Synagogue Sermon - Acts 13:13-52, pt 1

we take things nice and slowly as we look and see what God is doing in the big picture of expanding the gospel from Jerusalem to Judea and to Samaria and to the ends of the earth. My name is David Humphrey and I'm the pastoral care and missions pastor here at United City Church in Umber, Texas. We're excited to be your church family while you're incarcerated, but we're going to be even more excited when you get out and you can come and be a part of our church in person. We love you very much. Please grab your Bible and a journal, perhaps a pen, and be ready to take some notes, and let's learn together through the book of Acts. We're joining us tonight. Thank you so much. I got a room full of people that want to say hello. Yeah, there they are. You can't see them, but I promise I see them and there they are. And they're amazing. We are in Acts chapter 13 tonight. If you were here last week with Paul, he told quite a story. This Bible just never gets boring, does it? As he was talking about this miraculous encounter where Saul filled with the Holy Spirit called a magician, a son of the devil, and an enemy of all righteousness full of deceit and all villainy. You know, that's what the Holy Spirit might lead you to say. He couldn't quite stomach how the magician was trying to lead people away from Jesus. And so he called him down. He called down blindness upon him. Remember that? Wow. Be careful. When you're going against the Word of God. And so not only did the Proconsul see and believe, I just have a feeling. He probably wasn't the only one that saw that year before and came to believe. Tonight, I want us to begin in verse 13. And this is a long passage because it's one big passage. We're going to read the rest of chapter 13. You can imagine there's no way we're going to. This is going to be one of those multi week sermons that we're going to be unpacking. But I want us to read it in its entirety and sort of see the context for it starting in verse 13. So that's where it begins and says verse 13. Now Paul and his companions set sail from Papos came to Perga in Pamphylia. John left them and returned to Jerusalem, but they went on from Perga and came to Antioch in Pecidia. And on the Sabbath day, they went into the synagogue and sat down. After the reading from the law and the prophets, the rulers of the synagogue sent a message to them saying, brothers, if you have any word of 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. 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. 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 samples of whose feet I am not worthy to untie. Brothers, sons of the family of Abraham, and those among you who fear God, to us has been sent the message of this salvation. For those who live in Jerusalem and their rulers, because they did not recognize him nor understand the utterances of the prophets, which are read every Sabbath, fulfilled them by condemning him. And though they found in him no guilt worthy of death, they asked Pilate to have him executed, and when they had carried out all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb. But God raised him from the dead, and from many days he appeared to those who had come up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are now his witnesses to the people. We bring you the good news that what God promised to the fathers, this he has fulfilled to us, their children, by raising Jesus. As also it is written in the second Psalm, you are my son. Today I have begotten you. And as for the fact that he raised him from the dead, no more to return to corruption, he has spoken in this way. I will give you the holy and sure blessings of David. Therefore he says also in another Psalm, you will not let your holy one see corruption.

For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, up did not seek corruption, let it be known to you therefore brothers that through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and by him everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses. Beware therefore lest what is said in the prophets should come about, look you scoffers, be astounded in 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 crowns they were filled with jealousy and began to contradict what was spoken about Paul reviling him, and Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly saying it was necessary that the word of God be spoken first to you. Since you thrust it aside and judge yourselves unworthy of a lot 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 districts, 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. What a story, huh? It's going to take a while to unpack this story, but I wanted us to see it, you know, we've talked about one of the important principles when you were trying to understand the Bible is to read the context, and you also like, it's wonderful to read a verse or two in the Bible. I do that sometimes, but friends, you cannot feel or understand what the Bible is teaching

