About this sermon
Isaiah 49 speaks of the Servant who will be a light to the nations, and in Acts 13 Paul and Barnabas carry that light on their first missionary journey. In the synagogue at Pisidian Antioch Paul preached that God chose Israel, raised up David, and brought the Savior Jesus, whom he raised from the dead, and through him forgiveness of sins is proclaimed. The gospel begins with God and his acts, ends with the call to repent and believe, and still reaches the ends of the earth.
Sermon transcript
Amen. You may be seated. Psalm 119G, a very fine preparation for hearing the word of God. It reminds us of the crucial necessity of that divine address. We understand that unless God reveals himself, he will not be known. Unless God makes his way known, we will not know it and cannot trust it. And so we have the immense gift of the written word. and the even greater gift of which it points, the living word, Jesus Christ. Let us then hear the scriptures as it comes to us from two great texts.
Isaiah 49, one through six. My Hebrew students know this text well because it’s one of the stated texts in Hebrew 201 for detailed translation. And I do love this particular poem in Isaiah. Isaiah 49, verses one through six. one of the so-called Songs of the Suffering Servant, and then after that, the Book of Acts, which quotes this particular text from Isaiah, Acts chapter 13, the whole chapter. Let’s then hear the Word of God from Isaiah, Isaiah 49, starting with verse 1. Listen to me, you islands! Hear this, you distant nations! Before I was born, the Lord called me. From my birth, he made mention of my name. He made my mouth like a sharpened sword. In the shadow of his hand, he hid me. He made me into a polished arrow and concealed me in his quiver.
He said to me, you are my servant, Israel, in whom I will display my splendor. But as for me, I said, I have labored to no purpose. I’ve spent my strength in vain and for nothing. Yet what is due me is in the Lord’s hand and my reward is with my God. And now the Lord says, the one who formed me in the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob back to him and to gather Israel to himself, for I’m honored in the eyes of the Lord and my God has been my strength. He says, It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and to bring back those of Israel that I have kept.
I will also make you. A light. For the Gentiles. That you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth. So far the reading of God’s own word, thanks be to God. And now the word of God from the book of Acts chapter 13, that entire chapter. If you remember that chapter from any Bible lessons you’ve had, your personal Bible study, you may identify it as the story of Paul’s first missionary journey. It is. So we have three missionary journeys told in the book of Acts, plus his journey to Rome, four journeys by St. Paul. This is the story of the first of them.
Now in the church at Antioch, there were prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, and Anne, who had been brought up with Herod the Tetrarch, and Saul. While they were worshipping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them. So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off. The two of them, sent on their way by the Holy Spirit, went down to Seleucia and sailed from there to the island of Cyprus. When they arrived at Salamis, they proclaimed the word of God in the Jewish synagogues. John, known to you as John Mark, was with them as their helper. They traveled through the whole island until they came to Paphos.
There they met a Jewish sorcerer and false prophet named Bar-Jesus, who was an attendant of the proconsul, Sergius Paulus. The proconsul, an intelligent man, sent for Barnabas and Saul because he wanted to hear the word of God. But Elimas, the sorcerer, for that is what his name means, opposed them and tried to turn the proconsul from the faith. Then Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked straight at Elimas and said, You are a child of the devil. and an enemy of everything that is right. You are full of all kinds of deceit and trickery. Will you never stop perverting the right ways of the Lord? And now the hand of the Lord is against you. You are going to be blind for a time, not even able to see the light of the sun.” Immediately, mist and darkness came over him and he croaked about, seeking someone to lead him by the hand.
When the proconsul saw what had happened, he believed. For he was amazed at the teaching of the Lord. From Paphos, Paul and his companions sailed to Perga in Pamphylia, where John Mark left them to return to Jerusalem. From Perga, they went on to Pisidian Antioch. On the Sabbath, they entered the synagogue and sat down. After the reading from the Torah and the prophets, the leaders of the synagogue sent word to them, saying, If you have a word of exhortation for the people, please speak. Standing up, Paul motioned with his hand and said, Fellow Israelites and you Gentiles who worship God, listen to me. The God of the people of Israel chose our ancestors.
He made the people prosper during their stay in Egypt. With mighty power, He led them out of that country. For about 40 years, He endured their conduct in the wilderness, and He overthrew seven nations in Canaan, giving their land to His people as their inheritance. All this took about 450 years.
