About 350 years ago a shipload of travelers landed on the northeast coast of America. The first year they established a town site. The next year they elected a town government. The third year the town government planned to build a road five miles westward into the wilderness. In the fourth year the people tried to impeach their town government because they thought it was a waste of public funds to build a road five miles westward into a wilderness. Who needed to go there anyway?
Here were people who had the vision to see three thousand miles across an ocean and overcome great hardships to get there. But in just a few years they were not able to see even five miles out of town. They had lost their pioneering vision.
With a clear vision of what we can become in Christ, no ocean of difficulty is too great. Without it, we rarely move beyond our current boundaries.
There is a strong reality of vision, how we see, how we think others see us and how God sees us and also how we think God sees us. Sometimes there is a struggle that forms within us, a tug of war that is raging inside of us of this truth. We constantly have to deal with the voice of failure whispering to us and reminding us of those moments. We are going to need to come to a conclusion that our past mistakes and mishaps do not define you but we struggle with that truth. Yes experience may change the course of our direction at times and yes the things we go through can absolutely help us make different decisions, but nonetheless they don’t define you. Your identity comes from God in Jesus Christ.
Acts 26:9-18
9 “I myself thought that I should do everything I could against the cause of Jesus of Nazareth. 10 That is what I did in Jerusalem. I received authority from the chief priests and put many of God's people in prison; and when they were sentenced to death, I also voted against them. 11 Many times I had them punished in the synagogues and tried to make them deny their faith. I was so furious with them that I even went to foreign cities to persecute them. 12 “It was for this purpose that I went to Damascus with authority and orders from the chief priests. 13 It was on the road at midday, Your Majesty, that I saw a light much brighter than the sun, coming from the sky and shining around me and the men traveling with me. 14 All of us fell to the ground, and I heard a voice say to me in Hebrew, ‘Saul, Saul! Why are you persecuting me? You are hurting yourself by hitting back, like an ox kicking against its owner's stick.’ 15 ‘Who are you, Lord?’ I asked. And the Lord answered, ‘I am Jesus, whom you persecute. 16 But get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as my servant. You are to tell others what you have seen of me[a] today and what I will show you in the future. 17 I will rescue you from the people of Israel and from the Gentiles to whom I will send you. 18 You are to open their eyes and turn them from the darkness to the light and from the power of Satan to God, so that through their faith in me they will have their sins forgiven and receive their place among God's chosen people.
One of the extraordinary things about the great characters in the New Testament story is that they were never afraid to confess what once they had been. Here in the presence of the king, Paul frankly confesses that there was a day when he had tried to blast the Christians out of existence.
There was a famous evangelist called Brownlow North. In his early days he had lived a life that was anything but Christian. Once, just before he was to enter the pulpit in a church in Aberdeen, he received a letter. This letter informed him that its writer had evidence of some disgraceful thing which Brownlow North had done before he became a Christian; and it went on to say that the writer proposed to interrupt the service and to tell the whole congregation of that sin if he preached. Brownlow North took the letter into the pulpit; he read it to the congregation; he told of the thing that once he had done; and then he told them that Christ had changed him and that Christ could do the same for them. He used the very evidence of his shame to turn it to the glory of Christ.
Denney used to say that the great function of Christianity was in the last analysis to make bad men good. The great Christians have never been afraid to point to themselves as living examples of the power of Christ. It is true that a man can never change himself; but it is also gloriously true that what he cannot do, Jesus Christ can do for him.
“The power of new vision”
In our scripture Paul begins his extraordinary testimony by confessing the wrong he had done, he was very transparent very honest to admit that he was in all rights wrong of how he thought of God and how he pursued that things he thought were of God for selfish gain and dominance. People had a view of Paul. This Paul once named Saul was a violent man, hated Christians that proclaimed Jesus as Lord.
Paul developed a reputation of a man without mercy, a man with prestigious education of the law of God yet with a heart of stone. Saul had a reputation that was world renowned. He speaks of his trip to Damascus and he speaks of the violent thirst he had toward those that called themselves Christians and his view of himself and them were contrast. Here is Saul a man who people respected and feared, a man with a will of power and his view of those who proclaim Jesus’s Lord as dead men, slaves , good for nothing proclaimers of God. Somewhere along his path his vision wasn’t right.
If we are honest this can be us. At some point of our lives we have become a people of pride and arrogance, and at somewhere in our lives we know better than God. We can be approached by people that want to tell us about Jesus Christ but we shun them off and continue our path to nowhere.
Because of what we see in todays Christian realm we have a view about God that just isn’t right, it isn’t Holy, it is absolutely twisted and to be quite honest when we have a twisted view on God we will have a twisted view of ourselves for the Bible declares to us that we are made in the very image of God.
Genesis 1:27
So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
We are to be very careful of what think about God as oppose to what we should know of who He is. The reality is that you could pretty much know the life trail of a child when you see their parents. As a Christian we have a holy father a good father a godly father that holds and sits on the very throne of heaven. And when we are able to view Him correctly and follow His lead things begin to change, things begin to happen. You need a new view on God, the correct biblical view on God. When you see with new eyes who God is, you will begin to understand and know who you are.
“Stop fighting God and submit”
13 It was on the road at midday, Your Majesty, that I saw a light much brighter than the sun, coming from the sky and shining around me and the men traveling with me. 14 All of us fell to the ground, and I heard a voice say to me in Hebrew, ‘Saul, Saul! Why are you persecuting me? You are hurting yourself by hitting back, like an ox kicking against its owner's stick.’
