Paul powerfully preaches the Gospel to an audience of Jews and Gentile seekers in a synagogue in Pisidian Antioch.
Transcription (automatically-generated):
We are accompanying the Apostle Paul, Barnabas, and Barnabas's cousin, John Mark, on their concerning missionary journey around the Roman Empire in the northeastern Mediterranean region. Let's jump right in. At verse 13 of Acts, chapter 13, Paul and his companions set sail from Paphos and came to Perga in Pamphylia. There's a shift now as Paul becomes the focus of the narrative as the apostle to the Gentiles. It's been Barnabas and Saul up to this point, but now it's Paul and his companions.
And that's likely because of what had happened on Cyprus with Paul Sergius Paulus and Elymas, the sorcerer. An interaction we detailed in our previous study and one that made it clear that God had gifted Saul with uppercase-A apostolic authority and power. Perga is the present-day city of Antalya in the country of Turkey. It was the primary city in the Roman province of Pamphylia. Let's throw up our map and refresh our memories as to the journey that Saul, Barnabas, and John Mark have been on.
So, if you take a look there, they departed from their home base in Antioch, which is in the top right, that's in present-day Syria. And they sailed southwest to the nearby island of Cyprus, landed at the port of Salamis, ministered across the length of the island and ended up on the western end in Paphos. And from Paphos, they sailed northwest to Perga. Then it says, But John left them and went back to Jerusalem. Something happens and John Mark splits.
He heads back home to Jerusalem. And this was no small thing. A couple of chapters from now, it will be clarified that Paul took this as a betrayal by John Mark. He viewed it as John Mark abandoning them in the middle of their missionary journey. So why did John Mark do it?
The Bible doesn't tell us, so all we can do is speculate. And among the speculations are two primary theories. The first one says Pergamos. John Mark got scared. He had never traveled this far from homes.
The next verse, verse 14, tells us that after landing in Perga, they would continue their journey to Pisidian Antioch. Let's throw up our next map on our screen and you can see Pisidian Antiochus up to the north of Perga. And perhaps when John Mark learned this was the plan, he decided he wanted out because that journey was about 160. It was no joke. It was difficult and it was dangerous.
They would have to pass through the Taurus Mountains, walking on sketchy pathways with steep and deadly drop-offs beside them. They would have to cross the turbulent Cestrus and every medon rivers. The route was also notorious because of the prevalence of bandits. When Paul later wrote to the Corinthians, I face dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, he may well have been thinking of this journey. And perhaps at this time in his life, Paul was just a little bit too hardcore for John Mark.
The other possibility is more personal. When John Mark decided to join Paul and Barnabas as they returned to Antioch from Jerusalem, it was likely because of an affinity he had for his relative Barnabas. But as we mentioned earlier, things changed after Cyprus, and Paul became the undisputed leader of the group. Perhaps John Mark thought, well, I didn't sign up for this, and he left because he wasn't ready to follow Paul as his leader at that time. Whatever the case may be, Paul took it personally and he took it as a betrayal.
Later in life, John Mark will redeem himself and become a vital part of the early church, even working with Peter on Peter's Gospel, which we know as the Gospel of Mark. John Mark will translate the Aramaic into Greek. He will serve as an editor, and he will work closely with Peter as his secretary, helping him turn his memories into the Gospel we love so much today. He would also reconcile with Saul. We know this because when Paul is close to death and he writes his final epistle to his protege Timothy, he includes this instruction bring Mark with you, for he is useful to me in the ministry.
As time passed, John Mark clearly grew in maturity and developed a trusting and meaningful friendship with Paul. verse 14. They just Paul and Barnabas now continued their journey from Perga and reached Pisidian Antioch. Now, obviously, this is a different Antioch from the one they had set out from.
There were about a dozen cities with the name in the Roman Empire, and they were named after the political Antiochus family. Pisidian Antioch was the governing and military center of the southern half of the vast Roman province of Galatia. It's also in present-day Turkey, and Josephus records that there was also a substantial Jewish population in that city. Then we read on the sabbath day, they went into the synagogue in Pisidian Antioch and sat down. We talked about this last time, too.
Whenever Paul entered a city or town, his custom was to head first to the local synagogues to share the Gospel with his ethnic brethren, the Jews. After all, they had received the scriptures that prophesied about Jesus as the Messiah. And so, we always felt like they were perhaps the low-hanging fruit. And that's what we see him and Barnabas doing here, attending a service on the sabbath at a local synagogue. After a reading of the Law and the prophets, that means that someone stood up in the synagogue.
One of the leaders read a portion of scripture from one of the first five books of the Bible, the Torah, and from one of the Old Testament books written by a prophet such as Isaiah. The leaders of the synagogue sent word to them saying, brothers, if you have any word of encouragement for the people, you can speak. It's likely that earlier in the week they had had some conversations with Jews in the city and word had reached the leaders of the synagogue that they would be at this service on the Sabbath. And being allowed to share was not something that was offered to everyone. It was generally reserved for visiting rabbis, scribes, and religious scholars.
