I HAVE to Pray for Them || Pastor Adam Mesa

If you're ready to dig into the Word. Today, we're in a series

called Pain and Gain, talking about how a little bit of pain in our

life, a little bit of pain in our faith, ultimately works out to

a massive amount of gain when it comes to our relationship with God and when

it comes to what God wants to do in our life. The past couple

weeks, Pastor Diego has been sharing with us what pain and gain, especially

last week how he talked about sometimes the pain of even God getting in the

mix with chastisement will work to our begain. Sometimes God does want to do

a little bit of discipline as our heavenly Father to get us to a place

that grows our faith in our relationship with God. And today we're going to

see also how God will challenge us in specific ways where we may see pain

in our life, but God has a greater work that He's doing in our

life inside of that pain. And so if you have your Bibles, would

you turn to Philippians chapter one, verse eighteen to twenty six. We're gonna

just read this passage because then we're going to spend the rest of the message

today in Acts chapter nine. But this opening in Philippians is so important because

we're going to learn a little bit about the time that the apostle Paul gave

his life to Christ. And we're gonna see that through his faith in Christ

and through his conversion, we see that he had put others in pain.

But more than that, when he would follow Jesus there would be pain that

would always circumvent him. But in the reality, he would see God's message

and kingdom expand through his life through that. And so we're gonna see how

Paul teaches us what it means to see God as the gain in our life.

So if you're writing in Philippius chapter one, would you guys join me

for standing for the honor of reading God's word today as we want to give

God our full attention this morning. Here's what it says. Yet, and

I will rejoice for I know that through your prayers and the help of the

spirit of Jesus Christ, this will turn out for my deliverance, as it

is my eager expectation and hope that I will not at all be ashamed,

but that with full courage now and always, Christ will be honored in my

body, whether by life or by death. For me to live is Christ

and to die is gain. Why don't you say out loud is gain?

There we go. If I am to live in the flesh, that means

fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose, I cannot tell.

I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be

with Christ, for that is far better. But to remain in the flesh

is more necessary. On your account. Convinced to this, I know that

I will remain and continue with you all for your progress and joy in the

faith, so that in me you may have ample cause to glory Christ Jesus

because of my coming to you again, Amen, you may be seated.

Thank you so much. You know today we're gonna learn. This is such

a powerful passage that many people have quoted over the years, and many people

will staple and hold this into their life. That statement from the apostle Paul,

to live is Christ and to die is gain. What he's saying in

that moment, and that expression is to say say that for every day that

God gives me another breath, it will be a moment where I can live

in the way that Jesus has called me to live. I can live to

the fullest potential, the fullest purpose, and the fullish commission that God has

placed in my life. And he says, but ultimately, if one day

I would pass, it would be such a gain because then I get to

be in the presence of Jesus, who I have spent years following. And

so many people hold that as a passionate verse and conviction to say, I

should live my life as following Jesus, But should I lose my life,

what a beautiful gain it is to be in God's presence. Well, now

we know that to be a reality, But many times we forget when we

read these passages who it is that's actually writing this. This is the Apostle

Paul. This is the individual that in our Bibles it's consisted of two testaments,

the Old Testament and the New Testament, the Old Testament being everything before

Christ, the New Testament being everything after Christ. Well, in your Bible,

in the Testament, two thirds of the New Testament is written by this

man, the Apostle Paul, not one of the twelve disciples that followed Jesus

in his earthly ministry. It was actually the greatest murderer of their day who

killed more Christians than anyone else in his day, because Paul was once a

man named Saul, and Paul being a man named Saul, he used to

hate the message of Jesus. He hated Christians. He hated the idea that

Jesus would come and corrupt the Jewish faith with his teachings and his message and

his death and his resurrection. He felt that that took the attention away from

God in every way, and so Saul hated Christians. He was a murderer.

But how do you get to a point that he becomes the writer of

two thirds of the New Testament? How do you go from basically, how

many of you guys have ever seen the modern John Wick movies? You ever

seen those movies? Before the Apostle Paul was John Wick before John Winn was

John Wick. John Wick would have been scared to meet the Apostle Paul when

he was Saul. Saul was a bad dude. He beheaded people, he

hung people, He killed people, all for them, following Jesus. The

reason why he could legally do this is because when Jesus was put on the

cross by Rome, essentially Jesus was there as a religious figure, not just

an individual who had sinned, so Jesus as a religious figure. The rule

was if Rome condemned a religion and put it to death, that means that

anyone can have approval from the judicial system. And if a religion was illegal,

you could kill anyone who followed that religion. And so all Saul needed

was local authority approval to kill Christians, and under Rome's protection, he was

good to go kill whoever he wanted. And so how do you go from

a person that was one of the greatest murderers of Christians to now a person's

ride in the Book of Philippians, to live is to follow Christ, but

to die is gained because then I get to be in the presence of Christ.

