One of the ministries we support here at the church is called rescued, not arrested. It's a prison ministry. Uh Our church representative here, his name is Chris Hansen leads uh a Bible study on Tuesday nights at a juvenile detention center there in the community. And uh and their founder of rescue not arrested came and spoke to our staff uh uh a few months ago and he handed out some books. We actually have a few extra copies of the books here in the front row. If anybody wants one, you can grab one after service here. But his name is Roger uh munch and, and his story is pretty incredible, uh pretty incredible. And so as a ministry rescued not arrested has passed out uh 750,000 copies of the Bible in both English and in Spanish. And they currently work within 5000 prisons and and have served in over 100 and 78 countries around the world and all the Bibles that they give away. Uh three quarters of a million Bibles have been given away free of charge um because of the generosity of people in the community and beyond and so Roger himself has a pretty incredible story that you can read in detail in his book. But I wanna share with you just a brief quote that he puts on the rescue, not arrested website. And so it, it's it's too intense for me not to just to share it directly because some stories are just you read them like, wow, this is incredible. So let me just read this to you. So this is from Roger himself. He says, thank you for considering to partner and support our ministry, rescued people, rescue people. I love that since I was miraculously rescued from capital punishment charges in 1997 for two counts of aggravated manslaughter while driving 100 and 20 MPH drunk and was only sentenced to five years intense probation. That experience was my Damascus road opening my eyes to a new life in Christ. My perspective and purpose in life changed. I live now with eternal perspective in mind over the earthly one that I've been consumed by for way too long. My self-made national network of drug trafficking crumbled. And I started a new life in prison ministry. I used to traffic tons of marijuana nationwide, promoting death and destruction. And now I traffic tons of Bibles promoting forgiveness and eternal life. I would bring drugs into the US via the north of the Mexican border. And now I take Bibles south of the Mexican border. Very interesting that the concept of trafficking is the same. But now I choose to move a different product. One that has the power to change lives. Isn't that awesome? Used to traffic? Yeah, we can't clap for his testimony there. It's pretty awesome. I love that phrasing though used to traffic drugs. Now I traffic Bibles. Now he says in there in his testimony, he says that he had a Damascus Road moment. But what actually does that? Where does that come from? What actually comes from Acts chapter nine of a miraculous transformation story of another person who was committing crimes, but then has his life turned around for the goodness of God and the gospel of God. And his name is Saul. And so that's gonna be the story we're in today found in Acts chapter nine. And so if you have your bibles, go ahead and open to there. And if you don't own a bible, we'd love to give you one today. Just stop by our welcome table on your way out. But this morning's message is entitled when God steps in, when God steps in. And the main idea here for this morning is this that when God steps in your past becomes a platform, when God steps in your past becomes a platform, we're gonna talk about this gentleman named Saul. Now that was his Jewish name later when he was preaching to the Gentiles, he'd go by his Roman name, which was Paul. And so you, you'll hear Paul, you'll hear Saul, I might accidentally use them both this morning, but they're the same person here. Ok. And, and so this gentleman was, was a religious leader. He was super educated. He was high up. He was trained by this guy Gamal and he was going to Damascus to persecute Christians. Now, in his defense for him being a Jewish believer at the time, memorized, the Torah was going through, there was this figure named Jesus who claimed to be God. And so if you didn't believe that Jesus was God, then his claims were blasphemous to you. And so they thought of early Christians really described as the way as we're gonna see here, we saw that as a re revolution that was happening within their community and beyond. And so when Steven was killed for his faith, the first martyr, we talked about that two weeks ago, it started to scatter believers. Now what they thought would diminish the preaching of the gospel actually multiplied the preaching of the gospel to the point where the gospel had actually reached Damascus before Paul or Saul could even get there, right? It was, it was spreading faster than gossip in a small town, right? If, if you've been a part, I grew up in a small town in Ohio where if one person knew one thing, every person knew everything, you know what I'm talking about, like you heard it from Uncle Billy or your neighbor, Sally who cuts hair to like and everyone anyway. So the gospel was spreading like wildfire and saul this Jewish religious leader was persecuting and was locking up people up. And so on the way to arrest people in Damascus, which is 100 and 35 miles northeast of Jerusalem. About a six day journey by foot on the way to go arrest people. God actually in turn, arrests him and stops him right in his tracks. And so this idea here is that God, when he steps in can use your past, he can use your pain. He can use all of your story and turn it into a platform. What you viewed as a setback really becomes a set up for what God's gonna do with your life. And so the story we're looking at in acts chapter nine really had three chapters within it. And so the three chapters will go like this, we'll walk through each one. The first chapter of Saul's story is that God's grace is greater than your guilt. God's grace is greater than your guilt. And I think God uses Saul as an example