Northside Church - Sydney
To The Ends of The Earth Part 2 – Week 5: Exhorting
You're listening to another great message from Northside Community Church. Well friends, there is a force that is colliding head-on with church services right around this country, a force that is sweeping millions of people up into its wake. I'm talking about reality television because whenever you've got shows like The Block or The Renovators or MasterChef, particularly the finals that are on church services in this country diminish by about 30%, and the question I've got to ask is what makes them so popular, and I believe my answer is this, that there is something deep within us that finds a joy and an excitement in witnessing transformation, whether it's the transformation of a terrace in Melbourne somewhere or from a bit of flour into a cake, if that's what excites you, people like seeing transformation, and I believe it's this intrigue that got a king to come all the way out and to listen to a prisoner in the docks of a Jewish court. Now I need to confess to you this morning, I'm a bit of a reality TV addict as well, but semi-reality TV, I'm a big addict of the show The West Wing, a US political drama. What I like about the show is that before every episode, there's a little prelude that says previously on The West Wing, and it gives you this quick synopsis of where we're up to in the story, and it would be remiss of me not to do that this morning with this passage as we enter this passage here, it is the climax of an incredibly big chunk of scripture. So let me start with this by saying previously on Paul Goes to Rome. Up until this point, the book of Acts has shown that Paul has been incredibly in control of his own situation. Acts chapter 13 to 20, which has been the scope of this entire series to the ends of the earth, follows Paul's three missionary journeys over a time period that was spanning about 10 years. And now this point is very different because now in Acts chapter 21, verse 28, it's devoted entirely to follow the stories of five judicial trials of the Apostle Paul. Paul has been falsely accused by the Jewish people, and particularly the high priest Ananias, as a troublemaker and a stir of riots amongst Jews all around the world. And these false charges are bought before the Roman governor Felix in the first place that we know here in this passage, who brings no resolution at all. In fact, Felix leaves Paul in a prison for two years. How is that for sort of political acquiescence? And when this transition of government takes place, the new governor comes in, the new burial pharaoh comes in, Festus, recognizes that he's quickly out of his depth with this guy Paul and his charges because they're baseless charges. So he enlisted the help of King Agrippa II, his mate, this king who had been part of a family that had tried to kill Jesus when he was a baby, a family that had beheaded John the Baptist, a family that had slain James. And so he enlisted the help of King Agrippa to say, "I can't send Paul to Rome without some charges against him. Maybe you, Agrippa, as a Jew, will help work out what the issues are at hand." And so with this visit of King Agrippa and his sister Bernice, hand in hand, read between the lines there, the possibility of a resolution looked pretty good and it's this intrigue. Agrippa wants to talk to this prisoner for himself and what will help you understand this story is both the drama and the significance of this event and this climactic event. The drama is, look, for those of you that are a visual sort of people, just think wills and Kate. Think royal winning, think all the ceremony and the incredible tosses and the people all dressed up, that was what was happening in verse 23 of chapter 5 says, three key figures come in the king, his sister Bernice, Festus, the king and Bernice, positions of royalty, gold crowns on their head, purple, clothed in purple as part of their royal grandeur. And when all this grandeur and pageantries in place, look tells us that it's that point that Festus gives us the command for this little guy Paul to come in. But we also see the significance of the scene accompanied by Festus in the role of Roman governor who, if he worries robes for the occasion, would have been wrapped in scarlets followed by an entourage of ranking Roman officers leading men of the city, it says, here in Caesarea, the royal capital of the world, the entire whole city is gathered now to hear Paul. And look, it would be the modern day equivalent, I guess, of Danny DeVito speaking to the UN. What an incredible scene after years and years on the road as a preacher, city after city, synagogue after synagogue from straight street into Damascus to the great buildings of Athens, a debate, discussion, reasoning from the scriptures and as the eyes of royalty and the eyes of politicians and the eyes of aristocracy are bearing down on this little man in the dock. Does he give him a sermon? Does he give him a Bible lecture? No, he gives them his testimony. Paul gives them his story. Paul begs the gripper to hear his testimony 25 years after his dramatic conversion on the road to Damascus. Paul simply shares his story. What can we learn from this? What we can learn from this is God can use your story for his glory. God can use your story for his glory if he could do that with Paul at the heart of it. We saw it's a story of transformation, of extreme makeover, of a renovation rescue. It was Paul's story, a story we see this morning of a person called a story of a person commissioned and a person concerned. You see, what does it mean to be called by God? Let me put it this way, it's rugby World Cup season at the moment. Many of us have got smiles on our faces and in a rugby theme, I taught my little brother when he was six years old and his first year of rugby how to play rugby and to run fast and to pass the ball and we'd practice relentlessly in the backyard. As we took him out to his first game at Bellrose there, his first touch of the ball, bang, he took off, passed one defender, through to the next one, passed another one, side stepping another one, running full pelt, they couldn't catch him, he slides over the tri-line, throws the ball in the air, except no one was clapping, you see, he'd run to the wrong goal line. Now that is, that is, what is