Christ is Life Podcast

So what do you do when life throws you a curve ball? What do you do whenever life seems to take a completely unexpected turn? I mean, in one moment, you might be walking down the path of life, and all of a sudden it seems like God has dropped something in front of you that you did not seem coming, and it's going to take you in a completely different direction than you are headed right now. Maybe you're a young person and you're still in middle school or high school, and you've got these goals for sports or band or your classes, and something has already happened along that path to take you in a completely different direction. Maybe you're graduating this year, and you're looking at different colleges, and you've had your heart set on one thing and thinking that this was the direction that you were going in your life, and all of a sudden, God has seemed to change that direction completely for you, and you're going, What am I supposed to do? This was the way it was supposed to go, and now it's going this way. This isn't right. And all of a sudden you're thrown into this whirlwind of what to do. Maybe you're older, and you've established a career, you've graduated, you moved on, and you've been in that career for a number of years, and then all of a sudden, the Lord says, You know what? I've got something new for you, and it's completely different than what you're doing now. And it makes absolutely no sense, but it seems like that is the direction that you are supposed to be going. Maybe there's a relationship. God drops someone in front of you, and you were going one way, and all of a sudden this new relationship is here, and, man, it's a 180 turn, and you're moving in a new direction with that someone, or maybe you had that relationship happen, and we're heading in that direction and thinking it was going to go in that direction forever, only for that relationship to come to an end. And now you're confused. This is unexpected. This isn't the way things were supposed to go. Maybe it was an illness or a diagnosis that you received that's stopped you in your tracks and moved you in a completely different direction. Maybe it's a divorce, maybe it's the loss of a loved one that was completely unexpected, and you're left trying to figure out how to do life. Sometimes we face these situations in our lives where it just takes a completely unexpected turn in another direction. And so what do we do? How do we respond when we're faced with these unexpected turns in our lives? Well today, as we continue this life in the Spirit message series, where we've been going verse by verse through the book of Acts. In Acts chapter nine, we are going to see a completely unexpected turn and how this played out in the life of the early church. And it will say a lot to us still today, and what life in the Spirit looks like when we too face unexpected turns in our own lives or in the life of our church. Here's the way Luke starts off in Acts, chapter nine, verse one, he says, meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord's disciples. Okay, so you may remember if you were here several weeks ago, that in Acts chapter eight, we were introduced to Saul in Acts chapter six and seven, we were first introduced to a guy named Stephen, a member in the church who began to be persecuted. He was sharing the gospel with the religious leaders of the day. They got so furious and angry with him that they began to stone him to death. They murdered him. He was the first Christian martyr. And at the very end of that account, this is the way that Luke closed that account out in Acts chapter one, after telling us about all of those events in Acts chapter seven, and he says, And Saul approved of their killing him. Saul approved of the religious leaders, stoning Stephen to death, which leads us to believe, and if we didn't know anything about him, that he was a leader, that he's someone significant that is approving of what is going on in this moment? Saul was a Pharisee. He was a member of this religious leaders group called the Pharisees, and he hated Christians. He hated Christians because he did not believe that Jesus was the actual Messiah that the Old Testament had prophesied about and said was coming, and this whole group of Christians was claiming that Jesus was the Messiah and that he had risen from the dead and he was still alive today. And he didn't believe that. And so he thought that Christians were completely corrupting Judaism, and that God wanted him as a result of that, to lead the charge to snuff out. Christianity, this was false teaching that was going on, and it was his responsibility to honor God by making sure that he put an end to this false teaching. And so he made it his life's mission. He was still breathing out murderous threats. At this point, he was breathing out murderous threats, approving of their killing him. We know right after this, we were told, a great persecution broke out against the Church, which caused them to scatter from Jerusalem all over the place, and no doubt Saul was a part of that. But now Luke is making sure that we understand that he still, even after that great persecution has broken broken out. He's still persecuting. He's still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord's disciples. Now, when it says disciples