Acts: Saul’s Conversion

Well friends, we uh we are in the book

of Acts, which uh you may know from uh

our series that we just did on the book

of Luke comes right on the heels of the

book of Luke. It's written by the same

author and it continues the same story.

In fact, uh, a Catholic New Testament

scholar by the name of Luke Timothy

Johnson, uh, has a book called Prophetic

Jesus, Prophetic Church. And it is a

reflection on the way that Luke and Acts

are a singular story where Luke tells

the story of Jesus in his prophetic

ministry. And Acts is where Jesus hands

the

church that same prophetic ministry. And

he draws out how the stories often

parallel each other that Jesus does this

and then the church does this. that the

pattern of our lives as the church is

based on

Jesus. This morning we are looking at

the conversion of

Saul and we're going to try and see how

how Paul's conversion fits in to that

story. How Paul's

conversion is in a sense a retelling of

the

gospel. a retelling of this of this

encounter with

grace, right? And this grace meets us

where we are, but it does not leave us

where we are. It leads us somewhere new,

somewhere redemptive, and it calls us to

a certain type of

life, a certain type of calling.

And so, um, we're going to read through

this story and we're going to we're

going to talk through it element by

element and then we're going to give a

couple reflections on how this applies

for us. And I don't know about you, but

I grew up in a very um evangelical

context where conversion stories and

testimonies were really important. Uh,

people would get up and share uh how

they came to Christ. And uh you may have

this experience, you may not. But as

someone who grew up in the church, I was

the son of a pastor. Um you often hear

people's amazing stories of conversion

and and you you almost get a little

jealous of

it like, "Oh, I didn't have a Damascus

road experience, you know. I I just I

just grew up here, you know."

And on the one hand, these stories of

miraculous

uh conversions can be amazing. People's

whose life is going in a in in a in a

direction at a 100 miles per hour and

they just get met with life or with

Jesus or whatever it might be and it

turns them around. It's beautiful and

it's often encouraging. It often teaches

us a lot.

Um, I also want to encourage you that if

that's not your story, that that's okay.

That every story of

conversion is reason for all of heaven

to

rejoice. And each one is miraculous.

Even if it it happened over many, many

years as a child or if it happened in a

moment. Both are miraculous works of

God's grace.

But if that wasn't your story, if you

didn't have that Damascus road

experience, you might say, "Well, what

can I learn from this story?" Because

it's so different than

mine. This morning, we are going to see

uh how we can see Paul's radical story

and applies to the entire church as a

pattern for the entire church. So we are

going to read Acts 9:es 1-19 this

morning here now from the book that we

love.

Meanwhile, Saul, still breathing threats

and murder against the disciples of the

Lord, went to the high priest and asked

him for letters to the synagogues at

Damascus, so that if he found any who

belonged to the way, men or women, he

might bring them bound to Jerusalem.

Now, as he was going along and

approaching Damascus, suddenly a light

from heaven flashed around him. He fell

to the ground and heard a voice saying

to him, "Saul, Saul, why do you

persecute me?" He asked, "Who are you,

Lord?" The reply came, "I am Jesus whom

you are persecuting.

But get up and enter the city, and you

will be told what you are to

do." The men who were traveling with

him, who were traveling with him, stood

speechless, because they heard the

voice, but saw no one. Saul got up from

the ground, and though his eyes were

open, he could see nothing. So they led

him by the hand and brought him into

Damascus. For three days he was without

sight, and neither ate nor drank. Now

there was a disciple in Damascus named

Ananas. The Lord said to him in a

vision, Ananas. He answered, "Here I am,

Lord." The Lord said to him, "Get up and

go to the street called Straight." And

at the house of Judas, look for a man of

Tarsus named Saul. At this moment, he is

praying. And he is seeing in a vision a

man named Ananas.

come in and lay his hands on him so that

he might regain his sight. But Ananas

answered,"Lord, I have heard from many

about this man, how much evil he has

done to your saints in

Jerusalem, and here he has authority

from the chief priests to bind all who

invoke your name."

But the Lord said to him, "Go, for he is

an instrument whom I have chosen to

bring my name before Gentiles and kings

and before the people of Israel. I

myself will show him how much he must

suffer for the sake of my name." So

Ananas went and entered the house. He

laid his hands on Saul and said,

"Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who

appeared to you on your way here, has

sent me so that you may regain your

sight and be filled with the Holy

Spirit." And immediately something like

scales fell from his eyes, and his sight

was restored. Then he got up and was

baptized. And after taking some food, he

regained his strength. And for several

days he was with the disciples in

Damascus. This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God. Well, friends, uh

we're we're jumping in uh into chapter

nine. We we've skipped some of Acts. So,

I want to give you a little bit of the

context that the church in Jerusalem has

been growing. They've been baptizing

people by the thousands.

