Let's open our Bibles now in the book of Acts chapter 9. We will begin our reading in verse 19 through verse 31. The book of Acts chapter 9, beginning in verse 19 through 31. This is the word of the living God, and He speaks with His church, saying, And taking food, He was strengthened. For some days He was with the disciples at Damascus. And immediately He proclaimed Jesus in the synagogue, saying, He is the Son of God. And all who heard him were amazed and said, Is not this the man who made havoc in Jerusalem of those who call upon this name? And has he not come here for this purpose, to bring them bound before the chief priests? But Saul increased all the more in strain and confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus by providing that Jesus was the Christ. When many days had passed, the Jews plot to kill him. but their plot became known to Saul. They were watching the gates day and night in order to kill him, but his disciples took him by night and let him down through an opening in the wall lowering him in a basket. And when he had come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join the disciples, and they were all afraid of him, for they did not believe that he was a disciple. But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles and declared to them how on the road he had seen the Lord, who spoke to him, and how at Damascus he had preached boldly in the name of Jesus. So he went in and out among them at Jerusalem, preaching boldly in the name of the Lord. And he spoke and disputed against the Hellenists, but they were seeking to kill him. And when the brothers learned this, they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him off to Tarsus. So the church, throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria, had peace and was being built up. And walking in fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied." Let's pray. Close your eyes. Our Heavenly Father, thank You for Your Word. And we ask You, Lord, that may Your Holy Spirit can work among us, opening our eyes, our ears, our hearts to You, and may we will change our life to serve You better and to glorify Your name with everything we have. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. We are again in our way through the book of Acts, and it's very interesting that every text here is connected to the whole history. It's amazing because when we start the book of Acts, it's very clear for us that the Holy Spirit is guiding the church, and the Holy Spirit is doing whatever He needs to make the church grow and be built. But somehow in the middle of the book, Luke stops to speak so clearly about the Holy Spirit, but he continues to show us the works of the Holy Spirit. In chapter 9 and 8 of Acts, it's not clear that the Holy Spirit is working as it was before, because before, during all the time, we read and the Holy Spirit worked like this. But we continue to see the Holy Spirit work now, and we are seeing Him work in the name of this man named Saul. He was one of the persecutors of the church, we know that. I will not take a long time to remind you about what did happen in verses 1 through 18, but he was a persecutor. He went to Damascus to take the Christians and bring them to the chief priests to arrest them and maybe kill them. He was an evil man, but he found Jesus Christ in a way to Damascus and everything changed. We remember some specific things. First, that now he had a new master. his masters were the leaders of Jerusalem, and like this he was a persecutor. But in chapter 9, we see him finding a new master, and in verse 4 he says, "'Who are you, Lord?' And beginning at this time, he starts to pray using the name of Jesus Christ. And he starts to look into Jesus Christ and waits at Jesus Christ because Jesus Christ now was his master. This man, in the beginning of this chapter, had a mission. His mission, it was, persecute Christians. But he received a new mission. The new mission that he received, it was to, Ananias told him this, he would be used to preach the gospel to the Gentiles. He would be the one responsible to spread the gospel in many other regions. And Jesus Christ was calling him to this new mission. So he had a new master, he had a new mission, and he also had a different life, a life that was very different from the previous one because he was in command, he was in control of everything, he was giving orders, but now he's under a powerful Lord. The first thing that Jesus made with this man, it was make him blind, and that's not what we expect, right, from a Lord. But the Lord Jesus was teaching him that he should trust Him. He made him blind. He made him wait at Damascus for a man that he didn't know, and this man would give him everything he needs to learn and to start his mission and his way being a Christian. Ananias came, he prayed for him, he baptized him, and he was completely different. So, a new Lord, a new mission, a new life, and also, we remember, a new power. He was under the power of this world, that's why he was a persecutor of the church. But now, he's under the power of the Holy Spirit, and that's what it happened in verse 17. He became filled with the Holy Spirit. And being filled with the Holy Spirit, we should not expect the same way for this man. That's why we begin today in verse 19 and verse 20 looking to this man who was Completely different before of these verses, now being a godly man that with boldness went to the synagogues of the Jews to say a