All right, if you're in your
Bibles, Acts chapter nine, we are going to start at verse 10
and work our way through verse 15. If you have your outline,
we have three points that we're dealing with. We are under our
third point tonight, the superior intelligence of heaven at work,
the superior intelligence of heaven at work. And I'll read
the scripture for us and we will revisit some of the dynamics
that occurred and pick up from there. And there was a certain
disciple, verse 10, at Damascus named Ananias. And to him said
the Lord in a vision, Ananias. And he said, behold, I am here,
Lord. And the Lord said unto him, arise
and go into the street which is called Straight and inquire
in the house of Judas for one called Saul of Tarsus. For behold,
he prayeth and hath seen in a vision a man named Ananias coming in
and putting his hands on him that he might receive his sight. 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 name's sake. I mean, I'm compelled
to read the rest because we'll get there. 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 has 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 rose and was baptized and when he had
received meat he was strengthened then was all certain days with
the disciples that were at Damascus. Straightway he preached Christ
in the synagogues that he was the son of God. But all that
heard him were amazed and said, is not this he that destroyed
them which called on his name in Jerusalem and came here for
that purpose? That he might bring them bound
unto the chief priest. Thus is the reading of God's
word. God knows how to turn a thing
upside down, don't he? God knows how to turn a thing
upside down. And what we are revisiting has to do fundamentally
with the chief antagonist against the gospel and against the church
of Christ and against Christ himself in the person of Saul,
who was a Pharisee of the Pharisees. And as you know, He was a persecutor
of the church, and he went to the high priest to get letters
of authority to persecute believers even as far as Damascus. Now, Damascus was 150 miles from
Jerusalem, and I told you last week and the week before, you
have to be mad to hunt people down that far away. But what
we learned is that Saul was merely an example of men and women who
don't know God and give themselves over to the task of destroying
God's purpose and mission in the world. So whether you know
it or not, by nature, you and I are no different than Saul.
Sometimes we see people in the world and their behaviors are
so outrageous to us. Right now, you and I are contemplating
ISIS in the Middle East, killing all sorts of people. And if you
have the Christian grapevine, you know that they are killing
Christians in Iraq and killing Christians in Syria and across
that line as well, intentionally destroying believers. But you
ought to know that this is something that's been going on for a long
time. Christians have been persecuted and put to death by enemies of
Christ for a long time Isis now is the face for that but it's
happened before Saul Did the same thing no different. So let
me ask you the question before we break into this marvelous Event of God mercifully saving
a sinner Can God save? the ISIS terrorist, Kenny, is
it possible that even in the fury of what they are doing,
and they're demonized, certainly they're wicked men, evil men,
ungodly men, Unprincipled men and they are operating out of
the power of the devil. Is it possible? However that
sometime in the future unbeknownst to us only been known to God
that he could break their agenda and Change their heart and bring
them to a saving knowledge of Christ, right? and so it's important
for you and I to know that what's taking place in history is does
not define itself in stone as the permanent manifestation of
what that person or those people are doing. They could be the
objects of God's love and grace in Christ. They could be chosen
in Christ. And yet while as yet they are
unregenerated and unsaved and not born again, they are no different
than you, me, Mussolini, Hitler, and all the rest of the evil
men and women who are disconnected from the true and the living
God. Is that true? So Christianity is tough, but
it's also necessary to save us. Because you and I will stand
back and look at these folks and say, oh, how wicked they
are. But the wages of sin is what? Do you believe that? You
know what that means? My sin can send me to hell just
as much as their sin. Now, follow this. And I will
go to the hotter parts of hell because I know more about God
than they do. As heinous as their crimes are,
if God judged me on the last day for what I know versus what
they don't know, I go to the hotter parts of hell. And hell
is not a place of egalitarian judgment either. You know, we
love to use the thing, this term, egalitarianism in our present
culture, equality of persons, equality of rights, equality
of this. It's all a delusion. Egalitarianism
is a mere ideological construct that liberals want to foist on
human beings because we want to kind of justify the atrocities
of past injustices between persons. But it doesn't really work in
real life. Can I get an honest person in
the house? You can pretend that everybody's equal, but we're
not equal in the practical sense. It's just not. And God did not
set the structure up in an egalitarian way. Like men and women have
different roles. And as soon as women think that
they can actually operate in the role of men, even though
they might have the capacity to function in it, they are in
rebellion against God. And as soon as men abrogate their
authority to let women stand in the place that God has called
them to, those men are in rebellion against God. And most of you
Here are parents and you understand the fact that you were called
to be a servant leader in your home Raising children. Is that
true? And you understood that once
you sired those children had those children you were a slave
for 20 25 years some of us 30 40 years, but my point is this
I Um, you, you realize that not
only did you have to provide for them until they could function
on their own, but you still had to exercise authority over them.
You would be in disobedience to God to make your children
equal to you in terms of roles and relationship. So I say I
defy the present day idea of equality because it's superficial
and unbiblical. We already peered into that earlier
in our Greek class on the ontological nature of God and the creation
principle that God set up to demonstrate the ontological nature
of God. And when he created man, he created
man, male species first, and then the woman, and then the
children proceeded from them. And so we have a hierarchy of
relationship, do we not? And as soon as you destroy that,
you are challenging the nature and character of God. Okay, so
we got a lot of brokenness in our culture. Now, the reason
why I said that is to say this, you and I will vie for egalitarianism
on practical, social, economic, gender levels. It's all a ruse. But when it comes to sin, you
won't own the principle of egalitarianism there. Other people are more
worse sinners than you. Am I telling the truth? Other,
I want you to dig deep down in yourself and think it through.
