Sermon Tone Analysis

Acts Series #16

Back to the Beginning:

When Church Was Church

*A Crisis Of Belief*

*Acts 9:1-19*

 

In his Best Selling Bible Study and Book, /"Experiencing God"/, Dr. Henry Blackaby taught that

 

1) God is Always at Work Around Us

2) God Pursues a Love Relationship with Us

 

3) God Invites Us to Join him in his Work

 

and that

 

5) God's invitation … leads you to a Crisis of Belief that requires Faith and Action

 

 

Heb 11:6 /Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him/

 

Dr.

Blackaby says that

/1.

An Encounter with God requires faith/

/2.

Encounters with God are God-sized/

/3.

What you do in response to God's invitation reveals what you believe about God/

/4.

True faith requires action/

 

Our journey through Acts of Full of people facing a Crisis of Belief but we see it today in the story of Paul's Conversion

 

Read Acts 9:1-19

 

I see three pictures of this crisis of belief in the word today

 

I see an Unbelievable Message

An Unreachable Man

An Unwilling Witness …

 

Let's look at these 3 first

 

 

*1.

An Unbelievable Message*

The grace of God through Jesus Christ is an unbelievable message

 

It is Foolishness

 

1 Cor 1:18-28

?/18? //For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

?19?

For it is written: /

/"I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; /

/the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate."/

/?20? //Where is the wise man?

Where is the scholar?

Where is the philosopher of this age?

Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?

?21?

For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.

?22? Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, ?23? but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, ?24? but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

?25?

For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength.

/

/?26? //Brothers, think of what you were when you were called.

Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth.

?27?

But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.

?28?

He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things-and the things that are not-to nullify the things that are, /

When we hear the simplicity of the gospel, we want it to be harder than it is

 

We figure, as did Paul, that it must require MORE than simply to believe in and receive the gift of Grace through Christ

 

We want to embrace our own theology; whether it was the Law; the Old Covenant that Saul embraced, or it is our own theology of today

- "God will accept me if I'm a good person"

- "My good deeds will even things out"

- "It doesn't matter what I call 'God' it's all the same"

- "I'm not hurting anyone so I'm ok"

 

We have a tendency to fight for the right to believe whatever we want

 

So the Message of Jesus Christ brings us to a Crisis of Belief

 

Can I?

Should I?

What are the Ramifications if I abandon MY way for THE Way, Jesus?

Saul had never heard a message like the one Stephen and the Apostles preached

 

It MUST be blasphemy … but why SO Angry?

Because deep inside he thought this MIGHT be true …

 

And if it is … then everything in my life MUST change

 

Can I change my theology to embrace the Theology of Jesus Christ?

It is an unbelievable Message

 

1 Cor 2:14 /The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned/

 

 

/Grace//, Grace, God's Grace/

/Grace that will pardon and cleanse within/

/Grace//, Grace, God's Grace/

/Grace that is greater than all our sin/

 

 

 

The message of Jesus Christ is an Unbelievable Message and brings us to a Crisis of Belief

 

But in Saul from we find …

 

*2.

An Unreachable Man*

 

Saul held the coats and gave approval when they killed Stephen

There is NO WAY that HE would be reached by the Gospel of Grace found in Jesus Christ

 

So, Peter and Andrew, James and John, followed Jesus, but Saul?  Never.

They were unschooled unlearned men, but Saul?

Saul was a Pharisee, trained by the great Jewish Pharisee Gamalial.

He had devoted his whole life to the Law of Moses

 

He will never abandon this Doctrine for this new unbelievable message of Grace

 

Saul hates the Message,

he hates the followers of Jesus

he drags them to prison and has them beaten and killed

 

He is NOT reachable, so don't waste your time

 

Saul faced a Crisis of Belief

 

At Stephen's death,

at each imprisonment, he faced a crisis of belief,

 

do I believe in what I am doing?

On the Road to Damascus he was knocked down and blinded and spent 3 days in darkness … So Saul … NOW, what do you believe?

Maybe you are here today in the midst of a Crisis of Belief

 

Your system of beliefs have left you with greater doubts

 

Your wisdom has left you with more questions than answers

 

You have been plodding along trying to maintain your truth but it just doesn't feel right

 

You are at a crossroads, a Crisis of Belief, are you going to push ahead?

Are you going to turn right~/left or

Are you going to Turn around?

What if

Up is Down and Down is Up?

 

What if you are living upside down?

You may be making correct decisions based on faulty truth … and if so … you will NOT get what you expect

 

Saul was an unreachable man, maybe you have thought or others have thought that YOU were unreachable or someone you know is unreachable

 

 

But we also have a another guy here, someone we don't pay much attention to in this story usually

but someone I think WE relate to in the church more than anyone else and more than we would like to admit and that is Ananias