What If We Weren't Meant to Do Life Alone? | Acts 9:19-31 | Kevin Queen

Thanks for joining us for the next few moments as we sing some songs together Special welcome to those tuning in online and our friends at our guide behind March campus. Thanks for showing up So every Sunday we meet here to worship the Lord through songs We worship the Lord through giving and through prayer and through hearing of his word And also through community And something happens when we commune together all for the purpose of having a deeper relationship with the Lord just to be in his house together Psalms 27 it says One thing I have desired of the Lord that I will see Then I made well in the house of the Lord and all the days of my life to behold the beauty of the Lord And to acquire in his temple verse 5 it says for in the time of trouble. He shall hide me in his pavilion And the secret place of his tabernacle. He shall hide He shall set me high upon a rock verse 6 and now my head shall be lifted above my enemies all around Therefore I will offer sacrifices of joy in his tabernacle. I will sing yes I will sing praises to the Lord Heavenly Father Lord we are here to meet with you Thank you that you are already here to meet us God our desire is to grow deeper with you Collectively God we just want to say that we need you We need to be in your presence Our hands are open our hearts are open Lord to receive from you today We love you I I I I I I I I I

I I Find my rest, and without you I fall apart You're the one that guides my heart Come on little voices Sing boy, I need you. Oh, I need you Every hour I need you. Oh, I want to be fixed. My right is lit. Oh God, I need you. Now we need you Lord. Come on to your grave. Oh, and where you are God, Lord, I will see. Holy days is Christ to me. Christ to me. You know what I need you. Oh, I need you. Every hour I need you. My right is lit. You're my right just lit. Oh God how I need you. I teach my song to rise to you When temptation comes my way And when I cannot stand or fall on your sky Jesus, you're my home and stay To teach my song to rise to you When temptation comes my way And when I cannot stand or fall on your Lord Jesus, you're my home, you're my stay And when I need you, oh, I need you Every hour I need you Oh God, how I need Oh, we need you Lord, Lord, I need you Oh, I need you Every hour I need you You're my one defense, you're my righteousness Oh God, how I need you You're my one defense, my righteousness Oh God, how I need you You're my one defense, you're my one defense Oh God, how I need you

I'm going on the contrary There's love in doors through generations I know that you will keep you up, man Oh, you want the God, Lord I can open up for you I need you now to do the same thing Oh, you want the things together Oh God, my God, I need you Oh God, my God, I need you I need you now, oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God I'm sailing on your faithfulness On your faithfulness I'm calling on the contrary You're stavorous upon the glory I know if you all think to pass it Yes, I'm calling on the contrary Yeah, who made a shepherd more courageous I've been my face could lie But I've got my old chimes Oh God, my God, I need you Oh God, my God, I need you now Oh God, my God, I need you now Oh I'm walking on your faithfulness On your faithfulness Oh God, my God, I need you now I need, I need you Oh God, my God, I need you I'm standing on your faithfulness On your faithfulness We're standing on your faith

You hurt your children You hear your children You are the same You are the same You as your first man You are the same You're providing You are providing now You are the same God You are the same God You're both in time You are the shape of God You are the shape of God You are the healer then You are the healer now You are the shape of God You are the shape of God You are the shape of God You are the shape of God You are the shape of God You are the shape of God Oh God, my God, I need you Oh God, my God, I need you now How I need you now For our core our co-mates, yes I'm standing on your maple deck On your maple deck So God, my God, I need you

We cry out to your heart How I need you now Oh God, our core our co-mates, yes I'm standing on your maple deck On your maple deck And I'm standing on your maple deck You are the shape of God I'm standing on your maple deck Oh God, my God, I need you Oh God, my God, oh God You are the shape of God I'm standing on your maple deck Sing that one more time, come on Oh God, I need you now Oh God, our core our co-mates, I'm standing on your maple deck On your maple deck You are the shape of God You are the shape of God You are the shape of God You are the shape of God You are the shape of God You are the shape of God You are the shape of God You are the shape of God You are the shape of God You are the shape of God You are the shape of God There's no one like the Lord. There'll just be just love, giving praise to Him and Him alone. There's no one like the Lord.

