Good morning, Springhouse.
Man, you guys look good.
Look at your neighbor and say, "You look good."
And if you're joining us live stream, I know I look good, but I can't see you.
You're probably on your couch in your robe, but I'm glad you're joining us today.
I wish you were here.
It's a good day to be in the house of the Lord, but it's always a good day when God
is on the throne.
And he is on the throne today, and I'm glad that he's in control.
Before we get rolling here, I'm gonna give the same two announcements that I gave last
week.
I'm gonna give them for the last time.
Next week, not next week, September 8th, two weeks from now, there is a special luncheon
for those who are newcomers to Springhouse.
If you have been here, maybe started in the last six months, and you're just interested
in meeting our pastor team, we'd like to meet you, tell you about our ministries, tell you
about how you can get plugged in.
But we are going to have a luncheon that day right after this gathering, and if you'll
scan that QR code there and sign up, that would be helpful so that we ensure that we
have enough food for everybody.
So if you'll do that, and then out in the foyer, there's also placards out there that
you can sign up for and register through the app.
And then, as I said last week, I'm announcing this super early, half of the spots are already
gone for our marriage retreat.
So if you wanna sign up for the marriage retreat, you might wanna go ahead and do that and get
in on there.
You can register for that through the app as well.
That's coming up in January.
All right, we're gonna continue our series, His Church today.
We've been in the book of Acts.
I pray that you are reading along with us.
I pray that you are making it a daily habit to be in the Word of God.
We had a devotional, a reading plan rather, that we ended out the beginning of the year.
I pray that you are continuing to go through that, or if you have your own Bible reading
plan that you are in the Word every day.
But we are in the book of Acts, and it really is helpful.
It's kinda like when you go to school.
Some of you have not been in school in a very long time.
But if you remember going to school and there was a test, you would go and you would feel
much better about that test had you already done some of the homework and research yourself.
It really helps if you want to read along with us.
So we're giving you a heads up of where we are.
We are in the book of Acts, and we're gonna be traveling through.
And I'm actually gonna do a quick, before we get started, a quick review of where we
have, where we've been.
Okay, so in Acts chapter two, Acts chapter two, the Holy Spirit falls on the people,
and people receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
And we had a service in here where we talked about the gifts of the Spirit.
And so many of you received the gifts of the Spirit that day, baptism of the Holy Spirit
that day.
And I pray that you are continuing to lean in to listening and being obedient to the
Holy Spirit, because He has some things for us.
He has some things for you.
And remember, I drew kind of a door here, and I said the door is open.
The door has always been open, but some of you needed to be told again that the door
is open, that we allow the move of the Holy Spirit here at Springhouse.
And so listen to His voice.
It's not just during our hour of worship together.
It is throughout the whole week, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.
And I find, you know, not that I don't need to listen to the Holy Spirit while I'm here
with all of you guys, I find that I really need to pay attention to His voice when I'm
isolated and alone.
So listen to His Holy Spirit.
So the Holy Spirit falls in, it says at the end of chapter 2, "They devoted themselves,"
they being the believers, "to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship and to the breaking
of bread and to prayer."
And we want to pair along with the early church.
And so we should be a people who are paying attention to teaching, fellowship, breaking
of bread, and prayer.
We should make that an active part of our lives.
All the believers were together and had everything in common, everything in common.
Acts chapter 3, Peter and John heal a beggar at the gate called Beautiful, and he preaches
the gospel.
And as he heals this beggar, people go and say, "Look what Peter and John did."
But you know, Peter and John are just the vessel.
The one who heals is God Almighty.
And so it's a pathway in order to give the gospel of Jesus Christ.
And the word tells us that 5,000 were added to the church that day.
If we had 5,000 members here at Springhouse, we would be considered a megachurch.
So really, lots of people are being added to the kingdom, not because of signs and wonders,
but because of the gospel of Jesus Christ being preached, because of the gospel being
preached, because of the good news of Jesus Christ.
And so in Acts chapter 4, Peter and John have to stand before the Sanhedrin who do not like
what Peter and John have been preaching.
They do not like this, "The way," they say.
They call it "the way."
We don't want you preaching the way.
And so they stand before the Sanhedrin.
And in Acts chapter 4, 12, we learned of Peter's response to their accusations.
