Witness Pt. 25

Amen.

Amen and amen.

Take your Bible this morning, please, and join me, if you're able, in the New Testament book of Acts and chapter number 13.

Acts chapter number 13.

My name is Jesse.

I work here, and I'm glad that you're here today.

And if you are here today looking for Jesus, you will find him right here in Acts chapter number 13.

And my goal is to tell you about him.

That's all that I've come to do today.

Acts chapter number 13 is a passage of Scripture that is so wonderfully significant it's almost impossible for me to overstate because in Acts chapter number 13, we have the text, at least the first recorded text, of a sermon preached by the man we know as the Apostle Paul.

Now, this is not the first sermon he's ever preached.

It's not the first time that he's preached.

We know from Acts chapter number 9 that almost immediately after the Apostle Paul became a Christian, he starts preaching.

Right away, he starts preaching.

But we don't know exactly what he said.

We do know what he says here in Acts chapter number 13.

Where we get to hear the finely tuned, brilliant intellect, the passionate heart for Jesus, all of those things in the Apostle Paul coming together in this sermon.

So imagine what it would have been like to sit in the studio while Leonardo da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa.

Some of us can remember what it was like to watch Peyton Manning carve up a defense on Sunday afternoons.

You may remember what it was like to watch Dale Earnhardt quite literally run over the competition at Daytona.

The best in the world doing what they do best.

That's what you get to see in Acts chapter number 13.

And so, full disclosure, the sermon that Paul preaches in Acts 13 is better than the sermon you're going to hear today.

But I want you to hear his sermon.

So we're going to read from Acts chapter number 13 as the apostle Paul preaches Jesus to us.

Acts 13, beginning in verse number 13, big 13, little 13, we're going to go all the way down to the end of the chapter in verse 52.

Acts 13, 13, the word of God says that when Paul and his party set sail from Paphos, they came to Perga in Pamphilia, and John, departing from them, returned to Jerusalem.

But when they departed from Perga, they came to Antioch in Pisidia, and went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and sat down.

And after the reading of the law and the prophets, the rulers of the synagogue sent to them, saying, Men and brethren, if you have any word of exhortation for the people, say on.

Then Paul stood up and motioning with his hand, said, Men of Israel, and you who fear God, listen.

The God of this people Israel chose our fathers and exalted the people when they dwelt as strangers in the land of Egypt, and with an uplifted arm he brought them out of it.

Now for a time of about forty years he put up with their ways in the wilderness.

And when he had destroyed seven nations in the land of Canaan, he distributed their land to them by allotment.

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

And afterward they asked for a king.

So 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 for them David as king, to whom also he gave testimony and said, I have found David, the son of Jesse, a man after my own heart, who will do all my will.

From this man seek, according to the promise, God raised up for Israel a Savior, Jesus, after John had first preached before his coming, the baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel.

And as John was finishing his course, he said, Who do you think I am?

I am not he.

But behold, there comes one after me, the sandals of whose feet I am not worthy to loose.

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.

For those who dwell in Jerusalem and the rulers, because they did not know him, nor even the voices of the prophets, which are read every Sabbath, have fulfilled them in condemning him.

And though they found no cause for death in him, they asked Pilate that he should be put to death.

Now when they had fulfilled all that was written concerning him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb.

But God raised him from the dead.

He was seen for many days by those who came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are his witnesses to the people.

And we declare to you glad tidings, that promise which was made to the fathers.

God has fulfilled this for us, their children, in that he has raised up Jesus.

As it is also written in the second Psalm, you are my son.

Today I have begotten you.

And that he raised him from the dead, no more to return to corruption.

He has spoken thus, I will give you the sure mercies of David.

Therefore, he also says in another Psalm, you will not allow your holy one to see corruption.

For David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell asleep, was buried with the fathers, and saw corruption.

But he whom God raised up saw no corruption.

Therefore, let it be known to you, brethren, that through this man is preached to you the forgiveness of sins.

And by him every one who believes is justified from all things from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses.

Beware, therefore, lest what has been spoken in the prophets come upon you.

Behold, you despisers, marvel and perish, for I work a work in your days, a work which you will by no means believe, though one were to declare it to you.

So when the Jews went out of the synagogue, the Gentiles begged that these words might be preached to them the next Sabbath.

Now, when the congregation had broken up, many of the Jews and devout proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas, who speaking to them, persuaded them to continue in the grace of God.

