Acts Chapter 9:18-36

And a lot of times we sit off this side going, nobody's encouraging me. Well, have you encouraged anybody? Because here's the cool thing.

Many of you know this. You step out to encourage somebody, you know what happens? You get encouraged. You get in courage, filled with courage, when you bless somebody else and fill them with courage.

You see how the whole thing works? Now what happens if you don't do it? You don't get encouraged, they don't get encouraged, the whole thing breaks down. Let me encourage you to walk in this gift of encouragement.

Encourage other people. Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David McGee. David is the senior pastor of the bridge in Kernersville, North Carolina. We all need encouragement in life and God wants to use you to encourage someone else. Today, Pastor David explains why it's important to encourage one another as he continues teaching in the book of Acts chapter nine.

Now here's David McGee with part two of his teaching, A Changed Life. Turn with me to Acts chapter nine. Saul, who has been persecuting the church, is on the road to Damascus, which is in present-day Syria. And on the way to persecute the church in Damascus, he's knocked to his knees and he sees a light and Jesus speaks to him and says, Saul, why are you persecuting me? And Saul says, well, who are you?

And he says, I'm Jesus. So then Saul is struck blind and they lead him into Damascus and a man named Ananias is then called upon to minister to Saul and to pray for him. And Saul receives his sight is what we see in verse 18.

Well, let's pick it up with the verse 18. Now immediately there fell from his eyes something like scales and he received his sight at once and he arose and was baptized. So when he had received food, he was strengthened. Then Saul spent some days with the disciples at Damascus. Immediately he preached the Christ in the synagogues that he is the son of God. Then all who heard were amazed and said, is this not he who destroyed those who called on this name in Jerusalem and has come here for that purpose so that he might bring them bound to the chief priest. See, they began to notice that Saul's life was changing. Verse 22, but Saul increased all the more in strength and confounded the Jews who dwelt in Damascus, proving that this Jesus is the Christ. Now, after many days were past, the Jews plotted to kill him, but their plot became known to Saul and they watched the gates day and night to kill him. Then the disciples took him by night and let him down through the wall in a large basket. Verse 26, and when Saul had come to Jerusalem, he tried to join the disciples, but they were all afraid of him and did not believe that he was a disciple. But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles and he declared to them how he had seen the Lord on the road and that he had spoken to him and how he had preached boldly at Damascus in the name of Jesus.

God will always have the right man at the right place at the right time. There was Barnabas. They were getting ready to reject Saul, who was going to end up changing the world in the name of Jesus and to the blessing of many people. And Barnabas is there. Barnabas is son of encouragement is what his name means.

And we know that you don't even have to know Greek or Hebrew. We were given that translation back in Acts chapter four, verse 36. And it says, and Jose, who was also named Barnabas by the apostles, which is translated son of encouragement, a Levite of the country of Cyprus.

Barnabas was there for what purpose? To encourage Saul, to encourage Saul, the next life lesson. We should encourage one another in our faith. We should encourage one another in our faith. There are people in this fellowship who I believe have the gift of encouragement. And it's such a joy to talk to them because it always seems like they're trying to be a blessing to somebody. And I appreciate, you know, I talk about the nasty emails. I really appreciate the encouraging emails that people sent. I got several this past week about what God is doing in the lives of people here. And it was so encouraging.

Now you can't live on that. It's not like, okay, well, there's not a good email. I'm not going in today.

It's not, you can't, you know, be careful. Nobody's encouraging me. I'm not going to do any, I'm not going to, you can't do that, but you can be an encourager to somebody. And a lot of times we sit off to this, I'm going, nobody's encouraging me. Well, have you encouraged anybody?

Cause here's the cool thing. Many of you know this, you step out to encourage somebody. You know what happens? You get encouraged. You get in courage filled with courage. When you bless somebody else and fill them with courage, you see how the whole thing works. Now what happens if you don't do it, you don't get encouraged. They don't get encouraged.

The whole thing breaks down. Let me encourage you to walk in this gift of encouragement, encourage other people. Don't look at somebody and go, where have you been, man? Seen you a couple of weeks.

