The Kingdom of Christ > Sovereignty of Self

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 This is uh, graffiti. If you want to throw that picture on the screen.   📍 Uh, this is called the, uh, Alexamenos Graffito.

Uh, it’s plastered, found plastered on the wall of a Roman home sometime around 200 A. D. Uh, etched under that picture, I don’t know, can you guys see that picture?  I’m not just pointing at nothing, okay. If you can tell, there’s a, there’s a Greek caption. Uh, which is like, like an Instagram caption. It says, uh, in Greek, Alexamenos Sebatai Theion.

Which is hilarious, right? Okay. Uh, in English, it means Alexamenos worships his god. It’s meant to make fun of some guy named Alexamenos who lived around 100 or 200 AD to make fun of him for worshiping Jesus. So I don’t know if you can tell, but it’s actually the earliest depiction of Jesus that we have.

Like the earliest image of, we think, to a century or so after he was alive, I, this might be offensive, I kind of love this. That the very first image we have of Jesus is not like some like celebrated, high, lofty kind of paint, it’s a, it’s a piece of graffiti etched on the wall of a Roman house. Because he’s being mocked.

He actually has the head of a donkey. Uh, which is bizarre. I did a whole deep dive on why that was, but long story short, there was a weird rumor going around this time, the formation of the early church, that Christians worshipped a man who had the head of a donkey. I don’t know why that happened, but that was really common, so Christians were not respected.

In this day and age. Uh, they were reviled, they were mocked, they were not just beaten, but also like persecuted socially. This guy, Alex Aminos, I love this idea of this guy worshipping Jesus with such devotion, with such commitment that he, like his friends were making fun of him for it by graffiting on the wall of his home.

And this is how followers of Jesus have always been seen around the world. Since they, since the whole Jesus movement started, since that began, they’ve uh, been seen as weird, as foolish, as poor, uh, As stupid, they’ve never gained any political power, any religious power, any social acceptance, any kind of cultural tolerance.

And yet, what we have in the Book of Acts is a story of how a small band of disgraced, mocked, stupid, foolish, weak disciples huddled together in a Jewish attic, brought down the entire Roman Empire, and created a movement that spread across the entire ancient Near East. How that movement was met with a world of opposition, persecution, mockery, and yet somehow managed to thrive in that very world.

Or more importantly, how Jesus, this resurrected rabbi, who did not have the head of a donkey, was still working here on earth to bring the kingdom of heaven down through his disciples, empowered by his Holy Spirit. That’s what the book of Acts is about. And so the story so far, since we started earlier this year to catch you up or to remind you is, uh, here’s where it starts.

Jesus, uh, who’s, who’s mocked even during his lifetime, even after his resurrection and ascension, uh, Jesus has left earth to go and rule the cosmos at the right hand of the father, but as he’s leaving, he sends his disciples and he tells them to go and tell everyone about the good news that he has done what humanity could not do, which is conquer sin, satan, and death.

The disciples then receive that commissioning. They say, okay, we’re going to do that. God gives them his Holy Spirit to empower them to do that very task. And this good news that they go and preach has spread from the Jews and to the Gentiles, meaning the non Jews, which is really significant. You have Saul, Who’s a major character, especially from now on in the book of Acts.

A murderer turned missionary that becomes integral to the spread of this gospel message. Churches are starting, they’re being planted, people left and right are responding to the gospel, and more and more people, Jews and Gentiles alike, are joining God’s kingdom. That’s a brief summary of Acts 1 through 12, so let’s pick up in Acts chapter 13.

Starting in verse one. Now in the church at Antioch, there were prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon, who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manan, a close friend of Herod, the Tetrarch, and Saul. So real quick, uh, this is a very famous church. Remember a couple of weeks ago, or like a month or two ago, we talked about the church in Antioch.

Uh, Jerusalem is kind of where the church started, but Antioch became like the second major hub of the Christian movement because it was so diverse. So Jerusalem had a lot of the Jews. Antioch was very diverse. Jews and Gentiles eating at the same table. And I love that, uh, what Luke is highlighting here in this book is that they’re really popular pastors that are doing work of the ministry so well people are actually starting to know who they are.

