If God Is Sovereign, Why Preach?

Acts 13 from verse 30 all the way to 52. Paul and Barnabas at Antioch in Pisidia. Now Paul and his companions set sail from Paphos and came to Perga in Pamphylia. And John left them and returned to Jerusalem, but they went on from Perga and came to Antioch in Pisidia. 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. 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, and with uplifted arm, He led them out of it. And for about forty 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.

All this took about four hundred and fifty 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, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, for forty years. And then He removed him. He raised up David to be their king, of whom He testified and said, I have found David, the son of Jesse, a man after my heart, who will do all my will. Of this man's offspring, God has brought to Israel a Saviour, Jesus, as He promised.

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? I am not he. No, but behold, after me one is coming, the sandals of whose 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. For those who live in Jerusalem and their rulers, because they did not recognise Him nor understand the utterances of the prophets, which are read every Sabbath, fulfilled them by condemning Him. 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. 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. And we bring to you good news that what God promised to the fathers,

this He has fulfilled to their children by raising Jesus, as also it is written in the second Psalm, You are my Son. Today I have begotten You. 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 blessings of David. Therefore, He also said 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.

But He whom God raised up did not see corruption. Let it be known to you, therefore, brothers, that through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, 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 about. 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.

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. The next Sabbath, almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of the Lord. 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. 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, stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and drove them out of their district. But they shook off the dust from their feet against them and went to Iconium, and the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.

Thank you, Erica, for that reading. Going to try something rather ambitious this morning, and that's to cover 40 whole verses of Scripture, and it will be very helpful for you if you follow. Keep your Bible open at that passage and follow as we look at some of that text in more detail. By the way, there was an item on the news this morning that warmed my heart. I don't know whether any of you saw it.

One of the barriers between our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters and us Reformed church people is the role that they've assigned to Mary. It's always been a problem for us. Well, the Vatican has just released a study they've done in which they've dropped the term co-redemptrix for Mary. In other words, they no longer believe that she shares in the redeeming work of the Saviour. It's only taken them five hundred years to work that out, but it's something that we can applaud because it was robbing Jesus of some of His glory.

So let's go to this passage this morning, and I want to begin by highlighting this morning, brothers and sisters in Christ, that there is a Bible teaching that troubles many Christians, and not only Christians but also unbelievers. It's a teaching about election, teaching that God has chosen out of lost humanity some people for eternal life. Or to put it another way, God is sovereign. He controls all things, but that means He also controls our salvation, every aspect of it. The teaching is right here in our text, and it's there in verse 48.

Have another look at it, congregation, if you would. Notice what it says, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed. You see that? As many as were appointed to eternal life or ordained for eternal life believed. That verse does not say, friends, that those who believed were then appointed to eternal life,

as if God waited to see who would believe and who wouldn't believe and then He appointed all the believers for eternal life, but not the unbelievers. The reverse is the case. It's because God appointed them to eternal life that they actually believed. This verse does not say that God kind of looked down the corridors of time to see whether you would accept Jesus, or that God knew all along because He's God that you would believe the gospel and that others would reject it. No.

Luke says the ultimate reason why people believe is because God has appointed them to do so. That teaching troubles many Christians, congregation. I'll give you some reasons why it troubles them. It troubles people because they think that God then overrides our human responsibility. If God preordains people to be saved, then surely they're no longer free.

Now others conclude that if this is true, then we don't have to do missions. We don't need to do evangelism. You don't need to witness to your neighbours and friends and family. If God chooses people to be saved, we don't have to worry about that. Why preach the gospel?

God's gonna make sure that all of those whom He has chosen will actually get to heaven. Relax. Chill out. This morning, friends, I want to explain this troublesome verse in the Bible, this problematic teaching, but I also then want to make it very, very clear that rather than stifling our witnessing and our preaching and our missions, it's a great incentive for us to do that. It's interesting that this same chapter that makes this puzzling statement in verse 48 also makes a great deal of preaching.

Notice how the chapter begins, back beyond where we started, in verse one. It opens with Barnabas and Paul being set apart by the church for what? For mission work, for preaching. Verses 4 to 12 then tell us how they went and preached the gospel in the island of Cyprus, and that there the Roman proconsul, Sergius Paulus, was converted through the preaching of these men. In other words, you cannot possibly read this chapter and miss the importance of gospel preaching.

