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Our text this morning actually spans into another chapter, and we're starting in verse 37. If you'll follow along as we read it together. I want to encourage us to really think through this as we read it, and where we're engaged to be able to worship the Lord and giving attention to Him as we work through it in a few moments. Acts 21, verse 37. As Paul was about to be brought into the barracks, he said to the commander, may I say something to you? And he said, do you know Greek? Then you are not the Egyptian who some time ago stirred up a revolt and led 4,000 men of the assassins out into the wilderness? But Paul said, I am a Jew of Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of no insignificant city, and I beg you, allow me to speak to the people. When he had given him permission, Paul, standing on the stairs, motioned to the people with his hand. And when there was a great hush, he spoke to them in the Hebrew dialect, saying, Brethren and fathers, hear my defense which I now offer to you. When they heard that He was addressing them in the Hebrew dialect, they became even more quiet. And He said, I am a Jew born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city, educated under Gamaliel, strictly according to the law of our fathers, being zealous for God, just as you all are today. I persecuted this way to the death, binding and putting both men and women into prison. as also the high priest and all the council of the elders can testify. From them I also received letters to the brethren and started off for Damascus in order to bring even those who were there to Jerusalem as prisoners to be punished. But it happened that as I was on my way approaching Damascus about noontime, a very bright light suddenly flashed from heaven all around me. And I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? And I answered, Who are you, Lord? And he said to me, I am Jesus the Nazarene whom you are persecuting. Those who were with me saw the light, to be sure, but did not understand the voice of the one who was speaking to me. And I said, What shall I do, Lord? And the Lord said to me, Get up and go into Damascus, and there you will be told all that has been appointed for you to do. But since I could not see because of the brightness of that light, I was led by the hand by those who were with me and came into Damascus. Sir Ananias, a man who was devout by the standard of the law and well spoken of by all the Jews who lived there, came to me and standing near said to me, Brother Saul, receive your sight. At that very time I looked up at him and he said, the God of our fathers has appointed you to know his will and to see the righteous one and to hear an utterance from his mouth. For you will be a witness for him to all men of what you have seen and heard. Now why do you delay? Get up and be baptized and wash away your sins calling on his name. It happened when I returned to Jerusalem and was praying in the temple that I fell into a trance and I saw him saying to me, make haste and get out of Jerusalem quickly because they will not accept your testimony about me. And I said, Lord, they themselves understand that in a synagogue after another, one synagogue after another, I used to imprison and beat those who believed in you. And when the blood of your witness Stephen was being shed, I also was standing by approving and watching out for the coats of those who were slaying him. And he said to me, Go, for I will send you far away to the Gentiles. They listened to him up to this statement, and then they raised their voices and said, "'Away with such a fellow from the earth, for he should not be allowed to live!' And as they were crying out and throwing off their cloaks and tossing dust into the air, the commander ordered him to be brought into the barracks, stating that he should be examined by scourging, so that he might find out the reason why they were shouting against that way. But when they stretched him out with thongs, Paul said to the centurion who was standing by, is it lawful for you to scourge a man who is a Roman and uncondemned? When the centurion heard this, he went to the commander and told him, saying, What are you about to do? For this man is a Roman. The commander came and said to him, Tell me, are you a Roman? And he said, Yes. The commander answered, I acquired this citizenship with a large sum of money. Paul said, But I was actually born a citizen. Therefore, those who were about to examine him immediately let go of him. And the commander also was afraid when he found out that he was a Roman, because he had put him in chains. Father, we thank You for the life of Paul that points us to You and to Your Son. We pray that we might learn from his example and might be challenged in our testimony for You. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Imagine if you were born in Pakistan and you were vehemently opposed to Christianity. You were known to be against Christianity. No one doubted your loyalty to Islam. In fact, you were known to push for the strictest punishment of anyone in the society that had converted to Christianity. You had actually read up on and been exposed to the claims of Christianity in order to argue against it. But one day, as you were reading the New Testament, in order to construct yet another argument against Christianity, Jesus confronted you in the Word. And you personally trusted in Christ alone for your salvation. You actually started to become persecuted by your family and your context. So you eventually, under the Lord's direction, you believe, went elsewhere to tell others about Jesus. And then years later you return. And it's heard what you've been doing. And there's an uproar and there is outrage. And in the middle of the uproar over your ministry about Jesus, you have one overwhelming desire. It's not your personal safety. It's not your personal rights. It's that you want to defend the ministry of Jesus as the Messiah. You want your people to know who Jesus is. Or imagine that you're an Orthodox Jewish child. who grew up in Borough Park, Brooklyn. You were known to be one of the most attentive students of the anti-missionaries, those individuals that the rabbis in the synagogue had set aside to study and to refute the claims of Christianity. You were known to be a preeminent pupil of the anti-missionaries. But eventually, you are arrested, as it were, by the truth of the gospel, And you trust in Jesus as the Messiah, the promised Jewish Messiah. And you begin to proclaim Him to your own people in Borough Park, Brooklyn, that Jesus is the Messiah. And you go and tell Gentiles that He's the Messiah and you are shunned. But your desire in your rejection is nothing more than to defend your ministry of Jesus as the Messiah for the hope of all people. Or maybe you're a child in a secular family that's completely downed this culture's Kool-Aid against Christ and against God. And you're one of the most progressive liberals on every conceivable