They’re gaining some influence and notoriety. You hear about Barnabas. who we talked about. He, he was generous, right? The very first thing he does in his story that Luke tells us is he, uh, donates a plot of land and he gives the proceeds, or he sells it, he gives the proceeds to the church. Very generous, and as a result, he gains more influence and leadership within the church.

You also have, uh, this guy named Manan, who it says is an intimate friend of Herod. That’s Herod Antipas, the one who, uh, beheaded John the Baptist, uh, which is really crazy. His intimate friend is now a follower of Jesus. And then the very last name is Saul, a murderer turned missionary who has just come back from years spent reorienting himself around Jesus after meeting the risen Lord on the road to Damascus.

Verse 2, as they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, stay tuned, That’s right. February, February . For which one of those, I don’t know. You have to stick around and see. Worshiping the Lord. Fasting. Are they different? We’ll find out. Okay. Uh, the Holy Spirit said, set apart from me, Barnabas and SA for the work to which I have called them.

Then after they had fasted and prayed and laid hands on them, they sent them off. Notice, by the way, the openness to the Spirit there. That’s a constant theme you can trace through Acts. We like to say the Holy Spirit is not a force to manipulate, He’s a person to know. So we find characteristic of these early Christians is they’re open to the Spirit, they’re responding to God, intimate in their relationship with God, and they’re listening to the promptings of the Spirit and they obey.

So being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia, and from there they sailed to Cyprus. Arriving in Salamis, they proclaimed the word of God in the Jewish synagogues. They also had John as their assistant. That’s John Mark. When they had traveled the whole island as far as Paphos, they came across a sorcerer, a Jewish false prophet named Bar Jesus.

He was with the pro consul, Sergius Paulus, an intelligent man. This man summoned Barnabas and Saul and wanted to hear the word of the Lord. But Elimas the sorcerer, that is the meaning of his name, opposed them and tried to turn the proconsul away from the faith. Now this is weird because, well, for a couple of reasons.

This is the second time we’re meeting a sorcerer, and it won’t be the last in Acts. Uh, there’s a weird thing Luke has with sorcerers and magic in the Ancient Near East that he feels like he needs to highlight. But it is weird because this man, Elymas, or Bar Jesus, we’re gonna call him Elymas because that’s what Luke calls him, uh, it says that he’s a Jewish sorcerer, a Jewish false prophet, which is kind of an oxymoron, or, uh, is that the word?

It’s two things that don’t go together, because in Deuteronomy, Thank you. I was like, I was gonna sound like a idiot. Uh, Literally, uh, you were not allowed to be a sorcerer. This is in the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 10. Sorcery, magic, all of that stuff was outlawed. Bar Jesus, by the way, literally means son of Jesus.

So, he is like, fully against the way of Jesus. Not only that, most scholars agree what’s happened here is this man, Elymas, this sorcerer, was no longer Jewish. He used to be Jewish, grew up worshiping Yahweh, followed Torah law, did not practice sorcery or anything like that, somehow got involved with sorcery, saw that it could get him a position of power and influence with the Roman governor, and abandoned his worship to the true God, Yahweh.

in favor of the authority and the influence he would gain in the Roman political court. So that’s likely what’s going on here. Now, hold on to that idea. We’re going to come back to that later. Uh, in his role as a sort of court magician, he likely served as a private chaplain or a court philosopher to the Roman governor.

That’s Sergius Paulus, a pro consul, was just a governor. Uh, he would offer kind of divine guidance and answer questions about life and how to rule and ethics and morality and things like that. He’d serve as a religious advisor to this Roman guard. So that’s what’s happening. That’s the story. Verse nine.

But Saul also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, stared straight at Ellie Moss and said, you are full of all kinds of deceit and trickery. You son of the devil, an enemy of all that is right. Won’t you ever stop perverting the straight paths of the Lord? Now look, the Lord’s hand is against you. You are going to be blind and will not see the sun for a long time.

Immediately, a mist and darkness fell on him, and he went around seeking someone to lead him by the hand. Real quick, uh, this is where Saul is first called Paul in the biblical story. Uh, a lot has been written about this. Here’s what’s not happening. It’s not like he became a Christian and his name changed.

