MCLEAN BIBLE CHURCH MAY 1, 2011 PASTOR LON SOLOMON

Transcription

1 MCLEAN BIBLE CHURCH MAY 1, 2011 PASTOR LON SOLOMON >>LON SOLOMON: Okay. Hey, you know, we are involved in a series here entitled "People Jesus Met" and today we come to perhaps the most influential person Jesus ever met here on earth in terms of the impact that this person would go on to have for the Lord Jesus Christ. We are talking about the Apostle Paul, whom when Jesus met him was actually named Rabbi Saul. Oswald Chambers on his commentary in the book of Acts says the most important event of human history apart from the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ was the conversion to Christianity of the Apostle Paul. So we want to go back and look at this meeting between the risen Lord and one of the most unlikely people to ever come to Christ and then we want to bring all of that forward and we want to talk about, okay, so what difference does that make to you and me. Our passage is Acts Chapter 9. Before we dig in, let me give you a little bit of background. Saul was raised in a strict Jewish down. He was raised in Tarsus. He was sent to Jerusalem to train under the moment eminent rabbi, a man named Rabbi Gamaliel. Saul became a rock star under the early young rabbis. He says in Galatians 1:14. I was advancing in Judaism faster than many others of my own age, being extremely more zealous than they for the traditions of my fathers." Now, as part of this extreme zeal for Judaism, Rabbi Saul had a furious, a vehement, a fire-breathing hatred for Christians. In acts Chapter 7, when Steven was stoned to death, becoming the first Christian martyr in history; the apostle Paul was watching and gave consent. Rabbi Saul became a one-man wrecking machine for Christianity. He said to King Agrippa. I locked up many of the believers in prison and when they were put to death. He said in Acts Chapter 22, I persecuted the followers of Jesus to the death, arresting both men and women and throwing them into prison and being furiously enraged at them. I even obtained letters from High Priest to go to Damascus and bring them back to Jerusalem as prisoners to be punished. We'll show you a map so you get a sense of where Damascus is from Jerusalem, and so the Apostle Paul was going from Jerusalem to Damascus where we pick up the story in Acts 9: "and as Saul neared Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him and he fell to the ground and he heard a voice saying to him, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?" Now, in Acts Chapter 26 with King Agrippa, Paul comments that

2 this light was lighter than the sun, blazing all around. You say, Lon, what was this light? Was it like heavenly lightning? Was it like a laser beam from heaven. Well, friends, how in the world am I supposed to know? I haven't the slightest idea what it was. Whatever it was, it blew the Apostle Paul right off his feet. Like a feather in a hurricane. He says, who are you, who are you Lord? And he replied, I'm Jesus whom you are persecuting, but rise and go into the city and you will be told what you must do next. Now, according to the Bible, the Apostle Paul was the next to last human being here on earth to ever see the risen Lord visibly, personally, and tangibly with his own human eyes. Paul writes about this, 1 Corinthians 15:5. He says he, the risen Lord appeared to Peter and then to the 12, and after that, he appeared to over 500 believers most of whom are still alive. Then he appeared to James and then to all the apostles and last of all, he appeared to me. You say, well, now wait a minute. I thought the Apostle Paul was the next to last person to ever see the Lord with his naked eye here on earth. That's right. The absolute last person to do that was the Apostle John in the book of Revelation Chapter 1. When Paul is writing this, it's 54AD and Revelation Chapter 1 did not happen until 91 AD and so when Paul wrote 1 Corinthians that he was the last person to ever see the risen Christ with his naked eye, so far as things had happened in time and space, up to 54 AD, he was correct. Okay? Alright. Let's go on. What happened when Paul saw the risen Lord? Well, let's go back to the risen account. And "and Saul heard a voice saying to him, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? And then Saul said, who are you Lord? And he says I am Jesus, who you are persecuting, but rise and go into the city and you will be told what you must do next." Now here in this passage the Lord Jesus asked Rabbi Saul a very interesting question. He says, why are you persecuting me? You say, but, Lon, Saul wasn't persecuting Jesus. He was persecuting the church. He was persecuting the followers of Jesus. You are right. And friends, that's what makes the great thing about this verse, the great thing here is that Jesus tells us in this verse that his followers of Christ, he and we are so joined at the hip, he and we have a relationship that is so close, so intimate that God considers - listen now - any action against us as his followers to be an action against God personally. You understand that? That's why he said why are you

