Notes:
STEPHEN: FULL OF FAITH AND POWER
Part Two
Acts 7
Intro: What’s the longest speech/sermon you have ever sat through? (If it’s not one of mine, I can fix that!) The longest recorded speech in the NT is Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5-7). The second longest belongs to the disciple Stephen (Acts 7), who became the church’s first martyr.
My aim is to show you from Acts 6-9 that we have the same privileges and responsibilities as the believers we read about. We are indwelled and empowered by the same Holy Spirit. We should expect the same kind of impact in the world.
Stephen was “full of the Spirit and wisdom” (6:3). He himself is then described as “full of faith and of the Holy Spirit” (6:5), and now he is re-introduced as a man “full of faith and power.”
What kind of power did Stephen have? I have identified six different categories. In part one they were: signs & wonders, wisdom to defend the faith, and patience in the face of slander. Three more will be revealed in the text today. Remember that Stephen was accused of speaking against Moses and against God. Stephen will not defend himself, but he will speak about God/Moses.
STEPHEN’S POWER FROM GOD:
(4) Command of Old Testament theology (7:1-43)
Stephen surveys Israel’s history focusing on three major characters: Abraham (7 verses), Joseph (8 verses), & Moses (27 verses).
Abraham (7:2-8)
Stephen began his address noting that their history began in a pagan land. God appeared to their first patriarch, Abraham, in Mesopotamia (modern day southern Iraq). He honors God’s transcendence. Yahweh can find a servant anywhere on earth.
He calls the LORD, “the God of glory (v.2)” in his opening statement. Near the end of his address, Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, gazes into heaven and sees the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God (v.55). (bookended by glory!)
The LORD tells Abraham to leave the land of his unbelief, and go to a new land, and He would show Abraham the way.
Acts 7:5 And God gave him no inheritance in it, not even enough to set his foot on. But even when Abraham had no child, He promised to give it to him for a possession, and to his descendants after him.
Stephen leaves his talk about Abraham with the patriarch having only a promise from God – no child yet, no land in his possession.
Joseph (7:9-16)
Curiously, Stephen skips Abraham’s son and grandson in favor of his most notable great grandson. Why Joseph?
He is mistreated by his brothers. They refuse to believe that God spoke to him. And they reject him outright, selling him into slavery and making it look to their father that Joseph was killed by animals.
He finds himself imprisoned in Egypt. He’s literally been rejected by the children of Israel, and he is in captivity outside the land of promise. But Stephen specifies: Joseph had God’s presence. Joseph had God’s help. Joseph had God’s gifts.
Acts 7:9-10 And the patriarchs, becoming envious, sold Joseph into Egypt. But God was with him and delivered him out of all his troubles, and gave him favor and wisdom in the presence of Pharaoh, king of Egypt; and he made him governor over Egypt and all his house.
What his enemies had meant for evil, Joseph’s God had meant for his good.
There is a direct parallel between Joseph and Stephen himself. Both men were full of the Spirit and wisdom, and both oversaw the daily distribution of food to people who could not survive without it.
Acts 7:14-15 Then Joseph sent and called his father Jacob and all his relatives to him, seventy-five people. So Jacob went down to Egypt; and he died, he and our fathers.
Jacob, the father of Israel’s twelve tribes, dies outside the promised land. What has happened to promise of God?
Acts 7:17-18 But when the time of the promise drew near which God had sworn to Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt till another king arose who did not know Joseph.
The stage is now set for God to raise up another leader who will deliver the children of Israel.
Moses (7:17-43)
By remarkable intervention from God, the baby Moses survived when the Pharaoh who did not know Joseph began to exterminate the Israelite slaves in Egypt.
For 40 years Moses is raised and trained by Egypt’s best. He lives in the palace and looks like any other privileged Egyptian.
But Moses is a Hebrew. At 40 years old he checks on his people who have been slaves there his entire life. He began to understand that his advantages had placed him in the perfect spot to help his fellow Israelites.
Acts 7:25 For he supposed that his brethren would have understood that God would deliver them by his hand, but they did not understand.
Do they embrace this potential deliverer? No. Like Joseph before him, Moses is rejected by his own kinsmen.
Acts 7:27 But he who did his neighbor wrong pushed him away, saying, “Who made you a ruler and a judge over us?”
Moses lacks the character and seasoning needed to lead 2 million people out of more than 400 years of slavery. He exiles himself for another 40 years. And then God shows up. He appears to Moses in a burning bush and calls to Him.
Acts 7:33 Then the LORD said to him, “Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground.”
