two genders. And if you don’t put that in this contract, I’m not signing it, because I’m tired of the junk, amen?

Thank you. I’m just trying to warn your church, I’m trying to get you ready, and I’m thinking we better have some wisdom, and we better not have people trying to tell us that they’re gonna cancel. I think it’s not only gonna be property insurance, I think eventually it’s gonna be banks, and I think it’s gonna be all over, and they’re gonna say, man, if you’re out there telling people that Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven,

and you’re out there saying there’s only two genders, and you’re out there saying that God wants marriage to be between a man and a woman fully committed in a covenant relationship for a lifetime, then we need to cancel you.

And I have to be honest with you, I’m okay to be canceled by the world, amen? I would rather be canceled by the world and accepted by Jesus than to be canceled by Jesus and accepted by the world. You better get ready, church.

Stephen was a man who preached with boldness. His courage caused his enemies to attack him. Get ready, church. Stephen stood firm on his convictions. And I wanna challenge you to be a bold people. I’m not for being obnoxious, I’m not for being hateful, I’m not for being rude, and I’m not out there to attack anybody.

But I’m telling you, I’m not buckling, bending, and I’m not bowing down to the world. It doesn’t matter. And I wanna challenge you to be that way, because that’s the way Stephen was. He made his enemies mad.

The third and final thing, and I got a fast track, is you need to seek a godly countenance. I wish I could spend more time with you, church. You may say, we don’t wanna spend more time with you, Mike.

Heh heh heh heh heh. But I want you to jump down to verse 15. The Bible says, and all who sat in the council looked steadfastly at him. I want you to see that, they’re all looking at Stephen. They’re accusing him of false things.

They’re not true. They’re ranting, raving, taking things out of context. And the Bible says that as they looked steadfastly at him, they saw his face as the face of an angel. There was a beam of glory that hovered over Stephen’s life.

Very similar to what Moses experienced in Exodus 34, 29, when the Bible says, now it was so, when Moses came down from the Mount Sinai, and the two tablets of the testimony were in Moses’ hand. And when he came down from the mountain, that Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone while he talked with him.

The Bible says that Stephen had the face of an angel. I believe it is reflecting the presence of God. It is a man who was full of purity, calmness, and peace in his heart He was not ruffled by the false accusations.

He was not melting down. He was not questioning God He was not angry with God He just sat there and he listened to those false accusations in that courtroom and he knew that it wasn’t true And when people looked at his life, they said that man looks like an angel He had the glory of God shining bright Upon him I Am reminded in 2nd Corinthians 3 18 that the Bible says we all with open face Beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord are changed into the same image from glory to glory Even as by the Spirit of the Lord when the Bible talks about that we are looking in the glass the glory of the Lord It is reminding us that as we are very much as believers We are looking in a mirror and the gospel of Jesus Christ and the power of God and the presence of God is reflecting the glory of God and the glory of Christ in our very lives.

As we behold Jesus, as we look into the mirror and we behold Jesus with unveiled faces, faces that are not veiled because of the new covenant, that we understand that there is a indwelling force upon us that reflects the very glory of God.

It is through God’s word, it is through prayer, it is through the worship of God’s people that God is working his grace in every heart. And when you launch out of here today and headed into your week, what is the countenance that the world will see in you?

As I told the church Wednesday night, are you a joyful warrior? Are you negative, critical, hateful, bitter, angry at God, angry at everybody, mad? And you know it’s like you got baptized in lemon juice?

Are you going out there, not saturated with Fox News and CNN, but saturated with the word of God and the Spirit of God and the people of God and prayer to God, you’re so saturated with him that people sense in your countenance the very glory of God.

That’s where I wanna be. And that’s where I want you to be, church. And those are the lessons we can’t forget from Stephen’s life. Would you pray with me? Thanks for listening. Thanks so much for watching.

Stephen was an outstanding man but why? It was because the Bible says he was full of faith and power. The hand of God was upon him and God used him in great ways to be able to impact others for the cause of Jesus Christ.

That’s the way you want your life to be. You want to be active in spreading the gospel and the only way that you and I can do that is not in our own strength but in the power of the Holy Spirit. So I hope that these principles have been effective in influencing your life for Jesus Christ and we’re thankful for these models, these examples that the Bible gives us of individuals who have been faithful to the calling.

Now we want to encourage you to make sure you check out our website HopeWorthHaving .com. Now when you go to the website, sign up for our newsletter. We put out a newsletter several times a year and it just updates you on our ministry.

lets you know how you can pray for us and also different places where we’re broadcasting on television as well as radio. So go to hopeworthhaving .com and sign up today for our newsletter. This is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ there is hope worth having.