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Good morning. My name is Matthew Collar, and the Old Testament reading is found in Proverbs 3, verses 5 through 6. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Don't rely on your own intelligence. Know him in all your paths, and he will keep your ways straight. The word of the Lord.

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Hello, my name is Naomi. The New Testament reading is found in Acts chapter 9, verses 20 through 21. Right away he began to preach about Jesus in the synagogues. He is God's Son, he declared. Everyone who heard him was baffled. They questioned each other. Isn't he the one who was wreaking havoc among those in Jerusalem who called on this name? Hadn't he come here to take those same people as prisoners to the chief priests? The word of the Lord.

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If you're able, please stand for the gospel. It's found in John 13, 34 to John 14, verse 1. I give you a new commandment. Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you must also love each other. This is how everyone will know that you are my disciples when you love each other. Simon Peter said to Jesus, Lord, where are you going? Jesus answered, Where I am going, you can't follow me now, but you will follow later. Peter asked, Lord, why can't I follow you now? I'll give up my life for you. Jesus replied, Will you give up your life for me? I assure you that you will deny me three times before the rooster crows. Don't be troubled. Trust in God. Trust also in me, the gospel of the Lord.

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Please remain standing as we pray. Father God, thank you. For today, for the gathering of the saints, for the worship and exaltation of your person, for the hearing of the word. Would you give us eyes to see today what you're doing? What you're up to, what the kingdom business is for the day. Would you give us ears to hear what you're speaking to us, to this world? And would you give us hearts that understand that we would turn to you and you would heal us. For our good and your glory, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Please be seated. Good morning, good morning, communion of saints. My name is Evan Riedol, and I get to preach today. And that, thank you. Thank you. And uh it is a joy and delight. If you don't know me, um, I'm a pastor here uh for family ministry cares, counseling, all mentoring, all that good stuff. Uh, I've been on staff for 13 years because I won't quit and they won't fire me. So we're we're walking the straight and narrow. Um, I have a wonderful wife, Karen, and three boys who there's some summer sickness going around. So hi to them and everybody on the live stream at home. Um, and hi to you all. I just love this community and I love being here with you. And speaking of here, hey, Mitchell, right? Uh I feel like when we we made this change, you guys are so gritty. You're like, at first it was a little bit of Mitchell? And then you came and you were like, Mitchell. All right, I feel yeah. Except for that front hallway, it feels great. I love it. Mitchell. Um so thanks for moving. Thanks for pivoting and being here on this day. We're gonna look at Acts 9. But before we do, I wanna I wanna give a shout out. If you are a student ministry volunteer, can I have you stand up right now? We just want to recognize you. Everything you've put in. I'm hoping there's some in the room. If students serve Sunday, please come on, otherwise this doesn't work. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Yes. Stay standing, stay standing. Because I'm gonna add to your numbers. If you are a kids' ministry volunteer, birth through elementary, could you stand and join them as well? All right, kids ministry volunteers in the house. Bless you all, and thank you. You can sit down now. We just we just finished the uh triathlon, the triple crown of family ministry this summer. We did a week of royal family camps up in the mountain, welcoming uh 64 foster kids into a week of just telling them how much they are loved by their creator. And then we go from that to something called Soul in the City. And to explain what that is is difficult, but it is a three-day youth experience where they have movements every day of worshiping and formation and discipleship and teaching together, movements of serving together in our city, so partnering with Dream Centers and Springs Rescue Mission this year, and then movements of just playing and connecting and being present and building those relationships. So, to those volunteers who took time off of work to engage with that, to invest in that next generation, thank you. And to all of you, kids ministry in the room, thank you so much. This past week was Kids Camp Week. So we have this beautiful relationship with New Life still. Uh, we are our own communion of saints, and yet we are still part of one kingdom, this town. And so we're like, hey, we don't have a building, and you do. And they're like, Yeah, come to kids camp with us. So we had 22 