And he says this, "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no name under heaven
given to mankind by which we must be saved."
Which name is he talking about?
Jesus.
There is no other name but the name of Jesus.
And so they let them go because so many people were rejoicing at the fact that the beggar
was healed.
Let me tell you, if we have somebody, I mean, do we not rejoice that Craig is in the house
today?
Okay?
We rejoice when God moves.
We rejoice when God chooses to show mercy and grace and moves on our behalf.
We should lean into God's mighty move in that way.
And so it tells us, it goes on to tell us that the believers share everything.
They share everything.
All the believers were of one heart and mind.
No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything
they had.
That they would be a people that would share the blessings God has given us.
That when we're sitting next to somebody on a Sunday and we know that they are actually
in need, that we would not just be hoarding the blessings and the things, the resources
God's given us, but that we would hold them like this and be willing to listen to the
Holy Spirit say, "Use this, give this, give this."
And my experience has been is when I give it, he returns it multiples.
Not in maybe the same way, but he returns it in his own great glorious way.
And it is wonderful.
Why?
Because then you'll have the opportunity to share it again.
I have opportunity to share it, share it again.
And so at the end of chapter four, we're introduced to a man named Barnabas.
Now Barnabas is a very important, one of my favorite characters in scripture.
And we're going to learn about him in a few weeks.
But Barnabas, we're introduced to him and he says he sold a field.
He sells this field and guess what he does with the money?
He lays it at the apostles feet so that the apostles might use it for the glory of God
and providing the needs for the people.
But in stark contrast in chapter five, we learned about a man named Ananias and his
wife Sapphira.
And they lied to the Holy Spirit.
You see, they had also a field that they could sell.
They didn't have to sell it, but they were convinced in their heart and their mind that
they were to sell this field.
They sell it and they get the money for it.
But instead of bringing all of it to the apostles feet, they hold back some of it for themselves.
And in doing so, they lied to the Holy Spirit.
They grieved the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit of God took them out.
Both of them, Ananias and Sapphira dead.
That sent shockwaves through the church.
It would send shockwaves through our church if that happened.
And people, just their eyes opened.
I'm sure their jaws dropped, but you know what the word tells us?
Remember 5,000 at the beautiful gate, 3,000 at the day of Pentecost.
Hey, listen, guess what?
More than ever, more than ever, people were added to the kingdom because of the purification
of the church.
Oh, that we would be a people seeking to live in righteous ways, to live honoring a holy
God.
Guys, you can't do it on your own.
There's no, I can't do this on my own.
For somebody to say, "Kevin, live righteously."
I can't do that without the help of a powerful God.
And guess what?
God wants to help us.
Jesus left and ascended to heaven and gave us the precious gift of the Holy Spirit, God
Almighty.
The person of the Holy Spirit is walking with us to help us, to comfort us, to convict us,
to lead us, to guide us, to give you the answers that you seek, to tell you what it is that
you need to do in that circumstance or that situation.
Or when the circumstance and situation does not turn out the way that you hope it did,
He stands beside you and says, "I got you.
I'm comforting you because I have a plan and a purpose in it and you can trust Him.
You lean in to the Holy Spirit."
And so afterward, after the deaths, the apostles were arrested because of all of the commotion
and all these things.
And the Sadducees we learned about last week who do not believe in the resurrection or
afterlife or angels or anything like that, they bring them in and they say, "We do not
like you preaching this gospel because we do not believe it's true and we believe that
you are blaspheming what we know to be the Word of God."
And so glory to glory, I love how God weaves Himself in and out of our stories.
Amen.
He weaves His way in and so He gets in there and these apostles are in jail and overnight
an angel of the Lord comes and lets them walk out to go and He says, "I want you to go and
preach the same gospel that got you in this jail."
Wouldn't it be like God to use an angel so that the people who don't believe in angels
have to see an angel came and set them free.
That's just, the Lord just blows my mind.
So they go and they preach and then they come back out and they bring them back in and they
question the apostles.
And so the apostles are there and Peter says this, he says, "We must obey God rather than
human beings."
Do you know that you need to obey God rather than human beings?
You must obey God more than human beings.
And so they wanted to kill them.
They wanted to kill them.
They wanted to hold them.
They were so upset about this, but God does another wonderful thing.
He raises up a Pharisee named Gamaliel and guess what?
