Ananias: The Hidden Hero

So if you have your Bibles, go with me to the book of Acts, chapter number nine.

The book of Acts, chapter number nine.

I'm reading from the New Living Translation of the Bible.

It may read just a little bit different than yours, but I think it would be accurate just the same.

The book of Acts, chapter number nine.

We want to read about nine verses, and then we'll pray and see what the Holy Spirit would say.

Is that okay?

Uh Acts chapter number nine, starting at the tenth verse.

Here's what it says.

Now there was a believer in Damascus named Ananias.

The Lord spoke to him in a vision, calling, Ananias! That's an exclamation mark, so I had to lift my voice.

Yes, Lord, he replied.

The Lord said, Go over to Strait Street to the house of Judas.

When you get there, ask for a man named Tarsus from Tarsus named Saul.

He is praying to me right now.

I have shown him a vision of a man named Ananias coming in and laying hands on him so he can see again.

But Lord, exclaimed Ananias, I've heard many people talk about the terrible things this man has done to the believers in Jerusalem.

And he is authorized by the leading priest to arrest everyone who calls upon your name.

But the Lord said, Go, for Saul is my chosen instrument to take my message to the Gentiles and to kings, as well as to the people of Israel, and I will show him how much he must suffer for my name's sake.

So Ananias went and found Saul.

He laid hands on him and said, Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road, has sent me so that you might regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.

Instantly something like scales fell from Saul's eyes, and he regained his sight.

Then he got up and was baptized.

Afterward, he ate some food and regained his strength.

That's just good.

It is my assignment to teach for the few moments that we have together.

Ananias, the hidden hero.

Ananias, the hidden hero.

Would you bow your head so we can pray over the word?

Holy Spirit, unleash the heroes.

Amen.

I pray quick.

I'm the one you want over for Thanksgiving dinner.

We'll be eating straight away.

In this particular passage of scripture, we have a very, very pivotal turn in the book of Acts.

The book of Acts technically should be called the Acts of the Holy Spirit through the apostles because these were all very, very ordinary men who were doing extraordinary things because of the power and presence of the Holy Spirit in their lives.

And here we have the story of Saul, his conversion experience.

You may know him as the Apostle Paul, one who writes two-thirds of the New Testament, gives us theology, tells us about justification, propitiation, redemption, second coming of the Lord Jesus.

He is an incredible theologian, but before he was one of our heroes, uh, he was one of the churches, the early churches, most hideous villains.

Saul did not start off as one that believed in Jesus.

He was actually one that hated anybody that considered themselves a believer in Jesus Christ as Messiah, as Yeshua.

This is a man, if you understand scripture and read early on in the book of Acts, he actually held the coats of elders as they stoned an evangelist named Stephen.

He uh uh is relentless in his pursuit legalistically against anyone that believes in the truth that Jesus Christ is Lord.

One thing I am absolutely thankful about is that is that we serve a God that just is not in pursuit of nice people.

I am so thankful that he is just not after people that have a nice disposition and that have a soft heart, and as soon as he knocks on the door of their heart, they're gonna instantly come and receive him as Lord.

I am so thankful that we serve a God whose grace is so relentless, it is in pursuit of all types of people.

Angry people and bitter people and stuck up people and self-conscious people.

He he is after every type of person because he needs every type of testimony.

If we are going to magnify God and he is to be as big as he is, we need every single per every single person's testimony from every single background and experience to say that Jesus is Lord in every language, in every context, in every people, in every single type of nation.

We need people to say that he is Lord of all.

Why, while he is tracking down people uh because of their faith, the the the Spirit of God is in hot pursuit of Paul so he can share the faith.

And and and we have a man that goes in with one agenda and comes out with another.

Have you ever went down a road thinking you were gonna do one thing and it turned out another?

You ever planned, you know what, I'm gonna do this, and it turns out to be something totally different because uh uh uh many are the plans in a man's heart, but the Lord knows the right way.

And so Paul is he has papers, he is authorized to go in Damascus and lock up anybody that calls himself a believer in Jesus Christ.

And and in that moment, Jesus, who has already ascended into heaven and and sat down next to his dad and is daily making intercession from us, decides to make a cameo appearance in the life of Saul and peeks his head back through the clouds.

I don't know exactly how it looked in that moment, but he just came back and he was like, Saul! You are tripping.

Well, that's what it says in my version of the Bible, but he says, he says, it's hard for you, it's hard for you to go against the kick against the go, it's the kick against the pricks.

What are you doing?

You're you're not you're not persecuting them, you're persecuting me.

Now I gotta stop for a second.

