Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / August 9, 2015 | Why I Can't NOT Serve

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August 9, 2015 | Why I Can't NOT Serve · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: Good morning.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_02: TBC is in not two but three venues at this moment.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_02: We are uh Mulvaine, College Avenue, and down in northeastern Oklahoma, where 200 uh TBCers are at family camp.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_02: This is the last event.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_02: Church is the last event, and then they start driving back today.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_02: So we miss them, but we'll get to see them next week, and that's where a couple of hundred of us are.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_02: Now we're in a I'm in a hiatus, sort of a break, three-week break from Route 66 two weeks ago.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I did Route 66, Song of Solomon.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_02: For those of you just visiting Route 66, it's a 66-week series that goes through the 66 books of the Bible, one message per book.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_02: And I took a break after Song of Solomon two weeks ago.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_02: And uh last week we had Youth Sunday.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_02: It was awesome, really awesome.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_02: And then next Sunday is Discovery Sunday.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_02: Discovery Day, you know how every year we put a tent out in the parking lot.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_02: And this year the tent will be um moved, it'll be about equidistant between the two church buildings so that uh the suction can pull both sides equally, and that's where the snacks will be and everything else.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_02: So that'll be next week, and plus I'm gonna sit up here, I'm gonna introduce to you and interview Jason Brent, our new children's pastor.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_02: You're gonna enjoy that.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_02: That'll be next week, and then I'll get back into uh Ruse 66 uh at uh in two weeks, Route 66, Isaiah, and we're gonna break out you know, new uh a new video, we'll have uh new stuff up here, you'll you'll you'll enjoy seeing that.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_02: But this morning we have the sort of uh bridge Sunday between uh You Sunday and Discovery Sunday, and I want to talk to you about a uh topic that really interests me greatly, the topic of service.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_02: I want you to turn in your Bible, grab a Bible.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_02: If you don't have one, there's there may be one nearby in the seat bottom in front of you or something.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_02: Turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 15, and I want to start reading at verse 3.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_02: Famous chapter, 1 Corinthians, uh, chapter 15.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna read the famous part of that chapter and then the not so famous part of that chapter.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_02: Starting in verse 3, uh for I, uh the writer here is who do you think it is?
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_02: The great apostle Paul, yeah.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_02: Paul says, I passed on to you as most important what I also received, that Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures, and he was buried, and he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures, and then he appeared to Cephas, i.e.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_02: Peter, and then to the twelve, and he appeared to over five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom remain to the present, if you want to check this out, you know.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_02: But some have fallen asleep.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_02: And then he appeared to James and then to all the apostles, and last of all, as to one abnormally born, he appeared also to me, or he appeared even to me, probably best.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_02: For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_02: But by God's grace I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not ineffective.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_02: However, I worked more than any of them, yet not I, but God's grace that was with me.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_02: Let's pray.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_02: God, uh, I'm asking that this passage of Scripture, that these last three verses, would just you would use your spirit, would apply them liberally to our hearts, and that they would uh, you know, take root, maybe explode, change lives this morning.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_02: We would see what we've never seen before.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_02: I pray this in Jesus' name.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_02: Amen.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_02: Now, what I'm concerned about, I said, what uh what interests me is this topic of service.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, my title this morning is Why I Can't Not Serve.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_02: Why I Can't Not Serve.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_02: And this topic's been of interest to me for decades.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_02: I worked my way through college uh five summers.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_02: I used to go sell books door to door.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_02: I used to ride a bicycle, four out of five summers was in Pennsylvania, mainly in Amish Mennonite country.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_02: And so I'd have my little sales case with its little uh, you know, piece of a Bible storybook and piece of a Bible commentary and so forth, and I would ride from farmhouse to farmhouse and I'd ride up the driveway.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_02: And knowing that Amish and Mennonite wives would never ever buy anything apart from their husbands, I would never go up the front door and knock.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_02: I would always just ride my bicycle straight out to the barn and look for dad.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_02: And um, I was comfortable around the barn.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_02: I'd grown up in a barn milking cows and so forth.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_02: So I walk in and I'd find him or I'd find him in the field, and you know, I'd start, I'd lay the bike down in the sales case, and I'd start helping out a little bit and chat with him and tell him who I was.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_02: And I'd say, I'm just a pesky old salesman, you don't shoot him out here, do you?
