Such Love-Part 1

Subtitle: He Became One of Us

John 1:14-18; Philippians 2:5-11.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Palm Sunday, April 2, 2023.

Today we begin a 6-part series about God's love, and how we should respond to it.

Love is a matter of call and response, or action and response.  In a way, God is always the initiator of love because of His eternal nature.  We are always the responders.

I want to refresh our memories of just how much God loved us in the coming of the one we know as Jesus, or in Hebrew, Yeshua.  On top of His love 2,000 years ago, we have His great love for us today, for you, and for others.  Do you not realize that God's amazing love will be embracing you even unto your last breath?  His amazing love will even be with humanity to the end of this age, and into eternity.

Let's look at our passage today, and remind ourselves of God's great love.

The Word became flesh (John 1:14)

In this chapter, John speaks of the One called "the Word" who is identified in verse 17 as Jesus Christ.  The Word becoming flesh points back to that moment in time when Mary first conceived.

The miracle of the incarnation is often doubted.  It is believed that Mary clearly made up the story.  However, does this square with all of the evidence?

Let's just go with the cynic on this one and assume that Mary did make it up.  Her pregnancy would have either been by Joseph, or some other man that she is unwilling to name.  Modern man may scoff that they didn't know science like we do today.  Thus, the people of Nazareth were easily duped.

Of course, this is not what happened and is very snobbish towards that generation.  They knew exactly how a woman became pregnant.  No one believed Mary's story at first, not even Joseph.  He was going to put her away silently.  However, Joseph changed his mind and married Mary.  They lived their lives with the stigma hanging over their heads that they had not waited for the proper moment to be intimate.  No one would have bought their story.

Here is the rub.  If Mary was lying, then Jesus should have fallen within the range of the Judeans of his day.  He might be a little smarter or not, but we would not expect him to stick out among the greats of Israel, much less all mankind.  The miracles of Jesus, his death and resurrection, are not explainable by a natural conception.  Of course, the skeptic continues to deny everything.  None of the miracles happened.  The resurrection didn't happen.  Over the top of all the eye witness testimony, the skeptic's biases reign supreme.   There is just too much evidence that something strange was going on with this Jesus of Nazareth.

In the opening verses of this chapter, it is clear that John is using language from Genesis chapter 1, "In the beginning..."  The apostles of Jesus had come to see the reality of who Jesus really was.  He is the Son of the Most High God, but not in the way that humans would understand sonship.  Even before anything was created, the eternal Son existed as the eternal Word of God.  How does John come up with the idea that there was a "Word" of God in the Genesis 1?  Well, primarily he doesn't "come up with it."  He understands it by the revelation of Jesus and the Spirit of God.  However, it is important to see that Genesis 1 describes the Father saying, "Let there be light,"  When we speak, words go forth from us.  Of course, God is not flesh and blood and there is no air around Him to propagate sound waves.  However, something greater is being revealed.  The One who created man, with the ability to speak and send powerful ideas out into the world around him, is able to "speak" and send forth "word" in a greater way.  What is not made clear in the text of Genesis 1 is explained in John 1.  The eternal Word was the eternal Son who went forth to accomplish what the Father desired.  John is also probably looking at Proverbs 8, in which wisdom is personified and depicted as working with God at Creation.  In a sense, John is saying that Proverbs 8 is not just poetry.  It is revelation that is not clear until the Wisdom of God, the Word of God, took on flesh.

This is the amazing part.  This One who has eternally existed not only with God, but as divine, became human.  This speaks to the depths that God was willing to go in order to save us, to show His love for us.  Yes, God is good and therefore He will do good things, but He doesn't have to be that good!  This call and response of love cannot be broken down into "laws."  Anyone who says, "This is what you have to do in order to love me," has something wrong in their heart.  They are not speaking with love themselves.  Love must be free to act and to respond.  Love must not be controlled and manipulated; true love will not dictate to other how they "must" show love.

This brings us to Philippians 2:5-11.  It uses language from Genesis 1 as well (verse 26).  In Genesis, man is made in the "likeness" of God.  He is not God, but is like Him enough that a personal relationship can develop between them.  We see this in Genesis 3 when it tells us that God would come down in the cool of the day to meet with Adam and Eve.  In Philippians, something is happening in the opposite direction.  Though man is made in God's likeness, through Jesus, God has taken on the nature and form of a man.  The Word didn't just become like a man.  Rather, He became a man.

This begs the question, "What was He thinking?"  The context of Philippians 2 is the kind of mind that Christians need to have.  Thus, Paul points back to the incarnation, taking on of flesh, of the Word of God in Jesus.  We need the same kind of mind that Jesus had when he agreed to such a plan.

Of course, becoming human is nothing to us because we are human.  Jesus was divine and the creator of all mankind.  Taking on the nature of a human is a big deal.  In fact, Paul parallels the act of Jesus taking on the likeness of humans with him taking on the form of a slave.  He didn't just become human.  He became a human slave for God the Father. 

Again, what was the eternal Son thinking?  What is this love of God that would go to such lengths, to such depths, in order to save us?  As humbling as becoming human is for God, this was not the depths of his love.

The Philippians passage uses three verbal phrases to describe the depths of God's love for us.

