The Right Side of History

Good morning, Hope Community Church, Lowertown. My name is Paul Stiver. I am one of the elders here at Hope. Welcome again to one of our fifth Sunday services where we have our kids in the service. It's so fun and not distracting when you're preaching at all. That's really exciting. So we are in week eight of 16, looking at the book of Acts. It's the fifth book in the New Testament. We're gonna be covering a lot of ground today in the Bible, looking at this passage and we're looking at kind of the big chunks of this book. And what is God doing in the early church? So this is right after Jesus has come and now he's ascended to heaven and he's establishing the church. What's going on there? And so I want to look at first just some of the classic Disney villains. So you got a very subtle name, by the way. Cruella de Villa. Super subtle name. When she is one of the classic Disney villains. She's cruel, she's vain, she's greedy. That's 101 Dalmatians for those unfamiliar. What is it? Uninitiated. And then judge Claude Frollo from the Hunchback of Notre Dame. You can even see he's kind of. His eyes are kind of covered. He's in the darkness. But he's a religious hypocrite. He's corrupt and he's evil. He's a villain. And we probably all know Scar from the Lion King. And Scar actually has a Scar. Fun fact about Scar, but Scar is betrayer. He is jealous. He's ambitious. And then my favorite maybe of these, if you have a favorite villain is the royal vizier Jafar in the movie Aladdin. Any Jafar fans, don't raise your hand. Oh, but Jafar is devious. He's power hungry. He's a manipulator. And there's so many villains in Disney's kind of lexicon. But what I wanted to bring up today is we would never watch these movies and say, that's me. I'm like them. I'm more like Cruella de Vil or Claude Frollo or, or Scar or Jafar than I am the hero. We, when we watch these, we associate ourselves with the hero. We'd never watch it like we're the villain. And that's what we're going to look at today. We're going to. Today's sermon is titled the Right side of History. We're going to be in Acts, chapter six through. All the way through Acts seven. We're gonna look at the death of Stephen, the first Christian martyr. And just to get us into this, I wanted to get us thinking about how we often find ourselves thinking. And so I just said, I do things the right way. I think about the tough issues with the most complexity and clarity. I work harder than most, but still take time to be considerate of others and their needs. I hold to my convictions, but I'm also quick to show empathy. I am on the right side of history. I'm one of the good ones. Honestly, I'm kind of the hero. Now, even if we'd never say that out loud, we kind of do cling very tightly to our inner narrative that we are a good person. And we're gonna see, what if the Bible's right? What if we're not one of the good guys? What if we're not the hero, but one of the villains? And what if accepting that reality is actually the first step to beauty, freedom, true compassion, and real transformation? So that's what we're going to look at today. We're going to see people in our passage play the villain. Then we're actually going to see how we're pretty similar to them, and we're going to learn there's only one true hero. Just for a little bit of context, going back to last week, the early church has started, and one of the things they face is persecution. People trying to harm them and stop them from telling other people about Jesus. And in the midst of that persecution, this guy gets up, his name is Gamaliel, and he tells him, hey, like, hold on, maybe we shouldn't be persecuting these people. And here's why. If their thing that they're doing is from man, if it's just doing it in their own power, they're gonna fail. But if they're from God, you're in trouble. See what it says in Acts 5 again. So in the present case, I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone. Let them keep preaching the gospel. For if this plan or this undertaking is of man, it will fail. But if it was is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You might even be found opposing God. And so that's where we go. We kind of see him say this, and we're actually going to see the answer to this comment later in our passage. And then last week, Bryan talked about this disunity that was arising in the early church, and they actually fight through it. They create unity, they create structure. And so now the church has faced persecution and it's gotten through it, it's faced potential disunity and actually come out on the other side of unity. They have all this structure in place. And so you're thinking, it's gonna be smooth sailing from here. They're gonna become a megachurch in no time. They're gonna make budget, no problem. And we're gonna see. It's actually. It's gonna be. The persecution is about to boil over. It's a pot of water that's been boiling, and it's about to boil over. And that's our passage today, starting in Acts 6, verse 8. And Stephen, full of grace and power, was doing great wonders and signs among the people. Then some of those who belonged to the synagogue of the Freedmen, as it was called, and of the Cyrenians and of the Alexandrians and of those from Cilicia and Asia rose up and disputed with Stephen, but they could not withstand the wisdom and the Spirit with which he was speaking. So Stephen, we saw, was one of the people God called to create structure in the early church. And he's doing things full of grace and power. And they don't like that. This synagogue of the Freedmen, this is one of the Jewish synagogues. At