All right. Find acts, chapter seven in your bibles. Church. Acts, chapter seven. We started a new series last week.

This is part two of Stephen, full of faith and power. I'm Trevor Davis. I'm GCC's pastor, and I'm glad that you're here on the Lord's day. I want to ask you a question. What's the longest speech or sermon you've ever sat through?

And parenthetically, it's not one of mine. I can fix that. Right, but think back in your life. Was it a lecture at college or high school, or was it a sermon? I began to do an inventory.

The longest sermon I've ever preached in this pulpit was 1 hour long. But it wasn't on a Sunday morning. It was on a Friday night at our missions conference. And I preached about David and Goliath, and I just said everything that I'd ever studied about it, and it was good and changed some of your lives. Amen.

All right, good. The reason I ask you, what's the longest one you ever sat through? The longest recorded speech in the New Testament is Jesus Sermon on the mount. It covers three chapters, Matthew five, six, seven. But did you know that the second longest speech, the second longest message, didn't belong to an official church leader at all?

It belongs to the disciple named Stephen, and it covers all of acts chapter seven. And if you look at acts chapter seven, it's 53 verses long. The sermon ends at about verse 50. And so it's a long talk that he gives, and he's just a regular member of the church. He did become the church's first martyr after this sermon that he gave.

They killed him in response to it. My aim is to show you from acts chapter six, seven, eight, and nine in these next few weeks that we have the same privileges and the same responsibilities as the believers that we read about in the Bible. They were not special people living under a special dispensation of grace from God that we were to look at and go, wow, isn't that amazing? Now give me another Bible lesson. No.

God has given them to us as examples, saying, when they were filled with my spirit and what I did in their life is the same that I'll do in your life when you're filled with my spirit. In fact, we should expect the same kind of impact on our world that they had on theirs. So we learned last week that Stephen is called a man full of faith and power. And we noted that over the end of acts chapter six and all of acts chapter seven that I've identified six categories of different power from God that Stephen, the regular church member, walked in. And last week was the first three of those categories.

In part one, they were, he walked in signs and wonders. He walked in wisdom to defend the faith, and he walked in patience in the face of slander and mistreatment about him. In today's text, three more of these categories will be revealed. And I want to remind you that Stephen had been accused of speaking against Moses and against God. Those were the charges against him.

And I want you to also know that you can read in all of acts chapter seven. You know what you won't find? You won't find Stephen defending himself in one verse, even though everything they said about him was false. They said he spoke against Moses and God. And in acts chapter seven, he's going to speak for Moses and God.

So if you're ready, say yes. Now, look, I can't preach in 30 minutes, 60 verses. Isn't that true? I can't even. I don't even know if I could read them in that time.

So what I'm going to do is I'm going to summarize acts chapter seven as we go and pull out some key verses where everything kind of hinges and turns. And then I'm going to give you three ways to apply this message to your life. And that's what you can come for prayer for at our prayer ministry time at the end of our service. So here we go. I start with number four in the list because I gave you numbers one, two and three last week.

Stephen's power from God, number four. Brothers and sisters. He showed command of Old Testament theology. This is the heart of acts chapter seven. Stephen, giving a defense of Moses and God and his ministry about them, walks through the Old Testament Bible stories, picking and choosing the ones that he wants to use for his own purposes, and shows that he has an understanding of what the Old Testament was talking about.

Here's why that's important. It is true for me to say to you that if you don't understand the message of the Old Testament, you cannot understand the message of the New Testament. It does not stand alone. You even have the letter to the Hebrews. That is an exposition of some of the psalms.

The whole point of that letter is to say, here's what the psalms were talking about. So Stephen showed command of Old Testament theology. He surveys Israel's history and he focuses on, of all the characters he could choose, he focuses on three guys. He focuses first on Abraham, and he gives Abraham seven verses. And then he moves to Joseph.

And he gives Joseph eight verses, and then he spends the rest of his time on Moses 27 verses. So we'll just start with Abraham. He's found in acts chapter seven, verses two through eight. And before I tell you that, I want to tell you how Stephen begins. And he ends his speech in verse two.

He calls the Lord the God of glory in his opening statement. And then near the end, in verse 55, near the end of his address, he says, 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, and he ends with seeing the glory of God. Stephen's speech is bookended by glory. And we should be looking at this speech and understanding it and receiving it as believers.

So Stephen begins his address, speaking to jewish Bible teachers, committed, devoted jewish men. And he says, your history didn't begin in a holy place. It began in a pagan land, because God appeared to their first patriarch, Abraham, in a place called Mesopotamia. Have you ever been to Mesopotamia? Does Delta fly there?

