God is with Us - Pastor Tom Loghry
In Acts 6:8-7:60, we see Stephen, one of the deacons appointed earlier in chapter 6, brought before the Sanhedrin. As he stands before them, he rebukes them for being like their fathers: stiff necked and having uncircumcised hearts. As a result, the council drags Stephen out of the city and stones him.
Transcript:
This is from Acts six, eight to 11. Now, Stephen, a man full of God's grace and power performed great wonders and signs among the people. Opposition arose, however, from the members of the Synagogue of the Freedmen, as it was called, Jews of Cyrene and Alexandria, as well as the provinces of, Cilicia Asia, who began to argue with Stephen, but they could not stand up against the wisdom the spirit gave him as he spoke. Then they secretly persuaded some men to say, we have heard Stephen speak blasphemous words against Moses and against God.
If you were alive in the early two thousands, you'd know that if you heard the question can you hear me now? It should be followed by saying what? What should you say? Can you hear me now? Good. Right. Oh, man. You guys didn't watch TV in the early two thousands? Yeah. Oh, wow. Okay. Well, if you, since you don't seem to remember, it was very impressionable to me, I guess.
It's a question and remark that became famous because of a Verizon cell phone commercial that highlighted their wide range cell phone, coverage for cell service. Cell service is one of those things that's kind of easy to take for granted these days. Sometimes we have bad service, but we're mostly annoyed now because it's expected that we should be able to call from anywhere.
Of course, that wasn't always the case. Even I remember a time when the only phones in my house were a corded phone, and I'd run to the kitchen to answer it for my mom and dad. In time we got wireless handheld units, but even they had a limited range. Nothing compared to a cell phone. These days, many people don't even bother with a landline given the reliability of cell phones.
While some of us may wish to go back to those times, at least to escape the all consuming nature of smartphone screens, I don't think most of us would want to lose the pure functionality of being able to call from anywhere. We don't miss getting tangled up in phone cords or anxiously searching for a payphone.
We can only imagine how many lives have been saved and trouble spared because of cell phone coverage. It is a technological advancement worth keeping. There is a comparison here and an important difference that we'll find as we look at today's passage. We are going to hear a message from the Deacon Stephen. While he lived almost 2000 years ago, he lives on the same side of the cross as us, and we share in the same benefits. One of the radical transformations introduced by Jesus' death and resurrection and ascension, and by the sending of the Holy Spirit was the very notion of God's temple. At this time in the first century AD, the temple made of stone still stands in Jerusalem, but Jesus has introduced himself as the cornerstone of a new temple built not with granite but with the people of God as spiritual stones of a living temple. It's a development that would cause immense controversy among the Jewish people whose entire lives revolved around the temple structure as they knew it, going on pilgrimages there to offer sacrifices. But as we'll see, Stephen will argue that this shouldn't be so controversial because while this is something new, kind of like cell phone coverage, though more important, much more important and better, there's also something very old about this notion of God not being landlocked by a building. The stage is set for Stephen's sermon when a certain group of Jews begin agitating against him, and so we first look at verses 8 through 11 as Rena read.
It's noted here that Stephen, again, he is one of these seven deacons that were identified in, by the church, and appointed by the elders, by the, by the 12 disciples, by laying on of hands, and we see that Stephen was a man full of God's grace and power. Now already in verse five, which we covered last week, it was noted that he's full of wisdom and of the Holy Spirit, and it was to such extent that he was performing great signs and wonders among the people. And so while the ministry of deacon is primarily concerned with meeting the material needs of the people in the community, making sure that people in the church are being taken care of, that is not the limit of the ministry of Stephen.
Nor is that the limit of anyone who might be a deacon or deaconess. That's their primary focus, but they might have other things that they're doing as God has gifted them. And God was gifting Stephen in wondrous ways so that he was performing miraculous signs, just as the apostles were. And as we'll see also in his speech, he was a man that was just simply full of the Holy Spirit. It was like coming outta his fingers. It was just so, so immense. Now, opposition arose against Stephen, though from a group, from some members of a synagogue known as the Synagogue of the Freedmen. Now it seems like kind of a weird name. What? Why are they known as the Synagogue of the Freedmen?
