Transformed Life: Paul

Hello and welcome to the Kalamazoo Church of Christ podcast.

Thank you so much for listening.

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We pray that you are inspired by what you hear today.

Good morning, church.

Morning, Saucy.

How's everyone doing?

So I'm happy to be back.

This last week.

Yeah, I'm glad to be back this last week for Thanksgiving.

First off, Thanksgiving in the McCoy household is held at the highest esteem.

It is the best holiday.

The good part about me preaching is no one can argue with me at this moment about it.

But I went down to Texas.

I got to see my parents, had a great time.

It was in like the high 50s, low 60s the whole time.

And I came back on Tuesday, like Tuesday, Wednesday.

So that morning, I spent time with my mom.

We had some lunch.

And when we were leaving, it was like 61 sunny.

It was gorgeous.

I come into Detroit.

It's where I flew into, and it was 18 degrees, and I was like, I don't want to do this right now.

And I love the cold.

As you guys will understand about me more and more, I am kind of crazy with the cold.

I embrace it.

It's like a weird friend of mine.

I'm like, I love you.

Please be colder.

But when I came back, I was like, I see why.

I see why people go to these places, these warm places in the winter.

I was like, I get it.

I get it.

But I am happy to be back.

I'm happy to be back in Michigan where my brain has now got back to the cold.

I'm happy to be where it's nice and my type of temperature, as it were.

But for this week, I'm excited to continue preaching on this series that we've been doing about transformed Bible characters.

We've been looking at people in the Bible that were all by the definitions of who they were at the beginning of their stories.

They were chaotic.

They were sinful, unwise a lot of the time, and selfish.

But what we've been looking at is through God's power and continued work on their spiritual lives, these people have become wise, zealous, loving servants for the kingdom of God.

And today, we're going to be looking at probably the most well-known transformation in the Bible.

And that's the transformation of Paul the Apostle.

The Apostle Paul is arguably one of the best-known figures in the Bible.

You could go down the street and ask, you know, who are some people that you know from the Bible?

I hope Jesus is number one.

But number two is probably Paul, right?

You know, Paul, you know, the letters he wrote thousands of years ago are still vital for us today, right?

His convictions for the church, his convictions for how we should respect the Lord are some of the most awe-inspiring pieces of literature, things that we get to look at in the history of Christianity, right?

His writings and his life gives us life and understanding, instructions and hope.

Paul's transformation is a shining example for every Christian.

So right, you know, if you grew up religious or not, we kind of know a lot about Paul.

We also know Paul wasn't this just, you know, he didn't, you know, pop out of the womb as this great, awesome dude, did he, right?

And so today what we're going to do is we're going to look at kind of the three sections of Paul's life a little bit, right?

We're just going to section out.

We're going to look at before his transformation, right, who's, you know, who he was before he was Paul, right?

We're going to look at his conversion.

Then we're going to look at his continual transformation, all right?

So let's dig into this.

This first one is before his transformation, Saul before Paul.

And I've got two scriptures I'm going to look at here, right?

We're going to dig into this a little.

So this first one is Acts 7, 57 through 58.

It's kind of our first introduction into who Paul is.

And you know, before this, right, his name was Saul, right?

That was his given name as we'll look a little bit in this conversion.

We'll look at it at a time, like that's when he changed his name to Paul.

So I'll be using Saul and Paul, you know, kind of, you know, back and forth just so you guys know it's the same person.

I'm not crazy.

You know, just so you know.

All right.

So it says here, Acts 7, verses 57 through 58.

Acts 7:57–58

It says, at this they covered their ears and yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, dragging him out to the city and began to stone him.

Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul, right?

So this is our first time hearing of Saul.

And it's not anything close to the man we come to know as the Apostle Paul.

So right, this is a little tidbit, but this is in the bigger context about the story of a man named Stephen.

Stephen is the first martyr for the Christian faith that we know.

Right?

Stephen was so adamant about, you know, who Jesus Christ was.

He was the son of God.

And he went before the, you know, the Pharisees and the courts and basically laid it to them, right?

He said, you know, like, you killed the man that is your savior.

And they're like, we don't like you.

We're going to kill you now.

It's just like, they were so adamantly like, we're going to kill you.

And that's like the main story.

And then there's this little tidbit, right?

You know, this man Saul, we haven't heard him, you know, but Saul specifically called out as being a man of influence in this position.

Right?

Now, it doesn't state what role he had in the stoning of Stephen, which, you know, right, is the context of the story.

But what we can safely assume is that his role was important, right?

What reason would you put this little sentence about, you know, everyone laying down their coats as a sign of respect, as a sign of, you know, this is almost like, you know, we're doing this for you to this young man named Saul, right?

