A. Once a five-year-old named Brian was impressed by the story of Simeon the Stylite, a Syrian hermit who lived in the 5th century.
1. Simeon the Stylite was admired as a saint because he lived for more than 35 years on a platform atop a high pillar.
2. Determined to follow Simeon’s example, little Brian put the kitchen stool on the table and started his perilous climb.
3. When his mother heard some strange sounds in the kitchen, she came in, and shouted, “Brian! Get down before you break your neck!”
4. As the youngster obeyed his mother, he muttered, “A boy isn’t even allowed to become a saint in his own house!”
B. I trust that most, if not all of us here today, want to become a saint – we want to become more and more like Jesus, right?
1. The question is: Whose example are we going to follow in that process?
2. Are we going to follow the example of Simeon the Stylite and live life atop a high pillar?
3. I believe there are better examples to follow than Simeon’s.
4. Perhaps one of the best examples we can follow is the example of the apostle called Paul.
5. Paul encouraged us to follow his example – In 1 Corinthians 11:1, he wrote: “Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.”
C. Today, we are beginning a new sermon series that I am calling, “Follow Me As I Follow Christ – A Journey with Paul.”
1. We have access to more information about Paul’s life and ministry than we have for any other New Testament follower of Christ.
2. Therefore, we have the opportunity to understand how to be more like Jesus through Paul’s example.
3. Anytime we engage in a serious study of a great life, we need to brace ourselves for surprises.
4. We are going to witness some amazing ups and downs in Paul’s life as he sought to follow God to the best of his understanding.
5. And as is often the case in life, there are circumstances and events that mold and shape us that take place in the hidden years when few are paying attention.
D. That’s certainly true of America’s sixteenth and perhaps greatest president, Abraham Lincoln.
1. Most of us would assume that the achieving the office of President of the United States was the fitting climax to Lincoln’s already prestigious and successful life, right?
2. But that is not the case with Abraham Lincoln.
3. Most of us know that he had humble beginnings, like being born in a primitive log cabin, but did you know the following things about Lincoln?
a. Did you know that his father was illiterate and that he had virtually no formal education?
b. Did you know that when he applied to law school he was laughed out of consideration because of his miserable qualifications?
c. Did you know that he failed in his first career in business and then started a business that ended in bankruptcy? (He spent 17 years paying off that debt)
d. Did you know that he spent six months in bed recovering from a nervous breakdown after his fiancé died soon after their engagement?
e. Did you know that he failed to be elected seven times when he ran for office?
1. In 1838, he ran to be speaker of the state legislature, and was defeated.
2. In 1840, he ran to become the elector of the state, and was defeated.
3. In 1843, he was defeated for nomination for Congress.
4. In 1846, he ran for Congress and won, but two years later he ran for reelection and was soundly defeated.
5. In 1854, he ran for the U.S. Senate, and lost.
6. In 1856, he sought the vice-presidential nomination at his party’s national convention, and received less than 100 votes.
7. In 1858, he ran again for the U.S. Senate and lost again.
8. Finally, in 1860, he was elected to the presidency of the United States.
9. His perseverance rewarded him with unprecedented political success, and he was reelected for a second term.
10. Sadly, only five days after Lee surrendered, on the 14th day of April 1865, Lincoln was assassinated – he was dead before reaching 60 years of age.
4. If we didn’t know about Lincoln’s early life, then we might think that he must have had a magnificent, silver-spoon background, with all kinds of advantages.
a. But amazingly, when we peer into his past, we discover a life riddled with failure and tragedy, heartache and pain.
5. That’s when we are reminded that the steel of greatness is often forged in the heat of pain.
a. We often learn and are shaped by the dark and difficult pits that we find ourselves in.
b. We must never forget that, especially when we are in the pit and are convinced that nothing of value can come from it.
E. Just as Abraham Lincoln’s life is filled with surprise beginnings, so is the life of the apostle Paul.
1. The Bible first introduces us to Paul (known initially as Saul of Tarsus) in a very brutal and bloody scene.
a. In the initial picture of Saul of Tarsus, he looks more like a terrorist than a devout follower of Judaism.
b. To our surprise and horror, the blood of the first Christian martyr, Stephen, is splattered across Saul’s feet while he stood nodding in agreement, an accomplice to a vicious execution.
2. You will recall that Stephen was a young Christian living in Jerusalem who was chosen for the food ministry because he was full of the Spirit and wisdom (Acts 6:5).
a. The Jewish council of leaders, called the Sanhedrin, despised Stephen because of the strong stand he took for Christ.
b. Stephen was brought before the Sanhedrin for a trial.
c. False witnesses conveyed their lies.
d. And then Stephen was allowed to speak in his defense.
e. When Stephen began to convict and confront them in his long presentation, they refused to listen to him any longer.
f. In rage they drove him through the streets to the outskirts of the city.
g. There they pummeled him with large, jagged stones until he died (Acts 7:60).
