Acts Part 2 | Eclipsed by God - Acts 26 | November 16

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All right.

Today, today's going to be a little bit, I feel like I'm really loud.

I'm sure there's a joke in there, but,

today, as I mentioned last week, is going to be a little bit different.

We're going to do a sort of mini prayer and praise Sunday, which we just spend

some extra time singing, some extra time praying together.

So we're going to have those times together as well. we wanted to start off by reading Psalm 27.

So if everyone would stand with us in honor of the reading of the Lord's word, Psalm 27.

The Lord is my light and my salvation. So why should I be afraid?

The Lord is my fortress, protecting me from danger.

So why should I tremble? When evil people come to devour me,

when my enemies and foes attack me, they will stumble and fall.

Though a mighty army surrounds me, my heart will not be afraid.

Even if I am attacked, I will remain confident.

The one thing I ask of the Lord, the thing I seek most, is to live in the house

of the Lord all the days of my life, delighting in the Lord's perfections and

meditating in his temple.

For he will conceal me there when trouble comes. He will hide me in his sanctuary.

He will place me out of reach on a high rock.

Then I will hold my head high.

Above my enemies who surround me. At his sanctuary, I will offer sacrifice with

shouts of joy, singing and praising the Lord with music.

Hear me as I pray, O Lord. Be merciful and answer me.

My heart has heard you say, Come and talk with me. And my heart responds, Lord, I am coming.

Do not turn your back on me. Do not reject your servant in anger.

You have always been my helper.

Don't leave me now. Don't abandon me. O God of my salvation,

even if my father and mother abandon me, the Lord will hold me close.

Teach me how to live, O Lord, lead me along the right path, for my enemies are waiting for me.

Do not let me fall into their hands, for they accuse me of things I have never done.

With every breath they threaten me with violence, yet I am confident.

I will see the Lord's goodness while I am here in the land of the living.

Wait patiently for the Lord. Be brave and courageous. Yes, wait patiently for the Lord.

If you just stay standing,

to reading Psalm 27, singing these words that we're here for worship,

we're here to glorify, to magnify, to make in our lives heavy the presence of God.

There's this passage in 2 Thessalonians that talks about the presence and the

glory of God and how on that day the saints will gather to glorify him and all

who have believed will stand and marvel at him.

So as we continue in this, this feeling, this sitting, this activity,

I just want to spend a few minutes marveling at God and standing in awe at him. If you've ever.

The only context I can think of is on a trampoline, but there's others as well.

So you do that game where you do a move and the next person has to do what you

did and then add something to it.

I just want to spend a few minutes kind of doing that, but glorifying God as well.

And it can be the case that maybe I'll start us.

And if you are welcome to repeat and then add something to it,

or you can just shout something out and I'll add to it.

You're welcome to do either of those things and I'll try my best to repeat them clearly.

But I just want to start off. And again, as you feel led, we'll add to that,

this, this sentence, this phrase

that will become a paragraph that will become the story of our lives.

That God is great.

God is great and worthy to be praised. Amen.

That is great.

God is great and worthy to be praised. Hallelujah. He's our heavenly father.

Nothing can compare to you, Jesus.

God is great and worthy to be praised.

Heavenly Father, you are all-knowing, ever-present, all-powerful, amen.

You don't lose this game if you get it wrong.

I don't know.

Oh, my God.

God is great and worthy to be praised. Hallelujah, our heavenly Father.

Nothing compares to you, Jesus.

You are all-knowing, ever-present, all-powerful.

We worship you.

It's good all the time.

Our king our king amen,

our redeemer and sustainer thank you our defender,

our protector our protector.

Perfect high priest, amen.

The King of King, the Lord of War, the beginning and the end, the Alpha, the Omega.

To the prince of peace, you are our peace.

Yeah, it doesn't matter if it's been said before. If it comes to your heart,

say it again. That's right.