After this, God gave them judges until the time of Samuel the prophet. Then the people asked for a king, and he gave them Saul, son of Kish, of the tribe of Benjamin, who ruled forty years. After removing Saul, he made David their king. God testified concerning him, I have found David, son of Jesse, a man after my own heart.
He will do everything I want him to do. From this man’s descendants, God has brought to Israel the Savior Jesus. Just as he had promised. Before the coming of Jesus, John the Baptist preached repentance and baptism to all the people of Israel. As John was completing his work, he said, Who do you suppose that I am? I’m not the one you’re looking for. But there is one coming after me whose sandals I’m not worthy to untie. Fellow children of Abraham and you God-fearing Gentiles, it is to us that this message of salvation has been sent. The people of Jerusalem and their rulers did not recognize Jesus.
Yet in condemning him, they fulfilled the words of the prophets that are read every Sabbath. Though they found no proper ground for a death sentence, they asked Pilate to have him executed. And when they carried out all that had been written about him, they took him down from the cross and laid him in a tomb. But God raised him from the dead. And for many days he was seen by those who had traveled with him from Galilee to Jerusalem.
They are now his witnesses to our people. We tell you the good news. What God had promised their ancestors, he has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising up Jesus. As it is written in the second Psalm, you are my son. Today I have become your father.
God raised him from the dead so that he will never be subject to decay. As God had said, I will give you the sure and holy blessings promised to David. And so it is stated elsewhere, you will not let your holy ones see decay. Now, when David had served God’s purpose in his own generation, he fell asleep and was buried with his ancestors and his body decayed. but the one whom God has raised from the dead did not seem to care.
Therefore, friends, I want you to know that through Jesus, the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. Everyone who believes is set free from every sin, a justification you were not able to obtain by the law of Moses. And take care what the prophets have said does not happen to you. Look, you scoffers wonder and perish from going through something in your days that you will never believe, even if someone told you.
As Paul and Barnabas were leaving the synagogue, the people invited them to speak further about these things on the next Sabbath. When the congregation was dismissed, many of the Jews and devout converts to Judaism followed Paul and Barnabas, who spoke with them and urged them to continue in the grace of God. On the next Sabbath, almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of the Lord. When the Jews saw the crowd, they were filled with jealousy. They began to contradict what Paul was saying and heaped abuse on him. Then Paul and Barnabas answered them boldly.
We had to speak the word of God to you first. Since you rejected and do not consider yourselves worthy of everlasting life, we now turn to the Gentiles. For this is what the Lord has commanded us. I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth. When the Gentiles heard this, They were glad and honored the word of the Lord and all who were appointed to everlasting life believed the word of the Lord spread through the whole region.
But the Jewish leaders incited the God fearing women of high standing and the leading men of the city. They stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas and expelled them from their region. So they shook the dust off their feet as a warning against them and went to Iconium. And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.
So far the reading of God’s own word. Thanks be to God. Well, every sermon should have a thesis, a main point. And today, the thesis is exceedingly simple, and it involves the first words of Paul’s address to that Jewish synagogue. And the first word in the sentence of proclamation is, in Greek, the word God. All right, God, the God of our people, Israel, has chosen our ancestors, says that sermon, the very first claim of that declaration. What’s my thesis today? It’s simple. The gospel is about God.
How many churches have forgotten that? And make the gospel about you or about your best life now or what you must do. And of course, there are things that we must do. There are. But the gospel is not really about you. It’s about God. And persistently in Paul’s sermon, We find that God did this, God did that, God did this, God did that, God did this also. And finally, by the end, we get the clear command, all right, repent, believe. And the warning, scoffers, wander and perish, for you will not believe. The gospel is about God.
In the Book of Acts, our author, Luke, same author as the Gospel of Luke, in our Book of Acts, our author, Luke, chooses three sermons by Paul. So my title today, How Paul Preached the Gospel, Part One. In Chapter 14, we’ll have Part Two, should God spare me until whatever week that is coming up. And Chapter 14 is Paul’s sermon to pagans in folk religion who are about to sacrifice a bull to Paul and Barnabas. The third sermon that Luke chooses to report is Paul’s sermon to scholars, the philosophers of the Areopagus in the great university city of Athens.
