Sermon Transcript
Well, lots and lots of things we could look at that we would say that was the best of times. And hopefully you have a list of best of times experience. For me, at this time of year, I always think about summer vacation. Yeah, every summer vacation seems to be a best of times experience. Takes us back to school.
Whoo, we made it through another year of school, and all the rest is connected to those kinds of things. For me, if I go back to school, for me, I can think of Getting a job, that was the best of times for me because I was gonna make some money because it would make it possible for me secondly to get a car. And I wanted to get a car, so I actually was able to because I got a job when I was 15 and a half and they paid me $1 an hour. Yes, I’m that old. But anyway, and the guy cheated me, but that’s another story.
And so I got a job and then I got a car and this was how I figured it would work. Then I could get a girlfriend. And I did. Job, car, girlfriend. Didn’t have a lot of other things going for me.
I mean, I was not on the basketball team like Brad Cole, who’s sitting back there, but you know, at least I had a car, and then maybe I could have a girlfriend and actually be a popular guy on campus, at least for a few minutes while I drive students around, you know, and all the rest of that whole sort of thing. We can think of a lot of best of times experiences, I’m sure. Of course, If you’re a person of faith, you would probably put at the top of your list, or at least I would, the day that I received Jesus Christ as my personal Savior and God came to live within me. I expressed that through the act of baptism. That was another best of times experience.
When I was in high school, my junior year in high school, I really surrendered my life to the Lord, and that was another best of times experience. And I’m sure that if you are a Christ follower, every time you share your story or you share the story of the gospel with somebody, Regardless of their response, that can be a best of times experience. Well, I want you to think about that with me this morning because we come to Acts chapter 22 today. We’ve been studying our way through the book of Acts, and last week we looked at a worst of times experience in Acts chapter 21. And today we come to Acts 22 where the Apostle Paul shares his best of times experience.
I mean, it’s interesting because he often shared His testimony, his faith story. And it kind of reminds me of the psalmist who said this in Psalm 66:16, come and listen, and I will tell you what God has done for me. Isn’t that wonderful when you get an opportunity to tell somebody what God has done for you? It’s a best of times experience. If you’re a Christ follower, it’s a story that you want to share.
Well, this morning we’re going to look at Paul’s story. And if you look at how often he told this story, it would certainly seem that this was one of the favorite things or best things that ever happened in his life. And as we come to this story, we talk about something that actually is really major in terms of our toolbox of how to be better witnesses for Jesus Christ. You see, we do want to talk about the Scriptures, of course. But people could debate the scriptures.
They could say, well, you know, I don’t really believe the Bible, or I don’t believe your interpretation of the Bible. But they cannot debate your testimony. They can’t debate your testimony of faith, of what God has done in you. And so as we look at this story, this is a powerful tool for sharing with others the best thing, that God has done in your life. If you’re a Christ follower, I think bar none the best thing that’s ever happened in our life was the day that God saved us and said, I want you to be one of my children, and your life is gonna be different from this point on.
If you’ve never come to that place, then listen to this story from the perspective of potentially what could be an experience that you could share, an experience that God would long for you to share. We’re looking at Acts chapter 22. You’ll see some of the scriptures found in the message note sheet that’s found in your bulletin this morning, or you can just turn in your Bible there. What I want you to see is how in the midst of the worst of times, this worst of times experience can become even a best of times experience in just focusing on our faith and what the Lord has done for us. And it’s not just information what’s found in Acts 22.
What Paul shares here, his story, isn’t just information. But it can be instruction. It could be instruction in helping us share our story. You know, how do you go about sharing your story? Is there a way that might be more beneficial than others?
Well, I think that’s one of the ways that we can look at this passage is just to learn how to share our story in more effective ways. Remember the account, Paul has been arrested by some soldiers. The crowd wants him dead. He’s in Jerusalem. As he’s being taken away to the barracks by the commander’s orders, he asked for permission to speak.
