The First Word He Heard

Have you ever been afraid of the person you know you need to help?

Most of us have had that phone call. A relative who burned every bridge is in trouble again and someone must go. A coworker who made your life difficult for years is now in the hospital. A man who hurt the people you love is requesting to see you. You probably knew you were going to go, but you stop and wonder what you will say when you get there.
There is a man in the Bible who got that exact same message and the Bible gives us his first two words.

His name was Ananias. He lived in Damascus and he was a Christian at a time when being a Christian in Damascus had just become dangerous, because a man named Saul of Tarsus was on his way from Jerusalem with letters from the high priest and the authority to drag Christians back in chains. Everybody in the church knew of Saul. Ananias knew him. And the Lord spoke to Ananias in a vision and told him to go find Saul.

Notice how exact the instructions were. “Get up and go to the street called Straight and inquire at the house of Judas for a man from Tarsus named Saul, for he is praying" (Acts 9:11). The street, the house, the name. Saul, however, was no longer a persecutor. The Lord sent Ananias to a praying man at a known place. And then the Lord told him something that we should all reflect on: Saul “has seen in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him, so that he might regain his sight" (Acts 9:12). Think about that. Before Ananias knew the assignment, Saul already knew the name of the man who was coming. The Lord had told both about each other. The one who was afraid to go and the one sitting in the dark had been given the other’s name. Whatever you are walking into, somebody has prepared for you on the other side of the door and you didn’t know it.

Listen to how Ananias answered, because it is the most honest prayer in the chapter: "Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much harm he did to Your saints at Jerusalem; and here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call on Your name" (Acts 9:13-14). That is real honesty. A man told God what he had heard, which is what you and I would have done. And the Lord did not argue with the facts. Every word Ananias had heard was true. He simply said go and then He told Ananias something nobody else in Damascus knew: "he is a chosen instrument of Mine, to bear My name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel" (Acts 9:15). Ananias was handed the man's future before Saul knew it. The one everybody was afraid of was going to carry the name of Jesus to kings. That is what God knew about Saul of Tarsus on the day the church knew only his record.

So, Ananias went. Just imagine what that would look like. Every step toward that house is a step toward the man who came to arrest you. He finds Saul blind, three days without food or water, sitting in a stranger's house with the whole of his old life gone. And Ananias lays his hands on him. Now here are the first two words the persecutor of the church ever heard from a Christian who knew who he was: "Brother Saul" (Acts 9:17).

Brother. Before the sight came back. Before the baptism. Before anybody in Jerusalem had decided whether this was a trick. Some people take the word as one Jew greeting another and some hear more in it; either way a man who had every reason to call him enemy called him brother and Paul never forgot it. Years later, standing on the temple steps telling the story to a mob, he quoted it word for word: "Brother Saul, receive your sight!" (Acts 22:13). Of all the things said to him that week, that is the sentence he used. And notice how Paul described the man who said it: "a man who was devout by the standard of the Law and well-spoken of by all the Jews who lived there" (Acts 22:12). Ananias had something to lose. He was a respected man in that city, and he probably lost some of that respect walking into a house to call the enemy of his people brother.

Brother was the first word. It was not the only one. Put the two accounts together and Ananias said four things in that room, in this order. First, brother. Second, the Lord sent me: "the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road by which you were coming, has sent me so that you may regain your sight" (Acts 9:17). Third, God has a purpose for you: "The God of our fathers has appointed you to know His will and to see the Righteous One" (Acts 22:14). And fourth, the hardest one to say to a man you are afraid of: "Now why do you delay? Get up and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on His name" (Acts 22:16). Ananias did not stop at kindness. He called the man brother and then he told him what to do about his sins. The order matters. Nobody hears the fourth sentence from a man who skipped the first one.

And look at what came of it. "Immediately there fell from his eyes something like scales, and he regained his sight, and he got up and was baptized; and he took food and was strengthened. Now for several days he was with the disciples who were at Damascus" (Acts 9:18-19). The church in Damascus took him in. The same people he had come to arrest fed him and kept him for days and then listened to him preach in their synagogues, and the Jews of the city were saying out loud, "Is this not he who in Jerusalem destroyed those who called on this name?" (Acts 9:21). It was. And the Damascus church stood beside him anyway, because one of their own had already said the word. A congregation will usually follow the first voice. Ananias was the first voice.

We do not get to decide who the Lord will save. We do get to decide what the first word will be. Somebody near you has a past that everybody knows about and they are sitting in the dark wondering whether anybody will come and whether the one who comes will say enemy or brother. Ananias had heard from many about this man. He went anyway and he said brother anyway, and then he said the rest. That one word did not finish the job. Saul still had to walk into Jerusalem, where the church was afraid of him and nobody would stand beside him, and it took another man with another word to get him through that door. What happened there is where the sermon this Sunday begins.

If you have ever been the one in the dark waiting for a word, or the one sent to say it, come and hear the rest of the story. We meet at 9:30 for Bible class and 10:30 for worship service at 5051 Wilmington Pike Dayton, OH 45440. If you cannot be there and you want to listen, you can find us on YouTube, Facebook or our website for the live stream!