Jesus is the Point | Sunday Sermon

Jesus is the Point | Sunday Sermon

Series: Acts: The Story Continues...

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In Colossians chapter 1, I've quoted this one to you before, but I want you to hear it in a different way this time. In verse 15, the Apostle Paul says about Jesus. He is the image of the invisible God. He's the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through him and for him. And he's before all things, and in him all things hold together. And then it goes on. And he's before all things, and him all things hold together. And then he says, and he's the head of the body, the church. He's the beginning. He's the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. I just want to think about what that's saying. He's the image of the invisible God, he's the firstborn of all creation. I know some Jehovah's Witnesses that use this verse to say, see, he's born, he's created. No, no, no, no. Because this says he's by him all things were created. In other words, everything that was created was created by Jesus. And then it gives a list just to make sure you fully understand. Things in heaven and things on earth, things that are visible, things that are not visible. Dominions, thrones, principalities, power, everything was created by Jesus. But then it says this, and all things were created through him. In other words, this is going back to John 1, where it says, in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, the word was God. And all things were made through him. And without him, nothing was made that was made. In other words, in the beginning, God the Father spoke, and his word went forth to perform his will. Amen? So all things were created by him. All things were created through him. But this one's really interesting. All things were created for Jesus. That everything that was created was created for Jesus. In other words, firstborn means the one who's entitled to the inheritance. The one who is entitled to receive all things. All things were created through and for and by, and he's before all things. In other words, if there was anything that was before him, he wouldn't be before all things, would he? He's before all things, and in him, in Jesus, everything, all of the elements of the universe, all the space and time and matter and energy hold together in him. He's before all things. All things hold together. He's the head of the body, the church, the beginning, the firstborn from the dead. In other words, he's the firstborn in terms of the one who rose in his humanity to resurrection life. Everything is about Jesus. It was created through him, and it was created by him, and it was created for him. It's all for him. And so as we come into this passage, you know, we talked last week about Stephen, okay? And in the beginning of Acts chapter 6, Stephen is one of seven men that's appointed to oversee the ministry of distribution for the widows and the poor and those who need things in the early church. Okay, and he's appointed to a ministry of deacon, and it says he's full of wisdom and full of the Holy Spirit when he's appointed. But very shortly, Luke kind of fast forwards in time, and he says, and Stephen, full of grace and power, was doing great wonders and signs among the people. Okay, and he's out there, so Stephen is just a deacon, and you're thinking, okay, well, he serves in the practical needs of the ministry, he serves in the church and the practical needs. And yet Stephen's out there preaching the gospel with power, with wisdom, with authority, and God's confirming the gospel through signs and wonders in his ministry. Okay? And so while this is happening, there's uh some people from the synagogue of the freedman that come against him and they start to oppose his message. They don't like the gospel that Stephen's preaching, and so they come against him and they start to oppose him, but they said they could not overcome the wisdom and the spirit with which he spoke. Okay, in other words, they couldn't reason with him, they couldn't outlogic him, and so what they do, they resorted to trying to overcome him by slander and false accusations. So they grab Stephen, they drag him before the Sanhedrin. And now Stephen's standing before the Sanhedrin, the very same body of leaders that Jesus stood before in his mock trial. And so Stephen understands his situation. He's standing in a difficult, precarious, and dangerous situation, and he stands here, and then these people, his accusers, bring false witnesses. And the false witnesses say, This man doesn't cease to speak against the temple. Do we have some verse slides up here? He says, They said, We've heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and against God. Okay, so he's speaking against God, he's speaking about Moses. They went on to say that this man never seeks to speak words against this holy place and against the law. Okay, and so their accusations against him is he's speaking against Moses, he's speaking against God, he's speaking against the temple, he's speaking against the