Paul encourages those who converted to Christianity following his sermon to “continue in the grace of God.” We’ll examine what that means, what it looks like in the life of the believer, and how it proves our salvation.
Transcription (automatically-generated):
In our previous study, we saw Paul preach in a synagogue in the city of Antioch, in the District and Romans region of Pisidia. He preached the Gospel powerfully, urging those present to repent and follow Jesus as their Messiah, their Savior. And today's study picks up immediately after that synagogue service where Paul preached. In Acts chapter 13, verse 42, it says, as they were leaving, the people urged them to speak about these matters the following Sabbath. So, both the Jews and the Gentiles who were present wanted to hear more, and they urged Paul and Barnabas to return the following Sabbath to share more about the Gospel in Jesus the Messiah.
This was obviously a positive response. Verse 43 we read after the synagogue had been dismissed, many of the Jews and devout converts to Judaism followed Paul and Barnabas, who were speaking with them and urging them, and then underline this phrase in your Bibles, to continue in the grace of God. As Paul and Barnabas exited the synagogue, many of the men who had been in the service followed them through the streets, asking them questions and just wanting to hear more from them. And we're going to slam on the brakes right here to focus on Paul's words to them, because in verse 43 it tells us he urged them to continue in the grace of God. The word continue tells us that these men were making professions of faith following Paul's sermon.
They were saying, I believe what you're preaching. I believe Jesus is the Messiah. He's the son of God. And Paul's response was, that's wonderful. Now continue following the Lord.
Now continue growing in your knowledge of Him. Continue. Obeying him. Paul's message was persevere, endure, abide, remain in him. Prove the sincerity of your faith by walking it out.
When somebody makes a profession of faith and says, I've become a Christian, how do you know what they're saying is true? Can you just take their word for it? Is that how it works? Do we all just get to self-authenticate our faith? There are some obvious signs, such as a verbalized confession of faith and a willingness to obey Jesus by being baptized as the public profession of your faith.
But the truth is that the sincerity of a person's conversion, the evidence that they are truly saved, is only revealed over time. Do they persevere? Do they endure? Do they abide and remain in Christ? Perseverance is one of the defining marks of saving faith.
Our brother James wrote that good works do not save us, but genuine salvation will inevitably produce good works. In the same way, this is your first fill in. Perseverance does not save us, but genuine salvation will inevitably produce perseverance. I'll say that again, perseverance does not save us, but genuine salvation will inevitably produce perseverance. The Apostle John wrote about those who claimed to be saved, but then walked away from the Uppercase C church.
And John said this it's on your outlines, all verses will be they went out from us, but they did not belong to us, for if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us. However, they went out so that it might be made clear that none of them belong to us. When a person walks away from the uppercase c church, the church of Jesus all around the world, when a person walks away from the church and feels nothing no conviction, no regret, no missing of Christian fellowship and the presence of God shared among believers, no missing of serving one another in love. John says that's because they never truly belonged to the church, they were never truly saved, says the Apostle John. Jesus said this to a group of Jews who confessed to believing in Him as the Messiah.
He said, if you continue in My word, you really are my disciples. Isn't it interesting that none of them said, but I put my hand up at the end of your service? Isn't that good enough? Jesus said, if you continue in My word, you really are my disciples. Jesus spoke about those who claim to belong to Him but do not produce any fruit.
There's no evidence in their lives, and they don't remain connected to Him. And this is what Jesus said. He said, I'm the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. Every branch in me that does not produce fruit, he removes and he prunes every branch that produces fruit so that it will produce more fruit. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.
Now hear this remain in me and I in you. Just as a branch, his unable to produce fruit by itself unless it remains on the vine, neither can you unless you remain in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. The one who remains in Me, and I in Him produces much fruit because you can do nothing without Me. If anyone does not remain in me, he is thrown aside like a branch, and he withers.
They gather them, throw them into the fire, and they are burned. Jesus is clear that those who belong to Jesus will remain connected to Him and will therefore produce much fruit. Paul wrote to the believers in Colosse and told them, once you were alienated and hostile in your minds as expressed in your evil actions, but now He, Jesus, has reconciled you by his physical body through his death, to present you holy faultless and blameless before Him. We love that part, but don't miss this next part. If indeed you remain grounded and steadfast in the faith and are not shifted away from the hope of the Gospel that you heard, remember what happens when you are truly saved.