So this offer is a commentary on the fact that to the people they had already met in the city, it was abundantly clear that Paul and Barnabas were learned men. They were scholars of the scriptures and that's why this invitation was extended to them. And obviously, when they say, brothers, if you have any word of encouragement for the people, you can speak. Paul will respond. Well, as it so happens, I actually do have a few things I'd like to share.
And what Paul will now do, like Peter before him on the day of Pentecost, is present the Gospel using evidence from the Old Testament scriptures which his audience would have been acquainted with. They believe in the Old Testament scriptures and that's why Paul will take this approach. The question of meaning has consumed men throughout history. Is there meaning to anything that is happening? Is history going somewhere?
Is it leading to something? Is there a point to it all? Or is history just happening?
Anyone seriously interested in the nature of truth and the nature of reality must confront these kinds of questions. But even those who do not care about truth find themselves deeply affected by such questions. The stoic philosophers of Paul's day explained life away as the Eastern religions of today do an endless series of cycles. atheist biologist Richard Dawkins observed in a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is at the bottom no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.
Many people are not aware that their subconscious loves the idea of a godless purposeless existence because it permits them to live without fear of moral accountability to a higher pose. A one of the brothers in Dostoyevsky's, "The Brothers Karamazov" expressed if there is no God, then everything is permitted. Or as Alastair Crowley wrote in the Satanic Bible, do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law. But all existence apart from God brings not freedom, but chains in the form of despair, hopelessness and slavery to one's base desires, stripping away all dignity of humanity and reducing us to minions serving at the whims of our primal urges.
Depression would be a logical response if the reality were that we are merely, as Francis Schaeffer wrote, a chance configuration of atoms in the slipstream of meaningless chance history. If you don't believe me, you need only study the current state of men and women under the age of 45 in the Western world, who are the most depressed, the most anxious, the most unfulfilled and most fear-controlled generations that have ever lived, they are anything but free. And the further they get from God, the more enslaved they find themselves to other lesser, darker masters. And the reason this is all so tragic is because history is going somewhere. And the Jews in Paul's audience that day knew it.
They knew that all of history is moving toward a final act that will culminate with the return of the messiah to establish his kingdom on the earth. They knew it. And they knew that before that, God would send a savior, the Messiah, to restore man's fellowship with God, which had been shattered by sin in the Garden of Eden, that messiah would bring true freedom, freedom from the power of sin and death. That's where history is going, and it will end with the glory going to man's redeemer God Himself.
Paul's message would be the most important they would ever hear, that Jesus is the one who is at the center of history, and Jesus is the one who will bring about the deepest longings of the human heart, meaning, purpose, hope, joy and peace. Jesus is the beginning of history. Jesus his the fulcrum upon which it turns, and he will be the climax of history. Indeed, all of history is his story.
verse 16. Paul stood up and motioned with his hand and said, fellow Israelites, and you who fear God, listen.
historians tell us in places across the empire, like Pisidian Antioch, it was normal for there to be Gentiles in attendance at synagogue services who were exploring the Jewish faith. These were people who had not yet converted to Judaism but were seriously interested in learning more about it. There were likely men or women who were responding to the general revelation of God we talked about in our last study. And they could sense that there was a connection between the Hebrew God and the Hebrew scriptures and the God that they were observing through general revelation in creation and in their internal moral conscience. These are the people that Paul is addressing when he says, and you who fear God, the God of this people, Israel, chose our ancestors, made the people prosper during their stay in the land of Egypt, and led them out of it with a mighty arm.
Paul is alluding to how God miraculously freed the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, a story documented in the Book of Exodus. And you can listen to or watch our study through the Book of Exodus on the website if you've never done that before. And for about 40 years, he put up with them or and he cared for them in the wilderness. After freeing Israel from Egypt, the Lord led them through the wilderness toward a land called Canaan, the Promised Land. Israel came to the border of the Promised Land and the lord commanded Moses to send out a scouting party, a group of spies.
Those spies came back with a report that the land was amazing. It was fertile, flowing with streams and abundant fruit, an amazing place to build a life and raise a family. But the land was also populated with giants, massive warriors. And ten of the twelve spies sent into the land came back and said we would be doomed, D.O.A., if we invaded this land. And only two of them, Caleb and Joshua, said it doesn't matter what obstacles lie ahead of us, it's irrelevant.
All that matters is that God is with us. But the people of Israel believed the ten terrified spies more than they believed the promises of God. And so, consequently, the Lord declared that none of them except Caleb and Joshua would ever set foot in the Promised Land. Israel turned around, and the Lord led them in circles through the wilderness for the next 40 years. Long enough for everyone who refused to trust God to die out.
