I invite you to turn tonight to the book of Acts as we continue our study in the book of Acts, and we pick up tonight at verse 13 and read to the end. Acts chapter 13, and we'll begin at verse 13. Let's give our attention to the word of the Lord. Now, Paul and his companions set sail from Paphos and came to Perga in Pamphylia, and John left them and returned to Jerusalem, but they went on from Perga and came to Antioch in Pisidia. And on the Sabbath day, they went into the synagogue and sat down. After reading from the law and the prophets, the rulers of the synagogue sent a message to them saying, brothers, if you have any word of encouragement for the people, say it. So Paul stood up and motioning with his hand said, Men of Israel and you who fear God, listen. The God of this people, Israel, chose our fathers and made the people great during their stay in the land of Egypt. And with uplifted arm, he led them out of it. And for about 40 years, he put up with them in the wilderness. And after destroying seven nations in the land of Canaan, he gave them their land as an inheritance. All this took about 450 years. And after that, he gave them judges until Samuel, the prophet. Then they asked for a king, and God gave them Saul, the son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin for 40 years. And when he had removed him, he raised up David to be their king, of whom he testified and said, I have found in David, the son of Jesse, a man after my heart who will do all my will. Of this man's offspring, God has brought to Israel a savior, Jesus, as he promised. Before his coming, John had proclaimed a baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel. And as John was finishing his course, he said, What do you suppose that I am? I am not he. No, but behold, after me one is coming, the sandals of whose feet I am not worthy to untie. Brothers, sons of the family of Abraham, and those among you who fear God, to us has been sent the message of this salvation. For those who live in Jerusalem and their rulers, because they did not recognize him nor understand the utterances of the prophets which are read every sabbath fulfilled them by condemning him and though they found in him no guilt worthy of death they asked pilot to have him executed and when they had carried out all that was written of him they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb but god raised him from the dead and for many days he appeared to those who had come up with him from galilee to jerusalem who are now as witnesses to the people and we bring you good news the good news that what God promised to the fathers this he has fulfilled to us their children by raising Jesus as also it is written in the second psalm you are my son today I have begotten you and as for the fact that he raised him from the dead no more to return to corruption he has spoken in this way i will give you the holy and sure blessings of david therefore he says also in another psalm you will not let your holy ones see corruption for david after he had served the purpose of god in his own generation fell asleep and was laid with his fathers and saw corruption but he whom god raised did not raised up did not see corruption let it be known to you therefore brothers that through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you and by him everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses beware therefore lest what is said in the prophet should come about look you scoffers be astounded and perish for I am doing a work in your days a work that you will not believe even if one tells it to you. As they went out, the people begged that these things might be told them the next Sabbath. And after the meeting of the synagogue broke up, many Jews and devout converts to Judaism followed Paul and Barnabas, who, as they spoke with them, urged them to continue in the grace of God. The next Sabbath, almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of the Lord. But when the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy and began to contradict what was spoken by Paul reviling him and Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly saying it was necessary that the word of God be spoken to you first since you thrusted aside and judge yourselves unworthy to eternal life behold we are turning to the Gentiles for so the Lord has commanded us saying I have made you a light for the Gentiles that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth and when the Gentiles heard this they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed and the word of the Lord was spreading throughout the whole region but the Jews incited the devout women of high standing and the leading men of the city stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas and drove them out of their district but they shook off the dust from their feet against them and went to Iconium and the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit. May the Lord bless the hearing of his word. I often get asked as I sit in the pew and listening to sermons, pastor how do you do listening to sermons? And if I'm going to be completely honest I want to tell you don't sit by me, you might get bad habits. I struggle listening to sermons because I'm used to preaching them. And people ask, well, what is your struggle listening to sermons today? What is your struggle listening to sermons? Why do you have that problem? And I don't mean to sound arrogant at all. I don't think I have this figured out. Far from it. In fact, as Martin Lloyd-Jones says, any pastor who thinks he's preached a good sermon has deceived himself. So if you think that about yourself, you've got a problem okay so that's that's off the table but i struggle with stories i struggle with intros i've tried to cut mine down uh because the thought in preaching is you've got to have stories and books and movies and your hobbies to sort of catch people and get them in and um the older i get in the ministry i think my intro should just be let's turn in the Bible to this passage and