you if you don't read it in the context. It's like watching a little scene in a movie, but not watching the whole movie, so this is an entire thing, of course, this takes place over not just one sermon, but another, and we're going to unpack them one at a time, but I just wanted you to see, and not just to see, but to hear it in the way it came out, because we will, you know how we're going to do, we're going to take it verse by verse, we're going to pick it apart, we're going to look at it one step at a time and one word at a time, but it wasn't, it didn't come out in that way. It came out just like Pastor Brian McCormick on Sunday morning, gave us a message straight from the Word of God that we want to see the context of all of that. So very, very powerful, and wasn't that sermon on Sunday powerful? Wow, what a great preacher, aren't you thankful for a young man in this generation who is just re raising up the Word of God and teaching it strongly? So I want us to just look at this and see some things, because when we look at the very beginning, uh, right there in verse 13, we see that a, a switch has been flipped in the narrative. I want to explain to you what I mean by that, because the very first five words here are now Paul and his companions. So the switch that's flipped is that just a, just last week, it was all about Saul and Barnabas. But I don't know if you noticed Dr. Luke in verse nine, that's when he flipped the switch. Look over, look back at verse nine, but Saul, who was also called Paul filled with the Holy Spirit, looked, looked intently at him and he goes on. So it's just like Luke has decided, okay, I'm going to flip it because I know you've been wondering, wait, wasn't this, who's Saul and who's Paul and gets kind of confusing sometimes, and it's very common for us to, to think that Saul, because he had such a dramatic conversion that, you know, he was Saul and then he became Paul at the Damascus Road. But that's not exactly how the scripture plays it out. Let's look at it together a little bit, um, Saul, just for a point of interest, was his

Hebrew name. Anybody remember what tribe he was from of the 12? Benjamin. Okay. I'm a Benjamin. So often in these earlier stories in the book of Acts, he's called Saul. Often he is speaking to, or this is in a Jewish context. Now Paul was his Latin Roman name, so his Gentile name. If you remember just a few chapters ago, we said that the story has now taken a turn. And the rest of the book of Acts is not just about the j- Are the Jews included? Yes, they can hear the message. We want everybody to hear the message. Nobody is excluded, but they're working to move towards these who have not yet heard, and that was the Gentiles. So anybody remember, just as a little trivia piece, the prominent Gentile who was one of the first in Acts to believe. Anybody remember? Don't be afraid to say it starts with a C, ends with Cornelius. Yeah, Cornelius, very good luck, you guys. Help, y'all pick that right up. You remember? Yeah, so Cornelius was one of the first. Remember, he was ready there with his household, and remember Peter went in, and they were like, wait, can you go in here and remember the sheets and the whole thing? That's when we started turning the page

in the story of the book of Acts. Well, now that Paul is on the scene, I mean, it's gonna be Gentiles all the way, because Paul was known as the apostle to the Gentiles. He had a special calling from God to reach out to them. So again, he did not become Paul on the road to Damascus. He did become a citizen of heaven, okay? But he remained Saul, and here we're gonna start to see everything's gonna be Paul from here on out. So that's just the way he's called, but really you can use that interchangeably. There's nothing wrong with calling him Saul or Paul. So here's one of the things that's a little bit interesting. Not only did the narrative switch a little bit from this whole Paul and Barnabas thing, it was Saul and Barnabas in the last narrative. Now it's Paul and Barnabas is a little heading I've got, but verse 13, it's just Paul and his companions. So I don't know if Barnabas sort of got, he didn't get kicked to the side yet, but that's gonna happen in chapter 15. Not kicked to the side, but they're gonna go there in a separate ways, which we'll talk about in just a minute. But Luke, here's what's happening. Every choice that the Holy Spirit inspires Luke is an intentional choice. And the intentional choice of Paul and his companions, Paul is beginning to be a more elevated and more central character in the rest of the narrative.

Okay? So I want you to see that, you're gonna notice he's gonna be talked about a lot. Something interesting happens here, if we watch, look at verse 13 again, Paul and his companions set sail from Papos, where they were last week, came to Parga in Pamphylia, John left them and returned to Jerusalem. Okay, does anybody remember which John this is? John Mark, okay, very good. So John Mark has now departed. Now something to note about this is when you read that, you think, okay, well, I wonder why? That's a very good question. We don't know why John Mark left. We're gonna hear about John Mark leaving a little bit later. That's gonna be a month or so down the road. Who knows how long that's gonna be? But it's actually in Acts 15. So I want us to just glance over there because this mention here actually is brought back up. And it's in Acts chapter 15, verses 36 through 41. I just alluded to this a second ago. But look at what it says, after some days, again, Acts 15 verse 36, after some days, Paul said to Barnabas, let us return and visit the brothers in every city where we proclaim the word of the Lord

