Thank you Jonathan Jonathan and I were talking this week and I just said there's no way I'm going to remember all those announcements And hey, so I said why don't you get up and make them so he did y'all came to church. I'm so proud of you Thank you for coming. I was worried. I was going to be the only one here and That was going to make me both cold and sad but now I'm just cold. So it's good to see I really do appreciate you getting out and making the effort And I know that the Lord is going to bless you for it and I hope you know that as well Today we are finishing I'm going to continue our study of Paul's conversion the conversion of Saul of Tarsus Who was there as a young man? He was there when when Stephen was stoned and we're told that that he just He was breathing out Curses and oaths and asking for permission to go from town to town and round up both men and women who are followers of Jesus and And today we're going to ask how someone could be someone who spent their life studying the word of God Who Who made it there their lifetime devotion from the time they were 12 years old to know God's word someone who was Passionate and wanted It's easy for us to look at song go well. He was he was kind of a hypocritical fake Believer he wasn't the real thing. Oh, he was the last of the true believers He was was part of this this sect that wanted to see a revival of true internal pure religion called the Pharisees and He wanted to root out any false ideas And that's what Christianity bothered him so much these followers of the way and
The interesting thing is the more Believers he was confronted with the angrier he got And that's what we're going to talk about today just Really it's about our capacity to believe lies and how hard it is to lay lies aside and believe the truth That was what they're the call to worship was about right this is the judgment They they got light has shown in the darkness, but we don't like it We didn't like it. We prefer the darkness We prefer to be able to hide We we like the way the darkness lets us keep ourselves private and secret and And what we've known and what people who have studied the truth know is that It's really hard to admit that you've been believing a lie It's really hard There's a a documentary on Netflix called major look and it's about art Specifically, it's about a woman named Ann and Friedman who was the She was in charge of the manager of the the nuclear gallery of art in New York and and together with so the bees auction house auction of multi-million dollar pieces of art and These were these were original masterworks And evidence began coming in that these these pieces of art she was auctioning off for actually being forged in China by guy who just Who did that is he's kind of like a a four-runner of chat jeep, you know chat GT GPT whatever You know, you can just kind of tell it pay me a picture of dolphins freezing in ice and the manner of Rembrandt and He could do that and he could do it well enough that people Would spend millions of dollars for it and the evidence became more and more clear that that she was selling fordries And the more evidence came in the more she doubled down state Her reputation on the the reality the authenticity of these artworks until Her reputation was worthless and she lost everything and it seems weird That she would believe it that that thoroughly but actually What people who study lies and People who believe them tell us there's a book called the confidence game By an often a Maria kind of co-bubbly and she says then she says when someone truly believes a con When someone truly believes something that's not true and And the evidence mounts up that what they're believing is not true They find it easier Psychologically to double down They find it easier Psychologically to insist no I'm right and all the evidence your amount mounting is fake is false Then it is to say I was wrong about this thing that mattered to me Then then it is to say I was a fool I Was conned And and that's what we're looking at today the Apostle Paul as he is confronted by Person after person who's seeing Christ after the resurrection person after person who's who's believing the way And he's hearing these sermons from Stephen and Peter and James and and they're pulling together all these old Testament text and they're showing that Jesus is the the the promised one He is the the summation of all the Old Testament instead of him saying okay, right. I was wrong He just gets matter and matter and Start punishing it Because he can't admit that he was wrong until He meets Jesus himself And what I want us to see is that the resurrected Christ confronts our lives with the truth He confronts our lives with the truth of his life With the truth of his it can bring us our darkness with the truth of his light He confronts our Lawsonist with his salvation and And this is not a one-time thing what we have to daily do But we have to do every day every week His ask ourselves are we believing lies and Tell ourselves remind ourselves of his truth and Remind ourselves to trust in it. Please stand as we read Paul's first account of his Conversion he gives two accounts. So there's three counts in all an axe one is the The story that Luke writes for us and then Paul counts it doesn't twice and so we're gonna study each of them This is the second here the word of the Lord. I am a Jew born in Tarsus of Selissia but brought up in this city Educated at the feet of Gamalio according to the strict manner of the law of our fathers Being zealous for God as all of you are this day And I persecuted this way to the death Binding and delivering to prison both men and women as the high priest and the whole council of elders can bear me witness From them I received letters to the brothers and I journey toward Damascus to take those who were there and bring them in Bonds to Jerusalem