the time, they were probably Greek speaking. They probably knew Stephen. They get up to dispute with him, but they can't win in this contest of words. It continues in verse 11. Then they secretly instigated men who said, we have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God. And they stirred up the people and the elders and the scribes, and they came upon him and seized him and brought him before the council. And they set up false witnesses who said, this man never ceases to speak words against this holy place in the law. For we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and will change the customs that Moses delivered to us. And gazing at him, all who sat in the council saw that his face was like the face of an angel. So we've got to see some things here in the narrative about how this. How they're described as they come after Stephen. Look what it says. They secretly instigated people. And then they go further. They stir up the people, they come upon Stephen, they seize him, they bring him to this council where he's presumably going to have to defend himself. But we really got to see this one. Look in verse 13. They set up false witnesses. Now, if you're familiar with the Bible, one thing you might know is the big ten, the Old Testament, the ten commandments and what is one of the big commandments? Thou shalt not bear false witness. Here they are, people that claim to love God, setting up false witnesses to stop Stephen. What would make them be willing to disobey God so that they could win? Mega no, no. So we go to Acts, chapter seven. They brought him before the council, they bring him before someone called the high priest. And now the expectation is Stephen is going to make his defense. They accused him falsely, now he's got to make his defense. The high priest says, are these things so. And look what Stephen says. Verse 2, Brothers and fathers, hear me. He's going to go on and say a lot of things, but look how he starts. You're my brothers, you're my fathers over me. Hear me? And he's going to get into, I think it's about 50 so verses of his explanation, but he's going to start here. He's going to say, the God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia before he lived in Haran, and said to him, go out from your land and from your kindred, and go into the land that I will show you. So what Stephen's about to do, we typically call biblical theology. He's going to tell the story of the Bible and he's going to do it for a purpose. So when we look at Acts, chapter seven, we're not quite looking at a defense from Stephen. He's not pleading guilty to the false accusation. He's actually going to do a biblical theology, a purposeful retelling, and he's going to do it in a very familial way. He's pleading to people he calls his brothers and fathers, who are actually guilty of misunderstanding God's story. They're on the wrong side. They're not seeing it. And so he's actually showing them mercy by pleading to them. He's going to retell the story of the Bible and he's going to emphasize certain things to help them see their error and give them a chance to change. And the big question is going to be how do they respond to his plea? So he's going to start with Abraham, Abraham in the Bible, one of the key figures, the kind of the founder of the faith. And he's going to come, and God's going to come to him in the wilderness. And Stephen's main point in this, we're not going to look at every verse by verse today just because of the length of the chunk that we're looking at. Stephen's main point in the Abraham Passage is, God appeared to Abraham in the wilderness, not in a temple, not in a promised land. He said God appeared to Abraham, not in a temple or a promised land. And it is through Abraham that God began his rescue plan. And he does it through through a family. And as that family grows, we get Isaac, then we get Jacob. And from Jacob come what's called the patriarchs, the twelve tribes of Israel. And one of them is Joseph. And Joseph's brothers hate him. They're jealous of him, the Bible says, and they try to kill him, but then they realize, let's just sell him into slavery. So they sell him into slavery in Egypt. And the main point Stephen's going to make in this, when he talks about Joseph is he says God carries out his plan even when his own people do evil things. God is so in control of history that even when his own people do evil things, he can work it out for good. Joseph is rejected by his brothers, like Jesus. Stephen doesn't say that directly, but he wants them to understand that. And he goes to Egypt, and then a king eventually arises that forgets Joseph. And now all these people are in Egypt that knew. And the king used to know Joseph, and now he doesn't. And that's where we get to the third big figure that Stephen brings up, who is Moses. Moses is spared when the king of Egypt is persecuting people. And Moses rises up actually in an Egyptian palace. And one day he leaves the Egyptian palace to go save the Jews, to go to his people. And what Stephen's main point is with Moses is he says God uses people that he chooses to send. He gives them power. He goes with them to rescue and deliver. And what Stephen's going to really want them to see is Moses, who is the mega hero of the Old Testament, was actually rejected by their fathers, by the people that came before them. Let's get into it. Acts 7, verse 23. When Moses was 40 years old, it came into his heart to visit his brothers, the children of Israel. And seeing one of them being wronged, he defended the oppressed man and avenged him by striking down the Egyptian. He supposed