Not The Way I Thought It Would Be

Take your Bibles and turn with me to Isaiah chapter 55 for just a minute. Isaiah chapter 55.

Having spent many chapters prior to this detailing the judgment of not only Israel but surrounding nations, in chapter 53 Isaiah gives us a glimpse of the Messiah, the redemption, the work of redemption that's coming. And then these chapters as we move into the last half of Isaiah correspond with the New Testament. And you see the promises of the full redemption of the nation of Israel and of the world, of the kingdom of God that's coming. And as we look at chapter 55 in Isaiah you see some familiar scriptures.

Some of these used to be, well they still are, they're scripture songs that we have sung before. Come, all of you who are thirsty, come to the waters. And you who have no money, come, buy and eat. Come buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen to me and eat what is good and your soul will delight in the richest of fair.

Give ear and come to me, hear me that your soul may live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you, my faithful love. Promise to David, I have made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and a commander of the peoples.

There's a time of fullness coming. And Israel is like we are. And in the midst of despair, it's hard to see blessing. In the midst of loss, it's hard to see any way that this can turn into any kind of a gain. In the midst of a shooting in Jonesboro, it's impossible to see what in the world good God could ever bring out of something like that.

There's absolutely no sense can be made out of something like that. But we try. There's something within us that tries to lay out facts and say, well, this is why this happened. So this is what we have to do to keep this from happening again. And God is saying, my thoughts are above your thoughts. What I'm doing you can't even understand. I didn't call you to fix it.

I called you to trust me. My ways are beyond your ways.

And to turn back to the Lord, to turn to him. Okay, now go back to Acts chapter 9.

You and I cannot envision what's going to happen next in our lives. Even though we're saved, even though we're Christians, you and I cannot say this is what's going to happen next. We understand the days that we live in. We understand the times and the seasons, for God told us that we could discern that. But of the day and the hour, we don't know.

We see how things could kind of come together to bring about a one-world church system, but we don't know how that's exactly going to happen. We don't even know what's going to happen this week. We try and forecast the weather, and it's probably going to rain today, maybe. They say it could rain Friday, kind of, sort of, maybe, it might, might not. Pretty well, they're going to project it out for seven days, ten days, thirty days, but they don't know.

We don't know what's going to happen. Paul, in 1 Corinthians 13, the love chapter, at the end of that section writes, For now we see as in a glass darkly, but then face to face. We see the Lord and how He's doing things, but it's like we're looking through a glass darkly. It's kind of like He's shaded from us. Even as Christians, we don't know exactly what's going to happen.

We don't know how He has things planned, but we anticipate that someday we're going to know. Someday we're going to see Him face to face.

and trust also in Him, and He will direct and bring to pass that that we've committed to Him. I'm not saying it's wrong to dream. I'm not saying it's wrong to have goals. I think we set ourselves up for defeat when we plan out these dreams and goals, and this is what I want to do, and I'm going to do it. And the only time I really bring it before the Lord is while I'm on my way to do it,

and I hit this problem in the way, and then I call God. And what I'm saying is, God, get rid of the problem so I can get on my way to my dreams and to my goals. We set ourselves up for defeat because we haven't considered the Lord in our goals and in our dreams. We haven't considered the fact that God gave us the desire. Maybe He didn't. Lord, did You give me that desire? If You did, Lord, I'll lay it at Your feet.

Now guide me. I'm going to move that way, Lord, but if at any time You want me to change direction, I'm open to You. I see that, Lord. I can see how wonderful that would be, but I'm open to You and constantly looking to the Lord and constantly willing to let Him alter that. If we don't move that way, which most of us don't, then I think we're setting ourselves up for defeat.

Now, in His Word, God gives us, over and over, practical examples of how to live. And this text is no different. This little bitty text here in Acts chapter 19, I believe God is showing us some examples of how He wants us to live, trusting Him, knowing that most of the things that are going to happen in our lives are going to turn out not the way we thought they would be. But that's okay, because the Lord's in control.

You never just do anything. Why don't you just paint the trim on the house?

You never just do anything. Along those lines, if we can just kind of come to the point of seeing that everything in life is going to turn out probably not the way that I thought it would be, but that's okay, because it's going to be okay, because the Lord is in control. And in this section, in this text, we're going to see four examples that God's going to give us through the future Apostle Paul here, four examples of how to live in trusting the Lord, four examples of trusting God as we go through this life, demonstrated here in the life of the Apostle Paul. The first one is in verses 19 through 21, and for lack of a better title, I just put down, bloom where you're planted.

