If you have your Bible or a device with a Bible app on it, want to invite you to turn to Acts chapter 26 as we continue our life in the Spirit message series. Where once again we have been going verse by verse all the way through the book of Acts, and we are almost at the end. And where we find ourselves today in Acts 26 is no different than Acts 25. Really, it's a continuation of the same events that have been occurring, where the Apostle Paul has been on trial. He's been falsely accused, and he's on trial at this point with a Roman governor named Festus. You may remember that from last week, if you were here, but Paul didn't feel like he was getting a fair trial, and so he appealed to Caesar. The problem was, is that Festus, being a Roman governor and not really familiar with the the Jews and and and the Jewish religion, he didn't really know what to charge him with. He didn't know what the Jewish religious leaders were accusing him of, and so upset about, and King Agrippa had come to visit Festus, and so he began to tell King Agrippa about this situation with Paul. He became intrigued, and he said, "Hey, I want to hear more about this guy and what is going on here, which is what Festus was hoping, so that he could actually get more information about maybe how to to charge him with something before he sends him to Caesar, and so we left off in chapter 25 where they were making introductions and beginning that process. And Luke, beginning in verse one of chapter 26, tells us what happens next. It says, "Then King Agrippa said to Paul, 'You have permission to speak for yourself. So Paul motioned with his hand and began his defense. King Agrippa, I consider myself fortunate to stand before you today as I make my defense against all the accusations of the Jews, and especially so because you are well acquainted with all the Jewish customs and controversies, therefore, I beg you to listen. Excuse me, listen to me patiently. So, so we see right off the bat that Paul is excited that it's King Agrippa. It's someone who knows. He says the Jewish customs and controversies. He's familiar with Jewish ways, and of course, any time you've heard Paul defend himself and what he is talking about with Jesus. It's always tied to the old covenant and the things that the Jewish people were familiar with because that's who Jesus is. He was the coming Messiah that was prophesied about, and we're going to hear Paul refer to that. And so he's excited that King Agrippa is someone who knows those things, and he can have common ground to stand on. Verse four, Paul says the Jewish people all know the way that I have lived ever since I was a child, from the beginning of my life in my own country and also in Jerusalem. They have known me for a long time and can testify if they are willing that I conform to the strictest sect of our religion, living as a Pharisee. What we're going to see Paul do today is basically share his testimony. He is going to just tell his story, which is a great way for us to even share our faith with someone today. He's going to talk about his life before he met Jesus, how he met Jesus, and what difference Jesus made in his life and what he's up to today. And you can see he's starting with what his life was like before Jesus. He's reminding them that he is Jewish, but he's not just Jewish. He was a leader in the Jewish community. He was living as a Pharisee and one who was upholding the law to the fullest extent. I mean, they were known for meticulously following God's law and encouraging others to zealously live for God and His law. And so He wants them to know that He was just like them at one point in time, verse six. And now it is because of my hope in what God has promised our ancestors that I am on trial today. This is the promise our 12 tribes are hoping to see fulfilled as they earnestly serve God day and night. King Agrippa.
