When Jesus Crashes In

Automatically transcribed — lightly cleaned for readability. Wording is the preacher’s own.

Well, good morning, church. My name is Cameron. I'm one of the pastors here at Conduit, and we welcome you home. We hope and pray, and we have been praying, that you would have a fresh encounter with God this morning. And this is our annual tech service. And so we only choose to do tech services, even when it's really cold and rainy, or when the humanity is at 100%. So keep an eye on the forecast, and next time it's unbearable to be outside, we should be sitting in the air conditioning inside. We'll be out here again. You know, in all seriousness, we're so excited to be worshiping and to be celebrating this morning. We have 13 people who have committed their lives to Jesus. They want to make that public proclamation this morning through baptism. And so we're going to celebrate, we're going to celebrate their commitment, remember our own commitment. Take a moment to remember our own baptism, that moment where we send in a very public way what personally has become true to us, that Jesus Christ has become our Lord and our Savior. We surrender our life to Him. We want everyone to know it. So there'll be a few, like, stops and starts for housekeeping

Things today, both because we'll have people going out to get changed and then coming back in to get baptized. Also, I want to let you know that when I dismiss people to go get changed for baptism, if you have kids, incanduit kids, we'd really love you to go get them at that time and then bring them back in here for the fight, two songs, and for the actual baptism. We want the whole of the church to be able to witness baptisms this morning. And then after baptism, we of course have lunch, and there's some tables just on the other side of this tent right here for buffet lines, for food. And so we'll open these walls. You can go out and eat your food and then make yourself comfortable wherever you would like on the property this morning. But we'll get more of those instructions here in just a little bit. We've been preaching for the last several weeks, couple months now, actually, through the Book of Acts or in the Book of Acts. Acts, the Book of Acts is, for lack of a better term, it's the storytelling of the building of the church after Jesus kind

Of sent it back into heaven. So Jesus had a earthly ministry. He was crucified and across. He was resurrected from the grave. He appeared to his disciples over a period of days, the various numerous numbers of disciples. Then he sent it back into heaven where he sits even today at the right hand of God the Father and where he will return again someday soon or more Jesus. The story of the Book of Acts is everything that has happened after that, and including us. In fact, there are some Christian movements that go out there that call churches that meet now the Acts 29 type of churches. The Book of Acts has 28 chapters, but we're not in here, so it's the 29th chapter. So we find ourselves in the same lineage and history and timeline as the churches and the individuals, the new believers that we see in the Book of Acts. But just like the rest of the Bible, the Book of Acts is not just filled with all of the stories of the really encouraging things or the really hopeful things or the really uplifting things or the really super spiritual things that are really some very, very practical things in there. And there are also some individuals, some groups

Of people who do things and say things that we are like, "Well, that doesn't seem very Christian. Why would that be in the Bible?" Sometimes we get an idea of what it means or we get a different idea of what the Bible actually sets out to do. Now that holds in just the examples of people who got it right all the time. But always on every page and every word, just breathing life into the reality that God redeems, that God restores, that God is love, and at the center of the Scripture is the story of the Bible is not the story of you and me. The story of the Bible is the story of a God who pursues His people with radical abandonment out of the heart of love to give Himself to that which He has created and calls us into a relationship with them. When we read the New Testament or when you look at the New Testament, you'll see that there's some letters to churches, there's some letters to individuals, there are some history books, four books that tell the story of Jesus from four different perspectives. There's one guy who wrote a good bit of the

New Testament. You know Him or we know Him, we talk about Him most often at the Apostle Paul. But Paul wrote in all of the New Testament, he wrote about 39, 000 words of it. So 13 books of the New Testament were written by the Apostle Paul. He brought language to some of the major theological themes that still nurture the church and their love of God even today until the end of time. He brought language to things like being justified by grace through faith, none of our works that no one can boast right in Ephesians chapter 2. He brought language to an understanding of what the grace of God actually means and how it is different from our work to make ourselves worthy of receiving God's love into a free gift that He gives us because of who He is, not because of what we are or what we have done. Paul talked about an uplifted and upheld for us the centrality of the cross and the resurrection from the dead. Of course you remember 1 Corinthians 15, we talked about this over during Easter that Paul said that if Christ has not been raised from the dead, right, that our faith