First, he "emptied himself."  It doesn't say exactly what he emptied himself of.  In the context, the mind of Christ is in view.  Thus, we might ask ourselves this question.  What would I have to empty myself of in order to do something like that?  Of course, Jesus is not proud and arrogant.  However, he did create all things, and has dwelled in eternal glory with the Father.  He would have to empty himself of all the reasons and thinking that would object to such a plan of salvation.  It would be an attitude that says, "I am this (a glorious God); I shouldn't have to do that (become human, etc.). 

As humans, we are altogether too familiar with that attitude.  It is not an attitude of love.  This is why Paul is pointing us back to the incarnation.  We need to first understand just how amazing it is that the Word would do this for us, and then make the leap to the fact that we should do the same for others.

Second, Philippians 2 tells us that Jesus "humbled himself."  At its root this word speaks of a lowering of position.  The eternal Son abased himself in taking on human flesh.  Yet, as a man, we see him washing the feet of his disciples.  He wasn't just becoming a great king of the earth that everyone would serve.  Instead, he was a slave of God to serve us.  He lived without purpose and will of his own, and instead, lived out only the will and purpose of the Father in heaven.  Since the men whose feet he washed were his disciples, they would then have to figure out how to lower themselves even lower than their master.  How is that possible?  Only by the grace and help of God's Holy Spirit; that's how.

Palm Sunday is all about the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem.  It represents all that we want in the natural.  Jesus presents himself to Jerusalem as her awaited Anointed King from God.  We do not object to God coming down and becoming human in order to conquer our foes and lay them at our feet.  However, we do balk because we do not know what our true enemy is.  One day we are saying yeah for team Jesus, and then he does something we don't understand and we are ready to crucify him.

Just as Israel was looking for Messiah to show up and conquer the Romans, so we do today.  The Ukrainians hope for God to show up and crush the Russians.  Americans may complain that if God would just show up and destroy those who are taxing us to death, then we would be good.  Really?  The truth is that Israel's problem was not actually the Romans, and the problem for American's is not your tax-happy State capital, or Washington D.C.  Our problem is sin that is entrenched in our own hearts.  We will point out every sin, but our own.  This is our greatest problem: we are in bondage to sin.

The Word dwelt among us

Back in John 1:14, we are told that the Word became flesh and then dwelt among us.  John again uses language from the Old Testament, this time from Exodus 25-40.  The word for "dwelt" connects back to the animal skins of the tent, or tabernacle, God had Israel build in the desert.  This verb could be translated as "and tented among us."

Yeshua is literally God,  Yahweh, tenting among us.  Remember, the whole purpose of the tabernacle was to create a place that God could dwell in among the people of Israel.  As they camped in the wilderness, the tabernacle was there in the center of their camp.  The presence of God was visible in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.

This visible presence of the Lord had become a thing of the past by the first century.  However, it is important to understand this picture of God dwelling among His people within a structure of animal skins.

This brings up the age old contention between Christians and Judaism, the idea of the Messiah being divine.  Is this just a Christian perversion?  Are Christians teaching things that are not in the Old Testament, either because they don't understand Hebrew, or they are purposefully twisting the Scriptures?

The presence of God was always understood to be a mystery in ancient Israelite worship.  If one pays careful attention to the text, you might accuse the writer of contradicting themselves.  On one hand, the Scriptures pound home the idea that mortal humans cannot see God without dying, and yet God is able to reveal Himself in lesser, or mediated forms.  The bush that Moses sees is somehow Yahweh, and yet it is not fully Yahweh.  The fire and smoke on Mt. Sinai is somehow Yahweh, and yet not fully Yahweh.  The same scary manifestation of fire and smoke on the mountain, then moves to the tabernacle as a less scary pillar of cloud (a somewhat different manifestation, yet of the same).  We see Moses speaking with God in the tabernacle, but at the same time he asks God to look down from heaven (Deuteronomy 26:15).  Moses was not contradicting himself.  He simply knew that God was capable of manifesting in a mediated form on the earth, while still being God in heaven.

This is the mystery of the presence of God.  It is never fully explained.  It is simply revealed and discovered by Moses and Israel.  Even the New Testament does not completely demystify this mystery of the person and presence of God.  Yet, Moses had no problem accepting that God could be "tenting" among His people within animal skins (the tabernacle) while still being resident in heaven.  Thus, before the first century, rabbis would speak of the Invisible Yahweh and the Visible Yahweh (a mediated form of the invisible God).  God is One, and yet He can somehow localize without leaving heaven.

This comes to a head in Exodus 33 to 34.  There Moses is talking with God.  He is asking God to go with them, even though Israel has been sinful and rebellious.  God promises to send His Presence with them.  At this point, Moses asks God to see His glory.  God agrees to let him see His receding glory, that is, not its fullness, because Moses could not handle it. 

The even is described in chapter 33, but happens in chapter 34.  God tells Moses to stand on a certain rock.  God would then come down and pass before Moses.  God's hand would simultaneously place Moses in a cleft of the rock, and shield him from seeing God's face.  Yet, as God passes by, He removes His hand so that Moses can see His back as He goes away from him.  Meanwhile, God is "declaring" the name of the Lord.  I will come back to this declaration of the name of the Lord in a moment.

Notice that in this passage God is spoken of in human terms: face, hand, and back.  This is a mediated human form, yet not a human.  Thus, we can see that there is no great leap to understand that just as Yahweh could tent among His people in animal skins, appear to Moses in human form, all while being resident in the heavens, so in Jesus, Yahweh could tent among His people in human skin, while still being resident in the heavens.