Well, it's not called that anymore. Mesopotamia is modern day southern Iraq. And that's where he finds Abraham. And Stephen begins his speech honoring God's transcendence. God's everywhere.

There's nowhere on earth or in creation God doesn't know about. And there's nowhere in earth or creation that God doesn't rule over. Do you believe that? So he begins with God's transcendence. And here's how he shows you that Yahweh can find a servant anywhere on earth, even when hiding over in Mesopotamia, worshiping idols of the sun, moon and stars.

Because that's what Abraham was like before he met God. And the Lord tells Abraham, leave your land of unbelief and go to a new land. I'll show you that land. But you're just going to have to walk with me every day to find it. I'm not going to tell you on the front end.

And that brings us to acts seven five. And God gave Abraham no inheritance in it, not even enough to set his foot on. But even when Abraham had no child, God promised to give it to him for a possession and to his descendants after him. That's a summary of one of the promises that God made to Abraham, where he says, go to a land, I'll show you, and I'm going to make your name great. I'm going to give you descendants as numerous as the sand on the seashore, as the stars in the heaven.

In fact, all of your offspring are going to bless all the families on earth. That's what Genesis 15 says. And by the time Abraham dies, he'd have known a square foot of land in Canaan. And even when God is giving him this promise, he doesn't even have a child yet. Stephen leaves his talk about Abraham after eight verses, seven verses, with the patriarch only having the promise of God.

No child yet, no land in his possession. And now Stephen goes to the next guy, leaving us hanging. The next guy is Joseph. That's verses nine to 16. I'm curious about this.

Stephen skips Abraham's son Isaac. He skips Abraham's grandson, Jacob. And what's Jacob's other name? Israel. He skips the other two patriarchs in favor of Abraham's most notable great grandson.

Why does he want to talk about Joseph? Well, for starters, Joseph is mistreated by his brothers. What's Joseph's father's name? Jacob. What's Joseph's father's other name?

Israel. What does that make Joseph's brothers? The children of Israel. Did you follow that? Joseph's brothers and himself are literally the children of Israel.

And Stephen says, I want to talk to you about the great grandson of Abraham who was rejected even though he was chosen by God for special revelation and for special reasons. He's rejected by the children of Israel. Not only that, they reject him outright when he goes to them and says, hey, guys have been having dreams. The Lord spoke to me in those dreams. I'm pretty awesome.

And you're all bowing down to me now. Can you believe his brother said, you know what? We don't think we're gonna listen to you, little bro.

They reject him outright. They don't believe that God spoke to him. They sell him into slavery. And they make it look like to their father that he's been eaten and torn apart by animals. And he is no more.

So now this favored great grandson of Abraham is imprisoned in Egypt. Is Egypt outside of the promised land? Yes or no? Yes. He's literally been rejected by the children of Israel.

He's in captivity outside the land of promise. But Stephen specifies three things about Joseph. Joseph has God's presence. Joseph has God's presence. Help.

And Joseph has God's gifts. All three of those acts, chapter seven, verses nine and ten. And the patriarchs becoming envious. This is Joseph's brothers sold Joseph into Egypt, but God was with him. Presence.

And delivered him out of all his troubles. Help. And gave him favor. It's the same word for grace. Gave him grace and wisdom in the presence of Pharaoh, king of Egypt.

And he made him governor over Egypt and all his house gifts.

Quite frankly, what Joseph's enemies, his own brothers, had meant for evil, Joseph's God had meant it for his good.

As a side note for you Bible trivia people, you won't find Stephen defending himself in his speech, but when he talks about Joseph, he does allude to himself, if you look close enough, because there's a direct parallel between Joseph of the Old Testament and Stephen. In acts chapter seven, both men in the Bible were said to be full of God's spirit and full of God's wisdom, full of the spirit and wisdom. And both of them oversaw the daily distribution of food to people who could not survive without it. In Genesis, Joseph's governor over all of Pharaoh's land and property. And during the time of worldwide famine, only Egypt had storehouses of grain.

The only reason they had that was because of Joseph's wisdom. And he oversaw the distribution of the last storehouse of food on the known world. At the time, if you wanted to eat, you went to Joseph. And that's what happens in the story. Jacob and his boys end up going down to Egypt to find grain, and that's where they find Joseph.

Stephen likewise, he's full of wisdom and the spirit of God, and he oversees the daily distribution of food of the widows in the growing Jerusalem church, without which they wouldn't survive. That's another reason why Stephen picked Joseph, because he saw himself in Joseph. So. Acts 714 15 then Joseph sent and called his father Jacob and all his relatives to him, 75 people. So Jacob went down to Egypt and he died, he and our fathers, if you die in Egypt, did you die in the promised land?

