Acts 26 - Before the King

[SPEAKER_00]: Heavenly Father, our Lord and our God, we praise you and we thank you for this Thanksgiving season.

[SPEAKER_00]: We thank you and praise you for the wonderful gift of your Word.

[SPEAKER_00]: Father, for your provision and for the assurance that it provides Father and clearly display all that you are.

[SPEAKER_00]: As we dig into this passage today,

[SPEAKER_00]: and come to grow to know more and more what you've given us in your son Jesus Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: May we be focused on him, undistracted by the busyness of our lives, the plans that we have ahead, are the things that take our forgase away from you.

[SPEAKER_00]: That we might grow, and the grace and knowledge of your son and the Lord Jesus Christ, and whose name we pray.

[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.

[SPEAKER_00]: Alright, so we are continuing along in Acts 26, you can find that in your Bible, but today's passage is going to focus on a question that I hope is important and that question is what do you want for others?

[SPEAKER_00]: Our society focuses a great deal on what do you want for yourself, but what do you want for others?

[SPEAKER_00]: What you'll notice is that probably changes from situation to situation.

[SPEAKER_00]: So when you're in traffic, you probably want for others to stop driving like idiots and stay out of your way.

[SPEAKER_00]: And when it comes to election season, you want everyone else, you want for others to stop being so silly and think just the way I think, or just the way you think.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we definitely want for others not to be jerks.

[SPEAKER_00]: We really like the idea of a world where everyone else is just nicer, at least to us and by our standard.

[SPEAKER_00]: But the point that we're going to drive into today is that hopefully, we are growing to a place as Christians that want something far more for others than just what is convenient for us or convenient behavior from them towards us.

[SPEAKER_00]: Hopefully we want something for others that is truly their greatest good and we're going to see that example in the life of Paul and we're going to hopefully see that reflected in our own lives as Christ continues to work in us.

[SPEAKER_00]: But now we see that Paul has put before a king.

[SPEAKER_00]: Remind you that this is yet another in a long list of trials or trial-like situations.

[SPEAKER_00]: We've had quite a few unofficial sort of trial-outs.

[SPEAKER_00]: We've had Paul trying to defend himself before the Jewish people and the day they tried to lynch him.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we've had Paul defending himself more officially through the...

[SPEAKER_00]: through the Sanhedrin or through the council, so essentially, that was a situation where Paul is defending himself before mostly Jewish people and a few Roman people who were working just as bodyguards, then we saw Paul defend himself before Festus and we saw our Felix, sorry Felix.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the Jews, we had kind of fewer Jews making the accusation, fewer people making the accusation in front of a Roman panel, at which they could not find any guilt in him, but agreed to hold him.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then when the rule Felix's rule changed over to Festices, there was yet another time, and the Jews tried to call in a favor to get Paul put away for good or taking care of for good, likely trying to get him killed.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that also didn't go as they wished, ending in Paul's need to appeal to Caesar, which left festists in a really uncomfortable spot, and that's that someone had appealed to Caesar, which was great.

[SPEAKER_00]: He wanted him out of his hair.

[SPEAKER_00]: He wanted to not have to make this hard choice that would either compromise the moral truth, or moral truth, because he knew Paul was innocent, or compromise his relationship with the Jews whom he was supposed to rule.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was a difficult choice, and Paul appealing to Caesar was a great thing for him because it took the ball out of his court.

[SPEAKER_00]: It took the responsibility off his plate.

[SPEAKER_00]: So even though he had no real just reason to do it, in other words, he should have ruled on this case first before there was need for an appeal to Caesar.

[SPEAKER_00]: He said, yeah, let's just make this happen.

[SPEAKER_00]: But now he's got to figure out a way to make a charge that's going to sound reasonable enough to argue with or bother the highest court in the land.

[SPEAKER_00]: Fortunately, a grip ahead come by and with all the pump and circumstances visit, Paul said, hey, you know what's going on here.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know more about this than I do.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you can help me sort this out and find me a good reason to send Paul off to be a trial or to be on trial before Caesar.

[SPEAKER_00]: So

[SPEAKER_00]: This is where Agrippa finally permits Paul.

[SPEAKER_00]: He says, Paul, you're permitted to speak for yourself.

[SPEAKER_00]: But note that this is the first time that Paul's gotten this much freedom to stretch his legs and really lay out his defense.

[SPEAKER_00]: In every other time he's always been surrounded by or at least in the presence of angry and dishonest, slanderous accusers.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he was having to deal with the fact that he was

[SPEAKER_00]: needing to respond to these false accusations rather than just give freely his side of the story.

[SPEAKER_00]: So this is his opportunity.

[SPEAKER_00]: Here there is, there are none of his attackers or his slanderers about him.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's why we get this nice, full robust account of Paul's life and ministry.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because he says, look, I know that I'm not on trial here.

