Acts 26:1-23

down here and make sure that everybody's able to join us live online let's go ahead and make sure we're going to going live everywhere oh that's why you always check that brian okay give it one second one stream is still waiting to pop up and so we were actually in louisville this week and uh so we were at the t4g conference and uh this is a really good time to be encouraged by the lord and the saints there and so this last year it happened so it was a it's purposely meant to be kind of a vanilla reformed conference you know that there's just broadly reformed so everyone from uh al muller to sinclair ferguson to mark dever to ligand duncan it's gotten a lot of flack in different years but it was a big blessing for us to be able to go there all right and so i tried to do this devotion with you on monday before we headed out to t4g and well that didn't work uh the the audio didn't come through and i'm sorry about that so we're back home and it's so good to be back with you this morning good morning welcome to coffee and devotions that's where every day you and i we get together we get into god's word and we grow in our love for the lord together and this year 2022 we'll go from the book of acts to the book of philemon and today it's a wonderful passage now we go ahead and pray and we'll get into our bibles lord we thank you so much for this day we thank you that you are a sovereign god who loves us so much and we pray that as we read your word this morning that you would be with us that you would be teaching us that we would follow after you in jesus name amen jesus name amen okay here we go we are acts chapter 26 acts chapter 26 and let me see what did i say we were going to be doing yeah verses 1 through 23 so acts chapter 26 verses 1 through 23 here we go then agrippa said to paul you are permitted to speak for yourself so paul stretched out his hand and answered for himself i think myself happy king agrippa why because today you have answers i shall answer for myself before you concerning all the things which i am accused by the jews especially because you are an expert in all customs and questions which have to do with the jews therefore i beg you to hear me patiently my manner of life from my youth which was spent from the beginning among my own nation at jerusalem all the jews know they knew me from the first if they were willing to testify that according to the strictest sect of our religion i lived a pharisee and now i stand and am judged for the hope of the promise made by god to our fathers to this promise our twelve tribes earnestly served god night and day hoping to attain for this hope's sake king agrippa i am accused by the jews why should it be though why should it be thought incredible by you that god raises from the dead indeed i myself thought i must do many things contrary to the name of jesus of nazareth this i also did in jerusalem and many of the saints i shut up in prison having received authority from the chief priests and when they were put to death i cast my vote against them and i punished them often in every synagogue and compelled them to blaspheme and being exceedingly enraged against them i persecuted them even to foreign cities while thus occupied i journeyed to damascus with authority and commission from the chief priests at midday o king along the road i saw a light from heaven brighter than the sun shining around me and those who journeyed with me and when we all had fallen to the ground i heard a voice speaking to me and saying in the hebrew language saul saul why are you persecuting me is it hard for you to kick against the gods so i said who are you lord and he said i am jesus whom you are persecuting but rise and stand on your feet for i have appeared to you for this purpose to make you a minister and a witness both of the things which have been which have which you have seen and the things which i will rev yet reveal to you i will deliver you from the jewish people as well as from the gentiles to whom i now send you to open their eyes in order to turn them from darkness to light and from the power of satan to god that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in meme therefore king agrippa i was not disobedient to the heavenly vision but i declared first to those in damascus and in jerusalem and through all the region of judea and then to the gentiles that they should repent turn to god and do works befitting repentance for these reasons the jews seized me in the temple and tried to kill me therefore having obtained help from god to this day i stand witnessing both the small and great saying no other things than those which the prophets and moses said would come that the christ would suffer that he would be the first to raise from the dead and would proclaim light to the jewish people and to the gentiles now as he thus made his defense festus said with a loud voice paul you are beside yourself much learning is driving you mad but he said i am not mad most noble festus but i speak the words of truth and reason for the king whom i know whom i also speak freely knows these things and i am convinced that none of these things escape his attention since this was done not in a corner king agrippa do you believe the prophets i know you do believe then agrippa said to paul you almost persuade me persuade me to become a christian and paul said i would to god that not only you but also all