Is what? It's worthless, right? It means nothing. So he brought language to the centrality of the cross and the resurrection. Paul's whole mission, the whole mission of his life was to see Gentile people come to know Jesus the Jewish Savior, of which you and I have now are the fruit of, right? You and I are the fruit of Paul's ministry to the Gentiles. And there is really so much more that Paul offered. You would think that you would look at something, a life like Paul, in a certain type of way. And like, would you look at the rest of the scriptures, the rest of the New Testament, some of the things that he wrote are probably some of our favorite verses. Like if you had verses that you were memorizing or verses that were very powerful to you or verses that really stuck with you or hit you right into your soul, there's a good chance that Paul wrote this, right? So I'm thinking about like the examples like 1 Timothy 1.15. Paul says, "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." You know what else? "Whom I am the worst, " he says. There's ones like

2 Corinthians 12 where Paul says, "For the sake of Christ, that I have become content with my weaknesses in insults and hardships and persecutions and calamities. For when I am weak then I am strong." In Philippians chapter 3 verse 8 is my favorite verse in all the scripture. I count everything as a loss compared to the surpassing work of knowing Christ Jesus as my war and being founded Him. Galatians chapter 2 verse 20, "It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives within me." It's Paul ahead. Philippians chapter 4 verse 13, almost everyone knows this, right? I can do all things to Christ who gives me strength. 2 Timothy 4.7, "I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith." I mean, you have this guy who has written so much of scripture, has been so impactful on the history of the Christian church. His ministry is kind of the reason we're gathering our tent this morning and I'm sweating through my shirt already, 1030. And when I look at this, when I look at what Paul has offered to us in the type of leader that he was, one of the questions that naturally sits in my soul, it's like, man, maybe it's not a question

As much as it is like this yearning of like, man, I don't want to be, I want to be used by the Lord like that. Like I, I want to be able to encourage people with the truth of God's Word. I want to raise up other believers and other leaders and other disciples. I want to see churches planted. I want to see people come to faith in Jesus Christ. I want to see, I want to see believers, disciples of Jesus walk with this sort of like almost reckless surrender of their lives where they are echoing the words of Paul. I count everything as a loss compared to the surpassing word of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord, of being founded here. I hear these things of false life that he wrote and I was like, man, can God use me like he used Paul? Can he, can God, can God rearrange the circumstances, the relationships, the thoughts, the words, the behaviors of Cameron's life, of your life or our lives and then we can have the same type of impact that God can really use, really use us in

This type of way. It's been my experience, both internally in my own, like my own, in my own head, as well as pastoring now for a few decades, is that most people don't think God can use them like that. Most people look at people like Paul and they're like, yeah, I mean, but like, just look at him, super Christian, very well educated, always have the right answer, wrote all these really like inspiring letters to churches to encourage them and exhort them and repeat them in their faith, like planted churches, died for its faithful. I could never be the type of person that Paul was, like that dude must have been just like firing on all eight cylinders to full life. How do we get to this place? How do we get to the place of confidence, of faith, of strength, of having an eternal perspective of earthly contentment like Paul was? Well, it doesn't always start where you think it starts. Yeah, most of us think it starts early on with long obedience in the same direction and that's true, right? Long obedience in the same direction does produce a lot of fruit

In our lives, but this is not actually how it worked for Paul. It's not how it worked for Paul at all. In fact, most of you are probably better people than Paul was, at least before he met Jesus. Paul's life was not always the life and the example of this extraordinary church leader who wrote all these really inspiring verses that we all know and love, 39, 000 words of the New Testament, 13 books gave us all these cool theological terms or terms. Paul's life took a really dramatic turn at one certain point. If you remember back about two weeks ago, Pastor Luke preached about a man named Stephen. Stephen was a leader in the early church and he was killed for his proclamation of Jesus Christ as Lord and his rebuke of the Jews who killed Jesus. And if you remember from that section of Scripture it says that there was a man named Saul who stood by holding the robes of those who were stoning Stephen, giving his approval to what they were doing. We had already been introduced to this guy. Early in the book of Acts they called him Saul. His name is later changed

