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But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. “Look,” he said, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” (Acts 7:55-56)
Stephen saw the majestic glory of God and Jesus standing at His Father’s right hand.
Four times the writer of Hebrews says that Jesus completed all of His work and “sat down“ (Hebrews 1:3, 8:1, 10:12, 12:2). Jesus Himself affirms that sitting at His Father’s right hand was the designated place of the Victorious One (Revelation 3:21).
Yet, Stephen sees Him standing at the right hand of the throne.
The Majesty of Heaven stood!
Perhaps the words of Stephen sounded so much like His own, that Jesus stood to listen to him (v. 60; Luke 23:34).
Perhaps the death of this saint was so precious that Jesus stood to welcome himhome (Psalm 116:15).
Perhaps Stephen lived and died so victoriously that Jesus stood so He could give him a place on His throne—
To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to sit with Me on My throne, just as I was victorious and sat down with My Father on His throne. (Revelation 3:21)
Jesus has prepared a place for me where He is in heavenly realms (John 14:3; Ephesians 1:20, 2:6). He longs to welcome me into His happiness forever and ever (Matthew 25:21, 23).
I want to live every moment with my mind and heart on Jesus—with my thoughts and my eyes on Him. I want to run my race so well (Colossians 3:1; Hebrews 12:2), that even if my “finish line” is as gruesome as Stephen’s or Paul’s or Jesus’ that I will cross that line into the waiting arms of my Savior’s royal welcome!
How about you? It is possible to live and run and die in a way that you, too, will receive your royal welcome.
Do not spread slanderous gossip among your people.Do not stand idly by when your neighbor’s life is threatened. I am the LORD. (Leviticus 19:16 NLT)
Slander is defined as: “The utterance of false charges or misrepresentations which defame and damage another’s reputation.” (Merriman-Webster dictionary)
I will not tolerate people who slander their neighbors. I will not endure conceit and pride. (Psalm 101:5 NLT)
Hiding hatred makes you a liar; slandering others makes you a fool. Too much talk leads to sin. Be sensible and keep your mouth shut. (Proverbs 10:18-19 NLT)
And I tell you this, you must give an account on judgment day for every idle word you speak. (Matthew 12:36)
In my book When Sheep Bite, I have a whole chapter about dealing with slanderers. In that chapter I wrote—
You might be thinking, “But I have to respond to these lies, right? I can’t just let them continue to fly around unchecked because people may start believing these falsehoods.” I think this is a very natural response, but I want to again call us to strive for a supernatural response—something we can only do if we are completely yielded to God. Just as we saw what Peter wrote about the way Jesus didn’t verbally lash out at His slanderers (1 Peter 2:23), we need to respond in the same way as our Chief Shepherd did. …
Don’t treat those who criticize and slander you as an enemy. Instead, grieve for their hardened hearts and pray for God’s mercy on them. Intercede for them to be able to acknowledge their sinful words, so they may ask God for forgiveness before His judgment inevitably falls on them. Remember that these sheep—though they are angry and attacking—are still ones for whom Jesus shed His blood. The natural response may be a desire to see our slanderers eternally punished, but the supernatural response is to desire for their soul to be eternally in God’s presence. (Excerpt from When Sheep Bite)
God-fearing people are not to listen to slander nor to slander another. Every human is created in the image of God—to slander another is to slander his or her Creator.
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My wife was a cheerleader in high school, so she taught me to appreciate some of the finer points of the integrated movements and stunts that the sideline cheerleaders performed at each game. But it wasn’t until our daughter moved from her first sideline cheer season to her first competitive cheer season that I really took notice. Competitive cheer is cheerleading on a whole different level—the stunts and tumbling runs, the coordinated movements, the precise way the words of the cheer are punctuated by the claps, stomps, and jumps of the cheerleaders is quite impressive!
In many ways, the relationship of the three Persons of the Godhead are much like a coordinated dance. Which part of the Trinity you may see at any one moment is based on your viewpoint, as you can quickly see the other Persons of the Trinity at the exact same moment. The Father revealing Himself in the Son; the Son sending the Holy Spirit to be in us; the Spirit drawing people to the Father through the Son. Each Person of the Godhead revealing and promoting and glorifying each Other!
It’s absolutely awesome! And yet what is even more astounding to me is that we are invited to participate in this Spiritual Dance (see John 7:33, 14:16-17, 16:14-15, 17:20-21).
