We’re looking today, at the account of possibly the shortest lived Deaconship in the history of the church. The Apostles are finding themselves, as the Jerusalem congregation grows, having to deal with mundane issues that threaten to take them away from their appointed mission, which is prayer for the saints and the preaching of the gospel.
So they call the congregation together and suggest they choose the first deacon board; seven men of good reputation, full of the Spirit and of wisdom.
This suggestion is met with approval, so the congregation chooses their men, the first mentioned being Stephen.
Here in verse 5 of chapter 6 is our first introduction to Stephen, and Luke begins to tell his tale, and what a significant story it is. But before we move on there is a little nugget I gleaned as I began to study for this sermon, and I want to share the blessing with you.
Look at verse 5 and see these names of those who were chosen; there is one that struck me as very interesting.
Stephen, of course, then, Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and finally, Nicolas. Now, of Stephen it says he was full of faith and of the Holy Spirit. We’ll talk about that.
But nothing is said of the others except their name, until we get to Nicolas, and the Holy Spirit chose to inspire Luke to share with us that Nicolas was a proselyte from Antioch.
Now what that means is that he was a Gentile who had converted to Judaism.
This is what blessed me as I paused to consider this man’s history. Not that we really know his history, but just think about the providence of God in this man’s life.
He is a Greek, from Antioch. Whatever his circumstances were, we can only speculate about. He is mentioned here, and nowhere else in scripture. But there came a point in his life where he was exposed to the beliefs of the Jewish religion, and was drawn into it because he desired to worship the one true God. They called people like Nicolas, ‘God fearers’. Gentiles who believed in God.
We can only guess at the opposition he might have gotten from friends and family who may have been themselves, steeped in the worship of the many lesser gods of the Greek world at that time.
Maybe he had no family. Maybe he was on his own and there was no one to oppose him at all. We don’t know. But by God’s mercy and providence, this man is led to give himself to the Jewish faith, which probably brought him to Jerusalem for the Passover, where he was witness to the crucifixion and resurrection of this Jesus of Nazareth.
Now we don’t know if he was in the upper room on the day of Pentecost, or if he was maybe one of those in the street hearing the 120 praising God as they spilled out onto the streets at 9am.
All we know is that he became a believer, and apparently a believer quickly recognized as a Godly and Spirit-filled man, because out of this very large Jerusalem congregation he is one of seven chosen to serve in a position of trust and respect.
What a wonderful, merciful, gracious God we have, who plucks a man out of obscurity, leads him one step at a time into the faith, raises him up in a place of service, and names him for all future generations as an example of God’s far-reaching grace.
“For the promise is for you and your children, and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God shall call to Himself.” (2:39)
So here is a Greek who became a Jew, who became a Christian. For him, Romans 1:16, which says salvation is for the Jew first and also the Greek, must have offered a double sense of security.
(By the way, his name means “Victorious over the people” – and if you’re going to serve as a deacon I guess that’s a plus, if not an absolute necessity for survival)
A LEGACY OF FAITH AND POWER
Of Stephen, Stuart Briscoe said;
1. What he was--irreproachable
2. What he did--irrefutable
3. What he said—irresistible
(Getting Into God pg 36)
So here is this account of Stephen, a man highly esteemed and spoken of by the Holy Spirit.
We won’t try to study the entire 6th and 7th chapters of Acts today. I just want to look at this man and focus on four points of interest that stand out to me from this scriptural account.
Point 1. He was Prayed up.
Ok, I chose ‘prayed up’, only because I wanted to stick to my theme of having a ‘p’ word in each of my four points. Nevertheless, the text, without actually saying so, indicates that he was a man of prayer.
No one is ‘full of grace and power’, without prayer. I’ve heard our Director of Missions, Don Dillon, say on a couple of different occasions, “Sometimes we organize until we agonize, and get nothing done, when we should agonize (before the Lord in prayer) before we even begin to organize“ Parenthesis mine. This is wise policy, and it applies to us in our individual lives every bit as much as to a church or an association making plans.
When Peter suggested (vs 3) they choose from among them seven men of good reputation, they may have easily found their seven very quickly. Whether a believer in Christ or not, if a man has a desire to be looked upon favorably by his family, friends and associates, he will endeavor energetically to keep his reputation clean.
But Peter didn’t stop there, and here is where the limits of a man’s moral fortitude and strength of character are exposed as useless in regards to accomplishing anything in the realm of the Spirit.
Any man, spiritual or carnal, can exercise a good conscience. But there will be no evidence of the Spirit working in and through a life, even if that person is a born again believer in Christ, if it cannot be said of him that he is ‘full of grace and power’ in the sense that it is meant here in Acts 6.
Stephen was full, because the Spirit of God filled him. And the Spirit filled him because he was a man attuned to God, and prayer is the only exercise that opens spiritual eyes and ears to discern His will and follow His leading.
