Who (or what) do you worship?

Introduction

Good morning brothers and sisters, church family. It is so good to be with you once again on this Lord’s Day. If you would please go ahead and open your bible’s to Acts chapter 7. Our main text today will be Acts 7:1-50…... Because we are covering such a huge portion of scripture today, we will not do our customary out loud read through, but I hope we all had a chance to read through it on your own. So, we are going to jump right in and begin with prayer, will you please pray with me.

Prayer

Father God, we thank You for Who You are. A great Big God who sees each and every one of us here and cares deeply about us. We ask this day, as we are continuing in this time of worship to You, reading Your Word and hearing Your Word, that You refine us with it. Mold us, make us, shape us, rearrange us so that we can more like You, and more made into the image of Christ. Help us be a people who love You and love others so much, that we are moved into action by whatever it is You are going to show us about Yourself today and what that means in our lives. Help us do this, because all to often our selfish and sinless flesh war against our will to follow Yours. As we are doing this, and as we are coming into Your Word today, we ask that You take away any distraction that we may have, and make it go as far away as it possible can, because we want to see and we want to know You better. It’s in these things that I ask and in Jesus Christ’s Holy and precious name that I pray, Amen.

Context

Today we continue in our sermon series through the book of Acts, picking up where we left off and starting (and almost finishing), and next week we will finish this chapter, chapter 7. A few weeks ago, we were introduced to the man Stephen, and as you will remember Chapter 6 said that he was filled with The Spirit, full of Grace and Power, and did many great signs and wonders among the people. This led to a group of Jews honestly, just not liking him because they could not withstand the wisdom that he had from God. So, we move today into his tail after being arrested. Here begins one of the great sermons of all time, and it is recorded here, for all the world to remember and know.

Something I want you to notice, is that continually Stephen’s argument leads to and through a question, that is, “Who (or what) do you worship?” For him, this question was to the Sanhedrin, but it is a great question for us to answer as well, as we go through our Christian life and examine ourselves and the sins that we have and that God is calling us to repent from and turn towards Him. To this, we have to know what worship is, and you can find many great scholars give many good definitions, but here is a simple one that I really like from John Piper, it is, “True worship is a valuing or a treasuring of God above all things.” This depends on us understanding that God Himself is Holy, or set apart, something we learned about in VBS this week. So, worship isn’t just something that we do in a day, it isn’t just singing songs or doing skits (and these are kinds of acts of worship or adoration of God), but it is something much more, it is a way of life; understanding how Holy God is and valuing Him (making Him) more important than anything else in our lives. Anything that comes before Him, and I know that there are many, and I would wager that everyone in the room (myself included) is battling or will battle some kind of idol or false God that is trying to take away God’s right worship and take it to be their own false worship. So, let’s look at our text today, and see how Stephen points out to his accusers their misplaced worship and what we can learn from his sermon. So, From the text I want you to know these truths when you answer the question Who (or what) do you worship?

Message

The first truth I want you to know when you answer Who (or what) do you worship is: God is with His people all the time (1-16)

7 “Are these things true?” the high priest asked.

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.[a]

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.[b] 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.

The Patriarchs in Egypt

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.

Stephen begins his sermon, and it goes through much of Israel’s history, much of the Bible’s. He explains to them about how the Jewish People (God’s Chosen People of His covenant, of His promise) how God has always been with them. He told them of Abraham, how even during his hardest times, God was with him and his family. God continued with them, even when the family turned on itself and betrayed Joseph, who would be sold in Egypt. All the while , even during this time of horror and fear for Joseph, God was with him, and even used his brothers betrayal as a way and means of keeping the family alive as God was putting together the pieces of His promise made long ago, to redeem His children from sin.

Speaking of God being with his children, I once heard a story about a missionary named Ben Staggs. He tells a story about his first visit to the Boshu people, an extremely isolated group in Ethiopia’s Me’en territory. On arrival, Ben and his team were welcomed by a local named Golon Kabule. Staggs describes what happened that, ‘We sat down and spoke a bit,’ Ben says, ‘explaining that we had come to tell them of “God’s talk”. I described who God is, what He is like, and where He lives.’But Golon interrupted. ‘We must follow Christosi,’ he said, using the Me’en word for Christ. Astonished, as Christ’s name hadn’t even been mentioned, Ben asked where Golon had heard that name. Golon explained that Christ had appeared to him in a dream, told him it was he who had given Golon his life, blood and bones, and that Golon was to follow him. Christ then said that in just five days someone would come to tell him about following that path.

