The Story of Grace

We're going to be in Acts chapter 22.

Acts 22 · chapter mention

And I'm not going to take you through the passage first because we're going to discover the word as we read through today.

But I do want to give you background as we go into the word today so you understand what's going on in this passage and that we can get the full out of it, right?

If you were at Thursday morning Bible study, then you were there and we talked all about what happened leading up to this.

Okay, so we all know that Paul has been on a missions trip for many, many years.

He's been out in the mission field, he's been taking the gospel to the Gentile nations, he's been planting churches.

So Paul would go into a city and he would preach in the street, he'd go to the synagogues, he would preach to crowds, he would preach to individuals, he'd preach in prison cells, and so God has been moving through the ministry of the Apostle Paul.

And he's been going throughout all the Gentile nations that were within distance of him to reach, and he's preaching the gospel to them, and God has been moving.

There's thousands and thousands of Gentiles that are coming to faith in Christ.

In the last several years, Paul's been spending in the city of Ephesus.

He spent three years there, and during that time there, he was arranging a collection for the saints who were in Jerusalem.

And so he wanted to have the Gentile churches be able to put together an offering that he could bring to the Jewish believers who were in Jerusalem.

There were many poor there and needy there.

And he also wanted it to be sort of this offering of unity, right?

A sign of the unity and acknowledgement that they had received spiritual blessings from the Jewish people.

And so he had arranged this offering.

He had traveled through the churches, and at this point, they've arrived in Jerusalem.

And so Paul has gone in to the leaders of the church in Jerusalem.

He's gone in to meet with James, the brother of the Lord.

He's talked to the elders of the Jerusalem church, and he's relayed to them all the amazing things that God has done through his ministry in the mission field.

He's telling them about the churches that were planted, the people who believed, the miracles that happened.

And it says that they all rejoiced with him, and then they related back to him.

Look at all the many thousands of Jewish believers that have come and believed on Christ also in the Jerusalem church, brother.

But there is one little area of tension, and we want to just mention it now, okay?

And it's this that all those Jewish believers that have come to faith in Christ here at the church in Jerusalem have heard rumors about you.

That there's this rumor and these rumors and this gossip that's going on about you out in the world, and they're hearing things about you.

And what they're hearing is that you're out among the Gentile nations and you're teaching the Jewish people there to forsake the law of Moses.

That you're teaching the people to forsake the customs of the Jewish people, like to stop circumcising your children and stop following the Jewish way of life.

And so here's a plan.

We want to just kind of preempt this.

And so we've got these four guys here that have taken a vow.

And what we want you to do is take them and go into the pure to the temple and purify yourself, so they can purify themselves and you pay their expenses, and you'll go through this seven-day process, and at the end of the process, you'll get done, and everyone will know that there's nothing to all those rumors that have been told about you.

And so Paul goes along with the plan.

And so he's going through this purification process, and he's in the temple, and it says when the days of purification were almost complete.

Some Jewish people from Ephesus, from not Ephesus, from Asia Minor.

That's the area where there's Ephesus and Laodicea and Colosseus.

So some Jewish people from Asia Minor see him and they go running over and they seize Paul and they say, Brothers, come and help.

This is the man who's teaching everyone everywhere against Moses and against the people and against this place.

He's teaching against our way of life, he's teaching against the Jewish people, he's teaching against the law, he's teaching against the temple.

And so it says the whole city was stirred up and they grabbed Paul, they dragged him out of the inner courts of the temple, and they took him out, and they were beating him and trying to kill him.

But the Roman soldiers who were nearby heard what was going on, and so the commander ran down with his soldiers, and when the Jewish people saw what was happening, uh, who was coming, they stopped beating Paul.

And so the Romans came and they arrested him, they put him in chains, and because he needed to figure out what was going on, the commander he commanded that Paul be taken into the Roman barracks so he could determine what was happening.

But just before he got into the barracks, Paul stopped the commander and he said, Can I speak with you?

And he asked if he could have permission to speak to the Jewish people in the crowd.

And so the commander gives his approval.

Now, I want to add one more little layer of nuance, though, because I want you to understand what was in the heart of Paul as he arrived at this situation.

As I said, he had just been in the mission field for a very long time.

Okay, right before he came back to Jerusalem, he had traveled through Macedonia and he stayed for three months at a city called Corinth.

And as he was there, he wrote a letter to one of the churches.

And that's known as the letter of Romans today.

Okay?

And in the letter to the Romans, I just want to read to you a couple of verses because I want you to understand Paul's love for his people.