[SPEAKER_00]: This isn't going to, they're not going to rule in my favor of four.

[SPEAKER_00]: The whole appeal to Caesar things aren't even done.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I sure can redeem or at least make clear the gospel and let them know that I let a grip of know that these Christians that are now a big part of his life as a ruler in Egypt are not guilty and they're not troublemakers.

[SPEAKER_00]: So there's really more on the line than we might think, not so much for Paul personally, but very much for the church at large, and Paul is going to make a defense that will be we'll see extraordinarily compelling.

[SPEAKER_00]: Any introduces himself in this way.

[SPEAKER_00]: He says, I think myself happy, King Agrippa, because today I shall answer for myself,

[SPEAKER_00]: before you concerning all the things of which I am accused by the Jews, especially because you are an expert in all the customs and questions which have to do with the Jews.

[SPEAKER_00]: Therefore, I beg you, hear me, patiently.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, Agrippa is a great audience for Paul.

[SPEAKER_00]: Agrippa is in many ways one of the best people that Paul could be before and he says that he says I think myself happy why was he Agrippa and the whole herid families the last of the kind of the herid dynasty.

[SPEAKER_00]: Agrippa was knowledgeable about the Hebrew things.

[SPEAKER_00]: He was well educated because the whole herid family propagated this idea because they were part Jewish that they were the kings of the Jews.

[SPEAKER_00]: This was that ethnic identification meant that one and also had the background knowledge in both things visceral and likely the church issues and to it meant that they had a sympathy.

[SPEAKER_00]: He had a sympathy whether or not he was actually living it.

[SPEAKER_00]: He was willing to identify that he believed in the prophets.

[SPEAKER_00]: He believed in the Torah.

[SPEAKER_00]: He would likely have gone each year to make his sacrifices at the temple and this sympathetic viewpoint made him a great audience or a great listener for Paul's story.

[SPEAKER_00]: In other words, this is a divinely appointed opportunity for God to explain Paul, to explain through, using, sorry, for God to explain through Paul, there we go, the gospel, and what these Christians are all about.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is, this is Paul's moment, another one of Paul's moments in the sun.

[SPEAKER_00]: and God gives us those opportunities.

[SPEAKER_00]: It always saddens me, I don't know about you.

[SPEAKER_00]: When you get a Christian on television or someone claiming to be a Christian on television and they have that opportunity to share the truth, the love, the grace, of the gospel, and of Christ, and they blow it, and they whine about some political issue.

[SPEAKER_00]: Or they blow it, and they talk about how much they hate that, that, that, that, that, that, that, the world

[SPEAKER_00]: And they miss the ball entirely, not always.

[SPEAKER_00]: Certainly not always.

[SPEAKER_00]: Often enough that it's a bit discouraging.

[SPEAKER_00]: And yet hopefully we can indirectly take from this.

[SPEAKER_00]: Paul was ready.

[SPEAKER_00]: Paul was waiting for a long time between these opportunities.

[SPEAKER_00]: And yet he didn't waste that time.

[SPEAKER_00]: even though this trial this hearing may not have had anything any real substantial impact on his case and his destiny he was prepared and he was ready to give them the answer just fantastic.

[SPEAKER_00]: So

[SPEAKER_00]: From this introduction, where he publicly thanks a gripper, or at least let's know in his happiness, to be presenting this before a gripper, he gets into his case right away, not overly flattering, not wasting a bunch of time on rhetoric.

[SPEAKER_00]: but begins to tell them about the before picture.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is very familiar to us, so we're going to move through it rather quickly, but he tells them and reminds Festus, and anyone else there, of his former manner of life.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's from his youth that he was dedicated to the way of his people.

[SPEAKER_00]: He lived, according to the strictest sect of our religion, he said, as a Pharisee.

[SPEAKER_00]: literally the best of the best of Judaism.

[SPEAKER_00]: And most of us in this room would probably want to line up with the Pharisees.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's what we would be where we Jews in that time.

[SPEAKER_00]: The Pharisees were the people who said, this Torah, these prophets, this is the Word of God, and we are gonna build our lives on it.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're gonna keep it, we're gonna teach it.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you know what, we're even gonna make extra rules to make sure everyone else keeps it and teaches it even better.

[SPEAKER_00]: There were the ones that were known for being strict adherence to the Bible and to the law of Moses.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so him, he claims this to say, look, I was way, way in on the religion of our Jewish people.

[SPEAKER_00]: I am not a trouble maker.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was the most dedicated or amongst the most dedicated.

[SPEAKER_00]: I have the greatest sympathies you might say for those who are attacking him at this time.

[SPEAKER_00]: So he continues to reach out and tell them and explain his identification with Israel.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now I don't know about you but I would have had some reservations at this point.

[SPEAKER_00]: You ever do something or involved with something?

