1. "God was clearly with Joseph. His brothers opposed him. Nevertheless, God raised him up. God rescued Joseph. This is what the fathers of the high priest did."

2. "Stephen does not seem to be a Moses hater. So maybe these words about what he had been saying about Moses were at least exaggerated."

3. "Idolatry is not stable. What begins as wrongly worshiping the true God ends in worshiping a false God. Rejecting God's man, God's Word very quickly ends you up rejecting God."

4. "One aspect of what it means to be people made in God's image is that we have an indelible sense of what is right and wrong, and yet we are fallen. By nature, we're not satisfied with God, but we're not satisfied without Him."

5. "Is there a public appearance that is your God that actually controls you? That really best explains all the decisions that you made last month? Or will explain the decisions you make this week?"

6. "The light that comes from God's Word is so sharp that it can find even those idols hidden most deeply in the folds and shadows of our hearts."

7. "If Christ's life had ended with his crucifixion and there was no resurrection, then movements of followers wouldn't have materialized or they would have quickly fallen apart. There would have been no church with thousands of people assembled in Jerusalem. Stephen would never have been brought into prominence."

8. "The only way we stay on course during times of opposition and threat is exactly keeping Jesus Christ and the truth about Him clearly in view, determining our perspective on all the shifting circumstances of our health or social acceptance or prospects for this worldly happiness."

9. "Joseph and Moses were simply previews of what God would do in the Lord Jesus and of how the national leaders would respond. Those national leaders were not looking for mercy through the righteous Messiah. They were looking for merit through their own obedience to the laws of Moses."

10. "As He took the crucified, rejected Christ and raised Him from the dead for our justification. As He would now certainly one day raise the now bruised and broken, lifeless body of Stephen."

Observation Questions

1. In Acts 7:9–10, what did the patriarchs do to Joseph, and how does Stephen describe God's response to Joseph's situation in Egypt?

2. According to Acts 7:23–28, what happened when Moses at age 40 tried to help his fellow Israelites, and how did the man wronging his neighbor respond to Moses?

3. In Acts 7:35, how does Stephen describe the role God gave to "this Moses, whom they rejected"? What two titles does Stephen assign him?

4. What does Stephen say the fathers did "in their hearts" in Acts 7:39–41, and what physical idol did they create as a result?

5. In Acts 7:48–50, what claim does Stephen make about the Most High, and which Old Testament prophet does he quote to support it?

6. According to Acts 7:55–56, what did Stephen see when he gazed into heaven, and how does he describe Jesus' posture at the right hand of God?

Interpretation Questions

1. Stephen recounts the stories of Joseph (Acts 7:9–16) and Moses (Acts 7:17–43) at length before turning to his accusers. What recurring pattern is he establishing through these two figures, and why would this pattern be so provocative to the council?

2. In Acts 7:37, Stephen quotes Moses' prophecy that "God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers." How does this quotation function within Stephen's overall argument, and what is he implying about Jesus?

3. Stephen was accused of speaking against Moses, the temple, and the law (Acts 6:11–14). How does his sermon in Acts 7 actually demonstrate the opposite — that it was his accusers, not Stephen, who stood against what Moses and the prophets taught?

4. Throughout the New Testament, Jesus is described as seated at the right hand of God (e.g., Hebrews 10:12; Colossians 3:1), yet in Acts 7:56 Stephen sees Him standing. What might the significance of Jesus standing be in the context of Stephen's imminent martyrdom?

5. In Acts 7:59–60, Stephen's final words closely echo Jesus' own words from the cross (Luke 23:34, 46). What does this parallel reveal about the relationship between following Christ and imitating His character, even in the most extreme circumstances?

Application Questions

1. Stephen identified a pattern in Israel's history of rejecting the very people God sent to help them. In what ways might you be resisting or ignoring counsel, correction, or truth that God is bringing into your life through His Word, through preaching, or through other believers?

2. The sermon challenged listeners to examine their own idolatries — objects, goals, sensations, persons, or public appearances that actually control their decisions. If you looked honestly at how you spent your time, money, and emotional energy last month, what might emerge as a functional idol in your life? What is one concrete step you could take this week to dethrone it?

3. Stephen spoke the truth boldly even though it cost him his life, and the sermon noted that faithfulness to Christ will provoke opposition. Where in your daily life — at work, at school, in your neighborhood, or online — are you most tempted to stay silent about your faith to avoid conflict? What would it look like to speak truthfully and lovingly in that specific setting?

4. Stephen's last prayer was for the forgiveness of those who were killing him (Acts 7:60). Is there someone who has wronged you whom you are struggling to forgive? How does Stephen's example — rooted in Jesus' own words from the cross — challenge and encourage you to pray for that person this week?

5. The sermon concluded by presenting every hearer with a choice: reject or receive Jesus. If you are already a Christian, how can you more intentionally present this same choice to a non-Christian friend or family member this week — whether through a conversation, an invitation, or sharing a resource about the gospel?

