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Now, here's today's message from Pastor Skip Heitzig.
Now I'm going to give you a quick little biographical sketch of Saul of Tarsus growing up in his educational background as a toddler, he would have learned to recite the Shema. Have you heard of the Shema? Deuteronomy chapter 6, verse 4, he learned it in Hebrew.
So imagine little Saul as a toddler saying the words out loud: Shema Israel Adonai Elochenu. Adonaya Chad. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. He learned that as a toddler. At age five, he would begin studying the scriptures.
At age six, he was sent to the synagogue to learn to read and write. The scriptures. At age 10, Saul would already have memorized large portions of the oral law. That is not just the scriptures, the traditions of the elders. At age 12, he would be preparing for his bar mitzvah, which would take place at age 13.
Bar mitzvah means son of the commandment. It was a rite of passage where you were now considered an adult member of the Jewish community. At age 15, he would have more rigorous study, where he would study the codified oral traditions, the Talmudic writings. And somewhere in those adolescent years, shortly after that, he was sent to Jerusalem for five to six years. of rabbinical study.
So Heredity, nobility, pedigree, he's giving his background. A fourth word that would describe Saul of Tarsus is piety. Because notice what he says. He says at the end of verse 5: not only a Hebrew of the Hebrews, but concerning the law. A Pharisee Now I know.
I know that you, as a Western Christian in this modern era, you have read enough of your New Testament to know that Pharisees. weren't great people. You're thinking, oh, that's, why would he put that in his resume? Because Jesus spoke against the Pharisees, right? He called them whitewashed sepulchres, he called them hypocrites.
However, the original word Pharisee, parashim, means to be separated. And when they started around 200 BC, they continued into the first century. They believed that they would give their whole life to studying and obeying the written law as well as the oral law. They started off really good. They just evolved into a hypocritical group.
According to Josephus, the Jewish historian, the Pharisees were the leading sect among the Jews, the most accurate interpreters of the law. As a Pharisee, he studied under a very particular mentor. Do you remember his name? It's given in Acts 22. Gamaliel was his mentor.
Gamaliel is one of the most famous scholars in Jewish history. Regarded even to this day. What Gamaliel taught him to do was to. Argue. There was an ancient form of discourse called the diatribe, question and answer format, to learn how to think and talk on your feet very persuasively.
He would have had to memorize large portions of the Old Testament. which would become very profitable as as time went on in his ministry.
So heredity, nobility, pedigree. Piety. A fifth word that would describe him. Is Intensity. This dude was intense.
Look at verse six. Concerning zeal. If you want to talk about my zeal, persecuting. The church. Saul of Tarsus, as you know, was A zealous defender of Judaism.
Now, why it's important to understand a little bit about Gamaliel is understanding that he sat under Gamaliel's mentorship helps you understand him. Because Gamaliel was hateful to Toward the Christians. He called Christians. Christian heretics. And a very famous prayer uttered by Gamaliel goes this way Let there be no hope to them who apostatize from the true religion, and let these heretics, how many soever they be, all perish in a moment.
He prayed that concerning Christian heretics, those who left Judaism and turned to Christ as their Messiah. No wonder, then, We read about Saul in Acts chapter 8, verse 3, these words: Saul was going everywhere to devastate the church. He went from house to house, dragging out both men and women to throw them into jail. He learned that in part from Gamelio. No wonder we read Acts chapter 9 about Saul breathing out threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord.
So this dude was so intense. that he measured his religious zeal by his hatred. You know, you know, you're bad off when you're known more for what you're against than what you're for. A sixth word that would describe Solotarsis is morality. Look at verse 6 again.
Concerning zeal, persecuting the church. concerning the righteousness which is in the law I was blameless. That is, nobody could accuse me. I lived by the book. I did everything the law demanded, not just the written law, but the oral law.
So get this. Saul of Tarsus. Had a righteousness. by rule keeping. How many people do you know who have a righteousness by rulekeeping?
