Part of His Story

The Court Scene

The temple guards drone in an unenthusiastic voice, “All rise,” commanding everyone to stand and honor the the procession of decorated Jewish Council members - members of the elite classes of Pharisees, Scribes, and Sadducees, as they fill their seats of judgment with the clanging sound of their gold and silver necklaces swaying against the silk of their multi-colored robes laced with golden tassels, which remind everyone in the room just how wealthy, and powerful these men are.

Annas, the High Priest says, “what are the charges?”

Smart men from the local synagogue, where Stephen was passing out food and clothing, step up and yell, “This Stephen, a follower of the Way, has been spreading a Conspiracy to destroy the Temple and Blaspheming against Moses and his laws. Both punishable by death according to Deuteronomy 4:2. The audience in the crowd shuffle uncomfortably. Not even a year before did another man face similar charges, Jesus of Nazareth.

Annas calls Stephen forward, and his face has a glow to it, a peace, and a calm, like he was an angel, he was nothing like the anxious and angry energy of the accusers - in fact, they seem intimidated by him.

Stephen was described as someone “full of grace and power, doing great wonders and signs among the people,” with wisdom no one could stand. But surely, 70 of the most powerful Jewish leaders would humble this poor Greek Jew with the glowing face.

Acts 7:1 - The High priest, Annas, waves his hands, and you can hear the gold clang on his arm and around his neck - “Are these things so?”

Stephen, the defendant, who by the end of his closing statement, will become the prosecutor. But before before then, Stephen starts by reassuring the Council, that Abraham is “our father.”

Stephen tells a story about God.

At first glance, maybe as you were hearing it read, you might think it was a quick summary of a few important figures, but no, Stephen is calculated, Stephen has so long immersed himself in this story, that not one detail is without purpose and reason.

God appears, God speaks, God removes Abraham, God gives the covenant, God rescues and favors Joseph, God granted the increase in Egypt, God sees the beauty of Moses, God appears in a burning bush, God sees the affliction of the people, God hears the groaning, God promises to deliver, God sends Moses, God executes Justice, God grants salvation, God raises a prophet, God turns away, God receives the Spirit of Stephen. This is a story of God saving on his time in his way so that the whole world might know that He is LORD.

Stephen doesn’t tell a story of the faith of Abraham, or of the perseverance of Joseph, or of the bravery of Moses. It’s a story of God bringing salvation to a people.

But God never does it alone. He always does it with us, and for us, and through us. Person to person. I guess that’s why salvation is so personal.

So Steven tells a story about God, and includes specific pieces about Abram, Joseph, and Moses.

Stephen is trying to teach something about how God moves us.

Notice how God moves Abram, has him leave all that he has, and settles in Haran, only to be removed and wander throughout the promised land as a sojourner, and according to Acts 7:5 - he didn’t have one foot of inheritance.

Then God moves Joseph to Egypt, gives him favor and wisdom that will be instrumental in preserving the people from famine.

Then God moves Moses into the Egyptian royal court, and then to Midian, and then back into Egypt only to rescue people into 40 years of wandering in the wilderness.

Then God moves the people of Israel into exile, giving them over to the little gods that they wanted to serve.

Stephen is essentially describing the people of God as pilgrims. Much like those who landed in the Americas, looking for new beginnings, except pilgrimages generally have the sacred in mind. Pilgrims are people who travel or wander on a journey, often for sacred or religious reasons.

We are a pilgrim people.

I wonder if we don’t learn how to trust in God alone, unless we follow the Pilgrim’s path.

The Pilgrim’s path where we have to have faith to take the next step, where we don’t know all the right answers, and where we haven’t done it before.

Israel’s entire story is one of a pilgrim people, a restless people trying to find their rest in God, and God uses the pilgrim’s path to teach them about His faithfulness.