The witnesses gave their respect to him, you know.

And then in Galatians 1, 13 through 14, this is Paul's description of his previous life, right?

He says, for you have heard of my previous ways of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it.

I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my father.

Once again, this is Paul talking about himself, but looking at what Paul said about his previous life as Saul, he said about himself that his opposition to the church, to Jesus, was intense, right?

He did everything he could to push himself to the top of the competition.

It resulted in a very esteemed position with the Pharisees and set himself up to be very successful in life.

All right?

So we have these two verses.

So let's kind of take a bigger picture of Saul's life before he was transformed.

Right?

So we look at this, we kind of know, oh yeah, he's a good religious dude.

But even in a bigger context, this dude was a go-getter, right?

Paul slash Saul was an absolute go-getter in his life.

You know, talk about someone with an insane drive to be the best, right?

He was so intelligent and so passionate that there's another scripture, I don't actually have it written down, but you can go look at his text, that he was trained by this man named Gamaliel.

He was one of the most respected rabbis of the time and in the history of rabbis.

Right?

It's kind of like that idea, whatever degree or whatever thing you're in, if you got trained by the most prestigious person in that position, that was kind of what was happening with Saul's life.

And all these ideas, right?

Saul had life figured out.

You know, he lived to better his own life, right?

He seeked out to destroy those who were in opposition to his convictions.

And to top it all off, it is noted all these accomplishments happen at a very young age.

You know, Saul is, and we think of it in today's terms, like he would have been a religious zealot, right?

You know, Saul would have been someone that would have stood up for his convictions no matter the evidence against it, what would have been said to him.

Like he was going to stand, ride or die for what he did.

And most importantly, he was very intelligent at what he did.

Right?

You know, in today's term, think about someone from another religion or someone from a biblical Christian adjacent religion that is so rooted in their cause.

Like, think about the idea, like there's a lot of people in our day and age, sometimes us, like we can't be reasoned with.

Right?

Like when we believe something, and this is especially me, when I think something's true, like I am so stubborn in trying to be like, I'm not believing in anything else.

Like this is the way this is happening, right?

But this is, you know, how a lot of things is, especially for religion, especially with doctrine, how we believe, right?

In our core of what we believe, right?

And here, I want to be delicate about what and who I point out here, right?

So I'm not, you know, I'm not trying to, you know, create a war with, you know, my second lesson here.

But I have always found it hard, I want to share something, I always found it hard to have any common ground with the Latter Day Saints church or what we would be known as the Mormons, right?

You know, the LSD, the LDS church, its members are passionate.

It's something I actually have the biggest respect for.

They are so passionate about their cause.

Their family connections are so strong.

Sometimes I'm like, yeah, we need to take some notes on like how they connect with each other, right?

You know, they're strong in what they believe, with a strong understanding in what they believe, you know, right?

And I think in my cynical heart, my judgmental heart, you know, whenever I have a conversation with someone from the LDS church or just in general, anyone outside of, you know, what I believe is doctrinal like truth about the Bible, right, my brain, my heart already checks the box that this person has no chance of going to want to have a genuine talk about Jesus.

That this person is going to have any genuine talk about the Bible with me and there's no way that there's going to be any reasoning in this conversation.

I say that to say, Saul was no different than this example, right?

Saul went out of his way to kill those who were in opposition to him, right?

There's a reason that we stayed in Acts 7, 57 through 58, right?

Like he was there.

Most importantly, he had influence in Stephen Stone.

We don't know entirely what that is, but there's some reason that they laid their coats at the bottom of this young man who was doing whatever he wanted to kill those who were in opposition of him, right?

You know, we would look at this and we would look at this man, we're like, man, there's no way.

There's no way that this man is going to come to God, is going to love Jesus.

Like he's a lost cause.

And let's be honest, like in our sinful hearts, we look at people and we're like, that's a lost cause.

Like that person's gone.

Like truly, and my grandma would say this, like they're in God's hands now.

And I'm like, I don't even know what that means, grandma.

Like, amen.

Like, you're right.

You're right.

Right?

You know, you might think that someone so strong in their reasoning, so entrenched in a certain way of life, so fully committed to and convinced of a cause would be unreachable.

But God had different plans for Paul.

You know, God can move anyone's heart closer to him.

Right?

So then we look at, you know, this is Saul before he was Paul.

He was intelligent.

He was zealous.

He was a, you know, I use the term like firecracker.

You know, he was a go-getter and he was unreachable, or at least we thought.

So let's look at the second point, right?

It's Paul's conversion, right?

