The Adventure Begins - Ben Stuart

Well as Tony mentioned we just wrapped up love DC where yes hundreds of you mobilized throughout the city For thousands of work hours, and we also mobilized a lot of money to buy Books and backpacks and school supplies for kids various things as we just extended out to love DC as Tony mentioned I was at the unique Learning Center, and I ran a very passionate game of bingo And it was a lot of fun, but a question that would be natural to ask to an observer would be why did you do that? I remember you know we have a door holding team that cleans up trash out here on Lincoln if you ever marveled like wow these streets are clean. They didn't start that way this morning kids We have teams that they don't volunteer and pick up garbage and someone asked one of our door holders at one point Do you work for the city and he said no, and he's like then why are you picking up this trash? He said well, we're just doing it because we're gonna have church here, and he said the man said is Jesus coming And he went yeah, I mean yeah But it's also for you, right And so a natural question would be why okay? Why serve why give why do these things why move like that well? You can just back up that question and say why do people move? What gets you moving I? Would submit most of us move to get something What gets you off the couch When you're watching TV Because you want to get a snack You want to get a drink we move to get something what caused you to move to DC? It was to get a job or get a promotion or get some power get some influence get some respect around here Right many of us moved here to get something right what moved you to the city Well, it's to get some excitement get some fine dining get some music get some culture What moved you to the suburbs? To get away from the noise and to get away from the culture and to get some land and some quiet, right? What makes people move if you look through the migration patterns of humanity throughout the centuries people usually move to get? the resources the food the Opportunities their tribe their people need to survive right we move to get what we need it's only every now and again

Rarely that you'll see a mass of people move not to get but to give and that's special I'm not moving to get something. I'm moving because I got something and I got something you need and I got plenty in me It is a fountain Overwhelming me that can flow out and bless you. It's rare to see humans move not to get something but to give something In the 19th century people were moving all over the globe Grabbing resources from all different kinds of places I'm moving to different continents to get something but there were people like David Livingstone who moved to Africa not to get he said I Care not for possessions. I am here for the kingdom of Jesus and he went to Africa to give people Hope you can have a relationship with God peace with God through Jesus And he came to heal what he called the open sore of the world To try to stop the flow of slavery out of Africa at its very source, right? Jay, Oswald Sanders the great missionary statesman told the story of a friend of his who was a missionary in India And then as he moved about among his people he would travel long distances on foot to different tribes And at one point his shoes blew out, but he just kept walking showed up in a village exhausted Tired hungry, but I came to preach a message and he walked into the message to the village wanted to tell them the message Jesus they said get out of here We don't know you booed him kicked him out of town And so he went and just collapsed to sleep under a tree and when he woke up the whole village was surrounding him He thought oh, I'm in trouble and yet the chief of the village said, you know after you left we wondered what kind of man is this that would walk this far and Then we saw your feet your blistered feet and said who would who would endure that? To give us something and he said so we deduced you must be a holy man and we want to hear the message It's rare to see people mobilize to give something But I would submit to you what we're looking at now is the most powerful Significant movement in the history of planet Earth the movement of the message of Jesus That's what we see in the book of Acts What started with a handful of believers in Jerusalem will spread to Judea and Samaria and now we're gonna watch it Extend throughout the Roman Empire to the ends of the earth so that even today one-third of the globe right now Associates with the name of Jesus. There's been no historical movement like this

Why would people mobilize to take the message of? Jesus to the ends of the earth, not to get something, but because we had something to give. And where we are right now in the book of Acts is we're at the pivot point. If you were with us in season one of Acts, the first 12 chapters, season one was about the birth of the church of Jesus in Jerusalem. Now in season two, we're gonna see the growth of the church as it expands throughout the entire Roman Empire. In season one, we saw the church established, now we're gonna see the church expanded from the creation of the church to the expansion of the church. We focused on the culture, primarily at the beginning, of what the people of Jesus are like. Now we're gonna see the message of Jesus expand to multiple cultures as the gospel spreads around the world. In Acts season one, it was a lot about the apostle Peter as he helped lay the foundations of the church. Now we're gonna follow Paul as he takes the gospel to the ends of the earth. And what we're looking at today in Acts chapter 13 is the beginning of what's called the first missionary journey. In Acts chapter one, right at the beginning, Jesus said, you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

