[0:00] This message was recorded at Vision Baptist Church in Alfred, Georgia. It is our prayer that you will be blessed by the preaching of God's Word. Turn your Bibles, please, to the book of Acts, chapter 6.
[0:11] Get Acts, chapter 6 in one hand, if you would, please, and then look at Acts, chapter 12. We're going to look at that in a second. Very thankful for the opportunity to be here tonight at Vision and to catch you all up on what we've seen the Lord do in the past few weeks and to ask for your prayers, Lord, give us wisdom and direction in the coming days.
[0:35] We want to look tonight at a passage that is very important to me as a missionary. It's the defense of Stephen. And one of the reasons for that is, to me, it helps me understand a little bit about the connection between the Old Testament and the New Testament of the Bible, which can be kind of a confusing thing for us as believers.
[0:53] We can feel like there's this great discontinuity between the two halves of our Bibles. I mean, when we read the Old Testament, there's these special buildings and there's these special people who work dressed in special clothes and they have special sacrifices and they seem to be busy about doing a lot of things that we're not doing today.
[1:13] And sometimes Christians can be upset and troubled by that seeming difference by what we see in the New Testament. And it's important to remember that that's the world that Jesus came into, that Jesus came into this world that we see described for us in the Old Testament.
[1:30] And really, it's in the book of Acts, and that's where we're going to see tonight, that we kind of see the fulcrum or the axis where we see this transition made. If you read the beginning of Acts and you see these believers, this handful of believers that Jesus has left behind that received the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, if you kind of think about what those believers' lives looked like, what their worship looked like, about their connection to the temple, and then you flip to the end of Acts and you see these Gentile believers in their churches, it seems like we've covered a lot of ground.
[2:01] And I think that's part of the reason why Luke, as he writes this book, he spends so much time, he gives so much space to Luke and to his speech.
[2:13] Now, this is, we all know the end of the story, right? I'm not going to, spoiler alert, I'm going to give it away here. Stephen dies at the end. He's going to die. And we're going to read that in a second. But I want you to notice this. If you flip over, so he gets a whole chapter.
[2:25] All of chapter 7 is Stephen's last one. Now, who is Stephen? We just met him in chapter 6. The dude is not an apostle. This guy is not exactly the top ten of the who's who of New Testament figures.
[2:39] But this guy gets a whole chapter out of the few chapters that we have here in Acts that are describing this huge transition. He gets this huge block. And it's a long chapter, too. It's a big old block of text.
[2:50] And look over at chapter 12, just to kind of compare for a second. Chapter 12, verse 2. We'll give him the credit of reading verse 1, too. Now, about that time, Herod the king stretched forth his hands to vex certain of the church, and he killed James, the brother of John, with a sword.
[3:07] The end for James. That's it. He gets like half of a verse. And he's an important guy. If you read the New Testament, James is not some unimportant character that just popped up on the scene here in Acts.
[3:19] He's an important disciple of Jesus. He's James, the brother of John, right? One of the sons of thunder. And half a verse. Now, Stephen, this guy that we just met in chapter 6, Luke gives him this whole long chapter.
[3:31] Why? Because what Stephen represents, what Stephen is explaining, is pushing forward our understanding of what this New Testament church thing is going to be all about.
[3:42] His themes that he introduces are key to Luke's purposes. And so he spends time doing this. So let's start in chapter 6, and let's read verse 8, and we'll kind of skip around a little bit and try to hit the highlights.
[3:56] Verse 8. And Stephen, full of faith and power, did great wonders and miracles among the people. Then there arose certain of the synagogue, which is called the synagogue of the Libertines, the Cyrenians, the Alexandrians, and of them of Cilicia and of Asia, disputing with Stephen.
[4:09] And they were not able to resist the spirit and the wisdom and the spirit by which he spake. Then they suborned men, which said, we have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and against God.
[4:21] And they stirred up the people and the elders and the scribes and came upon him and caught him and brought him to the council and set up false witnesses, which said, This man ceaseth not to speak blasphemous words against this holy place and the law.
[4:37] For we've heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place and shall change the customs which Moses delivered us. And all that sat in the council, looking steadfastly on him, saw his face as had been the face of an angel.
