Acts: Faith Worth Dying For
2025-09-28
Charles Billingsley
Acts 6
1 Now in those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplying, there arose a complaint against the Hebrews by the Hellenists, because their widows were neglected in the daily distribution.
2 types of Jews
Hellenists – they were no less “jewish” than the Hebrews when it comes to birth and bloodline. However, they had been raised elsewhere, and as a result, had adopted Gentile customs – they spoke greek, dressed like gentiles. Many were part of the ” diaspora” – the scattering of Jews that had taken place many years prior, and had now come back to their promised land to be apart of the Jewish culture – and in the process had become believers in Jesus. So the Hellenists were Christian Jews – who spoke Greek and dressed like gentiles. As a result, they used the septuagint as their scripture – It is in Greek.
Hebrews – raised in Israel – more traditional in their dress and customs. The read from the Torah – written in Hebrew. As a rule, they despised anything that hinted of Gentile. they were very strict and very nationalistic. they spoke Hebrew or aramaic, and Greek only when necessary.
Disagreements will happen. Division should not.
Psalm 133:1
1Behold, how good and how pleasant it is
For brethren to dwell together in unity!
Acts 6
2 Then the twelve summoned the multitude of the disciples and said, “It is not desirable that we should leave the word of God and serve tables.
3 Therefore, brethren, seek out from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business;
4 but we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word.”
5 And the saying pleased the whole multitude. And they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit, and Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas, a proselyte from Antioch,
6 whom they set before the apostles; and when they had prayed, they laid hands on them.
Luke gives us a summary statement here:
7 Then the word of God spread, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith.
John 13: 34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. 35 By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Tertullian – “The Blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church”
In Rome, Georgia – The Local Steak and Shake sponsored a billboard in honor of Charlie Kirk
Stand Up
Speak Out
Stay Bold
1. Stand Up
Acts 6
8 And Stephen, full of faith and power, did great wonders and signs among the people.
9 Then there arose some from what is called the Synagogue of the Freedmen (Cyrenians, Alexandrians, and those from Cilicia and Asia), disputing with Stephen.
10 And they were not able to resist the wisdom and the Spirit by which he spoke.
11 Then they secretly induced men to say, “We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God.”
12 And they stirred up the people, the elders, and the scribes; and they came upon him, seized him, and brought him to the council.
13 They also set up false witnesses who said, “This man does not cease to speak blasphemous words against this holy place and the law;
14 for we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs which Moses delivered to us.”
15 And all who sat in the council, looking steadfastly at him, saw his face as the face of an angel.
Beautiful comparison and remembrance of Moses!
7:1 Then the high priest said, “Are these things so?”
That’s all the window of opportunity Stephen needed!
Stephen then launches into an 1100 year history of their people – the Jewish nation – in full witness of the full gospel.
2. Stay Ready
1 Peter 3:15 “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear”.
3. Speak Out
2 And he said, “Brethren and fathers, listen: The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Haran,
3 and said to him, ‘Get out of your country and from your relatives, and come to a land that I will show you.’
4 Then he came out of the land of the Chaldeans and dwelt in Haran. And from there, when his father was dead, He moved him to this land in which you now dwell.
5 And God gave him no inheritance in it, not even enough to set his foot on. But even when Abraham had no child, He promised to give it to him for a possession, and to his descendants after him.
6 But God spoke in this way: that his descendants would dwell in a foreign land, and that they would bring them into bondage and oppress them four hundred years.
7 ‘And the nation to whom they will be in bondage I will judge,’ said God, ‘and after that they shall come out and serve Me in this place.’
8 Then He gave him the covenant of circumcision; and so Abraham begot Isaac and circumcised him on the eighth day; and Isaac begot Jacob, and Jacob begot the twelve patriarchs.
9 “And the patriarchs, becoming envious, sold Joseph into Egypt. But God was with him
10 and delivered him out of all his troubles, and gave him favor and wisdom in the presence of Pharaoh, king of Egypt; and he made him governor over Egypt and all his house.
11 Now a famine and great trouble came over all the land of Egypt and Canaan, and our fathers found no sustenance.
12 But when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent out our fathers first.
13 And the second time Joseph was made known to his brothers, and Joseph’s family became known to the Pharaoh.
14 Then Joseph sent and called his father Jacob and all his relatives to him, seventy-five people.
15 So Jacob went down to Egypt; and he died, he and our fathers.
16 And they were carried back to Shechem and laid in the tomb that Abraham bought for a sum of money from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem.
17 “But when the time of the promise drew near which God had sworn to Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt
18 till another king arose who did not know Joseph.
19 This man dealt treacherously with our people, and oppressed our forefathers, making them expose their babies, so that they might not live.
Next, he makes his defense against their charge of blasphemy against Moses.
He challenges them to remember the prophets
20 At this time Moses was born, and was well pleasing to God; and he was brought up in his father’s house for three months.
21 But when he was set out, Pharaoh’s daughter took him away and brought him up as her own son.
22 And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and deeds.
23 Now when he was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren, the children of Israel.
24 And seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended and avenged him who was oppressed, and struck down the Egyptian.
25 For he supposed that his brethren would have understood that God would deliver them by his hand, but they did not understand.
26 And the next day he appeared to two of them as they were fighting, and tried to reconcile them, saying, ‘Men, you are brethren; why do you wrong one another?’