When you think about that one person, don't tell me who it
is. It might be me. When you think about that one
person, how they make you feel, you know what you're saying by
your emotional default, you're better than them. You're better
than them. And that if you both went to
hell, he or she, or they deserve more hell than you do. See now
your egalitarianism is out right out the window. Am I making some
sense? Now I'm milking this because the church of the living God
had to get a handle on that with the man that God is about to
raise up and make a major pinnacle in the church when heretofore
he had devastated the church. Are you guys following me? All
right, go back. Let's go back now and deal with
some soteriology. The doctrine of salvation, understand
some things. Saul persecuted the church. He
went after the church only to find himself being hunted down
by God. Isn't that right? He's hunting God's people down
and God hunts him down. And we learned this in Acts chapter
nine, in the earlier part, when he ran across that great light,
verse five, and he said, who are you Lord? And the Lord said,
I am Jesus whom thou persecutest. It is hard for you to kick against
the pricks. Ration would tell us that Christ
was on his way to stop this man in his tracks, not to keep him
from going to Damascus, but to change who he was so that by
the time he got to Damascus, he would be doing the will of
God, even as God had always intended to be. So one of the things we
teach in terms of the nature and character of God is that
God is sovereign. and that all things work together
for good to them that love God, and that all things work after
the counsel of His own will, which means there's nothing that
happens, good, bad, or ugly, that's not part of the will of
God. And in this Acts 9 account, what you and I discover is, heaven's
intelligence was far superior than the intelligence of those
on the ground in Jerusalem that wanted to hunt Christians down.
Is that true? They sent their best man after
the saints in Damascus. And what did God do? In the person
of Christ, the Lord of the universe, he took him captive and made
him his own slave and assumed to turn him into one of his own
best warriors. That's how sovereign God is.
And if you haven't yet been able to take comfort in that proposition,
please take comfort in this, that you might have a son or
a daughter that's like Saul. You might have a niece or a nephew
that's like Saul. You might have a husband or a
wife that's like Saul, a brother or sister that's like Saul. And
you can take comfort in this reality that God can turn any
kind of Saul around that he wants to. And I don't know about you,
but I would own that for myself as a promise. I would own it. Do you have a rebel child who's
got his fist in God's face saying, I will be what I want to be?
The most ludicrous proposition you can even let come out of
your mouth. You can't be anything other than what God will let
you be. Do you guys understand that? The thing created, if you
guys haven't learned this, can never define itself. The thing
created can never define itself. See, in our generation, we've
lost our mind. We are supposed to be the most
intelligent people in the 21st century, and we are as buffoonish
as anyone. Pagans are wiser than us. You
know, our great grandparents and our grandparents, they only
had third grade, fourth grade, fifth grade education, maybe
high school education. You know what? They're way smarter
than this present generation could ever be. Common sense is
a rare gift today. See, you can be an intellectual
fool, deceived by cultural paradigms and models that destroy good
reasoning. I'm talking with people every
day and I'm coming to discover people don't think right. And
you make an outrageous statement when you think that you can define
yourself. You can only be properly defined
by the one who made you. Are you guys hearing what I'm
saying? Read it for yourself. Isaiah chapter 29, Isaiah 29,
Isaiah 29, Isaiah 29. Can the thing that is formed
say to the thing that formed it, you don't know what you're
talking about. And that's our present generation
arguing against God because of how he made everything. Am I
making some sense? But see, these doctrines have
infiltrated the church too. And they have transformed the
church into a bunch of mess. And as a consequence, the church
is distracted. What is it distracted from? It's
distracted from the reality of God and Christ. We're so busy
fighting these battles that have to do with cultural things and,
and, and, and, and material things and, and, and things in society
and, and, and the world is falling apart that we're failing to realize
that there's still a God on the throne. And he has a superior
mission for us, which is the preaching of the gospel that
sinners might be saved. And we default into all kinds
of other practices, but the preaching and teaching of Christ. Am I
making a little bit of sense? Now watch this. For this reason
that God is raising up this brilliant man called Saul, who will soon
be called Paul, but in the process of God raising him up, you know
what he's doing to his church? Humbling his church. Fascinating
I'm so glad I'm right here on this point because see this is
gonna help us God does multiple things at once while he is lifting
one person up. He's bringing another person
down While he is shutting down one program. He's opening up
other programs While he's shedding light on his glory in the midst
of people who are prepared for his glory He's closing shop when
it comes to the revelation of his glory in the life of other
people. I Are you guys following what I'm saying? God does this
all the time. And this is also a basic symbiotic relationship,
a soul principle with God too. To whom much is given, what?
Much is required. And when the individual does
not do right with what God has given them, we enter into what
we call the what? Take away mode. Take away. Are
we in the take away mode in the book of Acts? God has taken the
kingdom from Israel. Now you know what God's taken
from Israel? Saul. God is plundering Israel of all
of their chief warriors. We saw earlier in Acts 5, many
of the priests came to the faith. What is God doing to Israel?
The strong man has been bound and the gates have been opened
and Christ is going in, taking captive slaves out of the Jewish
system and bringing them into the church of the living God.