go. Most of the time, they're not very helpful. They do nothing for the people, and they're confusing. It's just hard to follow them. I can listen to the pastors who give an honest attempt to deal with the text, who are really engaging the text and want to make an honest go of it, but then the pastor has to wrestle with the question of what is the main point of the text. And in that regard, you can easily miss it. A pastor might pull out a point that he thinks is the main point that is not the main point. And then you have that struggle. You've got to address on top of that the main point of the Bible. What is the whole point of the Bible that is being brought home to you? And in any given text, you have that point and then you have to read it in light of the whole. What is the great goal? And this is the struggle from any given text in the bible one could make a dozen points and you see then how dependent we are on the holy spirit to help us to do this and to make it clear what his intention is this is why the prayer of illumination is so important help us praying that the spirit would guide us in the truth and bring the truth to bear on our hearts in a way that pleases him and as he inspired it the heart of what the holy spirit is given us in a text we need his help and tonight what i love about acts chapter 13 is we are looking at paul's first sermon in this sermon he joins together the main point of the whole bible and in this particular text the main point of that text is exactly the same he's teaching us something here the spirit is about ministry as he's been doing in acts and showing us preaching uh that paul now here his very first recorded sermon is given for us to to study and to understand it and to look at it so nobody can say i don't know what preaching is supposed to be and then in response people should have a good understanding of what preaching is supposed to be so that when they hear something that is not preaching they don't stand back and say as we often do well at least my loved one's in church we have to be better more discerning than that you know that paul had a goal in all preaching the writers of the new testament had a goal in their writings what do you think if you asked paul and said what is the heart of everything you want to say to us in the scriptures everything that you want to say to us as an apostle i think paul might say well uh you know what why don't you turn to acts chapter 13 and study my first sermon because the holy spirit gave me something in that first sermon that's very important and i think what you're going to see is it's not so different from the first sermon of peter it blew my mind for all the discretion on what is central in the bible what is the heart of the gospel what is central to paul as that discussion has gone on for so long uh what is the central message of the bible you get it right here what was on his mind in his first address what did he do to the synagogue in the synagogue when he was given the opportunity to speak and so essentially what you have then tonight is a sermon on a sermon it's really a fascinating thing to look at and you see the heart of it tonight glaring to you in bold right in the middle of the text and it's such a powerful message there i want you to notice here where it says we bring to you the good news of what was promised there is again to the father's promise what is it let it be known to you therefore brothers let it be known to you therefore brothers that through this man forgiveness of sins verse 38 is proclaimed to you and by him everyone who believes is freed from everything which you could not be freed by the law of Moses. Now you say tonight, oh, I've heard that. I've heard that a lot. We sing not what my hands have done. I've heard that. Yeah, you've heard it probably most of your lives from this pulpit. What do you think about it? What does that message mean to you? What does it mean? Here's the problem in the text tonight. Those who should have known that, those who should have known that their whole life, those who heard the message proclaimed their whole life, rolled their eyes at it. Their attitude toward it was terrible. And those who were first hearing it, received it with great joy this is where this goes so that's why paul gives a major call in the midst of this don't make the deadly mistake that israel made in refusing the one who speaks paul's sermon uh can be broken down by looking at here a wonderful history a saving message and then concluding with a surprising response last time we started out with paul's first missionary journey as paul and barnabas set out and they came remember to the region of paphos and the spirit did a remarkable work he he um he converted the proconsul of the whole region sergius paulus under great opposition by bar jesus as we looked at this proconsul was converted and as history shows us and there's a lot of belief about this that sergius paulus had a lot of family in antioch of pisidia and may have been a crucial figure in directing them where to go next nobody knows that for sure but the reality is they are headed now to a certain place and paul and barnabas travel to perga and then pamphylia and there's an interesting detail that begun here but picked up later in the book of acts you'll notice in verse 13 john mark departed from them this is all we're told at this point it was not a good departure something happened in fact it's going to cause a major fight on the mission field between paul and barnabas but i'll come back to that it's going to be some of the most instructive stuff that we're able to go through um they go an additional hundred miles from here to this second city called Antioch it was on the sabbath day and as was their custom they would first go to the synagogues they would first take the message into the jewish synagogues and then if it were rejected which is the program in acts they would go to the gentiles the providence of god is fascinating here that the message then as it was going on is passed to paul if if you if