What kind of redemption story in salvation story does that look like? How

can we relate to that today in the sense of where our sin and our

past once was and the beautiful work that God can do in our life and

trusting the process that God is placing in our life because He's working it out

for your good, as the Bible says. So let's look at the life

for a moment when Saul first met Jesus, and if you like taking notes

in either marking up your Bible or putting notes in your phone. I think

you'll enjoy today because we're gonna interact with the Bible a little bit today and

learn some things. So I want you to see. If you want to

open your Bible, you get turn to Acts chapter nine. We're a first

read verses one to nine and observe what happens when Saul meets Jesus. Eventually,

Saul's name would be changed to Paul. The name Paul means little man.

The name Saul means to be desired, and so Saul is gonna go

from wanting to be desired to then God's gonna say, I'm gonna change your

name to little man to remind yourself of how humble you have to be in

this walk and following me, You're gonna go from being desired by your religion

as the number one killer and inquisitor of Judaism for Christianity to the little man.

That's what I'm gonna do in your life. So how does that happen?

It says this, but Saul still breathing threats. Once you see that,

you can mark that in your Bible if you like taking out, you

can circle that still breathing threats. If you were to read this in the

original languages, in Greek, breathing threats isn't a total accurate term. We

just don't really have a word for it. It says, but Saul's still

breathing in threats. In other words, it's the idea that every time Saul

took a breath, he hated Christians even more. So, it's the idea

that, but if anyone has ever made you upset, as the day goes

on, you get madder and madder and matter every time you breathe, You're

just like, I just can't believe that person. I can't believe that interaction.

And so it just continues to deepen in your heart, deepen in your

desire. And so this idea is Saul is not getting better towards his affinity

with Christians. His every single minute and every single day that passes, his

hate for Christians is growing deeper and deeper and deeper. And so we see

but Saul still breathing his threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord.

Went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the Synagogue of Damascus.

So he's in Tarsus, which his hometown, he gets the local religious

rulers to write him an approval letter for the synagogues in Damascus so that he

can rage rampant war against the Christians in that city. And so it says

so that if he may found any belonging to the Way. That's important.

You'll notice that it says if he found any belonging to those who follow Jesus.

It doesn't say that, it says belonging to the Way. Well,

Christians back then, because to call yourself a Christian or a Jesus follower was

a pretty dangerous endeavor. So you didn't just bradingly say I follow Jesus.

Instead, you would ask someone if they followed the way, and if the

person did follow the way, and that comes from Jesus's statement, I Am

the Way, the Truth, and the Life. And so they call themselves

followers of the Way. And so if they ask someone do you follow the

way, and someone responded, yes, I do follow the way, or

yes I know the way, then they can have a conversation in safety about

the glory of who God is and what God has done in their life.

If they say, I don't know what way are you talking about? They

may say, well, the way to the restroom or the way to the

nearest corner market. That's all I meant. And it was a way of

safety for them, as Jesus would encourage the disciples to be as wise as

serpents and soft as doves. It's part of their wisdom. Not that they

were scared to be Christians. It was just like being a Christian immediate death.

So they did want to live without persecution and spread the Gospel, and

so they called themselves the Way. But the reason why that matters is because

Saul knows their tricks. He asked for a letter to go after people who

call themselves the Way. In other words, Saul saying, I know your

little, sly little tactics on how you're sharing about Jesus and inviting people to

your house to talk about Jesus. And Saul's like, that's not working for

me. I figured you guys out. I know how to find you guys.

I know how to seek you guys out. And then it says he

asked for people belonging to the Way. Then it says he's asking for approval

men or women. That's important because in their day, even in any religion,

of their day, men were the only ones who taught it. Men

were the only ones who preached it, Men were the only ones who shared

it publicly, and so men most commonly would be the ones guilty for spreading

anything. But because Jesus brought women equal to the discipleship process, and because

Jesus desired women to preach the gospel and share the gospel, Paul is looking

for approval to even be able to kill women because they're spreading the gospel just

as fast as the men as well. So he's like, let me,

I want them both taken out. It's a big statement because that's the first

time in their day anything like that would happen where women would hold that type

of guilt for what they said. Many of us know, if you were

here for Easter or women weren't even allowed to testify in court. But now

they're being held guilty for following Jesus. It's a big statement to what Jesus

was doing in their culture that people were not a fan of when he was

bringing women to the discipleship level. It says that he might bring them bound

to Jerusalem. He wants to bring him to Jerusalem because he wants to interrogate

him. He wants to hold him accountable, and ultimately in Jerusalem is where

he could kill them best, because that's where everything starts. And it says

now, as he went on his way, he approached Damascus. He's on

a road and suddenly alight from heaven shone around him, and falling to the

ground, he heard a voice saying to him, Saul, Saul, why

are you persecuting me? And he said, who are you Lord? And

he said, I am Jesus whom you're persecuting. But rise and enter the

city and you will be told what you are to do. The men who

were traveling with him stood speechless, hearing the voice but seeing no one.

So the men that Saul is with can hear Jesus's voice, but they can't

see him. That's an important point because only Jesus can open someone's eyes.

So he's opened Paul's eyes, but he did not open the guys that were

with him. He only allowed them to hear him, not see him.