It's a phrase that was used some 20 years ago in the Christian life. Bloom where you're planted, or if you're taking notes, begin where you are. Just begin where you are. Look at verse 19 again. Saul spent several days with the disciples in Damascus, and at once he began to preach in the synagogues that Jesus is the Son of God. And those who heard him were astonished and asked,

Is this the man who raised havoc in Jerusalem among those who call on his name? And hasn't he come here to take them as prisoners to the chief priests? Saul began to preach. in the synagogues that Jesus is the Son of God. Saul is excited. Saul is full of zeal and a new believer. It's exciting to have new believers around. And that's why it's exciting as we've been praying,

you know, down through this 40 day time of prayer and fasting, that God would give us a heart for the lost and let us begin to see more and more of the harvest being brought in because you need to have new believers around you. It's often, well, it's a fact in our Christian walk as in other areas of life, after you go along with something for a while, you become stagnant in it. You become kind of ho-hum, this is just commonplace. And you need that zeal.

You need that, a new believer is like a cannon that's just shot off in all direction. They're just excited for the Lord and they're gonna go everywhere for Jesus and save the world. Why haven't you saved the world up till now? And you need that zeal. You need that excitement. But the new believer also needs to be harnessed and kind of directed, you know, it's like taking the reins of a runaway horse

and trying to just point them in a direction and hope they keep going straight. They need that direction. And it says here that Saul began at once. He just began where he was. He started pouring out just immediately right where he was, began to preach in the synagogues that Jesus is the Son of God. Now that phrase, Jesus is the Son of God, this is the first time it's shown up in the book of Acts.

It won't be there anymore. You won't see it again. But Paul uses that phrase repeatedly in his epistles, declaring that Jesus is the Son of God. This is Messiah. He is the Son of God. Now, the Jews today don't believe that. If you go to Israel today, you'll see on billboards all over the city, Messiah is coming. They believe Messiah is coming, but they don't believe Messiah is the Son of God.

They don't believe he's deity. They don't believe he's the God man. They simply believe that he is a man who will allow them to rebuild their temple. He will somehow negotiate the peace that's necessary to allow them to rebuild their temple on the Temple Mount. And they believe that he's here. They believe that he's coming soon. And you'll see that all over in Israel.

But they don't believe that he's the Son of God. And Paul here, I'm gonna refer to him as Paul, he's in the midst of his transition from Saul to Paul, seeks to prove that. He goes, it says, goes to all the synagogues seeking to prove that Jesus is the Son of God. Now, it's interesting to me that back in verse 15, when God speaks to Ananias and tells him to go and lay hands on Paul, that he told Ananias, and I'm presuming now that he also told Paul because he tells Ananias, this man is my chosen instrument to carry my name before the Gentiles.

I'm assuming that when he calls Paul in and he says, go and lay your hands on him because I'm gonna show him how much he must suffer for my name's sake. I'm sure that God told Paul that he was using him, gonna use him to be his instrument to the Gentiles. So that should raise a question. So why did he go to the synagogues there? Why, if God told him, I'm going to use you as my instrument,

my vessel to the Gentiles, why is Paul going to the synagogues? Let me throw out a couple of ideas just for you to chew on. Number one, it's what he knows. It's what he knows. God wants to use you where you are because it's what you know. When we think of ourselves, we've been praying to make disciples this past week, I hope you have, but you get kind of afraid

and you think I'm just nothing. I'm just somebody, I'm just a Christian. No, you're a disciple maker. You're called a disciple maker by God. That's part of your trade. That's part of what he's called you to do. And he has equipped you to do that. Well, I feel like I've got to go through Bible school and all of this stuff. No, you just start where you're at.

You just begin because it's what you know. You're right there. And I think Saul started this because this is what he knows. This is what he's been doing. This is where he's at. And he's going to wait for God to direct him. But he has, as much as he has been wrong in his assumptions about the Lord, about Jesus, about the Messiah, he has a passion for his people.

He has a passion that the Jews come to faith in Christ. When we get to the book of Romans again, you'll see that his passion for his people is so intense that he says, and he evidently talked to God about it, I'd trade places with them. And in other words, he says, if it would be possible for me to go to hell for eternity so that all of them could be saved, so that all of Israel could be saved and spend eternity with the Lord, I'd do it. That's how much he loves them.

