Saul Meets Jesus

Well, again, let me welcome you this morning.

I am, I've been loving this series in Acts because it's just, it's the kind of thing

that we have to come back to again and again and again as we think about what it means

to be the church.

And after this past year, I think it's just become clear to all of us that we need to be

reminded why we're here, what we're here to do.

And so for that reason, we're looking at this text.

The idea being that as we remember what the early church was like, the role they played

in Roman society, we can get clarity on what we're called to be like in D.C. society.

And as we look at the future of our church in D.C., one of the things that we are praying

for, one of the things that I'm praying for most is to see more adult conversions, is

to see more older children and adults, either people who have left the faith, people who've

never been exposed to the faith, coming in, falling in love with Jesus, giving their lives

to Jesus and being baptized.

And that's, I feel like God has just put that in my heart and I'm just praying and praying

and praying to see that in the years to come.

Now, I know that that statement probably makes a lot of people feel uncomfortable.

And it makes non-Christians feel comfortable.

And some of you are here and you're not Christians and you're like, man, this is the absolute wrong

Sunday to be here.

But there are a lot of Christians actually, maybe even more Christians than non-Christians,

who get really uncomfortable when we talk about adult conversions.

Because that whole idea of sharing your faith, convincing somebody else to believe what you

believe, is very taboo in our society.

It's just one of the things that civil people don't do in our society.

My sense of why we get so uncomfortable is that, at least in part, we have a lot of misconceptions

about conversion.

And I think that Christians and non-Christians alike have a lot of misconceptions about Christian

conversion, what it is and what it's not.

And so I want to clear up some of those misconceptions this morning by looking at, hands down, the most

famous Christian conversion in all of history, which is the conversion of Saul, the persecutor

of Christians, to Paul, the apostle who wrote many of the letters of the New Testament.

We're going to be looking primarily at the passage in Acts 9 that I read, but we're also going

to look a little bit at Acts 22 and Acts 26, where we see further retellings of his

conversion story.

And then we're going to draw from some of his letters as well and try to understand

what conversion is and what it's not.

And there are a lot of details that are unique to Paul's conversion.

We're not going to focus on those as much.

What we're going to do is to draw out three features of Paul's conversion that I think would

apply to any conversion out there.

So let's, with that in mind, ask the Lord to guide us, and then we'll open God's word

together.

Lord, we thank you for your word.

And as we will see today, your word, your gospel has its own power.

It doesn't depend on our rhetoric, our force of persuasion.

It doesn't depend on our production value.

Somehow your word, your gospel, goes out from you, accomplishes all that you intend for it

to accomplish in the power of your spirit in ways that are sometimes in spite of us.

And Lord, I pray for myself and for us that you would use your word to accomplish your will in us,

even if it has to be in spite of us, in spite of me.

And I pray this for your glory, that your name would be lifted above all others.

In Jesus' name, amen.

So the first thing we see as we look at Paul's story, his conversion,

one of the things that I think is very clear in this text from the outset

is that conversion begins not with us, but with God.

It begins not with us, but with God.

Luke opens by telling us three things in the first couple of verses.

He tells us three things.

Number one, Paul is still breathing threats and murder against Christians.

He's walking along and he's grumbling and fantasizing

about all of the horrendous things that he wants to do

to these Christians when he finds them.

That's the first thing.

Number two, Paul has gotten an extradition order from the high priest

authorizing him to drag any Christians he finds in Damascus back to Jerusalem for trial,

to bind them and to drag them back to Jerusalem for trial.

And number three, he's on his way to Damascus to do just that.

So Paul is not sort of seeking Jesus at this point in his life.

And Luke wants to make that clear.

He's not seeking Jesus.

The whole point of the story is Jesus is the one seeking Paul.

It's clear from the very beginning.

But there's more going on than that.

There's more going on than just this miraculous appearance on the road.

We often think of the Damascus road experience as this sudden dramatic event, right?

Somebody is on the streets and addicted to heroin and robbing banks

and then they meet Jesus and then everything changes.

And that's kind of how we think of a Damascus road experience.

But if you know Paul's story, God has actually been working in his life for some time.

Now, Saul is a Pharisee and the Pharisees were generally opposed to the teachings of Jesus and the early Christians.