To Paul, same person. But there was a point early on where Saul/Paul was kind of the ringleader of people who were actively persecuting, tying up, throwing into jail, those who were following the way of Jesus. So that's kind of where we're going to pick up in the book of Acts this morning is in Acts 9 starting at verse 1 to see exactly now Paul is not going to be kind of like a side character in the story. Now he's becoming a main character. Now he's coming to the forefront of the rest of Scripture really. It says that in verse 9 starting at chapter 1 it says, "Meanwhile Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord's disciples. He went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus so that he found any there who belongs to the way. Whether men or women he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem." Look Saul's life early on was marked by a very, very, very strong conviction. Very, very clear belief that any person, any Jewish person who was now following the way, which is how they referred to people who were Jews who were now following the way of Jesus and trusted Jesus as their Messiah, trusted Jesus

As their Savior, he had such a strong conviction that those people should be found, that they should be arrested, and that at the very least they should be thrown into jail and brought up on charges, and at worst they should be killed or crucified. He was, he had a very strong, obviously his whole life was marked by conviction about this. It says that he was breathing, it's like all of his life was oriented towards this inner hate of those who followed Jesus. It says that he was breathing murderous threats against the disciples. Now I've been mad at some people before. I've been mad. Breathing murderous threats is a different, it's like it's a different level, right? He would travel hundreds of miles to find people who followed Jesus, who are members of the way. It says here that he was on the road to Damascus. Well, Damascus was not a short, it was not like the next town over from Jerusalem where Paul was, this kind of home base was. It was 150 miles. And so Saul was like, "I don't care how far I have to go, I don't care what lengths I have to go to, I don't care

Where I have to travel, remember we're traveling a foot." If it's 150 miles away, it doesn't matter, I will go and I will find these people who are following Jesus and I will bring them to justice. He wasn't just a casual skeptic. He wasn't just agnostic in his belief, like, "I don't know about this Jesus thing, I could take it or leave it, I could be good, could be bad, I don't know." That wasn't Paul's, that wasn't Paul's shtick at all. He was, he was a hunter of Christians. There's no other way to put it. He traveled over long distances of lands to find those who followed Jesus so that he could imprison them or kill them. But then something dramatic happens in Paul's life. And in the rest here, this first part of chapter 9, we see that it says in verse 3, "As Paul near Damascus, " the place that he was going on his journey, "suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him, and he fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, 'Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?' 'Who are you, Lord?' Saul asked. 'I am Jesus who you are persecuting, ' he replied.

'Now get up and go into the city and you will be told what you must do.' The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless. They heard the sound but did not see anyone. Saul got up through the ground, but when he opened his eyes, he could see nothing. So he led, so they led him by the hand into Damascus, and for three days he was blind and did not eat or drink anything." Paul, on his, on his mission and on his journey with all the conviction that they possibly mustered in his fire to go find Christians in the area of Damascus and to bind them up and bring them, drag them back to Jerusalem, was encountered in a, Jesus came not just casually sauntering into his life, Jesus came crashing into his life, the devil, shining into his life, life in that moment. This was not like Paul was, had picked up a scroll or someone had given him a book that had information or facts or three reasons we think Jesus is who he says he is, type of thing. It wasn't that Paul in that moment

Had received like a bunch of new facts and information and now things were beginning to change for him at all. It wasn't information about Jesus, it was Jesus himself in that moment. It was the very presence of the resurrected warden savior. It was the one who Paul had said, "I will kill people if they follow him." All of a sudden, Jesus is here, shining in all in his glory and majesty. And when Jesus showed up in Saul's life, everything from that moment on after change. Jesus is still showing up in people's lives. Jesus is still coming when we least expect it. Jesus is still sometimes coming very gently into our lives, holding our hands through a difficult season to reveal his presence, his power, his redemption and his salvation. And sometimes Jesus comes crashing into your life like a Mack truck that you didn't expect knocks you on your butt. And all that you can do is just look up and say, "What do you mean for me, Lord? What now?" But the same Jesus who crashed into Paul's life, that warning also crashes into ours. When Jesus showed up in Saul's life, really everything from that moment on changed. Everything in the initial moment changed,

