Summary
Pastor Safrit walks through Acts 7:54-60, focusing on the life and martyrdom of Stephen. He emphasizes Stephen's unwavering faith and boldness in the face of persecution, illustrating how his death served as a catalyst for the expansion of the gospel. The sermon highlights the importance of being filled with the Holy Spirit, maintaining a Christ-centered perspective, and exemplifying forgiveness, even in suffering, as a means to glorify God and inspire future generations.
Welcome and Introduction
Thank you for listening to Pleasant Grove Baptist Church Sermon Audio. For more information, please visit our website, pgbcronda.com, or visit on all social media platforms. Amen. Great job, young people. Wasn't it nice to have these little kids running around up here? I love that.
Love seeing them do that. You never know what's going to happen when a bunch of kids, four years old and younger, get up. And we're excited to have that. If you have a child who wants to be dismissed at Children's Church, they can be dismissed at this time.
If you have your Bibles, we'll be in Acts chapter 7. Acts chapter 7 today,
finishing up the life of Stephen as we walk through the book of Acts this year. And excited to be in this book and excited to see what the Lord's been working in our church's life and in each other's life will be in Acts chapter 7, verses 54 through 60.
It's good to have my childhood friend, Zach. He's here. His little son was up here, Judson.
And he's actually, you guys would enjoy this, he's an NC State grad. We won't hold that against him.
Yeah, they've got a lot of NC State fans in here, and so that's a good thing.
But we grew up together from kindergarten through 12th grade, and he's coming to hang out with us a little bit today and was here with us last night.
But if you have your Bibles and you've got your way there, the words will also be on the screen. It will be in Acts chapter 7. Let's stand by the reading of God's Word. Stretch your legs for a moment.
We'll get right into the preaching of the Word this morning. Thank you again, young people, for leading. That was wonderful.
The Bible says, When they heard these things after they heard Stephen preaching, they were enraged and gnashed their teeth at him.
Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.
He said, Look, I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. They yelled at the top of their voices, covered their ears, and together rushed against him.
They dragged him out of the city and began to stone him, and witnesses laid their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul. While they were stoning Stephen, he called out, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.
And he knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, Lord, do not hold this sin against them. And after saying this, he fell asleep.
Lord, we love you. We thank you for what you've done. We thank you for your blessings. I thank you for these young people that got up and led us today.
It's always encouraging. As a young person, I would be nervous to do that and to get up here and to pray and to read scripture. But I'm thankful that they had the courage to do that and lead us in worship.
And pray that you'll have your will and way in the preaching of your word. In your name we pray. Amen. You may be seated. We see here Peter,
I'm sorry, not Peter, Stephen, as he preached this message to the Pharisees and the Sadducees.
That was all last week, the 54 verses that we looked at, 53 verses. And we see him preaching with power. We saw him preaching faithful even in the face of rejection.
But yet now we get to this last point where Peter or Stephen, I keep saying Peter for some reason, Stephen gets this point where his life is about to be taken from him.
Prayers for the Sullivan Family
My mind, my heart goes out to this family, the Sullivan family, this pastor in South Africa, as they mentioned. I'm sure you saw it on Facebook or seen it on social media. He was preaching Wednesday in his church.
And while he was preaching, six natives came in and kidnapped him and left his wife and children there in the church. And they say he's still alive, but he's been tortured and he's been hurt. And we are praying for that family.
But my mind also went to a man whose name is Richard Rumbrand. And in 1940, during Stalin's reign of the Soviet Union,
he was a pastor and he was preaching the gospel and was arrested for preaching the gospel.
He was preaching on the street. And this is what his crime was. This is what they wrote down as his crime when they charged him. They said that he was refusing to stop proclaiming Christ under the communist rule of Russia.
He was thrown in an underground prison and Richard spent years in solitary confinement.