There is one on the throne. Jesus, oh, you are your love. There's no one on the other, and on the throne. There's no one in the throne. There is one in the throne. There is the love who was slain and seated on the throne. There's no one like the Lord. There'll just be just love, giving praise to Him and Him alone. There's no one like the Lord. There's no one like the Lord. There's no one like the Lord. There's no one like the Lord. There's no one like the Lord. There's no one like the Lord. There's no one, no one. There's no one in the throne. There's no one like the Lord. There's no one like the Lord. There's no one like the Lord. There's no one like the Lord. There's no one like the Lord. There's no one like the Lord. There's no one like the Lord. There's no one like the Lord. There's no one like the Lord. There's no one like the Lord. There's no one like the Lord. There's no one like the Lord. There's no one like the Lord. There's no one like the Lord.

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There's no one like the Lord. There's no one like the Lord. There's no one like the Lord. There's no one like the Lord. There's no one like the Lord. There's no one like the Lord. There's no one like the Lord. There's no one like the Lord. There's no one like the Lord. There's no one like the Lord. God says in His Word that John 3 16, "For God so loved the world, the cosmos, all of us, and you, for God so loved his world that he sent his one and only son." Then whoever would believe in Him would not perish but would have eternal life, would inherit eternal life, would have a living hope. God is in the restoration business. Maybe you're here and you feel like you've already disqualified yourself. The good news of Jesus, the good news of the gospel, the thing that brought us here today is that we're made right by His grace and through our faith. So God thank you for your grace and thank you that your grace is not only just for us but that it's for the whole world, that you love the whole world meaning you love the people that we love and subpray to that Lord you would. Would you give us a heart like yours? And would you give us the courage to share Jesus with the people that we love, the people that you've placed into our life and invite them to experience your grace and your presence, your renewal? So pray today. Today would be an others-centered day. I pray today you would give every person listening a name to someone that God you would love for them to feel your love through us. Then we'd be the hands and feet of Jesus, we would serve others, we would make room for

one another. Give us a heart like yours, pray together in Jesus' name, amen. Welcome to Crosspoint and so glad to have you with us today. This week is a sad week and that we lost a treasure, flags are at half staff to honor the life of Dolly Parton and she's just a remarkable woman and you know as we, as maybe you've watched, we can celebrate her life. So selfless and others focused and one of the things that struck me as I've watched interviews was just how quick she was to honor other people. How quick she was to give credit to others and to honor other people's influence in her life. And I thought that's a mark of humility, it's a mark of a great leader. And then I was thinking about this week is we're going to be talking about how God uses other people to help shape us and form us to who He'd have us to be, who He's made us to be, that we don't become who God has created us to be on our own. And so we're going to be talking about that today and before I jump into the message, I just want to take a moment and tell you about something coming up, you know, we say around here, like the vision is for renewal in the church, revival in the city and awakening across militancy, like we want to be a part of a move of God that's bigger than us. And when you go back and you look through historical moves of God, you find like you can't, you can't plan a revival, you can't, you can't engineer an awakening, like you can't manufacture those things, but you can position yourself, we can position ourselves to receive. It's only something that God can do, but when you look at these great moves of God, You're always precision. going to be hosting something at our national campus September 8th and 9th and I want to tell you about we're going to be hosting 24 hours of prayer, unceasing prayer and worship. We'll start at 9 p.m. on the 8th after the college gathering and we'll go all the way through 9 p.m. on on that next day on on Wednesday and it'll be just 24 hours of prayer. There will be prayer leaders. There will be worship leaders. There will be prayer stations where you can where you can pray. I would encourage you. You can come if you just need a sacred space to just sit with the Lord