And we're going to read into Paul's, how Paul talked about his conversion, which is in Acts 26, 12 through 23.

I'm going to read that out here, and then we'll dig into this.

Acts 26, 12 through 23, it says, In this connection I journeyed to Damascus with the authority of the commission of the chief priests.

At midday, Okin, I saw on the way a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, that shone around me and those who journeyed with me.

And when we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew language, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?

It is hard for you to kick against the goads.

And I said, Who are you, Lord?

And the Lord said, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.

But rise and stand upon your feet, for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you as a servant and witness to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you, delivering you from your people and from the Gentiles to whom I am sending you to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.

Therefore, Okin Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision, but declared first to those in Damascus, then into Jerusalem and throughout all the region of Judea, and also to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds in keeping with their repentance.

For this reason the Jew seized me in the temple and tried to kill me.

To this day I have had the help that comes from God.

So I stand here testifying both to the small and great, saying nothing but what the prophet and Moses said would come to pass, that the Christ must suffer and that by being first to rise from the dead he would proclaim light both to our people and to the Gentiles.

This is to a point that anyone who's grown up with the Bible would likely know this story.

It's one of the most inspiring conversions and transformations in the Bible.

Jesus himself appeared as a light from heaven, forcing Paul to his knees.

Now, I can safely assume, I don't think Jesus has come in a ray of light to you.

If you have, please come talk to me.

I want to know.

I think that'd be pretty neat.

But Paul had this extreme experience with God.

This personal experience with Jesus affected a 100% conversion of Paul.

In this moment of time, what he describes here between 12 and 23, Paul, he believes, he repents, and he's baptized.

And then right after that, he went from a persecutor to a disciple.

We'll talk a little bit about this.

It says that after this experience, he immediately started preaching Christ.

There was no wavering, no human reasoning, wondering if what he was doing was right.

He had experienced Christ, and that was enough for him to completely refocus his life.

Now, I think about this because not everybody's life, and I don't think it should be, not everyone's life is a direct correlation to Paul.

I don't think a lot of us are just like, boom, this happens, let's go.

We're not that intensely just like from here to here.

We all have different ways of coming to the Lord.

For me personally, I made a decision to make Jesus Lord, I'd say somewhere around six months after hitting that point where I knew I really needed God.

You kind of have this moment where you're like, there's really no other way for me to turn, but I need to go towards God.

This is what I need to do.

For me, it was about six months, I'd say.

For some of you, it might have taken weeks, maybe even days.

Some, it takes years.

But something I want to focus on in this story is this.

Paul's conversion is a part of transformation, but it's not his whole transformation.

The road to Damascus was just the beginning.

What begins to be very transparent about Paul's life, and should be very transparent in our own lives, is the dedication to be transformed daily until our time on earth and done is this second part into transformation.

But talking about this idea of being transformed, we have, like I said, we have two transformations in our walk with God.

This is what I'm saying.

Paul had two transformations, and this first one is his conversion.

When his heart was transformed, he described this as putting off the old man and putting on the new man, becoming a disciple for Christ in his first transformation.

What I think is super important about this, it was hard when I was writing this, I was like, this feels like such a bridge point.

I'm trying to get to that third point, but as I was doing that, I was like, wait, this is super important to understand that.

I really love the idea of how Paul's life is a continual transformation, but we have to be converted first.

We have to have that 100% our hearts are in it.

And that was what happened with Paul.

No matter where we're at in our lives, you could be following Jesus for 30 plus years, it could be three days, it could be you're just figuring this out for the first time.

We got to look back at our lives and be like, have I given that to God?

Have I given him everything?

Has he changed my life enough?

Has he changed it completely to where I'm going to go from here to here?

And the cool thing about Paul, as we looked at in that first part, is he was technically unreachable.

He was someone who we look at him and we're like, there's no way God could convert a man like that.

He was going to do everything he could to lift himself up to the highest in the order of Pharisees.

But God was able to convert him.

So to the point, what does that say about you?

Are you holding back on the things that God can do to you?

Are we holding back on the things God can use?

And the second part to that is when we get converted, as we'll jump into this third point, is just like Paul, don't waste time.

I think what is so cool about his transformation, about this moment on the road to Damascus, it was a three-day period, if you dig more into the scriptures, where he went to Damascus and Ananias, I believe, raised him up, taught him for three days, that's when he got baptized.

He'd gotten blinded, his scales came off his eyes, and then right after that, he went and preached.

He didn't waste his time.

And so no matter where you're at today, as we think about the second point, don't waste that time.

Don't waste the moments after.

If you've loved God, if you've seen his conversion, if you've repented and been baptized, don't waste a moment of that time giving your transformated life to God.

