Stephen: Unshakable Courage | Dr. Ed Young

[Music] god created time let that soak a while okay that answered so many things god created time and from the first nanosecond of creation in the beginning god from that first moment when he spoke time into existence all the way through history there's a little slice of time that encompasses 30 years 30 years a.d 33 a.d 64. 30 years that little slice of history is the most important slice in all of history the birth the formation of the church the body of christ we hear the story in the book of acts it all began with jesus birth life death resurrection ascension twelve men handful of women jesus before he was ascended gave us the great commission acts chapter one he said when the power comes you wait the power will come the holy spirit will come and you will be what witnesses jerusalem judea samaria all over the world the call the commission the mandate the assignment of the church the church the body of christ we know that when the holy spirit came to those 120 who were waiting for the holy spirit to come in the upper room that peter went out subsequently and he delivered that message on the day of pentecost when litter of the church came into being and 3 000 responded to the truth of the resurrection of jesus a few weeks later 5000 came the church was born and thriving but you have an interesting thing the church was still enmeshed in judaism those who received jesus as lord and savior they were still in the synagogues all around jerusalem all around the holy land and they were captured there for 10 years the church didn't go anywhere it didn't move out primarily it was made up 99 of the body of jews who came to believe that this jesus of nazareth was indeed the fulfillment of prophecy and was the promised messiah god in flesh in this world still a little sect in the synagogues primarily in jerusalem and then in the church they appointed deacons and one of them was named stephen and we're going to look at steve a little bit today chapter number six of acts verse number five the statement found approval with the whole congregation and they chose stephen a man full of faith and the holy spirit look down at verse 8 it says and stephen full of grace and power here was stephen a man of faith led him to be full of the holy spirit led him to have grace operating in his life led him to have power acts of the apostles the book and some translations is called acts of the holy spirit because the book of acts is the biography of the holy spirit forming the body of christ the church there in its earliest of beginnings in my life when i was about 11 years old i came to understand i knew the facts that jesus could come in your life and i became a christian and it was like the holy spirit was like the the drum beat in my life the holy spirit was just like a drum beat in my life steady like the beat of your heart a drum beat when i was 18 university of alabama an atheist challenged me at whether or not there was god or not and and then i sought that out and found the reality of god and the holy spirit's beating my heart got stronger in my life and all the way through the process sometimes as i have moved away from god his plan his purpose the beat is there but it's grown faint always present but faint but in times of extremity when i went before him broken and open the beat got louder and louder so in my life that holy spirit like the beat of a drum has been loud and assuring and comforting and it's been weak still there when i move away from god's plan to my plan the book of acts is about the holy spirit it's like the drumbeat the cadence because it introduces us to the drummer who is jesus the holy spirit is the beat the drummer that is jesus and this is what happened in that early church stephen full of faith full of the holy spirit because the holy spirit had come stephen now full of grace giftedness stephen now full of power power what is that power for paul says you can have a form of godliness you know the ritual the words the songs the vocabulary a little smattering of the have a form of godliness but you can deny the power that comes with it the power thereof that's what was true in judaism at this moment in history and so stephen stood up and he became a witness and the first place he witnesses to surprise is in the synagogue look at chapter 6 of acts it says but some of the men what was called the synagogue of the freed men including in the synagogue serenians alexandrians some from cilicia and asia rose up and argued with stephen verse 10 but they were unable to cope with the wisdom and the spirit which he was speaking then they secretly induced men to say we have heard him speak blasphemous words against moses and against god himself now what's going on here understand this it'll help you understand if you're reading through the bible when you get to acts many of the jews have received christ but they were still worshiping in the cradle of judaism in all the synagogues a little remnant here they were jesus followers they believed it they understood it but the mass in the synagogue did not believe it and in this particular synagogue you see all the areas that were represented and we know these were hellenistic jews understand that big word but it means they were jews who had been scattered the diaspora times of persecution taken into captivity and now many of them had come back home to jerusalem and they could speak greek they could not speak aramaic knew a little bit of hebrew and they formed their own synagogues and so here dr luke writing acts names the areas in which