Well, good evening, brothers.
I’ve been looking forward to this opportunity. As you know, we’re going to look at the life of one of God’s servants—His servant Stephen. What I have to share, I’m sure you’ve heard many times. It’s not novel. I’m sure any one of you brothers could come up and share the light God has given you on this text. But I’ve been privileged to address you.
There’s one who is your Teacher. You know that. And it’s certainly not the one standing before you.
Before we come to God’s Word, there’s a principle of Bible study that is absolutely indispensable: total reliance upon God’s Holy Spirit. Every time we come to His Bible, we need to understand that only God can reveal God. Only the Lord can reveal Himself.
No matter how clear anybody’s illustrations are, or how clever their outline, unless God dawns Christ upon your heart, you don’t get anything. And the most you can get, if it is only academics, is pride, because knowledge puffs up. So we do not want to become proud by looking into this precious Book.
I want to share part of a verse before we go to prayer. It is from Acts 10:41:
He became visible,
not to all the people,
but to witnesses who were chosen beforehand by God—
that is, to us who ate and drank with Him after He rose from the dead.
Now, I know that is a historical fact, but it is also a principle. He becomes visible not to everybody. He becomes visible to those who eat and drink with Him; in other words, who are in fellowship with Him. And He delights to become visible to those who are delighting in Him.
So I pray that describes this gathering here: we have come to see the Lord. He becomes visible—not to everybody, but to those who fellowship with Him, the exalted Savior. Let us trust the Lord together, bow before Him in prayer, commit our time to Him, and then look in His Word.
Our heavenly Father, we thank You so much this evening that You have put in our hearts the Holy Spirit. Thank You for the life of God, the Teacher who puts the light on our Lord Jesus, who opens our eyes that we might behold Him in a living and real way, and who transforms us by that revelation.
We thank You for every part of Your Bible; in a special way tonight and this weekend, for these wonderful chapters in Acts and this wonderful record of Your servant Stephen. We would ask You, Lord, to dawn Christ upon us as we meditate on these precious truths.
We thank You for every brother who has come out, and we pray that You would indeed refresh us—refresh us with the manifestation of Christ. Thank You in advance that You are going to meet with us. You know our needs, our hungers, and our capacities. Meet us. Show us Christ. Take us forward in heart knowledge of Him.
We ask in the all-prevailing name of the Lord Jesus. Amen.
Well, I am sure that with a text this familiar, you are very much acquainted with all the details. But this weekend we will be meditating on one of God’s choice servants.
Many Christians do not know a lot about Stephen. They say, “Well, he’s the first deacon,” and they say he is the first martyr. Pretty much, that is how much they know.
We think he is a deacon because of Acts 6, where he is mentioned among those seven who were chosen to wait on tables. But actually, the word deacon is not used there. He is not called a deacon. There is a word in the verb form: it says they deaconized the tables. So, I suppose you can get it from that.
Then we think he is the first martyr because he was the first one to be violently killed for the cause of our Lord Jesus. But technically, I suppose he was not really the first deacon or the first martyr, because he was a martyr long before he died.
Death does not make a martyr. That is not what made him a martyr. He was a martyr before he died, because martyrdom is a matter of the heart.
I think you are familiar with this truth, but listen as I share Acts 1:8:
You will receive power
when the Holy Spirit has come upon you;
and you shall be My witnesses,
both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria,
and even to the uttermost part of the earth.
That word witnesses in the original is an interesting word. The Greek word is martus, from which we get our word martyr. Every witness is a martyr—a potential martyr, in that spiritual sense.
Stephen is not the first martyr. There were thousands of martyrs before Stephen, if you look at the witnesses, the heart-martyrs. Death does not make a martyr; it reveals them, but it does not make them.
Not all witnesses are called to be stoned, burned, or thrown to animals. Some have that privilege, but not all. But they are all ready to die. They are the witnesses of the Lord. Stephen, as you know, is the first one who actually did die for the Lord.
So we want to look at this servant of the Lord. The record is short. In fact, his life was short. That does not mean it was not full. He had a full life. The record is short, his life is short, and his ministry was short, but it goes on even this evening. So he had a wonderful, wonderful ministry.
