The Conversion of Saul

Brady Bassett

Acts • Sermon • Submitted 2 years ago

Acts 9:1–18

Paul

Conversion

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We will look at how Saul's conversion represents the conversion of all types of people.

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If you have a Bible, go ahead and grab it. We’re gonna be in Acts 9:1-18 tonight. Counting tonight, we’ve only got about 5 lessons left in Acts so that’s disappointing but we’re going to make the most of our time together and after this week, we’re going to be covering a lot of ground relatively quickly. I think over the next few weeks, we’re going to be covering multiple chapters or stories in each lesson but there is something important that happens in Acts 9 that we need to slow down and look at closely because it is one of the most important events in human history. I talked several weeks ago about turning points in history and how the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost was definitely a turning point but I would also say that what we are reading today is a turning point as well. Let me ask you this: Can one person make a difference in the world? Who are some people that you can think of that have single handedly made a dent in this world, either positive or negative. On the positive end you could think of people like Nelson Mandela or Thomas Edison. On the negative end you have someone like Adolf Hitler who definitely did not make the world a better place. What about Christians? Do you think there are any Christians in the world that have almost single-handedly made a huge difference in the world? I know that no single person makes up the Church but there have been people that God has used to steer the ship of Christianity for the best. These are people like Martin Luther who kickstarted the Protestant Reformation, St. Augustine who stood against the Pelagian controversy in the 6th century, and Athansius in the fourth century who literally stood against the world and was exiled 5 different times because he stood for trinitarianism which is the belief that God is 3 in one. Those men all did incredible things and stood faithfully against false teachings and the world but none of them would have been able to do that if it had not been by the conversion and influence of one man: Saul of Tarsus who also goes by the name of Paul the Apostle. The conversion of Saul, and the Greek version of his name is Paul so I will probably refer to him several times tonight as either Saul or Paul and both are correct, was a turning point for the church and his conversion is important for us for several reasons but I am going to narrow it down to really this one point: the conversion of Saul shows that Christ is able to save to the uttermost all types of people and I will explain why later on. Let’s first dive into these verses and read Acts 9:1-18

Acts 9:1–18 ESV

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;

Who is Saul?

Before we really dive into Saul’s conversion, I think it’s important for us to have a little bit of background info on who this guy is and why he is so important. He’s so important that basically from this point on, the focus of Acts shifts from Peter and John to Paul almost exclusively. Saul at this time is a young up and coming Pharisee who was trained by a man named Gamaliel, who himself was a well-respected Pharisee. Saul has a Roman citizenship and is also from the Jewish tribe of Benjamin so he is really the perfect bridge between the Jew and Gentile world. To put it as simply as I can, Saul was incredibly gifted and incredibly intelligent, a fact that even his rivals acknowlged, and they saw that he was a man of great learning. Saul was someone who to the best of his abilities followed the Law perfectly, in fact he later would say in his letter to the Philippians that when it came to the Law, he was blameless, and this means that in his estimation, he followed the Law as perfectly as anyone could. As we have seen in the verses that we have read both tonight and our last time together, Saul is a Pharisee that despises the Christians and Saul makes it his mission to extinguish the flame of the Church as much as he can. He hates these people so much that he literally goes to the high priest and asks if he can go the almost 150 mile journey from Jerusalem to Damascus to round up any that were Christians and bring them back to be imprisoned or executed. Saul is not someone that is indifferent to Christians, he hates them! Yet it is by God’s providence that this very man would carry the Gospel to the Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel. So, that is who Saul is but that is not who Saul continues to be. Saul the Persecutor becomes Paul the Apostle by God’s pure grace and pure mercy.

