What Happened to Saul?
Download MP3Tonight's passage is found in acts 9 verses 1 through 21. So if you wanna take out a bible if you have it and turn there, again, it's acts 9 one through, 20, actually. And listen carefully for these are the true words of the Lord. Acts 9. 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.
Speaker 1: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 flashed around him. And falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying to him, Saul. Saul, why are you persecuting me?
Speaker 1: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'll 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 open, he saw nothing.
Speaker 1:So they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. And for 3 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.
Speaker 1:And the Lord said to him, rise, 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 Jerusalem. And here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call on your name.
Speaker 1: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.
Speaker 1: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. This is the word of the Lord.
Collin Hansen:Let's pray. God, we are desperate for you. We are desperate to hear from you. We are desperate to meet with you. All of us.
Collin Hansen:Whether we know it or not, we are desperate for you. And so, Lord, I pray in this time that you, through your word and your spirit, that you would meet with us. That you would meet us. And that you would bring us life. And we pray these things not only for ourselves, but for the whole world.
Collin Hansen:We pray this in the name of Christ. Amen. Is my first time since we put the little, stage thing here. I will most surely fall off of it. Also I haven't preached since July, so I'm going to both yell and fall off of this.
Collin Hansen:So it's just, it's like a caged animal up here. Alright. So when I was about 13 or 14, my friends and I came up with a brilliant plan, and that was, if you were at the movies and, and your movie ended, you could make your way into another theater and watch another movie. Alright? You didn't have to go back by the the little ticket attendant.
Collin Hansen:Alright? If you did this, you're welcome, because we came up with this. And and it was a brilliant plan, except there was there was a bit of a problem. There's a cycle that they kind of start movies on, like similar times and everything, and so rarely, if ever, could you go into a movie, the second movie, when it was beginning. So you would get into the movie 20 minutes, 30 minutes, and, and that wasn't always fun, because let's say, example, you go you you have enjoyed Men in Black 2, as we did.
Collin Hansen:Alright. Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones, and we have made our way into speed 2 cruise control. Alright? Sandra Bullock, no no Keanu. So you're so you're left with Where's Keanu?
Collin Hansen:Like what's what's going why are they on a boat? Why does Sandra have such a hard time with transportation? Like, all of these different these different questions come up and there's no, like, you could just start asking, I guess, the people around you, but that would be rude. No nobody wants that next to them. And so, it it wasn't fun, and and so we did that maybe 2 or 3 times, and then we we just put it to rest.
Collin Hansen:And some of you might have heard me make this comparison before, but sometimes church can feel like you have come in to a movie that's halfway over and and you can't ask any questions. That that we all are we're all on the same page. Right? Because there's no prereqs for for church. There's not a 101 and a 102, and then now you can get to some upper level stuff.
Collin Hansen:Like, we all we all come in here, and we hear from God's word, And sometimes, you know, you just you hear Moses, you hear Abraham, you hear David, Jesus, Joseph, Mary Mary, their couple Marys, and all these names start coming at you. And we all just assume. Right? Like we're all we're all on the same page. And and I think that sometimes when we skip over some of the most fundamental matters of the Christian faith, and we just assume that everyone is on board and on the same page, that we can miss some really really vital things.
Collin Hansen:And so what I want us to do tonight is to ask a fundamental question. And in doing that, not only what what what I hope that we would understand more clearly what scripture says, but also, I believe that in these details, in these fundamental questions, God is greatly glorified. He's greatly, greatly glorified. When we see these truths and we treasure these truths of what our God has done, is doing, and will do. So the question is this, what happens when you become a Christian?
Collin Hansen:What happens? What happens? And and you might have heard this in different ways, when you give your life to Jesus or pray to receive Christ or invite Jesus into your heart, all that kind of language. What what happens though when you become a Christian? What does all that really mean?
Collin Hansen:Because all those phrases that I just said aren't really in aren't phrases that are in the Bible, but what are they all getting at? What are they what are they all pointing to? Well so far in Acts, we've seen men and women in droves, joining the masses of people following Jesus. And we have seen men and women as they testify to these crowds, concerning Jesus and thousands of people repenting and being baptized. So what happened to them?
