Paul s Mission The Story Chapter 29

Paul s Mission The Story Chapter 29 We continue this morning to talk about the role and function of the Church. Last week we found out that the Church is Phase 3 of God s plan to bring lost people. Phase 1 was Israel, Phase 2 was Jesus and Phase 3 of God s plan was, and is, the Church. We saw how the Church was enabled by the Holy Spirit to go out and witness into Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. We focused on what happened in Jerusalem, how the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples in the form of a rushing wind and tongues of fire and speaking in the languages of the world. We saw how Peter preached the first Christian sermon, telling how Jesus came and He suffered and died and rose again all to forgive the sins of God s people, and how because of that sermon 3000 people were saved. We saw how the Church was persecuted. How Stephen preached about Jesus and how the Jewish leaders grabbed him and took him outside and stoned him. And I don t mean stoned like in Colorado. And when we was dead, they laid them at the feet of a guy named Saul. Verse 1 of chapter 8 of the book of Acts says simply and tragically: And Saul approved of their killing him. Saul approved the killing of who may have been the first Christian martyr. Saul was egging the Jewish leaders on. Saul wanted Stephen dead. But the really crazy thing is this: God was going to use this guy, Saul, to be the greatest witness for Jesus who ever lived. He was surely an unlikely hero. How in the world would God use a man like Saul? On paper, Saul was the last person you d think God would use to spread His Gospel. Saul seemed all wrong for the role God would have him play. Saul was the Osama ben Laden of his day. Educated by Gamaliel, who was concerned about preserving the Jewish state against any and all threats, Saul was zealous in his beliefs seeing the new Christian religion as a threat to Judaism. Saul hated Jesus and felt he was doing good things for God by killing Christians. Acts 9 says that Saul was breathing murderous threats against the Lord s disciples and that he went to the high priest and asked for permission to go house to house looking for Christians. Saul conducted the Christian holocaust of the first century. How in the world would God use a man like Saul? Here s how: God s use of Saul would have nothing to do with this world. Scripture tells us that as Saul was on his way to kill more Christians, Jesus appeared on the road to Damascus and ask, Why are you persecuting me? Did you catch that insinuation? When you persecute the Church, you persecute Christ! And Saul was blinded by the light of Christ and led away to be ministered to by a Christian named Ananias and at that moment Saul was transformed. He was turned around, converted. This man who was the last person you d think would ever be used by God became the greatest witness ever. Three things made this happen: Saul, soon to be called Paul, was transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit. Who Jesus was and what Jesus had done became real for Saul and he regained his

sight and got up and started preaching about the love of God in Jesus. This turn around had nothing to do with this world. It had to do with the work of the Holy Spirit in Saul. Paul had skills. That his father was a Greek and his mother a Jew allowed Paul to make the transition from a mercenary of the Jews to a missionary to the Gentiles. That he was fluent in Greek allowed him to reach Greek speaking people. And his zeal, don t forget his zeal. God used the zeal he had for killing Christians now to make Christians. Third, Paul signed on. He was so impacted by God s love that he went on 3 missionary journeys, started at least 10 churches, wrote 13 of the 27 books of the New Testament, travelled an estimated 13,400 miles on the back of a camel or donkey, on roads plagued with bandits, sailing across stormy and treacherous Mediterranean seas, shipwrecked at least twice, beaten, stoned and left for dead. All because Paul came to know what we have come to know, that, Jesus loves me. And here s the thing: God wants to use you. You may be saying, I m the last person God would ever use. But, you re not, Paul was. You may be thinking you have no skills or abilities or talents. But you do. You may be thinking you don t have a story to tell or even the inclination to tell it - but in reality all that doesn t matter. God wants to use you. He really does. Because you see, like Paul God has come into your life. Even if you ve never had a huge Damascus Road conversion experience like Paul. God has come into your life. And, You do have skills. 1 Corinthians 12:7 says Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. This verse refers to the Spiritual gifts that the Holy Spirit gives to Christians. Notice it says to each one. Every Christian has spiritual gifts. Every Christian has unique talents and abilities. Every Christian has a distinct personality or has had unique experiences that have formed their lives. Every Christian has specific passions. Think of it this way: we all have our SHAPE, our spiritual gifts, heart, abilities, personalities and experiences. You may not know how God has SHAPEd you. But the question is, Will you sign on? Do you believe that God can use you to change the world? Maybe you think you re about far as possible from being a world changer. But, what if - just what if - God is simply waiting for you to sign on. What if God has a specific plan all laid out just for you, a plan to change the world, and He s simply waiting for you to sign on, to say yes. God raised up unlikely heroes all the time and then, to bring the Gospel to Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth, God used an extraordinary path. Paul is sent to Gentiles. Paul and his companion, Barnabas, went to the city of Antioch and they began to teach at the church there. After a year of teaching, the Holy Spirit came to some of the prophets at Antioch and told them to send Paul out. Think of that: Paul was the most influential leader of the church and they were told to send him away to start other churches. It would be like a church today sending their pastor off to start another church on the other side of town. They sent Paul off because the mission of God is that important. So Paul and Barnabas left and travelled those 13,400 miles, putting them in contact with the Gentiles. Paul would deliver the Gospel to non-jews, to Gentiles. The Christian faith was predominately Jewish to start but Jesus said to make disciples of all nations and to be His witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea, (both Jewish