law. And so when Stephen begins his speech, this is his defense. He's standing basically in a legal courtroom, okay, before those who will stand in judgment over him, and he begins his legal defense. And I want to summarize it for you because it's kind of long. And so, Stephen, we went over this in Thursday morning Bible study, by the way, but Stephen begins by answering these accusations. And the main points that Stephen makes is one, God has never been confined to a temple, to a building in Jerusalem. His second point is that you accuse me of speaking against Moses in the law, and yet it's our fathers who've rejected and blasphemed Moses from the very beginning. And the third point was that all of that, the law, the prophets, the temple, everything was always all about Jesus. Okay? And so he goes through and he starts with Moses. He says, When Abraham and Mo Abraham, God called Abraham from Mesopotamia. He appeared to him in Mesopotamia, in Ur of the Chaldeans, in a land of idol worship, and he was an idol worshiper himself. And God called him and appeared to him in Ur of the Chaldeans and called him out of there, and he went and dwelled in Haran. And then God met Abraham and Haran and called him into Canaan. And then Abraham went into Canaan and God appeared to him there. And he promised to give him the land of Canaan to his descendants, although Abraham had no children. And then Abraham had a son, Isaac, circumcised him on the eighth day, and then Isaac had a son, Jacob. Jacob was renamed Israel by God, wrestles with God, and then he had the twelve patriarchs. The twelve tribes of Israel are the children of Jacob. Okay, but the eleven sons of Israel were jealous of Joseph's, and so they betrayed Joseph because Joseph had this dream where all his brothers bowed down to him someday. And they didn't like that very much. And their father kind of favored him. And so they sold him into slavery in Egypt. And what does Stephen say? But God was with him. So God was with Abraham in Mesopotamia. He was with him in Haran, he was with him in Canaan, and now he's with Joseph down in Egypt, in Potiphar's house and in the prison, and in Pharaoh's palace. Okay, but then he says Moses is born. Then God's with Moses. And God makes sure by his providence that he gets adopted by Pharaoh's daughter instead of floating down the Nile and getting eaten by a crocodile. Okay, so God watches over Moses in his providence. Moses is raised up and then he eventually flees to Midian, and it's in Midian where he gets married and has two sons, and he's a sheepherder in Midian. And one day he's out there herding the sheep and he sees this bush that's on fire, but it's not being consumed. So he goes over to investigate it, and as he walks close, God speaks to him out of the burning bush and he says, Moses, take off your sandals, for the place that you're standing is holy ground. Now, what made that ground holy? Huh? God's presence. It was made holy by the presence of God. Was the ground around that bush out in Midian holy before God appeared in the bush? When God departed from the bush, was the ground holy? No, the ground was holy because God's presence was there. Okay? So then God gives Moses this task to go back to the children of Israel and let them know that he's sending Moses as a deliverer and a judge over the nation, that he's gonna deliver uh the nation by his hand. And then he sends them to them with signs and wonders to confirm that he is the messenger and this is the message. Then he goes to Pharaoh, and he God works through Pharaoh, through Moses to Pharaoh with signs and wonders and plagues upon Egypt. And then he's with Moses as Moses holds out his staff and they cross the Red Sea. And he's with the children of Israel in the wilderness as they go to the foot of Mount Sinai. Then God descends upon Mount Sinai in glory, in a cloud, and his voice rumbles from the mountain as he speaks to his people, and they hear the verse voice of God, and it sounds like thunder. Lightning is flashing on the mountain, and God warns Moses warn the people don't even come near the foot of the mountain. Don't even let an animal come and touch the foot of the mountain, lest they die. Why? Speak up, church. Come on this morning. Come on, wake up. This is mascobry. I testify. It was his presence. His presence on the mountain made the mountain holy. You know, Mount Sinai still exists, right? People go hike on it. They go do a pilgrimage to Mount Sinai. They hike to the top. Is the mountain still holy? No. And Stephen's point is this: God's never been confined to a building. The building's not holy. God's holy, and where God's presence is is holy ground. This pulpit's not holy. That pew is not holy. This building's not holy. God, where God's presence is, is holy ground. It's not more holy to stand here than it is in the parking lot if God is with you. So his first point is that God's never been confined to your building. In fact, that building pointed forward to one in whom all the fullness of God would be pleased to dwell. His name is Jesus. He's the one that we go