God is great and worthy to be praised. Wouldn't it be pretty impressive if I

just said everything we just said? That's not going to happen.

I just want to end that time by reading these words.

So we're talking about the glory, the magnificence, the marvelousness of God,

the weight of God, the glory of God, all that he is, all his character,

authority, power, wisdom,

literally the immeasurable weight of this God that we are here to worship and

praise and gather together to sing and elevate in our hearts.

It says, nothing is hidden or held back. This is the one who puts the stars

in their place with his fingers and gave every one of them a name.

He's the one who measured the entire universe with his fingers,

the span of his hand, the one who can pick up the whole earth as if it were a grain of sand.

He weighed every drop of water in the palm of his hand. He weighed the earth

and the mountains in his scales.

This is the one we can behold in our hearts and subsequently change into his

image from glory to glory.

This is the one who deeply loves us so much so he chose to pay the terrible

judgment for our sins so we could be a part of his family.

This is the great God that we gather together to worship this morning.

I just want to continue that thought, actually.

We've been talking about courage, Paul.

God shows up in Paul's jail cell and tells him to take courage,

take a hold of courage, take heart.

Don't let your heart be weary, he says. And then we know that he spends two years in prison.

We know even after that, after we're going to talk about today,

even on his trip to Rome, which God guarantees that he's going to make it, we know what happens.

He's shipwrecked. He gets bitten by a venomous snake.

His troubles aren't over. His journey's not over, even though the destination's set.

So we know that he still has to take hold of courage, both as he is testifying

in these chapters and into the future.

So I just want to continue that thought. What are the reasons you think that

we, that Paul, that we can take a hold of courage? What are those reasons?

We're a small group today. Somebody's got to be brave. What are some reasons

we can take hold of courage? What are some reasons we can have courage?

Yeah. Yeah. Courage.

Is that, what'd you say? Sorry. So we can trust God.

Yeah, it's the victory has been won.

I might take a lot more theological unpacking.

I love it though. Yeah. The work's done.

It's interesting, as we get to chapter 26, and I'm not going to read the whole

thing, but I do want to pick out a few verses.

As Paul is giving his defense before King Agrippa, he says lots of things,

lots of great and wonderful things.

But it's almost as if unintentionally, as he is giving a defense of the gospel,

as he's proclaiming the finished work of Christ, as he's doing what the book

of Acts is all about, being a witness about God, as the Holy Spirit's empowering him to do that.

It's almost as a byproduct of this, he's almost laying out the reasons that

he has to take courage and to be able to speak in front of kings and eventually

in front of the emperor to outlast these plots against him.

To stand firm even when it seems like just around the corner is his end and

he's not going to make it.

It's almost as if he is giving these reasons that he is able to take a hold of courage.

And if you remember as we talk about these, what we're doing is not building

within us something that we have to create.

Courage is not us becoming something we're not or learning to be tougher or

to do something to try harder.

Courage is something that God has already supplied. And what he's saying is

take a hold of this. I've given it to you.

Build your life on it. And so as Paul is giving this defense to King Agrippa,

he says in verse six of 26, he says, now I stand here on trial because of my

hope in the promise made by God to our fathers.

And one of the reasons Paul gives, in a sense, for how he can even be there

is because he has a hope in something greater.

A hope that was built into his people, into the Israelites, to the Jews,

that there is a hope for the future.

There is a hope in something greater.

And he's standing there before the king because of this hope that he has.

In John 14, verse 19, it talks about how Jesus says, Because I live, you also will live.

John 14:19

And if there is just like the simplest way that you could memorize what the

gospel is all about, it's just in those few words that Jesus says,

because I live, you also will live. This is the good news.

You don't have to die in your shame and your guilt because I live, you also will live.

I will give you life abundant here on earth. We read in Psalm 27 that we can

believe in the good that God will show us for here, not just for there,

but for here. And we can hope in that.

We can live in hope of eternity. We can live with our feet on the ground so

we're not disconnected from all that life has and is here.