and he punished and As I was on my way and drew near to Damascus about noon a great light from heaven suddenly shown around me And I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me Saul saw why are you persecuting me and I answered who are you Lord And he said to me I am Jesus of Nazareth whom you're persecuting Now those who are with me didn't saw the light but they did not understand the voice of the one who was speaking to me And I said well what shall I do Lord and the Lord said to me rise and go to Damascus and there you will be told all that is Appointed for you to do and Since I could not see because of the brightness of that light. I was led by the hand by those who were with me and Came into darkness and came into Damascus or and One name and an is a devout man according to the law well spoken of by all the Jews who live there Came to me and standing by me said to me brothers all Receive your sight And at that very hour I received my sight and saw him and he said the God of our fathers appointed you to know his will To see the righteous one and to hear a voice from his mouth and for you will be a witness for him to every one of what What you have seen and heard and now why do you wait rise and be baptized and wash away your sins calling on his name And when I had heard returned to Jerusalem and was praying in a temple I fell into a trance and saw him saying to me make haste and get out of Jerusalem quickly because it will not accept our testimony about me And I said Lord they themselves know that in one synagogue I saw another I am prison and Beat those who believed in you and when the blood of Stephen your witness was being shed I myself was Standing by and approving and watching over the garments of those who killed him And he said to me go For I will send you far away to the Gentiles Up to this word they listen to him, but then they raise their voices and said a Way was such a fellow from the earth he should not be allowed to live This is for the reading of God's word all men are like grass and all of our glory like the flowers in the field And the grass withers and the flowers fall and not God's word God's word stands forever. You may be seated We have to daily confront the lies that we're believing with the truth of who Jesus is and and what he's called us to believe and It's fascinating how hard it is you see it in this text, right the Apostle Lays out Paul lays out his entire story and all the the things that have happened to him and they were believing him And they were believing him and they were believing him and then he says I'm Jesus told me to go to the Gentiles and preach this gospel and all of a sudden nope Let's kill this guy They're prejudices there. They're inability to think that that could possibly be true Force them to this point of throwing all truth away with it And that's the way it is with lies we Just have these assumptions the primary assumption being that we're right The thing that blinded Paul the thing that blinded the Jews that he's talking to here is this Fundamental assumption that he is right When I'm over sure that can't be wrong. He was blinded by his own rightness He was blinded by his own The the purity of his his desire to see Revival amongst the Jews who was blinded by his by his passion Around you remember who Paul was at this point. He describes himself in Philippians chapter two Said I was a Hebrew of Hebrews I grew up under the law. He says here. I grew up under Gamali a lot. I knew the law I was an expert in it and he goes on to say in Philippians two he says when it came to righteousness by the law I was blameless I was blameless And yet the truth about Jesus could not penetrate him he was completely and absolutely sure and And being completely and absolutely sure that he was right He reveals that he was one hundred percent wrong He was one hundred percent wrong not only about Jesus, but about his entire view of the law of who God was in life and That's us, isn't it? I mean do you go through life with this assumption that maybe I'm wrong Maybe I don't know the whole story It's funny whenever that kind of crashes in on us, isn't it? Maybe I don't know the story Maybe I'm wrong. My wife We were just sharing stories about this is true about us
This weekend and she reminded me of a story when she was when we lived in Mississippi and she was getting some presents made and needed them to be a broider And she went to this embroidery shop to pick up her presence and and it was just closed Just a middle of the day just closed Just so mad Have lived irresponsible people in this town are just irresponsible. I can't believe they'd be closed She went back in next week When it came to her clearly been had been weeping My husband just died last week Just haven't been able to get things done And and beyond because everything about her just changes right I was like, oh Oh, that was more important than my towels You were I was wrong I Was wrong about who you were and and what was going on is it that's just a question. We have to care around with this Isn't it possible that you're wrong? I mean most of you're here on a negative degree day, so you're probably have some relationship with Jesus Not proof of that But this isn't a once in a lifetime thing
