MAY 29 2016 | Acts 9

Sea Change Church · "Acts 9" · Joe Brandi · May 29, 2016
Acts 9
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord's disciples. He went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners into Jerusalem. As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him.

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. Now get up and go into the city and you will be told what you must do. The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless. They heard the sound but did not see anyone. 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 he has done to your holy people in Jerusalem. And he has come here with authority from the chief priest to arrest all who call on your name. But the Lord said to Ananias, go.

This man 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. And then Ananias went to the house and entered it. 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.

This ends the reading of God's word. Thanks be to God. I'm not Joe. Joe, come here. This is another guy who does an incredible amount of work here that you just don't see happen. He was a major spearhead for Night Church. He's just constantly just working behind the scenes. He leads a missions organization, Unity for Orphans. And he has a heart for Christ.

He's taken the time to get an incredible education. I'm really blessed to call him a friend. It's really awesome. And I'm very grateful that he's made La Jolla Christian Fellowship his home and become part of everything that we're doing here. So let's just pray. Father God, I just thank you so much for Joe. Pray that you open up our ears to hear what the Spirit would speak through him today to us.

And bless him. Let him speak as if it were the oracles of God. In your name, Jesus. Amen. Thank you. All right. I was coming to a friend back there. Every time they go to read the text and I'm supposed to preach, I go, is there anybody else that's supposed to go up there? No, it's me. I'm doing this. So, no, but it's fun. Once I get going, it's great.

Great. Cool. We read the text. We've worshipped. We're here. I'm going to pray again. Is that cool? Father, Son, and Spirit, you're awesome. You're mighty. You're holy. You're patient. You're loving. And meditating on this text of the changing of a murderer into a Christ follower is really amazing and perplexing because your love is so deep and so wide and so patient that you don't send a murderer to hell.

Some you do, but not this one. You focused your love on this man named Saul and changed his heart. And you've changed all of us, I believe, too. Maybe there's some people here that haven't been changed yet and want you to change them. And we ask that you come with your spirit and you change them, too. And speak through me. You say through the foolishness of preaching, it's the power of the gospel.

The word doesn't return void. And so we ask that that happens today. In Jesus' name, amen. All right. And before I start, has anybody seen Last of the Mohegans a long time ago with Daniel Day-Lewis a long time ago? There's Magwa that, you know, the Indians that have the Mohawk or Taxi Driver even before that. Not a very positive movie. I've always wanted to have kind of a mohawk and I did it.

So if that's a distraction, I'm sorry. But it happened. Okay. All right. So the first point is the making of a murderer. The making of a murderer. Have you ever been targeted by somebody or some group in a negative way? I remember when I grew up, I grew up Catholic. And my mom and dad drug me there. And I found myself with older kids. And when we had breaks, they would play various games of tackling the younger person or whatever.

And there was guys that were three, four years older than me. And I was one of the ones that was targeted. And I remember being so small and so vulnerable and so afraid to go to church because, or the church schools, because I knew I was going to be targeted. It's very difficult to be on the receiving end of oppression and anger. Something that's organized.

And they would look for me. And then as I got older, there's always somebody that's older than you and somebody that's younger than you. I grew up as kind of a jock, but also in the country. So I was kind of a hick. So I knew how to fish and shoot guns and ride horses and fix barbed wire fences and cows, all this awesome stuff. And when I entered school, I loved skating.

And I tried to fit in with the skaters, but I was part of this other group. And I never fit in there. So there was a few skater guys, one guy named Chris Walsh, that always wanted to beat me up. And he wasn't that much bigger than me, but I just didn't want to fight. And so all the time, I was watching out, like, where he was, where his friends were, because he was out against me.

And then, as I got older in high school, there were the hicks that didn't kind of like me and that were bigger than me. And I was kind of avoiding them. And then there was always the jocks. I played football, baseball, basketball all four years in high school. And there was the senior jocks. And then I was a freshman, and they were out against me, too.

So have you ever felt on the receiving end of negativity like that ever at all in any way? It's scary. It's horrible. And then I found myself in positions of power as I got older in high school. And then I kind of dished it out because I'd received it so much. I'm like, I want to feel some of this power. So I'm going to dish it out. And that's kind of what we experience as we read about Saul.

