Acts 9:1-31, What’s the Way?

Acts chapter 9, beginning from verses 1 to 31, hear the word of the

Lord. 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 a light from heaven flashed 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 are persecuting.

But rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do. The men who were watching, or 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. Now there was a disciple at Damascus named

Ananias. The Lord said to him in a vision, Ananias. And he said, here I am,

Lord. And the Lord said to him, rise and go to the street called Straight. And at the house of Judas, look for a man of Tarsus named

Saul. For behold, he is praying, and he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias.

Come in and lay his hands on him, so that he might regain his sight. But Ananias answered,

Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints at Jerusalem.

And here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call on your name. But the Lord said to him, go, for he is 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.

So Ananias departed and entered the house and laying his hands on him, he said, 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. For some days he was with the disciples at Damascus and immediately he proclaimed

Jesus in the synagogue saying, he is the son of God. And all who heard him were amazed and said, is not this the man who made havoc in Jerusalem of those who called upon this name?

And has he not come here for this purpose to bring them bound before the chief priest? But Saul increased all the more in strength and confounded the

Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus was the Christ. When many days had passed, the

Jews plotted to kill him, but their plot became known to Saul. They were watching the gates day and night in order to kill him, but his disciples took him by night and let him down through an opening in the wall, lowering him in a basket.

And when he had come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join the disciples and they were all afraid of him for they did not believe that he was a disciple.

But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles and declared to them how on the road he had seen the

Lord who spoke to him and how at Damascus he had preached boldly in the name of Jesus. So he went in and out among them at Jerusalem, preaching boldly in the name of the

Lord. And he spoke and disputed against the Hellenists and they were seeking to kill him. And when the brothers learned this, they brought him down to Caesarea and set him off to Tarsus.

So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up and walking in the fear of the

Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit. It multiplied. I mean, the

Lord had his blessings in the reading of his holy word. Well, if you were if you want to get somewhere, you need to know the way, right?

It's kind of common sense. I wonder if GPS, you know, most of us now have, at least on our phones, if not one of these little

GPS things has made us forget about that. We used to have maps. Remember maps?

Anybody here remember maps? They often these cumbersome foldable things that are hard to fold right.

You usually keep them in the glove compartment. I mean, more often glove compartments held maps and more often the gloves should have been called map compartments.

But you'd look up where you wanted to go on the map and then trace the best roads to get there.

You're trying to find the way. You need to know the way to other destinations too that you want to get to.

If you want to get a good job, maybe a particular job, you need to know what is required. What do you need to get that job?

What's the skills you have to acquire? How do you get those skills? Do you need to go to vocational school?

Maybe learn plumbing or electrical work? Maybe you need to go to a university, to a graduate school, do other things.

That depends on where you're going, your intended destination.

What's the best way to physical fitness? It's probably not through Dairy Queen and long hours on the couch.

Probably not. What's the way to prosperity? You have acquired a comfortable living with a nice house and a nice car and everything you need for your family and old age and the ability to be generous to others.

It's probably not through partying all the time, whatever that means. I don't really know what it even means.

It's not through majoring in gender studies or something else that there are no jobs for, unless it's to teach gender studies in universities.

Racking up huge student loan debt and then realizing you're no more employable after college than you were before.

It's through providing a service or a product that people want, like Chinese food or nursing or mail delivery.

People want that and they'll pay for that. You usually have to work long hours to do it, save money, and you usually have to do it for many years.

Of course, some people don't know where they're going. They just wake up every day asking how they can have fun today. That's the way to poverty.

Maybe some hard knocks have taught them that they need to at least work five days a week so they can pay their bills and have a decent place to stay and a vehicle to go out and then have fun on the weekends.

That's the way to mediocrity at best. Everybody is on the way to somewhere, even if some people don't know where.

But what's the way to God? That's the question all the religions try to answer, of course.

Some say, well, keep these laws, whatever they are. Islam says you make the right confession, you keep what they call the five pillars of Islam, and you might make it to paradise.

There's no guarantees. Buddhism teaches there is an eightfold path. There's right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right concentration, right mindfulness, a lot of right stuff.

So if you get everything right, there's no way I would do all that. And you follow that path, you may end up in enlightenment.

Chinese traditional religion says, well, you'd be filial. That is you focus on your family.

They're the original people that focus on the family. And you help your family members, particularly your deceased family members, wherever they are by sending them gifts, right?

