Missions Paul

5 levels of courage

Acts 26: 16 “Now get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen and will see of me.”

Get up

Stand on your feet

You are appointed

With a purpose to serve

With a purpose to witness of Jesus.

There are 5 levels to Paul’s commissioning. These are still levels that are put before each one of us. They are in order of the degree of sacrifice that is needed within any commissioning of God. It takes courage to move through the levels.

Get up. There are too many references to list of the times when Jesus told people to get up. With the instruction comes the power to do what he asks. However, it takes courage to change your position, to do what you have not been able to do. It takes courage to get up.

Stand up. Perhaps people have knocked you down or God did, but sometimes there is a safety in the dirt that prevents the change of stance. To change would be appearing to welcome another knockdown. To stand up means you are ready, you have strength, you will not be moved. It takes courage to stand up.

You are appointed.  Paul was a Pharisee, he was appointed by man to protect and promote Judaism. Man chose him for this task. He has the full backing of the Sanhedrin and the High Priest. Being appointed by man can be encouraging and even empowering. But that is nothing compared to knowing that the Lord has appointed you, that He has chosen you, that He knows you and wants you.  In the same way even if man rejects you, even if they don’t see the potential in you, even if they say ‘NO!’ as the friends of Jesus did when he tried to share with them his appointment, it matters not. God appoints where man disappoints. It takes courage to hold on to this and to know you are appointed.

With a purpose to serve. Paul wasn’t given a title, he was given a purpose. Man gives titles but God gives purpose. Purpose will take you further than titles will. Titles may open up doors for opportunity but purpose gives you the ability to do what needs to be done behind that opportunity. Notice it was a purpose to get back on the floor. He had just come from the floor and now he is being instructed to spend his life serving from a lowly position. It is a whole different matter moving to a lowly position of serving after God has dealt with you. It takes courage to serve.

With a purpose to witness of Jesus. This is the third time Paul gives his Damascus Road testimony, he was not afraid to witness of what he had seen of Jesus. But his life would be one of continually witnessing of what he was seeing in who Jesus is. This witness would ultimately lead to his death. Our witness may not lead to death but it will surely lead to our surrender. This is the highest call, surrender, it is not popular, you will have to lay things down, you will have to forego comfort. It takes courage to witness.

 

Knowing who he is reveals His ways and my ways.

Acts 26:15 ““Then I asked, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ “ ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,’ the Lord replied.”

Paul couldn’t answer the question of Jesus, “why do you persecute me?” He couldn’t because he didn’t know that a) Jesus was alive and b) that his persecution of the followers of Christ is a persecution against Christ. So he thought of his own question to ask the questioner, “Who are you Lord?”

Paul didn’t know. He was blinded to the knowledge of Christ.

Throughout important stages of my life I have asked, “Who are you, Lord?” I ask because though I know He is alive I didn’t know what He was doing with my life. In my pursuit of knowing who He is I then understand His ways. My drawing closer to Him reveals what He is doing in me. This is my question to ask and me alone.

‘Who are you, Lord?’ is also a discovery of knowing who I am and what I am doing. Paul didn’t know he was persecuting Christ, but after he asked the question, he did. I want to know my ways or more importantly what He thinks of my ways, ‘who are you Lord?’

 

 

God will position you to speak to you

Acts 26: 14 “We all fell to the ground, and I heard a voice saying to me in Aramaic, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.”

This was not falling into the arms of a lover. Nor was it anything like what we have termed ‘slain in the Spirit’ a quite unhelpful term I actually think. But the picture here is:

We all fell … this was not voluntary, but forced because of the display of light.

… to the ground … into the dust of the earth, where clothes and hands become dirty.

If God circumstantially knocks you to the dirt then it is because He wants to remake you, to recreate you, to begin again in your life and to do something new. It is a grace.

Not everyone who falls to the ground though actually hear the voice of the Lord. Paul says though everyone fell only he heard. It is a grace.

God will position you to speak to you. It is a grace.

So friends today you may have fallen in surrender willingly or by force, you are where God wants you to be, listen He is speaking to you perhaps a new directional word, a new revelation.

It is all a grace.

A moment of change

Acts 26:13 “About noon, O King, as I was on the road, I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, blazing around me and my companions.”

It is easy to see a light in the darkness.

But Paul saw a light under the midday sun.

I have some questions:

When in the middle of the activity of your day…

When on the road you have been commissioned for …

When you have a team of companions journeying together …

When it is all going well ….

When you are doing what you think is God’s will …

Are you open to see a new revelation from heaven? Even if you don’t understand, can you see it? Are you someone who can be interrupted?

Paul was and it changed his life completely in one moment.

I’m trying to live my life like that aren’t you?

Right person, right process, right thing.

Acts 26: 12 “On one of these journeys I was going to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests.”

Paul begins to share his testimony recorded for the 3^rd time in Acts.

Paul went on a Missions journey to the major city of Syria.

Paul was given authority to do the task set before him.

Paul was commissioned, he was sent off, cheered on the way perhaps.

The person can be right. Paul was a leading Pharisee, well trained, he knew the Scriptures, he was zealous for them, passionate for God and for the preservation of Judaism.

The process can be right. Damascus was chosen, the leading city of Syria. He was given delegated authority to do the task, maybe he carried the credentials for the task, a certificate to say he had the rights. He was commissioned, “Go!” He felt the full support of his colleagues.

The person was right, the process was right but the purpose was wrong.

I haven’t read the book for some time but Jim Collins wrote in ‘Good to great’ about this concept of getting the right people doing the right things.

