So in Acts chapter 9, we're going
to start back at verse 14, and I'll read through verse 17, and
then we'll pick up from our outline. Then Ananias, verse 13, then
Ananias answered, Lord, I have heard by many of this man how
much evil he hath done to your saints at Jerusalem. And here
he hath authority from the chief priest to bind all that call
on your name. But the Lord said unto him, go
your way for he is a chosen vessel unto me to bear my name before
the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. For I will
show him how great things he must suffer for my namesake. And Ananias went his way and
entered into the house and putting his hands on him said, brother
Saul, the Lord even Jesus that appeared unto thee in the way
as you came hath sent me, that thou mightest receive thy sight,
and be filled with the Holy Ghost. And immediately there fell from
his eyes, as it had been, scales. And he received sight forthwith,
and arose, and was baptized. And when he had received meat,
he was strengthened. Then was Saul certain days with
the disciples which were at Damascus. And straightway he preached Christ
in the synagogues, that he is the Son of God. But all that
heard him were amazed and said, is not this he that destroyed
them which called on this name in Jerusalem and came hither
for that intent that he might bring them bound unto the chief
priest? But Saul increased the more in
strength and confounded the Jews which dwelt at Damascus, proving
that this was the very Christ. And after that, many days were
fulfilled the Jews to counsel to kill him. Thus is the reading
of God's word. We started off last week working
through what was an unavoidable and necessary acquiescence or
concession on our part. And that is under point number
one of our outline. The election of God alone is
the cause of our calling and our service. I tried to persuade
you under these four points that God is the one who chooses us,
that God is the one who calls us, that God is the one who saves
us, and God is the one who sends us. So here we have a very simple
sentence. If you were part of our Greek
class, you would see this very readily. We would call Theos,
our God here, the what? The subject, right? And then
we would call chose the what? The verb. And then we would use
this little pronoun us, and we would call it the what? Object. Just that simple. So God, who
is the subject, acted in sovereign purpose to choose us. God, who
is the subject, acted in sovereign purpose to call us. God, who
is the subject, acted in sovereign purpose to save us. And then
God, who is the subject of the scriptures, acted in sovereign
purpose to send us, chose, called, saved, and sins. Now that order is critical to
understand. He chose us in eternity past. He called us according to his
purpose and grace. He saved us at the time of regeneration
when the spirit of God came through the preaching of the gospel.
And then he sends us in the task of proclamation. chose, called,
saved, and sins. Turn with me in your Bible to
2 Timothy 1, verse 9, and I want you to see it in that order just
so that you can know that these are not arbitrary verbal structures,
but that this is the way that God has purposed to bring us
into not only a saving knowledge of God, but a saving purpose
as well. If I could get across to the
saints, Any one truth it would be this that he has saved you
for a purpose That he did not just save you to save you He
saved you for a purpose And I think we'll be able to bear that up
out of our text as well But I do want to impress that upon your
mind If you say that you are saved you must also say that
you are saved not only on purpose That is god didn't save you by
accident God saved you on purpose, but he also saved you for a purpose. That means you're not just saved,
you're saved for purpose. And if that's true, if I have
sold you on that proposition, about the only thing you wanna
do with that particular proposition is ask the question, what did
he save me for? God, why did you save me? What
is your purpose in my life? That is the all consuming and
all encompassing question. That is the $64 million question. Every believer should ask in
pursuit of the answer will be your satisfaction will be your
joy will be your gratification will be your fulfillment in life.
Probably child of God probably the worst thing that could ever
occur in your life in mind is to be saved and not know why
and to merely be living an aimless listless life. That probably
is the most miserable state we can be in as a Christian, not
knowing what God has purposed for us. The joy of the Christian
is to be clear on why God saved them. Nothing is more exciting
in the life of the child of God is to know or ask to know their
mission, their purpose, their calling, in a couple of two or
three weeks after our conference, we will have a five week series
on marriage. And I would recommend everyone
be there because in here in that series, we're gonna be actually
turning over the rocks of God's purpose in our life so that we
will struggle through what it means to be a child of God in
this world and how we are to relate to everyone and more particularly
people that we care about. Those classes will be germane
for young people. One of the struggles I know that
occurs in the young person's life is this, when they reach
that point wherein they are just about to break the umbilical
cord of any tangible attachment to their parents, their question
is, so how do I navigate life? Which way do I go? What should
I do? What should I be in life? And they look at two or three
or four major options that are out there. And sometimes out
of desperation, they jump into one, two, or a third or fourth
of those options, not really knowing whether that's the will
of God for them or not. Like an option they will jump
into is obtaining a vocation. And so they get pressured to
go to school, right? and they get pressured to finish
early so they can start working and pay their own bills and not
feel bad for still being at mom and daddy's house when they're
55 years old. But that's a pressure applied to them without the major
addendum of the term, the will of God. So now think with me
for a moment. I'm being pastoral. For you parents
who are sending your children off to school, If you send your
children off to school without them being clear on their primary
pursuit of knowing the will of God, you set them up for tragedy. Because the university will give
them a will. The university will give them
an agenda. It will give them a mission.
It will give them even an identity. The university will tell them
who they are. The university will strip from
them all of the inheritance that you gave them and give them a
whole complete identity with a whole agenda and a whole purpose.
By the time they leave college, they are now emissaries of that
university. Do you know why? Because we did
not help them understand that first and foremost is the will
of God for their life when they go to college. So that whatever's
going on in school, whatever academic pursuits they are engaged
in, whatever final majors that they want to land on, those academic
pursuits and those majors must be consistent with their ultimate
purpose in life. And that is the will of God.
That individual is going to be a happy individual because they're
going to make choices consistent with the will of God. Or we may
throw them into the larger paradigm of which for which we will be
engaging in this whole marriage issue. They get thrown into marriage. 19 years old, 20 years old, 21,
22, correct? And sometimes marriage becomes
for the young man or the young woman a kind of escape. that can serve as a distraction
from, again, our primary objective, which is what? The will of God.
That if we are not in pursuit of answering the question, what
is the will of God for me since now I'm saved? If we are thrown
into the arduous complexities and conundrums and difficult
challenges of marriage, you may not come up out of that quagmire
for decades. And once you do, guess what you're
asking? I still don't know who I am or what I'm doing. I'm telling you the truth tonight.
Get the CD, listen to it 10 times. Cause I'm telling you things
you, you may not have thought through that sometimes we put
our children and people we care about on a projectory for certain
goals that are not undergirded by the primary goal of the will
of God. And as a consequence, they struggle
with their own autonomy, their own identity, their own security,
their own purpose. Is that true ladies? I sit in
council with a lot of people all the time and they come to
me frequently saying, I'm really struggling. With what? With who
I am. That's powerful because those
issues were not formulated early on in the matrix of this particular
question. my purpose in Christ. I think
it's a wonderful thing to be born again as a young person.