The reason why they're known as the Synagogue of the Freedmen is because this is a group of Jews who were formerly enslaved, but who have gained their freedom. And it also turns out that these men, they had come from places across the Mediterranean, from Alexandria and Egypt, from the provinces of Cilicia and Asia, from Cyrene, Cyrene is in the area of Libya today.
This group, and the word synagogue just means gathering, it was a place where local Jews would gather to hear the teaching of the law. This group of Jews who had been formerly enslaved, who were part of the Diaspora, they had been spread across the Mediterranean. They rose up in opposition to Stephen and began to argue with him.
They didn't like the things that he was saying. Now the reason why this group may have been so zealous is because of their identity, because they were formally dispossessed, because they did not grow up in Israel. And so they were making their stand that they're going to hold true to Judaism. They're gonna hold the line, they're gonna prove their worth as Jewish men by entering into disputation with Stephen.
But as they argued with him, it says that they could not stand up against the wisdom that the Holy Spirit was giving Stephen as he spoke, and once again, this is fulfilling the promise that Jesus gave in Luke 21:15 to his disciples, he says, I will give you words and wisdoms that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict.
Now in being frustrated by that, they decide that they're going to drum up charges against Stephen, secretly persuading some men by saying We've heard Stephen speak blasphemous words against Moses and against God, very broad and serious charges because in saying that he's committing blasphemy against Moses, what they mean is that he's speaking against the, against the law.
Because the law, the 10 Commandments, and the law came through Moses. So Stephen's blaspheming everything they stand for, and apparently these men were so persuasive that they were able to have it so that Stephen was forced to appear before the Sanhedrin. We continue in verses 12 through 7:1.
So, so they stirred up the people and the elders and the teachers of the law. They seized Stephen and brought him before the Sanhedrin. They produced false witnesses who testified, this fellow never stops speaking against his holy place and against the law, for we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs moses handed down to us. All who were sitting in the Sanhedrin looked intently at Stephen and they saw that his face was like the face of an angel. Then the high priest asked Stephen, are these charges true?
The group that they bring Stephen before is known as the Sanhedrin. This is the council of 70 men made up of Pharisees, Sadducees, and priests. A very August body, very intimidating. Holding much authority in Jewish society, so much authority that this is the same body which ultimately condemned Jesus Christ and worked it out that Pontius Pilate would see that he would be crucified.
And we see other similarities here between the trial of Jesus and the trial of Stephen, as in the trial of Jesus, false witnesses are produced, and as in the case of Jesus, Stephen is accused of blasphemy. And, and Jesus was likewise accused of saying that, oh, he's, he's speaking against the temple because Jesus said you can tear down this temple, but in three days it'll be raised back up.
And of course, he was talking about the resurrection of his body, but they were twisting the meaning of his words and making the worst meaning possible of it. One wonders how they thought Jesus would possibly tear down that, that that huge granite structure on his own. By any case, we, we're seeing parallels here, an echo of what happened to Jesus happening to Stephen.
Now, what's ironic about this is that they are accusing Stephen of blaspheming Moses blaspheming the law, and yet they themselves in producing false witnesses are violating the law. The ninth commandment of the 10 Commandments is you shall not give false testimony, false witness against your neighbor. Even whilst they're doing this, and you can imagine being in Stephen's shoes, how awful it would be to be in that position knowing the stakes involved, given you know that what happened to Jesus. Despite all this, it says that Stephen's face was a glow like the face of an angel.
This is reminiscent of the glowing face of Moses when he descended from Mount Sinai after receiving the law. And so you have a contrast here. You have these men conspiring, lying, creating false testimony. And then you have here Stephen, who is reflecting the very presence of God and his being. The one group knows nothing of God.
The other man is so close to God that his very glory is beaming from him.
