We sing Hallelujah, praise the Lord in part.
We praise the Lord because he has spoken to us.
Hear the word of the Lord this morning, following on what Dan
had read for us was standing at Steven, standing behind before
the council. The high priest said to him, are
these things so? And Steven said, brothers and
fathers, hear me, the God of glory appeared to our father
Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia before he lived in
Heron. And he said to him, go out from
your land and from your kindred and go into the land that I will
show you. What follows is a 9 minute
speech where Steven summarizes the historical work of the Old
Testament and he wraps it up this way in verse 51.
You stiff necked, people uncircumcised, and heart and
ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit.
As your Father's did, so do you. Which of the prophets did your
father's not persecute? And they killed those who
announced beforehand the coming of the righteous one whom you
have now betrayed and murdered. You who received the law as
delivered by the angels, and did not keep it.
And this is the word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God. Dear Lord, we do pray that you
would grant to us an understanding of this word, a
transformation of our hearts and minds because of what we have
read and what we have heard here this morning.
We pray through Christ our Lord, we ask, Amen.
The grass Withers and the flowers fade, but the word of
our Lord, it stands forever. Kudos to Lucas over here and Tim
for filling in a little bit. So thank you guys for that and
you may be seated and grab your Bibles.
I am afraid that the sermon today is likely to be somewhat
guilt inducing. That's not my goal.
I I have a goal for most of the time when I get stand before you
in order to be challenging and to be challenging for me means
that the Holy Spirit would use the words in which I say to
provide conviction into the heart.
And now conviction into the heart by the Holy Spirit is very
different than guilt or guilt induced.
I thought process. Guilt for me is something that
Satan brings into my life in order to lead me into a period
of despair, into a period of general malaise, a sense that
all things are just terrible and I just feel guilty in general
about everything. And rather than drawing me to
Christ, it draws me to quit, draws me to stop.
Conviction of the Holy Spirit, on the other hand, is very
different. It is a very specific idea.
It targets me and it specifies there are things in my life that
need to change. And it causes me to lead, to be
led to confession and from confession to repentance and
from repentance to greater faith and reliance upon Jesus Christ.
That's normally my goal is to be used by the Holy Spirit to bring
conviction into your life or challenge into your life, not
the idea of guilt inducing. However, today is likely to be a
little bit more guilt inducing as we'll see in a few seconds.
Here we are continuing on in our series in the book of Acts.
We took a break during Holy Week there for a little bit.
We are catching it up in the book of Acts, as we've seen as
we've come to this point so far has been a discussion of the
Spirit, the church, and the world.
How the Spirit uses the church, forms the church, and uses the
church in order to reach the World, the Spirit, the church,
and the world. And the means by which that
happens so often is the Scriptures.
And we see that Scriptures very powerfully in today's text in
which we read. So what happens is that Stephen
has been proclaiming the gospel message, and as he's been
proclaiming the gospel message, the authorities don't like that.
And the authorities pull Stephen in and examine him.
And we're going to look more about what happens with Stephen
and how this effects Stephen next week.
So I encourage you to join us next week as we wrap up this
aspect of the book of Acts, the story of Stephen.
But today what we're going to look at is that middle section
of how Stephen responds to the council's challenge to him
justify why it is that you are proclaiming the name of Jesus
Christ as you are. And the way that Steven does
that is by giving a 10 minute recitation, a 10 minute summary
of the Old Testament Scriptures. He speaks to us about the Old
Testament. Now I need to stop and say
something and confess that I've done something really bad.
I've done something really bad. The most important thing you
could hear from me is not my words, but the words of
scripture. And yet what I've done is I've
skipped over a big chunk of scripture for us today.
All of Chapter 7 of the book of Acts is this story is this
recounting of history that Stephen provides it his his
speech, it's his defense and if anything we should be hearing
from the word of God. That's what we should be
listening to and instead I've kind of skipped it and
summarized it. You need to help bail me out
because otherwise I'm going to feel really bad that what I've
done is lead you into a bad idea where I'm thinking that my words
are more important than hearing the words of scripture.
The way you do that is you find about 5 to 10 minutes you can
read it a little quicker than you can speak it or about 5 or
10 minutes to read Chapter 7 of the book of Acts today.
What you will be reading is an on account of the Old Testament.
What Stephen does is he says, listen, this is the Old
Testament storyline and he lays out the Old Testament storyline.
Now the reason why I find that to be guilt inducing for me and
for so many people is because underlying Stephens ability to
summarize the Gospel, summarize the Old Testament like he does
is a recognition that he has read the Old Testament that he
has become a man filled by the Scriptures, filled with an
understanding of the word of God.
The reason why that I think is so guilt inducing or has a
potential of being guilt inducing is because everybody.
My guess is that if you are a follower of Jesus Christ or not,
and there are undoubtedly some that are not here in this room.
