All posts for the month October, 2026

Acts 8 – Sermon Manuscript

Witnessing to the World

-One of the scandals of the church is who gets to be a part of it. Have you ever noticed the way we work to build ourselves up and tear others down? When we’re little we measure things like height or speed as those who are the best. As we get a little older it becomes intelligence or athletics. Then it’s your bank account and house. But all those pursuits end up leaving people wanting more, while Jesus comes and tears down all those markers that we use to divide. Which means the church has forever been filled by a group of people who don’t look like they should get along. Today we’re going to see the church break down numerous cultural and social divides, which is meant to continue being the call of the church today! I love pointing out that in this room there are 5 different generations of people, where else do they willingly give up their time to be together? Men and women, grandparents and babies, Millennials and Boomers, Gen X and Gen Alpha, all gathering together around the goal of taking 1 step closer to Jesus.

READ/PRAY (pg. 973)

Dispersion of the Church (1-8)

-Last week we ended tracing the ministry of Stephen, one the 7 table ministers, and we were introduced to this new character: Saul. This week’s text picks up with him, which is a great time to remind us that verse numbers aren’t inspired! They were added hundreds of years after the fact to help with navigating it, but that’s why you’ll read in Heb. 2:6 “But someone somewhere has testified:” and then he goes on the quote from Psalm 8. They were compiled onto various scrolls! So vs. 1 should be seen as the conclusion of the killing of Stephen before going on to describe the rest of the persecution. But Saul brackets these 3 verses (1 & 3) so we’ll look at those together.

-Saul ravages: he’s learning where the Christians are meeting, takes men and women and throws them in prison. It was a unique thing for women to be included in this persecution at the time, and even more unique for Luke to specifically call out that persecution. This likely means that everyone viewed the women as vital to the spreading of this church. Instead of just attacking the leader, Saul systematically attacks them and throws them in prison. As I’ve said, I’m going to bring up membership as we see it throughout this book, it’s likely that Saul found some list of who was a part of this group (we today call it a membership list). He wasn’t just going door to door, he was careful and strategic.

-But the middle section tells us that this “severe persecution” doesn’t accomplish what Saul was hoping, instead it says the disciples “scattered” into some new places.

-Think back to Acts 1:8, where Jesus prophesied where the disciples would be His witnesses: in Jerusalem (which is where they’ve been up to this point), and where else? Judea and Samaria and the ends of the earth, look back at vs. 2, where did they scatter to? Exactly where Jesus said they would. God isn’t behind evil events, but even evil events accomplish God’s ultimate plans.

-What do those who were scattered do? They keep doing exactly what they were previously doing! But now they’re doing it in new places, they can’t help but continue preaching the Word everywhere they go. And I think this is something for us to consider too. Do you talk about the word wherever you go? Jesus tells a story about this in Matt. 13 where a farmer spread seed, and the ironic thing about the it is he’s a terrible farmer! Throwing his seed on the walking path next to the field, in a patch of rocks, with the thorns, he’s indiscriminately throwing the seed everywhere he goes. That’s what we’re supposed to be doing with the Word! What’s different about us and this farmer is we don’t know what the soil of someone’s heart is, but regardless of the person we’re talking to, we give the Word.

-The focus shifts to Philip in vs. 5 who was another one of the 7, and just like Stephen has an incredible preaching ministry.

-Our translation says that he went to a city, but some manuscripts (and some translations) describe this as THE city, referring to the capitol. That seems to make sense based on the significance of this story. We’ve seen the conversion of the Jews at their capitol city of Jerusalem, now we’re going to see the conversion of the Samaritans at their capitol city, but Philip just goes doing exactly what all the disciples were doing: spreading the Word about Jesus.

-We’re starting to get in a bit of a rut here because we’ve already seen all these exact same things happen before. Luke tells us that the Word ministry is once again connected to signs. We didn’t read what signs Stephen was doing, here we see what those sings were: exorcisms, healing of the paralyzed and lame. This is a manifestation of something I said last week: the Word ministry and the practical ministry are 2 sides of the same coin; you can’t separate them out. If you believe in the Word, it will be made visible through your actions.

-And the outcome of that ministry of Word and deed leads to great joy. What about when the ministry leads to oppression and persecution?

The Samaritan Pentecost (9-25)

-The outcome of Philip’s preaching is the faith of the Samaritans, but that means that there’s also going to be some kind of response from Satan to distract or deter the Word from doing its work, which leads to:

-meeting a new man named Simon, and the first thing Luke tells us is that he had practiced sorcery (magic) that had amazed the people. Today we would say he was dabbling in the occult or involved in dark spiritual practices. This battle between Jesus and the demons will come up again later because Jesus and other spiritual beings don’t get along, but Jesus is greater and stronger than any other being.

-Luke also tells us that Simon claimed to be “somebody great,” last week we saw the impulse of the human heart is always drawn back to Egypt, this week it’s the same idea with a different focus. Another way this sin is made visible in our lives is through trying to make your own name great, but that’s the opposite of how God has called us to live. And this is another thing that we can trace back to the beginning, in Gen. 11 we read the story of some people trying to build up their own names. Their goal is to build a giant tower that reaches the realm of the gods where they can build their own power & prestige, and then look at what the verse says their goal is: to build a name for themselves. Church, the human heart hasn’t changed in thousands of years!

-Today we call it platforming, building a brand, or influencing, and that has no place in following after Jesus. In fact, if what we’re doing leads to us getting the attention, what we’re doing might just be the wrong thing. Our job is to proclaim the Word, point people to the one the Word talks about (Jesus), and then get out of the way. And the unfortunate reality is the church is often just as guilty of this as the world! We chase after the latest fads, we appeal to Christian celebrities, missing how much of an oxymoron that is. In fact, one commentator I read said this story of Simon is the first “celebrity” conversion in the church! But that misses the reality that the point of being a Christian is Jesus, not us.

