Children, if you would like to make your way out tonight for your children’s time with Mrs. Anna and Mrs. Yana, you can make your way to the front and out the side door. For the rest of us, we will turn back to the book of Acts and look tonight at Acts chapter 9. You can find that on page 917 in the Bibles located in the pews in front of you. Acts chapter 9.
Ajith Fernando says that “Acts chapter 9 and the conversion of Saul has to be considered one of the most crucial events in the history of God’s dealing with humanity.” So it goes without saying that this is a major event in Saul’s own life, but it is also a major event in the book of Acts that we have come to study tonight. And we’ll look at two things from this passage tonight. We’ll see, one, the hinge of the story, and then secondly, the hinge of history. The hinge of the story and the hinge of history. Let’s go to the Lord and ask His help as we read His Word. Let’s pray.
Father, we thank You for Your Word and we thank You for the way in which we will see tonight it stops Saul in his tracks. And we ask that You would do that to us tonight as well and that You would help us to see Jesus and our utter need of Him in every way. Would You give us Your grace? Would You show us Your calling on our lives? Would You give us Your Spirit and bless us through the reading and preaching of Your Word. We pray all of this in Jesus’ name, amen.
Acts chapter 9, starting at verse 1:
“But 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 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. Saul rose from the ground, and although his eyes were opened, he saw nothing. So they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. And for three days he was without sight, and 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 in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him so that he might regain his sight.’ But Ananias answered, ‘Lord, I have 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 priests 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 much 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 the disciples at Damascus. And immediately he proclaimed Jesus in the synagogues, saying, ‘He is the Son of God.’ And all who heard him were amazed and said, ‘Is not this the man who made havoc in Jerusalem of those who called upon this name? And has he not come here for this purpose, to bring them bound before the chief priests?’ But Saul increased all the more in strength, and confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus by 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 night and let him down through an opening in the wall, lowering him in a basket.
And when he had come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join the disciples. And they were all afraid of him, for they did not believe that he was a disciple. But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles and declared to them how on the road he had seen the Lord, who spoke to him, and how at Damascus he had preached boldly in the name of Jesus. So he went in and out among them at Jerusalem, preaching boldly in the name of the Lord. And he spoke and disputed against the Hellenists. But they were seeking to kill him. And when the brothers learned this, they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him off to Tarsus.”
The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the Word of our God endures forever.
First we’ll see the hinge of the story. Really the pressure is on in Acts chapter 9 because this passage is a big deal. This is Saul’s road to Damascus experience. Now I don’t mean a metaphorical Damascus Road experience like what we talk about when someone has a life-changing event or when they have some sort of major epiphany. No, I am talking about the original road to Damascus experience. I’m talking about Saul encountering the risen Lord Jesus Himself. And this is what John Stott calls “the most famous conversion in church history.” So there is some pressure as we come to this passage to capture, to convey some of the magnitude, the gravity of what takes place right here and to do justice to this passage. This is the apostle Paul, after all, that we’re talking about. Saul, or Paul as he will later be known, or as he is also known, he was an enemy of the church and he was there consenting of the death of Stephen as we saw back in Acts chapter 7. Here, he is still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord. Saul is on his way to Damascus so that if he found any that belonged to The Way, the way of Jesus, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound back to Jerusalem. Saul was zealous. He was zealous for persecuting the believers in Jesus.
But, but by the end of this passage, Saul believes in Jesus. And by the end of this passage, Saul preaches that Jesus is the Christ and it is Saul whose life is now threatened for the sake of his faith and his message. It is a total reversal that takes place here in this passage. In fact, John Calvin says that “God’s grace is seen in Saul not only in that such a cruel wolf is turned into a sheep, but also in his assuming the character of a shepherd.” Not only going from the character of a wolf to a sheep but assuming the character of a shepherd. In fact, that’s what we find in the rest of the book of Acts and in the rest of the New Testament as well because it is Saul, or Paul, who will be the main person leading the church in the second half of the book of Acts, starting in verse 12, all the way to the end to chapter 28. As he takes this message about Jesus on three separate missionary journeys, he helps to start churches in cities like Philippi and Thessalonica and Corinth and Ephesus. And he was imprisoned, he was beaten, he was stoned and left for dead for the sake of the Gospel. And he would eventually be taken as a prisoner, shipwrecked, storm-tossed, snake-bitten, all the way to Rome. That’s where Paul goes through the rest of the book of Acts.
