My Hurt, His Hurt - Lexie Goodman

Hey, I'm Tim Timberlake, and I want to thank you so much for listening to the Celebration Church podcast.

I hope this message encouraged you, strengthened your faith, and gave you something you can carry into your week.

If you'd like to stay connected, I encourage you to join us live every Sunday at 9 a.m.

or 11 a.m.

on YouTube.

We would love to have you there.

And if you're ever in the Jacksonville, Florida area, come see us in person.

We have a seat safe for you.

Thanks again for being with us.

We're so grateful for you.

And see you next time.

I just want to introduce myself.

So, Pastor Tim and Pastor Jen, they are ministering out of the country today, but they send you their love.

And um, they have asked me to bring the word this morning, and I am so incredibly honored.

Thank you.

I love you all.

It's one of my favorite things to do.

Um, if I haven't met you yet, my name is Lexi.

I'm one of the pastors here, and I'm on our teaching team.

And um, thank you, I love you.

And um, God's word is my favorite thing in the whole world.

And I study it all the time and I read it all the time, and I love teaching people about it.

And my husband asked me, Are you gonna ever switch to digital books?

Um, because they kind of take up our house.

And I say, No, I'm not.

I'm always reading something to help me learn more about scripture.

Um, so we are gonna stay um standing.

I'm gonna read God's word for us this morning, okay?

We are continuing in our series in the book of Acts.

We are in Acts 9 this morning, and we are gonna go to verses 3 through 6, and I'm just gonna read that over us this morning, starting in verse 3.

Now, as he went on his way, he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven shone around him, and falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying to him, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?

And he said, Who are you, Lord?

And he said, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.

But rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.

And I just want to talk a few minutes with us this morning.

I want to teach on the topic of my hurt, his hurt.

And what I hope you learn and take away this morning, whether you're here in person as part of our church family or you're part of Celebration Everywhere Church family, I hope that you take away this morning knowing how incredibly loved and advocated you are by our Heavenly Father, and knowing that if you are hurting, He is hurting too.

He shares in our pain.

So I'm gonna pray for us and then you guys can be seated.

God, I thank you for your word.

I ask that it would go forward this morning.

I ask that it would go forth in and through me.

Holy Spirit, you have your way in this place this morning.

I am just a vessel.

Have your way, Father.

We love you, we thank you for the truth of your word.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

Amen.

Amazing worship, huh?

Thank you so much, worship team.

Let's give it up for our worship team.

They're so amazing.

Okay, so what we're gonna do this morning, the four key verses that I just read for you, I'm gonna break those down for you because if you've heard me teach it all, you know that I love some good biblical history.

Okay, so we're gonna have a little history lesson this morning.

I promise it's gonna be fun for those of you who didn't love history in school.

But um, as we start reading scripture, okay, um, there's three questions that I love to give to help people understand the Bible better, okay?

So who thinks that sometimes when you sit down to read scripture, to read the Bible, that it can be a little bit overwhelming and you're not sure where to start, just be honest.

It's a lot of us, and you're right, okay?

It's a very large book with a lot to understand, but I give these base this basic framework for reading and understanding scripture, and this is not an exhaustive list, um, it's just something I've kind of learned over the years, okay?

So the first question I like to ask when we come to the biblical table, um, also I like to say this a verse a day doesn't keep the devil away.

Okay?

Now, if you are a verse a day person, that is not to condemn you, it's to encourage you that there is so much more that you are missing out on, okay?

So we don't just wake up, read a sentence, check it off, and go about our day.

We do not fit God into our box.

We fit into his box, okay?

So we wanna be people of the word.

If we say that we are disciples of Christ, but we don't understand his story, then we can't understand our story, okay?

So we wanna be people of the word and be intentional about sitting down and taking in the word of God every single day.

So the first thing I like to ask is where are we at in the biblical story, okay?

This means that understanding that the Bible is one story from Genesis to Revelation, okay?

So we ask ourselves when we when we sit down to read scripture, where are we at in the biblical story?

So for our text today, we are in the book of Acts, we are in the New Testament, okay?

Jesus has come, he has walked the earth, he has been crucified, he died, he rose again, he stayed on the earth for 40 days, and then he ascended into heaven, gave his followers the great commission, okay, and then we see the Holy Spirit begin to fall, and the birth of the church has taken place, and now the gospel is starting to spread throughout the earth, okay?

