Your Life Is Not Your Own

Good morning everybody. Thank you. My name is Mark and it is great to be with you all on this wonderful day here in paradise. So glad that you could be part of church today and for those of you that are joining us either over in venue or watching us online, we're glad that you're with us as well.

Speaking of TLC online, I just want to mention that if you don't know this, every sermon that's been preached in this room for over 10 years is archived on our website. And you can go, for instance, if by chance you fall asleep at some point during this sermon today, it's a great comfort of mine to know you can go to our website, watch this sermon, try again, or watch many, many others. And it is all for free, TLC.org.

For the last couple of weeks we've been talking about light bulb moments and today we are going to talk about one of the biggest light bulb moments in the entire Bible. Arguably one of the biggest light bulb moments in the history of the church. It's just an incredible moment. But before we get to that, I'd like to make this point. Not every light bulb moment comes in one big 10,000 watt flash. Sometimes a light bulb moment is more like when the lights come on in a city and there's a series of all sorts of little lights that start to flick on one after the next, after the next, after the next.

And it's the sum of all of these little lights that can bring us to a new place of illumination and insight. And most of my light bulb moments fall into that category, especially the one that I'm going to share today. Because over time, I've come to the realization, and this has come slowly, but I've come to the realization that my life is not my own. Let me explain what I mean by that.

When I was nine years old, I was sitting in the church that I grew up in and during that particular Sunday morning there was a worship service and two of my peers, these two girls that I'd gone through Sunday school with, they were being baptized. And I watched one and then the next and seeing the metaphor, the symbol of our old life being buried with Christ and being raised to newness, being washed of our sins, being born again, a light flicked on in my little nine year old brain. And I got it.

I understood that Jesus was offering me that new life and that He would forgive me for all of my sins and even though I was only nine years old, I was keenly aware that I was in need of that. And not only that, but there was this idea that with new life, with this eternal life, you get heaven as well. That sounded like a great deal to me.

Now back in these days, it was the tradition of our church, the tradition of many churches that if you wanted to make that first step of faith, you wanted to profess your faith in Christ during the last song, it was customary the pastor would invite you to come down the center aisle, called coming forward in church. Anybody come forward in church at some point in life or maybe in Sunday school or youth group or a camp or something like that?

Well that day, I knew that's what I wanted to do even though the pastor didn't actually make that invitation that day. You know, he didn't feel like his sermon lent itself to that or it was the second service and he was thinking about lunch. I'm not sure because I'm sure pastors never do that in the last service on a Sunday. Think about lunch during the last song.

But whatever it was, without asking for permission, without indicating I was about to do this, my mother, father, my cousins were there. I just got up and walked down to the front and kind of snapped into action and that was the day that I came forward. Now, what I didn't understand in that moment was that when you invite Jesus into your life, he's not content to just have a piece of you.

Not like we give him 10% as if that's, you know, like I'm going to tithe 10% of my heart to you Jesus and then you can punch my ticket to heaven. It doesn't quite work that way. It's more like a friendly takeover. You let Jesus in the front door of your house. He's not going to be content to stay in the guest room. He's going to take over the place.

And I probably should have realized this sooner. I mean, even one of the bread crumbs I think he had put in my way was from probably my mid-teens. One of my favorite verses in scripture is in Acts 17:28 where the apostle Paul says, "For in him we live and move and have our being." It's right there at the top of your notes. I don't know what it was about that verse. It just struck me.

In him we live and move and have our being. And notice it doesn't say, "And with him as our co-pilot." Or, "With his good blessings we live and move and go on and live whatever lives we feel like inventing for ourselves." In him he's our center. He's our core. That's where we live and move and find our being.

And the funny thing about this verse is that when the apostle Paul says this, he's actually quoting a Greek poet. This was a poem that his listeners would have known. And so think about this. Those words that are listed on your notes, those were originally penned by a pagan. Yet the apostle Paul, under the inspiration of the Spirit, he grabs them into his message. He appropriates them for God's work and God's message and they become part of holy scripture. It's kind of mind-boggling.

