The same thing we're continuing our study through the book of Acts, and we are still in Acts chapter 7 in the midst of Stephen's sermon. You'd recall that as he's brought before the religious leaders, he begins to respond to accusations that were levied against him, false accusations. Again, that really underlined betray what the religious leaders of the day really held dear. And we've considered as Stephen's sermon as he began with Abraham and then continued with Joseph.
And here this evening we find that he references Moses. Now our text is going to be a little different than what you see in your bulletin today. We'll consider a few more verses, but we will be considering verses 17 through 34 verses 17 through 34. Now before we jump into this text and we can see Stephen's sermon as he responds to religious leaders, let's break together and ask a little blessing on the reading and preaching of this word.
Our Father in heaven we ask that you would open our eyes that we may see wondrous things from your law. Oh God we pray that even as Stephen intended that we might be whole Christ in all of the scriptures even see how Moses would point us to Jesus. And so God we pray that you would bless us. As we consider the history of the Hebrews, Lord we see our own even as we are children of you, O God, engrafted into your family.
And so we ask that you would bless us now in Jesus name and pray. Amen. In beginning in verse 17 this is God's word, holy and fallible and errant. Let us give you here.
But as the time of promise drew near which God had granted to Abraham, the people increased and multiplied in Egypt until there arose over Egypt another king who did not know Joseph. He dealt shrewdly with our race and forced our fathers to expose their infants so that they would not be kept alive. At this time Moses was born and he was beautiful in God's sight and he was brought up for three months in his father's house and when he was exposed Pharaoh's daughter adopted him and brought him up as her own son. And Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and he was mighty in his words and deeds.
When he was forty 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 as they were quarrelling and trying to reconcile them saying, man you are brothers, why do you wrong each other? But the man who was wrong in his neighbor thrust him aside saying, who made you a ruler and 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. Now when forty years had passed an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai in a flame of fire in a bush and when Moses saw it he was amazed at the sight and as he drew near to look there came a voice of the Lord, I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob and Moses trembled. It did not dare to look and the Lord set to him.
Take off the sandals from your feet to the place where your standing is holding ground. I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their groaning and I have come down to deliver them and now come I will send you to Egypt. With the grass-withers and the flower falls the word of our God stands forever and ever. Thanks be to God.
Stephen this week begins to pick up a line of reasoning that he began last week during our sermon last week and with greater emphasis this evening. Following the history of their people Stephen begins to unpack and show how even in the history of their people God was in the business of raising up redeemers and Israel was in the business of rejecting these redeemers. So what we find in this passage is Stephen doing what we call a redentive history. I want you to know that redentive history is not something reserved for the ivory towers of seminary classrooms and education but redentive history is how we understand the Bible's interconnectedness one thread running from Genesis to Revelation that is Jesus Christ.
Here we see Stephen doing this showing his audience how the Bible and how God has always shown forth Jesus even through someone like Moses. And so first what I want you to see this evening is that God raises up a redeemer. That God raises up a redeemer. Verse 17 continues the emphasis again of Joseph's narrative that God sovereignly and providentially orchestrates the events that led to the deliverance of Egypt and the preservation of his people.
That the same sovereign God is still at work. This one who organized all things that Joseph might be in such a place at such a time as the one who is still at work in the days of Moses. And here the lens zooms out not with the patriarchs in view but Egypt where things have changed. There arose a pharaoh that did not know Joseph and there are different theories as to why Pharaoh may be or who this Pharaoh may be and reasons as to why he did not know Joseph.
But the scope of God's providence in the midst of suffering expands and goes from the patriarchs to God's people, the Israelites. And there are different, again here we have Joseph, not Joseph but Israel, squirming under God's providence. And the Lord was present and the Lord was still at work. And all the while the Hebrews were driven by their Egyptian taskmasters.
The Lord is at work in raising up a deliverer. In verses 17 through 22 make note of Moses' unique qualifications to be a redeemer. Now you heard last Sunday if you were here in the morning service with us. You heard from one of our deacons who announced or shared some about our progress regarding repairing our stained glass over here.
And you can imagine how specialized of a job that may be to the point that many of the contractors that we contacted wouldn't even consider our job matching colors, cutting glass, precise lead work all the while maintaining proper dimensions and installation and not shattering it into a million pieces as they would carve hard around. You understand that stained glass repair requires specific qualifications. And notice how Stephen highlights Moses' qualifications. Not to repair stained glass but to be raised up as a redeemer.