Now. They make their charges here a little bit more specific as they proceed. They say that again, they say that he was blaspheming against Moses and God, but now we see specifically that he is speaking against the law and the temple because once again, Moses represents the law and when we think about God, it'd be very natural for them to associate him with his temple.
Now as we'll go along, we'll see that this is not true as such, that it's not true that Stephen is speaking against the law, although the law has been fulfilled in Christ. He's not speaking against the temple, though the temple has been transcended.
The high priest asks Stephen, are these charges true? Just as he asked Jesus the same, very same question, but rather than just giving a yes or no answer, Stephen takes this opportunity to launch into a testimony that will turn into a rebuke of the Sanhedrin. Now, I don't usually read the text to you at great length because I'm afraid of you losing your attention.
But I think it's important for you to hear what he has to say as a whole. And I want to assure you, I'm not going to go every over, every little detail of this. I want you to imagine that you're there, hearing Stephen give this speech and just kind of try to soak it in. And what I've also done in the slides is that I, I've highlighted some specific things that I think you should pay attention to.
And then I'm just gonna reflect on it as a whole after I read it. It's a, it's a lot of verses so, so buckle up, pay attention.
Beginning in verse two of chapter seven, Stephen begins his testimony of how God had met the people of God. He says to this, he replied, brothers and fathers, listen to me. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham while he was still in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran. Leave your country and your people, God said, and go to the land I will show you.
So he left the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran. After the death of his father, God sent him to this land where you are now living. He gave him no inheritance here, not even enough ground to set his foot on. But God promised him that he and his descendants after him would possess the land, even though at that time Abraham had no child.
God spoke to him in this way: for 400 years, your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated, but I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, God said, and afterward, they will come out of that country and worship me in this place. Then he gave Abraham the covenant of circumcision.
And Abraham became the father of Isaac and circumcised him eight days after his birth. Later, Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob became the father of the 12 patriarchs. Because the patriarchs were jealous of Joseph, they sold him as a slave into Egypt, but God was with him and rescued him from all his troubles.
He gave Joseph wisdom and enabled him to gain the goodwill of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. So Pharaoh made him ruler over Egypt and all his palace. Then a famine struck all Egypt and Canaan, bringing great suffering, and our ancestors could not find food. When Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent our forefathers on their first visit.
On their second visit, Joseph told his brothers who he was, and Pharaoh learned about Joseph's family. After this, Joseph sent for his father, Jacob and his whole family, 75 in all. Then Jacob went down to Egypt, where he and our ancestors died. Their bodies were brought back to Shechem and placed in the tomb that Abraham had bought from the sons of Hamor at Shechem for a certain sum of money.
As the time drew near for God to fulfill his promise to Abraham, the number of our people in Egypt had greatly increased. Then a new king, to whom Joseph meant nothing, came to power in Egypt. He dealt treacherously with our people and oppressed our ancestors by forcing them to throw out their newborn babies so that they would die.
At that time, Moses was born and he was no ordinary child. For three months, he was cared for by his family. When he was placed outside, Pharaoh's daughter took and brought him up as her own. Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in speech and action. When Moses was 40 years old, he decided to visit his own people, the Israelites.
He saw one of them being mistreated by an Egyptian, so he went to his defense and avenged him by killing the Egyptian. Moses thought that his own people would realize that God was using him to rescue them, but they did not. The next day, Moses came upon two Israelites who were fighting. He tried to reconcile them by saying, men, you are brothers; why do you want to hurt each other? But the man who was mistreating the other pushed Moses aside and said, who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday? When Moses heard this, he fled to Midian, where he settled as a foreigner and had two sons. After 40 years had passed, an angel appeared to Moses in the flames of a burning bush in the desert near Mount Sinai. When he saw this, he was amazed at the sight. As he went over to get a closer look, he heard the Lord say: I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Moses trembled with fear and did not dare look.