God's Spirit, the Holy Spirit, joins itself to your dead Spirit, bringing it to life, and then he dwells in you, making your body a temple of the presence of God. When you are truly loved, something irreversible takes place, as irreversible as being born, which is why Jesus called it being born again. You can't be born again, again. So it's not that you need to make sure the Holy Spirit doesn't bail on you. It's not that you need to make sure the Holy Spirit doesn't leave your life.
It's that you need to make sure the Holy Spirit is in you. To begin with. You need to make sure that you've actually been saved and are committed to following Jesus, no matter the cost. John said that when a person walks away from the Uppercase Sea Church and experiences no conviction, they walk away and never look back. It can only be because the Holy Spirit was never actually in them to begin with, because part of the ministry of the Holy Spirit, according to the Scriptures, is to convict us of our sins.
So when we sin and there's no conviction, what does that tell us? There's no Holy Spirit in us. Jesus said that those who truly belong to Him will continue trying to follow Him through all their ups and downs, they want to follow Him. Jesus said that those who are his will want to stay connected to Him, and because they're connected to Him, they will beggar much fruit. If you see someone who claims to be a Christian, but they're ambivalent about being connected to Jesus and his church, and their life is not marked by Godly fruit.
Jesus says it's because they don't belong to Him. They're not actually saved. Are you beginning to see that we do not self-authenticate our faith? Our faith is not real because we say it is. There's evidence that will be evident to others.
Paul said those who are truly saved would remain grounded and steadfast in the faith again. Through all their ups and downs, through all their imperfections, genuine believers continue to love Jesus. They want to be connected to Him, they want to obey Him, and they experience the conviction of the Holy Spirit when they don't. Are you beginning to see why? In many ways, only time reveals the sincerity of our faith.
Only time reveals if we are continuing in the grace of God. The writer of Hebrew says the same thing, for we have become participants in Christ if we hold firmly until the end the reality that we had at the start. But, Jeff, I thought you believed in eternal security. I thought you believed in once saved, always saved. I do.
The issue is not that you can lose your salvation. You can't. It's an irreversible process. The issue is whether you were truly saved in the first place. Because those who are truly saved will persevere in the faith.
The Holy Spirit in them will give them the power to do so. That's what the Bible teaches. This is so important. One of the things that disturbed me the most his the number of people who believe they're loved. But their lives don't meet the biblical standards for salvation.
Their lives don't meet the standard of evidence laid out in the Scriptures in the verses I've just shared with you. In other words, I'm deeply disturbed and concerned by the number of people who think they're saved, but according to the Bible, are not. And I'm deeply disturbed by the number of pastors and churches who, in their misguided attempts to be loving, are leading many to hell by leading them to believe they're saved when they're not - never concerning their congregations with the hard truths of God's word. There is nothing loving about smiling at someone as they sleepwalk into an eternity apart from God. Let me be blunt here.
I really don't know if there is anything worse you could do to a person. I cannot think of anything more heinous you could do than to deceive someone into thinking they are right with God when they are not being an active participant in their damnation. But we are surrounded by churches that are doing just that. Once saved always saved. His a true statement, but it presupposes the person's conversion is genuine, not by our standards, but by the Bible standards.
And genuine salvation produces good works, a love for the Lord and his people, and perseverance knowing that. Let me ask you plainly are you saved by the Bible standard, not your own? By the Bible standard, are you loved? How do you know?
Because I raised my hand at church one time is not an answer. If you've been paying attention to what the Scriptures say, this issue, genuine salvation is the most important thing we could be talking about on Easter Sunday or any day. And so I want to ask you to turn with me, if you would, to Matthew chapter 13, verse three. You can leave your outline in Acts if you want to, but turn to Matthew chapter 13, verse three. And we're going to look at a parable that Jesus told that's known as the parable of the Sower, or the parable of the Four Soils.
It's illuminating on today's subject because it explains why we sometimes see people respond enthusiastically to the Gospel and then fall away over time, revealing the insincerity of their conversion. In Matthew 13 three, we read Then he, Jesus, told them many things in parables, saying, consider the sower who went out to sow. So this is a farmer going out on his property to sow seeds that he hopes will turn into crops as he loved. Some seed fell along the path. This refers to the roads and paths that went around or through a farmer's field.
It was exposed, hard, dry ground where nothing could grow because of the frequent foot traffic. So some of the seed fell there and the birds came and devoured them. The seed just bounced off the hard ground. It was easy for the birds to come and peck off other seed. Fell on rocky ground.