It’s more likely that he had both Saul and Paul as names growing up. Uh, Saul was an Old Testament, sort of Hebrew name, think King Saul in the Old Testament. Uh, but he also was likely called Paul or Palos, uh, in Greek or in in Latin as well, because he’s a part of Rome. He’s a Roman citizen. Uh, if he were to keep going by his gentile name, his non-Jewish name, uh, Saul.

There’s actually a, a Greek word that sounds really similar to Saul and it actually describes. Uh, it’s sort of a derogatory word. It describes the way a, uh, a prostitute would walk to seduce her clients. Uh, so Saul, in his best interest, not to use his name that sounds like that word. So it’s more likely that he just called him, he’s, I’m going to go with Paul for now because it’s easier to relate to everybody.

And so that’s kind of what’s happening here. Nothing crazy. Uh, there’s a little bit of wordplay here. Uh, the Greek word, uh, pau, means stop. And so paulos tells elemos to pau, stop. Anyways. Okay. Nerdy thing. All right. So, yeah, I know, thank you. Uh, this is what’s happening. Notice also the curse that Paul puts on Elymas.

It’s blindness. What’s the first thing that happened to Saul when he met Jesus on Damascus? He was blind. What was the end result of his blindness? He repented and believed. So we think what Paul is doing is he’s putting, very boldly, putting a curse on Elymas to be blinded so that maybe he will repent and believe, but that’s not what happens.

Verse 12. When he, so the Roman Gentile governor, saw what had happened, the proconsul believed because he was astonished at the teaching of the Lord. So that’s the story. And the question is, why is it in here? Couple answers. On one level, Luke is just kind of highlighting some major high points of Saul, Paul’s ministry.

So, this is really interesting. Paul does a miracle. And miracles throughout the Gospels and throughout Jesus time on Earth, uh, one of the reasons they did miracles was to show that they had authority, that God had given them authority to preach the message that they were preaching. So, in one sense, Luke is just telling us this story to show, okay, look, Paul, you can trust this guy, I’m gonna tell you about him, he can do miracles too, you should trust him.

On another level though, this is kind of a parallel story to Exodus 7, which is really interesting. If you know that story, Moses confronts Pharaoh, who is also a political leader, ruler in charge, and he’s opposed by false prophet magicians. This is kind of like a reworking of that story, but most scholars agree those things are true and that those are why this story is in here, but there’s a deeper meaning to this.

This story is actually a really pivotal point in the Book of Acts. We’re almost halfway through the book. This is when Paul is going to take over as the main character. So for a while we’ve been following a few different disciples, Peter especially, in the chapters preceding this. Now we’re really just going to hone in on Paul.

We’re going to follow him and his missionary journeys throughout the rest of the book. This is also the first missionary journey of Paul. So if you’ve heard about the famous missionary journeys, honestly they kind of confuse me. Pastor Trey is going to unpack all of that later as we go along. Uh, but this is the first one, when he starts to preach the gospel outside of the known areas that he was kind of from and grew up in.

And this is the first time Paul performs a miracle. This is the first time Paul converts somebody, specifically. And, most scholars argue, this is the first time that Paul sees the kingdom of God come clashing directly with the kingdoms of the world. So as we’re unpacking this, we have to ask the question, what exactly does that mean?

What is the kingdom? If you’ve read any part of the Bible, you’ve heard about the kingdom. We’ve actually, if you’ve been a part of our church for any length of time, hopefully you’ve heard us talk about the kingdom. We’ve referenced it and taught on it for years here at Passion Creek. Uh, But, we’re going to start this new series where we unpack that a little more from the book of Acts.

What does it mean to seek first the kingdom, which is what Jesus tells us to do? Notice what that means. Seek first the kingdom. If you’re going to follow Jesus, what’s one of the first things you have to do? Seek the kingdom. What does that mean? Stick around. Six week challenge. Find out. Unlike what you may have heard or believed, like what I had heard or believed growing up, and what I found as I was studying this passage, the kingdom of heaven is not a lot of different things.

First of all, it’s not just heaven. Uh, this place that we kind of think we go to when we die, uh, that is not what the kingdom is. The kingdom is also not the church. Elements of the kingdom involve the church, and we’re going to unpack that a little more as we go, but it is not the church as a whole. The kingdom of God is also not the government.