Peter says we are a part of this dance; actually he calls it more of a chorus. The word “add” in 2 Peter 1:5 is the Greek word epichorego. The root word (chorego) sounds like “chorus.” But it really means to be a chorus leader who supplies everything for the dance/chorus. As v. 3 tells us, “His diving power has given us everything we need” to participate in this Spiritual Dance.
As we have already seen, Jesus has provided everything we need except for our effort—our diligence to learn this dance and become more proficient in it. The idea of adding is really implied throughout these next verses. We could read vv. 5-7 like this—
“Make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and [add] to [your] goodness, knowledge; and [add] to [your] knowledge, self-control; and [add] to [your] self-control, perseverance; and [add] to [your] perseverance, godliness; and [add] to [your] godliness, mutual affection; and [add] to [your] mutual affection, love.”
The supply of these virtues is not ours, but the “every effort” to ask, receive, and apply is ours. I cannot supply myself. But faith from God allows me to access the One full of grace (remember what we saw in John 1:16).
Our Father already knows what we have need of (Matthew 6:8), so we could ask something like, “Where is my goodness lacking?” And when the Holy Spirit reveals that to us, we can then ask our Savior—Who is full and overflowing with goodness—to impart to us what we need.
So my “every effort” is not supplying what I lack but asking to be supplied what I lack. The only thing keeping me less than full of any of these virtues is my lack of effort to ask and then apply what I am supplied.
The Holy Spirit imparts faith to us to believe for salvation. Then there is a faith we must “make every effort” to strengthen. This is the faith on full display in Hebrews 11.
Faith is:
conviction of the truth revealed in the Bible
believing that what God calls us to do, He will also empower us to do
being convinced that Jesus is our Example
trusting the Holy Spirit to conform us to this image of Jesus—to reveal Christlikeness in us
The first virtue Peter lists—the first virtue that our faith believes God to form in us—is goodness. This is moral excellence (NLT), good character (MSG), and virtue—excellence, resolution, Christian energy (AMPC).
Since Peter uses the same word to describe Jesus in v. 3 (His own glory and goodness), people around us should see our growth as Christian gentlemen or gentlewomen.
Remember that 2 Peter is written to saints about their interaction with other saints. Being around other faith-filled gentlemen and gentlewomen is an excellent training ground for all of us. It matters how we speak to each other. It matters that we treat each other chivalrously and with good manners. It matters that we are kind and polite to each other.
Because when we take this gentlemanly or gentlewomanly behavior into the world, it gets noticed. So make every effort to develop the goodness of Jesus in your life. Let this community of saints be the place where your training takes place.
Check out all of the other sermons in this series from 2 Peter by clicking here.
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Having worked in and consulted with various businesses, I know there are a variety of configurations of businesses that people will choose for different reasons—there are S-corps and LLCs, and there are several types of partnerships.
The two most basic partnership arrangements are a general partnership and a limited partnership. In a general partnership, all of the partners share equally in the risk and the reward, and all partners have a say in how the business is run. Typically, partners with more shares of stock have more “voting power” in making decisions, and they will usually benefit more if the company is successful.
In a limited partnership, one general partner manages all the decisions, with the limited partners being merely passive investors. The limited partners can invest as much or as little as they feel comfortable doing, but they don’t have a say on how the business is run. If the general partner is a savvy operator, everyone will be rewarded handsomely; if the general partner isn’t quite as successful as others had hoped, the limited partners’ losses are limited to only as much as they invested.
Although these types of business relationships didn’t have these names in the time Peter was writing, he used language that would be very familiar with today’s business attorneys when he wrote that we “may participate in the divine nature.”Participate literally means partnership—it’s the same word Peter knew for his partners in his fishing business (Luke 5:9-10).
I believe Peter would call our partnership with Jesus a spiritual limited partnership, with Jesus as the General Partner. He is the One who makes the decisions and calls the shots.
But what about us as “limited partners”? What investment can we make to this partnership? Only what Jesus has already given us. We saw this last week—HIS divine power has GIVEN US everything we need for life and godliness (see 2 Peter 1:3-4).
This is unheard of in today’s partnerships! The General Partner is giving the limited partners everything they need to invest in the partnership, and then He is allowing the limited partners to reap all of the rewards of His work (see Matthew 19:29)!
Last week we said Jesus did the work so that we could do the work. We could modify this to say, Jesus gave us everything we need to reap the rewards of this partnership.
The amazing benefit of this partnership is stated in the next verse: He has given us His very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature (v. 4).
