Saul to Paul

Adam Grill

The Book of Acts • Sermon • Submitted 2 years ago

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There is no one too far gone for Jesus to forgive. In this message we will look at someone who HATED Jesus and HATED the church Jesus started. We will see how even someone like that can be changed by Jesus and become a critical part of Jesus’ movement.

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July 31st 2022

Series: The Book of Acts

Sermon Title: Saul to Paul

Topic: Journey through the book of Acts.

Key Passages: Acts 7: 54-60 & Acts 8: 1-3

Sermon Blurb: There is no one too far gone for Jesus to forgive. In this message we will look at someone who HATED Jesus and HATED the church Jesus started. We will see how even someone like that can be changed by Jesus and become a critical part of Jesus’ movement.

Sermon:

Well, hello everyone!

Family Moment

Today we actually will backtrack a bit in our journey through the book of Acts, then walk forward a little, then jump outside the book of Acts.

If you have your Bible open it back up to Acts 7

Let me explain why we will backtrack.

And then walk forward and jump outside the book of Acts.

PAUSE

Last week we saw this amazing regular guy named Stephen stand up for Jesus and it lead to Stephen’s horrible death.

Stephen was actually the first “Christian” martyr if you are not aware.

But also into the scene came a guy named Saul, someone we have not met before in the book of Acts.

And I know if you grew up in church you know who Saul is….

But if you did not…you have no idea….

So today, we are going to laser focus in on this guy named Saul.

We are going to see he comes back on the scene in Acts 8 and clearly, Saul is an important guy.

So, we are going to dive DEEP into who Saul is today.

And we are going to give you the FULL view of Saul…..

PAUSE

I know there are some people listening to this message and you feel REALLY guilty about some of the things you have done in your past.

I know there are people listening in the church today who wish they had made different choices in their life.

I know some of you struggle with poor self-image.

Some of you hate looking in the mirror.

Some of you hate who you are.

Some of you hate your life.

Some of you think that God will never forgive you for some of the things you have done.

Some of you think you are beyond hope.

Some of you live in a constant state of guilt and despair.

And if that is you today, even if you would never admit to another person that is you, will you please lean into this message and listen.

Because today you are going to see a guy who did some REALLY bad things be TOTALLY forgiven by Jesus!

We are going to see a guy who many of you in this room would NEVER be friends with be forgiven by Jesus and become a GREAT man of God!

And if God can do it for someone like Saul….

He can do that with you!

Please hear me….

There is ALWAYS hope for you!

You are NEVER beyond redemption!

PAUSE

Now let me speak to a different group….

This message is also for you people who grew up in church.

Those of you who have spent your whole life in church.

Those of you who think you are a good Christian.

Those of you who think you are good in your walk with Jesus.

Because you are going to see Saul was just like you.

He grew up in church, or in his case Synagogue.

Saul his whole life in the church.

Saul thought he was a good follower of God.

Saul thought he had a good walk with God.

And you are going to see Saul was anything but all those things.

Saul was missing the boat and had NO idea!

Saul thought he was headed toward Heaven, and he was NOT.

So please if you grew up in church….

Lean in and listen in…

Because you might find yourself in the same place as Saul…

But also know if you are….

There is still hope for you as well….

PAUSE

I really think today’s message is going to bring a LOT of FREEDOM to a lot of people!!!!

So please stay with me!

Again…..The person we are going to talk about today HATED Jesus!

This person hated Christians

This person persecuted Christians.

This person hunted Christians down.

This person destroyed Christian families and sent them to jail.

This person endorsed killing Christians.

And this person….one day…..ran into Jesus while traveling to persecute more Christians…..and everything in his life was flipped upside down.

PAUSE

Then this person went on to become one of the most devoted followers of Jesus we have in the Bible.

This person probably expanded the Kingdom of God on earth more than any other follower of Jesus.

This person was inspired by God and wrote many books in our Bibles!

PAUSE

No matter what you have done in your life you would be hard-pressed to have done more to tear down what Jesus started than Saul.