4. Saul of Tarsus stood observing this entire episode holding the robes of Stephen’s murderers.
5. Listen to the paraphrase of this story from the Message: Yelling and hissing, the mob drowned him out. Now in full stampede, they dragged him out of town and pelted him with rocks. The ringleaders took off their coats and asked a young man named Saul to watch them. As the rocks rained down, Stephen prayed, “Master Jesus, take my life.” Then he knelt down, praying loud enough for everyone to hear, “Master, don't blame them for this sin” - his last words. Then he died. Saul was right there, congratulating the killers.
F. Because Paul becomes such a central figure in Christianity, it is easy for us to forget his beginnings.
1. Paul was not raised to love Jesus from birth. He didn’t grow up in the church.
2. Saul of Tarsus hated the name of Jesus – so much so, that he became the self-avowed violent aggressor who wanted to destroy the church.
3. As shocking and surprising as is his beginning, we must never forget where he came from.
4. The better we understand the darkness of his past, the more we will understand his gratitude for God’s grace.
G. Later in Paul’s life, when he was presenting his defense to an angry crowd in Jerusalem, he began by saying, “I am a Jew, from Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of no ordinary city.” (Acts 21:39)
1. A close study of the ancient city of Tarsus reveals that Paul’s hometown was no podunk town, but was a busy metropolis.
2. It was located a dozen miles or so from the glistening beaches of the Mediterranean Sea in Cilicia, a province in the southeastern corner of what was then called Asia Minor (today it is part of modern Turkey).
3. Tarsus sits cradled by the towering Taurus range to the north, and because the city was near a seaport, it became a popular route for caravans carrying their goods from the Orient to the east all the way to Rome in the west.
H. John Pollock, author of The Apostle: A Life of Paul, skillfully describes aspects of Saul’s early life and education: Paul’s parents were [members of the sect known as] Pharisees, the party most fervent in Jewish nationalism and strict in obedience to the Law of Moses. They sought to guard their offspring against contamination. Friendships with Gentile children were discouraged. Greek ideas were despised. Though Paul from infancy could speak Greek…and had a working knowledge of Latin, his family at home spoke Aramaic, the language of Judea, a derivative of Hebrew.
They looked to Jerusalem as Islam looks to Mecca. Their privileges as freemen of Tarsus and Roman citizens were nothing to the high honor of being Israelites, the People of Promise, to whom alone the Living God had revealed His glory and His plans…
By his thirteenth birthday, Paul had mastered Jewish history, the poetry of the psalms, and the majestic literature of the prophets. His ear had been trained to the very pitch of accuracy, and a swift brain like his could retain what he heard as instantly and faithfully as a modern “photographic mind” retains the printed page. He was ready for higher education…
A strict Pharisee would not embroil his son in pagan moral philosophy. So, probably in the year that Augustus died, A.D. 14, the adolescent Paul was sent by sea to Palestine and climbed the hills to Jerusalem.
During the next five or six years, he sat at the feet of Gamaliel, grandson of Hillel, the supreme teacher who, a few years before, had died at the age of more than a hundred. Under the fragile, gentle Gamaliel, a contrast with the leaders of the rival School of Shammai, Paul learned to dissect a text until scores of possible meanings were disclosed according to the considered opinion of generations of rabbis…Paul learned to debate in question-and-answer style known in the ancient world as the “diatribe,” and to expound, for a rabbi was not only part preacher but part lawyer, who prosecuted or defended those who broke the sacred Law. Paul outstripped his contemporaries. He had a powerful mind which could lead to a seat on the Sanhedrin in the Hall of Polished Stones, and make him a “ruler of the Jews.”
I. And so Saul lived for the day when he would become a member of the Jewish Supreme Court, called the Sanhedrin.
1. Together, those 71 men ruled over Jewish life and religion, in a courtroom with curved benches – the very place where Stephen delivered his brave yet fateful confession of faith.
2. Saul was likely a part of the larger audience who heard Stephen’s defense that day.
J. Since the day of Pentecost, recorded in Acts 2, Jerusalem had been astir with unprecedented religious activity.
1. The more the embolden apostles preached the good news of Christ, the more the people were converted to faith in Christ.
2. Jews living in Jerusalem and pilgrims visiting from around the world were embracing Christ by the thousands.
3. These were certainly maddening times for the Sanhedrin.
a. Their attempt to silence Jesus and stop His movement by having Jesus crucified had backfired.
b. Their attempts to silence the apostles by imprisoning and beating them also was backfiring.
c. In Acts 5 when they arrested the apostles and put them in the public jail, God sent an angel who miraculously helped them escape and sent them to the temple courts to preach.
d. Totally embarrassed by these developments, the captain of the guard went with his officers and brought the apostles back to the Sanhedrin.
e. The Bible tells us, “They did not use force, because they feared that the people would stone them.” (Acts 5:26)
f. Don’t miss the significance of that detail…who was afraid of being stoned?
4. Watch closely what happens when the apostles are questioned by the Sanhedrin: Having brought the apostles, they made them appear before the Sanhedrin to be questioned by the high priest. 28 “We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name,” he said. “Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are determined to make us guilty of this man's blood.”