3 persecuting who? Me. You with me? Hello? >> Congregation: Yes. >> Okay. You know, years ago we used to go to Hume Lake, a Christian place out in California. One of the things they had was bears. The bears would come into the camp at the night and the bears would come into the camp in the daytime sometimes. We were there one year with my middle son Justin. He attended camp and I used to speak, and he was 17. And I the good up one morning early to walk around the lake and I was on my way to get my early morning cup of coffee and I saw Justin. He came running up to me. He said, dad -- he was all excited! He says dad, dad, you won't believe it. We had so much fun last night. I said what did you do. He said me and my friend, we chased bear cubs all around the camp last night. He said there were three of them and he said, we were tried to catch them. I even had one of them by the back leg for a minute and it was screaming and yelping and then it got away from me. (Laughter). And so I stood there and I said to him, I said, are you completely crazy? Are you completely out of your mind? Have you lost all of your marbles? I said that often to this boy. (Laughter) Often. In fact, it is a miracle, it is the grace of God plus nothing that this boy is an adult today. I'm telling you. I said, are you crazy? Do you know what happens when you chase bear cubs? And he just stood there looking at me. I said, Justin. I said, when you chase bear cubs, I said, I'm telling you, momma bear comes out swinging! And when she does, you don't want to be anywhere around. Friends, this is the great thing the Bible is telling us here. That when we're a follower of Jesus Christ, we are one of his cubs and he is our momma bear. And friends when somebody hurts us, tries to damage us, tries to in some way mistreat us or threaten us, at work, at school, in the neighborhood, in our family, man, God takes it personally! You are messing with one of his cubs and he comes out swinging in our defense. How great is it to know that? Hmm? Praise the Lord. (Applause) Amen. Now, let's go on with the story, the men who were traveling with Saul stood speechless, hearing the sound and saw no one. When Saul got up from the ground, he could see no one, even though his eyes were open. He led him by the hand into Damascus and for three days he was blind and nor did he eat or drink anything. You remember Steven we talked about Acts Chapter 7,

4 and Paul was there, you remember that? Steven preached a powerful sermon. Paul heard it. And Steven exhibited this unbelievable zeal for the Lord. Paul saw it. And then he stood right there and watched as Steven was willing to die rather than deny Jesus Christ. And now suddenly Steven said, I see the heavens opened up, and the son of man standing at the right hand of God as he was dying. Suddenly here on the road to Damascus that Steven was telling the truth in all of this. Paul realizes that Jesus really did rise from the dead. Paul realizes that Jesus really is alive forever more and he his mentor Gamaliel earlier said Acts 5:38, leave these followers of Jesus alone for their purposes of human origin, it will fail. But if it's from God, you will not be able to stop them. You will only find yourselves to be fighting against God. And now on the road to Damascus, Paul realizes the truth of Gamaliel's words, in persecuting the church, and the followers of Christ in the church, all this time, Paul had thought he was serving God when in reality all this time he had been fighting against God. And so with that radical realization, ringing in his heart, Rabbi Saul is led by the hand into Damascus, literally unable to see or eat or drink for three days, waiting to hear what the Lord Jesus Christ wants him to do next. Now, we will pick up next week and talk more about Paul, but right now, we want to stop in our passage because it's time for us to ask our most important question. So we good, yes? >> Congregation: Yes. >> All right, Loudoun, Bethesda, Prince William, the Edge on the Internet, Tyson s, here we go. Come on now. Deep breath... one, two, three... >> Congregation: So What? >> Oh, yes! You missed it last week, didn't you? Yeah, I did too. You say, all right, Lon, so what? So first of all, I have enough sense not to chase bear cubs and second of all, what difference does any of this make to my Monday to Saturday life? Well, let's talk about that, shall we. We have often heard the phrase, the odds are against it. We all have heard that. Like, for example, the Caps losing a 3 to 1 lead and being eliminated in the first round of the playoffs last year. Hey, the odds were against it, but it happened. And what about the Red Sox? We have any Red Sox fans here? Two okay. (Laughter). How about in 2004, after losing the first three games in a row to the Yankees in the ALCS, the Red Sox did something that was never done in major league history. They came back and won