that his brothers would understand that God was giving them salvation by his hand. But they did not understand. And on the following day, he appeared to them, his brothers, Jewish people. And they were quarreling, and he tried to reconcile them, saying, men, you are brothers. Why do you wrong each other? But the man who was wronging his neighbor thrust him aside, saying to Moses, who made you a ruler and a judge over us, do you want to kill Me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday? At this retort, Moses fled and became an exile in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons. So Moses strikes down an Egyptian persecuting a Jewish man. Then he goes to the Jews and he sees them quarreling, and they see what he did, and he flees. At this, it continues now. When 40 years had passed, an angel appeared to Moses in the wilderness of Mount Sinai in a flame of fire in a bush. When Moses saw it, he was amazed at the sight. And as he drew near to look, there came the voice of the Lord. The burning bush. I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob. And Moses trembled and did not dare to look. Then the Lord said to him, take off the sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy ground. I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their groaning and have come down to deliver them. And now come. I will send you to Egypt. So where God is. What one thing Stephen wants us to see. This is not in the promised land. This is not in the temple. Where God is, is holy ground. And God is the one who's going to send Moses. He's sent by God to the people. It continues. Stephen continues. This Moses, this man sent by God to the people whom they rejected, saying, who made you a ruler and a judge? This man God, sent as both ruler and redeemer by the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush. This man Moses led them out performing wonders and signs in Egypt and at the Red Sea and in the wilderness for 40 years. And he even throws this in there. This is the Moses who said to the Israelites, God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers, Stephen's saying they rejected Moses. And Moses even foretells that's Deuteronomy 18:15, if you're an Old Testament Bible nerd. And Moses says he actually foreshadows Jesus. Moses says, one day the true prophet's going to come from you, and that prophet is Jesus. Stephen is saying, make the connection to Jesus. What do they do? Though? Stephen concludes, our fathers refused to obey him, but thrust him aside, and in their hearts they turned to Egypt, saying, to Aaron, make for us gods who will go before us. As for this Moses, who led us out from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him. And they made a golden calf in those days and offered a sacrifice to the idol and were rejoicing in the works of their hands. But God turned away and gave them over to worship the host of heaven as it is written in the book of the Prophets. What Stephen is saying is they rejected God, sent one Moses, they worshiped an idol, they worshiped something golden that they built. And then Stephen's going to continue in his speech to the tabernacle and the temple, this place in the Old Testament where God dwelt among his people. But Stephen's going to make a point and say God dwelled there for a reason. But he's the God of the universe. We don't get to just decide where he gets to dwell. He chooses where he goes. And now what's interesting is the temple in Stephen's day as he's talking to them is something built by King Herod and adorned with gold. I think Stephen's trying to help them see, just like our fathers turned and worshiped the golden calf, you're turning and worshiping something golden. The works of your hands, not even your hands but Herod's. You're worshiping this temple as if it were an idol. He's appealing to them. John Stott says this. Stephen's speech was not so much a self defense as a testimony to Christ. His main theme was positive that Jesus the Messiah had come to replace the temple and fulfill the law which both bore witness to him. This is his biblical theology. We actually see Jesus talk about this in John 2 he says I'm the true temple. I'm the place where you meet with God. And in Matthew 5 he says, I've come to fulfill the law. I'm gonna do this. So now we get to Stephen's plea to the guilty. These people that are not getting it, look what he says. Verse 51 of Acts 7. You stiff necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears. You always resist the Holy Spirit as your fathers so did you. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the righteous one whom you have now betrayed and murdered you who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it. Now this is not very Minnesotan Stephen. Take it easy here. He's harsh and direct. But a life raft doesn't feel like a cruise ship. The news that rescues first confronts and he's trying to appeal to them. And he's saying you actually didn't get this. Your fathers didn't get this. Jesus now the true prophet Moses proclaimed has come and you betrayed him and rejected him. The Africa Bible Commentary says this Stephen has been telling them about their ancestors, and now he insists that the council are worthy descendants of their fathers, but not those fathers who served God. Rather, they are the descendants of those who opposed God's messengers. Stephen says, you have a family history of rejecting God. You're doing the same thing. You're not the hero, you're the villain. You're opposing God. You're rejecting God himself. The question then is, how will they respond to this? I was thinking about one of