I am going to have four privileges, Lord willing, to look with you at this precious record. I want us to read what will be the text pretty much through the weekend. Follow along, please: Acts 7:55-60.
Being full of the Holy Spirit, he gazed intently into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God;
and he said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”
But they cried out with a loud voice, and covered their ears, and rushed at him with one impulse.
And when they had driven him out of the city, they began stoning him; and the witnesses laid aside their robes at the feet of a young man named Saul.
They went on stoning Stephen as he called on the Lord and said, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”
Then, falling on his knees, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them!”
Having said this, he fell asleep.
So much is in this precious text. May God help us as we meditate together.
Let me begin to get the burden off my heart—what I want to share with you. Let me begin at the end. I think it will be clearer if I tell you where I want to end up.
I do not think it is possible to study this story without learning how to die victoriously.
Apart from our Lord Jesus Christ, Stephen’s death is spelled out for us in the greatest detail. Nobody else has such a long record of his death. God focuses on Stephen.
There was another martyr—you remember James—and here is his obituary:
He, speaking about Herod, had James, the brother of John, put to death with a sword.
That is it: one verse. But with Stephen, we have a chapter, and another chapter, and other references. It is an amazing thing.
Now, brothers, from what I understand about God’s Word, the day of trouble will probably come into your life, and the day of trouble will probably come into my life. It is possible; it is even probable. Who has escaped the day of trouble?
But although the day of trouble may come, and probably will come, I am almost one hundred percent certain that the day of death will come. That is not probable. That is not a maybe. Death is certain—unless the Lord Jesus returns.
Now, just for interest—and if you do not want to, you do not have to respond to this—you know what I mean when I ask the question: is there any brother here who has had a close call? You have been close to death, right at death’s door. Can I just see your hand?
All right. I have too. In 2000, I had a massive heart attack. As I address you this evening, I have several friends who are in that situation. This week, a friend of mine died of cancer. I have some who have been given the death sentence.
I have been waiting to hear today if another brother, very close to me, has died, because he is probably going to die today. I am sure you know many believers who have died. Many in my family have died, including a four-month-old baby.
The day of death—when the doctor shakes his head—is it possible to die victoriously? Well, you have a wonderful record here, and I pray that God will teach us some principles as we study Stephen on what it means to die triumphantly.
May God prepare us, even this weekend, for that day that lies before each one of us, and perhaps very near to some of us. We do not know that.
The story of Stephen not only teaches us how to die victoriously—that is the last message I want to share—but it also teaches us how to live victoriously.
Once again, Acts 7:55:
Being full of the Holy Spirit, he gazed intently into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God;
and he said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened up, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”
You say, “That is a vision of a dying Christian.” That is also the vision of a living Christian.
It not only shows us how to die victoriously, but it shows us how to live victoriously. Pay close attention to the facts as I recite them:
That is not merely describing death. That is what the Christian life is all about: being filled with the Spirit, standing under an open heaven, beholding an exalted Savior, being transformed by that revelation, and being dragged outside the camp. That is the Christian life.
So Stephen not only gives us principles for how to die victoriously, but for how to live victoriously. That is the third message I would like to share. At the end, I want to show you how to die victoriously; then I want to show you how to live victoriously.
The first two messages describe the vision that God gave Stephen which enabled him to live victoriously and to die victoriously. You see where we are? We want to see what Stephen saw, because if we can see what Stephen saw, we can experience what Stephen experienced.
It was because of the vision he saw that he was able to live victoriously and die victoriously. What is the difference between message one and message two?
In message one, I want to show you that the vision God gave Stephen has to do with the individual Christian. The vision we will talk about, illustrated in his discourse before the Sanhedrin, expands on that and takes it to the body—the corporate church.
What did God show Stephen about the Christian? And what did God show Stephen about the church, which produced a victorious life and a victorious death? You see where we are. That is what I would like to look at, God helping us.
So let us begin then. What is the great contribution that Stephen makes to the history of redemption? In other words, why does God tell his story? If God took Stephen out of the Bible, what would you miss that no other individual gives in the same way?
