I. Don't Lose Your Edge 00:00
Lord, we do ask that as we come before you this morning, you would fill us with your life. Fill us with your love. Fill us with your presence. Lord, we pray that you would give us all that we need to go into the world as witnesses to you in your goodness. In Jesus’ name, amen.
So, last week I got an opportunity to go out to Alabama. Some of you know where Alabama is. I went out there and visited with Bishop Jones, and helped them with some tech stuff at the cathedral there. He’s been preaching on Acts, so it’s kind of fun. We’re both preaching on this wonderful book, and we were partially inspired by his call to preach on Acts, and that was months ago. And he hasn’t gotten out of chapter 2. So he’s doing a little different pacing than we are, as Bishop Jones is wont to do.
And last week, again, he said, “God interrupted me. I was going to dive into this next piece of Acts.” And so he started to give a real pastoral word, and I just wanted to summarize that for us. It was in the midst of studying this book. He said, “Don’t lose your edge.” He said, “We’ve seen God showing up in these powerful ways,” both at their church, and that obviously applies here. Don’t lose the edge. Like a sword: if you don’t pay attention to it, if you don’t care for it, it goes dull. And guess what? It’s harder to kill the enemy, which we want to do, if we have dull swords.
And there’s a real sense, and an encouragement, that this is a time to grab hold of what God is doing in this season, because there’s a job to do. There’s a war to wage. There’s people to win for Christ. We don’t use that language a ton here. It’s not just a part of our language. But there’s really a sense, if you’ve heard of Campus Crusaders, or if you look at Billy Graham’s ministry, there was this language about winning the war for people’s hearts. And that’s what we’re called to do, because Jesus is right here. He’s ready. He wants to meet those people. He wants to fill them up. He wants to heal them. He wants to bring them in.
And so his word last week… He preached for 45 minutes. So now I know I could preach for 45 minutes. No, I’m just kidding. But he preached on this idea that God was calling us to press in to this Acts series in particular, and he called us out: Saint Michael’s is doing it too. This is a word for us to really imbibe, to really inculcate, to bring into our lives, to be transformed by, to live with and to live out.
II. Enter Saul 02:45
So as we go into this, it leads us right into the story where we left off last week, where Stephen the deacon was martyred, the first martyr. That was a person who had not lost his edge. As he’s being killed, he’s preaching to the people who are killing him and praying that God forgives them: they don’t know what they do. And because it’s where we get introduced to one of the main characters of the story, I want to start there today.
I’m going to make one comment. Saul, who becomes Paul, is always Saul and Paul. Unlike Peter, who was renamed by Jesus, Paul is the Roman version of Saul. Saul is the Hebrew version. That’s what he would have used as he’s talking to these people. But then when he was the apostle to the Gentiles, his name changed to Paul, which was a practical thing, because he was going to the Gentiles. He was Paulus, and he was going among the Romans as a Roman citizen, etc., etc. I’m going to call him Saul and Paul interchangeably this whole time. Please give me grace on that.
So in this story he’s referred to as Saul. Chapter 7, beginning in verse 58; we’re going back to the stoning of Stephen:
58 Then they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul. 59 And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” 60 And falling to his knees he cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” And when he had said this, he fell asleep. Acts 7.58–60
This goes directly into the next verse. I know there’s a chapter differentiation, but this is continuing the story. Chapter 8, verse 1:
1 And Saul approved of his execution. And there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. 2 Devout men buried Stephen and made great lamentation over him. 3 But Saul was ravaging the church, and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison. Acts 8.1–3
Just pause for a moment and try to see this story as though you don’t know the ending. If we started a movie this way, we know who the big bad in the movie is already. If this was a Marvel movie, we’d be looking for the superhero who was going to come face the big evil villain who’s killing and imprisoning men and women who are trying to be faithful to Christ. Think Frollo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame. You remember Frollo, the villain in The Hunchback? He takes the stone, and he’s looking at the people, and they’re like ants, little ants there, and he squishes them. That domineering religious spirit that wanted to crush opposition and maintain control: that’s who Saul was.
