Christ is Life Podcast

If you have your Bible with you this morning, or a device with a Bible app on it, I want to invite you to open it up to Acts chapter 20-one. We're going to be in Acts chapter 20-one, and we're going to be starting in verse 30-seven in just a moment. Thank I want to thank Garrett for for preaching last Sunday a great message on on God's goodness, even whenever we can't see what He's doing, we can trust Him and His goodness and His faithfulness with what is going on. But today, we continue our life in the Spirit message series, where we have been going verse by verse through the book of Acts and all the way back when we started. If you can remember that far, we learned about how Jesus met with the disciples, and he shared with them to wait. He gave them instructions to wait in Jerusalem until he sent the Holy Spirit. And after Jesus ascended and went back to heaven, he did. He sent the Holy Spirit, and it transformed and changed their lives and the lives of the 120 disciples that we were told there were at the time, and then with that spirit power, with God Himself dwelling in them, He began to express His life through them, and the church began to grow more and more. People put their faith and trust in Jesus for salvation. They had their lives transformed and changed, and then they began to tell other people about Jesus, and so it just spread from Jerusalem into Judea and into Samaria. And as we've been seeing the last several weeks, or even few months, as we're into chapter 20-one, it's being spread all over the known world at the time that the apostle Paul, who used to be Saul, had his life transformed and changed. And we're going to read more about that today, and how the Lord sent him on these three different missionary journeys to share the gospel, to plant churches, to establish leaders, and to disciple the people that were in those churches, and he became friends with those people, and they were co-laborers in Jesus's kingdom work through them. And today, as we pick up in chapter 20-one, the apostle Paul, who has finished his third missionary journey and come back to Jerusalem, has now been arrested. He hasn't been arrested because he's broken the law or really done anything wrong. He's been arrested because there was a riot taking place. There were some people, some Jewish religious leaders, who were really upset and mad with Paul because he was teaching about Jesus being the Messiah. He was teaching that salvation was by grace alone, through faith alone in Christ alone, and they did not like it one bit. And so there was this riot. They were chanting, "Get rid of him! And the Romans arrested him partly to to protect him because they were going to kill him. But now they're going. What's going on? We got to figure out why these people are so upset. Who is this guy? And and as they were taking him to the barracks, this mob is continuing to follow him, shouting, "Get rid of him! And that's where we left off in verse 30-six. He's going to ask to address the crowd, and he's going to speak to them today. And as we work our way through this passage, we're going to see what life in the Spirit looked like for the Apostle Paul in this moment. And as we work our way through it, we're going to be open to asking, "What does that look like for us today? If the Holy Spirit is dwelling in us, and so again, I ask you to turn to chapter 20-one, verse 30-seven, and this is what Luke says: as the as the soldiers, he says, were about to take Paul into the barracks. He asks the commander, "May I say something to you? Do you speak Greek? He replied, "Aren't you the Egyptian who started a revolt and led 4000 terrorists out into the wilderness some time ago. This is a case of mistaken identity as not who Paul is, and he's about to declare that in a moment.
