Sermon Tone Analysis

God’s Grace to a Disobedient People

We are in Acts 13 and as we have been tracing Paul and Barnabas moving through their first missionary journey.

At this point on their journey that have come to a town called Pisidian Antioch.

While there they went to the synagogue and were invited by the synagogue official to come and give an exhortation or words of comfort derived from the Scripture that was just read.

Paul takes the opportunity to proclaim the gospel message to the people from the Old Testament Scripture.

As Paul has done this we have found that God has demonstrated grace to a disobedient people.

God has always been merciful and gracious and this grace was finalized in Jesus Christ’s death, burial and resurrection.

This morning we will see how this can bring the people comfort and how we can find comfort in Jesus’ death burial and resurrection.

Let’s go ahead and look at verses 26-43;

We looked at verses 26-29 last week.

Jesus had come, being and bringing the message of salvation for the nation of Israel.

These people rejected Him.

The funny thing is they had the Scripture that pointed to Jesus, they had all they need to know it was Him but they didn’t recognize Him or the Scriptures that pointed to Him.

They rejected Him as the Messiah, the One who was chosen by God to rule for all eternity and deliver them from sin.

Unaware of what they were doing, they were actually fulfilling the Scriptures they themselves read every Sabbath.

Even though they acted in ignorance they were still culpable for what they did.

Finding no reason to put Jesus death except for the fact that He was shaking up their system of power, they rejected the truth for themselves.

Just as Scripture taught, Jesus was taken down from the cross and was buried in a rich man’s tomb.

Now if the story ended there it wouldn’t be much of a comfort to all people now would it.

It would only bring comfort to the powerful because there was no longer a threat to their power.

But the comfort in this event is not just in Jesus’ death but also in His resurrection.

By Grace He Brings Comfort

Verse 30, Paul continues; “But God raised Him from the dead;” Jesus defeated sin, in His resurrection He defeated the curse which is death.

This is both physical, a lifeless body, and spiritual, separation from God.

This is what original sin has done, it has caused a separation between the Majestic and Eternal Creator of all things and His own creation.

We are all dead in our sins, we are all corrupted by sin, Jesus was not.

Jesus atoned for our sin.

Because of sin the penalty needs to be paid a death needs to occur.

Jesus paid for our sin with His own life.

That is why Paul tells the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 5:21,

Jesus had to die to pay this penalty but what is different about His death is in order to bring us life He first has to be brought back to life.

This wasn’t just a swoon theory, Jesus didn’t just pass out and looked like He was dead, and then after He was placed in the tomb was resuscitated.

No, that is not what happened here.

He really died and Paul says He was raised from the dead.

To prove this point Paul follows it up by saying in verse 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.”

Jesus was seen by a multitude of people.

He was truly alive and those who saw Him now go about the earth proclaiming Jesus as the Son of God who is the Messiah and who died and was resurrected from the dead.

Paul writes the same thing to the Corinthian church.

Look at this.

There are many witnesses to the fact that Jesus was raised from the dead.

Not only that I like how Paul continues to write to the Corinthian church.

In verse 12 we find the church was questioning something important.

“Now if Christ is preached, that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?”

Paul preaches in the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ and this means He has defeated death and this also means He is the first to defeat death so those who trust in Him and believe He was raised bodily, then there is a bodily resurrection waiting for them.

We don’t just get buried in the ground but we are transformed and brought before the glory of the Lord.

Look at this Paul continues, 13 “But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised; 14 and if Chris has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith is vain.”

If there is no resurrection of the dead then my standing here and preaching to you is pointless.

You might as well believe in annihilation because there is no future hope for you or me.

Paul says even worse then this; 15 “Moreover we are even found to be false witnesses of God, because we testified against God that He raised Christ, whom He did not raise, if in fact the dead are not raised.

16 For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised; 17 and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins.”

See that Jesus died to pay for the penalty of sin to be victorious over death that was cause by sin.

He needed to die to pay the penalty but the victory came in His resurrection.

That is why Paul can say oh death where is your victory where is your sting.

Our faith is not only in Jesus’ death, but in the fact that He was raised from the dead and is ascended and seated on the throne as King.

I love how Paul ends this to the Corinthians; 18 “Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.

19 If we have hope in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitted.”

If our hope is only in a good life here on earth what good is that, our hope and our treasure is not in this life but in the life to come.

If all we do is chase after our best life now then we should be pitted but we don’t have hope in this life but our hope is in the life to come.

This is the comfort we can find in the Scripture and the comfort Paul is bringing to the people in the synagogue at Pisidian Antioch.

The comfort is in the fact that Jesus took our death and Jesus also didn’t stay dead but was raised so we can have new life as well.

In verse 32-33 in Acts Paul tells the people in the synagogue, “And we preach to you the good news of the promise made to the fathers, that God fulfilled this promise to our children in that He raised up Jesus, as it is also written in the second Psalm, “Your are My Son, Today I have Begotten You.”

They can find comfort in Jesus being raised and they can find comfort that God has fulfilled His promise.

Jesus was the long awaited chosen One of God but He was also the promised coming King.

God raised Jesus up in the flesh to be King over all the universe.

This was a promise God kept.

This needed to be done in a special way.

See Kings up to this point would be born and would walk the earth, they would rule with a mighty hand and they would die be buried and decay in the tomb.

Not Jesus.

Paul continues in verse 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.”

Did you notice two things in this verse.

Raising Jesus from the dead being quantified by no longer returning to decay.

So Jesus was not just resuscitated but resurrected completely.

Jesus when He walked the earth brought a few people back from the dead.

The thing is they didn’t stay alive, they died again.

They were for the most part resuscitated.

For Jesus this isn’t so, He was fully resurrected.

The second important point here is that Jesus was the fulfillment to the prophecy given to David.

Paul quotes Isaiah 55:3 which says this;

What Isaiah is saying in this verse is God will make an everlasting covenant with the people, because of God’s own faithfulness to David and because of the perfect faithfulness that David’s own descended has shown God.

This covenant was realized and finalized in Jesus Christ Himself.

Jesus is the One who recieved the promise that God made to David.

It was made at His resurrection.

Because at Jesus’ resurrection He was raised to power as King.

An everlasting King who is now seated on the throne and ruling from on high.

It is funny how the nation of Israel rejected God as King and demanded a human King.

They recieved a human king and a promise a King would rule forever.

They waited on this king and when the King arrived they rejected Him again.

Putting Him to death.

The thing they didn’t realize is He needed to die and He needed to be resurrected, this was the only way Jesus could sit forever as King and it is the only way man can be brought to life as well.

Look at how Paul continues.

He makes it clear the One who he is talking about is not David and David understood this would happen.

Look at verse 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.”

Simply put the psalm points to the Holy One chosen by God who would not decay.

Jesus was in the ground for three days but in actuality it was less then 72 really He was buried for less then 48.

He was buried on a Friday, dying about 3 in the afternoon which is when they would sacrifice the lamb for passover and buried before nightfall, which could’ve been anywhere between 6 and 8 in the evening.

When the women went to the tomb on Sunday it was at sunrise and His body was already risen.

So no one knows what time it was but at most He was dead for maybe 36-40.

All of this to say He was not dead for long and His body didn’t undergo the corruption of death, meaning decay.