Everything having the long-term moments and moments afterwards changed. I mean, the most obvious thing that changed is like the environment around Saul when Jesus revealed himself to him changed. It said that everything that was filled with the actual work, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him and he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" Everything in that moment, everything in the environment was filled with light. Not just light in terms like we see, we hear the word like, like everything, a bright light shown and we think just like, like it's bright in sunglasses. But it doesn't really encapsulate fully what is trying to be communicated here. It wasn't light like, "Oh my gosh, it's bright and I need sunglasses." It was light as it's represented in the glory and the majesty and the presence and the power of the resurrected Lord. A bright light shone around Paul. Listen, when the sun is bright, you don't get on your face. You put on sunglasses, right? But when you are in the presence of the resurrected

Lord, right? The glory, the majesty and the weight of his presence drives us to the floor in worship in humility. It is the way in which we encounter the resurrected Christ. There was a reason Saul was on the ground. It's because he was unable to stand in the presence of Jesus. His glory, his power, his majesty and his presence. It's really clear that not just the environment changed but Saul's mind changed. And then we see this kind of very subtly because Saul, when he's face down on the ground and the bright light, his shine, the first words out of his mouth, it sounds like Paul was unaware of who it was. But Paul was keenly aware of the title of who it was. What did Paul say? He didn't say, "Is that you, Jesus?" No, he said, "Oh." He fell to the ground, heard a voice to say to him, "Saul, why do you persecute me?" And he said, "What did he say?" "Who are you, Lord?" Saul might now have had a name when he understood there was a reason that he was in the position that

He was in, right? He understood that there was only one person and one person alone who could make him lay flat on his face unable to get up with glory, weight and majesty. And that was the Lord. It was Jesus himself who said, "Yeah, actually it's me. It's the one that you have been persecuting." This is like a sneaky theological concept in here. Because we have no indication throughout Scripture or history that Paul ever met Jesus before this moment. There was no indication that they came into contact with one another face to face. Paul may have been unfamiliar with his ministry. Some of his followers and disciples obviously may know about the uproar in Jerusalem, et cetera, et cetera. But there's no indicating that Paul and Jesus had ever met. And so why would Jesus have accused Paul of persecuting him? Paul was persecuting Jesus, right? Paul had been persecuting his followers, those who were following Jesus, those who had given their lives to God. But when Jesus showed up on the scene, was it that he said to Saul, "Hey, man, you're doing this to me." When

You, when you hurt those who are mine, you hurt me. When you persecute those who are mine, you persecute me. Jesus had, Jesus has such an incredible, he has such an incredible connection with and unity with those who follow him, those who are in him, those who are filled with his Holy Spirit, that when someone does something to us, it is as if they are doing it to him. This was when Jesus came to Saul and they were like, "Why are you persecuting me? You're doing this to me." Paul's mind changed. He knew immediately it was the Lord. Paul's heart definitely changed in this moment. He was no longer confident and resolute and convicted in the mission that he was on. Now he was simply humbly, he was humbly accepting assistance from the men traveling with him. "I can't see. You gotta help me get up. You gotta lead me into the city. I am like, I am, I am without any ability on my own." And it's finally probably the most obvious or well-known aspects of Saul's encounter with Jesus is that he was struck with some form of blindness. Paul's sight changed.

Now I have to believe that this was not just like Paul not being able to see anymore. It was not just some kind of coincidental side effect of bright light. Like, "Oh, now that I have some spots and I can't see." Like it was somehow coincidental from the encounter that Paul had. There was a reality about Saul's life and about his heart that I think speaks to the reason that he was struck with blindness. Paul, he said like Paul has such strong conviction that what he was doing was what he should do, that what he was doing was the right thing to do, the godly thing to do, the proper thing to do, the faithful thing to do. Saul thought he saw things so clearly that he needed, "What need do I have to see Jesus? What I have known to me for Jesus in my life? I have no place for Jesus." And interestingly enough, Jesus in this moment removed Saul's physical sight and opened his spiritual sight. There was this moment where for Saul, seeing was, I don't know, believing or not believing. I really

