And when He has removed him, He raised up for them David as king, to whom also He gave testimony and said, “I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after my own heart who will do all My will.”  (23) From this man’s seed, according to the promise, God raised up for Israel a Savior – Jesus – (24) after John had first preached, before His coming, the baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel.  (25) And as John was finishing his course, he said,  ‘Who do you think I am?  I am not He. But behold, there comes One after me, the sandals of whose feet I am not worthy to loose. (26) Men and brethren, sons of the family of Abraham and those among you who fear God, to you the word of this salvation has been sent. 

The Acts of the Apostles was written by Luke, physician and historian and frequent companion of the apostle Paul. In our study today, as Luke records the first and longest sermon of Paul on his first missionary journey, we are given a glimpse of Paul’s strategy for preaching the gospel of Christ Jesus. Paul, a rabbi himself, would visit a strategic city where he would attend the sabbath service at the synagogue.  (The Jews also allowed devout Gentiles to also attend these services.). A visiting rabbi would be asked to speak if they wished and Paul would accept and then tracing the prophecy and history of the Old Testament he would emphasize over and over that God promised a Messiah and God keeps his promises. And the Messiah is Christ Jesus

Our verses start today with the removal by God of the first king of Israel,  Saul. Then God chose as king, David; devout, obedient and pleasing to God; “a man after My own heart.”  But as Paul followed this thread and said that Jesus, of the line of David, was the promised Messiah there is a break in Luke’s narrative. There must have been some reaction in that synagogue as Paul then turns quickly to the testimony of John the Baptist who was known and revered by all Jews. Paul quotes John as an authority identifying Jesus as the promised Messiah.

All of the bible points to Jesus as God’s promised Savior – Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s promise for remedy for sin.  What becomes clear in this story of the sovereignty of God is that man has been saved not because of but IN SPITE OF ourselves.  God initiated the process of redemption and God elects the faithful.  Salvation is of the Lord, beginning to end.  This is the purpose of Paul’s sermon and now of his life, to show that Jesus, son of David, is the Christ, the Messiah and the Saviour of all who believe in Him.

So we are always confident, knowing that while we are home in the body we are absent from the Lord.  (7) For we walk by faith, not by sight.  We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.  (9) Therefore we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to Him.  (10) For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad. 

The second letter to the Corinthians was written by the apostle Paul. In chapter five Paul has been raising our mind and hearts to heaven through contempt for this world. He compares the miserable and incomplete condition of man in this life with the promised blessedness that awaits the believer after death. Our bodies are temporary – we can all see this as we age – and are unsuitable for heaven. The horror of death is overcome by the confidence in the gospel – flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God  and the indwelling Spirit gives us courage.

So the faithful are confident and dependent on the Holy Spirit.  God is present in us as the Spirit sealed us at the moment of faith but in this life we walk by faith and are absent from God in that we are not yet face to face with God.  As Paul says in Corinthians, we see as through a glass darkly.  One day we will be absent from the body and present with God  – the faithful can bear present affliction with hope of blessed life eternal.  Everyone will eventually give account of their lives and Paul is saying God accepts our works but the eternal life of the believer is earned by Christ Jesus and we obtain it gratuitously.

Even though all are naturally horrified to leave this world for things unseen, the words of c.s.lewis comfort the faithful.  From the Weight of Glory – “These things – the beauty; the memory of our own past – are good images of what we really desire;  but if they are mistaken for the thing  itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers  for they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard; news from a country we have not yet visited.”

And since we have the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, “I believed and therefore I spoke,” we also believe and therefore speak, (14) knowing that He who raised up the Lord Jesus will also raise us up with Jesus, and will present us with you.  (15) For all things are for your sakes, that grace, having spread through the many, may cause thanksgiving to abound to God.  (16) Therefore we do not lose heart.  Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day.  (17) For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, (18) while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen.  For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.   (5:1) For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

The second letter to the Corinthians was written by the apostle Paul. In Corinth they had a cult of personalities where they revered certain popular leaders in the church and Paul reminds them that men are used by God – it is God’s work through men so men should only boast in God. The gospel, not the preacher is the treasure.  And so in verse 13 Paul addresses them in the common ground of faith in Christ.  He uses David’s words from psalm 116 to remind the Corinthians that the faithful can speak the truth of the gospel and know that God will keep His promises; he is establishing a principle that the faithful can have confidence in God, even in death

Paul’s perseverance in the face of adversity by the grace from God should hearten the faithful in Corinth by his example, and they should not lose heart.   The outward man is our present life in this world. The inner man is the believing spiritual man who is advancing and flourishing in the Lord – it is called sanctification.  Paul compares these two states to show how the future weight of glory will make present afflictions minimal.

The outward man always shrinks from his own decay and destruction – man is influenced more by present feeling than by hope.  The  miseries of this world may seem long BUT once we raise our hearts to heaven this temporal and transient life will seem like a moment.  We have been made for a better world.

But Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation. (12) Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. (13) For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, (14) how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?  (15) And for this reason He is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance. 

The author of the letter to the Hebrews is unknown. In the early days of the church many Jews believed that Christ Jesus was the Messiah and the persecution of these early Christians was escalating, tempting those converts  to revert to the Jewish (allowed) religion.  This letter was written to warn them of the fatal and eternal consequence of apostasy.

Our verses today speak of the end of the old covenant between God and the Jews through Christ and chapter 9 refers specifically to the ceremonial system of that old covenant. The old sanctuary was an earthly, shadowy image of the heavenly sanctuary in Christ.  One day a year ceremonial rituals allowed for the High Priest to enter the tabernacle or Holy of Holies with blood sacrifice for his sins and those of the people. This old system was temporary and inadequate and allowed only limited access to God. The sacrifice of Christ made with His own blood marked the new covenant between God and man. It provided complete access to God and forgiveness of sin in faith in Christ.  Christ Jesus became our only and once for all High Priest – nothing could be added to this perfect and acceptable sacrifice.

Our verses tell us that Jesus paid the price for sin under the first covenant. In Christ the faithful are made heirs of eternal life- the life that was promised to the fathers from the beginning but only entered into by the blood of Christ. He alone is the mediator of the New Testament; Christ alone brings eternal life.