Dennis Tuuri

Our sermon text today deals with a historical occasion when indeed on that Sabbath that we just sung of and thought of and the call to worship and the convocating together that the Sabbath brings with the church both militant on earth and also victorious and triumphant in heaven on that Sabbath day. We now read a sermon delivered by Paul his first and longest recorded sermon in the scriptures. The sermon text is Acts 13.

We’ll begin reading at verse 13 and read through verse 41. Please stand for the reading of God’s word. The Sabbath is a memorial. Memorial Day weekend, we think of the men who gave their lives for the country. We think of those who have departed also. And on the Sabbath, it is always a good thing to think of those departed in the Lord and to realize that we worship with them. And particularly on this day, that should begin our understanding.

Acts 13 and following. Now when Paul and his company loosed from Paphos, they came to Perga and Pamphylia. And John, departing from them, returned to Jerusalem. But when they departed from Perga, they came to Antioch and 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 unto them, saying, “Ye men and brethren, if ye have any word of exhortation for the people, say on.” Then Paul stood up, and beckoning with his hand, said, “Men of Israel, and ye that fear God, give audience.

The God of this people of Israel chose our fathers and exalted the people when they dwelt as strangers in the land of Egypt, with an high arm brought he them out of it. And about the time of 40 years suffered he their manners in the wilderness. And when he had destroyed seven nations in the land of Canaan, he divided their land to them by lot. And after that he gave unto them judges about the space of 450 years until Samuel the prophet.

And after they desired a king. And God gave unto them Saul, the son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, by the space of 40 years. And when he had removed him, he raised up unto them David to be their king, to whom also he gave testimony, and said, I have found David, the son of Jesse, a man after my own heart, which shall fulfill all my will. Of this man’s seed hath God, according to his promise, raised unto Israel, a savior, Jesus, whom John had first preached before his coming, the baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel.

And as John fulfilled his course, he said, “Whom think ye that I am? I am not he, but behold, there cometh one after me, whose shoes of his feet I am not worthy to loose? Men and brethren, children of the stock of Abraham, and whosoever among you feareth God, to you is the word of this salvation sent. For they that dwell at Jerusalem and their rulers, because they knew him not, nor yet the voices of the prophets, which are read every Sabbath day, they have fulfilled them in condemning him.

And though they found no cause of death in him, yet desired they Pilate that he should be slain. And when they had fulfilled all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a sepulcher. But God raised him from the dead. And he was seen many days of them which came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are his witnesses unto the people. And we declare unto you glad tidings, so that the promise which was made unto the fathers, God hath fulfilled the same unto their children, and that he hath raised up Jesus again, as it is also written in the second psalm, thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee.

And as concerning that he raised him up from the dead, now no more to return to corruption, he said on this wise, I will give you the sure mercies of David. Wherefore he saith also in another psalm, thou shalt not suffer thine holy one to see corruption. For David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell on sleep, and was laid unto his fathers, and saw corruption. But he whom God raised again, saw no corruption.

Be it known unto you, therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins. By him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses. Beware, therefore, lest that come upon you which was spoken of in the prophets. Behold, ye despisers and wonder and perish. For I work a work in your days, a work which you shall in no wise believe, though a man declare it unto you.

Please be seated. We thank God for his word. Let us pray now that he would write it upon our hearts through his Holy Spirit. Let’s pray. Father, we thank you that this book is unlike every other book. This book we read from this day, it is to be spiritually understood and discerned and that our sin produces a block in front of us and our fallenness and our propensity to sin and error means that we can’t understand this word apart from the work of your Holy Spirit.

We pray that work might be done that you would help us Lord God to have this word written upon our hearts that it might change our lives and may lead us to that repentance and then to the enlivening of the work of the Holy Spirit as you send us forth in his power to preach this message to the nations. We pray Lord God your blessing upon us then We pray also your blessing upon the Sabbath school teachers that they might teach the younger children in a way that they can understand truths of your scriptures that we all might learn to fear you and to reverence you and to obey you more fully and to be your witnesses to the ends of the earth.

In Christ’s name we pray and for the sake of his kingdom. Amen.

God in his great grace, love and mercy has provided us the memorial of the Sabbath day. And it is that memorial that we consider this day is the memorial of God’s victory and his work through Jesus Christ our savior. And of course, the heightened sense of that memorial comes as we move to the second portion of our service later this afternoon to the table of our Lord.