27 But he who did his neighbor wrong pushed him away, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge over us?
28 Do you want to kill me as you did the Egyptian yesterday?’
29 Then, at this saying, Moses fled and became a dweller in the land of Midian, where he had two sons.
30 And when forty years had passed, an Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire in a bush, in the wilderness of Mount Sinai.
31 When Moses saw it, he marveled at the sight; and as he drew near to observe, the voice of the Lord came to him,
32 saying, ‘I am the God of your fathers–the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ And Moses trembled and dared not look.
33 ‘Then the Lord said to him, “Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground.
34 I have surely seen the oppression of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their groaning and have come down to deliver them. And now come, I will send you to Egypt.” ‘
35 This Moses whom they rejected, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge?’ is the one God sent to be a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the Angel who appeared to him in the bush.
36 He brought them out, after he had shown wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, and in the Red Sea, and in the wilderness forty years.
37 “This is that Moses who said to the children of Israel, ‘The Lord your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your brethren. Him you shall hear.’
38 This is he who was in the congregation in the wilderness with the Angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our fathers, the one who received the living oracles to give to us, (The Law)
39 whom our fathers would not obey, but rejected. And in their hearts they turned back to Egypt,
40 saying to Aaron, ‘Make us gods to go before us; as for this Moses who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.’
41 And they made a calf in those days, offered sacrifices to the idol, and rejoiced in the works of their own hands.
42 Then God turned and gave them up to worship the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the Prophets: ‘Did you offer Me slaughtered animals and sacrifices during forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel?
43 You also took up the tabernacle of Moloch, And the star of your god Remphan, Images which you made to worship; And I will carry you away beyond Babylon.’
Stephen now begins his defense against their charge of blasphemy of the temple.
He challenges them to remember the place of worship. But specifically reminds them that God is not confined their fancy temple. He reminds them in vs 49
but none of these – the patriarchs, the prophets or the places can save you!
44 “Our fathers had the tabernacle of witness in the wilderness, as He appointed, instructing Moses to make it according to the pattern that he had seen,
45 which our fathers, having received it in turn, also brought with Joshua into the land possessed by the Gentiles, whom God drove out before the face of our fathers until the days of David,
46 who found favor before God and asked to find a dwelling for the God of Jacob.
47 But Solomon built Him a house.
48 However, the Most High does not dwell in temples made with hands, as the prophet says:
49 ‘Heaven is My throne, And earth is My footstool. What house will you build for Me? says the Lord, Or what is the place of My rest?
50 Has My hand not made all these things?’
God cares much less about where we worship than in how we worship and in who we worship!
But the temple was the sacred ground of the sanhedrin. Not because of their love for God – but because it was their den of iniquity – where they made their money. They were the Mob of the 1st century. All under the guise of Godliness.
Had Stephen stopped right here, there would be no issue. They would have all been in agreement with him.
But then Stephen pulls no punches and launches directly into harms way with his next words – and lets them have it!
4. Stay Bold
51 “You stiffnecked (term Moses used to call his own people) and uncircumcised in heart and ears! (you are all about outward show)
You always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you.
52 Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who foretold the coming of the Just One, of whom you now have become the betrayers and murderers,
53 who have received the law by the direction of angels and have not kept it.”
54 When they heard these things they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed at him with their teeth.
55 But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God,
56 and said, “Look! I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!”
57 Then they cried out with a loud voice, stopped their ears, and ran at him with one accord;
58 and they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul.
59 And they stoned Stephen as he was calling on God and saying, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”
60 Then he knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not charge them with this sin.” And when he had said this, he fell asleep.
1. The same Holy Spirit that Empowered Stephen, is the same Holy Spirit that empowers Every Believer
2. The Call of God is a call to die.
Galatians 2:20
20 I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.
Do I love God more than my own life?
3. It is in dying to ourselves that we become servants of God.
Will you die to yourself in order to live for something greater?
Do I love God more than my own life?
What am I willing to risk for the sake of His call?
Stand Up
Stay Ready
Speak Out
Stay Bold
I was inspired last Sunday to write a little thing I’m calling
The Alphabet of Boldness
As the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ,
We must not, We cannot…
A – We will not Be Afraid
B – We will not back down, back up, or back out.
C – We will not cower in the face of evil.
D – We will not dilute, deny, or disquise the truth!
E – We will move forward with excellence and energy and not Exclude anyone from our message of Hope
F – We will face our fears in faith
G – We will not give in to the winds and the whims of culture
H – We will not hold back
I – We will not be Intimidated
J – We will fight for justice and Live for Jesus
K – We will build His Kingdom
L – We will love our God and love our neighbors
M – We will stay on mission
N – We will help the needy
O – We will offer all of ourselves and all we have when necessary
P – We will Pray – and pray some more – for revival across our land, for the power of the Holy Spirit, and for boldness
Q – We will never ever ever quit.
R – We will not rest until everyone has heard the Gospel
S – We will speak the truth, stand up for what is righteous, and daily surrender our hearts to our Savior – Jesus Christ
T – We will Trust the Lord God almighty to guide us, protect us, and use us.
U – We will stay under the authority of God’s word, seek to understand the mind and the heart of the lost, but never Undermine the power of His word
V – We will not play the victim, because in Christ We are the Victors!
W – We will not whimper in difficult times and WE will not waver from The truth!
X – We will be Xenial to those who hate and persecute us.
Y – We will not yield to temptation and the evil one
Z – And we will preach the Gospel with our lives with all the zeal of the martyrs who have gone before us.