to listen to the Lord. Are you just you want some space just to to be able to to be able to worship or to pray with others. You can come by yourself. You can come with a friend. You can come with your family. You can bring your kids. Small group. It'll just be time you can drop in. You can stay as long as you as you want. But at our national campus for 24 hours we're going to be we'll be hosting prayer. In fact we want to we want to make it easy for you and so on the screen there's a QR code. You can just you can scan that and it's going to it's going to drop a calendar invite. It'll be a calendar invite on your phone so that it will mark out those 24 hours. And again it'll be at the Nashville Nashville campus and just want to want to encourage you to put that on there and then just look for for some time within those 24 hours that you can accept the invite and then look for the sometime within the 24 hours to come and and join us. You can stay as long as you want. But you know when we when I go through the scriptures I read the Bible we see these these these anything's possible stories, miracle stories, amazing stories and the common thread is is prayer. In prayer we're saying God I put my desperation on you. God I'm putting all my hope is in you and so as our hope is in God for our church, for our families, for our marriages, for our kids, for our our cities, for our state, for our nation, for the world. So we're going to we're going to spend time in prayer and just watch and see what God does through that time together. So I hope you'll hope you'll join us for that. And you know really when we're going through the book of Acts and we're going verse by verse the book of Acts one of the things we see about the church in Acts the early church in Acts is that in Acts the church is a praying church. I mean when you think about it in in Acts chapter one there it says they were united in prayer in the upper room and the spirit is poured out. And then Acts chapter two it says that the early church said they were devoted to prayer. In Acts chapter three Peter and John will they go to the temple at the time of prayer. In Acts chapter four they face opposition in their life and they pray to God God would you give not to take the opposition away but they pray God would you give us boldness and would you give us courage. Then in Acts chapter six they devote themselves the apostles this is they devote themselves to the word and the prayer. In Acts chapter seven Stephen dies praying. In Acts chapter eight Peter and John they pray for Samaritan believers and then Acts chapter nine we read about last week Saul is praying and Ananias shows up as an answer to that prayer. So all through the book of Acts the church is a praying church. Now I just want to encourage you as we're as we're reading through the book of Acts that this wouldn't just be like

history like church history but that you we would see this as a mirror like for us to look through and look in the text and look at the Bible go is this a reflection of my life like am I as passionately devoted to Jesus as they were am I am I dependent on the Holy Spirit like they were are we are we devoted to prayer together and is there a sense of is there a sense of like commitment to one another like we see in the book of Acts are we are we willing are we sacrificing for the sake of the gospel and sharing the gospel like they were that this would be a mirror to ask the question and is this what I look like is this what you look like is this what we look like or how have we drifted have we drifted from what we see in the New Testament into something else that looks more like the culture and more like the world then like are we seeing the book of Acts man have we been discipled more by our algorithms than by Jesus has our faith been shaped more by consumerism and materialism of our culture than what we see in the book have we drifted it reminds me a story there was this old Mary couple who were they were riding along in a pickup truck you know one of the pickup trucks like the bench seats and the husband's driving the wife is sitting over and she looks over at him she said do you remember when we were younger man do you remember how we used to sit so close together when we drove what happened the husband was sitting there on the steering wheel and he looks over and says I haven't moved God hasn't moved questions have we drifted in our relationship with him in the like it doesn't feel like rebellion you're like I'm not where I want to be. Himi Wei told the story of two guys who were in a cafe in northern Spain and one of the men looked over at the other one and he shared that he was he was filing for bankruptcy, that he gone bankrupt, the other guy looked over and he said how did that happen? He said what happened two ways, gradually and then suddenly. Bankrupt season, the only thing that happens that way, well that's how burnout happens, it's how addiction happens, it's how divorce happens, growing cynical happens, that's how people lose faith gradually and then suddenly. And I believe that one of the easiest places to drift in our culture is called isolation. And the reason I think it's so easy in our cultures, because we live in a culture that prizes individualism, man we live in a culture that that praises individualism, says you define yourself, culture says live for yourself, do it yourself, you determine your own