-And when Philip shows up in Samaria, he changes the dynamics and the focus of all the people! Suddenly Simon doesn’t have the corner on the market and this new gospel news about the kingdom of God is the latest fad in the area leading to some kind of mass conversion.

-Look at what Philip talks about here: the kingdom of God and Jesus Christ. What did Simon talk about? Himself! Since we’re in church, I think I’m allowed to confess this, but I love watching comedians, especially ones that do observational humor like Nate Bargatze and Brian Regan. Brian Regan has a bit about the “me monsters” at a get together (Google it later this afternoon if you haven’t seen it, Vikings are off this week and the Packers aren’t worth watching this year). We’ve all experienced that! Someone who can’t stop talking about themselves (and if you don’t know anyone like that, you’re probably that person). But what Jesus offers us is the ability to get over ourselves and begin to legitimately care for other people around us. In contrast to the “me monster,” CS Lewis said if you ever met a truly humble person, you wouldn’t walk away thinking about how humble they were, but about how kind they were in taking an interest in you. I need these kinds of reminders on a regular basis! It’s so easy for me to become overly fixated on my own comfort or desires instead of worrying about those around me, but that’s not the way of Jesus. Jesus frees me from fixating on myself and allows me to legitimately care about others.

-Apparently, even Simon the Sorcerer believed and was baptized, but that decision either only went skin deep or was a false conversion as we’ll see soon, but that’s getting a little bit ahead of the story.

-Word travels back to the apostles in Jerusalem about the effectiveness of the Word, so Peter and John are dispatched (remember, they’re still the leaders of this movement), but why do you think they’re both sent? Philip’s already there, why does there need to be 2 of the apostles. 2 primary reasons:

-First, according to the OT law, for something to be true, it requires 2 witnesses. Peter & John make 2!

-But the second reason is so they could pray for these new believers to receive the HS. This is one of those cases in this book where what’s described isn’t the normal course of events in the lives of Christians, because today there isn’t any gap between the faith and receiving the Holy Spirit, which means we need to ask the question, why is there this gap of time here? I found Australian commentator Dr. David Peterson helpful here:

-That’s why I titled this section “The Samaritan Pentecost” it’s a repeat of what happened in Jerusalem in Acts 2. And I also think the apostles were there to see that God wasn’t just working in the Jewish people anymore. The Samaritans and Jews were enemies for most of history, in fact, in Luke 9:54, John asks Jesus if he should call down fire on a city of Samaritans for not giving them a place to sleep! Suddenly that apostle is now praying for those same people that he wanted to kill! And in response, the Samaritans receive the HS.

-And just as we saw after Pentecost in Jerusalem, a couple wanted to appearance of holiness, the recognition and acclaim that came from being involved in this new community, an alternative option pops up here, and Simon the sorcerer re-enters the story. He wants whatever it is that the apostles have, and he thinks he can buy it. What’s interesting is he can tell that SOMETHING has happened. There are whole denominations that use this as evidence that we need to experience some kind of miraculous indwelling sometime after our conversion, but this isn’t something that’s true of the normal Christian experience, instead this is a unique event that shows the spread of the early church and connects this event to the Jerusalem church (leaders)

-Additionally, think about Simon’s request with a previous time Peter & John were asked for money back in Acts 3:6 “silver and gold I have NONE,” does it seem like money is something that could influence Peter & John? Nope! In fact, one of the requirements for elders later in the NT is “not a lover of money,” which means if you wouldn’t trust someone to help you with your finances, don’t trust them to be a leader in the church (but the inverse is also true: if you trust someone to be a leader in the church, you should also trust them to talk to you about finances without it affecting your relationship)

-And Peter won’t be affected by any money and condemns Simon. The words Peter uses here follow a number of OT curses God said He would give out to those who were disobedient: “part” or “share” alludes to Deut. 12:12, “poisoned by wickedness” from Deut. 29:16-21. Peter is saying this man isn’t truly a part of this new covenant community.

-It’s important for us to see that Simon doesn’t repent, he asks Peter to pray for him. If he’s truly saved, he would be able to pray on his own!

-And we’re left wondering: what happens to Simon after this! Does he repent? Does he continue looking for power from other places? Old stories would do this, leave them unresolved for us (parable of the prodigal: what happens to the older brother?). We’re forced to provide some kind of conclusion in our own mind, how would we respond if we were in this position? A modern-day example of this would be: how do you respond when someone confronts you about a sin issue in your life? Do you dismiss them? Make excuses? Blame someone or something else? On the one hand, at least Simon asked for prayer instead of trying to justify himself! But what we should do is cry out to Jesus! He has already paid the penalty for that sin, and He’s given us the Holy Spirit to combat those sins.

-But Simon isn’t the main character, this section ends with Peter and John going back to their primary focus: preaching the Word as they travel. Are you starting to catch the theme of this book? We’re tracing the expansion of God’s Word into the furthest corners of the world, beginning with Judea and Samaria. This also fulfills what Jesus said to the Samaritan woman in John 4 where He said a day was coming when Jews & Samaritans would all worship in spirit & truth, this story is that becoming a reality!

All Are Welcome (26-40)

-But Philip goes a different direction than the apostles, and this time the Word is going to expand even further out from the Samaritans. We looked at this map earlier, previously he driven out from persecution up to Samaria, now an angel tells him to go south towards Gaza, and Philip obeys! And who does he run into? Another person who wouldn’t have been allowed anywhere near the temple.

-4 descriptions of this person: Ethiopian, man, eunuch, high official. This is the kind of person Roman culture despised, referring to eunuch’s as the ultimate “non-man” but also not a woman, so the prevalent culture wouldn’t have a place for him, but notice what else Luke tells us: in Ethiopia, he was a high official, which tells us he was well connected highly thought of in that culture, even if the Jewish world didn’t have a place for him.

