The Transcendent King

Introduction

In recent weeks the focus of the world and the global church has largely been on Afghanistan. From the news articles, videos, and heart wrenching photos, the situation has been tragic to watch from afar. From a Christian perspective, to hear from pastors on the ground in the country ask for prayer and boldness to remain faithful to Jesus despite the constant threat of persecution, it has been convicting to say the least. We have it so good, friends! While much of the focus recently has been negative, we know that God is still at work and building His church as He promises to do. This is happening in Afghanistan, in Europe, Africa, and even here in North America.

A couple years ago, there was a big revival taking place in Iran. If you know anything about Iran, you know that it is a predominantly Muslim country that is very hostile to Christianity. At the turn of the 21st century, it was estimated that Iran had between 2-5,000 Christians living in the country. By 2017, that number had grown into the 300,000-500,000 range and Christianity Today research in 2020 estimated the number to be nearing 1 million. Again, these are mostly Muslim converts to Christianity who lose contact with their family members whenever they do this. There is a serious cost to following Christ and one convert said this, “I never thought I would find freedom from my past, but Jesus has set me free.” Even though conditions are difficult on the ground, the Iranians, Afghans, and others around the globe are coming to faith in the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

In the words of the great John Wesley, “Give me one hundred men who fear nothing but sin, and desire nothing but God, and I will shake the world.” This is the example we see before us with Stephen as he longs for the world to know the One true God of the Bible and His Son, Jesus Christ. In Acts 7, Stephen serves as a faithful witness to Christ. He gives a defense of the Gospel by pointing back to the Old Testament and illustrating that it’s always been about Jesus and will always be about Jesus. He shares 3 key themes in his sermon: God’s activity isn’t only found in Israel, Worship to God isn’t only found in the Temple, the Jewish people have routinely rejected God’s chosen servants. Stephen stepped on many toes in this sermon, just as sermons today occasionally do the same! The purpose in his doing this is to illustrate and convict his audience to see that even though they think they’ve been right all along, they’re really blinded so deeply that they cannot see the transcendent king before them. They have grown cold and comfortable and as a result, they are closed off to Jesus’ worldwide message of salvation and restoration.

Friends, there is a temptation for us too to become cold and comfortable just like Stephen’s audience. We like what we do, we’re familiar with it, it’s what we’re used to! The Jews felt the same way and, throughout this sermon, it is revealed to them that they are still lost. We have to genuinely ask ourselves, as we continue to look at Stephen’s sermon, are we living for ourselves, for what we like, and for what makes us comfortable, or are we doing what Christ commands? Are we willing to lay our preferences and traditions down in order to pick up what Christ truly desires?

Stephen’s audience, as we will see next week, was unwilling to do this. They were a bunch of stiff-necked people, in his words. May this not be true of us. May we be people who are willing to get out of our comfort zones in order to be witnesses for Christ. May we live out Galatians 6:9 as Stephen did

Galatians 6:9 CSB

9 Let us not get tired of doing good, for we will reap at the proper time if we don’t give up.

Stephen was a faithful witness, he did good! Yet, what did he reap? The reaping took place after his death. There was a harvest from Stephen’s sermon and even though his message angered many in his audience, it eventually opened some eyes in God’s timing. What we have to do is trust in our King when it comes to the results. Trust in His timing rather than looking for quick results and comforts. Let’s read what Stephen shares about our King and how He is to be praised this morning.

Acts 7:37–50 CSB

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?

The Conclusion of Disobeying the King (37-39)

Whenever we say that Jesus is King, what do we mean by that? Is the phrase simply a song lyric or slogan or is there more to it than that? We know that on the cross, His title was “king of the Jews” but that was kind of a tongue-in-cheek joke by the powers that be in mocking Him. Why is Jesus the King? Hebrews 5 helps us see this

Hebrews 5:5 ESV

5 So also Christ did not exalt himself to be made a high priest, but was appointed by him who said to him, “You are my Son, today I have begotten you”;

God appointed Jesus to be the high priest-king over creation and to rule. We see this in the Gospel of Luke

Luke 1:32 CSB

32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David.

