AM Acts 13:13-48 Forgiveness can be yours

[0:00] 13 to verse 43. I know I said in the sheet verse 48, but we'll do verse 13 to 43. So Acts 13, verses 13 to 43.

[0:23] So Saul and Barnabas have been sent out by the church at Antioch. They have went to Cyprus and are now crossing over to Paphos. And as they start this journey, also we see that Mark is going to return to Jerusalem.

[0:48] Now Paul and his companions set sail from Paphos and came to Perga in Pamphylia. And John left them and returned to Jerusalem.

[0:59] But they went on from Perga and came to Antioch and Pisidia. And on the Sabbath day they went into the synagogue and sat down. After the reading from the law and the prophets, the rulers of the synagogue sent a message to them saying, Brothers, if you have any word of encouragement for the people, say it.

[1:21] 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 made the people great during their stay in the land of Egypt.

[1:40] And with uplifted arm he led them out of it. And for about 40 years he put up with them in the wilderness. And after destroying seven nations in the land of Canaan, he gave them their land as an inheritance.

[1:57] And this took about 450 years. And after that he gave them judges until Samuel the prophet. Then they asked for a king and God gave them Saul the son of Kish.

[2:11] A man of the tribe of Benjamin for 40 years. And when he had removed him, he raised up David to be their king. Of whom he testified and said, I have found in David the son of Jesse, a man after my heart.

[2:29] Who will do all my will. Of this man's offspring, God has brought to Israel a saviour. Jesus as he promised.

[2:40] Before his coming, John had proclaimed a baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel. And as John was finishing his course, he said, What do you suppose that I am?

[2:55] I am not he. No, but behold, after me one is coming. The sandals of his feet I am not worthy to untie. Brothers, sons of the family of Abraham, And those among you who fear God, To us has been sent the message of this salvation.

[3:17] For those who live in Jerusalem and the rulers, Because they did not recognise him, Nor understand the utterances of the prophets, Which are read every Sabbath, Fulfilled them by condemning him.

[3:33] And though they found in him no guilt worthy of death, They asked Pilate to have him executed. And when they had carried out all that was written of him, They took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb.

[3:47] But God raised him from the dead. And for many days he appeared to those who had come up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, Who are now his witnesses to the people.

[4:00] And we believe in the good news, That what God promised to the fathers, This he has fulfilled to us, Their children, By raising Jesus. So also it is written, In the second Psalm, You are my son, Today I have begotten you.

[4:17] And as for the fact that he raised him from the dead, No more to return to corruption, He has spoken in this way, I will give you the holy and sure blessing of David.

[4:32] Therefore he says also in another Psalm, You will not let your holy one see corruption. For David, After he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, Fell asleep, And was laid with his fathers and saw corruption.

[4:49] But he whom God raised up, Did not see corruption. Let it be known therefore, Brothers, That through this man, Forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you.

[5:02] And by him, Everyone who believes is freed From everything From which you could not be freed By the law of Moses. Beware therefore, Lest what is said in the prophets Should come true.

[5:18] Look, You scoffers, Be astounded and perish, For I am doing a work in your days, A work that you will not believe, Even if one tells it to you.

[5:32] As he 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 he spoke with them, Urged them to continue In the grace of God.

[5:52] Thanks be to God for the reading of his holy word. And to his name be the glory and the praise forever. Amen. So this morning, As we look at this passage From Acts, Regarding Paul's preaching In the synagogue, I want to particularly Concentrate on verse 38.

[6:15] Let it be known to you, Therefore, brothers, That through this man, Forgiveness of sins Is proclaimed to you. So, two things to think about.

[6:29] Forgiveness. What does it mean for you? What does it mean for you as an individual? Is it something that you have experienced?

[6:41] Something that you're unsure of? Or is it something that really doesn't matter in your life? Something that seems irrelevant?

[6:56] In this passage we see God's plan for forgiveness of sin And man's salvation. We see declared The wonders of forgiveness Through Jesus Christ.

[7:10] It's not something that we do. It's through Christ alone. And we see the dangers of rejecting God Offer of salvation through Christ.

[7:23] So God gives us an offer Of eternal life. But he also tells us There's a consequence If we reject that offer. So, first of all, What is sin?

[7:38] What is sin that we require Forgiveness from in the first place? Sin is an action Against God And against His teachings.

[7:51] It's an action Or admission Or admission Against God's law. So that can be deliberately Breaking God's law And going and do The opposite of his desires.

[8:04] Or It's so too often in life We become busy And our schedule's packed And it becomes A sin of admission Because we're too busy Doing something else.

