What is the way? - Acts 7:35-43 Sermon | Prescott Anglican Church

Christ is the only way, truth, and life.

Text: Acts 7:35-43

In Acts 7:35-43, Stephen challenges the religious leaders' perception. His sermon reaches a climax as he points out that the people God called to be his own rejected God's prophet, Moses. Rejecting Moses was on par with rejecting God himself.

But Stephen does something more - he points to foreshadowing the one who is the way, the truth, and the life. Jesus fulfilled what Moses was a shadow of, and, as such, the Sanhedrin's rejection of Jesus was an even greater rejection of God than the ancients' rejection of Moses.

Sermon Manuscript

lightly edited

Heavenly Father, we pray that in the depth of our hearts we would know and be convicted of the reality that your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, is the way, the truth, and the life; that all other ways lead to death and destruction. Build up in us a depth of trust in this reality, so that in all things, no matter what we face, we would trust in him, knowing that he is bringing us to you. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

Please be seated.

This past week, I am not entirely sure how to explain it, but I had two overwhelming convictions—two things that boiled up in my head and dwelt there for a good part of the week.

The first thought can be summarized as my desperate need for the gospel, though it is more complicated than that, and I need to explain it a little more than just leaving it there and moving on.

It started with a desire to be something more for everyone in my life that I am supposed to be: to be the perfect husband, the perfect father, the perfect priest to all of you. I want things to go well. I want things to flourish. I want people to do well and be happy—and, if I am being honest, to like me.

Then came the next thought: You will not be that.

I think it started as an attack: You are not that. You are not perfect. You are not very good. You are actually really bad at all of these things. That is where the thought went.

As I sat with that thought, by the grace of God and the power of his Holy Spirit, I was reminded that my calling is not to be the perfect father, the perfect husband, or the perfect priest. My calling is to show my wife the gospel of Christ. My calling is to show my children the gospel of Christ. And my calling is to show all of you Christ.

Because I am going to let you down. I am going to let them down. I am going to fail. But if I point beyond myself, then when you see that, you are not going to be scandalized. You are going to know: all we like sheep have gone astray, and we all need Christ as Savior—including me.

I was reminded that I need the gospel as much as every other person here this morning. I need Christ as much as you do.

Which leads me to the second overwhelming thought: I think our churches have what we might call a gospel crisis.

There is a terrible piece of advice that young preachers get. I have heard it so many times: “In your sermon, you need to give them something to do.”

That sounds great—except that, when you give people something to do, salvation can stop sounding like a gift of grace. A hint begins to creep in that you need to earn your salvation.

A better piece of advice is this: find how this text glorifies Christ and points men and women to his gospel—to the fact that they need him; that he has died for them; that in his resurrection he has made them alive; that they do not need another thing to do because he has done it all. And when they rest in that, they serve him with joy, not drudgery.

The reason I say all of this is, first and foremost, because I hope that if you only ever hear one thing from me, you hear that Christ has completed all of this work for you. Know that this is true. And, as I need to remind myself, preach that to yourself day in and day out—every morning, every lunchtime, every moment of every day—so that you might have that joy.

Then, when you go out into the world and hear, “You need to do this,” or “You need to do that,” you know that Christ has already done this. You may be called to serve him, but not out of mere duty; out of joy in knowing him.

You may be wondering, “What in the world does this have to do with anything?” It has everything to do with everything, of course. But hopefully you listened carefully enough to the text to wonder what it has to do with the text this morning.

The reality is that we are reaching the climax of Stephen’s sermon. He is coming to its end, and the force of his punch is getting stronger and stronger. This morning it is a negative example of something, but if we read it the opposite way, what he is saying is that Christ is the way, the truth, and the life.

Moses was a foreshadow of this. Moses was the way out of Egypt. Moses gave truth to his people, and the people rejected that and died. Christ is the way out of our sin. He is the truth in this world, and in him is life.

That is ultimately what Stephen is pressing upon the Sanhedrin. He starts with this punch: “This Moses whom they rejected, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge?’”

Without context, you might think, “That is nice. It is good to remember what people three thousand years ago—or, for them, two thousand years ago—did and said. But what does that have to do with anything at all?”

But if we read this in context and remember where we are in church history at this moment, we realize that it is not very long after Christ’s death and resurrection—less than a year before Stephen stands before these people, Jesus stood before these people. They found him guilty. They dragged him to Pilate and said, “We do not want this man.”

That moment before Pilate is heart-wrenching. Pilate brings him back out and, perhaps mockingly, says, “Behold your King.” They cry out, “Away with him. Crucify him.”

Pilate, I think, is a little shocked. He says, “Shall I crucify your King?” And what happens next? The chief priests—the people before whom Stephen is standing right now—say, “We have no king but Caesar.”

Of course, in context, Christ is Lord, and that statement is scandalous. But the scandal is a little different here. The best analogy I can think of is this: imagine you dislike the president so much that you say, “I have no president but Xi Jinping. The president of China—I want him to be my president.” That is a scandalous statement. And that is roughly what they are saying.

