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Ceres SDA Church

Anil Kanda

The Good Fight

You know, a couple days ago I had to go to the conference office and, you know, they were giving me a tour of the place, they were giving me a little office there.

Yet in my heart I just felt this emptiness.

And I just thought, man, I won't be seeing the same people every week.

And it just, these thoughts were just hitting my mind.

And I've had these kind of private moments of where I've, call it grieving or whatever you want to call it, but it definitely has been a time of ups and downs for me this whole week.

I've tried even not to be around people as much because just there's these moments that I had, you know, and I realize this because when you come together and you're part of a community, and not just any kind of community, but a spiritual community, and you give your heart and your mind, your life to this, you really connect and bond in ways that are much different, even from the world's way.

And I just want to say, for the last 7 and a half years that I've been here, I've been blessed so much by you guys.

You know, and I just want to say thank you so much for enriching my life.

I realize that I've given my most energetic years to this church.

But I have been just looking back, I've just been blessed.

And I just want to say thank you again for changing me through your example, through your experience, your love, and your commitment to the Lord.

So why don't we start with another word of prayer?

Let's ask God just to fill this place with his spirit, this message to be just directed by Him.

Father in heaven, thank you again for this time.

Lord, we just praise you for your goodness and kindness to us.

Thank you God for the last several years I've been able to be part of people's lives here and they've been part of my life.

And God, I thank you just for the richness, the blessings, the detours that you take our life through, the providences that bring people together for a certain time.

Thank you so much for all the things that you do for us.

Bless us now as we open up your word, as we jump into this message, in Jesus' name, amen.

The name of the sermon today is called, The Good Fight of Faith.

We're going to be talking about 1 of my favorite characters in all the Bible.

Learned a lot about Paul's life when I first became a Christian.

I found some books on the life of Paul, this ardent hero of faith who went around And probably perhaps 1 of the most powerful of all the Apostles of Christ You know, there's so much to the life of Paul that we can learn and grow from amen And what we're gonna be doing today is we're just gonna take just a quick journey into Paul's life I believe you'll be blessed as we open up God's Word.

You know, I was looking online this week and I came across a very interesting article and it's an article about you might have read it about a woman who's about 70 years old.

Yes, I'm the only 1 who reads these things.

She spent her whole life in the Siberian wilderness.

And the reason why the world came to know about her is simply because there were some geologists who were going into that area that were surveying the land and doing something with the ground.

They found out about her and they found out her and her family Actually had broke away from some church and they moved into the Siberian wilderness really just completely separated completely cut off and This woman lived 70 years her whole life in the Siberian wilderness Can you imagine that not venturing into town once except recently?

She hurt her leg and she had to be airlifted to the local hospital, which was about 130 miles away.

Now what's so amazing about this story is that I was going online after I read this story and I was thinking to myself, I wonder what a person who's been through that experience, what do they look like?

Can you imagine what they might look like?

Perhaps you might see someone like a Grizzly Adams look, right?

Perhaps you can look at somebody and say, maybe a Davy Crockett, a female version of Davy Crockett.

I wonder what somebody would look like well I didn't put the picture up but man when you look at this person's face can you imagine that You know what she read by the way her reading material consisted of?

The Bible and books on prayer The Bible and books on prayer But when you look at this woman's face And you see this woman that has been out there in the woods, the wilderness for so long.

The only things that really bothered her were bears and foxes who were trying to take her food from her all the time.

You look at this woman's face and there are these deep lines that are in her face.

You look at this woman's face and you begin to see these eyes that are sunken in.

And as you're looking and examining the details of this woman's face, because the face reveals the experience of the person, You see somebody with very tender eyes, completely alone, yet God was with her, even in a place like that.

Have you ever noticed somebody who's been through an experience and their face actually changes like it actually Morphs right it looks different than the way it did before the experience right in fact when you read the book desire of ages I don't mind says that Jesus when he came back from 40 days of fasting in the wilderness, that when he showed up, the very first place he went was to that wedding in Cana, and that the traces of conflict were all over his face.

And when his mom saw him, she was quite surprised.

40 days, you can imagine what that would do to somebody.

1 time I preached this evangelistic series.

I never forgot, I went to go visit my mom down in Southern, California And the first thing she did she's like she saw me and she's like what happened to you Loving hasn't it But have you ever been through an experience?

Sometimes you look at these like pictures of presidents, right?

People before they start their presidency and then after they start their presidency, 7 years later, right?

You look at the pictures of Obama and his hair is gray, the wrinkles Or the pictures of the former president president Bush right and you can just see the amount of stress and the amount of pressure that has just Changed or altered even the physical structure of their face now.

Because imagine if you were to look at somebody in the Bible Who's been through a range of experiences and you look at their face.

And the person I'm talking about today is Paul Can you imagine what Paul looked like?

Can you imagine what his, the way his face changed through all these experiences?

The Bible says he was beaten several times, right?

Can you imagine what somebody like that probably looks like when I thought about this morning?

I thought to myself he probably looks like a boxer after a fight Have you ever seen a boxer after a fight?

Yeah, you can see them, but they really can't see you right their faces are just swollen now I don't know if Paul really looked like that but I imagine Paul after his many years of experiences here he is he's writing some of the last Letters to his disciples People like Timothy I can imagine just the look on his face The wrinkles the traces of conflict.

I mean you look at this guy you would think man.

This guy has been through some battles right What we're gonna be doing today again is we're going to be looking at the life of Paul, specifically the last part of his life.

Everybody take your Bible, let's go to the book of Acts.

The book of Acts is a narrative written by Luke.

Sometimes they call it the second gospel of Luke.

It's a continuation of what happens after Luke's gospel.

There are certain parts in this Book of Acts in which the scene focuses on the early church then upon Peter then upon John and Eventually the remainder of the book begins to hone in on Paul the Bible tells something very interesting about Paul.

He was 1 born out of due time 1 born out of due time.

The Bible says not by the will of man But by God he learned the gospel He says in Corinthians by the revelation of God.

This is a man who was chosen by God for a powerful work He did probably much more than the other disciples did although not in any way diminishing what they did But the man Paul did a mighty work and when you look at this man's life.

He is an example to all Believers, Can you say amen to that?

What's so amazing at the end of Acts chapter 20?

The end of the book of Acts Paul has this burning desire to take the gospel back to Jerusalem.

He left Jerusalem with the message of persecution and death from the Jewish leaders.

And now at the end of his life, it comes full circle and he's going back to Jerusalem.

Not this time with the message of death and persecution, but a message of love and life The entire ministry of Paul comes full circle right here He left Jerusalem to hunt down Christians and now He's coming back to make more Christians.

What's so amazing friends 1 thing you may know in life as you continue to follow the Lord He will bring you full circle back to the very place You started For what reason?

In fact, I was reading a book by Ravi Zacharias, his testimony Very interesting when he was a young man.

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The Good Fight

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