To be a sufficient redeemer. Right? Notice he's preserved in the face of Pharaoh's edict to put to that infant. He's preserved.
He's granted a place in Pharaoh's own house as he has rescued from the river in reared by his own Hebrew mother. And he was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. And he was mighty in his words indeed. And Stephen picks up on really the palpable irony and we can say even the limbic of the Exodus account that God used Pharaoh's own house to raise up a redeemer for his people.
And so Moses is uniquely qualified. However, I don't want you to think that his providential resume is somehow the ultimate basis of his qualifications. Right? We feel this way often when we doubt our own ability or our own capability to go about the Lord's work.
If we're honest with ourselves, I imagine many of us feel inadequate to evangelize the lost. We feel inadequate to lead our children and family devotions. We feel inadequate to teach others the things of God or to walk with someone through grief and hardship. And oftentimes we take stock of our own experience and think, well, I'm unqualified.
Well, the beauty of this passage is that what qualifies Moses to be such a redeemer for God's people is that the Lord fashions him and makes him so. Like a sword. The Lord heats the metal and hammers it out. He reinforces the steel and cools it.
He shapes the blade and hones it and sharpens it that he made he wielded. And so we consider that churchism that really rings true, but the Lord equips those he calls. He fashions and furnishes those whom he raises up. And church, he does suffer you.
As you were being conformed more and more to the image of Christ, leaning and resting upon him alone for your salvation and by the power of the Holy Spirit equipping you that you may do all things according to his will, he is forming and fashioning you to go about and to be about his purposes. But as in this, Moses' section, then I think we see Christ most clearly because we know Jesus to have been so uniquely equipped and furnished to be raised up to be our redeemer and in much greater way than Moses. What do we hear from the New Testament? But for in Christ, all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of the cross.
Was Jesus not a perfect sacrifice? Was he not the spotless Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world? Was he not God incarnate, both God and man? Was he not born of a woman, born under the law that he might keep the law and buy his active obedience?
And so submit himself to the cross in our place as passive obedience and in doing so being the only way, truth and life that we may come before the Father. You see Moses has raised up and equipped to save his people. How much more is Jesus equipped to save you? Second, what I want you to see is not only is there a redeemer raised up, but there's a redeemer rejected.
Redeemer rejected. We're going to come back to this. There's going to be an echo of this next week as we continue on and Moses has the story and get to the verdict. But we continue to trace Israel's pattern in verses 23 through 29 where Stephen summarizes the events that led to Moses fleeing Egypt and going into exile in the land of Midian.
Now, I think we should note how Stephen handles this passage because when we read the account of the book of Exodus, we're left perhaps with some ambiguity regarding Moses' potential guilt regarding the taking of a life. When I ask the question, is Moses guilty of murder? While commentators vary widely over the answer to that question, even the Prince of Egypt makes an interpret decision. Okay?
Notice Stephen's recounting in this passage. What does he say? When he was 40, Moses, when he was 40 years old. It came into his heart to visit his brothers, the children of Israel.
When seeing one of them being wronged, he defended the oppressed man and avenged him by striking down the Egyptian. He's supposed that his brothers would understand that God was giving them salvation by his hand, but they did not understand. What did you notice a few things while what he says? First, notice his heart was tender towards his brothers.
Though Moses knew all the privilege and prestige of Pharaoh's house by God's grace, he had not forgotten his people. Second, notice his heart was moved by their suffering and oppression. So Moses's actions were not vindictive and necessarily sinful, but rather he defended the oppressed man. This was not done in cold blood.
Lastly, Stephen mentions that Moses had some sense of his role to play, or at least a desire to play it, that by his hand his people might be saved. And Moses does not yet understand his role, nor has he yet been to be commissioned by God to redeem his people, but there appears to be some sense in which Moses might use all the Lord granted him to do good with the Hebrews. What's the point of all this? Well, despite Moses's attempt to show himself to be their potential redeemer, the people rejected him.
Who made you a ruler and judge over us? Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday? Into this he fled the land of Midian. Now it's not my intent to reconcile or take a deep dive into understanding Stephen's interpretation of the Exodus account.