-Luke also tells us that he had come to worship in Jerusalem, making him a “God fearer,” someone who even though he wasn’t a Jew, was working to obey the 1 true God, and what’s incredible is this man likely wouldn’t have even been able to go into the court of the Gentiles because he was a eunuch! But even though he couldn’t “meet” God at the temple, God was coming to meet him on this desert road

-And he’s reading the scroll of Isaiah out loud! Contrast this with what we’ve seen of those opposed to the spread of the church so far in this book who won’t even consult the OT, much less work to obey it. So we’re seeing that God has been at work in other cultures too and has been subtly drawing the nations to himself. What this may be fulfilling is a prophecy from Isa. 56, which would have been just a few inches lower on the scroll this man was reading. Look at what God says about this man:

-Instead of being excluded from the temple worship, the eunuchs and the foreigners will be servants of the Most High God, they’ll be bringing their offerings to worship God together because God is the God of the world, not just 1 nation. But it all depends on their response to Jesus, which is who this eunuch “just happens” to be reading about!

-And Philip is commanded by the Spirit (how?) to run up to it, so he does. And he asks a simple question of the man: do you understand?

-Philip is starting with where this guy is at, taking advantage of the opportunity presented to him, being faithfully present where God has called him to be. We need to be on the lookout for similar situations around us! I remember a time I was working on a sermon in a Starbucks (again, I apologize to all you Minnesotans, Caribou’s aren’t as plentiful in CO), someone asked me what I was in school for because I had a few commentaries scattered around me. If you’ve never seen a commentary, they tend to be pretty large! But one of the baristas asked me where I was going to school, and I got to tell him I was working on a sermon which led to me talking about the church just down the road. Not every conversation goes like that, sometimes when people find out I’m a pastor they stop talking to me! But all of us should be taking advantage of opportunities like that to point people back to Jesus.

-This eunuch is reading from Isa. 53:7-8, which is a Messianic prophecy pointing forward to Jesus, and where the conversation began with Philip asking a question, now the eunuch asks Philip a question: who is Isaiah talking about? And that’s all Philip needs! He starts with that passage in Isa 53 and goes from there to talk about how Jesus is the ultimate fulfilment of what Isaiah was talking about. I think we see Paul telling us part of the significance of this story in Rom. 10: We need both the Word and teachers of the Word to help us understand what God’s saying. The Bible is both simple and complex: simple enough that children can read and benefit from it, but so complex that you can get advanced degrees in studying it because there’s SO MUCH to it! But don’t stop reading, studying, and digging in to it, when God’s Word gets into you, you won’t be able to stop talking about it and taking advantage of every opportunity to share about it with other people, you’ll always end up talking about the things you love, so if you love Jesus, He’s guaranteed to come up in every conversation, which is exactly what Philip has done, which apparently included the need to demonstrate your changed heart by being baptized, so chariot comes across some water and the eunuch asks another question:

-And I guess there’s nothing that would stop him from being baptized, because that’s exactly what Philip does. Once again, it’s important for us to take a minute and talk about this because there are some Christian groups that argue that you need to be baptized in order to be saved so they push for instantaneous baptisms when someone is saved. That’s not what this text is saying! We are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone, but since this man has demonstrated that he wants to be obedient to God, he wants to move forward with the sign & seal of that salvation through baptism.

-As soon as the baptism is finished, Philip is apparently carried away by the Spirit to a new place, which means this has to be the weirdest baptism in history! One of my kids has shared that they want to be baptized, but is scared I’ll leave them under the water too long (which probably says more about me than her fear), imagine getting baptized, coming out of the water, and the person baptizing you is just gone! But instead of freaking out (like I would do) the response of the eunuch is the same as the Samaritans: rejoicing, praising God, giving thanks for this salvation, and that’s the last we’ll read about this Eunuch, intentionally contrasted to Simon the Sorcerer, here we have a wonderful conclusion! Salvation leading to rejoicing, which is where we’re now supposed to ask: which one are you like? Jesus says something about what’s going on here in Luke 10:20 right after he sends his disciples out to begin preaching. They come back on cloud 9 because even the evil spirits listened to them!

-In this story, Simon was trying to hold on to power and influence, trying to build up his name and even called himself great, but he ends up with nothing. The eunuch, whose name we don’t even know is given a gift of infinite value, and he walks away rejoicing just like Jesus told His followers to do!

-Philip “appears” somehow in Azotus, then works his way up to Caesarea continually preaching the gospel. Once again, here’s the map showing Philip’s travels (with a skip from Gaza to Azotus), but everywhere he goes he’s continually preaching the gospel, taking advantage of any and every opportunity.

-Which is the primary focus of our witnessing, too. Church, we are the church whether we’re gathered here on Sunday or scattered across the south metro into the places we work, live, and play. And God has placed us there for a reason: to be His witnesses here, to preach the gospel here, to live the gospel here, and to share that gospel with everyone we can. But to do that, we need to be willing to die to ourselves, to be like John the Baptist who said, “He must increase, I must decrease.” Now if you don’t know how to do that, let me recommend a book to you, and then after you read it, anyone on staff would love to talk to you about it!

-And those of you who do feel comfortable talking about Jesus wherever you go: what does another step of faithfulness look like for you? Maybe it’s inviting someone to church, maybe it’s finding a book to read together, but everyone has room to grow in living as Jesus wants us to, so let’s take a step this week to grow in our desire to share the gospel with other, and pray for opportunities to come up where you can talk about what Jesus has done for you!

Acts 6-7 – Sermon Manuscript

-As we’ve traced the development of the early church, what’s been amazing is how quickly the church is growing. 1 sermon from Peter leads to 3,000 people being saved and baptized, the arrest of Peter and John leads to at least 2,000 additional people. That means that with 2 sermons, this group went from 120 to over 5,000, that seems to be a pretty successful ministry, doesn’t it?

-But to answer that, we need to ask: what is success? Our tendency is to view success as bigger, better, and more. We want a bigger house, we want a better car, we want more stuff in that house and car. But is that descriptive of success in God’s kingdom? As the church expands in the book of Acts, we’re also going to see worldly persecution follow along with it. But that doesn’t stop the disciples from continuing to be faithful witnesses. As we saw last week from Peter & John “We can’t stop telling others about what we have heard and seen.” Friends, success in God’s kingdom is radically different than the way we typically view success today, as we’ll see from the story of Stephen.

