Acts 52: How God Works

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ACTS 22

I’ve always been a tinkerer. I’m pretty mechanical. I like taking things apart and putting them back together. I like to figure it out rather than read the directions.

So you can imagine my excitement when I figured out how God works to accomplish his will in the world. It’s through us.

When you look back in Scripture, God who created the earth and everything in it by his will… created humans and then chose to work through them. It’s amazing that he would be patient enough to use a bunch of ___ but he does. God seems to get pleasure from working in and through our lives.

I remember the first time I realized God was working in my life. I’ve shared the story before. Michelle and I were having problems in our marriage. Honestly I had no idea how to love and support my wife as her husband… maybe I did, but for some reason I wasn’t interested in actually doing what I knew. Then God spoke to me. I don’t know what he said - you would think i’d remember something so important - But I do remember that I spent all night reading His word. I had grown up in the church… going every time the doors were open… but that night in our living room was the moment I realized that He was what I needed in my life, my marriage, and fatherhood.

And from that night my life was changed. But that wasn’t the only time I experienced His presence.

There was the Confidence he gave me when I realized that He had a calling for me to live into.

There was Joy I had when God told me of His love for my kids when I was praying for them.

There was the peace he gave us when He asked us to move to a community we had never visited in order to serve him.

YOU

Can you look back and remember the times where God was working in your life?

He has been. Even if though we don’t always realize it, God’s grace is always working behind the scenes. Today I want us to think about those seasons of growth or the faith journeys in our lives.

I want us to see them for what they truly are, God’s hand at work throughout all of our lives… It’s God’s grace.

Grace is not just for a conversion moment but is ongoing, drawing us closer to God’s will throughout our life.

God’s grace finds us, frees us, and forms us into who He made us to be.

The amazing thing is everyone is on this path somewhere.

Maybe at step 0 where God is working to get their attention, from their he moves us awareness (Prevenient grace) to change (Justifying grace) to maturity in Christ (Sanctifying grace).

This is what we Wesleyan’s call refer to as the way of salvation. Jesus working to bring us to Himself and transform us into the people we were created to be, but unable to be without the Holy Spirits work in us. There’s a way we describe how God works in our lives when we tell others. We talk about before Christ, we talk about how we experienced HIM, and then how our life is different with HIM.

It’s our testimony. You may have never thought you had a testimony, but I want us all to see from today’s passage that we all have one.

This is the story that Paul describes in today’s passage in Acts 22

Acts 22:1–7 NIV84

1 “Brothers and fathers, listen now to my defense.” 2 When they heard him speak to them in Aramaic, they became very quiet. Then Paul said: 3 “I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city. Under Gamaliel I was thoroughly trained in the law of our fathers and was just as zealous for God as any of you are today. 4 I persecuted the followers of this Way to their death, arresting both men and women and throwing them into prison, 5 as also the high priest and all the Council can testify. I even obtained letters from them to their brothers in Damascus, and went there to bring these people as prisoners to Jerusalem to be punished. 6 “About noon as I came near Damascus, suddenly a bright light from heaven flashed around me. 7 I fell to the ground and heard a voice say to me, ‘Saul! Saul! Why do you persecute me?’

v1: Defense - Apologia - Apologetics… defense of the faith… no denying our experience of Christ.

Life before Christ

Paul is telling the story of his life before Christ. We know this, but those in the crowd probably don’t know it all. They may have forgotten that Paul used to be just as zealous for the law as they are.

Not only is he connecting with the crowd, Paul is showing us that he remembers his sin.

HE remembers his old life.

Who he used to be.

But God got his attention.

Now let me ask you. Why would God care enough about Paul to get his attention like this?

John tells us,

1 John 4:19 NIV84

19 We love because he first loved us.

Because he loves us.

He loves us so much that God decided to give us Jesus as our way back to Him… even though we weren’t looking for a way back to him.

John 6:44 NIV84

44 “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day.

Maybe you were like Paul or me… thinking that we had done enough… we were good enough… only to see our sin for what it really is. To show up in our lives and say it doesn’t need to be this way.