because if God can save him, right, God can save us because here is someone who is persecuting, not just like questioning God but antagonistic towards early believers, putting them in jail, right, approving their execution. And so this is the last person that the early leaders ever thought would be the the mouthpiece if you will of the early movement known as the way. And we're gonna see that Saul's sin is not as deep as God's salvation. And God's grace to receive grace is to receive something that you don't deserve. And that's what salvation is. It is not a reward for doing good things, but it is a gift received from a humble open heart. Sometimes I think we don't receive what God has for us because we're clinging on to something of this world that we get our identity from, right? We cling to our identity, our, our money, our, our power, our our good works. We we cling to either our religion or we cling to our rebellion and we find our identity in that way, right? In, in, in high school. A as in every generation, you will go in and you will find different cliques and groups of people who claim that they're individualistic, just like their friends, right? Like everyone dresses a certain way and, and looks a certain way and talks a certain way and every parent struggles with the latest lingo of their Children, right? And the same thing happened generation after generation. And, and so we see this that people look like they get their identity from their culture. But what we're gonna find in this story that if God can reach saul, if God can reach somebody, not who's just neutral, but who's fully against the ways of God. God can reach anyone and God can reach everyone. And so here, let's jump into our story. Here acts chapter nine verses 1 to 9. Here is that, but saul still breathing threats and murder against the disciples. How intense do you have to be, to be breathing, breathing in, breathing out the threats? Have you ever had a conversation with a parent or a spouse who was so upset that they were breathing it in? Breathing it out, you know, I mean, you can feel it right? Some of you are nudging the person next to you right now. OK. Maybe you got something to work through. We'll pray for you after service. But here he's so ingrained in who Saul is that he's breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord that he went to the high priest. And he asked them for letters to the synagogues at Damascus so that if he was found, uh so if he found any belonging to the way, the early name for Christianity, men or women that he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. And now as he went on his way, he approached Damascus and suddenly a light from heaven shone around him and falling to the ground. You heard a voice saying to him, Saul Saul, why are you persecuting me? Now? I want to pause here for just a moment because I want you to notice something that when the church is persecuted, Jesus is persecuted. And so that we should take note of that for a few reasons. Number one is that God cares about his church. Right. Oh, in the years of ministry, I've heard a number of people say to me, well, I love Jesus. I just don't like the church. It'd be the same thing if you grow up. Well, I love you. I just really don't like your spouse like that doesn't go well. Right. Like you can't, you, you gotta be aware, be leery of those who speak poorly of church, right? That is the bride of Christ. Like the reality is there's, it's probably not just a church that hurt you. Somebody in a church hurt you, right? And it's and and church hurt is very real. And if you've been hurt by a church, my heart does go out to you. But what I want you to understand that as not a representation of who God is. It was somebody who misrepresented who God is that hurt you. And the fact is is that Jesus calls the church, his bride and died for the church to the point when he's a, he's addressing Saul, he doesn't say why did you persecute my people? He says, why are you persecuting me? This also means the other thing I want you to acknowledge here is that when the church is hurting, when you are hurting, guess what God is hurting when the church hurt, God hurts because God cares and loves us that much. So he says, there, Saul. Saul, why are you persecuting me? And Saul replies who this? Right? It's like the text message he's saying, who, who are you Lord? And he says I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting but rise and enter the city and you will be told what you are to do. And in verse seven, the men who were traveling with him stood speechless hearing the voice but seeing no one that, that had to be odd, right? I mean, just hearing the voice of God looking around like, are you speaking? Are you like, what is going on like this fearless leader just to the ground can't see anything. So by hearing the voice scene, no one verse eight, Saul rose from the ground and although his eyes were open, he saw nothing. And so they led him by hand and brought him into Damascus for three days. He was without sight and neither ate nor drank. Now as a religious leader who knew scripture and who knew the religious stories. You gotta think he was sitting there three days is the same amount of time that Jesus was in the grave, right? This is the same amount of time now being an old testament scholar here of of those stories, knowing that's the same time that Jonah was in the whale. And I think he asked, who is this? That's speaking? Because the realization that he's not just persecuting in the name of Jesus, but actually persecuting Jesus himself. You gotta think he's like this is it for me like I'm done. Like, yes, it was a road to Damascus moment. But really it was the end of the road type moment because we read just a few chapters earlier that God struck down people who lied in his church. So how much more so is he gonna damage and, and, and get rid of the person persecuting his church? So at his lowest point, at his lowest moment, it was there that God says, get up