Why would He do this?  What love is this?

We beheld His glory

Finally, John 1:14 tells us that they beheld his glory.  Just as Israel saw God's glory come down upon the mountain, then onto the tabernacle, so God's glory was made visible in the person and work of Jesus.

I would like to point out that God's glory is not just one thing in the Old Testament.  There are many different expressions, forms, and even layers to the manifest glory of God.  No human has ever seen the unmitigated glory of God.  We cannot handle it.  Then, we see the powerful glory that scares people like at Mt. Sinai: smoking fire, Loud voice, trumpet blasts, shakings, etcetera. 

Then, there is the kind of glory that Moses saw that is a human like figure.  This connects with the Angel of Yahweh passages as well.  This Angel is more than a created spiritual messenger for God.  God's Name is somehow in Him, and he forgives sins (Exodus 23:21).  Moses saw this human form of God's glory declaring the "Name of the Lord."  What was the declaration?  Exodus 34:6-7, "And the LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.”  God's glory is displayed in God allowing Moses to glimpse what He could of Him, but it is also wrapped up in the truth about God's nature.  He is Mercy, Grace, Patience, Goodness, Truth, Forgiveness, and the fear of the guilty.  Thus, John alludes to this passage as well when he says of Jesus in John 1:14 that Jesus is full of grace and truth.  In Jesus, Israel receives a greater glimpse of what Moses saw on the mountain. 

Of course, some of Israel saw a greater glory in Jesus than the others similar to Moses seeing God's glory greater than Israel did.  The disciples saw Jesus do things that others didn't, like walk on water and calm a storm with just the words, "Peace, be still."  However, James, John, and Peter saw the Lord's face transfigured into a glorious brightness that the other nine did not see.

Yet, the miracles and such demonstrations were probably not the greatest glory that Jesus expressed.  A case can be made that his death on the cross was the greatest display of the glory of God.  On that day, he fully revealed the heart and nature of God the Father, not only to Israel, but also to the Gentiles.  The heart of God is full of Grace, and yet also full of Truth.  He will bend over backwards to save us, even to the point of dying for us, but we must turn to Him in truth.

Today, I want us to understand what it says about the love of God that He would even come down and take on the nature of a human.  The heart of God has always been about relationship with us, and to dwell with us.  Revelation ends with us dwelling with God and the statement, "They shall see His face."  We will have been fitted to not only dwell in His presence, but also to look into the face of the full glory of God without dying!  This relationship has always been His goal.  It was there in the Garden of Eden until the serpent and sin broke that fellowship.  It was there with Israel in the wilderness, until sin and rebellion broke it.

All humanity is full of rebellion against God, and against His Anointed King, Jesus.  Yet, even now He holds out His hand in an offer of peace.  He offers the joy of dwelling with Him throughout eternity.  This is the love of God.  How can I say no to such love?

Such Love 1 audio

Evangelist Joe Pyott

Sunday AM March 26, 2023 at Abundant Life Christian Fellowship.

We will only post the audio of Evangelist Joe Pyott's message.

Pyott Audio

The Acts of the Apostles 40

Subtitle: Saul Goes Back to Jerusalem

Note: After this sermon we will be taking a break from the Acts of the Apostles.  This series will pick up again on May 21, 2023.

Acts 9:26-31.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on March 19, 2023.

Did you ever have to go back to a place where you really didn't want to go?  Sometimes God takes us back to face a few things that we would rather not face.  Sometimes there are things that we should go back and face, but it's to late.  If people are gone, or have died, or the opportunity has passed, then we may have to simply go forward while facing them internally and in different external forms.

Last week, Saul had to slip out of Damascus at night because there were some Judeans who were plotting to kill him.  This leads to him going back to Jerusalem.

Let's look at our passage.

The Jerusalem church is cautious

Luke does not tell us exactly what leads Saul to go to Jerusalem.  I believe that he is being led by the Holy Spirit, which is a theme throughout this book, as well as the whole Bible.

According to Galatians 1:15-21, this is happening about three years after Saul's amazing conversion outside of Damascus.  The people in Jerusalem would know that something odd happened to Saul, since he never came back with prisoners.  Also, the rumors would have also been circulating that he had become a Christian.

When Saul arrives in Jerusalem, he finds that the Jerusalem is very cautious.  We are told that he "tried to join the disciples..."  This term is most likely talking about the general believers that still remained in Jerusalem following the persecution led by Saul earlier.  At this point, the term "apostle" and the phrase "The Twelve" was being used of those closest ones who walked with Jesus. 

These Twelve were unique because they bore the responsibility to establish what Jesus taught in a faithful manner that people could trust.  It is interesting that Jesus did not write any of his teachings down, neither did he baptize any of those who followed him.  It was the 12 disciples who became apostles who baptized followers in the name of Jesus, and who laid out the teachings of Christ.  Jesus did this on purpose.  God can do everything without us, but He doesn't want to do that. 

You were designed to work with God and have Him work through you.  This is an important point because, if we were designed that way, we will have trouble living life without Him.  I like to use a catamaran as an illustration.  These small boats with a big sail are functional because they have a large counter-balance that hangs off to one side.  They can cut through the surf at amazing speeds because they are light and generally stable.  However, if you take off that counter-balance, you will find it very difficult to do much sailing at all.  Your sail will be "bowing" to every little wind that comes along.  This is us without the stabilizing presence of God within our soul.  You may look like you are sailing to a world that has redefined what it means to sail, but the truth is that you are unable to accomplish that for which you were created.