And so we have three samples of Pauline preaching in the Book of Acts. We will also have other speeches by Paul, his testimony, that long, long story of the Damascus Road, which Luke tells us no less than three times. within the book of Acts. We have other addresses, but these are the three evangelistic sermons of the Apostle Paul within the book. Acts 13 to Jews in the synagogue in the city of Antioch, Acts 14 to pagans about the sacrifice at Lystra, and chapter 17 to the scholars, the philosophers of Athens. And in all three of these, what do we find?
That the gospel is about God. simplest of all claims. And in Paul’s preaching, we see that the acts of God in the world get elaborated. What did God do? And who is this God? His character and his actions are elaborated, and especially they’re elaborated by his dealings first with Israel, the elect people of God, and then more keenly with what he did in his son, Jesus, whom he anointed. Jesus, the Messiah, Jesus, the eternal son of the Father. And so the gospel is about God’s acts for Israel and in his son. And lo and behold, those acts are not just for Israel, but also for the Gentiles.
And by the end of our story, we even have a quotation from Isaiah 49, which brings salvation to the ends of the earth. I think, swiftly, Pennsylvania would count as the ends of the earth for those people back there. And here we see the gospel alive and well in this very remote place, which is about what, 8,000 miles from where it was first preached, one third of the way around the globe.
The gospel is about God. It’s about God’s acts in the world. God’s acts first with his ancient people, Israel. Yeah, despite their rebellion and unbelief, God tolerating their their disobedience and wilderness, as Paul points out, and then more particularly about what God does in Jesus and within Jesus, especially in his death and his resurrection. And so those people in Jerusalem, those rulers of the Jewish city there, the Sanhedrin, the high priest, et cetera, what do they do?
They conspire to have Jesus crucified by the Romans and ironically fulfill the messianic mission by cross and by resurrection. And so the gospel is about God’s acts through Jesus. and about the reconciliation achieved by Jesus, a reconciliation between God and sinners, achieved in an atoning death. Not an accidental death, but a death that was predicted and promised, in fact, by ancient past from prophets inspired by the Spirit, prophets such as Isaiah, who spoke of the fact that he would make intercession for the transgressors and pour out his life for many. And so the gospel is especially about the death and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah, who reconciles us to the Father. And this gospel therefore promises astonishing things.
What is it? Forgiveness of sins, spoken of powerfully here by St. Paul, and a new word in the book of Acts, one hardly attested before, and one scarcely attested even in the Gospels, justification. Did you notice it? That by this Jesus, by his death and resurrection, God grants that we can be justified from our sins in a way we could never be justified by the laws of Moses. And so we have forgiveness of sins. And this new term in the preaching of the Book of Acts, justification, and of course everlasting life.
And to whom does this come? Not to the scoffers who perish and who will not believe because of their folly, but to all who repent and believe the good news. There is Paul’s sermon summarized. And so Paul and the original witnesses of the resurrection, how are they described here? As messengers of the gospel, lights of salvation, even lights to the ends of the earth. A text from Isaiah 49 that first is about Jesus, the great and unique servant of God who saves his people. And secondly, those servants of Jesus bearing witness, yes, even to the ends of the earth.
And what’s the result of believing this gospel? Yeah, there’s persecution. Great wrath stirred up by leading Jewish women, says the text, and the leading men of the Gentiles of the city. There’s an interesting alliance. They stir up the controversy so heartily that Paul and Barnabas are driven out of that whole region of Pisidia. That’s a Roman province in South Central Turkey.
And leaving it, they shake the dust from their feet. Just as the disciples are instructed to do when Jesus sends them out to the cities and towns, the villages of Israel. If they did not receive you, says Jesus, shake the dust off your feet as testimony against them. Don’t even take the soil of the town with you, in other words.
Divine judgment for those scoffers who wander and perish. because they will not believe. Yes, persecution. But notice the way the story ends. The last line of our blessed text is not about the persecution, and not about the flight of Paul and Barnabas, and not about shaking the dust off the feet. It’s the disciples who remain in that town facing persecution. And how does the text describe them? They are full of joy and of the Holy Spirit. And that’s how the story ends. Now America is like Hollywood endings. This is a better one. This is a heaven ending. This is heaven ending. Okay, joy and the Holy Spirit. And that’s how the story comes to its conclusion.
And so in preaching the gospel and in believing the gospel, what must we know and what must we do? We must know that the gospel is about God. And if the preaching of the church, the devotional life of the church, the instruction of the church is primarily, well, let’s call it this way, psychology, what’s happening inside you, That’s what it’s mainly about. You can pretty well bet your bottom dollar that the church is missing the central feature of the gospel, because the gospel is about God.
