Stained Heroes IV

What kind of pedigree do you think of when you think of the truly heroic people that followed God? When it comes down to the person who wrote a third of the New Testament, what would you think their background would be like? A person whose writings have been studied in enormous detail for over 2,000 years and influenced, really, the entire culture of Western civilization. What would you think of a person? You probably would think he grew up in a great family and went to all the best schools, right? And lived an insanely pure life and all that. But as we're going to discover, that's not the case of the hero that we're gonna look at today. The hero that most of us would want to adulate in one respect, and yet the one who had an enormous stain. Like all the ones that have gone before, his stain almost kept him from fulfilling God's purpose and mission. And as was said, I believe, by Kirk Coffield last week, his stain isn't as obvious, perhaps, as Samson, the one that we heard about a few weeks ago from Pastor Scott, or David's obvious stain and horrible actions as we heard from Pastor Kent. His stain is one, however, that permeates, I would expect, every one of us to some degree. And the more I'm with people from this area, the more I'm convinced that it's a stain that holds many people, listen, into this steel trap of religion. Instead of freeing them into the glorious liberty that comes with being a son of God. Paul's stain was this stain of failure. Failing to be what God wanted him to be, and trying every way possible to do it right, but never making it. But you know, failure is not uncommon to successful people. Did you know Abraham Lincoln failed at every election he tried until he ran for president? Did you know that Thomas Edison failed? 900 times he failed at light bulbs. This is one. I thought it was funny. You don't get that? Okay, never mind. Yeah, until he created the incandescent light. Not the green one, you know. But nonetheless, what if he'd given up, you know, number 849 or so. And Paul had the same sort of like resolute spirit. He just kept on going, but he kept failing. Now, real quickly, what was Saul about? Well, Saul grew up in a little town called Tarsus, which is in present-day Turkey. We have a missionaries there right now. And he was a devout Jew, but he was, I mean, when I say devout, I mean he did everything that the Jewish law and hierarchy required of him. But he hated the Greek culture that he lived in, in Tarsus, so he migrated. Because he's a Roman citizen, he was free to move around. A lot of the early Christians were slaves, as you recall, but not Saul. That was his early name before he became Paul, after conversion. He migrated down to Jerusalem where he could study the law and be sort of free from some of the pollution of the culture that he was in up in Tarsus. But he was a Jesus hater, and he was a persecutor of believers. And it was Saul, the Bible says in Acts, that was complicit in the death of Stephen. Could you imagine being this far from where Stephen was, watching people stone him to death? Saul, the Bible said, was there holding their robes while they did so. So he thinks, like, I'm doing the right thing for God. I'm being a zealot. I'm pressing ahead. I'm wiping out as many of these cultists, Christians, as possible. And I'm on my way to the next step. And I want to go on here by pointing out one thing. I have a couple of what I've called teaching points in here. There's always a lot of folks in our services, and many of you today are sharing over in Oakland and the cafe that are still students. Let me just say this. The earlier in your journey you can discover your life's mission—remember, not your shadow mission that Kurt talked about last—but your real calling, the earlier you can study that and get into it, the more fruitful you tend to be. Now, in saying that, I understand that not all of us are going to know by age 22 what we're called to be. I didn't. Others of you, maybe you're 30, and you say, am I lost? No, not by any means. But the sooner you find that, the better. And Paul was zealous about religion in his early 20s, which made him that much more effective when it came to his true calling of being a Christ follower when he got to his 30s. If you've not read the book In But Not Of by Hugh Hewitt, I strongly recommend the book In But Not Of The World by Hugh Hewitt, the best little book you'll ever buy to help you understand just how to make wise decisions on your spiritual journey. Now, Paul was on the way to persecuting more Christians, and if you have your Bible, let's look together at Acts chapter 9. We're just going to pick up the story and follow along and just pick out some pieces about what he did that he thought was so right and discovered was really so wrong. Acts chapter 9, verse 1. It says, Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord's disciples. He went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the way, it was the way of Christ, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem. So as he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him, and he fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? Now, he had no idea who the me was that was saying this. And he responds back, well, who are you, Lord? And he uses that word, Lord, which is not commonly ever referred to another person that way, but this was because this voice was so commanding and powerful. And he answers back, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting, he replied. Now, get up and go into the city and you will be told what you must do. Number two, it says, we need to identify the stain of religious thinking and the fear that it brings