Kingdom Harbor

Here’s a summary of my recent sermon on Stephen in Acts 7 preached at Brookdale Covenant. A visual summary is provided below as well. -JB

There are moments when the “roar of the enemy” becomes so deafening that it drowns out every other sound in our lives. We have all been there—moments when life knocks us flat on our back, and we find ourselves staring up at a ceiling of dark clouds, feeling pinned into a corner with no escape.

Perhaps for you, that roar is the clinical coldness of a cancer diagnosis. Maybe it is the persistent, suffocating cloud of depression that refuses to lift, or a crippling anxiety that feels like it is constantly chasing you down, eager to overtake your peace. In these seasons, God can feel a thousand miles away, His voice lost in the crashing waves of a reality we never asked for. Where do we turn when we are flattened by the weight of the world?

The story of Stephen—the first martyr of the early church—serves as a surprising, deeply empathetic guide for navigating these “dark clouds.” His experience reminds us that even when life is at its grimiest, there is a way to see a glory that the world cannot touch. Here’s the text:

6:8 Now Stephen, a man full of God’s grace and power, performed great wonders and signs among the people. 9 Opposition arose, however… 13 They produced false witnesses, who testified, “This fellow never stops speaking against this holy place and against the law.  7:54 …They were furious and gnashed their teeth at him. 55 But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. 56 “Look,” he said, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” 57 At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, 58 dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul. 59 While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” 60 Then he fell on his knees and cried out, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” When he had said this, he died. 8:1 On that day a great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria.

1. Hardship Isn’t a Stop Sign; It’s a Catalyst

We often view trouble as a divine stop sign—a reason to pull over or a signal that we have somehow wandered off the path. However, the spread of Christianity suggests the exact opposite.

In the early chapters of the book of Acts, the mission to spread the message of Jesus beyond Jerusalem had essentially stalled out. The believers were either comfortable among their own people, or terrified of persecution that awaited them if they ventured beyond home. The movement was stationary and stuck in Jerusalem. It didn’t take a “breezy conquest” or smooth sailing to get them moving again. It took a tack under the butt.

Hardship and persecution acted as the catalyst that got the church out of the easy chair and on the move. When Stephen was killed, the resulting “great persecution” didn’t thwart the mission; it fueled it. It scattered the believers into new territories, effectively launching the movement into the very places God had called them to go. Your current hardship might feel like the end of the road, but in the realm of the Spirit, it is often the engine of your next great growth.

2. Checking Your “Spiritual Air Pressure”

In the middle of his greatest crisis, the scriptures note a vital detail: Stephen was “full of the Holy Spirit.” This forces us to ask a difficult, diagnostic question: What are you full of today?

When we are in a “bad place,” we are often filled with a spirit of fear, a spirit of insecurity, or a spirit of “woe is me.” We become heavy with the spirit of victimization and resentment. When we are full of that “bad air,” we rarely react well to the pressures of life.

Think of it like a bike tire. Parents more responsible than I will check the tire pressure regularly to ensure the bike is ready for the adventures of the road. We see in the text that Stephen was in the habit of regularly checking and refilling the Holy Spirit-air pressure in his soul each morning. To navigate the grime of life, we need a daily rhythm:

• Repentance: Intentionally letting the “bad air” out (the anger, the fear, the resentment).
• Prayer and Worship: Intentionally being filled back up with the Spirit of the living God.

3. The Direction of Your Gaze Determines Your Peace

When Stephen’s enemies were gnashing their teeth at him in a demonic rage, he did not focus on them. He “looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God.”

In our modern crises—the alarming email from the boss, the difficult phone call, the medical report—our instinct is to look down. We look down at the “gnashing teeth” of our problems and begin to catastrophize. Or, we look away, turning to Netflix to numb the pain or scrolling mindlessly through social media to distract ourselves with other people’s curated lives.

Stephen’s peace came from choosing to look at “heavenly glory” rather than “earthly gloom.” It is the same lesson Peter learned on the Sea of Galilee. As long as Peter’s eyes were fixed on Jesus, he walked on the water; the moment he looked down at the “swirling seas” and the churning, rising waves, he began to sink. If you want to see glory in the middle of the “gunk,” you have to be intentional about where you fix your gaze.

4. The Surprise of the Standing King

This is the real “guts” of Stephen’s story. In the ancient world, a king is almost always described as “seated” on a throne. This posture signifies that all is well and the king is in total, sovereign control. We often picture God this way—stoic, collected, and perhaps a bit unfazed by the drama of our lives.

We take comfort in a God who isn’t a “frazzled clown trying to keep all the plates of the cosmos spinning,” but sometimes that “seated” imagery makes Him feel distant. However, when Stephen looks into heaven in his moment of agony, he sees something shocking: Jesus is standing!

This shift in posture is everything. Jesus is not sitting on His hands while His beloved suffers. He is at attention. He is alert and aware because, for Stephen in that moment, all was not well.

“He bends towards his beloved. In our weakness and in our pain and in our suffering, he is not seated. He is reaching out, standing at attention… arms of loving help extended toward us, reaching down with a hand to lift us out of the muck, to raise us back up.”

If you feel abandoned, remember that Jesus is not looking the other way. He has stood up in your defense, and He is reaching into the muck to find you.

5. Releasing the Debt of Revenge

Many strive to live like Christ, but fewer have reflected on what it means to die like Christ. Stephen teaches us how to die well. The “spirit of the world” is one of keeping score. It is a spirit of “get even” that demands every offender pays back every last penny they owe us. Stephen, however, lived as a “small working model of Jesus.” Even as the stones were falling, he displayed a radical, counter-cultural mercy. His final words were: “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” Sound familiar? Those are the words on Jesus’ lips as he breathed his last on the cross: “Father, forgive them; they know not what they do.”

This is the ultimate witness—the ability to release the debt of those who are making our lives miserable. Whether they are hurting us knowingly or unintentionally, we are called to release them from what they “owe” us before we ever reach our own final moments. When we choose forgiveness over revenge, we prove that the Spirit within us is greater than the circumstances around us.

6. The Daily Exchange of Spirits

In his final breath, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” While this was a prayer of surrender at the end of a life, it is a powerful model for the fighting we have left to do today.

Hard times strip away our façade of invincibility. They expose our limitations and our mortality. In the “scorching sun” of struggle, we can finally stop fighting for control and move into a daily practice of surrender. Even as you continue to fight the forces of despair, loneliness, or illness, you can offer this exchange:

• Give God your spirit: Hand over the tired, anxious, and weakened spirit that is currently animating you.
• Receive His Spirit: Ask for a portion of His “new creation breath” to help you face just this one day.

Keeping in Step with the Spirit

Even when life is “grimy,” we can see “glory” if we look in the right direction. Stephen’s life—and his death—remind us that we are not abandoned in our suffering. We serve a King who stands up in our defense and a Spirit that provides the “air” we need to keep the tires moving.

As you prepare to face tomorrow, I want to leave you with one provocative question: What “spirit” will you choose to carry into your morning? Will you hold onto a spirit of fear and debt, or will you exchange it for the empowering, standing presence of the King?