The Echo Of Jesus - Tim Timberlake

What does it truly mean to reflect Jesus—not just in comfort, but under pressure? In this powerful message, we look at the life and death of Stephen, the first martyr, and discover how a life fully surrendered to the Holy Spirit becomes an echo of Jesus in every circumstance. From forgiveness in the face of pain to unwavering faith in crisis, this message challenges us to move beyond knowing what Jesus taught to actually becoming who He revealed us to be. 

Transcript

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Hey, I'm Tim Timmerlake, and I want to thank you so much for listening to the Celebration Church Podcast. I hope this message encouraged you, strengthened your faith, and gave you something you can carry into your week. If you'd like to stay connected, I encourage you to join us live every Sunday at 9 a.m. or 11 a.m. on YouTube. We would love to have you there. And if you're ever in the Jacksonville, Florida area, come see us in person. We have a seat saved for you. Thanks again for being with us. We're so grateful for you. And see you next time. Whether you're here in the room, in our overflow, watching online, we're grateful for you. We don't take these moments for granted. We don't take this time for granted. We have an expectation that every time we gather, that the Holy Spirit is going to meet us. Not just meet us, but change us and transform us. And change the way that we think so that we can become more like Jesus. How many of you are glad that He still restores, He still redeems, He still renews, and He still revives. Come on. Can we bless the name of Jesus? Acts chapter 7. Beginning at verse number 58, I'll be reading the NASB translation. The scripture reads, When they had driven him out of the city, they began stoning him. And the witnesses laid aside the cloaks at the feet of a young man named Saul and went on stoning Stephan as he called on the Lord and said, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. Then falling on his knees, he cried out with a loud voice, Lord, do not hold this sin against them. And having said this, he fell asleep. Utilizing this text, I want to teach through it with the subject matter, the echo of Jesus. Let's pray in Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. We ask that you would bring this word to life in our spirits. May it saturate our souls today. May it quicken dead flesh. May it bring us to a place of knowing who you are and what you desire for us. We ask that you would get all of the glory, all of the honor, and all of the praise. In the name of Jesus we pray. And everybody that's thankful that Jesus is still alive and well, and he is the one true living God. What's up, real life? Amen. Today we bring to conclusion the life of Stefan in Acts chapter 7. And Acts chapter 7 taught us so much about what it means to be faithful, what it means to be a witness, what it means to be dedicated unto death for the person you believe in. The life of Stefan is not just any life, it is a life that was laid down for the gospel he believed in, making him the first martyr in Christendom. And as we read through Acts chapter 7, we see a man dedicated to his convictions, full of the Holy Spirit and full of wisdom. And he is not an apostle, he is not one of the original twelve disciples. He is not a celebrity pastor. He is not a TikTok influencer. He is just a man that is dedicated to serving, filled with the Holy Spirit, and what he accomplishes in his service is noteworthy. It teaches us that heaven often chooses servants to model what leaders should become. It teaches us that if you lay your life down, that Jesus will in fact pick it back up. It teaches us that when you are pursuing the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, he gives you not just a life, but he gives you a life worth living, and he allows your life, even in servanthood, to be a model and a demonstration to those who should be following Jesus Christ. And his life, it gives us this mirror of the life of Jesus. It teaches us that he was taken outside of the city and he was murdered. And as we read the gospels, we see that Jesus was taken outside of the city and Jesus was crucified outside of the city. It teaches us that he prayed for his killers, and scripture teaches us that Jesus prayed for his killers. Jesus entrusted his spirit to the Father, and here Stefan is entrusting his spirit to Jesus. He says, Lord Jesus, receive of my spirit. And then it says he cries out with a loud voice, Father, have mercy on them and forgive them, for they know not what they do. This teaches us a valuable lesson about discipleship. Discipleship is not merely learning what Jesus taught, it is becoming what Jesus has revealed. And when you become what Jesus has revealed, you take on the very nature of revelation by applying it to your life and allowing your life to be an example of the life that Jesus lived. And so this crowd, they think that they're ending the life of Stephen. And as a result, they think that they're ending a movement. But what they're actually doing is planting a seed for greater revival to take place in the earth. And as I read this, it dawned on me that persecution becomes propagation. You may ask, what is