That's where we're at right now in the biblical story.

Persecution is starting to take place, right?

The next thing I like to ask is who is the author and the audience?

Who is the author and the audience of what I'm reading?

Knowing that the Bible was written for us, but it was not specifically written to us.

It was written to certain groups of people at a certain time, and there's a lot of historical, cultural context that we have to understand that gives us way big, way bigger picture understanding of what we're reading.

Okay.

So the book of Acts was written by Luke.

Luke and Acts is considered to be um one book, like two volumes of the same book.

Um, and just a little Bible nerd fact I like to share is why is this broken up?

Why aren't they just one book, right?

Well, when they were um written down back in antiquity, they were written on scrolls, handwritten on scrolls, and the scrolls could only be so big, between like 32 and 35 feet.

So that's why you see some of the books of the Bible broken up, right?

Fun fact of the day that you might not care about, but I think it's a super fun fact, right?

So the author of the book of Acts is um is Luke, okay?

And the audience is Theophilus, it's one person that he is writing the book of Acts to, and it's really a case for Christianity.

Um, some scholars believe that it's a case for Christianity explaining this move of Christianity to the Roman government, and it's also um addressing, it's addressing early Christian communities, okay?

So that's kind of who the author and audience is.

And then my favorite question to ask is what is this showing us about God?

What is this showing about us about God and why is this question important?

It's important because, especially as Westerners in the Western church, we go to scripture as a self-help book.

And we say, How can I see myself in this scripture?

How can I find myself in the story?

And that's not bad, but that it cancels out us being able to truly understand who God is and understanding his nature and his character and his plan for redemption.

Okay, so it's very important that we read scripture and approach scripture with the lens, asking ourselves, what does this show us about God?

Okay, so we're gonna go verse by verse now for where what we're covering today, Acts 9, 3 through 6.

Verse 3 says, now as he went on his way, he being Saul, okay, he approached Damascus.

Why was Saul going to Damascus?

He was coming from Jerusalem where he was persecuting Christians, and he was doing this because he truly thought that by doing this he was defending God.

So he was on his way to Damascus to get more Christians because Christians were leaving Jerusalem and fleeing to Damascus to avoid persecution.

And let me tell you, Saul was committed, okay?

It was about a 135-mile journey, which would have taken about 12 days round trip on foot.

Who is willing to walk 12 days round trip on foot to do something you feel passionate about?

Probably none of us, right?

That's a lot, especially in this North Florida heat wave that we're having, right?

So he was um on his way, okay?

So I want to also bring up does anybody ever get confused?

Like, why is Saul Paul and Paul Saul and what's going on here?

Why is one guy named two names?

Okay, so I want to bring clarity to this, and here's why.

We are about to learn a lot about him in the rest of this series.

We are gonna get to know him really well, so it's important for us to have this framework, okay?

Saul was his Jewish name, and Paul was his Gentile name.

So he was a Jew Gentile, he was a very educated Pharisee.

And by God choosing him, what he is doing is he is really interrupting the greatest persecutor of the church, who is a Jew Gentile, because God is using his life to show that the um salvation that was promised in the Hebrew scriptures is for the Jew and the Gentile.

He is using Paul's life to say the gospel is for everyone, okay?

The gospel is for everyone.

Who's very happy about that this morning?

I am.

So I want to bring clarity because a lot of times we can think that Paul had this big encounter with God.

And a lot of times we think the road to Damascus was like where his name changed, but that's not the case at all, okay?

So it wasn't like other um stories we see in scripture, like where Jacob's name was changed to Israel by God.

Paul, Saul, and Paul are interchangeable because of his background, and he did not have this big encounter where God changed his name.

But what we do see in Acts chapter 13, we start to see him called Paul, refer to himself as Paul, right?

Acts 13 · chapter mention

Because he is beginning his missionary journeys to primarily the Gentile community.

And so he goes, he's going by his Gentile name.

So now we have that information, right?

That will help us.

So, and suddenly a light from heaven shone around him.

What I like to say here is Saul was on his way to get Christians, but Christ was on his way to get Saul.

Saul was on his way to get Christians, but Christ was on his way to get Saul, and I want to explain this light he encountered.