Want to look at it, but there was this sense that Saul was like, "I have such a clear picture of what God wants me to do. I have no need for this Jesus thing." And so this is the mission that I'm on. This is the wing of my life that's going to go. And then Jesus rearranged everything inside of Paul's heart and even everything that he could see with his eyes taking away his physical sight so that his spiritual sight for once could be opened. Once, Saul once could not see the lordship of Jesus, now he could see that he was truly God, truly resurrected from the dead, truly the Lord. Saul's spiritual eyes were opened in that moment. And notice, I want you to notice something here once again that it wasn't just information that Saul needed in order to see spiritually for the first time. It wasn't like Paul just needed to do a few more Bible studies, listen to a few more podcasts, come to church and hear a certain prayer for Lord times to really get 100% of the information that would be necessary for him to open up the eyes of his heart to the reality and lordship of Jesus. It wasn't just information that Saul needed in order to see spiritually for

The first time. He had all the information he could ever want or need and he still had no need, but he still didn't know who Jesus was. I think we must, you and I, must consistently be intentional and careful not to substitute the things we know about Jesus as a replacement for an actual relationship with Jesus. It is possible to know everything about Jesus and not know Jesus at all. I probably, my favorite era of history is like World War II history, around that time. And I know a lot about the history around World War II. And I could probably, you know, if we sit down at lunch, I could probably, we could outline a lot of the battles for you, a lot of the major movements, both political and religious movements that led to like everything that was happening in World War II. I could talk about it for a long time. I really, really enjoy it. So I know a lot about World War II. But I don't know a lot about World War II like a man who stood on the beach of Normandy

Knows about World War II. I could write you a book about my wife and you could read it and you could learn all of the things about her life that I put in that book. But you would never know her like I don't. Because there is more to intimate relationship than just the facts on a page, the data of their life. There is a intimacy that exists in encounter, in closeness and in relationship. One type of knowing informs the mind and feeds the intellect. The other type of knowing changes the heart and reroutes the trajectory of the rest of your life. Now, does God love and honor the mind? And does God love and honor the mind that pursues more knowledge and information and truth about you? Absolutely. God honors that 100%. But listen, I want you to hear this. I've seen literal, illiterate people worship Jesus with a passion that I personally envy. And I've seen a PhD level college vice and professors who did not know Jesus as the Lord of Savior, but could teach you everything about Him. When your heart is changed, everything is changed. Jesus wants to encounter you and

Change not just the information that you have about Him, but about the way that your heart experiences relationship with Him. Jesus wants to take away your spiritual blindness and open you up so that you can see Him for who He truly is. And when He does that and when your eyes get opened, everything changes. Everything changes. But what does Jesus say to fall? He's like, "I'm not here to get up and go into the city and you'll be told what you must do." In a way, I read a little bit of my own tone into Jesus' tone here because if I was Jesus, I was talking to Saul. We had a conversation. And Saul counted on his own trajectory and life and mission and vision and then encountered with Jesus. And Jesus was like, "Hey, get up. Get up now. You're not going, you're going to go where I'm going to tell you to go to. Go into the city and do what I tell you to do. Go see who I tell you to see. Say what I tell you to say. Hear what I tell you to hear. See what I want you

To see." What is really clear about Paul's life post his encounter with Jesus is that he was not on his own plan anymore. He did not have his own mission anymore. It was not his own design. That there was something radically changed, not just about the encounter that Paul had with Jesus, but about what that meant for the rest of his life. Jesus wasn't just stopping Paul on the road to Damascus so that he could protect the Christians that he was going to go persecute. Jesus was establishing a new purpose for Paul's life, a new trajectory for Paul's life, a new direction that would now define everything that he came to be and do and believe and say. His life, his ministry, his relationships, his heart, his mind, his future all now radically changed because he met with Jesus that day on the road to Damascus. This is the crux of what it means to have a life transformed by God. God is now the driver of my life. God is in the front. God has his hands on the steering wheel. I am not the Lord of my own life. I am not the master of my own ship. I am not the captain

Of my own soul. I have given my heart to Jesus who has opened up my spiritual eyes and transformed me, not just in what I know, but in how I feel, how I see, and how I experience the world around me. Everything changes when you are a God of Jesus. I love it. Now, this is essentially, this is why we have a baptism, the baptism in the middle of the tenths. This is the testimony of baptism and what we will witness today, and I will add the blessing of reading, all of the testimonies, the stories of the way in which God has sometimes patiently and sometimes suddenly, sometimes gently, sometimes aggressively, sometimes over a long period of time and sometimes very quickly come into these people's lives, wooed them with his love, opened their spiritual eyes, filled them with hope when they were lonely, hopeless, and afraid, and has now set their new life in a direction full of light, his vision for them, his glory for them, his purposes for them, our lives belonging to him. Now, I gotta tell you that your story, your transformation, the changing of your heart by Jesus has the