29 Peter and the other apostles replied: “We must obey God rather than men! 30 The God of our fathers raised Jesus from the dead--whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree. 31 God exalted him to his own right hand as Prince and Savior that he might give repentance and forgiveness of sins to Israel. 32 We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.” (Acts 5:27-31)
5. Can you guess who was probably there that day hearing that speech? Saul of Tarsus.
a. While standing in the shadows listening to Peter speak, the hair on the back of Saul’s neck likely bristled.
b. The young, pious Pharisee named Saul, listened angrily as the ignorant fisherman named Peter spoke of the now-dead Jesus who claimed to be God.
c. Little did Saul know, but that ignorant fisherman would later be his co-laborer in the work of establishing churches throughout the known world.
K. But before Saul could organize an assault on Peter and his companions, God intervened in another surprising turn of events as Saul’s own mentor stood and took the floor.
1. The Bible says: 33 When they heard this, they were furious and wanted to put them to death. 34 But a Pharisee named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law, who was honored by all the people, stood up in the Sanhedrin and ordered that the men be put outside for a little while. 35 Then he addressed them: “Men of Israel, consider carefully what you intend to do to these men. 36 Some time ago Theudas appeared, claiming to be somebody, and about four hundred men rallied to him. He was killed, all his followers were dispersed, and it all came to nothing. 37 After him, Judas the Galilean appeared in the days of the census and led a band of people in revolt. He too was killed, and all his followers were scattered. 38 Therefore, in the present case I advise you: Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. 39 But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God.” 40 His speech persuaded them. They called the apostles in and had them flogged. Then they ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. (Acts 5:33-40)
2. William Barclay called Gamaliel an “unexpected ally.”
a. In the midst of flaring tempers and irrational thinking, this wise, seasoned teacher calmly rose to his feet and warned them not to rush to judgement and not to be hasty in their actions.
3. We have to wonder what Saul must have thought about this.
a. Did he shake his head in disbelief?
b. Did he wonder if Gamaliel had lost his mind?
4. But consider this: what if Gamaliel had not intervened? What would have happened to the apostles?
a. Perhaps this “unexpected ally” saved Peter’s and the other apostles lives!
5. The apostles were beaten, and went on their way rejoicing because they had suffered for Christ and they continued to preach about Jesus every day in the temple and from house to house!
L. And that is why Saul hated them and that’s what drove him to take even more aggressive action against them.
1. Acts 8 tells us: 2 On that day a great persecution broke out against the church at Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria. Godly men buried Stephen and mourned deeply for him. 3 But Saul began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off men and women and put them in prison. (Acts 8:2-3)
2. When Paul appeared before king Agrippa he shared this testimony: 9 “I too was convinced that I ought to do all that was possible to oppose the name of Jesus of Nazareth. 10 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. 11 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.” (Acts 26:9-11)
3. When Paul wrote to Timothy he summarized his early life in this way: 12 I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength, that he considered me faithful, appointing me to his service. 13 Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief. (1 Tim. 1:12-13)
4. How’s that for an autobiography or resume: blasphemer…persecutor…violent man!
a. But that’s what Paul was…that’s not what he became.
b. Who would have thought that the man who would write so much of the New Testament and have such a positive effect on Christianity would have a past like that?!
5. So when we read words from Paul saying that he was the worst of sinners, we need to keep in mind that he wasn’t trying to be modest – he certainly was one of the worst in some respects.
M. So, this is where we want to end for today in our examination of the story of Saul of Tarsus.
1. Let’s consider some lessons for us to mediate on and apply to our own lives that come out of this part of Paul’s story.
2. First of all, looking at Paul’s life, we need to realize that no matter how any of us appear today, everyone has had a dark side.
a. Hopefully most of our dark side is part of the past and not the present or the future.
b. All of us were sinners and are sinners.
c. But when we came to Christ, our past sins were washed away and we began the transformation process that continues today.
3. Second, looking at Paul’s life, we understand that regardless of what anyone has done or been, no one is beyond hope.
a. No amount or depth of sin is beyond God’s ability to forgive.
b. No one is permanently disqualified from salvation and service.
4. Third, looking at Paul’s life, we learn it is never too late to make a new beginning with God.
a. It is never too late to start doing what is right.
b. We must not allow Satan to keep us stuck where we are, nor must we allow Satan to keep us focused on what we used to be.
c. In Christ, we can become a new creation and have a new beginning each day.
N. Allow me to end with this illustration:
1. President Calvin Coolidge once invited friends from his hometown to dine with him at the White House.
2. Unsure of their table manners, the guests decided to imitate the president.
3. They watched closely to see which utensils he used, what foods he ate and when.
4. Their strategy seemed to succeed until coffee was served.
5. Coolidge poured some coffee into his saucer - They did the same.
6. He added sugar and cream - His guests did, too.
7. Then the president bent over and put his saucer on the floor for the cat!
O. We must be careful about the example we follow.
1. I assure you that Paul’s example is one that is worthy for us to follow.
2. Let’s imitate Paul as he imitated Christ.
3. Let’s learn to follow Christ by following Paul’s good example.
4. We can have a new start in Christ today!
Resources:
Paul: A Man of Grace and Grit, by Charles Swindoll, Word Publishing, 2002, Chapter 1.
