Bible Guys Classics: Acts 8 Part 1

So today we're going to hear the story that helped me name my son Stephen. Well, so you named your son after a Bible character. I did. That's very good. So he's Chris. I'm Jeff, and we are the day of the Bible guys. So Chris, you should know I named both of my sons. After a Bible character. Oh good job. That might mean that may mean I'm a better Christian than. You, but wonted. Something funny about me naming my son Stephen is that when my wife and I were dating when I was sixteen years old, apparently I had mentioned it back when I first became a Christian at that time, actually, and I had mentioned that, oh, Stephen would be cool named to name my son and my future son. I'm only sixteen. My wife writes it down her diary. Wow. And then we dated for seven years, got married, had Sarah. We had two miscarriages. So years went on, and then finally it comes time for this name. And I had not remembered how how long i'd had this in my memory by so I said, hey, let's let's go with Stephen. I've always liked Stephen. And then it wasn't until years later my way found that thing, and she said, look, when you were only sixteen, we wrote this. Wow, dear Diarry, my first son's name is going to be Stephen. Yeah. Yeah, yeah wow. So she was already thinking about marrying me back. I'm sweet. Yeah, nice. Hey, Well, today we were going to ask what's your most embarrassing moment or one of your most embarrassing moment? Sure, isn't that a good idea? Let's do that on a podcast with all of our millions of listeners. Yes, of our three listeners. Yeah, I think that's what it is. We have three listeners that have listened to our episodes millions of times. That's probably one hundred thousand times. Okay, so most embarrassing moment, yeah, or at least one of them. Oh yeah, those are hard. So I don't have a lot of embarrassing moments. I mean I do a lot of embarrassing things. I'm just not embarrassed that I did them usually, right, maybe the most embarrassing thing. This has probably happened to you too. It's happened to me three times that you know, we're on stage a lot. And the first time this happened I was a worship pastor at a little church. We had about ninety people, and I was the choir director too, and I'd led the entire choir rehearsal with my pants unzipped, and all the ladies are sitting on the front row and they were embarrassed to tell me, right, So that was embarrassing. But I think the worst one was I was wearing a pair of pants that may have been just a touch too tight, Okay, just I I'd gained some weight and shouldn't have been wearing them, and my pants were unzipped, and a friend of mine was sitting on the front row and he was just acting weird. I couldn't figure out why is that? So I'm trying to ignore him. No time, He's trying to get my attention. Let me know. My pants were unzipped for the entire message and it was live streamed all over the world. So wow. So that what you mean on zip? You mean like unbuttoned, unzipped all the way down. Yeah, yeah, un buttoned, unzipped. No, they were buttoned, but they were unzipped. And because they were just they were too tight. I was just a little too heavy for them. It was wide open. There's a wide open yeah, we. Have a restroom right off the edge of the stage, right. So the other most embarrassing thing, also along these lines, I was teaching a class one time. I had my microphone on and I went into the restroom and I thought I muted it, and I didn't, And I used the restroom, I flushed the toilet, I washed my hands. When I walked back out, a hundred people start laughing at me, and. They left the sound on the whole time was. On the whole time. The sound guy wasn't even in the room, so the whole crowd they heard the whole business. And then one guy speaks up. He says, at least we know you washed your hands. Everybody laughing at him. So I would say that those kind of go hand in hand as being the most embarrassing that I've done publicly. I've never done anything like that. Yeah, well, aren't you glad? Yes, you kind of like that. Pharisee. Oh God, I thank you that I'm not as other men even as this. Okay, well, I'm referring to the microphone thing. I think I've had zippers down, but I don't think i've ever done. Exactly if the words that you were doing number two exactly washing my hands. Yet thanks for that. We didn't need it, Chris. Just because you think it doesn't mean you have to do it too far. Sorry. Okay, So now that I've shamed myself in front of everybody, Yeah, that's so we're continuing with this conversation about Stephen. Right, So yesterday we set it up that they came and they arrested him. Remember, Stephen was one of the deacons. He's one of the first guys that the apostles chose to serve. Deacon comes from the Greek word diachinos, which just means servant. He was a servant of the Christians. But he was also a bold preacher. He did a lot of miracles, he did a lot of other really incredible things, and he was a lay person. He wasn't a professional Christian leader. And finally he's confronted by some people who disagree with his message near the temple and they decide, hey, we're going to go after him. And instead of him backing down in fear, he steps up and he actually begins to preach a message in challenging their worldview. Yeah, when they asked him, are these accusations true? In chapter seven. It basically goes for fifty verses or over fifty. Verses, let me be clear, let me be clear. And he just absolutely tears these guys up. And in fact, if we soughting scriptures to do it well, he quotes Exodus, he quotes Deuteronomy, and basically what he's saying is the God of your ancestors, whom you serve, right, and then he ties them with like prophecies as the people who kill Christ. I mean, he just went for it. Right, And so he says, we'll pick up