But there was an Egyptian who was Jewish who started a revolt and tried to get people to follow him, saying that the the walls of Jerusalem would come down and we'd be able to take back over the city, but the Roman leaders found out about it and they stopped the revolt and killed most of them. But this leader got away, and so that's why now that there's this mob, now that there's this riot going on, this guy just assumes, well, this is probably that Egyptian dude that tried to start this riot all the way back then and is trying to do something again. But that's again not who Paul is, and he says that next in verse 30-nine. Paul answered, "I'm a Jew from Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of no ordinary city. Please." Speak. Let me speak to the people. After receiving the commander's permission, Paul stood on the steps and motioned to the crowd. When they were all silent, he said to them in Aramaic, "Brothers and fathers, listen now to my defense. And when they heard him speak to them in Aramaic, they became very quiet. Luke says they they became quiet because he was speaking their language. They're going, whoa, whoa, whoa! Hold on, this dude knows our language. It said something to them, and not only was he speaking their language, but even notice the way he started. He says brothers and fathers. He addresses them as family, so he's speaking their language. We're brothers. We're we're family, and and they were they were Jewish. He was Jewish, and so he's even trying to start off before he makes this defense about what he wants to share with him, about what has changed his life and made him so different to draw some connections to establish that they're not really that different, and so this is what he's doing here. They become quiet. He begins to speak to them in Aramaic. Then Paul said, verse three: "I am a Jew born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city. I studied under Gamaliel and was thoroughly trained. He says in the law of our ancestors, and he says, I was just as zealous for God as many of you are today. So Paul recognizes that the reason they're acting the way they are, the reason they're so mad at him, the reason that they're so there's such a mob of of of violence and trying to put him in his place is honestly because they're zealous for God, but because they think that he is not of God, he's speaking blasphemy, and so they're trying to protect God's name. And he's going, I was just like you guys at one time doing the same thing he's about to say to people that he thought were blaspheming at the time, and he references his his teacher, who was a famous teacher, to get again respect from them, and and he was thoroughly trained in the law. This was so important. This was everything to the Jewish people, and so again, if they're tracking with him, going, gosh, he's one of us. He's been trained and has a highly respected you know leader. He was just as zealous for God as we were. He's recognizing that that's why we're acting the way that we're acting. So again, he's establishing these connections. He continues in verse four, shares how zealous he really was. I persecuted the followers of this way, which is a reference to people who have put their faith and trust the way of Jesus, and so I persecuted Christians to their death, arresting both men and women and throwing them into prison, as the high priest and all the council can themselves testify. I even obtained letters, he says, from them to their associates in Damascus, and went there to bring these people as prisoners to Jerusalem to be punished. But Paul is saying the same thing that you guys are doing to me, I was doing to people who were talking about Jesus as well. Before this, this is what I was doing. I was just like you, and he was saying, "I I thought the same thing that these people got to be punished. They're they're blasphemers. This Jesus who claimed that he was the Messiah, who claimed that he was God. He's not God, and so we've got to punish these people.
And so he's continuing to just establish even more and more ground. But now he set himself up to begin to share how Jesus changed his life. Verse six: About noon, as I came near Damascus, suddenly a bright light from heaven flashed around me. I fell to the ground and heard a voice say to me, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? Who are you, Lord? I asked. I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting. He replied. Now we learned this all the way back in Acts nine, and so this is familiar to those of us who have studied it kind of before, but put yourself again with me back at this time when Paul was having this experience, this encounter with Jesus. Remember what he believed to be true about Jesus as he was on his way to Damascus. He's a false prophet. He's lying. He's not the Messiah. He's not God. He's dead. We nailed the guy to a tree and we buried him. And they can talk all they want to about him being risen from the dead. That didn't really happen. He's dead. He's not who he says he is. And now Jesus. Is speaking to him. I mean, it had to be one of those things where he immediately had had chills running down his spine, going, "Oh crud! I was wrong. I was so wrong about this Jesus guy. He really is who he said he was. He's the Messiah, and so he's waking up to this. But then think about the things that you would feel if that was you. If you were on your way to persecute Christians, if you had persecuted Christians and had them killed because of what you believed about them, and now the one that is the actual Messiah is speaking to you, what's the first thing that you're going to think, he's here to punish me. He's about to put me in my place because of what I'm doing. And so the apostle Paul went from being this guy who was zealous for the law, trained under Gamaliel-I mean, Hebrew of Hebrews, a Jew among Jews-and and getting his justification and righteousness from all the things that he's done and the ways that he's performing to going oh crud I was wrong and I have sinned and I've sinned so bad that I am deserved to be punished and I'm about to be punished in this moment but he's about to see the true character of God and His grace as we continue. First, He says, "My companions saw the light, but they did not understand the voice of Him who was speaking to me. So He's speaking to an audience and saying, "Just in case you think that I'm making this up and I'm just by myself and just telling you something that can't be verified, there were people with me. Go talk to them. This really happened, right? Verse 10. What shall I do, Lord? He's continuing his testimony whenever he encountered Jesus on the road to Damascus. He says, "What shall I do, Lord? I asked. "Get up, the Lord said, "and go into Damascus. There you will be told all that you have been assigned to do. My companions led me by the hand into Damascus because the brilliance of the light had blinded me. A man named Ananias came to see me. He was a devout observer of the law and highly respected by all the Jews living there. Again, he's speaking to Jews who loved the law, and now he's referencing Ananias because it's his story. But also to go, I got to be sure to mention that guy because that's drawing another connection in here. Because he was a devout observer of the law, and now he knows Jesus and has had his life transformed and changed as well. He, Ananias, stood beside me. Paul says, and and said, "Brother Saul, receive your sight. And at the very moment I was able to see him. Then he said, "The God of our ancestors. And so this is not a different thing. This is the same God who appeared to the Jews and chose them to reveal Himself to and through for the nations, and said, "The God of our ancestors has chosen you. Why? Well, several reasons are about to be listed.
