Salvation to the Ends of the Earth, part 3 (Acts 13:42-14:7, Jeff Kliewer)

Grace as the Heart of the Gospel

This morning you would open our eyes to behold how amazing Your grace is. We thank You for Your grace toward us that we are ill-deserving people. We don't deserve blessings from You and yet You choose to give them out of the goodness of Your heart, out of Your character.

So thank You for grace and we ask that You would now strengthen us by grace to understand Your Word better and that it would change our lives, in Jesus' name, Amen. John Welch was not ashamed of the Gospel.

He lived in the 1500s in Scotland. Now if you were to visit Scotland today, as I know someone's planning a trip, it would be a pleasant experience to go now. But if you were to go in the early 1500s, it would be very, very dangerous.

It would be probably a lot like Nineveh was in the days of Jonah when he left Israel to go to that God-forsaken city. There was one town in particular called Eyre, A-Y-R, that was very violent.

Many murders.

In fact, it was known for their fighting. There were bars and saloons and people would go and gather and eventually come spilling out into the street and fight one another, often with swords. So to the death.

It was a very violent and troubled city. Well, John Welch got the call from God to go to the city of Eyre to bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The day before his first day of service as a pastor in that town, he went out with a friend who knew the area and went for a walk in the city of Eyre.

Sure enough, as he was coming up a street, he noticed a ruckus, a big crowd gathering outside of a bar. Two men had spilled out, drunk as can be. They had drawn their swords and were ready to kill one another.

Just at that moment, Welch, being led by the Spirit, ran into the middle of the fray, yelled gentlemen, and they were so surprised by that way of addressing them that they suddenly stopped and looked at him, at which time he karate-chopped the arm of one of the guys that was holding a sword.

This is true history. The guy dropped the sword, yelled to the owner of the bar, bring out a sword, and right there in the middle of the street of Eyre, he had the two men sit down and talk out their differences as he officiated.

That was his introduction to the city of Eyre. Ten years later, a majority of the people were believing the Gospel of Jesus Christ. His ministry as he preached the name and message of Jesus was going forth with great power until I believe the year was 1609, the great plague struck Scotland, and sickness was spreading from town to town, and with it, death, sometimes a majority of the people in a city.

At this time, John Welch was in prayer most of the day. He sometimes would pray throughout the night, never going to bed. This was his habit, and one day, as he was praying, he understood that God was using him to protect the city from this plague, which had yet to touch the city of Eyre.

One day, some merchants came riding up to the town of Eyre, and they were from a clean city, from a city that did not have the plague. Normally, they would be allowed to come in, and he stopped them, and he began to pray.

He knelt down and asked the Lord for wisdom, and as he stood up, not knowing where this information came from, he told the men they could not enter the city of Eyre. He said, the plague is in your bags.

It's in your merchandise. They refused to believe it. He begged them and pleaded with tears that they would bury that merchandise. The plague was in the bag. But they refused, and they went on to the next city.

Within days, the plague broke out in that city, and nearly wiped out the population.

Of that town.

By this sign, by this wonder, people who already trusted in John Welch's preaching were led to trust even more, and the revival spread through that sign and through that wonder. This work of God was the work of grace, and this morning, I want to talk to us about grace.

I want us to think about the idea of grace, because the gospel of Jesus Christ can be summed up by the word grace. The message of Jesus can be summed up in the word grace. What is grace? Let me define it for you.

Grace is when God gives us what we ill deserve. Now, we've heard grace defined as God not giving us what we do deserve, and instead giving us what we don't deserve. In other words, we are sinners who deserve to be punished for our sins.

Instead, God gives us mercy. He gives us compassion. He gives us love. He washes away our sins. But the word ill deserve communicates that we, in fact, deserve the opposite of goodness. We deserve punishment.

God gives us what we ill deserve. We're going to look at that in the text today in Acts 13, but here's what I want to say. Grace is not just what God did in Christ to pay for our sins. It also includes what the Holy Spirit does in us to cause us, to lead us to belief.

His work in our lives is essential. Without grace, we are hopeless. So we've been studying now through Acts chapter 13. It's the story of the first ever missionary journey. Paul and Barnabas set apart for the work that God has called them to do.

They leave Syria, the city of Antioch, and they sail to an island called Cyprus. They bring the gospel there for 150 miles, preaching Christ to each town and village. Moving on from there, they sail to the mainland, up into modern-day Turkey, and they come to a town called Pisidian Antioch.

