The Crossroads of the World

If you'll remain standing, we'll read from the book of Acts,

Acts 9 · chapter mention

chapter 9, I'll be reading verse 1 through 25.

I would ask you to pay attention. I know you lost an hour of sleep last night,

but give attention, because what I'm about to read is the true and living Word of God.

But Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord,

went to the high priest and ask him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus,

so that if he found any belonging to the way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.

Now, as he went on his way, he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from

heaven shone around him, and falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying

to him, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?

And he said, Who are you, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.

But rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.

The men who were traveling with him stood speechless, hearing the voice, but seeing no one.

And Saul rose from the ground, and although his eyes were open, he saw nothing.

So they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. And for three days

he was without sight, and he neither ate nor drank.

Now there was a disciple at Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said to him in

a vision, Ananias. And he said, Here I am, Lord.

And the Lord said to him, Rise and go to the street called Straight,

and at the house of Judas look for a man of Tarsus named Saul.

For behold, he is praying, and he has seen a vision, a man named Ananias come

in and lay hands on him so that he might regain his sight.

Dananias answered, Lord, I've heard from many about this man,

how much evil he has done to your saints at Jerusalem.

And here he has authority from the chief priest to bind all who call on your name.

But the Lord said to him, Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry

my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel.

For I will show him how he must suffer for the sake of my name.

So Ananias departed and entered the house. And laying his hands on him, he said, Brother Saul,

the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road by which you came,

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 he regained his sight.

Then he rose and was baptized and taking food, he was strengthened.

For some days he was with his disciples at Damascus and immediately he proclaimed

Jesus in the synagogue saying, he is the son of God.

And all who heard him were amazed and said, is this not the man who once made

havoc in Jerusalem of those who called upon his name?

And he has now come here for this purpose to bring them bound before the chief priest.

But Saul increased all the more in strength and confounded the Jews who lived

in Damascus, proving that Jesus was the Christ.

When many days had passed, the Jews plotted to kill him, but their plot became known to Saul.

They were watching the gates day and night in order to kill him,

but his disciples took him by the night and led him down through an opening

in the wall, lowering him in a basket.

This is the word of the Lord.

Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we ask now as we do week by week that

your Holy Spirit would help us to see,

to understand, to respond the way we ought to respond and that ultimately you

might call us to Jesus Christ himself in whose name we pray, amen. You can be seated.

This morning, our story is about someone at a crossroads in life.

Perhaps some of you have, you could recall in your own mind,

where you have been at crossroads in your life, where either by your own choice,

you're looking at going one of two directions, or in some cases,

as is in the story this morning, it's not by our own choice.

We're just put on a crossroads, and we have to go forward.

And this setting, this crossroads setting, the title of the sermon is The Crossroads of the world.

This is one of the most important crossroads, if you will, or junctures in all of the Holy Scriptures.

It's a crossroads, by the way, is a very typical way that authors use.

It's what's called a literary motif.

You know, when authors are writing stories, they'll oftentimes put you in a

setting where someone is at a crossroads.

They have to make a decision or a decision has been made for them,

and they have to determine from there what goes on.

And many times, as is the case in our own lives, the decisions we make and the

direction we go will alter the course of our life irrevocably.

Things will never, ever be the same.

Some of you young people, you have crossroads in front of you.

You have to choose a spouse. Who am I gonna marry?

What job am I gonna take? And some of us old timers already made those choices,

but we also, even as old timers, have crossroads. What do we do when this happens, when that happens?

We see it a lot in scripture at the calling of patriarchs and leaders and prophets.

Genesis 12, for instance, just, I know you know the story, but let me read it.

It says, Now the Lord said to Abram, Go from your country and your kindred and

your father's house to the land that I will show you.

And I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name

great so that you will be a blessing.

I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse.

In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. When the Lord came to

Abram in Ur of the Chaldeans, we just read through that Ur of the Chaldeans,

where in the world is that? It was a very important city.