[4:49] Then said the high priest, these things so? And he said, men, brethren, fathers, hearken, the God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia before he dwelt in Cairn and said unto him, Get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred and come into the land which I shall show thee.
[5:04] Now below he kind of unfolds the history of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and the twelve tribes being sold into Egypt, Joseph. And then look down at verse number 20.
[5:16] In which time Moses was born and was exceeding fair and nourished up in his father's house three months. When he was cast out, Pharaoh's daughter took him up and nourished him for her own son. And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was mighty in words and deeds.
[5:30] When he was full of 40 years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren, the children of Israel. Seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended him and avenged him that was oppressed and smote the Egyptian. For he supposed his brethren would have understood how the God by his hand would deliver them.
[5:43] But they understood not. And the next day he showed himself unto them as they strove and would have set them at one again saying, Sirs, ye're brethren, why do ye wrong one to another? But he that did his neighbor wrong thrust him away saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge over us?
[5:57] Now flip down to verse, skip down to verse number 44. Our fathers had the tabernacle of witness in the wilderness as he had appointed, speaking unto Moses, that he should make it according to the fashion that he had seen.
[6:08] Which also our fathers that came after brought in with Jesus into the possession of the Gentiles, whom God drave out before the face of our fathers into the days of David, who found favor before God and desired to find a tabernacle for the God of Jacob.
[6:22] But Solomon built him a house. Howbeit the Most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands, as saith the prophet, Heaven is my throne, earth is my footstool. What house will ye build me, saith the Lord?
[6:33] Or what is the place of my rest? Hath not my hand made all these things? Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost, as your fathers did, so do ye.
[6:46] Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? And they have slain them which showed before of the coming of the Just One, of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers, who having received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it.
[7:00] Now, this is a very long speech that Stephen gives here. And I'll just be real honest. When I used to read this, I used to think he was kind of just stalling for time. Right? Like, he'd kind of tell this was not going to go his way, so he's like, let's turn to Genesis.
[7:15] And let's start talking about Genesis for a while. Right? And he's just trying to stall. And then at the end, he kind of loses his temper with him and says, ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised, and then they start hitting him with rocks. I don't really think that's what's happening here.
[7:26] Now, what got Stephen in trouble? Okay? Was Stephen a much more bold preacher than the other apostles, and that's why he was singled out? Well, what happened was, as often happens when we try to bring the gospel to new areas of people, Stephen was a Hellenistic Jew.
[7:40] So he was a Jew that kind of had his roots in kind of the Greek world, and he spoke Greek, and he understood the Greek culture, even though he was ethnically a Jewish person.
[7:51] And so what we find in chapter 6 is that he is engaging these synagogues that were in Jerusalem, but they belonged to these cultural minorities.
[8:03] And so he is engaging new groups of people with the gospel, whereas the other apostles and the other Christians seem to be mainly targeting the Hebrew, Hebrew kind of Jews.
[8:13] And Philip is kind of, Philip and Stephen and these other guys that they kind of set up here in chapter 6 to take care of the tables, seem like they're pushing the gospel into new areas.
[8:24] And so, it says in verse 10 of chapter 6, they were not able to resist the spirit and the wisdom by which he spake. So what did they do? They found false witnesses. And they bring him before the same people that not very long ago had decided that Jesus Christ needed to be nailed to a cross.
[8:43] The same room. So I think that would probably set him at least a little bit on edge and let him know this could potentially be a very dangerous position. Now, what they say, look at their dual accusations they bring against him.
[8:56] Verse 11, We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and against God. Look down at verse 13. This man ceaseth not to speak blasphemous words against this holy place and the law.
[9:09] So their accusation had two kind of main heads. Number one, they said, this guy is attacking the temple. Number two, they said, this guy is attacking Moses and the law that he brought us.
[9:23] Now, what's very interesting to note is that Stephen does not start out his message by saying, Hey guys, you're misunderstanding me. You're misunderstanding me. I'm not saying the temple's useless.
[9:35] I'm not saying we're past the time we use the law. Why does he not say that? Because they about got it right. They about got it right. He's saying, yeah, we're done with the temple and we're done with the law.