Now, this is shallow soil atop a layer of bedrock, usually limestone. So from above the soil looks fertile, but there's no depth to the soil. So a plant can't grow any roots to anchor itself and draw water from the ground to feed itself where it didn't have much soil. And it grew up quickly since the soil wasn't deep. But when the sun came up, it was scorched.
And since it had no root, it withered away. Other seed fell among thorns. These would have been Torah thistle bearing weeds which were still in the ground after the loving had been done. And they would take up the space and light and water that the good plants needed, they would take over, and the thorns came up and choked it. Still other seed fell on good ground and produced fruit, some 100, some 60, and some 30 times what was sown.
Let anyone who has ears listen. Now jump down to verse 18 of Matthew 13, where Jesus explains this parable. So listen to the parable of the Sower. When anyone hears the word about the Kingdom and doesn't understand it, the Evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is the one sown along the path.
So in this parable, you can write this on your outlines. The seed is the word of God. It's the teaching about the Kingdom of God. It's the gospel. It's the word of God.
In one Peter, it says, you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but imperishable through the living and enduring Word of God. The ground is a person's heart. The sower is anyone sharing those Word of God. And the birds who show up to eat the seed that falls on the hard ground are demonic forces. Jesus calls them the evil one.
This is an idiom that shows up with birds several times in the Scriptures. The first type of soil is explained in verse 19. It's the hard heart. And the idea is the reason they don't understand the Word of God, his because they don't want to understand it. They're unwilling to receive it.
Their hearts are like hard ground. And so the little bit of truth, the little bit of revelation that they were given for a moment, is almost immediately snatched away by the Kingdom of darkness. This is the person who says, I won't believe in God no matter what. This is the person who says, oh, I'll believe if Jesus Christ will appear right in front of me. This is the person who says, if anything to do with following Jesus means I can't do this thing, I don't even want to hear about it.
It's a non starter for me. The heart is hard ground, and this parable will reveal much about the different ways that people respond to the Gospel. But it will also be instructive to us on how we share the Gospel. We're not called to always determine in advance who is and is not hard ground or good ground, because we can't always know. We're encouraged to share the gospel as the Spirit leads and then understand the different responses we may see in light of this parable.
Jesus explained to his disciples that when there's only hard ground in a person's heart where there is hostility to the gospel and you know they have no interest whatsoever, it is foolishness to keep loving back to them and sharing the gospel. In fact, Jesus warned us about doing that when he spoke very plainly and said don't give what is holy to dogs or toss your pearls before pigs, or they will trample them under their feet, turn and tear you to pieces. That doesn't mean you give up on them, but it does mean that you pray for God to change their heart because there's nothing else to be done. Until that happens. You don't have to come back with a better presentation.
Nothing good is going to come from you trying to break up that hard ground by yourself. Only the Holy Spirit can do that. Only the Holy Spirit can do that. So pray for them. That's your part in that situation.
Verse 20 and the one sewn on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy. But he has no root and is short lived. When distress or persecution comes because of the word, immediately he falls away. Luke's Gospel tells us these are those who believe for a while and fall away in a time of testing. So write this down.
Verses 20 and 21 refer to a shallow heart. A shallow heart. This is the person who hears the gospel and says yes, that's wonderful news. I need that. I want to join home group.
I want to go to men's study, I want to serve every single Sunday. Sign me up. I want to be on the worship team. I might be called to plant a church, but they're ultimately unwilling to pay any type of price to follow Jesus.
Very quickly it comes evident they don't actually want to change their schedule to be at church and fellowship with believers. Our have time in God's word or a daily relationship with him. They loves Jesus and they're excited. But they don't want to change their social life to follow Jesus. They don't want to change or give up anything to follow Jesus despite their enthusiasm.
And they walk away from him as soon as they figure out that following him means they can't be the God of their life anymore. Unwilling to obey Jesus when it clashes with their desires. This person has no root. They're like a plant growing on stony ground. It looks good, but there are no roots to pull in moisture and produce life in the plant.
They are a branch that is not connected to the vine. Their spiritual highs come from being at church and church events, but they have no relationship with God on their own. So as soon as the heat that following Jesus brings starts hitting them in their life, as soon as their faith costs them something, their faith withers and dies and they disappear. That's like nothing ever even happened. Is this person saved?