But God has provided us this memorial. We want to spend some time the next couple of weeks looking at this memorial of the Sabbath, what Paul preached on it. As I said, it is his first recorded sermon in scripture. It is the longest recorded sermon. Of course, it is just a synopsis, we assume, from a much longer sermon. It is important to recognize the context of this. What we’re going to try to do is just go briefly over the entire sermon first and then go back over it and try to make points of application from the first half of the sermon and then conclude at the second half.

Sermon hopefully next week. The very first couple of verses give us the context as they come to the second Antioch. The name Antioch was a name that was given to several towns at the time being named for Seleucus Nicator’s son Antiochus. There were several cities that were built and these cities were all named after this same person. And so that’s why we have several of them. That’s why we have this distinguished as Antioch or Pisian Antioch at that in your outline.

It’s referred to in scripture at various points of time. It’s the Antioch that was in the region of Pisidia. This is southern Galatia. If you picked up a map, you’ll see sketched out there the first missionary journey. This is also the land, the ancient land of Phrygia, which we’ll read about or hear more about later in the book of Acts, a very ancient culture. However, while this was in the region of Phrygia, this was really a fairly new city and primarily there were not so much Phrygians here but rather there were Romans and Jews.

And so we see we find Paul coming to that particular place and so the emphasis is upon the synagogue that he goes to there. This is in southern Galatia as I said and so it correlates into some of the epistles the epistles to the Galatians for instance is to this general region as well. I wanted to just point out not dwell on this fact but you know we have a map here that I’ve given to you. You remember the in the book of Joshua we had various maps of the people.

And if you look at the back of your Bibles, you know about the maps that are there, you’ll have maps of the missionary journeys and you’ll see maps of the conquest of the land at the Exodus from Egypt. And while it’s not necessarily the book binders’ intent, I think that does point out to us a good lesson. The two instances of a lot of geography given to us in scripture are the conquest of the land and now the new conquest of the land through the preaching of the gospel.

And so as that conquest occurred and there were all these cities and routes laid out for us as we went through the book of Joshua. So here we have in the book of Acts a correlation to that with the preaching of the gospel going out and doing this work of conquering all the world. Well in any event this is the beginning of the text for us. They’ve left one region. We talked about the desertion of John Mark.

They’ve come to a new region now. And in this new region they attend Sabbath services at Pisian Antioch. They go there on the Sabbath and they sit down. And now it’s probable that they had correspondence with the leaders of the synagogue prior to them actually being there. But in any event, as they sitting in the Sabbath service after the reading of the law and the prophets, the invitation was given to them to speak.

This was not atypical. It was somewhat normal for synagogues. For instance, if they would have particularly in this case where you’ve got a man Saul, a student of Gamaliel, one of the great teachers of the law, and you’ve got Barnabas, who was known for his exhortations or sermons, it’s as if we were in a far remote region where you don’t maybe have a pastor, a full-time pastor.

You’ve got people that exposit the scriptures occasionally and then you have a fellow people come from another area who are really well-versed in the scriptures. You may well ask them to preach in your church. Well, this is not quite the same thing, but it’s sort of the same thing. These men were known somehow to the rulers of the synagogue, and they are given an invitation in verse 15 by the rulers of the synagogue.

The rulers were the elders probably of the synagogue. and they’re the ones who sent to them indicating they were sitting not at the front but at the back. They didn’t just yell out to them. They sent a message back to them. Would you like to come and give a word of exhortation for the people to us? And so that is the introduction to the sermon. And then Paul of course takes this opportunity. He stands up and he gives this sermon.

So we have first of all the arrival at Sabbath services in Pisian Antioch. Then we have an invitation to preach. verse 15. And then we have the sermon going from verses 16-41. And after the sermon, while we didn’t read it today, we will get to that probably several weeks down the line. Verses 42 to the end of the chapter describes the reaction then as the word of God goes into this area, this particular city, the city in Antioch, and causes division, causes contention, and there’s a turning by Paul and company, a self-conscious turning that is enunciated by him at the last few verses of chapter 13.

Turning to the Gentiles. And so this text and we’ll see after this there are other cities that they go to and we’ll take each of those cities and see what happened there as the word of God impacted that particular culture. Here at Antioch, we have a much longer account because of the length of the sermon and then we have the impact again on the culture there at Antioch. So that’s how this moves through this particular chapter.