And in the introduction, before we get lost in the details, or if we might get lost in the details, or I get lost in the points, I want to just give one of the major theses up front, okay? This entire message is really about God's grace. God's grace is bigger. It's longer. It's stronger. It's deeper than we could ever imagine. And he and it has the power to transform and change killers, sinners, haters to lovers of people and martyrs.

What we didn't read before is in the beginning of Romans 9, the Apostle Paul, who's called Saul in this passage, he says, as it goes into this really controversial passage, but we're not going to get into that. He says, you know what? If I could give up my salvation for those of Israel, my people, I would. Because Christ has so changed me, and I love him so much, I wish that everybody in the world could have what I've had, but I'm willing to give it up because of my love.

Yet what we read in this passage, and I'll kind of reread seconds of it, is he's breathing out murderous threats. The making of a murderer. He's breathing out murderous threats. But God had changed him. And before we get into this point, setting the context, we have Saul. That was his Hebrew name. He's also called Paul. That was his Jewish name. Roman name.

And he grew up religious. He grew up Jewish. He observed all the law in the Torah, the Ten Commandments. And he had worked his way up to be in a position of power for the Judaizers. And we're in Acts chapter 9, and it was after Jesus had died, and he had risen. He had gathered his disciples. He had ascended. And then he sent down the Spirit. And then the church began.

And the church had a time of increase. And they met together in homes, and they gave to one another. And they prayed. And miracles were happening. And then a persecution arose in Acts chapter 7, I think. And Stephen gave this great big speech. And because he was part of the way, he was part of a Jesus follower, and wasn't part of the old school Jewish way that believed that the law brought salvation, and that Jesus couldn't be the Messiah, he got stoned with real stones.

And the people that stoned him laid their clothes, because they didn't want to get dirty. You know, it's like they got this jacket on. They don't want to sweat. They wanted to take it to dry clean. So they laid all their nice clothes at somebody's feet. And the feet was the person named Saul, the person we're reading about. And Saul actually was so anti-Jesus, anti-Christian, that he watched as Stephen, who had the face like an angel, was stoned to death in front of him.

That's how consumed he was with hate. That is the making of the murder. And before, again, all these preface statements, before we get into this, I was thinking about it. We're going to spend a lot of time on what's it like to be in the mind of a murderer. It's going to be like 60% of this talk. But you might find yourself in some of these points.

Some of us might go, oh, I'm not a murderer. I'd never kill anybody. I'd never think about that, and I hope none of you do or have. But you're going to see some of these points that there's seeds of that even in our own hearts. So we want to also not be so self-righteous to look down like this exploration of this Saul murder has nothing to do with me.

So point one, the making of a murderer. The speech of a person is the making of a murderer. Notice it says, Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord's disciples. Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord's disciples. Hate speech. Hate speech. One of the definitions basically is ostracizing, making people feel bad, speaking ill will against anybody for their gender, their race, their religion, anything like that.

And he didn't know about hate speech back then. And it's almost like a law now. And he was engaged in hate speech. He was filled with hate. And his speech was hot. It was hot. It says he was breathing out. And I was looking at the Hebrew word for breath. And the original Hebrew word has to do with the nose. Pretty interesting. It has to do with the nose.

The nostrils. And I'm almost 100% Italian. I don't have too big of a nose. But a lot of people in my family had big noses. And, which isn't bad. But there's this emphasis on the nose. And the emphasis of when you get angry, your nostrils flare. You breathe in. You get focused. If you ever watch the UFC, they're going to have a big fight next week. American versus American.

All right. If you look into their eyes, you notice their breath is everything. They're getting controlled. They're getting powerful. And they're ready to unleash it on somebody. I grew up with horses. And I grew up with cows. And there's cows. And then there's a bull. And these bulls, you can hear. I'm not kidding. I'm trying to impersonate a bull snort.

On the cat three, let's all impersonate a bull snort. No, I'm just kidding. It is serious. You can hear it. You can see it. Didn't stop me from taking my BB gun and shooting that bull in the butt. Okay. I was on the other side of the fence when I did it. But the horse. My sister grew up riding horses. And I'd go up to these horses. You know. And they're behind the pen.