I really do. I think if God were pleased to, and we pray this
is the case with our young people, that they would experience regeneration
early on so that their minds are opened up to the reality
of God and the reality of the things of God so that they can
see the world through the prism of biblical truth. And then as
they do so, struggle with landing on their purpose, but doing it
with this confidence that God chose me that God called me,
that God saved me, and now God's what? Sending me. See, the college
student or the young married person that goes into these vocations
with these principles as their foundation can at least fall
back on God when things get tough. When things get difficult, they
can fall back on God. So now mark how this goes. I
actually back up to verse 8 for a second. And let's watch what
it says. Do not be ashamed of the testimony
of our Lord. That's another phraseology for
the gospel. Nor of me, his prisoner, speaking
of Paul, but be thou a partaker of the what of the gospel? The
afflictions of the gospel. This is the true gospel. It brings
about a kind of affliction according to the power of God. Now suffer
for the gospel, say according to, or in regards to, or with
the resources of the power of God. Now verse nine, now watch
this now. who had saved us. Who did the saving? And what? Called us. So you see these two
verbs. The first one is saved. God saved
us. Then he what? Now that saved
is what we call the objective salvation that was accomplished
in Christ before many of us had a being like God saved us in
Christ 2000 years ago. Our salvation was secured by
the appearing of the son of God 2000 years ago and his death
on Calvary Street when he said it is finished secured my salvation. So when God comes to me, he comes
to me with a finished work. And when he calls me, he calls
me into that salvation, which he already accomplished in Christ
2000 years ago. You guys got that? So he saved
me and then he called me. So the calling is now described
as a what kind of calling? A holy calling. You got that?
All right. So the Bible plainly tells us
in John chapter five, the hour is coming. And now is when the
dead shall hear the voice of the son of God, and they that
hear shall live. I think I gave you three calls
a couple of weeks ago. One of my sisters ran up and
said, you only talked about two. What's the third one? So let me back
up and give you the basic structure of these three calls. Every one
of us that are born into this world are called into this world. We're not just an accident. We're
called into this world. Every human being that's born,
I'm talking about the billions of people on planet earth from
the beginning of time to the end of time, not one soul is
an accident. The multiple billions or even
trillions of people that have, have walked planet earth, lived
and died. Some in the womb, never ever
seen the light of day were a direct product of the will of God. There
are no accidents with God when it comes to conception and the
birth of a child. You guys understand that? There's
a call there that transcends our capacity to fully understand. But every human being, every
human being is called into life. That's why Paul said in Galatians
chapter one, but God who called me from my mother's room, who
separated me from my mother's womb. So we as believers understand
that God has his hands on us. Even in the womb, I couldn't
have been brought into existence without the decree of God. the
right parents, the right time, the right place. That's the way
God works. It's never by accident. And then
we live our life. And finally, at the right time,
we hear the gospel faith comes by what? And hearing by what?
That's right. So, so how shall they call upon
him of whom they have not heard his call? So God calls and we
respond. He calls us with the gospel and
we say, yes, Lord. Is that right? By the power of
His grace bringing new life in us, we respond. So we're saved
and we're called, not according to our what? All right. So this
is a grace calling, isn't it? It's a grace calling, not according
to our works, but according to His own what? So now stop right
there. See, that's the point. God called
you and me to what? Purpose. He called us to a purpose. I think, again, I'm going to
say this and we'll be able to move on. It's a tragedy when the Christian
runs around without an instrument panel, or without a compass,
without a GPS system, without an agenda. I think it's a tragedy.
I think we waste our time when we are not serious about the
will of God. He called us according to his
own purpose and grace, watch this, which was given us, that's
the word for gift, it was gifted us in Christ Jesus, when? Before the world began. Do you
see that? Magnificent. In Christ, before
the world began, God graced us and purpose us according to his
own purpose and not according to our words, but he called us
with a holy calling. Now see, here's another important
reason with which we ought to pay attention to God's word.
The calling is a holy calling. It's not an unholy calling. Now
watch this. When God calls you to himself,
he's calling you out of something into something else. He's not
calling you in the world to the world. He's calling you from
the world, out of the world. You guys got that? So a biblical
understanding of the calling is a removal from one sphere
into another sphere where you are now set apart, sanctified
to hear from God, to know God, to commune with God, and then
for God to use you, use you. That's called a holy calling.
So every believer is holy. who understands that they have
been called out of Egypt into Canaan, are called out of darkness
into light, are called out of a listless, aimless life into
the purpose of God. Every believer is called to purpose.
So you get to go home tonight, lay on your bed and say, Lord,
what is my purpose? Because otherwise you are wasting
your time and you might discover that you're not saved if you
don't ultimately understand you've been called to purpose. Oh, and
I have discovered that it's not like rocket science or it's not
like, you know, it's not like having to pass, you know, some
kind of major physics test or, you know, biology or something
like that. There are only a few major critical
and simplistic things that you have to mark off as to whether
or not you are on the right track and just take your time and work
through them. Has God called me to fellowship with his son?
Yes. Has he called me to know his word? Yes. Has he called
me to be part of the body of Christ? Yes. Has he called me
to serve in that body? Yes. Has he gifted me to serve?
Yes. Am I operating out of my gifts?
Yes. Am I seeking to reach lost centers for Christ? Yes. Am I
loving men and women? Yes. Am I telling the truth?
Yes. Simple things. They're not profound,
simple, simple things. If I'm not doing those things,
I probably am not saved because they're very simple. He called
you and I to be his witnesses. Am I making some sense? Because
a lot of people will try to make their calling so complex, so
mysterious, so, so transcendent that they could never, ever know
it. No, most people that actually have been called are right around
you. Just take a look at the ones who know what they're doing
and follow them because those are the happy ones. Not perfectly
happy, but happy because there's no way to be happy except in,
uh, in obedience to Christ, understanding those basic principles. All right,
now go with me back to our text. Let's do some work. Let's do
some work. So God, he chose us. God, he called us. God, he saved
us, he sends us. Now let's actually begin to see
how this radical intervention of God to take one of the chief
emissaries of the enemy out of that dark kingdom and place him
in his own kingdom and tell him, you are going to be a major,
major vehicle of blessing for me to multitudes of people. Remember what we learned is that
Ananias really struggled, did he not, with his assignment.
And for those of you who are new, I said this a couple weeks
ago, this is free. How do I know that it's God calling
me to a particular assignment? Because it's never really convenient. Assignments from God are not
really convenient. They are almost always countercultural,
are calling us out of some comfort zone that we have into something
that is more spiritual nature. See, you and I really like comfort. We like ease. And if we had Christianity
our way, It would be a nice little small little island off the Mediterranean
Sea where the sun shines on it all the time. And we would be
sitting up drinking pina coladas, swinging on a little, you know,
yeah. And somebody be throwing grapes
in our mouth and waving. And we just waiting for Jesus,
waiting for Jesus, getting out of trouble. But see, that's not,
that's not how it goes. Remember, we are to experience
the afflictions of the gospel. according to the power of God.
That means God is calling us to service. That's what he's
doing. And Ananias had to go talk to
a thug, murderer, criminal, who was intent on killing Christians,
not even knowing whether or not this guy was real or not, until
the Lord told him, hey, he's my servant. Remember that? Hey,
he's my servant. And that revelation given to
Ananias, granted Ananias, so you can go to our second PowerPoint,
granted Ananias the strength to move out in obedience. And
so I say to you and I, sometimes you and I will be called to a
mission, short term mission, just maybe just a brief assignment. Sometimes I get the call. This
is what you have to do, Jesse. And I'll think about what it
is I got to do. And then I'll think about it, about what it
is I'm doing. And now I got to drop what I'm doing to do what
God has called me to do over here. And I think about the little
short period of tension I go through. I don't know about you.