Why does God give all this inspired space to this man named Stephen? I believe it is because God gave him a wonderful truth.
Now, God has used saints through the years to revive truths. I know this is going to be very general, but you will get the idea. For example, God used men like Luther to revive the truth of justification by faith. God used men like Calvin to revive—not revise; maybe that too—the truth of the sovereignty of God.
God used men like Darby to revive the truth of gathering in the name of the Lord Jesus; men like George Müller to revive the truth of childlike faith; and men like Wesley to revive the truth of sanctification.
God used men like Hudson Taylor and William Carey to revive God’s worldwide heart and the truth of missions; and men like D. L. Moody, Billy Sunday, and Billy Graham to revive the truth of evangelism.
In these days, it seems like God is raising up men and women to revive the truths of worship, relationship, and union with Christ.
But Stephen was not used to revive a truth that had grown stale. His ministry was not recovery; his ministry was discovery. He did not revive it. He was the first one to get it. Nobody else had it beforehand.
God gave Stephen something He had not given anyone else. So in this first message, God assisting, though I am sure you already know it, I would like to spend this evening telling you: what was that truth God gave Stephen that no one else had before this?
As far as chronology goes, this was about six or seven years after our Lord Jesus died, rose, and ascended to the right hand of God. Apart from the miracle of Pentecost, since that time there had really been no word from heaven in that early church. No one had seen the Lord after that.
Wonderful things were taking place, no doubt about that, and they acknowledged that it was from the Lord—that He was the One doing it. But as far as a revelation of Him, until Stephen came along, there was none. This is the first revelation of the Lord Jesus since He ascended into heaven.
I want to break down what God showed Stephen. There is only one thing, but it is in two parts. If we can lay hold of both of those parts, if I can get before your heart tonight that great revelation he saw, I think that will prepare us to expand on it tomorrow when we look at that great discourse before the Sanhedrin.
The first thing Stephen discovered was who he was in Christ. He was the first one to discover who he was in Christ.
Now let me give some background. I think it will make it a little more clear. When a person studies the Bible under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and looks at those first five chapters of Acts, his heart is struck with some wonderful things that God is doing.
Those early chapters of Acts are alive. It is no secret, then, why many say, “I wish we could go back to that early church. I wish we could experience what they experienced in those early chapters of Acts.”
Clearly, it is because of Pentecost. It is because the Holy Spirit had returned to indwell His people. Christ was continuing His ministry in His new body, the church.
Stephen does not show up until Acts 6. Chapters 1 through 5 prepare for Stephen to show up in Acts 6.
You know, it is easy, two thousand years later, when we come to a passage of Scripture, to slap on what we have heard, what we have read, and what we know. But as you study the Bible, try sometime to put yourself in the shoes—in the place—of those who were going through it. What did they know? What did they think? What were they experiencing? How did they feel?
When we read of the early church, because there is so much life, people say, “Oh, let us go back to the early church. Let us go back and be like they were.” They pray that God would do that. But there are a lot of dangers in wanting to go back there.
When the Holy Spirit came on Pentecost, everything was new. Everything was changed. When you open the Book of Acts, all of a sudden they start quoting the Bible, quoting the Old Testament. You are not seven chapters deep, and they have already quoted the Old Testament twenty-eight times in those seven chapters, and referred to it a lot more than that.
They had a new Bible. When the Holy Spirit came, they got a new Bible. Not only that, they had a new awareness that the Lord was with them and in their hearts.
Remember when Peter reached out his hand and said to the man at the gate called Beautiful, “I do not have gold or silver, but what I have I give. In the name of the Lord Jesus, arise.” Then later he prayed, “Lord, keep stretching forth Your hand.” He knew whose hand it was. It was not his.
They were keenly aware that there was Someone living in them and Someone living through them. As you go through those five chapters, you also see an increased boldness. These saints got bolder and bolder and bolder.
In Acts 1 and 2, they were mocked because of their faith, so they got bolder. In Acts 3 and 4, they were threatened because of their faith, so they got bolder and bolder. In Acts 5, they were beaten because of their faith, and they got bolder and bolder. In Acts 7, Stephen is killed because of his faith.