That's good, whether you know it or not. See, because if you're
in the kingdom, he plundered you out of darkness too, and
brought you into his army. If you're in the kingdom of God,
you are working for the adversary at one time. And God changed
that plan. No thanks to you. In his sovereign
mercy, he came along and he got ahold of you because it was his
purpose before the world began. As he said to Ananias, Ananias,
This man is a chosen vessel unto me. Let's keep going. This is so very important. I
said earlier, there were only two points under the superior
intelligence of heaven at work. And the proposition is this,
there's nothing that goes on in our society that does not
have as its approval or stamp of purpose, God behind it. There's no counsel nor knowledge
against the Lord. The preparation in the heart
of man, the answer of the tongue is from the Lord. And man, while
he may devise his way, God does what? He directs his steps. That's
what Jeremiah said. I know, O Lord, that the way
of man is not in himself. It is not in man to direct his
steps. You know what that means? Every
human being is actually still being governed by God, even though
they don't know it. Even though they don't know it, God is governing
all people. So under superior intelligence
of heaven, human councils are futile. Secondly, co-laboring
with our captain. This is the part that we left
off at, and I want to pick up here. I actually enjoy the way
Luke segues into Ananias' presence. What has occurred? Saul has been
knocked down. He has been blinded. He has been
made helpless. We saw this last week. He's like
a little child being led by the hands. Is that right? And guess
where he's being led to? Damascus. We closed out last
week by saying Damascus was always the place that he was meant to
go. Not because of him, but because of God. Damascus was ordained
by God. And when we get there, we get
to see some marvelous stuff. But on our way to Damascus, what
God does now is introduce us to Ananias, the servant of Christ. Point number four. And under
that particular consideration, Ananias, the servant of Christ,
verse 10 and verse 13, there are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 things I want
to consider. The available readiness to serve,
the clear and precise instructions given to him, authentic communion
with the general, general in the army sense. Most assignments
are challenging. I'll talk about that in a moment.
And then finally, go thy way. servant Go thy way Servant all
that's wrapped up in about six verses here. This is what we
call an exegetical Expository development of the text you draw
out of the text the principles latent in the text is Ananias
the servant of Christ Watch this His name means gift of God Now
watch this verse 9. I'm sorry verse 10 and there
was a certain What does Luke call him? Disciple at Damascus
named Ananias, right? Now I've said this before, and
you can take this up and work this through in your own life.
When God called you to himself, he called you to be a disciple.
Mephiteo means to be a learner, to become educated and knowledgeable
of who Christ is, and then subsequent to that knowledge, follow him
by imitation of life. So true believers who are serious
about glory understand this. They understand that at the premise
of their call, there must be a union between them and Christ.
Christ must be real to you. At the beginning of your call,
you must know him in a personal way. by way of him saving you
just as dynamically as he did with Saul, although it may not
have all of the external trappings of light and flashes and drama,
internally the dynamic must be the same. You must meet Christ
in a real personal way by way of revelation of the scriptures
and the preaching of the gospel and the heart being broken and
you submitting to his crown rights as your Lord. You'll notice that
Christ spoke to Saul personally. And Saul responded by calling
him Kyrios. What's that? Lord. The first
time that Saul questioned the light, he said, who are you?
And what we teach is that salvation is not merely adhering to a set
of propositional truths. like creeds and confessions and
dogmas and doctrinal statements. Salvation is adhering to an acknowledgement
of the person of Jesus Christ. That I am not saved until I know
that Jesus is Lord in person. That the word of God must make
the kind of impact in my soul that brings me into allegiance
with Christ, now follow this, so that if no one else in the
world serves Christ, I'm serving him. See, your salvation and mine
can never be based upon, do other people serve him? Stay with me now. Because what
we've done is we've watched Luke narrow the lens of the landscape
of our texts down to two people, Saul and Ananias. He dominates Saul by power and
he speaks as normatively to his servant Ananias as if they have
been friends forever. And the text opens up by describing
Ananias as a disciple. And that teaches me that if I
am a disciple of Christ, a learner of Christ, a follower of Christ,
I have the privilege of Christ talking to me. Listen how it goes, I want you
to see this. It says, and there was a certain disciple at Damascus
named Ananias and to him said the Lord. Do you see it? And to him said
the Lord. How? In a vision. This is remarkable. This is remarkable because what
we're actually now being given insight into is the kind of relationship
that the risen reigning Lord of the universe was having with
his people in those early stages of the development of the church.
If you will, you can adopt in this verse, this part of the
verse, once again, The title of verse three, the superior
intelligence of heaven at work. His servant is hearing from Christ
in a vision. Man, that's fantastic. That's dynamic. Think about Saul
running down to Jerusalem to get papers from the high priest.
He doesn't know God from the man on the moon. God's not talking
to him. He's walking in the dark. The
best he could do is Torah. and Torah's killing him because
he's a hell-bound sinner. He just doesn't know it. He's
got the weight of the law on his shoulders. He got the wrath
of God on him. He's got a sin nature that's
seeking him. He's still coveting and lusting at the women, this,
that, and the other thing, as he said in Romans 7. He's a hypocritical,
self-righteous individual going out to kill people because of
something he does not know. Trying to sustain the fig leaves
of his own false religion, but he doesn't know God. And so he
has no intelligence from heaven at all. Heaven is not talking
to Saul, but heaven is talking to every one of the disciples
in Damascus and in Jerusalem. When we get over to that verse,
you know what the verse is going to tell us? We all know what
Saul was up to. We all know. I mean, it was like,
you know, it was like email went to everybody. They got it on
the text. They got it on the iPod. They
got it on their phone. God gave it to him by revelation
visions and dreams Just it just went across the neighborhood
It was just common data everyday data if Saul would have showed
up in Damascus in his unconverted Ungenerated unregenerate state
they would have still been aware of him. Oh good. They're gonna
do there you go There you go, and they would have known what
he was there for that Ananias is receiving a vision from the
Lord. Isn't that what Christ said he
would do? Lo, I am with you always to the end of the world. Isn't
that what he said in Acts chapter one? Your young men should see
dreams and visions and your daughters would prophesy. I would be so
eminently present among you that you would never be without a
sense of who I am. You can see the Lord working
with them mightily. Can you see that? I mean, there's
such a dynamic of his presence. Hey, Ananias, I've got to tell
you something. Now I want you to see the depths
of the communication because under Ananias the servant, we
have available readiness to serve. Is that true? Look at how he
responds in the vision. He said, Lord, he said, he said,
the Lord in a vision said, Ananias, he gave his name. Now again,
if we wanted to pull that out and develop that, you know what
the Bible teaches. My sheep hear my voice. They follow me and
I know them by name. He doesn't talk in generalities
to you. If you're a child of God, when
he loves you and cares about you, he calls your name specifically. Is that true? Now watch this.