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_02: And then I'd say, I'd really like to sit down and talk with you for 10 minutes, you know, about the this thing I'm selling.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_02: He said, What are Bible story books and stuff like that?
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_02: And so we'd work for all, and I'll never forget this one guy.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_02: And so, you know, I'm helping out and I'm talking with him, and after about 10 minutes, I say, Well, do you have a moment now?
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_02: You have 10 minutes?
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_02: You sit down, and with a twinkle in his eye, he clearly was wishing he had sons that were out there helping him.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_02: Twinkle in his eye, he said, No, I'm not quite ready yet, but if you'll talk to me a little more about it, then I'll keep considering it.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_02: You know, uh, and so I threw another bail up and you know we just kept going.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_02: And because it was, I'm sure it was really obvious to him, the reason that I was serving, the reason that I was helping, the reason that I was working is, you know, I had a vested interest.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_02: I was hoping that he would give me some time so that I could try to talk to him and try to make a sale of my Bible story books.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_02: Well, in life, as you go on, you become a parent and you have children.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_02: One of the things that every parent of little children and and even teenagers is all constantly thinking about is how can I motivate my children to serve or to work or to clean their rooms or whatever.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_02: A famous little booklet.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_02: Have any of you ever seen the book Lazy Little Lopers?
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_02: It's a great little storybook.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_02: It's actually not quite about what I'm implying.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_02: It's actually about a little girl uh who goes to kindergarten or first grade, I forget which, and then as she comes home, she starts looking at the babies differently.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_02: She thinks, oh, you I have to go to school and work, and you you're just lazy little lopers laying around getting free food all day and stuff like that.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_02: But anyway, uh, you know, so I, you know, you th this is something that every parent's concerned about.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_02: How do I motivate my kids to work?
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_02: This last week, uh a couple days ago, uh, a number of us uh were over uh at a conference and we heard an amazing speaker, the CEO, uh his name's Horst Schultz, and he's a believer, the CEO of the whole hotel firm that includes Rich Carleton Hotels, finest hotels in the world, perhaps.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_02: And his talk was creating world-class service.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_02: And he explained to us about how he was, you know, as a little boy growing up in a hamlet in Germany, you know, he always wanted to work at a hotel for some crazy reason.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_02: He talked his mother into driving him 100 kilometers and leaving home and working as a busboy, and now he's the CEO, you know, basically, of Rich Carlton.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_02: He was explaining to us their motto, Rich Carlton's motto is we are ladies and gentlemen serving, ladies and gentlemen.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_02: And the shocking thing to me about that was that I'm familiar, having worked in a hotel and so forth as well, that that, you know, usually what you hear is, you know, the client is everything, and you are serving the client, you are nothing, and they are everything.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_02: But but but his philosophy is he tells his employees, you know, it doesn't matter that you're making minimum wage or whatever, you know, in a way you are the most important person in that hotel room.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_02: Who's the most important person in the restaurant at our hotel?
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_02: He says, Well, actually, it's the Maider D, and all of the people who are there know that.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_02: And he says that you know servants need to realize they are extremely important.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_02: They are worth as much as the people they are serving.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_02: They are, ladies and gentlemen, serving, ladies and gentlemen.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_02: He had some great ideas about service, and and I learned a lot from him.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_02: Now, I also thought about service earlier this year and how it can go wrong.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_02: I was in South Africa, you know, with some friends, choose for Jesus, we're staying in a nice hotel for a number of days, and they had one of these things that I just love.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_02: I love breakfast, and they had one of these cook-to-order breakfasts.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_02: You know, any of you ever been in a hotel where you get to go up, and there's somebody standing behind the grill, and you tell them, you know, you want eggs or you want an omelette or whatever.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_02: It's like heaven on earth for me.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_02: I just could, you know, rest, it's just awesome.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_02: So, and Melody's like that.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_02: She made me an egg this morning.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_02: I just, it's just, anyway, I won't go into that.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_02: So, uh, anyway, so behind the grill is this woman, this Afro Africaner woman, and so I'm waiting in line.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_02: Then I get up to there and and I start to order my two eggs over medium, and then I notice that someone else is carrying away a plate with the piece of French toast on it.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_02: And I go, oh my, I just died and went to heaven.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_02: So I go, she says, What you want?