And I'd put up my hand like sheepishly like this. I don't do like that. I do like that. I guess that's what you're supposed to do. You know. But its breath was so hot. And so big. And its ears would go back sometimes to tell. I'm like, is it going to bite me? What's it going to do? But its breath was serious. And Saul's breath was filled with heat. It was breathing out anger towards people of the way of Jesus.

Before you're in Christ. Before you came to faith in Christ. Who was your breath hot towards? Who did you, your chest get tight. You feel the heat in your face. And you start, you have to start breathing to calm down and get more in the yoga breath. So that you don't unleash on some type of anger breath. And then maybe, hopefully, God has changed you.

Given you a new heart after you have faith in him. But you still have these seeds of anger. Some of you feel justified in your anger. Well, they did this to me. They did that to me. But Jesus says, if you're angry with your brother or your sister, it's almost as if you've murdered them. The seeds of murder are in you. You're not a murderer like Saul was.

You haven't physically done it. But it's there. Who are you angry with? The speech of a murder. The speech of the murderer is powerful speech. How do you use your power? All of us have power in some sphere. Small or great. Some people are CEOs or managers. I don't know. You have younger people in your family. We all have power. And our speech has power.

Power of life and death. He had power. He had put himself in a position of religiosity. He was freaky smart. He was considered like a rabbi. He probably the whole Old Testament like memorized. And they were in this religious system that was in the occupation of Rome, which was pagan nation. But Rome allowed these synagogues, these places of Jewish worship, to still exist as long as they didn't cause waves in the Roman Empire.

And he had got himself in such a position of power to where he had access to the high priest, who was like the pope of the Catholic Church. His words had power. So can we go to the next slide by chance? Yes. So that when he asked for something, he got it. He asked for letters to the synagogues in Damascus that was 150 miles from Jerusalem. So that he found anybody who belonged to the way.

The way was one of the earliest terms of Christ followers. We're called. Whether men or women. What a manly guy to put women in prison. Wow. That he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem. His speech was hot. It was filled with hate. It was powerful. What he asked for, he got because he knew how to work himself in the powers of position. When he used his power to kill and imprison all those who were different from him.

Do we put people in prison in our minds? In our hearts, do we put people in prison? Not that we actually want them to go to prison or that we want them to die. But if they just didn't exist, like nothing bad happened to them, but they just got out of the way while I'm on the freeway. It'd be awesome. Or I think a lot of the surfers aren't here today.

But, you know, how many surfers are here? In any way. How many love to surf? Okay, all four of us. I thought this was more of a surfer church. Where are they? The surf's not good today, so I don't know where they're at. But some people grow up surfing and they're alok. Meaning they grew up in that area. This is their spot. They worked their way since they were a kid.

And they have access as they get older to this one spot. But guess what? If they go to another spot, they're not alok anymore. They're not alok anymore. And there can be so much power in their words and what they say. If they say something to somebody that's a non-lok, they can get them out of the water. They can bar them from the waves. And if we could control the world in one day, if we had one day to control the world, what rules would we make?

What rights would we have access to? And if we have access to them, that means other people don't have access to them. Whether it's waves, whether it's to the frozen yogurt stand, whether it's to Bird Rock coffee roasters. He always quotes Panicin. I like Bird Rock. I like them both. They're great. They're all awesome. Oh, yeah, we have a Panicin worker back here.

I love Panicin too. It's awesome. Plus, you're Italian, so I like you extra, extra. But, you know, there's some long lines. And I want to get my Cortado. You know what I'm saying? I'm in a rush. I want them all to go. And I want to be up front. We all have that in us. And Paul wanted to be first. Saul wanted to be first. His religious group, he wanted to win.

He wanted them to be bigger. And people of the way, the Christians, he needed to eradicate. They were opposite from his orthodox view of the world. And his speech had power, and it put people in prison. His speech was religious. It was orthodox. His line of thinking and speaking was in the line of Abraham, he thought, of Moses, of the Exodus, of David, of Solomon, of the prophets, of the temple, of the rabbis, and the synagogue.

That is his mindset, which he's approaching. And Paul was opposing the apostolic teaching as heretical. That Jesus was the Messiah was absurd, since he was crucified and hung on a tree, and therefore a curse, not salvation. Saul's motivation was to correct the false teaching within Judaism. Using the synagogue punishment system itself, he likely sees himself as a reformer, working for the high priest with the goal of deeply and sharply eradicating the followers of the condemned rabbi.