And in season one, we saw the gospel go out to Jerusalem, and Judea, and Samaria. And so the gospel was already moving out and already jumping the banks of its ethnic origins in Judea into other different ethnicities. And yet now, what we're going to see starting here is a new emphasis on gospel expansion. That suddenly we're gonna see coordinated mission trips to go extend the gospel out into the rest of the world. And we're gonna watch it happen primarily through Barnabas and Paul. And so today, we're gonna watch them go to the island of Cyprus and to modern day Turkey, right? And as we look at this, we're gonna see, really, like I said, it's a lot of verses, but it kind of breaks into three parts. I'll help you think about it. We're gonna see the missionaries commissioned. We're gonna see their mission to Cyprus. And then we're gonna hear their message as Paul preaches in Pisidian Ediac. So the missionaries, the mission, and the message. And as we do that, we've got eight points. I know some of you say, oh, no, Ben. It's supposed to be three points in a poem and we get out of here by lunch. Don't worry, we will move swiftly. We will get out by lunch. But I'm gonna give you eight points, four about the character of the movement of Jesus.

What is this that you're a part of here or participating or observing? And then four about the content of the message of Jesus. What's the message that caused this movement that has changed history and changed your story, even now, as the name of Jesus has impacted history more than any other, right? And so we're gonna look at this in three scenes as we look at, first, the four characteristics of the movement, and then four points on the content of the message. So scene one, we get the missionaries commissioned. That starts in verse one, chapter 13. Now, there were in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon, who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manan, a lifelong friend of Herod the Tetrarch, and Saul. And while they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I've called them. Then after fasting and praying, they laid their hands on them and sent them off. So in season one, we saw the church born in Jerusalem and we saw it extend to Antioch. And when we left Antioch, Paul and Barnabas had said they had planted there and they taught for a year. And then it suddenly, the spotlight swings over back to Jerusalem one last time in Acts chapter 12. And now here, one year later, the spotlight swings back. And what do we see happen?

Paul and Barnabas had been preaching there for a year. And now what do we see? Now we see a lot of prophets, a lot of teachers, and a group of people worshiping and fasting. What you see here is a church that has grown stronger as a result of Paul and Barnabas's efforts. That other leaders are rising up. That when the spotlight swung away, they faithfully remained. Now that's a different sermon for a different day, but let me encourage you. So many people right now, we wanna chase spotlights. Where's the attention? Let me try to get in the spotlight. And you see what God calls you to is plant and be faithful where you are. And the spotlight might swing away, but when it swings back, what will we see? What good did you do with what he put in your hands, right? If you're only in this city for a limited amount of time, what good will be here because you were here, right? You stay faithful where God planted you, whether the spotlight's on you or not. And so here the spotlight swings away and it comes back, and now there's a bunch of teachers. And Luke points that out to make some points about the nature of this movement. The first one is, point one, is the gospel is global. The good news of Jesus is a global message. It's not the singular possession of one race of people. Jesus is Lord of all, and you see it in these leaders.

We get Barnabas, who we've met before. Remember, Barnabas was his nickname, son of encouragement. His real name was Joe, and he was from the island of Cyprus. But then we meet some new guys. Lucius, it says, is from Cyrene. That's North Africa. Then now we get an African brother teaching the church in Antioch. And then you get Simeon, who was called Niger. Now, it doesn't say where Simeon's from, but the word Niger, there's a word black in Latin, which was the language the Romans spoke at the time. And so it's conceivable he was from Africa. Most commentators think he probably was black, because they're calling him Brother Darkness. That's the name they called him, right? And then also you get Menian. We don't hear where he's from, but it says that he's a friend, literally, nursed together with Herod the Tetrarch. That was the ruler of that region. And so it's showing you that the gospel is not just spread ethnically, it's spread socioeconomically. That this is a guy with some political power and some social standing. That the gospel doesn't stay locked up in one little group. That you see that it's multi-ethnic, it's geographically and socioeconomically spread. Why? Because Jesus Christ is the Lord of all. He's not just the purview of particular clientele. The gospel has always meant to spread. And you see that in the world today. That right now in the global north, 828 Christians are in the global north. 1.8 billion are in the global south. You see, there's over three times more Christians in Africa today than there are in North America. Over two times more in Latin America than North America. That the gospel, the goodness of Jesus, is truly a global message. Nothing's changed history quite like it, right? And here you see at the very outset, the gospel was meant to be global. And point number two is that the gospel's missional. It's global in scope because it was made to move. Notice who moved them to go on mission. It was the Holy Spirit who did it. This wasn't Paul's idea or Barnabas's idea. It was the Spirit of God who said, set them apart so that they would go. It's wonderful that God gave us this body of believers, but healthy bodies move. And so Paul says, take Barnabas and Saul and send them out onto the mission. I'm going to call them. The gospel is missional. It's meant to move. I remember when I was a college minister at Texas A&M, I met the local rabbi. And the rabbi there, great guy, brought me over to see the student center. And he could tell me the exact number of Jewish students at Texas A&M and then all the programs he was doing to serve his particular clientele. And