And he begins to speak in Acts 22:2. It says he spoke in Aramaic, which was their native tongue. And as soon as he started speaking in their native tongue, the crowd hushed and they thought, wow, what, you know, is going on with this guy? It quieted them down and got their attention. And this is what Paul said.
Brothers and fathers, listen now to my defense. I’m a Jew, verse 3, born in Tarsus of Cilicia but brought up in this city. Under Gamaliel, I was thoroughly trained in the law of our fathers and was just as zealous for God as any of you are today. I persecuted the followers of this way to their death, arresting both men and women and throwing them into prison, as also the high priest and all the council can testify. I even obtained letters from them to their brothers in Damascus, and I went there to bring these people as prisoners to Jerusalem to be punished.
Now just stop there. What has Paul just shared with them in really 30 seconds? What has he shared with them in 30 seconds? He shared with them his former life. And one of the things that we can do as we share our testimony is we can just talk about my former life.
Paul says here that he was raised in a Jewish home. He’s Jewish by birth, that he was raised in Jerusalem. He got an education under Gamaliel. Gamaliel was one of the 7 most respected rabbis of that day. He was very strict in his training.
We’re told that he was a devoted Jew. Paul was a devoted Jew. He was zealous for God. He was so zealous that he proved his zeal by persecuting Christians who were called the Way. He arrested them.
He threw these Christians into jail. And his arrest oftentimes led to their punishment, even death. Now that’s just his former story. He starts right there. You’ve got a former story.
If you come to faith in Jesus Christ, you have a former story. My story centers around having been raised in the San Joaquin Valley. I was raised by religious parents. They couldn’t in the early days agree on where they were going to take us to church. Would they take us to Dad’s church, the Baptist church, or would they take us to Mom’s church, the Methodist church?
And so we were conflicted about that. I used to hear them argue in our religious home about what church we would go to that week. And we got to a point where we would go one week to the Methodist Church, and the next Sunday we would go to the Baptist Church, and the next Sunday we would go to the Methodist Church. And it went on like this through my childhood. It was the training that I received.
And really what I received was growing up in a religious home that This was just something you did for Sunday for an hour or 2, and then you left it as soon as you left the parking lot, and you forgot about it the rest of the week. It was a religion. It wasn’t about a relationship. That would be part of my story, and you’ve got a story. Paul goes on, and then he says this in verse 6, about noon, as I came near Damascus, again, just continuing his story, Suddenly a bright light from heaven flashed around me.
I fell to the ground and I heard a voice say to me, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? Who are you, Lord? I asked. I’m Jesus of Nazareth whom you’re persecuting, he replied. My companions saw the light, but they did not understand the voice of him who was speaking to me.
What shall I do, Lord? I asked. Get up, the Lord said, and go into Damascus. There you will be told all that you have been assigned to do. My companions led me by the hand into Damascus because the brilliance of the light had blinded me.
A man named Ananias came to see me. He was a devout observer of the law, highly respected by all the Jews living there. He stood beside me and said, Brother Saul, receive your sight. And at that very moment I was able to see him. And then he said, The God of our fathers has chosen you to know his will and to see the righteous one.
That, by the way, is a description of the Messiah in Old Testament scriptures. And to see the righteous one and to hear words from his mouth. You will be his witness to all men of what you have seen and heard. And now, verse 16, what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized, wash your sins away, calling his name.
What does Paul do? After he talks about his former life, he talks about his life changer. And his life changer was the righteous one. It was Jesus. And what happened was he was on his way to Damascus to hurt some Christians.
It was his intention to eliminate Christians. But as he was on this road to Damascus, he was hit by a blinding light. It put him on the ground. There was a voice that came and said to him, Saul, why do you persecute me? I asked, who are you, Lord?
And the Lord said, get up, go to Damascus. There you’re going to be told what to do. He was still blind, so he had his companions. His companions ended up leading him into Damascus, and when he got there, he met a man, a devout Jew, a highly respected man. Notice that, a highly respected man.
This man’s name was Ananias. And Ananias came and he said, Saul, receive your sight. And I did. All of a sudden I could see. And then Ananias said, I had been chosen.