Additional Bible Reading

1. Genesis 37:12–28 — This passage recounts Joseph's brothers selling him into slavery out of jealousy, illustrating the same pattern of rejecting God's chosen deliverer that Stephen highlights in Acts 7:9.

2. Exodus 2:11–25 — Here Moses' attempt to rescue a fellow Israelite is met with rejection and suspicion, the very incident Stephen uses to show that God's people have always resisted those He sends.

3. Psalm 78:1–39 — This psalm reviews Israel's history of rebellion and God's persistent faithfulness, paralleling Stephen's method of drawing moral and spiritual lessons from the nation's past.

4. Isaiah 66:1–4 — Stephen directly quotes this passage to argue that God does not dwell in buildings made by hands, redirecting worship from structures to the posture of the heart.

5. Luke 23:32–46 — Jesus' words of forgiveness from the cross ("Father, forgive them") and His committing His spirit to the Father are the direct model for Stephen's final prayers in Acts 7:59–60.

Sermon Main Topics

I. Augustine's Choice and the Question Acts 7 Poses to Every Hearer

II. You Always Resist the Holy Spirit — Stephen's Summary of Israel's History (Acts 7:51)

III. Receiving the Son of God — Jesus Standing at the Right Hand of God

IV. From Ethelbert to Us: The Choice to Reject or Receive Jesus

Detailed Sermon Outline

Augustine had to make a choice. And not Augustine of Hippo, famous for his Confessions and so many other writings, but another Christian named Augustine, 150 years after Augustine of Hippo died, in 596 A.D. this Augustine had done what his pastor in Rome, Gregory, had told him to do. He had left his community in Rome leading a group of 40 Christians to go and take the gospel to a pagan group called the Angles. The Angles, Saxons, and Jutes were related tribes which ruled most of what is today England in the sixth century. They had come over from Europe as the Roman troops left Britain in the 400s.

Christianity that had reached Britain through the Roman troops in the second century was established in the western part of the island among the Celts, the Britons. But the invading Anglo-Saxons and Jutes were as pagan as could be, and they had a reputation for for being particularly vicious. One chronicler wrote about them in 540 A.D. that the Anglo-Saxons shatter the walls of every colony with battering rams and massacre everyone together with their priests. Clergy and people alike are killed. The sword shimmers on every side.

Flames consume all. And his description keeps going. Line after line, paragraph after paragraph, of the destruction the Anglo-Saxons brought on Britain. Augustine was hearing things like this from people who were fleeing from Britain as he was progressing up through Italy, over the mountains into Gaul, France, on his way to Britain. Frankly, he was A reluctant missionary.

He did not want to go. It had been his friend Gregory's idea, but Augustine kept hearing these kind of reports of the hostility of the people up in Angoulême. It had a good ministry in Rome. And now, as I say, Augustine had a choice to make. Should he receive this assignment, this mission, and continue?

Or should he reject it, resist this work, and just return to Rome?

As Augustine stood there considering whether to continue with this daunting mission, he was actually experiencing a very deeply Christian dilemma.

It's what the very first Christians had experienced back when the Christian church was first beginning. As they looked at accounts of Jesus Christ, saw that He had been crucified, read that He told all those who would follow Him that they too would need to be willing to give up their lives in order to follow Him, so would they in fact follow Him?

One ancient Roman of the first century, Theophilus, had actually encouraged and maybe even financed a physician named Luke to spare no pains in investigating what had really gone on with Jesus. Luke had gone, he had accompanied Paul, he had interviewed many of the first Christians that were still in Jerusalem and elsewhere, and he had written of the findings in the gospel that bears his name, Luke. And in the second volume that we've been studying this spring, the book of Acts. The whole book is really presenting Theophilus, and whoever else would read it later, with this choice. These are all the facts about Jesus.

What will you do with him?

Infamously, Luke's gospel recounted that the national leaders of Israel had resisted Jesus, rejecting his claims, even to the point of plotting and planning his murder. In the book of Acts, the crucified and risen Christ is proclaimed to people by his disciples, like Peter and James and John, but those same leaders didn't like them doing that. They arrest the apostles. They they beat the apostles. They charged them not to speak in His name.

And it all comes to a head in this one figure of Stephen. Now the last time we were in Acts, we were in chapter 6, and we saw how the leaders treated Stephen like they had treated Jesus. They seized Stephen. They brought him to a rigged trial, a kind of extra-legal lynching, where they got false witnesses to lie, distorting Jesus' words and Stephen's own words. Our chapter, this morning, chapter 7 begins with the same high priest who had presided over arresting and questioning Jesus just a few weeks before.

I want to read you the chapter, but let me help you understand it before I read you. You open your Bibles to Acts chapter 7. I want to go to the end of the chapter to verse 51. If you're looking at the Bibles provided, you'll find this on page 932.

This chapter is the longest record of a sermon in the book of Acts, which I'm not hoping to replicate today.