“We do not care about our nation. We want Caesar to be our president, our king.” That is how scandalous their words are. It is amazing.

So they do not merely reject Christ as King and Lord, as ruler over them. They prefer far worse. In a little foreshadowing, they turn their hearts not necessarily to Egypt, but to Rome.

But Stephen continues by showing Moses’ rejection. He wants them to see that they rejected Jesus like the ancients rejected Moses.

He reminds them that Moses had signs and wonders, and that Moses brought them the law. Jesus does this as well: Jesus has signs and wonders; Jesus teaches. But there is an interesting difference when we think about these two people.

Think first about Moses’ signs and wonders: the crossing of the Red Sea. It is very clear that God is at work. Moses is the one being used to guide them, but it is God who works. Moses brings forth water, but it is God who brings forth water through his servant. Moses prays, and God gives manna. Every one of Moses’ signs and wonders points past him to God.

But then think about Jesus. Even in the gospel lesson this morning, he goes out and teaches. He tells them, “Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” Peter is flabbergasted by what happens. It is by Jesus’ power—by the reality that the second person of the Trinity became incarnate and dwelt among us—that it happens. Peter pulls up this massive haul of fish.

Look at all the signs and wonders: every time, it is Jesus’ power that does it, because he is God incarnate, dwelling among us. He is the way.

Then Stephen goes on to tell us that Moses “was in the congregation in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him at Mount Sinai, and with our fathers. He received living oracles to give to us.”

Again, Moses does not go up Mount Sinai and think, “What do we need to be an ordered society? One God would probably be helpful, because all these pagan gods are useless. Maybe we should not make graven images of that God.” That is not what happens on Mount Sinai. There is thunder and crashing, and God gives the law.

God gives the law. It is not Moses teaching. It is God teaching through Moses.

But then Jesus comes along—the one whom Moses foreshadowed—and he teaches on his own authority.

My favorite example is when Jesus is twelve. We know that story because it is a little funny: he goes to the temple with his family and stays behind, but his family does not know it. They travel for three days. So, if you ever feel like bad parents, remember Mary and Joseph went three days before saying, “Oh shoot, where is our kid?”

They go back, and what is going on? Jesus is teaching. He is interacting with the scribes and Pharisees, and everyone is amazed by his wisdom—because it is by Jesus’ own authority and power that he teaches. Jesus is the way.

Before we move on, something really interesting happens here. Stephen says, “This one who was in the congregation in the wilderness.” The word used for “congregation” is ekklesia. I am always skeptical to share Greek words, but you have probably heard ekklesia before. Ecclesiastes—church.

King James Only people love this verse because the King James translates it as “the church.” And they may very well be right here, because Israel is either the prototype or the first church moving through the wilderness, a foreshadowing of the better church to come.

Stephen pulls on this image of the church moving through the wilderness to remind people that you and I are the church moving through the wilderness. We are moving toward the promised land.

We do this not because I am a super-awesome leader, not because we have amazing bishops, not because we can will it up within ourselves. The church moves through the wilderness to the promised land, to the eternal kingdom of God, to the New Jerusalem, because Christ alone is the way. He is the one who guides us there.

Then Stephen continues: “Our fathers refused to obey him, but thrust him aside, and in their hearts they turned to Egypt.”

This is Stephen’s indictment of the people. The rejection of God’s prophet is the same as rejecting God. The people rejected Moses and, as such, they rejected God.

But he is not just talking about Moses, is he? He is saying, “You rejected Christ. You rejected this man, Jesus Christ, who was the second person of the Trinity—the way and the truth—and in doing so, you rejected God.”

In other words, to reject Christ is to reject the way and the truth; to accept Christ is to accept the way and the truth.

Stephen carries on. The people said to Aaron, “Make for us gods who will go before us. As for this Moses who led us out from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” They made a calf in those days, offered sacrifices to the idol, and rejoiced in the works of their hands.

I think most of us know this story. Think about it for a minute.

I was talking to people this morning. I really hope the monsoons are coming. Not only do we need the rain, but I really love monsoons.

But imagine this: you are at Granite Basin, looking up at Granite Mountain, and a thunderstorm comes rolling over it. Your reaction is not, “I am going to run to my car and stay dry.” Your reaction is, “I think I am going to make a pagan god and throw a raucous party.”

There is this incredible thing happening over them. They see the power of God and say, “Well, I bet Moses forgot about us. We should do something else.” It is wild. That moment is wild.

To make that moment more profound, Stephen draws it out in a way I had never noticed before. He mentions it at least twice in this sermon: Moses meets God for the first time at the base of Mount Sinai, and God tells him, “This is a holy place.”

So not only is something incredible happening above them, they are standing on ground that God called holy. They are making these profoundly profane things at the base of Mount Sinai, while something holy is happening on holy ground. This is an incredible rejection of the holiness of God.

