Acts 22.
I'm convinced, as you study the Bible, and
you look at the lives of the people
that God uses, that before they even realize
that there's a call on their life, or
before they even know the Lord personally, God
begins to work in their lives in childhood,
and uses the events and the circumstances and
the experiences of our lives to prepare us
for when He does reveal Himself and call
us, to put within us those things that
are necessary that God may use us when
He begins to work in our lives.
The wonderful thing about that, and the providence
of God, and the sovereignty of God, is
that I don't have to wear black and
mourn and call myself a victim my whole
life after I meet Jesus Christ, because of
what happened to me as a child, what
I might have gone through as a human
being because of some depraved relative, or some
crisis or some catastrophe in my life that's
even maybe affected me physically.
But I don't have to spend the rest
of my life now, oh, poor me, I'm
a victim, this horrible thing.
God, in His providence and sovereignty, controls everything
to work in our lives, that when we
meet Him, He's had a purpose in it.
And nothing declares it more clearly than the
life of the Apostle Paul.
Now you remember, he's in Jerusalem at the
time of Pentecost.
Jews from all the known world are required
to be there, at least all male Jews,
at least once in their lifetime, according to
the Law of Moses.
Josephus records that at this time the population
of Jerusalem swells to over 2 million people,
from the known world, every culture, every language,
drawn there to worship God and be obedient
to the Law of Moses.
Now here's the Apostle Paul, a man who
has been raised experiencing the extreme and the
best of both cultures that rule the world,
the Grecian culture, the Hellenist culture, and the
Jewish culture.
Born of Jewish parents in Tarsus, which was
a free city under the Greek culture, but
ruled by Rome.
And being a free city, it means that
Rome, certain cities, because they would aid Rome
whenever there was a war, they would allow
them to rule themselves with their own laws
and religion, but just answer to Rome, maintain
the peace, and answer to the Roman Empire.
So they were allowed to rule themselves because
of that allegiance to Rome.
But it was a Greek culture, Greek education,
that Paul was raised in.
So here's the common language of the world,
the philosophy, the art of the world.
Raised in that, having godly parents, Orthodox Jews
who want him to be a rabbi, and
so they send him to Bible school, send
him to Jerusalem.
Now, he's raised in the Jewish religion, the
Jewish culture, but also the Greek, the Grecian
culture.
So he's educated to be able to adapt
to both levels of society in the known
world.
So they send him to Jerusalem as a
young child, and he is taught by the
greatest rabbi of the known day, Gamaliel.
He sits at his feet.
He's trained to be a Pharisee.
He reaches the elitism of his religion, a
Pharisee of the Pharisees.
You remember that when he was born again,
personal revelation for three years in the Arabian
desert and wilderness from none other than Jesus
Christ himself, face to face, mouth to mouth.
He did not receive his revelation from man,
Jesus Christ himself.
So being steeped in Grecian thought, Grecian education
to mix with the elite of the known
world, and also the Jewish religion, knowing it
better than anybody else, the Pharisee of the
Pharisees, and then being taken by Jesus Christ
himself into the Arabian desert for at least
three years, personal revelation face to face, to
see the transition in the purpose of law
for the Jewish mind, and then make that
transition from God's revelation from law to grace,
and see how it's been set aside.
Just as Jesus Christ was buried, fulfilling the
law, the law buried in the earth, rising
with grace, Paul sees the reality of that
and comes back to bring the message of
grace and make the transition and to teach
the Jews also the purpose of the law,
that it was temporary, it's been disannulled by
the Messiah, Jesus Christ himself, and at the
same time offer salvation to the greatest minds
of the Gentile world because of his Greek
background, salvation is for the Gentile also through
Jesus Christ.
Now stop and think of this man.
Before his life is over, the preparation of
his life being raised in Greece, or this
Grecian colony under Rome, Tarsus, which is today
Turkey and Cilicia, not only did he meet
Caesar, the greatest Gentile on earth, he met
the greatest, most influential Jews of the world
before he died.
So he had the opportunity to share his
faith and the truth concerning Jesus Christ to
the greatest people in the known world, Jew
and Gentile alike, God having planned it all,
he not knowing it.
Now, you know, probably wondering why has God
allowed Rome, Gentile Rome, to rule my people?
Why was I born in, you know, Cilicia
rather than Jerusalem?
Why are my parents, you know, willing to
send me down and sit at the feet
of Gamaliel?
You know, he probably had questions like that
as a child.
Now it's interesting, he did not suffer before
Christ, but God designed that he suffered after
Christ to bring him glory, to identify with
Christ.
Some people suffer before they meet Christ and
never suffer again.
Again, God in his sovereignty knows exactly what
our personalities are.
He's formed our personalities, our IQs, everything that
we're going to be used for in his
kingdom, and he knows what we have to
experience before we meet him and after we
meet him.
So you see, I don't have to say,
oh Lord, why did this happen to me?
I have met Jesus Christ and that's all
that matters.
It doesn't matter anymore what happened in the
past, or I don't have to worry about
what's going to happen in the future.
God's designed it for his glory.
And that's why Paul could say in Philippians
chapter 3, his only purpose for living then,
at that time when he wrote the Philippian
letter, is that he might know Christ and
the power of his resurrection.
What's the power of the resurrection?
Now, some churches think they get into this
power thing, and all they can, you know,
power, and they've got to see things and
feel things without.
The power of the resurrection is the love
that no natural human being, and even a
Christian many times, will never apprehend until they
get to that point where they know Christ
and the power of his resurrection.
The resurrection love, to love and forgive the
very people that crucified him after he came
back from the dead and he could have
wiped them out.
To forgive.
To love and to forgive the very people
that slandered him, betrayed him, tried to destroy
him.
And, and it's interesting, unless you have the
power of the resurrection or apprehend that agape
love of Jesus Christ, you can't go to
the next stage, as Paul said, and the
fellowship of his suffering.
If you don't have love, you see, you
don't want to identify with Christ.
I'm going to preserve my flesh.
I'm never going to allow my feelings to
be hurt again.
I'm not going to associate with anybody.
I'm not going to expose myself to anybody.
I'm not going to serve Christ.
I've been hurt enough.
Never again.