God appeared to Moses outside Israel and apart from any sanctuary. What is the point? God’s presence is not tied to a particular land or building.
His opponents begin to “get it.” They have accused him of speaking against Moses.
“this Moses” (v.35) “this is that Moses” (v.37) “This is he…whom our fathers would not obey, but rejected” (vv.38-39)
Acts 7:37 “This is that Moses who said to the children of Israel, ‘The LORD your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your brethren. Him you shall hear.’”
After 36 verses of OT history, Stephen prepares his accusers for the gospel. Who is the Prophet like Moses that Israel had been waiting for?
But from the very beginning, these descendants of Abraham had wasted no time in forgetting God and rebelling against Him.
With their own hands, they fashioned a golden calf, declared it to be their new god, and began worshiping it almost immediately after Moses brought the tablets of the 10 Commandments down from the mountaintop.
Acts 7:41 And they made a calf in those days, offered sacrifices to the idol, and rejoiced in the works of their own hands.
Stephen had delivered a master class on the essence of the OT Scriptures. He summarized 3,000 years of God’s dealings with His chosen people in 43 verses. Stephen knew the Bible. Do you know it?
A.W. Tozer – Whatever keeps me from my Bible is my enemy, however harmless it may appear to be.
Burk Parsons – If our Bibles remain sitting on our shelves and studied only by academics, they might as well have remained in Latin and chained to pulpits.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon – There is dust enough on some of your Bibles to write “damnation” with your fingers.
(5) Courage to say the hard things (7:44-53)
Stephen has methodically built the case that the children of Israel had never gotten their religion right.
“You have misunderstood Moses’ God all along” (7:44-50)
You thought you had God all to yourselves – confined first in the Tabernacle and then in the Temple.
Acts 7:48 However, the Most High does not dwell in temples made with hands, as the prophet says:
Acts 7:49-50 “Heaven is My throne, and earth is My footstool. What house will you build for Me? says the LORD, or what is the place of My rest? Has My hand not made all these things?”
Not only were they wrong about God, but they were also wrong about themselves.
“You have no righteous heritage to claim” (7:51-53)
Acts 7:51 You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you.
Never have you recognized the voice of God. It’s as if there is a piece of skin covering your ears and defiling your hearts.
You have followed in the footsteps of your ancestors by constantly refusing the ministry of God’s Spirit when He calls.
Stephen’s speech may have been direct. It may have been offensive. But it was a loving appeal because he told the truth.
Eph 4:15 but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ—
(6) Content for God to vindicate him (7:54-60)
Quite simply, Stephen did not defend himself. He left that up to God. He died empowered by God to show supernatural restraint. Instead of lashing out at the evil ones who were unjustly murdering him, Stephen spoke to God on their behalf.
Acts 7:59 And they stoned Stephen as he was calling on God and saying, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”
Acts 7:60 Then he knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not charge them with this sin.” And when he had said this, he fell asleep.
If you often find yourself acting as your own defense attorney, know that you are not filled with God’s Spirit in that moment.
Here’s is what the NT says about Jesus when He was falsely accused and mistreated…
1 Peter 2:23 who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously
Application:
“I want power of knowing the Scriptures, being familiar with them and having command of the truth.”
“I want the power to say the hard things in the right moment with the gentle love of God.”
“I want to walk in the power of trusting in God to defend me or vindicate me.”
Transcript:
All right, find acts, chapter seven in your bibles. Acts, chapter seven started a new series last week. It's gonna take us through the middle of October. Acts, chapter six, seven, eight, and nine. I'm Trevor Davis.
I'm GCC's pastor. This is the time in our meeting on the Lord's day where we open the scriptures and teach God's word because we believe God's word is. I want to ask you a question. What is the longest speech or sermon you've ever sat through? I didn't say endure, I just said sat through.
And if it's not one of mine, I can fix that, right? So. But, you know, I was talking to my middle son last night. We were driving back late from a football game, seeing our oldest son. It's midnight, and Grif's always up, and so he's talking to Angie and keeping us awake on the road, and he said, you know, dad, I have this professor at college, at Mississippi State that I love, and I don't love this guy.
This professor. He has two separate engineering classes in the same semester with him. He says, what I love about him is his lectures and his teaching, but what I don't love is he gives us these quizzes that are the hardest things I've ever taken, and he's trying to get us to fail. So he enjoys the lectures. It's the testing that he doesn't like.
But I want to ask you a question. What's the longest one you've ever sat through? The longest one longest message or speech I've ever made from this pulpit was not on a Sunday morning. It was on a Friday night at one of our missionary conferences. And I preached on David and Goliath, and I just told the church everything I'd ever studied or knew about that.