No, because they were never connected to the source of life, Jesus. They never had roots. The Holy Spirit was never in them. It was an illusion. If you know someone like this, you need to view them as someone who is not saved and needs to be saved.
They need the gospel. And if they think they're saved while they continue to live disconnected from Jesus, do not allow them to remain in that belief. Do not hate them that much. Walk them through the Scriptures we're looking at today. Explain to them how God's Word says they're not saved, because it is far more loving to reveal that to them than to allow them to continue deceiving themselves and discover what they've done.
Only when they're standing before Jesus, hearing him say to them, I never knew you depart from me. Can you imagine them looking at you in that moment and saying, Why did you? Let me just keep thinking I was okay. Would have been a difficult conversation. It's not going to sound like a very good reason on the Day of Judgment.
Verse 22. Now, the one sewn among the thorns, this is one who hears the Word. But the worries of this age and the deceitfulness of wealth, mark's Gospel says, and the desires for other things, Luke's Gospel says, and pleasures of life, all those things choke the Word, and it becomes unfruitful. Write this down. Verse 22 refers to a divided heart.
A divided heart. This is the person who's also excited to receive the Word of God. They believe they've given their life to Jesus, but their love for Jesus just can't compete with their love for the world. When Jesus refers to the worries of this age, he's talking about the things that stress us out not having enough money, problems at work, problems in our relationships, stuff like that, and their ability to consume all of our focus and energy and passion. On the flip side, Jesus refers to the deceitfulness of wealth.
This is the person who, poor or rich, looks to money as the solution to all of their problems and all of their needs. How are riches deceitful? Well, in Revelation Three, Jesus writes a letter to the church at Laodicea, the church that in part represents many of the churches in the age we currently live. And in that letter, Jesus says so, because you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I am going to vomit you out of my mouth, for you say I'm rich, I have become wealthy and need nothing, and you don't realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I advise you to buy from me gold refined in the fire so that you may be rich.
White clothes so that you may be dressed and your shameful nakedness not be exposed. An ointment to spread on your eyes so that you may see. Riches are deceitful because they easily cause their possessors to equate material prosperity with spiritual prosperity. If my bank account lots good, then my soul must look good too. If all of my material needs in my life are being met excessively, then I must be doing something right.
This is why Jesus said it his easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God because riches are deceitful. J. D. Rockefeller was once asked, how much money is enough for a man? And he smiled and answered, just a little bit more.
Please understand that I'm talking about almost all of us in this room. You might not think that you're rich, but the same spirit that drove Rockefeller may drive you just a little bit more. I just need to focus on my career till I get that house, till I get that loan paid down. And then I can become serious about Jesus and the church and fellowship. Just a little bit more.
There will always be the temptation to pursue fleshly pleasures over Jesus. There will always be the temptation to put your career before Jesus. There will always be the temptation to put a more comfortable lifestyle ahead of Jesus. There will always be something competing with Jesus for your time, energy, resources and devotion. The seed that fell among the thorns is the person whose fears, dreams or passions or plans are simply greater than their love for Jesus.
Is this person saved? We don't know. Is this a permanent state of being? Or are they just temporarily caught up in the world? Can we fall back into that?
We don't know. And that's scary because you want to be sure about whether or not you belong to Jesus. You don't want to be 70% sure you're saved. This person could be legitimately saved and now distracted. Our they may have never been saved, and that's a dangerous place to be.
Whether you will spend eternity in heaven or hell is not something you want to take a let's wait and see approach to. This is the person let me just push some buttons here. In contrast to my up to this point, light and fluffy preaching, this is the person who shows up at church inconsistently. You'll see them on Christmas Eve and Easter for sure. But as far as every other Sunday goes, it just depends on whether or not they've got anything better going on.
If is there something else they'd rather do, let me say it that way, because there's nothing better going on. But maybe the sun is shining, it's a good day for the lake, or there's a big game on or the kids got a baseball game, our a soccer game, or we got friends and family in town. They know some Bible verses. They even post some Christianity stuff to Facebook every now and then if you're over the age of 40, apparently in their mind, they attend church and they follow Jesus, but they're just almost always in a really busy time right now. They've always just God.
A lot going on right now. If you know someone in this place, I encourage you to help them see that the evidence in their life does not point to Jesus being their highest priority. And that is not how those who are genuinely saved live. Share the real gospel with them. The one where we become disciples of Jesus, the one where we follow Jesus, the one where we take up our cross every day and follow Jesus, the one where Jesus becomes everything, the one where he doesn't become number one on the list, he becomes the only thing on the list.