In this sermon, Stephen shows that their national history was one of rejection of God from Joseph to to Moses, and that that's exactly what they had done again with Jesus. And Luke was making the point by recording this that that is exactly what they were doing again now with Stephen.

So, as we look through this chapter today, we're left with the very same question these onlookers seeing and hearing Stephen's sermon were left with: what will you do with Jesus?

Will you resist Him and reject Him? Or will you receive Him, recognizing who He is and relying on Him as your only Lord and Savior? What will you do with Jesus today? That's the question, Acts chapter 7. Puts to each one of us.

Reject him or receive him. Stephen here says that the whole Bible is about this. To understand this, we need first to look down, as I say, chapter 7, look toward the end there, verse 51. You're still looking at the Bible, the large number is the chapter number, the smaller numbers are the verse numbers. Look at verse 51.

This is Stephen speaking to the people who were trying him. He doesn't sound like the accused, he sounds like the accuser. He says, you stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit, as your fathers did. So do you.

So this is a summary of what Stephen's been arguing in answer to the high priest's question in verse 1, where the high priest up in verse 1 says, Are these things so? Well, to understand what these things are, we have to go back to the previous chapter we looked at last time. You look up in chapter 6. Let's start back in chapter 6. Verse 7, chapter 6, verse 7.

And the Word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith. And Stephen, full of grace and power, was doing great wonders and signs among the people. Then some of those who belonged to the synagogue of the Freedmen as it was called, and of the Cireneans, and of the Alexandrians, and of those from Cilicia and Asia rose up and disputed with Stephen. Now, before we keep going, I just want to point out the synagogues these people were coming from are significant. That's why Luke has mentioned them.

And particularly that last proper name. Cilicia. Where is Cilicia? What is Cilicia? Well, Cilicia is that southeasternmost part of Turkey that's on the Mediterranean, of what's today Turkey.

The main city there is the city of Tarsus. And Luke lets us know twice later in the book of Acts, as Paul is in Jerusalem explaining who he is and why he should be listened to, he says he's from no inconsiderable city. He is from the city of Tarsus in Cilicia. So this was very likely the synagogue that Paul would have gone to when he was in Jerusalem. Just like when you're from your home country, let's say you're from the far land of Scotland, maybe you find a church full of Scots to go to when you're in a foreign land, or like Patrick that I met earlier, If you're Chinese, maybe you find a Chinese congregation to go to when you're a foreign land.

Maybe if you speak the language of the land, you just go there for the home cooking. Well, the Cilicians are probably the same way. So there's Paul in Jerusalem, and yet it was people from that synagogue who got stirred up about Stephen and what he was saying. Well, let's see if what we read here what Stephen was saying. And let's remember that Paul may have been one of those who's disputing against Stephen that day and who found that Stephen's reading of the Scriptures was frustratingly indisputable.

Well, let's look here in chapter 6, verse 10, But they could not withstand the wisdom and the Spirit with which Stephen was speaking. Then they secretly instigated men who said, We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God, and they stirred up the people, and the elders and the scribes, and they came upon him and seized him and brought him before the council. And they set up false witnesses who said, 'This man never ceases to speak words against this holy place and the law. For we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and will change the customs that Moses delivered to us.' and gazing at him, all who sat in the council saw that his face was like the face of an angel. And the high priest said, Are these things so?

And this is when Stephen began his argument that he summarized in that verse 51 that I read to you. So my sermon is in two parts. This first part, you always resist the Holy Spirit. That's Stephen's summary of this message he's about to give. The second part will be receiving the Son of God, receiving the Son of God.

First, you always resist the Holy Spirit. In that final sentence, Stephen grounds that in his reading of the Scriptures. Because he says there in verse 51, As your fathers did. So just like Psalm 78 does in the Old Testament, here Stephen reviews their history to draw important moral and spiritual lessons. If you look at this chapter, Stephen has three movements in his argument.

He talks first about Joseph, and then the long central section on Moses, and then at the end on the temple. Because of course that's what he's been said to be speaking against. So what Stephen is doing is answering the charges that have been laid out about him. The first movement then begins with Abram, but it centers on Joseph as one whom God was clearly with and yet his brothers opposed, and yet whom God rescued after they opposed him. So you see, this is the pattern.

This is the pattern. That Stephen sees throughout God's working in Scriptures, the pattern which would be repeated even in the response of the national leaders who were listening to Stephen that day. With that in their minds, as it very much would be, listen now to the beginning of this story about Joseph, chapter 7, verse 1.

And the high priest said, 'Are these things So? And Stephen said, Brothers and fathers, hear me. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran, and said to him, 'Go out from your land and from your kindred and go into the land that I will show you.' Then he went out from the land of the Chaldeans and lived in Haran. And after his father died, God removed him from there into this land in which you are now living. Yet he gave him no inheritance in it, not even a foot's length.

But promised to give it to him as a possession and to his offspring after him, though he had no child. And God spoke to this effect, that his offspring would be sojourners in a land belonging to others, who would enslave them and afflict them 400 years. But I will judge the nation that they serve, said God, and after they shall come out and worship me in this place. And he gave him the covenant of circumcision. And so Abraham became the father of Isaac, and circumcised him on the eighth day, and Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob of the 12 Patriarchs.

