Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Maybe you looked ahead at our passage today, , and you are thinking this passage may not be the best Mother’s Day passage - complaining in the church, church almost splits, some guy helps the poor and the widows but gets falsely accused of not being “religious enough” and so gets dragged out of the city and pelted with rocks until he dies.

Happy Mother’s Day!!

So, to link it to Mother’s Day I decided to do some very poor biblical exegesis:

6:1 - ever “hear a complaint rise” (Hellens and Hes?)

v2 - Ever feel like it is just not right for you to serve tables?

(only a few of us can pick out seven to “appoint to the duty.”

v6 - Ever want to “lay . . .

hands on your kids?”

v8 - Mom “full of grace and power. . .

doing great wonders and signs” when the kids rise up and “dispute” with you.

Can’t “withstand your wisdom” and even though they try you “have the face of an angel.”

7:1-50 - Moms: Ever give your kids a speech that lasts 50 verses only to end with “You stiff-necked people?”“As your father did, so do you!”

V51 - ever call your child “stiff-necked?”

v57 - only to have your kids “cry out with a loud voice and stop their ears at you?”

We’ll stop before I make the analogy to stoning

v60 - you fall you your knees and cry out with a loud voice “Jesus, take the wheel!” (Wait, no) “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.”

and when you say that they fall asleep.

Actually, this passage fits with Mother’s Day because, as we talked about in our Child Dedication/Parent Commissioning, parents - mothers, you are the primary disciplemakers for your children.

You are the first and primary witness they have for Jesus and the gospel.

“Witness” = an individual who, being present, personally sees or perceives a thing; a beholder, spectator, or eyewitness.

(Dictionary.com)

ILLUST - Worst Witness / Best Witness

Worst Witness - The Burger King employee eating at McDonalds.

Best witness - 5-star rating from a verified purchaser on Amazon.

Importance of the Christian witness:

Kenneth Scott Latourette, respected history professor at Yale said:

The most thought-provoking set of facts in human history is that in spite of its seemingly absurdly inauspicious start, within five centuries Christianity won the professed allegiance of the overwhelming majority of the Greco-Roman world, that it survived the demise of that world, and that within nineteen centuries . . . it penetrated to practically every corner of the inhabited globe and became a moulding force in every great cultural area of mankind.

“Never in so short a time has any other religious faith—or for that matter any other set of ideas, religious, political or economic— ever achieved so commanding a position in such an important culture without the aid of physical force, or social or cultural prestige.”

(Other movements spread by conquest or politics, but not Christianity).

It is no different today.

The world craves someone who can give a five-star rating on a verified purchase of something that is true and can bring meaning, purpose, and peace in this life.

The most powerful proof of the veracity and momentum for the spread of Christianity lies in the lives, the love, and the words of fully devoted witnesses changed by Jesus.

Wherever you are on your faith journey - needing a witness or needing to be a witness, Stephen’s story in will help us answer the question: What does a fully-devoted witness look like?

Let’s start with the story:

Acts 6:1

6 Now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution.

‘complaint’ = murmuring

same word used in LXX in -3:

2 And the whole congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness, 3 and the people of Israel said to them, “Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”

2 sinister weapons Satan uses to disable, distract, and destroy churches:

Suspicion

“I think. .

.,” “I thought. .

.,” “I wonder. .

.,” “I bet. .

.”

Hellenists ASSUMED the Hebrews were skipping over their widows on purpose

Subversion

“Because of our suspicion, we have a moral obligation to. .

.”

I

This is Satan’s third major attack on the church:

- In he attacked it through a persecuting gov’t;

- In he attacked it through the embezzling hypocrisy of one of its leaders, Ananias

- In he attacked it through a spirit of grumbling; distrust; backbiting.

This might be the most serious threat that endangers churches.

of one of its leaders, Ananias

- In he attacked it through a spirit of grumbling; distrust; backbiting.

This might be the most serious threat that endangers churches.

distrust; backbiting.

This might be the most serious threat that endangers churches.

Satan does not need to bring persecution from outside the church if the church is persecuting itself on the inside.

Starts with a grumble, then turns to a rumble about a fumble or a bumble, but then gossip makes it double and causes trouble and turns the entire church to rubble.

Cure for Complaint:

(Suspicion) Believe the best until you know.

(Subversion) Go (to the source) instead of gossip.

2 And the twelve summoned the full number of the disciples and said, “It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables.

3 Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty.

4 But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” 5 And what they said pleased the whole gathering, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolaus, a proselyte of Antioch.

6 These they set before the apostles, and they prayed and laid their hands on them.

Apostles NOT saying that serving tables was too menial of a task for them, only that their primary way to serve was through the ministry of the word.

It was a matter of role not of worth.

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.

Increase, number multiplied greatly, great many

It has been estimated that there were eight thousand Jewish priests attached to the temple ministry in Jerusalem, and “a great company” of them trusted Jesus Christ as Savior!

8 And Stephen, full of grace and power, was doing great wonders and signs among the people.

9 Then some of those

who belonged to the synagogue of the Freedmen (as it was called), and of the Cyrenians, and of the Alexandrians, and of those from Cilicia and Asia, rose up and disputed with Stephen. 10 But they could not withstand the wisdom and the Spirit with which he was speaking.

11 Then they secretly instigated men who said, “We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God.”

12 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, 13 and they set up false witnesses who said, “This man never ceases to speak words against this holy place and the law, 14 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.” 15 And gazing at him, all who sat in the council saw that his face was like the face of an angel.

Main charge: speaking against the Temple and the Law

Stephen messed with their religion

speaking against the Temple and the Law

Chapter 7

Stephen’s sermon (the gospel)

Abraham

God is bigger than they imagined

Not just for Jews

(2)The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran,

v 8 - Isaac, Jacob, 12 patriarchs

Covenant

God wants people to be with Him

v 9 - Joseph

People are stuck in their slavery to sin

v 20 - Moses

v 34 “I have come down to deliver them”

God comes down to save us

v 45 - Joshua, David, Solomon

Place of rest in the Promised Land

(49)“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?