and see how they are. Barnabas wanted to take with them John called Mark. But Paul thought best not to take with them one who had withdrawn from them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work. There arose a sharp disagreement so that they separated from each other. Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed to Cyprus, but Paul chose Silas and departed, having been commended by the brothers to the grace of the Lord. And he went through Syria and Solisia strengthening the churches. Now, the reason why I brought that up now, is I just want you to see that this was just a little, little aside, it didn't look like much going on, but there was actually something to this. Again, we don't have any more details than what we were given in Acts 15. We don't know, perhaps Mark just got burnt out. Perhaps Mark got homesick. I'm literally just guessing it reasons 'cause the scripture doesn't make it explicit. Maybe he was tired, but whatever happened, Paul didn't appreciate it. - He was fairly young, wouldn't he? - Yes, John Mark was young. Maybe he was homesick, we just don't know, but there was something with it that just didn't sit quite right with Paul.

Okay, and that's what we read in Acts 15. So, I just want us to remember when we read these stories, that every one of these that seemed to be these heroes of the faith, they're just people. Okay, who knows, maybe they had a blow up. I don't know what happened, but for some reason, John Mark said "I'm headed back." Maybe he just got discouraged. Maybe he got worn out. We just don't know, but something didn't quite sit right with Paul, and it was enough that it didn't sit right that he was like, "I don't want to work with John Mark anymore. I've kind of had my fill with John Mark, and Barnabas, if you want to work with him, that'll be great. God bless you, and go on your journey. I've got somebody else over here that I can work with." Okay? So I just want you to see there's interpersonal conflict going on here, and that's just a little small piece of the narrative that you have to kind of work your way around. So I want us to look a little bit further at verses 14 and 15 and see exactly where they're going and what they're doing here. So if you look at verses 14 and 15, it says, "They went on from Perga and came to Antioch in Pecidia." And so that location is about 135 miles inward in the region. You're going to be familiar with this region. I'm going to say this, and you're going to go, "Oh, I've heard of that, Galatia. Why do you know the region of Galatia? The book of Galatians, which was written by the apostle Paul, okay? So he later is going to write back to people in this region. But Antioch was a city in the region of Galatia, so just to put all of that together. And then every missionary has a strategy. Okay?

When we got commissioned to go by the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention 20-something years ago and we moved to Recife de Brazil, we didn't just show up and say, "Well, let's go. We'll figure it out when we get here." No, we had a missional strategy. And our strategy was we went and we met and we saw what God was doing among some of the urban poor, because our calling and our commission by our mission board was to plant churches among the urban poor. But except we weren't going to plant them, we were going to train church planters. We were going to train Brazilians to plant churches among the urban poor. And yes, some of y'all know I've told the story. We just recently got to go back to Recife and one of the churches that was a part of that planting is going strong. So our missional strategy was go, meet these Brazilians, train them and get them up and going and then we would go on our way. What do we see here was Paul's missional strategy when you start in the middle of verse 14? On the Sabbath day, they went into the synagogue and sat down. Guys, this is not just, they're just going to happen, stance, go to have a nice time of worship. This is a missional strategy and does it sound familiar? Oh, it sounds a lot like Jesus, doesn't it? Jesus spent a lot of time in the synagogue. Why would the synagogue be a strategic place to reach people? Okay, people are seeking God, okay? You may not agree with the way they're seeking God. You may think they don't have the full story of the God that they're seeking. But friends, they already have hearts that are open to God, okay? So part of Paul's strategy was to take the Jesus approach. Always a good, by the way, let's just say that's always a good strategy. Follow the Jesus method and you're not going to go wrong.

