This Week\’s Sunday School Lesson, \”Witnessing For Christ In The Face Of Death\”, 9/27/2015

 

WITNESSING FOR CHRIST IN THE FACE OF DEATH

 

Acts 7:1-4, 8-10, 17, 33-34, 45-47, 52-53, 55

 

 

This newly formed Church of Jesus Christ grew  a rapid rate. The first deacons were

installed to handle the needs of the congregation.  Stephen an outstanding Deacon, was

filled with Holy Spirit and preformed miracles and signs in the name of Jesus.

 

Some of the leading Jews of the Synagogue of the Freedmans, and others became

upset with Stephen when they could not win the argument concerning Jesus Christ.

They stirred up the people  producing false witness who claimed Stephen spoke

against Moses, the Law and the Temple. Stephen was bounded and brought before

the Sanhedrin council to be prosecuted.   Stephen gave his accusers a history lesson

on God\’s divine plan for their nation.

 

 

V:1. \” Then the high priest asked him, \”Are these charges true?\”

1. From time to time, believers will be asked to defend their belief in Jesus Christ.
2. The world will not understand why you believe what you believe.
3. Sometimes the world will not accept you because you believe in Jesus.
4. Some times you will be attacked because you stand on the Word.
5. We have a present day case where an elected pubic official is being attacked because

she will not issue marriage licenses to same sex couples.

1. She chose to violate man\’s law to keep God\’s law.
2. She considered God\’s command to be the authority over the laws of man.
3. As a result, her personal reputation is being attacked.
4. It will take faith and patience to see how God handles her situation.

 

THE START OF A NATION

V:2-4. \” To this he replied: \”Brothers and fathers, listen to me! The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham while he was still in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran.

3 \’Leave your country and your people,\’ God said, \’and go to the land I will show you.\’

4 \”So he left the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran. After the death of his father, God sent him to this land where you are now living. \”

1. Notice, Stephen did not try to defend the false accusations against him.
2. He left his reputation to God.
3. You cannot protect yourself from what someone will say about you or will

do to you.

1. When we are following God\’s commands, He will protect us in His way.
2. Stephen focused His attention on the historical development of Israel in an

effort to show His accusers that Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior.

1. God chose Abraham to be the father of His nation.
2. God chose a man and separated him from his idolatrous past.
3. The core values of Christianity is Faith and obedience.
4. Abraham did not hesitate to move when God gave him this command.
5. It takes faith to move to a different place when you do not know what

your future holds.

1. The land that Abraham was commanded to move to would eventually

become the home of God\’s New Nation.

 

PURPOSEFUL GENERATION

Acts 7:8-10

8 Then he gave Abraham the covenant of circumcision. And Abraham became the father of Isaac and circumcised him eight days after his birth. Later Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob became the father of the twelve patriarchs.

1. Having chosen Abraham as the father of a holy nation, God allowed generations to

be born which became the twelve tribes of Jacob.

1. The Lord\’s plan of redemption began to take shape with His choice of Abraham as

the father of a Nation that would produce the earthly mother and father of Jesus.

1. God\’s plan for our lives began before the foundation of the earth.
2. All the events of our lives have been preplanned by God.
3. God knows the end from the beginning.
4. That is good news because we knows how the story of our lives will end.

 

PURPOSEFUL EVIL.

V:9-10 \”Because the patriarchs were jealous of Joseph, they sold him as a slave into Egypt. But God was with him

10 and rescued him from all his troubles. He gave Joseph wisdom and enabled him to gain the goodwill of Pharaoh king of Egypt; so he made him ruler over Egypt and all his palace. \”

1. God plans trouble for our lives for the benefit of the entire body of Christ.
2. It is the trouble in our lives that causes us to seek a closer relationship with the

Father.

1. It was Joseph\’s brothers who activated God\’s promise to Abraham that His people

would spend 400 years in slavery.

1. Joseph\’s brothers became jealous of the attention his father gave him
2. They sold Joseph, their brother into slavery and lied to the father that he had

been killed by an animal.

1. God uses the evilness of others to promote his plan.
2. God uses the evilness of others to strengthen our faith.
3. God uses the evilness of others to promote us to higher levels.
4. Because of Joseph\’s slavery, he found favor with God and man and was promoted

to ruler over Israel.

1. Let\’s not complain about our troubles, because they may be the road to our

success.

 

THE GROWTH OF A NATION

V:17 \”As the time drew near for God to fulfill his promise to Abraham, the number of our people in Egypt greatly increased.