It was a commercial, political, and a military center of the Eastern world.

And as you look at the pieces of Abram's life there, you know he was a very

prosperous man with a large clan and a large family. We see that even when he's

sending people back and forth to family members.

So to leave that city would have been a monumental change in his life.

When he goes out with his camels and his goats and is actually a paramilitary

group, Abram was a very wealthy man and this would change the direction of his life.

And worst yet for him, he had to go towards an unknown future.

He knew Ur of the Chaldeans. He knew the people there. He knew his family,

but God said, go and I'll show you a land. It's unknown.

I made you a promise. So follow my word and go after my promise.

It's a very powerful crossroads setting. And again, in literature.

Authors use this a lot. I was even reminded of the old, the legend of,

I think it's Robert Johnson, you know, sings that where the guitar player went to a crossroads.

We've seen it in movies and stories where he, and the devil comes down and says,

I'll make you the best guitar player in the whole world if you sell the devil your soul.

That's like, okay, he did it.

And we see the results of that. So this is like a place at a point in which

a character development takes place, blessings or cursings take place,

something alters the course of history for that particular person.

And many times, as in the case of the guitar player, Robert Johnson,

it alters irrevocably towards a bad direction.

Many of you know the story of Hercules. You know where Hercules is put at a

crossroads and the gods come down and the choice in this classical allegory,

young Hercules should choose between two paths, a life of ease and pleasure

that we would say is vice or a life of hardship,

honor, and courage, which we would call virtue.

We know that Hercules chose the virtuous path and so forth.

In our story this morning, you may not see it because in our story,

we don't really have like Paul walking up and stopping and saying,

gee, should I go left or should I go right?

But the whole road and the whole city of Damascus points us to a very critical

juncture in Paul's life from which he never turns back and by which the whole

world and the whole course of

all of redemptive history is changed irrevocably, and all for the better.

It doesn't, again, take place at a crossroads fork, per se, but it does take

place on a street called Straight,

eventually, and that street called Straight is, historically speaking,

the place by which almost all the commerce in the whole world that came to the

east from the land went through Damascus.

Damascus, by the way, is the oldest continuously inhabited in the world that I know of.

Don't Google me. I think, check after church if I'm wrong. I don't care.

But it's a very important city historically.

And the one thing we do know is everything that came from the east came through Damascus.

Everything headed west from Persia on the land went to Damascus.

Everything from Babylon, present-day Iraq, went through Damascus.

Even as far away as India and China, it came through Damascus.

Things going east from what today is Europe also made their way over land through Damascus.

Of course, there were seaports and other routes, but everything in the world

that came through and into the east went to this place.

It's a staggering crossroads in terms of ancient Eastern history.

And our story takes place there. It's pretty amazing.

Now, Saul, we see at the beginning, is chasing someone down the road to Damascus,

going to Damascus in order to arrest people, people of what he calls the way.

And we know that that means by Ananias, the people who called upon the name of Jesus.

It's usually referred to as the way because Jesus referred to himself as the

way, the truth, and the life.

He's armed with what looks like legal letters of extradition from the synagogue

and the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem.

He's going to Damascus with the legal right to find anyone committed to Jesus

Christ and destroy them, arrest them.

And it does emphasize the treachery of Paul.

And Paul will also emphasize that in his own writings about himself.

He's an evil person with violent, murderous intent to destroy the church of

Jesus Christ without yet making the connection that as he hates and attempts to destroy the church,

he has put himself in direct warfare with God.

With God, in the person of Jesus Christ. And that's what he finds out.

On the road to Damascus, as he went, verse 9, verse 3 says, now,

as he went on his way, he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven shone around him.

And falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying, Saul, Saul,

why are you persecuting me?

Now, Saul will make the immediate connection between the voice to whom he's

speaking, but he doesn't know it's Jesus yet. He knows it's the Lord.

It's powerful when we will develop this. What happens to him here?

I don't know about you, but as a child, I always thought that lightning struck

and hit the horse like Martin Luther in the dark forest, and he fell off his horse.