And so Saul can see him and hear him, the men with him can

only hear him. And so that means someone has to choose to then believe

and their sight be open. And so we see that Saul rose from the

ground, and although his eyes were open, he saw nothing. So now

because of Jesus's glory, because of Jesus's presence, he physically becomes blind,

but his spirit is awake and alert and open. And so that shows us

in the expression that spiritually your eyes can be open. But that doesn't mean

that naturally. There's full deliverance in that moment. And so now as he

is open and can see Jesus, his natural sight is gone, and it

says neither. Now, it says, so they led him by hand and

brought him into Damascus, and for three days. It's important because someone else

spent three days somewhere as well. So now he's beginning to start to kind

of experience what Jesus experienced. It says for three days he was without sight,

completely blind for three days, and he neither ate nor drank. So

now Saul completely goes into fast for three days, and he is just fully

relying on Jesus at this moment. More than likely he is fully reflecting on

the years that he has spent killing hundreds and hundreds of Christians. You can

only probably imagine in that moment the remorse, the brokenness, the effect of

I can't believe I've been following and killing all of these people who truly have

been following Jesus. And now I'm become a follower of Jesus. And so

now he sits in a home for three days without sight, with no food

and no water. We're going to continue to read in just a few moments.

But the first thing that we can see is we can see anyone and

everyone who desires a relationship with God must have a moment of encounter with Jesus.

Every person. Every person needs their moment of encounter with Jesus. And

your moment can happen in a church service like this, but your moment could

also happen in a dorm room. It can happen in a breakroom at your

job, It can happen in your kitchen counter. But everyone needs a moment

where they see God clearly and they fully are ready. It says that Saul

fell on his knees and he calls. He immediately recognizes now Jesus as Lord.

He says, Lord, who are you? And then Jesus says,

I'm him, I'm the one you've been persecuting. And the reason why we

don't know the rest of the conversation because more than likely for Saul, that

was now all he needed because he knew all of Christianity's tricks, he knew

all of their statements, he knew what they had been preaching. So the

moment Jesus now tells him, I'm the guy that you've been persecuting, follow

me, that's now all Saul needed. He was ready to follow Jesus.

But everyone needs a Damascus Road experience, and God does it differently. Sometimes

we're looking for a cookie cutter approach. Did this happen? Did that happen?

How many times did you this happened? Here? We're looking for cookie

cutter approaches when it comes to someone who meets Jesus. But people meet God

will do whatever he can to get your attention, and it could look like

a church service, but it can also look like but it does come to

a point where you have to acknowledge Jesus for who he is. It's essential,

it's essential to the process that Saul needed a takee. I know of

an instant recently. I was talking to a young man in our church who's

married and he has children, and he shared with me around a couple weeks

before Easter, or maybe he was on Good Friday. He came and he

shared with me, and he said, for over ten years, I've been

a passionate atheist, like totally not believing in God, not believing in anything

about God. I knew all the science and I looked into all the stuff,

and I totally rejected God. My dad's a Christian, he goes to

church, but I've just I've never believed it. I never thought God was

true. I definitely didn't think church was true. But he said, over

the past couple of years, my wife has gotten saved and she started going

to church, just as a husband who wants to support her. I said,

yeah, I'll go, and he goes, but every time i'd be

in service. I don't believe this stuff. I don't think God's real.

You know, Jesus was just a man. He's feeling those things the whole

time. But every once in a while, he said, he would pray.

For over ten years, he would just ask God, a simple prayer,

God, if you are real, just show me, tell me open

my eyes anything. And he said God never did anything. He said it

wasn't until a couple months ago. He's at a conference that he's attending,

and the preacher was not preaching anything. Fancy was not talking about anything specific,

but he said, in that moment, God completely opened his eyes to

who Jesus is. He said, he fell on his knees and he began

weeping and crying because now he felt that he can full He knows God is

real, he know the work of Jesus is real. And he said,

God just completely opened his eyes, completely opened his heart, and he immediately

wept in that moment. And so as we were talking, he said,

but I have to be honest. Moments after my weeping stopped, and I

kind of was angry for a second, and I said, God, for

over a decade, I've been asking for this moment. What took you so

long? And he said, as he was angry for a moment, God

then gave him peace and assured him and said, because I will send you

to people who were like you. And it's your story that you knew all

the facts and you did all the research, but it's your story of an

encounter with me, a divine moment with me that opened your heart and opened

your life. That there will be people that grew up in church. There

will be people who are always connected to church, but you'll meet people who

have never known God, who have never been in a church, who've touted

themselves as atheists. And it's your story, your story that I will use

to bring me glory in that moment. And so he said, I wasn't

angry anymore because I know God gave me peace that this moment of deliverance and

the story I have of the past will connect with someone else and it'll be

a testimony that was Saul's life. God wanted to turn Saul's life into a

testimony of God's goodness and his mercy in the same way. I had a

friend when I was in college. My friend in college, his father was

Egyptian and he grew up in Egypt. If you don't know much about Egypt,

the way it works in Egypt is you can be a Christian only if

you're born into a Christian family. So Christians can't evangelize Christians, you can't

convert, so you can't be a Muslim, and then you can't convert to

Christianity because it's a predominantly Muslim country. Basically, what it is is if

you're born into a Christian household. That's okay, even so much that when

you're two or three years old, they tattoo across on your hand, so

it signifies that you were raised in a Christian home. So now you could

be a Christian in public, but you cannot share your faith and you cannot

convert. Well. In the seventies, my friend, his father was in

a village that was predominantly Muslim, but there were some Christians in that village.