Mankind’s Problem of Religion

Now some will look at Paul and see a conversion experience that is fairly uncommon and to a certain degree they are right. Chances are if you are a Christian today, you were not blinded by a great light and verbally spoken to by the Son of God but you, Saul, and the rest of mankind all suffer from the same basic problem and that is a problem of religion. Believe it or not, every single person in the world is religious in some way. What about the atheist that doesn’t believe in God? He or she is religious as well. What do I mean then? How is it that every single person has a problem of religion? You see each and every one of us have an issue with affections. There is something that we love more than anything else and we often believe that if we can just possess that one thing, we’ll be complete. Maybe it’s a job or a person or money or a title or love, but there is something inside all of us that says, “If I can just have A then I’ll have all I need.” The issue now is when you get a hold of A and then you say, “Now wait a minute, where is the joy that this was supposed to bring? Where’s the fulfillment that this was supposed to bring? Where’s the sense of completion that was supposed to come with this?” And now you’re left with 2 potential problems: You are so distraught that you give up on looking for anything to fill that void or you try to fill that void with something else only to run into the same old problems. You spend all of this time trying to earn love, earn value, earn worth, and don’t you see how that sounds very religous? It’s a religion! And everyone goes through it! Everyone from the intellectual to the religious zealot faces this same issue, they are looking to have a great need satisfied by an outside source but the need is never satisfied. We make choices every single day that are catering to their problem of religion. Every religion in the world, be it the religion of atheism, to the religion of Islam, to the religion of Buddhism, you name it, it all focuses on be better and maybe you’ll be rewarded, maybe you’ll feel satisfied, maybe your great longings will be fulfilled, so in a way they all teach the same thing. If you want to be loved and you want to be valued and you want a purpose, you need to do this, that, and the other. Not so with Christianity. What do I mean? We see it with Paul, and it is certainly applicable to all Christians as well. God chooses us long before we choose Him. God sees us long before we see Him. God loves us long before we love Him. You see with Christianity, we don’t work in the hope that we might obtain satisfaction. We don’t serve Christ because of what He offers us. We serve and love Christ because we know that He loved us first. We praise Him because we know He is worthy of praise and not just out of an obligation but of a true recognition of His worthiness. In Christ, the search for fulfilled affections is finally complete.

Saul is Both the Younger and Older Sons

Now I mentioned earlier that Saul shows us a perfect example of how Christ is able to save to the uttermost all types of people and I want to demonstrate this to you by referencing the parable of the Prodigal Son and I am going to assume that you are at least somewhat familiar with that parable in Luke 15. In a way, Paul represents not just the younger son or the older son but both sons simultaneously. If you aren’t familiar with the parable, Jesus teaches about a younger son who tells his father to give him his portion of the inheritance and the father actually gives it to him. This younger son takes his inheritance, goes into a distant land, lives a worthless life, becomes homeless, and begins begging in a pig pen and eventually he comes to his senses and decides to go home and ask his father for forgiveness and he goes in with the mindset of not even asking to be reinstated as his son, but as a servant. As the son is returning home, Jesus says that the Father is outside and he notices his son coming up over the horizon and the father rushes off and picks his son up and holds him in his arms. The father yells to the servants to bring the best robe of the house and put it on his son, to grab a ring and put it on his hand and a fresh pair of shoes and if that wasn’t enough, kill the best fat calf and prepare a feast and let’s celebrate because his son was dead and is alive again, he was lost, and is found. That’s the younger brother but there is also an older brother in this parable. The older son, when the younger son comes home becomes incredibly angry at the father because of the grace and mercy that he shows the younger son. The older brother even refuses to go to the party but the father still goes and talks to the older brother. Luke 15:28-32 says,

Luke 15:28–32 ESV

But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him, but he answered his father, ‘Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!’ And he said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.’ ”