And along the way, he will write thirteen letters of the New Testament. Thirteen of the 27 book of the New Testament come from Paul’s hand – letters to encourage and to equip and to nurture and to strengthen and to shepherd the church, to shepherd the believers in Christ around the world. Only Luke, in writing Luke and Acts, wrote more of the New Testament than Saul or Paul. So here we have one in this passage whose mind, his intellect, his spirituality, his awe of God, his understanding of man, his single-minded focus in accomplishing the mission that he had been given to do, it makes Saul stand out as one of the most significant individuals in all of history.
I saw a list recently, it was on the internet – I guess it was true; maybe it was fake, I don’t know – but what it was, it was this list where someone said they had asked chatGPT to give them the most influential people in history. And so on this list there were names like Einstein and Caesar and Socrates. Kanye came in at number 12 by the way! But no mention of Saul. And surely by his absence it is all the more conspicuous of his significance and belonging on that list. There must have been a glitch in the code somewhere on that list because Saul deserves his due. He deserves his proper recognition because we owe so much to him. This is the turning point in his story. What we find here in this passage is the turning point in the story of Saul. It is, in fact, the hinge of the book of Acts in many ways.
But do you know what? Saul is not even the main focus of this chapter. He’s not even the main focus of this passage because the One who calls him is. And the One who calls him, the One who calls Saul, is the central figure in all of history. He is the hinge of history. And so this story about Saul’s conversion and call, really it is Jesus who is the focal point of this whole passage. And we see that, I think, in three different ways. We see it in the persecution, we see it in the preparation, and we also see it in the proclamation.
The first thing to notice about Jesus in this passage is that Jesus is the target of Saul’s persecution. And it says in verse 3 that when Saul was approaching Damascus, a light from heaven shone around him and a voice said to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” “Why are you persecuting me?” Do you remember Gamaliel’s speech back in Acts chapter 5? Do you remember what Gamaliel said to the Sanhedrin about what he counseled the people, he advised the people in the Sanhedrin not to kill the apostles. “Leave them alone,” he said. “Leave them alone, because if this plan is of man it will fail. But if the plan is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them and you might even be found opposing God.” And so what Gamaliel advocated for was for taking a passive approach towards the apostles and towards the disciples of Jesus. A passive approach. But not Saul. Not Saul. No, Saul was one of Gamaliel’s students, but Saul took the opposite approach when it came to dealing with this teaching and this following of Jesus.
There was a historian I recently read. He was talking about, describing the famous Greek philosophers and the succession that went from Socrates to Plato to Aristotle. And he made this comment. He said that “Aristotle, Plato’s greatest student, was like all great students in that he took exception to his master’s teaching.” Now obviously that’s not true for all great students, but apparently in this case that was true for Saul. And he took exception in some way to his master, Gamaliel’s teaching because Saul went after the church and he went after the church aggressively to persecute the church. Verse 1 says that he “breathed threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord.” But you know what? Gamaliel was right. Gamaliel was right because Saul found himself even opposing God. And so there was suddenly a voice from heaven in verse 3, a light from heaven and a voice. And the voice said, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?”
Some of us, I know some of you here stayed up late a few weeks ago to hear 90-year-old Willie Nelson play after many of our bedtimes at the Brandon Amphitheater. And one of the songs that Willie Nelson, 90-year-old Willie Nelson sang was, had the lyrics, “I woke up, still not dead again today.” He said, “Don’t bury me. I’ve got a show to play. And I woke up, still not dead again today.” Almost as if he was surprised by that. That’s a silly lyric, but it came to my mind as I was studying this passage because you know what? Saul should have been dead. If we really understands what happens in this encounter, Saul should have been dead because here he is, he is an enemy of The Way, he is a persecutor of the church, and really is a persecutor of Jesus. He said, “Who are you, Lord?” “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” Saul deserves judgment. Saul deserves death.
And yet what does Saul get? What do we find Saul receiving here in this passage? Saul gets grace. That’s what Saul gets. He gets grace. Because Jesus is the one who is persecuted, Jesus is the offended party, He is the one who is aggrieved by Saul’s actions, and yet it is Jesus who is going to Saul. And He gives Saul not justice, He comes to Saul not to exact a penalty upon him, no, but to show him mercy. To show him grace. To make him a disciple. To bring him into The Way. That’s grace. That is the love of Jesus. The one who loved him and gave Himself for Saul. And here He is coming to Saul along the way as Saul is actively trying to persecute Jesus and His church. And that’s what this passage is about. It’s about Jesus taking the initiative. It’s about Jesus pursuing Saul. It’s about Jesus extending this great grace to the chief of sinners as Saul will call himself later. This is extravagant grace. It’s extravagant grace to a flagrant sinner. It stops him in his tracks.