You see, when you have the power of
the resurrection, you have a love of Christ
that overcomes everything.
So then you're not afraid to enter into
the fellowship of his suffering.
You can identify with that and you begin
to be rejected by the very people you
can love because they misapprehend it.
You remember in, I think it's in the
Song of Solomon, it says that, or no,
it's Paul that says that, the more I
love, the less I am loved because people
don't understand it.
They don't trust it.
They think that you've got some kind of
an agenda.
And so then there's that fellowship of suffering.
And then it's interesting, he said, being made
conformable unto his death.
Not his life.
That's all Paul lived for.
You begin to experience the love of Jesus
Christ.
You go, Lord, there's nothing else.
This is the most burning thing in my
heart.
I want to identify with you.
I want to know you.
The power of your resurrection, that kind of
love.
The fellowship of your suffering.
Being made conformable unto your death.
And so then Paul finishes it by running
there.
He talks about running the race.
He says, this one thing I do, I
don't care what Grandpa did to me or
my uncle did to me or that God
allowed me to get arrested unjustly or why
I got in a car wreck and lost
an eye or why I'm crippled.
This one thing I do, forgetting those things
which are behind, if I'm going to agonize,
Paul says, I don't agonize of why this
happened to me.
I agonize or I press toward the mark.
I'm running to the race now for the
prize, the high calling in Christ Jesus.
That's all I live for.
So you forget the past.
And see, then Satan's defeated.
If you forget the past, Satan's defeated.
You can't get wiped out and get trapped
in bitterness and resentment.
Oh, there they are again.
I see them.
Five years later, there she is.
I'll never forgive her.
There he is.
They're going to this church now.
I'm leaving this church.
They start coming here.
I'm going somewhere else.
I can't stand this.
Satan's defeated.
Love and forgiveness of Christ.
So here's Paul.
And remember, he's created a variety.
Remember, this is his sixth riot in this
ministry.
If he isn't in jail, he's creating riots.
But here it's all God's design to bring
him, eventually bring him to the elite of
the religious leaders of Jerusalem, the high priest,
the Roman governor, Felix, and before it's all
over, Caesar.
It all started in his childhood.
Preparation as a child that he had no
control over.
Decisions that his parents made.
And now who's arrested?
Remember, as they thought he was a Greek.
And remember, he spoke Greek.
And the Roman soldier, the head of the
garrison, are thou that Egyptian that started that
resurrection?
He wasn't quite sure who he was because
he spoke such perfect Greek.
So there he relates to the Gentile.
Before it's over, he speaks Hebrew.
And he's got the attention of the Jews.
Now the sad thing about Jerusalem at this
time, remember Paul is bringing a love offering
for the poor church in Jerusalem, the Jewish
church in Jerusalem, from Gentiles of the known
world.
The love gifts because they knew that their
brothers in Jerusalem were hurting, so they took
up offerings and they sent the money with
Paul.
Now the tragedy is that the Jewish church
compromised to try and maintain the Jewish traditions.
They allowed Jews to come in and they
still maintained things that were absolutely unnecessary.
And so it weakened the church.
They wanted to maintain their Jewishness.
When the Bible clearly states that once you
meet Christ, there's neither Jew nor Gentile anymore.
Those things aren't necessary for righteousness.
And so they compromised to swell the range
with more Jewish converts, but they allowed them
to continue to press forward in these Jewish
ideas that had been set aside and disavowed.
And it weakened the church to such a
degree that when Paul showed up, instead of
welcoming with open arms, they were afraid Paul
was going to stir up trouble with the
Jewish converts because they'd compromised.
And Paul wouldn't compromise.
In fact, he did try to become all
things and take their advice and it backfired.
It still created a riot.
You remember there was this idea.
Someone said, Oh, I saw him in the
court of the Gentiles with some guy from
Ephesus, a Gentile.
And it created the riot.
And the church was so weak that they
couldn't even come to the aid or protect
Paul.
God had to use the heathen to protect
him, a Roman centurion, from the Antonia fortress.
And so he carries him and frees him
from the mob trying to rip him apart.
And what's so amazing, he's standing in the
very spot some 20 years earlier where Jesus
Christ himself stood on trial.
The very same spot.
And you're going to hear some of the
same words away with him as he enters
into the fellowship of suffering with his Lord.
And so he says, Because men, brethren, and
fathers, hear ye my defense which I make
now unto you.
And when they heard that he spake in
the Hebrew tongue to them, they kept the
more silence.
Boy, when they heard that.
Remember, the mob's going crazy.
Some people are saying this and one faction's
saying that.
Just out of control.
Just yelling and screaming and trying to get
at him.
Because, you know, at that time they didn't
even know he was this Hebrew, this Jewish
man.
He said, I am verily a man which
am a Jew born in Tarsus, a city
in Cilicia, or Turkey, just up by the
Syrian border, yet brought up in this city
at the feet of Gamaliel.
And taught according to the perfect manner of
the law of the fathers.
And was zealous toward God.
Now, notice the wisdom here of Paul.
As ye all are this day.
Now, you remember in Romans chapter 10, Paul
pours out his heart, his desire to see
his brethren or the Jews saved.
He says, I say this, my heart's desire
and my prayer is that all of Israel
would come to the knowledge of Jesus Christ
and be saved.
But, you remember he said, but they go
about trying to achieve righteousness with a zeal,
but not according to knowledge.
Trying to earn their salvation.
And we know that's one of the most
difficult things.
Trying to make my own righteousness by rules
and regulations and my own little code of
ethics.
Rather than just simply trusting in the Lord
and allowing the Holy Spirit of God to
lead me and to do that work in
my life.
A person that puts himself under his own
little code of ethics and tries in his
own right, even though he's born again, whether
they admit it or not, you'll see that
they immediately begin to lose their joy and
they become rigid.
And reactionary.
And very judgmental of others around them.
That what it is, you see, is modern
day Phariseeism.
I've established my own little code of ethics
and I'm going to keep these things and
I'm going to be holy, I'm going to
be righteous.
And so they begin to perform in that
area whatever it is they've set for themselves.
Rather than just knowing and yielding to the
Spirit of God and allowing the righteousness of
Christ to free them and then the Spirit
of God to lead them and give them
victory and mortify the deeds of the flesh.