here, sometimes we might get in our heads because of how often in the gospels, we hear the word disciples, referring to the 12 Disciples, those that spent three years with Jesus. But that's not what Luke is saying here. It's not saying that he was breathing out murderous threats against just those disciples who we also know as apostles. This is just a term for the church. Those who are in the church were also disciples, those who were learning under the apostles more and more about this new life that they had in Christ. And so Paul was breathing out these murderous threats against the Lord's disciples, His Church, the people in the church. And here's the specific way that he was doing that in verse as verse one continues, he saw went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus. Why? So that if he found out any there who belonged to the way, which was just a reference to the church, to Christianity, Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life, and so any of those who belong to the way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem. And so what we see here is that when that great persecution broke out in Jerusalem, and the church was scattered all over the place, some of them ended up in Damascus, about 135 miles away from Jerusalem. This was a long trip to try to get away from that? Well, apparently Saul found out about that, that people had scattered that far, that there were Christians there. And so he's basically trying to get extradition papers, right? I mean, he's, he's trying to bring these so called criminals back home to Jerusalem so that they can go on trial, so that they can be punished. And it didn't matter. Luke tells us if it was men or women, it would have been more common for him to just go for the men. But I mean, he was breathing out such murderous threats. He was going after the men and the women and going to punish them all. This was a mission from God. He was pouring everything he had he thought into doing what God wanted him to do, all of his time, all of his focus was on this. All of his energy was being spent to take this movement out. But life takes him in an unexpected turn. He's moving down the path one way, and all of a sudden, some things are going to happen and take him into a completely different journey that he's been on. Verse three, says, As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from Heaven flashed around him. Verse four, he fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, Saul. Saul, why do you persecute me? Who are you Lord? Saul asked, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting? He replied. I mean, talk about an unexpected turn, right. I mean, Saul is on his way to Damascus to arrest Christians because they believed that Jesus was the Messiah and had risen from the dead, and he did not believe that. And on the way, he encounters the risen Jesus that he didn't believe in.
Talk about messing with your theology.
This isn't true. And then all of a sudden, Jesus is there. He's alive. He's meeting with him face to face. There's something really important that we see here in the way that he communicates with Saul as well. When he asks him who he is, he says, I am Jesus. But then notice what he says after that, whom you are persecuting? Why is that so significant? Well, let me ask you this, who was Saul persecuting? Wasn't it the church? Wasn't it the people in the church? Church that he was persecuting. And so why Didn't Jesus say, I am Jesus and you are persecuting my church? The reason why is because Jesus and His Church are one. When we put our faith and trust in Jesus, we're told that the Holy Spirit comes to dwell in us, and that we enter into this spiritual union with Jesus, and each and every person does that. And so we're all in union with Jesus, which makes us all in union with each other as well. And he is the head, and we are the body. And so we are so intertwined and made one with Jesus that Jesus is saying here, Saul, when you persecute my church, you're persecuting me
because we are one.
You mess with them, you mess
with me.
This applies to us even today, guys, Jesus feels it when you suffer. Jesus experiences your suffering with you. You are so intertwined and one with him that when you suffer, he suffers with you. You are not alone in your suffering. You're not alone when you face persecution, when people reject you, they're ultimately rejecting Jesus, and he is in it with you, and he fills it with you. And so when people persecute you as part of his church, they're persecuting him by persecuting the church, Saul was persecuting Jesus, but shockingly, when Jesus encountered him on the road to Damascus, I mean, this is where any good movie that you and I are watching today that this would be the hero that rides up and says, You mess with my people. You're messing with me. And he kicks tail and puts them in their place for messing with those that he loved. But Jesus was not meeting him on the road to Damascus to punish him, to get revenge, to get even for persecuting the church and for persecuting him. He was actually encountering him on the road to offer him grace and forgiveness and to move him in this completely different direction, this different path
for his life.
What an amazing God, what a compassionate and loving and forgiving God, creator that we really do have.