in verse fifty one. Yep, he says, you stubborn people, you're heathen at heart and death to the truth. Must you forever resist the Holy Spirit? That's what your ancestors did. And so do you name one prophet your ancestors didn't persecute. They even killed the ones who predicted the coming of the Righteous One, the Messiah, whom you betrayed and murdered. You deliberately disobeyed God's law, even though you received it from the hands of angels. The Jewish leaders were infuriated by Stephen's accusation, and they shook their fists at him in rage. But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit gazed steadily into heaven and saw the glory of God. And he saw Jesus standing in the place of honor at God's right hand. And he told them, look, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing in the place of honor at God's right hand. Then they put their hands over their ears and began shouting. They rushed at him and dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. His accusers took off their coats and laid them at the feet of a young man named Saul. As they stoned him, Stephen prayed, Lord, Jesus received my spirit, and he fell to his knees, shouting, Lord, don't charge them with this sin. And with that he died. Saul was one of the witnesses, and he agreed completely. With the killing of Stephen, a great wave of persecution began that day, sweeping over the church in Jerusalem, and all the believers except the apostles, were scattered through the regions of Judea and Samaria. Some devout men came and buried Stephen with great mourning, but Saul was going everywhere to destroy the church. He went from house to house dragging out both men and women to throw them into prison. Yeah, and we're going to go to verse five, right, Yes, but the believers who were scattered preached the good news about Jesus wherever they went. And Philip, for example, went to the city of Samaria and told the people there about the Messiah. Yeah, so a lot there. Right, So we should pick up sort of at the end of Stephen's message, and we could hear the language just very truthful. Right. He got to the point where he wasn't pulling any punches. So he was not pulling any punches, and I could still hear. My college professor who's now passed away. His name is Eli Haru, and he was this guy where he always had meul things to say, and he would say when I walk in, and I'd say, mister har you did you read all these books? He'd say, oh, yes, these are my friends, right, And he would say those things anyway. But I remember him uh reading this passage, and I remember him teaching the class and said, uh, and every other and every other book and every other mention of the Bible, Jesus is sitting at the right hand of the Father. But he said, and here Jesus stands up to give a standing ovation to receive the first martyr in the Gospels, and he gave him a standing ovation. That is right because I'm able to say Jesus seated at the right end. Yeah, and he said, he said, Steven stood for Jesus, and so Jesus stood for him. Wow. Yeah, that'll preach, won't it? Go ahead? Really well, I still I can still hear his voice. Wow. And uh, and you know what, it only solidified how cool, uh the character of Stephen was. And he was pretty short lived, right, I mean he just he just got nominated as a deacon and was, you know, leader of the food pantry. And then all of a sudden, here we have a chapter two chapters later and he's become the first martyr killed for Jesus. And you know they I remember the book in his class that was required reading. I'm sure you read it was the Foxes Book of Martyrs where it just unpacks all the different martyrs not only here but also in the early church history and it's just. All the way up to John Fox's time, which was back in the fiftem. So anyway, so that that's amazing, and then so not only does Peter or not Peter Stephen see Jesus, right, but he says that, you know, his face was filled with the Holy Spirit and it was shining like the sun. So Stephen looks up and he sees a vision. And they can't stand it because they think that, you know, he's he's not of God. They don't believe in the resurrected Jesus. God is doing this great thing for Steven. He's I don't want to say dumb enough, but he's like, he's innocent enough to say this out loud. Yeah. Right, he's not reading the room very clearly. Courageous enough, Yeah, courageous enough. Yeah. And so they take him out and they stone him, which basically means they throw big rocks on his head until his you know, skull crushes and he dies. Yeah. Right, it's a rough way to go. It's a rough way to go. And that's what you're talking about, being stoned. That's right, that's what I referenced yesterday. I'm sure Stephen enjoyed the joke. Yeah he did. We'll get to heaven. It'll be a good one, sure. Yeah. But then it says Saul, let's talk about Saul here. Yeah, so Saul eventually, So Saul's a young man. We know that Saul was the student of Gamaliel. So we've already referenced Gamaliel being, you know, the premiere. If you got to study under Gamaliel, it would be like being chosen for a graduate program at Harvard or something or Yale. Right, this is he's the elite of the the and so Saul being a young man, it was a tremendous privilege to be a disciple or a student of Gamaliel. And then it appears that he kind of is a part of this council. Right, He certainly was a witness, and they came and laid their coats down at his feet, you know, say, hang on, man, let me take this quote off so I can throw these rocks better. They lay him down at his feet. Which indicates that he's sort of like an intern at the time. That's right, that's right. He's he's a young man who's shadowing. He's a you know, he's a he's a learner disciple of the Sanhedrin. Right, so if you remember the Sanhedron be kind of like their