volunteers, including youth, and we had 52 kids that just got to spend this week playing and hearing about the Lord together, and that all of this points to Jesus, the whole story. So thank you for making that possible. And job security, we've been tracking. Um, at the end of this year, in this last three years, we'll have over a hundred babies born into this congregation. So yes and amen. And we got we got more work to do, so let's keep going. So love it and thank you for all of this. We are going through a series in the book of Acts, and today we find ourselves uh nine chapters in and five months later. So we're we're blazing through this thing. Uh last week, Jacan Jason picked it back up in the first part of chapter nine, which is Saul's conversion. And this week, uh, I get this cute little middle passage, uh, verses kind of 19b through 31, 12-ish verses. Uh, and most of us probably just read right past because it feels a little bit like a travelog of what after his conversion, what does Saul do? And and kind of the he switches teams. So who's he against and who's he for, and who's against him, and who's for him. Uh, but in the context, the movement of the book of Acts so far starts with this commission in chapter one from Jesus to take the good news of Jesus to Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. So it is a geographical outward movement there. And then chapters two through seven, they frame that movement starting in Jerusalem, and the idea of this new temple of God's people. In Jerusalem with the temple, but it's this reimagined idea of the temple of God being us, his people, and the things that were supposed to happen at the temple, the healing, the taking care of the needs, the generosity, the worship happening in this new community, this new church, uh, this chosen people of God, being a fulfillment of what was always to be when it came to what does the temple of God look like? And so that that goes into chapters eight through twelve, then, and that's kind of where we're finding ourselves dipping our toes in. And we see this gospel message spreading, ironically, through persecution. So that in chapter eight, we see Stephen being martyred, and that starts this outward movement from Jerusalem to Judea and Samaria, and this starts pushing out because of persecution. And in nine, here we we see Paul's conversion and then what he does and how he he interacts with this gospel message after his conversion. So I love this process of sermon prep because it does, it makes me slow down, which is a good thing for me to do. Sometimes I just move so quick that I miss it. But it makes you slow down, it makes you pause, it makes you look at one passage. And then in reflection, meditation, prayer, the word, it just sinks deeper. When we go fast, that stone just kind of skips right on the top of the water. But when we slow down and we sit with it, that's when it really starts impacting us and changing us. And so it sinks deeper. And so what started being highlighted to me in the middle of this section in chapter nine was Saul's conversion. There is this tension, I think, and this main driving question. We as the reader get this really wonderful perspective, this kind of omniscient perspective, if you're looking at a narrative flow. And so we kind of know, like, oh, this actually happened to Saul, and and now he is part of the kingdom, and now he's gonna preach the kingdom, and that's this is a good thing. But if we imagine ourselves in the place of the church who was being actively persecuted against by Saul, I think we can start imagining the tension there. That does his transformation make him trustworthy? Just because he's transformed by this encounter with Jesus, now does that immediately translate to he is now trustworthy? And the tension, if we're rash and quick to think and we move too hastily, it's like Paul's conversion now means he's qualified. Maybe having a new faith equates to him having reliable character, maybe, or repentance translates to him being trustworthy. And these are the questions I think that we have to really wrestle with, y'all. Because there's repentance and forgiveness does not mean that there's trust. And I think we can we can experience that. We can we can imagine all of the relationships that we've had in life, and we can affirm that because there's repentance and and maybe forgiveness exchanged, that doesn't mean that trust comes right along with that. We are called to forgive, but not forget and not to blindly trust. And we need to wrestle with this in Paul's life, Saul's life, right now at the church, we're in this mission, I'm gonna keep doing that, y'all. He's been transformed, he's been converted, and he's not Paul yet. So excuse me when I mess that up. So, but sit with this a moment. Just because you've known someone to proclaim a change in their words or actions or belief, does that now mean that there's instant trust or that they have gained a worthiness of trust from you? And so for the early church leaders, there's this conversion, a transformation, but today we wrestle with does