But what it is, is now I'm taken out of my comfort zone. I got
to leave my normal business. I've just worked this thing out. I've got it all lined up exactly
the way I want it. And God says, no, I want you
to do this. And immediately there's a sense in me of pushing back
on the assignment, right? I don't want to do it, but I
know better having served God for many years. Now I know I
got to do it. And I know it's God's assignment for me because
I don't particularly care for changing where I'm at. And every
time I do it God's way, it always turns out to be a massive, massive
blessing. A massive blessing every time. So it is with Ananias. So it
should be with you. Because you see what God is doing
for us, ladies and gentlemen, is He's making us vessels meet
for His use. And there are people all over
the world who need to know Christ. And they need to know something
of the full panoramic nature of his person and his work. And
God has qualified you in some capacity to be a blessing in
that area. So the church becomes the body
of Christ to go places and do things that he has called them
to go and do, which he did when he was here. Am I making some
sense? So, you know, in my ministry,
I'm dealing with brand new babies. I'm talking about literal babies,
births and deliveries, and I'm dealing with weddings, and I'm
dealing with counsels, and I'm dealing with sicknesses, and
I'm dealing with death. From the womb to the tomb, that's
my ministry. That's the ministry of a legitimate, authentic pastor.
He's dealing with pregnancy, he's dealing with delivery, he's
dealing with how the family is gonna work through that process,
he's dealing with counsel in the family, he's dealing with
teenagers, he's dealing with young people, young adults, dealing
with old adults, and he's dealing with dying people. Death is always
a part of my work. People are dying all the time.
So we have to deal with that spectrum. That spectrum requires
availability. Isn't that what we learn? Ananias
was available. The Lord called Ananias and Ananias
said, here am I. You remember that? No, you don't
have to show me your Bible. You don't remember. Cause you
know, you don't read your Bible from Friday to Friday. Tell it
true. Acts chapter nine. See, I just told the truth right
there. Acts chapter nine. verse 10 and there was a certain
disciple at damascus named ananias and to him said the lord in a
vision ananias here it is and he said behold i am here lord
and then he received his assignment got it there are multitudes of
people too busy to do the will of god So we moved to our second
point in our outline, the way of the righteous, the way of
the righteous. Now watch this. This is, this
is a powerful reflection upon God knowing his servants. So
now Ananias is just like you and I, he has to let the Lord
know how bad this dude is, right? That's verse 13. Lord, you don't
know this dude is bad. I mean, really, have you vetted
him? Have you checked him out? Cause you know, we get lots of
guys coming to the camp talking about being Christians, just
trying to rip us off. And that's true. A lot of people
come into the church, infiltrate the church, who are not real,
who are not authentic. And they're there to get one
person, if not many more, or to trap an individual under a
pseudo relationship and make them miserable. Many times we
have discovered individuals whose maniacal agenda was to pretend
to be Christian, only to attach themselves to somebody who is
economically proficient, whether it's a man or a woman, and then
pretend to be a believer and get hitched to them. so that
they can have a lifestyle. You got all kind of vagabond
people like that. Are you hearing me? Yeah, and
this is where discernment comes in in the church and not marrying
people too quickly comes in as well. Pastor, we in love. So what? So what? Hurry up and let it cool down
because once it cool down, we can get to the real business.
See, love is great, but in love is a problem. Hurry up and get
out of love. So love can settle down and we
can look at things objectively You know, what do you two have
in common? What have y'all talked about
that will make this issue of marriage god-glorified? Can I
raise the proposition I guess you'll get into marriage class
do you know that a christian plus a christian Don't make a
good marriage But God knows this. See, y'all, y'all know that's
the truth. So God knows his servants. He knows his servants and his
servant is struggling, letting them know. And I told you last
time, this is authentic prayer. If you're going to get close
to God, you better start talking to God. Like, you know, he knows
you. You don't even have to know God.
All you have to know is that God knows you. And then just
talk to God like you know God knows you because you know he
knows you. In fact, he knows you better than you know yourself.
So just come straight with God with all the junk, all the garbage.
Get rid of the hitherto's and thou's and therefore prevents
all that. And just talk to God straight because God knows you. And you really want to become
more effectual in your prayers and prayers are rooted in motive
more than they are articulated words. Motive. Motive. You understand? The most prominent
prayers in the scriptures, the most effectual prayers in the
scriptures are prayers that came out of authenticity. Authenticity,
like Peter Sinken. You know what he said? Lord,
save me. That's a great prayer. Lord, save me. Subject, verb, object. You got
it? Curiosity. Now, now, now watch this. The
point is, is that the urgency and exigency of that situation
only allow Peter to speak authentically because he was about to be, you
know, head high in water. And that's probably the best
way to pray where you don't get into all of these phony forms
and, and wrote terms that God doesn't pay any attention to
Ananias. gave God all of this information,
gave Christ this information. And we read in verse 14, and
here he hath authority from the chief priest to bind all that
call on your name. Now, I want you to watch how the Lord responds.
I want you to watch how he responds. Now, the Lord does not rebuke
him. He does not admonish him. The Lord doesn't do what parents
do. You know how we do. We say, sit down, boy, you got
some things to learn. And you sit there and you talk
to him until the eyes glaze over. Right now, now the Lord doesn't
do that. He does let you pray. And then he responds and watch
what he did. Verse 15 part a, but the Lord
said unto him, I love this. Go your way. That's all he said. Go your way. Go your way. Now for you and me, go your way
is an option. but not for the servant of God.
When Christ said, go your way, he means he knows Ananias. It could have been said, Ananias,
I know you. I know you. If I didn't know
you, I wouldn't have called you to this assignment. Ananias,
if I didn't know you, I wouldn't have given you this difficult
task. So all I'm saying to you, Ananias, after all of those concerns
you have rendered, which are fine, bring your complaints to
God, go your way. Now, ladies and gentlemen, this
is not a phraseology that is unique to this text of scripture. And so this is why I have the
way of the righteous, the way of the righteous. Is Ananias
a child of God? Is he saved by God's grace? Is
Ananias apparently a disciple of Christ? We talked about that
in our Greek class. He is. All of these are yeas. And so
the way of Ananias is the way that God knows that Ananias is
going to go. Do you follow what I'm saying?
See, he knows. So all he does with Ananias is
say, go your way. He wouldn't have told someone
that he knew would have went the wrong way to go your way
unless, of course, God was designing that man's judgment. OK. Unless, of course, God was designing
his destruction. For instance, there was one false
prophet in the Old Testament of which God gave the instructions
to go do what he had to do. In fact, two in the Old Testament
and one in the New. The fellow in the Old Testament,
do you remember his name? His name was Balaam. Balaam. Remember Balaam, the false prophet
whom God said, you can't curse whom I have blessed. But Balaam
kept on arguing with God, kept arguing with God. You know what
God says, go do what you got to do. And he allowed him to
run headlong into the angel of the Lord and ultimately be killed
by Moses. God knew the way that he was
going to take. Remember Judas Iscariot in the upper room that
night? He said, Judas, do what you got to do quickly. He let
him go. See, God knows the way of every man. But when he's speaking
to his servants, those who know him, For real, all he has to
say to us who are his is go your way because there is a way of
the righteous. There is a way of the righteous.
