SPEAKER_00 0:00

Good morning. My name is Bob. Our Old Testament reading is found in Exodus chapter 32, verses 1 through 4. The people saw that Moses was taking a long time to come down from the mountain. They gathered around Aaron and said to him, Come on, make us gods who can lead us. As for this man, Moses, who brought us up out of Egypt, we don't have a clue what has happened to him. Aaron said to them, All right, take out the gold rings from the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me. So all the people took out the gold rings from their ears and brought them to Aaron. He collected them and tied them up in a cloth. Then he made a metal image of a bull calf, and the people declared, These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. The word of the Lord.

SPEAKER_02 1:14

The New Testament reading is found in Acts chapter 7, verses 54 through 60. Once the council members heard these words, they were enraged and began to grind their teeth at Stephen. But Stephen, enabled by the Holy Spirit, stared into heaven and saw God's majesty, and Jesus standing at God's right side. He exclaimed, Look, I can see heaven on display. And the human one standing at God's right side. At this, they shrieked and covered their ears. Together they charged at him, threw him out of the city, and began to stone him. The witnesses placed their coats in the care of a young man named Saul. As they battered him with stones, Stephen prayed, Lord Jesus, accept my life. Falling to his knees, he shouted, Lord, don't hold this in against them. Then he died. The word of the Lord.

SPEAKER_03 2:35

Hello, my name is Karen. And if you're able, please stand for the gospel reading found in Matthew 10, 17 through 19. Watch out for people, because they will hand you over to councils and they will beat you in their synagogues. They will haul you in front of governors and even kings because of me, so that you may give your testimony to them and to the Gentiles. Whenever they hand you over, don't worry about how to speak or what you will say, because what you can say will be given to you at that moment. The gospel of the Lord.

SPEAKER_01 3:45

God, I pray you would illuminate your word to us. Holy Spirit, I pray for your power and your presence to invade this place. Praise the Christ's name. Amen. You can be seated. Well, my name is Brock. I have the privilege privilege of overseeing our youth ministry here at Communion of Saints. And what we did earlier was just one part of what I get to do on a regular basis. It's an honor and a joy to be able to serve our students in so many ways. So and thank you again for the ways that you guys serve and invest in the next generation as well. It is a real gift. But today we are continuing in our series called Kingdom Movement throughout the book of Acts. And it's about the birth, the development, and the mission of the early church. It's written by Luke, which he has a gospel, and his gospel was all about that, all about what Jesus began to do and teach through his physical body, through his life, ministry, death, and resurrection while he was on earth. And then the book of Acts is all that he continued to do through his body, the church. And so what we kind of see developing through the book of Acts is this movement where they waited for the Holy Spirit. They received the Spirit of Pentecost. They're doing miraculous signs and wonders in the power of the Spirit. But it often gets them into trouble. We saw an Acts 3 miracle at the temple sparks an Acts 4 debate with Peter and John going before the Jewish council. And they basically said, just don't do it again. And Peter and John, like, we have to. We're gonna. And then we see in Acts 5 that more miracles bring more opposition, resulting in the apostles going to jail and being beaten. And there's this pattern developing of the more signs and wonders, the more the gospel is spread, and the more opposition that they're beginning to see. And Jesus actually warned them that this is going to happen in the gospel reading that we just heard, that they would have everything that they need in those moments. They would have the words to say, the courage to speak, and the power to bless those who are actively cursing them. So last week we were in chapter six. This week we are in chapter seven, six, seven. So sorry. That one's for my students. Love you guys. So sorry. But in Acts chapter six, we are introduced to a man named Stephen. And Stephen is one of the men that was uh chosen to be responsible for the daily distribution of food to the widows. All right, he's like not handing out pizza to the youth group. He is like making sure widows and others had enough to eat and that they weren't overlooked. And here's what uh Luke says about Stephen. He says in chapter 6, verse 5, he's a man full of faith in the Holy Spirit. He's a man full of God's grace and power. He performed miracles and signs among the people. And then he would go to different synagogues and debate with the people in there. And it says, none of them could stand against the wisdom and the spirit with which Stephen spoke. And so some of them who were being debated against uh persuaded others to lie about Stephen. So Stephen gets arrested and he's brought before the high council. And these lying men, they claim that Stephen was speaking against the temple and against the law of Moses. Uh they are bringing some of the same charges to Stephen that they brought to Jesus as well. Uh they're not very creative. They keep running the same play over and over. And it says this at the end of the chapter and chapter six, it says, at this point, everyone in the high council stared at Stephen because his face became as bright as an angel's. He is radiating the glory of God at this point. And uh, if it kind of if your biblical imagination is maybe sparked a little bit, this maybe sounds reminiscent of Moses, right? When Moses