The Sermon text this morning is found in Acts chapter 6 verse 7 through chapter 7 verse 53 The word of God kept on spreading and the number of the disciples continued to increase greatly in Jerusalem And a great many of the priests were becoming obedient faith and Stephen full of grace and power was performing great wonders and signs among the people But some men from what was called the synagogue of the freedmen Including both Serenians and Alexandrians and some from Solisia and Asia rose up and argued with Stephen But they were unable to cope with the wisdom and the spirit with which he was speaking Then they secretly induced men to say we have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and against God And they stirred up the people the elders and the scribes and they came up to him and dragged him away and brought Him before the council they put forward false witness false witnesses who said this man Incessantly speaks against the holy place and the law for we have heard him say that this Nazarene Jesus will destroy this place and Alter the customs which Moses handed down to us and Facing their gaze on him all who were sitting in the council saw his face like the face of an angel The high priest said are these things so and he said hear me brethren in five The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia before he lived in Haran and said to him Leave your country and your relatives and come into the land that I will show you Then he left the land of Caldeon settled in Haran from there after his father died God had him moved to this country in which you are now living But he gave him no inheritance in it not even a foot of ground and yet even when he had no child He promised that he would give it to him as a possession and to his descendants after him But God spoke to this effect that his descendants would be aliens in a foreign land and that they would be enslaved and mistreated for 400 years and whatever nation to which they will be in bondage I myself will judge said God and After that they'll come out and serve me in this place He gave him the covenant of circumcision and so Abraham became father of Isaac and circumcised him on the eighth day And Isaac became the father of Jacob and Jacob of the twelve patriarchs The patriarchs became jealous of Joseph and sold him into Egypt Yet God was with him and rescued him from all his afflictions and granted him favor and wisdom in the sight of Pharaoh King of Egypt and he made him governor over Egypt and all his household Now a famine came over all Egypt and Canaan and great affliction with it and our fathers could find no food But when Jacob heard that there was green in Egypt, he sent our fathers there the first time On the second visit Joseph made himself known to his brothers and Joseph's family was disclosed to Pharaoh Then Joseph sent word and invited Jacob His father down Egypt and there he and our fathers dot wait Then Joseph sent word and invited Jacob his father and all his relatives to come to him 75 persons and all and Jacob went down to Egypt and there he and our fathers died From there they were moved to Shechem and laid in the tomb Which Abraham had purchased for a sum of money from the sons of Hamor in Shechem But as the time of the promise was approaching which God had assured to Abraham the people increased and multiplied in Egypt Until there arose another king over Egypt who knew nothing about Joseph It was he who took shrewd advantage of our race and mistreated our fathers so that they would expose their infants And they would not survive It was at this time that Moses was born and he was lovely in the sight of God and he was nurtured three months in his father's home After he had been set outside Pharaoh's daughter took him away and nurtured him as her own Moses was educated in all the learning of the Egyptians And he was a man of power in words and deeds But when he was approaching the age of 40 he entered it entered his mind to visit his brethren the sons of Israel and When he saw one of them being mistreated Or treated unjustly he defended him and took vengeance for the oppressed by striking down the Egyptian And he suppose that his brethren understood that God was granting them deliverance through him But they did not understand On the following day he appeared him as They were fighting together and he tried to reconcile them in peace saying Man, you are brethren. Why do you injure on another? But the one who was injuring his neighbor pushed him away saying who made you a ruler in judge over us You did not mean to kill me as you kill the Egyptian yesterday do you? At this remark Moses fled and became an alien in the land of medium or he became the father of two sons After 40 years had passed an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai In the flame of a burning thorn bush When Moses saw it he marveled at the sight and as he approached To look more closely there came a voice of the Lord I am the God of your fathers the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob Moses shook with fear and would not venture to look But the Lord said to him Take off the sandals from your feet for the place on which you are standing is holy ground I have certainly seen the oppression of my people in Egypt and have heard their groans and I have come down to rescue them Come now and I will send you to Egypt This Moses whom they disowned saying who made you a ruler and a judge is the one whom God sent to be both a ruler and a deliverer with the help of the angel who appeared to him thorn bush This man led them out performing wonders and signs in the land of Egypt and in the red sea and in the wilderness for 40 years This is the Moses who said to the sons of Israel God will raise up for you a product like me from your brethren This is the one who was in the congregation in the wilderness together with the angel