then he says, what are you doing to serve the Christian clientele at A&M? And I was like, huh. I've never conceived of my job that way. I said, yes, I want to help believers in Jesus grow in their faith. So there is a sense that I'm serving Christian kids, but we ran a basketball arena in the middle of the campus to proclaim the name of Jesus so people would come to know him. I'm not just serving a clientele. I'm pronouncing a message to the world because Jesus is for all. He came for us all and he is Lord of all. And so it's not just about sanctification. It's about evangelism that the world would know it. The gospel is global because it's missional. And then point number three, I told you we were going to go fast. Point three is that it's spiritual. Notice it's the spirit of God who moves them here and he sets them apart, sets them apart for a work. I want you to be about what I called you to be about. And the spirit sends them out, right? And so they pray and they worship and they send them out. I love that. That worship and missions go hand in hand. John Piper wrote that great book, Let the Nations Be Glad. And he has that killer sentence. Missions exist because worship doesn't. That we are all made to be worshipers and that which satisfies us and we worship is meant to be the highest and most valuable thing. We were made to know, enjoy, and worship God. And so many people are trying to find satisfaction in smaller things, far beneath what you're meant to worship. And so missions exist because worship does not. To help people who don't know God know the God they were made for. And I think that's right. But I also think it's true that missions exist because worship does. That's what you see in this passage. Worship does exist. They hear this church is worshiping, enjoying God. I know what it is to be forgiven. I know what it is to be loved. I know what it is to have community. I don't want to just take all this and bottle it up and keep it for my friends. It explodes and worship becomes mission. I don't just want to celebrate God in the Lincoln. I want it to spill onto the streets. And you see the spirit of God is prompting his people to move, right? Because God has a missionary heart. And so in our next section, we see how the gospel moves. And it's where we'll get our fourth point. That the gospel is confrontational. The gospel's confrontational. And you see it as they land on Cyprus. Verse 4 says, so being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia. the nearest port city, and from there they sailed to Cyprus, the island. And when they arrived at Salamis, they proclaimed the word of God in the synagogue

of the Jews, and they had John to assist them. And when they had gone through the whole island as far as Paphos, they came upon a certain magician, a Jewish false prophet named Bar-Jesus. So Cyprus is an island in the Mediterranean coast, very diverse ethnically, with a large Jewish population. You notice there was multiple synagogues. And they get there, and they hit two major cities is what Luke's gonna tell us about, Salamis and Paphos. And he really just kind of blows through Salamis. All he wants to show us there is kind of two pieces of Paul's strategy that will continue the rest of season two. Number one, he prioritizes major cities. And number two, he goes to synagogues first, that the gospel goes first to the Jew, because Jesus was the fulfillment of the Jewish scriptures. And then he goes to the Gentiles, the Ethnos, the rest of the nations. And you see he does that in Salamis. But then he just zooms on to the far side of the island and focuses in on Paphos, because what went down there is far more interesting. I don't know if you caught that. Some of you are like, I'm sorry, did you just say magician? Yes, there's gonna be a confrontation with a magician. In verse six, it says, when they had gone through the whole island, as far as Paphos, they came upon a certain magician, a Jewish false prophet named Bar-Jesus.

And he was with the proconsul, Sergius Paulus, a man of intelligence who summoned Barnabas and Saul and sought to hear the word of God. But Elimas, the magician, for that's the meaning of his name, opposed them, seeking to turn the proconsul away from the faith. But Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him and said, you son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, full of all deceit and villainy, will you not stop making crooked the straight paths of the Lord? And now behold, the hand of the Lord is upon you. You'll be blind and unable to see the sun for a time. And immediately, mist and darkness fell upon him, and he went about seeking people to lead him by the hand. Then the proconsul believed when he saw what had occurred, for he was astonished at the teaching of the Lord. So here you see, Saul starts going by Paul, because that was his Roman name, that's how they knew him out there. Starts going by Paul, and here in this moment, he gets a confrontation, because the gospel's confrontational. And you see it when they intersect these two people, the magician and the manager, the guy in charge of the island. The magician's name's Bar-Jesus.

