Acts 26:19-32

As we come to the final meeting of the last three weeks of spending time in the presence of God in fasting and prayer, I really want to thank each one of you for the faithful way in which you joined different kinds of meetings and experienced God’s presence in the midst of it. It is so good to be here with all of you on this Sunday, especially on a day when we very intentionally focus on the resurrection of our Lord. We will be continuing with our series in the Book of Acts, Church on the Move; we’re going through Acts 26:19‑32. By the way, a warm welcome to all the guests that are here with us this morning as well.

We left last week with the Apostle Paul in front of King Agrippa, Festus, and all the royalty of that time as he defends his conversion, his conviction, and the fact of what makes him to be a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ. We focused a lot last week on the message of the gospel that he was proclaiming, mainly the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ has come into this world to bring us from darkness into light.

In the context of that, we read verse 19. He continues, So then, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the vision from heaven. I was not disobedient to the vision from heaven. After recounting how the Lord had appeared to him and how the Lord had commissioned him for a specific commission, not only to go to the Jews but also to the Gentiles for the first time, but also to take the message of the gospel—the one that is able to transform and bring people from lives of darkness into the light that only Christ can bring—he tells him, “Look, I had a choice before me: to be obedient to what God was asking me to do, or to be disobedient to the vision from heaven.” And what a great testimony he would have all throughout his life, that he was obedient to the call of God, fulfilling it to the T, to what God had called him, as much as humanly possible, probably more than any other man who has ever walked on the face of the earth. So much so that towards the end of his life, he is able to say with confidence that he has kept the faith, finished the course, and run the race that was set before him, and now the crown of glory is waiting for him. He was so faithful to the vision that he got from heaven and the voice that had called him to service unto the Lord.

And then he tells him what else he did, verse 20: First to those in Damascus, then to those in Jerusalem and all Judea, and then to the Gentiles, I preached that they should repent and turn to God, and demonstrate their repentance by their deeds. There was a message of the gospel—and it’s always been this, and even though men have polluted it over the ages, trying to dilute it, trying to make the gospel more appealing, the message of the gospel has always been this: Jesus came into this world to die for your sins. You should, first of all, repent from your sins.

Repentance in Greek is so beautiful—we always heard it. It is a man or a woman who is walking in one direction, suddenly stopping and walking in the opposite direction. That’s what repentance is. God’s Word always calls us to repentance. But it’s not just turning away from the things that we were doing wrong; it is also doing the things that are in accordance with the repentance of our life. In fact, the word that is used by some of my friends is doing the deeds that are appropriate for repentance. The picture there is of two things on a scale—your deeds and your repentance. You can come to church, and all that you can say is that you have repented and are a believer of the Lord, but if your deeds do not show that you have truly repented, there’s something wrong with your repentance. The repentance should weigh equally in accordance with the deeds of your life as well.

When the Lord Jesus Christ—you accept Him into your life to be your Savior—you are not only making Him to be the Savior of your life in that instance, but that starts a relationship where Christ becomes the Lord of your life. How do you know whether a tree is truly the tree that it says? You shall know them by their fruits. And that is very clear in God’s Word as well. Obedience and a life of obedience is a testimony to the fact that you are a redeemed child of God. It is impossible for a person who has been renewed by the grace of God, renewed by the powerful work of the resurrection that the Holy Spirit does in his life, to continue living the way he lived once. The gospel transforms you. The gospel changes you. That does not mean perfection; that does not mean that you will not sin; that does not mean that you will not fall; that does not mean that you will not stumble, but your heart will always be one of coming back to the Lord in repentance and once again doing the things that God wants you to do. It will always be in proportion to the deeds that have happened in your life. And it only can happen with the gospel, where the gospel transforms you and changes your complete mindset about the way you’ve been living your life. Only the gospel does that.

It did that in the life of the Apostle Paul, and his message all of his life has been: The same Jesus Who transformed me can transform your life as well. I remember reading the story of a man by the name of Gary Fawson. Gary grew up with an outwardly happy childhood, playing Little League baseball, camping, fishing with his family. They lived in the suburbs and had everything money could buy. But under Gary’s skin, the blood ran dark and devious. In his college years, he took a shotgun and killed the only three people who had ever loved him—his parents and his sister. He was arrested, convicted, and sent to prison. He felt no remorse and described himself as an animal.

