The Man with the Face of an Angel

Acts 6:8-15

Lets have a word of prayer as we approach our study this morning.  Father we do thank you that the privilege is ours to look into the book.  Father we pray that as we examine the life of this most wonderful man, Stephen, that our hearts might be drawn to him, that he might become a pattern and an example for us, that we might consider him as one whom we can follow for he followed Christ.  Father we pray that the Spirit might teach us.  Human words are so failing and human thoughts are so faulty.  Lord, we just commit this time to You.  May there be no glory for the one that speaks, but only for the Son of God.  In His name we pray.  Amen.

Acts Chapter 6 this morning is our study in a continuing study of the Acts of the Apostles, or if you like the acts of the Holy Spirit.  This most wonderful book that traces for us the early years of the church in all of its energy and all of its dynamic and all of its effect on the world.  In today's study we come to the ministry of Stephen.  You'll remember last week Stephen was selected to be one of the seven men responsible for the business of the early church.  Chosen in order to free the apostles for the priority of preaching and teaching and praying.  Stephen thus was introduced to us in Chapter 6:5.  He then becomes the main subject for the remainder of the 6^th Chapter and the entire 7^th Chapter.

He's a very important individual and even though I think so often we only reflect on Stephen in terms of him as a martyr and know very little else about him, the wealth of information that is here in these passages opens up to us a real depth perception of the character of this man.  Now he has to be one of the greatest man who ever lived.  I would venture to say that he's on a par with Moses and that's a very strong statement, but if you stop to consider Matthew 11:11, in which Jesus made the statement that John the Baptist was the greatest man who ever lived, even greater than Moses, or Abraham, or Elijah, or Elisha, or anybody else, David or Solomon.  When you think that John the Baptist was the greatest man that ever lived and in the same verse Jesus said, "Nevertheless he that is in the kingdom of God the least among them is greater than he, then there's a sense in which all believers are greater than all of those in the Old Testament.  For we have a relationship to Jesus Christ, which commits unto us a greatness that is really not our own, and yet is our own.  The very greatness of Christ becomes ours through faith.

And so there's a real sense in which all of us within the kingdom reach a place of union with God that the Old Testaments saints, even the best of them, never experienced in life.  And so in that sense Stephen is greater.  But even in the sense of just looking at it from a strategic point in the plan of God Stephen ranks with Moses.  And we'll see why I believe that as we conclude our message this morning.

Now the testimony given to Israel in the initial chapters of the book of Acts is basically on the shoulders of Peter.  Peter was commissioned as the apostle to the circumcision or to the Jews.  The testimony of Peter is coming to an end, at least in the book of Acts, and the testimony of the apostle Paul to the Gentiles is beginning to open up.  And in Chapter, the end of Chapter 7 we're introduced to Paul and Chapter begins to unfold Paul. So we're seeing the end of Peter and the beginning of Paul and the bridge in the middle is Stephen.

Peter ministered to Jerusalem Jews.  Paul ministered to Gentiles.  Stephen filled the bridge in the middle.  He ministered to Jews, but they were Jews in Gentile places, or Grecian Jews, scattered Jews, Hellenist Jews, so he's very much a bridge.  Stephen is also a bridge between Peter and Paul because Peter's ministry dominated Jerusalem.  Paul's ministry went to the world. Stephen was the catalyst that sent the church from Jerusalem into the world and he did it very indirectly.  He did it by being martyred, for when Stephen got killed persecution broke out and the result of persecution was the scattering of the church and the scattering of the church had as its result the evangelization of Judea and Samaria and the uttermost part of the earth.

So in consequence of the death of Stephen, the church was thrown out of Jerusalem, which is exactly what God wanted to happen anyway because Jerusalem was done at that point.  And I say that only because it says that Jesus wanted them to be witnesses in Jerusalem and the Jerusalem leaders said you have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine; therefore, they had accomplished their task and it was time to move on.  And I believe they had reached those that God had in that city at that moment because at this juncture we'll see what happens.  The people who had been favorable all of a sudden turned hostile and killed Stephen, which says to me that God had accomplished His purpose for the moment.  He had redeemed the elect of Jerusalem and it was time to move on and those who were now remaining in Jerusalem were the hostile ones toward Christ.

