AUG 6 2023 | Paul’s Third Missionary Journey S1E10 | Paul’s 3rd Missionary Journey

Sea Change Church · Paul's Third Missionary Journey S1E10 · "Paul's 3rd Missionary Journey" Pastor Nic Gilmore · August 6, 2023
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

Good morning church. I want to come to you again to welcome Nick Gilmore. He's a really good friend of mine. He's gonna bring a challenging message this morning. Nick and I worked together in Australia for a few years in the early two thousands. He then went to North Coast Calvary Chapel to become the missions pastor, and now he works with Mission Increase, which is our new missions partner, uh, working to reach all of San Diego County.

And we're doing that together with him. So I wanna give you a warm welcome to him and I, uh, pray that you have an incredible message today as he preaches the word of God to you. Adam looked like he was somewhere fun, didn't he? Yeah. He's a dear friend, uh, Adam. Yeah, for, uh, one of my oldest and very best friends. And, um, he asked me to come and speak here at the church when he was looking at coming here. We met together and prayed together, and I'm just rejoicing in all that's going on here at La Jolla.

Things are thriving, things are moving forward, so praise God for that. Uh, yeah, that's right. It's worthy, worthy of a clap. Uh, so yeah, we're gonna be continuing the sermon series. You guys have been in Paul's third journey, Paul's towards the end of his life, late forties at least, perhaps early fifties, at the height in human terms of significance of what's going on, uh, in his life. Uh, we're gonna see that he's facing real challenges, and we're gonna see today, I believe, through God's word, that God is calling us just as he called the Apostle Paul, to be living on purpose.

That actually the only fulfilling life is one that is intentionally lived for God and for others. We're gonna see that at times, Paul was compelled into the unknown. There were times when he had to deal with hardship, and yet was able to see the Lord's hand in it and transcend it and grow through it, despite the hardship, even through the hardship that he reevaluated, uh, life, the things that we place importance on changed for him. And lastly, that he finished. Well, that's what we're gonna go today.

If you're one of those people who likes to read the last chapter of a, you know, of a book, that's where we're gonna go. And the kind of key question is for each of us, to be honest, and to ask ourselves, am I on track to be finishing? Well, because most people don't gonna read the scriptures in a second. Before I do that, I thought I'd give a little intro to me and my family.

Can I have up the slide, friends of the, just me and the fan? Bam. Um, so here we are. There's, uh, my wife v we've been together for 29 years, and it's a miracle. She's signed up for another year. Um, anyone who knows me knows how lucky I am, and anyone who knows her knows how lucky I am. Um, she's a, a blessing, also a pastor. And then we have our, our three kiddos, Moses, who's 15, loves surfing, playing rugby. If you're wondering, rugby is a game we play in heaven. So get with the program France. Um, and then, I'm not gonna say which of my kids doesn't like photographs, but the next son that I have is 13 years old called Tino Surfer Tinkerer, Eby our daughter. She's 11 years old, and she loves singing and dancing and, and telling dad off.

And she has plenty of opportunities to do all of those things with our life. And yeah, we serve at North Coast Calvary. Um, and, uh, and also as Adam said, uh, I recently have taken over mission increase here in San Diego, actually launching it, uh, and, and starting it here. And Adam was one of the first mates that I rang and said, look, mate, I've got this huge mountain to climb. Uh, what do you think? You want to, you wanna pray for me in this? You wanna, uh, partner with me in this as we look to take the whole city of San Diego, uh, for Jesus. And he was, he's been such an encouragement.

You guys as a church have been an encouragement right from the start. Hey, let's get open. Our Bibles, we're gonna be in Acts 20, um, about midway through, uh, acts 20, picking it up at verse 22 and down to verse 24. And, uh, last week, if you guys were here for the sermon, Peyton took us through the beginning of this speech to the Ephesian elders who came down to my leaders like a port city.

And we're picking up the speech about halfway through The Apostle Paul speaking, says, and now compelled by the spirit, I'm going to Jerusalem not knowing what will happen to me there. I only know that in every city, the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are facing me. However, I consider my life worth nothing to me.