Gamaliel is a Pharisee.
Pharisees believe in the resurrection of Jesus.
And so Pharisee, he's raised up and he says, "Hey, hey, hey, listen.
Let's let these men go because if this is man's plan, then it's going to fail.
But if this is God's plan, you can't do anything about it anyway.
So let's just let them go and see what happens."
Isn't it crazy that God would raise up a Pharisee in the midst of that?
I just love if you pay attention to God, he's always there weaving in and out of our story.
I love that he can take ashy situations and make them beautiful.
He is such a great, great God.
And so the apostles after this Pharisee gets them out of it, guess what?
Because the Sadducees beat, they beat the apostles.
I don't mean in a race, but they beat them physically.
And you know what the apostles said?
Bless the Lord that we were counted worthy enough to suffer for the cause of the gospel.
When was the last time you actually suffered for the cause of Jesus Christ?
I mean, we love to come in and talk about how God needs to bless us.
God's supposed to bless you.
God's supposed to make you feel good and comfortable and cushy and give you an abundant life.
When was the last time that you chose to undergo suffering for the cause of Christ?
And so we pick up here in chapter six.
And chapter six, the church was having some issues with manpower.
And some churches that happens manpower is an issue.
Okay, guess what?
We need more workers in our children's and youth ministries.
Okay, here at Springhouse, we could use people that would help with greeting and communion
and serve in various places.
I commission and I charge every single one of you under the sound of my voice, if you're
choosing Springhouse to be your church, you should be serving somewhere.
You should be serving somewhere.
Why?
Because it's not about you coming and Kevin just pointing out to you, we are supposed
to be building each other up and God has given you specific gifts and specific ways to serve.
Don't rob the kingdom of God from your gift.
And so they were starving for manpower for the food distribution to the widows.
And so they identified the apostles get together and say, listen, we've got these assignments
over here, but we are busy doing this distribution.
This can't continue.
So we need to raise up seven, let's raise up seven people filled with the Spirit and
we will identify them and they will take over that ministry.
And one man in particular, they identify is a man named Stephen, who we're gonna spend
a lot of time talking about today.
The word tells us that they chose a man named Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy
Spirit, full of faith and the Holy Spirit.
They chose six other men as well, but Stephen was especially identified because what we're
going to look at today.
So we're about to read scripture and let me kind of tell you what we're gonna do here.
Okay.
Cause there's a lot of scripture today.
So what we're gonna do is we're going to look at the beginning of Stephen's charge from
the St. Hedron and then we're going to skip over Stephen's response until the very end
of his response.
And we're gonna pick up the end of his response to the end of that chapter.
Now I'm gonna go back and I'm gonna be talking about Stephen's response and we're gonna go
through it, but I'm just not gonna have you guys read it.
Okay.
Does that sound good?
All right.
So we're gonna start with Stephen's charge and then we're going to go to the end of Stephen's
response into the end of the chapter and what happens.
Let's stand together, Springhouse.
Let's read like football's about to start.
Here we go.
Now Stephen, a man of God's grace and power performed great wonders and signs among the
people.
Opposition arose, however, from the members of the synagogue of the freedmen, as it was
called, Jews of Cyrene and Alexandria, as well as the provinces of Cilicia and Asia who
began to argue with Stephen.
But they could not stand up against the wisdom the spirit gave as he spoke.
Then they secretly persuaded some men to say, "We have heard Stephen speak blasphemous words
against Moses and against God."
So they stirred up the people and the elders and the teachers of the law.
They seized Stephen and brought him before the Sanhedrin.
They produced false witnesses who testified, "This fellow never stops speaking against
the holy place and against the law.
For we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this palace and change
the customs Moses handed down to us."
All who were sitting in the Sanhedrin looked intently at Stephen and they saw that his
face was like the face of an angel.
And at this point, Stephen responds.
And at the end of his response, he says this, "You stiff-necked people, your hearts and
ears are still uncircumcised.
You are just like your ancestors.
You always resist the Holy Spirit.
Was there ever a prophet your ancestors did not persecute?
They even killed those who predicted the coming of the righteous one.
And now you have betrayed and murdered him, you who have received the law that was given
through the angels but have not obeyed it."
When the members of the Sanhedrin heard this, they were furious and gnashed their teeth
at him.
