Review:
What to Expect When You Are Born Again:
- Expect to Talk about Jesus... constantly. (Acts 9:20-22)
- Expect to Mature in the Lord... constantly (Acts 9:22)
- Expect to need the Church ...constantly (Acts 9:23-31)
Galatians 1:16-18 – (God) was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with anyone; nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went away into Arabia, and returned again to Damascus. Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and remained with him fifteen days.
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers
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00:00-00:02
Anybody want to hear some good news?
00:04-00:08
Feel like I'm in church. Yeah. How about this one?
00:10-00:23
Brooklyn Patricia Howells was born last week. Russ and Melissa had their little girl two weeks early, but mom and baby are doing great. So, they send their love.
00:25-00:28
There's a lot of great things about my job.
00:28-00:33
you know, like the baptisms last week and getting to share the Gospel and things like that.
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But one of my favorite parts of the job is when it's new baby time.
00:42-00:43
I'll just be honest with you.
00:43-00:45
It has been a great summer for me.
00:46-00:58
Because there are so many people in our church having babies, and I love, love, love, love visiting and holding that new baby praying over the family.
00:58-01:00
And we were just talking about this before service.
01:00-01:03
Do you remember the book that came out?
01:03-01:08
It's become almost like the Bible in having babies.
01:09-01:16
It's called "What to Expect When You're Expecting." How many people have and/or read that book?
01:16-01:18
What to expect when you're expecting?
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A lot of you.
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Well, I didn't realize this, but did you know that they took this - book and decided that they were really going to capitalize on its popularity because they also came out with "What to Expect the First Year." Then they came out with "What to Expect the Second Year." Right!
01:43-01:47
And then it was "What to Expect the Toddler Years." What to expect when adopting.
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And then this one just kind of cracked me up.
01:51-02:02
They actually have a book in the series called "What to Expect Before You're Expecting." If anybody read that and can let me know what it's about, I am very curious.
02:03-02:05
Not curious enough to buy it on Amazon, but I'm curious.
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But these books, "What to Expect When You're Expecting" and "First Year" and et cetera, these books are dealing with preparing you for dealing with a new physical life in the home.
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I was thinking about that this week.
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What about preparing you for a new spiritual life?
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Do we have a book?
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Do we have a book that prepares you for a new spiritual life?
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And the truth is, we have one.
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And it's called the Bible.
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So I wanted you to grab your Bible Let's open up to Acts 9.
02:50-02:53
And we're going to look at the life of Saul.
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Do you remember last week when we were at the beginning of chapter 9, we saw that Saul, this persecutor of the church, was on his way to Damascus to get some more Christians; to drag them off to Jerusalem; to imprison them.
03:10-03:13
And we saw that Saul met Jesus on the way.
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And what we're going to see in this passage today is what happened with Saul's life.
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What changed about Saul's life now that he came to know Jesus Christ.
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So in your outline, if you're taking notes, and I always encourage you to do that, we're going to call this "What to Expect When You're Born Again." And we see some key ingredients in Saul's life that I promised you were going to show up in yours when you are truly born again.
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So I've got to put this qualifier on here.
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This isn't what to expect when you're a churchgoer.
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That's a whole other talk.
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Or what to expect when you're into religion.
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That's a whole other talk.
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We're not talking about that.
04:00-04:02
We're talking about transformation.
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We're talking about - not somebody that wants to try to clean their life up and go to church and get religion.
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We're talking about people who, like Saul, have met Jesus Christ, have given their lives to Him, and have received His gift of eternal life that He's provided.
04:18-04:18
Have you done that?
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Because these are the people that we're talking to today.
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Not people that are trying to reform themselves, but people that Jesus Christ has transformed.
04:28-04:29
There's a huge difference.
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The difference is as huge as life and death.
04:35-04:41
People living in religion and living for reformation You're dead. Spiritually dead.
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Only in Christ when He transforms you can you be spiritually made alive.