The very first word of the preaching, after the address to these men of Israel and these God-fearing Gentiles, God, the God of our people, Israel, He chose our ancestors. And the subject of the sentences again and again and again and again is that Greek word theos, God, God, God. God chose our ancestors. God gave them judges. God raised up David. God said of David, I found a man after my own heart. God, God, and God raised Jesus from the dead. The Christian’s faith is in God and not in ourselves.
And so we find in our sermon, first, the history of Israel. Paul, of course, speaking to a Jewish synagogue, Greek-speaking Jews. And Paul gives them a kind of compliment by telling them their own history. But did you notice how the history is told? It’s a history of Israel’s stubborn rejection of the gospel, the gospel of Moses, the gospel of their own time. How God put up with their resistance against God. But again and again in that Old Testament story, Israel’s resistance against the will of God. And that is background to what will happen later in the story. When one great section of that synagogue will refuse the message. And in such a way that Paul and Barnabas are forced to depart.
In that much more pagan island of Cyprus, where they were in the earlier episode of the story, where they meet the Roman governor, the proconsul named Sergius Paulus, they leave the island in peace, having converted its governor, and having performed a miracle of judgment upon that Jewish magician, that false fellow, Bar Jesus, called Elimus. blinded now, demonstrating his spiritual blindness. He pretends to have control over the spirit world and have supernatural knowledge. But he’s blind. And so his temporary physical blindness testifies. And the eyes of Sergius Paulus are opened.
And the gospel enters the island of Cyprus. They leave that island in peace. in the Jewish synagogue, ironically, they leave the region under the threat of violence. And here we see then another new element in the preaching of Paul. You will almost certainly know that in the New Testament, Paul is considered the apostle to the Gentiles. And Peter is considered the apostle to the Jews, to the circumcision. And the New Testament speaks that way on several occasions. All right, kind of division of labor, Peter to the circumcision, Paul to the uncircumcised. But here we find persistently that Paul goes to the synagogues. In this particular story, we find a break. Did you notice? Since you reject the offer of salvation, we now turn to the Gentiles. Did you notice that? Near the end of the story.
And when the Gentiles heard this, says verse 48, they rejoiced and honored the word of the Lord. And then we have that lovely, lovely sentence that I quote so often in lectures and contemplate often in prayer. And here’s the sentence. And as many as had been appointed to everlasting life believed. What’s the sentence do in its beauty and loveliness? tells us the predestined plan of God, the plan of God from all eternity, that Gentiles in that particular town called Pisidian Antioch, Gentiles who crowded into the synagogue and all around it, hanging out of the windows and doors, no doubt, the whole city virtually gathering on that second Sabbath day to hear the word of God, the Gentiles, what, chosen from all eternity, appointed to everlasting life. And Luke tells us by the word of the Lord that as many as had been appointed to everlasting life believed. It’s the gospel and predestination of the same sentence. I love it.
There’s no zero-sum game that if God is sovereign, you do nothing. Or if you do the believing, God is not involved. It’s the same thing. And the divine decree from old eternity and the fact of human action, believing, are in the same sentence. Now what enables it? The Holy Spirit, who grants the new birth and the awakening of faith. The Gospel is not against predestination, and predestination is not against the Gospel. Luke writes a sentence that has both of them at the same. And it is beautiful.
Imagine now having a gospel in which your faith is self-created, in which you willed without divine strength to enter. Could you not then will the other way again? And in that there is no safety. But if you have believed according to an everlasting plan, in that we have an abiding confidence.
In his notes on the New Testament, sorry to say, John Wesley says this about that text. When he reads, and as many as had been appointed to everlasting life believed, Wesley says they appointed themselves by believing. Yeah, that’s that’s his notes on the New Testament. They appointed themselves. And how do they appoint themselves? By believing.
I used to think that when I was 17. And when I thought that at age 17, I feared damnation more than I ever had feared it when I was still a Darwin pagan, which I had been up to age 16. As a pagan, I didn’t fear damnation. As a Christian who thought that I had the power of belief by my own power, and therefore could unbelieve by my own power, yeah, having entered that kind of teaching when I was 16, yeah, that’s when I began to fear damnation. Yeah, the very time when I was saved is when I began to fear damnation, because I had been taught falsely.