And so Stephen is a transition between and Paul.  He's a transition between the evangelization of Jerusalem and the evangelization of the world.  In a very real sense Stephen is a forerunner of Paul.  Stephen busied himself communicating the gospel to foreign Jews by going to their synagogues.  Apparently verse 9 indicates this.  In Jerusalem the foreign Jews maintained their own synagogues so that when they came to Jerusalem for feasts and pilgrimages they would have a place to meet.  Stephen went to those synagogues and perhaps even went further than that on some occasions, prior to this occasion.  We do not know.  But nevertheless his ministry was in the synagogues of the foreign Jews and in that sense he's a forerunner of Paul because if you read anything about Paul's style you know that the first thing that he did when he went into a city was find the synagogue and he went into the synagogue and reasoned there.  And after reasoning in the synagogue with the Jews who were foreign Jews, scattered Jews, he would then move out to the Gentiles.

So Stephen in a very real sense is kind of a preliminary to the ministry of the apostle Paul.  He confronted congregations of Jews and countered the opposition of Jewish bigotry, treated with violence, he was insulted and stoned and so was Paul.  So in a very real sense the mantle of Stephen fell on Saul Tarsus another Hellenist Jew and incidentally one of Stephen's bitterest opponents.

In fact, it just may be that Saul owes his earliest exposure to Stephen, because Saul was definitely a part of this group that was hassling with Stephen here, as we shall see in a moment. 

Now apart from Stephen being strategically important historically as I've just tried to analyze.  He was important because of his individual life.  You see men are important in history, but men are also important as men.  Men move history, but men also move the hearts of other men by their individuality as much as their effect.  And Stephen was not only important because he had great historical effect, he was the catalyst that caused the explosion of the church.  It was his martyrdom that scattered them, but he was also important just because of who he was and the very character of his life.  He is great proof, mark this, he is great proof that the effect of a man's life has nothing to do with the length of it.  And the effect of a man's ministry has nothing to do with the length of it.  His ministry was so short, so very short, and yet it was the catalyst that caused the church to move out in the next step in its commission and reach Judea and Samaria with the gospel.  Stephen was the trigger that shot the church into the world.

And I don't think anybody can fully estimate the results even of a brief work, even of a brief work of one man, when that one man has the courage to do and say what he knows is right whatever the consequences.  And Stephen did.  He took no thought for himself.  He did what he knew was right and let the chips fall.  When he was killed it was a sad loss for the church.  It says in Chapter 8:2 that they cried a lot over him.  I'm sure they missed him.  And yet he didn't die one day sooner than when he had accomplished all that God wanted him to accomplish.  And dear ones, he will die in vain in terms of your life unless you learn what it is that God wants to teach you through him this morning.  Don't let him die in vain in your case.  Learn what it is that God wants to say to you through the life of Stephen.  Great man; loveable in every way.

Now Stephen was the first martyr.  Before the death of Stephen the opposition of the Jews had been limited to threats of imprisonment, had been limited to verbal abuse, and finally to imprisonment and beating, but now it burst forth with a roaring furry, a raging kind of madness that results in the execution of Stephen by stoning.  They reached the point of fury that can only be satisfied with blood.  And thus they introduced the first in the series of persecutions that have plagued the church through its history, people dying for their faith in Jesus Christ.  Stephen began it all.

