Witness Pt. 18

A study into the book of Acts with Pastor Jesse Carr

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

So take your Bible and turn with me, if you would please, to Acts chapter 9. And we'll begin our reading there in Acts chapter number 9, roundabout verse number 19. So if you have a Bible, turn with me to Acts chapter number 9 and verse number 19. And we're going to continue reading this great, great story of the early days of the Apostle Paul's Christian life. Acts chapter 9 and verse number 19. Acts chapter 9 and verse number 19. The word of God says this. So when he, this is Saul of Tarsus, the man we know perhaps best as the Apostle Paul or Saint Paul, when he had received food, he was strengthened. Then Saul spent some days with the disciples at Damascus. Immediately he preached the Christ in the synagogues that he is the Son of God. Then all who heard were amazed and said, Is this not he who destroyed those who called on this name in Jerusalem and has come here for that purpose, so that he might bring them down to the chief priests? But Saul increased all the more in strength and confounded the Jews who dwelt in Damascus, proving that this Jesus is the Christ. Now, after many days were passed, the Jews plotted to kill him. But their plot became known to Saul, and they watched the gates day and night to kill him. Then the disciples took him by night and let him down through the wall in a large basket. And when Saul had come to Jerusalem, he tried to join the disciples, but they were all afraid of him, and did not believe that he was a disciple. But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles, and he declared to them how he had seen the Lord on the road, and that he had spoken to him, and how he had preached boldly at Damascus in the name of Jesus. So he was with them at Jerusalem, coming in and going out. And he spoke boldly in the name of the Lord Jesus, and disputed against the Hellenists, but they attempted to kill him. When the brethren found out, they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him out to Tarsus. Then the churches throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria had peace and were edified, and walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, they were multiplied. The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of the Lord abideth forever. Acts chapter 9 tells for us the story of the conversion of Saul of Tarsus. And when we use that word conversion, that is a fancy Christian word, to talk about somebody who is not a Christian becoming a Christian. As the story opens, the Apostle Paul is most certainly not a Christian. He would have been the first person to tell you that he was not a Christian. The Christians who knew of him would have told you he definitely is not a Christian. But as he journeys from Jerusalem to Damascus to persecute, to hunt, and to jail Christians there, the Bible says that he is suddenly, dramatically and miraculously interrupted by the resurrected Lord Jesus. And even though every believer has a testimony that is unique in different aspects, every true believer has a moment in their life when that same sudden and dramatic miracle happened to them, and they came to understand that Jesus is alive, that he has died for their sins, and that he offers new life. That's happened to Paul. And after that, he ends up connecting with a Christian by the name of Ananias who welcomes him into the church, who baptizes him into the church, and the apostle Paul takes his first steps of faith as a new and obedient Christian. What we read about today records the story of the Apostle Paul taking more steps. The Apostle Paul is maturing. The Apostle Paul is, if you please, growing up. And so when I read this story in Acts chapter number 9, the first thing that comes to my mind is pumpkins. And I know that you're thinking the same thing I am today, because you read this and you thought, yeah, this would be a great place to talk about pumpkins. Several years ago, I think this was in 2022, the fall of 2022. Like most people, I had a couple of jack-o'-lanterns on my porch step, you know, to scare off trick-or-treaters. And I decided that the following Halloween, I was going to save a fortune and undercut those high grocery store prices, and I was going to grow my own pumpkins for Halloween the next year. So I did it. Saved the seeds, scooped them out, put them in the refrigerator so that they would stay fresh. And then about this time of the summer, the following year, late June, early July, I planted my pumpkins. Now I know this is not a big deal to you, but this is a big deal to me. This was a key memory for me, okay? And part of the reason is because when I lived in Alabama, I lived in a neighborhood with a very fascist homeowners association, and this was an act of rebellion and independence against them, okay? So I plant my little seeds and I baby these pumpkin plants. And after a few days, there was excitement in our house because there were sprigs. The seeds had germinated and they had come to life, and I could see