On the next Sabbath, almost the whole city came together to hear the word of God.

But when the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled with envy, and contradicting and blaspheming, they opposed the things spoken by Paul.

Then Paul and Barnabas grew bold and said, It was necessary that the word of God should be spoken to you first.

But since you reject it and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, behold, we turn to the Gentiles.

For so the Lord has commanded us, I have set you as a light to the Gentiles, that you should be for salvation to the ends of the earth.

Now when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified the word of the Lord.

And as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed.

And the word of the Lord was being spread throughout all the region.

But the Jews stirred up the devout and prominent women, and the chief men of the city, raised up persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and expelled them from their region.

But they shook off the dust from their feet against them and came to Iconium.

And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.

The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of the Lord abideth forever.

In Acts chapter number 13, as we saw last week, if you were with us, we read the story of the very first Christian mission trip.

The Apostle Paul and his good friend Barnabas leave the church of Antioch in Syria.

They head west, sailing across a portion of the Mediterranean and land on the tropical paradise of Crete.

They move from east to west on the island of Crete, preaching the gospel as they go.

They leave Crete and they head more or less northwest, and they travel on further, going to Perga.

From there they travel due north and they end up in another city named Antioch, the city of Antioch of Poseidon.

And they begin their mission work in this Antioch by going to the Jewish synagogue.

Now, a Jewish synagogue is the weekly place of worship for Jewish people, especially in this time, those that lived away from the temple in Jerusalem.

And synagogue worship would not be entirely foreign to those of us that are used to going to Christian churches.

In synagogue worship, you would hear somebody read a portion of the Old Testament.

You can see them doing that here.

They would sing familiar songs of the Jewish people, particularly portions of the Psalms.

They would encourage one another, they would have prayers, the same kind of things, basically, that we do in church with one really odd, dangerous feature.

And you see it in this passage of scripture, and that is in verse number 15, that after they read their scriptures, the ruler of the synagogue, which basically would have been like the pastor who doesn't actually preach, he says to Paul and Barnabas, visitors in the synagogue that day, well, guys, since y'all are here with us, do you have something you'd like to say?

It's just open mic night at the synagogue this Saturday morning.

Now, if you're a visitor here with us today, we love you, we are thankful that you are here.

We'd love to do anything we can to serve you and get to know you.

But I have been a pastor in Baptist churches long enough to know that one of the absolute worst things you want to do is just start handing the microphone to everybody at church.

But this was a custom in the Jewish synagogue.

Especially if they knew a visiting teacher, a visiting rabbi, a scholar of the law was present.

They would let them preach the sermon that Saturday.

And so they invite Paul to do that.

And the apostle Paul takes them up on the offer.

Says, I'll be happy to come and preach to y'all.

Just remember you ask for it.

And so Paul begins his sermon.

Well, what is Paul going to preach about?

He's going to preach about Jesus.

And where is he going to preach from?

He's going to preach from the Old Testament scriptures that they had read.

So I thought, in keeping with the spirit of text, I would bring my Hebrew Old Testament with me today.

The Hebrews, the Jewish people though, would not call this an Old Testament to the Jewish community.

This is the scriptures.

It contains the same 39 books that you have in your Christian Old Testament, but they're organized a little bit differently so that there are 22 books that are arranged in a little bit different order.

It starts with Genesis, does not end in Malachi, even though Malachi's here, but it ends in the book of 2 Chronicles.

But in Hebrew, this is properly called a Tanakh.

Tanakh.

And you have to say that like you've got a hair in the back of your throat.

A Tanakh.

And the Hebrew word Tanakh, to refer to this book that the Apostle Paul preached from, that I hold in my hand, that you have translated in English in your Old Testament.

The Hebrew word Tanakh is an Hebrew acronym that is built from three other Hebrew words.

Torah is the first word.

Torah.

The Hebrew word Torah refers to the Old Testament law, the books of Moses, Genesis through Deuteronomy, that contain the practices and the laws and the expectations of Yahweh, the God of the Old Testament, for his covenant community.

The Ten Commandments are part of the Torah.

The laws governing worship are part of the Torah.

But after the Torah, they would have what they would call the Naveen.

That refers to the prophets.

The prophets are not just those who preach prophetic messages, but it also encompasses much of Israel's history under the kings, the greater and the lesser prophets.

