Jesus and the Death of a Killer | Sunday Message (Pastor Jonathan Laurie)

Greg Laurie and Harvest Ministries recommend the bestselling book Cold Case Christianity from former detective J. Warner Wallace. That's a book we're offering this month to our listeners, Cold Case Christianity, written by detective J. Warner Wallace.

A homicide detective investigates the claims of the gospel, so get your own copy of Cold Case Christianity. It's our offer for this month for your gift of any size. Request yours for a limited time at harvest.org. Hey there. Thanks for listening to the Greg Laurie podcast, a ministry supported by Harvest Partners. I'm Greg Laurie, encouraging you.

If you want to find out more about Harvest Ministries and learn more about how to become a Harvest Partner, just go to harvest.org. Lord, we commit this time of Bible study to You now. We pray that You would bless it. You would speak to us through Your word as we look at this character who at the time seemed unredeemable. Lord, help us to see that we too are redeemable. You can continue to work in our lives, even for those of us who have put our faith in You, Lord. You're not done with us yet, and we know You won't be until we breathe our last breath and we see You in heaven. But for those here who maybe don't yet know You, Lord, we know that nobody is beyond the reach of God.

Nobody is unredeemable. Nobody is too broken that You cannot fix them and raise them back to life. And so, Lord, we pray You would speak to them. Speak to us through Your word. Now we pray in Jesus' name we ask, Amen. Amen.

Good to see you all again. Okay, so we are continuing in our series, Jesus and You, Jesus and You, and our message title today is Jesus and the Death of a Killer. Jesus and the Death of a Killer. If you'd like to turn in your Bibles, we'll be in Acts chapter 7 and 8, a little bit of 9, and Romans also. If you have one of those fancy Bibles with multiple ribbons, you can do that.

How many of you brought your Bible today? Let me see it. Let's see. Let's see.

Awesome. Bunch you. You're like, I'm trying to turn, Jonathan.

Sorry. Well, it seems like today more than ever, people don't want to be old. Like, old people don't want to be old, right? It seems like old people more than ever want to act like they're young.

And look, it's all good. I think it's important for all of us to maintain a healthy lifestyle. That we stay in good shape. That we eat the right things. That we engage in physical and bodily exercise. That we exercise our minds, right?

Because we want to live long and healthy and productive lives. Like, everybody wants to be young, and it's important to take care of yourself in that way. But there is a fine line, if we're honest, between being young and healthy and vibrant and wearing a costume, OK? You're like, wow, that hurt?

No. But if you're old and you're saying stuff like, hey, no cap, for real, for real, and you have a life alert around your neck, that doesn't really work. If you put on skinny jeans and you have to, like, put on the jaws of life, like, open them up for you to get inside, probably, like, you should cut them, leave them behind.

Or if you shop at Forever 21 but your chiropractor says, hey, come and see me every two weeks, those two things probably don't work too well together. Like, did you know, I think more than ever, we see people with cosmetic surgery and people doing that. Did you know that it's a $127 billion industry? That's just Newport Beach alone. No.

Hey. No, that's actually worldwide, and it's $30 billion more money spent annually than the fitness industry worldwide. Isn't that crazy? Gym memberships, you know, protein shakes and supplements and, you know, all that stuff.

$30 billion more than the fitness industry. To quote J. Vernon McGee, an old country preacher who's now with the Lord, he said, hey, if the barn needs painting, then paint it. OK, I agree with J. Vernon McGee. So now that I've thoroughly offended all of my friends here at Orange County, I will say, though, if there's one thing that my generation and the younger generations need more than ever, it is older people who aren't afraid to be the old person in the room, who aren't afraid to be the voice of reason, the voice of wisdom, and really the voice of the Lord. That's what we need more than ever. People who aren't afraid to say, hey, here's what I've experienced, here's what I've seen, that is irreplaceable. Somewhere along the lines we began to see parents who really wanted to stop parenting their kids and wanted to become their friends more than anything, right?

Have you seen that? Come on, be honest. I know that we all want to be friends with our kids. We want to have fun with them. We want to enjoy them. But you know what kids really need?

Structure. They need discipline. They need the corrective hand of a loving mother or a loving father. And yes, they need playmates. Yes, they need fun things. But really, they need parents to protect them and guide them and lead them.

Amen? And so we need to see that more than ever. I've heard it said that if you parent and discipline your children, you will get to spoil your grandchildren. But if you spoil your children, you'll have to parent and raise your grandchildren. Oof, right?

We've seen that a few times. I think for many, the concern or the reluctance to be the old, mature, wise person in the room may be a fear of death. They don't want to even act like they're getting old.