Look at some blessings…
recipients of the Holy Spirit—Galatians 3:14; Ephesians 1:13
heirs of His Kingdom—Galatians 3:29
eternal life—Titus 1:2; 1 John 2:25
a perfect Mediator—Hebrews 9:15 AMPC
power to access every single promise in His Word—2 Corinthians 1:20
Peter says we are participating in His divine nature. Literally, Theios physis. The NLT says, “the promises that enable you to participate in the divine nature.”
In his first letter, Peter quoted Leviticus, when God said, “Be holy, because I am holy” (see Leviticus 11:44-45; 1 Peter 1:15-16). Investing in this divine partnership releases to us the promises that empower us to participate—to be a partner in—God’s perfect holiness!
Our participation in this divine partnership allows us to “escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires” (v. 4b).The word participate or partnership can be used negatively (1 Corinthians 10:18-21). But Peter uses it positively. Prior to salvation our desires aligned with demonic desires, but now a new and infinitely superior power is at work in us. This power changes our desires from temporal things to eternal things (Galatians 5:17 NLT).
Jesus told a story of a master who gave money to his to invest. The ones called wise were also welcomed into the master’s presence forever. They realized that their best investment was to use what their master had given them in partnership with their master, so they went all in. They invested everything their master had given them.
Peter tells us essentially the same thing: Be all in with the investment Jesus has given you! Don’t hold anything back—make every effort. Don’t let Jesus be merely your Savior, but let Him be your Lord. Trust Him as the General Partner to do what is best. Give Him complete control of all the great and precious promises He has given you, and then allow the Holy Spirit to make you holy inside and out!
Check out all of the other messages in our series based on 2 Peter called Friends of the Faith.
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This may be the single most well-known word in the world!
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What’s more impactful: living a good life or doing good deeds? Let’s talk about that on this episode of The Podcast.
I mentioned that the apostle Peter’s first letter was written to Christians who are citizens of heaven while living on earth. I taught a whole series about this called Aliens and Strangers.
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There’s a scene in The Princess Bride that rings true for us. As the grandfather is reading the story to his sick grandson, he has just revealed that the hero in the story has died. The grandson stops his grandfather, “Wait, grandpa, you’re reading that wrong.” This young man wants what all of us want: For the good guys to be vindicated and for the bad guys to get what’s coming to them.
The next Royal Psalm assures us that our Judge will perfectly balance His scales of justice. King David (sort of) gives us a picture of this.
King David’s son Absalom had usurped the throne, and David is fleeing the city with his trusted inner circle. Along the way he is confronted by a man named Shimei, who was from the same family as King Saul (2 Samuel 16:5-12). David gives us a good foretaste of King Jesus in the way he initially responds to this attack (19:18b-23). Sadly, David apparently hung on to these slights and asked his son Solomon to keep an eye on Shimei (1 Kings 2:8-9). So I’m going to guess that our Royal Psalm was written between these two incidents.
Psalm 98 is a call to sing our praise to our King and Judge. First, we are to sing to Him and about Him because of what Hehas already done:
He has done marvelous things (v. 1)
He has provided salvation (v. 1)
He has made His salvation known (v. 2)
He has revealed His righteousness (v. 2)
He has remembered His love for us (v. 3)
He has remembered His faithfulness toward us (v. 3)
the earth has seen His salvation (v. 3)
Then we are called to keep on singing in anticipation of what He is going to do: we shout for joy and burst into jubilant song (v. 4), make music (vv. 5-6a), shout for joy (v. 6b), and see creation praising all around us (vv. 7-9a).
All of this singing because He comes to judge? Does that sound right?
It sounds right when judgment is in the hand of the Perfect Judge. The Bible describes judges who are looking for bribes, or who are swayed by personal feelings (like King David), or Jesus even identified a judge who didn’t fear God or care about people.
But God on His throne isn’t any of these things! Isaiah prophesies Christ’s first Advent as one of peace (Isaiah 42:1-4). Even when Jesus was maligned and mistreated even more hatefully—and without having done anything wrong—than David, He still didn’t retaliate (1 Peter 2:21-23).
Jesus entrusted Himself to Him Who judges justly, which is what Psalm 98 calls us to do.
He comes to judge [vindicate] the earth [creation], which has been groaning for this (Romans 8:21-22).
He will judge [acquit or declare guilty] the world and its peoples (Matthew 25:31-32; Revelation 20:12).
His judgement will be with righteousness and equity—
righteousness = the perfect standard
equity = the perfect consequence (see also Isaiah 42:10-13)
In light of the perfect judgment from the perfect King that is coming, how should we live today?