It says in verse 1 of chapter 9, I speak the truth in Christ.

I'm not lying.

My conscience confirms it through the Holy Spirit.

I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.

For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people, those of my own race, the people of Israel.

Theirs is the adoption, the sonship, theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises.

Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God over all, forever praised.

Amen.

He goes on in chapter 10, verse 1, and he says, Brothers and sisters, my heart's desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved, for I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge.

So Paul has traveled throughout the Gentile nations and he's preached the gospel to hundreds and thousands of people, and he's seen Gentiles come to faith by the tens and by the hundreds and by the thousands, and he's seen churches planted and elders and pastors raised up.

But at the same time, his heart is breaking for his own people.

Because they were the ones that received the promises in the first place.

They were the descendants of Abraham, the man who was given the promise.

And yet they had missed the promises by and large.

And there were some that were being saved, but as a whole, the nation was really missing their Messiah.

And so I have to wonder that if as Paul stood on the steps facing this crowd of people who had just tried to beat and kill him, if somewhere in his mind he wasn't thinking, maybe this is it.

Maybe this is the moment that God is giving me where God's finally answering my prayers and opening up a door for me to be able to preach to my own people, to share the gospel of salvation, to tell them that he truly is their Messiah, so that they can be saved.

And so it says at the end of chapter 21, it says, After receiving the commander's permission, Paul stood on the steps and motioned to the crowd.

And when they were all silent, he said to them in Hebrew, Brothers and fathers, listen now to my defense.

And when they heard him speak in the Hebrew language, they became very quiet.

And then Paul said, I am a Jew born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city.

I studied under Gamaliel and was thoroughly trained in the law of our ancestors.

I was just as zealous for God as any of you are today.

And see, the rumors that have been going around about Paul was that he was some kind of a scoundrel, that he was unloyal to the people, he was unfaithful, he was a blasphemer and a false teacher.

And Paul had not had the opportunity to set the record straight.

And how frustrating is that when other people are telling stories about you, they're saying he says this, he thinks this, he teaches this, he did this.

And you just want to, you're burning inside you want to set the record straight.

No, I get to tell you what I feel.

I'm the one that gets to define for you who I am and what I think.

And so finally, Paul has the opportunity, and where he begins, he begins by speaking to them in their own language.

He begins with a posture of respect, and they hear him speaking in their own language, and they get quiet.

And they begin to listen to him.

And then he addresses them respectfully.

He says, brothers and fathers, please listen as I make my defense.

And they get even more quiet.

And then he begins by telling them who he is.

He says, I'm a Jew.

And I was born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but I but I was brought up here in this city in Jerusalem, and I was educated at the feet of Gamalia, according to the strict manner of the traditions of our fathers.

And he says, I was just as zealous for God as all of you are to this day.

He's saying, I am I'm a Jew, I'm just like you.

Like through and through, I'm a Jew.

You know, Philippians chapter 3, he says something similar.

Philippians 3 · chapter mention

He says, you know, um, if anyone thinks he has confidence, reason for confidence in the flesh, for the works of the flesh, I have more.

He says, circumcised on the eighth day of the people of Israel, the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews, as to the law of Pharisee, as to zeal a persecutor of the church, as to righteousness under the law, blameless.

See, Paul is a Jew of Jews.

He's a Hebrew of Hebrews.

He is the perfect picture of the perfect, obedient Jewish man.

And this isn't the story that the people had heard.

In fact, these were the credentials of a man that they almost couldn't help but admire.

And so the people continue to listen.

And in verse 4, he says, I persecuted the followers of this way to their death, arresting both men and women and throwing them into prison, as the high priest and all the council can themselves testify.

I even obtained letters from them to their associates in Damascus and went there to bring these people as prisoners to Jerusalem to be punished.

So he's saying, Listen, I was just like you.

I persecuted Christians.

Like the same thing you're doing to me, I did to other people, except I did it better.

He's like, You wait for people to come to you to persecute them.

I was going to them.

I was like delivering the persecution to their door.

Okay?

I was going to dragging them and I persecuted them there, and then I dragged them back to Jerusalem and I persecuted them again.

And I made sure they went into prison.

And when the time was was around for them to vote for them to be put to death, I cast my vote against them too.

He says, I was just like you.

And then he calls witnesses.

He says, All the elders of the Jews can testify.

And some of them might have been standing there and they couldn't deny it.

This is Saul of Tarsus.

We did give him letters to go to Damascus to persecute the Christians there, to drag them back in chains.