READ/PRAY 7:2-53 (pg. 972)

Growing Pains (6:1-7)

-If you’ve never been a part of a team or organization that starts to grow, one of the inevitabilities of it is the need for better administration and communication! We’ve seen in the first few weeks of the new church they’ve grown exponentially. That means they had added a whole new level of complexity to their organization!

-In this case, the complexity led to a group being overlooked in the daily distribution. Remember that we’ve previously seen that the way the early church worked was by people willingly giving from their riches to care for those who are poor? That’s what this is talking about, apparently each day those who were poor were given food, but some people were being left out of this food.

-So in response, the twelve (we see them operating as the de facto leaders, that’s part of the reason we have church leaders today), called everyone together.

-In our new members class, I call this the first members meeting in the church! And it’s even in response to a conflict! I call it a membership meeting because we’ve already seen numerous instances of the church keeping track of who was a part of their fellowship, which is why they also were able to call everyone together for this meeting

-This is going to begin setting the stage for us to see the way God brings a plurality of gifting into the church, which leads to a multiplication of efforts in the church (go read Eph. 4 if you want to see why that’s significant)

-But what this means is that it requires everyone in the church working together with their unique gifting for the church to flourish as God wants. Even pastors don’t have all the giftings required for a church to flourish! If you relied just on me, our church would really struggle! We’d be great at spending time together, great at discussing theology, and really weak at building structures and policies around our ministries. We need all of us using our gifts, otherwise we’re going to be an unhealthy church! If you haven’t found a place to use your gifts yet, grab someone on staff, we’d love to get you plugged in!

-I think that what’s taking place here is we see a prototype of the 2 church offices of elders and deacons (preached on this text and those offices on Aug. 30 if you want to go back to listen to that sermon), I don’t think this is the final word on this issue, nor does it refer to those 2 specific offices, but it’s setting the stage for what will eventually become those things.

-2 important notes about that comment, first: don’t view these things as overly restrictive or as the last word about these offices. What’s potentially ironic about those chosen to serve tables is the next chapters will show their gifting in preaching the gospel message! Which means we can’t make a clear delineation between Word ministry and practical ministry, in fact I would say that the Word ministry is in place to support and foster practical ministries.

-The second note is don’t view this as a hierarchy. In worldly terms we tend to interpret this as creating 2 different classes of people, but that’s because we interpret this through our modern lens instead of viewing it as God’s dispersing of varied gifts to His people. In fact, Luke uses the same word “service” to talk about what these 7 men do, as well as what the 12 do (“wait” on tables 2 & “ministry” of the word 4). This also shows us the significance of the Word ministry in the church as both the 7 and the 12 are regularly involved in proclaiming the gospel message. One of the mottos I preach to myself regularly is let the Word do the work. Any teaching and preaching is useless unless it’s faithfully feeding us all the Word.

-I think John Stott (a British pastor) helps us to understand this final threat to the church from Satan:

-The goal of this is the protect and preserve unity in the church. That’s not uniformity, unity means we’re different, but we lay aside our personal preferences for the sake of the whole church. I heard a pastor onetime say that the church is supposed to be a mutual honoring society, where we work our hardest to honor everyone.

-And you can see that in the fact that all the names listed are Hellenistic names. Remember who was being overlooked? The Hellenistic widows. They bent over backwards to ensure that unity would be the marker of them.

-I think it’s also important to note that this isn’t a complete flattening of leadership in the church. Look at vs. 6 the 12 apostles are the ones who commission them into their new ministry, both groups are faithful in the roles they’ve been called to

-The outcome: word of God spread, that’s the unique role of the church. Other groups can (and do) mercy ministry, but the church’s primary call in the world is to proclaim God’s Word, that’s how new disciples are created and the way all disciples grow. Friends, let the Word do the work in your life, too!

Stephen’s Betrayal (6:8-15)

-This section focuses on Stephen, one of those 7 men selected to oversee the early church benevolence fund, and this is why I earlier said to not view this as an overly restrictive idea, because Stephen is “performing great wonder and signs.” It doesn’t say what those are, but it points us back to what we previously saw the 12 apostles doing (2:43, 5:12).

-Luke tells us that there’s a specific synagogue that’s comprised of Hellenistic Jews, people who hadn’t grown up in Jerusalem but had found their way back and likely would have been strongly opposed to someone speaking against what they’d worked so hard to maintain in their faith. The term “Freedmen” means it’s people who used to be slaves but had found a way to become free.

-But Stephen was both full of the Spirit and wisdom! God used Stephen to speak the truth and continue telling this group about Jesus.

-Then begins a close parallel to the crucifixion of Jesus. Because they couldn’t come up with anything to say against him, they bribe some people AND broke the law by presenting false witnesses (contrary to the 10 commandments)

-But what is Stephen like? An angel, someone who represents God, so whose side is God on in this conversation, Stephen, or these leaders who are disobeying the law?

-Don’t miss that Stephen is a Hellenistic Jew speaking to other Hellenistic Jews about Jesus!

Stephen’s Sermon (7:1-53)

-After these accusations, Stephen gets a chance to respond, and he chooses the same approach as Peter has each previous part of this story: talk about Jesus.

-We need to think back to last week when I said that this whole section is pointing out the new temple reality in the church. Look back at 6:13 about their fake complaints about Stephen, they said that he was speaking against “this holy place and the law,” which tells us that their primary complaint about him was regarding the temple and obedience to the OT.

-There’s some debate about a centering point of Stephen’s sermon, he’s obviously running through an overview of the OT, but is there any primary topic he’s focusing on that brings all the stories together? I found this summary from Patrick Schreiner helpful:

-Throughout this message, Stephen will glance to the temple, but fixate on Jesus, just as we should do with our study of God’s Word.