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, when I was in high school, I was really, really interested in punk rock and really loved the idea of funny haircuts and funny hair colors and loud noises with bad words in it.

[SPEAKER_00]: It really made a lot to me and I loved it, but I don't tell a lot of people about that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, in fact, it's mostly embarrassing trying to hide pictures that I find of such time.

[SPEAKER_00]: Good thing Facebook wasn't around that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Never the less.

[SPEAKER_00]: Paul here is not ashamed of his before picture at all because it identifies him with those who are persecuting him.

[SPEAKER_00]: He goes out of his way to say, hey, I'm not that dissimilar from them.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not that far apart from them and I'm not throwing rocks at them with the same hatred and vitro that they bear towards me.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, we're not all that different.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's going to talk about what made him different, but I do love how Paul with this humility each time goes through, and we might think of it as bragging, but it's the precise opposite.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's not saying, look at what a good Jew I was, although he is trying to say that he was faithful to the Phariseeism.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's trying to tell them.

[SPEAKER_00]: that he was identified with them.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was just like them.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think it's that dedication, to that humility that allows Paul to have such patience throughout this.

[SPEAKER_00]: When he describes his before picture, he doesn't say, oh yeah, but I'm way better than them now.

[SPEAKER_00]: It says if Jesus had wouldn't have stepped in, that's be exactly where I am.

[SPEAKER_00]: Many drops in this interesting statement because again trying to sow this new faith of Christianity into the promises of the Old Testament and the promises to Israel in verses 6 and 7.

[SPEAKER_00]: He says, and now I stand and am judged for the hope of the promise made by God to our fathers.

[SPEAKER_00]: To this promise are 12 tribes.

[SPEAKER_00]: earnestly serving God, night and day, hope to attain.

[SPEAKER_00]: For this hope-sake King of Gripah, I am accused of the Jews.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now we get a couple of wonderful points here, but this is the, this is the reality is that the gospel doesn't start in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and the gospel doesn't start with Romans.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is one continuous revelation from cover to cover.

[SPEAKER_00]: There are some important distinctions that we have to understand about when God's dealing with the church or dealing with Israel, dealing with humanity before Israel and all and all and all.

[SPEAKER_00]: But it doesn't change the fact that this is one continuous

[SPEAKER_00]: story.

[SPEAKER_00]: One continuous narrative and the character of God is holy and entirely unchanging.

[SPEAKER_00]: This book does not present as many unformed and even liberal scholars and theologians will suggest two gods, an angry wrathful god and a happy hippie god.

[SPEAKER_00]: This book presents one god who is

[SPEAKER_00]: and faithful and loving, gracious, merciful and kind.

[SPEAKER_00]: What Paul is trying to bring forth here is he's saying this is a continuation, a fulfillment of everything that we've been promised.

[SPEAKER_00]: This isn't some new set of ideas or a new set of beliefs, but rather this is a 100% completion of what God's been doing since the fall of man.

[SPEAKER_00]: And here, because he says, this promise to our 12 tribes is a little bit of a point of order for the more academic side.

[SPEAKER_00]: But nevertheless, there are those who claim that the idea of God being faithful to the 12 tribes of Israel must be ridiculous because they were already gone at some point in the past before they had Babylonian captivity at this point or that point.

[SPEAKER_00]: But what we see here is that the 12 tribes of Israel were well known and well understood even in Paul's day.

[SPEAKER_00]: That was not, none of the tribes were lost and Paul knew that and spoke as such in this way.

[SPEAKER_00]: Finally we see that Paul believed that the promises were yet future in their fulfillment or read this again just so you can catch this.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is now I stand and I'm judged for the hope of the promises made by God to our fathers.

[SPEAKER_00]: To this promise our 12 tribes are honestly serving God day and night, hope to attain.

[SPEAKER_00]: You see, even with Christ crucified, ascended, and seated at the right hand of the Father.

[SPEAKER_00]: Paul's under no delusion that the hope and the promises have been fulfilled.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's still looking to them, those kingdom promises and something that God has yet to fulfill.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's saying, we hope in this.

[SPEAKER_00]: We just know the identification of that Messiah who will come down.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's not saying that, oh, and I'm actually a gripper, they're all spiritually fulfilled now.

[SPEAKER_00]: So you know, they will all be fulfilled, and we just have more information about it now.

[SPEAKER_00]: We know that that Jewish Messiah is coming, and we know that his name is Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: We know more about him now, Paul's saying than any of their forefathers did before him.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then he goes on and reverts out of that little theological step aside into his story again and talks about his history, persecuting the church.

[SPEAKER_00]: She's indeed, I myself thought I must do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth.

[SPEAKER_00]: This I also didn't jurist them and many of the saints I shut up in prison.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then he goes on later to say, he punished them often in every synagogue and compelled them to blaspheme and finally exceedingly enraged against them, he persecuted them to foreign cities.

