A Changed Man
Text: Acts 9:1-19
Introduction
1. Gary Habermas was a young doctoral student at Michigan State in the 1970s struggling with his faith. Like so many young people who grow up in a Christian family and eventually leave home and their faith as well, he was definitely rethinking what he really believed. It came to the point of announcing to his mother that he was leaning toward Buddhism.
2. To settle the issue rationally, Gary decided to do his doctoral dissertation on the resurrection of Jesus. He felt that anchoring his faith in the truth of the resurrection would give him the peace and confidence he sought. The chairman of his doctoral committee said the topic was fine, but added, "Don't come back and tell us the resurrection happened because the Bible tells us so."
3. Gary's challenge was to demonstrate the reality of this event without exclusively using Scripture. He called his approach the "Minimal Facts Method." He presented twelve historical facts that validated the core events and people surrounding the most crucial event in the Christian faith: the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
4. The results of his research on the resurrection not only literally saved his Christian faith, but Gary Habermas is now considered one of the world's leading experts on the topic.
A. Jesus actually lived and was Jewish.
B. Jesus was executed by crucifixion by Pontius Pilate.
C. Jesus tomb was found empty by some of His female followers three days after his death.
D. His disciples believed that Jesus appeared to them after his death.
E. Saul of Tarsus was transformed after claiming to have seen the risen Jesus.
5. Three things transformed Saul...
A. A Personal Encounter With Jesus
B. The Willingness Of A Believer
C. Faithful Prayer
6. Let's stand together as read Acts 9:1-19
Proposition: The gospel is about transformation from the inside out through the power of the risen Jesus.
Transition: First we must have...
I. A Personal Encounter With Jesus (1-6).
A. Saul, Saul Why Are You Persecuting Me
1. As we have learned so far in the Book of Acts, Saul was a pretty nasty guy when it came to Christians. He wasn't satisfied with attacking the church in Jerusalem, no, he wanted to destroy the church all over the world.
2. Luke tells us, "Meanwhile, Saul was uttering threats with every breath and was eager to kill the Lord’s followers. So he went to the high priest. 2 He requested letters addressed to the synagogues in Damascus, asking for their cooperation in the arrest of any followers of the Way he found there. He wanted to bring them—both men and women—back to Jerusalem in chains."
A. "Uttering threats" here is literally "breathing in." It is a Greek participle (empneōn) indicating it had become characteristic and continuous.
B. In other words, Saul created an atmosphere around him of threats and murder so that he was constantly breathing it in.
C. As oxygen enables an athlete to keep going, so this atmosphere kept Saul going.
D. He put many in prison and voted to put them to death.
E. Now, however, most of the believers had left Jerusalem. So Saul went of his own accord to the high priest, probably Caiaphas, and asked for official letters to the synagogues at Damascus, giving him authority to arrest any of "the Way," men or women, and to bring them bound as prisoners to Jerusalem (Acts 26:11-12).
F. This would mean a trial before the Sanhedrin and probably the death sentence.
G. "The Way" was an interesting title for the believers, one they could accept: Jesus is the way of salvation, the way of life.
H. That Paul wanted to make arrests regardless of gender, "whether men or women," shows he noticed that the believing women were as active as the men, and he considered them just as dangerous.
I. The law of Moses placed women on a high level, but Pharisees tended to ignore and degrade them.
J. In the Church, women from the beginning were outstanding in prayer, in Christian love and service, and in the gifts of the Spirit. In Christ and in the ministry of the Spirit there is "neither... male nor female"
Horton, 178-179).
3. However, "As he was approaching Damascus on this mission, a light from heaven suddenly shone down around him. 4 He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul! Saul! Why are you persecuting me?"
A. Damascus was about 140 miles northeast of Jerusalem, and nearly 200 miles by road in those days.
B. Near the end of the journey a light from heaven unexpectedly flashed like lightning around Saul.
C. As he told King Agrippa, it continued to shine around him with a light brighter than the noonday sun.
D. Light in the Bible is often associated with manifestations of the presence of the Lord or the manifestation of His glory. Rabbis called it the Shekinah.