You're a good family person. You give gifts to your family. So you send your deceased family members gifts like food by offering it or like hell money, which is money they print just for people in hell.

So you transfer it to them by burning it, right? So they can, and that goes to them.

And so they can, they can pay off the demons in hell and they can, they have money in hell, so they can spend it or go wherever they want to.

And, or maybe you can even send them houses and cars. And so you make paper houses, paper cars, even paper cell phones, and you burn it and it transfers to them, even though they never seem to call back on the paper cell phones, you transfer to them.

I don't understand why not the way then is for your families. The way is for your family members to send you your way for yourself is you hope your children, grandchildren, so forth.

Your descendants will send you what you need when you're in the afterlife. And so you kind of got to pay it forward.

So you, what you need to do now is you need to send your deceased family members, what they need now, the

Baha 'i religion, which is a modern religion. So it kind of captures the modern idea founded only in 1863 takes kind of an all of the above approach, right?

You know, you like a little Islam. You like a little Buddhism. You like a little Christianity, uh, throw it all in there. All roads lead to heaven.

They say all religions are different revelations from God, which is of course impossible since they contradict.

I mean, either Mohammed is God's prophet and Jesus never died for our sins, which Islam says, or Jesus is the, is the

Lord and he died for our sins, which Christianity says it can't both be true. But anyway, Baha 'i somehow says it's all true.

And, uh, you know, you just have it your way. Basically it's the burger King motto for religion.

You have it your way. You have your way. You have the Chinese way of the American way. You have whatever you want to take is fine.

Just be nice as you're on the way and be sincere about it. That's why he's kind of been a popular religion, been growing.

Of course it's nonsense, but that's beside the point. What is the way? Of course, Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life.

And no one comes to the father except through me. Very absolute statement, isn't it?

To some that claim is infuriating. I mean, it means that I'm wrong.

If I believe in any other way, uh, my law keeping my five pillars or eightfold path or filial piety is, is just garbage.

That's why Paul called it, right? I counted it all as garbage refuge. It's good for nothing.

So when you tell people that you're saying they're thinking anyway, I, I, I sacrifice eating pork.

I couldn't have those baby back ribs to keep a law or I gave up eating steak because those cows are reincarnated.

You know, it's my reincarnated grandmother to follow the eightfold path. Or I kept Ramadan. I, I didn't eat for during data daylight hours for a whole month.

I spent good money to buy hell money. And you're telling me it's just burned up and it's worthless.

That's offensive. That's even maddening to some people or to the modern person.

They'll say, well, you know, you're telling me I have to believe in one person. I have to follow him.

I have to surrender to him that I cannot go my own way. I can't go how I think best according to my culture, according to my taste.

That makes you an oppressive bigot. You have to believe what I say to be, to, to not be a narrow -minded.

You get the contradiction there. If you disagree with me, you're narrow -minded way. And that's the modern way.

But Saul thought he knew the way until the way got in his way. And we see that here in, in four parts or the revelation, the vocation, the persecution, and finally the inclusion.

First there's revelation. Paul's conversion depends on revelation. Doesn't it? Paul, let me call him that already.

If you don't mind. So I know he's, he's called Saul at this point. This is first name, first name, but he was calling

Paul already. He, he wasn't being softened gradually by having heard the gospel.

It wasn't like when some of these people kind of CS Lewis is kind of like that kind of gradually changes his mind. And then suddenly wait, not suddenly just wakes up one morning, realize,

Hey, I'm a Christian now, but it wasn't like that for him. He wasn't softened gradually by having heard the gospel or he is seeing the life of the church that they're living together.

They're dedicated to the apostles teaching. They're breaking the bread. They're sharing their life together. They're sharing their things. They're praying together later.

When retelling this testimony, he'll tell it to other times in the book of acts. He'll add to the account here that the

Lord Jesus also said, it's hard for you to kick against the goads. Now go to these, like just basically sharp sticks, pointed sticks that they poke animals with like cows or donkeys and make them move along.

They stopped somewhere, you know, come on donkey move. Of course, some stubborn animals, instead of moving along might get violent and kick back, right?

Kick against the goads. And then they get stuck by it. And then they learn their lesson. Some people have, have thought that Paul was being gradually prepared for conversion, but there's no indication of that here.