I do my best, man. I try really hard. I work really hard. Yeah. Getting God to love me.
Doing all the right things. I'm a religious person. Righteousness by rulekeeping. This is why religious people are the hardest people to see converted. Because they don't see that they have a need for anything.
You share the gospel with them. Look, I've gone to church all my life. I've been baptized, I've been confirmed, I've gone through other sacraments. I try really hard in going to church regularly. It's all a righteousness by rulekeeping.
They have enough. Morality to keep them out of trouble, but not enough righteousness to get them into heaven.
So morality.
Now, here's the question. Why is Paul rattling off? All of the things he's done in his past. Because there's this group we talked about last week called the Judaizers. Remember the Judaizers, they mixed law and grace together.
They were telling Gentiles, non-Jews, in Philippi: you have to go back and keep Jewish laws and Jewish rituals to be right before God.
So Go back to verse 3, where we studied last week. Paul says, we are the circumcision. True believers, true followers who worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh, though I also might have confidence in the flesh. If anyone else thinks he may have confidence in the flesh, I more so. And then he lists all these things.
As if to say, I can beat these silly arguers at their own religious game. Here's my background. Here's my pedigree. Which leads me to a question. What are you boasting in?
What are you trusting in? What are you confident in to be right before God? Are you saying like so many people, well, I was born in America? That's about as close to God as you can get. Or, not only was I born in America, I was born in America by church-going parents, and I have a Christian education at a Christian school.
Whatever it is you might boast in, if you're not boasting in Jesus Christ alone, it's a false boast. Those things aren't bad. All of those things are good things, but A good thing can become a bad thing. if it keeps you from the best thing. All of those wonderful things that were part of his background and his resume.
actually kept him. from a relationship with God.
So Shred your religious resume and you'll see Paul doing that. Second, have a spiritual encounter. Look at verse 7. What's the first word in verse 7? Say it out loud.
But Now that's a word that denotes a change. It's a negative conjunction.
Sorry to bring up English class here.
So, whenever you see the word, it denotes that he is pivoting and he is changing his thinking.
So he's saying, this is who I used to be, but. These are the things I used to trust in, but here's a list of all the things I thought were important to me, but.
Something has changed. in my life. And that is, I got saved. You see, that little word in verse 7, but takes us back 30 years from the writing of this letter. To when he was going on the Damascus road from Jerusalem to Damascus to imprison believers.
So here's this. Pompous. religious man On his way from Jerusalem to Damascus, he has an encounter with Jesus Christ. Alan Redpath used to put it this way: When God wants to do an impossible task, He takes an impossible person. and crushes him.
Listen to Paul's crushing. This is Acts chapter 9, the first few verses.
Meanwhile, Saul, that's Saul of Tarsus. was uttering threats With every breath. He was eager to destroy the Lord's followers. And so he went to the high priest. He requested letters addressed to the synagogues in Damascus asking their cooperation in the arrest of any followers of the Way.
That's what they used to first call Christians the Way. He wanted to bring them, both men and women, back to Jerusalem in chains. As he was nearing Damascus on this mission, a brilliant light from heaven suddenly beamed down upon them. And then he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying, Saul, Saul Why are you persecuting me? And he said, Who are you, Lord?
And the Lord said, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. It is hard for you to kick against the goads. that is, of conviction.
So he, trembling and astonished, said, Lord, what do you want me to do? And the Lord said to him, Arise and go into the city, and you will be told. What you must do. This is Connect with Skip Heitzig. When you give to this ministry, you're helping reach thousands of people every day with God's life-changing truth, encouraging them to know him and grow in his word.
And to thank you for your support this month, we'll send you The Making of a Biblical Leader: A Practical Guide to Leading Others by Robert L. Furrow. This practical guide, featuring chapters by Skip and Lenya Heitzig, offers biblical wisdom to help you lead yourself and others with Christ-like integrity. Your gift today helps equip believers around the world to walk in truth and share the hope of Jesus. Request your copy when you give $50 or more to reach people around the world through Connect with Skiff Heitzig.
