Obedience: Go and Do

If you've been with us the last couple of weeks, we have been doing a three week series on obedience. And so in conjunction with missions emphasis week, we're going to be finishing out our series on obedience this morning. And so we're going to be in acts chapter nine but we're going to start in acts chapter seven to give you some background.

And so go ahead and turn to acts chapter seven and this week is all about missions and this week is all about going and doing all that God has called us to do. Amen. And you know, we should be doing that every day , every week. But we're putting special emphasis on it this week to encourage you, the body of Christ to go and do and to continue in that work that God has already called us to. And so this morning we're going to be looking at the obedience of two men.

One man is known a little better than the other in history, but it required both men's obedience for this story to unfold. And so the result of these men's obedience changed all of history and it's changed your life and has changed my life. And it's even to this very day, the effects of these men's, the, the, the , the obedience of these men, we still feel to this day and in my opinion, is one of the most incredible stories of obedience in the whole Bible.

And you're probably wondering, well, what is he talking about? Well, you all know this story very well. It's the story of the road to Damascus, the story of Saul's conversion from Saul , the killer of Christians to Paul the apostle and the greatest witness. And so we're going to look at that this morning.

And before we kind of get into the main text , I want to give you some background of who saw was because I think it's important for us to see who he was, how evil he was before he transformed, so that we can really understand the gravity of the transformation that took place in his life as he was obedient to God and his call. And so if you, if you want to look here in acts chapter seven verse 58 is kind of the first verse I want to point out a couple of things.

And acts chapter seven verse 58 were first introduced to a young man named Saul, and this was during the stoning of Stephen. And we see that the, the clothes were laid at this man , Saul's feet as the people were stoning Stephen . I mean, can you imagine how evil, how awful, how horrible a stoning would have been just to sit there and watch it as evil enough, but to sit there and be an advocate for it, to encourage it to approve of it is even more evil.

You know, and you know not to get too graphic, but if you can just visualize for a second horrible something like that would be, it gives you an idea of what kind of person saw was. So the first thing we see is that Saul stood by enabling the stoning of Stephen, but then it goes on in acts chapter eight if you move on to acts chapter eight verses one through three we see in verse one there that saw was in hearty agreement with putting him to death.

And so we're getting a little bit more information now about Saul. It wasn't a standing by enabling the stoning of Stephen, but it says here that he was in hearty agreement with the stoning of Stephen. And then you skip down to verse three and it says, the Sol began ravaging the church entering house to house house after house and dragging off men and women. He would put them in prison. We see it here that Saul was ravaging the church.

That word ravaging in the original text is the same word that's used when describing an animal just destroying its prey mauling its prey. And that's what saw was doing to the church. He was ravaging the church like a wild animal destroys its prey and not just men, but women too. He was persecuting men and women, and Saul was the leader.

What's interesting about this, you look back in verse one it says on that day a great persecution began against the church in Jerusalem and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Sumeria except the apostles, which what's interesting, what's amazing is that even in his evil state, even as as saw this, this person who is ravaging the church who was killing Christians, God still used him even as evil actions to begin the second and third phases of acts, chapter one verse eight

which says to take the gospel to Jerusalem. What does it say in this verse? He caused them to scatter to do JIA and Samarria and we know ultimately about Saul's life, that he even took the gospel to the fourth stage to the ends of the earth. So even in his evil state, even though he was ravaging the church and killing Christians, he was the initiator of the gospel. Moving out to the second and third stages of acts one eight and taking the gospel to the whole world. Pretty interesting.

Then look over and chapter nine verses one and two just the last bit of information I want to give you on background before we move into our main text this morning says in verses one through two of chapter nine. Now Saul still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord.

Went to the high priest and asked her letters from him to the synagogues at Damascus so that if he found anyone belonging to the way both men and women, we see it again there he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. So we see here that now solves being exposed as the ring leader, this movement against Christians against the church. He is the ringleader and he was on his way to arrest for fleeing Christians in Damascus.

We know from acts chapter 26 verse 10 that he persecuted the church with raging fury to foreign cities with rage and fury . He would even hit his stop at Jerusalem. He went to foreign cities to drag Christians back to Jerusalem to put them to death and to vote in agreement to kill them. Men and women both saw was the picture I want you to give this morning is Saul was a very evil, sinful, godless man. He was a horrible person just like all of us are, or really horrible people as well in our sin.

