Grace Church Sermons
God's Interruptions | Will Bakker
- Well, good morning church. I've met many of you personally, but if you don't know me, my name is Will Bocker and I'm the Grace Youth Lead. I get the privilege of walking alongside all the middle school and high schoolers here as we follow Christ together. And it's not often that youth pastors get asked to preach sermons in what we call big church. So when this opportunity came up, I jumped at the chance. When I was asked to preach this message, I responded with an enthusiastic yes. I'm originally from Long Beach, California, and that's actually the same town that Snoop Dogg is from. It doesn't have any connection to anything, I just like mentioning it. But I was raised in a Christian household and I went to church all my life. And for a while, even though I'd committed my life to Jesus, faith wasn't my main priority. I found an incredible faith community when I went to college at a small little Lutheran University called Concordia University Irvine. And it was between summers at Concordia that I went to work at a summer camp, where I ended up meeting in church that I was invited to be a part of after my summer at camp ended. And all throughout college, I didn't really know what I wanted to do with my life. I was majoring in English, so obviously, I knew I'd land a great job with a six figure salary, but I didn't have direction. I thought about maybe being a writer or a teacher, but nothing really called out to me or made me feel alive. Until I began volunteering in a high school ministry at that church that I mentioned, I served there for a while as a volunteer and eventually realized that I could intern for the ministry. And I graduated with that English degree and immediately began to pursue theological training at seminary. I knew that the purpose of my life was to help others, especially young people on their walk with God, to help them know Jesus more deeply. Since that time, I've been in youth ministry for almost 10 years. Glory be to God. And it almost seems like things have been going too smoothly for me up to this point, right? As I reflected on what I wanted to preach about today, I thought about times when life gets interrupted. When God places a big roadblock on the path that we've been walking down. God interrupted my life in painful, but necessary ways one year ago. My wife and I were living in Phoenix, Arizona at the time and I moved there for a youth ministry job after graduating from seminary in 2020. And after working at that church for three years, I was suddenly and unexpectedly asked to leave my job. And this meant not just the loss of employment, but the loss of our community. We lost our church and our support system as well. People that were meant to be there for me in that season were suddenly no longer there. And our church did not feel safe for us. And the people that I'd expected to lead and mentor me were at the root of a lot of that hurt. In the end, it was a relief because my wife and I both experienced a great deal of church hurt. Some of you might know the profound pain of an experience like this. I was desperately trying to find another job in the area so that we could keep up the mortgage on our condo, but nothing was working out. Around the same time, my wife's 11 year old cousin who lives in Chicago was diagnosed with leukemia. My wife, Becca, was a Christian school teacher at the time and once her school year ended, she drove across the country to be with her family and helped take care of her cousin and his family. And after the last day that I worked at my former job, I hopped on a plane to go be with her and her family with no idea what would come next for us. I'm confident that many of you have faced interruptions in your own lives like the ones that I experienced in the past year. Just like I did, you may have asked yourself, why God, what is all this for? What good can come from this? You may not be sure that there's any good that can come out of pain like that, but I'm convinced that God wants to speak to us and use us and even bless us through interruptions like those. And here's our big idea for today. God's interruptions have a cost, but are for your good and his glory. Let me say that again. God's interruptions have a cost, but are for your good and his glory. Our passage this morning will be from the Book of Acts. This is the Gospel writer Luke's narrative of the events of the early church. And we'll be in chapter nine reading the story of Saul's conversion. We'll be reading Acts chapter nine verses one through 19 in a couple of sections. There are three main characters in this story. One is Saul. The other is one of my favorite characters in all of scripture, a man named Ananias. And of course, Jesus. We'll analyze these first two main characters so we can learn about how God interrupts us, how we can respond and some practical steps that we can walk out in our own lives. We'll start with Saul. Our first important takeaway from Saul's story is that when God interrupts you, it changes everything. Let's read our first section of Acts chapter nine verses one through nine. Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord's disciples. He went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus so that if he found anyone there who belonged to the way whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem. As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? Who are you Lord?" Saul asked. "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting," he replied. "Now get up and go into the city and you will be told what you must do." The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless. They heard the sound but did not see anyone. Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes, he could see nothing. So they led him by the hand into Damascus. For three days, he was blind and did not eat or drink anything. The first change is that result from this interruption to Saul's story. So Saul's life and his story are temporary blindness and a shift in worldview. A complete overall of everything that he believed up to that point. And it gets more intense from there. His life is about to change forever. Now, instead of opposing God's mission in the world, Saul would become the most passionate evangelist for the gospel that the world had ever seen. Saul's conversion shows us that the grace of God can show up for sinners when they are at their worst. There's some of you who think that you're too far gone. You might be thinking that God's written you off because you failed too many times or your sin is too deep. You think that because of your hidden addiction to pornography that you don't deserve forgiveness. You think that because you unleash your anger on your family at times that you don't deserve God's love. And you think that because you've put God off to pursue your own desires that he doesn't want you back. Saul's story is evidence that none of that is true. I'm confident that none of you have ever been overseeing the killing and imprisonment of Christians. If God could use someone like Saul for the gospel, then he can surely use you too. Here's a question I want you to consider this morning. If Jesus came to you today and asks you to leave behind your home, your job, your family, your friends, and the life you knew before that moment, what would your response be? Something that Christians say a lot is that if Jesus would just show up and make himself more real or known to me, then this would all be so much easier. I'd do what he asked me to do instead of putting him off. But the reality of our story for today is that God, if God interrupted our lives like he did Saul's, we might still try to find a way to avoid what he would ask us to do. I could see myself making excuses if Jesus asked me this question. And in fact, God did ask me something truly difficult one year ago. He asked me to trust him with my entire life, my future. I didn't know what job I would have, if or when my wife and I would return to a church community or why any of this was even happening in the first place. What might he be asking you to trust him with right now? John Register is credited as saying that your life can be measured by how you handle interruptions. Is Jesus just an inconvenient interruption that you're polite enough to give a response to? But you hope that he goes away so that you can get back to whatever you had going on in the moment. Prolific author and theologian C.S. Lewis once said, "We must stop regarding unpleasant or unexpected things as interruptions of real life." The truth is that interruptions are real life. Can you see an interruption as God trying desperately to tell you that he has better things for you in store? Can you see the change of your life direction as an opportunity for God to build the kingdom and train up disciples through you? And if you're in a place today where you're angry at God and different to God or downright hostile to God, his church and all that he stands for, I have something to tell you. He still wants to be in a relationship with you. He wants to know you. He wants to invite you into his work to redeem narratives and restore brokenness, and that includes his connection to you. What you're walking through in your life right now might be God calling you back to him. God can get our attention by interrupting our lives in a very dramatic way, but it doesn't always happen like that. Sometimes the interruptions are much more simple and quiet, but they are still certainly inconvenient. Our next character in the story is a great illustration of this. Let's turn now towards Ananias section of the story. We'll pick up in Acts nine versus 10 through 19. In Damascus, there was this disciple named Ananias. The Lord called to him in a vision, Ananias. Yes, Lord, he answered. The Lord told him, go to the house of Judas on Straight Street and ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul for he is praying. In a vision, he has seen a man named Ananias come and place his hands on him to restore his sight. Lord, Ananias answered. I have heard many reports about this man and all the harm that he has done to your holy people in Jerusalem. And he has come here with authority from the chief priests to arrest all who call on your name. But the Lord said to Ananias, go. This man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel. I will now, I will show him how much he must suffer for my name. Then Ananias went to the house and entered it. Placing his hands on Saul, he said, Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here, has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit. Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul's eyes and he could see again. He got up and was baptized. And after taking some food, he regained his strength. The Lord calls Ananias' name and the first words out of Ananias' mouth are, yes, Lord. My high school Bible teacher called Ananias a yes man. I think that his attitude and approach toward God is something that all of us could learn from. He responds the way that a young Samuel does in first Samuel chapter three. When the Lord calls to Samuel, Samuel responds by saying, here I am. Is your heart that open and responsive to God? I'm not so confident the mine always is. Ananias' interruptions are of the simple, more ordinary type. He's asked simply to pray and place his hands on this man named Saul. Interruptions like that aren't necessarily any less inconvenient. Smaller interruptions in our lives might look like God saying, stop gossiping about that boss or coworker that's difficult to get along with. Go invite your quirky and