WWUTT 2638 Paul Preaches at Pisidian Antioch (Acts 13:13-25)

In Acts chapter 13, we continue to see the gospel of Jesus Christ going out to the entire world. And this is not man's doing that so many more people are hearing the gospel and are saved. It is the work of God when we understand the text.

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Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe.

Paul’s First Missionary Journey to Pisidian Antioch

Thank you, Becky. In our study of the book of Acts, we come back to chapter 13 where we've been reading about Paul's first missionary journey. And here we come to the first sermon that Paul preached on that journey at Pisidian Antioch.

Now, this is a little bit lengthy, so I'm going to start here in verse 13 and read through verse 43. Hear the word of the Lord. Now, after Paul and his companions set sail from Paphos, they came to Perga in Pamphylia, but John left them and returned to Jerusalem.

But going on from Perga, they arrived at Pisidian Antioch, and on the Sabbath day, they went into the synagogue and sat down. And after the reading of the law and the prophets, the synagogue officials sent to them, saying, Brothers, if you have any word of exhortation for the people, say it.

So Paul stood up and, motioning with his hand, said, Men of Israel, and you who fear God, listen. The God of this people Israel chose our fathers and lifted up the people during their stay in the land of Egypt, and with an uplifted arm he led them out from it.

And for a period of about forty years he put up with them in the wilderness. And when he destroyed seven nations in the land of Canaan, he distributed their land as an inheritance, all of which took about 450 years.

After these things, he gave them judges until Samuel the prophet. 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. And after he had removed him, he raised up David to be their king, about whom he also said, Bearing witness, I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after my heart, who will do all my will.

From the seed of this man, according to promise, God has brought to Israel a Savior, Jesus. After John had preached before his coming a baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel, and as John was fulfilling his course, he kept saying, What do you suppose that I am?

I am not he. But behold, one is coming after me, of whom I am not worthy to untie the sandals of his feet. Brothers, sons of Abraham's family, and those among you who fear God, to us the word of this salvation was sent.

For those who live in Jerusalem and their rulers, recognizing neither him nor the utterances of the prophets, which are read every Sabbath, fulfilled them by condemning him. And though they found no ground for death, they asked Pilate that he be executed.

And when they had finished all that was written concerning him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb. But God raised him from the dead. And for many days he appeared to those who came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, the very ones who are now his witnesses to the people.

And we proclaim to you the good news of the promise made to the fathers, that God has fulfilled this promise to our children, in that he raised up Jesus, as it is also written in the second Psalm, You are my Son, today I have begotten you.

But that he raised him up from the dead, no longer to return to corruption, he has spoken in this way, I will give you the holy and faithful lovingkindnesses of David. Therefore he also says in another Psalm, You will not give your Holy One over to seek corruption.

For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep and was laid among his fathers and saw corruption. But he whom God raised did not see corruption. Therefore let it be known to you, brothers, that through him forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and that in him everyone who believes is justified from all things which you could not be justified from through the law of Moses.

Therefore watch out, so that the things spoken of in the prophets may not come upon you. Look, you scoffers, and marvel and perish, for I am accomplishing a work in your days, a work which you would never believe, though someone should recount it to you.".

And as Paul and Barnabas were leaving, the people kept pleading that these words might be spoken to them the next Sabbath. Now when the meeting of the synagogue had broken up, many of the Jews and of the God-fearing proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas, who, speaking to them, were urging them to continue in the grace of God.

God Chose the Fathers and Raised Up David

Amen. What a terrific sermon. And this is the first sermon that we see in the book of Acts preached on Gentile soil. Now, of course, this is preached in a synagogue, but this is Paul and Barnabas having gone out to the Gentiles.

And they have been doing this. They were in Antioch for a year. This is Pisidian Antioch, which is a different place. I'll give you kind of the geography of that here in a little bit. So, of course, the gospel has gone out to Gentiles.

This has already occurred. But as far as what's recorded for us in the book of Acts, this is the first sermon that we read preached on Gentile soil. Now, back in Acts 10, when Peter went to the household of Cornelius and preached to the Gentiles that were gathered there, that was certainly the gospel coming to the Gentiles.

