Happy Aloha Friday! Welcome back for another rousing edition of the 5MC. I pray for you guys every morning that God is moving in your life through your 5 minutes in His Word every day. The power of His Word is amazing, I cant think of any other literature on the planet that can have such a tremendous effect on your soul by just spending 5 minutes a day reading it. As I speak of the 5MC, I still have people that say they’re just too busy to fit it in. You know, I don’t really think it’s a time issue at all. We all have 24 hours in a day, that’s 1440 minutes in every day. If you spend just 5 minutes in God’s Word each day, that’s just 1/3 of 1% of your day! So time can’t be the issue, its just too miniscule of an investment, 1/3 of 1%?. It’s kinda funny, I came up with 5 minutes as I was working with the students in Maui. I was trying my hardest to get them to read God’s Word not just once a week but several times a week and optimally every day. So I thought what’s the smallest amount of time I could realistically ask of a teenager to stop their day and read? 15 minutes? Too long. 10 minutes? Too long. 5 minutes? Well, you can’t get much less than that right? I mean its only 5 minutes. Most of us spend that much time looking for our car keys every day!
So this is day 4 of the new website, The5MC.com, and I appreciate all the encouragement from you guys. I continue to spend a lot of time to make the site easier to use, it's definitely a work in progress. If you have any ideas you’d like to see, please let me know and I’ll dig around and see if the site will let me do it. I have over 100 posts on the site now, including the first 30 days I ever wrote the 5MC when we were in Destin. Yesterday I figured out how to make ‘categories’ or folders so you can quickly find the different books of the Bible without needing to scroll through everything. The new site is a blessing and is allowing much freedom that Facebook just couldn’t allow me. I’m so excited to see how God is going to use this site to simply give out His Word. God gave me a new purpose statement as I was building the site and you can see it on the home page. “Encouraging all to spend time daily in His Word.” Please join me in prayer that God will use this site to do just that. Change one life at a time through encouraging all to spend time in the power of His Holy Word.
I had a great visit from my Mom & Dad yesterday, what a treat to be back so close that they can just run by when they’re out. We just sat around and visited and talked life. I love my parents, what a gift they are to me. Many of my friends have lost one or both of their parents and I fully realize how fortunate I am to be able to sit in front of my mom and dad and just enjoy looking at their faces. I am thankful. BTW, we ended up in my home office where my Stevie Ray Vaughan replica guitar hangs. It was a gift to me while serving at Village Baptist in Destin Florida this summer and I really love playing it and just looking at it. The pic on today’s post is of dad rockin’ out on it as Mom lovingly admires her ‘rock star’ husband. That's my mom and dad...the hard rockin’ couple! Ha…great stuff!
Well, today we’re in Acts chapter 26 and it’s Paul’s big day before King Agrippa and the royalty and leaders of Caesarea. As we read yesterday, Paul has been shuffled from the Jewish Sanhedrin in Jerusalem to Governor Felix in Caesarea, then to governor Festus and now to King Agrippa as they are still trying to figure out what to do with Paul 2 years later. Yesterday in Acts 25, we set the scene. King Agrippa and his royal entourage arrive in splendor with much pomp and it’s a who’s who of Caesarea as all the military leaders and business leaders are also there. It must have been quite the sight!
It's kinda funny though, they thought they were doing all of this for their splendor and glory bit its quite the opposite. It’s all being done to fulfill what God had promised. Listen to Matthew 10:14 as Jesus is sending out the disciples, “Beware of men, for they will deliver you over to courts and flog you in their synagogues, and you will appear before governors and kings for my sake, to bear witness before them and the Gentiles.” Wow. The words of Jesus are fulfilled here today in Acts 26 as Paul stands before a king and a governor, both Gentiles and bears witness to them about the gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus said these words in Matthew around 32AD and its currently about 59AD, so here this morning we see His Words being fulfilled 27 years after they were said. That would be like me saying something today and having it perfectly fulfilled in the year 2045! God’s Word is amazing, yes?
So as all the fanfare proceeds, King Agrippa quiets the crowd and gives Paul the floor. Paul must have been smiling inside as he sees God give him power over this regal, royal crowd, all assembled together in the most beautiful dress, all just to hear him. You know what Paul is going to talk about and so does he. Here he goes.
Paul’s message here to this amazing crowd could have been so many things. He could have taught about the Old Testament, which he knew so much about. He could have told about his many great missionary journeys. He could have told them about the many miracles he performed, including raising Eutychus from the dead. He could have given them a motivational message about how to live your life to the fullest. Nope, none of the above. Paul focuses on 2 main things. The testimony of Jesus in his life and the gospel of Jesus Christ. Lets look at Paul’s testimony first.