5 four in a row against the Yankees! Yay! And won the ALCS and the World Series. Hey, you want to talk about something the odds were against. Hey, but it happen, didn't it, Red Sox fans? Yeah. Okay. (Laughter). Okay. How about the re-creation of the state of Israel? You talk about something that looked absolutely like the odds were against and the return of the Jewish people to their homeland. Come on. And yet, guess what, it happened. And let me tell you of a story about a man name Jed, a poor mountaineer barely kept his family fed and then one day he was shooting at some food when out of the ground came some bubbling crude. Oil that is. Black gold, Texas tea, yeah. What are the odds against that? Sure it was, but it happened, at least on television. Yeah. Okay. Now, all of these things being said, I want to say that I don't think there has ever been anything that's ever happened in the history of the world that the odds were more against than Rabbi Saul coming to personal faith in Jesus Christ, but it happened. And, folks what a wonderful thing it is for the Lord to remind us from today from the example of the Apostle Paul that no matter how bad the odds are against it, nobody - absolutely nobody is ever beyond God's power to reach them and to bring them to Christ. Many of us have loved ones and friends and relatives whom we desperately want to see come to Christ, but, frankly, on the human level, the odds are against it, majorly. They are resistant, disinterested and many times they are hostile. Hey, I want you to take heart from what happened on the road to Damascus that we have studied today and I don't want you to dare lose hope for those people. If Paul can be reached, believe me, they can be reached. There were no people - two people anywhere in the world that the odds were more against coming to Christ than my mother and my father. My dad, you know this would get up and walk out of the room wherever I would bring up the subject of Jesus. My mother believed that Adolf Hitler was a Christian! I said, what? Mom, you believe what? She said, well, he wasn't Jewish and he wasn't Muslim. So therefore, he's a Christian. I said, mom, that's the dumbest thing I ever heard in my whole life. How do you share -- friends, how do you share Christ with a person like this who thinks Adolf Hitler was a Christian? But, I tell you what, my mother and my father both came to Christ and they are both in heaven today waiting for me to get there. (Applause)

6 And let me tell you why that is. It's because when God is involved in the equation, the odds don't matter. They don't matter. You say, all right, Lon. Well, I know the Holy Spirit did this for your parents. You didn't do it. And I know that the Holy Spirit is the one who has got to do it for my friends that are unlikely, but what I want to know is, what did you do to help the process along with your parents. And more importantly what can I do to help the process along with my unlikely friends. Well, that's a fabulous question and we're going to close up by answering it. Let's go back to the events of Paul coming to Christ because the answer is right there. What can you and I do to help our unlikely friends come to Christ? All right, listen. When Paul was speaking to King Agrippa, he said in Acts 26, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me." But call goes on to tell King Agrippa, he said Jesus said also to me, are you finding it hard to kick against the goads. You say what in the world does that mean? Well, a goad in the time of Paul was a long stick and on the end of it, there was a very sharp point. We will show you a picture of it. And it was used by animal herders to get their animals to go in the direction they wanted them to. If the animal was going in the wrong direction, they would stick the animal with the goad, and sticking it in the behind to where he wanted the animal to go. And the animal, not being thoroughly excited about getting stuck in the behind with this thing would often rear up and try to kick, it you know like the bulls that you see in bull riding that they come out of the gate, you know, man, they are just a jumping and a kicking. This is what animals would do when they were stuck with goads and this is what Paul, the Rabbi Paul was coming. He says, I have been goading you, and goading you, and goading you for a while about giving your life to Christ, and you have been kicking and kicking and kicking. Hey, Saul, aren't you tired yet? Hey, Saul, aren't you ready yet to make a decision for me? Now, as followers of Christ this statement that God made -- the Lord Jesus made to Rabbi Saul is of enormous significance when it gives us a strategy about reaching our unlikely friends. This statement tells us that for unlikely people, listen, Evangelism is a process where God uses certain goads, just like he did with Rabbi Saul to produce a Uturn for Christ in their lives. The point is that the today God wants us as followers of Christ to furnish him with the same goads that he can use to prod unlikely people that we know and care about.