A lot of it happens in Pisidian Antioch. As a matter of fact, here in this chapter we have the longest summary by Doctor Luke, the author of Acts, of any of Paul's sermons. I particularly want to draw our attention this morning to the content of Paul's sermon here because it helps us to understand why verse 48, the second part of that verse, makes so much sense here at the end of this chapter. That God's sovereignty in our salvation is not, you see, mentioned only in verse 48. It's woven into the rest of this chapter. Notice how Paul begins with an overview of Israel's history.

He gives a bit of a thumbnail sketch of some Old Testament important events. Gives us as it were a bird's eye view of history from the time that Israel was in Egypt until King David. Notice how he begins in verse 17. He begins with God being sovereign in history. He says the God of the people of Israel chose our fathers.

There you've got it, friends. Right here at the beginning of Paul's sermon, election. Israel did not choose God. God chose Israel. That's why they were the chosen people. God chose their fathers.

That was the reason. Paul is giving us this thumbnail sketch to show us how God was preparing for our salvation. You see, the Old Testament is not just a report of ancient people and events. It's not just a listing of some great things that happened in the past. Rather, it's about God preparing for Jesus' coming.

He was guiding Israel's history right through. So it's not just a report on Israel, not just an important listing of events, but that God was shaping events through the judges, through King Saul, through King David. But this isn't Paul giving us a history lesson, friends. This is Paul preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, and so he moves on from the preparation of our salvation through all those events to the fulfilment of it. God was not only involved in preparing things for our redemption, God also brought it about in the fullness of time. God did it.

Notice verse 23. God did it through David's descendant Jesus. Notice how he puts it in that verse, verse 23. From this man's descendants, God has brought to Israel the Saviour, Jesus, as He promised, from David's offspring. So the sermon of Paul gives us a wonderful angle on reading the Old Testament.

The Old Testament part of your Bible, congregation, is not just ancient history. It's not just about some interesting old time events, not just a story of the Jewish people until the time of Christ. It's much, much more than that. It's the story, if you like, of God's Christmas preparations. We're seeing Christmas preparations all around us.

All these major stores have got the stuff already. Well, this is about God's Christmas preparations. It's about the Lord, the God of the universe, working out and fulfilling His promises that began already way back in Genesis 3. And so Paul tells them in verses 26 through 29 how Jesus was sentenced to death, how He was crucified, hung on a tree, and then in verses 30 to 33, how God raised Jesus from the dead. And Paul nails that home to them by quoting from the Psalms, especially Psalm 16, You will not let Your Holy One see decay.

And then Paul says, no, that wasn't said about David because David died and his body is in the grave somewhere here today. Psalm 16 is about Jesus. God raised Him from the dead and He did not see decay. So here, friends, is a chapter of the Bible that very strongly emphasises preaching. And Luke gives us a long summary of this sermon because he wants us to understand this morning what preaching is. It's especially about God acting in history to fulfil what He promised in the coming of Christ as our Saviour.

And when you think about it, brothers and sisters, isn't this what preaching has to do, and where it has to put the emphasis, on what God does? Surely. It's not preaching if this morning I was to stand here and unpack for you some of my thoughts about today's current affairs events. It's not preaching if I was to stand up here this morning and give you some what I think is good motivational advice. Preaching is always about what God does and what He's done for us in Christ Jesus, His Son. In fact, please look with me again at Luke's summary of Paul's sermon.

The focus throughout Paul's sermon is what God does. He wants us to come away with this idea that our salvation is all His doing, from go to woe, from start to finish. Let me highlight some ways Paul brings that out. Have a look at these verses. Verse 17, who was it that led Israel out of Egypt?

God did, with His mighty power, says Paul. Verse 19, who was it who overthrew the nations of Canaan? Paul says God did. He overthrew seven nations of Canaan and gave them the land. Verse 20, it was God who gave them judges like Gideon and Jephthah and Samson and Samuel. Verse 22, it was God who made David king after removing Saul.

And then we get the great climax in verse 23. It was He, God, who brought to Israel the Saviour Jesus. And in verse 30, it was God, it was He who raised Jesus from the dead. All God's doing. Do you see how God's sovereignty, the fact that He's in control, that's not just an afterthought in verse 48? God's sovereignty is woven into the very fabric of this whole chapter.