And you can read about that in the Book of Numbers, chapters 13 and 14. All these references are on your outlines. And after destroying seven nations in the land of Canaan, he - God - gave them their land as an inheritance. And that history is documented in the Book of Joshua, when he led Israel into the Promised Land, and God worked miracles to give them victory over their enemies, empowering them to take possession of the land. This all took about 450 years, from the time Israel was enslaved in Egypt, to the time when they conquered the Promised Land under Joshua was about 450 years after this he God gave them Israel judges.
You can read about that in those Book of Judges until Samuel the prophet. You can read about that in the Book of First Samuel, then they. Israel asked for a king, and God gave them Saul, the son of kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin. For 40 years. After removing him, he raised up David as their king and testified about him.
I have found David, the son of Jesse, to be a man after my own heart, who will carry out all my will. You can read about that in the Book of Second Saul. If you've ever read through the life of David, if you were with us in previous home group semesters, then you'll understand why some are baffled that God would refer to David as a man after my own heart. After all, David was guilty of cowardice, adultery and murder. But a man after God's own heart is not a perfect man.
He is a man who responds to God when God speaks to him. Today, we believers have the Holy Spirit inside of us. And one of the things the Bible tells us the Holy Spirit does in us, is convict us of sin. David didn't have that. Think how easily you would be deceived by sin.
Think how long you would be able to be deceived by sin or deceive yourself were it not for the Holy Spirit. There were times when David sinned egregiously, but when the Lord revealed his sin, David agreed with God. He owned his sin. He recognized his own wickedness, and he repented despite his sins. David unquestionably desired to do the will of God, unlike his predecessor Saul.
And that is why God called David a man after my own heart. verse 23 from this man's descendants so through the lineage of David, as he promised, God brought to Israel the savior Jesus. God had promised and prophesied that the Messiah would come through the line of David. The prophet Nathan told David on behalf of the Lord, your house and kingdom will endure before me forever, and your throne will be established forever. Paul's speech is brilliant because he brings in his audience by affirming through what he says that he is a jew, and like them, he believes in Israel's history as they do.
He then points out that all Jews know and agree that the scriptures prophesy and promise that a messiah will come through the line of David. And Paul now declares the fulfillment of those promises is Jesus, who is a son of David and the Son of God, as he will now further explain. verse 24 before his coming to public attention, John the Baptist had previously proclaimed a baptism of repentance underline the word repentance to all those people of Israel. It's interesting to note that the ministry of John the Baptist was apparently common knowledge among every Jewish community in the Roman Empire. By the time Paul reaches Pisidian Antioch, around 15 years after John the Baptist baptized Jesus, Paul refers to John the Baptist as he refers to the rest of Israel's history, with the assumption that everyone there will know what he's talking about.
John's ministry had indeed become famous because the Old Testament prophesied that God would send someone ahead of the Messiah to prepare the way for their arrival. For example, the prophet Isaiah wrote of a voice of one coming our prepare the way of the Lord in the wilderness, make a straight highway for our God in the desert. Every valley will be lifted up, and every mountain and hill will be leveled. The uneven ground will become smooth, and the rough places a plain, and the glory of the Lord will appear, and all humanity together will see it, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. And John himself confirmed that he was the fulfillment of this prophecy.
When the Jewish religious leaders in Jerusalem sent a party to investigate his ministry in John, chapter one, we read this was John's testimony when the Jews from Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to ask him, who are you? He didn't deny it, but confessed, I'm not the Messiah. What then? They asked him, Are you Elijah? I am not.
He said, Are you the prophet? No, he answered, who are you? Then they asked, we need to give an answer to those who sent us. What can you tell us about yourself? He said, I am a voice of one crying out in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord, just as Isaiah the prophet said.
If indeed those in Pisidian Antioch were familiar with the ministry of John the Baptist, they must have heard that John had identified Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah. But they probably had never heard that people were saying Jesus had risen from the dead. And so that had sort of been a story that just fizzled out. John the Baptist's ministry seems to be legit. He seems to be the one who comes before messiah.
But I guess that wasn't this Jesus guy, because last I heard, he was dead. But now Paul was before them to confirm that Jesus had risen from the dead and to explain how that was possible. We so often miss the fact that the Bible teaches repentance as the first step in coming to Jesus. It is so important that Paul mentions it in his Gospel presentation by referencing the ministry of John the Baptist. What was the ministry of John the Baptist we just heard?
He preached a message of repentance. He preached that men and women needed to repent of their sins because they were estranged from God, separated from Him by their sins, and they needed to prepare their hearts for the arrival of messiah, their savior. And who was John? He was the forerunner of Jesus. He was the one sent to prepare the way for Jesus.