The angel Gabriel tells this to Mary and it informs us that Jesus will sit on the throne of David as only a king could do as we’ll see later in our message. Jesus Christ is the King. He establishes His kingdom. He rules over His kingdom presently at the right hand of the Father. This is good news, as Christians, because we know that we belong to Christ and His Kingdom and we know from Revelation that Jesus wins and because we’re in Christ, we win too! He is our King, He is our Savior. He is present with His people in a personal, immanent way.

The incredible thing about Jesus is that He is also transcendent in the sense that He is in control and has authority and is exalted above creation.

As a child, I loved playing with knights, dragons, and castles. My friends and I would spend hours and hours building castles and having epic battles in my playroom and this was right up my alley as a kid. Think about a king during the middle ages, or even back in Bible times, you would have subjects and an area that you were in charge of. This would represent your kingdom.

Most of these people obey and help do their part to make the kingdom successful. From farming, to masonry, to fishing, and fighting, people are working together. What if, in your kingdom, you have people who start to disobey? What if instead of following the rules and doing their jobs, they start to want a different king to be in charge? That probably wouldn’t go over very well, would it? As the leader, you’re thinking of all the things that you’ve done to help them out and to protect them, yet they want nothing to do with you. They think that they could do a much better job and they want you dead and gone.

Stephen shares that this is more or less what the Jews did in the wilderness under Moses. Moses, as God’s servant, helped lead the Israelites out of Egyptian slavery, yet the people didn’t always obey him like they were supposed to. Maybe this makes sense to an extend because the wilderness was uncomfortable, hot, and dangerous. Maybe it makes sense as to why people didn’t always like Moses because he led them there and he wasn’t always the nicest of leaders. The issue for the Israelites, though, is that they routinely do this. They don’t just disobey Moses, they disobey Joshua, they disobey the kings, they disobey the prophets, they often disobey God’s chosen servants and leaders and Moses shares all the way back in Deuteronomy 18 that God will raise up a prophet like him. This is what the Jews were looking for in the 1st century world - they wanted a Messiah who would be like Moses.

Who would blame them for thinking this way? If you were under the rule of another country that you didn’t like, you would naturally think of a mighty leader who had helped your ancestors out of a similar situation. Moses had led their ancestors out of Egypt and the Jews wanted another Moses type to lead them to kick the Romans out. They wanted a mighty leader, possibly a victorious warrior type, in order to reach a place of freedom.

Stephen shares Moses received God’s Word and gave it to their ancestors. He was telling them that another prophet would come. Yet, Moses’ listeners were unwilling to obey. Stephen’s listeners were also unwilling to listen. In Moses’ day, the Jews turned their hearts back to Egypt. Back to a place of comfort. Back to a place of familiarity. The Jews in Stephen’s day were turning their hearts to a similar place. They weren’t willing to listen and obey, they were going to go back to their old ways and disobey the King’s instruction.

Whenever a subject disobeyed his king, there was a consequence and often it involved death. Disobedience was seen as a serious offense back in the day! We know that whenever we disobey our King, there is also a consequence often times. Our sin is serious! For some, whenever we disobey Jesus, in our hearts we turn our back to Him and instead we turn to sin. For others, we turn our hearts to our idols and our comforts. You and I are created to worship and serve something. Either we will serve and worship God, or we will serve and worship ourselves in some capacity. Friends, whenever we do this, we have to understand that there is a cost as Stephen shares in the coming verses.

The Cost of Not Worshiping the King (40-43)

We know what the Israelites did whenever Moses went to Mt. Sinai. They were concerned that Moses wouldn’t come back and they asked Aaron, the priest, if he would make them an idol to worship. Rather than waiting. Rather than trusting. Rather than worshiping the God who had led them out of Egypt, they made a calf with their own hands. They sacrificed to this calf. They celebrated what their hands had done!

We shake our heads at their foolishness, but how often are we tempted to do the same thing? Whenever God doesn’t immediately answer our prayers or come through in the way that we would like for Him to, how often do we run to other things to satisfy? We do this, or at least are tempted to do this, often! Whenever we view God like a genie in a lamp who is there to make our lives easier and to answer our every wish, we will understandably get upset whenever He doesn’t answer how we like or in the time that we’d prefer. Throughout the Bible we see that this is not who God is. He is not a butler to be ordered around - He is the One who gives the orders. He is not a genie to rub and get a blessing from - He is the One who gives us every blessing we’ve ever received. Whenever we have a false view of our God, or whenever we fail to worship Him, there is a cost. We see 3 costs in verses 40-43 whenever we do this:

Whenever we Fail to Worship the King, we Deceive Ourselves

We see that the Israelites worship a golden calf rather than the God who parted the Red Sea and led them out of Egypt by a pillar of fire and a cloud of smoke. FF Bruce shares this devastating truth, “The invisible presence of God was not enough for them: they craved some form of divinity that they could see.” They built something with their own hands because they wanted to see their god rather than worship the God who had guided them step by step.