ascended to Sinai, he comes back down, and he comes back down and he sees the people, and the people like can't even look at Moses. They are he's like radiating, his face is shining because he has been in the presence of Yahweh himself. He went there to receive the law, and they can't even look at him. So what's really interesting about this moment is that the very one, Stephen, they are claiming is against Moses, actually looks the most like Moses right now. And here's what happens in chapter seven. We're gonna spend the most of our day in chapter seven. The high priest asked, are these accusations true? Are these accusations true? And then what you get throughout the rest of chapter seven is Stephen's long and detailed response to our if to if these accusations are true. Stephen's back right now is against the wall. He has to kind of depend on God in this moment. And what I recognize for us today is that maybe there's a gap for us here today. Right? Many of us in this room maybe can't relate to the idea of being falsely accused, brought before a council, and needing to defend ourselves lest we are stoned to death. Right? There are, of course, maybe former missionaries in the room who have been in context where just even saying the name of Jesus can get you into real trouble. I recognize that. Um so maybe we can't relate to this actual situation, but maybe we can relate to the feeling of having our backs against the wall. And in those moments, how do you respond? How do you respond when your back is against the wall? I remember being eight or nine years old, and I hear my mom talking on the phone to someone in the kitchen. This is when we had a landline. Yes, I do remember landlines. I'm not too young to remember landlines. She's on the phone in the kitchen, and I'm in my bedroom, and she hangs up and she says, Brock, can you come here for a second? It's like, yeah, of course. She goes, Did you steal something from Cracker Barrel? She said, The cops just called and said they saw you stealing something on camera at Cracker Barrel. Right, my back is against the wall here. Right, I must confess to you today that there was this beautiful pack of baseball cards at Cracker Barrel. And these were not just any baseball cards, they had bazooka bubblegum in them. They were really special. And so I kept asking my mom, hey, can I get these? These like have gum in them. Who knows? Maybe there's like a rookie card or something. This could be worth a lot of money, mom. This is worth the investment. And she told me no three times. Um, and right in this situation, I've been accused of stealing. The difference between me um and Steven here is that I actually was in the wrong. Uh I confessed to you today that at eight years old, I confess I stole a pack of baseball cards from Cracker Barrel. So if you see it in the headlines tomorrow, local pastor omits to stealing from Cracker Barrel. Um I hope I get to go back to Cracker Barrel. I hope he doesn't get to them. Um, right, like I just remember like, because she also did my laundry as well, and I left the cards in my jeans pocket. And she found it when she was doing laundry, and uh she kind of staged the cops calling. And you might question, you might question the parenting strategy, but you should know that to this day I have never considered stealing ever again. But when pressed, I chose to lie, to defend myself, to try to wiggle my way out of the situation. How do you respond when your back is against the wall? We can maybe all think of moments in sports or those movies where someone is like their back is against the wall. We we think of the movie Rocky, right, where he's fighting Apollo and he gets knocked down in the 14th round, he pulls himself up by the ropes and he says, Come on, like he keeps going. Epic moment. Or we can think of the 1997 NBA finals where Michael Jordan, the greatest player of all time, let me say that right now, uh, he has the flu. He's dehydrated, he's weak, he's on the verge of collapsing several times. You can see him, he was just dog tired. Uh, MJ scores 38 points and the Bulls win game five, and they go on to win the finals. Or you think about the 2011 World Series, where the greatest baseball team of all time, the St. Louis Cardinals, were playing the Texas Rangers. Sorry, Emily. The Cardinals are down seven to five in the bottom of the ninth, and they're down to their final strike, not once, but twice. And then the hometown hero, David Free, steps up, he hits a game-tying triple in the bottom of the ninth, and then a game-winning home run in the bottom of the tenth. They go on to win the World Series. Right? So we know these moments, we're familiar with these moments, but let's get a little more personal. How do you respond when you're accused of something at work that wasn't actually your fault, but you have to answer for it? How do you respond when your boss tells you your dream job isn't actually your dream job anymore? How do you respond when you see the piles of medical bills on the table? How do you respond when it feels like faith isn't working anymore? How do you respond when you feel like your marriage has nowhere left to go? How do you respond when you get the diagnosis? How do you respond when your kids want nothing to do with you because of a conviction you hold? How do you respond when your parents only want a relationship with you when you abide by their standards? How do you respond in those moments? Is faith real to you? And here's what we can begin to glean from the life and the massive sermon from Stephen that when Stephen's back is against the wall, he chooses to tell the truth about God. And sometimes the best way to tell the truth about God is to tell a story. And sometimes the best stories are old stories told with a new, fresh lens. So here's my invitation for you today. Maybe today is less about how to respond to someone else when your back is against