But it doesn't look like lightning. The reason most people interpret it as lightning

is because it says suddenly.

So you might expect a thunderbolt out of nowhere and brightens up.

But you'll notice it says, the text indicates that a sudden light came from

heaven and engulfed him, surrounded him.

Okay. It's not lightning per se, but a glory cloud, light from God came down to our man.

It says that to shine, the word that's used means to shine very brightly in

an area surrounding an object.

And Paul was that object.

Again, not lightning, not a quick frightening experience, but the weight and

power of the glory of the Lord.

And he recognized here the voice of the Lord.

In the Hebrew Old Testament, kol Yahweh, that Hebrew phrase,

the voice of the Lord, was a very powerful phrase that usually indicated that

God from heaven was making his presence known on earth and you wouldn't want to be there.

Right? Oftentimes, when I remember we read the story in Genesis where Adam and

Eve were in the garden, it says, and the voice of the Lord, Kol Yahweh,

came into the garden in the cool of the day.

I always thought by cool of the day, like God was walking through the garden

saying, Adam, Adam, where are you?

And I was wondering, well, why are they hiding? It's just God. They usually know.

What happened in the garden of Eden is the voice of the Lord,

the thundering, powerful, mighty presence of the Lord came down.

The wind may have been blowing.

The scriptures tell us that it's like the sound of rushing waters or the movement

of mighty armies. It's an overwhelming presence.

That's why Adam and Eve ran for their lives and hid.

You see, the voice of the Lord coming down to the earth is not something that's easily endured.

And our text tells us that the light of the glory cloud presence of God,

remember, this is the same glory cloud presence that took Christ up to heaven

at the beginning of our whole story.

He wasn't floating on a little white cloud going up until they couldn't see him anymore.

This was the presence of the angelic hosts of God, the mighty,

powerful, sometimes theologians call them throne room guardians.

You just read an entire description of them in Ezekiel.

I don't know about the rest of you, but when I read that, I'm like,

wow, can you even imagine Ezekiel's response to that?

These beings with faces of this and that and hooves and wheels and voices and

all these eyes and a mighty light and sounding winds and the rushing presence.

Of course, the prophet Ezekiel responded by falling down.

I want us to note the similarities. Remember, it says, as he describes these

creatures with wings and wings that touched each other and cover their bodies

and they could move all, they could be everywhere all at once immediately.

Like a mighty army, sometimes, by the way, when you hear the phrase,

the Lord of hosts, the Lord Sabaot in Hebrew, Yahweh Sabaot,

doesn't mean the Lord of the Sabbath.

It's in Martin Luther's song, right? Lord Sabaot. It doesn't mean Lord of the Sabbath.

It means Lord of hosts, the Lord God of the heavenly armies,

the throne room guardians of God, this powerful presence.

And then he says, Ezekiel said, such was the presence and likeness of the glory

of the Lord. And when I saw it, I fell on my face.

And I heard the voice of one speaking, just like Paul. It's similar to the experience

that the prophet Isaiah had in Isaiah chapter 6.

Isaiah 6 · chapter mention

He said, I saw the Lord sitting upon his throne, high and lifted up.

The train of his robe filled the temple.

Above him stood seraphim, each had six wings. And with two they covered their

face, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew.

And one called to the other and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Sabaoth, the Lord of hosts.

The whole earth is filled with his glory and

the foundations get this now the foundations of

the threshold shook at the voice of

him who called and the house was filled with smoke and i said woe is me for

i am lost i'm a man of unclean lips and i dwell in the midst of unclean people

for my eyes have seen the king the lord of hosts and he fell down ezekiel the

prophet in the coming of the light and glory presence of God fell down.

Isaiah the prophet in the presence of the light and power and glory of the Lord fell down.

And that's what we see here in our text this morning. We don't just see a bolt

of lightning, Paul falling off. He can't see, doesn't know what to do, hears something.