They don't want to pretend that they're middle age, even though our lives have a beginning, a middle, and an end. The statistics on death are quite impressive. One out of every one person will die. And so it is a reality. But I think a lot of us, we choose not to think about our mortality. And I think a part of that is because in our society today, in our culture today, we are so fortunate because we have modern medicine. We have amazing doctors.

We have hospitals. We have life-saving procedures that can save people's lives. No longer do people die in childbirth like they once did. No longer do people die if they get a disease. There's all kinds of things that can preserve life. So as a result, we no longer experience death like people even 100 years ago did, right? The mortality rates that people face even just 100 years ago were way different than what we have today. So as a result, we no longer experience death on a regular basis.

We no longer face it. It happens to people that are much older than us or, of course, the tragic, unexpected accident. And so I think that is part of the reason why so many of us don't want to think about death. Don't want to, you know, plan for death. Forever young, right? There's all the songs. There's tons of songs written about, you know, just wanting to remain young forever. But actually, it's good to think about death. It is.

It's good to think about death. There used to be a Latin phrase that was written on all kinds of stuff. Everything from your bank ledger. So when you got your checking account statement back from the bank, it would tell you what your balance was. And at the top of it would be the statement. It was also the same statement that would be written on the top of a property deed that was passed from one person to the next.

On the top of, you know, the very peak, a beautiful structure in the architecture would be engraved as you walked into the building. That phrase is memento mori. Memento mori. And it simply translated just means remember that you have to die. Remember that you have to die. Remember death. Reflect on the fact that you are a mortal person and someday you will face death. Now you might think, Jonathan, this is pretty morbid to talk about this.

You know, talk about death so much and I hear you. But it's actually biblical. It's actually biblical. James says in chapter four of his book, what is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. In Psalm 90, Moses tells us, teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom. There is wisdom knowing that we have a beginning, a middle, and an end to our lives. If you do that, if you consider your mortality, what it helps you do is make decisions that really matter.

It helps you make decisions that are not so impulsive and what feels good. Right now, I'm going to be young forever. I'm going to have a million opportunities, infinite opportunities to make this right.

I promise you won't. The decisions that you make today will impact you tomorrow. And it's important we think about what kind of legacy also we're going to be leaving for the next generation, for our children, for the people that we love. Many of you know that this last Tuesday was my older brother. It would have been his 50th birthday. It would have been his 50th birthday. Christopher would have been 50 years old. And this last one really hit me hard.

Christopher's been in heaven now for almost 17 years. There's a picture of our family, kind of a weird picture of me. But I don't know what my expression is. I think I'm like, can we be done now? You put me in a bow tie.

I'm four years old. What were you thinking? My brother, as he hit, he would have hit his 50th birthday.

I just found myself, man, this was a hard one because 50. What do you do for someone's 50th birthday? You go all out, right? You go all out. You throw him a big party. You buy him a big gift.

And I just, it just hit me, man, I don't have that opportunity. And I found myself really missing my brother. And as I began thinking about my brother's life and the legacy he left, though he was young, 33 years old when he entered heaven, he was living his life according to this principle. He was doing the things that really mattered. He was having a home Bible study in his house on a weekly basis, inviting friends and family and anybody that would come, come to this Bible study, come and hear the word of God taught. He was really leaning into his faith. He was working for our church, leading our graphic design department, doing all of the artwork for the harvest crusades, doing all of the artwork around the church. He, in his way, was preaching the gospel, using the gift that God gave to him to reach people with the message of the gospel. He was living his life beautifully. Not only that, but he left a wonderful impact, of course, on me, calling me to Christ, calling me out, and also his daughter, Stella, who's not even two years old when he went to heaven. She's walking with the Lord. His daughter, Lucy, who wasn't even born yet, she's walking with the Lord. He left a legacy that mattered.

He left a spiritual legacy for his family and for his friends. And so it reminds us, all of us will face death. The Stoic philosophers have said, only those who are really prepared to die are prepared to live.

And it's really interesting. It's kind of a paradox. You know, the people that are like, no, I want to live forever, so I'm never going to think about death. They end up being the ones that death comes early for because they live their lives in a reckless way that ultimately is going to bring death more quickly because of their diet or their crazy decisions that they're making. And those that think about it and are aware of it and are preparing for it often live to long, long ages and have the most life and enjoy the life as well more than those who don't. And so today in our Jesus and You sermon, I really want to bum you out.

And so, no, just kidding. Today in our Jesus and You sermon, I want to look at someone whose life was marked by death. Both the kind he caused and also the kind that he embraced. I'm speaking, of course, about Saul of Tarsus. Saul of Tarsus.

