God Is Always With Us :: Acts 6:8-7:2a, 51-60

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If I were to ask you to describe the message of Christmas in just one word, what would you choose? Just one word. Jesus is a good one. But I don’t think you can find a better word than Immanuel. Immanuel is the name God ascribed through the prophet Isaiah to the infant who would be born of the virgin (Isa 7:14). This single Hebrew word means “God is with us” or quite literally, “With Us is God.” 

Immanuel is the message of Christmas: In Christ, God is with us in the flesh. God manifested himself in this way so that we can be with God. The Word, who was with the Father in the beginning, became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Father, full of grace and truth. God in Christ is Jesus, he is Immanuel.

God came to us to be with us because we couldn’t go to him. We couldn’t find him. We couldn’t hear him. We couldn’t see him. So God came to us. He came to do what we couldn’t do, living in righteousness, dying on a cross, rising from the dead, ascending into heaven. He did this for you so that he can always be with you. He reveals himself being with us in his Word and Sacraments. He does this to lead us, help us, comfort us, nurture us while speaking his word of peace to us that the Lord is still with us. He does this to give you confidence ... faith ... that you have the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. 

GOD IS WITH US

This is our word of the day. And this truth, this fact, is quite evident today as we recognize the Martyrdom of Saint Stephen. It may seem strange to some or even many of you that we would choose today ... the day after the Feast of Christmas ... during the season of Christmas ... to remember God is with us. We think of Christmas as ... 

Joyful, Joyful, We adore thee, God of Glory, Lord of Love. 

So we ask ... where’s the joy today? 

What’s joyful about bloody red paraments? 

Why celebrate the death of Stephen, the first deacon of the church? 

The answer is in the recognition that in Stephen ... we see that God is with us. Even as Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit, was stoned to death for telling the world that God was with them, he shows us that God is still with us ... in the best of times and the worst of times. When we keep in mind the Christmas message of Immanuel, that God is with us, we see that this topic does indeed have timely value for us after all. 

1.

Of course, sometimes, it’s very difficult to see that. Sometimes, it’s just impossible. 

You know the question. Maybe you even asked it yourself ... If there is a God, why is there so much suffering? If there is a God, why do bad things happen to good people? If there is a God, how could he allow 700 thousand babies to be aborted each year in the U.S. alone, and then give us a government that approves abortion by mail? 

I thought you said God was with you? Is he really with you?

2.

Unequivocally, yes! Stephen was a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit (6:5), grace and power (6:8). Stephen was a man whom God had blessed with wonderful gifts of the Spirit: gifts to perform great wonders and signs among the people ... gifts to serve the church, taking care of widows and orphans ... gifts to give of himself self-sacrificially (7:60). Out of love for his Savior, he boldly went where few other Christians would go ... confessing that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the Living God ... that Jesus is not just the Righteous One, but that Jesus is God with Us. Luke tells us, Every day in the temple and in the houses, he never stopped teaching and evangelizing The Christ (5:42). 

That’s when Stephen’s conflict arose. The pious and the devout ones of the synagogues of the Libertines and Cyrenians and the Alexandrians and those from Cilicia and Asia stood up and began to argue with Stephen, trying to refute his teachings (v 9). 

Who are you to try to change our ways, they cried out. We have our traditions. We love our traditions. Why should we change our traditions? We aren’t sinners! We love the law! Don’t you see how dedicated I am! I am here on Sunday morning! 

But God was with Stephen. (No one could) stand up against his wisdom or the Spirit by whom he spoke (6:10). They quickly realized they thought the scriptures were about their way of life. They thought Jesus was just a man. They didn’t think the scriptures were actually about Jesus ... how he would live for you, die for you, rise from the dead for you, and ascend into heaven for you. They thought baptism was about their dedication to God. They thought the Lord’s Supper would lose its specialness if they received it too often. They didn’t understand God was with them in these means of grace. 

So Stephen took his stand, confessing God with us. He took his ground, even as the people began a smear campaign against him (6:14). Then they arrested him and put him on trial. They cried out at Stephen with a loud voice. They stopped their ears and rushed together at him. Then they cast Stephen out of the city ... just like the scapegoat on the Day of Atonement ... and they began stoning him to death. 

3.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, whenever we deny God with us, we need to listen to the word of God through Stephen. Then, in the name of Jesus, repent ... everyone of you. Mourn how your sin has murdered God with us. 

4.

The martyrdom of Stephen reminds us of this truth. It reminds us that this world is a fallen world, and that our adversary, the devil, is still prowling, seeking to frighten us, to silence us from confessing that Jesus is Lord ... that Jesus is literally God with us ... that he has called us to return to our baptisms, which now save us ... that he has called us to receive his supper everytime we meet because in it he delivers the forgiveness of sins ... Immanuel uses these means of grace precisely for this. He uses these means to show that he is always with us. We saw and heard God coming to us these ways all through Advent. And now in the actual Christmas season, he reminds us he really is Immanuel.

God has longed to be with us in this way from the very beginning. He promised to be with us right after the fall that separated us from him and each other. And he has fulfilled his promise in Christ. Stephen gives evidence of that today. As we Go tell it on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere, we will face many conflicts as a direct result of our confessing Christ and his Word. But we can rest assured with Stephen: God is with us.

5.

Our Lord Jesus was born for this reason ... to be with us. 

We couldn’t go to God, so he came to be with us. Christ, whom Stephen believed and confessed, gave up the riches of heaven. He took on flesh, born to die. He who knew no sin then became sin for us. God with us did this so that we won’t have to suffer sin and death any more. Our King, whom Stephen saw enthroned in heaven, suffered and died as the sacrifice for the sins of the world. Our Redeemer paid the great price for our salvation ... being crucified for you ... to pay the price we couldn’t pay. In his all-atoning sacrifice, God with us proved that he will never desert us ... even in our hour of deepest need. 

But not even death could separate us from God. God raised our Lord Jesus from the grave to show that he is always with us ... in our midst ... in our upper rooms ... and on our roads to Emmaus. He shows he is with us in the breaking of the bread. While we have not seen Christ visibly in the way that Stephen did, he is with us just as certainly in his Word and these Sacraments. This is why he gave us baptism and the Lord’s Supper ... to be with us. 

And now because of the faith God with us imparts to us ... like Stephen, behold, we too will see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. We will because as Saul who would become Paul would soon learn, Don’t you know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in the newness of life (Rm 6:3-4). God is with us always ... he is one with us. We are one with him. He’ll never leave you or forsake you.

5.

So on this first Sunday after Christmas, take courage to confess Christ, too. We know that the God who is with us works all things together for our good (Rom 8:28). 

Then as the world stones you, remember Stephen, and join him in forgiving everyone in your life ... friend or foe ... Brother or sister ... Mother or father ... Husband or wife. No matter how they hurt you, forgive them. God gives you his peace this way. And by sharing that peace, you will show the world that God is truly with you ... in Jesus’ name.

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