you two brothers would like to stand up and offer a word go for it i'm so glad we don't do that today by the way i can't imagine how long we'd be here um they were there all day with this stuff so you just have one pastor who does this a word of encouragement give us a word what was that word well they would um take the torah and take the law and they would expound the the duties required in the law so usually from the pentateuch this would be a um a synagogue worship service service would begin you'd have a recitation of the shema hero israel the lord our god the lord is one you shall love the lord your god with all of your heart soul mind and strength and then some rabbis would come to the front some holy men they would pray and then you would hear two readings you'd hear a reading first from the pentateuch first five books of the bible and then you would have a reading from the prophets followed by a sermon it's not so different is it so here we are after the readings do you have a message for us they didn't know what they were asking did they paul is given the platform for exposition sermon on a sermon i'm really curious what what would he do in the first opportunity like this because keep in mind this was the very thing that he killed stephen over what's he going to do now the same thing when it came to judaism there was no one that had excelled beyond saul remember paul would later say this of himself he's in a region that he's not known but this was the guy if you're going to get the greatest scholar the greatest knowledgeable man of the day he would say of himself i excelled according to the righteousness that is of the law blameless i excelled beyond everyone they got the guy here standing here who could explain the law apply the law preach the law and he thought lived the law the guy fascinating moment what paul used to do was the law says this there are 613 commandments here is the law and if you want to be a faithful son of israel if you want to keep the covenant here is what the righteous Israelite life is to be and everyone sits back and says yeah that's exactly right that's exactly right and then you know that they had had overburdened the people by adding to this and adding to this so that you had later the Mishnah and the Babylonian Talmud and layers of stuff now guarding the law more commands more commands more stuff to do now it's kind of helpful to take a moment and think well is this a lot different from modern day christianity huh what is the modern day worship today among christians well they didn't they were a little more reverent they didn't have bands right they um they took they took very seriously coming before the holy God of Israel. We walk into church today, what do we expect? I'm not talking about maybe the Escondido URC. I'm just thinking church as American does church. We don't quote the Shema. We don't really read the law anymore. But what happens in a reading? Well, a pastor stands up. Maybe you'll get an explanation of a passage, right? But in all cases, the heart of the message is going to be, here's how you can be a faithful son of Jesus. Here's how you can live the life. Here's how you can really live the Christian life. And the impression is given, after the guy has all his little antidotes of how to do this, After a nice explanation of morality, how to live, what to do, everyone walks out, grabs their coffee, and says, yeah, yeah, we'll do that. We'll try. Or maybe they say nothing. What did it do? It's a casual morality today, isn't it? It's a casual morality. This was more of a formal morality. We got the casual morality. if the church is the place where the Word of God is proclaimed, the heart of the Word's message to us, what the Lord wants to say to us, must be central, right? It's not just a loosely connected series of to-dos. I remember years ago, and I've used this before, and you've probably heard it before, but somebody said to me in my training for ministry, they said, Chris, just remember, it was an elder, He said, if your sermon could be preached in a Jewish synagogue, it's not Christian. I just thought, that's really true. If I could preach my sermon in a Jewish synagogue and everyone said in my exposition of the law, amen, good job, does not mean it's Christian. So today we're happy by saying the little phrase, well, I'm just glad people are in church. we have to ask the question, what is the message of the church? So here we are. What does Paul do? Remember, again, he had killed Stephen over a certain message. The question is, will he now do the same thing? And so Paul waves his hand. I want the mic. Men of Israel, and you who fear God, listen. He looked out and he realized that these were those who knew the scriptures. His approach will be different with the same goal when he talks to the Gentiles out in Acts 17 and in other places. But now he's looking at people who know the scripture. He's looking at people who know the word of God, who've handled the Old Testament stories, who've read the Old Testament stories, whose parents have explained the Old Testament stories to their kids. These are the people. Where do you start? What do you do? The God of this people Israel chose our fathers and made the people great during their stay in the land of Egypt, and with a lifted arm he led them out of it. And for about 40 years he put up with them in the wilderness, and after destroying seven nations in the land of Canaan, he gave them their land as an inheritance. All this took about 450 years, and after that he gave them judges until samuel the prophet then they asked for a king and god gave them saul the son of kish a man of the tribe of benjamin for 40 years and when he removed him he raised up david to be their king of whom he testified and said i have found in david the son of jesse a man after my heart who will do all my will what is he doing so my it's amazing when you think this is the holy spirit now given by inspiration the spirit paul's first sermon the study in the first part of the sermon what did he just do