Today with Jeff Vines

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now we come to the Book of Acts in chapter nine,
where we read about the conversion of one of the
most influential men of world history, the Apostle Paul. And
the major reason I believe that this narrative is included
is to show us the characteristics of true conversion, so
that you can ask yourself, have I truly been converted?

(00:20):
Am I truly a Christ follower?

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Today?

Speaker 1 (00:23):
Today, Today, Today, with Jiffines, we are taking the Gospel
to the world.

Speaker 3 (00:28):
Pasta apologist and Bible teaching.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
One truth that will be delivered in love and compassion,
connecting every one person to all that God has promised.

Speaker 4 (00:38):
Them with every single friend.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
Today, today, today, Today, with Jeff Findes.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
This is today with Jeff Finds. My name is Aaron.
We'll continue in our series from the Book of Acts
about how a group of uneducated fishermen came to change
the course of world history. Pastor Jeff starts this message
by discussing the idea of having a faith that's alive,
not just inherited, but it's actually our own faith. As
he says, we all need a conversion experience, and we're

(01:27):
going to be looking at the conversion of Saul, who
later became Paul. Here's pastor Jeff. Now with today's message,
we'll start in Acts, chapter nine.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
We're in this incredible series in the Book of Acts,
and we're in Acts nine where we're taking a look
at the early Church and we're asking questions like, how
is it that these men, uneducated fishermen, tax collectors can
have a message that would set the world on fire,
that would take over the entire Roman Empire by.

Speaker 3 (02:09):
The third century.

Speaker 1 (02:11):
Now let me step off to the side here before
we get into this, Let's have a little come to
Jesus talk for a second.

Speaker 3 (02:16):
Can we is that? Okay?

Speaker 1 (02:19):
We have to be very very careful about becoming so
concerned about how the world looks at us that we
begin to be cowardice and what it is that Jesus
teaches what we believe. I'm all for being salt and
light in our world and our conversation being seasoned and

(02:41):
to reply gently and kindly. There's never a reason to
be unkind, never a reason to be unkind. But don't
make that synonymous with cowardice, where you won't speak up
what it is that God has given to us. At
some point, the real God is going to contradict you.
I mean, if God believes everything you do, and he

(03:04):
happens to agree with everything you.

Speaker 3 (03:06):
Agree with, then we've got a problem.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
Probably it's probably the God you've created in your own image,
not God at all. And someone has said if you
spend your entire life, if you live for people's acceptance,
you will die from their rejection. So understand that there
is a core part of the message of the Gospel
that will offend you. You will be offensive sometimes even

(03:28):
though you're not meaning to.

Speaker 3 (03:31):
We use the example a few years ago.

Speaker 1 (03:33):
If I get you a Dell Carnegie book and a
wait Watcher's book for Christmas, you can receive them, but
you have to admit that you're fat and obnoxious. So
sometimes the things Jesus says to you are offensive. He
tells you that you're a sinner, and there's no way
you can be saved, no way you can come to
the Father except through the Son, through the a tony

(03:54):
sacrifice of a savior. Now, the reason I say that
is because I'm afraid that sometimes you may misunderstand me.
We need to be kind, never a reason to be unkind.
But cowardice has the opposite effect of what we're really after.

Speaker 3 (04:08):
So you say, Pastor Jeff, why do you start like this?

Speaker 1 (04:10):
Because there are three types of people in this room
right now and hearing shot.

Speaker 3 (04:15):
Of my voice.

Speaker 1 (04:17):
There are those in the room and that are listening
that are truly converted, you have a relationship with Jesus.

Speaker 3 (04:24):
There are those in the room. Second who think they're
converted but are not. Now I don't know who they are.
And third, there are those who are seeking.

Speaker 1 (04:32):
They're not sure what all this Christianity stuff is about,
but they're here seeking. And by the way, welcome, Glad
you're here and you happen to be here on a
weekend that I'm a little bit more direct than I
usually am, but still welcome.

Speaker 3 (04:45):
Evidently, everything that glitters.