fruit. And if you've ever grown pumpkins, then you know that it doesn't take very long at all. Those vines take over the world. And sure enough, I've got vines spreading through my backyard. I think I've even got pictures of these for you. I'm so proud of these pumpkins. There's our little girl Scylla. And some of you don't realize this. Um I do because I went all in on these pumpkins, okay? These are my babies. I want you to understand. And so I was watching YouTube videos from England about how to best grow pumpkins. And one of the things that you may not know about pumpkins is that pumpkins have flowers. They are plants and they do flower. But did you know that pumpkins have male flowers and female flowers? Did you know them? Some of y'all didn't know that. It's okay. I didn't know it either, but I do now, so I'm gonna help you, all right? You will get something from my sermon today. See that baby picture, isn't that beautiful? So, male flowers and female flowers. And so what you have to have is you have to have pollinators, you have to have bees to bring pollen from the male flower to the female flower so that you know biology happens and then you have pumpkins. But if you don't have pollinators, which I didn't, you've got to do it yourself. So your pastor has artificially inseminated a pumpkin. And I watered these pumpkins, man, I uh uh spread out my seven dust to keep the critters off of them, did everything that I could to bring them into maturity, watched them grow. Look at that, that's very early. You see a pumpkin there, and man, that doesn't even tell half the story. And everything was going so great as these plants developed and matured and produced fruit until about two weeks before they were ready, worms just got them. And I lost my, I know. And you can tell I'm still not over it. But if you have ever grown any sort of garden, if you've ever grown any sort of fruit or vegetable, if you've been a farmer, if you've even just watched the apple trees around Hendersonville produce in the fall, you understand the concept of growth. What you see in this passage of Scripture is the Apostle Paul working through seasons of growth. You see the Apostle Paul growing up as a believer. You see him developing. And I think this is so important for us today because, frankly, some of y'all have never grown up. Now, I mean your body's grown up. You've matured physically, but you've never matured spiritually. And I'm not even saying this is necessarily your fault because candidly, a lot of churches like Mud Creek over the years, we have put much more emphasis on growing the crowd at the expense of actually growing people. And some of you over the years have grown tremendously. You're like one of those state fair pumpkins. You know, it's 800 pounds, the size of a Volkswagen. You can only move it with a forklift. And that's been your Christian life. You've heard the best preaching, you've enjoyed the best music, you've had the best believers around you, the best Sunday school class, the best fellowship, and you've taken in, taken in, taken in, taken in, taken in, but you've never helped anybody else grow up. You've never taken what God has given you and used it to be a blessing to anybody else. And all of those dynamics are in play here in Acts chapter 9 as the apostle Paul grows up. And so today I want to talk to you about growing up by showing three experiences that were necessary for Paul's maturity. Now, we're gonna grow up and it's gonna look differently than Paul. Your experience of growing in the Lord will look differently than my experience because we have different lives. Yet there are commonalities, and I want to show you these commonalities in this passage. And the first is what I want to call environment. Pumpkins need the right environment to grow. Christians need the right environment to grow. And you see in this text how God has put Saul of Tarsus in the perfect environment, the perfect habitat, a greenhouse of growth. Now you'll fly through it if you're not careful, but it's right in this passage. Verse number 19 says this that after Paul baptizes, is baptized, two important things happen. The first is that he received food. Why is that important? Because the first thing he did after he was baptized was eat. And that's how I know Paul was a Southern Baptist. He eats, and then what happens? He strengthened, then he spent some days with whom? Who does he spend time with? The disciples at Damascus. All right. He spends time with the disciples. What is a disciple? What is a disciple? We have to be able to answer this question to understand this greenhouse that Paul finds himself in. Put simply, a disciple is a student, a disciple is a learner. But at this stage in the history of the church, understand this, the word disciple is essentially a synonym for Christian. If you look back in Acts chapter number 9 and verse number 1, who is the target of Paul's persecution? We would say it's the church, yes. We would say it's Christians, and that's correct. But who's the target according to the word of God? The disciples. When