[9:46] Now, it's interesting because we don't see, that isn't told us in chapter 6, but that's how Luke is letting us know. This is what Stephen was preaching. This is what got him into so much trouble. Stephen was telling not only the Christians but the unbelievers, you're in the temple.
[10:00] You're thinking the temple is going to grant you a certain kind of access to God. He says, you're deceiving yourself. That time is over. And you think that by the works of the law that you'll be able to be reconciled to God? He says, I'm telling you, we're past that.
[10:12] That's not how it works. And so what we see in chapter 7 is his explanation. He wants to do his best to explain to these people what it is that he means when he says, we're done with the temple and we're done with the law.
[10:27] So number one, we're going to see his new conception of the temple of God. What is it that Stephen believes about the temple? Now, the temple, let's remind ourselves what a temple is.
[10:39] A temple is like this mobile hotspot for connecting to God. Now, the Bible says that mankind, by and large, is not connected to God.
[10:51] That we are a people that is divorced from our Creator. That we have no contact with Him. That the Bible says that when Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, they were expelled from the presence of God.
[11:04] And since then, mankind has been totally alienated and totally in the dark. And we can turn on the TV, but it's not receiving any signals. Our antennas are dead. We're not receiving any information from God.
[11:17] And so God blesses His people by giving them a temple or a tabernacle, a place where they can come. And He says, in this place, you'll be able to stand in my presence.
[11:28] And that's why we see here, look at the bookends of Stephen's speech. Where does he start and where does he end? He starts with Abraham and he goes to Solomon.
[11:40] Now, why does he stop at Solomon? That is the period of time in Israel's history where they did not have a temple. So these guys say, listen, Stephen is saying that we're done with the temple.
[11:52] He's saying we don't need a temple anymore. And so Stephen says, listen, guys, you've got to understand what I'm teaching here. And so he says, there was a time in our history when we didn't have a temple. And he wants them to reflect on that time.
[12:04] Now, what's his point? You can have a connection to God outside of the temple. Now, look how he does this. He goes back and he tells them about some of these heroes of their faith, these patriarchs.
[12:16] And he says, these guys were all before a temple. But did they have a connection to God? Did they have access to God? Look what he does in verse 5. He says about Abraham. And he gave him, God gave Abraham, none inheritance in it.
[12:29] No, not so much as to set his foot on. Yet he promised him that he would give it to him for a possession. You know what he says about Abraham? Abraham didn't even not have the temple. He didn't even have the land to put a temple on.
[12:40] Was Abraham connected to God? Of course. Every Jewish person would say, of course Abraham was connected to God. Look down at verse 9. And the patriarchs moved with envy, sold Joseph into Egypt.
[12:51] But what? God was with him. Joseph, no temple, wasn't even in the land. He was sent to Egypt. But in Egypt, that pagan land, God was with him.
[13:01] Look down at verse 30. This is Moses. Forty years were expired. There appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai an angel of the Lord in a flame of fire in a bush.
[13:15] He says, where did Moses get in touch with God? Oh, that's right. It was a burning bush. It wasn't a temple. It was a burning bush. Look at verse 33. Then said the Lord to him, put off thy shoes from thy feet for the place where thou standest is holy ground.
[13:29] But Jewish people are saying, no, no, holy ground, that's the temple mount. That's where we have this special building. And Stephen's point is, you can have holy ground without having that temple.
[13:41] Now look at what he says in verse 44 and 45. We just read this a second ago. He says, our fathers, I mean our ancestors, had the tabernacle of witness in the wilderness, as he had appointed, speaking unto Moses that he should make it according to the fashion that he had seen, which also our fathers that came after brought in with Jesus, that's Joshua, into the possession of the Gentiles whom God drave out before the face of our fathers unto the days of David who found favor before God and desired to find a tabernacle for the God of Jacob.
[14:10] But look at this, kind of casually, verse 47, but Solomon built him a house. That's a very flippant way for a Jewish person to refer to the temple. Now see what he's saying in verse 44 and 45?
[14:21] At all the high points, you can make the case that for Israel's history, when they had the tabernacle, it was all uphill. And you could make the case that once they got a temple, it was all downhill from there.
