The Profile of Persecutors:
- Persecutors target Godly people. (Acts 6:8)
- So I won't be surprised
- So I will know how to respond
- So I may share in the sufferings of Jesus
- So I may be a strong witness (1 Tim 2:3)
- Persecutors are often Religious people. (Acts 6:9-10)
- Persecutors will Lie about you. (Acts 6:11-14)
- Persecutors will not Pity you. (Acts 6:15)
Why Persecution? (1 Pet 2:21 | 1 Pet 4:12-19)
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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Open up your Bibles with me please to Acts 6.
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Acts 6.
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This year we really have our theme hanging on one verse.
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It's Acts 1.8 when Jesus promised His disciples that after He ascends into heaven, Jesus said, "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be My witnesses." And I don't know how you view your vocation, whatever that might be.
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I look back in the course of the last 20-some years of my life when I've had jobs and I've realized that no matter what job I've had, I've always taken my job very seriously.
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Very seriously.
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Whether it was as a teenager, raking leaves.
00:53-00:56
There wasn't a leaf left in the yard when I was done.
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I was serious about that.
00:59-01:01
And then when I was in high school, I worked at Burger King.
01:02-01:05
Those were the longest three months of my life.
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But while I was there, I took that seriously.
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And there was nobody that could make a better Whopper than I could or faster.
01:16-01:18
Then I spent about 4 and 1/2 years at Walmart.
01:20-01:22
I think I still hold the record at Butler Walmart.
01:22-01:25
You know now when you go and you see them getting the carts and they have the little motorized thing?
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Have you seen this?
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They got the little buggy that pushes the carts.
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Well, back in my day, you had to push the carts.
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And you'd get somebody else to steer the front one.
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And I still hold the record.
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One day, I literally pushed 100 carts because I took my job seriously.
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You don't seem impressed.
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My point is I took my job seriously.
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When I worked for Anderson Austin News, I was in charge of magazines for four different retail stores.
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and I took that job very seriously.
01:59-02:08
Several years ago, remember when I took the census and I needed people to go around to the neighborhoods and count people that didn't turn in their census form?
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I did that for a while.
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And I took it very seriously.
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But since 1996, in some way, shape, or form, I've been in pastoral ministry.
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And you have to know that I take this job very seriously.
02:27-02:32
And my job is not primarily to entertain you.
02:33-02:34
Want to hear a joke?
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Ok, well, come over to my house later and I'll tell you one.
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But my job is not to entertain you.
02:41-02:43
My job is not to empower you.
02:43-02:46
I'm not some cheerleader getting up saying, "The world is yours!
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Go seize the day!" My job is not primarily to empower you.
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Honestly, my job isn't even primarily to encourage you to get up and say, "Life is hard. Hang in there." My job really isn't to entertain or empower or encourage.
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My job, according to Ephesians 4:12, is to equip.
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Equip the saints for the work of the ministry.
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And sure, when we do that, these other things happen along the way.
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I'm sure at times you're entertained.
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At times you feel empowered.
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And at times you're encouraged.
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My primary job is to equip you.
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And we're going to be spending the next few weeks talking about persecution.
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Because it's the topic of the text.
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I want you to know on the front end, this is why we're going through this.
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I want you now, parents, I want you to look at your kids.
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Don't look at me, look at your kids.
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If you don't have children, I want you to pick a child in the church to look at.
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Because you're like a spiritual uncle or whatever.
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Look at the kids in this church.
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Are you looking at them?
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Your children are inheriting a world that's becoming more and more hostile towards Jesus Christ.
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Look at your kids.
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When I say kids, I mean young people too.
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Ok, Jesse, you're not a kid.
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You're not a kid. You're a young man.
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You're inheriting a world that is becoming more and more hostile towards Jesus Christ.
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Look at Evan, my nephew.
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He's inheriting a world that more and more is hating Jesus Christ and hates the people that align with Him.
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1 Peter 2:21 says, "For this you've been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving an example so that you might follow in His steps." And when Peter's talking about Christ's suffering, He's not talking about the kind of suffering that comes with the flu or having an annoying spouse or car problems or whatever.
