Called to Make an Impact for the Kingdom (Impact part 1)

Good morning.

Let's stand together as we start our worship.

Let's pray.

God, thank you for this morning and thank you for your portion of your family that we are gathered here with this morning, and thank you for your son and what he did for us.

And please continue to allow us to use our blessings to bless other people that maybe are less fortunate than we are or that are going through tough times right now with storms or just any kind of tough times they're having in their lives.

Lord, thank you for your son and what he did for us, and, holy Spirit, we just invite you in here this morning to cover us and encourage us and help us make a pleasing noise to the Lord this morning, and it's in your son's name we pray.

Amen.

My soul magnifies the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God, my Savior.

My soul magnifies the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God.

My soul magnifies the Lord.

My spirit rejoices in God, my Savior, my soul, my great Christ, the Lord.

My spirit rejoices in God, my Savior, my spirit, my Savior, my Savior, my Savior, my To God.

My soul Will be To God, the Father and glory Rejoices To God.

My soul, my soul Will be To God, the Spirit, my spirit, my spirit rejoices to God.

My soul and my life are mighty my with the Spirit of God.

My soul will be healed by Jesus Christ.

The world is his.

The world is his.

The world is his God.

Beautiful Lamb of God, guiltless and pure as snow, gentle and merciful, beautiful Lamb of God, sent from the Father's love, sent from the throne above, sent to redeem us with his blood.

Redeem us with His blood.

Beautiful Lamb of God, guiltless and pure as snow, gentle and merciful.

Beautiful Lamb of God.

Like sheep we've gone astray, each turn to his own way, but Jesus will take our sins away.

Take our sins away.

Beautiful Lamb of God, gilded and pure as snow.

Gentle and mercy Pure as snow gentle and merciful, Beautiful Lamb of God.

And can it be that I should gain An interest in my Savior's blood?

Died he for me?

Who caused his would die for me.

Let your Father's throne above, so free and infinite.

Your grace, emptied yourself Of all but love and bled for Adam's Helpless race.

Amazing love, how can it be that you, my God, would die for me?

Amazing love, how can it be that you, my God, would die for me?

Only I come before your throne to claim your mercy, immense and free.

No greater love will there be known For.

Oh, my God, it found out me.

Amazing love, how can it be that you, my God, would die for me?

My God Would die For me?

Amazing Love.

How can it be that you, my God, would die, that you, my God, would die, that you, my God, would die?

for me.

Amazing love, amazing love.

How can it be Amazing love?

how can it be Amazing?

love.

All right.

The scripture reading today comes from Matthew 28.

It's the Great Commission, it says.

Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

All right, good morning.

Good morning, there we go.

Let's begin with a word of prayer.

God, we thank you for this day.

God, we thank you for an opportunity to get together this morning.

God, we're thankful for you bringing us together as a family and God, this morning as we gather together.

God, I pray that you will open up our hearts and our ears and our eyes to the things that you want us to know and the things that you want us to do.

And, god, we're thankful for the way that you love us, the way that you called us and the way that you've given us a mission and a purpose.

God, we're thankful for that.

We thank you for Jesus and his example of how to love and to interact with people, and it's in his name we pray.

Amen, all Amen, all right this morning.

Before we get started, I want to announce something before I forget the Fellowship of Christian Students club that meets there at Cambridge High School.

They've been meeting for about four years now.

I think this is our fourth year, and this year we decided that we really wanted to.

You know, the last four years we've just been teaching them about Jesus.

Here's everything you know about Jesus.

And this year we decided we wanted to challenge them to serve in some way like Jesus would.

And so we partnered with somebody we all know.

We partnered with Woody and we're going to host a Walk for Water in Cambridge.

Now I know many of you are like oh, we already did one of those.

We did, you're right.

Buckeye Trail hosted a Walk for Water back in May and they raised, I think, $27,000.

But we wanted to do something there in Cambridge.

We've never done one there in Cambridge.

So on October 13th that's next Sunday at 2 o'clock at McFarland Stadium we're going to have Walk for Water and we just want to invite you to be a part of it if you would like to.

So it's there at the stadium.

Same kind of thing.

We're going to walk four miles and hopefully raise some money.