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_02: I say, I want two eggs over medium and two pieces of French toast, please.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_02: And she says, okay, and then she looks around, she has no bread.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_02: She says, Oh, please, sir, would you go over and get me some bread?
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_02: And across the opposite side of that restaurant, you know, there's a table loaded high with loaves of bread and pastries and rolls and so forth.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_02: So I run over, you know, and I'm thinking, poor girl, you know, she can't leave with a line like this.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_02: And so, you know, I get my two-pieces, and then I have a second thought.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_02: I think I can serve the server.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_02: I can be gracious here, you know, she she's gonna have the same problem next time.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_02: So I empty out the loaf of bread, take, you know, a half of the loaf, you know, and I carry that back to her on a plate, you know.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_02: And I and I put that down, she looks at me a couple of times and so forth, and uh, and I'm thinking, I'm pretty darn proud of myself, you know, to be honest about it.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_02: And so, you know, and then what you do is you go sit down a little while after you eat a little bit, a little bit, you go back up and get your food.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_02: So I went down and sat down with David Brickner and, you know, a couple others, and after a while, I I went up, you know, to get my food from her, and and to my astonishment, as I looked down at the grill, I saw, I saw that the grill was entirely covered with with pieces of French toast.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_02: And my heart sank, and I thought, oh, oh dear, are are those?
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_02: And sure enough, she brings out the spatula and she says, Is it ready?
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_02: And she starts loading those babies on there, and the stack got higher and higher, and I am just you know trapped inside my body, and you know, I take the plate and I kind of tilt it, and all of them fall off but four, and I go, that's all right, thank you very much.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_02: I'll just take these, and I skedaddle back over into my seat, and I kind of look back, and she's looking at me really funny, and she takes the spatula and she stacks them all up by the grill.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm sitting down and I'm feeling really discombobulated, and then I'm thinking, wow, you know, communication problems in foreign countries and stuff like this, and I'm kind of feeling sorry for myself.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_02: And then as I'm sitting there, I start thinking, putting myself in her place.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm imagining she's thinking, great, I get up at oh dark 30, and I come over to this fancy foreigner's hotel to make minimum wage so I can serve them, and this American comes up and first orders two pieces of French toast.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_02: I ask him to get some, and then he brings me all this bread.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_02: What am I supposed to think?
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_02: So I make it all for him, and this American pig, you know, you know, then he leaves me with all this other toast.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_02: What am I supposed to do with it?
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_02: And I suddenly thought, just reminded that serving people is not all that easy.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_02: And sometimes it can really, it can really be kind of a mess.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_02: And I thought, as a person who works in a church, how often I deal with the same issue.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_02: Here at TBC, if you've been through our welcome class, what we now call Backstage Pass, we talk to you about our motto, which is leading people to life in Christ.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_02: That is, as Jesus said in John 10, we first want you to meet Jesus Christ as your personal Savior and come into possession at that very moment of eternal life, which will issue in heaven and eternal life forever.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_02: But also, Jesus says, I've come that you might have abundant life or life, rich life to the full even now.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_02: And so, in our motto, our goal is to help people discover first TBC and God and Jesus Christ, and then connect people with each other, and then to move them into service so that they can have a purpose-driven life, so they can they can really experience all that life has to offer.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_02: And so we talk to them about serving and give them opportunities, but not everybody takes advantage of those opportunities, which is why as a staff, we together we read books about motivating people and volunteers and like 365 ideas for recruiting, retaining, motivating, and rewarding your volunteers in a nonprofit organization.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_02: And we ask ourselves things like this: things that every all Christian leaders ask themselves, why is it that some Christians are always eager to serve while others don't seem to be that motivated?