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The suffering he's talking about is persecution.
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And we've seen this in Acts, and we're going to continue to see it, but there's been a very clear progression of the level of persecution that came upon the early church.
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It started with threatening them.
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"Shut your mouth about Jesus!
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We don't want to hear it!" And then it progressed in Acts 4.21.
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And then it progressed to beatings.
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Acts 5.40.
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They were beaten half to death because they preached Jesus.
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And in just a couple of weeks, we're going to see that the persecution even got to the point of death.
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People were being killed because they believed in Jesus.
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So we see this progression in Acts.
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Can you see this progression in our culture?
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I seem crazy to say that our culture is escalating with the amount and type of persecution that we're seeing upon Christians.
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Do I need to wear a tinfoil hat?
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Am I crazy?
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Am I crazy?
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Do you see it too?
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More and more and more.
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The only message that isn't tolerated is the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
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So as you're looking at your kids, some of you stop, but when you look at your kids, My question for you is, do you want them prepared?
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Do you want them to know what to expect?
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Do you want your kids to be able to handle it like Jesus?
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Another sermon on persecution?
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Didn't we already hear a sermon on persecution?
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Yes, yes, you did.
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So why are we hearing another one?
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I'm going to give you some application points now.
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This all comes from 1 Peter 4.
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This is a whole other sermon.
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I want you to jot some things down.
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Why are we doing more sermons on persecution aside from the fact it's in the text and we go through the Bible verse by verse?
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Here's some application points in case you're wondering why persecution?
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Why are we talking about persecution?
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1 Peter 4:12-19.
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This all comes from there and some other verses, but here's why we're doing this.
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And I'll get this up on the website.
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Number one, how to apply a series on persecution.
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Number one is so I won't be surprised.
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I won't be surprised. It's coming.
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I'm not doing you any favors by sugarcoating it.
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It's coming. It's getting worse.
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So I won't be surprised.
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That's 1 Peter 4.12, by the way.
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Number two, so I will know how to respond.
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1 Peter 4.13 I don't want you to be surprised, I want you to know how to respond.
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We'll be talking about that over the next couple of weeks.
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Number three, so I may - this is huge.
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Number three, so I may share in the sufferings of Jesus.
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This is what people miss about persecution.
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Persecution is one of the most glorious things that you will ever experience in your life because the Bible says you are sharing in the sufferings of Jesus Christ.
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Look at Peter 4.13.
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Remember when we were in Acts 5.41.
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Do you remember the disciples?
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They were rejoicing that they were considered worthy enough to take a beating for Jesus.
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Remember what the Apostle Paul said in Philippians 3.10.
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He says, "I want to know the power of the resurrection.
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I want to share in the sufferings of Christ." It is a glorious thing to suffer for Jesus.
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You're sharing that.
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I will apply a series on persecution so I won't be surprised, so I know how to respond, so I may share in the sufferings of Jesus.
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Number four, so I may be a strong witness.
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1 Peter 4:16, 2 Timothy 2:3.
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So I may be a strong witness.
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And this section that we're looking at is going to equip us.
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Because we're going to be talking about a man named Stephen.
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He was introduced in the passage last week.
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Remember?
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and needs weren't being met in the church.
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And the leaders of the church appointed seven people.
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"Hey, you guys need to make sure that everybody's being taken care of." And one of the people on the list was a man named Stephen, and he becomes the focal point of Acts at this point, all the way up until chapter 8.
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Let's look at Acts 6.
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Let's look at verses 8-15.
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It says, "And Stephen, full of grace and power, doing great wonders and signs among the people.
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And some of those who belonged to the synagogue of the freed men, as it was called, and of the Cyrenians and of the Alexandrians and of those from Cilicia and Asia, rose up and disputed with Stephen.
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But they could not withstand the wisdom and the spirit with which he was speaking.
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Then they secretly instigated men who said, "We've heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God.
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And they stirred up the people and the elders and the scribes.
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And they came upon Him and seized Him and brought Him before the council.
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And they set up false witnesses who said, this man never ceases to speak words against this holy place and the law.
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For we've heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and will change the customs that Moses delivered to us.