And then what we would call the minor and the major prophets, the prophecies of Isaiah, the prophecies of Jeremiah.

But after the Torah and after the Navim, they also have the Katuvim.

And the Katuvim are the writings, the writings that contain the ancient Hebrew hymnal that we call the Psalms, the timeless and eternal wisdom of Solomon in Proverbs, and the very hard sayings of life, about life in this world, Ecclesiastes, the erotic poetry, yeah, there's some in your Bible, from Psalm Solomon.

Those books comprise the Tanakh, the Hebrew scriptures, the Old Testament.

And in this sermon that Paul will preach in Acts chapter 13, if you listen to the things that he says, the stories that he mentions, the verses that he quotes, what the Apostle Paul does is he takes this book, and in almost one breath, the Apostle Paul says, This book is a book that is all about Jesus.

Acts 13 · chapter mention

And he continues to preach the gospel from the Old Testament, which is what I want to do from this book and from Paul's sermon this morning.

And to do that first, we need to overhear how Paul says that Jesus is the surprise of history in the Old Testament, the unexpected surprise of Jewish history.

The Apostle Paul begins his sermon after being invited to speak in verse number 16.

He stands up, he makes a wild gesticulation, motioning with his hand.

Some of y'all wonder, Pastor Jesse, what's the deal with your hands and arms?

Well, here it is.

It's biblical.

Men of Israel, and you who fear God, that is Gentiles that have not officially converted to Judaism.

You who fear God, and in verse number 17, he drops the clutch and he preaches.

And he begins in the book of Genesis, the book of beginnings.

That's the place to begin.

But of course, in a Hebrew Bible, because Hebrew is read not from left to right like English, but from right to left, the Bible starts here in the back.

Very confusing.

And he begins telling the story of the people of Israel that all of these people would have known.

And he doesn't start in Genesis chapter number one with the familiar words to these Hebrew speakers, Betashit Barah, Elohim, Et Hashemaimba et Chahetz.

No, he begins in Genesis chapter number 12.

And he begins by reminding them of how God had called Abraham, how God had called their first ancestor, and God had promised to make them a great nation.

Then he skips without even taking a breath some hundreds of years into the future.

And now he's in the book of Exodus.

And he says, You know that God exalted them while they were slaves in Egypt.

And then in verse number 17, he talks about how God brought them out of Egypt.

Then he's in the book of Numbers and Deuteronomy.

He's talking about how God put up with them for 40 years while they wander in the wilderness.

Do you ever feel like God just puts up with you?

That's what he says here in verse number 18.

God put up with their ways.

Feel that same way, God's just putting up with me.

And God put up with the people of Israel for 40 years, but now he goes all the way to the book of Joshua in verse number 19.

God distributed the land.

Now he's in the book of Judges.

You gotta hang with Paul, he's moving quick.

Verse number 20, he's in the book of Judges, covering this swath of Old Testament Israel that covers 450 years, that reaches from Achniel and Ahud and Shamgar, the first judges, all the way to Samson or Samuel, the last judge and prophet.

Now he's in the book of 1 and 2 Samuel.

You wore out yet?

Paul's just preaching his introduction.

And in 1 and 2 Samuel, which is one book in the Hebrew Bible, the Apostle Paul is taking them back to the first monarch of Israel, Saul, who was an unmitigated disaster.

And then he reaches the climactic point of Old Testament history.

He reaches the reign of King David.

And it is impossible for us to overstate how important the name of David is to the Jewish mind and to the Jewish concept of history.

Even today, the nation of Israel has on their state flag the symbol of the reign and the power, the star of David.

In their minds, Old Testament history climaxed in David.

The great ruler of Israel.

Things were never better than when David was king.

And then they know, as is often quoted here from Psalm chapter number two and verse number 33, Isaiah in verse number 34, they knew that God had made these remarkable promises to the house of David that one day a descendant of David would reign over David's throne from David's city, and he would bring deliverance from their enemies and bring full salvation.

But what you see in the Old Testament is that even though David's son Solomon inherits the throne, and then his son Rehoboam inherits the throne from his father Solomon, David's grandson, after that, it is a total collapse of the house of David.

And the people of Israel are left for a thousand years up to this point, wondering, where is the son of David?

Where is the one who is right to reign?

History of the people of God is longing for and demanding a resolution.

There's something that has to be happening.

