Stephen showed that grace is not provided to remove an individual from a difficult situation, but grace abounds through suffering to make a person more like the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. When the people began to seethe with hatred, Stephen looked up and beheld a Trinitarian revelation, an opening of the heavens. Though he was dragged out of the city and stoned to death, he received magnificent grace with what he saw, and he gave much grace in death. His final words were not for his own comfort or blessing, but for the forgiveness of his murderers.
Grace costs the believer all that he has. Persecution does not only come to a few Christians, but is experienced by all Christians. It is easy to only give grace a thought when it does not seem too costly, or when its benefits seem to run out. The Christian can regularly measure the temperature of his relationship with God by seeing if he is currently enduring persecution for the name of Jesus. An absence of persecution in the believer’s life does not necessarily mean he has forsaken Christ. However, times of peace exist for more than carnal pleasure; those seasons of grace should be used to prepare for dark times ahead. Paul, when writing to the Corinthian church, taught that a Christian receives comfort during affliction so that he can comfort others when they are afflicted. Persecution may not be present in the form of a physical trial, but it may occur as an attack from Satan. James 4:4-10 teaches the Christian to resist the devil to make him flee, which most Christians interpret as just waiting him out. But James describes an active resistance against Satan, a resistance sustained by a kind of humility that comes through weeping and mourning and gloom. It will do the believer no good to resist the devil with pride, for that is a characteristic the enemy knows all too well. Perfect humility is something Satan does not honor, but God will reward it completely. Without this humbling a person is an enemy of God and cannot receive grace, or give it away for that matter. When the Christian chooses to decrease his own desires the grace of God will increase all the more. Getting the enemy to leave one’s life is not about convincing him with truth (he does not stand in it), nor is it about intimidating him (not even Michael, the archangel, tried that). The devil leaves when the Christian humbles himself and receives abounding grace from his jealous God. When the persecuted church scattered after the death of Stephen, the believers initially spread the gospel exclusively to Jews. However, some of the men began preaching to Greek-speaking non-Jews (Hellenists) about the Lord Jesus. When a great number of people turned to the Lord, Barnabas (who was sent by the Jerusalem church to Antioch) recognized that the increase was due to the grace of God. So impressed was Barnabas with this amazing development that he went searching for Saul in Tarsus. When he returned to Antioch with Saul, grace abounded even more as they stayed and ministered for a year. The result was the transformation of people that even the secular world noticed, a transformation that brought about a name for which followers of Jesus would live and die for two thousand years. None of that would have occurred if that man of God, Stephen, had not lived a life of grace. Had he not done great wonders and signs in grace and power, not spoken truth with clarity to his accusers, not forgiven his accusers with his dying breath, then the grace given him would have been offered in vain. Only the grace of God could have changed Saul from a man who took delight in the death of Stephen, to a man used by the Holy Spirit to write half the New Testament. The grace of God will abound in the life of the weakest Christian, and it can save even the strongest of sinners. When you do the work of God and people despise you for it, when you speak truth to those you should be able to trust and they gnash their teeth and close their ears, when your body gives out from persecution and you are ready to either give up or give in, humble yourself. But do it the right way - like Stephen. Do not hang your head or return the reviling, but lift your head to the heavens, gaze upon the One who saves by grace, and let the power of God be made perfect in your life. For the grace He gives will be sufficient for all you need.
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