Look at what it says in verse 17. After Christ says go your
way, look at verse 17. Are you there? And Ananias went
his way. Isn't that good? And Ananias
went his way. So it's very important to understand
this here is the authority of Christ speaking into the life
of a servant and the servant straightway obeyed. Ananias is
not equivocating. He's not hesitating. He's doing
what the master told him to do. And he entered into the house
and he put his hands on Saul. So under point number two, let's
just look at two things quickly and then we'll move on. The way
of the righteous. The principles of obedience,
Luke chapter seven, verse eight, underscores the principle of
obedience in the way of the righteous. Just look at one verse there,
I wanna just talk about that. And then the pattern modeled,
the principle of obedience in Luke chapter seven, verse eight.
Can God trust us to do what he has called us to do by simply
saying, Jesse, go your way. Or to you, go your way. After giving us our assignment
and we, you know, wrestling, Can he simply tell us to go your
way and leave us to our task? Now, listen to the example here.
This is the principle here. In Luke chapter 7, verse 6, then
Jesus went with them. He's dealing with a centurion
over in verse 2, whose child was about to die. Then Jesus
went with them. And when he was now not far from
the house, the centurion sent friends to him, saying unto him,
Lord, trouble not yourself. For I am not worthy that thou
shouldest enter into my roof. Wherefore, neither thought I
myself worthy to come unto thee, but say in a word and my servant
shall be healed. Now watch this. For I also am
a man set under authority and having authority under me soldiers. And I said to one, go, And what
does he do? He goes. And to another, come!
And what does he do? He comes. And to my servant,
do this! And what does he do? Now watch
verse 9. Watch verse 9. And when Jesus
heard these things, he marveled at it. Crazy! He marveled at
it. He marveled at it and he turned
him about and said to all the people that were following him,
he said, did y'all hear that? Did you hear what he just said?
He made an illustration out of the centurion's commitment to
hierarchy and structure and authority. Because what the centurion said
is, I know what it's like to be under authority. And see,
that's part of our problem in Western Christianity. We don't
walk under authority. See, we're still dealing with
this autonomy thing. I see it everywhere. This is a huge problem
in the Christian church. The average person you talk to
professing to be a Christian, ask them, what is the authority
right over your head? Guarantee you they will say Jesus
and they would be wrong most of the time they would be wrong
most of the time Just ask them. What is the authority? What is
the hierarchy of structure under which God has placed them so
that they can actually be a blessing in the kingdom of God? The ultimate
or arc authority is Christ, right? But where did Christ place you
in the structure of authority by which he now is going to bless
the world through you? See, if you are a young person,
you're still at home and you can't say my parents are my authority,
then you're in rebellion. If you're a wife and you can't
say my husband is my head, he's my authority under Christ, then
you're in rebellion. If the husband can't say, my
elders and my pastor, they are my immediate authority under
Christ. If you can't say that you're
in rebellion. If we can't say Christ is the head and he has
established this hierarchy of authority in order for us to
be safe, secure, and functional in the kingdom of God, we're
out of order. I'm just telling you now, and this is why people's
lives are so, so vacuous of purpose because we're out of order. Am
I making some sense? Who disagrees with me? I want
hands right now. Who disagrees? Don't be afraid. This is not,
this is not Russia. It ain't China. You're not going
to die. I'm just telling you the problem is people call themselves
Christians, but they don't function with Christian principles when
it comes to authority. And therefore they not, they're
not really hearing from the Lord as to what to do. Now watch this. Couldn't the Lord have went to
Paul or Saul himself? Couldn't he have easily met Saul
at the house by an angel of the Lord or himself and healed that
man and raised that man from there and opened his blind eyes
and let him go on into ministry so that Saul could say, hey,
I didn't have any earthly mediator between me and Christ. It was
just me and Jesus, like a lot of people say. No, because the
Lord used his means. And ladies and gentlemen, he
never, never, never works outside of his means to accomplish his
purposes. Never does it. I say unto you,
I have not found so great faith. No, not in all Israel. You know
what he was saying? Because now Jesus created Israel. Israel goes back at this point,
um, as a nation, 1500 years. They go back as the seed of Abraham
2,000 years before our account. 2,000 years of history of Israel.
You know what he said? I have never ever found this
greater faith in Israel at all. That's remarkable. You know what
that means? Israel has been in rebellion
for 2,000 years. Rebellion to the Lordship of
Jehovah and rebellion to Jesus Christ and rebellion to the Spirit
of God. But you and I learned that back
in Acts chapter seven, when Stephen said, Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised
in heart, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost as did your fathers. Right? So they have a legacy
of pretending to be under authority, but rebelling. And how do we
know Israel rebelled against authority? When authority came,
they killed him. Right? Who was the authority? Christ. So what you and I are learning
here is remarkable. Go back to the text. See, for
me, I don't move real quick when I read these narratives where
the master is giving instructions to his servants because I'm under
this obligation myself. And I have to ask myself, would
I have done what Ananias did given the potential danger of
the situation? Here you and I are here in the
21st century. You know that we are on the harbinger
and the brink and the precipice. of the very evil that the church
is going through in the East. That went over your head? You
know that we are on the brink here in the West of the kind
of persecution and evil that our brothers and sisters are
experiencing normatively all around the world. No informed
Christian would say that we are so safe and secure that there
will not be persecution. People are beheading folks in
America right now. Do you know that? These things
are going to increase. And if our government continues
to remain blind to its calling and continue to rebel against
God, where God backs away from his protection, the darkness
that's in these other countries, they already have said, we're
coming. Do you understand that? I remember
hearing a, uh, a little funny little statement from Rabbi Zacharias,
a commentary he was making concerning a young man, I guess he was a
young adult. His parents had raised him up
in the church, but he hadn't committed to Christ yet. Well,
he's dead in trespasses and sins, he can't. But we think we can
make our kids just go straight into Jesus just because they
grew up in the church. You can't. We're all dead until God quickens
us, right? Well, he asked his son, he said, son, when you gonna
choose? When are you going to choose
Jesus? Who are you going to choose to serve? He says, well, right
now, I'm just waiting to see who's going to win between Christianity
and Islam. And whoever wins, that's the
side I'm going to choose. Stay with me for a moment. Outside
of Christ, that's as practical as it gets. Outside of Christ, that's as
practical as it gets. And so some of you are laughing,
but deep down inside, that's the ethic. in terms of commitment
to Jesus. Whoever wins, I'm gonna side
with them. I told some of you years ago
I had a funeral that I did. I just did one the other day,
suicide. But I did a funeral about, I
don't know, 100 years ago. This seems like forever. I'm
doing funerals all the time now. But this might've been about
12, 13, 14, 15 years ago. And at the funeral, I'm residing
over a whole bunch of people upon the death of a very controversial
individual who had his hands in all kind of stuff here in
the Bay Area. And at the funeral were a bunch of religious folk,
some Christian, some, you know, sort of a new age. And then there
was a whole slew of Muslims. The Muslims had come in with
their suits and their bow ties. You know, our black Muslim brother,
they come in all sharp and everything. sharp as could be and they marched
right on in and they waited till everybody got in because you
know they like to just put on a show. So they marched right
on up and they parked in front because they had the whole front
row right there. I mean just just mean looking
you know black brothers can look mean just look mean you know
and they're all sitting right there and and I loved it because
they were dressed sharp. I said man I get a chance to
preach to me some Muslim brothers And so so one of them got up
and stood up while they were doing the two-minute stuff You
know how you get your two minutes of fame and glory supposed to
be about the person in the castle, but you clowning You know how
folks do they clown they talk about everything under the Sun,
but the person in the casket So so one of our Muslim brothers
got up and and and and prior to our Muslim brother and getting
up The whole house was Christian You know, all the Christian cliches
and hallelujah and praise the Lord and shaking and going on
folks do, you know, in the, in the dreams and visions and revelations. And I saw her last night. She told me she going to be all
right. She in heaven now, you know, all of those prophecies
and stuff. No, I'm telling you the truth. I am not lying to
you. God is my witness. So we had in the fire, man, praise
the Lord. Amen. Amen. Didn't the Muslim
brother gets up and you know how he goes out. So I'm like,
And you know what the whole crowd said without hesitation while
Lincoln's alone. So I'm standing right here, right
by my Muslim brother. And I'm standing, I'm saying,
Oh, okay. I see what kind of church I'm preaching to now.