We look at this boldness and say, “Their Bible was alive. They were aware of an indwelling Savior. They had boldness in the Lord. Look at the unity they had. Look at the love they had for one another. Look at the concern, the kindred spirit.”
Who can read those chapters and not have a heart saying, “Why can’t we be one like they were one?” They seemed so detached from this world. Their property did not seem to mean anything. Their money did not seem to mean anything. Their houses did not seem to mean anything. They all pulled it together for the needy.
They had a new sense of missions. God was adding to the church daily those who were coming to the Lord. So we look at that and say, “What a church! New Bible, new boldness, new joy, new love, new unity, new passion for souls.” They were rejoicing to be beaten for the Lord.
You say, “Boy, I want to go back there.” Well, that is not really a healthy desire, because that was the church in its infancy. To go back to that is to go back to babyhood.
I think if you really read it carefully, you would not say, “I want to go back to that,” because they knew what they had, but they did not know who they were.
They did not know who they were. Before Pentecost, they were just a bunch of Jews who had accepted Messiah. After Pentecost, they were still a bunch of Jews, but now they had something new. They had the life of God. They had the Holy Spirit. They knew they were different. They knew something had happened, but they had no clue who they were.
They thought they were still Jews. It never occurred to them that they were no longer Jews. That is what they were before. Now the Holy Spirit comes on them, and who are they? They are Spirit-filled Jews.
When you read those five chapters, they are very Jewish, doing Jewish things. They are going to the synagogue, offering sacrifices, and praying at the set hours of prayer.
Just as it never occurred to Luther, when God opened his eyes, that he was not still Catholic—he thought he was still Catholic—they did not have a clue that they had become Christians. In fact, there was no such word as Christian at that time. Acts 11:26 says they were first called Christians in Antioch.
To them, they were just Jews on whom God had given a great blessing. On that wonderful day when one hundred and twenty gathered in that upper room, there was the sound of a mighty wind, the appearance of cloven tongues over each of them, and so on. How wonderful: Jews blessed by God, Spirit-filled Jews. They did not know who they were.
There are several titles given in Acts. They are called followers of Jesus, the sect of the Nazarene, followers of the Way, people of the Way. But they did not have a clue that they were Christians. They knew something happened, but they did not know who they were.
They were born Jews, circumcised Jews, trained up as Jews, and had lived like Jews all their lives. That is why Peter said in Acts 10, “I have never eaten anything unholy or unclean. Never. I do not do that. I am a Jew. Jews do not do that. Everything is kosher.”
That is what they thought they were. That is why, when you read those first chapters, you see them going up to the temple to pray. It is about the temple, the synagogue, the hours of prayer, dietary laws, the sacrificial system, the special feasts, the laws of purification, ceremonial cleansing, and Sabbath laws, because they did not know who they were.
Brother Stephen Kaung worded it this way: “They knew they had new wine, but they did not know that it needed to be put in new wineskins.” Exactly right.
Many times they were brought before the Sanhedrin. Why? The Sanhedrin was the Jewish court, and they were bad Jews. So they had to go to court before the Jewish Sanhedrin.
Not only did they think they were Jews, but so did Rome. At that time, the Jews had several sects. The Pharisees were one sect of Jews, the Sadducees were another, and the Essenes were another. The government thought, “This is just another sect. Now there is this other group of Jews.”
At that time, there was not civil persecution, and the Jews were being tolerated. So Rome began to tolerate the Christians. Do not forget, the numbers grew. There were one hundred and twenty, then three thousand, then five thousand. By the time you get to Stephen, there might have been ten or twelve thousand Christians who did not know they were Christians.
Nobody knew who they were. You know the awful conflict they had: “I know I have something wonderful inside of me, but I do not know who I am. I do not feel comfortable here anymore in this synagogue.” They were constantly bumping heads.
They felt uncomfortable with the ceremonies, feasts, and traditions, and so they were constantly in trouble. It is a terrible thing not to know who you are.