We do not know how Saul's conversion affected the persecution.  Did it end, or continue?

Saul would naturally not have any Christian contacts of his own, since he had been dragging them to jail, but he may have been given some names from the believers in Damascus.  Yet, he finds the church skittish of him in general.  They do not believe that he could have truly been saved.  Their fear of what Saul had done in the past made it harder for them to believe the miracle that Christ had done in Saul's heart.

It is easy in our experience as the American Church to accuse these early believers of being judgmental and even unchristian.  However, if your life and the life of your loved ones was on the line, you might think differently yourself.

The Jerusalem church, like any other persecuted churches down through history, would have developed careful ways.  Though we should be willing to die for Jesus, we are not told that we should try and make that happen.  I talked about these matters in my sermon series entitled, "Lessons from the Underground Church."  When the lives of your loved ones are on the line, you do church differently.  Many people today are walking out through miles of jungle to a secret meeting place so that they can honor God and worship Him with other believers, as His Word commands.

Which brings up an American issue.  If you need church to look a certain way, or be a certain way, in order to participate, then you are in a bad position.  You really need to take hold of that attitude and square it away with Jesus.  Take that attitude out, throw it on the ground, and stomp on it.  Get on your face before God and say, "God, change my heart!" 

We have lived in a blessed land, and yes, praise God for it!  Yet, we know that the most blessed people throughout history have spent that blessing mostly on their fleshly desires.  They squandered it.  If God took out blessings away, would you even be a Christian?  If even a small amount of blessing is removed, we are often unable to take it. 

Be very wary of this attitude building in your heart.  Some might complain that the Bible doesn't say we have to walk out into the jungle in order to be saved, and faithful to God.  No, it doesn't.  However, those are the kinds of things that faithful believers do.  We will want to obey the command of our lord to worship God together, but they don't want to see their loved ones killed.  So, they choose not to meet at their house and not to worship loudly.  This is the response of faith to the Words of Christ.  Don't play a game like the hypothetical questioning person above.  Take up your cross, and follow Jesus.  These are the words of our Lord Jesus.

Thus, there is a true need for caution in persecuted, underground churches.  This is the testimony of the Church down through the ages.  The "authorities" will use the conversion process in order to infiltrate the group and spy out who all is involved.  Many a time, a  person has lied saying that they believed in Jesus, but they were only worming themselves into the group.  William Tyndale was ratted out this way, and later put to death for daring to translate the Bible into English. 

Just as "loose lips sink ships" cautioned the WWI and WWII generations, and "loose tweets sink fleets" cautions the modern era, so Christians were not quick to divulge there meeting places and members.

Of course, Saul could be offended by this, and accuse them of not being Christian.  However, he doesn't do that.  How dare they question whether he is saved or not!  Please note that Saul doesn't need anybody to stroke his ego and tell him that he is a Christian.  He has a relationship with Jesus.  If you have a relationship with the One who went to the cross for everyone, then you will be able to carry a cross for your spiritual brothers and sisters.  Saul knew that he deserved every slammed door that he received.  Many of them had lost loved ones because of him.  He did not deserve a place in their midst.  Instead, you go to your knees and pray for your brothers and sisters that God will heal their hearts and help them to know that you truly have changed.

If you were in that situation, how would you know what to do with a guy like Saul?  The answer is not in building some religious sounding, but actually natural, wisdom.  Persecuted churches must not develop a law that says we never let outsiders in.  And, neither should we build a false principle that says that the church must always accept the people who come to them.  Making protocols, or decrees, like these is really a childish level of being a Christian.  We can remain children and simply follow the human wisdom we think is fit, or we can seek God and hear from Him on the subject. 

Believers in such situations do need to be cautious, but they also need to be taking their caution to the Lord in prayer.  In the context of a regular prayer life, this will become as natural as breathing.  If you remain a spiritual child, then you will make childish decisions.  Saul takes it in stride because he is not a child spiritually.  He has a strong relationship with Jesus.  He doesn't need them to never make a mistake in order to love them and serve them.

The apostles accept Saul

Notice that Saul is accepted by the church in Jerusalem, even though it started out rocky.  God used the mature individuals in the church to recognize that the Spirit of God was working in Saul.  They led the church in embracing him.  So, it actually worked like it was supposed to do, regardless of some bumpiness on the road.

God spreads His gifts.  Just as the two-year old is not put in charge of the security of the house because there is a dad who can do that much better, so it is in God's spiritual house.  God gives elders who have been faithful over a long period of time, and who have learned through many spiritual experiences the ways of God.  They help watch out for the body of believers as protectors, but also as those who have discernment in matters such as this situation with Saul.  Be thankful for the elders that God has placed in your life, and don't be too quick to cast off their wisdom.

Remember, you will not be a child forever.  I remember when I was in my early twenties that my grandparents and my dad all died within three years.  It felt like the roof had been torn off of my life.  I couldn't talk with my dad or grandparents about things I was facing.  It was harsh.  You are exposed to life and you are thinking to yourself, "I'm not ready."  However, God is always with us and fills in what is missing in our lives.