God comes to Ananias and says, Ananias, I want you to go lay hands on Paul and pray with him and baptize him, welcome him into the family of God. How does the Bible describe Ananias? It describes him as a disciple. When the Apostle Paul has to flee Damascus in this text, when his life is threatened, who is it that helps him in verse number 25 escape with his life? It's not a trick question, it's in verse 25 here. Disciples. When he leaves Damascus and goes to Jerusalem and meets the church there, what does the Bible call those Christians in Jerusalem? We're working on it. We will get there. And what's their hesitancy to accept Paul? They don't believe that he is what? A disciple. You see how the word disciple is a synonym for Christian. In fact, at this stage in the history of the church, if you would have asked Paul, Ananias, Barnabas, any of the believers in Damascus or Jerusalem, if you would have asked them, are you a Christian? They would have said, A what? They didn't know that term yet. It hadn't been developed yet. But if you would have asked them, are you a disciple of Jesus? Are you a follower of Jesus? Are you learning in the school of Christ? They would have said, of course. And this is so vital for us today because understanding discipleship means that there is a certain training method. There is a teaching concept, a pedagogical theory ingrained in the life of the early church. Because you see, discipleship was not originally a Christian concept. Discipleship was prominent among Jewish rabbis of this time. It was even prominent among Greek philosophers of the day. And here's what they did. If you were a rabbi, if you were a philosopher, if you were a teacher of whatever subject, instead of merely having a class where you could impart information, you would go pick some students, or they might pick you, depending on the circumstances, and you would say to them, Come walk with me. Enjoy life with me. Eat with me, think with me until my way of thinking becomes your way of thinking, and you see the world that I the way that I see the world. It's like this. It's the difference between history class and football practice. When we think about learning, we think about going to class, right? Some of y'all feel in this brief overview of the history of discipleship, you feel like you're in class right now and you're not enjoying it. It's going to get better, I promise. I promise it'll get better. We think about going to class. You think about going to high school history, and you think about sitting there, and the teacher gives you a stirring lecture about Henry Clay and the secession crisis and the Missouri compromise of 1850. And your brain just turns into vanilla pudding. But football practice. That's different. You know why? Because the coach is not just standing behind a podium saying, you need to know this, you need to know this, you need to know this, you need to know this. What's the coach doing? The coach is down in your face, right? And the coach is saying, All right, when you tackle him, keep your head up, and you need to make sure that you hit him right in the diaphragm. And if you can't break his sternum, you make him wish that you could have. And then if you don't do it right, what's the coach going to do? He's going to shove you out of the way and say, Boy, let me show you how to do it. That's discipleship. Discipleship is saying, come with me and watch me as I do it until you're ready to do it, and then I will release you to do it on your own. That's what Jesus did in his whole ministry. Those verses that Sister Lydia, didn't you do a fantastic job reading from Mark 1 this morning? Those verses that Sister Lydia read today from Mark chapter number one show this. Jesus says to his first disciples, walking by the Sea of Galilee, he sees Simon Peter and he sees Andrew his brother, and he says to them, What? Follow me, and I will make you to become fishers of men. They knew exactly what they were being invited into in that passage. There was an invitation, follow me, an invitation to a process of transformation. I will make you to reach the fruit of replication. I will make you to become fishers of men. Jesus says to the disciples, come follow me. Live the way I live, hear my teachings, absorb what I do, and then I will release you to go do it too. Jesus starts his ministry with those words. Jesus ends his ministry with those words. And the Great Commission we talk about in Matthew 28, 18, all the time. Jesus says, Go into all the world and make disciples. He didn't say go build buildings, that may be great. He didn't say go dig wells, that's important. He said, go make people. Go make disciples. Some of y'all ain't getting this disciple stuff. Let me let me go back to gardening. How many of y'all know what this is right here? Anybody know what this is? Alright, if you don't know what this is and you weren't raised right, I'm sorry. We can't do everything as a church, alright? We do want to help you, so let me help you. This is a tomato cage. Alright? Tomatoes, like pumpkins, grow on vines. And if