That makes me feel great.

That if I am a believer in Jesus Christ, if you pick on me, you picking on him.

That should make about 200 people happy.

If you mess with me, you're messing with all of heaven, and I don't have to come and defend myself.

I have a God in heaven who will defend me.

Somebody's gonna walk out of here, you know, the chest's gonna be split out just a little bit.

Don't say anything, don't say nothing.

They'll get you.

They'll get you.

So here is here is Jesus, and he's like, What are you doing?

And and and Saul in that moment becomes very vulnerable in all of his intellectualism and all of his legalism.

He stands there for a moment and he's like, I don't know.

Who are you, Lord?

And in this moment, he is having an experience.

No one else is having the experience that he's having.

The guys that are with him, they hear something muffled, he hears something clear, and when he comes out of this moment, he cannot see a thing.

He's blind.

Not partially, he's not seeing blurry, he is blind.

And for the first time, Saul is experiencing naturally what he has always been experiencing spiritually.

He's always been blind, blinded by legalism, blinded by emotion, uh uh blinded by self-righteousness.

I I have all the formulas that makes God approve of me.

He's blinded by all of that, and now he's experiencing something naturally that he's always been experiencing spiritually, and he he goes into Damascus fueled with emotion, but but he actually stumbles into Damascus feeling his way around.

Because anytime you're blinded, you're just led by feeling.

Anytime you're disconnected from your savior, you you're just left to your five senses, your touch, taste, sight, smell, and hearing.

You just go off what you feel, and and everything becomes how you feel.

Nothing becomes about faith, it all becomes about how you feel in the moment.

I don't feel like praying, I don't feel like being a believer, and I don't feel like doing right, I don't feel like and they hurt my feelings.

And whenever you are disconnected from your savior, you stop moving by faith and start moving by the way you feel.

Something about blindness does wonders for your ears.

Because we walk by faith and not by sight.

He's led into Damascus down a street called straight.

Really, God?

No, for real.

Like, really?

Like, as if the sermon is not good enough by itself.

You're just gonna put that in there and just think that this is coincidence that out of all the streets he could have been on, he wasn't on Kimball, he wasn't on Campbell, he wasn't on 1709, he's on straight street for real, he's on straight street.

A guy who's been bent up and crooked, hello.

Jesus is calling.

Answer him now.

A man who has been bent over by religion and legalism is sent to Straight Street.

Okay, we get it.

Straight Street into a man named Judas' house, where he sits in darkness for three days.

The villain of Christianity has been made vulnerable by his blindness.

And he sits in a man's house that he barely knows for three days, trying to figure out what is going on with me.

What you have to understand about this moment is that is that Paul is really isolated from everybody.

He is now isolated spiritually, he is isolated relationally, he is isolated from anybody that he can really touch.

If he calls the the the priests that sent him, they are gonna assign the same fate to him as the people he was sent into Damascus to get.

He cannot call and pick up the phone and go, hello, hey, remember you sent me to Damascus?

Yeah, to get anybody that believed in Jesus.

Well, what had happened was I was on this road, right?

And then, yeah, I'm one of them.

Like he's he's stuck, so he can't call them, and he can't call any believers because they're scared of him.

He can't call anybody in the church right now.

Hello?

Hey, what are you doing?

Uh uh, hey, this is Saul.

I would like to come to your service.

No.

I mean, we welcome everybody.

Come to the late night service.

We're having an all-night prayer meeting, you'll be the only one there.

But you can you can pray.

He is isolated.

And whenever God really wants to do a transformation in your heart, he leaves you alone.

And if you are not careful, you will mistake being alone for loneliness, but they are two different things.

I call to the witness stand Jesus, who in Matthew chapter number four and Luke chapter four is led into the sp led by the Spirit into the wilderness for 40 days.

He is alone.

There is no one with him, but he is not lonely.

The Holy Spirit is with him, guiding him through that moment, building character and integrity on the inside of him, so he can produce the greatest three and a half year run of ministry that the world has ever seen.

We're still talking about it 2012 years later.

He is alone, but he is not lonely because he's left there sitting with his thoughts and the Holy Spirit just working on his heart.

The villain is now vulnerable.

He sits here isolated on Straight Street in a man named Judas' house, and he is in desperate uh need of a hero.

Out of all the heroes that could be called, we could just take our pick of the people that were available in that day to come and help him out in this experience.

I myself probably would have called Peter, because Peter is at least a fighter, and if he gained his sight back and went back to his old ways, at least they could box it out.

I would have called James, who at this point had already believed in his brother's ministry.

I could have called John the beloved, anybody.