Um but this

growth, this start of the church has not

been met universally with with

enthusiasm. And so in chapter 8

preceding this, we have our first

martyrdom of

Steven and the men come and they stone

Steven to death. And this was all done

under the approval of

Saul. And they all come and they lay

their coats before Saul uh before they

kill Stephen. which I think in that we

see a little bit of a tragic parallel, a

tragic irony of the triumphal entry of

Jesus into Jerusalem where everybody

lays their coats down or similarly at

the foot of the cross where the people

are gambling over the coat of Jesus.

Here we kind of see this

reversal of Jesus's

story that instead of sacrificing

himself, Saul is persecuting the

Christians, persecuting

Stephen. But here's the thing is that

Paul was very

zealous for his

religion. And so he was persecuting the

Christians in Jerusalem. But he was not

content to stay in Jerusalem. No, he

needed to hunt down the Christians into

foreign lands. He would go to find these

Christians. Now, there was an agreement

between

uh the Jews and Rome uh that the chief

priest would have a certain type of

authority over those who were tied to

the temple, to those who are tied to the

Jewish faith. So much so that there was

almost like an extradition treaty

between the chief priest and Rome. And

so if there were those outside of Israel

who were um who were misbehaving, the

chief priest could call them back uh and

discipline them. And so that's why in

our story, Paul approaches the chief

priest to get authority to go all the

way into Damascus into a totally

different govern or a different it's

still the the Roman Empire, right? But

it's it's outside of their purview. And

so he gets a letter to pursue these

Christians.

This will become important later when we

hear why Ananas is so opposed to what is

happening. But why was Paul so

enraged? There's a little bit of a clue

in our text where it refers to the

Christians as the followers of the way.

You'll notice that they aren't called

Christians at this point in the story.

That would come later. First, they would

be called Christians in

Antioch. And it was actually originally

an insult. Oh, you little

Christs, right? And eventually that

title would catch on and and the gospel

would be taken to the Gentiles. But at

this point, Christianity was not a new

religion. It was not a separate

religion. It was the Jewish faith.

It was simply a movement within Judaism

to say the Messiah has

come. And so Saul is so upset, not

because there's a new religion in town,

but because he feels like his religion

is being

hijacked. And so he has zeal because he

thinks this is

idolatry. You are saying that God came

down and was crucified.

The Messiah was crucified. No, the

Messiah has to be

victorious. This is

blasphemy. And so Saul is zealous to

stamp this movement out, not just in his

town, but in all the towns. He's going

to hunt them down.

And so in our story, we see he's on the

road to Damascus because this is where

the next kind of uh concentration of

Christians are now that they've been

driven out of Jerusalem. And so on the

road to Damascus, a blinding light

appears. Now, this is about midday.

The sun is at its strongest on the coast

of the Mediterranean. So imagine how

bright this light must be to be blinding

to

overpower the sun.

Even the light of the resurrected Christ

in all of his

glory knocks Paul down on his

butt. And then Jesus says, "Saul, Saul,

why are you persecuting

me?" This double address, Saul, Saul,

only happens about 15 times in the

Bible, and it's almost always very, very

significant. Moses, Moses on Mount Si.

Abraham. Abraham right before he's going

to sacrifice

Lot. Samuel

Samuel calling the

prophet. And so this Saul Saul is this

major moment of God calling Saul into

something different of calling him out.

It's important

that first he addresses him

twice that he's he's clueing Saul in on

I am the Lord calling you right now. And

we see that from Saul's address back.

Who are you

Lord? He knows something significant

happening, right? This blinding light,

the voice from heaven, the way that God

talks. Moses, Moses, Abraham, Abraham,

Samuel, Samuel, Saul,

Saul. He knows something significant is

happening, but he doesn't know quite

what. He knows that it's the Lord, but

he doesn't know exactly what that means

yet. He doesn't know that it's Jesus

calling him out.

In Matthew 25, Jesus says that when you

do these things like feed the hungry,

visit the imprisoned, clothe the naked,

that you do it to

Jesus. When you do good to the least of

these, you do it to Jesus. And here we

have the other side of

that. Jesus says, why do you persecute

not my people? Why do you persecute

me? because the church is the body of

Christ. And so as Saul is persecuting

the the the church, he's not just

persecuting individuals. He is and

that's tragedy in and of itself, but

he's persecuting God

himself. When we mistreat

others, we're mistreating Jesus.

We might not get a blinding light on the

road to our misdeeds, but we will see

the effects of it of mistreating Jesus

himself. Saul

Saul knocked on his butt,

humbled, disrupted by grace.

He's then blind for three

days, which makes me think of

Jonah in the belly of the whale for

three days. And I think when we get to

Ananas, we'll see some more parallels

with

Jonah. But Paul is going in the complete

wrong direction from what he has been

called

to. persecuting the church, hunting down

the Christians. And so he is confronted

by

Jesus. We'll come back to

this. As Paul is being led to Damascus,

God shows up to

Ananas, a man who is righteous, a

disciple of Jesus, perhaps a leader in

the church of Damascus. and and God

tells Ananas to go to Saul of all people

to lay hands on him. And Ananas has the

most understandable response of all

time, which is, "God, I don't know if

you've heard, I don't know if you've

been paying attention to what's been

happening, but this Saul figure just

killed my buddy Steven, and now he's

heading here, and he has official

documents to do the same.

