Acts: Jesus as Our Assurance and New Life

So this morning we jump back into the story of the early church in Acts 13 and 14 as we've been making our way through the book of Acts.

Paul and part of us have been traveling, they end up in Antioch, and Paul teaches this short sermon.

So we're going to jump into verse 26 of chapter 13, Acts 13, verse 26 through 31.

Acts 13:26–31

Brothers, son, sons of the family of Abraham, and those among you who fear God, to us it has been sent the message of this salvation.

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 a tomb.

But God raised him from the dead.

And for many days he appeared to those who had come up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are now his witnesses to the people.

So verse 31 is pretty important here, and the point coming off of it for us is that resurrection is truth.

It's not metaphor or legend.

And what I mean by that is this is historical documentation of the resurrection.

You're going to have to deal with the historical evidence at some point on some level.

Jesus' resurrection is a great documentation throughout the scriptures, which can certainly be a historical document for us to think about history.

He appears after the resurrection to Mary Magdalene and John 20, to additional women in Matthew 28, to Peter and Luke 24, two disciples in Luke 24, 10 apostles in Luke 24, Thomas and other apostles, John 20, 7 apostles, John 21, all the apostles, Matthew 28, all the apostles, Acts 1.

1 Corinthians 15 talks about him appearing to 500, 500.

500 people.

So in other words, at the time, the way this message is going out is not to say, hey, just believe this thing that's so unbelievable.

It's like, oh, by the way, if you're having a hard time believing this, just go talk to one of the 500.

And so if this wasn't true, the whole thing would fall apart.

The whole thing is based on a historical event.

It's the Bible's way to say the resurrection holds historical accuracy based with eyewitnesses.

The facts are there and we have to wrestle with the facts.

Or perhaps we could say the truth will disrupt us.

It'll disrupt our own beliefs.

It'll disrupt our own thinking or lives.

A couple of years ago, Chris and I were at dinner with some friends.

We were eating at a pretty nice restaurant down in Atlanta.

The lights are dim, they're sitting at good vibe.

You know, it was dinner time, it was dim lies, it was a good vibe.

You know, kind of a cool restaurant.

And uh the menus came and it was time to order, and uh I went to uh look at the and I was like, I don't know if you've gotten there yet, some of you haven't.

This moment will come.

And so I did like that, and I still couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't read anything.

I couldn't see anything.

Nothing, nothing.

I couldn't read a single word on the menu.

I mean, I bring it up, I bring it out, I kind of put it out in the aisle, like I'm getting nothing.

My my friend Ashley sitting across the table, she sees this.

And she's like two years older than me.

She's not much older than me, and she sees this because she's like this.

Having the time of her life reading this menu.

And she sees me over there doing all that business, and she looks, you know, she just looks up over, you know, she looks up like this, and she just slowly does this.

And I, very slowly, with huge resentment toward her, how dare she?

How dare she?

I'm not that old.

Uh, I I took I took them and I did like this, and wouldn't you know it?

Like amazing.

Right?

Unbelievable.

Unbelievable.

Who would who would have thought?

Perfectly clear.

And of course, we all laughed about it.

I I couldn't get over it.

Because in my mind, I was still 33, not 43.

I mean, in my mind right now, I I know I'm in dress boots, I'm in some kind of like, you know, skinny pants.

I still really do feel deep in my heart that we could go out in the parking lot and I could beat any of y'all to foot race.

I really do, deep in my heart, and this is such a delusion, because I would need to warm up for about 20 minutes.

And even then, I don't think I've sprinted in five years, and it would be better for me just to go ahead and just start walking toward the urgent care because it's not, it's completely a delusion.

The truth disrupts my delusions.

And the truth disrupts a lot of my life, and the truth disrupts a lot of what we believe.

We have to wrestle with what is true.

Or we could say the truth will disrupt us.

We had a great dinner that night.

Uh, just a sweet time with friends.

One of those good dinners, you just, you know, you're just like, oh, it's good.

You're not filtering everything, or you're not posturing, just a good time.

Two days later in the mail from Ashley came a little package.

And the note just said, Welcome to middle age.

And there was two reading glasses there for Christy and me.

I can't change the facts because facts are true.

I can choose to live resenting the facts, or I can become open to them.

Think about Paul.

That's the guy gave him this little sermon here about the resurrection.

A guy who this would have been a real disruption to his life if the resurrection was true.

He was a devout Jew.

The system benefited him.

The religious system, he was all about it.

He was good at it and he benefited from it.

This was a huge disruption for him.

But he had an encounter with God.

And he knew about this resurrection, and he saw the historical accuracy of it.

Disrupted.

It's a disruption of grace.

Paul didn't decide to follow because he liked it.

Not on the front end.

He was disrupted by truth.

He decided because it was true, and then he started to discover that this truth, the idea of following Jesus as Savior, is not a controlling thing, but a freeing thing.

Healing.

That's why he writes Galatians 5:1.

Galatians 5:1

For freedom Christ has set us free.

Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery.