Don't be doing that. Man, it's so good to see you. Praise God. You're here. I'm so glad you're here this morning. You know what that does to somebody's heart? You know how easy that is?

That's 10 seconds. So here's Barnabas. He's encouraging them in verse 28. So he was talking about Paul. So he was with them at Jerusalem coming in and going out. And he spoke boldly in the name of the Lord Jesus and disputed against the Hellenists, but they attempted to kill him.

We're kind of seeing a theme evolve in the ministry of Saul. It said that the Jews were wanting to kill him. And then it says the Hellenists, let me explain briefly who the Hellenists were. They were Jewish people who had had a very significant Greek influence into their life. Alexander the Great, a couple of hundred years BC, Alexander the Great conquered the world. And part of his vision was for all the world to become like Greece and mindset and philosophy and mentality.

He was highly successful in what he did. As a matter of fact, we still bear a lot, a lot of Greek things in our culture and in our society. Gymnasiums and working out and all this stuff kind of goes back to the Greek philosophy. A lot of the psychology and psychiatry goes back to the Greek philosophy. Now, some of that's good.

Some of it's not so good. We call ourselves a Judeo-Christian society. We have a whole lot of Greek influence in our culture. Are we really Judeo-Christian?

I think we're mixed, really. I think it's Judeo-Christian with a heavy Greek influence. Now, as believers, where should we be influenced more from Athens or from Jerusalem?

From Jerusalem. And it's interesting that many people who reject the Jewish roots of Christianity embrace the Jewish roots of Christianity and embrace the Greek philosophy. It shouldn't be like that.

It shouldn't be like that. So these Hellenists were Greek-speaking Jewish people who had been Hellenized. And that's after the goddess Helen and all this other stuff. And so now the two factions within Jewry, the Hebrew-speaking Jewish people, and then the Greek-speaking Jewish people, they're both wanting to kill Saul.

Verse 30. When the brethren found out, they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him out to Tarsus. Tarsus was a university city.

It was the third most learned city in the world behind Athens and Alexandria. And Tarsus had a lot of education. That's where Saul came from. He was obviously a well-educated man. And he needed to gain some knowledge and some zeal. Now, this is interesting to me.

And I'm kind of jumping ahead. But what we're going to see is Saul ends up to be a very powerful apostle to the Gentiles, not to the Jewish people. He is, in a manner, effective with the Jewish people. But his main mission and his main calling ends up to be talking to those who are non-Jewish.

Consider something from it. Here's Saul. He was raised as a Jewish young man. He was schooled by Gamaliel, who was one of the smartest, sharpest rabbis of the day. And then he converted to Christianity or completed his Jewishness, a complete Jew, Messianic Jew. And it's interesting because he seems like the obvious candidate to go minister to the Jewish people. And that's not what happens. God says, you know what?

No. Your calling is to go to the Gentiles. We need to understand that God doesn't always make the obvious choice sometimes. Because sometimes we look and go, I know what God should do here. And then when God doesn't act like that, we're like, well, what's God doing? What's God thinking? Doesn't He know? Yes, He knows. He knows better than any of us. And we can trust Him. You know, I've looked at people before and thought, oh, that brother would be great doing this.

That sister would be great doing that. And then as time goes on, I stand corrected. And I have to wait on the Lord. That's why it's so important for me to stay in prayer and talk to the Lord and seek His wisdom and seek counsel. Now, does that mean Saul didn't have a burden for the Jewish people? He had an incredible burden for the Jewish people. This verse, Romans 9, 3 tells us this. For my people, my Jewish brothers and sisters, I would be willing to be forever cursed, cut off from Christ if that would save them. That's a burden.

He had a burden for the Jewish people, but that was not his calling. You have to look at that and go, well, that's kind of strange. I don't understand that.

I don't understand that either. But didn't God's plan work well? Yeah, it did.

Yeah, it did. You may be in a position where you think you should do this or you should do that. Maybe you should. I'm not saying you shouldn't. But wait on the Lord and ask the Lord, Lord, what do you want me to do with my life?