He was a brilliant man. He was a zealous man and he was a feared man. He was a rising star among the Pharisees, a religious sect in first century Jerusalem. Saul believed he was doing God a favor when he was persecuting Christians, encouraging them to recant their faith, encouraging them to really turn from Christ. He wanted to put a complete stop to the ministry that Jesus had done and then now he had obviously at this point gone up to heaven. Jesus had his earthly physical ministry had come to an end, but his disciples were continuing in it.

Saul wanted to stop that like nobody's business. He was a man on a mission of death. And so, again, my message title today is Jesus and the Death of a Killer. We're going to be reading in Acts Chapter 7 this morning or excuse me, this afternoon.

And as you turn there, before we jump in, some quick context. Before we see this character of Saul coming on the scene, we see Stephen. Stephen was a deacon. He was the first martyr of the Christian church and he was a young man full of faith and wisdom. And he was tapped by the apostles to go and help them in the work of ministry. Well, Stephen and some of the Jews got into a debate.

Some of the religious Jews got into a debate there at the temple. And Stephen absolutely smoked them in this debate, like Charlie Kirk and like a freshman college liberal student. OK, just decimated them.

Doesn't stand a chance. Like entertaining, watching a lion with, you know, a baby rabbit here. OK, so that's what Stephen did. Absolutely decimated the religious leaders that were arguing with him. And what happened was they did often what we see when people lose in a debate. They started calling him names. They started making things up about him.

And what do they do about Stephen? They called him a, they told him that he was blaspheming the Lord. They said he's a blasphemer. He's blaspheming God's name. He's taking God's name in vain. He's saying that he's equal with God.

He's saying Jesus is God. They called him a blasphemer, a crime that was punishable by death, according to the Jews. And so they got a crowd riled up. They got a big crowd of people fired up saying this guy was blaspheming the Lord.

Everybody got super amped. And so they seized him. They arrested Stephen and they brought him before the High Council of the Sanhedrin, which was kind of like the Jewish version of the Supreme Court.

These guys were the ones that ultimately sentenced Jesus to die and to crucifixion and brought him to Pontius Pilate. And Stephen stood there innocent. In fact, he looked so innocent that his face appeared as an angel.

An angel-like appearance. And in Acts chapter seven, Stephen now gives his defense to the religious leaders. And once again, he gives an absolute master class on the Jewish history. And he points to Jesus as the Messiah, the fulfillment of the prophecies that they've been looking to for thousands of years.

Jesus was him. And then with like a Terminator T-1000 gaze with a knife hand running after the car, he looks at the religious leaders, the Sanhedrin, and he says, you crucified the Messiah. And he calls them out to their face and absolutely rebukes them. And so now we read their response and we see our main character introduced.

Acts chapter seven, starting in verse fifty seven. And then they, being the religious leaders, cried out with a loud voice. They stopped their ears.

That means they've put their fingers in their ears to block out what he was saying. That's the type of emotional response he got out of them. And they ran at him with one accord. And they cast him out of the city and they stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul.

That's our character for this morning, this afternoon. And they stoned Stephen. And as he was calling on God and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. And then he knelt down and he cried out with a loud voice. Lord, do not charge them with this sin.

And with that, he fell asleep. Now we skip over to Acts chapter eight, next chapter, starting in verse one. Now Saul was consenting to his death. And at that time, a great persecution arose against the church, which was at Jerusalem. And they're all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. And devout men carried Stephen to his burial and made great lamentation over him. As for Saul, he made havoc of the church, entering every house and dragging off men and women, committing them to prison.

Therefore, those who were scattered went everywhere preaching the word. That brings us to point number one, a man of death. A man of death. That's what Saul was.

He was a man of death. And can we all just for a moment appreciate Stephen's response here? OK, if you're stoning me with rocks and dropping boulders on me, those words are probably not going to be coming out of my mouth. Ultimately saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. And then he said, Lord, do not charge them with this sin. Reflecting the words of his savior.

Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. Powerful. You know that that had to strike the heart of Saul as he stood by and heard these things said.

Man, amazing. And so, again, we see here that Saul was consenting to Stephen's death. Now commentators speculate it was more than just consent. They actually say you could go so far as saying that Saul cast his vote in Stephen's death. Even so far as to say Saul orchestrated the whole thing. He was the one that led the parade of people and led the angry mob to go and stone Stephen. That he was the very one orchestrating the whole thing to kill this Stephen, the first martyr of the Christian church.

It is likely that there is nobody else in the New Testament that struck fear into the hearts of the early church more than Saul of Tarsus. Saul was a terrorist. He was a terrorist to Christians. He hated Jesus. He hated his followers.

He hated the ministry that he did. And his goal in life was to completely eradicate any and all evidence of Jesus' ministry. He persecuted the believers in Jerusalem. He entered people's homes.