What I’d like you to take special note of, is that Stephen was a regular guy. We don’t know what he did for a living, or how old he was, or what his status in society was. But we know that he wasn’t an Apostle, and he was probably not even Jewish.
All seven of these names are Greek, and they were probably chosen that way deliberately. The problem facing them, if you look at verse 1 of chapter 6, was that the widows in the church who were not from Jerusalem and did not speak Aramaic as the Hebrew Jews did, but spoke Greek and were called Hellenistic Jews, were not being treated fairly in the distribution of food. So it would be reasonable that while searching for seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and wise, they would also look for men who were Greek, so they would be especially sensitive to this need.
These 7 were chosen to ‘serve tables’, to free the Apostles for the work of ministry; yet, here is one of those chosen, full of faith, grace and power, performing attesting miracles and preaching.
So what does this do to the argument some give, that the gifts of the Spirit and the miracles and wonders being performed were only for the Apostles, and for the ‘launching’ of the infant church?
Stephen wasn’t an Apostle, if a Jew probably a Hellenist, but he was performing such signs and wonders among the people that he attracted the attention of some folks who felt they had to do something about it and stop him.
How could he do these things? Because God is no respecter of persons, and as Peter said in chapter 2 verse 39, the promise of the gift of the Holy Spirit is for the Jew and for ‘all who are far off’, meaning the gentile also, and since He does not change, then neither does the promise, nor has the promise changed.
Are we as Christians not performing signs and wonders among the people today because those things were only for the early church? Where do we get that? Show me chapter and verse!
No, people. We’re not doing those things because we’re not full of grace and power, because we’re too full of the world and the cares of this life to have our attention and energies focused on the next.
That’s the real difference between the early church and the church today. The secret isn’t in going back to meeting from house to house and having things in common and having lay leaders instead of professional pastors and all the other things that are being tried in the attempt to recapture and rekindle that amazing growth that was going on then.
The secret isn’t really a secret at all! They were filled with awe, they were praising God, they were constantly grateful to God for saving them, they were praying, they were heavenly minded and looking eagerly for the return of Jesus, and it showed in every area of their lives! And out of their midst came seven men of good reputation, full of the Spirit and wisdom, chosen to serve the whole, and at least one of them was performing miracles, and preached such a great sermon that God decided to record it in the Bible for us.
Now I confess to you openly that by these standards I fail miserably, as do the vast majority of us in Christ’s body today. But I’m called to preach the word of God, and being faithful to that charge I am constrained to point to this man, Stephen, and say that there was nothing available to him that is not available to each and every one of God’s people who would surrender to Him to the degree that Stephen apparently did.
I do not say this to shame, but to provoke. May the Lord help us each to take this to heart and let Him speak to us from it however He may choose.
Point 2. He was Prepared.
I mean that in a couple of ways.
As we’ve already discussed, he was certainly a praying man as attested to by the things Luke said about him and his public ministry. So we can, by the same information, conclude that he was spiritually prepared for the duties for which he was chosen, he was prepared in his readiness to be used by the Lord in powerful ways, and he was prepared to respond in a Godly way to the opposition that came to him.
He was full of grace and power. I don’t believe Luke was only referring to power to perform signs and wonders, but also the power to live a Godly testimony. That takes power, you know. The spiritually weak cannot successfully do it. But the one who goes out each day prepared by prayer and the feeding on God’s word, will go in His strength. He will go in power, prepared to respond and react to life and to people in a Godly way.
Stephen was falsely accused, physically abused, yet he did not defend himself or get angry (6:15) but defended the faith.
How would most of us respond if suddenly there were people from one of the largest churches in town, going to Starbuck’s or Wal~Mart and loudly proclaiming that we had been openly blaspheming the name of the Lord and denying the claims of Christ?
Why, we’d be hurt! Deeply hurt! And we would want to shout “NO! Never! I’d never do or say those things! I love Jesus! Don’t listen to these people!”
Self-defense.
In verse 2 of chapter 7, the High Priest asked, “Are these things so?” It was an invitation to defend himself.
The question was very straightforward. “Are these things so?” In other words, if these accusations against you are false, now is the time to say so.
Call your lifeline. Bring in a couple of friends. The floor is yours.
Well, I’ve been a servant of God’s people. My friends call me ‘full of grace and power’. I’m a prayed up and prepared kinda guy! Say things against the temple and against Moses? Never!
By the way, have you noticed that they accused him of exactly the same thing they accused Jesus of? What an honor.
But no. Stephen opens his mouth and defends the faith, in an account of Jewish history that turns out to be the longest chapter in the book of Acts. Stephen was prepared. He knew his history, he knew his scriptures, he was attuned to the leading of the Spirit, and at the end of his speech he got final approval from Jesus Himself, who stood at the right hand of the Father as Advocate for His saint.
“…all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” II Tim 3:12
Can any one of us claim with any degree of conviction in our voice that we are prepared, should the sort of trial that came to Stephen come suddenly to us?