this transformation make him trustworthy? And we need to wrestle with this because trust is the X factor that makes relationships work. It is the necessary X factor that makes relationships work. And when there's high trust, relationships can easily fur flourish. There can be abundance of patience, abundance of hope for the relationship itself. There could be forward movement of the relationship past difficulties or barriers. There can be health within the relationship when there's high trust. And when the trust is low, a lot of times what it brings with it is friction, abrasiveness, anxieties in the relationship. What do we do? What do we say? How do we navigate this? Suspicion, annoyance. All they all become the hallmarks of relationships that we have with low trust. And so if you would, I want you to just, as we're framing this with trust, could you just take your hands and kind of hold them in front of you and imagine trust as the force that brings them together. That in our relationships, trust allows us to be closer in proximity with each other. So bring them together. And then do that whole interdigitation thing. In our relationships, trust allows us not to low trust situations in life. What this ends up becoming is really kind of abrasive and gritty, and it rubs us the wrong way. And what they say, what they do, how they act, it's like, oh, I just don't trust, I don't trust it. I don't trust them. And so this is nice and smooth, hopefully. If you moisturized, and we're in Colorado. But hopefully you recognize trust is what brings us together, binds us together, and then allows the relationship to move and to function without high levels of abrasiveness. And so that's what we're getting into today. Is Paul was transformed, but how does that transformation then move to trust with the discipleship, with the disciples and the church that he's been ministering to and within? And so when we say we're disciples being transformed by Christ, we see this in Paul's, and this is what we're gonna look at right now, is that it's Christ in us, this transformation that happens. It's Christ and us into Christ's image, and then there's a transformation of our minds, our thoughts, our mouths, our very words, and our motivations. What's really going on on the inside. And so let's look at the text again. If you have your Bibles, bonus points for you. Let's look at Acts chapter 9, starting in verse 20. It'll be on the screen as well. Right away, he, being Saul, began to preach about Jesus in the synagogues. So as soon as he has this encounter with Jesus and this transformation, he begins preaching about Jesus in the synagogues. He is God's son, he declared. So we see the same place, he's going to the same place, the synagogues, but the transformation is of his mind, his beliefs, what he's thinking about Jesus, and his mouth, the words that he is saying. He goes to the synagogue, he is God's son, he declared. Everyone who heard him was baffled. Jason touched on that last week. They questioned each other: isn't he the one who was wreaking havoc amongst those in Jerusalem who called on this name? Hadn't he come here to take those same people as prisoners to the chief priests? But Saul grew stronger and stronger. He confused the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus is the Christ. And after he had gone on for some time, the Jews hashed a plot to kill Saul. However, he found out about their scheme, they were keeping watch at the gates. His disciples took him by night and lowered him in a basket through an opening in the city wall. So we see clearly here that Saul is transformed, that his mind, his thoughts, his beliefs, his mouth, the very words that he's speaking from the overflow of his heart, and his very heart itself, his motives, instead of persecuting God's kingdom, he's preaching it. He's transformed from the persecutor to the preacher of the truth of God. And I love this because it gives us such a beautiful example that none of us are beyond the transformative power of God. That if Saul, the very one persecuting, because I may be someone in this room, but I would imagine most of us aren't in the habit of persecuting for our like other people, right? Um and even if we were, the hope of this gospel is not too far gone. Still able to be reached, still able to be encountered, still able to be transformed in mind and in mouth and in motives by the very presence of God in our lives. And so it is a good news. But along with this transformation, we then come to this trickier question of trust. And we're living in the beginning of Saul having tension of going from persecutor to preacher, but then how do you gain the trust of the relationships of those who you were just persecuting, now becoming into their fellowship as allies, as friends, as members of one another? And we see this starting in verse 26. When Saul arrived in Jerusalem, he tried to join the disciples, but they were all afraid of him. You say, no duh. They didn't believe he was really a disciple. Of course. Low trust situation. Why? Because building trust requires