Bar just means son of, like Barnabas was the son of encouragement, Bar-Jesus is the son of Jesus. And he's called a magus, a magician, someone who did incantations or studied the stars or did spells or tried to talk to the dead in order to give insight to other people. And so it was common for a magician to be in the entourage of political leaders. It's like every king wants a Merlin, right? And you can read about it all through history. Jewish ones were particularly popular because they kind of knew mystical information. Other people didn't know about the ineffable, and so they kind of wanted to be close to him. But here, he's called a false prophet. What he says isn't true. Are there fake prophets who claim to possess spiritual power and wisdom? Yes. Do they often attach themselves to political power? Yes, Acts 13, right? And so this magician opposes the missionaries, possibly out of fear of his own position, and he tries to keep them from Sergius Paulus. He's like the Grima Wormtongue from Lord of the Rings. You Lord of the Rings fans, it's a deep cut for you guys. All right. And Paul does not like this one bit. And so Paul confronts the magician and says,

bar Jesus, no, you are bar Diabolos. You're son of the devil. You're son of the deceiver, right? You're full of deceit, that is lies, and villainy, that is to use trickery to try to get gain. You're not here to help this man. You're trying to exploit him because he's in a position of power. And so you're making crooked and serpentine paths that should be straight. And rather than laying out the truth of who God is, you're trying to manipulate spiritual language for your own money and power. And Paul does not like that. So let me tell you, some of you have turned away from church because you say religion's filled of charlatans who are just trying to get money and power. Is religion filled with charlatans? Yes, you're seeing it here. And scripture doesn't like it, right? And so some of you go, there's a bunch of fakes out there, therefore all religion is fake. No, the existence of fakes does not mean there's no real. Actually, you don't fake something nobody wants. No one makes a knockoff of a product that doesn't sell. When there's something real and valuable, then you get all the fake knockoff watches and purses and such, right? Because they see there's something significant about the real, let me fake it

to try to get some of it. energy. You're gonna see that throughout Christian history. I tell my students that all the time. Wherever God is moving, crazy always moves in next door. And so here Paul shows up and he's preaching the word and he sees this guy and says, you know what, you're using the language of spirituality but you've corrupted it for your own benefit. I don't like that. Go blind. Which sounds cold-blooded. It's actually kind of a nice thing to do because if you remember that's what happened to Paul. Paul was a religious enemy of the gospel. And so God, in his mercy, knocked Paul over and made him blind. And it's the same language. Groped around for someone to lead him by the hand. And so he says, hey, if you're gonna be in spiritual darkness, let's go all the way and live the metaphor. Be physically blind. And Paul in that moment had to do some soul-searching about his own arrogance and he came to faith in Jesus. And so here it says, I'm just making you blind for a time. Okay? Just a little bit. Just to let you think over your life choices. And it freaks Sergius Paulus out enough that he believes. Now what's the point here? The point is that the gospel's confrontational. It does not syncretize with false religion. It confronts it. And yet here's an interesting fact we don't have time to go into a great detail about. The gospel is at home in every culture. It's one of those beautiful things about the gospel. That it can make its home in any culture. What I mean is there's not distinctly Christian clothing or distinctly Christian diet. The gospel can leap the banks of different cultures all over the place. And so there's aspects of the gospel that will fit snugly in your life just as it is. When people come to faith, they say, do I have to start changing whether I wear head coverings or what kind of food I can eat? No, the gospel moves into any culture. And yet the same gospel that can move into any culture also challenges every culture. There's no culture that's essentially Christian in its nature. The gospel is at home in every culture and yet challenges every culture, right? So you come to faith and say, okay, I came to Christ. Can I still listen to rap? Yes. Christian music isn't purely organ music, right? But what's the message that you're promulgating? You

have to start thinking about, man, what am I listening to in terms of messaging, right? And there's some better than other. Might I suggest KB? Do I have to wear khakis? Praise God, no, you do not. Can I still skate? Yes, I can. There's all kinds of stuff that the gospel will fit right into your life just as it is. And yet there's other areas of your life. The way you talk, the way you talk about people, your sexuality, all kinds of areas where the gospel will say, hey, but we're gonna change this to conformity to the God who made you. So there are some aspects of the gospel that will fit snugly into your life. There are other aspects of your life the gospel will be a wrecking ball. So the gospel is sufficient to save a Sergius Paulus, a pagan Roman ruler, but it will confront an elemos. You just got to know it's coming. The gospel is confrontational for us. Amen? All right, so that's the nature of the movement. Now let's talk about the nature of the message. Our last four points, and it's a lot of verses, but again, I'll summarize and whatever information I don't get into, we record that further in podcast to kind of cover some other data. But they're gonna move on to modern-day Turkey. That's what you get in verse 13 and 14. Now Paul and his companions set sail for Paphos and came to Perga and Pamphylia, say that three times fast, and John left them and returned to Jerusalem. But they went on from Perga and came to Antioch in Pisidia. So they traveled over 200 miles to go to Antioch in Pisidia. There were 16 different Antiochs in the ancient world. It's because Antiochus was a ruler whose son thought every city should be named after him. So this is not the Antioch they came from, it's a different Antioch. And they show up and you go, why did they travel 200 miles before they preached again? Well, it's interesting. We found multiple inscriptions from the ancient world that Sergius Paulus's family had a great amount of land, real estate, power, and influence in Pisidia of Antioch. And so something's happening here that actually is very common in the world today. Sergius Paulus comes to faith and then says, what you just taught me, will you go tell my family? It's something I've seen so many times in here. People have come to church for a variety of reasons, maybe you were forced here by a friend, and yet you showed up