Now the sermon itself can be divided many ways. I’ve given you a particular way on the outline. Kind of a back and forth sort of a thing, but there’s different ways to of course to divide up or understand the sermon. But in any event, I think it’s very important that no matter how you cut it, he begins, of course, by securing their attention. But after he does that, he then cites a series of God’s acts to the people.

If you’re listening to that first half of the sermon, what he does, he goes over and over again, God did this, God did this, God did this, God did this, God did this, God did this. So God, he called, he chose our fathers. God exalted the people while they were in Egypt. God brought them out of Egypt. God suffered their manners in the wilderness. God destroyed seven nations who were their enemies. God gave them the land by apportionment.

God gave them judges. God gave them Saul. God removed Saul. God raised up David. And then finally, the culmination of all those great acts of God is the provision, the raising up of the savior, Jesus. And so what we have in the first portion of the sermon there after Paul secures the attention of the people is a continuous succession of citations of God’s acts for his people. It is a theologically based sermon you could say.

It focuses upon the person of God and the manifestation of who he is in terms of his relationship to his people, his particular covenant people is the is what’s going on here. You could look at this in terms if you’re familiar with the covenant renewal patterns that people have talked about. about whether they’re three-part, four-part, five part, seven-part as a historical prologue. You know, they have these suzerainty treaties back then that historical evidences indicated when a lord would take over an area, he would give them orders.

He would give them a law, but before he did that, he would recite a historical prologue to talk about how the relationship came into came into being. And here we have a historical prologue, so to speak, as Paul in his sermon reminds the people, he begins his sermon the declaration. This is what God has done to his people. And he’s setting them up then for the call to them to repent and to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and to accept the continuity of this message culminating in the Lord Jesus Christ.

So in the first portion of the sermon Paul hammers home over and over and over again the acts of God, not the acts of men. Now we’re not going to deal with it in great detail, but we’ll see this week. We will next week. We’ll see a great contrast. As we go later on in this sermon to the acts of men at the end of this at the end of this series of statements that God did this, God did this, God did this, he then announces that the word of salvation has been sent to them.

So he does this historical prologue, the citation of God’s acts stressing God’s sovereignty. He concludes that with the great culminating act of all history, the raising up of the savior Jesus. And then on the basis of that, he drives it home immediately to the audience to the congregation to the synagogue there. He tells them this word of salvation is now preached to you. Okay? These are not dry historical events that have no significance to you.

It is relational to you. And Paul drives it home by announcing that the word of salvation has indeed been sent to them. He then after that in verses 27 and following articulates the word of salvation. He talks about the death, burial, resurrection and witness to our savior’s resurrection. So he talks about this message of salvation. Then he articulates that message of salvation by going through death, burial and resurrection and of course the very important concept of the witness that’s provided to the resurrected Christ.

But he does all that in the context of rebellious Israel. You know here we have that second the counterbalance so to speak to all these statements of God’s actions. Now we have statements of men’s actions. What men did And what men did was they wanted Pilate to kill him. They buried him. They laid him in a cellar. And then God acts in response to that by resurrecting him. Man’s acts are pointed out in correlation to this gospel.

But their acts are not righteous acts. They’re not patient acts like God’s are. They’re not salvific acts. They’re condemnatory acts. They’re bad things. God has done all these good things. Man does this bad stuff. But even then, the emphasis really isn’t even upon them. It’s upon what God has done in raising up Christ and inciting that all these actions of apostate Israel were fulfillments of prophecy.

That very word of salvation was what they were fulfilling in their disobedience to God. So even there we have the great sovereignty of God’s word and prophecy. And then of course God’s acts in raising up Jesus Christ. And then he declares that these are glad tidings now that has been brought to this congregation. Again he takes these historical events of more recent nature and drives it home to them by saying that these glad tidings we’re preaching to you now and then he cites uh in verses 32-37 that is placed in the context of fulfillment of scripture again Christ not seeing corruption etc.

The resurrection is talked about in those verses in the context of the glad tidings of God. Central to those glad tidings are Christ being the Father’s son and his resurrection So Paul goes through all those things. But again, he drives it home. There’s this articulation back and forth, stating facts, telling them, “This has something to do with you, stating facts. We bring glad tidings to you.” And then he goes through the context of those glad tidings through the scripture references.

