Welcome to Gospel City. How’s everybody doing in the house of the Lord today? It’s good to hear you smiling, or see you smiling, hear you laughing, talking, hugging. Does anybody bring their Bible to church in 2022? Let’s see those Bibles if you’ve got a Bible. All right. God’s Word all around the room. What a privilege. Go ahead and open your Bibles this morning to Acts chapter 9, Acts chapter 9, ok. And we won’t get there for a little bit, but you can hang there and I’ll meet you there in a while. We’re going to flip through our Bibles a little bit.
But if you remember, from September all the way through November we carefully went through each verse of Acts chapters 1-8. And so if you haven’t been with us in a while, that’s what we did in the fall. And we just expositionally went through this text of God building His church. And today we’re not going to go super expositionally in the text per se, but we’re really going to get the context. We’re going to start out by reviewing where we’ve been. And so if you weren’t with us, I’ll bring you up to speed today.
And then we’re going to see this really pivotal moment that’s about to happen in Acts chapter 9. I’m already really pumped about next week. And so plan on getting excited about diving into the book of Acts together. But it’s an exciting book. There’s been a lot of action in the first eight chapters.
In your Bibles when you open it, it probably says “The Acts of the Apostles.” It’s really the acts of the apostles as they’re obedient to Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. A better kind of title for this book would be what Allen Thompson said. Allen Thompson said this: “The acts of the Lord Jesus through His people by the Holy Spirit for the accomplishment of the Father’s purpose.” That’s really a great portrayal of what the book of Acts has been, wouldn’t you say?
It’s all about Christ. Only Christ can take cowards and thieves and those who were hiding and denying their faith. And we’ll see very shortly that God can take murderers and persecutors and use them as instruments for His glory to accomplish His will. If you zoom out on the book of Acts you shouldn’t be saying, “Aw man, Peter was awesome. Aw man, Paul was awesome. Aw man, the apostles were awesome.”
What you should say is, “Oh how awesome is Jesus.” Right? And that’s what it’s all about. That’s what this is all about this morning as we gather here. We never want you to walk out of this room saying, “Man, that was an awesome service,” or “That was an awesome worship set,” or “That was an awesome message.” We want you to walk out every single Sunday saying how awesome Jesus is, because it’s always all been about Jesus, right?
And if you’ll remember what Jesus said to Peter in Matthew 16:18, He said this: I will build my church. And then he said, “But the Sanhedrin, they’re really going to be a problem. They’ll slow the process down.” No. He said, “I will build my church and you’re going to face a lot of opposition. It’s going to be really hard and…”
He didn’t say that. He said, I will build my church and the gates of hell won’t even stand against me. The gates of hell won’t even prevail, because what Christ has said will come to pass, will come to pass by His divine power. No power of hell, no scheme of man, can stop the Lord God almighty. And because the apostles had this hope, they could get busy on the mission that Christ gave them.
So let’s just start out reviewing Acts chapter 1-8, ok? So I’m going to flip through the pages of Acts starting in chapter 1. You’re welcome to do that with me or you just wait for me in Acts chapter 9. Ok? But I’ve got five kind of points of review that I’ll give to you today.
The first one is this: Christ commissions His apostles. It’s all about Jesus. It’s His power. Christ commissions His apostles in Acts chapter 1. Let me read to you Acts chapter 1 starting in verse 6. It says this: So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom of Israel?” He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons what the Father has fixed by his own authority.” (Acts 1:6-7)
So if you’ll remember, Luke penned Acts. He penned the gospel of Luke. Luke leaves off right as Jesus comes out of the grave. He reveals Himself to the apostles. They’re standing on the Mount of Olivet. And they’re expecting Jesus now to restore the new heavens and the new earth, do what all the prophets of old said.
And yet Jesus is like, “No, now is not that time. That’s in the Father’s hands.” And so we can take great heart in the fact that Jesus didn’t say that wasn’t going to happen. Jesus will come again. And so just as He came the first time, we hope and wait for Him to come a second time.
But then He gives them the Great Commission in Acts 1:8, which is the purpose statement of this great book that we’ve been reading. So Acts 1:8 Jesus says this: But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. That’s the purpose statement of the book of Acts.
Hey, you’re going to be filled with the Holy Spirit, you’re going to be my witnesses, and it won’t be for only you Jews in Jerusalem, but it’s got to get to the ends of the earth.
