The Promise Made to Our Fathers

Amen. If you have your Bibles, we'll be reading from the book of Acts. Acts chapter 13.

Acts 13 · chapter mention

We'll be reading from verse 13 down to the end of the chapter.

Again, I would remind you that what you're about to hear is God's holy and inspired

word, so receive it as such.

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.

And 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, motioning with his hand, and 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 forty years he put up with them in the wilderness, and after destroying

seven nations in the land of Canaan, he gave them the land as an inheritance.

All this took about 450 years. And after that he gave them judges until Samuel the prophet.

And then they asked for a king, and God gave them Saul, the son of Kish,

a man of the tribe of Benjamin, for forty 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 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 this message of salvation for those who live in Jerusalem

and the 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 the tomb.

But God raised him from the dead. And for many days he appeared to those who

came up, who had come up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem,

who are now witnesses to the people.

And we bring you the good news, that what God promised to the fathers,

this he has fulfilled to us their children by raising Jesus.

And also as it is written in the 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 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,

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 sins is proclaimed to you, and by him everyone who believes is freed from

everything which you could not be freed from the law of Moses.

Beware, therefore, lest what is said in the prophets 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.

And 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 loudly, 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 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.

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 devout women of high standing, and leading the 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.

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God. You can be seated.

Let's pray together. Father, send your spirit, Lord, now that we may hear,

understand, believe, and follow and love Jesus Christ.

From this particular story given to us by Luke, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

This particular story reminded me of a question that I had been asked before, and I would ask you now.

Now, if you had to give a synopsis summary preaching presentation,

if you had to stand before a large group of people and address them about the

gospel of Jesus Christ, but, are you ready? But you only had the Old Testament.

You can't have that New Testament. And you have to pretend for a moment you're

like Paul right now, who didn't have a New Testament. Let that sink in for a moment.

I already told you my story. When I grew up in a little Baptist church,

where I was given as a little boy my little green Gideon's Bible,

the one that fits in your pocket.

I was pretty proud of it, but it only had in it, remember, the New Testament

and the Psalms, as if that's the whole Bible.

So there are vast numbers of Christians today, our brothers and sisters,

good brothers and sisters, who basically sort of believe that all you need is

that little green Bible that I had with the New Testament.

And maybe the Psalms sprinkled in, you know, to pray and praise,

sing, whatever. But as far as the Old Testament is concerned, don't need it.

What passage would you use? How would you do that if I said you don't quote

the New Testament, except maybe a few events in the life of Jesus,

just like they did. But what passage would you use?

Our tendency would be to go to ones like little bits and pieces, like maybe Isaiah 53.

Ah, you know, he was wounded for our transgressions, and that's what Messiah is going to do.

So we could pick out a few, but what if you were like Paul?

What if you were telling the story about the history of Israel,

and you wanted to connect it to Jesus Christ? What would you do?

Before we get there, I want to just go over a few words of context for our story,

and then we'll get to it. Because I don't know about the rest of you,

but I grew up in a church where the New Testament, I don't remember hearing

many sermons even from the Old Testament.

And when I heard them, they were mostly just moral lessons.

Be good. Don't be prideful. Be like David. Don't be like Saul.

Watch out for this and watch out for that and be faithful.

But did I really think or was I ever told that all of the Old Testament was

teaching me about Jesus Christ? Never heard it.

Never heard it. So first, our context. We're looking at Acts chapter 13.

Acts 13 · chapter mention

Paul and Barnabas have been ordained to go become missionaries.

Remember we said that? Now they're going specifically to the Gentile world.

They are strategically moving to cities and locations from which that gospel

can then move out to the rest of the Gentile world.

Remember in Acts, Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the world.

So this is the pattern, and we're seeing it right now in Acts chapter 13.

Acts 13 · chapter mention

So, and also in Acts chapter 13, you'll notice that we're moving into what will,

Acts 13 · chapter mention

from this point forward, almost be an entirely Pauline section.

Luke is writing the story of Acts, and now he's moving from Peter,

a little bit about Stephen, but mostly Peter, and now we have Paul.

So, this is what we might call the Pauline section.

And we notice, too, that the church is now the center.

If I can't, I want to beat that drum a lot.

This whole idea that Israel somehow has this thing.

No, the church is now the focus of all the fulfillment of all the promises to Israel.