[SPEAKER_00]: You see the picture that he's painting?

[SPEAKER_00]: He's painting a picture that this life of legalism.

[SPEAKER_00]: was always of a violent character.

[SPEAKER_00]: He said, when I was a part of it, I was just like them, I was ready to lie, cheat, steal, force them to blaspheme, rearrange the truth, attack them on their home turf to get any excuse I could to have them taken to prison or if possible killed.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's trying to bring to light that the violence and the hatred of this legalism

[SPEAKER_00]: of the rejection of Christ is universal, saying, when I was a part of it, I was as or more violent than the rest of them.

[SPEAKER_00]: So he's in a way sympathizing with his accusers.

[SPEAKER_00]: The ones who said, hey, can you move the trial down to Jerusalem so we can kill him?

[SPEAKER_00]: He's saying, yeah, I get that.

[SPEAKER_00]: I would have done that too.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he uses these really extreme words identifying himself with the violence and the dishonesty that feeling like if you could just do or get rid of this group of people that it would be so much better.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, as usual, and as I would intrigue you to do, he did a couple of weeks ago, Paul does not spend too much time on the dark part of his life.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is one of the problems that most people fall into when they're showing their testimony.

[SPEAKER_00]: As always, though, and before I was addicted to it, and before I was there, and before I was there, and before I was there, and before I was there, and before I was there, and before I was there, and before I was there, and before I was there, and before I was there, and before I was there, and before I was there, and before I was there, and before I was there, and before I was there, and before I was there, and before I was there, and before I was there, and before I was there, and before I was there, and before I was there, and before I was there, and before I was there, and before I was there, and before I was there, and before I was there, and before I was there, and before I was there, and before I was there, and before I was there, and before I was there, and before I was there, and before I was

[SPEAKER_00]: and then gets to the change in verse 12 through 18.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know, remind you of this as in a reading, I believe, but we'll go through it again.

[SPEAKER_00]: It says, while thus occupied, as I journeyed to Damascus with authority and commission from the chief priests, at midday o' King, along the road I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun shining around me and those who journeyed with me.

[SPEAKER_00]: And when we all had fallen to the ground, I heard a voice speaking to me and saying in the Hebrew language, so why are you persecuting me?

[SPEAKER_00]: it is hard for you to kick against the goats.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I say, why are you, Lord?

[SPEAKER_00]: Who are you, Lord?

[SPEAKER_00]: And he said, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.

[SPEAKER_00]: But rise and stand on your feet, for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to make you a minister and a witness.

[SPEAKER_00]: Both of the things which you have seen and the things which will yet reveal to you,

[SPEAKER_00]: I will deliver you from the Jewish people as well as from the Gentiles to whom I now send you to open their eyes in order to turn them from light to darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God and they may receive forgiveness of sins and the inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in me.

[SPEAKER_00]: So here's our moment of change.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's one word familiar with, but we do get a little extra information here.

[SPEAKER_00]: fascinatingly, Paul's change of heart did not come as a purely internal spiritual equation or a situation, a occasion or a situation.

[SPEAKER_00]: It came about as a real life interaction with real world things.

[SPEAKER_00]: It involves sensations of things happening outside of his body affecting things coming within.

[SPEAKER_00]: Paul does not say that he was just meditating or hanging out.

[SPEAKER_00]: Paul is saying that

[SPEAKER_00]: broke in and shattered all of his self-confirmed delusions.

[SPEAKER_00]: So it starts with a sight.

[SPEAKER_00]: This blinding light from heaven brighter than the sun.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know how much time has been staring at the sun.

[SPEAKER_00]: I've only enough to be uncomfortable in my case.

[SPEAKER_00]: But,

[SPEAKER_00]: This blinding light from heaven is a sensory overload, and it also comes with a sensation of falling to the ground.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want you to picture this because this would have been a closer image.

[SPEAKER_00]: When we think of ourselves as being blinded by a light, we might think of ourselves as driving in traffic.

[SPEAKER_00]: When we think of ourselves as falling to the ground, we might imagine falling to the ground of some sort of hardwood floors or old carpet or whatever it is.

[SPEAKER_00]: But when Paul described this situation,

[SPEAKER_00]: of writing on an old dirt road, or possibly a Roman road, but an old dirt road, everyone would have a sense of what it was like to see the sun, because just like you're driving along and you're coming over a hill and all this on the sun's in your eyes and you're like, I hope there's not a child in front of me, whatever it is you hope, that's what I usually hope.

[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't make me slow down, but anyway, the point is, Paul would have had this experience and served

[SPEAKER_00]: this would have been relatable to them.

[SPEAKER_00]: He gave them the time of day and all of a sudden being blinded by lights and then feeling a body hit the ground.

[SPEAKER_00]: That dirt stuck to the sweat of his face, the smell and the taste of the sand around him.