Uh, hopefully I don’t need to say that, but I feel like I need to say that. It’s not other nations, it’s not America, it’s not Israel, it’s not anything made up of any human created governance or structure here on this earth. It actually, uh, shocker, starts in the garden. Uh, which, I, I would argue, if you can understand Genesis, you can understand the entire Bible.

And I know every time I preach, I always reference Genesis, and it’s because I think that’s true. I think, if you understand Genesis, you can understand the rest of Scripture. So here’s what happens in the very opening pages of the biblical story. God creates the world, and he puts Adam and Eve in it. And he puts them in charge as co rulers of creation.

So he doesn’t just let them kind of frolic around in paradise enjoying all of his good creation. Though they do do that, he gives them a job as they’re enjoying creation. And that job is to co rule. It’s to dominate the earth or subdue it, which is kind of ruling language. They’re meant to take what God had given them and make it better.

They’re meant to be co rulers under the authority and the reign of God. But as you know, instead of ruling under God, they create their own kingdom. And instead of ushering in God’s rule and reign throughout the rest of the known creation, instead they usher their own rule and reign marked by sin, death, and evil, which spread out of the garden and infect all of creation down to you and me.

And the rest of the Old Testament from that point is about God unveiling more and more of his promise to restore the world by bringing back his kingdom from heaven onto earth. You see this throughout the scriptures, God promises to bring about his rule and reign by bringing a king to rule and to reign.

Passages like Isaiah 35, Isaiah 40, Isaiah 52, Jeremiah 23, Joel chapter 2. These are all kingdom passages that talk about how God is going to save the world by promising a Messiah, but also by ushering in a kingdom. Now if you are a first century Jewish person, this is the story that you know better than any.

You don’t have media, you don’t have TV, you don’t have video games, books, social media, anything like that, but you have this story. You have this story. This is how you were entertained. You would gather around at night and hear your parents or the, uh, you know, the priests in the synagogue or whatever tell you and retell you over and over again the story of how you were created, how everything went wrong, and how God was promising to restore you and your people and the world around you.

This is the story that you knew. So if you imagine that you are a Jewish person living in this time, Say you’re a, uh, fisherman or a farm woman or something like that. Your world is mostly about survival. You wake up, you work, you pay your taxes to the Roman government, you pray for the oppression of Roman rule and for the small empires of Jewish sellouts like the Herods to get replaced by this kingdom story.

For God to fulfill what he’s been promising since the beginning of time, that he’s gonna overrule all of the world, get rid of all these wicked empires like Rome and like Herod, and usher in his kingdom. And then you hear about this rabbi, who travels and teaches about God, which is normal, but who also claims that this long awaited kingdom that God has been promising for your people for centuries is almost here.

That is not normal. This is radical news. In fact, what you hear is this rabbi say, repent because the kingdom of heaven has come near. And you’re thinking this is happening in Matthew 4 23. This is how the gospel writer Matthew tells it. Jesus began to go all over Galilee. This is the very beginning of his ministry teaching in their synagogues because he was a Jewish rabbi.

He would do that preaching the good news of what? The kingdom. Healing every disease and sickness among the people. Later, you hear him teach on how to pray. How do you actually talk to God? What does it mean to be a part of this kingdom? And here’s what he says. As you pray, pray this way. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

So if you’re living in this time and you hear this Jewish rabbi saying these bold prophetic things that fulfill all of the story that you’ve known, you’re thinking this is it. This is radical news. This is happening in my lifetime. God is coming and he’s going to bring about his rule and his reign here on earth.

It’s happening. Put another way, God’s space is finally coming to invade earth space, which is not as sci fi as it sounds, which is kind of weird. All of this to say. The kingdom was a central part of Jesus message. And it was a central part of the message that Paul and the apostles would preach everywhere they went.

The promised king had come. And his kingdom was here, and it was open to everybody, Jews and Gentiles alike. With that, here’s how Paul would do ministry. First, he would go to the local synagogue. Right, he believed that his own people, the Jews or the nation of Israel, needed to hear this message first, that the Mashiach, which was Hebrew for Messiah or Anointed One or King, had come to usher in his kingdom.

He was invited, because he was a Pharisee, he was trained to teach as a rabbi. Uh, he would be invited to come and speak at these synagogues. You actually see this a few passages later. Uh, he’s going to give a sermon on how he spoke. starts off as he’s invited. They say, Hey, brother, Paul, do you have anything to say to the fellow brothers who also follow Yahweh?