But Caesarea, where Cornelius' house was, that was still in Judea. So we haven't had yet in the book of Acts a declaration of the gospel or the gospel laid out as preached in a Gentile region. This is the first, though it's still to Jews, because, again, Paul and Barnabas go into the synagogue and they address the people of Israel.

Men of Israel and you who fear God, listen. The God of this people, Israel, chose our fathers and lifted up the people during their stay in the land of Egypt. So he addresses Israel and also you who fear God.

So that would be addressing any Gentiles that would happen to be there. They wouldn't have the seats of prominence there in the synagogue, but there were, of course, Gentiles that would come and they would remain outside the gathering of the brethren to hear the word of God preached.

So that's who Paul addresses when he says you who fear God. And then a little bit later on where he talks about children of Abraham. Hang on. Oh, verse 26. Brothers, sons of Abraham's family and those among you who fear God.

That, again, would include those Gentiles who were not descended in the bloodline of Abraham. But, of course, as we see these things progress, we would come to understand that all who believe in Jesus Christ are the children of Abraham.

Paul makes that argument in Galatians chapter 3. We see it also in Ephesians, in Romans, and in other places. Those who believe in Jesus Christ are of the spiritual seed of Abraham. We can call Abraham our father because it is the children of faith who are the sons of Abraham.

As Paul argues, that's Galatians 3 .7, I believe, is the reference. So, again, this being Paul's first missionary journey. Now, let me give you a little bit of geography on this, and then we'll come back to the sermon.

We're just going to mainly cover the historical part today, and then we'll get into more of the particular scriptures that Paul cites and how Christ fulfilled them. That'll be later when we come back to this sermon next week.

So far, Paul and Barnabas have set out from Antioch, and they have gone to the island of Cyprus. So that was what we covered on Monday and Tuesday this week. They land at Salamis, which is the port that is closest to Seleucia, the city that they left there on the coast of Syria.

That's where Antioch is, the first Antioch. So this is a different Antioch, as I mentioned. You can look at a Bible map yourself. It's probably in the back of your Bible, in fact. When you get to the maps section, you'll have that map that shows all of Paul's missionary journeys.

This is the first one, and it's the shortest. It's going to be the most contained there of the four missionary journeys that your map will chart. But they go from Seleucia to Salamis, which is on the east coast of Cyprus.

And there's kind of like a wedge there on the island of Cyprus. It's almost like an arrow of water that points inward, and Salamis would have been right there on the point of that water that comes into the island.

And it says that we read earlier in chapter 13, Paul and Silas went throughout all of the island, and they eventually come to Paphos. So this is the westernmost port city now on the southwest side of the island of Cyprus.

And they come to Paphos, and that was the message or the encounter that we read of yesterday with Paul sharing the gospel with the proconsul. I never did explain what a proconsul was, by the way. It would have been a high-ranking senator in a Roman province.

He was the highest-ranking senator in a Roman province. So this was a guy of much prominence, and he listened to the gospel that Paul and Barnabas preached, and he came to believe, especially when he saw what Paul had done to Elimas the magician, who was trying to prevent Sergius Pallas from hearing the gospel that Paul was proclaiming.

So now they have left. They've left Paphos, and they've come up to Lycia, and where they land at Lycia is Perga, which is in Pamphylia. That's another region that's right there in southern Lycia, and what's north of there is Galatia.

So you have Pamphylia. A little bit to the northwest is Pisidia, and there is a city up there right on the edge of Lycia and Galatia that is called Antioch. This is not the same Antioch that they were in when they were in Syria, where they spent a year sharing the gospel there.

This is a different Antioch. The Antioch in Syria is actually larger than this Antioch. So this one is commonly recorded, as said in verse 14, as Pisidian Antioch. Now, as we come into this sermon, this first part goes rather quick, as he recalls some of the history of the Jews, and then he gets into some more particular scriptures a little bit later on, and we'll spend more time on that part, which we'll come back to this sermon on Monday.

Let's go through that historical part first of all. So Paul is addressing the men in the synagogue there, and so far this is a kind interaction. We won't see this a lot, where Paul will go into a synagogue and he will just be warmly welcomed by everybody.