Speaker 1 (04:47):
Is not gold. Even Jesus said that in Matthew seven.
Not everyone who comes to me and says to me,
Lord Lord will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but only
the one who does the will of my Father, who's
in heaven. So that tells me it's possible to believe
that you're converted, but you're not. And that should be
calls to stop and think. Because there's this tiny little
thing at stake eternity. Where are you going to spend

(05:09):
the major part of the existence of your life. And
so now we come to the Book of Acts in
chapter nine, where we read about the conversion of one
of the most influential men of world history, the Apostle Paul.

Speaker 3 (05:20):
And the major reason I believe that this narrative.

Speaker 1 (05:23):
Is included is to show us the characteristics of true conversion,
so that you can ask yourself, have I truly been converted?

Speaker 3 (05:32):
Am I truly a Christ follower?

Speaker 1 (05:35):
So as we look at the story, we're in Acts nine,
but we also have to look at Acts twenty one
next twenty six, because as we do the entire story
of the conversion, we get piece by piece Paul's explanation
to a grip of what actually happened to him, and
then the actual occurrence in Acts nine.

Speaker 3 (05:50):
So do I have your attention?

Speaker 1 (05:53):
In my opinion, this is one of the most important
messages I've ever preached, and I need you to hear.

Speaker 3 (05:59):
But in order to hear, you've got to try hard
to hear.

Speaker 1 (06:02):
I believe when you bring a message like this, there
is an evil one who will try to distract you
and bring other thoughts into your mind.

Speaker 3 (06:08):
So here we have the apostle Paul, who is Saul.

Speaker 1 (06:11):
He's so aggressive in his trying to eliminate and exterminate
the Christians that he goes to the high priests and
gets a piece of paper that gives him permission to
go to Damascus into the synagogues, find these pesisky little Christians,
bind them, arrest them, and bring them back for execution.

Speaker 3 (06:29):
He receives the letter.

Speaker 1 (06:30):
He's on his way on the road to Damascus, and
this is what the Bible says happens to him. Suddenly
a light shone around him from heaven. Then he fell
to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, Saul, Saul,
why are you persecuting me?

Speaker 3 (06:41):
And he said, who are you? Lord?

Speaker 1 (06:44):
And then the Lord said, I am Jesus whom you
are persecuting. It is hard for you to kick against
the gods. So he, trembling and astonished, said Lord, what
do you want me to do? And the Lord said
to him, arise, go into the city and you'll be
told what you must do. And the men who journeyed
with him stood speechless, hearing a voice but seeing no one.
Then Saul arose from the ground, and when his eyes

(07:05):
were opened, he saw no one, but they led him
by the hand and brought him into Damascus. And he
was there three days without sight, and neither ate nor drained.
And so it is within this narrative I believe there
are common things that every Christian must experience if they
are truly converted. Now I don't usually ask you to
write things down, write things down.

Speaker 3 (07:27):
There are five of them.

Speaker 1 (07:29):
The first is this, it is essential that everyone be
converted everyone. Faith is not inherited from your mom or
your dad, or your grandparents, or your wife or your husband.
Neither is it automatic that you have faith just because
you attend church. Billy Sunday, one of the most famous
preachers ever, said that going to church no more makes
you a Christian than going.

Speaker 3 (07:48):
To a garage makes you a car.

Speaker 1 (07:52):
Paul was one of the most religious and faith filled
men you will ever know, and yet he needed converting.
And that's why we read his story in Acts nine,
as he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly alight from
heaven flashes. He falls down to the ground. He hears
a voice, saw Saul, why are you persecuting me? You
might say, Jeff, Jeff, why are you talking about this?

