Summary
Pastor Safrit walks through Acts 9, focusing on the transformative story of Saul's conversion from a persecutor of Christians to a passionate evangelist. He emphasizes that everyone has a story to share about God's grace and encourages the congregation to be like Ananias, reaching out to those who may seem beyond hope. The sermon highlights that true transformation comes from divine intervention and that believers are called to share their faith, even in the face of adversity.
Welcome and Church Information
Thank you for listening to Pleasant Grove Baptist Church Sermon Audio. For more information, please visit our website, pgbcronda.com, or visit on all social media platforms. I'm thankful that we all have a story in here.
Acts chapter 9 is where we're going to be at today. I'm reminded as Miss Pat was telling her story, the Lord just said this to me,
the rest of the New Testament we have because of this man's story that we're going to look at today.
We'll look at Saul and the message of Paul's life and how where he started out every time he went to anyone, when he went to King Agrippa, when he went to anyone, anywhere he went, he shared this story that was the changing story of his life.
I want to challenge us that we should often be telling our story. We should be finding people to encourage and telling people what the Lord's done in our life and how it's changed our life in a crazy, mighty way.
We have a story to tell, and I'm thankful for Miss Pat this morning, her story, and I'm thankful that the Lord gave her the ability to talk because she talks my ear off all the time, and I love it.
Let's stand, we'll read, and we'll quickly walk through some things this morning. I promise I won't be too long, and we'll just see where that leads. Acts chapter 9, verses 1 through 31, we'll read this morning. I'm going to talk fast. If you listen quick, we'll be done.
Now Saul was still breathing threats and murders against the disciples of the Lord.
And when the high priest had requested letters from him in the synagogue in Damascus, so that he found any men or women who belonged to the way, that he might bring them as prisoners to Jerusalem. And as he traveled and nearing Damascus, a light from heaven suddenly flashed around him.
Falling on the ground, he heard a voice saying, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? Who are you, Lord? Saul said, I am Jesus, the one who you're persecuting.
And he replied, but get up and go to the city and do what I tell you to do. And the men who were traveling with him stood speechless, hearing the sound but seeing no one.
Saul got up from the ground, and through the eyes were opened, he could not see anything.
So he took them by the hand, and they led him to Damascus. And he was unable to see for three days, and he did not eat or drink. And there was a disciple there in Damascus named Ananias.
The Lord said to him in a vision, Ananias, here am I, Lord, he replied. Get up and go to the street called Straight. And the Lord said to him,
the house of Judas, and ask for a man named Tarsus, named Saul, since he has been praying there. In a vision, he has been seeing a man named Ananias coming into place, his hands on him so that he might regain sight.
Lord, Ananias answered, I have heard from many people about this man, how much harm he has done to your saint in Jerusalem, and how he has authority from the chief priests to arrest all who call your name. But the Lord has spoken to him, go, for this man is my chosen instrument.
We can all put our name in there. We are all God's chosen instruments to take the name to the Gentiles, kings and Israelites.
And I will show him how much he must suffer for my name's sake. And Ananias went and entered in the house, and he placed his hands on him, and he said, Brother Saul,
Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road while you were traveling, has sent me that you may regain sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit. At once, something like scales fell from his eyes, and he regained his sight. He got up and was baptized.
And after taking some food, he regained his strength. And Saul, with the disciples of Damascus for some time, immediately, he began proclaiming Jesus in the synagogues. He is the Son of God.
All who heard him were astounded and said, Isn't this the man in Jerusalem who was causing havoc and those who called his name and came here to a purpose to take them, the prisoners, to the chief priest?
But Saul grew stronger and kept confounding the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus is the Messiah. And after many days he had passed, the Jews conspired to kill him.
But Saul learned of their plot. So they were watching the gates day and night and intended to kill him. But the disciples took him by night and lowered him in a large basket through an opening in the wall. When he arrived in Jerusalem, he tried to join the disciples.
But they were afraid of him since they did not believe that he was a disciple.
Barnabas, however, took him and brought him to the apostles and explained to them how Saul had seen the Lord on the road and the Lord had talked to him and how the Damascus, he had spoken boldly in the name of Jesus.
So Saul was coming and going in Jerusalem, speaking boldly in the name of the Lord. He conversed and debated with the Hellenistic Jews and he tried to kill him. And when the brothers found out, they took him down to Caesarea and sent him off to Tarsus.
So the church throughout all of Judea, Galilee and Samaria had peace and was strengthened.
Living in fear of the Lord and encouraged by the Holy Spirit, they increased in numbers. Lord, we love you.
We thank you for what you've done. I thank you for the ladies who led today. I thank you for Ms. Pat and her testimony, the story that each and every one of us have.