That happened to me literally one time. I was on my way to a friend’s house. He had MS, and he trusted me for some reason—actually, he trusted me for twenty-seven years, so I guess a little bit was going right.
I would go and exercise him. I would stretch his legs and arms so that he would not get all tight. As we did that, we would pray and have Bible study. We did that for years and years, three times a week.
One day, I was on my way over to his house, and all of a sudden, I did not know where I was going. I pulled my car over to the side of the road, and I did not know who I was.
I was in this blank. I began to try to reason. I did not have a clue where I was, what state I was in—I had no idea. I remember praying, so I must have remembered I was a Christian, because I asked the Lord to help me. But I did not know who I was.
For about twenty minutes, I was trying to think: “What is my name? Am I married? Do I have kids? Where do I live? Who put me out here? Where am I?” I had not a clue in the world.
Then it started to come back slowly. The name Butchy came to me. That is what they called me when I was that high, way back home. So I thought I was in Connecticut, because I was brought up in Connecticut. My grandmother used to call me Butchy.
Then it began to clear up and clear up. After that, I went and had MRIs. They thought I might have had a stroke and all that kind of stuff. What in the world happened?
It is a terrible thing not to know who you are. But I knew I did not know who I was. It is worse not to know who you are and not to know that you do not know. You follow me?
That is what happened to these people. They did not know who they were, but they thought they knew who they were—and they were wrong. It is one thing not to know and know you do not know. It is another thing not to know and not know that you do not know.
Anyway, that was the situation of that early church. It was also my situation when I came to the Lord in 1958.
I was brought up in a Lutheran church. At a Youth for Christ rally, God reached me, and I accepted the Lord. Well, now I am Lutheran. I did not know who I was. So what was I supposed to do? Obviously, I would become a Lutheran pastor.
I went to Concordia and spent a couple of years in a Lutheran school. I was going to become a Lutheran pastor because I did not know who I was. We had a lot of bumping of heads because I could not see things the same way they did, but I still did not know who I was.
Someone suggested that I ought to go someplace like Moody Bible Institute. All right. So I went off to what we used to call Instant Bible Moody Tooth. When I got there, I thought I was an evangelist.
I joined up with Open Air Campaigners, went out, and began street preaching, because that, I guess, was who I was.
Then something happened—and that is a mess; I will not get into that. I left Moody Bible Institute and went to Columbia Bible College. Well, they were all into missions. All of a sudden, now I knew who I was: I was a missionary.
Then I got this great burden to go up to Alaska and preach to the Northern Eskimo. So we signed up with a mission board, and my wife and I prepared to go to Alaska. Now I knew who I was.
They did not want us. So now what?
I went up to Williamstown, Massachusetts, and became a congregational minister. Because I knew something was in here. I had the new wine; I just did not know who I was.
That lasted a full eight months as a congregational minister. So I said, “I guess it is not in the congregational. I think I will start a Bible church.” We started a little Bible church. It is still going on up there in Williamstown, Massachusetts.
Then I went down to Newport, Rhode Island. I said, “Now I know who I am: a Conservative Baptist pastor.” So I became a Conservative Baptist pastor.
You see what I am saying? It is a terrible thing not to know who you are and to know something is going on in your heart. Something wonderful had happened in my heart. I just did not know who I was.
What I am suggesting to you is this: Stephen is the first one who ever discovered who he was. Before that, nobody knew. They knew something wonderful had happened; they just did not know who they were.
God opened Stephen’s eyes, and Stephen, for the first time, saw who he was in Christ Jesus.
I began by asking, “What is his distinctive contribution to the history of redemption, and why does God put the spotlight on Stephen?” I think it is because, by revelation, Stephen is the first one who had union with Christ—not the first one who had it, but the first one who knew that he had it.
If we were to meet in the hallway, I know you brothers have been bathed in the precious new covenant, and you are familiar with these wonderful truths. Some of you might say, “Look to Jesus,” and that is a whole world. When you say, “Look to Jesus,” you know what you mean by that.