my favorite responses in all of media, and it's Ebenezer Scrooge and A Muppet Christmas Carol. This highbrow entertainment. And it he is confronted by the ghost, right? And he sees that he's in trouble. He sees that he's clinging to this idol of money and security, and he changes, he repents. He has a softness of heart and a receptivity with a grateful prayer and a thankful heart, right? He's different. He's totally different because he saw it, he got it, and he experiences joy. Is their response going to be like that? No, no. Look what happens. Verse 54. Now, when they heard these things, they were enraged and they ground their teeth at him. But he, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. And he said, behold, I see the heavens open. And the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. But they cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears and rushed at him. Just try that. Just do this for a second. Just. Oh, just feel that anger gritting your teeth. They feel like animals. It's grotesque. Meanwhile, Stephen, in his moment of greatest need, sees Jesus most clearly. What a distinction between these two parties. It continues. Then they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul. And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out, lord Jesus, receive my spirit. And falling to his knees, he cried out with a loud voice, lord, do not hold this sin against them. And when he had said this, he fell asleep. Stephen is killed outside the city. Begging God to forgive the evil people that are killing him reminds us of Jesus. He's just like Jesus. And when we look at this, we have to understand one thing. Stephen's death is very precious to Jesus. Psalm 116:15 says, Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. Jesus is so associated with his people that in the next chapter of the Bible, he's going to say, or two chapters he's going to say, saul, why are you persecuting me? Stephen's prayer is going to be answered. A little teaser, but this young man named Saul who's standing there will end up on the other side of this forgiveness that's going to come from Stephen's prayer. Okay, so there's a lot of villains we could point our finger at. But the challenge with the Bible is Israel is just a microcosm of humanity. We saw that in the book when we studied the book of Romans. So this is kind of Stephen's charge to us. If we go back to the third chapter of the Bible, Genesis 3, from then on, we find ourselves opposing God on the wrong side of God's story, on the wrong side of history. So if that's what the people closest to God look like, we're toast. The history of us opposing God, but what is it for us? How do we oppose God? We cling tightly. We refuse to let go. Not to a golden calf, not to a temple. We cling tightly to our inner narrative, this inner narrative of our own goodness. We trust our own goodness, and it causes us to reject God. How do you know? How do you know you trust your own goodness in an area? Where do you. You're not going to know that you're proud. That's hard to figure out. But where do you get defensive when someone pushes you? Where are you offended to find out you said something wrong and hurt someone's feelings? Where do you get angry? Where do you feel threatened? That's an area. I guarantee that you think you're a good person, but say, okay, I don't know if I agree with the story of the Bible and how it describes a sinner. I don't know if I feel like I'm a sinner. Well, let's look at a modern standard. The Internet told me this is the answer to what makes someone a good person in 2025. Kindness and empathy. Integrity, being honest, inclusivity, social responsibility and growth. Being committed to growth. This is what makes someone a good person. Now, if you're honest in this room and you say, actually, yeah, I agree with that. I think that's what makes someone a good person. If you're really honest, you don't live up to the standard. None of us do. There are times we're not inclusive. There's times we let people down. There's times we forget to grow. We actually despise the idea that we would have to grow. But some of you might look at this and say, I don't actually know if I jive with that list. Well, then what made someone a good person in 1925? Maybe this lands more with you. It's a little different. Duty and honor, hard work, respectability, loyalty, charity and courtesy. And you say, yeah, I look at that list and I think that's a little more with what I think makes someone a good person. But if you're honest, when you look at that list, you don't measure up to that list. So we've got the Bible standard, we've got a modern standard, we've got a traditional standard. And in all of those, we fail. And in fact, we become unloving and uncompassionate to those who don't look like us. The place we think we're the best, the place we think we're a good person, we will despise people who don't look like us. We'll look like the villain. Now, here's the thing about Disney movies. They make the villains very obvious. Scar has a scar. Cruella De Vil is named Cruella de Vil. Claude Frollo is always. His eyes are always in the dark. Jafar's always. His face is kind of hidden. They make it very clear, but we don't. It's very difficult to know what's in our hearts. And one of the common misunderstandings of Christianity is that Christianity exists to turn villains into heroes. Or actually, one of the bigger misunderstandings is you're already the hero. Jesus comes in, just gives you a boost to be a little better. But that's not the case. The Bible storyline is telling us we're actually the villain. We're