He will handle retribution then—so don’t retaliate today (Isaiah 11:1-5).
He will handle vindication then—so forgive today (1 Peter 2:23; Luke 23:34).
He will call you to give an account then—so change your words and actions today (Matthew 12:36).
He will forgive blood-washed saints then—so forgive today (Matthew 6:14-15).
He will judge perfectly then—so don’t be judgmental today (James 5:9; Romans 2:1-3).
He will reward perfectly then—so don’t look for applause from the world today (2 Timothy 4:7-8; Matthew 25:34).
Our King has won our salvation, and He is going to balance the scales perfectly when He returns, so we should be singing His praise every day until His return!
For this is how God loved the world: He gave His one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16 NLT)
God’s Son became flesh and blood so that we could have the ultimate Gift of life forever in His presence.
Because God’s children are human beings—made of flesh and blood—the Son also became flesh and blood. For only as a human being could He die, and only by dying could He break the power of the devil, who had the power of death. (Hebrews 2:14 NLT)
Being freed from sin, God calls us His children!
See how very much our Father loves us, for He calls us His children, and that is what we are! (1 John 3:1 NLT)
As our Father, He knows all that His children need before we even ask Him in prayer.
Don’t be like them, for your Father knows exactly what you need even before you ask Him! Pray like this: Our Father in heaven, may Your name be kept holy. (Matthew 6:8-9 NLT)
“Let this be the one thing our heart desires—that in everything the will of God be done in us and by us, as it is done in heaven.” —Andrew Murray
Our Father’s good gifts provide all that we need to do His will.
Now may the God of peace—who brought up from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great Shepherd of the sheep, and ratified an eternal covenant with His blood—may He equip you with all you need for doing His will. May He produce in you, through the power of Jesus Christ, every good thing that is pleasing to Him. All glory to Him forever and ever! Amen. (Hebrews 13:20-21 NLT)
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Although no one can truly verify the accuracy of this story, it seems to fit the character of what we do know about Alexander the Great. This powerful leader was walk-in among the camp during the night and came upon a soldier who was supposed to be on guard duty. Except Alexander found him dozing off.
“Soldier, what is your name?” he demanded, bringing the sleeping soldier quickly awake.
“Alexander,” he stammered weakly.
Alexander stepped closer to the young man and repeated, “What is your name?”
“My name is Alexander, sir,” the soldier said a little more clearly this time.
Now, almost nose to nose, Alexander asked again, “What is your name?”
This time the soldier quietly said, “My name, sir, is Alexander.”
Alexander the Great then looked intently at the young soldier, “Either change your name or change your conduct.”
That story may or may not be true, but Brennan Manning’s words are most assuredly true: “The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians: who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, walk out the door, and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.” We must take an honest assessment of our lifestyle and then either change our name or change our conduct.
Our next Royal Psalm is Psalm 96. This psalm begins by echoing the words of praise the King David sang on the day the ark of the covenant of the Lord was brought to Jerusalem (see 1 Chronicles 16:23-29). This day may have been the pinnacle of this great king’s reign. Immediately after celebrating the return of the ark of the covenant of the Lord, God makes the promise to King David that his family will continue to reign until the coming of King Jesus (1 Chronicles 17).
Although this is a celebratory day for Israel—God’s chosen people—David’s psalm of thanks reverberates into all the world. It is David’s desire that not just the Jewish people, but all people know King Jesus as their Lord.
In our last Royal Psalm, we saw an invitation give to us three times to come into the presence of the King of kings (Psalm 95:1, 2, 6). But we are not to stay in the tabernacle with Him—Luke 9:28-33; 10:1. David uses words like: all the earth, the nations, all peoples, families of nations, the world (vv. 1, 2, 7, 9, 10, 13).
In the middle of Psalm 96 is our proclamation to the world. We have the word ascribe (vv. 7-8) three times and an invitation in the word come. Ascribe means, “Come! Come on! Come see His glory and strength!” Then just as we have seen His glory and strength for ourselves, we invite the world to bring an offering and come into His courts.
T.M. Moore wrote, “People in the unbelieving world have witnessed a good bit of hypocrisy, shallowness, disingenuousness, dishonesty, and corruption among the members of the Church. Many of them have installed a spam filter on their brains which automatically blocks anyone calling himself a Christian as having anything meaningful or significant to say.”
So these action words in Psalm 96 are our words backed up or supported by our lifestyle.