Why was Paul so angry? If we think of the Ten Commandments, I was thinking about it. You shall have no other gods before me. You should make no idols. And you should not take the name of the Lord in vain. So he thought, well, they're taking the name of the Lord in vain. They're saying Jesus is God. And they're violating the first three things of the Ten Commandments.

So therefore, I'm right. I'm justified in throwing these people into prison, women and men. And if some of them die, well, I'm doing the right thing. So often, we can feel justified in doing the right thing when we're oppressing another person or being cruel to another person because we think God is on our side, especially us religious people.

Not in probably the same way and degree as Saul, who was a full-on murderer and imprisoner of people. But check your heart. We all have these tendencies in us. And we need God to change us. And then Saul, he was organized. Says he went to the high priest to ask them for letters of the synagogue. He was premeditated. He had a plan. It wasn't just a flippant act of passionate hate.

And he fulfills what Jesus said in the Gospel of John as he speaks to his apostles before he had died and rose. And he says, all this I've told you so that you won't fall away. They will put you out of the synagogue. In fact, a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think they're offering a service to God. They'll do such things because they've not known the Father or me.

So Jesus had even predicted that there'd be certain religious people within religious sects, specifically the Judaizers, that think they're actually serving God. And then therefore justified in their anger and hate and murder. And it sounds very eerie, kind of like the leader of ISIS and ISIL. I'm going to read a quote from Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

He's one of the leaders of ISIS. Sorry if I pronounced his name wrong, if you guys know how to pronounce it. ISIS leader. Don't think the war that we're waging is the Islamic State's war alone. Rather, it is the Muslims' war altogether. And he's not speaking for all Muslims because I have Muslim friends that are very peaceful. But I'm just reading what he said.

Rather, it is the Muslims' war altogether. It is the war of every Muslim in every place. And the Islamic State is merely the spearhead in this war. It is but the war of the people of faith against the people of disbelief. Do you hear that? It is but the war of the people of faith against the people of disbelief. Saul thought that people of the way, people of Jesus were part of the sect of disbelief.

And he's filled with self-righteous, religious, hot, focused, passionate, planned murder. And he pursued passionately. Outside of Jerusalem, 150 miles. 150 miles he went. A week on foot. What great lengths do you take to get what you want? What great lengths did you take to get what you wanted before God had changed your life? To expand your kingdom.

Something to think about. Even, I've been walking with God, trying to walk with God for like 20 years now. And even in Christian religious circles, I've sensed, I don't sense the church is like this. But, I've been part of this in the past. Is other churches warring against other churches. Well, wow, you go to that church. Cool, but just come to mine.

I even do this. Because I still recruit for this church. But, yeah. Come on, come on, come on. Sorry. Okay. But, if you're doing it in a bad attitude. If you're doing it like, you know, we've arrived. We really have a rad pastor. We really have good worship. Or, look at our awesome Noah's Ark building. You've got to really come to ours. You know what I'm saying?

Because yours is, oh, yours is, oh, just come. But then, there could be so much division because we want to build our kingdom. So, describing what that kind of looked like, filled with hate. Maybe you saw some of yourselves in that. But, why did this happen with Saul? How did this happen? And I would say, he let his anger grow. He let his anger grow.

Anger multiplied, layered, compounded, brewing in the heart. Jesus comments how serious it is when we let hate in our heart be brewing inside us. Jesus says, you've heard that it was said to the people long ago, you shall not murder. Anyone who murders will be subject to judgment. But, I tell you that anyone who's angry with his brother or sister will be subject to judgment.

And, again, anyone who says to his brother or sister, raka, which everybody knows what raka means, right? That means, like, you're an idiot. You suck, basically. It's answerable to the court. And, anyone who says, you fool, we dangers in the fires of hell. How are our hearts towards other brothers and sisters? People, humanity in general, but especially brothers and sisters.

There are all those people that kind of annoy us a little bit, you know, and we feel justified with getting angry towards them. Not able to look at the mirror and look at how maybe we annoy some people. I know I don't annoy anybody. I've worked on myself so much I don't annoy anybody, right? And that's probably what, why are you laughing? What's up?