And he preaches the good news of Jesus and his kingdom. And some would hear the story and they would believe you’re right. The promised anointed one has come. The kingdom is here. I want to follow you. Most of them would not. They would run him out of the synagogue at times, beat him sometimes stone him.

So after that, he would go to the marketplace where he would set up shops selling leather tents, right? Paul was a tent maker. Uh, where he’d make conversation with, not Jews, but Gentiles. Or he’d go to the public forums where you had Greek sophists and philosophers, orators, rhetorics, and all these speakers come and debate and argue about religion and philosophy and politics.

They didn’t have the movies, but they had those debates as a form of entertainment. And Paul would go and confront them, and he would challenge them. He would announce that there was a more important king. Someone with more power and authority than Caesar, or someone, uh, with more, um, of an ethical standard than Zeus, or whatever the god was in that major city.

See, Paul worked as a herald. A herald was someone who would speak on behalf of a political ruler, an emperor, or a king. So he would announce something called the euangelion. Which means good news. And this was, this is where we get the word gospel. This was not a religious word at the time. This was a very political word.

This was a common word. If someone was coming to preach the euangelion or the gospel, this was a political statement. And it usually had something to do with the king. The emperor, or the king, or the ruler had won a battle, or he had taken over a city, and he would send out these, uh, heralds called apostoloi, or apostles.

These were emissaries, ambassadors, speakers on behalf of the king to come and announce that the kingdom of Caesar or whatever had come. So the question is, what was Paul’s euangelion? What was Paul’s good news? You see this in Acts chapter 9, right after he spends that time in the desert encountering Jesus, he comes back and it says, Jesus is the huis tu theu.

Do you guys like all the Greek today? Alright, I do. It’s cool. Huistu Theu was a common title. It meant son of the divine, or in our language, son of God. Again, not a religious title, that was a political title. And it referred to the Caesar. So this is a problem. Because if Paul is announcing, no, no, no, the son of God isn’t Caesar.

The son of God is this disgraced Jewish rabbi. See the graffiti with the donkey head. This is the true king and ruler of the world. Can you imagine? This is why he was mocked. This is why he was beaten. This is, uh, treachery, treason. This is, uh, I mean treachery, treasonous. This is, uh, punishable. This is why, part of why Jesus got murdered.

So now, back to our text this morning. What we have in this story in Acts is not just a story about Paul doing a cool miracle, or about somebody believing in Jesus for the first time, though it is those two things. This story is a clash of kingdoms. You have Paul, who represents the kingdom of God. Does Paul have political power?

No, Paul does not have political power. Does Paul have religious power? That’s a trick question. No, he lost it on the road to Damascus when he met Jesus and gave up his pharisaical title. But he does have power. A power that comes from the Holy Spirit and the true ruler and king of the cosmos, the resurrected rabbi Jesus of Nazareth, the true Son of God.

You have Sergius Paulus, whose name sounds like Paul, it’s just a coincidence. I did a lot of research on that, there’s nothing really going on there, it’s just his name. Sergius Paulus represents the Roman kingdom. This is political and religious power. This is power as the world wants it and has it. Power that is taken and then forced onto others.

Power that’s about dominion and control and about oppressing others. And then you have Elemas, who represents personal power. At Elymos, this Jewish sorcerer clings to what he wants to be true. Again, most scholars agree he grew up Jewish, where sorcery was forbidden, but abandoned his heritage and his devotion to Yahweh to gain political power and influence by aligning himself with Rome.

But now, if this Paul guy is right, then the Jewish story was real. There really was a coming king to rule and to judge people just like him. And that’s the problem with the kingdom of God. Dallas Willard defines the kingdom this way. Now God’s own kingdom or rule is the range of his effective will. Where what he wants done is done.

That can happen in America. That can happen in Israel. That can happen in Palestine. That can happen in the church. That can happen no matter where you are. It encompasses those things. So these things are a part of the kingdom, but the kingdom is bigger than that. The person of God himself and the action of his will are the organizing principles of his kingdom, but everything that obeys these principles, whether by nature or by choice, is within his kingdom.