The walls were soundproof. There were no windows. The guards wore felt on their shoes so that the prisoners could never hear the footsteps of them coming in and coming after them. There was complete and total silence,
complete and total darkness, and complete and total isolation. Their whole goal of what they were doing was trying to break him of his will so that they could control anything and everything that he did. They beat him routinely. They starved him.
They mocked him. And for months at a time, he saw no other human face. Many would have gone insane and many during this time went insane.
And most even gave up their faith. But Rumbrand did something the guards could not understand.
As historians look back and they look at this, they say that there was one thing that he would do that they never could understand and it was he sang.
The power of music in his life and through his life, he would sit in his jail cell after being beaten, after being bruised, they said that he would lift his voice in praise to Christ. He later wrote in his own diary, alone in my cell,
cold, hungry, and in rags, I danced for joy every single night.
Something inside of me was so filled with joy that if I wouldn't burst out in singing, I don't know if I would make it through the night. And he said, the only thing I could do was rejoice that the Lord was near to me.
My mind, as I read this, was thinking, how can a guy be beaten, bruised, starved, left for dead,
not seeing people, not interacting with people, and yet he is still singing while he suffers? The only logical conclusion is because he knew what Stephen knew in Acts chapter 7.
He knew the presence of Christ. He knew the power of the Holy Spirit. And he knew that no prison cell could silence the voice of praise. No persecution could separate him from the love of God. And after 14 years, not 14 hours,
not 14 months, but 14 years in prison, he was released and founded a ministry that I get a book every month from called The Voice of Martyrs. And he writes about common,
everyday people that are in the world today that are being persecuted just as he did, and yet they still serve Christ today in the midst of persecution. In those years of prison, he was not found with bitterness.
But yet he was found with boldness. He had been where few dared to go and found that Jesus was enough. He wasn't relying on his own sacrifice that he had done. He wasn't relying on something that his mom or dad had told them, but he was relying on him.
The Power of Faith in Trials
But he was relying on that Jesus was the one that came into this world that died for him, that rose again three days later after he was buried, and that was enough for him. And as we look at the verses here in Acts chapter 7, Stephen is standing trial for his faith.
He was hated, he was falsely accused, and ultimately he was sentenced to death, and yet he never shrunk back.
He never stepped a foot back and said, maybe I'm doing this the wrong way. Maybe I should do this a different way. He doesn't run, but yet he stands even as stones are being thrown at him, even as he is looking death in the face.
The Bible says he lifts his eyes, not in fear, but in worship,
to worship the one who died for him, to worship the one who gave his life for humanity.
What did Stephen see that gave him such peace? What did Richard see that gave him this peace? And who can worship in the middle of a war zone?
Who can worship the Lord when everything is going wrong, when all seems lost, when all hope is gone, when the world says, just give up and give in, how is it that we can continue on in our faith? I think by looking at Stephen, we'll see three simple things.
The first is the pressure of persecution that we see in verses 54, in verse 57 and 58. Stephen, he began to suffer, and this suffering was not accidental.
This suffering was because of two main things that he had, and his suffering was something that I dare to say, living in America, living in a free country, we don't experience suffering like Stephen did. We read of these missionaries and Mr.
Sullivan that got kidnapped in the middle of a sermon.
It would be like the police officers coming in in this morning's service and taking me hostage and taking me off to jail, and no one, my family, no one around me knowing any details of what's going on.
That is what happened here just recently, a couple of days ago, and this is the persecution that other Christians see all over the world, and yet in America, we have the freedom to stand up here and proclaim Christ
and to see Christ glorified, but we see the pressure of this persecution first and foremost because of the Christ-centered message that Stephen had. Stephen was preaching the gospel.
He was preaching so firm that as he's preaching, it says that they were enraged. One version says they were cut to the heart in verse 54. You see, the gospel offends the pride.
Persecution and the Gospel
When we share the gospel, when we share the true gospel of Jesus Christ, the death, burial, and resurrection as we're in this Palm Sunday, as we're thinking through leading up to the cross, as we're thinking about what Christ
did, we begin to see that the proud and the ones that have sin, the gospel exposes them of their sin.