who was speaking to him on Mount Sinai And he was with our fathers and he received living oracles to pass on to you Our fathers were unwilling to be obedient to him but repudiated him and in their hearts turned back to Egypt Saying to Aaron make for us gods who will go before us for this Moses who led us out of the land of Egypt We did not know what happened to him At that time they made a calf and brought a sacrifice to the idol and we're rejoicing in the works of their hands But God turned away and delivered them up to serve the host of heaven as it is written in the book of the prophets It was not to me that you offered victims and sacrifices 40 years in the wilderness Was it a house of Israel you also took along the Tabernacle Tabernacle of Molek and the star of the god Rampha the images which you made to worship I also will review beyond Babylon Our fathers had the Tabernacle of testimony in the wilderness just as he who spoke to Moses directed him to make it according to the pattern which he had seen And having received it in their turn our fathers brought it In with Joshua upon dispossessing the nations whom God drove out for our fathers until the time of David David found favoring God's side and asked that he might find a dwelling place for God for the god of Jacob But it was Solomon who built the house for him However, the most high does not dwell in houses made by human hands as the prophet says Heaven is my throne and the earth is the footstool of my feet What kind of house will you build for me says the Lord or what place is there my repose Was it not my hand which made all these things You men who are stiff-necked and undersized in heart and ears are always resisting the Holy Spirit You were doing just as your fathers did Which one of the prophets did your fathers not persecute They killed those who had previously announced the coming of the righteous one who's betrayers and murderers You have now become you will receive the law as ordained by angels and yet did not keep it Grasp withers in the flower fades But the word of our God stands forever
Please pray for me So Father know we we pray very mindful That the man who spoke those words because he spoke them was martyred and Killed because he told the truth about your plan and heart from the beginning to reach the nations From Israel not to bring the nations to Israel And so I pray for us as a people father that We would be caught up How by the power of your spirit into this amazing heart And trajectory of your affections to reach the very remotest parts of the earth with the liberating and and soul preserving Message of your son Jesus Christ and I pray that in these minutes you would be pleased To recover and to rescue lost sheep Father who have come into this room not knowing you and being strangers to the the promises of Of God in the gracious covenant of grace So I pray Father that you would cause your son Jesus Christ to stand forth as the ruler Over as people and as the Savior of sinners now please do this for his glory. I ask in Jesus name Well, that is a powerful text and Um, I wanted to get it all on the table at once. We'll look at Stephens Lord willing. We'll look at Stephens martyrdom next week um But you know that this is a very important text for Luke Because for two reasons This is a very significant point in the book of Acts and Luke who is always very space conscious as all ancient writers had to be Because they did not have like us the ability to go down to Costco and by boxes of paper They had limited space that they always had to deal with so when they put something in It's because they're convinced it's important And the importance of this speech That Stephen gives his telegraph to us in at least two ways first there is its length It is the longest speech in the book of Acts that Luke records So Luke wants you to hear something But more significant than that is where it is in the book Because you remember when we were back in chapter one always it seems like yesterday When we were back in chapter one we looked at verse eight in chapter one Where Jesus gives the commission that is really the great commission again Um expressed in slightly different terms where Jesus gives the great commission the resurrected Lord now Gives the great commission to his disciples. He says you're gonna be my witnesses Want you to stay in Jerusalem until you receive power That's the Holy Spirit and what will that power do? What will the Holy Spirit have as his aim in your life? You will be my witnesses From Jerusalem In all Judea and Samaria to the remotest parts of the earth and you remember I told you that one eight Was a clue to how Luke has structured the book of Acts and that's very true We start in Jerusalem and in Judea and everything that we've studied up till now Through through chapter seven all happens all that action happens in Jerusalem And we're poised to move into chapter eight and in chapter eight the gospel penetrates with great glory Through Philip into Samaria And so where we're standing right now in the book of Acts is at this very significant threshold Because now what's about to happen is the gospel is going to break out from the enclave of Jerusalem The center of Jewish piety and break out to the nations And so Luke is telling us in Stephen's speech that there is something very significant that is being Communicated that will empower and inform the witness to the nations
Jesus is speaking through Stephen to the Jewish people here in a powerful way And we need to hear this and a church from all ages needs to hear This because Stephen gives us an interpretation and understanding of the Old Testament that we need to have if we're going to understand coherently What it is that the God of the Old Testament who is our God Wanted from the very beginning