And then he preaches forgiveness of sins and justification in verses 38 and 39. Third time he drives it home to the congregation. Three times he goes back, back talking about the relevance of the Sabbath message. of God’s history of salvation culminating in the works of Jesus Christ the relevance of that to their lives and then he concludes is the way you know it has become probably more familiar to us but at first you see the conclusions of these sermons in various places of scripture it’s a little disconcerting because he doesn’t end by making the nice pitch and giving them a sense of confidence and comfort he ends his sermon with a warning don’t be among those that God said will come who despise this message and perish.

Just like we read Psalm 95 responsively earlier, it’s a psalm about entering into Sabbath rest. But at the end of that psalm, a great psalm of God’s work again and his salvation for us. It ends with a warning. Don’t be like your fathers in the wilderness who refuse to enter in. And Hebrews echoes that same message to us talking about the rest of Christ and the Sabbath rest that he’s accomplished for us.

The need to enter into that rest, labor to enter into that rest, warning the same thing. Don’t provoke God the way these people did in the wilderness. So Paul ends his sermon with a warning. So what we have here, you know, they were asked to give an exhortation to the congregation or synagogue. The word exhortation has two meanings to it. It means to come alongside of, to call alongside of, and it has the connotation of beseeching.

exhorting, you know, exhortation, moving people to action, but it also has the concept of comfort. An exhortation is comforting. You come alongside of somebody and you give them comfort. This sermon that Paul preaches tells us that the essence of the gospel is an exhortation. And it’s an exhortation that has great comfort meditating upon the acts of God culminating the work of Jesus Christ and the glad tidings of salvation that means.

But alongside of that, he continually throws in that it means something to you. It calls for a response. It is a comfort, but it’s a beseeching. Okay? It calls for response on the part of the ones who hear it. And he does that over and over and even concludes that way with a strong warning that if they despise this message, they will surely perish. Now, this is the model for our Sabbaths. And when we come together to hear the word, this is what we should be hearing.

We should be hearing exhortations. This text tells us that was what sermons were all about. And the sermon that Paul delivers is tells us the gospel of Christ is both comfort but it is also exhortation. It is also a call to action and because of that it’s a warning to us as well and that’s what this sermon does. Now let’s go back over and then we have the reaction to the sermon and we’ll see indeed that indeed there are those who despise the message and they’re going to perish and there are others who gladly hear the message.

The word of God cuts through Antioch causing division causing contention And as a result of that contention, you know, the approved, the elect are seen for who they are. And those who are not elect are seen for who they are. Pretenders in the context of the synagogue. We’ll talk about that in a couple of weeks. But let’s go back now and go over these first few verses a little more slowly now and try to get some application out of them for our lives.

We’ll conclude with the first deliverance of the message uh in about halfway through the sermon. Okay. Verse 13. We talked about that before that you have to see in John Mark an example of what not to do. He deserted the mission. In verse 14, they departed from Perga. They came to Antioch and Pisidia, went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day and sat down. This is what they did on the Sabbath day. Now we have a transition.

This is a Jewish Sabbath that’s being talked about the seventh day Sabbath. And we’ll see also in the book of Acts, they worshiped on the first day of the week. But until that whole sabbatical system was put totally out of joint with the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, they still go to the Sabbath on the a Jewish Sabbath to the synagogue. So that’s where they were. They went to church on the Lord’s day.

That’s the way to think of this. That’s where you should be on the Lord’s day. That’s where they were on the Lord’s day even though it was still under this old dispensation. And they where do they go to worship? They go to a synagogue. A synagogue is distinct from other forms of worship. The two I guess you could call them poles that work together in terms of Old Testament worship was the Sabbath day with synagogue observance and then the special Sabbath days at the temple and the sabbatical cycle that existed there in terms of that portion of worship.

The book of Hebrews tells us that Christian worship both those things come together. The synagogue is a picture of fellowship amongst the people based upon the preaching of God’s word. The sermon the reading of the law and the prophets and then the sermon expo various sermons expositing those ser those words of the scriptures that was central to the synagogue. It was essentially a preaching service. The temple was the liturgical side of Old Testament worship and the songs that were written in the Psalms for instance, many of them recorded there.

Other places, these would be used in temple worship, not so much at the synagogue. And so the temple was the liturgical side of worship and that focuses upon the sacrificial acts of the Messiah who would come being pictured in the work of animal sacrifices. And so when we come together at on the Lord’s day with the first portion of the service we refer to sometimes as a synaxis. In this portion of the service, the preaching of God’s word is more focal.