But the thing you have to understand about Paul is,

Paul's hatred of Christians went far beyond his colleagues.

It went far beyond his colleagues.

Paul's mentor, Gamaliel, had encouraged a posture of caution and leniency toward the Christians.

But Paul had broken away from his mentor and Paul had become a fanatic.

Paul saw Christians as pure evil, as heretics who were tearing apart the Jewish way of life.

And he believed that he was doing God's will by murdering as many of them as possible.

I mean, get that into your mind.

I'm glorifying God by murdering as many of these people as possible.

So you ask, well, why was Paul such a fanatic?

What's the source of his fanaticism?

Carl Jung, the analyst, once said this.

He says, fanaticism is only found in individuals who are compensating for secret doubts.

That's a really important point.

Right?

So then we have to ask the question,

was Paul's fanaticism due to the fact that he was compensating for secret doubts?

In Paul's own account of his conversion in Acts chapter 26,

Acts 26 · chapter mention

at one point, Jesus says to him,

it's hard for you to kick against the goads.

You say, what does that mean?

Well, a goad is like a long stick with a pointy end.

It's like a cattle prod,

and you use it to get livestock to go in the direction that you want them to go.

So then you ask, well, what does this mean?

What were the goads in Paul's life?

What was goading him?

A few things.

Right?

Number one, commentators say it's very likely that Saul and Jesus were roughly the same age.

And so it's very likely, being in a small geographic area,

that they would have been around each other,

maybe even met earlier in life.

It's very possible that in one of the places in the Gospels

where you see Jesus and you see the Pharisees

kind of standing off to the side and grumbling,

it's very likely that Paul was among those Pharisees,

watching Jesus teach,

watching Jesus heal,

watching the way the crowds responded to him.

And these experiences may have goaded Paul,

punching little holes of doubt in his certainty.

Right?

And then there was the matter of Stephen.

We saw not too long ago

that Saul was standing there,

giving approval to what was happening.

He was overseeing the events of the murder of Stephen

when Stephen fell to his knees,

the rocks crashing into his body and into his head.

Stephen crying out,

seeing a vision of the glory of God,

Jesus at the right hand of the Father.

Stephen crying out in prayer,

God, please forgive the sins

of those who are killing me.

Please don't hold this against them.

And Saul,

this pious man,

had been taught to believe that Christians were evil heretics,

that they represented everything that was wrong in the world.

But this did not fit the stereotype.

Stephen had the face of an angel.

This isn't an evil person.

He's praying that God would forgive me,

even as I approve his execution.

Surely that haunted him in the late hours of the night.

Then there was probably moral doubt.

You know,

Saul was exemplary in every way.

No offense,

he was probably a better person than all of us.

He had kept almost all of the commandments

in word and deed his entire life

since he was very young.

But what about his heart?

What about that last commandment?

Thou shalt not covet.

You know,

all the other commandments

you can keep in word and deed,

more or less,

but coveting is different.

Coveting is not a word.

It's not a deed.

It's a feeling.

And I don't know about you,

but when I realize

that I am struggling with coveting something,

I don't remember making the choice to do it.

I catch myself red-handed in the act of coveting.

And that's how it often happens.

Had he really never coveted anything or anyone

in his whole life?

So Paul's fanaticism was very likely

an attempt to compensate for secret doubts

as the Spirit goaded him toward Jesus.

And you know, here's the thing.

Everyone, everywhere, struggles with doubt.

Christians struggle with doubt.

Non-Christians struggle with doubt.

Sometimes it's just doubt.

Human beings doubt.

It's kind of what it means to be a human being.

What this shows us, though,

is that sometimes,

for those people who are not followers of Jesus,

they're not just doubts.

Sometimes,

as a non-Christian,

when you are doubting your certainty

that Jesus is a fraud,

that Christians are wrong,

sometimes when that doubt creeps in,

it's actually the work of the Holy Spirit

beginning to goad you,

beginning to poke holes in your certainty.

Sometimes it's the work of the Lord in your life.

You know, I think of the example of Cy Gart,

who is a research biochemist.

He's been a tenured professor at NYU

and at Rutgers and University of Pittsburgh.

And he wrote about his Christian conversion.

And I love his story.