And yet it's a great example of what Jesus does with each of us. I mean, perhaps the reason that pagan verse appealed to me is because I come from a long line of pagans. I'm not sure. But the point is that he takes us as unlikely as we are and he absorbs us. He repurposes us and deploys us for his service and his kingdom. And no one knew this better than the apostle Paul.

We're going to look at his light bulb moment today. And this is an incredible light bulb moment. This light bulb moment has its impact on Western civilization. Obviously, it has an impact on us to this day. I want you to see how Jesus exploded into Paul's life. And it wasn't like I just described, you know, flicking on some switches. And he just, it was kaboom, here I am. It literally blinded him with light.

And I like to describe this as the day that Jesus ambushed Saul. That's what he was called back then, Saul. And it's such a big event. It blew the minds of the first Christians. It was so huge that it's recorded three times in the book of Acts alone. Paul's going to talk about it elsewhere, but Acts 9, Acts 22, and Acts 26. Basically the same story is told. And I think the reason for that is that the first Christians, they were amazed. Like, are you kidding me? Saul has become one of us.

Saul, the religious terrorist. Saul, the guy who hunted us down and had us thrown in prison and tortured some of us, hoping that we would renounce our faith. Now Saul that would vote that we would be executed, he's become one of us? Really? I mean, this is a major event. Like I said, it's listed in a number of places. We're going to look at Acts 26 today and read Paul's retelling there. Acts 26, the verses that we're going to look at today in your notes, on screen, and of course in your Bible. So you're welcome to open it to Acts 26 as well.

We're going to start at verse 10. "On the authority of the chief priests, I put many of the Lord's people in prison. When they were put to death, I cast my vote against them. I was so obsessed with persecuting them that I even hunted them down in foreign cities." Paul describes this obsession that he had. He was enraged, furious that these people were going around talking about this resurrected Jesus and he took it upon himself to lead the charge against them, to track them down wherever it might take him.

He was a hit man of sorts for what he thought were God's purposes. Verse 12, "On one of these journeys, I was going to Damascus. About noon, as I was on the road, I saw light from heaven, brighter than the sun, blazing around me and my companions." And notice he mentions it was noon, the sun was at its zenith, it's the brightest part of the day, and yet this light from heaven, it just eclipses the normal brightness of the sun.

And there's only one thing he and his companions can do. He says, "We all fell to the ground and I heard a voice saying to me in Aramaic, 'Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.'" A goad was just a sharp stick that farmers would use as cattle prod. Pope the ox, make him giddy up. And because they were so common, it inspired a figure of speech that was very typical in Paul's day. To say someone was kicking against the goads was to say that they were opposing God.

They were kicking against God's will or God's authority, God's direction for them. And kicking against the goads is always hard. Whether you know it or not, and I don't think the apostle Paul knew, and yet it created this warped perspective in him. It created a hardness in his own heart. And this is striking because Paul did not set out to be this kind of person.

Paul, when he made it his desire to be a Pharisee as a young man, he just wanted to be the most righteous person he could possibly be, to follow God in every single way he could and follow every single letter of the law. In fact, his teacher was a man named Gamaliel. Gamaliel was a renowned rabbi. He was like the best of the best, and that's who Paul sought after. And yet Gamaliel had a much more moderate personality. And you see that in Acts 5 because the chief priests, they've arrested all the apostles and they want to kill them. And Gamaliel stands up and he says, "Hey guys, calm down. You ought to just let these guys go."

Because here's the thing, if God's not in what they're doing, this new movement, if God's not in it, it's going to fizzle out. But if God is in it, you're going to find yourself on the wrong side of this fight. Prophetic words because that's exactly what happened to the apostle Paul. And now he's flat on his face, hearing this voice from heaven say, "Why are you persecuting me?" And what do you say? "I don't know. Seems like a pretty dumb idea now." And rather than answer the question, he actually asks a question of his own. He says, "Then I asked, 'Who are you, Lord?'"