On the second half of the service, the eucharist, the communion service itself, the word present in the elements of communion, the bread and wine has the focal element to it. Now both elements in the communion service mean it’s important to have the word there. And in this service, it’s important to have consecration. There’s patterns from the sacrificial system we apply to this portion of the worship as well.

But the point I’m trying to make is that both these things come together in Sabbath worship, synagogue and temple. And that’s because in the fullness of time, the full flow of this salvation history that Paul draws out for us is culminates in Jesus Christ. When he comes, worship now becomes more glorious. It becomes all together now. All these divergent aspects of worship in the Old Testament focused now in the one Lord’s day service.

And that’s what we’ve tried to do here at Reformation Covenant Church. We worked on our disciplinary statement of the R2D2 meeting Friday night and one of the things we’re talking about putting in there and Richard and I haven’t totally worked through the total thing yet will be in the next week or two probably and we’ll get it to you for consideration at the next head of household meeting and that’ll be the end by the way of the constitutional process at least for a year or so.

but in any event we talked about and I mentioned this last week with suspension from the table we do that during the eucharist portion of the worship to indicate suspension from the table but not from the full worship of the church. Excommunication is excluding someone from the full worship of the church. It’s announced in this portion of the worship service. Well, in any event, they meet together at the synagogue.

They sit down to hear the service to hear the reading of the law and the prophets. We read in verse 15, after the reading of the law and the prophets, rulers of the synagogue said unto them, saying, Ye men and brethren, if you have any word of exhortation for the people, say on. Alexander, and he doesn’t cite any evidence for this, but I’m sure that he was an extraordinary scholar, a Presbyterian scholar in the 1800s.

he said, is that it was historically way back when it was the reading of the law that was performed at synagogue. but that during the intertestamental period Antiochus Epiphanies forbad the reading of the law at synagogue service and that was when they started reading the prophets. It’s kind of a backhanded way to get back to the law because the prophets and now by prophets it means the historical books Joshua, Kings etc.

those in addition to the prophetical books but the prophetical books and the history then is what was also included. These are really a testimony to the law. It’s the working out of the law and the life of the people the covenant people in historical citations and then the prophetic words as well relating to history. So Alexander says that the law and the prophets became necessary after the intertestamental period.

Then from then on they always read law and prophets. I just mentioned that based and I won’t get into the details that based upon some degree of exegetical evidence some commentators believe that it was Deuteronomy 1 and Isaiah 1 that form the law and law and prophet reading for this particular Sabbath day and that Paul referred back to Deuteronomy 1, the history that’s given there. And there are some specific words he uses that the Septuagint used from Deuteronomy 1 and Isaiah 1 that are quite rare.

And so for that reason, there seems to be some pretty good evidence that those are the two portions of scripture that he was speaking on the basis of. Now, they wouldn’t necessarily exposit it verse by verse in these sermons of exhortations. would take those readings and then speak from them, take them as a jumping off place, so to speak, and talk, which is what Paul probably did. Okay. so we know that on the Sabbath and the Lord’s day, the preaching of God’s word is an important element.

This is important for us to understand that it wasn’t just the reading of the scriptures that went on during the synagogue portion of worship. And it shouldn’t be just the reading of God’s word that happens here. There should be an exposition of it. And that exposition, as I said before, is specifically said to be an exhortation to the people. And so that gives us the model at least based on Paul’s sermon of what sermons should be like.

The rulers of the synagogue here are elders at this time. The elders of different the heads of different families elders in that sense would rule the synagogue. And we’ll see as we go on now that the elders in the New Testament church are a divergence from that pattern. There’s a movement away from hereditary elders who rule things in the context of the synagogue to now the term elders used in the New Testament church to speak of special officers.

You could look at this as a mirroring of the establishment of the Levites in the Old Testament. Remember the Levites? How did they get the Levites to do all this special work of understanding God’s word, teaching it, leading in services? How you remember how that happened? The Levites replaced the firstborn of each family. There was a movement away from the family structure to special officers, the spiritual family of God.

And so in the movement of the rulers of the church, there was a movement also away from hereditary elders to special elders called to special office in the church. There’s movement, their historical progression. it’s important to note that because families in and of themselves, while they’re very important as basic building blocks of Christian culture, families can and have frequently in the history of the church been a large antagonist to the church.

the bloodline of the family frequently comes into conflict with the waterline, so to speak, of the spirit line of the house of faith. And when you see that happening, it’s an age-old battle that’s gone on a long time. And God has told us that there’s a movement progression of the church away from the family controlling the church. It doesn’t mean the family isn’t a legitimate sphere of influence. It is.