the wall. And maybe more about how to respond to parts of yourself that don't want to trust God. So as we listen to this today, it'll be helpful to have your Bible open or your phone open to chapter seven. We're not going to be able to read every line because there's 60 verses and I've only got so much time. So, but we will what we will see is that Stephen reveals three truths that were important in that moment when his back is against the wall and could be vital for us today. The first one is this that God being faithful should not be confused with God being static. What Stephen does in this sermon in chapter 7 is he retells the story of the major movements of God in the Old Testament, largely to remind this council of God's faithfulness in the past, that throughout human history, God has chosen, called, commissioned people to be part of his redemptive work in the world. That God is faithful. This word faithfulness, the Hebrew emet, shows up 127 times in the Old Testament. It means that God is reliable, he's sure, he's trustworthy, and it has the same shared root in Hebrew of where we get the word amen. So actually, when we close our prayers, we are depending on, we're trusting in, and we're betting everything on the faithfulness and reliability of God. The problem is sometimes we have warped ideas of faithfulness. Oftentimes we think about faithfulness as doing the same thing over and over and over in the same way and never changing. What's interesting is that sometimes the way we talk about faithfulness is how everyone talks about else talks about insanity. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. It brings with it this expectation that God does the same thing over and over and in our lives, which completely closes us off to the new thing that God is up to right now. So God's faithfulness should never be confused with God being static. What this counsel has missed over and over that Stephen is speaking to, is that God is always in the business of doing a new thing. He is not static. His faithfulness actually points to his creativity. His works throughout human history show that his movements are more dynamic than static. And while his character never changes, his ways of working are consistently creative. Right throughout this sermon, Stephen lists the giant figures in the Old Testament. He lists Abraham being called by God to go to a new place that God will show him. He lists Joseph, who God is doing a new thing with the younger brother and his brothers when they sold him into slavery. He lists Moses, who's drawn out of the water as a baby, and then he shows up to Moses in a burning bush. He lists Joshua to lead Israel into the promised land. David, the youngest in his family, the shepherd boy who would become the king of the nation Israel, and then Solomon building the temple. These are all new, massive movements in Israel's life and history. Here's what N.T. Wright says about this. He says, the early Christian claim always was that the God of our ancestors, in fulfillment of the purposes for which he gave the law and the temple in the first place, is now doing a new thing. And the new thing that God is up to, right here with Stephen, is that Jesus was actually fulfilling what the law and the temple were all about, not rejecting it. That God is up to a new thing in human history through the power of the Spirit through these people. But here's the other pattern in this sermon. God's people have a pattern of rejecting the people He sends. They rejected Moses, they turned away the prophets, Joseph's brothers threw him out like he was garbage. We don't want God to work in new ways. We don't want people or new leaders, or we do just in our timing and in our ways, or when we're ready. And this culminates in the very rejection of God's Son. Here's what we see in verse 51. He says, This, you stubborn people, this is what Stephen says, you stubborn people. Not exactly a strategy you see in preaching anymore. He says, In your thoughts and hearing, you are like those who have no part in God's covenant. You continuously set yourself against the Holy Spirit, just like your ancestors did. Was there a single prophet your ancestors didn't harass? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the righteous one, and you've betrayed and murdered him. Stephen reminds them that their bad behavior in the mid of their bad behavior in the midst of God's faithfulness. And they're like probably picking up rocks as he's doing this right now. Like it's happening right now. As Mark Twain says, history doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes, right? They're rejecting someone again and again. God right now is doing a new thing for you. Like God did new things in human history, but I want us to know that he does new things in our lives personally as well, or in our families. I love what Teresa of Avila says. She says, God is so great that he is worth seeking for a lifetime. And he is so faithful that he is always found doing something new in the soul that has grown tired of its own old ways. He's so faithful that he's always found doing something new. But if we're not careful, we can also reject the God, the work that God wants to do in our lives. And why do we do this? For a number of reasons. I think we're maybe afraid it will require something of us that we don't possess at the moment. We know that it requires change to embrace the new. But when you think about the Christian life, when you think about spiritual formation, it is about being transformed into the image of God's very Son. Transformation is a change word. It requires new things, new seasons, new practices, new people, new ways of thinking, being, and acting. And sometimes we don't like change. Oftentimes, I'll speak in the eye, I don't like change. But for those of you that go to the gym, I'm not speaking in the eye anymore, of course. It's like uh when you