He drug men and women into prison. Not only that, in Jerusalem, but he went outside and received permission from the chief priest to go all the way to Damascus, 200 miles away, to go and find the Christians there and bring them to justice. To bring them down to Jerusalem to face either death, execution, literally for their faith, persecution, or at the very least he wanted them to recant their faith in Jesus and scare them enough to be quiet. Paul says this. Saul became Paul, by the way.

We'll get to that in a moment. But he says this about his former life in Acts chapter 26. He said, I punished them often in every synagogue and I compelled them to blaspheme. And being exceedingly enraged against them, I persecuted them even to foreign cities. Saul was an intimidator. He was an accuser of the early church. And again, he wanted everyone to deconvert. He wanted to put Christianity to death. He wanted to put an end to Christians.

If he had the opportunity, I wouldn't doubt that if he had the chance, he would have personally crucified Jesus. That's how much he hated Jesus and the church. Now Saul, it's important to note, he wasn't some lunatic.

He wasn't some fringe guy. He was a well-respected, well-educated, and well-read rabbi, born into a family of Pharisees, and trained under their ultra-legalistic traditions. He was a Roman citizen.

He traveled all over the ancient world. He was trained at the feet of Gamaliel, a famous rabbi, and he was ultimately zealous and educated and feared. He was a rising star within the Pharisees, and he was sincere in his belief.

He sincerely believed that he was blessing God, and he was doing God a favor by persecuting the church. But the fact is, he was sincerely wrong. You ever met somebody like that? They're so sincere in what they believe. They're so sincere that their team is going to win the Super Bowl or whatever it might be.

They're so sincere, they're just sincerely wrong, right? I'm sure many Christians would like to have seen Saul struck dead by God, but Jesus had a different plan for his life. He had a different plan for his life. When everyone else saw Saul, a terrorist, an opponent, an obstacle, a man of death, Jesus saw a future apostle, a bold witness, a man who would carry the message of the gospel all over the ancient world. He saw Paul, and that reminds us of the words of the Lord in 1 Samuel 16.

The Lord does not see as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. Isn't that a blessing to know that God sees our heart? He sees exactly what we've gone through. He knows what we've struggled with.

He knows what we face, and He knows our heart. Sometimes we can be judged by the things that we do. We do a loving thing, and we try and do this great work for the Lord, but because we didn't do it in just the right way, sometimes people will judge us for it.

Oh, you're just doing it to get attention. You're just doing it for that reason, and that can break our heart. That can break us down. It's important to remember the Lord sees us. The Lord is aware, and the Lord is blessed by our faithfulness. Nobody is beyond the reach of God.

That co-worker, that relative, that family member, maybe yourself it could be. Anybody can be reached with the gospel. Now I, of course, think of my dad's own story. You guys are familiar with it, documented in the Jesus Revolution film.

Crazy story, crazy. How easily he could have ended up as a statistic, but God had other plans, and we're so thankful for him, aren't we? Fifty years of ministry later and faithfulness and integrity.

But so easily he could have been a statistic. Another man I think of, maybe somebody that you're not familiar with, maybe you are, another Calvary Chapel pastor named Jeff Johnson of Calvary Chapel of Downey. Jeff's now with the Lord, but Jeff was a faithful servant to the Lord. Before he came to Christ, though, Jeff was a drug dealer.

He was a drug dealer, and he was part of the counter-cultural revolution of the late 1960s. But Jeff, in his own way, was searching for God. He was practicing the occult. He was taking drugs in pursuit of enlightenment under his guru, Timothy Leary. And he was trying to find the Lord. He decided that he was going to go and find God by moving to Hawaii on the north shore of Oahu and taking the largest dose of LSD he had ever taken. Now, he had taken some large doses, but this one was going to be the biggest one ever.

So Jeff decided the best way to do that was to go into the jungle of Oahu's north shore and go and entrench himself there and get his camp kind of set up and take this huge dose of LSD. Well, he did, but what he didn't know was that LSD was laced with strychnine, a drug or not a drug, but a poison that drug dealers were late. Drug dealers are not good people, okay?

They're usually not going to cut their product with, like, you know, good things to help you. And so he laced it with strychnine, the person that he got it from. And in small amounts, it would act as a type of amphetamine, act as a type of speed. But in the quantity that he took, it almost killed him. He found immediately after taking this hit of LSD that was tainted, he found himself retching in the jungle for hours uncontrollably, couldn't stop, for two days was retching on the verge of death. Finally, when he got to the other side of it, he entered into his crazy LSD trip where he was able to, according to him in his book, was able to control flies in his tent and was feeling, you know, able to control nature and obviously hallucinating. But at the end of his trip, he came to the conclusion, this isn't it. This isn't what I've been looking for.

