Acts 13:13-52
Amen. You can be seated, turning
your copy of God’s word to Acts chapter 13. Today we’ll be reading
verses 13 to 52. Acts chapter 13, verses 13 to 52,
and let’s ask for God’s blessing on the reading and preaching
of his word. Pray with me. Lord, we remember that holy men
of old were carried along by your spirit to put down onto
paper your holy will, your divine will, so that your truth would
carry on through generations, so that your church would be
firmly established against the world and the devil and the flesh,
and so that the way of salvation would be known when your word
is read and proclaimed. We thank you for this great gift.
We treasure it now and pray that your Holy Spirit would attend
to your word so that we can hear it and believe it and understand
it, and importantly, put it into practice in our lives. This is
our great desire and we pray for it now in Jesus’ great name,
amen. Hear God’s word. I suppose I
better turn there myself. This is Acts chapter 13, beginning
at verse 13. It says, now Paul and his companions,
set sail from Paphos and came to Perga and Pamphylia. And John
left them and returned to Jerusalem, but they went on from Perga and
came to Antioch and Pisidia. And on the Sabbath day, they
went into the synagogue and sat down. After the reading from
the law and the prophets, the rulers of the synagogue sent
a message to them saying, brothers, if you have any word of exhortation
for the people, say it. So Paul stood up and motioning
with his hand said, men of Israel and you who fear God, listen. The God of this people Israel
chose our fathers and made the people great. during their stay
in the land of Egypt. And with uplifted arm, he led
them out of it. And for about 40 years, he put
up with them in the wilderness. And after destroying seven nations
in the land of Canaan, he gave them their land as an inheritance.
All this took about 450 years. And after that, he gave them
judges until Samuel the prophet Then they asked for a king and
God gave them Saul, the son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin
for 40 years. And when he removed him, he raised
up David to be their king, of whom he testified and said, I
have found in David, the son of Jesse, a man after my own
heart, who will do all my will. Of this man’s offspring, God
has brought to Israel a savior, Jesus, as he promised. Before
his coming, John had proclaimed a baptism of repentance to all
the people of Israel. And as John was finishing his
course, he said, what do you suppose that I am? I am not he. No, but behold, after me, one
is coming, the sandals of whose feet I am not worthy to untie. Brothers, sons of the family
of Abraham and those among you who fear God, to us has been
sent the message of this salvation. For those who live in Jerusalem
and their rulers, because they did not recognize him nor understand
the utterances of the prophets, which are read every Sabbath,
fulfilled them by condemning him. And though they found in
him no guilt worthy of death, they asked Pilate to have him
executed. And when they had carried out
all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree
and laid him in a tomb. But God raised him from the dead.
And for many days he appeared to those who had come up with
him from Galilee. to Jerusalem, who are now his
witnesses to the people. And we bring you the good news
that what God promised to the fathers, this he has fulfilled
to us, their children, by raising Jesus, as also it is written
in the second Psalm. You are my son, today I have
begotten you. And as for the fact that he raised
him from the dead, no more to return to corruption, he has
spoken in this way, I will give you the holy and sure blessings
of David. Therefore, he says also in another
Psalm, you will not let your holy ones see corruption. For
David, after he had served his purpose, served the purpose of
God in his own generation, fell asleep and was laid with his
fathers and saw corruption. but he whom God did not, God
raised up, did not see corruption. Let it be known to you, therefore,
brothers, that through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed
to you. And by him, everyone who believes
is freed from everything from which you could not be freed
by the law of Moses. Beware, therefore, lest what
is said in the prophets should come about. Look, you scoffers,
be astounded and perish, for I am doing a work in your days,
a work that you will not believe, even if one tells it to you.
As they went about, as they went out, the people begged that these
might be told them the next Sabbath. And after the meeting of the
synagogue broke up, many Jews and devout converts to Judaism
followed Paul and Barnabas, who, as they spoke with them, urged
them to continue in the grace of God. The next Sabbath, almost
the whole city gathered to hear the word of the Lord. But when
the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy and
began to contradict what was spoken by Paul, reviling him.
And Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly saying, it was necessary
that the word of God be spoken first to you since you thrusted
aside and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life. Behold, we are
turning to the Gentiles. For so the Lord has commanded
us saying, I have made you a light to the Gentiles that you may
bring salvation to the ends of the earth. And when the Gentiles
heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the
Lord. And as many as were appointed to eternal life believed. And
the word of the Lord was spreading through the whole region. But
the Jews incited the devout women of high standing and the leading
men of the city stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas and
drove them out of their district. But they shook off the dust from
their feet against them. And they went to Iconium and
the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit. Amen. The word of the living
God for us. It’s not uncommon to hear People
say today in the life of the church, I wish I had heard these
things long ago. That’s a response that’s very
common when when people hear biblical truth, when they hear
things said and read and preached and taught and discussed, they
say, I wish I had heard these things long ago. And my response
is, well, I’m so glad that now you’re hearing these things.
That’s my outside response. Now, there’s the bubble in my
head, which I rarely confess to people what’s in that. But
here I will. The bubble in my head says shame
on weak churches, shame on churches for being ashamed of the Bible,
shame on churches for withholding doctrine. Shame on churches for
failing to fulfill the Great Commission. See, we have it in
our heads, I do believe, that the Great Commission is this.
Go in the world and do whatever it takes to get as many people
in the door as possible. That’s not what Jesus says. That’s not his commission. No,
his commission is as you, the disciples go into the world as
you, the church goes into the world. Your job is to make disciples. So while you go, you make disciples
and then a little subset or under the making disciples are the
two commands, baptize and teach. And we hardly get to the end
of the Great Commission because we’re so excited to go out the
doors and do whatever it takes to get as many people in. We
forget that heavy statement Jesus makes. Part of making disciples
is to teach them all that I have commanded. And so when a person
becomes a Christian, they should enter the church and therefore
enter the school of discipleship, which really ought to last a
lifetime. You know, in today’s church world,
and I think we’ll hear more of this as we sit through the church
history class during the Sunday school hour, but the church today
is full of sappy statements, soupy things. We discussed in
the Sunday school class today, when it comes to death, do we
wanna hear sweet things or true things? We wanna hear true things,
and true things are generally sweet. But we live in a day and
age where the church is full of cliche, full of let go and
let God, full of God helps those who help themselves, full of
when God closes a door. He opens a window and it’s full
of things so that when the Bible is open, when the Bible is read
and proclaimed, people will say, I wish I had heard these things.
long ago. And so the bubble in my head
I think is accurate and maybe it needs to be said, shame on
weak churches, shame on churches for not fulfilling the great
commission. Sadly, churches in America, they’re
interested in nickels and noses. They’re interested in statistics
and you grandmothers know what a brag book is. Just read Twitter
tomorrow. A brag book is when you got pictures
of all your grandbabies and somebody says, how are your grandbabies?
And you say, well, since you asked and you get out the brag
book, which is now I think on your phone. Well, look at Monday
morning Twitter from all the main churches and evangelical
world. They’ll tell you how many nickels
and noses they saw the day before. It’s amazing where we have come
in the life of the church. Quantity over quality. But we’ve also eased ourselves
into felt needs, you know, 19 ways to be happy. Well, you read
the book of Job, God didn’t want Job to be happy. You can’t get
19 ways to be happy out of the book of Job, can you? Because
that was a pretty miserable time. And so felt needs are not all
there is, nor is the goal of the church bread and circus. And so we live in a day and age
where churches are weak and ineffective and they produce very little.
And I want you to contrast that before your mind says he says
stuff like this all the time. I probably do. But I want you
to contrast that with the church here at Antioch and Pisidia.