you plant them, they can grow and they will grow on the ground. But there's a number of bad things that can happen. They can get diseases, they can get bugs, they can just get too big, they can break the vines, all kinds of stuff can happen, right? And so one of the things you need to do to grow good tomatoes is you need to have some sort of structure for them to grow up. Right? This is the structure that allows them to grow up. One dear brother saw me carrying this in and said, That's too flimsy to grow tomatoes on. Maybe. I said, Well, if you see the kind of tomatoes I've grown, you know this will be just fine. They're like little strawberries. Um, somebody said, Man, I love a good tomato sandwich. Well, not with mine you want. Cherry tomatoes. Anyway, you need a structure. Friends, what the church should offer is the tomato cage for the Christian life. The structure that allows us to grow up. And one of the things I would have you pray for here at Mud Creek is that we would have an excellent tomato cage. That we would be a tomato cage for believers to grow up in, to have the structure where they develop, where they're free from the bugs of sin, where they're free from the diseases of the devil, and where they can grow to be fruitful and replicate what they are. But let me move on quickly. Paul is in the right environment. But second, I want to show you this. Paul has the right opportunities. The Bible says in Acts chapter number nine that after Paul connects to the disciples, then in verse 20, immediately he goes to preaching. Immediately. Now remember this. Paul has been saved for like 10 minutes. Right? He's been saved long enough to be baptized and long enough to eat. He's maybe been to a Bible study with these disciples, and then he just cuts loose to preaching. And I know that the Apostle Paul is uniquely gifted intellectually. I know God has a specific plan for his life. I understand his education. I get all those things. But also as a pastor, I am responsible for who stands in this pulpit. And if I'm asking myself, am I gonna let this guy take a Sunday morning service? It ain't likely. I mean, he might not even know anything about growing tomatoes. What's he gonna say to us, right? He probably ain't growing a pumpkin, he ain't gonna help us. So, would you feel comfortable letting Paul preach at this stage of seeming immaturity? It's a big ask, isn't it? But notice what the Bible says. Look at this in verse number 22. Verse 22 says that Saul increased all the more in strength and confounded the Jews who dwelt in Jerusalem, proving that this Jesus is the Christ. Do you see that first phrase? Paul preaches, and after he preaches, he increases in strength. What happened in the Apostle Paul's life? Here's what happened. This is so important. God used opportunity to do what maybe he wasn't entirely ready to do, to grow him up and to get him ready to do what God called him to do. Now, this is a hard sale in a Baptist church. Okay, this is a hard sale. Because we really do want the best of the best, serving and leading and working, and I understand that. I agree completely. And what we tend to think is that if somebody comes to us and says, hey, I love Jesus, I want to serve him, and I want to be used by him, what we're typically going to tell them is that's wonderful. What you need to do is you need to go get a degree. In fact, you need to go get an undergraduate degree, and then you need to go get a master's degree. And after you have your master's of divinity degree, after you've had a couple semesters of Greek and Hebrew, and after you know all the nuances of what the Council of Nicaea was about, then you should go get a master's of theology. And then once you get that, you can get into a PhD program. And then when you're a doctor, tell you what we'll do. We'll let you drive the church bus when we take the students of care. And we want you to prove yourself, and we're gonna watch you for 30 years, and then when you cross that 55 threshold, tell you what we'll do for you. Tell you what we'll do. We'll let you take prayer requests in Sunday school. And if that goes well, man, the sky's a limit. That's the way we are, right? Did you know that's totally backwards from the way Jesus made disciples? Because you see this in the New Testament, right? In Jesus' time with like Peter and Andrew, James, and John, these guys were numbskulls. They have no idea what Jesus is talking about half the time. They're continually arguing over which one of them is the most important. They have a hard time figuring out what's going on, what's wrong with people. There are times when they're praying that Jesus would just send down huge fireballs from heaven to destroy people. They're a mess. There's one time I read this just the other day in Mark chapter number nine, where there's this little boy, so sad, this little boy is demon possessed, and the disciples are trying to cast out the demon. They can't do it. And nothing happens. And yet, as clueless, as stubborn, as selfish as they were, Jesus is still saying to them, guys, go preach. Go