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00:00 started the Protestant Reformation in Germany. Oh, wait. Hang on a minute.
00:07 Martin Luther, he stood before the Holy Roman Emperor and all the princes of
00:13 Europe. Why? To defend himself against the Roman Catholic accusations against
00:18 him because he had insisted that the Catholics teaching was wrong. He said salvation, justification is by faith
00:26 alone through God's grace alone. It can't be bought. It can't be earned.
00:33 And on that day, he had to stand up in front of all those people to defend what the Bible taught. He was risking his
00:39 life because just to show up meant that he could have been burnt as a heretic.
00:44 And this is what he said to his accusers. Unless I'm convinced by the testimony of the scriptures, I'm bound
00:52 to the scriptures I've quoted. My c conscience is captive to the word of God. I cannot and will not recant
00:59 anything. Here I stand. I can do no other. May God help me.
01:05 Now, have you thought, what if you were in a similar situation one day where you
01:11 were interrogated, where you were examined and you had to give a defense of your faith? Would you crumple? Would
01:17 you chickenen out to save your life? Or would you stand firm?
01:22 You see in today's passage in Acts chapter 7 we come across a man who was in this very situation. Steven he was
01:30 brought before the Sanhedrin which is the top ruling council in in the land of Israel with 70 Jewish elders and
01:37 suddenly he has to make a defense before all these men. He could lose his life
01:43 and he did lose his life. We read but what would he say? What would his defense be? That's what we read today in
01:50 Acts chapter 7. his speech of reply. Okay. Now, before we get to Acts chapter
01:57 6, okay, before we get to Acts chapter 7, we need to think about Acts chapter 6. What is the background? Who is
02:04 Steven? Okay. In order to understand, I know the reading was long enough, but we need to read a bit more of the previous
02:09 chapter. Okay. Now, in chapter six, it tells us that Steven was a man full of
02:15 faith and the Holy Spirit, full of God's grace and power. He was chosen with some
02:21 other men to lead the church to serve the church in his practical affairs and he had the wisdom and the ability to do
02:28 wonders and miraculous signs as well and speak very convincingly in in defense of
02:34 the gospel. See, nobody could stand up to an argument with Steven. Okay? They
02:40 couldn't withstand the wisdom or the spirit by whom he spoke. It says, "And
02:46 because of this, they used an underhanded tactic to get him." Okay,
02:51 they falsely accused him of a few charges. And what are some of these
02:56 charges they accused him of? Blasphemy against God, blasphemy against
03:03 Moses and the law of Moses, and blasphemy against the temple. Okay,
03:08 these were all false accusations they brought against him. Uh these were some of the charges that Steven now standing
03:13 before those guys had to uh had to defend himself against. Now we've read
03:18 chapter 7 and you think to yourself this doesn't sound like a defense speech, right? I mean he goes through
03:25 the whole history of Israel from Abraham and Joseph and you know Moses and all that. What he's trying to get at I mean
03:30 he seems to be giving a history lesson and then at the end he has a outburst and then he he he's stoned. Okay. What
03:36 is the whole point of his speech? That's what we're trying to find out today. Okay. Uh I mean the guys who are listening to him are the religious
03:42 leaders and teachers of Israel. They would have known their history like anything. They don't need a history lesson from Steven. Okay. What is he
03:49 trying to say? Well, actually he's building a case. He's building a case not just to defend himself, but he's
03:54 building a case to accuse Israel of sin to show them it's not him who is in the
04:00 wrong. It is they who are in the wrong. They are the ones who are blaspheing God and Moses and the temple.
