Acts Chapter 7:35-45

Now, what is the church? Well, it's a building with steeples and stained glass and nice building. No, that's not the church.

That's a building. It's not what is the church, it's who is the church. We are the church. The called out ones.

Ecclesia is the word. Called out ones. It doesn't mean that we're better than everybody else. We've received the grace of God. It means that we're to be different than everybody else. We're supposed to be living a life with meaning and purpose. We should be loving and giving and serving, following Jesus.

We should be, we should be different. Now, I'm excited about, you can't probably find somebody that's more excited about this church. I'm excited about what God is doing here in this place and in the lives of the people.

But not in the building. It's in the lives of the people. Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David McGee. David is the senior pastor of the bridge in Kernersville, North Carolina. Today, D.A.

Brown shares with us. D.A. is one of our associate pastors here at the bridge. Bob, while we meet as a church in a church building, God does not reside there. Today Pastor David explains how man's dead traditions can never replace God's living truth as he continues in the book of Acts chapter seven. Now, here's David McGee with part five of the teaching, Stephen's Address. Now we're in Acts chapter seven. What's going on is Stephen is speaking to the Jewish leadership and he's kind of doing a recap of the history of Israel.

It's an incredible chapter and Stephen is obviously very gifted in teaching. And right now he's talking about Moses and we're going to pick it up. Let's pick it up in verse 35. It says, This Moses whom they rejected, saying, Who made you a ruler and a judge, is the one God sent to be a ruler and to deliver by the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush.

That's an interesting thing. They were rejecting Moses as the leader and asking him, Who made you a ruler and a judge? And it was God who made him a ruler and a judge. So we see there that sometimes when you're a leader there's going to be people that challenge that and certainly we need to remember that as we follow people, but they refuse Moses the first time. And you know, part of what Stephen's saying is, you know, be careful guys, because you can miss the Lord. You can miss the Lord. They missed that God had anointed and appointed Moses to lead them.

They missed that. And so he's saying, look, you can be wrong. You can, you know, work yourself into a frenzy. And I know that some of us have done that. We work ourselves into a frenzy.

We get in this emotional turmoil and we start making bad decisions and each and every one of us can do that. Just be careful. And here's an interesting thing. I don't know if you've ever thought about this, but it says the angel who appeared to him in the bush. Now, how did Moses know that the bush was on fire without burning? He had to go over there and look at it and watch it.

He had to sit still long enough to realize that the bush wasn't being consumed with the fire. My point now, sometimes we're too busy. Sometimes we fly by stuff and we don't take time to see and to notice because if Moses would've just lifted that bush and thought as another burning bush and walk past, he may have missed something incredible. Now God probably would have given him a bigger sign.

We can't play that what if game too much, but it's just interesting. And I think sometimes we're so busy with our lives. We miss some incredible things that the Lord is doing. Verse 36, he brought them out after he had shown wonders and signs in the land of Egypt and in the red sea and then the wilderness 40 years.

God was doing all these things and yet they were missing it. Verse 37, this is that Moses who said to the children of Israel, the Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brethren, him you shall hear. Now this verse is talking about Jesus.

Verse 38, this is he who was in the congregation in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai and with our fathers, the one who received the living oracles to give to us. This brings up the point of we have a debt towards the nation of Israel and the Jewish people. They preserved the writings of the Bible, specifically the Hebrew scriptures, the Old Testament, so that we could have them. And of course Jesus was a Jewish Messiah. And we really owe them a debt of gratitude and thanks. And also for Jesus who himself was a Jewish person.

Now, let me encourage you in something. If you know somebody who is Jewish, consider thanking them for those things. It's going to be something very different. They probably have never been thanked by a Christian for Jesus and for preserving the Bible. And possibly it could open up a conversation or build a bridge for a subsequent conversation about Jesus.

But even if it doesn't, we should still be thankful for these things. And you know, here Stephen is saying, you know, Moses was a man of God. Moses was a spiritual leader and reinforces the fact that the Old Testament is the word of God. And now we have that part of the word of God. And we also need to be careful that we appreciate and respect the Old Testament. A lot of, you know, I hear people now, well, that's Old Testament, you know? Well, it's about two thirds of the book and a lot of people are so unfamiliar with the God of the Old Testament. That's hard for them to know the God of the New Testament. And what happens is we get this lopsided view of God. People walk around and they think, well, God was real angry in the Old Testament and then he's real loving in the New Testament. No, it's the same God. And if you dig into the Hebrew scriptures, if you come occasionally on Thursday night, you'll hear how God is so much in the Old Testament, a God of mercy and a God of grace, a God who offered his son.

And we need to remember that. So this was in the congregation in the wilderness. It's actually in the King James that uses the word church. Now what is the church? Well, it's a building with steeples and stained glass and nice building. No, that's not the church.

