Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Good Morning!

For those of you who do not know me I am Danny Watton, one of the Chaplains here on station and I wanted you to say thank you for being here today.

I want you to know that God has a plan for your life.

You might have come here today broken, bruised or just fed up with how your life is going or the messiness of day to day living.

But even though life is unpredictable there is something that never changes....Gods love for you and that He is always right there next to you in the midst of the brokenness, messiness and day to day living.

And that means He is there no matter if you are at your highest highs or lowest lows.

We know that about God through our study through Acts.

We see that God is with us through our darkest hours and in our greatest moments.

We have seen Him baptize the church with the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and the celebration of the church growing and we saw Him as Stephen was being stoned to death stand up at the right hand of God welcoming him home.

The one consistent thing is that God was and is always there…guiding, helping and giving us what we need to fulfill His commission to us.......to Love God, love people and to spread the good news.

We are continuing through the book of Acts and we are going to spend most of our time in chapter 13.

Last week we learned what true conversion means and what that looks like in our lives.

We learned that true conversion happens only through Gods pursuit of us, being transformed through the Holy Spirit and hearing the Gospel and what Christ did on the cross.

Our take away from last week was

do not call anything unclean that God has made clean.

As Christians we sometimes see ourselves as unclean.

But because of His life, death and resurrection we are a new creation.

We are no longer unclean but righteous only because His plan never failed.

We know that His plan hasn’t failed and is still on going.

We know this because we are sitting in this chapel right now hearing His Word.

We saw last week that the Gentiles had their own pentecost and recieved the Holy Spirit.

God was saying that the Gospel....His Love is not exclusive to one culture or people.

The Gospel in Acts is exploding out of Jerusalem and being spread out to all nations.

If I was going to go through everything Acts had to offer and made sermons out of all that is to be heard and learned we would never leave Acts.

But what I am going to do is give you the highlights of Chapter 11 & 12 and then we are going to park in .

But before we do that let’s pray!!

Acts Chapter 11

Word got out to the Apostles and fellow christians through Judea that the Gentiles recieved the Word of God.

Now remember it was unlawful for a Jew to associate with or visit anyone of another nation.

So when Peter got back to Jerusalem he was brought under church discipline for meeting with the Gentiles.

Paul explains to them that he was given a vision and was told that God said,

“What God has made clean do not call unclean”

He continued to tell them about sharing the Gospel and the Gentiles where baptized in the Holy Spirit.

After hearing this they all glorified God.

The Gospel then explodes out of Jerusalem.

This happened because the same Christian’s that scattered because of intense persecution that came from Stephen.

They began speaking the Gospel.

The Word of the Lord went out to, Phoenicia and Cyprus and Cyrene.

The Word was spreading and the Gospel was making a huge impact in Antioch.

Antioch was

This city is important because it was the third largest city in Roman Empire.

It was home to a large Jewish community.

It was a vile city with gross immoral practices but Antioch would became the base of operations for Paul for his ministry.

But word got out that the Gospel was being recieved in Antioch that the Apostles sent Barnabas there.

Barnabas arrived in Antioch and he could not deny that God was at work there.

He rejoiced because the Gospel was spreading.

But he realized that much work still needed to be done and he could not do it by himself.

He could think of no one better then Saul of Tarsus to aid him in ministry.

So Barnabas went to Tarsus to recruit Saul for ministry in Antioch.

Saul agreed and he spent the next year in ministry with Barnabas.

Prophets would come down from Jerusalem to Antioch and they foretold of a famine all over the Roman Empire and elders and disciples came together and sent aid to Barnabas and Saul.

Chapter 12

We see in that the church was under severe persecution that came from the hand of King Herod.

Herod was known for trying to gain favor from the Jews, so he found it politically expedient to arrest Christians and murder James who was brother of John.

The good news that we see is that the Gospel was spreading so much that the Christians were becoming an identifiable group which was making a big enough impact to cause Herod to persecute the church.

Obviously, his intervention and involvement was not good because Christians were suffering.

But Herod saw this pleased the Jews so after the murder of James he arrested Peter and placed him in jail.

Peter was heavily guarded and Herods intent was to execute Peter after passover.

Again Herod trying to gain favor from the Jews, he wanted to kill Peter because it was going to help him politically.

First,

Peter was known for being the leader of the church and second he had fraternized with the Gentiles.

So this was Herods Justification.

But while Peter was imprisoned he was chained to two guards.

And the night before his trail an Angel of the Lord appeared to Peter while he was asleep.

ASLEEP!!!!

If you were about to be killed would you be sound asleep?

The reason he was sleeping was because not only did he have the church praying for him he was told by Jesus that we would be live to an old age in .

So he had confidence in Jesus because he knew that His plan for His life would not be stopped by King Herod.

The Angel of the Lord told him

“Get up Quickly”

And his chains fell off.

He wrapped a cloak around himself and the Angel of the Lord directed him out of the city.

When he realized that the Lord saved him from Herod he immediately went to the house of Mary were they were all gathered to pray.

Peter knocked on the door and a servant girl answered the door.

She saw him and immediately ran back to tell the others that Peter was at the door.

The very thing they were gathered for to pray about was answered by God.

Peter told them that he was rescued by the Lord and told them to tell James and the other brothers.

We then see that Herod dies at the end of .

Herod was giving a speech to the people of Tyre and Sidon and the people were worshiping Herod as a god and immediately the Angel of the Lord struck him down because Herod was not giving the glory to God.

The Word of the Lord increased and multiplied and Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem with John.

Barnabas and Saul Sent Off

Barnabas and Saul on Cyprus

4 So, being sent out vby the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia, andfrom there they sailed to Cyprus. 5 When they arrived at Salamis, theyproclaimed the word of God win the synagogues of the Jews.

And they hadxJohn to yassist them.

6 When they had gone through the whole island as faras Paphos, they came upon a certain zmagician, aa Jewish false prophetnamed Bar-Jesus.

7 He was with bthe proconsul, Sergius Paulus, a man ofintelligence, who summoned Barnabas and Saul and sought to hear the wordof God. 8 But Elymas the zmagician (for that is the meaning of his name)copposed them, seeking to turn dthe proconsul away from the faith.

9 But Saul,who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him10 and said, “You son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, full of all deceit and villainy, will you not stop making crooked the straight paths ofthe Lord? 11 And now, behold, jthe hand of the Lord is upon you, and you will beblind and unable to see the sun for a time.”

Immediately mist and darkness fellupon him, and he went about seeking kpeople to lead him by the hand.

12 Thenthe proconsul believed, when he saw what had occurred, for he was astonishedat lthe teaching of the Lord.

Paul and Barnabas at Antioch in Pisidia

13 Now Paul and his companions set sail from Paphos and came to Perga inPamphylia.

And mJohn left them and returned nto Jerusalem, 14 but they wenton from Perga and came to Antioch in Pisidia.

And oon the Sabbath day ptheywent into the synagogue and sat down.

15 After qthe reading from rthe Lawand the Prophets, sthe rulers of the synagogue sent a message to them, saying,“Brothers, if you have any tword of encouragement for the people, say it.”

16 SoPaul stood up, and umotioning with his hand said:

“Men of Israel and vyou who fear God, listen.

17 wThe God of this peopleIsrael xchose our fathers and ymade the people great zduring their stay in theland of Egypt, and awith uplifted arm he led them out of it.

18 And for aboutbforty years che put up with2 them in the wilderness.

19 And dafter destroyingeseven nations in the land of Canaan, fhe gave them their land as aninheritance.