It's very important, okay?

So we see Paul retell this story two more times in the book of Acts.

Acts chapter 22, and then again in Acts chapter 26.

Acts 22 · chapter mention Acts 26 · chapter mention

So 22, verse 6, Paul is retelling this story of his encounter with this light on the road to Damascus.

And he says, As I was on my way and drew near to Damascus, about noon, very important, a great light from heaven suddenly shone around me.

And then Acts 26, 13 says, At midday, O king, Paul is telling a story again.

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

In both of these retellings, what we see is we see Paul explaining that it was about noon when it was it was midday, and that's a very important detail that we don't want to pass up.

What he is saying is the sun was at its peak.

It was so bright.

When you leave church today, we walk outside into this North Florida heat wave that we're having, right?

And the sun is gonna probably be very intense, unless we're getting a North Florida thunderstorm, but we never know, right?

Um, so the sun's probably gonna be very intense.

And I want you to imagine when you walk outside and you see that sun, that what Paul experienced on the road to Damascus was greater than that.

It was greater than that.

And so I want to explain a little bit what that means.

So we're gonna go to the book of Revelation.

Everybody say, uh-oh.

I'm just kidding.

You do not need to be scared of Revelation.

But um, Revelation 21, 23, which is actually one of my favorite um scriptures, it says, and the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it.

This is John's vision that we're seeing.

For the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the lamb.

Saul was encountering the lamb, who is the lamp of heaven.

That is what this great light was.

And that makes me very excited.

And so I also want to point this out on day one of creation in Genesis 1, God said, Let there be light.

But he did not create the sun, the moon, or the stars until day four.

This light is the one who always was and is and is to come.

And when we get to heaven, there's no sun, there's no moon, and there's no stars because the Lamb is the lamp.

He is the great light.

He came to bring hope, he came to break through darkness.

And I know because I've been praying over this message, I know there are people walking in darkness today.

Whether you are in this room or whether you are watching online, I want you to know your running is over.

Your running is over.

Today is the day.

It is time for you to have your road to Damascus experience.

And you don't have to run anymore because God is in the business of divine intervention.

Who is thankful for that?

So, this great light he encounters.

Can you imagine?

Just put yourself in his shoes.

He's on this long journey, it's probably day six of his journey.

He has a mission, he has permission from the government to go get these Christians, bring them back.

And uh verse four says, and falling to the ground, he heard a voice say to him, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?

And let me just tell you if any of us in here walk out today and we encounter the divine glory and light of God, we will naturally fall to our knees because our natural bodies will not be able to handle the weight of his presence.

And that is what we see here.

We see Saul falling to the ground because it was a natural response to this divine encounter, this glory, this divine glory that he was encountering.

And I also want to point out that Saul, up until this point, which changed really quick, he believed that Jesus of Nazareth was dead and that he was laying in a Judean grave.

Okay?

He believed that he was dead, and now that the leader of this movement had been wiped out, now Saul believed it was part of his job to wipe out its followers and rid the world of this movement.

And that is the kind of passion and the kind of zeal that he had until he was divinely interrupted.

And do you know what also that shows me?

It shows me that when we are legalistic, because he was a Pharisee, right?

He knew he knew the um scriptures.

But when we are legalistic and we don't allow the love of God to permeate the love of Jesus to permeate ourselves and to and to be a part of who we are, we are very, very dangerous to society.

Christians can be very dangerous to society if we are not leading with the love of God.

But now with crushing force, Saul is on this road and he has this great encounter with the great light of heaven.

And what does Jesus say to him?

He says, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?

And this is a turning point in the book of Acts.

I want us to really get that.

This is a turning point in Saul's life.

This is a turning point in how the church and the gospel is spreading throughout the earth.

And Jesus says, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?

He says his name twice, okay?

We have to stop there because it's that important.

We only see it about six more times in Scripture, okay?

When God says somebody's name twice, something is about to go down.

You have to pay really good attention.

Get out your best Bible highlighter when you see that, okay?

Um, when you see somebody's name twice, something is about to happen, and you're like, okay, I'm locking in for the story and what's coming next.

We see this in Genesis 22, when Abraham is about to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice.

God stops him.

Abraham, Abraham.

