Stop Resisting the Rescue

Let's open our Bibles.

Let's open to Acts chapter 9 this morning.

Acts 9 · chapter mention

Acts chapter 9, if you have your copy of God's word.

Acts 9 · chapter mention

As you're turning there, it was kind of a traumatic week in my house this week.

My uh young daughter Phoebe stepped on a piece of glass in the kitchen.

We thought we had it all picked up.

Apparently we missed a little microscopic speck of glass.

She got it stuck in her foot.

And I knew this is bad because she's gonna fight me tooth and nail to get that piece of glass out.

And sure enough, she resisted.

Let me just share with you how she resisted.

First of all, she ran away from me.

She ran away from her dad.

It had to come out.

At one point, Ashley had her in her lap holding her down, and I had the tweezers, and I was going to work on it quick.

And for about five minutes, my house was pure chaos.

It was absolute chaos.

Phoebe was crying and screaming.

Lydia thought we were torturing her sister.

And was like, what are you doing to her?

Why are you doing this?

She just didn't understand.

And then the dog, the dog was just going crazy.

Like we were attacking the one person he was supposed to protect.

And so the dog is barking, the kids are all crying, one daughter thinks I'm torturing the other daughter.

No one understands.

It is pure, if you can imagine it, chaos.

And now, why do I share that story?

I can't imagine a better picture of what ministry is like sometimes.

Sometimes, whenever you tried to help people, sometimes whenever you tried to give the solution to people, there's resistance.

Now, this is very much part of life.

In fact, in rescue missions, and we've learned this.

When I was in Southern California, we would go out to the beach and we would see guys sometimes from time to time out there drowning or out there flailing about.

And whenever a rescuer goes into the water, sometimes they have to be told this.

You've got to be very careful when you go try and give the rescue.

Because the rescuer will fight, or the rescue will fight the rescuer.

And they will actually, because of just sort of a fighting response or a survival instinct, they'll actually push you under the water.

They could actually drown you if you're not careful.

In wilderness rescues, they'll often tell you, don't expect lost people to help you at all.

In fact, they're not going to build a fire, they're not going to go to a ridge.

In fact, if you're dealing with a child that's lost in the wilderness, what they've discovered is most often kids will hide from you.

They've been told their whole life, stranger, danger.

That's why they walk in pairs, they walk in sort of a grid and they scan the entire area because the kid could be 10 feet away and you miss them.

And that's why they walk side by side in a grid.

The lost often fight the rescue.

Well, we're in a rescue mission.

You and I are in the midst of a rescue mission, and it's only natural that there will be those who try to resist the rescue.

That's unfortunate, but that's part of what we're up against.

And I think you and I at times tend to be shocked by the resistance.

We live in a society that is hungry for affirmation.

And when they're given truth, it often triggers an attack.

It often triggers an escape response.

They run away.

They don't want to hear the truth.

And what can happen over time is that we can become cynical.

We can actually believe.

Well, they're never going to be saved.

There's no hope for that person who's lost.

They're an impossible case.

We lose hope.

We lose our joy.

It's a prodigal son.

It's a coworker that will never respond.

Maybe this coworker is just ridiculing your faith, and we give up hope for that person.

They'll just never, there's no hope for them.

They'll never respond.

There may even be some in this room.

Oh, you've been running from the Lord.

And you may even be thinking that for yourself.

I'm too far lost.

There's no hope for me.

I've just been too bad.

I've crossed that line.

I'm unforgivable.

The things I've done, the places I've been, God can't save me.

Some of you are coming to this room with a hopelessness.

Well, today I want to start a new series in Acts chapter 9 and Acts chapter 10.

Acts 9 · chapter mention Acts 10 · chapter mention

We're going to be looking at a series I've entitled Search and Rescue.

Search and Rescue.

It's a series of rescue stories, and we're starting with the biggest one of all.

We're starting with Saul.

If there was ever an impossible person, if there was ever someone resisting God's rescue, it was Saul.

Saul who would be renamed or he would be called Paul eventually.

But Saul was an impossible case.

In fact, we remember him all the way back in Acts chapter 7.