[SPEAKER_00]: But it wasn't just a sight and a sensation that was also a sound and that sound came across to Paul as a voice and that voice spoke in the Hebrew language.

[SPEAKER_00]: Why is this important?

[SPEAKER_00]: Paul spoke at least to, if not more, languages.

[SPEAKER_00]: Probably had some really good understanding of Latin, but certainly Quinaigri, Hebrew, Eirmak.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he tells it and we're told here that he spoke in the Hebrew language.

[SPEAKER_00]: What's Paul saying?

[SPEAKER_00]: Paul saying, and Jesus was saying, but this is a continuation.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus didn't come to leave Israel behind.

[SPEAKER_00]: He came to save Israel when they rejected him, he promised that they would repent and come back and call him back.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is a continuation of the story that he was telling and is going to continue on until he's faithful to all of his promises.

[SPEAKER_00]: His promises to save you and to save me and also his promises to store restore national history.

[SPEAKER_00]: And this voice Jesus Christ speaking to him in the Hebrew language was another way to say that and make that identification clear.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's why Paul takes the point to bring it out here.

[SPEAKER_00]: And his commission as we see as a minister, again, this is a part of that more information that we get in this fuller account.

[SPEAKER_00]: He says, I'm going to make you a minister and a witness.

[SPEAKER_00]: Both of these things, which you have seen, and the things which I will yet reveal to you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, we know from the life of Paul is that he got this wonderful revelation here.

[SPEAKER_00]: I can't think that many people will never get.

[SPEAKER_00]: But then he got alternate or continuing opportunities to get direct revelation from Jesus Christ Himself.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's why he was such a powerful force in the New Testament church.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because in his sense, as we saw in my study, Galatians, Paul was God's corrective measure to keep the church from falling back into

[SPEAKER_00]: the legalistic ways and trying to make Christians into Jews.

[SPEAKER_00]: In other words, trying to absorb Christianity into the Israel paradigm.

[SPEAKER_00]: Paul was God's special tool to do that and he gave him continued revelation about what the church is, what the mystery of the church is all about, how it differs from Israel, how it doesn't interfere with God's plan for Israel.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, you see that he says, rise and stand on your feet, drive a peer to you for this purpose to make your witness okay.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then he goes on to say, I will deliver you from the Jewish people as well as from the Gentiles.

[SPEAKER_00]: So he promises to continue to protect him in this process.

[SPEAKER_00]: and then he tells him what his commission is.

[SPEAKER_00]: He uses what we call a Hebrew poetry pattern, an English poetry, an English poetry, we'll say, English poetry focuses mostly on rymed syllables, but Hebrew poetry in general focuses on the idea of a repeated word phrase or theme.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes by standing it again in the positive, sometimes by standing again in the negative.

[SPEAKER_00]: You ever read through the Psalms or even through much of the New Testament epistles

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's because the way that Hebrew poetry worked was that you made yourself clear.

[SPEAKER_00]: You made your meaning clear and you made your meaning more beautiful by describing something in more than one way, by repeating it until repeating the idea in a new and different way.

[SPEAKER_00]: Whether that's to negate the opposite or to restate the positive side of it.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's a situation we have here.

[SPEAKER_00]: So he says, I appointed you to open their eyes.

[SPEAKER_00]: to open their eyes, if we try to open someone's eyes, finish sleeping this morning, so that's what I did.

[SPEAKER_00]: So that's how the eyes open, to the God up worked.

[SPEAKER_00]: But not often, you're gonna chance to open someone's spiritual eyes.

[SPEAKER_00]: The idea that is being put forth is that the people of the world, everybody who is not in connection with Christ had put their faith in Christ, is spiritually blinded.

[SPEAKER_00]: And God says, I'm sinning you to open their eyes.

[SPEAKER_00]: You have a couple of words on it for smoothness, but we could, if we're going to be really chunky about our translation, we'd say, to open their eyes, to turn from darkness to light and the power of Satan to God.

[SPEAKER_00]: So he's got this, this kind of three lines that sit somewhat in parallel, giving us increasing clarity of what's going on.

[SPEAKER_00]: So first, to open their eyes, giving the idea to use a faculty of sight that they have, but they're choosing not to use.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so Paul is designed by God to give them the information they need essentially calling them, open your eyes to what you already, what you would see right before you.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then to turn them, to get this sense, to get this picture of us humans as unbelievers.

[SPEAKER_00]: As having our eyes closed and shut and turned away from the light and turn towards the power of Satan and the world.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's the picture of every human apart from Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: Volunteerly shut down and shut away and turn away from God.

[SPEAKER_00]: And God says to Paul, I want to appoint you to get them to open their eyes.

[SPEAKER_00]: and to stand up and turn from the darkness of deception to the light of the truth of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: From the power of Satan to the power of the saving power of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: This threefold picture or this Hebrew poet poem, if you like, that God puts forth to Paul.