But we can also live with our hearts in heaven longing for the greater kingdom.

And this is a great reality, I think, of no matter how good things are here.

That what awaits us far surpasses all of that, that there is a greatness to come.

So we're rooted in this completed fact that of Christ's victory.

Which provides us courage, knowing that what awaits us is far better.

It's this hope that Paul has.

He goes on in verse 13, when he's telling his testimony again,

this is the third or fourth time that he's telling his testimony, right?

We've heard it, but he says this in it, and we've heard this again,

but we've probably never keyed on too much.

In verse 13, he's telling the king, at midday, O king, I saw on the way a light

from heaven, brighter than the sun that shone around me and those who journeyed with me.

That there was a light that Paul saw. We know that he became blind after this

and had to go to see Ananias and be prayed for and to receive his sight.

I wonder if, if you remember, I mentioned that Paul was pretty blind in his life at this point.

I wonder if it wasn't some congenital defect that blinded him,

but this was a leftover remnant of encountering God on the road to Damascus.

That he encountered Jesus and he says that it was a light so bright that it

drowned out the midday sun.

I've never been to Israel or the Middle East or any of that part of the world.

I've never really ventured too close to the equator, but there is a reality

that exists when you're standing in this kind of environment at the equator

that doesn't happen in the morning and it doesn't happen in the evening, but at midday,

it's the case that if you don't have sunglasses, you're going to be squinting

probably most of the day that the sun has,

at that particular place, at that particular time is so bright.

It's probably the brightest that you could experience the sun on this earth.

And we just don't experience it in that same way here as much.

So I've never experienced it, but it's incredible that what Paul writes here

is that when Jesus shows up, the sun lost all of its power.

It lost all of its glory. It was eclipsed completely by the presence of God.

And John Bevere in his book, All of God, talks about this.

He talks about the first time that he went to visit Israel and he usually takes

sunglasses with them, but on this trip, he forgot sunglasses and he realized

how important it was that he remember them the next time.

And he writes that, although the sun wasn't too intense earlier, later in the day.

At midday, it seemed blinding without protective lenses.

And we get a glimpse of this sometimes, but not to this full effect.

Because we can be in a city and we can not see the stars.

Or we can walk outside and we can see the sun, but not see the stars.

And it's not like the stars have disappeared.

They're still there. There's just something brighter.

So we get a picture of this. But because the sun is the brightest thing we know,

we don't get the full reality of how could something drown out,

eclipse the brightness of the sun.

We see in the Bible later, it says that in the new heaven and new earth,

there will be no need for sun, for God will give light to his people.

So there's this crazy encounter of the light of Jesus drowning out the sun itself.

We see in Exodus chapter 24, how talking about the presence of God,

Exodus 24 · chapter mention

the glory of the presence of God is like a devouring fire on the top of a mountain.

And that when the people saw it, they were terrified.

We see in Revelation chapter six, how when the day of the Lord comes,

how all of the people from great to small, rich to poor, every walks of life,

they hide themselves in the rocks and they pray for the rocks to fall on them

because of the presence of the Lord that they are encountering.

That there's this greatness and glory. This is the word that we're talking about,

this idea of glory that the Bible uses, which is simply a way of talking about

the weight of something.

But when we think about the biblical way of talking about, it's talking about the.

Inexpressible worth and value, the intensity of God and the results that just

overflows and results within us into praise.

The God, had he done nothing but create, is so great and glorious that his presence

demands worship, but he also acts in goodness. He also loves.

It's the weight and presence of who he is.

And once we encounter that glory and that majesty, this is what Paul is writing

about essentially in his testimony.

And this is why he returns to it time and time again, that once you encounter

the awesome power of God's presence, that you'll never be the same.

Physically, Paul was never the same, but also emotionally, spiritually,

mentally, whatever it may be, we cannot walk away from that experience unchanged.