Please understand this. Before God sent Jesus with forgiveness and healing and salvation, he sent John the Baptist with a message of repentance. And the way Paul preaches here in Acts 13 makes it clear, along with the rest of the New Testament, that repentance is still needed before the forgiveness and salvation of God can be poured out through Jesus on a person's life. There are two wildly popular false gospels in the church today. The first teaches that you can be saved by accepting Jesus as savior, but not as Lord.
The second teaches that you can be saved without repenting and turning away from your sins. Neither is true, and neither is the Gospel, and neither has the power to save you or cleanse you from in verses 25 now, as John was completing his mission, he said, who do you think I am? I'm not the one. But one is coming after me, and I'm not worthy to untie the sandals on his feet. Brothers and sisters, children of Abraham's race, and those among you who fear God, it is to us that the word of this salvation his been sent.
This is a distinctive of Christianity among other religions. The greatest men in the faith under the new covenant, like the apostles and the apostle, Paul and Barnabas include themselves among those who need to repent, follow and worship Jesus. They freely confess their own need for Jesus. They do not place themselves above those that they preach to. In his epistles, we'll often see Paul anticipate the questions his audience is going to ask and then address them.
He does that here, anticipating the question, if Jesus is the Messiah, then why did the Jewish religious leaders fail to recognize him? The answer that Saul will provide is the same Stephen preached to those very religious leaders. They failed to recognize Jesus because of their hardened hearts that loved their sin more than they desired the light of the truth. He says in verses 27 since the residents of Jerusalem and their rulers did not recognize his or the sayings of the prophets that are read every sabbath, they have fulfilled their words by condemning his. Paul says by not recognizing Jesus when he was right in front of them, by not recognizing that he was the fulfillment of the very prophecies they read to their congregations every sabbath in their synagogues, the residents and religious leaders of Jerusalem became part of the fulfillment of those prophecies by concerning Jesus.
What prophecies specifically stated that Jesus would be rejected by his own people? I'll share one right after we get to verse 29. Let's go just a little bit further. verse 28 though they, the residents and religious leaders of Jerusalem, found no grounds for the death sentence, they asked Pilate to have him killed, and Luke's Gospel records three times that Pilate could not find any grounds for the death penalty. At this point, Paul anticipates the next logical questions well, if they killed the Messiah, did they derail God's plan of redemption?
And why would God let this happen? Why would he let the messiah be rejected and killed? verse 29 provides the answer. When they had carried out underline this all that had been written about Him, Paul explains that what happened to Jesus had been prophesied in the scriptures and was therefore part of God's plan. And we should look to those scriptures for an explanation of why God allowed this to happen and for an answer to the question did this derail the plan of God?
While there are hundreds, literally hundreds of prophecies about the Messiah that I could read from the Old Testament, I will take us back once again to the book of the prophet Isaiah, where hundreds of years before Jesus was born, Isaiah was inspired by the Holy Spirit to write this from the perspective of God the Father. If you're quick, you can turn with me to Isaiah 50 213. Isaiah prophesies from the perspective of God the Father. See, my servant will be successful. He will be raised and lifted up and greatly exalted.
Just as many were appalled at Him, his appearance was so disfigured that he did not look like a man and his form did not resemble a human being. That's what happened to Jesus as he was scourged and beaten and crucified. So many nations will marvel at him. Kings will shut their mouths because of him, for they will see what had not been told them, and they will understand what they had not heard. Who has believed what we have heard?
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? He Jesus grew up before him like a young plant and like a root out of dry ground. He didn't have an impressive form or majesty that we should look at him, no appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men. A man of suffering who knew what sickness was.
He was like someone people turned away from. He was despised and we didn't value him. And here's the explanation hundreds of years before, Jesus came to the earth as a man. Here's the explanation of why God did this. Yet He Himself horse our sicknesses and he carried our pains.
But we in turn regarded him stricken, struck down by God and afflicted. But he was pierced because of our rebellion, crushed because of our iniquities. Punishment for our peace was on him, and we are healed by his wounds. There's the answer. God did this because Jesus was living, suffering and dying in our place.
He was receiving the penalty for our sins. We all went astray like sheep. We all have turned to our own way, and the Lord has punished him for the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth. Like a lamb led to the slaughter and like a sheep silent before her shearers, he did not open his mouth.
He was taken away because of oppression and judgment. And who considered his fate? For he was cut off from the land of the living. He was struck because of my people's rebellion. He was assigned a grave with the wicked, but he was with a rich man at his death because he had done no violence and had not spoken deceitfully.
Yet the Lord was pleased to crush him severely. When you make him a guilt concerning, he will see his seed, he will prolong his days, and by his hand the lord's pleasure will be accomplished. After his anguish, he will see light and be satisfied by his knowledge. My righteous servant will justify many, and he will carry their iniquities. Therefore I will give his the many as a portion, and he will receive the mightiest spoil because he willingly submitted to death and was counted among the rebels.
