Welcome to Healing Scars with Pastor Burton.
Here you'll find practical, relevant, biblical information.
The Bible will be broken down verse by verse so that you get the full context of the scripture
to better grow in your relationship with Jesus.
Hey everybody, welcome back to the sanctuary.
It's great to have you with us.
Now before we get started, a little housekeeping for just a moment, so bear with me.
I'd like to remind you that if you have questions, if there's something that you'd like to hear
discussed or something discussed even like maybe in a little bit more detail, or even
if you have a prayer request, any of these types of things, our contact information is
posted on our website at BeTheLightSanctuary.org or you can find us on Facebook.
All you have to do is do a search for Be The Light Sanctuary.
I'd love to hear from you all or even if it's not necessarily so much for our ministry pages
or anything, just the podcast page.
Do a quick search for Healing Scars with Pastor Burton.
You'll find it.
Regardless of which place you go to, I personally see each and every single one of these messages.
So please send them in.
I love hearing from you all.
I love to interact.
Plus, if there's something out there that we need to discuss or bring some enlightenment
to by all means, I love hearing that too because as the body of Christ, as the church, we need
to grow and hearing those areas where we need to grow in, definitely it's helpful, not only
to me, but to you to make sure you're getting what you need as well.
So please don't hesitate.
Reach out.
I said, head up the podcast page, Healing Scars with Pastor Burton, or just go to the website
or the Facebook page even for that matter, Be The Light Sanctuary and the website being
BeTheLightSanctuary.org.
So with that said, let's get into it.
In the military and not just there, any occupation really, but I'm talking about the military
because that's where I come from.
That's a big part of my background as you well know.
In the military, we often find ourselves in positions where we have to step in and question
what's going on.
In fact, it's part of the oath we take not to just blindly or idly stand by while things
start popping off around us.
So when we do, we normally find that the course of action that's being carried out, not just
needs to change gears, there's an order to things, an expectation that we do things in
a certain way with regards to certain policies and certain laws, whether we agree with them
or not.
It's very much a situation of, hey, I didn't write the law.
I didn't write the policy, but it's my job to enforce it.
Like I said, this is something that we all run into regardless of what our vocation is.
I'm just speaking from my own history here.
Here's an example.
Standing gate duty.
For those of you who aren't sure what that is, it's that if you've seen the movies, you've
seen the TV shows, if you've driven by base anywhere, especially since 9-11 now that we
don't have open campuses or open bases anymore, you have the sentries at the gates, whether
it's the MPs or the guards or whatever, checking people in and out and all, that's gate duty.
That's where we're at.
That's the scene.
Here's gate duty.
It's nighttime and a young warrior comes walking through.
They're drunk and they're underage.
Now for most of us, the most common lines of thought are, he's not hurting anybody.
Let him go.
If he's old enough to carry a rifle and lay down his life, then he's old enough to drink
a beer.
As I said, those are the most common trains of thought in this situation.
However, say that you were to let him go about his business and just keep on going, and that
inebriation set into that point or maybe a little further down the road, it sets in a
little bit more, and he's not paying attention.
He walks out in front of a car and he gets hit and he's hurt or worse.
These things happen.
Heck, here in Albuquerque, we see it all the time.
People don't even have to be inebriated or anything.
It could be stone cold sober and still walk out in front of a car and get hit, hurt, or
killed.
We see it at least a couple of times a month, especially off of Central.
Or you look at the...
He continues on his way.
He doesn't step in front of a car or anything, but he gets into a fight on the way back to
his barracks and gets seriously hurt or hurt somebody else.
You were the one who could have prevented it.
That's what you were there for.
Even though you may not agree with having to stop him and turn him over to his unit
to be dealt with, it is your duty.
We're about to see something very similar here.
Like I said, we're all put in positions where we don't necessarily agree with what we have
to do, but we have to do what's right.
We have to do what we're called to do.
We have to enforce those policies.
We have to enforce those laws.
It's important.
It's there for a reason.
All right.
So turn with me to the Book of Acts.
And we're going to be looking at chapters 21, well, the back part of chapter 21, and
we're looking at chapter 22 today as we continue to look at Centurions and their soldiers.
All right.
Now we're going to skim over a good part of this today.
However, it's for time's sake one, but two, even with that said, I want to encourage you
all, go back, read it in its entirety when you have time, because we should all study
the word for ourselves and not just be blinded as to what it says.
Don't just take my word for it or anybody else's word.
We all need to know what's going on.
We need to know what it says.
It's part of our growth, our maturity, and growing with Christ.