And they become very rigid and lose their
joy.
And then when they see others that they
think that are not living that righteous life,
they become very judgmental.
And they form attitudes toward them.
Usually it's an attitude of superiority.
It's tough to be around a Christian with
a bad attitude.
God wants us to be free from those
things.
You know, we learned, you remember, Jesus taught
about the moat, trying to remove the moat,
the little sliver in someone's eye, not knowing
that we have a beam or a house
timber in our own.
And in the Greek, the little speck, the
little sliver is from the very beam.
It's from the same material.
It's from the beam that's in my eye.
And I notice that little flaw in you,
and I'm not aware of this gigantic thing
in my own life.
So Paul says, I know how you were.
I was there.
I know how that was.
I was there.
I'm so thankful that we destroyed all the
tapes of the first 15 years that I
was a pastor.
We destroyed them.
I said, destroy them all.
I mean, my gosh, my Marine Corps drill
instructor was nicer than me.
And I was supposed to be a Christian?
I mean, it was unbelievable.
I'd never listen to myself, but every once
in a while I'd hear something, and I'd
shudder.
Oh, Jesus is so gracious.
So loving.
It's so long-suffering.
And these are terms from the Old Testament.
The God of judgment and righteousness, loving-kindnesses.
Remember last Sunday, we touched on the Lord,
that He said, this is what I'd like
you to glory in, that you know me,
my judgment and my righteousness and my loving
-kindnesses.
The loving-kindness of the Lord.
I'd persecute it this way unto the death,
binding and delivering into prisons both men and
women.
He could have cared less.
If it was a Christian, whether it was
a woman or a man, He would have
them put to death.
How could God use a man like that?
Now, again, it shows you how dangerous a
devout religious person can be and how dangerous
it is around someone who begins to defend
their religion.
And you have to be very sensitive to
the Spirit, not to attack somebody's religion.
You don't accomplish anything attacking a religion to
try and get them to acknowledge Jesus Christ.
You can really get into a firestorm and
it can get very hostile.
Paul was a deeply religious, devout man.
And you remember, he had this Bible that
you were all holding.
I hope everyone here has a Bible tonight.
If you don't, please, we'll give you one.
That's the most important thing in this church,
is your Bible.
But he put people to death thinking he
was doing God a service.
As also the high priest of Bear Me
Witness.
The high priest, even 20 years later, some
of the Pharisees still knew of the Apostle
Paul and his change, his transition to this
Jesus sect.
The man that once they'd send off with
orders to kill Christians, to destroy churches, as
far as Damascus.
See, we can't conceive that kind of a
hatred.
Someone that would travel on foot 160 miles
just to find Christians to put them to
death.
Now that's hatred.
That is religious hatred.
And yet Paul did that.
And so, the high priest bears witness that
I was like that.
And all the estate of the elders, from
whom also I received letters unto the brethren,
and went to Damascus to bring them, which
were there bound unto Jerusalem for to be
punished.
They would drag them behind their horses.
Drag them through the streets.
Many times they'd die on the way to
the jail.
These people that made a profession for Jesus
Christ in those days.
Now, isn't it interesting?
If one of them got into a scriptural
confrontation with Paul, they both had their Bibles.
And the Christian would open up the Old
Testament and start pointing out Isaiah 53.
He'd point out Psalm 22.
He'd point out things in Genesis.
He'd point out all these Scriptures that all
point.
Zechariah.
And then begin to show.
And Paul would look at the very same
Scriptures and say, I don't see it that
way.
So it just shows you, you see, unless
you're born again, that without the Spirit of
God it's impossible to see it.
That's why you don't have to strain or
strive and try and squeeze somebody into submission
verbally.
It's the work of the Spirit.
So you can always be gentle.
You can always be patient.
They are spiritually discerned.
And without the Spirit of God, nobody can
comprehend these things.
So many times I think we as Christians,
we go away angry and frustrated, ready to
curse somebody because it's right before your eyes.
Can't you see that?
Here, let me read this out.
Don't you understand the Hebrew?
It's right there in your very own Bible.
And they can't see it at all.
You see, they're spiritually discerned, spiritually understood.
And it's impossible for a person without the
Spirit of God to apprehend it.
That's why it's so important to understand what
Jesus is teaching.
Nicodemus in John 3.
Nicodemus, art thou a father of Israel, and
thou knowest not these things?
You must be born again.
Even Paul himself sometimes got so frustrated, so
angry, because he wanted to see Israel saved.
He wanted his nation to see who the
Messiah was as He did.
And it came to pass that as I
made my journey and was come nigh unto
Damascus about noon, suddenly there shone from heaven
a great light round about me, and an
angel hit me across the head with a
two-by-four and said, Paul, we're tired
of this persecution.
God loves you, but He's going to deal
with you.
No grace for you.
You've been too mean.
I mean the grace of God, the love
of God, the forgiveness of God.
No matter how evil and vile and filthy
and bitter we've been, God's love is so
great.
And it's the most important thing to begin
to apprehend.
And again you can see why Paul in
Ephesians said, I bow my knee to the
Lord Jesus Christ and His prayer for the
church was that we might come to know
the love of God which is in Christ
Jesus, which is that pass of all knowledge.
And when you know this love, it is
the fullness of God.
The fullness of God.
There's the power of the resurrection, the love
of God, the love of Christ, the agape
love of Jesus.
It defeats Satan.
It destroys the resentment, the bitterness, the attitude.
Now, this light is so bright.
It surpasses the noon sun.
You go to the Mideast and at noon
it is bright.
But see, the light is the creator of
the sun.
The very sun that's in the heavens.
And this shows you that we are going
to need glorified bodies to be in the
presence of the risen Lord in heaven because
with our natural bodies, our natural eyes can't
even look at the sun without destroying our
retinas.
Now, stop and think of the glory of
Jesus Christ, the creator of the sun, who
outshined the sun at high noon and it
was so bright that it blotted out the
physical sun of the universe.
And Paul remembers clearly, and I fell into
the ground, just overwhelmed, the presence of Jesus
Christ.
And heard a voice saying unto me, Saul,
Saul, why persecutest thou me?