truth to them that they were rejecting for a long time. That's how the Holy Spirit works into this man's life. So, we need to understand before we go through this text that those things here, they seem that they are happening fast, but the verses are not speaking about time here. So, beginning in verse 19 through verse 31, probably three years, maybe two, they were passing in his life. So, it's not so fast as it appears in the verses here. He was at Damascus for a long time. Then he stayed for Jerusalem for some weeks, and finally we will find him going to Tarsus where he will stay for more time. And somehow we will not find this man's acts again before chapter 13. And that's what God is showing us here. He is showing the works of the Holy Spirit, not the works of Saul, not the works of Philip or Stephen, but how the Holy Spirit is guiding His church. And part of this guidance is in this man's life. So, immediately he starts to proclaim the name of Jesus Christ in the synagogues. And that's very interesting because he was a Jew, he was a master of the Jew, a rabbi, and because of this he had the opportunity to preach in every synagogue that he could be. It's like a URC pastor who had license to preach in every URC or something like this. So, the only thing he needed was to be in the synagogue so he would present himself, look, I am a rabbi, I am one of the masters of the Jew. So, being this man, the first thing that those in the synagogue will give, it was him, an opportunity for him to preach and to teach. What they didn't expect, it was that he would not preach the Jew religion, but he would start to preach about Jesus Christ as a continuity of the Old Testament. And that's something that we need to understand here. Why do we see synagogues everywhere in the Scripture, especially in the book of Acts? Because the believers, the new believers, they were not disconnected from their past. They were not saying like many would say today that the Old Testament is one and the New Testament is a different one, and we will recognize the New Testament more than the Old Testament because Jesus is bigger than the Law, Jesus is bigger than Moses, so we will keep the New Testament. No. They, of course, recognize that Jesus is the fulfillment of everything that we have in the Old Testament, but they are not discarding the Old Testament. They are saying, look, we are here, and this is what Paul probably was saying here, we are here because we found the reason of every verse at the Old Testament. every verse was pointing, they were pointing to this Messiah, and now we know who He is. And that's why His preaching here, it's been resuming a simple phrase which says He was preaching that He, Jesus, is the Son of God. He was not using fancy words. He was not using deep theology. He was not speaking about predestination or the discussions and the debates that a lot of believers are still debating today. He just brought the truth. This man, Jesus, He is the Son of God. And it's very interesting because Son of God, it's only quoted at this verse in the whole book of Acts. This is the only way that we will find this kind of theology, that in his letters, Paul will show it implies that he was the Messiah sent by God. He was the Son of God, the promise for being fulfilled. He was everything that the Jews were expecting. But here, he's using simple words, he's the Son of God. And we must understand that it's not just by any chance that they were amazed with his preaching. We have an important name now to the Christians, to the Christianity, because this man was one of the master of the Jews, and he was probably one of the best ones. He probably knew the Old Testament as the palm of his hand. He knew the prophets, he knew the promises, he knew the Psalms, he knew everything at the Old Testament. very good in knowing the theology and everything that was there. And now He was using everything here, not to continue in their traditions, but to bring to them the truth that Jesus was the Son of God. So they were amazed with that. We will see that even better by the end of these verses when we see the people trying to debate with him, especially the Hellenists, and they will just say, we cannot win the discussion, so let's kill him. Like, if we don't win, let's just take His life and the problem is solved. But they were not able to convince that Jesus was not the Son of God through His preaching. And they were also amazed because they saw something that they never saw before, which is a persecutor become a believer and not just a believer, but someone who starts to preach about the one who he was persecuting. It's not Easy to find that, right? Among the Christianity today, maybe you can think in one or two names, but most of the times the persecutors continue to be persecutors. And we don't have this kind of acts happening many times, but here that was very important. He was the one who in Jerusalem was going house to house to arrest them, to oppress them, to kill them, and now He's preaching about His name. He came here with letters, do you remember? He had letters of the chief priest to arrest these people. And it's so amazing that when we go to verse 26 at Jerusalem, the disciples said, okay, we don't believe in his conversion. Like, he's just… faking those things. He's an unbeliever. He just wants to know where we are so he will be able to arrest us and kill us. He's trying to do something evil here. We cannot believe. This is Saul. He's a