I pray that we would be challenged this morning through hearing the words of Saul and Paul and his story, that we would be challenged to share our story in face of adversity, in face of persecution, that we would tell others about you. In your name we pray. Amen.
You can be seated. I promise you I won't be long.
But as I was thinking and studying this week, I came across this thought and I knew that Ms.
Pat was going to be talking today, but I came across the thought, have you ever heard something that was just unbelievable? Something that was a story and you're like, you're scratching your head. Is this fake news?
Is this, did this really happen? Is this something that actually happened in someone's life? I came across a man named John Newton. You may know this man, you may have heard this man, but this man was on a deck of a slave ship. He was cruel. He was hardened.
He had little regard for human life and he profited from human suffering. His life's goal was to cause heartache on other people.
And one night, in the middle of a violent storm, Newton cried out to God for mercy. A lot like Ms. Pat's story. The storm marked the beginning of this transformation of his life. He eventually left the slave trade and became a Christian minister.
He penned the words of the song that we love and we sing, Amazing Grace, How Sweet the Sound, That Saved a Wretch Like Me. John Newton's story reminds us of something crazy and unbelievable that no one is beyond the reach of God's grace.
No one in here is beyond the reach of what God can do. And Saul, in this same way, is a man who was indifferent toward Jesus. He hated him.
He hated his followers. And he was seeking to persecute the church and extinguish the church if it be possible.
If there was ever a man, I believe, that was ever beyond hope and beyond any type of reconciliation, I believe it was the man named Saul here that we see, and yet Jesus met him where he was at. The blinding light of Jesus changed him forever.
It took him from a persecutor to a preacher.
It took him from an enemy to an evangelist. It took him for a hunter to become hunted for Christ's sake all of his days.
Today, as we look through this very quickly, I want us to ask ourselves a couple of things. Is there someone that you think is too far gone?
I challenged us last week to write down five names and to be praying, who is these five people that are close to me that I can be in to go and encourage and talk to the Lord? Are those five people too far gone?
Are they too far gone for us to tell them about Jesus? And is there a Saul walking among us today? Is there a Saul that needs an Ananias to come alongside him and say, I love you.
Jesus loves you more than I love you. And I want to give you the greatest hope that's ever been given.
Transformation Through Divine Intervention
The first thing we see in this passage is verses 1 through 19. We see the transformation that happens. You're sitting here today and you're a true believer. You have encouraged, you have been encountered by this transformation that only Jesus gives.
The entire identity of Saul, as we look at over these next months, as we study through the rest of Acts, his identity changes from Saul to Paul. And his entire life is changed because of this one moment, this interaction with Jesus that
revolutionized his life that allows us to stand here today where we're at talking about this man named Jesus. You see, this wasn't a self-improvement project.
Oftentimes, beginning of the year comes and we get our New Year's goals out and how am I going to change my life? How am I going to be better? This was not how can Saul be better?
This was a moment of divine intervention where your life is going to be radically changed. As Paul puts it in Colossians and Ephesians, put off the old man and put on the new man.
And oftentimes in our life, this transformation is vital and it's huge and we must be there. The first thing I wrote down in this is the Savior confronts. Jesus comes and Saul was breathing threats and murderers and he was indifferent to Christ. And yet on the road to Damascus, Jesus appears to him.
Jesus appears and he says, why are you persecuting me?
Jesus identifies himself with the people that he has been hurt. This is someone who is saying, listen, Jesus is saying, you're hurting the people that are me. You're hurting myself when you do this. And we have to ask ourselves, are we on this same way? Are we on the wrong way?
Are we confident and determined that we're doing the right thing? And yet Paul believed he was doing the right thing. Saul believed he was doing the right thing. And yet God came to him and God said, you are doing something wrong. You're hurting me.
I need you to take an evaluation of where you're at and begin to identify the things that are wrong in our life. It's like, I imagine you may have seen this before. Someone who accidentally gets on the wrong way on the interstate. Right? They're driving down.
They think they're going the right way. And there's people that are honking at them and they're waving at them. They're saying, you're going the wrong way. You're going to cause problems.
And it wasn't until the police set up a barricade and they stopped the traffic and they stopped him and they said, hey, what's going on?
I thought I was going the right way, officers. And they had to have this intervention and stop him and confront him in order for him to change his ways. And oftentimes this is Christ in our life.
I've been here many times in my life where I think I'm doing the right thing and God has to step in and say, Pastor James, you're doing something wrong. You need to do this right. And that's why God gives us the Holy Spirit.
But not only does the Savior comforts, confronts, but the Savior commissions him. There was a commission in Saul's life. God was calling an ordinary disciple named Ananias. He didn't understand this. He didn't understand why I'm doing this. But yet he obeyed.