identity. So be self-made, take a selfie along the way, make it all about you, you do you boo. So the culture tells us let it be all about an individualism if we're not careful we can bring this mindset into our faith. And we say, my Jesus, my Bible, my quiet time, my worship, my seat, my calling, my ministry. And so we bring that individualism of our culture and we bring it into our faith but when we look in the book of Acts, you don't see a bunch of isolated Christians just going to, you don't see a lot of isolated Christ followers. No, what you see is that people are living out their faith in the context of community that nobody follows Jesus alone. My dad told me the story of when he was at boot camp in the Marines and he got there and he was standing in the child line and there was a guy in front of him was from Vermont. And so they were they were looking out over breakfast and the guy looks at something he goes, what's that? And the lady behind the counter says, those are grits. He said, are they good? She said, yeah, they're good. He said, I'll take one grit. And she looked at him and she said, honey, they don't come in packs of wine. Disciples are like grits. They don't come in packs of wine. When a disciple is formed, it happens in the context of relationships. And so when we look in the book of Acts, we see the church, we see the church worshiping together and praying together and eating together and serving together and suffering together and giving together and open up the Scriptures together. Then when somebody comes to faith in Christ, they come into a family. Then when somebody comes to faith in Jesus, it is personal, but it's not private. Since the context of community that it takes place, we saw it last week and in Acts chapter 9 with Saul, you'll remember the story Saul was the persecutor of the church. He hated Christians. He wanted to destroy Christianity. He wanted to tear us the church. And then he's on his way to Damascus. He has letters from the high priest. He's got the authority from the high priest to go and to hunt down Christians. And on his way to Damascus, he has an

encounter with the risen Christ on that road. And in that moment, Jesus says, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? And Saul, in that moment, he's blinded and they have to take him and lead him by the hand. They can lead him into Damascus. And God has encountered, speaks to Ananias. It tells Ananias where Saul is. And for him to go into lay hands with Saul and pray for Saul. And so he goes to Saul and he does that and he says, "Brother Saul." And in that moment, the scales fall from his eyes. And Saul is filled with the Holy Spirit. He's baptized. And this man who is a great persecutor of Christians becomes one of the greatest leaders in the history of the church. And so you go back to it, I was just thinking about this, that Saul had this amazing encounter with Christ. He had this amazing revelation, but he still needed relationships. He has an amazing encounter with God. This spiritual experience. But yet he still needed people for his faith to form. And Jesus saved him and Jesus also immediately surrounded him with people. The verse we left off of said, "Saul spent several days with the disciples in Damascus." Jesus surrounded him by people. And so if you've ever find yourself wondering, "If I have Jesus, do I need other people?" If you don't want to drift, and if you want to reach your divine potential, your potential in Christ. So five types of people that took to form a Saul into a Paul, and these will be the five types of people that you need in your life. If you don't want to drift, and if you want to reach your potential, first off, you need people who will help you grow. You need people who will help you what? Grow. You need people who help you grow. Look at verse 19. It says, "Saul spent several days with the disciples in Damascus. And once he began to preach in the synagogues that Jesus is the Son of God. And all those who heard him were astonished and asked, "Isn't he the man who raised havoc in Jerusalem among those who call him in this name? And hasn't he come here to take them as prisoners to the chief priests? Yet Saul grew more and more powerful and baffled the Jews living in Damascus by proving that Jesus is the Messiah." A circle that word grew, if you're one of those people who like to write in your Bible.