There's something that has to be coming.

Where is the Savior?

And Paul says, I know where he's at, and I know where he's been.

And he says, He came into David's city, just like the prophet Zephaniah or Zechariah said that he would, riding on the back of a donkey, and you crucified him, and three days later he rose again, and now he's ascended to the right hand of the Father.

Paul said, I know his name in verse number 23.

His name is Jesus.

He is the one that redemptive history demands.

And Jesus says to this Jewish audience, your understanding of history is incomplete without Jesus.

Your history demands him.

Your history longs for him.

He is the telos, the place where it all finds conclusion and closure in Jesus.

This is how Paul understood and he viewed the Old Testament.

He understood the Old Testament as Christian scripture that tells us about Jesus and points us to Jesus.

That demands Jesus.

That without Jesus, the Old Testament story remains incomplete.

It would be very, very cruel of me right now to begin singing a song, just generally.

But to sing a song that your mind already knows, and then to not finish it.

Because something about your mind anticipates the ending, right?

Row, row, row your boat gently.

You've got to have it, right?

Otherwise, your mind gets thrown off balance into this weird sonic schizophrenia.

You demand it.

Where is the resolution to the harmony?

Paul says, Jesus is the resolution to the harmony.

And without him, the whole story is incomplete.

And so when the Apostle Paul is converted to Christ on the road to Damascus, all of these neurons in his brain start to fire.

The Spirit of God comes inside of him, and he realizes that this book, from beginning to end, the Hebrew scriptures are the story of Christ.

It's like this.

All of us have seen The Wizard of Oz, I assume.

And you know the scene when Dorothy has been sucked out of Kansas by the tornado.

She lands in Munchkin land.

Never thought I'd say the word munchkin in a sermon.

I bet Paul never said the word munchkin in a sermon.

Lands in munchkin land.

And as she sort of regains her composure, you know what happens.

She opens the door to Munchkin Land.

And she steps out of a world of black and white into a world of color.

It was the first time that any moviegoer ever saw a scene in color.

What happened to the Apostle Paul after he met Jesus is that this book that seen black and white, all of a sudden the door opened and it's all in color.

And everywhere he looks in the pages of the Hebrew scriptures, he would say, like we just sang it a moment ago, well, there was Jesus.

When Elohim in Genesis chapter number one, the God of all creation, speaks and flings the millions of stars in our galaxy into their sockets, Paul would say, Well, there was Jesus.

When God reaches down into the dust of the Garden of Eden and breathes a man in his own image and gives him life, Paul would say, The God who did that, well, there was Jesus.

When that man sinned and disobeyed by eating the fruit of a forbidden tree, but God in mercy pursued that man and preached to him that one day a deliverer would come who would rescue him from the serpent who had deceived him, Paul says, Well, there was Jesus.

And he said, You turn the page and you end up in Genesis chapter number 22, when God called our ancestor Abraham to walk up Mount Moriah with his son Isaac, and when that obedient son walked up the mountain to give himself as a sacrifice to please God, well, there was Jesus.

And he says in Exodus chapter number 12, if you turn the page a little bit further, when God delivered our people from bondage in Egypt, when they put the blood of a Passover lamb that did not deserve to die, but died in their place, so that they could escape the wrath of God.

Well, there was Jesus.

And he says, as I read on to the book of Leviticus and I read about this sin offering that will be offered every day on Yom Kippur, the day of atonement, and the high priest would kill this goat.

So that the people could go free and not answer for their own sins, Paul says, Well, there's Jesus.

And he says, over here, in Numbers, when there's manna falling out of the sky, and God's people are eating food that they did not work for and being blessed in a way that they did not deserve, he says, Well, it's Jesus.

He says in Deuteronomy, when God makes these covenant promises that demand their faithfulness, he says, This God who keeps and answers his own promises, that's Jesus.

When I get over here in Joshua, in Joshua chapter number five, and Joshua meets the angel of the Lord of hosts before the battle of Jericho, that's Jesus.

And page after page, and story after story, the apostle Paul says, This is Jesus.

It's about him.

There he is, there he always was, and there he always will be.

And if you do not see Jesus here, then you've missed the story that God is writing in history.

Now, for you today, you're not Jewish.

You don't have the collective memory that they had as the people of God in the middle of redemptive history.

But you do have a certain way you view God's work in the world.