And this is exactly what Stephen did. He was persecuted not for being mean, not for being harsh,
not for calling them out for certain things, but he was persecuted because he was faithful to the truth.
He stood up and he said, this is the truth and this is what I'm going to preach and this is what I am going to tell you that is wrong. John 15, 18, I put this verse on the screen.
It's a very common verse that we go to, but Jesus said to his disciples, if the world hates you,
know and understand that it hated me before it hates you.
And I can imagine Stephen as he's getting persecuted, as persecution is coming to him, he's thinking, they don't hate me, they hate the one I'm preaching about.
They don't hate me, they hate what I am talking about, the freedom of the gospel that's going to save them from their sin and he was so consumed with Christ that everything he was doing and everything that he was saying was all about Christ. I want you to imagine,
I watch all these little different videos that come up and we recently built a house and every once in a while the house will be dark and I'll look around and I'll be like, man,
the sheetrock is wonderful, everything's great and Allison will come in and she'll turn a light on and the kids will come on and turn a light on and I'll begin to see the imperfections in the sheetrock.
I'll begin to see the screw pops and the little imperfections that happen all around and this is what happens when light shines on our lives, the light of the gospel shines on our life, it begins to expose the sin and expose the darkness that's around us that was once hidden.
Now other people may come in and they say, we gotta get rid of this light, we gotta smash the light so that it's not gonna expose these things
and that's what the world wants to do, it wants to extinguish Christianity, it wants to extinguish Christ so that we don't feel guilty for what we've done but Stephen stood not only with a Christ-centered message but with convictional boldness.
57 and 58, he, as they're yelling at the top of their lungs and they're rushing him and they drug him out of the streets, he stands with convictional boldness.
Standing Firm in Faith
Stephen didn't back down, the stones were in their hands, he could have easily said, this is too much, Lord.
I've suffered a lot, I'm going through a lot, I've preached for you, I'm one of the first deacons that have been ordained in scripture, Lord, why is this happening to me? I just can't handle this, I'm gonna walk away.
Stephen wasn't feared by the flattery, he had no source of animosity toward them, he just wanted to trust in God.
As Acts 5, 29 says, as he was preaching and as Peter was preaching, he said, we must obey God rather than man.
As I was studying through Stephen's life, as I was studying through the life of Stephen, as he's preaching with boldness, as he's preaching faithfully, my mind went to one simple question. What is it and what would it take for you to stay silent about Jesus?
What is it that someone would have to threaten you with?
What is it that someone would have to take away from you in order for you to not tell others about Jesus? Another way to put it is, how much pressure would it take you to compromise your convictions?
How much pressure of the outside world of Satan and his enemies and we know of demons as we're studying on Wednesday night with angels and demons?
How much pressure of the outside world would it take for you to step back and say, this Christian life that I'm serving, this Jesus that gave everything for me, it's too much.
I'm going to go ahead and step back and I'm going to step away from my faith. As we looked at our opening story, Richard suffered for 14 years without seeing humans, without,
with being starved and beaten and yet for 14 years, he continued to praise the Lord.
He continued to worship the Lord. We study the life of Paul and how Paul's life was marred by prison and our young people on Wednesday night are looking at Philippians and how Paul was writing from prison and he's encouraging people as yet he has been tortured for the sake of the gospel.
And oftentimes, we'll stub our toe and we'll say, Lord, that's too much pain. I can't do it anymore.
And yet, we look at these faithful men throughout history and Stephen as an example who gave his life and never once stepped down from the gospel. The pressures of persecution are real. They're happening all around us and we must be so firm in Christ that it doesn't hurt our testimony.
The second thing we look at is the provisions of hope. 55 and 56, it says Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed up into heaven.
In the midst of the fury, in the midst of the anguish that he was going to, he was so focused on Jesus that in this one little simple moment he looked up in his eyes and he got a glimpse of glory.