Yet he bore the sin of many and interceded for the rebels. Write this down. Everything that happened to Jesus was prophesied in the Old Testament. Everything that happened to Jesus was prophesied in the Old Testament. It was the plan before the foundations of the world were ever laid, when everything that had been prophesied about how the messiah would die had been fulfilled.
Back in Acts 1329, we read when they had carried out all that had been written about him. They took him down from the tree, down from the cross, and put him in a tomb. But God raised him from the dead and he appeared for many days to those who came up with Him from galilee to Jerusalem, who are now his witnesses to the people. When Jesus rose from the dead, he appeared multiple times to those who were part of the group that had journeyed with Him to Jerusalem from galilee for the feast of Passover. This group included the members of the Twelve, except for judas, obviously members of the 70 disciples, the woman who were close to Jesus, and others.
He appeared to them in his resurrected body over a period of 40 days after his resurrection before he ascended back to heaven. And here's what Paul is saying. Understand it. He's saying there are many living witnesses to the resurrection of Jesus and they've seen him multiple times. I'm telling you who they are and where they are so that you can go and check out their testimony for yourself if you want.
Go and verify what I'm telling you. There are hundreds of eyewitnesses, and Paul was still using this as part of his gospel preaching around the year 50, our Ad, when he wrote his first epistle to the church. In Corinthians, Jesus appeared to over 500 brothers and sisters at one time. Most of them are still alive, but some have fallen asleep. Paul was still convicting skeptics to track down living eyewitnesses to the resurrection more than 20 years after it happened.
And if you study other religions, other spiritual teachings, other belief systems, this is something completely different. Name any religion that was based on supernatural revelation. In other words, someone says there was a revelation from God and that was the basis for these writings I made. That's the basis for the message I'm teaching. Name any of them and you'll find one person receiving that revelation with isn't it convenient nobody else around at the time they received it?
I had this magical revelation in a cave. I dug up these magical golden tablets. An angel gave me some special tablets. Do you have them? No, he took them back.
Who do you want to name? Mohammed. Joseph Smith. The buddha. Name any religious figure you want. If they claim a supernatural revelation and they're not Jesus, nobody else was around to see it, nobody else was around to see the miracle, and quite frankly, none of them have ever provided any evidence to back up their claims.
Let me state the obvious. Occam's Razor says they fabricated their claims because there's nothing different to what they did than me showing up two days from now and saying, crazy thing. Guys, I was walking on Burke Mountain, and an angel appeared to me and told me that I'm the chosen one, and you need to give me our bank details and we'll take it. From there literally no difference at all. The only difference is that those guys managed to get millions of people to believe them.
Jesus, on the other hand, ministered publicly, performed miracles publicly, was crucified publicly, his dead body laid in a tomb, publicly rose from the dead and appeared to hundreds of people multiple times over a period of 40 days. It is resurrected and glorified body. Don't be comparing anybody else to Jesus. It's clown logic. And a key part of the early Gospel preaching of those apostles was telling people about these hundreds of witnesses and convicting them to go and talk to them, to meet them and hear their stories for themselves.
But come on, Jeff, it's obviously just a coordinated conspiracy. It's not that hard to get a few hundred people to comes together and agree to tell the same basic lie. I agree. But I also believe that logic demands you account for their motive. You see, these people who were testifying to the resurrected Jesus had nothing to gain.
They didn't get elevated special positions in the church that made them rich. In fact, they had everything to lose by testifying to the resurrection of Jesus, because it set them at odds with the religious leaders of their culture. And then later the religious leaders of the sorry, just the political leaders of the empire. Their religious leaders kicked them out of their synagogues, the centers of local Jewish community life. And in those 20 years, their testimony would get them thrown in prison, beaten, sometimes even murdered.
It would cost them marriages, families, jobs, businesses, lots of home and property, and much, much more. And yet, not one of them would ever recant their testimony that they had seen the risen Jesus. And over 20 years later, after years of that persecution, none of them have recanted. And Paul is still able to invite people to go and speak with them. Why would hundreds of people conspire to lie about being eyewitnesses to the resurrected Jesus when it gained them nothing and cost them so much?
Where's the motive? There's only one explanation that makes sense. They could not recant their testimony because it was the truth. verse 32 and we ourselves proclaim to you the good news of the promise that was made to our ancestors. God has fulfilled this for us, their children, by raising up Jesus.
Would you underline raising up Jesus? As it is written in the second psalm, you are my Son, today I have become your Father. Paul declares that Jesus is the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies and promises that God would send a savior, the Messiah, to save his people from their sins. Paul then quotes Psalm 27 in a way that raises a somewhat strange logical question, because if you notice the context, Paul seems to connect Jesus' resurrection with Jesus being the Son of God. Is he saying that Jesus only became the Son of God at the resurrection?