Collin Hansen:What happened that these people that when Jesus was doing his earthly ministry, they didn't follow him and now they do? They reorient their entire life around this. They're selling their possessions to where there's no poor among them. They what happened to where all of this is going on? Now, if there was anyone who epitomized, it was a picture of rejecting the good news about Jesus, it was Saul.
Collin Hansen:For the very first time that we we heard of Saul, that was when Stephen was being executed, in in chapter 7. And and the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul. Saul was present at Stephen's execution and not only that, Luke goes on to say, Saul approved. He was standing there receiving kind of coat check for all these men who were removing their cloaks so so that they could throw harder. Okay.
Collin Hansen:So that they could throw stones at a human and kill him, because he is testifying about Jesus. No other reason. Nobody just had a grudge against Stephen. It was because of Jesus that they are throwing stones to kill him, and Saul approved of that. That's that's that's our intro to Saul.
Collin Hansen:And so he was active in seeking out Christians and arresting them and Saul was on this road to Damascus with the purpose of arresting and imprisoning Christians. As Luke puts it, he was breathing threats and murder. He was breathing murder against these Christians. He wasn't just picketing. He wasn't just debating in some public forum.
Collin Hansen:He wasn't just, you know, writing an angry blog or worse than that, writing angry comments below a blog. He he it wasn't that. He was breathing threats and murder against Christians. He hated Christians. He hated them, and and and not because they were just bad people.
Collin Hansen:He hated their message. He hated what they said about this Jesus, And he was gonna do everything to stop that message. So what changed? What happened? What made this enemy of the gospel become history's most vocal advocate?
Collin Hansen:You see from this, from considering Saul, I think that we can begin to answer what changed in you or perhaps, what needs to change in you, what needs to happen to you. See this question, what happened to Saul? You know, surely that was a question that Saul's friends and his family members asked for years to come. You remember Saul? He was really good at, like, hating all of that.
Collin Hansen:What happened to him? What happened to the Saul that we knew and loved? What happened to Saul? Later, in in Acts 22, when when Saul, is then Paul, he he's testifying in Jerusalem, He says this in Acts 22 verse 4. I persecuted this way, this way of Jesus to the death, binding and delivering the, to prison, both men and women, as the high priest and the whole council of elders can bear me witness.
Collin Hansen:From them, I received letters to the brothers and I journeyed towards Damascus to take those also who were there and bringing them in bonds to Jerusalem to be punished. That's what he set out to Damascus to do. This hatred of Christians and the great persecution that Saul accomplished caused Saul to reflect on his behavior as sin. Later in life, he sees this sinfulness, and he says this in first Timothy 1. The saying is, trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am the foremost.
Collin Hansen:He says that because of this this breathing of threat, this breathing of murder against these Christians. You see, Saul had heard the good news, that that was the basis of his persecution. He knew the gospel. He had heard it declared. See that that's why he's going out to do this.
Collin Hansen:He heard them say that Jesus, this this Jesus is the Son of God and and and he came into this world and he lived perfectly. And on him, the sins, the sins of man were placed on him, and his righteousness then is transferred to those whom god is ransoming. And through his death and then his subsequent resurrection, we have life. And Paul said, no. A very angry no.
Collin Hansen:So what happened to Saul? My daughter, June, she's gonna be here in a couple weeks, and and she's, she's got this storybook Bible, and we love it. Sallie Lloyd Jones storybook Bible, If you have kids or you don't, buy it. I had friends in seminary that actually bought it to to read through, to study for some of their examinations, for ordination. Because it gives you such a beautiful picture of the story of Jesus throughout the bible.
Collin Hansen:So in this story book bible, this story of Saul is in there and there's this line. I was reading it to her earlier this week, and it says this, Saul hated the people who love Jesus. Saul had never met Jesus. So Jesus met Saul. That's the hinge point.
Collin Hansen:Like that that's where all of this turns. Okay? This is key to in in understanding what happened to Saul. Look with me at verse 3 in chapter 9, verse 3. Now, as he went on his way, he approached Damascus and suddenly a light from heaven shown around him.