And that's the picture of the man that we see this morning with the background information on Saul, he was willing to go a six stage journey on foot to Damascus, just to be the chief person to bring these people back to Jerusalem, to put them on trial and put them to death. That's how committed he was to killing the Christians. And that's the man that we're going to read about in just a second.

And as we pick up in this main Texas morning, chapter nine verse three, we see an incredible encounter with the living God. We see an incredible accounter that leads to Saul's call to obedience that leads to Saul becoming Paul the apostle. And when you take a man is evil. Assault was killing all the Christians. It had to take an act of God. Only God could do what happens next.

So pick up with me in acts chapter nine verse three and we're going to read this first section of our main text this morning. Look at what he says as he encounters the risen Jesus Christ. Since he was, as he was traveling, it happened that he was approaching Damascus and suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him and he fell to the ground and 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 get up and enter the city and it will be told you what you must do. The men who traveled with him stood speechless hearing the voice, but seeing no one, Saul got up from the ground and though his eyes were open, he could see nothing and leading him by the hand. They brought him into Damascus and he was three days with outside and neither ate nor drank. Let's pray together this morning. Dear God , we just thank you for your word, Lord.

We thank you for your called Lord in this story, this great example of obedience that we had this morning. Lord, I'm a sinner saved only by your grace Lord. And so I pray that you would forgive me of my sin or make me a clean vessel. Deliver your word to your people, Lord. And I pray that across this room this morning, God, that your Holy spirit would move in power.

It would move in a mighty way, would call your people to obedience, Lord, that we would see this example in scripture and it would cause us to move in obedience to you, Lord. And so we pray that your Holy spirit moving a mighty way and be with this time as we study your word and that it would Edify the church and we just ask it all in Jesus name. Amen. All right, so we look back at this first section and we see Saul's call to obedience.

This was a pretty important story because we see it three times in the book of acts. The first one, what we just read was the original account and the number , and then chapter 22 of acts. We see Paul speech to the Jewish crowd where he tells the story again, and then in chapter 26 we see Paul tell his story the third time in defense to King Agrippa.

So it must've been pretty important, not only to the writer Luke who wrote the book of acts, but also very important to all of Christianity to be in there three times in the book of acts, we see some actions that Paul takes starting in verse three through five and the first action that we see in verses three and four is that Saul sees the light and he falls to the ground. Billy , this was a sign of fear and a sign of humility. In an instant, he saw the light and it brought him to his knees.

You got to remember what kind of man this was happening to, what we've talked about, and in an instant we see this happen. We know in first Corinthians 15 eight saw actually claims not just to see a light, but to see Jesus himself during this experience. After Jesus asked , why are you persecuting me? Saul, ask him, who are you, Lord? And that original translation, that word Lord would have probably been translated more like, who are you, sir?

Kinda like , ah , I don't know who this is for sure immediately, but it's somebody important. I better be respectful. I better be humble. Who are you, sir? And so we don't know that he immediately knew or recognized that it was Jesus. But we know that he knew it was a voice from heaven. We knew that. We know that. He for sure recognized there was someone important though the way he responded. And then way here in verse five a confession of who is appearing to Saul.

We see in verse five that saw hears that Jesus was indeed the risen Lord. He was indeed the son of God. He was in de Jesus , the Christ. Can you imagine upon hearing this statement from Jesus when he, when Jesus appears to him on this road? Can you imagine how this rocked his world immediately? Can you imagine that everything he knew, everything that he was, was completely destroyed in that one statement. And he realized how evil the things that you were doing was doing.

Were he realized in an instant how much he was wrong and it completely rocked his world by this confession of Jesus being the son of God who saw was persecuting. So you see it . Here's Jesus was indeed Lord. But then in verses six through nine, we see that Paul gets up in a an immediate obedience as a new creation in Christ. Only Jesus Christ can take a man so evil and in an instant change him to be a man after God's heart.

A man that wanted to follow and be obedient to Jesus Christ, the risen Lord, one encounter with Jesus was enough to radically change his life. He was completely broken down and we see this from his physical posture. His physical appearance of being on his knees was displaying what was going on on the inside. Outwardly, he was humbled. He was helpless without God and he, he knew that he needed Jesus Christ. We see that from his posture, the spiritual transformation taking place.

So I want to, I want to give you a couple of key points this morning of Saul's obedience. First one is that his obedience required faith in God. His physical sight was taken for him from him. We see that in verse eight and it was replaced by spiritual sight . At that point. He could only see spiritually as to before. He was blind spiritually. He could see physically. Now he was blind physically, but he could see spiritually and this caused him to fully rely on God for his new life.