One day a clergyman came to his prison and started talking about Jesus Christ. Gary cursed him and told him that if he got any closer to the bars that separated them, he would kill him as well. To his surprise, the preacher kept on coming back. But Gary only cursed him at every opportunity. One day the minister gave him a small Gideon New Testament. Gary took the book, spat on it, threw it on the floor, kicked it across the room and under his bunk. Sometime later, Gary Fawson grew unbelievably lonely and decided to kill himself. A former paramedic in a nearby cell told him how to cut himself with razor blades so that he would bleed freely and die quickly. They smuggled in a razor. Gary waited for the lights to go out. He thought about writing a suicide note, but he realized no one would be interested in reading what he had to write. He had no one left on earth to mourn his death.

Then he remembered the little book under his bunk. He thought perhaps he should at least read a verse of Scripture before killing himself. He turned his Bible to Romans and started reading chapter 6. He went on to Romans 7 and 8. I had never read the Bible before, he said, and the words started burning inside of me. He knelt by his bunk and began trying to pray. He asked God to show him how to be sorry because he still had no remorse in his life. That night, I saw a slow‑motion movie of my own life. I saw every wicked thing I had ever done and I began to write them all down. The list went on for page and page and I wept over each one. I had not even cried at all after all the murders of my own family, but here I was in my cell crying.

That night forever changed Gary Fawson. I was still in prison, but it did not matter. That was the end of the pain and loneliness. I would never be alone again. I am still in prison, he writes, but I thank God for His Word that is so powerful that it cut into the deep calluses of my heart and seared through all the layers of hate.

Now ask yourself this question: Can Shakespeare have such an effect? Can Homer or Milton or, for that matter, can the writings of Darwin ever transform someone like that? No. Charles Darwin once wrote a letter to a Christian minister named J. W. Feagin who had conducted a preaching crusade in a village in England. As a result of Feagin’s campaign, the alcoholics were converted and the bars in the village closed down. Darwin wrote to Feagin saying, We the evolutionists have never been able to reclaim a drunkard, but through your services I do not know that there’s a drunkard left in the village. Secular people cannot change people. The writings of the world cannot transform anyone. Even to this day, what changes people and makes them do the things in accordance with repentance is the immutable Word of God that has still not lost its power. It has power contained in it to transform even murderers to become great apostles of the faith who will go to the ends of the world with the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Sitting here this morning, you may not be a murderer, but I hope that you have a testimony that maybe is somewhat similar to this as well: God’s grace and His Word changed me and made me the person that I am sitting here this morning. Only God can do that. Praise be to the Lord Who has turned my heart into repentance, made me remorse and regret the things I once did, and made me do the works of righteousness that are proportional to the repentance in my life.

This message—controversial one. So what happened? Verse 21: That is why some Jews seized me in the temple courts and tried to kill me. Verse 22: But God has helped me to this very day. What a testimony. So I stand here and testify to small and great alike. The audience on that day is an assembly of the greats of that day. But he says, My testimony is not only to the great, but it is also to the small alike. I am saying nothing beyond what the prophets and Moses said would happen. Paul’s message is this: What I’m communicating as my gospel message is not something new that I have invented. All I’m doing is being faithful to the Old Testament, recollecting everything that Moses and the prophets had already seen. Your eyes are too blind, your hearts are too calloused, your ears are too deaf to understand the Word of God that’s already been written in the Old Testament. God has opened my eyes to see the truth in the Old Testament. All I’m doing is faithfully communicating what has already been written by Moses and the prophets.

What is that message? Verse 23: That the Messiah would suffer and, as the first to rise from the dead, would bring the message of light to His own people and to the Gentiles. Here is the message—that the Messiah would suffer. They did not fully realize it, but if you honestly go back and read Isaiah 52‑53, you cannot go away from that and believe that the Messiah would not suffer. You have to be able to see Messiah through it. But the message of the Old Testament was not only that the Messiah would suffer. It also told them that the Holy One of Israel would not see corruption. It also said that my Redeemer will once again rise again and I will with my own eyes see Him again.