He said, I was enslaved and now I'm free.

I read this last week in my devotion.

Just reading kind of just a normal morning devotion.

I read this.

Author Kate Norris.

So the big question becomes who can save us?

From egocentric, self-destructive repression.

Nothing but love.

Not the way we do it, but unremitting, unconditional biblical love.

This love refuses to deny our issues.

It stays with us there.

And we'll never let go.

This love, too, compels us to love.

I am my beloved's, and he is mine.

Acts 13, verse 32, and we bring you, Paul's continuing this sermon, and we bring you the good news that what God promised to the fathers, this he has fulfilled to us and their children by raising Jesus, resurrection, as also it is written in the second Psalm.

Acts 13:32

Point number two is this that the resurrection gives us an assured life.

An assured life.

Not a constant questioning.

It starts to assure us.

I'm earning my doctorate right now at Covenant Seminary.

I got my first paper back.

First paper.

I got an A.

Your pastor's not failing.

Many other things, not a foot race.

But I made an A.

Got it in the mail.

It said, A.

It said, some good stuff in here.

Okay, start off good.

And then it said, and I quote, the paper could use more information on the adaptive change process in leadership and synthesis of the material.

So I got an A, and would you guess what I woke up thinking about the next morning?

Oh, just guess.

The paper could use more information on the adaptive change process and leadership and synthesis of the material.

That was literally the first thought when I woke up the next morning.

I got an A on the paper.

And still the thing that I dwell on is the criticism.

Isn't that exhausting?

I mean, that is just, that is numbing.

That is horrible.

Oh, what is so awful.

I get an A, and what I remember is the criticism.

You get a hundred words of love and encouragement.

And the one correction, or worse, the judgment or the condemnation sticks to you, beats at you.

Man, my needy, weary soul just works so hard to be liked and worthy and accepted that when I get just a little bit of correction, I just stick on that thing for a while.

What or who can save me?

Is there an enduring word that overrides any sort of correction and certainly condemnation or judgment?

See, the resurrection gives us a God's enduring final word to us.

It's what it gives us.

It's the enduring word to say, I love you.

It's finished.

This is clear.

It is a victorious love toward you while you haven't earned this.

I'm with you, I'm for you.

And this way the resurrection is our, we can think of it as it's our receipt.

So I went to Costco, this was two weeks ago, I did a little Costco run, and I bought a thing of blueberries, a bottle of Miyomy wine.

We like the Miomi wine.

I don't know if you've discovered Miami wine.

Miomi wine.

Massive thing of toilet paper, because we can we can kill some toilet paper at our house.

So, and those good tacos.

You know the good tacos, the street tacos.

And so that's what I got, you know, covering our evening, blueberries, you know, wine, dinner, you know, toilet paper.

Uh checkout, and then you know, you're walking toward the checkout, and they have those two employees there at the door before you leave checking your receipt.

Right?

There's a you you think you're not quite sure if there really are, but they're looking at it and they draw that line with the Sharpie.

Very powerful line.

Now, this could be a real moment of anxiety if I had not paid for these things.

But you know what?

That walk, no anxiety.

Right?

You walk by the air conditioner guy, he's trying to sell your air conditioning, people getting their hot dogs, you know what I'm talking about.

You don't have any anxiety about those people checking for the receipts because it's already been paid for.

You have a receipt, it's no big deal, right?

And you just hand them the receipt and they do whatever they're looking for.

I still want to know what are they looking for?

And draw that line through.

It's our the the resurrection is our receipt for an assured life.

And that's very powerful because we're not very assured.

I'm not just my sin, I'm not just my shortcomings, I'm not just my record.

I am declared fully forgiven, fully righteous, fully loved, fully accepted, fully worthy.

Victorious.

That's what the resurrection, a new life, not because of my victory, but because of his victory.

The word is clear.

We are lavishly loved in the work of Jesus.

I have a receipt.

The receipt is the resurrection.

Our lives may be swirling.

It may be swirling, but our hearts are assured.

Chapter 14 tells us that Paul and Barnabas, they traveled through a couple other cities, they're telling this story.

Jesus fulfills the law.

He has died for our sin, our sin put upon him, his righteousness given to us, they're telling this story, and then Paul heals a crippled man.

The people in the city, they start to worship Paul and Barnabas.

They see this happen.

This happened as all these people start to worship Paul and Barnabas like Zeus and Hermes.

And then Paul says something to them that takes them from worshiping him to stoning him.

That's quite a turn, right?

So what could he have said?

What in the world could he say to take a group of people from worshiping him to stoning him?

Acts 14, verse 11.

Acts 14:11

And when the crowd saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voices, saying in Laconian, the gods have come down to us in the likeness of men.

Barnabas, they called Zeus and Paul or Mays, because he was the chief speaker.

And the priest of Zeus, whose temple was at the entrance of the city, see, because these were idol-worshipping people.

And they see this event, they go, these are gods, these people, these are gods.

So this priest of Zeus, whose temple was at the entrance of the city, brought oxen and garlands to the gates, and wanted to offer sacrifices with the crowds.