Acts 7 · chapter mention

In Acts chapter 7, he was there.

Acts 7 · chapter mention

He was a part of Stephen's martyrdom.

In fact, it says this line in Acts chapter 7 that they laid their coats, these people who killed Stephen, they laid their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul.

Acts 7 · chapter mention

Now we we mentioned this in a previous sermon, that the act of laying down their garments, that's almost this act of submission or this act of recognition of authority.

It might even be that Saul is the one in charge, that he's the lead attacker.

In fact, we see earlier in the book of Acts that whenever the church came and gave its offerings, right, they gave to a one fund.

They laid their offerings down at the feet of the apostles.

They recognized the authority of the apostles.

And that's very similar, I believe, what's happening in this text.

They're recognizing his authority, his leadership.

He might have been one of the main antagonists in this whole situation.

And they're looking at him and saying, this is an impossible guy to be saved.

That's what the disciples would say.

In Acts 26, verse 10, it says that he was actually there and he's recounting that event, and he's saying, look, when all that was going on, people were getting locked up in prison.

Acts 26:10

I was receiving authority from the chief priests when they were being put to death.

He says, I cast my vote against them.

They're looking at Paul and they're saying, This is an impossible conversion.

And maybe you know an impossible conversion.

Maybe you feel I am an impossible conversion.

The point of the passage that I want to show you today is that God is sovereign over salvation.

God's arm is a long arm and it can save anyone.

God can save anybody he wants to save, whenever he wants to save them.

He can reach the unreachable person, and maybe that's you, maybe you're feeling that.

God is able to save anybody, and today we're seeing a pathway to salvation.

Would you take your Bible?

Let's stand in honor of God's holy word.

We're in Acts chapter 9.

Acts 9 · chapter mention

If you're a guest with us this morning, we want to welcome you.

It's our habit to just work through books of the Bible.

We preach passage by passage.

Today we find ourselves in Acts chapter 9, starting in verse 1.

Acts 9 · chapter mention

It says this.

But Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.

Now, as he went on his way, he approached Damascus and suddenly, everybody say suddenly.

Come on, nice and loud.

Say suddenly.

This was a shock.

This was an ambush.

This was something unexpected.

Suddenly, a light 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, who you are 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.

Saul rose from the ground, and although his eyes were open, he saw nothing.

So they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus.

And for three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank.

What's the point of this passage?

The big idea is that God can save anybody, even the ones resisting his rescue.

He is the most amazing lifeguard.

He is the most amazing rescuer.

This passage is all about the boundless grace of God.

It is all about the power of God that can save to the uttermost.

It is about the expansive reach of God.

It is a God-glorifying passage.

And what we're seeing is there's three ways to experience this rescue that God offers.

Let's just put them up on the screen so you know where we're going.

You need to stop attacking God's rescue.

That's what Paul was doing in the beginning.

God was sending his rescue mission through Jesus Christ, the death, the burial, the resurrection of Jesus.

And Saul was attacking that.

You've got to get to the point where you stop attacking the gospel, stop attacking God's rescue mission.

Number two, we need to start answering God's ambush.

God ambushes Saul with this light on the road to Damascus.

And here's the idea.

God may not show up with a light in your life, but there will be seasons and there will be moments where God is speaking to you.

And maybe it's a sermon, maybe it's a word, a verse, a text.

God shows up, but so often we don't answer.

We don't respond.

We've got to learn how to respond to the Lord, to respond to his rescue.

When God pricks your conscience, when God touches your heart, we've got to be a responsive people.

And lastly, we need to start appreciating God's humbling.

God humbles this guy who thinks he's got it all figured out.

And then he has to be led like a child.

He's blind, sitting in darkness.

And yet, even that waiting time is not wasted time.

And so today we've got to lean into these three lessons so that we can experience God's impossible rescue.

And so may God bless his word.

And may God bless all of you as the word goes out.

You may be seated.

Let's make a start with this first point.

First of all, we need to stop attacking God's rescue.

Let's look at Saul's life before Christ, BC.

His life before Christ was a life of resisting.