But that's the case here in Pisidian Antioch, and what a terrific sermon he delivers. But the officials there in the synagogue, they read the law and the prophets, and then they say to Paul and Barnabas, if you have any word of exhortation for the people, say it.

And so Paul stands up and he recalls this history. He says, men of Israel and you who fear God, listen, the God of this people Israel chose our fathers and lifted up the people during their stay in the land of Egypt, and with an uplifted arm, he led them out from it.

Now you may have caught this as I was reading through this sermon, but Paul gives God the glory all the way through it. If he ever mentions a man in this account, it's often the shortcomings of that man that are mentioned.

They aren't well praised as having been faithful all the way through. It is God who has been faithful to his promises to do this. And again and again, God is highly exalted. God chose our fathers. It wasn't because our fathers were just better men than everybody else.

He chose our fathers. God chose Abraham. He chose Isaac. He chose Jacob. And he chose Judah from among Jacob, that through the line of Judah would eventually come the Messiah, would come King David, and then from the line of David would come the Messiah to his people.

And it was when the people were in slavery in Egypt that God sustained them. He lifted them up during their stay in the land of Egypt and led them out from it. And for a period of 40 years, I love the way this is worded in verse 18, he put up with them in the wilderness.

Yes, put up with them. Because, man, they just bickered and complained the whole time they were in the wilderness. We had it better in Egypt. Let us go back to Egypt. And then those who doubted God and challenged Moses and Aaron were swallowed up by the ground.

And then the people who grumbled at the report of the spies when it came back, they were cursed to wander in the wilderness for 40 years until that generation died off and their children would go into the land and receive the promise that was given to the descendants of Abraham.

And so that's next, verse 19. When he destroyed seven nations in the land of Canaan, he distributed their land as an inheritance, all of which took about 450 years. So everything that Paul is recording here is starting with Abraham and going all the way up into their taking of the land.

And all of this took about 450 years. And after that, after these things, he gave them judges. So the period of the judges was even a few hundred years until Samuel the prophet. Samuel is the last judge who is talked about at the beginning of 1 Samuel.

And then they asked for a king. And God gave them Saul, the son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, for 40 years. Now remember that when the people demanded a king, Samuel went to God and said, they want a king now.

And God told Samuel not to take it personal. Because it wasn't Samuel that the people were rejecting, it was God they were rejecting. They were rejecting God as their king. And they wanted to be like, you know, just like the pagans around them, which God had warned them not to be like, but they all have kings.

So we want a king ourselves. They wanted a king they could see. They could not believe in the king that they could not see. Now they were still monotheists. They were still a God-fearing people. They had not really become quite like the pagans around them.

That would certainly happen later. But still they did not trust God whom they did not see. They wanted a king they could see. And Saul was frankly just not a good king. There was a period there he was faithful to God and God was with him.

But for most of that period of time, he was in rebellion against God and God fell out of favor with him and had already planned on a successor to receive Saul's throne. And it was not going to be someone from Saul's bloodline.

It was going to be somebody of a different tribe. After God had removed him, he raised up David to be their king, about whom he said, bearing witness, I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after my heart, who will do my will.

That's recorded in 1 Samuel, I believe it's chapter 13. It was the first time that Samuel said to Saul that God had someone else in mind, a man after his own heart. Though it wasn't said yet to Saul who that was going to be.

But Saul knew it wasn't going to be Jonathan. It wasn't going to be someone who was his own son. So verse 23, from the seed of this man, according to promise, God has brought to Israel a savior, Jesus.

So Jesus has fulfilled this in that he is descended from the line of David. It could be shown that Joseph, and I believe Mary also, but Joseph in particular is the genealogy that we have in Matthew and in Luke.

And in both genealogies, it shows that Joseph, the head of the household, was descended from David. And so therefore, Christ is the rightful heir to the throne of David. And therefore, the fulfillment of the Davidic promise, the covenant that God made with David, on your throne, I will establish my kingdom forever.

And that kingdom, by the way, is established, and Jesus is sitting on that throne now. Paul doesn't exactly expound on that and say that in those words, but that is the understanding, especially as we read the doctrine that comes about later in the epistles.

So we understand Christ sitting on that throne that is now the throne of David, establishing the kingdom of God forever. And after John had preached before his coming a baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel, and John was fulfilling his course, he kept saying, what do you suppose that I am?