Circle that word grew. That Saul grew, that he didn't say the same. And he grew in the context of relationships. He was surrounded by the disciples. It is hard for us to fathom just this transformation that's taken place. I mean, he came to Damascus to arrest Christians. And then now he's showing up in the same synagogues going, "I am one." And so there's just been this transformation that's taken place. What I want you to see is that Jesus didn't give him a new platform. He just used the platform he already had. He just gave him a new message. And so some of us were looking for a new room to go in, and God wants to give us courage to go into the old rooms with a new message. To share about what Christ has done in our lives. And so there's a boldness, but I want you to say he didn't get that boldness on his own. When you have disciples, when you have followers of Jesus around you, there is this boldness and this courage that happens. And it happened gradually. His salvation happens suddenly, but his discipleship happened gradually. Bankruptcy happens this way gradually and then suddenly. Discipleship happens suddenly and then gradually. Here's what I mean. The moment you put your faith in Jesus, something happens called justification by faith. Here's what that means. In just a moment, because you have trusted Christ in his death, burial and resurrection, you are justified. Here's what that means. You are justified before God, just as if I'd never sinned at all. So just as if the righteousness of Christ is credited to your account, your sin has been taken to Jesus on that. That happens in a moment. You receive that by grace. So instantly, suddenly that happens, but discipleship have sanctification as the word for it. It just means Christ being formed in you. That you are being made more like Christ. You can't do that on your own.

That's a word in spirit in your life. And you also can't do it by yourself. That the way God has formed this is that we would be fully dependent on God and that we would also be dependent on others. And that's hard for us. Especially in our day, in our culture, in our time to depend on others for this sanctification, for this work that God wants to do in our lives. And so, Saul, he grows because of the people who were around him. There's an old saying, maybe you've heard it, you were the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You've heard that? You were the average of the five people that you spend the most time with. In morals and attitude and character and behavior. You're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. The quickest way to change your life is to change the people you spend the most time with. Saul says this way, he says, "Walk with the wise and grow wise. A companion of fools suffers harm." Now, what's interesting about that, it doesn't say that a companion of fools becomes a fool. It just says if you hang around with fools, you're going, "Bad things are going to happen." Which I can go back in my own story and see, almost all the time, there was a bad idea for him. Sometimes I was the bad idea for him, but almost every time, I can go back the moments that I regret. The moments where I suffered the most harm in life, I can tie back to the people. But it says that if you walk with the wise, when you add wise people to your life, it raises. When you add people who are full of faith to your life, your faith is going to grow. So, Saul's faith, he is growing because of the people that were around him. I think sometimes when we think about faith, we all mean growing in faith, we think about information. We're like, "I need to get more information." And there's a lot of ways that you can consume information. You can read books, you can watch YouTube. you can access information. But information by itself does not produce transformation. We need other people, because you can go on, and you can learn things from people that you've never met

and that you'll never know. But here's the thing, they can't read your body language. They can't ask you the hard questions, especially the questions we avoid. They can't light up when you walk into the room. They won't challenge your assumptions or listen when you're struggling. They can't see your blind spots, or deliver a word that's custom for you and what you're going through. We need other people for that, people like Ronnie Brassfield. I got a picture I want to show you. This is Ronnie Brassfield. He was my small group leader when I was in college, when I was 19. And Ronnie's an old retired chicken farmer. And we would meet up every single week for a while, and then it was every month. And now just when I'm back in Georgia, we meet up at the Waffle House. He had some heart stuff for a while, so we went to Panera. But thank God, we're back at the Waffle House. (audience laughing) The Scattered Smothering Cover, just in case you're wondering. And it's easy to have encounters with God at the Waffle House. I mean, he really is. But when I remember as a college student,

we would sit down at that table, and he would ask me hard questions. We'd open up the scriptures. He'd share his life with me. And I wouldn't be who I am today if it wasn't for him. Even before I preached today, I pray God, let me be the donkey that gives divinity a ride. You know why? 'Cause one time Ronnie told me, hey, when you get up to preach, you're just a donkey that's given divinity a ride. Remember the donkey that Jesus wrote into Jerusalem on? He said, how foolish for that donkey to walk around thinking, hey, they're all cheering for me. (audience laughing) He said, you're just a donkey. He actually said jackass, but that was another other. (audience applauding) But we need people who'd be willing to share from their life and share from their wisdom. Let me ask you a question. Who's your Ronnie? Maybe you're like, I need a Ronnie. Well, who can you be a Ronnie to? Who's somebody that you can be across the table from? You know what was wild is two weeks ago, my son Bolton, he's a senior in high school and just struggling with all the decisions that have to be made. And that's a lot of pressure.