into our lives. Paul's sins were not tabloid friendly, they weren't headlines, but friends, he was stuck in the sin of doing religion. Let me just describe that for you, see if you relate to it. Religious people have a certain regimen that they've been taught since they were little kids, and they do what they've been taught, and they're led to believe that if they follow this regimen with certain amount of faithfulness, that if their goods outweigh their bads, at the end of the day, God will look down on them and say, you know, you've been a pretty good person, you're not as good as your Aunt Sally, but you're not as bad as your Uncle Mark, you'll make it into heaven, or something of that variety. Loved ones, in the end, it's basically about one word, and that's performance. Religion is driven by the idea that somehow we live in a way with our conduct and our actions and our thoughts that we are basically seen by God and others as good people. And that's what a religious person does. And if that has something to do with going to church or the kind of church you go to, or a certain liturgy, or the way you do a certain mass, or a certain kind of worship style, all the more complex it is because all the more performance is expected of you. That was Paul's thing. He was a Jew's Jew, the Bible said. He was a Pharisee on the way to being a Sadducee. What does that mean? A Pharisee was a real diligent keeper of the law, and a Sadducee was set on the council that made the decisions that all the Jews embraced. And the only Sadducees lived in Jerusalem. That's why he headed to Jerusalem, because he wanted at a young age to be sitting as part of the ruling group of Sadducees that were calling the shots for the religious purity of the people. On your outline, the number one obstacle to people growing in their faith is the fear of leaving their old religious thinking. I want to pause there and let that sink in. Do you know how many, now listen to the word I'm going to use, thousands of conversations I've had over the last 30 years that have had something to do with people who say, well, you know, I kind of like what's going on there, but that's so different for me, and I could never leave, you know, in my, you know, whatever. My family wouldn't understand. It's too much for me. I think this way is okay. Everyone has their own way, and I get some version of performance. I'll do what I need to do, and, you know, that's just, I'll take my chances at the end. Loved ones, that old religious thinking is a stain. Here's the reason. Because you will never find freedom by keeping the law. That's why it's a stain. The law will never give you the freedom and joy that you experienced in the first 30 minutes of this gathering, wherever you worship today. Never happened. Why? Because you can never quite get up there. You ever notice that? You never wake up and say, you know, I feel like I've lived a perfect life yesterday, and I don't have a single thing to repent of today. Right? How many of you had a day like that today? How many of you haven't had a single thing today you had to repent of? Okay, now, right there is one, because you're lying if you didn't put your hand up. Okay? So, of course you did. We're all like that. It happens to all of us. That's why Jesus came. Galatians 5 verse 1, it is for freedom that Christ sets us free. So, on 832, you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. So, take some time and understand how to get free from the guilt of never being able to quite match up to what you were taught, or what religion you were given, or what sort of steps would get you there. So many of you would find enormous freedom if you just said, Lord, I just give up trying to do all that stuff, and in place of that, I choose to put my faith in what you did for me. Friends, that's the bottom line of all this, as we'll see in Paul's life. But Paul was pretty hard-headed, and, you know, let's understand what happened. I thought the video was pretty cool. I thought it worked. You know, it's pretty cool to see Paul in his Banana Republic shirt and jeans. Probably had a robe in real life, but that was, you know, the best we could do. But what he said was right, wasn't it? He was completely stopped in his tracks, and he was told that what he was doing was completely wrong. And he did what I'm going to say every one of us needs in our life, and here's what it is. He waited in helplessness until somebody came along to show him the way. And I don't know how long, and how many times, and how many different ways I can underscore this, but the reason why so many of us are stuck in our spiritual journey is we never have the courage to hook up with someone who's just a little farther along, who can help disciple us, or carry us, or mentor us, or to use the word that Kurt used last week, to be our, who was the guy in the Old Testament that took Esther? Mordecai. I was just testing you. Failed at myself at testing you, okay? Yeah, Mordecai. Thank you. Mordecai. The person that helps us to grow. Now, if you were here at all, some years ago, I shared with the congregation how I was an arrogant high school, actually high school, well, I was arrogant through most of my life, college in particular, and a young man who was a peer of mine on the basketball team, and he told me he prayed for months because he was afraid to share with me his journey. He prayed for months for the day that he could just share his testimony because he thought I was, that's how bad shape I was. I thought I was a Christian, by the way. And when he shared with me, and we began to meet regularly, day after day, to study the Bible, my life began to change. I want to just pause and say, if