Templars

Acts  •  Sermon  •  Submitted   •  Presented   •  32:56
0 ratings
· 25 views
Files
Notes
Transcript
Sermon Tone Analysis
A
D
F
J
S
Emotion
A
C
T
Language
O
C
E
A
E
Social
View more →

Templars

Today, we hear one of the most offensive sermons of all time. A sermon so offensive that… well, let’s start at the end.
Acts 7:54–60 ESV
Now when they heard these things they were enraged, and they ground their teeth at him. 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 opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” 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. 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.
A sermon so offensive the people listening went blind with rage, picked up stones and killed the preacher.
They loved the temple SO MUCH. That’s hard to get our head around.
Sacred camp. Yesterday we picked up the boys from camp, and they were just SO full of everything they had learned and experienced there. Exhausted but full of fun. Mostly we heard about pranks on the girls, but they presented all these things they had learned about God and sang these songs.
I had coffee with a former-camper the other day. “That’s where God is!” I wish I could get back there.
That is the attitude they had toward the temple. That is where God is, where God stuff happens, that is sacred, and the center of sacred life.
God outside of temple is unimaginable.
If it isn’t camp for you, imagine the place you most experience God. The way you most experience God. And someone comes and says “you can’t do THAT anymore!”
Which leads us back to the most offensive sermon! You want to hear it?

The Most Offensive Sermon

The Setup

False witnesses and slander. They can’t tackle the apostles (too popular). Get the new guy!
Acts 6:8–15 ESV
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 Cyrenians, and of the Alexandrians, and of those from Cilicia and Asia, rose up and disputed with Stephen. But they could not withstand the wisdom and the Spirit with which he 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.
Again arrayed before a Congressional Hearing (council). All the religious leaders vs angel boy.
Acts 7:1 ESV
And the high priest said, “Are these things so?”

The Speech

And Stephen doesn’t directly answer the question. Instead he tells them a story. Their story, the story of the great men of their shared history, a sweeping summary of salvation history. And he starts with their patriarch, Abraham.

Abraham

Acts 7:2–8 ESV
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 four hundred years. ‘But I will judge the nation that they serve,’ said God, ‘and after that 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 twelve patriarchs.

Joseph

Acts 7:9–16 ESV
“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, and 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.

Moses

Acts 7:17–45 ESV
“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. “When he was forty 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 them 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, you are 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. “Now when forty 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 as 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 are standing is holy ground. I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their groaning, and I have come down to deliver them. And now come, I will send you to Egypt.’ “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 to 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.’ “Our fathers had the tent of witness in the wilderness, just as he who spoke to Moses directed him to make it, according to the pattern that he had seen. Our fathers in turn brought it in with Joshua when they dispossessed the nations that God drove out before our fathers. So it was until the days of David,

David and Solomon

Acts 7:46–50 ESV
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, “ ‘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?’
Man does he know his Scriptures!
No bible in hand. Just full of knowledge, full of Wisdom, full of the Holy Spirit, Stephen goes at it. And what is his main point?
Abraham - man of faith, connected with God… no temple.
Isaac, same, Jacob, same, Joseph, same.
Moses? No temple. Tabernacle, sure, but Moses ordered that made after hearing it from God himself. Did he need a temple to do that? No!
David, no temple. Solomon built the first temple. And what did God say to David before Solomon built it?
The Most High does not dwell in houses made by hands. He isn’t limited, he isn’t contained.
And these people are so obsessed with the temple they are missing what God is doing right in front of them!
They are obsessed with Place and missing the Person of God.

True Religion

Acts 7:51–53 ESV
“You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. 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, you who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it.”
God is a God of people… not places. It isn’t about the temple or the trappings of power and religion. It is about people. The person of the Holy Spirit, the person of God the Father, the person of the Righteous Son.
The listeners are, again, so enraged at this they rise up, crying out with loud voices to stop their ears, and stone them.
But Stephen’s eyes are on the personal.
Acts 7:55–56 ESV
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 opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”
You see the whole Trinity there? Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Stephen’s eyes are on the God of persons. Their eyes and ears and hearts of so full of the place of God, they are missing, even REJECTING the what God is doing right in front of them!
Was the temple important? Yes. Had gone worked through this temple for hundreds of years? Yes. They aren’t crazy to love the temple, it was amazing and beautiful, and I believe true and beautiful worship and sacrifice took place there.
But God was doing a new thing. One of the most persuasive arguments for Acts being written before AD 70 is that the temple was destroyed in that year. How could Luke NOT mention here: and this same temple was to be destroyed in fulfillment of these things.
But God was never locked down to the temple. He was always connecting with His people.
They had such strong expectations about where to find God and how God would and would not act… that they missed Him.
Isn’t that terrifying? They missed Him. They resisted Him.

Where is Your Temple?

Where do you expect God to show up?
Probably for all the best reasons. Because he Has shown up that way to you before. Because you feel close to God there. Maybe it’s camp. Maybe it’s here. Maybe it is in your prayer closet at home.
There is nothing wrong with that! I hope we have favorite places of worship, favorite ways to connect with God. I hope that we have expectations about finding God the ways that we have found Him before.
I hope that we have disciplines and habits of behavior that have been fruitful!
But, oh God, let me not be blind if and when you are speaking in a new way!
Let me be wide open to Your Persons instead of my places. Let me hear You beyond the patterns I have laid in my life...
beyond my own striving to reach up, let me see how You are reaching me.
As we pray about what God has next for our church, we have expectations about how that might look. May we be SO incredibly open to how He wants it to look. What if He is doing a new thing that doesn’t fit in our structures… or in our programs… or in our building?
I want to see heaven opened up, Jesus standing at the right hand of the Father, and be full of the Holy Spirit.
Our church, full of the Holy Spirit.
And so, we pray now, that God would give us eyes to see what He is doing in us and among us. For He is ever and always building us into His temple. That we might be His dwelling place.
Let’s spend time in His presence, surrendering our expectations, our holy places even, that we might sit in His personal, holy presence.
Related Media
See more
Related Sermons
See more