and said, you know what, what you're talking about, communion with God, by the grace of God, I need that. And I remember in our early days, it was a normal thing. I loved to stand in the lobby and visit with people. I had so many people that that God was changing their life and they were trying to find a way to articulate it. And I had several people tell me, I'm bringing my mother. I'm like, okay. And it took me a couple weeks to realize they were saying, God's changing my life. And because as God is landing on me, the next thing is, my family needs to know. And so it was a normal conversation in the lobby. I'm bringing my mother. Okay, I'm ready to meet your mother. Let's do this. Fascinating thing, and here's Sergius Paul that says, go tell my family, go tell my friends about the light I found. And so they showed up and he begins to do it. And what we have in the rest of this passage is really the Apostle Paul, Luke, will give us three of his sermons in a longer form to the rest of the Book of Acts. And they're all sort of characteristics of the way he would talk. There's gonna be one come later, or excuse me, this one is going to be how he talks to Jews, that is people with the knowledge of the Old Testament scripture, in the synagogue. The next one will be in Acts 17, it's how he talks to full-blown pagans who don't know the Bible at all. And then the last one is how he talks to Christian leaders as he'd encourage them to be faithful in a difficult day. And so Luke will give us a long form of three of Paul's sermons as it's the same message,

but his methodology changes as he speaks to different groups. And so here he's gonna take some people who were steeped in the Old Testament tradition and tell them, let me tell you the message that matters. And so here in verse 14, it says that on the Sabbath day, they went into the synagogue and sat down. And after the reading from the law and the prophets, the ruler of the synagogue sent a message to them, saying, brothers, if you have any word of encouragement for the people, say it. The Sabbath day was the day the Jews would gather to the synagogue, and you would read the law, one of the first five books of the Old Testament, and then read some of the prophets who were often interpreting and exhorting people to live their lives in complicity with the law. And so they would typically read from the law and read from the prophets and then have someone explain it and encourage everybody. Here in this moment, Paul walks in from out of town, a scholar trained in Jerusalem, and they say, brother, would you like to share? And he says, yes, I would. And you see in verse 16, Paul stood up and motioning with his hand said, men of Israel, that is Jews, and you who fear God, that is Greeks who respected the God of Israel and showed up at synagogue,

listen, and here Paul's gonna lay out the message that spurned the movement. And we'll get our last four points. And he's gonna start by talking about the message of the gospel, the good news of Jesus. And he's begin by telling us that, this is your fifth point, the gospel's historical. It's historical. He's going to show them this message I'm about to tell you about Jesus is not a novelty. It's the continuation and culmination of all that God has been doing through history. And so you see in verse 17, he says, 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. So he starts in the book of Exodus. And notice God gets all the verbs. He says God chose Israel. God made them great while they were in Egypt. God delivered them when they were enslaved in Egypt. And then God put up with them in the wilderness. Not as motivational a verb there, put up with. But it hints at something. God rescued this people and then they were difficult. And you can read the book of Exodus. They often grumbled and complained and resisted God.

And you saw that God continued to be faithful even with a wayward and disobedient people. This is a theme that Paul's gonna keep bringing up. And so then he moves in the next three verses to the conquest. He already just blew through. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Now he moves on to Joshua. And in verse 19 he says, and after destroying seven nations in the land of Canaan, seven nation army could not hold God back, as the prophet Jack White says. 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. Again, Paul's gonna summarize here. 400 years our people were in Egypt. 40 years they wandered in the wilderness under Moses. 10 years there was a conquest leading into the land. And then now Paul just flew through. Joshua, Judges, Ruth, and 1 and 2 Samuel. Blowing through the Old Testament. And yet here he's, notice again, God's the one moving. God destroyed their enemies and then God gave and he gave and he gave. He gave them a place and he gave them the judges to lead them.

