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Acts 7:59,60

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Acts 7:59,60

We all have enjoyed at times throwing things. Frisbee, baseballs, footballs, paper airplanes.

But there’s also some not so good forms of throwing things. When I was 6 years old I was attacked by a couple of bullies on my way home from school. Their weapon of choice? Rocks.

They missed me with most of them, but one landed square right on the crown of my head. I ran screaming and crying and bleeding like a stuck pig all the rest of the way home. It hurt like crazy and took a few weeks to heal up. I’ll never forget it. The emotional scars of fear and being mistreated remain today. I’ve forgiven them, but it’s just impossible to forget.

Stoning was a common form of punishment back in the Bible days. Stones we’re readily available, free, and did the job.

Today we’re most of the time more civilized with our revenge. Instead of rocks, we use hurtful words. We maneuver to gain the advantage. We shame people. And while the damage isn’t physical scars, the emotional, mental, and relational scars left behind are just as powerful and damaging.

Forgiveness is so hard to give.

Unforgiveness feels right when we’re done wrong.

Unforgiveness is probably the easiest thing in the world to do.

And I would say that forgiveness is the probably the hardest.

I’ve spoken with so many people recently about this.

One guy was molested by his uncle when he was younger.  Another lady was sexually abused by her father as a child. Another guy was kicked out of his house as a teen because his dad chose his step mom over him. On and on it goes. There’s many hurtful stories just like these represented here today. And even though the event in your life may have taken place sometime ago, the struggle to forgive and move on continues.

We’ve all been figuratively stoned and done wrong. Abused. Lied about. Mistreated. Rejected. Shunned. Belittled. Taken advantage of. Things we didn’t deserve but happened to us anyway.

Have you ever struggled with unforgiveness? Are you struggling with it now?

How many times have you wanted to take a rock and throw it as hard as you can at the person you hold something against?

How many wants to do harm to the one who’s done you harm?

Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth! Set things right. Retaliate. Show them who’s boss. Justice! Revenge!

If they belittle you, belittle them! If they hurt you, hurt them back! If they make your life miserable, return the favor!

But these actions, while we think will “even the score” and make us feel better, actually do the opposite. Because when we give place to revenge and unforgiveness, we actually rehearse the offense over and over again, ripping the wound open time and again instead of allowing it to heal.

We’ll never get over it and it will just continue to define our lives going forward.

What’s the better option? What’s the best path to take when we’re done wrong?

Last week we read the remarkable story of Stephen and his confrontation with those he labeled stiff-necked and uncircumcised of heart.

Before we move on from that I’d like to focus on the last couple of verses and see what he said just before he died and how we can use it as a template for when we’re done wrong.

This is how we can truly forgive, to let it go and move on.

If you’re struggling with chronic unforgiveness in your life, listen to this.

Acts 7:59-60, “While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” Then he fell on his knees and cried out, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” When he had said this, he fell asleep.”

When we read this there’s such a disconnect between what’s happening to him and his response.

Shouldn’t he be angry? Shouldn’t he be crying out, “Injustice! This isn’t fair!”

Shouldn’t he have taken some of the rocks and thrown right back at those throwing them at him?

I find it so interesting that, throughout history when Christians are being martyred for their faith in Christ, there seems to be the same sort of grace-filled response while they’re being burned at the stake, eaten by lions, or sent to the executioner.

There’s a key here we need to grab hold of today.

Listen to what Hebrews 12:15 says, “See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.”

A couple of weeks ago we talked about the spiritual profile of the 7 who were chosen to serve tables. One of the qualities was that they were “full of grace”.

God’s grace is His unmerited, undeserved, unearned favor on you and me.

A few weeks back from that we talked about “Great Grace”, which was defined as the manifestations of God’s grace through us to others. We keyed in on the 9 fruit of the Spirit as a beautiful and necessary starting point of displaying God’s grace to others.

Do others who’ve slighted and offended and abused us deserve love? Our flesh says no, the Spirit says yes. Do they deserve long-suffering? Our flesh says no. God’s Spirit says yes. How about kindness? Flesh, no. Spirit, yes.

And on and on it goes. Our flesh wants retribution. We want to settle the score. We want to hold unforgiveness and seek revenge. But the Spirit of God says, “Love, forgive, be patient, be kind.”

That’s making sure we don’t fall short of the grace of God towards others and that no bitter root grows up to defile us and cause us trouble as Hebrews 12:15 warns.

That’s what Stephen was modeling for us in his prayer. That’s what God was giving to him to help him through his final few moments of life on earth.

We can’t do this in our own strength. If we’re honest, we hate these people!

But the famous “love chapter” of the Bible, 1 Corinthians 13:5, says this, “(Love) does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.”

How many has a Rolodex in your mind of all the past wrongs done to you by others? You pull them out, rehearse them, feed them, and remind yourself of how wrong you’ve been treated and how much you disdain the offender.