And the Patriarchs, jealous of Joseph, sold him into Egypt. But God was with him, and rescued him out of all his afflictions, and gave him favor and wisdom before Pharaoh, King of Egypt, who made him ruler over Egypt, and over all his household. Now there came a famine throughout all Egypt and Canaan in great affliction, and our fathers could find no food. But when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent out our fathers on their first visit. And on the second visit, Joseph made himself known to his brothers, and Joseph's family became known to Pharaoh.

And Joseph sent and summoned Jacob his father, and all his kindred, seventy-five persons in all. And Jacob went down into Egypt, and he died, he and our fathers, and they were carried back to Shechem and laid in the tomb that Abraham had bought for a sum of silver from the sons of Hamor in Shechem. So friends, in all of that detail, the pattern you're supposed to see is this: God was clearly with Joseph. His brothers opposed him. Nevertheless, God raised him up.

God rescued Joseph. This is what the fathers of the high priest did. But it wasn't just Joseph. No, if you run to the other end of their Egyptian bondage, 400 years later, it's also true with Moses. And this is the bulk of Stephen's message.

Remember what Stephen had been accused of up in chapter 6. Look there again at verse 11. Then they secretly instigated men who said, 'We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses. And God. And they stirred up the people and the elders and the scribes, and they came upon him and seized him and brought him before the council.

And they set up false witnesses who said, this man never ceases to speak words against this holy place and the law. For we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and will change the customs that Moses delivered to us. So it makes sense that Stephen's reading of the story of Moses would be so prominent. In his response to them. First, he spoke of Moses' birth.

And I'll basically just follow through the paragraphs in the ESV. You see that first one? He recounts the story of Moses' birth there in verse 17. But as the time of the promise drew near, which God had granted to Abraham, the people increased and multiplied in Egypt until there arose over Egypt another king who did not know Joseph. He dealt shrewdly with our race and forced our fathers to expose their infants so that they would not be kept alive.

At this time, Moses was born. And he was beautiful in God's sight. And he was brought up for three months in his father's house. And when he was exposed, Pharaoh's daughter adopted him and brought him up as her own son. And Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was mighty in his words and deeds.

So from the beginning it was clear that Moses was favored by God. His very survival was miraculous. The circumstances of his upbringing were providential. We see here that God declared the young Moses beautiful or strikingly good. So Stephen does not seem to be a Moses hater.

So maybe these words about what he had been saying about Moses were at least exaggerated. Second paragraph about Moses, Stephen goes on to recount one crucial incident in Moses' life when he was 40 years old. Look at that beginning of that paragraph, verse 23.

When he was 40 years old, it came into his heart to visit his brothers, the children of Israel. And seeing one of them being wronged, he defended the oppressed man and avenged him by striking down the Egyptian. He supposed that his brothers would understand that God was giving him salvation by his hand, but they did not understand. And on the following day, he appeared to them as they were quarreling and tried to reconcile them saying, 'Men, your brothers, why do you wrong each other?' But the man who was wronging his neighbor thrust him aside saying, 'Who made you a ruler and a judge over us? Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?' At this retort, Moses fled and became an exile in the land of Midian.

Where he became the father of two sons. So here we see the same pattern as we saw with Joseph beginning to emerge. God was raising up Moses to give his people salvation, that is deliverance from their bondage, through Moses. But here in the person of this man in verse 27, the Israelite rejects Moses' role of deliverer and even implies a threat to turn him into the authorities for murder.

And then the next paragraph, third paragraph about Moses, Stephen specifically comes to God's call of Moses when he was 80. You see that beginning in that paragraph, verse 30.

Now when 40 years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in a flame of fire in a bush. When Moses saw it, he was amazed at the sight, and he drew near to look. There came the voice of the Lord, I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob. And Moses trembled and did not dare to look. Then the Lord said to him, Take off the sandals from your feet, for the place where you're standing is holy ground.

I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and I have heard their groaning, and I have come down to deliver them. And now come, I will send you to Egypt. So here Stephen makes it clear that God called Moses and that Moses was being sent to the Israelites for their good. He was God's man on God's purpose. Stephen makes God's choice of Moses doubly clear in response to the false witnesses that had been raised against him as if he were a rejector of Moses.

Nothing could be further from the truth. He was a Moses guy. The rejectors of Moses had always been the national leaders. Look at the fourth paragraph of Stephen's message on Moses, beginning verse 35.

This Moses, whom they rejected, saying, 'Who made you a ruler and a judge?' this man God sent as both ruler and redeemer by the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush. This man led them out, performing wonders and signs in Egypt and at the Red Sea and in the wilderness for forty years. This is the Moses who said to the Israelites, 'God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. This is the one who was in the congregation in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him at Mount Sinai and with our fathers. He received living oracles to give to us.

