This is what the LORD says:

"Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. Where is the house you will build for me? Where will my resting place be?

2 Has not my hand made all these things, and so they came into being?" declares the LORD.

"This is the one I esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at my word.

 

2 To this he replied: "Brothers and fathers, listen to me! The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham while he was still in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran. 3 ‘Leave your country and your people,’ God said, ‘and go to the land I will show you.’

4 "So he left the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran. After the death of his father, God sent him to this land where you are now living. Abraham lived securely in his home land, but God called him out of it to wander in unfamiliar places, depending on a promise of future security, a future land, not a current one

INTRODUCTION:

1. As a denomination (Worldwide Church of God) we have been on a long and tortuous journey over the years;

We have been through a number of U turns, and dramatic changes

We have held many things near and dear, and have subsequently been told many of them are no longer important, no longer foundational

Having different temperaments and backgrounds, we have reacted in many different ways to all of this

For some it is very hard to change horses in mid stream, to venture into new and unfamiliar territory without as many outward signs of security and identity

2. Our Scripture today is ACTS 7: In particular verse ACTS 7:2-4

2b The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham while he was still in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran. 3 ‘Leave your country and your people,’ God said, ‘and go to the land I will show you.’

4 "So he left the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran. After the death of his father, God sent him to this land where you are now living. Abraham lived securely in his home land, but God called him out of it to wander in unfamiliar places, depending on a promise of future security, a future land, not a current one

 

PURPOSE:

I. There is a passage you may not be very familiar with in ACTS, that addresses many of the questions that people have asked over recent years

It includes our text, and goes on at length to provide some major lessons from the history of Israel

Particularly dealing with their refusal to let go of the past and trust God to lead them in a new and better direction

BODY:

Situation:

Some Jewish people who had been unable to stand up against Stephen's arguments, and the Sanhedrin (the ruling body of the Jews)

11 Then they secretly persuaded some men to say, "We have heard Stephen speak words of blasphemy against Moses and against God."

12 So they stirred up the people and the elders and the teachers of the law. They seized Stephen and brought him before the Sanhedrin. 13 They produced false witnesses, who testified, "This fellow never stops speaking against this holy place and against the law. 14 For we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs Moses handed down to us."

15 All who were sitting in the Sanhedrin looked intently at Stephen, and they saw that his face was like the face of an angel.

Before the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, the three great pillars of popular Jewish piety were (1) the land, (2) the law, and (3) the temple.

These three tangible items were central to their faith, to their sense of security, and their identity as God’s people, their view of who they were.

This was where their faith lay, in the land, the law and the temple

The LAND was their home, and theirs alone.

It supplied their life’s needs,

It gave themselves a sense of belonging, a place to call their own, and so it formed an important part of their view of who they were

They believed that if they were in the Land God gave them, then they were God’s people

The LAW was their rule book, it made plain not only who they were, but what they were to do and not do.

It spelled out what God expected, and gave them something specific to measure whether they were measuring up, or failing to be good enough

They figured if they were observing the letter of the laws demands they were okay with God

The TEMPLE was a tangible sign of God’s presence

They felt they knew where he was, that he was definitely with them

They also believed he was only with them and not other nations, they were his people, and he was their God alone

The point of Stephen's message

Don't depend on outward beliefs and distinguishing signs and observances for the basis of your identity and faith

Stephen uses the history of Israel to make his point, to defend his teaching about the need to look to Jesus for identity and security instead of to the temple and the law

Shows how the men of God in Israel's history didn't have visible or tangible security, but how they had to depend on God instead

He shows how they who claimed to follow Moses and the law and have the true worship of God, in fact had a history of rejecting God and the one’s he sent, which now included the crucifixion of Jesus, God’s very son, and the one of whom all of Israel’s heritage pointed

It is interesting that it is before the same court, and with similar charges of blasphemy that Jesus had been brought and subsequently condemned to death.

1 Then the high priest asked him, "Are these charges true?"

2 To this he replied: "Brothers and fathers, listen to me! The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham while he was still in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran. 3 ‘Leave your country and your people,’ God said, ‘and go to the land I will show you.’

4 "So he left the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran. After the death of his father, God sent him to this land where you are now living. Abraham lived securely in his home land, but God called him out of it to wander in unfamiliar places, depending on a promise of future security, a future land, not a current one

First we note that God moves people, he doesn’t have them stay all the time in the same place, he often has us move on from familiar territory into unfamiliar territory

He calls us to follow him, to come out of our old security to rely on him, not on the old familiar and comfortable things that we have depended on for our identity and security.