And as an aside, that's a great question to ask. "Who are you, Lord?" Maybe you're here this morning and you're new to the Christian faith. Maybe you're just checking it out or you're curious about Jesus. I would encourage you to ask this very same question. "Who are you, Lord? Show me." And that's exactly what the Lord does with Paul. Second half of verse 15, "I am Jesus whom you are persecuting." Wow, that had to hit like a ton of bricks. You're who? Jesus? Paul's going to, "That makes me toast because this is not going to go well."

And there's a great irony here because think about it. Paul assumed that he knew more about God than just about anyone else around him. When he describes himself during this time of life, and I've listed some references there, Galatians 1, Philippians 3, 1 Timothy 1, he talks about his mindset. He wanted to be the best of the best. He wanted to have triple-A credentials when it came to pursuing God. He went through those years assuming that he knew exactly what God wanted, exactly what God looked like, and yet when God appeared in his life, he didn't even recognize him. That's how far off he was.

Didn't even recognize him until he says, "I am Jesus whom you are persecuting." Verse 16, "And now the Lord said, 'I'm going to smite you as only I can do. Prepare to be smashed like a bug.'" Okay, I'm just seeing if you're still awake. It doesn't really say this. This is the real verse 16. We're just going to move on because I don't want any smiting going on here, verse 16. "Now get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and a witness of what you have seen and will see of me."

You know, that's our basic job description as followers of Jesus right there, to serve him and to be a witness of what we have seen and will see of him. So that's one thing I would make note of. And secondly, how much time does Jesus spend reviewing Paul's past sins here? How long does he rake him over the coals and go, "Boy, I got a long list of grievances against you, Saul. You have been persecuting me. Let's just go through this, shall we?" Doesn't spend any time doing that at all.

Other than to confirm, "Yeah, you've been persecuting me. Now let's move on. Here's the rest of your life. Here's your life's mission. You're going to be a servant and a witness, and this is what it's going to look like. This is verses 17 and 18. "I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I'm sending you to them to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by what? By faith in me." Beautiful summary of the Gospel right there.

We shouldn't be surprised since it came from the Lord's own mouth. But that's exactly what He does for each of us. He opens our eyes. He turns us from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to the power of God that we might receive forgiveness and a place among those who are sanctified by faith. This week I was catching up with a friend. I asked him how he was doing. He said, "I lost my sister." I said, "I'm so sorry." He said, "Yeah, guess who got volunteered to say her eulogy?" I said, "I did." He said, "Who would have thought that a former cocaine addict, a former alcoholic, would be giving his sister's eulogy?" Talking about what Jesus offers us in terms of hope.

He goes, "But I'm not ashamed to talk about how Jesus has changed my life." He started to tear up. And then I started to tear up because I thought, "That's probably the look, His face right now is probably the look Jesus saw when the woman bathed His feet with her tears." His face, those tears of gratitude and wonder over the transformation in His life from being taken from darkness to light, to the forgiveness that He's received and to the place that He has in God's kingdom. His face is the face of those who have entered into the kingdom of God. I was stunned by that.

And that's what Jesus wants to do in all of our lives when He claims us and absorbs us into His self and into His purposes. Now let me ask you this. Do you think that Saul became the mighty Apostle Paul like the very next day? No. In fact, he went off to Arabia for three years, then he goes and sees Peter for a couple weeks, and then it's like 14 years later that he's at the council in Jerusalem perhaps.

In other words, my point is, years would go by before he would develop into the preacher, the teacher, the writer that we see in the New Testament. And he would reflect in Galatians 1, he'd say, "You know, actually God's plans for me weren't inaugurated just when Jesus appeared to me on the road, but He had a beat on me. He set me apart in my mother's womb," he says in Galatians 1, "to be an Apostle." And then in Ephesians 1, he says, "Well actually, for all of us, He chose us in Christ before He even created the world." And so God's pursuit of us goes so far back we can't even really conceive of it.