Yes or no? Was Jacob one of the patriarchs? Was he one of Abraham, Isaac and I Jacob? So Abraham doesn't die in the promised land, Isaac or Jacob. So I look at that and I go, what happened to the promise of God?

And in Stephen's speech, it's the next thing he brings up. Acts 717 and 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. His name is Moses.

He gets the next 27 verses, verses 17 through 43. And by remarkable intervention from God, the baby Moses put in a basket sent down the Nile river. When the pharaoh who did not know Joseph said, the number of these hebrew slaves is getting out of hand, we need to expose all their babies and begin to cut them off. Moses would have been one of those babies if God hadn't singled him out to be Israel's next deliverer. And so do you remember what happens?

Who found Moses in the basket in the Nile river? Pharaoh. The pharaoh who didn't know Joseph. Who found Moses? Pharaoh's daughter.

And Moses is adopted into Pharaoh's family. For 40 years, Moses is raised and trained by Egypt's best. He lives in the palace, and he looks like, in dress, in haircut, in makeup, in skin tone. He looks like any other privileged Egyptian. But my brothers and my sisters, Moses is still a Hebrew by blood.

And at 40 years old, he looks around. He's smart. He's trained. He's educated. He's powerful.

Nobody's watching over him. He can move about freely because he's one of Pharaoh's sons. And he goes, but about my people, I wonder how they're doing. So he goes out in the marketplace, and he finds an egyptian slave driver abusing one of the hebrew slaves. And Moses doesn't stand for that.

He intervenes, and he kills the slave driver. And the Bible says he buries the body in the sand, and he looks around, and he goes, well, when you work in the palace, I guess you get to do that. He goes out the next day or sometime later, and he finds two hebrew slaves fighting. And he goes in between them and he says, stop, brothers, this is not right. We're part of the family.

We don't need to hurt ourselves. And here's what happened. You see Moses at verse 25. For he supposed that his brethren would have understood that God would deliver them by his hand, but they did not understand. Moses thought, you know why I'm in the palace?

You know why I won the lottery and my mom became pharaoh's daughter? It was. It was so all the Hebrews could be delivered by me. And if I go out and begin to interact with them, they'll clearly see that I'm the chosen one. But Stephen says they didn't understand.

In fact, do they embrace this potential deliverer? No. Now, listen very carefully, because Stephen and his audience didn't miss this. Like Joseph before him, Moses is rejected by his own kinsmen. Verse 27.

But he who did his neighbor wrong. Remember those two Hebrews fighting? Moses stepped in between them. He who did his neighbor wrong pushed Moses away, saying, who made you a ruler and a judge over us? In that moment, the hebrew slaves reject Moses as their deliverer.

You see, Moses lacks the character. And the seasoning needed to lead 2 million people out of 400 years of slavery. He's 40 years old, but he has some growing up to do. So he exiles himself to the backside of the desert in a place called Midiandhenne for another 40 years. If you're 40 years old and you go on a self imposed exile for 40 years, how old are you at the end of that time?

You're 80.

We don't really live on a world that says, you know what we need? We need some 80 year olds to show us the way. That was the point. Moses was old when God appeared to him, because God has no problem using the young, the middle aged, or the old. Isn't that true?

See, Moses is just going to be God's vessel. God's going to be doing the doing.

So we read in verse 33, God shows up to Moses when he's 80, and he appears in a. And he appears in a burning bush and calls to him, and he says, take your sandals off your feet. Acts 733, for the place where you stand is holy ground. Where is he standing? He's standing in Midian.

Is he in the promised land? No, he's far away from it. How can a place be holy ground if it's not the promised land, or if it's not in some sanctuary like the tabernacle or the temple? Because that's what the Jews are going to teach. They're going to teach, if you want to find God, come to the land of promise.

We put him in a box, and we put that box in a tent, and anywhere we go, God goes. And eventually we build a temple, and we put the box in the temple. And if you want to meet with God, you go to the temple, and you. And you inquire of the box. How in the world can he say to Moses, take your shoes off.

You're standing on holy ground.

God appeared to Moses outside of Israel. And apart from any sanctuary, what's the point? The point is that God's presence is not tied to a particular land or to a particular building. My brothers and my sisters, Stephen has just told that Bible story in the face of the 71 men of the Sanhedrin, who every day teach, if you want to find God, he's at this place and this place only. Stephen is destroying all of their understanding of their own religion just by telling Bible stories.