And then the second major moment that we see in the book of Acts starts in Acts chapter 2. The second thing is this: Christ sends His Holy Spirit. So first you saw, you remember you saw Christ commissioning His apostles. Then Christ sends the Holy Spirit.
Let me read to you in Acts 2:1-4. When the day of Pentecost arrived, that’s ten days later, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues.
So Jesus tells them, “Hey, you’ve got to be my witnesses.”
They’re like, “What does that mean?” They go back to Jerusalem. They start to pray, they start to read Scripture. They start to obey and worship Christ. Ten days later the Holy Spirit, the promise of heaven, comes in the most epic way possible. Like a locomotive running its way through the temple, right? All the worshippers and the apostles are filled with the Holy Spirit, baptized in the Holy Spirit and tongue-like fires appear on their heads.
They all begin speaking in different languages signifying that God is no longer just a God for the Jews but He is a God of every tribe, every tongue, every nation. They didn’t know what all that meant at the time, but it was just a miraculous moment as Christ fulfilled His promise, sending the Holy Spirit in the book of Acts.
And then Peter preaches an awesome sermon, the first sermon of the local church. And the third thing that we see as we continue in the book of Acts is Christ establishes the church family. Christ established the church family once the Holy Spirit comes, Acts 2:42 all the way through 47 you see what the family of God looks like. The redeemed people that Christ is building up as He begins to create a Body for Himself for His glory, we see what it looks like.
They devote themselves to the apostle’s teaching, to the fellowship. They break bread together. They pray together. They are in awe together. They worship together. They have all things in common. They start selling their possessions to care for one another. If somebody needed a meal, they provided a meal. If somebody needed cared for because they were sick, they cared for that person.
I see remnants of the family of God all through this church. It’s amazing. I see small groups. That’s why Pastor Tyler said, “Are you in community? Are you in a small group? It takes a big church and it makes it smaller whenever you’re known. And when we start to care for one another, that’s because of what Christ established in the book of Acts whenever he established the family of God. We’ve been talking about it so much this year.
And the truth is that the harder it gets outside the walls of this place, the stronger it should get in here. The world doesn’t pose a threat on the church. You know what poses a threat? If we stop loving one another, if we stop serving one another, if we stop meeting one another’s needs and praying for one another and worshiping together. And so we hold fast to what Christ began in the book of Acts knowing that nothing can stand against Him. So we must love one another as the family of God.
And then number four, kind of big moment. Acts chapter 3 all the way through chapter 7 we see that Christ prevails over opposition. Christ prevails over opposition. The church takes off with great momentum. Peter and the apostles get busy. They begin preaching. They begin teaching. They begin discipling.
Can you imagine the discipleship effort after 3,000 souls were saved on the first day when the Holy Spirit came? I mean, imagine all the questions. Imagine all the “What do I do with this? How do I live for Jesus Christ?” This is where the apostles get busy teaching them all that Christ had commanded.
But as the gospel began to advance, it was met with a lot of opposition. The apostles healed and saw people saved, but they were arrested, questioned, and threatened. First they go before the Sanhedrin in Acts chapter 4. They were warned to stop proclaiming Christ, but they wouldn’t do that. They go off, they begin to proclaim Christ. The church continues to advance.
And then in Acts chapter 5 they go before the Sanhedrin again and they’re questioned, they’re told to stop preaching the gospel. I love what Peter says in Holy Spirit boldness, Acts 5:29. He says, We must obey God rather than man. I mean, that’s an amazing testimony of someone who’s actually in Christ. I must obey God rather than man.
The world would try to tell you, you know, this is irrelevant. The words on this page are ever-evolving as the world changes. These things are good principles. No. These are the words of God, and we as Christians, we as believers, must obey God rather than man.
And Peter, he looks at them in Acts 5:29. He says, The God of our fathers raised Jesus whom you killed, by hanging on a tree. And then they were beaten, they were flogged, before the Sanhedrin, told not to preach about Jesus. In Acts 5:41 I love it. It says they left the presence of the counsel rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name. And every day in the temple and from house to house they did not cease teaching and preaching that Christ is Jesus.
Do you remember Pastor Tyler Holder’s kind of ups and downs that he gave us? The diagram he showed us? That’s a great representation of exactly what’s happening. There’s a lot of moments of advance, a lot of high mountain top moments in the early church. You had Pentecost and boldness and healing and growth and rejoicing, preaching, teaching, deacons, further advancement of the structure, the governance of the church as they prioritize the word of God going forward.