7 There are two of them and they are both on display right here in Paul's conversion. Let me show what you they are and we're done. Goad number one is the goad of an authentic Christian life. We already saw it. And I said early in Acts seven Paul was there when Steven was killed. He saw and died for Christ, but there was more, beyond that, Paul saw this same authenticity of life in hundreds of other Christians that he arrested, that he put in prison, that he tortured and in some cases he even voted to have them killed and all of these authentic Christian lives became a goad that God began to use to Whittle away at Paul's heart, to Whittle away at Paul's conscious. To whittle away at Paul's resistance to the Gospel. I told you how resistant my dad was to Christ and yet seven years after I came to Christ, my dad and I found ourselves on our knees together in a hospital room in Charlottesville, Virginia, when I had my arm around his shoulder and we prayed the sinners prayer together and he asked Jesus into his life. When he got back in bed, because he was in the hospital, I said, dad, just out of curiosity, I mean, you have never even wanted to talk about Christ. I don't understand what made the difference? Why all of a sudden? I will never forget what my dad said to me. He said, I got to the point where I couldn't explain the changes I was seeing in your life any other way than the way you were telling me and that is it was Jesus Christ doing it. Listen, friends, your walk talks and your talk talks but your walk talks more than your talk talks. You got that? You say, I don't know. I don't know. Well, let's go over it again because if not, we will be a page or two forward and you are still going to be on the walking and the talking. Alright. Let's do it again. Look, your walk talks and your talk talks, but your walk talks more than your talk talks. You got it now? Okay. And let me just say that as followers of Jesus Christ, when it comes to reaching all people, but especially unlikely people, friends, it is critical that we establish this first goad for people to see and in our lives, for God to use in their lives, the goad of living an authentic Christian life. You say, well, how do you do that? Does God drop whiffle dust on us from heaven and all of a sudden we live an authentic Christian life? No, living an authentic Christian life is really simple. All it means is obeying the Bible. Obeying the Bible in every part of our life, which we like it, whether we don't like it, whether it's easy, whether it's hard, whether we want to do it or whether we don't want to do, it we obey the word of God. An authentic like results, you don't have to do anything to get an

8 authentic life. It comes out of Biblical obedience. It may mean Psalm 15:4, keeping our word, even when it hurts. It may mean returning the money that the cashier gave you that you know you were not entitled to but your friend saw you get and knew you weren't entitled to. It may mean filing amended tax returns even if the chances of the IRS catching you are very slim, but your accountant knows. It may mean giving full disclosure about something, even if you know that that may mean you are not going to get your way. And it means hundreds of other different ways in which we obey God even though we may not want to, even though it's easier not to, friends never under estimate the power of the goad of an authentic Christian life lived out before the eyes of an unlikely person. Goad number two is the goad of prevailing prayer. Hey, the Bible tells us as the Apostle Paul - well, he wasn't an apostle, but the Rabbi Saul, that his reputation preceded him. This was a follower of Christ in Damascus named Ananias, the Lord sent him to Saul. And he said, Lord, we have heard reports about this man. And the harm that he has done to your followers in Jerusalem and we have heard that now he's come here with authority from the Chief Priest to arrest all who call on your name. Hey, did they know Paul was coming in Damascus? Oh, you bet they did. My friends, it's just like when you reach age 50, you know that colonoscopy is coming. (Laughter). You know it. And friends, just like that, those followers of Christ in Damascus, they knew Paul was coming. I thought that was funny. You didn't think that was funny? Maybe we don't have enough of you who are 50 yet. I don't know. In fact, I had a nurse come up to me after the last service and say, I do colonoscopies and I can set up a table in the lobby and we can register people. I'm not kidding you. I said no, no, no, I think that's a little much for today. But - where are we? The point is that don't you think as Paul headed for Damascus there were thousands of Christians praying for him? Don't you think the church in Jerusalem, that all of those Christians where he already ravaged the church that they were praying for him. Don't you think the Christians in Damascus where he was on his way to ravage them were praying for him? There was so much prayer going up for the Apostle Paul, it must have been ridiculous and what were people praying? They were saying, Lord protect us from him and Lord do something to slow down this one-man wrecking machine, but do you know what else they were praying? Some of them were praying, Lord Jesus