And this is a reason that we can take courage because the presence of God eclipses all other things.

That the presence of God overpowers every other thing you possibly experience.

That our courage rests in the supremacy of God over all circumstances.

That's the greatness of God that Paul encountered.

He talks about in verse 22, he writes, to this day, I have had the help that comes from God.

And so I stand here to testify both to small and great saying nothing,

but what the prophet and Moses said would come to pass as he's giving his testimony.

Another reason that comes up for how he can take courage, how we can take a

hold of courage is because God has provided his spirit as the helper, as the advocate.

We hear that word, or we've probably heard the word paraclete before the Greek

word that represents that idea of advocate.

And it really means at the heart, someone who is there to help,

or someone who comes to stand by the side.

So in reality, like a presence that is with us to support us as we go,

to help us as we go, to provide the help, the power, the strength that we need

along the way, to give us courage when we need it.

And I love how I really like it when you get this thing where verses,

the same verse in different chapters in different books start popping up.

You're like, oh, it's chapter this verse like 316, right? John 316.

There's lots of 316s in the Bible that are really cool if you start reading them.

It's just for the fact that the Bible wasn't written with verse numbers and

they were just added later, it seems like God was pretty sovereign in his ability

for us to add numbers to these things.

In John chapter 14, verse 26, talks about the spirit.

John 14:26

It says, but the helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the father will send in my name,

he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.

That one way that God gives us courage is by bringing to mind,

helping us remember his promise and his word that we can stand firm on it.

He sends us his spirit to do that. And then John 15, 26 starts the exact same way.

He says, but when the helper comes, whom I will send to you from the father,

the spirit of truth, who proceeds from the father, he will bear witness about me.

But another way that God gives us courage and supplies the courage that we can

take hold of is bringing us remembrance of who he is in his greatness.

This is something that the Bible does a lot.

It's arguing from smallest to greater or greater to smaller,

depending on the context of it.

In one sense, it's saying, I have seen God's faithfulness in the small things.

And so I can trust him for the greater things.

That would be smaller to greater. God also argues the other way around.

We see this when he heals and does different things like this.

He says, because of the greatness of who I am, you can trust me in the small things as well.

And so the spirit brings us remembrance of who God is and supplies courage in that.

In the last verse I want to talk to you about, and then we're going to spend

some time practicing this is verses 28 and 29.

Oh, I took my pen out and put it in the back of the Bible. That was dumb.

28 and 29. This is after Paul has given his defense.

The king says to Paul, in short time, would you persuade me to be a Christian?

And Paul said, whether short or long, I would to God that not only you,

but also all who hear me this day might become such as I am,

except for these chains.

Paul, the book of Acts, as we know, but Paul overwhelmingly was intently focused

on the mission of God in his life.

That people would hear and that people would know and that people would respond,

to that presence that God provides to everyone.

In the general way, God's presence is here for all people.

And then in a more specific way, he shows up to supply all that we need as believers.

Paul wishes that everyone he experiences would hear and know and responds to

God. and he has this great mission that God has given to us as well.

And so there is this part of courage that we have to step forward in small acts of obedience,

to continue in the mission that God has provided, knowing how important and

how beyond belief that this message is, this witness of all that Jesus has done.

You'll hear people talk about, compare it in analogy to if you had the cure for cancer, right?

Would you not give it to those who need it? You'll hear people kind of lay on

the guilt about not talking about the gospel in that way.

It's far greater than that, right?

This message is far more important. And so courage is there for us to take a hold of.

And the reason we need to take hold of it is because of the all surpassing worth

and value of the message of Jesus's death, burial, resurrection, and glory.

And Paul takes a hold of courage for that reason that all would hear,

that all would know, and that all would respond.

How did I pick this up? I just did a maggot trick to my own brain.

We sing this song sometimes. We're not gonna sing it today, but in the chorus

or the bridge or whatever it is, says that the world is dying to know who God is.