Collin Hansen: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'm Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But rise and enter the city, and you will be told what to do. The men who are traveling, with him stood speechless, hearing the voice but seeing no one.
Collin Hansen:Saul rose from the ground and although his eyes were opened, he saw nothing. So they led him by the hand and brought him to Damascus. And for 3 days, he was without sight and neither ate nor drank. You see, Saul had heard the gospel. He had heard the good news of Jesus.
Collin Hansen:He had heard incredible testimonies like that of Stephen. But what happened to Saul was that Jesus met him. For new life, for salvation, to cross from death to life, we must meet Jesus. More accurately, we need Jesus to meet us. That's what happened to Paul.
Collin Hansen:This is unique. Yes. Saul met the risen Lord. He met the risen Jesus and not everyone gets that and some of you might even say, well, you know, if I was walking down the road and a great light shone around me and Jesus said my name, I would believe too. But follow carefully what Jesus says here.
Collin Hansen:In verse 4, he says, why are you persecuting me? Well, how is that? Saul isn't persecuting Jesus. Right? He's persecuting Christians.
Collin Hansen:See, this leads us to another huge hinge point. The people of God are so truly the body of Christ that when Christians are being persecuted, Jesus is being persecuted. The people of God, the body of Christ. See a parallel and really something that I think is quite intentional. Last week, we looked at the Ethiopian eunuch.
Collin Hansen:Right? The Ethiopian eunuch, another non believer traveling down the road and God sends Philip to proclaim the gospel to this man and God brings new life to the eunuch. God meets the eunuch. But how? God, through the gospel being proclaimed and explained by Philip, Jesus meets the eunuch, his spirit and his word.
Collin Hansen:Do you see that? Do you see that parallel here? And then walking down the road and they're they're confronted with meeting Jesus. Now, it's it's different. It's different, but what is happening there, this new life that happens, happens because both of these men met Jesus.
Collin Hansen:Ananias was then called by God. He he was given a vision to to go to this man. Verse 10. Now, there was a disciple at Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said to him, in a vision, Ananias.
Collin Hansen: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. Now as he is calling him, Ananias responds, okay. Here I am, lord.
Collin Hansen:That that means I'm ready I'm ready for you. What what what do you need from me? And he says, I need you to go to the soul of Tarsus, and he says, yeah. I've heard about him. He's not a good guy.
Collin Hansen:Just I don't know. You've been really busy lately. You've had thousands of people that you've been bringing and just I'm afraid that this one might have slipped through the cracks. Maybe his name got on the wrong list. He's a bad guy.
Collin Hansen:I'm not sure if if some of you saw this story. The AP kind of put it everywhere for, I think, in the last week, but there is this man who was a Neo Nazi, who had tattoos up his neck and on his face. Some of you shaking your head, you saw you saw the story. So yeah. He he had these tattoos of hatred all over him, And he and his wife, who were both very prominent in the movement, left the movement.
Collin Hansen:Regretted it. They repented. They turned from that movement. And and right when he was about to make a home mixture of acid to put on his face to remove these marks, his wife called an anti hate group. And that when they interviewed that group, they said, it was like Osama bin Laden called.
Collin Hansen:You see, that's how Ananias is feeling here. He's like, yeah, I I know people and and other people know people, and I've heard lots of stories of people that have gone missing because of that man, and he says go to him. He is my chosen instrument. He's my elected instrument. I have put a claim on him to do something and I'm going to do it.
Collin Hansen:So go. And Ananias, a man of great respect, goes. And when he goes to him, the first thing that he says to him in verse 17, when he, in laying his hand on him said, brother Saul. That is that is the picture of reconciliation between brothers and sisters. What what happens in the body of Christ?
Collin Hansen:Brother Saul. And he prays for him. He he prays for him, and he regains his sight, and he is filled with the Holy Spirit, and he rose and he was baptized. He took food and he was strengthened. And he remained with those disciples for some time, and he took food and he was strengthened.
Collin Hansen:And and that's it. You know, that that that's his that's his conversion. That's that's the conversion of Saul. Why are you doing this to me? Who are you?