04:08 So let's have a look okay at what he says. The first point that Stephen makes
04:14 is that God's dealings with his people Israel are always by grace. God chose them by his gracious initiative. He goes
04:21 right back to the beginning of the nation of Israel. That is when Abraham founded the nation. And he says the God
04:28 of glory appeared to our father Abraham. Look at all the words I've highlighted
04:33 in yellow. God taking the initiative. God showing grace. Grace means favor
04:39 that we do not deserve from God. Okay? God appeared to Abraham while he was
04:44 still living in a gentile land worshiping idols. God chose him and God
04:50 gave him a command and a promise. Verse three, leave your country and your people. God said, "And go to the land I
04:56 will show you." This is a promise of land as well as a command. God gave, God
05:02 said, God sent. God promised. See the point that Stephen is making here is why is that Israel today? It's because of
05:09 God's grace. We are a people of God because of his grace. And after Abraham's time came uh his grandson uh
05:18 Jacob. Okay. And in Jacob's time, okay, we'll skip over this bit. In Jacob's
05:24 time, uh they there was a terrible famine in the land. Okay, as we read earlier and uh Joseph who was sold into
05:32 Egypt earlier managed to rescue the whole family. Now this was all God's plan from the very beginning to send
05:39 Joseph to Egypt that way so that he could eventually rescue the whole nation of Israel from starvation. God is the
05:46 one he says God was with him and rescued him from all his troubles. God gave Joseph to Israel to save them. And after
05:54 that it was slavery in Egypt. The next problem was slavery in Egypt for the
05:59 people of Israel. Again, God remembered his promise to Abraham and prepared a deliverer, Moses, to uh to save the
06:07 people. Okay. Now,
06:12 God did all this. God revealed uh let me just get to the next page. Okay. God
06:17 revealed himself to Moses uh in the burning bush. He uh sent Moses back to
06:23 Egypt. He uh he sent them back to the people. Okay. And it in verse 35 it says
06:30 he was sent to be their ruler and deliverer by God himself. So God is the
06:36 one who takes the initiative to give all of these saviors, all of these deliverers to Israel. That's the point
06:42 Steven is making here. And then he tells uh Moses the law. Okay, he gives them
06:48 the ten commandments and the law of Moses, the living words to pass on to Israel. And he made Moses build the
06:55 tabernacle in the desert as God directed according to the pattern that he had
07:00 seen. So God did all of this for Israel. And as if that was not enough,
07:07 God told Moses, "I have bigger plans in mind. I have a future savior, a future
07:12 deliverer, a Messiah who's going to come to bring ultimate salvation for my
07:17 people." And he told Moses, "God will send you a prophet like me." that he's told the people, okay, God will send you
07:24 a prophet like me, like Moses from your own people. This is a prediction of the coming Messiah. Okay? And in verse 52,
07:33 God sent more prophets down the ages to them. Okay? And these people predicted the coming of the righteous one. God had
07:40 all this in mind for the nation Israel. He has always taken the initiative. He's always shown them amazing grace and
07:46 favor. Now we too are people who have received God's grace and God's favor. Now what do
07:54 you think is the right response that Israel should have had? Well, it should have been faith. It should have been
08:00 obedience. It should have been gratitude. And that should be our response to to God's grace upon us. So
08:09 think back to the previous week that you've had. How much time did you actually spend thanking God and praising
08:15 God for all the things that he has given you graciously? How much time did you spend thanking him for your life, for
08:22 your salvation, for your family, for your job, for your friends, for your all the things that you have? And how much
08:28 time did you spend complaining and grumbling about the things that went wrong in the last week or in your life
08:34 in general? Because what is the opposite of thanksgiving? It is complaining and
08:39 grumbling, isn't it? And that is what Israel's response was to God in their history. Now make sure that we don't
08:46 fall into the same mistake. So now coming back to Steven we have
08:54 seen okay God's grace is with Israel. That's the point he was trying to make point number one. And of course at this by this point everybody be agreeing with
08:60 him. But the next thing he's trying to show Israel something went wrong with their response. Okay they firstly they
09:06 sinfully confined God to the land and the temple. Now what do I mean by that?
09:11 See, Steven starts to question the things that they hold as sacred. Now,
09:16 one thing that is central to the Jewish religion and central to their identity was the temple at Jerusalem. See, they
09:24 honored and revered the temple just like how the Muslims today rever the the Cabba in in Mecca. Okay? Because for for
09:31 the Jews, this was where God lived. This was where they came to meet with God, to pray to God, to bring all their
09:36 offerings and sacrifices. This was at the heart of their religion. And that's why it was such a big deal
09:42 for them to accuse Stephen of blaspheming the temple.