But every moment of advance had seemingly a moment of opposition. And then every moment of opposition had a massive moment of advance. That should be encouraging to you that God uses the opposition in our lives to advance His gospel purposes.
Some of your lives probably feel a lot like this diagram, the ups and downs, and maybe you can relate. You’ve been in high places, but right now you feel like you’re stuck in a valley. Right now you feel like, “I just want to get to the top of the hill. I just want to start climbing. I feel like, “Where is God? What is he doing?” And you feel a lot of opposition.
My encouragement to you today is that God uses opposition in our lives to advance His purposes, to get glory in the church. And so don’t lose heart. We see it in the early church. Surely He will continue.
And then finally, the fifth thing that we see as we review Acts chapter 1-8 is this: Christ uses persecution for His glory. Christ uses persecution for His glory. It’s no surprise the church continues to grow in Acts chapter 8 as deacons are called and the preaching of the Word is prioritized.
But we were introduced to Stephen, this remarkable Hellenistic Jew chosen to serve the Jews. And then he gets emboldened and he goes out beyond Jerusalem, begins speaking to the synagogues and begins speaking with a lot of wisdom. They didn’t like what he had to say so they accuse him of blasphemy against the law, the temple, Moses and God. They take him back to the Sanhedrin and he gives his epic speech of how they’re the ones actually blaspheming.
And then Stephen becomes the first martyr, which of course led to the scattering of the Jews, ultimately the spreading of the gospel. And, you know, the Jews wouldn’t have understood that the gospel needs to get to other places. Or how is it going to go to other places?
Well, God used the death of Stephen to scatter people into regions where the Jews wouldn’t have gone, into Samaria and north. And you see Philip in Samaria witnessing. You see Philip leading the Ethiopian eunuch to Christ. And we assume that he took the gospel message back to his homeland.
And so God is using the opposing moments to spread the gospel all throughout the regions that Christ said it would be done. Christ was building His church and nothing, not murder, not persecution, not stoning, nothing could stand against him. Nothing could stand in his way. It’s awesome isn’t it? It’s an amazing reminder of what we see happening.
Now hang with me. I know it’s a lot of teaching today, and it’ll feel that way. But I think the context of Scripture is so important as we read and as we review. So we review all of that today because in Acts chapter 9 we see the second of three focuses begin to take place, ok? Acts chapters 1-8 focused on the gospel getting to Jerusalem, the gospel getting to Jews in Jerusalem.
In Acts chapters 9-12 we’re about to see the gospel rapidly spreading into Judea, into Samaria. Ultimately the focus is now about to shift onto the Gentiles, the Gentiles, you and me, not growing up in the Jewish world, ok?
And then Acts 13-26 we will see the gospel making it to Greece, to Europe and ultimately heading towards the ends of the earth. News flash: the gospel has not made it to the needs of the earth yet. I was reading this week there are 3.2 billion unreached people in the world, 3.2 billion people who if you spoke the name of Jesus, if you told them that Christ died to save them from their sins, they would have no idea what you are talking about.
So we are still on this mission of glorifying God and making disciples. And the world is in desperate need of believers who would set their sights on people who have never heard the saving message of Jesus.
But listen. As twenty-first century American Christians, it’s almost impossible to appreciate this monumental shift that’s about to take place in the narrative of Acts. We take it for granted that the gospel has made it to us, right? Like a lot of us grew up in Christian homes hearing about this faith, singing these songs, reading the Bible, having access to the Bible.
It’s easy to take for granted, but there was a day when it was inconceivable to God-fearing Jews that the promises of God would be for all peoples, you understand. As readers of the Bible we have to instead that the lightbulb didn’t go on right away for even the apostles. So as God, as Jesus, gives them this Great Commission, it’s gotta go to Judea and Samaria, to the ends of the earth. Like, wait, what?
There’s a tension that begins in the book of Acts and we kind of see that tension, we’ll see that, as we continue to study the book of Acts. That tension is always there. They’re asking questions like, “Do Gentiles have to become Jews or do Messianic Jews have to stop being Jews? Or will there be a Gentile version of Christianity and a Jewish version of Christianity?” You could imagine all of the questions that accompanied those steeped in Judaism.
And as the target for gospel transformation shifts from the Jews to the Gentiles in Acts chapter 9, we see the Lord do a miraculous thing. And it has to do with the man Saul, who we’ve seen pop up briefly in Acts chapter 7 and Acts chapter 8. Can we look together? Maybe you could flip back a page in your Bible. Acts 7:58. Acts 7:58, almost to Acts chapter 9 where we’ll just look briefly at the first couple verses.