Our fathers refused to obey him, but thrust him aside. And in their hearts they turned to Egypt, saying to Aaron, 'Make for us gods who will go before us.' As for this Moses who led us out from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him. And they made a calf in those days and offered a sacrifice to the idol and were rejoicing in the works of their hands. But God turned away and gave them over to worship the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets, Did you bring me slain beasts and sacrifices during the forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel? You took up the tent of Moloch and the star of your god Rephan, the images that you made to worship, and I will send you into exile beyond Babylon.

Wow. Okay, so God sent Moses But what did his people do? They rejected him.

That's what he plainly says in verse 35. Or look at the end of verse 38, the beginning of verse 39, He received living oracles to give to us. Our fathers refused to obey him, but thrust him aside. Stephen is just summarizing what their own Scriptures told them. And like Luke recorded up in Luke, or up in Acts 6:10, they could not withstand the wisdom and the spirit with which he was speaking, and no doubt it was infuriating them.

How sad is the record of the idolatry of the people of God. It starts in the heart, not in some statue, because of what was in their hearts, they asked, for idols to be made. And at first, that idol was to be a wrong representation of the true God that had delivered them from Egypt. But idolatry is not stable. What begins as wrongly worshiping the true God ends in worshiping a false God.

You see that in verse 43?

You took up the tent of Moloch, the star of your god Rephan, the images that you made to worship. In verses 42 and 43, Stephen is simply quoting the prophet Amos. Rejecting God's man, God's Word very quickly ends you up rejecting God.

I wonder how many of you have seen that in your own life experience.

There's still one more paragraph of Stephen's response to the high priest's question of verse 1, and it's the paragraph where he turns to the temple because the other center of lies that had been told about Stephen is that he was a rejecter of the temple.

Look at the last paragraph of his message beginning in verse 44.

Our fathers had the tent of witness in the wilderness, just as he who spoke to Moses directed them to make it according to the pattern that he had seen. Our fathers in turn brought it with Joshua when they dispossessed the nations that God drove out before our fathers. 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, and here he quotes Isaiah, Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool.

What kind of house will you build for me? says the Lord, or what is the place of my rest? Did not my hand make all these things?

Stephen reads his Bible well, doesn't he? I mean, he's covered so much of the narrative of the Old Testament, and he's kept the main purpose of the argument in view. He reads the details, but in light of the big picture. He knows that the whole tenor of the Scripture shows that God is not about holy buildings, but about holy people. That's why Stephen quotes another prophet there in Verses 49 and 50, Isaiah, from Isaiah 66.

Well, the high priest seemed especially concerned about the temple of God. That was the locus of their authority in occupied Jerusalem.

So Stephen seemed moved about the God of the temple. Who or what was really their focus of concern? You have to wonder, what was their focus of worship? What was the focus of the high priest's devotion? And so, as surely as their fathers had resisted God's work, the Holy Spirit, Stephen aggressively concludes his defense with the offensive charge there.

Now look again at verse 51 and see how it lands on them. You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, You always resist the Holy Spirit as your fathers did. And now here's his conclusion in the present. So do you. So we've seen the argument laid out in length in those first 50 verses about your fathers.

And notice he's changed. He was calling them our fathers. We're all Jewish. He's calling them our fathers like you look up in verse 38 or 39, it's our fathers. But now, or 44, 45, but now when he's accusing them, he turns and says, you, fathers, because of this particular pattern he's pointed out, because they are no pattern for Stephen.

Stephen has received the message of God's work, now the message of God's work in Jesus. He's recognized Jesus as the righteous one. Who's come from God to save them from their sins. But that's not what these leaders have done. They have followed the pattern of their fathers in rejecting those whom God sends.

So look at verse 52.

Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered. So Joseph and Moses were simply previews of what God would do in the Lord Jesus and of how the national leaders would respond. Those national leaders were not looking for mercy through the righteous Messiah. They were looking for merit through their own obedience to the laws of Moses.

What severe descriptions Stephen gives here of their rejection of Jesus. See those two words in verse 52. Betrayed, murdered. If you go back and you look at Luke chapters 22 and 23, that's a good description of exactly what was going on. When Jesus had answered their questions about whether he, Jesus was the Son of God, Jesus taking their accusations, affirmations, simply responded, you say that I am.

They heard that as a positive affirmation of something. That they took to be self-evidently false. And so they said, what further testimony do we need? We've heard it from his own lips. Friends, long before Luke wrote those things down, that's how Stephen had heard them.

That's how Stephen here summarized them. So in this, these national leaders not only walked in the sinful way of their forefathers, but they exceeded them in the depth and scope of their wicked rebellion and rejection of God and his ways in their rejection of God's very Son.

But they not only completed the pattern of rejection in the way that they dealt with the Son of God, irony of irony, they would now repeat it one more time in their rejection of Stephen himself, who's telling them the truth in all these matters. And so now they would stone Stephen. Look at verse 53.

