How We Worship Systems Rather than God
Acts • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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· 2 views[NOTE TO TEACHER] The focus of this lesson is on the human tendency to build cultural, religious, social, and even political systems around God. These systems are really intended to help us feel safe and in control, and make an infinite God feel more understandable. This lesson explores how Stephen rebukes human systems by attacking the priority his people placed on the Temple in Jerusalem, and the Holy Land as a whole. The goal of the lesson is to encourage people to question the systems they have built and see how they may by trying to squeeze God into those systems - thereby resisting God’s Spirit and His work in their lives.
Notes
Transcript
Sunday, July 2 2023
Sunday, July 2 2023
Introductory information
Introductory information
We started in the last lesson to explore Stephens speech to the Sanhedrin, after he was arrested on false accusations
The accusations were namely that he was advocating for:
the destruction of the Temple
an end to the customs, traditions, the Law and their religious system
These accusations weren’t totally untrue - but they were twisting and misrepresenting his words
Stephen was threatening his people’s “system”
A “system” is a way of doing things and a way of thinking about things
There are three big ideas that repeat through Stephen’s argument that we are unpacking over three lessons
In the last lesson, we looked at the first of these three ideas: God works through innovation and change
Today we will look at the second of these three big ideas
READ
READ
Question to consider as we read:
Question to consider as we read:
Where can you find God’s blessing?
2 “Brothers and fathers,” he replied, “listen: The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he settled in Haran, 3 and said to him: Leave your country and relatives, and come to the land that I will show you. 4 “Then he left the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran. From there, after his father died, God had him move to this land in which you are now living. 5 He didn’t give him an inheritance in it—not even a foot of ground—but he promised to give it to him as a possession, and to his descendants after him, even though he was childless. 6 God spoke in this way: His descendants would be strangers in a foreign country, and they would enslave and oppress them for four hundred years. 7 I will judge the nation that they will serve as slaves, God said. After this, they will come out and worship me in this place. 8 And so he gave Abraham the covenant of circumcision. After this, he fathered Isaac and circumcised him on the eighth day. Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob became the father of the twelve patriarchs. 9 “The patriarchs became jealous of Joseph and sold him into Egypt, but God was with him 10 and rescued him out of all his troubles. He gave him favor and wisdom in the sight of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, who appointed him ruler over Egypt and over his whole household. 11 Now a famine and great suffering came over all of Egypt and Canaan, and our ancestors could find no food. 12 When Jacob heard there was grain in Egypt, he sent our ancestors there the first time. 13 The second time, Joseph revealed himself to his brothers, and Joseph’s family became known to Pharaoh. 14 Joseph invited his father Jacob and all his relatives, seventy-five people in all, 15 and Jacob went down to Egypt. He and our ancestors died there, 16 were carried back to Shechem, and were placed in the tomb that Abraham had bought for a sum of silver from the sons of Hamor in Shechem. 17 “As the time was approaching to fulfill the promise that God had made to Abraham, the people flourished and multiplied in Egypt 18 until a different king who did not know Joseph ruled over Egypt. 19 He dealt deceitfully with our race and oppressed our ancestors by making them abandon their infants outside so that they wouldn’t survive. 20 At this time Moses was born, and he was beautiful in God’s sight. He was cared for in his father’s home for three months. 21 When he was put outside, Pharaoh’s daughter adopted and raised him as her own son. 22 So Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in his speech and actions. 23 “When he was forty years old, he decided to visit his own people, the Israelites. 24 When he saw one of them being mistreated, he came to his rescue and avenged the oppressed man by striking down the Egyptian. 25 He assumed his people would understand that God would give them deliverance through him, but they did not understand. 26 The next day he showed up while they were fighting and tried to reconcile them peacefully, saying, ‘Men, you are brothers. Why are you mistreating each other?’ 27 “But the one who was mistreating his neighbor pushed Moses aside, saying: Who appointed you a ruler and a judge over us? 28 Do you want to kill me, the same way you killed the Egyptian yesterday? 29 “When he heard this, Moses fled and became an exile in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons. 30 After forty years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in the flame of a burning bush. 31 When Moses saw it, he was amazed at the sight. As he was approaching to look at it, the voice of the Lord came: 32 I am the God of your ancestors—the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob. Moses began to tremble and did not dare to look. 33 “The Lord said to him: Take off the sandals from your feet, because the place where you are standing is holy ground. 34 I have certainly seen the oppression of my people in Egypt; I have heard their groaning and have come down to set them free. And now, come, I will send you to Egypt. 35 “This Moses, whom they rejected when they said, Who appointed you a ruler and a judge?—this one God sent as a ruler and a deliverer through the angel who appeared to him in the bush. 36 This man led them out and performed wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, at the Red Sea, and in the wilderness for forty years. 37 “This is the Moses who said to the Israelites: God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers. 38 He is the one who was in the assembly in the wilderness, with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our ancestors. He received living oracles to give to us. 39 Our ancestors were unwilling to obey him. Instead, they pushed him aside, and in their hearts turned back to Egypt. 40 They told Aaron: Make us gods who will go before us. As for this Moses who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we don’t know what’s happened to him. 41 They even made a calf in those days, offered sacrifice to the idol, and were celebrating what their hands had made. 42 God turned away and gave them up to worship the stars of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets: House of Israel, did you bring me offerings and sacrifices for forty years in the wilderness? 43 You took up the tent of Moloch and the star of your god Rephan, the images that you made to worship. So I will send you into exile beyond Babylon. 44 “Our ancestors had the tabernacle of the testimony in the wilderness, just as he who spoke to Moses commanded him to make it according to the pattern he had seen. 45 Our ancestors in turn received it and with Joshua brought it in when they dispossessed the nations that God drove out before them, until the days of David. 46 He found favor in God’s sight and asked that he might provide a dwelling place for the God of Jacob. 47 It was Solomon, rather, who built him a house, 48 but the Most High does not dwell in sanctuaries made with hands, as the prophet says: 49 Heaven is my throne, and the earth my footstool. What sort of house will you build for me? says the Lord, or what will be my resting place? 50 Did not my hand make all these things? 51 “You stiff-necked people with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You are always resisting the Holy Spirit. As your ancestors did, you do also. 52 Which of the prophets did your ancestors not persecute? They even killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One, whose betrayers and murderers you have now become. 53 You received the law under the direction of angels and yet have not kept it.”