So they would go into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and in the synagogue, there was a flow. Now I know you guys generally, you can walk into our services and you have a general idea of what the flow is going to be. It might be a little different, but usually we're going to start, there'll be an upbeat song. Anybody know that's what, right? It's going to be something kind of get our blood pumping and whatever. Then there's sometimes there might be a few songs, somebody's going to speak, we're going to welcome the vision. We know the flow of how it's going to roll, right? Eventually there'll be a time of prayer. Y'all probably noticed we've moved something in the flow recently, offering at the end. Okay? So see, you can change your flow. Okay, there's nothing particularly more biblical about offering at the beginning or offering at the end, which is whatever works. So that's the flow that we're using. But in the synagogue, there was a flow, okay? And we can see a little bit of the flow right here. So we can learn what it was like to be in the synagogue, okay? The synagogue always started with some opening prayers. Then they did a reading from, what do you think? The law and the prophets. And so the Torah is what we would say is the law and then some from the prophets. Some of you may have been in a church tradition in which there was always more Bible reading. Like maybe there was a reading from the Old Testament or a New Testament reading. I grew up, some of you guys know this, I grew up in the United Methodist Church. reading. That may or may not be correlated specifically with the sermon. It was just a way of exalting the Word of God, listening to a little bit more and

sometimes people would do that. So we took that from this the way the synagogue was doing it, right? They would read some from the law and you can see that's what it says here. After the reading from the law in the prophets, okay? The next step was the reading from the prophets. Then an educated person generally would speak on subjects related to the reading. So that translates for us into the preaching of the Word. But the way the synagogue flowed, it was like that. There was not like an altar call at the end at the synagogue, okay? That's not the way their flow worked. But Paul gets an opportunity here and look what happens. I kind of feel like Paul's like, well I thought you'd never ask, right? There's Paul, you know, he goes in the Sabbath day, went in, sat down so he's just participating. You know, I'm just gonna listen. What's going on? Yeah, there's the prayers, then there's the reading from the law, then there's reading from the prophets, then somebody sent a message and said, hey brothers, if you have any word of encouragement for the people, say it. Paul's like, here we go. Paul always had a word, okay? And he's got quite a masterful word here. I mean, the Holy Spirit has inspired him and he is flowing in the Holy Spirit. And so I want us to notice how he begins this because really, verses 16 all the way down to about verse 23 is a really masterful storytelling method. It reminds me of another person's method that he used earlier in the book of Acts. What does it remind you of? Peter, okay? We've had to spend several weeks in a couple of the messages that Peter gave because what Peter did is he was helping the people understand how Jesus is the fulfillment of the Old Testament. He's trying to help them understand this is not a bunch of stories, this is one story. And the main character of the story is not you. It is Jesus, okay? So that's the thrust, that's where Paul's going on this. And so as you look at verse, starting in verse 17 or so, he begins by saying, well, let's look back at verse 16 because I like his little, his little flourish in the beginning. Paul stood up and motioning with his hand. Wonder what, wonder what he did with his hand? Anybody got any ideas? I think he's like, everybody, you know, I don't know if he did the break dance or something, but he gave some kind of big motion with his hand. And so

I just, I just picture Paul just being very, you know what I mean, very forthright. Sometimes you've seen a preacher that's kind of, you know, mild mannered. I just don't picture Paul as being a mild mannered preacher. I picture him as speaking with bold authority with the conviction of the Holy Spirit. Yes, sir. I'm fairly certain that the rabbis that asked him to speak had no idea. Yeah, I don't know what they thought they were doing because they got, you know, brothers, if you have a word of encouragement. So, so they're, you know, they're like, here comes Paul. So I don't really know what, you know, Paul was a person who, of course, not particularly in this region, but I mean, he was a person. He was not like a, I mean, he was a prodigy. You know, we've talked about the fact that Paul from an early age had the hand of God on him and had some of the best teachers in all Israel. So I don't know if any of that was known by these people, but nonetheless, he stands up and here's what he says, men of Israel and you who fear God, listen. Now, let's pause a second because when he makes that, he's saying that he's addressing specifically two groups of people, two different groups of people. When he says men of Israel, who is he addressing? He's addressing the Jews. When he says you who fear God. Yeah, he's basically recognizing there are people in the midst of this gathering who are almost certainly Gentiles, but who are what they would might call God-fearers or just they, they respect the traditions, admired the Jewish traditions, but they have not, for instance, they've not chosen circumcision. They've not chosen all of the outward expressions of Judaism, but they had a, they had a reverence for it. So now when you start to look at the way he tells this story, when you look at verses 17 all the way down to probably all the way down to verse 23, there is one main character who is the agent. So when you talk about the agent, it's the one who is doing all of the action. It is God. Guys, I want you, so one of the things that I have learned in learning some things about inducted Bible study, Inductive Bible study is just helping kind of pick it apart. A lot of what we do in here is an inductive approach to Bible study. One of the top things when I first learned about, gosh, 30-something years ago, from