And He pursues us and pursues us and pursues us because He loves us. And you would think that after a pursuit like that, once He's captured us in His love, He's not going to be content with just a piece of us. He's going to want all of us. And I came to slowly realize in my life that very fact, that I belong to the One that chose me. And my life is no longer my own. And I don't think I really came to terms with this until I became a pastor.

Now that might sound surprising to you because you think they'd vet people, the pastor, that they'd have to be okay with God's call on their life. But if you find yourself struggling with this idea that Jesus makes absolute claims on our life, on your life, you're not alone. I get that. In my late teens and early 20s, every summer I'd work in Christian camping. I worked at Hume Lake for a couple summers and I worked at Cruz Kids in our summer camps.

And then when I graduated from college, I was invited to be the program director at our own Camp Hammer, which I was thrilled to do because at that point the Christian camping ministry bug had just bitten me. I loved Christian camping. And about a year after I was there, the executive director decided to move on. And having no one else as an option to fill his seat, they chose me to do that.

And for the next nine years, I plunged myself into the job that I thought I was born to do. I just felt born to do it. I loved wearing all the different hats that I got to wear up there. One day I'd be on a tractor, I'd be up in a tree, then I'd be in a suit, I'd be in the office, I'd be outside interacting with people young and old. And it just gave me so many different outlets. I absolutely was thrilled in that role.

And then a guy named Rene Schlepfer landed here at Twin Lakes Church. He was called by Twin Lakes to be the senior pastor. And very early on after he arrived, he invited me to join the pastoral staff down here, which was a real honor, to which I said, "No, thank you." Not because I thought I was too cool, not because I thought he was great, I loved my church, but I was just happy doing what I was doing. I had no desire to leave, and I certainly did not want to become a pastor.

I had never even envisioned being a pastor. And, you know, it's one thing to ask the Lord to move in your life, you know, but if you're like me, you kind of want it to be within reason, at least I did at the time. And Rene circles around about nine, ten months later, and he says, "Hey, Mark, I'd like you to consider again joining the pastoral staff, and this time would you be willing to pray about it at least?" Which I never should have agreed to do.

Because let's face it, you know, if your life's in a ditch, it's easy to say, "Jesus, grab the wheel." You have no other options, you know, you can only go one way up. But when you're happy, and you're content, and you're doing the thing that you think you were born to do, and then Jesus says, "You want to hand me the keys?" That's a scary proposition.

And as I began to pray about it, I can remember I was driving up to the office up at Camp Hammer on Big Basin Highway, my own road experience, I guess. And I was talking to the Lord in the privacy of my car, just praying out loud, and telling him all the reasons why I did not want to be a pastor. And it wasn't like I heard an audible voice, but there was this dialogue that emerged in my mind that was very real.

And in my spirit, I could hear Jesus saying, "So Mark, let's just talk about all the things you don't like about being a pastor. You like having a meaningful role in people's lives, don't you? You do that with the staff all the time, you like being of help to them, right?" "Yeah, I like that, Lord." "And you like to teach, you teach all the time up at the camp, and so you like that part of it too?" "Yeah, I like that too." "And you like being a part of an environment where people can come to know me, and they can grow in their faith, and you love to pour yourself into making that just a great place for them, right?" "Yeah."

"So it sounds to me like you don't have any problem with pastoral work, you just have a problem with the idea of being a pastor, right?" "I guess." And then these words were just verbatim. "Is it just enough to consider yourself a member of my team? Are you willing to play on my team and let me worry about what that role is called?" "Yeah." That was the beginning of the end of my career of a Camp Hammer, at least in terms of role as director there.

And I have to be honest with you, the first year, I was not terribly happy with my new role here. I was going through a time of grief, and I was adjusting to new realities here, and I was not the happiest camper. I was a reluctant pastor, and then over time, over just the course of a couple years, I came to the realization that there is nothing else in life I could imagine doing.