The root of bitterness continually gets watered by our unforgiveness and anger, and we produce a fruit of offense that is the furthest from Christlikeness as we can possibly get.

Was Stephen modeling the love of Christ? You bet! But it was Christ’s love THROUGH him being displayed. Stephen wasn’t some super spiritual Saint. He was a man, like you and me. But he yielded his hate and unforgiveness to God.

Hear me today! We don’t have the capacity to love our enemies. We have the capacity to HATE them. Only Christ’s love through us can love them.

If we ever think it’s our own love we muster, we give ourselves credit instead of Christ IN us! There’s no good thing in any of us save Christ.

If we can muster our own love, we don’t NEED the love of Christ. But we DO need the love of Christ, because our love, even in its most earnest & pure form, is incomplete.

Jesus explains this with a teaching that is counterintuitive to our flesh. Luke 6:27 says, ““But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you,”.

He also says in Matthew 5:44, “But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,”.

Doing good to those and praying for those who are your enemies and who hate you and who persecute you isn’t a very popular teaching today.

We see just the opposite promoted throughout our culture today, from politics to TV shows to music lyrics, everyone’s getting back at everyone else.

Social media and the Internet has even made revenge somewhat anonymous. People create fake user names and swoop in to shame and harass and ridicule others. Cyber-bullying is very real and people, under the cloak of anonymity, tend to be more violent and hateful because there’s very little if any repercussions, all the while being able to dish out their hateful revenge on anyone and everyone they feel has done them wrong.

But society isn’t our roll model. In fact, there’s very little left in society that I would exalt as a worthwhile roll model for us to follow.

We live in a hateful, unkind, vindictive generation. But being IN the world doesn’t mean we need to be OF the world.

That’s where we look to God’s Word, God’s Spirit, and God’s Son to guide us.

God’s Word is our foundation. In it we find the solid, dependable, life-giving truth to instruct us.

God’s Spirit is our strength. He helps us walk out what’s in God’s Word.

God’s Son is our roll model. He gives us opportunity through His life in us to perfect God’s Word in our lives.

We love through God’s perfect, pure, grace-filled love.

You may be saying today, “I just can’t forgive the wrongs done to me.”

If that’s true, you’re walking on very thin ice today. In fact, your walking in deception. In fact, you’ve created your own little god, just like those Stephen confronted.

How so?

Listen to this. Just after Jesus shared the perfect prayer, what we know as “The Lord’s Prayer”, He said this in Matthew 6:14-15, “For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”

That’s a tough one.

We create our own little gods when we say, “God has forgiven me but I won’t forgive others.”

If you are holding unforgiveness in your heart against anyone, based on this scripture, you are also living in sin.

If you were to die today, you’d die in your sins. And anyone who dies in there sins will not see God.

Is that sobering enough for you?

Remember the parable Jesus told of the man who was forgiven a great debt, a debt he could not repay, but then went out and threw the other guy in jail for owning him a few bucks in comparison?

When the first guy heard of it, he threw him in jail until his debt was paid (which was never, because the debt was so large it was impossible to ever pay it back).

Same with us. Our sin debt is impossible to ever repay. Yet the beautiful, undeserved act of grace God showed us by giving to us His most precious and prized possession, His Son, should motivate us to forgive others their relatively small debt to us.

Have you been offended? Abused? Taken advantage of? Done wrong?

Welcome to the club!

Jesus prayed a remarkably similar prayer to Stephen as He was hanging on the Cross. Luke 23:34 says, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”

If anyone in all of history had the right to not forgive, it was the perfect Son of God.

When the accusers were facing the woman caught in the very act of adultery and Jesus stepped in between them and her, He said, “Let he who has no sin cast the first stone”.

He could have. He was the only one without sin. But He didn’t.

Instead He said to her, “Your accusers are gone. Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.”

Let me encourage you to do the same.

Forgive. Let it go.

Really, you’re hurting no one but yourself. Your offender has gone merrily on his or her way. It’s you who’s stewing and brewing and rehearsing your hurt and all tied up in knots because of it.

Give it to the Lord. Forgive as He’s forgiven you. Undeservedly. Unconditionally. Completely.

Take the rock of offense you’ve been holding all this time, and instead of throwing it at your offender, lay it down before the Lord at the altar of your heart and give it to Jesus.

What’s God Up To?

