Sermon Tone Analysis

Bookmarks & Needs:

B: , , , Galatians 1:11-17

Housekeeping Stuff & Announcements:

Welcome guests, introduce yourself.

Thank band and kids ministry.

Invite guests to parlor after service.

Our children’s ministry leaves for camp at Inlow tomorrow.

Please keep them in your prayers this week.

We will pray together for them in just a moment.

Silver Seekers (senior adult fellowship and study) will be held on Tuesday morning at 10 am in Miller Hall.

Our student ministry, COMPLETED grades 6-12, will be attending BCNM Student Camp at Inlow June 24-28.

Spots are limited, and we only have 10 spots left.

Last day to register is NEXT SUNDAY, June 16.

Forms on the Get Connected table in the foyer, or online at our Student Ministry page at ehbc.org.

I wanted to remind everyone about something that you might not have noticed in the foyer.

We have a resource wall just around the corner from the ladies’ restroom.

On it, you can find magazines, devotionals, and other good stuff for you to take and use.

Swing by and check it out!

And now, we wanted to show you a little bit of what took place this week at VBS...

PHOTO MONTAGE

Opening

As you’ve already seen, this has been an exciting week here at Eastern Hills!

Vacation Bible School was a great time of study, worship, crafts, and fun.

I’m blessed to have been able to lead the opening and closing worship rallies every day, and to have been able to worship and share the truth of the Gospel with so many kids.

Our theme verse for VBS this week was .

We’re going to start there this morning before we pray:

Pray.

Pray for YLA Camp.

Pray.

Pray for YLA Camp.

So, as we’ve mentioned, our theme for VBS this week was “In the Wild,” and we looked at amazing encounters with Jesus that we find in the Bible.

It was a great theme, and we were able to look at several well-known passages together: things like the Walk to Emmaus, Jesus causing Peter to walk on water, and Jesus’ baptism.

In each lesson, the kids got to engage a place in the Bible where people had these amazing encounters, and learn from those encounters.

We also are in the middle of a sermon series called “Who’s Your One?” giving some serious thought and prayer to one person in our circle of influence with whom we can share the message of the Gospel of Jesus, so that this “one” can have hope.

I think that the VBS theme goes together really well with our “Who’s Your One?” sermon series.

See, the point of “Who’s Your One?” is that we as the people of God develop the habit, the discipline, of telling others about our own amazing encounter with Jesus, and about God’s offer to them of having their own amazing encounter with Him.

This morning, we’re going to look at one more amazing encounter with Jesus from the Bible, and connect that with both our VBS and “Who’s Your One?” themes.

In , we read the narrative of a man named Saul of Tarsus coming to faith through the calling of the Lord Jesus Christ on his life.

Before we read this passage, I need to make one thing clear, because I’ll probably accidentally switch back and forth between calling Saul “Saul” and calling him “Paul.”

I’m referring to the same guy.

He went by both names.

Saul was his Hebrew name (so the name he would have used around Jews), and Paul (or Paulus) was his Roman citizen first name.

He is better known as the Apostle Paul, who wrote most of the New Testament.

Let’s look at his amazing encounter with Jesus, and then we’ll skip a little bit for time’s sake:

acts 9:1-9

So Saul is on his way to arrest and likely cause the death of the disciples of Jesus in Damascus.

Jesus breaks into Saul’s life in a most dramatic fashion, calling out and asking, “Why are you persecuting Me?” Saul, justifiably perplexed, asks the right question: “Who are You, Lord?”

And he gets the answer: “I am Jesus, the One you are persecuting… get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”

So Saul is blind, but he gets up and is led by the hand into Damascus.

He prays and fasts for three days while he awaits being told what he must do.

Then a disciple of Jesus named Ananias comes and tells him that Jesus had sent him to Saul so that he could get his sight back and be filled with the Holy Spirit.

Saul’s conversion was right then:

Saul immediately begins to testify to who Jesus is.

Paul’s conversion summarized mostly.

acts 9:

How does Paul go into “confounding the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus is the Messiah?” Simple.

By his knowledge of the OT.

How does Saul go about “confounding the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus is the Messiah?”

By God using his knowledge of the Old Testament.

How can I say that it was Paul’s knowledge of the Old Testament that God used so that he could confound the Jews by proving that Jesus is the Messiah?

Because as we will see in a moment, Saul was a master of the Hebrew Scriptures (the Old Testament), and those Hebrew Scriptures foretold of the coming Jewish Messiah.

1) The Old Testament foretold the Messiah.

After Saul’s conversion to faith in Jesus, he took some time to go off and think through what he had always known: that the promised Messiah would come.

Philippians

Romans

Galatians 1:15-

galatians 1

galatians 1:13-2

Notice that Paul said that he had “advanced in Judaism beyond many of His contemporaries.”

Really quickly, remember that a few weeks ago, at the beginning of our “Who’s Your One?” series, I gave a little background on Jewish religious education in New Testament times.

Just a quick recap: Hebrew boys went to Torah school at age 5, and they memorized most of the first five books of the Bible during that time.

Then at 10, those who were capable to go on to deeper religious studies would continue, and those who were not would start learning the family business.

During this time, they would essentially memorize the entire Old Testament.

By the time they were 17, if they were going to go on in their religious studies, they would apply to be a rabbi’s talmid, or disciple.

There was a special type of rabbi, one who had special authority, called smicha.

There were not many of these rabbis.

Two that I named from Jesus’ time were Hillel and Gamaliel.

So what does this have to do with our friend Saul, and his understanding of the Old Testament?

We see something critical in his defense of himself before the crowd who wants to kill him in .

acts 22:3

Saul was the talmid of Gamaliel, a smicha rabbi held in the greatest of respect by the Hebrew people.

In order for him to have been accepted as one who would sit at the feet of Gamaliel (which was a euphemism which meant that he was Gamaliel’s disciple), he would have had to be exceedingly good with the Hebrew Scriptures (the Old Testament).

I could easily spend our entire time this morning on this first point.

There isn’t time this morning for me to go into all that I’ve found in the Old Testament that promises Messiah.

Nearly every time I read in the Old Testament, I find more that maybe I didn’t notice before.

So this morning, I’ll just point out two.

There are MANY more.

There’s a great book that I highly recommend called Evidence that Demands a Verdict by Josh McDowell if you would like to read more on this.

Throughout the Old Testament, God made promises that One would come who would reverse the effects of the Fall: when mankind ate of the forbidden fruit and, as managers of creation, broke it through their rebellion.

The first promise was immediately after the Fall had occurred:

Genesis

Here, God is speaking to the serpent, saying that the offspring of the woman would one day crush the head of the serpent, even as the serpent wounded this offspring’s heel.

Here, God is speaking to the serpent, saying that the offspring of the woman would one day crush the head of the serpent, even as the serpent wounded this offspring’s heel.

Fast forward to Isaiah’s time, and Isaiah predicts how this remedy for the Fall will take place:

This “offspring” of Eve would

Messiah would come and be “pierced” for our “rebellion.”

“Crushed” for our “iniquities.”

“Punished” for our “peace.”

The “healer” because of His “wounds.”

This is how Messiah would come and save: by being pierced, being crushed, and by being punished.