(08:13):
It's because I hear people all the time say this,
Just live a moral and decent life. That's all you
need to do. Just be a good person. Mishead again,
just live a moral and decent life. That's all you
need to do. Just be a good person. Well, nobody
lived a more moral and decent life than Paul Nobody.
He was part of the religious Judaizers who condensed all

(08:35):
the Law of Moses down to six hundred reams and
reams of paper about food laws and work laws and
people laws. He lived a good moral life and did
so almost flawlessly. In fact, this is his argument in
Philippians three, when he's defending himself to a bunch of
people who go to the synagogue. They are synagogue goers,

(08:55):
and Paul says to them, you think you're righteous? More
religious than me? He says, if if anyone else thinks
they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I
got more. And then he makes a list. I've been
circumcised on the eighth day. What does that prove that
his parents believed in the law. I'm of the people
of Israel, He's saying, I'm a true descendant of Abraham,
the God of Isaac. Abraham Isaac and Jacob. That's my God.

(09:17):
I'm of the tribe of Benjamin. You read the Old Testament,
you will discover the tribe of Benjamin were the first
to lead the armies of Israel out to battle after
the Old Benjamin, so Paul says, man I was even
the first one my family. They were the first one
on the fighting lines. I'm a Hebrew of Hebrews. I
still speak the Hebrew language. I've not let the or
allowed the Greek all Roman culture to influence me. In

(09:39):
regard to the law, I'm a pharisee.

Speaker 3 (09:40):
You know what that means. It means I am a
professional do gooder.

Speaker 1 (09:44):
As for Zil, I persecute the church, he says, they
don't come as sincere as I am. I am as
sincere as they come, and my belief leads to action.
And as for righteousness based on the law, I am faultless.

Speaker 3 (09:56):
In other words, he says.

Speaker 1 (09:57):
You looking for a religious person, I'm he nobody's more
religious than me. They say, wait a minute, Jeff, I
thought I heard you say that it's impossible to keep
the law perfectly. Well, it is because even if you
keep the letter, which you don't, you will violate the spirit.
But the Judaizers of which Saul was a member, who
became Paul, believed that you could. And they made this

(10:17):
long list of dos and donts, and if you can
just keep them, then you are secure in eternity and
you have a relationship with God. The letter was good enough.
Now you have to understand. If you and I were
in a room together, I may ask you what you
do for a living. You may say, well, I'm a carpenter,
I'm a lawyer, I'm a plumber. If you were to
ask Paul what he did, he would say, good, I'm

(10:40):
just a professional do gooder. My life twenty four hours
a day, I do good stuff. So not only was
he moral, he was religious. He was filled with faith.
He believed in God. He believed that God was real
and active and should be worshiped. He worshiped the God
of his father's Abraham Isaac Jacob in a real sense.
He believed that God was to be feared and adored.

(11:00):
He was super He was uber religious, yet he needed
to be converted. If he needed to be converted, so
do you, I say, by sir Jeff, why are you
going down this path? Because I hear people say this,
It doesn't matter what you believe, as long as you
believe it with all your heart, as long as you're sincere. Now,
do you realize how foolish that is? Do you think

(11:21):
Hitler was sincere? Do you think racists are sincere? Do
you think that there are religious people in our world
who kill others in the name of God, who strapped
bombs of their body and blow themselves up so that
they can take innocent lives? Do you think they're sincere?
Do you think there are people who honestly and sincerely
believe that if they kill you, then they will go
before Allah and in the presence of seventy two virgins,

(11:43):
I promise you they are sincere. If you think sincerity
makes you right with God, let me give you the
first clue. It's because you haven't been converted. I had
a neighbor in New Zealand. I shared my faith with
him for like three hours, and finally he looks at
me and this is his response.

Speaker 3 (12:03):
Hey, that's great, Jeff. If that works for you, good.
Do you know how insane that is? What if sacrificing.

Speaker 1 (12:10):
Children works for me? What if blowing up abortion clinics
works for me? What if strapping a bomb on my
body and blowing myself up and taking the lives of
innocent people works for me. Saul believed something with all
his heart, and he was wrong. It says in Actually
eight that godly men buried Stephen and mourned for him deeply.

Speaker 3 (12:32):
But Saul began to destroy the church.

Speaker 1 (12:34):
Going from house to house, he dragged off both men
and women and put them in prison. And I promise
you he did this because he sincerely believed that God
wanted him to.

Speaker 3 (12:44):
No, it's important we nail this down.

