Life of Paul

[00:00:00] This audio sermon is provided by AnabaptistSermons.com and may be freely copied and distributed. You may not sell or edit this sermon. Our prayer is that you would be blessed by this ministry. Thank you. [00:01:00] Or somehow known her, what she went through, why did she sing, why did she write that? What caused her to write those songs? [00:01:33] But is that our prayer? Are we living our lives? Are we seeking God? Heard a lot about that in Sunday school. Are we living our lives and are we, not only our public lives, but our private lives, asking God, begging God to draw us closer to Him? That's a challenge, because we live in a pretty wild world. I was thinking of a couple of things before we get started. [00:02:14] I forget who it was I heard this comment from. But I don't know if you ever noticed that when you're sleeping, you don't know that you're sleeping. Do you? You only know that you were sleeping once you wake up, especially in church. Now, this has nothing to do with sleeping in church, but that hit me, you know. Yeah, no kidding. It's not like I, while I'm sleeping, wow, this feels good to be sleeping. [00:02:48] No, it's never been like that before. And I don't know what I wanted to say about that, except sometimes we fall asleep and we don't really realize it. And sometimes we fall asleep and we really don't want to be sleeping. Like, I was driving down the road at 16 years old, and we're driving up to Wisconsin, and I get about Ma Marker 92, I think that's South Bend. And all of a sudden, I am awake in the middle of the median on the toll road. [00:03:20] You know, I did not want to be sleeping then. And are there times in our spiritual lives that we fall asleep? We don't want to be falling asleep. We don't want to be sleeping. But we are fast asleep and we don't even realize it. And it takes a brother in the church, or a mom or a dad, you young people over there, to wake us up. [00:03:54] You're sleeping. Wake up! I had to wake the boys up this morning. You're still sleeping. And sometimes God can do that through Scripture. As we read, the Holy Spirit can say, Yo, dude! Sorry, Jamie. You're sleeping. Another thing I was thinking about as we were thinking about seeking God daily, [00:04:33] it kind of dawned on me how important that is. because I don't know if you've ever seen somebody, a potter on a potting wheel and this clay is just moldable, you know, it's soft and they keep, what do they keep doing to keep it that way, to be able to mold it? What do they do? Anybody know? Huh? Keep it wet. What happens if they don't keep it wet? They can't mold it. [00:05:03] What happens if you would take that exact same clay that you can make it into anything you want? Make it into a Mickey Mouse, make it into whatever, a pot, do whatever. You stick it on a board and put it out in the sun down in Arizona and leave it there for a week. And then it's clay, pure clay. And then what would happen if you dump water on it? Just one time. Just put maybe a half a glass of water on it. And then you try to mold it. Still don't work, does it? [00:05:34] What does it do? It just rolls off. Oh, it'll soak in a little bit. Just a little bit. But you are not going to be able to mold that thing. Just from a half a glass full of water. Put it on the table there and they make the thing go around. There's no way you're going to be able to mold that thing. But you have to keep adding water. Keep adding water. Keep adding water. And I want to liken that to how we need to go back to God's Word, add God's Word, add God's Word, wash ourselves in the Word, and fathers, husbands, washing our family in the Word, washing our wives in the Word. [00:06:21] I think that's what, Ephesians 5, is that right? Okay, that's some things that I was thinking about this week. Lately, the last couple of weeks, maybe longer than that, I don't know, I've really been challenged by Paul's life. And I happened to think a while back, I was wondering, Ken, do you think there would be a sermon just talking about Paul's life? You know, do you think, would there be enough to, could I talk about just Paul's life in a sermon? [00:06:59] And I found out that, yeah, you can do that, and it would take more than one sermon. Hello, what was I thinking? So, I'm not near going to cover his whole life, and I didn't know where to start, didn't know where to stop. So it's just a few things looking at Paul's life and looking at how he viewed Christ, how he viewed life, what was important to him. [00:07:34] Looking at how his life started, how his life in Christ started. Do you remember how it started? Amazing. With a big bang. Big bang theory. Unbelievable, really, how this zealous man, he thought he was somebody. He was somebody. Zealous, religious, had a lot of authority. [00:08:09] I think God pretty much got his attention. No problem. I first of all wanted to look at a couple of verses in Psalms 48, if you want to turn there. Because it's really easy for me to look at characters in the Bible. Maybe it is for you too. It's hard for me to look at them. I mean, it's easy to look at them, but then to say, I can be just like that. [00:08:42] You know, you look at Paul in his life, or look at what he went through. Here he is in jail, and all the beatings, and all kinds of stuff. You know, we can go into long detail about everything. I think we know all those stories. And we think, there's no way. But, I want to read, actually, I'll just read a couple of verses in the beginning. [00:09:14] Great is the Lord, I think this is a song, I was going to sing it. Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised, in the city of our God, in His holy mountain, Beautiful in elevation, the joy of the whole earth is Mount Zion on the sides of the north, the city of the great king. God is in her palaces. He is known as her refuge. And then on down to verse 12. Walk about Zion and go all around her. Count her towers. Mark well her bulwarks. [00:09:52] Consider her palaces, that you may tell it to the generation following, for this is our God, our God forever and ever. He will be our guide even to death. So here we are supposed to look at Zion, the city of the great king, Mount Zion. Look at all of her towers and I would even want to put in there apostles. Look at her godly men that came from there. Let's look at God's Word and look at these men. Look at their lives. Look at their lives. Look at how they live their lives. Look at what's important to them. And you just say, wow, look what God did in them. [00:10:38] But I want to remind you that I had to be reminded of In case you forgot, we are serving the same God The very same God It's no other God We're saving and serving So, why do I think, man, there's no way Look at what God did in Paul's life Look at what he did Look how he worked Look how he changed his life Hello So God can do the same thing in you. He can do the same thing in me. Because verse 14, this is God, our God forever. He will, not he might, be our guide. He will be our guide, even to death. [00:11:25] And I almost think that it's every week that I think, man, life is so tough. Life is so busy. You know, we might get to Tuesday. I don't know, see how Jamie does it, getting up at 3 o'clock and going to work and coming back. And, you know, I have a hard enough time remembering or keeping God in focus. I'm not saying that he's not, but I'm saying life is tough and busy and it's easy to forget what we're doing here on earth. [00:12:03] But so it's always good to come back to the Bible, back to the Bible. I think that's a radio station. So, I think it's very important that we look at these men and look at what God did in their life, look at how they viewed life, [00:12:34] look at how their view of Christ, Christ, their view of the church, their view of the brethren, their view of the world, their burden for lost souls, on and on and on. Because it's quite obvious to me that God wants to use lives to get to us. He used the life of Christ. We've got all kinds of examples, and He wants to use your life. And we'll get into that a little later. [00:13:09] Okay, starting in Acts 24. I don't think we need to go to Acts chapter 9. And I'm just going to pull one verse out of Acts 24. I don't want to go where Jim might go or something in being in Acts. I don't think we need to go to Acts chapter 9. I think we all know that story of how God, or how Saul met God, ran into him on the way to Damascus and his whole conversion. [00:13:52] But I think that it's important for us to look at his, you know, that was his starting point. That was his foundation, a clear conversion. I think we've heard Denny talk about a clear conversion. and a right start and it may be kind of hard to know when and where at what point was he converted I don't know may have been during those three days sitting by the road called straight was it then I'm not sure what it was but we know that he was converted because what did he do as soon as his [00:14:27] His eyes were opened. Anybody remember? He went out and preached. It's quite obvious the guy was converted. So, in looking at his life, we should really start there, but I think we know that already. And Acts chapter 24, verse 16, I think. Verse 16, This being so, I myself always strive to have a conscience without offense toward God and men. [00:15:02] That's pretty basic, you know. Pretty straightforward and basic. But, do we strive? I think King James says, void of offense. Without offense. No offense towards God. Nothing that we have done. Nothing that we have, you know, sometimes it's pretty easy to, on the outward, look like everything's, like I'm not offending God in any way. Or offending man in any way. [00:15:36] We can dress right. We can lift up our hands during church, which we don't do that here that much. There's a lot of things that we can do to appear right before God. But my mind right away goes, having a conscience void of events. That's my whole conscience. That's the things that I think, the things that I say when I hit my finger, The things that I say when the other day I was doing 55 down the road and this semi-truck pulled out and just puttered along. [00:16:14] I had to slam on my brakes. What did I think then? Well, I didn't think some very nice things, but God about struck me down and I had to have a good attitude. But what do we think about? What is on our minds? What do we fill our minds with? What are we looking for? What are our thoughts towards brethren? What are our thoughts towards sinners? You stupid. You are an ungodly boy. [00:16:45] We can, you know, what is it? But here Paul, me learning from Paul, he always strove to have a conscience without offense toward God. Now let's go to Philippians chapter 3. Paul writing to the Philippians. And we know how he wrote here of all of the things, his confidence in the flesh. [00:17:29] Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. For me to write the same things to you is not tedious, but for you it is safe. Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the mutilation. For we are the circumcision who worship God in the Spirit. Rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh. Though I also might have confidence in the flesh, if anyone else thinks he may have confidence in the flesh, I do more, I more so. [00:18:04] Circumcised the eighth day of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews, concerning the law, a Pharisee, concerning zeal, persecuting the church, concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless. but what things were gained to me these I have counted for loss yet indeed I also count all things lost for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish. [00:18:35] I think King James says dung that I may gain Christ. I think we'll stop there. So two things, verse 7 and 8. Verse 7 says, But what things, these things that he just got unlisting, were gained to me. That he's counted them loss. So in other words, these things were behind me. And he counts them loss. You know, his... [00:19:08] I should maybe look at my notes one time. You know, he's talking about his heritage here. And I think maybe that's what he was thinking about when he was sitting beside the road. I don't know if he was sitting beside the road, but on the road called straight. [00:19:39] I don't know, I like that phrase for some reason. When he's sitting there for three days blind, he can't do anything. You know, one moment he's zealous and full of courage and boldness and, you know, he don't stone Stephen, you know. And the next he's blind. You know, it's like, I wonder what he thought when he said, when Jesus said, this is, I'm Jesus. I wonder if he said, uh-oh, you know, oh boy, I know this guy. [00:20:14] Now what's he going to do? And he's blind. He can't see. What was he thinking? I wonder if he was thinking about all this that he told the Philippians. Boy, this is who I am. And now what does it matter? What does this stuff matter anymore? These things that he gained. These things that he had. This reputation. This good name. This... His heritage. Where he came from. But he says they were gained. [00:20:46] These things in the past were gained but now he's counting them lost. That would be past tense. Right, Brittany? Past tense? And then verse 8, Yet indeed I also count all things lost for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ. And I would kind of like to think of that as present tense. We still have to do that. He still had to do that. He still has to think of the things that he gains as loss. [00:21:18] These things that he had. And I wondered how that fit into my life. Is there something that's standing in the way of me counting all things loss? What am I holding on to? If only, you know, if only his commitment, it just shows to me his commitment to Christ. [00:21:51] If he didn't have that commitment, if he wasn't surrendered, would he count all things as loss? Then I like verse 9 Verse 8 ends That I may gain Christ and be found in Him Not having my own righteousness Which is from the law But that which is through faith in Christ The righteousness which is from God by faith Verse 10 [00:22:22] That I may know Him And the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death, if by any means I may attain the resurrection from the dead. And we can go on and on. There's so much that what he's telling the Philippians here that shows his attitude, how he's surrendered. It shows his motivation. [00:22:55] It shows his desire, and it really makes me stop and think, is that me? Can I say those same things? Can I write those same things? It would maybe make it easier if I had followed these notes instead of just... I had to ask myself the question, what is God asking me to give up and to count as loss? [00:23:31] Am I really committed to Him? Am I totally surrendered to Him that I count all things as loss? Am I surrendered to His will, what He wants for my life? Am I willing to give up my will, what I want? Maybe it's where I want to go. Maybe it's what I want to do. Maybe it's, you know, God calling me to take another evening, [00:24:04] one of my free evenings to do whatever I want to do and go up to, my first thought was up there to White Pigeon. They have a little kids club. What's it called? The Haven or something. Maybe it's that. Maybe it's taking off work at 3 o'clock and spending time with some city kids. What is it? What is it in my life that God is asking me to give up to count as loss? [00:24:35] Then my mind went to Jeremiah chapter 9. It's just one verse. I'll turn it there quick. And it's very familiar. And I kind of feel like this goes along with it. Jeremiah 23 Thus says the Lord, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, let not the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches. But let him who glories, glory in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. [00:25:17] For in these I delight, says the Lord. So, God doesn't delight in your wisdom. He doesn't delight in our might, my might, my strength. I used to glory in that. I do still sometimes come fighting with the boys. I feel pretty good about myself, yes. And He doesn't delight in my riches, and we all know that. [00:25:52] And are those some things that I am not counting as loss? But he delights in loving