social moral issue. But one day as you're trying to prove that actually Jesus would endorse this culture of sexual revolution, you are humbled and convicted and shown to see the love of God in Christ for you, and you're saved, you're converted, and your whole life changes. And soon your social context and community find out that this is the case in your life, and there's outrage. And in that outrage and in that rejection, you have one overwhelming desire. And that is not to defend yourself, but to defend the truthfulness of Jesus, the Messiah, the Savior of the world. We find the Apostle Paul in that kind of situation in our text today. Paul has come back from his third missionary journey. And he's come to visit Jerusalem. He's done so at the direction of the Holy Spirit. And it's his own testimony that he did so bound by the Holy Spirit. It was told to him by the Spirit that if he returned to Jerusalem, which he was supposed to, that he would suffer there for the cause of Christ. But because Paul's one great passion was the name of Christ and to live for Him, he willingly submitted himself to the Spirit of God and the revelation that God had given him. When he arrived in Jerusalem, the text is clear that he was in the will of God. Not only was he in the revealed will of God, but he was part of God's sovereign will that God was carrying out, even though it involved great suffering for the cause of the gospel. And so last week we saw, in the will of God, Paul glorified God for the salvation that had advanced to the Gentiles. He was misunderstood about his ministry of the law of Moses, misunderstood by even his own Jewish brethren and sisters that were believing in Jesus as a Messiah. He was also misunderstood by those people such that he needed to accommodate himself in love to them in order not to lead them astray. He paid for the vows of four men in the Nazarite vow in the temple. He himself went through a ritual of cleansing to show that that though he believed Jesus was the fulfillment of the law, and that even believing Jewish born-again believers did not have to carry out the time-bound aspects of that law, he was not rejecting it and was not dishonoring it. He suffered when he was attacked by a mob in the temple. He was slandered about what he taught, and then he supposedly desecrated the temple by bringing in a Gentile, which he did not do. And yet God delivered him when the Roman commander saw the commotion, delivered him, and was taking him away to the barracks. And we saw, lastly, last week, that in the will of God, Paul was suffering like Christ. They kept shouting, away with him, just like they did years before, to Christ. And that's where we left off in the narrative. Paul was taken into custody by the Roman officials, and the crowd was following, shouting, away with him. A way to His death is what they're saying. And in that moment, rather than just accepting the deliverance that God had provided through being taken into custody by the Romans, Paul wanted to do something. He wanted and he had a burning desire to use that deliverance for the cause of the gospel. One of the ways you know that you're living your life for the name of Christ, is that no matter what you face, your instinct is the gospel of Jesus Christ, the advancement of God's purposes through me, through my circumstances for the glory of God. Sadly, too often suffering in our lives can enter, and as believers are concerned for our own personal well-being. and the ease of life is so loud that it silences any concern for Christ's glory in our specific circumstances. But for Paul it was the exact opposite. Paul's concern for Christ's glory through the Gospel proclamation really put his own concern of personal well-being in the right perspective and it magnified Christ's Glory. In the middle of all of this chaos, Paul had a burning desire to defend the nature of his ministry to his own people and to people that were not Jewish, but to the Gentiles. So the first point we want to notice this morning is this. Paul desired to defend the nature of his ministry about the Messiah before his own Jewish people. He had a desire to defend the nature of his ministry. Look at what verse 37 says, chapter 21. It says, as Paul was about to be brought into the barracks. So he's on the stairs, on the way, going up into the Roman fortress, where they had just rushed down from to take care of the riot. And he says something to Commander. He says, may I say something to you? It's kind of a funny question, right? I guess he just did, right? May I say something to you? And then in verse 39, we see that what Paul wanted to say was this. I beg you, allow me to speak to the people. So Paul begs the Roman commander to let him speak to the people. Why? Why did he want to speak to the people? Well, because Paul wanted to defend the nature of his ministry of the Messiah. He wanted to defend that before the Jewish people. Not because Paul wanted to defend himself and how people viewed him. But Paul wanted to explain why it was that he was proclaiming Jesus as the Messiah, and why he was teaching what he was about the law. So as Paul was begging the commander to let him do this, the commander reveals that he had a total misunderstanding about Paul. Look at verse 37 again. As Paul was about to be brought into the barracks, he said to the commander, may I say something to you? And he said, do you know Greek? Then you're not the Egyptian who some time ago stirred up a revolt and led 4,000 men of the assassins out into the wilderness. So, the Roman commander had a mistaken identity of Paul. Had mistakenly identified Paul. Three years previous to this event, the historical records show, extra-biblical records show, that there was a false prophet, really a terrorist, an assassin, a leader, an insurrectionist, that came from Egypt who came to Jerusalem about A.D. 54. This man led a large crowd. Josephus, the Jewish historian, said it was some 30,000 people. But Josephus is known for exaggerating numbers. To the Mount of Olives, he led these people to the Mount of Olives. And the promise that this man gave the crowd was that he and the crowd would march into Jerusalem and the walls would fall and Rome would be toppled. The end result of the situation was that Felix, the Roman governor, dispatched troops on them, killing 400 and capturing 200. And this man that had come from Egypt to do this fled and escaped. Important to the Roman commander's assumption about Paul was that he apparently knew that this assassin, this insurrectionist, this rebel from Egypt did not know Greek. So when Paul spoke to him in Greek, he said, oh, you must not be that man. He assumed that because of the fact that even then and back in three years earlier, all of Jerusalem had helped the Romans drive this man out. He assumed that the Jewish people were doing the same thing again with the same person. And he was wrong. Paul's response was, I'm a Jew of Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of no insignificant