Contrast the American church, the American dream church with
the church of the early days where they went into the world
preaching and proclaiming Jesus. And as we’ve seen in recent studies
and acts, the apostles sit for a year and run a discipleship
school until that church is established. Well, we have a good contrast
here with Paul and Barnabas in Antioch and Pisidia. They’re
ministering in the synagogue first. The gospel goes to the
Jew first and then it goes to the Greek or the Gentiles. And
they are proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ and the
salvation that he offers because what God has done in his own
son, the Lord Jesus. Now, some receive the gospel
and some reject it. But this is the message of the
gospel they give. Let it be known to you, therefore,
brothers. This is Paul’s message. Let it
be known, therefore, to you, brothers, that through this man,
Jesus, forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. By him, everyone
who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed
by the law of Moses. This is a radical gospel message
that Paul and Barnabas give to the Jewish audience there in
the synagogue at Antioch, Pisidia. So how do we understand what
is going on in our world today, what was going on in their world
now, and come out blessed? with a love for the gospel, a
vision for taking the gospel to the ends of the earth, and
an understanding of what God is doing in the world. Well,
I think a couple lessons from this passage will help us. First,
a lesson in geography. Remember when Jesus was raised
from the dead, he spent 40 days with his disciples in the upper
room. And when he raised his hands and ascended into heaven,
as he did that, he gave them the great commission. All authority
in heaven and on earth has been given to me. So he says with
that authority to the church, go into the world, preaching
the gospel to all nations, baptizing them and teaching them all that
has been commanded. And he said, you will be my witnesses
in Judea. That’s the Southern portion of
Israel where Jerusalem, Well, there’s Jerusalem first, the
Southern portion, then Judea go a little more North and then
Samaria a little more North than that. And then they leave the
confines of Israel and go to that first Antioch. You understand
there’s two Antiochs. Today we’re talking about Antioch
and Pisidia, which is across the Mediterranean sea in another
land, but they were at Antioch just North of, of Palestine,
North of Israel at first. But how did they get there? Well,
remember they took a boat from Antioch to the island and now
they’ve left the island and now they’ve gone to Galatia or modern
day Turkey. So our lesson in geography is
that God is on the move. as he sends his faithful servants
through the church on sailboats and on horseback and on foot
across the lands with the gospel of Jesus Christ. And so today
in our passage, when they’re in Antioch, Pisidia, you think
about your book of Galatians. This region was also called Galatia.
It’s where Paul was from. The letter to the Galatians,
one of the early New Testament books. but also modern day Turkey. Now, if you read the news about
modern day Turkey, a few years ago, they jailed one of our Christian
pastors. Today in the news, you read about
a pop singer who makes a religious statement that was unpopular
and so the government imprisons her. They need the gospel again,
don’t they? They imprison Christians. They
are a tight government squashing any freedom. But think of that
in light of the gospel going to the ends of the earth. There’s
our geography lesson. Now we need a history lesson,
and the apostle Paul gives this history lesson as he preaches
in the synagogue. Now, understand when Paul went
on his missionary journeys, wherever he went, he went to the synagogue
first. Now, you know, that’s his practice,
because in Romans chapter one, he says, I am not ashamed of
the gospel. For in it is the power of God unto salvation first
for the Jew and then for the Greek. And so the practice is
we go to the synagogue. And in a sense, if you’re doing
evangelism, that’s like shooting fish in a barrel, right? Probably
a terrible way to put it. But you go there and there’s
people willing to listen. There’s people willing to talk about
the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. There’s
people willing to listen and reason with you back and forth
about the things of the faith. And so here, Paul and Barnabas
are in the synagogue at Antioch in Pisidia, which is after they
sailed from Cyprus, they go to a seacoast and then they go inland
a little bit. It’s where your Bible maps are very helpful to
follow Paul’s missionary journeys, but they go in the synagogue
on one Sabbath. And then we’re going to hear
about the second Sabbath in our passage as well. But they go. And just like when Jesus went
in the synagogue and the scrolls were read, the law and the prophets,
they would ask, does anyone have anything to say? They didn’t have a regular preacher,
a regular commentator, as we might, and so They recognize
these are good men, godly men. There’s something about them.
