Introduction
      Have you ever found yourself in a situation when telling the truth got you into a whole lot of trouble?  There was once a young man who worked in the produce section of a grocery store.  One day a woman came into the store, and it was pretty clear to everyone from the beginning that she was going to be a problem.  She was a prickly person who was hard to please.  When she came to the produce section, she groused at the young man about the limited selection, and she complained about how expensive everything was.  Then she said she wanted just half a cantaloupe “Because I can’t afford a whole one at the prices you charge.  And besides, the fruit doesn’t look very good today anyway.” 
      The clerk went into the storeroom in the back of the grocery to cut the cantaloupe in two.  As he did, he came upon a co-worker, and he began to relate just how unpleasant the woman had been.  He said, “You won’t believe this lady out there in the produce section today.  She’s an old battleaxe who complains about everything.  ‘The fruit looks bad!  It’s way too expensive!  I can’t get anyone to help me around here!’  Now she wants me to cut this cantaloupe in two because she only wants half of it!”
      Just then, the young clerk noticed out of the corner of his eye that the woman was standing just a few feet behind him.  She had followed him into the storeroom.  And without missing a beat, he said, “And this nice lady behind me wants the other half!”
      Sometimes when we tell the truth we can get into a whole lot of trouble.  This morning we read of another young man who found this to be true.  His name was Stephen, one of the deacons of the early church.  When he spoke the truth, some people took great offense, and it ended up costing him his life.  As we consider these things today, I want you to notice the speech of Stephen, the death of Stephen, and examples of faithfulness.

I. The Speech of Stephen
      You will recall from our previous study that a rumor had been circulating in Jerusalem that Stephen, a man who had just been appointed a deacon in the early church, had blasphemed against God in what he said about the Temple and the Old Testament Law.  To the Jews, to speak against either of these was to speak against God Himself, as the Law was God’s Word and the Temple was God’s house.  The Jewish authorities had Stephen arrested, and he was brought before the Sanhedrin to give an accounting for himself. 
      In the speech that followed, we see a panorama of the history of God’s dealings with the people of Israel.  Stephen traces the work of God in the Old Testament beginning with Abraham and follows it all the way through the building of the Temple by David and his son Solomon.  He picked out four main epochs of Israel’s history that were dominated by four main characters.  First, he highlights Abraham and the patriarchal age.  Next he talks about Joseph and the Egyptian exile.  Then he discusses Moses, the Exodus, and the wanderings in the wilderness for 40 years.  Finally, he mentions David and Solomon, the establishment of the monarchy, and the building of the Temple. 
      The connecting feature of these four epochs is that in none of them was God’s presence limited to any particular place.  On the contrary, the God of the Old Testament was a living God, a God on the move who was always calling His people out to fresh adventures, and always accompanying them wherever they went.  Stephen appears to be one of the first Christians to understand, and clearly he was the first to say it publicly, that God could never be contained in the buildings or boxes in which we try to put Him.  He also understood that the old patterns of the Old Covenant were passing away.  God was not a God who lived in buildings made by the hands of men.  Heaven is God’s throne, and the earth is His footstool.  Later, the apostle Paul would pick up on this too and say that the Spirit of God now dwells in the hearts of believers, and together we are the living stones of God’s house.
      The false witnesses had accused Stephen of two blasphemies – that he spoke against the holy place (the Temple), and he spoke against the holy Law (6:13).   In response to both accusations, he developed a similar defense, namely that in each area he was more biblical than his accusers.  He demonstrated that the Old Testament Scriptures laid less emphasis on the Temple and more emphasis on the Law than they did.  But then he turned the tables on his judges, and he said that it was not he who had shown a disregard for the Law, but they, just like their fathers before them.  At this, Stephen the accused became the accuser.  Having exposed Israel’s unfaithfulness in the past to the Law and the prophets, Stephen went on to say that the members of the Sanhedrin were guilty of the same sin. 
       Stephen’s speech is hardly a defense in the sense of an explanation or apology calculated to win an acquittal.  Rather, it is a proclamation of the message of Christ in terms of the popular Judaism of the day, and it was an indictment of the Jewish leaders for their failure to recognize Jesus as the Messiah.  In addition, Stephen took them to task for their failure to appreciate the salvation provided by God through Jesus Christ, and he did not mince words about the guilt they bore. 
      I don’t think Stephen ever took a Dale Carnegie class on “How to Win Friends and Influence People.”  He was not concerned with popularity and acceptance.  His aim was to speak the truth, and it got him into a lot of hot water.  Ultimately, it got him killed. 