What that means is that there are spaces where God’s effective will is not done. This is why Jesus prays in Matthew 6,

The implication is that God’s will is not fully done here on earth. You don’t need to be a Bible scholar to notice that. The world is not functioning as God intended it. Where God wants done comes clashing with what the world wants done. With what the devil, who’s called the prince of this world in 2 Corinthians 4, what the devil wants done, and what we want done.

See, the kingdom today is just as controversial and divisive as it was when Jesus inaugurated it, when the apostles preached it, when Paul proclaimed and demonstrated it. Because our hearts are naturally bent in the opposite direction. To seize autonomy for ourselves, to resist authority, to pursue what we decide is good and true and right and beautiful.

Or it’s naturally bent to align ourselves with the kingdoms around us in order to gain influence, power, authority, respectability, likability. In Matthew 4. 17, Jesus comes announcing the kingdom, but he demands a response. Repent, because the kingdom of heaven has come near. Just like Sergius Paulus, the Roman governor, just like Elymas, just like the disciples and the original hearers of Jesus message, God’s kingdom comes to us today and requires us to respond.

So how do we do that? What does it mean to repent? First, it means to wake up to reality. God is really ruling and reigning in the earth around us. Though we don’t feel it all the time, though we don’t see it all the time, that is reality. God has always been ruling and reigning. Since page one of the Bible, God creates the world, he sets it in motion, and then he Rests.

Most scholars argue that that word rest has a wide variety of meanings. One sense, it just means he rested. In another sense, it means he gets to work. Like how a president or a ruler gets into the office the day after inauguration, after a long political trial of, um, uh, polling and competing and all those things.

The very first day, he gets into office and he works. He gets down to business. This is what God has been doing since he created the world. Earthly power. What Sergius Paul has had. Or magic power, if you have that. Uh, which is what Elymas had. Are only given because God chooses to give it. You see this in Romans 13.

Kingdom principles don’t make sense to the world around us. Things like, the last will be first and the first will be last. That is a reality statement. That’s not Jesus just saying what’s right and what’s good and what sounds nice and what we can put on a coffee mug or whatever, though maybe it is those things.

This is a reality statement, whether you like it or not, this is true. Giving will make you more happy than receiving. That is a reality statement. The poor in spirit, the marginalized, the weak, are really the happy ones. That is an upside, that doesn’t make any sense. This Even this story ends in an unexpected way.

The Jewish magician isn’t a part of God’s kingdom, but the Roman Gentile oppressor is? This is reality. But another part of waking up to the reality is acknowledging that there are other kingdoms. Notice in verse 10 when Paul confronts Elymas, he calls him what? Son of the devil. Right? He recognizes that Elymas isn’t acting on his own.

Paul associates him with Satan. So to repent first means wake up to reality, see the world for what it really is. This is not neutral space that we live in. We are in highly contested space. Everyone is under the influence and the persuasion of, again, the devil. Second Corinthians 4 calls him the prince of this world because he is using the world to shape you in a way that does not look like you follow King Jesus.

You are not neutral. Living your life, you are being formed into somebody. You’re likely being formed by default into somebody who does not look like Jesus. There is a spiritual reality to this world that we have to be aware of. The kingdom of the world around us, because of the influence of Satan, and just because of the influence of fallen humans, promises flourishing by telling you to pursue your desires and live however you want.

But it ends up enslaving you to those very desires. So first, we wake up to that reality. We see life for what it really is. Secondly, we must submit to that reality. We have to orient our lives around what we see is actually true. Here’s a very dumb example. Uh, if I, if I live my life thinking that today, at this very moment, it is Friday night, and I have my whole weekend ahead of me, uh, I’m in trouble.

Pastor Trey will come to me and say, Brother, you gotta preach. You gotta sermon to teach. And I gotta think, oh my gosh, that’s reality. I’m awakened. It’s not Friday night, it’s actually Sunday morning. But I still have to adjust my time, my schedule, my plans accordingly. I can act like it’s Friday all day long and call that freedom.

That’s not freedom. I have to see reality for what it is, orient myself around that reality, and change my life accordingly, and that takes faith. That takes the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, but it takes a step on my part. I have to make that decision to actually say, I know this stuff is true and I’m going to live as if it really is true.