terrible man. So, we find here something precious. Because here we can see the full power of the Holy Spirit. This is a miracle. Can you see that this is a real miracle? This is much bigger than making a blind become someone who sees. This is much bigger than making someone who never walked before to start to walk. This is much bigger than any miracle that we can find. He was an evil man, a persecutor of the church. He was a terrible guy. And now, he was preaching that Jesus is the Son of God. And He was not only preaching, but He was enduring persecution since the beginning. He was saying, okay, it doesn't matter. I know they will try to kill Him, kill me, but I need to say the truth to this world. He is the Son of God. That's the most impressive thing that we can find. And it's amazing that today people say that miracles doesn't happen. Well, they are still happening. not in the way that a lot of people expect. A lot of people are still looking for signs in this world. They want to see people becoming, starting to walk or losing their blindness because someone prayed. But miracles are not like this, but they are like this, people who were slaves. they became free from the power of God, with the power of God. They were part of this world, they belong to Satan, they were arrested in their sins, and suddenly because of the Holy Spirit's work, because of the Word of God speaking to their hearts, they change their lives. They start to seek Jesus Christ. They start to profess His name. And this is the miracle that we should look today. This is why missionaries are around the world today seeking this kind of miracle. They are trying to see those things happening, and they are happening. So, we cannot say that God is not making miracles today because He is. And if we are here, it's because we are part of this. Because we don't suppose to be here. If we continue our lives in our desires, in our way, in our thinking, we will never be here in a Sunday morning. There are so many other things to do. There are so many other ways that seem better than this one. But we are here today because the Holy Spirit changed our lives, and we know that the Lord's Day, the day that we come and join with the community of God, it's a precious day for us. Because we will meet our God, we will listen His voice, we will praise His name, we will exalt our Lord, and this is a benefit for us. So we are here full of joy because of Him, only because of Him, and not because we want to be here. So He's still making miracles today. We are here full of joy and hope because of Him, of His miracles in our lives. And that's what we find a verse like this, we should seek these kind of miracles through our family. When we raise our children to God, we want to see this kind of miracle in their lives. We want to see this kind of miracle in our families' lives. life, in our brother who are still fighting against Jesus Christ, in our cousins who are still rejecting the name of the Lord. This is the miracle that we should seek. But it's interesting because while they were questioning those things, Saul was being impressed more in strength, and he was confounding the Jews who live in Damascus. So, he was preaching with so much power that everyone was confused. And this is something that we need to understand here, and this is also a fulfillment, a fulfillment of a promise. This same chapter, verse 16, God will speak to Ananias about the suffering of this man, and He will say, for I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of My name. And a lot of people think that God here is retributing His sins, like He was a persecutor, so He needs to suffer. Well, we read today a passage from the Scripture in Psalm 113, in the beginning, in Psalm 103, sorry, or assurance of pardon, that reminds us very well that this is not what God is doing here, because as we see there in verse 10, He does not deal with us according to our sins. Well, if this is true, God is not retributing Saul's sins with suffering. And in verse 10 of chapter 103 of Psalm, He continues, "'Nor repay us according to our iniquities.'" So, we cannot make this connection. He is not suffering because He was evil before being converted. But why He would suffer? Because He was holding the name of Jesus Christ as anyone else was holding at His time. You know, the problem with Saul and the problem with his preaching, it's because everyone, every Jew would be confound with his preaching. Because they will not be able to bring arguments to rebuke him. And for every argument that they could possibly bring to the conversation, Paul would show them that that was not the case, that the Old Testament was pointing exclusively to Jesus, and He's everything they need, He was everything they supposed to believe, and they should leave their old way to live, to follow this name, this man, Jesus Christ. And no one enjoys that. No one enjoys to find their beliefs completely done. They were very angry with him. And that's why in verse 23, we see them, the Jews, organizing themselves to kill him. And it's very interesting because they were not alone. We find in 2 Corinthians 11, verses 32 and 33, Paul, at that time he would be called Paul, speaking about this exact moment. And there he says that at Damascus, the governor under King Aretas was guarding the city of Damascus in order to seize me, but I was let down in a basket through a window in the wall and escaped his hands." So, it was not only the Jews, but the governor