And some of your lives were changed, and all of you loved it and all of that. But anyway. But we all agree that sometimes you can go too long. But the longest recorded speech or sermon in the whole Bible. Excuse me, in the New Testament, is Jesus Sermon on the Mount.
And it covers three whole chapters. Matthew, chapter five, chapter six, and chapter seven. But what if I told you that the second longest speech, the second longest sermon in the New Testament, wasn't delivered by an apostle or the Lord or a church leader with any kind of official title? It was delivered by a regular guy, a disciple named Stephen. We introduced him last week in part one.
This is part two. Stephen makes the second longest talk in all the New Testament, and the response was dramatic. They picked up stones and they killed him for it. And you can find that speech in just about all of acts chapter seven in your Bible. Acts chapter seven covers 60 verses, and 50 of them at least, is Stephen's sermon.
It was long and glorious. Now, this sermon that I'm getting ready to give you is not going to be as long as Stephen's. I'm going to summarize it. I can't preach 60 verses in 30 to 35 minutes, but I can tell you what it's about, because my aim is to show all of us in the next few weeks from acts chapter six, acts chapter seven, acts chapter eight, and acts chapter nine, that all of us that are believers have the same privileges and the same responsibilities as the believers that we read about in the Bible. I want to get you to stop thinking that when you read your Bible, those who are a special class of people living in a special dispensation of time, that we're supposed to read in the Bible and look at like they are displays or exhibits in a museum, and go, well, that's amazing.
Instead, we should read our scriptures, see what God did in the lives of regular believers, and go, God wants to do the same thing in my life, and he wants me to have the same impact in my world as they had in theirs. You're one of those special people, and you're living in a special time. That's the essence of what I'm talking about the next three or four weeks. We were introduced to Stephen last week, and we found out that he's full of faith and power. He was also full of the spirit and wisdom.
But when we said that he's full of faith and power, I told you that in my exegesis, my study of the second half of acts chapter six, and all of acts chapter seven, I've identified six categories of the power of God that Stephen walked in every day. And if he walked in those six, we can walk in those six. I gave you the first three last week, and they were. Stephen walked in signs and wonders. He walked in the wisdom to defend the faith, and he walked in patience in the face of mistreatment and slander of his own personal character.
In our text today, we're going to have three more of these categories revealed. And I want to remind you that Stephen is now addressing what he's being accused of. The religious leaders in Jerusalem accused Stephen of speaking against Moses and God. Moses and God. Stephen's not going to defend himself in this long speech, but he will speak instead of against Moses and God.
He's going to speak for Moses and God. And as we walk through this, and as I summarize this long sermon of Stephen's and give you three more categories of the power of God for us to walk in, I want you to be impressed with what God can do with a regular Joe who believes in him. That's this story of Stephen. So if you're ready, say yes. Now.
I told you, it's a list of six. I gave you one, two, and three last week. So this week we start with number four. Here's the fourth category of the power of God that Stephen walked in. My brothers and my sisters, he had command of Old Testament theology.
In his speech, he's going to summarize the major story arc of the Old Testament. He's going to do it in about 50 verses, and he's going to pick and choose the Bible characters that suit the purposes of his talk under the power of God's spirit. And you're going to see that Stephen knew his Bible. And the question is going to be, do you know your Old Testament? Because listen very carefully.
You cannot understand the New Testament's message. If you don't understand the Old Testament's message. The reason why is your New Testament constantly quotes the Old Testament. In fact, there are some letters in your New Testament that all they are are a Bible commentary about an Old Testament passage. So when Stephen's power from God is that he has this grasp of the Old Testament, then you can hear the spirit of God crying out to us believers saying, you need this too.
Stephen surveys Israel's history, and he focuses on three dudes. Three guys. He focuses on Abraham. He gives seven verses to Abraham, and then he moves to Joseph in Genesis, and he gives him eight verses. And then he spends the rest of the time talking about Moses, 27 verses.
So we start with Abraham. You guys up for the task? Couldn't hear you. I heard this side of the room. Should I just preach over here?
All right. Are we Christians? Are we hungry for God's word? Because, you know, the sooner I finish this, we get to go home, right? It's like, talk back to me, you know, help me preach somebody.
So here we go. Are you getting it? You're getting it. Okay. So command of the Old Testament.
The first thing I want to tell you about Stephen's speech is how he started it and how he finished it. In verse two, he calls the Lord the God of glory. And in verse 55, it reads like this. Near the end of his address, Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, gazes into heaven and sees the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. So he opens with the God of glory.
