Read Part 4

(8/25) Today, as we continue our message series "A Bigger Story" we are going to look at "One like Moses". We are studying the Scriptures in Acts chapter seven, where a man named Stephen is explaining himself before a group of angry Jewish leaders who are intent on shutting down his ministry of preaching and teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, because he was a man full of God's grace and power and did great wonders and miraculous signs among the people (Acts 6:8).

Now, as I mentioned last week, these are the same Jewish leaders who persecuted Jesus, looking for false evidence against him, so that they could put him to death (Matthew 26:59). And so, they have made their accusations, and as we come to verse seventeen of Acts chapter seven, Stephen is doing exactly what the Spirit tells us to do in first Peter. He says,

"Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you… the reason for the hope that you have" (1 Peter 3:15).

And so, that gives us a snapshot in introduction, Stephen is the one who is speaking, he knows the Scriptures, he is full of faith and the Holy Spirit, and he is clarifying the bigger story of God’s plan of redemption to these Jewish leaders in the Sanhedrin.

Now, they were supposed to be the religious leaders of the people, but they had either misunderstood or forgotten the deeper things of God, they were unable to connect the dots and apply the theological understanding that they thought they had and were presumed to have had. And so, like many denominations today, Jesus said, their worship is in vain because their teachings are but rules taught by men. They have let go of the commands of God and instead are holding onto the traditions of men (Mark 7:7-8).

But Stephen has the Spirit of God, he knows the Word of God, and so he takes them back to the beginning. Not to the beginning of time, but to the beginning of the nation of Israel, because one of the worst things you can lose is your ability to remember where you came from. One of the things that I have always enjoyed about talking with people who are more mature than I am, more seasoned than I am, is that they have so many stories to tell, and memories of days gone by.

As we come to Acts chapter seven, Stephen is reminding these Jewish leaders of days gone by, and it is this collection of memories, these stories that have been passed down generation after generation, that makes up the greater compilation of God’s Bigger Story in our lives. But it wasn’t like they were sitting on the front porch reminiscing and laughing about the good times, the hard times, and all the times in between. This was a hostile situation, these men are angry, accusatory, and they are threatening to kill him.

Courageously, Stephen goes back to the beginning, back to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, back to the patriarchs, and Joseph who we looked at last week. And so, let’s pick up where we left off, reading at verse seventeen, Stephen tells them,

"As the time drew near for God to fulfill his promise to Abraham, the number of our people in Egypt greatly increased. Then another king, who knew nothing about Joseph, became ruler of Egypt. He dealt treacherously with our people and oppressed our forefathers by forcing them to throw out their newborn babies so that they would die" (Acts 7:17-19).

"At that time Moses was born, and he was no ordinary child. For three months he was cared for in his father's house. When he was placed outside, Pharaoh's daughter took him and brought him up as her own son. Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in speech and action" (Acts 7:20-22).

"When Moses was forty years old, he decided to visit his fellow Israelites. He saw one of them being mistreated by an Egyptian, so he went to his defense and avenged him by killing the Egyptian. Moses thought that his own people would realize that God was using him to rescue them, but they did not. The next day Moses came upon two Israelites who were fighting. He tried to reconcile them by saying, 'Men, you are brothers; why do you want to hurt each other" (Acts 7:23-26)?

"But the man who was mistreating the other pushed Moses aside and said, 'Who made you ruler and judge over us? Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?' When Moses heard this, he fled to Midian, where he settled as a foreigner and had two sons" (Acts 7:27-29).

"After forty years had passed, an angel appeared to Moses in the flames of a burning bush in the desert near Mount Sinai. When he saw this, he was amazed at the sight. As he went over to look more closely, he heard the Lord's voice: 'I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.' Moses trembled with fear and did not dare to look" (Acts 7:30-32).

"Then the Lord said to him, 'Take off your sandals; the place where you are standing is holy ground. 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" (Acts 7:33-34).

"This is the same Moses whom they had rejected with the words, 'Who made you ruler and judge?' He was sent to be their ruler and deliverer by God himself, through the angel who appeared to him in the bush. He led them out of Egypt and did wonders and miraculous signs in Egypt, at the Red Sea and for forty years in the desert" (Acts 7:35-36).

