A SET UP
Acts 6.8-15
S: New Covenant
C: Adapting to Change
Th: A People with Purpose
Pr: WE CAN ADJUST TO THE CHANGE GOD BRINGS.
Type: Narrative
PA: How is the change to be observed?
• Be a person of faith, like Stephen – a man of character and courage.
• Adjust yourself, adjust your presuppositions, and enjoy the new thing God wants to do in you.
Version: ESV
RMBC 12 March 06 AM
INTRODUCTION:
ILL Adjust
A little boy was overheard talking to himself as he strutted through the backyard, wearing his baseball cap and toting a ball and bat: “I’m the greatest hitter in the world,” he announced.
Then, he tossed the ball into the air, swung at it, and missed.
“Strike One!” he yelled. Undaunted, he picked up the ball and said again, “I’m the greatest hitter in the world!”
He tossed the ball into the air. When it came down he swung again and missed. “Strike Two!” he cried.
The boy then paused a moment to examine his bat and ball carefully. He spit on his hands and rubbed them together. He straightened his cap and said once more, “I’m the greatest hitter in the world!”
Again he tossed the ball up in the air and swung at it. He missed. “Strike Three!”
“Wow!” he exclaimed. “I’m the greatest pitcher in the world!”
Well, you have to admit, the young man knew how to adjust.
How about you?
1. Do you adjust well to changing circumstances?
When things are changing around you, can you take it?
Are you able to accept change?
Or do you resist it?
When we began our study in the 6th chapter of Acts, we saw that…
2. The apostles proved that they could both, keep their priorities, and change (1-4).
When there was conflict in the church, they understood where they needed a firm grip and where they needed a loose one.
They needed to be firm when it came to their priorities – their God-given priorities – the Word and prayer.
They also needed to be loose with areas of responsibilities that could be done by others.
They could not be doing everything.
And the service to the poor was important, but they could not be everywhere.
You see…
3. They understood God had gifted others (5-6).
So they asked the believers in the church to look for men of God, men of faith, leaders who were wise and had an excellent reputation.
These were the type of people that were needed to solve this situation.
So the church found them.
They were Stephen, Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas and Nicolaus – all Greek names, by the way – not a Jewish name in the bunch.
Then the apostles appointed them.
They were given the problem, trusted with it, and they solved it.
Interestingly…
4. Adapting to the situation made the church more effective (7).
The ministry of the Word of God was more successful.
Now, more and more people were coming to understand Jesus as the Messiah.
The church regained its effectiveness and began to reproduce again.
Surprisingly, adjusting to the difficulty allowed the church to have an effectiveness in an area they probably did not expect.
It was the priests.
The text tells us that a great many became obedient to the faith.
This phenomena brought on another conflict.
For…
5. Priests coming to the faith accentuated the tension between the old and new covenants (Jeremiah 31.31-33).
It was the prophet Jeremiah that had announced a new covenant.
He wrote:
"Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
That which God had promised through the prophet Jeremiah had been fulfilled.
The problem was that the Jewish elite had not recognized it as so.
Because the Messiah had not come they way they thought he should have come, they fiercely held on to the status quo.
It was not in their theological framework that God might actually work differently than they way they interpreted the Hebrew Scriptures.
But in Acts 6, many priests are getting it.
They see that Jesus is the promise of the New Covenant fulfilled.
In the middle of this tension is one of the men that was appointed to help with solving the conflict in the church.
And so…
6. The tension climaxes with Stephen.
Stephen makes the first theological case of the superiority of Jesus over Moses.
For those that were in religious power, though, this was an unacceptable conclusion.
So as we study of events of Stephen today, and the next two weeks, we are going to see that his actions are going to bring change.
For the church has, up to this point, pretty much stayed in Jerusalem.
When the story of Stephen finishes, that will no longer be true.
So, let’s seek to understand the person of Stephen better…
OUR STUDY:
First, we see that he is a man of…
CHARACTER (8)
And Stephen, full of grace and power, was doing great wonders and signs among the people.
9. Stephen was a man of God.
Again, we know that he was man that was highly esteemed.
Because this was so, he is the first chosen to serve in the capacity of would later be an office of the church – a deacon.
He was an excellent choice.
