The Gospel Changes Lives - But, At Times, Not Our Minds - Acts 9-10

Acts 9:21-22 (ESV)

And all who heard him were amazed and said, “Is not this the man who made havoc in Jerusalem of those who called upon this name? And has he not come here for this purpose, to bring them bound before the chief priests?” But Saul increased all the more in strength, and confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus was the Christ.

Do we allow others to change as a result of the Spirit of God working in their lives?  It is easy to believe in the power of the gospel while at the same time doubt when someone is changed by it.  That is what we have in the above passage.  Paul is miraculously saved by the gospel and then starts acting like one of the Apostles (and, indeed, will soon be called as on of them).   Yet, as he acts out his faith those around are skeptical that God can change a man like Paul.   We need to make sure we do not doubt the power of the gospel to change the lives even of the most wicked men.   It is easy for us to believe the gospel but not allow others to be changed by it.    They wanted to keep Paul in a box.  Look what will shortly be written by Luker, the writer of Acts:

Acts 9:26-27 (ESV)

And when he had come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join the disciples. And they were all afraid of him, for they did not believe that he was a disciple. But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles and declared to them how on the road he had seen the Lord, who spoke to him, and how at Damascus he had preached boldly in the name of Jesus.

Oh how easy it is to believe that Jesus Christ changes lives and then not let a life be changed right in front of us.  

God Uses Even the Wicked For His Glory - Habakkuk

Habakkuk 1:12-13 (ESV)

Habakkuk’s Second Complaint

Are you not from everlasting,

O LORD my God, my Holy One?

We shall not die.

O LORD, you have ordained them as a judgment,

and you, O Rock, have established them for reproof.

You who are of purer eyes than to see evil

and cannot look at wrong,

why do you idly look at traitors

and remain silent when the wicked swallows up

the man more righteous than he?

Habakkuk is a prophet with a few complaints about how God is conducting His business.   In the previous verses we read that God’s answer to the wickedness in Habakkuk’s nation was to send the Chaldeans nation to punish them.   The Chaldeans are not nice people.  In fact in Job 1, they are the people Satan used to destroy Job.   They are very wicked.   This is where Habakkuk has a problem.   He simply asks in this complaint toward God, “How can you use a people more wicked than his own nation to punish his nation.   This seems like a logical argument.   

What Habakkuk doesn’t realize is that God rose up the Chaldeans and allowed their wickedness for this very purpose.   God chose the nation of Israel for Himself.  They were turning their back on their Father, Yahweh.   God requires more from His people than He does from those who come to power only because they are wicked.  God does use wickedness in this world to be a tool to correct His people.  God does not create the wicked.   They are just a people absent God’s grace.   But God will move these people into His service to correct and discipline His children.  Note what the prophet Isaiah says about God and how He rises up wicked men to do His work:

Isaiah 45:5-7 (ESV)

I am the LORD, and there is no other,

besides me there is no God;

I equip you, though you do not know me,

that people may know, from the rising of the sun

and from the west, that there is none besides me;

I am the LORD, and there is no other.

I form light and create darkness;

I make well-being and create calamity;

I am the LORD, who does all these things.

God will and does use even the wicked in this world for His ultimate glory.   

I Said In My Heart - Ecclesiastes 1-2

Ecclesiastes 1:16 (ESV)

I said in my heart, “I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me, and my heart has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.”

Six times in the book of Ecclesiastes Solomon makes the statement, “I said in my heart.”   Above is one and here are the other five:

Ecclesiastes 2:1 (ESV)

The Vanity of Self-Indulgence

I said in my heart, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure; enjoy yourself.” But behold, this also was vanity.

Ecclesiastes 2:15 (ESV)

Then I said in my heart, “What happens to the fool will happen to me also. Why then have I been so very wise?” And I said in my heart that this also is vanity.

Ecclesiastes 3:17 (ESV)

I said in my heart, God will judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time for every matter and for every work.

Ecclesiastes 3:18 (ESV)

I said in my heart with regard to the children of man that God is testing them that they may see that they themselves are but beasts.

The heart in Hebrew language is not referring to the emotional seat of life, as in Western philosophy and psychology.  It is also including the act of reasoning.  What Solomon is saying it I am pearling into life and trying to reason out what it all means.   The entire book of Ecclesiastes is centered around this thought.   One the reasons why Satan may be having this world (of which he is the prince) move so fast is so that it prevents us from pondering, meditating, or wondering and musing about life.   Solomon is the richest and most powerful man on the planet at this time.   He is taking time to say in his heart, “What is all this about?”  It would do well for us all to take a moment and think about that thought.   The world moves so fast and so violet we have little time to pause to contemplate about life.   That is not what God wants us to do.  He wants us to pause and think and about who He is and how we fit into His plan for His kingdom.  But we get so caught up in our own that we don’t take a moment to say, “I said in my heart ...!” 