We see this in Exodus 3 when God is calling out to Moses from a burning bush, Moses, Moses.

These are just some examples.

We see this in Luke 10, when um Jesus is correcting Martha's anxious distraction.

Jesus calls her and says, Martha, Martha.

There is great emotion when the Lord calls a person's name twice.

And you know what a fun fact is in um ancient Greek literature, there is no punctuation for an exclamation point.

And this takes the place of that.

It takes the place, it's like God is making an exclamation point, and he is saying, Saul, Saul, what are you doing?

So then verse five says this, and he said, Who are you, Lord?

And Jesus said, I am Jesus, who you are persecuting.

And I want to point this out.

The title of this message, I don't even know if I said it, is my hurt, his hurt.

So Saul was not physically persecuting Jesus.

He was not physically beating him and throwing him in prison, right?

But what Jesus said was, it doesn't matter because you're doing it to my people, so therefore it's the same as doing it to me.

And this is the savior that we serve.

He is our great advocate, he is our great defender, and he carries the pain that we carry.

That is what this is showing us.

This is not just a question or an explanation of Saul's behavior.

This is a turning point.

This is a revelation of Christ's relationship with his disciples.

When you touch them, you touch me.

When you persecute them, you persecute me.

When the members of the body are being hurt on this earth, it is felt by the head of the body in heaven.

And who is glad that we serve an empathetic God?

I know that people came in here today carrying the pains of life.

If you are walking through anything hard or you know anybody walking through anything hard, raise your hand.

The entire room, it's called Welcome to the Human Condition.

We walk through hard things, we walk through pain, and sometimes we feel that we have to carry that alone.

But I encourage you, because I learned this and I know this is true, that when we are in a relationship with Jesus, he carries our pain with us.

He feels our pain.

He does not let us go through life alone.

I sense that there's people in here, and your pain is literally crushing you.

It's crushing you.

You're breathless.

Your grief is so heavy that it's painful.

It's physically painful to some of you.

Your grief that you're carrying is so heavy that it's physically painful.

Some of you are worrying so much about your kids that you're carrying it here and it's causing you physical stress symptoms of stress.

Some of you are walking through health diagnoses that are scary.

Some of you are walking through financial crisis or hardships in relationships, whatever it is, but I want you to be encouraged.

Please do not leave here this morning until you grasp this.

That if you are carrying it, if you are in Jesus and you have received him as your Lord and Savior, and you are walking with him, and you are being persecuted, and you are caught, you are carrying the pain of this world.

He does not sit at the right hand of the Father, not caring about his people.

He does not sit up there like a dictator.

He comes down to earth to literally stop the persecution that is happening to his people.

And I want you to know this morning that that is very, very, very good news.

It's very good news.

We're gonna go next to verse six.

This is our last verse we're gonna look at.

Jesus said to him, but rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.

I love this, and I want to point this out.

Jesus does not give Saul the next 10 steps.

He does not say, Okay, you've just literally had this crazy divine encounter, and now, did you know?

You're gonna go on and write three quarters of the New Testament, and you're gonna be the greatest witness that the church ever saw, and all these kinds of things, and you're gonna end up persecuted for your faith, too.

He doesn't tell them all that at once.

Who's glad that God doesn't tell us everything all at once?

But he says, Do one thing.

God gave him one next step.

Step.

And I want to ask you this morning, what is the one thing that God is asking you to do?

What is the one thing?

Don't let him over, don't let, don't let everything overwhelm you.

He is a God of order.

He is not a God of chaos.

And if you are experiencing chaos in your life, you are not experiencing the kingdom of God.

You are experiencing the kingdom of darkness.

And that is just the bottom line.

And there is no gray area.

God is a God of order.

He came to bring peace to chaos.

This is why we see him taking authority over storms, right?

We see him casting out demons throughout the entire New Testament because he came to bring order to chaos.

And I sense that a lot of you might need order repaired or restored in your life this morning.

And um, I wanna I wanna go here and we're gonna put this up, and then I want to give us a chance to respond.

I want to give the Lord a chance to work and to fall.

Um, Saul went from pursuing the people of Christ to pursuing Christ himself because the gospel is powerful enough to transform its most vicious opponent.

That's the power of God.