If you are have been involved in this church for a long time, or
if you're new to this church, my guess is that all of us can
readily agree to the fact that we know that if we spent time
reading the scriptures more than what we do, we would be better
off. Reading the Scriptures is one of
those means of of grace that God uses to transform and to shape
our lives. And most of us are well aware
that that's the case. Most of us are also aware that
we should be sharing the gospel more.
But you know, we've got reasons to be intimidated by that.
We should be more involved in the church, but we've got other
responsibilities. We should pray more, but we
sometimes get lost in our own thoughts.
We realize all of those things, but reading the scriptures.
And here's the key. I'm not talking about reading
the scriptures for 20 minutes a day or half an hour a day.
I am saying that if you read the scriptures 5 minutes a day, 5
minutes a day, your life will be shaped and molded by the Word of
God in ways that you cannot imagine.
And most of us realize that. We know that, and what's so
guilt inducing is the fact that though we know it, so
infrequently do we follow through on something that is so
simple. Most of us have the capability
of reading and all of us can find 5 minutes a day in order to
read the scriptures. And so here we have Steven so
immersed in the scriptures that he's able to read it, so he's
able to shape his ministry and his defense of the gospel around
the scriptures. This is something that we all
are capable of doing simply by doing that which we have been
skilled and trained to do through our entire lives.
The ability to read and to find. 5 minutes.
So why don't we do so? Why is it that that is so hard
to car? OK, some of it is the busyness
of life and carving out time and the, the the problems of other
things pushing out. We know that.
But 5 minutes, folks, 5 minutes. Why do we have such a difficult
time with this? Well, some of it is the
foreignness of the material. Some of the material is, of
course, talking about ancient times.
And some of them aren't familiar with the material and, and the
names are all difficult and you get kind of lost in the line.
And OK, I understand that's a problem, but you can you can
conquer that problem. Some of it is a problem of, of
simply being intimidated by the book as a whole.
I mean, this thing is thick and not knowing where to start and
not knowing where to go. Sometimes the problem is just
getting started, being aware of will to begin and how we begin
in the storyline. Some of it is an unfamiliarity
with the scriptures as a whole. You stay, you're a young
believer. You haven't been to the church
or worship a lot or you haven't been schooled in these kind of
things. The the material can be kind of
off putting. You start reading it and you
don't even know what you're reading, those kind of things.
All of those are understandable reasons.
I get that. But I think that the largest
reason why people don't read the scriptures is because they don't
know what they're reading. They don't know what the Bible
is. As a matter of fact, it's not
that. It's that they they have the
wrong idea of what the Bible is. Having the wrong idea about the
by what the Bible is prevents you from taking the time to read
it the way that it's intended. Imagine that your beloved sends
you a love letter and you are absolutely convinced that she
has given you a shopping list. And you read the love letter
like a shopping list. And I guarantee you that no
matter how much time you spend looking at this love letter, no
matter how long you parse it, no matter how much focus you put on
the love letter, if you think it's a shopping list, you will
forever have trouble. You will never grasp the essence
of what your beloved is trying to say to you.
Does that make sense? Simply understanding, having the
wrong impression about what The thing is, is going to lead you
into wrong assumptions about this, about what the point is.
I believe that one of the greatest challenges that we have
to get over when we come to reading the scriptures and being
committed to reading the Scriptures is a failure to
understand what the Bible is. If we understand what the Bible
is reading, it becomes so much easier.
Of course, it's still filled with difficult names and it's
still filled with some terrible stories and it's still filled
with some boring parts and stuff like that.
But you can read those things and you can understand them once
you understand what the Bible, Bible is all about.
And I believe that the reason why Stephen gets himself into
such hot water here with the Pharisees and this and the
Sanhedrin is because he understands what the Bible is
about. And as he summarizes it for us,
he is using the Scriptures the way the Scriptures are intended
to be used. And yet so much of the problem
that we have today is that we approach the Scriptures with the
wrong assumption of what the Bible is.
We think the Bible is this, and that shapes and molds our
approach to it. And so we forever misunderstand
it. Again, it's like reading a love
letter, like it's a shopping list.
So what are some ways that we shouldn't read the Scriptures?
What are some ways in which we not supposed to understand the
purpose of the Bible? For a lot of people, the purpose
of the Bible is simply history, Particularly it's religious
history. So the purpose of the Bible is
some kind of an exploration of religious history.
If you've ever taken a seminar, not a seminar, a college class
on the Bible, it's probably oriented itself towards this way
in some some regard. What's the history of Israel?
How did Israel come into existence?
And specifically, what's the history of the way in which they
thought about God? How did they think their way
around their relationship with God and and connect with the
their divine being? In other words, a cultural
exploration. What's in some of you have done
this in the in other situations where you've explored other
cultures over international cultures or something like that,
You're traveling overseas, you want to learn a little bit about
the culture. OK.
