PAUL – MINISTERING BETWEEN THE AGES - Acts 22:1-21
INTRO
This week the BBC strung together a series of clips in which politicians, bankers and other public figures had given public apologies over things they had got wrong. And the background music was Elton John’s ‘Sorry seems to be the hardest word’.
Then a discussion followed as to why ‘sorry’ is a hard word to use. And the finding ranged from the fear of litigation (an admission of liability) to fear of appearing to be weak.
POINT
There are times when we can get it wrong in a big way – not just politicians or bankers but people like you and I. We may be entirely sincere, but wrong at the same time.
We should not confuse being sincere with being right.
POINT
One of the most notable characters of the Bible who was at one time sincerely wrong was Saul of Tarsus who became known to us as the Apostle Paul. At one time this high ranking Pharisee considered Christians to be heretics and followers of a false Messiah. He considered it his duty before God to destroy both them and their movement. His subsequent encounter with the risen Christ let to his sudden conversion and complete change of mind. For a man so well-educated as Saul it was going to take more than a logical argument or the testimony of others to alter his views and ways. It was this divine encounter with Jesus himself that brought about the change.
Here is what Paul had to say about the incident:
READING: Acts 22:1-21
POINT
In our series on the Drama of Scripture we have reached the point where we the Apostle Paul appears on the scene. Paul played a very major role. He featured priminently in the latter half of the Book of Acts and he becomes a missionary pastor/teacher, mainly to the Gentiles, and the author of many of the New Testament letters.
• But he was not always the missionary pastor.
• It took this encounter with the risen Christ to cause to rethink his entire belief system and its outworking for his own life.
APPLIC
Some of you are amongst the many people who at one time placed your faith in things other than Christ. You might even have been suspicious of, or even antagonistic towards Christians.
But something happened – whether by crisis or process – by which you changed. You became a believer.
For Saul, his encounter with Christ on the road to Damascus forced a radical change in his thinking.
THIS AGE AND THE AGE TO COME
POINT
To gain some understanding of what this encounter meant to Paul we need first to appreciate his way of thinking as a religious Jew. Paul’s understanding, as an educated Jew, was that the world consisted of two ages: This age, and the age to come.
We come across references to this idea several times in the Scriptures:
Matthew 12:32
Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.
Mark 10:30
will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life.
Ephes. 1:21
far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.
POINT
Paul’s understanding of ‘this present age’ was of an age dominated by sin, evil and death.
He anticipated an age to come when God would return to Israel and usher in his kingdom.
Paul was incensed and outraged by claim made by Christians that God’s kingdom had come in the crucified Jesus.
Was it not said in the Scriptures ‘cursed is he who hangs upon a tree’? How could a Jewish imposter, crucified under Roman law, be the one who initiated the age to come?
Paul was undoubtedly sincere in his opposition to this movement, but it was all about to change. One brief but powerful encounter with the risen Lord changed not only this man’s life – it altered the course of history.
APPLIC
I believe there are occasions when God reveals himself in remarkable ways to people who are sincere in their seeking to do right but are going about it in the wrong way.
The Sikh Sadhu Sundar Singh would be one example of someone who at one time persecuted Christians and burned a Bible page by page in front of his friends. But then later he saw the risen Christ in a vision and heard him speaking to him. He paid dearly for his faith, being disowned by his family in his teenage years, and narrowly escaped being poisoned by them.
REINTERPRETING THE CROSS IN THE LIGHT OF THE RESURRECTION
The key factor in all of this for the Apostle Paul was the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and his being a witness of this.
This forced Paul to rethink the meaning of the cross.
No longer could he consider Jesus’ death as a worthy curse for an imposter. Instead he began to appreciate the meaning of the atonement: Jesus bore the curse for us!
Later he would write:
Galatians 3:10 Galatians 3:13
All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law." …..
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree."
POINT
In the light of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, the cross and the Hebrew Scriptures all began to make sense.
Such as Isaiah 53:4
Surely he took up our infirmities
and carried our sorrows,
yet we considered him stricken by God,
smitten by him, and afflicted.
Romans
In Paul’s letter to the Romans chapter 5 he describes how Adam stood at the gate of this present age and through the first sin brought about this present age of sin, death and condemnation. But now in Christ a second Adam appeared who through one act of righteousness stood at the gate of the age to come – the dawning of the kingdom of God.
POINT
We are now living in the times when the present age and the age to come overlap each other
- The Kingdom of God has come
– The Kingdom of God is coming
– and the Kingdom of God will finally come in all its fullness when the risen Christ returns and this present age passes away.
APPLIC
What does it mean that we are living in the already but not yet of the coming of the kingdom of God – age to come?
Expectation
That we can expect neither paradise nor perfection in this present age – but that, in the providence of God, that something of the age to come may break in on us (such as the spiritual gift of divine healing)
Holistic Gospel application
We can understand from this that the preaching of the Gospel is not isolated only to the salvation of souls but is also about the redemption of God’s created order.
The Holy Spirit’s anointing is to preach Good News to the poor.. and to proclaim the Year of Jubilee.
Our prayer is ‘your will be done on earth as it is in heaven’
For in the age to come the whole of creation is to be redeemed.
Eschatology
Supports the amillenial view of the Second Coming of Christ – that we are living now in the end times and the millennial rule of Christ (between the first coming and the second coming of Christ).
CLOSING
The Apostle Paul was called by God to take the Gospel to the Gentiles, and he was faithful to his calling.
He was methodical as a missionary, planning his tours along the trade routes, but also listening and responding to the church and the leading of the Holy Spirit.
He wrote to Timothy saying
“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. [8] Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing”. 2 Tim. 4:7-8
God has called each one of us to be difference makers – those through whose lives and Christian service the Kingdom of God comes into being.
May we be faithful to our calling
[Pray]