And I asked, would you like to talk with somebody? He said, yeah. And he asked to talk with Ronnie. And so my son two years younger than I was when I first started meeting with Ronnie is on a Zoom call with Ronnie back in Georgia. I thought, what a gift to have people in our lives. What a gift it is to be somebody who helps others grow. You need people who will help you grow. Number two, you need people who will hold the ropes. You need people who will hold the ropes. Verse 23, it says, "And after many days had gone by, "there was a conspiracy among the Jews to kill him." Now, after many days they gone by, this is a time crunch phrase. Actually in Galatians chapter one, it tells us that it was three years. So Luke is crunching time. It had been three years. God had been preparing Saul for three years. And so what does he get as a reward for his preparation? For men, just like the other apostles have spent three years being decided by Jesus, Saul has three years of preparation. What does he get for his preparation? He doesn't get a book deal. He doesn't get a podcast. He doesn't get a job. He gets a hit put on his life. People wanna kill him.

Verse 24, it says, "But Saul learned of their plan "night and day they kept close watch on the city gates "in order to kill him." So God saves Saul. Sometimes God saves us by a miracle. Sometimes he saves us with information. Sometimes he helps us know something that we didn't know. And so God gives us information. He helps Saul know this. He rescues his life. He saves him. And so then it tells us that, but his followers took him by night and lowered him in a basket through an opening in the wall. So Saul knew the intel. He knew the danger that was coming, but he couldn't resolve it on his own. He needed help. He needed some people who would lower him down. He needed people who would hold the ropes, lowering yourself through a hole in the wall down outside the city in a basket. That's not a job you can do by yourself. You need somebody who will hold the ropes in your life. One day you're gonna face a crisis where you need other people. And the day to pick those people and have those people is not when you're going through the crisis. It's before you go through the crisis. So who are the people in your life who will hold the ropes?

Who are the people in your life you can go to in the middle of night at 3 a.m. Who are the people that you can depend on? Because we're all going to face a crisis. We're all going to face a storm. So who's holding the ropes for you and who are you holding the ropes for? Who are you holding onto the ropes for? Because sometimes you're the person who needs somebody else to hold the ropes. And sometimes you're the person in the basket. Sometimes you're the basket case. And sometimes you need other people to hold the ropes as well. In Saul escapes, verse 26, it says, when he came to Jerusalem, he tried to join the disciples. But they were all afraid of him, not believing that he really was a disciple. I mean, this is one of the saddest verses. Because he's escaped from Damascus. They lower him down. I mean, he's in some basket from TJ Maxx and a bunch of Jim bros, lowering him down. They get him down. And so he's like, I've survived. He goes back 150 miles to Jerusalem, gets to Jerusalem. He said, get my people and the people reject him. The people don't receive him. I mean, how many of us know what this lie? You turn to Jesus and people from your old life,

you no longer receive you, they want to kill you. And people from your new life, they don't-- they're afraid of what's going on in your life. And so he's stuck in this tension between the two. And so when we look at that, that's why this next verse is so powerful. Verse 27, it said, but Barnabas. I love those two words. But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles. He told them how Saul on his journey had seen the Lord and that the Lord has spoken to him and how in Damascus he had preached fearlessly in the name of Jesus. So Saul stayed with him and moved about freely in Jerusalem, speaking boldly in the name of the Lord. Next, you need somebody who will believe in you. Barnabas is a person who believes in Saul. He's like, I believe in what God's doing in his life. He put his reputation. He put his-- to vouch for him. He put it all on the line for Saul. You need somebody to believe in you. Listen, when somebody believes in you, it gives you permission to stay and move freely. That's what he did. He stayed and move freely because somebody believed in him because Barnabas stepped in. It said, I believe in this God. Barnabas, you know what his name-- OK, that's not his real name.