But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God and
Jesus standing at the right hand of God.
"Look," he said, "I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God."
At this, they covered their ears and yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed
at him, dragged him out of the city and began to stone him.
Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of the young man named Saul.
While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit."
Then he fell on his knees and cried out, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them."
When he had said this, he fell asleep.
Father, thank you for your word.
Thank you that we believe the entirety of the word.
I pray that you would speak to us and let our hearts be changed today.
In Jesus' name, amen.
This is my brother.
Anybody have siblings?
I love my brother.
We used to fight when we were little, all of the time.
We would fight over the dumbest things.
You remember?
We fight over the dumbest things.
I don't remember the things we fought over.
I just knew that we fought.
But here's the thing.
When it comes to sibling fights, there's no fair way to do it.
You just do it, right?
And so my brother and I, we would fight.
I don't know.
Like we never, I don't remember a time.
Joey could correct me and he probably will if I'm wrong.
But I don't remember a time when we stood in his place and we just like had it out and
fought.
What happened with us is like I would go grab a lamp and I would throw it at his head and
then I would run.
And then he would like go get a bat and then he would chase me with the bat and beat me
down and then he would run.
And then I would go grab a knife and I would chuck it at his face and it would basically
like, you know, right in front of his face.
Then he would go grab another object and throw it.
I mean, we were just brutal and it's just a wonder that we are alive today.
And so we just, we thought like it escalated to level 10, like out of the gate.
There was not, and it was always over.
I probably touched like his shoe and I wasn't supposed to, or he, he came in my room.
It was dumb, just dumb things.
But we would fight and siblings do fight and that happens.
And thankfully we don't fight anymore.
We're good.
We haven't thrown anything at you in a very long time.
I do have a big stone up here, but no, but I, but here's the thing of all the fights
that we had.
I never one time remember, never once do I remember him ever falsely accusing me of something
that I actually didn't do or say.
We've thought over frivolous things, but I never remember one time him making an actual
false accusation against me.
False accusations sting.
False accusations, they sting.
It's one thing to fight about something you feel you're right about.
It's another thing to fight against something you've been falsely accused of doing or saying.
There's nothing that will quite get under your skin like a false accusation.
And in fact, we probably will remember more so when we are falsely accused than anything
else because there's something that hits you at your core.
Listen, you might fight me and hey, I may have been wrong and I may know that I'm wrong
and I'm not willing to admit it, but don't peg me for something that I actually didn't
say, didn't come out of my mouth and try to fight me for that.
I remember being in high school.
There was this girl in high school and she had gotten pregnant.
And when you're pregnant in high school, that's not a good thing.
And I was accused of telling people that she had gotten pregnant.
And I remember being so upset because I did not even know she was pregnant to begin with,
but I was the one pegged as the one who released that information and people came against me.
But you know what was more hurtful?
It wasn't just hurtful that I had a false accusation.
What was hurtful is that the people who knew me well believed the accusation.
Have you ever had people around you believe a false accusation against you, ones that
love you, ones that are close to you, finding a hard time?
You need to have people in your corner in your life who love you enough and trust you
enough and believe you enough that you can look them square in the eye and say, I didn't
do it.
And they say, I got you.
I got you.
False accusations, man, they sting.
We want to be a people.
We want to be a church who believes the best in others.
We believe the best in the people around us.
And so Stephen, the word tells us was a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit.
This man Stephen, we read about, he's full of faith and of the Holy Spirit.
And there's many of you that I could say you are full of faith and full of the Holy Spirit.
And they begin to argue with Stephen.
Now it's hard to argue with somebody who's full of faith and full of the Holy Spirit.
It's hard because when you've got the God of the universe on your side, it's a losing
battle going in.
He was full of faith and full of the Holy Spirit.
And it says they could not stand up against the wisdom the Spirit gave him as he spoke.
So they would say something, he'd knock it out.
He'd say, they'd say something, he'd knock it out.
He'd just respond to it with such wisdom.
And so what they decided to do is they said, let's make up a lie.
Let's make up a lie.
This fellow never stopped speaking against this holy place and against the law for we
have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs
Moses handed down to us.
Let's convince the teachers and the leaders of the law that this is what this man is doing.
And so they bring Stephen in and they accuse him.
And it says, all who were sitting in the Sanhedrin, guys, I find this to be funny.