I think sometimes we lose it because we know who he becomes. But in the moment, he was the big bad of the church. He was the most zealous in pursuing the Christians and hunting them down for imprisonment and death. And God’s looking to and fro: “Who am I going to send to the Gentiles? How am I going to revolutionize my church?” And he goes, “That guy.” Frollo, Saul, the big bad, the villain who’s dragging people out of their homes, imprisoning them, and committing them to execution. Saul is going to be the guy. You think God can’t use you? Sometimes we fall into that. We think, “Man, with all these… how could God use me?”
III. The Accuser and the Advocate 06:45
Now, the context is there was this group of people following this messianic figure, Jesus of Nazareth. Who ever heard of anything good coming out of Nazareth (John 1.46)? And he gets killed. The religious leaders convince the Roman authorities to kill Jesus, because they believe he is blaspheming and they want to maintain control. There are both things happening here.
And you have to think about the religious leaders in this time. They are a conquered people. The Jews are not citizens in Rome; they are subjects of Rome, and so Rome can do whatever it wants with them. And so the religious leaders have built up this control over their people in order to do two things. First of all, to appease God by being very holy, because if we’re holy enough, maybe God will rescue us from the Romans. You see that all throughout Scripture: they turn from God, an enemy comes in to conquer them, they turn back to God, and God rescues them. So they think they’re in this cycle, and yes, they are, but they don’t recognize that Jesus is the salvation.
So in the midst of that, all of a sudden these people who are following Jesus are running around telling people that Jesus was actually the Messiah. Think of how Saul must have thought about this. In fact, he even mentions later: I thought cursed was the one who hung on a tree (Gal 3.13). He couldn’t have been the Messiah. He had every reason to believe that these were a splinter sect, a blasphemous sect: “I’ve got to crush them.”
So yes, the big bad, but we also do the same thing. Maybe we don’t try to kill anybody, but we decide that we know what’s right, and those people who are wrong should change their minds, should get on our page. We can fall prey to the religious spirit that Saul falls into. In fact, especially in our culture of outrage and reaction, I’ve seen people (maybe I would have previously listened to their opinions), and I’m like, “Man, the way you responded to Charlie Kirk’s assassination, I don’t need to listen to you anymore,” either cheering it on or calling for a violent response. Both of them are the same spirit.
The enemy seeks whom he may devour (1 Pet 5.8). Who is going to jump into the outrage? Who is going to continue the cycle? In fact, the person who killed Charlie Kirk has the same spirit that’s in Saul in this chapter. It’s Antichrist. It’s the spirit of Antichrist that says, “You must die that everyone else could be saved.” It’s the complete opposite of Jesus, because what does Jesus say? He says, “I will die so that everyone may be saved.” That is the Antichrist spirit.
In fact, the way the Bible puts it together (I told you guys, the Acts of the Apostles is more like the Acts of the Holy Spirit), he’s one of the main characters: how he moves through the people of the church. Who’s the big opposite of the Holy Spirit? Satan, the accuser. Satan’s the accuser; the Holy Spirit’s the advocate. They are pitted as the enemies. Now granted, it’s not like heavyweight champion of the world, Satan going up against… No, no, no. It is not even a competition. The question is: do we allow the lies of Satan, and our outrage, and our desire for holiness or our desire for control or whatever it is, to infiltrate our hearts, and we start judging people? We start putting people outside: they don’t deserve to be saved, or they are not like us, or they’re wrong, they’re over in that camp. We can’t do that. Jesus didn’t. The Holy Spirit doesn’t. We’re called to advocate.
And so Saul thinks he’s doing the right thing, but he has fallen into the same trap as the assassin of Charlie Kirk. We can easily recognize the evil of one. We need to recognize the evil of this. He’s doing the same thing, but in the name of God.
IV. Saul, Saul, Why Are You Persecuting Me? 10:30
So into that moment the Holy Spirit comes. Jesus shows up. Chapter 9, beginning in verse 1:
1 But Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest 2 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. Acts 9.1–2
The Way was what they called Christians at the time.
I love that it keeps emphasizing that he’s doing it to men and women. You have to be really bad to not even care that you’re going to put a woman in prison and kill her. It’s bad enough to kill a man. I know that seems silly, but it’s true. There’s something they’re trying to emphasize here: he wasn’t even just going for the men of the household. He was taking the women too. He was indiscriminate in his hatred.