And indeed this chapter seems to show the opposite. The goads that God was using in his life, they should have moved him to repent and to believe in Jesus.

The testimonies about Jesus that he had heard after all, he had heard, probably heard Stephen preach.

That's a pretty good testimony, but that didn't soften him up. That didn't make him a Christian. That didn't convert him rather than softening him up.

They provoke him to violence in verse one. He's breathing out threats and murder.

It's like what every breath kill them. They're blasphemers. They're, you know, they're, they're sacrilegious.

They're abominations. And he's just got to kill them. He's got to do what he has to do to wipe them out.

He wanted to find them. And if they wouldn't deny Jesus, torture them. If they, and if they still wouldn't deny

Jesus after some torture, well, you got to do what you got to do, right? You got to kill them. This hatred was so deep in him.

It just came out with his breath. So he heard that there were Christians in Damascus.

You know why he has to go to Damascus from Paul. Like if there's some place, if some people are doing it here, why do

I need to do it? I'll go do somewhere. Someone's not doing it. It seems like he took that same. He had that same mentality already.

There's probably people. He's probably thinking there's plenty of people here in Jerusalem, persecuting the church. I'm going to go somewhere else where there's no one else yet persecuting.

I'm going to be a pioneer of persecution. And so that's, that's his mentality. So he wanted to go there and there's some in Damascus.

He's heard go there and wipe them out. He was going to stop this, this supposed way to God from spreading.

And he was willing to make the long trip by foot, about 150 miles, which had none of us have ever walked 150 miles.

I ran it. He was willing to do that. You think that's probably about a week's work just to get there, just to capture some believers in Jesus and haul them back to Jerusalem where he could torture.

And you know, they still didn't, we can't kill them. He asked for official letters from the high priest. That way, when he shows up, the official

Jewish officials in Damascus would help him out. They could help him find in verse two, anyone says belonging to the way that was what

Christianity was called before it was called Christianity. It was called the way the way

I believe it would be the towel in Chinese. Jesus is the way and they, they belong, they belong to him.

So they are the people of the way they belong to the way. Uh, but for Jesus, for, for Paul, of course, he thought it was the way to blasphemy saying that the law was fulfilled by, by Christ, that Jesus is the way to God, not by our law keeping.

So if he found them in Damascus, he would haul them back to Jerusalem for special treatment, whatever you called it.

So he set off for Damascus with his letters in his hand. He had no idea of what he was really on the way to.

He was almost at his destination, approaching Damascus. It says when, when suddenly no warning in verse three, a light like a spotlight flashed on so brilliant.

He fell to the ground. Let's say whether he's in a horse or a donkey, he could just been walking, probably closing and shielding his eyes.

And he heard a voice called out to him, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?

Persecute? Who am I persecuting? I'm defending the glory of God.

I'm upholding the law. I'm being righteous. He thought, so he asked, who are you

Lord? Probably meaning like, sir, a term of respect.

Maybe this is an angel or maybe it's just a coincidence that some, some man happens to start speaking to him as the shun glare in his eyes.

He must be, Paul must be puzzled that whoever is talking to him knows his name, but he doesn't know who he was talking.

And he can't see for the beam of light shining on him. And the voice answers in verse five,

I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. Seven brief words in English and Greek is actually only six.

And his life is totally revolutionized. You know, before this, he was thinking

Jesus was a charlatan that our leaders rightly got Pontius Pilate to crucify.

And these, these believers of his, they're their heretics. They continue to believe that he's the son of God.

Even after he was killed, what crazy people are these? Oh, they said he was raised, but I've never seen him who believes in that.

That's what he thought. Now, Jesus is speaking to him. Jesus is saying to Paul, it was persecuting me.

No, Jesus doesn't say, why are you persecuting my people? My lambs, my loved ones. He said, you're persecuting me.

Paul thought he was just putting down believers in him. But Jesus says, Jesus sees his people as himself, as his own body, what you do to his body, you do to him.

There's no separation between Jesus and the church as though you can claim to love

Jesus. Like a lot of people do today. And particularly in this culture, it's just not church. You care much for I do without the church.

Jesus. I love his church. No, thanks. Oh, sure. Sometimes I get it that sometimes what calls itself the church can confuse that as it doesn't do what the body of Christ is supposed to do.

And it's probably many of the people in some places that call themselves churches aren't really, aren't really believers.

I don't know who they are, but some are that way. Maybe they're just traditional, just religious people who only want to be told how righteous they are.