city. Tarsus was known for Hellenism and being influenced by Greek culture. Rhetoric. It had a lively literature and philosophical culture. That's where Paul was from. It had a thriving textile industry and was a center for trade. If you think of what you've looked in the maps recently, maybe it's further east on the Mediterranean coastline than, of course, Ephesus. It's right there on the southern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. The point, though, that Paul was making is, listen, I'm a citizen of no insignificant city. You should listen to my request here. Notice at this point, Paul doesn't say, I'm a what citizen? He doesn't say, I'm a Roman citizen. If he had, it would have totally changed the way they were dealing with him. Okay? He's on the stairs. All the mob is crying out. He's being taken back to the fortress. If he'd have said, I'm a Roman citizen, the commanders would have dealt with him very differently than they ended up doing. But he didn't do it. Why? Because he's concerned about the gospel. He recognizes that if he identifies himself with Rome in that moment, that's only going to drive his own Jewish people what? further away from the message of the gospel. And he wanted to speak to them about the Messiah. So though Paul had his personal rights, he was not willing to use those when it hindered the gospel. Key point. Folks, this theme in Paul's life is so striking and it's so missing in our regular thinking as believers here in free America. We have to get this clear in our thinking. In any and every situation, Jesus and the advancement of Him being proclaimed as the good news for both Jews and Gentiles must be the foremost concern that we have. Our main concern cannot be our personal rights. I know that goes against Our DNA. But our main concern has to be Christ. In any and every situation, whether or not we stand on our rights or whether we are silent, it has to be about Christ. You see, Christ and His name and the advancement of His glory is way more important than our personal what? Our personal rights. That is biblical truth. Here with the mob pressing in on Paul and with him almost to enter into the Roman barracks, what was foremost on Paul's mind was not, how can I make sure my situation is easy, but how can I get the gospel to my people so I'm going to keep my mouth shut about my Roman citizenship. Is Christ and the advancement of the gospel most important to you? Or is your American citizenship and the rights that come with that most important to you? This has everything to do with whether or not you're living as a pilgrim on this earth, living for another time and another place scattered away from your eternal home. Paul was given permission. Look at verse 40. When they had given him permission, when he had given him permission, Paul, standing on the stairs, motioned to the people with his hand. And when there was a great hush, he spoke to them in the Hebrew dialect, saying. Probably the Hebrew dialect there refers to a form of Aramaic that they would have spoken. So we've seen that Paul desired to defend the nature of his ministry about the Messiah before his own people. But secondly, Paul evangelistically defended the nature of his ministry about the Messiah before his Jewish people. He evangelistically defended it. What is clear as we work our way through what Paul says in here, and this is really the main portion that we're going to look at, is that he wasn't focused on defending himself personally. He was focused on defending the proclamation of Jesus as the Messiah. But even beyond that, he was focused on reaching his people as he defended the proclamation of Jesus as the Messiah. Paul does what he does here because he wants to reach his fellow Jewish people with the glorious truth that Jesus is the Messiah. Look what it says here in verses 1 and 2. In the Hebrew dialect, Paul said, Brethren and fathers, hear my defense. We're going to notice all the way through his defense that he's very careful to associate with his Jewish people. Look what he says. Brethren. All right. What does he say? Brethren and fathers, hear my defense. At every turn, he's doing this. Let me give you a couple of quotes about what Paul's doing here from commentators. One commentator says this, an attempt to explain to his audience the radical change that he experienced on his way to Damascus. Implicitly, he invites his opponents to reevaluate Paul and Jesus and thereby be changed themselves. Another commentator said this, this speech from the steps of the fortress of Antonia deals eloquently with the major charge against him, that of being a Jewish apostate. It does this by setting aside all that has happened in his Christian life, or setting all that has happened in his Christian life in a Jewish context, and by insisting that what others might consider apostasy really came to him as a revelation from heaven, from the Lord himself. Look at verse 2. When they heard he was addressing them in the Hebrew dialect, they became even more quiet and he said. At this point, what I'm going to do in the outline is basically try to summarize what Paul said in his defense. So he speaks in their own dialect and the crowd gets hushed. What is this guy going to say? This is what Paul says, very simply, I used to be just like you. I used to be just like you. Let me tell you about what I used to be like. It was like you. Listen to what I have to say. Look at verse 3. I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city, educated under Gamaliel, strictly according to the law of our fathers, being zealous for this way to the death, binding and putting both men and women into prisons, as also the high priest and all the council of the elders can testify. From them I also received letters to the brethren and started off to Damascus in order to bring even those who were there in Jerusalem as prisoners to be punished. First thing he says is this, though as a Jew I was born in Tarsus of Cilicia. He's going to say something else later, but he basically says, I was born a Jew in Tarsus of Cilicia. He acknowledges that he was born in a very Greek setting, a Hellenistic setting. But that they could not view him primarily in those terms. Of course, this multicultural setting that he grew up in for a certain amount of his childhood was used later by the Lord to enable him to be flexible in multicultural situations for the cause of the gospel everywhere he went. But Paul says in effect, though as a Jew I was born in Tarsus of Cilicia, I was brought up where? In Jerusalem. I was brought up in Jerusalem. Now, we have no way of knowing when, in fact, Paul moved to Jerusalem. It could be that he alone was sent there for education. But probably, more likely, he and his family moved there at some point in his childhood. Conjectures of when that would be can't be precise. It probably may be early teens. We don't know for sure. But Paul goes on to say something about his Jewish education. He says this, basically, I was educated under the best. Look