All right. That's good. Laughter. So, what is in your heart? Jesus commented on the anger. And, really, murder is just an extension of anger inside the heart. And more anger. And the cobwebs. And the barbed wire. And the pressure. And whatever. The hornets. And whatever metaphors you want to think. And then you just act out on it. I remember one time. Hopefully, you won't think worse of me.

I was doing construction with my dad. And he won't ever listen to these sermons. But I've already told him this. I grew up doing construction with my dad. It was 100 degrees in the summer. That's why I will never do house building projects in Mexico. Do you build buildings? No. We love kids. I mean, in the hugs. I don't want to build another building again.

So, 100 degrees. 100% Italian Catholic dude. Just kind of had some anger and some passion. And remember, we were under this house. Digging this foundation. And something wasn't going right. And he's just super angry. And he's an awesome guy. I love him. But I'd be angry, too. The dirt was, like, falling in the hole that we were trying to, like, put a line up and snap it.

And I had my hammer in my hand. And he was down. Just down like this. And his head was there. And this most powerful guy that I love but also had kind of oppressed me. I'm like, I could take this hammer and just smash his head. There was this one moment. And I'm like, I could smash his head. It was that moment of hate and murder. And it was, even think about it.

It's horrifying. Because I, like that, I could have been a murderer. And I could be in prison. If I gave into my emotions for one moment. Some of them might go, oh, my gosh, I can't believe. But think about it. There's all these moments of anger that if we had, there are these crimes of passion. People accidentally kill somebody. Like, how could you do that?

But if we had some type of weapon at some point, it probably might have happened. We'd be considered some type of murder. Saul was also controlled by another murderer without his knowing. The devil and sin. There's forces going on in the world that are beyond our sight. There's principalities and powers and spiritual forces. And people of faith, the Christian faith, believe there's a devil, a real devil.

And there's real sin. And there's a real world system that is anti-Jesus, that is anti-kingdom of God. And somehow their forces are kind of using some of us like chess pieces. It's kind of like a game of thrones. It's kind of like gravity that we feel the presence of it, but we can't fully see it. But it's kind of all around us. And Jesus tells the religious to this day, the religious that were coming up to Jesus saying, you should die.

You're a heretic. And he says, and he's so politically correct, he says, you belong to your father, the devil. And you want to carry out your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth. There's no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he's the liar and the father of lies. Is that Johnny Cash?

I love Johnny Cash. I fell into a burning ring of fire. And it, come on everybody. It burns, burns, burns, and the flames, they grow higher. All right. If it's going to be anybody, it's going to be Johnny Cash. That's good. I love that guy. So, Saul was controlled by the devil, but he didn't know it. And even more, ancient examples of murder. Or when Cain, the first murder in Genesis, when Cain slayed his brother Abel, God interacts with him and says, why are you so angry?

Why is your face so downcast? If you do what's right, will you not be accepted? If you do not do what's right, sin is crouching at the door. Just like that. And his desires to have you, but you must rule over it. Once, Adam and Eve fell, violating God's word, giving into the voice of the devil. The door of sin was unleashed all over the world, and it wants to master us.

And in Saul's religious self-righteousness and objective righteousness in the law, he felt justified in what he could do, but he didn't realize sin was controlling him and the devil was using him. And then even going back before Cain and Abel, after men and women fell, God says, I'm going to put enmity between you, Satan, and the woman, and between your offspring and hers, and he will crush your head, and you'll strike his heel.

There has been an ancient war between the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of light, and it involves people all throughout time and even today. And some of us are more aware of it, and some of us are not aware of it. But I'd ask you right now, sin has its operation potentially on you, and you can't break free of it unless you are broken free by God.

Some of you are here today, we can't see hearts, and you don't have to raise hands. But you want to be broken free from certain sins that you just are not freed from, and you need, if the Holy Spirit has not come into you, to ask the Holy Spirit of Jesus to come into you and change you. And some of you have received Jesus as Lord and Savior, and the Holy Spirit is in you, and sin still has, you know, a little bit of power.

So I think afterwards we'll probably have prayer, and people maybe will lay hands on you, and that power might be extra broken. But sin is real, and the devil is real, and it can cause us to have murderous thoughts towards people. I remember before I came to Jesus when I was about 21, which was only four or five years ago. Devin, how old are you, man?

