Happy Easter! Isn't today great? You all look amazing! We love seeing all of you, together with your families. Thank you for being here. We hope you’ll take a moment to get your picture taken and capture the moment! We hope you'll stop by our guest center, to get a gift, or simply tell us how we can pray for you.
By now, I suspect most of us are ready to say “Goodbye Winter” and “Hello Summer!” There is a life and vitality to Spring unlike any other season. Everything is awaking, being restored, and coming alive! Who doesn't want to be reenergized? And who knows, maybe this weekend can be a fresh new beginning for you. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” We live for such hope!
If you are looking for hope, you're in the right place. This Sunday we’re launching an all new series we’re calling “Soul Strong”. No doubt as Paul traversed the Roman Empire, he noticed Roman Centurions. The sight of such soldiers, decked out in their armor, would have taken your breath away. They were some of the strongest, most able-bodied, formidable men on all the earth.
Tradition tells us that physically, the Apostle Paul appeared anything but strong. Back in the day, they didn't have photo identification. Instead, they relied on good old-fashioned adjectives and word pictures! Once a certain man named Onesiphorus was searching for Paul, among travelers, along the road to Lystra. You'll know Paul when you see him. He’s “a man small in size, bald-headed, crooked thighs [i.e. bow-legged], well-built, with eyebrows meeting, rather long-nosed, full of grace… sometimes he seemed like a man, and sometimes he had the countenance of an angel.” Sometimes in old age your hair slides down your back, sometimes into your ears, and sometimes between your eyebrows!
My point is other than the “countenance of an angel” part, you didn't want to look like Paul, you wanted to look and feel like a mighty Roman Centurion! Appearances can be so deceiving. In a letter to the Corinthian Church Paul describes how we may appear to be wasting away outwardly, while inwardly being strengthened, and battle hardened, and made strong in our innermost soul! I defy you to find a single person in all of Scripture, other than Christ, who was as soul strong as the Apostle Paul. The dude was a Roman Centurion, Gladiator, hidden within.
In his letter to the Church at Ephesus, in ten short verses, the Apostle Paul eloquently describes what it looks like to be fortified spiritually, to be strong not outwardly in appearance—but inwardly—in the way that most matters, in our very soul. Here is what he writes!
Ephesians 6:10-20, “Finally, be strengthened by the Lord and by his vast strength. 11 Put on the full armor of God so that you can stand against the schemes of the devil. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this darkness, against evil, spiritual forces in the heavens. 13 For this reason take up the full armor of God, so that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and having prepared everything, to take your stand. 14 Stand, therefore, with truth like a belt around your waist, righteousness like armor on your chest, 15 and your feet sandaled with readiness for the gospel of peace. 16 In every situation take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit—which is the word of God. 18 Pray at all times in the Spirit with every prayer and request, and stay alert with all perseverance and intercession for all the saints. 19 Pray also for me, that the message may be given to me when I open my mouth to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel. 20 For this I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I might be bold enough to speak about it as I should.”
Isn't it true that some of the people who look the strongest, are really weak; and some of the weakest looking are stronger? How strong are you really? Last week we concluded our New Year series on the book of Acts. At the close of Acts, in Acts 27-28, the Apostle Paul finds himself entangled in two harrowing circumstances. In the first instance, he is a prisoner, under guard of a Roman Centurion, being transported via ship to Rome for trial, along with hundreds of others. Paul warned everyone that their voyage was ill-fated from the beginning, but nobody listened to him. And then sure enough, their boat is caught at sea. In Acts 27:10 Paul warns, “Men, I can see that this voyage is headed toward disaster and heavy loss, not only of the cargo and the ship but also of our lives.” This story could be made into a movie. You know how it goes—a huge northeaster comes along, the wind and waves and rain batter the ship, the lifeboat, sails are furled and ripped, ropes snap, tackle is lost overboard. Acts 27:20 says, “For many days neither sun nor stars appeared, and the severe storm kept raging. Finally all hope was fading that we would be saved.” In the gospels the disciples found themselves in such storms countless times. On one occasion, as they feared for their very lives, Jesus was peacefully asleep in the bow. How many times have you found yourself about to be ship-wrecked in life? Neither sun nor stars appear. You’ve done everything in your physical power to stand, to row, to survive. Yet all hope of salvation is fading! What does it look like to be soul-strong despite also being ship-wrecked?