But we saw this man Saul pop up in Acts chapter 7. Don’t have a lot of information about him, but let’s read what it says in Acts 7:58. Then they cast him out of the city. So that’s where they seized Stephen. They take him out of the icty. And they stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul.
So here is Saul. He’s obviously like a mob leader, somebody who the people who are stoning Stephen respect. And they lay down their garments at the feet of Saul. And he’s standing there as Stephen is being stoned.
Look at chapter 8 verse 1. It says, And Saul approved of Stephen’s execution. So here is this man Saul. He pops up again, 8:1, and he’s approving of the murder of Stephen, the first martyr of the faith. And there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria except for the apostles. Devout men buried Stephen and made lamentation over him.
Verse 3, But Saul was ravaging the church and entering house after house. He dragged off men and women and committed them to prison. (Acts 8:1-3) Like a bull in a china shop, Saul is just going in and out of houses that are proclaiming the name of Jesus and he’s beating them and he’s tearing children from their mothers and he’s taking them outside, taking them, committing them to prison. He’s seeking to destroy obviously those in the faith.
And then we come to Acts chapter 9. Can we read the first four verses together? Sorry, the first three verses, Acts chapter 9. But Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, (that’s Christianity; that’s the faith in Jesus ) men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. Now as he went on his way, he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven shone around him.
In verse 1 it says, “But Saul, still breathing threats.” That’s not like Saul was speaking out threats of murder. That’s like you breath to stay alive. His reason for breathing, his reason for living in this moment, is to stop the faith in Jesus Christ, to stop this message of Christianity. That’s how angry he was. That’s how agitated he was. That’s how frustrated he was, and he would do everything. He was breathing in murder, breathing in the idea that he would stop this faith.
Clearly this man is the villain of the narrative in Acts. He just kind of pops up. He’s portrayed subtly as the arch nemesis of Christianity just lurking in the background. And yet it’s not often that the arch nemesis or the villain becomes one of the greatest forces for good or in this case, for the faith that the world has ever known.
I mean, you don’t see that in the Marvel movies. You don’t see that in the Star Wars sagas. There’s not a lot of gospel redemption in those, right? I’m just saying, like, if Spider-Man in the new movie would’ve just shared the gospel with the Goblin and he would’ve gotten saved, he would be a great parking lot attendee for us, right? He’d fly people in and out when it’s cold and rainy.
But that doesn’t happen. The bad guy, the villain, he’s usually stamped out. He’s usually put in jail. He’s usually killed at the end of the superhero movies.
But Jesus, He can take any enemy, which we all are apart from His grace, and make them an instrument for His glory. And that’s exactly what we will see happen in Acts chapter 9. I’ve got to tell you. Like come back next week excited about the testimony of Saul.
if you have somebody that you’ve been trying to get to church or somebody you’ve been witnessing to or somebody who you’ve talked to and they’re like, “You know, I’m way too far gone for God. I’ve done way too many wrong things and God would never forgive me.” Next week would be a great Sunday for you to bring them to church because we’re going to see the testimony of a man who was not just a murderer but he was a persecutor of all of those in the faith. And we’re going to see Jesus intersect his life in the most miraculous way.
No one is too far gone when it comes to the saving grace of Jesus.
But for the remainder of our time right now, I just want to know exactly, I want you to know exactly, who this Saul of Tarsus and when he was pre-meeting Jesus Christ. Luke devotes a lot of time to this conversion. You see Acts so far it’s been bouncing back and forth, back and forth, to all these different stories. But then he stops and he gives us an entire chapter outlining Saul’s conversion. And then in Acts chapter 22 and Acts chapter 26, Saul recounts that conversion and gives it to us in those two chapters as well. It’s a big deal because of who Saul was before he came to know Christ.
Acts 9-26 is going to give us a timeline of his life and ministry post meeting Jesus. But Saul, who becomes Paul, is arguably the most influential person to the Christian faith besides Jesus Christ Himself, you understand that. Saul, who becomes Paul, most influential Christian besides Jesus. He was the greatest preacher, greatest teacher, greatest theological thinker, church planter, greatest missionary the world has ever known.
Under the divine inspiration of the Holy Spirit- It’s all Christ, right?- but under the divine inspiration of the Holy Spirit the apostle Paul penned over half of the books of the New Testament. Thirteen of the twenty-seven books, the books that you probably read when you first came to Christ, the books that you probably turn to when you’re in a day of crisis- Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, all of these were penned by the apostle Paul, and they really massively shape our theology as Christians because he went and thought about all of these things, and under the inspiration of the Spirit he wrote down these things.