But mind you, he had never heard the Gospel because his Christian neighbors

weren't allowed to share the gospel. If they were, the entire community would

turn them in right away and kill them. And if you converted from Islam

to Christianity, you would be put to death all the same. So,

for all intents and purposes, his father would never hear the message of Jesus

other than what's written in the Koran, and the Koran merely just says Jesus

is a prophet, Jesus is a messenger of God, but Jesus is not

God, and they definitely don't believe the death and resurrection of Jesus. And

so the Qoran is limited in the information about Jesus and so he would never

hear the true message of Jesus. So one night he's sleeping and his dad

would say that he had a dream, and in this dream, Jesus appeared

to him. And when Jesus appeared to him, Jesus began to give him

the gospel and saying, I'm the one that you've been searching for. I

did die on the cross, I did I did raise three days later.

I am king of kings and I am Lord of lords. Follow me today.

And his father said, yes, it's all a dream, just a

dream. His father in the dream said, yes, I will follow you.

He said. At that time, Jesus pulled out two things. He

pulled out bread, and he pulled out wine. Jesus taught him communion because

he had never heard communion before. And so Jesus begins to share with him.

He says, this wine represents my blood that was shed. This bread

represents my body that was beaten for you. And so he gives his dad

in the dream a drink of the wine. And then the last thing is

he asks is Jesus tells his dad, open your mouth as I give you

the bread. His dad Jesus puts the bread in his mouth. His dad

wakes up from his dream and has a hot piece of pita bread in his

mouth. At that moment, his father wakes up, wakes his wife up,

wakes his children up, shares the gospel with him, shares about the

great, great news that Jesus just saved him. Jesus just met him in

a dream. And guess what. His wife immediately goes down to the local

mosque and tell them that her husband converted to Christianity. Well, the mosque,

everyone gets their knives and picks and they go to kill him. Just

so happened that the Christian family nearby in the village here is that he gave

his life to Christ. And before the local villagers could come and put him

to death, they go outside and they smuggle him in the night. In

the night, they put him in a truck and they take him to a

local place. They get him, they hide him at a local church underground.

They get him a visa, and they send him to the United States.

When he gets to the United States, he writes back to his wife

and he says, I would love for you and my kids to join me

here in the United States, and I would love for you to receive Jesus.

His wife writes him back and says, if you ever step foot in

Egypt again, I will personally kill you myself. My friend's father went into

the history books, and you could look him up. One day. I'll

give you his name. You can look into the history books. His father

went into the history books as one of the greatest Christian Egyptian evangelists that converted

more Muslims in Egypt than almost anyone else's history. Because of his passion for

Jesus. His father was known as the Muslim of vangelists because he lived it

so ferociously. And some years later, when he was in the United States

at a Christian church, he met my friend's mother and they got married here

in the United States, and they had two children, and God began to

redeem something in his life. There was some pain in there, but God

gave him a lot of game, and since then he's gone home to be

with the Lord. But when he had a funeral, it was packed out

with people that had given their life to Christ, who had heard his testimony

where Jesus met him in a dream. So whether Jesus meets you in a

dream or he meets you in a church conference wherever it is, God will

do whatever he can to get your attention. Question is will we submit ourselves

to allow our eyes to be open, to say, God, continue this

work in my life. You see, we continue to see what happens if

we keep reading. Here's three points I'm gonna give you today. What happens

now is we left off Saul is blind. He can't see. So God

is relying on a local church leader to pray for his deliverance and his healing.

But here's the problem. He cannot be entrusted to any church leader because

Saul has ravaged the Christian church. And so there are a lot of Christians

who would love to get their hands on a blind Saul. They will love

to give him what he deserves. They would love to give an eye for

an eye. And so God has to find a man named Anonius who he

entrusts to pray for his healing. But Anonius knows who Saul is. He

knows who he is. So look at this if you're taking notes. Here's

the first one. Saul needs to regain sight. This is a miracle that

needs to take place, and God gives Anonius a signal. So there are

times in our faith where God is desiring to kill us deliver us, you

need sight. But there's also times in your maturity and as you grow in

Christ, God is looking to signal you to practice and live out your faith,

to live it out, to not be in the background or not be

in the sidelines. Look at what it says. It says this speaking of

Anonis, and the Lord said to him, this is to anon Ice,

rise and go to the street called straight. There's the signal, Anonius,

You're gonna go to a straight street, not a crooked street, not a

dirty street, not a jacked up street. In other words, he's saying

the person I sent you to they're on a straight road. It's not your

place, Antonius, to decide whether this road is straight or not. There's

a signal. There's a road called straight. Saul is on that street.