And be sure to listen. That's why it's so important, again, to pray. Verse 31, then the churches throughout all Judea, Galilee and Samaria had peace and were edified and walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, they were multiplied.

Now, it's hard for me not to see the connection. Saul now is no longer running around like a raven lunatic persecuting the church. And in the midst of his conversion, this verse says, yeah, and everything was cool in the church, everything. And look what the influence one man was having upon the persecution of the early church. Now, what we're going to see is Saul turned around and now he's going to have an incredible influence for the good of the church as a teacher. And you know what? There's a lesson in there.

You know, we look at people in society and we see these these rebels who, you know, are just they seem like they don't care what other people think. Do you understand what God wants to do with that particular person? He loves to get somebody that's gonzo, that's, you know, pedal to the metal, that's, you know, just 200 miles an hour going the wrong way.

And he takes them and he turns them around and then he gets them going 200 miles an hour in the right way. You know why? Because God will use that person. God will use that person. And a lot of times in a mighty way. And I know some of you relate to this and we're going, yeah, I was like going to hell in a handbasket, 200 miles an hour. And now God has grabbed a hold of me. God has changed my life.

Because the cool thing is the part of you, if you found yourself, maybe you still are, maybe you're this rebel and you're going this way, where are you going the wrong way? But what's awesome is God will take and please don't imbalance what I'm about to say. God will take that part of you that you just don't really care what other people think and he'll use that. Now, am I saying all Christians should never care about what other people think? That's not what I said. That's before you email and call.

That's not what I said. But God will use that part of you that says, you know what? Because then it's like, well, I'm going to do what God says. And I'm going to be unaffected by my family calling me a zealot or, you know, whatever, because then you're following God. You're listening to Pastor David McGee on Cross the Bridge.

He'll be right back with more in just a moment. But I want to remind you of the free resources available to you on crossthebridge.com. There's a team of hundreds of people that will pray for somebody to be saved. You have a loved one that needs to know Jesus as Savior. You need people to pray for them. You need someone to present God's Word to them. Every day we're presenting God's Word to them here on Cross the Bridge with Pastor David McGee. We can pray for them as well just by simply going to crossthebridge.com and click on the Pray for the Lost button. All you need to do is put in the first names of the people you love that need to know Jesus as Savior, click on Submit, and immediately hundreds of people will begin praying for your lost loved ones. And what an awesome way to bring your loved ones to Jesus. Here's a word from Associate Pastor D.A.

Brown. We want to take just a minute to pray for some cities in our listening audience, specifically Reedsport, Roseburg, Seaside, Selma, Sprague River, and The Dalles, in Oregon, and also Hammett in Pennsylvania. Father, we thank you for these cities.

We thank you for the people living in them. We pray that your Holy Spirit would pour out and draw many people into a personal intimate relationship with Jesus. Father, we pray that many people would be healed who perhaps have had bad experiences in the past, God, that they would receive forgiveness and forgive those in their lives who have offended them. Lord, we pray that you would draw people in the Bible teaching churches, that you would give the pastors wisdom and discernment, Father, to love the flock, to serve them well. Lord, we pray for all the city leaders, that we would honor them and respect them, and that you would give them wisdom and discernment, Father. Lord, that it might go peaceable with us. Lord, we love you. We pray that you would bless the people living in these cities. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen.

Thank you, brother. And now, let's get back to David McGee as he continues teaching verse by verse. Verse 32. Now it came to pass, as Peter went through all parts of the country, that he also came down to the saints who dwelt in Leto.

And there he found a certain man named Enos, who had been bedridden eight years and was paralyzed. And Peter said to him, Enos, Jesus the Christ heals you. Arise and make your bed, then he arose immediately. Now you understand more about that Jesus the Christ phrase. Arise and make your bed, then he arose immediately.

So all who dwelt at Leto and Sharon saw him and turned to the Lord. You realize that Jesus wants to heal you? He wants to heal you. Now his primary concern in your healing is not your physical healing.