they'd come from around the world alexandria cyprus etc and they were hellenistic jews who'd come back home among them was stephen and stephen here he'd receive christ stands up before all the synagogue there he begins to speak and to tell them that this jesus is the promised messiah he'll change your life he's changed my life they began to debate with them and they lost every debate is it any wonder here's a man full of faith full of the holy spirit the third person of the trinity he has all the gifts the charists of working in his life and he has power could anybody debate a guy like that that kind of wisdom that kind of insight that kind of brilliance that he had because of what he received from christ and then look what happens when you can't match an argument with someone and they win only thing you can do there is fight right you know if you out debate me and what you're saying is true all i can do is get mad walk off and fight instead of being civil and let's see where the truth really is located and look what happens verse 12 and they stirred up the people the elders and the scribes and they came up to him and dragged stephen away and brought him before the council ladies and gentlemen that's the sanhedrin that's the supreme court of all of israel i'm telling you and they put forward false witnesses who said this man stephen incessantly speaks against this holy place stephen you're talking against the temple of god what a charge and the law my goodness the decalogue the the principles we live on for we have heard him say that this nazarene jesus will destroy this place the temple and after the customs which moses handed down to us what charges they issued against him and then it says i love this verse verse 15 and fixing their gaze on him all who were sitting in the council the supreme court saw his face like the face of an angel can you imagine it shekinah stephen's face they charged him and his face was like the face of an angel and you can see the supreme court they couldn't take their eyes off of him here they accuse him of attacking the law of moses when was the last time israel heard of a face shining with your kind of glory you want to make a wild guess moses coming down for sinai and here we have this heretic they believe standing up his face shining like an angel's face and they accused him of two things blasphemy doesn't that word sound nasty when you say it blasphemy it's like the word iniquity you know like the word you know hippopotamus sounds like a hippopotamus doesn't it and so they accused him of blasphemy taking things that were holy and relevant and and irreverent and teaching them as if they were not of god and then we have stephen defends himself because the supreme court asked him the high priest verse 1 chapter 7 are these things true other words here two charges against you stephen are they true in one sense the charges against stephen were true because with the coming of jesus all the pillows of judaism as one scholar said all the sacred cows of judaism were being eliminated and there are three of them he puts forward two charges a charge against the law a charge against the temple but there's a third one there that philip addresses and that's a charge of the land the land in other words the jews thought we live in the holy land therefore this is a gift from god and we must be right with god because we live in his property that he has given to us and certainly we must be right with god because the law came through moses on sinai and we believe the law and all the missionary interpretation law therefore we must be right with god and we worship in the temple and everybody knows that god lives a temple and here we have stephen standing up saying time out and here we have in that scripture the longest sermon in the book of acts delivered by stephen i'm going to go over every word of it no no no but i want you to see how he addressed these charges and he adds one in the land look at chapter seven verse one the high priest says are these charges true and he said hear me brethren and fathers respect toward the sanhedrin the god of glory appeared to our father abraham when he was in mesopotamia before he lived in haran where is mesopotamia is it in the holy land no tigers and euphrates right in between hey ran is it no land no and he goes on and traces to joseph god spoke to joseph where was he he was in egypt and he spoke about moses and dealt with where was moses he was in egypt moses went on mount sinai boy holy land the commandments were given moses by the burning bush man this is holy ground was that in the holy land no so he goes on and explains this saying look you're not right with god just because you live on this property this geographical location and that was explosive to the jewish mind and then he goes on he deals with another charge that was brought against him he talks about the law look at verse 37 same chapter this is the moses who said the sons of israel will rise up from you a prophet like me from your brethren what is he saying he's saying moses said the law was not the answer there will come one from among us the messiah the same jesus who will rise up and he will liberate us from the law and he went on to say hi how is this law working for all of you jews and if you're keeping the law you got it down pat no no no no and he say even moses predicted that becoming of one from among us who would set the record straight would handle all the sin and make us right with god that's how he answered that and then look about the temple he says same chapter verse 48 how the most