It’s a very important institution, but it like everything else can be idolatrous. And it seems that probably in the history of men, the family more often than not is as idolatrous as the civil state can be. The church can be too. But the family is a danger point at times. And the contrast or the conflict between blood and water. Our savior talked about it that he would divide families. Remember, he said, “Who are my true brothers and sisters?

Those who do my will.” You see, so in any event, this synagogue structure reminds us of all of that. I want to talk about something else way of application. At this particular synagogue service, we have I think a way of exhortation to us in this. They had people coming who were from other Christians from another area. Christians believers. They were not Christians themselves at the synagogue yet and they were open to hear what God had to say from another group.

what we see here is the cooperation of the greater body lies so to speak of the synagogue system of the Old Testament. And I just want to use it as an application point to us. We want to have involvement and interaction with other groups the way that this group from Antioch Syria are involving themselves in the work of Antioch Pisidia. Now that’s a missionary understand by way of application. It talks about a cooperation and an openness to other churches and other perspectives on God’s word.

And so it is important for us to be able to make use of people from outside of our group and learn things from them. This requires a humility on our part to hear what other members of the body of Christ would have to say to this church. Now maybe not directly through the pulpit, you know, very often, but what I’m talking about is an attitude here, a humility, a humbleness to know that we have much to learn from other people.

On the other side of the issue, we also have much to contribute to the broader body of Jesus Christ. There are specific things that God has given this church that frankly many churches need to hear and know about. And I’ve had other pastors tell me that in a complimentary sense. we have that kind of obligation to interact with the extended body of Jesus Christ. And we’re going to have opportunity to do that in the weeks and months to come.

I’m sure of that both with the Oregon Alliance of Reformed Churches. I’m going down to Kale in a couple of weeks. to speak at a Christian school graduation. Hopefully, we’ll get some of the fellows in the other Alliance churches in here occasionally to preach, etc. But in even in the extended body of Christ in Portland, apart from the reformed community, it’s important that we have this kind of interaction and cooperation.

And as I said, what’s preached here is a word of encouragement. And that defines for us what comes to pass in the rest of the service. Paul gets up and then says, “Ye men of Israel and ye that fear God, give audience.” And remember, I mentioned this last week. I want to touch on it again here that the gentile converts are spoken of those who fear God. God fears. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

And it’s important to understand that fear of God has two sides to it. One is a wholesome acknowledgement that our God is indeed, as Richard read earlier, a consuming fire. Paul warns him at the end, if you despise the word of instruction here, you’re going to perish. We should be fearful of God. who chastises us for sin. And it should reproduce a restraining influence in our lives from entering into sin.

Okay? You should know that if you go out and break God’s law, he’s not going to like it. He will punish you. He will chastise you. You know, I don’t know. I’ve had not done the study. Some people say that when God came to Adam and Eve in the garden after they sinned, you know, it wasn’t like a nice quiet walk in the garden. The sound of the Lord came and it was like a train, huge train going in hearing God in the garden.

When you stand by a great powerful locomotive close to it and feel it going past you, the ground shaking, that’s fear. You know, it is foolish for me to jump in front of this train. And the church here, the church extended in America needs to know that as Auto Scott has said, and I’ve quoted many times, God is no buttercup. He is a giant steam engine bearing down on those who attempt to rebel against him.

You should fear God that way. And by way of analogy, fathers in this church, your children should fear you that way. They should fear your chastisements, your disciplines. They should fear early on in their life the rod as it’s exercised by you. And of course, you want to try to transfer as early as possible to your children the sense that fear is ultimately pointed to God. It’s his out of justice, not our rod of anger.

Okay, so that’s very important. But the second aspect of fear in the scriptures, and you’ve probably seen this a lot, well, it’s really reverence. The modern church says it’s not really fear, it’s reverence for God, love for God. Well, that’s half true. It is reverence. Fear does have that strong connotation to it. And the fear of the Lord should be a wholesome acknowledgement in fear of his chastisements, but it should also be a reverence and an awe as you watch that freight that steam engine going by.

You are amazed at that power that is portrayed. If you’re you go down to Salem when the horse races are going on, you get close to a horse race and to see these this animal flesh on the hoof going past you. If you’re close, the ground shakes and it’s an awesome sort of a thing. Wow, those horses can do that. Well, you know, as John said, he’s not able to unloose the sandal of Jesus’s foot. There’s that much difference.