I could have called Apollos, who was the most eloquent speaker at the time.

But but but of all the people that God could have called to be the one to introduce Saul to the family of faith, he calls this random guy named Ananias.

Who?

Who is he?

What do we know about him?

This man, Ananias, is only mentioned in chapter 9 of the book of Acts.

He is mentioned nowhere else in Scripture.

There is no, there is no recalling anything about him before Acts chapter 9.

Acts 9 · chapter mention

There is nothing mentioned about him after Acts chapter 9.

Acts 9 · chapter mention

He stands here isolated in this moment, used by God to be a hidden hero that he is ready to bring out of the shadows into the light to do an incredible miracle on behalf of the Lord Jesus.

Ananias is just this guy who is filled with the power of the Holy Spirit minding his business in his house, and and and he's sitting there and he just gets tapped on the shoulder.

Ananias, yes, Lord.

Now, as I've been thinking about this message, I could preach yes, Lord, for the next five hours.

Because it wasn't a question mark behind the yes, there was an exclamation mark.

It wasn't yes, Lord.

Based on what you say next, I may or may not obey you.

It was yes, Lord.

You haven't even told me what to do yet, but yes.

You haven't even told me where to go yet, but yes.

You haven't even told me where to be yet, but yes.

I'm obedient before I even get the command because I know that the power of the Holy Spirit on the inside will enable me to do whatever you call me to do.

Yes, Lord.

He says, I want you to go down to Straight Street to a guy named Judas' house.

There's a man named Saul from Tarsus, he's praying to me right now.

I want you to go pray for him.

Here would have been my response.

What?

You you want me to go talk to who?

The the killer guy.

He's in town, and you want me to go to his house right now.

Today.

Yes, I want you to go.

But but do you know, do you know who this guy is?

He's been running around locking up all believers, he's incarcerating them, and then if he gets a chance to vote through their legalistic process in the synagogue, he votes for the death penalty.

You want me to go to his house?

Yes.

Okay.

But if you say so.

But he is like blind, right?

I don't know about you.

I'd have been asking all kinds of questions, like, so he can't see a thing.

So he won't remember my face, right?

I can go in there, evangelize, and just escape.

I'm good.

He says, okay, I'm gonna go.

And he walks out of his door with no Google Maps.

No map quests, no old school maps, go.

He's just led and guided by the person living on the inside of him.

Just starts walking down the street.

Turn left.

Turn left again.

That's straight street.

Go straight up straight street.

Third house on the left.

That's Judas' house.

Knock on the door.

That house right there.

Yeah.

Those cost extra.

Those cost extra.

Sound effects cost extra.

Yeah.

Hey.

Judas?

Yeah?

I know this kind of weird, um, because you don't know me and I don't know you.

Um, is there a guy, and if he's gone, it's it's really cool.

But if somehow he left like 10 minutes ago, that'll be great.

But is there a guy here named Saul?

Yeah, there's a guy named Saul here.

Yeah, guy named Saul, is he is he blind?

Yeah, he's blind.

So he's still blind.

Sweet.

He's in the back right now.

He hasn't, he hasn't barely said anything for about three days, and he's been praying a lot.

Do you know him?

I I don't know him, but but someone that I know does.

And and Ananias turns into Saul's hero.

This random guy that no one knows, that sits in scripture all by himself.

Nothing mentioned before him, nothing mentioned after.

And just for just for you Bible students, please know this is not the same Ananias from chapter number five.

He died.

That glows in the blessed life message.

That doesn't go here.

So he walks in there and he did three things that made him a hero.

And I want you to write these three things down.

Number one, he followed.

He followed, he followed the voice of God straight into the midst of intimidation and fear without concern for his own person.

He followed the voice of the Lord.

If you're going to be one of God's heroes and you are, follow.

Even in the midst of it being uncertain, follow.

Even when you're uncomfortable, follow.

Follow his voice.

He's not gonna lead you and guide you into a situation that he hasn't already had the power and the preparedness to handle.

Just follow.

What makes Ananias a hero is that he simply follows the voice of the Lord.

I don't know exactly where I'm going, I don't know what I'm doing, but if you're telling me to go, I will go.

He follows.

Point number two.

He fellowships.

He fellowshipped.

Think about this.

He literally walks into the room where Saul is, and here's the first words that come out of his mouth: Brother Saul! When you are empowered by the Holy Spirit to be one of his heroes, you turn foes into friends.

Think about this.

After everything he knew about Saul, maybe he had locked up one of his friends, maybe he locked up somebody that that Ananias knew.

He literally calls him brother, knowing about his past, knowing about his current situation.