Collin Hansen:I'm Jesus. Go to this city. Doesn't that seem a little strange? I mean, that's that's the conversion of Saul, converted. This theologian, TF Torrance, he said this, in in a great book called, the atonement, and and he says this about Jesus and he's picking up on a lot of earlier theologians on this point, but he says, all these things, salvation, reconciliation, redemption, all of this is in Jesus.
Collin Hansen:Like the person of Jesus. This divinity, this humanity, in Jesus are all of these treasures, but what good is that to me? What what good is that? All of these things are wrapped up in Jesus, but but I but here's me. Here I am.
Collin Hansen:Something has to happen. See, we need Jesus to meet us because when he meets us in his word and his spirit, we are united with him. You see, all this, all these treasures that are in Christ that we so desperately need and cannot make manifest any other way. We are put and placed in Jesus. This is the theme throughout the new testament in Christ, as Joel has preached time and time and time again.
Collin Hansen:It is in Christ that we have these things. So how do we get in Christ? In first John, chapter 5, verse 11, are these words, God gave us eternal life and this life is in his son. Whoever has the son has life. Whoever does not have the son of God does not have life.
Collin Hansen:And Jesus says this recorded in John's gospel, in chapter 3. It is the spirit who gives life and unless you are born of the spirit, you cannot enter the kingdom of God. In Christ, in him is life and it is the spirit who gives life. When joined together and and in a wonderful resource, Finally Alive by John Piper, it's there's a free copy on his website, PDF you can download. I encourage you to do that.
Collin Hansen:It's a short book, but it's so many treasures in that book. He says this, in the new birth, in this new life in Christ, the holy spirit supernaturally gives us new spiritual life by connecting us with Jesus Christ through faith. How do we get that life that is in Jesus? Through the work of the spirit? And this is what happened to Saul.
Collin Hansen:Saul, how seeker friendly is that to Saul? He's just walking down the road, you know, doing his own thing. But here, God rescues him. He confronts him. He, you can almost say he accosts him.
Collin Hansen:And and because, I started reading this week and finished a book. It's called Love Wins. You might have heard of it. But it's it's by it's by Rob Bell and I I read it because a friend of mine read it He said, that he wanted to talk about it. And so so I read it this past weekend.
Collin Hansen:I just want to read this one quote to you because I think it's important. I think it's really, really important for us to see this truth. He says this, if at any point God overrides, co ops, or hijacks the human heart, robbing us of our freedom to choose, then God has violated the fundamental essence of what love is. That is exactly what God has done to Saul. He is overridden, he is co opted, he has hijacked Paul's heart.
Collin Hansen:And Paul loves him for it. Everything that Paul writes throughout his epistles, through all of these letters, is rejoicing in the fact that God hijacked his heart. And he loves him for it. He loves him for it. This is what happened to Saul.
Collin Hansen:Jesus met him in the middle of the road. And we see this and we we don't have time, but Ephesians 2:1 through 10 just could not express this more beautifully. That we were dead in our sins. I was reading this to my mom last night, Ephesians chapter 2, and I started yelling at my mom. I didn't mean to.
Collin Hansen:But I started getting so loud because because of his great love, because of his great mercy, but God being wealthy in mercy, brought us new life. He placed us in Jesus and he gave us life, where we only had death. And you can imagine, you know, from Ephesians chapter 21 through 10, also in in John 11, as we see Lazarus, as we see he is dead in the tomb. Silence in the tomb. And then when Jesus calls out, imagine if you were inside of that tomb.
Collin Hansen:Imagine the first thing that you would you would hear faintly through the rock. You would hear Jesus call out his name. And then you would hear a breath. Where for days there had been no breath. No breathing.
Collin Hansen:You would hear breath from a dead man because he's alive. This is what happens when God, in his great mercy, through his word and his spirit, brings new life to us. That's what happens. And when we breathe deeply for the first time in this new life, that breath is faith. It's faith.