So if you are here today and you are not a Jesus person….you have a lot in common with Saul.

If you are here today and you are not sure Jesus is God… Saul was in that boat with you.

PAUSE

This message is going to hit home with many different groups today.

If you have ever felt like you are not good enough.

Today’s message is for you!

If you have ever thought you are falling short of this Christian thing because you don't behave like a new person.

Today’s message is for you!

If you still feel guilty for some things that you've done wrong. You feel very very unworthy.

Today’s message is for you!

Or if you find yourself…thinking you have arrived. You are a STRONG follower of God….You don’t have much more to learn…..

Today’s message is for you.

PAUSE

Today you are going to see that the Apostle Paul thought he was doing everything right….He had no idea he was missing some really important things.

And we do the same thing all the time!

Let me share a story with you about how I was missing some important info in my life.

See I grew up with a great mother! And see having a great mother is awesome….but also caused me some problems when I got to college.

See I went to college in a different state. And growing up I never did laundry, because my mom was awesome

I don’t think I ever changed my bedding growing up.

So I missed out on the knowledge of something really important, called how to do laundry, Mom’s can I get an amen that is important knowledge?

So many months into college….. my door room just always smelled awful…. Because guess who never changed their sheets?

This guy!

Like I guess I thought they just cleaned themselves, I am not really sure!

I had just magically happened growing up!!!!

And that is just like what you are about to see with the Apostle Paul!!!

LOL I LOVE MY Jokes!!!!

Let’s rewind in the life of the Apostle Paul…..to when he was known as Saul of Tarsus.

Saul hated Christians……

Saul made it his goal to capture Christians, bring them to a public trial, and the execution as we saw last week.

Many Christians do not realize that Saul was present when the first Christian was killed for his faith in Jesus….

Last week we saw Stephen dropped at the feet of Saul.

Many historians believe Saul was the root cause of his death!

PAUSE

Let’s just read what we did last week again, right before here Stephen had given a speech to the Sanhedrin.

The Sanhedrin was the religious elite in those times.

They are also the group the sentenced Jesus to death.

And they are about to do the same with Stephen.

Acts 7:57 – 8:3 The Stoning of Stephen

54 When the members of the Sanhedrin heard this, they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him. 55 But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.

56 “Look,” he said, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” 57 At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, 58 dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named

Named what church?

Saul.

59 While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” 60 Then he fell on his knees and cried out, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” When he had said this, he fell asleep.

8 And

Who approved this killing?

Saul approved of their killing him.

The Church Persecuted and Scattered On that day a great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria.

PAUSE

Saul hated Jesus….

Saul wanted to see the followers of Jesus expunged and eradicated!

And after Saul was there for Stephen murder, Saul went door to door in Jerusalem finding people who believed that Jesus is the Messiah to do destroy them.

Church don’t miss the kind of person Saul was.

While people were mourning the death of Stephen….

Saul used it as an opportunity to find more of them to destroy their lives!!

Let me show you…verse 2

2 Godly men buried Stephen and mourned deeply for him. 3 But Saul began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off both men and women and put them in prison.

Do you have a picture yet of Saul?

He was anything but follower of Jesus.

He had no desire for a relationship with Jesus.

He wanted to kill and destroy those who believed in Jesus.

PAUSE

And this is NOT the only time we will run into Saul in the book of Acts…

Let me show you… flip forward to chapter 22….

After imprisoning more and more Christians, Saul learned they had Christian friends in Damascus and set out to eradicate this other cell of Christians.

Acts 22: 1-5 1 “Brothers and fathers, listen now to my defense.” 2 When they heard him speak to them in Aramaic, they became very quiet. Then Paul said: 3 “I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city.

Stop there….

Tarsus….means nothing to most of us…..

But in that day and age this meant a great deal.

Tarsus at this time would have been bigger than Grand Rapids.

Saul was not some country boy…..

Tarsus had been in existence as a city many centuries before Paul was born.

During the period of Alexander the Great, the city was the most influential in Asia Minor.