You have received his law, the law is delivered by angels, and did not keep it. Now, when they heard these things, they were enraged, and they ground their teeth at him. And then skipping down to verse 57, But they cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears and rushed together at him. Then 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.

Yesterday a young adult named Brail asked me and a few others, why does the truth make people mad?

It was a great question. I had given her a copy of Acts chapter 7, because I was there working on it for this message. And I always bring an extra copy to give to somebody. So I gave it to her to read. And so she came back with that question.

What a great question. Why does the truth make people mad? Certainly the high priests and company here were enraged. They gnashed their teeth when they heard Stephen's claims about Jesus. And they hated to be told so accurately that their fathers Our fathers had been doing this all along.

Friends, one aspect of what it means to be people made in God's image is that we have an indelible sense of what is right and wrong, and yet we are fallen. The Bible, right after the story of creation, is the story of the fall. By nature, we're not satisfied with God, but we're not satisfied without Him. By nature, we are made in God's image and yet fallen. And that means that we naturally are more like the betraying and murdering high priest than we are naturally like this deacon Stephen who it says here in verse 55 is full of the Holy Spirit.

So friend, are you concerned that God has given you over to some idolatry in your life?

Is there a physical object?

Is there a social goal? Is there a sensation?

Is there a person?

Is there a public appearance that is your God that actually controls you? That really best explains all the decisions that you made last month? Or will explain the decisions you make this week?

What idols do you find in your own life?

How do you even begin to spot them?

Which are the strongest ones in your life?

Which are the best, comparatively speaking?

Some good time this afternoon doing that kind of heart work in your own heart? It would be time well spent.

If you're in spiritual darkness, you need the light of God's Word. Start reading and studying God's Word. Come here this year as we study through the book of Acts. I've got a couple of copies of David Cook's little guide on teaching Acts that I will give you if you today decide to start coming along to these studies in Acts. I'll be at that door at the back after it's all over.

I'll just give you one of these. If you say, yeah, I'm gonna try to come to these studies through Acts this year to try to understand the Bible better and what it might say about my own life. Friends, the light that comes from God's Word is so sharp that it can find even those idols hidden most deeply in the folds and shadows of our hearts. What does Hebrews 4:12 say? About the Word of God, it is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and the intentions of the heart.

That's what we see Stephen doing with it here as he speaks to these leaders that day.

I wonder what shapes your own resisting of the Holy Spirit is taking today. Have you found a way to use even religion to try to protect you from Jesus and His claims? You know, if you are faithful to Christ, it will provoke opposition and will prove costly. Kids, you need to listen to this. Sometimes you may think you're the only one who ever has anything to pay for being a Christian because your friends don't like it, you're not popular.

Your friends are just getting you ready for the rest of life. That's what this world is like. I wonder how you've already found yourself in Stephen's company, not yet being stoned for following Christ, but nevertheless paying a price. I bet we could go around to the Christians in this room, find some examples of prices that have been paid. Friend, think of your own experience.

Consider very carefully those areas that have been your vulnerabilities in the past, and work to build yourself up through the scriptures, through sharing the good news about Jesus Christ with others. As a church, we understand that if we tell people this great news about Jesus being crucified and raised from the dead, Him being our Lord and Savior, we understand that this will cause problems, and people who believe can get in trouble because of it. This is why ministers of Christ so often have given a willingness, been given a willingness to put up with deprivation and harm along the way of their mission. David Brainerd said simply, I cared not where or how I lived, or what hardships I went through, so I could but gain souls to Christ.

Some of you I know are in the Mission's Reading Group. I hear it's pretty big right now. This is good for you to think about. Part of that is soberly considering if you should embrace the difficulties of missionary life. Maybe you've already found that here before you've even begun encountering the difficulties of the field itself.

Do you think you need to be ready to suffer even like Stephen was called to suffer? Here? How can your learning to bear suffering well here help you endure suffering there? You realize that it's helpful to all of us to learn to speak the truth about God and the truth to God about how we're feeling, even as we minister the truth to our own souls. If you're feeling that today, maybe sometime in Psalm 31.

Would be good for you this afternoon. The kind of opposition Stephen faced that day is not only found on the pages of Scripture. It's found in our kids' schools, in our own offices, and in our neighborhoods. If you have questions about whether or not all this is true, we're an argumentative kind of church. In that sense, we kind of follow Stephen's message well.

Some of you came up to me and were very excited that Wes Huff was here last Sunday. An apologist some of you know from online. We've got another apologist sitting here this morning, Steven Meyer. Steven, stand up for just a second. Sorry, he's a friend of mine.

He'll let me do things like this. Steven, you may now be seated. Steve has a PhD from Cambridge and will answer all of your questions about science, religion, and the existence of God. He will come down here afterwards and stand here while he can and answer. I'm dead serious.