And I answered, Who art thou, Lord?
Every time I see this, Oh, Lord, your
love, your forgiveness.
This text, this conversion, Paul's testimony is the
clincher that, you know, you can't judge, oh,
they're getting close.
I think they're getting close to their redemption.
Or ever say, God will never save that
person.
You know, God is so glorified that the
uglier, the nastier we are.
God says, I'm just going to turn things
around here.
I'm just going to overwhelm them with my
love.
And he's going to go to Damascus, but
he's not going to be the same person.
I mean, we start off one way and
Jesus steps into our life and oh, how
he changed this thing.
The love of Christ changes everything, doesn't it?
Who art thou, Lord?
You don't know who I am?
Another six months before you can get saved.
You can't even say the sinner's prayer today.
Just, I'll see you later.
No.
Who art thou, Lord?
And he said unto me, I am Jesus
of Nazareth, whom thou persecust.
Now, you see, there is the totality and
the reality of the body of Christ even
then.
When Paul writes in Ephesians that when you
accept Jesus Christ, you are totally baptized or
immersed supernaturally into the body of Christ.
You become part of the body of Christ.
And when someone persecutes you, they're persecuting Jesus
Christ.
So all these Christians that Paul was persecuting
and wreaking havoc with the church, having them
put to death, he was actually persecuting and
striking out at the body of Jesus Christ.
And he's taking all that abuse, all that
pain, and yet he's still willing to forgive
because Paul's doing it in such ignorance.
Remember that when someone lashes out at you
and tells you to take your Jesus and
get out of here.
Take your fanaticism and I hate you and
resentment comes at you.
Don't take it personal.
Don't give up.
Don't harden your heart.
You see, Jesus loves that person.
You remember when they wanted to stone Moses
to death for his faithfulness and they resented
Moses and they just got tired.
They wanted to form a congregational church.
It shows you how weak a congregational church
is where the people make the decisions and
tell the shepherd what to do.
And so they kept telling Moses, you know,
we ought to do this, we ought to
do that, and Moses wouldn't listen to them
because he was listening to God.
God was directing them.
And the failure of the congregation and they
wanted to stone Moses and get rid of
him, pick somebody else for their pastor because
he wasn't doing what they wanted.
And so Moses got to the point and
said, Lord, I don't know.
You know, these people.
He said, Moses, don't be discouraged.
They're not angry with you.
They're angry with me because I'm working through
you and they don't like the way I'm
doing things.
They're not angry at you.
They're angry with me.
And so when you attack a Christian, you're
attacking Jesus Christ and yet he's willing to
forgive you.
Remember, the only thing, you can say all
manner of evil, you can curse, you can
blaspheme the name of Jesus, God.
Jesus said there's only one sin.
You blaspheme the Holy Spirit, that's the unpardonable
sin, no forgiveness.
You get to the point so hardened that
you reject Jesus Christ as your Savior.
That's the only sin he can't forgive.
But all the things that we can say
and our attitude toward Christ, our secret dispositions
toward Jesus before we meet him.
And the Lord knows all about him and
the Lord says, I'm willing to forgive you.
I want to forgive you.
Now, Paul didn't know he was persecuting Jesus
Christ.
He just hated the people that represented him.
And see, it's the same today.
Now you may get the brunt of it.
It may be personal to you with a
family member or a friend.
Don't be discouraged.
Sure, it hurts.
But that's the fellowship of Christ's suffering.
And Jesus said, when this takes place, rejoice
for so persecuted the prophets before you.
Great is your reward in heaven if you're
persecuted for righteousness' sake.
Really, all Satan is doing is trying to
get you to the point where you won't
share your faith anymore.
To get you to the point where you're
so afraid that you don't share your faith.
And they that were with me saw indeed
the light and were afraid, but they heard
not the voice of him that spake to
me.
Look, salvation is personal.
Isn't that wonderful?
It's personal.
Even though there were other people there, God
revealed himself in such a way to Paul
that his salvation was personal.
Now, he's already spoken personally to somebody here
tonight in some way.
You've been spoken to somehow in the Word.
There's something that God has flashed on you
that maybe you're the only one here tonight,
but you're going to walk away tonight and
you're going to remember something you heard already
tonight that may have gone right over someone
else.
The Holy Spirit has taken to you personally
something that God wants to encourage you with
or convict or answer a question in your
heart.
How often people have gone to church.
I can recall going to church, and even
to this day many times, having a question
about something in the Bible and I have
planned, you know, after the service I'm going
to go out and I'm going to ask
Pastor Chuck.
I've got to know this thing.
There's something that I've been reading and I'm
going to ask him.
And I'll be sitting in the Bible study
and don't you know it that the very
teaching the Holy Spirit answers it.
That's the very thing I was going to
ask the pastor tonight.
Just for you.
Because you see, God knows you personally.
There's a song.
Remember the song we sang the last night
at the arena?
He knows your name.
He knows my name.
I hope we learn that.
Where's Pastor John?
John, he knows my name or he knows
your name.
That thing is awesome.
He knows your name.
And he's concerned.
He's interested in your life.
He's got a plan for your life.
He's got forgiveness for you that you can't
comprehend.
You don't have to be afraid of Jesus.
No matter what you've done.
How nasty or ugly or cantankerous or mean
you've been.
He loves you.
And he has a plan for your life.
And he wants to forgive you.
Now, notice how quickly he is converted.
I said, now notice this.
What shall I do, Lord?
Now, it tells us in 1 Corinthians 12
-3 that no man can call Jesus Lord
except by the Holy Spirit.
So he's converted.
Here are the Holy Spirit's in him now.
He's saved.
He's been converted.
Notice.
And what's the very first thing he says?
Lord, I'm a king's kid.
I'm claiming a new car.
By faith.
I want a bigger house.
I demand it as your child.
Notice what true conversion is.
How?
When you really meet Jesus in a real
way.
Notice what it does.
He says, as soon as he's converted, What
shall I do, Lord?
Not telling the Lord to do something for
him.
That's true conversion.
Lord, what shall I do?
Lord, that you would love me, that you
would forgive me.
Lord, what do you want me to do?