But Paul will later in his letters, talk about false brothers. That is they look like brothers.

They confess to be brother, but they're not really. And now what you do to them is not what you do to Jesus.

But if it's the true church, the body of Christ made up of genuine believers, if you're faithful to them, you're faithful to Jesus.

If you give to them your time, your gifts, your attention, your, your care, your money, your songs, you are giving to Jesus.

If you betray them or you use them for whatever selfish end you want, or you bomb them, like in Sri Lanka last week, you're betraying, you're using, you're bombing

Jesus. You are persecuting me. Jesus says, the

Lord Jesus tells them, tells him rise and enter the city and you will be told what you are to do.

Kind of interesting. Why didn't he tell him what to do right there at that point? We'll see. Notice there's no choice about it though.

Doesn't say, will you accept my invitation of Paul? It's like you're drafted. You're in.

There's no argument. There's no, let me give you the seven reasons why you should believe I'm the way I'll give you the evidence why

I'm resurrected. Well, of course, there's me talking to you right now. That's number one. Does it go like that now? Will you accept just, you know, really just like Jesus did with the other apostles.

Remember that, you know, he comes by and he says like to Matthew or Peter, come follow me.

He does the same thing with Paul here. That is after he was, you know, died and rose.

It doesn't really make any difference to him. It's sovereign grace, right? Jesus chooses his sheep.

And I think that's true, not just for apostles, true for all his sheep. He's the shepherd and he gathers them.

He knows those who are his and he gathers them in here. He's gathering Paul. Now some will protest, but surely

Paul could have said, no, he wasn't compelled against his will. Yeah.

Yeah. You know what? I don't really, I'm not gonna want to debate that. Whatever. I suppose you want to concede that maybe,

I don't know, but, but now seeing what he sees, why, why would he say no?

I mean, how could there be any choice about it? Why would

Paul want to say no at this point? Why would anyone say no to Jesus?

Once the Lord has revealed himself to them? No, why? I think,

I think once you've seen him, then you just, it would never occur to you to say no.

It's like if one day you were at your house and someone knocks on the door, there's Bill Gates there with a, with a certified check for $1 billion.

He's going to give to you. You're not going to say, no, you can see it. I'll take it. Sure. Right. And that's what happened when the

Lord appears and he shows you who he is. You just don't say no. It just doesn't.

That's why our prayer for people to be saved is usually Lord reveal yourself to them. Once he does that, once Jesus reveals himself, he gives with that revelation comes to this transforming vision.

He transforms you by the vision of himself. Once he gives that to someone, they see that he is the way he is the truth and the life.

And obviously then they follow. Well, of course, who else has the words of life?

You know, where else can I go? This is the way there's no other way. That's why people, they can be shown the arguments.

You can, you can debate them and you can maybe convince them. I don't see that happening very much. You can show them facts.

You can tell them all the proofs that God exists, that Jesus is who he says he is. You can prove that he is the way that he was raised from the dead, the proofs of the resurrection and all that, that he could show them that the

Bible is reliable. The people that criticize it shows, well, there's contradictions here and they're not really true, uh, that it is, that it is true.

And, and yet they still sometimes won't believe if it hasn't been revealed to them.

Yeah. They haven't been, they haven't been made to see, uh, Paul didn't need an argument, did he?

I mean, he probably heard from Timothy. I don't know. Excuse me, Tess, uh, Stephen already. He needed a revelation.

That's what we pray. That's why we pray for people today. Lord, reveal yourself to so -and -so just to give them understanding.

Just let them hear a good argument. They need a revelation. God may use arguments. Now he may use books and lessons and maybe sermons and whatever to give the revelation, but it's the revelation that is key.

It's the revelation that changes everything that transforms from persecuting the church to joining it.

So he obeys the revelation. He goes to Damascus blinded and praise and fast for three days.

It's sovereign grace, sovereign. And that means royal that God is the king and only

God is in charge of it. Like a king to no one else, you know, to appeal to, we can pray for him to, to use us in our sharing, to bring that revelation, but we can't make it happen.

We can't gin it up, you know, by setting the mood, right? You get an altar call as the organ softly plays the right music, play on the emotions.

You know, the old way was the invitation. Every, every head bowed, everyone bowed their head.

Now raise your hands. If you believe ever been through one of those things, raise your hand. If you believe now, maybe, maybe next step stand.