That basically I had appointed myself. And I had believed in some way by my own naked power. So of course I could unbelieve. I could undo what I had done. And there’s no assurance in that. It’s only when you know that you have believed by an everlasting plan that you have an abiding assurance that God is in it. And what God has done, you cannot undo.
So the preacher Stephen Brown says, I heard this at the PCA General Assembly about 30 years ago, I’ve never forgotten it. He says, Christians are like turtles sitting on fence posts. What? What? Christians are like turtles sitting on fence posts. His point was that if you see a turtle on a fence post, you know he didn’t get there by himself. They have believed. How have they believed? They were appointed to everlasting life. Appointed when and by whom? By God and from all eternity. If you’re appointed by God, can you undo it? Please say no. Okay.
If you’re in, you’re in. And turtles are like fence posts. Christians are like turtles sitting on fence posts. That is, we have been granted a gift. A great gift that cannot be taken away. Stephen Brown’s second metaphor in that rather fine General Assembly sermon at the PCA is that Christians are like dogs playing checkers. If you see a dog playing checkers, it doesn’t matter whether he wins or loses. He’s just glad he’s playing the game at all.
So here we are with faith that is often weak and with repentance that is often partial. But we’ve been granted it. And we believe amid our weakness and we repent amid our partiality. And we’re like dogs playing checkers. It doesn’t matter whether we win the game. We’re just playing it.
And the gift has been given. And in all our humbleness and weakness and the futility of some of our actions and thoughts and motives, God nonetheless is in it. And he’s given the gift. And it cannot be taken away. Because it was given from all eternity in a plan of God that cannot be defeated. So if you believe in Jesus, Are you everlastingly safe? Say yes. Yes, you were everlastingly safe.
And I’ll say in my own experience, until I learned that the gift can never be taken away, until I learned that, I did not have an abiding assurance of my salvation. moments of assurance, maybe a week or two. And then I falter. And my assurance was based upon the excellence of my performance playing that checker game. What happens in this text instead?
As many as had been appointed to everlasting life believed. And despite the persecution done by their own, what brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, grandfathers, neighbors, friends, employers, employees, whoever is in that neighborhood, in that town of Pisidian Antioch, persecution so strong that Paul and Barnabas have to flee and shake the dust off their feet, despite that social reality in the town for these brand new Christians and a brand new church that cannot be part of that synagogue any longer, Despite that social reality, what characterizes these new Christians who were Jews and Gentiles alike? Joy. And the Holy Spirit. They had an abiding confidence in God. The basis of the confidence, of course, is not our own power to believe or repent or obey. That’s always compromised in some degree. It’s based upon the reconciliation achieved by Jesus in his cross and in his resurrection.
Which is the principal act of God within the world? The gospel is about God? Yes. The gospel is about God’s acts in the world? Yes. The gospel is about God’s acts in the world especially through Jesus? Yes. The gospel is especially about God’s acts in the world in his son Jesus, and in his death and resurrection, which brings reconciliation, forgiveness, and this new word within our text, justification.
And that is our ground of assurance. that God has done these things, by life and death and resurrection, justifying us through faith. Now that word justification is rare in Luke. Luke’s gospel uses it twice. And in the book of Acts, we find that I think for the very first time in this text, in the gospel of Luke, we find it in the sentence that wisdom is justified by her children.
Jesus speaks it about the ministry of John the Baptist and the ministry of Jesus, which is questioned by Pharisees and others in the crowds of Galilee and Jerusalem. And what Jesus says about John the Baptist who comes fasting and with a strict diet and living a life in the desert and in deprivation. And Jesus who goes to dinner with Pharisees and sometimes with rich men and eating and drinking. John fasting and Severe died.
Okay, which way is right? Well, wisdom is justified by her children, says Jesus in that gospel, which means that wisdom is proved right by its actions. And so the ministry of John was right. And the ministry of Jesus, though different, was right. And wisdom is justified by her children. That is, wisdom is proved right by actions. All right, so there’s one use of the verb justify in the Gospels.
The only other one in Luke is the parable of the Pharisee and the publican, the tax collector. Two men went up to the temple to pray. I think a lot of you will know the story. One, a Pharisee goes right up to the front. Hi, thank you, God. I’m not like other people. I fast twice a week. I give a tithe on all I have. And I’m especially not like that tax collector over there, because it’s almost April 15, and I really hate that guy. Well, not quite like that. OK. Yeah, not quite that. All right, but I’m not like this betrayer of our people, this fellow who works for the Romans, this guy who’s a professional extortionist. I’m devout. And I thank you, God, that I’m not like those others. Look at my pious life.