I want you to imagine for a moment maybe you're walking outside or you're walking around but we got home last night and Jade said, Dad, the full moon is so beautiful. Look at it.
Look at how great it is. I can see the stars and we were talking about how awesome it was and imagine in that moment the Lord would have just ripped back the sky and just looked down in that little innocent nine-year-old's face and say, I made this for you.
Imagine the excitement that would come. Imagine the energy that she would come in and she would be like, Mim, I know you saw Jesus.
You were there when he was born. Mim, I got to see Jesus last night. She's not even in here. I made a joke about her and she's not even in here.
All of a sudden she would be excited and she would tell everyone this is what Stephen did in the midst of his persecution.
He looks up and he looks up to Jesus and Jesus just tears back a little bit of creation and says, look at what I'm doing for you. Look at where you're coming. Why does he have this
such amount of hope in his life? I believe the first reason is the spirit-filled strength that he has. The strength that he has that only comes with this first word, Stephen,
full of the Holy Spirit. He was not full of fear. He was not full of hatred. He was not full of despair. He was full of this supernatural peace and power that comes from the Holy Spirit and ultimately it changed his perspective of everything that was going on.
The Persecution of Jesus
He looked around and he said, they're persecuting me but they're really not persecuting me, they're persecuting Jesus.
They hated him first and they're just coming after me to silence him and all of a sudden he began to look around and this overwhelming sense of peace came over him. The overwhelming power of the Holy Spirit began to come across him as he saw the Son of God
standing in heaven and looking down at him. Ephesians 5.18 I'll put it on the screen for you says this, and do not get drunk with wine which leads to reckless living but be filled with the Spirit. This morning are we filled with the Spirit? As you look through the Old Testament stories and the New Testament examples
of life that goes on I'm reminded of Daniel in the lion's den. You see God didn't take the trial away from Daniel.
God met Daniel where he was at. The children that were thrown into the fiery furnace the three Hebrew children Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego he didn't take the fire away from them. He came with them in the fire.
And often times when we go through trials when we go through tribulations Jesus says I'm not going to take them away from you I'm just going to come alongside of you. I'm going to wrap that arm of the Holy Spirit around you.
The Bible says in 1 Corinthians that he comforts us in our deepest and darkest deeds.
And the Holy Spirit comes by and comforts us but he does that because we're full of the Holy Spirit.
We're not full of the world we're not full of reckless living we're full of the Holy Spirit coming and living and working through us and around us and giving us the peace and giving us the power that gives
us the step that we can take the next day.
That gives us the ability to say God I'm going to take this step of faith because I know that you're going to be the one that's going to uphold the ground to the next step. I'm going to trust in you in everything that I go through.
Not only did he have a spirit filled strength but he had a Savior in glory. Stephen saw at the right hand of the Father the only time that scripture has ever recorded that Jesus is standing rather than sitting.
In Revelation we see Jesus sitting on the throne judging all of humanity. We see Jesus sitting and judging all of everything that's happened and in this moment this one time we see Jesus the Son of God standing at the right hand of the Father standing there welcoming Stephen to his new home
witnessing what is going on down in earth and saying I'm there with you son. I was beaten just like you were beaten. I was bruised just like you're getting bruised and I am here to give you the peace that only I can give. He was in another way He was honoring Stephen's faith.
He stood and He said I'm proud of you. You were faithful in the finish. You could have departed.
You could have been like Judas that betrayed me on that Wednesday leading up to the cross.
You could have betrayed me in this moment. You could have been like Peter who gave up and after three times have just been questioned or am I the Son of God that you denied me and you could have said you know what all guys jokes on you.
I'm actually joking. This isn't true. I just wanted to get aroused out of you.
No you stood there and you stood in firmness and Jesus stood in honor of Stephen and said welcome home my son.