I know we're about three grand right now, so we're going to try to get to that 7,500 for that.

So that is next Sunday.

All right, everybody got it All right.

This week we're starting a new series.

We're done with blended and we just changed to another word.

Okay, we're just going to go to another word.

This word for the month is impact and the idea that we are called to make an impact for the kingdom, and so, hopefully, over the next few weeks, we're going to talk about different ways that God has called us to make that impact, and then in a few weeks, on the last Sunday of the month, we're going to do things a little differently in here and show you some of the ways that this church family is making an impact on the world and for the kingdom, and so that'll be in a few weeks, but this morning we're going to talk about the idea of making an impact.

There is a lot of voices and there's a lot of people in the world that make an impact, and so this morning we're going to play a game real quick.

You'll just play there at your seats, and all that that you have to do is, if you think that Taylor Swift said it, you're going to raise your outline up in the air, okay.

So let's everybody practice real quick.

All right, raise your outline.

Okay, that means you're voting that it's Taylor Swift that said it.

Okay, you're leaving it down.

If you think it was CS Lewis, okay, cs Lewis was a Christian author, writes a lot of things.

He's the guy responsible for Narnia, right, cs Lewis?

Yep, so these are two things.

So I'm going to put up a quote here, I'm going to read it to you and you're going to vote.

If you think it's Taylor Swift, you're going to raise your paper up there in the air.

Clover blooms in the field, spring breaks loose.

Taylor Swift or CS Lewis.

So go ahead and vote.

Okay, that is Taylor Swift.

Yeah, it's Taylor Swift.

According to Google last night at 1 am, that's Taylor Swift.

All right, here we go.

Someday you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.

Someday you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.

So raise your paper.

If you think that's Taylor Swift, that is CS Lewis, all right, here we go.

There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.

So raise your hand.

If you think that's Taylor Swift, there are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.

All right, if you're raising your paper, you're wrong.

That's CS Lewis.

All right, here we go.

Old habits die screaming.

Old habits die screaming.

If you think that's Swifty, go ahead and put those up.

You're right, that's Taylor Swift.

Very good, very good.

Things never happen the same way twice.

Raise your hand if you think it's Taylor Swift, raise that outline up.

Okay, you are wrong, it's CS Lewis.

All right, just a couple more, since we're going so quick.

You said it was great Love One for the ages.

But if the story's over, why am I still writing pages?

Yeah, that one's obvious.

That one is obvious.

Man, I did not know Stop 9 had so many Swifties.

Woo, just kidding, we don't.

Chuck said no, that's the worst of girls.

For some reason, cs Lewis wrote that I don't know which that came from.

All right, the pain I feel now is the happiness I've had before.

The pain I feel now is the happiness I had before.

Raise your hand if you think it's Swift.

All right, you're wrong, it's CS Lewis, very good.

And then, have I known you 20 seconds or 20 years?

Have I known you 20 seconds or 20 years?

That is, in fact, taylor Swift.

Alright, there's your fun thing for the morning.

Here we go.

We're going to talk about making an impact for the kingdom, and it only makes sense that we pick up in Matthew 28, the Great Commission, and we talk about the Scripture reading that we had this morning.

It says therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

These are the final words.

I want you to think about this.

These are the final words of the gospel.

You think about the end of Matthew.

It's one of the books of the gospel.

This is one of the final words that Jesus gives his disciples.

It's the conclusion of the Gospel, but if we do our job, it's not the conclusion.

If we do our job, it is not the conclusion of the Gospels.

It kind of makes sense now.

What book follows the Gospels?

The book of Acts, because we've got to go and do.

There are two words, there are two action words that take place in this verse.

What are they?

Go and make?

There's two things that we're supposed to do.

You've heard it before.

You've heard the starter say get ready, get set, go.

And what are the racers supposed to do?

Run.

That's when he says go, you go.

Many of us are Ohio State fans, so we find ourselves watching the TV or being at the game and we say go, bucs, right, go Buckeyes.

Meaning, what do we want the Buckeyes to do when we say that we want them to win.

Yeah, we're hard on them, Don't just get a first down, we want to win.

The idea is, the reason I'll be screaming at my TV at nine o'clock tonight is because I want the Steelers to go right.