Potential for so much more impact than just your own life. But this is the story of Paul's transformation led literally to the rewriting of all human history. Paul's transformation was not just about his own will, individual heart and soul. Jesus has come to save just me. Jesus has come to save you, to redeem you, to set your life in a new direction because there are people on the pathway of your life that need to hear the story of how Jesus transformed you. There are people whom you will encounter. There are people in your own homes. There are people where you build a work. There's random people that you don't even know their name yet, but they're going to run into them one day at the grocery store. And they're going to need to hear the story of the one that Jesus saved when he thought he couldn't be saved. The one that Jesus redeemed when he thought he couldn't be saved. They're going to need to tell a story that so connects with this other person's story that they're going to say, I never thought there was anyone who thought like me, who went through what I went

Through, who experienced what I experienced. And I see now that if God can do it in your life, my faith is beginning to grow that now God can do it in mine. Your story is not just about you. It is also about what God wants to do through you. In fact, your story is not your own at all. You don't own it. You're just a part of the story that God is writing using you as an instrument to display his glory. See, God already had people in mind who would be changed by Paul's story. He already knew. He already knew that those people in mind later on in this chapter, we're not going to get to them this morning, but later on in the chapter, Jesus tells a man named Ananias who he tells Ananias, I want you to go pray for this guy named Saul. He's blind. Put your hands up and then pray for him so that he can see. Ananias is like, I've heard what he's doing. I'm not going. And Jesus, long story short, was like, you have to go. This man is my chosen instrument to bring the Gospels and the generals.

Before Saul even had an idea of what his story would mean and where it would go, God was already like, I'm already positioning people in his path to be to hear the Gospel and to be changed and transformed forever, right? How many generations of people shall we transform through your story? Through your faithfulness, through your courage to say, yeah, once I was blind, I could not see, had no need for Jesus. Maybe I knew a lot of information about him. But the truth is he had never encountered my heart in a way that changed it. But then he did in a flash, in a blink of an eye, or over a long, gentle process. And now I can tell you exactly. This is why, this is why I'm here. What might God want to do through your story, through your transformation? Who like to want to reach?

Some of you know exactly who God wants to reach through your story. Some of you will be surprised by people that you encounter

That need to hear exactly what Jesus has done in their life. And next week, we're going to talk about how, how, what, what, like we're going to, we're going to hear a story. We're talking about how we step into obedience when we're free. When there's good reason to be afraid in the life of David and I. See, listen, if we, if we let him, this is really important. The reason, the reason that most of us don't think that God can use us like he used Saul is because we see ourselves to the eyes, through the eyes of our own brokenness. God sees us through the eyes of Jesus' righteousness.

Like we just see all of our brokenness all over us all the time. When God looks at us, he's like, that's my daughter. That is my son. All, all I see is the righteousness of Jesus, the robes, the robes of righteousness. Right. And so when we think about God using our story, the only tools that we can think of using is like, man, I, I don't do this. I can't do that. I'm not this. I can't say this. I don't remember the answer to that. And look at my life. If you already knew what was running through my head, you would realize how God can't use me. Because the reality is, is like, this is everyone, all the time, forever and always. That God can do, if we let him, God will use the brokenness of our own stories to build strength and faith in others. God can do more with your brokenness than you can do with your own strength.

If you'll lay. When Jesus fed the 5, 000, the disciples were like, Jesus, send these people away. We have no, we don't have enough food for that. Jesus said, okay, well, what do you have? And they're like, well, we have these five loaves and these two small fish, but how far will they go? With so many. It just was like, oh, all right, no problem. And he took that, right? And he broke it, right? And they passed it out and then baskets and it was overflowed. Like the baskets overflowed. There was enough to feed everyone. Plus, right? What's the, what's the, what's the point of the moral of that story, right? That, that in the hands of God, even the little that we offer him comes out as abundance for life change. The point is not that we need to get God, all of the, everything that he needs out of our strength and out of our abundance. And then he can work. And then he can do a miracle and then he can transform the situation. But like the small boy who brought just the little that he had, it was not, he was no confidence in the fish and the

Loaves. There was confidence in who he gave it to. So it doesn't matter how little I have, and it doesn't matter how much I have, it's who holds the things that I have. And offering even the brokenness of your own story to a God who does miracles is more than enough working to use and transform others. Not only can he do it, it's what he does. God redeems stories. God can change any heart. God can redeem and repurpose any situation, ever, any experience, any life.