you come here regularly on weekends, wherever you're worshiping, that's great. It's a great start, but it's the foot in the door of the spiritual journey. The real meat of this all, friends, happens when you start sitting with someone, or in a small group of people, and you open up your heart, and you open up the word together, and you discover. It just, I don't know why God set it up that way, but here's Paul, great illustration of the most influential Christian of all time. What did God do? He sent a man, a man named Ananias. Now, we'll just read real briefly. This is classic. So, the people with Saul saw this, and they took him, and put him in this little room, and look at that in verse 10. In Damascus, there was a disciple named Ananias, and the Lord called to him in a vision, Ananias. Yes, Lord, he answered. The Lord told him, go to the house of Judas on Straight Street, and ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul, for he is praying. In a vision, he has seen a man named Ananias, that would be you, come and place his hands on him to restore his sight. I love Ananias's response in verse 13. Look up in the screens. Lord, I've heard many reports about this man. He's a bad dude, it says in the Scott Stevens version, and all the harm he's done to your saints in Jerusalem, and he's come here with authority from the chief priest. In other words, he's saying, I don't want to get near this guy. He is a bad dude. He just wants to put me in prison, but the Lord said to Ananias, go. This man is my chosen instrument to carry my name before the Gentiles, that would be you and me, non-Jews and their kings, and before the people of Israel, and I will show him how much he must suffer for my name. So here's the teaching point. Number three, God uses people to show the way, and when you are paralyzed by fear or guilt or failure or doubt, friends, you just need to get with a man or a woman who can help you find the way. You just need to make it a priority of your life. If you don't do that, you know what? Watch my hand. Here's, your life's going to go like this. You're going to be up and down, up and down spiritually. Once you get connected with a person or a small group, here's what's going to happen. Your journey is going to go like this. Won't say it won't be dips, but you're going to go up, and you'll be able to measure it in the course of months, not 15 years, no, months. Give me 90 days with a person on a regular basis, and their life will be changed if they're open in their heart. I know mine was. I know yours can be as well. Many people just don't do that. So what can we learn from this little exchange with Ananias? I just summarize it this way. Here's the teaching points. Our spiritual journeys are full of surprises. Ananias was not expecting this. Surprises require faith. Well, Ananias didn't want to go, but he obeyed, number three, and with obedience there came clarity, because when he went to Saul, here's what happened to him, and he just, he went to him, did exactly what Jesus said, and to his utter amazement, instead of arresting him, here's the response in Acts chapter 9, verse 17, Ananias went to house and entered it, and placing his hands on Saul, he said, Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here, has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit, and immediately something like scales fell from Saul's eyes, and he could see again. All that he feared of the judgment of God, all the things that he knew he had done wrong, the persecution, the beatings, the lies, God forgave it all. He got up and was baptized. Remember, we've often said here, baptism marks a turning point in your life. If you're a Christ follower and not been baptized, what are you waiting for? And after taking some food, he regained his strength, and then it goes on, and then I'll just tell you what happens. See, once obedience happens, the next thing on my mind is this. Clarity happened in Saul's life, and it fueled dramatic growth. I mean, he just began to grow like crazy. I mean, he just preached everywhere, and people couldn't believe this. This Jesus hater and persecutor was now proclaiming that Jesus was really the Messiah. He'd done a complete 180, and people were astonished, and they said, who is this guy? This isn't Saul. We know him. He hates the Christians. No, he'd met the Jesus that he'd been hating so much, and that changed him forever, and here's what's going to happen. When you get hit like that, you just begin to see God do amazing things, but it takes a little bit of faith. Did you all know this weekend marks the 29th birthday of our church? Did you know that? Yeah, 29 years ago, Palm Sunday weekend was our first service. I had to laugh. We started with nine couples. I was 33 years old. I had three kids. I was leaving a well-established denominational church that had a pension and a health plan, and I looked in the eyes of eight other guys and their wives, and they said, well, we don't know how, but we believe God's going to provide, and we want you to be our pastor. I had to chuckle, Pastor Scott. We have a little thing, basic sort of rule of thumb right now for establishing new campuses, and it's working amazingly well. Oakland is going amazingly well. Swickly is going to be an amazing thing, and we say it takes three things. It takes a pastor and a place and about $500,000 for it to work. When North Way started, you had a youth pastor who didn't know squat. We didn't have a place to meet, and we had about $500 total. I mean, it was like nothing, but we had Jesus, and that's all that we needed, and I know those other people in those other settings, and I'm not at all disparaging. I think it's the right