Now, I can't think of, don't get me wrong in this. I can't think of any group that I'd be willing to do that for myself. I love my wife and I love my kids. And ideally, ideally, I'd like to think that if it came down to that, I would say, Lord, take me, you know, and let my wife and kids be with you and I'll spend eternity in hell. And after all the people go, oh,

and God says, okay, now you're consigned to outer darkness where there's weeping and gnashing of teeth. I'd probably go, wait a second.

But Paul said that he loved the people so much that he would trade places with them for eternity. It's what he knows. He knows the Jews. Another reason, let me give you another reason, another thought, just to kind of chew on this. It seems to be what he's best equipped for, right? I mean, he's a priest for heaven's sakes. He's a member of the Sanhedrin. He's been instructed by Gamaliel.

He is probably the honcho. Once Gamaliel dies, Saul will probably be the next rabbinical authority in Israel. So he's equipped for that. And who better, right? Who better to go in and dialogue with the Jews? Who better to go in and debate them verse for verse and be able to show them that Jesus is the Christ. Isn't that right? He's equipped for that, wouldn't we think?

That's what I think. He's equipped for what he ought to be doing, right? Wrong. Everywhere, and you'll see it just here when he's in Damascus and when he's in Jerusalem and then everywhere else he goes, we'll find he goes to plant churches. The first place he goes is to the synagogues and he debates with them. And every single place where he goes to the synagogues,

he's rejected, every single place. His people won't hear. Here's the guy who mastered not only the language, but the culture and the purposes of his religion of Judaism. Here's a guy who could take each of the elements of their sacrifices and the priesthood and show them how that relates to Christ and they won't hear him. They refuse to hear him. That's personally one of the reasons why I think

that Hebrews was written by Paul. You can't be dogmatic on it. But I think Paul tried to slip one in the back door. He didn't sign his name to it. He just kind of said, hey, take this to Jerusalem, give it to the Jews, you know? And maybe by the time they get through reading his arguments and then they find out it's Paul, he's got them, you know? But they wouldn't hear of it.

If he said, here's, just read this. This is from Paul. They'd just take it and trash it. They'd throw it away. They wouldn't read it. They reject it. But he seems so equipped for the task, doesn't he? That's our way of thinking, isn't it? That's how we think. Who do you know that is a great baseball player or a biker-type, alcoholic, drug addict kind of guy,

maybe, that you think, oh God, just get a hold of him. What he could do for your kingdom in the areas of biker, drug, doper, alcoholic people, you know? And you think, you know, you get the Dave Dreveckis and the A.C. Green, all those, and they have some effect, some effect. But in most cases, as you look at the Word, God don't work that way, just like with Paul.

It seems like the best place, because he's equipped for it, would be to send him into the throat of Judaism.

Jesus, with his ability.

But God usually doesn't work that way. God usually doesn't work, because who would glory in that? Paul would. So he'll take us, and he'll put us in places that we think, so that we have to trust him, so that he gets the glory for it. And that's kind of the third reason here, as far as why Paul went to the synagogues, is I think it was kind of a personal zeal for Paul.

I do think God told him, I want you to be my apostle to the Gentiles, and Mr. Perfect Hebrew of Hebrews, kosher man, wouldn't even touch a Gentile before now, thinks Gentiles. But God, let me show you how I can handle these people here. I'm equipped to handle these Gentiles. Lord, I can run circles around these Jews, Lord, just let me, just, Gentiles. And if you don't think that's a fact,

then have you ever prayed, God, I'm at your will, your disposal, send me anywhere you want, except.

See, I don't think Paul's any different than we are. We get these ideas that these characters in Scripture are so much, and they're just us. They're just human, flesh and blood, touched by the power of God, touched by the hand of God. Nevertheless, Paul begins where he's at. He just starts where he is, and he waits for the Lord to direct him, and that's what we need to do where we are.