And so, Stephen is building an argument, he is making a case against them, they have been accusing him, and now he is about to accuse them. He reminds them of their history, he takes them back to that time, that moment in time when their fathers were oppressed in Egypt, and the Lord their God brought them out with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. And the Spirit of God comes in a collision course of the supernatural revelation of God with their lives, reminding them of the great things that God has done.

Now, they can’t argue with this because these are the things that have defined Israel’s relationship with God for centuries. This moment of Israel’s redemption has been a point of reference for over a thousand years as God reminded them over and over how he brought them out of Egypt, delivering them from the hand of Pharaoh, and bringing them through the Red Sea. In other words, God wanted that memory to be deeply ingrained in their minds, but then Stephen reminds them of the Scriptures,

"But our fathers refused to obey him. Instead, they rejected him, and in their hearts turned back to Egypt" (Acts 7:39).

It was at this point that Stephen drew a clear parallel to the way the Jewish leaders had refused to obey God. How they had rejected the leadership of Moses, and now, how they had failed to understand what God had done through the Messiah Jesus Christ in providing salvation to those who would believe. And so, Stephen said, "Even Moses thought that his own people would realize that God was using him to rescue them, but they did not" (Acts 7:25).

In other words, just as their fathers had rejected Moses saying, "Who made you ruler and judge over us" (Acts 7:27)? These Jewish leaders had rejected Jesus, hating him, and openly declaring,

"We don’t want this man to be our king" (Luke 19:14).

And that is the story of Jesus. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.

"He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him" (John 1:11).

In fact, if you were with us last week you may have noticed the similarity between the story of Joseph and the story of Jesus. For example, Joseph was loved by his father, hated and envied by his brothers, sold for the price of a slave, humbled as a servant, falsely accused and imprisoned before being exalted in honor.

And so, just like Jesus, Joseph wasn’t recognized by his brothers, and when he was rejected and separated from his brothers, Pharaoh gave him a Gentile bride, "Asenath daughter of Potiphera, priest of On" (Genesis 41:45).

Then when Joseph came out to his brothers the second time, he revealed himself and said to them,

"You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives" (Genesis 50:20).

Stephen with great wisdom and tact reminds the Jewish leaders that the way they treated Jesus was the same way the patriarchs had treated Joseph, and his point is that Israel has repeatedly rejected God’s will, his purpose for them, and his plan of redemption.

But he is still making his case against them, building up to the climax, and he has been talking about Moses. See, just like Joseph, Moses is a type of Christ, shockingly similar when considered side-by-side with Jesus. Let’s consider the story of Moses for a moment, he was almost killed by Pharaoh, the king of Egypt when he was just a child; just as King Herod gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under (Matthew 2:16).

Moses was rejected the first time he tried to help his brothers, and so he fled to the wilderness where he became a shepherd and took a Gentile bride, the daughter of Jethro, the priest of Midian. And then, the second time he came to help his brothers, he was received, and he delivered his people from bondage through the blood of the lamb. Stephen said,

"This is that Moses who told the Israelites, 'God will send you a prophet like me from your own people.' He was in the assembly in the desert, with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our fathers; and he received living words to pass on to us. "But our fathers refused to obey him. Instead, they rejected him and in their hearts turned back to Egypt" (Acts 7:37-39).

In other words, Stephen said to the Sanhedrin, "God had promised to give his people a prophet like Moses, it wasn’t an afterthought, it was part of God’s original plan." And so, this prophet of whom Moses spoke was a type, foreshadowing Jesus as our prophet, priest, king, and mediator. Every word spoken by him is a living infallible word from God himself, but as the Israelites had always done, they rejected anything new that God was doing, they rejected Jesus and refused to obey him.

Now, for these Jewish leaders facing off with Stephen, their father’s slavery in Egypt was just a distant memory. But the Holy Spirit doesn’t want them to forget where they came from, forgetting what God saved them from, and so Stephen hasn’t made any accusations yet, he is just reminding them of their story. And in the same way, I want to remind you of where you came from, not forgetting what you were delivered from, that which you were brought out of, because their story is not much different from our story.

The Bible tells us in Colossians chapter one,

"God has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins" (Colossians 1:13-14).

