God Is Calling You: I Don’t Know Who You Are
Malachi 1:6-14 Acts 9:1-9 January 24, 2016
We are in the final week of our series God is Calling You. We have looked at people who have been called, Who flat out did not want to accept the call. That was Moses. We’ve looked at people who thought they lacked the experience to be called. That was Jeremiah. We’ve looked at people who did not understand why they were being called. That was Mary. Today we look at people, who think they’ve been called but don’t know the One who is doing the calling. That is going to be Saul.
Have you ever gone to a fast food restaurant window and put in your order. You told them, “I do not want any onions or ketchup on my sandwich.” They said “okay.” You’re so hungry. You can barely wait to eat your sandwich. You pay for your order and drive off. You get to your sandwich, and you get a big bite of it, and the first sensation to hit your month is onions and ketchup.
How many of you are going to say, “well it’s not what I ordered but that’s fine with me”, and keep on eating the sandwich ? How many of you are going to put down or throw away the sandwich? How many of you are going to go back to the store and either get your money or get another sandwich made the right way?
Let me ask you this. Have you ever been in a situation, in which somebody was intentionally trying to rip you off and you discovered what they were doing? And then you said something like , “you don’t know who you are messing with here.” Now when you make that kind of a statement, you are ready to take some kind of action if the other person doesn’t make a change.
Let me ask you one more question, have you ever tried to fool your parents, your spouse, your pastors or teachers, by looking like you were doing what you were supposed to do, but you knew you were not actually doing what you were supposed to do. How do you think the other person felt when they found out what you had done and was still doing?
One of the great tragedies in the church, is that we do not understand how great and awesome the God of the bible truly is. God is up front about what He wants, what He expects, and what He requires of us. Yet each of us is tempted to try to cut God down to a size that we can control when serving God is inconvenient to our plans for living. We don’t want an all powerful and an all knowing God.
In our Old Testament Reading in the book of Malachi, God put in His special order for what kind of animals would be acceptable for a sacrifice. Just like we said, “hold the onions and the ketchup”. Everyone knew, God said “hold off on the sick animals, and don’t put any diseased ones, on the altar.” But many of the people figured, “hey it’s the thought that counts, and as long as I’m offering something, then God ought to be happy with it.” They got credit for a full sacrifice just like everybody who actually did what they were suppose to do got credit. They didn’t care that they were demanding that God eat the burger with the onions and the ketchup even though God did not want it that way.
God’s response is, “look if you don’t want to give me your best, don’t give me anything at all, because I’m sick of your religious ceremonies. I’m sick of you treating me as though I don’t know what you are doing.” Can I ask you a question, what kind of an offering do you give to the Lord with your service? Are you dependable, reliable, and faithful? Or do you simply offer to God whatever you happen to have on hand. What ever you feel like doing?
Let me make it even more personal. At our leadership retreat we talked about our covenant relationship we have with the church. Do you treat your ministry in the church seriously, or is it like a diseased animal being slipped on the altar thinking God should be happy because you did something.
If you served on a job with the same level of commitment as you serve in the church, would you Be entitled to a raise, to a cut in pay or to be fired. I wonder how often does God look at us and think “You don’t know who you are messing with do You.”
Sometimes we can keep reshaping God into our own image, that we see the world and the church not through God’s eyes but through our own. God has called us at New Life Calvary, to build a great church that loves people, teaches the word, and provides opportunities for people to know Jesus Christ.
Everything else is small by comparison. If you have a complaint, first of all spend a week in prayer over it asking God to show you, how does this cause me to love others, how does it help me to teach the word, and how does it lead me in winning others for Jesus Christ? God is not looking at our church through our lenses. God wants us to seek to look at it through the eyes of Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ suffered a severe beating with whips ripping his flesh off of his skin because of his love for the church. We find in Philippians 1:29 (NIV) 29 For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him. Most of us do not know what it means to suffer for the cause of Christ.
We complain about suffering having to sing the same chorus five times instead of two. We have brothers and sisters in Syria whose churches have been burned to the ground, and they have fled with only their lives because of their faithfulness to Jesus Christ.
We complain about the service being 15 minutes too long. We have brothers and sisters in Nigeria being blown up by suicide bombers while leaving the church services, and yet they still come to worship and we complain about how many people are walking in the service. If we’re going to complain, let’s complain about not getting enough people saved, and asking the question what can I do to make it happen. Jesus died and God raised Him from the dead for the specific purpose of us bringing others into the kingdom of God. We need to make known the real God of the Bible, and not the little god of our preferences.
Stephen was a man in the bible who knew God. One day he preached a powerful sermon that began with Abraham and traveled down history all the way to Jesus. When he told the crowd, you are the ones that betrayed Jesus and murdered him, they got furious.
Stephen was so full of the Holy Spirit, in the middle of the sermon, he looked up and saw the risen Jesus Christ standing at the right of God.” When he told people what he had seen, they grabbed him, took him out of the city and stoned him to death. They needed somebody to look after their coats as they were dragging Stephen out, after all they didn’t want to get them dirty or bloody, so they laid them at the feet of a young man named Saul.
Saul is thinking, Stephen got exactly what he deserved. Saul was happy to watch over the coats for free. Saul was a very religious man. He was a Pharisee. Somebody the whole community looked up to with great respect and admiration. They thought for sure Saul was about as close to God as you can get in terms of living a holy life.
Saul was so sure he saw Stephen and Jesus through the eyes of God, that he didn’t bother listening to the truth of what Stephen was preaching. Saul hated the followers of Jesus Christ, and because he hated them, Saul created in his mind a god who hated them as well.