09:47 See, for the Jews, the temple could only be in Jerusalem, the place where God chose in Judea. So, not only was this
09:53 temple sacred, this whole land that God gave to us was sacred, the promised land of Israel. You see, for them, their
10:01 special status as God's chosen people was very strongly tied to them having the temple and having the land. God had
10:09 only given Israel the temple and Israel the land. God had not given it to any other nation. So, we are the chosen
10:16 ones. They said, "We are uniquely blessed by God above all other people, above all the cursed Gentiles." And
10:24 Steven tries to show them how wrong their thinking is. See, notice how Stephen I'm showing you
10:31 the same same passage but highlighting the word land here. Now, look at how prominent this theme of land is in this
10:37 first part. See, yes, he says, Stephen says God did promise to Abraham and his
10:44 descendants the land of Canaan. Verse five, isn't it? God sent him uh verse five, he gave him uh he promised him
10:52 that he and his descendants after him would possess the land. But then he said in verse 5, he gave him no inheritance
10:59 here, not even a foot of ground. You see, the descendants received the land,
11:05 the physical land, because it says uh in verse four, after the death of his father, God sent him into this land
11:11 where you are now living. That is we have received the promise we Abraham's descendants. But Abraham himself did not
11:18 receive the land. So God's promise of land was fulfilled for his descendants, but not for
11:24 Abraham. It says, okay, but God did promise Abraham that he would give him the land, isn't it? God promised him
11:30 that he and his descendants after him would possess the land. So, did God back on his promise to Abraham? Because
11:37 Abraham never received the land in his lifetime. How do we resolve this paradox?
11:42 Well, we'll take a look at another New Testament passage which will help us to understand this in Hebrews. Let me read
11:48 this to you. By faith, Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later
11:54 receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where
12:00 he was going, by faith, he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in
12:06 a foreign country. He lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were hes with
12:11 him of the same promise. for he was looking forward to the city with foundations whose architect and builder
12:19 is God. What he's saying is that when God promised Abraham the land, he had
12:26 something much bigger in mind than just the physical land of Israel. Yes, the
12:31 promise includes the physical land, but the physical land is only a foretaste of
12:37 the actual thing promised, which is the city with foundations whose architect and builder is God. In other words, God
12:43 had in mind not just an earthly land, but a heavenly land, a heavenly inheritance, citizenship in heaven. This
12:51 is what God promised to Abraham and his true descendants. And Abraham did get
12:56 it. He did receive a heavenly inheritance. Now, Steven is telling the Jews, don't
13:02 think that you have exclusive rights to God just because you are in this land.
13:07 God's blessing is not tied to having this land. Abraham, our ancestor,
13:13 receive this land, receive God's promise without ever having a foot of this land.
13:19 See, God does choose to work outside of this land of Israel. He's trying to broaden their horizons. So, to make the
13:26 point clearer, look at the next um uh the next uh stories, okay? Which is
13:33 in I I haven't put it up here, but Joseph, the story of Joseph. Now, where was Joseph when God blessed him? in
13:40 Egypt. And where did God choose to save Jacob from starvation? In Egypt. And where did
13:47 Jacob and his sons die? In Egypt. And where were where was Jacob's sons buried
13:53 with Joseph? It says here in Sheckchim, which in Steven's time was in the hated
13:59 land of Samaria, the godless Samaritans. It was not in the land of Judea. Where
14:05 was Moses brought up? In Egypt. Where did God speak to Moses? in the desert at Mount Si. Where did God give the law to
14:12 Moses? At Mount Si. See the point here? The point here is
14:18 that all of these crucial founding moments in Israel's history were outside the land, not inside the land. So why
14:25 are you Jews so preoccupied with the land and the temple? Having a relationship with God does not depend on
14:32 the land and the temple. But don't put your trust in these things, but put your trust in the Messiah that Jesus whom God
14:40 has sent. That is the message here. Now, do you know that Acts chapter 7 is a very important turning point in the
14:47 whole book of Acts and also in the whole New Testament and the story of God's salvation. You see, if you think back to
14:53 the previous six chapters that we have looked at in Acts, okay, Christianity
14:59 was only a branch of Judaism, so to speak. Okay. So, the first Christians
15:04 were all Jews. They were all based in Jerusalem. And the only difference between the first Christians and the
15:10 other Jews was that the Christians believe that Jesus was the Messiah who fulfilled the Old Testament. And the
15:16 other Jews did not. But they were all Jews. But after chapter 7, everything changes. Okay? If you look at chapter 8,
15:22 and next week we'll look at chapter 8. The gospel leaves Jerusalem. It goes to Samaria. And a short while later it goes
15:30 to the ends of the earth to gentile territory. Okay. And the book of acts is structured in this way. Chapters 1 to7
15:35 in Judea and Jerusalem. Chapters 8 to 12 in Samaria and chapters 13 to 28 in the
15:41 ends of the earth. Now this movement of the gospel was not planned by anybody.