And the reason that we have to take hold of courage is that they might hear

and that they might believe and that they might respond.

So we have this supply of courage that God brings in His Spirit.

And the reasons that we can take hold of that courage that God gives us,

that we know who God is, that we know what awaits us and we can have hope in that.

That we know what God has done and that we can rest in the completed victory of Jesus on the cross.

That He provides His own Spirit to remind us, to strengthen us and to encourage

us that we might take hold of this courage that he supplies.

Ultimately knowing that there is someone in our lives that needs that as well.

And I've probably said it here before, but I'll say it again,

that the gospel came to you because it was on its way to someone else.

And that's the reason we need to take courage. And the way that we do that is

by reminding ourselves of these things, by practicing these things,

by being in the word of God and being filled by the word of God,

but also by stepping out on these small acts of obedience.

And what we're gonna do for the next little bit of time is Rebecca's gonna come

and lead us in a time to practice some of this taking hold of courage,

reminding ourselves and allowing the spirit to remind us of the truth of the word of God.

And we're gonna spend the next little bit practicing taking hold of courage in that way.

Hi. Good morning. Yeah, so the way that we're going to practice this morning

is through prayer and scripture.

It was kind of funny when Zach asked me to lead a prayer time about—oh, there it is.

About courage and taking hold of courage and putting that practice into our lives.

One of the first verses I thought about or parts of the Bible I thought about was Psalm 27.

So I sent him the things that I wanted to do and he's like, well,

I'm already reading Psalm 27.

I was like, oh, that's perfect then. So what we're going to do is fairly simple.

I'd like you guys to kind of turn around, you know, group up,

do the thing that we do when we pray together, right?

Because that'll be a little bit easier than being all in a big group.

I am going to start by just praying some of the verses out of Psalm 27 that

we've already talked about.

And there are going to be some verses up on the screen, maybe three or four

on each slide, and it will last for five or six minutes, two or three slides.

And the verses are all about courage.

The thing that I noticed as I was looking and the thing that I was reminded

of is, again and again, God says, do not be afraid or take courage or take heart, things like that.

And then it's followed by, for I am with you.

And like Zach said, our courage, it doesn't come from us.

It doesn't come from who we are or for what we can accomplish or for what we've already done.

Our courage comes from God. It comes from who He is and it comes from His Holy Spirit inside of us.

And so the verses that will be up, they're short. I don't love to pull things out of their context.

So if something stands out to you, write it down and spend some time in that

greater passage later on.

But I just want us to see and experience that repetition of do not be afraid, I am with you.

God is that strength. God is that courage.

And so if you can kind of like cluster up right now, we'll do that now before

I start to pray so that we don't have to like get distracted once we start the prayer time.

But find a small group, three, four.

Maybe five, you know, whatever works, because I want everyone to have a chance to do this.

And the thing that I'll encourage you all is when we pray scripture,

I think it's a really fantastic thing because God has given us words already, right?

God gave us his word as a gift, and we can give it right back to him.

So if you're not comfortable praying out loud, that's fine. if you're

willing to just repeat the verse that's a

prayer these are God's words give them back to him just

read the verse that stands out to you most and

if you want to go beyond that if you want to say something else to God in addition

to that verse that's fantastic but don't feel like you need to do any more more

than that so that's how we pray scripture and we love that here I I love that.

A lot of you love that. Everybody.

So I'm just going to go ahead and start with a few verses in Psalm 27, kind of pray those.

And then as I wrap that up, the other verses will appear and you as a group

can just continue to pray those together.

Meditate on them and think about what they mean for our lives and for us going

forward and going out of here, how we can take hold of that courage that,

like Zach said, God has already made for us and given to us.

The lord is my light and my salvation whom shall i fear god we thank you that

you are our salvation and that because of who you are we have nothing to fear.

You say though an army besiege me, our hearts will not fear because of you.

In the day of trouble, you will keep us safe.

