Start With God

What's up everybody? It's good to see you. Back from London. We were over there for the holidays was fantastic. Great trip. cold, wet. Amazing. But we missed you all here. The last week was amazing. And be here for the new year service. Ready for a new year together. All right, great. It's good to be back. We pray? Um, yeah, we should pray Let's pray. Father, help us to be present to you. As you are always present to us. Amen. All right. So we're back in the book of Acts. It's been a bit we've been, we were out of it for Advents did some Christmas stuff, New Year's Day. And here we are, again, back in the book of Acts. We've been in this journey for about, I don't know, two years now, feel about right. I was doing the math today, the book of Acts, it seems like it spans about 30 years in total, we're about 25 years into the journey with today's text, which means that we're progressing through the book of Acts 112 speed, guys notice that. I don't know. I just thought that was funny. Anyway. So we have been in this for a while we're going to be wrapping it up in the next few weeks, you're going to notice today, I'm going to read two chapters of text, okay, it's gonna be a lot. And you might be thinking to yourself, there were some weeks where we spent like four weeks in two or three verses. And now we're doing two chapters at a time, the book does speed up toward the end, you're going to notice, all right, so I'm going to read two chapters, and when one of our values in the series is that we hear the entire book read aloud throughout the series. So it's not, it's not just that I'm going to kind of read little bits and pieces and then say a bunch of stuff, it's that the stuff that said here is more important than anything I have to say about it. So I'm gonna read the whole thing in chunks, and then talk a little bit about it along the way. But just to catch up with where we're at, if you remember, we're going to be in x 21 and 22. Today, if you remember, X 20 Is Paul wrapping up his third missionary journey. So he's doing these like these, like cycles around the Mediterranean, you know, he's kind of start small, and gets gradually bigger and gradually bigger, taking the gospel to places where it's never been preached before. And he cycles his way back through and he decides he's got another cycle in him. He wants to go to Rome eventually. And then he's got these dreams of going to Spain, he talks about so by this time, the Roman Empire is spread all the way to Spain, and up into up into the British Isles. So I mean, there's like this whole frontier out there that that Paul is dreaming about getting to But before he goes out on what would be his fourth missionary journey, he decided he had to take an offering for the church in Jerusalem. So the church in Jerusalem was having a really, really hard time it started out really great. But then massive persecution, followed by poverty, followed by famine, and they were really struggling. And so Paul went around the entire Mediterranean. And you can read about this in a lot of his letters, he talks about it. He went around the entire Mediterranean, taking up an offering to deliver to the church in Jerusalem. So he's on his way back before he goes out for his fourth time he's on his way back to Jerusalem to deliver this offering. We noticed that in Acts 20 He was saying goodbye to a lot of dear friends along the way. So he stopped off in emphasis. He stopped off in different places to say goodbye. But we if you're paying attention and acts 20 Those goodbyes are not just like, see you soon. They're heavy. You know, he said this in Acts 20 Verse 22. And now compelled by the Spirit, I'm going to Jerusalem not knowing what will happen to me there. I only know that in every city, the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are facing me. However, I consider my life worth nothing. To me, my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task. The Lord Jesus has given me the task of testifying to the good news of God's grace. Now, I know that none of you among whom I've gone preaching the kingdom will ever see me again. Okay, so these are not just your normal goodbyes. See you soon as Paul has the sense that something heavy is going to happen when he gets to Jerusalem, and there's good reason that he's feeling that way. Today, we're going to unpack what actually happens when he gets there. So we're going to read these chapters, I'm gonna, I'm gonna comment along the way, serve as sort of a tour guide for the story and try to draw the whole thing together, we'll see where it goes. But what I the way I want to set this all up, though I mentioned a second ago that this is 25 years of a journey. And Paul comes in around chapter nine. But he was part of the journey basically, from the beginning, initially, not as a member, but as an outsider who was trying to shut down the church and the thing that God was doing, and eventually is somebody who is now radically transformed by the gospel and has become one of the biggest proponents to the to the point that we're still talking about him 2000 years later. But what I just found so interesting was when we first meet Paul, he's breathing murderous threats against the church. I mean, that's what it says, breathing murderous threats. And now the picture we're gonna see of him is absolutely startling, the transformation. And yes, he had this dramatic moment on the road to Damascus, where he met Jesus, he saw this vision and things change for him in a moment. But I've been around Jesus for a long time. And there, I have moments like that, too. I mean, not maybe that dramatic, but where things will shift like things will break in just a moment. But then there are also a lot of things that have been broken, that need to be broken over the course of