I say that to encourage you to enjoy these years of having mature believers around you.  Soak up what they have learned, and keep growing in the Lord.  The day will come all too quickly where you will need to be the mature one for others.  And, believe me, this isn't as fun as we may think it is.  Maturity means doing the duties while others play.  However, there is a joy in such duties that no amount of play can replace, a joy of relationship with the Lord!

The answer in tough situations like Saul's is for everyone to be focused on relationship with Jesus.  This is why Barnabas steps up.  He has enough maturity to take Saul to see the apostles.

Now Barnabas was introduced in Acts 4:26.  His birth name is Joseph, but the Greek spelling often dropped the "ph" and spelled it Joses.  Barnabas is actually a nickname that the apostles gave to this Joseph because he had sold some of his property to care for widows and the poor in the church.  Barnabas means "son of encouragement."  This is a Hebrew way of saying that Barnabas is a chip off of the old block.  In this case, his mother, father is encouragement. 

True to his nickname, Barnabas "somehow" runs into Saul and takes him to the apostles.  He is not just a wealthy donor.  He is a true worker for the Lord, of which this is just one thing.  I believe that the Holy Spirit is involved in this development.  Saul was running into shut doors, and it may have felt like God was telling him to leave.  However, Saul kept humble and kept waiting.  God eventually brought Barnabas to him.  Don't let yourself become so discourage by obstacles that you forget about God.  He has a reason in letting those obstacles remain.  Wait upon Him for His answer.  God was bringing Saul to Barnabas.  He just needed to stay faithful.

Saul is brought before the apostles and relates his story of conversion.  This leads to him being accepted into the group.  Saul is not under "trial."  However, it is only natural that he should make the case for the reality of his conversion.  It is in Galatians 1:18 that we are told that not all of the apostles were present.  Peter and James the brother of Jesus are the ones he met with.  It also tells us that he stayed with Peter for 15 days.

We are not told that Peter and James make an official pronouncement.  Instead, it just states the reality of his acceptance.  Peter's association with Saul would be enough for the others, particularly those who had come to faith in Jesus through Peter's ministry.

Though we are not told how Peter and James knew to accept Saul, they knew the only way that matters, by the help of the Holy Spirit.

Saul ministers in Jerusalem

Saul very quickly does what he does best.  He begins to speak to his fellow Judeans about Jesus.  This is going to end in an attempt on his life, just as things had ended at Damascus.  We don't want to be judgmental of Saul, but there was something about this man that ticked off his Judean brothers.  I believe it has something to do with the phrase, "he spoke boldly in the name of the Lord."

Is there any other way to represent Jesus, but boldly?  Of course not!  However, this boldness shows that the Holy Spirit was powerfully upon Saul.

It is good for us to pray, "God, I don't want to be a coward.  Help me to be bold!"  There is a bit of coward in all of us, okay so there is a lot of coward in all of us.  We can be really strong as long as we have a group or system around us.  These are the things that we surround ourselves in the natural to make us feel powerful.  Yet, if  you strip those things away from such people, you will find a very scared person at their core.  These things in the natural are like a kind of natural armor we use to protect ourselves instead of leaning upon Jesus Christ.

Pray for Jesus to be the spiritual surgeon who cuts out the cowardice from your heart because we can do bold things, and talk big, but it isn't the true bravery that comes from God.  Even courage and boldness can be perverted from the good that God intends in them.  We can boldly follow the wrong purposes.  So, these virtues need to be purified in prayer before God.  "God, I want to be bold, but for your things, and in the right way!  God, I want to be courageous, but not in sin.  I want to be courageous for You!"  This is the kind of prayer we need to pray.

So, Saul speaks boldly in the name of Jesus for God's purposes, like Stephen did just three years before this.  Notice that he debates with the Hellenists, the same group Stephen had trouble with.  I could let this slip by, but it is significant that Saul disputed with them.  Luke told us during Stephen's story that the Synagogue of Freedmen were from many areas including Cilicia, where Saul's hometown of Tarsus is.  I believe Saul focused on them because he knew them best, and may have counted many of them as friends.  They needed to hear the gospel.  Yet, the dispute becomes very heated.

There is a time to walk away in disputes, like when you are about to lose your cool.  This is a spiritual thing.  We are not told how they do it, but there is an attempt to kill Saul, or at least a plan is started.

This sinful part of natural man is always with us.  They tried defeating his arguments about Jesus first.  When that didn't work, they retreated to simply shutting him down for good. There is nothing wrong with disputing with people in order to show them truth, but a Christian must always keep an attitude of peace about them.  The world resorts to bully tactics.  Today it is shouting people down in public, or cancelling them online.  Though we may not agree with another person,  we should not let rage and anger drive the bus of our actions.

Of course, in Stephen's case, the "authorities" always cloak themselves in a cloak of morality, and the color of law, as an excuse for simple weakness of argument.

Again, God's people should never rely upon the sinful works of the flesh to accomplish the will of God.  Spouting venomously against others online, or in person, using intimidation, or manipulating the group behind another person's back, all of these are wrong and not of the Lord.  It goes without saying that flat out murder is wrong as well.

After this, Saul is sent to Tarsus and there is peace in the region.  This seems to be a decision by the church, "the brethren."  Of course, we have already been told that God's plan is for Saul to minister among the Gentile nations.  However, it was important for Saul to come back to Jerusalem where he had spent his adult life training under Rabbi Gamaliel.  It was important that Jerusalem know that Saul of Tarsus was indeed a Christian, and the same thing is most likely needed at Tarsus, explaining why he goes there next.