They need to be called to that gospel. Why? Because it's the only one that's real. Everything else is a false gospel. Verse 23.
But the one sown on the good ground, this is the one who hears and understands the Word, who does produce fruit and yields some 100, some 60, some 30 times what was. Sown write this down. Verse 23 refers to a devoted heart. A devoted heart. The average ratio of harvest to seed that had been sown was eight to one, with a ten to one ratio considered exceptional.
So the kind of returns that Jesus is talking about would have been incomprehensibly, unbelievable harvests. And you might hear that and think, I don't feel like I'm seeing that kind of harvest and fruit in my life. I love Jesus more than anything, but I'm not seeing that kind of return. What am I doing wrong? I think you'll find the way Luke's gospel says it encouraging.
It describes those whose hearts are good ground as those who, having heard the Word with an honest and good heart, hold on to it, and by enduring, produce fruit. It takes a while, maybe even a lifetime. Many of us will never understand the spiritual fruit that we've produced until we arrive in the presence of the Lord. And what a moment that's going to be, because we're going to see the people that the Lord used us to bring into the kingdom that we had no idea about, but Jesus will show us. You were touch number 14 of the 28 different touches that were needed to get them to the place where the hard ground was tilled and they responded to the gospel.
How does that happen? By being led by the Spirit every day. Making yourself available to the Lord every day, doing your best to be faithful every day, asking to be filled with the Spirit every day. Just saying yes to the Lord over and over and over he doesn't ask you to devise a strategy. He just says, Say yes to me.
Jesus never tells us actually to obsess about producing fruit. He tells us to obsess about loving him and promises that the fruit in our lives will naturally follow an obsession with loving him. As we read earlier, Jesus said, the one who remains in me and I in him produces much fruit. It just happens. Abide in Jesus, cling to Him, draw near to him, seek to live in his presence, and you will produce spiritual fruit.
It really is that simple. God promises it. When Paul urged those who claim to have converted to Christianity to continue in the grace of God, he was urging them to be good ground, to count the cost of following Jesus and to make a lifelong commitment rather than a temporary circumstantially or emotionally charged decision.
Paul will later write a letter to the church that was planted out of this missions trip to Galatia. And the primary issue he'll address is that the Jews in the church were leading their brethren back to the law. They were teaching that Jesus hadn't really done enough to save us, and so our good works were still needed to earn salvation. They were teaching that men still needed to be circumcised to be saved. And Paul would warn them seriously, these are all on your outline.
Paul would write, I am amazed that you are so quickly turning away from him who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel. Not that there is another gospel, but there are some who are troubling you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. You foolish Galatians, who has cast a spell on you before, whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. I only want to learn this from you. Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law or by believing what you heard?
Are you so foolish? After beginning by the Spirit, are you now finishing by the flesh? Did you experience so much for nothing? If in fact it was for nothing? So then, does God give you the Spirit and work miracles among you by our doing the works of the Law?
Or is it by believing what you heard, just like Abraham's, who believed God and it was credited to him for righteousness? You who are trying to be justified by the law are alienated from Christ. You have fallen from grace. Paul would write to the Romans and explain that salvation by the law and salvation by grace are mutually exclusive. In other words, they cannot both be true at the same time.
He wrote now if salvation is by grace, then it is not by works. Otherwise grace would cease to be grace. If you could earn it, it wouldn't be grace. Those who seek salvation through good works just going to try and be a good person. This is what Paul is saying.
Those who take that approach to salvation reject the grace of God offered through Jesus and choose for themselves instead eternal damnation. All genuine disciples of Jesus continue in the grace of God. Let's turn back to Acts chapter 13. We'll pick it up in verse 44. It says, the following Sabbath this is incredible.
Almost the whole town assembled to hear the word of the Lord. But when the Jews that phrase means the Jewish leaders saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy. Does that sound familiar? Matthew and Mark's gospels tell us the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem arrested Jesus and handed him over to Pontius Pilate because of envy. So when the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy, just like their counterparts in Jerusalem 15 years earlier, and began to contradict what Paul was saying, insulting him.
