The right message. Always.

 “A Tree of Life”

(Acts 13:13-31, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, June 10, 2012)

[13] Now Paul and his companions set sail from Paphos and came to Perga in Pamphylia. And John left them and returned to Jerusalem, [14] 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. [15] 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.”

In 2 Timothy 4:11, the Apostle Paul writes to Timothy, “Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is very useful to me for ministry.” Paul did not always have that assessment of John Mark. Here we read that the young man left Paul and Barnabas and returned to Jerusalem. We later find out how seriously Paul took this decision. It was a dark moment of confusion in the kingdom.

In the face to face contact of human relationships and friendships, the Lord speaks His Word through all of us to one another. His prayers are voiced through our lips, and His mercy is expressed through our hands. As in family life, relationships are not always easy.

Relationship-based growth in communion with God was a part of synagogue life in the Jewish world, just waiting for the Word of the best of all relationships to come to us through the preaching of God made flesh, Jesus Christ, who saves us. The leaders in the synagogue in Antioch in Pisidia, expected the traveling religious teachers, Paul and Barnabas, to bring a word of encouragement. You and I have the best message to bring people courage for living. We have a Word of certain victory, the same Word that Paul had so long ago in Antioch Pisidia.

[16] So Paul stood up, and motioning with his hand said: “Men of Israel and you who fear God, listen. [17] 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. [18] And for about forty years he put up with them in the wilderness. [19] And after destroying seven nations in the land of Canaan, he gave them their land as an inheritance. [20] All this took about 450 years.

This message was given to two groups of people who were both regular synagogue goers; the “men of Israel,” Jews who were living in Antioch Pisidia, and non-Jews who were worshipers of the God of Israel, “God-fearers” throughout the ancient world. Here Paul refers to them as “you who fear God.” This is a wonderful designator, and probably what we in the church need most in order to resist false ways of cynicism and scheming. We need to fear God, to recognize Him for who He is, to worship before Him, and to trust Him with all the relationships in our lives for which we cannot seem to find the answer. We need to listen to Him.

Listening to the God of Israel means becoming familiar with the history of His dealings with His people. This is God's testimony. Knowing someone's story is one of the ways that we grow in our relationship with a person. This also works with God. People need to hear God's story, and we have that recorded for us in the narrative portions of the Bible that lead us to the Messiah.

In Paul's sermon this testimony of God begins with the fact that God chose Israel. If they ever loved Him it was because He first loved them. God chose Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and over the years of His dealings with them, through blessing and tragedy, He made them into the people that He intended them to be. He redeemed them from Egypt, the house of bondage, through the blood of the Lamb, and we have been rescued by the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. He sustained them through a dry and weary land for forty years, and the Lord has brought us through many difficulties. His choosing us was not just a formality of getting our names on a list somewhere. It was a story of His daily provision for us, even through times when we wondered where He was. God brought Israel into the land of Canaan as their inheritance, and He has brought us to Jesus Christ, given us the down-payment of the Holy Spirit and promised us all the blessings of heaven.

And after that he gave them judges until Samuel the prophet. [21] 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. [22] And when he had removed him, he raised up David to be their king, of whom he testified and said, ‘I have found in David the son of Jesse a man after my heart, who will do all my will.’ [23] Of this man's offspring God has brought to Israel a Savior, Jesus, as he promised.

The God of Israel continued to work with His chosen people over many years of judges and over much wandering and disobedience. God did not give up on Israel. He had a plan very much in mind, a plan that involved not only the Jews, but also the non-Jews. That plan had at its very center the coming of a King.

The Lord even used His people's bad desire for the wrong kind of king to bring them first one king and then another. God's ways are not our ways, but He certainly knows what He is doing. He brought in Saul. He removed Saul, and He replaced that wrong king with the right king, David, a man after His own heart, a lover of God who was chosen by God, not only to be king at around 1000 BC, but especially to be the ancestor of the best King. That King, Jesus, is our message. He is the promised Savior.

[24] Before his coming, John had proclaimed a baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel. [25] 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.’John the Baptist pointed Jesus out to the Jews. This Chosen Man, Jesus, was not only a greater king than David, He was also a greater prophet than Elijah. John knew that. He said that he was not worthy to untie Jesus' sandals as the lowest slave in His house. But you and I are not only servants of this great Savior, we have become sons of God through His relationship with God.

[26] “Brothers, sons of the family of Abraham, and those among you who fear God, to us has been sent the message of this salvation. [27] For those who live in Jerusalem and their rulers, because they did not recognize him nor understand the utterances of the prophets, which are read every Sabbath, fulfilled them by condemning him. [28] And though they found in him no guilt worthy of death, they asked Pilate to have him executed. [29] 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. [30] But God raised him from the dead, [31] 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.

Jesus was not recognized by the Jewish leaders of His day. This also was part of God's story. He was despised and rejected by the leading men of Israel. In doing this they fulfilled the prophetic Scriptures regarding a suffering servant, Scriptures that they had not understood. In their work to see our sinless Substitute put to death, they were fulfilling the story of God recorded in advance in the Bible. What a mighty God we serve!

His cross has become for us a tree of life. Through His resurrection we have a life-giving message. This message was a privilege to proclaim to Jews and God-fearers in the first century, and it is an astounding Word for us to believe and to minister to one another throughout the world today. We have joined the original witnesses of the resurrection of the Son of God as we pass on the news to one another and see the fruit of it growing among us even in our darkest moments. “Jesus lives, and so shall I!”- The right message for capturing souls. Always.

1. Why would Paul have been invited to speak in a synagogue?

2. What was Paul's purpose in reviewing certain facts from the history of Israel?

3. Why does Paul quote from John the Baptist?

4. Of what importance is this apostolic message to our lives today?

OT Passage: Proverbs 11:30