He's like the guy in the water flailing about, resisting the rescue, and he attacks with religious sincerity.

I mean, I that's the first thing I would have you write down.

He has religious sincerity.

He thinks he's right.

Man, I watched this video the other day.

It was hilarious.

This this gal was out washing her car and she was using uh dish soap, dish scouring soap, and the guy was like, What are you doing?

And they hosed it down and all the paint was gone from the car.

And she was sincere.

She was trying to help.

She was trying to wash the car.

She was sincerely wrong because it was the wrong kind of soap, and it took the paint, the clear coat, right off the car.

That's Saul.

He is religiously, sincerely working, and yet he's sincerely wrong.

Look at verse 1, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord.

This is an interesting phrase.

In fact, you might underline this in your Bible.

Um, the participle here, breathing threats.

This is not breathing out threats like a fire breathing dragon.

Actually, the word is he's breathing in threats.

It's really interesting.

What does that mean?

Well, it's it's like the threats and the murder that is in his heart.

It's like that's the oxygen that he lives for on.

He lives to persecute Christians.

He lives for the attack.

This is fueling his life.

It's so much a part of his life.

And many people get life from false religion.

They believe that they're right with God because of their works, because of their deeds.

It's like they're breathing it in and they're getting satisfaction from it.

And that's a lot of people.

Not only does he attack with religious sincerity, write this one down.

He attacks with religious cover.

Religious cover.

He went to the high priests and he asked him for letters.

He loves the religious authority.

Religious people love the outward stuff, the stained glass, the these, the thou's, the Christian lingo.

And this is so many people.

They assume that they are good with God because the priests said so, because they have a relationship with the priest, because they come to church, because they give.

They have these religious coverings, and that the problem with Paul is that he's ignoring his heart before God.

Paul is ignoring his heart and the ugliness of his heart, the murder that is within his heart.

Write this one down.

He attacks with religious sincerity.

He attacks with religious covering.

He also attacks with religious works.

Look at verses two and three.

We see the early name for Christians.

Christianity is not the earliest name for who we are.

In fact, it was one of the earliest names was the way.

And that's what we see in this passage.

It probably comes from John 14, 6.

You can write that down.

I'm the way, the truth, the life, Jesus said.

No one comes to the Father except through me.

It's the way.

That's Christianity.

The word Christian was actually a pejorative term, it was an attacking term.

But the way is what the early church in the book of Acts was known as.

It's mentioned multiple times.

He would attack.

And notice there's in the English, there's a bit of an irony here.

Notice he's on his way.

It says that he's attacking, he's finding anyone belonging to the way, and he went on his way.

There's kind of an irony here.

He's just living his life, attacking the church.

He's bringing them bound to Jerusalem.

And Saul of Tarsus, he's using this as a means of being made right with God.

He's living on his religious works.

The problem is that the Bible is so clear.

And if you're here today, trusting in your goodness before God, trusting in your deeds to make you good enough to enter into heaven, I want to say this to you in love.

The Bible is so clear that no person will be made right before God by their works.

In fact, write down to Galatians 2.16.

It says that by works of the law no one will be justified.

Galatians 2.16.

It says that by works of the law, no man will be justified.

And that is Saul.

Saul is resisting God, and he's using works as his means to God.

How do you help somebody like that?

I have found in evangelism, this is the hardest part of every evangelistic encounter.

It's almost like you have to help people get lost before they can realize that they're lost before they can be saved.

And I have found there's at least two questions that are incredibly helpful to help people understand their standing before God.

The first one, these are just ray comfort questions, evangelism questions.

Do you consider yourself to be a good person?

Do you?

And then just answer why.

And they may say all sorts of things.

It's because I take the trash out for my neighbor.

It's because I don't cheat on my wife.

It's because I go to church.

And then I ask the follow-up question: do you think you're good enough to go into heaven?

Do you think God would accept you into heaven?

Those two questions really bring out the works religion inside of a person.

And the truth is, I always try to tell people you can do all sorts of good works.

You can donate to the Salvation Army.

You can dig wells in Africa.

