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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.

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.

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.