So the remainder of Acts gives us a timeline of his life. Come over here for a moment here with me. And here’s a timeline of the apostle Paul post-meeting Jesus. So in Acts 9 we see Saul is going to meet Jesus. We’ll talk about it next week. But this is kind of fascinating. After he meets Jesus he spends three years in Arabia and then ten years in Tarsus, three years rethinking everything that he had ever believed, everything that he had ever learned, reconstructing his faith, deconstructing his Judaism, which we’ll talk about in a few moments.
And then ten years back in his hometown of Tarsus. Imagine Saul like seven years in. goes into church, Aw, this song again? Man, I don’t have joy today Lord. What are you doing with my life? What am I supposed to do? You saved me. I love the gospel. I love you, Lord. But man, what am I supposed to do with my life?
Some of y’all are stuck there and you’re like, What is God going to do with me? Don’t lose heart. Saul had to have had those moments in the thirteen years as he was waiting for God to do something miraculous with him. And as he’s learning all these things and then his time comes, he goes on his first missionary journey one and a half years, returns. He goes on his second missionary journey, two and a half years. So this is like he’s up around the Mediterranean and he’s going to places. He goes to Greece and Athens and Thessalonica and Ephesus and Galatia and all the places that you read about. He’s establishing, planting churches.
And then he returns to Jerusalem and he’s got, you know, problems in the church that he’s dealing with. Then some time goes by. He starts his third missionary journey and he goes back to all those places around the Mediterranean. He could go home, but he has his eyes set on Spain. Because Saul when he becomes Paul he’s so infatuated with the gospel his entire reason for living and breathing is to get that gospel to unreached people. And so while he’s on a really hard journey with a lot of things going wrong he still has his eyes set on a people who have never heard the message of Christ.
And so he writes Rome in hopes to get to Spain. And he’s in prison, meets lots of opposition. And then he’s put on a ship to head to Rome. He’s shipwrecked in Malta. Everything is going wrong for the guy. Gets to Rome, never makes it to Spain, dies for the faith in Rome. Massive, awesome testimony. I can’t wait to unpack it over the next lots of weeks as a church.
Now who was Saul of Tarsus before he met Jesus Christ? Because everybody has a testimony and everybody has this portion of their testimony. When you got baptized at our church or if you go through the testimony class at our church, we always ask you, “Who were you before you met Jesus? When did Jesus intersect your life? And now who are you after you’ve decided to follow Jesus?” Everybody should have a story like that. We’re going to talk about testimonies next week.
But I think it’s so important to fill in Saul’s life pre-meeting Jesus because who he was should not be what we’ve got. Who he was, the result of what we have in the New Testament, should not be because of what he was before meeting Jesus. It’s only because of Jesus that Saul is such an important figure and you see how strategic God was in calling this man to the faith so that you could be sitting here today enjoying the freedom of Christianity in this place, so that you could grow up in the faith knowing that Jesus Christ gave His life to save you.
So let’s answer some of those questions. Who was Saul of Tarsus growing up? Why is he so angry? Why is he seemingly so agitated and yet justified in his anger toward the Jewish leaders? And what benefits made Saul God’s chosen instrument?
So if I may, let me just teach you some of these things that I’ve been learning. And I said, I kind of fell down the Saul rabbit hole this week. You’re welcome to jump in with me, but I’ll try to keep it up for you. And it’s just fascinating who this man was, ok? So Saul, he grew up in the city of Tarsus. Tarsus is a historic city in southeast Turkey, and it rivaled Athens as an intellectual city. Just a great thinking city, ok? And it was the port of the city of trade, of commerce, and cargo.
And Saul was a tentmaker, came from a tentmaking family. So he would have been familiar with business, with trading, with entrepreneurship. He was savvy and he was sharp and he was from a smart, educated, well-off family. Would’ve been around business. Some of you can relate to that. That’s your superpower, entrepreneurship, ok?
But let’s talk about his citizenship. Saul grew up in a proud Jewish family. He was most likely named after King Saul. They were proud of their Jewish heritage. So I grew up in a Christian home and I’m the oldest of six. And my parents loved, you know, their faith. They loved the Bible, and so they named us all Bible names. So I’m Micah, and you’ve got Jacob, Levi, Adam, Luke, my sister Lydia, who is in Gospel City Kids now.