And then you have the tax collector. Stands against the back rail, the farthest away he can get, because he’s not worthy to take one further step into the holy place. And he beats himself on the chest. Doesn’t even look up to heaven, though that’s the usual posture of devout prayer. Hands raised, eyes upward. That’s Jewish prayer. He doesn’t do that. He beats himself on the chest and he says, God have mercy upon me, a sinner. The Greek text actually has a definite article there. God have mercy upon me, sinner, as if he’s the only one in all the world. God have mercy upon me. How does Jesus say it? In the only other use of that verb in the gospel of Luke, I say to you, that man went away justified rather than the other. So now in volume two of Luke, we find the word returning. And how is the word now used? That by faith in this Jesus, crucified, resurrected, here’s the line, verse 39, through him, everyone who believes is set free from every sin, justified. a justification you were not able to obtain by the law of Moses.”
So here they are in the Jewish synagogue, hearing the scriptures of Moses read week by week in the Torah reading, and hearing the prophets and the other texts of the scriptures the Old Testament read also alongside the Torah, and unable to be justified by that means of obedience to the Torah.
This text does not mean that no one in the Old Testament was justified. It does mean that no one in the Old Testament was justified by means of obeying the Torah. Abraham was justified. Every holy Israelite was justified. But they were not justified by the Torah. How were they justified? By the same way that you are. They were justified by a faith in the Messiah who had not yet come.
And we are justified by a faith in a Messiah who has already come. And we are all justified by one and the same faith. And what distinguishes our time from theirs? That Jesus has come and so we know him by name. They knew him by promise. We know him by name. And so I want you to know, verse 38, that through Jesus, forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. And through him, everyone who believes is justified.
All the things by which you could not be justified by the Torah of Moses. And so what we find in how Luke develops the story of preaching, have you noticed it? We had preaching by Peter, Acts chapter two, the Pentecost sermon, and a focus again upon what God had done in the Old Testament and in the person of Jesus, and especially in his rejection by the Jews and his death and his resurrection, and the command then to repent and be baptized on the basis of faith in this message. Because the end of days, that is the last time has arrived with the servant of God, namely Jesus. That message from Peter is immensely in continuity with what Jesus himself had preached. How had Jesus said it? Remember? The time has come. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the good news.
In other words, the first preaching of Jesus in the Gospels is in absolute continuity with what Peter is preaching in Acts 2. And the more sermons we get in Acts, the more detailed Luke adds. And so in Acts chapter 10, which we saw in a previous week, Peter’s second great sermon in Acts, we have Peter preaching in the house of Cornelius and new elements added to the story. but all of them in continuity with the gospel. Not a new gospel, not a different gospel, but a more detailed exposition of it. And here in Acts 13, yet one more detail not said before in Acts.
Justification. What would become the characteristic message of St. Paul so often in his epistles? Romans, Galatians, 1 Corinthians, Philippians, again and again, we find the theme as justification by faith. And so we are not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. Faith apart from works. We could even say with Luther, faith alone.
That is the message Paul. So is the new element a distortion? Oh, we’ve got many in the last 150 years who said that. That when you read the gospel according to Paul, you got a different religion. Religion of Jesus, simple and Jewish and ethical. All right. Strive for perfection, you know, be righteous. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are the pure in heart. And so in that frequent hypercritical construction, the religion of Jesus, simple, ethical, Jewish, whereas St. Paul, what is it? They would say complex, mystical, Hellenistic Greek, two different gospels.
That’s taught in a lot of seminaries today on the liberal side of things. Jay Gresham Machen, whose name many of you will know, wrote against it in a great book from the 1920s called The Origins of Paul’s Religion. The Origins of Paul’s Religion, a great book which shows the continuity between what Paul will preach and what Jesus preaches in the Gospels. Paul has the privilege of lining up more of its implications, but it is not a different Gospel. Those implications found now in immense detail in the Pauline letters are warranted by all that comes before.
And if we did not have them, we’d be forced to invent them, but without divine authority. So we even have people saying that, yeah, the doctrine of the Trinity, a massive distortion. Blame Paul for that. But no, no, no. In how we trace the themes in these sermons from John the Baptist and Jesus and Peter and Paul, we see it’s all one gospel based upon the immense act of God.