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That's what happened with Saul.
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And if that's what happened to you, what we're going to see is what to expect when you're born again.
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So again, I'm not going to try to give you a sales pitch today.
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These things I'm going to share with you that we're going to jot down in our outline, these are natural responses to being born again.
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What I mean is, there are things that happen naturally in the physical life, right?
05:14-05:21
There are things that happen naturally, like heartbeat and pulse and being hungry and being thirsty.
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These things happen naturally, but there are things that happen naturally in the new spiritual life.
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So, when I talk about witnessing, I'm not going to give you this big guilt trip.
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We're going to get to this in a second.
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But I'm not going to try to give you a sales pitch.
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Some things I'm going to try to talk you into to make you a better Christian.
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What we're going to see here is if you are born again, if the Holy Spirit is living inside of you, then these are natural signs of life that you're going to see.
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And that's why we need to evaluate ourselves because listen, church, if you don't see these things in your life, that's a huge red flag.
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If we're going through these things that were true about newly transformed Saul, If you don't see these things in your life, you should be concerned.
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Because these are signs of life.
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Signs that the Holy Spirit is at work in you.
06:19-06:20
So here's the first one.
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I want you to expect when you're born again, expect to talk about Jesus.
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Constantly.
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Expect to talk about Jesus.
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Look at verses 20-22 that he left off last week.
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It says, "For some days..." This is the end of v. 19.
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"For some days, he was with the disciples at Damascus.
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And immediately, he proclaimed Jesus in the synagogues, saying, 'He is the Son of God!' And all who heard him were amazed and said, 'Is this not the man who made havoc in Jerusalem of those who called upon this name?
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And has he not come here for this purpose and bound before the chief priests?
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But Saul increased all the more in strength and confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus was the Christ." You see, the Jews were like, "I'm not sure what's going on here.
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He came into town to arrest the Christians, and now, instead, he's preaching Christ to us Jews.
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I'm not sure what's happening here.
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But I want you to see that immediately, Saul went out telling people about Jesus.
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I don't see anywhere in the Bible where somebody had to talk him into that.
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Like, okay, Saul, now that you're a Christian, you need to learn how to witness, and here's a stack of tracts.
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And I'm going to try to encourage you.
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He just went out after it.
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Didn't go to Bible college.
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Didn't pass Go.
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Didn't collect $200 or whatever.
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He just went right after it He went preaching.
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And I want you to see the sermon content.
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It says two things about his sermon content.
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Did you see it?
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Verse 20, it says he was saying that Jesus is the Son of God.
08:09-08:13
And then verse 22 says he was proving that Jesus was the Christ.
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And in these sermons, he was amazing the people.
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He was confounding them.
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Verse 22.
08:26-08:28
How well do you think Saul knew the Scriptures?
08:28-08:34
We've talked about his background before, but on a scale of 1 to 10, how well do you think he knew his Bible?
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Go ahead, shout out a number.
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Ten? Yeah.
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All in favor of ten?
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Yeah. This wasn't a guy that just cracked his Bible open for the first time as a new Christian, and if that's you, that's fantastic.
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Crack it open, get at it.
08:50-08:51
This wasn't the case for him.
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This guy spent his life memorizing the Scriptures.
08:58-09:14
So now that he's come to Christ, he's ready to unload because now for the first time in his life, his Scriptures - what we call the Old Testament, they would have called the Law and Prophets, but his Scriptures for the first time would have made so much sense to him.
09:14-09:22
He would have got up and said, Jesus is the offspring of Eve who crushes the head of the devil in the book of Genesis.
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Jesus is the fulfillment of the promise to Abraham in Genesis.
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In Exodus, Jesus would be the Passover Lamb.
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And in Leviticus, Jesus would be the atoning sacrifice.
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In Deuteronomy, Jesus would be the prophet who was to come like Moses.
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In Isaiah, Jesus would be the suffering servant.