So they were slandering Paul and Barnabas, interrupting them, arguing with them, making foolish presentations, spreading rumors, misrepresenting their ministry, their character, and their doctrine. And I want to use his as an opportunity to share a practical reminder to not only be careful how we speak about one another, but to be careful what we hear about one another. Countless churches have been split by rumors, misrepresentations and mischaracterizations. And while we may say, I would never spread a rumor, can I tell you there was equal danger in hearing one and allowing it to take up residence in our minds, thereby affecting how we perceive the person that the rumor was about. If we ever hear something concerning the Bible commands us to God directly to the relevant person and ask them directly for clarity on the issue.
Can I tell you and this is going to be news for some can I tell you that you should never be offended by someone asking a clarifying question. You should never be offended by someone asking a clarifying question, because when someone asks you a clarifying question, they are doing what the Bible says we are to do. They are choosing to not just believe what they heard, but instead verify the truth from you. It doesn't matter how clumsy their delivery is. Don't ever be offended by a clarifying question.
Don't clutch your pearls and say, I can't believe you would even say such a thing. The person is only coming to you because they care about the truth. They care about you, and they care about obeying Jesus. It doesn't matter if someone comes to me and says, jeff, I just got to ask. I heard something concerning did you really kick a child off their bike and steal their ice cream?
How dare you? No, you just go, thank you for coming to me and asking me directly about it. No, I did not kick the child off of their bicycle. I'm strong enough on my own to take their popsicle without doing that. So don't be offended.
Don't be offended. Rather, honor the fact that they came directly to you and give them a good answer so that rumors and innuendos and falsehoods do not have an opportunity to fester among the people of God. The opposition that Paul and Barnabas faced, however, went far beyond spreading rumors. It rose to the loves of vocal and physical opposition that made preaching in the city's synagogues and very soon in the city itself impossible. In verse 46, we read Paul and Barnabas boldly replied, it was necessary that the word of God be spoken to you first.
As we've talked about before, the Gospel is the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies that God would send a Messiah and a savior. Those promises were given to Israel, and it was therefore only right that they would have first crack at hearing those Gospel of what God had done for them. Then Paul and Barnabas went on and said, now underline this, since you reject it and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, this is the sobering reality even today. Those who reject Jesus judge themselves unworthy of eternal life. Those who do not want to be with Jesus are not worthy to spend eternity with Him.
Those who do not want to be ruled by Christ are not worthy to rule with Him. Those who reject eternal life are unworthy of it. At the end of the day, those who want to be with Jesus will be with Him forever, and those who do not want to be with Jesus will be apart from Him forever. And if you're thinking, Well, I don't want Jesus now, but I know I'll want him in eternity, don't fool yourself. That's in a logical position.
If you don't want Him here and now on the earth, you won't want him in eternity. You won't. And so you won't have Him.
Since you reject it, since you reject the Gospel and Jude yourselves unworthy of eternal life, we are turning to the Gentiles, for this is what the Lord has commanded us. I have made you a light for the Gentiles to bring salvation to the ends of the earth. Paul quotes Isaiah 49 six, and in that prophecy from the Old Testament, god is speaking to Israel. When Paul says they're taking the Gospel to the Gentiles because it is what the Lord has commanded us, he's speaking as an Israelite. His point is we are doing what Isaiah prophesied Israel would do.
We are taking those light of the Gospel to the Gentiles, and here's what Paul is saying to them because we are true Israelites, and so we are doing what God said we would do. Verse 48 when the Gentiles heard this, they rejoiced and in contrast, honored the word of the Lord, and all who had been appointed to eternal life believed many Gentiles were saved as Paul and Barnabas focused their attention on sharing the Gospel with them. And if you're paying attention and you know your way around the Bible a little bit, you're intrigued by that phrase. All who had been appointed to eternal life believed because in the original Greek the word appointed means appointed. And the logical question is, well, does this mean there was no free will involved?
Is this hard predestination, aka Calvinism, if you're not familiar with the term. Calvinism is a school of doctrine that teaches that man does not have free will. God loves whom he chooses to save and doesn't save those who he chooses not to. On the other side is the school of doctrine called Armenianism, which teaches that man has absolute free will and the choice his entirely his, whether or not he responds to the Gospel. We believe the Bible teaches something in the middle because we believe what is in the Bible.
And the Bible says that no man seeks God of his own volition. We're born in sin, and it's only by the grace of God that we can even recognize our sin and his invitation to receive forgiveness. It's only by the grace of God that we recognize general revelation, and it leads us to seek Him. If we had absolute free will and God never intervened, we would all be damned, all of us. The Bible his clear about that.