3 Now as he went on his way, he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven shone around him. 4 And falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” 5 And he said, “Who are you, Lord?” And he said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. 6 But rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.” Acts 9.3–6
I love that years later Saul will be writing to the Romans, and in his letter he says, “But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom 5.8). You think he’s thinking of himself? While he’s still breathing threats, he’s on his way with the spirit of murder: that’s when Jesus comes to save him. Yes, rebuke him, but save him. Absolutely.
V. A Case of Mistaken Identity 12:00
So you see this, and what Paul was wrestling with at the time was a case of mistaken identity. He thought he knew who God was. He thought he’d figured him out. He had a God in his head, and he was pretty sure the God in his head was the same God in the sky: “The same God of heaven is exactly how I think.” He thought God believed the way he did. He thought he was doing God’s work.
We all fall into this from time to time. We can easily put our own opinions, desires, beliefs on God. “God really wanted me to have that bottle of wine, or that steak, or that really nice car. I swear.” We can talk ourselves into these things. Those are kind of silly examples, but if you look at what’s going on here, we’re pretty sure God doesn’t like the same people we don’t like. If we don’t like them, God probably doesn’t like them. That’s just not true.
Bishop Jones also told a story about some person where he was like, “Man, I just cannot get this person to like me.” And as he’s celebrating the Eucharist, God whispers in his ear, “Well, I like them, so why don’t you just try doing that?” You see, what Bishop Jones was trying to do was get them to like him. Instead, God was like, “Why don’t you just like them? I love them. I’m a big fan of them.” And it’s this type of transformation that Saul couldn’t imagine in this moment, because he already knew who God’s enemies were, and he was on the way to dispatch them.
And so we look at 1 John 4:20. John writes:
20 If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. 1 John 4.20
I have a theory about this. I think what he means is: if you can’t love someone who you can actually see and encounter and interact with, then whatever you think is God up there that you can’t see, you don’t get it yet. You have imposed your thoughts and opinions on God, whom you can’t see. Because if you love God, you will love your brother. The more you love God, the more you will love your brother. It’s a direct correlation. The more you know who Jesus is, the more you love those around you. That’s the “be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Rom 12.2). The transformation is to know Jesus. And it’s not some intellectual game that we play. It’s lived in our life.
The cure to our misconceptions about God is an encounter with Jesus. Because that’s what happens to Saul and Paul. He’s riding along, and Saul encounters Jesus, and all the things he thought about God are all of a sudden broken in the light of the reality of Jesus Christ. That’s what we all need. That’s what we were all saying when we were singing earlier this morning: Open the eyes of my heart, Lord. I want to see you. That’s what we mean. We want our preconceived notions to be broken in the light of the reality of Jesus.
Now, Paul was also wrestling with a misconception that we might be struggling with as Christians today: “The Old Testament God was angry and wrathful. I like the New Testament God.” He read the Old Testament that way. He thought the Old Testament God was the judge who came. What he didn’t realize was that Jesus reveals who the Old Testament God is. Augustine says the Old Testament is the New Testament concealed, and the New Testament is the Old Testament revealed. Paul got a little revelation of what the Old Testament really was when he encountered Jesus, because he had all the Scriptures to back up his idea of God. But Jesus took the veil off, and all of a sudden he saw what the Scriptures really taught. And it’s Jesus Christ, and it ends at the cross. It points to the cross.
So in the midst of this encounter he’s instantly disabused of his misconceptions. But he’s also confronted with an even greater mystery, because Jesus says, “You are persecuting me.” So not only did he find out that Jesus was God, but he found out that instead of, as was said in the Old Testament, “If you will be my people, I will be your God” (that’s the promise of the Old Testament), the promise of the New Testament is, “If you will be my people, I will incorporate you into myself. You will be my body.”
Jesus’ radical identification with the church would have blown Paul’s mind just as much as the idea that Jesus was God. He has these simultaneous revelations, and the rest of his life he’s trying to explain it. He’s trying to write about it. He writes most of the New Testament trying to tell people about what he realized about the reality of Jesus and God. That’s why he said, “I only preach Christ and Christ crucified” (1 Cor 2.2). It’s all in there. Jesus doesn’t say, “You’re persecuting my church.” He says, “You’re persecuting me.” That’s why it’s impossible to love God and hate your brother. We are the body of Christ.