Then the Lord said to him, take off your sandals for the place where you are standing is holy ground. I have indeed seen the oppression of my people in Egypt. I have heard their groaning and have come back, have come down to see, set them free. Now come, I will send you back to Egypt. This is the same Moses they had rejected with the words who made you ruler and judge.
He was sent to be their ruler and deliverer by God himself through the angel who appeared to him in the bush. He led them out of Egypt and performed wonders and signs in Egypt at the Red Sea and for 40 years in the wilderness. This is the Moses who told the Israelites, God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your own people.
He was in the assembly in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our ancestors; and he received the living words to pass on to us. But our ancestors refused to obey him. Instead, they rejected him and in their hearts turned back to Egypt. They told Aaron, make us Gods who will go before us.
As for this fellow Moses who led us out of Egypt, we don't know what has happened to him. That was the time they made an idol in the form of a calf. They brought sacrifices to it and reveled in what their own hands had made. But God turned away from them and gave them over to the worship of the Sun, moon, and Stars.
This agrees with what is written in the book of the Prophets. Did you bring me sacrifices and offerings 40 years in the wilderness, people of Israel? You have taken up the Tabernacle of Molek and the star of your god Rephan, the idols you made to worship. Therefore, I will send you into exile beyond Babylon.
Our ancestors had the tabernacle of the covenant law with them in the wilderness. It had been made as God directed Moses, according to the pattern he had seen. After receiving the tabernacle, our ancestors under Joshua brought it with them when they took the land from the nations God drove out before them.
It remained in the land until the time of David, who enjoyed God's favor and asked that he might provide a dwelling place for the God of Jacob. But it was Solomon who built a house for him. However, the most high does not live in houses made by human hands. As the prophet says: heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool.
What kind of house will you build for me? says the Lord. Or where will my, where will my resting place be? Has not my hand made all these things? You stiff-necked people! Your hearts and ears are still uncircumcised. You are just like your ancestors: you always resist the Holy Spirit! Was there ever a prophet your ancestors did not persecute?
They even killed those who predicted the coming of the righteous one. And now you have betrayed and murdered him-- you who have received the law that was given through angels but have not obeyed it.
Now, there's so much detail here, and you could dig into the detail. But I don't want you to fail to see the forest for the trees. I want you to see the big picture here of what Stephen is doing in this testimony. Here's the big theme. What Stephen is testifying to is God's abiding presence with the patriarchs.
He highlights certain figures. He, he points out God was with Abraham way before Abraham was ever in Israel, he was with Abraham in Mesopotamia, even before he was in Haran, when he got the call to go to the Promised Land. God was with Joseph in Egypt, in a pagan land. God was with him, and God was with Moses through everything while he was in Egypt, during the Exodus in the wilderness, and then even when we look at the figure of David, David did not have the temple as they knew it during the time of David. They only had the tabernacle and that that kind of moved around a little bit. The Ark of the Covenant moved around a bit during David's time. It wasn't in a set place and David wanted to build a temple, but it was only his son Solomon, who would build the temple.
So the idea that he is driving at here is God's presence with his people, regardless of being locked down to a specific place. And we see that this, this testimony abides even in the case of when the temple has been established. Stephen quotes Isaiah 66: 1 where the Lord says, what are you thinking? That you could build a temple for me that could contain me. I've made all this, and even Solomon himself at the time when they were going to build the temple, he says this in 2 Chronicles two verses five through six. The temple I'm going to build will be great because our God is greater than all other gods, but who is able to build a temple for him, since the heavens, even the highest heavens cannot contain him.
Who then am am I to build a temple for him except as a place to burn sacrifices before him. See Solomon, the one who constructed the original temple, even he recognized, I'm building a temple for God, but it's not to contain him. It's not to house God. This is just a place where we're gonna offer sacrifices to God.
What Stephen is doing here is he's pushing back against the Sanhedrin notion that the temple, this, this granite structure is the end all be all. Stephen's not calling through the temple to be torn down, but what he's standing firm on is that God is on the move and he is moving on to bigger and better things than this thing made of stone.