[14:32] See, what he's trying to make the case to them is, listen, if you actually look at the high points in our nation's history, the better times came when we had the tabernacle. Now why would that be so?
[14:43] Well, first of all, the tabernacle was mobile. You can move it. The tabernacle was better than the temple for the same reason a cell phone is better than a landline. You can take it with you.
[14:54] And the temple was stuck in one place, and that meant some people had better access to God than other people. And his point was, hey, when we had a tabernacle, it was right in the center of us, and we all had equal access to the tabernacle.
[15:05] Not only that, but he says in verse 44, he should make it according to the fashion that he had seen. Who designed the temple? Solomon. Who designed the tabernacle? God. God. God.
[15:16] God designed the tabernacle. So why is Stephen saying, let's build a tabernacle? No, what his point is, he's saying, don't think that the temple is the be-all, end-all of experiencing God's presence.
[15:30] It is not unthinkable. It is not unthinkable that God could do something greater than the temple, considering he's done something greater than the temple before. In fact, Stephen is building on a concept that was introduced by Jesus when he said, tear this place down.
[15:46] Tear it down, and I'll build it again in three days. This he spake, referring to his body, his body. So what's Stephen trying to imply to them? Listen, guys, a greater temple is here.
[15:58] Now in this time, in the book of Acts time, in the 2014 time, in the church time, what's going on in the world? There is a new locus to the presence of God.
[16:10] There's a new hub. There's a new place. And where is it? It is Jesus Christ himself. He is our temple. And Stephen says we are not going to go back to the shadows.
[16:21] We're not going to go back to the time of lesser revelation. When we have Jesus, what we have is the ultimate temple. It's not just a glimpse of the presence of God. He is Emmanuel.
[16:32] He is God with us. When we are with him, we're the temple. So he is saying, listen, guys, we're going to move away from this temple thing. And Stephen represents this thing that happens in the book of Acts.
[16:42] And up until today, we don't go to a temple. Unlike those believers pre-Steven, we don't go to a temple. This is not a temple. For one thing, it's not nice enough. We have a nice place here, but it's not nice enough.
[16:53] It's not to be a temple. And the reason is because we believe we have found the greatest temple. And in Jesus Christ, we have total, complete access to God. That's not the only accusation they made.
[17:04] They also made an accusation about Moses. And that's why a huge part of Stephen's message here focuses on the person of Moses. Now, the Jewish people were Moses crazy.
[17:14] I mean, kids had posters of Moses dunking a basketball on their walls. They believed Moses could do anything. And so that's why, but, you know, Stephen, he kind of starts off on a very positive note.
[17:26] He says, I love Moses. And we Christians, we love Moses. Moses is the greatest. So he says in verse 20, he says, at that time Moses was born, he was exceeding fair. Okay, that's kind of a weird thing to say about a guy.
[17:36] But he said, Moses was exceeding fair. Nourished up in his father's house three months. And he says he was cast out. Pharaoh's daughter took him up. Verse 22, Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, was mighty in words and deeds.
[17:49] He was 40 years old. He came into his heart to visit his brethren, the children of Israel. He defended them. But notice this key story in Moses' life. Verse 23 and 24 is the story of Moses killing an Egyptian.
[18:01] Now, when I was little, I went to Sunday school, and they told me that Moses had a temper tantrum and killed, and he got ahead of God, and got out of the will of God, and he murdered an Egyptian in cold blood, and that was a wicked, terrible thing for him to do.
[18:17] Stephen seems to disagree a little bit. See what he says in verse 24. Seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended him, and avenged him that was oppressed, and smote the Egyptian, for he supposed his brethren would have understood how that God by his hand would deliver them, but they understood not.
[18:34] So, you know what Stephen says? God would have done something at that time, except that the people's hearts were hard, and they were not ready to receive the Savior that God had sent them in the person of Moses.
[18:46] Now, this is very important for Stephen. Here's what he says. Yeah, you guys say that you like Moses so much, but I remember your history, and to be real honest, you all don't have a history of liking Moses that much.
[18:59] Look what he says below. Verse 26. The next day he showed himself unto them as they strove, and would have set them at one again, saying, Sirs, ye are brethren. Why do ye wrong one to another?