Verse six goes on and
we're told that he says, Now, get up and go into the city. Jesus is saying this to Saul, now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do. And the men traveling with Saul stood there speechless, and they heard the sound, were told, but they did not see anyone. Why is this important? Well, Luke is just making sure that we know that there were eye witnesses to this event. Luke, if you go back and even read his gospel, he's all about eye witnesses. He wants to make sure that you and I and all those who are going to read this account of Jesus that he wrote about in the Gospel of Luke and now even in Acts that we know these are historical events, that these are real things that really happened. And those who were living during this time that we're reading this are going, this is all made up and true. He's going, well, then go ask them what happened. Go find the eyewitnesses, and they'll tell you, right? And so this isn't just something that we're writing and making it up. People could validate that Saul was not making this event up now that he makes sure that he communicates this, he tells us how they and Saul respond in verse eight, it says So Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes, he could see nothing. So they led him by the hand into Damascus. For three days, he was blind and did not eat or drink anything. In Damascus, there was a disciple named Ananias. The Lord called to him in a vision, Ananias, yes. Lord, he answered. The Lord told him go to the house of Judas on straight street and ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul for he is praying in a vision, he has seen a man named Ananias come and place his hands on him to restore his sight. Lord Ananias answered, I have heard many reports about this man and all the harm that he has done to your holy people. The literal word there is saints. Your church are holy people, your saints in Jerusalem, and he has come here with authority from the. Chief priest to arrest all who call on your name. Okay? So we saw an unexpected turn of events in the life of Saul, but now we're seeing a completely unexpected turn of events for a guy in the church whose name is Ananias, right? Because Ananias is headed in one direction with his life. He's come to the point in his life where he's put his faith and trust in Jesus to be his Lord and Savior. He's now a child of God. He has brothers and sisters in Christ. He's part of the church, and he's aware of all the persecution he may have faced, some of the persecution himself, and so all of a sudden, after having trying to, you know, live his life in a direction where we're staying safe, we're fleeing from this. We're trying to plant churches to keep this thing from advancing, and people coming in and and squelching this entire thing all of a sudden, that's the direction that he's going, and Jesus is telling him to turn and go back in 180 different degree direction and go to the person who is responsible for most of the persecution that has been going on in the church. Like quit trying to avoid it. Don't try to stay safe, just go directly to the guy who is breathing out murderous threats against you and the church. This is completely unexpected, and you can see it in the way that Ananias respond, right? God, I know that you're all knowing and that you're all wise, but let's be honest, this seems like exactly opposite of the thing that I should be doing right now. That's what he's trying to explain to God, right? This is not the right direction for my life. And I think, if we're being honest, we probably react the same way much of the time when unexpected events occur, when we think that we're supposed to go in this direction, and this is what our life is supposed to be all about, and all of a sudden there's this unexpected turn, we often will do the same thing. Lord, I know, I guess, that you're all knowing and all wise and everything, but this is exactly the opposite of the way that I'm supposed to be going. And we are trying to make sure that he understands that this isn't right and that he needs to move us back in that direction that we were going before. So what do we do when we face these unexpected responses. Is this the right way to respond? We try to change Jesus's mind and all of those things. We'll look at how he reacts to Ananias. But the Lord said to Ananias, go, go, do it anyway, even if it seems like the exact opposite thing that you're supposed to be doing in this moment go. And then we learn what Jesus is really up to in this whole thing, what this whole encounter with Saul is really all about. He says, Go, this man, Saul is my chosen instrument to proclaim My name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel, I will show him how much he must suffer for my name. Now, when we read that, one of the things that we need to point out here is that Jesus is not saying that Saul is going to have to suffer here because of the life that he's lived up to this point, we cannot get the idea in our head that Jesus is going to make this guy a Christian to go tell people about Jesus to punish him. He's been treating my church so badly, and so I'm going to convert him and send him on a mission just to put him in my place, and he's going to have to suffer big time for that. That's not what Jesus is up to. Jesus communicated clearly, and we read about it in different places in our gospels, that this is just part of the Christian life, that while we come to know