Psalm chapter two is a trialogue, a three-way discussion between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. And Paul quotes verse seven, where the Father says to the Son Jesus, at the time of the resurrection, you are my Son today I have become your Father. And it's that word today that seems so strange, because Paul affirms here in Acts 13 that Jesus fulfilled that specific verse at the time of the resurrection. In the original language, psalm 27 reads, you are my Son today I have begotten you. Now, due to time constraints, I'm going to try and get to the point as quickly as possible.
But I have to warn you, understanding this and making sense of this is a bit convoluted, but I think it'll be helpful. You might have to go back and listen to it a few times, look up the scriptures, but we're going to throw out a bunch of pieces of evidence and then try and make sense of them together. The first thing to understand is that the Bible, his crystal clear that Jesus was the Son of God before the resurrection. I could share countless verses. We could talk about how Jesus is constantly interacting with and referring to His Father in heaven throughout his entire earthly ministry from the time he's the age of twelve.
Didn't you know I had to be in my Father's house? But I'll also just remind you of John 316, which reads for God loved the world. In this way he gave his one and only Son so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. John is explicit in that verse that Jesus was the Son of God already at the time that God gave him to humanity. In other words, before the resurrection.
scripture will never contradict itself. Therefore, we know we're looking for a different explanation. In Acts 1333, Paul says God has fulfilled this for us by raising up Jesus, as it is written in the second song. Now, the phrase raising up Jesus that Paul uses there seems to have a double meaning. Yes, it refers to the resurrection, but it also refers to raising up Jesus in the sense of coming onto the stage of history.
I'll give you two examples. In Luke one, Zechariah, John the Baptist father, prophesies this about the arrival of messiah? He God has raised up a horn of salvation for us, meaning God has brought someone onto the stage of world history to bring salvation to Israel. And right here in Acts 1322, Paul says he God raised up David as their King, so he brought David onto the stage of world history.
And so we need to remember as well that there wasn't a Jewish concept yet of the Son of God. Jesus had not been brought onto the world stage until the incarnation. As the Son of God, we also need to understand that Jesus was forever changed by the incarnation. He was the Son of God and eternity past. But only at the incarnation did he also become the Son of Man.
And now he is both forever. At the resurrection, Jesus also became something else he had never been before the first man to rise from the dead into resurrected life. Paul would later write in First Corinthians 15:20 Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. The word begotten also means regenerated, and some verses teach that it was the Father who raised Jesus from the dead. Some verses teach that it was Jesus who raised Himself from the dead.
And when you put them all together, it becomes very evident that the whole Trinity was involved in the resurrection. The idea that I'm trying to put forward here, that I'm trying to get at, is that Jesus has always had a destiny that he stepped into at the resurrection, and it saw Him becoming something different from who he was before in some profound ways. And when I say different, I don't mean lesser, I mean more. I'll give you another example of the concept I'm talking about. In Philippians two, we're told that because Jesus willingly submitted to the incarnation and the cross, here's what changed.
For this reason, God highly exalted Him and gave Him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Jesus was raised up, brought onto the world stage. In addition to being raised from the dead, he was raised up, glorified, and elevated at the resurrection. It's clear that in some profound ways, according to the scriptures, Jesus is different after the resurrection than he was before. It not less, but somehow even more glorious.
And what I suggest is that this destiny that Jesus has always had, that he attained at the resurrection, was to be the messiah. It was always planned in eternity past that the Son of God would be the Messiah. And at the resurrection, Jesus fulfilled the messianic mission of the incarnation. In some ways, he didn't become the messiah until that was complete, because there was a list of things the messiah had to do. The resurrection was also a validation of Jesus as the Son of God, because, frankly, nobody else could have risen from the dead because they were found innocent of sin.
Death could not hold Jesus because it had no rights over his. He was perfectly righteous, and it is sin that gives death its power. The resurrection proved that Jesus was who he says he was, the son of God. Now, if you bring all these different pieces of evidence and information together, and again, you might have to spend some time studying this. I'm sorry I have to go so fast.
You'll get a sense of what Paul is getting at when he references Psalm 27, Paul actually summarizes his whole Acts 13 sermon. In the first to verse is the book of Romans writing Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus called as an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures. Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who was a descendant of David according to the flesh and was get this, appointed to be the powerful Son of God according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection of the dead. So there's this idea again that Jesus had a destiny, he had an office that you can think of as an additional office or a slightly changed office that lay on the other side of his death and resurrection that he stepped into at the moment of the resurrection. And in Hebrews chapter one, we get more of this.
It says the sun is the radiance of God's glory and the exact expression of his nature, sustaining all things by his powerful word after making purification for sins, that's the crucifixion. He sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. That's the resurrection. So he became superior to the angels. Now, it doesn't mean in ontology, it means he became superior to the angels in fame.