But returning to the case - What does Stephen accomplish by emphasizing the wandering, sojourning, pilgrim people of God? I can think of 2 things:

First, Stephen is trying to show us that God’s presence, God’s activity, God’s power is global. The Council would have considered that God’s glory and presence dwelled in the Temple. But Stephen is trying to show them that far before the temple, God was present with Abram in Mesopotamia, with Joseph and Moses In Egypt, In Midian, and In a tent wilderness. In Acts 7:48-49 he reminds them, of what God tells David, that God does not live in houses made by hands - but he is enthroned in Heaven and earth is his footstool. Stephen is establishing that God has been present active and moving beyond the temple for thousands of years. One theologian said, “Long before there was a holy place, there was a holy people, to whom God had pledged himself.”

Second, Stephen is showing us, and emphasizing that the pilgrim people rarely find themselves in a comfortable place. Pilgrims are rarely comfortable, they are forced to find comfort in something outside their circumstance. The Pilgrim’s way is difficult, unsettled, trying, and often disappointing, but the Pilgrim people, through all the setbacks and trials, the pilgrim’s only confidence is in the promises of God.

We are Pilgrim people clinging to the promisor.

I am making a distinction between being held by a promise and being held by the promisor, which is subtle but important. God promised Abram and the Patriarchs offspring, protection, and the promised land to call their own. But what so quickly happens is that the would cling to the promises and not the promisor. We cling to the giver not the gifts - and the pilgrim way teaches us that hard lesson.

What Abraham, Joseph, Moses, and all of them had to realize is that the PROMISOR is greater than the PROMISE. Which is why they and we can worship in the wilderness, in Babylon, in Egypt, or in whatever wilderness we find ourselves in. And it’s only when we see that the Promisor is greater than the promises, that we can truly enjoy the promise. While Abram, Joseph, and Moses accept the pilgrim path…

The Council Resists the Pilgrim’s Path

They’ve made a wealthy home for themselves, enjoying the riches of Temple Rules and Rituals that have made them wealthy and powerful.

This couldn’t be contrasted more clearly than with Stephen, who was running the Gentile Food Pantry, contrasted with the Jewish Council who have become extravagantly wealthy and powerful based on the operations and rituals in the temple.

Stephen is trying to show the council, the story of Scripture reveals one where God’s people continually resist the pilgrim’s path. The people of God continually reject the leaders who might lead them on a pilgrim’s path.

And this is most clearly seen in Moses. It’s not that the people didn’t like Moses, they didn’t like the path that Moses was leading them in. And for Stephen’s day, as he looks at all the riches of the Jewish council, in all their wealth, in all the comfort they have found in the protection of Rome, and they CLUNG to the PROMISE not the PROMISER. The Jewish Council was resisting the pilgrim’s path of being a blessing to others and instead they clung to the temple and the power that running the temple would give them.

The Jewish Council began to love and worship the work of their hands - the temple and its rituals.

But it’s not just the Jewish Council is it? It’s us too.

We Resist the Pilgrim’s Path

But we resist the pilgrim’s path by trying to settle for comfort in easier things of this world. One theologian says that all of us have this “gnawing dis-ease,” which feels as universal as it does personal. And we try to find comfort and ease in the midst of this dis-ease by seeking that better job, in that better house, in that better couch, in that better spouse. And none of it ultimately satisfies. Why? Because we were made to be a pilgrim people who only find hope in the Promisor, not the promises.

In many ways, the discomfort today gives us a chance to experience Stephen’s story. We are a unsettled pilgrim people who need the promisor.

Porch Envy

Megan and I have been going on a lot of walks lately, and we get totally distracted by porch envy. Though shall not covet your neighbor’s porch, so be an addendum to the 10 commandments for the Stidham family. So right when our stimulus check came in, I got so excited. I thought about how we could use it to start saving for a porch, how we could use it to re-do our basement. But on that same walk, megan brought up this verse:

1 Peter 2:11 says Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.

Peter connects lives as sojourners, exiles, as pilgrims, to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against our souls.