years. Call it sanctification, this process of changing and becoming more like Jesus and I, I look at this in the picture of Paul that we see in the beginning of Acts acts nine, breathing, murderous threats, and the picture that we see here, there's such a staggering difference. He has grown so much as a human being. Here at canopy, we talk a lot about freedom we say it is our mission, our dream, our vision as a community to learn to live free. What that means is to learn to live into what Jesus has done in us. Okay, so Jesus has already made us his own, we are already his children. And now we need to learn to live like That's true. And this is a long process. It's something that happens in a moment that we then have to spend the rest of our lives catching up with. And when I look at Paul, I'm startled by the fact stunned by the fact inspired by the fact that it's possible. It's possible to grow. It's possible to change it's possible to become more free and more like Jesus. And I think the older we get, we think, you know, you just settled in, you get set in your ways. And you think change gets harder and harder to change habits to change mindsets, neuroplasticity, and all these things I don't understand. But we have all these ways of justifying the fact that we get stuck in a rut. And then I look at Paul, and he changes from the beginning to the end. And I want to point out some of the ways he changed some of the markers of his maturity and his growth in Jesus today. And I want to land with how did he do it? Like what was his secret, to changing to growing in freedom, because that's what we're doing here, friends. Everything we do in this community, whether it's gathering in this place on a Sunday morning or going to eat at a pizza place together, or, or meeting and tables around people's homes or, or going to a home and worshiping together whatever we do as a community, reading the Bible together, praying together, fasting together, it is all for the sake of glorifying God and being transformed more and more in his image every day. That's why this place exists. And I want you to know it's possible and we want to see it. Like it's January What is it eighth today? Like what if a year from now, everybody who's in this room was back in this room. And more is God brings more to us. And we all were able to say of ourselves and one another. I'm more free than I was at this point last year. You know what I've noticed you've changed. I've noticed you've you've become more gentle, more patient more, more, more whatever it is without this is not backhanded compliments. But I noticed more of Jesus in you than I saw before What if that's possible? It is and here's what it looks like in the life of the apostle Paul starting Acts chapter 121 almost started the whole book over again Whoa. Who? Acts 21 Let's do it again. Acts 21 Verse one after we had torn ourselves away from them notice we Luke is now part of the stories part of the traveling group we had torn ourselves away from them we put out to sea and sailed straight to cost the next day we went to Rhodes and from there to Patara we found a ship crossing over to Phoenicia. This is gonna be a lot of tribal stuff, guys. After sightings, crossing over to Phoenicia went on board and set sail. After citing Cyprus and passing to the south of it, we sailed to Syria. We landed a tire where our ship was to unload its cargo. We sought out the disciples there and stayed with them seven days through the Spirit. They urged Paul not to go to Jerusalem. When it was time to leave, we left and continued on our way all of them including the wives and children, accompanied us out of the city and there on the beach we knelt to pray. After saying goodbye to each other, we went aboard the ship and they returned home. We continued our voyage from Tyre, and then it told me is where we were greeted, where we greeted the brothers and sisters and stayed with him until the next day or for today, excuse me, leaving the next day. We read Surya and stayed at the house of Philip the Evangelist one of the seven. He had four unmarried daughters who prophesied. After we'd been there a number of days a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea coming over to us he took Paul's belt, tied his own hands and feet with it and said with that's quite a feat tied his own hands and feet. Sorry, and said the Holy Spirit says in this way the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem will bind the owner of this belt and will hand him over to the Gentiles. When we heard this, we and the people there pleaded with Paul, we Luke Now pleaded with Paul not to go up to Jerusalem. Then Paul answered, why are you weeping and breaking my hearts? I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die in Jerusalem for the name of Jesus. When he would not be dissuaded, we gave up and said the Lord's will be done. After this, we started on our way up from Jerusalem up to Jerusalem, some of the disciples from Surya brought us accompany us and brought us to the home nation, where one of where we were to stay. He was a man from Cyprus and one of the early disciples. So we'll pause there for a second, to make a simple observation, kind of the most prominent feature of this section of text is this dialogue between Paul and his friends about going to Jerusalem. Twice, Paul was warned, in not just ordinary ways, but seemingly prophetic ways. You know, the first time it says through the Spirit, they urged him not to go to Jerusalem. Later on, we have these prophetic words that are offered by this guy Agabus saying this is what's going to happen to you there. And Paul disregarded these words and continued on to Jerusalem. And the question I want to ask is Who was right? Right, because Paul had this internal conviction, Jesus Christ is drawing me to