You got it. They flipped on me in a nanosecond. They didn't flip on me. They
flipped on my master. Do you understand that? And he felt
good getting them to praise online, all that. Cool. I get to preach. I get to preach with all of them
sitting in the front row. They got a front row seat. Like
I'm talking to you right now, they got a front row seat on
the way, the truth and the life and how no one comes unto the
father, but by him. Do you understand that? All of
them, all of them. And afterwards they shook my
hand and appreciated what I said. Do you know why? Because they
can nary find a serious Christian who actually believes the book.
See what I'm getting at? Hypocrisy don't do us no good.
Duplicity doesn't do us no good. Halting between two positions,
that'll get you killed. That'll get you killed. See,
so Ananias for me is a noble brother because while he was
struggling for a moment, he went his way, didn't he? He went his
way. The pattern model. I want to show you just one text,
and you have several of them in your Bible. Job chapter 2310.
Here's the text that you and I want to be able to say when
it comes to God telling us, go your way. Job 2310. Listen to
what Job says. And I thought that this was just
absolutely profound in the day when Job was tested. And you
know, Job was tested, don't you? Now watch this, I want you to
hear what Job says. Job is struggling with trying
to find God, right? This is the text, verse two.
Even today is my complaint bitter. My stroke is heavier than my
groaning. Oh, that I knew where I might
find him. Job wants God in the midst of
his mess. You know his mess, right? Lost
his home, lost his family, lost his health, and he didn't lose
his wife. You'll get that. Oh, that I knew
where I might find him, that I might come even to his seat.
I would order my cause before him. I would fill my mouth with
arguments. I would know the words with which he would answer me
and understand what he would say unto me. Little bodacious. But remember what we learn? God
accepts authenticity from his servants. Did you hear what I
just said? Little bodacious. You know, I
teach you to, you know, step lightly when you come into the
throne of omnipotence. But Job is hurting and he's hurting
with a hurt that none of us collectively could know. So his complaints
are a little bit more authentic than mine. He wants to know what
all this hell is that he's going through. Have you ever been there?
And no one can actually give you the answer but God. And you've
been calling on God and you want God to give you some reprieve,
some answer. What am I going through? If I
catch up with God, I tell you what I will tell him. I understand
Joe. I understand. It's a good thing
that God is slow to anger. Plenty is of goodness and mercy
by nature. Isn't that right? Now watch this. If you don't get it, God is slow
to anger. It's just, it's his nature not
to go hot real quick. Now you and me, we get hot over
somebody cutting us off, right? But God's temperature rises real
slow. In fact, God's temperature rises so slow sometimes you will
think that God is not upset with you over something he has explicitly
told you not to do. He is upset with you using human
anthropomorphism, but he's not quick to anger. He has clearly
said that's wrong, it does not please me. But he's giving you
time to work that through. because his anger does not diffuse
quickly. This is what Job is struggling
through. Can I keep talking for a minute? I got you for 30 minutes
anyway. Now watch this. Will he plead against me with
this great power? No, but he would put strength in me. Notice
what Job was doing. I'm going to go to God. I'm going to talk
to him, but I know God, God's going to give me grace to talk
to him. I like that. Verse seven, there the righteous
might dispute with him. Ooh, Job knows something I don't
know, but it may be true. Job was God's favored servant
in all the land. The lamp of God was on Job. Job
was full of the Holy Ghost. He was wise, wise, wise, wise
above all men in the East. And God said, this is my servant,
Job. So there were things that Job
knew about God that he could declare that I must, I must say,
I can't declare. Are you hearing what I'm saying?
And so Joe goes on to say, there the righteous might dispute with
him. So should I be delivered forever from my judge? I love
it. One could get into the redemptive
connotations here. I don't want to do that. Verse eight, behold,
I go forward. In other words, I'm pursuing
God, but he's not there and backwards, but I cannot perceive him. I
think about where God might be in my future. And I don't perceive
the providence of God. I look at my past and my past
is so tore up. I don't see God's hand in that
either. That's a good interpretation, isn't it? Especially when you're
struggling. Look at verse nine. On the left hand, where he doth
work, but I cannot behold him. He hideth himself on the right
hand that I cannot see him. Sometimes God appears to hide
from us. Is that true? Why? In order to prove our faith. in order to prove our faith. Are you in a hurry? So work with us a little bit.
This is free. This is important. So what Job is actually describing
is the patience of God. So I see a bunch of old people
in the house like me, so you should be able to get this. You
young people may not be able to get it, but God, you older
people can get this. Watch this. God often takes a
long time to respond. Long time. Are you with me? So stay here for a second, because
I was just rejoicing with a brother just before the Greek class.
The economic crisis hit America after the Bush era in 2008, right? We went through the bubble in
2008. It's 2014 now. Back in 2008, I told the saints at grace
when we're in our old place, I said, now this bubble, this
economic bubble being busted and this slump that we're in
is not, we're not going to come out of this in a couple of years.
I told us it's going to be a long run. Okay. So we're, we're at
six or seven years now and we're really not out. Okay. And we're getting ready to go
through another bubble. So you better be prudent about your
finances. But I told the saints, what it's going to look like
is this. And I wanted them to get the analogy. I want you to
get it, too. What is going to look like is you being able to
fill all of your cupboards up with food to the to the max.
I mean, you're pushing the door shut. You can barely get the
door shut. All that food and all those cabinets. Right. And
so you just been told we're going through an economic slump, but
you're fine today because your cabinets are full of food. You
know, you can go for a while. So right now you're rejoicing
in the Lord. You're praising him. You're happy.
You said, Jesus is good. Jesus is good. I love the Lord. I love the Lord. He's been good
to me. Two months down the line, you
start seeing a little dent in your cabinets and you start going,
okay, Jesus. Then a year down the line when
the cabinets get real low, I thought Jesus, Right? You start struggling
with your faith. Yeah, you do. You start struggling
with whether or not God is even real. You start struggling. Listen, listen, please listen. Tell the truth. You start thinking
crazy stuff. Yeah, you do. No, you don't listen.
