“Flourish” (Acts 7:54-60)

A Live Tree or a Dead Tree?

One afternoon during the spiritual retreat I was walking on the lakeshore. I saw a big tree. As I was coming closer, I noticed the tree was dead because it had been stripped of bark. Perhaps squirrels did it. We don’t know for sure. Perhaps once this tree produced much fruit with its dense foliage. But now it is abandoned and dead – no leaves, no fruit, no life. I prayed, “God, may my life not be like this tree.”

About thirty feet away I saw a very similar size and same kind of tree, but well maintained and tended. I saw the green leaves begin to bud forth on that tree. There was life in it. And I prayed, “God, may my life be like this tree.” In many ways, life is like a tree. Psalm 92:12-15 describes the life of the righteous this way:

The righteous flourish like the palm tree

and grow like a cedar in Lebanon.

They are planted in the house of the Lord;

they flourish in the courts of our God.

In old age they still produce fruit;

they are always green and full of sap,

showing that the Lord is upright;

he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him.

Here we find at least three characteristics of a flourishing life: proximity, longevity, and productivity. The first mark is proximity. “[The righteous] are planted in the house of the Lord; they flourish in the courts of our God.” (v. 13) This is the first and most important quality of the flourishing person in God’s eyes. They are deeply rooted and grounded in God’s love. And they stay close to God’s presence always. The second is longevity. “In old age they still produce fruit; they are always green and full of sap.” (v. 14) For them, their twilight years are their highlight years. The older, the better – more wisdom, more godliness. The third mark is productivity or fruitfulness. By their fruit, they show that God is good and just and life-giving.

Life of Stephen

This morning we will explore the life of Stephen through this lens of the flourishing life: proximity, longevity, and productivity.

Proximity

Who is Stephen? Let us take a closer look at how the Bible describes Stephen. The first time we hear the name of Stephen is in Acts 6 when the early church chooses seven leaders, saying, “They chose Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit” (v. 5). The Bible also says, “Stephen, full of grace and power, did great wonders and signs among the people” (v. 8). We can easily sense how close Stephen was to God. He was a man full of the Spirit, faith, grace, power, and wisdom, a friend of God.

Michael Ramsey rightly said, “Do not worry about status...There is only one status that our Lord bids us to be concerned with, and that is the status of proximity to himself...”[1] Then, how do we know how intimate we are with Christ? One of the ways to measure proximity to Christ is to examine ourselves to see if our hearts are at peace, because our Lord Jesus is the Prince of Peace. The Jews falsely accused of Stephen, seized him, and brought him before the council. And they saw that his face was like the face of an angel (6:15). Stephen’s heart was at peace rather than at war. He saw the humanity (the image of God) in those attacking him. He saw them as his brothers and fathers (cf. 7:2) rather than as his enemies. And in today’s passage when the Jews were about to stone him to death, “Stephen, filled with the Holy Spirit” gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. Heart at peace in all circumstances is the essential mark of proximity to Christ and flourishing life in him.

Longevity

Here longevity has more to do with the quality of one’s life rather than the quantity or the length. Whether he or she is given 8 years or 80 years, a flourishing person is like wine. In general, wine tastes better with age. The older, the better. Their later years are their best years. Stephen was about 30 years old when he was killed. But the highlight of his life was the moment he died a martyr for his faith. He finished well and strong.

In his book The Life God Blesses Gordon MacDonald asks the following question: “What kind of old person do you want to be?” He started looking around for other older people who were at their very best in their twilight years. Then he said, “One thing quickly became clear. I have known a lot of old people, but my list of ‘emulatable’ old people was alarmingly short.” Some had drifted into self-centeredness, while others had become impatient and cynical toward the next generation. Some had become grumpy and critical, others simply lived in the past and were no longer leaning toward into the future. Then he said, “When the list was finished, it included just a few names. In fact, I could count the names on the fingers of one hand.”[2] Let us pause for a moment and think about these questions: “Who is an older person you would like to emulate? What qualities would you want to learn from them? What does “finishing well” mean to you? What adjustments will you need to make to finish well?”