Welcome home my child. Thank you for standing for me. I'm going to stand for you. In Hebrews chapter 12 verse 2 it says that when we look to Jesus the author and the finisher of our faith who endured the cross who endured everything for us
sat down at the right hand of the Father. There is this Savior that is so much greater than we'll ever know we will ever see until we get to glory and we stand before him and we say wow this is what you've done for me.
This is what you've allowed me to go through so that I can stand for you. And as we begin to look at what's going on around us my mind has to ask us this question
are we more consumed with the stones that have been thrown at us than the Savior that's in glory who stands for those who stay faithful to him?
You see often times and in my life and in our family's lives and in our world that we live in we like to examine ourselves and say look at the bad things I'm going through look at the hard things I'm going through and we give those more superiority than Christ himself
where Christ says have I not overcome as we looked at this morning death, hell and the grave? Have I not overcome even death itself as I rose Lazarus from the grave?
Have I not overcome these things and you're more worried about these things that are in life that seem monumental but yet I have overcome everything that has happened in this world and I'm here to give you life eternal
if you'll just trust in me. that is not just eternal life but that is a life long pursuit of Christ where we grow closer and closer to him so that we begin to blur reality with what heaven looks like.
We begin to blur the things of this world and we're like Lord thank you for allowing me to go through these things. Thank you for allowing me to be stoned today. Thank you for allowing me to be ridiculed today for my faith.
Not that we're out here looking for it but we're thanking the Lord because he is the one who is a savior that's standing in glory saying well done my child. Well done my faithful servant who didn't give up in the end when times got hard.
Then we look at the third thing verses 59 and 60 and the first part of chapter 8 I'm going to bring in as well as we look at the purpose of Stephen's death.
Stephen's Martyrdom and Legacy
What was the reason for Stephen to die? What was the reason for this first deacon the first one that's mentioned in scripture why did he have to die?
You can imagine that the church leaders would met after this and they'd have a deacon's meeting and Peter and John and James were there and they began evaluating what are we doing? Is this the right course of action? Should we continue
the ministry that we're going on? I mean if Stephen dies aren't they coming after us next? Next there's seven other deacons six other deacons now guys be ready they're coming after you
guys be ready they're coming after me they would have began to talk through this and began to think that Stephen's death was not a defeat.
It was not the church looking and saying well we tried for a couple of months we did everything we could do we've seen tens of thousands of people come to know Jesus I guess that's just enough and this
is all the Lord wanted us to do. No I believe that Stephen's death was a declaration that we are going to stand firm on what we're doing and if you look through the martyr's history of Peter and James and John and all the different disciples that
followed after Jesus and you see how they were killed for the sake of the gospel well they came to Peter and they said Peter
you're going on trial and just reject Jesus just reject this man who died and they say he rose again and he said I can never reject him I can never neglect this salvation that Jesus has given me and
they said well we're going to give you the same punishment the same torture that he gave Jesus
and Stephen's command back at them was I'm not worthy to die like Jesus was hang me upside down on a cross that's an X because I can't even be buried on the same cross that Jesus was he was
so firm in his faith he was so firm in what he was at that this was a declaration that we are going to ultimately exalt Christ the final prayers of Jesus' own words
life shaped by Christ to the very end he says this in Luke chapter 23 Father into your hands I commit my spirit look at how Stephen says it he called out Lord receive my spirit
he said I am going to live my life in a way that I'm going to exalt you and in the end I'm going to trust that the Lord is going to receive my spirit so that your name is
lifted high dying well glorifies God God looks down at faithful men and women who have served him their whole life and he is glorified in that
but that has to happen because of a life that is lived well in the view of eternity in our life and if we're not living well throughout our entire life living for the gospel living for the sake of
the cause of Christ I don't think that dying well is going to happen and we must live in a way that is viewing
eternity that glorifies him that's why in our mission statement we're going to do everything we can to glorify God one of our core values to glorify God through our worship through our praise through our preaching we're going to