That's it. That's all I need you to know. I don't need you

to investigate further. Sometimes we think we're God's inquisitors. Well God, let

me let me pull up their Instagram, let me pull up their Facebook page.

Guys, No, the signal is the road's called straight. Okay,

start with that. And then he says, and at the house of Judas.

Look for a man of Tarsus named Saul, for behold, he will

be praying. He's praying, and he has seen in a vision a man

named Annonais come and lay his hands on him so that he may regain sight.

You see, there's always a moment in our faith where God may give

you a signal to pray for someone, or believe for someone, or teach

someone that otherwise you want nothing to do with. In just a moment,

Anonis is gonna be like hold on time out gone. I know the guy

you're talking about. It's almost like any guy but that guy. I'll pray

for anybody but that person. And there will come times in our life where

there will be that one or two people that you're saying, God, I

will love everyone, but because I know their history, I know their story.

You have no idea how hard this is. You have no idea how

much there comes a wreck with these people. And God may say there's a

signal roads call straight. Yeah, someone's got to pray for them, someone's

got to love them. I don't know if you've been there before, but

I can think of as I was thinking about I was thinking, I was

thinking when I was praying this message, I was thinking, Lord, I

don't I don't think I have anyone like that. I think that I think

that if anyone asked me for prayer, i'd and I needed to believe God

for someone. I think everyone in this church, I'd have no problem.

I'd have no problem praying for. I'd have no problem loving anyone in this

church. I'd have no problem loving and praying for. And then I felt

like God was like, Oh, there's one person I could think of that

you'd have a tough time praying for that person. And I'm I'm thinking,

I'm like, who would that be? And then I and then it came

to me and I was like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah,

there is one person that it'd be. It'd be I'd probably recommend him the

water of life for Hillside if they if they ever came around here, I

think, let me tell you about this guy. If I ever saw him,

I think I'm good now, But about a year ago, I don't

know that I would be. There was one time me and my family were

coming home from a vacation and we were at lax How many of you guys

know at Lax Alone is a place where God tests you and your character and

at your love for others. I mean, there's something about lax. All

airports are kind of a mess, but just lax is just they can't seem

to get it right over there. It's always construction, always something going on.

And so one day me and my family come home from a trip.

We have my boys. I'm pushing my boys in a stroller. We're coming

out of the terminal and we have one of our friends picking us up.

And so one of our friends from the church is picking us up, and

it happens to be we're at the last part where you can park before you

have to get on the road, either to the freeway or El Segundo Boulevard,

anything like that, And so our friend is waiting to get in,

and there's a family in a car, in an suv and it's a it's

a son and a daughter who's in their forties and they're there to pick up

their parents, and so they have their children in the back seat. And

so this individual as he's loading all of their luggage, he's basically treating it

like tetris. So how many of you guys know there are rules to terminals

when you drop off and you pick up. You got like ninety seconds or

less to figure it out. Get in and get out, open the trunk,

throw the bag in, get in the car, and let's go.

We're now at this point for ten minutes, and the guy's still unpacking and

repacking because he wants to get it perfect for whatever reason. So we're ten

minutes waiting and minds you, we cannot get in until these they either move

up five feet or they leave. This is our only option. It's just

packed that day. And then about the two minute mark, my wife,

who's about twenty feet ahead of me, I'm right by this guy's car.

He doesn't know me and my wife are together. She's about twenty feet up.

She's trying to hold spots every time a car leaves to try to fit

in our friend getting in, and so at about the twelve minute mark,

she goes, excuse me, sir, could you move up five feet so

that we can get our car in. He turns around, he goes,

yeah, just hold on, I'm almost done, like an attitude, and

I said, okay, well, well let it pass. None of us

like being here. We're cool, we're all short. That's all right.

Okay, So then now we're there about twenty minutes. He's still there.

At this point, everyone's in the car. The son's in the car,

the father who was going to be in the passenger seat. The grandfather is

now got his arms in the back seat window, just talking to the grandchildren.

They had like their iPads and toys, and he's just like messing with

them and they're just like talking. And so now we're there twenty minutes car

waiting. My sons are kind of getting a little antsy. Now at this

point they're in they're in the stroller. The guy has no idea where together.

I'm about an arm's length away from his father in this guy's car.

So Ashley just one more time. She says, excuse me, sir,

because everything's closed back the trunks closed, the doors are closed. The grandfather's

got his arms in the window. She says, excuse me, sir,

can you please give us five feet? The guy with all of his windows

down the sundown. He turns around and outside of the window, he says,

will you shut the bleep up? You stupid bleep? Well, how

many of you ladies know my wife? She just goes like this to me,

like you're gonna let this guy talk to me like that, and I

literally go, oh, no, he didn't, because there's no good way

out of this thing, now, you know. And so I look at

the guy and I said, buddy, that's my wife you're talking to right

now. And he goes, I don't care, and I said, that's

a real dangerous thing to say when your father isn't even in the car yet.