That's a building. It's not what is the church? It's who is the church? We are the church, the called out ones.

Ecclesia is the word called out ones. It doesn't mean that we're better than everybody else. We've received the grace of God. It means that we're to be different than everybody else. We're supposed to be living a life with meaning and purpose. We should be loving and giving and serving, following Jesus.

We should be different. Verse 39, whom our fathers would not obey but rejected and in their hearts they turned back to Egypt. So Stephen is saying, look guys, Moses was an awesome leader. He had the Ten Commandments. You rejected him in these Ten Commandments.

I mean the reality is in the book of Exodus when Moses is walking back down the mountain with the Ten Commandments they were busy already breaking like two or three of them at that time. Now let's understand something and it's interesting if you ask somebody why they think they're going to heaven what their reply is. Try that. You'll get some really interesting answers.

Try that with your friends, with family members. You know, do you think you're going to heaven? We call it the two question test. Do you think you're going to heaven? Almost everybody thinks they're going to heaven.

So they're probably going to say yeah. But then the second question reveals a lot. Well why do you think that?

And you'll get some interesting answers. Well because I go to church. Because you go to church. You think you're going to heaven because you go to church? That's not in the Bible. Well I think I'm going to heaven because I've been mostly a good person.

Mostly a good person? The Bible says you break the law in one place you've broken everyplace. Well I'm going to heaven because I've kept most of the Ten Commandments. Do you think the intent of the Ten Commandments was to allow us a way into heaven? That was not the intent of the Ten Commandments.

Actually it's almost the opposite of the Ten Commandments. Let me share these verses in Galatians with you. Galatians 3.24 Paul says, let me put it another way.

The law was our guardian and teacher to lead us until Christ came. So now through faith in Christ we are made right with God. Galatians 2.16 says, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ. Even we have believed in Christ Jesus that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law for by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified. And what that means is if you could earn your way into heaven well then you would begin bragging about it and then you're justified through your own works. None of us can earn our way into heaven. Galatians 2.21 says, I do not set aside the grace of God for if righteousness comes through the law then Christ died in vain. How do we go from these verses to thinking that we can earn our way into heaven?

It's far from what this book says. Let me encourage you to, you know, if somebody says, hey, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm mostly a good person or I've abated most of the Ten Commandments, kind of walk them through it and say, oh, okay, well, you know, the Bible says you should have no other gods before me. Has God always been number one in your life in all that you do?

How most people would be honest enough to say, well, no. Okay, well that means you're an idolater. It says not to use the Lord's name in vain. Have you ever in your life used the Lord's name inappropriately or, you know, called out his name when you were really praising him? Have you ever done that?

And most people say, well, yeah. Okay, well that makes you a blasphemer. Have you ever taken something that wasn't yours?

No. You've never borrowed a pencil or a sheet of paper you didn't give back. Well, okay. Well, what does that make you? It makes you a thief. Okay. So you're an idolater, blasphemous thief, and you're counting on your own good works to get you into heaven.

Good luck on that one. It doesn't work. Now what happens is when you compare yourself to the law of God and you go, wow, I don't measure up.

And just as I said that, some of you in here thought, well, thanks a lot. I guess I can't get in. No, no. The beauty of it is once you realize you can't earn your way in, then you're open to the conversation to discuss how you get in. See why you're still trusting in your own way to get in. You don't want to have a conversation about Jesus and his Messiah ship, his being your savior. Why?

Because you're trusting in your own works. That's not going to work, friend. It's not going to work because if you set it up like that, well, as the book of Galatians says, then you're saying that Christ died in vain. We'll be right back with more from David McGee on Cross the Bridge. Right now, here's a word from associate pastor D.A.

Brown. We want to take just a couple minutes to pray for some cities in our listening audience today, specifically Grants Pass, Heinz, John Day, Junction City, Keno, Lakeview, and Medford, Oregon. Lord, we thank you for these cities and the people who are listening now. God, even those who might not be listening, we lift up everyone. Lord, we pray that your Holy Spirit would draw them into a personal relationship with Jesus, that they would put their faith in him. Father, we pray that they would get plugged into a Bible teaching church. Lord, we pray that you give the pastors in these cities wisdom on how to make disciples and how to encourage everyone that God brings. Lord, we pray for the city leaders, the mayors, Father, the police chief, the fire chief. Lord, we pray that we would be in an encouragement to them, recognizing the serious responsibilities that they have.

Father, we pray that the church globally in these cities would walk in unity. And Lord, we thank you for what you're doing. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen.

Thank you, brother. And now, let's get back to David McGee as he continues teaching verse by verse. Verse 40, saying to Aaron, make us gods to go before us. As for this Moses who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him. So we see they're really, really loyal to Moses. And while he's up on the hill and he's fasting and he's talking to God, the people are planning this big revolt.