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"And pleasing to Him, all who sat in the council saw that His face was like the face of an angel." So on your outline - I hope you're taking notes on your outline today - the subheading says, "The Profile of Persecutors." We're going to be talking about Stephen, but we're going to be looking at this passage from the perspective of the people who are persecuting.
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Because like I said, one of my goals here So we're not surprised when persecution comes upon us.
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So one of the questions that we need to answer is what does it look like when persecution comes?
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Or specifically, what are the persecutors going to be like?
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What's it like when someone persecutes the church?
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What does that look like?
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What are they like?
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We're going to be looking at them.
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What are they like?
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The profile persecutors.
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Everybody with me?
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Alright, number one, persecutors target godly people.
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Persecutors target godly people.
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Look at verse 8 again.
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"And Stephen, full of grace and power, was doing great wonders and signs among the people." Recall, we've already learned some things about Stephen.
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Here's a little profile about Stephen.
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Before we get to the persecutors, let's talk about Stephen for a second.
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Remember last week in verse 3, we saw that Stephen was full of the Holy Spirit.
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God's Holy Spirit comes in and dwells in every person that believes in Jesus Christ When you turn from your sin, when you repent, when you're born again, when you receive the gift of salvation that God offers in Jesus Christ, you receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
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It's not just for preachers and elders.
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The Holy Spirit comes and dwells in all of God's people.
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And the fruit of the Spirit is manifest as the Holy Spirit is working the life of Christ through you.
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Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
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These are qualities that you should see in your life growing and maturing as the Holy Spirit is at work.
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Stephen was full of the Holy Spirit.
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We saw in verse 3 that Stephen was full of wisdom.
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Wisdom is not just knowing facts.
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It's knowing what to do with the facts.
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Wisdom is knowing how to live.
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That's wisdom.
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Wisdom is knowing how to live.
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Knowledge is just facts.
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Knowledge says it's raining, the road's wet, the road's windy.
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Those are just facts.
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Wisdom is knowing how to drive in those conditions.
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It's applying the knowledge.
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It affects the way you live.
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Biblically, wisdom is knowing how the Word of God applies in everyday living.
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What else about Stephen?
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Verse 5, we saw he was full of faith.
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He trusted the sovereignty of God.
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Full of faith.
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So often we trust God for eternity, but what about every day?
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God isn't just your ticket to heaven.
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God is with you every moment of every day.
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Full of faith.
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And here we see in verse 8, He was full of grace and power.
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He understood grace and He knew how to apply grace.
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We're going to see that as we continue with this story.
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He understood what it was to receive undeserved mercy and love from God, and he reflected that to other people.
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That's grace.
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Verse 8 also talks about his power.
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His walk led to his witness.
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God's hand was obviously on his life and ministry.
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So that was a little bit about Stephen.
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In other words, we can take all of these attributes and say this is the kind of person that's targeted for persecution.
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Persecutors target godly people.
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Persecutors target godly people.
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When was the last time you've heard of a CEO Christian being targeted for persecution?
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Do you know what a CEO Christian is?
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That's a Christmas and Easter only.
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That's the person that just wants their twice-a-year punch on the card.
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Not too serious, but just enough church that hopefully God's happy with that.
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When's the last time you've heard some lukewarm, mamby-pamby - When's the last time you heard somebody like that being persecuted for their faith?
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Nobody goes after those people.
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The people that are targeted are people that have strong walks with Jesus Christ.
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So church, let's dispel the notion that if you do well, you won't be persecuted.
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Let's dispel the notion that persecution is punishment from God for doing something wrong.
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Persecution means that you're doing something right.
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Persecution means that the world recognizes that you're connected to Jesus.
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I had the incredible opportunity a couple of weeks ago.
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Stanley Cup Eastern Finals went to game one.
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We got down, we sat in our section, and unbelievably, Corrine, we saw two people walk in wearing Tampa Bay Lightning jerseys.
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And as soon as they walked in, I could feel my entire section just...
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(grunts)
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And you know, I was thinking about that.
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Those people wearing those Tampa Bay Lightning jerseys, they might be the sweetest people on the planet.
