Acts 13:16-14:28 - Part B

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That's ConnectWithSkip.com. Now, let's get into today's teaching from Pastor Skip Heitzig. When we share with people, would you please share with people like it really is good news? Glad tidings, the gospel, 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 also was written in the second Psalm, you are my son. Today I have begotten you, quoting scripture. 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, a prophecy of the resurrection. For David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell asleep and was buried with his fathers and he saw corruption. But he whom God raised up, that is Jesus, saw no corruption. Therefore, let it be known to you, brethren, that through this man, capital M in my Bible, speaking of Christ, through this man is preached to you the forgiveness of sins.

Now watch this, and by him everyone who believes is justified from all things which you could not be justified by, the law of Moses. Now verse 39 is a startling statement. The people in the synagogue that day were shaken by what he said in that verse alone. Jesus Christ, the one who is from the line of David, the Jewish Messiah, the one proclaimed in our scriptures, has died and has risen from the dead. And by trusting in him, you can be justified from all the things that the law of Moses, which you love and revere and follow, cannot justify you in.

It was earth-shattering to them because they always look to the law, the covenant of the law, and their relationship as Jews to God, before God, as the means of their salvation. Now Paul is going to develop this little thing that he talks about here, this gospel of grace. He's going to develop this that he shares in one verse. He's going to develop it in an entire book called the book of Romans. He'll go into depth.

It will be truth after truth going through Judaism, unlocking question and answer, a great theological treatise, and he'll cover it also in the book of Galatians. But here he gives it in a single verse. What he's saying is this. The law is good. The law served its purpose. But it cannot do what you think it can do.

And the reason the law is good is that the law reveals that you are a filthy sinner. That's all it can do. It can't cleanse you from it. It just reveals that that's what you are. It can't remedy the condition.

It can just reveal the condition. It's like looking in a mirror. You look in the mirror and you go, I need help. I can't speak for you. I know that's what I say when I look in the mirror.

You know, I always think I feel like I'm 20 years old. Then I look in the mirror and go, uh-oh. Now, the mirror is doing its job. I can't fault the mirror for the way I look. I can't say, you stupid, ugly mirror.

You're worthless. Because the mirror has done its job. It's just told me the truth about me. If I look to the mirror to remedy my condition, that's the problem. If I look to the law of Moses to remedy my condition as a sinner, it won't work. It will reveal my condition.

Paul said in the book of Romans, I would not have known sin unless it was through the law. So again, it's like an x-ray. You go to the doctor and you're not feeling right. You go get an x-ray. The x-ray reveals, perhaps, a condition like a broken bone.

Oh, that's why that arm hurts so much. I have a broken bone. Now, if you try to take the x-ray and, like, wrap it around you, tape it up, thinking, great, that'll do it. That'll fix it. My x-ray that revealed my brokenness is going to fix me.

That's folly. The x-ray reveals your condition. It can't remedy your condition. The law of Moses reveals, it's like an x-ray of the heart.

It reveals your brokenness, but it can't fix it. So the law, Paul said in Galatians, was a schoolmaster, prototikos, a tutor who would lead us to Christ. Someone who would walk us along the way, telling us that we need to go to Christ to remedy our condition. So, everyone who believes is justified. I'm not going to get into the depth of that word, but you may want to write in the margin of your Bible, Romans 5, verse 1, Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. You are justified, just as if you had never sinned.

Who believes is justified from all the things which you could not be justified by the law of Moses. Beware, therefore, lest what has been spoken in the prophets come upon you. Now he is making application and appeal in his message. And here it is. He's quoting again.

Behold, you despisers, marble 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. Interesting text of scripture that Paul brings up in concluding his sermon. He's pulling out a reference from the book of Habakkuk or Habakkuk, depending on what part of the country you're from. So, Habakkuk was that prophet, one of the minor prophets.

He's called a minor prophet, but he was really in the major leagues. So, Habakkuk was complaining one day because the nation that he was in, the people of Judah, the people around Jerusalem, were sinful and breaking God's laws and filthy and corrupt. And Habakkuk, the prophet, says, God, I don't know why you see all this corruption in our country and you don't do anything about it. And so God says, well, Habakkuk, it's a funny thing.

But I'm going to work a work in your midst that even if I were to tell you, you wouldn't believe. So he goes, oh, wow, well, tell me what it is. He goes, I'm going to raise up the Chaldeans, the Babylonians, to come and destroy this land. It's going to destroy and judge these people. So now Habakkuk gets all bent out of shape. He goes, now God, now why would you do something like that?

I mean, okay, we're bad, but they're like really bad. And they're Babylonians, they're godless, they practice idolatry. Why would you raise somebody more wicked than, I mean, we're wicked, but they're like way wicked. Why would you allow somebody more wicked than we to be our judgment, to be your chastening rod against us?

Then we get to chapter 2, and the key verse that Paul will base the book of Romans on is written in Habakkuk chapter 2, verse 4. The just shall live by faith. So he's bringing up this prophecy in Habakkuk, basically saying what Habakkuk said to the people from God, you need to change or you're going to perish. If you believe and you remain in faith, trusting in God, you're going to be okay. But unless you do that, you're going to be judged. So he pulls out Habakkuk chapter 1, verse 5, which leads us to chapter 2, verse 4, the just shall live by faith.

