The point of Stephen’s sermon is the repeated rejection of God’s will by

God’s people; he cashes it all in (verses 51–53) with their rejection of

the Messiah.

The task in this sermon is to look at the first part of Stephen’s speech

and ask the question: “What is Stephen getting at with these Old Testament

examples?”

This is Easter Sunday. Resurrection Sunday. And on this Resurrection

Sunday, we’re going to talk about death: what is death? What happens when

you die?

As the word of God grows, and the church increases, the practical dynamics

of church life inevitably change.

One of our tasks as Christians is to learn to read the story that we’re in.

As individuals, we have a past and a future. As families, communities, and

as a nation, we have pasts and futures. And we tell ourselves stories in

order to make sense of where we’ve come from and where we’re going and what

our role in the story is.

We all know that there are passages in the Bible that make us

uncomfortable. Often it’s when God does something that we don’t expect or

don’t understand, usually something frightening. The story of Ananias and

Sapphira in Acts 5 is one of those.

What we find in the last section of Acts 4 is not an isolated event, but

starting here, we discover a theme that is repeated throughout the rest of

the book. And that theme is a vision for how the church lives in this

world.

In Acts 4:1–12, we see the controversy surrounding the name of Jesus, and

what that name represents — the real person who lived and died and rose

again and has fundamentally changed the world and time.

What is repentance? In this sermon, we take a look at repentance as a

response to what God has done, as a means to a greater end, and as an

affectional embrace of who Jesus is.

Cities Church is a church in and for Minneapolis-Saint Paul. Our straightforward mission is to make disciples of all nations.