You who fear God, listen

Acts 13:16-41 from the daily reading in the One Year Bible

 ¹⁶ Paul stood up, and motioning with his hand said,

“Men of Israel, and you who fear God, listen: ¹⁷ The God of this people Israel chose our fathers and made the people great during their stay in the land of Egypt, and with an uplifted arm He led them out from it. ¹⁸ For a period of about forty years He put up with them in the wilderness. ¹⁹ When He had destroyed seven nations in the land of Canaan, He distributed their land as an inheritance—all of which took about four hundred and fifty years. ²⁰ After these things He gave them judges until Samuel the prophet. ²¹ Then they asked for a king, and God gave them Saul the son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, for forty years. ²² After He had removed him, He raised up David to be their king, concerning whom He also testified and said, ‘I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after My heart, who will do all My will.’ ²³ From the descendants of this man, according to promise, God has brought to Israel a Savior, Jesus, ²⁴ after John had proclaimed before His coming a baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel. ²⁵ And while John was completing his course, he kept saying, ‘What do you suppose that I am? I am not He. But behold, one is coming after me the sandals of whose feet I am not worthy to untie.’

²⁶ “Brethren, sons of Abraham’s family, and those among you who fear God, to us the message of this salvation has been sent. ²⁷ For those who live in Jerusalem, and their rulers, recognizing neither Him nor the utterances of the prophets which are read every Sabbath, fulfilled these by condemning Him. ²⁸ And though they found no ground for putting Him to death, they asked Pilate that He be executed. ²⁹ When they had carried out all that was written concerning Him, they took Him down from the cross and laid Him in a tomb. ³⁰ But God raised Him from the dead; ³¹ 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. ³² And we preach to you the good news of the promise made to the fathers, ³³ 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.’ ³⁴ As for the fact that He raised Him up from the dead, no longer to return to decay, He has spoken in this way: ‘I will give you the holy and sure blessings of David.’ ³⁵ Therefore He also says in another Psalm, ‘You will not allow Your Holy One to undergo decay.’ ³⁶ For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep, and was laid among his fathers and underwent decay; ³⁷ but He whom God raised did not undergo decay. ³⁸ Therefore let it be known to you, brethren, that through Him forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, ³⁹ and through Him everyone who believes is freed from all things, from which you could not be freed through the Law of Moses. ⁴⁰ Therefore take heed, so that the thing spoken of in the Prophets may not come upon you:

⁴¹ ‘Behold, you scoffers, and marvel, and perish;
For I am accomplishing a work in your days,
A work which you will never believe, though someone should describe it to you.’”

We see throughout the book of Acts that the early church was operating in the commission of Jesus, preaching the gospel and being His witnesses. One of the things they did consistently, Paul does in today’s text. They shared about Jesus from the existing scriptures, what we know as the Old Testament, written long before Jesus was born. These scriptures, from the beginning, point to the coming Messiah. God’s word reveals God’s will and His plan. From the time of Adam and Eve’s sin God began to reveal His plan to redeem man from sin. In Genesis 3:14-15 it says:   God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, Cursed are you more than all cattle, And more than every beast of the field; On your belly you will go, And dust you will eat All the days of your life;  And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.”    Jesus lineage is traced all the back to Adam and Eve. He is the seed who would bruise the  head of and overcome the devil.

There are over three hundred prophetic scriptures fulfilled by Jesus. Additionally the Old Testament law and many of the historical accounts of the nation of Israel point to the coming Christ, the one who would deliver the people. The word of God is the revelation of God’s will and His plan, it is the demonstration of His love, His mercy and grace. Jesus Himself is the embodiment of that love. Romans 5:8 says: God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.  John 1: 1-5,14 says:  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.  All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.  In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.  The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.  And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.    Jesus is not only revealed by the word, He Himself is the embodiment of the word of God. He is one with the word. Jesus knew the scriptures. He Himself taught from the scriptures, knowing that they were the revelation of the heart, the will and the plan of the Father, just as He Himself was/is. Jesus says:  “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.  For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.  Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.  For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.(Matthew 5:17-20)

The early church preached the gospel, they were faithful witnesses of Jesus Christ, revealing God’s love, His mercy and His grace through the word and the testimony of Jesus sacrifice on the cross and His resurrection. The early church experienced exponential growth and expansion as people responded to the revelation of Christ through the word and through the power of the Holy Spirit, the signs and wonders which followed and confirmed the word. For some reason much of the church today has believed that the witness of Jesus Christ is about what we do. They believe that the demonstration of our love, our mercy, our grace is the revelation that people need. We should indeed love, show mercy, extend grace and forgive others. The problem is no matter how good we are, no matter how hard we try, we are still imperfect human vessels. Our love is still imperfect. We may at times either display judgment and unforgiveness or we may extend grace where God desires righteousness. In an effort to show love, we may relax the commandments of God, and teach others to do the same.

God’s word on the other hand is always a faithful witness of Jesus Christ. It, like He, never changes. Isaiah 55:11 says: So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.     We should live as Jesus did, but our lives alone, our love, our mercy and grace cannot save anyone. They need a revelation of Christ, a revelation of the perfect love of God. Our testimony is not either what we do or what we say, to be a faithful witness of Jesus Christ we must both do what He did and say what He said. Today’s text ends saying:  Therefore let it be known to you, brethren, that through Him forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you,  and through Him everyone who believes is freed from all things, from which you could not be freed through the Law of Moses.  Therefore take heed, so that the thing spoken of in the Prophets may not come upon you:  ‘Behold, you scoffers, and marvel, and perish; For I am accomplishing a work in your days, A work which you will never believe, though someone should describe it to you.’”      If we will be a faithful witness, if we will truly love others, we will tell them the truth revealed in God’s word:    

God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.  For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.  He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.  This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. (John 3:16-19)

AMEN. Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. May I be a faithful witness of Your love, Your mercy, Your grace demonstrated in the cross of Christ.  Amen.