Because some of you don't normally come to church, some of you have serious questions, and you've never had a conversation with somebody who's intelligently thought about them. Well, Steve has intelligently thought about them, and Steve will at least tell you how he can put these things together and see if that can be of some help to you. Well, friends, of course you should not be like these rejecters of Jesus who resisted the Holy Spirit. We want to help you with that any way we can by telling you the truth, by showing you what Stephen meant by having another Stephen here to answer questions. All of us said the doors are going to have a copy of Val Grieve's, you, Verdict on the Empty Tomb that Gordon mentioned at the beginning.

It's 75 pages of a late lawyer in Britain arguing about how he moved from not being a Christian to being a Christian as he considered the evidence for the resurrection. We would love to help you do that. I found as somebody who was an agnostic and became a Christian, I didn't become a Christian because all my questions got answered. I still have questions, like questions about the problem of evil. But there began to be stuff that I just knew that I couldn't deny.

That's how I became a Christian. That might be how you become a Christian today. Because number two, this is the second part, the second choice, the second response that we can make. This is the last part of these verses here at the end. You should receive the gift of Jesus because God sent Jesus, just like he sent Joseph, he sent Moses, so he sent Jesus Christ, and he is the victor over death.

He's standing at the right hand of God, and he is able and willing to forgive sinners. Friends, we should recognize Jesus as the living Lord. Notice here in our chapter how Stephen sees the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. Look there, chapter 7, verses 55 and 56. But he, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.

And he said, Behold, I see the heavens open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. It's very interesting. Generally the New Testament simply says that in the ascension, Jesus went to and is at the right hand of God. That's the position of authority, to have the authority of God, the approval of God. Thus Peter says in 1 Peter 3:22, that Christ is ascended to the right hand of God with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.

Hebrews 10:12 even uses the verb sit where we get the noun the session of Christ. The session. Hebrews 10:12 mentions that when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. And sitting down there just showing that this was a proper place for him to abide. It was no temporary phase.

He is rightfully at and remains at the right hand of God. Paul speaks like this similarly in Colossians 3:1, if then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. In all of Scripture, only here in Acts 7, in this vision of Stephen's, is Christ represented as standing at the right hand of God. Listen to this verse again. But he full of the Holy Spirit gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.

And he said, Behold, I see the heavens open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. What's going on? We don't know. Jesus was standing at the right hand of God. Was he rising to acknowledge Stephen's joining him in God's presence?

To honor him, to receive him, and maybe even to cheer him on in that last difficult stage of the journey? Or was he standing to act as an advocate before the judge, the heavenly judge, advocating for the reception of Stephen? What's clear is that Stephen was recognizing that the one whom these national leaders had betrayed and murdered and crucified God had raised from the dead, he was alive. He was living. And he had ascended to heaven where he is now the ever living, ever reigning Lord.

This is the same one that they had seen crucified a few months earlier. Hundreds had seen Jesus risen from the dead after that first morning when he was raised. Several weeks later then he ascended visibly into heaven. Now here was Stephen claiming to see Jesus alive at that very moment, again, this time in a vision, standing at the right hand of God. Christ's example showed Stephen that even the most severe suffering in this world would not cause him to cease to exist, let alone promise a cursed afterlife.

Though Christ was terribly crucified, he was raised from the dead. He demonstrated his being alive to many and then ascended to a place of power and even sovereignty. The Jesus that Stephen was believing in was not merely a sainted example of love and memory past. He's the sovereign Lord of heaven in glory and power, even now commanding his Spirit to work in converting and filling his own and empowering them for the service he calls them to. So friends, are you here this morning wondering who Jesus Christ was or better is?

Kids, young people, listen, Jesus is an important person for you to get to know. He is the most important person you can come to know about and to know personally. More important than anybody else in this room, more important than anyone else you'd ever meet. It was what Stephen knew about Jesus. That was putting him in this very public trouble that he was in that day with his own government.

If Christ's life had ended with his crucifixion and there was no resurrection, then movements of followers wouldn't have materialized or they would have quickly fallen apart. There would have been no church with thousands of people assembled in Jerusalem. Stephen would never have been brought into prominence. All of these are just ripples in the pond going out from that point where Christ disturbed the cosmic peace by being raised from the dead. Thank God that Stephen could keep this clear perspective on Christ even when he was being threatened with such immediate suffering.

Brothers and sisters, this is what you and I need. We need a clear view of Christ, of who he is now, when we are facing trials and struggles. Of course, the only way we stay on course during times of opposition and threat is exactly keeping Jesus Christ and the truth about Him clearly in view, determining our perspective on all the shifting circumstances of our health or social acceptance or prospects for this worldly happiness. Pray that God would keep you clearly focused on this truth about who Jesus is that you've come to recognize. And receiving this truth about Jesus Also means that we not just recognize the truth about him, but we rely on him for forgiveness of our sins.

You see this in the last two verses of our chapter. Stephen prays to Jesus as Lord and judge of himself and others. Look there in verse 59. And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out, 'Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.' and falling to his knees, he cried out with a loud voice, 'Lord, do not hold this sin against them.' And when he had said this, he fell asleep. Stephen realizes that Jesus is the one he must rely on to receive him in and after death.

You see that in verse 59. And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. To whom else would he turn?