Christianity? Christianity is a new trajectory, you know, you see, until someone, until God comes into your life and tells you that you've been running toward the wrong goal line, unless someone breaks in then you're always going to be running towards the wrong goal post and Paul himself was running towards the wrong goal post. Chapter 26, verse 9 in his testimony to a gripper, he says, "I too was convinced that I ought to do whatever was possible to oppose the name of Jesus of Nazareth and that's exactly what I did in Jerusalem. On the authority of the chief priests and I put many of the saints in prison and when they were put to death I cast my vote against them. Many a time I went from one synagogue to another to have them punished and I tried to force them to blaspheme in my obsession against them, I even went to foreign cities to persecute them. Paul was going to the wrong goal post and God's calling changes your trajectory." That's what Christianity is, see, and one of the questions that any thinking person is going to have if you're wondering about the faith, any thinking person is going to ask a question, "What do I make of this transformation of Saul of Tarsus?" Because what we have here in Paul is not some minor shift in his thinking, it was a complete conversion, it was a complete remake, it was a total transformation. We got to ask how do I account for the change from Saul the persecutor to Paul the preacher? How do we account for the change? We see that the Christianity is not just a change in your trajectory, Christianity is a call of divine transformation, Christianity is an extreme makeover and any one of us is capable of marginal shifts in our perspectives, I look out, do a bit more church or do a bit more reading, but look, what was Paul's story, Paul's story was I was once in opposition to Jesus, now I'm his servant, I was once persecuting, now I'm a preacher, I was once legalistic, now I'm loving, this is not a marginal shift in Paul, it's a total transformation. The Bible is full of stories that demonstrate that when you receive the call of God, it is more than just a minor shift in your behaviour. Think about when Jesus calls his disciples to first follow him and he meets a young guy called Simon who's name literally meant Reedy and although he who's swaying in the wind and he says, "Come follow me and you will now be called Cephas, you will be called rock or I'll call you rocky." The funny thing about the Bible is that when God comes and calls you in love, he makes you buy his call what he calls you and so Christianity is a call from God that transforms you, that's why Paul's story is one of a person who is called, it's why FF Bruce, the great commentator says, "The conversion of soul to Paul is perhaps one of the greatest proofs that Christianity is a divine religion." How do we account for his transformation? And so what it means is when God calls you, he not only changes your trajectory of your life, he transforms it, because this morning have you experienced that sort of change in your life, is that true of your life this morning? That sort of transformation and if it is your story, then Paul's example in front of a gripper is great principle for us and that is focus on the dramatic change that Jesus has made in your life whenever you're telling your story. The before and after, the carry-in cooking show principle, where the here is what it was before and here's what God's prepared earlier, that the incredible contrast that Jesus Christ has made in your life, the Master Shift principle, why people love watching the show? Paul's story was a story of a person called, but it was also a story of a person commissioned, you see I said it before, God is a spiritual tornado, he only calls you in in order to fling you back out again and that's exactly what he did to Paul, he commissioned him and no sooner does Jesus call Paul, but he also sends him out, verse 16, of this defense, Paul also says in telling your story again, that Jesus says to him, "Now get up and stand on your feet, I've appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and a witness of what you have seen of me and what I will show you." Jesus says, "I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles, I am sending you to them." He's a spiritual tornado, he called Paul in and he sent him out again, you see to commission something is to set it up, to put it, to work something newly produced. What I'm trying to say here is that when God breaks the champagne bottle over the bow of your life, he doesn't expect you to sit in the dry dock. We are commissioned, first and foremost, to take the good news of Jesus to the world. Jesus expects that of his spirit-empowered ministers, that's what he says in the first chapter of Acts, "Go you will be my spirit-empowered witnesses, first to Jerusalem, to Judea and at the end of the earth, his call to his apostles is his call to us this morning if you call yourself a Christian." And what is amazing is that 25 years later, as Paul stands before a gripper, broken nose, legs bowed, scars on his back, mono brow, he says, "I was not disobedient to the vision." "I was not disobedient," King Agrippa, "to the vision from heaven first in Damascus, to those in Jerusalem, Judea, to the ends of the earth." His call is our call, 25 years later, he's still telling his story, same story, why? He tells it all the time. It's because the call of God powers the commission. The call of God is like the nuclear fuel rod in the reactor that was Paul's life. And so he constantly went back to that calling in order to energize him as the source of his obedience to God. He was not walking around saying, "I'm doing all this. I'm obedient to God in order that he might come and rescue me." He's saying, "Because God rescued me on the road to Damascus, I'm obedient." And, friends and begs the question, if you're feeling a bit spent this morning, if your spiritual passion seems to be languishing, then my question is how often do you reflect on the time in which God first grabbed you on your road to Damascus? Maybe you need to replenish the fuel rod. One of the great things in this place, I love chatting with some of the older ladies and we go and have a cup of tea and a biscuit after the service. One of the older ladies who said, "It's not here with us this morning." Every third