He literally had to walk by faith and not by sight. So we see that is that his obedience required faith in God, but we also see another key point is that his obedience was not easy or comfortable. After all, he was blind for three days and he was so impacted by this encounter with Jesus that he didn't eat or drink for three days. I mean, a lot of us can say, I can go three days without eating, but could we go three days without drinking any water that anything?

And it shows us how much he was transformed by what happened to him in this story. And so when we think about our own lives, how many times do we, we're not obedient because we don't have faith. How many times do we see that faith is always required for our obedience? And then how many times do we realize and know and understand that to be obedient is not always easy. It's not always comfortable. And most likely it's almost never comfortable. It's almost never easy.

But we have to God and we have to go forward anyway and be obedient. So we see this first man's obedience , Saul , his called obedience. But then let's look read on him in verse 10 another man comes into play in this story. And this is the man that a lot of times we overlook. We forget about, we don't talk about, he's kind of the guy behind the scenes. So there may be some of you here this morning that say, you know what, I'm that kind of person.

I'm the kind of the behind the scenes first and that you know , never really up in front of people, but I'm just faithfully serving the Lord. And I think this story speaks to you as well as whether it's the person in the spotlight or the person behind the scenes. Everyone is important to be obedient, to fulfill the plan that God has for us. And this man, his name was Anna and AYAs and Anna . Nice is often forgotten or maybe not talked about much beyond the story.

We don't really know a whole lot more about this man. And, and I, it's, there's another one in the Bible. It's a different man named Dan and ice , but this particular SNIS we don't really know much more about. But what do we see here? Let's read on in chapter 10 verse chapter nine verse 10 says, now there was a disciple at Damascus named Anna NIS . And the Lord said to him, a vision and an [inaudible] . And he said, here I am Lord.

And the Lord said to him, get up and go to the street called straight and acquire at the house of Judas for a man named Tarsus, for a man from Tarsus named Saul. For he is praying. He has seen in a vision a man named NNI has come in and lay his hands on him so that he might regain his sight. But Anna and I have answered, Lord, I have heard from many about this man how much harm he did to your saints at Jerusalem. And here he has authority from the chief priest to bind all who call on your name.

Well , listen to what the Lord said in verse 15 but Lord said, go for he is a chosen instrument of mine to bear my name before the Gentiles and Kings and the sons of Israel. For I will show him how much he must suffer for my name's sake. So Anna nice departed and entered the house. And after laying his hands on him, said, brothers saw the Lord Jesus who appeared to you on the road by which you are coming has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy spirit.

So not only we see the obedience of Saul who now is becoming Paul, but we see the obedience of a man named Anna [inaudible] and an ISIS call to obedience that Anna I first and the actions we see here is that an eye sees a vision and is given a mission of obedience to go. All of us are given a mission of obedience to go. The question is, are we willing to receive that mission and actually go at first and , and I seems pretty eager, right?

He says, here I am, Lord. It sounds similar to what we see in the old Testament, right? With Isaiah. Here I am. Send me, here I am Lord. But what happens in verse 13 and 14 after Anna and I us learns what the mission actually is, he doesn't seem so eager. We see that he is fearful and completing the mission of obedience and he questions God's mission and says, you mean Lord? Do you want me to go to this man?

That is the one that I was told to hide from the one that has been given papers to come and drag me to prison and put me to death. You want me to go to that guy? And he begins to question God. How many times after we get the mission, are we fearful and we questioned God and we're not willing to step out in obedience? We've seen an ice redeemed themselves . Look at what God, God says he , he goes on and in verses 15 and 16 God commands him as God always does, right to go anyway.

He doesn't say, Oh, well, I didn't know he didn't really want to do that. I guess I'll find something else for him to do. Sometimes we are disobedient. We miss out on God's blessings. You know, many people would say, well, what if , uh, if , if, if Paul and, or Saul or Paul and, and , and I's didn't fulfill this, didn't do this, then all these things that happen after would , it never happened.

And I would say I believe that if they chose not to do it, God wouldn't use someone else and accomplish his purposes anyway. And they would've just missed out on the incredible blessing that God had for them to be used by God and the way that we're reading about thousands of years later. So he commands him to go anyway, and he reassures and NIS with a promise.

