Given Over to Death for Jesus’ Sake
Acts 7:1-8:2
If you have your bibles, I’d like to just jump into the text in Acts this morning. We have a significant amount of ground to cover. I’m going to begin reading in Acts 6, verse 8…Acts 6, verse 8, some verses that Justin covered last week.
8 And Stephen, (now Stephen was one of the seven men the apostles picked to meet the needs of the Hellenist widows, one group of widows in the burgeoning church)And Stephen full of grace and power, was doing great wonders and signs among the people.9 Then some of those who belonged to the synagogue of the Freedmen (as it was called), and of the Cyrenians, and of the Alexandrians, and of those from Cilicia and Asia, rose up and disputed with Stephen.(Jewish men from the synagogue or synagogues in Jerusalem-- there is some question about how many synagogues there were in Jerusalem based on the wording of verse 9—Jewish men began confronting and disputing with Stephen.) 10 But they could not withstand the wisdom and the Spirit with which he was speaking. When I read verse 10, a picture came to mind. You know how you at the beach go out in the water and are bowled over by the tide? Well I imagined the wisdom of Stephen like a tide. The Jewish leaders shared their wisdom. And then Stephen shared his wisdom and overwhelmed them like a wave in the ocean. They fall back. They stand back up again and share their wisdom. And then Stephen then shares his wisdom and they are bowled over again. ….they could not withstand the wisdom and the Spirit with which (Stephen) was speaking.
(This idea—that Stephen was ‘irrefutable’ in this his passion—is one of twelve ideas that tie Stephen’s suffering and death, with Jesus’suffering and death. At the bottom of your sermon notes[1] you’ll see a chart that compares Jesus’ passion with Stephen’s passion. The term passion of course has many definitions; one of those definitions is ‘the suffering and death of Jesus’ and so we’re saying that Stephen’s passion, his suffering and death echoed Jesus’ passion in at least 12 ways. And a clear theme in Acts is that just as Jesus suffered, we His people will suffer. Just as Jesus went through persecution, we His people will go through persecution.)
Continuing in the text….
11 Then they secretly instigated men who said, “We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God.”12 And they stirred up the people and the elders and the scribes, and they came upon him and seized him and brought him before the council,13 and they set up false witnesses who said, “This man never ceases to speak words against this holy place and the law,(make a mental note of the phrase ‘this holy place’, there in verse 13, for a key theme in Stephen’s sermon is that Old Testament history is full of Holy places outside of the temple and outside of Jerusalem. Our great God is not constrained by a building. Stephen’s sermon will clearly drive home the fact that Jesus has superseded the temple )14 for we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and will change the customs that Moses delivered to us.”15 And gazing at him, all who sat in the council saw that his face was like the face of an angel. 1 And the high priest said, “Are these things so?”2 And Stephen said:
Let me once again put up the artist’s rendition of the Hall of Hewn Stone
POWERPOINT
The Hall of Hewn Stone
So Stephenis here in this famous roomlocated literally in the walls of the Temple. As he stands here, he islike Jesuswho stood here before him,and like Peter and Johnwho stood here before him also (we saw that in Acts 4), and like all theapostles at one timewho stood here before him (we saw that in Acts 5). He is before the council, the Sanhedrin, the highest ruling body in Judaism. And as I imagine him being brought before this august group of Jewish leaders, I can’t help but hear and envision God’s compassion for His chosen people.
34 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Jesus lamented, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! (The Jewish people were always resisting God and the Ones He appointed to speak to and lead them; we’ll see that theme in Stephen’s speech over and over) How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!
So as Stephen is about to preach to the religious leadership of Israel, God like a hen is once again calling his disobedient brood to gather under His wings. The leaders of Judaism were not without witness.
Well what was the charge against Stephen?
Verse 11…the false witnesses said that they heard Stephen speak blasphemous words against Moses and God. In verse 13, the charges appear to be a little bit different…the false witnesses said that Stephen never ceases to speak words against this holy place, the temple, and the law.
As I said at first glance these false accusations in verse 11 and 13 and 14 appear to be different, but in fact they’re the same: to speak blasphemous words against Moseswas to speak against the law and to speak blasphemous words aganst the templewas to speak against God’s house (and therefore God).
But for our purposes this morning I’d like to center in on the false charges that Stephen was speaking against Moses and speaking against the temple.