God promised salvation. He said that one day someone would come who would crush the head of the serpent. He prepared for salvation. He was at work in all of those Old Testament events Paul mentioned. He achieved salvation.

He made it a reality through the doing, the dying, and the victory of Jesus. And it's our great delight, congregation, it's our wonderful privilege, our awesome responsibility to preach that, to teach that, to share it in evangelism and in missions and when we share something of our life with our neighbours, our workmates. Obviously then, you cannot use verse 48 to play down the importance of preaching. This chapter is full of it.

The teaching does not cancel out missions and evangelism. What then about this whole matter of our responsibility? Does the fact that God chose me from before the creation of the world, does that cancel out my freedom? To answer that, let's have another look at what Paul and Barnabas are doing in this chapter, now from a different perspective. There is a great intensity about the preaching that happens in this chapter.

If you don't believe me, just when you get home, read the whole chapter through again. There's a huge intensity. There is no reticence on the part of the apostles. They constantly are challenging human responsibility in this chapter. Let me again single out some verses, but now putting the emphasis on our human responsibility.

Look at verse 26. It's they who have been sent the message of salvation. It is for you, says Paul, to take note of and do something with it. Verse 32, we tell you the good news, not just being thrown out there willy nilly. It's told to you what God has promised to our fathers so that you may own it.

Verse 38, through Jesus, the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. It's good news. It's about salvation and it's about forgiveness, but you need to hear it and you need to act on it. You need to respond. As a matter of fact, friends, think how all this began.

They went to worship in the synagogue on the first Sabbath that they were there, and the law was read. Paul, everywhere he went, first place he visited was the synagogue. So the law is read and then the leader of the synagogue says, if you've got something to say to these people, please say it. Well, you don't say that to a gospel preacher unless you're serious. And Paul grabs the opportunity with both hands. So when he's all done, they ask him to come back and preach that same message again the next week.

I cannot recall an instance, congregation, in almost fifty years of preaching where I was ever asked to preach the same sermon again. But then I'm not Paul, am I? And so the next week, Paul doesn't let that opportunity go begging, but he's back with the same message of Jesus Christ. And he preaches again, and this time the place is packed to the rafters. Why is Paul so intense about this message? Because Paul is concerned about the spiritual wellbeing of these people, about where they're headed for eternity. They have a responsibility to heed that message because Jesus is the only way to be right with God.

That's why I mentioned that little news item from the Vatican. It's not shared by Mary. Jesus is the only way to be right with God, the only name under heaven. Notice how he puts it in verse 39. It's through Him, Jesus, that everyone who believes, then some Bibles have everyone who believes is justified. In other words, declared right in God's sight.

In other words, given right standing with God happens only through Jesus and your relationship with Him. And Paul wants people to believe that gospel so that they can be right with God, so they can have a relationship with the almighty Maker of the universe. By the way, I find it interesting what Luke does with that statement about election in verse 48. It's as if he puts a couple of bookends either side of this verse about God's sovereignty and salvation. Notice how it's both preceded and followed by a phrase or a sentence that stresses the importance of God's word.

In the sentence before it, Luke says, when the Gentiles heard this, they honoured the word of the Lord. And then we get that difficult verse 48. In the verse after it, Luke says, the word of the Lord spread throughout the whole region. Point I'm making, friends, is that faith always comes by the hearing of the word. And that word is always about the message of Jesus, salvation in Him.

That's why Paul is so keen to grab that opportunity a second time to preach the gospel. That's why the preaching in this chapter is so confronting. It's so challenging. It's facing these people with their responsibility to believe it, not just to hear it, but to accept it, to obey it.

Let me say it again, congregation. Paul is not just passing on some information the way that a university lecturer might do it. No, this is God's official proclamation to come and find forgiveness, to come and find eternal life and meaning in life through Jesus Christ, God's Son. And Paul is pleading with them to believe that message and warning them not to reject it because their eternal destiny hinges on what they do with that message. And I want to say this morning, your eternal destiny depends on what you do with that message. You have a responsibility, not just to listen to it, but to obey it.

