ASI 2018: Business Unusual

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Plenary

John Bradshaw

Business Unusual

Amy Ratsara

The Power of Influence

Members in Action

Ivor Myers

Why Did You Laugh?

Tony Moore

The Conversion of Paul

Mark Finley

Why Unusual Business is Business Unusual

ASI Presents

Taj Pacleb

Stay on the Wall

You see, I was born in Orlando a long time ago in the last century, actually the last millennium, right?

And anyway, it's great to come back to this coast and be here in a place that I love very much.

And it's a privilege to be able to share with you this morning our Sabbath school lesson.

And when they sent me the email and said, would you teach the lesson?

I'm thinking, oh man, what's it going to be about?

And I think you have that in your wheelhouse a little bit about Paul.

And I thought, well, but what about Paul?

You know, there's a lot of different aspects about Paul.

And so I just kind of kept checking the website, you know, to see what was going to be the Sabbath school lesson.

And they just don't give a lot of information out months ahead of time.

And finally, at the church I attend in Southern California, I saw the lesson, the book of Acts and I looked in and can you believe what it was?

I know something about that and there we have this beautiful statue because 18 years ago I had the privilege of actually filming the life of Paul on location and I know some of you have seen that around the world and we went to 6 different countries filming tracing the footsteps of Paul and that image you just saw actually is from a church in Damascus.

And there was something about that image that caught the ruggedness of Paul, you know.

I don't know if they can bring it back up on the screen, but it's a, you can just see the ruggedness of Paul and he's not a soft guy, because he's traveling.

Now I want to just see if some of you followed by footsteps of Paul series on 3AB and our Hope Channel.

Over, You didn't do the small group, you see, over 13, 000 miles.

And it wasn't in United or American, right?

Mostly by foot, sometimes by steamship, no, sometimes by sailing ship, and that was even rougher because multiple shipwrecks.

But we're getting ahead of our story, aren't we?

And so we want to go back and look at the story of Paul's conversion.

Let's see if we can, have you memorized it?

Go, this man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel.

And so that's the words you're going to hear in a little bit as we trace his story from Ananias, a disciple in Damascus.

But go and you're going to proclaim my name to who?

To Gentiles and not only to Gentiles but to their kings.

He'll even go before Nero a couple of times.

And we think about people in Cedar's own household being converted.

But did you notice there's something very interesting about the text.

We think Paul is just the apostle to the Gentiles, but no, no, no.

He had a message for God's people Israel as well.

And he brings and unfolds a beautiful message of justification.

But we're getting ahead of ourself because we're going to talk about that in just a moment.

God chose him from all the believers to be his chosen instrument.

What prepared him for this position that he would have?

What prepared him to evangelize both Gentiles and Jews?

I, As we were filming the footsteps of Paul, I had the privilege of going to all these places.

I've been to most of them before, but the year before I had pastors on tour and we were filming in Tarsus.

And we have this—when I get to Tarsus, there's 1st Century AD Main Street.

Saul walked on that street as a little boy.

Did he go to picnics with his mom and dad down by the river.

I don't know, but he walked on that street.

I am a man which am a Jew of Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of no mean city.

They had a sign at the edge of town, mean people stop, you can't come in, you got to check your meanness, that'd be a nice city to live in, right?

But the other translations capture it a little bit better, no ordinary city.

A Jew of Tarsus and Cilicia, a citizen of no ordinary city.

No ordinary city, Saul would say, may be on trial.

Well, it's on the map because of its unique geography.

Here we can see a map of the ancient world.

You see Tarsus, you see the little green area, that's the low place, and it's there because it's, what was the province?

And so there's upper Cilicia and there's lower Cilicia.

The green area where Tarsus is, is lower or smooth Cilicia.

And then there's upper Cilicia up in the mountains and beyond the mountains into the Anatolian Plateau.

And here it was very special because of its unique geography.

The mountains are snow-capped most of the year there.

And it's carved by this river that we see on the screen, the Sindus or the Cold River.

It was so cold that when Alexander the Great marched through, he went swimming and caught pneumonia and nearly died.

And so I've been swimming in the river and it was pretty cold, I have to say.

But here we can see a Roman bridge because This was the only pass for 200 miles.

So Alexander the Great marches through that pass, Mark Anthony marches through that pass, everybody who was anybody with an army had to march through there because it's the only way for 200 miles.

Cilia, Those of you in the medical field, cilia, is that ring a bell?

I remember doing the 5 day plans years ago and we had super cilia in our throat and so on.

They would catch the tars and so on and we'd tell people, that's why you don't want to smoke, right?

How would you like to be from that place, huh?

In the Anatolian Plateau in Cilicia, they developed a special breed of goat grown nowhere else in the world.

And when you used that cilia or that goat hair for making your tent, it allowed smoke from your campfire to pass through, sunshine to stream through, and it repelled rain.

Series

Plenary

The Conversion of Paul

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

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