And Chapter 7 begins then with the question from Caiaphus the high priest: “Are these things so?”[2]
Now Stephen’s sermon, that we come to here in Acts 7, is the longest sermon or speech in the book of Acts. It’s more than twice as long as the next longest speech in Acts.[3] And that raises the question about what special function it may serve in the argument of the book of Acts.
George Bernard Shaw, Irish writer, playwright, essayist, and novelist, in the preface to one of his plays that had Christian themes[4] wrote that Stephen was a ‘tactless and conceited bore…inflicting on (the religious leaders of Israel) a tedious sketch of the history of Israel, with which they were presumably as well acquainted as he.”[5]
Well we’ll take a different tact than Shaw regarding Stephen’s speech. Yes Stephen does give an extensive review of Israel’s history but the points he makes are not random points. In fact we’ll argue that Stephen’s speech is a masterful attempt to turn the tables on the members of the Sanhedrin.[6]
In other words it wasn’t he who was guilty of speaking against Moses (and again in the phrase ‘speaking against Moses’ is included the idea of ‘speaking against the law’). It was they who were guilty of ignoring the One to whom Moses spoke about and the One to whom Moses’ life ultimately pointed. {In Stephen’s sermon,Moses gets the most time: Abraham gets 7 verses (vs. 2b-8); Joseph gets 8 verses (vs. 9-16); Moses gets 27 verses (vs. 17-43); the tabernacle and the temple get 7 verses (vs. 44-50)}
And furthermore we’ll see that Stephen wasn’t guilty of speaking against the temple. They were the guilty ones for not seeing that the temple found it’s true fulfillment in Jesus. They were the guilty ones for in a sense idolizing the temple. Yes the temple and the lawserved very special and important functions in their time, but it was God’s purpose all along that the temple and the Lawwould point to Jesus and ultimately be superseded by Jesus.
So we’re going to read Stephen’s sermon through the lens of two themes. Let me put those two themes on the screen.
Those are the two themes that it seems that Stephen really hammers home in his sermon and we’ll read the sermon through those themes.
It’s often argued that Stephen doesn’t directly address the charges against him—the charges that he spoke words against Moses (the law) and that he spoke words against the temple (God). And I would agree that he doesn’t speak directly to those charges but He sure does speak about the presence of God and the temple (#1 on the screen) and he sure does speak a lot about Moses (#2 on the screen).
So we’ll follow those themes primarily as we read his sermon and we’ll forgo discussing some of the other issues. One my favorite lines these days is, “I’m so busy chasing skinny rabbits that I miss the fat ones.” Typically I think of that line when I’m talking about how I use my time. Well, applying it to the sermon today, we’re not going to chase the skinny rabbits today; we’ll chase the two big fat ones on the screen.
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One last thought before we dive into Stephen’s sermon. Not many people, when asked, “What’s your favorite bible story?” pick Acts 7 and this story about Stephen. I can understand that; I’m sure you can too. As Americans, ourDeclaration of Independence has convinced us that we have the ‘right to pursue happiness’ (among other rights). And martyr stories, quite honestly, don’t seem to fit into ‘the pursuit of happiness’
“Why does God allow his beloved ones to be martyred?Why does God allow his loved ones to suffer?” I know you’re familiar with Hebrews 11. Itbegins this way. Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen, that’s Hebrews 11:1. After verse 1, there is a kind of triumphant march through a list of biblical characters, all who lived by faith…Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham… We read each verse and we think to ourselves, “Now that’s what I’m talking about.” Listen as I read a few verses from the chapter beginning in verse 32:
32 And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets—33 who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions,34 quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. That’s the kind of life I’m talking about! 35 Women received back their dead by resurrection.
But then the stories turn for the worse… Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life.36 Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment.37 They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated—Why?
Why does a God who is love personified, deliver over his beloved ones to death? Well there are a host of reasons I’m surebut a straitforward and simple answer is that God has purposes for our lives that go beyond us. Having purchased us, God has purposes for our lives that go beyond our happiness on this earth. In other words it’s not about us, it’s about Him. He gives us over to death for Jesus’ sake. (Now we’ll read that phrase at the end of our time in a passage in 2 Corinthians). God gives us over to death for Jesus’ sake, for Jesus’ purposes, for Jesus’ glory.