You can drink those demonic paper straws.

Save the sea turtles.

I don't recommend it.

They fall apart after about 10 minutes.

But until you submit to God's way, that's so many people.

They're going on their way, but they're not submitting to God's way.

God does not want our works of salvation, our good deeds of salvation.

God wants us to come through the works that his son has done.

God wants us to come through the works that he desires in Christ, who lived a perfect life.

Do you understand that Jesus, his death on the cross wasn't the only part of salvation?

His whole life, from age zero till 30, whenever he was born all the way to age 30, he was living a perfect life.

He never sinned.

And then he died for our sins.

He accrued righteousness that we could not accrue for ourselves.

And then he died the death, the punishment that we deserved.

And that is the gospel.

And we have to help people understand that.

Saul does not understand that yet.

He's fighting God's way of salvation.

And so many people are just like Saul.

They're very sincere.

And yet, the reality is they're living a sincerely lost path that can never save them.

Maybe you know a soul.

Maybe you've written them off.

You've given up hope for them.

I would encourage you.

God can save anyone.

Keep praying.

In fact, maybe at the end of the service, I would love to just invite you up.

And we as a church, I think what this passage shows is that if someone must be saved, God must do it.

God must break into their world.

And that's why we pray.

We pray asking God to do the work that we cannot do.

And so we need to do this as a church.

We need to be more dependent on God's work of salvation, that God would show up in someone's life to remove the blinders.

The light would come and they would fully understand what it means to be a Christian.

So I want to just do this at the end of the service.

Do you know someone?

Think of that name right now.

What's that name of that person who's impossible that you've written off?

Like Saul.

I want you to just do this in the service.

I want to just come forward and I want to pray for them in the service that God would reach them.

God can reach anybody.

And that's what this passage is showing us.

Point number two.

If God can save Saul, he can save anyone.

Point number two, we need to start answering God's ambush.

There are moments where God shows up and we've got to give answer to his ambush.

1985.

Came out of Washington, D.C.

Letters went out to all of these people all over Washington, D.C., and the letter went something like this: Congratulations.

You have won free Washington Redskin tickets for this Sunday's game.

Congratulations.

Thousand people got that letter.

Now, here's the twist.

All of those people actually had warrants out for their arrest.

And it was actually the government sending those out asking them to show up at this hotel and claim their prize.

And so a hundred and one out of a thousand, a hundred and one actually showed up.

They all came into the hotel.

They were so excited.

They're wearing their Redskins gear.

I can imagine them with the finger in the air, pointing it in the air, right?

We're number one, right?

And I can imagine those guys showing up.

They sat down to a breakfast, and the MC comes up and says, guys, now it's time for your prize.

And in comes all the police officers, and all 101 get arrested that day and go to jail.

A little twisted, isn't it?

But what's the point?

They had refused the constant calls to repent, to answer for their crimes.

They had refused the constant calls to turn themselves in, and instead they resisted.

And so the government ratcheted up the pressure and said, I'm going to put you in a place you can't resist.

And God does that.

That's what God does often in our lives.

Sometimes it's an event that you don't see coming in your life.

God, why are you doing this to me?

And a lot of times it's because we've been unresponsive.

And a lot of times.

He's trying to get our attention.

How does God ambush us?

Well, first of all, write this word down.

Sometimes it's shocking.

Look at verse 3.

Suddenly, a light from heaven shone.

This was a shock.

This is like my kids.

I will sometimes come downstairs and get a drink of water.

And I don't know if it's like this in your family, but there's a twisted delight in my family of scaring each other.

Is that this way in your family?

I'll come downstairs and my kids will jump out from behind the corner and, ah! And then they'll ask that question, did I scare you?

And I will always say, No.

Even if they did, the answer is no.

And I'll never let them know that they actually scared me.

Number two, they're gonna feel really bad when I have a heart attack one day.

What's the point?

God is disrupting Saul's life here.

Sometimes with a surprise in your life you didn't expect.

Change in your job, an event with your family.

Maybe it's a line in a sermon.

Maybe it's a convicting point.