he overwhelmed them with the character of god this is exactly what we did this morning this is exactly what we saw this morning in the way that god treated abraham what was god like to them well something drove god's works toward them he rehearses all the history of the lord bringing them out of egypt and how after that through all the struggle he raised up judges and kings for them what drove him what drove god the promise did you see it there in verse 23 as he promised again the promise is driving your god as it was to drive abraham he's doing what he promised the history was driven by promise and and then and then paul in the midst of this again raises Abraham brothers and sons of the family of Abraham their history was rooted in promise everything God did was because of that promise so think of the the blessings being enumerated here and given to us here God chose you uh when when our people went down to Egypt he flourished them and you've read about his power and his uplifted arm that delivered them and he he cared for them in the wilderness and gave them land and he drove out seven nations for them and and then he gave them the inheritance and then he gave them judges and he gave them kings and then he raised up david you have one conclusion to this is any of that negative that is a remarkable story of god's goodness what didn't he do for them you'll notice the phrase in verse 18 i don't think our translation's right in the esv at all he put up with them in the wilderness paul is quoting deuteronomy 1 31 and i want you to listen to it listen to this the lord your god who goes before you will himself fight for you just as he did for you in egypt before your eyes and in the wilderness where you have seen how the Lord your God put up with you, no, carried you. That's a much better variant, carried. This is what Paul is in his mind. He starts with the magnificent care of the Lord in delivering Israel from out of Egypt and preserving them, fulfilling His word to them of promise, giving them the land. you can never read in any place that His love for Israel was driven by anything in them. In fact, the opposite is even though they provoked Him in every way, the truth is before us that He fed them, He flourished them, He saved them, He encouraged them, He delivered them, He gave everything that He said He would do and promised. And even when they rejected him, he gave them a king. This is the truth. This is the picture. What God has ever been like this to his people? Here's the problem tonight. Israel was not reading the Bible this way. Israel was not reading the Bible this way. What did the Lord have to specifically tell Israel when he did all this for them? Don't say in your hearts after the Lord your God has thrust them out from before you, the nations. It's because of my righteousness that the Lord has brought me in to possess this land. Now here you have Jewish synagogue sermons. And they're all sitting around and they're expounding the Torah. And they're telling everyone how to keep the law. Did they not listen to Israel's history? How did Israel do with the law? Well, I don't need to make all that point tonight. What Paul is saying here is you've missed the gracious response of the Lord over and over and over. In fact, Deuteronomy 1.31, right after that he said he carried them. Yet in spite of this word, you did not believe the Lord your God. So it didn't take long, Paul, to get to the heart of it, did it? What was the heart of it? Well, he said, of this man's offspring, David, God has brought Israel a Savior, Jesus. Brothers, sons of the family of Abraham, among those whom you who fear God, to us has been sent the message of this salvation. Why did God raise up this nation? Why did God do all these wonderful works? Why did He care for them? Jesus. His love for them was bound up in His Son. And He had promised Abraham this very promise that Jesus would come and that from His loins the Savior would come and He would deliver and He would die. It's all His story. The problem is Israel wouldn't see it. Israel wouldn't listen to it. John the Baptist came preaching a message of repentance leading to him and they still didn't listen. Because they did not recognize. Notice what he says here. They did not recognize him nor understand the utterances of the prophets which are read every Sabbath fulfilled them by condemning him. They had carried out all that was written of him. They took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb but god raised him from the dead so here's here's his point well wow they killed him not knowing the old testament was prophesying the whole thing had they known what the scriptures were talking about they would have known it was all about him but they wouldn't listen to him they wouldn't see jesus so then when the event happened they killed him the story of the old testament is a story telling us of God's goodness to bring forth Jesus. And when Israel didn't listen, they ended up crucifying Him. And yet, that was always God's plan written down in the Scriptures from the beginning to raise Him up and to bring to you great joy today. Remember I said Paul was disciplined to get to the heart of things in the ministry, the bigger questions of life and existence, and what matters most. What's the heart of it all? Circle it tonight. You've got it right here. You've come to it. And we bring you, notice this in verse 32, the good news that what God promised to the fathers, this He has fulfilled to us, their children, by raising Jesus, as also it is written in the second psalm, you are my son. Today I've begotten you. And as for the fact that he raised him from the dead, no more to return to corruption, he has spoken in this way, I will give you the holy and sure blessings of David. Therefore, he says in another psalm, you will not let your holy one see corruption. For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep and was laid with his fathers and saw corruption. But he whom God raised did not see corruption. Here it is, 38. Let it be known