So he says, I was just like you.

Except better.

I was more like you than you are.

And this is why Paul could have compassion on these people who had just tried to beat, or had just beat him, and had tried to kill him.

It's because he understood them.

He understood their zeal.

He understood their anger.

He understood why they did the things they did and felt that it was their duty to do them.

Because when he looked at them, he saw himself.

And up to this point, the people continue to listen to him.

And in verse 6, it says, About noon, as I came near Damascus, suddenly a bright light from heaven flashed around me, and I fell to the ground, and I heard a voice say to me, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?

And so he begins by telling them, Listen, this is the man that I was when I left Jerusalem.

This is the man that I was brought up to be.

This is who I was.

I was exactly like you.

And now he wants to tell them why he changed.

What happened to him?

Why, how did he become the man that he is today?

And so he tells them, listen, I wasn't looking for Jesus.

I was on my way to Damascus to persecute the Christians there.

I wasn't looking for him.

I wasn't going there to attend a church service.

I wasn't going there to be baptized.

I was going there to arrest Christians.

I wasn't trying to learn about the gospel.

I was trying to punish those who dared to preach the gospel.

I wasn't looking for Jesus.

I wasn't trying to find him.

But Jesus found me.

And he said, Who are you, Lord?

And he said, I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you were persecuting.

And my companions saw the light, but they did not understand the voice of him who was speaking to me.

And he said, What shall I do, Lord?

Get up, the Lord said, and go into Damascus, and there you will be told all that you've been assigned to do.

And my companions led me by the hand into Damascus because the brilliance of the light had blinded me.

And so he says, Listen, I wasn't looking for Jesus, but Jesus found me.

Like, what else could I do?

I was confronted by the living Jesus of Nazareth.

I heard the voice of Jesus himself.

I was blinded by the glory of the risen Christ.

And then he points out, then the Lord sent a person to me, a brother, a good God-fearing Jew, well spoken of by all the Jews in the area.

So again, he's just calling a witness, Ananias too, a good God-fearing Jew.

He's just like you.

But he sent a good God-fearing Jewish brother to lay his hands on me, and I was healed of my blindness.

Okay, so he knocks me off my horse or whatever he was, walks me to the ground, he blinds me, he confronts me, he reveals to me who he truly is, and then I get led to Damascus, and he sends a man to me that lays hands on me, and then I'm healed of my blindness.

And then Ananias reveals to Paul some of his purpose.

He said, The God of our ancestors has chosen you to know his will and to see the righteous one and to hear words from his mouth.

And you'll be his witnesses to all people of what you've seen and heard.

And then he says, And now why do you what do you why do you wait?

Get up, be baptized, and wash your sins away, calling on his name.

And so Jesus does all this for Saul.

He sends Ananias to him.

Ananias reveals to him the will of Jesus, and then he his moment of decision comes, doesn't it?

You've seen all the evidence, Saul.

Now what are you gonna do?

What are you waiting for?

Rise up and be baptized, washing away your sins and calling on his name.

And so he's told them this is who I was.

This is what happened to me and why I changed.

And now I want to tell you about why I've done the things that I've done.

He says, when I returned to Jerusalem and was praying in the temple, I fell into a trance and the Lord saw the Lord speaking to me.

He said, Quick, leave Jerusalem immediately, because the people here will not accept your testimony about me.

He says, Listen, again, I'm Jewish.

So when all this happened to me, I ended up back in Jerusalem.

And while I was in the temple praying, I had a vision.

I fell into a trance, and I literally saw once again the risen Jesus standing before me and speaking to me.

And he said, Make haste and get out of Jerusalem quickly.

But the thing is, Paul didn't want to leave.

Now in Acts chapter 9, when we read about this story the first time, what had happened was when Paul went back to Jerusalem, he the well, the believers didn't trust him.

Acts 9 · chapter mention

They thought, well, that's solve Tarsus.

He's the one that's throwing everybody in prison.

And so Barnabas had to take him in.

But then it said Paul was going in and out among them, and he was confounding the Jews, and he was debating or disputing with the Hellenists until the Hellenists decided to hatch a plot against him to try to kill him.

And so Paul, in this moment, he's not wanting to leave because he's thinking, you know, Jesus, I'm Saul of Tarsus.

Like these people know who I am.

They know my testimony.

They know that I was standing right next to Stephen, your witness, as he was stoned to death and I was guarding the garments of the ones who killed him.

Like they know who I am.

If I tell them what happened to me, they're going to believe it.