All who were standing in the Sanhedrin looked intently at Stephen and they saw that his
face was like the face of an angel.
I find that funny because if Justin and I are in an argument and his face starts to
glow, I'm probably going to take a beat.
Okay, wait a second.
You know what I mean?
I mean, it doesn't say they just looked, they said they looked intently.
Is your face on fire?
Like I mean, how many know that your anger and your selfishness and your pride can blind
you from seeing everything that's right in front of you?
They were looking intently at him.
They saw that his face was like an angel, yet we're still going to have this argument.
We're still going to do.
Guys, have you ever met somebody who's never wrong?
I'm sitting next to them, pastor.
Wait a minute.
When you're angry, when you're selfish, when you're prideful and you're not allowing the
Holy Spirit to be infused into the conversation, when you're not leaning into the Holy Spirit,
it's hard to see anybody else's point of view but yours.
So they bring him in front of the Sanhedrin and they don't just bring him in.
This is interesting.
They don't just bring him in.
He's in front of the Sanhedrin.
They're all around him.
They're all looking at him intently and he is there alone.
Where's Peter?
Where's John?
Where are the apostles that identified him as a man full of faith in the Holy Spirit?
Like where, like if I have to stand before the Sanhedrin, I hope I got a buddy with me
who's going to come and hold my arms up and say, "Hey, listen, I can vouch for this person."
Right?
And they drug Stephen and Stephen is there alone having to defend a false accusation
amongst the people who don't like him.
Can you imagine, put yourself in those shoes for a minute.
What type of emotions would you be feeling?
What type of things would you, I mean, would you be angry, frustrated?
They drug this person.
He's completely innocent and they're hurling these false accusations against him.
So nobody's with him.
Yet Stephen, filled with faith in the Holy Spirit, begins his response with this, "Brothers
and fathers, listen to me."
When you are filled with the Holy Spirit, it doesn't matter what comes your way.
You will always respond in keeping with the Holy Spirit.
I want you to understand that this is a respectful introduction to Stephen's response.
He says two things.
He says, "Brothers," meaning we're on the same page here.
We're on the same, we're in the same level.
We're one another.
But at the same time, he says, "Fathers, and I recognize and respect the position that
you all hold."
Listen to my response.
Many of us would have just gone in and wouldn't have given them, we would have had a mouthful
of garbage to say, and then we would have posted it on Facebook.
It would have been glorious.
He starts with respect and honor.
Stephen had the Holy Spirit and he responded with confidence, wisdom, and kindness.
Christians, let me tell you something.
We should always respond with confidence, wisdom, and kindness, not just one.
If we're overly confident, we're overly bold, then we become arrogant.
If we just lean into wisdom only, then we might do it without being kind.
If we're just kind, we may be shallow.
We need confidence, wisdom, and kindness when we are responding to people with regard to
the gospel.
And he basically says we are the same.
Can I tell you that sometimes we hold on to our point of view so hard that our point of
view becomes our God?
Pastor Justin was talking about this a few weeks ago where we hold on to our beliefs
so tight that we don't allow any, the Lord to come in and to transform us.
I can tell you I am a much different evolved believer today than I was 20 years ago.
God is constantly transforming me.
It doesn't mean that the truth of God changes.
What it means is that my evolution of understanding what God's word is saying and how it applies
to my life will evolve.
And it does evolve.
And when we hold on to it like this and we get into these fights, these righteous arguments,
and we hold so tightly to our point of view, we're not leaning into the Holy Spirit, but
I'm holding on to this is what I know.
And we come at it using the world's tactics to fight a righteous battle we will lose every
time.
Stephen was able to give them the opportunity to state their case, albeit it was completely
bogus.
Some of us need to give an opportunity for the non-believers to tell us what they think
and how they feel before we open our mouth.
And sometimes the Holy Spirit will say, "Shut your mouth to you.
Be quiet."
So he's got, we're gonna look at the two big charges that they give him, these lies.
They say first, "You blasphemed against Moses."
Why is Moses important?
Well, Moses is central, central to the faith, central to the story of everything that these
people believe.
Moses was like in their mind, like God, little g, but they, I mean, they elevated Moses high.
They had such high regard for Moses, such high respect for Moses that if you said anything
against Moses, you could face a real serious consequence.