This isn't the enlightenment that I was hoping for. And so Jeff left Hawaii, moved back to California, found a girl, got married, got a job, started pursuing the American dream, right, the pursuit of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and started following all those things, found success in the professional world. But he also found that there now was emptiness too. He couldn't find fulfillment anywhere until one of his former drug dealing associates came to him and said, Jeff, I want to invite you to church. He had a Bible in his hand, and Jeff went to church that Sunday with him and heard Pastor Chuck Smith preach, and he gave his life to Jesus Christ. And as a result of that, he felt the peace. He felt the enlightenment, the hope that he was looking for, the forgiveness of his sin.

And what did he do? He said, I need to go share this message with other people. Immediately, he started going and sharing this message. He started a small Bible study group in a little park out there in Downey. It started with a small group of 10 people, and it grew and grew, and now that church ended up into the thousands of people, and Jeff Johnson preached there faithfully for 50 years, proclaiming the gospel, reaching people, ministering to them, and just an absolute picture of what God can do to a surrendered life.

Nobody is beyond the reach of God. Here's a picture of me with Jeff. He invited me so graciously to go and preach at his church two different times. I was able to share, and he was there. It's one thing when the pastor is out of town and you're the guest speaker, but when he's there sitting in the front row, such a blessing. Jeff also was a great supporter of the Harvest Crusades and was very vocal about people going and inviting people to the Crusades and supporting it and volunteering for it. He did his own evangelistic outreach through his own church, and it's just an amazing man, an amazing life, and I'm so thankful I had the privilege of knowing him, and that work continues on.

He handed the baton off to a young man named Art Reyes, who's now leading that church and is a friend and is doing a wonderful job, and so we're thankful for stories like that because it reminds us of what? Nobody is beyond the reach of God, amen? Nobody's beyond the reach of God. And so it may be that you've written that person off as being beyond the reach of God. They would never come to Jesus.

They would never change their life. It could be that person in your life. Maybe it's yourself.

I would just tell you this. Don't give up. Don't give up.

Keep praying. Keep seeking after Jesus, because clearly Jesus' specialty is redeeming the unredeemable and healing the broken. So we see with Saul, he was a man of death, but Jesus was calling him now to put that life to death so that he might truly live. That brings us to point number two, a man who had to die, a man who had to die. That's what Saul was, and we continue in our text.

Acts chapter 9 now, starting in verse 1. Then Saul, still breathing threats and murder. What kind of life is that for starters, okay? He's breathing threats and murder.

Like, dude, the guy needs to take a Xanax or something, okay? Still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord. He went to the high priest, and he asked letters from him to the synagogues of Damascus so that if he found any who were of the way, whether men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.

And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus, and suddenly a light shone around him from heaven. And then he fell to the ground, and he heard a voice saying to him, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? And he said, who are you, Lord? Please don't be Jesus. Please don't be Jesus. Please don't be Jesus. And then the Lord said, I am Jesus, whom you were persecuting. It is hard for you to kick against the goads.

Let's stop there. I didn't know what a goad was until I read that right there, that verse some years ago. A goad is basically just a sharp stick. It's a sharp stick that shepherds would use to goad or to prod along their animals to get them to go in a certain direction. What an animal would do if it was extra stubborn, it would buck against it.

It would kick against it. No, I'm not going that direction. I'm not doing it. What Saul didn't realize at the time is that it was Jesus on the other end of that sharp stick. Sometimes we have things in our life and we're like, Lord, this pain, this difficulty, this thorn in my flesh, remove it.

Don't do it. And Jesus is like, I'm the one doing it. I'm the one that's jabbing you. I'm the one that's goading you, because you need to turn. You need to pivot. You need to stop going down that road that you're going down.

It is hard for you to kick against the goads. This is the marker in time. When Jesus didn't just reform Saul, he replaced him. He didn't just reform Saul, he replaced him.

And he gives him a whole new identity. He goes on to become Paul. He goes on to become Paul, the apostle who writes one third of the New Testament. The apostle who stood before Caesar himself. The apostle who gave us so much clarity on theology and doctrine and things that mattered. The apostle who called out Peter, the apostle, to his faith and got into it with him. He was the man. And he's ultimately the apostle who dies for the very gospel he was trying to destroy here.

The apostle Paul is without a doubt one of, if not the most important person in the New Testament, next to Jesus, of course. But before all that, before his new work would begin, Saul has to put his pride to death. He has to put his perverted mission of persecuting Christians and ending the ministry of Jesus, he has to put that to death. He meets the resurrected Jesus and everything changes.

And that reminds us of this. Listen now. Jesus didn't come to make bad people good. He came to make dead people live. Jesus didn't come to make bad people good. He didn't come to make your life a little bit better, make you a better version of yourself.