And just like Ezekiel's prophecy that said one day the temple in Jerusalem will

be pouring out living waters that will go to the ends of the earth,

that's exactly what you see in the ministry of Paul, establishing churches in

strategic areas along rivers,

along commercial points and political centers from which then the living waters

of the gospel will flow out into the rest of the world.

We see here just a bit about Mark's desertion. John Mark left.

At this point, Luke doesn't want us to think much about it. He just left.

Later, we'll see that it creates a bit of confusion between,

or challenges, shall we say, between Paul and Barnabas.

But here he just mentions it. John Mark just went back to Jerusalem.

What I want to focus on, though, is Paul's sermon or address.

It says, they went from Perga and came to Antioch, Pisidia, and on the Sabbath

day, they went into a synagogue, which was their practice normally.

They would find a synagogue, a group of people who already knew the Scriptures,

who already knew the law and the prophets.

Remember, all they had is what? The Old Testament.

The Old Testament. The Old Testament. That's all they had.

I want, if I die soon, at least I want this church to go forward saying,

We know that the Bible is one book.

It's not divided between an Old and a New Testament. It's connected with the

Old and the New Testament. They make sense and they only make sense together.

So anyway, got that?

So Paul begins to go to the synagogue. It's a fascinating story.

There's so many humorous things that happened in the book of Acts.

It's funny to watch them.

Here's Paul, who is now upending the Jewish leadership in Jerusalem and moving

all throughout. And now he goes to this place, he's evidently unknown,

except enough is known about him that they know he's a Pharisee, for instance.

So if we were having a meeting of some kind, and you can imagine you're going

over the law and the prophets, so there they are.

After reading from the law and the prophets, it says the rulers of the synagogue

sent a message saying, brothers, could you imagine?

They asked for it. It's kind of funny. They asked for it.

Oh, please, esteemed Paul, Pharisee of Pharisees, a man from Jerusalem,

trained under Gamaliel, So, you know, the rabbi of rabbis now is actually with

us. They would be super excited.

That's what's hilarious about it, because he's about to give it to them.

But so they asked this guy. It would almost be like, I thought about this,

it would almost be like if we were having a convention on, if you were in the

1920s, having a convention on air flight, aviation, and in walks Orville and Wilbur Wright.

Like, whoa, oh, Mr. Wright, both of you come up and say a word.

You know, you can imagine. And everyone's attention would be on these guys,

because that's what it's about.

So they read the law and the prophets. They ask Paul to come forward,

and he does. And he begins his sermon or his address.

And it's a typical sermon. It has an introduction, it has a body,

and it has a conclusion. It's a good sermon. It's also a typical apostolic sermon.

And if we've been paying attention to them, the apostolic sermons don't leave you alone.

They don't just let you hear and say, oh, that was, oh, theologically,

that was sweet. I think he's a super lapsarian.

No, they call you to something. They call you to action. They call you to love

Christ more. They call you to follow him.

They call you to forsake. They call you to take up your cross.

They challenge people who resist.

That's what preaching in the apostolic age and even today is supposed to still do.

So it's my job. It's my job to annoy you a little bit if you're lazy,

if you're not listening, if you're not paying attention, if you don't want to do anything.

It's part of my job, as it was the apostles, to get you busy,

to call you to action, to call you to follow the Lord with all your heart and

all your soul and all your mind.

Apostolic preaching. When it happens, you'll notice at the end of Peter's sermon,

especially Stephen, nobody's left the same.

That's the goal of every preacher. You don't do it every Sunday.

You don't hit it out of the park.

But that's the goal of the preaching. That's what Paul does.

You'll notice what he does rhetorically, quite brilliant, quite beautiful.

He directly addresses them, okay?

Men of Israel, verse 16, and you who fear God, two groups of people that are

there, the Jewish people who are already Jews and those who are attending the

synagogue because they fear the Lord, they know the law, they know the prophets,

but they haven't been circumcised, they haven't yet become Jews.

He'll keep addressing them, verse 26, men and brethren, sons of the family of

Abraham and those among you who fear God, to you the word of this salvation has been sent.

Down in verse 38, he says again Therefore let it be known to you,

brethren And through this man is preached to you The forgiveness of sins And

by him everyone who believes is justified He's directly addressing the people,

A lot like Acts chapter 2 When Peter preached his first sermon Listen to what

Acts 2 · chapter mention

he said Men of Israel, hear these words.

Verse 36 of Acts chapter two, this is Peter. Let all the house of Israel therefore

know for certain that God has made this man both Lord and Christ,

the Jesus whom you crucify.