what it says, verse 3. Educated under Gamaliel. Gamaliel was the greatest rabbi of the time. And those listening to Paul would have known that. This was a significant credential for Paul. So Paul is saying that his Jewish educational pedigree was unsurpassed. Everybody knew that when he said that. He was educated to the best and specifically strictly according to the what? According to the law. Now, the Jewish folks were rejecting him because supposedly he was teaching against the what? The law. He's saying, I was strictly trained in the law. He's identifying himself with them. When he wrote to the churches in Galatia earlier, chronologically than this, he said this, I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries among all my countrymen, being more extremely zealous for my ancestral traditions. In other words, he's saying is I challenge you to prove that you are any more zealous than I used to be for about the very things you're zealous about. I used to be just like you. You need to know that. Then Paul points out that his zealousness was like their zealousness. He says he was zealous for God just like you. In other words, he understands the nature of the zeal for God that was expressed in their zeal against him, supposedly for the law of Moses. Of course, the law of Moses points everyone to Jesus as the Messiah, so ultimately Jesus would say in his ministry, you're not zealous about Moses, because if you were, you'd be zealous about me as the Messiah. But he's making the point, I was zealous just like you. So Paul says, I was zealous for God just like you. In fact, he says, I persecuted those of the way. Look at verse 4. I persecuted this way to the death. Again, Christians were spoken of as those of the way because they followed Jesus who they knew to be the way. Paul says, my zeal matched and even outpaced your zeal. And he points out that he was persecuting the church, those of the way, he was actually imprisoning, and he actually had gone so far to lead a persecution and receive letters to imprison people and take them back. And so the point would be, he's saying, listen, I was even on my way to Damascus with official Sanhedrin letters to have Jewish people of the way arrested and brought back to Jerusalem for punishment. And we saw that back in Acts 9. In fact, we saw Paul or Saul, both names for the Apostle Paul, was leading a major persecution against the church. But everything changed on his way to Damascus. So Paul has demonstrated that he used to be just like those he was speaking to. Then he goes on to say this, alright, I used to be just like you, but Jesus, what? Jesus saved me. I used to be just like you, but Jesus saved me. Now, this is the second time in this book that we're going to read of Paul's conversion. In fact, there's three times. In a few weeks, we're going to look at it again. The first time was in Acts 9. Paul's conversion there is narrated by Luke. Here, and later on in the book, Paul himself is telling us about his conversion. In Acts 9, we consider together that really his conversion focused on Christ's sovereign converting grace in his life. What does it mean to be converted? It doesn't mean something that's militaristic. It doesn't mean forcing someone to trust in Christ. That is completely opposite of anything that the Bible teaches. It means this, the sinner's act of turning to Christ, which is composed of turning from sin, that is repentance, and trusting in Christ, faith for salvation by the supernatural grace of God. That's what Paul is going to describe here. He's going to describe the supernatural converting grace of Christ at work in his life. But he does so as he's trying to convince his Jewish audience, his own people, that he's not against them. That in fact, they share much in common. But the reason he has changed is because he received revelation from heaven from the Lord. about, in fact, from the Lord who is the Messiah, Jesus. There's no way to skip over the reality that though he and his audience had much background in common, he is totally a different person now. Why is that? Well, Paul wants them to know it's because he was confronted by the crucified, risen, and ascended Lord, Jesus. from heaven. So first of all, we notice this. Jesus sovereignly took the initiative to confront me with His grace, He says. Look at verse 6. But it happened that as I was on my way approaching Damascus about noontime, a very bright light suddenly flashed from heaven all around me. Suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. And what was that light that arrested Jesus? It was what He would speak of later. Paul says this in 2 Corinthians 4, 6, For God, who said, Light shall shine out of darkness, is the one who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of who? Face of Jesus. This is the light, the blinding light that he saw. The light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus who revealed himself to Saul, to Paul at that very moment. He says, I should point out, when I say that Jesus revealed himself to Saul, I don't merely mean spiritually, though Jesus did that as well. I mean that Saul was given a blinding glimpse of Christ, the bodily resurrected Jesus from heaven. He saw Christ, who was crucified but now risen. Paul is saying to those in the angry crowd, I literally saw the resurrected, ascended Messiah Jesus. At this point of what Paul was recounting, at the point of when Paul was recounting this, he had already written in Corinthians that he had seen Jesus. But what Paul's especially pointing out to those he's speaking before is that while he was zealously opposing those who trusted in Jesus as the Jewish Messiah, Jesus, the Jewish Messiah, confronted him from heaven, taking the initiative to turn Paul to himself for salvation. Paul is clear. He was just going about his deeds of zealousness, supposedly for God, against God's own Son, the Messiah, and God's own Son, the Messiah, who he rejected out of hand, confronted him on that road, and revealed his true identity, and converted Paul to himself. How did he do this? He did so by personally confronting, Paul says, me with himself. He personally confronted me with himself. Look at verse 7. And I fell to the ground and I heard a voice saying to me, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? And I answered, who are you, Lord? And he said to me, I am Jesus the Nazarene whom you are persecuting. And those who were with me saw the light to be sure, but did not understand the voice of the one who was speaking to me." This is a remarkable thing that Paul is saying happened to him. Those in the crowd would have known that the Lord called to Moses from the burning what? The burning bush. Moses, Moses. They would have known that the Lord called Samuel in the temple. Samuel, Samuel. And now Paul is saying that the Lord, the Messiah from heaven called Paul, Paul or Saul, Saul. Paul tells the crowd that Jesus confronted him with his identity in relationship to how he was persecuting those of the way. Paul is