Listen, don't tell me you just wait on the Lord to send a Raven.
No, you don't. You start manipulating the paperwork.
Am I telling the truth? You start manipulating the paperwork.
You start fudging and hedging. You start cutting back on giving.
You start cutting back on this. You start, you start preserving.
Self-preservation is the first law of nature. That's what you
do when your faith goes down and your faith went down when
your food went down. That's right. I saw all kinds
of people doing all sorts of things during this downtime.
that they said they would never do. I saw people make desperate
choices in the changes they went through. They made desperate
choices. It shows you how the patience
of God will test your faith. I saw people lapse into major
sin and apostasy when once God didn't come through, like they
lost their job. And they laugh, I'm gonna get
another job on a par with that job that I got. No, no, no, no,
you're not. And they came to discover they
were making 30, 40, 50 dollars an hour. They got cut way down. Ten dollars an hour. It was killing
them. But you know what God was doing? Testing their faith. Am
I making some sense? Testing their faith. See, see,
the patience of God will show you the quality and character
and nature of your faith. And one of my brothers who had
come through this trial we just recently talked about, he would
get up here right now and honestly tell you that while God kept
him, he didn't keep God. Am I telling the truth? While
God kept him, he did not keep God. He didn't keep God's word.
He didn't trust God like he should have. It was God that picked
him up every time he messed up, picked him up every time he failed,
picked him up every time he manipulated the paperwork, picked him up
every time he went to this crutch and that crutch and the other
crutch. Are you hearing what I'm saying? See, this phony boasting
of faith that we do when the cupboards are full, that's not
even authentic. What you going to do like my
brothers and sisters in third world countries who have absolutely
no way of determining what they're going to eat tomorrow. See what
I'm getting at? See, this is why for me, this
is why I'm so serious. When I preach to you guys on
Sunday, I think to myself, when I, you know, when the people
come on, I said, Lord, do they even get my point? Do they even
get my point? Because our cultural Christianity
here in America is a devastating deception on most of us. It does
not at all represent biblical faith. Do they even get it, Lord? Because the storm is coming.
And what you do when a storm is coming, you prepare for that
storm. You don't presume on that storm.
You prepare for that storm. My brother would get up here
right now and tell you the Lord kept me. I did not keep myself. I learned some things about God's
faithfulness to me, and I learned some things about my unfaithfulness
to God. Do you guys understand what I
just said? That's God's grace. That's God's grace. See, Job
struggled through all this, and he just told the truth. I was
looking for God, couldn't find him. But notice how he resolves
this unmet desire. This is how he resolves not finding
God, because you know, I mean, if Joe was living in the 21st
century, he'd be calling those hotlines for Mademoiselle and
getting those prophecies. He'd be asking for Creflo Dollar
to lay hands on him, get some of these old false prophets and
false prophets. He'd catch a plane. I heard it. I heard it. I'm telling
you, I heard it. People came to me honestly and told me that's
what they did. They did stuff like that. They
went to the great man of God and great woman of God and got
their hands laid on. I said, how did it feel? What
was it? It felt like everybody else had. I said, I could have told you
that brother. You should have came to me. How
much do you pay? I'd have took 10% of that and laid hands on
you. You think I'm kidding? I am not kidding. I'm just trying
to be a little bit, uh, ambiguous so that I'm not so specific,
but I'm just telling you what people do when patience is working. It's perfect work. But as we're
talking about the way of the righteous, here's how Job acquiesces. Now this is critically important
child of God. I don't necessarily know the
way I'm going, but God does. And, and, and, and this is where
biblical faith attaches itself to Christ and drinks from the
well of grace every day. Cause to the extent that my faith
is attached to Jesus, what I know is, His promises are yes and
amen and have no nay in them at all All the promises of god
are yes and amen in him That means all of them That means
that my job is to hold on to his promises Are you hearing
what i'm saying in the mr. Trouble? I have to trust that
the lord will keep me from drowning In the midst of trouble, I have
to trust that he will keep my mind state on him. In the midst
of trouble, I have to trust that he will not allow my adversaries
to swallow me up. In the midst of trouble, I have
to rely on the Lord to deliver me in due time and keep my feet
from falling, from slipping, because he promised he would
do so. Am I making some sense? So now listen to what Job said.
Behold, he knoweth the way that I take. Do you see that? You
know what Job fell back on? God knows. Do you see that? God knows. See what Joe was doing
was trying to know. And when he couldn't know, you
know what he fell back on? Faith in Christ. God knows. Now see, this is not the religious
cliche. You know how folks say God knows. No, this is the man
or the woman who now is completely resigned to the omniscience,
of a covenant keeping God, obviously knowing everything about the
details when I don't know anything. I'm in so much darkness that
my only comfort is with God, the light and the darkness are
equal. That's good. I'm brother up when,
when, when we got the light and the darkness are equal. See the
darkness swallows you and me up. For God, it's exactly the
same. Isn't that phenomenal? That God
doesn't lose any, any sense of clarity or perception in the
dark. He sees in the dark just like
he sees in the light. There's nothing hid from him
with whom we have to do. And if I really believe that,
the best place for me to launch my soul is on the knowledge of
God that he knows. that he knows. In fact, I'll
tell you this as we get ready to go back. You know how the
trials will get you mind weary? Can anybody, can anybody bear
record with me? I seem like I'm talking to myself now. Okay,
you can put your hand back. What I mean by mind weary is you can't
even think straight. You know what I'm talking about?
Like you can't even remember Bible verses. So y'all don't
go through trials like I do. I'm sorry. See, I'm talking to
people who have just gone through lengthy periods of unending heaviness
Where thinking is a burden? Where you want to just shut your
mind down Because you can't you can't get a handle on cogent
thoughts about God And once you go to thinking they are all so
lopsided. You can't even trust your own
thoughts. Am I making something? I don't know about you, but I
often talk to myself I know you think I'm crazy, but I'm not.
If you read your Bibles, you will learn that you are two egos
if you've been born again. The ego of the spirit and the
ego of the flesh. And I often talk to myself, like David talked
to himself a lot. My soul, David would say. That's
him talking to his soul, second person. My soul, why are you
disquieted in you? Why are you so discomfited? What's the matter, man? What
you going through? What's your issue? See, now people
might think you just a little bit. You know what I'm saying?
Just a little bit. But all David is doing is stepping
back and indexing from the spirit. He's stepping back and indexing
from the spirit. So you don't know what that is
in the law of individuation or the law of self autonomy or the
law of recognizing your personhood. Indexing is the capacity for
you to be aware that you exist. I am, ego I am me. Are you hearing
me? I am Jesse. You are who you are.
Well, when you are struggling in your mind with the old man
and the new man, who are you really? Are you the old man or
the new man? See, I know my identity. My identity
is in Christ. So I step back indexing my new
man and my new man goes to talking to my old man. Are you hearing
me? And my new man says to the old man, old man, What you thinking,
dude, is not right. And we go to war in our dialogue.