9 as unlikely as it sounds, reach this man for Christ. And all of that prayer that these early Christian prayers. The more they focused the power of God on Paul's life, the more God used their prayers like a big old goad. When I first came to Christ, I hitch hiked from Chapel Hill to my hometown in the Virginia Beach area. I decided I would go in and share the Lord Jesus with all of them. I called a big meeting and didn't tell them. I stayed at the home of Cora Lee Goodman who prayed me into the kingdom of God who was my maid for 21 years. I told her what I was about to do. She says, honey, I'm not sure it's a good idea. I will explain it to them and it will be as clear as the nose on their face. Off I went. Phew! It didn't quite work the way I had hoped and so I came back to Cora Lee Goodman's house, with my little spiritual tail between my spiritual legs, and nothing was as clear as the nose on my face. And Cora Lee sat me down. She says, honey, your heart is right but your method is all wrong. She says, you know, I prayed for you for 21 years before you got this. She said, we got to pray for these people. And then she said something I will never forget. She says you can do things in people's hearts with prayer that you can never do with words. Well, you know what, all of your unlikely friends who are out there that you would love to see come to Christ, I'm telling you, Cora Lee Goodman was right. We can do more in their hearts to move their salvation along with prayer than we will ever do with words. So the question, is how much really do we pray for them? I want to close with a letter that I got about a very unlikely person and how things worked out. Listen. I considered my mischievous coworker John as a kind of uncle-like friend who I used to argue and debate with about religion. Ever since he discovered I was a Christian, it seemed to become his mission in life to disprove my beliefs in Christ. On several occasions, I can remember him picking fights with me over various matters of Christianity. I think he enjoyed seeing me all distressed as a result of his torment and then later he would come back and tease me by saying, we're all right, right? And then he would give me a smile and a pat on the back. Now, I would call John a fairly unlikely candidate to come to Christ, wouldn't you? Okay. Even with all of these arguments and debates, this gentleman writes, I still had a growing desire to show him the truth and the savior I began to pray for his salvation. Alright. Here we got a guy would starts living an authentic Christian life in front of him and starts praying for John,

10 right? Okay. Hold on. One day at Frontline, I heard the church had bought over 10,000 movie tickets for ""The Passion of the Christ"" that would be shown in the various theaters. The ultimate attraction was that a pastor would give a brief message and lead in a salvation prayer after the movie was over in each theater. I said to myself, this is perfect for John! Excitedly, I went to the booth and bought two tickets. John went with me to the show on Monday night, February 23, Sadly, about a month later, John unexpectedly died of a massive heart attack while chasing his dogs in the woods. At the funeral service, John's niece shared her firm belief that John was in heaven. She said that John had shared with his mom that after seeing the movie he accepted Christ as his savior that evening. I confirmed this with his mom after the service. That one night all five years of work paid off through the grace of God. Without it, John would be in a very different place today. End of quote. Listen to me, friends. You have some unlikely people that you are dying to see come to Christ. People like the Apostle Paul, people like my mom and dad, people like this gentleman John. Hey, what have we learned today from Jesus' meeting with the Apostle Paul on the road to Damascus? Two things. Number one, we have learned that nobody is beyond God's reach. So don't you ever give up on them. If God can reach Paul and if God can reach my parents and God can reach this guy John, he can reach your friend. And the second thing we have learned is the best way we can help as followers of Christ is number one, by living authentic Christian lives in front of these people, that's goad number one and then by being prayer warriors for them. That's goad number two, and doing it all in the power of the Holy Spirit. May God help us do that. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, you know there's not a one of us here who doesn't have a friend, a relative, a coworker, a neighbor, someone at school we know who is so hostile, so closed to the gospel and so unlikely on the human level to ever come to Christ, but father, I want to pray that you would encourage our hearts today with the knowledge that there is no one beyond the reach of the spirit of God. Lord, remind us if you can reach Paul and John and my parents, you can reach anybody and so may we never give up on his people. Lord Jesus encourage our hearts to renew our efforts for prayer in these people to recommit ourselves to living authentic lives in front of these people, to recommit ourselves to trying to reach out to these people and, Lord, as

11 long as there's breath in their body, to never give up on their chances to come to Christ. Change the way we relate to these people, Lord, because we were here and we sat under the teaching of the eternal word of God and we pray these things in Jesus' name. And what did God's people say? >> Congregation: Amen. >> Amen. Have a great day. God bless you guys. * * * This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication access realtime translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. * * *