And unless you understand today that Jesus is the point of all history, that he is the story God is writing, then what's going to happen is you're going to misunderstand the story that God is writing in the world, and therefore you will misinterpret your place in that story.

And really what will happen is you will succumb to a bad case of main character syndrome and you will make everything about you.

And then when you suffer, it will derail you.

When other people hurt you, you won't be able to manage it.

When life falls apart, you're going to struggle, and you're going to be a miserable, terrible, awful person.

Why?

Because when we misunderstand history and our place in history, we misunderstand our own story.

And I thought and thought and thought of a good way to make this come alive to you.

And here's what I thought.

We're all familiar with the name Thomas Edison, I hope, right?

Well, we are at this moment, right now, benefiting from his life's work.

Because we have light inside.

And we have electricity.

Everything that's happening in this building right now nearly depends upon electricity, right?

This contraption does.

Those things do.

All this junk, all this is electricity.

We've got to have it, right?

And we have oriented our lives to the historical fact of Thomas Edison's existence and work.

Right?

But you know there are some people who don't.

There are.

There are some people who say, we're going to pretend to live as if Thomas Edison never existed.

Did you know that?

They're called homage people.

And they say, you know what?

We don't need lights.

We've got candles or lamps or whatever they use, oil lamps.

We don't need tractors.

We've got donkeys and kids.

We can put them to work.

We don't need nail guns.

We got hammers, right?

We don't need all that.

And most of us look at that and think, why in the world would you want to live that way?

But here's the thing about Amish people, and I can say this safely because they're Amish, they're never going to hear this.

The one thing I can say about Amish people is that they cheat.

They cheat.

They won't have electricity, but they do own generators.

I don't know, they're just inconsistent.

They won't own a phone, but they'll borrow your cell phone to make a call.

They'll go to stores.

I'm telling you the truth, they'll go to stores and they'll make phone calls.

Why?

Because they're trying to cobble together a fake life that is inconsistent with the reality of the world they live in.

And so, friends, what I want you to understand today is that the reality of the world you live in is that God has sent his son into this world to die for our sins and to rise again to save us and to give us new life.

And if you're continually rejecting that and continually making life about you, then you're like an Amish person on a payphone.

You're trying to cobble together something that is absolutely illogical and insane.

So Paul shows us that Jesus is the unequal surprise of history.

But he goes even further, and I've got to move quickly.

But you know, Paul's pretty long-winded here in Acts 13, so I don't feel too bad about it.

Second, he shows us that Jesus is the satisfaction of the law.

Jesus is the undeniable satisfaction of the law.

The Apostle Paul shows how Jesus satisfies the story of Old Testament Israel.

That he becomes what Israel should have been but never was.

The faithful, true, obedient servant of God that never violates God's law and lives in harmony with him that keeps the great commandments to love God and to love neighbor.

That was Jesus.

And so therefore, Paul is able to say in verse number 39 everyone who believes in Jesus is justified, I love this, from those things which we cannot be justified by the law of Moses.

This is an awesome moment in biblical history because this is the first time that the apostle Paul preaches the doctrine that drove everything else that he believed, which is the doctrine of justification by faith alone.

Now, this is, you only get how great this is, this is like the first time the Eagles played Hotel California.

All right, this is the first time that George Jones ever saying he stopped loving her today.

Alright, this is a big moment.

This is a big deal.

The doctrine of justification for the first time is preached by the Apostle Paul.

Jesus had preached the doctrine of justification, but he only did it one time, as far as we have recorded in Scripture, and it's in Luke chapter number 18.

But where Jesus cracked the door open, the Apostle Paul would blow that door off the hinges and write about justification continually.

What is the doctrine of justification?

Very, very simple.

The doctrine of justification, the word justification means to declare righteous.

To declare righteous.

This is the Apostle Paul's chief concern as he preaches here in the synagogue of Antioch Pasidia.

This is his chief concern in his writings, is this legal mindset of how can a person who is sinful be right before God?

God is holy, God is righteous, God is a just judge, God sees all, God knows all.

She said, Daddy, does God know everything that I think?

I was like, honey, he sure does.

And you're in big trouble for it, too.

He's a righteous judge who sees and knows all about us.

Even the things that we hide, God knows and God sees.

There is, I want to be very, very careful here because I don't want to speak ill of somebody in our community, but there is a young lady who works at a restaurant that I frequent, and she has a tattoo, a very noticeable tattoo, on her arm that says, Only God can judge me.