minister to the sick. Go cast out demons in my name. Why? Because doing, sometimes succeeding and sometimes failing, doing in that environment allowed them to grow so that they were ready to do what God wanted them to do and be whom God wanted them to be. And I think it needs to be the same way in our church. Now, is that high risk? You better believe it is. You better believe it is. Does that mean that every person that comes to me and says, Pastor Jesse, I've got a sermon and I want to preach it. Is it going to get to preach on Sunday morning? No. No. Does that mean that everybody who says, you know, I really want to sing a special, does that mean you're going to get to sing a special? Yes, of course. Go talk to Jesse Horton. He would love to have that conversation with you. No. We understand that people do need to grow. We understand that there are signs of maturity that are important. But I also know in my life, church, I have benefited from people who said, I'm going to give you a chance to do something that you're not ready to do. Because in doing what you're not ready to do, God's going to get you ready for what you've got later. And so what that means for some of you here today is some of you who are eager to grow and you're excited and you want to serve and you don't know what to do, you need to find me. You need to find one of our pastors, and you need to say, I'm going to be at the church at 8 o'clock in the morning, and I'm not going to leave you alone until you find me something to do. And we will find you something to do. And not everything will be easy, not everything will work, but we will find the place where God has gifted you. I promise. But that also means that for some of us that are used to being in the spotlight, used to having the microphone, used to having the eyes on us, sometimes we have to give that ministry over to other people so that they can grow. And for a lot of us, that's really, really hard, isn't it? Because we have this idea, well, nobody can do it as great as I can do it. Nobody can tell pumpkin stories the way I can tell pumpkin stories. I mean, come on. Nobody could ever sing the way anybody can sing the way I can sing. Nobody could sing the way I can sing. Nobody could teach that Sunday school class. Nobody could hand out bulletins the way that I do it. It's mine. We're territorial. And as we're territorial and selfish, a lot of times we undercut the growth of the people God has put around us. We need opportunities to succeed, opportunities to fail, in a safe environment to grow into the people God wants us to become. Third, you need people. People. That's what this story is about, really. This story is about the people in Paul's life. As you study the story of the Apostle Paul, it's easy to think that the Apostle Paul is like Batman. He's a superhero. He's fighting crime on his own, pushing back the forces of darkness and saving today. But Batman had Robin and Alfred and a handful of other people. Even Commissioner Gordon showed up a few times. And as you study the life of the Apostle Paul, you see that there are brothers, even sisters, in his life that are important at key intervals that he served with and benefited from. And we're introduced to one of those, really we should say reintroduced to one of those here in Acts chapter number nine. The Apostle Paul is persecuted and threatened for preaching Jesus. Now, we're going to come back to that in a few weeks, because one of the key elements that God uses to grow believers is suffering and pain. We're going to talk about this season in Damascus where Paul's life is threatened for the first time. But after that, he goes to the mother church in Jerusalem. And when you know it, once he gets there, the Bible says in verse number 26, they're not going to let him join a church. They said, we are a church for everybody except you. You ever felt that way? Yeah, well, our church is open to everybody, but there are some people that we just don't want here. And Paul, we're sorry, but you're one of them because we don't trust you. We know what you used to be, and so the doors of the church are not open to you, buddy. Sorry. But then something incredible happens. One of the members of that church, one of the prominent members of that church, a man by the name of Barnabas, whom, if you remember from way back in Acts chapter number four, has already appeared in the book of Acts. Barnabas, who is an encourager, Barnabas who lifts people up. Barnabas, who in Acts chapter number four had sold a tremendous piece of property and given the proceeds to serve the poor in his church, Barnabas puts his name and reputation on the line. And he says, Listen, I believe in Paul. I have got his back. If it goes bad, it's on me. I will vouch for him. I know how God has changed him. I know what God wants to do with him. And brothers and sisters, I want you to listen to me. God has his hand on Paul. And after Barnabas speaks up for Paul, then the church welcomes him. I think it's as clear as anywhere else in Scripture that as God's people, we need one