Jerusalem in order to do this work. That's his internal conviction. Now, his friends have this conviction also, from the spirit, that if he goes to Jerusalem, bad stuff is going to happen. And I just want to ask the question, which was right and which was wrong. Like was Paul wrong to continue to go to Jerusalem? You know, think about what it what would have happened if he did, and I'm gonna spoiler alert, he's gonna get arrested, things are gonna go badly. Okay. So Agabus his prediction his prophecy is going to come true. But by the way, sorry. Did you notice that Philip had four daughters who prophesied? Anybody else noticed that? At the risk of getting derailed. Can I get derailed for a second? When Paul lists the gifts, some of the gifts that Jesus gives the Holy Spirit gives in Ephesians chapter four, he says that God has given the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and the teachers, teachers being last prophets being second. And here we have for women, prophets, that is leaders in the church. Now, I know that Paul said, some confusing stuff in Timothy and other places that we have to wrestle with. And I want to do that. But I want to wrestle with it in light of things like this, where Luke draws attention to the fact that there were four women leading in the church. And he doesn't have to draw attention to them. They don't speak in this passage, he just threw out the fact that oh, by the way, there were these four women who were leaders in the church, you should just know that. And I think we should just know that that Okay. Moving on, but not we'll be back there. Don't worry. Yeah, so Paul, told he's not don't go to Jerusalem, bad things are gonna happen in Jerusalem. I gotta go to Jerusalem. What if he hadn't? If he hadn't, if he just gone about his loop? How would the world have been different, he would have made his way to Rome, he would have preached the gospel in Rome on his own terms instead of under arrest. And who knows what could have happened there and from there, perhaps Spain, perhaps Paul makes his way all the way up to Britain and preaches the gospel in Britain 500 years before St. Patrick ever landed there. Can you imagine how different the world might have been had the Apostle Paul not been arrested in Jerusalem? Maybe he got it wrong. Maybe he didn't hear from Jesus. Or maybe his friends got it wrong. You know, maybe cuz sometimes when you're praying for somebody, and you really love them a lot, you feel like you're feeling and hearing something on their behalf like this is going to happen for you or or you're going to be healed. I just I just know it but what in fact is happening is love has co opted the voice of the spear Your is your love, your compassion, your desire for them has taken over to the place where now you're not necessarily hearing from the Spirit on their behalf. You're longing on their behalf, which is also beautiful and good. But two different things. Maybe that's what's happening. Maybe they just loved them so much that they tried to talk them out of something they knew it'd be dangerous. So who's right? The problem is that the way Luke writes the story, he says they both are. He says, clearly they were prophesying through the Spirit, they're not making it up their their their love for Paul has not co opted their faith or their ability to hear the voice of God, they're prophesying, this is what's going to happen. And Luke never disputes the fact that Paul has probably heard from God, and His desire to take the this offering to Jerusalem. I mean, Paul is doing the Lord's work, what's happening in Jerusalem, Jesus, people are suffering. And Paul moved with compassion for them, at great risk to himself is doing the work of the king to care for his people. This is godly work. They're both right. How can that be? How can it be that one of them says I'm going? And the other one says you shouldn't go? And they're both right? And the answer is, maybe discernment of the will of God is a little bit more complicated than we think it is. And by complicated, I don't mean difficult. I mean, maybe it's more relational and less transactional than we tend to think it is. In other words, maybe as we mature, and as we grow in Jesus, he doesn't so much, always tell us do this, don't do that. Eat this, don't eat that. Go here, don't go there. But instead asks us as we grow and mature, what do you want to do? What do you think you've been around me for a while now? This is Jesus talking. You've been around me for a while now. You've gotten a sense of how I operate, the things I care about the things that I would do if I were you know, why don't you do those things. And if I want to, I'll stop you. You know, it's kind of like my philosophy on skiing and the skiers in the room. You just go downhill until there's a tree. And then you sort of turn. Right? You don't stand at the top of the hill and plan a route. I mean, maybe some of you do. That's just not the way I operate. I just point the skis down the hill. And if something comes in front of me, a rock, a tree, a child, you go around. This is what Paul is doing. This is how he's come to understand Jesus in such a way that a mature discernment process involves not only seeking the will of God, which he does, and which they all do, all of them are seeking the will of God all the time. I'm not saying don't pray. I'm not saying don't ask. They all do it all the time. They're waiting on him. They're listening to CBS specific instructions. But I think sometimes he's quiet. And we're paralyzed, because we're waiting for specific instructions, when he might just be saying, What do you want to do? You know, you know what I'm like, you know, the kind of stuff that I'm doing, don't wait, just go and do it. And if I don't want you to do it, I'll stick a little kid in front of