15:46 Not even the apostles. They were completely taken by surprise. See but the thing is after chapter 7 the gospel
15:52 moved out of Jerusalem everywhere else. Why? Now the basis for this turning
15:58 point Acts chapter 7 is that the God's salvation is not restricted to Israel.
16:05 People anywhere, people like you and I, we are all probably all of us are Gentiles. I don't know if there are any
16:10 Jewish people here, but we are all Gentiles who can inherit God's promises
16:16 to Abraham as long as we have faith in Jesus the Messiah. And the true pe the
16:22 true inheritors of God's promise to Abraham are not the Jews living in the land of Israel physically. The true
16:29 inheritors of God's promise to Abraham are Christians who share in Abraham's
16:34 faith and therefore they have citizenship in the heavenly land.
16:41 Now the next point that Steven makes then is that they have confined God not
16:46 just to the land but to the temple. You see the Jews falsely accused Stephen as
16:52 well as Jesus just a you know just maybe a few years before Steven they had accused Jesus of the very same thing of
16:58 speaking against the temple. Now in verses here in these few verses Steven now talks about the temple and he says
17:04 look the original temple was a tabernacle okay a tent a movable tent
17:10 and only in the time of Solomon was it replaced by this fixed temple building
17:15 and the tabernacle and the temple were originally a symbol that God is with his people. God's presence is with us. But
17:24 you Jews have made it into something else. You make it into a place where you can tie God down. You think to yourself,
17:31 if I come to the temple, I bring my sacrifices, I bring my rituals, then God is obliged to bless me. Okay? So, the
17:39 temple became like their genie in an Eloine's lamp. Okay? As long as I do it
17:44 the right way, as long as I I rub it the right way, I can have God at my command. I can twist God's arm and manipulate
17:50 God. I can have everything I want. as long as I go to the temple, I bring the sacrifice, I'm fine.
17:58 Now, already this attitude was seen in the Old Testament. And the prophet Isaiah hundreds of years before this had
18:04 said to the people this. Okay, let me read to you. He said that they have a wrong understanding of the temple.
18:10 Isaiah 66. This is what the Lord says. Heaven is my throne and the earth is my
18:16 foottool. Where is the house you will build for me? Where will my resting
18:21 place be? Has not my hand made all these things? And so they came into being, declares the Lord. This is the one I
18:28 esteem. He who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word, but
18:36 whoever sacrifices a bull is like one who kills a man and so on. So God is
18:42 saying, look, I made heaven and earth and the whole heaven is my throne and
18:47 the earth is just my foottool. Do you really think you can confine me to the
18:52 temple? You know, do I need you to bring me sacrifices, to perform rituals? Do I
18:58 need you to house me and clothe me and give me food and money? What I'm really looking for is humble obedience. Humble
19:06 obedience that comes from the heart. And that's why Steven uses this exact
19:13 passage when he tells the Jews. He he quotes it exactly word for word. The most high does not live in houses made
19:20 by men. And he quotes Isaiah. See, the Jews thought, God will be
19:27 satisfied as long as I come to the temple. It doesn't matter how I live my life every day as long as I bring the
19:32 sacrifices and offerings. And Steven says to them, you accuse me of speaking against the temple. But when you go and
19:39 worship and do all your sacrifice in the temple, then you turn around and kill God's Messiah, Jesus, do you think God
19:47 accepts you? You know, when you come with sacrifice but no obedience, you
19:54 oppose the temple, you oppose what it stands for. So having the temple actually means nothing. It means
19:60 nothing. It doesn't mean that God is on your side. You have to obey him from your heart.