Living in in the light of the truth and living outside of this this darkness of the lies That is a daily Act of repentance and faith Do we live in truth? And it's easy and this is the place to start is this this possibility of this humility that says it is possible that are wrong It's possible and in the ways that we can find out are by looking at How do we know if you were deceived? How would you know it it's a great question, right? Because you wouldn't If you're deceived you'd be deceived if you're deceived and know it you'd be a fool right But if you were deceived you would know that you were deceived so we have to kind of have Test To see if it's there to see if lie is there just see if deception is there And so there are different ways that we can test it one and the easiest one is what is this? What are these truths that I'm living by what are these truths that I'm believing what are they producing in me? What are they producing in me? Just as a general Attitude toward my fellow humans. Let's just start there. Let's start as general as we can If my my general attitude toward fellow humans is Anger and there's a lie in there that I'm believing it's interesting to compare Jesus with Saul of Tarsus So we're told that Saul was breathing out oaths Going from city to city Angry How did Jesus view laws people? He saw them as harassed and Laws to the act compassion on them as sheep without a shepherd Now we're surrounded by laws people We can be honest in here that make us crazy. They don't know how to drive Right They don't know how to Think right or talk right. They don't know how to act They don't know how to dress a good restaurant Right to ruin my my Experiences by showing up where I don't want them They don't know golf etiquette They don't know all kind they don't know things and there's a there's a that that My response to them tells me what I am believing are they? enemies and My angry I was talking to a friend recently said that whenever you see the hybrid car He just wants to run it off the road self-righteous people drive those I Said that's funny because then every time I'm passed by a huge pickup like yours. I Want to run it off the road What lies are we believing About these people Are they harassed? And hungry like sheep without a shepherd? Or are they my enemies because they disagree and Do I believe that this thing that we disagree about is so important that I would call them enemies? What what what do the lies that I'm believing? What are they producing in me? That's the best way to test them we We can all find the evidence we want if we want to say no I'm what I'm believing is true. We can find evidence to back it up. I know I have believed some Stupid things in my life and I had evidence to back them up I believe that big tobacco with a good guys back in the 80s I thought they were being harassed by the stupid liberals who didn't want to smoke anymore. I took up smoking in response That was stupid That was against so much evidence You know that very confessed to you all you know, I was a I was a Chaplain for the sons of Confederate veterans and we're convinced was convinced that the South was right I was foolish and harmful backwards And and yeah, I was so sure I was right so sure Wait you if you want to justify a position you can find it But if you'll look and see what kind of emotional response is this creating I think you can find Whether it's true or not. Is it making you more loving towards your brothers? Is it making you more gracious? More compassionate. Is it making you see others like sheep without a shepherd? CS Lewis says like this whenever our religion makes us feel better than others whenever we feel that our religious life is making us feel better than someone else We may be sure that we're being acted on not by God, but by the devil That's just not what true religion does. We know that Jesus is very clear if you're gonna be one of mine You're gonna be a servant You know what it's like out there amongst the unbelievers. They like to order each other around. That's what they do It's not gonna be like that amongst you You are going to be a servant if you're one of mine For the son of man did not come to be served but to serve and give his life a ransom for many What are these truths that you're believing what are they producing and then Beyond just this general Rubric of how is it making you feel towards humanity? How is it making you feel towards life? I think I want to be very careful, but I'll say this. Okay. I Think a lot of us struggle deeply in the turn internally and eternally Never endingly because we believe lies and we just won't renounce them and and what I mean by that is this I was having a conversation with Mark Davis the pastor at Park Seas Presbyterian in Dallas and he said you know We spend jointly the people in my church spend millions of dollars on therapy on medication On all these things to deal with depression and anxiety And nobody seems to be getting better. Nobody seems to be getting better And I do think there's a spiritual element There's a spiritual element there that we're just not renouncing lies We insist on we just refuse to plant our anchor on certain truths about who God is and what does he think about us? Now y'all know me. I'm a full-court press guy I'm not ever going to say anything negative about therapy or medication. I'm on both Continually and will be probably for the rest of my life, but There's also a time when I have to I'm fighting against these voices, you know, and I'll be saying to myself on a Weekend night that you know nobody cares about me nobody would even know if I disappeared and I have to renounce that and say that's not true It's not true. It's a lie and I have to choose to live in the light. I Have to choose to live in the light that condemns my cynicism and my anger and my fear I Have to choose to to renounce the lie that says something bad is gonna happen to me. What what's gonna happen? I don't have to live in a continual anxiety. I Can live the truth that I can live the truth That God is at work. He's protecting me. I love the way the How to work catacas and takes Jesus's words and puts them in order and says You know my only comfort in life and death is that I am so well protected by my savior That without the will of my father in heaven out of hair can fall for my head Sometimes you have to just choose which truth you're gonna live by Well, there's no one one true. That's the truth Or are you gonna believe the lies?