But we also see in Scripture god leaving us with a free will decision after he intervenes to reveal Himself to us. His is why we see Paul urging the men to continue in the grace of God. Paul wouldn't need to do that if they didn't have free will. But we see Paul urging them to exercise their free will by continuing to pursue the revelation that God has graciously given them. It's also why in verse 46, Paul tells the Jews who are rejecting the Gospel, you reject it and what judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life.
The only way our actions can bring judgment upon you is if you are responsible for your actions. That's not a theological argument, that's a logical argument. And lastly, we also see in Scripture that God is free to make exceptions as he sees fit. And the best way we have to describe that reality his to say that there is an element of mystery involved in Scripture. And I know it's shocking that people as brilliant as us may not be able to wrap our minds around every part of how God works salvation, but it is so.
Generally what we observe in reality and what we see in the Scriptures is God chosen to reveal Himself in such a way that he does not overwhelm man's free will. There's this delicate balance that only God knows how to strike between revealing enough of Himself that we can see Him and find Him, but not revealing so much of Himself that our free will is compromised and overwhelmed. And God holds those things in balance as only he can.
We see that in situations like the Apostle Paul on the road to Damascus, where God strikes him with blindness and speaks audibly from heaven to Him. God's changed the equation. There there's a little bit more revelation than most God, but even in that, Paul's free will is not removed. And we also don't know things like if Paul would have inevitably responded to the Gospel later in life. And God was just saying, I'm just going to speed this process up by 40 years because I got some stuff for you to do.
But God can do that. He can make exceptions without compromising free will. And if he wanted to compromise free will, of course he could. He's God. No one's debating his right to do that.
We're just suggesting that scripture seems to imply he doesn't compromise free will. We have to acknowledge the reality of this mystery, because without it, how do we explain any genuine revival? How does it happen that thousands of people suddenly become genuinely converted in one place at one time in history? How does that work? Lots of different ways.
God could give a little bit more revelation. God could have been working through the circumstances of their entire lives to bring them to the place where they would all be open to the Gospel and in the same place at the same time. He's God. We're playing checkers, he's playing chess. But revivals are sovereign moves of God.
Somehow, in some way, he's doing something exceptional to bring a large group of people into his family at a specific time, because it fits into his Grand Master plan for humanity. When we pray for the lost, we don't pray, oh, Lord, please respect their free will. Anybody praying for the lost like that, we pray, lord, somehow you revealed Yourself to Me and enabled me to see how good and gracious and glorious you are. And I know that that didn't happen because I'm smarter or because I'm humbler or because I'm more special than anybody else. So Lord, please do for them what you did for me.
Let's actually be even more honest. We tend to pray, Lord, please overwhelm their free will as much as you're willing to, and save them. I'm not a Calvinist, but I'm willing to be one if you could just save them, please. But here's the bottom line. It was part of God's plan that the apostles would be raised up, that they would take the Gospel across the world and establish the church far and wide.
Therefore, God was going to make sure that it happened. There was no scenario in which Peter was going to preach on the day of Pentecost in Acts chapter two, and thousands were not going to respond. There's no scenario in which Paul and Barnabas were going to preach in Galatia and everyone was going to reject their message. There was no scenario in which the church wasn't going to be established. God had ordained it.
He had been working in the lives of those who were in the synagogue that day through their life circumstances, their relationships, their upbringing, their geographical location, their conversations in the weeks and months and days leading up to it, the scripture readings they heard in synagogue, their social circles, all of it in ways far more complex than we could ever fathom. And he was doing it all so that when the moment arrived that they found themselves in a synagogue where Paul was preaching the gospel of the Messiah and the Resurrection, they were ready to receive it. And of their own volition they did receive it. It was their free will decision. But God had also appointed them to eternal life.
And if you're here today and you belong to Jesus, it's because you were appointed to eternal life. And if you're here and you're thinking, well, that's not fair. What if I wasn't appointed to eternal life? I have wonderful news for you. This is the mystery of salvation.
Repent. Believe in the Lord Jesus, follow him as Lord, and you will discover that you too were appointed to eternal life.
Verse 49. The word of the Lord spread through the whole region, but the Jews incited the prominent God-fearing women. These were women who were attending the synagogue and the leading men of the city, the civic leaders. They stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas and expelled them from their district. But Paul and Barnabas shook the dust off their feet against them and went to Iconium.