Speaker 1 (12:48):
Two skaters go out to have a skating trip on
the ice two. One skates on two inches, very fragile.
The other skates on six inches. The one that skates
on two inches says, Wow, saved and I'm gonna have
a great time. The one that states on six inches says, wow,
I'm very timid. I'm not sure this is gonna hold.
One lives, one dies. Which one dies the one who

(13:11):
was absolutely sure she was safe. It has nothing to
do with sincerity and everything to do with truth and fact.
Faith in the wrong object will not save you, no
matter how sincere.

Speaker 3 (13:26):
Paul was as religious as they.

Speaker 1 (13:28):
Come, he possessed far more faith than you and I
probably ever will. He was far more sincere and dedicated
to his cause than probably most of us will ever be.

Speaker 3 (13:38):
Yet he needed to be converted.

Speaker 1 (13:40):
Matthew eighteen three says assuredly, I say to you, unless
you are converted, you will by no means enter the
Kingdom of Heaven. Now, some of you in the room
right now are asking this question. What does it mean
to be converted? If you're asking that, I'm worried about you.
I'm worried. Sometimes I will ask people are you a Christian?
And they say, well, of course I am. I'm going
to church all my life. That's not what I ask you. Well,

(14:04):
of course i am. I'm Presbyterian. Of course I'm Methodist, Epescapalian,
I'm Lutheran. What do you mean? That's not what I
ask you. I ask you, have you ever been converted?
The pattern of conversion has witnessed in Paul's Conversion. First,
everyone must be converted, no matter how religious or faith
filled you are, no matter what your parents' believer taught you.

Speaker 3 (14:23):
There has to be a journey that has.

Speaker 1 (14:25):
Its climax, and conversion a time when you make a conscious,
intentional deliberate decision to walk away from your own life
and go to your new life, where if you were
to see both of them in eternity, you would know
this one compares in no way to this one.

Speaker 3 (14:41):
It's a newness of life. You don't just fade into faith.

Speaker 1 (14:45):
You cross a definitive line, and it's called conversion. Second,
true conversion requires an intellectual journey. You can't be converted
unless intellectually you begin to think. Now, hold on, conversion
is more more than the intellect, but it's not less.
The mind must be engaged. The intellect must affirm a

(15:06):
few things. You can't base your conversion on some experience
you had somewhere. There must be intellectual information with it.
You have to get to the point in your life
where you realize there's no salvation outside of Christ. That
he is who he said he was, that he died
on the cross for your sins, that he rose again,
that he defeated death, that he secured your place with God.

(15:28):
You must engage rationally to the Gospel and its message.
And if you never have, you've never been converted. Notice
the subtlety in this narrative. In X nine to three,
suddenly a light shone around him from heaven. Then he
fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, Saul, Saul,
why are you persecuting me?

Speaker 3 (15:46):
And he said, who are you? Lord?

Speaker 1 (15:48):
Then the Lord said, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. Now,
why is it that Saul and Paul say who are you?
Come on, if you walked out of here today and
this kind of experience happened to you about two hours later,
you're gonna say, what did that really happen? What just
happened to me? So Paul says, okay, who is this?

(16:11):
And he's told that it's Jesus, the one he's persecuting.

Speaker 3 (16:14):
Now. What I like about the narrative is that God.

Speaker 1 (16:17):
Knows that Saul is going to doubt this in a
few days, and God actually honors that. That's the problem
with supernatural experiences. They are supernatural, they're out of the natural,
So it's natural for you to say, did that just happen?
God understood that Paul would need intellectual confirmation, so he
gives Paul some solidifying instructions. In verse six, he says

(16:40):
Paul as he's trembling and astonished, and he says, Lord,
what do you want me to do, then the Lord
said to him, arise, going to the city, and you will.

Speaker 3 (16:46):
Be told what you must do.

Speaker 1 (16:47):
So God is working behind the scenes here to spring
from this supernatural experience to a more objective word of truth. Now,
the reason I stopped there is because vision is not enough.
Come on, folks, you can have some kind of vision
and think you had some bad lasagna the night before.