Acts 3, 12, Peter says to the people, he addressed them, he rose up and said, men of Israel.

So he's directly addressing them. So I say to you this morning, people of God.

Those of you who are old and young, small, big, short, mothers,

wives, fathers, everyone, listen to this.

Listen to what Paul is saying. You belong in this story as well, as we'll see.

And then he goes to, proceeds to preach an Old Testament sermon in the New Testament.

Remember, there is no New Testament, not yet.

It's not been completed. Paul will write much of it throughout the journeys

he has in the very book we're studying.

So it's a sermon without any New Testament. And yet notice what he does,

because I want you to pay attention, not just because it's beautiful and well

done, but it's the way we need to understand the Bible.

Okay? I had a pastor. I was trying to figure out when I was younger.

I was trying to figure out how do I preach Christ from the Old Testament?

And I was looking at some images and some types and shadows and thinking about

through it. And one pastor said to me, you can't do that.

I said, what? But isn't that what Paul did? He said, you're not an apostle.

You can't do that. I didn't agree with him.

I still don't. But the reason we should do that is because Paul is offering

us a model of how it works.

He says to the people, men of Israel, those of you who fear God, listen.

And then he begins to link together the message of the Old Testament with the

message and work of Jesus Christ.

As if, because it is, the Old Testament brings us to Jesus Christ,

and Christ is the culmination of everything taught in the Old Testament.

Everything, everything belongs to him. Jesus said that himself in Luke 24, didn't he?

He said he sat down with them and he said, of all that's written in the law

of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms, they are teaching of me.

Everything in that Old Testament given to us is about Jesus Christ.

That's exactly how Paul did it. That's exactly how Peter did it.

And that's exactly how Stephen did it.

Peter did it with a little bit of an emphasis on the fulfillment of prophecies and prophets.

Stephen did it to his own death as a connection of the way of condemning the leaders of Israel.

Stephen's message was presented to the Sanhedrin in the same redemptive scope.

He goes back to the fathers. Remember, Stephen is saying, you know those bad guys?

That killed the prophets and persecuted them, and the same ones that pretend

that they love the prophets, that's you.

Ouch. But he did it with the Old Testament, telling those stories.

Peter did the same thing.

And you'll notice something too. I want you to see this. It's not so much that

these guys went back and chose a few verses and quoted the verses as to what they said.

It wasn't just the verses or even the substance of the message.

It was the very structure of the message.

One of Peter's messages that we saw is not just that the prophet spoke of Jesus,

but the office of prophet.

The very fact that in the Old Testament, God created an office where he would

have a mouthpiece of God who would come and speak the word of God to his people,

is in and of itself Christological. It's Christ-centered. It's about Jesus.

The final prophet, the culmination of all the prophets and all their prophecies.

Men of Israel, people of God, are we together? Are we there?

Because this is what Paul does. Paul says this, and Paul does this beautifully.

Paul begins, first of all, by reeling the men.

It's very beautifully done. He looks at them. Men of Israel,

those of you who fear God.

You almost, at least I, maybe I was in Africa too long, but I almost picture

an audience where like, men of Israel and those who fear God.

They would say, mm-hmm, that's me. Mm-hmm.

If we were in Africa, that's how they say it. That's right. Mm-hmm.

And so it's, you guys listen. He goes, then he starts, the God of this people

Israel chose our fathers and made the people great during the land of Egypt.

Mm-hmm, yes, Lord, yes, hallelujah.

It would be, I could just see it because you know he's pulling them in.

He addresses them directly and he begins to tell their story in a way that they

completely understand.

And you'll notice the way he pulls them in and the way he tells the story is

also making progress and pulling them directly to Jesus Christ.

The whole thing is structured brilliantly.

And then he says, with uplifted arm, with a mighty right arm, he led them out.

Yes, we know that story, yes. Every Jew knows that. Every Jew knew everything

about every story that he was telling, except where it was leading.

And he just goes through, takes them through the history. Now for a time,

about 40 years, he put up with their ways in the wilderness.

Notice some sections he describes casually.

Everyone knows this. This is what happened. He doesn't condemn them yet.

And when he had destroyed seven nations in the land of Canaan.

Yes, hallelujah. I remember that story. We beat the Canaanites,

right? There he's pulling a man.

And then he distributed their land by allotment.

And after that, he gave them judges for about 450 years until Samuel the prophet.

Notice what he's doing here.