propagation? Propagation simply means the advancement of a cause to continue to move forward, to continue to carry something even beyond your comfort. So persecution, it comes before propagation. And some of you are complaining and running from persecution when in fact God wants you to stand still in the persecution and allow the persecution to become the very thing that propels the gospel of Jesus Christ in and through your life. Sometimes God lets your pain preach to people your voice could never reach. Sometimes God will let the pain you are in, and the pain that you've been through, and the hurdles you've had to overcome, and the giants you've had to defeat, and the mountains you've had to scale, preach louder than your voice ever could. Because if you don't have something that people can identify with, then they won't listen to you. One thing most of us can always identify with, we can always identify with pain. And so instead of complaining about it, ask God what is it he desires to reveal through it. And if God doesn't pull you out of it, ask God to deliver you through it. And if it continues to exist in your life, then allow it to teach you something. If it can continue to dwell in your life, allow it to advance the gospel of Jesus in your life. If you like Paul have a thorn in your flesh and you pray to God and you ask God to remove it, and God simply says, My grace is sufficient for you. What God is saying to you, that what you are going through is not just for you, it's for those that will come behind you because they need to see someone who models what I look like and what I sound like, even in the worst of times. So, verse 58, it begins by saying, And when they had driven him out of the city, this is important for us to understand and take notes of because they tried to expel what they could not control. Religion has this crazy way of trying to remove what it cannot refute. So often people will try to silence you because they can't control you. And they'll label you and they'll put their own stamps on you because they can't control you. The reason they can't control you is because you're no longer the same person that they met years ago. And have you have you really noticed the people you no longer hang around? They didn't really like you for you. They liked the way you made them feel when they didn't want to change. And then when you change, they start complaining and saying, You change. You read up change. I'm not working on this hard to stay the same. God didn't send his son to be crucified on the cross to be buried and resurrected for me to stay the same. Yes, I'm changing, I'm maturing, I'm transforming into the very person that God has asked for me to be. So stop debating whether you change or not and just acknowledge you have changed, and you are changing, and you are becoming more like Jesus Christ. They drug him out of the city. And they began stoning him. Stoning in this time period was a communal execution. The reason it was communal, the whole community would get involved with it, and the whole community would pick up a stone and stone the person that they were trying to execute is because no one person wanted full blame or responsibility. So everyone threw something. This reminds me of 2026. We don't have the courage or the tenacity to talk to people one-on-one when we got a problem with them. Instead, we look for company on social media that will agree with us, not even knowing the context of the situation. Because we're not looking for answers, we're looking for volume, because we believe that the more volume we have in communicating what we feel, the righth we are. And the reality is you can scream all you want to and still be wrong. And so instead of one person taking responsibility for what happened, the whole community would get involved so that one person could not be the blame. And it says, Witnesses, they laid aside their cloaks at the feet of a young man named Saul. They laid their cloaks at the feet of Saul so that they would have no restrictions on their arms to throw harder. And they acted together in this mob-style execution. Because shared cruelty creates false innocence. And you can run in a pack and you can run along with your little crew and your little circle and your little clique and still be wrong. But we think agreement equals truth, and it does not. You can all be wrong at the same time. Shared cruelty, it creates false innocence. Here's the reality and a revelation that we find in this passage. While they were laying garments at the feet of Saul, grace was already preparing itself to lay itself at the feet of Saul as well for the call that was on his life. So as Saul is watching this murder take place, this murder would mark him in a greater manner than he would currently realize. And so it's important not just how we live, but listen to me. Also in how we die. Because in how we die, it can serve as a testimony to the one true living God. How could he have such faith and such boldness? And how could he have such clarity? And how could he pray that God would forgive those who are in the act of stoning him if he did not have a revelation of who Jesus was? Point number one is this Saul watched a man die well, and that vision made it harder to keep