-He begins not at creation as our Bible does, but with Abraham. Did God appear to Abraham in a temple? No! While Abraham was an idol worshiper living in a foreign land, God appeared to him and called him to go to a new land that God would reveal to him.

-Abraham eventually has his son Isaac, who has 2 sons, one of whom is named Jacob. Jacob becomes the father of the 12 patriarchs who had a host of family dysfunction. One of those 12, Joseph is sold into slavery because of the jealousy of his brothers (do you remember last week when we saw the jealousy of the temple leaders). And God shows up again, but where is God showing up for Joseph? Not in Israel, this time in Egypt. God continues providing for Joseph and eventually lets him lead the nation.

-But it’s not just for Joseph, all of patriarchs had migrate to Egypt, and God continues to show up as the nation flourishes and multiplies, despite the oppression from the Egyptian king.

-Up next in the story is Moses, who was spared by God, and eventually adopted by Pharoah’s daughter, which led to him being educated by the Egyptians. Stephen’s summary breaks Moses’s life down into 3 40-year periods of time.

-Vs. 23 tells us that Moses spent the first 40 years of his life in Egypt but eventually runs away to Midian because he killed an Egyptian who was beating an Israelite. Then we see a second 40-year stint in Midian where he becomes the father of 2 sons. And where does God show up this time? In Midian! It says an angel comes in the flame of the burning bush, but the voice of God spoke to him, and the place was made holy because of the presence of God. And this is all happening before the tabernacle or temple had been built!

-Then we see the final 40 years in vs. 36, but notice what Stephen says marked Moses’s ministry: wonders and signs. And what had we seen previously from Stephen? The same thing! But the people missed this connection.

-One of the most important things to know about Moses is seen in vs. 37, as I’ve shared repeatedly in this series so far, God likes to work in similar ways in history, so Moses wasn’t the ultimate leader for God’s people, he was a shadow pointing to someone else. The people throughout the OT are looking for a prophet to come like Moses.

-But Moses was still God’s representative to His people, and how did the Israelites respond? Not with obedience! I love the way Stephen describes their sin: their hearts turned back to Egypt. They repeatedly accuse Moses of leading them out into the wilderness to kill them! Saying things like: we ate our fill in Egypt! They were slaves, do you really think they ate their fill? The same could be said for us! Our hearts keep looking to the world and what the world offers as the solution to our deepest desires. We’re tempted to try ignoring God and are unwilling to obey because we’re tempted to view God’s rules as slavery, when in reality it’s only by living obediently to God’s law that we can find true freedom.

-I’ve read one author that said the book of Exodus talks about getting God’s people out of Egypt, but the rest of the Bible is getting Egypt out of God’s people. All of our hearts repeatedly run after sinful things instead of trusting God.

-Then Stephen turns to talk about the tabernacle (which eventually became the temple), but even in these buildings, the people knew that God couldn’t be constrained by them! Which is why he quotes from Isaiah. If even the earth and the heavens can’t fully contain God, why do they think a little building will?

-Stephen has just given a masterclass in how to read and interpret the OT, so before we get to Stephen’s application at the end of his sermon, I think it’s important for us to think about exactly what we’ve just seen Stephen do here. He was given a topic (in this case, God’s presence) and proceeds to give us a summary of the OT message about that topic. He knew the Bible well enough to trace that theme through the whole story. Could you do that? Could you pick a theme and trace it through the Bible?

-If you’ve never done this before, this is referred to as “biblical theology” and there are entire book series dedicated to this idea! If you want to start exploring this, talk to me or Micah, we have multiple books on it, or just pick a theme and start reading the Bible and looking for it every day. Some of my favorite themes to explore are: temple, infertility, serpentine language, choosing the youngest or weakest, gardens, and eating. Basically, all it requires is carefully reading along the entire storyline of the Bible.

-God has created humans as storied creatures. We use stories to make sense of ourselves and the world, and apart from God’s story we won’t be able to make sense of anything in our lives. The Bible gives us 2 ways to live: either for God or against Him (with lots of little applications underneath them). And you can take any philosophy or thought and trace the story connecting it. I just got a new book this week from Tim Keller and his son Michael Keller that they were working on together before Tim died called The Stories We Live By which is exploring those exact stories people in the world try to live by today. It’s a similar theme to what we studied in our 9AM class last Spring through the study “Making Sense of Us,” and if none of those sound appealing to you, coming up I believe in the new year, we’re going to be offering a class through The Story of God, more info coming soon!

-There is a story that is true, and if we live into that story, our lives will finally start to make sense. The problem is we don’t get to be the hero or the main character, that’s Jesus’s role, our role is to faithfully follow after Him, which is just what Stephen does.

-Stephen ends his exploration of the OT with an application for his hearers. The application is that even though God was with His people, they were disobedient and unfaithful. Stiff-necked and uncircumcised is a low blow! That’s how the disobedient Israelites were referred to by God, and he’s subtly calling them Gentiles, the exact thing they had worked so hard to hold on to!

-Yet another theme from the OT is that every prophet God sent was persecuted, some of them were killed, and this group in front of Stephen even killed the Righteous One, they continually disobey the law, which is the final straw for this group.

Stephen’s Betrayal, Part 2 (7:54-60)

-The persecution of the church has been increasing in this book. At first, they were just thrown in prison, then they were threatened, then they were beaten, and it’s all been building to this point.

-Once again, the temple theme comes up here. It was thought that when you went into the temple you were able to catch a glimpse of heaven, since the temple was God’s footstool, by Stephen catching a glimpse into heaven here it’s showing that he’s currently in the temple. But Stephen’s glimpse into the temple shows us something significant about Jesus. Generally, when the NT talks about Jesus in heaven it says He’s seated, why do you think this time it says that he’s standing?

-There are a number of different proposals as to the significance of Jesus standing. One is that it signifies that He’s on the move, the gospel is going to begin its spread out to the world in the very next chapter. Another option is that Jesus is standing in judgment, either in support of Stephen or against Stephen’s opponents (and maybe both!). A third option is that Jesus is standing to welcome Stephen into heaven as the church’s first martyr. I think there’s probably elements of all 3 in play here!