a young man who was so full of the Word of God, I never met anybody liking his name was Nathan, and I was said, "Nathan, I don't know what it is about you and the Word, but teach me how to learn the Word like you." He had just learned how to do inductive Bible study. So he taught me some principles. One of the principles that I've learned in inductive Bible study is if there is a list to be made, make it. Because what it gets you to do is you're interacting with the material. So as I was looking at this passage, I started making a list of all the things that he said God did. So I just want to give that to you because so you don't have to come to a room to somebody with a microphone to study the Word of God. You open up this Bible and you say, "Holy Spirit of God, I want to know you and I want to know your Word." And then you can use some of these tools like if there's something that sort of repeats, right? Or if there's lists to be made. This is a great spot to make some lists. So I want us to sort of think about this list together to help you in your understanding. So the first thing God did in verse 17 is what? He chooses and who does he choose? Their fathers. See what Paul's doing? Paul is taking the same approach that Peter took. He is saying it is our. See when I say things like us and we and our, we're inclusive, right? We're all in this thing together. When I say you do this and I do this, that feels like I can do things that you can do. But see, Paul is using inclusive language. So he goes on and he says, "The God of this people Israel chose our fathers."

So the first thing he did, he chose our fathers. Look at the second thing he did. What do you do? It's right after that. He made them great. Well, let's think about how he made them great. They're slaves. That doesn't feel very great. Yeah, he multiplied them. That's how he made them great. They took him at his word because, you know, God said, "Be fruitful and multiply." And boy, they started multiplying and then the Egyptians got there like, wow, they just keep growing. They're like, they're just popping up everywhere, like rabbits. And so remember? I mean, that's literally what it was like. The Egyptians were feeling, they were feeling intimidated because they kept growing because see, they believed even in slavery that children are blessing from the Lord. And we don't have to wait until we get our 401(k) at a certain level. No, we just, so they were just like, "God, give us children." And so God made them great, like great in number specifically. And then what's the next thing that he says God did? God led them out. Do you see that? In one sentence, God did three different things. And if you just go through this really fast, you'd say, "Oh, yeah, when we know that, we know that." But God led them out. Did he say that Moses led them out? He led them out.

You see, God is the one, and I like the way he says that he led them out with an uplifted arm. Who had the uplifted arm? Was it Moses? No. No, it's God. You see, Moses, just like we're talking about these surgeons and things, Moses was an instrument. God was the one that opened the Red Sea, Moses didn't open the Red Sea, we know that. God did it. Moses didn't lead them out of Egypt. God did it. His arm went up. He was representing God. So God led them out with an uplifted arm. And then it goes on to say, "What did God do next?" He put up with them. I just think that's it. It's just like kids. Absolutely. Sometimes that's all you can do is just put up with them, right? Because they're just not going to act right, and they're not going to do what you told them to do, and they're not going to sit still, and they're not going to keep their room clean. And they're not going, I mean, that's just kids, and you have to see the Father looking at these kids like God. So we just put up with them. For 40 years, He put up with them in the wilderness. Then what did God do next? He destroyed seven nations in the land of Canaan. God's God is doing every single thing that's being listed. It's just God moving.