He's chosen you first of all to know His will, to know the truth about who He is and that what it is that He's come to do. To to see who the righteous one. Who is that a reference to that's a reference to the Messiah to see the Messiah, and he was he saw him in that encounter with him on the road to Damascus. Third, he's chosen him to hear the words from his mouth, straight from the mouth of Jesus, direct revelation of truth to him. But then finally, the fourth thing. Look at this. You will be my, or you will be his witness to all the people of what you have seen and heard. I mean, guys, that right there is an incredible thing to think about when you're talking about the God of the universe in the forgiveness and the grace that He really does offer, a guy that was on his way to persecute his people, a guy who had been responsible for killing his own sons and daughters, people who had been adopted into his family, Jesus's family, and he's saying, "I've still chosen him to wipe away all of his sins, so that he can know my will, see me face to face, and even be used by me in my kingdom work to accomplish things that will change people's lives forever. So much so that people will be talking about it 2000 years from now, which we're still doing. So Ananias reveals all of these things to him, and then watch what he says. Now that you know, watch this, verse 16. And now, what are you waiting for? Right now. Now that you know what he's chosen you for, it's time to respond to what you know. You know the truth now, so respond to the truth. What are you waiting for? Get up, he says. Be baptized and wash your sins away, calling on his name. Now, when you first read that, I'm sure a lot of you, like me, the first time I read it, kind of thought, "Well, that really kind of makes it sound like the baptism is the thing that's going to wash away his sins. He needs to get up, and if he's baptized, then his sins will be washed away. But that's not what that is saying. The original Greek, the way this is written, these are two separate clauses. Let me show you what he's saying. First thing that he says is "get up and be baptized. One clause. Another clause is "wash your sins away, calling on His name. So, wash your sins away. How? By calling on His name, and be baptized to show that your sins have been washed away. We sang about this earlier. Water cannot wash away sins. Blood, blood is the only thing that can pay for sins. This is what we see in the Old Testament, what the sacrifices were about. And the author of Hebrew says, "Without the shedding of blood, forgiveness is impossible. It doesn't happen, and that's the whole point. Jesus came, and so many people miss it. Jesus, boy, such a good dude. He was such a great guy, and he helped so many people. He was such a wise teacher, and and he was a lot of those things. But ultimately, Jesus was born into this world as God, fully man and fully God, so that he could represent you and me, substitute himself for us. So he, having no sins to pay for himself, could take on our sins and pay the penalty for those through the shedding of his blood. It was the only way that the wrath of God could be satisfied. That God, who is a just God, could pour out all his justice and wrath on the evil of this world, for it to be taken off of us, and so this is what he's saying here. And the apostle Paul did just that; he called on the name of the Lord for the forgiveness of his sins. Holy Spirit came to dwell in him. He was baptized in water to show that that is what had happened. All of his sins had been washed away, and he was no longer who he once was. Paul says, "When I returned to Jerusalem and was praying at the temple, I fell into a trance and saw the Lord speaking to me.