you, or a rock or a tree, and you'll turn. That's what happens here. See, the Holy Spirit spoke through him, but he never told him not to go to Jerusalem. He just told him, this is what's going to happen. If you go to Jerusalem, this is the kind of stuff that's going to happen. It's as if the Holy Spirit's saying to him, Paul, you can do what you want. I want to let you know it's going to be hard. Are you sure you want to do this? That's an adult's, like a mature relationship. You know, it's like when you have kids, you you start out by telling them instructions for everything. And at some point, right, Jose, she's looking at me like, wait, I'm waiting for you to get to this point. At some point. You have to stop giving instructions and trust that they've learned along the way. We just had this conversation. That's why she's laughing right now. Now, this is terrifying for both parties. Right? Because entering into an adult relationship is a lot more complicated. It's no longer don't do this. Don't do that. It's having to use my own judgment. And understand myself. It's not just understanding of the will of God. It's understanding myself, my own desires and passions, motivations, hopes, fears, insecurities, dysfunctions. All of that enters into the discernment process. Now as the Holy Spirit, instead of saying, it's not this road, it's this road, you now stand in a wide open field and you can go in 360 degrees. And that's awesome and terrifying. because we're so used to so programmed with like, step here, step here and there are seasons like that there are times like that, especially early on in our journey, where he's telling us do this, don't do that. But eventually Now eventually we have to grow. Paul says to the flippin church this is my prayer that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best? Do you hear that? That you may be able to discern what is best and may be filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, the glory in praise of God, that you discern? So what's going on here? The Holy Spirit is telling Paul, this is what's going to happen if you follow through with your plan. Do you want to? Paul says yes, this is a mature discernment relationship. He's grown into maturity with Jesus. And this is what Jesus said would happen. I no longer call you servants, he says, because why? A servant doesn't know the Masters business. Doesn't know the business. He just knows what he's told, in any given moment, do this, go there, don't do this. But he says I don't call you servants because you know, the Masters business. Now I call you friends. So let's mature into a friendship with God. We're discerning His will is a process of me bringing my will and him bringing his it's a process of listening and speaking, it's a process of growing together. That's what we see who was right who was wrong. Nobody was wrong. Nobody was wrong. They were just having this beautiful relationship where the Holy Spirit says to him, Well, what do you want to do? All right, let's go. And so they go. And here's what happens next. Verse 17. When we arrived at Jerusalem, the brothers and sisters received us warmly the next day, Paul, and the rest of us went to see James and all the elders were present, Paul greeted them, and reported in detail what God had done among the Gentiles through his ministry. When they heard this, they praise God. And then they said to Paul, you see, Brother, how many 1000s of Jews have believed, and all of them are zealous for the law. They have been informed that you teach all the Jews who live among the Gentiles to turn away from Moses telling them not to circumcise their children or to live according to our customs, what shall we do? They will certainly hear that you've come. So do what we tell you. There are four men with us who've made a vow. Take these men and join in the purification rites and pay their expenses so that they can have their heads shaved, and everyone will know that there's no truth in these reports about you, but that you yourself are living in obedience to the law. As for the Gentile believers, we've written to them our decision that they should abstain from food sacrifice to idols from blood and from meat, strangle of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. So the next day, Paul took the man and purified himself along with them, then he went to the temple to give notice of the date when the days of purification would be would end and the offering would be made for each of them. Okay. So, second chunk of the story, what did we learn here, we learned that it's entirely possible to believe in Jesus and still be a jerk. That's essentially what's happening here is we have some people who believe in Jesus who are followers of Jesus that haven't quite grown in maturity. Because what's happening here is this is this is how it goes. Paul walks in and says, I've just been doing all these missionary laps around the Mediterranean and great cost to myself. And you guys got to know God is on the move. Like the gospel is spreading. There are churches planted every you can just I can just imagine the fire in his eyes. He's talking about what happened in Ephesus, the signs and wonders, the churches that are being birthed that life change that's happening, people being baptized the world, literally, the world changing, and he's talking about this, and there's this passion, and he gets to the end of his speech, and they say, that's amazing. But okay. Now, whenever you hear that God is on the move. And your first reaction is, that's great, but you know, you've been institutionalized. institutionalized, that means that you've been inside the walls of the church too much. And haven't been on the front lines of what God might be doing in the world. It means you've been having far too many conversations about