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_02: Some are always going, what more can I do?
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_02: and others are always saying, How little can I do?
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_02: And it is this passage which I read to you, precisely, actually, the last three verses, which to me answers this question better than any other passage in all of the scripture.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_02: But this is where Paul, in a passage that's overlooked, because it's sort of at the tail end of the famous passage that we read about Jesus' burial, death, burial, and resurrection.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_02: Paul just comments about his own life and says, last of all, as to one abnormally born, Christ also appeared to me.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_02: And then says, I'm the least of the apostles, I'm unworthy, I persecuted the church of God, but by God's grace, I am what I am, and his grace wasn't ineffective.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_02: However, I worked more than any of them, yet not I, but God's grace.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_02: And all of a sudden, what I see here is first of all, that Paul is actually saying, I worked more than any of them.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_02: Paul is actually comparing his work effort, his output, to everyone else's, and and and is using a word work here that's not even not the most common word, not even the second most common word for work.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_02: He's using an interesting word for work that focuses on how you feel if you've really worked hard at the end of the day.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_02: It's a word that always has in it being super tired or exhausted.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_02: And so what Paul is literally saying here is I worked myself to the point of exhaustion.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_02: I find that really interesting.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_02: I I've worked to the point of exhaustion, you know, water skiing.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_02: And uh no, I mean, you know, we do work ourselves at times to the point of exhaustion at the gym, right?
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_02: Three times a week, like you're supposed to or more.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_02: You work yourself to the point of exhaustion on your job at times, right?
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_02: You work yourself, some of you work yourself to exhaustion, point of exhaustion in the kitchen or at home or cleaning up, some of you, and you know you can even work yourself to the point of exhaustion just simply being at the lake all day.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_02: You know how exhausted you can get.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_02: Now, the question that I have for you is this have you ever worked yourself to the point of exhaustion in the service of Jesus Christ?
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_02: Have you ever served Jesus Christ to the point where you were utterly spent at the end of it?
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's an important question because I think if your answer to that question is either no or not for a number of years, then I think you have to confess that you are only peripherally involved in the service of Jesus Christ.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_02: But Paul is saying, man, I worked more than any of them, and by them, it's amazing who he means.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_02: He's meaning the them that he's just barely referred to as having been appeared to by Christ, meaning Peter, none other than the number one dude, number one apostle Peter and Andrew and all the rest of the disciples and apostles.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_02: And he's saying, I worked more than any of them.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_02: No brag, he's saying just facts.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_02: A few years ago, uh the anti-perspirant that calls itself the hardest working anti-perspirant in the world, Mitchum, uh, started a contest back about five, six years ago called Are You the Hardest Working Person in America?
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_02: Been a very successful advertising thing for them.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_02: And they've been giving away money to the person, you know, you send in videos or loved ones sending videos, and you know, they've given$100,000 to a construction worker and gave one to uh to a drill sergeant and gave one to an 87-year-old working mother of all things, and they gave one, you know, to a fighter pilot, and they've given one to a plumber, and I mean it's just and it's really interesting.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Paul says, Listen, I can tell you who's the winner here in the first century.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_02: No brag, just fact.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_02: It's me.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_02: I've served the Lord to the point of exhaustion.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I find myself hearing him say that and say, oh, okay, okay, but why would you do that?
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, what is it that has motivated you, uh, Paul, to serve the Lord more than anyone else, even to the point of exhaustion?