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Maybe they're from Tampa Bay and they're in Pittsburgh visiting their dear sweet grandma.
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You know, or maybe they came to hand out muffins you know, downtown and encourage people.
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Or you know, maybe they all had free hug signs or whatever.
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I don't know.
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Here's what I do know.
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Those people were instantly despised for no other reason than they were wearing Tampa Bay Lightning jerseys.
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In other words, it's guilt by association.
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Right?
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We don't know a thing about them, but we know who they're aligned with, therefore we don't like them, and we don't care anything else about them.
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All we needed to know, Penguin's fans, was that they were for Tampa Bay.
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That's all we needed to know.
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In a much greater sense, understand the world is going to hate you for no other reason than you align Jesus Christ.
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Not that you're wearing a Jesus Christ hockey jersey.
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But the fact that they're seeing the life of Christ live through you.
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They see that association with Jesus.
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The world loves darkness.
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And when they see the light of Christ in you, they're going to hate you.
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They don't care how nice you are to Grandma, or how many free hugs you give out.
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All they know is you're aligned with Jesus and they're going to hate you for that.
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Like Stephen.
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When you read the description of the guy, doesn't he sound like the kind of guy out with?
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That didn't sound like the kind of guy you'd trust with your family.
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They hated him.
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When you believe in Jesus Christ, when you stand on the Word of God, the world's going to hate you just simply for that.
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Are you teaching your kids that?
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If you're not, you need to.
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Because this is the world they're inheriting.
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Tell your kids, yes, stand for the Lord, but also tell them that persecutors target godly people.
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Number two, persecutors are often religious people.
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Huh.
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It seems backwards, but it's true.
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Persecutors are often religious people.
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Verse 9 talks about who it was in this passage.
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Some of those who belonged to the synagogue of the freedmen, as it was called in Cyrenians, Alexandrians, those from Cilician Asia.
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What's going on there?
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There are several synagogues represented here in this passage.
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A synagogue - the whole concept of a synagogue actually originated back to the Babylonian captivity.
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Synagogues were just simply these Jewish meeting places where they would get together and they would worship and they would read the Law and the Prophets - what we call the Old Testament.
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They'd get together and read their Scriptures.
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But the synagogues - think of it this way.
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The synagogues were sort of like denominations in a sense.
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And these synagogues were represented in Jerusalem.
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You know, like, you have all these different denominations.
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Like you might have the Ukrainian Orthodox church that's not just in the Ukraine, they also have representation here and in this city and in this city.
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Well, that was what happened in Jerusalem.
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You had all these different sort of synagogue denominations that met in Jerusalem.
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And who were they?
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about the freedmen.
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These were actually descendants of Jewish slaves.
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The Cyrenians and Alexandrians.
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These were Jews from North Africa.
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And Cilicia and Asia, those were actually Roman provinces in Asia Minor.
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But these other places had representation right here in Jerusalem.
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They were actually Hellenistic Jews.
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We talked about what that means last week.
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And it says that they rose up I'm disputed with Stephen.
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What do you think they were arguing about?
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They were arguing about Jesus.
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You see, there's a huge transition that happened in history.
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No longer was it about God's people living under the old covenant of the law written on stone.
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It's the new covenant.
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Christ has died for the forgiveness of sin.
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He rose to give eternal life.
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And God's law is written on your heart.
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And God's Holy Spirit indwells you.
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And it's the new covenant.
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in all circles around the person of Jesus.
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That's what they were disputing.
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We'll talk more about that in a second.
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Then what you see in v. 10, I love this, it says, "But they could not withstand the wisdom and the spirit with which He was speaking." That's one of the reasons I appreciate so much Dan Thompson with the youth works so hard on apologetics - understanding how to defend your faith; how to anticipate when attacks come and what to say.
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And Stephen would have been the master of that.
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who knew how to answer all the challenges that came around Jesus Christ the Messiah.
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Why are religious people so against the Gospel?
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Do you ever wonder that?
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Why are religious people so against the Gospel?
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When you think of the word "religion," I hate that word.
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Religion.
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Do you know why I hate the word "religion"?
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Religion is Satan's favorite word.