And if you stand, will you come forward? Uh, and, uh, as verse after verse of justice, I am as playing, maybe they have counselors place of the audience and they come forward to kind of prime the pump, you know, cause they could, maybe they're coming forward to,

I can do it too. And to create the momentum, that's the old way. The new way, maybe have a fog machine, the

B the band plays oceans or whatever. And, and a guy in a turtleneck sweater with a cup of coffee sitting on a stool back lit just right.

You know, you gotta have a good lighting. That's key. Uh, talking you into doing something, come, you know, sign the whatever or whatever, but, but it's really the same thing so far.

There's all this talk about the new style of churches, seeker sensitive. It's really not, it's maybe new style, but it's the same philosophy.

You're trying to manage the saving power of God as though with the right technique, we can turn it on and get people saved.

We can't it's sovereign grace. If he doesn't do it, if he doesn't appear to Paul on the road to Damascus, all our techniques and arguments won't accomplish anything.

We need revelation. Well, next comes vocation.

The calling Paul is called to be a follower of Jesus. Yeah. Interesting. Isn't it that Jesus didn't, didn't call

Paul directly. Do you notice that when he stopped Paul on the road, you know,

Jesus just said, why are you persecuting me? And you go into the city and I'll, I'll relay to you what you're to do next.

Now think about that. What it, what it says about how Jesus works through his church. Again, Jesus could have told

Paul directly, you know, why didn't he think about it on the road? He could have told

Paul directly what he has. Ananias tell him what versus Ananias. Why not just cut out the middleman and Jesus tell

Paul directly, Hey, Paul, you're a chosen instrument of mine. I'm going to show, you know, I'm showing you how much you must suffer from my name.

You want to do it directly? Why use Ananias? Because coming to Jesus means coming to his body, the church.

We don't see that. If the view of the church, our view of the church is like that of a gas station is just these places we pull into to get our spiritual fuel.

We need, and then we drive off. They can help us on our way to serving Jesus, but that's really about it.

They know they are Jesus to you. It's through the church that Jesus tells

Paul that he's called. He only stopped him on the road to stop him from persecuting the church, to get him to listen to the church.

So Jesus speaks to Ananias described as a disciple.

All true Christians are disciples. Disciple is not a higher class of believer. You know, you can kind of opt into if you're really tough and you want to go for that.

Kind of like if you're in the military, you can, you can, maybe you can try to go into the special forces and you're a

Christian. Maybe I'll go for the disciple. Maybe not. No, no. You either are a disciple or you are not a Christian.

Well, the Lord says to him, Ananias calling him by name, just like he called

Saul by name earlier. And he responds here. I am Lord kind of like Isaiah.

Remember here's the angel saying, Holy, Holy, Holy. And if someone asks who will, who will go for us?

And Isaiah says, here I am here as Ananias being called. And he says, here I am.

I'll go. Well, you haven't heard what you sent on yet. He has second thoughts once he's told what he's supposed to do.

He tells Ananias where to go, go to straight street. Supposedly that street still exists by the way, in Damascus still there.

Go to Judas's house. There's another Judas. There's a lot of Judas's because Judas was a popular name before Jesus as Judas betrayed him there at Judas's house.

Ask for Saul of Tarsus. Imagine go to Judas's house. He must know it must be a prominent person knows where he is.

I'll, you know, Saul here, uh, he's praying. The Lord has already given a solid vision during his three days of prayer and fasting that a man named

Ananias will come to him. Uh, Jesus said that in Damascus, remember you will be told what you were to do in Damascus.

So go there and wait for instructions. Now in a vision, he's shown, he's shown Paul that is Ananias who will tell him what the

Lord says to do again is through Ananias through the church. The Lord tells Ananias to lay hands on him and pray for his healing from blindness.

But Ananias has heard of Paul. Well, you know, he's thinking, wait, Lord, uh, you must be mistaken. You haven't heard about Paul, Lord.

I know about Paul. You apparently don't. Uh, his reputation, Paul's reputation has gone ahead of him. It's kind of funny that Ananias thinks he needs to inform the

Lord, uh, about what Paul is really like. That's kind of the way we are, right? We think God must be, he must be ignorant of some things that we know about.

He, we know how tough this is going to be Lord. Don't you know? Um, but, uh, you know, when he tries to straighten the

Lord out and in verse 13, Ananias answers, Lord, I have heard from many cats that many, many knew about him.

