So we're looking at the life of the Apostle Paul, and today I want to talk to you about religiosity versus spirituality. And this is the story of the Apostle Paul's journey from being a religious Pharisee to being a spiritual apostle. Do you all know there's a major difference between being religious and having a relationship with God? It is huge. The Bible talks about this difference. The Apostle Paul talked about the idea of many people in religion having all these rules and regulations, do not taste, do not touch. Paul said all of these were according to human precepts. Indeed, they have the appearance of wisdom, promoting a self-made religion of asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgences of the flesh. See, religion is like self-help. You get a bunch of rules and regulations, and you think this is going to please God, and so you try to build a stairway to heaven in hopes that by doing these various different things, you can somehow obtain God's favor, and you can't. The Pharisees fasted, and they prayed, and they and they tithe, and they did all this religious activity, and they did it down to the letter of the law, but when Jesus, who was the Word manifested, when He shows up, what do they do? They want to crucify Him. How is that even possible? That you'd be so obedient and so strict to the Bible, but when Jesus comes, you reject Him. He is the Word. He's the Old Testament personified. And here's the reason why. Because Jesus said, come to me. And if you came to Jesus, you had to follow Jesus. And what this meant was a loss of control. Religion is all about controlling. Religion tries to control people. There's only one person worthy of controlling you. You know who that is? It is God himself. And when God puts His Spirit inside of you, that is your control. That is what you follow, not rules and regulations, not some sort of religious system, but every morning you follow the Lord because the Lord is in you. And this is what the Apostle Paul learned. You can control religion, but you can't control God. That's why the rich young ruler couldn't follow Jesus, but could follow all of the laws. The apostle Paul was a Pharisee of Pharisee, but he became a God sent apostle. So as we get back into the story where we left off, we see how Paul approaches authority. Remember he is standing before King Agrippa, who is the king of the Jewish people. And he's also before the governor of the Roman empire of that region, a man by the name of Festus. And Paul starts out by saying this, I consider myself fortunate that it is before you, King Agrippa, that I am going to make a defense today against all the accusations of the Jews. Is King Agrippa a very good, is he a good guy? What did I say last week? I said he actually married his sister. Y'all know that's not in the Bible to marry your sister. So Paul could have taken the position of John the Baptist. Remember, John the Baptist confronted Herod, who married his brother's wife. So very easily, Paul could have stood up there and, you know, kind of came at him like a prophet. But the Apostle Paul is a different person now, and he understands there's a difference between light and darkness, and he understands that people are in darkness. So he's not going to use a heavy rebuke about the unlawful marriage. Instead, here's what he says, I consider myself fortunate And here's why he considers himself fortunate to stand before King Agrippa. Especially because you are familiar with all the customs and controversies of the Jews. What is he saying here? You've been a Jew. You've seen the Jewish people. They're always into controversy. There's always an argument about the law. There's always an argument about festivals and feasts. You, King Agrippa, you understand how the Jews really are. They're always arguing. So he says, therefore, I beg you to listen to me patiently. And he's going to tell the story of being a religious Jewish person and then becoming a spiritual Jew. He tells his story. He says, he says, my manner of life from youth spent from the beginning among my own nation and in Jerusalem is known by all Jews. He's saying my lifestyle. And by the way, he grew up there probably as a as a young boy. And he followed all of the religious customs, even from his youth. He goes on to say, they all know me. They have known for a long time. I have grown up in Jerusalem in their midst. You can ask any one of them if they were willing to testify that according to the strictest parties of religion, I have lived as a Pharisee. I mean, this is interesting. Paul is saying, although I'm from Tarsus originally, I was born there, I've always lived in Jerusalem. And I've lived in front of these people who are accusing me. They all know who I am. Paul was that guy. A Pharisee. Somebody who was against Jesus. Somebody who was against everything Jesus stood for. Remember how Paul describes himself in Philippians. He says, I was circumcised on the eighth day. I was from the tribe of Benjamin. I'm a Hebrew of Hebrews, and as of the law, I am a Pharisee, the strictest keeper. I was educated under Gamaliel, according to the strictest manner of the law of our fathers, being zealous for God." You see, Gamaliel was the leading rabbi, and Paul was under his tutelage. What Paul is saying