My only aim is to finish the race and complete the task. The Lord Jesus has given me the task of testifying to the good news of God's grace. God, I ask you to be with us today as we dig into your word here. Father, thank you that you quicken it to our hearts. It's useful for teaching and rebuking and correcting and training us in righteousness so we can be equipped for every good work that you're calling us to. God. My prayer is that diminish my voice, just, uh, vanish it Here, let your voice speak to us. We, we are ready. Lord, anything I say is of no value. The things that have, that you say are of eternal value.

So we are looking to you, Lord. You are the author and perfecter, and we love you in Jesus name. I amen. Now, it's not often that as a pastor I'll do this, but I I want you to know, it's been a really tough week for us as a family. We, uh, found out that the plumbing underneath our house was all rotten, all sort of rusted and, and so on. And we're building this house.

It's gonna be a men's discipleship house. Six young dudes living upstairs, but not the usual staff of, you know, bringing the girlfriend back and smoking bongs. It's gonna be a place where they really follow Jesus. Each of them will be serving, giving about a, a day a week on average to Christian surfers or young life and that sort of thing. And so we've been working towards it. No money, no time, but you know what I mean, just scraping. And then the plumbing blew up.

25,000 bucks of plumbing. We had to jackhammer through our floor. And there's dirt everywhere. Everywhere I look, there's dirt. The dog is covered in dirt. The, you know, I, everything tastes like dirt. Now, my wife has been amazing. Like I said, she's wonderful person. My kiddos have been amazing, but little old me, I'm a been, been a bit of a grumble, bumpkin. I'll be honest with you.

I've been whining about it. Oh, why is this happening? Come on. Yesterday, I was there on the jackhammer, duck, duck, Duck, duck, duck, dug, dug. Any of you guys have been on a jackhammer. You're like, I know any of you who haven't been on a jackhammer, that's a good thing. But I've been thinking about it. And as I was doing it yesterday, I was thinking about this passage in the Apostle Paul.

How would he have approached this, the Holy Spirit working through him? How would've he had a perspective on this? What could we learn from that? So this message today is as much for me as for us as a whole. You notice as it begins, the first verse says, and now compelled by the spirit, friends, could I have up the photo of, uh, the apostle? He's compelled by the spirit. He says, I'm going to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me. There friends up the top, could I have the photo of the Apostle Paul? It's like an old fresco. Thanks.

So we don't know what the Apostle Paul looked like. This rendition is from a mosaic in a, in an ancient church, um, a few hundred years after he was around. I don't know if he had these big mango style eyes, but something about the intensity of this, uh, just grab me. So we're gonna talk a little about the context. Remember, when we come to the word of God, we're not to use it as a blunt object.

We're to see it as a beautiful tool. We're to ascertain meaning, and then to ascertain application, write meaning, and write application. We ascertain meaning by looking at the text, the context, and the whole text. What does the Bible say? What does the context, the literary context, sociocultural context? Then what does the whole text say?

What does the whole Bible say? And then we don't just apply it to ourselves. No, no, no. We apply it to the people who are hearing it here. And then the people who are reading about it, as Dr. Luke wrote about it. And then we apply it to all of us, to the whole people of God. And lastly, we apply it to me. This is a, an alien concept to most of us in Western church.

'cause we open the Bible, read something off the page, and immediately apply it to ourselves. And that's an inexpert way to use a, a truly remarkable tool. So little, little context here. Like I said, Paul is nearing the end of his life on this third missionary journey. He, uh, wrote some extraordinary books. Can I have up the slide of the map guys up the top? Thank you. And, uh, sorry, it's a bit small now. I see it. Um, if you've got binoculars, you'll be right.

But he started out there in the top right, and he went over there to about the midpoint. It says Asia beneath that at its Ephesus. And he spent about three years there ministering to the home church's in Ephesus and the churches around that he faced persecution. 'cause he's talking about a God that does not demand a ance. Does, does not demand kind of, um, these, uh, ritualistic sacrifices. There was a, in Ephesus, it was a tough place.

There was a, a massive temple to Artemis or Diana, depending on, uh, you know, Greco or Roman, the, the goddess of love. But men would go to the temple and they would sleep with temple prostitutes as a way of worship. But imagine all the exploitation in that and all the human trafficking in that, with none of the oversight and things that we have today. It was a tough, tough place. And then after the three years or so, he, he went up and he went up into, um, into Thra and Macedonia.