The point is, congregation, that all of this intensity this morning is drawing our attention very subtly to human responsibility and accountability. I said a little while ago, you can't read this chapter and conclude that preaching is not important. The chapter's full of it. You can't read the chapter either and conclude that election somehow overrides our human accountability, our freedom. This chapter makes it abundantly clear.

You are responsible for what you do with the gospel. You're free to accept it, just as you're free to reject it. But if you reject it, then you've got no answer to the problem of your guilt, and then you miss out on the gift of eternal life that God gives to all of those who embrace that gospel with a believing heart. We not surprisingly therefore find there are various reactions to the gospel in this chapter. But I want to say that all the reactions happen as a response to Paul's preaching, to Paul confronting them with their responsibility.

The first group were neither for the gospel nor against it. They were just people who hadn't yet made up their mind, and they're the ones who in verse 42 asked the apostles to come back the next Sabbath day and do it all over again. They wanted to think through it a little more. They want to weigh up the evidence, and then next time hopefully they'll decide. The second group clearly accepted the message of Paul and Barnabas that they brought. They believed, and they're the ones who in verse 43 of our text Paul and Barnabas encourage to continue in God's grace.

Right? In other words, they've experienced God's grace in Jesus, and Paul and Barnabas say just walk in that grace, don't take your eyes off Christ. At the end of the day, there is also a third group that reject the gospel outright, and they're the ones that Paul and Barnabas rebuke in verse 46. They were the leading Jews who spoke abusively against the apostles. And if we ask why, then the answer is because Paul had drawn the kind of crowds that they'd never been able to draw, and so their jealousy blinds them to the message of the truth of Jesus. Three distinct groups, but the three differences don't lay in whether or not God had chosen them.

No, the difference lay in what they did with the gospel. And on the day when you stand before God, that's the all important question. Not whether God chose me or not, but whether I believed in Jesus, whether I embraced Him with a believing heart. What you did with the good news, friends. Did you accept it or did you reject it? Okay, with all of that as our background information, let's go back to our key verse in verse 48, right, about election. Preaching is important. People must be confronted with their responsibility. Both are true, and yet Luke is now concerned that we somehow see God's sovereignty in all this.

Let me begin with an illustration. Sometimes it's possible to look at the same thing in two different ways. Same event but two different ways. Let me give you an example. You walk into my kitchen and you see the kettle is boiling, and you ask why is the kettle boiling? And I'll say to you, well, it's plugged into the grid, and I just flick the switch, and now the electricity is flowing through the element, and all the electrons are whizzing around in that element, heating the element, and so the water around the element heats up and it rises. Hot water rises, and the cold water goes down the bottom, and it's now being heated by the electricity in the element, and it in turn rises, and that process continues until all the water is boiling.

That's why the kettle is boiling, because it's plugged into the grid and I just switched it on. Let's do a fast backwards reverse and then play again. You come into our kitchen and you ask why is the kettle boiling? And this time Merle's there and she says, I switched it on because I'm making a cup of tea. That's why the kettle is boiling. Are those two answers contradictory, friends?

Absolutely not. One is practical, the other is theoretical. One is technical, the other just has to do with the practicalities of enjoying a cup of tea. And so in the same way, there are two answers in Acts 13 as to why people are converted as Christians and come to have eternal life. The practical answer is because they believed the preaching of the gospel that Paul and Barnabas brought to them, the gospel of Jesus Christ.

But the theoretical, the technical answer is because God appointed them to eternal life. That's why they believed. Let me explain the answer a little further by looking at that word appointed to eternal life. One of the rules of Bible interpretation that Tony and I were taught at the RTC was we always need to look at words in the Bible and see how they're used in other places. Well, I'm going to give you a very quick Greek lesson this morning.

Okay? The word for ordained here is the Greek word tasso, t-a-s-s-o, if you anglicise it. And it can mean, the word tasso can mean to appoint or to designate or to assign or to ordain. Now the word tasso indicates something that was determined by someone else, and it's only used in two other places in the New Testament, and both are very telling. And I want to ask you to turn in your Bible to both of those instances. The first is in Matthew 28, and as soon as I say Matthew 28, most of you will remember that that's the chapter in which we find the Great Commission. It's where we find the place where Jesus meets with the apostles after the resurrection and says, go into all nations telling them the good news.