I think by faith we should understand Stephen to be proclaiming truths from the Scriptures and doing so under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit as the sermon is recorded by Luke. But Stephen is connecting the dots to reveal a pattern throughout Israel's history that they reject the redeemers that the Lord has raised up. They reject the redeemers that the Lord raises up. Now the world may call this an avoidant connection style or maladaptive coping mechanisms.
But the Bible understands this to be simply put in act of sin, evidence of their heart, and in the hardness of their heart they cast aside the Lord's chosen. And you see this being prophesied in the Scriptures. It considers Psalm 118, a decidedly Messianic Psalm that prophesies. The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.
And this is the Lord's doing. It is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad.
And at what day is it that we rejoice and what day is it in which we are glad that the day in which the stone was rejected. When Christ was crucified. It's this cornerstone that Peter tells us is Christ who has been cast aside. And it's this cornerstone upon which the church is being built with the foundation as the apostles in profit in which we are living stones being built up upon the living cornerstone.
It's a temple of God, a dwelling place of God, not made with human hands. And Stephen is only reaffirming what Peter has already charged against the religious leaders. If you recall that stabbing point of his sermon in chapter 2, which is let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him, both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified. This is the point that Israel has a track record of rejecting their redeemer.
Now if you remember what happened at the end of Peter's sermon, well there was revival. The spirit moved in a mighty way. Many men, women and children came to saving faith in Jesus Christ. And do you know what happened at the end of Stephen's sermon?
They take Stephen out and they put him to death. Here we find rejection, yet again, of the Lord's chosen. Unless we think this manifestation of sin is reserved only for the first century Jew, I ask what of us? Well we know from Paul and Romans 1 that there are none who are without excuse before the Lord of the day of judgment.
It's plainly known to them that they suppress the truth. But what of us who have heard the gospel message? What of us who have heard the good news of salvation for sinners through the person and work of Jesus Christ and in the hope of having faith in him? If you zoom out from Stephen standing before the Sanhedrin, narratively speaking, this marks a shift in Luke's account of the early church away from Jerusalem and then to Judea and Samaria to the ends of the earth.
In a way, narratively, this is a final rejection of Christ as he has proclaimed here in Stephen's sermon. We'll consider that more next week. Not only should I understand me, the church in Jerusalem will continue to grow and the church will continue and the Lord will continue to save, but there appears to be the beginning of this shift to the Gentiles. God begins to establish new Israel in the church and he says the gospel is for you.
Christ and him crucified has been proclaimed. And the question is, have you responded? Or have you cast him aside? Have you responded to the gospel call to repent and believe?
Or have you cast him aside? If you have, would you receive Christ even now? Would you confess with your mouth that he is Lord and would you be saved? Friends reject not your Redeemer.
Thirdly, what I want you to see is that one is raised up for redemption. Two Redeemer is raised up for the sake of redemption. And so Stephen goes on to magnify Moses's call of calling to redeem. Going beyond God's providentially granting him station, but getting into something much more grand and glorious.
For Stephen recounts now when 40 years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai in a flame of fire in the bush. And when Moses saw it, he was amazed at the sight. And as he drew near to look there came the voice of the Lord, I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham and the Vai's again of Jacob. And Moses trembled, and dared not to look.
And then the Lord said to him, take off your sandals from your feet for the place where you were standing as holy ground. I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and I have heard their groaning, and I have come down to deliver them. And now come, I will send you to Egypt. You see, God is not only blessing providentially Moses in Pharaoh's household like he would have with Joseph, but God here communicates his plan to redeem and his express call into Moses to be the one through whom his people will be redeemed.
And what's important here is that Stephen is continuing to show that God was present with his people prior to the construction of the temple. Remember that was one of the charges against Stephen that he was this zealous man like this Jesus who said that the temple would be destroyed. And in this account, we see not only is God present with his people, but he's gloriously present with his people. Not only was he with Moses in the wilderness, but he appeared to him in the burning bush.
Not really was, again, his providential hand guiding all things as with Joseph, but he makes himself known. And in fact, if we go back and read the account of the Lord God revealing himself to Moses, he says, I am who I am. And he said, say this to the people of Israel, I am has sent me to you. And this is a glorious testimony to the faithfulness of God, not only to Moses and his people, but to you and to me that he wouldn't make himself known.