It's remarkable.

So his opponents begin to get at what he's doing. Stephen is telling Bible stories that indict them, because, remember, they've accused him of speaking against Moses. So he commits the greater part of his speech to his understanding of Moses. In verse 35, he says, this Moses. In verse 37, he says, this is that Moses.

In verses 38 and 39 of Moses, he says, this is he. Listen. Whom our fathers would not obey, but rejected.

Let me just 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 your brethren. Him you shall hear. Who's that?

Capital P. Prophet like Moses that God raises up. He's getting there. Just wait. You're going to know exactly who it is.

The prophet like me. After 36 verses of Old Testament history, Stephen prepares his accusers for the gospel. Who is the prophet like Moses that Israel has been waiting for? We know it's the Lord Jesus. And that same Lord Jesus, also rejected by his own kinsmen.

Just like Joseph and just like Moses. But from the very beginning. Listen to me very carefully. These descendants of Abraham had wasted no time in forgetting God and rebelling against him. Moses walks down Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand, tells them this is the word of God, gives them the Ten Commandments.

And then he turns around and he goes back up the mountain to be with God again. And they immediately say, where did that Moses guy go? About Moses, we don't know what's happened to him. Aaron, Moses brother, we need a God. Would you make one for us?

Do you remember this? And they fashion a golden calf. But they not only fashion a golden calf, they declare it to be their new God. They began worshiping it almost immediately after Moses had brought the ten Commandments down from the mountaintop. Here's verse 41.

And they made a calf in those days, offered sacrifices to the idol and rejoiced in the work of. Don't miss it. Their own hands.

My brothers and my sisters. At the end of this speech, Stephen has delivered a master class in the essence of the Old Testament scriptures. He summarized 3000 years of God's dealing with his chosen people. And he did it in 43 verses. Stephen knew his Bible.

Look at me. Do you know yours? Because Stephen's power from God was connected to and associated with his grasp of the scriptures. Let me give you three quotes that have helped me as I think about the Bible. Aw Tozer.

Whatever keeps me from my Bible is my enemy. However harmless it may appear to be. It could be your family, your wife, your job, your hobbies. If it keeps you, and if it stops your ears from the voice of God, it is 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.

These go from bad to worse. Here's the worst one. Charles Haddon Spurgeon, prince of preachers. There's dust enough on some of your bibles to write damnation with your fingers.

Stephen walked in God's power because he had command of the Old Testament. That was number four. These next two are the not as long. I just summarized about 50 verses for you. How did I do?

Did that work? I got to do it one more time. All right, here's number five. The fifth category of the power of God that Stephen walked in. And that is courage to say the hard things.

Remember, this speech that Stephen gives ends in them stoning him to death.

Courage to say the hard thing. This is found in verses 44 through 53. Stephen has methodically built the case that the children of Israel, listen. Had never gotten their religion right ever. And he tells them this in two statements.

Number one, he says to them, you guys have misunderstood Moses is God all along.

You thought you had God all to yourselves. You thought you put him in a box. You thought you put him out in the yard in the promised land. And that anytime you needed him, you knew where he'd be.

Here's when Stephen told them, you've misunderstood Moses as God all along. In verse 48, he says, however, that word, however, in grammar is an adversative. It means a contrary thought is coming. However, the most high does not dwell in temples made with hands. Temples made with hands.

What did Stephen just say these people had made with their hands? The golden calf. He says, the works of your hands condemn you because the most high doesn't dwell in temples made with hands, as the prophet says. And then he quotes, heaven is my throne. This is God speaking.

Earth is my footstool. What house will you build for me? Says the Lord. Or what is the place of my rest? Has not my hand made all these things?

They thought they put God in the box. And God says, you can't even make a doghouse for me. Who's going to build my house again? Who's going to tell me where to rest? So they got Moses God wrong.

But listen, not only had they gotten God wrong, they were also wrong about themselves. Stephen's speech also said this to them. Hey, guys, you have no righteous heritage to claim.

You've told the whole world that you're okay with God because of who your great grandfathers were. This is in verses 51 to 53. Verse 51 will suffice he looks at them and he says, you stiffnecked. That doesn't mean that you woke up with a crick in your neck. That means stubborn, right?

You stiff necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears. These were men who boasted of their physical circumcision. You always resist the Holy Spirit. Look, as your fathers did, so do you. You have no righteous heritage to claim because your forefathers didn't even get this right.

Never have you recognized the voice of God. 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 the Holy Spirit. When he called to you, look, after Stephen said these things, they were mad. That's an understatement.