The Lord said unto me, Arise and go
into Damascus, and there it shall be told
thee of all things which are appointed for
thee to do.
Notice Jesus didn't rail on him.
Didn't humiliate him.
Didn't frighten him.
Didn't berate him for the way he treated
Christians in his ignorance.
Because you see, as Paul wrote later in
Romans chapter 8 verse 1, There is therefore
now no condemnation to those that are in
Christ Jesus, which walk after the Spirit, not
after the flesh.
Jesus doesn't condemn.
He forgives.
And he doesn't dig up the past and
drag everything up and throw it in my
face.
He forgives.
He says, Now, I've got something for you
to do.
A wonderful life for you.
The past is over.
It's forgotten.
Let's go ahead now.
I've got something for you in the future.
You're not even there yet.
You're on the way though.
I've got something for you in Damascus.
Now, you had one thing planned in Damascus,
but I've got something better for you.
And notice he would say, Well, Lord, I
don't know if I want to do it
that way.
I don't know.
How about this, Lord?
No.
All he said was, Lord, what shall I
do?
You see, that's real servanthood.
I've met a lot of people that say
they want to help and get involved, and
then they try to tell you how to
do everything.
They don't want to really be a servant.
They want to take over.
They want to serve by taking over and
doing it their way.
And then if they can't get it done
that way, they quit serving.
And yet they say they're a servant.
Or if you do ask them to do
something, they say, well, I don't see why
you're asking me to do this.
And then they grumble about what you ask
them to do.
That's not being a servant.
A slave doesn't question.
A slave just responds to the Master and
says, I'm a slave.
I'm a servant.
What will you have me to do?
Lord.
He's converted.
And you see, that's freedom.
When I really make Jesus my Lord, that
frees me from worrying and having to take
care of everything and how to work it
out.
He'll work it out.
I just need to respond to Him.
Lord, I'll respond to You.
Tell me what to do.
And then you see, the truth of the
matter is when He tells you what to
do, He enables you to do it by
the power of His Holy Spirit.
It's a horrible thing to see someone try
to accomplish something in the name of Jesus,
calling themselves a servant, when God's not enabling
them to do it.
It is so frustrating to try and be
something and accomplish something in the name of
the Lord when God hasn't asked you to
do it.
But when God does ask you to do
it and you do know, oh man, God
begins to work by His Spirit, and then
there's accomplishment.
There's success.
God's doing it.
It's not by might nor by power, but
by My Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts.
And then it's enjoyable.
Then it is the easy yoke.
My yoke is easy.
My burden is light because our Lord's doing
it.
He's accomplishing it.
I'm just serving.
Okay, Lord, tell me what to do.
I'm not going to ask You why You
want me to do it.
Just tell me I'll do it.
You're smarter than I am.
The problem is, you see, I don't think
God is smarter than me, so I'm always
questioning, why are You asking me to do
it this way?
Why should I do it that way?
Why do it today?
Why can't I do it tomorrow?
Why do I have to paint it that
color?
Why do I have to go here?
That's not a servant.
And a person that's always constantly in that
mode never has any joy.
They're just always serving the Lord, working for
Jesus.
I've been around them.
Arise, go into Damascus, and there it shall
be told thee of all things which are
appointed for thee to do.
And when I could not see for the
glory of that light being led by the
hand of them that were with me, I
came into Damascus.
Oh, how humbling.
It is tough.
If you've been a leader all the time
and God said, no, I want to use
you, but you let yourself be led.
Well, there's the pride issue right there, man.
Notice now, here's this mighty Paul.
He's always going along with orders and papers
to arrest people.
Do this.
Do that.
Taking an entourage with him, and he meets
Jesus Christ, and all of a sudden now,
he's being led.
God says, I'm going to use you, but
I'm going to have someone else lead you.
And the amazing thing is, they're unsaved.
Paul was the only one saved in that
experience.
So sometimes God begins to work in our
lives to see if we're willing to yield
and be prepared for greater things.
If we don't take care of these small
things the way Christ designs it, He watches
our attitudes, we never get to the greater
things.
And sometimes it says in the Bible, before
honor, there must be humility.
And I think too many times that myself,
when I look back in my life, I
try to skip some of the lessons.
Jump right in and do greater, more, bigger.
Now, you don't know, I've got so much
zeal, you don't know what I can do,
Jesus.
He says, no, you need to be led
a little bit.
Wait a minute.
No, I'll lead.
If you don't allow yourself to be led,
you'll never lead.
I don't need leaders.
I need people who will allow me to
lead, who will be led in humility.
One Ananias, a devout man, according to the
law, having a good report of all the
Jews which stood out there, came unto me
and stood and said unto me, Brother Saul,
receive thy sight.
In the same hour, I looked up upon
him.
Now, this is what I find very interesting
about Paul.
Now, remember, 20 years earlier.
And again, as you look at the church
today, I see things and sometimes the over
-emphasis of things that really aren't as important
as they think they should be.
Now, you remember what really took place here.
Paul's giving his testimony.
Now, remember, he's before the Jews.
He's got Gentiles in the crowd.
He's got thousands of people captured.
Now, remember, he's chained, but he's got the
crowd in the palm of his hand speaking
Greek, speaking Hebrew now, so he's got both
camps listening.
And what a time for testimony.
He's giving his testimony.
And I like what he says.
As he thinks back and he flashes 20
years earlier.
He didn't make one mention of being baptized
or filled with the Holy Spirit or talk
about the power of God.
All he spoke of is a man named
Ananias prayed for him and he received his
sight.
He could see again because a believer prayed
for him.
He didn't make a big deal out of
the healing.
Didn't go off.
Didn't say one thing about being baptized and
filled with the Spirit of God even though
he was.
Clearly it says, you see, he was, in
the Acts account in chapter 9, baptized, filled
with the Spirit.
Then, it's interesting, he got saved on the
way.
Salvation was first.
His conversion on the way to Damascus.
Then in Damascus, baptized with the Holy Spirit.
He didn't speak in tongues.
He didn't fall in the ground.
He received his sight.
And then Ananias says, now Paul, get water
baptized.
Another interesting thing about the way God does
things, he does it the way he wants
to and then they form movement and say
this is the only way God can do
it.