to you, therefore. Brothers, that through this man, forgiveness of sins is being proclaimed to you. And by him, everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses. I wish the ESV would have just translated it as they should. as the word is in Greek. Listen to it. Through this man, forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and by him, everyone who believes is justified. From everything, you could not be justified by the law of Moses. Paul's preaching justification right here. First sermon. What do you do with that? I find it absolutely remarkable that the heart of your God is to proclaim to you not a series of morals just to clean up life, but to announce to you who really know who you are, know what you've done. Your sins can be forgiven. That's wonderful. This God is that good to us. We're bringing something to you, says Paul. Psalm 2, 16, everywhere it was talking about this. Everything in the Old Testament was talking about this. Let it be heard through this man, the central story, the heart of the Bible. Your sins can be forgiven. It's overwhelming when you think of God's goodness. For this is exactly what he was teaching Abraham this morning. Through this story, your sins need to be forgiven. That's how desperate the situation is. They need to be forgiven. And the whole Bible is given to tell you this, to assure you of this. But you see, the effect of this tonight is to say, Israel didn't listen to that. They rolled their eyes at that. They yawned at that. They thought, oh, let's move on to something else. And Paul gives a severe warning here. but beware lest what is said in the prophet should come about look you scoffers be astounded and perish for i'm doing a work in your days a work that you will not believe even if one tells it to you the great heir of israel is god sent the prophets early and they proclaimed this message and the people didn't listen you get a sense they rolled their eyes they yawned through it they said we don't need this said what good is it to come to church to hear this their attitudes were terrible to god and his word but here's the fact this is where the text presses us to response did you see what happened though elsewhere as they went out the people begged that these things might be told to them the next sabbath i wish we all had that attitude i wish i had that attitude you know would you speak more to us about this would you unfold this great plan of god for us would you labor to show us from the scriptures all the things concerning his son? Would you care to tell me more about my forgiveness of sins? Please! What happened? The message had so cut to the heart. The next day, Luke may being a little dramatic here, the whole city came out to hear. The whole city came out to hear. I can't even imagine that opportunity. I'd love that opportunity to preach to Escondido the forgiveness of sins, you know? Would you pray for that? Guess what happened? The Jews who, some of them responded well, when they saw the Gentiles standing there, they said, forget it. Filled with rage, filled with jealousy. What did they do? They were furious and they began to persecute them. Paul says it was necessary that the word of God be spoken first to you since you thrust it aside and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life. Behold, we're turning to the Gentiles for so, and now we're fulfilling Abraham. The Lord has commanded us saying, I have made you a light for the Gentiles that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth. And when the Gentiles heard this, verse 48, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord. And as many as were appointed to eternal life believe. Don't miss that. At the end of the day, anyone who comes, anyone who follows, anyone who believes has been appointed. Appointed by God Himself. He will have His people. He will have all the sons of Abraham come. They will be there. They will come with joy at this message. They will hear, they will respond because they've been appointed. It's the reason we believe in election. There's a reason we believe in a sovereign God. Acts is full of theology. I think that's the most glorious verse. For tonight, if you share in the joy of the announcement that your sins are forgiven, as I see so many eager sheep here who come back every week to hear the gospel, think of what's just been said to you. God appointed you to eternal life. Does that get any better? He appointed you. You didn't appoint yourself. God appointed you. This is the gospel He's been telling you. That's how good He's been to you. God chooses you for salvation. God blesses you with it. And His whole plan in the hardening of the hearts of the Jews was to bring you in so that you might respond this way to the gospel. Are you going to leave here with joy tonight? Thankful to the God of your salvation for being so good to you in Jesus and making this message known to you? Your sins are forgiven. Your sins are forgiven. You hear him? Let that take you into another week of life and forever. That's his intention for you. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for giving us such a glorious text to show us what's your desire in preaching. That your people would hear of your wonderful Son, see His work everywhere, and glorify their Father in Heaven for so great a salvation. Begging to have this Gospel preached. And of course, Lord, we don't ever want to be like the Jews in response. Or we're prone to it. Of easily complaining and not even wanting to hear this message. But we think better things, O Lord, of those whom you have appointed. That they will respond with great joy. That they will hear your word. That they will be satisfied in the Lord their God. And that they will respond with great joy in the announcement that the Son of God was risen from the dead to forgive their sins. Praise the name of the Lord from this time forward and forevermore. From the rising of the sun to its setting, the name of the Lord is to be praised. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.