So more important even then one more important than location is the content of what Stephen has to say That's what I want us to focus on this morning and you'll notice That the content gets communicated in the midst of a conflict right There's a conflict that provokes Stephen's defense And what exactly is the conflict will Stephen Lucas told us in chapter six is a man full of grace and power one of the first Deeponds and he is testifying When he's not waiting on tables or organizing people to wait on tables He is evangelizing and he's engaging a Jews from the dispersion who are in Jerusalem and Luke is very careful to tell us that one of the places where these people are from is Selissia Which is where I saw the Tarsus was from and Steve's engaging these people and obviously Not In a sloppy way because he's provoked them and they cannot contend with his ability to reason from the Old Testament and to press on the gospel And so what do they do they trump up charges And the best false charges are always those that take a little bit of the truth and distort the truth And that's exactly what they do Luke summarizes the charges against Stephen in three ways and verses 11 13 and 14 and they basically pull down to two charges One Stephen is saying things that are blasphemous against the temple or against God The temple the place where God has worshipped That shows up in verse 13 Right this holy place And then there's blasphemy that is alleged against him That he is blaspheming Moses that's What accounts for the references to the law and verse 13 and the customs that have been handed down from Moses and verse 14 Now Stephen Responsed to those so I want you to go I want to go with you to the very end Which is probably the part of what Stephen had to say that Richard read that you remember the best is that when Stephen gets done Accounting for the Old Testament look at what he says to those who are listening to him again He has been dragged in front of the Sanhedrin. This is the source and the center of gravity in the Jewish nation For all political and ecclesiastical power And he's before these men and look at what he says to them Having gone through the Old Testament he says Starting verse 51 you men who are stiff necked and Uncircumcised in heart and ears You are always resisting the Holy Spirit. You're doing just as your fathers did Which one of the prophets did your fathers not Persecute see that's the climax of Stephen's argument That is a strong and aggressive countercharge isn't it Now How does he get there? That's what I want us to see The way he gets there the proof that he makes or that he offers to get to that destination Is he basically surveys you when you might not believe this but all those Verses in chapter 7 from Stephen's defense. They basically organize around two big themes and he is Trying to explicate and open up from the Old Testament two themes That make his case and that form the basis by the way for global Christian mission Which is what Jesus's agenda is and those two truths are where is God How do we understand where the presence of God is
Where does he want to be it's another way to think about that question and secondly What exactly is the track record of the Jewish people in terms of following the directions And heart of their God In other words Stephen is adding to them. Do you know your history He's saying do you even understand the Old Testament from page 1? Do you know your God? Do you know how his heart beats and by the way who are you to be charging me With dishonoring Moses pretty strong stuff Let's look at those two themes This is so helpful by the way If you're new within the Ambit of Christianity if you're a new believer or you're an inquirer and you wonder what in the world is most of the Bible about Because the Old Testament is most of the Bible This is a wonderful Summary If I could call it a cheat sheet. I might call it a cheat sheet But I'm not supposed to do that because I'm a pastor. It's not a cheat sheet But it's a wonderful survey big picture of what the Old Testament is about and and we're Stephen Zeroes in from the beginning Is uh is on this very important theme of the presence of God now notice how he makes his case He doesn't go to the periphery of the Old Testament. He goes right to the heart He goes to the heavy hitters. He goes to Abraham at Joseph and Moses and David and Solomon I mean if he can make his case On that field he's made his case powerful Very bold move now notice when he begins with Abraham under this theme of the presence of God notice what he emphasizes right from the beginning He is stressing that God is a God not just of the Promised Land but of the whole earth Notice what he says Abraham verse two where did the God of glory appear to Abraham the Father of the Jews in Iraq
Mesopotamia Is where this God of Israel appeared to the Father of the Jews in Iraq
Verse four again in Haran Verse five He tells us that he wouldn't allow him once he had gotten him to can and he wouldn't allow him to settle there But he continued to be a wanderer not even a foot of ground Was given to him in that land at the time and notice Abraham the Father of the Jews had no temple right And there's no one who ducks the reality of God's covenant relationship with Abraham and the reality of Abraham's fellowship with God yet there was no temple And then in Genesis 15 verse six here When husband describes Abraham's covenant with God or God's covenant with Abraham and he says and by the way Your people your seed are going to be aliens in a foreign land I'm going to be dealing with people outside the land I have promised to you and to your seed boy that's significant He's gone right back to the root of God's vision for chosen people And if you paid attention to God's covenant with Abraham in Genesis 12 verse three You would know that God's agenda from the beginning with Abraham was through Abraham's seed to bless all the families