And our head will be exalted above the enemies who surround us.

Lord, you don't promise that we won't be besieged.

You don't promise that we won't be surrounded by enemies.

But you do promise that you will hold us up, that you will protect us,

that you will strengthen us through that, Lord.

And that is where we get our courage from. It only comes from your strength

because we are surrounded and we are besieged.

And Lord, we lay those things at your feet and we pray for your strength and

your courage in the midst of it, Jesus.

I will remain confident in this. I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.

May we wait for the Lord. Lord, give us strength.

Give us courage. May we take heart in you because of who you are.

Lord, we are waiting for you now, for your spirit, for your presence,

and for your courage, Lord.

So we say with confidence or courage, the Lord is my helper. I will not be afraid.

What can mere mortals do to me?

Lord, we speak with confidence because of who you are and because of what you have done.

And we have confidence. We have courage because you are with us and your Holy

Spirit fills us and you strengthen us, Lord. We thank you for that.

Again, the end of Psalm 27 says, I will remain confident in this.

I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. I will wait for the Lord.

Be strong, take heart, and wait for the Lord.

And as we come now to our time of communion, I pray that we would just hold

ourselves open to the Lord, that we would wait on God.

We would wait for His courage, and we would just offer whatever it is that we're

holding on to and let those things go and submit to Jesus in this time and just

receive communion and receive the spirit again and receive the gift of courage

that God has for us as we go forward into this week.

We, in our group time, John and Karen, I got the name right, right? Thank you.

If you haven't met them yet, say hello to them. they were around in the days

of Galileo. I think my mic just went off, maybe not.

But they're talking about how it seems like early on they got all the worries out.

They had all the reasons to be anxious.

And at the end of it, it's just like God's got us.

And I feel like that's kind of a question for us is, when are we going to be done with the anxiety?

Like when are we just going to

be like you know what maybe Jesus was on to something when he told us that.

Each day has its own problems. We don't really need to worry.

Like, when are we going to run out?

And when are we going to take those small steps of obedience towards Jesus and towards courage?

And in John 14, Jesus starts off by saying, don't let your hearts be troubled.

Believe in God, believe also in me.

And then I encourage you, read that whole chapter. It is essentially Paul's

inspiration for his defense.

What we talked about in Acts 26 happens in John 14.

Jesus says, you know God and you know me.

And later on, Thomas will say, will you show us the father? And Jesus says,

if you have seen me, you've seen the father as well.

So we can take courage because of who we know.

And we know the creator of the universe.

Later on, he talks about how you've believed because of these miracles,

greater things you'll see when I'm gone. You'll see greater things than this.

That we could take courage because of the promise that Jesus has that he will

show us even more of his greatness, of his glory, of his faithfulness, of his beauty.

There's more to be seen, and Jesus promises to show us more.

We read how he's sending us the

helper, to help us, to remind us of his word, to remind us of who he is.

And a beautiful thing just after verse one, which is verse two,

because that's how it works.

He says in my father's house, there are lots of rooms and I'm going to go and

prepare a place for you that we can take courage because of the hope that there is a place for us,

that there is just such a wonderful,

great, and glorious existence awaiting us.

And so we can take courage and we can take hope.

Lord, I thank you that you have revealed yourself to us.

That we can see and we can know and we can experience.

And in fact, you say greater things are yet to be done.

And we want to believe that Jesus more than we've seen more than we can imagine you say.

Thank you for your spirit we thank you for thank you for your presence with

us God your constant companionship,

that you are like that word to paraclete means that you are a strength beside us and all of life.

We thank you for the hope that we lay our hearts. Oh, there it is.

We thank you, Lord, for the hope that we lay our hearts on.

To be with you forever and to sing like we started.

Holy, holy, holy is Lord God Almighty who was and is and is to come.

That you have gone and you have prepared a place for us.

And we want nothing else, God.

We're going to sing. We're going to end by singing that reality and praising Lord one more time.