No, the presence of the Lord came down and surrounded him.

It's a magnificent experience. It's an incredible sight.

Sometimes we're reading as if Paul's riding on a horse and we just keep going

to Damascus to find out what happens next.

But we need to stop here for a moment because Paul does.

Paul's definitely stopped. And not only has Paul stopped, as we'll see in a

moment, This changes the entire course of his life, his ministry,

his teaching, his theology, everything.

And the life, teaching, and theology of the whole church and the rest, the whole of the world.

He fell down and Jesus spoke to him.

This is, and then the amazing thing is that he responds immediately,

not knowing yet it's Jesus. He says, yes, Lord.

He uses the Greek kurios, which also connects it to Yahweh.

Paul knows in this glory cloud presence of the Lord that this is the true and

living mighty God, the God that he said was supposedly serving.

He recognized this immediately.

By the way, and this will affect Paul's theology, which will develop next week.

Paul never taught this whole theology about salvation. Like,

well, gee, when the Lord comes, you gotta make a choice.

Gotta make that choice because it's up to you, right? Heard the old preacher

say, It's like you're thrown in prison and the warden comes and unlocks the

gate and rolls it open and says, if you want to, you can be free,

but it's all up to you. Ha!

Tell that to Paul. Paul's like on his face on the ground, pleading,

yes, Lord, not knowing what's going to happen next. Who are you?

It's the Lord of glory. And when he makes the connection between the Lord of

glory, the Lord of hosts, Lord Sabaoth, the mighty, holy, perfect,

amazing God who created the heavens and the earth. He makes the connection with Jesus Christ.

What an overwhelming experience.

An overwhelming experience that's so important, not just for Paul, but for all of us.

The Lord of glory, the Lord of creation,

the Lord who brought the waters of the flood in the days of Noah,

the Lord who saved our father Noah, the Lord who called out Abram,

the Lord who smashed the armies of the giants in the promised land,

the Lord of glory, that's Jesus Christ.

Paul comes face-to-face with this. And as I said, the entire nature of his ministry

and theology will flow out of this experience, as ours also should.

So let me make a gigantic understatement here and say this, Paul's conversion is pretty important.

Okay? The Bible gives us a lot of dramatic conversion scenes and calls.

There's nothing like the conversion and the confrontation with Paul.

It is the most radical conversion story recorded in the Bible, in my opinion.

Okay, argue with me later, but

it's certainly the most dramatic in the New Testament, without a doubt.

We can't underestimate the importance of Saul's conversion here.

Luke records it in Acts three different times, and Paul himself will mention

it over and over in various connected ways.

Again, Acts, it's a threefold repetition. And when you read biblical literature,

you pay attention to things that are repeated three times.

It's a common sort of Deuteronomic way of reminding us this is important.

Peter's denial three times, Peter's restoration three times.

And this thricefold repetition of this conversion story means for us,

especially in the book of Acts, this is central and important.

Paul's theology, his lifestyle, his ministry, his methodology are all rooted

in what we see here in this story this morning.

I do want to pause though and say something that I think is helpful for us as

a church and to note something.

Though Paul's conversion experience is theologically central to who we are and

all of us must confront it, Paul's conversion experience is not normative.

Okay? It's not normative. Now, I grew up in a church thinking it was the norm, right?

I grew up in a church where we were all supposed to say, I've met the Lord on the road to Damascus.

And we even had an entire worship service structured around a dramatic conversion experience.

The first time, I'll never forget, I went to a Reformed church,

a little Reformed Baptist church in Beaver Creek.

At the time, it was called Kemp Road Baptist Church. Love that little group.

And I remember going through the service. I was stunned, by the way,

on a remarkable number of things that didn't occur or did occur.

But one thing that struck me when it was all over, we sang a hymn,

the preacher pronounced the benediction, and we got up to go home.

And I literally looked at my buddy from Cedarville and said,

how does anyone get saved without an altar call?

How does anyone come to Jesus if they don't have, if they don't sing just as I am at least once?