what of Palestine Of the earth Does it stop there he goes to Joseph where was Joseph Joseph the The son of the patriarch Jacob where is Joseph Egypt you notice that first nine Joseph was sold into Egypt and notice what he Emphasizes what Stephen emphasizes yet God was with him in Egypt God was in the very place where The people of God were subject to slavery and oppression This God knows no boundaries and then How about Moses Moses gets most of the attention here You know as this goes on for from verse 17 to verse 44 and the reason there's so much attention paid to Moses I think is because what's the nature of the charge against Stephen that they're laying against him They're saying you're blaspheming Moses So where does he go to emphasize and take the most evidence and show them That they're totally wrong he goes to Moses's story and Moses's story is even more glorious than Joseph's story because what happens After Joseph's death another Pharaoh arises he doesn't know Joseph and so he cruelly oppresses the people of God In Egypt and then the time came for the promise to be fulfilled and Moses was born Now Moses the revered law giver and redeemer the Jewish people he was born and raised where Egypt where did he go to school Egypt he was the best that Egyptian culture had to offer He was the personification of all that was strong and mighty and Egyptian culture this is your redeemer is real
No bound and Moses when he tried to be the deliver for his people the first time he had to flee and verse 29 reminds us that he the Redeemer of the Jewish people became an alien in the land of Midian which is not the promised land and where Where he ultimately was met by the Lord 40 years later Versus 30 through 34 the Lord meets Moses where on the temple mount in Jerusalem No in a cave on the sand in the Sinai desert Far away from the promised land and the temple mount And God tells him there that this Here is holy ground long before there was ever a temple Now this tells us a lot about God It tells Stephen's audience a lot about God that they don't want to hear But do you see how already when Stephen looks at the Old Testament He sees a heart in God to not be limited by geography God is not confined by geography his ambitions his desires his intentions his agenda encompass the whole earth And therefore the people of God can never be cultural imperialists You see how that immediately takes away The argument that our culture is better than others
But when you're sitting in the driver's seat culturally That's a hard pill to swallow and he concludes with David and Solomon Which is so powerful because they were the ones ultimately responsible for the building of the temple And what What Stephen does is he quotes Isaiah 66 one and two and verses 49 and 50 And What he's what he's pressing home for the Sanhedrin is that their preoccupation with the temple as being a sacred place where That is unique and that only that God only is going to dwell there so that if the temple goes away God's presence can't be known he he says at best That preoccupation At best that preoccupation with the temple is a Misunderstanding of all that the Old Testament has been about a misunderstanding of the nature of God because God says Heaven is my throne and the whole earth is my footstool. Do you understand how big I am? You understand I'm glorious. I am my hands Speaking figuratively made all these things That's at best what they're dealing with is they're dealing with this small view of God But at worst what they're doing is they're withholding glory from him They're withholding glory from God when they think that he has to be confined to this one place in one city in one nation on the earth That's an offense against the majesty of God and Stephen goes right at him with them
Powerful powerful exposition of the Old Testament Stephen gives You see the temple what he's implying is that the temple was never meant to be a destination Ever the temple is a tool the temple is a lens through which we look at a greater temple Through which we see the final temple pieces Christ the temple the temple is this smudgy drawing This finger painted approximation of a shadow that is designed to wet our hearts appetite and longing for the dwelling of God in the midst of this people and a gateway to God That's what the temple was it was the dwelling of God with his people and also the gateway to God And it was not meant as a physical building to be the destination It was to prepare us for God in the flesh dwelling in the midst of people For God in the flesh becoming the gateway for his people to himself You see what even is doing here is he's saying you have completely misunderstood What the Old Testament has been about you misunderstood the temple don't revere the temple Something greater than the temple is here God the word become flesh God the word become flesh the Opening the new and living way the writer of Hebrews says in chapter 10 the new and living way Which is this flesh into the very presence of God God has done There's not the achievement of Solomon or heritage reconstruction. God has done this
And then he moves on to the next Which is that their track record stinks Their track record of an obedient to God is very consistent but consistently bad And they hear or stand in a line with their forefathers in rejecting God's messengers Think about Joseph's case the patriarchs Cell Joseph the one who God ultimately used to save them They sell them into slavery And how about Moses did you notice how many times in this passage Stephen emphasizes how they disowned Moses they disregarded Moses he didn't want him to be the ruler and judge over them They said hey who are you and even when Moses had led them through the red sea even when he had been the one God had used to provide water and food and man on all these things even when they had built the tabernacle and they had seen the cloud of glory On the tabernacle the cloud during the day the fire by night and he had led them and provided for them all those years Stephen tells you that what was going on secretly is that their hearts and their tents were full of idols to God's other than the Lord