EXAMINE
EXAMINE
What are some key points in this passage?
What are some key points in this passage?
#1 | The Second Idea: God’s blessing doesn’t only exist in certain places
#1 | The Second Idea: God’s blessing doesn’t only exist in certain places
Some of Israel’s greatest blessings and callings happened outside of the land and the Temple
This idea also tracks from Abraham to Solomon
The Calling of Abraham
Acts 7:2 “...The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he settled in Haran,”
Abraham received his blessing outside the Holy Land
The Favor on Joseph
Acts 7:9-10 “The patriarchs… sold him into Egypt, but God was with him and… gave him favor and wisdom in the sight of Pharaoh... who appointed him ruler over Egypt...”
Joseph had favor because God was with Him, not because he was in an ancestral place
The Commissioning of Moses
Acts 7:29-30 “Moses fled and became an exile in the land of Midian… an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai...”
Moses received his calling while living in the middle of nowhere
Acts 7:33 “The Lord said to him: Take off the sandals from your feet, because the place where you are standing is holy ground.”
That “nowhere” ground became holy when God showed up
The Giving of God’s Law
Acts 7:38 “...in the assembly in the wilderness, with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai… He received living oracles to give to us.”
Israel corporately received God’s Law, once again, in the middle of nowhere
The Tabernacle
Acts 7:44-45 “Our ancestors had the tabernacle of the testimony in the wilderness… and with Joshua brought it in when they dispossessed the nations that God drove out before them, until the days of David.”
The first temple, the Tabernacle, was built outside of the Holy Land and brought in with them when God gave them the land
The Temple
Acts 7:48-49 “...the Most High does not dwell in sanctuaries made with hands, as the prophet says: Heaven is my throne, and the earth my footstool. What sort of house will you build for me? says the Lord...”
God blessed the Temple, as long as the people understood that He could not and would not be confined to that Temple
#2 | By showing that God’s blessing doesn’t only exist in certain places, Stephen attacks the premise of their accusation
#2 | By showing that God’s blessing doesn’t only exist in certain places, Stephen attacks the premise of their accusation
There was some truth to their accusations, but their premise was wrong (1)
Acts 6:14 “For we heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs that Moses handed down to us.”
Stephen was saying:
Jesus, not the Temple, would now be the center of their faith
Jesus was the final sacrifice, the completion and fulfillment of their ceremonial Law and customs
Acts 6:11 ...“We heard him speaking blasphemous words against Moses and God.”
Stephen was not speaking against Moses or God
He was speaking against the people’s beliefs and assumptions
Stephen was rebuking the priority they had placed on the Temple and their traditions
He is showing how they were worshiping their system (culture, heritage, and institutions) rather than God Himself
Acts 7:51 “You stiff-necked people with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You are always resisting the Holy Spirit...”
Saying that their hearts were “uncircumcised” was a reference to the layers of beliefs, expectations, and priorities that they wouldn’t allow God to cut away
APPLY
APPLY
[Pose the following questions for group discussion, offering the suggested answers below only if the group has nothing to say or drifts too far off topic]
What are the “big ideas” you see in this passage?
What are the “big ideas” you see in this passage?
We can mistakenly think we are serving God, when we are really serving a system that we value
Systems make us feel safe, assured, and in control - that’s why we value them
We can spend a lot of energy defending a system, while thinking we are defending God
Valuing a system can make us deaf to God and resistant to His Spirit - God is bigger than any system we can build to contain Him
How can you apply these ideas in your life? What may be your next steps?
How can you apply these ideas in your life? What may be your next steps?
I need to take a hard look at what I value, and why I value it
What things am I connecting with my Christianity, that aren’t a part of Christ?
I need to resist the urge to make God work in a system that makes me feel safe and in control
REFLECT
REFLECT
Prayer Point
Prayer Point
Pray that the Lord would teach our hearts to trust Him beyond the safety of our systems
Devotional Question
Devotional Question
In what ways might you be placing God in a box? How might God be challenging your boundaries to break you out of your system?
FOOTNOTES
FOOTNOTES
The false witnesses were not necessarily outright liars. Stephen had probably said the things they accused him of; however, they misrepresented the intentions and imports of his statements (cf. Matt. 26:61; Mark 14:58; John 2:19). The Lord Himself predicted the destruction of the temple (Matt. 24:1–2; Mark 13:1–2; Luke 21:5–6), though He never said He would do it. The other half of the allegation against Stephen involved the temporary nature of the Mosaic system. Undoubtedly he saw the theological implications of justification by faith and the fulfillment of the Law in Christ. Furthermore, if the gospel was for the whole world (Acts 1:8), the Law had to be a temporary arrangement. Stanley D. Toussaint, “Acts,” in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, ed. J. F. Walvoord and R. B. Zuck, vol. 2 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985), 368–369.