I'll be saying here we go right, you want them to go.

You've heard your mother say before go to your room.

What does mom want you to do?

Go to your room now.

Many of us mine was this, and this is when I knew she meant business joshua leroy, go to your room now.

You all know my middle name.

I used to hate it, but I kind of like it now.

I'm just going to embrace it, leroy.

It's unique, it's fun.

But when mom would say Joshua Leroy, go to your room, what was Joshua Leroy supposed to be doing?

Go to your room.

I want you to imagine the reaction to all of these situations if they didn't go, if the starter at the beginning of the race had all eight lanes filled and he said ready, set, go.

Imagine if nobody went.

It'd be the most awkward race of all time.

You'd be sitting there.

If it was the Olympics, they would say get ready, get set, go.

The gun would pop and you'd just watch.

You'd think there was a delay on the TV screen.

You'd be sitting there.

If it was the Olympics, they would say get ready, get set, go.

The gun would pop and you'd just watch.

You'd think there was a delay on the TV screen.

You'd think what's going on.

It would be the most awkward thing.

Or if, when you're yelling at your TV screen on Saturday afternoon, go Buckeyes, and they all just stood there at the line of scrimmage, you'd get pretty angry, wouldn't you?

Many of us, I know us we'd be like what are you doing?

What is Coach Day doing?

He needs fired.

One play, he needs fired.

And then now I want you to think about this when your mother said, go to your room and you just stood there, what's going to be the reaction?

In the 830 service, mark yelled out yardstick.

I know what Kathy Haught would do.

She would start yelling louder, go to your room and then, if I didn't, she'd give me kind of a kick start to get to my room.

We've all said this before probably.

We read the story of Moses, like we did last month, and we say man, if God came to me in a burning bush, I would do whatever God asked Right.

Or we read the story of Jonah and God goes to Jonah and says right there, it's so plain and obvious that he's only speaking to Jonah and he said Jonah, you're going to go to Nineveh.

Many of us like to think that if God said directly to me, go, that we would what we would go.

Well, guess what?

Matthew 28 is written to a group of people, but it's also written to you and I.

We've been told go and make.

We've been told, we've been given that direct call from God to go and to make.

And so go and make.

I fell behind there on your outlines.

Go and make are both action words, and then you have been called.

But the issue is, the problem is is that we often don't think, or we don't believe that we have been called or that we could possibly have been who Jesus was talking about.

We like to rule ourselves out of the conversation.

There's no way that God can use me, or there's no way that that message was intended for me in today's world.

Well, I want you to think about this for just a second.

If we go back to Matthew 28, he's giving this last words to his disciples.

So who is he specifically talking to when he says go and make disciples.

Give me some names Matthew, okay.

Who else?

The ones we like to pick on here?

We go Peter, okay, he's talking to Peter.

What do we know about Peter?

He questions everything and he's always got something to say.

Even if it's the right thing or the wrong thing, he's always got something to say.

And guess who Jesus is saying go and make disciples.

To Peter, the guy that's going to deny him three times, he says you're going to be the one.

Okay.

Who else is he talking to?

We could go throughout the whole list.

Thomas is probably there.

Why do we give Thomas a bad name for Doubting right, even though he doubts?

God says you're going to be the one to go and make disciples.

I'm calling you.

And so, as we dive into this idea over the next month of making an impact for the kingdom, we're going to look at one of the most interesting callings that God had, and it's a very obvious one.

We've talked about it before.

We're going to flip to the book of Acts.

We're going to be in Acts, chapter 9, this morning, looking at a story that we're all familiar with, a story that we all like and a story that we can all relate to.

Acts 9 · chapter mention

We pick up in Acts, chapter 9,.

Acts 9 · chapter mention

It says meanwhile, saul was uttering threats with every breath and was eager to kill the Lord's followers.

So he went to the high priest and he requested letters and addressed them to the synagogues in Damascus, asking for the cooperation in the arrest of any followers of the way he found there.

He wanted to bring them, both men and women, back to Jerusalem in chains.

So we pick up in this story.

We're learning about Saul in this moment, saul is on his way to Damascus.

To do what?