was also with them, and they were closing all the doors. They were expecting him, and once they find him, they would kill him. the government, the Jews, everyone, but then we find His disciples helping Him to leave the city safely. And, of course, this is a good argument, too, for those who believe they must be martyrs. Here, Saul was not willing to die, you know. He knew his mission was much bigger than what he could do at Damascus. We should not offer ourselves to be killed in order to proclaim His name. If we are arrested, if someone is trying to force us to reject His name and the only option is to die for His name, well, then you die. But if you have opportunity to live, to be saved, be saved. Don't be a crazy man. Your life is important to God. He called you for a mission, and you must continue in this mission. The day that you are not worried anymore, He will call you to heaven and then you can enjoy everything there. But while we are not there, just go to work and work for Him. But it's interesting too that here we find Saul having disciples. That's amazing. He was just converted to the gospel, but His preaching was so good that many of those Jews, they were being converted to the gospel and they were following Him, being His disciples. So, what we will see after that, it's amazing. If you grow through the letters, you will start to discover many names that we never heard before, names that just appear in the Scripture, and Paul was just saying, hey, you, you are very good, continue to do that. I commend you, like, because you are a very good preacher of the gospel. And those names, they probably came from this moment, the people who start to believe through His preaching, they learn with Him, and learning with Him, they became other missionaries to the church of Jesus Christ. And with the whole New Testament, we have more than enough to be the best preachers ever. You know, it's not only because of Saul, but also because of Peter, also because of Luke, John. We have all the knowledge we need to win any debate and dispute in this world because we have the truth of God in our hands. The problem of the Christianity today, it's not that we are not good, we don't have a good theology to debate. Our problem is we don't know our Scripture. We don't know the knowledge of God. We don't know what He's teaching to His church. Many believers, they never read the Scripture. Many believers, they don't know what is God saying in the book of Hebrews, what He's saying in the letters of Peter, in the letters of John. If they don't know, how can they preach? How can they teach? How can they make disciples, right? It's impossible. So the knowledge, it's very important for any Christian. We must know the truth, and because Saul knew the truth, he was preaching with boldness, and the Holy Spirit was using him to the kingdom of God. So, that must bring us to shame sometimes, and maybe that must bring us to shame right now, because if we didn't have this relationship with God at this week, for example, we need to change that. We need to start to read this book to learn the doctrine of the apostles, so we will be able to teach. So He will use us, and then we will start to win the debates. It's amazing how people today go to college, to many universities around America and around the world, and they are losing their faith. Why are Christians losing their faith there? It's because their faith is weak? No, it's because they are weak. Because if they know the Scripture, if they know the works of the Holy Spirit, if they know the doctrine of God, they will bring the ungodly to church instead of leaving the church. Because this is a book that they are trying to destroy and rebuke for centuries now. And they are still not doing that well because they just cannot rebuke God. It's the power of God, and we must use it. And that's what Paul was doing. So, we go to Jerusalem, and in Jerusalem they will find him preaching again. And it's amazing because we already spoke a little bit, but the disciples were very concerned. So, God called a man named Barnabas. You probably remember him from Acts 4, chapter 4, verse 36. There we remember that his name means the son of encouragement. Son of encouragement. And here, he's doing exactly that, like, hey Saul, don't give up. I will bring you to the apostles. And once he was among the apostles, he was showing to them, like, this man is a believer now. You don't supposed to be afraid, come on. Look, God appeared to him, Jesus appeared to him, he saw the Lord. He spoke with the Lord, and at Damascus, he preached boldly in the name of Jesus. So, he's holding his name. Now He's not an ungodly anymore, but He's holding His name. Everywhere He goes, He holds the name of Jesus. That reminds us last week's sermon about holding His name as the fulfillment of the third commandment, right? Holding His name, here is again appearing this. When they accept Him, when they spoke with Him, He starts to preach in Jerusalem, and look what verse 28 says, He was preaching boldly in the name of the Lord. He continues to hold His name. And that's the main secret in Paul's preaching here, and that's why he was suffering persecution everywhere, because when we hold His name, We will face trials because no one outside Christianity wants to hold this name because this name is dangerous. This name is very dangerous for the culture today, and that's why they want us to stop to speak about this name. Do you know what the woke