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Now, here's more from Pastor Skip. It was this episode. That changed everything.
Now he goes from persecutor to preacher. After this chapter, he goes from Mr. Prideful to Mr. Humble. He goes from religious man to righteous man, from self-confident to saved.
He had an encounter, a spiritual encounter that was personal with Jesus Christ. In the passage that I just read from Acts chapter 9, he refers to Jesus as Lord. And he submits to him, Lord, what do you want me to do? And the rest of his life, it's about doing what Jesus wants him to do. Here's why I love Paul's.
Testimony. What happened to Paul happened instantly to him. I mean he was One way one day, but that day changed him, and he was completely different the next day. I know that for some people, Coming to Christ is a process. They hear the gospel once.
Listen to it. They might agree with something, but they marginalize it, pass it off, and then they hear it again and another time, and then they hear it again, and maybe one day it just sinks in, they go, I'm giving my life to Christ. But for other people It's instantaneous. It's like an epiphany. For me, it was an epiphany.
When I heard the gospel, I thought, I'm in trouble. I need to do this. I need to receive Christ.
Now, I didn't quite get that at first. I had a friend, the friend who really led me to Christ, Gino. One day he was doing drugs. The very next day, less than 24 hours later, he's preaching Jesus to me. And I said, excuse me, nobody can change that fast.
And he said, well, I did. The night before, he went to a meeting and he went forward and he received Christ as his Savior, and he was forever changed to this day. Changed. Saul Had an encounter with Jesus.
Now, this encounter. Was so unexpected and so transforming that I have been amused over the years. I've even collected stories of people trying to explain Saul's spiritual conversion. For example, Renan, the French Renan, the French atheist. Philosopher said that this was a case of an uneasy conscience.
With unstrung nerves, fatigued from the journey, his eyes were inflamed by the hot sun, and a sudden stroke of fever produced an hallucination. I mean, because it's so odd that this person would change so dramatically, it must be a hallucination. Others say a thunderstorm happened to hit at this very moment. and being so overwrought by guilt, he imagined that God spoke to him. But my favorite and the most popular explanation of Sol of Tarsus.
Spiritual conversion. is that he had an epileptic fit. I still hear this. I still read this. It was a case of an epileptic seizure.
I did a little research and discovered, according to medical sources, epileptics cannot remember anything that occurred during that fit. Yet Saul seems to have great detail about everything that happened, and he writes about it, tells about it.
So I love how Spurgeon answered this argument. When people said, Oh, it was an epileptic fit, he said, Oh, blessed epilepsy, if it affects a conversion like this. May God give us more people with epileptic fits that result in conversion to Christ.
So shred your religious resume. Have a spiritual encounter. Number three, to build your testimony, you need to learn how to count. Paul admits that he counted. Wrong for years.
Look at verse 7. But what things were gained to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet, indeed, I also count all things lost for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish. that I may gain Christ. Notice the words counted.
And count. Three times in two verses. The Greek word is hegeomai. It is a term, a mathematical term. A term of accounting.
And a counting term means to reckon, reason, or to count.
So Paul is saying, you know what? I've learned how to count. Two more words I want you to notice. Notice the word gain and the word loss in verse 7. What things were gained to me?
These I have counted. loss. Those two are accounting terms or from the business world. Gain and loss represent the profit column and the loss column. in a set of accounting books.
So the books are open? One column says profit, the other says loss. Gain, loss. Paul spent his whole life working on his spiritual religious resume. And he had all of these things in the prophet column.
Gain, gained. I was a Jew, born of a Jew, tribe of Benjamin, kept the law. All those things were in my prophet column, but. Paul says, but I've learned to count since then. And I see things differently.
I had them in the wrong column all along. Those things that I put in this column are actually loss.
So, listen to verse 7 and 8 in a more modern translation, and I think it'll all come together for you. Paul writes this. The very credentials these people are waving around as something special, I am tearing up and throwing out with the trash. along with everything else I used to take credit for. And why?