So, there is between the force of the steam engine and God. But the point is that it should who God is a consuming fire should bring a sense of awe and wonder and great appreciation and love for him because this same God has sent his son who is God to die for our sins. And that’s the other element of fear. And so if you’re here as a convert to the Lord Jesus Christ, both those elements should be there.

Now I say that because I had a counseling thing a couple years ago with a fellow who was part of this church. He told me, “I’ve never, you know, I don’t think I’ve ever felt the fear of the Lord.” And I’m thinking, “Wow, we, you know,, pray that you do because that’s the beginning of wisdom.” And if you don’t know both those elements, fear in the sense of fear of his chastisements and fear in the sense of reverential awe and love for the Lord Jesus,, you’re going to have a difficult time being here.

I got a difficult time in the kingdom of God. as much as the fear of God restrains us from action, The biblical model more is that love for the Lord Jesus Christ that reverential awe of our Father in heaven that leads us to worship him today for instance is the model that is what is essentially supposed to be motivating us not to break his law not so much the fear of punishment that’s for babies but the reverential awe of the Lord Jesus Christ now this is application again to your home if you know there have been studies done I heard it again from Dr.

do not heard DJ James Kennedy this week and I’ve heard this study cited over and over in Christian circles but it’s a good one and is they did sociological study of three kinds of children or children coming from three different kinds of families strict families without affection and love. Families where there was lots of affection and love but no strictness of discipline and families that had both a strictness and affection and love.

And of course you know what the answer is. The third group are the ones who were well adjusted contented children and righteous children. Both those aspects have to be present in your home. But we have application. This simple little sentence that’s referred to over and over again the New Testament to refer to Gentile converts God fears. That should cause you parents to understand that’s what you need to build into your children at home.

Not just a fear of chastisement, but a reverential awe and love for you. And that’s developed through covenantal faithfulness to them. All these acts of God that Paul lays out here are things he does for his people. people, you know, he chooses them, he exalts them, he destroys their enemies, he puts up with their manners, their nuances, etc. He’s always working on behalf of his covenantal people. And he is faithful to those that call.

And fathers and mothers, you should be faithful to be involved, not an absentee, mentally or physically from the home, frequently there interacting with your children and giving them that sense of fear, both fear and awe and reverence. love for you as parents. That’s a model for us. Okay. And one other thing I want to mention here is that you know before he starts talking about this, Paul beckons to the people.

And I just wanted to very briefly say there that this is not used too often in scripture. And one of the other occurrences recently was remember when Peter is released from jail by the angel in the middle of the night. He goes to the prayer meeting and he beckons to them to be quiet. Now there were probably a hubbub there. There probably was a hubbub in the synagogue you know after the reading of the law and prophets.

before the guys get up to do their exhortation. A lot of people be talking about how the week went, etc. So, he was quieting them down. But I think there’s I think it’s one more thing. Remember, we talked about these all these correlations between Peter and Paul and this transfer this movement of the gospel. It is a big movement folks away from the Jews to the Gentiles. one of these days when we have time I’ll try to talk about in terms of the transition of the revelation, the gospel progression, the epistle progression, etc.

But any event here’s one more correlation between Peter and Paul. Both of them are seen beckon to people. Well, in any event, he then begins his sermon to them by beckoning them, quieting them down, and getting their attention, which of course is very important for us as well, just by way of application in our homes. You know, if you’re going to discipline your children, get their attention. Well, they’re not obeying me.

Maybe they really didn’t hear you. Children are distracted very easy. Beckon with your whatever you got to do, get their attention. And then he actually tells them, he says, give audience It’s a strong word. I’m going to tell you something he says that you’ve probably not heard and you’ve not understood the full significance of it. It’s not the normal word to listen up now. It’s kind of like that Old Testament word Shema.

You have big ears now. Pay attention. Give audience. And so he begins to speak to them. And he says that the God of this people Israel chose our fathers and exalted the people when they dwelt as strangers in the land. He emphasizes the sovereignty of God from the get-go. Very first thing he says, the God of our people, he begins with God. Everything that he says, he begins with God. He does it grammatically.

And then he goes on to speak of a whole series of God’s actions in our life. And this is fundamental to the Christian faith to understand the sovereign God who has brought all these things to pass apart from men. Jesus stressed this again and again. He said, You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you. John 15:16. And ordained you that you should go and bring forth fruit. And then he says, I command you these things.