[SPEAKER_00]: Do you think about that?

[SPEAKER_00]: You're a wonder.

[SPEAKER_00]: You've got that person who just wouldn't never listen or at least in your mind would never listen.

[SPEAKER_00]: Person who could never hear.

[SPEAKER_00]: Keep in mind that this is what we're doing when we're sharing the gospel.

[SPEAKER_00]: We think of ourselves as trying to win an argument, but that's not quite right.

[SPEAKER_00]: All we're trying to do is back in them to open their eyes.

[SPEAKER_00]: to turn around to the light, and accept what's already so apparently true to them.

[SPEAKER_00]: If they just dare to look,

[SPEAKER_00]: We have four children, and every night around the dinner table, there's a battle, a war that is waged between new food and a child that's never seen that food before.

[SPEAKER_00]: And this is never a more exciting and hilarious battle when you've put before the child cake that they've never seen before.

[SPEAKER_00]: or some kind of ice cream that they've never seen before.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, this isn't even for my benefit.

[SPEAKER_00]: Just if you put your mouth on that ice cream, you will be a happy kid.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not tricking you this time.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not, you know, vegetable puree.

[SPEAKER_00]: It really is ice cream.

[SPEAKER_00]: But because it's just different than because they just can't believe it.

[SPEAKER_00]: They won't even try it.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a very simple project we have had.

[SPEAKER_00]: are wonderful and beloved children walk away from delicious desserts big emphasis is actually totally fine i can you can imagine i found a way to dispose of them but but walk away from delicious desserts because they wouldn't dare to open their eyes and just believe that maybe mom and dad were looking out for their best interests in that case it's all you're doing when you're sharing the gospel with someone

[SPEAKER_00]: don't get confused in sideline and sidetracked.

[SPEAKER_00]: You're asking him to open their eyes and know that they're loved, know that they're forgiven, know that they're provided for, know that they have a place in God's eternal plan that stretches from the dawn of creation until the very close of this time, this physical universe, and be included in that.

[SPEAKER_00]: All we're here to do is open eyes with the truth.

[SPEAKER_00]: and hopefully see some turn from light, from darkness to light.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's switched.

[SPEAKER_00]: You gotta fix that in your head.

[SPEAKER_00]: Turn from darkness to light.

[SPEAKER_00]: Forgiveness of sins, then he say, he goes further to describe what this looks like, that they may receive forgiveness of sins.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, this is an important point, obviously, because part of the reason why every person, every human on their own, has their eyes screwed shut and is hiding from God as best as they can.

[SPEAKER_00]: which is pathetically impossible, but part of the reason that they're doing it is because they know they're guilty before God.

[SPEAKER_00]: They know that if there is a God that He has the right to judge me and I'm accountable to him and I know what I've done.

[SPEAKER_00]: Everybody is intuitively and by the wonderful ministry, the Holy Spirit continually convicted for the sin of

[SPEAKER_00]: that is a part of them.

[SPEAKER_00]: Those things that they've done, those things that they've said, and even those things that they've thought that make it impossible for a righteous God to ever accept them and Paul's been given this commission to say that the forgiveness of sins has been brought.

[SPEAKER_00]: But not just for the forgiveness of sins, but an inheritance among those who are sanctified, amongst the saints.

[SPEAKER_00]: an inheritance.

[SPEAKER_00]: We tend to think of an inheritance as being something that happens when someone else dies.

[SPEAKER_00]: But this was more of a free flowing idea.

[SPEAKER_00]: You could come into your inheritance while the person giving it was yet alive.

[SPEAKER_00]: in the ancient world, he came into adulthood and he's saying you're going to come into that they will receive forgiveness and also receive this inheritance of the constant and complete package of salvation given by God through Jesus Christ and that inheritance is eternal and long lasting.

[SPEAKER_00]: It involves your confirmation and conformity by the power and grace of God to the image of Jesus Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: saying, Proclaim it to them, that this may receive his condition upon what will see at the end of their faith, but if you trust in Jesus Christ, if you turn from the darkness to the light, forgiveness of sin, not some of it, all of it is there.

[SPEAKER_00]: When Jesus Christ died for you and for I, every sin, past present in the future to us, where we sit now, was future tense to him.

[SPEAKER_00]: When he paid that check, all of the expenses were on the table to the moment you died.

[SPEAKER_00]: It is a complete and perfect forgiveness of sins, because it was purchased at the price of the blood of the Son of God, the life of the very eternal Son of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: That gives us forgiveness and this inheritance, this place in the household of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: And finally a positional sanctification, sanctification means to be set apart.

[SPEAKER_00]: Is it amongst those who are sanctified?

[SPEAKER_00]: You'll be amongst those who are set apart.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now the Jews were very comfortable with this idea because they were a nation set apart from the world.