Nothing, listen to this, nothing is etched in granite in your life. Absolutely nothing except Jesus and your salvation. Absolutely, nothing else is guaranteed to you. Nothing else is etched in stone. Now, in the midst of your going, in the midst of your blooming where you're planted, beginning where you are, you can anticipate antagonism, verse 21. I said, isn't this a guy that came to take all these people

and take them as prisoners to the chief priests? You can expect antagonism. Most everything is not immediately accepted by people. People will not just, for the most part, accept something immediately. It takes time for it to develop. It takes time, you know, when you come into a new work situation, you may not feel accepted immediately. It takes some time for you to get to know

the people around you. New cars, when new cars are introduced to the public, it takes a while for the car to be proved and before people will just run out and buy it, you know? Things need to be proven over some time and so does God's workmen. God's workmen need to be proven over time. And so you can anticipate some antagonism. As you begin to share with people about the love of God,

you can anticipate that they're not just gonna flock to your feet like a crusade and just think, boy, that's great, tell me more. They're gonna laugh at you. They're gonna ridicule you. They're gonna ostracize you. But as you continue walking on with God's grace and God's love and God's mercy for them, and don't just come in with a machine gun and point, you go, all right, let's stand there.

But begin to show them God's love and God's grace. You'll find that they begin to gravitate to you. They don't know why. You'll find them start spending time on breaks with you or at lunch with you and they really don't know why, but they've watched you in the midst of the antagonism. Stand strong for the Lord and continue to walk after him and they want to know that.

They won't know how to verbalize it, but they wanna know that. And so they'll start kinda hanging around. So anticipate the antagonism. You wanna know one of the main reasons why people don't share their faith? They're afraid of ridicule. They're afraid that people will think they don't know enough. They're afraid that people will laugh at them for doing that.

You and I fight for acceptance wherever we go. When we go to a new place, when you even get on an elevator, watch yourself. Just watch yourself and then watch people the next time you get on an elevator. You wanna get on an elevator in such a way as not to cause a disturbance, in such a way as to be accepted when you get on the elevator. The first thing, the door's open,

you look at the people and you see how they're dressed and you see where there's room and you wanna kinda just walk in and not cause a stir and just kinda stand there, you know? And if you ever have to get in an elevator and it's full and you're kinda in the corner and all the people are standing there and they're looking to the front and you're kinda here looking at them, it's one of the most uncomfortable feelings in the world. Why is that? Because you wanna fit in, you wanna be accepted in that little room and you don't wanna do anything stupid because they're all looking at you and you're afraid they're gonna laugh at you if you do something foolish and you forget that they feel just as stupid as you do.

And that's in any setting. So if you're afraid to share your faith because you're afraid people are gonna think you're funny and laugh at you and talk about you behind your back, forget it, they already do that. You may as well go ahead and share your faith with them, share the Lord with them and at least start making some progress. Give them something more to talk about, maybe somebody else will come and listen to your presentation of the gospel.

Expect some antagonism but just begin to bloom where you're planted. Just begin to share wherever you are. Second, second principle. Always expect change in your life and always expect change to come before you're ready for change to come. Let me say that again. Always expect change in your life and always expect change to come before you're ready for that change to come.

An immediate change happens in Paul's life. Now, well, it already happened back a few verses where he sees the Lord on the road to Damascus. Well, he has another one happen. If you have a study Bible, you look down between verses 22 and 23, between 21 and 23, and it'll tell you after, well, like verse 23 starts off after many days in your study Bible, it'll tell you that probably three years has passed.

Well, the actual break happens here between verse 21 and 22. Go with me to Galatians. You're in Acts. Go to the right and you go through Romans and first and second Corinthians and then the first epistle you come to is Galatians. Go to Galatians chapter one. There's a major break that happens right here in Paul's life, right as he's on fire for the Lord, real zealous, ready to go for God.

A change happens in his life. Galatians chapter one. We'll start reading at verse 13. Paul is talking about his own life. You've heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it. I was advancing in Judaism beyond many Jews of my own age and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers.

But when God who set me apart from birth and called me by his grace was pleased to reveal his son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not consult any man, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was, but I went immediately into Arabia and later returned to Damascus. And then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Peter and stayed with him 15 days. So somewhere back in, go back to Acts chapter nine now, somewhere between verse 21 and 22, God makes a change in Paul's life and moves him out into Arabia, the deserts of Arabia. Now, Arabia at the time of, and I was gonna run a map off for this morning and I didn't.

At the time of Christ, at the time of the apostles, bordered, part of it bordered the edges of what's currently Syria. And so for Paul to go into Arabia, he could have gone just a ways out of Damascus, out of the city of Damascus, or gone further down into the areas of what we call Saudi Arabia today. But most scholars believe that he spent about three years in the wilderness, three years alone, it said, with the Lord, directed by the Holy Spirit, instructed by the Holy Spirit. Now, how do you picture that when I say that?