Are you hearing me? And sometimes I let the Lord
in on the conversation. Lord, do you see what this dude
is thinking? See, you don't have to do that,
but that's what I do. Lord, do you see how he thinking? I'm
not with him, Lord. I'm not with him. I'm not with
him. I'm not with him. You know, that's my ego. That's
my flesh. I know that in me that is in
my flesh dwelleth no good thing. Are you hearing me? For to will
is present with me, the true ego. But how to perform that
which is good, I find not. So I see the law working in my
member, bringing me into captivity of the lust of the flesh, that
ego flesh, so that I have to cry out to God, Oh Lord, deliver
me from him. That's how God keeps me every
day. Now you're free to talk to yourself. But he knows the way that I take
and when he hath what? That's crazy, because what Job
has discovered was, ah, this mess ain't nothing but a test. This mess is simply a test. So stay there for a second, because
I just want you to get this. That's a major revelation. It's a major revelation when
you get it, that what you're going through is a test. Because
it allows you to stop fighting. Because you're going to fight
so long as you are not aware that it's a test. Am I making
some sense? See, and you're blaming everybody. We call this the horizontal dilemma.
This is a good study, you just don't know. This is a good study.
Get the CD because you're going to get mature out of this. When
you don't understand that it's a divine test coming from God,
will you hear me? You will fall prey to the limitations of what
we call a horizontal dilemma. The horizontal dilemma is this.
You can't look up. You can't see vertically. You
can't raise your mind's eye to heaven. You are stuck on the
horizontal. And being stuck on the horizontal, you are stuck
on the here and now. And being stuck on the here and
now, you're stuck on the thing seen. and being stuck on the
thing saying you are seeking to blame other people for your
problems. Was that good? Was that good? It's true, huh? Stay with me
now. See, when you're complaining about all these people, and then
especially you super religious folk who love to talk about the
devil, the devil is the devil, the devil is the devil, the devil
is the devil, the devil is the devil. There's a devil, I'm gonna
talk about him when I'm preaching. in a couple of weeks in the sermon,
but when God is testing you, it's not the devil. Are you hearing
me? Let me help you just in case
you don't know. Not one time in all of the 40
plus chapters of the book of Job that he ever blamed the devil. Are you hearing me? Not one time
did he say the devil made me do it. Not one time. He always appealed to his authority,
to his superior. Do you know why? Because he was
a servant. He was a servant and servants. When things go wrong,
have to answer to their superior officer. The devil is not a superior
officer to the child of God. He's our adversary. He's our
fault. We don't answer to him. We don't get our answers from
him. We're fighting against him. But watch this now. If there
be evil in the city, hath not the Lord done it? But see, I
can't talk like that unless I am operating out of a vertical plane.
But when I'm on a horizontal plane, it's my husband. It's
my wife. It's my daddy. It's my brother. It's my boss. It's my cousin. That's right. That's exactly
right. That's exactly right. Is everybody on a horizontal
plane keeping you from achieving? See, so when you're going through
that, that constant drudging up and blaming people for your
not succeeding, understand you're stuck on a horizontal. You can't
even really ask God, what is this all about? Because you're
bound now, you're bound by the anxiety of trying to solve it
by your own angst, by your own unbelief, by your own fear, by
your own anxiety, by your own stress. You're stuck working.
That's what I meant. When Job says, he knows the way
I take. For him to have come to that
conclusion was for Job to acquiesce, fall back on the reality. There's something greater than
me going on here. And because I know God and because
he's my boss and I'm his servant, I'm just gonna fall back in his
arms and let this thing work itself out. And as he fell back
in God's arms and began to let it work out, you know what he
was able to do? Prophesy his outcome. That's crazy. I know when God's through tearing
me up, the word is tried. When God's through taking me,
his precious metal and placing me in that crucible of purging,
purging all the impurity. Pow, pow, pow, pow, pow, pow,
pow, pow. You know how you have to wear
the lenses when that metal urges is working with the silver or
the gold and it's sparking everywhere. That's all the impurities of
the flesh. The complaining and the bickering and the murmuring
and the burden of being carnal and not being able to see things
like God sees it. That ugly stuff. You know what
I'm talking about? The ugly stuff, that ugly stuff. And God just sits right there,
holding the tongs of his sovereign providence, placing you in there. And when you scream, when your
scream hits an F sharp, we're doing that in our music class.
When you hit that F sharp, he'll pull you out for a second, let
you cool off. Turn around, looks and nope, I'm not done yet. Yeah, got to go back in. Do you know what that teaches
us? Patience. No, he ain't done. I still see
some impurities. And we actually, as children
of God, get used to being in that fire. Yeah, we do. This is a good study for some
of you. Some of you going to be delivered. Rest of you in
trouble. Now watch this. Because in that fire, he teaches
you how to rest and wait. No longer are you grappling with
the lust of doing or being something you wanna be. All you wanna be
now is saved. All you wanna be is saved. Have
you ever been in that been at that level? All I want to be
is saved now now I don't want to be top dog No, no, I don't
want to be on the inquire magazine Now I don't want to hit the jackpot
and be a multimillionaire. No, no, no, I don't want that
now. I'm through with those thoughts. I Just want to be saved So have
your way in my life If I have to sit here and beg like Lazarus
until I die and the angels take me up in their bosom and usher
me into heaven, I'll just be right here, acquiescing to the
will of God. And it teaches you patience.
When you go through these kinds of trials, you know what you
are able to do? You're able to succor those who go through trouble. Isn't it true? Some of you old
saints, you old saints know what I'm talking about. Isn't it true that God
tempers our spirit and then when people come rushing in with the
troubles that they have, we can be so much more objective and
so much more kind and so much more empathetic and so much more
able to say, you know, it's going to be all right. You got to hold
on. Are you able to hold on? Just hold on. Hold on. God will
get you through. And their anxiety doesn't rub
off on us because we've been there, done that, bought the
t-shirt, got a whole closet full of those t-shirts. Right? Am I telling the truth? And you
marvel at how God has taught you how to be patient and even
actually trust God for them. Because they're sweating it.
Like all the servants that came running down to Job. Job! Man! That's how people come. Pastor. And you come to understand
God took me all that to temper me. Because one day your kids
are going to come to you all toe up. All toe up. They need mama to be settled
down. They need daddy to be firm as
an oak tree With low-hanging fruit So that they can feed and
hide behind the stability of his maturity in Christ. Am I
making some sense? Yeah, see this is the way that
the righteous go. I got five minutes. Let's go
back to our text five minutes You can read the rest of that
stuff. And yeah, God said the same thing about Abraham, didn't
he? When the three men met him in Genesis chapter 18 go back
to our text And the Lord was talking with his triad. And he says, you know what? I'm
not going to hide anything from Abraham. You know why? Because
I know that Abraham is going to do what's right. I know that
he's going to walk in righteousness. And I know that he's going to
raise his children in the fear of the Lord. See, God could trust
him because he knew. He knew. So he told Abraham what
he was about to do in Sodom because he could trust Abraham. Let's
go back to our text. Just look at a little bit more.