I find it interesting. Verse 42. So when the Jews went out of the synagogue, synagogue service is over, church is over. The Gentiles begged that these words might be preached to them the next Sabbath. Can I just say, anybody who begs a preacher to preach scores high points in my book. Here's a saying, please preacher, preach that message again.

Wow, I mean that's like music to our ears. So these Gentiles had never heard the gospel of grace before. They were God-fearers. They're listening in the synagogue every week to Jewish sermons about the Torah, the law, the Psalms, etc. Do this, don't do that, be a good person, don't be a bad person, etc. Now Paul comes along, blows it out of the water, says all you need to do is trust in Jesus. Believe by faith and you'll be justified and cleansed. You don't have to go through all of these rituals, all of this legalism. Now the Gentiles hear this and go, we want some more of that. Bring that stuff on.

Don't stop there. So they begged that they might be preached to them the next synagogue, the next Sabbath. So when the congregation had broken up, many of the Jews and devout proselytes, converse to Judaism, followed Paul and Barnabas who, speaking to them, persuaded them to continue in the grace of God.

Please mark that. Not continue in the law of God, but continue in the grace of God. Because this is the gospel of grace he's preaching, right? John chapter 1, for the law came by Moses, but?

Anybody? Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. The comparison of those two covenants, the covenant of the law, covenant of grace. Most people can't handle the pure gospel of grace.

Either they don't understand it and think it's licensed to do whatever you want, or they're insulted because, after all, it has to be up to me. I've got to work my way to heaven, work my way to God, make God like me. So they have a problem with just the sheer, unmerited favor of God. But I'll tell you what the gospel of grace does. It does two things.

Number one, it reveals your utter helpless condition. You cannot get to God, so something must be done for you. And number two, it shows us the sheer, unlimited favor that God is willing to bestow upon you. He loves anybody, everybody, all the time. You're listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. Before we get back to Skip's teaching, we want to help you learn more about God's radical love for all people by sending you four booklets by Skip Heitzig that will encourage you in God's abounding love and challenge you to love even the unlovable, just like Jesus did. This resource is our thanks for your gift of at least $50 today to help share solid biblical teaching with more people around the world through Connect with Skip Heitzig.

Go to connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888 and request your copies when you give at least $50 today to reach people around the world through Connect with Skip Heitzig. Now, let's get back to today's message from Pastor Skip. So it shows your helpless condition, God's limitless love and kindness. So they persuaded him to continue in the grace of God. On the next Sabbath, almost the whole city came together to hear the word of God.

Oh, it sounds so wonderful. But when the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled with envy. There's envy.

We talked about that this last weekend. And contradicting and blaspheming, they opposed the things spoken by Paul. Whenever God does a work, the devil does a work. Find God's work, you'll find the devil's work. Every action brings an equal and opposite reaction.

You learned that in school. When God is at work, you'll find the devil trying to counteract that work. And here he does it through this religious system. Think of Nehemiah building the wall in the Old Testament. He's building it. That's what God wants him to do. He's empowered by the Spirit. He's come hundreds of miles from Persia to Jerusalem.

Only 50,000 Jews return. God gives them the power and the strength to get the right people to do it together. But there's a guy named Sanballat and Tobiah who ridicule the Jews and try to stop the work, sending letters to Persia, doing everything they can to halt the work of God in Jerusalem. So whenever you find the work of God, don't be surprised when you find the work of the devil.

Now, why is this important? Because too many Christians are so naive in this. And they go, well, you know, I'm trying to do this, but it's not working out very smoothly, so that must mean God's not in this. Well, it could be that God is in it.

That's why it's not going smoothly. Because every action brings an equal and opposite reaction. If you're getting opposition from the right source, you know, whenever I get opposition, I always consider it. I always weigh it. And I weigh it to find out what the source is. And if the source is from the Lord, I always pray about it. But when it's from a source that I believe is not a godly source, then I go, aha, I see what's happening here. So as you prepare to step out into service, be prepared to pay the price of sacrifice.

And the more effective you are, the more a target you are. So again, I don't know that I would necessarily clap at that, but feel free. So they were filled with envy and contradicted them, blaspheming and 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, to the Jew first, and then also to the Gentile. 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 for the ends of the earth. Now when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad.

Yeah, what he said. And glorified the word of the Lord. And as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed.

There's a whole sermon right there. And the word of the Lord was being spread throughout that region. But the Jews stirred up the devout and prominent women and 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. To shake dust off your feet was a Jewish expression of breaking fellowship, revulsion. Jesus in Luke chapter 9 said, if you go into a city and they don't receive you, shake the very dust off your feet. And the idea was we don't want to bring unclean Gentile dust into Jewish regions.