Jonathan 2.0. No, he came to make you a whole new creation. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5.17, if any man, if any woman be in Christ, they are an altogether new creation. Old things have passed away.

Behold, all things have become new. I remember when I didn't want to give up my lifestyle to follow Jesus. I thought I was having too much fun. No, I don't want to give that up.

I'm enjoying it too much. I thought it was fun what I was doing and it would be too much of a sacrifice to put that part of my life to death. And I really ultimately thought what Jesus offered wasn't better than what I already had. And so I denied him for a number of years. I liked Jesus. I thought he was really nice. I thought he was a cool guy.

I'd seen a lot of his movies and stuff and he had some great things to say. I was thankful that he died on the cross for my sin and I'd get around to that at some point. But after I surrendered my life to him and after he came into my life, I quickly realized that the things I put to death, the things that I was so unwilling to give up for him were actually garbage. Literally garbage.

Like absolute filth of no value. The Apostle Paul expresses this sentiment so well in Philippians chapter 3 verses 8 to 11. He says this.

This is the message translation, basically a paraphrase that Eugene Peterson put together that's so helpful. But he hits the nail here. He says this. Yes, all the things I once thought were so important are gone from my life. Compared to the high privilege of knowing Jesus Christ as my master firsthand, everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant.

Yes, it says this. Dog poop. I love that. It is so true.

It is literally that. I've dumped it all in the trash so that I can embrace Christ and be embraced by him. I didn't want some petty inferior brand of righteousness that comes from keeping a list of rules when I could get the robust kind that comes from trusting in Jesus. God's righteousness. And so I gave up all that inferior stuff so I could know Jesus personally. Experience his resurrection power. Be a partner in his suffering and go all the way with him to death itself.

If there was any way to get in on the resurrection from the dead, I want it in. I love that. I love that. Everything else pales in comparison to the beautiful relationship we have with Jesus Christ. Amen. Everything else pales in comparison.

Nothing else holds a candle to it. Saul thought he had been serving God when in reality he had been persecuting the Messiah. He had to lose his religion before he could gain the righteousness of Christ.

That's what Warren Wiersbe said. He thought that he was serving God when he was persecuting the Messiah. He had to gain, excuse me, lose his religion before he could gain the righteousness of Christ.

And that brings us to point number three. Lastly, a man who died daily. Let's read together in Romans chapter 8 if you want to turn there. Romans 8, starting in verse 13. For if you live according to your flesh, Paul says, you will die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. Let's read that together one more time.

Listen now. If you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage, again to fear, but you received the spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, Abba, Father. The Spirit himself witnesses with our spirit that we are children of God. And if children, then heirs, heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ.

This is crazy. If indeed we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified together. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.

Jesus called Paul to die to himself. Not to be better, but to be a whole new kind of person. So he could be adopted into the family of God. And not just be called a follower, not just to be called a servant, but to be called a son. To be called a son and a joint heir with Christ.

I love that. This can't be accomplished through plastic surgeries, or skinny jeans, or youthful lingo, or meditation, or spirituality. It has to be a complete and utter rebirth. Jesus said to Nicodemus, you must be born again. A spiritual birth. And Paul says the way that he does that is by a daily death.

1 Corinthians 51, excuse me, 1 Corinthians 15, 31. He says, I affirm by the boasting in you. I don't know what boasting is.

I'm butchering this. I affirm by the boasting in you, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily. I die daily. The Christian life is not a one time surrender. It is a daily burial of the old self. Paul didn't just have a Damascus road moment. He had a Damascus road mindset. Every day he put to death his desires, his flesh. He woke up each morning probably saying, not my will, not my ego, not my righteousness, not my education. Christ lived through me today. You may think that Jesus wants to make you better, but he actually came to make you new.

Nobody is beyond the reach of God. Now you might think, well, Jonathan, I have to put to death all of my ambitions. I have to put to death the things that are good in my life.

What does this mean? Let me tell you what it means. Many times we have our desires in our heart. Oh, I want to be successful. I want to get married. I want to have a great career.

I want to get a great education with lots of degrees. I want to get all of this stuff. A lot of those things are great.

All of those things are great to have. But what it's doing is saying, I'm laying these at your feet, Jesus. I want your will, not my own. Help me to see these things the way that you do. And Jesus says, pick up your cross, follow me. So you put him as the Lord of your life. Sometimes the Lord says, yeah, you know what? You need to put that in the backseat for a little while.

And you know what happens? Jesus gives us the desire of our hearts. He says, seek you first the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto you.

What does that mean? Those things that were good for you, when you lay them at the Lord's feet, he says to you, now I'm going to give them back to you. And you're going to be able to properly handle them because you've made me the Lord of your life. If I gave you that success before you made me Lord of your life, you would have gotten distracted. You wouldn't have been able to handle it.