Maybe it's a hospital room you never expected to be in.

Maybe it's a marriage that's struggling.

What you need to do is don't be like me when my kids try to scare me or surprise me.

Don't be unresponsive.

Don't pretend it didn't happen.

God wants you to respond to that moment.

Don't call it a rough season.

Don't ignore it.

Lean into it.

Notice the personal ambush in verse 4.

Look at those beautiful words.

Saul, Saul.

Now, this is this is what's called Hebrew repetition.

It's for emphasis.

And the point of emphasis is this heartfelt appeal.

In fact, we see it throughout the New Testament.

We see it throughout the Bible, really.

Jesus will say from the cross, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

He'll say, Martha, Martha.

You are worried about many things.

He'll say, Simon, Simon, Satan wants to sift you, wants to shake up your life.

It's this heartfelt appeal.

In Luke 13, he'll stand over Jerusalem and he'll say, Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how I would have longed to gather you to myself like a mother hen gathers her chicks.

It's this heartfelt appeal.

God comes to us personally in those moments.

It's those hard moments of life where you sense the personal approach of God.

1 Corinthians 15, actually, we see the rest of this story.

Paul recounts what this moment was like, and he says, look, Jesus appeared to Cephas, he appeared to the brothers, the hundred, 500 of them, to James, to the apostles.

Last of all, one untimely board, he appeared to me.

There's this personal appearance where Jesus approaches us and he does that for you and me.

Maybe not with a light from heaven.

Maybe not in person.

But there are those moments where Jesus comes to us and he convicts us of a sin.

He convicts us of a new pattern of life we need to walk in.

He convicts us in a sermon that we need to be praying more, that we need to be serving more.

He convicts us, he gets our attention.

Here's the question: when you're ambushed by the Lord, when he pricks your conscience, how do you respond?

Do you look up or do you look away?

For Saul in verse 5, he says in response, Who are you, Lord?

This is funny to me.

It doesn't even know he's talking to.

Calls him Lord.

People, commentators go back and forth whether this is Lord in the sense of authority or just sir, I don't know who you are.

I tend to think that the light made him unsure of who this is, but he knew this was someone in authority.

In verse 5, I'm Jesus, who you are persecuting.

His entire theology changed in that moment.

He now will become responsive in that moment.

He will be convicted.

This is a shocking ambush.

This is a personal ambush.

This is a, write this one down.

It is a convicting ambush.

Look at verse 4.

All the conviction that comes.

Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?

This is really a powerful point, friends.

Whenever Jesus comes to convict Saul, one of the things he's convicting him of is this attack on the church.

You're persecuting me.

And there's this link between Christ and his church.

An attack on the church is an attack on Christ Himself.

Jesus in Ephesians 5 tells us that the church is his bride.

That there's a mystery to this.

We'll talk about that at the family and marriage conference that's coming up.

The deep theology that is Christ and his church.

In ministry, I sometimes get attacked, other pastors get attacked.

That's ministry, that's a way of life, but I'll tell you, nothing gets me hotter than when my wife gets attacked.

It's my wife.

Jesus feels it when his bride is attacked.

It's a powerful thing.

It's a major correction for us.

And I just want to maybe just do some public counseling here for just a minute.

Our tribe is often so attacking with other Christians.

We often attack a church that doesn't do things the same way that we do them.

We will often attack a preference.

In fact, this week I was I was floored when I just saw this happening.

It started last night, actually.

All this week, there was a pastor in Texas, and he got up on stage and he stood between two ladders and gave this illustration.

You can't oscillate between uh two different lives.

You've got to choose one.

And I thought it was a good illustration.

I didn't care.

But then I started seeing all these attacks against him.

Started seeing all these people saying, oh, that's sensational preaching.

Oh, that's that's this, that, and the other.

That's just entertainment.

And I'm just like, who cares?

Honestly, who cares?

So we brought a ladder up on the stage.

Who cares?

In fact, in the Old Testament, I seem to remember God giving a ladder illustration to heaven.

And it's like, why are we attacking each other?

Why is it that we as Christians are attacking fellow Christians?

Put this next slide up.