living wrong. When you see someone live their life as a reflection, as a mirror, as a model of Jesus Christ, it should make you feel bad for living wrong. You ever notice how when you are pursuing Jesus and you're doing things in a manner of righteousness and people that are around you don't want to pursue Jesus and don't want to do things the right way, they they stop putting themselves around you. I've noticed this trend in my own life that when I'm headed towards Jesus and I'm doing things according to the plan and the purpose he designs for me, certain people that don't want to go in the same direction with me. I don't have to cut them off, they just fall off themselves. We get so so bogged down with asking God, remove this person, remove that person, remove this person out of my life. No, you just keep growing, you just keep pursuing Jesus, you just keep advancing the kingdom of God, and they will eventually fall off because anyone that is not pursuing Jesus, while you are pursuing Jesus, will not roll with you long. He saw he he came to approve this death of Stefan, unknowingly attending his funeral to his old identity. Sitting there approving, watching, applauding the death and the murder of Stefan, not knowing that this would be a seed that would change his life and his eternity and his advancement and his uh the theology and his perspective of Jesus Christ for the rest of his life. And I love this because it teaches me and all those stones hit Stefan's body, they could not touch Stefan's soul. And people may be able to talk about you, people may be able to backstab you, and people may even physically be able to hurt you, but they cannot touch your soul. They can't determine where you go and how you spend eternity, but you can determine based upon your reaction or response to them. Notice Stefan never pays attention to the people that are stoning him. Because his eyes are fixed on Jesus. Y'all pay too much attention to who's talking about you, and not enough attention to the person that's delivered you and has lifted you above what they're saying about you. When you know that what they're saying has no validity or truth, you don't even have to entertain the conversation because you know you know what is true and what is not true. The the way you get in trouble is you get into a debate with a person that's lying about you. And then people started to ask the question is it true? Saul, he stood with killers. But heaven had already marked him for kingdom use. You'll notice about your life that some people they arrive to destroy God's love for you, only to leave carrying what God planted in you. Verse 59 is so powerful. It starts off by saying, and they went on stoning Stephan. This text emphasizes continued violence. Their rage was persistent. They could not stand the fact that he did not even address what they were doing to him because of the God at work in him. But notice this, while stones keep falling, prayer kept rising. As they continued to stone him, he prayed louder. As he called on the Lord, he calls on the name of Jesus, and he asks his Lord Jesus to receive his spirit. This is one of the clearest, earliest testimonies to the divinity and the exaltation of Jesus Christ. How can a man have such conviction while he is being killed to call in the name of the Lord because he's had an encounter with Jesus that cannot be explained? Some of us are waiting for Jesus to explain himself to us instead of asking Jesus to allow us to encounter him. He believes that Jesus is a reign. His body is collapsing, but his faith is composed. Look at me. At some point in your life, this body is going to fail you. At some point in your life, this body is going to give up on you, and you will take your final breath in this mortal flesh. And then you will experience at the end of this life, there is another life that is more vivid, that is more tangible, that is more real than the life you are currently living. And you get to decide where you spend eternal life. Or it is eternal damnation with the enemy. The reason he does not address his enemies is because he has an expectation that after this earthen vessel gives up on me, I will experience a life I have never experienced before. As a matter of fact, I will experience a life completely different and better than the life I am currently living. So let the cards fall as they may. You cannot stop my declaration, you cannot stop my revelation, you cannot stop my prayers. You may be able to stop my body, but you will never be able to stop my testimony. Which teaches us a very valuable truth. Point number two: Crisis does not create faith, it reveals it. And when your world is falling apart, you find out where your spirit has been anchored. You'll find out who and what you actually worship when your life begins to crumble and it is not what you anticipated and expected it to be. You will find out what God you really serve, if it's the God of the Bible or if it's the God of culture and society, if it is the God of scripture, or if it's the God of your mind and your mentality, if it's the God of what the Word of God teaches you, He should be in your life, or is it a God you've created as an idol for your life so that you could control the outcome of what it