You want me to walk into the lion's den

and lay my hands on this guy and and

heal him? He's blind. That's great news.

He's not going to be able to catch any

of

us. You want me to go and bless him and

embrace him as a

brother? No

way. But God's response is, I have

chosen him as an instrument. I have

chosen him. You don't get to decide,

Ananas. You don't get to decide who gets

my

grace. You don't get to decide who I

use. And this is where I think that the

parallel with Jonah becomes so beautiful

and powerful. Paul is blinded for three

days just like Jonah. But Ananas too is

called to go and bless and accept his

enemy. Just like Jonah is called to

Nineveh to convert the people who had

just come and conquered

Israel, their

enemies. That's the reason Jonah doesn't

want to go. He doesn't want to see them

converted. He wants God to judge them.

He wants God to rain down fire on

Nineveh. He doesn't want to see them

turn and to accept God's

grace. And so similarly, Ananas is now

hearing, I'm going to go welcome Saul

like a

brother. Strike him

down or at least let me do it. He's

blind.

But no, we do not get to choose who gets

God's

grace. We do not get to choose who is an

instrument of

God. Our job is to go and

embrace. Our job is to

celebrate. Just like Jesus said, I did

not come for the healthy. I came for the

sick. and I left the 99 to pursue the

one. This is the story of the

gospel. But it doesn't make it

easy because bringing it to our context,

we may have all kinds of enemies.

those who we don't want to see redeemed,

who we would rather see

judged, to get their comeuppants, to get

their just

desserts. And when it does happen to

them, we

celebrate. We have what they call in

German

shodena, enjoyment at someone else's

suffering.

Our

challenge is to see God's grace at

work and to work with that

grace because none of us deserved the

grace. It is undeserved merit. It is an

undeserved

gift. But now that we have it, we think

we have ownership of it.

And so when we see someone else welcomed

in with open

arms, that can prickle us. That can make

us feel

uncomfortable. They don't deserve

it. Often in civil war

contexts, the main trick is not how to

figure out how to stop fighting. That's

tricky enough. The trick is how to come

back as a society after a civil war. How

to live with each other in the years

following. How do you go from being an

allout enemy with

someone to going back to being fellow

patriots, fellow citizens working

together?

We're not in a civil war right now, but

we are becoming more and more divided in

our country. And I've heard lots of

people

say, "I don't know how I'm going to live

with those people." Whichever side

you're

on. I don't know how I'm going to live

with them. I don't know how we come back

from this. I want them to see the

effects of their decisions. I want to

see them see the fallout of what they

support. How much hatred are we

cultivating in

ourselves towards our enemies? Are we

prepared to embrace our enemies when

they have repented and have have come to

their senses, have come back to

having clarity of mind?

My challenge to you is that this is what

the gospel requires of us,

friends, to accept God's grace for

others as much as we appreciate it for

ourselves. And it's hard

work. You think about the workers in the

field in Jesus's parable where some have

been working from the very beginning and

then those who came an hour before the

work was done got the same pay and all

those at the beginning of the day say

this is unfair this is unjust this isn't

okay Paul doesn't deserve this

grace but Jesus looks to us all and

saynone of you deserved

it and so when you see someone come

back. Our job is to throw a

party. When someone accepts grace, when

someone comes back to their senses, when

scales fall off of people's eyes,

instead of saying, "You were so

blind. You were such an

idiot.

You don't deserve this." Or, "I told you

so.

No, our call is to be like

Ananas. Hug them and say, "Brother

Saul, brother

Saul, God chooses the most unexpected

every single

time." Abraham was too old to have

children, but he was called to be the

father of all of Israel. Moses had a

stutter, but he was called to go and

demand the freedom of the people of

Israel. David was the smallest brother

and a wretched sinner, but he was called

to be the king of

Israel. Paul was a zealot, a persecutor,

and a murderer. And he was called to

write 13 letters of our New Testament

and to convert the gentile world.

So friends, I want to leave you with

this. Two

things.

First, you are never too far from God's

grace. You are never too far to be used

by

God. You might get confronted by God.

You might have a blinding light, but

ultimately that light is grace to

restore you and to call you into

something

new. But you don't know how many people

I talk with that that don't think they

are worthy to to serve. They don't think

they're worthy to to be a deacon or to

volunteer, to be a children's uh

volunteer or something like that.

You are never too far out to be used by

God and to experience God's

grace. And the second is no one else is

either. So every time we see God's

grace moving, our job is simply to

celebrate. Let's pray, friends.

God, we thank you that you are a God who

is able to

turn absolute brokenness into

healing, absolute evil into good. That

no one is too far from your grace. None

of us are too far from your

grace. So God, come and disrupt our

lives. Come and intervene. Shine

light into the

darkness. Show us where we are going in

the wrong direction and point us

somewhere else. Even if we have to be

led by the hand

there and call us into service to bring

this grace to the ends of the

earth. Amen.