You would have self-destructed. If I brought you your wife when you were asking for it, if I brought you that answer to your prayer when you first asked me for it, you wouldn't have been able to handle it. But now you've made me the Lord of your life, I'm going to give you the things that your heart desires. That's what Jesus does for us. He wants us to be able to handle them.

Like when my son asks me for a 450 dirt bike. No, dude, you're not ready for that yet. I love the heart. I love it. Like, that's great.

But because I love you, I'm not going to give you something that's going to kill you. We're going to do this first. Oh, and he's bummed out, right?

Okay, Dad. But when he says, I trust you, and I think you know what's best for me, perfect. That's what we need.

That's the heart that we need to have. Nobody is beyond the reach of God. Jesus handpicked Saul to be his disciple, and he is calling you today as well.

Coming back to my dad. My dad, he had seen pictures of Jesus. He had seen all of his movies, right? But nobody, can you believe this? Nobody in the 17 years of his life had ever told him the gospel. Greg, here's the reason why Jesus' picture is up on the wall. Here's the reason why we have the Bible everywhere.

Here's the reason why your classroom has the 10 commandments. There he is. Look at that young guy at the top there. Young little guy, and there he is, getting into his teens. I don't know why he was doing the profile shot, like he was preparing for a mug shot or something on the bottom there.

There he is. But lookit, you can actually see the difference between the photo on the left and on the right. The one on the left, I think he was stoned. But the photo on the right, he was still doing, he was still doing the photo like the mug shot style, but he had actually put his faith in Christ at that point. Nobody ever preached the gospel to that young man. His grandparents, the church time that he attended. You know, you can know about God. You can be familiar with him.

You can have religion like Saul did, but then miss the whole point, the relationship with Jesus. And so as my dad entered into his senior year at Newport Harbor High School, he was walking by on the lawn that day and it was chronicled in that film Jesus Revolution. And he heard a preacher standing on the grass and he looked over at all the kids sitting around there and they all had smiles on their faces.

And my dad was like cynical and jaded. And he said, you know, wow, look at them. They're so stupid. They don't even know what they're doing. They're just happy. They don't even know what they're happy about. Well, at least they're happy, he thought. And then he said, I wonder if what they are saying is true. He put that thought on for size.

What if what they're doing is actually right and I'm wrong? And around that time, you heard the preacher say the words, Jesus said you're either for me or against me. And those words stuck in my dad's mind.

And what's amazing is that group of hippies, that Christian club normally met in one of the classrooms, one of the trailers they had. And that day, the air conditioner broke. It was summertime.

It was hot. And so they said, hey, let's go meet outside under the tree. If that conversation, if that statement was being made by Lonnie Frisbee in a classroom, there's no way my dad said he never would have gone inside of that classroom. He never would have gone to go hear that message. But we see God is in the details. And so because of that, they go out on the lawn.

They're seeing it publicly. And that day, my dad made a profession of faith to go make Jesus Christ his Lord and Savior. And so we see nobody is beyond the reach of God. Jesus is still doing that. He's still grabbing hearts.

He's still leaving the 99 behind to go after the one. And I want you now to take a moment and think of that person who you might think, this person has got to be beyond the reach of God. There's no way that I could see them worshipping in church on a Sunday morning with their hands raised, praying, reading the Bible. There's no way I could see someone like that.

Think for a moment. It might be a relative. It might be a parent. It might be a child. It might be someone at work. It might be a celebrity.

Who knows? Who comes to your mind? Listen, that person coming to your mind, that is your notification that you need to pray for them, that you need to pray for them. And ultimately, you need to invite them to church. Easter Sunday is a great time to invite people and encourage them. Hey, come to church with me this Sunday.

I'll take you out to lunch afterward, whatever it might be. Easter Sunday is a great time to invite people. Nobody is too far gone. Nobody is beyond the reach of God. And only Jesus can do this. Turn sinners into saints. Turn Sauls into Pauls. Turn drug dealers into pastors. Turn dead people into living people. That's not self-help.

That's not behavior modification. That's resurrection is what that is. And only Jesus can do that, and He still does it today. And so... Maybe you feel a bit like Saul. You feel a bit like Saul. You've been running from God. You've been fighting Him. You've been chasing your own mission, your own version of truth. Maybe you've been religious and spiritual or skeptical or just completely rebellious.

You need to know this. Jesus isn't running from you. He's running to you. He's pursuing you. He's coming after you.