I had been chosen to know God’s will. Do you notice that there? I had been chosen to see the Messiah, the righteous one. I had been chosen to hear the Messiah speak. And I had been chosen to be one of his witnesses.
And, and it actually says that he wanted me to be a witness to everybody of what I have seen and heard. And then Ananias said, so what are you waiting for? Call on the name of the Lord and be saved, that your sins might be washed away, and be baptized. And so Paul called on the name of the Lord that his sins might be washed away, and he was baptized. And the reason he was baptized is because baptism was an outward demonstration of the change that God had performed in his heart.
So that’s what I did. There’s Paul’s story. There’s his life-changing story that came as a result of Jesus Christ. He called on the name of the Lord and God saved him. And as you think of your testimony, if you have a testimony of faith in Jesus Christ, maybe you can describe the day that you called on the name of the Lord and the Lord saved you and he continues to change you as a result of that day that you called on the name of the Lord.
Romans chapter 10, verse 13— Paul wrote this verse. He said, everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. And you might not have had this blinding light from heaven hit you, but maybe it was a guiding light. Something came into your life that opened you up to something you had never seen before, and God began to work in your heart, and he moved you in the direction toward him calling you to salvation, and in response to his calling, you said yes to the Lord, and as a result of that, you demonstrated your faith through the act of baptism, announcing to everybody, Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior. Now, my testimony simply in that regard happened when changes began to occur in my parents’ lives where this thing went from a religion to a relationship.
And as a result of the relationship that they found personally in Jesus Christ, that began to impact me. Maybe it softened my heart. I’m not sure all that was happening there. I just know that also there was a kid down the street, and some of you have heard part of this story. There was a kid down the street who told me— he was about my age, I was in 5th grade— he told me, Dave, you’re going to go to hell when you die.
That’s what he said to me. And I remember thinking, I don’t want to go to hell when I die. And he said, well, you need Jesus. And I went home and I began to seriously talk to my parents about Jesus, somebody I’d heard about as a religious thing, but somebody I’d never in a personal way embraced. And as a result of that beginning conversation with my friend down the street— I mean, it doesn’t take much for some people to get it, you know.
And that was enough for me to say, no, I don’t— I want to be saved. And so I called on the name of the Lord in 5th grade and asked Jesus to save me and expressed my faith at the First Baptist Church of Merced. In fact, since we’ve moved here, the First Baptist Church of Merced found our baptism, my baptism record, and sent it to me. It was incredible. That, you know, there it was, absolute proof that I was baptized at the First Baptist Church in a tin tank, I think it was.
But nonetheless, I got baptized. And really that relationship jumped into high gear when I was in high school as a junior. And I remember understanding that the Lord didn’t want just part of me, but he wanted all of me. He was the Lord, he is the Lord, but he wanted to be the Lord of every area of my life. And in high school, I did something that Romans chapter 12 says a person needs to do, and Romans chapter 6 says a person needs to do.
And what’s that? They need to present themselves as a living sacrifice to God. It’s in the aorist tense, which means it’s something that actually happens at a point in time. And he’s not talking there about the moment of salvation. He’s talking there about the moment of surrender.
He’s talking there about the moment of lordship. Where you get to a place and you say, listen, you’ve saved me, but I don’t want you just to save me. I want you to be my absolute Lord of my life. And I surrendered to the Lordship of Jesus Christ when I was a junior in high school, and that’s part of my story, and that’s when the change really began to happen. Now, some of us this morning have a story similar, but we’ve got a story.
And our story is one of the strongest ways that we can share our faith, is to talk about our former life, and then it’s to talk about how I came to faith in Jesus Christ, the life changer, Jesus, and what Jesus did in me to call me to himself. But then notice Paul goes on, verse 17, and he says, and so when I returned to Jerusalem and was praying at the temple, I fell into a trance and saw the Lord speaking. Quick, he said to me, leave Jerusalem immediately because they will not accept your testimony about me. Lord, I replied, these men knew that I went from one synagogue to another to imprison and beat those who believe in you. And when the blood of your martyr Stephen was shed, I stood there giving my approval and guarding the clothes of those who were killing him.