was you wanted to see? And the reality is, is if pressure steals your peace, if pressure steals your joy, if pressure steals the way you handle crisis and pain, then peace was never rooted deep enough in your life. If the enemy knows what can change you, what can turn you, what can position you in a place where you no longer reflect Jesus Christ, he will push, push that button over and over again to get you into a place where you're no longer following Jesus the way you desire to, but now you're following your flesh. And this is where a lot of people that say they believe find themselves in 2026. We confess Jesus, but we follow our flesh. What happens when this flesh is no longer able to do the things you desire to do? Who will have your attention? Who will receive your prayer? Receive the words that you say, the last and final words of your life. And he's being stoned to death, and his mentality is, God, I see your glory. I see the Son of Man standing beside the Father. Receive of my Spirit. And forgive those that do these things to me. He remained in perfect peace because he had a perfect picture of who his Savior was. Verse number sixty. It says, then falling on his knees, he cried out with a loud voice. This gives us the picture that he does not fall in defeat. He falls in surrender. The crowd sees weakness. But heaven sees worship. Be very careful. In a moment you think indeem as weakness. When heaven sees it as the strongest moment of their life. Because they're worshiping their Savior. What the crowd and the witnesses see, they think they are seeing weakness when in fact Stephen is experiencing worship. And the words that he cries out, they echo the same words Jesus pronounced on the cross. Father, forgive them. His final words, his final statement was not revenge, but mercy. That means they may have broken his body, but they could not infect his heart. Look at me. This is one of the greatest revelations in all of Scripture of a person being full of the Holy Spirit. Because it's easy for us to shout and have rah-rah moments and seasons of blessing. But will your testimony of the faithfulness of Jesus remain intact and the same when culture and society are stoning you? Whenever we think about the power of the Holy Spirit, we have a tendency to go back to Acts chapter 1, and we have a tendency to go to Acts chapter 2. But this is a great depiction of the power of the Holy Spirit at work and a person that is full of the Holy Spirit because he does not curse those that are cursing and killing him. He says, God, would you bless and forgive them? So how do you know when you are full of the Holy Spirit? When you no longer want revenge, but you desperately and consistently seek to reverence the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. How do you know that you are growing spiritually when you no longer have the mindset and the mentality to debate those who come against you and you pray for them instead? How do you know when you're actually pursuing the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords? When what they did to you no longer sets as a precedence in your mind. It says you shall receive power. After that the Holy Spirit has come upon you. Not for you just to consume, not for you just to carry, not so that you can just brag about how powerful you are, but so you could become a witness. What better witness about your life than to continue to witness in your death? Point number three is this. Killing this man. Murdering this man. They're stoning this man. But yet, and still what they are doing to him does not make him cruel. It does not make him bitter. It does not make him angry. It does not make him frustrated. Scripture says his focus is completely and solely on heaven above, seeing the glory of God and seeing the Son of Man standing at the right hand of the Father, and he asks, Jesus Christ, receive of my spirit. Then he cries out with a loud voice, have mercy on them, forgive them, for they know not what they do. And after he said that, then it says, He gave up his final breath and he went to sleep. One might ask, why is it that certain passages say that he went to sleep? Because there was an expectation written by Luke in Acts that he is not taking his final breath. And the reality for the believer is that there is no death for those that follow and are disciples of Jesus Christ. That's why we can say things like, oh, death, where is your stinging? Oh, grave, where is your victory? Death does not have any power over you. But you become a follower of Jesus Christ. And the reality is, is once you take your last breath in this earthen vessel, you will experience a life that you never thought was possible. And the streets that you walk on will be paved with gold. And so the greatest proof that grace has reached you is not that you can shout, not that you can speak in tongues, not that you can cry, not that you can dance until your wig is cricket, not that you come out your shoes, not that you take your suit jacket off, not that you can dress, not that you can do all these different things and have all these different church cliches, is that you are a reflection of the grace of Jesus Christ even until your death. And this level of grace is given to those who