Jesus Was Standing

Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

And now, here's a message.

John 14:1–14 and the Promise of a Place with Christ

From Pastor Chris Roseberg. The Holy Gospel according to St. John, the 14th chapter. Jesus said, let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms.

If it were not so, I would not, I would, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and I prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.

And you know the way to where I am going. Thomas said to Him, Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way? Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except for through me.

If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know Him and you have seen Him. Philip said to Him, Lord, show us the Father and it is enough. Jesus said to him, have I been with you so long and you still do not know me, Philip?

Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, show us the Father? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you, I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does His works.

Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do, and greater works than these will he do because I am going to the Father.

Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it. This is the gospel of the Lord. In the name of Jesus, amen. You guys remember that movie Saving Private Ryan?

A little tough to watch, right? One of those historical movies that decided that they wanted to be as accurate as possible regarding probably one of the darkest days in human history, a necessary day because of evil.

If you remember how World War II history works, the Nazis had taken over pretty much all of Western Europe, no need to conquer Spain, the fascists were already in control of that, and so Western Europe had fallen.

Only the United Kingdom stood against them, and the Allies came together and came up with a plan, and it required them to take a beachhead on the beaches of Normandy in France, and then from there plan a overland campaign to defeat the Nazis and to free Europe from their oppression and their evil.

And if you remember the opening sequence of that movie, it was hard to watch, watching men's arms and legs and pieces of their bodies flying off as they were being killed and murdered, kind of the best way to put it, by artillery fire and small arms fire and everything going off in their faces.

Terrible, terrible day. You'll note this. A good way to think about Christianity is with Jesus's death, burial, resurrection, and ascension, Christ has effectively won the war against Satan. I love the way the historians talk about D-Day.

They say that D-Day is the day when the Allies won the war against Germany, but you'll note it took a lot of battles before the war came to its conclusion. The conclusion was secure, there was no doubt about it, the Nazis were going to lose.

The Church Militant and the War Against Satan

Same with Christ and his church. You'll note that our hymns today were chosen because they fit a theme, one that is not popular today, the idea of the church militant. And I need to make something very clear here, I'm not talking about the church militant in the terms of the Crusaders, all right?

That's not our call. We are not called to go and take territory for Jesus, that's not how this works. Instead, we are called to go and preach Christ and him crucified. There's another kingdom that is coming, and we heard in our gospel text today Jesus saying to his apostles, I'm going ahead to heaven, that's where he's heading to, and I'm going to prepare a place for you, and then I'm going to bring you to where I am.

The kingdom of Christ is not something that occurs here on earth, it is among us by faith for sure, but you can't plant a flag and say here is Christ's nation. That doesn't exist today, nor will it exist until Christ returns.

But that being the case, like in every good war, there are battles that still have to be fought, and there are casualties to these battles. And you and I, we are all part of this great church militant, and I have to say this, I remember the great line from the the Chronicles of Narnia where Lucy Pevensey wanted to be fighting in the battle, and Aslan had to basically say the battles are terrible things, and they're not the places for women.

But in the church militant, I would note that we are all soldiers, and we must remember that we do not battle against flesh and blood. There ain't nobody on planet earth who really truly is our enemy.

They may be under the power of the enemy, but they are not our enemies. Instead, we fight against the powers and principalities of this present darkness. If you're not sure what that looks like, just read Revelation 12 and 13.

It'll give you nightmares. That's kind of the point. The devil is raging and seething and seeking to destroy his church. Last week in the book of Acts, we heard how everything was idyllic. The newly baptized Christians were so in love with the Lord, so smitten with love for each other.

They were selling property, giving it to the poor. Nobody had any need. They were all dedicated to the Apostles preaching, the prayers, the breaking of bread, and the fellowship, and everything was going fantastic.

But let me ask you a question. Since we know that the devil is seething and raging against Christ and his church, and he's waging war against his saints, how does Satan effectively wage war against the church?

By causing problems internally and externally. And our first reading today brings this to light. So now things have had a little bit of time to settle, and now here comes the first church conflict. And it's a conflict over, of all things, the distribution of food.

Distributing food is not a requirement of the gospel. This is something that happened out of people's generosity and love for each other. But you'll note that we human beings have this thing that we do.

We like to divide up based upon really kind of surface-y things, like, you know, skin color, language, and stuff like this. But in Christ's church, do such things have any meaning or bearing? Are we to show partiality to other believers because they share our Norwegian, or German, or Polish heritage?