So they had rejected Moses consistently He's saying this guy You say you revere You hate him You don't know him they thought they loved him and he says think about your history Don't indulge in romanticize spiritual nostalgia that you congratulate yourself with he says what Which one of the prophets did your father's not persecute verse 52 And if you know anything about the history of Israel that's a fair question. That's not hyperbole That's what actually happened They don't call Jeremiah the weeping prophet for no reason There is no happy prophet
Why because people of God were hard and were unteachable and in their hearts They were not jealous for God that they wanted like to people in the wilderness to go back to Egypt
Now that's strong medicine And ultimately it's gonna lead Stephen to his death He's gonna be killed because And Saul of Tarsus is going to welcome all the robes of those who stone him at his feet
I believe that Saul was probably present here. I One of the questions you have to ask is how did Luke have access to such a clear account Of this speech I believe Paul had memorized the speech Paul was there Paul is haunted and we'll I'll show you next week Paul is haunted by his His participation in Stephen's martyrdom What do we do with this because we're not sitting on a sandhedrin right? I mean what good is this for us Well, let me let me think with you about three areas of application that I I think are lessons for us This morning from Stephen's defense and the first one is the issue of first importance always every week We don't always say it explicitly, but here it is where is your heart today? I want to know where your heart is today. God wants to know where your heart is today Stephen's Count charges against the sandhedrin are shocking They are absolutely shocking and you have to you have to think about how you would react If someone stood before you and said your heart and your ear are uncircumcised To say that to a Jew Your heart and your ears They are not set apart for God Either externally or internally You are a Gentile you are a stranger to the covenant of promise. How would you react?
You probably react with anger That is a strong charge and he says This also he says you are always resisting the Holy Spirit shocking countercharges And then he says something in verse 53 that is really amazing. He says hey, you've received the or the the law As if it were ordained by angels you have a high view of the scripture
And yet you don't keep it you see he's Directing them to think about what he's accusing them of what he is pushing them with in reality that they have an external spirituality Their heart is not circumcised They've got a very well-organized ritualistic Clean and pretty traditional Organization on the outside but on the inside They don't have hearts that are congruent with what they're doing on the outside On the inside They are rebels against God on the inside their hearts remain uncircumcised unseparated for God On the inside They harbor this kind of romanticized spiritual nostalgia that they are far better off before God They actually are because they're going through the motions They're going to worship. They rever the Torah. They say Moses is our champion They do all the right things they go to the right festivals and what is Stephen saying to them ultimately You don't know God You have reverence for Moses you have reverence for Martin Luther you have reverence for John Calvin you have reverence for Jesus and you don't know
This is the issue that should always be of first importance inside any church Never to confuse the external trappings of religious things
For relationship with God see what the Sanhedrin has done is they have substituted religion for God They've made an exchange of religious activities for a living relationship with God and those things are not the same
We have to be mindful of these perils On the inside of the church We don't want to repeat their error of exchanging religion for God of confusing Having or knowing God's word or having a high view of it With being obedient to it You can say I believe that the scriptures are the inspired word of God and yet be disobedient to them You can say I want to go to a church that preaches the Bible and not be a Christian Do you know that? Having a high view of the Bible is not a safe haven for anybody That's a danger in a PCA Because that's what we boasted we should boast in Jesus Christ in him alone We don't want to make the same mistake We don't want to ever be like the Sanhedrin and indulge a form of romanticized spiritual nostalgia that obscures The categorical urgency of closing with Jesus Christ personally So I ask you the question that God has been asking me all week from this text Which is where are you this morning beloved? Where is your heart this morning beloved is your heart drawn to Jesus Christ? Do you find yourself being led by the Holy Spirit again to yield yourself to Jesus Christ? Or are you going through the motions? Are you did you just show up to sing the hymns you love or do you feel the pressure? The God graciously given pressure to move toward Jesus Christ and repentance and faith are you just going through the motions? What God wants is for you to yield him in Jesus Christ He cares not a wit for people who go through the motions That is not safe at all Just as it wasn't safe for the Sanhedrin to say Moses good Torah good We can't do that or Are you holding back? Are you holding back? Are you resisting the movement of the Spirit to lead you to Jesus Christ in repentance made? Where are you?