Last week, we studied the sermon that Paul preached there. It was God-centered to the core. It was all about God and his activity and what he has done in Jesus Christ. He preaches the gospel. So today, we move on in the text, chapter 13, verse 42, and what we need to understand is the response of the people.

Last week, we looked at what Paul preached. This week, we look at the response of the people, and this is why it's important to do that, because every one of us must respond to the gospel. The message of Jesus Christ goes out to the ends of the earth.

Their voice has gone out to the farthest ends of the earth. Yet person by person, we must respond to that message, and we are dependent on God's grace in doing so, yet responsible to him. So, follow with me in Acts, chapter 13, verse 42 to 45.

The gospel can be summed up in the word grace. The message of Jesus Christ is the grace, the goodness of God extended toward a person like me, a wretch. When I sing that song, Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me, I know that I'm a sinner that deserves punishment, and yet God has given me a gift in Christ.

Jesus.

The Response to Paul’s Preaching in Pisidian Antioch

Verses 42 to 45 show the response of the people. The initial reaction is that they are riveted by this message. It is compelling to them. It's powerful in and of itself. Verse 42, as they went out, the people begged that these things might be told them the next Sabbath.

And after the meeting of the synagogue broke up, many Jews and devout converts to Judaism followed Paul and Barnabas, who, as they spoke with them, urged them to continue in the grace.

Of God.

There's our word, in the grace of God. Verse 44, the next Sabbath, almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of the Lord. Notice in verse 44, people are riveted by this message. There's something that's just uber compelling about this message that Paul preached.

Something that just captures their attention. It's not a snoozefest. It's not boring. Dads, you know, you feel me here. Sometimes your kid comes to you and he's super excited about something he has to share.

It might be a cartoon he's seen on TV and it's about a little alien or something like.

That.

And he goes on and on and he talks like a preacher. He could talk about it for 10 minutes. And the more he talks, the more your mind, what does it do? It checks off. It checks out. And you are just hearing background noise as he shares about this story.

There's just nothing compelling. There's nothing riveting about that. And men and women, you understand that as well in some of your conversations. I hope, husbands, you never do that to your wife, right?

Just check out while she's trying to talk. The gospel of Jesus Christ is the most riveting, compelling message the world has ever heard. Consider just a couple of points of it. Number one, the idea that the God who made the universe, who flung the farthest star into the universe, came into our world and was born of a virgin named Mary, becoming a God-man in order to live a sinless life among us.

This person, Jesus, is God in flesh. If that doesn't capture your attention, if that doesn't light your fire, your wood is wet, as the preachers say. The Southern Baptists say that a lot better than I just did.

It should light your fire to think about that. God in flesh. Number two, that they took this God-man and willingly the God-man lays down upon a cross and allows himself to be crucified at the hands of wicked men.

They raise him up and he hangs for six hours one Friday. He dies upon that cross. They bury him in a tomb, but on the third day he rises from the dead bodily alive to reign forevermore, conquering death, conquering sin.

The work of Christ is riveting, amazing, powerful. Who could yawn if someone is telling you that? Notice they are riveted by what they're being told. That's the message. Third, that this is just not a fanciful tale that the preachers like to say, because they heard it from their parents and they learned it from others, and it's just a fable that's grown over time.

Know that this is rooted not from the made-up whims of men, but rooted in the scriptures which were written hundreds of years before it happened. In 39 books, as Hebrew prophets foretold every detail which came true in the life, death, burial, and resurrection of the Messiah.

That all these things were written, and so you know it's not just whimsical, it is in fact the work of Almighty God. For who but God could do that? To say what he's going to do and then accomplish the thing that he said he would.

That's riveting to me. I study that subject with fascination. Every book of the Old Testament, chocked full with these prophecies of a coming Messiah who would suffer and die and rise. Riveting, but it gets even more personal.

The fourth point, that you, you and me, we are wicked sinners who have offended a holy God and if he gives me what I deserve, I will depart from him for eternity. I will not rise and stand in his presence, but I will go away from him in judgment.

And yet because of that blood that was put on the cross, the sin that I deserve to pay for has been paid for in full on the cross as Jesus died in my stead. And so I have forgiveness of sin by believing in the Son of God.

There's nothing more personal than that. There's nothing more eternal than that. This deals not just with what we like and what interests us, this deals with our eternal soul, our destiny, it's riveting.