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What’s God Up To?
Acts 7:1-60
What are God’s purposes on the earth? What’s His plan for mankind? What’s the big picture as far as He’s concerned?
We can get distracted with all that’s going on the world that’s evil and wrong. That’s Satan’s plan. But we’re not here to find out what Satan’s plan is. We want to know the big, master plan of God.
And we have two choices in this plan – We can either resist it or we can embrace it.
Can I just give you some really, really good advice from the very onset? Don’t resist God’s plan, embrace it.
So what IS God’s big master plan?
 It’s called the Gospel.
What’s the Gospel? Some would say, “It’s the Good News!” Correct! But good news about what?
Well, it’s good news that Jesus did for us what we couldn’t do for ourselves.
That what God required He provided.
That we don’t have to struggle in darkness anymore.
That we can know without any reservations that our past is forgiven, our present has purpose, and our future is secure!
Let me say it another way –
 God requires perfection.
 We can’t be perfect.
 Someone did, though.
 Through Him, we can.
It’s so simple, so powerful, so undeserved, and so complete, yet so very much misunderstood, resisted, and redefined by sinners and saints alike.
It’s not that difficult to understand. In fact, it’s so simple a child can grasp it. So what’s the deal?
In our text today, Stephen expertly laid out the entire history of the nation of Israel up to that point, ending with a powerful accusation to those listening, calling them “stiff-necked” (rebellious and stubborn) and “uncircumcised of heart” (self-assured and arrogant).
He obviously didn’t read the book, “How To Win Friends and Influence Enemies”. No mincing words with him. The results were they killed him, making him the first martyr of the Church.
It seems like that’s been the usual response to the powerful and gracious message of the Gospel. People reject it. Why?
What is it about such a beautiful and undeserved act of grace towards mankind that makes people so powerfully and vigorously push it away?
I’d like to talk this morning about what’s in all of our DNA, Saint and sinner alike, that gives us that same potential to push back on God and His plan, His purposes, His calling out to us.
It’s called “Rebellion”.
It started in the Garden of Eden and hasn’t let up since.
Why do we rebel against God? Why do we push back so vigorously against Him and His plans?
Because we like to be in “Control”.
We like predictability. We like tradition. We like to call the shots. We like to be in charge. We don’t want anyone to tell us what to do or how to do it.
We think we have the answers. We think we can do this thing called life on our own. We don’t need any help and we certainly don’t need what we consider some aloof spiritual entity like a perfect, holy God telling us what to do. His holy righteousness challenges too much of our fleshly desires and our need to be in control.
So we make our own god. We put him in a building and we tell him what he can and can’t do. We format Him and pull Him out of His cage we’ve made for Him when it’s safe and the proper parameters have been created.
That’s what Stephen was calling them out on then and what we still do today.
We isolate the god we create to a 90 minute Sunday morning activity of formality and tradition and limit him to certain safe areas of our life the rest of the week.
We take a little of what we like and are comfortable with of him and add a little of other things and thoughts and concepts and create for us a god we can live with, a god that serves us, a god that doesn’t challenge us, doesn’t have an intrusive relationship with us, and keeps us in control.
But the God of the Bible, the God of the universe, the God who has created everything seen and unseen will not be imprisoned in a building nor will He be impeded from His mission.
That was Stephen’s point to the people he was addressing. It’s just as relevant and true today.
Mankind has displayed throughout his existence a breath-taking ignorance and absurdity to think we could control God.
 Putting Him in a box of a Temple or church building and quarantining Him to only approved areas of our life will never, ever work. 
In our hearts we know we can’t do these things, even though religion has tried over the centuries, so we do the only other thing we know to do other than try and control Him, we loudly and vigorously reject Him.
That’s what the religious people did to Jesus when they tried to kill Him. They did the same thing to Stephen. Verses 54-60 describes their response to his calling out of them.
“When the members of the Sanhedrin heard this, they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him. But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. “Look,” he said, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul. While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” Then he fell on his knees and cried out, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” When he had said this, he fell asleep.”
What a mind-blowing conclusion. It’s unbelievable the reaction, isn’t it?
We see this in the world’s aggressive push back of Him today. It’s obvious. And we call it out and make a big to-do of how the world is loudly and vigorously pushing against the things of God.
But we need to be as careful with our subtle rebellions as “Believers” as well.
The overt rebellion of the wicked and covert rebellion of the religious are both equally as damaging and have the same results.
That’s the point Stephen was trying to make. That’s the message Jesus brought as well. That’s what all the prophets of old, as Stephen pointed out in verse 52, proclaimed.
They were all persecuted and killed for their stand. The people back then didn’t want to be challenged to change. They didn’t want to be called on the carpet. They didn’t want their sin exposed. They didn’t want their hypocrisy revealed.
They wanted to keep God in the safe Sunday Temple box and stay in control of their lives, destinies, and choices the rest of the week.
Things haven’t changed.