[8:17] Something That we hadn't Particularly planned. But Paul declares By Christ's death We Have the opportunity To be cleansed Of our sin And to have forgiveness For all eternity.

[8:32] But We also Have to bear in mind That if we reject That offer That there are Consequences. As I was Preparing This Sermon this morning I was taking notes On my phone And I thought of just How powerful One button In our phone Could be Or is And how it would be useful If we had the same button In life.

[9:00] And that button Is the delete button You think about it You're typing away On your phone Or perhaps On your laptop And you make a mistake You hit the delete button And the error Is gone.

[9:18] It's wiped clean. It never existed. How great it would be If we could do the same in life. If we could Make a mistake Hit the delete button And it was gone How Much would that Relieve the pressure On our lives.

[9:38] How great Would that be. And we think Yeah that would be great But actually Paul tells us here That we have That opportunity. Verse 38 Let it be known Let it be known To you therefore Brothers That through this Man Forgiveness Of sins Is proclaimed To you Through Jesus We have that off Or that delete button Where We can make The mistakes Against God We can sin Against God And if we come With a contrite heart And repent The delete button Is hit And our sins Are forgiven So have you Called on God To activate That delete button Have you called In Christ Into your life And used That Delete button Some of us Will have called On God

[10:38] As our Heavenly Father To enter our lives And have experienced God's forgiveness Others of us May be slow To react We may be Reluctant Or cautious In the process We are slow To experience The forgiveness Of our sins Rather We continually Hit the recall Button Instead of deleting Our sins We hit a recall Button And keep living Those same sins Time and time Again in our lives Sometimes we may Try and move on With our lives But we hit the Recall button And we continually Play it through In our minds And Satan Loves that Rather than us Being wiped clean And being in a Right relationship With God He loves the fact That we refuse To hit that Delete button And rather We keep punishing Ourselves

[11:39] We keep Playing the wrong Doings in our lives Over and over We undermine Ourselves And we start To believe That actually We are not good Enough For salvation We are not good Enough For a new life Think of the Parable of the Prodigal son Things turn Bad He's spent His money He's feeding Swill to the Pigs And he feels That he's not Worthy To even be Known as the Son He thinks That I could Return To work for my Father as a Hired hand He didn't see Himself as being Worthy Of his place In life But think of The father As he sees The son Approaching But still Far off He's rejoicing He's celebrating That the son Has returned And so it is With us We feel That we Are unworthy We can't

[12:40] Approach God But the Father Waits for us To return To him In Luke 15 It tells us How heaven Celebrates When someone Comes back To the fold When someone Returns To know A right Relationship With their Heavenly Father Verse 38 Declares That in Christ Your sins Are forgiven There is no Qualms about that It's a Of which We don't need To fight To get Our rights Problem Often Is our Definition Of forgiveness We looked up The dictionary And it says Forgiveness Is an Intentional Decision To let Go of Resentment And anger Though the Hurt Or offence Might always Be with you Think about

[13:41] That Forgiveness Is a Deliberate Decision To let Go Of the Feelings But The anger May still Remain And in Some ways It reminds Us of Typics Do you remember The times Before computers Before we had That delete Button We used to Have to write Things out Of the hand Or do it In the Typewriter And then With the Typics When we Made The mistake So some Of you Younger Thought Maybe Not Know Typics But it Was a White Liquid When you Made A mistake You would Use the White Liquid To paint Over your Mistake And your Mistake Was gone Well at Least Your mistake Couldn't Be seen But your Mistake Wasn't Gone Because it Was still There for Everyone to See that You had Made a Mistake You had Made an Error But folk Couldn't See what That particular Error Was Now

[14:41] We can Move on From our Mistakes The error Does not Always need To be Before us So that Definition Of An intentional Decision To let go Of resentment And anger Though the Hurt or Offence May it Always be With us It's so Different From God's Idea Of forgiveness For God Forgiveness Is a Complete Polar Opposite Forgiveness Is the Removal Of our Sin It's the Blotting Out of Our Sin It's Casting Them Far From us Forgiveness For God Is far Far Greater In John 1 29 John Is clear Behold This is John the Baptist Talking Is clear Behold The Lamb Of God Which Taketh Away

[15:41] The sins Of the World John the Baptist Is clear That Christ Removes Our sins From us He doesn't Just cover Them up The Biblical Idea For Forgiveness Is the Idea That our Sins Are literally Lifted Off of Us They are Taken From us We think Of The Pilgrim's Progress We think Of Bunyan's Pilgrim Progress Christian Is weighed Down By the Burden Of sin As he Goes Through his Journey He's Becoming More and More weighed Down He comes To the Cross The burden Falls from The shoulders Rolls down The hill And into An empty Tomb And the Same Applies To us If we Come to Christ If we Come to Christ At the Cross And claim Him as Our Saviour Our sin Is removed

