Third Sunday of Easter: The Glory of Jesus from Damascus to Eden

TranscriptioN

So just a quick, just a quick bridge to what he was saying. He mentioned some people groups, ethnic groups, who I tend not to use that. I will use some city names, but I refer to those people groups by Edenites because the place where it is is close to the source of the Tigris and the river, the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and we think of Eden. And so I call them Edenites.

So just for your orientation. So I serve an Edenite group of about three million Sunni Muslims, and they have no church and only a handful of Christians. One Edenite planted a Protestant church in the city with many Orthodox there, Syriac Orthodox mostly, and others. 

And the Orthodox have bad memories of Protestants there because Protestant workers went over there in the 19th century, and they planted churches by sheep stealing, unfortunately. So that brought a bad memory. So when this church planter, this Edenite, was down there, he was doing lots of things, and his idea was to reach the larger ethnic group, the Muslims in the area, but he began building relationships with the Orthodox and having tea.

And after a couple years, trust was built, and they actually gave him permission to use an old Protestant church, and they restored it, and now maybe 2,000 Muslims a month come into that church building every every month. And they're just, and they get a chance to share the gospel, and it's really kind of exciting. But when he was, this pastor, was telling me about his relationship with the Syriac Orthodox, that stuck in my mind, and then later I met Father Morgan.

And so naturally, I've always wanted him to come out there, but we'll see. So our church, Epiphany Anglin, also has warm relationships with your church as well. Father Morgan has come, and my wife has been involved with you. 

I remember the last time we visited was during COVID at Lake Accotink, and that was an exciting time to be joining your service, and just great to see the Lord sustaining you and building you. So thank you.

So God's called me to facilitate planning churches among the Edenites.

For church planning, though, we really lack the raw materials of scriptures translated into the native tongue. And so a lot of our work since 2020 has been involved in translating the New Testament. Praise the Lord, where probably about 75% of the translation work is authorized or approved provisionally, and then we're looking in about 18 months for that to be published.

So we're excited about that. And my focus over the next couple years will be trying to figure out how can we get that promoted as a gift to the Edenites in their language. It'll be one of the most serious translation works.

And so for them, they really feel that their language is under threat, and so we're trusting that would be a door for them to explore the gospel. It'll also give them the vocabulary to share the faith. It talks about singing a new song in our Psalms.

You know, they can't sing new songs without words from their heart language. They can't have prayers without a language. You can't communicate the gospel unless it's in their vocabulary.

So translation facilitates that. I'm gonna preach on Acts chapter 9, and the question is, why is Acts chapter 9 during the season of Easter? Easter is from the resurrection until Pentecost, and we celebrate the eyewitness of the Apostles and others of seeing the risen, crucified Lord Jesus Christ. So why do we have this? Because Acts 9 is obviously after Acts 2 when Pentecost happens.

Paul describes this event, he says, I was one who saw the Lord as one untimely born. It was an unusual thing. And so, but Luke, as well as the church, they've always been, they've wanted to emphasize the fact that Paul has seen the risen Lord Jesus Christ, and he is an Apostle.

And so we can trust his work. So his writings, his teachings are apostolic and authoritative for us. And Paul also describes it in Galatians, as well as he recounts it again twice more in Acts.

It's really an important event. But in Galatians, he described it with the word, the Lord Jesus Christ was revealed to him. So this is not just a vision, and we'll see later on in the chapter, Ananias and Saul, and Paul was called Saul before at this time, but they both saw a vision, and the Lord spoke to them.

But here was a revelation. There was a type of the Lord communication to his people, beginning in Daniel and Ezekiel. And it was seen, and it was an apocalypse, a revelation. 

And there was a certain series of events where there was usually a light, and then there was a, and then whoever was the recipient, they would be fall down in fear, then there would be a heavenly figure that would come, and they would get them to rise up, and they would give them a message. And that's what we see, and people who would read this in the time when Luke was writing Acts, he would know that's what was happening. So this is an apocalypse, a revelation of Jesus Christ.

But in this particular apocalypse, this revelation, there's one of the elements is missing. Usually there's a message that's given for others, and sometimes it's, say, hey put this aside, this is sealed up till the end times. And the message that, the only message that the Lord gave to Saul, he revealed himself, and Saul saw him, but he said, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? And he told him, I am Jesus who you are persecuting.

And he gave him a few instructions, but there really wasn't a message. So, and Saul did not receive his commissioning or his call at this time. It was going to happen a little later in this chapter.

So one of the things, the images that struck me was this image of light coming down from heaven. The direction symbolizes the downward dimension of apostolic revelation. From heaven, down it comes, and even Paul goes actually down to the ground.

Now Saul is not a role model for us. We're not to expect to receive revelation like Paul did. That time is finished.

The time of Easter, when the people have been witnesses of the Lord Jesus Christ, is done. The canon is finished. We have scriptures, and that defines our faith, and our way of life. 

So revelation like that's not happening right now. And then the Apostles, what were they to do? They were to witness to what they saw, and pass it on. And the job of the rest of people was to receive their eyewitnesses, and trust that they were reliable, that they really had seen the Lord Jesus Christ.

Well we don't learn to expect revelation the same way that Paul received it here. We can find ourselves in this scripture in a certain way, and that's that who was Paul, or Saul, when he received this? He was the enemy of Christ. He was murdering Christians.

He was going about separating families. And it was to this Saul, Christ's enemy, that when he was trying to destroy the church, that he's the one who received that. And so it's a picture for us that even in this apostolic word of faith, it comes to people who do not deserve it.

And that's like us. That's where we all start when it comes to the revelation of God. And so the apostolic faith has as its basis the words and the testimonies of the Apostles, and we come into it by receiving that. 