And so my parents were big fans of the Bible and the Bible names, the heritage, and Paul’s parents were fans of their heritage. Same heritage, except we got the Jesus part right and they were missing the Jesus part at the time. Ok? So he was most likely named after King Saul.
As a Hellenistic Jew he grew up as a Roman citizen under Roman law. He spoke Greek, as was common of the Hellenistic Jews under the rule of Alexander the Great. So he had some serious combos going on. Saul of Tarsus was entrepreneurial. He was a Greek speaking Jew with Roman citizenship and he had perfect credentials for spreading the gospel to the nations, but specifically the Gentiles.
All of these pieces of his past God was just orchestrating from the beginning of time to make this the man, the apostle, to the Gentiles. But perhaps his greatest weapon was his fierce zeal for what he believed was truth. That’s his Judaism. Let’s talk about his Judaism. For Saul and his family, Judaism was not just a religion, but it was a way of life.
For us as westerners, often our religion gets separated from life itself, right? That’s not how it should be. Christianity should be our only identity. Even when Saul gets saved in Philippians 1:21, later he writes as Paul, For me to live is Christ and to die is gain. Meaning if I’m living, I’m living for Christ alone. If I’m living, I’m living the identity of a Christian in a lost world. Our Christianity is not just a religion but a way of life dictated by following Jesus and obeying God’s Word. This is your identity in Jesus Christ.
But get this. That’s how Judaism was for Saul and his family. He and his family lived their Jewish ancestral code publically for neighbors to see and it was about what you did and didn’t do. Judaism is a works based religion. And for Saul, he was one of the best. The more you do, the higher status you have with God. The more you do, the more blessed you will be. The more you do, the higher ranks you have in the kingdom of God. Galatians 1:14 Paul writes in the epistles about his own testimony, I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age, among my people. So extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers.
Saul grew up in the story of Israel. He knew that it was a nation chosen from the world for the world. He would’ve seen the Bible as a single great story, a covenant leading with God into the dark unknown. And Saul desperately wanted to be a part of the dark unknown. He desperately wanted God to use him. The prophets promised a Messiah would come. Israel expected and wanted reconciliation and restored power. And Saul would’ve been taught that the Messiah’s coming would be soon and that the law, the Torah, and the temple should be protected at all costs.
And that’s where Saul’s zeal comes in as the person that we see popping up persecuting the church, stopping Christianity, right? The definition for “zeal” in the dictionary is this: “A strong feeling of interest and enthusiasm that makes someone very eager or determined to do something.” We certainly wouldn’t question the apostle Paul’s zeal for the gospel, but we need to understand and see that the same zeal went into his Judaism. Saul became a Pharisee. That was the highest school of thought in the Jewish world.
So not only was he a Pharisee, but he studied under Gamaliel, which would have been the highest honor and the most prestigious. Top of his class this guy in Judaism. He had done it all. He would’ve subjected himself to intense debate and questioning around Jewish thought and philosophy because everything was in question because it was about what you did and didn’t do to earn favor with God.
In Philippians 3:5-7 he says of himself, I was circumcised on the eighth day. Of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin. That’s a big deal. A Hebrew of Hebrews. As to the law I was a Pharisee. As to zeal, a persecutor of the church. As to righteousness, under the law I was blameless.
Massive statement. Here’s the law and Saul is like, I’ve done it all. I’ve kept it all. I’m squeaky clean. I’m climbing the ladder of success. And all of this created Saul the zealous Stephen-stoning, church persecution Pharisee of the Jewish world. And his zeal showed his loyalty. His devout Judaism was displayed in his zeal for the laws and standards. His zeal for God and the Torah was accounted to him as righteousness by Jewish standards, even unto violence.
Because nothing could stop the coming of the Messiah. Nothing could dishonor Israel’s past. God seemed to bles the zeal of Abraham, Isaac and David, so Saul was determined to have the same zeal toward anything that threatened Judaism. When he killed Stephen it was just like I was killing somebody that was threatening the temple of our God, someone who was stopping the Messiah from coming. He was just a false prophet. He needed to be done away with.
And that’s exactly where we find ourselves in Acts chapter 9. All along the first eight chapters as Christ is building His church and as there are moments of opposition, there’s a storyline being built of this young man, this Pharisee, this entrepreneur, this Greek-speaking Jew who’s worked his way up in the ladder of success in Judaism and his entire purpose was now to stop Christianity. That’s where Acts 9 picks up. The Bible is in Saul’s head, zeal is in Saul’s heart. Papers from the chief priest are in Saul’s bag. And off he goes to be the hero of Judaism, the keeper of Israel’s heritage and to be numbered among the true covenant members of old.