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In Jeremiah, Jesus would be the branch of righteousness.
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And in Ezekiel, Jesus is the one who provides the heart of flesh.
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And all of a sudden, all these things Testament, like come to life and make sense, because Jesus is the fulfillment of all of these things.
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And could you imagine how excited He was to talk about that?
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He has all these memorized His whole life and now all of a sudden, I understand it! I get it!
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But when you come to Jesus Christ, when you're born again, expect to talk about Jesus.
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People just love to talk about what they're passionate about.
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Talk to my wife Erin about her garden.
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Talk to Rachel Molchan about dogs.
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Talk to Corinne about the penguins.
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Talk to my son Kate about superheroes.
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Talk to me about Oreos.
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But everybody's passionate about something.
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One thing that you notice about people who have a strong walk with the Lord - I'm talking people that have a strong walk with the Lord.
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They love to talk about Him.
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It's not hard. It's not forced.
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It's not wooden.
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They just love the Lord and they know Him and they can't help but talk about Him because He's everything.
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See, we've been talking about this.
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We've been beating this same drum since last October.
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After 1 verse 8, Jesus said, "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be My witnesses." The reason that God has given us His Holy Spirit, Jesus said, was so that we would be His witnesses.
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That's like I started to say earlier, I can't guilt you into witnessing.
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I mean, I can give you reasons to witness.
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I mean, certainly, I can give you reasons, and I do all the time, right?
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I can give you reasons to witness.
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You want some reasons?
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God commanded it.
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Like, done.
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Don't need anything else, right?
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God commanded it.
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But I can give you more than that.
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Here's a reason to witness, because people are heading to hell without Jesus Christ.
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Do you believe that?
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People are dead in their sins and heading for eternal separation from God without Jesus Christ.
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That should be motivation to witness.
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Again, it's why the Holy Spirit lives in a believer.
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That should motivate us.
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These are all good reasons.
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What I want to share with you today and you are growing in Christ, then witnessing is going to become a very natural thing for you.
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Witnessing doesn't mean "assume that I have all the answers." I think that's one of the big stumbling blocks for people with witnessing.
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People say, "I would like to talk to people about Jesus, but I'm afraid they're going to ask me something that I don't know." Well, just because you're sharing Christ It doesn't mean that people you share with have to assume that you know everything about Christ.
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Just share what you know.
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Share what you know.
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Do you know some things about Jesus?
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Share it. What do you know?
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What has Christ done in your life?
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What do you know about what the Bible says about Jesus?
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You can't share what you don't know.
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But if you don't know enough to share with somebody, You don't know enough to be saved, you see.
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Share what you know.
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What do you know about Jesus?
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What do you know about what the Bible says?
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Share that.
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Easier yet, here's an easier way to witness.
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Invite them to church.
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Invite them to church.
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I read this this week.
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This is staggering to me, and I want you to jot this down.
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These are stats according to Dr. Tom Rainier.
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He says 82% of unchurched people said that they are somewhat likely to attend a church if they are invited.
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82% of unchurched people said, "You know what, if somebody invited me to church, would probably go with them.
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A lot of times people don't want to invite people.
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We're like afraid of rejection, and I get that.
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That's human.
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We're all afraid of rejection.
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But according to the statistics, it's more likely that they're going to want to receive the invitation.
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They're just waiting for somebody to invite them.
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Let's be honest.
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What's the worst thing that could happen if they say no?
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It's like this, "Hey, do you have a church home?" "No, you know what, I really don't go to church." "I would love for you to come to Harvest Bible Chapel with me.
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There's so many great things happening, and we're learning so much about the Lord, and we have great small groups.
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I'd really love for you to come and be my guest.
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Why don't you come with me this Sunday?" And they're like, "No." You're like, "Okay, open invitation." The end.
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But according to the facts, about 82% of the people that don't go to church are just waiting for somebody to invite them.
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But here's the statistic that really bothered me. I mean, this one really bothered me.