He talks about being raised

in a staunchly Marxist,

atheistic household.

His dad made sure that he was a staunch atheist

and a staunch Marxist.

And his dad taught him,

always ask questions,

question everything.

Right?

And so he grew up believing

in the power of reason,

the power of science

to sort of explain everything.

But then,

cracks began to appear.

Cracks began to appear

in his watertight worldview.

He began to see inconsistencies

in the worldview his parents had given him.

He writes this.

He says,

if humans were a blind product

of evolutionary chance

with no special purpose or significance,

then how could the stated goals of socialism

to advance human dignity and value

make sense?

He's like,

how can we believe

that humans have dignity and value

if we're just a blind product of chance?

And then he began to ask questions

that science simply could not answer.

He began to wonder,

where did the universe come from?

How did life begin?

What does it mean to be a human being?

What's the source of our creativity?

Of art?

Of poetry?

Of music?

And humor?

And then he began to meet Christians

who were highly educated.

He began to meet Christians

who were scientifically minded.

And his whole perception of Christianity

began to shift.

And what he would say

is that all of these were like cracks

in the ceiling of his worldview.

He had a nice, orderly worldview.

He knew the good guys and the bad guys.

He kind of knew what he believed.

And all of a sudden,

these cracks started to appear in the ceiling.

Light started shining through.

And he had to figure out

what to do with that.

Right?

That's how God began working in his life.

That ultimately led him to faith.

So the first thing that we want to make clear

is that conversion begins with God.

Right?

For some of us,

this happens before we have any conscious memories.

You know, some of you were baptized as babies.

You grew up in the church.

You never knew a day apart from the Lord.

And praise God for that.

For other people,

it begins when the Spirit of God

starts to put cracks in the ceiling

of your worldview.

Inconsistencies.

Questions you can't answer.

Unfulfilled longings.

So this is the first thing.

Conversion begins with God.

The second thing we see in Paul's conversion

is that conversion calls us not to moralism,

but it calls us away from moralism.

It calls us not to moralism,

but it calls us away from moralism.

Now when I say moralism,

you know, moralism comes in many forms.

Lots of different kinds of moralism.

But moralism basically means

believing that life is about being a good person.

And most people out there think

at the end of the day,

what life is really about,

whatever you believe,

what life is really about

is being a good person.

That's all that really matters.

Paul lived in a very highly moralistic society,

and religion in Paul's culture

was all about keeping God's law.

And it was especially focused

on keeping the external aspects of the law.

Be circumcised,

keep the Sabbath,

tithe.

I would argue that we also live

in a highly moralistic society,

and I would actually argue in some ways

I think we live in a more moralistic society.

Because we don't just have

one kind of moralism,

we have what we would call

a kind of moral pluralism.

There are lots of different

moralities out there.

And in our society,

we might think of

our moral pluralism

tends to generally fall along political lines.

Right?

So your politics, to a large degree,

shape your morality

for the average person in our society.

So roughly broad categories,

we can sort of think of

there's kind of red state morality,

and then there's like blue state morality.

Right?

So red state morality,

a love for freedom,

love for God,

love for country,

tends to hold to the kind of

traditional Judeo-Christian values

around marriage and sexuality.

But when you bring up things

like social justice,

when you bring up things

like structural racism,

people get really nervous

if they live in a kind of

red state morality society.

And then on the other side,

you have blue state morality.

And largely speaking,

you know, this is all

rough, crude categories,

but blue state morality

actually co-ops

a lot of the Christian values

around things like justice,

equality,

universal human rights,

care for the poor.

Right?

Very serious about ending

all forms of racism.

Right?

But it de-emphasizes

the need to believe in God

or really anything.

And then it swaps out

the Judeo-Christian view

of human nature,

which sees human beings

as sinful

and in need of grace.

And in its place,

it holds on to a kind of

post-enlightenment view

of human nature

that comes from people

like Rousseau,

Marx,

Freud.

It's a view of human nature

that says humans

are inherently good

and it's society

that's corrupt.

It says that our true self

is defined by our feelings

and that we're morally obligated

to express that to the world.

And it says that any traditions

or institutions

or religions

that get in the way of that

are oppressive

and need to be overturned.

Alright,

so this is kind of

two distinct moral worlds

that people live in

that are largely shaped

by politics.