Paul was pressing on with his journey at midday as the Bible tells us. See Beloved unless a traveller was in a really desperate hurry he rested during the midday heat. So we see how Paul was driving himself on this mission of persecution. Beyond doubt he was trying by violent action to still the doubts that were in his heart.
The Risen Christ told Paul that it was hard for him to kick against the spikes. When a young ox was first yoked it tried to kick its way out. If it was yoked to a one handed plough, the plowmen held in his hand a long staff with a sharpened end which he held close to the ox's heels so that every time it kicked it was jagged with the spike. If it was yoked to a wagon, the front of the wagon had a bar studded with wooden spikes which jagged the ox if it kicked. The young ox had to learn submission the hard way and so had Paul.
Let us look at what has become of this in our lives. To be yoked is somewhat to be constricted, to be confined to some degree. To have boundaries if I should say, but we don’t like to have boundaries, we don’t like to be restricted, the truth is we want freedom. But What God is helping us to realize is that anyone that is going to be used for His purpose must be guided and have boundaries. Paul had no boundaries, he traveled wherever and whenever he wanted, God had to knock him off his high horse.
And it is with us beloved, when we are doing what we want want whenever we want we get ourselves into trouble that seems to have us fall to the ground. See beloved we were created for God’s purpose, God’s glory, we were created to do what God created us to do and yet we have become mustangs, wild donkey’s, and when we fight against God we begin to hurt ourselves.
The wonderful truth that we read in our scripture beloved is that even though Paul was fighting against God and went against the will of God, God didn’t leave him that way. God met with him where he was at.
See beloved there were probably times you thought you were forgotten, maybe times you said to yourself I’m already in this slump why change now I’ll stay here, Continued in your sinful journey, listen to me God will not keep you there, He will not let you stay there. God met Paul on the road to his murderous spree and spoke to him. God will meet you where you are at and speak to you. You need to stop fighting God and allow Him to give you new sight, new view on God and yourself.
Vision: the capacity to create a compelling picture of the desired state of affairs that inspires people to respond; that which is desirable, which could be, should be; that which is attainable. A godly vision is right for the times, right for the church, and right for the people. A godly vision promotes faith rather than fear. A godly vision motivates people to action. A godly vision requires risk-taking. A godly vision glorifies God, not people.
“I want you to stand up and stand out”
16 But get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as my servant. You are to tell others what you have seen of me[a] today and what I will show you in the future. 17 I will rescue you from the people of Israel and from the Gentiles to whom I will send you. 18 You are to open their eyes and turn them from the darkness to the light and from the power of Satan to God, so that through their faith in me they will have their sins forgiven and receive their place among God's chosen people.
Just think with me for a moment of what is taking place here. Paul a prosecutor of the Christian church has now been touched by Jesus Christ and now the very ones he had his mind of persecuting, he must now embrace. They wont trust him, they probably wont receive him right away, they probably are a little spectacle. But Jesus tells him to get up, stand on your feet and I have chosen you to do a work for me, I want you to open their eyes with the same truth I have pen your eyes to. Your vision was dark and now I have equipped you with a new vision a godly one.
See beloved we could all probably relate to this this morning, people are going to have their doubts about your conversion but God doesn’t. He knows what He is doing in your life and through your life.
The Bible gives a perfect summary of what Christ does for men. He opens their eyes. When Christ comes into a man's life he enables him to see things he never saw before. He turns them from the darkness to the light. Before a man meets Christ it is as if he were facing the wrong way, the wrong direction; after meeting Christ he is walking towards the light and his way is clear before him. He transfers him from the power of Satan to the power of God. Once evil had him in thrall but now God's triumphant power enables him to live in victorious goodness. He gives him forgiveness of sins and a share with the sanctified. For the past, the penalty of sin is broken; for the future, life is recreated and purified.
See when we have a good view of a good Father that has redeemed us and has given us new life, new hope, and new direction we can in turn view our lives the way it is intended. When forgiveness is accepted and embraced we are easily able to extend what we have received. When we realize that we are children of the most high God things about us us, around us and with in us begin to change.
We want to quickly look at the stormy of the prodigal son,
Luke 15:20-23
20 “And he arose and came to his father. But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. 21 And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, and am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ 22 “But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet. 23 And bring the fatted calf here and kill it, and let us eat and be merry; 24 for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ And they began to be merry.
He came home; and, according to the best Greek text, his father never gave him the chance to ask to be a servant. He broke in before that. The robe stands for honor; the ring for authority, for if a man gave to another his signet ring it was the same as giving him the power of attorney; the shoes for a son as opposed to a slave, for children of the family were shod and slaves were not. (The slave's dream in the negro spiritual is of the time when "all God's children got shoes," for shoes were the sign of freedom.)
See the son had a view of his father and also of himself that were not at all true, when he came home he was given a new vision of what truth is and this gave him a new view of his father which in turn gave him a new view of himself. Would you allow God to change your view? And when He does will you stand up and stand out for Him? Amen!
Here were people who had the vision to see three thousand miles across an ocean and overcome great hardships to get there. But in just a few years they were not able to see even five miles out of town. They had lost their vision.
I pray that you would allow God to to stir your heart that you would be able to see beyond your current circumstance and see the future that He has for you to finish.