another. There are people in your life today. Listen, some of you have been saved for decades. You've been coming to Mud Creek for a long, long time. You've been in other churches and you've served faithfully and you've benefited tremendously from people that have poured into you. And now you need to realize that God has given you opportunity to be a Barnabas. There is somebody in your life that you need to encourage, that you need to walk with. There's somebody that needs to hear your voice. In fact, there are some of you that are like Paul. And you need to find a Barnabas. You need to find somebody that can be the voice of Jesus' encouragement in your life. You need to find somebody that at times will hold you accountable for your junk. You need to find somebody that will take you to God in prayer. You need to find somebody that believes in you and that will invest in you. We all need those people in our lives. I think that every single person here today, ideally, should be able to say, this individual has been my barnabas and this individual is my pause. We should be able to look at both ends and say, these are the people that have walked with me and poured into me, and these are the people that I'm walking with, and these are the people that I'm pouring into. Because let's be honest, all of us, the people of God, can look back and we can see others that have poured into us. I was talking to one of our pastors this week about this truth. I can see people that have encouraged me, that have given me wisdom, people that should never have treated me like a peer. You know what I mean? People that have never should have had time for my phone calls, people that never should have responded to my texts, and yet who made time for me. And I've benefited from them. In fact, as we prepare for our August awakening services, our revival services here at Mud Creek, I know this is still a ways away, but I want you to go ahead and be excited and be prepared about our August services. They'll be at 6:30 on Tuesday nights in August and every Tuesday night. You're going to hear from one of those men who has been a barnabas to me, who has directly impacted my life and ministry. The four living men who have done that more than anybody else that I've known personally. But as I think about that, I realize how much I've dropped the ball. How much I've taken in, and how little I've poured in to other people. But this is what happens in this passage in the life of the Apostle Paul. It had already happened in the story of Ananias. Ananias goes through the same thing that Barnabas went through. To go and say to Paul, Man, I see something in you. I believe in you. I've got your back. It's interesting as the Apostle Paul tells this story later in life. He does this in Acts chapter 26. He does it in Acts chapter number 22. And if you see it in Acts chapter number 9, as Ananias is so hesitant to go and to talk to Paul, the Bible tells us that the Lord says to him, in verse number 13, that he is going to, or excuse me, verse number 15, that he's going to suffer, but he will bear the gospel to Gentiles and to kings. Now when Paul will tell this later at different points, he will say that Jesus told him that in Acts 22, but then in Acts 26, he will say that Ananias told him that. This is interesting. Because it means that either Jesus told him, and maybe Paul struggled to believe it was true, and then Ananias came and told him that it was true, and it confirmed that witness, or that Jesus' communication came through the faithfulness of Ananias. Either way, here's the reality for Paul. Paul at this point in his life is benefiting from people who are being echoes of heaven for him. Now, as believers, friends, we receive our identity, we receive our sense of self, we understand our value and our worth not from what we feel about ourselves, not from what the world says about us, not from what other people say about us. We know who we are because of what God says about us in Christ. But one of the blessings of living together in a church is that we hear that same heavenly identity from one another. That we are allowed and enabled and privileged and responsible to share what God says about one another to one another. To say, like Barnabas does here to Paul, look, I believe in you. I know you can't see it, but I see God doing great things with you. God has something for you to do that nobody else can do. I believe that it would scare you to death if you knew what God might accomplish through you. Friends, we all need that at different times. And God will use that at key moments to allow us to grow. So, as we prepare for our invitation today, are you taking advantage of the tomato cages that God has put in your life to grow? To benefit from the structures that God has in place for your growth? Are you taking advantage of opportunities? Are you looking to give away opportunities to other people? And who's your Paul? Who's the person you're encouraging? Who's your Barnabas? Who's the person that you've attached yourself to that's encouraging you and discipling you?