Not on our basis of our own goodness, but because God has decided to be merciful to us. Then we come later on to what happens to Saul. He has this thing, and then he goes off, and they lead him into the city.

And for three days he's blinded, and he doesn't eat or drink. What does that remind you of? That reminds me of Lenten fasting, where you don't eat. He is mourning.

He's repenting for three days. And during that time then, he gets a vision the same time Ananias, after three days, they get that vision. And I like Ananias, because I can relate more to Ananias.

He's more your everyman. He is your common disciple of the Lord. He had this dynamic relationship with the Lord.

There's this vision, and it's not revelation, it's different, but it's this conversation that he has with the Lord. You get to see it. The Lord is speaking to him, and that Ananias also gets a chance to tell him, but wait a second Lord, this guy is dangerous.

We know about that. Are you sure you really want me to go there? And the Lord and him, they have a back-and-forth, and the Lord persuades him. So there's something about this living dynamic relationship that is happening.

And then in the middle of that, the Lord reveals to Ananias what he is doing in Saul, as part of a way of comforting and encouraging him. You know, I've sown him that somebody named Ananias will come, and will lay hands, and you'll see. And Ananias is trusted to pass on the words that he had to Saul, and Saul has to rely on Ananias that his words are reliable representation of what the Lord has to do.

It's this dynamic relationship that Ananias has that results in a flow outward from his inner to outward to Saul. And so this is different than this vertical movement from heaven downward. This is a movement from inner to outward that brings him out to mission.

Now I want to illustrate that with my own example. In 2012, I was with a church history professor and a group. He was very interested in monastic life, and we went to some monasteries in this country, and he really taught us how the Orthodox life, the center of that was prayer.

And I was really convicted because I cannot pray. I couldn't pray at that time by myself. And at the end of that, I ended up starting to pray with another person, and we began on Tuesdays and Thursday mornings at 830. 

And this is back in 2012. And Lord willing, and thank the Lord, we've been able to continue praying together. And during that time of prayer, we pray the Lord, we're trying to make ourselves open to what the Lord is doing among the Edenites.

And the Lord has given us direction. That same first day that we started, I got invited to a conference, totally not related to prayer, but I used it as a time of prayer and fasting, and the Lord spoke to me in a vision. And I was complaining to the Lord.

I was actually saying, Lord, for 2,000 years, these people, you know, you said you would bless them, and all I see is cursing. I don't see your blessing, and you promised that you would bless every family of this earth. Don't you love them? I accuse the Lord.

And then the Lord appeared in a vision. It was kind of like the movie, The Passion, from Mel Gibson. And Jesus is on the cross, and his face is bloodied.

And he's like, do I love them? I'm all in, but not without my church. And I'm sorry, not without my bride. Because his plan was to reach this group using his bride, the body of Christ.

And so from that, that really came this real conviction. It's churches, both churches that will be the witnesses in this area, in the neighborhoods, in their families. That's where people will see the Lord.

In fact, that as people come to the Lord, they can understand. Oh yes, they can understand all the truths. It takes some time for people to understand the truths of who Jesus Christ is.

But to make the step of believing in baptism, it really takes them to be coming apart and joining together in the communities. And hearing their testimonies of how believers, when they declared that they're followers of Jesus, they usually get thrown out of the house for several weeks. And then they, and people are terrified of that.

Because your family is everything, and your social networks, everything depends on that. Your whole future depends on that. And people are afraid to make those declarations.

They hear the stories of how the Lord works through that, and brings those people back into relationship with their families. And then they get that courage to make that step to believe and to be baptized. So we see in Ananias, again, I want to illustrate this, that dynamic relationship that we have with the Lord from interior to out.

And it's involving being open to the Lord. I think that I think about my life here in Northern Virginia. Everyone is so busy.

We're all going from here to there. I have very little discretionary time. And so I need to really ask, and I'm feeling convicted from this sermon, it's like, okay, to really pray and ask the Lord, okay, who are the people that I know, my family members, the people I work with, or in my running club, or neighbors, who Lord are the people that you're working in? Show me, with a very small amount of time.

And so I'm encouraged to do that again, just like we are doing this, looking for this impossible thing of the Lord working among the Edenites. He can also work among us, and bring us from that posture of openness to the Lord. And He can guide and direct us. 

And then the last thing that we see a movement, we said from inner to out, but there's also this beautiful picture of Ananias. Once he goes and preaches to Paul, and teaches him, and he lays hands, he says, be baptized. And they eat together, and Paul is strengthened. 

And so the community, this is Paul's first community, and they take Saul in, the one who they should be really afraid of. But this small, obscure community, a group of disciples, maybe smaller than what we have right here, they were Paul's first view of what the church is. That's where he experienced the Lord, and what does that mean? And so as we go, and as we go, and are seeing the Lord doing things out there, there's also that movement of bringing those people back in.

Bringing those people here to the church. Bringing those people to your formation groups. And that is powerful.

So we want to always remember, and this is as we go into the areas where we are, it's that apostolic faith. It's something that we accept. It's happened at one time.

It's authoritative for us. We always want to remember this aspect of grace. We always remember that whoever we talk to, whatever they've done to us, whatever enemies that they are, they're not beyond God's forgiveness.

That's the vertical aspect of the apostolic faith. And then there's this horizontal relationship. This relationship that the Lord gives us that's open to all disciples of His, for the Lord to guide and direct.

You know, whether it's through visions, or through hearing liturgy, listening to a sermon, or whatever, listening to the Word. The Lord communicates with, wants to communicate with us, and we can enjoy that. And then from that flows the connection of the Lord from those words to what He's doing exterior on the outside.

And then as we do that, bringing those people back and connecting them to the Lord. Thank you.

 Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Edited by the Vicar.