And here's the point

I want to make.

A lot of people think,

a lot of people assume

that becoming a Christian

basically means shifting

from blue state morality

to red state morality.

I can't tell you

how many conversations

I've had with people

where that's essentially

what they think

being a Christian is.

It's shifting

from blue state morals

and adopting red state morals.

Because I ask,

you know,

what's the hesitation for you?

And what they describe

is I'm just not sure

I can embrace

what essentially amounts

to red state morality.

Right?

And so it's all about

what morals you have.

And if we look at Paul's story,

we have to realize

this couldn't be further

from the truth

of what Paul experienced.

Before Paul met Jesus,

he thought very highly

of himself.

I mean,

in Philippians 3,

Paul says,

if anyone could have been

confident of God's approval,

if anyone could be confident

that when they walked

up to the gate,

God would say,

we've been waiting for you.

Come on in.

Right?

If anybody could say that,

it would have been Paul,

he says.

He says,

you know,

I was a Hebrew of Hebrews.

When it comes to righteousness

under the law,

I was blameless.

But then Paul comes

face to face

with Jesus.

And when Paul sees Jesus

in all of his glory,

when he sees that blinding light

that is so magnificent,

that is so overwhelming,

that it blinds him,

when he realizes

that Jesus is the Son of God

who has defeated death

and he is standing there,

in the flesh,

it changes everything.

Right?

And the first thing

that it changes for Paul

is the way he sees himself.

In that light,

he sees himself clearly,

maybe for the first time

in his life.

And his knees buckle.

And he falls to the ground.

In the light of Jesus' glory,

Paul sees the truth,

not just about himself,

but all human beings,

which he writes about

in Romans chapter 3.

Romans 3 · chapter mention

He says, you know,

I used to think the world

was divided into good guys

and bad guys.

I used to think I knew

who the good guys were

and who the bad guys were.

And I knew by the morals.

I knew by the way they lived.

And then I met Jesus.

And I realized,

there's no difference.

There's no difference.

He says,

for there is no distinction

between anyone,

Jew, Gentile,

red state,

blue state.

There's no difference.

It doesn't matter.

He says,

here's the truth I realized

when I saw Jesus.

All of us have sinned.

We all fall short

of that glory.

I've never met

a human being in my life

who comes close

to what I saw on the road.

I've never met anyone

who could hold a candle

to that light.

It was so bright.

It was noon.

And the glory of Jesus

was so bright

that it blotted out the sun.

I've never seen anything like it.

But this doesn't lead

Paul to despair.

See,

that could easily lead you

to say,

well man,

it's hopeless.

Let's give up.

But it has the opposite

impact on Paul.

It leads him to a joyous revelation

which he goes on to say

in verse 24

in Romans 3.

He says,

therefore we're justified

by his grace

as a gift.

He gets it.

Oh,

I can't ever attain this.

It has to be given to me

through the redemption

that is in Christ Jesus

whom God put forward

as a propitiation

by his blood

to be received

by faith.

Propitiation,

what does that mean?

Here's what it means.

Jesus didn't come

to be an example

for us to follow.

He came to be a substitution.

He came to take our place.

To live the life

we should have lived.

To die the death

that we deserve to die.

To take our place

on the cross

and give us

his place

at the table.

Right?

Life is not about

being a good person.

Conversion is not about

shifting from

red state morality

to blue state morality.

Life,

the reason that you're here

is that you might

come to know

Jesus Christ

entirely through

the gift

of his grace

that he gives you.

That's the gospel.

And that's only possible

when you come

face to face

with the hard truth

about who you are.

Really.

And you need

a really bright light

to be able to see it

as it really is.

and most of our lives

we live in

very dim conditions

where we think

we can tell

who the good guys are.

This reminds me

of the story

about Dr. Kamesh Sankaran

who is a

physics professor

at Whitworth University.

Another physicist.

I don't know why.

Or another scientist.

But he has a great story.

When he was a PhD student

at Princeton

he says that he was still

a very devout Hindu.

And he was I think

one of the leaders

of the student association

for Hindus

at Princeton.

And he describes himself

as a very moral person.

Again, probably better

than most of us

in this room.