go to the gym, you're trying out a new machine, right? The gym gets a new machine and you're and uh you're like, man, I know that's really gonna help my biceps, uh, but I don't know how that machine works. Um and like they list the, they kind of show you on the machine how to do it, and you're like, if I get on there, it's not gonna look that pretty. Right? But you know you need like to you need to grow, you need to embrace this new thing, but maybe you're afraid of looking goofy. Maybe you've seen the videos of people just getting on the gym machine and being like, that is not how you use that. But we are called to embrace new ways of thinking. The true sign of God's faithfulness is that he won't keep doing the same thing. He is always creatively at work in your life. The second truth that we see from Stephen is this that God's power is not confined to a particular place. And Stephen lists God's anointed ones throughout his sermon. He also lists places in this sermon. He says to Abraham, Leave your homeland and go to a new land. For Joseph, he's in Egypt, Moses, he's in Egypt, Moses is in the wilderness, he's also on the mountain in Sinai, Joshua is at Canaan in the promised land, David and Solomon are in the nation of Israel and the temple. Stephen is pointing to the reality and to the truth that what makes a place holy is not the place itself, but God's presence there. It's not the place itself. They have confused the place with the person when it comes to God. They have confined God to the temple. Here's what he says in Acts 7 33, pointing to the store the story of Moses. He says, The Lord continued, he's talking to Moses at the burning bush. He says, Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy. Ground. Places become holy because God's presence is there. God's presence would rather be with his people than confined to places. But again, humanity has a way of warping our ideas of who God is and where he should be. They have confined God to the temple. Sometimes we confine God to a church building or an old high school. Or we confidently and certainly try to say where God is and who he's for. Or we confine God to a political party. Or we confine God to certain containers of our lives. We want a God we can manage, control, or confine so that God can be God on our terms and not his. Here's what A.W. Tozer says. He says, left to ourselves, we tend immediately to reduce God to manageable terms. We want to get him where we can use him, or at least know where he is when we need him. We want a God we can in some measure control. And in our controlling, our confining, our managing, we end up crafting a mental idol of who we think God should be and where he should be. The philosopher Voltaire, who sounds a lot like Voldemort, I love his name. He says this he says, In the beginning, God created man in his own image, and man has been trying to repay the favor ever since. Because what's true is that God, maybe for some of us, met us in a particular place. There are places that are special in our lives in a certain season with a certain group of people. There are places that are really, really special to us. God met us in the place. It was a place of encounter. This is true throughout the Bible as well. There are people throughout the Old Testament, people setting up altars and stacking rocks and naming places that are special to them because God met them there. And God meets us in particular places, but he is not confined to them. Here's what he continues to say in verse 48. He says, However, the Most High doesn't live, and in the Greek, this word live is like to dwell or permanently reside in this place. He does not live in houses built by human hands. As the prophet says, heaven is my throne, the earth is my footstool. What kind of house will you build for me, says the Lord? Or where is my resting place? Didn't I make all these things with my own hand? And I think there's a few ways that maybe we can relate to this today. For a long time, I think the West has believed the lie that we have a monopoly on God. And while the West was once a locus or the hub of Christianity, it's become pretty clear that some of the most thriving places and congregations in the world are in the global south and in the east. Of all Christians worldwide, 64% are from Africa, Asia, and Latin America. These are places where the body of Christ is thriving, where the movements of the Spirit are very, very active and dynamic. Or on a more local level, we believe that God is really present at my church on Sundays. The truth, while he is present here with us, the truth is that right now, God is present with a number of faithful, spiritually vibrant congregations in our city, and that is worth celebrating. It recognizes the larger work that God is up to in our city, and we get to be faithful witnesses to that reality. And as we talk about God not being confined to a particular place, it means as we think about our move to Mitchell in just a few weeks, the really, really good news is that God will go with us. We can trust that the really good, spirit-filled moments will continue to happen. And as we pray and give towards a permanent place for the church, we just recognize that God, He, He's not confined to a place, that He goes with His people. God is not confined to a particular place. But here's the last thing we see from Stephen, and this is not something that he taught as so much that is embodied in this last part of chapter 7. We see this, that God's presence often materializes for us as an advocate. As Stephen finishes his sermon, we're going to see that it doesn't act exactly get a standing ovation. But he faithfully spoke the truth about God to these people who didn't want to hear it. And here's what happens: it says this, that once the council members heard these words, they were enraged and they began to grind their teeth at Stephen. But Stephen, enabled by