And up there he wrote the, the letter to the Corinthian church. And then he actually went down to Corinth, which is a, just in a ca if you can see it there. And, and whilst he was in a ca he wrote this letter to the churches in Rome where he knew that he was gonna be called to go. We have it in our Bible. It's called the Book of Romans.

Surely the most amazing systematic theology that there ever has been written. It's unbelievable. And he wined there and then he backtracked and he came back down, back to just out of Ephesus, to my elitist. And it's kind of the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning, depending on your perspective. Can I up the next slide, friends, it's a, it's a photo. This one will be slightly more clear. It's of an island.

This is the island of of roads where Paul sailed past. You can imagine him sailing past. And he, he perhaps mowed for a night or two on the way back to Jerusalem. But he had a sense of what was coming. He didn't understand all of it, but he had a sense of what was coming. What did he say? I'm compelled by the spirit, constrained by the spirit.

It's a very strong word, biblically. The spirit is pressing me forward in this. Yet I do not know what will happen to me. Not knowing all that will happen there. I call this being compelled into the unknown. You can feel God drawing you forward. Uh, and here we are in application and to us as the people of God and even dribbling down to the individual, we can feel like God is pressing us forward.

But we don't see it all. That's not how it works. Friends, can I have the photo up of the light bulb? This is, and it's very dark and it's for a reason. In Psalms, it says, your, your word is a light to my path and a lamp to my feet. But think of yourself carrying like one of those old school hurricane lamps. And you can see maybe seven or eight footfalls in front of you. But beyond that, you can't see it. I actually have a sinking suspicion.

It's God's kindness that we can't see it all. 'cause if we could see a hundred miles ahead, we would probably not walk an obedience to it. I mean, I wouldn't have, when I was a young guy. And when I started to get serious about Jesus as my Lord, I said, Hey, okay Lord, I'll do anything you want me to do. I'll go to the far ends of the earth. I don't mind. And I've done it.

And here I am. But lots of the places in the world I've traveled, I I'll be in places that are dangerous. I don't care. That's not the thing. I just never want to speak in front of people. That was my deal. I've been living up to my deal, Lord. That's my side of the deal. But I think that he draws us forward here. Paul is being compelled forward. He's being compelled into the unknown. And he, he has a sense of it. And we can see here, uh, that it gives a, a little more flesh on it, but he doesn't understand the fullness of it.

Verse 23, I only know that in every city, the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are facing me. Gosh, that sounds like a right. That sounds like a cakewalk. Oh, it's nothing just prison and hardships. I actually have a sense that the apostle knew that his death was coming as well. Could remember that how turbulent these times were, this sect of Judaism that Paul was moving forth, talking about a God who came.

Now I need to hear, deal with something that is a very thorny theological issue. And it's the issue of suffering and evil. And if you've been dragged here by a friend who's well-meaning, but obviously a bit of a nutcase 'cause they're part of a church and you're just checking things out. I I need you to know that this is an irresolvable problem, but one that we have some leading on biblically the term for it is called thessy. Can I up that, that slide?

Friends theor? Is that part of theology that that deals with evil? Why does evil exist? Why did that thing happen to that person? Why did the thing happen to me? And there is gonna be some leading and some comfort in it, but I want you to know, if you're looking for it to be resolved, you've come to the wrong guy. There's been so much ink spilt on this, but there's three key truth propositions that are in Thessy. And it just really, it's a flash word, but it really means the justice of God.

Not withstanding the evil that's a foot in the world. But there are three things that I firm as true. God is great, God is good. Evil exists. God is great. The Bible says that he makes known the end from the beginning, from ancient times while still to come. He says, my purpose will stand. I'll do all that. I please. He's the sovereign one. He's the mighty one.

I affirm that some people question that. There's a, a book I'd strongly encourage you not to bother reading called God is not great. There's a lot of folks who'll say, well, yeah, God, he's a, he's a demi God. He has somewhat of a power in the context that remember the cultural context that the, uh, these folks are in. They're the, the Greek gods and the Roman gods who were kind of, they, they weren't all powerful. They were semi powerful. They'd, you know, play around with humans and they'd have these vengeful things against each other. And you know, the stories of the, the Greco Roman gods, right?