And then the Lord said to me, go, and I will send you far away to the Gentiles. What’s he focused on now? He’s already focused on his former life. He’s focused on his life changer, Jesus Christ. What’s he focused on now?
He’s focused on his new life. And now Jesus has got ahold of him and he’s speaking to him about this new life that he wants him to live. It says that the Lord spoke to him. He told him to leave Jerusalem and he was to leave Jerusalem because the people in Jerusalem at this point in time weren’t gonna believe him. I mean, the guy had no credibility, right?
I mean, he was the guy that was out there to kill Christians. He was hunting down Christians, beating Christians, jailing Christians, seeing Christians lose their life. I mean, that’s this guy. And so the Lord says, listen, they’re not going to believe you right now, so I have a mission for you. Your mission is ultimately going to be to reach out to Gentiles all around the world, but that’s not going to happen now, so we need to move away from here.
And if you follow Paul’s story, you know that this is about 34 AD that he comes to faith in Jesus, and his first missionary journey happens about 47 AD. 47 AD. We’ve just finished his 3rd missionary journey, which takes place about 57 AD. So what we’re looking at is a gap of time after Paul came to faith in Jesus. God gave him time to build credibility and prepare himself for a ministry that he was going to call him to, which we’ve just studied through in the book of Acts, where he then went on 3 missionary journeys.
And now he’s come back after that 3rd missionary journey and And he’s been arrested and he’s not sure what’s gonna happen to him. But all of that is taking place as a part of God’s plan to have called him to reach out to the entire world. My new life. You know, your new life, you could probably talk about the day that Jesus saved you. I would talk about the day that Jesus saved me and began changing me like he changes anybody from the inside out.
I noticed immediately my language began to change. I was not using the same frequency of swear words that I used before, even as a kid. My heart began to change. My interests began to change. And I got into high school, my dating standards were different because of what Jesus was doing in me.
My passions began to change. My reading began to change. My interest in reading the Bible began to change. I had a new desire to love God. I had a new desire to love others.
And certainly you see that in the Apostle Paul, right? He’s a guy that’s in love with God in new ways. He’s a guy who’s in love with others in new ways. He’s not out to kill Christians now because he is one. He talks about his new life, or he experiences this new life, and that’s a part of our testimony.
Paul could have said more at this point, but he wasn’t given the opportunity. In verse 22 it says, the crowd listened to Paul until he said this. This is what? Until he said, God was going to send me to the Gentiles. And as soon as he said that in this Jewish audience, they had had enough.
They raised their voices, it says, and they shouted, rid the earth of him! He’s not fit to live! And at this point, of course, his life is in jeopardy. And so the soldiers— and you can read the rest of the text— the soldiers take him on into the barracks The commander of the whole thing says he needs to be questioned by flogging, which means he’s going to be beaten. They were going to beat him to find out why in the world all these people were upset at him.
So they took him to flog him. They stretched him out, and they were about ready to begin, and the Apostle Paul asked a question. He just simply asked this question: Is it legal for you guys to flog a Roman citizen without a trial, without, you know, declaring his guilt? Well, that got to the centurion that was about ready to beat him, so he went back and asked the commander, and the commander said, are you kidding? He came back to Paul and said, did you buy your citizenship?
I bought mine. Did you buy yours? And Paul says, no, I didn’t buy it. I was born a Roman citizen. And that changed the whole conversation.
But it also began a whole new ministry for Paul because now Paul is going to be used by God in prison, in various prison experiences. And God’s going to do an amazing work even in prison to call people to himself through the Apostle Paul. And that continues from Acts 23, 24, 25, 26. We’re going to see how all of that unfolds. And what’s very interesting is, as you read through these accounts, you know what Paul continues to do?
He continues to tell his story. He continues to talk about how he came to faith in Jesus Christ. Sometimes he just shares little portions of the story, and sometimes he shares a big portion of the story, but he continues to tell his story. Let me ask you a question.