When we were in Germany and Switzerland, we stood by the river in Zurich.

This was a very moving moment.

Those of you who are on that tour, Felix Manns was an Anabaptist.

And all the Zwinglian Christians, they took him into this river and they said, Oh, you're an Anabaptist?

You want water?

We'll give you some water, and we're gonna drown you.

Christians killing Christians.

Whoa.

I stood there, and I kid you not, the thought that overwhelmed me in that moment was this.

How that must grieve the heart of God.

When we are this tribe that is constantly attacking one another.

We have to connect the two that an attack on the church is actually an attack on Jesus Himself.

He is personally grieved by that.

And on the other side of that, we've got to learn to love the church.

Love your church.

Love your church.

Be convicted that no church will be perfect.

Every church will be messy.

Every church I've ever been in has had problems.

There will be the rise of people who reject church.

There's even in our time that term church hurt.

And I really believe that that rejection grieves the heart of God.

Why?

Because he died for his church.

Because he loves his church, his church is his bride.

He is committed to his church.

Like imagine this.

Imagine, it's a silly illustration.

Imagine if one of you comes to me and says, Matt, let's hang out.

Man, I'd love to get to know you.

I'd love to spend some time together.

But would you mind leaving your wife at home?

If one of you says that to me, I'm like, bro, we got problems.

We have problems.

That's my wife.

And yet that's how people talk about the church.

Jesus' church.

The church that he died for, the church that he loves.

Now the church will have problems.

The church will have blemishes.

The church will have to work through those problems.

But you and I are called to love the church in every stage of its growth.

It's full of messed up people.

We're all in progress.

But God is making his church beautiful.

And you and I need to come away saying, I love my church.

I will always love my church because Jesus loves the church.

Second, Paul is also convicted of unbelief.

This is the major point of his conviction.

Look at verse 5.

I am Jesus.

Shocker.

I thought you were dead.

Now you're standing in front of me, whom you're persecuting.

And this is the greatest sin that needs to be repented of.

Some of you are here today and you've not believed in Jesus.

You need to stop rejecting him and answer his voice.

Don't be unresponsive.

This was Saul's biggest sin for so long.

He was unresponsive to Jesus.

Jesus who lived and did ministry in Jerusalem.

Jesus who the apostles preached.

Jesus who Peter preached his sermon.

Stephen, who died preaching Jesus.

And for so long Saul was unresponsive.

And now Saul is convicted.

I have rejected the one that God sent.

A third conviction.

Stubbornness.

Write it down.

Saul, you have been stubborn.

Acts 26, verse 14.

Acts 26:14

We get a window into the rest of the story.

He tells his testimony.

And he says, in Acts 26, verse 14, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?

Acts 26:14

It is hard for you to kick against the goads.

What is that?

Apparently the Lord said that at this event.

What is a goad?

This is a farming terminology.

Whenever oxen would plow a field, sometimes they didn't want to pull.

And so there was what's called a goad stick.

It was this pointed stick sharpened to a very fine point, and you would give it a little poke to get it going.

And the ox got the point, right?

Literally.

Poke it.

And sometimes, if that oxen was irritated, it would kick back against that goat and it would stab itself in the leg.

It would injure itself, it would start bleeding.

And what God is saying, what Jesus is saying to Saul is you are being stubborn.

Now, this is really an interesting line.

Because in this image we realize that throughout this narrative, something was happening in Saul's heart and mind.

His conscience was being pricked and goaded.

I have to believe that at the martyrdom of Stephen, maybe he felt something, conviction.

Maybe he felt conviction, getting those warrants of rest to go arrest all those Christians.

But he wasn't responding.

I don't want to preach to you as a dying man.

To dying women and men.

Are you responding to God's conviction?

As he pricks your conscience, I need to be more committed to the church.

I need to serve more.

I need to give more.

I need to evangelize more.

I need to get on the mission that God has called me to be on as he's poking your conscience.

I need to.

For some of you, I need to finally give my life and repent and believe the gospel.

And yet for Saul, Saul was stubborn.

And he's now being convicted of that.

