Transformative Encounters: Boldness, Obedience, and Mercy

"As we enter into this time of prayer, again, I just want to invite you guys. Because the altars are always open for you. Pray with me. Heavenly Father, as we join together in this time of worship, Lord, we thank you that we get this opportunity to do so in a country that we're allowed to just openly come together just to praise you. Lord, I pray for our brothers and sisters who are in countries where they're persecuted just for believing in you. And they have to hide away in secret. But Lord, you still see them. And you are still with them. And you still give them the boldness to gather. The boldness to proclaim your name, even though it could cause them harm. Lord, because as the song just said, the world is behind us." [00:26:14]

"Lord, I pray for the ones in our one box. Lord, you know exactly who they are, and I just pray that you would allow conversations to happen, and that the people who placed them in there, they would be able to be bold to proclaim your love and your grace, mercy, and truth to them." [00:28:25]

"Saul was, you know, there at the beginning when they stoned Stephen, and he was looking on with hearty approval, and now he's been in, you know, empowered by the religious authorities of the time to go and pretty much find everyone who believes that Jesus is the Son of God, bring them back to Jerusalem so they can be tried and dealt with accordingly. And so, one, Saul thinks he's on the right side because he's like the Jew of all Jews, essentially, you know. He is very well educated. He's gone through all the schooling, and he believes, like, what the Christians are doing or the people of the way are doing is against what God spoke through Moses. So he, in his heart, he feels like he's doing the right thing, but he doesn't understand that Jesus came to transform that way of thinking. And so, in order for Saul to understand that, he had to go through a dynamic change himself." [00:40:12]

"And so, as he's on his way to persecute more Christians, you know, he, before he goes, he goes to the high priest and says, can I get some letters to, you know, get these people and bring them back? And they said, absolutely, like, let's get rid of these people. And so, he was breathing threats, which shows how aggressive that Paul was in his mindset towards Christians. He was breathing threats and murder against the disciples. Saul is not a very kind man at this point, you know, but he is a man on a mission to persecute the Christians." [00:46:19]

"Now, I think the correct answer is probably both. It's probably a both and answer. But we don't understand what Saul was going through for those three days. We know that he was praying. He didn't eat or drink, so he was fasting. He was relying on the Lord and having those conversations with him. But it wasn't until Ananias came that those scales fell off." [01:00:51]

"Whenever we're in conversations with people, we don't understand the sin that they're in. We don't understand where they are in their life. And so, our words and our actions must come from a place of love and mercy, which means it's not from ourselves. Because there are some people that I'm praying for that are actively living a life of sin." [01:01:33]

"But when I allow God to step in through me, grace and mercy, love abound beyond anything that I can ever give to people on my own. And sometimes that's the miracle. Because we represented someone who is not of our, who we are. We represented Jesus, who treated everyone with grace and mercy. He treated the adulterous woman like a person, because he said, you know, whoever's without sin cast the first stone." [01:02:29]

"And the one, like, he was the only one who could have cast that first stone. And he was like, where is everyone? Is there anyone left to accuse you? And she said, no. He said, neither do I. So go and leave your life of sin. Don't, don't go back to it. I've saved you from it. Now you get to walk in a new life, free from the bondage of sin." [01:03:02]

"Because he, his heart was so hardened towards Jesus that it took an act of Jesus to make him receive it. And then furthermore, it took another act of the Lord for him to be able to see again. And it says something like scales fell off his eyes. Well, if I know anything, there was a serpent in the garden and there's a dragon at the end. Satan had blinded him." [01:04:40]

"Again, I don't know what happened in those three days before, but the Lord was obviously working on them for him to immediately go in three days from breathing hatred and murder towards Christ followers to being completely sold out and on fire for the Lord. That he denied his previous way of thinking, became baptized, and then immediately went to those same synagogues that he just came from to proclaim that Jesus is the Son of God." [01:06:09]

"Just as Philip last week was able to take where the Ethiopian official was at in Isaiah and speak Jesus the rest of the way because he was already seeking, saying, you can do the same thing, just as Ananias was obedient to the Lord and went to Saul, who, again, massive persecutor of the church, and he was still bold enough to do what the Lord asked him to do, transformed Saul, so much so that he got baptized, received the Holy Spirit, and began proclaiming. He became one of the greatest first witnesses of the gospel and spread the gospel." [01:08:01]

"And Paul was amazing at relating the gospel to people. In 1 Corinthians 9 22, it says, I've become all things to all people, so that by all means possible, I might save some. He wasn't out trying to save everybody. If we went in the mindset of, I'm going to save every person I meet, you're in for a huge failure. One, because I can't save somebody unless it's CPR. Maybe." [01:12:17]