Fascinating, isn’t it? And yet, can you imagine- now just put yourself in his shoes. Can you imagine spending your entire life living for and defending something that is not true? Imagine that. You spend your entire life working for, achieving success, living for something that is not true? Can you imagine devoting yourself religiously to a message of hope while missing the actual hope that Jesus Christ came to save? The actual hope is Jesus!
And all along the way in his devout faith, his devout Judaism, he’s missing the person of Jesus. Sadly so much of the world is stuck here in this very spot. Many will die in that very spot. Those in Judaism are still waiting for a Messiah to come. They don’t have a concept for a Messiah who was a suffering servant. They’re waiting for a Messiah who would come and restore power to Israel. They missed the fact that Jesus was a servant who came to seek and save them when they were lost. He died a death He didn’t deserve to save mankind.
Those raised in Muslim homes, in Buddhist tradition, in Mormon and Jehovah Witnesses sects, all of these things have aspects of working and trying to get to God. All of these miss the important truth of the gospel that we could never get to God. Therefore, God came to us. And not only did God come to us when we were His enemies, but He died for us as the innocent, blameless, spotless Lamb.
Jesus came. Jesus served. And while the world continues to strive in their righteousness, and while we are tempted to do the same every single day, Jesus came that we might have life and life abundantly, life eternally because of what He did and what He accomplished at the cross.
Saul who worked his entire life to earn status under God, it was for nothing. And later in Ephesians 2:8-9 he writes, By grace you can be saved through faith. And this is not of your own doing. It is a gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
God can transform anyone. God can use anyone. And perhaps the first testimony of that was the miraculous gospel transforming power that took Saul, a Pharisee of Pharisees, and made him the apostle to the Gentiles. It was all God working out his divine plan so that we might sit here today enjoying and worshiping in. And not just enjoying, not just sitting in the fact that we are saved. But we should have the same zeal to go to people! We should have our eyes and our hearts set on those who have not heard the truth of the gospel.
Saul could boast about his Judaism, couldn’t he? He could boast about his Judaism, but he could not boast about his Christianity. He could not boast about his faith in Jesus Christ. The Paul of the Bible is a display of God’s transforming grace and power on the life of a believer. Oh how awesome is Jesus.
And Paul finishes the description of his Jewish resume in Philippians by saying this. Philippians 2:7-9 Paul later writes, Whatever gain I had (and he had a lot in Judaism) I count it as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. for his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law but that which comes from faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.
Looking at the life of Paul shows us the transforming power of God on His people. Whatever your background, whatever your accomplishments, whatever your moralism, whatever your lack thereof, God can save you. God can use you. God loves you. And when God transforms your life, your motivations for living should change entirely.
That’s what we see in the timeline of Paul, right? He’s living for himself. He’s living, you know, for God’s kingdom to come. But ultimately he’s building up his own status so that he can earn favor, so that he can be blessed. And then he meets Jesus- we’ll see it next week- and everything changes. His motivations entirely change. It’s no longer about what you can do for yourself when you meet Jesus. It’s about what you can do for Christ. And more than that, it’s about what Christ has already done at the cross.
Oh that we would remain at the cross by the blood of Jesus Chirst.
In closing I want to give you three motivations that we’ll see play out in Paul’s life as we continue to study the book of Acts. Remember it’s all about Christ. It’s all about what Christ has started. The gates of hell will not prevail against Him. but because of Jesus in Saul’s life, we see three motivations for Paul.
Number one, when Saul becomes Paul, he begins to live for Christ alone. He often says that he’s a slave to Jesus Christ. His life was no longer his own. In Corinthians he says that he’s now an ambassador for Jesus Christ. If he’s to live, it’s all about Christ. If I’m to live, I’m breathing in and breathing out the message of Jesus Christ.
Which leads him to number two, his motivation. When Saul becomes Paul, every opportunity becomes a chance to spread the gospel. The motivation of lost being saved allowed him to spread the gospel as fiercely as he tried to stop it. Nothing could stop Paul once he met Jesus except death itself, and then he knew that that would be gain. It’s amazing. And the same is true for us.