Him, and we do receive His grace and His His mercy and His abundant life, that that life is found in him, and not our situations and circumstances. All the other things are counterfeit life. And so even the good things are counterfeit life, he's the life. And so therefore, even when we go into suffering and we face persecution of other kinds, it's not because we're being necessarily punished. Of course, we can make decisions, and there are consequences for our decisions in those things, but ultimately, we know that this is not the way that God is at work. It's not what he's doing right here to punish him. This is just part of what we experience. Sometimes people will say yes to Jesus when we tell them about him. Sometimes they'll politely say no. Other times, people will persecute you for sharing about Jesus, and this is what he's communicating right here. He will suffer because of this mission that he is on. But ultimately, let's not pass over this very quickly either before we move on. Because again. And we find out that he says, This man is my chosen instrument to proclaim My name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel, that this is what his plan was. I mean, talk about an unexpected turn. Saul is is on his way to arrest and persecute those who believed in Jesus, and now Saul's life mission is going to go tell people to believe in Jesus. 180 degree turn, completely the opposite direction. We see several things in that right there, but the first thing I just want to point out is that, guys, it doesn't matter who you are, where you've been, and what it is that you've done. Jesus loves you. He died for you and for your sins, and He has a plan for your life,
he has a plan for your life. Didn't matter what Saul had done in his past. He had created him for a purpose, and the God of the universe can take him, redeem him, and move him in the direction that he ultimately created for him and use him for good. It's important to notice this language here too. Notice that he didn't say, I've chosen him to go out and do all of this in his own power and his own strength, to do a bunch of religious duties and perform things that are going to make me more proud of him in this manner, he says he's my chosen instrument. That language is important when Jesus reveals our role in his kingdom work. And again, by the way, we all have one it's not just Saul, it's any of us who say yes to Jesus. Jesus will be the one at work in you and through you. You are the instrument. You are a vessel, you are a branch, and He is the vine. This is the Christian life. We are not working for Jesus. We live from Jesus. He is our source. He is the one who produces fruit. We just bear it. We are instruments. Saul would be his instrument. But as we continue now, we see Ananias become his instrument in this moment before we're told about how God uses Saul as his instrument. Verse 17, then Ananias went to the house and entered it, the one that was on Straight Street, Judas, right that we talked about earlier, read about earlier, placing his hands on Saul, he said, Brother, Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here, has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit. Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul's eyes, and he could see again. He got up and was baptized, and after taking some food, he regained his strength. Okay, so remember, Ananias had again, this unexpected turn of events. He's moving in one direction, aware of the persecution, reacting to it a certain way, and all of a sudden, Jesus tells him to go see the man that is persecuting Christians. And ultimately, had a choice, even though Jesus was firm with him and said, Go in his flesh, He could have chosen to not go. But we see here what Ananias chose to do. He chose to trust the Lord. Even though it didn't make sense to him why God would choose him, whatever it is that he's up to, he trusted him, and he went in that direction. He makes himself available. I'm your instrument, if you want to do this in and through me, I'm available, and here I go. This is the same way. It applies to us, even when it doesn't make sense. If God says to move in a completely different direction, we trust that He is all knowing, that he is all wise, and that he is
a good God,
and we obey. That's what Ananias does, and as he does, we see things happen in what we just read that Ananias didn't do. He couldn't have done all of those things that we just read about. Jesus did them in and through him. Ananias was the instrument. This is how it works, as we make ourselves available and we go and trust him to be our source. He does the things in and through us, the same way that he did them in and through Ananias and produced fruit in this moment. Okay, so this is how Ananias responded in this unexpected turn of events in his own life. How does Saul respond to this unexpected turn of events in his life? As verse 19 continues, it says Saul spent several days with the disciples in Damascus, again, disciples the church, not the apostles, just those in the. Church. At once, he began to preach in the synagogues that Jesus is the Son of God. Verse 21 All who heard him were astonished and asked, isn't this the man? Isn't he the man who raised havoc in Jerusalem among those who call on his name, and hasn't he come here to take them as prisoners to the chief priest. Yet Saul grew more and more powerful and baffled the Jews living in Damascus by proving that Jesus is the Messiah.