But I wanna affirm on the basis of the word of God and absolutely backed up by my experience. God truly is great. I wanna affirm that truth. God is good. It's called the omni benevolence. The all goodness, the all power is, is omnipotence. You've probably heard the term God is also all good. This is one also that is questioned, isn't it in our day? Well, if he's all powerful, he can't be all good. Or if he's all good, he can't be all powerful. 'cause evil exists. I'm like, no, that's not how it works. There's some religions, even a lot of parts of the world where I travel, where Islam is the, the general, uh, religious context and Allah is a capricious God. You never really know what side you, you fall on with him. In other parts of the world, like India, where, where I've been, the Hindi gods, they're, they're, they're, they're not, they're not good. They're not omni benevolent. They're almost omni malevolent, right? But I affirm God is good.

His goodness knows no bounds. He's amazing. And lastly, I want you to know, friend evil does exist. Some new age friends of mine will say, evil doesn't exist. No, no. It's a figment of your imagination, Nick. You've just gotta understand, you've gotta step out of the you that you are, step into the you that you want to be and enter this place where evil doesn't exist. And I'm like, no, I, I know it exists. I, I've seen things.

I I've seen great beauty afoot in the world. What God is doing. I've also seen the evil things that us humans, we, we do, we bring suffering into the world. Friends, we've done it. I don't need to look very far. I looked in the shaving mirror this morning and I saw someone who is capable of great evil at times has done it. Evil does exist. So there's this concept here, and I, and I don't wanna just step over it and say, well, and, and move on.

'cause as followers of Jesus, there is nothing we should fear. The hardest of questions we can come at. And we may understand everything, we may get the full picture. I don't actually think we do this side of the river, but God wants you to know that if you're coming with that question, it's not a question you can't ask. It's not a taboo question.

I I want you to take away these two points from it. If you're suffering, if you're going through suffering and you, you know, somebody who is friends, I need you to know that God is with you in your suffering. And that he can use that for his good. He's with you. He's promised he will never leave us. He will never forsake us.

It's a promise. You've heard that story about the guy walking down the beach and he's walking with God and he looks back and he says, I see the footprints in the sand, God. But I've noticed that at the tough times, there's only one set of footprints. What's with that God? And God says, my beloved son, when you look at the footprints and, and you see that there's one set of the tough times, that's because we were both hopping. So you guys thought I was, you thought I was gonna say, that's when I carried you.

'cause you've seen the cheesy fridge sticker, haven't you? I think it's like that God's there with us in the pain, in the midst of the pain. He never leaves us. He won't forsake us. He's right there in the gnarlies of it. That's a promise also that he can use it for good suffering. Produces perseverance. Perseverance. Character. Character.

Hope God didn't bring evil into the world. That was me. That was some of you guys. Some of you guys have reached a state of perfection. But that was, that was us guys. We, we did that. The greatest image that we have of this is of course, Jesus, can I have friends up the photo from the, uh, it's actually from the first little bit of the passion of the Christ where Jesus is in the garden And he's so stressed out.

He knows what is coming. He knows he's gonna be beaten, he's gonna be crucified. He's gonna be betrayed. He, he knows this is coming but far worse than that. He knows that the sin of the world is gonna come down upon him. And if that was you before you've been the mate dragged here by a well-meaning slightly nutty friend, gimme 100 seconds.

There's this thing called the gospel and where we're gonna land a few minutes from now. Why did Jesus go to the cross? Well, you see, Jesus is God's son who is born into the earth as a baby to his mom, Mary and his adoptive father Joseph. They looked after him. He grew and he never sinned. His family came later to believe in him. His closest mates said, no sin is found in this guy. No deceit. There's no falsehood.

He's the real deal. He's the cake you cut through and it's just got icing all the way through. And because of that, he's the only person who could go to the cross to be an atoning sacrifice for our sins. And on the cross, he took our sin. He took our junk, our crowd, our slime upon him. All the things that you have done, that I've done, all the things that have been done to us.