Someone else might say, “Abide in Christ,” and that carries with it a whole world. You know what that means: abide in Christ. Someone else might say, “Rest in the Lord,” and you know what that means because it carries with it a whole world—what it means to rest in the Lord. Others might say, “Trust the Lord.”
Whatever expression you use, Stephen was the first one to look to Jesus in all that it means. Stephen was the first one to abide in Christ in all that it means. Stephen was the first one to rest in the Lord in all that it means.
God used Stephen to give us this great revelation of who we are in Christ Jesus.
In Acts 7:55-56, Stephen gazed into the open heavens and saw the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. I am going to develop this a little more as we go through, but it is important that he saw the Son of Man.
God uses that title. We are going to talk more about that wonderful title, but seeing Jesus as the Son of Man meant that he saw his Representative. He saw his Substitute. He saw Someone with whom he could identify.
That lays down the principle: Stephen was the first one who identified with the Man in the glory. It is identification with Christ. He saw Christ exalted up there.
Can you see yourself behind the wheel of a Ferrari? What is that other car? A Lamborghini? Can you see yourself behind the wheel and possessing that? Can you see yourself owning a fifty-million-dollar mansion overlooking the sea? Can you see yourself in heaven?
Why was that so easy? Because the Son of Man is there. My Representative is there. That is what Stephen saw. He saw himself represented in the Son of Man. That was his representation.
He was the first one to ever see that. When you read the record, you see that with Stephen the line was drawn. After the record of Stephen, the church was never the same. A great persecution took place, and they went all over. This idea, “I am a Jew,” they did not believe that anymore after this.
I want to read the text one more time, Acts 7:55:
Being full of the Holy Spirit, he gazed intently into heaven, saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God;
and he said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened up, the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”
Now we say, “He got that vision just before he died.” No, he did not get that vision just before he died. He had it in his heart already. I can go through his speech before the Sanhedrin and see every part of that vision in that speech.
God gave us that vision so we could analyze it and see what in the world was going on. It was so clear to Stephen before. In our third lesson together, I am going to try to take that apart.
But listen again to those facts: filled with the Spirit, standing under an open heaven, beholding a glorified Savior, and being transformed by that beholding. That is what Stephen saw, and he was the first to see it.
I want to show you also that when Stephen saw Christ as the Man in the glory, as the Son of Man, we might simply say, “Now, that is one vision: He is the Son of Man.” I am suggesting that it is an illustration of all identification with Christ.
He was not merely the first to see Christ as the Son of Man; he was the first to identify with Christ. That is the principle. He was seeing Christ in many ways, not just as the Son of Man.
We are to see Christ in many ways. Do not limit it to the Son of Man. He is the Alpha. He is the Omega. He is the all in all, the Bright and Morning Star, the Ancient of Days, the Bridegroom, the Bread of Life, the Water of Life, and the Captain of our salvation. He was the first one who started to see Christ.
You say, “Why do you call attention to that?” I call attention to it because until a person begins to know who he is and sees Christ, he cannot know who he is.
It is the revelation of Christ that tells you that you are God’s own peculiar people, His special treasure, His excellent ones, His majestic ones, His glorious ones, the redeemed of the Lord, His workmanship, His handiwork, a crown of glory, His beloved, His darling, and heirs of God.
We have got to know who we are. We cannot know who we are until we identify with Him. So I think that is the first thing: he was the first one to know who he was.
It is true that he saw it in seed form. As the first one ever to see the hidden life, Stephen has been called the pioneer of the heavenly life. I think Brother Stephen Kaung calls him the pioneer of the heavenly life. But he was also the forerunner of the apostle Paul.
Acts 7:58 says:
When they had driven him out of the city, they began stoning him; and the witnesses laid aside their robes at the feet of a young man named Saul.
Saul is connected with Stephen. He is not just a bystander. He is the leader of this murder. He is acting in his official capacity. He is superintending this stoning.
They say Paul was about thirty years old here. Almost twenty years later, he gives the testimony in Acts 22, and he brings up Stephen, the martyr—God’s faithful martyr.
What did Paul write about? He wrote about who we are in Christ. Where did he get that? Why do I need both? If Stephen gives me the message of union with Christ, why do I need Paul?