Now there's a second theme that we also see here. There's a theme of rejection. We see how Stephen highlights in the case of Joseph, of how he was rejected by his own brothers and sold into slavery into Egypt. His brothers who would go on to be the heads of the tribes of Israel no less. Then he points to the figure of Moses and he says, this is the guy that would end up leading the people of Israel, the Hebrew people out of Egypt.
And yet when he first starts out, they reject him. They say, who made you ruler and judge over us? And not only then, they reject Moses multiple times when he's on Mount Sinai they're like, I don't know where that guy is, how about you make us a golden calf Aaron? Again and again, they reject those that God put in place to be their savior.
Joseph was a savior for the people of Israel because of the time of famine that would come against them, come upon them. When we look at the words of Moses and the teaching of the law that he gave to the people of Israel, among those teachings is this, which Stephen highlights taken from Deuteronomy 18:15, says The Lord your God will raise up for you, a prophet like me, from among you, from your fellow Israelites.
You must listen to him. Now, of course, what, Moses is prophesying here is the appearance of Jesus Christ, the Messiah, but like Jesus and like all the other prophets, the people of Israel have had a track record of rejecting their prophets. And Stephen says it's because you're stiff necked, you have these uncircumcised hearts. In Deuteronomy 10: 16, after, after the people of Israel were caught in the sin of idolatry for creating this golden calf, Moses is sent back up the mountain to receive the 10 Commandments again. And in speaking to the people once again, once he's, Moses tells them this in Deuteronomy 10: 16, he says, circumcise your hearts, therefore, and do not be stiff necked any longer.
So this is, this is a theme that goes way back. This idea that God's people need their hearts circumcised, not just their flesh. And the meaning of that, of having your heart circumcised is this, is that you would actually be obedient to God's law, to what he is commanding. This is a theme that Paul picks up in Romans two saying that what God really desires is this true circumcision of the heart, a circumcision that is ultimately only able to be brought about by what Christ does in the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
So Stephen in rebuking the Sanhedrin, he is echoing Jesus's own commentary regarding how the people have received the prophets. Up to this point in Matthew 23, verse 31 and 37, Jesus says to them, so you testify against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets. Then he cries Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you are not willing. Now, of course, exactly what they did to the prophets, they did to Jesus. They rejected him and they crucified him.
And so in summary, what Stephen is telling them is that you're very confused about your import, about this importance of the temple, that the temple served its purpose, but God does not need this stone temple. And what's more is you're not paying attention to God's teaching. You're not paying attention to the true teaching of the law.
You have this long track record of rejecting God's prophets, and so your charge against me is unfounded based on the teaching of scripture. Everything, our whole history contradicts your condemnation of me. And you're in no position to judge me, given that you've condemned yourselves by what you've done to Jesus.
Says, you who have received the law that was given through the angels, you've, you've not obeyed it, says you betrayed and murdered the righteous one that was predicted to come. Now in what follows we see that the Sanhedrin only goes on to prove Stephen's point. In verse 54, it says, when the members of the Sanhedrin heard this, they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him. 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. At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, dragged him out of the city, and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul. While they were stoning him, Stephen, prayed, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. Then he fell on his knees and cried out, Lord, do not hold the sin against them.
When he had said this, he fell asleep. So notice once again the contrast here. The contrast you have is you have the Sanhedrin, they're just furious, they're gnashing their teeth. They're so frustrated with what Stephen is saying. And on the other hand, Stephen is in pure rapture, looking up to heaven. He says, look, I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God, and what he is seeing truly is fulfilling what was prophesied. He's testifying to the reality that has come to pass in Christ's ascension. Daniel and Jesus prophesied this, this fulfillment, which Stephen can attest to. Daniel 7:13. Daniel says, in my vision at night, I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the ancient of days and was led into his presence.
And Jesus, when he's on trial himself, and it leads to a very bad reaction from the authorities, and he is asked, are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed one? Jesus says, I am, and you'll see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty one and coming on the clouds of heaven. And so just as they responded to Jesus violently, so they respond to Stephen violently when he makes his testimony.