[SPEAKER_00]: They were God's tool with which or through which He would bring His revelation, His self-revelation, and also His plan of salvation, not just for them, but for the entire world.

[SPEAKER_00]: And they awaited the time in the Messiah with reign as King of kings and Lord of Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: They had this idea of sanctification, but this is a different sanctification.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is those who are set apart from the world and the destiny of the world by being positioned in the person of Jesus Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: We no longer share Adam's destiny, or as Paul would write in 1 Corinthians 15, in Adam all die but in Christ, all those are in Christ, are made alive.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then, all these wonderful things that Christ has told him that he is going to tell him.

[SPEAKER_00]: He gives man's part.

[SPEAKER_00]: Faith.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're sanctified, you're set apart by this faith.

[SPEAKER_00]: By putting your trust in Jesus Christ, the righteous one, and the sacrifice that He's made, that's what makes the difference.

[SPEAKER_00]: Christ is the object of that faith.

[SPEAKER_00]: Paul then goes on to tell a group of that He was not disobedient or that He obeyed.

[SPEAKER_00]: He obeyed the heavenly vision, which sounds a little bit amazing to us because we'd say, well, of course, you did, but then when you know what many other Old Testament Saints went through similar experiences and decided, no, maybe not.

[SPEAKER_00]: But Paul, in this case, did.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he declared the gospel throughout Damascus and Jerusalem throughout Judea and then on to the Gentiles that they should.

[SPEAKER_00]: He tells them, repent, metanoia, change your mind and turn to God and do the works be fitting of repentance.

[SPEAKER_00]: So what we have here is, first of all, make this change of mind and then let that change of mind, let that faith

[SPEAKER_00]: change your actions, to let that belief affect their actions.

[SPEAKER_00]: Bring forth or do works, be fitting of repentance.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's not adding works to the salvation equation by any stretch of the imagination.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's just saying, change your faith, put your faith in Christ, and then stop living like you're putting your faith in yourself.

[SPEAKER_00]: Your legalism and the self-righteousness and the violence and hatred that comes with that, now put your faith in Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now put your trust in him and live a life that is affected by that reality and that knowledge and that trust.

[SPEAKER_00]: And this he tells them was the motivation for the arrest.

[SPEAKER_00]: Note it and make a clear note.

[SPEAKER_00]: that Paul knows why he was being persecuted and Paul knows why he was in prison had nothing to do with any sort of legal failures or transgressions against the law of Israel or Rome.

[SPEAKER_00]: He was under arrest because he spoke the grace gospel and so we can guarantee that there will be persecution resistance to any person living by faith and Christ and any person speaking the gospel of grace.

[SPEAKER_00]: That was the motivation in the rest.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right.

[SPEAKER_00]: So notes that he then makes on the gospel about how he's going to proclaim it.

[SPEAKER_00]: He tells us, first of all, that He's witnessing in verse 26 to both small and great.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, therefore, having obtained help from God to this day, I stand witnessing both to small and great.

[SPEAKER_00]: The gospel is not teared in its value.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not applicable only to middle-class white people, and it's not applicable only to very poor people, it's not applicable only to very rich people.

[SPEAKER_00]: And in fact, what we might think of this person, or this celebrity becoming Christian, and making a statement of Christ as being a wonderful thing, heaven rejoices, is no one bit less when a homeless person puts their faith in Christ at the local mission.

[SPEAKER_00]: And Paul says, I am sharing the gospel with you, King of Gripper, one of the highest in the land, just as I would, with the lowest.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because this grace, your strength, your power, your money, gets you nowhere.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it makes you no more valuable to God.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so he says, we witness both the small and the great.

[SPEAKER_00]: And my challenge to you is to think who's small and great in your life.

[SPEAKER_00]: who's so small that you've thought it's not really worth changing the gospel.

[SPEAKER_00]: Who's so great that you thought, I'm not important enough or smart enough to share the gospel with that person.

[SPEAKER_00]: He continues on to remind them again and we won't believe at this point at this moment because we've done it already that this is in total keeping with the Old Testament with Moses and the prophets.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is a continuation of what God has done and has been doing, and also that the Christ would suffer, because of the witness of the Old Testament, the theological need for the payment of sin, that Christ and His death and His crucifixion was not as the ancient world would have viewed it a failure or a loss or something to be ashamed of, and yes,

[SPEAKER_00]: being crucified on a cross was the most shameful way to die.

[SPEAKER_00]: If someone in your family was crucified, you wouldn't want to talk about it.

[SPEAKER_00]: You wouldn't want to let other people know because that kind of gossip around the neighborhood would reflect badly on your whole family.

[SPEAKER_00]: And here you have a faith, a religion, a group of people who are defining themselves by their faith in a man who was a publicly and embarrassingly crucified before everybody.

[SPEAKER_00]: And Paul says, we're not embarrassed about this.