I mean, I'm telling you, my mind was like, my mind went tilt like an old pinball

machine. I was like, I just stopped.

And I literally believed that that entire model of ministry around a dramatic

conversion experience was the way people get saved.

And most of it is modeled around this unique experience on the road to Damascus.

I can't tell you countless numbers of stories where people give testimonies.

There's a, you know, you have a series of line at church camp giving a testimony

and the more grotesque and the more dramatic your conversion experience in,

the better we feel so that the poor covenant child at the end of the line that

wants to testify about Jesus just says, I got nothing.

I never sold drugs, never joined a gang, never became a prostitute.

I just love Jesus. Boring, right?

People actually, I can talk to people, they feel embarrassed that they don't

have a road to Damascus conversion experience.

It's worth thinking about. Again, some of you may have that. Praise God for it.

And praise God for the former hell's angel guy and former, praise God.

Praise God. But it's not normative. You shouldn't necessarily expect it.

And you certainly shouldn't raise your children for that model.

Right? And children in the covenant church should not be raised after,

well, why don't you go out and try to join again? Bang.

Then when you get saved, we'll really have a testimony. No, we need to think

about the difference between Paul's conversion and conversionism.

Conversionism, where people say this is the way, and this tends to be the basic

direction of the vast majority of evangelical churches in our nation.

And that tends to devaluate the faith of our children who grow up in the Lord.

I had a recent experience. I found it funny, and the young man now thinks it's funny too.

A friend of mine's son was at the gym working out with his buddies.

They're all in their 20s, which is pretty cool. And they're all talking about

God and theology and the Bible.

They're arguing about dispensationalism and covenant theology.

And an older fellow comes up and says, hey, guys, well, it's great to hear young

people talking about the Lord. And they said, yeah, I love Jesus.

And he said, when did you get saved?

He pointed to the first one. And the first one, like many of us,

could say, you know, it was September 7th. And I went forward and said the sinner's

prayer. Amen. Hallelujah.

What about you, son? My friend's son, growing up in a Presbyterian church.

He goes, I've always believed in Jesus.

Oh, got a hot one. Got a hot one here. This guy, he must be a Roman Catholic.

He's got to be Roman Catholic because the Roman Catholics, you know,

they baptize them and tell them they're saved just because they're in the church.

And my poor friend's son spent the next 15 minutes arguing with the guy. I do love Jesus.

I really do. No, you got to be saved. You've got to have a point in time where

you didn't and then you did.

He goes, I don't remember such a time. And the guy's like, man,

you're not saved. Can you imagine?

20 some year old kid working out. Most guys are in the gym, you know,

looking at their muscles.

This kid's talking theology with his buddies and the guy's trying to get him unsaved.

It's astonishing. It's because he has this view that the road to Damascus is

the paradigm or pattern for all conversion experiences.

Now, I'm telling you right now, it doesn't mean we don't want them. I want them. I love them.

And the more the church is full of covenant children who are catechized unto

their conversion, you see, the Lord can slowly convert us.

And it's not because I'm confusing justification with sanctification,

but the Lord in his mysterious work of the Holy Spirit can convert and change

and call us to be at the same place with Paul on the road to Damascus theologically.

And that's where we all need to be.

Don't misunderstand me, but I want to encourage us, and especially you young

people, you covenant children, you have a wonderful testimony.

If all you say is, I've never known a day when I didn't love Jesus.

That's what we want. We also want some of you bad people, right?

Road to Damascus kinds, and I know you're out there.

That you can't say, oh man, I was heading for hell and destruction.

And the Lord struck me just like he did Paul. And I say, praise the Lord for you.

And I also say that the more the church is full of both kinds of people,

the more vibrant and wonderful the life of the church is.

My point is simply, and I'm telling you, when you get one of those guys,

you get one of those road to Damascus guys, and he comes to your men breakfast,

man, he's going to say, what are we going to do to save the world? Let's get out there.