tattooed neighbors over for dinner. Be more patient with your kids after a really long hard day at work. Give to the church in a way that it's clear that you aren't trusting in your own finances. And be willing to lose reputation because you told others that you're following Jesus. In verses 11 and 12 of Acts 9, God tells Ananias what he wants him to do. He tells him where he'll find Saul and that Saul has seen a vision of a man named Ananias laying hands on him, praying over him, and restoring his sight. Ananias isn't like all the heroes in action movies or Greek mythology who stand up to the villains that they must face with zero percent fear. He hesitates. He has an objection. He wants to clarify and make sure that he heard God right because he's heard some rumors that Saul's not a good guy. Ananias' story points out that when God calls you to action, he invites conversation. God's people aren't robots to be controlled or chess pieces that he's playing some elaborate game with. Ananias' pause here actually reflects something that we as Christians should probably do more often. Ananias says, what did you say, God? You want me to help who? He's confirming the specifics of what God has called him to do. He wants to make sure that this is really the voice of God. And here are some ways that we can discern God's voice in our lives. If we think that we've heard God, we should ask for clarity. Ask trusted people in your life. See what if God asks you lines up with what scripture says. See if God's voice asks us to step outside our comfort zone to people or places we wouldn't normally engage with. Ask God if what he says is for your good and his glory. And finally, we should pray about it. If you want more help in this area, Pastor Derek has an e-book called Beginner's Guide to Hearing God, and you can check that out. But our world is filled with too many stories of people who seemed overly sure that it was God's voice telling them to do horrible things. And it's less likely that we think that we'll hear God telling us to do evil or immoral things. But we may tell ourselves that God wants us to buy something that we've really been wanting or to pursue a romantic relationship with someone that we're attracted to. So it's okay to pause and discern and pray to God about if we're hearing him correctly, to double check that it's not just our own voices or wills. In fact, it's encouraged. And God wants his followers and disciples to obey willingly. Someone here today may need to hear that God doesn't want you to follow him out of duty or obligation. He wants your whole heart. So from my point of view, Anani says two choices. Do what God says or resist. And each of us has that same choice in our lives every single day. We have these opportunities 50 times a day, if not more. Will we respond like Christ or in self-righteousness? Will we actually love our neighbors? Or will we push it off again? And that's the next lesson from Ananias. God will help you become a disciple with a bias towards action. God will help each of us become yes men and yes women. Pastor Derek talks frequently about how as God's followers, we aren't responsible for the outcome, but we are responsible and called to do what God is asking us to do. God told Ananias what would happen when he went to see Saul, but Ananias couldn't be sure of how Saul would react. But notice that Ananias still goes. Verses 17 and 18 say, then Ananias went to the house and entered it. Placing his hands on Saul, he said, "Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, "who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here, "has sent me to you so that you may see again "and be filled with the Holy Spirit." Immediately something like scales fell from Saul's eyes, and he could see again. He got up and was baptized. I love that Ananias calls Saul brother. Ananias knew that Saul, as God had told him, would be God's chosen instrument to proclaim his name to the Gentiles and to their kings and to the people of Israel. Ananias also tells Saul a central reality of our Christian faith that all things are possible only through God's Holy Spirit residing within us. Ananias has played his part. He's come to the house and he's prayed something like scales fall from Saul's eyes, and this is it. This is the moment where Ananias doesn't know how Saul will respond. Anger, frustration, threats, violence, no. Scripture tells us that because of Ananias being willing to let God interrupt his life, that Saul is immediately baptized, this is the importance of being disciples with a bias for action. There is impact that we could miss out on if we don't live out what God asks. And here's another important truth for us today. God's interruption of your life will result in fruit that you could never imagine. It's worth asking yourself, which type of interruption is present in your life? Because the reality is that God is always wanting to create space for himself in our lives. Is your interruption a Saul-type, trajectory-shifting moment in which he's asking you to explore what your life calling is to the class that grace has coming up? Or is it an Ananias-style interruption where you hear God's voice quietly reminding you consistently to have your neighbors over for the block party initiative? Both Ananias and Saul sitting right there in that moment would not have believed what would happen next if they'd been told. Saul certainly wouldn't have believed that he'd go on to be renamed Paul and become one of the most influential evangelists of all time. He wouldn't have believed that he would go on three missionary journeys all around the known world at the time. And he wouldn't have believed that the person who he'd killed people for believing in would become his sole reason for living. Look at the spiritual ripple effect here. Many of us believe