Sing (3x) in vv. 1-2. Songs naturally come from our lips because of what is in our minds and hearts. Make sure you are singing to the LORD a new song of His moment by moment goodness to you.
Praise His name (v. 2) is better translated as bless (see NKJV, AMPC, Strong’s). Bless means to not only celebrate our King, but then to bless other people in the name of the Lord. In the New Testament Greek, bless means to say good words—say good words to people about your good King.
Proclaim His salvation (v. 2). …You are a chosen people. You are royal priests, a holy nation, God’s very own possession. As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for He called you out of the darkness into His wonderful light. (1 Peter 2:9 NLT)
Declare His glory…His marvelous deeds (vv. 3-6). Recount God’s miracles to you again and again.
Worship the LORD (v. 9). The Old English spelling was worth-ship—find ways to tell people how invaluable our King’s blessings are.
Say… “The LORD reigns” (v. 10). Do your words and attitude express that God is on His throne?
C.S. Lewis wrote, “Fine feelings, new insights, greater interest in ‘religion’ mean nothing unless they make our actual behavior better; just as in an illness ‘feeling better’ is not much good if the thermometer shows that your temperature is still going up. In that sense the outer world is quite right to judge Christianity by its results. Christ told us to judge by results. A tree is known by its fruit; or, as we say, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. When we Christians behave badly, or fail to behave well, we are making Christianity unbelievable to the outside world. … Our careless lives set the outer world talking; and we give them grounds for talking in a way that throws doubt on the truth of Christianity itself.”
Jesus called us to this (Matthew 5:16). Let’s be sure our words and lifestyle are an invitation to our King that no one can ignore.
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Think about this: How do your favorite books end? How about the ending of your favorite movies?
I love listening to old-time radio shows, and I can quote the endings because they are all identical.
In the Bible, how do the epistles end? Most end with the author passing along his greetings, speaking a doxology like, “The Lord be with you,” or even a simple “Amen.”
Now listen to the last two verses of the Book of James: My brothers and sisters, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring that person back,remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of their way will save them from death and cover over a multitude of sins (5:19-20).
James is a general epistle—not written to a particular congregation—so it was intended to be read to saints everywhere. The same is true for the Gospels:
Matthew: Jesus commissions His followers to go into all the world and preach the Gospel and then He promises, “I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:19-20).
Mark: “Then the disciples went out and preached everywhere” (Mark 16:20).
Luke-Acts: “And they stayed continually at the temple, praising God” (Luke 24:53); they were baptized in the Holy Spirit and more saints went out preaching (Acts 2); Paul “proclaimed the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ—with all boldness and without hindrance!” (Acts 28:31).
John: “Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written” (John 21:25). The implication, I believe, is that we are to do this as well—“Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in Me will do the works I have been doing and they will do even greater things than these because I am going to the Father” (John 14:12).
So James writes instructions to the saints in this same posture of an ongoing work. He writes his epistle as a cycle—
He ends with”brothers and sisters” (Greek: adelphos in 5:19-20), and starts with adelphos (1:2),
He ends with a call to prayer (5:13-15), and opens with a call to prayer (1:5-7).
He ends with a call to patience in trouble (5:7-11), and he begins teaching saints about trials (1:2-4).
He ends with encouragement of how maturing saints can triumph over difficult situations (5:16), and he opens with the word of encouragement that our difficult situations serve to mature us (1:12).
In between these bookends is fabulous counsel for daily living: Dealing with temptation, learning from the Word, watching our words, letting our day deeds reflect our faith, growing in wisdom, and seizing each day for God’s glory.
There is no finish line for me while God still has me on earth. If I’m still here, He’s still working on me so that He can work through me. We start our Christian journey justified—a one-time event where we’ve been made just as if we had never sinned. We end out journey when we are glorified—a one-time event when we arrive in Heaven. But along the journey we are being sanctified—an going process (that I like to call saint-ification) the whole time we’re on earth.
Throughout this sanctification process, we are continually growing. See Psalm 92:12-14—
The righteous will flourish like a palm tree, they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon, planted in the house of the LORD, they will flourish in the courts of our God.They will still bear fruit in old age, they will stay fresh and green.
If you’re still breathing, you should still be…
…maturing through trials
…bearing increasingly more fruit
…useful for the Kingdom
…invaluable to the Body of Christ
So take a deep breath.
If you’re still breathing, God still has a plan for you. Don’t worry about the finish line (God will take care of that), but keep learning, growing, and serving all the way to the end.
But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. “Look,” he said, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” (Acts 7:55-56) 