On whom else would you rely? It's Jesus who's gone into death's tomb and has gone out the other side. He is the one to whom we must listen. He is the one we must follow. Moses had come bringing the oracles of God, as we see up in verse 38.

Jesus came as the Word of God incarnate. One final time Stephen affirms what he'd been going around saying throughout all the synagogues of Jerusalem. He gets his last time now to say it. This is who Jesus is. And I think he relishes that time.

Stephen also realizes that Jesus is the one he must rely on to find forgiveness of sin for others as well. You see that in verse 60. And falling to his knees, he cried out with a loud voice, Lord, do not hold this sin against them. And when he had said this, he fell asleep. That means he died.

Friend, we understand Jesus' death to be of such worth and value because of who Jesus is and because of why and how He laid down His life as a substitutionary sacrifice, a ransom for those who believe in Him. Friend, your only hope for forgiveness of your sins is through Christ having died for sinners like you and me. It's one thing to recognize Jesus as being from God or even being divine. Being the second person of the Trinity, it's another to know that He is the one who acts to forgive us for our sins. That God should ever become a man is amazing.

That He should do so to save us from our sins is wonderful. And this is our good news for each other, for you if you're visiting with us today, for the world as we go out this week. Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead and has been so, as Paul put it in Romans 4:25, for our justification. That is to make us right with God.

A number of years back in Burundi at the height of its violent troubles, an African Christian was facing the guns of his enemies.

The brother humbly said, Before you kill me, may I have permission to say a few things? Say it quickly.

First he said, I love you.

Second he said, I love my country.

Third, he said, I will sing a song.

And he sang all four stanzas of Out of My Bondage, Sorrow and Night, Jesus, I come. Jesus, I come.

And then the shots rang out.

That African Christian was following the example of his leader. When he was saying, From the cross, what he had stamped upon the world's consciousness, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they're doing. These are the very words Stephen picks up here in verse 60, as he becomes the first in a long list of honorable martyrs.

The main result of this speech seems to be that Stephen became the first Christian to be killed for following Christ. And the tragic pattern of God's people rejecting God continued.

But then, that's not the end of the pattern. So would the pattern of God having the last word.

As He overruled His people's sins and exalted the Joseph that they rejected.

As He took Moses, whom the people had rejected and used him anyway for their liberation.

As He took the crucified, rejected Christ and raised Him from the dead for our justification. As He would now certainly one day raise the now bruised and broken, lifeless body of Stephen.

Friends, as Christians, we understand, as we were saying earlier, that it's part of our natural depravity to resist God's truth. But something had happened in Stephen's own life that had made him accept Christ as the promised Messiah, as His Savior. What do you think had happened to him?

It must have been Christ was raised from the dead, and Stephen knew that. And he listened to Jesus talk about the meaning of His resurrection. I pray that you hear this and you believe this in your own soul today, and that you decide to follow Christ.

We should conclude. It was Easter Day, 597 A.D. King Ethelbert had a choice to make. On the island of Thanet, the easternmost point of Kent in what we call England today, his French Christian wife had gotten, Ethelbert to come, Ethelbert rather to come, and to meet this arriving missionary, Augustine, who had decided to continue his journey and go on to this troubled land. So that day, pagan King Ethelbert welcomed Augustine and his friends as they first landed in Britain. He listened to them.

He said he would consider their message about Jesus. He said these new missionaries were welcome here. And that his people, any who wanted to, were free to convert to Christianity. Ethelbert himself, however, would consider the claims of Christ for a few more days.

Turned into a few more weeks.

Within a couple of months, Ethelbert had himself decided to receive Jesus. So on June 2nd, 597, he was baptized as a believer in Jesus Christ. This is one part of how the good news about Jesus came into the language that I'm preaching in right now. By God's grace, Augustine decided to go, or as an English speaker, I'll say, to come.

And King Ethelbert, after some time thinking about it, ended up believing his message about Jesus Christ. And his then became the first in what would be a long line of pagan jutes, Angles, and Saxons over the next century forsaking their pagan gods and turning to believe in Jesus Christ. Friend, today if you are not yet a Christian, you too have a choice to make. Like this ancient pagan king, like Acts' first readers, like all those who heard Stephen's message that day, like everyone who has ever heard about Jesus Christ, you've heard about Jesus Christ. You've heard it from a family member or a friend you've come with today, people you know, you've heard about Him from even what we've done together, from this sermon, from the songs that we've sung, through the witness of Luke and of Stephen.

Realize this, Jesus is the one you need to serve your spirit. To save youe. His is the forgiveness yous need. Seek it today. Let's pray.

Lord God, we pray that yout would help us to take appropriate warning and appropriate hope from youm Word. We thank youk for your Word. We thank youk for the rich stories of Joseph and Moses and Lord, how you've taught us through Stephen so much truth. Lord, how you've shown us even our own resistance to youo and youd work. Oh God, make us joyful acceptors of youf and of what yout've done in Jesus.

We pray in His name. Amen.