They were furious.

He had been direct. He had said to them what they most needed to hear, probably knowing that they didn't have ears to hear it.

I got to be real careful here because I want you to understand the point I'm making. Stephen's speech was direct, wasn't it? Yes or no? And to them it was offensive, right? Yes, but it was loving, because he told them the truth that would bring them to God.

And that's how you know that you're growing up in the Lord. You speak the truth, but you do it in love. Ephesians 415. But speaking the truth in love, that you may grow up in all things, into him who is the head, Christ. Stephen had the courage to say the hard things.

Number five. And finally today, number six. Stephen was content for God to vindicate him. That's in verses 54 to 60. I told you, Stephen never defends himself.

But you know what he says? He says, if I represent God accurately, fairly and truthfully, I'll leave the results to him. And whatever happens to me, that'll be his glory, his will. I throw myself on the mercy of the wisdom of my God. Let me show you how he did it.

Stephen died empowered by God to show supernatural restraint. Instead of lashing out at the evil ones who were unjustly murdering him as they were throwing rocks and hitting him in the head with them, Stephen spoke to God on their behalf. And it looks just like the way Jesus himself died on the cross. You see, if these things sound like Jesus. Acts 759.

And they stoned Stephen as he was calling on God and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. Remember when Jesus said, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. But here's the best part. Then Stephen knelt down and he cried out with a loud voice. Lord, do not charge them with this sin.

Do you remember how Jesus said that, Father, forgive them. They know not what they do. And when he said this, he fell asleep. Listen to me very carefully. If you often find yourself acting as your own defense attorney, know that in that moment, you are not filled with God's spirit.

If you're coming to your own defense, because here's what the New Testament says about Jesus. When he was falsely accused and mistreated, one, Peter 223, when he was reviled, he did not revile. In return. When he suffered, Jesus did not threaten, but committed himself to him who judges righteously content for God to vindicate him and take up his case. Can we agree that Stephen died?

Well? Here's how you apply this message to your life after we conclude our service. In just a moment, our prayer lines are going to open. Our prayer teams will be here. And you need to pick out one of these, if not two, or all three of them, and have us pray for you about this, to apply this to your life before the enemy has time to steal the seed that was sown in this sermon for you today.

Number one, I want the power of knowing the scriptures, being familiar with them, and having command of the truth. Some of you need to have our church pray for you about that. Number two, I want the power to say the hard things in the right moment with the gentle love of God that may be you. Or number three, I want to walk in the power of trusting in God to defend me or vindicate me. In other words, I lay down my sword and I no longer defend myself.

You think about those three as we pray. Father, I pray that you would equip our church today with the right kind of spiritual discipline that says, I don't want to lose what I've heard from the scriptures. And I pray that be long prayer lines today of a humble church crying out to you, God, in our time of need. In Jesus name, amen.

Amen. Hey, as you're kind of processing the message, getting things together, one of the things I did want to draw your attention to is this welcome card. Go ahead and finish filling this out. You can put this card on the wooden boxes on your way out this morning. You may, during the sermon, have come up with a next step.

There are some next steps listed below. Maybe you're interested in membership or baptism or serving on one of our teams, getting in a group. All that can be found on this card. It's a great way to communicate with us today. If this is one of your first times to visit us.

We do have a gift for you. It's in the lobby. As soon as you leave, it'll be to your right, right next to the you belong here table. Gorgeous. Gifts for the women, some beef jerky for the men.

Make sure you stop by there before you leave. You can even ask any questions. Maybe you've been coming for a while and you're curious about something else, about the church. What are small groups like or something like that. That team of people who sit there and give out gifts.

They know all the things, so ask them some questions. They'd love to communicate with you and talk to you about anything you might need. This morning we are going to end with some prayers. So if the prayer ministry team would come forward, everyone else can go ahead and stand up as we're about to dismiss. I want to pray for us one more time.

We'll have those. Go ahead and put those sermon application points on the screen just so we can review those again. What a great way to apply the sermon this morning. Maybe you came thinking, hey, I'd love some prayer for something else. They would love to come and minister to you in any capacity that you came this morning.

Or maybe you're just thinking, hey, I don't know what I need, but I need someone to pray for me. They're prepared to do that as well. So let's pray. Father, we are grateful that we got to hear your word being taught. Observe the Lord's supper.

And now we get to pray and minister to each other. God, I pray you'd be big and bold today. Lord, we trust you by faith. You'll answer prayers yet again. We love you.

In Jesus name, amen. You are dismissed.

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.

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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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