We may want the story to be that a person is saved, and all their friends and family are saved too.  That sometimes happens, but is not always the case.  We can be too quick to think that we have done something wrong when people don't respond in faith.  However, remember that the Lord himself was crucified by the people he witnessed to.  Did he fail?  We don't want to use that as an excuse.  We must wrestle through this issue before the Lord in prayer.  Lord God, help me to become better at witnessing for you!

The churches in the region had peace and were edified.  We know that there continued to be difficulties. Perhaps, the persecution wasn't quite as bad.  However, for the believer, peace is never about having no troubles.  Peace is about having the strong assurance that the God of the universe is with you and working all things to your good.  This is the peace that passes all understanding, and internal peace.

Make sure you are focused on being used of God and then trust His leading.  If you are doing this, then you can rest in it.  This is not a resting of inactivity, but an inner attitude that knows you are saved, and God is using you to save others!  Amen.

Saul Goes Back audio

The Acts of the Apostles 39

Subtitle: Saul Preaches at Damascus

Acts 9:20-25.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on March 12, 2023.

We have come to the point where Jesus has dramatically saved the life of Saul of Tarsus.  Last week, I mentioned how he was prayed for by Ananias and received his sight.  He was also water baptized and filled with the Spirit too.  This put Saul on a different trajectory than his namesake, King Saul.

It is a wonderful thing when a person is confronted with Jesus, and they surrender to him in faith.  Saul's complete about face.  May God help us to see hungry people seeking Jesus and finding him.  May we be a people who are still excited about the amazing grace of Jesus in our lives.

Let's look at our passage.

Saul is a new man in Christ Jesus

We can talk about becoming a new man in the natural.  Maybe we find some kind of regimen that will whip us into shape and revamp our life physically.  Of course, even if you really do well at that, it is still a losing battle.  In the end, you are mortal and cannot stay ahead of death.

Yes, scientists are working hard to overcome the mortality issue.  Even if they are able to conquer death, so to speak, science cannot fix sin in the heart of people.  A laboratory may be able to lobotomize a man, but they cannot fix his soul and heart.  Science can create technical solutions to issues, but it can't tell you if you should deploy them or not, whether it is good or bad.

Without something outside of us to which we are accountable, our "morality" will be like the waves of the sea, wishy-washy.  Perhaps we will be moved by the group one way, until a new majority shows up and the waves moves another direction.  This is true and good now.  No.  Now this over here is true and good, ad infinitum.  Whether it be a majority group, or a tyrant, this crazy world of changing truths falls woefully short of creating true change in a person's heart.

Saul becomes a new man spiritually rather than naturally.  He can actually see the reality of his life and the life of people around him because he is truly listening to the Creator of the universe.  If we needed proof of Saul's conversion, we see it in the activity following his healing and conversion.

Jesus had given him his mission in at least one vision, if not two.  He didn't need any more proof.  Of course, we might complain that God hasn't given us a vision.  However, God has given you enough evidence to believe upon Him.  Don't play the game of withholding your faith from Him because He hasn't given you a particular experience.  Yes, He loves you, but He's not playing games.

Saul is no longer a student of Rabbi Gamaliel of the school of Hillel.  He is now a follower of Rabbi Yeshua!

We are told that Saul "immediately" preaches Jesus in the synagogues.  That word can mean in the next second, but it also allows for context.  If he was saved on a Tuesday, then it would mean that he preached in the synagogue that Friday/Saturday.  Thus, immediately can mean at the next available opportunity.

The emphasis of his preaching is the amazing reality that Jesus truly was the Messiah, or Christ.  Jesus was the one that they had been waiting for God to send.  God had promised that an Anointed One would come and deliver Israel, but even more, he would be a redeemer of Israel.  These prophecies in the Old Testament stated that one from the line of David would not only fix Israel, but even the nations.  However, they had been under the domination of foreign powers for over 586 years.  It is hard to keep the faith that God is going to save you that long.

He also emphasizes that this Messiah was also the Son of God.  If you pay attention to the words of Jesus, then you will notice that Jesus actually emphasizes Son of Man regarding himself, rather than Son of God.  It is true that these words have a layer of meaning that is essentially "human" for the former and "divine" for the latter.  Yet, there is more going on here than that.

The phrase "Son of Man" is not a denial of the divinity of Jesus.  Rather, Jesus is using a phrase that is also a technical phrase from Old Testament prophecy, particularly in Daniel 7. For example, if I use the word "rapture" in a church setting, many Christians will immediately think of prophecies in the New Testament that speak of a catching up of believers to be with Jesus in the air.  However, a non-Christian may hear that word and only think of a poetic use of ecstatic joy and delight.  Of course, they wouldn't be wrong that this is part of its meaning, but they would be missing the critical theological significance.  The same is true with the Son of Man.

In Daniel 7, we have the Ancient of Days, God, seated on His throne with other thrones around him.  The final beast-empire of the earth is slain before Him and the government taken from it.  Next we see "And behold, One like the Son of Man, coming with the clouds of heaven! He came to the Ancient of Days, and they brought Him near before Him."  Notice that the great powers of the earth are described as beasts though comprised of men.  They are beasts of men ruling in a beastly way.  However, this one who is like a human receives a kingdom from the Ancient of Days that never ends.  Thus, his heart and his rule will not be beastly, but human, i.e., it will have the proper relational love that should exist in any governance.

