Weekly Sermons

The First Martyrs Day                        Acts 7:54 – 8:4

Around A.D. 163…Felicitatas and her 7 sons.

No one has greater love than this, that someone would lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do what I command you.                                                             -John 15:13-14

You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.                         -Acts 1:8

The word for ____________________ in the Greek is the word we get martyr from.

No Christian’s goal is to die for the faith. All Christians should have as their goal to be ____________________ in our witness for the Lord. And when we are faithful in our witness for the Lord, some of us will wind up dying for the faith.

Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.                                                             -Revelation 2:10

Matthew 10:28, 32-33

 

Stephen’s faithful witness leads to his death                      7:54-60

 

Christ’s fascinating __________________ from Heaven     7:56

 

 

The gospel’s continuous __________________ on earth    8:1-4

7:58 lets us know that as Stephen was being stoned they laid their

Acts 9:1-2

For you have heard about my former way of life in Judaism: I persecuted God’s church to an extreme degree and tried to destroy it.                                                                        -Galatians 1:13

The persecution wound up sending witnessing teams out in a way the church had not yet done _________________________!

For this I suffer, to the point of being bound like a criminal; but God’s message is not bound!                                -2 Tim. 2:9

The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.                                                   -Tertullian (155-255)

Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church.”                                -Colossians 1:24

Jesus suffered to actualize salvation for those who will repent and believe; we suffer to give people ________________ to that saving message.

Those who sow in tears will reap with shouts of joy. Though one goes along weeping, carrying the bag of seed, he will surely come back with shouts of joy, carrying his sheaves.                   -Psalm 126:5-6

Felicitatas  and her 7 sons…

Januarius; Felix and Philip; Sylvanus; Alexander, Vitalis, and Martialis.