Quick, he said, 'Leave Jerusalem immediately, because the people here will not accept your testimony about me, verse 19. Lord, I replied, these people know that I went from one synagogue to another to imprison and beat those who believe in you. And when the blood of your martyr Stephen was shed, I stood there giving my approval and guarding the clothes of those who were killing him, do you see? Do you see what Paul is trying to do here? He's arguing with Jesus. I mean, it's what he's doing, right? He's going. Listen, you're trying to tell me that they're they're not going to listen to me, but but they will because I'm Paul. I'm Saul who studied under Gamaliel and all of these things, and I mean, I was there. They know this that that I hated you, and I hated all the people who loved you and tried to talk about you. And so, since I did all that stuff, they're going to be going. I mean, if my life has been radically changed, and I was walking in this direction, killing people about who talked about Jesus, and now I'm walking this way, telling people about Jesus. They're going to listen to that because it's a radical transformation, and Jesus is going. They won't even listen to you. Their hearts are so hard. Paul thinks that he can get them to listen. Verse 20-one. Then the Lord said to me, "Go. I will send you far away to the Gentiles, and Luke tells us now in verse 20-two that the crowd listened to Paul until he said this. Then they raised their voices and shouted, "Rid the earth of him! He is not fit to live. So, so I mean, Luke seemed to think that they were tracking. I mean, I mean, he's a Jew. He was trained. He was devout. He was doing all these things. I mean, he's talking about Jesus. Could we have missed it? And they're maybe being open to to how much he's transformed his his life. But all of a sudden, he uses one dirty little word in their minds. Gentiles, and they're like, "Oh, what, whatever we thought and you know could have been true in this life, it, it, or what, what it was that he was saying cannot, it can't be true. It cannot be true. He's our God, and I mean, even if, even if they could share in the blessings, Gentiles, I mean, they're they're going to have to become Jewish first. They're going to have to be circumcised, and they're going to have to put themselves under the law and follow all the things and the sacrifices and the festivals and all of the things. It is not by grace alone, through faith alone in Christ alone. And so they're like, "This isn't true. Let's just kill him. Let's just let's just kill him. They stop listening. Verse 23 Luke says, "As they were shouting and throwing off their cloaks and and flinging dust into the air, the commander ordered that Paul be taken into the barracks. He directed that he be flogged and interrogated in order to find out why the people were shouting at him like this. This is just the way the Romans did it. You torture someone first, and then hopefully you get them to talk. You don't start with any conversation. Let's just get it out of them through the torture. And there's no that's what flogging was. It was torture. Verse 25. As they started, if they stretched him out to flog him, Paul said to the centurion standing there, "Is it legal for you to flog a Roman citizen who hasn't even been found guilty. The answer to that question, of course, is no. It's it's not legal for him to do that, and Paul's bringing that up because he is a Roman citizen. But they didn't know that he's been describing himself as a Jew, and that's who they thought all that he was, and so he's bringing this up for protection now. Verse 20-six. When the centurion heard this, he went to the commander and reported it. What are you going to do? He asked. This man is a Roman citizen. The commander went to Paul and asked, "Tell me, are you a Roman citizen? "Yes, I am, he answered.
