Sermons 2026

Text: Acts 6:1-9,7:2a,51-60

Theme: Faithful Confession

Outline
1.    A faithful Confession of Law
2.    A faithful Confession of Gospel

Sermon

Alleluia! Christ is Risen!
He is Risen, Indeed! Alleluia!

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father, and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

My dear beloved flock, the text for our meditation is the First Reading from the Acts of the Apostles, the sixth chapter verses one through nine, and chapter seven, the first part of verse two and verses fifty-one through sixty.

Beloved Lambs, I pray that you are doing well today. Do you enjoy helping others? I know that you enjoy helping around the house. You enjoy helping to cook, play with your sisters and brothers. You enjoy helping out at church with ushering, handing out bulletins, and making sure that others are okay when they are sad. In our text, we hear about people helping out the Apostles. There is too much for the Apostles to do alone, so the disciples gather together. They pick seven men to help the Apostles out. One of these men is Stephen. He helps the Apostles, and us, to make a faithful confession in both word and deed. What is Stephen’s confession? How do we make a faithful confession in our words and deeds today? Ponder those questions as you hear the rest of the sermon. You may go back to your seats and those who love you.

1.    A Faithful Confession of Law

The Apostles need a lot of help. Daily their number has increased. The Apostles have been taking from what has been given by others, not by compulsion but given out of a loving and cheerful heart, for the needs of the poor. As their numbers have increased, so has the need. A complaint has arisen within the church. “by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution. ” The Jews who were Greeks and followed more of the Greek ways of doing things were being neglected daily in food or funds. These people probably were not as well known to the Apostles in person as those who were Jewish. “Immediately the devil, the spirit of dissension and strife, inspired the thought that this was an intentional slight. Similar complaints and charges are sometimes made in our days also, and with as little ground. As long as fallible human beings are trying to serve other human beings that are just as fallible, mistakes are liable to happen, which should be adjusted without uncharitable grumbling.”  

The Apostles act quickly to rectify the situation. They gather the rest of the disciples and propose a solution. The Apostles are to continue the ministry that they have been given by our Lord, prayer and preaching of the Word of God. While they do that, others can minister to the needs of others. This seems good and they appoint seven men, Stephen is one of them, to this duty.

Stephen continues to do this duty, full of grace and power, until a day comes when Stephen is dragged before the Sanhedrin on false charges. He is accused of speaking against the Temple as well as the Law of Moses. Stephen gives a lengthy and faithful confession before the same Sanhedrin who had been the betrayers and murderers of the just and holy Christ. He starts with Abraham and Moses, on down to the prophets. He elaborates upon their whole history as a Jewish people, showing that he is not against the Law. Rather, he holds it dear as a fellow Jew, especially as it points to Jesus Christ.

He ends his argument with these words “51 “You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. ” Does that sound nice and loving? It sounds harsh and cruel. Yet, it is loving. It is, to use the words of Saint Paul, it is “speaking the truth in love.”(Ephesians 4:15) This would hardly seem to be the words of a “grace-filled” servant of the word. Stephen is faithfully confessing the Law. He is making the comparison that the Sanhedrin is acting in the same way as their fathers. Just as the Jewish people before them rejected the Prophets, hurt, and killed them, so too the Sanhedrin is doing now because they have rejected Jesus as well as the Apostles whom He has sent. Stephen is attempting to wake them. That they might see the darkness of their sin that they are living in, and be led to repentance.

We need to continue to be faithful confessors of God’s Law in our own day. We need to speak the truth in love, no matter how hard it may be to hear. Stephen’s bold confession, as well as where it leads him, but more on that in a moment, makes me humble. I think often about all the times when I should have spoken harsher words of God’s Law to wake up hardened sinners and break their hearts of stone. I think of the times when I should have been silent, when my witness was not needed, yet I spoke up anyway. The world, the devil, does not want us to be this faithful. The world and the devil tempt us to think that we have to always speak nice sounding words. We want to make sure that our words do not offend anyone. It is better for us to avoid the fight, avoid the confrontation, avoid being mean, even when people need to hear the faithful witness to the very Word of God.

2.    Faithful Confession of the Gospel

Yet, we as Christians, especially me as your Pastor, are not called to be meek or scared. As Paul writes to young Timothy, “for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.” (2 Timothy 1:7) We are called to be bold in love and self control. We do not let our passions or emotions control us. We are simply called to be faithful to the word of God, faithful to His Word of both Law, as well as Gospel, even if the world, and our sinful nature, does not want to hear it. We need to hear it just the same, no matter what may happen to us. Just look at what happens to Stephen for his faithfulness. 

Stephen is granted a gracious vision of Heaven, where he sees the Lord Jesus, standing at the right hand of God, a fulfillment of the words that Jesus spoke to this very body when He was before them that they would see the Son of Man on the cloud of heaven. Jesus is standing, making ready to receive with open arms all those that rely upon the salvation earned by Him. Where He is, there shall also His servants be. 57 But they cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears and rushed together at him. 58 Then they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul. 59 And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” 60 And falling to his knees he cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” And when he had said this, he fell asleep.   
There is only one word that can describe this. Murder. Murder by an infuriated mob, in violation of all law. Yet, they know what they are doing. They observe some forms of the law, taking Stephen outside the city and having the witnesses cast the first stone. As the stones are flying all around him. As the stones make contact with his skin, breaking flesh, cracking bone, look at his faithful confession to the Gospel. Stephen does not cry out against them for vengeance. Rather he commits his soul into the keeping of the Lord Jesus, the same as our Lord did upon His own cross. With his last dying breath, Stephen releases the Sanhedrin of their guilt with a final word of intercession, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.”  

A faithful confession of Law, as well as of Gospel, that spread the seeds of God’s word even as the people spilled his blood. Beholding this act is a young man named Saul, a persecutor of the Christian faith. You would know him better as Paul the apostle. The last words Saul heard from Stephen’s lips is a cry of forgiveness, a cry which I am sure rang in his ears for years afterward.

A cry of forgiveness, grace, and mercy, that still rings down throughout the ages to our very day. We continue to be faithful confessors of Law and Gospel. We see well our own sins. As the Psalmist says, they are ever before us. We mourn over them, turning in repentance to the mercy and grace that God has shown to us in Jesus Christ. Because of Jesus, sins are forgiven, souls are saved. Souls need to hear the words of the Law that they might know their need for a Savior as well as the words of the Gospel, that there is forgiveness and salvation because of Jesus Christ.

Thus why, we also are faithful to the Gospel. We do not leave people in despair, mourning in hopelessness, over their sins. Rather, like Stephen, we proclaim forgiveness. That God would not hold their sins against them but cleanse them because of what He has already done for the world, and us, in Jesus Christ. God laid upon Jesus our sins. Jesus bore the full wrath of God, He took our punishment. He died our death. Dying, Jesus destroys the power of death over us. We can indeed, fall asleep in Jesus, that we might rest in His peace. We rest in Jesus’ peace until that day when we shall awaken to everlasting life. We shall arise because Jesus has risen. Jesus is no longer dead but lives forever more.

As we live out our lives upon this earth. Let us follow the example of Stephen, being faithful confessors of both Law and Gospel, as we help those around us, meeting and ministering to their needs in both body and soul, until we see our Lord face to face.

Alleluia! Christ is Risen!
He has risen, indeed! Alleuia!

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard, and keep, your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.