It is because of this hope that these Jews are accusing me, and so you'll see him use this word over and over again. That this this hope, there was this hope that God would send the Messiah, that He would send someone to rescue, and he references that because I'm Jewish and you guys are Jewish, I'm on trial today because of the same hope that we all share, where God said that He would send a rescuer, that He would send a Savior, and of course we know that it's Jesus, and Paul knows that, but He's establishing that before King Agrippa, trying to connect it. That this is not some. Completely separate thing. It's all tied to the Jewish faith. Verse eight, he says, "Why should any of you? So now he's not just talking to King Agrippa. It's like he's talking to King Aripa and turns around and says, "And why should any of you, whoever's in the crowd, consider it incredible that God raises the dead? And so this, of course, he's going to be pointing to Jesus, knowing that Jesus being raised from the dead is part of the big controversy that's here, and so he's just kind of going, "Hey, why is this impossible? Like, why do you think is anything too hard for God? I mean, their Old Testament scriptures would remember in Jeremiah that the Lord spoke in those terms, asking that rhetorical question. I mean, is anything too hard for me? He says, and of course, the implied answer is, no. Nothing's too hard for you, God. You're you're the God of the universe. You're the one who created all things. You're the one who took nothing and created everything. And so, no, nothing's impossible for you. And so they shouldn't think it's really that weird that God could raise the dead. He goes on in verse nine and says, "I too was convinced that I ought to. So he's still talking about his past and how he was like them at one time, right? So I too was convinced that I ought to do all that was possible to oppose the name of Jesus of Nazareth, and that is just what I did in Jerusalem on the authority of the chief priest. I put many of the Lord's people in prison, and when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them. Many a time, I went from one synagogue to another and to have them punished, and I tried to force them to blaspheme. I was so obsessed. Paul says with persecuting them that I even hunted them down in foreign cities. And so Paul basically is trying to show Agrippa and really anyone else who is listening that not only did he not believe in Jesus, just like many of them, didn't believe that Jesus was the Messiah, but I mean, he thought it was his duty. It was his duty from God to punish these people to to make sure that Jesus was not being proclaimed as the Messiah and one who had been raised from the dead. And so, this is all part of his past, just like them persecuting other people, now he's going to begin to pivot and show where the turn is made. And what's significant about that is if he was once like them, and he was even living his life to the extent that he was persecuting people who were talking about Jesus, but now he's actually completely on the other side and talking about Jesus, then something that happened in between must have been pretty significant to make that kind of shift and that kind of turn in his life, which is the thing that can help other people see it and how it could impact their lives as well. It's what we hope to accomplish, even in telling our testimonies. Paul says in verse 12, on one of these journeys, I was going to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priest. About noon, King Agrippa, as I was on the road, I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, blazing around me and my companions. We all fell to the ground, and I heard a voice saying to me in Aramaic, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.
The the goads, if you aren't familiar with that term, was was the term for like spikes on the end of a pole. It was kind of like a prodding tool for for animals to get them to move and to move in whatever direction, and so this is kind of like Jesus saying to to him, "Listen, Paul, all of this fighting that you're doing against me in the other direction and and living your life is just it's just pointless because I'm at work to steer you in a completely different direction, and so he's just saying, "Stop resisting, stop resisting all the proof that you see about who I really am. Because he was familiar with that; he knew the Old Testament and the covenant and all the things that spoke to it, and he was just resisting that it could be the fact that Jesus was fulfilling all of these prophecies and really was who he said he was, and of course now he's he's coming face to face with the the risen Lord. It makes that very clear. Next, then I ask, this is Paul saying, "Who are you, Lord? I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. The Lord replied, "Now get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen and will see in me. If you've been here for this series, we have seen Paul's Damascus Road experience. Talked about it a little bit before already. It's familiar if you know your Bible at all. But guys, I cannot help every single time I come across this and been reminded about it. I mean, just what incredible grace we really do see here. I mean, this is a guy who was persecuting Jesus. This is a guy who was persecuting his church, who was trying to kill those who proclaimed Jesus and were part of God's family. And Jesus meets him on the road to Damascus, on his way to go persecute more Christians, not to punish him, but to offer him grace, to offer him mercy, I mean, what kind of God is this who would offer even someone like that his grace and his forgiveness and his mercy? This is our God, but the fact is, guys, when we see this, the tendency can can kind of be maybe to think, well, at least I'm not, you know, like Paul was. I'm not as bad as that guy was. In reality, though, we're all in need of that kind of incredible amount of grace. Doesn't matter if we've gone as far as Paul and been persecuting the church in that way. Every one of us are sinners before a holy and a perfect God, and stand condemned before Him, and without His incredible grace, you and I would be stuck in our sins and could not be forgiven. And we really see the reality of that in the way that Jesus continues to speak to Paul and what He's going to use him for next. Look at what he says. He says, "I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles, and I am sending you to them to open up their eyes and turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me, we're going to pause just a moment here and really make sure we're we're seeing what Jesus is saying because there are four things that Jesus is saying to Paul that he's going to do in and through him that pertain to the gospel, the good news that He's going to send Him out to share. And listen, if you're here today, you're watching online, and you've never put your faith and trust in Jesus. What we see here is what is available to you if you will receive His grace by faith. And those of you who have received His grace by faith in Christ alone, this is showing you what is true of you now that you have put your faith in Him, and so this is so important for us to just slow down for a second and see.