Saul's response
immediately to allow Jesus to use him, to take him in that completely different direction and begin to immediately proclaim that Jesus was the Messiah. Now you've got to think, I mean, there's just no way that Saul didn't have doubts about that, that he wasn't confused about that himself, like God. This makes no sense me, the guy who's responsible for persecuting them, they'll never listen to me. Why are you sending me to go do this? And yet, he couldn't get away from the fact that this was the direction, the unexpected direction, that Jesus was sending him in and so he trusted and moved from persecuting people who believe in Jesus to telling them to believe in Jesus and improving from the scriptures, he knew the Old Testament, and now that Jesus had revealed Himself to him, and it really was the Messiah, he could go back and connect the dots that were really happening there and prove that to those people that this is what God was doing. And as he did, we're told that the Spirit's power grew more and more. He experienced more of it. I mean, he received it all the moment he said yes to Jesus. But as we step out in faith and we trust Him, and we begin to experience that power. We go, oh, that's how he works in my life. And so then we're stepping into the next thing a little bit more quickly and the next thing, and we experience more and more of his power. And this is what was happening, is Saul's life as he was, depending and trusting on Jesus and the Holy Spirit working in Him and through Him. But remember, Jesus had said that he was his chosen instrument to do this, but that in doing this and participating this with him, that he would suffer. And that's what we begin to see next verse, 23 after many days had gone by, there was a conspiracy among the Jews to kill him. Saul immediately starts telling people about Jesus and going through life, and then people are trying to kill him. Now, one of the things that we don't have time to do a deep dive in, but I just want to highlight this really quickly, is that when Luke here says after many days, most commentators believe that Luke is actually referring here to about a two or three year period, not just a couple of days here and there. And the reason that we know this is because of what Paul shares in Galatians chapter one. If you've never read Paul's letter to the church at Galatia, that's your homework this afternoon. Go read Galatians. One, if you have go back and read it again, if you don't remember this, because Paul actually shares more detail in Galatians. One about what happened after he came to know Jesus. He encountered Jesus on the road to Damascus, and he tells us that he went to Arabia, and then eventually he came back to Damascus before going on to Jerusalem, which is what Luke is going to tell us in three verses. So he tells us this here, and in three verses he's going to say and then he goes to Jerusalem, where there's a lot happen between this particular time and that particular time. But again, the main thing that we see right here is that Jesus said He would suffer, and he is certainly starting to experience suffering if people are trying to conspire to kill you for having moved in a completely different direction than you were going in life. Verse 24 tells us, but Saul learned of their plan, their conspiracy to kill him in day and night, they kept close watch on the city gates in order to kill him, but his followers took him by night and lowered him in a basket through an opening in the wall. Now, Now picture this turn of events again. At the beginning of the chapter, Saul is the one in charge. He's the one who is hunting people down to persecute them, and now he is the one being hunted. He is the one trying to flee from his own. People talk about a humbling experience in your life. But as humbling as this was, it just continued. Just. Different way through what we're told next in verse 26 when he came to Jerusalem. So now this is two to three years later, when he came to Jerusalem. He tried to join the disciples, but they were all afraid of him, not believing that he was really a disciple. Again, disciples there referring to people in the church in Jerusalem, not the apostles. And you know, we're told that they were scared of him, that they had good reason to be scared of him. I mean, could it be that Saul was just pretending to know Jesus to get access to more Christians to then persecute them, arrest them, murder them, that kind of thing. And so who could blame them for thinking that? Right? But again, think about it from Saul's perspective. Now he was headed in one direction. God grabbed a hold of his life through this this encounter that he had with Jesus, moves him in a completely different direction. Starts telling people about Jesus putting his life on the line now, feeling like he's a part of this with those guys. He's been at this for three years now. Up to this point, he goes to see more disciples, and instead of being encouraged and welcomed into the family in a place to belong and receive that, knowing