-What’s ironic about this section is now the Jews start following the law, at least partially. They’re supposed to bring someone outside the city to kill them, which is what they do to Stephen (this is also why Jesus was killed outside Jerusalem). And this is the first time we’re introduced to this new character: Saul, who will become the primary character in this story soon.

-While Jesus has full authority because the earth is His footstool, all Saul has authority over is guarding some garments, and until he falls at the feet of the Son of Man he will continue to live in darkness.

-As Stephen is dying, his last 2 phrases correspond to things Jesus said when He was dying.

-You can see Jesus’s last moment on the cross in Luke 23, but here’s the 2 phrases that are paralleled by Stephen. Obviously, they’re not an exact copy, but it’s the same sentiment, similar enough that we should be thinking back to what had happened to Jesus! Just as the words weren’t exactly the same, Stephen isn’t exactly like Jesus, but it gives us a picture of what we should be aiming for: we’re supposed to work to be like Jesus in our daily lives, which also means we should expect a similar response to the one Jesus got.

-Jesus said that in John 15. One of the things Jesus promises us is hatred from the world. And whether we want to admit it or not, if Jesus has saved us we’re different from the world. We don’t think like the world, we don’t act like the world, we’re going to stick out and stand out from the world. The question for you is are you ok with that? Because that adds a level of difficulty and complexity to our lives. And friends, the world is going to be a constant source of friction for us until Jesus returns. Our hearts are daily going to be drawn back to Egypt. That’s why we need to remind ourselves of the story that’s really true.

-Following Jesus means we need to begin using a different scorecard for success. Instead of wanting bigger, better, and more, we need to look for faithfulness, fruitfulness, and intentionality. Faithfulness is aligning to God’s call for our lives, fruitfulness is demonstrating the fruit of the Spirit, and intentional is having a plan because we don’t subtly drift toward Christlikeness, it takes grace-drive effort empowered by the Holy Spirit. But what you’ll find on the other side of that pursuit is life that is truly worth living. A life where you no longer need to prove yourself, where you can find rest, and where Jesus will someday be standing to welcome you home!

Acts 3-5 – Sermon Manuscript

-Have you ever had one of those experiences that you can’t stop talking about? Like finding a new restaurant that’s fantastic so you can’t wait to share it with everyone around you? There’s a restaurant that’s on a few of the islands of Hawaii that we visited on our honeymoon called Merriman’s. The primary reason we visited is some of best friends from when we lived in Cheyenne happened to have the last name of Merriman. Turned out it was one of those very fancy restaurants! The food was FANTASTIC, but you pay for it, which was hard to justify in my 26-year-old mind when Burger King was just down the road. But we did it anyway since we were on our honeymoon! Since then, my sister and her husband have visited it, my parents visited it when they were out there, and now you all have a restaurant to visit if you ever get out to Hawaii!

-What we’re going to see in today’s text is how these first disciples couldn’t stop talking about their time with Jesus. It affected everything in their lives, and no matter what other people said or thought, they were going to keep talking about Jesus, which serves as an example for us today. We’re going to cover 3-5, but we’re just going to read the first story together this morning for the sake of time.

READ/PRAY (3:1-10, pg. 968)

-These chapters continue this theme of the way the early church operated. Something would happen, Peter would preach, and would receive persecution. That happens twice in these chapter.

A New Temple (3:1-26, 4:23-5:16)

-This is one of my favorite children’s songs that I remember singing in Sunday School when I was growing up, and it was mostly because (just like pretty much every kid’s song) there were actions to go along with it, which meant I didn’t need to sit still while we sang it. But even though I can still sing every word to that song, I didn’t understand the bigger point of what Luke is communicating to us through this story, and we need to understand what’s going on here to understand the rest of this section (which will carry into next week’s texts as well). What we’re going to see in this section is the fulfilment of something Jesus said in John 2.

-This story takes place right after Jesus’s first miracle of turning water into wine, then He leads His disciples down to Jerusalem during Passover and runs out all the money changers. When asked by the Jews how Jesus would prove Himself, here’s how He replies:

-One of the descriptions of the church in the NT is the body of Christ, which means we should be looking for a new temple that comes after Jesus’s resurrection, which is what we see here.

-Did you catch how frequently temple comes up in these opening verses? 4 times in the first 3 verses, and then twice more in the rest of this section. What we see Luke doing here is setting the stage for us to be thinking about this temple theme here, and looking back to last week’s text we also see that going to the temple was part of their daily rhythm (and that will come again later!)

-The story starts outside the temple, it says Peter and John were on their way to the temple. And that’s significant, this man wasn’t in the temple, he was placed outside because you were only allowed in if you were ritually pure, and a man who couldn’t walk wouldn’t be considered pure. But one of the things we see about Jesus’s ministry is those who were uncleaned couldn’t stain Jesus, around Him those who were unclean were suddenly healed. Through Jesus, the normal order is upended. Instead of sickness and death spreading, holiness becomes contagious, and the early Apostles were continuing that work.

-Similar to healings we see in the Gospels, this man thinks too small. He wants enough money for a meal from them, but what they give him is a completely new life. Suddenly, this man no longer needs to beg, he’s able to work, and the first thing he does is praise God, and what’s the response of those who see this miracle? Awe and astonishment.

-This is exactly what God said would happen when His kingdom finally broke in. There are 2 OT passages that point to this reality, 1 of them is because of the word Luke uses to talk about the man “leaping,” he uses a unique Greek word that’s also used in the Greek translation of Isaiah 35:6. But that’s not the only one! Listen to the Lord’s description of this new day in Micah 4. And what do we see taking place in this passage? He’s assembling the lame, but just wait, because later on, we’ll read about the scattered being brough back together to comprise this new people of God. God’s sovereign hand means that everything He has promised will happen. We don’t need to live in fear; we need to live in trust and cling to the promises of His Word.