And now his father's like, oh no, oh no, this guy's

gonna kill me. I'm like, because I thought it was a really dumb

moe, like, you're in your car. Your dad's not. Like,

it's not a smart thing to put in your risk your father. That guy

don't know me. You don't know if I'm crazy or not. Some days

I am and some days I am. I'm not. So I didn't even

know what version he was gonna get in that moment, and so I said,

hey, yeah, it's a dumb thing to do with your father.

So now his dad's shaking the car handle and he's like, son, open

the car. Oh my god, this guy's gonna kill me. He open

the car, and so he's shaking the door handle. The son unlocks it,

and the dad gets in the car, and so now I'm saying,

hey, man, we won't have a problem. Just apologize to my wife.

Just get out of the car and say sorry. He's like, I'm

not doing nothing, and I was just like, man, you don't.

You don't even look in timid. Let's not be the day. Let's just

calm down. Like just so, now the guy has just doubled down.

So the dad is really upset at how his son is acting. So the

dad's like, son, just drive away. So, now cause you know,

I speak for a living, so I'm pretty good with my words.

So so now I don't ever use cuss words. I'll just use plain English

to get my point across. And so I said, hey, why don't

you just listen to your daddy? Okay? Oh man, that got this

guy triggered. I'm a grown man. I don't have to listen to my

dad. Blah blah blah. The Dad's like, put it in drive,

let's go. And I said, your daddy's smart. Listen to your daddy

right now. Oh, this dude is just he's now through the roof angry.

He is. So I don't have to listen to my dad on my

own, man, I said, it don't seem like it. It don't

seem like it. Do what your dad says. This dude is like,

the dad puts the car and drive himself, reaches over and the dad goes

drive. The guy's starting to pull away, and he's like, I'm my

own man. I'm like, don't seem like it. While your daddy put

your own car and drive. This dude is living screen like Vein's coming out.

He's red. I'm as calm as a cucumber because I thought, man,

wait, we just argue a screen match. That's not impressive. I

want to live in this guy's head for the next week. That's what I

want to do. So in the moment, he does that, and he

drives away, And so I thought to myself. And then when I was

praying this God was like, what if that guy came to the church the

next day asked you to pray for him. I said, well, Lord,

I probably would. Uh, we'd probably need a conversation first to take

place. I'd have to if he came to me and said, hey,

buddy, I just got I just moved to California and I just got in

from Lax last night and asked my friends about a local church. And you

know we just knew to town. Would you just pray for us? I'd

say, huh, you flew in from Lax yesterday. You drive Dodge.

Have you ever cussed that women before? Yeah, I'm gonna give you the

address to a great church up the street and love to pray. I don't

know. I honestly, it would challenge me in that moment. I don't

know that I would be so loved. I don't know. If that guy

was like, oh, I'm sick right now, would you pray for me?

I'd be like, I know other people that would be great to pray

for you, But I don't know that I would do that. Now you

may say, oh, pastor out, you're just not a disciple of Jesus.

No, I'm a disciple of Jesus. But I have a memory as

well. And following Jesus is not just as easy as it seems. And

there are times God will ask you to do something painful or to step out

painfully. God will give you a signal and the obedience. Now, honestly,

as I reflect, if I met the guy again, I'd not think

anything of it. But man, when it was fresh, oh, we

would have had to have a conversation first. But the odds command for Antonius

is you don't get to talk it out, Anonyus, when you go see

Saul, you praying for healing. No, no conversation. So look what

Anonius does when he tells him about a man named Saul from Tarsus. He

says this, with a few moments I have, we're gonna start to close.

Here's the point. We see that Saul has sight or a past,

and Anonius has a pretense. That's a reality. Saul does have a past.

We all know it, we've all heard it now. And Anonius is

going to have a pretense. He has a working knowledge of what Saul has

done. More than likely he has a working assumption of what will happen when

he encounters Saul. Now, if he found out Saul was blind, then

he'd have the advantage. He could kill Saul and get even and Saul would

never be able to see him otherwise. But he does have a pretense.

And here's what it says. It says, but Anonius answered and said,

Lord, I've heard many things about this man. I know about this guy

and how much evil he has done to your saints at Jerusalem, and here

he has the authority from the Chief Priest to bind all who call on your

name. But the Lord said to him, go, for he's a chosen

instrument of Mine to carry my name before the gentiles and kings and the children

of Israel. For I will show him how much he must suffer for the

sake of my name. It's not that God is trying to be vindictive towards

Saul. It's the fact that God has some pain that he's going to take

Saul to to continually remind him what it means to submit to God and the

work of Jesus. It's not that Saul is living out his sins. Sometimes

people say, I think God is just punishing for my past. No,

no, no, no no. There is a process of humility that God

is going to have to take every single person through, and one process of

humility may be different for another process of humility. For a guy who killed

hundreds of Christians before he met Jesus, God was going to take him through

the largest process of humility that at that time any Tosay Disile had gone through.

Paul had been in prison multiple times, Paul had been beaten multiple times.

Paul had people that were a pain in his flesh. Paul had churches

that were a pain in his flesh. Paul had had shipwrecks. Paul had

been multiple times been threatened to death, even to the point of death.