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same study, they found that only 2% of church members invite someone to church.
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2%.
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So we're a church of about, if everybody was here we'd have like a hundred, a hundred and ten people.
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That means like, out of everybody in our church, there's one couple in our church that would invite people. According to the statistics, I think there's more than that here.
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I want to believe that there's more than that here, but according to the statistics, 2% of church members will actually invite somebody to go to church with them in any given year.
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See how lopsided that is?
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You have all these people waiting for an invite, but you have so very few people that are willing to make the invite.
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That's one of the things that we're working on this year in the leadership of this church, you have to know, is giving people more excuses opportunities to invite.
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If we're going to grow and move on to the next step for our church, it's going to happen as you and I are faithful witnesses.
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So expect to talk about Jesus constantly.
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That's true of every born-again and growing Christian that I know, is they love to talk about Jesus.
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Second, and this one very quickly, Expect to mature.
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Expect to mature in the Lord constantly.
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Look at v. 22.
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I want you to see this phrase here.
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And this should be so encouraging for you.
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It says, "But Saul increased all the more in strength." Increased in strength.
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That doesn't mean that Saul was hitting the gym or that he was using apostle-enhancing drugs.
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It just means that he was growing.
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It just means that he was growing.
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Isn't that encouraging?
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Here's a guy that wrote half of the New Testament.
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Greatest missionary and church planter of all time.
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And the Bible says that when he became a Christian, he had to grow.
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Isn't that encouraging to you?
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Because if somebody like that had to experience this growing and maturing process - and according to Philippians, Paul says he never attained it.
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He said, "I never attained perfection." Okay, perfection comes in heaven.
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But growth is a constant thing.
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We will grow in the Lord until the day that we die.
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And we see that in this text.
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Saul was increasing in strength.
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He was growing.
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It's not perfection.
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It's a new direction.
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You should be able to see progress.
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You should be able to see progress in your growth.
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That's why the Bible calls it a walk.
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You know that? The Bible calls it a Christian walk.
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Do you know why?
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How many people have ever walked before?
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Just seeing who's still listening.
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Alright.
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None of the rest of you walked.
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You just teleported in here.
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Alright, but here's why it's called a walk.
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Walk means I started there and now I'm here.
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And there was progress made over time.
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You see?
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Not a hard concept.
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That's why the Bible calls it a walk.
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It's moving and growing, but we're able to see, oh look, a while ago, that's where I was.
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But now, this is where I am.
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It's a walk. It's growth.
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You need to ask yourself, Am I growing?
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You should be able to look at your life from this time last year.
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Just think of what were you doing August of 2015.
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You think about where you were, what you were doing.
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Ask yourself, am I growing?
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Am I growing in the knowledge of God's Word?
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Am I growing in love for people, love for the church, love for the lost?
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Am I growing in these areas?
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You're growing in my prayer life.
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Galatians 5.22 talks about the fruit of the Spirit.
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You should see all of these growing.
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None of us have them mastered, but you should see them growing in your life.
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Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.
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You should be able to look back at your life from a year ago and say, I have grown in those areas.
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You know what?
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I realize I still have a long way to go.
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Believe me, I do.
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with the patience thing especially, I thought I had that nailed, and I am so far from that.
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I'm growing.
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We should see progress in these things.
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It's a sign of life.
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Expect to mature in the Lord.
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And finally for today, expect to need the church constantly.
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Expect to need the church.
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I'm going to go through these last verses rather quickly and make some comments.
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Look at verse 23.
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It says, "When many days had passed, the Jews plotted to kill him." I've got to stop here because it says, "When many days had passed." Like, I wonder how many that is.
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I can tell you exactly how many that is.
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It's three years.
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Like, well, how do you know that?
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Because he talks about this period of time in Galatians.
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I'm going to put it on your outline.
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We probably have it on the screen here too, right?
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Galatians 1.16, Paul was talking about this period of time in his life.