And not only does it stop him in his tracks, but it gives Saul a new identity. And that’s where we see the second thing about Jesus in this passage. It’s that Jesus is the One who is preparing everything around Saul. And He is preparing everything for Saul. It says in verse 8 that Saul was led by the hand and brought to Damascus. He was three days without sight. He was three days without food and drink. And the Lord appeared to a disciple who was there at Damascus whose name was Ananias.
You know there’s a lot of talk right now in the world of sports about sign-sealing, sign-stealing and pitch-tipping and little subtle tells that reveal what’s going to happen next. In fact a few weeks ago, the New England Patriots, they were able to block a field goal because their coach noticed that the holder, right before the snap, he would let out a big exhale, and so this defender was able to time the snap with the timing of this exhale and he rushed in and blocked the kick. It was just a subtle little sign, and yet it told them everything they needed to know.
Well there’s something like that happening in this passage as well. It’s just a subtle little phrase. It’s a little word, you might not have even taken much note of it, but it’s the word “rise.” And we see it two times in this passage, but it’s in this whole section of the book of Acts; you find this word “rise.” And it’s this clear indication of who it is who is directing the events that are unfolding in the book of Acts. And so we saw last time, when Philip was told, “Rise and go to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” And what did Philip do? He rose and he went and he met the Ethiopian eunuch there on the road. Well in the next chapter, in chapter 10, we find that it is Peter who is told to “Rise and go with the men to Cornelius in Caesarea.” And what did Peter do? Peter rose and he went with them. Well now here we have this passage that we read about Saul, Jesus says to Saul in verse 6, “Rise, rise and enter the city.” And Saul rose. He rose from the ground and he went. And in verse 11, it’s to Ananias this time. “Rise and go to the street called Straight and look for a man named Saul.” Now Ananias didn’t go right away. He was somewhat reluctant, and I think rightfully so, but verse 17 says he “departed and he entered the house.”
What does that one little word tell us as we see it appearing over and over again in this section of Acts? It shows us that the Lord is in charge, that Jesus is in control, that Jesus is the One who is directing the events. Jesus is the One who is building His church and He is preparing everything for what is about to happen next. And it’s in that preparation that we see, I think, three things about the complete overhaul or change of identity for Saul. And we see first that he goes from being a threat to Jesus’ disciples to being a brother to them. Look in verse 17 where Ananias goes to Saul and he says, “Brother Saul.” Brother Saul – this one who was the persecutor, who had come to drag away people, and now he is being called a brother. And he is welcomed in, in verse 19. He says for some days he was “with the disciples in Damascus.” And later we found in the passage that he is received by the apostles in Jerusalem through the encouragement and the ministry of Barnabas. He is brought in. He is taken from an outsider, as a threat, to now an insider, one who is enfolded into the fellowship of the church.
And then secondly, he goes from being blind and helpless to being given a new vision and a new power. I think we could almost say that Saul was actually blind and helpless before he was blind and helpless. He was blind and helpless before he was literally blind and helpless. And we could even say it this way. He was dead and helpless before he was given new life. In verse 17 we are told that he was “filled with the Holy Spirit.” He was made a new creation. He was given new life. He was made a new person. And his baptism signified that. His baptism signified that in Jesus’ death and resurrection was Saul’s death and resurrection. He was a new person now. He was given a new identity. And we also see that Saul goes from being an instrument of destruction to all those who called on the name of Jesus, and now he is God’s chosen instrument to take the name of Jesus to Gentiles and to kings and to the children of Israel. You see, Saul has a whole new identity that is prepared for him by Jesus. It is all based on this encounter with Jesus and what Jesus is doing behind the scenes for him in getting ready to send him out. Jesus gives Saul this new identity.
And in doing so, Jesus gives Saul a new job to do. And that job is to preach. And what is he to preach? He is to preach Jesus. That is his proclamation. This passage is about Jesus because it’s about the proclamation of Jesus. Verse 19 and 20, “For some days he was with the disciples at Damascus and immediately he proclaimed Jesus in the synagogue saying, ‘He is the Son of God!’” Saul preached Jesus and he preached Jesus in Damascus and then he went down and he preached Jesus in Jerusalem. He preached Jesus to the synagogues and he went down, he went in and out from the apostles, preaching boldly in the name of Jesus. He confounded the Jews in verse 22. He disputed with the Hellenists, verse 29. Everywhere and to everyone and at every opportunity, Saul preached and taught that Jesus is the Son of God, that Jesus is the Christ, that He is Lord.