You know, I find it very interesting that after the fall God asks Adam a question the first words out of his mouth are not
First words out of God's mouth are a question Where are you? God knows where he is So why does he ask that question? Because he wants Adam to know
What's Adam to know that he is out of fellowship with him my friends? I beg you I beg you do not resist the Holy Spirit. I plead with you to move toward Jesus Christ There is nothing I ever say that is as important as it is to avoid the error of the Sanhedrin I plead with you to follow where God leads you to Go to Jesus Christ without delay without pretensions without excuses without open questions But to come to him are you willing to lay down your questions Before the Lordship of Christ or are you going to resist like the Sanhedrin With a heart that's uncircumcised are you willing to humble yourself Humble yourself in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ I told you last week that there is no negotiating with Jesus Christ and I mean it At so to see unless I wash you he says you have no part with me
Okay That's the first and most important thing our second application From Stephen's speech Is that we have this awesome opportunity as a church to align ourselves with our God's purposes the summer What Stephen's speech shows us both in terms of its content and where Lucas placed it It's overall role in the book of Acts is this awesome truth that the God of the Bible is very consistent from the beginning And I just marvel at that that from the very roots His heart is to reach all the nations with the display and discovery of his glory And that is an awesome thing to see that when Stephen opens up the Old Testament and we connect that with Acts one eight great commission This is not a jarring kind of relationship. This is a seamless hole as God is moving towards his climax in history And God entrusts to us this incredible privilege to participate in what he's doing to align ourselves with what he's doing So this summer we've got we've got Ashley herbal is going to Central America We've got a team of people a humongous team of people going to progress. So we've got Kevin Rogers who's going to Thailand Awesome things. We had Edward IU here this week. How how just bizarre is it That this little church in the land as a church planner from Bangladesh sitting here Telling us about a vision to plan 100 visible churches in the next five years in Bangladesh and we get to be part of that Who but God could arrange that And so my friends take this seriously what Stephen is saying in this message This is not a peripheral thing. This is where God's heart has been This is not a hobby that he follows when he has free time on the weekends This is when he's aiming at And so just our little our little mustard seed of efforts God will bless the more consistent God is the more confident We should be that when we move in a particular direction God is going to bless it And so friends we've got a risk $28,000 this summer $28,000 which is nothing
$28,000 to send everybody the maximum number on these objects from our church I believe God's going to do that Darren is scheduled June 5th Sunday June 5th For a celebration time for us during the service to celebrate the goodness of God I would love to see and I'm asking God that he will answer all those open questions for how going to get all those people to these various places by that Sunday There are two ways that we align ourselves with God's purposes here that we've seen in Stephen speech one is by going God is not limited by boundaries. He is not the he's not a tribal deity. He's the God of the whole world So we go trusting that matter where we go we will meet him We will find him We will know him we will discover another aspect of his glory. We're not leaving God when we leave the temple And we also align ourselves with God by giving And so there's two g's. I want you to remember that maybe you're somebody who's been on the fence whether or not you should go to progress Oh, please go talk to Darren Please go talk to him. Don't hesitate. God's heart as you've seen in next seven is to reach the nations God loves this stuff and we should too as his people Now how about how about finally and this I would say for me personally has been a very helpful thing to remember The third application is it really comes out of what What Stephen quotes When he's speaking about Moses in verse 34 what the Lord says to him when he said take off the sandals From your feet for the place on which you are standing is holy ground
now it's interesting if you think about The nature of Stephen's argument That he would emphasize a point like this Because what Stephen at one level is saying is right he's responding to the Jewish preoccupation with temple saying this is holy ground
And so you might think that Stephen and rebutting that would say no, no, no, there's no such category