That was the message that was proclaimed all throughout the Old Testament. What is that? Jesus has to rise as first from the dead. Immediately a question comes to your mind: Wait a minute—is Jesus the first one to rise from the dead? What about Lazarus? What about stories of resurrection from the Old Testament? What about Jairus’s daughter? They all had risen from the dead before then. But why does the Bible say—and why does Paul say—that Jesus was the first to rise from the dead? See, the Bible makes this proclamation so clearly that the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ was unique, and His uniqueness made it to be the first of its kind from the dead.

All the other resurrections had effect only on the individual that rose up; it did not have an effect on the entire humanity. It is only Jesus’ resurrection that made the difference for all mankind for all eternity. That’s why in 1 Corinthians 15:20 Paul himself would write, But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. He is the first one to be harvested from the realm of the dead, never to go back to that realm again. That’s what makes Him first. Look at Revelation 1:5; talking about what he got, the revelation that he has, who he came from: from Jesus Christ, Who is the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead and the ruler of the kings of the earth. Again, you see this great word in God’s Word, firstborn, which means His resurrection—His rising from the dead—is first above every other resurrection.

There are three things that make Jesus the firstborn from the dead, even though He was not the first one to be resurrected. First, Christ is the first one to rise from the dead, never to die again. Guess what happened to Lazarus? Dead. Guess what happened to Jairus’s daughter? Dead. Guess what happened to the son of the widow of Nain? Dead. Jesus is the only One Who rose from the dead, never to die again.

Second, Christ is the first one to rise from the dead with a glorified, immortal body. He is the first one to rise from the dead with a glorified, immortal body—a body that could go through the walls where the disciples were hiding, a body that could eat and drink just like me but did not need to eat or drink, a body that was not constrained by physical barriers anymore, a body that could not get sick again, a body that could not die again, a body that was immortal in nature, a body that could never perish again. And it is only Jesus Who has had a glorified, immortal body for the first time.

Third, He is the first one to rise from the dead because His resurrection is a guarantee and the power behind the eventual resurrection of every believer. Lazarus rose from the dead—well and good. Good for Martha, good for Mary, good for his friends. He got to live on this earth for a few more years, yet eventually died with a body that was not immortal. But Jesus’ resurrection more than 2,000 years ago changed the trajectory of your life and my life—changed our future destiny, changed what kind of resurrection we would have, changed what kind of life we will have not for 60‑70 years but for millions and millions of years—changed what kind of resurrection we would get one day. That’s why the Apostle Paul would write and say Jesus Christ rose from the dead as the firstfruits from the dead; then all that believe on Him at His coming, they will also rise again because the power that is flowing through my life and your life today is not the power of a Man Who is dead and buried in the tomb. It is the power of immortality. It is the power of resurrection. It is the power of the Holy Spirit—the God of all the ages is flowing through you. And because of that, even if you’re buried in the ground one day, when the trumpet call of God will come, you will rise from the dead because of the power of resurrection.

We bury our mortal bodies in the ground, looking at that body, frail and weak, yet we look at it and say when we see it again, oh, it is going to be so amazingly beautiful and filled with the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. Only possible because He was the first one to rise from the dead.

Verse 24: At this point Festus interrupted Paul’s defense. You are out of your mind, Paul, he shouted. Your great learning is driving you insane. The great learning that you have is making you a madman. All that education, learning all the Old Testament laws and being one of the learned scholars of that time—all this knowledge has only made you a crazy man. I think Festus interrupted his speech that day because the Holy Spirit was starting to convict him, and he didn’t want to hear any more of that message.

Verse 25: I am not insane, most excellent Festus, Paul replied. What I am saying is true and reasonable.

Verse 26: The king is familiar with these things, and I can speak freely to him. I am convinced that none of this has escaped his notice, because it was not done in a corner.

He says, What I’m telling you about the death of Jesus, the suffering of Jesus, is a public event. It is recorded in history; it was not done in a corner. What about the resurrection? Nothing secretive about it. These men, starting on that day of resurrection, were going out preaching that Jesus is alive. If they could produce His body—if they could do something to show that Jesus was still dead—Christianity would be dead within a matter of months. It was a historical fact. Paul is telling him, What I’m testifying to you, what I’m preaching, is not a hidden fact. Look at the church, look at the multiplication of the church, look at the change in the lives of the people—they all have one story to say: Jesus died, Jesus rose again, Jesus is alive, and He has changed our life. This is all a matter of public testimony.

