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Paul's dense and intense sermon in Antioch leaves the situation poised. The first part of the aftermath is persuasion and opposition, as initial eagerness from some who follow the faith is soon blended with antagonism from jealous Jews. The second phase is proclamation and expectation, as Paul gives a definitive declaration and interpretation of what is happening in Antioch as the gospel is preached. Then there is both progression and persecution as the unbelievers bring down on their own heads a fearful judgment, while the gospel continues to advance and the believers continue to rejoice.

WITH APOLOGIES, DUE TO AN ERROR IN OUR RECORDING PROCESSES, WE HAVE NO VIDEO. While we may become frustrated with people who will not listen to us when we speak helpfully and reasonably, here we have divine patience and kindness with stubborn sinners. The Lord issues a plea to the hard-headed, the stubborn-hearted, who are far from righteousness, which is itself a wonder of grace. Even more, the Lord makes a promise to the same people to bring his righteousness near and not to defer or delay his salvation. He even tells us where to look—he identifies a place as the one in which he will reveal his glory in the accomplishment of salvation: Jerusalem. This divine favour still rolls out to us, as God makes known the gospel of his Son, Jesus Christ, who suffered and died at Jerusalem, to stubborn sinners. Will you acknowledge the Lord's wisdom and goodness, and—abandoning our own righteousness—receive his instead.

Paul's first full recorded sermon is a sustained gospel plea, preached in Antioch near Pisidia. He surveys Israel's favoured past, brings them to their happy day, and presents them with a pressing choice. In it all, he is pointing the Jews and the God-fearers in the Antiochian synagogue to Christ as the Son of David and the fulfilment of God's promises, and the Saviour of all who trust in him.

"Who can say, "I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin"?" This is a question for us all to ask, whatever our outward condition. This is a problem for us all to face, for no-one is able to cleanse their own heart. This pushes us to a favour we all must plead, going to the God who alone is able to make our heart clean.

A military parade is a display of human confidence in human might and human means. In Psalm 20, God's people reject confidence in man and instead declare their confidence in God alone. There are two outcomes to these two possible grounds of trust: either we bow and fall when we trust in man, or we rise and stand when the name of the Lord is our hope. The obvious response is to cry to the Lord for salvation, to make the favour of God in Christ not only the first cry but the often-renewed cry of the needy heart.

Barnabas and Saul are sent out by the Holy Spirit and by the church. As we follow them on this first missionary campaign, we simply observe where they went, what they did, who and what they found, what they said, and what the Lord God accomplished. Here is a tale of gospel opportunity and spiritual opposition, of the triumph of the good news of Jesus Christ.

His teaching concluded, our Lord is anticipating his sufferings. It is worth noting the spirit in which he spoke, marked by conviction, concentration, calmness, compassion, and courage. He sets before us the sacrifice which he anticipated, he himself being the Passover Lamb who would be crucified in the place of his people. This is the Saviour in whom we trust, the only Redeemer of God's elect. He establishes the standard for us to follow, the Shepherd of his beloved sheep.

Who or what do you want to be? Too often, our eyes and our hearts are fixed on those who seem to be great in this world, but they are far from God. In response we hear wisdom speak. WIsdom gives a warning: do not let your heart envy sinners. Wisdom urges a contrast: we are instead to be zealous for the fear of the Lord all the day. Wisdom offers a promise: surely there is a hereafter and your hope will not be cut off. We need to lift our eyes and our hearts above this world and beyond the sinners who seem to have all this world offers, to the promised hereafter and the glorious hope which Christ provides.

If Acts has two streams (the ministries of Peter and of Paul) then it also has three waves, as Christ's gospel spreads from Jerusalem, through Judea and Samaria, to the end of the earth. Here we are in Antioch, as the church separates Barnabas and Saul to the work of gospel preaching beyond the Mediterranean. We look at the men involved, the ministry they had, the motion of the Holy Spirit, and then the mission on which they were sent.

Though the last days can be fearfully dark, they are wonderfully bright because in them God is speaking to us by his Son. The opening verses of the letter to the Hebrews provide us with one of the most splendid testimonies to the glory of the Messiah, the Jesus of whom the writer speaks with such delight and reverence. He is the heir of all things, the agent of creation, the revealer of God, the upholder of all, the purger of sin, the ruler on high, and the name over all. Do we trust and adore this Jesus, our Christ, as he set before us in the Scripture?

We do not contemplate the wonder of salvation as we ought. We do not count mercy the marvel that it really is. Paul drives it home: once we were far off, ignorant, twisted, condemned, alienated, hopeless. Now we are brought near, brought into a covenant, a family, a home, a church, a kingdom, a hope. How was this secured? By nothing less than the blood of Jesus Christ. It is in him as our Saviour and Mediator that we enter into all the privileges and promises.