that people are chasing after you to kill you. He experiences more rejection from those that are now in his own family. I know that you say one, you're one of us, but we don't really trust you. We don't really believe that you belong here. But here's where we see another unexpected turn, as a guy named Barnabas is about to show up on the scene. You may remember, if you've been here for the series before that, we were introduced to Barnabas all the way back in Acts chapter four. And we're told there that he brought the money from the land. He had sold some land, and he laid it at the apostles feet to be used for God's Kingdom work, and now he is with Saul. And here's what we read after the disciples in the church rejected Saul, says, But Barnabas took him, took Saul, and brought him to the apostles. So now we're talking about those who had spent three years with Jesus and seen the resurrected Jesus and and Barnabas told them how Saul, on his journey, had seen the Lord and had spoken to him, and how in Damascus, he had preached fearlessly the name of Jesus. This is again we see the Holy Spirit working in and through Barnabas to make sure that those in the church knew that this was true about him, but you notice the language here in repeating what it is that had happened. He told the apostles how Saul, on his journey, had seen the Lord, seen the risen Lord had spoken to him. This was important, because in order to be an apostle, you had to have seen and experienced the risen Jesus spent time with him. Not everyone can be called an apostle, only the select few that had spent time with Jesus and saw the resurrected Jesus. And what Barnabas is communicating to them, even in this language of showing them this is that, hey, he encountered Jesus. He's preaching fearlessly about Jesus. And guess what, quite honestly, he's one of you guys. He's an apostle alongside of you now. Now talk about another unexpected turn. Think about how the disciples could react, and how humbling that must have been from them and their perspective as well. I mean, we're the ones who spent three years with Jesus. We're the ones who did all of this. We're the ones who have been leading the church and suffering persecution, and it was because of this guy that our own friends and people that we know were murdered and treated in this particular way. And now, not only are you saying that he's a part of this whole thing of the church, but he's even as equal and authoritative in this as we are. What I'm saying just one more reminder that even when you have the authority and your leaders, and you're pretty high up in different things, and can speak from a leadership perspective, that is still not about you. It's not about you in the church. It's about Jesus being in union with Him, him being the instrument of his plans, and he takes the unexpected directions and things that don't make sense to us
and puts them into motion and we trust and we obey. This is another unexpected turn that must have been so humbling. For them as well. He goes on in verse 28 says So Saul stayed with them and moved about freely in Jerusalem, speaking boldly in the name of the Lord. He talked and debated with the Hellenistic Jews, but they tried to kill him the same way that they tried to kill Stephen when he was there and overseeing all of those things. And when the believers learned of this, they took him down to Caesarea and sent him off to Tarsus again. That was probably for another five to seven year period that we see right there before his ministry and missionary journey start, and then the Church throughout Judea. Verse 31 this is kind of a summary statement. Luke makes some of these summary statements in Luke every now and then and now that he's told us about this before going into the next section, he says, Then now, as a result of these things happening, the Church throughout Judea, Galilee and Samaria enjoyed a time of peace and was strengthened living in the fear of the Lord and encouraged by the Holy Spirit. It increased in numbers. Why would the church experience a time of peace? Well, the number one person that was out breathing murderous threats against them and persecuting the church was now one of them. So even though it didn't stop completely, it certainly died down a lot, and not to the intensity, it decreased overall, and now the church began to experience this time of peace was encouraged by the Holy Spirit who was at work in them and through them. Okay, so there's a number of things that we see here, a lot that we see what life in the Spirit looked like for those who were in the early church and in Saul and Ananias and all of the above. And so how do these things apply to us today, as the church, as we live life in the Spirit? Let me highlight just a few of them for you this morning. First of all, life in the Spirit means trusting in the unexpected when we're moving down the road of life in one direction, and all of a sudden, God drops something in the middle of the road and forces us to turn in a completely different direction.