that our words and actions don't make a difference or an impact because we can't see the immediate spiritual fruit. I've been there myself. Maybe that's how Ananias felt. What's this prayer really gonna do? Would it have made a difference if I'd just stayed at home instead of coming over here to pray for Saul? You don't need to go on three missionary journeys and evangelize the entire known world, which to your credit is a lot harder today than it was in Paul's day. The world was quite a bit smaller then. But God can use these small faithful acts of obedience to impact lives beyond yours. You have no idea the impact that an invitation or a kind word has on someone else's story. Mother Teresa once said that we should do small acts with great love. Without the small faithful obedience of this man Ananias, Saul may have never have become Paul. And if Saul hadn't become Paul and evangelized to the Gentiles all over the world and written letters that would one day fill our Bible, it's possible that you and I may not be sitting here at all. Now, of course, it needs to be said that God would have accomplished his purposes for the church and for the world with or without Saul and Ananias. But think about what those two would have been missing out on. They both had a front row seat to see God's kingdom being built. And that being said, there's a good chance that you and I are Christians today because Paul allowed God to interrupt his life. Paul fully leaned in. It's because of the Holy Spirit at work within him that Christianity has over 2.4 billion believers in the world today. Remember that wherever there's a Saul, there's an Ananias right next to them who's praying for them and doing the small things behind the scenes. Whichever one of these two that you see in yourself in today, we need you. God needs you. So I left you all with a bit of a cliffhanger regarding my story. Obviously, God did some redirecting because I'm preaching to you today from Erie, Pennsylvania and not Phoenix, Arizona, where it's likely more than 110 degrees already this morning. But it's a dry heat. And that's what Arizona and say to rationalize the Mad Max dystopian wasteland that they're living in during the summers. But because of what happened to my wife and I, we almost walked away. I almost walked away from ministry. I thought about giving up that part of my life. And when I was at my lowest, Jesus knew that what I needed was a brother. In my case, my brother-in-law. My brother-in-law reached out and told me about a youth ministry opening at a church called Grace in the town where he lived. The town was called Erie, Pennsylvania. And the first words out of my mouth were, well, that's ridiculous. God must have had a sense of humor because here I am. God allows interruptions to bless us in ways that we can't see until further in our journeys. Mike's conversation with me would ultimately lead me to Grace and by coming to Grace, I would end up going on a mission trip to the Dominican Republic and watch one of my students named Sarah talk with a local Dominican man who'd been hurt by the church. Sarah told him that even when people are hypocritical that God is faithful and true, God doesn't ever give up on us and that there's hope to find authentic Jesus-loving community. And I was in tears listening to this conversation because that's almost what I walked away from. God removed me from a community that wasn't ultimately for my good to give me a greater gift in my job here and in the community of Grace than I could have ever imagined. Remember that God's interruptions have a cost but they're for your good and his glory. I'm preaching to you today almost a year after my wife and I have moved to Erie. He's allowed us to buy a home here, get a car with actual four-wheel drive that's suited for driving in the winter and most importantly, our family's growing. My wife is six months pregnant with our first child. I look back at the painful interruptions and I thank God every single day that he didn't give me what I thought I wanted. I firmly believe that the Holy Spirit was speaking through my brother-in-law that day. Another thing that God said to me through my brother-in-law was, I just don't think that God is done with you yet. If any of you happen to know my brother-in-law, Mike Crispin, please don't tell him I told you any of this. I have a reputation to maintain. But that's my prayer for you all this morning, that you would know that God is nowhere near close to being done with you yet. He has so much more he wants for you and to experience with you. I'd like to leave you with some questions and practical to do this morning as your next steps. These connect to our dream disciple role of savvy follower. The first question is, can I hear God speaking to me right now? If the answer is no, you may need to turn down the noise in your life. What's preventing you from hearing him? If the answer is yes, you should ask yourself what he's specifically speaking to you and live that out. The second question is, does God have my attention? If the answer is no, you may need to turn back to him. If the answer is yes, continue to focus your harden mind on him and pray that he continues to work through you. Third and finally, is God asking me or telling me to redirect my life in some way? If the answer is no, continue living into what he's called you to do and ask again just in case. If the answer is yes, consult scripture, trusted counsel and be constantly in prayer to see what that redirection may entail. Thank you for the opportunity to preach God's word to all this morning. All the other pastors happen to be out of town today and that's why I had the opportunity to preach. But in all seriousness, may God bless you profoundly and may you go with his peace this morning. I'm grateful for you all. [BLANK_AUDIO]