And so Stephen is going to use the truth to defend his faith here.
And so we're gonna go through this.
So the first accusation is you blaspheme against Moses.
Let's watch how Stephen under the influence of the Holy Spirit responds to him.
He says this, "When Moses was 40 years old," I want you to understand that Stephen is going
to actually use the scripture against them.
The same scriptures they're using toward him, he's gonna use against them, okay?
"When Moses was 40 years old, he decided to visit his own people, the Israelites.
He saw one of them being mistreated by an Egyptian, so he went to his defense and avenged
him by killing the Egyptian.
Moses thought that his own people would realize that God was using him to rescue them."
But what does it say?
But they did not.
The next day, "Moses came upon two Israelites who were fighting.
He tried to reconcile them by saying, 'Men, you are brothers.
Why do you want to hurt each other?'
But the man who was mistreating the other pushed Moses aside."
We're gonna see a common theme here.
Pushed Moses aside and said, "Who made you ruler and judge over us?
Are you thinking of killing me as you did the Egyptian the other day?
When Moses heard this, he fled to Midian where he settled as a foreigner and had two sons.
After 40 years had passed, an angel appeared to Moses."
An angel appears to Moses.
Remember who he's talking to here.
"In the flames of a burning bush in the desert near Mount Sinai.
When he saw this, he was amazed at the sight.
As he went over to get a closer look, he heard the Lord say, 'I am the God of your fathers,
the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.'
Then the Lord said to him, 'Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing
is holy ground.
I have indeed seen the impression of my people in Egypt.
I have heard their groaning and now have come down to set them free.
Now come, says the Lord, I will send you back to Egypt.'"
This is the same Moses, look at this, they had rejected with words.
Who made you ruler?
With the words, who made you ruler and judge?
He was sent to be their ruler and deliverer by God himself through the angel who appeared
to him in the bush.
He led them out of Egypt and performed wonders and signs in Egypt.
At the Red Sea for 40 years in the wilderness.
This is Moses who told the Israelites, "God will raise you up, raise up for you a prophet
like me from your own people."
I'm gonna read that again.
God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your own people.
He was in the assembly of the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai,
and with our ancestors he received living words to pass on to us.
But our ancestors did what?
Refused to obey him.
Instead they rejected him and in their hearts turned back to Egypt.
They told Aaron, "Make us gods who will go before us as this fellow Moses who led us
out of Egypt, we don't know what has happened to him."
That was the time they made an idol in the form of a calf.
They brought sacrifices to it and reveled in what their own hands had made.
But God turned away from them and gave them over to the worship of the sun, moon, and
the stars.
In other words, here's what he's doing.
This is what Stephen's doing.
He is drawing a line between Moses and Jesus and he's saying, "You are charging me with
blaspheming Moses, but all throughout history, all our people did was blaspheme Moses.
Reject Moses.
Push him aside.
Every time he went up the mountain, we turned away from him and made a calf.
Every single time.
So the argument that you're saying to me, the degree of accountability you're holding
me to in regard to blaspheming Moses, you can't even hold that standard for yourself.
In the midst of all of that, in the midst of all of that, what he's saying is God is
going to send somebody great.
Moses is saying, "God's going to send somebody greater than me in the future."
Moses is not pointing to himself and saying, "Look at me, God has a master plan.
God has somebody better."
The reason that I highlighted signs and wonders is because who is most of the Sanhedrin made
up of?
Sadducees who don't believe in signs and wonders or angels.
And here we are, you are charging me with blaspheming the exact same thing.
You are a hypocrite.
In other words, you're charging me.
But here's the thing, Moses was raised up to display the glory of God.
Moses was raised up to perform signs and wonders.
Moses was raised up to set the people of God free.
Does that sound like anyone else we know?
The man that you just crucified was raised up to display the glory of God.
He showed signs and wonders and he was raised up to set the people of God free.
And he says to them, "You rejected both."
Man's got a good argument.
We know in John 14, it says, "I am," Jesus says, "I am the way, the truth and the life.
No one comes to the Father except through me."
It's not through a man.
I was a Catholic at one time.
I had to go to a priest and say, "Would you please go on my behalf to God to forgive my
sin?"
Do you know you don't have to go before man to get to God?
Jesus gave us the pathway to go confidently and boldly before the throne of grace.