20:08 Now, the Jews thought they had God in a box. You know, they had a kind of push all the right buttons and get what you
20:14 want kind of religion. But what about us? What about us? Do you think, you
20:20 know, I have a checklist of things that make me a religious person? As long I take everything on the checklist, I'm
20:26 fine. Okay? I'm baptized. I have church membership. Uh I come every Sunday to church. Uh I give money in the back.
20:32 Okay, I'm fine. God cannot touch me now. Now last week uh I think our brother David in his sermon told us of a
20:39 somebody he knew who thought I don't want to come to church. I just want to give money. So just take my money and
20:45 put it in the church offering bag. Is that good enough? Now if if your son or your daughter treated you that way,
20:51 what would you feel? I don't want to see you. Just take my money. You'd be so offended, right? I don't want your
20:56 money. It's not your money that I want. Now what about God? God made the whole heaven and the whole earth. He doesn't
21:04 need your money. Now I'm not saying don't give money to church. Huh? Suddenly next week no offering. Huh? Okay. Now what I'm saying is that the
21:11 the external things that we do must flow from the heart must come from the right
21:17 attitude in our hearts. See God is not God is interested in your heart. And
21:22 doing the things for God only matters when it comes from a faithful and obedient heart. He doesn't want your
21:29 sacrifice. He wants your obedience. He doesn't want your rituals. He wants a
21:34 relationship. He wants you to trust him, to obey him, and seek him and tremble at his word.
21:44 So don't confine God like what the Jews did. He's not trapped in this building, okay? Don't just act like a Christian
21:50 when you're inside this building on Sundays and then you go out there, you've done your bid for the week, it doesn't matter now what what God thinks.
21:57 No. God is watching you at home. God is watching you at work from Monday to Saturday. He's interested in whether you
22:03 show integrity. He's interested in whether you cheat on your text. He's interested in how you
22:09 talk to your maid. He's interested in all of this. God wants true obedience
22:14 from the heart. Now, Israel's sin did not stop there. It
22:21 didn't stop with thinking that they could manipulate God. In fact, they went further and totally rejected God's
22:27 messengers and they rejected God's law. So Steven shows next that is actually
22:34 Israel who has persistently rejected God and he gives them a few examples of what happened. Okay. So going back to Joseph,
22:41 Joseph the deliverer that God sent, what did the the patriarchs, the sons of Jacob themselves do? They were jealous
22:48 of Joseph. They sold him as a slave into Egypt. This is already the start of a bad pattern happening here. Okay. And
22:55 next, Moses, the man that God sent to to uh say uh save the Israelites. What did
23:01 the people of Israel say? Who made you ruler and judge over us? You know who?
23:07 They refused to obey him. That's what it says, isn't it? In verse 39 as well, it says that they refused to obey him. And
23:15 not just that, not just Moses, not just Joseph, every single prophet that God
23:20 ever sent to Israel, they persecuted. Verse 52. Was there ever a prophet your
23:25 fathers did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the righteous one. So those prophets who
23:33 predicted the coming of Jesus, they were killed. Prophets like Isaiah were killed by the people of Israel. And now he
23:41 says, "You have betrayed and murdered the righteous one."