And I've wanted to say to her numerous times, men, that's your problem.

Is that God will judge you.

God is your judge.

So how can sinners who deserve judgment be right with God?

Here's the problem that the Jewish mindset had, and here's the problem that many of us have.

Many of us believe that God will only declare us righteous when we are righteous.

First, I must be good, whether that looks like living a good life in a cracker barrel Christian culture, living a good life according to the Torah.

I must be good and righteous, and then when God sees that, God will declare me righteous.

Paul says, no, for a thousand reasons, no.

But the chief reason Paul says is because Jesus was righteous in your place.

He lived the life that you never could live.

This is Paul's point.

And he says, not only did he live the life that we never could live, but what happened to him?

What was his reward for living that life?

His reward was crucifixion.

And at the cross, Paul says, God would take all of his righteous indignation, his anger against our sin, the judgment that that lady has tattooed on her arm, and God would judge Jesus for her and for me and for you.

So that if we believe in him, then we receive his righteousness and stand before God in the righteousness of Christ and not our own.

But there's more.

Because the gospel does not say Jesus loved sinners and died for them.

At least that's not all it says.

It does say that.

In fact, if all the gospel says is Jesus loved sinners and died for them, then all we have is a dead Savior.

But Paul's gospel, our gospel says that after Jesus died, this is how Paul preaches it, God raised him from the dead.

God raised him from the dead.

So that he, unlike David, who's quoted in Psalm from Psalm chapter number 16 and verse number 35, he did not see corruption.

David, with all of his hopes and longings and all of the adoration that the Jewish community heaps upon David, David selfishly dies and stays dead.

Jesus died and is alive.

And so for Paul, here's the way Paul's thinking.

I'm gonna bring this home to you in a powerful way, I hope.

Here's the way Paul's thinking.

For Paul, in his writings and preaching, the death of Jesus is the justification of the righteousness of God.

It is there that God proves his righteousness by judging sin.

God does not tolerate sin, God does not welcome sin, God hates sin, and at the cross God punishes sin.

But the resurrection of Jesus is the justification of Jesus' righteous life.

That Jesus did die for sin, but not for his own sin because he had no sin.

But he died for my sin and your sin and the sin of the world.

And because he made a complete pavement for our sin, there's absolutely no reason for him to continue to stay dead.

That is the Apostle Paul's gospel.

And it's the gospel that I proclaim to you today.

As the Apostle Paul would say later in 2 Corinthians chapter 5 and verse number 21, that Jesus, who is the uncreated, unmade Son of God, was made sin for me, so that I could be made the righteousness of God in him.

2 Corinthians 5 · chapter mention

So that Jesus, the Son of God, was made into sin, so that I, as a sinner, could be made into a son of God.

That he took my place in death, he took my place in judgment, took my place on the cross, so that I could stand before God right now, declared as righteous as Jesus is, so that the memory verse we memorized as a church last week, Romans 8.1, that there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.

That is true for every one of us that believe in him.

And there are some of you guys that came into this place today, and this week again, you've fallen into the trap of pornography, you've fallen into lust, you've fallen into sin, and you hate it, and you're guilty and you're ashamed.

And I want to say to you that if you are in Christ, there's no condemnation.

There are ladies that are here that 30 years ago had an abortion to cover up a pregnancy that they wanted to hide, and you carry the guilt and the shame of what you did to your child every day, but that sin was judged for good and forever at the cross, and you do not carry it.

You do not carry it because your Savior has died and he is alive, and you can be justified.

And because you can be justified, there's another benefit that Paul gives here, and that is that we can be forgiven.

We can be forgiven.

Paul says, I'm preaching to you a message of forgiveness.

What Paul says is this that Jesus has done what none of us could do, he has changed our status before the law.

Justification is a declaration that changes our status before the Old Testament law and before the law of God.

And because of that, there's a new relationship.

In other words, everything changes because our status before the law changes.

Let me give you an example of how this works, okay?

This is the best example that I can give you from my life that I that I can relate to, and you probably can too.

There's a day in your life when you got married for many of us, or there will be a day in your life when you get married.

And we spend a fortune on the DJ.

We spend a fortune on the cake, spend a fortune on the dress, the makeup, the cosmetologist to do the updo.