people, they are very problematic today for Christians, right? Do you know what they hate? The name of Jesus Christ. Because if you hold this name, they will see that they cannot live like they are living. And they need to change something because this name is a powerful name. If you bring this name to the Muslims, they will try to kill you probably, and that's why many missionaries are underground now. They are hiding themselves because if they bring this name up, they will try to kill them. Because no one wants to listen this name, the name of Jesus Christ, it's a name that the culture everywhere wants to reject. Because this name says that there is one God, and this one God sent His Son to pay the price of our sins. And if we are not holding His name, we are lost forever. But if we are holding this name, we are saved forever. But there is only one name. There is no other name. And that's why Paul, Saul here, he was being persecuted so strongly, he started to preach in Jerusalem. And the Hellenists, they were disputing with him, but they could not argue, so they start to seek to kill him again, first in Damascus, now in Jerusalem. And the brothers, they took him to Caesarea, it was in the coast, and they sent him by boat to Tarsus, like far away. They were trying to save his life deeply, like go to a different place, far away from Jerusalem. And he stayed at Tarsus for a long time, learning. More preaching, of course, and becoming prepared for His mission. So, this is the beginning, but it's just the first beginning. The second beginning will come later in chapter 13. We will come to that eventually. But then, verse 31, and we will finish here, bring us something that confounds a lot of people. There are some theologians that really doesn't understand why this verse is here. Some even said that it was ad and it's supposed to be take out from the Scripture. I don't know why. But most of all it's because it doesn't make sense, like persecution was happening Saul was persecuting the church and suddenly, verse 31 says, so the church through all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up. And walking in fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied. So, it's something very different from what we have until now, right? But what people sometimes cannot understand, it's that there is a very specific reason for this verse being here, Saul's conversion. brought encouragement to the church. They were afraid, persecution. They were afraid of Saul. Okay, he's arresting us, he's killing us. But suddenly, the Holy Spirit comes and says, this man belongs to me. He's my tool now to bring the gospel to the world. The church looks to this, and this will bring more strength to the church. They will look to this and they will say, wow, God is really in control of everything. The persecutor, it's now a brother. The persecutor is now walking with us, and he's being persecuted. So, we should not stop. Let's just stand up with Him, go everywhere, preach the gospel everywhere, and we will see the works of the Holy Spirit happening right now. So, that's why this verse is here. The church was being built up by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was in control of the church. The Holy Spirit was building them and making them multiply. The church doesn't stop when persecution comes. The church only finds more power of God, more control and sovereignty of God, and we will praise the name of God even more because we will see His acts. That's the power of the gospel, and that's the power of the Holy Spirit. So, once we find this chapter, and once we find what is happening here, that should also bring fire to our hearts. Help us to stand up and be brave, and with boldness preach for those that we are afraid to preach right now. Well, I really believe your friend who doesn't believe in God, it's not so evil like Saul was here. I really believe that. I can only believe if you are preaching in prisons, maybe you can find a guy like him, but not in your neighborhood, not in your family. Don't be afraid of them. but believe in the works of the Holy Spirit, believe that He can do whatever He wants, and He can change any heart to God. So stand with the church of Christ. and bring the name of the Lord everywhere. Bring His name to all the places that you are. And like Paul will say in his letter, preach in time and out of time, it doesn't matter, just preach. Just show to this world that Jesus is the only way to salvation. But we must remind us, you need to know the gospel. So, it's a dual mission. You learn and you teach. But I believe you are learning for a long time now, so it's time to start to teach. Let's close our eyes and pray. Heavenly Father, thank You for Saul's life and for the works of the Holy Spirit in this man's life. May God, You will show us that we must trust in You and we must confess Your name everywhere like this man made in the past. We are Your servants now. We are Your missionaries in this land. Please, God, use us to the benefit of Your kingdom. Help us to see these miracles happening around us. Help us to see people finding salvation. Help us to see those who were arrested. those who were slaves, finding the great God that you are and finding freedom in the hands of Jesus Christ. Use this community, use this church, God, to serve you in this way. And may we will fulfill our mission and we will praise Your name with everything we have and with everything and every word that comes out.