We it's hard to tell Sometimes whether we're believing lies or not. We have to look at it From the results ends and say what attitudes are dominating me? Where do I see do I see the fruit of the spirit coming out of me or am I Am I living like somebody believes lies? Jesus then shows us how he deals with it How does he deal with Sal's lies he hits him with the light he is he's the exact same thing actually That happens when the shepherd see the angels Christmas Eve right the light the glory of God Shines around them the the chicana glory of God appears and it is so much light It's throws him to the ground. It's a it's overwhelming. It's like if you live with one of those terrible Morning people and they wake up and they throw the curtains open and Feels like the light is a physical thing that's hitting you
We don't do this to each other, but sometimes you'll describe it like You know the light light like is it gollum? Like it's a physical thing that's going to destroy like it's just too heavy. It burns And that's the way Paul felt just the light himself and and and it's like It's kind of like Jesus is wearing the T shirt that Deon Sanders wore all year Where he says hey, you've been looking for me. I ain't hard to find
You you try to stand me out here. I am and Jesus appears to him and And in doing that it crushes him to the ground it makes him Realize not only that he's been wrong about his it's not just that he's been wrong about these facts, right? That he's wrong about an interpretation of the Bible and his interpretation of the law. He realizes that he's wrong He's He's broken Something happens inside of Paul here. He goes from me and the guy who says and When it comes to blame when it comes to righteousness by the law, I was blameless to be in the guy who says I don't know what's wrong with me. Every time I seek to do good. He was right there with me Things I want to do. I can't do things. I want to stop doing. I can't stop doing I don't know what it is He reveals to Paul's weakness His brokenness he reveals to Paul that he he pollutes everything he touches He he reveals to him that the things that he loves he loves too much And he turns them in the idols the things that the blessings that God has given him He turns into things that he makes him cursors, but I think he has a to live by them and he can't make it without them and Then he gives him this beautiful grace of sending him Ananias and Ananias speaks to him two words of absolute Just perfection He comes to him and says brother Saul brother Saul Man you I see We're just alike You're lost here in the dirt I get it You have no idea the truth. I get it And he sends them To fellowship and you never see Paul by himself again. He's always with people People who point him toward the light Point him towards the truth see that's That is what is necessary if we want to be people who walk in the light the first realization is real Realizing who Jesus is and and and realizing that he's not To use the children's references when I plan hide and seek Jesus is not it Jesus is home base He's home base and he and you had to convince us that he's home base so that we'll come to him and then and then once that's done on the on the macroscopic level It happens on the microscopic level every day or week right and that's why we need fellowship He sends Saul he could have given Saul as a side back and said here all you needs a Bible Go knock yourself out, but he doesn't he says you wait for Ananias and Ananias has all get baptized into the church and and from there on out He is in the church of Damascus and he's in this community and that's that's pointing us toward this Need we have for fellowship if you have oh my gosh. Don't watch the football game last night You see the ice hanging from Andy reads mustache That poor guy needed a friend Didn't he he needed a friend to come on somebody you're on the camera from a lot of people you need to just get that I don't know if it is or not, but it should look like snott when you get that out of your mustache All right, that's what friends do they see the things that we don't see And that's what the the fellowship of the believers is about it's about Encouraging us and and pointing to different things and saying hey, you can't have a chip on your shoulder Hey, I think you're a little just You're just too worried about things are going on in the news and you can't have changed any of them anyway Hey That's not the way to talk to your wife And it sure ain't the way to talk about your life It's not helping We need people in our lives to tell us when we have ice hanging from our mustache Because you won't see it and that's what fellowship is for and that's what We need we need people who are able to say yes and no who are able to say yes, you are important You are Christ in you and you are invaluable and I love you and we also need people who can humble us I Had a pastor and when I was in Mississippi and he was he was very good preacher on his day and He was named Jim Bayer. He was one of the fathers of our denomination He came home one night. He was young when he was young and he'd been preaching out at a missions conference and he and his wife came in and As they were pulling into the driveway he said How many truly great preachers do you think there are in the PCA right now? I think really good ones in his life. Miss Jane look time goes one less than you think We need that see that in your life Those are people pointing us to the truth Keeping our feet on the ground keeping us reminding us that people need Jesus and we're not him. My question is Do you know that you need it? Do you have it? Are you being that for other people?
There are a Thousand lives you were going to be tempted to believe tomorrow and Some of me going to believe you should go into And you need somebody in your life to remind you of the truth Please pray with me. Father. Thank you for breaking me down of my Self-righteous ways. Thank you Lord for taking me on this journey from knowing everything and needing no one to Knowing nothing and needing everyone And Father our pray that you'd bring us all along that path Thank you for giving us Jesus For meeting us and showing us Out weakness and our inability
Father, we want to be people with truth. We don't want to be angry. That's no good We don't want to be hopeless We don't want to be judgmental We want to be people who point And others toward Christ By serving them By loving them Would you give us the grace to do that? We pray in Jesus name