What's wrong with you people? Well, you're lazy, let's go evangelize. Wonderful.

But we need both. And we need to understand that this is not a pattern for conversion.

It doesn't become a pattern for conversionism. That's all I'll say for now.

We need to be careful about this because we also all need, and you young people, the same thing.

You need to come to the point in your life where you see what Paul saw,

where you see the glory of the Lord in Jesus Christ alone.

And it changes your life.

It puts you and moves you on a direction like Paul towards life and love and

service of Jesus Christ for the glory of the Lord. We need that.

Wherever you are on that spectrum, whether you're very, very young in your faith,

along the way, we all need what Paul had.

And Paul's an extraordinary man, by the way. Paul's not an ordinary guy.

The Lord saves us and works in church history through many ordinary average

people like us. But Paul was no ordinary average person.

He was an extraordinary character and personality. He would have come from the

Harvard of the Jewish school studying.

Remember we said under Gamaliel, he spoke Greek, he spoke Hebrew,

he spoke Latin, he spoke multiple languages.

He was a well-trained rabbinic scholar. He could stand before people and break into Hebrew.

He could stand before people and speak eloquently in Latin and Greek. He was an amazing man.

Wasn't ordinary. This means that God, for some reason, wants us to pay attention to his lives.

Remember I said last week, we don't get really careful descriptions about people

unless the Lord wants us to know them.

And so Saul, we know, was born in Tarsus of Cilicia, present-day Turkey.

Father was a Roman citizen, so he was born a Roman citizen. We'll see that in Acts.

As it plays out, he uses that citizenship for his benefit and for the glory

of the Lord multiple times.

According to Jerome, in church tradition, Paul's parents were natives of a small

town in Galilee, and they brought him to Tarsus, which was captured by the Romans.

So we don't know too much about that, but we do know that Paul's illustrious

training, history, and zeal, this is a man, as you can see, that had extraordinary

zeal, even murderous, violent zeal.

Paul's one of these guys that has like one speed, fast and faster, right?

Loud and louder. It's like, this is an extraordinary person.

But you'll notice that God takes all of that and transforms it for his glory,

sets him on a road to Damascus and from Damascus to the rest of the world for

the glory of God, and changes his name to Paul, which is common with conversion experiences.

And when God calls people out, like Abram, he changes his name from Abram to

Abraham, father of many nations.

Here Paul's name going from Saulus, a Hebrew, to Paulus, a Latin name now,

a Greek-Latin name that would connect him more with the Gentiles.

His mission would now be to see the Great Commission taken to the Gentiles.

F.F. Bruce says this, he says, Paul's understanding of the sovereign grace of

God is like the fountain from which flowed the rich, multifaceted theology that

continues to boggle the mind and move the soul.

Those are two things I would encourage you to think about as you're confronted

with this story. And we'll spend more time on it next week.

It's one where, sorry, but the pastor's putting us in low gear here and shifting gears to low gear.

And we're going to think about and think through this a little bit.

Because, as I said, it colors the whole of the rest of the New Testament that's written by Paul.

Few distinctive insights in the significance of the gospel cannot be traced

back to the road to Damascus experience and the outworking of this man's life

into our very existence today.

First, you'll notice the sovereign power of God to do whatever he wants to do.

I'll develop that more next week. And this is not just me, the Calvinist Presbyterian,

trying to take an opportunity to talk about predestination and election.

But literally, this is the power of God to say to this man who really could

be described as almost like a fire-breathing dragon and change him completely.

That's why Paul can say anyone who's in Christ is a new creation, a new creature.

Literally, it describes him filled with rage and murder and breathing out threats

to men and women. Was he seeking the Lord?

Was he on his way to find Jesus? Was he a seeker? He hated the Lord.

He didn't know it was Jesus connected. He hated Jesus and was out to destroy.

And Paul would use this in his own ministry to say, if God can save someone

like me, God can save anybody he wants from the light to the heavy or the heavy

to the light. Paul uses that a lot. It's a rabbinical tool.