Because remember, before the incarnation, nobody knew the Son of God existed and was named Jesus. Nobody knew before the incarnation. So when it speaks about Him becoming superior to the angels, everybody knew the angels existed. But now Jesus has a name that is exalted above theirs, just as the name he inherited is more excellent than theirs. For to which of the angels did he ever say?
Quoting Psalm 27 again you are my Son, today I have become your Father, or again I will be His Father and he will be my Son. And so I apologize for not being able to make this clearer for all of us. As I said, it's kind of convoluted. But if you dig into to verse is the ideas. I think you'll find that Paul's point is that Jesus fulfilled his destiny as the Son of God by fulfilling the messianic mission of the incarnation.
He was validated as those Son of God by the resurrection. And yes, he has a destiny to come as well at the end of the world. So write this down at the resurrection, Jesus fulfilled the messianic mission of the incarnation and was validated as the Son of God in a greater and more glorious way.
In verses 34, Saul continues and he says as to his raising him from the dead, never to return to decay, he has spoken this way I will give you the holy and sure promises of David. In other words, through Jesus, God has fulfilled the prophecies spoken to David. Therefore he also says in another passage, you will not let your Holy One see decay. Paul references Psalm 1610 where David writes you will not abandon me to Sheol, that is Hades. You will not allow your faithful one to see decay.
Now Paul explains why David had to have been writing prophetically about the messiah and not about himself. verse 36 for David, after serving God's purpose in his own generation, fell asleep. That means he died, was buried with his fathers and decayed. So Paul says, we all know that David died, he was buried with his forefathers and his dead body decayed. So he couldn't have been talking about himself.
But the one God raised up Jesus did not decay. David was inspired by God to write that messiah would not see decay. And Paul says the resurrection of the Messiah was prophesied by David and Jesus is the Messiah that David was speaking of. verse 38 therefore let it be known to you, brothers and sisters underline the rest of this, that through this man, through Jesus, forgiveness of sins is being proclaimed to you. Through this man, through Jesus, and only through Jesus you can be forgiven of your sins.
Saul would later write there's one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus. Everyone, I have all of verse 39 underlined in my Bible, everyone who believes is justified or freed through him from everything that you could not be justified from through the law of Moses. Now, what does justified mean? It means you're declared innocent and you're declared righteous totally, completely. It means you meet God's perfect standard.
And the best way to think of the word justified is to think of it as just as if I'd never sinned. Justified just as if I'd never sinned. But why can the word for justified also be translated as freed? It's because everyone who has not had their sins forgiven by Jesus is in bondage to sin. They are a slave to sin.
They are controlled by sin, they are haunted by their sins. They know the good they should do, but they have no power to actually do it. But through Jesus, Saul says we can be set free. In verse 39, Paul explicitly states that there are things no man can be justified from through the law of Moses. The law of Moses is God giving laws to man and saying just do everything in here perfectly and you'll meet my standard.
Everyone who says, well, all you have to do to go to heaven or be right with God is just be a good person. forgets the fact that you don't get to define what good is. You're not going to judge yourself, God is going to judge you. So God sets the definition of good. And in the law of Moses he says, here's what it is just do all of this perfectly and you'll meet my standard.
But Paul says, listen, even if you kept the law of Moses perfectly, you still wouldn't be justified. Why? Well, first, because we're born with a sinful nature. Sin is in our DNA, and that sin separates us from God, going all the way back to our forefather. Adam second, we've already all sinned, all of us.
Solomon observed there's no one who does not sin, the wisest man who ever lived, and also Captain Obvious. God's standard is himself. He sets the standard, and he's perfect. And so God, when he evaluates and judges us, he judges our whole lives. He doesn't say, how are you ending?
Over the past 30 days? He evaluates our whole life. So understand this. Once perfect is lost, you can never get it back. Even if we would start being perfectly good tomorrow, there would never be enough, because we would still have years and years and years of imperfection.
This is how Buddhists and many other Eastern spiritual concepts work. They believe in the pursuit of enlightenment, incremental improvement through reincarnation until you eventually attain the standard. You attain nirvana, that higher state of being. And then you ascend to a higher plane of consciousness, becoming one with the universe again. The problem is that God's standard is perfection because he is perfect.
A better analogy would be to think of a competitive gymnast, and that gymnast is pursuing a routine that gets them a score of a perfect ten.
That's what Buddhism thinks. Buddhism thinks you just need to get to the place where you can score a perfect ten one time. But that's not what God's standard is. God's standard would be a perfect ten in every routine you ever do. So the first time you score anything less the first time it's a 9.99.
It's over. Your shot at perfection, your shot at meeting the standard is done. God's standard requires us to be perfect all the time, from our first breath to our last, without a single flaw. That is why Paul says there are things we cannot be justified from through the law of Moses. And this is why saul says it's such good news that Jesus has come as the Messiah to live that perfect life in our place, doing what we could never do, and then wiping the slate clean for everything wrong we've ever done.