Saul answers the ambush.

Who are you, Lord?

And then in Acts 22, what shall I do, Lord?

Those are the two questions you have to answer today.

You might even just write them down.

Who are you, Lord?

And what shall I do, Lord?

Be responsive.

Stop fighting the ambush.

Last week I preached in New York, Manhattan.

That's probably why I'm sick this morning.

Anytime you fly, you always pick up something.

I met a young man.

He told me his story.

I said, How did you get to this church, Providence Church in New York?

How did you get here?

And he said, I was walking through Central Park.

Someone approached me and shared the gospel.

And in that moment, I knew one thing to be true.

I knew that God was calling me and that I had to repent of my sin and trust in Jesus.

And he said, I don't even know who it was.

I've never found the person who shared the gospel with me.

I didn't get their phone number.

All I have is this New Testament little Bible that they gave me.

How'd you find this church?

It was one of the only churches around, and so I just went to it.

But I'll never know who those people are who shared the gospel with me.

I have no idea.

I wish I could call them.

I just knew the Lord was calling me to respond.

That's the heart that God gave Saul, and that's the heart that we need to have: a responsive heart.

Don't be stubborn.

Don't kick against the goads.

When you feel God convicting you, respond.

Answer his ambush.

And finally, last point, this is gonna go quick.

We're done.

Last point.

We need to stop attacking the rescue.

We need to start answering the ambush.

We need to start appreciating God's humbling.

We need to submit.

This passage ends with Saul in darkness, feeling hopeless.

Look at verse 8.

Saul rose from the ground.

Although his eyes were open, he saw nothing.

Led him, they led him by the hand like a child, right?

They led him by the hand and brought him to Damascus.

He has been humbled.

And he's having to learn how to submit.

What's the purpose of this humbling?

Saul thought he had it all figured out.

But I truly believe there's purpose here.

For the new life to begin, the old life has to die.

Look at the next verse.

Look at verse 9.

It says, for three days he was without sight and neither ate nor drank.

Three days.

What does that remind you of?

Jonah! Three days in the great fish.

Jesus.

Three days in the grave.

For new life to come, the old life has to die.

This is the death of Saul.

This is the birth of Paul.

Christianity is not the turning over of a new leaf.

Christianity is the miraculous beginning of a new life.

It is accepting Jesus as Lord.

See, let me just, let me just.

When I was a kid, I grew up in the 80s.

And my parents would would buy jeans that would last for years.

Did anybody else have parents like this?

First of all, they didn't have the stretchy material.

I don't know what that's about today, all right?

But but they would buy jeans that would last forever, and we would roll them up at the bottom.

And so as you grew, you sort of grew into them and you just unrolled them at the bottom.

Did anybody else have parents that did this?

And it was like, yeah, it was like trees, you know, you could see how old the jeans were by the lines in the bottom of the jeans.

And that that was my situation.

But but sometimes you'd get patches in your jeans, right?

And I always had keys in my pockets, and my parents would put a patch right here because that's where it wore thin.

The problem was the patch, well, it didn't always stay with the jeans.

In fact, that's the image Jesus uses of the new life in Christ in Mark chapter 2, verse 21.

Mark 2:21

It's the new cloth sewn on to the old garment.

That's how a lot of people do Christianity.

They try to just patch their old life.

And the problem is the patch, it rips the old life apart.

It just doesn't work.

That's how it was for my genes.

A couple of washes through the dryer, and that patch was already peeling off.

It doesn't work.

God wants you to have a whole new life.

Not to just kind of cover your life with Christianity, to just sort of add Jesus to your life.

This is a picture of a brand new life that God offers you in the gospel.

Now, as we end, don't miss Saul's company.

Saul's responsive, he, impossible Saul, I believe, becomes a Christian.

And we'll talk more about that next week.

All right, so you have to come back.

But in verse 7, look with me.

The men who were traveling with him stood speechless, hearing the voice, seeing no one.

It says two different experiences.

Saul has this amazing experience, the light, the voice, the person of Christ.

These guys don't see it.