I am not he, but behold, one is coming after me of whom I am not worthy to untie the sandals of his feet. Now, I don't know if you remember this when we were in the gospel of Luke, but at the beginning of Luke, I talked about how John was a miracle baby.

John the Baptist was a miracle baby. Remember that his parents, Zechariah and Elizabeth, were beyond childbearing years. Similar story to what happened with Abraham and Sarah. And they already could not have children anymore.

The angel Gabriel comes to Zechariah, says your wife Elizabeth will be with child. Zechariah doesn't believe him, and so he's made mute and deaf until the child is born. And when he says, according to the command that was given by the angel, his name should be called John.

Then his muteness was open and he was able to speak again and the people were amazed by this. They knew when he was struck mute, that he had seen a sign, but he couldn't communicate it because he was now mute and deaf.

And after he's able to speak again, they're amazed by that. But all of this was known to the people, Zechariah was a priest. So they knew Elizabeth can't have children and here she's been given a miracle child.

So when the people are going out into the wilderness to hear John the Baptist speak, they know John the Baptist is Zechariah's kid. And we all remember what happened there with Zechariah and Elizabeth.

It was spoken about all over Judea. They thought John the Baptist was the Messiah. Now he was not born in the line of Judah. So he could not have been the fulfillment of the prophets, even though Elizabeth and Mary are spoken about as being relatives.

Zechariah and Elizabeth were Levites. They were not descended from the line of Judah. So John the Baptist could not have been the Messiah, but that's not what the people were thinking. They had to be thinking, okay, miracle baby.

Here he is out in the wilderness, proclaiming this message, baptizing people. He's got to be the Messiah. But John the Baptist says to them, I am not he. It was more than just a guy out in the wilderness preaching.

That's the thing. You know, oftentimes when you'll see these depictions that are made in TV shows, movies, The Chosen or Son of God, or I don't know, what's one of the more recent movies, Jesus movies that's come out?

Son of God is the last one that I can remember. Has there been one since then? Just all of these different chosen shows, The Chosen, that ends up being a cinematic event as well as the streaming show online.

Anyway, so in all of these depictions of Jesus in cinema, in this story in cinema, John the Baptist will, it'll just be, he'll just be portrayed as some crazy guy in the wilderness gabbing. But the people were captivated by John the Baptist and they loved John the Baptist, which is why the Pharisees did not want to say that he wasn't a prophet because they feared the people, they thought the people would stone them to death.

John the Baptist was captivating to the people, they listened to him and many of them thought he might be the Messiah. So he had to say, I'm not he, but one is coming after me about whom, or sorry, of whom I am not worthy to untie the sandals of his feet, and that is Jesus.

The interesting thing is, Paul doesn't name drop Jesus though until, this is verse 25, he doesn't name drop Jesus until verse 33, when he says, God has fulfilled this promise to our children in that he raised up Jesus as it is also written in the second Psalm, you are my son, today I have begotten you.

So he's building all this up about this one that God had raised from the dead and he finally name drops exactly who he's talking about, Jesus Christ in verse 33. So that's where we're going to pick up next time.

We'll pick up in verse 26 and cover the remainder of the sermon and some of these finer points that Paul makes from the Old Testament about how Christ fulfilled the law and the prophets. Good for us to study this always.

But remember, friends, that it is God who has done this by his will, his purpose, and his plan. Even for you, that you would hear the gospel and put faith in Jesus Christ, this is God's doing. As said in 1 Corinthians 1 .30, it is by his doing that you are in Christ Jesus.

And so we praise God for his wonderful kindness to us in that the gospel has come to our ears and to our hearts, that we may believe in Jesus, our sins would be forgiven, and we are saved. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the gospel that you have proclaimed to us.

And may it be something that we rejoice in every single day. It is always good to our ears. As we have read about this week, even in what we've been studying here in Acts 13. May we continue to meditate on these things and give praise and glory to you who has loved us and saved us through your son.

It is in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

You've been listening to When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, Gabe will be going through a New Testament study. Then on Thursday, we look at an Old Testament book.

On Friday, we take questions from the listeners and viewers. Tomorrow, we'll pick up on an Old Testament study When We Understand the Text.