The driving force behind our church, like Pastor Trey said a minute ago, is that we want to become a community of not just attenders, though we do hope you attend, but we want to become disciples who orient ourselves around that reality. To be formed by the king that we know is really ruling and reigning in the world around us.

To look more like him by living like him. To be generous like him. To be hospitable like him. To forgive like him. The third step in repenting is to continue repenting or to resist false kingdoms. Again, Elymos represents these counterfeit kingdoms, both Elymos and Sergius Pallas. The authority that the Roman governor had seemed appealing.

The power that Elymos had seemed flashy. Those seemed to be the real powers. Again, if Elymos traded his worship for Yahweh as an Israelite for political influence and worldly power as a Roman, how many of us are doing the same? Trading our worship, our devotion, our allegiance to God for lesser kingdoms that seem promising but turn out enslaving.

To follow Jesus means we wake up to the reality that his kingdom is not just right and good and true and beautiful, but it is reality. We respond to that kingdom. Then as we leave this space on Sunday mornings and we go back to our jobs, our schools, whatever it is that God has called us to, we continue to resist the lies of the false kingdoms around us.

To seek first the kingdom means we live the way of Jesus as a way of survival. And so over the next few weeks, we’re gonna unpack this. Uh, more and more, what it means to respond to and to live in this kingdom by continuing to journey through the Book of Acts. But for now, all I want to do is just end on a question.

And that question is this, who are you in this story? And this is a starting point. Before we talk about the kingdom and we get into all that stuff, we have to start here. Look at the story in scripture and respond to it. Who are you? Are you Elimas? Are you resistant to the kingdom? Are you clinging to your own control, your own power, your own way of living and thinking?

The sovereignty of self is the original sin in the garden. I am king. I am queen. I decide what’s right. I orient my life around what I want. I pursue what makes me happy, what makes me feel good, To respond to the kingdom means submitting your life to the true king and trusting that he is good. That’s the beautiful thing about the kingdom is that it will actually bring you more joy and happiness than any other kingdom you’re chasing.

I think that’s the hope of what Sergius Paulus finds is that we don’t know how he reacted beyond this passage that he believed because Paul did the miracle. But I have to imagine that, again, I’m, I’m inferring here, I don’t know, Scripture doesn’t say, but I have to imagine that when he sees who God really is, who the, who King Jesus really is compared to who he’s been serving, what he thinks will make him happy, the security and the stability of a Roman political powerful position, trading that for Jesus, I think he finds what real happiness and joy looks like.

If you’re Elymos in this position, the only way you can see that the kingdom is good is by actually following it. By actually experiencing how good it is to give rather than just to receive. Number two, are you Sergius? Are you actually open to the kingdom? You’re interested. I love in the story, he hears about Paul and Barnabas and he calls them to him.

Paul doesn’t come looking for them, he calls Paul. If you’re interested, if you’re ready to submit to the King, maybe you’re still confused. By the way, most of, uh, it’s a major theme in the Gospels. People get the Kingdom all wrong. Even people who kind of believe that Jesus is the Messiah, they even get it all wrong.

So it’s okay if you’re still confused about the Kingdom. Uh, it gets really confusing. What it means to follow Jesus. You don’t have to have all of those answers. All you need to know is, I, I, I trust, uh, that if, if Jesus is real, then His way really is better than my way. And if that’s you, maybe you’re waiting on a miracle or a demonstration of the kingdom like what Paul did.

Um, but the invitation is here. Just submit to the king. Or are you Paul? Are you already a member? You’re living in the kingdom. You’re ready to confront and resist the false kingdoms of the world. That’s a tall order. Uh, Paul was one of the bravest people to ever live, I think. Uh, if you see pictures of the prisons that he stayed in when he wrote Philippians or, uh, the, the prisons that he, and we can still go here.

You can still see these spaces. The letters for Paul to be able to write and say, I have learned the secret to being content. While he’s shackled, in a stone prison. No sunlight for him to say, I’m resisting the false kingdoms of the world because Jesus is still worth it. If you’re a follower of Jesus, that’s what’s ahead.

It doesn’t mean there’s not going to be joy along the way. There is going to be joy. There’s also going to be sorrow. So are you ready to take the next step? Maybe practicing something that we were inviting you to practice like generosity or hospitality in a way that you haven’t before. Who are you in the story?

What does it look like for you to respond to the King?