He doesn't manipulate him, he doesn't talk down to him.

He receives him as a brother.

We need more hidden heroes to step into the forefront and tell people who we know everything about.

You're my brother, you're my sister, I know about your past, but I can tell you about your future.

God wants to change your present.

He calls him friend.

I've come in here to lay my hands on you so that you can regain your sight and be all that God has called you to be.

And Ananias, this hidden hero, who who is the guy, lays hands on Saul, the man that's gonna be the greatest apostle that we know about in Scripture.

He lays hands on the man, and as he prays for him, the Bible says that he is filled with the Holy Spirit, and something like scales pop out of his eyes.

Which brings me to point number three.

He facilitated.

This man is in Scripture.

We don't have all of these bragging rights.

He doesn't have handkerchiefs that heal people, his shadow doesn't heal people, but he carries around the same power that the apostles did, proving that you don't have to be an apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, a teacher, a missionary.

All you have to do is be infused with faith.

And as you are, you have the capacity to do everything that every other hero did in scripture if you are following his voice.

This is why I'm so excited about a month ago uh uh when Pastor Robert wrapped up his series on words, and and about 4,500 people or more came down to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

What God was doing was unleashing heroes in their full potential to go out and be used at Kroger and at Central Market and at mom's classes and at exercise gyms and at your cubicle.

At any given time, he wants to turn what is hidden into the forefront and make you a hero in somebody's life.

And we need more heroes that don't need credit.

We need more heroes that say, I don't even need the credit for this.

You can be great.

Ananias doesn't sit back and build a ministry off of what happened through him for Paul.

You hear about that guy, Paul?

That was me.

Oh yeah, no, no, he was a killer and stuff, but not when I saw him.

He was all blind and stuff, couldn't even see.

And I lay my hands on him, that was that was me.

No, no, no.

Pride prevents, humility heals.

And he walked into that moment, he said, it's not even about me.

I just want to facilitate the power of the Holy Spirit in your life for you to do incredible things.

I'm nobody, but I am a facilitator, and there's power in me that he wants to transfer to you.

Out of all the people he chose to use, he just chose to use me.

What I love about this particular individual is that Ananias represents all of us.

We are all Ananias.

We may not all be Peter, we may not all be Paul, we may not all be John the Baptist, we may not all be David, we can't be Ruth, we can't be anybody else that we've talked about, but but we can all be Ananias because we are.

By definition, we are.

Saul's name in Hebrew literally means asked of God.

That's what his name means.

Asked of God.

And Ananias' name is Greek for the Hebrew word Hananias.

It's the same word, Hananias, Ananias.

It's the same word, same name.

Ananias' name in Greek and Hebrew, Hananias, his name literally means God has dealt graciously.

Or Yahweh has dealt graciously with me.

Do you think it's a coincidence that the one that is asked of God is met by the one he's dealt graciously with?

Anytime God wants to woo the heart of someone he's asking for, he always sends someone that he's dealt graciously with.

And when they meet, scales come out of his eyes.

Sight is restored, an appetite comes back, he eats, he is strengthened, and he becomes the hero that we know today.

But behind every hero is a hero that no one ever knows about.

We are heroes.

You are a hero.

It may be to your husband, it may be to your wife, it may be to your children, it may be to your co-workers, it may be to your colleagues, friends, and even your foes.

But on any given day, at any given moment, God may call you to follow his voice and fellowship with your foes and facilitate the type of power that causes them to become your friends.

We are God's hidden heroes.

Would you bow your heads and close your eyes?

What is the Holy Spirit saying to you through this message?

For some as you, for some of you, this message has been incredible confirmation.

For others, it may have been incredible conviction.

But the wonderful thing about either or is that he gives you an opportunity to respond.

And in a moment, we're going to pray.

And if you need prayer for any reason, we will have altar ministry workers down at the front that would love to pray with you.

You may be Ananias, someone that God has dealt graciously with, and you just need a little more boldness, or you may be Saul, disconnected, the one that He is asking for.

No matter which one you are, He gives you an opportunity to respond.

And so at all campuses, in just a moment, no matter where you are, if you're at Frisco, if you're at NRH, we want you to come.

I know you could sit in your seat and you could just pray and reflect, but we want you to take a bold step and follow God's voice and come down, get prayer for whatever you need it for.

Don't let pride get in the way.

Don't let arrogance get in the way.

Don't let fear get in the way.

Just respond.

And I believe that he will meet you at your point of need.

Holy Spirit, I pray that you would call every person under the sound of your voice to respond to your message and be the heroes that you've anointed us to be.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.