And when you get in trouble, daddy calls your name specifically. I hear it in big bold letters.
The volume goes way up. Jesse, I hear you father. I hear you.
And I own him in my conscience and in my soul as my heavenly
father and submit to him. That is the nature of the relationship. Ananias, Now, you are so beautiful
about this. This is the legacy of believers
going all the way back to Adam. Adam! That's a father for you,
isn't it? Where are you, boy? Adam! You remember little Samuel? Mama's
so happy to have him, she said, Lord, you can have him back.
Safest thing to do is hurry up and give your children to God.
Hurry up and give your children to God. Don't hold on to them
too long. Are you hearing me? Hurry up
and give him to God and let God do what he's going to do. And
one day, little Samuel, little, you know, that boy was grown.
We keep depicting him as a little seven, eight year old. That boy
was grown. The Hebrew term for boy there doesn't mean he was
a four or five, six year old child. He was a young teenager,
young adult. He spoke Samuel and Samuel was taught by Eli
to say, speak, Lord, your servant is listening because God speaks
to us like that. in such a poignant, direct way
that we have the superior intelligence of heaven at work. And notice
how Ananias responds. Are you there? And he said, Behold,
I am here, Lord. Behold, I am here, Lord. Interesting. The idea is availability,
isn't it? Is that a legitimate conclusion
that I can draw? Yeah, I just drew that up. Can
I make good on that for a second? Okay. So here's how this goes.
Since I've got your attention, God has been speaking to some
of you, but you're not available. You're too busy. God has been speaking to some
of you and thousands of people are going to hear this CD in
a month or two because we're on the radio. Tens of thousands
of people get to hear my voice as I preach and teach for years.
And the Lord will speak through my voice to his sheep. And he will say to some of his
people, you're not available. I'm calling you and you are not
available. I'm calling you, but you are
not saying behold, Lord, here am I. Are you hearing me? So there's a lot of AWOL Christians,
MIA Christians, people for whom though God calls, they do not
hear. Now see, God did that with Israel
frequently. He said, I called, but they would not hear. I stretched
out my arms, but they would not come. Are you guys hearing me?
God calls. But it still remains whether
or not you are too busy for God's will. The reason why Ananias
will be in on this assignment is because he says, I am available. Ego, not I, me. Ego, Lord. Ego, Kyrgios. I, I, ego is me. Me, Lord. Me. Me, Lord. God speaking to me. Me, Lord.
You got that? Me, Lord, is me speak. That's
what happened to Isaiah. Isaiah saw the glory of the Lord
in the year in which his cousin, King Uzziah had died. He was
devastated, devastated, devastated because King Uzziah was a good
king for all intents and purposes and Isaiah was shaken up and
what God do? He pulled back the curtains on
his servant and said, Isaiah, shake out of it, man. I'm here. Do you remember that? He saw
the Lord high and lifted up, sitting on his throne, and his
train filled the universe, and the angels worshiped God, saying,
holy, holy, holy. What Isaiah saw was phenomenal. And it was all to prepare him
to simply say, here I am, send me. Here I am, send me. A revelation of God's glory ought
to produce that in us. So at some point in Ananias'
conversion, he was so jazzed on Christ that he kept himself
in a position of being ready. So I'm going to say it one more
time. At some point in Ananias' walk with the Savior, obviously
this is not his conversion. This is part of the normal process
of relationship between the disciple and his master. His master comes
to him in a vision, and Ananias responds, here am I, Lord. Kyrgios. And so we under our
first point availability, our readiness to serve. And I gave
you both texts, Samuel and Isaiah. Yeah, Isaiah. And now we read
in verse 11. And the Lord said unto him, arise and go into the
street, which is called straight and inquire in the house of Judas
for one called Saul of what for behold, he prayed clear and precise
instructions. See, this is how This is how
intimate the relationship between the savior and his servant was. The master speaks once, the servant
immediately responds. In other words, their connection
was already there. The master didn't have to wait
for the phone to ring 10 times like some of us do. The phone
rang once and Ananias picked it up. Here I am, ready to go. And the master gave him clear
and specific, precise instructions. Don't don't don't don't don't
don't don't don't don't don't don't don't don't don't don't
don't don't I love it. I love it. See, because our masters
on a mission. And I'm a missionary and every
Christian is supposed to be a missionary. And he calls on his servant Ananias
and Ananias responds and our master says, there's a man that
I want to send you to. on this street, in this house,
and this is what he's doing? He's praying. Now, this is also
fascinating because, I mean, he may have told him, I want
you to go to a house on a street called Straight, it's Judas's
house, and you're gonna meet a man named Saul there. And that
information would have been correct, but it wouldn't have been as
acute and precise down to the posture and behavior of the person
that he's dealing with. So he goes into the house and
what if there are 20 people in the house? What if there are
15 people in the house? How's he gonna know Saul from
everyone else? Behold, he is presently praying. Isn't that good? So now stay
with me now because this is important. Does not the general, the captain
of our salvation, know his servants. So I'm gonna put myself in Anna
and I's shoes for a second. I get an assignment from the
master and the master gives me data, information, instructions. My job is to extract from those
instructions, everything necessary, both for the objective purpose
of doing what he wants me to do and executing it to its fullest
extent. but also for the subjective,
subjective implications of its instructions to my own soul,
because I have already heard of who this man is. Got it? So now he didn't say, I want
you to go to the house on the street called straight, it's
Judas's house. And you know that terror saw, He going to be in
there hacking people up. Now I want you to sneak in there
cause you're going to have to come up behind him. No Ananias is
human just like me. And Ananias is thinking, you
know, if I can spend the rest of my life avoiding this dude,
I would like, come on now y'all Christian. If the Lord gave you
an assignment, jump on the plane, head on over to Iraq. There's
a fella in that group called ISIS that I want you to talk to. Now,
you know that if he kills you, you get to be with me. Isn't
that glorious? You see the point? So what our
master is doing by giving the posture of Ananias, our posture
of Saul to Ananias, he's assuaging the fear and trepidation
of Ananias toward this man. He's letting Ananias know the
man is broken. I want you to know that. The
man is so broken that he's already praying and I haven't even sent
you there yet. But he's also so broken that when you get there,
he gonna still be praying. That's how broken the man is.