Now not just Paul’s testimony but our testimony as well, holds great power. This is not just the story of random events happening to you in your life but the story of how God has called you and moved you into His purpose through a series of events created by Him. It’s God’s story, not yours and it holds the power of God within it if it’s told properly. So how do you tell it properly? Well, for that answer lets look at Paul’s testimony before King Agrippa and how he tells it. It has 3 distinct parts, the life before Christ, the conversion moment, and life after accepting Christ. Lets look at the first part.
The first is the story of how your life was before you accepted Christ as your savior. We are all born sinners, that’s a fact of life. You don’t have to teach young children to lie, cheat, covet and steal, we’re just born knowing it and knowing it well. In fact, we have to be TAUGHT to NOT do these things! So our life before Christ will be that of an unsaved sinner and it will look like just that. Paul tells this audience of royalty that before He met Christ he was full of anger and hatred towards the believers of Jesus. He persecuted them, beat them, imprisoned them, and even committed them to death. The before in his story is of a life that has not yet been affected by the power of Christ. As you tell your story it will be the same. What was your life like before you accepted Christ? Now be careful here not to glorify sin. We have all done things that we are terribly ashamed of and you don’t need to highlight specific sin. Paul mentions what he was like before Christ but doesn’t get into gory details and very importantly he doesn’t dwell here long. That’s how he used to be but no more, he is now a child of God.
The second part of Paul’s testimony is the conversion moment. That defining moment in your life where the Holy Spirit calls and you surrender your life to your Lord Jesus Christ. This is a life changing moment and I never tire of hearing about these moments in the lives of believers. Paul tells of his experience with Jesus on the road to Damascus. He is very specific. If you have a genuine encounter with Christ you will remember it vividly for the rest of your life. I remember the night I accepted Christ just like it was yesterday. A life that was broken and without direction and purpose was at that moment restored. The power of this single moment will move others, it will move them because it was God who moved.
The third part of Paul’s testimony was the after. How has your life changed because of that unforgettable moment when Jesus saved you? You see, you cannot truly meet Jesus and invite Him into your heart and not be changed forever. When you surrender to Jesus, the Holy Spirit of God will move into you and you will now be living with His guidance and conviction. My friends you will be a new creature and it will show! Paul tells them clearly of how his life changed and how he followed his savior in obedience and did what he was asked to do . My friends that’s another great point here. When you are truly a child of God you will obey the father! I can’t think of any parent that would allow or much less embrace disobedience from their child. God is no different. If you are a child of God you will WANT to be obedient to your loving caring father. You know, I can’t think of much I wouldn’t do if my Dad down in good ol’ Combine Texas asked me to do it! My love for my father produces obedience.
So Paul carefully shares his testimony and now he moves onto the second part of his message. He shares the full gospel of Jesus Christ. The word gospel means “good news” and Paul loves to share the good news! Now the full gospel of Jesus is this…Jesus came to Earth as the Son of God, born of a virgin birth, lived a perfect sinless life and then died on a cross as payment for the sins of the world and was then raised from the dead three days later to conquer the death of sin once and for all. My friends that is the full gospel. It all goes together. Paul didn’t just preach the death or the birth, he preached the resurrection, he preached it all. For Paul every sermon was an Easter sermon! He is Risen!
So Paul uses this glorious platform not for eloquent speech or to beg for his freedom but to simply share his testimony as a regular man following God in obedience and then he tells them how they too can accept Christ. Paul’s sermon was short and sweet. Succinct yet full of the power of God. A sermon doesn’t have to be long, flowery, eloquent or motivational. It just needs to layout the gospel clearly and give people a chance to accept Christ, just like Paul did.
King Agrippa can find no charge in Paul but since Paul had already appealed to Caesar he couldn’t have convicted Paul anyway. Paul’s fate is clear, he is going to Rome just as Jesus said he would. This little pitstop in Caesarea was just so Paul could witness to kings and governors. Tomorrow Paul sets sail for Rome and we get to one my absolute favorite chapters in God’s Word, the shipwreck of Paul.
Thanks for reading along today, I pray that your personal 5 minutes in God’s Word spoke to you as much as mine did today. I’m so thankful that God didn’t just leave us down here to fend for ourselves but He gave us the single most powerful tool that the world has ever seen….His Holy Word. Use this tool today to hear from God and about the plan that He has for your life.
As you absorb God’s Word today, don’t just keep it for yourself. Share it with others. It will affect every ear it falls upon.
Be blessed as you share the love.
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