So however, like I said, we're going to skim through it, and a big part of it is because
we need to know the background.
We need to see what's happening so we can fully understand what is happening when we
get to where we need to be.
So starting in Acts 21 verses 27 through 36, Paul had just returned to Jerusalem.
People who recognized him, they're pretty upset.
They're pretty heated.
So much so that they stirred the crowd up into...
They basically, they built up a lynch mob.
So it was pretty nasty.
It was hot, it was heavy.
They were just wanting to tear him apart.
Matter of fact, that's what they were doing.
They were taking him.
They were going to kill him.
And word of what was happening got to the Roman soldiers that were in the area.
Now being under Roman control in this area, in this region, these soldiers, upon hearing
what was going on, they had to investigate.
They had to find out what was going on.
And they tried.
They went out, they started talking to people.
They got conflicting accounts.
One person said one thing, another person said another.
So in order to basically quell the crowd, get things to simmer down and to get to the
bottom of what was happening, they took Paul into custody.
They apprehended him themselves.
They put him in cuffs and that's where we're at.
Going into Acts 21 verses 37 and carrying through the bulk of chapter 22 all the way
up to verse 21.
So Acts 21, 37 to 22 verse 21.
At this point, Paul's in chains.
Like I said, the handcuffs of the day.
Paul, at this point, because the crowd's starting to simmer down, he's in handcuffs.
He knows, okay, I'm basically protected at this point.
And he has something to say.
So he turns to the commander, the guard, and he addresses him in Greek.
So, hey, can I talk to these people for just a moment?
By doing this, he picked the guard's interest because he was speaking in Greek.
And not only that, in showing that he was bilingual like this, by speaking Greek, it
showed that he was an educated man and a cultured man.
We're not just talking about some riff raff or some punk that was stirring up trouble
and getting people fired up.
So now, at this point, the guard's like, yeah, sure, let's do that.
Yeah, let's see what you have to say.
So he's allowed to speak to the people.
So Paul, he's switching gears a little bit here.
Not that he was being abrasive before or anything like that, but he's in a position now where
he can actually talk.
And in giving his defense, he's now speaking in Aramaic.
Aramaic was the common language of the area.
And in doing this, he was showing that not only was he a Jew, but he was a man who respected
the culture and the laws of the people.
After all, these were his people.
So by speaking Greek to the Romans and Aramaic to the people, he now has a captive audience.
People are listening.
It's like, okay, whoa, hold on a second.
There might be something to be had here.
Let's see what he has to say.
So at this point, Paul, he turns and he gives an account of who he is.
He's basically going through some of his credentials, his background persecuting Christians, just
like these people are now.
He knew what their passion was for doing so.
So he's already, he's connecting with them.
He understood why they did it, why they were doing what they're doing, everything that
they were thinking, every action that they were taking and every action that they wanted
to take.
These were things that he had an intimate personal knowledge of because he had previously
been one of them.
Matter of fact, he had been one of the fiercest men of them, one of the fiercest men on that
crusade, personally responsible for the imprisonment and killing of several Christians himself.
So at this point, I said, he's connecting with them and he's connecting with them at
a raw core level, right?
He's hit home, speaking right to their hearts.
And he continues on to share his testimony about Jesus and how he had found his faith
in Jesus.
You see, he didn't just give an account of who Jesus was.
He told them not only about who Jesus was, but what he had done in his life.
He made it personal.
Everything he was talking about here was personal.
And this is the key component that so many of us forget about, the vast majority of us
for that matter, forget about when we talk about Jesus, when we talk about the Bible.
Yes, giving biblical accounts is good.
We need to do that.
We need to have biblical references to direct people to, to show that we know what we're
talking about.
However, especially when talking to an unbeliever, we need to share our personal testimony about
how Jesus has stepped in and helped us in our lives, how we have a relationship with
him.
We have to make it personal.
Thinking of it this way, it's like talking about a new car.
You can rattle off all the specs, like, you know, you pull them out of the owner's manual.
We've got 445 horsepower V8 small block with 445 feet, or 445 pound feet of torque, a manual
transmission and so on and so forth.
And half of you are bored to tears just hearing that little bit, right?
Now let's flip it.
Oh yeah, I got a new SUV.
It's great.
It's got that third row in the back.
So I'm able to get, you know, the kids and some of their teammates to practice on time,
you know, and it helps the other parents, but it helps me out because they're able to
actually start on time.
You know, plus we're able to fit, you know, everybody in the same car now.
We don't have to take two cars everywhere.
So that trip we've been wanting to do going out to Florida, we're going to be able to
do it.
It's going to be so much nicer.