Now let's refresh our memories for just a moment as we come to this text.  I always like to kind of sneak up the text so we understand what we're doing.  The church was commissioned in Chapter 1.  and our Lord said, "you shall receive power through the coming of the Spirit.  Then you shall be witnesses unto Me in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the world."  That was their commission.  In Chapter 2 the church was born and immediately and the first day they were born they began to fulfill the commission, right?  Peter stood up and said, "Be this unto you and hearken unto my words," and he proceeded to preach Christ.  The church began its evangelism and it was effective.  They literally turned the world inside out.  They had an effect on Jerusalem, so much so that they became the topic of conversation everywhere.  They dominated Jewish society.  Now what was it that made them effective?  Well we've been studying a lot of things.  Let me summarize.  First of all they were effective, and these are things for us to remember if we want to be effective as a church, and indeed we do.  They were effective first of all because they had unity.  Now we're summarizing previous messages.  They had unity.  They were of one heart, one mind, had all things in common, they loved each other, they had a powerful united testimony.  And the world looked at them and they read their love and there wasn't any confusion about the clarity of their testimony, and there wasn't any question about the fact that Jesus Christ could give joy and could bind together broken pieces of humanity into a beautiful whole, for they were living proof.  They were united.

Secondly, they had courage.  They were effective because they were courageous.  They were bold and they boldly confronted the world.  Relentlessly they accepted persecution only as an opportunity for further boldness.  They had courage.  No church every really effects the world that doesn't have the courage to stand up in the face of the world to speak the truth.  And no believer really makes an effect on the world that doesn't stand up boldly and speak what he knows God wants him to speak. 

Thirdly, they were effective because they had total involvement.  Every church suffers from the syndrome of hangers on. You know I told you there are people who make things happen.  There are the people who watch things happen, and there are people who haven't figured out what's happening.  And that's what the church suffers from.  There are always people in the church who hang on and do nothing.  It's a great traumatic experience in their spiritual life to be here in Sunday morning, let along to be involved in communicating Christ during the week, or be out on Sunday night, or be in a Bible study on Thursday evening, or whatever goes on in opportunities and so forth.  It is a great thing just for them to manage to get it together for an hour or an hour and twenty minutes.

But the Jerusalem didn't have any of that.  They had total involvement.  They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and they all spoke the word with boldness.  Everybody was doing it.  Now that's impact, right?  No dead weight.  Total involvement.

The next key to their success was content.  They knew what they were supposed to do.  They knew what their message was.  They never got bogged down in social issues.   They kept preaching Jesus.  They knew to what they were committed in terms of priority.  There's nothing wrong with social things at all, but there are priorities and they established theirs and they operated on that basis.  They preached Christ crucified, risen, and coming again and they never got sidetracked; content, content, content, preaching, preaching, teaching, teaching.  Their chief business, the ministry of reconciliation. 

Next they were effective because they had discipline.  They dealt with sin.  The church that deals with sin is the effective church.  The church that deals with sin is the pure church, and the pure church is the church God uses.  God uses pure instruments.  Sin was dealt with immediately.  The price of belonging to that church was very high.  You'd have your sin exposed and dealt with and so only the true joined and; therefore, they kept the church pure.

Lastly they were effective because they were organized.  Not because they mapped out a big plan and told the Holy Spirit to do it their way, but because they saw what the Spirit of God was doing and then they put a structure around it to help it be done more smoothly.  They chose these men to take care of the business in order that the apostles might be free to teach and preach and pray.

The keys to their evangelism very simply: unity, courage, total involvement, content, discipline, and organization.  Now all of that was in good order when we come to verse 8 of Chapter 6.  All of that had been taken care of.  And now with a base like that they were ready to move out and Stephen is a catalyst that's going to get them going.  And the way he did it is very interesting.  It's very negative in a sense that it was a death that brought about the expansion of the church.  But it's only negative in that sense.  It's positive in the sense that it's just what God designed exactly the way He designed it.

Now God knew it was time for the church to move out and Stephen was going to be the key and indeed he was.  You know I've often thought reading about William Carey who, I think the biographer said that it was some 30 or 35 years of laboring in the mission field without ever seeing a single soul come to Christ, and yet since that time all the missions of India have been based upon the work that he did in terms of translation, and so he has a part in all that God has done since then.  And I think of Stephen, a man who lived and died without ever recording one single convert.  You say, "The poor guy."  I mean if he'd stuck around and hadn't been so blatant with those Jews, he might have stuck around long enough to lead somebody to the Lord and get a few stars in his crown.  When you think of a nice guy like that running around heaven with a baseball cap on it's just not right. There's got to be more for him, he's such a wonderful fellow.