the Holy Spirit, stared into heaven and saw God's majesty and Jesus standing at God's right side. He exclaimed, Look, I can see heaven on display, and the human ones standing at God's right side, and this was the final straw for these people. It says this, at this they shrieked and covered their ears. Together they charged at him, they threw him out of the city, they began to stone him. The witnesses placed their coats in the care of a young man named Saul. As they battered him with stones, Stephen prayed, Lord Jesus, accept my life. Falling to his knees, he shouted, Lord, don't hold this sin against him. Then he died. Or in the Greek it says, he fell asleep. And what I want you to notice right here is that Jesus, in this very moment of pain in darkness, is standing at the very in heaven. He's standing in heaven. And what's happening is that in this council, as as Stephen uh gave the truth about who God is, Jesus stands as his advocate. He's standing as an advocate in the court of law because Jesus represents a God who stands up for and with those in pain. He's a God who advocates for the truth. He's a God who advocates for those who are on the margins in poverty, those in pain, those who are weak, or for those who don't feel like they have a voice in any given moment. He's also a God who advocates for you. When the lies begin to creep in, that you're not enough, that you're not good enough, that God couldn't truly love you because of whatever. And in those moments we read that the Spirit of truth testifies on our behalf that we are God's children, that Jesus stands up and intercedes for us in those moments. Friends, when the accusations are at their loudest, God fights for you. God defends you, God is your advocate, Jesus is interceding for you. Death becomes a part of this for Stephen, but death does not get the final say. Jesus standing up for us as our advocate, as Jason often says, that means that the worst thing is never the lasting. What that means is that we must let God fight for us. As the worship team and Jason comes up to lead us to the table, um, one of my just kind of theological heroes is Dallas Willard. He consistently talked about the spiritual practice of never having the final word. So when you receive criticism, or when the disagreement just can't go any further, or you're the recipient of some really ugly words, he talks about the practice of never having the final word. Which means you have to let God fight for you in those moments. We see in the book of Romans that God says, Vengeance is mine, declares the Lord. That God is the one that defends you, he fights for you in those moments. And what that means is that God fights for you, which means forgiveness becomes your part. And what Stephen does in these final moments is actually what he heard about his Lord doing in his final moments. As Jesus said, God forgive them, for they don't know what they're doing. Stephen says the very same thing. When we let God be our advocate, we can do the deep and heavy work of forgiveness. When we don't feel like we have to get back at that person, we can do the work of forgiveness. And so, friends, in those moments when your back feels like it's against the wall, can you trust that God is doing a new thing? That his power extends far beyond any place you can imagine, and that his presence will advocate for you and defend you when you need it most. And again, I hope that maybe brings it home personally for you today. But what I also recognize is that Stephen was the first Christian martyr and that celebrated the day after Christmas each year. And I just want to take a moment to just pray for the persecuted church in our world. That this isn't just something that happened thousands of years ago, that this is an ongoing daily reality for a lot of Christians in the world today. Just from the World Watch list, it says this more than 388 million Christians around the world suffer high levels of persecution and discrimination. Not just killing, but abduction, violence, displacement, or discrimination. This equates to about one in seven Christians being persecuted worldwide. And even just in the last year, there's been about 5,000 Christians who have been killed for their faith in the last year, largely in sub-Saharan Africa, which is Sudan, Nigeria, and Mali. And so, friends, I just want to take a moment to pray for our brothers and sisters, for our family around the globe. So would you just, I don't know, maybe reach your hand in a direction of the globe, I don't know, or open your hands to a specific direction, or if you have a country in mind where you know that persecution is heavy in that area right now, would just begin to bring that to your mind right now. So, Jesus, we pray for those around the globe who are who have their backs against the wall, who every day is a battle for them, who every day they have to rely on your power, your strength, your defense. So, God, we pray for those to be faithful. God, we pray for protection. We pray for justice to be done in those areas. We pray for your word to be shared. God, we pray for the spirit to break out in intense ways in those areas. God, I pray for our brothers and sisters in the Middle East and Africa and Asia. God, I pray that you would protect them, surround them, and comfort them. God, we recognize that there is a much larger work happening in our world. And we know that you are at work in all of it. So, God, would you fight for those who have no defense right now? For those who are in their darkest moments. God, I pray that they would have the clearest revelation of who you are in that moment, that they would see you standing at the right hand of the Father, advocating for them in that moment. God, thank you for your spirit. Thank you that no matter what, your word will spread across the globe, advancing this kingdom movement. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.