receive. Anybody can shout when they're blessed. Maturity. Maturity, it whispers mercy when you are bleeding. When is the last time you prayed for those that cursed you? When is the last time you prayed for those that get on social media and they they're so tough on social media and they talk about you and they got their little cloud of witnesses talking about you, but you you don't talk back, you just pray for them. God bless them beyond their wildest expectations. I pray that you grab a hold of their heart, God. I pray that you would bless them beyond their wildest dreams. I pray that they would pursue you all the days of their life. I pray that you would change them and transform them until God tells you to no longer pray those things. But when is the last time you prayed for those that curse you? See, see, we we too busy going back and forth to realize that you have the greatest gift given to humanity at work on the inside of you. And when you are full of wisdom and full of the Holy Spirit, you no longer speak for yourself, you no longer make moves for just yourself. You you now speak on behalf of the King of glory and his kingdom, and you're no longer living for your own selfish desires and your own ambition and your own ego and your own pride. You're living for a greater cause, and that cause is to advance the gospel of Jesus Christ. So, reading this, reading this passage, one can automatically assume that Stephen is echoing what someone told him Jesus said on the cross. He's just regurgitating a story that was passed down from generation to generation. I don't believe that's the case. You say, Well, how can you say that that is not the case? Because theologians and historians teach us that the crucifixion of Jesus was anywhere between AD 30 and AD 33. The murder and execution of Stephan was between the uh uh time period of AD 38 and AD 40, which means that there is a gap of six to eight years between the crucifixion of Jesus and the murder of Stephan. Now look at me for a second. Six years ago, if someone would have came up to you and said, hey, this person said these nice things about you, they they they think the world of you. They like everything about you. And these are the things that they said. A, B, C, six years ago, six to eight years ago. Could you recall verbatim those nice things that were said about you? You can't recall something nice your co-worker told you last week. Well, some of you can because they're your work wife and your work husband. That's another message, though. But you don't remember what your spouse said nice about you. You don't remember what your kids said nice about you. And these are nice things that are said about you, and you can't recall them verbatim. Those are nice things that are said about you. Now let's take what your enemy has said about you eight years ago. You're not hearing it from them. You're hearing it from someone else that was in there. And then coming back to you and saying, and you gotta remember eight years. You have to remember verbatim. So I don't I don't believe that Stephan is echoing the witness testimony of someone who was at the foot of the cross when Jesus was crucified. I believe what he is saying is echoing what the Holy Spirit is saying in real time, that was the same spirit in Jesus when he was crucified, to echo that although you are physically killing my body, the gospel of Jesus Christ will continue to spread. No matter what happens to me, the gospel of Jesus Christ will continue to spread. No matter if you murder me, the gospel of Jesus Christ will continue to spread. So, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. And the witnesses hearing this that are stoning him have to stop and pay attention. We've heard this before. Stephan is not echoing what he's heard on the cassette tape, he's not going to his DVDs talking about where's the crucifixion DVD. He doesn't have a VHS, he's full of the Holy Spirit, which means he's yielded to the Holy Spirit, he's submitted to the Holy Spirit, he's surrendered to the Holy Spirit, and what the Holy Spirit wants to say, he's just a vessel and an instrument to communicate what needs to be heard by the witnesses that are within the earshot of what the Holy Spirit is saying. This is the most powerful revelation of the Holy Spirit. I believe in all of Acts, not that He came, not that He indwells us, not that He rests on us, but that He desires to fill us and we can become a reflection of Jesus Christ because He does. So hear me. According to this text, when the Spirit of God, when the Spirit of Jesus fills this man, the life of Jesus speaks again through that man. This is not Stefan speaking what he thinks. This is not Stefan putting together a sermon in real time. This is Stefan being a vessel, an instrument of the Holy Spirit, allowing the Holy Spirit to speak through him. And when you're under pressure, you won't have time to practice your little rhetoric. When you're under pressure, you won't have time to figure out the words to say. When you're under pressure, you're gonna need what you placed on the inside of your spirit, man. What you placed on the inside of your soul to come out in real time. And here's the reality some of you have been putting garbage in your soul and garbage