II.  The Death of Stephen
      Last week we noted that when Stephen spoke, his face shone like that of an angel.  At the end of his message we are told that he had a vision of the risen Christ standing at the right hand of the Father.  Unwilling to listen to Stephen’s testimony concerning Jesus, members of the Sanhedrin covered their ears and sought to drown out his words by their yelling.  They were determined to silence him, and so they rushed Stephen, dragged him out of the city, and began to stone him. 
      Since the Romans had taken away the Jew’s right of capital punishment, it seems that the stoning of Stephen was more a mob lynching than an official execution.  The passage also notes that they laid their coats at the feet of a man named Saul, an experience he never forgot (Acts 22).  This suggests that Saul had some official part in the death of Stephen, and he mentions the event later in one of his sermons.  In this way, Luke discreetly introduces us to the man who would soon dominate the rest of his narrative in the book of Acts.  Saul later became the apostle Paul, and the Lord would turn the world upside down through him.
      As Stephen was being stoned, he cried out two things.  Both were prayers directed to the Lord Jesus, and both were reminiscent of the words Christ Himself spoke from the cross when He was crucified.  First, Stephen cried out, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit,” and then he said, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.”  There are several parallels between the death of Stephen and the death of Christ.  In both cases false witnesses were produced and the charge was one of blasphemy.  In both cases the execution was accompanied by two prayers, as each prayed for the forgiveness of his executioners and for the reception of his spirit when he died.  In this way the disciple followed his master.  The only difference was that Jesus addressed His prayers to the Father, while Stephen addressed them to Jesus. 
      Luke tells us that as Stephen’s body was crushed by the stones, he fell asleep, which commentators have called a mournful but sweet word.  By contrast, Saul was there giving approval to Stephen’s death.  The deacon’s peaceful faith shines against the dark backdrop of Saul’s murderous anger.
      Stephen’s death was the occasion of a great persecution which led to the scattering of the disciples throughout Judea and Samaria.  The church was shocked by the martyrdom of Stephen and the violent opposition that followed, but with the benefit of hindsight we can see how in God’s providence it was used to help fulfill the Great Commission.  Until then, the early church had remained in Jerusalem.  It was only after Stephen’s death that the disciples were forced by persecution to go to Judea and Samaria, the next places to which Jesus told His disciples in Matthew 28 to take the message of God’s love.  It was time for the church to get going.

III.  Examples of Faithfulness
      Stephen was the first Christian martyr, but he wasn’t the last.  Throughout the centuries people have been willing to pay with their blood for their allegiance to Christ.  They sacrificed their lives for the sake of the gospel, and they are examples of faithfulness which serve to remind us that there are some things in life that are worth dying for.  There may come a time in our lives as Christians when we must go against the crowd, when we must speak the truth even when it is hard.  We may be called upon to take an unpopular stand, and it may result in rejection and perhaps even death itself.  Continuing in our faith even when it costs us, holding fast to our confession, is the call of every follower of Christ.
      I think of a man named Polycarp who lived in the 2^nd century AD.  His name means many-fruited, probably referring to his many fruits of the Holy Spirit.  Polycarp was the bishop of Smyrna, a city in what is now western Turkey.  He had been a disciple of the apostle John growing up.  The emperors of Rome had unleashed bitter attacks against the Christians during this period of time, and history records many of their persecutions and deaths.  Polycarp was arrested on the charge of being a Christian -- a member of a politically dangerous cult whose rapid growth needed to be stopped.
      In the midst of an angry mob, the Roman proconsul took pity on such a gentle old man, and he urged Polycarp to simply say the words, "Caesar is Lord".  If only Polycarp would make this declaration and offer a small pinch of incense to Caesar's statue, he would escape torture and death.  To this Polycarp responded, "Eighty-six years I have served Christ, and He never did me any wrong.  How can I blaspheme my King who saved me?"  Steadfast in his stand for Christ, Polycarp refused to compromise his beliefs, and he was burned alive at the stake.
      I think of Jim Elliot, one of the five missionaries who were killed by the Auca Indians of the jungles of Ecuador in 1956.  He was speared through the chest by the very people he was trying to reach with the gospel of Jesus’ love. Jim Elliot gave his all in the service of Christ.  He once wrote in his journal, "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep in order to gain what he cannot lose."
      I think of Yaqub Mohammed.  Yaqub was born in Somalia to Muslim parents, and he was raised in the way of Islam.  At an early age he became zealous for the Muslim faith, and he was an articulate and active follower of Mohammed.  As a young man, he bought a New Testament in order to better understand Christianity with the goal of exposing its falsehood and witnessing to Christians about the truth of Islam.  However, as he read the New Testament and began to talk with a German missionary about Christianity, his heart was grabbed by the truth of the gospel.  One day, he privately committed his life to Christ. 
      He was afraid to tell anyone, especially his own family about his newfound faith in Jesus, and so he lived as a closet Christian for many months.  Eventually he could hold it in no longer, and he told first his mother and then his father.  They both reacted in anger, disowned him, and eventually threw him out of the house.  From time to time he was imprisoned for his faith, and then a price was put on his head in Somalia.  He had to flee the country. 
      A young woman named Khadra also had come to Christ.  She was beaten by her family, and thrown out of the house, as well, for her family was also Muslim.  Together they fled to Kenya for fear of their lives.  There they fell in love and were married.  They have since come to the United States, and I met them in Dallas 15 years ago as members of the church I served there.  Today Yaqub is a Presbyterian pastor, and he and Khadra minister to Somali refugees in the Minneapolis area.  They still dream of going back to Somalia to share the gospel with the people there.
      And I think of Cassie Bernall.  A few years ago in his radio program Breakpoint, Chuck Colson said, “It was a test all of us would hope to pass, but none of us really wants to take. A masked gunman points his weapon at a Christian and asks ‘Do you believe in God?’ She knows that if she says ‘yes,’ she'll pay with her life. But unfaithfulness to her Lord is unthinkable.  So, with what would be her last words, she calmly answered 'Yes, I believe in God.'”
      What makes this story remarkable is that the gunman was no communist thug, nor was the martyr a Chinese pastor.  As you may have guessed, the event I'm describing took place in Littleton, Colorado, at Columbine High School in 1999.  The Washington Post reported that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the two students who shot 13 people, did not choose their victims at random – they were acting out of a kaleidoscope of ugly prejudices.  Media coverage centered on the killers' hostility toward racial minorities and athletes, but there was another group the pair hated every bit as much – Christians. According to some accounts eight Christians – four Evangelicals and four Catholics – were killed.
      Among them was Cassie Bernall.  She was a 17-year-old junior with long blond hair, hair she wanted to cut off and have made into wigs for cancer patients who had lost their hair through chemotherapy.  She was active in her youth group at Westpool's Community Church, and she was known for carrying a Bible to school.
      Cassie was in the school library reading her Bible when the two young killers burst in.  According to witnesses, one of the killers pointed his gun at Cassie and asked, “Do you believe in God?"  Cassie paused and then answered, "Yes, I believe in God."  "Why?" he asked.  Cassie did not have a chance to respond; the gunman had already shot her dead.  As her classmate Mickie Cain told Larry King on CNN, “She completely stood up for God.  When the killers asked her if there was anyone who had faith in Christ, she spoke up and they shot her for it.”
      Cassie's martyrdom was even more remarkable when you consider that just a few years before she had dabbled in the occult, including witchcraft. She had embraced the same darkness and nihilism that drove her killers to such despicable acts.  But in 1997, Cassie dedicated her life to Christ and her life turned around.  Her friend, Craig Moon, called her a “light for Christ.”
      According to the Boston Globe, on the night of her death, Cassie's brother Chris found a poem Cassie had written just two days earlier.  It read:

"Now I have given up on everything else.
I have found it to be the only way
To really know Christ and to experience
The mighty power that brought
Him back to life again, and to find
Out what it means to suffer and to
Die with him.  So, whatever it takes
I will be one who lives in the fresh
Newness of life of those who are
Alive from the dead.”[1]

Conclusion
      As we close this morning, I want to ask you two questions.  First, if someone were to ask you, “What are you living for?” what would you tell them?  Think about it.  Would you say that you are living for your family?  Your job?  Your grandkids?  Your school?  Your future? Your Lord?  What are you really living for?  If Stephen had been asked that question, what would his answer be, and how does your answer compare to his?
      The second question I want to ask is just as important.  What are you willing to die for?  Again, your loved ones?  Your beliefs?  Your country?  Your friends?  Your Lord?  What are you really willing to die for?  If you were in Stephen’s shoes – in Cassie’s shoes – what would you have done?
      In 1909 William Borden, of the famous Borden Foods family, graduated from Yale University.  While he was in college, he responded to John R. Mott's call to take the gospel to all the world, and he surprised his Ivy League classmates by committing himself to the foreign mission field of western China.  The whole nation watched as the young millionaire missionary raised his own support to go to China.  He turned his back on affluence and comfort in America, and he decided to risk everything and go to China.  However, on his way to China, he stopped in Cairo, Egypt, for a time of preparation.  Tragically, while there, he contracted spinal meningitis and died in a lonely hospital room. 
      Some people thought, "What a waste!  He could have done so much good.  Why take such a risk in trying to go to China when he could have had all the comforts life has to offer here?"  Before his death, however, William Borden left a six-word message for the world to read and settle any question in this regard.  He scrawled with a pencil on a pad of paper next to his hospital bed these words: "No reserve, no retreat, no regrets."[2]
      When it comes to the end of your life, will you be able to say the same thing?  No reserve, no retreat, no regrets?  Stephen, the first Christian martyr, could, and I pray that you and I will live in such a way that when the time comes for us to die we will be able to say these words with confidence as well.  “No reserve, no retreat, no regrets.”  Amen.