And he says

he writes that he had

a disdain

for Christians in the West.

He saw Christians

in the West

as morally bankrupt

as debaucherous even.

But then he found himself

working 12 hours a day

as PhD students do

right alongside

another doctoral student.

And that guy

was a Christian.

And so what do you do

with 12 hours

shoulder to shoulder

working?

Well eventually you start

you get past

the nice small talk

and you start talking

about real stuff.

And so you start

talking about faith.

And so they talk

about different aspects

of their various faiths

and then they come

to the topic

of the cross.

And this Christian guy

begins to describe

to Kamesh

how Jesus

was willing

to take the sins

of the world

on himself

and to die

so that people

could be forgiven

and saved.

And Kamesh says

that he was deeply

offended by this idea.

He says

he writes this

he says

I was a deeply

religious person

diligently striving

to be good.

How dare this man

think that anyone

especially someone

like me

was a sinner

in need of salvation.

You know

he said this

because he was

a devout Hindu

but I think

most people

on the street

if you were to ask

would say

probably something

similar.

How dare you

think that I

would need that.

But then he says

all at once

he experienced

several catastrophic

failures in his life.

They were unexpected

but it was

financial failure

academic failure

and relational failure

all at once

the bottom dropped

out in his life.

And here's what he says

the blows came

from different directions

but their cumulative

effect was devastating.

By removing

the frail crutches

on which my life

was built

God exposed

the reality

of my profound

weakness

especially my

utter inability

to fix

relational brokenness.

I was in more pain

than I had imagined

possible

and I was devoid

of the props

on which I was

accustomed to resting.

Knowing no other

way out

I decided to

end my own life.

So this is his

rock bottom.

In the midst

of this darkness

a voice within me

spoke

this is why

Jesus had to die

for you.

All of a sudden

the offense

of the cross

made sense.

The cross

is a whole lot

clearer

when you look

at it from below.

it's really

hard to see it

clearly when you

look down on it

from above.

This happened

on a Sunday

morning

so instead

of killing

himself

Kamesh called

his friend

and asked

if he could

go to church

with him

and his friend

was just

getting their

family ready

to go

so Kamesh

comes to them

and that morning

thankfully

he heard the

gospel

and he ended

up giving

himself to

Jesus.