Because when you read the Old Testament, you're supposed to read it like this.

He's leading them from the promise of bringing their forefathers out of Egypt

and leading them with Moses to the promised land, of conquering the promised land,

of creating a king in the promised land and a prophet in the promised land.

And you'll notice after this, he gave us until the Samuel prophet.

He's structuring the story so that they know it's leading somewhere.

It's not just a collection of stories about how not to be like Saul or how to

be like Samuel or be more like David.

That's all moralism and moralistic. What he's making is all about Jesus Christ

in the very structure of it. So he's leading them to the prophet.

And then, and afterward, they asked for a king.

So God gave them Saul, the son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin for 40 years.

Two things simultaneously, pulling them into the story that's well known,

that they would love, a story they like to hear, a story they love to hear because it's their story.

And then in doing so, he's also leading them in a messianic storytelling because

every good Jew also knows, like we don't today, that all of the Old Testament,

all the prophets were messianic in their focus.

Israel was called out not just to have a land or a temple or a king,

but to have Messiah come and save them and build a kingdom for them.

Now, they certainly misunderstood what that was like because they wanted,

when you read Psalm 10, as we just did, they wanted, they liked that part where,

and the Messiah, the king will come, will scatter corpses.

That's cool. Especially if you're a Jewish people under the Roman empire.

But what Paul is doing is he's taking that messianic Christ,

the word Christ, remember, means the anointed one, that Christ-centered focus,

tying them to the promises and then connecting them directly to Jesus.

So he says, they asked for a king, God gave them a king. And when he had removed

him, he raised up King David.

Yes, every Jew knows, that's the pinnacle. That's the great king of whom he

testified and said, I have found in David, the son of Jesse,

a man after my own heart who will do my will.

Of this man's offspring, God has brought a savior to Israel,

Jesus, as he promised. This is the promise that he made to the fathers.

It wasn't merely about a piece of land of which so many people today are obsessed with Jews.

There's Christian Zionists and there's Jewish Zionists. And at this particular

point, we say they're both wrong.

The land and the promises and the law and the prophets were all making constant

progression to something or someone.

And Paul says, it's Jesus.

He's the center of it. He's the end of it, the final culmination of it.

And there's constant progress towards this.

And you'll notice, by the way, you have to notice this, the kingdom promises.

Peter was preaching more about the prophetic promises, Stephen about the condemnation

of the leaders. And Paul here now is talking about the Davidic kingdom promises.

You need to keep that in mind when you're thinking through this whole question

that's swirling around.

Every time a bomb goes off in the Middle East, there's somebody up there that

runs around saying, this is going to fulfill the prophecies of Israel.

They're screaming, wait a minute, the promises to Israel were of a coming of

Jesus Christ. That's what Paul's saying. And guess what? So were the kingdom promises.

There are people, believe it or not, who are longing for another kingdom to

rise up in Israel. And imagine even worse Another 10 pole.

What? Why would you need another temple when the final great high priest has come?

This is the way we, and this sermon and this Paul structure and what we'll see

in the book of Acts will help to insulate us against all the bad ideas that

are coming to us that place Israel at the promise rather than Christ,

Israel at the center rather than Christ at the center.

Okay. It's very helpful because then you can, I mean, think about that.

The promise of David now, this is where he's going to is now connected to that,

the body of work that Jesus did in the gospel.

He goes through what Peter did and Stephen did.

He begins to say, men and brethren, sons of Abraham, and those among you,

if you're the word of the Lord, salvation, this salvation has been sent to you.

It's personal, it's powerful, and they understand that it's spoken of by the prophets.

For those who dwell in Jerusalem and their rulers, because they did not know

it, nor even the voices of the prophets, which were read every Sabbath, get it?

These prophets and the voices and the scriptures you've been reading have been

telling this story, but you have missed it.

You haven't understood it. And he begins to say about Jerusalem and her leaders

and their evil, and their evil they took up and they killed Jesus,

which was also in fulfillment of your Isaiah 53 promise, that he would bear

our wounds and bear our sorrows at the hands of his enemies.

And you'll notice who the enemy's hands are. It's Israel.

It's Israel. Peter says it here, him having been delivered by the determined

purpose and foreknowledge of God,

you have taken with your lawless hands, have crucified and put to death,

whom God raised up and loosed the pains of death because it was not possible

for you for death to hold him.

That's awesome because we're going to see it in Peter's sermon and Stephen's

sermon and in Paul's sermon as well, this magnificent messianic reversal.