Because of Christ. All the things I once thought were so important are gone from my life. Compared to the high privilege of knowing Christ Jesus as my master firsthand, everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant. Dog dumb. I have dumped it all in the trash.
so that I can embrace Christ. and be embraced. By him.
So now he opens the books and looks at that profit column, all those things listed, and he goes, You know what? I just made a discovery, I'm bankrupt. Before God I've had them in the wrong column. They've actually kept me. From a real, authentic relationship with God.
So I'm moving them from the gain column into the loss column.
Something else I want you to look at. Look at verse 7. What things were gained to me, these I have. What's the word? Counted, that's a past tense.
I counted it. That was 30 years ago. He's going back to his conversion. 30 years ago, I made the estimation when I had an encounter with Christ. These things were in the wrong column.
I have counted. that 30 years ago.
Now look at verse 8. Yet indeed I also what's the word? Count, now that's present tense. I count all things loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish that I may gain Christ. Here's what he's saying.
I made a choice 30 years ago. I'm here to tell you, I don't regret the choice that I made. Same choice 30 years later. Longevity is always the test of choice. 1973, I made a choice.
Watching that Billy Graham broadcast, I made a choice to make Jesus my Lord. That was 1973, many moons ago. Today, I'm here to say I made the right choice. I still. Follow the same Lord.
Now look at another word as we bring this to a close. He said, All of those things I counted loss, I count them loss, and I count them as verse 8. Rubbish.
Now I want to be careful with this word. Because it's a very strong. Greek word. It's the word scubala. which means nothing to English readers.
But if you were a Greek speaker 2,000 years ago and you heard this word, you go, whoa. Because it means, as you have heard in this translation I just read And they put it mildly. Dog dumb. It literally means the excrement of animals. the stuff you sweep away from the stalls because it stinks.
So, Paul is saying, I made a choice 30 years ago, I'm still choosing it, and I'm here to say, trusting in anything else. stinks. Trusting in your religious background stinks. Trusting in how you were raised, if that's what you're trusting in to be saved, stinks. You need your own personal encounter with Christ.
Like John Dyer said, he was a Welsh poet and theologian, a man may go to heaven without health. A man may go to heaven without riches, without honors, without learning, and without friends, but he can never go to heaven without Christ.
So he says, and be found in him, verse 9, a verse we'll look at next week, not having my own righteousness which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God. By faith.
So here's the skinny. Your heritage. Maybe wonderful. Your upbringing may be awesome. Your education is worth something.
It's okay.
However, If you are relying on any of those things to go to heaven, They stink. I got a letter a few years ago. That Was an amazing letter. It was from Utah, the little town outside of Salt Lake City. And uh the man introduced himself as Um from the Mormon Church.
A leader in the Mormon Church. A very influential and ardent follower in Mormonism. But he said, I I would listen to your radio broadcasts in the morning. And one day I decided I'd pull over on the side of the road and I'd listen to the whole thing. By the end of the broadcast, I realized that everything I had trusted in was wrong.
And I prayed by the side of the road in my car after the radio broadcast, and I just wanted to write you to tell you. I've received Jesus Christ. as my Saviour and my only means of salvation.
So Tosh your resume. Get saved. and learn how to count. I could even reduce it down to this. Lose your religion.
and choose your relationship. Uh We're so glad you joined us today on Connect with Skip Heidzig. Before you go, remember that as our thanks for your gift of support today, we'll send you The Making of a Biblical Leader, a Practical Guide to Leading Others, by Robert L. Furrow, featuring chapters by Skip and Lenya Heidzig. This resource will encourage you to grow in faith and lead others with wisdom and grace.
When you give, you help keep this Bible teaching ministry on the air, connecting more people with the truth of God's Word and the hope found in Jesus. Gift today at connectwithsgift.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888 and request your resource when you do. See you next time. Make a connection Shouldn't have the foot of the crossing. Castle burning.
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