[16:42] Our burden Is taken From us We are No longer Weighed Down With the Guilt Of our Wrongdoing It is Laid Upon Christ Christ Died And Christ Is risen And if We lay Our sin Upon Him We die With Christ On the Cross And we Have a New life We rise In Him When we Confess Our sins We are Weighed Down No more We read For example In Isaiah 43 25 Even I I am He that Blotteth Out Thy Transgressions For Mine Own Sake And Will Not Remember Thy Sins God Is Clear Our Sins Are Blotted Out And They Are Remembered No More God Doesn't Keep Our Sins In A List

[17:42] Waiting To Cast Them Up Rather They Are Cast From As Far As The North Is From The South But We Must See The Centrality Of The Cross We Must See The Centrality Of Christ Sacrifice For You And For Me That By That Sacrifice And The Shedding Of His Blood We Are For Given It Is By That We Are Cleansed Our Sins Are Gone And God Has Promised Through Christ That He Is A Plan For Man's Salvation It's A Plan That He Declared From The Earliest Of Days It's A Plan That He Declared Even Before He Had Created Man It's A Plan That He Declared When Adam And Eve First Sinned It's A Plan That He Has

[18:42] Now Fulfilled Paul Highlights This In His Potted History Of Israel And It's Clear For Example In Verse 17 That Where We Read Sorry Verse 17 The God Of This People Israel Chose Their Fathers And Made The People Great During Their Stay In The Land Of Egypt And With Uplifted Arm He Led Them Out Of It We See That The Israelites Did Not Choose God The Jews Did Not Decide That This Was A Good Idea Rather They Were A Chosen People Of God They Were The Ones Who Were Selected To Bring A Blessing To The Nations They Were The Ones Whom He Also Punished When They Fell Short Of His Desires For Them But He Is The One Who Always Protected Them And

[19:43] Brought Them Out Of Slavery It Was A Plan That God Devised Not When Man First Sinned But He Made The Plan Knowing That Man Would Sin God Is Submitient He Knows All Things And He Knows Them From The Beginning Of Time And He Planned For Our Salvation Read it In Revelation 13 8 Where It Says The Book Of Life Of The Lamb Slain From The Foundation Of The World God Had Made His Plan For Our Salvation From The Beginning Of Time God And God God Had His Plan And He Has Implemented It And Brought It To Fulfillment Through Christ If you Think About It Is God Who Chooses Abraham

[20:44] Not A Great Man To Do His Bidding It's Not Abraham Who Chooses God God Brought The People Of Abraham Out Of Their Bondage In Egypt And When The People Trusted Him He Blessed Them He Even Permits Them Their Way At Times The Israelites Demanded A King They Were Rejecting The Rulers That God Was Putting Over Them And They Wanted To Be Like Other Nations And Have A King God Warns Them Of The Difficulty That This Can Bring To Them But They Continue With Their Desire And He Gives Them Saul Saul Falls From God's Grace Because He Refuses To Do What God Desires Of Him And He Brings Forward David In Verse 22 He

[21:46] Brings Forward David Because I Have Found In David The Son of Jesse A Man After My Heart Who Will Do All My Will And We'll Look A Bit More At David And His Life This Evening And He Brings From David's Line Our Saviour Our Lord Jesus Christ Lord Jesus Christ One Who John The Baptist Himself Declared He Would Not Be One That He He Was Not Fit To Even Untie His Sandals So We Have The Gift From God The Son Of God Our Lord Jesus Christ Who Came As A Baby As An Outcast And A Refugee And Who Be And He Would Be The Sacrifice And The Atonement For Our Sins That We Could Be Reunited With God In

[22:48] A Right Relationship With Him Through That Reconciliation Your Sins Are For For If You Accept Christ As Your Saviour Yes It's A Condition That We Have To Accept Christ As Our Saviour Paul Explains The Gospel And Why The Jews In Jerusalem Put Jesus To Death Even Though They Could Find No Fault With Him In Their Ignorance They Condempt Him To Death But God Used It For His Purpose To Bring About The Means Of Our Salvation They Did Not Understand The Scriptures That They Read Each Sabbath Day And Perhaps That's Not So Different From Many Who Go To Church They Hear The Readings They Take The Good Bits That They Like And The Bits That Are Challenging To Put Aside And Leave For Another Day But