That's not his real name. Acts chapter 4 tells him his real name was Joseph. But the apostles, they called him Barnabas, which means son of encouragement. That was his nickname. Barnabas, man, he is an encourager. To encourage literally means to put courage in someone else's heart, to put courage in. You know how to spell encouragement? I see in you. Man, let me tell you what I see in you. I see in you such faith. Man, I see in you a heart for others. Man, I see in you loyalty and commitment. Man, I see in you a love for God. I see in you a love for people. Man, if we'll just stop and pray, I see in you steadfastness. To be able to look and see how God sees them and to be able to say that. Man, encouragement is the one thing. It's the one thing that people can never get. I've never had somebody come to me and say, Kevin, can you hold off in the encouragement? I've had enough. Every person you see has a sign around their neck that says, encourage me. Need encouragement. Barnabas, encourage. So he said, I believe in you.

We need people. We desperately need people who would believe in us. Who could you be a Barnabas for? Verse 28 says, "Saul is preaching boldly." Listen, when you got people believing in you, there's boldness, there's courage. Verse 29 says, "He talked and debated with the Hellenistic Jews, but they tried to kill him." Again, people just want to take him out. Verse 30, it says, "And when the believers learned of this, they took him down to Caesarea and sent him off to Tarsus." This sets up the next kind of person you need to take notes. You need people who will help you discern your next step. You need people who will help you discern your next step. Paul, Saul needed some people who would say, say, listen, we love you. You've got nothing to prove here. You can go home. You can go home. He needed some people who would speak wisdom into his life. Sometimes wisdom says, stay. Sometimes wisdom says, get out of town. But going back home may have been harder than staying in Jerusalem, 'cause at least in Jerusalem, you know who wants to kill you. When you go back home to Tarsus, home remembers who you used to be. And so in Tarsus, they just smiled at your face and talked behind your back.

So Saul goes back home to be prepared for the next assignment. But he needed some people who would speak truth into his life and not just what he wanted to hear, but to help him discern what the next step is. We need that kind of help too. And there's one more kind of person Saul needed that you need to. At the start of his story, we saw it. You need somebody who will pray for you. You need somebody who will pray for you. Not, not just somebody says, yeah, I will pray for you, but somebody who can pray for you right then. When you to know where you're struggling to know where you need peace to know the decision that you're making to know where you need breakthrough. Do you have people in your life who will pray for you for eight years. My free has led a mom's in prayer group. These moms who pray for their children, and I received an email this week from one of the ladies. She said, your sweet Rhee has prayed with me over our adult son Justin, who's a single dad. His divorce was very painful for all of us, but God. Justin had just come back to his faith when he was walking through that tumultuous time. He has continued to take his three small children to church and teach them about Jesus, the same Jesus he had walked away from as a young man, the same Jesus who was waiting for him when he turned back. A few weeks ago, my friend Karen reached out to me out of the blue one morning and said she felt God telling her to pray for Justin and to send me a prayer to pray over him. She was obedient. 15 minutes later, Justin called me. He was very down, disillusioned, feeling far from God. It's hard to be a single dad. I read him the prayer Karen had just sent. He began to weep. He said, mom, I have no words. He knew I needed that this morning. Justin called me yesterday after church. This was past week. He said a lady sat behind him during the service and he could tell that she was upset, crying silently. He handed her a box of tissues and she continued to cry, sitting alone. He felt God prompting him. He got up and went and sat with her. He put a hand on her back and prayed over her most of the service. At the end, she said, I have no words. Just thank you. He obeyed. Karen obeyed. Justin obeyed. All glory to God. That great story that you may be the answer to somebody else's prayer. That's why it's important that we follow these prompts of the Holy Spirit because we all need somebody who would pray with us, somebody who would pray for us. Listen, when we work, we work, but when we pray, God works. Let me ask a question. Which one of these do you need? You need somebody to pray for you? You need somebody to help you grow? You need somebody to hold the ropes in your life? You need somebody to believe in you? You need somebody to help you discern your next step? Or maybe you're like D, all of the above. Let me ask another question. Which one of these comes most easily for you? Are you one of the people like me and somebody needs prayer and you're like, hey, let's pray right now. Or maybe you're one of the people that you're like, I will show up at your house at 3 a.m. and I'll bring the truck in pizza. I'll bring the truck to help you move. I'll bring the pizza just because pizza's great. Are you one of the people who would say, you know what, people come to me for wisdom and people ask you for help with making decisions? What kind of, what comes most easily for you? Are you somebody who easily believes in others and challenges them and helps them grow?