The answer is that Stephen had the vision, but he did not explain it. God used Paul to explain it. Here we have the experience, but then we need the doctrinal explanation of it.
You read through the record of Stephen: he does not say a word about being crucified with Christ. He does not say a word about being risen with Christ. He does not say a word about his life being hidden with God in Christ Jesus. But later, Paul takes that and begins to unfold it for us.
When Paul was on Mars Hill, listen to Acts 17:24:
The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands.
Where did he get that? You say, “Well, he could have gotten that from the Old Testament.” Yes, but he got it from Stephen. That is what Stephen said when Stephen was preaching.
Where did Paul get the idea that every Christian is a priest? He got that from Stephen. He was listening to Stephen. Stephen said that God gave the law through the mediation of angels. Later, Paul began to write about that in Galatians. Where did he get that? He got that from Stephen.
Stephen stands under the open heavens and sees the glory of the Lord. Then Paul begins to write about the unveiled face, seeing the glory of the Lord, and being transformed into the same image. Where did he get that?
What John the Baptizer was to the Lord Jesus, Stephen was to the apostle Paul.
Hold that, please, and let me get ready to wrap it up by showing you the second thing he saw. He not only saw who he was, but God showed him where he was.
God showed him where he was. Brothers, this is a wonderful, wonderful thing, and I pray God will give us eyes to see it.
When Stephen looked up, you see, on the earth, if you read the record, there was nothing for him down here anymore. He was getting stoned. There were no friends, no family, no house, no money, no job. Health did not mean too much anymore. There was nothing down here for him.
He looked up, and he saw his life in heaven. He saw a new place.
Later on, Paul is going to take that and talk about living in the heavenlies, seeking the things above, and so on. Stephen was the first one who saw the heavenly life.
He was the first one who saw not only who he was in identification with Christ, but where he was and where his life was. It was a new center. Never before had that been in the experience of the church: a new focus.
Christ is above. Everything now must flow to me from Him. There is nothing here for me—nothing. There is nothing on the earth for me. It has got to come from Him. Again, that is not merely his dying vision. That is his life.
He saw that new place. Everything on earth had died for Stephen, but Stephen saw his life in heaven.
Where Christ is, is where we are.
As we come close to the end here, I just want to ask you, brothers: do you know who you are, really? And do you know where you are?
So many are so earthbound. They are so down here. Why could Stephen be stoned and not distracted?
Later on, Paul picked that up too, and he said, “Absent from the body, present with the Lord. We live by faith, not by sight.” Paul learned what it was in this life to be absent from the body.
That is not death, when you die and go to heaven. That is talking about how we live by faith. He was present with the Lord and absent from the body.
Why do you think they could beat up Paul and Silas? Because they were not home. They were absent from the body. They had another home. They were up there.
That is what Stephen saw for the first time. He saw who he was, and he saw where he was, and that transformed his life.
As we close, glance at these verses, please. Acts 6:3: he was full of the Holy Spirit. Acts 6:5: he was full of the Holy Spirit. Acts 7:55: he was full of the Holy Spirit.
Acts 6:3: he was full of wisdom. Acts 6:5: he was full of faith. Acts 6:8: he was full of grace. Acts 6:8: he was full of power.
Why was he so full? The answer is: because he knew who he was, and he knew where he lived.
Brothers, if God could help us this weekend to know who we are and where we live, this fullness will be ours. We will know how to live triumphantly. We will know how to die triumphantly.
Well, thank you for your patience. This is donkey work. We need to look at the principles of how to live victoriously. One more vision: I want to show you how this applies to the church, and then we will look at living and dying victoriously.
Let us pray together.
Our Father, we thank You that You have not given us merely a history of a saint who lived two thousand years ago, but You have given us a model—an illustration of someone who discovered who he was in Christ, someone who discovered where his life really was: above.
Lord, as never before, teach every brother in this room what it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit, to stand under an open heaven, to behold the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God, and to be transformed by that vision.
Work that for us, we pray. Give us the vision that You gave Stephen. We ask in Jesus’ precious name. Amen.