theology in the abstract, and not living out your theology, in reality means we're more concerned about the governance of churches than we are about the King who's ruling the nations. We have these institutionalized Christians in Jerusalem that have just been part of the system for too long. That when they hear that God is on the move, instead of falling on their faces with joy. They say that's great, but but there's this there's This problem, Paul, there's this theological problem. You know, you're telling everybody, they don't have to be Jewish. And we all know that the law matters, God gave us the law, he's going to save us through the law now. This is fundamentally false. They're wrong. These institutionalized Christians are wrong. This always happens though, when God's on the move. Three things happen when God's on the move, okay, and they go first one, our boxes get destroyed. And what I mean by that is the boxes that we like to build in churches to put God into, okay, our theological boxes of this is what God has to be like our ecclesiological boxes, meaning this is how the church is supposed to function, our missiological boxes, meaning this is what it's supposed to look like, when God moves in the world. When God actually shows up. He shows us how ridiculous our boxes are in the first place. Every time now, is there anything wrong with studying theology? No. No, some of our theologies are very good, and very helpful. Is there anything wrong with working out in ecclesiology? A belief about what church should be alike? Of course there isn't. Is there anything wrong with understanding and studying and building a philosophy of mission? Of course not. As long as we understand what we're doing, when we engage in those exercises, when we engage in those exercises, we are not putting up boundaries within which God has to operate. Instead, we are trying to describe in the best ways we can with our finite minds, the infinite God. Do you see the difference between those two things? One is understanding that this is how God has to work. And the other is understanding that like, I have no idea how God works except for I've seen these things. And I'm going to try to put language to it. And when God shows up, okay, this is a big deal. Kiana reminded us of this several times, when she preached few weeks back, when God shows up. He can do whatever he wants. First thing when he walks into a room, he blows up the box. Second thing, here, this is really good. When he walks into a room, he blows up the box, and then the wrong sort of people start showing up. Why? Because they didn't belong in that box. They felt uncomfortable in that box, they were unwelcomed. In that box, it didn't have space for them. It didn't have room for them, that the ways we had defined God excluded people. And when God comes in, he blows up the box. And these people who have been excluded who've been left out on the margins and on the fringes, they they notice and they think, Wait, there's a space for me here. Like I can be a part of this too. And they come crashing in waves. You guys, do you understand where we're standing right now. Like this happened in this city. In the 1960s, you heard of the Jesus people movement. It started in a beam field, like three miles from here, where Calvary Chapel stands right now. And what happened is God started showing up in miraculous ways signs and wonders that made all of the institutionalized church people wildly uncomfortable, but it was undeniable it was happening. And so they started to build around, he's doing something we don't know how to define it, but we're just gonna ride this wave. We're just, we're just gonna put up our sails and let the Spirit take us where he wants us to go. And they did and what happened next. People started showing up that have never been in church before. They came with long hair and ripped clothes and no shoes. Do you know that the original days of the Calvary Chapel that was the biggest criticism that Chuck Smith used to get was your people aren't wearing shoes in church? Daniel how to feel about that, brother. There you go. There you go. Okay, yeah. Now, here's the deal. You can't, we can't under understate the impact of that moment. The Jesus people movement on the church that exists today. Like I I don't know all of the history, but I guarantee 100% that this church would not exist. We're not for what happened in that Beanfield 60 years ago. And not just this church, like 1000s of them 10s of 1000s across the face of the world. When God moves, he blows up our boxes the wrong sort of people come in the world is transformed. And here's the third thing ready. Church people get really uncomfortable. Institutionalized people start to like, shake a little bit. So so much so that one of the ways you can tell God is on the move is when church people start getting uncomfortable. And that's what happens here. Church leaders say this is great, but but you're telling them they don't have to be Jewish you're telling they don't have to live up to the law. So we need you to show us how Jewish you are. Take these guys to the temple pay for them. to have their purifications done, you do it with them that way, everybody who's here that has weak conscience that hasn't understood the gospel at all, everybody who is clearly wrong will see that you're Jewish. And what does Paul say? Yeah, sounds good. What? Did what just happened here? Why did he not know? First of all? Why did the church leaders in Jerusalem not just say they're wrong? They're idiotic. They don't understand the gospel at all. We're working on them, but they're so thick headed. Paul, can can we hold a revival? So you can you can explain to them all the gospel so they'll understand it? Because they clearly don't, why didn't the church leader stick up for him and say, to