Next week, we're going to talk about Ananias, how God used Ananias's courage and obedience in the face of his fear to pray for and heal Saul. Well, you need to hear this warning, these two, like summed up, like we come back to this original question, can God use me? Do I feel like God can use, do I feel like God can use me? What I want you to hear this morning is that you, your story is not too far down the line. You're not too late in life. You have not done too much. You are not too far gone. You are not out of reach from a savior who wants to encounter you in a life transforming way. He wants to change your life and he wants to use your story to change the life, the lives of people around you. If he will, if you will let him, he will show you, he will show up in your life. He will open your spiritual eyes. He will welcome you into a life and direction that is full of his purposes and his transformations for you.

When we, one of the things that we do during baptism is that we want to use the water, we want to use the water baptism, not just to baptize those who are being baptized, obviously, but want to use the water also for the rest of us, maybe if you have been baptized before.

And for whatever reason or for whatever circumstances you find yourself in, you need or want a fresh reminder of the commitment that you have made when you went into the water, when you declared Jesus's word of your life. And so, to basically remember your surrender to Jesus. And so, either before we get that going with baptisms or after we're all done, I would encourage you, come up to the edge of the pool, put your hand in the water,

Feel the water, let it touch your skin, touch your own head, have your spouse, have your friend, I'll touch, I'll touch your head again. Just to remember, remember the moment going into the water, dying to myself and being raised to life in Jesus. What we're going to do now is we're going to take a few minutes to transition. So, I'm just warning you right now, the transition will not be smooth, nor will it be quiet. There's no smooth way to do this, so there's a few things that need to happen. We're going to be around the baptismal. So, if you have chairs kind of immediately surrounding it, if you could kind of like push them out to the edges, we want everyone here for it. So, if you want to please stay to witness it if you can.

And so, yeah, we'll make some room, okay, and then once you're just in a second, we'll dismiss any of those who are being baptized to go get changed into whatever collection you're getting into the water with, and then just come back out. You'd be kind of staying like right there around, right behind the camera. We'll get the ladder, we'll put it in the baptismal. If you have kids and how you're with kids, we do please ask that you go get them, and then bring them back out here. So, we'll check them out and bring them back out so that they can be a part of witnessing baptism as well. It's a way in which we teach our kids the gospel, right? We baptize people fully immersing them in the water because we believe that the biblical motif of baptism is that we go down into the water as a symbol of our unity with Jesus as he has died in sin, and we come up out of the water fully in symbolic and actual unity with Jesus as he has resurrected from the grave. Our sin gets put in the grave with Jesus, and we rise to new life, a resurrection to

New life in Jesus. So, baptism is the journey from death to life. Okay, I'm going to pray for us here for the closing of down to word, and that why dismiss parents to get their kids. People weren't being baptized to get changed, and then once we're all back out here, let's finish with our last our final worship set. Then we'll start. We'll start practice. I'm sorry, we'll pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the example of Saul's life that maybe we just had always seen Paul as a guy that had it all together, and didn't know this part of his story. Well, Lord, if Paul's story teaches us anything, let it teach, Lord, that my story is not too much for you, or

That my life can be redeemed. My story, they have purpose. And you desire to bring transformation into my own heart, not just for my own benefit board, but for your glory and also the transformation story of others. That's all I'm praying you would help us to see. Help us to see the glory of Jesus. Open up our spiritual eyes. Open up our spiritual ears. Father, I pray for certain people would be baptized in that order.

Lord, I pray that you would frighten the gates of hell with the glory of those who are publicly saying the most Jesus.

Lord, I pray that there would be a special, anointing, ever-spirit moment in this place.

Lord, that your glory and your power and your presence are full. Lord, that the weight of our sin is not to carry or to release the power of the resurrected Jesus Christ in us. Lord, that he has humility and emotion. We must hold the Lord on our face.

Lord, that you would remind us of our own baptisms.