He ends with seeing the glory of goddess. Stephen's speech is bookended by glory. He did that on purpose. And he begins his address to the foremost Bible. Teach scholars and religious leaders in Israel.
71 of these guys, they're all mad at him. And he says, did you know that our history began not in a good place? It began in a pagan land.
God first appeared to the first patriarch named Abraham, in a place the Bible calls Mesopotamia. Can you spell it? MEsOPOtAmia is no longer going to make any map that you see might be in the back of your Bible, though. MEsOpOtamia is modern day southern Iraq, that side of the world, Persia area. And it's Mesopotamia where God finds Abraham.
Abraham is not in MesOpOtamia looking for the God of the universe. He's in Mesopotamia every day of his life as an idolater, an idol worshiper. And he is paying homage and worshiping the sun, the moon and the stars, because that's what they did in Ur of the Chaldeans in Mesopotamia. The reason that Stephen starts his speech this way is he's trying to take God's word, tell the story accurately, and have the weight of the scriptures humble the hearts of the hearers. Let me just say real quickly, if you've sat under lots of biblical preaching, and your life is about the same as it used to be, and your attitude hasn't gotten any more like Jesus Christ, the word's not getting into you, because this thing right here crushes the man and the woman who hears God's voice.
Then he rebuilds them into the image of Jesus. So he takes this and he says, hey, you guys, our whole thing started out as pagans, but God's awesome. He is transcendent. He's over everything. And so he goes and gets a guy out of Mesopotamia called AbRaHam, proving that Yahweh can find a servant anywhere on earth.
And if God can find Abraham in Mesopotamia, he can find you where you sit today. It's not hard. He's transcendent. This is how Stephen starts his speech and he's talking about Abraham and I. The Lord tells Abraham to do this.
He says, I want you to leave your land of unbelief, this land of paganism that's marked you and your father's existence. And I want you to go to a land. I'll show you, but I'm only going to show you how to get there day by day. Not going to give you a map, not even going to tell you where it is first. Just trust me and leave them.
And that was Abraham's first response to the call of goddess saying, okay, I'll have you in first place. Enough. I'll leave everything that I know to be my life and everything that I've depended on. And I'll come and I'll follow this God who's called me. And we come to acts chapter seven, verse five.
God gave him no inheritance in it. That's this land he's going to show him. Not even enough to set his foot on. But even when Abraham had no child, and remember, he was very, very old, 100 years old when the child of promise was born. When Abraham had no child, God promised to give the land to him for a possession and to his ascendants after him.
Okay. Stephen gives just seven verses to Abraham. He introduces him. He says, God wants you to go to a land. I'll show you.
And then he says, I want everybody to know before I leave Abraham. I'm leaving him. And he doesn't own a square foot of property in the promised land. He doesn't have a single son to bear his name. And now I'm moving on in my address.
There's a reason for that.
You see, the patriarch at this point only has a promise from God. No child, no land. Is this God worth trusting? Well, let's go to Joseph and find out. In verses nine to 16, curiously, Stephen skips Abraham's son.
Abraham's son was named Isaac. And he skips Abraham's grandson, Isaac's son. His name was Jacob, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And he elects to talk about Abraham's most noted great grandson. The question is, why do you pick Joseph?
Well, at this point, the first person that Stephen talks about knowing God only has God's promise. He doesn't have anywhere to set his foot and he doesn't have a child. He moves to Joseph. He skips Isaac and Jacob. And now we need to know why.
And here's why Stephen picks Joseph to talk about because Joseph is immediately mistreated by his brothers. Joseph's father is named Jacob. Is that true? We've already established this. Do you remember Jacob's nickname, Israel?
If Joseph's father's nickname is Israel and his older brothers are the heads of the twelve tribes of Israel, then Joseph is about to be mistreated and rejected by literally the children of Israel. That's what happens here. Joseph goes, hey guys, God has been speaking to me and I've been hearing him. He's been speaking to me through dreams and these dreams are awesome. Older brothers, let me tell you how awesome these dreams are.
In these dreams, I'm celebrated and all of you bow down to me. Now you're not going to believe this, but when Joseph told his brothers that they did not immediately celebrate. In fact, they say, we don't think you've heard from God and we don't want you around anymore. So they reject their younger brother who has heard the voice of God. They sell him into slavery.
They create a drama with his many colored coat and some animal blood and they tell Israel, Jacob, their father, got bad news. Dad. The animals got to Joseph. He is no more. Joseph finds himself imprisoned in Egypt.