more than just a moment of transformation. This is true for Paul, this is true for our own stories. So trust is the relational bonding agent, it's the binding agent, it's the oil that allows relationships to function. There's a lot of writing around trust out there. And uh and there's nothing new under the sun, so they all kind of parallel each other. Some of my favorite language and concepts always come from Henry Cloud. I just love the simplicity and the profoundness with which he presents uh just kind of the psychology of Christian living. And so there are five dynamics of building trust that I imagine Paul had to face and that we can learn from and glean from through him, through Henry Cloud's research and work, that today, as you're thinking through this text and Paul and his relationship with the church, but also your lives, interactions with other people, families, friends, coworkers, other dynamics that exist, we can start realizing it's not as simple as just trust. They're transformed. So just trust that there's more going on. So I'm gonna outline the five different things that trust requires a positive affirmation of. First is an answer to the question, are you with me? Wow. High trust environment. Let's go. If you think about this in your life, to trust someone, we need to know that they're actually with us, that they listen to us. When they listen, they hear and understand us, that we're in agreement or that we're attuned to one another. Because if someone was to say, Trust me, or why don't you trust me, but you don't feel understood by them, then there is a suspicion and a barrier of like, but you don't even know what's going on. So the first question we ask then is, are you with me? The next question, number two out of five, is Are you for me? If you're with me, if you understand, if we're in mutuality and in attunement with each other, at your core, are you for me? Or are do you have my best interest in mind and not just your own? Do you care for other people? Are you considerate of other people? Do you desire my well-being and not just your selfish gain? Are you for me? Trust requires a positive affirmation of both of those things. You're with me and you're for me. The next dynamic, number three of five, is do they have the skill? In that what we do oftentimes when we're trusting someone else is we're trusting their ability, their ability to hold that trust, their ability to carry out an assignment, their ability, their competency to complete or handle what we're asking of them. It manifests in so many different ways. But uh, just a little story tongue-in-cheek. My boys, uh I have three boys, Alistair is eight. Hello, Alistair. Hopefully, maybe you're watching at home, and I'm like a superhero right now because I'm on the TV at home. How cool is that? Alistair's eight, William is 11. And if I was to ask them, hey boys, I need you to go get dressed. There is a practical skill that Alistair has at eight years old that he goes and he gets stressed, and that's I can trust him with that assignment. He knows how to carry it out. My older son, William, has cerebral palsy. So there's just a skill set that is working against him because of the way his muscles work, that it's just difficult for him. It either takes him a long time or he technically, because of the brain damage, has functional ADHD. So it's just like distracted, like, what were you doing? I was imagining, like, but I asked you to get dressed. Do I trust him to get dressed on his own? He could, but also if he had to change shirts, he it's really hard, and at this point he hasn't learned how to take that first shirt off. So there is a practical barrier in me saying, I trust you to go get dressed on your own, that he might be willing, but he might not just be able to yet. That there's a skill set that isn't developed. So take that into your relationships and realize when we're asking someone to be trustworthy or we're trying to be trustworthy ourselves, there is not just are you with me, are you for me, but do they have a practical skill that allows them to step in time with what we're trusting them with? Are you with me? Are you for me? Do you have the skill? Along with skill and a culture that is so adamant about being great, we often and too often neglect not just do you have the skill, but do you have the character to uphold and stand with that skill? Because we know too much that character doesn't always match skill. Not just what they do, but the internal makeup, their integrity, their maturity, their honesty of how they do it. And that when we're called as disciples to Christ-likeness, it is doing what God does in the way that He does it. It is holding the tension and the strength of both the skill and the character. And too often, and may I say it, of this beloved church, not just COS, but like Christ's beloved church, we focus too much on building skill and neglect, building of character. And what ends up happening is that skill gets so great, but at the core the character starts rotting out the sinner, and it can't stand on its own weight, and