in your spirit, so when life squeezes you, it comes out of you. But I wonder what would happen to a people who place the Spirit of God as a parody in their life, and they spend time in the word, and they spend time in worship, and they spend time in prayer, so that when life squeezes you, prayer and praise and worship in the word comes out. Will you be an echo of Jesus? Or will you be an echo of your flesh? Will you be an echo of Jesus or will you be an echo of your pain? Because the greatest proof that grace reached you is that pain, it did not make you cruel. Here's the reality for you, cruel people. If suffering makes you hateful, then pain must be your pastor. And people say all the time, I'm just tired, so I'm a little quick, I'm a little snappy today. I'm in pain, so I'm not myself. If fatigue and pain changes your character, then you need to reassess whose character you're modeling your life after. Because on the cross, Jesus says, Lord, forgive them for they know not what they do. Being stoned to death, Stefan looks up and says, Lord, receive my spirit and forgive them for they know not what they do. And so we can look at the life of Jesus and say, Okay, that's Jesus. He was perfect, he knew no sin, he was God in the flesh. I can't do what he did. But there's no excuse when we see the life of Stefan, who was not a disciple, who was not one of the 12 apostles, who was not a preacher, who was not well versed, he was a man that was used greatly by God because his mindset was if God desires it, then I'm going to do it. Reveal to me who you want me to be, Lord. And I'll become that person. Reveal in me which way you want me to go, and I'll go that way. Reveal in me what you want me to do, and I will do it. And we need to be praying that Jesus would reveal Himself to us more than we're praying that Jesus would get revenge on our behalf. Revenge feels powerful for a moment, but forgiveness stays powerful forever. Stefan, seeing the glory of God, seeing the heavens open, seeing the Son of Man standing at the right hand of the Father, he asks, Jesus, receive of my spirit, forgive them, for they know not what they do. And this teaches us something so profound, something so revelatory, something so unique that we don't really find in Scripture anywhere else. It teaches us that although he is being murdered, the Holy Spirit is communicating with heaven on the inside of him, and Jesus is communicating with him from heaven. This is a two-way conversation. How do we know this? Because scripture teaches us, according to Romans chapter 8, verse 34, and Hebrews chapter 7, verse 25, that Jesus stands at the right hand of the Father and He intercedes for us. So as Jesus is interceding for you, the Holy Spirit in you is interceding back to Jesus. So Jesus intercedes from heaven, and the Holy Spirit intercedes within us. According to Romans chapter 8, verse 26 through 27. Study it for yourself. Don't take my word for it. Get in the word for yourself so that you know what you hear is truth and not garbage. So look at the two-way conversation that's happening in the text. Jesus is interceding for Stephan, and the Holy Spirit in Stephan is interceding back to Jesus. Jesus above him interceding, and the spirit within him interceding, which means heaven speaks in both directions. Did you hear what I said? Heaven speaks in both directions. It means you don't have to have all the words figured out for heaven to speak to you, back to heaven to speak to you. We spend so much time on how we sound. Do I have the right words to say? Do I sound eloquent enough? Do I have enough duss and does and o's and oohs and ahs and e's? And do I have all the vows in my prayer? No, no. Just allow heaven to intercede in you. Back to the Spirit of God in heaven, seated on the throne so that he can communicate exactly what he desires. And Stefan being completely yielded to the Holy Spirit, full of wisdom and full of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit turned Stefan's execution into an echo of Calvary. One of the deepest insights of Acts chapter 7. It's not simply that Stefan died. It's how Stefan died, because how Stefan lived. He speaks almost verbatim, the same words Jesus spoke. Jesus says, Father, forgive them. Stephen says, Lord Jesus, I commend my spirit to you. And then he prays, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. This is not a coincidence. This is one of the clearest depictions of revelation that we could have in all of Scripture. But a man who did not physically see the crucifixion of Jesus has such a conviction that in his execution people still hear Jesus? Who do people hear come out of you when life squeezes you? Who do people see revealed in and through you when life begins to press in on you? Who do people say you follow? When they can't see the person that you follow in front of you? Will you echo the voice of Jesus? Will you echo the life that He lived that changed your life for the rest of your life? Will you be a model and a mirror and uh image bearer of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, not on the mountaintop, but in the valley? Not in seasons of plenty, but also in seasons of light. Not in seasons of good times, but also seasons of bad times. Will you