Oh, and the gas mileage compared to my old Buick.
Oh my, it is so much nicer.
I mean, I could go around like 500 miles on a single tank now compared to that hundred
on that old beast, right?
Plus we got that, we spurged a little bit and we got the entertainment package.
So the kids, you know, they're a little bit more distracted on those longer trips now
and they can watch their movies and they have the headphones.
So it's not disturbing us up front or anything.
We can listen to our own music or talk or whatever.
You know, you see that you have people's attention now.
You have them drawn in.
They're hearing the benefits and the impact that this has had in your life.
It's personal.
And talking about Jesus is no different.
This is what the Bible is talking about in 1 Peter, verses, I'm sorry, 1 Peter chapter
3, verse 5, when the word says, always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks
you for a reason for the hope that is in you.
Let me say it again, always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for
a reason for the hope that is in you.
We need to be able to, we have to make things personal, right?
Anybody can rattle off a bunch of stuff, a bunch of, you know, you have to make it personal.
Make it personal in order to make that connection though, to show the relevance of what's going
on.
Right?
So Paul, he continued on.
He shared his testimony all the way up to the point of God saying that he was going
to send them to the Gentiles.
Now this is where we're going to pick up today's reading.
If you haven't already done so, turn with me to Acts chapter 22 and we're looking at
verses 21 through 29.
So Acts 22 verses 21 through 29, and the word says, then the Lord said to me, go, I will
send you far away to the Gentiles.
The crowd listened to Paul until he said this.
Then they raised their voices and shouted, rid the earth of him, he's not fit to live.
As they were shouting and throwing off their cloaks and flinging dust in the air, the commander
ordered that Paul be taken into the barracks.
He directed that he be flogged and interrogated in order to find out why the people were shouting
at him like this.
As they stretched him out to flog him, Paul said to the centurion standing there, is it
legal for you to flog a Roman citizen who hasn't even been found guilty?
When the centurion heard this, he went to the commander and reported it.
What are you going to do?
He asked.
The man is a Roman citizen.
The commander went to Paul and asked, tell me, are you a Roman citizen?
Yes, I am, he answered.
Then the commander said, I had to pay a lot of money for my citizenship.
But I was a born citizen, Paul replied.
Those who were about to interrogate him withdrew immediately.
The commander himself was alarmed when he realized that he put Paul, a Roman citizen,
in chains.
Paul had the attention of the Jews all the way up until the point that he mentioned the
Gentiles.
And then they turned on him again.
He lost them again.
See, the divide between these two cultures at that point in time was so intense.
There was a lot of anger, a lot of hostility, a lot of pride involved.
Matter of fact, there still is.
It accounts for so much of what's going on in the Middle East at this point, right?
And continues to do.
It has been for quite some time.
There's so much.
There's a huge divide out there.
A lot of racism, right?
Amongst other issues.
Paul, like I said, is all the way up to this point.
Once he lost them again and they turned on him, the Roman soldiers, they had to stay
involved at this point.
They knew that they had to.
There was no choice.
It was a police action.
They had to regain peace, right?
They had to quell the action.
They had to simmer things down.
So not only that, but they're heated, you know?
They had this guy here.
He's causing a lot of trouble.
People are pretty upset.
So they take Paul away and they want answers.
The Roman soldiers, or for that matter, the Centurions, they were no nonsense troops.
They were known for their brutality.
There wasn't an interrogation room, as we know them now, waiting for Paul.
Instead, they went straight to bad cop, worst cop.
They were preparing to flog him to get the answers that they needed.
You're going to tell us one way or the other.
It's going to hurt you a lot more than it's going to hurt us.
I could tell you from my own experiences, and not just in the military, not just in
law enforcement, but in general, we all have these experiences.
It's really hard to keep your cool and to keep your composure when you're dealing with
hostile people and a hostile crowd, right?
As a matter of fact, the more people there are, the harder it is.
The soldiers, they were done being nice.
Up to this point, they'd been civil.
They stepped in.
At this point, it's straight up business.
It's go time.
It's time to go to work.
Blood pressure's up.
Most certainly tempers were too.
Paul, he was about to get flogged.
For those unfamiliar with the term, simply put, really oversimplifying it, he was about
to be whipped.
We're talking literally whipped.
Now, what's happening here though, it's a moment of truth.
As the soldiers were preparing him to be flogged, Paul saw this in Chirion, and so he asked
about the legality of flogging a Roma citizen who hadn't even been tried, let alone found
guilty.
This stopped everyone in their tracks.
Every Roman soldier there is like, whoa, hold on a second, hit the brakes.