By taking the judgment and punishment for our sins in our place. And then rising from the dead in victory over death, proving his power over it. Jesus has done for us what we cannot do for ourselves. Man's greatest need is God's greatest deed. What's our greatest need?
Our greatest need is the forgiveness of your sins, past, present and future, that we might be brought into the family of God, meeting his standard of perfection through Jesus, who did it in our place. And Jesus has done it. And that's why we love Him. That's why we worship him. That's why we follow Him gladly.
That's why we beg Him to be Lord of our lives.
People are only in one of three places. People are either haunted by guilt and shame over their sins.
Secondly, people are dead inside because they know they've sinned, but they don't want to stop. And so they've seared their conscience. It's like taking our palm and putting it on a hot fire, and as a result, you just lose all feeling and sensation afterward because your hand is seared. People have done that with their conscience and they're just dead inside. They're walking around like zombies.
This is an epidemic in current cultures where caring about anything is cringe. Unless, of course, it's what the culture tells you to care about. Then you need to lose your mind over that. But caring about truth? Well, that's cringe about love, about truth.
Millions walking around with seared consciences dead inside. Or the third place people are is they've been freed from their guilt and shame because their sins have been forgiven by Jesus. Man's greatest need is the forgiveness of sins. God's greatest deed is the forgiving of sins. Paul would write in romans, chapter three for no one will be justified in the sight of God by the works of the Law, because the knowledge of sin comes through the law.
But now, apart from the Law, the righteousness of God has been revealed, attested by the Law and the prophets. The righteousness of God is through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe, since there is no distinction. The overarching point of Paul's sermon to his Jewish brethren is that everything Jesus did was the fulfillment of prophecy laid out in the Old Testament scriptures. They can read the scriptures, look at Jesus, and identify him as the Messiah who meets the scriptural criteria. The evidence, Paul says, is clear, and that's why he concludes his message with this warning, verse 40 so beware that what is said in the prophets does not happen to you.
Look, you scoffers, marvel, and vanish away, because I am doing a work in your days, a work that you will never believe, even if someone were to explain it to you. Paul quotes Habakkuk one verse, five a verse, frequently and egregiously quoted out of context by many Christians because it's actually a warning delivered by the prophet Habakkuk to the southern kingdom of Israel, warning them that God was going to bring judgment upon them through their enemies, the Chaldeans. Because they had rejected God. They had the scriptures, they had the truth, and they rejected him. And so God says, you're going to deal with destruction that happened because the men of Israel, who should have known and responded to the word of the Lord, refused to.
Paul is saying, do not make the same mistake they did. The word of the Lord has come to you. Make sure you respond to it, lest you suffer the fate of all who scoff at the lord's offer of salvation, destruction. And that word stands for us today. There is no middle ground.
There is no neutral Switzerland on his issue. You are either on the side of the religious leaders who rejected Jesus as he stood right in front of them? Are you on the side of Paul and Barnabas, men who encountered Jesus and responded by following him with their whole lives? The stakes eternal life or eternal destruction?
I'll ask the worship team to come up, and I'll just say this in loving if you do not know the Lord, repent. Turn from your sin. Ask Jesus to forgive you. Ask Him to come into your life as Lord, and he will save you and forgive you of your sins. He will fill you with his spirit, and you will know Him.
And by knowing Him, you will experience life and joy and peace and hope as you have never experienced before.
If you know the loved and his spirit is convicting you of sin, be like David and repent. And if you're walking with the Lord, praise Him that your sins are forgiven. Let's pray. Would you bow your head and close your eyes? Lord.
Thank you for your word. Thank you for the gospel. Thank you for the life, death and resurrection of Jesus that saves us and cleanses us of our sins and our unrighteousness. Thank you for doing what we could not and cannot do. And Father, I pray right now, especially for anyone in this room whose conscience has been seared.
I pray that by the power of your spirit, you would cut through that and touch their heart right now, that they would hear you calling them clearly and that they would respond, because the stakes are life and death.
Jesus, reach anyone in this room who does not know you. Reveal yourself to them in power. We pray, Jesus. Lord, for any of us who are in sin and know you and belong to you. Lord, we invite you and we ask you to reveal it to us, that we might repent, that we might not argue with you about it, but that we would turn away from it.
And I pray for anyone here who feels like they don't have the power to do that. Lord, give them the faith to believe what you have written in Your word, that your blood is able to cover all sins, and that by Your stripes, we are healed.
And then, Jesus, for those of us who belong to you and are walking with you right now, we just say thank you. We love you so much, we can never repay you, and so we don't even try. It's just our joy to know you. It's our joy to call you our king. It is our privilege to call You Master.
It's the delight of our hearts to call you Lord.
Thank you for loving us and thank you for saving us. Jesus, in Your name we pray. amen.