is, I wasn't just a Pharisee. I was at the top of my class. I was at the highest level of being a Pharisee. If somebody had a question of the law, they probably went to Paul. Paul was a scholar. He was a devout. There was nobody more zealous than Paul. Have you ever heard people described as being deeply religious? I hate that term. That guy, he's really religious. Religious people spend a lot of time trying to impress people with their religiosity. I don't like people who have a lot of bumper stickers. I don't like that. If you do, forgive me. But the people that have the most bumper stickers, I find, are trying to say something that maybe Jesus wouldn't say. That's a lot of bumper stickers. I saw a guy once, he had a clergy bumper sticker. He had another sticker that said clergy. He had something hanging from his dash that said clergy. And I said, I don't want to run into this guy. Sometimes when people get older in life, they say, I need more religion in my life. No, you don't. No, you don't. You may think this is what you want, but you don't want more religion. Maybe you're in church thinking, I want to get I have everything else. I want to get a little religion. No you don't. You know what you want? You want God. And there's a difference. And Paul is the living example of the difference. Open your eyes to Paul's experience. Paul had a different kind He was the most religious person you'd ever want to meet, but he went from having that kind of religiosity to a spiritual knowledge. Do you know there's a big difference between reading about skydiving and actually skydiving? There's a big difference between watching movies about skydiving, listening to music about skydiving, having bumper stickers about skydiving. No, if you wanna really know what skydiving is, you've gotta get in a plane and you gotta take off. And when you get up about, I don't know how far they go, but it's high, you gotta be willing to jump. It's a big difference. Paul knew everything about skydiving, but wouldn't skydive. Religious people know everything about God, but they're not willing to get into a plane and jump out of it. Just to show how much confusion there is about God, I googled, I want to know more about skydiving. Look at every picture. Every picture is somebody skydiving. I then googled, I want to know more about God. What the heck? I got quotes. I got books. I got songs. Do you understand the difference? Apparently for skydiving, they know what skydiving is. Apparently we don't know what God is. We know what religion is. Paul knew what religion was, but he didn't know God, so he tells the story. He says, listen, I'm here on trial because of a hope in the promise made by God to our fathers, to which the 12 tribes hope to obtain as they earnestly worship day and night. It is for this hope that I've been accused. What is he talking about here? He's talking about the resurrection of Christ. He says, why is it thought incredible by any of you that God raises the dead? What is he saying here? You all read about it. You all studied it. But then when it actually happens, you go, no, it didn't. Do you see the difference? The Bible in the Old Testament talks about the resurrection of the dead, and then when somebody actually raises from the dead, they wanted to deny that God could have done that. And that is the whole point of Jesus' coming. Why is it that you thought it incredible by any of you that God raises the dead? Our whole religion is based on the idea that there will be a resurrection of the just and the unjust. So, let's get back to this video here because this actor does a pretty good job of portraying what the speech was and how it was received. 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 priests, I put many of the saints 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, to have them punished, and I tried to force them to blaspheme. In my obsession against them, I even went to foreign cities to persecute them. On one of these journeys, I was going to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests. About noon, O King. Okay. Stopped it right there, because before Paul gets into his actual testimony, what actually happens, he basically says, listen, I get it. I was the chief persecutor of these people. I was just like them. I understand their passion and their hatred for me and why they want me dead. I get it. I'm shaking up their entire world, their entire religious system. The Apostle Paul goes on to talk about seeing the light, and this transforms his thinking. 