But that's not what Stephen does because that's not what God's word says what God's word says is Every place where God is is holy ground So the people of God need to understand that we are always and everywhere on holy ground Always and everywhere on holy ground Because we are the dwelling of God in the spirit We are as the church the temple of God now that has massive implications For all kinds of people and all kinds of issues what that means my friends one thing means is that all Places in which you find yourself all circumstances in which you find yourself as people have got those are holy ground Those are holy ground Why because you're there No Because God is there with you I don't want that to sound like some kind of tried hallmark mother's day father's day sentiment That's not what I'm not this is really important This will change the way you live your life If you think about its implications that everywhere in every circumstance You as a person of God as a father of Jesus Christ can be confident that you are standing and living and changing diapers and Serving your employer and having conversations over the lunch table with your coworker and teaching a class You are doing that on holy ground because God is with you
So many people I talked to feel like they have been brought offline by God Like they are not in a place of great importance God Through whatever combination of mistakes that they think they've made or limitations of opportunities that they've suffered from but they feel like real life is over there Real life in the church is over there, but I'm over here Would you please take heart that just breaks my heart Would you be encouraged by Moses Oh Moses man, he blew it. Okay, he had an anger problem He did He had a besetting sin of anger And followed him his whole life and ultimately led to his not being able to lead the people of God into the promised land He had a besetting sin and he blew it in Egypt and for 40 years He was in midian. Can you imagine this guy who graduated from Cairo you Top of his class what kinds of thoughts Went through his head as he was stepping on sheep dumb Over and over and over again in the middle of nowhere You think he believed that he was offline that he had missed life The last place that Moses would have ever expected to encounter the living God was in midian And Moses probably believed like some of you have from time to time that the last person God would ever want to address personally Was Moses Yet the story Takes a very powerful turn does it not Why because Moses was wonderful? No Because this God who knows no boundaries loves to pick up clay pots that are flawed and put his treasure inside And the fact that he says to Moses Where you are standing is holy ground Tells me that no matter where I am in my life No matter what I'm doing whether it is working whether it's in church at worship whether it's in my yard Whether it's dealing with my children all of my life in my marriage all of my life is a theater for the discovery And the display of Jesus Christ glory And that dignifies my life that dignifies your life that takes those little decisions that you feel snowed under by and it elevates them to an importance In the presence of God that no one except a child of God can appreciate And so I want you to hear from your heavenly Father this morning that all of your life matters That this God who knows no boundaries doesn't just say I'll meet you church on Sunday But you're kind of on your own the rest of the week and you young mothers who are changing diapers and feel like you never Had intelligent conversation and like what you're doing is not dignified. Oh would you get a hold of this
What importance your mothering has in the presence of God you are standing on a holy ground when you wipe your child's nose Can you believe that Can you trust that God wouldn't meet you there and want to do something important with you That's your birthright a child of God to have that expectation And I don't want anyone or anything to rob that from you This is an amazing statement about how all of life can be lived to the glory of God now what makes that possible What made that possible is Jesus Christ He is the final temple. He is the one who Consecrates with his blood and his sacrifice and his intercession for us now at the Father's right hand He is the one who redeems all of our lives so that Paul can say in first Corinthians 1031 Hey, whether you eat or whether you drink whatever you do notice he doesn't say when you pray when you sing hymns when you study the Bible That's not the list When you eat when you drink What ever you do do it all to the glory of God that's a Christ bought privilege and dignity that Christ hands out the spoils of his victory that he hands out to his people He's the final temple. We are not limited physically because he himself is the dwelling of God with his people And he's made a way for us to be reconciled that it is awesome Throw away every vision that you have of the people of God migrating back to Israel at the end of history forget it The new temple is here His name is Jesus Christ and God's presence will never leave the temple of the church or the temple of his people Let's pray Father, we bless you for generosity and warmth and Staggering extravagance toward us That you would find us in our deserts and our wildernesses and you would say you I want you to follow me. I have worked for you I have not left you your groanings have risen up to me and I have found you and I send you now Lord would you would you allow us to to celebrate more deeply this truth that In the Lord Jesus Christ we have been given a new and living way to you And be it in that we are sure through him of your presence with us that you will not forsake us You will never leave us We pray in Jesus name. Amen