whatever it is that we've been building falls. If they don't go hand in hand, whatever we're trying to do will fall or fail eventually. We need to have excellence and skill and character. Are you with me? Are you for me? Do you have the skill? Do you have the character? These are all elements that lend us to building trust with one another. The last question, the last affirmation that needs to exist, because transformation can lead to trust, but number five, trust requires a track record. Trust requires a track record. Record, not that we just did something well once, but that we did it again. And that trust means we can expect that the next time as well, that there's reliability there. This is how we know the saying is true that trust is gained in drops, but lost in buckets. And it takes a long time, long track record, drop by drop, of being trustworthy to gain excellence and trust. But we know we are stupid sometimes and we fail, or maybe that character was never there. And that when that bucket gets filled one drop at a time of trust, it can easily, in a moment, get completely lost and poured out, and it's lost in buckets. And so trust requiring a track record means that we're doing good work, well done, one drop at a time. And if we gain buckets of trust, it means that we're holding those humbly, with gratitude, that we we have gained trust, and then with fear and trembling, that we know it can easily go away. And so taking that idea with me, for me, character, skill, trust requiring a track record. Let's look again at the text, Acts 19, or not chapter 9, verses 19 through 31. He's transformed, Saul is from persecutor to preacher, and his encounter with Christ changes his allegiance. So the trust question, are you with me and are you for me? start becoming affirmed in the relationship to Christ and to Christ's church. And his skill and character, I would say, skill was always there. He was preaching ahead of his peers. But the God and God uses all that training in the law as a Pharisee for his service in the kingdom. This is verse 22. But Saul grew stronger and stronger, and he confused the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus is the Christ. And there's this unique thing about this verse because we go from verse 21 and 22. There's 11 verses in this section of Acts chapter 9, and they happen quick. But what we don't see in the book of Acts, Acts is tracking a certain timeline of events of the gospel and the work of Jesus and the Holy Spirit. But what we actually see here in this chasm between these verses around 21 is a three-year gap. And we know that from Galatians chapter 1, and it was our reading. I didn't immediately, this is Saul talking, consult with any human being. Galatians 1, 17. I didn't go up to Jerusalem to see the men who were apostles before me either, but I went away to Arabia and I returned to Damascus. Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas. So even when we're saying, Saul, are you with me for me, character skill? We are actually able to start gleaning maybe a little bit of this track record question. Does trust require a track record? Yes. And is this immediate action able to hold that as a positive affirmation of a track record? We can go, well, actually, Saul, it was three years before he went to Jerusalem and talked with these disciples, who are then actually also going, don't trust him. Acts 9, 26, when Saul arrived in Jerusalem, he tried to join the disciples, but they were all afraid of him. They didn't believe he was really a disciple. Then Barnabas brought Saul to the apostles and told them the story about how Saul saw the Lord on the way and that the Lord had spoken to him. He also told them about the confidence with which Saul had preached in the name of Jesus. And it was after this Saul moved freely amongst the disciples in Jerusalem and was speaking with confidence in the name of the Lord. So we see that trust is gained when he preaches in the synagogue, when he himself is persecuted for the faith. They start plot everywhere he goes, the Jewish leaders start hatching plots to kill him. And when he himself is persecuted, he then spends three years devoting himself to understanding the Jewish scriptures through a lens of the revealed Jesus. And he spent years doing the work to build trust with those he previously had trespassed against. So when we come, I want to invite up Brock to lead us to the table, Micah and the team now. When we come and we're asking these questions of trust, building trust, are you with me? Are you for me? Do you have the skill? Do you have the character? Do you have the track record? We can read and talk about Saul's transformation and critique it, but at some point we need to look in the mirror and also ask those same questions of ourselves. With wisdom, are we learning to trust? Where trust has been lost because of others in the past or because of our own failures? Are we learning to trust? With sanctification, are we learning to be trustworthy? It's a two-lane. Are we learning to trust? Are we learning to be trustworthy? Maybe it's