[19:10] But he that did his neighbor wrong, look at this, thrust him away, saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge over us? They thrust him away.
[19:22] Now, that's a very key thing. If you look down at verse 35, verse 35, he says, This Moses whom they refused, saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge? The same did God send to be a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the angel which appeared to him in the bush.
[19:37] So Stephen says, To be real honest, Israel does not have the greatest history of recognizing the people that God sends to deliver them. When Moses came, you did not receive him with joy.
[19:49] You thrust him away and said, Who do you think you are? Who made you to be a ruler over us? Now, in verse 40, for example, he shows not only was it just that generation, because these Jewish people might say, Well, it was really just that one generation.
[20:01] Look at verse 40. Saying unto Aaron, Make us gods to go before us, for as for this Moses, this Moses, which brought us out of the land of Egypt, we want not what has become of him. And they made a calf in those days, offered sacrifice unto the idol, rejoiced in the works of their own hands.
[20:14] Then God turned, gave them up to worship the hosts of heaven, as is written in the book of the prophets. Verse 43, You took up the tabernacle of Moloch and the star of your god, Rimpham, figures which you made to worship them. I will carry you away beyond Babylon.
[20:27] So what Moses is saying is, the same Moses that God chose is the one that they rejected. The same Moses that God chose is the one that they rejected.
[20:38] He says Israel has a track record of rejecting the leaders that God sent. Look at verse 52. Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted?
[20:48] That would be a shorter list. And they have slain them which showed before of the coming of the just one, of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers, who have received the law by the disposition of angels and have not kept it.
[21:02] So what Stephen is saying is, hey, you all are saying that I'm the guy that doesn't like Moses. He says actually our people have a history of not recognizing the one that God sends to deliver us and to redeem us.
[21:16] And now what he says is, and now God has sent the ultimate just one. Now he has sent the ultimate ruler. Now he has sent the ultimate judge. Now he has sent the ultimate savior in the person of Jesus Christ.
[21:29] And you have now been the betrayers and the murderers. As your fathers have done, so do you also. And so what Stephen says is, hey, there's something new. Jesus has brought a greater revelation.
[21:41] Jesus is the new Moses who has brought a greater revelation. Now this leads Stephen to kind of a conclusion. And that's kind of what we want to focus on here in our last couple minutes. And that is this.
[21:52] You know, to a Jewish person, the law and the temple were really kind of what marked them out as the people of God. Okay? So if you said, if a Jewish person said to you, we're the people of God, not like you Gentiles.
[22:05] And you would say, well, what do you mean by that? They say, well, you see, we have this law that was given to us by God. And we have this place where we can go and we can have access to the presence of God. So if that's not what's going to do it anymore, if Stephen says those things are off, those are no longer the markers of God's people.
[22:22] Those are no longer the things that distinguish God's people from not God's people. Then what exactly is it? Look what he says in verse number 47.
[22:33] Now he quotes from Isaiah chapter 66 to prove Stephen saying, don't think I'm making this up.
[22:46] Don't think I'm some innovator making up some new teaching here. He says, heaven is my throne. This is from Isaiah 66 verse 1. Heaven is my throne. Earth is my footstool.
[22:57] What house will you build me, saith the Lord? Or what is the place of my rest? Thus hath not my hand made all these things. Now what's interesting is that if you were to go to Isaiah chapter 66, and we won't do this tonight for the sake of time.
[23:10] But if you go to Isaiah chapter 66 and you read the first two verses, it starts out just like that. But at the end of verse 2, it says where God will dwell. So verse 1 and verse 2a, he says, you think I'm going to dwell in some house that you build me?
[23:26] You think you're going to contain me in some physical dimensions? You think that's going to happen? He says, I made all these things. How can you build something to contain the guy that created it?
[23:37] You can't do that. But here's how he ends in verse 2. He says, but to this person will I look. In other words, who will have access to my presence?
[23:47] Who will get in? He says, to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit. To the humble, repentant ones, they will have access to the presence of God.
[24:00] Now, to be honest, this audience that Stephen is speaking to, are they at least a little familiar with Isaiah chapter 66? Oh, very. Probably a little bit more than we are.