Whoa, Nellie, what's going on here?
Paul knew good and well that a Roman citizen couldn't be punished, let alone treated like
this without having first been put on trial and then found guilty.
If these soldiers continued the course of action that they were taking, not only would
they have brought massive dishonor upon themselves, but it would have included an extremely harsh
punishment to serve as an example.
They were stopped in their tracks.
We're talking dead stop.
Emergency brakes, screech and halt, done.
Now moving forward, you see the conversation gets even darker.
Here we have a Roman soldier talking about how he had to pay to be a citizen.
This is a common practice.
For someone who served for so long, they moved up in rank, they'd pay a fee, they'd be awarded
certain rights, they'd be recognized as a citizen.
And you can tell there's a bit of saltiness here, it's like I had to pay, right?
So he's already showing a little bit of disdain here.
He's not happy about the situation and where it's headed.
Because even though people like him were able to pay a fee to become a citizen and were
awarded certain rights, it wasn't all the rights.
It wasn't the same as being a born citizen.
While buying citizenship moved someone up in the hierarchy of society, they were still
considered vastly inferior compared to being a born citizen.
Just hearing that Paul was born as a citizen, this put the soldiers on high alert.
Talk about the ultimate get out of jail free card.
Paul just used it.
The soldiers, let alone the centurion, they didn't have to like it.
Matter of fact, at this point, you can pretty well guarantee they didn't.
We're talking about a man in a very short time had created a whole lot of heartache
for him, right?
He put a whole lot of hate and discontent before them with these people with just a
few words.
Yet, if word had gotten out that not only did they arrest a Roman citizen, but were
going to flog him without trial.
Well, simply put, they'd be dead man walking.
Every single one of them would be dead man walking.
So not only did they slam on the brakes, they were changing that gear real quick and getting
ready to turn the wheel and change directions.
See the Romans didn't have to like it.
The soldiers didn't have to like it.
Let's be frank, we're all off of putting situations that we don't like.
The chances of them liking what they needed to do, it's very different than what they
wanted to do.
The chances that they would like what they needed to do versus what they wanted to do
were very slim to say the least.
However, the law was the law.
The president was the president.
And the penalty for violating it, they knew all too well.
Even just the image, the perception of violating these laws and these policies, whether it
had been done or not, was enough to have harsh punishment come down on them.
So they didn't have to like it, yet it was their job to enforce it.
So they backed off of Paul quickly and had to find another way to get to the bottom of
what was going on.
It's like I was saying earlier with my example with the gate.
You don't necessarily have to like what's going on, but you have to act a certain way.
You have to take certain actions.
You have to do certain things.
There are times in all of our lives when we are the person of authority, right?
Whether you're managing a team, an administrator, so on.
We're all put in positions of authority.
We have to slow down, not just rush into things.
It's not shoot first, ask questions later.
In having these positions, we have to be discerning in how we approach things.
Systematic, right?
We have to break things down.
By being an authority in any area, there are going to be times when we have to do things
that we don't agree with, that we don't want to do for that matter.
In Luke chapter 6 verse 36, the word tells us, be merciful just as your father is merciful.
An example that we've been given to follow at all times through Jesus himself.
Now, it's not always easy.
As a matter of fact, it's usually not, right?
There are going to be times when no matter how reserved, tactful, and respectful you
are, people are going to continue to get in your face and push and push and push to the
point that you have to take action.
You're going to have to take the action that you're trying to avoid, that you're trying
not to get to.
And the more wrapped up people are in the world, the more that people buy into the world
and what the world is telling them, and by proxy, what the devil is telling them, the
more belligerent and disrespectful and selfish they're going to be.
The centurion was more than content to let his men do the work that they had always done.
This quote, sort the animals out, clear this up quickly, let's be done with it.
Yet, here's someone throwing a monkey wrench in the works.
What was worse for them is the fact that they knew Paul was right.
They needed to slow down and reassess.
If they hadn't been so brash, so quick to act without fully pursuing what was happening,
without fully investigating what was going on, they would have learned what the bigger
picture was a whole lot sooner.
Instead, they asked a couple people, they snatched up Paul, they saw the hostile turn
on him again and they're like, okay, you know what, let's just beat it out of him.
They're looking for a place to channel their anger, their hate, and their discontent over
the stress that they were going through even.
They skipped over everything.
They could have just talked to him and they were just going like, no, we're just going
to flog him.
You see, we can't just be so eager to get things over and done with that we do the wrong
thing.
It's a point of character for each and every one of us, part of our integrity.
My grandfather on my dad's side, he would always tell us growing up, do the right thing
for the right reason, even if you don't like it.
