Saying Yes To The Journey | Crossroads Student Ministry

Hey, I'm Parker. And I'm Hannah. We're here in Cappadocia, also called Cappadocia in Turkey, where we are here following the life of Paul, looking to see what his journey might have to tell us about our own. Here in Cappadocia, this place is wild. It looks like something out of a dream. Two volcanoes, Mount Arges and Hasan, erupted and lava came through this entire valley with water and wind, and they formed these incredible rock towers. And people carved homes out of the caves, and they built underground cities where they could live. And this place is unbelievably beautiful. But for the early Christians, it wasn't just beautiful, it was actually survival. That's right. Because they took this place as a place of refuge, and so Cappadocia became a space for the early church where they could come and function like a family and escape what was really going on around them, which was persecution, where they could be thrown in jail. They could be beaten. They could be even killed for their faith. And so Cappadocia has a lot to tell us about how Christianity spread, but also how people came around each other ready to go on a really hard, but worth it journey. Yeah, so people built these underground cities and did something different because they knew that the way of Jesus and following Jesus and what he had for them was so worth it. That's right. And I got to tell you, walking through this city, you can almost feel their courage of people that decided to go a different way to follow Jesus because it was worth it. I'm so glad you're feeling the courage walking through the streets because Parker is going to be our resident explorer, if you will, the guy who takes us to the next level, connecting dots between the physical locations we're in and the spiritual space that we're trying to go and the life of Paul. So Parker, are you ready?

I'm so ready. Let's do it. Let's go. Friends, I'm so excited to be here right now. And I know you're probably thinking, Parker, you're standing inside of a rock. And that is true, but it's a really special rock. As you see behind me, there's paintings on the walls. This is the inside of one of those cave churches that we talked about. People have been worshiping here for 1700 years. Since the 300s, they've been showing up in a world that was surrounded by paganism and people worshiping other gods. They said, no, we're going to follow the way of Jesus. And we're in one of those places right now. And you might be wondering, how did the gospel get to a place like this? How did it get to a place that's like so remote and so different? And that is where our buddy Paul comes in. Paul's story was just like any other hero's journey. He had the perfect education, the perfect connections, the perfect people. He was on the right track and he was killing the game. He was on this path to being one of the religious elite. And in Paul's day, that was the celebrity equivalent. That was the life you wanted. That was the best life that you could ask for. And Paul was doing it. His job was to uphold the law. And so that meant like seeking out anyone that wasn't doing that and throwing them in jail and crushing them. And that included Christians, people that believed in Jesus. So his job in many ways was to go find these people and put an end to it. And so he's getting sent to Damascus, this foreign city.

And as he's on his way there, he has this encounter with Jesus. Jesus shines this bright light on him and he's blinded. And he says, Hey, Paul, could you stop? What if you didn't do that? These are actually my people. This journey that you're on, that's actually going against what I'm wanting to do. And Paul realized in that moment that, man, my dream is dead. That dream that I was going after is completely dead. And every step that Paul took towards that dream was pulling him further away from the dream and the journey that God had created him for and that his heart longed for. So he surrendered to a better story that Jesus had for him. It was a story that was marked by service, sacrifice, and love. That's why Paul writes in Romans 5 that we rejoice in our suffering, knowing that our suffering produces endurance. Endurance produces character, and character produces hope. And hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. Paul didn't just write this, he lived it. He knew the following Jesus is going to be difficult, but we have this hope that Jesus offers and invites all of us into that we can stand on that's rock solid, even when things are really difficult. This new journey that Paul goes on actually changed the entire world, even places like this in Cappadocia. That's where Cappadocia ties in. This place, this church is a reminder that life following Jesus looks different, that it looks upside down, that often goes against what everything else around you is saying and doing, but it's a better story. And that's the life that Paul chose, and that's the invitation that Jesus has for us. Parker, that was so good and so helpful because what you were showing us is that we don't just want a life that's mediocre or mundane, we want a life that above all has impact.

I know that I do. I simply want to follow Jesus. Jesus in a way that leaves a legacy of impact. And so our invitation is for you to join us as we follow the ancient life of Paul who had a different story and a different journey. And so we're gonna go to his hometown of Tarsus. We're gonna experience the prisons of Philippi. We're gonna go to the stages of Athens, to the messy culture that was Corinth. And then finally, to the powerhouse city of Ephesus. Because each place is gonna tell us something different about Paul and what God was doing in him. It's a story of transformation, of hope, of endurance, and of course, impact. See, Paul could have just been a forgotten Jewish leader that nobody talks about. But instead, Parker and I are here exploring his life because he had a life of impact. And that's what our invitation is for you, is to look up, to rise, and to be open. That's what Paul was. Before Paul did anything, before he went anywhere, he was open to this invitation of Jesus for a different but better story. So we want you to come on this journey with us and show up every week and be here for this adventure.