But then he gave them a king when they asked for one. And again, in 1 Samuel we're told that them asking for a king was a wicked thing. That they said, I don't want to obey God. I want a king like the nations. Because we want to be like them. And God told Samuel, go ahead and give them a king because their heart's not with me. And again, this theme is coming out. God is faithful even with a wayward people. But then God gets more verbs. Verse 22, 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. So he says, God removed the bad king and then God raised up a good king, David. And then God testified, this man has a heart like. He will do my will and then he says God promised to David and you can read about the promises to David God promised David You will have a descendant who sits on the throne forever and will be a great blessing to his people And so God made that promise to David and now notice this is the center of the speech Paul looks at this crowd and says and God has just answered that promise and it's through the person Jesus that's his thesis the promises of God to our fathers are now present in the person of Jesus Jesus isn't just the next step in God's plan. He's the culmination of God's plan And now he just laid out a serious claim He's got to back it up. And this is your next point point six that the gospel the good news of Jesus is

Verifiable it's verifiable. So for a big chunk of the sermon, he's going to give them proofs About his claim namely he's going to show them John the Baptist said Jesus was the guy Eyewitnesses verified who he is and the scriptures the prophecies of the Old Testament Testify to the person of Jesus. He says hey this message of mine. I'm not just making up it's verifiable We've talked about this before that if you're ever gonna make up a religion Don't attach it to history Make it something that's hard for anyone to verify say invisible dolphins whisper to you secrets, right? Don't say something we can prove like dates and times and yet the Bible will make itself vulnerable in that way It'll tie to dates and times and places See if they're real see if those denominations of money are real It doesn't prove that all the spiritual claims that makes a real but the Bible says if everywhere where it's verifiable I'm true it makes you have to take seriously the parts that are spiritual that you may struggle with and So here Paul will say I'm making a claim that Jesus is the centerpiece of history, but I'm not just coming up with that It's rooted in some verifiable claims. And so he goes to someone who had a lot of cred on the streets John the Baptist and verse 24 says before his coming John had proclaimed a baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel and as John was finishing his Course, he says what do you suppose that I am? I'm not he no But behold after me what is coming the sandals of whose feet I'm not worthy to untie They all respected John the Baptist as a prophet and he said what did John say? John said that everyone all of Israel needed to repent that is turning go a different way We were all like faithless children that God's been faithful to and we're meant to turn and then John says and I'm not the guy You're waiting for that seed of David. We're all looking for he says I'm not him He's gonna come after me and then John says I'm not worthy to untie his sandals. What's that about? That's the proof that Jesus isn't just the continuation of God's plan. He's the culmination of God's plan. That's the sandals comment because back then If you were a Jewish servant It was not permissible for your master to have you untie his sandals as they walked on dusty and dirty streets To make you untie his sandals was an ultimate indignity You were not allowed to even do that and yet John says hey this guy coming I'm not worthy of the honor of Untying his sandals. He picks the lowest of menial tasks and says it's too high for me The most respected prophet you guys know since Jesus was not an ordinary guy. He was something else entirely

And So now he focuses in on Jesus verse 26 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 utterance of the prophets Which are read every Sabbath fulfilled them by condemning him and though they found him 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 the tomb so now he's giving them the basics of the gospel message that Jesus showed up and he was innocent and Yet even as an innocent man, he was condemned to die, right? And he says the Jewish religious leadership Failed in two counts. They failed to recognize the Savior They'd been waiting for that the prophets had told them about and so they failed to recognize him And so they asked for his death and then Pilate the Roman leader was complicit in the deal and hung him on a tree and Killed him and buried him in a tomb Jesus really showed up was really something else was really killed and really died And so he's giving you the basics of the gospel message but then in verse 30 but God Raised him from the dead These wayward people killed him but God raised him God is on team Jesus, right? Here's the center of our message that God who raised up King David, and said, I'm going to bless his descendant who will one day reign forever. That God raised up Jesus from the grave and set him on high. And verse 31, for many days, he appeared to those who had come with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are now his witnesses to his people. This is a major point in the New Testament.

