Is there someone in your life you have quietly written off, a son, a neighbour, an old friend you no longer pray will change, asking only for your own peace instead? This message takes us onto the road to Damascus, where Jesus stops Saul, the fiercest enemy of his followers, and where an ordinary disciple named Ananias must find the courage to call him brother (Acts 9). The sermon shows that God’s grace reaches further than our common sense, and that extraordinary things happen through very ordinary people who simply get up and go. Listen if you need your hope for a changed heart restored.
Discussion questions
For your small group or for personal reflection after the sermon.
- Who was Saul before Jesus stopped him on the road to Damascus, and according to Acts 9, what changed in him during those three days of blindness?
- Ananias answers God with his fears, and the disciples in Jerusalem are afraid of Saul. What do Ananias and Barnabas show us about welcoming someone who still carries the smell of their old life?
- The sermon opens with the thought that it is sometimes easier to believe in the resurrection of the dead than in the transformation of the living. Why does our faith so often shrink when it comes to specific people we know?
- The father in the sermon stopped praying for his son to change and now asks only for peace for himself. In what situations does your prayer turn into that kind of polite hopelessness?
- Edward Kimbell was an ordinary Sunday school teacher who walked into the back room of a shoe store to talk with Dwight Moody. What helps you overcome fear when you sense you should talk to someone about Jesus?
- Who around you seems too far from God, and what one step, like Ananias or Barnabas, can you take toward that person this week?