Collin Hansen:It's belief. Belief that leads Paul to then go into the synagogues and say, Jesus Christ, he is the son of God. He believes. He confesses and he lives. He exercises that new life in faith and that happens instantaneously.
Collin Hansen:That that breath that comes to the dead man, that breath is faith. When we are awoken, when we when we wake up and we breathe that first breath of faith, that is what happened to Saul and what must happen to us. A lot of people don't like Paul. I've had a lot of people tell me they don't like Paul. Of all the people in the Bible that people have told me that they don't like, Paul is number 1.
Collin Hansen:There are a lot of people not to like in the Bible, but but for some reason, Paul gets the most. I've had strangers, honestly, strangers come up to me and tell me that they don't like Paul. And I think one of the reasons is is because of some of the stuff that he he he writes concerning women and and wives. But just to read one one one more thing, just to to keep in mind, as we look at this life of Paul in this in this scene. One of the dominant things that he does talk about with in regards to women and wives, is he talks about submission.
Collin Hansen:And he talks about authority and and when when we look at what God has done in confronting Saul, in confronting him and bringing new life to him, he refers himself in his letters as a slave to the Lord Jesus. He refers himself completely submitted to Jesus. So if you've heard all this about Saul slash Paul tonight, and maybe maybe you're you you kind of want to be distant from Paul, know that the the reason that he the the way in which he writes those things about submission and authority and all of that is because he uses that same language to the one that he has completely submitted to because he deeply loves Jesus. He loves him deeply, and he serves him out of a deep, deep love. Paul loves Jesus so deeply because he remembers what it's like to be Saul.
Collin Hansen:He remembers what he did. He remembers the men and women that he had arrested, beaten and for some killed. He remembers their names. He recalls their faces and when he speaks about the power of God to redeem sinners, he knows it firsthand. We need Jesus to meet us.
Collin Hansen:Through his word and through his spirit and many of you have. And when he met you, he gave you new life. And the evidence of that new life is faith. And then the outworking of that faith are good works that delight in the Lord. And he might be meeting some of you right now through his word and spirit.
Collin Hansen:Now because of this place, not because of me, but because of his word and spirit, some of you might be meeting with him. And we don't want to neglect that, we want to celebrate that. Because the first breath of this new life is faith. And your belief testifies to the new life that God has brought to you as he put you in Jesus. And some of you might feel very weak in your faith.
Collin Hansen:You might feel like it's not on par with the people that you might see around you, either at work or home or in a church. But let me remind you that it is not it is not the quality of that faith. Right? It's not the quality. It is the object of that faith.
Collin Hansen:It is the person of that faith. And that is this Jesus who meets us. And so, if you find yourself, if you find yourself wondering about that, if you find yourself wondering about this son of God, I encourage you not to walk away from those questions until you find the answers about that new life. Because what happened to Saul was that Jesus met him. And I pray that he would meet us all.
Collin Hansen:Let's pray. Lord God, it is you. It's you who rescues. It is you who overrides our dead hearts and brings us life. It is you.
Collin Hansen:You bring life. You you you call us from death into life. It is you, Lord. It is you. Because we are dead in our trespasses, But you are rich in mercy.
Collin Hansen:And because of the great love that you have, that while we were dead in our trespasses, you made us alive together in Christ. By your grace, you save. And you raise us up. You seat us with him in the heavenly places in Jesus. And Lord, I pray that if there is anyone here who does not know that new life, that you would meet them.
Collin Hansen:You would bring new life to them. And that they would breathe deep in this new life, the breath of faith. That they would give up on trying to save themselves. That they would realize that they could never be righteous enough. They could never be good enough to earn your favor.
Collin Hansen:To earn this grace. That they could never do enough works. They couldn't even have the good enough faith to deserve faith. But you gift faith as you call us into new life. So Lord, I I pray that those who know you in this new life would be strengthened and would join together in worshiping you in this time.
Collin Hansen:And I pray that those, that Lord, perhaps you are calling even now, that they would run to the cross, that they would find the fullness of new life in Jesus. And Lord, that as a community of people that we could care for them, love them, celebrate with them, rejoice in your great work. We pray all these things in and for the name of Jesus. Amen.