Can you imagine if all of these different kinds of people came together in one room? We can't. We call it small groups. And this is the reason that we have groups, not because we need something else on the calendar, but because we need relationships in our lives. You realize that you may just be the friend that somebody else in this church is praying for. That your next best friend may just be somebody who you see sitting four rows ahead, you see the back of their head. That may just be the next friend that God has in your life. And so to help us take because because the time to prepare for a crisis and the time to be there for others in their crisis is now. Now, I love how this passage ends. One more verse. When the church throughout Judea, Galilee and Samaria enjoyed a time of peace and was strengthened, living in fear of the Lord and encouraged by the Holy Spirit and increased in numbers. And it says that they live with this fear of the Lord, which means this awe and this reverence. It just means this they revered God and they drew close. They drew up close in the seat. They drew near to God. So they were filled with the Spirit of God. They walked in the Spirit of God, not in the ways of the world, but they walked in the power of the Spirit of God. And it says they increased in numbers. And the only way they increased in numbers is because people continue to make room in their lives. Make room in their lives for outsiders, make new in their lives for new believers, make room in their homes and make room in their hearts for those who were coming to Jesus. This past Tuesday, in our Tuesday prayer time, I'll tell you God is there. to Jesus. Right up here, he's practicing Hindu, came to Christ, came and said, I want to put my faith in Jesus, gave his life to Jesus. It's incredible. The question is, who's going to disciple him? Who's going to disciple him? We had 90 over 90 people who were baptized two weeks ago. Who's going to disciple them? Who's going to open up their hearts and their lives and say, I want to help you grow in your faith. The way that we increase in our love for Jesus and in our love for others is to make room. God is moving. My prayer today is that he would move our hearts in an awareness of those that he's put around us in our need for him and our need for others. I'd love to just close in a prayer for you and I just want to invite you, if you just in this moment, just sit still, this may be the most important moment that you've had in weeks where we just ask God to the power of his spirit to reveal some things to us.

So the first thing I want to do in this moment is just give you a moment of gratitude just to thank God. Just to thank your Heavenly Father, thank Him for loving you, do you think it for Jesus? How you have been justified by faith, thank Him for the cross, thank Jesus for going to the cross for you. Just thank Him for making a way for you to be a part of the family of God. Your salvation that now you're part of His family, brothers and sisters, that's what leads you in a moment of repentance. Would you just join with me in repenting for wherever we've tried to do it all by ourselves? Ever because of our pride or our self-reliance or even self-righteousness or fear haven't depended on others? Wherever our selfishness has kept us from receiving from other people. We just repent and right now I break off in the name of Jesus any orphaned spirit, spirit of fear, spirit of rejection, spirit of performance, anything that has kept us from others. And God I pray that right now you would give us eyes to see ourselves as you see us and you give us eyes to see other people as you see them as image bearers and God that we would be able to see in them what you see. Would you give us courage and boldness to speak it, to say it, would we be, I pray as a church that we would be sons and daughters of encouragement. Would there just be a Barnabas heart that is released over this body? And God I pray, I ask that you would give us opportunities this week to make room for others in our hearts and our homes at work and at school and our relationships on our teams and that we'd be the kind of people who are quick to pray, who are quick to hold the ropes, be the kind of people who are quick to share life, share wisdom and help others grow. And then God I pray for those who deal with social anxiety. God would you give them the courage, I pray that you'd fill them with your spirit right now. Would you give them the courage to take a next step and God that we would see you move in such a powerful way through the relationships, that you've entrusted to us, that you would

move through us in Jesus' name, amen, amen. [MUSIC PLAYING] [BLANK_AUDIO]