continue to be faithful and consistent, not when people bless you, but when people stone you? So, one of the greatest ways you know that you are full of the Holy Spirit is not because you have power to preach. Not even because you have the power to prost. The way you know that you are full of the Holy Spirit is when you take on the very nature that resembles Christ. When you no longer sound like yourself, when you no longer look like yourself, you no longer walk like yourself, talk like yourself, you now live, walk, talk, move, breathe, have your being just like Jesus did because you are full of the Holy Spirit and full of wisdom. And no matter what season of life you're in, you echo the voice of Jesus. The reason Stefan sounded like Jesus in his death is because the Spirit had formed Jesus in him during his life. Anybody can quote Jesus in comfort, but only in your suffering can the Spirit of God make you more like Jesus and to echo his voice when you don't even know what you sound like anymore. So this passage, as we bring Acts chapter 7 to its conclusion, it reminds us that you don't rise to the level of your theology in crisis, you fall to the level of your formation that has been given to you by that theology that you say you believe in. If the words of God don't mold you, the words of God won't change you or keep you when you find yourself in the crisis of this life. The Holy Spirit is not proven by your volume. The Holy Spirit is proven by your resemblance. Some of you sound like Jesus, but you don't look like him. And it's not until you sound and resemble him that we can say that is a living, moving, walking, breathing testimony of the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. And what a life that Stefan lived. It still speaks to us. Not because we pick up on his story in the best moment of his life. We pick up on the life of Stefan in the worst moment of his life. In the worst moment of his life, it preaches hope to us that are still alive to allow us to know that you can, in fact, remain faithful when it seems like all hope is lost. He had no time to rehearse in between stones being thrown at him. He had no chance to prepare a statement. He had no time to gather his thoughts. And so what we see in scripture from what Luke gives us is statements that he said in his final time, in his final hours, in his final moments, those can only be attributed to him being full of the Holy Spirit. And so my question for you right now is when you find yourself in the worst season of your life, in the worst periods of your life, in the worst times of your life, will you echo the voice of Jesus or will you echo the things that you're going through? I want you to bow your hands. I want you to close your eyes. Maybe you are in that season. You don't know which way. Up is from down. You don't know where to find hope. You know that you've been living your life to your own standards and not the standards of Jesus. And you've led yourself astray. There's only one that can lead you, guide you, position you, where you have an opportunity to encounter and have your life changed by the Father, for scripture says the only way to the Father is through his son Jesus. Today I want you to know him to be more than just a rabbi and a good teacher. I want you to know him as your Lord and as your Savior, as your master and as your king. I want you to lift both hands right now. If you're watching online, you know you need to turn back to Jesus. I want you to put in the chats, I need to be saved. Hold those hands high. I see all those hands. I see them. I want everybody to pray this prayer after me, Lord Jesus, come into my heart, forgive me from my sins, cleanse me from my unrighteousness. For the rest of my life, I have a desire, and that desire is to please you with my life, with my decisions, with my soul, and with my spirit. So today I ask that you would save me, that you would heal me, that you would change me, that you would transform me to becoming more like you. May I look like, may I sound like, may I resemble the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. In Jesus' name. Amen and amen. Come on, if you're grateful, put your hands together. Bless the name of Jesus. How many of you are grateful for his grace and his mercy that spared you, that saved you, that lifted you, that healed you, that made you whole? Come on, if it had not been for his blood, if it had not been for his grace, if it had not been for his mercy, if it had not been for his love, that was angled towards you, where in the world would you be? May we never be so complacent that we make the things we have to do more important than the things God is doing. Are you listening to me? So don't look at moments like this as just another moment. This is a marking moment. This moment can do one of two things. It can become a monument that you look back at and say, man, look at what God used to do. Or it can become the momentum you need to continue, to get closer to Jesus and become more like him. I don't know about you, but I got my mind made up. Moments like this won't become monuments in my life. I thank God for what he has done. But man, do I have an expectation and anticipation for what he's going to do in and through your life?