Being the right person reflects on that person. They have to carve and be carved to become competent, have the right character and be able to fit.

But doing the right things is a reflection on the leader of the right person. How many right people do you know are doing the wrong things?

In truth, God would step in and reveal that nothing was right. Paul would be changed into the right person and go through a right process of refinement and then be tasked to do the right thing.

It was that simple and it still is.

Even enemies can become apostles!

Acts 26: 11 “Many a time I went from one synagogue to another to have them punished, and I tried to force them to blaspheme. I was so obsessed with persecuting them that I even hunted them down in foreign cities.”

Paul continues to describe the person that he used to be.

He repeatedly went hunting Christ followers.

He would search in every synagogue.

He would punish them in order to get a blasphemous charge on them.

He was obsessed in persecuting them.

He would travel long distances to find them.

He failed. They won.

Some may have lost their lives here on earth but the gospel continued.

Paul became one of them, a Christ follower. He failed in his pursuit of stopping the cause. The work of Christ continues. The work never fails.

Whatever is thrown at you, whoever comes against you, no matter how strong, dangerous or relentless, even if it costs you everything, the cause will continue, it will never be defeated.

This is His work, not yours.

You may wake today and the world may be on your shoulders, the voice of the enemy may be close, the surrender perhaps is painful, but it will not be in vain, even enemies can become apostles!

 

You belong to the Lord

Acts 26: 10 “And that is just what I did in Jerusalem. On the authority of the chief priests I put many of the Lord’s people in prison, and when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them.”

Paul recognised that these were not just people that were put in prison and to their deaths, they were the ‘Lord’s people’. The journey to prison and death came because of the authority of man against people who belonged to the highest authority in heaven and earth, Jesus Christ. It is still going on today of course. More Christians than ever are facing persecution from the authority of man. We know that for sure and the statistics are horrifying.

However, what about you? Today you may wake to realise that your future is in the hands of an authority higher than you. You may think at times that you are just a pawn on a chess board, being used for the good of the game but willingly sacrificed when not needed. It is hard sometimes to grasp hold of purpose and design when pushed from pillar to post by a ruthless regime or a heartless manager etc.

Look at the verse again. Circumstances may not have changed for them but these were the ‘Lord’s people’. Today no matter what people say to you or even what they do to you. You may be demoted and discouraged today, you may be overlooked and oppressed, but lift your head, you belong to the Lord! He is LORD over anyone who tries to lord it over you. Don’t let anyone even take your life from you. NO! No one can take your life, you lay it down of your own accord (John 10:18 Jesus says, “No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again.”)

You belong to the Lord!

Changing your mind

Acts 26: 9 “I too was convinced that I ought to do all that was possible to oppose the name of Jesus of Nazareth.”

I … was …

Convinced.

I am not anymore.

I changed my mind.

I recently met a man who for over 17 years had been trained to become an Imam but he changed his mind and he is now a Pastor. How did that happen? It was because of the intervention of Jesus, as it was for Paul.

Sometimes it takes a dramatic intervention such as this, where it leaves the person in no doubt that they have to change the course of their life.

Sometimes it is less so.

Maybe today you are at a crossroads and you never saw them coming. One day you were convinced you were going in a certain direction and then suddenly out of nowhere comes an offer to change course and in order to do so you have to change your mind.

The intervention may not be so dramatic but the changing of your mind can be as traumatic as if you had to change from being an Imam to a Pastor or being knocked off your horse on the way to Damascus.

It takes faith to change your mind in order to change your course.

 

 

It’s never beyond Him

Acts 26: 8 “Why should any of you consider it incredible that God raises the dead?”

The Pharisees believed in an end-time resurrection but they didn’t believe in the resurrection of Jesus.

They believed that it was possible in the future but it was too incredible for the present.

Is that similar to you?

You believe that it’s possible that God could but it’s too huge to think He would do it now, for you?

Why?

That’s what Paul asks. Why is it too much to expect God to move miraculously and supernaturally now?

He can do it.

You need such a move.

You need the incredible to happen to you, now.

It can happen.

In front of your nose

Acts 26: 7 “This is the promise our twelve tribes are hoping to see fulfilled as they earnestly serve God day and night. King Agrippa, it is because of this hope that these Jews are accusing me.”

Paul uses this ancient phrase, ‘the 12 tribes’ to signify:

They are a body, a united assembly under God.

They are longing to see what they hope for.

They are a worshipping congregation.

They are 24/7 servants of God.

They are an earnest, expectant and fervent group.

However, the message of Paul regarding this hope:

Did not fit with their timing.

Did not fit their pre conceived minds of this hope.

Did not fit their own experiences of this hope.

The end result is that they missed what they were looking for.

You can give your whole life to something, sacrifice much in order to attain it and yet completely miss what you are looking for when it comes along.

“But I tell you, Elijah (John the Baptist) has already come, and they did not recognize him, but have done to him everything they wished. In the same way the Son of Man is going to suffer at their hands.” Matthew 17:12
In 1946 George Orwell wrote an essay entitled, ”In Front of Your Nose.”

”… We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield… To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle. “

The Jewish mob were fixed and unmovably so on one thought that Paul was a heretic and had to be stopped because of his message of Jesus. They refused the struggle.

Today whatever you know let it be tested by the struggle that you could be wrong. You may be missing what is right there, in front of you, but you are blinded to it. Be flexible in enough to be wrong, to have missed it, to have wasted your chance. You can make the change to be right.