I'm just saying it the Greek way, I'm not trying to flex. That was about 13 km or 8 miles away. So once again we see the Jewish religious leaders opposing the Gospel, spreading rumors about them, stirring up trouble so that Paul and Barnabas actually have to leave their geographical district. Shaking the dust off your feet was a Hebrew way of basically showing that you were washing your hands of a situation. You were saying, I've done the right thing, you've rejected me, and so I'm leaving this with clean hands.
What comes from you rejecting my message is on you. In this instance, the message was to the Jewish religious leaders in the region. When Jesus sent out the Twelve to minister in pairs, he told them to do this to shake the dust off their feet where people wouldn't welcome them. And when he later sent out the 70 in pairs, he told them when you enter any town and they don't welcome you god out into its streets and say, we are wiping off even the dust of your town that clings to our feet as a witness against you, know this for certain the kingdom of God has come near. I tell you on that day, on the Day of Judgment, it will be more tolerable for sodom than for that town.
And I need to tell you today, if you have not given your life to Jesus, you need to know that the kingdom has come near to you because you're here hearing the Gospel. The kingdom has come near to you. And you are accountable for what you do with that. Verse 52 and the disciples were filled with joy and the Holy Spirit. Despite the constant presence of opposition and persecution, those who turned to Jesus in the region of Galatia were filled with joy and the Holy Spirit, because that's what the joy of the Lord is like.
It has nothing to do with your circumstances. And the Church continued to grow after taking root in the region. I'm going to ask the worship team to come up today. You either trust in Jesus and are saved, or you are damned. There's no spectrum.
Jesus said in Matthew 1230, anyone who is not with me is against me. Anyone who does not gather with me, scatters. Jesus tells us there is no third alternative. There is no third alternative. And so if you have not given your life to Jesus and you are not saved, I want to urge you and beg you to give your life to his.
But it cannot be an emotionally driven decision. Jesus said, no man builds a tower without first counting the cost. You must know it will cost you everything.
So why would you do it? Because Jesus his everything. He is everything. He is so much better than whatever you would give up to get Him. There is no scale on which I could possibly compare the two.
He has no rival in goodness, in grace, in peace, in joy, in kindness, in compassion, in mercy. I could go on and on with superlatives all night. There is no one like Jesus.
The term give up is not even an adequate description, because what you get in Jesus, how can you call giving up something, giving it up to get Jesus? It's like giving up poverty for a fillin dollars. Jesus is everything. And so I urge you to count the cost and to know that it is the greatest decision you will ever make and make him your Lord for the rest of us. I want to encourage you who do belong to Jesus, continue in the grace of God.
Show the sincerity of your faith by persevering. The one who called you is faithful. He will make you able to stand in whatever situation you are in. He will make you able to stand not by your power, but by his power. The same power that raised Christ from the grave that dwells within you.
He will enable you to stand whatever storm comes. So continue in the grace of God and do not lose heart, because we will reap a harvest in due time if we persevere thirtyfold, 60 fold, one hundredfold more than you could possibly imagine god will do through you. And you will be in awe when you stand before Him and he reveals what he has done through your life. Not because of a strategy, not because of good intentions, but because you do one thing. You say yes, lord.
Yes, Lord. Every day every morning, every night, as you lay your head down in every situation. Yes, Lord. He will change the world through that, and he already has. So let's pray.
Would you bow your head and close your eyes? Jesus, we love you. And we are so thankful that we serve a risen savior who holds the keys of death. And, Hades, you are victorious, unrivaled. You have written the end in stone.
It is unmovable, and it is us with you. And when we see you, we will be like you, for we will see you as you truly are. But, Jesus, we desire to be made as much like you as is possible in this life for one reason that we desire to bring you as much glory as is possible in this life. And so, Jesus, we ask that you would have all of us, every part, every passion, every insecurity, every gift that you have given us, every ability, every talent you have given us every second you have given us every breath in the vapor that is our lives. Let it be used for our glory, Lord.
Let it be used for your glory. So we thank you in faith that you move and work through imperfect people like us, that you have made us sons and daughters of the living God, and that all these good things are possible only because you lived and died and rose from the dead in our place. So, Jesus, be glorified in our praises. We love you more than we can adequately express with any song. But this is our best attempt to tell you we love you and we are so thankful for you.
In your name we pray. Amen.