to when we need forgiveness of our sins. He's the one in whose name we pray. You know, these are the functions of the temple. The functions of the temple is you bring a sacrifice. The blood is shed and sprinkled on the altar, and your sin is covered. Okay, you go to the temple and you pray, and the priests intercede for you with the Lord. And the prayers of the saints ascend upon the incense from the table of incense. You know, it's funny, I was reading in Luke the other day in chapter one, and that's the scene where Zachariah is in the temple, he gets chosen to offer the incense. Okay, and so he's in there by himself, he's offering the incense, he's doing his duty, okay, and then suddenly Gabriel appears to him, and it says that he's terrified. He's just absolutely terrified, and the angel has to tell him, do not fear. Isn't that funny how in the Bible, every time someone sees an angel, they're terrified, right? I mean, how frightening must be what must these beings look like, you know? And I was thinking about it, and I was thinking about this, and it was funny because I thought, you know, this is Gabriel. Okay, he's the same one that Daniel was praying to in the book of Daniel, and and and Gabriel came to him and he said, You know, as soon as you began your prayers, I was dispatched with this message to come to you. And in one point he says, the prince of Persia resisted me. But Michael, your prince, the archangel, came to my aid, and now he's here. And when he leaves, he goes, I've got to go back to fight the prince of Persia some more. This is Michael, the archangel, a powerful, mighty being, and suddenly he's standing in their cute little temple. And it looked magnificent and beautiful to human eyes, but this is a powerful angel. He says, I'm Gabriel, I stand in the presence of God, and I've been sent here to deliver this good tidings. And if Gabriel, a created being, an angel created by Jesus himself, would feel claustrophobic and cramped in this little temple in Jerusalem, imagine the ridiculousness of thinking that all the fullness of God is contained within this little temple. The God who fills all things, the God in whom the whole universe exists, is going to be contained to this little temple. And so that's his first point. And then he goes on and he says this look it, while we were in the valley, while our fathers were in the valley, and Moses was on the mountain receiving the law by the finger of God on the tablets of stone, he's saying, while he's up there talking to God, the voice of God is still speaking. Our fathers are down in the valley, and they're crafting a golden calf that they could dance around and sacrifice to and say, These are your gods, O Egypt, who led you out of our Israel, who led you out of Egypt. And he's saying, even when you went into the promised land and God drove out the nations before you, you went after our fathers went after the gods of the Canaanites. They continually went after these gods. And then God would send a judge or he'd send a prophet, he would send someone with a message to say, repent, turn from your sin. Why should you perish? Why should you die? Turn. Hear my voice. But they wouldn't. And so finally God gave them up. He's saying, You accuse me of speaking against and blaspheming God and Moses. Our fathers have been doing it from the very beginning. And in chapter 7, I want to start back in 44. He says, Our fathers had the tent of witness in the wilderness, just as he who spoke to Moses directed him to make it, according to the pattern that he had seen. Our fathers in turn brought it in with Joshua when they dispossessed the nations that God drove out before our fathers, and so it was until the days of David, who found favor in the sight of God and asked to find a dwelling place for the God of Jacob. But it was Solomon who built a house for him. Yet the Most High does not dwell in houses made by hands, as the prophet says. He's quoting Prophet Isaiah. Did not my hand make all these things? So, up to this point, I would say the Sanhedrin might not have actually disagreed with Stephen. They might have disagreed. They understood the history. These are men who had memorized the Old Testament, basically. Can you imagine memorizing the Old Testament? Yes, I can imagine memorizing the Old Testament. Can you imagine memorizing the Old Testament? No, and so these people had memorized it. They knew these stories, they knew the truth of what he was saying. They probably didn't disagree with them. But then Stephen does something. And he says, in verse 51, you stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. He says, You're stiff-necked. And the image is like that, you're trying to pull a mule, you're trying to get it to go where you want it to go. And it's like, no, I'm not gonna go. Not gonna submit, not gonna do what you say. You're stubborn and you're stiff-necked. This is something that God had spoken over his people, something that Moses had said, something that Jeremiah had said, the prophets had said this for generations and generations, and now Stephen turns