God did this, Jesus died and rose, and it didn't happen in some obscure corner somewhere. In Jewish courts, you needed at least two witnesses to verify a claim. Jesus, we're told, in the first Corinthians, had over 500. The hundreds saw a resurrected Jesus walk around. You can talk to him. They wrote down their faithful accounts in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and John, testifying to what they've seen. And the message, verse 32, is we bring to you the good news, that's the word gospel, that what God promised to the fathers, he fulfilled to us, the children, by raising Jesus. He's the center point of our story. And then he proves it with scripture. As also 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's spoken in this way, I will give you the holy and sure blessings of David. Therefore, he said in another Psalm, you will not let your holy ones see corruption. What's happening here is he's verifying it with Old Testament passages, we don't have time to go through all this, but he says what God promised, the blessing of David,

God accomplished in the seed of David, Jesus Christ. How did he do it? He quotes Psalm 2, that today I've begotten you. That was a coronation Psalm about a king. It wasn't that the king was born that day, it was that you are now being recognized in a unique position of authority. And he says that Psalm, as he begins to talk about someone who had to be bigger than David, people saw it as a messianic Psalm, one day the seed of David is coming. And he says, yeah, God said that, that he would bless his son. We find out in Romans, Paul says, that Jesus was declared to be the son of God in power when he rose from the dead. That he was called the son of God before, but people were like, maybe, maybe not. But when you die and don't stay dead, now we got to take that claim serious. That God said, this is my son when he raised him from the dead. And then he gives him these other promises from Isaiah 55. He said, God promised us the sure, that is faithful and holy, that has set apart blessings promised to David will come to David's people. God promised you he would bless you. As the king goes, so goes his people.

And God promised you the blessings of David would come. But then he points out, but David died. And so you would wonder, then did all those promises die with him? No, it was the seed of David. Jesus, who didn't stay in the grave, wasn't corrupted. God didn't abandon him in the grave. He rose from the grave. And so all the blessings that God promised to David are now available to you through the son of David. And so here you get the gospel message. And again, he's proving it through scriptures from thousands of years before. God called his shot. Verse 36, for David, after he had served the purpose of God for his own generation, fell asleep and was laid with his fathers and saw corruption. But he whom God raised up did not see corruption. Let it be known to you therefore, brothers, that through this man, forgiveness of sin 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. This is your seventh point, that the gospel is personal. So here he says it's verifiable. It's been proved by John the Baptist, eyewitnesses and scriptural prophecy from thousands of years before.

And now he turns and he says, hey, but this isn't just a historic message. This is a personal message. Now, to you, for you, to you, this message has been proclaimed. That through this man, forgiveness of sin is proclaimed to you. And by him, everyone who believes is freed. He says, this isn't just a historic message. It's a personal message for you. God has moved all of history to bring his son, Jesus, who lived the perfect life you could not, die the death you deserved, was buried in the grave, but rose victoriously. And those who notice what you have to do, believe in him. They get all the blessings that come with him because where he goes, we go. I am not up here preaching a message of a list of to do's that if you do them, maybe someday God will like you. I'm telling you that all of humanity has gone astray and we are called to repent and believe in the God, man, Jesus, for the blessings to be made ours. Because as he goes, we go. I grew up in Houston, Texas. The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo is a big deal. Thousands and thousands of people descend to go see rodeo and concerts, right? And I went as a kid and had all the right. some privileges of a kid at the rodeo, which are not much.

So you wait in the line for an hour for the Ferris wheel, you wait in the line for an hour for your little funnel cake, you do a lot of waiting. But I remember one year, I went with my dad's friend, who was the Miller beer distributor of Southwest Texas. I don't have time to go into all this, but when you are in charge of distributing beer to all of Southwest Texas, you are a man of power, right? And we showed up at the rodeo and he had a little badge and it was the letter H with some boots on and a hat, right? A little Houston, H for Houston. And when he walked in the rodeo, it was a very different experience. Doors started opening, sir nods, no lines. And then the weirdest thing was, he would just walk up to these doors that I didn't even know existed and people would see him nod and throw the doors open and we would walk in. And it was suddenly these massive rooms filled with banquets, like a speakeasy. This whole rodeo world that was way better than the funnel cake line was available. And you go, Ben, how would you know? Well, they weren't letting Ben in. Little Ben walks up to those doors, nobody's opening it, nobody's even nodding. Get back in the funnel cake line, kid. But when I was attached to him, ooh, where he went, I went.