So let's jump into this third point, like I said.

Paul's continual transformation.

So we look at his conversion.

Although he was born again, he had a new heart, a new attitude, and a new life, something important is Paul's conversion didn't change who he was by nature.

That's something we haven't really hit on a lot.

Amen, all these things happened, but it still doesn't change the fact that the dude was fiery and passionate.

It doesn't change the fact that he was selfish by nature.

He went after anything and everything to gain a higher understanding.

So what had to happen?

So for him, he met Christ.

And his whole heart's desire had to switch.

There had to be this point where he goes, this is who I am, this is who God is, where do I need to go with that?

So beforehand, his whole heart's desire was to get to know himself personally.

Like it was about him gaining knowledge, seeking it, but what had to change was now he had to get to know God personally.

For Paul to do that though, he knew that transformation wasn't going to be a one-off event.

Transformation was a continual work on his discipleship.

Right?

And something so cool, you can dig in.

Most of the New Testament is written by Paul.

I could read the whole Testament and be like, that was his transformation.

The end, have fun with it.

Because Paul wrote so much about his longing for Christ.

I think this longing for Christ drove him to deep humility because he saw that everything he had as a natural person was useless to fulfill this longing.

Right?

That man that we read in the first point, the Saul that was selfish, ruthless, and openly fighting all those who opposed his belief, this man who was so strongly in himself was so self-righteous.

He says this in Philippians 3, 7-8, Whatever were gains to me, I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.

What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.

For those sake I have lost all things, I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ.

The key for his continual transformation was Apostle Paul no longer saw himself as the one at the pedestal.

Right?

As someone who needed to be completely changed.

Because of this great humility, God was able to begin the work of transformation in his inner self.

So that he could be conformed to the image of his son.

Right?

I think about my life in this.

How do I quote unquote stock up to this example of God?

I think when I looked at...

I'll share stories about this in time through if you get to know me more better personally.

But my kind of second year into me walking with God as a disciple, I was not really a disciple.

I did about...

I did the bare minimum to check the boxes.

And I looked at how that stocked up to how Paul took his years as a disciple.

And it was so easy just to like, Oh yeah, I see where I went wrong.

I wish I would have thought that five years ago.

But I saw, wow.

I did not see myself as the one that wasn't on the pedestal anymore.

I did not have a great humility in wanting to grow.

I genuinely thought...

I think about that second point.

I thought I was good after that.

I genuinely did.

After my conversion, I was like, Alright, we're good.

I did my work.

I'm good.

I can kind of just live my life now.

Not in a way where I'm like, Oh, I can just go sinning.

Or I wasn't fully religious.

I kind of was just like, Alright, I'm going to stick here.

I'm going to be happy.

But what happened with that was I still had a hold of that pedestal.

I still had a hold of the will, as it were.

And what happened is I slowly...

I didn't get transformed.

I was actually transferring my sin further and further into my life.

And I think a lot of us can probably relate to that statement.

Right?

Where it's like, Man, I have these great moments.

This conversion.

Or these moments with God where it transforms you.

It transforms your life.

Right?

And you're just like, I'm going to live it all for God.

But then the next...

However long it is, that process over the next weeks, months, and years is we truly forget why we do this.

And I think that's something Paul was so amazing at.

Not because he was just some great dude, but because he understood the concept of how Jesus Christ needed to be at the front of everything.

Right?

Looking back, let's be honest.

Saul probably has completed more in his 20...

however many years it was before having an interaction with God than some of us have in our lifetime.

He was such an accomplished man.

And he was saying in Philippians that those things that I gained, the things that were so high that I considered the greatest things, are now lost for the sake of Christ.

So that's a question I have for this point is, you know, all these things in your life that you've gained, that you feel are such a strong standing point of who you are, are you willing to lose those for the sake of Christ?

Because if you want to be truly transformed every day and to continue in this transformation, you have to lose a lot for the sake of Christ.

Right?

And so, coming into this back-end point, I said, what should we take away from this?

And this first point, this is not my point, as you can see.

But when I was in Detroit, Mark King, the leader of our Detroit church, we do leaders' meetings every Tuesday, right?

And he had this just outstanding, awe-inspiring lesson just kind of about like the accountability we have in our own lives.

Like, hey, what does it look like for you as leaders to take accountability for your sin on a day-to-day basis?

Because a lot of times, when you get to a certain spot, you start getting a lot of people to ask you about their lives, but if it's not something you've made a conviction, not a lot of people ask you about your lives.

So that's something, when you get into a role of leadership, you kind of have to get really humbled about it, being like, well, if I don't go after this, it's not going to happen.