He is concerned with your physical well-being. But the first thing is, if you don't know Jesus, if you've yet to ask Jesus to forgive you of your sins, your soul is broken and tattered. And he wants to heal that part of you first. Occasionally, God will heal somebody that doesn't know him. And sometimes those people will be brought to Jesus through that healing. But look at verse 35. So all who dwelt at Leto and Sharon saw him and turned to the Lord.

You see what happened? God got healed. And then people said, wow, God's real.

God's real. I want what he has. I want to be healed. I want to walk with this Jesus that did this in this guy's life. Now, see, again, that's part of our following Jesus is that other people see us walking with Jesus and they're intrigued by that and they want to follow Jesus.

Next life lesson. We should live for the Lord so that people will come to the Lord. We should live for the Lord so that people will come to the Lord. See, when you walk in forgiveness, people are drawn to that. When you walk in love, people are drawn to that.

When you walk in joy, people are drawn to that. Why? Because the world cannot offer those things.

Love, joy and forgiveness. Not the real deal. They can.

They're pretty good at some counterfeit sometimes, but the real deal. And that will intrigue people as you walk with the Lord like that. And God still heals people. OK, this church believes that God still heals people. And we're told to pray for the sick. If God no longer heals people, why do we even pray for the sick?

Maybe you're sitting there going, well, pastor, why are you even saying that? Because there's churches out there that say, well, God used to heal people and he doesn't do that anymore. I reject that. The Bible rejects that. That's nonsense. You can't show me in this book where it says, well, God used to heal people, but he doesn't heal people anymore.

He doesn't act like that anymore. Because then I mean, it says the elders are supposed to pray for the sick. What do the elders pray for the sick? If God no longer heals people. Well, Lord, we know that you no longer heal people. So we just pray you take your sister home right now. I mean, is that what you're supposed to pray? Meanwhile, you're thinking, remind me never to have the elders pray that prayer over me. No, God, God, we pray for your healing. And sometimes God heals the people. We have had people come to me and say, you know, I was struggling with this.

I was struggling with that. I had this and God healed me. Now immediately we start thinking, oh, it's one of those churches.

Well, I didn't say that we're going to have people laying on the floor up here flopping around. I don't see that in this book, but I do see in this book where people get healed. And we do want to see God manifest his healing physically, emotionally, most importantly, spiritually. Verse 36 at Joppa, there was a certain disciple named Talitha, which is translated Dorcas. This woman was full of good deeds, full of good works and charitable deeds, which she did. I talk about serving a lot here.

If you've been here for very long, you know that, and you probably know what's getting ready to happen. I'm a pastor teacher. I'm teaching verse by verse. Guess what this verse says?

It says full of good works and charitable deeds, which she did. Guess what we're getting ready to talk about? We're getting ready to talk about serving. Why? Because the Bible's talking about serving.

Now, occasionally this happens. Somebody come forward and go, you know, you talk about serving too much. You know what my first question is?

Are you serving 90% of the time? Then they look at me and go, well, no, you think that might be why it's bothering you. Let me make sure that we're clear on this. God desires a relationship with us.

He desires a relationship with us. Unfortunately, there's something in the way. It's called sin. Sin is in the way. Now God has done everything that he needs to do to remove this, but it's up to us to accept that forgiveness and say, Jesus, forgive me of my sins. Now that that sin's dealt with, guess what?

Now God has a design and he has a plan for you to grow as a believer. In the Christian walk, there's four things that are very, very important. Number one is attending church. You should attend church regularly. Look, if you just go Christmas and Easter, you know, you're probably not really flourishing in your Christian walk. And, and so you want to come on a regular basis.

Now, most people realize that, but let me, let me explain. There's a lot of people still in bed that aren't going to church today that know they should be in church, but they're not doing anything. So it's not enough just to know you should be in church. You got to be doing that.

Okay. So what's another thing we're supposed to be doing? Supposed to be praying.