To arrest, to kill and, if we put it all together in one word, to persecute.

Paul, or Saul, at this moment, wants everyone that believes in the name of Jesus to pay, to be punished, to be arrested to.

He wants to destroy them.

But it's in this moment, as we read through this story, it's in this moment, right there, that God calls Saul.

Choose to trust that God wants to use you right now.

That's point number one.

Saul is in the middle of uttering threats with every breath.

He's eager, he's excited.

It's so crazy, it sounds so wild.

He's excited, he's eager to kill believers.

That's where Paul's at.

Paul was in no state to be called, but he was, and you and I have been called as well.

We read in Romans 5, verse 8,.

Romans 5:8

It says but God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still.

You know who wrote that?

Paul.

Saul wrote that Paul discovers.

Saul discovers that this was the plan all along.

In fact, he's going to grow into one of the great examples that God can use us before we get our life together.

Many of us, we say that to ourselves.

Well, god will use me when I get my life right.

When I stop doing this, god can use me.

Or I'll start volunteering when I get these things in my life figured out.

Well, guess what God is calling Saul in that current moment, as he's uttering threats and is eager to kill.

God says I'm going to use you, I'm going to use you.

Leads us to point two Ask who it is that is calling you.

Paul is walking along the road of Damascus to Damascus and he receives a call.

And it's almost comical how this plays out.

I want you to read through this In Acts, chapter 9, as we read through this.

Acts 9 · chapter mention

I didn't put it up there.

But Saul is walking on the road to Damascus.

He's on his way to go arrest and to kill Christians and as he's along the way, he hears a voice and the voice says does anybody know?

Hears a voice, and the voice says does anybody know, saul, saul, why do you persecute me?

He gets the double name there Saul Saul.

Why do you persecute me?

What's his response?

Who are you, comma Lord?

He knew who it was.

That's calling him.

It's kind of like having caller ID.

When Mark Barris calls me, my phone lights up and says Mark Barris, usually I ignore it, put it back in my pocket.

But it would be like this it would be like Mark Barris calling me, my phone lighting up and it says Mark Barris, and I pick up the phone and I say Hello, who is this?

That's what Saul's doing right here.

He understands this is an important moment in the story.

It's really a quite cool moment in the story because the one who had been persecuting the world for believing in Jesus is now recognizing who God is.

Jesus is now recognizing who God is.

Saul, in all of his mess, in this moment right here, recognizes God.

Many of us have been on our walk with God long enough, hopefully, that you've watched someone develop their faith.

Many of you have been around the church long enough that you've seen somebody, kind of you've watched how God kind of just takes control of their life.

And it's a really exciting thing to see when they kind of catch that spirit and they catch that burning and desire for God and you just kind of see God take off with them.

You know what I'm talking about.

When God just takes somebody in your life and just changes them and you just get to kind of sit back in the back row and go, wow, that was cool.

I coached Coach Pitch this year.

It was a lot of fun.

We were two practices in.

I get in the car.

I was coaching by myself, nobody else wanted to coach with me.

I get in the car after two practices and Morgan looks at me and goes you've got to find someone else to coach with you.

This is nuts.

There's too many kids and you're not going to get anything accomplished unless you find somebody to help you.

So I asked a few people, texted a few people.

They didn't respond.

I'm not going to say names.

Finally, we have a parents' meeting before the third practice and I just kind of say I tell the parents like listen, you've been here, you've watched.

You've talked about me in the car on the way home, like what is this guy doing?

I said I need help, I need somebody to help me coach.

And one of the parents.

He said I'll help.

He said, in fact, my father-in-law lives with us, maybe he'll help as well.

We don't know a lot about baseball but we can help.

It's coach, pitch right, how hard is it can be.

All you got to do is throw the ball at the bat really well and they turn out pretty good.

So this guy starts helping me coach.

We'll call him Bob, okay.

Bob starts helping me coach and a couple practices go by and Bob and I just kind of talk surface level.

We just talk about the team and, like man, that was a rough one today.

It's usually how the conversation went.

And then he would message me after practice and be like man.

If so-and-so would just pay attention for five minutes, maybe we would be okay.

And one day I was wearing a shirt I think it was a shirt that just said amen on the back and he said do you go to church?