He was a man that had abandoned self and had given himself wholly for God.
A man full of faith, he was doing mighty works.
Yielded to Spirit’s control, he was a man of grace.
I like how John Stott has described him…
10. Stephen was a man of sweetness and strength.
Merged into one personality was a man that knew how to be a servant and a man of power, doing the very miracles of God.
It is an unusual combination.
These were not the only gifts and passions of Stephen, for apparently, he has been teaching in the synagogues as well.
It has been a message of change, of an old covenant to a new one.
The trouble comes in the synagogue of the Freedmen.
It would have been a Greek-based teaching center of former slaves.
They were Jewish, but had been slaves in Africa and Asia Minor, were freed, and returned to Palestine.
So it is here that we understand that Stephen is a man of…
COURAGE (9-14)
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."
11. Stephen was an effective debater.
What is being described in the text is a formal debate between Stephen and Jewish theologians.
It would have been a formal process, with the basic premises accepted.
But there was a problem during the debate.
They had not reckoned on a man of this caliber.
He had energy and zeal, a potent delivery, and unarguable truth.
Stephen won the debate, but they refused to accept his conclusions.
They were scandalous.
They were revolutionary.
They were unacceptable.
You see…
12. Stephen had successfully argued about Jesus’ fulfillment of the law.
The issue is always Jesus.
And as we see with succeeding text that we will study next week, Stephen understood Jesus as the Messiah.
We can be sure that in explaining the death and resurrection of Jesus, he pointed out the necessary conclusion.
It is Jesus who saves.
It is not the temple.
It is not the law.
They are unable.
They are unable to save.
This was the catch, of course.
Nothing was more sacred…
Nothing was more precious to the Jews…
…than the temple and the law.
The temple was the holy place, the place of God’s presence.
The law was the revelation of God’s mind and will.
We can be sure that Stephen had faithfully echoed the teaching of Jesus.
As a result, he was setting himself up for the same result Jesus had.
For just as it was for Jesus…
13. If you can’t beat someone, distort the truth (John 2.19; Matthew 26.61, 27.40; Hebrews 7.25, 10.10-12; Revelation 21.22-23).
We all know that if you can’t win in a debate, go to the next best thing.
Smear your opponent.
Use mud.
The Jewish leadership is determined to discredit Stephen.
But notice what they cannot do.
They cannot use the material he used in the debate.
What he had said was legitimate and logical.
So they had to resort to distortion.
They had to come up with false testimony.
But it was not to be an across-the-board fabrication.
No…
Instead, there was a subtle, misrepresentation of the words he had actually spoken.
In a sense, we understand why they would go to such lengths.
Stephen was challenging the status quo.
He was threatening the establishment.
For Stephen was saying that Jesus had replaced the temple.
The sacrifices were no longer need.
Blood flowing out for atonement, it was no longer needed.
All the activities of the priest – no longer needed.
Frankly, they were out of a job.
This was the ultimate meaning of the tearing of the temple curtain when Jesus died.
It was the sign from God.
The walls were coming down.
The new covenant was being established.
The temple was no longer the exclusive place of the glory of God.
For on the cross, Jesus fulfilled the law.
The ceremonial law was over because it had found its fulfillment in Jesus.
It was replaced.
He was the One and only sacrifice for sins.
He was the One and only high priest.
He was the One and only habitation of the fullness of the glory of God.
It was bad news for these leaders, for the reality of the cross replaced the ritual of the temple.
The temple and law were superseded by Jesus.
It is not that the temple and law were unimportant.
In one sense, their importance was magnified, not denigrated.
It was a message, though, that the leadership found intolerable.
The text tells us that they stirred up the people, literally, “to throw into a commotion.”
It was an appeal to the negative emotions of a crowd, so that Stephen was dragged away.
It is a description of one being seized with violence.
Now, Stephen is in the hands of an angry mob.
But our author does not want us to miss his…
COUNTENANCE (15)
And gazing at him, all who sat in the council saw that his face was like the face of an angel.
God gives Stephen a gift…
14. Stephen received God’s approval, just like Moses (cf. Exodus 34.27-35).
It is a gracious gift, for he gives him a shining face, just like Moses.