And anytime God calls us to be obedient, being obedient to him always comes with his promises attached that God has always given us promises. And we know that his greatest promise is that we will be victorious in the end. No matter how hard this life is, no matter how much we're persecuted, no matter how hard it is sometimes to be obedient to his call, to his word, to his mission, we can bank on the promise that in the end we win. We are victorious with Christ.

And so we see that he gives him the promise in this specific passage that Paul is going to be a great instrument to the Gentiles. And when we are fearful, we must remember God's promises as well. That if we are obedient, if we trust him, that's the safest place that we can ever be in his obedience. And to know that his promises always come matter. How hard the task is with his OB . With obedience, we see some key points in verse 17 here as well.

Again, we see that his obedience requires faith in God. His obedience requires faith in God, and [inaudible] eventually did trust in God, right? Even though he questioned God, even though he was hesitant, he in the end chose to trust God's word and trust his and follow him. And he's obedient. And we know this because when he goes to Saul in verse 17 what does he call him ? He calls him brother Saul. So if he didn't believe God, he wouldn't be assuming that this guy was a brother.

He'd probably be looking around the corner, a little worried about what the guy was going to do when he saw him. But instead he said, brother saw, and he went boldly to Saul and fulfilled what God had called him to do. So as obedience required faith in God once again, but it also, once again, his obedience was not easy or comfortable.

I mean, could you imagine if you were called to do it and NIS was called to do, did you go to the very person that you'd been told was trying to kill you and put you or put you in prison and then ultimately puts you to death and know that he had papers more than likely his name could have been on those papers of someone that was supposed to be taken back to Jerusalem. Can you imagine how scary it must have been to pursue the man you were told wanted to kill you?

But he followed God and he was obedient anyway, and he clung to the promises of God. And we see the final passage read with me in 18 through 22 look at what it says. We see the immediate results of their obedience, not just Paul's obedience, but analyze his obedience as well. Their obedience. Look what it says, and this is an immediately there fell from his eyes, something like scales and he regained a side and he got up and was baptized and he took food and was strengthened.

Now for several days he was with the disciples who were at Damascus and immediately he began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogue sane. He is the son of God. All those hearing him continue to be amazed and were saying is this not he who in Jerusalem destroyed those who called on his name and who has come here for the purpose of bringing them bound before the chief priest, but saw, kept increasing in strength and confounding the Jews who lived at Damascus by proving that this Jesus is the Christ.

So we see the immediate results of their obedience. Paul could see spiritually, but now he could also see physically we see his salvation occurred first, but on the road to Damascus, but then we see that Paul was baptized. Maybe there's someone here today that says, you know what? I've been, I've come to Christ. I know him as my Lord and savior, but I've never taken that first step of obedience and then baptized.

Maybe today is the day you need to take that first step in committing to be baptized. Baptism is a symbol of what has happened on the inside displayed outwardly for the body of Christ to encourage you to hold you accountable as a testimony to the lost world. Maybe today God is calling you to follow this incredible example of obedience we have in scripture and to be baptized as that first step of obedience.

But look at the rest of this stuff that we see happening here with an incredible example for all of us of what it looks like to be obedient. We saw also see that he was strengthened and discipled by other believers as Christians. Once we come to Christ, we take that step of obedience through baptism and other step of obedience.

BDMs that God wants us to take is to be disciple, to study his word, to have the time of Bible study with other believers so that we can be built up by the word and by one another in the faith and we see that in verse 19 here's some other immediate results and we see that he began to proclaim the gospel in verse 20 as Christians, we can't keep this incredible message to ourself. This is the greatest thing the world has ever known.

This is the greatest thing that we could ever have that we could ever imagine the greatest gift that we can ever be given that is eternal. And so many times we talk about all of the superficial, temporary things on this earth. Instead of talking about the greatest gift that we have that is eternal. We have to share Jesus Christ. We have to share the message of the gospel. It's part of what we are called to do as obedient followers of Jesus Christ. Last thing we see is his obedience.

Had a profound impact on everyone around him. In verses 21 and 22 we see that as zil , his passion, his train , his education. Instead of being used for evil, it was redirected for God to be used for him in his kingdom. He went from being the greatest opposer of Christians to the greatest witness and follower of Christ and an incident because of his obedience to what God had called him to do. So we see the immediate results of their obedience.