Sunday a chapter where she would just retell me the story of when she was first baptized. She kept placing fuel rods in her life at 95 and she was going stronger than ever in the faith. God called Paul, but the call powered his commission to take the message to the ends of the earth. But here's the other thing. He's also commissioned and the great mystery he was commissioned as we heard in the communion talk this morning while the great mysteries of the faith he was commissioned to suffer. He was commissioned to suffer and the interesting part of this story was at the beginning of all of this, there's a dispute so big in chapter 23 that the Roman governors were worried that they were going to rip Paul limb from limb. They were going to tear him apart and so they get these Roman soldiers around him to protect him. And then it says in verse 11 of chapter 23, "The following night the Lord stood near Paul and said, 'This is Jesus, stood near Paul and said, 'Take courage as you have testified about me in Jerusalem, so you must also testify in Rome.'" And the question is, how is Jesus going to get to Rome? And the irony was it was going to be in chains, it was going to be in chains, he was going to suffer. And what it shows us is that God is infinitely resourceful in achieving his purpose even through the self-serving decisions of selfish people. If you get this, it will help you with the roadblocks and the opposition that you might face or have faced in your Christian life. When you hit the roadblock now, you realize that God in the mystery of his purposes is able to use the most difficult and horrible of circumstances to fulfill his plans and his picture and his purposes for your life. So now I'm not saying that Paul is always thinking in this way all the time but maybe you thought like this, that when he put his head on the pillow or his tunic rolled up in the jail cell that night and tried to factor in all that was happening to him. Maybe he still must have said, 'I remember way back then when I was converted and the way that Anna Nias came to me and told me how the risen Jesus had said to him of me, 'Paul, that this man is my chosen instrument to carry my name before the Gentiles and I will show him how much he has to suffer for my name and as he lies in the jail cell he says to himself, 'You know what, the risen Jesus has been absolutely true to that.' And he might be saying the reason that I'm here in captivity is because these Gentile kings and before these Gentile kings is not because I'm spitting helplessly and hopelessly out of control in a world that is out of control. The reason that I'm here is because these pagan kings and these governors and these rulers are exercising their own free will but they're doing it within the orb of God's overarching providence. The reason I'm here is because these individuals even in their evil are becoming the very means by which God is fulfilling his purposes. And maybe in his jail cell he went back and remember the time as a great student of the Old Testament, the story of Joseph who liked Paul was and that jail cell was once in prison also and Joseph who liked Paul was elevated in front of kings and Joseph liked Paul was said to the ones who sold him into slavery I forgive you and Joseph in his story says to them what you intended for harm God intended for good and maybe off the back of that it's what inspired him later on to write in Romans and we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him who have been called according to his purpose. Paul understood that God's calling and God's commission won't take you to a place where his grace can't reach you. And so Paul was commissioned to share the good news with Jesus with the world but he was also commissioned to suffer. Paul was a person called, Paul was a person commissioned and finally we see this one of Paul was a person concerned as his testimony begins to come to a close, Festus interjects. Now it's funny because people probably do that when you start getting to the sharp end of your testimony and they know that it's going to start edging towards the spiritual end of things or time to make a bit of a decision then suddenly the red herring start to flow into the conversation. I don't know if you've ever had that experience before but Festus interjects and we see this incredible interaction of discussion between these three key players here. Festus to Paul says Paul you're out of your mind you're insane and then Paul says I'm not insane. Festus what I'm saying is true and reasonable. The king's familiar with these things so let me talk to the king, you just shush there. Let me talk to the king here and he turns to the king and says king a gripper do you believe in the prophets? I know you do and there's silence in the gallery. People are elbowing each other did he just talk to the king like that? Did he seriously stand up to the king like that? Could he be so bold? So rude? Did he just say that and a gripper sort of deflects it. We don't know what his tone of voice would be like but he says Paul are you seriously trying to convince me to be a Christian and then we have that wonderful line one of my favourites in the bible short time or long I pray that not only you but all those who are listening to me today maybe come what I am except for these chains. Paul was concerned about the people that he was talking to and it was an amazing mix of boldness and compassion for these people and it's right throughout the whole episode how do we find his balance? First of all we've got to see Paul that he had a deeply deeply complex mix of emotions and feelings and John Stott says in his commentary that the reason we can't speak the way that Paul speaks is that you've got to have the same feelings that Paul had if you're going to be effective and they were an incredible mix of feelings they were a strong mixture of both boldness and compassion it's not one or the other it was both and you see what he did do in the courtroom what look what did he do to get up and say did he get up and say you filthy incestuous sinners a gripper and binesis this guy was brother and sister and they were living together he says you get up and say you filthy rotten sinners repent you evil people now he starts with incredible humility verse 2 and 3 he says king of gripper I consider myself fortunate