He gets in the speakeasy, I get in the speakeasy, right? Because I'm so great? No, but because I'm attached to the one who is. You see it? And that's Paul's point. All the blessings that were prophesied in the Old Testament came to fruition in Jesus Christ. He was something different entirely. No one changed history like this man and he claimed to be the son of God, which is what got him killed. But then God raised him. So who did God vote for? And witnesses saw it, scriptures proclaimed it, and now Paul says, and look, it's not just a historical message, I'm proclaiming it to you. To you has been given a message of salvation so that you might be freed. That word freed there is the word justified. It's the idea of freedom from prison, that you're locked up in your sin. There's something wrong with us and we can't fix it. There's something broken and we can't heal it. And yet Jesus Christ came to be the rescuer, the healer, the redeemer we desperately need. All of our hope is on this man. The message that launched this movement was the man, Jesus Christ, that all our hope is in him, that he's the one who can lead us to freedom.

That you don't have to be bound up in the sins of your parents. You don't have to be dominated by the tragedies of your own past. That you can have a new trajectory because you're tied to the God-man, Jesus Christ. What do you have to do to get there? Believe. I'm with him. And so where he goes, I go. And the last point, point eight, is that this message is crucial. It's crucial. You must respond. Verse 40, Paul says, "'Beware, therefore, lest what is said in the prophets "'should come about. "'Look, you scoffers, be astounded and perish, "'for I'm doing a work in your day, "'a work that you will not believe, "'even if one tells it to you.'" He quotes Habakkuk, the prophet in the Old Testament. In Habakkuk's day, he was warning the people judgment was coming, and they scoffed at him, laughed at him. And he says, now I'm telling you, God's salvation has come. Don't scoff at this. Don't laugh at this. Take this seriously. And look, I know some of you, as you're here,

you go, Ben, put my faith in Jesus, that I would belong to him and walk with him all my days. This is the first I'm hearing of this. I don't know that I'm ready to commit to all that. Well, Jesus is not asking you to marry him on date one. But I do challenge you, take him seriously. No one changed history like him. One third of planet Earth claimed some version of allegiance to this man. It behooves you to take his claim seriously. And so here, as you see the response at the end, verse 42, it says, as they went out, the people begged that they might be told these things on the next Sabbath. There was a group of people that they're not committed yet, but they're interested. And I know that some of you here, too. Hey, I don't know if I'm ready to give my whole life to Jesus yet, but you dropped some things that I'm not familiar with. Is it safe for someone like me to come back? Yes. Come with your questions. Come with your uncertainty. It's what the lobby's for. It's a little warm today, but I'll still be there. We can talk about whatever you want. But yes, come with questions. Come ask. God's not scared of those.

Be inquisitive about it. No one changed history like this man. Take him seriously. The very next verse says, but after the meeting in the synagogue broke up. Many Jews, and devout converts to Judaism, followed Paul and Barnabas, who as they spoke of them, urged them to continue in the grace of God. Some of you say, hey, I wanna put my faith in Jesus. That's how you get in, the grace, the kindness of God, by belief in the person and the work of Jesus. And if you do, continue in that grace. Keep coming back and learning about it. Grab this book and study it with us together. Show up at block parties and meetups and neighborhood nights and get involved in what God's doing in this community. You just keep walking in the grace of God. But let me encourage you not to be a part of this last group. It says, some were filled with jealousy and began to contradict what was spoken by Paul, reviling him, literally the word blaspheming him. I don't like the message, so I don't like the messenger. And they do the very thing Paul warned him not to do. There will always be people who hate the messengers of Jesus, because they hate the message. Don't call me a sinner. Don't tell me I need to repent. So Paul and Barnabas told them,

we tried to hold out to you life. We will now take this light to the Gentiles and to the ends of the earth. And we'll end in verse 48, where we began. And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of God. And as many as were appointed to eternal life, believed. I love that, that Paul grieves the rejection of the gospel, but says, you know what? It is going out to the ethnos, the nations, to the ends of the earth. And when the people who had been far from God didn't know him heard that, they rejoiced and they were glad. See, the message and the mission of Jesus Christ expanded because we had something to give, not trying to get. And yet those who say, I'm going with Jesus, I receive his grace, we give, but we also get. We get joy, we get worship. That here you see the paradox that Jesus explained is true. If you seek to save your life, you lose it. But if you lose your life for my sake, you find it. I love that we've had so many people in our baptism services come up and say, the first time I showed up at your church, whether in the Howard Theater or the Lincoln Theater, I showed up drunk. Because I was on U Street, I thought you were the next bar because I heard the music. And then when a sermon started, I was trapped.

We love that. So excited, welcome, glad you're here. And yet it's amazing, people say, you know what? You were calling me to surrender my life, to give up what I was doing, scared to let go. What would I be without it? And I found that in surrender, I found satisfaction. In releasing my life, I found my life. And when I gained Christ, now I got something to give the world. And I want to be a part of his mission because I've received his message. The grace of God is on the table through the person of Jesus.