But Paul is humble enough to say, “Who are you, Lord?” That’s the moment. He’s open. He could have easily said, “Get behind me, Satan,” like, “Oh, this is Satan showing up as an angel of light, trying to convince me.” No. He knew in that moment; he was able to accept and receive.
VI. Three Days in the Tomb 18:13
Verse 7:
7 The men who were traveling with him stood speechless, hearing the voice but seeing no one. 8 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. 9 And for three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank. Acts 9.7–9
Here’s a question. Have you ever been somewhere very dark, and somebody turns on some very bright lights, and you have that moment of, “Ah, gosh”? So that’s what Saul’s experiencing, but way more than that, because it’s not just the physical light; it’s the spiritual light. All of his modes of perception have been blinded by the reality of an encounter with Jesus Christ. So when you look at this, he’s disoriented, he’s blind, he doesn’t know what’s going on, and then you have this: “and for three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank.” What is that telling us? He entered the tomb with Jesus. That’s the picture. Where did Saul go when he encountered Christ? He died. He went to the tomb. He had no sight. He neither ate nor drank. It’s describing a dead man.
And for three days he sat in the tomb with Jesus. Or, I should say more accurately, Jesus came and sat with him, and he was transformed by this death so he could be resurrected to new life. Such a beautiful picture. It’s as powerful that this evil man should become who we know as Paul… It’s as important as when Jesus heals the leper and makes him clean. That’s a physical miracle, of an ailment that could have led to physical death. How much more so the ailment Paul was suffering: a spiritual ailment that could have led to hell. This is as much a miracle. Every one of us is as much a miracle as Paul. Jesus saved us all from our ailment, which was our wicked sin, which would have brought us into death and destruction.
VII. Here I Am, Lord 20:31
So, verse 10. I love this part, because Jesus could have, in that moment as he encounters Paul, reached out and healed his blindness. We know that he has the power to. But instead he sends him to the tomb, and he doesn’t show up to heal him. He sends his body, his hands and his feet. He sends Ananias, a disciple in the church.
10 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.” Acts 9.10
It’s a whole sermon right in there: be ready for what God calls you to do.
11 And the Lord said to him, “Rise and go to the street called Straight, Acts 9.11
Saul was pretty crooked before now.
and at the house of Judas look for a man of Tarsus named Saul, for behold, he is praying, 12 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.” 13 But Ananias answered, “Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints at Jerusalem. 14 And here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call on your name.” Acts 9.11–14
Basically: “God, are you paying attention? I thought you knew everything. What do you mean I’m going to go pray for this guy? If he’s blind, hallelujah, it’ll be much harder for him to find us.” He’s completely upside down. He’s wrestling with this: “What do you mean, God?”
It’s a radical story. It’s the reverse of the Jonah story, because Jonah was called to go to Nineveh, but he sailed to Tarsus. He was like, “I’m running away.” And now you’ve got Paul of Tarsus, and Ananias says, “I’m going to him. I’m going to Tarsus. I’m going to go, and I’m going to heal this man.”
It’s an amazing picture of how God’s Holy Spirit acting in the church would respond to their enemies. This became a factor that absolutely boggled the minds of the Roman world. Why are they going into the leper towns? Why are they going into the plague towns? Why are they adopting our crippled babies that we’re trying to leave out in the woods to just die? Why are they doing these things? Why are they loving us when we are their enemies? It turned the world upside down.
And in this picture of Ananias, Jesus did go and heal Saul, through us, like he likes to. That’s how he wants to heal people today: through you and me, that we might be with him, in him, participate in him. And it’s such an amazing moment. It’s like how God took a torture device called the cross and made it into a symbol of beauty and redemption. That’s what happens with Saul and Paul.
Now we look at Paul, and when you hear that name, you’re like, “Oh, father of the church, greatest writer ever, maybe in the history of the world.” All of those things came from a wicked, murderous man. But God knew better.