I even said to Rene a couple years ago, we were right out here in the parking lot, and I said, "You know what, Rene? I never look at anyone else and go, 'Boy, I wish I had their job.'" Never. Not because their job isn't great for them, but just, this is what I've been called to do. And when Jesus chooses you, He calls you, and you realize He bore your sins on the cross so that you could be enveloped into His kingdom and His purposes, and He uses you in the ways that He chooses.

There is no more profound joy in life than that when you know you're owned by the Master of the universe, by the One who claims you. And the great news is you don't have to be a pastor or a professional Christian to experience that very same joy. He offers it to all of us, and all the more as we come to realize that it's in Him that we live and move and have our being, that our lives belong to Him. They are no longer our own, and that's a joyful realization.

Let me show you something really cool I discovered this week. I kept comparing this passage in Acts 26 with Philippians 3, and you'll notice I put verse 12 at the bottom of your notes today because Paul talks about his prior life in Philippians 3, and then he gets to this familiar verse in verse 12. He says, "I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me." That's Paul's response to grace in sum.

He's saying, "I press on to take hold of that for which Christ has already taken hold of me." He realized it started with Jesus. You know, a loose paraphrase might be, "I want to grab on to all that Jesus has grabbed on me for." All of, both in this life and the next. I want to pursue it. I want to make it my ultimate pursuit. In fact, that's what that word means in the original. It means to pursue, press on, to pursue.

Now circle that and look back up to Acts 26 where he talks about persecuting the Lord's people in verse 15. Jesus says, "I'm Jesus, the one you are persecuting." Circle those words persecuting and connect it to press on because in the original language it's the same word, and I'd never seen that before. The exact same word for press on or the phrase press on is translated persecuted up above because it all depends on what your objective is.

You can pursue someone with hostile intention. That's called persecution. That's what Paul was doing when he was hunting people down. He was pursuing them. But you can also pursue with eager desire to receive all that is in store for you, to fully apprehend as you might pursue a career or pursue, you know, your full rights on something. You're pursuing in a different way.

And the great thing about this is that Paul was always a pursuer. Jesus just changed the objective of his pursuit. And the exact same thing is true of every single one of us. We are always pursuing something. That's never the question. The question is who or what will we pursue? And our response to grace is to simply say I want to embrace the one who has embraced me already.

I'll close with this. Oh, before I close, let me just say you might be here today and you might have come in. You can identify with the way I have been for much of my life where this is idea. You invite God's benefits into your life. You invite the idea that he wants to forgive you and bring you to heaven someday. But it's like, you know, again, within reason. Let's just not get carried away. Again, I've been there.

Or you might have come in here today with a burden of worries and you're worried about what might get you or what's already gotten you in life. You might be worried about cancer or some sort of other dread disease or tragedy or your past might get you or maybe you think God might get you. Or maybe if you're honest, you're focused on all the things you still just want to get in life. I want to get this. I want to get that then.

You can spend a lot of time, a lot of energy. You can spend an entire life worrying about all these things that might either get you or that you can get or you can rest in the knowledge that God has already got you. And that is such a joyous place to be. Let me illustrate that between these. It's a parable of sorts, a parable of two dogs. One named Teddy, the other named Boone.

Teddy showed up on our street about a year ago this month. I was coming home after a Saturday night service. I see this white bundle of white dreadlocks and everything. And he's bouncing up and down the street. He was a royal mess. I mean, he was just fleas and skinny as all get out and as frightened as they come. The only person who could even get near to him was my daughter, Anna.

And after she befriended him and he spent the next night on our doorstep, I knew that it was for us to decide what we could do for poor Teddy. And so we called the animal shelter. No one was looking for him. He didn't have any microchip, no identification. We got him cleaned up a little bit, tried to give him to some neighbors. We spent the day with a neighbor and then broke out and ran back to our house. It's like, okay, now Teddy's choosing us, I see.

And so we had to come to a decision. Do we keep Teddy or do we turn him over to the animal shelter? And the person leading the charge to keep Teddy was not her. It was me, believe it or not. Anna was very into the idea of rescuing Teddy. She just was not really into the idea of caring for Teddy or even calling that her dog, because we talked about getting a dog and this scraggly white poodle was not really her idea.