[24:10] Maybe embarrassingly more than we are. And he reads that. And right where they're expecting to hear that good part about the poor and the contrite spirit, see what Stephen says and said. Verse 50.
[24:21] Hath not my hand made all these things? Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost. As your fathers did, so do ye. So right where they're expecting that part about God will pay attention to the poor and the contrite spirit, they will have access to God.
[24:36] He says, you're stiff-necked and you're uncircumcised in your heart and ears. Now, those words, I mean, if you call me that, I probably won't get in a fight with you. But these guys, when they heard those words, that was the last straw for them.
[24:50] And the reason is because they say stiff-necked. As soon as they said stiff-necked, that would remind them of all the times when their ancestors were in the wilderness and they rebelled against Moses and they rejected Moses.
[25:02] And God said, you're a stiff-necked, stubborn people who will not bend your will to submit to me. And to say I'm circumcised, you know what he's saying? You think you're the people of God.
[25:15] But that circumcision was the mark, was another one of those marks, like the temple, like the law. It was a mark of the people of God. And he says, you are sitting there judging me and believing that you are the people of God.
[25:25] And he says, you are uncircumcised in every way that matters, in your heart and ears. In other words, you have no faculty for receiving the words of God.
[25:37] And he says, I will dwell, God says that he will dwell with the contrite who respect his word. And you are those who are uncircumcised in your hearts. He groups them together with the pagans. Notice how he says, how he changes his tone in verse 51.
[25:48] He says, your fathers, verse 52, your fathers, you have been the betrayers. You see what he's doing? He's saying, you're not in the people. We're the people of God.
[25:58] Your fathers. He separates himself from them. In rejecting Jesus, Stephen says, they have cut off their claim to belong to the people of God. Now, what happens here?
[26:10] They hear these things. They're cut to the heart. They're murderous in their intent. Now, look at verse 55. But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looking up steadfastly into heaven, saw the glory of God and Jesus standing on the right hand of God and said, behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God.
[26:37] Why was that so important for Stephen to say? Well, if you were to look back at the other book that Luke wrote, Luke, the Gospel of Luke, where Luke tells the story of Jesus standing in this same room in front of these same people, answering their questions before they crucify him, Jesus says, there's coming a day where you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the power of God.
[27:01] And here's Stephen, and they are furious, because Stephen has just said, Jesus is the new Moses. What I've been telling you is Jesus is here to replace the temple, to replace the law of God. Jesus is who he says he was. And then he says to them the exact words that Jesus says before they condemned him.
[27:15] And he says, I see the heavens opened. And all that you did to try to stop it, all that you did to try to keep the Son of God from taking his rightful place on his throne was in vain.
[27:26] And I see him standing there right now. Now, to Stephen, why is that so important? And what does the fact that Jesus is sitting at the right hand of God have to do with what he's been saying here in this speech?
[27:39] You know what he's saying is, this is part of this idea that the borders of the people of God are shifting and they're expanding. Now, why would that be? The fact that Jesus sits at the right hand of God, the fact that Jesus has taken his place at the right hand of God, means there is a new way of access.
[27:57] The book of Hebrews is full of this. The fact that Jesus sits at the right hand of God means that a new way of access has been opened to the presence of God. And that means we don't need the temple anymore.
[28:07] And that means that we're not law people anymore. It means that we're gospel people, that we're Jesus people now, because we believe he is the one that has made a way and opened a door and granted us access to the presence of God.
[28:18] Now, the reason I think that Luke includes this long, long speech here is to say, is to help us to understand the shift that went through believers' minds. Remember, Stephen is part of a minority here.
[28:31] Most of the Christians this time in Jerusalem are still worshiping at the temple and they're keeping the Mosaic law. And what Stephen says is, guys, it's time to move past that, because something greater than Moses has come.
[28:44] One greater than Solomon is here. One greater than the temple is here. Ritual worship is extremely dangerous, because it works a little bit like highway hypnosis, where we do the same thing over and over again for a long period of time, and it lulls us into a sort of spiritual stupor, and we don't even understand that we're not really connecting to God.