A lot of people approach the Bible exactly that way.
Tell us a little bit about Israel's culture.
What, what's history? How did they develop?
How did that? Why did they sacrifice animals?
Where did they get this idea of, of sin and where did they get
the idea of redemption and all these kind of things?
And so you study the Bible as though it's a historical
document. It is a historical document.
And of course you can learn some great insight into that.
But again, if you're looking at a love letter like a shopping
list, you're forever going to have trouble.
If you're looking at the Scriptures as though it intends,
the purpose of the Scripture is to communicate the development
of the religious idea of the Israelites, you will forever
miss the point of the Scriptures.
Another way that a lot of people approach the scriptures is
though it's a collection of inspired stories.
OK, so I want to be inspired. So I grabbed the Bible and I
read about David, or I read about Moses, or I read about
Abraham, and by reading about their life I get inspired to
live my life a little bit differently.
By the way, if you have never read Christian biographies or if
Christian biographies readings, Christian biographies is not
something that you do once a year, you absolutely should put
that into your life. Because there is something
wonderfully inspirational about reading about how God shapes
people's lives through the work of his Scripture and through the
work of his Spirit. And so you can read wonderful
things, Elizabeth Elliott's Through Gates of Splendor, or
Amy Carmichael's The Chance to Die, or Augustine's Confection
questions, or there's a ton of these things and you read them
and you get inspired. And people think that that's
what I need from my life as well.
That's what the Bible can provide.
And so they turn to the Scriptures and they say inspire
me. And you read Ecclesiastes.
That was funny. If you knew Ecclesiastes, you
know, there's nothing inspiring about Ecclesiastes.
Or you read Leviticus or something like that, or, or
Numbers, and you're like, there's nothing inspiring here.
And of course, because you're looking at a love letter like a
shopping list, you're looking at something that God has given to
us for one purpose, and you're reading it for something else.
While the Bible is inspiring. And This is why so many people
are attracted to the Psalms, and rightly so, because when you
read the Psalms, they are can be incredibly inspiring and
motivational and encouraging. And you see somebody else's
relationship with God and you want to, you want that for
yourself and you want to shape your life around so that you too
can capture that kind of a life with the Lord.
That's a beautiful idea. It's a beautiful understanding,
but it's not why the Lord has given us the Scriptures.
And if you approach them that way, by the time you get to
Leviticus, you're burned out. I want to be inspired.
And so you read, you read about Jacob, and the whole time you
read about Jacob, you're sitting there thinking, is this what's
supposed to inspire me? And you read about Joseph, and
you go, this is what's supposed to inspire me.
And by the time you get to the Exodus or the Leviticus, you're
just totally burned because you're looking at the scripture
for all the wrong reasons. The Scripture is not given to us
so that we can have a historical account of Israel.
The Scripture is not given to us so we can read about people's
inspirational connections with God in heaven.
The Scriptures are also not given to us for moral
directives. It's not given to us so that we
can know the right way to live. Now, this throws some people off
and well, it should to some extent because Jesus himself
refers to the Old Testament as the law and the prophet.
It is God's law. It is God's word.
And so a lot of people approach the Scriptures and say, OK, here
I am. I'm going to read the Scriptures
to find out how I'm supposed to live my life.
What am I supposed to do and what am I not supposed to do?
And you run into passages like the 10 commandments and they say
do this and do not do this. OK, you run into texts in the
back of Deuteronomy where, hey, you live your life this way and
don't live it like this. OK, that's great.
And so you think, OK, what the Bible is provided, is given for,
is so that it can tell me how I'm supposed to live my life.
But then you run into Proverbs or you run into the prophets, or
you run into the apocalyptic literature in Zechariah or in
Daniel or something like this. You run into texts that have
nothing to do, that don't direct me in how I'm supposed to live
my life. And you get frustrated and you
quit reading the Bible because you're looking at a love letter
like a shopping list. If the Bible is not intended to
be read so that we have this picture of Old Testament
history, or the Bible's not intended to be read so that we
get inspired in our relationship with God, or the Bible's not
intended to be read so that we know all do's and don'ts.
And by the way, I should qualify.
Not only do we learn of Israel's history, not only are we
inspired by the Scriptures, not only do we see the way in which
we are supposed to live our lives, but all of those things
happen within the greater point and purpose of why we have the
Scriptures as a whole. Why is God-given us the Bible?
God has given us the Scriptures so that we see His redemptive
work in saving the world. That's why we have the
Scriptures. The scriptures are given to us
so that we can see God at work redeeming the world.
And the focal point of that work is Jesus Christ.
So when we read the scriptures, we read it with the approach to
say, OK, what is God intending when he provided me the
scriptures? What is God-given this Bible for
me? And for that, with that purpose
in mind, I will read the scriptures.
