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Acts 7:1-60

I have done dozens of funerals in my life. Everyone has something that they want to happen.  A song to be sung, a poem to be read.  A story to tell.  Some way to remember their loved one. To honor them.  To make the moment meaningful.  

Imagine with me, you were able to preach at your own funeral.  What words would you say?  What would you want people to remember you by?  Your love of your family? Your passion for sports? Your talents?  

In our text this morning we meet a man who preaches his own funeral.  It is not about himself at all.  It is all about Jesus.  This may be Stephen’s first sermon. It is assuredly his last sermon. He has just officially entered into a leadership position in the church, many might think he has a bright future, but now he is preaching his own funeral.  

It’s a long sermon.  Paul says to a young pastor, “Devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture,” so we’ll do that now.

Acts 7:1-60

Stephen gives them some things they need to remember.  God has been working well before you were around.  He has been calling people to repentance for thousands of years. And throughout it all God’s people have always suffered.

God’s People have Always Suffered.

• • Abraham
    • Tell the story 
      • Pagan, Godless
        • The Israelites were making a big deal about ethnicity. About how they were better than the gentiles.  Stephen reminds them that they are not different. They are not better, Everyone was pagan and godless at one point.
      • God showed up and told him to go to “The land I will show you”  God gave him no inheritance, no offspring, only promises and impossible promises at that (a baby at 100, numerous as the stars in the sky)
        • Abraham laughed, But sure enough Isaac was born. (laughter)
    • The Seed of Abraham – 70 at the end of genesis – a few million at the beginning of Exodus.  Through these people comes one person. God becomes a man, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the descendant of Abraham. And just like Isaac was born——-Jesus was born through miraculous intervention by God. 
      • This reminds us that Salvation is by faith, It always has been.
        • Your parents don’t make you a Christian, Your nationality, Your past, Your good deeds don’t make you a Christian. You are a Christian only if you have faith in Christ.  
        • Hebrews 11:1-2 – Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. 2 For by it the people of old received their commendation.
  • Joseph
    • Tell the Story
      • Joseph was loved by His father, Hated by his brethren.  
        • Vs 9 – And the patriarchs, jealous of Joseph, sold him into Egypt; but God was with him.
      • hated, and despised, and betrayed by his brothers. He ultimately was thrown in a hole and left for dead. By the power and plan of God, Joseph got out of that hole and rose up from a place of obscurity to a place of great leadership and prominence.  God made him second in the kingdom, 
      • And he ultimately saves the very people who hated and despised and betrayed him.
        • Genesis 50:20 – As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.
    • Just like Joseph, Jesus was betrayed by the brethren, He was left for dead on a cross.  And Just like Joseph rose to a leadership position at the right hand of the king, so did Jesus who sits at the right hand of the Father. And he used what was intended for evil, the murder of God on the cross, for good and the saving of many lives including our own, and he reconciles with us, and he makes us brothers. He looks us in the eye with love and says, “You murdered me, but what you intended for evil has been used for good and the saving of many lives.”
  • Moses
    • Tell the Story (exodus)
      • Foreigners in a foreign land, Oppressed by Pharaoh (Cruel Taskmaster) Enslaved and hopeless.  God raises up Moses. A prophet, a miracle worker, a savior, to rebuke pharaoh and deliver his people from their captivity.  
    • Jesus is the greater Moses.  Jesus comes to face our pharaoh, Satan, and deliver us from our enslavement and captivity to sin, so that we might be free.

• God’s people have always suffered

• • • Abraham’s suffering was brought on through his circumstances… no heir 100 years old 
      • (without someone to pass on his legacy, his whole life was considered meaningless)
    • Joseph’s suffering was brought through his brothers
    • Moses’ suffering came through his people who abandoned God and sought after a golden calf
    • David’s suffering came through his own children
    • Solomon’s suffering came through his wives and (Ecclesiastes) through depression.
    • The prophets’ suffering came through persecution and murder.
      • AND THEY ALL, EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM, FORESHADOWED CHRIST.  
      • Jesus (CIRCUMSTANCES -born to die, BROTHERS-thought he was crazy, HIS PEOPLE-rejected their king, HIS CHILDREN(Luke 13:34 – O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!), like Solomon, Jesus was betrayed by HIS BRIDE, Garden of gethsemane DEPRESSION, PERSECUTION AND MURDER)

• Your suffering points to Jesus Too

• 1st Peter 4:13 – But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed

• Abraham is about Jesus, Israel about Jesus, the patriarchs are about Jesus, the Exodus is about Jesus, Moses is about Jesus, Joseph is about Jesus, David is about Jesus, Solomon is about Jesus, the temple is about Jesus, the priesthood is about Jesus, the sacrifices are about Jesus, the kingship is about Jesus. It’s all about Jesus.