Yet, there are some powerful things signaled in the text.  This one like a human rides the clouds to the Father.  This is no mere mortal.  Biblically speaking this is language used of God, or the gods.  It is considered divine activity.  Jesus emphasized this in Matthew 26:64 when he responded to high priest.  They understood the connotation that he was making and accused him of blasphemy.  On top of this, we have the fact that his kingdom is everlasting and the peoples of the earth will "serve" him, a word used of service to a deity.

So you see, Son of Man is not contradictory of Son of God.  In fact, it actually embraces the phrase Son of God and adds to it prophetic significance.  Jesus was revealing that he was that strange, unique God-man that Scripture revealed.

I know that I took some time with this, but this is what Saul is preaching.  Jesus is the Son of David, but even more, he is the Son of God.  He has a divine origin.  We see this in the way the Gospels treat the origin of Jesus.  Matthew, Mark, and Luke focus upon the human origin of Jesus in their story without denying his divinity.  In a sense, they write their accounts as it was experienced.  He was born, ministered, and then we figured out who he was!  John, however, begins with a focus on the eternal origin of Jesus.  "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...and the Word became flesh (human) and dwelt among us..."  This is Jesus spoken of from God's experience, stepping into the world and taking on an additional nature of a human.  Of course, we may wonder how that is possible.  The answer would be that God created humans in a way that made it possible for Him to take on our nature.  Who'd have thunk it?  This is His artistic flourish as the Creator.

Saul is preaching to believers in the Father.  They worship Him with songs, readings, and prayers.  However, they don't know His Messiah, and that He had come to save them.  They didn't know the Father's salvation yet.  If there is one thing we should learn from the Old Testament, it is this.  All people, even religious people, who have the truth of God in their hands, need a spiritual transformation.  The same thing can happen to them that happened to the nations at the time of the Tower of Babel.  They had been exchanging truth for a lie, little by little, until they cooperated with Nimrod.  God judged it and handed them over to those "gods" they were seeking.  Over the centuries, and millennia, they became so dark that they were cutting hearts out of live victims for their so-called gods.

The people who heard Saul preaching about the Messiah having come were amazed at the idea, but the real source of their amazement is Saul's complete turn around.  He was fighting against them one day, and then became one of their strongest proponents the next day.  This is just how radically Jesus can change, transform, a life.  Or better, we could say that Jesus is able to save even the chief of sinners!

At the heart of the teachings of Jesus and his apostles, we have this idea of spiritual transformation.  Saul would later write in 2 Corinthians 5:17, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

I grew up in the Church, but I did not live for Jesus during my teenage years.  My freshman year in college began with too much partying and running around.  However, Jesus confronted me and I yielded to him.  He radically changed my life.  A friend that I used to run around with told me one day that he had talked to his mom about me.  She told him that I was just going through a "religious phase."  Well, here we are 35 years later, and I'm still going strong in this "religious phase," hallelujah!  Listen, Jesus did not come to give us a "religious phase," even though some people approach it this way.  He came to transform our lives.  It is not enough to have the truth.  It is not enough to look like you are following Jesus.  Judas followed Jesus!  But, when it really mattered, Judas betrayed the Lord Jesus with a kiss in the middle of  the night.  Let us not settle for having the right religion.  We must be transformed by Jesus!

In verse 22, we are told that Saul increased in strength.  Luke is showing us that God's blessing was upon Saul.  He is not talking about physical strength, but spiritual.  Saul made a 180 degree turn from fight God and His Holy Spirit to working with Them.  This required spiritual growth.  He grew in hearing the Holy Spirit and cooperating with Him.  He grew in his ability to be convincing to others.  Of course, his familiarity with the Old Testament would help.  However, Saul would have to let go of a lot of rabbinical teaching, and some parts would be retained and redeemed by the mind of Christ.

Saul had lots of natural gifts.  He could learn material, and was very industrious with lots of desire to move ahead, to prove himself.  However, natural talents that are not surrendered to God's direction will get in the way.  Later, Saul would say in Philippians 3:8 that all of his accomplishments in the natural were rubbish.  They were meaningless if he didn't have Jesus.

The word in verse 22 for "proving" has the sense of knitting two things together.  They believed in a coming Messiah, but they also believed that Jesus was poles apart from what Messiah would be.  Saul's preaching brought those things together in people's minds and knit them together, each stitch a different point.  Another way to see it is the knitting the person to the view that Jesus is Messiah.  Either way, he was convincing people, proving to them, that Jesus is the Messiah.

Always remember that spiritual growth is the result of a living connection to Jesus that is lived out in faith.  True spiritual growth is also always connected to the blessing of God. 

The blessing of God is a multi-faceted thing.  It doesn't look just one particular way.  We have to be careful that we do not equate the blessing of God with everything going well, and getting all the stuff we want.  In this land of plenty, it is easy to make the blessing of God be a very material thing.  I have a nice, big house, retirement nest egg, lucrative business/job, etc.  Saul is a blessed man, but remember the words of Jesus.  "I will show him [Saul] how many things he must suffer for My name’s sake."