areas), but also in Samaria and to the ends of the earth (areas that were non-jewish). Jesus gave the Church the commission to reach people beyond Judaism. And when Paul started on his missionary journeys he brought more and more Gentiles to faith and the Church suddenly had to deal with its first major question - a seismic shift in the culture of the first century Church. The question in this Jewish movement was what to do with the Gentiles? Or, put another way, the early church, which was predominantly a Jewish movement, was asking, do Gentiles need to become Jews first in order to become Christians. Which meant that the Jewish movement was wondering if Gentiles should adopt Jewish rituals - things like the Jewish dietary laws, keeping kosher, and gulp-- circumcision. Would a Gentile man who had not been circumcised as a child be required to be circumcised as an adult in order to be a part of the Christian Church? I did a little research and found that George Gallup polled all the Gentile men in the first century who had faith in Jesus and found that 100% of them agreed that they shouldn t have to get circumcised. 100%! Unfortunately, there were Jewish Christians back in Jerusalem that didn t agree with Gallup s findings. They voted in favor of requiring the Gentile men to keep kosher and follow all the traditional Jewish laws. So, what was Jesus intent when he said to make disciples of all nations and to be His witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea, but also in Samaria and to the ends of the earth? Did Jesus want Gentiles to become Jews in order to become a Christians? There were two things that contributed to arriving at the answer to that question. First, we have to back up to the apostle Peter and understand Peter s vision. While Paul was off getting converted and being sent out from Antioch, his whole world was being turned upside down. He travelled around preaching about Jesus and had a vision from God. In the vision a large sheet came down from heaven which contained all sorts of animals, those considered clean by Jewish dietary laws and those considered unclean. A voice told Peter to get up and eat of these animals. Peter, being a good Jewish boy who had kept kosher all his life and had never had a BLT on toast, a pulled pork sandwich, or a Ball Park frank, at first objected. But the voice told Peter not to call anything impure that God had made clean. And the voice wasn t just talking about food. You see, the Jews thought Gentiles were not people of the promise. The Jews considered Gentiles the dregs of society. They were unclean. Jews didn t associate with Gentiles. That was Peter s world view. But through this vision, all that Peter had been taught was being transformed. Then, the very next day, a Gentile man named Cornelius who was a centurion, a Roman commander, invited Peter to his home for dinner. Peter connected the dots and this is what he said: I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right. Acts 10:34-35 You see, the Jews considered themselves the chosen race. They thought God did indeed show favoritism and here s Peter saying that God doesn t. And here s what happened next:

While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message. The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on Gentiles. Acts 10:44-45 Again, a huge cultural shift but God s ardent desire to bring all lost people from every tribe and every nation back to Him was at work here. Peter s vision was the first thing that happened. The second thing that happened was the Council of Jerusalem. Back to Paul. Paul had just returned from his first missionary journey where he was reaching Jews and Gentiles. He returned to Antioch and a group of men came from Judea teaching that unless a man is circumcised according to the custom taught by Moses, he cannot be saved. So Paul and Barnabas headed to Jerusalem to debate the issue. And let s be clear here. The issue here was not dietary laws or any other Jewish law. The issue wasn t even circumcision. The issue was the Gospel itself! The question to be settled was this: how am I put right with God? How am I justified? Am I justified by what I do? Is it that I have to be good in order to go to heaven? Am I justified by believing that Jesus died for me but that you still had to do good things? Can I believe in Jesus but still think that I must work my way into heaven, that my good works are part of the entry ticket to get in? Or, am I justified solely by grace? Did Jesus procure eternal life for me and I just accept that free gift through faith. Is it that the good things I do come not as an admission ticket to heaven but as a result of and a response to what He has done for me? Scholars believe that Pauls book, Galatians, should be connected with this Jerusalem council. Paul wrote Galatians in response to what the church in Galatia was teaching. The Church at Galatia was teaching that a person had to do good works in order to be saved, that it was by the works of the law that a person gained eternal life. Paul wrote to them and said that the Gospel is perverted when what Jesus did on the cross is not front and center. Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh? Galatians 3:2-3 Paul is explicitly saying that if you try to work your way into heaven by means of the law, you are cursed. For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse, as it is written: Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law. Galatians 3:10 Paul says that the purpose of the law is simply to show us the need for a Savior. Doing good things doesn t earn us salvation because if it did there would be no need for a Savior. You see, if we rely on the law, if we rely on how good we have been to earn salvation, we ll never have peace. We ll always be asking, Have I done enough. But if salvation is all about Jesus, then we have absolute peace because we know that Jesus has done enough. At the council of Jerusalem, Peter stood and made these same points:

Brothers, you know that some time ago God made a choice among you that the Gentiles might hear from my lips the message of the gospel and believe. God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us. He did not discriminate between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith. Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of Gentiles a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors have been able to bear? No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are. Acts 15:7-11 And the council of Jerusalem decided in favor of grace. This was a turning point in the history of the church. All this is so very important and not just because of the existence of the church as an institution. This is so very important for each and every one of us. Because being rewarded for good behavior is part of our culture. You study hard, you get an A. You work hard, you get a raise. We easily get confused when God says, I m giving you everything for nothing and it s called eternal life. We get confused when we think that if we pray enough or work enough then God will reward us with heaven. We get confused when we think we can do penance to make up for our sins when Jesus is the only one to forgive sins and it cost Him His life to do it. We get confused when we think, I m a sinner. I am not good enough to merit eternal life. (Well, actually, we get that one right). But God says, Even though you aren t good enough, Jesus is. We have eternal life all because of Him. During Paul s mission travels to the ends of the earth He came into contact with innumerable Gentiles in order to set straight issues that needed to be settled. Without it, the world might very well be lost. Now it s our turn. We are the Church. It s our mission to share the Gospel of Christ, not so that others will know who I am and what I believe, but so that others will know Christ and what to believe. Will you do it? Will you pray this prayer: God use me. Just use me.