Wrecked By Grace|07.06.25|Go.Make.Baptize. pt.3

When I was 23 years old,(...) I made the decision to join the United States Navy with the hopes of becoming a Navy SEAL.

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And most of you know who the Navy SEALs are. They are, their reputation precedes them.(...) Pretty cool guys. They're the baddest warriors in the country. And I wanted, and I had planned my life around attaining that title.

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If you don't know who the SEALs are, I want to share with you guys one of their mantras. Just so you can get a little familiar with the type of people in this group.(...) It's actually, it's three rules and they go like this. Rule number one,(...) always look cool.

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Rule number two, always know where you are and what you're doing.

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And rule number three, if you don't know where you are, what you're doing, look cool doing it.

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And yeah, it's a silly mantra, but there are two truths in there.

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The first one is that we as people have a tendency to always try to elevate ourselves to make ourselves look good.(...) Even when we don't feel like we're doing the right thing, we're spatially lost.(...) We at least don't want to look bad.

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And this pursuit of becoming a Navy SEAL was just the newest part of my life of trying to cover up how lost I was by accomplishing something good.

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The second truth is you cannot get where you're going unless you know where you're at.

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And I want to share with you a little bit about my time in the service.

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And actually, it started before, before I joined. For years, I had approached my preparation for this endeavor with intentionality. Through diet and excruciating exercise, I had honed my body into something that was going to accomplish this feat that not many people could.

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And once I got in, we did this physical readiness assessment. And based on that physical readiness assessment out of the 200 plus candidates that had joined,(...) I was the number two guy.

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And paired with our peer assessments,(...) I received this peer assessment from one of the instructors that I had one of the most impressive peer assessments they've ever seen. And it was that out of everybody that had an assessment for me, I had 31 positive reviews and just one negative.

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And these are the two most important parts of becoming a SEAL is can you physically handle it and do you work well as a team?

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And so with these two things in my back pocket, knowing I'm pretty much a sure thing,(...) that I'm going to make it through this.

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I had attached everything in my being to finishing this gauntlet.

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And there was one day during training, we were doing a ruck run, which if you don't know what a ruck run is, you throw a backpack on with a bunch of weight in it and you just run.

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And as I'm doing this, I was in the middle of a hot day on the beach, my legs start to cramp up and then my back starts to cramp up.(...) And I'm still trekking on and then the back cramps turned to back spasms and they won't stop.

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And I finished this ruck run and I knew that I had to go seek medical attention.

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And so I went to the medical officer, they sent me in to get x-rays and I was diagnosed with what's called a spondylolisthesis,(...) which basically means one of the bones in my back was beginning to slip off the one below it, creating pressure on my spinal cord.

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And as I laid there in this hospital bed, I knew that I wasn't going to be able to complete this training.

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And everything that I had worked for was slipping through my fingers in that moment. And I was left wondering,(...) where do I go from here?

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And today we're going to read a story, a similar story about a guy named Saul.

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It's going to be from the book of Acts, which is on page 97 of the New Testament, if you want to grab your seat back Bible. And while you're finding your spot, I want to make sure I give you guys a little bit of context to the story. And it starts with a guy named Stephen, actually.

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Stephen was the first Christian martyr.(...) He was killed for his faith in Jesus. And what happened was he's proclaiming the gospel and he's arrested and he's brought in front of the religious leaders and he's stirring up all sorts of trouble. And he delivers the sermon to them. He says, this is basically our entire history as God's people. These are all the points that are pointing to Jesus and you guys missed it.(...) Not only did you miss it, you killed him because you didn't agree with it. Well, then they didn't agree with Stephen because they didn't like being convicted. So, you know what they did?

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They killed Stephen too.

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And Saul is the guy that put his stamp of approval on this murder.

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See, Saul is this young up and coming Pharisee, this young up and coming religious leader. And he, like I did in the Navy, had attached everything in his being to stepping up to the next thing, accomplishing his goal of joining the Sanhedrin, which is kind of like the legislative branch and the Supreme Court in Israel. So it comes with a lot of power and a lot of influence and persecuting Christians is what he was good at. And he was going to ride that train all the way up to his seat of power.

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Saul is in this moment, like the scum of the earth.