[29:09] We're just going through some sort of religious motions. And he says, now the true way of worship, the true way of access, has been opened to us. Now, we can also tell why this message is so important to Luke, because of where he goes next.
[29:23] What's chapter 8? Another one of those chapter 6 deacon guys, Philip, goes and he begins to spread the gospel to Gentiles, to Samaritans, and then to Gentiles.
[29:35] And the next chapter is the conversion of Saul, who will be the great missionary to the Gentiles. And the chapter after that is about a Gentile named Cornelius hearing the gospel. And after that, we hear about the establishment of the church at Antioch.
[29:47] And after that, we have the missionary journeys of Paul and Barnabas. So you see what Luke is doing here? Chapter 7 is the theological underpinnings for everything that we're going to see in the time to come.
[30:00] What he's saying is, listen, it's time for the people of God to expand. Church, to be honest, we're going to wrap up here. You want to know why we send missionaries around the world? Because we believe that the way of access has been granted for all people.
[30:14] We believe that the king of all peoples has taken his place on the throne. We believe that the way has been made open for Chinese people, for Chinese people to come and enter into the presence of God.
[30:25] We believe that a way has been opened for American people to come and enter into the presence of God. And because of that, we will suffer alongside of Stephen. Look what he says in verse 58.
[30:36] What it says in verse 58? They cast him out of the city. They stoned him. The witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man's feet whose name was Saul.
[30:47] A little bit of a preview there. Verse 59, they stoned Stephen, calling upon God and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. Where did Stephen get that?
[30:59] And he kneeled down and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when he said this, he fell asleep. Where did Stephen learn to say those things? Where did Stephen learn to bless the people that are killing him?
[31:11] He learned it from the ultimate temple. He learned it from the ultimate Moses. He learned it from the one who died to make a way for other people. And Stephen says, I will die in the footsteps of my Lord, making a way for other people to come and know my God.
[31:27] Now, what's incredible is that they, verse 55, he's full of the Holy Ghost. He's looking up steadfast in heaven, saw the glory of God. Look at chapter 6, verse 15. It says, looking steadfastly on him, saw his face as it had been the face of an angel.
[31:41] You wonder why that's in there? I think what Luke is hinting at is, do you see that Stephen himself is becoming a temple? He is becoming a hub of the presence of God.
[31:57] And we, brothers and sisters in Christ, we are the people of God. And we are the temple of God. And we carry in ourselves, because of our union with Christ, we are joined to the temple.
[32:10] I am a building block in the temple of God. And that means wherever I go, I am carrying the presence of God with me. And so, yes, it's good. We should invite people to church and we should try to bring them in.
[32:21] But when you go to work and when you're with your lost friends and family member, don't you forget that when you walk into the room, the presence of God has entered the room with you. And that our lives are full of the presence of God.
[32:32] And we have access to God. And we know the one who made that way of access for all people. And that means that we are willing with Stephen to lay our lives down. Say, Lord, receive our spirit.
[32:43] Lord, don't lay this sin to their charge. Give our lives so that other people may have access. Let's pray together. Lord, we thank you for the way that was made by the shedding of your son's blood.
[32:59] Lord, I pray that you would help us to understand and to appreciate the significance of the fact that we are your people. Lord, we thank you for that.
[33:10] We are those who were born outside of the kingdom, outside of the people. And we thank you for annexing us by faith in your son, that you annexed us, that you transferred us to the kingdom of your beloved son.
[33:26] Father, I pray that you would make us, like Stephen, that you would make us people that wherever we go, we're engaging people with the gospel that have never heard it before, and that they see it on our face, they hear it in our words, that they come face to face with you, that they come face to face with Christ, that they are confronted again with the import of the gospel, that they are reminded that the Jesus that today they reject is the one who stands, who sits on the throne as their judge.
[34:03] Lord, let us suffer with Stephen. Make us your faithful witnesses, and make us faithful antennas, receivers of the presence of God here in this dark world.
[34:19] In Christ's name, amen. This message was recorded at Vision Baptist Church in Alfred, Georgia. For more information, log on to www.visionbaptist.com, where you can find our service times, location, contact information, and more audio and video recordings.