The first thing that Jesus says that He was sending Him to do was to open up their eyes and turn them from darkness to light. This is necessary because it's the situation that every one of us are born in and find ourselves in because of sin in our lives. We're born into the darkness and we cannot see the truth. We're walking around in that darkness. We're we're blind to it, and many times there comes a time in our life where we're going to begin to feel that darkness that we're walking around in. No matter how good things seem to be going in our lives, at times there's always some point in time where we all feel like, gosh, there's just got to be something more. There's there's got to be something more to life than just this. Whatever it is that that felt so good for a while, and that we're engaging in, or even in the really hard, difficult things that we're going through. Either way, we're going to find ourselves at some point going. There's got to be more to it than this, and and and there is we're just blind to see it, and the reason that we're blind to see it is because of what he says next that he was going to have to send him to show us or remove us from the bondage of the power of Satan to God, right? That that that. I mean, it's incredible statement. I mean, if you've never really thought of the situation that you were in before Jesus, or that you're in right now, if you haven't said yes to Jesus, listen. This this is not just you being not as good as you could be. This this is not just you kind of being a an okay person, and you just need to get a little bit over the hump and become a a better person. I mean, what the truth is is that you are held in the power of Satan from the moment that you are born, and it's the situation that we're all in because of the sin nature that we have. And so, the reason that we're walking around. Darkness is because he has a hold on our lives, and he's the ruler of this world, and he's responsible for blinding us to that truth. There's nothing that you can do in trying to become a better person that's going to work you out of the bondage that you are in to sin and to Satan himself. But this is why he was at work to send Paul in order to release us from the power of Satan to God, and that could only happen through what he says third, that we may receive forgiveness of sins. That it was the sin that is the reason that we are in bondage to Satan and the grip that he has on us, and so Jesus was born into this world fully God and fully man, not just to be a good person and be a wise teacher and show us how to to follow his teachings and and get better at trying to follow the rules. It was because of our sin problem, and because he was God, he had no sin to pay for himself, and because he was human, he could represent us, and so he was born into this world ultimately to go to the cross to pay the penalty for every single one of our sins, and he substituted himself. The wrath of God was poured out on him, so that our sins could be paid for, and it's only because they were paid in full that his forgiveness is available to us and removes us from the power of Satan, and now able to secure a place for us among those who are sanctified, so so you're removed from the power of Satan and the the bondage to sin that we are in. You have complete forgiveness, and now you belong to God. You have a place among those who are sanctified, those who are His children, and the others who are his children and brothers and sisters, and so this is what happens to us the moment that he says we put our faith and trust in Jesus. All four of those things happen through faith in Jesus. It's because of Jesus.
It's because of His finished work, and there's nothing that we can do on our own. And so, if you've again never put your faith and trust in Jesus, you can clearly see in what He's communicating to Paul in this moment what would happen if you did put your faith and trust in Jesus as the way, the truth, and the life, and that no one comes to the Father except through Him. Then He will have turned your eyes from that darkness to revealing that truth of your need for Him, removed you from the power of bondage to Satan, to God, received complete forgiveness, and now have given you a place among those who are sanctified? This is what he was saying to Paul in this moment, and what he was offering to him, and what he was sending him out to do as well. So now that he's shared this with King Agrippa, he addresses him again, verse 19. So then, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the vision from heaven. In other words, Jesus appeared to me, and what you're seeing now is me being obedient to what God told me to go and do. Right, verse 21st to those in Damascus, then to those in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and then to the Gentiles. I preached that they should repent. The Greek word there is metanoia. It means to change their mind, to change their mind from what they were believing about Jesus to believing the truth. Open your eyes from the darkness and reveal the light and the truth. Change your mind to Jesus, and then to turn to God and demonstrate their repentance, their change of mind in Jesus by their deeds. That is why he says some Jews seized me in the temple courts and tried to kill me. He says King Agrippa, the whole reason that I'm on trial and that they seized me here was because I started proclaiming this message of grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone to the Gentiles, and everyone's going no no no no no no hold on if if the Gentiles are going to become a part of any of this then they're going to have to become Jewish first they're going to have to follow the rules and the law of Moses and