See, some of us, we do religion and we are broke for about five
minutes. Then we're magically healed and back into our sin.
Ananias is told that this man is broken. And we talked about
this last week. If you have never been broken,
you are not saved. If you have never been broken,
you are not saved. The work of the Spirit of God
is to break the heart. He must break your will. Your
will must be broken in order to be a slave, a doulos, a servant
of Christ. Prior to your salvation, you
were your own king, your own queen, your own prince, your
own princess, your own despot, your own monarch, your own ruler.
You did what you wanted to do. When God saves you, he breaks
your will and brings you to the place of learning what it means
to be a servant. And it doesn't work any other
way. He is first and foremost, Lord. You guys got that? Yeah, I got one amen in the house. And I'm talking to Christians.
But that's because we don't live in a monarchical society. We
live in a democratic society that's egalitarian and everybody
free and everybody autonomous. And we're all kings and queens
in our own right. And don't nobody tell us what
to do. You ain't gonna tell me what to do. Not even your husband
or your wife can tell you what to do. Not even your parents
can tell you what to do. Certainly the pastor ain't going
to tell you what to do. The elder's not going to tell
you what to do. And if your boss says something the wrong way,
you're going to cuss him out and kick his butt too. Because
you ain't going to let nobody tell you what to do because you're
the servant of the Lord. You're a child of God. Am I telling the truth? I'm telling
the truth. I'm telling the truth. And this
is why Christianity does not work in America. It just does
not work in America because we're not humble before God. We're just not humble before
God. See, but in order for God's institution, his army, his military
to work, all his servants have to be humble. See Ananias is
humble. And Ananias knows that the way
you enter into the infantry and get your stripes and get put
in your position is on your knees. So the general tells his servant,
Here's another one that we have brought into the infantry. You'll
know him because he's on his knees. He's on his knees. And that's the mark of regeneration.
Except you become like this little child, you will not enter into
the kingdom of heaven. Am I making some sense to you,
ladies and gentlemen? See, the Christianity of the Bible is
radically different than the stuff we're doing today. The
level of submission to Christ's person and Christ's rule is so
enormous in the scriptures. The connection between where
we are and what the Bible depicts, it's hard to get a handle on
it. It's hard to see. The disconnect,
in my view, is massive. He prayeth. Behold, he prayeth.
And so it goes on to say in our third point under authentic communion
with the general. I love this part. Love this part
because after the master has given unto Ananias the instructions,
he gives him now the premise for which Paul is praying. He
says in verse 12, and he had seen in a vision, a man named
Ananias coming in. I love this. He didn't have to
say it, but what he tells Ananias is Ananias, I've come to you
in a vision, but I also have come to Saul in a vision. And
in Saul's vision, I've talked to him about you. And in your
vision, I've talked to you about him so that you will know him
when you see him and he will know you when he hears your voice. You know what we call that? The
superior intelligence of heaven. The superior intelligence of
heaven. It means we have a general that's
in control. That means he's letting every
one of the parties know what's going on. See, in war, A fundamental
key to success in war is intelligence. You've got to know what's going
on. You've got to have a general.
You've got to have a chain of commands. You've got to have
a strong communication base. Your data has to be right. It
has to be clear. It has to be precise. You have
to have eyes over you seeing things that you don't see because
you have to follow instructions blindly. We call it faith. And
you have to believe that the ones over you see things you
don't see. This is true. This is true. See
Ananias is getting ready to demonstrate that he has the gift of faith
because he has to now walk by faith. He has to walk by faith
and that faith is based upon the word of God. And the word
of God says, this is the man. Now don't worry about it. I already
told him about you. This again is to assuage his
fears. Wouldn't you be afraid of Saul? Doing what he did to
folks. And so our Lord graciously instructs
him. And here's what he says in verse
12. He's seen a vision. And Ananias
sees that he's seen a vision of a man named Ananias coming
in and putting his hands on him that he might receive his sight.
Now, this is so beautiful because Ananias is told what to do. And
then I was told what to do. When you go in, put your hands
on the man, lay hands on him. That's deep. So see, let's come
on back. Flip it back to Western Christian
culture. We don't even like shaking hands
with people. Our own brothers and sisters,
we don't even want to shake hands. I remember years ago when I first
started In leadership in the church and God began to make
me aware of the sociological ramifications and dynamics of
Church polity the sociological dynamics meaning how we interact
with each other And I've been involved in this now for 25 28
years easily as an under shepherd watching the souls of men and
watching how cultures are different in how they interact and watching
how Western Christianity is so presumptuous in its relationship
with one another. The reality is, is we sin an
awful lot against our brothers and sisters. We do not function as Christians
as we ought to with our brothers and sisters. Let me help you
with that just in case you thought she was just coming to have a
nice little soliloquy tonight. I see how we do not treasure
each member in the body and how we kind of look at people even
in the church as pagan and heathen. That's true. So you have to keep,
you have to keep control of your thoughts. Cause you just default
to, I don't know him. Why should I say hi to him? Oh,
well, let me give you a few reasons. He'd been at grace longer than
you. He'd been coming to church more consistently than you. They
are the ones that give you the CDs and say hi to you and this,
that, and the other. There are a lot of reasons for
you to say hi. If that don't work, how about
this? You're a Christian. See what I'm getting at? How about that? See, and so what
I'm saying is we have to really think through what it takes to
realize biblical Christianity. And what it takes is your commitment
to the Lordship of Christ in your life, so that it translates
into the character of Christianity that bears the fruit of the Spirit.