And I've jokingly referred to as this was the first seeker-sensitive service that there ever was because they told Aaron, you know, build us this gap, and Aaron being the leader that he was at the time, said, okay. Now, let's deal with something because early on as a believer, I used to read that passage of scripture, you know, with the children of Israel following Moses and following Aaron. And I used to think, gosh, what is up with these guys? And they wake up every morning. They have, you know, manna laying everywhere. They got to see the parting of the Red Sea. They got, they were set free from Egypt. And yet they keep having this rebellion and, and, and they, their hearts keep wandering and what's wrong with these guys. Well, you know, longer I've walked with the Lord and the longer I've served the Lord, it's become very apparent. What was wrong with them is the same thing that's wrong with me and that our hearts, our human hearts are prone to wander.

They do that. And maybe you've thought in your life that that was just you, that there's something wrong with you, that your heart was prone to wander. Friend, you know what?

If, if every person in here was honest this morning, we'd say, you know what? My heart does wander. My heart looks back at Egypt and go, Oh, what? There was parts of Egypt that were nice. You know, we look back at our former life before we started following Jesus and go, well, I didn't like this and this and this, but boy, that, that was a nice thing.

That was, I remember being able to sleep in on Sunday. That was good one. I mean, you know, you start to think of those things and your heart begins to wander. And if you sit here this morning, you say, well, no, no, no, my heart will never wander. Oh friend, then you're not going to be on your guard that your heart may wander. And I think we should be honest that as we, you know, look at this passage of scripture that we don't just sit there and say, well, look at how silly they were.

We can be just as silly sometimes in our lives. Verse 41, and they made a calf in those days, offered sacrifices to the idol and rejoiced in the works of their own hands. Man, there's a lot in that verse. God in this book tells us a specific way to approach him. That way is through Jesus, his son. This Bible does not say there's many ways to God, that there's many paths to God, that there's many roads to God. It actually says the opposite. It says there's only one way. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life.

Nobody goes to the father except through me. So we need to understand that it's not being insensitive to others face. It's the reality of the scriptures and that we believe this book and, and it's not, I've heard people say, well, that makes, that makes Christianity exclusive. Oh friend, it's far from it.

It's anything but. Jesus said, if anyone comes to him that he'll receive them, that he won't turn anybody away. And in the book of Romans chapter 10, verse 13, it says, whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.

That's anything but exclusive. That's inclusive, but we need to look to the Lord and to this book to figure out how to approach God, how to live our lives, how to do church and follow it. And we can learn, we can learn from this. Now it also says and rejoiced in the works of their own hands.

This is one that we need to be careful of. And I think every church needs to be careful of it. It's an amazing thing that God has done here. And you know, especially if you were here earlier and even if you've been here for a couple of months, you've watched God continue to bless his fellowship, but we need to always be more excited about God than about our church. Now I'm excited about, you can't probably find somebody that's more excited about this church. I'm excited about what God is doing here in this place and in the lives of the people, but not in the building. It's in the lives of the people. Now, you know, the building has gotten nicer and many of us have done a lot of work and given our time and our energy and our finances.

So the building's looking nicer, but still it's just, it's a building. And you say, pastor David, it's obvious that since we meet in a warehouse, there's not a huge emphasis on the building, but we need to always remember this and not get away from it and take our joy in the Lord. Verse 42, then God turned and gave them up to worship the host of heaven.

As it is written in the book of the prophets, did you offer me slaughtered animals and sacrifices during 40 years in the wilderness, the house of Israel? It says God gave them up. It's kind of a difficult thing. Sometimes God allows us to suffer for the things that we've done. He does that, that we might learn from it, that we might turn to him, but we never ever suffer for all the wrong that we've done. And it's an interesting thing because have you ever noticed that we don't mind if somebody else suffers for the wrong that they've done. As a matter of fact, we can watch somebody going through a hard time and we're like, Oh yeah, it's obvious why they're going through a hard time.

They've messed up and God's judgment. But when we go through a hard time, we're thinking, God, what are you doing? I'm a good person.

And of course, many people have bought into that. Well, why do bad things happen to good people? I'm surprised anything good ever happens to us because you know, we wander so much and yet it's not why the good things happen. I mean bad things. Well, it's not why bad things happen to good people.

The reality is what this book says is that there's nobody that's really considered good except Jesus says there's none righteous. No, not one that we've all have fallen short of the glory of God. Romans chapter three, verse 10, Romans chapter three, verse 23.

They tell us that the wonder is that more bad things don't happen. God has mercy. He loves us so much. And so be careful when you're praying that, you know, you don't pray silly things like God, just go ahead and judge him.

He's, you know, he's obviously doing things wrong. You just mercy for me, judgment for him. Don't, don't pray like that. Verse 43, you also took up the tabernacle of Moloch and the star of your God, Ramtham, images which you made to worship and I will carry you away beyond Babylon.

