Lessons from the First Martyr, Part 3 | January 4, 2026

The Setup: Stephen's Final Words

Sermon number nineteen brought Stephen's story to its climax, and Pastor Justin briefly recapped the three lessons the series had built toward, that the Christian life is led by a divine purpose, marked by divine protection, and folly without the divine Messiah. With those foundations laid, he opened Acts 7:54-60, where the religious leaders, enraged by Stephen's sermon, grind their teeth at him before dragging him out of the city to be stoned.

That gave us the first point of the message, that guilt produces anger. Pastor Justin illustrated this with a personal story about a heated theological debate with a younger pastor friend named Will, admitting that his own anger in that moment came not from being told he was wrong, but from being proven guilty of teaching something unbiblical. He connected that same dynamic to the Sanhedrin, whose fury in verse 54 was not a response to injustice but to having their own hypocrisy exposed.

Acts 7:57-58 describes the brutal reality of first century stoning, where a person was buried up to the chest and pelted with stones until death, sometimes left exposed for days afterward. Pastor Justin did not soften the scene, noting that these same respected religious leaders lost all decorum and became murderers rather than admit they were wrong, with the witnesses laying their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul.

Yet even as the stones fell, Stephen looked up to heaven, saw Jesus standing at the right hand of God, and cried out for the Lord to receive his spirit, then fell to his knees and asked God not to hold this sin against his executioners, echoing Jesus' own words from the cross in Luke 23:34. That gave us the second point of the message, that forgiveness produces holiness.

Pastor Justin was pointed here, naming what he called a widespread forgiveness problem among Christians, particularly around what has come to be known as church hurt. He described people who quietly leave a church over a legitimate grievance but never go to the person who hurt them, choosing instead to abandon church altogether rather than seek reconciliation, and he distinguished that from the genuinely serious cases of abuse that must never be excused.

Ephesians 4:32 calls believers to be kind and forgiving to one another just as God in Christ forgave us, and Pastor Justin was personally vulnerable, telling the congregation that as their pastor he will eventually hurt or disappoint someone in the room, and pleading with anyone already carrying that hurt to come talk with him rather than quietly walk away.

That led into the third point, that a relationship with Jesus produces peace, grounded in Deuteronomy 31:8's promise that the Lord goes before us and will never leave or forsake us. Psalm 103 closed the message with its picture of a Lord who is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, who does not deal with us according to our sins but removes our transgressions as far as the east is from the west, the same grace Stephen extended to the men taking his life.

This Week's Application

So this week, is there someone you are struggling to forgive the way Stephen forgave the men who killed him? We would love for you to join us this Sunday as we continue walking through Acts together.