You killed and God raised up.

You thought that you could push down and God lifted him up. You put him in darkness

and God brought him out in light.

And now he goes not just to the prophets and the stories of Israel,

he goes to the Psalms, Davidic Psalms.

These are Psalms of David and his kingdom and the future promises for his kingdom.

Do you think there's going to be another kingdom raised up in Israel?

Think again. Listen to what Paul is saying.

These kingdom psalms are directing our hearts and souls to Jesus Christ.

Psalm 2, you are my son. Today I have begotten you. It's not a first time he's

becoming a son. It's a crowning ceremony.

It's a crowning ceremony. The promises unite David's kingdom with the messianic

kingdom that has just come. Okay.

Sit, Psalm 110 said, as we read, the Lord said, sit at my right hand till I

make your enemies your footstool. The Lord shall send the rod of strength out

of Zion, rule in the midst of your enemies.

Now you can see if you're a Jewish guy, you're like, yes, when is he coming?

And when can we physically defeat the Romans?

If you're thinking that it's an earthly kingdom, just completely and exclusively

for a little land in Israel, that's how you would think.

But the Lord has sworn it and will not relent. Wait a minute,

you are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. What?

This king that will arise will also be a priest. after the order of Melchizedek

with no genealogy back to Aaron.

The Lord is at your right hand. He shall execute kings in the day of his wrath.

He shall judge among the nations.

He shall fill the places with dead bodies. He shall execute the heads of many countries.

He shall drink of the brook by the wayside.

Therefore, he shall be lifted up. His head shall be lifted up.

Paul quotes Isaiah 55, 3, Psalm 110,

Psalm 16, and overtones of Psalm 2 as he weaves together this idea that there

will be a gift to Israel and all the promises given to him that is an everlasting

covenant. Have you ever heard someone say that?

Are we together? Men of Israel, are you awake?

I can see you drifting some.

Someone will ask you, yeah, but the promises to Israel were everlasting promises, right?

Yes, they were. And guess how they're fulfilled? In Jesus Christ.

Paul quotes this from Isaiah. He says, and I will make you with an everlasting

covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David. That's exactly what Paul says.

The steadfast love and the promise from Isaiah and from Psalm 110 and all the

other Psalms are about giving a kingdom to Jesus Christ upon his resurrection

and ascension to the throne.

Psalm 2 says, I will declare the decree, says the Lord. You are my son.

Today I've begotten you.

Listen, and I want you to listen to this psalm. This is Psalm 110,

verse 8, and ask yourself how closely this resembles the Great Commission.

As Jesus was exalted and enthroned in glory upon his ascension,

the Lord declares the decree.

And verse 8 says, ask of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance.

And what else? The ends of the earth, exactly after the manner of the Great Commission.

Where when Jesus says, all authority is given to me in heaven and earth,

make disciples of the nations.

The kingdom of God has been established, my friends.

We're not looking for another kingdom in the nation of Israel.

We're not looking for another priest, another temple, or anything.

We have these promises fulfilled in Jesus Christ and his kingdom has come.

You could argue about whether you're post-millennial, all-millennial,

pre-millennial, whatever you maybe argue, but we shouldn't argue about the fact

that Paul's decisively saying the kingdom of heaven has come.

That's exactly what John the Baptist said, isn't it?

He didn't just say, repent and you'll get saved and you won't go to hell.

He said what? Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. I see at least there's

some head shaking. That's good.

So this is the kingdom of God fulfilled in the promises of Jesus Christ.

We see that the Old Testament is not only not disconnected from the New Testament,

but it makes no sense otherwise.

And if you divide the Bible up into timeframes and say this dispensation and

that dispensation and this dispensation rather than covenant promises.

That's exactly what Paul is doing.

He's saying God made a promise and it's an ancient promise. And it goes even

before he called Joseph into Egypt.

It's a promise that goes all the way back to Adam and Eve.

That when Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden due to sin and they fell

and death came, God said, I will send someone and he will crush the head of the serpent.

That promise is fulfilled over and over in the scriptures and taught in the

Scriptures until we get to Jesus Christ.

You see, it's not merely just a few select words from this prophet or that prophet

or this law or Leviticus.

It's the whole Old Testament.

It all teaches us of Jesus Christ.

And there's a warning in it. Also, Paul ends like Peter and like Stephen.

Stephen, poor guy, he went a little too far, right?