And see, Steven is pointing out, guys, what was, what was really going on? What was your heart towards the Lord? What was the people's heart towards the Lord at that time? And they were so, they were so close in the things of God that, well, they'd become a little bit jaded and calloused to the things of God that can happen.

We can begin to get caught up in religion and ritual, and that leads into hypocrisy. One of the, I'll tell you one of the main telling points, how you feel about the Lord is how you feel about this book, the Bible, it's kind of telling now I understand that many of us kind of suffered under poor teaching or no teaching, and we really didn't understand what the book said. And nobody was really teaching us this book. And man, God forbid that some people actually made it really, really boring to sit under it and under the teaching. But how do you feel about this book?

Here's another question. How do you feel about going to church? Now I'm not saying, you know, we all have our mornings, you know, there's some mornings where you might not feel like being here. There might be some, I'm not saying there is, I'm saying there might be some mornings where I don't feel like being here, but we make the decision to be here. But overall, what's your feeling about going to fellowship is I all bloomer got to go Sunday, go to church, hear about the Bible again. Oh, that's kind of telling friend.

Be careful, be careful. God has revealed himself in this book and we have the opportunity to gather with one another and take a look at the book and see God a little bit clearer. So be careful about, you know, being empty hearted and then it turning into some ritual because it can, and we need to need to keep it real. Verse 44, our fathers had the tabernacle of witness in the wilderness as he appointed instructing Moses to make it according to the pattern that he had seen. Now this is an interesting verse and man, I could go off for half an hour on this one, but I want you to know something that's interesting in this instructing Moses to make it according to the pattern that he had seen. It makes me wonder what exactly happened when Moses was up on that mouth. Did Moses go up in the heaven?

Was the tabernacle modeled in part over some structure in heaven? It brings a lot of interesting questions and you know, the reality is we don't know what happened. We only know what the book tells us. We can ask Moses when we get there, I guess, right? Verse 45, which our fathers having received it in turn also brought with Joshua into the land possessed by the Gentiles whom God drove out before the face of our fathers until the days of David. Moses brought them out of Egypt and Egypt is a picture of the world, the world's system, the world's thinking, the world's philosophy, the world's perspective, the way the world has us look at things.

Egypt is symbolic of that. Moses, the law giver brought them out of Egypt, but Moses, the law giver did not take them into the promised land. Joshua did. I think there's a picture here going back to what we just were talking about, about the 10 commandments. The law can't take you into the promises of God, can't take you into the promised land. It can take you right up to the edge, but it's Joshua who can take you in.

Now some of you go, okay, well I don't understand the connection. Well, let me remind you the word Joshua and the New Testament was written in Greek for the most part. And so Joshua is Seuss is the Greek word for Joshua. And we know that that Hebrew word is Seuss, the excuse me, the Greek word is Seuss is the Hebrew word Yeshua. That is the name of Jesus. So you see the picture Moses, the law taking us up to the edge of the promised land, but not being able to take us in and Joshua or Jesus being able to take us into the promises of God.

It's a beautiful picture and interesting parallels. Great book y'all to read. Friend, do you know for sure that your sins have been forgiven?

You can know right now. I want to lead you in a short, simple prayer, simply telling God you're sorry and asking him to help you to live for him. Please pray this prayer with me out loud right now. Dear Jesus, I believe you died for me that I could be forgiven. And I believe you were raised from the dead that I could have a new life. And I've done wrong things. I have sinned and I'm sorry. Please forgive me of all those things. Please give me the power to live for you all of my days. In Jesus' name.

Amen. Friend, if you prayed that prayer, according to the Bible, you've been forgiven. You've been born again. So congratulations friend.

You just made the greatest decision that you will ever make. God bless you. If you prayed that prayer with David for the first time, we'd love to hear from you. Visit cross the bridge.com and click on God's plan for new life to receive our first steps package with helpful resources to help you begin your walk with Christ. God wants to bless you and encourage your relationships today. Whether you are married, considering marriage, or engaged to be married, we have a resource for you. Pastor David wants to send you his four-part video series, Allies Stay Friends. Allow God to minister to your marriage through his word today.

This was an unforgettable weekend that encouraged many marriages and you and your spouse can be encouraged too. Allies Stay Friends is our thanks for your generous gift today to help more people hear God's truth on this station and beyond so they can cross the bridge from death to life. Please visit cross the bridge.com today to give a gift of any amount and get your copy of Allies Stay Friends. Well, DA, before we go, what are some ways that we can bless our listeners? Each day you can wake up with encouragement from Pastor David through the word of God with his email devotional, life lessons to consider, a daily reading plan, and a thought to meditate on throughout your day from the heart of David McGee. Those are terrific and it's easy and it's free. So folks, sign up today at crossthebridge.com. Thanks again for listening and join us next time as David McGee continues teaching verse by verse through the book of Acts.