You might be tempted to think, “Wow, that is really bad. How could they do that?” Then I love what John Calvin says: “Our hearts are idol factories.” Not that our hearts are factories that are idle; our hearts are idol factories. They churn out idols every single day—one idol after another.

We think, “If I just have a little more money, things are going to be better. If I can learn not to squabble with my wife, things are going to be better. If I have this car or that job, things are going to be better.” We start trusting in those things—things that are often quite good—and we turn them out just like these people did.

We trust in these idols just like these people did. So there is a warning: watch your heart. Be aware that you may very well be turning out another idol, another thing to worship.

There is a really important reason this is so dangerous, and it gets more dangerous the more we think about it. If we make our own god, we are often creating a god we think we can control. They want to determine their own future, so they make their own god because they think they can control it.

Our idols work the same way. “If I have a little more money, I will be comfortable. We can do this. We can do that. It is going to be okay that way.” But God may very well be calling you to trust him in a moment when you do not know how you are going to make it.

That again reminds us of our desperate need for the gospel. Whatever our idols may be, I very much doubt any of you are creating golden calves, worshiping them, and throwing Bacchanalian parties. If you are, let’s talk.

But you may very well be turning out some other thing that makes you say, “If only. If only.”

Paul draws on this, too, and his warning is even more stark. He says, “Do not be idolaters as some of them were in the wilderness. As it is written, ‘The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.’”

He looks at this and says, “They made this idol, and it did not take them very long to stumble into other sins.” “We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and they died. We must not put Christ to the test as some of them did, and they died. Nor grumble, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer.”

Grumbling is fascinating. I find that when I get stuck in this grumbling mode, it goes from dissatisfaction to thoughts like the ones I mentioned at the beginning—the thoughts that are not helpful, that say, “You will fail, and I will fail.”

And that is the good news: because if I fail, that means Christ has succeeded.

So let Christ succeed, and tear down those idols, because they lead to destruction and death. That is the cost of idolatry. Whatever it may be, it always leads to death. But Christ is the way and the truth. He is better than that. Where idolatry leads to death, he leads to life.

But first, Stephen paints this grim reality for us. “God turned away and gave them over to worship the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets: ‘Did you bring to me slain beasts and sacrifices during the forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel? You took up the tent of Moloch and the star of the god Rephan, the images that you made to worship; and I will send you into exile beyond Babylon.’”

This is a fascinating rhetorical choice Stephen makes. This quotation is not drawn from a prophet to the southern tribes, or to Judah. It is drawn from Amos, which is written to the northern kingdom.

If you do not remember: the kingdoms of Israel split. There was the northern kingdom and Judah. The northern kingdom almost immediately apostatized, and eventually God sent them far away.

It is interesting that Stephen draws from this because there would have been a temptation within Judah to think, “Well, yes, but we took longer to apostatize, and then we came back, so it is okay.”

Stephen says: no. If you reject Christ, you are no better than the nations. You are no better than the people I sent beyond Babylon. You are no better than them.

He begins by showing this: this idea of turning away is God’s judgment. Then he continues with this question: “Did you bring me slain beasts and sacrifices during the forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel?”

The way it is written assumes the answer: no. No, you did not bring me sacrifices. You sacrificed to idols, but you did not sacrifice to Yahweh, the Lord of lords, the God of gods.

This is incredible. Not only did they make idols; not only did they sacrifice to them; they did not sacrifice to God. Stephen’s accusation is that they have continuously gone after false gods.

This can feel weighty, sorrowful, and heavy. If we left it there, it would be. But I would do you a disservice, because here is the moment we want to remember the truth.

Here is the moment we want to remember that it is in Christ alone that we are saved, because Christ alone is the way. Christ alone is the truth. Christ alone is life.

Or, to quote that great hymn: “On Christ the solid rock I stand; all other ground is sinking sand. All other ground is sinking sand.”

There are so many things in this world that can become idols, and so often they are good things in which we misplace our trust.

“If I just work hard enough, if I just have the right marriage, if my family would just do this or that, if I just had the right friends, everything would be a little bit better.”

All of these things are good things. Friends are wonderful and a blessing. Family is a joyful thing—or at least can be. Marriage is a beautiful thing. Hard work is really good. Celebrate these things, but do not trust them, because they will fail you.

Trust Christ alone, because he is the way, the truth, and the life.

The call of the text today is simple: Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. None come to the Father except through him.

My prayer for each and every one of you—and for myself—is this: my hope and my one desire is that, if this is the only sermon you ever hear from me for the rest of your life, you would know what Christ has done for you, and that you would trust him.

When the world screams that you are not enough, when the world tells you to give up, when the world tells you that you are a failure, know that Christ has already won for you. When the world screams, “Do more, because you are not enough. Be more, because you are not enough,” know that Christ is more than enough for you.

My prayer, my dear friends, is that you would know all that Christ has done for you. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.