actually on the wrong side of history. I remember right before I was coming to Faith in Christ, I was in the car with Alison. We're driving, and we had just sat under a sermon, and I said, I'm not a sinner. I'm a good person. Shortly thereafter, God changed my heart on it. And I tried to find an image that best displayed that. And I grabbed this one. Bobby Cox getting ejected from a baseball game. I just love this. Bobby Cox was a manager of baseball that got ejected more than anyone. But this is what we're like when we're telling God our own resume and reputation and goodness or trying to parade it before others. We're like coach going out and arguing balls and strikes. You don't understand. You don't get it. You don't know how good I am. And Jesus needs to come in and eject that out of our hearts because our golden calf is Self worship, our golden calf is our own idea that we're the best, that we're on the right side of history. The challenge with the uniqueness of Christianity is Jesus is not a skin deep savior trying to make good people better. He's a rescuer who dies for sinners. And that rescue ejects self worship from our hearts. He takes that spot on the throne of our hearts and that sets us free. That sets us free to stop looking down on people. That sets us free to actually forgive and be compassionate. That sets us free from not clinging to the idea that we're so great or struggling. We're confronted with something that we said that was hurtful. You're out of here. I just. Sorry, one more. But here's the deal. You won't actually be compassionate in this way. You won't be forgiving. You won't experience this peace in the midst of trial that we see in Stephen. Until you understand this one thing. The Gospel is not about making you a better person. The gospel is the righteous for the unrighteous. Peter says it this way, for Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God. It's not about defending your resume of a good person in 2025 or 1925 or even according to a Bible standard. The Gospel is Christ taking your place, the righteous one, dying for your sins to bring you near to God. And we have to understand the Gospel. This is based on the Gospel. Jesus taking our place is based on the quality of Christ's love, not the quality of our deservingness. You won't stop arguing your own goodness with God until you see this. The Gospel is that there's one righteous one, one true hero, and he was glad to die for villains like us to bring us to God. So what does that mean for following Christ today then? It means the Gospel causes us to cling to Christ and not our own righteousness. Real beauty, transformation, freedom, true compassion will come from knowing Christ crucified for you. When we look at the end of Stephen's life, it's remarkable. He dies peacefully, seeing Jesus as clearly as he's ever seen him and begging God to forgive the very people that are killing him. Stephen never could have proclaimed boldly, suffered beautifully, forgiven remarkably apart from Christ, and releasing his grip on the vision of himself as a good person. When you find Jesus as your ultimate source of goodness, you will actually start to look like him. You'll have peace in the midst of suffering, compassion for difficult people, real spiritual beauty like Stephen has. So as we close in Gospel response, look to Jesus as the hero of history and your story and see how God uses that to change you. The right side of history is actually being aligned with Christ, united to him, dying to self to live for him. We're going to move now to a time of communion. There's kind of a number of ways you can respond during this time of communion. We've got the elements up here in the front, gluten free option on my left, your right. But during communion you can pray and I'm going to lead us in actually a prayer shortly. We get to remember the blood of Jesus shed for us represented by the juice, the body of Jesus broken for us, represented by the cracker. We get to remember that we are in with God, not because of our goodness, because of his. We get to sing and just praise God for saving us and we get to respond financially by giving. You can do that online. Hopecc.com give respond to God by showing back generosity that he's shown you. And for those that want to give up offering a physical offering or kids in the service that might want to give an offering, we have an offering box in the back as a way to respond to God, to respond to Jesus the hero dying for the villains who has rescued and saved us. I'm going to pray and I'd invite you to pray along with me this prayer as we welcome the worship team back up and move toward a time of communion. This might be the first time you might be today, the day that you're ready to receive Christ. Pray with me, Jesus. I am not the hero I have opposed. God, I need to trade you my sin for your goodness. I give my life to you, no longer trusting in myself, but trusting in you. Forgive me and receive me as your own God. We do pray now for anyone in this room who's on the fence with you that they would make this step of trusting in you once for all. The greatest decision anyone can ever make is to let go of our own goodness and trust in your goodness. Receive your righteousness through the gospel, your forgiveness, your acceptance through Christ. God, I pray now you'd open our eyes to sing and praise and worship and delight in your good news. Give us clear sight to see how good you are the way Stephen saw you and help us to go from this place bringing a vision of your beauty, your compassion, your forgiveness, your love to those around us. We ask in Jesus name, amen.