Sermon Tone Analysis
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Dear Congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ,
A prophet is a person who receives the Word of the Lord and proclaims it.
God’s Word usually reveals God to those who listen.
His Word reveals God in all his holiness and in his love; the Lord’s justice and his mercy.
Stephen is a prophet who brings the Word of the Lord.
The Gospel, delivered in Word and Deed, by Stephen has aroused opposition by people who do not recognize God’s Word, by people who have not responded to God’s grace.
This opposition has brought Stephen to trial on some serious charges.
He is known as a follower of Jesus, so there is some guilt by association.
After all Jesus had been tried by this court and found guilty of blasphemy.
Eventually, Jesus had been put to death for his teaching.
Like Jesus, Stephen is facing a charge of blasphemy.
He faces the death penalty if convicted.
In his defense, Stephen refers to the history of how God’s Word was brought to God’s chosen people through their history.
His focus is on the five books of Moses, the most respected texts in the Jewish Scripture.
Perhaps it is ambitious, but I’d like to look through Stephen’s defense in the sermon this morning.
As we do so, we’ll notice that there is a conflict going on.
God’s Word is revealed, but there is resistance to God’s Word.
The sinful nature of this world and the stain of sin among God’s people cause them to resist God’s call to holiness and righteousness.
They feel threatened by God’s presence among them, and have trouble hearing and responding to the Word of the Lord.
Nevertheless, God’s grace prevails.
Stephen’s defense highlights the ministry of three prophets, people used by God to bring God’s Word and demonstrate God’s grace and redemption for his people.
I. Abraham (Acts 7:2-8)
II.
Joseph (Acts 7:9-19
III.
Moses (Acts 7:20-50)
I.
Abraham (Acts 7:2-8)
[When] the high priest asked him, “Are these charges true?”
[Stephen] replied: “Brothers and fathers, listen to me!
The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham while he was still in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran.
3 ‘Leave your country and your people,’ God said, ‘and go to the land I will show you.’ a
The Word of God came to Moses, with a call to service, but also a promise of love, a promise of land and descendents to inherit that land.
Abraham responded in faith:
4 “So he left the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran.
After the death of his father, God sent him to this land where you are now living.
5 He gave him no inheritance here, not even a foot of ground.
But God promised him that he and his descendants after him would possess the land, even though at that time Abraham had no child.
6 God spoke to him in this way: ‘Your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years.
7 But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves,’ God said, ‘and afterward they will come out of that country and worship me in this place.’
b
The sinful forces of the world will resist God’s will.
But God knows in advance how things will God.
His grace will prevail.
8 Then he gave Abraham the covenant of circumcision.
And Abraham became the father of Isaac and circumcised him eight days after his birth.
Later Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob became the father of the twelve patriarchs.
God’s promises, are sealed to Abraham and his descendants through the bloody sign and seal of circumcision.
It is a seal of God’s promise to be their God, and they will be his people.
God’s Word of grace will not fail.
But opposition to God’s Word will arise.
Sinful thoughts and actions will arise that resist God’s plan of Grace.
Fear and evil will crop up on the field of God’s grace.
We see that in Jacob’s family.
Stephen respectfully refers to them as the patriarchs, but not all was well in Jacob’s home.
Jacob was guilty of favouritism, Joseph may have been guilty of lording it over his brothers, and the other patriarch succumbed to jealousy and evil.
So starts the account of God’s grace revealed through Joseph:
II.
Joseph (Acts 7:9-19)
9 “Because the patriarchs were jealous of Joseph, they sold him as a slave into Egypt.
But God was with him 10 and rescued him from all his troubles.
He gave Joseph wisdom and enabled him to gain the goodwill of Pharaoh king of Egypt; so he made him ruler over Egypt and all his palace.
God’s gift of wisdom and care follow Joseph through his trials in Egypt.
As a slave in a foreign land, Joseph hears God’s Word and proclaims it both in prison and in the throne room.
He became the means by which God saved the descendents of Israel, and revealed his grace among the Egyptians and all nations.
11 “Then a famine struck all Egypt and Canaan, bringing great suffering, and our fathers could not find food.
12 When Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent our fathers on their first visit.
13 On their second visit, Joseph told his brothers who he was, and Pharaoh learned about Joseph’s family.
14 After this, Joseph sent for his father Jacob and his whole family, seventy-five in all.
15 Then Jacob went down to Egypt, where he and our fathers died.
16 Their bodies were brought back to Shechem and placed in the tomb that Abraham had bought from the sons of Hamor at Shechem for a certain sum of money.
17 “As the time drew near for God to fulfill his promise to Abraham, the number of our people in Egypt greatly increased.
18 Then another king, who knew nothing about Joseph, became ruler of Egypt.
19 He dealt treacherously with our people and oppressed our forefathers by forcing them to throw out their newborn babies so that they would die.
This other king knew nothing of God’s care and grace demonstrated to the Egyptians and Israelites when the Word of the Lord came through Joseph.
This king’s fear and insecurity cause him to deal harshly with God’s chosen people.
The sinful nature of this king brings him in conflict with God’s promises.
Yet Pharaoh and all his army cannot hold back God’s grace.
God’s Word of grace, holiness, and love is revealed through the prophet Moses.
In fact, God’s Word is revealed as clearly through the service of Moses as at any other time in the OT.
His ministry points ahead to the work of God’s Word become flesh, namely, Jesus Christ.
Like many prophets when they bring God’s Word, Moses faces resistance and rejection.
Like many prophets, Moses needed to learn to follow God’s plan and timing, rather than his own.
III.
Moses (Acts 7:20-50)
20 “At that time Moses was born, and he was no ordinary child.
c For three months he was cared for in his father’s house.
21 When he was placed outside, Pharaoh’s daughter took him and brought him up as her own son.
22 Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in speech and action.
23 “When Moses was forty years old, he decided to visit his fellow Israelites.
24 He saw one of them being mistreated by an Egyptian, so he went to his defense and avenged him by killing the Egyptian.
25 Moses thought that his own people would realize that God was using him to rescue them, but they did not.
26 The next day Moses came upon two Israelites who were fighting.
He tried to reconcile them by saying, ‘Men, you are brothers; why do you want to hurt each other?’
27 “But the man who was mistreating the other pushed Moses aside and said, ‘Who made you ruler and judge over us? 28 Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?’
d 29 When Moses heard this, he fled to Midian, where he settled as a foreigner and had two sons.
Fear for his own safety and resistance among God’s people drive Moses away.
Yet God’s Word calls him back, so that God truly would use Moses to rescue his own people – but according to God’s plan and timing.
30 “After forty years had passed, an angel appeared to Moses in the flames of a burning bush in the desert near Mount Sinai.
31 When he saw this, he was amazed at the sight.
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