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Religion is Satan's favorite word.
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Because religion means if I do things, if I do the right things, and if I act the right way, and if I go through these religious ceremonies or whatever, obey this law, keep these rules, religion says God's going to be happy with me because of that.
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I do things to make God happy.
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The Gospel is different.
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The Gospel isn't about what we can do for God.
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The Gospel is about what God has already accomplished for me.
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So when you share the Gospel with a religious person, what they're saying out loud or in their head or in their heart, they're saying, "You're telling me that my efforts are worthless.
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What you're telling me with all this Jesus talk is that I'm wasting all my time trying to do all this stuff that I'm doing for God." Okay, so you're telling me that salvation is only in Jesus, And I need to turn from all my ways and receive Him.
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The Gospel message is offensive enough alone.
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But on top of that, when you're dealing with religious people, you're stepping on the toes of tradition.
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You're stepping on the toes of lifestyle.
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It is so hard to share the Gospel with somebody has been steeped in a religion of works for decades.
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Because what they're thinking is, I've given my whole life to this.
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My grandparents believed this.
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My parents believed this.
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And I've believed this for 50 years!
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And now you're coming along saying, because of Jesus, I don't need to do all this stuff.
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It's hard.
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It's a hard message. It's a hard audience.
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And yet, over my ministry, I've had occasions where the Gospel has offended non-church people.
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But I can honestly tell you, the worst backlashes I have ever experienced have been from "religious people." Those are stories for another time.
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It's something you are going to have to disciple your kids.
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Prepare your kids.
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Not only do persecutors target godly people, but persecutors are often religious people.
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Persecutors don't often come as people that are like, "I hate the Lord.
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They hate the Bible.
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They often come as people that would say they're very devout.
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Thirdly, I've got this down, persecutors will lie about you.
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Persecutors will lie about you.
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You see, they couldn't put Stephen in his place debating because obviously, your Bible tells you that they couldn't withstand the wisdom and the spirit with which he was speaking.
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They couldn't put him in his place by debating, so they switched up the approach.
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You see, they stirred up false witnesses to accuse Him of blasphemy, which by the way, under the Old Covenant, was punishable by death.
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Look at these verses with me again.
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It says, "Then they secretly instigated men who said, 'We've heard Him speak - here it is - blasphemous words against Moses and God.'" I think it's interesting that they listed Moses first.
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be indicative what they really believed.
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It's like God's up here, Moses and the law are right about here.
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And they stirred up the people, by the way, you circle this in your Bible, this is the first time in the book of Acts that I can see where actually like John Q Public was stirred up against the church. At this point the people seemed amazed, the people seemed like in awe, the people People respected them.
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It seems that this is the first point in Acts that somebody other than one of the religious leaders hated the church.
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People were stirred up.
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Oh, here they are. Here comes the rest.
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And the elders and the scribes, and they came upon him and seized him and brought him before the council.
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Now, wait a second.
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Wasn't it just a couple weeks ago?
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What did the council decide they were going to do with the Christians?
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Didn't they say they were going to leave them alone?
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Do you remember that?
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I was like, "Let him alone.
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If it's an act of man, it's going to fail.
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It's of God. You're not going to stop it." I thought they were going to leave these people alone, but persecution is relentless.
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And they went after Stephen.
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Verse 13, here it is again.
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They set up false witnesses who said, "This man never ceases to speak words against this holy place and the law." We heard him say that Jesus of Nazareth, by the way, Nazareth, or to call someone a Nazarene, that was such an insult back in that day.
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Can anything good come from Nazareth?
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I was trying to think, is there a city that we know of that we can use to insult people?
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Like, oh, he must be from this city.
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What city is that?
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Cleveland. Okay, thank you.
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Any other suggestions?
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Philadelphia? Okay, thank you.
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That was the first one that I thought of was Philadelphia.
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It was used as an insult.
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"Oh, he's a Nazarene." Nazareth was the name of a town.
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But the idea was if you're from Nazareth, you are scum.
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So, a little bit of an insult inserted here.
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I'm kidding.
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Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and will change the customs that Moses delivered to us.
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He said that destroy the temple thing.