21:11-21:17
And he said, "God was pleased to reveal His Son to me in order that I might preach Him among the Gentiles.
21:18-21:27
I did not immediately consult with anyone in order to go up to Jerusalem with those who were apostles before me, but I went away into Arabia and returned again to Damascus.
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Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas," that's Peter, and remained with Him 15 days." So what you have to see in your Bible - and I've shared this with you before, but sometimes we read the Bible like Acts, and we think like every day the apostles woke up, stretched, had a cup of coffee, and it was like miracle, miracle, miracle, miracle, preaching thousands saved, preaching thousands saved.
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But you see in this one verse, three years pass.
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Luke is just giving us the highlights of the way that the Holy Spirit was completing the mission of Jesus Christ.
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So in one verse, three years pass.
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And during those three years, Saul went back to Arabia - not the Arabia that we know, it's a different Arabia.
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And at the end of that three years, he went back to Damascus before going back to Jerusalem which he said in Galatians 1, which we'll see in v. 26.
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So what was Saul doing?
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This cracks me up. I was reading this week.
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What was Saul doing for three years in Arabia?
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And so many people are like, "Well, I think it was just him and the Lord, and the Lord was pouring all this revelation into him." And I think there's some truth to that.
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I do. I think there's some truth to that.
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If you look at the Bible, you're like, "Jeff, what do you think he was doing for much of that three years?" Well, according to verse 20, he was preaching before he went to Arabia.
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In verse 28, he was preaching after he got back from Arabia.
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What do you think he was doing while he was in Arabia?
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I think he was preaching.
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Sure I think the Lord was pouring into him, but I also think he was preaching.
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Telling people about Jesus.
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So again, near the end of the three years, he ended up back in Damascus.
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And that's why it says, "The Jews" - talking about the Jews of Damascus - "The Jews plotted to kill him.
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that their plot became known to Saul.
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They were watching the gates day and night in order to kill him.
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See, Damascus was a walled city.
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And the only way out was through the gates.
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And they were so intent on catching him, they put guards at the gate.
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Like, this is the guy you're looking for when he tries to get out, grab him, because we're going to kill him.
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Look at v. 25, it says, "His disciples took him by night and led him down through an opening in the wall, lowering him in a basket." The preaching was not well received, to say the least.
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And he was trapped, but the disciples found a way.
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They must have known someone that had a dwelling place in the wall with window access.
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They stuck him in a giant basket and lowered him down.
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Look at verse 26.
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It says, "And when he had come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join the disciples, and they were all afraid of him, for they did not believe that he was a disciple." That's kind of a no-brainer verse, right?
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You totally get that.
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Here's a guy that's been destroying the church.
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Let me hold your coats while you're killing Stephen.
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"Let me applaud now that Stephen's dead.
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Let me drag Christians to jail." And then they find out he's a Christian.
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It's like, I don't believe that for a second.
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You mean to tell me public enemy #1 is one of us now?
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It's a trick.
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He's probably pretending that we let him in and then he's going to destroy us.
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It says in verse 26 that he attempted He joined the disciples in the Greek.
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The phrase is literally, "He tried over and over and over and over." That He attempted wasn't like He showed up one time like, "Hey guys, I got saved." And they're like, "Beat it." And He's like, "Okay." And then we never saw Him again.
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He tried over and over and over.
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Like, God, no, seriously.
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I came to know Christ and here's what happened.
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Over and over.
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They just kept shutting Him out.
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And He's like, "No guys, for real, for real." And they wouldn't let Him in.
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But look at verse 27.
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"Barnabas," remember him from 436, "But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles, declared to them how on the road he had seen the Lord who spoke to him, and now at Damascus he had preached boldly in the name of Jesus." Barnabas obviously had some clout.
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We kind of saw that in chapter 4.
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The church had a lot of respect for Barnabas.
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The Barnabas takes him and he's like, "Look guys, he's legit.