And finally, the message of repentance. Whereas the first four points make you say, whoa, wow, wow, amazing. The last point demands everything from you and it makes you say, whoa. It makes you say, what is this call that Jesus offers?

He says, take up your cross and follow me. He says, count the cost and follow me. He says, repent and believe. We must turn from our sins and put our faith in Jesus and that's how we are united to him, by faith, and his death becomes our death and his resurrection becomes our life.

If that doesn't sober you, something's wrong. And there is something wrong. You see, sinners like us, we don't respond the way a compelling message like that would have us believe. So watch what happens next in the text.

It's riveting. Everybody's coming out to hear it, but verse 45, we'll read to 48. But when the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy and began to contradict what was spoken by Paul, reviling him.

And Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly, saying, it was necessary that the word of God be spoken first to you, since you thrust it aside and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life. Behold, we are turning to the Gentiles.

For so the Lord has commanded us, saying, I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth. And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord.

And as many as were appointed to eternal life believed.

Grace That Overcomes Human Resistance

Stop there.

It was grace that sent the Son of God to die in our place. But verse 48 tells me there needs to be an inward grace that comes from God. The text says, as many as were appointed to eternal life believed.

That's a tough one to wrestle with. That God in his grace has appointed me, who believes in Christ, to believe? It's not that I had something inherently in me that was more humble than the next guy. When someone came preaching Christ, and I accepted that message, and another came and heard the same message, but utterly rejected it.

What was the difference between me and another? According to verse 48, it was God's grace. As many as were appointed to eternal life believed. Now, if you're like me, if you value freedom, if you value choice, if you value your own human autonomy, this is hard language to listen to.

It doesn't seem to make sense. We bristle at that thought. We struggle with this thought. In fact, many Christians reverse this thought. And rather than believing what the text says, they'll switch it around and say, as many as believed were appointed to eternal life.

There's a whole evangelical tradition that does that. I'm not smart enough to do that. I don't know how to turn the Word of God around and still believe it. I only know how to take what is written. However, I don't need to explain everything.

Here's the dichotomy that I see in the text. One, we depend on God's grace in order to believe. We need him not only to tell us from the outside that Jesus is the Son of God, we need our hard hearts to be pricked by the Holy Spirit, we need to be cut to the heart.

Acts 2 .37, when they heard Peter preaching, they were cut to the heart. Acts 2 .39, and so they believed. As many as God had chosen to believe. We need that work and I don't understand that. But here's the second half of the equation.

Notice in our text, God still holds people responsible for how they respond to the Gospel. We completely depend on him to change us from the inside out. I know this is difficult teaching, but listen. We're completely dependent on grace and yet he holds us responsible when we reject.

It's our sin that is bent against God. Our hearts are darkened, we're dead in our trespasses and sins. And so notice in the text, verse 46, who thrusts it aside? Paul and Barnabas say it's you that thrusts it aside.

Who is judging in that passage? Now ultimately we do know that God is the judge, but in this language here, you judge yourself unworthy of eternal life. God holds sinners like me responsible for our rejection of the good news of Jesus Christ.

Both things are true. We are chosen and appointed to eternal life and that's how come we believe. But it's also true that we are responsible for how we respond to this message when it's brought to us.

Someone might have come to you and told you about the Savior, Jesus Christ. When you heard about his blood on the cross, did you mock like Acts chapter 2? Part of the crowd did that. The others believed.

How have you responded to this message of a dying Savior? According to our text, we will be held to account for that. And so if you find yourself not yet believing, you want to believe, maybe you wish you could believe, you don't believe, recognize here's where the problem lies.

Not with God, but in our own sinful hearts. And if your heart is not yet open to the gospel, you should be right now, inside, you don't have to say anything out loud, say, God I need your grace. Open my eyes that I can see.

Change this heart of stone to a heart of flesh. Save me.

Help me.

I can't do this. I can't believe. We depend on grace, and yet we're responsible. We're almost done, but we need to keep hearing this. Verse 49 and following, notice the obstacles to faith. Grace is the work of God done in Jesus Christ.

Grace is this inward thing that changes us from the inside out. But grace overcomes obstacles that seem insurmountable. 49, and the word of the Lord was spreading throughout the whole region. But the Jews incited the devout women of high standing and the leading men of the city.

They stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas and drove them out of their district. John Welch, a couple years after that revival, was driven out by King James. As the gospel took root, there were principalities and powers that fought back against it.

Wherever the gospel runs, there will be a triumph of grace, but there will also be persecution and opposition. When these apostles first began to preach, they were hated.

They were beaten.

Of the apostles, only John survived to old age. The others were all martyred for what they were saying. And then there were 10 waves of Roman persecution where the emperors of Rome tried to snuff out Christianity.

They threw Christians to the lions. They burned them like candles. Wherever the gospel went, persecution came, and anyone who desires to live righteous in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. Here's what I know about grace.

Grace overcame every obstacle in my wicked heart, overpowered me, and that's why I believe. I owe it all to grace. When I look at my life and I say, well, why did I become a Christian? Why did I? There was nothing in me that would have responded to this message.

There was nothing good in me. I was riveted by a riveting message. It was good and he changed my heart from the inside and he overcame my obstacles. And look how joyful the apostles, the disciples were in verse 52.

They just shake the dust off their feet. That's a token of judgment that Jesus told them to do in Matthew chapter 10. When rejected, shake the dust off your feet. That's a sign of judgment and go on to the next place.

But the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit. Grace conquers insurmountable obstacles. Right now there's a massive persecution of Christians going on worldwide. There are little Christian girls being kidnapped by Boko Haram and sold into slavery.

Convert to Christianity in Saudi Arabia and you need to run for your life. And who's chasing you? Your own family by the laws of apostasy to kill you for your newfound faith. And yet the gospel continues to grow.

The gospel is taking over worldwide. Sub-Saharan Africa, India, China. Places that have hated the gospel and tried to push it down. My own grandfather was in a Russian gulag. What was the communist idea?

It was a state-controlled government without God. He had to hide his Bible in a water canteen. Communism in Russia tried to snuff out Christianity but it failed. The gospel by the grace of God continues to prosper.

Overcoming opposition. We're almost done. Now look a couple more things in chapter 14. Now at Iconium they entered together into the Jewish synagogue and spoke in such a way.

Mark that.

They spoke in such a way. Grace gifts people to speak in such a way that others come to believe. There's a grace gift here. There's a spiritual gift of speaking. To speak in such a way to help others believe.

That comes from God. A great number of Jews and Greeks believed. But the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers. So they remained for a long time. Speaking boldly for the Lord who bore witness to the word of his grace.

Granting signs and wonders to be done by their hands. The grace of God was the sending of Jesus Christ to die for our sins objectively in history. The grace of God is the work that he does in our hearts to change our wicked dry hearts to hearts of flesh that believe.

The grace of God overcomes the obstacles. Here the grace of God anoints certain people to preach this message. To go out into all the earth. That's why we've sent out so many missionaries. They have grace gifts to go preach.

And notice sometimes he confirms it with signs and wonders. Often it's when the gospel is first penetrating into a culture. We hear stories of the blind receiving their sight. My own grandfather, my other grandpa, I just mentioned my grandpa Clewer.

My grandpa Wagner was a missionary in Guatemala. And says that he witnessed blind eyes opened on the mission field. I've never seen a sign and a wonder like that. But I know there's power in the name of Jesus.

And in our texts it says, granting signs and wonders to be done by their hands.

That's grace.

God doesn't have to do that. He sometimes does that. We've seen some healings here of various illnesses. God is able and free to do that. And it's grace when he does. Some people will never see a miracle.

Some people will see a miracle and yet will still disbelieve. But it's grace that he sends out these signs and wonders. And finally verse four to seven. But the people of the city were divided. Leave it right there for a moment.

The people were divided. See we're talking about response today. The gospel has this effect. Second Corinthians talks about it as moving in triumphal procession. It's on a victory march. And it spreads everywhere the fragrance of Christ.

To some that is the smell of death. To others it's the smell of life. Jesus talked about how when the word goes forth, it divides wheat from tares, sheep from goats. It has power to save. But it also hardens those who are already hard against it.

Hardens them in their own judgment.

And that's a terrible thing.

That's a devastating thing. Don't let that be you. Some were divided. Some sided with the Jews. Some sided with the apostles. When an attempt was made by both Gentiles and Jews with their rulers to mistreat them and to stone them, they learned of it and fled to Lystra and Derbe.