Then the commander said, "I had to pay a lot of money for my citizenship, but I was born a citizen. Paul replied. Those who were about to interrogate him withdrew immediately, and the commander himself was alarmed when he realized that he had put Paul, a Roman citizen, in chains, and so Paul, knowing the the law, knowing the way the government worked, was able to use that to his advantage for now, so that he could continue to share the gospel with more and more people, and he's going to have that opportunity to continue to talk about Jesus as he's going to give another defense, another speech we see next, but it's long and it's going to take some time to work through that, and so we're going to wait and do that next week as well. But now that we've worked our way through this section, as as we've said each and every week, now that we have seen what life in the spirit was really like for those in the early church. For Paul, he goes. Well, what does that mean for us today? What does that look like for us today? And there's a couple of things that I want to highlight that we saw of ways that I think the Lord might be leading us to respond. The very first thing is that we heard in Paul's testimony today, we were reminded again of how Jesus radically changed his life with the good news of Jesus Christ. He says it was for everyone. It's for Jews. It's for Gentiles. It's for it's for all, regardless of our past. It's for those who have tried to do good, who look to their own goodness for justification, righteousness. I mean, we kind of highlighted it just a second ago, but that's what we saw in Paul on both sides. Right, first and foremost, he's zealous for God. He's he's following the law. He's in his mind going. I'm I'm better. I'm following the rules better than most people. Therefore, God, if anyone, if God is going to look favorably upon anyone, it's going to have to be me. Paul was thinking because of who I am, because of what it is that I am doing. And then Jesus had to blind him to get his attention to reveal to him. It is not your goodness, it is not your Jewishness that's going to get you anywhere. Because Jesus is saying, "There's really no one good except me. Your goodness is like filthy rags before a holy and a perfect God. And maybe that's you today. Maybe you've been counting on your own goodness, your own righteousness. You've been using that for your own justification. Going well. I mean, I'm not perfect, but but I'm not as bad as a lot of people are. And you've just kind of been counting on this fact that maybe I've been good enough to to make it to heaven and justify. Myself before the Lord. The same that was true of Paul is true of all of us, and maybe that's what he's brought you here today to reveal to you, to see your need for him. Maybe you're on the other side of that, just like Paul was after he found out that he wasn't good enough to merit salvation from the Lord, that He was in fact a sinner, and then He's thinking, "Oh my gosh, I am the worst of sinners, and there's no way someone like me can be saved. And maybe that's even you today, going, Jason, you, you do not know who I am. You don't know where I've been. You know where I come from. You you don't know what it is that I've done. There is no way someone like me can be saved, guys. If Jesus can save the Apostle Paul, who was murdering his people, he can save you. No matter who you are, no matter where you've been, no matter what you've done, whether you think you're worthy of salvation or not, Jesus thought so because He left the glory and riches of heaven to come here out of His love for you to substitute Himself in your place and die a brutal death on a cross. Also, your sins could be forgiven, and so maybe for some of us today, this is the way that what we see applies to us.
We've ever been counting on our own goodness, and we're being shown today it's not going to get us there. Or, gosh, I'm so bad, there's no way I can be saved. And Jesus is saying, no matter who you are, you are a sinner, but because of what I've accomplished on the cross, my grace is available to you, and maybe He's leading you to take that step of faith and have your life transformed and changed forever today. The other thing that we saw in Paul's testimony was that Ananias told Paul that God had chosen him to be His witness. In Acts nine, Ananias even learned from God that he was His chosen instrument to send him to the Gentiles to share the gospel. In other words, look look what we see is that he saved Paul by his grace, and then by his grace he set Paul apart to begin to work through him. That's what it means to be an instrument, to work through the instrument. And so, by his grace, he set him apart to be a part of His kingdom work, to then be used by Him to make a difference in other people's lives. And guys, if you have said yes to Jesus, He's saved you by His grace, and He sets you apart to be used as an instrument to now make a difference in other people's lives and share with them so that their lives can be transformed and changed the same way yours has been transformed and changed. I was listening to a podcast earlier this week, and it was it was similar to what we're learning about from Paul today. He was just sharing his testimony, and he was talking about how everything was like in a downhill spiral in his life at one point in time. Things were going wrong in his business and with just his personal life. His wife was threatening to leave him. Pretty much had just given up and saying, "I am getting a divorce. One of his friends noticed it and took him to coffee and just said, "Man, I realize that you are walking through a really hard time. I just want you to know I love you. I'm praying for you, and and let me tell you a little bit about me. He began to share his testimony with him, and he shared his testimony. He pulled out a book, and he said, "Here's a book, and it was it was a book titled 'Wild at Heart' that's written by John Eldridge. And he said God used this book to open up my eyes for me to begin to process my life through what God says about me in Scripture to be true about who I am as a man, in particular, in the way that he works in and through me, and he says, "I think, I just think it transformed my life, transformed it so much it could it could help you in this season. And so, so hearing that it changed somebody else's life, he began to read and he began to dive into Scripture alongside of it and and open himself up to God and pour his heart out to God, and God began to reveal truths to him that began to change him and bring this passion into his life again. So much so that he began to serve and love his wife without any expectation of anything from her, and through. The things that God was doing in His life, it transformed His marriage. They're still married today, and they are flourishing in their marriage. But then He clearly began to hear the Holy Spirit say, "Listen, I, I didn't just show you this and bring you into this conversation for you. Now that I've used it to change your life, I want to use you the same way to pour into other men, so I can use it to change their lives as well. And so he began to be open, and he would come across guys walking in similar seasons of life, and he began to invite them to coffee the same way this other guy invited him to coffee and began to share how this book and God's word and all the things that he was doing in his life had transformed and changed him, and that maybe it could help them too. And then their lives were changed.