I love the obedience that despite fear, despite the thought of this man is killing people that says who I am. And yet look at the words that Ananias says.
He comes in and he says, Brother Saul. He says, you're one of me now. You've been changed. There's been a transformation in your life. You've got the call of God on your life. And he comes in and he restores Saul's sight, but also restores his life into a life that is worth meaning.
And oftentimes it takes a restoration from a brother or sister that comes in and helps us in our deepest needs, help us in our deepest times where we can begin to see the commission in our life.
And God says, I've chosen this man to go to the Gentiles, to the kings, and to the Israelites. You see, we have been chosen as well.
We may not be chosen to go and talk to the president. We may not be chosen to go and talk to some high government official. But God has chosen us to go into this world and tell those ones that have been lost that Jesus loves them and Jesus cares about them.
Fear and Worthiness in Ministry
But all of a sudden there's a fear that comes among us. There's a fear that says, am I even worthy to go and tell someone? This was Ananias' fear.
Ananias said, am I even worthy to go and say this? I could be costing my life. And yet he obeyed in a simple moment of obedience.
And then number two, in the second and final point, as we walk through verses 19 through 31, there is the trials that come. You see, just because we trust in the Lord doesn't mean we're going to have an easy-go-lucky, merry-go-round, wonderful life with no troubles and trials and tribulations.
No, there are trials. Transformation is powerful. It doesn't make our life easy. The Bible says that have comfort, that the world that hates me is also going to hate you. But as Carrie tells me often, I have overcome the world.
We're going to have trials. We're going to have tribulations. And new faith comes with a cost. Immediately there was resistance. There was rejection and even death threats. And yet following Jesus didn't give Saul comfort.
It gave him a cross. He understood, I'm taking this cross up. I'm taking this mantle of rejection. I was once the one going after Christians and now they're going to come after me. And so I've got to figure out, is this what I'm doing? Look at the amazement and the confusion.
Because I wrote down this, Saul replaced Stephen. You remember a couple of weeks ago we talked about Stephen. Stephen, one of the first deacons.
He got up and he's preaching and he's teaching. And Saul was there at his execution. Saul was holding the coats of the men that were stoning him. And now the one that commissioned the execution has now been commissioned to go be the preacher.
He's been commissioned to go out and preach Jesus everywhere. The initial response is there was amazement and confusion.
Is this not the man that destroyed us? Is this not the man that came to ridicule us and throw us in jail and take us back for trial? Yet we look and we see this prosecutor becomes the prosecuted.
They were plotting to kill him and to rise up and take over and kill this man named Saul. Imagine, I'm a sports guy, I like sports.
Imagine an NFL player, a college athlete, maybe an NC State football player that was on a team and said, you know, I just want to be a better team and so I'm going to go over to Coach Belichick to where the UNC's at and I'm going to play for them.
And all of a sudden the players in UNC are like, can I trust this guy?
Can I understand? Maybe he's just here as a spy and he's eventually going to go back with the way the portal is now. All of a sudden you've got your skeptic among them. And this is Saul in his life.
He's asking and they're asking, is this guy, is he out here just to maybe pull us in? And all of a sudden he's going to pull the gotcha card. You can imagine there would be the skeptics there. And you can imagine that oftentimes we're one of those skeptics.
Someone's life that was marred by sin, that was marred by corruption and scandal and everything,
all of a sudden they make a new leaf and you're like, I don't know if I can trust that. Is that really what happened? Are they really a new person? Are they really a new creature? Because I'm often like that as well.
Someone tries to turn over a new leaf and especially with kids, they repent and they say, I've done wrong. Have you really changed?
Are you really in this area? And all of a sudden this is how we are. We're skeptical.
And God is calling Saul to replace Stephen and go out and preach the gospel. There begins to be this suspicion of Saul. There's fear and doubt. When Saul arrives in Jerusalem, the Jerusalem church says, hey, we can't even believe this guy.
He's here to do the same thing. He's going to change and he's going to flip and he's going to arrest us all. But we get introduced to this man. His name is Barnabas. Barnabas' name means the son of encouragement.
I would challenge each and every one of us today that we would say, I want to be a Barnabas. I want to be someone who is a son of encouragement that comes along and gives this encouragement to someone else.
Encouragement and Accountability
He speaks up for Saul and he gives this accountability.
And oftentimes in our life, I find myself in this season right now where I'm at of, I'm giving more encouragement to other people that are struggling in their journey and in their life because the Lord has blessed and the Lord has been good to us.
But oftentimes I'm in that same area where I need that encouragement.
And the Bible says that we should be called to be the sons of encouragement. We should be a Barnabas in those who are needing around us. And I want to challenge us, who in your life right now needs a Barnabas?