Speaker 3 (17:05):
There's got to be explanation to it.

Speaker 1 (17:07):
Otherwise you might think that your mind is playing tricks
on you, or that your friends are messing with you,
or that Steven Spielberg is somewhere.

Speaker 3 (17:13):
Back in the shadows. So what does God do?

Speaker 1 (17:16):
He confirms it by other witnesses who saw this thing happen,
which is important in Hebrew culture and the coroboration of
another that can only be explained by the working of
the hand of God. So let me explain what happens.
I won't read it word for word, and then I'll
read the last paragraph. As God is sending Paul to Damascus.
At the same time, Jesus has another disciple living in

(17:37):
Damascus called Antonius. So he gives Anonius a vision and
a dream zoo, and Anonia says here, I am Lord,
because he knows who's talking to him, And he says,
what do you want me to do? And Jesus says, Antonius,
I want you to get up, and I want you
to go to a street called Straight and I want
you to go into the house of Judas, and I
want you to ask for one named Saul of Tarsus,

(17:58):
because he's praying there right now now. And Jesus says, Anonius,
I've given him a vision. And in the new vision
I'm gonna give him, he's going to see a man
named Ananias coming to lay hands on him so he
can receive his sight.

Speaker 3 (18:11):
So, Anonius, it's important that you be there.

Speaker 1 (18:14):
And and I says, whoa nelly, I've heard about this guy.
He kills christ followers. In fact, he's gotten special permission
from the people right here in Damascus to bind and
arrest anybody who talks about the way about Christ.

Speaker 3 (18:30):
So are you sure you didn't get your wires crossed?

Speaker 1 (18:34):
And of course, God says to Antonius, just do what
I tell you to do.

Speaker 3 (18:37):
Go. He's a chosen vessel of mind.

Speaker 1 (18:39):
He's gonna bear my name before gentiles, kings and the
children of Israel. Now here's how that finishes, For I
will show him how many things he must suffer for
my namesake. Now, how would you like that to be
the inviding line for you to follow?

Speaker 3 (18:51):
Jesus? Right there? Come follow me. I want to show
you how much you.

Speaker 1 (18:54):
Get this soft for Huh. Those who've been truly converted,
say yes, say yes. And Anonius went his way and
entered the house, and laying his hands on him, he said,
brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on
the road as you came, had sent me that you
may receive your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.

(19:17):
Now immediately, the Bible says, there fell from his eyes
something like scales, and he received his side at once,
and he arose and was baptized. So God confirmed Saul's
experience by having Anonius, an outside agent, tell Paul what
happened to him, and he wasn't even actually there, which
is a confirmation of the supernatural event. Now I want

(19:39):
you to notice something. It's subtle, but it's important. After
that happened, Paul still not ready to go and preach
the gospel. Why he still doesn't have the objective truth
that he needs to explain his subjective experience. So verse twenty,
the first part says, Saul spent several days with the
disciples in Damascus. Why does he do that? Why does
he spend time with him there? Because he's being discipled.

(20:02):
They're helping him understand the intellectual, rational thought behind the
supernatural event and who Jesus actually is. And then finally,
in the second part of verse twenty, at once he
began to preach in the synagogues that Jesus is the
Son of God. That's the content of the gospel. But
it doesn't just mean that he's the son of God.
It means he's the only way to reach the Father

(20:22):
is through the Son. That the fundamental aspect of true
conversion is that you realize the only way to reach
God is through the atoning sacrifice of his Son. So,
if you're in the room right now and you're saying
unless you're I agree with that, I think there are
other ways the God. Let me tell you why. It's
because you haven't been converted. Christianity is more than thinking,

(20:45):
but it's not less. Now what do I mean by that? Well,
some of you became a Christian when you went to
youth camp and you had the hebgbis. You had some
kind of emotional experience and you felt good. Now, hey,
wait a minute, now this is good stuff. Felt something.
Your friends were getting baptized, they were coming to Jesus,
and you thought, man, I got to do this too,
and you legitimately felt something to moving to the hand

(21:06):
of God on you, and you ran ford and said
I do, I will, let's go, and you were baptized.