Something y'all have heard me say lots and lots of times, that's where it comes from.
Galatians chapter six, verse nine, the word puts it like this, whoever sows to please
their flesh from the flesh will reap destruction.
Whoever sows to please the spirit from the spirit will reap eternal life.
Let us not become weary in doing good for at the proper time we will reap a harvest
if we do not give up.
Therefore as we have an opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those
who belong to the family of believers.
Doing the right thing is not always popular.
It isn't always convenient.
It's not always easy.
However, doing the right thing is still paramount, especially as a Christian.
It's part of what sets you apart from the world.
People will respect you for it, regardless of whether they agree with you or not, or
even in the heat of the moment.
Once things have simmered down and they actually take a second to recount it, people will respect
you for it.
Years ago when I was still a police officer, I apprehended a guy for a DUI.
He had a history of drinking and driving, resisting arrest, and so on with other officers.
He was well known to a few, a matter of fact, who dealt with him repeatedly.
I on the other hand, I had never dealt with him before.
I heard the name and all, but I didn't know him.
He was just another guy.
One night, I'm on patrol.
I see a vehicle.
It's driving erratically, so I light him up.
I pull him over and just walk it up.
I knew he'd had too much to drink.
I go through the steps.
I have him step out.
We're going to do a sobriety test.
He fails this way through the first test.
He knew it.
He knew what was going to be happening to him again here in just a couple of minutes.
Fighter flight kicks in and he bolts.
We're running.
Let me tell you, this guy's a rabbit.
He trips over his own feet.
Good thing for me because he was definitely the faster runner of that day.
If he had kept going, if he hadn't tripped, he'd have been gone because I was out there
by myself and I just couldn't keep up with him.
Anyway, he trips.
He hits the ground.
He goes down on this pavement like a slip and slide.
I catch up to him.
I put him in cuffs.
I call for an ambulance to come and take a look at him because when he fell, he hit his
head.
He'd gotten cut.
While we're waiting, I have him sitting there.
I'm applying pressure to the wound and everything and I'm just talking with him at this point.
When it came time for court later on, he didn't fight it this time.
It was different.
He admitted guilt.
He owned it.
He did the right thing.
He got sent to a treatment center.
Basically his thing was, the agreement was that he goes through this treatment program,
do the monitoring to make sure he stayed sober and everything.
If he completed all this, then he wouldn't go to jail.
However, if he failed any of this, then he was going to get the full sentence levied
on him.
Pretty good deal.
A lot of people take it.
Most of them fail, but in either case, months go by.
I hadn't thought of him.
Everything was over and done with as far as I was concerned.
It was like the odds of me running into this guy again, eh, who knew?
Well, I get told, hey, you got a visitor.
I go out to find out who it is.
It's the same guy.
Sober.
He's clean and sober.
He looks good.
And he came to thank me, to thank me for being kind even after everything that he had done.
And he said it was because of how I treated him and how I spoke to him about the alcoholism
in my own family that it finally clicked for him and that he knew he needed to change.
He needed to make some deep personal changes in his life.
So when he went to the treatment center, he bought into a hook line and sinker.
And every so often, he would come to show his new sobriety chips, right?
And to show and share how he was working to turn his life around.
And tell how he'd been blessed and how things were so much better for him and everything.
Even to share sometimes when he was struggling and he thought about backsliding, but he didn't
and he trusted in the process and he kept going forward.
This is a guy, he was a great example.
Hopefully he still is.
Because unfortunately, I moved, I lost contact with him.
Yet it still goes to show that a simple act of kindness, especially in the worst of circumstances,
can have a profound impact, doing the right thing for the right reason.
We don't know all the ways that the Lord will use us to reach others.
Yet in keeping with his commands and living in his will, we are able to share his life
changing light with more people and in more ways than we will ever know or even realize
on this earth.
So much like the centurion, we need to slow down, we need to do the right thing, even
if we don't agree with it, even if it's not the popular thing.
Just like that centurion, we have to resist the accepted norms and stand up for what is
right.
You model what and who God has called us to be when you do this.
Remember, you are loved and you are blessed.
Now go and be the church.
Thank you all for joining us here today at Healing Scars with Pastor Burton.
Please like, subscribe and share our podcast on any platform it is that you tune into us
on.
If you do have any questions, any prayer requests, or would like to know more about our ministry,
you can find us on our website at BeTheLightSanctuary.org or on Facebook at BeTheLightSanctuary.
You can also find how to contact us there, whether it's direct message or email.
We look forward to hearing from you all.
God bless.