be circumcised and so they seized him and tried to kill him, and he's saying that's the whole reason I haven't done anything wrong. This is the reason that I'm on trial today. But God, some great words right there in the Bible. Anytime you see that, you should pause and dial in and focus in on what he's saying. But God has helped me. So. They accuse me. They tried to kill me, but God has helped. He's protected me every single time, which is just more of a confirmation that the work that He's doing is from actually Him and not something that is not tied to Him. So God has helped me to this very day, and and so I stand here and testify to small and great alike. I am saying nothing beyond what the prophets and Moses said would happen. I mean, in other words, this is not some separate thing. Everything I'm explaining to you about Jesus and Him appearing to me and what He's sending me out to do is God's kingdom work. It all goes back to what the prophets have been saying would happen. It all goes back to what Moses said would happen-that the Messiah would suffer, and as the first to rise from the dead, would bring the message of light to his own people and to the Gentiles. And so, this is what he's trying to to really help King Agrippa see, is that this is part of what God was doing in and through the old covenant to bring about the new covenant in the Messiah who is Jesus. Verse 24 says, "At this point, Festus interrupted Paul's defense. Now, now this is Festus. This is not King Agrippa. Remember, he's he's on trial before the Roman governor Festus, but now Festus has said, "Hey, share all this with King Agrippa. So Festus is over here, just kind of listening to him give his defense to King Agrippa, and he can't handle it anymore. Like he's over there listening, and he's got to interrupt.
He says, "You are out of your mind, Paul. You're completely out of your mind. Your your great learning is driving you insane. Verse 25. I am not insane, most excellent Festus. Paul replied, "What I am saying is true and reasonable. The king is familiar with these things, and I can speak speak freely to him. I am convinced that none of this has escaped his notice because it was not done in a corner. This has all been out in the open for everyone to see all what I'm talking about, and there are eyewitnesses everywhere. Festus calls him completely insane, and that he's he's out of his mind. And Paul says, "No, no, no, no. This is the most reasonable explanation for the events that are happening out in the open, in that you're so worried about all of these prophecies and all of these things that are written about in the old covenant, and all of these things that we see Jesus doing that line up with each one of those things, did you know that there were 300 of them? Did you know that there were at least 300 prophecies that were made in the old covenant that Jesus fulfilled in and through His lifetime and His sacrificial death on the cross? I mean, this is no small thing. Many of you have probably heard this before. It gets mentioned a lot of times, but I'll just kind of reference it again in case you haven't. But MIT mathematician Peter Stoner actually calculated the probability of one person accidentally just happening to accidentally fulfill eight prophecies that were mentioned in the old covenant and happening in this, and he calculated that the odds were one in 10 to the 17th power. Now, for some of you, that means nothing. You don't even know. You took math forever ago, and you don't even know what that whole power thing is or whatever. That is one in 100 quadrillion. That's 17 zeros right after the 10. Okay, so to picture that, he said this would be like taking silver dollars, the size of a silver dollar, taking all the coins that it would take to cover the entire state of Texas, two feet deep in silver dollars, and then he said, taking just one of all of those. I mean, from El Paso all the way over to Texarkana and down to Galveston and Laredo or whatever the farthest point is, and up to Amarillo. I mean, everywhere that you can think of, two feet deep. Taking one, put a special mark on it, mix them all up all the way across the entire state of Texas, and having one person reach their hand in and through all of those and pick out that one that had the mark on it. That's the probability of one person fulfilling just eight of the prophecies that were mentioned in the old covenant. If you calculated 48 of them being fulfilled, that goes up to one in 10 of the 150/7 power. And if you go all the way to 300, it's 10 to the 890/5 power. That's 10 with 895 zeros. That's the probability of someone just randomly fulfilling 300 prophecies that were mentioned. So you're saying there's a chance, right? I mean, no, it's the most reasonable explanation. What else are you going to attribute it to? It just happened to happened to chance. Just happened to be that he fulfilled 300 of them, right? No, no, no. I'm not insane. You're the one insane if you believe it the otherwise. And let's take the resurrection of Jesus. You want to tell me that the most reasonable explanation for him not being in the tomb? Because guess what? He wasn't in the tomb, right? I mean, if he was in the tomb, they could have just gone over there and said, "Hey, he's right there. He's dead, people. Let's stop talking about this guy rising from the dead. But they couldn't do that because he was gone. Right? So you're going to tell me the most logical explanation, the most reasonable explanation for that, was that a bunch of fishermen went and stole the body from a guard that was trained in the most powerful army in the entire world at that point, yeah, that's really reasonable that that happened. So no, I'm not insane.