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Remember Jesus said in John 2, He was speaking of His body if you destroy this temple and rebuild it.
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And He's talking about His resurrection.
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And they actually used that against Jesus on His trial.
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And here, they were twisting Stephen's words.
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Now how many people think that Stephen was literally speaking against the holy place and the law?
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I don't.
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How many people think that Stephen was literally speaking that Jesus was going to destroy the temple and change the customs that Moses delivered?
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I think Stephen's words got twisted.
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And I know, I know that I repeat myself sometimes.
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I'm going to tell you why I do that.
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I'll give you an excuse.
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I repeat myself sometimes.
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Because I'm paranoid.
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Because when you speak for a living, and you've been doing it a while, you're going to be misquoted.
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And I've been misquoted so many times over the years.
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One of my favorites was I did a sermon one time on evangelism, and I was talking about when you look at what the Bible says about evangelism, the Bible doesn't really say to pray for unbelievers.
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The Bible says that our prayer efforts should go towards praying for the ministers, praying for the witnesses.
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Jesus has prayed that the Lord of the harvest would raise up workers for the field, right?
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The Apostle Paul would often say, "Pray for us that we may have an opportunity to share the Gospel." That was the point of my sermon.
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Most evangelism prayers in the Bible are directed at the people sharing the Gospel, not at the people that are the target for the Gospel.
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Does that make sense?
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I can start over if that didn't make sense.
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But I had somebody months later come up to me Ticked off.
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He was like, yeah, people were talking.
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They were pretty upset that you were telling people that they shouldn't pray for unbelievers.
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Do you think that's what I said?
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Do you think I got up and said, "Thus saith the Lord, don't pray for an unbeliever"?
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That wasn't my point at all.
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My point was, according to the Bible, the prayers go towards the ministers and the people sharing the Gospel.
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Those are the people that we should focus our prayer attention on.
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And this guy said, "No, you said I pray for unbelievers.
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One time I was called into a meeting at the prison with some of the staff.
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They said, "We need to talk to you." I said, "What's going on?" They called me and went to this meeting.
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They said, "Yeah, we've got some complaints about you." I'm like, "Oh?" "Who told?" They said, "Yeah, we had an inmate say that you're in there preaching all Catholics go to hell." I wouldn't say that.
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They're like, "Well, that's what they said you said." Not "they," it was one guy.
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"That's what one of the inmates said that you said." I'm like, "So, I've been coming in here for years at no cost to you, giving Bibles and praying with men and preaching, and here you have an inmate, and you're going to naturally default to taking his word over mine." He said, "That's what you said all Catholics go to hell." I said, "First of all, I don't believe that." and preach it.
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But something I said got twisted.
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And that's what happened with Stephen.
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I'm sure they took a piece of his sermon or pieces of his sermon and twisted them in such a way they knew what to tell people he said that would make them mad.
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You need to disciple your children.
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Tell them it doesn't matter.
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It doesn't matter what you say because some people are going to twist it I'm sorry, I had to laugh.
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These accusations, let's just take their accusations at face value.
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Can we just recognize that these accusations that they're making against Stephen are insane?
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Can we recognize that?
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Look at verse 13 again.
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I don't know, I was cracking up at this.
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This is what the false witnesses, this is what they came up with.
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This man never ceases to speak words against this holy place.
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He never ceases.
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So this is Stephen's day.
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He rolls out of bed.
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He's like, "Oh, the holy place stinks.
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"The holy place stinks.
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"Let me tell you something about the holy place.
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"It stinks." And then Stephen goes to the breakfast table and his wife's like, "How you doing, Stephen?" He goes, "Let me tell you something.
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"The holy place stinks." And then Stephen goes to Walmart or whatever.
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"Hey, how are you doing today, sir?
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"The holy place stinks." Like, what's Stephen's problem?
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He never ceases.
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That's all he talks about.
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He speaks against the holy place.
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Never ceases.
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That's all he can talk about.
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Hey, how do you think the penguins are going to do?
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The holy place stinks!
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He never ceases.
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He never ceases.
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That's all he talks about.
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Mmm.
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Not sure about that.
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Never ceases to speak words against this holy place and the law.