And he didn't just warn them. He condemned and condemned and condemned until

they literally killed him.

But Paul also gives a warning. Behold, you despisers, marvel and perish,

for I work a work in your days, a work in which you will by no means believe,

though someone would declare it, quoting a prophet there to them.

How do you respond to this story? How do you respond to the message?

The response of Peter's audience should be ours.

You may be like so many Christians who say, I've heard that story.

Boring. I've heard it. I know that. I know that. The people that were listening

to Paul didn't treat it like that.

Remember, they're moving through this story and they're agreeing,

they're nodding, they're pulled into the story. And then at the end, they say, tell us more.

We want to hear that story. We're going to sing at the end of the service a song.

I was surprised to find it in the Trinity Hymnal because we sang it all the

time in my little Baptist church.

I love to tell the story. I've never heard that one. We'll sing it.

I was reminded about that because their response, think about this,

they're Jews. They already know the story.

They know about Joseph. They know about Moses. They know about the land.

They know about the prophet Samuel. They know about the king.

But when they connected to Jesus Christ, the story is a great story and comes alive in their hearts.

And their response is what it should be. Tell us again and again and again. Let me hear more of it.

I want to hear that story. And that's, by the way, it's not just a Jewish story, beloved.

People of God, those of you who fear God this morning, it's not an old Jewish

story. This is our story.

It's also our story. Too many times, if you just think the Bible is just the

New Testament, you miss the fact.

You might think, well, the Old Testament's for the Jews, but the New Testament's for me.

No, the whole story is ours. because anyone who believes this story will be saved from their sins.

And that's at the heart of this new kingdom, not the conquest of a land or the

rebuilding of another temple.

The heart of this story is the forgiveness of sins. It's where our story will

end in this service as we come to the Lord's table. And it's a story we should wanna hear.

God loves sinners and sent Jesus Christ to save sinners such as we are.

That's our story. It's a good one.

I was reminded as I was going over this particular story about the nature of stories themselves.

There's certain stories we like to hear over and over, particularly family stories.

Usually the family stories, if it's about you, you're like, hey,

dad, or aunt so-and-so, aunt so-and-so, tell us the one the time when dad got in trouble for.

They're like, I don't want to hear that story. But they love to hear that story.

And they like to tell it every single time it seems we get together in a family.

There's stories that they just tell over and over again.

C.S. Lewis commented, he wrote an essay called On Stories. And it was interesting.

I was thinking about it for this particular sermon, because there's a sense

in which you've heard this story.

Everyone's heard this story, basically.

C.S. Lewis said that stories have such a mysterious way of grabbing our heart,

especially good ones, that you don't mind hearing them over and over again.

I was interested when he said that he said, an unliterary man may be defined

as one who reads a book only once.

I was like, oh, well, count me out because I've had a lot of books I've only read once.

But he said, you know, the true literate man will read stories over and over

again, especially great stories.

And he said children remind us of this as well. You ever notice that about children?

They like to hear the same story over and over.

Now, how can it be that you tell the story of Little Red Riding Hood?

Spoiler alert, Grandma's a wolf. And so the first time they hear the story at

the end, you know, how big your teeth are, better to eat you.

That's a surprise. Okay.

But then the next night, what do you want to hear? Little Red Riding Hood. What?

Little Red Riding Hood. Why? You already know what happens at the end, right? You've heard it.

And C.S. Lewis makes a statement. It's not the fact that they experience surprise.

It's the joy of surprisingness. The joy of the story itself is what they don't

mind hearing over and over and over again.

Little Red Riding Hood, what about you? When you hear this story,

are you bored? Are you tired?

Your response, our response should be the same as the people of God here who said, tell us more.

Let's hear it again. Tell us that story. Let's just go over it and over it and over it.

How much more, in fact, is the gospel? Our story should be like that. Amen.

Let's pray together. Father, as we end this particular story in Acts chapter 13.

Acts 13 · chapter mention

We thank you for the story that you did not leave Adam and Eve in that garden

or outside of the garden alone, but you promised them that a savior would come.

And you have sent that savior, Jesus Christ. Paul preached about that savior

through Jewish history, which is now we understand our own history.

Lord, as we come to the table of the Lord, help us to remember that this story

has led to our salvation and to the forgiveness of our sins and to the reconciliation

between us and God and the hope that we have in the future.

This is our story, Lord. Help us to love it and treasure it as we come to the

body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray this in his name, amen.