And you've probably heard this before, even, that he did that, that he spent three years in the wilderness, in the desert, being instructed of the Lord. How do you picture that occurring? Do you picture him going out and putting on a camel skin like John the Baptist and eating locusts and wild honey and kind of walking around with these big eyeballs that kind of have a glazed overlook for three years and God imparting instruction to him? Because I admit that's kind of how I, see, I used to picture all this stuff as really foreign.

I mean, it's really neat to read how God does things, but ooh, those are the disciples, you know? Those are the Apostles as compared to the B-postles, and these are the, this is first team. And I can, you know, and they were distant and foreign until the Lord really revealed that they are just like you and me, just, and God uses his vessels. How did God instruct Paul when he was in the wilderness?

Did he go out and sit him on a rock and have a big video screen come down out of heaven like he did to Peter, like he will, in the next chapter? And have all of these things appear on the video screen and say, this is who I am, and this is what you need to know? I don't think so, because that's not the norm. That's the exception. I think, and I'll show you why in a minute.

I think for these three years, Paul went into the areas of Arabia and he started trying to plant churches. He started trying to tell people about Jesus. He's going to go to the Gentiles, I'll go to the Gentiles. I'll go out and I'll start trying to tell people about Jesus. And for three years, it was a three year time period of learning to grow in the ministry,

of falling on your face, of coming in and presenting like gangbusters and trying to save them all at once and getting run out of town and getting beat up. Well, why do you think that? Well, let me show you. Hold your finger here again and go with me to 2 Corinthians 11. That's to your right again. You go through Romans, 1 Corinthians, then 2 Corinthians. 2 Corinthians 11, 2 Corinthians 11.

While you're turning, let me demonstrate this another way with the idea of Paul and Gentiles. Paul even calls himself in Philippians 3, the Hebrew of Hebrews of the tribe of Benjamin. Now, you don't just take a Jew and take down all the disrespect and all that he had for a Gentile and transform it overnight. I'm sorry. Look at your own life. When you accepted Christ,

on the day that you accepted Christ, I know God cleansed you and made you fresh and new, but all your prejudices were gone, right? No more prejudices. No more bad feelings towards anybody. You haven't got a lick of unforgiveness in your heart today towards anybody, do you? There's not anybody in life that you don't love with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, is there?

Except the Lord. Is there anybody you love as much as yourself? You see, those prejudices and wrong feelings don't just disappear overnight. How does God take them? Well, if you're like me, which I think you are, if you're like Paul, which I think you are, he touches that area of your life and you go, oh, no, Lord, and you resist, and he touches it again and you go,

no, Lord, I can't do that, and then he touches you again and he finally brings you to that point where you're broken before him and you say... I take it, Lord," and he begins to kind of shovel that junk out of there. And that's what it is, it's a process, a shoveling out junk, all the garbage. And Paul even says, all these things I count as dung, and he uses the slang word for it.

Why do you think he called it that? That's what he'd been shoveling out of his life. That's what God had been digging out, all the garbage, all the junk. And if God had to do that in Paul's life, he has to do it in mine, and he has to do it in yours. And he says in the first chapter of Philippians that, He who has begun a good work in you will perform it. It means continue it until the day of Christ Jesus, until you see him face to face.

What's that work entail? Bringing you into the image of his Son, what does that work entail? Hitting the floor a few times, running into some difficult situations, trusting the Lord, honing this off, shaving that off, breaking a leg here and there so that we learn to trust the Lord. That's what I think happened to Paul. You're in 2 Corinthians chapter 11. This is where Paul is talking to the Corinthians, and they're saying they're evidently having

some discussion about the fact that, well, you call yourself an apostle, but, Paul, all these guys coming in here, they're Judaizers, and they're telling us we've got to be circumcised and all and keep the law. And they say they're apostles, but they say you're not really an apostle, and so Paul kind of goes through an argument with them that, yes, he is an apostle, but it feels like he's boasting and he condemns himself for having to do it.

I've been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from Gentiles, in danger from the city, from the country, from the sea, in danger from false brothers. And he goes on and on and on, but 24 and 25 are the ones I wanted you to see where he starts laying out times. Five times I received from the Jews 40 lashes minus one. We don't have any account of that.