[23:48] We We Have To Take All God Loves Us God Cares For Us And God Has Provided His Son As A Means To Our Salvation But If We Reject That Then We Also Reject God And So We Face The Punishment Of Our Sins Which Is Death And Separation From God Forever The People Of Jesus Time Were Death They Closed Their Ears And They Heard What They Wished To Hear How Guilty Are We Of That Today Do We Take The Bits That We Like And Disregard The Rest Or Do We Commit Ourselves To The Whole Of God's Teaching But That Ignorance In The Jews Insured The Fulfillment Of God's Plans For

[24:49] Us If We Reject It It Ensures Our Separation From God For All Eternity In Verse 33 35 We See The End Is Not In Crucifixion But In The Power Of The Resurrection Verse 35 We Read Therefore He Says Also In Another Psalm You Will Not Let Your Holy One See Corruption It Is Normal For People To Die And When We Die Our Bodies Will Decay But We See That In Christ That Is No Longer The Case Christ Died He Is Laid In The Tomb And The Third Day He Is Resurrected From The Dead The Tomb Is Empty When Mary

[25:49] And The Women Go To See It When The Disciples Make A Dash They Find The Tomb Empty Because Christ Is Risen Our Salvation Is Not Simply In That He Died For Our Sins But Christ Rose From The Dead And In His Resurrection We Have A New Life Verse 32 To 33 Tells The Good News That Was Promised By God Is Fulfilled In Jesus In The Resurrection Verse 41 If We Jump Forward A Little Tells Us Of That Warning Look You Scoffers Be Astounded And Perish For Am I Doing A Work In Your Days A Work That You Will Not Believe Even If One Tells It To You Here Paul Is Liberating The

[26:49] Words Of The Old Testament From Habakkuk And If You Reject God For For For For Christ There Is A Consequence It Is Not All One Sided We Have A Part To Play As Well We Have To Open Our Hearts As You Soften By The Work Of The Holy Spirit We Have To Turn To Christ And Accept Him As Your Saviour You Have An Opportunity To Accept Christ As Your Saviour If You Haven't Already Accepted It Please Accept It Now Come To A Full Knowledge Of Christ In Your Life Come To A Right Relationship With God And The Hope Of Eternal Life Reject It And We Close Off That Offer For All Time And We Will Perish We

[27:53] Have The Free Offer Of Forgiveness Through Christ Forgiveness And Power To Overcome Sin Are Not Something That Are Within Our Human Capacity It's Not Something That We Can Earn For Ourselves It's Not Something About If We Do The Right Thing This Is What We Will Receive Only God Can Forgive Us And Give Us The Power To Live In Obedience To Him By The Holy Spirit So What Does Forgiveness Mean For You Is It Something Irrelevant Or Is It Something That You Have To Look At Within Your Life Is It Something That You Have Already Experienced And Can Share That Joy With Others Is It Something That You Are Unsure Of Is It Something That You Perhaps Still Feel Unworthy Of All

[28:53] Of Us Have Sinned Against God All Of Us Have Broken God's Law At Some Point But Through His Holy Spirit We Are Called Back To God Through Christ We Have The Means To Our Salvation If We Open Our Heart Be Assured That Through Christ Our Sins Are Forgiven They Are Cast From Us They Are Not Going To Be Cast Back Up In Times To Come Yes Sin Will Always Try And Pull Us In Satan Is A Real Person A Real Being A Real Power In Life And The Last Thing He Wants To See Is Us Walking In Harmony With Our Heavenly Father And He Will Try And Disrupt That Relationship

[29:53] He Will Try And Pull His Back Into Our Old Sins And Into Our Old Ways Of Life Of Placing Ourselves First Rather Than God But We Have An Assurance That If We Commit Ourselves To Christ God Will Keep His Promises And Our Sins Are Forgiven As We Make That Commitment So So We Will Gain The Presence Of The Holy Spirit That Will Strengthen Us And Uphold Us So We've Seen That God Provides For Us In This New Life And That New Life Comes By God's Grace It Is Him Who Calls Us To Himself It Is By Faith In Christ That We Are Redeemed And Our Sins Are Forgiven And It Is By The Holy Spirit That We Are

[30:53] Transformed And Have The Assurance Of A New Life For All Eternity If You Come To God Through Christ You Have A New Life Today Tomorrow And For All Eternity It's Not Like The Joys Of This World That Are Passing And Fleeting That Taste Sweet When You Gain Them But Are Soon Gone They Are For All Eternity If You Have Christ Is Your Saviour What Joy And What Hope We Have To Sing And We Have To Give Praise For Let's Briefly Bow Our Heads In Prayer Before Singing To His Praise To Close Our Service