very clear here. He thought, as he persecuted the church, that he was actually what? Serving who? He thought he was serving God. But actually, He was persecuting the Son of God. And he's saying, listen, when you reject me because I accept the Messiah, you're actually rejecting who? The Lord. He's saying, if you're Jewish, and you will not accept the Messiah, you're rejecting the Lord you think you're worshipping, like I used to do. In this very moment, Paul found out that he was fighting against God Himself. And Paul is saying to the mob before him, you're supposedly zealous for God, but actually, as you reject Jesus Messiah, you're fighting against God. This was the case because Jesus so identifies Himself with His people, the church, that those of the way, and those of the way that it could be said, whenever they were persecuted, whoever was persecuting them was persecuting who? The Messiah. Of course, what Paul was confronted with on that day, and what the crowd was confronted with, and what we are confronted with this morning, is that all those who have been converted to Christ, all those who have been born again, are truly part of the one invisible body of Christ. And when they are persecuted, when we are persecuted, there is a persecution of who? Of Christ. Look at verse 9. Those who were with me saw the light, to be sure, but did not understand the voice of the one who was speaking to me. In Acts 9 we're told that they heard the voice, but they did not see Jesus. Here we're told that they saw the light and they did hear the sound of the voice, but they didn't understand what was being said. So others were aware that something was happening, but Jesus directly and personally confronted who? Paul, just like in a service like this, there could be more than one person that doesn't know Christ, and in this time, Jesus can confront one of them and bring them to Himself. Others see something happen in their life and change, but they don't have it happen in their life. While we are not to look for this kind of in-the-flesh personal confrontation from Jesus to people today, it is true that when the Gospel is proclaimed, Jesus through the Word and by the working of the Spirit confronts people and brings them to Himself. In Nix we notice He did so by bringing me, Paul says, into submission to Himself as Lord. Look at verse 10. And I said, what shall I do, Lord? Now what is so astounding about Paul saying, Lord, All of His life, He's worshipped who? The Lord. Now, He's speaking to Jesus the Messiah as who? Lord. Do you see that? Do you see how Jesus is the fulfillment of the Old Testament proclamation of the one true God, Yahweh? He is the fulfillment. He is the revelation of this one true God. And Paul says, what shall I do, Lord? The Lord said to me, get up and go into Damascus, and there you will be told of all that has been appointed for you to do. Notice he's saying, what shall I do? There's a spirit of submission. He's saying, he went from persecuting Jesus of Nazareth and his followers to saying, what should I do for you? There's a total transformation of his loyalties. It's important for Paul's defense for him to make clear with his Jewish people that he was doing what he was doing and they were objecting to what he was doing. He was doing what he was doing for who? The Lord. And they were rejecting what he was doing for the Lord. Look, verse 11, but since I could not see because of the brightness of that light, I was led by the hand of those who were with me and came into Damascus. So Paul has said this so far in his attempt to evangelistically defend the nature of his ministry to his Jewish people. Number one, I used to be just like who? I used to be just like you. Number two, Jesus saved me. And number three, Jesus called me to tell all people about Him. I used to be just like you, but Jesus saved me and He called me to tell all people about Him. This is really at the heart of Paul's evangelistic defense of his ministry. He was doing what he was doing because Jesus, the divine Messiah, the Son of God, confronted him and saved him. Of course, this is true on a non-apostolic level as well. Jesus doesn't save people simply to save them. He saves people so that others might be reached, what? Through them. You don't want to view your salvation like God saved you and you're a dead end. Okay? No, no, no. You're a thoroughfare. God saved you as a thoroughfare. He saved you because He wants to move through you to other people to save them. He doesn't make us a reservoir of His grace when He saves us. He lavishes us with His grace so that we might be a conduit of His grace to other people. And what Jesus saved him from was living a life of fighting against God, thinking he was fighting for God, by going against this Jesus person and his followers. Paul is saying to the crowd by implication, you need to be arrested by the sovereign grace of God in Christ just like I was. Because unless you are, you're going to continue to fight against the one you say you worship. And now that I am his, Paul says, he's called me to tell people about him. Not just some people, but what? All people. In Paul's explanation of the call that Jesus laid on his life, he said this, he used Ananias, a recognized, devout, law-keeping Jewish man to miraculously heal my sight." Okay? Several things there. He used a recognized, devout, law-keeping Jewish man to miraculously restore my sight. He could add a law-keeping, devout, believing in the Messiah Jewish man. That's what God did. Look at verse 12. And a certain Ananias, a man who was devout by the standard of the law and well spoken of by all the Jews who lived there, came to me and standing near to me said, Brother Saul, receive your sight. And at that very time I looked up at him. Paul's making the point that not only did Jesus confront him from heaven as Lord, as the resurrected and ascended Lord, and appointed him to tell all people about Jesus, but Jesus actually used a devout Jewish man who had accepted the Messiah, who was devout according to the law, to perform a miracle through him. He was a God-fearing man. And not according to just anyone's standards, but Paul is clear by the standards of the law. The very thing that the crowd was so worked up in a frenzy about concerning Paul. This is not just Paul's opinion about this man. It was the opinion of all the Jews that knew Ananias in the town. In other words, all the people that knew him knew this was a law-respecting man. And Jesus the Messiah used him to perform a miracle through for Paul. Paul had been blinded, but Jesus performed a miracle through Ananias on Paul, and he received his sight. Another vindication to what Paul was doing, proclaiming Jesus as the Messiah. Paul goes on to say, Jesus used Ananias, a recognized devout law-keeping Jewish man, to miraculously restore my sight, and to explain that it was the God of our fathers His plan for me to be confronted by the Messiah. Look at verse 14. This is so important to Paul's point. And he said, "...the