Now can we agree that if you're in Egypt, you're not in Canaan? Yes or no? So now Abraham dies outside the promised land. The next guy that Stephen picks in his talk, he's not in the promised land either. He's in captivity outside the promised land in Egypt everything's gone wrong it seems, but Joseph has everything looking like it's going wrong in his life.
But Stephen specifies three things. Joseph has God's presence, he has God's help and he has God's gifts. All of those are found in our next verse that I want you to see. In acts seven, acts 7910 his older brothers are called the patriarchs here and the patriarchs, becoming envious, sold Joseph into Egypt the children of Israel sold Joseph into Egypt but God was with him presents and delivered him out of all of his troubles help. And gave him favorites the word for grace gave him grace and wisdom in the presence of Pharaoh, king of Egypt and he made him Joseph governor over Egypt and all of Pharaoh's house gifts or as Isaiah 50 20, I think it is, summarizes what his enemies had meant for evil.
Joseph's God had meant it for his good. So things actually haven't gone completely wrong. They're getting ready to go, right? Here's how Pharaoh makes Joseph governor over all his house. But what we didn't read in the verse is at that time in the known world, the whole world was under famine and drought.
Everyone was starving to death. No one had a supply of food except that guy that was full of God's favor and wisdom, Joseph. He had been storing food away in barns. Now I'm going to tell you that in this long speech of Stephen, Stephen doesn't mention himself, he doesn't defend himself. But if you dig a little deeper, one of the reasons that he picks Joseph to talk about is he sees a parallel between Joseph and himself because in the Old Testament, Joseph is said to be full of the spirit and wisdom.
And in the New Testament, in acts chapter seven, Stephen is said to be full of the spirit and wisdom. And in the Old Testament, Joseph oversees the daily distribution of food to those who will die without it. And in the New Testament, in acts chapter six, Stephen oversees the daily distribution of food to that growing number of widows in the Jerusalem church who without this daily sustenance, they die too. Full of the spirit and wisdom, overseeing the daily distribution of food, Stephen is choosing his story by the power of the Holy Spirit on purpose. Now, acts chapter seven, verses 14 and 15, there's a famine.
The whole world is starving to death. Jacob is an old man. His sons are older men. They're like, what are we going to do? Somebody says, I heard they've got grain in Egypt.
They go and check it out. They find Joseph. He's there. We read in verse 14 and 15. Then Joseph sent and called his father, Jacob, and all his relatives to him, 75 people in all.
And they make the trek down. So Jacob went down to Egypt and he what? What does the verse say happen to Jacob in Egypt? He died. And he and our fathers, if you die in Egypt, had you received the promise of the promised land?
No. So Abraham leaves our story. He doesn't have a place to set his foot in the promised land. Joseph is mistreated by the children of Israel. His dad comes, he saves everybody's life, but his dad dies in Egypt.
What in the world is happening to the promise of God? Because God said to Abraham, you and your descendants are going to get this land. I'm going to make your name great. People are going to see your faith. All the families on earth are going to be blessed.
And all these guys keep dying without those promises in their hand. What in the world happened to God's promises? Can we trust Stephen's God? And in the very next verse in Stephen's speech, acts 717 18, here's what we read. But when the time of the promise drew near, which God had sworn Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt till another king arose who did not know Joseph.
That's an ominous phrase. The hebrew people are multiplying. They're enslaved in Egypt. They're multiplying. They're not enslaved just yet.
They're growing in the land of Egypt. And all because the pharaoh loved Joseph. And then that pharaoh died of, and everybody knows that when one pharaoh dies, another one rises. And he's the king of the world at that time. And this one has never heard of Joseph, doesn't know Joseph, and is not going to give Joseph and his descendants the same favor as the previous guy.
How in the world is this the time of the promise? Because what's getting ready to happen is that those people, the descendants of Abraham, they're getting ready to become slaves for 430 years. How is that the time of the promise? Well, the reason it's the time of the promise is God's getting ready to raise up another deliverer who would come and rescue the children of Israel. This is the majority of Stephen's sermon.
It's devoted to that would be deliverer. His name's Moses. He gets 27 verses from acts, chapter seven, verse 17, all the way to acts, chapter seven, verse 43. And as soon as Moses comes on the scene, the edict from Pharaoh goes out. Got too many Hebrews.
So bring all your hebrew babies and expose them outside of your homes. We're going to make sure they die, because we got to cut you people off. One of those babies was a young boy named Moses. He wasn't named Moses yet. They put him in a basket, put him in the Nile river, and said, okay, God, do what you do.
And God did what he did. The same pharaoh that sent the edict out to kill all the babies had a daughter. She was of mom age. She wanted a son. She wanted a baby.