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And you would think that a man like this, there is no way that Jesus would use him.

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But when God hears things like, "No way,"(...) he loves to make that his way. And that's what we're going to be reading about today. So I'd invite you guys to join me. Acts 9, verse 1. Meanwhile, Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord,(...) went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any who belonged to the way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.

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Now, as he was going along and approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?"

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He asked, "Who are you, Lord?"

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The reply came, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting."

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Now, if you're familiar with the book of Acts a little earlier on, there's an event that happens where this couple lies to the Holy Spirit and they drop dead.

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And you would think that if a guy like Saul is walking down the road and Jesus appears in front of him,

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just going to drop dead.(...) But that's not what happens.

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Jesus has a plan for Saul.

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We continue reading.(...) "But get up and enter the city and you will be told what you are to do." Now, the men that were traveling with him stood speechless because they heard the voice but saw no one.

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Saul got up from the ground and though his eyes were open, he could see nothing.

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So they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus.(...) For three days, he was without sight and neither ate nor drank.

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Now, it's pretty evident, obviously, Jesus takes Saul's sight.

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But that was a physical blinding. This entire time, Saul has been spiritually blind.(...) He has lost his bearing and he thinks that he is serving God, but in reality, he's been fighting against him with all his might.(...) He is so disoriented.

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And this moment of surrender comes when Jesus shows up and takes everything that is of meaning to Saul by taking his sight, Jesus takes that too.

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I can sympathize with Saul in this situation here. This reminds me of when I'm laying in that bed and everything that I wanted, everything that I had planned for, I wasn't going to be able to pursue anymore. There was no physical way that I could continue on.

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And so, this reorientation that God does with us sometimes, it sounds nice. It's like, "Oh, we're going to be on the road to glory and everything good." But you know what?

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Reorientation hurts,(...) believe me.

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But God wants you to know this one thing.

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It doesn't matter where you are, what path you're on right now.

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God wants you to know that his path is where you are right now.

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So my question for you is, what's blinding you?

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In this world, it's so easy to get swept away in our pursuits of glory and fame through our academic accomplishments or athletic accomplishments. We pour our time and our effort away from our family into work, work in those overtime hours to try to get the promotion and then we're passed up.

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Or like me, you pour everything into what your goal is, accomplishing something. And it seems so unfair that it's taken away at no fault of your own.

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But it's this reorientation that God has for us, not because he wants to punish us,

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not because he wants bad things for us.

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God needs to remove the distractions,(...) the things that are taking our focus off of him and putting them onto even the things that he gives us.

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I was guilty of taking the gifts that God had given me and using them for my own benefit and I began to worship my gifts rather than worshiping the God that gave me the gifts.

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So the reality for all of us is God, I'd love to say God might interrupt you, but God will interrupt you because he loves you and he wants a relationship with you.

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And he wants to put you on a new path that leads to rest.

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So we continue reading.

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Now there was a disciple in Damascus named Ananias and the Lord said to him in a vision, Ananias, he answered,(...) here I am Lord. And the Lord said to him, get up and go to the street called straight. At the house of Judas, look for a man of Tarsus named Saul. At this moment he is praying and he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay hands on him so that he may regain his sight.

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But 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 the authority from the chief priest to bind all who invoke your name.

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It's this moment of,(...) are you sure God?

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Like, are we talking about the same Saul? Because I know this guy, I've heard about this guy. There is no way you want me to get him.

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But when God hears no way, he loves to make that his way.

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And so we continue, the Lord said to him, go for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel. I myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.

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So Ananias went and entered the house.(...) He laid his hands on Saul and said, Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus who appeared to you on your way here has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.(...) And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes and his sight was restored.(...) Then he got up and was baptized.(...) And after taking some food, he regained his strength.

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Now I love the simplicity of this portion of the passage.

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It points to how simple it can be to be obedient to God,(...) how simple it can be to preach the word of God.

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It's as simple as God says this, tell them or obedience. God says, do this, do it.

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And it sounds like law. It sounds harsh. It sounds hard.

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But I want to do an exercise real quick. I did the string first service impromptu. So you guys are all going to get invited to join in at this moment.