Let’s let them speak. Probably heard that Paul had studied under
Gamaliel, probably heard all kinds of wonderful things about
Paul. Well, they didn’t know what they
were getting into. And so he gets up to talk and he begins,
brothers, I’m a fellow Jew, men of Israel. Boy, what a standing
that was. And here they are across the
sea in a foreign land. And he still says, men of Israel. Paul’s the guy who knows how
to gain his audience. But as we’ll see, he’s also the
guy that knows how to lose it because he preaches the gospel
at which they reject. But he gives this lesson in history
and he goes, I’m going to give you the condensed version. And
this is it right here. He tells them about their history
from Abraham to Jesus. Now, there was a lot in the book
of Acts we just read. There was a lot in the book of
Psalms, Psalm 89, we read just a little bit ago. But the gist
of the history lesson is God is the God of Abraham and he
is the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And God has
been dealing with Israel since he called Abram out of the Ur
of the Chaldeans. He’s raised him up. He made numerous
people. They filled up the land of Egypt.
God brought them out of Egypt. And I love that little phrase,
he put up with them in the wilderness. Isn’t that what God was doing?
He was putting up with those people. And is he not putting
up with us now? We’re fussy, right? We murmur,
we complain, we wish for leeks and onions back in Egypt at time.
You know, we fuss about the paint color, the carpet color, the
ply of the toilet paper in the church bathrooms. We get into
all kinds of fusses and scuffles in the church and God puts up
with us. That’s that’s the history lesson
here. Well, he goes on to say, I gave them judges. I gave them
kings. I gave them prophets. And I even
sent my own son, the Lord Jesus. And they put him to death. Now,
fair enough, he says. All this was written about Jesus.
This had to be fulfilled, God used them to fulfill it. But
when Jesus was raised from the dead by God Almighty, they continued
to reject him. And we’re going to see as they
walk through their life and ministry in the synagogue, the Jewish
audience continues to reject Jesus Christ. And so Paul and
Barnabas shake the dust from their feet. They shake the dust
from their cloak. They leave and go to the Gentiles.
For God has said we are a light to the Gentiles and the Gentiles
rejoice and we’re glad. So there’s a lesson in geography,
a lesson in history. There’s also a gospel lesson
here, and it comes in this great statement we find in verse 38. Let it be known to you, therefore,
brothers, that through this man, Jesus Christ, forgiveness of
sins is proclaimed to you and by him. Everyone who believes
is freed from everything from which you could not be freed.
by the Law of Moses. One of my favorite hymns by John
Newton, it happens not to be Amazing Grace, but we all love
that one, so that’s a freebie, right? One of my favorite John
Newton hymns is, let us love and sing and wonder, let us praise
the Savior’s name. He has hushed the law’s loud
thunder. He has quenched Mount Sinai’s
flame. And what that hymn writer is
saying is exactly what Paul is teaching about here. Let it be
known to you, brothers, that through this man, Jesus Christ,
the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. And by him, everyone
who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed
by the law of Moses. The law of Moses brought regulations
on the people of Israel. It brought worship regulations,
light this candle, burn this innocent incense, sacrifice this
animal, do this on the fifth day, the fourth day, the third
day, the 10th day, this month, that month, spread blood on your
doorpost. And none of that could save a
person. It could only point to Jesus, the great Passover lamb.
Moses also gave Israel a law of the land. It was a nation
under God, a theocracy, we call it. You must live and obey life
in the land of Israel and their boundaries, their four corners.