The other crazy story at the end of Acts is when the Apostle Paul, on the island of Malta is bitten by a poisonous snake. The snake not just being a “symbol” of Satan, and death, but in this case, actually really deadly! Acts 28:3-6, “As Paul gathered a bundle of brushwood and put it on the fire, a viper came out because of the heat and fastened itself on his hand. 4 When the local people saw the snake hanging from his hand, they said to one another, “This man, no doubt, is a murderer. Even though he has escaped the sea, Justice has not allowed him to live.” 5 But he shook the snake off into the fire and suffered no harm. 6 They expected that he would begin to swell up or suddenly drop dead. After they waited a long time and saw nothing unusual happen to him, they changed their minds and said he was a god.”
If the most mighty of Centurions was about to be shipwrecked, or snake-bitten he would have wet his pants. But here was a “Soul-Strong Man” who knew what it meant to be strengthened in the Lord's mighty strength. Who knew how to stand strong though stung by fear, stung by death, stung by the Serpent, the Devil Himself. How do you recognize a Soul-Strong person? By their strength. By the fact they stand when others cannot. By the unique armor they carry. By the unique weapons with which they do battle. By whom they chose to battle. By their perseverence.
There is this “spiritual” description Paul gives of himself in Corinthians that is unlike anything you'd read in the rest of Scripture. In 2 Corinthians 11 Paul is defending himself against those who think is a fake. He asks for permission to speak like a madman on trial, and proceeds accordingly. You think I'm a fake? I’ve done “far more labors” than my accusers. I've experienced… “many more imprisonments, far worse beatings, many times near death. … “24 Five times I received the forty lashes minus one from the Jews. 25 Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I received a stoning. Three times I was shipwrecked. I have spent a night and a day in the open sea. 26 On frequent journeys, I faced dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my own people, dangers from Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers at sea, and dangers among false brothers; 27 toil and hardship, many sleepless nights, hunger and thirst, often without food, cold, and without clothing. 28 Not to mention other things, there is the daily pressure on me: my concern for all the churches. 29 Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to stumble, and I do not burn with indignation?” in 2 Corinthians 12 he describes how “a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to torment me so that I would not exalt myself. 8 Concerning this, I pleaded with the Lord three times that it would leave me.”
The secret to being soul strong? The Word tells us! In 2 Corinthians 12:9. Shipwrecked, serpent-bitten, now thorn-ridden Paul prays and God says you are okay!, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in weakness.”
Whatever does it mean to be soul-strong? It means that at our very point of loss, pain, grief, sorrow, despair, fear… when all hope is fading, not even the twinkle of a single star comforting us in our darkness… God's grace cuts through. God's grace bursts forth. God's grace is perfected in our weakness. In 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 Paul writes, “Therefore, I will most gladly boast all the more about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may reside in me. 10 So I take pleasure in weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and in difficulties, for the sake of Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” Bring it on devil, you’re no match for God!
Apart from Jesus we are ship-wrecked, snake-bitten, merely dead men without hope and without God eking out this life waiting to die. But in Christ we are new creations, made soul strong by Christ himself. Made strong through God's truth, righteousness, the gospel of peace, faith, salvation, the Word, prayer, spiritual friendships. Don't you yearn to be made soul-strong by Christ? The Apostle Paul will teach us how! Why not join us these coming weeks as we begin this hopeful journey discovering the incredible power available to us who would believe on Jesus.
Allow me to close Praying Paul's words in Ephesians 3:14-21, “14 For this reason I kneel before the Father 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named. 16 I pray that he may grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power in your inner being through his Spirit, 17 and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. I pray that you, being rooted and firmly established in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the length and width, height and depth of God’s love, 19 and to know Christ’s love that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. 20 Now to him who is able to do above and beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us— 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”