3.8.26 5.26.2024 Acts 13.16-42 New Messenger…

Start:

Entice: For many people in the 21st Century the gospel has become a foreign even mysterious story. The shared vocabulary of Scripture can no longer be taken for granted. In some circumstances that makes the good news sound fresh, new, and different.

Many others have heard of “Christianity” and their’s is an understanding wholly mediated through impersonal, human, structures. The beating heart of Jesus is His people. His bride. His temple. His flock. His vine. His committed band of storytellers who celebrate His story.

Engage: Are you uncomfortable with our current culture? I know I am. After 42 years it sometimes feels like I am speaking a foreign language.

And.That’s. O.K.

From the time that Peter first preached in Jerusalem until today’s story of Paul preaching in Pisidian Antioch years have passed. The world has not changed but as the Church itself moved further into the world it likely seemed like they were experiencing cultural shifts similar to those that confront us today.

Expand:

Paul is not Peter.

Paul is not James.

Paul was unlike the first disciples.

He is better educated. He is more urbane. It will be disclosed later in the book of Acts that he is not only a Jewish Rabi, he is also a Roman citizen. He and Peter were very different. Yet they shared allegiance to Jesus and consequently they shared the same gospel.

Excite: Time and space and place require different messengers to proclaim the changeless Gospel of Jesus.

We are here.

It is now.

This is our story.

This is our place.

We inhabit this space with the story of Jesus. We have great examples and we have the tools we need.

Explore:

A good storyteller needs the right equipment.

Expand: Paul did bring some unique contributions.

Body of Sermon: For one thing Paul deploys

1 A Robust Biblical toolbox.

Acts 13:16–31 ESV

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. 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. 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.’ 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.

1.1 To tell the Story of Jesus you must believe it yourself.

1.2 To tell the Story of Jesus you must read and understand Scripture.

1.3 To tell the Story of Jesus you must include your audience in the Biblical story.

This is not just a friendly entertaining story shared for enjoyment. Paul tells the story with

2 A Persuasive Intent.

Not arguing…persuading. He does not browbeat, belittle, or demean. He wants to change peoples minds.

Acts 13:32–39 ESV

32 And we bring you the good news that what God promised to the fathers, 33 this he has fulfilled to us their children by raising Jesus, as also it is written in the second Psalm, “ ‘You are my Son, today I have begotten you.’ 34 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.’ 35 Therefore he says also in another psalm, “ ‘You will not let your Holy One see corruption.’ 36 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, 37 but he whom God raised up did not see corruption. 38 Let it be known to you therefore, brothers, that through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, 39 and by him everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses.

Persuasion is a matter of

2.1 Personal Conviction.

2.2 Personal Commitment.

Next, Paul addresses his audience from

3 A Unique Perspective.

Acts 13:40–41 ESV

40 Beware, therefore, lest what is said in the Prophets should come about: 41 “ ‘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.’ ”

Paul had been where his audience sat. He was a scoffer. He rejected Christ. He understood them

3.1 Paul understood rejection and opposition to the Gospel.

3.2 Paul grasped specific risks

3.2.1 The risk of legalism.

3.2.2 The risk of pride.

We all have some unique, unprecedented understanding of the world. We are experts at some arcane something. Someday the person who needs us—and only us—to tell them the story of Jesus will be before us. Then we need to be ready with the story in our minds and our hearts filled with passion for Christ.

Shut Down

As a Hellenistic Jew Paul knew what it meant to move in both the parochial world of Judaism and the Cosmopolitan, global society of the broader Roman world.

He was perfectly situated to lead the Church in expanding throughout the world. He was at home with God’s people, and understood everyone else’s motivations.

That is what it takes to the tell the story of Jesus in the Post-Modern world in which we live.

The fancy terms may not apply but we face similar circumstances. Insiders and outsiders. Spiritual and secular. Open and insulated. Receptive and hostile. Years may have passed but the configurations of possible audiences are pretty much the same

Our world now is more like Paul’s than perhaps any time throughout history.

We each have a unique experience just like Paul.

Like Paul wee need to be persuasive—not argumentative. An argumentative Church seldom persuades anyone of anything Persuasion goes beyond articulating the Story and demonstrating it with our own transformed lives.

We need to stock up our Biblical toolbox so that we can draw deeply from the well of God’s word. The story of Jesus brings all of Scripture to a close. Without knowing the Bible intimately, we make our task more difficult.

It was the same story in Pisidian Antioch as it was in Jerusalem. And it is the same story in Grayville. Paul was there. We are here. Find your audience.