And then he began to host groups of people, and then he began to put on retreats. And God saves and rescues us by His grace, and then by His grace He sets us apart to share with others that their lives can be transformed and changed the same way that He's transformed and changed ours. This story is not that unsimilar to the story of Johnny Birchfield, who's the men's minister at our church, he was struggling and wrestling with things in life, and goes to a men's boot camp, which we offer a number of opportunities to go to here, and and and through that boot camp, where they cover much of the same material that is in the book that I just mentioned to you. This other guy was sharing a testimony about, written by John Eldredge. It changed Johnny's life, and his marriage got better, and the way he parented got better, and God just began to radically transform his life. And then he heard the same thing. And I didn't just do this for you, Johnny, but I did it for you so that I could also work through you, so that I could change other men with this same message. And he began to invite them to boot camps, and then their lives were changed. And then those guys began to invite other people, and their lives were changed. And they continue to go back year after year the same exact content. Nothing changes. They're not learning any new information because they're going. But somebody else has got to hear it because it changed my life so much. If I can just get them to hear it, their life will be changed too. And there are men all over the world going to these boot camps now, and their lives are being changed because God changes our lives, and then He begins to use us as His instruments to pour into others, so they can experience the same things that we experience from Him as well. This past Thursday, there were a group of 30 to 40 women that went over to Glenda Louder's house and gathered around a table for food, for conversation. It was all designed for her to invite those ladies into her home, because many many years ago, she went to a conference that Dan Stone was teaching, and he was teaching about grace, and he was teaching about grace from a biblical perspective in a way that she hadn't noticed in the Bible before. Her Christianity was very rigid and legalistic, and all of these things had to be done, or there was separation between you and God, and He was upset with you, and you were all about the checklist and the things. And He began to show her things in the Bible about grace that radically changed the way that she experienced Jesus in the Christian life, and then as she began to gain freedom and experience those things in her life, guess what? The Holy Spirit said, "Glenda, I didn't just share this with you to change your life. I did it so that now you could go to others, and I could work in and through you to share these same things about grace and help them to experience that freedom as well. And so she began to have conversations with other ladies. She began to have him come in and put on other seminars. She invites people into her home, and that's what the table is all about because God changed her life through this message of grace, and she wants other women to not miss it, so they can experience the same freedom, the way that it's transformed and changed her life as well. Did you know that Glinda is in her 80s? Glinda's in her 80s, and she sang, "The Holy Spirit saved me by His grace, and He wants to work in and through me to pour into others so that they can continue to experience it. She hosts people in. Do you know how much work it is to clean your house and to get ready and prep the food and do all the stuff to have people in? I'm just guessing that when you're in your 80s, that it can be a little bit tiring at times. And then she began to get some feedback and said, "You know what?
We'd love to come, but we work in the middle of the day and we can't come at lunch. And she said, "Well, you know what? What if we do one for dinner after you get off work as well? And so they gather around noon, and you know how a conversation goes, and they're there till two or maybe three, and then she can barely catch her breath before she's got to turn around and clean and get ready for the next one. But she wants to make sure that no one misses the grace of God. So whatever it is that she's got to do to pour into and invest in them, and women's lives are being transformed and changed because again, God changes our lives and then sets us apart by His grace to be used as instruments to pour into others. And so, my question to you is: How is it that Jesus has transformed and shaped your life? And who is it that He wants to use you to pour into, so that they can begin to experience that same transformation in victory in their lives as well. My prayer is that you'll be listening to the Spirit as He speaks to you about how He wants to work in you and through you to change other people's lives around you. Let's pray together as we continue to ask the Lord to lead us during this time of response.