1. God uses suffering to grow us into obedient, faithful servants.
2. Joseph suffered at the hands of his brothers.
3. He was sold into slavery by his brothers.
4. He was lied on by  wife of his owner and imprisoned.
5. Because Joseph was faithful to God during his trials, God elevated him to ruler.
6. They meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.
7. After being elevated in Egypt, there was a famine in the promised land.
8. Because Joseph was ruler in Egypt he brought his family of seventy five members

from the promise land to live in Egypt.

1. That family of seventy five people grew into a people of 2 million.
2. Over the course of time because of their numbers they became slaves in Egypt.
3. When the king that made Joseph ruler of Egypt died new kings came to

power who did not know Joseph and made slaves of God\’s people.

1. This fulfilled the prophecy that God gave to Abraham hundreds of years earlier.

 

THE SELECTION OF A NATIONAL LEADER

Acts 7:33-34

33 \”Then the Lord said to him, \’Take off your sandals; the place where you are standing is holy ground.

34 I have indeed seen the oppression of my people in Egypt. I have heard their groaning and have come down to set them free. Now come, I will send you back to Egypt.\’

1. Moses was raise up in Egypt.
2. He raised in Egypt not as a slave, but as a member of the King\’s family.
3. Because the numbers of Hebrews were increasing, one of the Kings of Egypt

decided to kill all new born male Hebrew babies.

1. When Moses was born, His mother put him into a basket in the

Nile river where he was noticed by the King\’s daughter.

1. Again God used the evil of the heart of the King of Egypt to promote his plan.
2. Moses was educated as an Egyptian and trained as a leader.
3. Moses true to his heritage rejected his Egyptian training,

after seeing an Egyptian mistreating one of his people.

1. Moses killed the Egyptian and ran away to the desert.
2. Forty years later, God drew Moses to himself and made him the leader

who brought Israel out of slavery.

1. You never know how God will use your circumstances to be a blessing to others.

 

THE BUILDING OF GOD\’S TEMPLE

Acts 7:45-47

45 Having received the tabernacle, our fathers under Joshua brought it with them when they took the land from the nations God drove out before them. It remained in the land until the time of David,

46 who enjoyed God\’s favor and asked that he might provide a dwelling place for the God of Jacob.

47 But it was Solomon who built the house for him.

1. The body is the temple of the Lord.
2. Under Joshua, God brought His promise people into the promise land

under the covenant He made with Abraham some 400 plus years earlier.

1. This is proof that God keeps His promises to us, but in His own time.
2. God gave Israel His commands for living and the procedures to worship Him

to keep His nation holy.

1. God designed a tabernacle for worship and sacrifice for the atonement of sins.
2. God promise success in the promise land if Israel obeyed His commands.
3. During the course of time, God selected David as King over Israel.
4. David was a type of Christ, a man after God\’s own heart.
5. David was king of Israel.
6. Christ is king of kings.
7. David desired a temple to be built to worship and honor God.
8. Solomon, David\’s son built the temple.
9. Today we worship God in Church buildings built with human hand.
10. Every believer is the temple of God built in His spirit.

 

THE REJECTION OF THE KING OF KINGS

Acts 7:52-53

52 Was there ever a prophet your fathers did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One. And now you have betrayed and murdered him—

53 you who have received the law that was put into effect through angels but have not obeyed it.\”

1. Israel the blessed people of God, rejected the greatest blessing of God, His Son.
2. Israel rejected the commands of God and became enslaved to their own lustful

behavior.

1. They were blinded by their traditions which they chose as the authority over

Gods Word.

1. When the promised Messiah was born to them, they rejected Him because He did not

look like their evil desires.

1. Jesus came preaching the Goodness of the Father and His kingdom.
2. Because of His popularity among the people and His healings and miracles

and the teaching of the Truth, the  ruling Jews killed Him.

1. By killing Jesus, they lifted Him up for the world to worship.

 

GLORIFING THE FATHER

V:55. \” But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.\”

1. Stephen reminded the ruling Jews of their heritage which they rejected.
2. We have a rich History with Jesus.
3. Not only are we witness to His grace, mercy and goodness, but we also

have a cloud of witnesses that have gone on to glory before us.

1. To reject Christ is to reject the abundant living promised by Him.
2. To reject Christ is to reject the eternal life provided by Him.
3. To reject Christ is to reject His love and forgiveness.
4. Stephen was stone to death glorifying God with his life.
5. Stephen repeated the same word Jesus spoke as He was dying on the cross, \”Father

forgive them for they know not what they do.

1. Jesus stood by the Father and received Stephen into His hands.

 

Faith in the Word require us to trust God regardless of our situation.

God used the faith of Stephen while he was being stoned to encourage us

to continue in the faith in face of our storms.

 

Rev. M. Mitchell

Asst Pastor of Greater Macedonia Baptist Church.