And Jesus tells them, no, no, go.

Because they're not going to accept your testimony about me.

He said, Lord, I re I replied, These people know that I went from one synagogue to another to imprison and beat those who believe in you.

And when the blood of your martyr, Stephen, was shed, I stood there giving my approval and guarding the clothes of those who were killing him.

And so the crowd has been sitting still.

They've been quiet.

They've been listening to every word out of Paul's mouth.

They've listened to his testimony.

Wow.

He was raised here.

He's a Jewish man.

He was trained by Gamaliel.

He's like the great revered teacher, the leader of the school of Hillel.

He he's like we all know Gamaliel.

He's amazing.

This is one of his students.

Oh my gosh.

And he was a Pharisee.

And they even listened as he talked about meeting Jesus on the road to Damascus.

They listened as he talked about being baptized as a Christian.

They listened as he talked about going to Jerusalem and seeing a vision of the risen Jesus of Nazareth speaking to him in the temple.

They listened until Paul tells them what Jesus said to him.

He says, And then he said unto me, Go, for I will send you far away to the Gentiles.

And I said, Up to this word they listened to him, and then they raised their voices and said, Away with such a fellow from the earth, for he should not be allowed to live.

So they had listened patiently to his whole speech, and now he mentions the Gentiles and they turn on him.

Why?

His plan to go to the nations had been the same from the beginning.

That had always been the plan.

He told Abraham, I'm going to make you the father of many nations.

He also told him, Um, Through your offspring, all the nations of the earth are going to be blessed.

They were supposed to be, when they went into the promised land, a light to the nations.

They were supposed to be this fruitful vine that just showed the fruit that they were making unto God in the midst of all the pagan nations.

They were always supposed to be a witness to the Gentile nations.

In the last times, the Lord was going to raise up the mountain of the Lord, and the nations were going to stream to it.

It had always been the plan, and the Jews knew it, and they believed it, and they were supposed to be waiting in expectation of their coming Messiah.

But when he came, they missed him.

In John chapter 1, the Apostle John says it this way: The world was made through him, but the world didn't know him.

John 1 · chapter mention

He came to his own, but his own did not receive him.

But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.

See, the Messiah had come.

The offspring of Abraham, through whom all the nations would be blessed, the son of David, the light of the world, the true vine, the good shepherd.

And the tragedy is that most of the people of Israel missed him because he didn't fit their expectations.

He rubbed up against their traditions.

He kind of irritated the way that they were accustomed to doing things.

And they didn't like that.

See, in the days of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Moses and Joshua, these men had had a living faith.

Like a real, living, breathing, walking relationship with the real God.

They had communed with him, they had heard his voice, they had walked in obedience to him, they had seen his power in their lives, but now the temple in Jerusalem sat empty and the glory had departed.

And the religious leaders and the scribes and the Pharisees and the lawyers, they had erected these scaffolds and God.

Guidelines and systems and rules and practices in an effort to try to preserve some little bit of the glory of generations past.

In Jeremiah chapter 2, the prophet said this, My people have committed two evils.

Jeremiah 2 · chapter mention

One, they have forsaken the fountain of living water.

And two, they've hewn out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.

He was saying they've left this never-ending flowing fountain of everlasting life, both physical and spiritual.

They've left and forsaken me, the very source of all of it, and they've tried to store up a little bit of vestiges in some broken containers that can't even hold a drop of water.

See, these were the people who had descended from men and women who had known the living God, who had drunk from the fountain of living water.

But instead of following in the footsteps of their fathers and drinking from the same fountain, they're trying to sustain themselves on the leftovers of what God did in older generations.

And so Paul's message to them was basically this I found the living water, guys.

I found the fountain.

I thought I was following God.

I thought what I had was real, but then I met the living God.

His name is Jesus.

I met our Messiah, and he is our Messiah, and everything changed.

And see, in that moment, I didn't stop being Jewish.

Like I'm more Jewish now, he says, than I've ever been.

I didn't forsake the law, the God of Abraham.

I met him.

I didn't forsake the law and the prophets.

I met the one who fulfills them.

I didn't forsake the temple.

I met the one in whom all the glory of God was pleased to dwell.

See, Paul hadn't left his faith behind.

He had found the real thing.

And he had just been shown what his faith was always meant to be.

The faith of Abraham.

See, several years before coming here, God had been showing me how to live my faith out in a different way.

Like in a simpler, kind of more satisfying way.

Just like a simple walk of faith with Jesus, like learning to yield all the parts of my life to him.