And for that purpose in mind, when we read the scriptures, we
are consistent. I enjoy reading mysteries,
detective stories, that kind of thing.
And when I'm reading detective stories and mysteries, I know
that there's a solution to the story, to the mystery.
And the solution I'm going to get to is only going to happen
at the end of the book. But I read the whole rest of the
book to get to that story, get to the mystery.
And as I'm reading the rest of the story, I'm learning
different things. I'm picking up the clues.
I'm, I'm paying attention because I know there's a mystery
and I know there's a solution, a puzzle at the end, and I'm
reading to get there. When we have the Scriptures we
are reading to get there, we know the solution to the
problem. We know how God's redemption is
intended to work. It is intended to work through
the love and grace of Lord Lord Jesus Christ, through through
his death and resurrection. We know the point that the Bible
is pointing at, and as we read the Old Testament, what we're
doing is we're reading to gain the clues, to gain the insights,
to gain the direction, to see the way that is that Lord has
shaped history, the way that the Lord has shaped our
inspirational walk with the Lord, the way that the Lord has
shaped the moral directives in our lives.
Also, it points to something much greater and beyond our
myself. It points towards Jesus Christ.
Now I encourage you to read the Scriptures in light of God's
purpose for the Bible. God's purpose for the Bible is
to highlight His redemptive per work.
What is He doing in this world and how is He doing it in this
world? If we read the Bible with that
purpose, it is not that in every page of the Scriptures Jesus
comes jumping off the screen where you're going to be reading
in the book of Exodus about the formation of the Tabernacle or
something along those lines, and you're going to be able to say,
well, where is Jesus on this page?
But just like a novel, just like a, a, a true story, which is
being woven for our purposes, so we can see throughout the Old
Testament the work of Christ, work of God leading us to Jesus
Christ. And so when you're reading the
Old Testament and you're bored silly or you're asking yourself,
what does this have to do with me?
You have to ask yourself consistently, how does this lead
me to Jesus Christ? How is this pointing out God's
work of redemption in leading me towards Jesus Christ?
If you, if you read the Bible 5 minutes a day and you ask that
question, I guarantee you if you put any amount of thought into
it at all, every passage of Scripture, you will be able to
say, OK, I can kind of see something here.
I can kind of see, OK, maybe I've exaggerated, maybe it's not
every day you will see that. But overwhelmingly you read the
most frustrating parts of the Old Testament.
The parts where Israel is conquering Canaan land, or the
part where they're sacrificing animals, or where the part where
the prophets are pronouncing doom upon the nation for their
idolatry and their betrayal. If you read it as an
inspirational story, you will eminently be frustrated.
If you read it for the purposes of, well, how am I supposed to
live my life, you will be frustrated.
If you read it for the purposes of Israelite history or cultural
understanding, you'll be frustrated because that's not
the purpose. The author has given you that
material. For the author, God himself has
given you this material so that it might point to the work of
his Son, Jesus Christ. Ask those questions.
If you get a love letter from your beloved and you ask the
questions, how does this letter express her love for me?
The letter makes sense. If you get a love letter from
your beloved and you say, how does this tell me what I'm
supposed to go shopping to get? You will always be frustrated.
And people approach the scriptures exactly the wrong
way. We need to approach them the way
that Stephen has to be able to say how does this point to Jesus
Christ? If you need help getting
started, that's part of the reason why we have a staff here
at the church come up and talk to somebody.
Say I have tried to read the Bible, I've tried just 5 minutes
a day and I can't get past this struggle that I have.
I can't get talk with somebody and see if indeed having an
understanding of what the author intends doesn't give light to
the Bible and to the Scriptures more clearly.
We're going to see how that's the case for Steven.
We're going to look at that next week.
By the time we get here next week, I hope that you've been
convicted enough, not Guild induced, but convicted enough to
spend at least 5 minutes a day with the Scriptures asking the
question, how does this lead me to Jesus Christ?
Let's pray, Lord God, we do ask that you would lead us to
yourself consistently, always through the scriptures.
Lord, shape and mold our lives by the scriptures we pray.
We know that you have given them to us to highlight Jesus Christ.
Not simply to educate us on history, not simply to direct us
in the ways in which we're supposed to live our lives, not
even to inspire us in our relationship with You, but
rather to point us towards Jesus Christ.
We need help to do that. We need the work of your Spirit
to convict us to read the Scriptures, to come before the
Scriptures, and then to explain, to illuminate the scriptures for
us so that when we are reading difficult material, then
nevertheless we see how that highlights the coming work that
your Son has done on the cross for us.
Christ, we pray and thank you for being the source and the
focus of the scriptural material.
Holy Spirit, we ask that you would work in our hearts, guide
us, and direct us more and more into all truthfulness.
We pray through Christ our Lord, we ask these things.
Amen.