Listen, I'm sure that there are all kinds of stars from Judea and Samaria that are going to stud the crown of Stephen, already have.  Some plant, some water, and God gives the increase.  Stephen never saw anybody come to Christ, at least it's recorded in the text.  Now that's no excuse for you to say, "Boy I've never seen anybody either.  I'll just leave it that way and pick up on somebody else's stars."  No no.  If you can come to the commitment that Stephen did and operate like he did and not see anybody come you'll be rewarded.  But Stephen, as far as we know in the text, saw nothing happen in response to his preaching except they killed him.  I mean there always people who could explain that away and say, "Well Stephen got a little bit too involved and then he gets so blatant over there.  After all that hassle he stands up and says to them, 'You killed Christ.'  And that just did it.  They grabbed the rocks and it was over.  If he'd been smart he'd just kind of quieted down.  Think of all the people he could have discipled.  Think of all the people he could have taught, this and this and this."  But you see he did what was right and he took no thought for the consequences because he believed that was in the hands of God, you see.

You know ours is not the reason why.  Ours is but to do or die.  But Stephen was great.  He was one of the greatest men who ever lived.  No, not at the world counts, but the world doesn't know what greatness is anyway.  The world says if you're born in the right family you're great.  It's family name.  If you happen to be a prince Charlie, or duke somebody, or the daughter of the President or something like that, you're great.  That's greatness. Or if you happen to have a lot of money you're great.  If you're successful you're great.  But God says those are all wrong.  That's not what measures success.  Popularity, that's not success. The world judged Stephen a failure and they killed him.  God said he was super and gave him a face like the face of an angel.  But then the world never does get it right anyway, do they?  I mean they killed the Son of God, beheaded Paul, crucified Peter, stoned Stephen.  They're right on every time, doing exactly the opposite. But that's the way sin works.  The world is never right.  Stephen was great.

I want to show you four features of his greatness.  And it's just a simple lesson but I hope God will speak to us through it.  Four reasons that he was great.  There's an outline if you'd like to follow.  It's in your bulletin.  His choosing, his character, his courage, and his countenance.  We could also add his confession and his conclusion, but that would be Chapter 7 and we'd never get to that.

First of all, his choosing.  Now let's back up into verses 3 to 5 and let me read it to you.  This is review, but I'll pull a point out of here that is important.  "Wherefore, brethren," there needed to be some careful work done in making sure everybody got equal amounts of the distributed food and money within the church. Some people couldn't carry their own load, and so others did, and they needed to be distributing it equally and there was a little problem here, so the apostles say, "Wherefore, brethren, look among you for seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business."  We need somebody to handle the organization thing here.  "So that we will be able to give ourselves continually to prayer and the ministry of the word.  And the saying pleased the whole multitude: and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolas a proselyte of Antioch."  Now notice this.  Now there's probably somewhere between 20 and 30 thousand Christians, would be an educated guess, maybe more, certainly not less.  And out of those 20 to 30 thousand Christians they were to pick seven men full of the Holy Spirit and who is the number one name on the list?  Stephen.  Now that gives you a little idea of what kind of a man that man was.  He was one in 30,000. 

The spirituality of the man goes without saying at this point.  It's assumed by the fact that the church chose him and these men had to be of honest report, full of the Holy Spirit, and full of wisdom.  And so we find that when the body went to look for seven men out of the thousands and thousands of Christians Stephen was one of them.  In fact he is listed first.  And his choosing reveals the high esteem that the church had for him.  And you know something?  For a man to be approved by those who know him best is the epitome of approval, right?  His name is Stephanos, victors crown.  Certainly he won that