But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of it, they tore their garments and rushed out in the crowd, crying out, Men, why are you doing these things?

We are also men of like nature with you, and we bring you good news that you should turn from these vain things to a living God who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them.

And past generations he allowed all the nations to walk in their own ways.

Yet he did not leave himself without witness, for he did good by giving you reins from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.

Here's point number three resurrection, life, resurrection, life, new life comes after our giving up, after our death, after our surrender.

It's the secret of life.

It's also a great secret, it's a horrible secret.

The more dead you are, the more alive you come to the love of God for you.

But you don't get it until you get to the end of yourself, all the other things we try.

That's what these things is actually what verse 15 is talking about, the term vain things, worthless things.

That word.

It means idols.

And here's how idolatry works.

We go over this, it's feel like about every three months.

Life only has meaning.

This is how idolatry works, then and now.

Life only has meaning.

Only.

Or I only have worth if you can plug it in.

I mean, we usually know it pretty quickly if we just sort of pause.

Life only has meaning.

I only have worth if I'm in control, comfort, money, romance, sex, power, approval, status.

Life only has meaning if I have that.

If I don't have that, life doesn't have meaning.

And immediately we are enslaved to it.

See, idols are anything we love too much that end up holding power over our hearts for being at peace because they don't love you in your weariness, they actually put you to more work.

And Paul is saying, these idols we create, whatever it is, they promise, but they don't deliver.

They don't deliver to our weary hearts.

And Paul says to these people, hey, just notice it.

Just notice it.

Verse 15.

He says, But this living God made the heaven and the earth and the sea, all that's in there.

What he's saying here is he's saying, the creator God made you and all you have, you've been enjoying all of this, and you haven't even done anything.

Like we have a certain common grace for all humanity of these gifts around us that God, the Creator, has given to us.

We didn't do anything for.

This is why Paul writes, it's the same idea to be loved, to be provided for in our weakness when we haven't done anything, 2 Corinthians 5, 17.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come.

The old is gone, there's a death, the new is here.

So resurrection life comes as we are known in Jesus, but we only understand Jesus to be provision for us in all these areas of weakness and neediness, including sin and guilt, also including like things like worth and acceptance.

Only when we've dying to these other ways we're trying to solve these needs.

Two weeks ago, I was gone on a weekend leadership retreat.

16 leaders.

We spent time together outdoors fishing, so I wasn't complaining about this retreat.

Every evening we came around a huge dinner table.

Here's a picture of the dinner table.

There I am, right?

I got my mountain man shirt on.

Some sort of brown liquid.

I think somebody handed me apple juice, not sure what that was.

Pretty sure, pretty sure in that setting, a bunch of men in the mountains, that was a bunch of apple juice, is what that was.

So the only requirement for anybody on the retreat is you come to the table.

You can fish half a day, you fish all day, you don't have to fish at all.

But you have to come to the table.

We're gonna dine together, we're gonna feast together, and then there's gonna be a conversation.

And the lead guide would throw out one question a night, four nights, and around the table it went.

You can share as much as you want, and you can never share advice.

Praise, I'd like to praise God's sake.

Put a bunch of pastors together, like we're ready.

That was a nice rule.

You know, thank you for that rule.

Share as much as you want, as little as you want, you can pass if you need to.

The first night they asked, Why do you think the Lord has you here?

Good starter.

Second, what burden are you carrying and you need help?

That's when the weeping starts.

Third night, what dream is still in your heart?

See that?

See what just happened there?

Death?

New life.

But you can't get to that question about new life until you've had some death.

Fourth, what word of encouragement do you have for yourself or for the group?

And night after night, I sat and listened to leaders just pour their hearts out.

I poured my heart out.

And watched deaths, things that needed to die.

Giving up, surrender.

And you lie.

Right?

I experienced, I mean, pretty much like somebody finally says, like, this is the most church I've experienced in a long time.

And it's also what we do when we come to the table.

When we come forward.

We come forward with our burden, our neediness, to receive, to feast on God's grace to us while we are needy.

We need this.

We need the death and we need the new life.

See, at the end of ourselves, we finally see the fullness of God's provision for us in Jesus.

And we can be at rest and we can grow.

We're free, and we're we're also not, we're not even daring to dream how free we could be.

But we have to bring our neediness, our helplessness, our weariness.

And it's there that we realize how much God loves us and provides for us.

That's the resurrection, it's our receipt that we have an assured life, assured in Him for us, and then also growing in what are the implications of that for our lives.

Let's pray to God.

God, thank you for your grace to us.

That is certain, that is sound, that is reliable, even when we do not know it, remember it.

You love us.

You love us in our apathy, you love us when we are absolute morons and mess ups.

God, thank you that our acceptance with you, our forgiveness, our righteousness, our worth is not dependent upon our resume or our record.

God, would you help us to see how the resurrection gives us an assurance of love and also what that might mean for our hearts as we live our lives, not just for ourselves, but in response to your love for us.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.