And that would mark out the trajectory for the rest of Saul’s life. He had a new calling in this proclamation about Jesus. “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel! Though I am the very least of the saints, to me this grace was given to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.” Or put it another way, “For me, to live is Christ.” You see, for Saul, Jesus became the sole reason and purpose of his life, his whole life. Why was that? Why was Jesus, Saul or Paul’s consuming passion from this point to the end of his life? It’s really pretty simple. And you see, Saul knew what they were saying. He had heard what they were saying. Everything that we have been reading in the book of Acts about the message of the apostles and the message of the early disciples in Jerusalem and Samaria, Saul heard all of that. He knew what they were saying. He knew about how Jesus had been attested to them by God with mighty works and wonders and signs. He knew that’s what they were saying. He knew about the message that Christ had been crucified, He had died and was buried. He had heard the message about how Jesus was raised from the dead. He had heard them say that Jesus is the Christ or the Messiah and that in Him and in Him alone there is salvation, there is forgiveness, there is the blessing of God. He had heard, surely, that He is the stone rejected by the builders that has now become the chief cornerstone. Surely Saul heard all of that. This is who he was opposed to.
He had heard all of it, he just didn’t believe it. He didn’t believe it to the point that he set himself against it vehemently because to him, to Saul, Jesus was a failed Messiah. Jesus was cursed by God. He was a dangerous lie. But then, Jesus appeared to him and spoke to him on the road to Damascus and he saw the risen Jesus Christ. He saw the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ and it undid him. It stopped him in his tracks. It laid him low. And at that point, Saul realized that what he had heard was truth and that Jesus is the promised Messiah and that Jesus is the fulfillment of the Scriptures. He is the focal point of God’s plan of salvation for humanity and therefore Jesus is the center or hinge of history. And if that’s true, if Jesus is the center of history, then Jesus had to be the center of Saul’s life. And so He became his one, all controlling motivation and priority for the rest of his life. And all that Saul had before, all his zeal, all his righteousness, all his training, all his heritage, everything that he took pride in, it was nothing and he counted it as loss; he counted it as rubbish for the sake of knowing Christ because he knew who Jesus was and what Jesus was all about.
And that’s where Saul’s life convicts me. It’s in his single-mindedness. It’s in his harnessing head and heart, hands and feet, all to knowing Jesus and to making Him known. Because we can be so scattered, can’t we? And we tend to think of religion, we tend to think of worship as maybe one activity among many other activities and that it’s something we have to fit into our schedule just like we have to fit into our schedule work and school and sports and travel and time with family and friends or whatever. And if we don’t have time for religion this week, that doesn’t fit in with all those things, well then maybe next week we can find a spot for it and we often times think of it as one activity among many other activities in our lives. Or maybe we take the opposite approach and we try to collapse everything into the church so the church is meant to bear the load for all of our needs – whether it’s social, recreational, emotional, marriage, parenting, education, whatever it may be. And yet, isn’t that still revolving everything around us and around our objectives? Everything still hinges around ourselves.
And so what we need, we need a Damascus Road type revelation to our own hearts and minds tonight. And we need to see that everything revolves around Jesus. Jesus is not a part of the story; He is the whole story and He is the center of our lives. And maybe you need to recognize that for the first time tonight and bow the knee in faith to Jesus and turn to Him as Saul did on the road to Damascus to receive that grace, to receive a new identity, to receive a new calling in Christ Jesus. That’s there for all of us tonight. Or maybe it’s just that we need to refocus and to reprioritize and to reset the “why” of everything we do and to put Jesus at the center of it all.
A few years ago I was talking to the man who had been my pastor in college and he was a new empty-nester at the time. And he was reflecting a little bit about his past few years and about raising children. And he said, “I think we did the right things.” He said, “We were careful about what we did, but the thing I regret, the thing I wish we had changed, I wish we had spent more time on the ‘why.’ I wish we had spent more time on doing it for Jesus.” And I needed to hear that then; I need to hear that today. And I wonder if all of us need to hear that today. And that as we turn to the Lord’s Table tonight, may we let the bread and the cup impress upon our own hearts and minds those same lessons that Saul learned on the road to Damascus, that here, presented before us in word and sacrament, is grace and a new identity for us and a new calling to proclaim Him in everything that we do.
Let’s pray and ask Him to help us do that.
Father, we give You thanks as we come before Your Word tonight to hear what You have to say to us and to taste and see Your goodness at the Table. We ask that You would prepare our hearts to know Christ better, to love Him more, and to serve Him with great joy. And we pray this in Jesus’ name, amen.