She finds a baby crying in a basket, and she draws him out of the Nile river. And that's what moses name means. He drew me out of the water.
And this Hebrew child who's supposed to be killed instead gets raised in the palace. And he's educated in all the learning of the Egyptians. And he eats at the king's table, and he looks like an egyptian, and his head shaved like an egyptian man, and he's wearing all the makeup that egyptian men wear, and he's got the earrings and he's got the clothing. And from the outside, moses looks just like one of the privileged egyptians. But on the inside, his blood is coursing hebrew.
And when he becomes 40 years old, he's looking around, and he's like, man, I have the run of the place. I have PharAoh's ear. I can go in, and out he goes. He says, I wonder what my own people are doing. How's it going for them?
He goes into the marketplace, and he sees an Egyptian slave driver abusing one of the Hebrew children. And moses intervenes, and he smites. He kills the slave driver, and the Bible says he buries his body in the Sandheen. And moses looks around and there's nobody around except for the guy he saved. And he goes, well, looks like God's with me today.
A little while later, he goes out into the same marketplace, and he sees two hebrew men fighting. And he goes and he stands between them, and he says, brothers, this isn't right. We're of the same blood. We got to stick together. Because at that time, Moses thought, surely the Hebrews are going to see me.
They're going to hear the. The whispers of where I came from, and they're going to immediately know that I'm able to deliver them. This is getting ready to be awesome. And when we read in Stephen's story, it's not so awesome. Because in verse 25, Moses supposed that his brethren would have understood that God would deliver them by his hand.
But they did not understand. So, do they embrace this potential deliverer? No. And here's what you can't miss. Just like Joseph before him, Moses is rejected by his own kinsmen, people, his own flesh and blood.
Remember I said that he stood in the middle of that fight between those two hebrew men? Here it is in acts 727. But he who did his neighbor wrong pushed Moses away, saying, who made you a ruler and a judge over us? At that moment, when that question was asked, who made you a ruler and a judge over us? The children of Israel had rejected yet another one of their kinsmen, who would deliver them.
But this was all in God's plan, because now we know that Moses is 40 years old, but he still lacks the seasoning and he still lacks the experience, and he still apparently, lacks the wisdom to deliver 2 million people out of 400 years of slavery. So what does Moses do? He exiles himself to a remote part of the desert in a place called midian. He does that when he's 40 years old. And you know what the Bible says next?
40 years later. It's been a long time since I've been in school. I'm not real good on math anymore. But 40 plus 40 is 80. Not back then and not today.
Does planet Earth say, you know what we need to make the world a better place? 80 year old men to come lead us.
Have you seen our current president? Have you seen some of them that are. Yes. I mean, this is just kind of like daily news here. Nobody goes.
What we need are octogenarians in force.
But that's what we think. God doesn't think that way, because it's going to be 40 more years after he's 40, before God pays Moses attention again. And Moses appears to that 80 year old man in that self imposed exile. And he comes to him when he's 80 years old in a burning bush. And here's what he says to him in verse 33.
Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground. Now, you know what blows my mind? I've been thinking about this for two weeks. How is a remote place in the desert outside of the promised land, wherever Midian is, how's that holy ground? Because that's not what God promised Abraham.
There's no temple there. There's no tabernacle there. There's no box there with God's glory in it. What in the world made it holy? What made it holy is who was there and who was speaking.
Yahweh. God appears to Moses outside of Israel. He appears to Moses apart from any sanctuary, what's the point? The point is God's presence is not tied to a land or a building. Moses just told a Bible story in the face of 71 jewish Bible scholars and said, you guys know that commitment you have to temples and real estate in Israel?
Yeah. That's not the way God's ever done it.
And now at this point in his message, Stephen's hearers are beginning to get it. It's sinking in how this guy's telling stories from their Bible and indulgence them with these stories.
They accused him of speaking against Moses. So in verse 35, Stephen says, this Moses. And in verse 37, he says, this is that Moses. And in verses 38 and 39 about Moses, he says, this is he. And don't miss it.
Brothers and sisters who want to know the scriptures, this is he whom our fathers would not obey but rejected. Now, Stephen's just told them, you think you love Moses, but you guys never have. You're just like your forefathers.
I'll give you verse 37. This is that Moses who said to the children of Israel, the Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brethren. In him you shall hear. Do you know who that prophet like Moses ends up being? You're in church and it runs with.
Yeah, Jesus. He's the capital p prophet like Moses. He's the prophet to the nations. He's the one who stands between the sinful children and the holy God. There's a prophet.
After 36 verses of Old Testament history, Stephen prepares his accusers for the gospel. There's a prophet like Moses coming.