who hear me today might become both almost and altogether such as i am except for these chains when he had said these things the king stood up as well as the governor and bernice and those who sat with them and when they had gone aside they talked amongst themselves saying this man is doing nothing deserving of death or chains then king agrippa said to festus this man might have been set free if he had not appealed to caesar wow what an incredible chapter we need to ask ourselves hey what is this about b what's the best verse to summarize this and c what are we called to do in response to these words so what is this about well remember that king agrippa is that king who was raised in the roman court he was actually at claudius's court and he is given to be the king in the area of judea well not so much today but in the area of galilee and up in the north but he is also the one who handles the garments for the high priest on yom kippur he knows what's going on in the jewish world and so he's brought in as a counselor paul is giving his testimony here not to be condemned or not condemned to figure out why he's being sent to rome at all and so there's a big huge show of pomp and circumstance where agrippa and bernice's sister come in and all the important people come in and they sit down and they allow paul to talk and paul says he's happy he's blessed he's he's glad that agrippa is going to hear him why because he knows the things of the jews he's keenly aware tuned in to what the jewish people believe and think not like festus who's brand new on the job he doesn't know what's going on grip agrippa knows and so he makes us appeal to him he says i beg you to hear me patiently and so he gives his his credentials he talks about how he was a good jew and raised from his childhood and a faithful pharisee and we think of passages like philippians where he talks about you know being a hebrew of the hebrews of you know the tribe of benjamin's circumcised on the eighth day as to the law of pharisee right he he lived this faithful life but why was he in chains because he believed in the resurrection of the dead and so he says now i stand to be judged for the hope of the promise made by god to our fathers he says that the twelve tribes earnestly served god night and day trying to attain these things for the for this hope say king agrippa i am accused by the jews and then verse 8 why should it be thought incredible by you that god raises the dead that god would make someone alive and specifically christ see at the heart at the crux at the middle at the core of paul's theology as christ and him crucified is him raised from the dead the resurrection is the crux of the matter for paul it wasn't just him using this in the sanhedrin to pit the sadducees and the pharisees against each other but it really was at the core of christian doctrine and so here saying this is why he's he's being chained and arrested and then he says you know i look i was a persecutor of the of the nazarenes i was a persecutor of the way what does he say in verse 12. oh no sorry verse 11 being exceedingly enraged against them i persecuted them even to the foreign cities paul hated christians he wanted them dead and then he talks about when he's going to damascus and there the glory of christ blinds him he's there in the middle of the day he's there when the sun is at its brightest and a brighter light than the sun blinds him saul saul why are you persecuting me is it easy to kick against the goads he this is the lord jesus christ arresting paul and here we actually get more of the story than we had gotten in somewhere like acts 9. when he says i am jesus whom you are persecuting but rise and stand on your feet for i have appeared to you for this purpose to make you a minister and a witness both of the things which you have seen and the things which i will yet reveal to you i will deliver you from the jewish people as well as the gentiles to whom i now send you to open why is jesus going to send paul to the jews and to the gentiles why is he going to do this the purpose of that at verse 18 to open their eyes in order that they might that you may turn them from darkness to light and from the power of satan to god that they may receive forgiveness of sins and inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in me the good news of jesus christ the message that paul was going to preach to them was going to be jesus christ and him crucified that people could repent of their sins turn and follow jesus christ that they could be be transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light that they can be taken from the cl the clutches of satan and brought into the glorious kingdom of god that they might receive the inheritance of the saints and how do they do that by faith in me how are you made holy by faith in christ how are you taken out of the kingdom of darkness and brought into his kingdom of light by faith in christ how are you taken out of the clutches of satan and brought into the family of god by faith in christ do you confess your sins do you believe that god raised jesus christ from the dead do you cling on to christ by faith this is the heart of the issue does the resurrection of jesus christ show in your life is it real well then he says that therefore king agrippa he says he's he's he's done this right verse 19. i was not disobedient to the heavenly vision jesus christ himself had commissioned paul to be an apostle he's given him a commission and so he's going to go do it so he says he declared into damascus and then he went down to jerusalem and then throughout all judea and then to the gentiles this is exactly what we've read already in paul's missionary journeys that they should repent turn to god and do works befitting repentance and so he says right this is what this is the message that he's preached repent and do good works in keeping with repentance this is the beauty of the christian gospel notice they weren't made christians by their repenting per se they weren't made christians by making sure they pursued holiness first no no out of their faith in christ comes good works it's to be expected there are necessary things to show that we are christians but they aren't our good works aren't the foundations for it for these reasons the jews seized me in the temple and tried to kill me and so that's what he's trying to say right they didn't try to arrest me because i brought in i brought in a gentile because they knew at this point that wasn't true that was the original reason why paul was arrested and saying that's not why i'm here they're trying to kill me because i believe in jesus christ because i hold to the resurrection of the dead but he says this is what's been taught in all the old testament that the christ would suffer and he would be the first to rise again from the dead and would proclaim light to the jewish people and to the gentiles now it's at this point that festus is like oh dude you're outside your mind right you're so smart you're crazy your great learning has made you mad he said i'm not mad speaking reasonable things i'm telling the truth and then he looks he turns and he looks king agrippa in the eyes and he's like you know the prophets you know the law you know these things don't you a girl i know that you believe the prophets and we don't have the tone necessarily we have to somewhat guess at the tone but i think that agrippa is kind of walking a line here right if he doesn't believe he can't say well i don't believe the prophets because he's going to the jews are going to revolt against him but if he says yeah i think that you're right well then what's he going to do with a high priest he's really he's got a hard thing here right so he's responsive you almost or you in short persuade me to become a christian oh come on you got to do better than that paul and then they get up and agrippa and festus and bernice and others are talking and you know there's there's nothing to for him to be put to death for he's an innocent man but he's appealed to caesar and because he's appealed to caesar to caesar he must go well that's that's a huge passage uh in my bible i'm just gonna say i have underlined verse 23. i have a lot underlying but uh verse 23 verse 20 as well as uh we'll say verse 10. what would you underline in your bible lastly let's let's wrap this up with c calling what are what are you called to do what am i called to do once we read these words how does it apply to our lives do you believe that jesus christ has been raised from the dead do you know the power of his resurrection do you have the gift of holiness is god sanctifying you is god taking out sins of your life as are those things that you once found found pleasure in have they become a savior of death to you that you don't want your gluttony that you don't want your drunkenness that you don't want your lust that you don't want your hatred that you don't want your bitterness that you don't want your your sexual immorality your witchcraft idolatry those things are i don't want those things do you want christ do you love christ are you turning from your sins and turning to god you recognize that you have been saved by grace through faith and that it's not of yourself it's a gift of god and you're not boasting or bragging about that but that you are keeping you are doing now good works and keeping with repentance because you know that you love god is the spirit of god in you do you confess that jesus christ is lord and believe in your heart that god raised him from the dead cling to christ brother cling to christ sister love him serve him enjoy him forever let's pray father we thank you we thank you for what a blessing it is to know jesus christ and him crucified and him raised from the dead lord we pray father we pray that you would be watching over us and care for us lord i pray for those who are struggling with their faith lord i pray that you would give us assurance of salvation and that you might spur us on to deeper levels of holiness and love for you please would give us opportunities even this week to do like paul and to profess our faith in jesus christ lord we pray that you would watch over us the rest of this day in jesus name amen may the lord bless you may you walk in the joy and peace of jesus christ and i'll see you later bye [Music] thanks for listening to this week's message from god's word for you a ministry of sharon rp church in rural southeast iowa we pray that the message would be used by god to transform your faith in your life this week if you'd like to get more information about us feel free to go to the website sharonrpc.org we'd love to invite you to worship with us our worship time is 10 a.m every sunday at 25 204 160th avenue morning sun iowa 526-40 may god richly bless you this week [Music]