do everything we can to glorify him why is that so that when we get to the end and the Lord looks down at us he says Pleasant Grove Baptist Church well done
well done for standing up for me well done for standing up in the face of persecution you stood well when the times were tough
we must be the ones that stand up and exalt Christ but Stephen's death also exemplified the faith that he had Stephen modeled forgiveness as he was being murdered
Last Words of Forgiveness
listen to Jesus' last words Luke 23 verse 34 father forgive them this is Stephen's last words lord do not hold their sin against them
oh to to be someone that is so connected with Christ that when suffering when pain when torment comes we say father forgive those that hurt me father forgive those that have harmed me and my family because it is
for the sake of the gospel that this is happening my mind is ultimately some of my illustrations my mind is going right now to a father in California who was a football star and another young man came up
and said hey you're sitting in my seat you may have heard the story and the young man said okay I'm in your seat and the young man who got upset came back with a knife and began to stab and ultimately kill this football star in California because he was in the wrong seat
the interviewers came to the father this young man that died and he said what do you have to say for all this he looked at the reporter
moments this is hours after his very son had been killed and he looked at the reporters and he said I forgive the man that killed my son I forgive the man that brought hardship and pain in my life and in my family's life what drives a man to do that
when your faith is so connected to Jesus when your faith is so in tune with Christ you just exude what Christ has you exemplify what Christ has because all that comes out is Christ I couldn't find who said
this but it was a martyr a missionary that said the blood of martyrs is the seed of the church
Stephen's death was not in vain but yet it set the tone for how believers are to suffer we're going to suffer church we're going to go through hard times many people in here have went through hard times I
know I've heard your story I've been there through your story I've been there when times are tough and yet we have to ask ourselves what example are we leaving for the next generation because of how we suffer
what example are we leaving for our children and our grandchildren as we go through suffering that we look out and we say I'm doing this not because of the sake of what I'm doing but so that you can
have this opportunity to have salvation so that you have this opportunity to hear the gospel and I'm going to exemplify through my life what it means to be a Christian I'm going to exemplify what it means in my life to live a way that is
counter culture to what the world says we should do not only did it exemplify the faith but it expanded the gospel
we see here a young man named Saul later his name was Paul was standing there holding the coats of the ones that hated this man another way to put this is he was holding hate he was holding hatred
towards the church toward Christianity and Stephen's death planted the seeds that would flourish and expand the gospel like the Romans and the people in this time never thought possible the church itself never thought it was going to be
possible because up until this time they stayed in Jerusalem they were not leaving Jerusalem this is where the headquarters was at this is where the souls were being saved and lives were being changed this is where Jesus died
and was buried and rose again we're staying right here and because of Stephen's death it forced them
to begin moving outward from Jerusalem and the gospel began to expand it outward to the Gentiles which is who we are if Stephen's death doesn't happen we I believe that we don't get the gospel because the gospel stays
in Jerusalem and he had to die for the seeds of the gospel to be spread and to go out
Acts chapter 8 verse 1 it says that Saul approved of his
execution sorry Saul agreed with putting him to death is the very first part of verse 8 he approved of this God used a brutal moment in history to open a bigger mission than we ever saw fit that we ever will see happen and sometimes
what looks like a loss in our eyes and in our world imagine again those men meeting and saying what are we going to do how are we going to go from here Stephen was this guy that was the
cornerstone of our faith he was the guy that was leading and serving and helping what are we going to do what they saw as lost God said this is going to be a launch pad for something greater than
times in our life when we go through trials we go through tribulations it is a way for us to begin to show the world what Christ has done for us
Suffering as a Path to Salvation
I was thinking through this my mind went to one simple question what if your suffering today would be the soil for someone else's salvation tomorrow
think about that for a moment what if the suffering that you go through today is the soil for your grandchild to experience salvation 20 years from now