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One of my favorite moments in a wedding, I'm going to see is in a life where a lot of my friends are being married. And one of my favorite moments at a wedding is the dance where you have like, you know that they have like the oldest couples who's going to be the oldest one. They all dance together until there's one couple standing. We're going to do that today, except I'm not going to ask you to dance. I just simply stand up. So if you're married, if you could do me the favor of standing up, please.

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And we're going to go through this one quick because we don't have time to dance. We don't have time to dance. This is this is Lutheran church. We don't do all that.

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So if you've been married for longer than five years, please stay standing.

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If you've been married for more than 10 years, please stay standing.

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If you've been married for more than 30 years, please stay standing.

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40 years,(...) 50 years,(...) 60 years.

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How long have you guys been married?

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Right behind you. 61 years.

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Yeah.

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Now I know you didn't sign up for this, but I'm going to ask you a question.

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If you had to give me one word that was the key to success in your marriage, what would it be?

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Jesus,(...) the embodiment of love.

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Thank you. You guys can be seated. I appreciate it.

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When, when we live in our marriages, when we live out our marriages,(...) if Jesus is the embodiment of love and we live and serve one another with love, if we're preaching out of love and obedient in love, it doesn't seem like a task.

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Like, honey, could you do the dishes? I would love to bless you in that way.(...) It's the same thing with God. God, God doesn't tell us, go do this. And we're like, uh, by humbug.(...) No, we get to do that because he loves us and we get to show our love for him by serving the other people that he loves. And so Saul gets this opera or Ananias rather gets this opportunity to do that for Saul here.

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And I want to get back to pointing to how simple it is.

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God shows up to Saul. He says, there's going to be a guy named Ananias. He's going to show up, lay hands on you. You're going to regain your sight. And then he goes over to Ananias. He says,(...) Hey, I told Saul that you were going to show up, lay your hands on him. He's going to regain his sight.

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Go do it.

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It's that simple.

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And it doesn't say anything about Ananias's feelings about it. I bet he was scared. I bet he was terrified. The guy that's killing all the Christians, I got to go tell him that Jesus sent me.

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We often allow ourselves to, to, to keep ourselves back from doing God's will because maybe we're afraid of how other people might look at us.

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We might be afraid that our actions in walking in the will of the father don't line up with who we were previously and we'll be called a hypocrite.

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But Ananias, it doesn't say anything about how he feels. He just does it because he is a loving, faithful servant.

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And in this moment, Saul's eyes aren't just open physically. He has the spiritual awakening and he recognizes even for him, even for Saul,

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the promises and the gifts of God are for him. And all of those blessings are given through the waters of baptism. So he gets up, he goes and gets baptized and immediately begins proclaiming Jesus as the Messiah.

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For several days, he was with the disciples in Damascus and immediately he began proclaiming Jesus in the synagogue saying, he is the son of God. All who heard him were amazed and said, is this not the man who has made havoc in Jerusalem among those who invoke this name? And has he not come here for the purpose of bringing them bound before the chief priests?(...) And Saul became increasingly more powerful and confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving Jesus was the Messiah.(...) And after some time had passed, the Jews plotted to kill him, but their plot became known to him and they were watching the gates of Jesus.(...) And they were watching the gates day and night so that they might kill him. But his disciples took him by night and let him down through the opening in the wall, lowering him in a basket.(...) And when he had come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join the disciples.

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And they were all afraid of him for they did not believe that he was a disciple. But Barnabas took him, brought him to the disciples and described for them how on the road he had seen the Lord who had spoken to him and how in Damascus he had spoken boldly in the name of Jesus.(...) So he went in and out among them in Jerusalem, speaking boldly in the name of the Lord.

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He spoke and argued with the Hellenists, but they were attempting to kill him. When the believers learned of it, they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him off to Tarsus.

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Meanwhile, the church throughout Jerusalem, Galilee and Samaria had peace and was built up living in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit. It increased in numbers.

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Now,(...) I skipped over this little, this little part earlier on in the passage where it says, I will show him how much he must suffer for my name's sake. And now we fast forward, we hear a little bit about that.(...) It would be nice when we step onto the path of following Jesus that everything would be perfect.(...) However,(...) we live in a world of people that still see us not through the eyes of a loving father,(...) but they see us through judgmental eyes.(...) And can you blame him?