Our identity is as his followers, his people, and our security and faith is to be in him, "on a promise of future security, a future place, not a current one"

God visited Abraham, began his relationship with him outside the land of Canaan.

Stephen is showing that God isn’t confined to dealing with people in just one location

In this first section of his defence, Stephen is making the point that the LAND is not to be venerated to the point that they feel it is sacred and the only place that God works.

5 He gave him no inheritance here, not even a foot of ground. But God promised him that he and his descendants after him would possess the land, even though at that time Abraham had no child.

Abraham was the father of the faithful, but he didn’t have any land, he wasn’t defined by a particular place.

He had nothing tangible to rely on for his sense of identity, or to give him certainty about his present or future security

He just had a relationship with God, and promises of salvation for him, his family and descendants.

6 God spoke to him in this way: ‘Your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years. 7 But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves,’ God said, ‘and afterward they will come out of that country and worship me in this place.’ 8 Then he gave Abraham the covenant of circumcision. And Abraham became the father of Isaac and circumcised him eight days after his birth. Later Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob became the father of the twelve patriarchs.

For around 400 years Israel was to be strangers, enslaved, no land, and then later be given a land and a place to worship God

God was very slow in giving them tangible things. He began with just one man, and didn’t rush to make them big or secure or wealthy

They only had him and his promises and very little else

Stephen’s point to the Sanhedrin was that Israel had started with nothing and been built into a great nation of God

They had now sinned and were about to lose all they had once more, including the land and the temple, but that didn’t mean all was lost

God had brought them from nothing before, and he would work again with those who like Abraham followed him faithfully, no matter that they had lost all the old things they had looked to for identity and security

9 "Because the patriarchs were jealous of Joseph, they sold him as a slave into Egypt. But God was with him 10 and rescued him from all his troubles. He gave Joseph wisdom and enabled him to gain the goodwill of Pharaoh king of Egypt; so he made him ruler over Egypt and all his palace. .

Joseph was rejected by his family, he had to put up with being a stranger with no identity, no home, family or LAND of his own. He had nothing to look to or put his trust in except his God

Joseph was like Jesus.

He shone above the rest and was despised, and rejected

God blessed him and used him to rescue his family who were nomads, and had been forced to leave the land they were camping around in because of famine

11 "Then a famine struck all Egypt and Canaan, bringing great suffering, and our fathers could not find food. 12 When Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent our fathers on their first visit. 13 On their second visit, Joseph told his brothers who he was, and Pharaoh learned about Joseph’s family. 14 After this, Joseph sent for his father Jacob and his whole family, seventy-five in all.

In a sense we have been called to leave our old land because

We needed to put our faith in the one who we had pushed aside, and rely on him, and him alone to rescue us

The one God sent to save us

15 Then Jacob went down to Egypt, where he and our fathers died. 16 Their bodies were brought back to Shechem and placed in the tomb that Abraham had bought from the sons of Hamor at Shechem for a certain sum of money

All the family had was a plot of land for a burial ground. They had no other LAND to live or belong to. No place to hang their hat, or feel secure in.

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

18 Then another king, who knew nothing about Joseph, became ruler of Egypt. 19 He dealt treacherously with our people and oppressed our forefathers by forcing them to throw out their newborn babies so that they would die.

Stephen is probably comparing the Jews of his day with the Egyptians

Sadly the Jews who should have known how God works, became like the Egyptians and fought against God, killed his son and were now attacking his fledgling people

Matthew Henry writes on this verse, that Stephen raises this with his Jewish persecutors;

that they might consider that what they were now doing against the Christian church in its infancy was as impious and unjust, and would be in the issue as fruitless and ineffectual, as that was which the Egyptians did against the Jewish church in its infancy. "You think you deal subtly in your ill treatment of us, and, in persecuting young converts, you do as they did in casting out the young children; but you will find it is to no purpose, in spite of your malice Christ’s disciples will increase and multiply.’’