No, not at all. And so something is going terribly wrong here. It reads in the opening of our text, Now, in these days when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution.

Of course, I'm looking at this going, who's stupid enough to let this happen, right? How long do you think that's going to last? And you'll note that things are being divided up kind of racially here.

You have the Hebrews, people who are descendants of Abraham. The Hellenists are people who are descendant from those of a Greek heritage. They're separated by language and culture. And as a result of it, somehow the Hebrews have got the upper hand here, and the Hellenists, well, those widows, there was just nothing left.

Sorry, you Greek ladies, no soup for you, right? And this is how this was going, and it's not good. So the Twelve do something that I think is brilliant in this church conflict. They don't decide that they're going to just rebuke the people who are doing the bad thing.

They decide that they're going to set up a system whereby it's going to be impossible for this bad thing to keep going on, right? And so the Twelve said, it's not right that we should give up the preaching of the Word of God to serve tables.

The Apostles have important work to do, so it's time for distribution of duties. Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty.

But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the Word. And what they said pleased the whole gathering, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit. And listen to the rest of the list.

If you know the difference between Greek and Hebrew, you're going to recognize there are some Greek names here, and there's some Hebrew names here. This is an interesting list. So they chose Philip, Procurus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, Nicolaus, a proselyte of Antioch.

So now these men are going to be assigned, they're going to have the hands laid on them, and they're going to become the first deacons of the church. And they're going to be responsible for this, and here's the thing, there's Hebrews and Hellenists among those who are deacons.

And so they're going to make sure that the distribution is handled equitably. It's a beautiful solution if you think about it, because if anyone complains after this, oh boy, they got a problem. Can you imagine some of the Hebrews saying, well I don't understand why we have to distribute everything equitably.

I mean, I'm not getting as much as I used to. I mean, what's wrong with that? Somebody starts complaining like that, ah, it's time for a full-on rebuke, right? You see what I'm saying? It's just, it's beautiful because the solution solves the problem, and everybody's sin gets to be just pushed down due to the fact that the right thing is happening, right?

So they set these men before the Apostles, they prayed, and laid their hands on them. And listen to this wonderful, wonderful next verse, and the word of God continued to increase. The word of God continued to increase.

That doesn't mean that the Bible got thicker, it just means that the word of God was being preached. More and more and more people were hearing it, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith.

Now, that's a fantastic detail, and I pointed this out in the men's and women's Bible studies last week, but I gotta hone in on this again, because think about it for a second. The high priests, there were two of them, and they would trade off duties year after year.

One would do it one year, then one would do it the next year, and that was Annas and Caiaphas. These are the guys who conspired to have Jesus crucified. So can you imagine some Levite who's working in the temple, who's hearing all the buzz about the risen Savior, Jesus Christ, the one who's crucified for our sins, right?

And they then are doing the duties of the Old Testament in the temple with the gospel still ringing in their ears, because all their neighbors have told them about Jesus. And there they are, they go and they sacrifice a lamb or a bull or a goat, and they're sitting there going, oh my goodness, this is all pointing to Jesus, right?

And what do they do? They become a believer. Well, as soon as that happens, you can just see Annas and Caiaphas going, no, no, no, no, no, no, out, get out, get out, get out. You cannot have a bunch of believing priests, right?

That would just mess everything up. So you can only imagine the gospel has really created a problem as far as a labor pool of Levites to do the work of the temple. Things are getting disrupted. It's a beautiful sentence.

And then it goes on and says that Stephen, full of grace and power, was doing great wonders and signs among the people. You'll note that Stephen is one of the few lay people in the New Testament who can legitimately operate in signs and wonders.

This was a gift given to him by the Holy Spirit by the laying on of hands of the Apostles. And this guy, if you were to think of him in terms of, well, spiritual combat, right? Work with me here, all right?

The armor of the Spirit, right? You know, the armor that we as Christians have. You know, we got the shield of faith and all this kind of stuff. But what's our one offensive weapon? The Word of God, okay?

So the best way I can describe what I'm seeing here in this text is that Stephen is Zorro. This guy can wield the sword of the Spirit like nobody's business. I mean, he is a warrior of warriors in this true Christian sense.

So it says this, that some of those who belong to the synagogue of the freedmen, as it was called, and of the Cyrenians and of the Alexandrians and those from Cilician Asia, they rose up and they disputed with Stephen, but they could not withstand the wisdom and the spirit with which he was speaking, right?