I command you that you love one another and expect the world to hate you. Jesus emphasizes his sovereign election of his disciples, and that includes you. You’re not here because you made a decision for Jesus. You’re here, Jesus said, because he made a decision for you. He chose you not on the basis of how he’s looked down time and saw how you’d react to him. No, that means God is reacting to men then. No, he chose you sovereignly.

He called you and you were dead in your sins and trespasses. You were a flatliner, okay? Before the spirit of God regenerated you. You have no reason to boast or to think yourself proud. Now, why is this important in this context of the sermon Paul’s preaching? One commentator, in fact, it was promised to deliver They talked about Elymas the magician, the gospel versus magic. And in this section, the gospel versus self-righteousness.

we’re going to see the Jewish nation, of course, self-righteous. Greatly proud of their heritage and lineage, proud of their works, the Pharisees were. And Paul immediately attacks that. For a lot of commentaries about this, how he gives a lot of common ground, you know, acknowledging the greatness of the Jewish people. No, no, he goes right after them by saying, “Hey, you didn’t choose God. He chose our fathers.

Go back right to the call of Abraham and then the patriarchs. God chose them. Jesus says if you’re here, if you’re regenerate in the Holy Spirit, it’s not because you decided, it’s God’s choice of you. Now, we know that intellectually, but that’s the thing that drives and puts the wooden stake through this pride thing we’ve talked about for several weeks that is the root of so much sin in our lives and acknowledgement we’re here because God chose us.

That’s our liturgy. That’s why our liturgy stresses that over and over and over. Call the worship. God speaks first to us. We respond by confessing sin. Responsive reading. He gives us a word. We respond back to him. Even the preached word comes from his scriptures are read first and we exposit him and we respond to him. Paul drives that home from the get-go here. God chose our fathers. Ephesians you know in John, the book of Gospel of John, I just read Jesus sees that as the basis for a call to consecration.

He has chosen you. Why did he choose you? That you might bring forth works, good works, fruit. Work for the kingdom. That the fruit the work for the kingdom might sustain you. Might be might be kept in place. He called you to serve him. Okay? He called you to do things for him. He’s the master. You’re the servant. Ephesians puts in the context of thanksgiving and praise to God. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without blame before him in love, having predestined us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ.

Ephesians says the basis that God also repeats the same message, God chose us before the foundations of the earth and he called us not just to serve but to be holy and blameless to live lives of consecration of personal holiness reflecting the character of our Father in heaven and the basis that becomes the basis for this blessing and praise and glory that’s given to God in the book of Ephesians goes on in verse six to the praise of the glory of his grace wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved in whom we have redemption through his blood the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace Paul begins by citing the riches of God’s grace and later he’ll write to the Ephesians and spell it out in great big letters.

But here if we understand what he’s doing and why he starts this way, we see right away he’s calling us as he gives us the same word of exhortation to recognize God’s election of us and to humble us before him and as a result to sing forth his praises and also to serve him by doing kingdom work and by engaging in acts of personal piety and holiness. He stresses, “God, we’re going to sing Psalm 115 at the end of the service.

We’re going to sing about the uselessness of all the other gods, wood and stone.” And the people that worship gods in wood and stone become just like him, deaf and dumb. So with elements become blind. and Psalm 115 begins with, you know, not unto us, but only to thy name be praise and glory. Okay, that’s what you have to start with in Saul in in Paul’s sermon is this emphasis upon the sovereignty of God.

He then moves on to talk about how God chose our fathers and he exalted the people. God is a sovereign electing God who chooses a people to himself based upon his choice, not their choice. But having done that, he exalts those people. That’s the second thing that Paul mentions here. To exalt means to raise up. Worship is a picture. Remember we talked about you always go up on these mountain tops in the Old Testament or hills to worship.

New Testament, Jerusalem is up. Everything else is down. God exalts his people. We see that as we go up starts from Corda on the Lord’s day of worship service. But that’s just a picture just a model, a symbol. What it means here is he exalts his people. How does he do that? He exalts him in the context of them dwelling as strangers in the land of Egypt. Remember they ruled the country. Joseph converted Pharaoh people.

And then the rest of the tribe come down and they grow. They tremendous numbers. He gives a numerical increase. He gives them great prosperity in the land of Gan. See, he exalted his people. He made them a great nation. They go down. 12 brothers, not such good brothers at that, but God exalts them.