-Just as we saw during Pentecost a couple weeks ago, anytime a crowd gathers, Peter is going to take the opportunity to point people to Jesus.

-He begins by calling out their sin, which is worthwhile for us to think about today. Sin tends to get downplayed because it feels antiquated or like such a negative thing. But this is reminding us that we can’t talk about the Good News without talking about the bad news. For the Good News to be Good, it has to have something bad to be compared to. What is it that Jesus has saved us from? Ourselves! Because we’re sinners we need someone outside us to rescue and redeem us, which is the Good News of what Jesus has done! That’s what Peter goes on to tell them:

-Seasons of refreshing come on the other side of faith in Him. I don’t have time to dig into this further, so I’ll throw it out there for you to go contemplate on your own this week, Anselm of Canterbury, who lived in the 11^th century said that we believe in order to understand. You can’t understand what Jesus has done apart from faith in Him, the Bible tells us that it’s going to look stupid to the world, but through faith we can see and understand what God has done, which is where the seasons of refreshing come from. Where the world tells us to earn, Jesus says to trust.

-The last thing I want to point out from Peter’s sermon is how God is in control of every event that takes place. We see that in vs. 18 and 24. Even these people’s sinful rebellion against God was used by God to accomplish His good plans. That doesn’t excuse the sin, but it gives us hope that even in our sin God is still accomplishing His good plans in our lives, too.

-One of the markers of this new temple reality is radical generosity, Micah preached about that last week. In this new temple, not only are the sick healed, but the poor become rich because the rich are becoming poor – what we see as a marker of this new temple is all the divisions the world uses to categorize people are obliterated in the church! Joseph (nickname Barnabas – how cool would it be to have that be your nickname), Levite (priests) he’ll come up again in the story as a companion to Paul. Apparently, Barnabas was very wealthy, wealthy enough to be able to sell a field and donate the money to the church, and I think the chapter break here is unfortunate, because we’re supposed to read the Ananias and Sapphira story in contrast to Barnabas.

-The people of God have always had 2 forces working against them: external and internal, we’ll look at the external forces in the next section, but Ananias and Sapphira are unfortunately in a long line of people want the benefits that come from following God without the change of life required to truly be in the fellowship.

-One of the things you may feel as you read this story is it’s not fair that they’re killed. They told a little white lie, was God right in killing them? And I understand that impulse! But I also want to give a slightly different perspective on this. I think we tend to view sin similarly to the way we view the speed limit. Could a police officer pull you over for going 1 mph over the limit? Yep! Will they? Probably not. We all know they judge on a sliding scale, just don’t go TOO far over the speed limit. Sin doesn’t work like that. Any sin, even something that, in our minds, is minor means we are guilty of treasons against God. Sin is nothing to be trifled with, sin is something to be killed, or else we run the risk of becoming killed by our sin. There’s a story in 2 Sam. 6 about a man named Uzzah who is accompanying the ark of the covenant on the way back to Jerusalem being carried on a cart by some cows, the cows trip as they’re walking and the ark starts to slip off the cart, so Uzzah reaches out to stop the cart from falling down and God immediately kills him. And the text tells us that King David got angry about it! I remember hearing an RC Sproul sermon about that text where he said that Uzzah’s problem was he thought he was holier than the ground that Ark was going to fall onto. God had told the people how they were supposed to carry the ark, and it wasn’t on a cart. They thought they could do it their own way instead of being completely obedient to God. Today, Christians tend to be way too careless with our sin, but it’s far better to die on this side of life than to be separated from God for eternity. Do not trifle with the one true God.

-Another warning for us from this passage comes from David Peterson in his commentary on this text: Last week we saw the joy that comes from the church sharing everything they own, this week we see the warning if we don’t share what we’ve been given.

-We also need to interpret this in the same lens we’ve seen the rest of this, as part of the new temple. Patrick Schreiner writes:

-What that means is that we cannot let our personal piety (practice of holiness) outstrip the depth of your character. Stop comparing your journey with Christ to someone else and focus instead on Jesus. What has He called you to pursue in this stage of your life and growth? There are always more areas for us to grow in, which one is God calling on you right now?

-People respond to this section correctly! Fear. If this God will kill people for disobedience, why would anyone else follow Him? And this seems to lead us to a contradiction in the text, because this verse says no one else dared to join, and then immediately says that more and more people were joining.

-People realized that this group wasn’t something to be taken lightly, yet they couldn’t help but be drawn in by the way they lived and cared for each other. The bar of entry is high, it requires a complete change of your life, but what you get on the other side makes any loss completely worthwhile. Which is demonstrated by the next verses:

-Just a shadow was all it took for people to be healed and think back to what we read in Micah 4, God promised that a day was coming when he would gather the scattered and turn the lame into a remnant of followers. What’s taking place here? The lame are being gathered together and healed, made new.

-One of the things we saw at the beginning of this study was also that geography plays a role: Jesus’s message is starting to spread outside Jerusalem

New Leaders (4:1-22, 5:17-40)

-I said previously that the church faces pressures from both internal and external forces, we’ve looked at the internal with people who want the recognition of being a part of the community without having a transformed heart. This section looks at one of the external forces that stands against the church, and it follows the temple theme we’ve seen. Each time God moves, we can expect that Satan will do everything he can to fight back against that move. Beginning in chpt. 4, (vs. 1, 5) we see that the supposed leaders of the temple are following the same path as Ananias and Sapphira. I literally LOLed when I read this summary about the leaders in Patrick Schreiner’s commentary:

-Luke lists all the leaders of the temple area here, and do you see the problem they’re going to confront? They’re annoyed! They’re operating under an old idea that’s no longer effective and all their attempts to stop this new movement are going to lead to what we see in vs. 4.

-They’re viewing Peter & John as a threat to the status quo, which means their best option is to throw them in prison, little do they realize that by throwing them in prison, they’re just furthering the spread of the gospel.