• • • The religious leaders knew the Bible but they didn’t know Jesus.  
      • They thought it was a book of rules, a book of history, and a book of good versus evil.  They lived by it, but they missed the one it was about.
  • If you don’t know Jesus, you don’t know the Bible. 

Stiff Necked People

• • (Vs 51-53) – It all comes to a head in these verses.
  • Stiff Necked – Like a stubborn donkey that refuses to go where it is led.  Unable to turn from their course.  They will not be steered.  Won’t budge. Set in their ways.  Stubborn. 
    • How many of you would call yourself stubborn?  How many of you would call your spouse stubborn?
  • Uncircumcised in heart and ears – Now every single one of them was circumcised. 
    • But their hearts were hard, not submitted to God.  Their ears were closed, not listening to His call.  
      • You can go through a lot of religious rituals, You can attend church every week, you can tithe every week, you may be serving in leadership.  But if your Christianity is only external and not internal, all you are is a religious hypocrite with a stiff neck.
  • Always Resist the Spirit – your fathers, and your grandfathers, and your great- grandfathers, have been warring against God for thousands of years.  Circumcised, Sabbath-keeping, rule-abiding, and Hell bound.
    • Stephen is saying, “Your fathers persecuted and murdered the prophets, you persecuted and murdered Christ.”  Your parents Murdered the shadows of the King, you murdered the King Himself.  
  • Apply

• 5 Step Recipe for Resisting the Spirit of God

1. Avoid accountability

• Don’t allow anyone to critique you.

• Remove people from your life who say things you don’t like or agree with. Or even better, never let them into your life in the first place. 
  • Put it under the guise of privacy.  Make sure to say things like, “that’s none of your business” or, “Who do you think you are” or “I am just a private person.”

1. Believe you are always right

• Fill your mind with only things that affirm your positions.   Fill your mind with books and articles that agree with your view.  If necessary go to college and get a degree so that you can waive your credentials at those who have an opposing viewpoint.  
• Fill your life with only those who will affirm your actions and lifestyle.  Yes-men who will never challenge, never engage, never critique, but will always be careful to avoid conflict.

1. Resist Change

• If you want to resist God, the old ways are always the best ways. 
• God says in Isaiah 43:18-19 – Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old.  19 Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
• But not on your watch!  Make sure that you halt anything that will change the status quo.  Anything that would cause you inconvenience. Anything that would make you have to do something different.  
  • Couch it in terms of safety and caution.  “Let’s slow things down, and take a look at the potential dangers.” “This is untested, we don’t want to step into something that could hurt us.”
    • If Stephen had just said that instead of what he did. I imagine he would have lived a long and healthy life.  

1. Minimize your sins, and maximize others’ sins

• Self-serving bias is a psychological tendency to attribute successes to internal factors and failures to external factors
  • Anything good that happens is because of you, and anything bad that happens is because of others.
• Play the victim in every situation.  Find good excuses for any mistake you might make.  The best way is to blame someone else. Say things like, “well I would never have done that if not for ______.  Why did you make me fly off the handle?  They are really the ones at fault!”  Defend yourself by throwing someone else under that bus.  Deflect and minimize.

1. Make fulfilling your desires your ultimate goal

• Buy into the culture, buy into the lie that our capitalistic society is selling. People are spending billions on trying to suck you in.  “Your happiness comes first.  Follow your heart, satisfy your desires, fulfill your passions, treat yourself.”
  • Never mind that God says the human heart is desperately wicked.  That’s just theology, it shouldn’t affect your actions. It shouldn’t change your life or anything.  Your heart should be followed.  There is nothing more important than being true to yourself after all.

Gaze into Heaven

• Vs 54 – “Now when they heard these things they were enraged”
  • Ever been in a situation when you can just sense the danger?  Like a wolf baring it’s teeth at you…. They literally cover their ears, and charge.
• They charge him, throw him out of the city and stone him.
  • Something totally illegal.  The Jews do not have the authority to stone anyone. That’s why they used the Romans with Jesus.  This is mob violence. Argue with him, can’t win. Accuse him, nothing sticks. Falsely accuse him, does not discredit him. Therefore to silence him, we must kill him. And Stephen is on his knees and rocks are flying at him.  They were taking their coats off so they could throw as hard and fast as they could. 
    • What comes out of Stephen’s mouth? “Father, forgive them.” – They are killing me. Forgive them.  Talk about being like Christ!
• He fell asleep
  • That’s the Bible’s language for a believer who dies. When a believer dies, they fall asleep. Their body lays in the ground until the resurrection of the dead. When a believer and an unbeliever dies, for the believer it is death, physical and spiritual. For the believer, it is physical death but spiritual life. They fall asleep and one day that dead body will rise with Jesus.
    • May we remember the same, and may it help us to pick the winning side in this battle.