your great grandchild 40 years from now that begins to see the legacy of a grandmother or grandfather that suffered for Christ that went through hard times that said it's worth it all to go through this I'm just using
my life to be the soil for the salvation of that next generation and the generation after that as we look throughout all of history and we begin to see people who gave their lives for the sake of the
gospel for ultimately the gospel to be spread forever and ever until the Lord comes back to call his children home it is ultimately to expand the gospel greater than we'll ever see fit in our lifetime
but it goes back to how are we suffering how are we going through this are we going through it in a way that we look up to heaven me God don't hold the sin upon them just forgive them
or are we saying what can I do to get back at them I believe the gospel is expanded when we begin to show forgiveness we begin to live a life that is perfectly mirrored to Christ life as Terry comes and begins our hymn of invitation
in 1968 John Stephen I'm going to butcher his last name he's from Tanzania Akwahar ran a marathon
he went to the Olympics and he had trained for months and years to this pinnacle of moment where he was going to go and run in the Olympics and as he's running in the Olympics I don't know why anyone ever run anyways but as he's running in the Olympics he injured his leg
and the story goes that he kept going for hours and hours and hours limping on his hurt leg and said that the other race racers had finished their race hours before him
and as he stumbled in and hobbled across the finish line reporters swarmed him and they asked him one simple question why didn't you quit
you hurt your leg you can barely walk the pain is unbearable why didn't you just give up and this was his response my country didn't send me 5,000 miles to start a race they sent me 5,000 miles to finish a race
you see Stephen didn't just start his faith journey he finished his faith journey here in Acts chapter 7 he stood up and he received Christ and he
the way to where Christ says this is your time to be done and I'll receive that
you see when we run in such a way to finish well there's no pain in this world there's no cost in this world there is nothing in this world that's going to hinder you from continuing for the glory
of the one who called you you you! going to do everything you
to come it could be when we step out of this building today it could be ten years from now but what we do know
is that it may be subtle and it may be severe like Stephen and what we know is if we're full of the spirit and if we're faithful when pressure comes and our eyes are fixed on Jesus and we see the one that matters the most and we choose forgiveness and faith rather than
vengeance I believe a legacy will outlive ours if your life is centered on Christ and your life is living in a way that Christ lived and ultimately died for the church if we can get to this moment where
we have prepared our life for a sacrifice as Romans 12 1 says a living sacrifice for Christ it would not be something that was pleasing!
Faithfulness in Our Journey
something that would be hard and painful but yet Stephen said I'm going to be faithful to finish my journey and in his faithfulness church I don't want you to miss this point Christ honored him by standing
the only time in scripture where we see Christ standing because he didn't die with bitterness but yet he died with boldness full of the spirit eyes fixed on Jesus the one who came to
forgiveness was on his lips he was there to offer forgiveness for those that were around him my question today
is have you accepted this forgiveness that Christ has offered to us have you accepted the forgiveness of your sins that you have done that Christ holds against us and died for us so that we could have redemption in him and if you've accepted that are you living a way that when you die
Christ is going to stand at the right hand of the father and welcome us into glory
welcome us in and say well done thou good and faithful servant
oh I pray that every day of my life there's a song called live it well and I listen to it often because I want to live a life so well that when I stand before Christ he says well
done I know you didn't do everything perfect I didn't expect you to do everything perfect
but you lived in a way that honored me and exemplified me and exalted Christ well done son come on home
that's what I pray and I pray for us as individuals and us as a church as we look at what Stephen did and say am I going to be faithful to finish the course that Christ
has led for me we're going to have communion in just a moment this is a time of invitation maybe you come down and are in your seat and pray for a sin that's in your life before we partake
in this and maybe you just need to come down and pray over your family whatever it may be as Terry plays
let's have a hymn of invitation let's pray Lord we love you we thank you for what you've done God you're so faithful to us you're so good to us even when we're not good to you and Lord I
you help us to honor you Lord we love you in your name we pray amen thank you again for taking your time to listen to the sermon audio please subscribe to get our latest sermons each week
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