-After throwing them in prison for a night, the convene the council once again to interrogate these 2 men, and I think their question gives insight into what they’re concerned about: by what power or what name. Those would have almost been synonymous at this time, you would call on the name of a god to bless your work, so they want to find out what this new religion is all about.

-And Peter jumps at the opportunity. Friends, this is a great reminder for us! Do you take advantage of opportunities to tell people about Jesus when they come up? Do you tell your neighbors and coworkers why you can’t do things on Sunday morning because church is a priority for your family? Do you take advantage of sharing with others why you treat people differently?

-Phil preached about the Pentecost event, which was a one-time thing where all the believers were indwelled with the HS, but here we see a different kind of filling that can also be true of us today!

-What I love about Peter’s response is he cuts straight to the heart of the issue: are you upset with us about a good deed done to this disabled man? Do these leaders understand what they’re doing? Writing in the late 4^th century, an early church father named Chrysostom said: “these leaders not only run to do murder but also make a crime of doing good deeds.”

-I wish we could take the entire sermon to dig into vs. 13, that will have to be for a future sermon but notice what shocks the leaders. It’s not their education, it’s not their training, it’s not their work ethic, it’s not their financial portfolio, it’s their boldness. And where did that boldness come from? Being with Jesus. That tells us 2 things for us today: first, we need to be with Jesus! Second, being with Jesus needs to have ripple effects into our daily lives.

-And even these leaders who are upset about what’s going on have to admit that what Peter and John have done is a good thing, which once again leads to a question for us today. Even if people don’t like our politics, our ethics, or our beliefs, can they admit that good things are happening because of us?

-Peter and John won’t back down. They’ve seen something that’s completely transformed them over these past couple of months.

-This is why it’s so important for us to be speaking about what Jesus has done and is doing in our lives. It’s not to brag about yourself, it’s because our job is to be witnesses to the ways God is working and moving around us. As we learn and grow more like Jesus, we have the privilege of sharing that with others, and it doesn’t matter if they know Jesus yet or not! The message is the same to both groups! Jesus is Lord!

-One of my biggest questions on this text was vs. 22. Why does Luke tell us this guys age? We don’t even know his name! Think back to what I said the first week of this sermon: God has expanded his plans to reconstitute a new Isreal that’s made up of people from every tribe, tongue, and nation. I think that (once again) what Patrick Schreiner says here is incredibly helpful:

Isn’t our God amazing in the way that He makes sure that His plans will happen?

-That’s not the only time the apostles are put in prison! Starting in 5:17 we see that now the Sadducees are jealous of the increasing influence of the apostles, so this time instead of just taking Peter & John, they arrest them all. And their incompetence continues, because even the jail can’t hold them back! What’s most ironic about this event is the Sadducees didn’t believe in angels, so God used something they didn’t even believe in to thwart their plans!

-And their incompetence get worse because they can’t figure out what happened to them! And as they’re trying to figure out what to do, someone tells them that the apostles are right back doing what they were doing before, and do you notice what it says about fear? The apostles aren’t scared of anything, but the supposed leaders of the temple are afraid of the people!

-Their frustration continues, and they accuse the apostles of filling the whole city with their teaching and accusing them of telling others that they’re guilty, which they are!

-And Peter, as the representative of all the apostles tells them: we’re going to obey God, regardless of what these “leaders” ask them to do. They’re going to continue acting as God’s witnesses, sharing over and over what God has done in their lives.

-And the whole leadership group doesn’t like that! They’re used to being the ones in charge, the ones who enforce the rules, and this new group of people is threatening their power. Which means they want to do to them what they did to Jesus: kill them. That would deal with the problem! But 1 person changes their minds: Gamaliel (who was also Paul’s teacher). He shares the story of 2 other uprisings that fell flat after their leader died, so he advises caution in fighting against them.

-This isn’t something that’s true in all times and places, there are examples of other people taking this approach later in church history and it led to all sorts of problems. We have God’s complete revelation today; we don’t need to test things out anymore! We have God’s Word and the Spirit’s power within us to help us understand what is from the Lord, and what is from Satan.

The Result: Witnessing to Jesus (5:41-42)

-This section ends with the consequences of the old leaders of the temple trying to stamp out this new group. The true leaders rejoice in their suffering and continue serving as faithful witnesses.

-2 final realities for us today from these last 2 verses. First, do we rejoice when we’re treated shamefully for the sake of Jesus? This can look different for us depending on where we live or work. It could be in getting passed over for a promotion, it could be losing opportunities for more money because you refuse to cut corners, it could be not getting invited to the fun parties because you’re a believer. Do you rejoice in those moments or complain?

-Second, is vs. 42 true about your daily life? Are you daily looking for opportunities to grow closer to Jesus, and share about how to do that with others? I love the wording Luke uses here, he says they were teaching and (my translation) is “gospeling” that Jesus is the Messiah, he uses a verbal form of the Greek word for gospel (good news).

-I mentioned this idea earlier, but I want to land the plane on it: all of us need the truths of the gospel to soak deeper into our lives every single day. We don’t ever grow beyond digging into the realities of the gospel, the gospel message isn’t just to get us across some spiritual line and then move on to other things, we need to be reminded of the gospel every day of our lives because that’s what we’re supposed to be witnesses to. We don’t ever grow beyond needing to be reminded of the implications of this good news, we need to take time every day to give praise to God for the fact that we’re saved. And then we tell everyone around us that they can have that same freedom, joy, and seasons of refreshing in their lives: both believers and unbelievers. So for all of you: trust in the good news that Jesus is the Messiah! Live as if that’s true being generous with every gift God has given you and boldly tell others that the reason you live that way is because of Jesus.

Pastor Mike's Musings

All posts for the month October, 2026

Acts 8 – Sermon Manuscript

Acts 6-7 – Sermon Manuscript

Acts 3-5 – Sermon Manuscript

This is Me

Recent Posts

Archives

Categories

Get My Writings in Your Inbox