If God can do such a thing as he did in my conversion, he can save any one of

you and he will save whoever he wants.

Because he's the Lord. Jesus Christ, remember, now connected to the Lord of

glory, the Lord of hosts, the almighty, all-powerful, holy God. That is Jesus Christ.

We don't often see it displayed in the New Testament, especially since the focus

is Christ's love, sacrifice, crucifixion, and sorrow and suffering.

But here we catch a glimpse that Paul is saying, this God who saves is the Lord

of glory. That's why he can say, I'm not ashamed of the gospel.

Nothing could make me ashamed. No emperor, no ruler, no government,

because it is the power of God unto salvation for anyone who believes.

There's no one too dark. There's no sin that's too much for God to overcome.

There's no person that's done so much wrong that God can't save them. You may not believe it.

Sometimes we look at people in our lives and say, you kind of have to put the flesh down.

You say, not only do I think God won't save him? I kind of hope he doesn't.

Like this guy needs judgment.

It took the church, you know, a while to also shift gears themselves.

This guy, Ananias was like, wait a minute.

This guy has letters in his hand to arrest me, and you're telling me to go heal him and bless him?

Wait a minute. But this also, there's no sin too dark from which you can't recover.

There's no pit too deep from which God cannot rescue a sinner.

This will all be part of Paul's glorious theology as he preaches and teaches the gospel.

Paul even says it. This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance that

Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am the chief.

And he wasn't making it up.

He wasn't using some preacherly exaggeration, as we may be inclined to do from

time to time. He meant it.

I hated Jesus Christ, and I sought to kill and destroy his people.

And if God can save me, he can save anyone.

Before his conversion, Paul was a hateful, murderous man, but Jesus who was

rich in mercy. And Paul talks about this in his letters.

We were once dead in our transgressions and sin, but God made us alive in Christ,

gave us a new life, regenerated us, set us on a completely different path.

All this glorious theology that flows from Paul happens right here in our story.

Is it happening to you? That's the question. I think, wait, you just said you

weren't going to try to convert us.

I'm not trying to get you dramatically saved. I'm asking you if this is the direction of your life.

Do you desire God? From this point forward, when Paul was confronted with the

glory of God, he began to desire God and his glory above all else.

That's why he can say almost off the cuff, for me to live is Christ to die, that's gain.

This comes from this confrontation with the glorious presence of God in the person of Jesus Christ.

I was drawn when I was thinking about this to the work of John Piper in his

book. I remember I got it years ago called Desiring God.

And Piper was developing what he himself and others would call Christian hedonism.

Now, you know, if you know the roots of hedonism, it's a philosophy that says

you're supposed to live for pleasure.

To the founders, two founders, sort of Epicurus and others, original credit,

they at least define pleasure more in terms of philosophy and intellectual studies, et cetera.

It's safe to say that their followers did not.

So when you put the idea of hedonism, like living to be satisfied,

living for your own pleasure, but Piper turns it all on his head and says this

phrase that is pretty common.

And said, God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.

And then as we find our pleasure in the glory of the Lord, our lives have satisfaction

and meaning even in the worst of times, which is also what Paul can say.

I've learned to be content, whether I have a lot or don't have anything,

because I find my satisfaction, my pleasure in Christ.

And Piper develops this idea, and I would encourage you to read it.

Desiring God is pretty humongous. I remember that's the one of the things like, this is a big book.

And I don't buy everything Piper says. I throw that qualification out always.

But I love this brother's work in this where he said he looked around in life

and he said, who are the most happy people, the most satisfied people?

They are the people who live for finding their pleasure in the glory of the

Lord, in the glory of the Lord.

He said he found it most importantly from C.S. Lewis and Jonathan Edwards,

but also from his own father.

Who just said, this guy's happy all the time.

He finds satisfaction. How does he do it? He has the joy of the glory of the

Lord as his ultimate desire.

Therefore, he says, we should live for pleasure, but not our personal pleasure.