Live this way or else. Then there was the moral law,
the Ten Commandments, which are still binding to us today. Live
this way and live this way perfectly and you’ll be saved. But what
do we know is true? We do daily break God’s law and
thought. We do daily break God’s law in
word. We do daily break God’s law in
deed. The word tells us that’s true
and our experience confirms it. And so the gospel is look to
Jesus. The good news is look to Christ. He has come into this world and
has obeyed God perfectly. And when he went to the cross,
he took your sins and my sins and in his body on that tree,
he bore our sins and paid the penalty for our sins. There was
this great exchange. He took our sins and he gave
us his righteousness. And so if you are not in Christ
Jesus, whether you’re a Jew in this audience at the synagogue,
or today you are not in Christ Jesus, you must obey the law
of Moses perfectly. That is the only way apart from
Christ you can be saved. But no one can obey God’s law
perfectly except Christ. And so the only way of salvation,
the only good news, the only gospel is to look to him and
to live. What do we say when we use the
word justification? It’s just as if I’ve never sinned
because Jesus has paid for them. And it’s just as if I’ve always
obeyed because God gives us the obedience and the righteousness
of Jesus. So when he looks at a sinner
who’s in Jesus Christ, he sees you as if you’ve always obeyed
and never sinned. And so let it be known to you,
therefore, brothers and sisters, through Jesus, the forgiveness
of sins is proclaimed to you. And so the lesson of the gospel
here and now is do not reject him. For if you do reject him,
you have no salvation. If you do reject him, God will
hold accountable, you accountable for every sin, past, present,
and future. And so this lesson in the gospel
is also a lesson in salvation. It’s a lesson in grace. That’s
the fourth thing we want to see from this passage. Did y’all
catch the little phrase as they were leaving church? And I had
in my head, you know, when we leave church, we walk by and,
you know, say goodbye to each other and, um, You know, we just
make comments to the elders or the pastor usually. And their
comment was, please come back next week. And what did they
do? They brought the whole city with
them. That’s a good thing for y’all
to do. Bring the whole city back next week. Don’t they need to
hear the message of salvation? And aren’t we aware of what they’re
hearing at other places or, or not hearing at all if they’re
on the golf course or wherever else people might be at the shopping
center at home, still in bed, cutting the grass, whatever.
But did you catch the lesson in grace as they’re going out
the back door? Paul says simply continuing grace. It’s one thing
to come to faith in Jesus and to look to him for salvation
and say, Jesus, I know the gospel says you obeyed perfectly and
you died perfectly. And so therefore, I have a right
standing before Almighty God. But we quickly make up rules.
We quickly tell each other in the church, if you don’t do it
this way, loving Jesus and standing on one foot and rubbing your
head, we come up with wacky stuff, don’t we? And we make up all
these rules and what does God simply say? Rest. That’s why
every Sunday when we have our confession of sin and I do my
little wake up statement, it’s time to quit confessing your
sins, though I know you need way more time, right? You’re
supposed to laugh. There you go. I say brothers
and sisters of the Lord Jesus Christ who have received Jesus
by faith and who are resting in him alone for your salvation,
not living by manmade rules, not living by Moses rules or
the laws of Moses, but simply resting in the finished and perfect
work of Jesus Christ. Hear now the words of assurance
of pardon. And the implication is if you’re not resting in Jesus
and you’re making up stuff for your own salvation, This assurance
of pardon is not for you. Oh, that’s not nice. The church won’t grow, right?
Remember, we’re into the Great Commission. We’re not into nickels
and noses. And my job as a minister is to afflict the comfortable.
And to comfort the afflicted, right? My job is to assure those
who are in Christ Jesus that they are in Christ Jesus. and
to assure those who are not in Christ Jesus that they are not
in Christ Jesus. And so we, in our service, in
our preaching, in our teaching, our ministry, we make gospel
distinctions, but we also say, if you’re in Jesus, live in grace.
Yeah, come back next week. Yes, but rest in Jesus along
the way. That little backdoor statement,
those people heard from Paul might be the most insignificant
thing in our eyes in this passage, but I think the most significant.