Otherwise, most of our Christianity is carnal. And that's why it
doesn't bear the fruit that it should. I'm just telling the
truth. I'm telling the truth. Now, when the bombs start dropping
here in the United States, you know how quick you're going to
be hugging on people you don't know and people you don't like.
The people you don't know and the people you don't like, you're
going to be hugging them. Glad to see them again. Just say hi to me.
Just say hi to me. I know you don't know me, but
my name is Jesse. I'm the pastor here. I know you don't know.
We ain't talked ever since you've been, but my point is, is that
that's how we are. It's bad. So a lot of our Christianity
is cultural, it's not biblical, it's cultural. And I've told
us so many times, we are slaves of our culture more than we are
of Christ. And so in our context, we have Ananias not only coming
to the man who is a murderer, but laying his hands on, am I
boring you? Let me just get one hand and say, I'm bored and I'll
shut it down. Okay. Verse 13. Then Ananias answered, Lord,
Lord, here we go. Lord, I heard through the grapevine about this man. You know the
gossip that goes around? I heard how much evil he had done to
your saints in Jerusalem. Lord, you didn't hear that? Let
me tell you something. I know you didn't know this.
You talking about this dude? Let me tell you something, Lord.
This dude, you shoot us to one? Because he got real problems.
At least that's what I heard. Because you know, in our church,
we go by hearsay and gossip and third parties. Because we don't
really pay no attention to this book because we're hypocrites. So maybe you like that too, Lord.
Maybe you don't know. So let me let you in on the gossip. It's good, isn't it? So you get
to go home and repent tonight. Verse 14. And here he hath authority
from the chief priest to bind all that call on your name. But
the Lord said unto him, I love this, I love this. See, now under
our fourth point, our major point with these minor premises, I
have in verse C, authentic communion with the general. You got that?
Authentic communion with the general. So now Ananias had such
a healthy relationship with the master that he could be himself. He could be himself in all of
his mess, in his flawed reasoning, in his flawed thinking, in his
twisted thinking, he could be himself. Now that's effectual
prayer. So now stay with me now for a
moment. Cause you know how some of us pray hitherto's and thou's
and prevents and therefore thus not's and didithos and didithons. You know how we pray? You know,
we, we pray like we really don't want to talk to the Lord. Don't
ever use any of the King James stuff in our regular speech,
but here we go now. Cause we're not authentic. We're not genuine. So I've told
you in prayer your mouth can go one way while your heart going
a whole nother place. Am I telling the truth? And then
you think you're getting something over on the Lord. Now Ananias
just said, Lord, this is what I heard. I'm going to let you
know what I heard because this is the way we do it around here.
And the master did not rebuke him. Didn't chide him. Didn't correct him. Stay with
me now. This is how he is with me. I
don't know how he is with you, but this is how he is with me.
My master lets me get away with so much junk in my own attitude
and personal life. It's just amazing. I was, uh,
I was counseling somebody the other day and it was so funny
because my counsel was the counsel of Ahithophel. It was good though. It was counsel from God. I knew
it, but can I tell you why? Cause just the night before I
had failed the test and I knew every one of the wrong questions. So when I came to that brother,
I said, listen, let me show you how to pass this test. Cause
I tore it up last night. I had to take it all over this
morning. Didn't know why, had to help him. Didn't know why
I had to help him. He come to me, pastor man, I'm
struggling. Yes, I'm struggling. And as he's
talking, I'm saying, man, was he in my room last night? And
so I was able to just give it to him and he was comforted. And I was able to simply say,
yeah, man, I've been, I went through the same thing. This
is how I find myself sometimes. Man, my thoughts get to running.
and it get to building momentum and I leave planet earth, I jump
to Pluto, I go to Saturn, I go to Mars, I'm all over the universe
until God told me back in. And when he told me back in,
he shows me that my thoughts didn't have a basis in reality
at all. I wore out hours wondering why,
what, if, when, If that happened, I'm gonna do this. Wasn't no
reality to it. Wasn't no reality to it. Lost
a good night's sleep fighting adversaries that didn't even
have reality. And I learned the simple lesson
that what you and I don't know becomes our biggest test. Are
you hearing me? What you and I don't know becomes
our biggest test. It becomes the foundation for
so many baseless hypotheticals. And we build this sort of a sort
of a surreal world of warfare in our mind. We create our own
enemies. We develop our own terrain. We fabricate our own weapons
of war. We go to war against things that
aren't even there. Wake up the next day. The Lord
had your back all the time. Life went on as normal. And in
fact, if there were enemies, he had removed them far from
you way before you even start struggling with those old jacked
up thoughts. And then here's what you're doing.
You're saying, Lord, why did you, Why did you, Lord, why did
you let me go through all that? So I'm gonna throw this on your
sovereignty and ask, why did you let me go through all that? And you know, I'm so glad he
does with me what he did with Ananias. And you know what that
was? Not say a thing. I have learned to hear so clear
from God when he doesn't say a thing to me. I said, I got
you, Lord. I hear you, Lord. When he doesn't
say a thing. Because he didn't say a thing
to Ananias about what Ananias was going through. He was not
moved by Ananias' thoughts or fears or phobias or concerns
for two reasons. for two reasons. He knows what
he's up to and nothing is going to change his plans. Stay with
me now. Here's the second part. You need
this. And in spite of all that old junked up stuff that goes
on in the head, Ananias is still his servant and he can trust
him to go to war for Christ. Even with those jacked up thoughts.