Well, notice please verse 16, chapter 28 and verse 16, where Jesus tells them where they're to meet. Verse 16 reads, now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had tassoed them, where He had directed them. The word tasso occurs there, the meeting place. Was that up for debate? What if Thomas had said, well, that's not a bad mountain to meet on, but you know, there's a mountain much closer to me. Can't we meet there instead?

It's not up for debate. Jesus set where it was gonna be, and all the apostles wanted to do and could do is go to that mountain, not a more convenient one. The point is Jesus made the appointment. He designated the meeting place. The second time where it occurs is in Luke 7, so if you'd also like to flick over to Luke 7, please. And it's the same story of the centurion that comes to Jesus asking for his son to be healed, and he sends messengers to Jesus rather than coming himself.

And I want to point out that the word occurs in verse 8, where he states that he's not worthy to have Jesus come into his house. He says, for I too am a man set under authority, and there you've got the word tasso, set under authority, tassoed under authority. With soldiers under me, and I say to one go and he goes, and to another come and he comes, and to my servant do this and he does it. Literally it reads, I am a man tassoed under authority. So did this centurion somewhere along the line go to Caesar and say, hey, Caesar,

I'd like to take out a franchise in the Roman army. I want to do my own thing, but I also want to be a Roman soldier. So can I just take out a franchise and then just run my own show but still be a Roman centurion? No. His appointment was by Caesar.

He was totally at Caesar's disposal and appointed under, ordained under his authority. In other words, when God appointed someone for eternal life, that's not up for debate. That's not up for negotiation. The appointment was made by God and was totally at His good pleasure. I want to reinforce this by spending just a few moments on the grammar of the word, and then we're done.

I can almost imagine some of you rolling your eyes as soon as I mention grammar. It's probably not your favourite subject at school as it was mine, but there's some things we can learn. It's very instructive when we think about it. First of all, in grammar, we can talk about some things as if they're in the present right now. If I say I appoint you, then I'm doing that now.

We can also talk about something as being past tense. I appointed you back then. It's in the past. Well, the word tasso is in the perfect past tense, which means it was completed in the past, but it's still effective now. God appointed in the past, but it's still true today.

In other words, they had nothing to do with it. It was decided back there, and God did it all, but it's still relevant for us. Secondly, in grammar, we can talk about it in a way that shows someone who's active, like, you know, I hit hard. I did it. I'm active. But we can also talk about it in the passive mood. So I was hit hard.

Someone else did it to me. It happened to me. Well, the word tasso here is in the passive. These folks were appointed to eternal life. God did it.

They didn't do it. God did it to them. It was totally at His good pleasure. I don't know about you, friends, but I find that wonderfully encouraging. My salvation is precious to me, but God did it all from go to woe.

He promised my salvation. He planned my salvation, and He even appointed me to believe it. I don't know whether you've ever heard of somebody who had a truly remarkable conversion that highlights it must have been God who converted this person. It couldn't have happened unless God was doing it. Know someone like that?

When I first started work, I had a workmate called Ian. He was a foul-mouthed blasphemer who had no time for religion, made life difficult for others around him. But Billy Graham came to Melbourne in the late sixties, and we'd just had television in Australia, and they featured it on television. One of the first programs was Billy Graham at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Well, my friend Ian sat down one Sunday afternoon, said to his wife, I'm gonna have some fun making, taking the mickey out of all these suckers being sucked in by this American evangelist.

Well, my friend Ian sat down as an atheist, foul-mouthed against religion, making life difficult for others, and he got up from that chair as a Christian. He didn't do it. God did it. God had chosen him from all eternity to be a believer in Jesus. What a wonderful incentive that is, friends, for you to share the gospel with your family, with your workmates, with the people that go to the men's shed with you, people in the office, in the workshop, because God has His chosen people and they will come to faith as God touches their life with the good news of Jesus. But He'll do that through you and through me.

Let's pray. Our Father and our God, we thank You that preaching the gospel, witnessing to others, sending out evangelists and missionaries makes a lot of sense, because faith comes through the hearing of the word. And when that word is about the doing, the dying, and the victory of Jesus, Father, we thank You that the blessed results will be there for us to see. Thank You for reassuring us again this morning that salvation is all Your work from beginning to end. And for that we praise You. Heavenly Father, to You be the glory now and always.

And all God's people said, amen.