We pride ourselves in this generation as “enlightened”, when in fact we live in probably the most foolish, ignorant, blind, dark, deceived generation that has ever existed.
The Bible describes the last generation before Jesus’ return as the most depraved, sin-filled, rebellious generation ever.
The spirit of antichrist is stronger now than ever before. Even the very elect, the Bible says, have the potential to be deceived if not careful.
Our rebelliousness against God has reached heights never before seen in the history of mankind. It’s taking on forms unimagined in previous generations. The floodgates have opened up. Satan is pulling out all the stops. He knows his time is short.
So what are we to do? How do we address this propensity in our lives, whether it be blatantly overt or subtly covert, to be rebellious against God?
The answer is found in verse 51 of our text today. The remedy, the antidote against rebellion and arrogance is taking the opposite of what Stephen rightly accused them of and embracing it for our lives.
He first labeled them as “stiff-necked”. That’s rebellion. That’s stubbornness. That’s the putting of God in the Sunday Temple box and attempting to imprison Him, the living God, and isolate Him to a Sunday religious event.
But listen to this, while Jesus has bound Himself to the Church when He said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you”, He wasn’t talking about a building, but a people.
You are the Church. I am the Church. It’s us, the people of God, who make up the Church. To think we can contain God to these 4 walls and think the only time we can meet with Him or learn of Him or worship Him or see manifestations of His power and experience salvations are in these 90 minutes we spend together is doing what the religious leaders back then were attempting to do.
Jesus didn’t come to create a lifeless institution, but to redeem a lost creation.
This corporate gathering is important, necessary in fact, as God’s Word emphatically commands us to not forsake the assembling of ourselves together. But for as many documented miracles and outpourings and powerful displays that occurred while they were together, there were just as many powerful “God events” OUTSIDE the four walls as they went about their way in the day to day!
That’s our model and template for what God has planned for His Church today!!
Stephen then described them as “uncircumcised in heart”. That’s self-assurance. That’s arrogance. That’s creating our own god we can control that won’t challenge our sinful lifestyles and keeps us from having to face a holy God we can’t control and would confront our sinful choices.
And as much as Jesus has bound Himself to the Church by promising to never leave us nor forsake us, He also bound Himself to His Word when He said, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My Words will never pass away”. But His Word is not some tradition or rule or acceptable lifestyle created by man, but Scripture itself.
God’s Word is eternal, unchanging, and dependable. God’s Word is absolute, holy, and just. God’s Word is our manual for life, the bright light for our path, a solid foundation for our feet, and a covering from any and all attacks. God’s Word is a powerful weapon against the enemy, a healing balm for our sorrows and sicknesses, and the plumb line, true north compass by which we can confidently set the course of our lives. God’s Word is Jesus Christ Himself, who John describes as the Word made flesh.
In a world of shifting values and morals, God’s Word will never change!
Trying to create a god of our own liking is ultimately exhausting and futile. We can’t run from God. He won’t let us! He always pursuing us, drawing us in, calling us back home.
Stiff-necked people are rebellious, stubborn people. Uncircumcised-in-heart people are self-assured and arrogant. Both push back against God and both are entirely destructive to God’s plan.
Remember we asked at the beginning of this writing, “What’s God up to? What’s His master plan? What’s the big picture as far as He’s concerned?”
It’s the Gospel. God required perfection. We can’t. Someone did. Through Him, we can.
What God is up to is just that. To redeem us back to right relationship with Himself through Jesus Christ’s finished work on our behalf.
Everything else is just a distraction from the core of God’s main purpose and focus – to redeem mankind back to Himself.
Don’t miss this! Did you miss Christmas this past year? Did the day go by without you being aware that it was Christmas Day? I would say that the answer is not only “no” to everyone , but to our society and world as a whole. Christmas Day didn’t escape our world.
Yet this obvious, easy to understand, right in front of our face truth seems to have escaped so very many in our world.
And this beautiful thing God is up to doesn’t end at salvation. In fact, that’s just the beginning.
Salvation is justification, “just as if I’ve never sinned”. God accepts Jesus’ finished work as the satisfaction for His perfect justice. Jesus took our punishment upon Himself. We live in and under and through that finished work.
From then on it’s sanctification (the process of becoming more and more like Jesus). Daily, sometimes hourly (even moment by moment!) we are led by His Holy Spirit, corrected, admonished, encouraged, and strengthened.
Justification attacks and defeats the rebellion as we initially give our lives over to Christ. Sanctification attacks and defeats the arrogance as we ongoingly give our lives over to Christ.
In a word, we “Submit”. It’s the opposite of being stiff necked and uncircumcised of heart.
We submit our life to Him initially and our will to Him continually.
Give up your right to be right. Give up your right to be in control. Let go of the fallacy that you know everything and don’t need anyone.
 Let go and let God be in control. Submit to God.
 Let God’s master plan for mankind be extremely personal for you today.
Submit to God today. Be justified before Him through Christ. Be sanctified daily, not being rebellious or arrogant, but yielding to the Holy Spirit’s loving, necessary work to make you more like Jesus.
THAT’S what God is up to!