Again, most people are, they understand that. Well, I should pray. You should pray every day. I don't mean every day you should pray for six hours. If you can great, please pray for me in the leadership here, but you should spend time with the Lord every day.

Okay. Now, another third leg is read and study the Bible. Well, this is, you know, what's really cool is we've knocked three out already this morning because here you are in church. We prayed together and we're reading and studying the Bible. Now you should do that on a daily basis. Read just a couple of verses or something every day on a daily basis.

What's the fourth leg. Give and serve in the local church. Give and serve in the local church. Now understand I was involved in a ministry of traveling around. They refer to them as para church organizations of traveling around and ministering.

Okay. It was outside the four walls of the church, but guess where most of the ministry happened in churches. I would visit churches. I would teach. I would sing.

I would do different things. Well, I also went to jails and prisons and rehabs and homeless shelters. You know how I got plugged into those places through the local church. I'll go through like there were certain jails. I just always went to San Diego jail, Green Bay, maximum security, these places.

How can I get into those places? I partnered with the local church. I would go in, I would share my testimony. I'd see people get saved through the local church.

How are you doing in these four areas? Because it will be very revealing about how you're doing in your Christian wall. That's why I talk about serving.

And it was, we look at this lady, this lady was serving. Now maybe you're sitting here going, well, I've heard this all before, but are you doing it? I realize many of you are, but many of you sitting there going, yeah, I've heard this before. I'm getting tired of hearing this. I get tired of saying it sometimes, but this is what it says.

This is what we need to do. And for you just to have an academic knowledge of that's what you should do is not enough for it. If you're sitting there and you're going, well, here's the deal. James chapter four, verse 17 says this. Remember it is sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it. We don't talk about the needs in this body very much. And I'll, and I'll tell you why I want people to serve out of a grateful heart for what Jesus has done, but you, you cannot imagine the needs that exist in this church as far as people serving. But here's the thing. If you're sitting in here this morning, there are people in this church that will serve in children's ministry, both services. They won't get into here. You know why? Because they need more people in there.

Now let's look at this. You're sitting in here in the service and you're saying, I'm not going to serve. My kids are in children's ministry and you know what? I don't, I don't care if they got to the left of me, misses a service next time. I don't want to serve, but I'm following Jesus. What Jesus is the one who said, love God, love your neighbor. Don't ask me to be okay with you, not loving your neighbor with you. Disregarding your neighbor. I can't do that.

I won't do that. Now, if you're here this morning, you've never asked Jesus to forgive you of your sins. You need to do that this morning. I'm going to give you the opportunity in just a minute. And this morning can begin the life change that you so desire, that God desires in your life. But you have to make that decision. Friend, do you know for sure that your sins have been forgiven?

You can know right now. I want to lead you in a short, simple prayer, simply telling God you're sorry and asking him to help you to live for him. Please pray this prayer with me out loud right now. Dear Jesus, I believe you died for me that I could be forgiven. And I believe you were raised from the dead that I could have a new life. And I've done wrong things. I have sinned and I'm sorry. Please forgive me of all those things. Please give me the power to live for you all of my days. In Jesus' name. Amen. Friend, if you prayed that prayer according to the Bible, you've been forgiven. You've been born again. So congratulations, friend.

You just made the greatest decision that you will ever make. God bless you. Allies, stay friends. Allow God to minister to your marriage through his word today.

This was an unforgettable weekend that encouraged many marriages, and you and your spouse can be encouraged too. Allies, stay friends is our thanks for your generous gift today to help more people hear God's truth on this station and beyond so they can cross the bridge from death to life. Please visit crossthebridge.com today to give a gift of any amount and get your copy of Allies, Stay Friends. Well, DA, before we go, what are some ways that we can bless our listeners? Each day you can wake up with encouragement from Pastor David through the Word of God with his email devotional, life lessons to consider, a daily reading plan, and a thought to meditate on throughout your day from the heart of David McGee. Those are terrific and it's easy and it's free. So folks, sign up today at crossthebridge.com. Thanks again for listening and join us next time as David McGee continues teaching verse by verse through the book of Acts.