all of these parishioners, you're wrong. He's doing God's work. Figure your stuff out? Because they weren't. You're not saved through the law. You're saved through Jesus, they were wrong. Why didn't they say that? Why didn't but why didn't Paul This is what gets me more. We're not entirely sure what year this is right now. We'll call it like 55. Ad. Paul, it's estimated, wrote the book of Galatians and 53 or 54 ad. If I read the book of Galatians, recently, it's about this very issue. It's about whether or not Gentiles have to become Jewish to be Christian. You know, he says in there. Am I trying to win the approval of human beings or of God? Or am I trying to please people, if I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ. Listen to this. When Peter came to Antioch, this isn't Galatians I oppose him to his face, because he stood condemned for certain men came from James and he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw himself back and separate himself from the Gentiles, because he was afraid of those who belong to the circumcision group. The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy is the by their hypocrisy, even Barnabas was led astray. So when I saw that they weren't acting, listen to this. When I saw that they weren't acting in line with the truth of the gospel. I said to Peter in front of all of them, you're a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it that you forced Gentiles to follow Jewish customs? That's what he said. Galatians five, it's for freedom that Christ has set us free. This is our theme verse here. Stand firm then and don't let yourself be burdened again by the yoke of slavery. Mark my words, I Paul tell you, if you let yourself be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. The guy who wrote those words, should have absolutely eviscerated these institutionalized Christians. He was right and they were wrong, and he could have just flattened them. Instead, he says, Yeah, I'll shave my head. He'd already taken an azurite Val, take another one. Whatever I need to do, why? Because a mark of his freedom. And Jesus, a mark of his maturity in Christ was he no longer had to be right all the time. He had learned that it's entirely possible to be right. But if you have no love, you're still wrong. You see, what's the situation here? Why did he write those scathing words to the Gentiles in Galatia? Because he knew that if he allowed the people who were coming to them to tell them that they had to be circumcised to be Jewish, he knew that it would destroy the church in Galatia. And so he wrote this letter, this scathing letter saying, Don't you dare let this happen. In the same way, he knew that if he said those things to the church in Jerusalem, a church that was steeped in tradition, a church that was wrong about some of their traditions, he knew that if he insisted on being right, it would damage the church in Jerusalem. And what we have here is a man who cares more about the Bride of Christ, than he cares about being right. As my friends there is nothing more important to Jesus than his bride. And Paul, as he matured in Jesus, He came to this place of radical humility, where he loved the church more than he loved himself. And he would do anything to protect it. His letter to the Philippians he said the same thing. He said, Do nothing out of selfish ambition, or vain conceit, rather, in humility, value others above yourself. Not looking to your own interest, but each of you to the interest of others in your relationship with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus, who being in very nature, God did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage. Rather he made himself nothing. Here he learned this courageous, radical humility that preferred the Bride of Christ above himself. And though he was right, he didn't insist on flaunting it. Did these Jewish Christians essentially institutionalized Christians need to grow up? Yes, they do. But Paul's a good pastor. And he knows that the journey of growth with the church is a slow one. And you can't expect to take people from zero to 60, like that. So I will love them, and I will protect them. And we will move this thing along together. So he goes to the temple. And here we go, here's what happens next. All right, this is going to be a long chunk everybody settled in. When the seven days were nearly over, some of the Jews from the province of Asia saw Paul at the temple and they stood up the whole crowd and seized him shouting, fellow Israelites help us. This is the man who teaches everyone everywhere against our people in our law in this place. And besides, he's brought Greeks into the temple fundamentally not true, and to file this holy place they had previously seen Trofim Trophimus, the Ephesian in the city with Paul and assume that Paul had brought him into the temple. The whole city was aroused, and people came running from all directions, seizing Paul, they dragged him from the temple and immediately the gates were shut. While they were trying to kill him. news reached the commander of the Roman troops, the whole city of Jerusalem was in an uproar. He at once took some officers and soldiers and ran down to the crowd. When the rioters saw the commander and soldiers they stopped beating Paul, the commander came up and arrested him and ordered him to be bound with two chains. Then he asked who he was and what he'd done. Some of the crowd shouted one thing and some another and since the commander could not get at the truth because of the uproar, he ordered that Paul be taken into the barracks. When Paul reached the steps, the violence of the mob was so great that he had to be carried by the soldiers. The crowd that followed him kept shouting get rid of him. As the soldiers were about to take Paul into the barracks, he