Right?

And so, Mark was having this great lesson about this, and he's talking about what happens when we don't, right?

And he uses this, and he wraps his lesson around this statement, and it's, what doesn't get transformed gets transferred.

Right?

What doesn't get transformed gets transferred.

And I think Paul understood this so well.

I think he understood this concept probably better than most in, you know, the history of Christianity.

You know, like I said, Paul's conversion was powerful.

It turned his life around.

But if Paul didn't strive to humble himself before God, he understood his hot-headed ways of old would creep back into his life and taint that which was already changing in his life.

And I think, right, if we're going to take this into our own lives, look at what is important about Paul's conversion in our own lives, right?

Like, I think, you know, that idea of what doesn't get transformed gets transferred is so true in our lives.

I think about my life.

You know, there are times when I've had and we've had radical changes in our lives.

God gives us these moments of change, but if we don't continually transform through these moments, we strive and we don't strive to be further away from our sin, our sin then kind of transfers later into our lives.

It seeps up in other things.

Right?

And then, like, the humblest part, which, you know, Mark talked about and I haven't had a big aspect of this because, right, I'm still single, but he goes, it's going to happen in your kids.

Right?

You're going to look at your kids' lives and they're going to have the same sin as you and it's like, oh, I don't want my kids.

Right?

I think about, like, me and my mom.

My mom is always like, man, I paid tenfold with you and I was like, love you, mom.

But when I think about that, you know, it transfers into our kids' lives and it transfers into our spouses' lives too.

Like, you know, the sins that we have in our intrinsic nature, if we don't transform them on a day-to-day life, they're going to get transformed to the people we love most.

Right?

And so, when we look at this, you know, we need to understand that we have to transform on a day-to-day basis.

We have to take up our cross daily.

And the second point, obviously, we look a lot about the idea of transform.

We look at our cross How can I be transformed?

How can I, you know, make Jesus Lord over my life and continue myself?

But also, we have to look at the other people in our lives that are transformed.

This kind of goes back to who Saul was as a human being.

Right?

We look at how he was so unreachable.

Right?

How there was so much about his life that was trouble.

Right?

He truly, like he killed, like he would have killed us if we were in his position because of what we stood for.

Right?

Like that's how much he loathed, you know, and just despised Christianity.

And I think, like, right as I share, I'm like, I would have never reached out to this guy.

I would have been fearful of him.

Right?

And that third point is so important.

Right?

God can reach the most untouchable.

That's, I think, kind of the idea about this transformation is we look at all these people in their lives.

It's like, some of them we relate to more than others.

But, we look at Paul, like he was so at the end of, you know, the line of who we would put on the list of, oh, that person could get saved.

That person is humble to the Bible.

Right?

He would have been at the lowest point.

He would have been, you know, there would have been, you know, anybody here, and it's like 50 spaces of just space, and it's like, yeah, Paul's down there somewhere.

Like, it's truly, we take an act of God.

And most of our lives take an act of God to get us to come to be disciples.

And so, as we wrap up, as we finish this, and then we're going to go into communion here, is, we've got to be humble to what Jesus can do in our lives, and in other lives.

Right?

So, if we look at who Paul was, how he was transformed, he was only transformed because he understood how powerful Jesus was.

Right?

He understood his power in his life.

And so, as we look at our own personal lives, we need to do that.

But, as we also share with other people, understand, no matter where they're at in their lives, no matter how we think, or how we view them, how we have predetermined how percentage of likelihood that they can get to salvation, that's not up to us.

It never has been.

And we always need to be humble to what Jesus can do, because, as we look at Paul, we look at one of the most influential men of our Christianity, he was so unreachable, but God still reached him.

And that's how all of us, you know, if he can get transformed, all of us can.

So I'm going to pray for communion, and we'll go from there.

Dear God, I'm super grateful.

I'm super grateful that you can transform anyone.

Right?

We look at someone like Paul.

Someone so well educated in their own life.

Someone so intelligent.

Someone who was such a go-getter.

We would think that people like that are not touchable.

But God, you show time and time again that your love surpasses any knowledge that this world can hold.

I'm just super grateful that we can get to come on a day-to-day basis to you and transform our lives.

God, let us not be weary of our sin.

Let us not let it seek back in.

Let us be transformed on a day-to-day basis so that we can fight the good fight at the end.

That we can say that we ran the race for you, and in the end, that we get to come to you in heaven, and you'll say, well done, good and faithful servant God.

Let us remember that as we take your communion, that we remember your son, that we remember what this is all about, and that we never forget just how grateful we are that you came down and died for us.

In your name I pray, Amen.

You'll be hearing from us next week.