Whenever we Fail to Worship the King, we deceive ourselves into thinking that we don’t need God. That we are enough on our own. That we can save ourselves - or at least that we’re not completely helpless without His intervention. When we take our eyes off of Jesus, we deceive ourselves by often elevating ourselves and lowering His holiness and perfect standard.

Whenever we Fail to Worship the King, we Risk God Turning Away

As the Israelites do this in Exodus 32, we see that Aaron, the priest, is the one who makes this idol. Rather than worshiping the Creator, they were worshiping the creation. The result of this is found in verse 42 as God turned away and gave them up to do this. John Polhill shares this, “It is perhaps the most fearful judgment of all when God turns us over to ourselves and lets our own rebellious ways take their destructive natural course.” Remember, we worship the King of Kings - He is in control and He is for us, He’s led these people and been by their side through it all… Yet, we also see that whenever the Israelites refused to worship Him He turns away. This is a sobering warning that Stephen is using and its a sobering warning for us today as well!

God has protected Israel, yet, we see time and time again that they reject Him and worship false gods. When they went astray, there was a consequence. Now, think about what Stephen is sharing. Our ancestors rejected Moses as God’s servant and failed to listen to him. You all have rejected Jesus as God’s Son and failed to submit to Him. This is a serious offense! Hebrews 2 shares of the gravity of not worshiping Jesus

Hebrews 2:3 CSB

3 how will we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? This salvation had its beginning when it was spoken of by the Lord, and it was confirmed to us by those who heard him.

The answer = we will not escape if we neglect His salvation.

Whenever we Fail to Worship the King, we Worship Idols

Finally we see several references to false gods in verse 42-43. This is a quotation from Amos 5 as Stephen uses this to ask a question of their ancestors. Did they bring sacrifices to God during these years in the wilderness? Sure, there were moments, but by and large these were times where the sacrifices that were offered were to false gods. The Ammonite god, Moloch, was often worshiped through human sacrifice as we see in 1 Kings 11 and we can’t help but look around in our world and see human sacrifices taking place from the womb to mass murder and understand the seriousness of worshiping ourselves and taking our eyes off of the Creator God who created humanity in His very image.

The cost of worshiping these idols was that they would be taken away into captivity. They would go to exile and its due to their failure to worship Him as they were instructed. Friends, whenever we worship and prioritize ourselves, our families, our time, our recreation, our hobbies, our passions, our tv, our news station, or our jobs more than we prioritize our God, we are in a helpless situation because of the implication here. In Amos 5 the hidden question is this: What good will idols do you on Judgment day?

Likewise, as Jesus shares, what will it profit a man to gain the whole world but lose His soul? What good will it do us to worship all the things the world says to, but fail to worship our King? It might feel good here and now, but there is a cost.

The Consequence of Trying to Contain the King (44-50)

Stephen wraps up this section of his sermon by demonstrating a fundamental misunderstanding on the part of the Jewish nation and specifically, its leaders. The misunderstanding stems from the Jewish infatuation with the temple. Why do we worship in a building?

We’ve seen in the book of Acts that Christians gather together often and they do this corporately. They gather in homes and in public areas in Jerusalem, often the temple. We are called to gather together to worship our Savior and Lord as Hebrews 10:25 clearly states. Sometimes in the history of the church this has been done in houses, coffee shops, public parks, beautiful cathedrals, large buildings, and even tiny chapels. We worship together, for our situation, in a church building. The Jews met together in the temple. Yet, the Jews got things mixed up just a bit. The Jews rightly believed that they should worship God in the temple -in a building. But they wrongly thought that that was the only place of worship. They believed that the temple was God’s house and He was only present there.

Likewise, there are some who believe that we only worship God at church. We live however we want outside of church because God only cares what we do at church because God is only at church. This is dangerously wrong! We know that God is with us - His people - wherever we are! God is omnipresent!