whatever sin that you struggle with, whatever issue that you're holding on to whatever doubt, whatever question, whatever thing that you have in your hand, you have to understand that God's grace is deeper still that if God can save someone like Saul, God can save someone like you. And for me, uh it, one of the funnest parts about when we were running church out of a bar a couple of years ago when we were in our transition times was that I would have people that came uh will come to me. And if you, if you heard ever said this phrase, I heard someone say, well, if I walk through the door of the church, I would set it on fire. I wanna be like, OK, one. Are you an arsonist? Because that's not safe? Um But if I, if, if, if I came into the church, you know, the walls would burn like I couldn't, I was like, well, mm, we run church in a bar. So if we haven't burned down already, I think, you know, you're welcome to come in. And so they would come in and, and so when people say like, oh, I'm not good enough, like I'm too bad for God. Understand this, that on your best day, you don't deserve God. And on your worst day, you don't deserve God. That, that there's nothing we do to earn salvation in any way, shape or form. But as a gift from God, the wages of sin is death. That's the only thing that we've done. But the gift of God, Romans 623 is given his eternal life. Salvation is something not to be achieved but to be received. And so that we see that if God meets Saul and notice here that He's on the way to go sin in the middle of nowhere in the desert, he wasn't even looking for God and yet God was looking for Him. And what that should encourage us with is the fact that no matter how far away you are from God, God is never far away from you and not just Saul. We we see all throughout the gospels in John three. He shares with a religious educator in John four. He shares with a woman at a well in the middle of the day who had a shameful past in Mark five. He shares with a demon possessed person and so all throughout scripture, you see men, women educated, uneducated with money without money that he shares the good news of life through Jesus Christ with everybody that is around him. Even the thief on the cross right before he's killed. Jesus extends grace to that person says, I'll see you in paradise. So there's nothing that we can do to earn it. But we see that God's grace is available even on the road to Damascus, even when he wasn't expecting it. God can meet you right where you are. God can meet you where you are right now. Today he meet you driving on the road. He can meet you at a barbecue at a friend's house. He can meet you at a, at evangelistic rally. He can meet you at a sporting event. Ok? Wherever. Like I think of my friend Jose who once um on a mission trip down in uh Guadalajara, I watched him lead someone to Christ outside of a KFC bathroom. That was a unique one. But God met that person there and he got saved Jesus and some fried chicken, ok? He didn't just wash his hands. He washed his soul, ok? I'll stop. This is going downhill. But what we see here not only is God's grace available and greater than our guilt. Number two, chapter two of our story today is that God uses people to activate your purpose. Yes, it was a spiritual revelation where he came to him on the road. But then God's gonna use somebody named Ananias not to confuse with a different Ananias in chapter five, but use somebody named Ananias to actually lead him into faithfulness and to really activate his purpose. OK. God uses people. Now let's read through this here, verse 10. It says now there was a disciple at Damascus named Ananias and the Lord said to him in a vision, Ananias and he said here I am Lord very, it sounds like the prophet Isaiah in Isaiah six and he's but he's got to say something and I want you to notice how specific He is and I think he is so specific because if he's not, I I think Ananias could be like, oh I don't think he called me, you know, but wa watch, watch how many details God throws in. So he cannot deny this calling like sometimes he calls Abraham go right. Disciples go and make disciples. He's gonna be very specific with Ananias. Let's check this out here. And the Lord said to him rise and go to the street called straight. You can still go to that place, OK. The street called straight at the house of Judas for men of Tarsus named Saul for behold, he was praying, go to this street to this house. See this man with this name from this house who will be doing this, ok? He didn't want any confusion for Ananias and he doesn't stop there. By the way, verse 12, and he has seen a vision of a man named Ananias who come in and lay hands on him so that he might regain say, oh, I already told him you're coming. Right. Verse 13, Ananias answered, Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem. And here he has authority from the chief priest to bind all who call on your name. But the Lord said to him, go for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the gentiles and the kings and the Children of Israel. For I and I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name. Now, it foreshadowed the struggles that he was gonna have in his life. But he continued on and he says, um so an and I departed and entered the house and laying his hands on him. He said, brother Saul, the Lord Jesus who appeared to you on the road by which you came has sent me to you that you may regain your sight and be filled with the holy spirit. And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes and he regained his sight and then he rose and was baptized and taking food. He was strengthened and for some days he was with the disciples at Damascus. People are God's plan. A if you think back to your own story, you could think of probably someone or a collection of people who had an influence in your life. And for me, uh growing up in a Christian household, it was when I was young, when I was a child, heard a message at church. Right? I wanted to go to heaven. I didn't