This is Paul’s experience of what Wesleyan's and Methodists call:

Life before Christ: Prevenient Grace

What we mean by prevenient is that it is about when Jesus shows up in our lives before we trust him… before we have a relationship with him … and he makes us aware of our sin… and his amazing love.

Psalm 100:3 “Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.”

He graces us with seeing our past for what it really was and seeing His love for us in spite of our sin. That’s what Paul is describing here:

Acts 22:6–11 NIV84

6 “About noon as I came near Damascus, suddenly a bright light from heaven flashed around me. 7 I fell to the ground and heard a voice say to me, ‘Saul! Saul! Why do you persecute me?’ 8 “ ‘Who are you, Lord?’ I asked. “ ‘I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting,’ he replied. 9 My companions saw the light, but they did not understand the voice of him who was speaking to me. 10 “ ‘What shall I do, Lord?’ I asked. “ ‘Get up,’ the Lord said, ‘and go into Damascus. There you will be told all that you have been assigned to do.’ 11 My companions led me by the hand into Damascus, because the brilliance of the light had blinded me.

Paul comes to faith in Christ.

Faith in Christ

This was Paul’s moment of Salvation. It may not read like we think of someone today having a dramatic transformation. Like an alcoholic throwing his bottles out… but it really is just that radical of a change.

Paul’s salvation is like mine… his eyes were open. He was doing the church thing… but for the wrong reasons. Jesus shows up and reminds him ITS ALL ABOUT ME.

In that moment we experience what John wrote:

John 3:3 NIV84

3 In reply Jesus declared, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.”

We are no longer an observer of faith, but we are now a participant in God’s work:

2 Corinthians 5:19 NLT

19 For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation.

Prevenient grace has brought us to this moment. and now we have a decision to respond. As Jesus said in Luke 9:23 “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”

It’s what we call Justifying Grace

Faith in Christ: Justifying Grace

Gal 2:20

For Paul, this moment of realizing God’s love for him while he was out rounding up Christians to have arrested - to hear the voice of Jesus, the one he was trying to stamp out, say I died for you… changed everything.

He would later write to the church in Rome:

Romans 5:8 NIV84

8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

And when we realize this our lives are changed as well.

This is where many of us who, if you are like me, get mixed up. We might say, well I don’t really can’t point to a time when I was saved.

We Methodists for years got away from the idea of being born again… our preachers didn’t preach it our teaching didn’t call people to it… what I can say is that our new family, the Global Methodist Church, apologetically invites people to be born again. To discover new life through surrendering our lives to Jesus.

Even though you may not have been encouraged by your pastor to see it as a being born again… you most likely can remember a time in your life when you said Jesus you are my savior. I trust you. I wan to live for you. It’ snot about me coming to church. Its not about being a good person because I don’t. It’s about you Jesus dying for me on the cross and my trusting in your death as a covering for me, trusting in your resurrection as proof of your promise that my death is defeated and my eternity has begun right now.

Every Christian, while they may not remember the time and the circumstances of that decision… we all made that decision at least once in their life.

I don’t know what it took to get you to see it, but God works through a variety of means to bring us to the place where we repent and begin to walk in fellowship with him. That’s justifying grace… we get there by prevenient grace… and the goal is for you and I to walk in the way of Jesus.

That's what we see Paul describing in the second half of the passage:

Acts 22:12–16 NIV84

12 “A man named Ananias came to see me. He was a devout observer of the law and highly respected by all the Jews living there. 13 He stood beside me and said, ‘Brother Saul, receive your sight!’ And at that very moment I was able to see him. 14 “Then he said: ‘The God of our fathers has chosen you to know his will and to see the Righteous One and to hear words from his mouth. 15 You will be his witness to all men of what you have seen and heard. 16 And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away, calling on his name.’

We see Paul here following Jesus in faith… he’s blind, led by his guard, to the place Jesus has sent him.

Following Christ in Faith

God works by grace in our lives in all sorts of ways to bring us to salvation and to lead us through life, but here are a few ways that Jesus has modeled for us as what we call special means of grace… sacraments.

