"And the high priest said, 'Are these things so?'  And Stephen said, 'Hear me, brethren and fathers!  The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran, and said to him, "Depart from your country and your relatives, and come into the land that I will show you."  Then he departed from the land of the Chaldeans, and settled in Haran.  And from there, after his father died, God removed him into this country in which you are now living.  And he gave him no inheritance in it, not even a foot of ground; and yet, even when he had no child, He promised that He would give it to him as a possession, and to his offspring after him.  But God spoke to this effect, that his offspring would be aliens in a foreign land, and that they would be enslaved and mistreated for four hundred years.  And whatever nation to which they shall be in bondage I myself will judge, God said, and after that they will come out and serve Me in this place."'

This section of scripture is intriguing to me.  Stephen is facing the high priest and many of the religious leaders.  They ask him about Jesus and Stephen starts preaching.  What is Stephen's sermon topic?  The history of the Hebrews. 

Stephen reminds the leaders of their heritage.  Let's take this as a lesson for our time.  If we want to understand Jesus in all of His complexity, we must understand His history and His part in history. 

If we want to grow spiritually, we must remember. 

We must remember.

Stephen knows this.  So he begins to take the religious leaders through their religious history.

Let's remember our heritage today.