When conquered by Rome it was awarded the privileged standing of Libera Civitas; simply means "free city."

If you were from Tarsus….you stood above other people….

Saul goes on to say:

I studied under Gamaliel and was thoroughly trained in the law of our ancestors.

Stop there for a second….

Tarsus was widely known as a "university city," as well as a city of commerce in Paul's day. Educators from all over the Roman Empire came to teach at the schools in Tarsus.

Studying at Tarsus was like being at Harvard. I mean even the personal teacher and tutor of the Roman Emperor Caesar Augustus studied there.

And Saul….studied under the TOP teacher!!!!

Saul clearly was not your average student.

Saul was clearly not your average person.

Saul clearly had everything going for him from a worldly point of view!

Let’s keep reading….Saul says:

I was just as zealous for God as any of you are today.

Stop there…

Saul of Tarsus believed that he was serving God by finding Christians, throwing them into prison, and even executing them when possible.

Saul was highly educated for his era and he was devoted to his Jewish beliefs about God.

Everything since the time he was a child taught him what he was doing was not only right…but honoring to God and little did he know it was actually the opposite!

Verse 4:

4 I persecuted the followers of this Way

The Way….is what the followers of Jesus called it….like saying you’re a Christian today.

to their death, arresting both men and women and throwing them into prison, 5 as the high priest and all the Council can themselves testify. I even obtained letters from them to their associates in Damascus, and went there to bring these people as prisoners to Jerusalem to be punished.

Saul….kept persecuting and killing Christians and reported to the High Priest alone….Saul had HIGH standing in the Jewish culture and high standing in Roman culture.

You can think of this young Saul as a prodigy….the up and coming leader….Loved by many people; hated by many people….….

But something happened to Saul on the way to Damascus…..

something that would change his life….his name….

and the eternal destiny of countless people throughout time…..

Verse 6

6 “About noon as I came near Damascus, suddenly a bright light from heaven flashed around me. 7 I fell to the ground and heard a voice say to me, ‘Saul! Saul! Why do you persecute me?’

8 “‘Who are you, Lord?’ I asked.

“ ‘I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting,’ he replied. 9 My companions saw the light, but they did not understand the voice of him who was speaking to me.

10 “‘What shall I do, Lord?’ I asked.

“ ‘Get up,’ the Lord said, ‘and go into Damascus. There you will be told all that you have been assigned to do.’ 11 My companions led me by the hand into Damascus, because the brilliance of the light had blinded me.

12 “A man named Ananias came to see me. He was a devout observer of the law and highly respected by all the Jews living there. 13 He stood beside me and said, ‘Brother Saul, receive your sight!’ And at that very moment I was able to see him.

14 “Then he said: ‘The God of our ancestors has chosen you to know his will and to see the Righteous One and to hear words from his mouth. 15 You will be his witness to all people of what you have seen and heard. 16 And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away, calling on his name.’

Imagine being Ananias….God comes and tells you to go heal this person that is killing off your friends.

God tells you to go do something that would be so scary; to let the man who is in charge of hunting down Christians know you are a Christian.

Do you have that much faith in God?

Will you follow God no matter what he asks you to do?

LONG PAUSE

Shift and imagine…..being Saul…..or imagine being one of his friends following him at this moment?

Everything Saul has been doing has been hunting and killing the followers of Jesus…..and who just appeared to Saul?

What does it say in verse 8? Jesus!!

Jesus, is here showing Saul he is God.

Because remember this is AFTER Jesus died and was resurrected! So Saul would clearly know......

God is telling him he was wrong!

God is telling him to become a follower of Jesus!

God is telling him to start helping more people become Christians!

Can you imagine!!!!

PAUSE

Everything Saul has learned to this point is turned upside down.

Everything Saul has done to this point in his life is about to shift 180 degrees!

Verse 17

17 “When I returned to Jerusalem and was praying at the temple, I fell into a trance 18 and saw the Lord speaking to me. ‘Quick!’ he said. ‘Leave Jerusalem immediately, because the people here will not accept your testimony about me.’