He sincerely believed that God had called him to get rid of every follower of Jesus Christ. They should either be killed or thrown into prison until they no longer believed. If it came to a vote, he voted for them to be killed. It wasn’t enough to get rid of the believers in Jerusalem; Saul got permission to find believers who had fled the country, to bring them back to Jerusalem as prisoners. Damascus, where he was going to hunt for them was 175 miles away. This man was convinced he was doing God’s will, and that God had called him to do it.
Saul was a one man ISIS machine in his hunt for Christians. He thought he knew God. But he didn’t. There are many people in the church who think they know God, but they don’t. Like Saul they know a god they have created. We are all continually susceptible to rejecting the God who is, and coming up with a god who supports our point of view at the moment.
Jesus finally got to the point of looking at Saul and saying “ this boy has no idea who he is really messing with.” Saul sincerely believed that Jesus had either been a misguided fool or a deliberate liar, phony or fake. But it didn’t matter either way, because he also believed that Jesus was dead in some grave, some where, with his body having been stolen by the disciples.
Saul is no doubt thinking of the terror he is bringing to the followers of Christ in the city Damascus. No doubt word has already reached the Christian community that Saul is on his way. Some of them have packed their bags and left. Others are probably praying, Lord, do something before he gets here. What would you have done? He wants to make you march 175 miles to either prison or your death? That’s further away than Columbus.
Jesus decided enough is enough. How many of you know, when Jesus says its enough, its about to be over. Outside the city of Damascus at about 12 noon, the sun was high in the sky. But then all of a sudden another light, brighter than the sun surrounded Saul and it scared the daylights out of him. He immediately fell to the ground. I believe that bright light was part of the glory that surrounds the presence of Jesus Christ.
All of a sudden, Saul hears this voice “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me.” Can you imagine how frightening that must have been? Suppose God called your name twice and asked you the question “why are you persecuting me?”
Do we ever consider the possibility that we might be persecuting God? Well we saw earlier how we, can dishonor God by giving him less than our best. Why should it surprise us that it is possible to persecute God?
Then to hear the words “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” How many of you know, those are not the words that Saul wanted to hear. I can see him thinking, “You mean the Jesus, that Stephen was talking about.
The Jesus that I thought was a phony dead man hidden in somebody’s grave.” The Jesus that people were calling out to when I voted to put them to death. If you were Saul, how many of you would be thinking, I am in a whole lot of trouble. I thought I knew God, but I really didn’t.
Saul has just found out, that it does not matter what we may believe about Jesus, it does not stop Jesus from being the resurrected Son of God. Jesus makes a very strong theological point when he says, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” Jesus is united to the body of Christ. If you are attacking a member of the body of Christ, you are attacking Jesus. Jesus makes it clear, that whatever we do to each other in the body of Christ, we are doing to Jesus.
This is why it is so important to have love in our relationships with each other. You can’t abuse your wife, or your husband, or your child or your parents, or your pastors or your parishioners without abusing the body of Christ. If we can do it, and see no need for repentance, it is because we do not truly know God.
Jesus asks us again and calls us by name, “why are you persecuting me.” It is not logical nor spiritual for a church to be made up of people who are dishonoring God to think the church will prosper. It is not logical nor spiritual for a church which persecutes Jesus to believe that Jesus will in turn bless that church.
Jesus did not ask Saul the question, simply to get information from Saul. He asked Saul the question, to get Saul to change. When Saul is telling the story in Acts 22, when Jesus, says “I am Jesus who you are persecuting” Saul does not say, “well show me a sign so that I can know its really you.” Instead Saul said, “What shall I do Lord.”
In those five words Saul got saved. He immediately placed himself under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. He recognized Jesus as Lord. When God reveals to us our actions toward or our words against another person are actually against Jesus, do we repent and get back under the Lordship of Jesus Christ or do we choose not to know God.
Notice the grace of Jesus. He doesn’t remind Saul of all the wrong and the evil Saul has done. Jesus has a call on Saul’s life and he tells him, “Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”
Saul is the only one in the group who knows He’s been called by God. The other men with him saw the light and heard a voice, but had no idea what the voice had said. When the light disappeared, Saul got up from the ground and the light had left him blind. The men had to lead him by the hand into the city. He was blind for 3 days before the Christian Annaias laid his hands on him and restored his sight.
Don’t let God have to strike you with blindness or something else to get you to stop persecuting Jesus. There may be something painful in your life that’s not going anywhere until you like Saul decide to make a change.
Even when we are on a path in which we do not know God, God is still calling us into the kingdom. This same Saul is going to have his name changed to Paul. He will become one of the greatest winner of souls for Christ that the world will have known. He will write nearly half the books of the New Testament. He is going to know what it is to suffer. He will be beaten with rods, shipwrecked, go without food, and almost robbed because of following Christ.
He will have his head cut off, rather than deny Jesus Christ. It all began with a willingness to change, the moment he discovered who Jesus really was. Just as Jesus knew Saul, Jesus knows each of us today. Do we know Jesus as our own savior today? Are we persecuting Jesus in any way today? Are we bold enough to ask, “what would you have me to do Lord? Have you chosen to rise and go into the city to report for duty?
John’s gospel tells us John 3:35-36 (NIV) 35 The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands. 36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him."
Our entire series has pointed to the fact that God is calling you to believe in His Son, because the mission he has for you is to make known that God wants people to know Him. God wants them to be in a relationship with Him. That can only happen through faith in Jesus Christ.