23:47 Israel has rejected God's prophets, including God's uh righteous one. And
23:52 not just that, they've rejected God's law. You see, it says there, they rejected him and in their hearts turned
23:57 back to Egypt and they made idols. They made gods to worship and brought
24:04 sacrifices in celebration of an idol. So God gave his law and this law is
24:10 something that the Jews venerated. They loved it. They they claim to defend it. But actually Steven says you guys who
24:17 love the law or claim that you love the law, you are the ones who have disobeyed the law. You just like your forefathers
24:24 who got the law from God and immediately turned around and made an idol and disobeyed the law. This pattern has
24:30 continued to this very day. And he quotes uh from a prophet in the Old
24:36 Testament from the book of Amos because Amos actually lived hundreds of years after Moses and hundreds of years before
24:43 Steven. Okay. But this is to show that this is the general pattern of Israel's
24:49 history. Did you bring me sacrifices and offerings 40 years in the desert, oh
24:54 house of Israel? You have littered out the shrine of Molech and the star of your God Refan, the idols you made to
25:01 worship. This is the pattern of Israel. God says, "In those 40 years in the
25:07 desert, when you were wandering the desert, Israel, in the time of Moses, did you really bring me sacrifices?" No,
25:14 they may have brought their sacrifices to the temple. They may have done all their outward duties to God. They may
25:20 have gone through all the motions, but their hearts were turned to idols. They
25:26 did the equivalent of going to church every Sunday and putting money in the bag. But for most of their history, they
25:33 offered God only lip service and superficial allegiance and worship. And
25:39 in their hearts were turned to idols. And this uh culminated or climaxed in
25:46 the fact that they killed the Messiah that God sent. They were not it wasn't
25:52 enough for them to kill all the prophets. They killed the the prophet the Messiah that God sent. Isn't it?
25:60 So what do we learn from this for us today?
26:06 You see the tables are now turned. is not Stephen who has blasphemed God or
26:12 his temple or his law. It is the people of Israel, the Jews themselves. And this
26:17 is the conclusion that Stephen has. You stiff necked people with uncircumcised hearts and ears. You are just like your
26:24 fathers. You always resist the Holy Spirit. History repeats itself again and
26:31 again. And you know, keeping the law, they think it will save them. You know,
26:36 loving the temple, they think it will save them. But no, it won't because now God's only way of salvation is to
26:43 believe in the Messiah, Jesus. But what have they done? They've gone and killed the Messiah instead of believing in him.
26:50 And because of this, God's wrath will come upon the whole nation.
26:56 Now, none of us here today are Jews. But what can we learn from this history of
27:01 Israel? I think we can learn quite a few things here. Firstly, we can learn that those
27:07 who receive God's grace the most can still be stiff necked and uncircumcised
27:13 in heart. Now, you may be someone who has heard again and again the gospel of God, the good news about Jesus, and
27:20 there's no reason for you not to believe, but you keep putting it off and you think there's another time and
27:25 there's another time. God has been patient with you all this while. But you know what? God will not remain patient
27:32 forever and you will not always have a chance to turn back to God because
27:39 Israel went through the same thing and God shut the doors against them.
27:46 At some point, God will not give us any more chances, but we will have to bear the full impact of God's punishment if
27:52 we turn away from him and fail to believe in his son. So don't be like
27:59 that. Don't resist the Holy Spirit's work in your life, but repent of your
28:04 sin. Turn back to God, believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.
28:10 And another thing that we can learn is that no matter how religious and devoted you are outwardly,
28:17 the test of your religion is really whether you have real faith in Jesus Christ. It's not about keeping the law.
28:25 It's not about being a good person, but about believing in Jesus Christ. Doing good things is not going to bring you to God. There's no way for any of us to be
28:33 accepted by God except by believing in Jesus Christ. So come to faith. If you
28:40 haven't trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ, come to him today. And if you want to know more about it or how to
28:48 come to faith in Jesus, come up here later and somebody at the front will talk to you.
28:54 Now, we've seen how God promised uh to bless Israel, okay? And we've seen how
28:59 Israel persistently rejected God. Does that mean that God's promises to Israel have failed?
29:06 No. God's promises will be fulfilled, but those who inherit God's promises
29:13 will not be the physical nation of Jews, but will be the true Israel. And the
29:19 true Israel consists of both Jews as well as Gentiles like us who believe in
29:25 and imitate Jesus. What are the people of this new Israel
29:30 like? Well, Steven is the model here. Okay, look at what Steven is like. The Jews went after underhanded tactics,
29:37 false testimony, mob violence. Okay, this whole trial process was very unfair. It did not follow the due
29:43 process and in the end it ended in a mob lynching. He was killed without any judicial uh verdict. Okay. Uh but Steven
29:52 on the other hand as we read earlier is a man who was full of the Holy Spirit, full of wisdom, full of courage, full of
29:59 faith and power and grace. He spoke boldly. He spoke calmly. It says his face was like that of an angel. He did
30:07 not renounce his faith even to death. But he even prayed that God would
30:12 forgive those guys who killed him. Now, who does Steven remind you of?