If you’re a Christ follower, how often do you share your story? Do you find yourself sharing your story? I mean, this guy, as you look at the scriptures, was eager to talk to people about what Jesus had done for him. Chuck Swindoll wrote this, he said, one of the most convincing unanswerable arguments on earth regarding Christianity is one’s personal experience with the Lord Jesus Christ. No persuasive technique will ever take the place of your personal testimony.
The skeptic may deny your doctrine or attack your church, but he cannot honestly ignore the fact that your life has been changed. He may stop his ears to the presentation of a preacher and the pleadings of an evangelist, but he is somehow attracted to the human interest story of how you, John Q. Public, found peace within. I mean, what’s that to say? This testimony thing is a powerful way to witness for Jesus Christ.
And what the Apostle Paul has given us here really is a very simple outline for sharing our story. In fact, the story that he shares here, if you were to just sit down right now and read this thing through, you could read it in under 3 minutes. So he was able evidently to tell his testimony in under 3 minutes. I think that’s helpful. If we’re gonna tell our story, let’s learn to be able to tell our story briefly.
Let’s learn to focus on what’s most important in telling our story. My former life. What does a person need to hear about my former life? What does a person need to hear about my life changer? And then What does a person need to hear about my new life?
Can I tell that story? I encourage you to think about if you’ve got that story figured out. If you don’t have that story figured out, is it possible that you have never responded to the calling of God for you to call upon the name of the Lord and to be saved? Now let me just say this. Some of us, when we share our story, we think, well, it probably doesn’t do any good anyway.
Well, think about that for a minute. I remember some years ago hearing Lee Strobel— in fact, I read about this in one of his books. Lee Strobel is the guy that wrote The Case for Christ and The Case for the Creator and several other books. But Lee was working at the Chicago Tribune. He was a reporter there, and one day he felt a nudging of God to just share his story, to share his belief in Jesus Christ.
It was just before Easter. And so he went into an office where he just was going to talk to one of his coworkers. He came in the office. Apparently this was the only guy in the office. And so he began to share his faith with this coworker who was absolutely uninterested.
He was not interested at all in Lee Strobel’s story and Lee Strobel talking about Jesus and Lee Strobel talking about God and Lee Strobel talking about the resurrection and Easter and inviting this guy to church that Sunday and all the rest of it. He was totally uninterested. So when Lee walked out of his office, he thought to himself, well, maybe I missed it. You know, maybe that little nudging that I felt right there from God, maybe that— maybe I just missed it and that was a waste of time. Until several years later, after he had finished preaching a message— he was a preaching pastor on the team of Willow Creek Community Church— and after he finished preaching this message, there was this gentleman that came up and And he said to Lee, you know, I just want you to know how much of an impact you had in my life and my family’s life with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
And Lee said to him, do I know you? He didn’t even know who the guy was. And he said, well, not really, but let me just tell you that there was a day some years ago that you came into one of the offices and you spoke to this gentleman that was in this office about your faith and about Jesus and God and Easter. And all of that, and he was totally uninterested. But I was down on the floor behind the desk, and I was laying flooring in that office, and I was listening to everything that you said.
And as you spoke, my heart began to beat faster, and I remember thinking, I need God. And so after you left, I got on the phone and I called up my wife, and I said, honey, this Sunday, Easter, we’re going to go to church. And she said, what did you just say? I said, I think we need to go to church this Sunday. I think we need God.
And so they came to that church, Willow Creek Community Church, on that Easter Sunday. He came, his wife came, and their teenage son came. And they sat through the service, and that Sunday they came to faith, all 3 of them, in Jesus Christ. And so he told this story to Lee and he said, you know, so I want you to know that you had an impact in my life even though you didn’t know it. And you know, when you look at this story, I mean, you put this into its context here, it looks like this was a waste of time, right?
I mean, it looks like this message, this testimony just fell on deaf ears. In some ways it looks like, quite frankly, that the Roman soldiers were more open to his testimony than the Jewish people that were there. It really does, that there was an openness to hear. But here’s the deal. We don’t know.