one of those, or maybe it's the transformation part. Trust or transformation? Which one is it for you today? Are you being like Saul earlier in this chapter? Are you spending time encountering Jesus and then turning that into transformation, seeking him in prayer, in scripture, out in nature, through the communion of saints? Does our encounter with Jesus translate to transformation of our lives? Would people know that this is a text earlier in the book of Acts? They made note that these were unlearned men who had spent time with Jesus. Are we countering Jesus and allowing Jesus to transform us and our minds and our motives and our very mouths, the words that we say? And if it's not transformation, maybe it's trust. Is our trust too much in the kingdom of this earth and not enough in the king over all the earth? If God is asking us to learn to trust again, or maybe for the first time, are we mindful that maybe we've misplaced our trust because we've been trusting the people or the systems of this earth instead of the king over all of it? And that we actually need to start unrooting ourselves and saying, I'm not being brought to and bound to the ways and the people and the systems of this earth necessarily, as though that is my hope ultimately, but to the king over all of the earth. Maybe for us it's being representatives of that king and kingdom. Would people in our lives experience that we're trustworthy? Would others be able to affirm that we are trustworthy? That we can hold and we can carry and we can care in the relationships with others, putting them ahead of ourselves when necessary? Are we with them? Do we seek to understand more to be understood? Are we for them? We able to care for their needs along with and sometimes above our own? Are we maturing in our skills? Has something been entrusted to you that you've been created on purpose? You've been created with a purpose, you've been given gifts, natural and spiritual in nature? And are you stewarding those? Towards excellence, towards your good, others' good in God's glory? Are you taking initiative proactively in this one beautiful life you've been given to tap into all of the potential that God has given you? Are you being transformed in character? Maybe it's not the skill that's lacking, maybe it's the character inside that we're really attending to today. That the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5.22 is a great start. Am I cultivating the character of God in me? Is there love? Is there joy present in you, in your life? Is there peace, patience, kindness, goodness? Is there faithfulness? Is there gentleness? Is there self-control? So that all that we're doing can stand, that this edifice that we're building in the church, in the kingdom of God, in this world could stand in what we do because of the character of God with which we do it. And are we, are you establishing a track record, a track record of faithfulness, a track record of care and carefulness, a track record that does those things and then does them again and does them the next time. I I I faithfulness is a funny thing because we can walk by things and track records, and sometimes I think, I'll do that later. I'll pick up that piece of trash later, I'll I'll do that little task later, and because we're moving forward, it's not in my peripheral. And then I started counting. How long would it take me to do that right now? Just to be faithful with that little task right now, and all of a sudden you go, nine seconds. Nine seconds is enough to build trustworthy character. I'll keep investing that nine seconds, that little drop at a time. Just a thought. Count. How long does it take? But really, when we come to this table, when we look at Jesus and learn again, there's nothing that God commissions us to do that he doesn't do first and then then empower us to do. This is true of trust, but it's true of everything that he calls us to. There is nothing that he tells us, calls us to do that he isn't or doesn't do himself, doesn't fulfill in himself, and then empower us to walk in that way. It's why our trust with God is paramount, that we are brought to him, are bounds to him. Trust in the Lord with all of ourselves, lean not on our own intelligence because it makes this whole life work. And so we come again to this table and we behold again this trustworthy and transforming God. He transforms our pasts, he is trustworthy with our futures. My wife reminded me, we were talking about this sermon last night. She reminded me of this quote by Corey Tinboom that we've had in my son's room. Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God. That his level of trust is so trustworthy that he will transform our futures, our pasts, and he is trustworthy with our futures. And that whatever it is that we're doing, we can affirm that these things are true, that Jesus is trustworthy, that Jesus is the faithful one to the end, even to the cross, that Jesus is with you, that Jesus is for you, that Jesus is excellent and faithful, that Jesus is trustworthy and the worthy one. Let's come to the table again.