We can gain great encouragement from this

It doesn’t matter how persecuted or small and weak his church may be, he can and will cause it to increase and multiply

This is a big part of our identity

We are people with nothing, who have Jesus as our all in all, our leader and rescuer who has brought us out of slavery to the world – from powerlessness, to be come his witnesses, his representatives, his kingdom on earth

20 "At that time Moses was born, and he was no ordinary child. For three months he was cared for in his father’s house. 21 When he was placed outside, Pharaoh’s daughter took him and brought him up as her own son. 22 Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in speech and action.

Moses was stripped of his home and family, his identity. His life was basically done for, but God made sure he was rescued and taken care of

Stephen mentions Moses, partly in response to the charge (v11) that they had heard him "speak blasphemy against Moses and against God."

Yet Stephen stood in great admiration of Moses, it was their fathers who spoke against Moses and God

Some make a mistake when they claim that we too are speaking against Moses and the law and all of the Old Testament.

As Stephen did, we can and must rightly use the Old Testament to focus on the need for faith in Jesus, for finding our identity in him, and not getting caught up in the signposts and physical types and representations that pointed to him.

23 "When Moses was forty years old, he decided to visit his fellow Israelites. 24 He saw one of them being mistreated by an Egyptian, so he went to his defense and avenged him by killing the Egyptian. 25 Moses thought that his own people would realize that God was using him to rescue them, but they did not. 26 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?’

27 "But the man who was mistreating the other pushed Moses aside and said, ‘Who made you ruler and judge over us? 28 Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?’ 29 When Moses heard this, he fled to Midian, where he settled as a foreigner and had two sons.

30 "After forty years had passed, an angel appeared to Moses in the flames of a burning bush in the desert near Mount Sinai. 31 When he saw this, he was amazed at the sight. As he went over to look more closely, he heard the Lord’s voice: 32 ‘I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.’ Moses trembled with fear and did not dare to look.

33 "Then the Lord said to him, ‘Take off your sandals; the place where you are standing is holy ground. 34 I have indeed seen the oppression of my people in Egypt. I have heard their groaning and have come down to set them free. Now come, I will send you back to Egypt.’

God revealed himself to Moses in a non-descript land, way out in a desert, not in a tabernacle or temple

35 "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. 36 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.

There are again obvious parallels that Stephen is making between Moses and Jesus

37 "This is that Moses who told the Israelites, ‘God will send you a prophet like me from your own people.’ 38 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.

 

This is that Moses. Now this is very full to Stephen’s purpose; in asserting that Jesus should change the customs of the ceremonial law, he was so far from blaspheming Moses that really he did him the greatest honour imaginable, by showing how the prophecy of Moses was accomplished, which was so clear, that, as Christ told them himself, If they had believed Moses, they would have believed him, Jn. 5:46. 1. Moses, in God’s name, told them that, in the fulness of time, they should have a prophet raised up among them, one of their own nation, that should be like unto him (Deu. 18:15, 18),—a ruler and a deliverer, a judge and a lawgiver, like him,—who should therefore have authority to change the customs that he had delivered, and to bring in a better hope, as the Mediator of a better testament. 2. He charged them to hear that prophet, to receive his dictates, to admit the change he would make in their customs, and to submit to him in every thing; "and this will be the greatest honour you can do to Moses and to his law, who said, Hear you him

 

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

Moses told them of Jesus. Stephen did as well.

Just as their forefathers rejected Moses, they rejected Jesus, they crucified the prophet like Moses who was sent by God from their own people

They persecuted him for disputing in defence of Christ and his gospel, in opposition to which they set up Moses and his law: "But,’’ saith he, "you had best take heed,’’ (1.) "Lest you hereby do as your fathers did, refuse and reject one whom God has raised up to be to you a prince and a Saviour; you may understand, if you will not wilfully shut your eyes against the light, that God will, by this Jesus, deliver you out of a worse slavery than that in Egypt; take heed then of thrusting him away, but receive him as a ruler and a judge over you.’’

We have been blessed by God to have our minds opened to learn the lesson the Jews failed to learn

To be God’s people, delivered from darkness into the kingdom of light through Jesus God’s Son

That is our identity, that is who we are

We gain that identity if we rely on Jesus. Through him we are God’s saved people

40 They told Aaron, ‘Make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who led us out of Egypt—we don’t know what has happened to him!’

After being made the people of God, his holy nation, led out of oblivion into God’s presence the people became dissatisfied

41 That was the time they made an idol in the form of a calf. They brought sacrifices to it and held a celebration in honor of what their hands had made. 42 But God turned away and gave them over to the worship of the heavenly bodies. This agrees with what is written in the book of the prophets:

"‘Did you bring me sacrifices and offerings forty years in the desert, O house of Israel?