You gotta stop telling us that Jesus is the Messiah, and he'd whip out his Bible from his memory. How do I know this? Because what follows next. This guy knew the Scriptures, and so he was able, from the Scriptures, from memory, to absolutely oppose those who were opposing him, and they couldn't even get an angle on him.

They would come to attack him, and they would leave bloodied and wounded in a spiritual sense here, all right? So they hate this guy, and I'm gonna note this, and that human history is full of men who, like Stephen, are speaking the truth of God, and when they cannot be overcome, their opponents decide that they're going to resort to murder in the name of God for the purpose of getting rid of their opponent.

Stephen’s Trial and the Long Rehearsal of Israel’s History

So they secretly instigated men who said, we have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God, and so they stirred up the people and the elders and the scribes, and they came upon him, seized him, and brought him before the council, and they set up false witnesses who said, this man never ceases to speak words against this holy place and the law, for we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and will change the customs that Moses delivered to us.

Another point that bears repeating here. How many of you have ever heard? It's a new thing that the deconstructionist liberals are talking about. Okay, if you're ever scrolling through social media and somebody says, have you ever stopped to think that, you know, the first Christians, they didn't have a New Testament, so like, why do we need to use the New Testament to teach people about God, huh?

They didn't have one, so we don't need one either, right? And I, of course, I make him sound like a complete idiot surfer dude from Southern California with sandy blonde hair and a puka-shelled necklace.

That's a whole other story. It's part of my therapy. I'm working through some things here. But all that being said, those people, I would like to basically say, hmm, really, they had no New Testament?

Are you sure about that? Well, what do you mean, dude? Well, what I mean here is, have you noticed that Stephen's response? He is giving us theology that we find in the Gospel of Matthew chapter 24. Where do you think he got that from?

Well, I didn't get it from the New Testament, dude. Well, maybe if you think about it for a second, Matthew wrote what? The Gospel of Matthew. Who do you think Stephen was listening to? Oh, are you saying that he heard the Gospel of Matthew before it was even written?

Let me go valley girl on you for a second. Duh, right? Exactly. That's the point. You'll see here that this, he's hearing the Gospel of Matthew before Matthew ever took out quill and papyrus or whatever he wrote initially on.

He's hearing it from the mouth of the Apostles themselves. Don't ever tell me that the earliest Christians never had the New Testament. Who do you think they learned New Testament theology from? From the eyewitnesses, from the Apostles.

And how many of them were there? Twelve. That's quite a bit, right? And you'll notice, we know from church history, these guys traveled. They went around preaching and teaching and telling everybody. So the earliest Christians were discipled in New Testament theology before the New Testament was written by the guys who wrote the New Testament.

Sorry, I'm on a high horse here. Let me move on, okay? So here's what happens next. And that is, they, fascinating detail, I missed this one, okay? So Stephen was gazed, they were gazing at Stephen and all who sat in the council saw his face and his face was like the face of an angel.

Interesting thing here, remember when Jesus was on trial, Jesus did not defend himself at all. Jesus just remained silent. But the Scriptures teach us that when we are put on trial, we don't need to worry about what we're going to say.

This is a promise given to Christians because God himself, Christ promises that when we are on trial, he will give us words to speak. And here's the interesting bit, is that what follows next is not a defense given by Stephen as to why you shouldn't stone me.

That's not what Stephen is doing at all. Trusting in Christ, he now has given words inspired by the Holy Spirit, given as an answer to the promise that Christ gave us. When you are on trial, don't even worry about it, I'll give you words.

And these are words from God himself. And who is God putting on trial here? Not Stephen, but the people who are bringing these false charges against Stephen. And what happens next is just brilliant. You know, I've got nothing better to do on a Sunday afternoon.

What do you think we do a little bit of Bible reading, right? Okay, I know it's unheard of, but let's do this. Let's take a look at chapter 7 and walk our way through it because this is one of the greatest summaries of the Old Testament given in all of the Scripture.

And it's not in defense of Stephen, it's spoken in opposition to as a rebuke against those who are about to put him to death. So the high priest said, Are these things so, Stephen? And Stephen said, Brothers and fathers, hear me.

The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran, and said to him, Go out from your land and from your kindred and go into the land that I will show you.

And then he went out from the land of the Chaldeans and lived in Haran. And after his father died, God removed him from there into this land in which you are now living. Yet he gave him no inheritance in it, not even a foot's length, but promised to give it to him as a possession and to his offspring after him, though he had no child.