strategy. I'm just saying because we had the boldness of faith, God was there, and you're here today, and so have thousands of others come through because of just one just simple word that a group of folks chose to follow. You can do the same thing, but here's the last point. I think let's do this one quickly because I want to wrap this up. Paul then was, he wanted to preach, but God made him go wait, and he had to wait for a long time. I won't take you there, but Mark in your outline, Galatians, I think chapter 1 verse 18 up through chapter 2, I don't know, verse 3 or 4. We find that for 17 years, everyone say 17 years, 17 years Paul was pulled out of ministry. That's a long time, friends. Why did it take 17 years before Paul was able to, because, I mean, he had all this learning, right? Here's the reason, and I'll just summarize it for you, because the more religious you are, the more stuff's got to come out to learn to surrender your will to God just to do it His way. Now, am I saying to you, well, if you've been a faithful whatever kind of religious person for a long time, you're not entitled to it? No. I'm saying that was, Paul was the first of the disciples. Now we have God's word, and we have people that have been, so it could be much faster for you, but it's not uncommon. How long was Moses in the desert? 40 years. How long was David waiting to take the throne from when he was anointed by Jonathan? 10 years. I mean, it's not uncommon. Elijah waited in the wilderness for, I mean, it's just, so 17 years, Paul was quiet and laid low. That's a long time, but God was working his work in his heart, and let me just say this, nothing replaces the fear of failure, the fear and the binding power of religion in your life than intimacy with Jesus, and that only comes by spending time alone with Him, and I pray that it would be my gift to you if I could nudge you just to spend 15 minutes alone with Jesus every day, 15 minutes, just that much. It would change your life because you'd then add to that because you just wouldn't want to leave. The final thing is this, the primary release from past failures comes when you discover the power of grace. Now, I've talked about the law, and I talked about what all that means, and I talked about how you can never keep it and make it the whole way, and the New Testament introduces this word called grace. I remember the acronym. This is how I remember it. Maybe it'll help you. Grace, G-R-A-C-E, God's riches at Christ's expense. Would you say that? God's riches at Christ's expense. In other words, everything that we yearn for spiritually, the freedom from the sin and temptation and things that pull at us, even if you're a Christian, by the way, you're not immune from that. You still have temptations. Please never look at me or anybody else and think that I don't have sin in my life that I'm struggling with. I do. A lot of you'd like me to tell you what it is, but I'm not going to. I do in some settings, and you have it too, and some of us have things we would love to accomplish, but we can't get there because we have no clue how to do it, but God's riches at Christ's expense. Grace is, well, do you remember the video, the very last line? I bet it got lost because it was sort of tailed off. I love the video. At the very end, Paul, the character playing Paul, said, I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know what's going to go on. I'd like to be set free, but he said, but I don't deserve it. Grace is receiving from God what you don't deserve. It's a free gift. This symbolizes that free gift, and in it, by the way, are treasures that you just keep pulling out, not just once. Please don't make the mistake of believing just as I put down in one scripture, Ephesians 2, 8, 9. We are saved by grace through faith, and not out of ourselves. It's a gift of God. Let's not mention bows. No, that's just saving grace. Grace keeps working to help you to grow, and to be more loving, and to be more forgiving, and to be more at peace, and to be more discerning, and more wise, and more loving. And it's just this treasure you just keep pulling out gift after gift, and God, that's what grace does. I heard one of my mentors, a man by the name of Jack Hayford, said, grace is God's ability to fulfill his will in your life. I love that. It's not even on your island. You can have that for free. God's ability to fulfill his will in your life. We all need grace. And the difference between the fear of failure, and not living up to whatever it is you're supposed to do, and living a life that's free, is receiving grace. And I want to close the message today with an invitation, as we just think about and contemplate what's coming at Easter. If it wasn't for the cross, and what Jesus did there, we would all be destined to live a life under the law, never finding freedom. But those who come to the Savior, and all of you are invited to come, you can find the freedom that comes by receiving grace. And what you've been searching for all your life, suddenly makes sense. And the person that maybe you just saw as a religious figure, you come to know him, just a little bit at first, and then more and more as you go along. That's the essence of what we're going to talk about on Easter. The resurrected Jesus, and how he by his spirit now lives within us, and gives us grace for everyday living. Stand and pray with me, please. Lord, I ask you in Jesus' name, to take away the fear of failure, and the stain of failure. Many of us know that we have not lived up to the religious laws that we've imposed on ourselves, and help us to receive grace. Grace to walk. Grace, Lord Jesus, to follow you and fulfill your will. In your name I pray.