Like are you living your life with every opportunity as a chance to spread the gospel message of Jesus that has radically transformed you, has saved you? We must obey God rather than man. Like in your workplace, do people know that they can come to you whenever? Like when someone loses a loved one, when somebody is going through one of those valley moments, when somebody has got questions about their faith, are you the person at your work where they know they can come and ask questions? Like they may not want anything to do with faith until something gets hard or they lose someone. But are they coming and knocking on your door and asking you, “Hey, could you pray for me? Or do you have any advice for me?” That’s an opportunity for us as people who’ve been radically transformed by the gospel.
I was ecstatic. Over the break there’s someone that I’ve just been like wanting to share Jesus with. And I was like playing it cool and just like, I’m going to pray and ask God for opportunity. And guess what? I didn’t have to do anything. The dude came to my front yard and he asked me some questions about what I thought about the faith or the situation that this guy was in.
And I’m like, God can do that for you! Are you asking for those kinds of opportunities? Are you taking the opportunities when they come up? You don’t have to have all the answers, you’ve just got to be ready to speak the name of Jesus with boldness and ask God for more and more opportunities. He will give them to you. We see them happen in Paul’s life as he’s available to the Lord.
And then number three, the third motivation. The band is going to come out. When Saul becomes Paul, he never gets over the wonder of God’s grace. Jesus transforms Paul the persecutor, the murderer, the angry agitated Pharisee into a worshiper of worshipers. I love that about Saul. I love that about Paul. Every epistle he writes there are so many moments when he gives all the glory to Jesus Christ. He says, Worthy are you God. Worthy is your name, the things we’ve been singing today. Because when Jesus radically transforms you, you become a worshiper of the almighty God.
Romans 5:8 (we already read it this morning) But God shows his love for us in this that while we were still sinners Christ died for us. Saul writes that. While I was an enemy, Christ died for me. Paul knew he deserved hell, but the transforming grace of God became his new motivation for life and his reason for worship.
I’ve just got to encourage you. I know it’s a lot of kind of teaching information. And yet God’s grace is amazing. God’s plan is incredible. The fact that God was orchestrating this from the beginning of time, that the gates of hell won’t prevail against me, that I’ll even take…I’m so powerful that I can take the greatest opposer of the faith and make him my greatest instrument, make him my greatest tool. God can do that in your life. God wants to do that. Be available to him open handed.
And Saul, this man who lived for himself, he later writes in Galatians 5:14, I have been crucified with Christ and it’s no longer I who live but Chirst who lives in me and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me.
Paul’s prayer becomes exactly what we sing so many times. Yet not I but through Christ in me. Christ is building His church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. Christ is building His church and whatever position you are facing today, it can’t stand in the way. He will prevail. Christ is building His church and He can use your moments of opposition. He can use your valley moments. He can use your moments of waiting to accomplish His gospel purposes in you and turn you into an instrument for His great glory. Amen?
Come on, stand to your feet. Just bow your heads. We’re going to go out singing. Thank the Lord for His grace to you today. Thank Him that the gospel made it to you because of His divine plan. Thank Him that He’s awesome and in control. Would you ask Jesus this morning to transform your motivations? Ask Him to move your purpose from glorying yourself to glorifying Christ. Ask Him to move your purpose, your reason for living, your reasons or breathing, from exalting yourself to advancing the glorious gospel that saves.
Lord, we come poor and needy as Scripture says, desperately in need of rescue. God we come knowing that we don’t have it all together. And so often even in our faith, even in this beautiful gospel truth that we’ve grown up in so many of us or that we hear on a regular basis, Lord, we can take it for granted and we can so easily fall into the effort of living for ourselves, of trying to earn favor with You rather than relying on what has already been done at the cross of Jesus Christ.
Would You give us a greater reliance by the power of the Spirit on what Jesus has done? Would You help us to understand that no one is too far gone? Would you help us to know that while we were enemies, You died for us. You are our Savior. You are our King. Would You birth new passions in our hearts and in our souls and in our evangelism so that we wouldn’t sit quietly with this truth that Jesus saves, but we would tell everyone? That we would be available to everyone.
God, would You continue to create divine moments where we share the gospel? Would you birth in people’s hearts in this room a desire to live sent to unreached people all around the world? Certainly there are people who need to hear the message that Jesus saves, that Jesus died, that Jesus loves them.
And God, we anxiously await your coming. But none of it is in our own strength. None of it is by our own power. All of it is Christ in us, the hope of glory. With every breath Lord, may we follow Jesus. In your name we pray, amen.