When he came down from Mt. Sinai, the face of Moses shone because he had been in the presence of God.
Note how it is described in the book of Exodus:
29 When Moses came down from Mount Sinai, with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand as he came down from the mountain, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God. 30 Aaron and all the people of Israel saw Moses, and behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him.
God was showing His approval.
God had shown His approval to Moses and the ministry of the law.
And God was showing His approval once again, this time of Stephen and His interpretation of the law.
Don’t underestimate the importance of this.
For as we continue our study, we are going to discover that Stephen is going to die for speaking this truth.
We are also going to note that the Jewish leaders were willing to kill for it.
And, we are going to understand that Luke (our author) also considers it of supreme importance.
For he gives more room to Stephen’s sermon than any other message in his writing.
APPLICATION:
So, what are to take from today’s passage?
There is no doubt, I want to encourage you to be a person of faith like Stephen.
But he is also an example of what Dietrich Bonhoeffer would call “costly grace.”
To say grace is free is not telling the whole story.
There is a cost to discipleship.
For Stephen, it is the end of his earthly life.
We will take this concept up a bit more in the following weeks.
The primary lesson today, though, comes from the Jewish leaders themselves who were unable to adapt to what God was doing in their midst.
For…
15. WE ARE ABLE TO ADJUST TO THE CHANGES GOD BRINGS.
We should always want the changes God brings, even if we don’t understand them.
I have found it fascinating how much churches can be like the Jewish leadership and just turn away from the good things God is doing.
This happens because we don’t want to stray from our old ways that are tried and true.
It happens because we don’t want to be confused with the facts.
It happens because “we never did it that way before.”
But as I have said before (I repeated it over and over in the messages this past June), if there is any person that ought to be used to change, it is the Christian.
The Christian ought to be able to adapt to change because God is constantly and lovingly calling on us to change, to become more like Him.
ILL Change
John Ortberg has written about an experience he had in ministry, probably almost 20 years ago. He writes:
Ned has attended the same church for more than four decades. He was, by all accounts, a crabby little kid who grew into a crabby young man.
After his religious conversion, he joined the church and became a crabby Christian.
He gives no evidence of uncertainty in his faith. He believes the Bible from cover to cover, and he believes the cover is genuine leather.
But there doesn’t seem to be any record over the last forty years of Ned ever changing his disposition, his mind, his expression, or his pew.
He complained to me one day about the lack of commitment of young people in the church, and he launched into a litany of his own daily devotional habits.
But Ned, I thought, you’re still crabby. You’ve crabbed your way through 14,200 quiet times without changing. What’s the point of doing all this religious activity and still being the crabgrass in the ecclesiastical lawn?
Source: Ortberg, John Jr. "What Changes at Conversion." Leadership Summer 1991: Vol. 12.3
Let’s admit this…
We always seem willing for others to change.
We are extra slow about it, though, when it comes to our selves.
But you see…
God wants to bring marvelous change into our lives, both as individuals and as a church.
Let’s rejoice in the change of the new covenant.
Let’s rejoice in the change that Jesus has brought into our lives.
And let’s rejoice in the new things He desires to continue to do in us.
We can do it.
By following this simple admonition that Stephen obviously lived…
16. We should always have a firm grip on Scripture and a loose hand on the status quo.
You see…
I believe God wants us to change.
He wants us to deliberately become more Christlike every day.
It is then we experience the blessing God has for us.
BENEDICTION: [Counselors are ]
Now may your love abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best; and may you be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.
Amen.
RESOURCES:
SermonCentral:
Coget, A. Todd The Face of an Angel
MacKinnet, Jon Conviction
Piper, John Stephen’s Crime: “Jesus Will Destroy the Temple”
Ricks, Billy Stephen: A Man of Godly Character
Stedman, Ray C. What More Can He Say?
Books:
Barclay, William. The Acts of the Apostles. Revised ed. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1977.
Bruce, F. F. Commentary on the Book of the Acts The New International Commentary on the New Testament, ed. F. F. Bruce. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1975.
MacArthur, John, Jr. Acts 1-12 The MacArthur New Testament Commentary. Chicago: Moody Press, 1994.
Stott, John R. W. The Spirit, the Church, and the World. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1990.