God was continually showing Saul, this is what my church is going through every

single day. He continually saw that Saul's heart was softened because for a man

who heavily relied on his intellect, heavily relied on his ability as a religious

leader. God was gonna say, none of that is gonna win people to

Jesus. Your testimony and the story that God's doing in your life is gonna

what win people to Jesus. The fact that you were one of the greatest

murderers to the greatest follower, that's gonna say something to some people. And

so for so many of us, we all have this path that we must

find and follow Jesus all and so, just like Paul, he's on this

path, he's on this road to Damascus, and he meets Jesus at the

top of it. So so many of us, that's kind of our story.

We all have our own different experience where we've met Jesus, but all

too often either through other people or ourselves. What we'll do is we'll allow

individuals, or even we'll do it to ourselves. Is we'll take a microscope

and we'll say, oh, this is the path I met Jesus. And

then what we'll do is we'll kind of find a microscope, and in this

microscope, we'll start to just let people poke in prod our life, and

we'll let people search our life, and we'll let people kind of try to

seek in our life. And as they look and they search and they find,

and they're looking at you, and they're looking how you walk, and

they're looking how you talk, and they're looking how you speak, and this

was a lot. Oh that's that murderer. That's right. Oh yeah,

that was Paul's path. That guy was a murderer. Oh that person person

from all those clubs, or used to be with all those men, or

used to be with all those girls, or the prayer of the person talking.

What we do is we allow people to put this microscope on our life

and search us and find us. And then you let those things begin to

define you again, and you let that thing be able to sit on you

again. But what we don't realize if we just continue to move over just

a little bit. Moving over, we can see that God has given us

forgiveness. God begins to try to show something much deeper in our life.

Where others are trying to just define you by what's in your past, or

maybe you're defining yourself by what's in your past. It's that God in your

Damascus Road experience, he's trying to say something greater for your life. And

in your life. You can begin to see that you're called, and you're

chosen, and you're anointed, and your purpose and you're equipped, and you

may say, pastor out of how can you read all that? It's a

little blurry, because that's usually what happens when you're on the path with Jesus.

You don't see it clearly at the beginning. At this time, Saul's

just at home, he's just praying, he's just hoping for God. He

can't see and so he doesn't know his full future. But God knows.

That's what he told Annonius. He's gonna suffer for me, but what he's

gonna do for me is gonna be great. But so many times we allow

ourselves not to be but defined by this, We allow ourselves to sit here,

we let others remind us of what's there, and we live in that

moment rather than trusting God to say, you know what, when you pull

out, you just see Jesus in the path that haze me on. It's

only when I let myself microscopically get in my life, when I'm alone in

my room by myself, or when I'm in the car sitting by myself,

or I engage with that one person who is part of my past, that

they try to remind me what's in the past. But what we have to

do is we gotta lean deeper into what God is doing in your life.

And though you may not see it clearly now, with a little bit of

pain, God will give a lot of Will we sit long enough with God

as he works on us, and God as he sends you to other people

to redeem and to share your story and your testimony of God's richness and his

mercy, will we allow that to be seen. Yesterday, when I shared

this message, we had one of our members in the chair, and when

we were done, she came up to me and she said, Yeah,

that soul in my life was my stepfather. Growing up, my mom married

this guy and we hated him. He was an alcoholic. He would cuss,

he would everything you could think of. He was at me and my

siblings. We absolutely hated. My mom hated him. We all hated my

stepfather. And there was one day he was in the hospital and God told

me, you're gonna go and pray for him, and you're gonna you're gonna

share the Gospel with him, and I want to save him. And she

said, God, not me. I hate that man. Can't stand him

man. And God said, no, that's that's what I want you to

do. If you don't do it, no one else will. She said.

When he was in the hospital, she went with him and she shared

the gospel and she said, would you like to receive Jesus? And he

said, I'm scared, And she said that's not the question. I'm asking.

Would you receive Jesus? And he said, yes, I'd like to

receive Jesus. He gave his life to the Christ at that moment. But

come to find out sometime after that, when he'd give his life to Christ,

he would pass away one day and he would have a funeral and it

would be a funeral of celebration of knowing where he was at. But in

that same moment, after they had begin to heal, and after she had

begun to understand his past and his hurt, come to find out he was

illiterate. Growing up. He never learned how to read, and so he

was embarrassed of the fact that he never learned how to read. And so

he would come home out of his frustration of not trump being able to do

well, not being able to succeed in life because of his illiteracy, he

would drown it with alcohol, and he would put other people down because he

was reflecting the very way that he felt every single day. She didn't know

that until he gave his life to Christ. She didn't know that story until

he fully understood God's plan for his life and he began to heal what it

was what was broken inside of him. A lot of us we have our

sin, and we have our past, and many of times it's because of

our failures, our shortcomings, our addictions. But we are not meant to

be defined by that. That's why God intrusts the work of the Holy Spirit

to give us sight and to heal us and to deliver us and to give

us freedom. Because it's God's richness of his grace that he wants to do

in your life. It's not Saul's life. Saul may have a very unique

story, but he also wrote two thirds of the New Testament. So God

may not jump on your car at the middle of the night when you're on

your way home, but he will speak to you in a small whisper when

you're by yourself. He will speak to you when you're alone in your car.