What is our response in that moment,
to trust Him, even whenever it doesn't make sense, we make ourselves available to him as his instrument. We recognize that he is an all knowing God, that he has all the information that there is to have about the direction that we should be going in our lives. But he has all of that information, and he has he's all wise. He's able to take all of that information and through his wisdom, process it in such a way to say this is the most wise thing that I could do in this moment, in the direction that I could take you in this moment, and we recognize that he's a good God, that that's part of his nature and character and attributed so. If he takes all of the information and uses all of his wisdom and all of his goodness to move us in unexpected ways, even when it doesn't make sense to us we trust that it has to be good, because that's part of his nature and his character, even when it doesn't make sense to us. And so when you are faced with those unexpected things that come up, we trust and we obey. The second thing it we see here, in their lives and in ours, is that life in the Spirit means conversion. And we've, we've talked about this a number of times throughout the book of Acts, but wow, how we see it completely on display with Saul, who will be known as Paul throughout the rest of the New Testament. Guys life in the Spirit, is total conversion. I mean, the only way that Saul's life, in actions, in behavior, could be radically different from what he was doing is if he himself had become someone completely different. And of course, he had, because that is what is communicated in Scripture. When we put our faith and trust in Jesus. We are born again. We go from spiritual death to spiritual life. We go from having a sin nature to a new nature, from a bad heart to a new heart. Guys, you are not who you once were. In the more that we begin to believe that, the more that we begin to walk by faith, that that's actually true, then our behavior will change, and the more we'll trust Jesus' work through us as his instrument. If you've put your faith and trust in Jesus, you have experienced conversion 180 degrees. You are not who you once were. And if you've never put your faith and trust in Jesus, this is what is available to you. Putting your faith and trust in Jesus is not about becoming a Christian, to follow a set of rules and religious practices and give up everything that's fine and live a life of drudgery and in misery and never be happy again. It's a total conversion about becoming someone that. You weren't in one moment in becoming someone new who you were always meant to be, who the God of the universe created you to be. And you get to experience that in his abundant life, if you just receive His salvation. The third thing that we see here is that life in the Spirit means that you have a role in Jesus' Kingdom work. We've said it already, and so I won't mention much about it, but again, we saw this immediately in Saul, like he communicates immediately that the reason I am encountering him, the reason that I am saving him, is for a purpose. He has a role in My Kingdom work. I'm going to work in and through him to do things that matter for all of eternity, and as a believer, you have one too. You have a role in Jesus' Kingdom work. And so the question is, are you making yourself available for what Jesus is wanting to do in you and through you as his instrument? Are you making it all about your own kingdom and what you're building for yourself in this life. The next thing that we see and the final thing that we'll look at is just that life in the Spirit means that you accept people into church who are not like you.
Where do we see that? In the text, Saul
Ananias, did you remember I didn't highlight it? I don't think earlier, but when Ananias walked in to greet Saul after like, God, I don't know if this is really the thing, but okay, I'm going. I'm available. Do you know how he addressed him? Brother, brother, Saul. What must have that done to Saul's ears? In his heart, this guy who should be scared of me and probably is walks in and the first thing that he says is, brother, Saul, we're family. We're family. Couldn't be more different, but accepted him. Barnabas, same thing, right? Everybody else was freaking out. He's not like us. He does things differently. He's done all of this stuff. He has a past. And Barnabas says, no, no, life in the Spirit means that we accept those who are not like us into the church. And so it's the same thing for us today. Is there someone in your life, in the church that you've been judging because they're they're different than you, someone in our own church that you've been judging because they have a past, because they dress differently, because they talk differently, because they act differently, maybe the Holy Spirit wants to show you through Ananias and Barnabas and the way that he worked in their life to move you towards those people who are now your family, who are your brother or sister in Christ, and to welcome them into our family, to do life with them, to maybe even serve alongside of them. At this point, we simply ask the question, you've revealed Your truth to us. How am I to respond? Are you leading me to trust you with the unexpected events in my life? Are you leading me to believe more about this conversion that I've experienced and it really being true that I'm so different than I once was, even though I don't feel that different and I don't always behave that different. Does it mean that you're trying to get a hold of my attention about the kingdom work you want to do in me and through me, and I need to make myself available to you as your your instrument, to do those things that my life is mostly not about, because it's about my own things this morning. Or is it, again, this idea that you are being led to accept people in the church who are not like you? Maybe finally, it's it's that conversion aspect of I've never taken a step of faith and and I'm feeling led to put my faith and trust in Jesus, to be my Lord and Savior, to experience that forgiveness that Saul experienced in his life, and being moved in a different direction that God has for me. And if that's you, I want to pray for you and give you the opportunity to do that, even right now in this moment.