All that kind of stuff, right?

And now nobody gets married in churches anymore.

Everybody gets married in barns, so you gotta spend a fortune on the barn, right?

And then you've got to pay for the photographer.

I don't know what all I've left out.

And everybody, flowers, oh yes, the florists have got to get it on too, right?

And so you spend a fortune to pull off this magical day.

And everybody's attention is on the bride.

Everybody's watching the groom, shaking like a leaf, and hoping the grooms would have locked their knees and somebody can fall outright.

You've the most consequential person at the wedding.

I know you're afraid to answer because you think, you know, Jesse, I'm gonna get it wrong.

Here's my case.

The most consequential person there.

Why?

Why?

I know it's not about him.

You want to photoshop him out of the pictures.

I know, I know all that.

Here's my theory.

Nothing happens without him saying something like this by the authority vested in me by the state of North Carolina and as a minister of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, I now pronounce you husband and wife.

You know what the DJ can't do?

He has no legal right to pronounce a man and woman husband and wife.

You know what the florist can't do?

Can't pronounce somebody legally husband and wife.

What happens in that legal pronouncement is that a man and a woman that used to be just a man and a woman, they become one legally.

And if you are married, you know at that moment everything changes.

Everything.

Right?

Because of a legal announcement that changes forever a relationship.

Paul's understanding of justification is similar to that.

That if God declares me righteous, then my entire relationship to the law changes, so much so that I can say I am divorced from my sin, divorced from my past, and married to Christ.

So that I have been adopted into the family of God.

That's another legal declaration that changes relationships.

I have been welcomed into the family of God.

But I've got to move quick.

I've got to move quick.

Finally, Paul points out that Jesus is the subject of the prophets.

He tells us that Jesus fulfills everything that the law demands.

Jesus is the one who wraps up the story of history, but he's also the one the prophets preach about.

So, how does Paul conclude his sermons?

Conclusions are the hardest part of sermon preparation for me.

The introduction is the most important part.

How to finish is the hardest part.

And some of you are looking at your watch right now thinking, yeah, we know you don't know how to stop.

Yeah, I know, but look how Paul quits.

You're still laughing, which means you're still listening.

Verse number 40, this is the last part of the sermon, and then there's the response to it.

He quotes from the book of Habakkuk.

And then, verse number 42, everybody leaves.

He just preaches and quits, and everybody leaves.

I love that.

To me, that's the perfect way to conclude a service.

I'm done, if y'all are done, let's get out of here.

Well, that's what they do.

But before he dismisses officially, he quotes from the book of Habakkuk in verse number 41.

Now, the prophet Habakkuk has a number of things working against him.

Number one, he is a minor prophet, tucked away way back in the hinterlands of the Old Testament, and we just kind of jump right over him.

Number two, his name is almost impossible to pronounce.

Habakkuk.

It takes a lot of work to say Habakkuk.

And so we're not familiar with the story and the ministry of the book of Habakkuk.

But Habakkuk's ministry is interesting because he is a prophet who proclaims the word of the Lord, and yet he's not really preaching in the book as much as he is arguing with God.

I know none of us could ever relate to that, but that's what he's doing.

He's arguing with God because God has told him as a prophet that he is going to do something that Habakkuk doesn't like.

God ever do anything y'all don't like?

Habakkuk said, I don't like this.

And what Habakkuk saw was that God was going to judge the people of God for their sinful disobedience, their idolatry, by sending the more sinful, the more wicked, the more idolatrous Babylonian army to conquer them, which happened 530 some years before Jesus.

Well, Habakkuk can't figure out how can a more unrighteous people judge semi-righteous people?

We're not great, we're not perfect.

Yeah, we've probably got it coming, but from them, it doesn't make sense.

Part of what God tells them is what the Apostle Paul quotes here in Acts chapter 13 from Habakkuk chapter 1, verse number 5.

Acts 13 · chapter mention Habakkuk 1 · chapter mention

Paul says it this way, Behold, you despisers.

The Lord says, Look among and watch.

Be utterly astounded.

Paul says, I will work a work in your days, which you would not believe they'll have told you.

God says, Habakkuk, I'm going to do something that you cannot explain and understand, and I am going to bring judgment.

Now Paul takes all of that imagery of judgment from an Old Testament prophet and he places it in the lap of the synagogue hearers and he says, Judgment is coming on you if you do not look to your Savior.