supreme council. It'll almost be like the Jewish Supreme Court. So Saul would have been like a clerk to it, to Gamaliel right to the justice. And because we haven't said it yet, this is the same Saul who later becomes Paul. Right, yeah, right, Well, I was trying to leave the intrigue in. There, but he's Paul. Yeah. So then Saul is endorsing this and then is inspired by it. So he sees this first martyrdom and he doesn't see it as a negative. He sees it as a positive. This is good thing. That's what we should do. We need to just put the heat on the Christians and stop them. Because at this point, all the Christians were stuck in Jerusalem. Now, what did Jesus say in next one to eight, You'll receive the Holy Spirit, you'll be filled with power, and you'll be my witnesses in Judea Samaria, right, Jerusalem, Judea Samaria, in the other most part of the world. And they were still here, you know, months, maybe a year later, they're still in Jerusalem, hadn't left. And so now this stoning happens, the martyrdom happens, and Paul goes, let's crank the heat up. Let's go after these Christians. We know where they are. They're all right here in Jerusalem. So they're going house to house, kicking in the doors, arresting the men and the women, confiscating their property, harassing them, throwing them in prison for all kinds of trumped up reasons. And this is Paul's mission in life or Sauls in life at this point. But it winds up having a different effect than what they'd intended. It actually winds up forcing the followers of Jesus to obey what he told them to do in next chapter one, and that was go everywhere because they wanted the huddle, which is natural for Christians. Christians love holy huddles. They just want to hang out with each other. They want to avoid everything else in the world. They want to go only on vacation with Christians. They only want to listen to Christians. They only want to be around Christians, right, they want this Christian bubble. I read one guy call it the Christian ghetto. Right that we just get stuck inside of our own walls and we never leave, right when we're trapped inside us four no more. That's right. And so Jesus had said, I want you to go everywhere but they wanted to huddle up together. And you know, someday we'll be qualified. Someday we'll be prepared enough. Some day we'll know how to do this well. And it's comfortable. And I like my bubble. Yeah, I like my world. I like you know, and it's all about me. Yep. So because of the persecution, suddenly everybody except the apostles, they all start scattering. They leave. Okay, it's too hot here, we're going to go. But what happens is now persecution. As a matter of fact, John Fox, I think, is the one who said the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. Right, So as the martyrdom begins to happen and the seeds begin to spread because the Christians leave and all the Christians take Jesus with them where they go, and then little fellowships starts starting out all around this region until finally ends with Philip going to Samaria. Here. Now we're going to get this. We're going to get to this a little later on in the podcast series. But Paul is going to reflect back on these moments. Yeah, you know, he's obviously consenting it. The scripture goes out of his way to say that he consented, he agreed to the killing of Stephen. Now, why would the scripture go out of its way to talk about some clerk or intern who consents to the first martyr getting killed in the scripture? Well, the reason why is because it's a very important detail. Knowing who Paul is going to become, well, I should say whose soul is going to become, which is Paul. And so there's going to be plenty of times in the future, and we're going to get to it. But when even during Paul's conversion where he's reflecting and and it's and it has to be in my mind, one of the things that has to, you know, cross his mind is now that he believes later on that Jesus is real, then he knows that all those who sacrifice for for Jesus, uh, you know, we're doing it for the right reason. And so it just it haunts Paul later on, it haunts him. He calls himself the chief of sinners. He reflects back on, I'm sure the visual image of Stephen, you know, getting crushed with rocks and dying. And then and then of course, you know, Stephen says the same thing that Jesus says, right, you know, forgive them. They don't. They don't. What does he say? He asks my spirit to them with this sin. Don't charge them with the sin. Very similar, into my hands. I commit your into into your hands, I can mit my spirit. Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. This is what Jesus said, and this is this is what Peter's doing. He's saying, I said Peter no, three times. So Stephen saying, you know, don't charge them with the sin. Lord Jesus received my spirit. Now can you imagine this? Think about this too. We don't know at this time whether Stephen can still see the image, but you have to believe he does, because it says he saw him just a few verses before they drag him out, and then he says, Lord Jesus received my spirit. I have to believe that that Stephen is still seeing this. Well, think about it, no matter what you're facing. If you know that you're looking at Jesus and he's standing at the right hand of God and you and you know he's really he's right there, you know it would give Stephen so much courage. But he didn't lack courage, did he. He didn't lack courage at all. If there is anything about this character in the Bible, it could be said of him that he has courage. And the word Stephen actually means crown. That's what the name means. That's good. And the reason why I know that is because I name my son Stephen. Yeah. And by the way, Stephen has a lot of courage. Yes, my son does. So you have won this willingness