Stephen is showing that there was a great hypocrisy in the Jews self-righteousness about Moses, the Law and the temple, and all their so called devotion to God

Because they rarely had observed these things properly in the past

Matthew Henry on v42;

This is also a check to their zeal for the customs that Moses delivered to them, and their fear of having them changed by this Jesus, that immediately after they were delivered these customs were for forty years together disused as needless things.

 

43 You have lifted up the shrine of Molech and the star of your god Rephan,

the idols you made to worship.

Therefore I will send you into exile’ beyond Babylon.

Just as people rejected Moses and faith in and worship towards God, so the people at the time of Stephen rejected Jesus and relied on false foundations such as the law, the temple and the land

God took away these things they relied on as well as their idols and shrines.

Stephen had been telling the Jews of his day that they were again going to lose the temple and the land because their faith was in them and not Jesus

The Jews problem was that they couldn’t move from the old scheme to the new

They so identified with, relied on, and had become so emotionally and habitually tied into the land, the temple and the law, that they couldn’t move on

Their personal worth and identity was so tied up in the sign posts and shadows, that they couldn’t recognise that Jesus was the fulfilment of all those things

We too have in the past focused on the signs and shadows, and found our worth and identity in them

We can also do it by relying on our old worldly ways of doing things, of turning to the world for security and knowledge, for pleasure and identity.

In the midst of an outward show of devotion to God, of flying the flag for various customs and traditions, our hearts can be far away from the simple and true religion

As Jesus said to the Pharisees, we need to look at the inside of the cup, not just the outside

Summary of Stephen’s 3 point defence against the accusation that he was against Moses and the law;

1. Moses himself spoke of God’s later raising up "a prophet like me" from among his people and for his people, which means therefore that Israel cannot limit the revelation and redemption of God to Moses’ precepts (vv.37-38); 2. Moses had been rejected by his own people, even though he was God’s appointed redeemer—which parallels the way Jesus of Nazareth was treated and explains why the majority within the nation refused him, even though he was God’s promised Messiah (vv.39-40); and (3) even though Moses was with them and they had the living words of the law and the sacrificial system, the people fell into gross idolatry and actually opposed God (vv.41-43).

THE TEMPLE

v 44-50 In reply to the Jews charge in 6:11 that

"This fellow never stops speaking against this holy place and against the law. 14 For we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs Moses handed down to us."

amounts to a vigorous denunciation of the Jerusalem temple and the type of mentality that would hold to it as the apex of revealed religion.

44 "Our forefathers had the tabernacle of the Testimony with them in the desert. It had been made as God directed Moses, according to the pattern he had seen. 45 Having received the tabernacle, our fathers under Joshua brought it with them when they took the land from the nations God drove out before them. It remained in the land until the time of David, 46 who enjoyed God’s favor and asked that he might provide a dwelling place for the God of Jacob.

Stephen ... was attempting to lift his compatriots’ vision to something far superior to even the wilderness tabernacle – viz. To the dwelling of God with men in Jesus of Nazareth and as expressed through the New Covenant.

David didn’t need, and God wasn’t in any hurry to build, a temple.

David had a close and intimate relationship with God without the need for a building

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

It was only as a concession to David that God allowed the temple to be built

As we read in 2 Samuel 7:12-16, God’s main emphasis to David was the promise of the establishment of David’s seed and kingdom

48 "However, the Most High does not live in houses made by men. As the prophet says:

49 "‘Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool.

What kind of house will you build for me? says the Lord.

Or where will my resting place be? 50 Has not my hand made all these things?’

God taught Israel that he was bigger than any man made temple, that he could not be confined to a particular place

Bit like us looking to the name Church of God, and feeling we were God’s people because we belonged to one and only true church, that God wasn’t with others

Remember that Stephen was being charged with saying that Jesus had said the temple was going to be destroyed.

The holy place was at first but a tabernacle, mean and movable, showing itself to be short-lived, and not designed to continue always. Why might not this holy place, though built of stones, be decently brought to its end, and give place to its betters, as well as that though framed of curtains? As it was no dishonour, but an honour to God, that the tabernacle gave way to the temple, so it is now that the material temple gives way to the spiritual one, and so it will be when, at last, the spiritual temple shall give way to the eternal one.