And so far from what Stephen has told them by way of Bible story, when that prophet like Moses comes, we would expect that prophet to be immediately rejected by the children of Israel and turned away from the very beginning, these descendants of Abraham wasted no time in forgetting God and rebelling against him. Do you remember when Moses or Charlton Heston, whichever one you pick, went up on the mountain in the movie, right? And he gets the two tablets of the tabernacle, the two slates of the Ten Commandments. And he walks down and, you know, he's got his, his face is glowing. And he comes to the children of Israel and he says, look what God said.
It's the top ten list. Let's do these things. He gives them the Ten Commandments and he says, look, I'm going to leave these two things with you because I've just been in his presence and I want to go be in his presence again because he's awesome and I can't get enough. Moses goes back up the mountain for 40 days and as soon as he's walking up the trail, the children of Israel, looking at tablets that were written on by the finger of goddess, say to Moses brother Aaron, look, man, it's not working out for us. We don't know where this Moses guy's going.
We need a God. Would you make us one? And they melted all their gold together and they made a golden what? Calf with it. It's not that they just made a golden calf and they were artisan, it's they made a golden calf.
They began, they said, this is our God. And they began to worship it almost immediately after the greatest revelation of the truth of God up to that point in the history of the world, the Ten Commandments, acts 741. They made a calf in those days, offered sacrifices to the idol and rejoiced in the works. Listen. Of their own hands.
Stephen's going to use that with their own hands against them in just a second. But now the sermon ends, the Bible lesson ends, and Stephen has delivered a masterclass on the essence of the Old Testament scriptures. He has summarized 3000 years of God's dealing with his chosen people and he only took 43 verses to do it. Stephen knew his Bible. Do you know yours?
Because those who do walk in the power of God. Let me give you three rapidly descending quotes about the Bible that are going to make you feel worse about yourself because you're at church. And why not? Amen. Right?
Aw, Tozer. Whatever keeps me from my Bible is my enemy, however harmless it may appear to be. It might be your spouse, your children, your job, your hobbies. If they keep you away from hearing God's voice, it's your enemy. Burke Parsons wrote, if our bibles remain sitting on our shelves and studied only by academics, they might as well have remained in Latin and chained to pulpits.
And then to make matters worse, the prince of preachers, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, said, there's dust enough on some of your bibles to write damnation with your fingers.
Command of the Old Testament scriptures is the power of God. You can walk in now. That's two thirds of my sermon. I got to get these other two points in and one third. So you got.
We're going fast. You ready? The fifth category of the power of God that Stephen walked in is the courage to say the hard things.
These are verses 44 through 53. Stephen has methodically built the case that the children of Israel had never gotten their religion right. He's saying that to their foremost Bible teachers. And he tells them two things in verses 44 to 50. He says, you have misunderstood Moses God all along.
Remember, they fashioned the golden calf with their own hands. He said, you thought you had God all to yourselves. You thought you'd put him in a box. You thought you put that box out in the yard, wherever the tabernacle is. And when you built a temple, you put the box out in the building so that you would always know where God is.
In case you ever needed anything, you could just go to the temple and speak to the box and think, God's in there.
And in verse 48 of acts chapter seven, the first word is, however. The word, however, is an adversative. It's the word, but it means contradictory. It means you're getting ready to hear the opposite of what you thought. However, the most high does not dwell in temples made with.
Say it. Hands. As the prophet says. Now he quotes the Bible, heaven's my throne. God says, earth is my footstool.
What house will you build for me? Find me the architect that can design a house that is worthy of God. What house will you build for me? Says the Lord, what's the place of my rest? Has my hand not made all these things?
You've misunderstood Moses as God all along. Not only were they wrong about God, Stephen's getting ready to tell them you've also been wrong about yourselves. In verses 51 to 53, he says, you have no righteous heritage to claim. You think that you have God's favor because of who your great grandfathers were. And Stephen says, but I'm getting ready to tell you that the Bible has said that you can trust those guys.
Look at it. Acts, chapter seven, verse 51, ought to suffice. You stiff necked that doesn't mean that you have a crick in your neck and you need a chiropractor. This is a euphemism for stubborn. You stiff necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit.
Don't miss the end of the verse. As your fathers did. So do you have, you know how your fathers that you keep saying to us, they were great men of faith? Well, they were stubborn and uncircumcised in heart and ears. Like you.
They resisted the Holy Spirit, like you do. You're just like them. And you guys have no righteous heritage to claim. Never have you recognized God's voice. It's as if there's a piece of skin covering your ears and defiling your hearts.