You'll note that this theology of Stephen's here comports with what we hear in the book of Hebrews, and that is that Abraham and Sarah and the patriarchs of the Old Testament, they all died not receiving the inheritance because they were all looking forward to a city, a city whose founder and builder is God himself.

Jesus, you'll note, is the one who makes reference to that city when he says, I go ahead to prepare a place for you. Have you ever stopped to think how absolutely awesome it is that Jesus, the son of a humble carpenter from Nazareth, who probably learned his papa's trade, right, is the one who's preparing a place for you?

You know, I think of Nate. I mean, he's an amazing carpenter. The work that he does in construction and stuff like this, it boggles the mind for me, a mere layman, when it comes to just enjoying things like this.

But Jesus knows this trade well. His hands were probably calloused like every good, hard-working carpenter and day laborer is, and he's the one who's preparing a place for you and for I, right? And so here, we hear in this great dissertation given by Stephen that even Abraham and Sarah, they did not have an inheritance in this lifetime, and God spoke to this effect to his offspring that they would be sojourners in a land belonging to others who would enslave them and afflict them for 400 years, but I will judge the nation that they will serve, said God, and after that they shall come out and worship me in this place.

And he gave him the covenant of circumcision, and so Abraham became the father of Isaac and circumcised him on the eighth day, and Isaac became the father of Yehovah, and Yehovah, the twelve patriarchs, and the patriarchs jealous of Joseph, sold him into Egypt, but God was with him and rescued him out of all of his afflictions and gave him favor and wisdom before Pharaoh, the king of Egypt.

This is a master class as far as a summary of the book of Genesis and Exodus. It's brilliant. Who made him ruler over Egypt and over his household. Now there came a famine throughout all of Egypt and Canaan and great affliction and great affliction, and our fathers could find no food, but when Yaakov heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent out our fathers on their first visit, and on the second visit, Joseph made himself known to his brothers, and Joseph's family became known to Pharaoh, and Joseph sent and summoned Jacob, his father, and all of his kindred, seventy-five persons in all, and Yaakov went down into Egypt and he died.

He and our fathers, and they were carried back to Shechem and laid in the tomb that Abraham, our father, had bought for a sum of silver from the sons of Hamor and Shechem. And at this point, you can see the Jews are going, what's he getting at?

Where is this going? What's the punch line here? Because, yeah, so far we don't disagree with anything he's saying. Well, it's all leading somewhere, because you will note that as a good disciple of the Apostles, Stephen was also very familiar with that hour, three-hour long Bible study that those disciples of Jesus had on the road to Emmaus, right?

So he knows the Bible's all about Christ, so he continues, but as the time of the promise drew near, which God had granted to Abraham, the people increased and multiplied in Egypt until there arose over Egypt another king who did not know Joseph.

He dealt shrewdly with our race and forced our fathers to expose their infants so that they would not be kept alive. At this time, Moses was born, and he was beautiful in God's sight, and he was brought up for three months in his father's house, and when he was exposed, Pharaoh's daughter adopted him and brought him up as her own son.

And Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was mighty in his words and deeds. When he was 40 years old, it came into his heart to visit his brothers, the children of Israel, and seeing one of them being wronged, he defended and oppressed the man and avenged him by striking down the Egyptian.

He supposed that his brother would understand that God was giving them salvation by his hand, but they did not understand. I want to point something out here. That is information you don't get in the book of Exodus.

When it gives the account of Moses striking down that Egyptian, we are never told what Moses was thinking in his heart. Where did Stephen get this information from? Could it be that God is speaking through him now?

That's the point, is it not? These are inspired words from the Holy Spirit written for our instruction, and now we have a fuller picture of even what happened in the book of Exodus that you couldn't get just by reading Exodus.

And on the following day, Moses appeared to them as they were quarreling and tried to reconcile them, saying, men, you are brothers. Why do you wrong each other? The man who was wronging his neighbor thrust him aside, saying, who made you a ruler and a judge over us?

Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday? And at this retort, Moses fled and became an exile in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons. Now when 40 years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai.

In a flame of fire, in a bush, when Moses saw it, he was amazed at the sight, and as he drew near to look, there came the voice of the Lord. I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Yitzhak, of Yaakov.

And Moses trembled and did not dare to look, and then the Lord said to him, take off the sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy ground. I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and I have heard their groaning, and I have come down to deliver them, and now come, I will send you to Egypt.