E. On the Mount of Transfiguration, Peter, James, and John saw Jesus' face shining "like the sun" (Matt. 17:2).
F. In John 17:5, Jesus prayed to His Father, saying, "'Glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.'"
G. When Jesus rose from the dead, His resurrection body was transformed—it was immortal and incorruptible, as ours will be (1 Cor. 15:52-53). But the glory was not restored until after He ascended.
H. Probably the disciples could not have stood the glory during the forty days Jesus remained on earth with them.
I. But now He came to Saul as the risen and glorified Christ. Later on, Saul spoke of this in writing to the believers at Corinth: "Last of all [after Jesus' other resurrection appearances] he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born."
J. Saul, who was probably walking, recognized the light as beyond the ordinary, or supernatural, so fell facedown to the ground, prostrating himself (as Orientals did to show humility, respect, and, sometimes, worship).
K. Then he heard a voice, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" Luke, in referring to Saul, always uses the Greek form of his name (as in v. 1, Saulos).
L. Jesus used the Hebrew form (Saoul), which the Book of Acts is careful to preserve here. Saul later confirms that Jesus was speaking in Hebrew.
M. Jesus repeated the name twice. Compare this with how God sometimes addressed men in the Old Testament: "Abraham! Abraham!'" (Gen. 22:11), "'Jacob, Jacob'" (Gen. 46:2), "'Moses, Moses!'" (Exod. 3:4). This would make Saul realize that the voice was not that of an ordinary man (Horton, 179-180).
4. Then Luke tells us, “Who are you, lord?” Saul asked. And the voice replied, “I am Jesus, the one you are persecuting!
6 Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”
A. Saul knew the Hebrew Bible very well and recognized this had to be a divine manifestation. But the question he heard confused him. Who was he persecuting other than the Christians?
B. So he asked, "Who are you, Lord?" Some take this to mean, "Who are you, sir?" using the word "lord" merely as a term of polite address. But in response to this obviously supernatural manifestation, the word can only mean divine Lord.
C. The answer came at once, "I [emphatic] am Jesus, whom you [emphatic] are persecuting."
D. In persecuting the Church, Saul was persecuting the body of Christ whose individual members are in Christ.
E. By this Jesus recognized that much of Saul's persecution of the Christians was because he knew he had no answer for their arguments.
F. In his ignorance and unbelief it was a reaction by which he was trying to resist the conviction of the Holy Spirit.
G. But now that he was faced with the truth—and with Christ, not just as the man Jesus but as the divine Lord—he answered simply, "'Lord, what do You want me to do?'"
H. This shows a complete change in Saul's attitude, which is the evidence of genuine repentance on his part (Horton, 180-181).
I. Saul was transformed.
B. Transformation
1. Illustration: When I first became a Christian, I used to hang out at this Christian coffee house in Hartville, OH called the Friendly Gesture. There was a duo that used to play there from time to time called Bob & Bernie. They wrote a song to the tune of "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown that went like this: "Saul, Saul the Apostle Paul, meanest Pharisee of them all. Damascus was his course when the Lord knocked him off his horse."
2. An encounter with Jesus changes our life forever.
A. Romans 12:2 (NLT)
Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.
B. One single event changed my life forever, and that's when someone told me that Jesus wanted to be my personal Savior.
C. It totally blew me away that the creator of the universe, the unique Son of God wanted to have a personal relationship with me.
D. That he wanted to spend time with me, and that he wanted me to allow him to change my life.
E. Jesus wants a personal relationship with you, and that encounter with Jesus will change like nothing else can.
F. He won't just change what you do, but he will change who you are inside and out.
Transition: Next Paul was transformed because of...
II. The Willingness Of A Believer (7-16).
A. Yes, Lord
1. Here's one of the sad aspects of having a personal encounter with Jesus...some people just won't get it.
2. You know, like the men that were with Saul that day. "The men with Saul stood speechless, for they heard the sound of someone’s voice but saw no one!"
A. Meanwhile, the men who were traveling with Saul "stood... speechless," in our idiom, "almost scared to death."
B. They heard the sound of Jesus' (or, Paul's) voice but saw no one.
C. They, as Acts 26:14 says, "all fell to the ground" but apparently got up before Saul did (Horton, 182).
3. Then Luke tells us, "Saul picked himself up off the ground, but when he opened his eyes he was blind. So his companions led him by the hand to Damascus. 9 He remained there blind for three days and did not eat or drink."