Paul had a great reputation, great meaning, any prominent about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem.

And here he has authority from the chief priest to bind all who call on your name. The news about it has gone ahead.

Ananias knew all about Paul and wanted nothing to do with him. He and the rest of the Christians in Damascus, they've been on the lookout for Paul.

They knew he's coming. They're going to try to steer as clear of him as they possibly could. He's someone they wanted nothing to do with.

And now the Lord tells Ananias to go directly to this vicious Christian hunter.

Now you're not, you go right to him. Uh, it's like being in Sri Lanka and being told to go right to the head of the

Islamic terrorist cell. There's been bombing churches there. Imagine, imagine that. And so he thinks he needs to inform the

Lord about Paul. Wait, Lord, you must've missed the news, but the Lord says in verse 15, go anyway, go.

Jesus says, for he is a chosen instrument of mine, a vessel like, like favor was a vessel to show

God's glory in Romans nine, like a potter makes different kinds of vessels, some nice ornamental vessels you put at the center of your dining room table to show off and put flowers in them or some, maybe some useful for, for pouring drinks or eating off of, you know, some in their day, like before indoor plumbing, you have chamber pots, there were vessels for necessary, but disgusting use.

So the Lord is making Paul a vessel. He's going to be a chosen one for a special important use.

Uh, the Lord is the potter and he is making Paul an instrument, a vessel to carry his name. The day, the name of Jesus, that Jesus is the only name given among people to be saved.

The only one to call on. He is the way Paul would carry that name.

Jesus is telling Ananias to tell

Paul that Paul will carry that name to the Gentiles. That is the ends of the earth.

Remember the ax is going to get to, and he says to Kings like Herod that he'll preach to before ax is over and the children of Israel as he'll go from synagogue to synagogue and town after town ending in Rome.

That's about everybody right there. Isn't it? Uh, go Ananias, even though you think he's a, he's a vessel of persecution.

Instead, Jesus says, I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.

Well, that's his calling. That's his vocation to suffer. Would you like that to be your job description on a business card?

Paul, apostle suffer. It's quite an invitation, isn't it?

He's been dishing out suffering to those who call on the name of Jesus. Now he's going to have to receive suffering because he's calling on that name.

That's his vocation. That's his calling. He's, he's to carry the name and suffer for it.

Corporately, we together as the church have the same calling. That's why we have our ministries to bear witness.

So we're not just, um, it's important that we do this. We're preaching the word, encouraging each other and worshiping singing, but it's not just for us.

It's to bear witness to the world around us. And sometimes we've had to suffer. Sometimes it's the suffering of putting up with disrespectful, ungrateful kids.

And, uh, Wayne nods sometimes the suffering of perseverance through abandonment and little apparent reward.

And, uh, if we think ministries all will all be success, um, reward hundreds of converts responding to every message will be discouraged, um, because of the suffering and maybe feel like giving up.

But if we understand that's the part of the vocation, the calling is the call to suffer.

Yeah. We're not taken off guard by it. We can keep going. So Ananias went, as he was told, he greets them.

The man he thought was a vicious persecutor as, as brother knows how

Ananias greets him. Yeah. He changed his mind about Paul based on, you know, maybe Jesus knows what he's talking about.

After all, uh, 17 calls Paul brother. He announces 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. So he prays for Paul, something like scales, like a film fell off from his eyes, representing the spiritual blindness has now been healed.

Uh, he could see again filled with the Holy spirit. And then he, he rose, he was baptized.

And so, so urgent was he to associate with Christ after three days of fasting, you know, after three days of fasting,

I think I'd want to go eat first because that would be my number one priority for him though. You think you just think he was so hungry.

You want to eat, but, but he, his first priority was his baptism proclaim that his old life is buried and his new life is raised with Christ.

That's first. Then he goes get something to eat. Next. He begins to suffer that persecution that Jesus showed is coming.

There's revelation. There's vocation. There's persecution. Paul stays with the church, the disciples at Damascus.

And immediately he proclaimed Jesus notice immediately like that, like the next opportunity he had, he could do it immediately.

He already knew the old Testament. It was now only a matter of seeing how Christ fulfilled the old

Testament that Jesus was, as we saw in the past several weeks, the servant who bore our sins, who he, who he

Paul knew he had esteemed, not whom he had considered stricken by God for being a blasphemer.