We also see the historical results of their obedience. We know that Paul was the instrument that God used to take the gospel to the Gentiles. If you're in this room this morning, you're not Jewish than you're a Gentile, and so everybody in this room this morning is filling the effects historically filling the effects thousands of years later of this man, these men, these two men and their obedience to take the gospel to the Gentiles.

We have all directly been impacted today through our salvation because we today have heard the name of Jesus because thousands of years ago, God used Paul to take the gospel to the Gentiles. He made three long missionary journeys through the Roman empire. He planted churches. He preached the gospel. He gave strength and encouragement to early Christians in the early church. He was associated with both Jews and Gentiles. He was trained in the old Testament scriptures.

He knew the Greek philosophies in the Roman law. There was no better man that God had prepared. He was the ideal person to show that Jews and Gentiles were all alike in Christ. That all people could come to know Jesus Christ as their Lord and savior, that he was the only true way to salvation. We know the name of Jesus today because of Paul's obedience and what he did thousands of years ago, but we also see that he is believed to have authored 13 of the 27 books of the new Testament.

God spoke through Paul to give us nearly half of the new Testament, so not only is our salvation tied to his obedience and history by being able to hear about what God has done, but we also know that our opportunity to grow in the faith, to learn more about God, to study the scriptures, to use the scriptures as a roadmap for our lives that saw our , Paul played a huge part in bringing those scriptures that God used him as a vessel to write the half of the new Testament that we read and live on

and follow today before you start thinking, I'm glorifying Paul too much. I want to make it clear that although God used him to do all of these things, the point is that God can use anyone in obedience, but it's all about God and his power through Paul. It's not about Paul. It's not about anything that was great about him. In fact, we know that his name means small and most people believe that he was actually small in stature, that he was a small man.

But we know from what it looks , what does life look like without Christ? That he was definitely small before he came to know Christ. And you know, we're all the same way. All of us without Jesus Christ are just as small. We're just as sinful. We're just as evil, but only with Jesus Christ. Can we be a giant in the faith for him? Can we be used in a way that is beyond anything else that we could ever do?

Any purpose that we could ever serve is only when we allow Jesus Christ to live through us and we're truly obedient to him. You know, we see small people do great things all the time in sports. I don't know if you guys saw the game last night, the Houston Astros and the New York Yankees, this little guy named Jose owl today, he is five six 168 pounds bottled than I .

Then it hits a home run off of this, this huge Yankee pitcher named Chapman who throws like a hundred miles an hour, hit a home run when the game, the Astros are going to the world series, and I'm not an Astros fan, but it was an incredible thing to see this little guy hit a home run and that big of a spot.

So if it can happen in sports, it definitely can happen in the kingdom of God that God can use small people to do great things for his kingdom to not because of the people, but because of what God is doing in obedience through those people this morning, if God can use Paul's obedience to do great mighty things, how could he also use obedience? How could he also use you? That's the question. This morning as we go into a time of invitation, we have missions week.

We have all of these opportunities to model what serving looks like, what it looks like in the church, what it looks like as individuals, but at the end of the day, it's really about us taking the initiative to say, you know what? We're going to be obedient to God. We're going to follow him. We're going to do everything that he has called us to do in faith. It's not going to be easy.

It's not going to be comfortable, but we're going to choose to go and do it anyway because that is what he has called us to do and we know his promises are true and we know that we are victorious in the end. So as we go into a time of invitation, we're going to pray, then we're going to stand and sing. And invitation is very simple this morning is if God can use Paul's obedience to do great mighty things, how could he also use you? How could he also use your obedience?

So this morning I'm just going to challenge you and encourage you to just be obedient. Whether that means, as Andre said last week, whether that means just to come and to pray and to seek the Lord's will and to seek. What do you want me to do? God, whether it's God's calling you to do something specific in your personal life.

I mean, can you imagine how your obedience will trickle down throughout generations in your family, to your grandchildren and great grandchildren, and how your life can have historical significance and Jesus as well. How your workplace and how your obedient there, how God can use that. So whatever it is this morning, wherever God is calling you to do, that's when I encourage you to be obedient. Let's pray together. Dear God, we thank you so much for your word.

We thank you for this incredible story of obedience. Not to glorify Paul, but to glorify you and what you can do through a small man as I am everyone else in this room or small people or without you. Lord, I just pray that all across the room that your spirit would move and power God and that we'd be obedient to your word. There would be obedient to your mission, to your call and his do whatever you've called us to do. And so use this time for your glory. We just ask it in Jesus name. Amen.