What I'm telling to you is the most reasonable thing, and that's the thing for any of us if we stop and we follow the evidence and where it leads. When you're talking about the resurrection and Jesus and what He accomplished, it's the most logical and reasonable explanation. This is not a blind faith. It's not a blind faith. It's a reasoned out, reasonable faith because these things are true. King Agrippa, verse 27. Do you believe the prophets? He kind of puts him on the spot. I know. I know that you do. This puts him in a kind of a quandary because if he says, "Yeah, I believe in the prophets, well, Paul made a pretty convincing argument of the evidence of all the prophets and what they've said, and Jesus fulfilling those. So it would seem to kind of indicate that he believes that Jesus is the Messiah, and he can't do that in front of all the Jewish people behind him. But if he says, "No, he's got all the Jewish people back him that believe the prophets and what they were saying, they just didn't believe in what Paul was saying was true of those, and so he just avoids the question. Then Agrippa says to Paul, "Do you think that in such a short time you can persuade me to be a Christian? I love Paul's response. He says, "Short time or long? I pray to God that not only you but all who are listening to me today may become what I am, except for these chains, of course. Right? I mean, Paul's like, listen. I have experienced complete forgiveness in Christ. I've become a totally new creation. I've been set free from the bondage of Satan into sin and death. I have the assurance of eternal life, I'm living in His grace. I'm living in His love. I'm living in His mercy. I'm a part of His kingdom work. He's doing miracles in and through me that I've never been able to do before. And so, yeah, I don't care how long it takes or how short it takes. I hope that all of you experience what I've experienced in and through Jesus, and that, of course, should be the prayer of of all of us when we share our testimony with others. The king rose, verse 30, and with him the governor and Bernice and all those sitting with them. And after they left the room, they began saying to one another, "This man is not doing anything that deserves death or imprisonment. And Agrippa said to Festus, "This man could have been set free if he had not appealed to Caesar. This is what's happened every single time he's explained his story. They don't have anything to go on, and a lot of times we can read that and we can we can go, "Gosh, I wish Paul wouldn't have appealed to Caesar. Maybe they would have let him go. Well, I mean, it didn't really happen the other time, so there's no guarantee that would necessarily happen. Even though he's saying it here, but even still, Jesus had appeared to him and said, "You will appear in Rome and testify about me in Rome. And so this is part of His sovereign plan, and what He's doing to bring the heart of the gospel, to bring salvation to the ends of the earth, in the very center and heart of the Roman Empire. And these can be-it's what we're reading about in the next last two chapters of Acts, as we do each and every single week. This message series is life in the spirit. We see the Holy Spirit come into those who put their faith and trust in Jesus. The church is launched. This is all about how the Spirit's working in them and through them. And then we look for how it might apply to us today, because the same Spirit is available to us. What did we see? We talked about it extensively, but we saw Jesus say to Paul that through faith, through faith in Christ, that forgiveness is available, that being rescued from the dominion of darkness is available, and that being brought into the kingdom and to God's family was. Available to all people, it's just a matter of receiving the gift of salvation through faith alone in Christ alone.