Then he turned to King Agrippa, his main audience, and said to him, King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know you do. He’s in a dilemma right now. He is a caretaker of the temple in Jerusalem, so he has to believe the prophets, and Paul is putting him in a corner, saying, Do you believe the prophets? I know you do, because if you believe the prophets, you also have to believe in the suffering Messiah and the Messiah Who will not see corruption and the One Who will be raised again.

So what does he say to Paul? He doesn’t answer the question. Verse 28: Agrippa said to Paul, Do you think that in such a short time you can persuade me to be a Christian? This is a question asked by a lot of people. They hear the gospel message and they say, just like Felix had done, When the time is convenient, I will send for you. Here Agrippa does the same thing. Probably Bernice was too enticing—the life of sin with the woman sitting right next to him was too enticing for him. Even though he was persuaded in his heart, he did not give in to it because his life of sin was too joyful and enjoyable for him.

Verse 29: Paul replied, Short time or long, I pray to God that not only you but all who are listening to me today may become what I am—except for these chains. What courage. Short time, long time—I want everyone listening to me to become just like I am, a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, except for the sufferings that I have for the Lord Jesus Christ. What conviction from this man of God.

Verse 30: The king rose, and with him the governor and Bernice and those sitting with them.

Verse 31: They left the room and began saying to one another, This man is not doing anything that deserves death or imprisonment.

Verse 32: Agrippa said to Festus, This man could have been set free if he had not appealed to Caesar.

A man who is not guilty, a man not deserving of death or punishment, just spoke the Word of God to you. Yet in your rebellion, all you could do—just like Felix had done a few years ago—was get up and go back to your life of sin and miss the most golden opportunity this life could ever give to you. There before him stood the greatest evangelist ever to walk on the face of the earth. There before him stood the greatest apostle ever to walk on the face of the earth. There before them stood the man who had seen Jesus face to face, yet all of this could not convince them because that life of sin and living for the world was too enticing for them.

I will end with this. Many of you know the name Lord Kenneth Clark. He’s internationally known for his television series Civilization. He lived and died without faith in Jesus Christ. He admitted in his autobiography that while visiting a beautiful church, he had what he believed to be an overwhelming religious experience. He wrote, My whole being was irradiated by a kind of heavenly joy, far more intense than anything that I had ever known before. The gloom of grace, as he described it, created a problem. If he allowed himself to be influenced by it, he knew he would have to change. His family might think he had lost his mind, and maybe that intense joy that he felt would prove to be an illusion. So he concluded, I was too deeply embedded in the world to change course.

There are a lot of presidents who have never accepted Christ because their presidency was too important for them. There are a lot of kings who have never left their throne because their kingship authority was too important for them. Let not anything that you have in life keep you from following Jesus wholeheartedly. Let not your education keep you from following Jesus wholeheartedly. Let not your money keep you from following Jesus wholeheartedly. Let not anything this world could ever give to you, now or in the future, keep you from the riches that are in Christ Jesus for all eternity. Agrippa was a fool on that day. Festus was a fool on that day. That’s why God’s Word says to us in Romans 1: Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and their understanding was darkened by the rebellion of their hearts.

When we have time, when the gospel is presented, turn to the One Who not only died for you, but also—most importantly—rose again and is living for you today. We are so grateful that God has given us this Sunday—not only this Sunday where we are able to remember the resurrection of our Lord through God’s Word, but also a Sunday we remember the faithfulness of our God. Our God has been a great God. Our God has been a faithful God. Every journey that we have taken, every valley that we went through, every mountaintop experience in the life of our church—and all through it, God has been a faithful God in our life. Everything that we have today is only a gift of His grace. It is not man’s accomplishment; it is the accomplishment of a divine God Who has been faithful in all of our lives.

Let’s stand in the presence of the Lord, sing unto the Lord, and worship Him with hearts filled with gratitude for God’s faithfulness in the life of our church. Praise God.