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I know what you're thinking, but let me tell you how the Lord transformed this man." Awesome.
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Verse 28, "So he went in and out among them at Jerusalem, preaching boldly in the name of the Lord.
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He spoke and disputed against the Hellenists.
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But they were seeking to kill him.
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This is such an ironic verse.
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Because if you go back to Acts 7-8, remember who Stephen was debating?
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Stephen was debating the Hellenists.
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And as they kill Stephen, Saul is like watching the coats.
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Now fast forward, Saul is disputing with the Hellenists.
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He picked right up where Stephen left off.
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Irony at its best.
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We killed the guy that did this before, now I'm the guy doing it.
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Crazy.
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Well, they wanted to kill him too.
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The Bible says that - what is it?
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Galatians 1.18 - excuse me.
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Saul's time in Jerusalem lasted 15 days.
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So he managed to make it to Jerusalem and be accepted by the church, thanks to Barnabas, and do some evangelizing.
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He managed to last just over two weeks before they wanted to kill him there too.
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Verse 30, it says, "And when the brothers learned this, they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him off to Tarsus." So his friends grab him, take him down to Caesarea.
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that was a seaport in the Mediterranean.
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The Bible says they sent him off to Tarsus.
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That was Saul's hometown.
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Now, the Bible doesn't say explicitly, but I have a pretty good idea how this conversation went.
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You see what happened here?
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Saul shows up in Jerusalem.
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All of a sudden, it's powder keg.
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Everybody wants to kill him.
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And now it's like the Stephen thing is going to happen all over again.
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Everybody saw the writing on the wall.
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And they take him down to Caesarea.
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I can just see this whole scenario in my mind.
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They're standing on the dock, and I can just see somebody, probably Barnabas, I can see them coming up to Saul and putting an arm around him and saying, "Saul, I love you, man, and I am just so thankful that you came to know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, but I'm going to be honest with you, you were a lot less trouble trying to kill us. So why don't you go home for a while?" That's what they did, they sent him home. And why did they do that?
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Well, look at the next verse.
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"The church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up." You know, Saul's story Certainly it's about witnessing.
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But you have to see that this is also a story about Saul's friends bailing him out over and over and over.
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Do you see that?
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Like this whole section, that's what you see.
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Saul's friends bailing him out.
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Okay, so Saul makes everybody mad in Damascus with his preaching.
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Throw him in a basket over the wall.
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And the apostles don't want to let Saul join the group.
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And Barnabas, once again, bails him out.
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Now the Hellenists in Jerusalem want to kill him, let's rush him down to the docks and send him home." I was thinking about all the ways that Saul's friends bailed him out.
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And I thought, "What if Saul had this attitude when he came to Christ?" Just imagine with me, what if he had this attitude?
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You know what, I saw Jesus personally.
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Jesus actually showed up to me personally, "I don't need the church.
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I don't need other believers. I don't need to be in a small group." Yes, they had those.
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"I don't need any of that stuff. I don't need other godly men in my life." How would Saul's story have turned out?
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He wouldn't have made it out of Damascus.
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His story, especially his early years, is a lot about he had some pretty amazing friends that were watching his back.
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I'd like to remind you here that God works through people.
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One of the biggest ways that God's going to be at work in your life, and one of the biggest ways God is going to be and has been at work in my life and through other people.
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That's why small groups are so important in the church.
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You need people.
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You need people who are going to throw you in a basket and throw you over a wall when your mouth gets you in trouble.
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You're going to need people like that.
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You're going to need people that are going to stick up for you when nobody else trusts you.
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When people are not forgiving you.
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You've screwed up somehow and you're like, "Man, did I really blow it?" You're going to need a Barnabas to come alongside me, like, "Look, I know how things were, but I know how they are now." You're going to need that.
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You're going to need some friends that are going to take you down to the docks once in a while and say, "Look, why don't you just go home and chill out for a little bit?" It was protection for him.
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It's also good for the church.