wanna go to hell, came home, talked to my mom, talked to my dad and prayed right there. Sometimes we overcomplicate it. But the reality was receiving Christ as a, as a young at a young age that, you know, I didn't really fully understand what faith looked like. And so there were seasons in my life where I would grow and seasons of my life where I would kind of run away a little bit. And then there were people that impacted me. Like I think about my youth pastor Josh Amos. I think about uh Sour Hills Christian Camp. I think of Matt Pearson. I think of Aaron Cook. I think of uh Craig Miller, the first pastor who gave me an internship at a church that trusted this lanky awkward 20 year old kid to lead others in ministry. II, I think of uh my professors, Professor Hutchinson and professor uh Dixon who taught my first youth ministry class where I got to preach for the first time in that setting and see what that looked like. And it ignited a fire in me. And so I have names that come to mind of people who impacted me along the way. Right? And if you're honest with yourself, you could probably think back and think of a name or two that impacted you. Here's the reality that God uses people to activate your purpose, which means that you could be the answer to somebody else's prayer. God could use you to change the life of someone else. You might not change the world, but you could change somebody's world. Think about this. Saul would go on to launch the largest movement in history known as the church, write 13 of the 27 books of the New Testament plant churches after churches, after churches training leader after leader after leader. But it started with the faithfulness of Ananias to go reach one person to lay hands on him. Chapter one, we see that God's grace is greater than your guilt, whatever sin you're holding on to God's grace is deeper still. Chapter two, we see that God uses people to activate your purpose, that people are God's plan a that you had somebody speak into your life and you have the opportunity to speak life into somebody else. And in chapter three, here, we're gonna see that God will flip the script to give you a greater story. God will flip the script to give you a greater story. Here's what I mean by that is that ultimately you stay the same character, but now have a new journey, right? Much of who you are, stays the same because you were created on purpose for purpose, right? Your personality, your interests, your skill sets. But what's gonna happen when you get saved is God redirects that passion redirects that personality, that skill set to now accomplish kingdom purposes, right? The early disciples, Matthew 419 who were fishermen. God said come follow me and I will make you fishers of men. Yes, you used to collect, you used to grind. You used to go out there, but I'm gonna turn it and make it towards me. Right. Here's what we see with Saul's life. He says, and immediately in verse 20 immediately he proclaimed Jesus in the synagogues. How crazy is that? He goes to the same synagogues where he was going to arrest people and now preaches the same message that he was gonna arrest others for preaching. He immediately proclaims Jesus in the center. God saying he is the son of God and all who heard him were amazed, right? As as would we that is this not the man who made havoc in Jerusalem of those who called upon the name and has he not come here for this purpose to bring them bound before the chief priest. But Saul increased all the moor and strength and confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus was the Christ. So they took his knowledge, his education, his boldness, his communication and now becomes the mouthpiece for Christianity. Now the very next verse he would go away. They say he go way to Arabia for about three years and then he talks about this in Galatians. One comes back tries to go to Jerusalem, talks to Peter, talks to a few people. They don't quite accept him yet. Barnabas comes back on the scene. He has to go away for about seven years again, comes back onto the scene and Antioch now 10 years removed. So it doesn't happen overnight, ok? Like it just not overnight. But what we're gonna see happen is that he takes everything that is Saul and now uses all of that education skill set now to prove and to preach the name of Jesus, a guy named Lee Strobel was a journalist, a researcher who set out to prove that Christianity wasn't true in that journey gets saved and now spends his life proving that Jesus is true and writes books like the case for Christ, right? He takes your story, flips the script and gives you a greater story. OK? In my story here, OK? In my story, it's, you know, one of the things I had growing up was that I just was a grinder. I would just try to work hard. I remember when uh just a few years ago when my boys were getting into sports, I tried to, you know, you try to have those parent child talks right to motivate them and uh working hard. And so I remember talking with my boys saying, hey, just I want you to know like when your dad played in high school and all the sports he played, he earned most that most improved player on every single team he played on in high school. I said, what do you think that means? And they said that you were bad to start because only Children can be so honest. What's true? But I know that God used that grinding right to get better, right. I think about walking on to the college where I went and making the basketball team as a walk on to just kind of work on and like years later feeling like a walk on to church planting if you will, right? Like, just kind of just see where God has and just grind. Like God use that. God used the fact that I used to run the school announcements and, and make jokes and sarcasm and, and, and go through and get used to presenting in front of people and now I get to like present and I'm still trying to find sarcasm in, through the spirit. But, um, maybe it's a vegetable of the spirit. But, um, and like get to use like my personality