GOD IS AT WORK
Notes
Transcript
Addressed them as Brethren and fathers
Brethren - relationship
Fathers - respect for leadership
Faith
Faith
Abraham
Not from act of circumcision
God told Abraham to go where I will show you.
by Faith Abraham went 7:2-3
2 And he said, “Hear me, brethren and fathers! The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran,
3 and said to him, ‘Leave your country and your relatives, and come into the land that I will show you.’
No inheritance in the land but it would be Abraham’s and his decedents
by Faith Abraham believed and obeyed 7:5
5 “But He gave him no inheritance in it, not even a foot of ground, and yet, even when he had no child, He promised that He would give it to him as a possession, and to his descendants after him.
No Children yet he would have heirs
Symbolic
Circumcision - an outward sign
They believed in their circumcision
But did not always believe in the One who gave them that.
The believed in the act more than the meaning.
Baptism outward sign of inward change
Many today believe in being Baptized because that is the thing to do.
Some do not believe in the one who gave that order
Believe that baptism saves not the meaning of it.
Joseph Rejection
Joseph Rejection
Joseph
Sold into slavery
His brothers did not receive him at first time
the SECOND time they received him 7:12-13
12 “But when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent our fathers there the first time.
13 “On the second visit Joseph made himself known to his brothers, and Joseph’s family was disclosed to Pharaoh.
Moses
Baby to Pharaoh's daughter.
Trying to save his people he killed Egyptian for beating jew
They rejected him
The SECOND time he came to deliver the Jews the received him 7:35
35 “This Moses whom they disowned, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge?’ is the one whom God sent to be both a ruler and a deliverer with the help of the angel who appeared to him in the thorn bush.
Jews
The first time the rejected the Messiah and crucified Him
The SECOND time they will receive Him.
Destruction
Destruction
Moses
tabernacle for the presence of the LORD
Moses went up on mountain they made IDOL golden calf.
God turned away and delivered them over their own sin 7:42
42 “But God turned away and delivered them up to serve the host of heaven; as it is written in the book of the prophets, ‘It was not to Me that you offered victims and sacrifices forty years in the wilderness, was it, O house of Israel?
Romans 1:24-28
24 Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them.
25 For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
26 For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural,
27 and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.
28 And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper,
David
David wanted to build temple
but Solomon built the temple
They revered the TEMPLE more than the One it was designed to help them worship.
Resisting 7:51-53
Resisting 7:51-53
51 “You men who are stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears are always resisting the Holy Spirit; you are doing just as your fathers did.
52 “Which one of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? They killed those who had previously announced the coming of the Righteous One, whose betrayers and murderers you have now become;
53 you who received the law as ordained by angels, and yet did not keep it.”
Holy Spirit
They resisted the Holy Spirit just as their fathers did.
They would not listen to the prophets
They killed them just like they where about to do to Stephen
Conclusion
Conclusion
They accused Stephen of
Speaking against the LAW
Speaking against the Temple to destroy it
Speaking against the customs of Moses
In his defense Stephen shows how they are just the same
God is always at work around us to prepare for us.
Abraham
had to go to leave his own people
to go and save the whole group.
Joseph
sold in to slavery to save the people
Had to be rejected by his own brothers
to save the whole group.
Moses
Was to be killed as infant but instead raised as Pharaoh’s own
Was rejected by his own people
to save the whole group of them.
Had to flee the returned to save the Jews
Jesus
had to be reject by His own people the Jews
to save the whole world.