You've got to accept Christ first and then
you've got to be water baptized.
Some people, you can't be baptized in the
Spirit separately.
God does it differently with everybody.
And I think he loves to upset the
plans of certain groups and say this is
the way it's done.
Now, we've got God in a box.
And if it doesn't happen to you this
way, it hasn't happened to you.
No, Paul was converted without saying a sinner's
prayer, without walking down an aisle, without bowing
his head and slipping up his hand, without
filling out a card or kneeling in a
bench and he was baptized and filled
with the Spirit and didn't speak in tongues
and wasn't knocked to the ground.
And yet here, he doesn't even talk about
it.
One of the most exciting dynamic things, you
see, there again is the sensitivity of the
Spirit.
There are some people that's almost like they're
in a rut.
As soon as they get an opportunity to
speak, you can tell exactly what their 45
minute spiel is going to be.
The same old thing.
This church, that church, they get on the
trail, the testimony trail, and it's the same
thing.
And they think that's being led by the
Spirit.
What's interesting is each time Paul shared in
different groups at different times, he shared differently
his experience, but the one thing was always
the same.
I met Jesus Christ.
I was forgiven.
I was given new life.
What's more important?
Meeting Jesus Christ or being filled with the
Spirit?
Having a healing.
And then having the ability to be so
transformed that when you're before the crowd, some
of the people, that they see the difference.
The greatest testimony is that He isn't what
He used to be.
It's not putting on a big show to
draw attention to myself.
In fact, being so led of the Spirit
that He didn't think it was important.
He didn't even have to mention it.
Ananias prayed for Him and he could see.
And what they could see, this isn't the
same man that we knew 20 years ago.
Let me ask you this.
We should ask all of ourselves.
Now that we are converted, if someone from
the past saw you, would they think you
are changed?
If they were invisible and watching you as
you watch television or what you listen to
on the radio or the way you talk
to your wife or your husband or where
you go, what you drink, what you do
in your personal life, someone who knew you
a few years ago, since you say you've
been converted, would they think you've changed?
You see, that's the greatest witness for Christ.
There can be, this man is not the
same.
This person isn't the same.
I knew them and this isn't the same
person.
And he says, I met Jesus.
And Ananias said, The God of our fathers
hath chosen thee that thou shouldst know his
will and see that just one and shouldst
hear the voice of his mouth.
Oh, to fellowship with Jesus, to hear his
voice.
Here's your 12th apostle, handpicked by Jesus.
You remember in 1 Corinthians 9, Paul said,
Am I not an apostle?
Have not I seen the Lord Jesus Christ?
You remember the apostles drew straws and cast
lots to replace Judas.
But God, you know, could have cared less.
God says, I've got the 12th one picked.
His name is Paul.
For thou shalt be his witness unto all
men of what thou hast seen and heard.
And now, why tarryest thou?
Arise and be baptized and wash away thy
sins, calling on the name of the Lord.
Now, identify with God.
Openly declare that you're not ashamed.
Just bury the old man.
Submit to the rite of water baptism.
Now, isn't it interesting?
He's converted.
The Spirit of God dwells within him.
Ephesians 1.13. Then he's baptized in the
Holy Spirit as he receives the healing.
He doesn't speak in tongues at his baptism.
It's interesting, later on in his ministry, he
does receive the gift of tongues.
We don't know when, but later on when
he's writing to the Corinthian church because of
all their imbalance and being more enamored with
the gifts and the outer sign things than
the indwelling person, the Spirit Himself.
He says, you know, I thank God I
speak more than all of you in tongues.
But I'd rather speak five words in the
congregation with my understanding than ten thousand words
in tongues that the body of Christ would
be magnified and edified.
So he got tongues, but not when he
was baptized in the Holy Spirit.
And then the water baptism came later.
All through the book of Acts there's different
orders.
Sometimes people were baptized in the Holy Spirit
when they were in the water.
Sometimes people were baptized in the Holy Spirit
and they didn't even know it was coming.
The house of Cornelius.
Heaven opened on a whole group.
Kind of like the day of Pentecost.
But now Ananias says, now go get water
baptized.
And it came to pass that when I
was come again to...
Now, here's another thing.
These people in the churches say that you
can't be saved except you're water baptized.
There are certain factions of the Christian church
that say there's no conversion without water baptism.
Hey, he was already converted on the way
to Damascus.
He was already saved without water baptism.
So again, don't put God in a box.
If he asks you to do something, just
do it and get blessed.
Enjoy it.
And everybody doesn't have to have your experience
to be a legitimate Christian.
Doesn't have to have my experience to be
a legitimate Christian.
Don't get into arguments over semantics.
Baptized in the Spirit.
Filled with the Spirit.
Overwhelmed with the Spirit.
Just make sure you have it.
Because you can tell if you have it
or not.
No matter how...
You can try to explain it all the
way you want to and you can try
to convince me.
But I've been around people and they're trying
to tell me they're baptized in the Holy
Spirit.
It's like talking to a tree trunk.
I mean, they have no life, no joy
whatsoever.
And you know they haven't been baptized in
the Holy Spirit.
They may be saved, but they have not
been baptized in the Holy Spirit.
So it came to pass that when I
was coming into Jerusalem, even while I prayed
in the temple, I was in a trance.
Now this isn't recorded anywhere in the letters
of Paul.
He brings something out that is never written
in any of the letters.
Now this is after the three years that
he's personally with Jesus Christ in the Arabian
desert getting revelation.
I could suggest something and I'll tell you.
One of the most beneficial, wonderful things in
your Christian experience is being alone with Jesus.
Make time to be alone with Jesus a
lot.
If you really want to enjoy life, if
you want revelation, if you want blessings, make
time to be alone with Jesus.
It is glorious.
There's nothing more exciting than being alone with
Jesus.
So when he gets back and he's in
Jerusalem that short time before he leaves for
several years, and while he's in Jerusalem, he
prayed, and the Lord put him in a
trance.
And I saw him saying unto me, Make
haste and get thee quickly out of Jerusalem,
for they will not receive thy testimony concerning
me.
Now isn't it wonderful to know that in
times, the Lord Himself appeared to Paul to
encourage him and strengthen him, but didn't let
him escape.