And I realized how I was striving to make our home on maple street feel like our forever home, willing to invest tens of thousands of dollars on a luxury. We wanted a porch because it looked cute, not because we wanted to primarily reach out neighbors. How do I know? Because we have a porch right now, it just isn’t as cute, so we rarely use it. I am not anti-home improvement. Do what you need to do to serve your family, guests, and space. What I am saying is that as pilgrim people, we ought first consider how we can invest our time, talents, and treasures in ways that can help us care and cultivate relationship with people.

If we are truly embracing our identity as God’s pilgrim people, may we invest in ways to give other pilgrims on their journey new opportunities, new paths, new hopes, new stories. We are blessed in our pilgrim path, so that we MIGHT find others who are wandering without a promise, and journey with them, bearing their burdens, helping them find themselves in Jesus When Megan reminded me of our exiled nature, our pilgrim path, I changed how I viewed that stimulus check. What would it be like to use that check to scholarship kids to college, to feed the poor, to help someone with job training.

Closing the Trial

But now Steven is ready to turn prosecutor. He has established how God doesn’t need a temple to move, and that the Council has chosen to protect a building over following God’s direction. Stephen reveals that this whole story has been to show that they’ve been living in the rebellious, stiff-necked ways, following in the paths of their fathers who persecuted the prophets, and in Acts 7:52 - and you can almost hear the emotion in Stephen’s voice, as he remembers, Jesus, “The Righteous One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered.”

Instead of repenting, the Jewish Council grinds their teeth, cover their ears, and in a rage, take Stephen outside the city to be stoned to death.

Conclusion

What could give Stephen the courage to stare down the most powerful wealthy Jewish people, who held the keys to his life or death, and confront them with the truth of their rebellious ways?

Stephen is full of the Holy Spirit and the Spirit of Wisdom. Stephen found himself in God’s story. Stephen, who lived thousands of years after the story he recounts, Stephen who was far removed from the story, understood that he was part of that story. Stephen, a pilgrim who clung to the Promisor over the Promise. Stephen, who didn’t fear death, who didn’t fear illness, filled with courage, because he found himself in God’s story, serving a God even bigger than death. Stephen, the pilgrim, got a glimpse of home as he died - staring upon the glory of God in Christ - pleading for mercy for his murderers, just like Jesus.

Pastor Oliver told me that [slide] “Wisdom is finding our part in God’s Story.”

Friends, do you know God’s story? Have you found yourself in this story? Will we embrace this Pilgrim way?

Will we as a church embrace the Pilgrim way? Will we find ourselves following God to unknown places to tell this story, following God to new ministries to serve sojourners, following God to face new enemies of justice for the widow or orphan, or will we find ourselves trying to make more money in our buildings or homes? Will we find ourselves clinging to the promises and not the promisor. Because 2 Cor. 1:20 says - this

2 Corinthians 1:20 ESV

20 For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory.

All the promises of God find their yes, IN Jesus, not through Jesus. Jesus isn’t just a means for my best life, Jesus isn’t just the means for my anxiety to go away, Jesus isn’t just an instrument to get promises - ALL THE PROMISES OF GOD FIND THEIR YES IN HIM. IN JESUS ALONE.

Because Jesus, the ultimate pilgrim, left the right hand of the Father, walked without a home, healing, proclaiming good news, and flipping tables and offending those profiting off of the temple rituals. Jesus, the rejected leader, killed in our place, taking our greatest evil upon himself, so that we could be raised again with Him, that we might become the new temple, carrying the presence of God as a pilgrim people.

This Sunday, ask your family, [slide] “what is one step you can take as a Pilgrim Person.”

It might be to call a friend to learn the story so that you can finally find your place in Christ for the first. It might be to pray about how to use that stimulus check in a creative new way. It might be finally calling a strong Christian and asking them to help you live as the sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.