kindness, justice, righteousness. I had to think of the fruits of the Spirit. He says, for these I delight. And I know that Paul understood all of that because in 1 Corinthians 1, Thank you. [00:26:49] I'm not sure where to start and stop. Let's start at verse 18. Or actually, let's just go to verse 30, 31. But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption. That is, as it is written, he who glories, let him glory in the Lord. [00:27:20] He quotes Jeremiah. So, looking at Paul, he counted all things as lost. He didn't glory in himself, which is, did he? How many times did he, it seemed like he was boasting. How many times did we see that? How he's bragging on himself. Would you ever say the things that he said? Or maybe he had a right to. Even like, who was it that, that just reminds me of something. [00:27:58] I've got to check this out real quick. Well, that's all right. I had to think of Ananias. What did he do? What did he say to God? He kind of argued with God. What? You know, when God told him, hey, Saul's going to come to your house, and you better give him some instructions. And Ananias kind of argued with him, but I think that that was okay, because he had a relationship with him that he could argue with him. [00:28:34] And so I kind of wonder the same thing about Paul because I kind of get discouraged sometimes when, you know, I want to be, we want to be leaders and I want to be a leader in my home where God wants me to be, my place. and you look at Paul and I don't quite, you see him as this great leader and he's full of zeal and great man of God [00:29:07] and I don't quite match up to him and I often forget that I serve the same God. God can work in me the same way. But I think that I need to not glory in myself, glory in the knowledge of Him. I also noticed that Paul had a simple heart. [00:29:39] He had a, just now I remember Matthew 6, verse 22, we talked in Sunday school. He had an eye that was good or an eye that was single. It was only on Christ. He was focused on Christ. There's some verses in, let's see, I think 2 Corinthians chapter 2, chapter 11. [00:30:15] 2 Corinthians chapter 11 verses 1 through 4 Oh that you would bear with me in a little folly And indeed you do bear with me For I am jealous for you with godly jealousy Now I want to be thinking about us And us fathers Looking over our families Being the watchman, being the watchdog. [00:30:53] And here he was talking about, he was talking to the Corinthians. It was like his little, his flock, his sheep. For I am jealous for you with godly jealousy, for I have betrothed you to one husband that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ but I fear lest somehow as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. [00:31:29] From the simplicity. If you look that up, I looked it up in Webster's. I'm going to read what it said. Simplicity is singleness. And I think that goes back to Matthew 6, 22, where your eye be single. Is your eye single? Only on Christ. Singleness, sincerity, plainness, godly simplicity in scriptures is a fair, open profession and practice of evangelical truth [00:32:04] with a single view to obedience and to the glory of God. So Paul saw the simplicity of the Gospel. Sometimes I wonder if because I don't stay in His Word, when I don't stay in His Word, then I'm not single to Him. [00:32:38] I'm not separated unto Him. It's not simple anymore. And not simple that it's hard. Simplicity that is in Christ. The singleness that is in Christ. He was afraid that their minds would be corrupted from the singleness that is in Christ. The simpleness. For if he who comes preaches another Jesus, this is verse 4, whom we have not preached, Or if you receive a different spirit which you have not received or a different gospel which you have not accepted, you may well put up with it. [00:33:18] He was afraid of that. He was afraid that they weren't going to stay in God's Word. He was afraid that they were going to put up with some other doctrine. And he was watching over them. One more thing. A couple more verses, but maybe one more point. [00:33:53] In Colossians, Paul wrote to the Colossians, And we know his prayer for the Colossians there in chapter 1, but in chapter 2, we'll start at verse 8. Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world and not according to Christ. It's, you know, it's easy to be led astray if we're not staying in God's Word, [00:34:25] If we're not being spiritually minded, if we're not keeping Christ in front of us, and we happen to fall asleep and we don't even realize it, we're going to get way off the road and crash. It's just that simple. It'll be easy to be led astray like it's saying in verse 8. Paul's saying, beware. Then in verse 9, For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power. [00:34:59] Can you explain that? How can I put emphasis on that? We are complete in Him. We need to stay in His Word. Okay, 2 Corinthians chapter 2. Paul talks about, I like to see Paul's life. [00:35:38] He was so, he had, what a big influence on many, many different people. How many churches did he start? And I like these verses. I'll read chapter 2, verse 14, maybe down to 17. Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ. Christ, there's a key word in there that I underlined, always. Do you really believe that? Same way with Romans 8, 28, all things work together for real, all things work together for good. [00:36:22] Now thanks be to God who always leads or always causes us to triumph in Christ and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place. What do you smell like? One time I wore some of Jamie's cologne. I wasn't going to say this, but I think it fits maybe. I wore some of James' cologne one time and Jim's Diana says, I just, you know, hugged her up a little bit, you know, and she said, [00:36:59] Mmm, you smell good. I said, why thanks, how do I usually smell? But I read these verses, how do I smell? How do I smell in the rough times? And you know, it's something that you can't put on. You can't put on this fragrance. You know, Jamie don't do this, but he come home from work and he's late and he's just going to spray a bunch of cologne on all of them, you know, make himself smell halfway good, you know. [00:37:31] But this is something you can't just put on. God has to do it in us. We have to allow God to work in us. Verse 15, for we are to God the fragrance of Christ. Now, notice the three things, three people, three different groups or whatever that we are fragrance to. In verse 15, we are to God the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved. [00:38:05] You know, we are an influence to them. We're not an influence to God, but God loves our fragrance. When we are living in Him, when we are devoting our life to Him, when we are surrendered to Him, when we are seeking Him, we are this beautiful aroma to Him. Among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. So we are an influence to those that are saved and perishing. What is my influence? What do I smell like? [00:38:37] What is my aroma to those that are saved, to those that are perishing? Verse 16 To the one we are the aroma of death leading to death, and to the other the aroma of life leading to life. And who is sufficient for these things? And I got to thinking about this aroma of death leading to death. To those that are lost, am I an aroma of death leading to death? [00:39:10] Or do I just make them feel good? That would be a great subject to talk about sometime, an open discussion. How do we do that? We make them know that they're going to hell? You know, I'm sure that there's two ditches there. But I don't want to go much further than that. I'm not sure how to. And we can also be an encouragement to others, to those that are saved. We need to be a witness. But yet, how can we live our lives that God can work through us to convict others? [00:39:50] But yet they know that we love them and care about them. But yet we don't make them to feel like, well, that's just the way you believe. You can get divorced and remarried and that's okay. How do you do that? It's a question that I'm not going to answer because I don't know. And who is sufficient for these things? Who can do this? No one. It's only in Christ. It's only Christ through us. Verse 17, For we are not, as so many, peddling the word of God, but as of sincerity, [00:40:22] but as from God we speak in the sight of God in Christ. I think he's talking about taking the Word of God and making it say what we want to. These Judaizers coming behind him and messing everything up. Yes, it's Jesus, but you've got to worship on the right day, or you've got to do this, and you've got to do this. But it's in Christ, and we take God's Word literally. We don't make it say what we want to say. We don't take it out of context. [00:40:53] I hope I don't do that in a way. And if I do, y'all can let me know someday. So, I will continue to be challenged by Paul's life and the way that he viewed Christ, the way where he put Christ in his priorities. I don't think there's a question where he was. I don't think there's a question how he saw lost souls, how he viewed them, His burden for lost souls [00:41:23] I heard a preacher say I don't know if I can quote him word for word but how did he say We only believe We only truly believe what we are moved to action You know, and I could apply that to many different ways. You know, do I love my neighbor? [00:41:55] Do I have a burden for lost souls? If I really do, then I'm going to move to action. But I wanted to encourage us to press on. I think it's later on in, he wrote it to the Corinthians, I forget where it's at, But he says, I press toward the goal of the upward call. God has called every one of us. And I want to encourage you to press on. [00:42:27] Look at Paul's life and let's all press on. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you so much for your word. And we thank you that you open up new truths every time. And even though it's very familiar, yet, Lord, somehow you wake us up and you challenge us. And, Lord, we thank you for your truth and how you sanctify us through your truth. [00:43:01] Lord, I pray that you would work in my life, first of all, that you would help me to be obedient to your truth. That you would rub off the rough edges, the sharp edges. Lord, I pray that you would continue to work in each one of us and you would help us to let our light shine, make our fragrance go out to the saved, to the lost. [00:43:34] I thank you, Lord, for being our God, our God forever, even unto death. Thank you for your faithfulness even when we fail. Lord, thank you for your patience and your mercy and your long-suffering toward us. And I thank you for your promise that you will continue the work that you have started in us. So, Lord, go with us. Be with us. Help us to press on. In Jesus' name, amen. [00:44:11] Thank you.