All close with this, here's the last point. We see that in

this moment that Saul has a call and Anonius has a command. And today

there are people who are hearing the message of Jesus, and God's trying to

call you to himself. But also you may be more mature in your faith,

and God is wanting to send you like Anonius. He is looking for

us to be those that will not judge people conditionally, but unconditionally love people.

That we will understand that if God is doing a work in their life,

we will pray for them. We will allow the Holy Spirit to work

in their life. And here's what it says. As we close. So

Anonius departed and entered the house, and laying his hands on him, said

brother Saul. He immediately welcomes him into the family. Anonia says, brother,

Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road by

which you came, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and

be filled with the Holy Spirit. And immediately something like scales fell from his

eyes and he regained his sight. Then he rose and was baptized, and

taking food, he was strengthened. You see, after that he made a

public declaration to be baptized. Because God's story for Saul was You're not gonna

live this thing gonna you are the killer of Christians. So you are the

one who's gonna show everyone that you follow me where everyone else is using slying

sayings about following the way. No, not you, Paul. You gotta

go be publicly water baptized, and now you gotta be boldly preaching the gospel.

It's a call that God had on Saul's life, and it's a call

that many of us have. Not just preaching a sermon, but there's a

call that many of us have where God wants to speak through you to share

your story of God's redemption. And you may say people will laugh at me,

people won't believe me. Well, Paul. If you read the full

epistles, many of Paul's books and letters he wrote was just trying to convince

people that he actually did convert to follow Jesus. Many people didn't believe him.

They thought it was a trick to get it close so then he could

kill him. You're just trying to convince people left, right, trust me.

I met Jesus. I met him on a road. I followed him

for three years. He taught me everything. I am an apostle. Trust

me, and people be like, yeah, right. But that didn't stop

Paul. He's kept going. He just kept going, which then he gets

to the point of Philippians where he says to live is Christ and to die

is Gain. That's the work of God. Now you can go from a

place of brokenness, sinner, angry, vengeful to man. I just love

living for Jesus. I just love walking with Jesus. Every day that I

have breath, I get to live for Jesus. And if one day God

calls me in up to heaven, what a game? What a game that

I get to have Jesus face to face. That's how Paul saw it and

that's how we can see it today. I love. As we close right

now, if you've never given your life to Jesus Christ, that let today

be the opportunity that you fully rest your hope on Jesus. We talked about

it this service, and so I don't feel like I have to say much

other than I encourage you today. The Bible says, choose this day whom

you will serve. You will either serve the world and serve your earthly passions,

or you will passionately serve Jesus, the one who saved us and the

one who who redeemed us, the one who died on the cross for our

sins, not himself, for us, to redeem us fully. And he

rose three days later to show us that he has full victory over sin and

death. The Bible says, and Jesus said himself, if that you would

acknowledge him before men on earth, then I will acknowledge you before my father

in heaven. It's one of the best blessings that could ever be fulfilled,

that on this earth you can say yes to the work of Jesus in following

Jesus, and in heaven Jesus say, oh, I know who that is.

They acknowledge me on earth I will acknowledge you before the Father. But

Jesus says, if you deny me on earth, then I will deny you

before my Father. People say, why do God let so many people go

to hell? God doesn't let anyone go to hell. They choose to go

to hell. They choose because when you hear the gospel, there's a day

of choice that you have to make to either receive Jesus and choose him over

your flesh, over your sin, or to say no, Jesus, I

like what you did. I like your stories. I like the niceness that

you were. But other than that, I'm gonna live my life how I

want to live it. Well, then in heaven you can't say, hey,

Jesus, what about me. He can say you lived your life on

earth. You know I got to you gotta pay up for how you lived

on earth. Or we could say Jesus, I have rejected my sin.

Doesn't mean I lived a perfect life. It means I lived a life that

every single day I pursued God with all of my heart, and when I

failed, I feled forward, not backwards, to know and trust that God

is at work in my life. So if you're in this place today in

the courtyard cafe are in this room. If you're never giving your life to

Jesus Christ, would you all do me a favor? Could we all bow

our heads, close our eyes. There's gonna be some people that are gonna

be receiving Jesus for the very first time, or they're gonna be rededicating their

life today. But however you do today, all we're doing is affirming through

this prayer the work that Jesus has already done. The prayer is it the

thing that saves you? The Holy Spirit's already at work in your life.

All we're doing is acknowledging what God has already been doing right now in this

moment. So, family, would you join me in repeating this prayer today?

And then when I'm done with this, I'm gonna count. And if

you said that prayer for the first time or rededicate your life, I'm just

gonna encourage you to boldly lift up your hand so that we can celebrate with

you and welcome you to the Family of God. So would you repeat after

me, Dear Lord Jesus, in this moment, I confess you as Lord

and Savior. I believe in my heart that you rose from the grave,

and today I commit to follow you for the rest of my days in Jesus'

name. Amen.