You may not have been beaten as a slave like the Israelites, denied of any dignity and unable to resist, but you’ve got a story too. You may not have a story as amazing as the Exodus from Egypt, but there was something in your past that held you captive and you still remember. Even now you have to fight back the tears when you worship because you remember the pain of the past and the goodness of the Lord.

Some of you may not be going through anything major right now, life is good, but I want to encourage you to remember, don’t forget where you came from, because "you have been set free from sin," you have been purchased, you have been redeemed, "and have become slaves to God" (Romans 6:22).

Others of you, may be in a difficult time right now, a fiery trial right now, and you might have suffered loss, but don’t let the devil convince you that it is over, because your destiny is not in his hands. And so, you may be fighting back the tears, struggling with frustration, wondering if you will ever get back what you lost, but God is still working. And there is not a person in this room that God didn’t do something in your life as evidence that he is God and that he has plans to give you a hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11).

I want to encourage you today not to forget what God has delivered you from, don’t forget where God showed up in your life, and don’t forget what he has promised, because his fingerprints are all over every situation and circumstance in your life. Some of you have a powerful testimony of something that God did for you, and you know that God is real, that God is powerful, that God heals, and that he is full of mercy and grace, because he did something amazing and miraculous for you. And so, you can stand firm and declare,

"I know that my Redeemer lives, that in the end he will stand upon the earth… in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes…" (Job 19:25-27).

And there are others of you today, whom the enemy is coming at you with accusations, trying to make you forget what you know about God, trying to confuse you and snatch away your memory of the great things that God has done, but the truth is that we are not unaware of the enemy’s schemes (2 Corinthians 2:11).

In other words, we know that he is a liar, a thief, a murderer, and a deceiver, and so we are going to stand firm, we are going to resist the devil and submit ourselves to God, because we are not going to let anything set itself up against the knowledge of God (2 Corinthians 10:4-5).

Now, there may be some of you who have lost a lot of things along the way, there may be someone or something trying to distract you, trying to get you to be as dedicated to them as you are to serving God. But you can’t let them have that part of you because it belongs to God. That’s why he warned us,

"Be careful and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart as long as you live…" (Deuteronomy 4:9).

And so, you can’t let the enemy snatch it away, you’ve got to remember what you have received and heard, and I know there is something that God did for you that you don’t need the worship team to praise him for. There is something about God, something that he did, that provokes praise to rise up from deep within, something right now that causes you to bless his name.

In fact, all you need to do is think about the goodness of Jesus and all that he has done for you because that is your story. The devil can’t take that away from you, because you know what he did in your life, you know what he brought you through, and you know what he saved you from. And so, the Scriptures encourage you to…

"Guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life" (Proverbs 4:23).

In other words, treasure those things in your heart, remembering the miracles and the mighty works of God, because as the Scripture says,

"The memory of the righteous will be a blessing" (Proverbs 10:7).

My prayer today is that each one of you hearing my voice are remembering what God got you through, what he brought you out of, and when you think about his goodness you remember the One Like Moses. How he died on the cross and rose again, and as you remember you are strengthened deep within your soul.

And so, your faith is rising up right now, you may have been going through a tough time, but you’re going to give God praise because you know that he still remembers.

"God will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them" (Hebrews 6:10).

And so, I come to you today, pleading with you, begging you to remember Jesus, to remember what he did for you, remembering the things he brought you through, because he hasn’t forgotten you. In fact, he promised,

"I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands" (Isaiah 49:16).

I want you to remember the palms of his hands, because he hasn’t forgotten you. In fact, on the evening of the resurrection, the disciples were gathered together, and Jesus came and ate with them. He blessed them, but Thomas wasn’t there. When the others told Thomas that Jesus had been there, he was like, "No way, you’re kidding!"

"I won’t believe unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my fingers where the nails were" (John 20:25).

A week later the disciples were in the house again and Jesus came back for Thomas, he came back for that one that was missing. Jesus came and stood among them and said to Thomas,

"Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe" (John 20:27).

As we close, I want you to remember the wounds, remember the palms of his hands, remembering the goodness of God. Because he remembers you and will not forget, you are engraved in the palms of his hands, and he still bears the wounds of his love for you. You were that one, he bought you out of slavery, brought you out of darkness, and brought you into the kingdom of the Son he loves. In him we have redemption, the forgiveness of our sins (Colossians 1:13-14).

Read Part 6

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