Ben and his team had landed on the fifth day. How is that for God being with His people, even in the most remote parts of the world. You know, the same is true for you if you are believer, if you have put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ as savior and Lord. Even during your toughest pain, your biggest heartache, your worst betrayal, your lowest moment, your deep shame, God is with you, and he loves you, and he is calling you, yes you, into a new and deeper relationship with him. He is patiently calling you, beckoning you to come to Him to be forgiven and start a life new in Him. Will you do that? He can be trusted, because God is with His people at all times.

The second truth I want you to know when you answer Who (or what) do you worship is: God Remembers you even when you reject Him (17-36)

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.[c] 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?[d]

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[e] 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.[f] 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.[g]

35 “This Moses, whom they rejected when they said, Who appointed you a ruler and a judge?[h]—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.

Stephen continues through his people’s history. Time went on from where he left off, Jacob came and went, then his son Joseph came and went and time passed in Egypt where they were living. Eventually a new pharaoh came, who did not remember the deeds of Joseph and his God, and the people Israel were treated badly, even to the point of their children being slaughtered. God sent a new deliverer for His chosen people, Moses (an Israelite who was raised as a prince of Egypt). However, when Moses first came to help his people, they rejected him and he left to go into hiding. Even after 40 years away He would be sent back by God, as Moses was God’s chosen instrument to free His people. God did not forget His people, even though they had forgotten Him.

All to often, we all feel rejected. For example, at VBS this week, in the 3-4grade class we played a game that helped us understand how much being rejected hurts. In this game, it was just a simple game that included the kiddos being either “in” the game or “out” of the game. Needless to say, the out ones felt left out, forgotten, and rejected. But this isn’t how God works, He remembers and He knows everyone. Unfortunately, because of our own sin and sin nature, we separate ourselves from Him, we are the ones that reject Him when we don’t turn to Him, we are the ones who reject Him when we don’t believe that we are sinners in need of repentance, we are the ones that reject Him when we trust money or health more than Him or His Word. Despite our rejection of God, the Bible tells us that God remembers and loves us, and anyone who turns to Him in trueness and Faith will be saved. We are all called to continually turn to Him for all of our lives, but unfortunately, we often have a little trouble with this, so;

Another truth I want you to know when you answer Who (or what) do you worship is: God is often forgotten by His people (37-43)

37 “This is the Moses who said to the Israelites: God[i] will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers.[j] 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.[k] 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.[l]

Even after putting their trust in God and in Moses for a time, the Israelites were often prone to turning from their God. In fact, they did it often, despite God doing great and mighty deeds before their very eyes including: plagues on their enemies, splitting the red sea, feeding them in the wilderness, even God Himself appearing before them as a pillar of fire, just to name a few of many obvious signs that God is real and that He was with them. Stephen tells his accusers here, that even our honored and beloved ancestors were known for offering sacrifices to the wrong Gods and worshiping things they had created or even other things that God himself had created. This only made things harder for them, and God sent them away so that they would once again call out to Him (as they should have been doing all along).

This is a lesson that believers everywhere have to take in account even today, perhaps especially today, that it is easy (even for the greatest of believers) to forget about God. We can do this all kinds of ways in all types of days. Good or Bad, up or down, left or right, our flesh and Satan are continually working against us, trying to make us forget about our loving creator God in our decisions and how we live our lives and how the world needs King Jesus. We make all kinds of excuses for forgetting about Him; both big and small. For example, let’s say that for one day you find that you enjoyed doing something (whatever it is, maybe a hobby or visiting family, it could be anything) that you forgot to pray or spend time with God that day; we are all prone to doing this from time to time, and need to be diligent in watching out for it, because one small thing can easily snow ball and become a long term habit, that leads to yourself not being able to discern when God the Holy Spirit is working on or speaking to you, thus cutting yourself off from God and eventually leading to forgetting about Him. It can happen all to often, also with what we consider “the big things.” In our culture, these often have something to do with money or something to do with comfort. So, if you find yourself wanting money or some kind of carnal comforts more than you want to worship God, than watch out, you have an idol and you have something to repent of. Now, let me be clear here, every Christian you have ever come across either is, has, or will have this sin at some point, one that they have to atone for and turn to God for forgiveness over. So make no mistake, if you are one of God’s people, odds are you have forgotten about Him at some point. Have you made yourself right with God on this? Do you need to turn from something right now? Are you diligently watching what it is you value in your life? You need to, because when you answer the question who (or what) do you worship, we need to be self-aware that God is often forgotten about by His people.