He loves you. Just like Saul, just like Jeff Johnson in the jungle, or just like my dad on the high school lawn, Jesus is grabbing hearts and saving people and raising the dead. But the truth is, you don't need a life tweak. You need a resurrection, and that can happen today. As we close this service now, I want to extend to you an invitation that you would put your faith in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, that you would lay down your old life and give it to the Lord and say, here I am, Jesus, create in me a new heart. Make me a new creation.

He can do that for you today. You're not too young to come to Christ. You're not too old to come to Christ. The last service that I preached at, a young man stood up in the front row, 12 years old, and prayed the sinner's prayer. And then afterwards, we send people over to the side. I encouraged everyone to go over and get a Bible. He jumped up out of his seat and ran over to the side room.

I was like, that is amazing. 12 years old. You're not too young to come to Christ, and you're not too old. God has a plan for you, and he loves you, and he's been pursuing you. And so I would just ask you, is there anything you're doing that is worth going to hell over? Is there anything that you're doing that you're not willing to give up because, oh, it's just too much fun. I don't want to lay down my pride.

I don't want to lay down this lifestyle. Call out to God and see what he will do. Call out to him. Proclaim his name in your life. Ask him for forgiveness.

See what he'll do. He'll change your heart, and then he'll bless you, and he'll give you the desires of your heart, the things that are really good for you. And so if you'd like to receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior today, respond to this invitation now. Let's all pray. Father, we thank you as believers that you have called us into a relationship with you, that we have the hope of heaven, that you have made us new creations. Lord, we pray for those people that come to mind, that we feel like are beyond your reach. Or maybe they're close, and we just want to see them get to that place where they call out to you as their Lord and Savior. Father, help us to be part of that process. Lord, we could ask you to send down an angel from heaven, go and miraculously intervene in their life.

Yes, you can do it. We've seen you do it in scripture. But Lord, what a privilege it is when you use us, and we take the step of faith, and we go have the conversation that we've been so fearful about inviting our mom to church, inviting our brother to church, our coworker, that other student in class that sits next to us that's in opposition of Christianity, whatever it might be. Help us, Lord, to have the boldness to stand for you and to invite them to church, to invite them into a relationship with you. Use us, we pray. When our heads are bowed and our eyes are closed and we're praying together, again, there may be some here who have not yet put their faith in Jesus Christ. If you would like to do that, if you would like to know that you're going to go to heaven when you die, if you would like to know that you can have your sin forgiven and that burden of guilt and shame that you walk around with because of the bad things you've done, that that can be lifted, if you would like to know today that that anxiety that you're facing, that fear that you experience on a daily basis can be removed from you.

Yes, that's right. You can be healed from that today. Jesus said that he is the prince of peace. He brings peace.

Even his name brings peace. If you would like to have that today, would you just raise your hand up wherever you are? Wherever you are, just raise up your hand. God bless you. God bless you. You want to know that you're going to heaven when you die.

You want to have those things that I mentioned. Jesus can do that for you. Raise your hand up where I can see it. God bless you. Here in Orange County, God bless you. God bless you. Over on the side, back in there in the corner, God bless you. If you're watching at Harvest Riverside or on the island of Maui or one of our overflow facilities, I can't see you, but the Lord sees you.

You raise your hand as well. And I'll pray for you. God bless you. God bless you. Anybody else?

Wonderful. OK. For those of you that raise your hand, I'm just going to ask that wherever you are, wherever you're watching from, just stand up right where you are, and I want to lead you in a prayer. That's right. You heard me right. If you raise your hand, or even if you did not, but you want to say yes to Jesus, you want to have your sin forgiven, you want to go to heaven when you die, have your anxiety and your guilt and shame removed, stand now.

That's right. Stand up wherever you are, and I'll lead you in a prayer. God bless you. God bless you.

God bless you. Anybody else? Stand up. Some of you raised your hand, but you're not standing.

Know this. Jesus said, if you acknowledge me before people, I will acknowledge you before the Father and the angels in heaven. Make a stand of faith today.

Be bold. Stand up wherever you are. God bless you.

All right. And for those of you that are standing, I'm just going to ask that you would pray this prayer out loud after me. This is you talking to God.

I'm not doing it for you. I'm just kind of telling you the words to say, but it's important. You mean them in your heart. So pray this now. Pray this. Thank you, God. I know that I'm a sinner, but I know that Jesus is the Savior who died on the cross for my sin. And I turn from my sin now, from this moment forward, and I make you the Lord of my life.

Would you be my Savior and my God and my friend? Thank you for loving me and dying for me. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Amen. God bless you that prayed that prayer. Congratulations. God bless you guys. God bless you.

Hey, everybody. Thanks for listening to this podcast. To learn more about Harvest Ministries, follow this show and consider supporting it. Just go to harvest.org. And to find out how to know God personally, go to harvest.org and click on Know God.