30:19 Jesus. Isn't it? Because if you have read the gospels, especially Luke, and Luke is intentional here about making
30:24 parallels between Jesus and Steven, it's very obvious Steven imitates Jesus. Look
30:30 at the list of things that are the same between Luke's account of Jesus trial and Luke's account of Steven's trial.
30:36 Okay? Both provoked the hostility of the Jewish leaders. Both came to trial
30:42 before the Sanhedrin. Both were accused by false witnesses. Both faced their accusers without fear. Both claimed that
30:49 the son of man would be seated at the right hand or Steven saw the son of man standing at the right hand of God. Both
30:55 were unjustly killed. Both prayed that they would commit their spirit to God.
31:01 Both prayed for forgiveness for their opposers. And in both cases, the death
31:07 leads to someone coming to Christ. Okay? In case of Jesus the thief on the cross. In the case of Steven, the gospel goes
31:14 out to Samaria and to the ends of the world. And Saul gets to hear the gospel.
31:20 Saul, the great persecutor of the church, who later became the greatest evangelist for the church.
31:26 So we can see here that the model for us is Steven who imitates Jesus. Okay. So
31:34 now earlier on I said, what would you do if you had to go through something similar?
31:40 See, the history of Israel shows us that opposition is something that is common
31:45 for all of God's servants. From Joseph to Moses to the prophets to Jesus and
31:51 now to Stephen, they all went through the same thing. So we too, if we are
31:56 faithful to God, we must expect that we will be persecuted. So the persecution could be opposition.
32:04 It could be ridicule, it could be worse, it could be discrimination at work, it could be
32:10 imprisonment, it could even be death and martyrdom. And a lot of the time these guys who
32:17 persecute are people who are full of religious zeal. They think they're doing God a service if they killed you. You
32:24 see now when persecution comes, if we want to remain God's true people,
32:31 the only possible response for us is to cling to the Lord Jesus and refuse to
32:37 deny Christ and stand firm even to death.
32:42 Steven did it. Martin Luther did it. Countless Christians after them have
32:47 done it. If we stand firm, we will also, like Steven, see the heavens open and
32:53 the son of man standing to receive us into eternal glory.
32:59 God is our avenger. Now, whatever injustices, whatever persecutions and
33:05 wrongs that you go through, God is the one who will write all of these wrongs. All we have to do is to resolve to
33:12 ourselves. Whatever we face now, whatever we face in the future,
33:17 let it not shake our faith or our loyalty to Jesus. Steven stood up boldly and died for his
33:25 faith. So may we follow in his footsteps with great courage, with great wisdom
33:31 and endurance when we are persecuted, no matter what it costs us. So we can say
33:37 with Martin Luther, here I am. I can do no other.
33:43 May God help us. Let's pray. Our heavenly father, we thank you for
33:50 the life and witness of your servant Stephen. We thank you for showing us through Acts 7 your amazing grace and
33:57 mercy in choosing us to be your people. Thank you for extending your favor to us
34:04 Gentiles who believe in Jesus. Please help us not to be Christians only
34:09 outwardly who go through the motions but are far from you. But help us to be
34:15 humble and contrite in spirit to tremble at your word in faith and obedience.
34:22 Help us to be like our Lord Jesus in boldness and love and to be loyal to him
34:28 no matter what the cost. Give us endurance in the face of persecution and
34:33 fill our hearts with the hope of eternal glory in heaven. These things we pray in
34:40 the name of Jesus our Lord. Amen.
35:07 Can we all stand as we sing our hymn of response? You are my all in all.
35:27 You are my strength when I am weak. You are the treasure that I seek. You are my
35:34 all. Seeking you as a precious jewel, not to
35:42 give up or be a fool. You are my only
35:49 Jesus.