God did this. God destroyed seven nations in Canaan and gave that land to His whiny kids that were driving Him crazy in the wilderness. I don't know if you're also noticing what He's doing as He's piecing all of these stories together, which each one is a wonderful story in its own right. But you see, He's literally giving five words to the story of the Exodus. Did you know you can do the same thing? You know the stories, but what I hope that we're learning in this space and even as we are in such good preaching in this in this house of God, I hope that you're learning that they all weave together. Guys, it's one continuous story. And so it is an art form to learn how to piece it together. The Holy Spirit was certainly speaking through Paul. So he's just, I mean, he's just moving so quickly. I mean, like he's been through two books of the Bible, right? And about, you know, 25 words. So look what happened next. He destroyed seven nations in the land of Canaan, gave them their land as an inheritance and all this took about 450 years. So that's 450 years and about 25 words. You see, he just, he just summarized it all and it says, after that, God continues as the agent here. Okay. So what is God doing next? What did he do? He gave them judges. Okay. There's a whole book called judges, right? About the judges that came along and then what did he give them? Gave them a king. Why did he give them a king? Because they wanted one. How did that go? Not very well.

He's like, okay, you want that? All right. Let's see how that goes. And he gave them what they asked for and didn't work out well. Then God, then what did God do next? He removed him. He's like, okay, I can give him. I can remove him. You see, when we take our time, guys, this is just teaching us about what God, God is the one acting. God is the one moving the pieces. God is the one raising up Kings. God's the one that's opposing Kings. Then God raised up somebody else. David, a man after his own heart. Okay. So we see God is the one moving. Then God brought Israel who a savior from David's offspring. Now we just took a big jump way, but as you remember, if you if you read, we're going to take a little foray here. He's going to get back to Jesus in a minute. Then he's going to go back to the Old Testament again. He's going to. So you see how he's sort of jumping in and showing because right now he's going to spend some time highlighting Jesus, but the introduction to Jesus here. Then in this verse is that basically what happened was he raised up verse 22 when he had removed him that, of course, he saw he raised up David to be there. King of him, he testified and said, I found 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. How has he promised Paul is taking time for to help them see just like God promised. He did it. Everything God did was the promise that he was keeping and look how he ties Jesus to David and brings him to them. He says from this man, David's offspring.

God has brought to Israel a savior. Jesus as he promised you. I don't know if you guys remember this, but I used to think genealogies were really boring and they're not really fun to read sometimes because you can't read all the names and you don't know how to say them and all that. But guys, you know, the genealogies, even themselves are just absolute breathtaking. Did you know that Luke's genealogy traces Jesus through to the line of David through Mary? I bet you can guess who Matthew's genealogy traces through David through who Joseph, although it's interesting because, you know, there's no, no, Joseph's blood flowing through Jesus. But he came from the line of David on both sides and Matthew chose to trace it back one way. Luke chose to trace it back another way. All of those things are important. Jesus was born in the city of David. He is of the line of David. Guys, that was a super important piece as Paul is putting this out there. This is like an apologetic sermon. You know what I mean when I say apologetic? What does that mean? He's not apologizing. Yeah, he's proving who Jesus is. He's helping them understand with things that they do have an understanding of. Like they knew David was. They knew who they knew about the line of David. They knew about all of those things. He said, hey, Jesus, this is where he came in. And this is how he fits with the storyline so far. And then he goes into this will be the last little bit that I want us to look at tonight is versus 24 and 25. Because what he does now is he backs up a minute, just just a minute because he wants to make a little point here. He says before his coming, that's the coming of. John had proclaimed a baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel. You notice who was the Savior sent to Israel? You see it?

Who was John the Baptist proclaiming the baptism of repentance to Israel? You see how he's tying them and he's helping them see? This was a message for you. And then I love this. I love this term right here. 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 his feet, I'm not worthy to untie. So this language about John here where it says finishing his course, I don't know if you've ever noticed this. That's an interesting story all in itself. I'm going to make this really fast. If you don't mind me chasing a rabbit trail, because I just-- I really like this language. The Bible uses the language of running one's course often. We see it, Psalm 19 is my favorite, although it's not the most common one. Psalm 19 verse 4 says, "In the heavens," he-- that's God-- "has pitched a tent for the sun, and like a bridegroom emerging from his chamber, like a champion rejoicing to run his course. It rises at one end of the heavens, and runs its circuit to the other." So you might not have thought about that as this whole running the course. I'm going to tie this together for you just a second. Second Timothy 4 7 is one well-known New Testament example.