Not compartmentalizing, like, okay, now's the time to worship, so I'm gonna go over here.

Oh, discipleship's over there.

Oh, gotta go to work, see you guys.

Oh, time to hang out with my buddies.

Oh, I'm gonna go play golf.

No, yielding all of that to him.

Because he gave everything for me, and now I yield it all back to him.

Lord, sanctify all of it.

Let it all be for your glory.

Let my whole life be ministry.

Allowing him to use people, use me in ways that reached the people around me, whether I was at work standing in front of a customer, whether I was at the coffee shop having coffee with friends, whether I was at the store.

And so honestly, when the opportunity seemed to be presenting itself for me to step back into like vocational ministry, for a second I hesitated.

Because, and not because I don't love what I do, I hesitated because I know that there are some things about the way that we do church in the West in America that are unhealthy.

Like we, we have a tendency toward consumerism and making it all about consumerism and entertainment.

Like, you know what?

I'm I didn't really like the worship that much this week.

It was better last week, and then you know, the the sermon, you know, uh this series is not really doing it for me, but I like that other one that they did back then.

Oh, the coffee bar, the coffee was kind of stale.

I think they used tap water.

By the way, that is a thing.

If you use tap water to make coffee, it tastes worse, right?

It's a thing.

I'm just I'm a coffee connoisseur, coffee snob right here, full testimony.

We have a tendency toward burning people out by trying to keep this entertainment consumer machine going.

And I didn't want to lose that simple joy of just following Jesus in normal life.

It's not that I had some particular concern about this church, it's just, it's just, I've been around a lot of churches, okay?

And I know.

But at the same time, the the church is where the Christians are.

And as I prayed and I thought about it, I thought, well, if I want the opportunity to help other believers begin to learn how to walk and live in that sweet, contemplative life with Jesus that He's teaching me still right now, maybe I need to go where my brothers and sisters are.

Amen?

As I was writing this message this week, actually, as I was writing the message I was gonna preach this week, and it was almost finished.

Friday morning, I'm praying, and the Holy Spirit changed the direction.

I think the mistake that I was making is that as I was going through this passage, I was assuming that you and me are Paul in the story.

And so the sermon was how to share your testimony like Paul.

You know, maybe not exactly that title, but that was the direction.

It was like how to share our testimony, right?

But as I was praying on Friday morning, the thought struck me.

What if we aren't Paul?

Church, what if we're not Paul?

What if we're not the ones drinking from the fountain of living water?

What if we're not the ones submitting our lives in sacrifice to the lordship of Jesus Christ?

What if we're the crowd?

What if we're the ones stuck in the comfort of empty traditions, all of which to varying degrees are supposed to point to the real life and point to the real Savior and point to the living water, but in and of themselves have no power to save us and have no power to redeem us and have no power to make us alive?

What if we're like the crowd, willing to listen along patiently until someone says something that challenges our comfort or contradicts what we think we already know?

And honestly, it's not a question I can answer for you.

And that's not a question you can answer for me either.

I think it's a question we should sit with as we go to lunch.

Sit with tonight before we go to bed.

Am I drinking from the living fountain?

Or am I just comfortable?

Going through the motions, playing church, being a part of the machine.

Paul's audience had a choice, and so do we.

Paul had been just like them, full of zeal, but totally missing the point.

Content with the revelation that he had, not even understanding what he was missing.

But the story of God's grace in Paul's life is that Paul didn't wait for Paul, God didn't wait for Paul to change.

Jesus loved Paul enough to come and find him.

He didn't leave Paul as he was, he confronted him with the truth.

He called him to follow him, he sent a brother to show him the next steps.

And the words of Ananias are words to us.

And now why do you wait?

Like it's as easy as that.

And now why do you wait?

Rise and be baptized.

Washing away your sins and calling upon his name.

And now why do we wait?

Let's go to the fountain.

Let's drink the living water.

Let's walk with the real Jesus.

Let's see him face to face.

Let's hear his real voice.

Let's commune with him.

Let's be led by the real Jesus.

Let's have a relationship with the real God.

Let's not play church.

Let's not just sit in empty traditions and go, oh, oh, I'm so warm and cozy in my tradition.

Let's have a real relationship with the real God, like the faith of our father Abraham.

See, the crowd had the same decision to make.

And when they were faced with the choice of drinking from the fountain or holding on to their empty cisterns, they chose their cisterns.

And it must have broken Paul's heart.

And Jesus will do the same for you and me.

Amen?