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_02: And the answer comes in that same verse, verse 10, when he says, By God's grace I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not ineffective.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_02: That is, it was not wasted, it was not in vain.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_02: So somehow his answer is that something in the grace of God or his realization of the grace of God in his life is what motivated him to work more than anyone else and to work, you know, to the point of exhaustion.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_02: That's that's my second point.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_02: Paul served to the point of exhaustion because of the grace of God, something about the grace of God.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_02: It's as though Paul, I think, is saying, when I began to grasp the reality of the grace of God in my life, that grace became such a motivating force in my life that it drove me to serve God to the point of exhaustion.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_02: Wow, okay, that still leaves me with a question, and that is what is it about the grace of God in your life, Paul, became that motivating factor that has compelled you to work as hard as you do in the service of Jesus Christ so that you serve him to the point of exhaustion.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_02: And here the answer, and this is my third and last point, the answer comes to us in verses 8 and 9, and it's as simple as this.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_02: Paul was blown away by the fact that God's amazing grace had saved a wretch like him.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_02: And you immediately know I didn't pull that phrase from 1 Corinthians 15.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_02: I pulled it from, as you know, that song that John Newton, the slave owner and ship's captain, wrote after he'd been gripped by the grace of God, he'd realized what a sinner, an awful sinner he was as a slave owner.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_02: And he wrote those words, amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_02: But John Newton was simply having the same experience of realizing the reality of God's grace and saving him that the apostle Paul had had some years before.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_02: And that's why he writes, last of all, as to one abnormally born, he appeared even to me.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_02: I'm the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle because I persecuted the church of God.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_02: What does he mean when he says he appeared even to me?
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_02: Well, what's interesting is that, you know, some people say, well, you know, Jesus Christ obviously never appeared to Paul, formerly Saul, when Jesus was on earth.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_02: But we know the story that in Acts 9, as Paul, Saul was persecuting, imprisoning, and killing Christians, he was headed to Damascus up northeast, you know, about 100 miles from Jerusalem.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_02: He was headed that way to do more of it, and all of a sudden the heavens opened.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_02: And some people say it was just a vision, others say it was a dream, no, no, and no.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_02: Paul is saying here very clearly, no, he appeared to me in the same literal physical way that he appeared to Andrew, Peter, James, John, the 500, and so forth.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_02: This was a true and actual and final appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_02: Last of all, after all of them, he appeared even even, even to me.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_02: And he's struck by the fact that he would appear to him.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_02: But there's something about the grace of that encounter, that encounter that brought him from being an enemy of Christ to being a child of God.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_02: Something about that encounter that changed his life and his service forever.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_02: What is it?
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_02: Well, the answer comes from a very strange phrase when he says, last of all, as to one abnormally born.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_02: Now, I know the traditional, the typical interpretation of this, the interpretation which perhaps you have heard, which is that by abnormally But what he's talking about is, well, Jesus appeared to everyone else back when he was alive, but then he went up to heaven.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_02: And so this is rather an abnormal appearance, you know, that appearance that he got.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_02: So because it was later, it was different and abnormal.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_02: And there's two reasons why that interpretation is really nice and sweet, but totally dead wrong.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_02: And one is that he's not talking about the appearance here.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_02: He's talking about his birth as a child of God.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_02: And the other is the word abnormal.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_02: Abnormal doesn't, is not a word in Greek that means at a different time.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_02: It is a crude word.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_02: It is a nasty word.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_02: It is a PG-related word, which is why the King James Version and most other, every other version has avoided telling you exactly what this word really does mean in the Greek.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_02: But it's very clear in its half-dozen uses in the Bible that this word ectroma means the miscarriage.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_02: It means the abortion.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_02: What he's saying here is last of all, as to literally the miscarriage or the abortion, which is what I was, he appeared even to me.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_02: I'm the least.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_02: I persecuted the Church of God.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_02: In the largest, perhaps, commentary in my library, in the best commentary on 1 Corinthians in the English language, Dr.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_02: Gordon Fee puts it this way.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_02: The word comes to be used figuratively to refer to something horrible or freakish.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_02: In other words, what Paul is saying is, last of all, as if to the product of an abortion, he appeared even to me.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_02: And I confess to you that I struggle with that phrase.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_02: I understand, okay, in the Bible that in its five or six uses, that the picture of a miscarriage or an abortion was disgusting or horrible in some way, but for me, as someone who, like many of you, has held a miscarriage in my arms and a stillbirth.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_02: It's not so much horrible as horrifying.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_02: This last week I watched a video.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_02: It's the fifth video now that's come out about Planned Parenthood.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_02: I watched this large Planned Parenthood Clinic and this very clinical woman and all these soap people as they're trying to convince this couple, you know, that they that they can purchase body parts.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't recommend this for everyone, but in an incredibly garish scene close to the end of this video, here comes a bag of body parts from abortions just that afternoon, and with forceps, you know, they're dumping them out in forceps, lifting out tiny lungs and other things, and and they're talking about, they're not naming prices, but they're talking about some parts, you know, earning more money than other parts.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_02: And it's just, I found myself, you know, not thinking how disgusting.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_02: I found myself feeling heartbroken and angry, right?
