An Uncircumcised Heart
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Stephen has been brought to court on false charges...
blasphemy against God
blasphemy against Moses
Speaking against the temple
Speaking against the law
We’ve been looking at Stephen’s defense - if you can call it a defense
He has spoken to loving Moses and the law -
2 And Stephen said: “Brothers and fathers, hear me. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran,
He goes over the story of Israel
how God has continued to watch over Israel and provide a savior
both Joseph and Moses
and their father’s had recieved them not
11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.
And now we get to this Stephen’s large blow to the Sanhedrin
Circumcision
Circumcision
51 “You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you.
Notice, Stephen’s change in tone, up to now it was
Brother’s and father’s
Our father’s
Now it’s you and your father’s and he speaks to the “people of God” as the prophets spoke to the people.
You stiff-necked, uncircumcised in heart and ears...
I’m always saying we need to look at the scripture and see what it means how and how it applies to our lives
So, the question is, why look at this in depth?
Because God gives it to us for a reason - His ways are perfect
Stephen brings it before the people who consider themselves the people of God - we continue to do that today.
The problem is this - people who consider themselves the people of God generally receive a push back on looking at their faith in God
Notice the response -
54 Now when they heard these things they were enraged, and they ground their teeth at him.
We’ve often talked about how one of the largest mission fields in the West today is the church… the “people of God”
I’ll give you 2 illustrations of why
Every few years, the people of Ligonier Ministries (the organization that R.C. Sproule started) do a survey of the State of the Church in the United States.
They found that 51% of evangelical Christians (An evangelical Christian, then, is just a Christian who believes it is important to tell others the good news about how Jesus can save us from our sins.) say they believe that as long as a person follows the beliefs of whatever faith they might follow - that they will go to Heaven
We then give you a story from Matt Chandler (SBC preacher from Dallas)
He once talked to a man who thought he was saved just because he was from San Antonio. Now Texas is great, but neither the great state of Texas nor the San Antonio river walk will bring you salvation.
The common concern among pastor’s throughout the bible belt is that it is hard to convince people that they are not saved when their faith is in other things than Jesus and Jesus alone.
6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
Now, circumcision was a big thing for the Jew and it is a big thing for the Christian.
Circumcision for the Jew was the sign of the covenant made with God
10 This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised.
11 You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you.
When a covenant was made, a blood letting or sacrifice was made to honor the deal.
They would make a sacrifice, walk through the blood of the sacrifice and basically say, “If I do not hold up my end of the contract, then may what happened to this sacrifice happen to me.
The males of Israel had their foreskin cut off, basically showing what would happen if they did not keep their end of the covenant - they would be cut off from God.
As a matter of fact, in the Book of Deuteronomy we see Moses give an exposition on the 10 commandments...
In chapter 28, we see the blessings if you follow the commandments
In chapter 29, we see the curses if you break even one of the commandments.
This is the earliest picture of heaven and hell… you will be with God or you will be cut off from God.
As we looked at Ezekiel last week, we see that this is not just for the Israel but that all souls belong to the Lord
4 Behold, all souls are mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is mine: the soul who sins shall die.
But think of who God himself says He is
6 The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,
7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”
The Lord must judge all sin and wrong
Even if you are here today and you are not a Christian, you will be judged by God.
Imagine if everyone in this world had an invisible recorder that records every single time you say, “You should or should not do that.” or you say, “That is wrong.” or “That is right.”
In the end, God brings you forward and says, “Okay, you’ve never heard of Jesus. You’ve never seen or heard my law. But let us play all the times you told someone that they should or should not do something and you did just those things anyways.
Everyone will be held to account for what they know or think they know.
The problem is, when we look at Deuteronomy 28 and 29, we see Moses tell us “you can do this” but “you won’t”
As a matter of fact, God tells us this:
12 “And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul,
13 and to keep the commandments and statutes of the Lord, which I am commanding you today for your good?
14 Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it.
15 Yet the Lord set his heart in love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above all peoples, as you are this day.
16 Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn.
17 For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who is not partial and takes no bribe.
He tells Israel and He tells us that our hearts need to be circumcised… but again 28 and 29 we are told we will not do that on our own...
What does it mean to have our hearts circumcised?
What the heart most wants, the mind finds reasonable, the emotions find desirable, and the will finds doable.
When you have quiet time alone, what is it that your mind settles on?
money
stuff
your children
an illness you or a loved one has?
You see, what the heart is most set upon effects your mind, emotions, and your will.
That is why the two greatest commandments are
29 Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.
30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’
31 The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
How to circumcise your heart and ears
How to circumcise your heart and ears
We can not do this on our own
Seeds are planted
Seeds are watered
But God gives the growth....
This was the promise of the new commandment...
19 And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh,
20 that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God.
And that comes to fruition in 2 ways
8 See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.
9 For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily,
10 and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority.
11 In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ,
12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.
And that truth is brought to us by the HS
6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
7 Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’
8 The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
How do we know the HS is calling us? How do we know when He is working at circumcising our heart?
When we seek the things of God
When our eyes our open to our sin against God
not sin that any man has called sin
but that which God has proclaimed to be sin
Do not deny the HS - it is possible...
Later on in Acts, we will see Paul share the Gospel with both Felix and Agrippa who would ask
28 And Agrippa said to Paul, “In a short time would you persuade me to be a Christian?”
And both would send Paul away...
The words of the hymn of John Newton
Our pleasure and our duty, Though opposite before, Since we have seen His beauty Are joined to part no more. To see the law by Christ fulfilled And hear His pardoning voice, Transforms a slave into a child, And duty into choice. These words were written by John Newton, the once wretched slave ship captain turned abolitionist Jesus-loving minister.