Now here, and again, here's the wonderful mystery
and the excitement of following Jesus Christ, being
led of the Spirit, knowing that Jesus is
with me all the time.
Now remember when he was in the storm
on the Mediterranean later in his life, he
didn't escape the shipwreck.
He didn't escape being bitten by a poisonous
snake, but Jesus was with him.
Jesus appeared to him on the boat.
Sometimes he didn't escape, but Jesus was there
if he needed him.
It's not always the guarantee you're going to
escape your trouble, but here's the guarantee.
Jesus will be with you no matter what.
Whether you escape or not, the Lord will
be there, and He'll manifest Himself if you
need it.
And so in this particular case, he's not
going to do it supernaturally.
He just says, you know, you're going to
have to think clearly, make some arrangements to
leave the area.
There's danger.
Other times it was supernatural, you remember.
So he said, make haste, get thee quickly
out of Jerusalem, for they will not receive
thy testimony concerning me.
And I said, Lord, they know that I
imprisoned and beat in every synagogue them that
believed on thee.
And when the blood of thy martyr Stephen
was shed, I also was standing by and
consenting unto his death, and kept the clothing
of them that slew him.
Paul was, you know, just so into it
that when they stoned Stephen, he stood there
holding the garment so they could get their
arms free to stone him to death.
Now notice, there's absolute sense.
He's got the whole crowd arrested.
Remember, he just waved his hand and spoke
in Hebrew.
Absolute silence here.
They think they've got him arrested.
He's standing in the same place that Jesus
stood when he was arrested at the Antonia
Fortress 20 years earlier.
Now notice what takes place.
And he said unto me, Depart, for I
will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles.
Now remember, absolute silence.
They're listening.
He's got their attention.
And he says the word Gentiles.
That's all you had to say to a
Jew.
Gentile.
Boy, you talk about bigots and hatred.
Now notice what happens when he says the
word, the Messiah.
The very one he's trying to convince them
is the Savior of mankind.
Their Messiah, the Savior of the Jews, would
send someone to save Gentiles.
See, the Jew couldn't think that.
They couldn't conceive that.
That they were personally, privately, you know, they
had the Messiah to themselves and God wouldn't
save Gentiles.
And they gave him audience unto this word
and then lifted up their voices and said,
Away with such a fellow.
They went berserk.
It was absolute quiet and they were going
along with it until he said, Gentiles, that
Jesus Christ loves Gentiles.
And then they lifted up their voices and
said exactly what they said 20 years earlier
to the Messiah himself.
Here is the fellowship of the sufferings of
Christ.
Away with such a fellow.
You'll never come back here at Thanksgiving again.
The whole family is done with you, this
fanaticism.
Eat your turkey in your own home.
Away with you.
You've disrupted this family every Christmas with this
Jesus stuff.
Open your presents and enjoy the tree and
shut up.
Away with you.
Isn't it amazing?
And they can say that.
You say, Away with you.
Away with such a fellow from the earth.
It is not fit that he should live.
And as they cried out, they cast off
their clothes and threw dust into the air.
They really, you know, Jewish people are very
emotional.
Ripping their clothes off, throwing stuff in the
air all because he said, Jesus loves Gentiles.
Now, see, we laugh, but I've been around
people and all you have to do is
mention another race and you can feel them
tighten up inside.
And you know they've got a problem.
Or you watch them when you say, Oh,
greet one another.
And it's amazing.
They might be sitting next to somebody of
another race and they'll walk 50 feet the
opposite direction.
You see, there's no room for that in
the body of Christ.
It's painful to see, to feel it.
All you have to do is, and you
can feel the reaction of someone, all you
do is say the right thing and you
can feel them react.
They are bigoted.
And they couldn't control what happened in their
heart.
These people couldn't control it.
You see, there again, the love of Jesus.
You see, God is no respecter of persons.
God in his perfect wisdom designed Adam and
Eve in such a way that a little
bit of himself, remember, before he even created
Adam, the Trinity discussed in Genesis 1, 26
and 27, let us make man in our
image.
Male and female made he them.
And God designed and put his own being,
his own color codes.
Codes, not one color, but the codes in
the DNA and the genetic of our first
parents that the glory and the beauty of
God would be spread out through the centuries
and every race, wherever they got packeted, pocketed
or landlocked because of history, and then there's
the beauty of God.
No matter what continent they are, there's the
beauty of God.
He doesn't have a problem, you see.
And these people that say they have the
love of the Lord and they love Jesus
and you feel them tighten up inside.
Oh, they've fallen far short of the true
love of Jesus Christ.
The agape love of Jesus is the most
wonderful thing there is, especially when you allow
it to flow through you directed towards somebody
else.
The agape love of Jesus.
The power of the resurrection.
It's the most wonderful thing there is, the
love of Christ.
It's the love he has for you and
wants us to have for each other, no
matter who.
While they're ripping their clothes off and going
crazy, the chief captain commanded him to be
brought into the castle and bade that he
should be examined by scourging, that he might
know wherefore they cried so against him.
Or it really tested, literally, an intensive, repetitive
scourging and beating.
And as they bound him with thongs, Paul
said unto the centurion and said, Is it
lawful for you to scourge a man that
is a Roman and uncondemned?
Now Roman law said if you scourge a
Roman citizen before he's even found guilty, you're
put to death.
You receive the scourging until you're dead.
And usually scourging killed a man anyhow before
the 40 lashes or 39 lashes.
And what they would do is strip a
man naked and they'd have a little stake
in the pavement and they'd bend him over,
tie his hands, that it would arch the
back and they'd be bent over facing the
ground with their wrists about 18 inches off
the pavement.
They'd have to stand like that.
And they would train guards to use the
whip with pieces of bone and glass embedded
in leather thongs, long leather strips.
And they'd hit the person in such a
way that it would dig into the flesh
and then they'd pull on it and rip
the flesh out.
That's why the Bible in Isaiah speaks Jesus
was so disfigured he wasn't recognized as a
human being.
It would disembowel people, tear their eyes out,
mutilate their faces and their bodies.
The ligaments would come loose and exposed through
the skin.
And normally a human being would never live
through the scourging.
And Rome perfected it.
