What does First B Jackson teach about resisting god?
Drawn from the messages where it was actually addressed: the words said from the front, the passages taught, and where to hear the whole thing.
At First Baptist Jackson, the teaching on resisting God is built around Stephen's defense before the Sanhedrin in Acts 6:8 through 8:1. Pastor Ray and Pastor Carl both worked through the same passage on the same Sunday, and what they found at its center is a pattern that runs from Abraham all the way to the moment Stephen is speaking: God keeps making a way, and the people keep rejecting it. Joseph was favored and sold by his own brothers. Moses came to rescue Israel and was turned away with the question of who made him a ruler. The leaders who rejected Stephen were doing exactly what their ancestors had done, resisting the Holy Spirit, persecuting the prophets, and breaking the law they claimed to honor.
What makes Stephen's accusation so sharp is that he built it out of history his hearers already accepted. Everything he said about Abraham, Joseph, Moses, and the tabernacle was completely orthodox. The council was nodding along right up to the moment Stephen turned the whole sweep of that history on them directly, calling them stubborn, heathen at heart, and deaf to the truth. The teaching here is that resisting God rarely looks like outright unbelief. It can look like fierce religious loyalty to a place or an institution, while the living God is doing something right in front of you that does not fit inside the box you have built for Him.
Stephen's own end makes the point unavoidable. The council's response was not a legal verdict but a mob execution, and they rushed him out of the city and stoned him on the spot. The teaching does not leave this as a historical tragedy alone. It holds it up as a mirror, because the same pattern is always available to anyone who would rather protect familiar religious arrangements than follow where God is actually moving.
Taught from Acts 6:8-8:1 · Isaiah 66:1-2 · Deuteronomy 18:15 · Genesis 15 · Exodus 1:8-11
The passage taught · Acts 3
1 Peter and John were going up into the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour.
2 A certain man who was lame from his mother’s womb was being carried, whom they laid daily at the door of the temple which is called Beautiful, to ask gifts for the needy of those who entered into the temple.
3 Seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked to receive gifts for the needy.
4 Peter, fastening his eyes on him, with John, said, “Look at us.”
World English Bible
Messages that go deeper
- January 5, 2025 You Stubborn People Stephen's sermon in Acts 7 traces Israel's history of rejecting God's messengers, leading to his death and the scattering of the early church.
- January 5, 2025 God Keeps Making a Way Stephen's defense before the Sanhedrin reveals a pattern: God keeps making a way, and His people keep rejecting it. A sermon on Acts 6-8 and faithful witness.
- January 5, 2025 God Is Bigger Than the Box You Put Him In Stephen's longest sermon in Acts traces God's faithfulness through Abraham, Joseph and Moses to show that God is bigger than any temple, tradition or religious system.