Are you hearing me? So watch how he closes it. This
is just great. He got authority, Lord, from
the chief priest to bind everybody, call it on your name, on your
name, Lord. Here's what the Lord said, go
your way. You got that? Go your way. Go
your way. Point number B, D, A, B, C, D,
should have been D. Most assignments are challenging,
are they not? Most assignments are challenging.
I'm gonna get to the go that way here in a second. Most assignments
are challenging. Let me develop that for a moment.
I think you'll resonate with this. And if you don't, it's
only because you ain't never had an assignment. And this is
true. When God gives you an assignment, it is generally a difficult assignment. The things you do for the Lord
that you like, are not assignments. They're just privileges. Like in your own free time, do
what you want. Like Augustine said, love God,
do what you want, but don't call it an assignment. When God gives
you an assignment, it's designed for you to become conscious of
your servant status. So stay with me for a moment.
I just want you to get this. Do I, can I, can I expand on
this? I got five minutes before we shut it down because the heat
putting some of y'all to sleep. This is good. You need to get
this when it's not difficult. It's a privilege. No one, even in their regenerate
state is going to voluntarily up for something that's hard,
Jan. Jan, you're not gonna wake up
in the morning and say, Lord, I heard Pastor Jesse clear his
day. I'm getting ready to get me a
plane ticket to go to Iraq. Cause I'm gonna talk to one of
those boys about Jesus. You and I will see Jan in church
on Sunday. Am I making some sense mother
banks we'll see him in Churchill said do you know what cuz he's
not gonna wake up with that thought Emerging out of his own being
in the freedom and privilege of being able to do what he wants
cuz we never Actually opt in our own right for difficult things That's true No, we always do
the easy stuff We peel God off after we have covered all our
bases and then we act like that's an assignment. No, it was just
a privilege. When it's an assignment, the
due loss principle must come into play. When it's an assignment,
now you have to remember you are a servant, a slave of Christ
and as master, Your job is to do it in spite of its difficulty. Are you hearing me? In spite
of its difficulty. Now I know it's an assignment.
Now I know it's an assignment. Why? Because it grates against
my own principle of self-preservation and autonomy. It grates against
my narcissistic notion that life begins with me. That's what narcissism
is. Me first, me first. No, when the assignment comes
and I go, well, this doesn't take into account me but then
I know it's from God see and at that point it's a struggle
so interesting because when that comes up in my life I know it
I feel it there's an internal push back when I get an assignment
from God There's an internal pushback. But because I've learned
to be a slave, I function counterintuitive to that design to push back.
I said, Oh, my pushback means that this is from God. Now I
know what I'm called to do because it's uncomfortable. At this point,
I know I have to depend on God and I have to pray before I go
and I have to strategize before I enter into that assignment.
I have to be able to understand what I'm called to and whatever
the consequences are going to be, I have to already have relied
upon this fact that because it's an assignment from God, no matter
what it results in terms of me, It's all good. See, Ananias has got to take
this short journey from the vision to the house on that same principle. He getting ready to do something
none of the other Christians are doing. See, none of the other
Christians woke up Cause they all heard the news. Remember,
I heard it through the grapevine. It all came through the text. iPad,
all that stuff, right? Yeah. Saul's coming, right? They
know he's coming. None of the Christians voluntarily
say, Lord, I go witness to the man. None of them. See how we
are. God had to give it by revelation
to a man individually who was available to Christ, but he wasn't
so available. He'd do it on his own. It's an
assignment. It's counterintuitive. It grates
against our nature because our self-preservation is now in question
because it requires faith. It requires faith. This is good,
isn't it? This is good. So, go thy way servant, that's
verse 15. And what I quote in Luke 6, 46
through 48 is our Lord's words to his disciples. You can pull
those up depth. And he fundamentally raises the question. If you call
me Lord, Why then don't you do what I tell you to do? Do you
see it? And why call you me? Lord, Lord,
that's the religious folk right there. So stay right there. Project
right there. This is why I get on people in
our church about hyper exhibitionalism. This is why I check people when
they want to show out on Sunday. when they want to make it the
focus of attention that they so full of the Holy Ghost. If
you full of the Holy Ghost, you're going to be aware of people around
you and you're not going to call attention to yourself. When you're
full of the Holy Ghost, you're gonna worship God, you're gonna
be God-centered, but you're not gonna be a stumbling block to
others. The Holy Ghost is never a stumbling block. He does not
make people around you uncomfortable because you're having your religious
tantrums and your religious epilepsy and your religious conundrums. No, that's not the Holy Ghost.
Please understand that's not the Holy Ghost. I know you thought
it was, but it's not. The Holy Ghost never functions
unseemly. And you are always in control. The spirit of the prophet is
subject to the prophet. Now go home. Tear your house
up. You get in that door and shut
your door and say, Lord, that was good. That was good. Hallelujah. Tear your own house
up. Tear stuff up in your house.
And after you come down from your Holy Ghost high, look around
and say, man, I got to clean this mess up. We ain't going to let you tear
the church up because of your Holy Ghost high. Go home with
your Holy Ghost high. Tear your own house up. See how
quick you tear it up. You're going to come to church,
tear the church up, ain't going to tear your own house up. So most assignments are challenging
And in our outline, I have Joshua 1.9. Why do I have Joshua 1.9? Because Moses died. And Joshua was next in command.