Who in your life right now is struggling to the point that they don't know where they're going to take their next step or what's going to go on in their life? And you have been placed in their life to be that Barnabas.
You have been placed there to sacrifice so that they can have a Barnabas.
There was this submission of Saul and leads us to the last thing in verse 31.
And I want to spend the next couple of seconds just looking at this verse because look, it says, So the church throughout all of Judea, Galilee, and Samaria had peace and was strengthened and yet lived in fear. How can you have strength and be growing but yet live in fear?
Because there was peace in the moments of their trials. There was peace in the moments of their trials. The church all throughout Jerusalem, Judea, Galilee, Samaria, they were experiencing peace. Even though there were threats and fears,
the church allowed that to grow them and strengthen them in unity, but also grow them in numbers. Oh, the church grew. The church began to see great change because people were stepping out of their comfort zones.
People were beginning to say, I'm going to step out and do something great. Even in the midst of fear, even in the midst of persecution. My mind goes to when you're at the beach and a storm comes in and you see the storm coming in. It's chaotic. It's crazy.
The waves are huge. The landscape begins to change and you go out the next morning and you begin to look and you see all the newness that comes with it. It was crazy and it was hard, but the landscape was changed in a way that brought a newness.
And oftentimes in our life, after our conversion, there is this season of peace.
Pat just clearly talked about it, how in those moments of heartaches and trials, there was peace that came over her. She knew there was the peace of God there. She didn't understand why. She didn't understand what the next steps were.
But God was giving peace. And oftentimes in our life, the Holy Spirit comes in and comforts us today, just like he does in the early church. We have to ask ourselves, is this where we're going to be at in our life? Are we going to have this peace even in the trials?
It's not the absence of the trials. It's peace in the trials.
It's peace in the moments that we don't understand. And it's saying, God, I need you in this season more than I've ever needed you before.
As Terry comes and plays very quickly, we're going to have a moment of prayer and go into the conclusion of our service. But I'm a history buff. I love history. And there's a story of a guy named Fujita. And he is a World War II veteran of Germany.
And he was in this moment of transformation.
He was the commander that led the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.
I've never been to Pearl Harbor. That's one of the sites of history. I would love to go and see the sunken ship and go out there and see what happened in World War II. And Fujita was the guy that was the villain in America's eyes.
He was the guy that struggled every single day of his life because he was the one that brought destruction to hundreds of thousands of people. One day he received a pamphlet from a woman named Peggy, a Christian whose missionary parents were killed by Japanese soldiers by his attack and his very attack.
Peggy chose to love the Japanese people and go to them in spite of what had happened in the name of Christ. Fujita was stunned.
And he began to ask this question, how can someone have the power to forgive and show forgiveness like that?
He began reading this Bible and this pamphlet that was given.
And the man that once led the attack to kill thousands began to give his life to Jesus. He spent the rest of his life preaching the gospel in Japan and America.
And he said, I am the one that led these attacks, but God has forgiven me and given me this peace and comfort and grace. And he began to talk about, he made this statement, the gospel is not about making good people better, but it's about making dead people alive.
And when we begin to think of our life, we begin to think of ourselves and say, am I a Saul who is dead in my sins and needs Christ to come in and forgive me? Or maybe I'm an Ananias.
I just need to do the will and the obedience of Jesus and step out and go and tell someone.
Being a Barnabas or Ananias
Or maybe you're here today and you're a Barnabas. And you need to be the one that steps out and says, I want to encourage you.
There's no one that the grace of God can't reach and I want to be the encouragement in your life.
I want to be the one that steps into the plate and says, I'm here to go back for this person because I know this person loves the Lord and is serving the Lord.
Whatever area the Lord is dealing with you in this short moment, as we begin to go into this moment of response, and we're not going to have an altar invitation.
We're just going to have a time where you stay in your seat and you just contemplate what the Lord's doing in your life. And maybe today you're saying, you know, Pastor James, I want to be that Saul that changes my life and changes the direction of where I'm going for the gospel's sake.
Maybe you can say I'm an Ananias. The Lord's told me to go to someone.
He's pricked my heart and he said, I know that there's that person over there at work or at school or sports that you need to go and you need to talk to. And you've said, no, God, I'm not going to do it. And God's saying, no, no, be an Ananias.
Go and tell someone. Go and encourage someone like Barnabas and be amazed at what the Lord's going to do if we just step out by faith and listen to the Lord. In this moment of prayer, ask yourself, where are you at this morning?
And as Terry plays for just a moment, I'm going to close this in prayer and we'll go into the rest of our service. Thank you again for taking your time to listen to the sermon audio of Clothin' Grove. Please subscribe to get our latest sermons each week.
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