And I said, yeah, I kind of go to church.

I'm the youth minister at the church that we go to.

And he says, oh okay, he said, cool, we have.

Actually.

We spent the last year traveling around the country.

They're retired, him and his wife are retired from the military and they have two sons.

And they traveled around the country last year in an RV and they just landed in Buysville at the end of the trip, where her father lives.

And so he said we just started going to a church and he told me the church.

I said, oh, that's awesome, that's great.

That's the end of the conversation, that's all we talked about.

At the end of the year.

I would get texts from him after the game saying, like man, if little Timmy would just swing the bat, like.

And I would usually follow it up with like yeah, they're playing really hard, they're trying, they're good kids, like let's give them a trophy for participating, like they're great.

And he would just like man, if they would, just, if that one kid would just stop picking his nose.

And yeah, a couple of weeks ago I'm standing at the football game at Meadowbrook and this guy, bob, walks by me and he stomps and his face is real excited and I said, hey, I haven't talked to him since May.

I said, hey, how's it going?

He said I got to tell you something.

He said my life has been flipped upside down.

He said I had a Holy Spirit moment.

God came into my life and I was baptized two months ago and I just baptized my sons last Sunday and I said, wow, that is really cool.

And he said I just wanted to share that with you.

I was so excited to share that with you.

It's one of those moments where you just sit back and just it wasn't even a front row seat, it was a back seat.

I hadn't talked to this guy in months and he says God changed my life Last Sunday.

I was getting ready to get up here and preach and I got a text from Bob that said hey, I hope Sunday goes great Praying for you.

It's just some guy that I begged to coach with me, but it's just one of those moments where you see God just kind of take control.

That's what's happening here in the story.

That's what's happening here in the story.

Paul has spent all of his life persecuting God, but in this moment, in verse 5, he identifies that Jesus is Lord and he says who are you?

I want to know more.

In fact, he keeps going and he keeps diving and he later on says in Philippians 3, I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead.

You know who the author of Philippians is?

It's Paul, paul.

In that moment, when he gets to this moment, he identifies who's calling him.

He says it's God, and I want to know more and more and more.

I want to know more about that guy.

And so he continues to do that.

Number three is listen to the call.

We keep reading this story in Acts, chapter 9.

Acts 9 · chapter mention

Paul gets his come to Jesus moment with Jesus where Jesus says why do you persecute me?

And then he tells him you're going to go into the city and you're going to be told what to do next.

So the men with Saul stood speechless, for they heard the sound of someone's voice but saw no one.

And Saul picked himself up off of the ground and headed towards Jerusalem.

Or yeah, to Damascus, not Jerusalem.

We're done with Moses.

To Damascus, he's saying now get up and go to the city.

This is what you're called to do.

You're now going to the city, but everybody is speechless.

Everybody is speechless.

Paul.

Saul is speechless.

You ever been in a moment where it just grabs everybody's attention and nobody knows what to do when I was I think it was second grade I was in, I think it was is it math class, where you work with angles?

Is that geometry?

You don't take geometry in second grade, so it was math class.

We were like building triangles with a ruler.

That's what we were doing, so we'd draw our line and then we'd draw another line.

And there was this kid in my class.

He would always fall asleep in math.

He'd always.

He's sitting in the desk right next to me and he'd always fall asleep and usually the teacher would kind of go up behind him and just kind of give him a pat on the back and be like hey, wake up, it's math class, not nap time.

Well, that specific day I don't know if she had spilled her coffee that morning or what, but she was in rare form.

And so in second grade she takes my ruler, she walks up beside me, takes my ruler out of my hand and she walks over to Timmy who's sleeping at his desk.

And she walks over to Timmy who's sleeping at his desk and she smacks that ruler off of his desk, makes this loud noise.

Timmy wakes up.

He doesn't know what's going on.

The whole class is silent and she broke my ruler.

My ruler was I had two rulers.

Now she broke my ruler but I remember sitting there the whole class was quiet, nobody knew what to do.

Timmy didn't even know where he was at.

He was so startled and the class didn't want to say anything because they didn't want to get the ruler treatment next, the next day she came in with a rubber ruler.

