How do you feel about enthusiastic Christians? Maybe they make us feel uncomfortable. Sometimes their enthusiasm makes us feel guilty because we don’t seem to have the same enthusiasm. But one thing is for sure; they always cause a stir. We are looking this morning ant the story of Stephen, an enthusiastic Christian if ever there was one.

Stephen had been appointed by the church along with six others to make sure all the believers; especially the widows had the food they needed from the common fund. One important function of church funds at that early stage in the life of the church seems to have been to supply the needs of the poorer members.

But Stephen did not content himself with this practical task. He was a man who was full of God’s grace and power. He performed miracles. He couldn’t help but take the opportunities that came his way of talking about Jesus. He spoke about Jesus in such a way that people could not ignore him.

In particular he got into an argument with a group of Jews called the Synagogue of the Freedmen. They were Jews who came other parts of the world, but had no doubt come to Jerusalem because that was the location of the temple, the focus of the Jewish faith. They argued with Stephen about Jesus. They could not defeat Stephen’s argument, so that made false accusations about him to the Sanhedrin, the Jewish court.

We’ll think about the chapter we have read under three headings. First, Stephen’s message; secondly, Stephen the man and thirdly Stephen’s master.

First then, Stephens’s message. Stephen was on trial, but he uses the opportunity to use the Old Testament to make his point about Jesus. Stephen is quite clearly not portraying Christianity as a new religion. For him the coming of Jesus is rooted in the Old Testament tradition. He addresses his hearers as ‘brothers and father’; like them he shares the same scriptures, he believes in the same God of glory who revealed himself in the Old Testament.

In that way Stephen shows that he has a love and respect for the scriptures as every believer should. Our Christian faith is rooted in the Jewish scriptures. He goes back to Abraham, and his coming to the Promised Land at God’s command. In all that he says there is terrific emphasis on the Promised Land. There is God’s promise to give the land to Abraham’s descendants.

Even when the people of Israel go to live in Egypt, there is the emphasis that one day they will come back to the Promised Land. Jacob’s body is brought back for burial there and eventually the people come back to the Promised Land. In due course the Temple is built in Jerusalem.

Although the Temple that stands in Jerusalem now is a different building from the one Solomon erected, the temple is the focus for worship for the Jewish people. Stephen knows this; in fact he knows that the temple has become too important for them. In the case of Stephen, just as to some extent in the case of Jesus the case against him was that he had spoken against ‘this holy place’; the Temple.

But there is also another theme that runs through what Stephen says to the Sanhedrin. Time and again he points our how God’s people have sinned and failed. The patriarchs were jealous of Joseph. The people of Israel rebelled against God when Moses was leading them in the wilderness.

When they were safe in the Promised Land they indulged in idol worship, and as a result were punished by being taken into exile in Babylon. The sad fact was, that although the people always made a lot of their history and tradition, when it came to trusting and obeying what God was doing in the present, time and again they proved faithless.

In the scriptures they have the promise that God would one day send them a prophet like Moses from among their own people. But when God did that, they refused to accept him.

So Stephen lets them have it. ‘You stiff necked people. You are just like your fathers. You always resist the Holy Spirit! Was there ever a prophet your fathers did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One. And now you have betrayed and murdered him.’

That was Stephen’s message. Not the most diplomatic of language, but it was the truth. Sometimes God calls us to set out the truth. Most of the sermons that we read in the New Testament are rather more diplomatic than that. But the bible also shows us that ultimately as followers of Jesus we should present people with the truth.

Let’s think now about Stephen the man. We only know about him from these brief verses, but they are quite telling. First of all, he was full of God’s grace and power. He had been caught up in the excitement of the early church. He had discovered the truth of Jesus resurrection. He had received the gift of the Holy Spirit. It had changed his life. Everything he now did was motivated by love for Jesus. Jesus was first in his life.

This seems to have been the general experience of the apostles. We have seen how they had become fearless when the Holy Spirit had come upon them. It’s important that we remind ourselves about what it means to be a Christian. It means to make Jesus Lord. Human beings have all sorts of different priorities in life. For some, the most important thing is money.

For others, the most important thing is safety and security. For others the most important thing is sex or popularity. But the Christian is a person who has given their heart to Jesus, who puts Jesus first. We do not always find that easy. But we see in the book of Acts something of the joy that the early Christians found as they put their trust in Jesus, and Stephen is a wonderful example in that respect.

He loved Jesus most of all, and he found a joy and a boldness and a liberty in that. It was something to do with having an undivided heart. The problem for most of us is that we hang on to our idols. There are other things that have priority in our hearts and lives; and as Jesus said, no one can serve two masters.

Stephen loved Jesus. The Holy Spirit enabled him to do that; it was visible for all to see. His face was like the face of an angel. I suspect that that was not true for every one; no doubt it is mentioned because Stephen’s appearance was unusual in this. But what does seem to be clear is that the Holy Spirit gave him the help he needed for the situation he faced.

If we love Jesus above all, won’t the Holy Spirit do the same for us? God’s call on our lives this morning is to love him above all else. May we know the Spirit’s help to do that.

Finally then, lets think about Stephen’s master. As Stephen was about to die for his faith, he saw Jesus, standing at the right hand of God in heaven. Once again, this vision is perhaps exceptional. It is clear that Stephen had a living relationship with the risen Jesus. It could be that he had known Jesus during his earthly life; we do not know.

But the truth for each and every believer is that Jesus is there at God’s right hand in heaven. He has gone there to prepare a place for us. He is there interceding for us. He is there because he has overcome the powers of sin and death, and he is there to help us overcome whatever difficulty we face too.

We may not be the sorts of people who are given to seeing visions, but we can live with the knowledge of that reality. The bible tells us that it is so. The Holy Spirit assures us that it is true. Stephen’s life was patterned on the example of Jesus. Just as Jesus had prayed for those who nailed him to the cross, Stephen prayed for those who would stone him.

Life for us is about following Jesus. It could be that none of us will be called to lay down our lives as martyrs; but Jesus does call us to live for him. He calls us with the help of his Holy Spirit to show his love and to speak his truth wherever we go, in whatever situation we may find ourselves. We are called to follow the example of Stephen’s master.

So what can we say in conclusion? In one respect the whole event seems a tragic disaster. Persecution comes on the church. The believers mourn deeply for Stephen. Wouldn’t it have better if Stephen had kept quiet and stuck to his job of sharing out the food fairly? Wouldn’t it have been better if he had been more diplomatic when speaking to the Sanhedrin?

I believe there always will be imponderable questions about alternative courses of actions that we could have taken as Christians. But yet in his death, Stephen spoke more powerfully than he had in his life. Jesus called his followers to be his witnesses. By his words and by his death Stephen bore witness to his faith in Jesus.

Jesus said some profound word’s regarding his own death. ‘Unless a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it remains alone. But if it dies, it brings forth much fruit.’

A later Christian writer was to observe that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.

Stephen’s death was not in vain. A vindictive young Pharisee looked on approvingly as Stephen was stoned. The event impelled that young man to embark upon a ruthless persecution of the Christian church. But the seed had been sown. That young man Saul was to become perhaps the greatest Christian missionary of all time.

May God help us to raise our vision. May we have the faith to love and serve him; with the Holy Spirits help that God might be glorified and the love of Jesus might be known in the world in which we live.

Amen.

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