Productivity

Now I would like to invite you to think about Stephen’s legacy. From a human point of view it’s hard to understand his early death. Stephen became the first martyr in the early church. What legacy did he leave behind?  When the Jews dragged him and stoned him to death, the young ringleader named Saul was there and approved of his execution. While they were stoning Stephen, Saul heard him saying “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” Stephen’s last words didn’t change Saul immediately. But I believe those words did ring in his ears and made him wonder, struggle, and eventually turn to Christ in God’s time. The blood of Stephen became the seed of Paul’s conversion. Life begets life.

Have you heard of the name Edward Kimball? Probably not. But his legacy proves what a “nobody” can do when he cares about people and God’s kingdom. Edward Kimball was a Sunday school teacher in Chicago in 1855. He visited one of his teenage students at the shoe store where the teen worked, and shared the gospel with him. Kimball nurtured the young man’s faith in the Sunday school class he taught. That young man was D.L. Moody.

1. Moody shared Christ with a man named F. B. Meyer.

2. F. B. Meyer’s preaching led to the conversion of J. Wilbur Chapman.

3. Chapman’s preaching led to the conversion of Billy Sunday.

4. Mordecai Ham was converted at a Billy Sunday meeting.

5. Billy Graham was converted at a Ham meeting.

6. Graham preached the gospel face-to-face to more people than anyone else in history.[3]

As a Christian, we have one same question to ask ourselves: “How can I make a lasting investment in others’ lives?” When I visit the homebound and nursing homes, sometimes I hear them say, “Why am I still here?” But as long as we have life and breath, we have a purpose. Every person can do three things for others: love them, serve them, and pray for them. By this, we bear much fruit.

The Best Is Yet to Come

In her book The Five Silent Years of Corrie ten Boom her caregiver Pamela Rosewell tells us a beautiful story of ten Boom’s final days on earth. In her eighties ten Boom had a major stroke and became bedridden and mute, but she still found ways of serving and loving God and others. Rosewell wrote[4]:

There had been a tremendous change in her way of life, one that could crush her spirit—but that had not happened. . . . I could see no difference in the attitude of this weak and silent Aunt Corrie to that of the strong speaker whom I had joined nearly three years earlier. She served Him then; she was serving Him now… She had served Him in her youth; now she was serving Him in her old age… Her lips could no longer say, “Jesus is Victor,” but her life could, and it did… She still had a great love for people, and God enabled her to communicate that love without words. 

In her final months on earth Corrie ten Boom was virtually helpless. She needed assistance just to turn over in her bed. She could barely speak. She had become skin and bone. One day, all of sudden, Corrie surprised her caregiver by saying a word in Dutch [ten Boom’s native language]: “Blij” (“Happy,” more literally, “joyful”). Rosewell asked, “Are you happy, Aunt Corrie?” “Ja [yes]” she replied. On the morning of Corie’s ninety-first birthday, April 15, 1983, she breathed her last. Today, her grave is marked with her name, her birth and death dates, and three simple words: “Jesus Is Victor.” Truly Corie Ten Boom lived a flourishing life.

Where have you been? Where are you now? Where are you headed? What do you want your epitaph to say? My prayer is that Psalm 92 may be your and my epitaph.

 S/he flourished like the palm tree in God’s presence.

In old age s/he still produced fruit

s/he was always green and full of sap,

showing that the Lord is upright.

 

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[1] John Stott, The Radical Disciple (p. 74). InterVarsity Press. Kindle Edition.

[2] Gordon MacDonald, The Life God Blesses (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1994), 98.

[3] Kenneth Boa and Jenny Abel, Recalibrate Your Life (pp. 200-201). InterVarsity Press. Kindle Edition.

[4] Ibid., 69.