I got one of those rulers that bent that you could roll up.

I think it was really just so she could keep smacking it on the desk, but she did.

She bought me a new ruler.

This is one of those moments for Saul and his buddies that are with him.

Nobody really is.

They're just left speechless.

There's nothing that they could really do.

But they listen to the call and in this moment you remember it's not we didn't read it, but you remember, after his interaction with Jesus, paul is left what Blind.

He's not able to see, and I think God does this for a reason.

I think he wants him to understand that following him, answering the call is not going to be easy.

You're going to need some help.

Paul needed assistance from his guys that were traveling with him to get to be easy.

You're going to need some help.

Paul needed assistance from his guys that were traveling with him to get to Damascus.

He needed the direction of God to get him to Damascus.

He was blind for three days.

I'm sure there was plenty of time for reflection and self-evaluation, but it becomes pretty clear.

The thing that Paul discovered was that he needed Jesus.

Ananias is going to go, and we'll get to that in just a second.

He's going to go and restore Paul's sight or Saul's sight.

Do you know what?

The first thing Saul does after he receives his sight, what?

He goes and gets baptized.

He declares loyalty to King Jesus.

He declares that he was living one way and now he wants to repent and live a different way.

He's declaring his loyalty to Jesus.

Paul understands, saul understands that it's no longer about him but it's about him.

Saul understands that it's no longer about him but it's about him, and he chooses a public display of baptism to say it's all about him.

Paul had spent years publicly choosing not Jesus, anything but Jesus.

He was choosing pain, hurt, destruction and death.

But in this moment, when he listens to the call, it changes everything.

It changes everything.

He hears the call to follow Jesus and he says I want that Now the truth is this morning that we've received the same call.

We've received the same call.

We have the same opportunity that Paul received to follow Jesus and to give our life to him and to pledge loyalty to the king.

And that's what Saul Paul ends up doing and then last here as we kind of wrap up.

Love God, love people.

You've heard this before L1, l2, it's a Winterfest thing that we learned years and years ago.

But we have to love God and we have to love people.

Here's what happens at the end of this story.

God goes to a disciple by the name of Ananias.

In verse 12, it says I have shown him.

This is God speaking to Ananias.

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

But the Lord, but Lord, exclaimed Ananias.

I've heard many people talk about the terrible things that this man has done to the believers in Jerusalem and, if he is authorized by the leading priest, to arrest everyone who calls upon his name.

But the Lord said go for Saul as my chosen instrument, to take my message to the Gentiles and to the kings, as well as the people of Israel, and I will show him how much he must suffer for my namesake.

So Ananias went and he found, and he laid his hands on him and he said brother Saul, poor Ananias.

Ananias gets called upon when nobody else wants to be called upon.

Ananias gets the call that says you're going to be the guy that goes and talks to the crazy guy Saul.

He gets partnered up with the kid that nobody wants to be with.

He gets partnered up with the kid that ultimately the teacher decides we're going to get in groups of three Because nobody wants to go with that one kid.

That's what happens here.

God calls Ananias to the one guy nobody wants to go see, but Ananias, as a follower of Jesus, gets asked to go see Saul.

See Saul, you got it.

There's many reasons why Saul wouldn't have wanted to go, or there's many reasons why Saul wouldn't have wanted to go, or there's many reasons Ananias wouldn't have wanted to go see Saul.

I think number one if we could simplify it down to two things, number one was fear.

He's literally scared for his life.

He had seen his brothers and sisters in Christ be murdered, be arrested, be beaten by this man for simply just believing in the name of Jesus.

And so I know Ananias is thinking I don't want to go because I don't want to put myself in that trouble.

There's also probably this moment where Ananias thinks you sure you got the right guy?

Like, are you sure the Saul guy that's who you want me to go see?

I'm sure there's a moment for Ananias where he's thinking this guy doesn't deserve it.

I think it's those two reasons fear and they don't deserve it is the reasons our churches aren't bursting full of people.

We've been given the same call that Ananias has been given, but we allow fear and we allow the idea of I don't know if God would really want them.

God tells Ananias that Saul is my chosen instrument.

Ananias, this is the part we have to think about, because we always jump forward, because we know this story.