Communion and Baptism. Both are ways we experience God in our lives. They aren’t just bread and juice or wine… Baptism isn’t just water.

In our practice of them, God becomes the essential element.

We are told every time we share the Lords Supper to do so in the name of Jesus in thanksgiving for what he has done. So that’s what we do on a regular basis.

Jesus called his followers to be baptized… you and your household… so that’s what we do… and once you are made clean by Jesus you are clean indeed.

Both means of grace, but different in practice. One we do over and over… the other only once.

They way we understand it Baptism for Christians - like circumcision for the Jews - is the initiates us into the faith, where Communion nourishes our faith as we feed on His grace.

That’s where we see Paul… going out to be baptized and enter into the fellowship.

Then in verse 17

Acts 22:17–21 NIV84

17 “When I returned to Jerusalem and was praying at the temple, I fell into a trance 18 and saw the Lord speaking. ‘Quick!’ he said to me. ‘Leave Jerusalem immediately, because they will not accept your testimony about me.’ 19 “ ‘Lord,’ I replied, ‘these men know that I went from one synagogue to another to imprison and beat those who believe in you. 20 And when the blood of your martyr Stephen was shed, I stood there giving my approval and guarding the clothes of those who were killing him.’ 21 “Then the Lord said to me, ‘Go; I will send you far away to the Gentiles.’ ”

Here we see God calling Paul to go… and we know Paul went.

In his obedience to God’s leading Paul’s faith is growing.

Growing in Christ

Spiritual growth happens when we walk out our faith. But it’s not soemthign I can do, or you can do on our own. But it’s in cooperation with God that our faith grows.

This is our life in Christ

Life in Christ

As we follow the Spirit’s leading, as we participate in spiritual disciplines, as we pray, read scripture, worship, serve… our faith grows as we walk in Christ.

We must consider how God has been working to lead us on the path he would have us obediently walk.

Paul is describing his life in Christ… it’s the work of Sanctifying Grace in and through him.

Life in Christ: Sanctifying Grace

What is Sanctifying Grace.

It’s God’s work that makes us holy, that transforms us into the people we were created to be as His children. It’s His work removing sin from our lives, making our labor to bring Him glory.

It is the grace through which we are being made holy… set apart for Him.

That’s what is happening to Paul in our story and that is what happens to us as we walk in obedience… God is purifying our hearts.

Jesus told a parable that really explains it in John 15, he said:

John 15:1–8 NIV84

1 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. 3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4 Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. 5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. 7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. 8 This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

God’s grace finds us, frees us, and forms us into who He made us to be… Now, what’s your story?

PRAYER

Father God, we thank You for the incredible ways Your grace moves through us. As we’ve seen in Paul’s life and recognize in our own, we are drawn, changed, and grown by Your hand. Thank you for showing us how we can share our faith, equip us now with the same boldness, trusting that our obedience is more important than the responses we get.

Lord, help us remember and share our stories of Your grace—how You’ve met us, transformed us, and walked with us. Give us boldness and joy to share this good news with others.

For those we know and love who have not yet received your justifying grace into their lives, we lift them to You now.

If anyone here is uncertain of their faith or has felt distant from God, I invite you in this moment to open your hearts and pray with me… jsut make this prayer your own. You may want to lift a hand to Jesus in this moment as a way to confidently step out in this moment.

Jesus, I acknowledge that I need You. I confess that my efforts to live life on my own terms isn’t working. Today, I surrender. I turn from my sin, my pride, and the things that have held me back. I believe that You died for me and rose again to give me new life. I place my trust in You as my Lord and Savior. Come into my heart, change me, and lead me as I live for you.

PAUSE

Lord, may each of us—whether we are taking our first steps of faith or walking with You for many years—help us to keep in step with You every day. Help us to see the people around us who need to hear of your grace. May our whole lives be a testimony to Your grace, love, and truth.

We ask all of this in the powerful name of Jesus, our Lord, Savior, and King.

Amen.