Keep living in grace. Keep resting. Don’t be restless. Don’t make up rules. Don’t let
people lord it over you. Don’t let them come up with stuff
and hold it over your head. And so there’s a lesson in grace
in this passage to continue in the grace of our Lord. There’s
also a lesson in persecution. The gospel always divides. You
hear people say sometimes, oh, I don’t like doctrine, doctrine
divides. And so the implication is don’t
have it because it’s divisive and the church won’t grow and
then your nickels and noses paradigm is all messed up. Well, what
did Jesus say in the Great Commission? Go into all the world and do
doctrine. And doctrine will divide, Jesus
knows that. But Jesus divides too. He puts the righteous on
one hand and the unrighteous on the other. And so if we don’t
teach doctrine and distinctions and make it clear what faith
in Jesus Christ is, what resting in him alone for salvation is,
we’ve not done our job. And then you get people after
a generation that say, I wish I had heard these things so long
ago. You see the problem. and where
we are today. But there’s a lesson here in
persecution. Doctrine divides. Gospels divide. And did you catch
there’s just the anatomy of a good church fight in here. They got
the women involved. No, I’m joking. They did. They
did. I’m joking. That is what they did, though.
It says we got the leading women. and the devout Jews and they
stirred up, let’s get Paul out of here. Let’s get Barnabas out
of here. It’s a good thing. John Mark already went home,
but let’s, let’s do what it takes. They’re preaching the bad doctrine.
Oh, they’re telling you the false way of heaven. I mean, what,
whatever. Um, that’s how it goes when you’re
doing gospel ministry, the persecution comes. I would even have to think,
say, this is true. If there’s not a little conflict,
in your life as an evangelist. And the example would be you
tell the gospel to a loved one or a coworker and they hate you
for it. If there’s no conflict, you’re
probably not out there. Or say as a pastor or elder,
a church member, if you have a conflict-free ministry, you
are probably not dealing in doctrine and gospel. And that’s rather
sad, isn’t it? Oh Lord, give us a conflict-free
church. Well, yeah, we want that, but
not if it means no doctrine, not if it means no gospel. And
so the lesson in persecution is here is people will hate you
for your profession of faith. People will hate you for your
preaching of the faith. People will hate you for your
lessons in grace. People will hate you when you
tell them the history of Israel with God and Christ coming to
save sinners. But Jesus warned us of that,
didn’t he? He warned us that many would hear the gospel and
walk away with no joy. He warned us that many would
hear the gospel and walk away in indifference. He warned us
that many would hear the gospel and come try to stamp it out
in the church. But thanks be to God, some hear the gospel
and they rejoice and heaven rejoices with them. Are you okay with
rejection? You gotta be, because not everybody
receives the gospel. Are you okay with a little persecution?
Can you handle it? In Christ Jesus, you can. And I pray today that if you
have heard the gospel for the first time, resting in Jesus
alone, that you will receive it with joy and no longer reject
it. No longer put your fist in the
face of God and say, I hear it. but it can’t be true, or it’s
not for me. But come to Jesus, receive him,
and rest in him alone for your salvation. Maybe some of you
have forgotten the gospel that saved you. It’s good to know
the particulars. Could you tell this story? Could
you share the same faith with another? It’s good, as we sang
the other Sunday, to tell the story, but you can’t tell it
if you don’t know it. And you can’t tell it well if
you don’t love it. It’s gotta bubble up out of you. May God
give us grace. to be joyful, gospel believing
people. Pray with me. Our father, we
thank you so much that you sent your son into the world to save
sinners who were at odds with you, who hated you, who rejected
you, who wanted nothing to do with you, but you kept on your
mission. You did it under persecution
and their hardship under duress. You went to the cross bearing
the shame, bearing the guilt, paying the penalty, satisfying
divine justice in order that sinners might be saved. And we
thank you that you have brought your gospel call to us, that
many of us have heard it and received it. May we treasure
it with joy. May those not in the faith come
today because of the hearing of your word and the movement
of your spirit. Help us to be gospel tellers in the world to
each other because we glory in it. to others because they don’t
yet have it, and to others because we know of the looming and coming
judgment of Jesus Christ. Hear us and help us as we make
our prayer in the name of the great King, amen.