The next truth I want you to know when you answer Who (or what) do you worship is:God is to be worshiped everywhere (44-50)

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[m] 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?[n]

Drawing this scripture section to a close, Stephen reminds them, about who God really is and where he really dwells. He reminded them, that the meeting place of the temple and the tabernacle was not where God lived. God is to big to be contained in just one place. Listen to the prophet Isaiah’s words again, 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?[n……..

Even the grandest of our creations, even the best of our accomplishments, even the most kingly and kind of rulers, even the craftiest of our creators; have nothing on the creator God, the almighty God, the magnificent God, the wonderous God, the loving God, The God that came and dwelt amongst us that we could be redeemed of our sin. We have NOTHING on Him. He owes us, nothing. Absolutely nothing. He is HOLY HOLY HOLY, He is up here, and we are down here; even the greatest of us are more insignificant than an ant when it really comes down to it. Yet, He loves us, He loves you, and He offers forgiveness to all that would take it. Praise God for His marvelous Grace. Now since God doesn’t live in just one place, it is only appropriate that He is worshiped, which we defined worship as, “valuing or a treasuring of God above all things” everywhere and anywhere at all times. Yes, Worship isn’t something that we do just here on Sunday’s, it is a way of living and thinking about your life, where you consider God and seek to bring God the maximum amount of both Honor and Glory that you can with everything that you do. Now, that sounds very open ended, and it is on purpose, but let me give you some practical examples. When you go to the Doctor, and you get a bad diagnosis and things look bad, you tell people about the Hope that you have in Jesus, that even when/if you should die, you know that you will experience great joy when you get to worship God fully on the others side. When you go to a restaurant, even if you weren’t given the best service, you give a good tip and leave them something encouraging that tells them about Jesus. When you are here at the church, you come together as believers and focus everything you do on building the kingdom and put all of your personal wants/desires/comforts aside, because what’s more important is kingdom work over your own comfort and pride. When your children, or some child test your patience every chance he or she can, you keep sharing the Gospel with them and put your own pride aside, because you never know when or if God is calling one of His children to Himself and you are some part of God’s plan for that child’s life. Most of all, you think of yourself as a servant and lover of God, and decrease yourself and increase God’s importance because God is to be worshipped everywhere.

Conclusion

So, ask yourself know these truths when you answer the question of Who (or what) do you worship. Know that, God is with His people all the time and know that no matter what, God Remembers you even when you reject Him. This is good for us because God is often forgotten by His people. Which means we have to watch and guard our own hearts and be sure with our own selves that God is to be worshiped everywhere

With all of that being said, I would be remised if I didn’t share the Gospel (or the Good News) of Jesus Christ with you today, for the benefit of both believer and non-believer in the room. This begins all the way back at the beginning, God created everything, and he created all things good. He gave His most treasured creation (us, mankind) the ability of free will, the ability to choose Him or rebellion. Man was deceived by Satan and desired to be like God and sinned (or rebelled against God). This brought the curse of sin and death into the world and it remains with us to this day; which separates us from God. God though, loved His creation (mankind) so much that He worked through history to redeem all mankind that would turn to Him from sin so that we can experience a full and perfect relationship with Him again. This was through the perfect and final sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the pay for sins. Accepting this free gift from God, makes you new and forgiven. All you have to do accept this free gift by repenting and believing in the Lord Jesus and you will get to experience the good side of God’s justice forever. So, now that you know this, you can no longer plead ignorance. I invite and urge you to respond today non-believer and apply this to every part of your life believers in the audience today.

With that, Let’s conclude. Brothers and Sisters, I love you all. During our last song together, if you need prayer, or want to talk more about Jesus, or have something you want to talk about, I’ll be here, don’t be afraid to come on down. Let’s pray. Father God, we thank You for who You are and what You are doing to us here in this place. May whatever it is that You are doing in each of heart here, continue as we leave go out into the world this week. Change us, mold us, make us, re-arrange us, that we can be both better lovers of You and better showers of You. It’s in these things that I ask and in Jesus Christ’s Holy and precious name that I pray, Amen.