We got five minutes. We'll close it down here. And so in our third
point, the laying on of hands. Again, not looking at our text
superficially. Taking into account that Ananias,
from the time that he received the instruction from the Lord
in a vision to go to Saul in this house on a street called
Straight, that walk, from the time that the Lord said, go your
way to where we get verse 17, and he went his way. As he's
walking there, you know what God is doing? God is strengthening
Ananias and affirming Ananias and giving Ananias the confidence
that he's in the will of God. Now, child of God, when you are
affirmed that you are in the will of God, you have a lot more
confidence to do what God has called you to do. Is that true?
So Ananias knows he's in the will of God. And watch how it
manifests itself in this text of scripture, verse 17. And Ananias
went into the house and putting his hands on Saul, putting his
hands on him said, now watch this, brother Saul. Do you see
that? That's a big change, isn't it?
From remember, Lord, to now, brother Saul. And I want you
to think that through for a moment because you know, some of us,
we might've laid our hands on him as instructed, but we would
have had our other hand behind our back. Saul, Saul, Saul. We wouldn't even acknowledge
him as a brother in Christ. Saul, Saul, you know, with the
foot back. Saul, Saul, Saul, Saul, ready
to back up and fight. And I love it because what Ananias
is doing is demonstrating the biblical concept of receiving
an individual in the faith without doubtful disputation. So this
is quite fascinating. I got three minutes. I'll land
on this one. This goes on in the Christian
church all the time. Goes on in the Christian church
all the time. This is shameful. But Christians fight way too
much in the church. The carnal tendencies of the
flesh are so dominant with so many Christians It's an absolute
shame, absolute shame. Saul hasn't done one week in
the kingdom, not one week. And he receives from the servant
Ananias, the Adelphi, the Adelphus, brother Saul, brother Saul, immediately
accepting him as being part of the kingdom of God. Are you guys
hearing what I'm saying? He's accepting him as being part of
the kingdom of God because the master said he was. Now watch
this. That's all that matters with
the servant. With the servant, the only thing
that matters is what the master says. And so the servant doesn't
have any right to hedge or misrepresent or be stingy in his relationship
with one of God's other servants. and thus misrepresent his apostolic
calling. Because at this moment, Ananias
is an apostle sent by God to Saul to affirm Saul in the faith
as if he was Christ's representative. Now notice what he says. And
Ananias went his way, entered into the house, putting his hands
on him, said, Brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus, that appeared
unto thee in the way as you came, has sent me. Second point. Ananias is absolutely, crucially
clear that he's in the will of God. This is not about me, says
Ananias. The Lord whom you saw in the
way, he sent me. This is not about me. I'm just
a servant. I'm just a vessel. Did you guys get that? The Lord
whom you saw in the way, he sent me. So Ananias saw, you don't
even have to worry who I am. You ain't got to ask my name.
I'm just a servant. This is so good. See, this is
the way of the righteous. The laying on of hands, he lays
hands on them. This is a conferring of authority. This is opening
a door for fellowship. Under that, you have three ABCs,
the right hand of fellowship, the acknowledgement that he's
a brother in Christ, and then the acknowledgement that you
are a human mediator. This is just beautiful. the right
hand of fellowship. When you lay your hands on someone,
you are the conferring authority on them, or you are actually
bringing them into the communion and fellowship of the brotherhood.
Do you guys understand that? You can read it for your own
time. And then for him to call him brother Saul is what I was saying
in Romans 14.1 and in Romans 15.7. Pull up Romans 14.1. I
want you guys to see it. Romans 14.1. We'll close here.
Listen to what this says. Him that is weak in the faith
do what? Receive. But not to what? Doubtful disputations. Isn't
that radical? Now, at this point, could we
say, in a sense, that Saul was weak in the faith? Of course.
He's brand new. I mean, Ananias, if he'd have
been like some theologians or some scholars or some preachers,
he would have said, now, Saul, come on over here. We've got
to take a test. Because I need to find out how orthodox your
theology is, right? None of that there. Go to 15.7.
I think that's what it is. 15.1, 15.7. Let me see. Fifteen verse seven. Listen to
the apostle Paul as he now watch this. Wherefore receive you one
another. Do you see that? So we're done
right here. Now watch this now. Receive you
one another as Christ also received us to the glory of God. Boom. Done deal. That's a wash. It's done. The standard for reception
is Jesus. Anything short of that is sin.
The standard of reception is Jesus. Anything short of that
is sin. You and I have no right to receive
any of the people in the kingdom of God any other way but the
way Christ did. And if you want a motive for
how to receive people, ask yourself, how did Jesus receive you? Real
simple. Ask him, did Jesus hang on the
cross, look down on you, bow, breeding, brawl, beating you?
telling you keep your distance from me, I'll let you know when
it's safe to come. Powerful, isn't it? Powerful. Wherefore, receive one another
as Christ also has received us to the glory. You know what that
means for me, child of God? That means I have to think right.
Because I'm on the helm of this ship. I'm behind the steering
wheel when I'm thinking this is about my judgment. I'm actually
Lord now when I'm making assessments about people other than the biblical
mandate. I'm Lord now. I'm actually saying
I have a better capacity for judging the spiritual welfare
of an individual than Jesus as crazy, crazy. Now, now who's the one talking
here? The apostle Paul, right? He was the one talking in verse
1 of chapter 14 too. Receive ye one another without
disputations and doubts and what if, ands and buts. The only reason
I'm not giving her any props is because of this. The only
reason I'm not giving him any props is because of this. The
only reason you're not giving them any props is because you do not see
Christ. You do not see Christ. You do
not see your need of Christ. Your carnality is so thick, so,
so massive, so obscuring that you have failed to see that when
Christ received you, he received you lock, stock and barrel with
all of the heinous rebellion and disobedience and antipathy
towards him. That's how he received me. I don't know how he received
you, but the way he received me, was a sure enough hell bound
thug. Even with a thuggish mind that
night. That's how he received me. An
absolute abject rebellion against the light. He received me in
the midst of mess that I wouldn't even want to show you now. That's
how he received me. He didn't wait until I fixed
my mess. He didn't wait. He came right
on into my pit, sat down on my bunk with me all night long hearing
my plea. That's how he received me. And
it was a marvelous revelation to me that God would be pleased
to talk with a jailbird dog who was on his way to doing multiple
years. for the same foolishness my young
brothers are doing today. Are you guys hearing what I'm
saying? That's how he received sinners, let alone the saints. That's why we ain't ready to
win nobody to Jesus. We ain't ready to win nobody.
Do you understand we can't win no one to Christ until we get
our own house right? Do you understand that? Nobody
gonna get saved under your influence. until you and I are able to see
the grace, the undeserved grace that God poured out on you. And
that becomes the basis and prism and mode of operandi for us. I bet you Ananias could have
said to Saul, Saul, scoot over, man, I can tell you some stories
about my jacked up pharisaical life. Let's pray. Father, thank you for this time.
Thank you for my brothers and sisters. Wonderful opportunity
to look into your servant Ananias The gift of God and you have
basically let us know what that gift is It's Christ and it's
Christ in you the hope of glory may that be the case for us May
we become servants like Ananias just do the will of God give
us grace To do that give us grace to receive one another for Christ's
sake give us grace. Oh God to Do our mission and
find the joy that Job found After the test will come out better
for it Bless all my brothers and sisters here. Give them traveling
mercies. Prepare us to worship you as
you ought to be worshiped on Sunday. We pray this in Jesus
name, amen. God bless you guys.