We don’t know how God’s going to use our story, and we don’t know who’s hearing the story, and we don’t know the condition of the heart of the people that are hearing the story. That’s not our problem. Our deal is to be responsible. As Bill Bright said some years ago, witnessing is sharing Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit, and it’s leaving the results to God. And so one of the greatest tools that we have for doing that is just simply sharing our story.
And my hope for you is that you’ve got a story, that you have called upon the name of the Lord and he has saved you. And he has saved you from a former life. He has saved you through Jesus Christ who died on the cross for our sins. Whom we’re going to remember right now in communion, and he saved you to a brand new life. And you could tell that story, and my encouragement to you is that you would tell that story.
In fact, let’s just agree together that if God opens the door this summer, in the power of the Holy Spirit and the prompting of God, let’s tell that story many times this summer if God gives us the opportunity. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? Let’s be a church this summer that tells our story, that conversion story, more than we’re telling the story right now. Let’s, let’s talk about it. And if you’ve never come to faith in Jesus Christ, that story could be your story.
God longs to have you in his family. Maybe the reason that Jesus has not yet come back is because he’s waiting for you. He’s waiting for you to say yes to Him. And you could say yes to Him right now. You don’t have to wait any longer.
I mean, it’s kind of like in this account here. What are you waiting for? What are you waiting for, Paul? Call upon the name of the Lord. Be baptized.
Call upon His name. And you could call upon His name right now.
Let’s pray together.
Thank You, God, that You sent speak to us through other stories. Thank you for the amazing story that we read about in the scriptures connected to the Apostle Paul. And it shows us that even those who have done heinous sins against you are not outside forgiveness, that you long to have us as your children, even as you longed for Paul to be a member of your family. And you reached out to him and he said yes.
And those of us who’ve said yes to your calling, we are so thankful this morning. And as we share together in this communion time, we celebrate again and remember what you did for us in Jesus when he gave his life on the cross. And before he died, he symbolized that with, with a cup of wine and said that this cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. And he took a piece of bread and he, with that bread, said to his followers, this bread is representative of my body, my body which will be crucified for you.
And God, when we think of that, it just reminds us again how much we have to give thanks for. And we give thanks for that today, and, and we want to be people who speak often about you, even through the story that you have given us. Use it for however you want. And we pray also for anybody who’s here today right now, Lord, that has yet to say yes to your calling. We pray that they would, that they would call upon you and be saved even today.
In fact, if that’s the desire of your heart, tell God that right now. Tell him just in your own words, God, save me. Save me from my sins. Forgive me for having lived my life to this point as if you didn’t exist. Forgive me for being religious and not seeing that it’s not about religion, it’s about a relationship.
And I want a relationship with you, Lord. And so I today want to confess with my mouth that Jesus is Lord, and I want to believe in my heart that you raised Jesus, your Son, from the dead. And I ask that you would save me.
And if you express words like that in your own words and from your heart, God hears that. And at the moment that you receive that gift, you are made a member of his family. You’re adopted into his family. You’re one of his children.
And things are new. Things are going to begin to change for you. You have a new destiny. You have a new future. God wants to do a new work in you, and we rejoice with you today in what he’s done even now.
Lord, use this time, even as we remember what you did for us, to help us surrender to the commitment that you want for us. In Jesus’ name, amen. Well, we’re going to have our ushers come and continue our worship with communion this morning. We’re going to pass the bread and the cup out, and this is just an opportunity again for us to remember what the Lord has done for us. And so as we pass the bread out, just prepare your heart, and we pass the cup, just prepare your heart for remembering what Jesus did.
This is a time for those who are members of his family, and if you’re a member of his family, you don’t have to be a member of this church, you’re a member of Christ’s family, then please participate with us. The only condition that’s given outside of the condition of being in God’s family is that we have our hearts right before him. Prepare your heart, just take a moment in prayer and prepare your heart, and if there’s anything there that stands