Speaker 3 (21:11):
And that's a good thing.

Speaker 1 (21:14):
Others of us, about ten percent of us in the room,
probably people like me and Versace down here and some
of the rest of you. Our journey had to be
more intellectual. We had questions and tentions we had to solve.
We had to solve this problem of God and pain
and suffering in heaven and hell, and.

Speaker 3 (21:30):
Who is Jesus?

Speaker 1 (21:31):
Can I trust the words of the scripture. We had
to solve those things first, and because we were able
to then, we had our experience later and continue to
have them today. But if you just have some kind
of supernatural experience without intellectual information, it may have just
been bad, Lasagna. There has to be an intellectual, rational thought.

Speaker 3 (21:53):
About who Jesus is.

Speaker 1 (21:54):
Some of you say, well, wait a minute, I disagree,
Pastor Jeff, I don't like where you're going with this.

Speaker 3 (21:57):
The Holy Spirit just that some people. I agree.

Speaker 1 (22:01):
But what did Jesus say about the Holy Spirit's primary role.

Speaker 3 (22:04):
It's in John sixteen. He says, I tell you the truth.

Speaker 1 (22:07):
It's good that I'm going away, because unless I do,
the advocate will not come.

Speaker 3 (22:11):
But if I go, I'll send him. Now what's his job?

Speaker 1 (22:13):
When he comes, he will prove the world to be
wrong about sin and rightousnesses and judgment. So when you're
truly converted, you make an intellectual decision about three things.
Because the Spirit is convincing you. Of these three things,
what are they? One sin? You can never be good
enough ever, no matter how good you are. All religions

(22:36):
say differently, if you work hard enough, pray long enough,
travel to this city, rub this stone, then you can
be accepted before God. The Gospel comes along and says,
when the Spirit of God comes into you, it opens
your eyes and you get it.

Speaker 3 (22:49):
You can never be religious enough.

Speaker 1 (22:52):
You have to depend on the grace of God on
the cross of Jesus Christ. So your idea about sin
totally changes. Besides that, it begins dawn on you wait
a minute. If there's another way to God other than
through the Cross, then one Jesus is a liar because
he said no one comes with the Father except through
the Son, and God is a masochist. If there's another
way rather than the all atoning, all sufficient sacrifice of Christ,

(23:16):
then God didn't need to do this. You learn about sin,
you come to rational conclusions about it, that we're all sinners.

Speaker 3 (23:22):
I am you are, we all are. You also have
your eyes open to righteousness.

Speaker 1 (23:26):
You know that you cannot achieve it on your own,
you can't be righteous. And finally, your eyes are open
to judgment. When you stand in the judgment line, when
you give account for the life that you lived. You
think God's going to great on a curve. You think
as long as you get in line behind really bad people,
you're okay.

Speaker 3 (23:43):
But it has nothing to do with your goodness or badness.

Speaker 1 (23:45):
That has everything to do with Jesus walks up and
looks at you and looks at the Father and says,
he's with me, She's with me. Yes, they're sinners, but
they believe that the only way to the Father was
through the Son, and they gave me their lives. And
because they've confessed me before men, I've confessed them before
the Father.

Speaker 2 (24:06):
You've been listening to Today with Jeff Findes. Thanks for
joining us. Next time we'll bring you the rest of
this message from Pastor Jeff.

Speaker 1 (24:13):
Here's how you know you're converted. You've been saved by
the grace of God, so your guilt is gone. There
is no condemnation for those who are in Christ. Jesus
the automatic result of someone who's been cleansed of the guilt.

Speaker 3 (24:23):
This power of God's Spirit.

Speaker 1 (24:24):
Comes into you and gives you the will to conquer
sin in your life.

Speaker 2 (24:28):
You can listen to more messages like this. Just search
for Today with Jeff Finds. Wherever you listen to podcasts.

Speaker 4 (24:37):
You make me with every single friend, We'll bring them Today, Today, Today,
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