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_02: And that's how you feel.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_02: You're heartbroken when you hold a little stillborn baby in your arms.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_02: And so, so a little, to be honest with you, I read this and I understand that what Paul's trying to say is I was a garish, I was as ghastly as the product of an abortion, but I have to tell you that that for me, my my thought is it's not so much horrible as horrifying.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_02: But I understand what he's saying, and you must too, that he's saying when I look at myself and how I resisted Jesus, I was as horrifying as the product of an abortion.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_02: When I think back at who I was and what I did, I was ghastly, I was disgusting.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_02: I'm blown away by the grace of Christ and saving me, the freak that I was.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_02: For me, I you know, I think we need to remind ourselves that if we make a movie about Paul, you know, it's a good-looking guy, and we might call it Paul the Apostle.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_02: If you ask Paul to make a movie of his life or write his biography, spiritual autobiography, he might entitle it The Abortion, What I Used to Be.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_02: I was I was just I was worthless, I was awful, I was broken up.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_02: I I mean, I for me, I like to switch the picture, frankly, to the ugliest dog in the world.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_02: This is the one that won last year in 2014.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_02: And I go, yeah, okay, that's that's what I was, you know.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_02: And think for a moment, what you were like BC before Christ.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_02: What were you like?
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you say, well, I was really little because I trusted Christ when I was young.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_02: Well, yeah, me too.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_02: But especially then for those of you that trusted Christ a little bit later.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_02: Or even even if you were young, in heaven's eyes, what were you BC?
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_02: And you go, well, I was really pretty cute.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_02: Or if you're old, you go, well, I wasn't uh, you know, all that great.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_02: But the fact of the matter is I certainly wasn't as bad as some other people that I hung around with.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_02: You should have seen them.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I go, yeah, you weren't as bad as you could have been.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_02: Do you realize?
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_02: Have you ever stopped to realize what you looked like in the sight of heaven?
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_02: Have you ever realized that BC, you were ghastly, that you were disgusting, that there you were lost in your sin?
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_02: There you were a rebel of God.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_02: Have you ever stopped to consider what you were really like in God's eyes before you came to Christ?
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_02: You were like the ugliest dog in the world, sorry, but okay, maybe I was.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_02: And you were, but you were close.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_02: You were in the running.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_02: We all were in the running.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_02: And the moment you realize that, then you realize, as Paul did, that's what I used to be.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_02: And then his grace came upon me in the Damascus road.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_02: And man, from abortion to apostle, how is that even possible?
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_02: I am such an object of God's grace, and that became such a motivating drive in his life that he couldn't stop responding with gratitude.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_02: You know the Latin word for grace is gratia.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_02: Say that with me.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_02: Gratia.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_02: Isn't that a pretty word, gratia?
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_02: Can you think of another word besides grace that gratia has has become in English?
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_02: Grace which changes everything, uh, changes your gratitude toward God.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_02: And all of a sudden, gratia, you realize, leads to gratitude.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_02: And if you see a person who is working really hard to the point of exhaustion in the service of Jesus Christ, you are looking at a person who understands the gratia of God in their life.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_02: But if on the other hand you see a person who does as little as they possibly can, you're looking at a person who has perhaps some motivation for serving, but it's an inferior motivation.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_02: They are perhaps serving for fine reasons to hang around those people there, or because maybe we we as a church put a guilt motive on them or some other reason, but they are definitely not impelled by the gratya of God, by the grace of God that saved such a wretch as me, because the gratya, once you see it, moves you to gratitude, and gratitude moves you to serve Jesus Christ to the point of exhaustion.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_02: And you go, why I can't not serve?