You followed in the footsteps of your ancestors by constantly refusing the ministry of God's spirit when he calls. And now Stephen is looking at a crowd of angry, offended men. And I want you to know that everything that I just summarized to you was Stephen's gift of love to those men.
Did what he say offend them? Yes. Did he use Bible stories to indict them? Yes. Was it offensive?
Probably. But it was loving because he told the only truth that would have rescued them. When I tell you that he walked in the power with the courage to say the hard things, Stephen did that, hopefully, that his audience would see it the way God sees it. And here's how you know you're growing up in the Lord. You've learned to speak the truth, but you've learned to speak it in love and for love.
Ephesians 415, speaking the truth in love, we may grow up in all things, into the head, who is the Lord Jesus Christ? Courage to say the hard things. And lastly, number six, Stephen walked in the power of God that made him content for God to vindicate him. I've mentioned to you already, Stephen doesn't say one thing in his own defense. And even when they're throwing rocks at his face from an elevated position and pelting him with stones, that's going to beat the life out of him, and he's going to die there in that pit, Stephen talks to God on their behalf.
He talks to God for them. And as Stephen dies, it sounds just like the way the Lord Jesus died on the cross. And they stoned Stephen as he was calling on God, saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. Do you remember when the Lord Jesus said to the father, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. But it gets even better.
Verse 60. Then Stephen knelt down and he cried out with a loud voice, Lord, do not charge them with this sin. And when he said this, he fell asleep. And in Luke 23 34, Jesus is hanging on the cross. Do you remember what he says?
Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing.
Stephen dies asking God to forgive the people that were unjustly murdering him, content for God to take up his own case and vindicate him. Here's what the New Testament says about Jesus when he was falsely accused and mistreated. One Peter 223, who, when Jesus, when he was reviled, did not revile in return. When he suffered, he did not threaten, but committed himself to the one who judges righteously. I'm going to give you three statements of application and these three statements.
I'm going to challenge you to come forward after our service is over and have our prayer teams pray this for you so that you can apply this to your life so that the enemy doesn't steal the seed that was preached to you today. Number one, I want the power of knowing the scriptures, being familiar with them, and having command of the truth that may be you. Number two, I want the power to say the hard things in the right moment with the gentle love of God. Might be you. Or here's the one that people came to me after the first servants and said, this was me, Pastor, today I want to walk in the power of trusting in God to defend me or vindicate me.
I don't want to be my own defense attorney anymore. Why don't you look at those three things prayerfully and let's bow for prayer today. Take this teaching from the scriptures, this whole lot, into a confined space, and I pray God that it would reach the hearts of the believers that you love so much. God, we want to be transformed by truth. We want to be changed by your word.
God. Apply these to our hearts today for your glory and in Jesus name and the faith field church said, amen.
Your invited:
Come and join us this Sunday at the Great Commission Church for a truly remarkable and uplifting experience. Great Commission Church is not just any ordinary place of worship; it's a vibrant community where faith comes alive, hearts are filled with love, and lives are transformed. Our doors are wide open, ready to welcome you into the warm embrace of our congregation, where you'll discover the true essence of fellowship and spirituality. At Great Commission Church, we are more than just a congregation; we are a family united by a common mission – to follow the teachings of Christ and spread His love to the world. As you step inside Great Commission Church, you'll find a sanctuary that nurtures your faith and encourages you to be part of something greater than yourself.
We believe in the power of coming together as a community to worship, learn, and serve. Whether you're a long-time believer or just starting your spiritual journey, Great Commission Church welcomes people from all walks of life. Our vibrant services are filled with inspiring messages, beautiful music, and heartfelt prayers that will uplift your soul. Every Sunday at Great Commission Church is an opportunity to deepen your relationship with God and connect with others who share your faith and values.
At Great Commission Church, we believe that faith is not just a solitary endeavor but a shared experience that strengthens and enriches us all. Our church is a place where you can find purpose, belonging, and the encouragement to live a life in accordance with Christ's teachings. Join us this Sunday at Great Commission Church and experience the transformative power of faith in action. Be part of a loving and supportive community that is committed to making a positive impact in our world. Together, we strive to fulfill the great commission to go forth and make disciples of all nations. We look forward to having you with us at Great Commission Church this Sunday, where faith, love, and community intersect in a truly amazing way.
Great Commission Church is a non-denominational Christian church located in Olive Branch, Mississippi. We are a short drive from Germantown, Southaven, Collierville, Horn Lake, Memphis, Fairhaven, Mineral Wells, Pleasant Hill, Handy Corner, Lewisburg and Baylia.
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