He didn't take the punishment for the sin. Don't believe that he took the very sin itself. And he finished with it once and for all. And he said it is finished. And he died. And then he rose again from the grave three days later showing that he was victorious over sin and death as what we call the gospel, as where we're gonna end where Paul ends when he is talking about finishing. Well, Jesus knew that was coming, but he was so stressed. He, he knew the pain that was about to come to him.

He said, father, if you would let this cup pass from me, this, this image of God's wrath being poured out, it should have been poured out on you. And me was poured out on Jesus. But then he says this thing, he says, not my will though your will be done. Can we say that? Is that where we can come out? Even this gnarly thing, this awful thing, this horrid thing.

I wished it didn't happen to you, Lord. You can even use that For good. Have some dear friends in a part of the world I won't name, and I'm gonna call them Imad and Aisha. And I was, I've been with them a number of times. The first time I met them was Isis was, uh, less than a hundred miles from their door. Um, these guys planted a church in the middle of the Middle East, not Encinitas. I mean, this is gnarly. And, and they're, they're so funny.

You know, they, they, uh, emailed. I was talking with him the first time I met him. And, and I said, tell me the story of how you planted the church. He said, well, God told us to plant the church. So we did the reasonable thing and acted like Jonah. And we fled. Uh, we tried to, uh, send my family out to Europe, um, his wife and their child.

And they were caught at the border So heavy. And he said, you know, so we, we just prayed. It was a miracle. She got out. We said, okay, Lord, we'll start the church in their lounge room. Then it moved to a hall and maybe two or 300 followers of Jesus. Many, many, most of them actually from Muslim backgrounds. And in that part of the world, if you are leading Muslims to Jesus, then if someone kills you, they're doing a favor to Islam, living with a, like a guillotine above your head every day.

And I was saying to him, Hey, what's it like to minister in that environment? I just can't imagine. And he said, oh no, it's great. It's alive. And he said, but, but you know, every time I say goodbye to Aisha and the kids, I kiss him like, it's the last time I go down for milk. I drive to encourage a church. I I kiss them as if it's the last time that I'll ever see them.

'cause it might be the last time I ever see them. And you'd think that folks in that scenario would be beat down, discouraged Christians. But we, we have all the freedom. We have all the material wealth here in the West. We, we would be the most alive Christians, actually. It's the opposite. And friends, we have stewardship. And God has blessed us. And, and, uh, we're being called into what we do with that. It's a, it's a wonderful gift that he's given us. So I'm not being down on that, but I'm saying friends, even in that most gnarly of situations, suffering and evil can be used to produce amazing, good.

Can I up that quote Friends? Um, it's just a, I just wanna read this from Catherine Marshall, just an extraordinary writer. She's with the Lord now and she knew a lot about suffering. Now God is the divine alchemist. He can take junk from the rubbish heap of life and melting this base, refuse in the pure fire of his love. Hand us back gold.

That's what God's in the business are doing, taking our junk, our rubbish. And if we allow his love to refine it, he'll give us back gold. Not gold that will rust and be destroyed. And, and when we die, have to be handed on to someone who is probably not worthy and will squander it, but real gold, gold that endures. So what would it look like for us if we're gonna live on purpose?

What would it look like for us to allow ourselves to be at times compelled into the unknown? What would look like for us to have this attitude to do with hardship? It would mean a reevaluation of life. We're in the last verse here. However, the apostle says, I consider my life worth nothing to me. My only aim is to finish the race and complete the task.

The Lord Jesus has given me to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. In in another translation, he says, uh, I consider my life of no value, nor as precious to myself. He notices to himself. It's not to God to God. Every life is of Inestimable worth your life, friend. You are seen by him. You are known by him. Every hair on your head, you are precious to him. It's not that your life has no value, full stop.

But Paul's saying to me, my life has no value in contradistinction to this call that's on my life. A reevaluation of life as the old saying goes, it's not thinking less of ourselves, but thinking of ourselves less. That we are not the locus of everything. We're not the center of the universe. We're a bad center of the universe. We are, we're a a dead end center of the universe.

To put him in the center and to do what? This is the calling To Testify to the gospel of the grace of God. He says, What It be like a tree planted? Friends. Can I up that slide as Paul was, a tree planted in the rock, the winds will come and buffet it. Look at this funny old tree. But you notice it's into the rock. And I, I read this scientific study of these guys who, who tried to grow quick trees and they had this environment with perfect moisture, perfect nutrients, perfect precipitation.