YHWH reveals to Moses that he is in that he is present. Now, I think this is important because Stephen is linking the presence of the Lord with Moses and his particular mission to redeem. And it's not Moses who also redeems his people, but the Lord, who uses such primary and secondary means to the point that he can preface the giving of the law by saying, I am the Lord, YHWH your God, who brought you out of land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. Yes, it is Moses who was commanded to go before Pharaoh and demand that he let my people go.
Yes, it's by Moses and through his being present that plagues beset Egypt. Yes, it's by Moses' hands that the people are led out and across the Red Sea and into the wilderness and to save the away from Egypt. But it's God who redeems his people. He's the Lord who delivers them.
You hear what he said to Moses, I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their groaning and I have calmed down to deliver them. And now come I will send you to Egypt. God works through Moses. And here we see Christ as the better Moses.
For Jesus was no mere man who received specific instruction, but is the God man who dwelt among us to himself redeem us. And Stephen's references this glory of the Lord as our Savior as is typified here in verse 34, I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and I have heard their groaning and I have calmed down to deliver them. And now come I will send you to Egypt. This brings our attention not just to Israel's tendency to reject their redeemer, but God's faithfulness to redeem.
The Lord's presence is tied to his redeeming. And friends this is the beauty of John's prologue. And in other sports Stephen's point here, in the beginning was the word. And the word was with God.
And the word was God. Verse 14, and the word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. And he probably heard it said that the word dwell here in John 1 is used in the Septuagint degree translation of the Old Testament.
And this word is used to describe the Lord's filling the temple, his presence in the temple, literally saying that the word became flesh and tabernacle among us. And so Stephen reminds us that the religious leaders that he reminds us and religious leaders that he both causes and by his own hand, redeems. If faithless Israel are the people who reject, God is the God who is faithful to redeem. And as if Stephen is laying this out before the Sanhedrin and showing them that Jesus Christ is the one you anticipated, the one the prophets spoke of, the better Moses not nearly appearing in a bush but in flesh to redeem his people from guilt in the peltus.
I don't want to remind you that what Stephen is doing here is tracing God's redemptive history through a particular point in the Old Testament. And showing us how every word and every page of the Bible speaks and points us to Jesus. Once you imagine with me for a second that you have a, that someone hands you a box filled with a thousand jigsaw puzzle pieces, but it doesn't have a lid. You go out and all you see are scattered shapes and confusing colors.
Some pieces are dark and some don't see the fit anywhere and it's frustrating. You need to get a wonder if it will ever make sense. But then someone walks by and shows you the box lid or the cover image. And suddenly everything changes.
That random blue piece is part of the sky. That strange brown corner, well it belongs to the cross on a hill and every piece now has a place in the big picture. This is what God has done in the pattern set before us of redemption. This is the thread that Stephen is pulling and it makes no sense.
It makes no clear sense until we behold all of God revealed in Jesus Christ. Nailed upon a cross crucified for our sins and being raised again on the third day. The scriptures only make sense through Jesus. So throughout the scriptures we see stories of failure and exile and rescue and redemption and repentance and turning.
We see God's covenantal faithfulness and this all seems to be scattered when viewed individually. But in Christ the box lid is revealed. He is the image that makes sense of it all. And the question is do we cover our eyes?
Do we toss it aside? Or do we behold Christ in all of the scriptures? It's only in Jesus that we make sense of these redemptive patterns. And what does it do but reveal to us the love of our Father exalted in heaven?
The one who has come to redeem even the one who had used the rejection of Jesus to bring about the saving of many. This is the God that we worshiped. This is the God who has redeemed you. This is the message of the scriptures that there is redemption to be found in Christ and God is present with us through Christ.
Let's pray. Father we thank you that you would reveal to us the glory of Christ in your word. That we would have insight into that great flow and historical trajectory of redemptive history that you have always been about, making a way that we might return to you. That we might be welcomed into your presence through the blood of Jesus Christ.
And so we pray that you would give us the light to see Christ on every page. That you would give us the light to show forth Jesus to those around us. And that we would not shy away. Lord, if we holding our Savior and making Him known.
O God, we pray that you would bless us, that you would keep us, and that you would strengthen us now. In Jesus, we pray.