asked the Commander, may I say something to you? Do you speak Greek? He replied. Aren't you the Egyptian who started a revolt and led 4000 terrorists out in the wilderness some time ago? Paul answered, I'm a Jew, from Tarsus in Cilicia. Citizen no ordinary city, please let me speak. Hold on. Please let me speak to the people. Hold that for a second. After receiving the commander's permission, Paul stood on the steps in motion to the crowd when they were all silent. He said to them in Aramaic. brothers and fathers. Listen now to my defense. When they heard him speak in Aramaic, they became quite quiet. And Paul said, I'm a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in the city I studied under Gamaliel and was thoroughly trained in the law of our ancestors. I was just as zealous for God as any of you are today. I persecuted the followers of this way to their death, arresting both men and women throwing them into prison, as the high priest and all the council contest can themselves testify, even obtained letters from them to their associates in Damascus and went there to bring these people as prisoners to Jerusalem to be punished. About noon as I came nearer to Damascus, suddenly a bright light from Heaven flashed around me. I fell to the ground and I heard a voice say to me, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? Who are you, Lord? I asked. I am Jesus of Nazareth, Nazareth, whom you're persecuting, he replied, My companions saw the light, but they didn't understand the voice of him. He was speaking to me. What shall I do, Lord? I asked. Get up, the Lord said and go into Damascus there you will be told all that you have been assigned to do. My companions led me by the hand of Damascus because the brilliance of the light had blinded me. A man named Anand is came to see me he was a devout observer of the law and was highly respected by all the Jews living there. He stood beside me and said, Brother saw receive your sight and at that very moment I was able to see. Then he said, The God of our ancestors has chosen you to know His will and to see the Righteous One and to hear words from his mouth, and you will be his witness to all people of what you have seen and heard. And now what are you waiting for, get up and be baptized, washed your sins away calling on his name. When I returned to Jerusalem and was praying at the temple, I fell into a trance and I saw the Lord speaking to me quick, he said, leave Jerusalem immediately because these people will not accept your testimony about me. Lord, I replied, these people know that I went from one synagogue to another to imprison and beat those who believe in you. And the blood of your martyrs. Stephen was shed and I stood there giving my approval and guarding the clothes of those who are killing him. Then the Lord said to me go, I will send you far away to the Gentiles. The crowd listened to Paul until he said this. Then they raised their voices and shouted rid the earth of him he's not fit to live. As they were shouting and throwing off their cloaks and fleeing Dustin to the year the commander ordered that Paul be taken to the barracks, he directed that he'd be flogged and interrogated in order to find out why the people were shouting at him like this, as they stretched out, stretched him out to flog him. Paul said to the centurion, standing there is illegal for you to flog a Roman citizen who hasn't even been found guilty. When the centurion heard this, he went to the commander and reported to him, What are we going to do this man as a Roman citizen? The commander went to Paul and said, Tell me, are you a Roman citizen? Yes, I am. He answered. Then the commander said I had to pay a lot of money for my citizenship. But I was born a citizen, Paul said, Mike drop. Those who are about to interrogate him withdrew immediately, the commander was alarmed when he realized that he had put Paul or Roman citizen in chains. The end of the story I want to call attention to one last thing, okay. Paul goes into the temple, he does everything he's supposed to do. And it wasn't good enough, because people from around the region, who who had different ideas of what he was doing, who didn't love the fact that the wrong people were starting to show up, I decided that Paul was the problem. And if they take him out, they could solve the problem. They had not yet understood that Jesus is the head of the church, but regardless, they go after Paul, they seize Him, they beat him, they're like tearing him to shreds. Actively. He's only saved by the fact that a Roman legion heard about the uproar in the temple and came running in and saved him. Roman, put a Pol Pot, they have to carry him out of the temple because everybody's still trying to get out. And despite the fact that they're Roman soldiers in armor with their swords out, the people are still trying to tear up tear Paul apart. I mean, this is like a violent mob. And they finally get Paul out of harm's way they finally get him in my mind. They've taken him to the door of the room where he's going to be safe. And what does he say? Can I talk to him? Can I talk to them? The profound love this man hats for lost and hurting people. It says he's stood in front of them, and motioned for them to be silent and spoke to them in the language that they can best understand. And we read that and we think, Oh, that's nice. He stood he stood up, he gestured, he talked. Do you guys realize that in this moment, he's bleeding? I don't know. He's got a broken limb, his shoulders dislocated, he's limping. He's, he can bear. He's just been beaten by these people. And he says, Can I talk to him, and bleeding and broken, he stands in front of them and with poise and command, he takes control of the situation. And they will listen as he shares his story. And I think that right