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 goats, Then I asked, who are you, Lord? I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting, the Lord replied. Well, this is actually the second thing. He says, it's hard for you to kick against the goats. That's a very archaic expression to us. Farmers of that day knew exactly what it was. If you had yoked up two animals together and one of them was a little rebellious and was kicking and didn't want to be yoked to the other ox, he would continue to kick and try to rebel. And then this was the goat. It was a stick that had a point on it. And he would take the stick and he'd put it right about there. So every time the ox would kick, it would hit the goad. And the more it kicked, the more pain it experienced. And what is Paul saying? He's saying, the Lord told me that every time I persecuted, every time I came against the church, I felt something. I kicked and I felt the pain. And why did he feel that? Because the Bible tells us in his own testimony, Paul says, that he set me apart before I was born. He called me. You see, if God has a plan for your life, it's in there somewhere. But you might be kicking against it. You might be denying it. You might be running from it. You might be resisting it. You might be going in the opposite direction. But if it's there, you know it. And every time you try to resist it, you feel that little twang of like, hmm, why am I resisting this? Notice what Jesus says, I am Jesus whom you're persecuting. The apostle Paul could have said, I never persecuted you, I persecuted these followers. What is Jesus saying? You persecute my church, you're persecuting me. You speak evil against my church, you're speaking evil against me. My church and me are one. Persecute the church, persecute me. And so now he gets down to the commission of God and seeing the light. 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 of me and what I will show you. I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them to open 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. Wow. Paul goes from being religious to having this conversion experience in which his entire perspective has changed. Now his entire mission in life is to open people's eyes. Religion doesn't do it. They need to turn from darkness to light. They need to turn from the power of Satan to God. You need to turn to God that you might receive forgiveness of sin. This is something they could never have achieved in the Old Testament. They could make all the sacrifices they want, but their sins remained. But this was Paul's message. Jesus came to forgive sin. There's a lot to be said about all the great religions of the world because they all have in common something called the hero's journey. And I think it's birthed into man how to find truth in life. This is the hero's journey. First, they have to depart from what is known and established. At some point, you've got to break away from what you think is true And then you encounter something, some light, some divine revelation. There's an encounter. And then after that encounter, there is a return to those to share with them what you have found in the light. This is as old as man himself. Go back to the father of faith, go back to Abraham, and you find out he had to leave Ur of Chaldees, and he had to go looking for a city that builder and maker was God. And then God met him out there, and God gave him a promise. And then eventually, Abraham becomes the father of a nation. Notice, leaving, encountering, returning. You see it in Moses. He was raised by the Egyptians. He had a leave there. Goes to the desert. Experiences God in a burning bush. Then he returns. Do you see the pattern? And Paul is following that exact pattern. There he is, leaving the religious system of the Pharisees. He encounters God. And what is he doing now? He is returning back to those people who say, I've seen the light! This is the way out. By the way, this is Plato's allegory of the cave, which we'll talk about a little bit later, because it's human nature that when these people return from seeing the light, people don't like light. That's what Jesus' testimony was. So what is the human response when we experience the preaching of God's Word, when we experience the light of heaven? What is our response? So then, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the vision from heaven. First to those in Damascus, then to those in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and to the Gentiles also, I preached that they should repent and turn to God and prove their repentance by their deeds. That is why the Jews seized me in the temple courts and tried to kill me. But I have had God's help to this very day, 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, that the Christ would suffer and as the first to rise from the dead, would proclaim light to his own people and to the Gentiles. At this point, Festus interrupted Paul's defense. You're out of your mind, Paul. He shouted. Your great learning is driving you insane. I am not insane, most excellent Festus. Paul replied. What I'm saying is true and reasonable. The king is familiar with these things, and I can speak freely to him. So what was the response? Well, Elisa Festus, you're out of your mind. You're crazy. At least he says it was your learning, because nobody could deny that Paul was a scholar, but your great learning has driven you out of your mind. Paul's response is, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, no. My words are true and rational. That is the testimony of Christianity. My words are true and natural. Jesus said this, whoever does what is true comes to the light. So what does this mean? Well, it really means that people who don't come to light really don't want the truth. What? Doesn't the atheist want truth? Doesn't he want to believe what is really true? Or is he in a position of resisting truth to fit his narrative? You all know who this guy is. Richard Dawkins is perhaps the most popular atheist