Acts 25:13-26:32 | Reason for Hope

Sermon Notes

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Preacher: Mark Schledorn
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**1. What is Paul’s goal?

1. How does he achieve that goal?
2. From where does he get the power to achieve his goal?**

Reasonable proof

• Jesus performed myriad miracles
• Jesus appeared to many following His resurrection, including more than 500 at one time
• Many of Jesus’ followers were martyred for their Gospel proclamation

1. What is Paul’s goal?
To share the Gospel with everyone with whom he comes into contact.

2. How does Paul achieve that goal?
By identifying with the lost and appealing to their reason.

3. From where does he get the power to achieve his goal?
From the knowledge that he forgiven, accepted and adopted into Christ. He knows to whom he belongs.

Acts 26:6-7
“I stand here on trial because of my hope in the promise made by God to our fathers, to which the twelve tribes hope to attain, as they earnestly worship night and day. And for this hope I am accused by the Jews, O king! Why is it thought incredible by any of you that God raises the dead?”

Ephesians 2:1-7
“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.  But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”

Romans 7:7-11
“If it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known  what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” But sin,  seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. 
For apart from the law, sin lies dead. I was once alive apart from the law,  but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. The very commandment  that promised life proved to be death tome. 11 For sin, tseizing an opportunity through  the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me.”

Acts 26:29
“Whether short or long, I would to God that not only you but also all who hear me this day might become such as I am — except for these chains.”

C.S. Lewis, “The Weight of Glory”
“The sense that in this universe we are treated as strangers, the longing to be acknowledged, to meet with some response, to bridge some chasm that yawns between us and reality, is part of our inconsolable secret. And surely, from this point of view, the promise of glory, in the sense described, becomes highly relevant to our deep desire. For glory means good report with God, acceptance by God, response, acknowledgment, and welcome into the heart of things. The door on which we have been knocking all our lives will open at last.”