so the

thing that

makes you

a Christian

is this

if someone

were to

ask you

how do

you know

that you

are right

with God

how do

you know

that your

relationship

with God

that you

can have

assurance

that you

are right

with God

here's how

you know

you're a

Christian

you don't

point to

your Jewish

credentials

you don't

point to

your Hindu

devotion

you don't

point to

your red

state morality

you don't

point to

your blue

state morality

in fact

you don't

point to

yourself

at all

you point

to Jesus

you point

to the

finished work

the cross

his life

his death

his resurrection

so conversion

is not about

swapping out

one morality

for another

it's about

giving up

on moralism

altogether

the last thing

that we want

to see about

conversion

not only does

it begin

with God

not only

does it

call us

away from

moralism

as the

center of

our life

and identity

but conversion

joins us

not only

to Christ

but also

to his

church

the first

lesson

Jesus

teaches

Paul

as a

new

Christian

is that

he needs

people

isn't that

amazing

the first

thing that

Jesus

teaches

Paul

as a

new

Christian

is that

he needs

to join

the church

after his

encounter

with Jesus

Paul

is left

blind

this man

who knew

everything

right top

of his

class

Hebrew of

Hebrews

Pharisee

of

Pharisees

crawling

around

on the

ground

unable

to even

he has

to be led

like a

child

to Damascus

to the

house of

Judas

he fasts

for three

days

we can only

imagine

it says

later that he

was praying

during that

time

we can only

imagine

what that

was like

three days

of fasting

and repentance

and then

Jesus

sends a

man

named

Ananias

who is

a

Christian

in the

church

of

Damascus

and we

have this

amazing

scene

one of the

most powerful

scenes in

the Bible

Paul is

sitting there

completely

helpless

entirely at

the mercy

of a man

he had

planned to

kill

just a few

days earlier

if he could

and Ananias

lays his hands

on Saul

and says

brother

Saul

calls him

brother

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 Paul

is filled

with the

Spirit

he regains

his sight

and immediately

they baptize

him

and all

of Paul's

letters

are filled

with teaching

about the

absolute

centrality

and necessity

of the

church

for the

life and

the growth

of Christians

came out

of his

own

experience

so it

doesn't

matter

how brilliant

you are

you're

credentials

are important

in one

way

but in

another

way

when it

comes to

God

they don't

matter

at all

it doesn't

matter how

gifted

you are

the most

important

lesson you

will ever

learn as a

Christian

is that

you need

the church

is that

you can't

do it

alone

I don't

think it's

possible to

have the

kind of

relationship

that we're

called to

have with

Jesus

apart from

his church

and I think

we kind of

see that

here

indirectly

in verse

four

Jesus says

Saul

Saul

what does

he say

why are

you

persecuting

my

people

no he

doesn't

say that

he says

why are

you

persecuting

me

now that's

profound

Saul had

not been

persecuting

Jesus

personally

he had

been

persecuting

the

church

and what

Jesus is

saying is

that he

is so

connected

to the

church

so present

with his

people

that whatever

Saul did

to the

church

he was

doing to

Jesus

personally

they're

inextricably

linked

and what

this means

is that

our

relationship

with

Jesus

is

inextricably

bound

to our

relationship

with

the

church

so just

think about

this

if Jesus

says to

someone who

is persecuting

his church

why are you

persecuting

me

how would

Jesus

respond to

someone

a Christian

who has

decided to

forsake

the church

who says

I'll follow

Jesus

I'll listen

to sermons

online

but

I'm just

not sure

I want to

be a part

of a

church

I don't

think it's

a stretch

to assume

that Jesus

might say

something

like this

why have

you forsaken

me

why have

you forsaken

me

right

this is

one of

the great

challenges

I think

of the

last year

when we

were prevented

from meeting

together

in person

technology

has been

a major

blessing

it's allowed

many people

to stay

connected

who otherwise

might not

have been

able to

be

connected

it's allowed

a lot

of new

people

to get

connected

to churches

like ours

that they

weren't

previously

connected

to

and we

thank God

for that

that's a

great use

of technology

but nothing

can replace

our physical

presence and

participation

in the local

church

there is too

much in

scripture

to argue

for this

case

that

this is

where we

are meant

to experience

Jesus

most fully

and that

our attitude

toward the

local church

is inextricably

linked to

our attitude

toward Jesus

himself

so biblically

I would say

that the idea

of following

Jesus

but being

in no way

connected

to the

local church

there's no

category for

that in

scripture

so these

are the

characteristics

of true

Christian

conversion

conversion

begins not

with us

but with

God

conversion

is not a

call to

moralism

it's a

call out

of

away from

moralism

and conversion

joins us

not only to

Christ

but also to

Christ's church

and with this

understanding of

conversion

I just want to

ask you to

join me

in praying

regularly

daily

to see more

conversions in

this church

more baptisms

more people

coming to know

and experience

the free grace

of Jesus Christ

let's pray

Lord we do

recognize that

because this is a

work of your

Holy Spirit

it's something

that you must

do

every Christian

and every

conversion story

I have ever

heard has been

a glorified

bystander

in your work

a lucky

providentially

present witness

to see the

culmination of a

renovation project

that you've been

doing

in many cases

for years

and years

and years

in the hearts

of your people

and so we pray

this Lord

for our community

I pray that you

would give us

the boldness

and the confidence

to recognize

that you're

inviting us

into something

that you're

doing

and that you

would give us

the trust

and the faith

Lord

to be present

and to be willing

to speak

the words

of the gospel

recognizing

that somebody

might be

in the very

place that

Kamesh was

or Sygart

was

at a place

of all they

needed is to

hear the words

and you've done

everything else

Lord I just

pray that Lord

and I pray that

for those who

are hearing this

who may have

misunderstood the

gospel or people

who thought they

were Christians

but realized that

they're still

moralists like

we all are

prone to be

I pray that you

would make the

clarity of the

gospel and the

grace at the

heart of it

uniquely powerful

to them right

now that they

would that they

would if they

need to realize

that maybe they've

never heard the

gospel before this

very moment and

that they would

respond to you in

faith and with

gratitude Lord we

pray this in your

son's holy name

amen

wish for the

sake of

you