In moving our focus away from days and outward observances, we are not losing the value God invested in them, we are not dishonouring God or diminishing our identity or spirituality

5 Or haven’t you read in the Law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple desecrate the day and yet are innocent? ⁶ I tell you that one greater than the temple is here. ⁷ If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent. ⁸ For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath."

51 "You stiff-necked people, with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You are just like your fathers: You always resist the Holy Spirit!

It is probable that Stephen wanted to say more, to spell out more boldly how their attitudes were ungodly and how they had corrupted the truth, and condemned the Son of God, but felt he had to quickly conclude before the Jews refused to hear any more.

So he very quickly rebukes their stiff necked uncircumcised (impure and ungodly) hearts and attitudes

Human beings tend to hold obstinately to their own thinking rather than being completely open to whatever the Holy Spirit might say

The church has been through a great deal of change

Large numbers have not been happy, many have left in anger

Too many have been stuck in the past, or have been caught up in arguments and anger about personalities and the way things have been supposedly said or done wrongly

The important thing is to humble ourselves before God, before his word and his Spirit

52 Was there ever a prophet your fathers did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One. And now you have betrayed and murdered him— 53 you who have received the law that was put into effect through angels but have not obeyed it."

Stephen condemns the Jews who relied on outward forms of religion, rituals and works of the law, outward signs to feel they belonged to God, such as circumcision

He told them that the outside signs were irrelevant because inside they were not God’s people

They were uncircumcised in their hearts. They didn’t have the inward sign of belonging to God.

They who received God’s law, lived totally contrary to it because they failed to hear what it was really saying, and had now rejected the one the land the law and the temple all pointed to

A radical recasting of Jewish life to make Jesus, rather than these traditionally holy things, the center of Jewish faith, worship and thought.

How easy was this message to accept?

54 When they heard this, they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him.

They took what Stephen said as an all out attack on all they stood for and relied on

55 But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. 56 "Look," he said, "I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God."

57 At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, 58 dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul.

59 While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." 60 Then he fell on his knees and cried out, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them." When he had said this, he fell asleep.

ACTS 8: 1 And Saul was there, giving approval to his death.

 

1. CONCLUSION PART 1:

1. Stephen believed so strongly in what he said, that he died for it

As we discussed the other month, the word witness in Greek comes from the word "martyr." And means to testify of something.

Stephen’s death spoke loudly as a witness to the importance of what he said

The words we have been studying are written in his blood, they are not just a rambling repetition of old history,

They deliver a challenge to God’s people to focus on the righteous one, to find our selves in him, and not to lose ourselves in an outward form of religion, of legalism, ritualism, exclusivism and self-righteousness.

We learn that all that took place before Jesus, pointed to him, and was fulfilled in him

That our identity is not in the things of the Old Covenant that were mere shadows, not in land, Moses and the law, or the temple, but in Jesus the reality, the substance, the centre of our faith

We are also reminded that God lead’s his people where he wills

Acts 7:4b Abraham lived securely in his home land, but God called him out of it to wander in unfamiliar places, depending on a promise of future security, a future land, not a current one

PRAYER:

Didn't seem to fit in

Ugly feathers, skinny and out of proportion compared to the other ducks

Teased, self-doubt, who and what am I?

I don't look like the other ducklings

He didn’t look so great for a while, but as he grew up he was amazed one day to discovered he was a magnificent long necked white swan, elegant and beautiful

Sometimes we feel like we don’t have any real identity, that we don’t know who we or the church are anymore, or what we are becoming

What makes us different to others, are we the same, why should we even exist any longer? What is our future?

 

Q&A;

Our identity

When some one asks us who we are, what is the answer?

Are we just one of millions of people who put themselves in the category of Christian?

In the past we might have said;

We are part of the one and only true church, a small flock who alone know and live by the truths of the Bible

We could have identified and differentiated ourselves by a long list of different beliefs and practices:

We saw ourselves, and were seen to be, clearly outside of mainstream Christianity, definitely, measurably different

What is our Identity now?

How does God define his people?

How are Christians different to the world?

What are our hallmarks, our differentiating qualities to be?

How is our identity, our security, our direction and future defined?