And so they would get a confession and
if someone began to tell the truth they
would lighten up the scourge.
If the person continued to deny and lie
they would hit them harder and it would
dig in deeper and they'd rip some more.
And if they continued to lie they'd either
die or they'd go through the whole thing
and be totally mutilated, so just disfigured that
you could never be the same again.
The amazing thing is about the Apostle Paul.
He couldn't lie.
He had nothing to lie about.
He received those kind of beatings five times
for the love of Christ rather than deny
Christ.
And so they're ready to scourge him to
bring out a confession.
Now stop and think.
What could Jesus do?
When they scourged Jesus he had nothing to
confess but the truth.
And he went through that scourging as Isaiah
said, by his stripes we are healed.
Upon him the Lord laid the iniquity of
us all.
He took the condemnation that you and I
deserve, was beaten for my sin, for your
sin.
You see, he could not escape.
You see, there was nothing to lie about
and he had to tell the truth.
So he received it all for us.
He sent his lamb to the slaughter because
of his love for us, for you.
So here's Paul standing in the same area,
being treated the same way.
Now the question is, are you close enough
to Jesus?
Are you identifying with Jesus enough that people
are beginning to resent?
Or like the Jewish Christians, have you compromised?
Do we compromise to get by because I
don't want to be rejected or entered into
the fellowship of suffering?
You see, you don't have to act like
a fool to be rejected.
Just be like Jesus and we can begin
to experience the fellowship of the sufferings of
Christ.
Or do they see no relation?
Do they look at my life and say,
I don't see anything different about you?
Or you go to that place there, that
old skating rink there in 332, don't you?
I don't see anything different about you though.
Your refrigerator looks just like mine.
You've got a six-pack in there.
I see the videos you watch.
I hear what's on your car radio.
You just go to that building and I
don't.
We're the same.
When you begin to really be conformed to
that image, then the fellowship of the suffering
can begin.
This is what happened to Paul.
He didn't go out and make a fool
out of himself, drawing attention to himself.
He just became like Jesus.
So he asked the question, because if they
make a mistake and they didn't know he
was a Roman citizen because he's speaking perfect
Hebrew and he's a Jew.
When the centurion heard that, he went and
told the chief captain, saying, take heed what
thou doest, for this man is a Roman.
They would all be put to death.
Then the chief captain came and said unto
him, tell me, art thou a Roman?
He said, yeah.
And the chief captain answered, with a great
sum obtained I this freedom.
And Paul said, but I was free born.
In other words, I was born in a
Roman city, a naturalized citizen.
Now, the Roman centurion, usually the Roman soldiers
were non-Romans.
They were slaves.
They were put in the army or bought
their freedom or served faithfully in Rome, freed
them from their slavery and made them an
honorary citizen.
So this soldier said, I experienced, I went
through a lot to get my Roman citizenship.
What did you do?
Paul said, I was born a Roman.
So here again, the providence of God having
Paul brought into the world to be a
naturalized Roman citizen, but a Hebrew of the
Hebrews, to reach the elite of both races.
To be steeped in the Greek culture, the
Greek education.
At the same time, the Jewish religion.
Paul said, I'm going to use you everywhere.
Now again, you may be going through something
right now.
Do not be discouraged.
Do not doubt God's love for you.
If it's difficult right now, because God may
be preparing you for something so wonderful.
To reach somebody that no one else could
reach by the very character and depth he's
allowing to be put into your soul.
Just as he said, remember Joseph, iron was
put in his soul because God was preparing
him for the future.
And it's the way you're handling the situation
you're in right now that's going to determine
how God can use you in the future.
Then straightway they departed from him which should
have examined him.
And the chief captain also was afraid after
he heard that he was a Roman and
because he had done it.
Notice, they're all afraid of him now.
Usually the guy says, you know, you've got
hundreds of people.
You're chained to two guards.
You're being unjustly accused.
People are going to rip your body apart.
Now they're all afraid of him.
How God can reverse the tables.
Here's Romans 8.28 that Paul wrote.
Know this, that God works all things to
the good to those that love them and
are called according to his purposes.
On the morrow, because he would have known
the certainty whereof he was accused of the
Jews, he loosed him from his bands and
commanded the chief priests and all their counsel
to appear and brought Paul down and set
him before the men.
You know, God's saying, here's a church for
you, Paul.
I've got a captive audience.
They're going to hear it.
All are going to hear it.
Now they probably would have nothing to do
with Paul.
But now the Roman centurion said, all you
Jews, you Pharisees, get down here.
We're going to have a meeting.
And they're all going to listen to Paul.
Only God could orchestrate that.
You see, Paul, if he came into town,
I want to have a meeting with the
most important Jewish rabbis and I want to
have a meeting with the most important Roman
leaders.
Meet with me tomorrow afternoon.
Who are you?
My name is Paul.
Get out of here.
God orchestrates it with his providence and they're
all going to be there.
It's amazing.
And again, it shows you.
Would Paul say, Lord, what wilt thou have
me to do?
If you really say that, you'd be amazed
at the doors that God will open for
you.
I know people have been beaten on doors
trying to get them open to serve God
so long their knuckles are bleeding.
They're angry because no one recognizes their anointing
or their ministry or their calling or it's
the devil stopping their ministry when they haven't
stopped and said, Lord, what do you want
me to do?
And then Satan can't keep any door closed.
And the crowds might get bigger and the
people might be more important that you meet
and influential.
If he'll just say, Lord, what wilt thou
have me to do?
You're a lot smarter than me.
Shall we stand?
Father, it is wonderful to understand your sovereign
control of all events past and future.
And we thank You, dear Lord, that we
can forget the past, that we need not
burden ourselves any longer with why this happened
or why You allowed this or that.
But, Lord, we can just like Paul.
We've met You now, Lord Jesus.
We've opened our heart to You, experienced Your
love to forgive us of all the bitterness
and the anger and the resentment that we've
carried about in our hearts.
You've given us a new lease on life.
And so now, Lord, we stand before You
and say, what would You have us to
do, Lord?
Oh, we love You, Jesus.
We thank You for Your love and Your
forgiveness for us.
May we portray it faithfully in our own
lives.
In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.