This is heavy for this Jewish audience.

Because to them they would have thought that they were the chosen people of God.

How could they ever possibly be judged by God?

Paul says, Because Jesus is the righteous judge.

He's the only savior and the only hope that we have.

And so today I want to just put that same burden on you and say to you today that Jesus is still the resurrected Son of God, the righteous judge of all men, who will return to judge the living and the dead.

You will meet him, you will face him, you will answer for your life, and you will have to explain yourself according to my Bible.

And what then?

Are you prepared to meet Jesus as judge?

And I would warn you about that because in every warning of destruction, there is also an element of salvation, right?

Think about this.

You remember when Hurricane Helene just washed away Interstate 40 in a gorge a couple years ago?

And North Carolina DOT comes and put up all their signs, road clothes, you have to exit here, flashing lights, you know, bright orange, so you can't miss it.

Everybody knows you've got to get off.

You've got those are warnings.

Danger.

Stop.

Turn around.

You cannot go forward.

Well, what were people doing?

Just hammer down, buddy, driving right on to heaven.

Some of them did.

I mean, literally, I hope they went to heaven.

Let's cruise right on through because they ignored the warnings to their own peril.

But those warnings were there for their safety and for their salvation.

So too, the warnings about judgment in Scripture are there for our salvation and for our eternal safety that we would look to Jesus.

And so, what do they do here in the text?

Well, the Bible says that some believed.

The Gentiles are all very excited about it, but mostly the Jews are not very happy about what Paul preached that day.

Now that never happens to me.

Nobody ever gets mad at my sermons, but it happened to Paul.

And Paul has to confront them.

He quotes from Isaiah chapter 49, verse number 47, that God has told them to take the gospel to the Gentiles and to shake the dust off their feet and leave the Jews behind.

Isaiah 49 · chapter mention

Because in this passage, in a unique way, divine sovereignty and human responsibility come together in this Saturday sermon.

Do you notice what the Bible says in verse number 48?

When the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified the word of the Lord.

Now notice what the text said.

Read it the way it says it.

And as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed.

The text does not say as many as believed were appointed to eternal life.

But as many as were appointed to eternal life, believed.

And yet clearly, these are people that faced the gospel and they either believed or rejected it.

In a unique way, God's sovereignty and their responsibility comes together in the moment that they either choose to accept or reject Jesus.

And there's a lot of theological depth and mystery there that, frankly, I'm getting hungry and don't have time for.

But I will say this that in this service today, at this moment in your life, God's sovereignty and your responsibility have come together right now.

As you need to determine what you will do with Jesus.

What will you do with him?

Yes, he is the one that history demands.

He is the one that satisfies the law's demands.

Yes, he is the highest thought of all theology.

Yes, he is the greatest answer to every philosophical question.

Yes, he is the place where the future finds its fulfillment and the past finds its closure.

Yes, he is the greatest friend that I have ever had.

Yes, he is the one that men do not deserve, but he is the one that men need.

Yes, he is the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.

Yes, he is our only hope in life and in death.

He is everything, but what will you do with him?

What will you do with him?

You do realize that for many of these people in Acts chapter 13, this was the last time that they ever heard the message of Jesus preached.

Acts 13 · chapter mention

This may be the last time you ever hear the message of Jesus preached.

That's not to say that's a threat.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not threatening you.

But what I am saying is that some of you are gonna leave here and you're just gonna get busy.

You're gonna get distracted.

And the years and decades of your life are going to unroll from this moment forward, and you'll never give Jesus another thought.

But he's calling right now.

As the word of God is preached, Jesus is saying, answer.

Behold, I stand at the door and knock.

Today is the day of salvation.

And so the apostle Paul pleads with these people, urgently pleading with them.

Look to Christ, believe in him, trust in him.

And the best that I would be able to, with the assistance of the Spirit of God, I would plead with you.

Some of you have been coming in this place for months and months, maybe even decades, and you've never looked to Christ, look to him now.

Look to him now.

You can do that right where you sit.

But if you need to come forward and pray about it, I would love to pray with you.

I'll take you all afternoon, all night, and talk to you and point you to Jesus.

But the point is, do not leave this place today.

Without trusting him, without saying, He's my savior and he is my Lord, he is my past, he is my future, he is my hope, he is my peace, my joy, he is my forgiveness, he is my justification, he is everything.