It's not in the book of Acts anywhere. When did it happen?

Very possibly divided between his time here and his time when he goes to Tarsus down at the end of this section. We'll get to that in just a minute. We really are going to get to that in just a minute. Hang with me here. God's working in the midst of this change. He's always working in the midst of change. Let me ask you a question. When are you ever ready for change?

I'm ready right now. I'm ready for change to take place right now. I don't think so, if you're honest with yourself. When we're ready for change, what we are ready to change is the circumstances. I want the circumstances to change, or other people. I want other people to change. I want them to change. But as far as me changing my sphere of existence or something happening right now that's going

to alter what I'm doing, we're really not ready for that. We've talked about this before. You want to know why? It's because we fight for constancy in our lives. We fight for permanence. We fight for that. We fight and scrape for that. Those dreams that I talked about at the beginning, you have a dream for a family and 2.3 kids and a nice white two-story house in the country with a white picket fence and a two-car garage

with a nice dog and maybe a cat running around, and you fight for that. You struggle. That's what you work for. Why are you working? You're scraping out this existence, fighting for that constancy, fighting for permanence, fighting for this stability, fighting for normal which does not exist, and you fight to keep it all stable so that nothing rocks. But in the Word, God calls us pilgrims, passing through.

This place is not our home. We wait for a city from God, not made with hands. That implies moving, not something constant. It implies change. If we're pilgrims passing through, we're not going to have constancy, permanence. We're going to be constantly in flux as we're passing through, waiting to go be with the Lord. That's natural for a pilgrim. Read about the pilgrims that came to this country, constantly in flux, constantly in

turmoil, constantly in the midst of change. Now, if you're fighting against change, or if you're not anticipating change, then when change hits you, it will overwhelm you because it is coming. Change is coming in your life, and if you're fighting against that, if you're fighting for this permanence, or if you're not aware of the fact that it's coming, it will overwhelm you when it comes. But listen, the encouragement from the Word is, when change happens to the believer, it always brings growth.

It will always bring growth. Look at verse 22. Remember, this is the dividing line. Three years in the desert, all this stuff happens. Yet Saul grew more and more powerful and baffled the Jews living in Damascus by proving that Jesus is the Christ. He grew stronger and stronger. Change in the life of a believer always brings growth, but you need to expect it.

You need to anticipate change. Change will happen, and it will always happen before you are really ready for it to happen. Point three, point three. Learn to accept God's conjunctions in life. Learn to accept God's conjunctions in life. What's a conjunction? It's a grammatical term. I hated English in school. I really did. I fought English. When I went to college, I ended up an English major, and I really didn't know why.

I was just taking classes. I didn't know which direction to go. I never dreamed I was going to be a public speaker, but God knew. Anticipate God's conjunctions in life. What's a conjunction? According to Webster's Dictionary, a conjunction is, quote, the act of joining or a state of being joined. In grammar, it is words that are used to connect other words, phrases, clauses, or sentences.

It's a connecting word. It's a word that connects, like the word and. Or specifically, the word I want to show you here is the word but. But is a conjunction. Funny word, isn't it? It's funnier when you think of it joining two clauses or two sentences or two phrases together.

word but. It's the same word. But Saul grew more and more powerful and baffled the Jews living in Damascus by proving that Jesus was the Christ. And after many days had gone by, the Jews conspired to kill him. But Saul learned of their plan, and day and night they kept close watch on the city gates in order to kill him. But his followers took him by night and lowered him in a basket through an opening in a wall.

And when he came to Jerusalem, he tried to join the disciples. But they were all afraid of him, not believing that he really was a disciple. But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles, told them how Saul on his journey had seen the Lord, and that the Lord had spoken to him, and how in Damascus he had preached fearlessly in the name of Jesus. And so Saul stayed with them and moved about freely in Jerusalem, speaking boldly in the name of the Lord.

He talked and debated with the Grecian Jews, but they tried to kill him. And when the brothers learned this, they took him down to Caesarea and sent him off to Tarsus. Look at all the conjunctions in Paul's life. All the times when he started off doing something and just boom, there's another change. But this is over here. This is over here. Start this way and this is over here.