It's like it's like, have you had ever had been in a situation you both saw the same thing, but but one person has a different experience than the other?

Have you ever had that situation?

I went to the midnight showing of Dune 2.

All my friends came out of that theater saying, that was the best movie.

I fell asleep for at least an hour in that movie.

And I was like, yeah, it's great.

Just a different experience.

Some people will hear this message and hear the hope that Jesus offers.

They'll feel the conviction and they will respond.

Other people will hear this message and be entirely unresponsive.

Three days in the dark, what did Paul do?

He died to the old life.

He prayed, he repented, he humbled himself, he submitted to the Lord, he responded.

And dear friends, that's how you'll have your experience that Paul has had.

As we close and as the team comes out, Ernest Hemingway tells the story of a young man named Paco.

I love this story.

Paco had a fight with his dad.

Ran away from home.

Prodigal son, rift that could never be repaired.

The dad was so brokenhearted over the loss of his son.

He did everything he could to reach his son.

Searched for him all over town.

Went and talked to his friends.

Couldn't find him anywhere.

In a last ditch effort, Hemingway says that the story goes that he put an ad out in the newspaper.

And the ad simply said, Paco, meet me at Hotel Montana noon Tuesday.

All is forgiven.

Papa.

That was the ad.

And the story goes that that day, Tuesday at noon, eight A hundred Pacos showed up at that hotel, all ready to respond and receive the forgiveness from their dad.

Are you responsive today?

Heads bowed, eyes closed.

I want us to respond right now.

Are you traveling on your own way?

Has God stood in the road to confront you today?

Maybe he's confronting you on your marriage, something to change?

Maybe he's confronting you on a sin that you have walked in for a season.

You need to ask the right questions.

You need to ask those same two questions that Saul asked.

Who are you, Lord?

You've got to answer that question.

Is he your Lord?

And what do you want me to do?

I'll do anything.

For others of you, there's someone in your life you have written off, they'll never change.

God can't reach them.

This passage shows the power of God to save anybody he wants to save, whenever he wants to save them, by however means he wants to use.

And so don't write people off.

Are you in the midst of an ambush right now?

Is God poking you?

Is God goading you?

Are you kicking against the goads?

Are you being stubborn?

It's exhausting.

It's painful to keep resisting him.

Where in your life do you need to finally say, yes, Lord, I will respond?

Where do you need to die?

To the old life.

Christianity isn't turning over a new leaf.

It's starting a whole new life.

What part of the old life do you need to let go?

Maybe some of you need to join the church.

Maybe some of you need to get baptized.

Maybe some of you need to start giving, start contributing to the body because you love the church.

You love the body.

This is the bride of Christ.

Maybe God's saying to some of you that you need to control your mouth.

The criticism of other churches or of fellow church members.

How is God applying this to your life?

I want you to respond right now.

I'm going to call a response team forward.

We always have elders and part members of our prayer team at the front where we just want to pray with people during this response song.

And what will happen is if you'd like to come forward and pray with somebody, what they're going to do is they're just going to walk you over to the side.

They're just going to pray over you, pray for you.

They're just going to maybe just counsel with you for just a minute, give you a chance to respond.

We want to be a responsive church that when the gospel is preached, that when the truth of God's word is preached, we respond.

And so if you want to come forward and even just pray for someone you know, maybe there's a Saul in your life, you need to just ask the Lord for grace.

Be bold.

Come forward today and let's lift them up before the Lord.

Father, thank you for this moment.

Thank you for this time of response, Lord.

I pray that in the same way Saul was responsive, Lord, you would find in us responsive hearts.

Responsive to the gospel, responsive to your word, responsive to the conviction that you've laid on us.

Father, we love you.

We want to ask those two questions today in each of our hearts.

Who are you, Lord?

And we want to say, Lord, you're our master, you're our savior.

And what do you want me to do?

We will submit, Lord.

We will follow you.

We will become all that you want us to become.

We will stop resisting the goading, stop resisting the convicting, and you will find in us responsive people.

Father, we submit our hearts to you now.

And it's in Jesus' name we pray these things.

And all God's people say it together.

Amen.