VIII. A Chosen Instrument 23:18
Verse 15. The Lord said to him, to Ananias, because he’s not convinced yet:
15 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. 16 For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.” Acts 9.15–16
One last time, Ananias probably had to ask, “That guy? He is the chosen instrument to go before kings and Gentiles?” Yet we know Saul ends up being exactly the guy.
You don’t know who you are until you know what God thinks of you. What God has called you into is who you are. It’s not who you can become. It’s not some dream, if you work hard enough. No. When he calls forth, his word gives you the power to walk it out. That doesn’t mean it’s not going to hurt. Remember what he said: “For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.” That’s probably the line that changed Ananias’ heart. At least I think so. He was pretty unconvinced until Jesus said how he had to suffer, and he goes, “I could probably tell him some of that.”
It’s Paul himself who says later, in Colossians 1:24:
24 Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church. Col 1.24
Everything he wrote after this is a riff on what he experienced now, in this moment. His body is the church. I’m in the church; I’m in his body. The sufferings of my body are in his sufferings. We are all together in it. You’re never alone. In everything you go through, you walk in Christ, clothed in Christ. And so he’s able to rejoice, when, I don’t know about you, but I get upset when I get a cold, much less somebody beating me, stoning me, whipping me. It’s an unbelievable transformation, one that can only happen because he starts to understand what it means to be in Christ, because he’s transformed. It’s not just his head understanding. He starts to walk in the Spirit.
IX. Something Like Scales Fell from His Eyes 25:33
And we see that because in verse 17 Ananias is convinced, because of the suffering, to go find Paul.
17 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.” 18 And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and he regained his sight. Then he rose and was baptized; 19 and taking food, he was strengthened. Acts 9.17–19
That’s a picture of us. Paul becomes a symbol of us: us in our wicked ways encounter Christ, are met by the church. We are welcomed in baptism and filled with the Holy Spirit. And then Paul goes on to revolutionize and proselytize the whole world, just like we’re supposed to. It’s this great example of the walk of Christ, one of the greatest that were ever given.
And here’s the thing. Saul was blind before his encounter with Christ revealed his blindness. When he saw Jesus, what happened wasn’t that he was struck blind. It’s that his blindness was revealed, and he couldn’t see anything. And so the stuff that we carry, the stuff we read, the stuff we see on our phones or our TVs, the stuff that we encounter in our relationships, the brokenness, can sometimes build up like scales in front of our eyes. Our own sin can narrow our ability to see.
And so the invitation, every Sunday and every day, is: look on Jesus. It will not only reveal your blindness (that’s the hard part; it kind of hurts sometimes), but also it will heal you. And if you need help, go to his hands, his feet. Come to the church. Go to your home group leader. Go to your priest. Let him pray for you. And maybe the scales will fall away in that moment. Maybe it will take days and weeks to live it out. In fact, Paul, it’s theorized, went out for three years and learned from the church before he started his ministry, because you just don’t go from murderous psychopath to the apostle to the Gentiles overnight. He experienced his miraculous acceptance, and then he started learning how to walk in Christ.
X. The Key of Forgiveness 27:53
And what also happened in that moment is that it brought healing to whatever was going on in Ananias’ heart towards Paul. Because imagine you could pinpoint somebody who was taking people from our community, locking them up, and executing them. How would you feel about that person? I’d be pretty pissed. I’d be angry. I would not be happy about that. And in the moment when Ananias, instead of rejecting Paul, goes and prays for him and is the instrument of his healing, something in Ananias’ heart is redeemed. As he aligns with Christ, he’s like, “I can’t hold anger against this man anymore.”
And miraculously, that became the testimony of the church: as they were killed, they called for their perpetrators’ forgiveness. We even saw it echo throughout all of history. We saw a moment of that as Erika Kirk stood up and said that she forgave the young man who killed her husband. That’s because of this story, these stories. Stephen was doing it. Jesus did it. For all time the church has done it. We forgive those who trespass against us. That’s one of those keys I was talking about a couple weeks ago, the keys that unlock the purposes of God in our life. One of the keys is forgiveness. You have to forgive. It unlocks what God is doing in our midst and in the world.
As we go out from here, let’s look to Christ, bringing to him our blindness, our brokenness, our murderous intent. Whatever you have, you can bring to him. And the scales will fall from our eyes, and we’ll be able to see and love not only him but those around us. Amen.