to forgive. And one of the most amazing things, you know, the Lord's blessed me with the opportunity to serve tens of thousands of church planners around the world, one hundred thousand church planners around the world, and along with the rest of the leaders of the Timothy Initiative. And you know, I've had dinner many, many times or ben with many pastors who face persecution on the daily basis, daily basis even death, violence, houses being burned down, attack on their children and their family members, their churches being burned down, being imprisoned, and on occasion even killed, and a recurring theme. Nobody wants that right when you talk about it, But I've had multiple times when I said, you know, I'm going to pray that God stops the persecution, and I've had them stop me and say, don't pray that God stops the persecution. Pray that God gives us the grace to show his love and mercy to them while they're persecuting us. Otherwise, how will they ever know about Jesus. If we're just like them. They're coming with violence and hatred, and we're just like them, they will feel justified in their attack. And instead, we want to show God's mercy and God's grace and we want we want to be able to be like Jesus in that moment and forgive them. And I'll tell you how incredibly humbling that is because I don't naturally think that way, partly because I'm an American and I believe in self defense, right, That's part of it. Hey, I want to fight my way out of this thing. And there are times when you should defend, and there are times when you should protect yourself. But when it comes to faith persecution because of your faith, I'm not talking about somebody trying to attack your children or your family, talking about an attack on you because of your personal faith, the response would be the response of Jesus. And that's what we see in the first martyr is he responds the way that Jesus responded, and I just think that's beautiful, Yes, beautiful thing. It's incredibly humbling to a person like me, who that's not my nature. Yeah. So in my notes in the Bible here, gosh, it's the chronological life application study. Bible is actually what I was looking for, because there's a different one that I normally use. It talks about the effects of Stephen's death. It says Stephen's death was not in vain. Below are some of the events that were byproducts, either directly or indirectly of the persecution that began with Stephen's martyrdom, and has four things listed. Number one, Phillip's evangelistic tour, that we're about to see, Saul's conversion when he became Paul, when he came to no Christ and was chosen by God, Peter's mission that we're going to read about next chapter nine. And then the church in Antioch of Syria founded, and that's in chapter eleven. So it's a great reminder that our lives and our impact of our lives should go well beyond even our time here on earth. And so if we're doing our job right and we're making a lasting impression. So I just did two funerals today, two back to back, at one at ten pm or ten am and then one at eleven am, back to back, and I had to run down the street to another funeral, and one was ninety three years old. I'm almost sixty four. But the ninety three year old. You know, there wasn't a lot said there. You know, you know sometimes when somebody dies and they're a little bit older, it's like all their friends have sort of passed on. But you know, but you have the kids, right, right, you have all the kids. But there wasn't a ton of grandkids, not a lot of kids. All the friends were gone, and it just didn't seem like there was a lot there. Tried to speak and it was like, eeah, maybe some people liked her, maybe they didn't. Right. I go to the one who's only sixty four, and apparently they had a ton of kids. There's all these grandkids, and man, they're boohooing and they're wearing her jacket and things like this. And I'm telling you, when we open it up to the crowd, everybody's talking about how her spirit, her impact, her legacy will always continue on in the lives of the people right there in the room, and they're talking about how, you know, the values and everything else, and I'm thinking, Man, if we could be that way for Christ, if after we've gone from the earth, if people you know, if people can still benefit and be influenced and you know, and be inspired by the lives that we live, you know, that's the goal. That's what happened for Steven. And so Stephen's death was critical for even the events that took place afterwards. Yeah, and so you know, we look at it as being a bad thing that this thing, you know, this persecution happens. Instead, it's a good thing. The Gospel spreads and it goes everywhere. There was an old preacher who used to say, the test of your character is what it takes to stop you, right. And it turns out that these Christians had the character of Christ to the point that instead of stopping because of the persecution, they stepped up and said, we're going to take the Gospel everywhere, right, They're going to overcome evil by doing good everywhere. And it changed the world, thank God that they did. So if you're facing persecution, don't give up. We've got one thing we're going to ask you to do. Would you go to the Bible guys dot com yep, and would you sign up there, put your email address in, and we'll send you an email every morning Monday through Friday with links to that day's podcast. And that'll help us and it'll help you and I think it'd be great, So do that, and then tomorrow we're going to pick back up. We're going to talk about Philip, who's another one of the deacons just along with Stephen, who's also going out and spreading the good news of the Gospel. He meets up with an Ethiopian guy who this might be the first African conver. That's pretty cool, Yeah, very cool. H m hm