It is Paul, who is writing to his young prodigy in the faith, Timothy. And somebody reads 2 Timothy 4 7. "If I fought the good fight, I had finished the course. I kept the faith." You see Paul using that language of his course? Listen, I could take you three or four other places where this idea of finishing our course is. But he uses this language Paul does of John when he said, as John was finishing his course. I want us to think about how John finished his course. It was bloody. John finished his course. But you know, remember the sermon from Sunday morning? I love that closing illustration. When he talked about when we go through death, we just walk by and give him a high five, and we're headed right on. You see, we'll finish our course one day, but death has no sting. Grave has no victory for us, okay? Because we can rejoice like a champion running our course because when we get to the end of our course, it is, thank the Lord, I'm headed for home. And I'm just gonna see you later, death. So in life and in death, John did not want glory. Look at what it says here, as John was finishing his course. His course was shorter than he probably thought it was gonna be. But he was saying, no, not me. After me, somebody's coming.

And I'm not even worthy to untie his sandals. That was a common phrase used for a rabbi and his followers. There were certain things that his followers would do for the rabbi, but that was beneath even the lowest follower. That's why it's so cold when Jesus washed everything. I know, Jesus, it was not beneath Jesus. But John says, I'm not even worthy to untie Jesus' sandal. I love the statement that John makes. It's not in this passage, but in John chapter three, verse 30 is my first favorite statement by John the Baptist, where he said, he must become greater. I must become less. Another version says, he must increase. I must decrease. And guys, if that's not a lesson for us, that is a lesson from the life of John. That needs to be your life motto. Jesus increasing, me decreasing. More glory for him, less glory for me. Guys, that's a great, great model. So I wanted us to see this because this is-- we're really gonna get into the beauty of Jesus next week and all the things that he talks about, the salvation of Jesus. But guys, this is the setting. Remember how we've been talking about beholding the land of God? We've been talking about the setting for the beauty of Jesus just so we can see more of him? This is the setting that Paul gave.

before he really launches in, to more about Jesus is that John's just saying, it's not about me, it's about him. So this is a beautiful and a powerful sermon. I wish I could have heard it in Paul's voice. And if I could preach it like him, I would, but we will next week jump right into the following verses and we'll just see how far we go. But he's gonna really begin to talk a lot about what Jesus did and how he did it and why he did it. And Paul's gonna really just go strong in that direction. So before we close in prayer, and I'll give you guys just a few minutes to talk to one another and just share something that God spoke out to you. I want it just to close us. And what I want us to look at and talk about with one another is what stood out to you tonight that perhaps just really got your attention. So I want you to just take a minute to have some table time and to talk with your friends about that, but let's close this in a word of prayer. Abba Father, we just love you. We love the way you communicate with us. We're so grateful for how you sent your son Jesus. We're so grateful God that you called out Saul and God that you set his, literally knocked him blind and then opened his eyes so that he could see the glory of Jesus Christ and God so that he could help us to see the glory of Jesus.

God, we Gentiles who have come into the faith, Lord, but it was a faith once and for all given to the saints. And we're so grateful for it, Lord. I just pray your blessings over every conversation that we have God over these mission teams that are going out in the coming days. God, we just pray that you would be magnified in Jesus name. Amen. So I encourage you to circle up at your table for a few minutes before we're done tonight. And then when you are done, you'll be dismissed. Thanks again for joining us, verse by verse through the book of Acts. I hope that you have learned a lot more importantly. I hope that you'll apply these things to your life this week. Share it with a friend. Great thing for you to just have some discussion with the other people around you, share the things that God is doing in your life. Again, remember the Bible is a book about God far more than it is a book about us. So let's learn about him. Let's grow to love him more and more. Here at United City, this is not the only thing that we have on the Pando app. We would love for you to follow some of our other content. Watch some of our worship services, along with music and the messages. As well as podcasts, we've got a lot of great content and we would love for you to follow that.

And also, if you would like to be in touch with us here at United City, the best way to do that is by writing us a letter. You can address that to prison ministry at United City Church. 1-9-9-0-1 Townsend Boulevard, Umber, Texas, 7-7-3-3-8. We'll read that, we'll pray for you, and somebody will write you back. God bless you, and we'll see you in the Word. [BLANK_AUDIO]