Point 3. He Projected Christ.
When tested, even to death, Stephen exhibited a Christlike spirit and gave a pure testimony.
Even his countenance convicted them. Verse 15 says, “And fixing their gaze on him, all who were sitting in the Council saw his face like the face of an angel.” And of course, we know from the first verse of chapter 8 that Saul of Tarsus was among them.
L.E. Browne, in his commentary on Acts, says this about verse 15:
“…not the mild, gentle look that is often seen in paintings of angels; not the fierce look of an avenging angel, but a look that told of inspiration within, clear eyes burning with the inner light. We can hardly doubt that it was Saul who remembered that look, a look which burnt into his soul until he too was turned to accept Jesus as his master and learnt in his own life to experience the presence of the Holy Spirit.”
- L.E. Browne, The Acts of the Apostles – London, 1925
Then look at the last two verses of chapter 7.
“And they went on stoning Stephen as he called upon the Lord and said, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit’. And falling on his knees, he cried out with a loud voice, ‘Lord, do not hold this sin against them!’ And having said this, he fell asleep.”
So Stephen’s two final prayers echo familiar words from the crucifixion of Christ. Do you think he was deliberately quoting Jesus? ‘Well, this is what Jesus would do…’
Listen. I’ve never been stoned to death or crucified. I’ve never been under the executioner’s sword or sat in an electric chair or stood on a gallows with a rope around my neck.
But I have been in some tight spots where, momentarily at least, I knew my life was in imminent danger. And one thing I can tell you, even though in some cases the details blur a little between trauma and time; never in any of those situations was I tempted to pause and think of some great quote to go out on.
“I regret that I have but one life to give…” nah…
This man, who lived Christ, died like his Master. It’s that simple.
“The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good; and the evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth what is evil; for his mouth speaks from that which fills his heart.” (Lk 6:45)
People, all who desire to live Godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, and those times will be the times when what is in us in abundance will show forth.
The reason we have so many great final quotes from martyrs for the Lord through the ages is not because they planned it ahead of time.
When Neil Armstrong stepped off Apollo 11, becoming the first man to place foot on our moon, he said, “That’s one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind”. It was planned. It was scripted. And even so, in the excitement of the moment he flubbed his line and left out the word ‘a’; so instead of saying it was a small step for ‘a man’, he said it was a small step for ‘man’. But everyone understood his meaning and he’s been quoted many times since that day.
But those going to their death for Christ have left us some very inspiring quotes also. Not because they were scripted, but because the word of Christ dwelt richly in them. And the love of Christ filled them.
And out of the abundance of Godly treasure in their hearts came spontaneous declarations of love and commitment to the One who had died for them; who they knew they were about to see face to face.
A.D. 110. Ignatius, overseer of the church in Antioch, was arrested and sent to Rome for preaching Christ. Facing martyrdom, he wrote this to the church at Rome.
“Now I begin to be a disciple. I care for nothing of visible or invisible things so that I may but win Christ. Let fire and the cross, let the companies of wild beasts, let breaking of bones and tearing of limbs, let the grinding of the whole body, and all the malice of the devil, come upon me; be it so, only may I win Christ Jesus.”
When he was sentenced to be fed to lions, and could even hear their roaring, he said, “I am the wheat of Christ; I am going to be ground with the teeth of wild beasts that I may be found pure bread.” (Foxe’s Book of Martyrs – John Foxe 1997 version, pg 14)
Folks, we don’t talk about these things for morbidity’s sake. And none of us wants to invite persecution, either for the attention we might get or to pay some kind of penance to the Lord for His goodness and His provision.
But we must come to understand very clearly that there is purpose in our trials. They are to refine us. And when we are prayed up and prepared, we will project Christ, and the severer the test, the brighter the light that will shine from the fully committed believer.
Stephen shone.
Point 4. He was Profitable for the Kingdom.
Stephen’s death was also the catalyst that spread the gospel all over Judea and Samaria, as people left Jerusalem to go home and avoid the persecution that was arising there.
Christian, no test that will ever come to you, no trial or tribulation that you face, will be wasted or unprofitable.
Psalm 116:15 says, “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His godly ones.” And there is more than one application for that truth. Certainly we see that this is true of those who physically suffer and die for the faith.
But you should also understand that day by day, as you fortify your spirit with prayer and the preparation of the word, and project Christ in your life because you have put down the flesh and taken up His cross against the love of this life and the lure of the world, your death is precious to Him.
He will make you profitable for the Kingdom, Christian, and it is both a biblical and historical fact that those who have suffered the most have gained the most. Not because they sought to suffer, but because they desired to live Godly in Christ Jesus.
“Look in, and see Christ’s chosen saint in triumph wear his Christ-like chain; No fear lest he should swerve or faint; "His life is Christ, his death is gain."
- John Keble
“Full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom. Full of grace and power.” What would be written of us, if God decided to write a testament of the final days of earth?