God of our fathers has appointed you to know His will, and to see the righteous one, and to hear an utterance from His mouth." Notice Paul points out Ananias speaking of God in Jewish terms. The God of our what? Our fathers, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. The God of our fathers had a plan for me to be confronted by the Righteous One. And to hear an utterance from His mouth. Now, we hear that and we say, well yeah, Jesus is the Righteous One. He's righteous. And we just go on. And that's great and that's good. But the problem with that understanding is He is righteous and that's wonderful. But it's actually a technical term for the Messiah. Listen to what Jeremiah 23.5 says, Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, talking about the messianic age, when I will raise up for David a righteous branch, and he will reign as king and act wisely and do justice and righteousness in the land. So who's going to be raised up after David as a righteous branch? The Messiah. Isaiah 53 11 as a result of the anguish of his soul, he will see it and be satisfied by his knowledge. The righteous one, my servant, will justify the many as he will bear their iniquities. It was clear that the righteous one was a messianic title that his the crowd would have recognized. So very clearly, Paul is pointing out that wrapped up in his conversion and called by Jesus, he was told by Ananias that it was the God of the Jewish fathers who appointed Paul to be confronted by the Jewish Messiah. And who might that Jewish Messiah be? None other than Jesus of Nazareth. But why? Why did Ananias say that the God of the fathers wanted Paul to see the Messiah, the Righteous One? Hear an utterance from His name. We'll look at verse 15. For you will be a witness for Him to all of what you have seen and heard. In other words, because I was to be a witness, Paul says, to all people for Jesus, for the Messiah, of what I had seen and heard. Actually, if you'll notice here, it says this, and he said, The God of our fathers has appointed you to know all his will, and to see the righteous one, and to hear an utterance from his mouth, for you will be a witness for him. For who? For the Messiah. But if the Father appointed this, you could say He's actually a witness for who? For the Lord, right? The one true God. For the Father, for the Son, by the Holy Spirit. This is what He's saying. Paul says the whole point of why it was God's plan for him to be confronted by the risen and ascended Lord Jesus Christ was that he might be a witness for Jesus as the Messiah of what he had both seen and heard. But notice it says, a witness to what people? To all people. Now, look at verse 16. And this can be a little confusing, but Paul's next point is this, and that he says, and that the first step in doing so was to publicly profess my faith in Christ through baptism. Look at verse 16. Now why do you delay, Ananias said to Paul, get up and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on his name. There's two reasons why this could be confusing. Number one, and this is pretty easy to understand quickly once we look at it, you might think that your sins are washed away by what? Baptism. But that's not what the text says. And that's not what Scripture says. Notice what it says. It says, verse 16, wash away your sins, what? Calling on His name. You could say it literally. That's the literal translation. The usage of that is this. The connection is this. By calling on His name. Okay? Wash away your sins. Not by baptism, but by what? calling on His name. Now, it is true in that time that when someone trusted in Christ, because there was such persecution, and because there was not confusion on what baptism meant, alright, they got baptized when? They trusted Christ, they got what? Baptized. In fact, you might not even know someone had trusted Christ until they got what? And as they got baptized, they called on the name of the Lord, and their sins were washed away. Not because of the water, but because of the calling upon the name of the Lord. The baptism was a sign of what was happening, or had happened, in the soul of the person spiritually. So, this is not teaching that baptism saves. Scripture is clear elsewhere on that. But secondly, you might have a question about this. Wasn't Paul already what? Wasn't he already saved? And I'd say, yes, he was. I'd say that when Christ confronted him and he said, what should I do, Lord? Though the text doesn't explicitly tell us that he truly was converted then. There is one evidence of that. In Acts 9, Ananias, when he comes to say these things to him, says, Brother Saul, and it's the term of a fellow what? Believer. So what's going on here? He's basically saying, listen, the first step after my knowledge and trust in Christ was to publicly profess that I had called on His name and that my sins had been washed away. So Paul has said, I used to be just like you, but Jesus saved me. Jesus called me to tell all people about Him. And next, Jesus explained that you, my own people, would not accept you would not accept my testimony, so He sent me far away." To the what? To the Gentiles. Later, he says, when I returned to Jerusalem, Jesus spoke to me in the temple, warning me to flee Jerusalem because of your rejection of my testimony. Look at verse 17. It happened, when I returned to Jerusalem and I was praying in the temple, remember, notice, in the temple, that I fell into a trance and I saw Him saying to me, saw who? Saw Jesus saying to me, make haste and get out of Jerusalem quickly because they will not accept your testimony about me. Paul doesn't explain all the chronology, but when you put everything together with Acts 9 and Galatians 1, when it says, when I return to Jerusalem, he's talking about a return to Jerusalem three years after his conversion. But this is another way for Paul to defend the nature of his ministry and to contradict the slander that had been said about him. Clearly, he wasn't against the temple. If three years after his conversion, he was where? In the temple, right? But also, there's a remarkable statement again about the fact that what Paul was all about was actually from God himself. Once again, there's a rich history in the Old Testament of revelations from the Lord coming to people in the what? The temple. Where was Samuel when the Lord said Samuel, Samuel? He was where? In the temple. Showing he was a prophet, right? Where was Isaiah? We're told in Isaiah 6. There's this imagery of the temple and the Lord says to Isaiah. There's this revelation. But notice as well that the vision that Paul received was from Jesus in the what? In the temple. Not only does this vision say something about Paul, being obviously a messenger of the one true Lord, but here Jesus came to Paul in a vision in the temple. It says much about Jesus. What did Jesus say? Make haste, get out of Jerusalem quickly because they will not accept your testimony about me. Jesus was clear with Paul that Paul's own Jewish people would not, by