That's sort of the idea of it. But it became simply an expression for breaking fellowship, breaking communion with. And because the gospel was pushed away by this religious group, the Jewish people in the synagogues who stirred something up, he said we're turning to the Gentiles. And it says they came to Iconium and the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit. Okay, so now they're in the region of Galatia. You've heard of Galatia.

You've heard of the letter to the Galatians. Galatia isn't a city. It's a province. It's an area. There are several cities in it.

Iconium is one of those cities. Eighty miles away he travels to Iconium. Now, one of the questions I frequently get asked is what did Paul the apostle look like physically? Is there any physical description written down of Paul?

And the answer is yes. And it happens to come from somebody who lived in the city of Iconium from Galatia. So because I get asked a lot what did he look like, and of course we don't know, this is simply one person's description, the only one that we have written down. This is from a second century work called the Acts of Paul, written by a resident from Iconium by the name of Onesiphorus. And here is how he described Paul. And he saw Paul approaching, listen to it, a man small in size with meeting eyebrows.

You know that. That's a unibrow. It's like no break, right, or just like one big line of hair, a unibrow, with a rather large nose, bald-headed, bull-legged, strongly built, full of grace. For at times he looked like a man, and at times he had the face of an angel.

Isn't that beautiful? So he didn't look like much outwardly, and he does seem to speak about that. You know, he just says, you know, my enemies say he's not much to look at. And perhaps this is an accurate description of what it looked like, that he was diminutive, nice way of saying short, unibrow, bold-legged, large nose, crooked nose, but sometimes he looked like he had the face of an angel. Now all of that is unimportant. It's interesting.

It's fascinating. If you want to know what Paul looked like, this is probably the best description we have from antiquity, the only one we have. However, don't you love what it says in the Old Testament? That when God was looking for a man to replace King Saul, and he tells the prophet, for man looks at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart. And what a heart Paul had. He had the heart to preach the gospel to places that had never heard the glad tidings of the gospel.

And so at Iconium, that's where he ends up with Barnabas. And it says the disciples, verse 52, were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit. Now they just got persecuted. They just got booted out of town. And they're joyful.

Why? Because they're filled with the Holy Spirit. Man, you've got an artesian well wherever you go if you're filled with the Holy Spirit.

Being filled with the Spirit, you can be filled with joy. And perhaps they just saw, man, we're relating to Jesus. We're identifying with him. He was persecuted, and he said we would be too. And we're persecuted for righteousness' sake. Now, I like the fact that they were joyful after being persecuted.

But I want to issue a warning. If you get persecuted, make sure that you're getting persecuted for righteousness' sake. Because some people are just weird people. And they kind of deserve to be persecuted. Just because it's like, it's not that their message is offensive.

They just are doing it in an offensive manner. I remember going witnessing, street witnessing, out at the pier at Huntington Beach, sometimes every weekend. And there was always this one guy. And when he was there, it's like, oh man, he's going to make it hard for me.

Because I would just go up to people and talk to them and engage in a conversation and try to be as affable as I could. But this guy, at the beginning of the Huntington Beach Pier, would be yelling at people going, Sinner! Here's his message of good news. You're going to hell. I'm thinking now that is an attractive message.

Who wouldn't want to listen to that right there? Tell me more. So he just repelled everybody. He was being persecuted, by the way. But not for righteousness sake. He was being persecuted because he was lame.

And if you're going to get persecuted, make sure that you get persecuted for righteousness sake. They were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit. Now it happened, verse 1, in Iconium, that they went together to the synagogue, that's his style, and so spoke that a great multitude, both of the Jews and the Greeks, believed.

There's something in that verse that rests my attention. He so spoke that people believed. Which implies that if you're a preacher or a teacher or a witnesser, you can so speak so that people won't believe. And I read this and it convicts me. I want to make sure that I so speak that my message is studied and researched and smart and filled with the Spirit and all the things that will reach into people's hearts and make them deal with the truth so that they will believe.

It implies there's a right way to do it and a wrong way to do it. So they so spoke, or in such a manner, that the multitude both of the Jews and Greeks believed. But the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brethren.

Are you seeing a pattern here? Are you noticing that the greatest enemies to the gospel are not the prostitutes or the atheists, but the narrow-minded, unsaved, religious people? Man, your movement has grown bigger than our synagogue or our meeting or our thing or our belief. You're threatening us. Our people, if they hear your message, are going to go to your deal. And so they became the greatest antagonists. Therefore, they stayed there a long time, speaking boldly in the Lord, who is bearing witness to the word of His grace, granting that signs and wonders be done by their hands.

But the multitude of the city was divided and part-sighted with the Jews and part-sighted with the apostles. We're glad you listened today and hope you've been strengthened in your walk with Jesus. Before we let you go, we want to remind you about this month's resource, the Jesus Loves Them bundle, which comes as thanks for your support of Connect with Skip Heitzig today. Request your bundle when you call and give, 800-922-1888.

That's 800-922-1888. Or visit connectwithskip.com slash donate. We'll see you next time for more verse-by-verse teaching of God's word here on Connect with Skip Heitzig. Make a connection, make a connection at the foot of the crossing. Cast your burdens on His word. Make a connection, connection. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.