And Joshua knew his clientele. Do you understand that? He knew
his brethren. I know Joshua probably secretly
said, Lord, keep Moses alive so he can go in with us. Cause
Moses got enough zeal and passion to Teddy's people, but up when
they get out alive, it ain't in me, Lord, I don't have the
ability. God gave him the assignment. As soon as he gave him the assignment,
Joshua is in a tizzy. He's counterintuitive too. because
he knows that this is too big for him. He's afraid, he's fearful,
he's anxious. God has to tell him, don't be
afraid. Isn't that right? Don't be afraid. As I was with Moses, I'll be
with you. Joshua, don't be afraid. Read your Bible. Faith comes
by what? And hearing by what? Joshua pray
and read your Bible and know that I will be with you as I
was with Moses Don't be afraid. I know this is an assignment.
I know these religious folk will tell you in 50 pieces But I'll
be with you Ezekiel chapter 3, you know what God says to Ezekiel
Ezekiel I am sending you to a rebellious house The people in your church
are hell bound centers dressed in religious garb. And their
faces are so hard that if they would, and if they could, they
would kill you and bury you without an honor. But I am going to make
your face toward them as adamant as stone. Again, that's counterintuitive
because it wasn't in his nature. He was a little child spiritually. That was Jeremiah. Ezekiel just
couldn't handle the idea of going to these rebels when he actually
saw the judgment come upon them. He was part of it. And God says,
eat this scroll. Eat it. You guys remember that?
Jeremiah three, I mean, Ezekiel three, eat this scroll. And I
thought about that. I said, boy, look at the Lord.
You know what he does for his servants? He makes the word of
God so good to us that we are compelled to eat it. He makes his word so delicious,
so voluptuous, so tasty. It is irrefusable and we go at
it Because it is the word of God. It is our meat. It is our
drink. It is our honey from the rock
It is manna from heaven. It is so Desirous to us and we
eat it and we know what it's gonna do Get into our belly and tell us
we got to do things That naturally we don't want
to do And every time he sets the plate
before me, I eat it like it's brand new. And the net result
is you got to teach this, but you got to live it first and
you're going to have people that hate you for it. Yeah, that's God. That's how
you know you're having an assignment. That's how you know you're having
the assignment. Okay, let's just deal with our last one. We've
shut it down here. So Ananias, the servant of Christ, available
readiness to serve, clear and practical and precise instructions,
authentic communion with the general. Be real with God when
you talk with him. If you're his child, you're his
servant as well. If you're his servant, you're
his child. You can talk to daddy plainly, just not arrogantly.
Don't try to deceive him. Just talk to God plainly. Jonah
did. Remember? Ah, that was another
brother who had an assignment he did not want. Do you remember
that? Don't, don't, don't, don't, don't,
don't, don't, don't. He reads the instructions and
no, no, no, not this time. No, I'm on vacation. Now you go jump in a boat and
go on vacation. Right? And so the Lord said,
I'll catch up with you brother. I'm cool with vacations. I can
get you on a vacation. In fact, I'm getting ready to
put you now in a nice big old tugboat. You're going to be a
cruiser. You get to ride a cruise ship
and you still going where I want you to go. And when you get there,
you're going to do what I'm telling you to do. That's how God talks
to us. See, he doesn't have to like negotiate with his servants.
You know what he says? Go your way. You know what go your way means?
Go the way that I have designed for you because you are mine. Now, God said that one time to
a false prophet. The construction of the Hebrew
in the book of Numbers, when that false prophet Balaam, who
was a child of the devil and he was a prosperity preacher
that was hoodwinking everyone, having a remote knowledge of
the true and the living God, had a proposition to curse the
people of God. And God told Balaam, go your
way. And you know what Balaam did?
He went his way and his way was still going to serve God's purpose,
even though it killed him. See, so the idea of going your
way is, are you a servant of God? Then you're going to do
God's will. If you're not a servant of God,
you're going to go your own way. Are you guys following me? See,
go your way means let's see your true colors. Go your way. Go your way. It's the same thing,
ladies and gentlemen, that our master said to Judas Iscariot
that night. Judas, What you have to do, do,
and do it quickly. See you. Because there was a
point at which there was a break between Judas and Christ in terms
of Judas's will prevailing over the will of the master because
he was not one of the masters. This is what we know about salvation. If in fact you're born of God,
he has broken your will and your rebellion can never ever ultimately
overcome God. He'll bring you into submission
or kill you. God will bring you into submission
or he will kill you. He's not gonna save you and leave
you here to do your own thing. Am I making some sense, ladies?
I want you to get this now. Let me help you just in case
you don't believe the Bible. And I'm gonna shut it down right
here and we'll pick it up next week. God didn't save you to just do
your own thing. Now pastor, how do I know I'm
doing my own thing? Cause you are miserable. How do I know I'm doing my own
thing? Cause I wasn't made to do my own thing. And now that
I am doing my own thing, I am actually functioning contrary
to what I was made for. You and I are made for God's
glory. And we were made to experience
his pleasure. Only, however, in the context
of obedience, trust, and obey. For there is no other
way to be happy in Jesus. So how come folks are all miserable
in Jesus? Because they neither trust nor
obey. Let's pray. So Father, thank
you for this time. Thank you for my class. Thank
you for my brothers and sisters that made it out tonight. And
I'm asking you to do something for them special. Bring them
closer to you. Help them to understand how privileged
they were to hear this study tonight. get a copy and listen
to it 10 times until their soul is conformed to the image of
your son, according to this lesson, so that they can move out in
greater obedience, rooted in greater faith and in greater
joy, accomplishing missions that you send them on, knowing that
you will work with them and in them to get the job done. We
look forward to seeing and hearing and learning the rest of this
account. We pray it in Jesus name. Amen. God bless you.