to go and be like, hey, I take God very serious, but I don't take myself too serious. Right. Yes. I'm obsessed a little too obsessed with sports, but now I get to use that as coaching and serving and loving and connecting in the sports world. What is it that God has placed in your heart that you can use for God's glory, right? You can be an introvert for Jesus, right? You can be an intro before and now you're connecting with people at a deeper emotional level. You can care for people in one level, but now you're caring for people in the name of Jesus, you can take your accounting skills, business skills, you can take your amassing wealth. But instead of amassing wealth for yourself, you're now amassing resources to fund kingdom causes that can change people's lives for eternity. You can use your leadership gifting to now turn shape the world around you to understand that the greatest servant leader of all time is Jesus Christ himself. That God will take your story and flip the script and give you a greater story and see great stories, get repeated, great stories get repeated. And so Saul would take that energy that he had that education and repeat and tell his story over and over again. Acts 22 acts 26 1st Corinthians 15 Galatians chapter one. We don't have time to read through all these, but we acknowledge that these are he's just telling his story. He's telling his story. Let me share with you three steps to telling your story because everyone has a story to tell. Everyone's got a story to tell. Ok. First thing of telling your story is here before Jesus, before Jesus I was and you fill in the blank. Now some of you might be like me and you hear Roger's story about trafficking drugs. Now, trafficking Bibles are like, man, I wish my story was cooler, you know, you know, like I used to sell a lot like, yeah, I used to sell drugs on the street and then I turned five and got my act together, right? Like, but here's the, here's the reality though. The testimony is about Jesus and it's about someone going from death to life. So every testimony is a great story. So some of you might fill in the blank before Jesus. I was young. I didn't know any better before Jesus. I was stuck before Jesus. I was lost before Jesus. I was trying to find my identity in money, in relationships. Whatever it is, you can fill in the blank before Jesus. You were what the second step is. I met Jesus when maybe it was at a church setting. Maybe it's today, maybe it's online. Maybe you're watching a preacher, maybe you're having a conversation with a neighbor, with a friend, with a teacher, with a coach, with a coworker. I'm guessing somebody. God used somebody to impact you right before Jesus. I was what I met Jesus when and the last part is now with Jesus. OK? And how are you growing? You're not perfect but you're growing, right? You can share your story with somebody this week. Let me just share with you here why Saul is so important to us? Two other examples of when he's telling this story, one about rebellion and one about religion. First Timothy chapter one verses 13 to 16, he says, though firmly, I was a blasphemer persecutor, insolent opponent, but I received mercy because I acted ignorantly in unbelief and the grace of our Lord uh overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. So this is this saying is trustworthy and deserving a full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am. The foremost says for I receive mercy for this reason that in me, at the foremost, Jesus Christ might display the perfect patience, an example to those who are to believe in him for eternal life. He says, look, if you get your identity and rebellion, I was the worst. If you get, if you define yourself by your sin, I understand I sinned more. But then on the other side, in Philippians, he's telling this story to some religious leaders. And he says this in Philippians three, 4 to 8. He says, if anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more circumcised on the eighth day of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews as to the law of pharisee as to zeal persecutor of the church as to righteousness. And the law blameless. But whatever I gain, I had counted as a loss for the sake of Christ. If you want to define yourself by rebellion, I was the worst. If you want to define yourself by following all the rules and religion, I did that too. And let me tell you none of that matters. The only thing that matters is Jesus Christ and receive him as Lord and Savior. Because when you do that, when God steps into your life, he turns your past, your pain, your hurt into a platform from which you can stand and proclaim the goodness of God to the people around you. Today could be your Damascus road moment to receive Him in your life. Do you personally decide? Not your parents faith, not your friend's faith, not your coworker faith, but your faith. And if you've already received Jesus, I encourage you then to write down your story and just share it with somebody this week. Your story is a miracle story. Your story could change the life of somebody forever because your story is connected to God's story and his story brings grace and salvation to all who proclaim his name. Will you pray with me dear and father just as you saved Saul on that road to Damascus God, you turned his past into a platform from which he would preach the word God, whatever has been in our past, whatever struggle, whatever doubt, whatever issue when we bring before you. We trust in you as Lord and Savior. We believe in you. You died on the cross for our sins and rose again. On the third day, we receive your forgiveness. God, we ask that the Holy Spirit come into our lives and we commit our lives to you. Thank you for saving us. Thank you for loving us. Thank you for your grace that goes deeper than our guilt. Thank you for using people to activate our purpose. And God, thank you for flipping our script and giving us a greater story to live for you. We love your God in your son's name. We pray.