How many conjunctions have been in your life? You were born in this particular city and you started being raised there, but all of a sudden your dad lost his job and you had to move to another city, and you started to school there, and you went to the sixth grade and started there, but then your parents got divorced and then you had to move to another town, and you ended up there and you started going to school there, but you ran out of money and you had to go to work and you couldn't finish college, and so you started in this one job and it was working really well, but the guy went broke and closed the thing and you had to go to another job, and you found a girl and you thought she was really nice, and you found this guy, girls, and you thought

he was really nice, and you started to date him, but you found out he was a schnuck and you ran off with this other girl. How many conjunctions have been in your life?

Everything that we do is but filthy rags before the Lord. We were at one time enemies with God, separated by a cavern, by the separation of sin that kept us from even approaching Him, but God so loved the world. Our lives as believers started with a conjunction, joining two parts of a life with the purposes of God. Why should we doubt Him now? Joseph in the book of Genesis, his father Jacob had died and the other brothers were

now scared because of Joseph's position in Pharaoh's court and they feared for their own lives. And Joseph says to them in Genesis chapter 50, you intended to harm me by what you did, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. Listen, very often our lives don't seem to speak in complete sentences. We were just doing this when this happened.

We just started off in this way when this change came, when this conjunction happened. Think back about how many times you intended to do something, but you were curtailed by circumstances. How many times you started off in one particular direction, but change happened and you couldn't complete that task. Was it discouraging? If you're honest, it was very discouraging most of the time.

Why? Because we don't like change. I don't like my boat rocked. I have things laid out in my mind. I don't want them changed. We've talked before about when you go out into the world, when you go out to your job, when you go to school, wherever, that you pray for divine appointments, that you realize that the people you're going to come across are appointed by God to be there, that you've

been appointed by God to be there. Your encounter with them is a divine appointment by God. In Philippians, we learn that every circumstance is an opportunity to serve the Lord. There is no circumstance that doesn't qualify for that. When you're in the most disheartening of circumstances, be it flat tire on the highway in the middle of a rain, or wherever, it's an opportunity to serve the Lord.

Let me add one more to that list. Not only pray that God would let you see the divine appointments in your life, and not only pray that God would let you see that every circumstance is an opportunity, but pray that God will let you see that change is simply one of God's conjunctions, joining this part of your life with this part that He already sees. You have no idea what it is, but God does, and He just calls you to trust Him. Point four.

Don't quit. I promise. Point four. God's will, accomplished God's way, will be accomplished in God's time. You probably heard that before. God's will, accomplished God's way, will be accomplished in God's time. Look at verse 30. When the brothers learned of this, that they were trying to kill Paul, they took him down to Caesarea and sent him off to Tarsus. Then the church throughout Judea, Galilee, Samaria, enjoyed a time of peace.

It was strengthened and encouraged by the Holy Spirit. It grew in numbers, living in the fear of the Lord. When Paul is sent to Tarsus here, and Tarsus, and I don't have the map again, but you remember that Jerusalem's down here, Damascus is up here in Syria, Tarsus is on up further and kind of around the bend, more into Turkey, where Turkey is. So he'd have been more up in the southern regions of Turkey.

They sent him up there. When they sent him up there, we don't see him again now until chapter 11. He comes back in chapter 11 as Paul. There's about a seven-year period that happens here between chapter 9 and chapter 11. So there are ten years of Paul's life that are in utter obscurity to us, the reader. There are ten years that God is working in this guy's life.

There are ten years that God is bringing about the beatings with rods, the shipwrecks, the floggings, the stonings that we don't even see. Ten years that God is molding and perfecting this apostle. Now, I don't think Paul thought this is the way it would be when God told him in Damascus or on the road to Damascus, I want you to be my servant to the Gentiles. I think Paul thought just like we would, fine, okay, I don't like Gentiles, but I'm your servant to the Gentiles.

Let's go now. And God says, no, it's going to take some time. We're going to have to go off the road here for about ten years. I'm going to have to work in you. Some things I need to work in you before you can realize the fullness of that to happen. How long have you been waiting for God to work in a situation in your life? How long have you been waiting for God to work on that child or that spouse or that

job, your parents, a brother or sister? How long have you been praying and waiting for that to happen? And at times you pray and pray and pray and it seems like you never see any results and you feel like God has lost your prayer, your connection's broken between you and the Lord. He's forgotten you or he has busier, he has other more important things to do and you feel alienated from him.

And you're going through all of this labor and you still have to be involved with this individual or this particular situation and you wonder why. Know that God is working.