to stand before you today as I make my defence against all the accusations of the Jews and you're well acquainted with all the customs therefore I beg you to listen to me patiently there was compassion but there was also boldness there was boldness but there was also compassion and here's why Paul was so effective in sharing his story in front of all those people there and that is because if if you were not filled with boldness then you're not going to have the courage to speak to the king like that but at the other end of the spectrum if if you're totally filled with all boldness and no compassion then you're not going to have the gentleness or the humility you won't give the impression that you care about people or that you understand them or or that you respect them you won't share Jesus because you just won't be listened to and so unless the we as Christians are both both bold and compassionate we'll go into the world and be utterly ineffective because if if we're only bold or we're only compassionate we're not going to change anyone's life because you'll either be too harsh or you'll be too scared to win them over for Jesus but what we see in this interaction is that Paul was filled with a balance between boldness and compassion short time along he wanted this king a gripper in the arms of the ultimate king and so this combination of courage and compassion it's extremely rare in the world today because look we either refuse look I know what it's like in my life we either refuse to say anything at all or or we go too far and we speak offensively to people and so how did how did Paul overcome this in first Corinthians 10 he says to the church brothers I came to you with fear and trembling but while I was with you I resolved to know nothing but Jesus Christ and him crucified see Paul looked at the cross Paul looked at the cross and it got burnt into his heart and the cross is the only spot in any religion in the world where you see a God so holy that he pours out his wrath but a God so loving that he loses his son in order to do so at the cross Paul saw a God that was both bold and compassionate a God who just wanted those on the wrong trajectory in his arms and when that burnt into Paul's heart that turned him into something that often we're not it's not working out how we we do that's about how we become the sort of person that Paul was Paul had a loving concern someone who thinks so highly of God and of other people that he just wanted them both in each other's arms a gripper will you believe boldness short time along a gripper I pray that you're all I am compassion Paul was both what was called he was commissioned he was concerned what I want to say to this morning that that story of Paul your story is Paul's story your story can be used for God's glory if you remain strong in the face of opposition and the question that we've got to ask is how do we remain strong in the face of opposition against workmates it could be family members it just could be people we might meet in the street you know and look I believe Paul gives us some sort of insight because it's Paul stood there in front of the king and the aristocracy and the politicians and he stood there in the dock with the king bearing down upon him how did Paul stay so calm and compassionate yet bold it's cause Paul already faced the ultimate king and he blinded him and this ultimate king unlike a gripper who was a gripper was a king full of pomp and pageantry a king guilty of a questionable relationship with his sister and like that king this ultimate king also like Paul stood innocent before a Roman trial this ultimate king also had charges brought against him that were bogus this ultimate king also had the Roman leadership say I can find no charges against this man and still this king suffered in the midst of human opposition and even still in the great political and judicial train wreck that is the cross glory came out of the story and strength came out of weakness and justice came out of injustice and good emerged out of evil Paul Paul could boldly and compassionately and unswervingly share his story of divine transformation because the Jesus that he encountered on the road to Damascus the Jesus who sent him to the ends of the earth was not asking him to do anything more than what he had already experienced himself friends only until we look to Jesus and see what he asks of you and I and realize that it's nothing more than what he himself endures only then when we dwell on what the ultimate king Jesus has done for us and we overcome the fear of opposition and be compelled by love instead of pride to share his story in our lives Paul story is my story Paul story is your story Paul story is a story of a God who breaks in and changes the trajectory of your life Paul stories a story of a God who transforms your life Paul story is of a God who sends you out to go and share the news with others Paul story is a story of a God who breaks your heart for those that are still lost and some of you might be hearing this message now and are thinking Sam do you think seriously that in this short time you can persuade me to be a Christian and I say short time along I pray that you become all that I am except for this coat friend if that's you allow God to break into your life and change your trajectory this morning maybe you're a Christian and you need God to do that to you this morning now my Christian friends here's my question at the end of the day would it really kill you to share the story of Jesus's transformation in your life with someone this week because the irony for Paul yeah it did it did kill him and we are blessed and we are so lucky in this country that we probably won't face that level of opposition and so when we see that it makes us ever stronger and ever courageous to share with someone what Jesus has done for us this week and you know what in the midst of all that if only people realized that the best stories of transformation the best stories of transformation and renovation on a Sunday are not on channel 10 or not a master chef or the renovators but they're here in God's church I want to say to this morning that God can use your story for his glory and is your story one of divine calling is at one of divine commission is at one of designing divine concern for the lost if it is you'll do just fine