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I've got to kick out of this one.
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"For we have heard Him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place, the temple, will change the customs that Moses delivered to us.
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According to these Jews, where was Jesus at this point?
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Where was Jesus?
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According to the Jews, not according to Stephen, but according to these Jews, Jesus was what?
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He was dead.
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Right?
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Jesus was this religious fanatic.
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Not religious.
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You know what I mean.
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You know what I mean.
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Jesus was this fanatic and we killed him and he's dead.
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So what kind of accusation is this?
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You're saying that Stephen's threatening you with the words of a dead man?
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It would be like if I stood up and said, "Hey, let me tell you something.
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George Washington is going to overthrow the White House tomorrow!" You'd be like, "He's been dead for how many centuries?
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What kind of a threat is that?
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That's stupid." Or, "Abraham Lincoln is going to completely change the laws of our land." You'd be like, "That's idiotic that you would even threaten us with that because he's dead." So according to these people, Jesus was dead, but somehow, he was still a threat to them.
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I don't get it.
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Can you see with me how insane this is?
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Why are they saying this stuff?
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Because they know it's going to get a reaction.
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And we can see how they would have twisted what Stephen actually said.
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Stephen says salvation is in Jesus the Messiah.
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We can't be saved by the law.
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They took that - oh, he's bashing Moses and the law.
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That's what he's saying.
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Stephen would have been saying the temple of God is inside his people.
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Do you hear what he's saying?
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He's operating the temple.
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This is the place where we've gone to worship and now Stephen says it's irrelevant because God lives inside.
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He's speaking against the temple.
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You need to tell your kids that people are going to lie about them.
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They're going to mix stuff up.
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They're going to take something they say and they're going to twist it.
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You just see it over and over.
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It's right in your face. Can you see it?
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What happens when anybody says I believe in the biblical definition of marriage?
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How does the media report that?
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He's homophobic.
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He hates homosexuals.
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He never said a word about that.
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All he said was, "I believe in the biblical definition of marriage." The words get twisted because when we say words like homophobic or hate or bigoted or whatever, we get people's attention.
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They did it to Stephen.
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You need to train your kids or you're going to be doing it to them.
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And finally for today, persecutors will not pity you.
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I've got to be honest with you, there's not many, but there's a handful of verses in the Bible that I just read and I'm just kind of like, what's going on there?
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Have you ever done that?
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You're just like reading the Bible, you're like I get it, I get it, I get it, I get it, I get it, and then you get to this verse and you're like, what's going on here?
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Has that happened to anybody else?
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Oh, just the preacher.
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Fantastic!
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Anybody else?
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"Don't leave me hanging." It scared me there for a second.
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Like, wow, Pastor Jeff is the only person that doesn't get parts of the Bible.
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But this is one of those verses that I was looking at, and I thought a lot about it this week, and I did a lot of studying and reading.
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It says, "And gazing at him, all who sat in the council saw that his face was like the face of an angel." What does that mean?
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Does that just mean that Stephen was a beautiful human being?
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A lot of people say that God's glory was radiating on Stephen's face just like Moses.
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I read where people said, "Well, remember Moses had the Shekinah glory of God radiating off his face?" That's what's happening to Stephen.
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The only reason I haven't really subscribed to that is what did Moses have to do?
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Remember he had to put the veil up?
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Do you remember that?
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I wonder if that's reading more into the passage than is presented.
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So let's just look at what the verse actually says.
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It says, "And gazing at him, all who sat in the council saw that his face was like the face of an angel." So whatever your belief is about, or your perspective, opinion is about Stephen's face, here's something we can be sure of from this verse.
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And I always go with what I'm absolutely sure of in the verse, and here it is.
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This wasn't Peter's opinion about Stephen.
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This wasn't Stephen's mom's opinion about Stephen.
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You know, at that moment before the council, they called Stephen's mom.
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"Hey, what do you think about your son?
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He's got the face of an angel!" This wasn't Stephen's mom.
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It says that the council was gazing at Stephen.
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They saw that his face was like the face of an angel Spoiler alert, next chapter, they're going to ruthlessly murder him.