Follow along as we do what one author has called a“theological geography.”[7] Stephen first will go to Abraham’s story…
“Brothers and fathers, hear me. (You couldn’t get more respectful than that) The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran,3 and said to him, ‘Go out from your land and from your kindred and go into the land that I will show you.’4 Then he went out from the land of the Chaldeans and lived in Haran. And after his father died, God removed him from there into this land in which you are now living.
Now here’s a map of Abraham’s travels.
POWERPOINT
Abram’s Travels
Abraham initially lived in Uror Mesopotamia. His family moved to Haran and then God called him to the Promised Land. So that’s the geography that Stephen is talking about and he includes the members of the Sanhedrin in the story when he says at the end of verse 4… God removed him from there into this land in which you are now living.
And who is this God? Verse 2 The God of glory. Now we normally associate ‘glory’ with the temple don’t we? But the God of glory met Abraham in Mesopotamia and Stephen right off the bat wants to remind the members of the Sanhedrin that God is not constrained by a building. Stephen is driving home the fact that the God of glory is not constrained by the temple.
5 Yet he gave him no inheritance in it, not even a foot’s length, but promised to give it to him as a possession and to his offspring after him, though he had no child.6 And God spoke to this effect—that his offspring would be sojourners in a land belonging to others, that would be Egypt, who would enslave them and afflict them four hundred years.Why Stephen uses 400 years instead of the 430 years mentioned in Exodus 12:40 is a skinny rabbit and we won’t take the time to chase it.[8] 7 ‘But I will judge the nation that they serve,’ said God, ‘and after that they shall come out and worship me in this place.’Make note of the phrase ‘worship me in this place’ ….it’s actually an allusion to Exodus 3:12 and the place? In Exodus 3:12 it would be Mt.Sinai. 8 And he gave him the covenant of circumcision. And so Abraham became the father of Isaac, and circumcised him on the eighth day, and Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob of the twelve patriarchs.
Now let’s think about our two themes. Is there any emphasis on opposition to the leaders that God sends? No, not really. It appears that Stephen is using Abraham’s story to lay a foundation for what he will share later.
How about God’s presence with his people? Well that’s all over these verses and you can’t miss Stephen’s emphasis on God initiative in being with his people in Abraham’s story. God is the actor for every verb. It was God “who appeared, spoke, sent, promised, punished and rescued.”[9] It was the God of glory, verse 2, who was with Abraham every where he went—from Ur to Haran, from Haran to Canaan, from Canaan to Egypt, and from Egypt back to Canaan again.
Why was the God of glory with Abraham and his family wherever they went? Verse 8 because He had a covenant with His special people.
So, long before there was a holy place, there was a holy people to whom God pledged Himself[10]and with whom he was present.
Before we leave Stephen’s comments about Abraham, look over near the end of Stephen’s sermon, verse 55 and let’s see a reference to the God of glory and who is with Him … 55 But he, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.
The glory of God is clearly associated with Jesus.
Well let’s turn to Joseph’s story—or those aspects of Joseph’s story that Stephen chooses to emphasize in his sermon, verse 9 thru 16.
9 “And the patriarchs, jealous of Joseph, sold him into Egypt; but God was with him10 and rescued him out of all his afflictions and gave him favor and wisdom before Pharaoh, king of Egypt, who made him ruler over Egypt and over all his household.11 Now there came a famine throughout all Egypt and Canaan, and great affliction, and our fathers could find no food.12 But when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent out our fathers on their first visit.13 And on the second visit Joseph made himself known to his brothers, and Joseph’s family became known to Pharaoh.14 And Joseph sent and summoned Jacob his father and all his kindred, seventy-five[11] persons in all.15 And Jacob went down into Egypt, and he died, he and our fathers,16 and they were carried back to Shechem and laid in the tomb that Abraham had bought for a sum of silver from the sons of Hamor in Shechem. There’s a skinny rabbit we could chase in verse 16 but we won’t take the time to do it[12]
Again let’s chase the two fat rabbits…
Is there any emphasis on God’s presence with his people? Yes, God was present with Joseph in Egypt, verse 9. He was present and delivered Joseph out of all his afflictions.
Furthermore He was present with Joseph when Joseph met opposition from his brothers. Isn’t it interesting that Stephen would pick up the story of Joseph right at the point of conflict with his brothers?
Joseph was rejected by his brothers and yet God was with him. Isn’t that the story of Jesus? Both Jesus and Joseph were rejected, both Jesus and Joseph did sufferand in the end both Jesus and Joseph were vindicated. One author writing of both Jesus and Joseph says this…