They can't stand what he's saying so much, so they cover their ears and they start yelling and they rush at him. You just imagine them mobbing around him and they drag him out to stone him. An awful way to meet your end. And then there's a little sidebar here. It says that there's a young man, Saul standing by and they lay their coats at his feet. Now this man we'll later learn would be a great persecutor of the church. And so he doesn't just happen to be there and standing there watching over the coats. He's offering his support. And when you think about it, it's a pretty twisted thing. It's like, oh, you want to kill this guy here, let me hold your jacket for you.
And it's going to make Paul's, Saul's later conversion to the Apostle Paul all, all the more incredible when we see where he's come from here.
But turning back to Stephen, we find him, even as the stones are raining down on him, he seems to be in this place of perfect peace.
He says, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. Once again, we hear this echo from the cross. When Jesus says to the Father, receive my spirit. Then he says, Lord, do not hold the sin against them. Again, echoing the words of Christ. When he says, father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing. This is a profound, challenging example of forgiveness that even as these men that hate him are killing him, he is extending forgiveness towards them. He's desiring their salvation even as they are desiring his destruction. And some food for thought for us to consider that when people are throwing stones at us, and most of the time it's not literal stones, but thinking figuratively here when people are throwing stones at us.
Do we have that same response as Stephen, think, thinking to ourselves, praying to the father. Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.
And we know that the Lord heard Stephen, he heard his prayers. We know the Lord was with Stephen just as he was with Abraham, Joseph and Moses. He knew God's presence no less than David and Solomon. The father was with Stephen just as he remained with Jesus when all others fled, and something that I probably don't need to tell you, but I just want you to appreciate how awesome it is that God's presence in our lives is not limited to a particular time and place. God's presence in your life is not limited to Sunday morning. The Holy Spirit has taken up residence in every man, woman, and child who trusts in Jesus Christ.
Even so we will know hardship like Stephen. Jesus told his disciples this and it applies to us today also, we who are the current day disciples. Jesus says in John 15:20-21. Remember what I told you, a servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they'll persecute you. Also. If they obey my teaching, they'll obey yours also, they'll treat you this way because of my name for they do not know the one who sent me.
Do not be surprised by rejection when you stand for the gospel truth, when you articulate the gospel message. Do not be surprised by fury, by the gnashing of teeth, by the covering of ears, by all manner of yelling. Do not be surprised by the stones, and do not be afraid. See what Stephen sees. See the son of man standing at the right hand of God.
Jesus is the king of kings. Jesus is on our side. He is with us. And so stand firm, be steadfast, be immovable because he is the victor and we will overcome. Let us pray.
Father, we give you thanks that there is no question as to whether you hear us.
Father, we thank you that in Jesus Christ we have transcended the granite structure of the temple and that Father we, we see that it is so obsolete that it no longer even stands today, Father, and it need not be erected again because Christ is the cornerstone of the new temple and we are that living temple of God.
We thank you for the assurance that we know that you are with us, that you are present with us, and that you fill us with the Holy Spirit, the same Holy Spirit who gave Stephen wisdom and power and that peace to make the testimony that he did against that group of 70 men.
This same Holy Spirit, he indwells within us. Father, we thank you for this gift, and Father, we pray that you would help us to be so bold as Stephen to stand firm in our testimony, confident in the authority of Jesus Christ. The surety of his victory. We ask this in his name. Amen.
Hey there, Pastor Tom here. I hope you enjoyed this sermon I offered to Rockland Community Church. Rockland Community Church is located at 212 Rockland Road in North Scituate, Rhode Island, just around the bend from the Scituate Public High School. We invite you to join us in person or virtually this Sunday as we continue our series The Spirit and the Church. It's our joy to welcome you into our community.
Intro/Outro Song
Title: River Meditation
Artist: Jason Shaw
Source:http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Jason_Shaw/Audionautix_Acoustic/RIVER_MEDITATION___________2-58
License:(CC BY 3.0 US)