How old are you? 21? Enjoy it. All right. Let's give it up for all 21-year-olds. Let's everybody clap. Because someday you're going to be 42. But I'm still standing. All right. I know why I'm starting to sweat. I used to be filled with so much anger and hate towards the church. I was forced to it. And I remember we had this, I was in arts class, one of our electives, and we're supposed to, like, paint the windows for our high school.

And I remember, looking back, I was so controlled by the devil in some ways. On the window, I said, Merry Christmas from Satan. Yeah. I'm like, that was me. And I had a Santa Claus with, like, fangs. And my teacher came up and said, Joe, what are you doing? I'm all, I don't know. I'm just, yeah, you're looking, you guys are like, what? Yeah, that was me.

I don't know. Sin was operating on me. The devil was operating me. I had so much hate. But God, now I'm, like, standing in front of a church, preaching, just like Saul, who later got converted, right after this chapter, he goes into synagogues and preaches that Jesus is the Messiah. How is that possible? How is that possible? Because God's grace transforms you.

It humbles you and changes you and calls you to a different trajectory. What is grace? In the New Testament, grace means God's love and action towards men and women who merited the opposite of love. Grace means God moving heaven and earth to save sinners who could not lift a finger to save themselves. Grace means God sending his only son to descend into hell on the cross so that we guilty ones might be reconciled to God and received into heaven.

God made him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God. Grace may be defined as unmerited or undeserved favor of God to those who are under condemnation. Isn't that cool? So, how can a murderer be filled with religious hate, become a soft-hearted Jesus follower, loving the entire world? And I'd say through humility.

And the next point is God humbles wherever the humbling of a murderer, and I'm going to jam through these last points, because like I said, the first part of this talk, 60% was on the first point. They don't all have to have proportion. And you're like, yeah. As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him.

He fell to the ground, heard a voice say to him, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? Who are you, Lord? He asked. I'm Jesus who you're persecuting. He replied, now get up and go into the city, and you'll be told what to do. And the first thing we notice of how God humbles this angry, religious, self-righteous, angry murderer is by his light. Suddenly a light flashed around him.

And it was at noon. And none of it, I was looking up on the internet, how long can we look in the sun before going blind? You don't go exactly blind, but some stuff can happen. What's the longest you can look in the sun? What do you think? What's the longest anybody's looked in the sun here without shade? Can I hear it? 20 seconds, 30 seconds, 10 seconds.

It's burning, right? It burns. How much more the light of God in the mid-died sun blinded him and burned Paul, but not totally. Burned him in his heart, but not fully. And when you're under the light of God, you guys have all experienced it. It kind of, you're naked before him. And you're like trying to kind of run and his spotlight is on you. You can run to the right.

You can run to the left. It's like this big spherical circle. And you can't escape his gaze. It's this holy light focused on you. And you're naked in every way. And you become to be undone. And you realize the Holy One has always been there and seen everything you've done. And there's a moment of horror. And then there's a moment of fascination like, whoa, because there's love.

You're exposed to his holiness. He's holy, holy, holy. And he can't look at anything dirty. He hates it. He hates sin. It says that. He's angry with sin every day. But at the same time, you're exposed to love, eternal, infinite love at the same time. And then it melts you. And his light focuses on you. And he gives you hope. He convicts you and gives you hope at the same time.

He begins to humble Saul through his holy light. He has humbled us through his holy light. And then God also humbles through his voice. He speaks directly and personally. And he says, Saul, Saul, which is actually a term of endearment when he repeats his name. And when he ministers to you and focuses on you on his heavenly spotlight, and even he might be doing it right now in your heart, it's so mysterious how he works through the spoken word.

He speaks to you personally. And you go just like people, Moses and Nathaniel, like, God, you know me? You're not just this abstract, creative God that made the waves and made the sunsets. And I can tell there's some God out there, but it's kind of impersonal God. It's a God that's far away. But no, he knows your name. And he's acquainted with all your ways.

And he hasn't flicked you off the face of the earth. He hasn't smoked you and put you in the wherever, some dark places. Just like with Saul, a murderer. He knew him and wanted to change him. And then he also humbles through his voice because it convicts you. And he says, why do you persecute me, Saul? Saul, you've been persecuting these people, but you're actually persecuting me because my union is with them.