and large, accept his testimony about Jesus being the Messiah, the Righteous One. Very transparently, Paul tells the crowd his objection to what Jesus said. Look what he says, verse 19. And you understand why he thinks this. I said, Lord, they themselves, the Jewish people, my brothers and sisters, know, they understand that in one synagogue after another, I used to imprison and beat those who believed in you. And when the blood of your witness Stephen was being shed, I was also standing by approving and watching for the coats of those who were slaying him. And he said, Go, for I will send you far away to the Gentiles. Paul is clear with the crowd. Listen, he says, I cannot understand why you would reject my testimony when it was obvious to you that He, the Messiah, had actually changed me. That's what Paul is saying. Paul's point to Jesus is obvious. Surely they will understand that you are in fact the Messiah. You totally changed me. Who can explain how I've changed? How could they not recognize, folks? How could they not recognize the obvious transformation that the Lord had done in Paul's life? Of course, the explanation is what the Lord would use Paul to write about in the future. And that is that men and women are born into this world totally what? Depraved, blind to spiritual truth. The reason they didn't get it was because they didn't want to. Though they said they loved God and followed after His ways, they were actually using their Jewish faith. Catch this. They were actually using their Jewish faith that had been revealed by the Lord Himself to follow after a God of their own making. And in their religion, they had put a religious veneer on their rebellion against God and unwillingness to subject themselves to the one true God who sent his own son as the Jewish Messiah and fulfillment to the Jewish scriptures. Paul, though, relates that Jesus was steadfast in this instruction to leave Jerusalem. But Jesus was very clear, he says, I was to go far away to the Gentiles. As soon as Paul says that I was supposed to go to the Gentiles, the whole situation changes. Paul desired to defend the nature of his testimony or his ministry about the Messiah before his Jewish people. He evangelistically defended it. We just went through that. But thirdly, what would the response to this evangelistic defense be? Well, not surprisingly, Paul's defense and testimony of the nature of his ministry about the Messiah was what? It was rejected. Verse 22, they listened to him up to this statement. I mean, they listened to a lot. They listened to a lot of evidence that they were on the wrong side of what was supposed to be happening here. But when they heard that, they raised their voices and said, away with such a fellow from the earth for he should not even be allowed to live. And as they were crying out and throwing their clothes and tossing the dust in the air, they were doing this as they were doing that. Their hatred for the idea that God might have a plan for the Gentiles drove them to reject the weighty case that Paul had made that they were rejecting their own Messiah. And so it became even clearer that in their rejection of Paul and his message about Jesus, the Jewish Messiah, they were in fact rejecting the very God that they claimed to be serving and worshiping as His chosen people. And so, the Roman commander was going to beat Paul to find out the truth about his part in the riot. Just look at verse 24. Really strange thinking here, right? Verse 24. The commander ordered him to be brought into the barracks stating that he should be examined by scourging so that he might find out one reason why they were shouting against him that way. It's possible the commander did not understand what Paul was saying. Alright, so he says in Greek to him, can I say something to this crowd? And the guy's like, oh, you're not the Egyptian terrorist? Sure, go ahead. And then Paul speaks in the Hebrew dialect. And he's like, he's watching the crowd, he's watching Saul and Paul. Trying to pick up the vibes here. When Paul says, and so I was told to go to the Gentiles, the commander got the vibes. The crowd was not accepting, and this speech was not going to take care of the riot. And so he's like, well, if I've got to figure this guy out, I'm going to beat him until he tells me what's going on here, you know? You've got to wonder about the method of Rome, right? I'm just going to beat it out of him, right? That's my first thought. We've got an answer for this. This is how Rome went about their so-called legal process. As long as they were dealing with someone who wasn't a Roman citizen. But Paul exerted his rights as a Roman citizen for the cause of the gospel. Look at verse 25. But when they stretched him out with thongs, Paul said to the centurion who was standing by. You've got to love how he does this. I mean, he's about to get the worst kind of beating a human being could ever get. And he goes, hey, just a heads up, is it lawful for you to scourge a man who is a Roman citizen? When the centurion heard this, he went to the commander. I'd have been screaming, right? I'm a Roman citizen! What are you doing? I would have been tempted to say that a long time earlier than that. Okay? When the centurion heard this, he went to the commander and told him, saying, what are you about to do for this man's a Roman? The commander came and said to him, tell me, are you a Roman? And he said, yes. The commander answered, I acquired this citizenship with a large sum of money. Paul said, but I was actually born a citizen. It's a good moment, right? Therefore, those who were about to examine him immediately let go of him, and the commander also was afraid when he found out that he was a Roman, and because he had put him in chains. What's the background to this? Well, Paul exerted his rights as a Roman citizenship for the cause of the gospel. Earlier, he didn't do it for the cause of the gospel. Now he does. They had stretched him out with thongs. This was whipping with leather thongs that had rough pieces of bone or metal attached to them. It was an instrument of torture that often led to death. Let me read you a quote. The soldiers stretched him out. That is, they spread him in a forward position, creating a tense posture of his upper body, so that the blows will inflict maximum damage on the naked skin. So Paul was not pulling this card out immediately. It was like right there. And he says, he's bent over, about to get the beating of his life, and he says, is it lawful for you to do this? Of course Paul knew it wasn't. A Roman citizen had to be tried legally before being beaten. When the centurion heard this, he says, what are you about to do? He goes to his commander, what are you about to do? This guy's a Roman citizen. Paul probably did not carry proof of his citizenship. People would be very reticent to claim to be a Roman citizen if they really weren't. Because if it was proven they weren't, it was their head. So if someone said he was a Roman citizen, you took them at