Its most vicious opponent, Paul went from the persecutor, the greatest persecutor of the church, to the greatest witness to the one who was then persecuted, which also says there's a cost of following Jesus.

Sometimes we have to lay things down, sometimes we have to turn from the ways in which we are walking.

A lot of times that happens, right?

A lot of times that happens, but there is no greater evidence of grace and God's power than looking at the life of Paul.

Because God used even the most vicious opponent of the church to make him the greatest witness that the church had ever seen, and that is the power of Jesus.

Yep.

And so I just want to ask you this morning a couple questions.

First is do you know Jesus?

Do you know him as your personal Lord and Savior, whether you're in the room, whether you're watching online?

Do you there might even be people who are actively opposing the gospel?

And I think there are people in here that are actively opposing the gospel, and you might be here on assignment, and I don't, I'm not sure.

But if you are here actively opposing the gospel, I pray that today you encountered the light that Paul encountered on the road to Damascus.

This great light, the Lamb of Heaven.

So if you would say, you know, um, and worship team can start to come up too.

Um, if you would say that I need to surrender my life to Jesus, I don't want to go any further without him.

Or maybe you need to recommit your life to Jesus, um, whether that's a commitment, a new commitment today or a recommitment, would you just put your hand up?

There's no shame, only celebration.

Amen.

Keep those hands high.

Congratulations.

Amazing.

Yep.

We celebrate you.

We celebrate with you as your church family.

Yep.

I don't think we're done with that moment.

There's people that need to turn from darkness, there's people that need to turn from wicked ways, and you are gonna encounter the light in this place this morning.

Raise your hand, keep your hands raised.

If you're committing your life to Jesus, keep your hands raised.

So we're gonna go in a time of response.

You can keep your hands raised, and if you want to receive Jesus today as your Lord and Savior, it's the most important decision you will ever make.

It can be your turning point today, just like we see in the life of Saul.

And so, as a church family, let's just pray with our brothers and sisters who want to give their life today.

So, if that's you, I want you to repeat after me, okay?

You can say, if you mean it from your heart, um, dear Jesus, I declare that I am a sinner in need of a savior.

I ask you to come into my heart, to make me new.

And from this day forward, I declare loyalty to you as my king.

In Jesus' name, congratulations.

That is the best decision you will ever make.

And then um, the next thing I want to ask, and we're gonna kind of just sit here for a minute, okay?

Now that we have this understanding that our hurt is his hurt, how does that change the way we process pain?

How does that change the way we carry pain?

There are people that came in here today, you have invisible weights on your shoulders.

I s I know it, I feel it.

You need to lay those down at the foot of Jesus.

He wants you literally running, skipping, jumping, hopping out of here, however you express joy.

He wants you walking out of here lighter than when you came in, but that's gonna take a time of surrender, and it's gonna take a little bit of vulnerability on your part, okay?

He wants your yes.

And so I ask you this morning, knowing that we have a savior, a king, who empathizes with us and who carries our pain, and who cares about us so deeply, each and every one of us, so personally.

When we say this is what it means when we say Jesus is our personal savior, this is what that means.

He is our personal savior, and he cares very much about what you're walking through.

He cares very much about the grief that you're going through, he cares very much about the trauma that you have been a part of, whether it's something that has happened to you or something you've been a part of.

He cares very much about the state of your heart, and I know that right now there are people whose hearts are just hurting.

You're hurting.

So whether you're in this room, whether you're a part of celebration everywhere, I want us to just close our eyes.

And what is God asking you to do?

We have plenty of time.

Jags played last night, so you're okay.

What is he asking you to do?

Can we sit in his presence for a minute?

If you've never done it before, it feels a little awkward at first.

But like I said earlier to remind you, you are in the presence of a king.

What road have you been running down that you need to stop running on?

Where does Jesus need to interrupt you?

Jesus can stop a person in the middle of their wrong direction.

We saw it happen in our story today.

What wrong direction are you on?

Would you let Jesus stop you this morning?

Our pastors and our prayer team can just intercede where you're at in your seats.

God is breaking something down right now.

He's breaking something down.

We're gonna press into him for just a few minutes, and I want you to sit under the blanket of his presence and let him do a work.

The work doesn't come from the microphone, the work comes from the power of the Holy Spirit.

And I'm gonna let him do his job.