And an act of God announced by Jesus when he says the time has come. What time? The time of the end of evil, the time of the action of God, the time of reconciliation, the time when the powers of idolatry will be overthrown and the power of faith brought into the world in this new and more powerful way that shall go to all the world. The time has come. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the good news. Paul’s message here in Acts is the same. Elaborated. with necessary details.
And so what must we believe? What must we do? What must we hold precious? We must hold precious this. That the gospel is not about us. Thanks be to God. Because we are mercurial. We are changeable. We are fickle. And the gospel isn’t. And even with our changeableness, Blue skies one morning, so we’re happy. A gray sky on another, we’re sad. Welcome to Western Pennsylvania. The gospel is not fickle. We are fickle with the weather. But God is not fickle.
And the gospel is firm, and the gospel stands, and it’s the deed of God in Christ that makes it stand. And so even when our emotions rise and fall, And when our own levels of confidence rise or collapse, the gospel remains true, and we remain the elect people of God. And therefore we have an everlasting ground of confidence, stronger than any psychology, and better than the weather. And so wisdom is justified by our choice. The gospel proved right.
And we, therefore, can be marked by what marks these persecuted disciples at the end of that story in Pisidian Antioch, in a newborn church that cannot be part of its mother church synagogue, so to speak, because now there is hatred. Hatred against them because of Jesus. And a new church is born in a Gentile Jewish city. in which we find a characteristic described this way, the disciples were full of joy and the Holy Spirit. Can your life be marked by that?
By an abiding joy given by the Holy Spirit? Luke presents that as the ordinary Christian life. a life marked by joy, give to the Holy Spirit. Let us pray. Holy Father, we address you as the one from all eternity who, in the counsels of the triune wisdom, deigned not only to create us, but when we had fallen by our own will, resolve to redeem us by the life and death and resurrection of the Beloved Son, the Eternal Son, the Logos, the second person of the Trinity, and by means of the third person of the Trinity, to bring us to faith and to repentance in a way that yields a ground of everlasting hope and joy. Bless us then, Lord Jesus Christ. with a confidence that need never be shaken, despite our own changeableness. Bless us, Holy Spirit, by your abiding presence in our life, making us more and more the pure temples of the living God. And bless us, Holy Father, as we seek to represent this gospel by life and by deed and by word, not only in this place, But in our homes, our neighborhoods, our travels, our places of work, our families, our friends, may our lives be marked by the joy described for these disciples so long ago in the city of Antioch. And we ask it by the holy name of Jesus, by whose death and resurrection we stand justified and assured unshakingly of everlasting life. hear our prayer in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
The hymn rejoices in the victory of Jesus over all sin and all death and every evil. Crown hymn with many crowns, hymn number 216 in your Trinity hymnals. Shall we stand? you crowned him with many crowns, the crown upon his forehead, the crown upon his head, and the crown upon his head, and the crown upon his head, and the crown upon his head, and the crown upon his head, and the crown upon his head, and the crown upon his head, and the crown upon his head, and the crown upon his head, and the crown upon his head, and the crown upon his head, and the crown upon his head, and the crown upon his head, and the crown upon his head, and the crown upon his head, and the crown upon his head, and the crown upon his head, and the crown upon his head, and the crown upon his head, and the crown upon his head, and the crown upon his head, and the crown upon his head, and the crown upon his head, and the crown upon his head, and the crown upon his head, and the crown upon his head, and the crown upon his head, and the crown upon his head, and the crown upon his head, and the crown upon his head ♪ The ashes are my path to see ♪ ♪ Through all eternity ♪ ♪ Now before the power of God ♪ ♪ Behold his hands and side ♪ ♪ With truth and grace and hope of God ♪ ♪ May you be glorified ♪ ♪ Glory to God in the highest ♪ Under benches burning, I have this little prize. I’m in for a feast, to top the scepter’s place.
I’m born to proclaim your grace, each child born in prayer and praise. Our rich history here, Their power of paradise extend, Their praises ever sing. The new Lord appears, the potentate of time, creator of the holy spirit in the peace of mind. God extends his rich blessing toward all those who trust him through his Son Jesus Christ. Let’s receive then the rich blessing of the Lord. May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father Almighty, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be yours in rich abundance. today and always. Amen.
The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.