[SPEAKER_00]: That needed to happen.

[SPEAKER_00]: Without Christ's redemptive work on the cross, he could not rule and reign a redeemed world because someone had to pay that price.

[SPEAKER_00]: So Paul makes that clear in his gospel presentation.

[SPEAKER_00]: No cross, no gospel.

[SPEAKER_00]: It can seem exciting, it can even seem attractive to us in our world to want to present a gospel that says, yeah, you've goofed up, but God likes you so much that you're going to be fine, little guy, but that's not the gospel.

[SPEAKER_00]: The gospel is, you've transgressed, you've sinned against the righteousness of Almighty God, the Creator and judge of the heavens, and the earth.

[SPEAKER_00]: But he loved you so much that he took that penalty and paid it himself on a cross.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the shameful public death.

[SPEAKER_00]: His love for you is not just some sort of imaginary chuck on the shoulder, get along and smile away.

[SPEAKER_00]: is driven through the timeline of history, like an movable stake, declaring to you the immeasurable and maxless love and grace of God for you, and at any time you can always look back on that moment, and know how loved and how perfect your provision was for your salvation that you would be with him.

[SPEAKER_00]: also that he would rise from the dead, that Christ's check wouldn't bounce, but that he would pay the penalty for our sin and emerge victorious.

[SPEAKER_00]: And finally, he says, and would proclaim the light to the Jewish people and to the Gentiles.

[SPEAKER_00]: Again, this idea of proclaiming the light, if we had more time, we'd go through the Old Testament references, but has a kingdom sense to it.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's saying that he would proclaim just as he did.

[SPEAKER_00]: He proclaims the kingdom of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: He proclaims this time, yet future of hope and fulfillment of all God's promises to both Jews and Gentiles.

[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't a just us promise, it was an all human all earth together to be redeemed in the future.

[SPEAKER_00]: We see a couple of responses here.

[SPEAKER_00]: We see Festus's response, which is, you must be nuts.

[SPEAKER_00]: It just learned so much.

[SPEAKER_00]: You've gone so far down this rabbit hole.

[SPEAKER_00]: You've driven yourself a little crazy to which Paul responds.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not mad, most noble Festus.

[SPEAKER_00]: But speak the words of truth.

[SPEAKER_00]: and a reason for the king before whom I also speak freely knows these things.

[SPEAKER_00]: So he says, I'm not nuts, you can think I'm nuts, but this is the truth, and this is reasonable.

[SPEAKER_00]: We have a gripper's response.

[SPEAKER_00]: You almost persuade me to become a Christian.

[SPEAKER_00]: Do you have any idea how compelling something has to be in order to make a politician take a position?

[SPEAKER_00]: We do now, don't we?

[SPEAKER_00]: Here he is just about.

[SPEAKER_00]: He says, I'm almost ready to become a Christian and what I want to note is that there are no almost Christians and there are no just as there are no almost pregnant people.

[SPEAKER_00]: a gripper's response is in some way so hopeful because it shows that he was listening to Paul's case very well and attentively, but at least at this moment, almost putting your faith in Christ is not the same as putting your faith in Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the verdict is, of course, laughably.

[SPEAKER_00]: that this man might have been set free if he'd not appealed to Caesar and love that their way of shifting the responsibility back to Paul yeah well we should we would have said him free except for that that would have been inconvenient for us but they could solve their conscience with the lie i'd just like to close us with this one simple verse when agrippison to Paul you persuade me to become a Christian Paul said i would to God that not only you

[SPEAKER_00]: But also all who hear me today might become both almost and altogether, such as I am, except of these chains.

[SPEAKER_00]: Are you living the life of victorious in Christ that you can say?

[SPEAKER_00]: I wish everybody had the joy and peace that I had.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's step one.

[SPEAKER_00]: When you see someone, whether it's in the car next to you,

[SPEAKER_00]: or across the line in the grocery store or across the desk at your workplace or across the street in your neighborhood is your first desire for them that they would know Jesus, that they would know that hope.

[SPEAKER_00]: Is that your prayer for them as they cut you off in their car

[SPEAKER_00]: Is that your hope for them?

[SPEAKER_00]: As you see the faces flashed by on TV that alternatively might shock surprise amazed disgust you, as you thought, I hope those people meet Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's where the Lord's growing us.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's pray.

[SPEAKER_00]: Father, we praise you and we do thank you.

[SPEAKER_00]: this wonderful gift of your word, the gospel of your salvation.

[SPEAKER_00]: We thank you for choosing your servant Paul by a grace working in and through him.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh Lord, move all of our hearts, may we be submissive to your word and to your well,

[SPEAKER_00]: that when we be hold any person who lives apart from you, that we will be ready to share the truth that they might do so, not one minute longer.

[SPEAKER_00]: The name of Jesus we pray.

[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.