Look to God - He Provides - Psalms 122-124

Psalms 123:2 (ESV)

Behold, as the eyes of servants

look to the hand of their master,

as the eyes of a maidservant

to the hand of her mistress,

so our eyes look to the LORD our God,

till he has mercy upon us.

In Psalm 123 verses one and two the writer says his eyes are looking toward God as a servant looks toward their master.  This is not a look of fear, or a submissive look.  This is a look of hope and assurance that God is there to take care of us.  We can lift our eyes to our friends for having needs met.   But we are not assured our needs will be met by our friends.  We can lift our eyes toward our government.  But we are not assured our needs will be met by the government.   We can even lift up our eyes to the church, but we are not guaranteed even our church will meet our needs.   We look to God because He will always meet our needs.  Now He might meet our needs via friends, family, government and/or church.   He might supernaturally meet our needs.   We might now see how, but we can see that He does.  

What Does Bad Leadership Look Like - 2 Chronicles 25-28

2 Chronicles 28:1-4 (ESV)

Ahaz Reigns in Judah

Ahaz was twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. And he did not do what was right in the eyes of the LORD, as his father David had done, but he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel. He even made metal images for the Baals, and he made offerings in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom and burned his sons as an offering, according to the abominations of the nations whom the LORD drove out before the people of Israel. And he sacrificed and made offerings on the high places and on the hills and under every green tree.

Have you ever wondered what it looks like when a leader turns away from God and rejects God?   You can see above how it starts.   Notice at the end of Ahaz’s life what it ends up to be:

2 Chronicles 28:22-27 (ESV)

Ahaz’s Idolatry

In the time of his distress he became yet more faithless to the LORD—this same King Ahaz. For he sacrificed to the gods of Damascus that had defeated him and said, “Because the gods of the kings of Syria helped them, I will sacrifice to them that they may help me.” But they were the ruin of him and of all Israel. And Ahaz gathered together the vessels of the house of God and cut in pieces the vessels of the house of God, and he shut up the doors of the house of the LORD, and he made himself altars in every corner of Jerusalem. In every city of Judah he made high places to make offerings to other gods, provoking to anger the LORD, the God of his fathers. Now the rest of his acts and all his ways, from first to last, behold, they are written in the Book of the Kings of Judah and Israel. And Ahaz slept with his fathers, and they buried him in the city, in Jerusalem, for they did not bring him into the tombs of the kings of Israel.

This king was so bad they didn’t even let him be buried with the proceeding kings.   This is what happens when you reject God’s word and refuse to submit to God.  

Obey and Teach God’s Word - Deuteronomy 4-6

Deuteronomy 6:5-9 (ESV)

You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

Moses is writing to the second generation of Israelites who have wondered in the desert.  The first group failed to obey God and have faith He could bring them into the promised land.   That generation all passed away and only Moses, Joshua and Caleb would remain.   Moses, too, however, would not make it into the promised land.  The reason they all missed was because of disobedience.   This is why Moses is writing the above words.  He is fearful that this generation will repeat the same mistake and disobey.   To combat that he prescribes the following:

1. Make sure that all we have in our hearts and lives and minds and soul is our love for God.   

2. Make sure we teach God’s word to our children, the next generation.   The one sure way the next generation will fail is to not know God’s word.   

3. Write God’s word on our hands, our body, our gates and our doors.   Having God’s word in front of us helps us to make sure we follow God’s word.  

This theme of obeying God’s word is throughout Scripture.    Moses states it hear and the Apostle John ends the Bible the same way:

Revelation 1:3 (ESV)

Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near.

Don’t Carry A Backpack of Rocks - Hebrews 11-13

Hebrews 12:1 (ESV)

Jesus, Founder and Perfecter of Our Faith

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,

When we run a race we don’t want to carry a backpack full of rocks.  We want to have the least amount of restrictions as we navigate the terrine.    This is the image of the above verse.  The readers would be familiar with this as the Greek’s Olympic Games were well known.   Runners would strip to barely nothing to lose all weight that might hold them back.   The fans in the stands and along the way would cheer them on to victory.    

This is the vision we have of the Christian life.  The witnesses in the above verse is the the Greek word for our English word, martyrs.    We are surrounded by those who have gone before us and given their lives for our faith (Hebrews 11).   They watch as we lay aside both the weight and the sin which clings so closely.   The truth the author is making is that their are two things that hold us back from running a good race of faith:

1. There are weights that cling to us.  These are not sins, as the writer makes a distinction between the two.  These weights are things that slow us down but are necessarily sins.   Things like too much social media scrolling.  Things like too much of a good thing that might be not be sin but slows my walk with Jesus. 

2. There are sins that certainly hold us back on our walk with Him.  These are things we knowingly are doing that offend a holy and righteous God.   

We can’t run with endurance if we are actively holding onto things that slow us down.  We will eventually tire from fatigue and a lack of focus.    We will not run, we will barely walk.