The problem with the older brother was his own self-righteousness. He believed that if he worked hard enough, he would deserve good things from the father. He acted very religious but did not love like he should. Tim Keller said of the two brothers, “The hearts of the two brothers were the same. Both sons resented their father’s authority and sought ways of getting out from under it. They each wanted to get into a position in which they could tell the father what to do. Each one, in other words, rebelled- but one did so by being very bad and the other by being extremely good. Both were alienated from the father’s heart; both were lost sons.” Where does Saul come in with this and where do we all come in? First off, how is Saul the younger brother? It is because he has such a deep seated hatred for Christ and the Church. Just as the younger brother wished that the Father was dead, Saul himself wished the Church was dead. Christ is so closely connected to His people that their persecution is treated as if He Himself is being persecuted. Saul on the one hand, represents those that truly hate God and hate Christianity. On the other hand, Saul represents the older brother because he believes that he is living as rightly and religiously as possible and because of this, he will be accepted with open arms into the kingdom of God. You can act very moral and very religious and be just a hair’s length away from hell. Saul shows that you can look very good on the outside but just be a pit of despair on the inside. You can do things in the name of God without having a true love for God. Now what about you? Where do you come in with all of this? To be honest, I don’t know what your heart is like. What I do know is that every person in here at one point in their life was a lot like Saul. You either hated God and wanted nothing to do with Him or wanted to even destroy Him or you have been trying to live a life good enough to get into heaven by your own works, your own righteousness, your own merit, I don’t know which one you might be but at some point in your life you were one of them. And you may still be one of them tonight. If you have not come into the loving embrace of Jesus Christ, if you have not seen Him as that which your soul has longed for all your life, my prayer is that tonight is the night that you would. That tonight is the night where you either stop hating God or trying to create your own god in something or someone or stop trying to earn something you could never earn in the first place. I’m hoping that for someone here tonight, that you recognize that the God of all creation has set His sights on you and has loved you before eternity began. That this God loved you so much that He put on flesh, dwelt among us, lived a perfect life amongst imperfect people, was killed on a cross for your sin and my sin, but death and the grave was no match for Him and on the 3rd day He rose again and is now sitting at the right hand of God the Father and that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life. Tonight I hope is the night where you drop the burden of being the younger or the older brother, you drop the burden of being a Saul and you embrace the cross of Jesus Christ. If you were to take a magnifying glass to your heart, you would probably recognize that I am talking about you. That you have hated God your entire life and this is exactly what Scripture says is the natural wireing of mankind’s heart. You’re bitter, you’re angry, and you think God owes you when He doesn’t owe you a thing. Or you have been living in pursuit of your own goodness and righteousness instead of for Christ’s righteousness. You have done a pretty good job at playing the part of a Christian but the reality is, that’s all it is. You’re just playing out a role but the time is gonna come when the curtain comes down on this play called life and all you did was put on a good show but you were never really changed. Have the scales of your eyes fallen off to see the goodness of Jesus Christ? I hope every person in here can answer with a resounding yes but if you can’t say that yet, I hope that you will. You are not guaranteed tomorrow yet God may be choosing to save you today and if you feel God is pulling on your heart, I want to talk to you when we’re done tonight.

What Does the Conversion of Saul Teach Us?

There is one last thing that I want to mention about what Saul’s conversion teaches us: It is that God is able to save anyone at any moment so do not lose heart when in comes to telling others about Christ. If someone like Saul can be saved, who can’t be? Years later, Paul would write to Timothy and say these words: “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.” (1 Tim 1:15-16) If God’s grace is big enough for someone like Paul, it is certainly big enough for you and it is certainly big enough for that person in your life that you hope comes to saving faith in Christ. Saul is the perfect example as to how no one could ever say, “I’m too bad, I’m too far gone, my sin is far too great, in order to be saved.” If that is your mindset tonight, then your view of God and His grace and mercy are far too small. The fact that you are still here this day is proof that you are not yet too far gone. Philip Graham Ryken said, “Every Christian can see himself or herself in Paul’s conversion, even though many aspects of it were unique. Not every convert enters the kingdom of God with blinding light and the visible, audible presence of the risen Christ. Not every testimony is identical to Paul’s, nor should it be. But his conversion experience on the Damascus road gives hope to everyone because it shows the full extent of God’s patience. God is slow to judgment, giving sinners time to repent. In his grace God is willing to put up with a lot from people, as he did from Paul.” There is a little bit of Saul in all of us and if someone like Saul can be saved, you can too and the people around you can too. Let’s pray.

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