Acts 7:39-60

 Acts 7:39-60 

Jesus is the ultimate point of division. That moment of the division may be postponed or delayed, but it will ultimately come. Jesus himself said. “… I did not come to bring peace but a sword.” Mt 10:34. The murder of Stephen is just such a moment. Before this moment, the rift was there; the fault line was obvious. But at this moment the division erupted in the rage and fury of the mob.

So what was the point of conflict? It was Jesus himself! Stephen recounts the history of Israel and shows how since the time of Moses, Israel had constantly turned away from God's purpose. Stephen explains that God's purpose was to bring the Messiah, that is, Jesus. And true to their family heritage, the Jews of Jesus's day rejected Him. Their fundamental problem was their sin-filled life and heritage, or, as Stephen put it, “stiff neck and uncircumcised hearts and ears.”.

Nothing infuriates a highly hypocritical religious person more than to show them and to tell them that their religion is a fake. The very thing on which the Jews base their religion and pious reputation was Moses and keeping the law he delivered. When they were told that the whole point of the work of Moses, the law, and all the prophets was Jesus and that they betrayed and murdered Him, it was the final straw. The division was complete; the sword came out.

The greatest resistance to the advancement of the Gospel today is not the world, the flesh, or the devil. Those are enemies of our own discipleship and personal holiness. The place where the gospel gets bogged down today is the church. Focused on our own agendas, power plays, politics, and intrigues, the church neither makes disciples nor allows members to make disciples or even supports those who are making disciples. Having become set in its stagnant ways of the local congregational life, the church is emotionally more like the Jews than Stephen. It is a constant and desperate fight to resist the drift into the institutionalism and power structures, the things that actually become a resistance to the work of Christ. But it is a fight we must constantly wage.

"Lord, help me keep the main thing the main thing in my life in the church. AMEN"