There is another danger, though, and that danger is to say that God is not at church and that church does not matter. God told the Jews to build the tabernacle as a “meeting” place where His Spirit would be a dwell. He gave Moses specific instructions as to how to build the tabernacle and how the worship in the tabernacle was to be done. We are told how to worship and how not to worship and there are things that are done in churches around the globe that would elicit rage from Jesus as was displayed in Luke 19 when people were acting incorrectly in the temple.

Luke 19:46 CSB

46 and he said, “It is written, my house will be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves!”

Whenever we gather to worship, it’s all about Jesus. It’s not about America. It’s not about you and me. It’s not about any of those things. It’s about the Sovereign Lord and what He has done for sinners and about our desperate need to respond to His grace and to live as a new creation in Christ. That’s what the corporate gathering is all about!

The Jews weren’t content with this, though. David desired to build a dwelling place for God and we know that Solomon built the temple itself. This seems to be a good thing, right? It’s a good thing to have a place to gather and worship God! It can be a good thing, but there is a temptation that even Solomon was aware of when it was built

1 Kings 8:27 CSB

27 But will God indeed live on earth? Even heaven, the highest heaven, cannot contain you, much less this temple I have built.

As generation after generation came and went, what began to happen? There was a temptation to worship the Temple rather than the Living God Himself. There was idolatry that was taking place because the emphasis was on the tradition and the building rather than the Creator and Sustainer!

Friends, God cannot be confined to one single place or one single people! FF Bruce shares, “The gods of the heathen might be accommodated in material shrines, but not the Most High God.” What happens whenever we try to contain God in one building or location? We emphasize and deify the place rather than God. The tabernacle and temple were good gifts - just as our physical church building is a great gift from God. But once we think that God only resides here, or there, we demonstrate a misunderstanding of God’s character and the true temple.

God makes a covenant with David in 2 Samuel 7:16 and we see this

2 Samuel 7:16 CSB

16 Your house and kingdom will endure before me forever, and your throne will be established forever.’ ”

We know that Solomon builds the temple, but after Solomon the throne of David is in shambles because the kingdom splits. Who fulfills this promise to sit on the throne of David forever? Jesus. We looked at Luke 1:32 earlier and it shares with us that Jesus is the One who is given this throne. Look at what Jesus said about the temple in John 2 as we see this

John 2:20–21 CSB

20 Therefore the Jews said, “This temple took forty-six years to build, and will you raise it up in three days?” 21 But he was speaking about the temple of his body.

What is the ultimate significance of the presence of God? It’s not restricted to a physical building. We know that, as Christians, we are a part of the body of Christ and where we are, there Christ is because He lives in us through His Spirit.

1 Corinthians 12:27 CSB

27 Now you are the body of Christ, and individual members of it.

What does this mean? Lots of people say where 2 or more are gathered, there He is. I know we mean well when we say that, but let’s think logically here: If you are a Christian, doesn’t the Holy Spirit live in you? He does. Therefore, where you go, there He is. The presence of God doesn’t require 2, 200, 2,000 or 2 million people. The presence of God is found throughout creation because Christ dwells not in buildings and sanctuaries made by human hands, rather He dwells in His people wherever they are!

Conclusion

The God of the Bible cannot be contained in 4 mere walls. He is the transcendent King who created all things and by whom all things hold together. He is worthy of worship and He is at work in creation today in bringing the lost to be found and in leading His children to be more like Him. He works all things for our good and for His glory. Friends, again, it’s all about Jesus. It’s all about His plan of salvation and what He did for sinners like you and I on the cross. The incredible news is that He invites us to join Him in restoring sinners to the flock. He calls us to be His witnesses in this mission! This is what Stephen does. He calls people to come to Christ and worship Him as He rightly deserves. This is our call today as well.

Worship the Creator, not the creation

Worship corporately and privately, not just one or the other

Remember that God is at work all around the globe today

To quote Tony Merida, “God appeared. God spoke. God sent. God promised. God punished. God rescued. God is working out his sovereign will all over the earth.”

Do you belong to this King? Are you following Him today? Don’t just attend church or fill a seat or follow some man-made traditions or sing some songs that make you feel good. Follow Jesus. Obey the King. Build His Kingdom!