But now Paul saw that he was stricken by God for his own sins, for his own blasphemy of trying to force disciples of Jesus to blaspheme him.

Imagine the surprise. The first time Paul has asked to come forward and speak at some synagogue in Damascus, you know, we welcome

Saul of Tarsus here, here with letters of recommendation from the high priest in Jerusalem on a special mission.

Tell us, come up, Saul, tell us about why you've come here. He gets up. I came here to stamp out the name of Jesus, but now

I'm telling you that Jesus is the name. You have to call on to be saved that he is the way they go.

Well, they're going, well, he's the son of God. It says in verse 21, all who heard him were amazed.

They were electrified by his testimony. The resistant who didn't, wouldn't believe him or staggered.

They were dismayed. They were flabbergasted. They were thinking he he's, he's the hit man.

You know, the special set of skills who's come to be a nightmare to the people of the way.

Now he's joined them. How can that be? He said among themselves, it's not this, the man who made havoc in Jerusalem of those who call upon the name.

They, they, they brought him up here. So he'd make havoc among the Christians in Damascus to, to, to, to destroy the name of Jesus in this.

Isn't it him? Yes. It's him. The man with a reputation for viciousness, persecuting the church. He has, he not come here for this purpose to bring them bound to the chief priest.

Hasn't he? Yes. That's what he came for. The persecutor with a license to hunt Christians, but Jesus got in his way.

Now, Paul in verse 22 says he increased all the more in strength, more filled with the spirit, more understanding what the scripture said, how

Jesus fulfilled it, learning more about what Jesus taught, how more and more of the old Testament was fulfilled by him.

He confounded the Jews who wouldn't believe because he proved that Jesus was the Messiah, that he was the anointed one who brings in God's kingdom after a while.

It doesn't say how long the verse 22, but it's after a while since after many days, they were exasperated, you know, but this former persecutor now turned preacher and they plotted to kill him.

But Paul heard about it. He knew that they were watching the gates of the city, the kind of, you know, the choke point everyone had to go through to get in or out of the city.

Verse 25, they were, they were camped out there trying to capture him. It says in verse 25 that his disciples, you catch that just didn't explain who they're already.

And notice how much of a natural leader Paul is, you know, already just barely converted.

He has disciples. There's young men who are learning from him. And these disciples help him out.

They put him in a basket and a hole in the wall somewhere, probably a window and a lower him through the opening down to the ground.

And he escaped Damascus. The persecution of Paul had begun and it would follow him his whole life.

Finally, he experiences inclusion, escaping Damascus. He comes to Jerusalem is still the headquarters of the church.

He wants to join the church to become one of the disciples, but they remember him.

You know, he had a horrible reputation as a persecutor. They're thinking maybe that story about seeing

Jesus on the road to Damascus, maybe that was all made up so we could go undercover, find out who all the secret

Christians were and spring is trapped, capture us all trying to infiltrate us, trying to get inside.

He comes into a meeting of the church and everyone, you know, Paul comes around the curtain. Everyone stopped singing or sharing and it looks at their watches.

You know, I got to get back to the shop and open up the lunch crowds about to come. I was just visiting anyway, or maybe some say, you know,

I'm just here for the basketball. He comes into a prayer meeting. Everyone just slinks away.

They're afraid of him. They want anything to do with him. They didn't believe his story. It seemed too much to believe that their worst persecutor was now a disciple too.

Verse 27, but Barnabas, remember

Barnabas, the son of encouragement, this guy that's so believed in everything

Jesus taught, he was willing to sell his excess property and give it away to the church, meet the needs of others.

Barnabas was the type to give people the benefit of the doubt. He really believed all this gospel life transforming

Jesus of the way stuff. We need people who believe in us. You get the benefit of the doubt.

Give us second chances. Even after we've removed all doubt that we failed, who encourage us.

Barnabas took Paul. It says he took him. I've got him by the hand. Come on, Paul.

I'll introduce you around vouch for him. Here's my friend, Paul actually called

Saul still. I know, you know, the guy that was killing us a while back. Here he is. Brought him to the apostles here,

Peter, me, me, Paul, or Saul of Tarsus. The Lord Jesus appeared to him on the road to Damascus.