So this Moses, whom they rejected, saying, who made you a ruler and a judge? This man God sent as both ruler and redeemer by the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush. This man led them out, performing wonders and signs in Egypt, at the Red Sea, and in the wilderness for 40 years.

This is the Moses who said to the Israelites, God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. Uh-oh. Did he just do that? He just did that. He just invoked the prophecy from Deuteronomy 18 that God would raise up a prophet like Moses.

I can see where this is going. It's not going to end well for Stephen, but the whole point is God's the one who's putting Stephen's persecutors on trial with his word. This is the one who 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. Our fathers refused to obey him, but thrust him aside, and in their hearts they turned to Egypt, saying to Aaron, make for us gods who will go before us. And as for this Moses who led us out of the land of Egypt, we don't know what's become of him.

And so they made a calf in those days and offered a sacrifice to the idol, and were rejoicing in the works of their hands. But 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, the star of your God Rephan, and the images that you made to worship, and I will send you into exile beyond Babylon.

Our fathers had the tent of witness in the wilderness, just as he who spoke to Moses directed him to make it according to the pattern that he had seen. Our fathers in turn brought it in with Joshua when they dispossessed the nations that God drove out before our fathers.

So it was until the days of David, who found favor in the sight of God and asked to find a dwelling place for God, the God of Jacob. But it was Solomon who built a house for him. Yet the Most High does not dwell in houses made by hands, as the prophet says.

Interesting, we hear those same words next week from the Apostle Paul when he speaks before the Areopagus, when he's condemning their idolatry and calling them to believe in the crucified and risen Savior.

So here Stephen quotes from the scriptures where he says, Heaven is my throne, the earth is my footstool. What kind of house will you build for me, says the Lord, or what is the place of my rest? Did not my hand make all these things?

And here it comes. You'll note again Stephen isn't defending himself. There's no pretense of it even at all. These are words given to him by God as promised by Christ. And the people who are on trial, it's not Stephen, it's them.

You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit as your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered, you who received the law as delivered by angels and you did not keep it.

And off in the distance you can hear the low getting louder and louder and the earth is shaking and the volcano now erupts because the trap is sprung. They have been found wanting by God. Using the word of God, Stephen has condemned those who murdered and betrayed Christ.

And he has pointed out that despite all of their pretenses of holiness and righteousness, they haven't kept the Torah as they would like people to believe, and they have even murdered the one that was promised by the prophets, the Righteous One, the Holy One, Jesus Christ, Messiah, and King.

Stephen Sees the Risen Christ Standing at the Right Hand of God

Now when they heard these things, they were enraged and they ground their teeth at him. I always think that's such a weird sentence. What does that look like? You could get some dental work, yeah, you got a cavity there, dude.

How does one grind their teeth at somebody? They ground their teeth at Stephen, and here's where we're just gonna throw in something, a little side note. Do you remember right before Easter this year?

Our gospel text was the Gospel of John chapter 11. Lazarus had died. He's been dead for four days. Jesus decides to show up four days after he's gone, and the first to come and see Jesus of Lazarus' sisters is Martha.

And Martha finds Christ just outside of Bethany, and she said to him, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. True words, by the way. But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give to you.

So Jesus said to her, your brother will rise again, and Martha said to him, I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day. Perfect catechism answer, just well done here. She's decided to sit and listen to Jesus rather than banging and clanging dishes, right?

So Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life. I am the resurrection. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?

Huh. Do you believe that you will never die? Jesus said so. I'm gonna go with yeah. I believe. I don't know how this works out, but I like to think of what is happening now in this last part of our text is what Jesus meant by saying you will never die.

Because the last words of this text say nothing about Stephen dying. Let me explain, okay? So, full of the Holy Spirit, Stephen now gazes into heaven and he saw the glory of God and Jesus standing, standing at the right hand of God.

What does the Creed say? He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of the Father. This is a huge detail. So there's Stephen. He's about to lose his life and all of a sudden he can see Christ.

The veil is lifted. Jesus is fulfilling his promise. I go ahead of you to prepare a place for you and I will bring you to where I am, he says. And now this is happening for Stephen. And moments before he is about to be stoned to death, he can now see the face of Christ.

And Jesus isn't sitting on a throne with a scepter and a sword. He's standing. That detail makes all the difference in the world. It really does. To have the King's attention like that, precious in the sight of the Lord, is the death of his scripture says.

Do you think Jesus can just casually sit and watch while the very first Christian is about to be martyred for the faith? Not at all. Do you think your death, no matter what it is, will escape the notice of Christ?