of our day. He once said in one of his books called The God Delusion, here's what he said. He says, it is under debate whether Jesus actually existed. Forget about believing in him. Historians have conclusively said that he did not exist, or it's even under debate. He said this in his book, why? because he's trying to apply his own narrative of truth. Thank God that scholars read his books. So here he is being confronted by another scholar about telling this lie that he knew was a lie when he wrote it in his book. Listen to this. Reading your book, The God Delusion, you say that It's under scholarly dispute among historians that Jesus actually existed. Now I checked with the ancient historians. That is not so. And it disturbed me. History is not natural science. But what I don't understand is this, why you would write something like that. I don't think it's a very important question whether Jesus existed. There are some historians, most historians think he did. They certainly do. I couldn't find an ancient historian that didn't. Well, there are one or two. When you look at history, and let's leave aside, maybe I alluded to the possibility that some historians think Jesus never existed. I take that back. Jesus existed. How much do you want to believe your narrative that you'd be willing to lie about something? You're a scholar, you know. You write it in your book because a lot of dumb atheists read it, I guess. And by the way, the smartest people with the highest IQs end up to be believers. I was listening to one guy who has the Guinness World Record. Well, I don't know how you determine it. He has the highest IQ ever recorded. And so he was talking about his belief in God, but he lost me after he started talking about how it's mathematically impossible for there not to be a God, and he got into stuff that was way over my head. But the bottom line was, he thought it was impossible for an intelligent person to conclude that there is no God, right? That the universe spontaneously created itself out of nothing? Where do we see that in science? that there's nothing and all of a sudden there's everything. That is hard to believe. I mean, I couldn't believe he said this. I don't believe that's a very important question whether Jesus existed or not. That's what he said in the end. Okay. Jesus said this. This is the judgment that light has come into the world, but people love darkness rather than light. because their works were evil. In other words, it's not because of the intellect they don't come, it's because of their heart they don't come. It has nothing to do with the intellect. Blake Pascal, brilliant mathematician, philosopher, but also a theologian, he says the heart has reasons that reason knows nothing. Do you understand what he's saying? It's with the heart we believe in God. The mind is just an instrument to either convince us that there is a God or convince us there's not a God. depending about what we want to be true. It's the heart that believes. And so what you can say is most atheism is founded on the idea that they don't want there to be a God. And then the mind goes about justifying why. Trust me on this. If you look at every atheist, you'll see some gross immorality that they are concerned about being judged on. but all who are listening to me today may become what I am, except for these chains. The king rose and with him, the governor and Bernice and those sitting with them. They left the room. Well, there you go. That's the result of preaching your heart out. And every preacher who says, amen, I've been there. He walks out, whole procession leaves, that's it. Nobody's changed, no hearts have been converted, just Paul standing there. Remember Plato's cave, the analogy. A person who's in a cave looking at shadow pictures, by the way this is media I think, Man-making shadow pictures, we're all believing the lies that we see perpetrated up on the wall. He says, now what if a man actually climbed up into the reality of the light and experienced reality, truth, and then he decided that he would go back and share what he saw. Plato's conclusion was they would murder him. And by the way, they actually did murder Plato. And they murdered Jesus. And they murder anyone who comes bearing the truth. Because Jesus said, men want to be in darkness. There's one other great reason, and Paul would explain it in 1 Corinthians. He says, if our gospel is veiled, it's veiled to those who are perishing. In their case, the God of this world has blinded their minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel. Do you all know there's a devil out there? If there's a God, there's also a force of evil. But Jesus said this in, well actually, this is what was said, Jesus actually said it in a paraphrase, but this is actually what Jeremiah said. And it's true of us today, and we're gonna close with this in prayer. This is the promise we have from the scriptures. God says, you will seek me and find me, when you do what? When you seek me with all your heart. If you're really after God, if you really wanna know whether there is a God, God gives you a promise that you can find him. Thanks for listening to this message from River Mountain Church. If you'd like some more information, visit our website, rivermountainchurch.org.