Laura was also not really into the idea. She was somewhat against it. And my boys were horrified that we would take in a poodle. They wanted a wolf. And he did. Something like that. So I thought, all right, I have to find some sort of grand compromise here. So I said, we're going to keep Teddy, but we're also going to get the type of dog that you guys are expecting we're going to get. And that's when Boone enters the picture. Boone the chocolate lab.

Now, he's not a wolf, but he still has grown into somewhat of a beast. And we have these two very different dogs. And there was a wrinkle in it all, because whereas Teddy somewhat warmed up to my wife and he adores Anna, and he'll romp around with the boys, he was terrified of me. Would not let me get close to him. That's me trying to like go scratch him on the head or something. That's about as close as he would get to me.

Something about me being the big daddy in the house or something. He just he's got some baggage. He does. I mean, he just was a survivor out on his own for for many who knows how long. And so he's very, very leery, especially of me. Now, Boone, on the other hand, he's never known a bad day in his life. He just wants to be on my feet. He's a Velcro dog. He's happiest when he is right next to me.

And so they're just really polar opposites. And I'll show you a little bit of what this dynamic is like. This is three months ago I shot this when I'm trying to call the boys into the house. Check this out. Hey buddy boy. Hi. Come on. Come on Teddy. Come on Teddy. Come here boo. Come here boo. Hi boy. Hi boy boy. Yeah. Hello. Hey Teddy. Come here Teddy. Come here Teddy.

And that's pretty much the way Teddy rolls. It's like, say master two very different responses. Now bear in mind I saved Teddy. I chose him. I care for him. And yet he's just very skittish. And again. Boo. He doesn't know. He just doesn't even know how not to trust. Teddy on the other hand. He's making this very slow journey. From his old life. And into his new.

And I'll show you a little progress. I just shot this yesterday morning. Hello Boone. Hello Teddy. Hi guys. Hi guys. Hello Teddy. Hey Teddy. Hi. Hi. Come on. Come on Boone. Come on Boone. Come on Teddy. Come on. Good. There they go. Into the master's house they come.

Maybe for some of you trust has always just been easy. You hear the master's voice and it's like yes. That's a gift. That's a gift. I suspect that for most of us. We may have reason to be wary. Or skittish. Or nervous. When you hear the master's call. And we wonder where that might lead. I get that. My prayer for you. My prayer for myself. Is that we would be all the more eager. To respond to his voice. All the more eager. To press on. And take hold. Of that. For which. Christ Jesus. Has taken hold. Of us.

Amen. Amen. Let's pray. Father in heaven. Thank you for your goodness and your grace. Thank you for loving us. Thank you for calling us. Thank you for your tender care and your patience with us when. We want to keep you at arm's length. Lord I pray that you never give up on us. You don't let go of us. You just keep. Calling us and wooing us. Showing us that. Whatever life might throw at us and. And I understand there are some horrific stories in this room. But that whereas life might be very bad at times you are always good.

Help us be to be able to separate those two things. And Lord I want to pray for whoever might be here in this room or listening to my voice and they've never even taken that first step of faith they've heard your voice calling them. And yet they just haven't gotten around to taking that first step and so if that describes you I'm not going to ask you to come down but I I would. Invite you just to raise your hand just for your own self to signify that you're saying yes. To Jesus as much as you understand you want to say yes Jesus I understand. That you have called me that you love me that you died for my sins and that as you come into my life and take residence. That you will you're my Lord you're the boss and if that's something that you've never done you'd like to right now. Raise your hand I'd love to pray for you and again give you this opportunity to affirm. That's what you want to do in your life. Yes. OK. Yes.

Heavenly Father. Again. We thank you for your goodness and your grace embolden our faith. Enlarge our hearts. Give us a sense of. Eager expectation. For all that you have in store for us both in this life. And in the one to come. We pray this in Jesus name. All God's people said. Amen.