The second accusation, the lie, the blaspheme against the temple and the law.
The blaspheme against the temple and the law.
Let's look at this.
Stephen continues, "Our ancestors had the tabernacle of the covenant law with them in
the wilderness.
It had been made as God directed Moses according to the pattern he had seen."
So they had a tabernacle that was built and carried around that harnessed the presence
of God.
Okay?
"After receiving the tabernacle, our ancestors under Joshua brought it with them when they
took the land from the nations God drove out before them."
So Joshua leads the Israelites over the Jordan into the promised land with the tabernacle
containing the presence of God.
It remained in the land until the time of David who enjoyed God's favor and asked that
he might provide a dwelling place for the God of Jacob.
So King David had a desire to build a place, a temple for God almighty's presence to reside.
But because of David's sin, he didn't get to build the temple.
So Solomon did.
But it was Solomon who built a house for him.
However, read this line with me.
"The most high does not live in houses made by human hands.
As the prophet says, 'Heaven is my throne and the earth my stupful.'"
Stupful.
Footstool.
I'm reading a lot today.
"'What kind of house will you build for me?'
says the Lord.
'Or will my resting place be?
Has not my hand made all these things?'
The prophet said, 'Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool.'"
God's presence, friends, cannot be contained.
So he's drawing a line between the temple and rules and God's presence and his grace.
I'm so glad that God's presence cannot be contained to one spot.
Boy, that would be a lot of hassle for us to have to travel to one spot to get to the
presence of God.
The presence of God, he is omnipresent.
He is everywhere at one time.
That means in that dark moment of your life where you're isolated alone, God almighty
can be right there.
He's there.
In every situation and every moment, he is there.
This is what Hebrews 9 says regarding that temple.
But when Christ came as high priest of the good things that are now already here, he
went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not made with human hands.
That is to say, is not a part of this creation.
He did not enter by means of blood of goats and calves, but he entered the most holy place
once and for all by his own blood.
By his blood obtaining eternal redemption.
And what does it say about the law in Romans 7?
But now by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we
serve in a new way of the spirit and not the old way of the written code.
So Stephen has refuted both claims, both lies simply by retorting and responding just the
truth that they have been speaking and teaching themselves.
In other words, you are hypocritical by charging me with this claim because you cannot hold
the standard that you're charging me with.
That one has come that was able to fulfill the entire law and you missed him.
And so now this is how Stephen concludes his sermon.
You stiff necked people.
What if I concluded our messages?
You people, you know.
No, he says you stiff necked people.
Their hearts and ears are still uncircumcised.
They were circumcised in the flesh, but their hearts and ears were not circumcised.
You are just like your ancestors.
And he says this, you always resist the Holy Spirit.
I think the most dangerous thing that we can do as believers is resist the Holy Spirit.
Resisting the Holy Spirit will send you right back to the pit that you got saved from.
The Holy Spirit, he says, why is this important?
I think this is one of the most important lines in Stephen's retort, his response, because
it is the Holy Spirit that opens your, he's the one who opens your eyes to see what you
need to see.
He is the one who, he is the one that would have allowed those people who actually believed
the majority of the story to see you're Jesus.
You're the one who's fulfilling these scriptures.
You are who you say, or it would have been the Holy Spirit, but he says the charge back
to them is you resist.
You always resist the Holy Spirit.
And the Holy Spirit is the one who allows you to see the reality in every situation.
Was there ever a prophet your ancestors did not persecute?
They even killed the ones who predicted the coming of the righteous one.
And now you have betrayed, and here's where it gets real dicey.
He's talking to the religious leaders, and now you have betrayed and murdered him.
You who have received the law that was given through angels, but have not obeyed it.
Then the word says this, when the members of the Sanhedrin heard this, they were furious
and gnashed their teeth.
I wish we'd bring back gnashing of teeth.
You know, if you got mad at somebody, you know, I imagine that's what it was, you know,
but gnashing of teeth, you know.
But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven
and saw the glory of God, and Jesus stand at the right hand of God.
And here's the thing, truth will always offend the one who believes the lie.
The truth will always offend the one who believes the lie.
The leaders were so angry that they decided to kill him.
They decided to take stones and hurl stones at them.
Here's some truths that I want us to gain, and this is something that the Lord revealed
to me on the back end of this passage that I want us to get today.