19 “‘Lord,’ I replied, ‘these people know that I went from one synagogue to another to imprison and beat those who believe in you. 20 And when the blood of your martyr Stephen was shed, I stood there giving my approval and guarding the clothes of those who were killing him.’

21 “Then the Lord said to me, ‘Go; I will send you far away to the Gentiles.’ ”

Do you hear what Saul is saying? He is talking like so many of us.

Saul is saying…..God, I am not good enough to do what you’re asking.

God, after what I have done….how can you use me?

God, after how much I have messed up there is no way I can be in ministry!

God, you must have me mistaken for someone else…

Saul….doubts himself because of his past….instead of trusting God with his future.

Which gets us to our point today…….

When I trust God with my future;my past is washed away!

Think about this conversion….Saul goes from chief of Anti-Christian police………to leader in the Christian movement that has gone worldwide!

Saul met the resurrected Messiah on the road to Damascus. Saul of Tarsus changed his name later and became widely known as the Apostle Paul.

By the time the Apostle Paul was martyred for his faith in Jesus, about 32 years later, he had written about 25% of the New Testament!

Paul's written words are the testimony of a man that violently persecuted the early Christians, then became NEW in a matter of moments when he encountered Jesus!

PAUSE

Maybe you battle with negative thoughts about others,

or about life,

or about yourself,

or maybe you've got some bad habits that you just can't get rid of.

You pray that they go away and they don't go away. Maybe you have a poor self-image, you wonder, "How could God love someone like me?"

Maybe it's because of your habits. You keep doing things you know are wrong…...

If that is you….know that even Paul struggled with this insecurity….Paul said in Romans 7, he said,

Romans 7:15 "The things I want to do, I don't do, the things I don't want to do, I end up doing."

Paul says, “We seem to be trapped in these habits. We seem to get trapped by our history!!!!”

Our habits -- I still struggle with this, I've prayed about it and I've tried and yet I still struggle. I don't feel new.

Listen to me on this….Feelings are legitimate but they're not facts. They are legitimate; I don't want to discount them and say, you know, you shouldn't have feelings -- we feel certain things.

But just because we feel something doesn't mean, necessarily, that it's true. The bottom line is we are not changed by feeling different about ourselves, but we are changed by faith in God.

Today, no matter what you feel.

Today, no matter what you think.

Today, no matter where you have been.

You can be made NEW by entering into a true relationship with Jesus!

Let me close out with an illustration that I think will cement this in all our minds…..We treat our lives like a Vacuum….. (Get dust buster, have a table on stage with a rug on it and dirt in something )

See sometimes in life we do something we should not and we make a mess. (pour dirt on the floor).

Some of us make a BIG mess (more dirt)

Then we say you know what! I can clean this up! So we grab our vacuum…and make a pass at fixing our mess….

It doesn’t clean it all up..….so we make a pass from another direction….

And another direction……

And here is what I want you to notice…..we can make ourselves look clean on the outside…..

But…..no matter what we do in our own strength…..(pick up rug and show dirt is still there hidden)….

We can never completely clean it up….. That is just like our life….we can become religious and look clean. We can put on clothes to cover our hurts.

We can put on a fake face and look happy.

PAUSE

We can fake it all……but understand something today…..only Jesus can make us NEW….only Jesus can forgive our sins once and for all!

When we give our life to Jesus the Bible tells us he washes us clean as snow!!!!!

So let me end by asking you all to do something this week.

As we have seen Saul was a very religious person.

He thought he was doing what God wanted.

He thought he was living a life that honored God.

He thought he was a very good person.

His culture would have said he was a God-fearing person.

His culture would have said he was doing the right thing.

His culture would have said Saul was a model follower of God.

And Saul missed the boat.

Saul was not destined for heaven.

It was not until he had a REAL encounter with Jesus and that relationship began that everything changed.

So here is what I want to you all to spend some time processing and talking with someone about.

Life Application: In two sentences articulate how you have a relationship with Jesus and not just religious belief.