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_02: I can't not serve because I have been captured by the grace of God.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_02: You never had to come to Paul and say, uh, Paul, is there any chance you'd be willing to do this or serve?
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_02: Because you knew Paul was never going to go, how little can I get away with doing?
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_02: No, Paul was always, would you give me something to do?
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_02: Would you please give me some?
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_02: And you find church people like this, some, give me something to do.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_02: I'm desperate for something to do.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_02: And when you find a person like that, you found a person who has clearly seen what they were before Christ, the grace of Jesus Christ in their life that saved a wretch like me, and then what Christ's grace has brought them to.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_02: Why I can't not serve the grace of Jesus Christ in my life.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_02: I can't think of a better illustration in literature of this than lay miss.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_02: Familiar with any familiar with that story at all with Jean Valjean the convict and so forth, uh, and the grace that hit him.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_02: If we can show this, I'd like to show you a short little video here that illustrates this point perfectly.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_01: So we'll use wooden spoons.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to hear anything more about it.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry to disturb you.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_01: Caught him!
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: But I have my eye on this man.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_01: I'm very angry with you, Jean Valjean.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: What happened to your eye, Monseigneur?
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_01: Didn't he tell you he was our guest last night?
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yes.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: After we searched his knapsack and found all this silver, he claimed that you gave it to him.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, of course I gave him the silverware.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_01: But why didn't you take the candlesticks?
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_01: That was very foolish, Madame Gillot.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_01: Fetch the silver candlesticks worth at least two thousand francs.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_01: Why did you leave them?
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_01: Monsieur Valjean has to get going.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_01: He's lost a lot of time.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_01: Did you forget to take them?
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_01: Are you saying he told us the truth?
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_01: Of course.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for bringing him back.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_01: I'm very relieved.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_01: Relieve him.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_01: You're really letting me go.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_00: Didn't you understand the bishop?
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_01: Madam, you don't offer these men some wine.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_01: Don't forget.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_01: Don't ever forget.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_01: You've promised to become a new man.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_01: What are you doing?
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_01: Jean Valjean, my brother.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_01: You no longer belong to evil.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_01: With this silver, I bought your soul.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_01: I ransomed you from fear and hatred.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_01: And now I give you back to God.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_02: A convict who deserved at that moment and was headed toward either execution or a ruined life forever in jail.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_02: But that act of grace by that bishop not only set him free in that moment, but it changed him forever, so that the rest of that story he is serving out of a heart full of gratitude, serving God and serving man to the point of exhaustion.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_02: It changes him forever.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_02: It did the same for Paul.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_02: I can tell you when that moment was for me.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_02: I can take you to the place in Dallas, Texas, where I was at age 23.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_02: I can show you where I was sitting when all of a sudden it was as if the heavens broke open, and I saw that even though I had walked forward in a tent at age four to trust Christ as my Savior, all of a sudden, I saw what I truly looked like BC as a non-Christian, the evil in my heart before God.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_02: And I was absolutely overwhelmed like a thunderclap in that moment with what the grace of Jesus Christ had done for me.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_02: And it changed me forever, utterly and completely.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_02: I can't think of a better time for that moment to happen to you than right now, here at the Lord's table.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_02: We take the Lord's table and we remember what?
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_02: When Jesus, in that amazing act of grace, died for you, and you'll break the bread, you'll drink the cup, and you'll have a moment.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_02: I'll give you complete freedom to eat the bread and drink the cup at any moment you want, because what I care about this morning is that you think back to your BC days, to what you used to be like in God's sight, in heaven's eyes, the disgusting, the ghastly, the helpless, the worthless thing.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_02: And then see the grace of God flooding down upon you, right?
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_02: And see yourself or where God has brought you.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_02: And in that moment, feel the gratia, the grace of God, and you'll feel a flood of gratitude well up in your heart.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_02: Let's pray.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_02: Father, thank you for this moment where we have an opportunity to sit.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_02: We've sat in wonder at so many things in life, at stars, at the Grand Canyon, at things on television, but right now, Lord, we ask your Holy Spirit to help us as we sit in wonder and reflection at the work of your grace in our lives.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_02: In Jesus' name.