First of all, the Sanhedrin did not have the authority to kill Stephen.
That's why they had to take Jesus to Pilate.
So yet again, in the accusation, you are blaspheming against the law, we're gonna, we are so focused
on wanting to get your voice out of the mix that we are willing to do whatever it takes.
And I want to let you know that there is an enemy and a world out there that wants to
kill, steal, and destroy, and will do anything it takes to kill you.
And these people, these religious leaders were willing to go grab stones to which they
did not have the authority to do, and kill this man because they were so furious at his
point of view, which his point of view was actual truth.
And the word tells us that they took their cloaks off, and they threw it at a young man
named Saul, who we're gonna be talking a whole lot about here in the coming weeks.
And this man Saul, who had become Paul, I believe with every cloak that dropped, I could just
hear him dropping, it just mustered fury inside him.
And he said, "I'm gonna go kill me some people that believe in the way."
And they go out, and they're going to go kill Stephen.
And so they're going out there to stone him, and what I want you to see today, friends,
is Stephen is there, and he's before the Sanhedrin.
He's been accused of lies that were not true.
He's done nothing wrong.
He was a man full of faith in the Holy Spirit, and he was standing there alone, fighting
for righteousness.
But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God and
Jesus standing at the right hand of God.
What do you notice about Jesus' position?
Everything we have read is that Jesus is sitting at the right hand of God, except for in this
instance.
Stephen, there alone, looks up and sees Jesus Christ standing.
And I want to let you know, no matter who is accused, no matter what your circumstances,
no matter what your problems are, Jesus will stand with you.
You are not alone.
You are not alone in the fight.
And I believe when Stephen looked up and he saw Jesus standing, I think he was waiting
for that moment for Jesus to say, "Come on, well done, good and faithful servant."
Guys, there are places in your life where you need to know that while you are trying
to make the right choice, this was me in so many years, I say this with such humility,
so many times in my life where the crowd wanted me to go left and I chose to go right.
And man, I was so massacred where I was made fun of for it.
I was all of these things, and sometimes it grew weary on me.
I just wanted to throw in the towel and go with the crowd because it would be so much
easier.
And I believe in those moments.
Jesus Christ is standing with you.
He's standing with you in the circumstance where you think you are all alone and everybody's
turned their back on you.
When everybody's around you and you're like, "Where are my friends?
Where's Peter and John?
Like I feel like I'm all alone in this fight.
Why are you not here to help me lift my arms up?"
I believe that Jesus will stand with you.
He has given us the precious gift of the Holy Spirit.
And so he's looking at him and Jesus is standing there at the right hand of God.
And I just believe that as he went down and they started to stone him, he was in the front
presence of the Lord, immediately in the presence of God Almighty.
Who are you looking at in the middle of your fight?
Who are your eyes fixed on in the midst of false accusations?
And I love this at the very end.
I probably be like, "Lord, smite them all."
But Stephen says, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit."
He fell on his knees and cried out, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them."
Do you know somebody else who said those two statements?
Jesus, the night he died.
But I want you to understand the posture of Stephen.
He was looking at Jesus.
And when you're looking at Jesus, then your responses are always gonna be like him.
Your response, whatever comes out of your mouth's gonna be what he says.
Because you can't see the circumstances or the hatred around you.
You see the glory of Jesus, the strength of Jesus, the power of Jesus, the freedom of
Jesus.
And you're able to respond accordingly when Jesus is standing with you.
How do you need to respond today to your accusers, to your circumstance, to the world around
you?
Do you feel alone?
Are you isolated?
Have you been believing God for something and you just feel like, "I wanna throw in
the towel?"
Well, church, I want you to know today, you never have to fight alone.
Jesus stands with you.
Would you stand with me this morning?
For those who are gonna minister and pray with people, would you come forward?
He is a holy God forever.
A holy, righteous King forever.
And today, you can be reminded that Jesus stands with you.
Some of you need to come forward and you need to bring to the altar space.
You need to drag out into the light the thing you've been carrying and holding onto, the
thing you feel alone in, the thing that you're fighting for, the people that you're fighting
for.
Maybe your responses were not the right responses, but you need God to help you in your responses.
Jesus is standing with you.
So as we worship, you come and pray and do business with an almighty God who breathes
stars.