there, that visual of Paul, actively forgiving and pursuing and going after the people who in that moment were trying to kill him and would be again in a few minutes. That's the greatest vision of what freedom in Christ looks like, of what maturity and Jesus looks like. And I want to be like that. I'm not, by the way. It's not going to come to a surprise as a surprise to some of you. But I want to be have this courageous and bold love that forgives instantaneously that pursues? How did he get there? That's the question I want to ask how did he get to this place of maturity? This place where he has this mature, discerning relationship with Jesus where Jesus asks him, Paul, what do you want to do? And Paul says, Hey, I got some dreams. What do you think? And they have this kind of relationship. How do you get to this place where you don't have to be right all the time where you're so humble that you're looking out for other people instead of yourself. How do you get to this place? Where you're actively forgiving even as you're being hurt and wounded and bleeding, and actively pursuing and love the answers and Paul's story. Just get a vision of Jesus. Because that's what he did. So Paul says You won't understand me. Let me tell you my story. I was walking one day and I was just like you I thought I had it all figured out. I was perfect. I was gonna I was gonna save myself by obeying the law perfectly. I hated everybody who said that you didn't have to do that. I was killed. I'm I was I was just like you. You beat me I'm bleeding a little bit. I killed people. He's saying, IRS, I was just like you. And then I saw him. I saw him. And everything changed. Because I saw where he was like the moment Paul's life change was when he finally asked the right question. The first question he asked Jesus was what? Who are you, Lord? Everyone you meet outside the doors of this place will tell you that the most important question you can ask yourself is Who Am I? That's the most important thing you can figure out. And I'm here to tell you that that is third. That's the third question to ask. Paul gives us the first two here. Okay. The first one is who are you? You want to know who you are as a person. Start with the one who made you know who he is and what he's like? Who are you Lord, in that moment, Paul's identity, his life changed, he would say in the book of Philippians, That everything after that moment, everything that he'd held as valuable before is now trash. It's rubbish compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord. I know him now. Nothing else is important. Who are you, Lord? Question number one. Question number two, what do you want me to do? What do you want me to do? Somebody recently asked me the best advice I've ever received, the best advice I've ever received comes from Mary and John Chapter Two, the turning of water to wine. Where she says to the servants, Do whatever he tells you to do. And then, along the way, Paul figures out who he is, you see how that works. I know Jesus. I do what he tells me to do. And as we go, I learned who I am. I'm his. I'm his kid. I'm a witness. I'm an ambassador, he this man knew who he was. In this moment. I don't you don't do what he just did. Without knowing who you are. He commanded a mob while bleeding and broken and shared within the love of Christ. You don't do that unless you know who you are. And how did he figure it out? Not by going after himself, like going after Jesus and what Jesus wanted for his life. So how do we learn to live free, there it is vision of Jesus. Do whatever he tells you to do. And a year from now I personally want to be closer to this than I am today. When join me, let's pray. She's if there's anything I said, that's helpful or useful, or for me what it stick if there's anything, that's not what you let it just be forgotten, even as I talk right now. But I'm just in this moment. I'm very aware of the limitations of anything I can say. Because at the end of all of this, I landed with the notion that it all starts with a vision of you. And you're the only one who can do that. And so God I asked you humbly on my own behalf, and on behalf of our church, would you meet with your kids right now by your Spirit? As we step into this new year together, would you give us a compelling vision of you who you are and what you're like when you give us a compelling vision of the work that you have put us here to do the things that you want from us. Whether those things are small a conversation, a hug or a prayer or or big, like vocational decisions or relationships or whatever else. shows who you are, Lord Jesus, show us what you want us to do. Set us free. Help us to grow. Freedom and maturity, knowledge and depth of insight. You want to be more like you. So Jimmy with your kids we're going to close with the time of worship. But don't run shouldn't do it necessarily like if you're ready if you want to stand in the worship as as the band starts and lead us go ahead, but also feel free to sit there in this moment and just have this very conversation with Jesus. What I need to see you, Lord, I need to hear from you. If you find yourself stuck for whatever reason, sometimes we get stuck in our lives. And you need somebody to pray with you. Just come up to the front. It's just nothing special up here. It's just a way of indicating I'd love to pray with somebody to come up to the front you can you can just kneel here at the front and somebody will meet you and pray with you. Jesus loves you. He's with you. He wants to make himself known to you. He wants to help you grow, mature. It's got good things for you. Don't rush out of this place. There's that stuff can wait. Sit in his presence, worship in His presence. Whatever he's leading you to do right now pray in His presence. Let's do it together.