And so, if you've never put your faith in Jesus, that's the application for you today. It doesn't matter who you are, where you've been, what it is that you've been doing. If the Lord has been revealing the light, the truth, when you've been walking in darkness today, to finally see the reality of the situation that you are in, the bondage that you're in, and that Jesus is the only way out, the only response you have in this point is to say yes to Him and be free from those things and begin to experience them. For those of us who have, for those of us who have put our faith and trust in Jesus, the application is for us to start believing what is actually true about us-that we are completely forgiven, that you don't have to walk around in your shame and from the decisions that you've made in your past, because Jesus really has completely forgiven you of all your past, present, and future sins; that you have already been rescued from the dominion of darkness; that your sin nature no longer imprisons you, and that you can live victoriously. It's time to start experiencing that and really believing those things, believing that you've already been brought into His kingdom. You're already a part of His family, and that you get to experience a real relationship with God the Father in the way that He works in you, works through you to touch all area of your lives and to reach more and more people for His kingdom. I was really encouraged on one hand on Wednesday night when we started our Wednesday night kickoff, and I was also really discouraged on the other hand. I was encouraged because we had for our adults we had our first real life discipleship class where we were going to be learning about discipleship and what it really means and what real life discipleship is all about. That it's it's way more than just content. That that we're not just reading through a chapter and going. I learned a whole lot more about Acts chapter 26 today, and in that I've been discipled. No, no, discipling and learning more is all about doing so in order to experience all the things that we have in Christ, the fullness of life that we have in Christ, and the way that He works through all areas of our lives to touch every aspect of our lives and the way that He works through us to reach other people, and so I was really encouraged as we sat around tables and I saw people who were in their 60s and 70s and even 80s sitting with those who were in their 30s or in their 40s, and some who were maybe even in their late teens or early 20s. And when I walked around and listened to some of the conversations that were happening, there were there was support that was being given, there was encouragement that was being given, there were tears that were even being shed. There were challenges that were being made across the table. There, there, there were prayers that were being offered about situations and circumstances that people were walking through in their lives in this current moment, and they were beginning to experience more of the freedom that they have in Christ, more of the victory that they have in Christ, more of the rescue that they have in Christ, more of the purpose that He's called them to in their lives outside of those times, and so it was a beautiful thing to watch. I was discouraged because there was only about 20 of us who were able to experience that on the first Wednesday night. We have a lot more than 20 people show up for our worship services in Sunday schools on Sunday mornings. I. I, I need you in my life. Even as your pastor, I need you, the Holy Spirit in and through you, to disciple me. That can only happen if I'm in relationship with you. You need me. You need Jesus in me to disciple you. You need the person sitting next to you and across the room and here and those that were in our first service and in Sunday schools. And it's through Jesus and through the relationship.
That we have the same way that Jesus did it in and through a relationship with 12 guys, and then sent them out to be in relationship with a bunch of other people and disciple them about how Jesus changes everything in our lives and how we can experience Him in every aspect of our lives. And so we need this. We need each other. We have way too many people who are walking around who have so much life in Christ and are experiencing so little of that abundant life that we have in Christ. So I need you, and you need me. And if you want to experience real abundant life and all that you have, then these are the kind of in relationships that we want to engage in. We don't want to show up and just have learned a lot more about a chapter and then say that we were discipled and left, and it changes and affects nothing in our lives. And so these things that we read about in Acts 26 that become true of us and are part of us through what the the gospel is. We can begin to experience those things as we're discipled in how to experience all that we have. And so, my encouragement to you is to just truly have a conversation with the Holy Spirit and what He's doing in your life, and to be a part of and engaging in these kind of things, and and my hope and prayer is that our attendance would double, triple, that we'd have to find a bigger room, not so that we can say that a bunch of people were there. That is not what this is all about at all, but so that we can begin to experience Jesus in and through each other, and all that we have in Jesus Christ together. Father, we're grateful for for Jesus, for the life that we have in Christ. Thank you for the brothers and sisters that we have the family that you join us to in a spiritual sense, God. Thank you for the way that you use other people to speak support and encouragement, and in hope and into real situations and circumstances that we're facing, and to challenge us and pray for us and grow in grace together. And I just pray that as we make ourselves available to you, that you would bring us together in those ways, in those real life discipleship relationships, where we're experiencing more and more of you in and through each other, and experiencing more and more of all the abundant life that we have in you, Jesus. Pray for anyone who's here today, who's yet to say yes to you and receive that forgiveness and life. That you would continue to work in their hearts and in their minds to see what's available to them, and that you would lead them to respond in faith today. And we ask and pray it all in Jesus' name, Amen.