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Maybe now, even after all of that, you might be sitting here saying, you know, I hear what you're saying, but I really don't need the church.
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You will.
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Maybe now, maybe somebody here needs you.
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Look at this last phrase.
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It says, "In walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, This could be a whole other sermon and I'm certainly not going to make it that.
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But you should underline that in the Bible because I think that is such a beautiful description.
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As we talk about, you know, here talking about the life of the church, and this certainly applies to the life of the individual believers in the church.
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What a great description of the walk.
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They were walking, look at those two things, walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit.
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That's a great picture.
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That is a great picture.
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Fear of the Lord is reverence.
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We don't treat God lightly.
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That's the fear of the Lord.
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We have the utmost respect for the awesomeness and the authority of God.
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That's the fear of the Lord.
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And the Bible says that's the beginning of wisdom.
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And it says that the church walked that way.
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They walked in reverence to God.
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But they also at the same time of having this awesome reverence for God, at the same time, they walked in the comfort of the Holy Spirit.
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That the Holy Spirit was encouraging them and comforting them, empowering them with their freedom in Christ and the freedom of living in guilt-free grace.
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They had both.
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And as people, we just - I said I wasn't going to get into all this, but just real quick - can I do this real quick?
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I promise.
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We just go to these extremes so bad.
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And for some people, it's all just fear of the Lord.
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And obviously, I'm scared of God.
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And you act like God's still mad at you and He's not.
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But the other extreme - comfort of the Holy Spirit - some people are just so comfortable that they treat God irreverently.
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Like He's my drinking buddy or something.
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that's not right either but do you see the balance that the church had they had the fear of the Lord but they also had the comfort of the Holy Spirit okay all right thank you for that I was gonna bug me if I didn't get that out so what to expect when you're born again well you can't expect some things you can't expect some things you can't expect what we've learned today you can't expect that everyone will like you.
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You can't expect that it's going to be an easy road.
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You can't expect that it's going to be instant perfection.
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From the life of Saul, early on especially, we see what you can expect.
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You can expect to be talking about Jesus a lot.
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You can expect to be maturing in your walk.
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You can expect to need the church family.
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and see these areas growing in your life.
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Father in Heaven, we thank You for the signs of life.
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We thank You, Father, that Christ promises and provides transformation.
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Oh, how pathetic we would be if we talked all about this power and the power to witness, and the power to live a godly life.
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We talked about this power, but we never experienced it.
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Father, I thank You for these very clear and powerful signs of life that You've given us.
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And I pray, Father, that we do grow in You.
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That we would see the progress that You are making in our lives by the power of Your Spirit.
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And through that, Father, Father, we know that we are going to be bold witnesses for You.
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We are going to be talking about Jesus.
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Even to people that don't want to hear it and might want to kill us.
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Father, huge reminder that You've given us in Your Word here is we need the church.
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Many people in our day have minimized the importance of the church.
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When we study the life of a man here, probably the greatest Christian of all time, missionary, church planter, he wouldn't have made it out of Damascus without his friends.
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We know God that you could have performed a miracle like you did for the apostles, breaking them out of jail with an angel.
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I know you could have done that, but for some reason you didn't.
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He had to learn to love and to trust other people.
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Father, I pray that you would instill these same lessons into our own lives, so that as we grow, greater glory is given to Your name.
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I pray in Jesus' name, Amen.
Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read Acts 9:20-31
Why didn’t God do a miracle for Saul like He did when He got the apostles out of jail (Acts 9:25)? What does this tell you about God? What does this tell you about man’s responsibility in hardships?
Why did the disciples send Saul out of town (Acts 9:30)? Why didn’t they just let him keep preaching?
The disciples walked in the fear of the Lord and the comfort of the Holy Spirit (Acts 9:31). How do you, and we as a church keep this balance?
Breakout Questions:
Ask “how well does our church take care of new believers”? What do we do well? Where can we improve? Pray for one another.