I Shall Not Be Moved
Acts 20:22-25
v. 24 key verse
Living for God is the best life experience that you can have. Affecting eternity and not just the temporary gives life meaning.
Once we decide to live for God completely we will experience more exhilaration than a mountain climber, more excitement than a professional athlete, and more opportunity than a heroic soldier.
Bob Harrington, the chaplain of Bourbon Street, was famous for saying, "it’s fun being saved.¨ The Apostle Paul had such an experience, living his life full throttle for the Lord. He never held anything back, but lived with a reckless abandon for his God. His life was a great adventure, and ours can be as well.
Some think of the Christian life as boring and ho hum, but that’s only because they haven’t experienced it all the way, and until you’ve been there, don’t knock it. God never intended our spiritual life to be a hobby or a weekend event, but a life adventure!
Paul said, none of these things move me [persecution, death, danger], this is because you can¡¦t scare a dead man! Paul said, "I die daily," dead to sin, to the flesh, to this world, and alive unto God!
Ill. just walk up to a corpse at a viewing and try to scare him, treaten to kill him, and he won’ even flinch!
Psalm 16:8
I have set the Lord always before me: because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.
1 Cor. 15:58
Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.
"Glory hallelujah, I shall not be moved"
"like a tree planted by the waters, Lord I shall not be moved."
4 Anchors of the Apostle Paul:
1. A sense of destiny
This is missing in most people’s lives today¡Kthey don’t know who they are, why they’re here, or where they’re going.
Ill.Alice in Wonderland. She came to a fork in the road and didn¡¦t know which way to go. Someone asked her which way she was headed. She didn’t know. So they replied, then it doesn’t matter which way you go!
And many meander aimlessly w/ no grand purpose or their destiny. We need to have some goals, some plans, envision the future! We need something bigger than our own bellies to live for! [pretty big!] If we don’t, then life will be pretty dull and meaningless.
Ill. J. L. Kraft for years gave 25% of his great profits to Christ, and said his purpose was not to build his business as much as to build the kingdom of God¡Khe was all about the cause of Christ, not the cause of cheese! He knew that the gospel in the heart had better and more lasting effects than colitis in the stomach! He recognized his day job was just a vehicle God could use to get him where he needed to be, to advance the eternal kingdom!
Are you in survival mode? God wants us to live, not just exist!
Paul lived for a higher purpose, so he could say of this world and its problems: "none of these things move me"
2. A sense of dedication
Romans 12:1
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
Ill.One day a woman was attending a Bible conference. She approached the speaker w/ tears in her eyes and repeated her story¡Kshe had no victory in her Christian life. She had tried many churches, and said she just wasn’ receiving from God very much. He said, you just answered your own question, because of the verse above, "the goal is not getting more from God, but giving Him more.
It’s not, do I have all of God, but does God have all of me?!
Col. 2 says the Christian already has all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
Ephes. 1:3
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:
2 Peter 1:3
According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:
So the question is, does God have all of you, laid down as a dedicated sacrifice?
Ill.in the OT the priest had to place the sacrifice on the altar, it was killed, but we today in the NT days are to be a living sacrifice.
Paul said, that’s "reasonable" Gk. Logicos = logical = the least we can do! Christ died for us, can’t we live for Him?!
3. A sense of declaration
v. 25 "preaching." This is different than witnessing, this means "heralding¨ as from the king. In Bible days they didn’t have computers and fax machines, text messaging, or Instant Messaging, they didn’t even have the primitive communications of telephone, telegraph, or tell a woman!
If a king wanted to deliver an important message to another king, he would commission a "herald¨, what we would today call an "ambassador," a messenger of the king!
2 Cor. 5:20
Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us!
What a privilege is ours!
4. A sense of duty
v. 26-27 Another OT picture.
Ill.a watchman on the wall would look out for approaching enemies, and would sound the alarm¡Kif he didn¡¦t, and people died in the attack, he was said to have their blood on his hands, and he would have to answer for it.
Ezekiel 3
[17] Son of man, I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel: therefore hear the word at my mouth, and give them warning from me. [18] When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand. [19] Yet if thou warn the wicked, and he turn not from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul.
Ill.Dr. Jerry Vines tells of being led to witness to a girl at a flower stand; they were both in line, but he didn’t speak. A few days later he stopped there again and now she was working there, and this time she spoke, and asked him to read "some literature¨ about something that would change his life. He took it, and went home, and discovered it was a cult: the "unification movement" or "the moonies" [followers of Sun Yung Moon]. They had reached her that day when he didn’t try.
He cried out, "Oh God, I could have won her to the Son, but they won her to the moon. If she dies and goes to hell, her blood will be on my hands!"
Close your eyes and imagine being transported into heaven. How many could approach you and say, I’m here because of you?!
Or in hell, how many could say, I’m here because of you?!
God help us to be like Paul in determination, destiny, dedication, and to do our duty for Thee!
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