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You have lived a life and I won't say you, I'll say me.(...) I've lived a life in a pattern of repeating sin,(...) walking in ways that aren't in line with what God has for me.(...) And I had kind of explained this concept to my six-year-old Jackson one day. And if I said, if walking in holiness is green and walking in sin is red,(...) the pattern, if you walk in red, red, red, red, what do you think the next one's going to be? He said, red. That's right.(...) People expect that you will continue to walk in your prior ways, but God will find you on the road you're on and invite you to take a step towards him.(...) And so we walk in red, red, red, and we get the opportunity to step into the green, to step into holiness and the plan that God has for us. And people will look at you and they'll say, no, no, no, I've seen his ways. He's more sinner than he is Saint. He'll step back into that red.(...) And we hear that. And then we have a choice.(...) Do we let them influence us? Do we have fear for man and say, well,(...) I might as well just go back to the ways that I know back in this red. Or we can stand on the path that Jesus has given us and take one more step.

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And the conviction won't stop there.(...) It doesn't just come from the outside. It'll come from within.(...) You'll have the questions. Am I really changed? Am I really saved? There's no way that God is going to take someone like me that's done what I've done.(...) He's not going to use me to do anything significant.(...) It's a flat out lie.(...) This spirit, this timid spirit comes from fear of man. It comes from the fear of judgment.(...) But the reality is that we no longer live in a way that we have to prove ourselves,(...) that we need to be accepted by other people. We have already been approved and accepted by God.

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So my question for you guys is, what is your next step?(...) Is it surrender?(...) Is it obedience?(...) Is it letting go of your plan that you've been white knuckling so hard,(...) letting go of your image,(...) letting go of your fears?

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What is the next step that God has placed on your heart?

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If you asked me seven years ago when I was laying down in that hospital bed,

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if I would ever imagine I'd be standing in front of you all today delivering God's word, not in a million years. I never would have imagined it in a million years that I'd be standing here doing this.(...) But here I stand.(...) And if God would have revealed that plan to me in that moment, I would have been petrified.(...) I would have been terrified to take a single step in that direction. But walking faithfully,(...) and yes, there are failures along the way,(...) walking faithfully,

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God has given me immeasurable blessings.(...) And the same,(...) God wants the same truth for you. He wants to bless you. He wants to bless you.(...) So maybe today you see yourself more like Saul, hard charging, planning your life,(...) but a little off course spiritually.(...) Or maybe you're in the shoes of Ananias who God's calling you to do something, but you're wondering, am I really the guy that you want to send to do that?(...) When you sense God's nudge, that's what it is. It's a nudge. Don't ignore it. Maybe you've been religious your whole life. You've been here at New Life all 15 years.(...) Or maybe this is your first day here.(...) It doesn't matter. Either way, the same truth(...) applies.(...) That God meets you on the road you are on,(...) but he refuses to leave you there.

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And for Saul, the next step is surrender,(...) to stop striving, stop trying to prove, stop fighting,

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and simply trust in the one who found him in the dark.(...) For Ananias, the next step was obedience and reaching out to someone, someone that everybody else had written off,(...) taking a chance,

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showing up and saying, "Brother Saul,(...) God sent me.(...) He loves you."

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Maybe that's your next step. Maybe today your next step is to stop trying to drive your life and just let Jesus lead it. Maybe you already follow Jesus, but he's putting someone on your heart right now who's hurting or struggling.(...) Maybe you've pushed them away and you've been avoiding them. You think, "No way."(...) Maybe that call, that nudge is to reach out.

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See, the road that God is building in each and every one of you(...) might just become the road that leads someone else to him.

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So if there's someone in your life that's walking a hard road,

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someone who's stuck or confused,(...) they're disoriented,(...) maybe hostile,

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would you take a step this week towards them?(...) Not with pressure,(...) not with a sermon,(...) just with your presence, a text or a prayer,(...) a coffee.(...) You don't have to have all of the answers.

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You just have to take the next step,(...) just like Saul did,(...) just like Ananias did,

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just like we're all called to do, one step at a time following Jesus.(...) Amen.