high does not dwell in houses made by human hands as the prophet says heaven is my throne the earth is my footstool of my feet what kind of house will you build for me says the lord oh what place is there for my reprose he's saying god doesn't live exclusively in the temple so he answers their charges and then he offers a counter charge listen to what he says by the way you preach like a prophet you're going to die like a prophet you tell the truth and you're criticized well hello and look what he says to the supreme court he said you men are stiff-necked prideful uncircumcised in the heart you got a hard heart your ears are always resisting the holy spirit and you are doing just as your fathers did which one of the prophets did your fathers not persecute my my mind he's saying you have refused the holy spirit now listen three things as far as the holy spirit is concerned three things we can come along and we can grieve the holy spirit only a christian can do that you and i who are in christ we can only grieve the holy spirit when love is offered and that love is not returned there is grief the holy spirit offers love to us to lead our lives and when we go and do not follow that love the holy spirit weaks grieves over that so we can grieve the holy spirit but only non-christians can refuse the holy spirit they refuse the holy spirit this is what happened here they they there was a refusal to follow the truth that the holy spirit had laid down before the jews and they refused it and then look what happened and now when they heard this the response verse 51 the sanhedrin they were quick they were cut to the quake and began gnashing their teeth at him and being full of the holy spirit he gazed intently into heaven and saw the glory of jesus standing at the right hand of god and he said behold i see the heavens open and the son of man standing at the right hand of god we can grieve the holy spirit we can quench the holy spirit and we can fall into foolish doctrine but there now they have refused the holy spirit and then what happened here is stephen he says the heavens have opened and he said i see the father and i see jesus standing at the right hand of god wait a minute have you ever read that before in the bible jesus is seated at the right hand of god that's what hebrews 8 tells us all in the bible jesus is positioned at seated at the right hand of god and that indicates that his work is done he's seated but here we see he's standing what is that about only time in the bible we see jesus standing in heaven at the right hand of god it's because he's standing with stephen who was the first martyr seeing stephen who changed the whole thrust of the church and jesus stands to receive him by the father ladies and gentlemen i believe that all are in christ when we leave this earth we'll have the same kind of vision and the heavens will open and we'll see the father and we'll see jesus standing to receive his sons and his daughters [Applause] what a moment stephen testified the synagogue stephen testified in the supreme court and now we see stephen witnessing witnessing testifying at his own stoning look at it verse 57 and they cried out with a loud voice the sanhedrin they covered their ears and they rushed at him with one impulse and when they driven him out of the city they began stoning him and the witnesses laid aside their robes at the feet of a young man named saul saul and they went on stoning stephen as he called on the lord and said lord jesus receive my spirit sound like jesus into the hands i was give my spirit that falling on his knees he cried out with a loud voice lord do not hold this sin against them and having that he graduated to be with heaven notice something in the greek the word martyr and the word witness of the same word and because of the death the stoning of stephen look what happened read the rest of the story in the heartbeat of the holy spirit in the book of acts all of a sudden the church exploded out of judaism it had been captured there for 10 years in the synagogues as a little sect of judaism and now all of a sudden the christians were scattered some went to antioch and a revival exploded antioch not a jewish city all of a sudden cornelius who was a centurion went to peter and said i want to know about this jesus and his whole family a nun jew then all of a sudden an ethiopian eunuch came and he said i want to know about this jesus and he was baptized then all of a sudden there is this saul he's jerking christians out of their home to persecute them and he's going on the road to damascus and and bang all of a sudden these caesar resurrected christ and he is converted and look what happens now saul becomes paul he goes to antioch and then the story of what god has done for man in jesus christ just leaves jerusalem leaves judea leaves galilee it goes to samaria to philip who was running and it goes through saul who became paul to europe and all over the world it was the death of stephen as a witness in these arenas that the gospel of jesus christ goes all over the world and that is the background of all of us here today in the 21st century who have received jesus as lord and savior the death of stephen [Music] you

Channel: The Winning Walk

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Keywords: Broadcast, Discover, Dr. Ed Young, Ed Young, Gifts, Radio, SBCHouston, TBN, Television, The Winning Walk, Transformation, bible, ed young ministries, ed young sermons, winningwalk.org

Id: 4oPOIT35IZQ

Length: 26min 16sec (1576 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 02 2022