I am in them and they are in me. Time to stop, Joe Brandy, pretty soon. You're persecuting me. We get convicted. You've been patient with me in your holiness, God. And I'm not dead. And he says, who are you, Lord? He says, I'm Jesus who you're persecuting. And then his voice is also powerful. And Psalm 29, it says, The voice of the Lord is over the waters.

The God of glory thunders. The Lord thunders over the mighty waters. The voice of the Lord is powerful. It's majestic. It breaks the cedars. It breaks pieces of the cedars of Lebanon. Makes Lebanon skip like a calf. The voice of the Lord strikes with flashes of lightning. The voice of the Lord shakes the desert. He shakes the deserts of Kadesh. The voice of the Lord twists the oaks and strips the forest bare.

And in his temple all cry glory. And that voice was focused on this murder named Saul. And probably a whisper in a very personal way. And his voice with all that power is focused on you today. And you in the past. And he speaks so you can hear. But with all that power confined in a very audible way. So he humbles you. Just like he humbled Saul. He blinded Saul.

In order to change him. And then he changes him. Through calling to a person. Ananias. Ananias. Ananias. Up there. Over and over and over. Who is Ananias? Very common person. Who knows. But he was available to God. He goes over. To lay his hands on a person named Saul. Who he's afraid of. And he said. He received the Holy Spirit. And Paul is changed. He had been blind for three days.

He had been humble. He couldn't see. He had to be led by a hand. How many men like to hold the hands of grown men? Maybe for ten seconds in a prayer circle. After that. I'm like no. No. I like put my hand on their shoulder. All right. But he had to be led around. You know. This guy that was like. Had all this power. Here. Where am I going? Where's the bathroom?

Where's Starbucks? I don't know. Or Panikin. Sorry. Where is it? I don't know. He was humbled. God changes him through. That. Sends a person to lay hands on him. And then he's filled by the Spirit. And then. The blinders come off. Scales come off. And isn't that. Basically everything that's happened to us. We thought we could see. But we were really blind.

Once God confronted us with his holiness. And then there was a period of blindness. Where we're searching for God. There was three days. When he didn't eat or drink. And he was praying. It says. Kind of his whole world was getting revamped. Reoriented. And that's probably what has happened with us. And still needs to happen with us. But then he's so gracious.

He sends people into our lives. Just like Ananias. To lay his hands on them. And pray. So that we can be filled with the Holy Spirit. Not filled with hate and murder. But filled with the Holy Spirit. And takes us. Just like it did Saul. To a different calling. Into his kingdom. And for Saul. The next chapter. He's preaching in the church. In a sense. In a synagogue.

That Jesus is the Messiah. And all of us. Who are people of faith here in Jesus. We're on a wrong road. Maybe some of you were filled with anger and hate. Maybe some of you weren't. It was something else. And he sent people into your life. Reflect on the people he sent. Into your life. To speak to you. And to minister you. To pray for you. To humble you.

And then change you. And then call you to some other direction. And you're here today. And if you have not been changed yet. If you have not been humbled. I'd ask you if we do have prayer team tonight. To do business with God. Because today can be the day of salvation. Let's pray. And the worship team come up. And sing those songs. Father, Son, and Spirit.

I am blown away by your grace. I feel like I could have preached another hour. It's really amazing the depth of you. And the depth of your stories. How you're so gracious. You love murderers. You love people that are angry. He actually did throw women into prison. If anybody threw any one of my friend girls into prison. I'd want to beat them up. My anger would outburst them in some crazy way.

But you're so controlled. You do not change. And your love. Your slowness to anger. Your compassion and grace. Overwhelms your holy outbreaks of anger. And we thank you that you changed Saul into Paul. And then called him to preach to the Gentiles. And write the New Testament. That we receive from God's word. So much encouragement. And may we be encouragement.

Towards a whole dying world today. And towards each other today. And be thankful that. There's no sin we could ever commit. That will take us from your love. If we put our faith in Jesus. Jesus' righteousness is enough. Jesus' righteousness is enough. Father God. Let's worship you in spirit and truth. We ask in Christ's name. Amen.