their word until you found out otherwise. The commander says, I acquired this citizenship with a large sum of money. Probably the price the commander was speaking of was the bribe of a Roman official to be put on a list so he could become a citizen. In other words, he's saying, listen, my family was wealthy, or I came upon some kind of money. I actually paid a lot of money for it. He doesn't say it, but this is what's going on. Historically, that's the case. He bribed someone to get him on the list to become a citizen. Paul says, oh yeah, well, I was actually born a citizen. And of course, that blows this guy's mind. Probably Paul, we don't know exactly how it happened, probably one of his ancestors, maybe his grandparents, maybe his parents, had done some kind of a notable deed for a Roman official and it earned them their citizenship and their future descendants' citizenship. Think about God's sovereignty in that, before Paul was even saved, that God was planning that. Therefore, those who were about to examine him immediately let go of him. And the commander also was afraid when he found out that he was a Roman and because he had put him in chains. It was illegal to do this to a Roman citizenship without a trial. If you weren't a Roman citizen, if you were not a Roman citizen, they could beat the truth out of you. But if you're a Roman citizen, they had to have a trial before they beat you. Folks, I think we can look at what Paul did here and be instructed to handle a situation that will arise if we are careful to tell others about Jesus. We're not going to find ourselves on the stairs on the way up to a Roman fort with the angry crowd in Jerusalem screaming against us because of our faith in Jesus. But at some point, someone is going to say something to this effect to you. What right do you have to talk to me about spiritual things and assume that you have the truth and I don't? Right? And what's your response going to be when someone has that spirit towards you and is rejecting you and making life difficult because you've been a testimony for Christ? We can do what Paul does. First we need to have a burden to actually tell them why it's important for them to know Jesus. We must have a burden to tell people even if it's going to cause more trouble for us to do it. You hear that? Paul had a burden to do that, even though it was going to cause him more trouble. He could have just packed his bag and said, thank you for this Roman. I'll just wait until I'm in the barracks and I'll pull out my Roman citizenship card. I'm delivered from over here. We'll see what happens over there. Thank you, Lord. But he said, no, no, no. Hey, can I talk to this crowd that hates me? I want to tell them about Jesus. Folks, is that your desire? And we ought to tell them when we tell them, I used to be what? I used to be what? Just like you. Maybe not exactly like Paul did, but I used to be a condemned sinner just like you. But who? But what happened? But Jesus saved me and He told me to tell you about Him. That's what I was saved for. God loves you. That's why I'm telling you about Him. He changed me to tell you about Him. And He also told me that a lot of times people aren't going to accept what I say. But you know what? I didn't accept for a while either. But then I did by His grace. And I want to just keep telling you about Him because He loves you. And I want you to be saved. And I want you to be in His presence forever. Folks, is that your desire? We know that it's natural for sinners to reject Jesus, but that we cannot but tell them about Him. We have to tell people about what we've seen and heard. We have to. And we have to do it not standing on our own rights, unless it furthers the what? Unless it furthers the gospel. This is the message Paul had for his own Jewish people. Listen, I used to be just like you, but the Messiah saved me from heaven, the Lord, and he told me to tell you about him. And I know you're going to reject primarily, but let me tell you, that's why I'm going to tell everybody about Him. He's the Messiah. He's your Messiah. Won't you trust in Him? Folks, let me ask you. First of all, have you accepted Jesus as the Messiah? Don't miss this. The claim of the Scriptures is that Jesus is the Lord of the Old Testament. He is the Son of God. Have you accepted Him as the Jewish Messiah? Have you turned to Him? Have you been converted? If you have, Is it your burning desire to defend to people that reject Him why it is that they need to hear about Him and that you're telling them? Is that your desire? I invite you this morning to respond in worship to the Lord. Some here this morning need, you need to respond in worship this morning for the first time and lay down your arms of rebellion against God, and stop trying to save yourself, and stop rejecting His truth in your life, and simply collapse in faith in Jesus alone. You need to do that. I implore you to do that today. And some here, all of us here, need to commit that we are going to tell people about Jesus, even if they don't want to hear about it. We're going to do it wisely, we're going to do it lovingly, we're going to do it winsomely, But we're going to do it because they need it. And somebody did it for us. And we're going to see God saving people amidst rejection. And God is going to use us like a conduit of his grace to bring more trophies of grace into his kingdom to display for all eternity. Let's pray. Father, we thank you. for your son. We worship him as the Jewish Messiah. We worship him as the Messiah for the Gentiles. We worship him as the grace, your grace, the grace of God that has appeared, making salvation available to all. and we rejoice that it is Christ, the grace of you, that is instructing your people today to stand upon the advancement of the gospel, wielding their rights for the good or not wielding their rights for the good of the gospel, loving people that naturally reject your love. We pray that you would do this in our hearts and that you would advance your purposes here today. I pray for anyone here that really is still under the wrath, your wrath for their sins, would you please draw them to yourself? Would you confront them with your grace? And would you bring them to faith in Christ today? We pray that you would use the gospel in this community. Lord, there are many, many Jews who we love that do not yet know Christ as their Messiah. We pray for their salvation. There are many Gentiles who do not yet know you through the Messiah. We pray for their salvation, and we pray that our lives would be so transformed that it would be a pointer to who you truly are. We thank you that we used to be like them, but you saved us, and you saved us to tell them about you. We pray all these things in Christ's name, amen.
Messianic Ministry to All Defended
Série Exposition of Acts
ID do sermão | 314171123532 |
Duração | 1:05:05 |
Data | |
Categoria | Domingo - AM |
Texto da Bíblia | Atos 21:37 |
Linguagem | inglês |
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