Isn't that amazing? He's with a big smile and Barnabas had heard that Paul had preached about Jesus boldly and believed it, believed it wasn't just a ruse to go undercover in Jerusalem.

So because of Barnabas, Paul is included with the church. Imagine that it means

Paul's ministry depends on Barnabas. Paul's included with the church in verse 28.

He went in at P Paul went in and out among them at Jerusalem. So now he comes into church meetings and other people don't immediately go out.

Conversion leads to church membership. It's not just something you, it's not just you and the

Lord walking together side by side on the beach, one set of footprints during bad times or in the garden.

If you're converted, part of your life now is like Paul's going in and out of meetings with other people who are also converted.

You are attached to a particular local church and assembly that you assemble with them.

Paul went in with them, went out with them. Paul has inclusion acceptance by the church finally, and he begins preaching boldly says in the name of the

Lord, the name of Jesus. He debated with the Hellenist. You remember that title, that phrase that Hellenist that's the

Greek speaking Jews like himself. Uh, those are the same group of people who had been enraged by Steven and hauled him out and stoned him to death while Paul watched their coats.

He knew these people, he was among them. Now he's debating with them just like Steven had.

He knew what they were capable of. He helped what they were capable of. He knew how they would react.

And yet he debated with them anyway. And just like they had with Steven, now they were cooking up a plan to kill him too.

So in verse 30, the brothers, now they're the brothers.

They're Paul's brothers in the Lord. The men who had been trying to capture and kill him, his, his brothers, they moved to protect him.

They went with him. They were his escorts. They were his defenders. They were his friends all the way to Caesarea from Jerusalem, all the way down to the

Mediterranean coast. They saw him off by ship way by as he went over, went away up North, send it back home to Tarsus.

We'd be safe. Now what, now what we call Turkey is his brothers who originally were afraid of him now included him now flocked to defend him.

That's the church in action, a fellowship of the included. So in verse 31, it's one of these great, um, um, summary versus in acts.

Sometimes you read through axes, these verses, Paul Luke stops and just summarizes everything that's happened up until then.

And this is one in verse 31, uh, distilling the result of what's happened. What's happened.

Well, now the great persecutor has become the great preacher. Uh, they had killed Steven and persecuted the church, but the result of that persecution was that the way got out of Jerusalem.

Notice in verse 31. Now it's not just in Jerusalem. It's Judea, the area around it's in Samaria. That's what

Philip took it to Siberia. Remember it's in Galilee. It's up further North. It's going out now. It's even gone, going with that Ethiopian unit to Ethiopia.

Disciples fled to Damascus because they were afraid in Jerusalem. But the result of that was a church in Damascus. And so they sent someone to juice, to persecute them to Damascus.

What happened with that? Well, the one who went down to hunt followers of the way had Jesus appear on the way.

Now he's part of the way. So now they have peace. Your chief persecutor is now one of the greatest preachers.

No persecution from without, at least not much. Anyway, no trouble from within. They learned their lesson from Ananias and Sapphira.

They were built up. Paul, Paul has been included by the son of encouragement, encouraged them.

And so they walked, it says, in the fear of the Lord. That is, they were trembling at his word. They take his word seriously.

And they know this sovereign Lord who could transform a persecutor. He's not to be ignored, is he?

They obey his word. They also walked, it says, in the comfort of the Holy Spirit. They know that God is on their side, that he is empowering them to keep walking, that the gates of hell will not prevail against his church.

So again, they multiplied. What's the way?

It's not any way you choose. You have to go through the way the

Lord has chosen through Jesus. You could rage against that like Paul did at first, but you're just raging against God, like a stubborn animal kicking against goads.

You're only hurting yourself. You might say, well, I'm not raging. I believe

Jesus is fine. I believe in Jesus. We had a, once I had a Jewish friend talk about how great it is.

Someone believes in Jesus. She didn't believe in Jesus, but it was good for that person. He's the way for you.

Just not for me. Some people think my way is different. I wish you your way, but Jesus says, no,

I am the way. There's no Chinese way or Jewish way or Ethiopian way or American way.

There's one way for all people. You can deny that you can call it bigoted or you can call it narrow, but Jesus already said, yeah, it's narrow.

Narrow is the way that leads to life. You'll only find it.

If you go the Lord's way, if you confess like Paul, that Jesus is the son of God, the way, the truth and the life, and then out of that faith, the faith of your confession, you'd be baptized included in the church, become a disciple.