it back on them. You are a stiff-necked people. You're uncircumcised in heart and ears. What he's saying is that outwardly you might be conformed to the law of Moses. Maybe you men have been circumcised, and so technically, outwardly, you're part of the covenant people of God, and so you're a member of the covenant people, but inwardly you might as well be Gentiles. Your heart is uncircumcised, your ears are uncircumcised, your heart's hard. He's saying you can't, nothing can penetrate this heart of stone that's inside of you. You're unrepentant, you're unregenerate. He says your ears are uncircumcised, you can't hear. When God sends the prophets to warn you and tell you your heart's hard and just bounces right off, it goes in one ear and right out the other. You're stiff-necked, uncircumcised. He says, You might as well just be Gentiles for all that you submit to God and follow. You know all the scriptures, but it's just knowledge in your head, it never penetrates into your heart. He says, as your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the righteous one, whom you've now betrayed and murdered, you who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it. And I think it's like for me, it's easy a lot of times when I'm reading stuff like this to look at this and go, yeah, shame on them. Shame on those Sanhedrin, those naughty Sanhedrin, outwardly part of the covenant people, but they uncircumcised in their hearts, hard-hearted, stiff-necked. Word went in and went out the other, and then I'm thinking about it. I'm like, yeah, but this morning all across the country, all across the world, Christians are sitting in church and they're hearing the word of God spoken over them, and they might be nodding along and saying, Amen, you know, and maybe putting their hand up and they're going, Testify that God is good and all. And then they might even at the end of the service and say, Pastor, good sermon. And then they walk out the door and nothing changes. Because they heard the word, but it just went right out the ear. It bounced right off the heart. This is why Ezekiel said, This is what I'm gonna do. Because people are like this, not just Israel, humanity. Because we're like this. He says, I'm gonna have to remove your heart of stone and put in its place a heart of flesh. I gotta put my spirit in you and cause you to walk in my statutes and obey my commands. Okay? Because we are hard-hearted. We're hard of hearing. We we've gotten really good at resisting the Holy Spirit when He's saying something to us and we feel a little twinge and then we go, whoop, forget that. Walk out, go have a cheeseburger. I'm gonna have a uh a two-aid combo over at Polly's and just move on with my life. And when they heard this, do you think they thought about what he had to say? Did they internalize it? Did they think self-reflection, little moment of self-reflection? Hmm. He was working signs and wonders. He was powerfully preaching the word. We couldn't overcome him with our logic. Maybe we should listen to what he has to. Do you think? It says, now when they heard these things, they were enraged and they ground their teeth at him. It's just like they're like, I couldn't listen to this. I can't handle it. I can't stand this guy and what he has to say. It says they were enraged and they ground their teeth at him, but he, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed up into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. You know, Stephen understood the situation he was in. He was standing in the place Jesus stood when they delivered him to Pilate to be crucified. He was standing in the place the apostles had stood not too long before this, and they had all been beaten. He understood what was coming. And when if I had a bunch of angry leaders with a lot of power standing in front of me with murder in their eyes, grinding their teeth, and probably, ah, curse this guy and shouting things at him, I probably would have been looking around me, trying to find the fastest way out of here. Is there any way I can like bob and weave and like straight arm that guy, and I'm gonna get out this door and I'm just gonna run for my life? But you know, Stephen wasn't even looking at them. He wasn't paying attention to them because he had figured out something that Sanhedrin didn't understand. That the point is all about Jesus, that it's always, always been about all about Jesus, that it's never not been all about Jesus. Because the temple and the law and the prophets and the patriarchs, everything was always pointing to Jesus. They were guideposts and sign markers, they were arrows pointing to Jesus. But these people liked their guideposts and their sign markers and their arrows and their simples and their traditions more than they wanted the thing that they pointed to. But Stephen understood because God had opened his eyes, and he could see that all that stuff pointed to Jesus, and he could see that even now that he belonged to Jesus, his whole life was all about Jesus. And so his eyes weren't on some angry Sanhedrin and Pharisees and