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So whatever you believe about Stephen's face, here's something I believe is absolutely true about this verse.
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This is a testimony to the ruthlessness of people committed to sin, to persecution.
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That they can look at you and recognize that you are innocent.
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They can look at you and think, that guy's got the face of an angel.
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they will still kill you.
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You're like, well, surely if I plead my case before them, surely if they see, no.
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Well, can't they see I just wanna share the truth with them?
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No.
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Well, can't they see that I just, I care about their souls and I love them and I just, that's why I'm telling them about Jesus.
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No, they don't care.
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Somebody here in this church, because of Jesus, because of your belief in the Bible, Somebody in this church is going to be sued over that.
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Somebody in this church is going to lose their job because of their belief in Christ.
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Somebody in this church is going to be physically attacked because you believe in Jesus.
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Somebody here is going to be maligned.
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Somebody in this church - my generation or the next one - somebody in this church is going to be killed because you love Jesus and you're committed to His mission.
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I'd like to remind you, as we did a couple of weeks ago, Matthew 10:24, John 13, 16, John 15, 20, Jesus said, "Remember the word that I said to you, 'A servant is not greater than his master.' They persecuted Me, they will also persecute you." I wonder if those words are echoing in this moment for Stephen, because I was absolutely floored this week as I was studying this passage how Jesus and Stephen have parallel stories.
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This was like "phew" for me.
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Like what do you mean?
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Jesus and Stephen both were godly people.
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Both were debated and triumphed Both were arrested and brought before the Sanhedrin.
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Both are accused by false witnesses.
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Both were accused of speaking against the temple and the law.
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Both were put to death.
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It happened to Jesus.
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It happened to Stephen.
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And it's going to happen to you.
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Why?
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as a servant, not greater than his master.
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Are you preparing your kids for that?
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Right.
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Father in Heaven, as we close up our time here today, I again ask that You are training us.
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And I'm sure in some years, it seems maybe harsh that we have to have talks like this with our children.
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We pray in those same ears, Father, You are echoing something that Your Son taught us over and over and over when Jesus said a servant is not greater than his master.
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Why do we think we're exempt from persecution when they took the most perfect man who ever walked the planet and publicly humiliated and executed him?
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Jesus promised that if they did that to Him, they'll do it to us.
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Father, we pray for our country.
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We pray for our country, Father.
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I pray for Your churches to stand up.
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The people who have received Christ, the people, Father, that have been called out of the world, that have been called to represent You.
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I pray, Father, You would have them stand up.
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I pray, Father, for a revival to come.
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We would see people come to You in the midst of this avalanche of sin.
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I pray, Father, through that, we would see people getting saved like never before.
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And it's going to happen through people that are sitting in this room right now, that are going back to their families, going back to their workplaces, going back to their friends, and telling them the good news of Jesus Christ that while we were yet sinners, You sent Your Son to die for us.
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Father, I pray for the children of this church.
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We are a church that is blessed with so many children and babies.
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Having two kids of my own, I just, Father, you know in the flesh sometimes I just shudder to think of the world they're inheriting ten years from now, twenty years from now.
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We need people that are disciples, that are going to stand like Stephen in the manner of Jesus, that are going to stand for the truth of Your Word.
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And it might cost jobs, it might cost money, it might cost some of their lives.
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But a servant is not greater than his master.
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We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.
Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read Acts 6:8-15
Do we have to “have our act together” to be a good witness? How does our character tie into our witness?
Which character quality of Stephen’s do you most need to focus on for your own walk? The Bible says he was full of the Spirit, wisdom, faith, grace, and power (Acts 6:3,5,8). How will you go about working on it?*Why are some “religious” people, those that actually go to church and say they believe in God and His Word (like the religious Jews in this passage), so hard to reach with the Gospel? How can we help religious people to see their need for forgiveness and eternal life only found in Jesus?
What motivates people to make up accusations, and spread them to others, regarding Christians (Acts 6:11-13)? How should you respond when this happens to you?
Bonus question: Acts 6:15 says the council saw that Stephen had the face of an angel. What does that mean, and what is the significance?
Breakout Questions:
Pray for one another.