We know that Saul is going to go on to become Paul and that he's going to be this great disciple and he's going to write most of the Bible for us in the New Testament.

But what I want you to understand is, in this moment, ananias had no idea what God was going to do through Saul.

It would have been terrifying, it would have been scary.

Saul had no idea how God was going to change his life.

So, instead of worrying about what might happen, let's just trust God and see what he does with it.

That's what Ananias does.

Ananias is a good disciple.

Here's what happens.

He walks in and with his voice and with his touch, he shows Saul the love of God.

As he walks into the room, it lays his hands on his brother and he says brother Saul, ananias had a love for Saul that Saul didn't even know that he could have, but he was called by God.

Ananias was called by God to go show the love of Christ to Saul and he answered the call.

Will we answer the call?

That's the question we have to leave here this morning.

Will we answer the call?

Let's pray, god.

We thank you for this day.

God, we thank you for this morning.

God, we're thankful for the opportunity that you give us.

God, there's so many ways that you invite us into your story and God, there's so many opportunities that you invite us into your story and God, there's so many opportunities that you present us each and every day to show the love of Christ to the world.

God, I pray this morning that we know and we understand that you want to use us right now, that you have an opportunity for us to share your message with the world right now that we don't have to get right, we don't have to get perfect, that we just trust you, that you can use us.

God, I pray that we'll listen to that call and that we'll believe in that call.

God, I pray for anybody in this room that is thinking about giving their life to you.

God.

I pray that you give them the courage to say yes, to pledge loyalty to you as the king this morning.

And, god, I pray that we can be like Ananias in a world where it's so easy to just to show hate and to show negativity to God.

I pray that we can go into the world and show love, understanding that there are people out in the world that you want to use, just like you wanted to use Saul, and you're just waiting for us, the so-called disciples of the church, to go out and do it.

God, I pray that you give us the courage and the faith of Ananias to go and to do that, to reach out to somebody this week and say, brother, and show them the love of Christ.

Thank you for Jesus, thank you for his example.

It's in his name we pray.

Amen, brother.

He could have said a lot of things to Saul.

He could have said you evil guy, you evil man, you despicable man.

He could have said so many things.

But he walks in the room and he says brother, this is my guy.

Brother, this morning, if you need the prayers of the church family in any way, we would love to pray with you and for you.

Or this morning, if you'd like to give your life to Christ and be baptized and have your sins washed away, and listen to that call that God has been giving you we can do that as well as we stand and we sing.

I must tell Jesus all of my trials.

I cannot bear these burdens alone In my distress.

He kindly will help me.

He ever loves and cares for His own.

I must tell Jesus.

I must tell Jesus.

I cannot bear my burdens alone.

I must tell Jesus.

I must tell Jesus, jesus can help me, jesus alone.

Oh how the world to evil allures me.

Oh how my heart is tempted to sin.

I must tell Jesus and he will help me over the world the victory to win.

I must tell Jesus.

I must tell Jesus, I cannot bear my burdens alone.

I must tell Jesus.

I must tell Jesus, jesus can help me, jesus alone.

I love you Lord.

Oh your mercy never fails me.

All my days, I've been held in your hands.

From the moment that I wake up Until I lay my head, I will sing of the goodness of God.

All my life you have been faithful.

All my life you have been so, so good.

With every breath that I am able, I will sing of the goodness of God.

I love your voice, you have led me through the fire in darkest night.

You are close like no other.

I've known you as a father.

I've known you as a friend.

I have lived in the goodness of God All my life.

You have been faithful.

All my life you have been so, so good.

With every breath that I am able, I will sing of the goodness of God.

Your goodness is running after.

It's running after me.

Your goodness is running after.

It's running after me.

With my life laid down, I surrender.

Now.

I give you everything.

Your goodness is running after.

It's running after me, your goodness is running after.

It's running after me.

Your goodness is running after.

It's running after me.

With my life laid down, I surrender now.

I give you everything your goodness is running after.

It's running after me.

All my life you have been faithful.

All my life you have been so, so good.

With every breath that I am able, I will sing of the goodness of God.

I will sing of the goodness of.

God Amen.

God bless you everybody.

Have a great week.