religious leaders and persecutors, his eyes were up, and he was looking for Jesus. It says he gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, and he said, Behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing. The right hand of God. So, Stephen, as these people are murderously looking in, they're probably looking around for stones already to start throwing at the sky, and he's looking up into heaven, and God gives him a vision, and he sees the heavens opened, he sees the glory of God, and he sees the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. And this is significant because the Bible, throughout the Bible, when it talks about Jesus and ascending and his coronation, when he ascended in Acts chapter 1, he went up for his coronation to be seated at God's own right hand. Hebrews says he's seated at the right hand of God, where he ever lives to make intercession for us. And here we see the heavens open, and as Jesus' first martyr is standing in witness for his Lord, Jesus rises from his seat. And he stands and he bears witness to what Stephen is doing for him. Matthew 10, Jesus told his disciples, He who confesses me before men, I will also confess before my Father in heaven. As Stephen stands for Jesus, Jesus stands for Stephen and confesses his name before his Father in heaven. He says, I see the heavens opened, the glory of God, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. Even as these earthly courts are about to condemn him, Jesus stands up to receive him. Have you ever seen a little kid when they just don't want to hear something anymore? I said, clean your room, I said clean your room, I said clean your room. Ah I can't hear you, I can't hear you. That's what these grown, mature spiritual leaders were doing. They had no argument, they had no defense, they had nothing they could say to overcome what he had to say. They knew he was right, but it didn't matter because they weren't going to hear it, they weren't going to receive it, and what were they doing? Proving right everything Stephen had just said about them. He had said, You are stiff-necked and you're stubborn and you have hard, impenetrable hearts, and your ears are deaf and you can't hear. God had sent to the fathers Moses, he had sent Joshua, He had sent the prophets, he had sent the judges, and the people never received him, and now Stephen standing before these people like a modern-day prophet, declaring God's indictment over them. Says they cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears and rushed together at him, and they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul. And this is the first appearance of who a man will become the Apostle Paul. And so we'll come back to this verse in a later study, because this is a pivotal moment in the history of humanity right here. As Stephen lays down his life as the first martyr, and Saul, a young man that will one day become the Apostle Paul, bears witness to a moment that's going to be burned into his memory for the rest of his life. And in verse 59, it says, As they were stoning Stephen, he called out, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. Who does he sound like? He sounds like Jesus. Because Stephen had figured out that the whole point is Jesus. It always has been and always will be. As Jesus was giving up his life on the cross, he said, Father, receive my spirit. Stephen had started out as just a disciple. He started out as a deacon, but he devoted himself to the apostles' teaching, to the breaking of bread, to the fellowship and the prayers. And as he did, the Lord worked in him and formed him, and he was forming the image of Christ in him. And as he did, he grew in power and in stature and in wisdom. And he was preaching the word out of a place of anointing and calling. And God was confirming the word with signs and wonders. And now at this point, even in his death, he looks like his Lord. This is the goal right here. Bearing witness, and that word witness, let me just tell you one more time, is the word martyr. Jesus had said, You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the world. You'll be my martyrs. And falling to his knees, he cried out with a loud voice, Lord, do not hold this sin against them. Who does he sound like? Like Jesus. As Jesus was hanging on the cross, he's looking down at Roman soldiers who were rolling lots to see who gets to keep his clothes. And he said, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do. Stephen has become like his Lord in life, now in his execution. And when he had said this, he fell asleep. In church, this is the goal. Not to be stoned to death. They're not about collecting things. They're not about having accomplishments. They're not on the amazing vacations that we go on. Our lives are not about anything. Jesus. The world is his. It's his inheritance. And we're his church, his bride. We are his inheritance. Amen? And so the goal of our lives is to look more and more and more like Jesus and do the things that help us to grow in grace and look more and more like Jesus. Amen, church? Amen.