Let me just say this.  To suffer for Jesus is a great honor and blessing.  To be martyred for Christ is also great honor and blessing.  You might have to put that one in the "To Be Believed Later" file.  We should never try to make these things happen.  Instead, we are following Jesus and letting him show us how we are to honor him and how he will bless us.  The cross was the most blessed place in the universe, but it sure didn't look like it when it was happening.  Remember that!   Yet, your life doesn't have to look like that to be blessed.  Trust Jesus!

It is like you see Jesus saying to you, "Come follow me!" and you really want to follow him.  But then, you see him going to a cross, and your flesh is saying, "I'm not following that guy; He's crazy!"  However, after the resurrection, you are like, "Crazy like a fox.  Wow!"  Even then, after such an emotional rollercoaster, you find yourself torn.  Your flesh shrinks back from one who tells you to pick up your cross and follow him, and yet your spirit desires to come out after him.

It is one thing for Peter to ask Jesus to come out on the water when he saw him walking on it.  However, no one was asking Jesus to come on the cross with him.  They all hid, and Peter chief among them.  God understand this about us, and works with us to bring to the place of faith and courage, where we can follow him by faith.

Verse 23 opens up with "Now after many days were past..."  There is a lot more time in that phrase then we may assume.  Galatians 1 gives some more details about this period.  There we are told that Saul left Damascus to go into Arabia, and then came back.  Three years transpires in this "many days."  For perspective, we need to understand that Arabia is a very general term that basically means desert.  If you left Damascus going south, southeast, you were basically in Arabia.  If you kept going you could make all the way to the Arabian Peninsula.  We don't exactly know where and how far Saul went into Arabia.  He seems to be getting away to go out into the wilderness. 

Regardless, it is about three years at the point that things change in Damascus.  Saul is preaching and God is blessing him.  However, the Jews of Damascus begin to plot to kill Saul.  Now, it is one thing to be in a foreign land and they don't like you.  However, this is Saul's own people.  Yet, he had been just like them, not to long ago.

It is not that he isn't blessed anymore.  The devil isn't stationary.  He's working to neutralize the work of God.  However, God isn't static either.  God sees what the devil is trying, and folds it into His plan, which is not for Saul to die yet.  Thus, the plot becomes known to Saul, though we are not told how.  Jesus has more work for Saul to do.  As the resistance against Saul increases, God is teaching Saul to identify with the sufferings of Jesus, to join him in those sufferings.  This is a intimacy that we can experience with Jesus.  Yes, suffering for Christ is a blessing, though our flesh does not believe it for one moment.

When Jesus miraculously supplied bread in the wilderness, the people were all gung-ho for him.  But, later they cried out "Crucify him!"  People are fickle.  We cannot let ourselves be stuck looking at people and hoping that lots of them will embrace us.  One day you may see great fruit, and then boom, the next day they are calling for your head, and that's okay, if God is with you.

This part of the story reminds me of the prophet Jeremiah in chapter eleven of his book.  Verses 18-22 describe a group of people in Anathoth who were plotting to kill Jeremiah.  God reveals to Jeremiah what they are plotting and says that He will punish them.  If you look at Jeremiah 1:1, you will see that Anathoth is Jeremiah's hometown, and it is filled with priests!  This town of priests are secretly plotting to assassinate one of their local boys.  Jeremiah had become the opposite of a hometown hero.  Even more interesting is the fact that Jeremiah uses language that clearly borrows from Isaiah 53 (written some 100 years earlier).  He was like a docile "lamb brought to the slaughter," and the people wanted to "cut him off from the land of the living."  Jeremiah is basically looking at the mistreated individual of Isaiah 53 (who would eventually be Jesus) and says, "I can identify with that!"

Though some of the Damascene Jews were waiting outside of the city gates to kill Saul, God out-foxed them by making the plot known to Saul, and the Christians out-foxed them by letting Saul out of a window in the wall with a rope and a basket in the dead of night.  Yes, great Saul who had marched to the city with strong men to arrest Christians was now sneaking out of the city by night.

We might think Saul should have walked out of the city daring them to try and touch him.  Surely, God's angels would protect him.  Perhaps, an army of angels would march out of the desert and escort Saul out of the city.  How cool would that be?  However, God delivers Saul with a much more humble method, which seems absolutely appropriate for a man who had had a big ego.

We must be careful that we are not presumptuous about how God should save us.  Don't assume.  Through prayer, seek God for the answer that He is giving, and not that one that your flesh is providing.

Perhaps you are hearing this and thinking to yourself, "That's a nice story, but stuff like that never happens for me.  God didn't do that for me."  Of course, you are not Saul in those circumstances.  Even in that day, countless Christians could have complained that God didn't give them the visions that Saul had, or the mission that He gave to Saul.  Don't give yourself over to envy and complaining against God.  Stop looking at what God might be doing through others and being envious over it.  Stop looking at what God isn't doing in your life and whining over it.  Rather, turn to God in prayer and seek Him.  Don't just seek Him to get visions and a cool mission.  Seek Him because He is worthy to be found.  Intimacy and relationship with Jesus is far more important, and yet, believe you me, He will give you plenty of tasks and you will see fruit, if you keep your eyes on Him!

Let's be a people pressing into Jesus in order to have intimacy with him, to know him better.  Then, we will be a transformed person who is capable of being used to draw others to Christ Jesus.  Only Jesus can tell you all the things that you have to go through for him, and only Jesus can prepare your heart to thrive in the midst of it!

Saul Preaches audio