Everything was just right. And the trees grew outstandingly quickly and then they fell over and they couldn't work out. Why? Do You know why no wind? It's a wind that grows us strong. And, but he's planted in the rock. Paul is this guy who's planted in the rock. He knows what he's here for. Friend. If you're here today, do you really know what you're here for?

Is it that job promotion? Is it that university degree? Is it just doing a better roundhouse turn, throwing the football further? Whatever the thing is, the vain things that charm us most is that really, that's really how low we've set our sights. No, in every situation, we are called to be those who testified at the gospel of the grace of God.

For Paul, he was the apostle to the Gentiles. That's us. Unless you have Jewish heritage here we're we are here in La Jolla in the year ad 2023. Because Paul was obedient to his call. You're gonna be obedient to yours. Are you gonna finish Well? 'cause most people don't. As a pastor, I'm telling you, even Christians, most folks don't finish well. They die with regrets.

They die with things undone. Things they should have done. Things they really shouldn't have done. I've sat with many people in their last moments. I've literally had zero people tell me they wish they'd spent more time working, more time accumulating. Every single one of them says, oh, the times that I had with my family were the best.

Many of them I wished I had more times of deep relationship, times of living for the Lord. Remember, the only truly fulfilling life is one that is, that is intentionally lived for God and for others. That's what living on purpose looks like. And if you live on purpose, you can die on purpose. Last slide, then we're done. So sorry to end with something morbid, but unless Jesus comes back a news flash, a hundred percent chance you are gonna die.

And I did this with my men's group couple of weeks ago. And, uh, we, we, we put on the, our name across the top of the tombstone and then our birthdate, there's things that are known, known facts. Then the, the day we die, well, that's not known. I mean, maybe we live 80 years, I pray blessing and long life over all of you. But we don't know.

Maybe today, maybe next year, maybe a decade from now, we truly, we don't know, right? We also don't know what folks are gonna write. What's gonna be our eita, what's gonna be written? What underneath. Oh, Paul, he testified to the gospel of the grace of God. His life was a testament to it. Whether you are a businesswoman or whether you are a, a professor or whether you are in school or, or whatever.

In that situation in which you've been called, is your life being lived as a testament to the glory of God? I'm gonna leave you with that question in a second. Actually. I would like to invite up, uh, the worship guys and we're gonna end up here with prayer and then get out and, and I know you guys are gonna go and flood the, uh, volunteer opportunities.

I love that you guys have that. It's super cool 'cause like, wow, getting to serve with your church. It's a wonderful thing. I'm gonna end here and, uh, as I do, so I want to share a, uh, very quick but hokey story about me and my kids. 'cause you know, I'm a dad and I'm allowed one dad story. Um, so I was sitting there, um, at our table, and this is before the dusty days of that we currently live in.

And I'm there and I'm, you know, and my, I I know it was my son, but he shouting out from his room. Dad, where's my undies? And, uh, we have a rule that you're not allowed to shout between rooms, but, you know, steadfastly ignored. And, and I'm sitting there and he, um, then it's more agitated. Dad, where's my undies? And I just sit there quietly.

Then he comes out and his eyes are bugging out of his head. Dad, I need a dollar. My ies are, and I just say, come here mate. Come here buddy. And in his, in his jammies, he sits on my knee. And you see, I knew where his undies were. I'm the dad. Dads know for a certain point until, let's call it 12 dads know everything, right? And, uh, and oh by the way, always be careful of an analogy where you end up as God. Um, but I'm there.

And, um, I knew where his undies were. That wasn't the point. The point is I wanted him to come, come a little closer, son. I want you to sit here. Yeah, I'll tell you where your undies are. That's not the point. The point is I want to hug you. I I want you to know that you are known, that you are seen. I also want you to not shout from the other room, but that's an incidental. Uh, and it's just like that with the Lord. Friends, you think I can't see everything. I dunno exactly what I've been called to.

And God's saying, just come here, beloved daughter, just, just come here a little bit. Just come here darling, son, just come here. Just come here. I I want to whisper to you what it is that I'm calling you into.