We should live for finding our pleasure and satisfaction in God.

Says, no, your desires aren't the problem. The weakness of your desires are the problem.

You're like a child fooling about in slums with your mud pies because you can't

imagine what a holiday at sea is like.

In other words, your desires for the great things God is offering you is really too small.

Think about that. When we spout off the Westminster Shorter Catechism,

it's getting at this very thing. What is your chief end?

What is the purpose that God put you here for? Is it not to glorify him and what?

Enjoy him forever. That is our chief end, to find our pleasure in the glory of the Lord.

Jonathan Edwards was probably the biggest influence when God creates human beings.

He said they are in his image so that we might glorify God, both by having a

right idea of him, true doctrine, and by having passionate emotions.

Something in our circles, we need to make sure we keep together here.

You can't say, you certainly can't say this about Paul. He was just,

he only wanted to argue doctrine.

No, he lived passionately for that doctrine.

Right doctrine and passionate affections. Edward was gone to write in many ways

that that's the mark of someone truly committed to Jesus Christ.

Properly ordered affections.

And to what are they ordered? The glory of God in the person of Jesus Christ.

It's true. God, I think is most glorified in us or Christ most magnified in

us when we find our satisfaction in him. Do you?

Not in terms of I was a gang member and now I'm not, but in terms of is my life really like Paul's?

Have I come face to face with the glory of the Lord?

Have I fallen down and recognized what it is about this magnificent,

beautiful God that loves me so much that now everything I do is dedicated passionately

to his glory and his service?

Whether it's dramatic or not, that's our response. And by the way, always the response is,

you notice the prophets, and I would ask you if you're in the same position,

the response is always, when the glory of the Lord comes to them and the voice

of the Lord speaks out to them, what do they say? Let me think about it.

No, the prophet says, here I am. Yes, Lord, what do you want of me? What's the direction?

And if you're not asking that question passionately and affectionately in your

own life, reconsider it.

So that your desire is for the glory of the Lord and the person of Jesus Christ.

And you can say with Paul, for me to live is Christ. To die, it's gain.

So that as the psalmist would say, and this is the desire you see in Psalm 20, we read Psalm 23 a lot.

The verse 6 says, surely the goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days

of my life. And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

It should be our longing. It should be our passion. It's part of what you should

get here at church, not just from a sermon, but from the presence of the Lord as we worship him.

I don't know about the rest of you. I look forward to Sunday.

I get to preach. I know I'm cheating, but I look forward to being together with

people who love each other and love the Lord and direct their attention to the

glory of the Lord together. It's what we're made for.

Psalm 27, verse 4 says, One thing I have asked of the Lord, and that will I

Psalms 27:4

seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life

to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple.

That's the passionate direction of Paul's life.

That's the passionate direction that should be the life of every Christian.

Regardless of your conversion experience, sooner or later, you need to come

face to face with the glory of the Lord and say, this is my passion.

This is my passion. That's why Paul could say in various things,

and we'll cover this next week, we'll develop it.

That's why Paul could say in Romans 11, Oh, the depths of the riches of both

the wisdom and knowledge and power of God. How unsearchable are his judgments.

His ways are past finding out. For who has known the mind of God,

the Lord, or who has become his counselor, or who has first given to him,

and it shall be repaid to him.

For of him and through him and

to him are all things To whom be the glory forever Amen Let's pray Lord,

as we consider Paul's conversion And Paul's theology and Paul's life and Paul's words Lord,

help us to reflect on our own lives Help us to ask very simply As we come to

the Lord's table Am I finding and seeking my full, complete satisfaction in Jesus Christ.

Help us to feed on that this morning as we partake of your body and your blood

for you have given yourself for us because you love us so much.

The Lord of glory, Jesus Christ, has come down and died for us and loves us.

Lord, renew in us the passionate affection to seek and desire the glory of the

Lord, just like Paul and just as all of us in Christ are called to do and be.

For we pray this in Jesus' name, amen.