WHO WE ARE

Human beings

Turned bad, sinful, became cut off from God, lost, mortal, corruptible

Called by God to be saved

Lifestyle signs

Fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5)

Jesus as the Son of God, our Lord and Saviour, High Priest and King

John 3:16

Knowledge that we are sons and daughters, children of God

Knowledge that God loves us

That we have been place in the body of Christ, the Church

To love, worship and obey God

Includes fellowship and working with one another to do the work of the gospel

A commitment to live that new life

OUTWARD SIGNS

What about religious observances and practices?

BUT DON'T WE HAVE ALL THESE THINGS IN COMMON WITH MILLIONS OF OTHERS WHO CALL THEMSELVES CHRISTIANS?

Yes and No

We cannot easily assume that everyone who calls themselves a Christian really is one

As we discussed in Romans 8:9; we have to believe in our hearts and confess with our hearts that Jesus is Lord, to be saved, to be a true Christian

Many don't understand or accept Jesus as the Lord of their lives, and view Christianity as just a nice philosophy of being nice to others without any real grasp of sin, and the need for utter dependence on Jesus for forgiveness, and a life saving relationship with God

So in that sense we are different to the world, and many professing Christians

IS THIS ENOUGH OF AN IDENTITY FOR US?

Have to ask ourselves

Do I feel somehow diminished, watered down, insignificant or not special enough in this simple identity?

Do we feel that our Church needs to be different, measurably better than other churches to be worth our being part of, worth recommending?

Do we feel that our Church needs to be substantially different for others to want to become part of it?

Do we feel that we need to have a long list of differentiating beliefs and practices in order to justify our existence as a denomination?

Will it hurt to be basically the same as other churches?

These are issues for us all to think, pray and study about.

They are issues that we have been forced to face as a result of changing from a highly distinctive, different and exclusive church

One in which we were given a clear and bold identity

What was our old identity founded upon?

LIST.....

Sabbath, Holy Days, food, no smoking, tithing, law keeping, not fellowshipping with other Christians, reading our own literature, listening to one particular man etc.

Prophecies of tribulation from which only we would escape, and the World Tomorrow in which we would be the only rulers

WHY were we attracted to a church with such different beliefs and practices?

Personalities, backgrounds

Deep desire to be different, to be accepted by God, to be certain we were okay with him, to feel of value,

We wanted certainty about these things, we wanted to be able to measure and thus be sure we were okay with God

Again we need to ask ourselves, is this enough?

Do we somehow feel we need more in order to feel safe and accepted by God?

Do we feel we need to have measurable, demonstrable proofs beyond faith in Jesus in order to feel secure?

GALATIANS BEING PERSUADED THAT THEIR FAITH IN JESUS WAS NOT ENOUGH

Needed supplementing with works of the law, outward distinguishing signs and works

1 You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. 2 I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard? 3 Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort? 4 Have you suffered so much for nothing—if it really was for nothing? 5 Does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law, or because you believe what you heard?

6 Consider Abraham: "He believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness." 7 Understand, then, that those who believe are children of Abraham. 8 The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: "All nations will be blessed through you." 9 So those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.

10 All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law." 11 Clearly no one is justified before God by the law, because, "The righteous will live by faith."

CONCLUSION:

Important to take time to examine our views on our identity

We need to see ourselves as God sees us

Do we now feel our feet to be on solid rock, to have a unique and complete and secure identity in Jesus

To know that our belonging to God, our identity as his children is not at all dependent on law, land or temple

God has called us to a simple faith, a growing dependence and reliance and security that is based simply on Jesus

Have you been able to grieve through, to accept, and struggle through the loss of all visible, outward, tangible means of identity and security?

Are you able to step out of the old boat as Peter did, and walk on the water to Christ, knowing you are safe with him?

Are you able to leave the old outward forms, the old legalistic beliefs, the clearly defined temple and the safe feeling of thinking we had an exclusive hold on God and his territory?

Are you content to have just the outward signs of baptism and the Lord’s supper to identify you as belonging to God?

If you are having trouble doing so, don’t despair?

Be prepared to feel your inadequacy, and fears

Take them to God

Tell him about any pain, hurt or confusion you feel

Be honest with yourself and God

He wants to help you find complete security and a full and total identity in his Son Jesus as your Lord, your Saviour, your all in all, your present, your future, your eternity, your source of belonging, your source of strength and hope

In Hebrews 11, we are told that faith is in things which are not seen

We are reminded of much of what Stephen talked about, how that we look for a land, a city that is not of this world, and that cannot be seen