That's kind of funny. They're trying to get away from stoning by going to Lystra and Derbe. If you know the rest of the story, that's where Paul will get stoned and left for dead. Not a safe place. There's nowhere safe for them.

They're moving in the power of God though. Cities of Lycania and the surrounding country. And there they continued to preach the gospel. So the big idea today is that we depend on grace to believe the gospel.

We're completely dependent on grace. We need him to do a work in our hearts. We need him to overcome our obstacles. We need to hear a word that is inspired by God in the preaching of the gospel. Maybe we need to see a sign or a wonder.

We need grace to believe. And yet, we are responsible for how we respond. I close with this. There once was a farmer and he went out throwing seed indiscriminately. Just a wild man with the seed. He's throwing it everywhere.

Some of the seed falls on rocky places. And the seed, because it has nowhere to go, gets eaten up by birds. It's like throwing it on a cart path. It can't penetrate. Other seed fell not on a hard rock, but on soil that has rocks under it.

And the roots couldn't get deep. So when it would spring up, the plant would start to come up. But it didn't have any roots. So it eventually withered. Other seed fell in thorny places. And when the plant grew, it got strangled by these thorns.

And finally, there was seed that fell on good soil. And as that seed rose from the ground into a plant, it produced a harvest. 30, 60, 90 times what was sown. A healthy tree. And this is the meaning of the parable.

They continue to preach the word of God. This gospel about Jesus dying and rising, who he is, and what he's done. This is going out all over the world.

Everywhere.

The soil is the heart of the individual who hears the gospel. And your heart will be one of those four types of soil. Perhaps it's so hard that it's not penetrating a little bit. You don't believe a word I've said today.

Maybe you're listening online and you don't believe anything I'm saying. Your heart is as hard as a cart path. Or maybe you've believed a little bit, but you haven't let this word take root. That's the second kind of soil.

The third, the thorny soil, represents the desires of this world. The deceitfulness of wealth. The deceitfulness of pleasures. And the worldliness of the things that we desire, strangle out this good word that was sown into your heart, and so it strangles it to death.

But the good soil represents a heart that hears and believes, and produces 30, 60, 90 times what was sown into it. Which soil are you? Which soil is your heart this morning? If it's anything but the fourth one, right now begin to beg God for grace.

You can't change it on your own. This is the oxymoron, if you will. This is the hard thing for us to understand. We're held responsible for our own hearts, and yet we can't change it. We need grace. I'm going to ask everybody to bow your heads and not be distracted by others around you.

This is a message about your own heart. And believe it or not, God will judge the world by a man. Jesus Christ. He will not judge by your works. He will not judge by whether you're better than other people, or righteous in your own eyes.

The final judgment at the great white throne is based on whether you have repented and believed in the Son of God. If you are not that fourth soil right now, and you want to just beg God for grace to change your heart, without anybody else looking, just slip your hand up in the air.

I want to see that.

Okay, awesome, awesome.

Look, I can't change your heart. You can put your hand down. You can't even change your own heart. So right now, just beg him for more grace. Say, Lord, you can say this just quietly in your own mind.

You don't even need to say it out loud. I can't come to you on my own. I can't save myself. I can't change the way I think. I am a sinner who's hardened in sin. I need grace right now. I need you to change me from the inside out.

Lord, maybe send me a sign. Send me a sermon. I need you, Holy Spirit, to come change me. And right now, I confess that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. He died on a cross and rose from the dead. He offers forgiveness to those who call upon him.

So I call, Jesus, save a wretch like me. Give me this testimony of grace that I was lost, but now I'm found. I was blind, now I see. Save me, Jesus. Change me. Make me new. Give me the new birth. Make me a new creation.

I'm calling on the name of Jesus because I cannot save myself. Thank you, Jesus, for your grace. Thank you, Jesus, for dying and rising for me. Thank you for your blood. Thank you for the cross. Thank you for the resurrection.

It's in your name I pray.

Amen. Amen.

Brothers and sisters, there are some of you that just prayed that to accept the Lord Jesus as your Savior. If you did that, please come talk to myself or one of the elders that you saw up here as we prayed over Ben.

We want to get you a Bible. We want to encourage you in the Lord. If you haven't done that yet, if you're still one of the other kinds of soils,.

Pray.

Open the scriptures. Maybe begin in the book of John and just read about Jesus. We all need Jesus Christ. Without him, we're lost. We need his grace. Let's stand together and sing one final song.

Amen.