A. Saul, it seems, shut his eyes because of the continuing brightness, but He did see Jesus.
B. Then, when he got up off the ground, "he could see nothing."
C. His traveling companions took him by the forearm and led him into Damascus.
D. He was there three days—no longer self-confident but as dependent on others as a little child—unable to see and he neither ate nor drank anything.
E. The Jewish way of counting made the first day the day he entered Damascus and the third day the day Ananias came.
F. This gave Saul a day in between to think things over and to pray.
G. Some relate these three days to Jesus' three days in the tomb. That he "did not eat or drink" implies he was holding himself "in disciplined readiness for further revelation
(Horton, 182).
4. Ironically, it wasn't just the men with Saul that didn't get it. Some of the Christians struggled with it too. As Luke shows us, "Now there was a believer in Damascus named Ananias. The Lord spoke to him in a vision, calling, “Ananias!” “Yes, Lord!” he replied. 11 The Lord said, “Go over to Straight Street, to the house of Judas. When you get there, ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul. He is praying to me right now. 12 I have shown him a vision of a man named Ananias coming in and laying hands on him so he can see again.” 13 “But Lord,” exclaimed Ananias, “I’ve heard many people talk about the terrible things this man has done to the believers in Jerusalem! 14 And he is authorized by the leading priests to arrest everyone who calls upon your name.”
A. On the third day the Lord (Jesus) appeared to an ordinary disciple, not an apostle or officer of the church, named Ananias.
B. He was a devout Jew converted to the Lord and still respected by his fellow Jews.
C. Now the Lord was going to use this otherwise unknown disciple to minister to the highly educated Saul who would become the apostle Paul and be mightily used of God.
D. Jesus appeared to Ananias "in a vision," telling him to go to the street called Straight, the main street of the city.
E. In ancient times it was about fifty feet wide, lined with Corinthian columns, and went straight from the west end of the city to the east end; it is still an important street in Damascus today.
F. There he was to "ask" (Gk. zētēson, "seek, search") in the house of Judas for Saul of Tarsus—surprisingly and unexpectedly, while Saul was praying he had seen, also "in a vision," a man named Ananias coming in and laying hands on him, so that he should recover his sight (Horton, 183).
5. While he was willing to do the Lord's will, he was not real sure about going to see Saul. "But the Lord said, “Go, for Saul is my chosen instrument to take my message to the Gentiles and to kings, as well as to the people of Israel. 16 And I will show him how much he must suffer for my name’s sake.”
A. Ananias objected at first. He had heard "many reports" about "all the harm" Saul had done to the Lord's "saints" in Jerusalem.
B. Ananias was apparently a Jew who was born in Damascus or who had lived there for a long time.
C. Obviously, many of the believers who fled from the persecution had come there and brought news of Saul's fury.
D. The news had already come also that Saul had authority from the chief priests to arrest all who called on the name of Jesus.
E. The church in Damascus may have been getting ready to face the same sort of scattering that had occurred in Jerusalem because of persecution (Horton, 183).
F. Although Ananias was a little hesitant, the Lord told him that he was in control of the situation and that he shouldn't be afraid.
B. Obedience
1. Illustration: "Have you noticed how much praying for revival has been going on of late - and how little revival has resulted? I believe the problem is that we have been trying to substitute praying for obeying, and it simply will not work. To pray for revival while ignoring the plain precept laid down in Scripture is to waste a lot of words and get nothing for our trouble. Prayer will become effective when we stop using it as a substitute for obedience." (Tozer, A.W.)
2. Sometimes it is necessary to hear and obey even when we don't understand.
A. Proverbs 3:5-6 (NLT)
Trust in the LORD with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. 6 Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take.
B. Not everything that the Lord asks of us makes sense at the time, but if we trust we will see his plan unfolding.
C. I'm sure it didn't make sense to Abraham when God told him to leave his home and go where God would tell him to go.
D. I'm sure it didn't make sense to Abraham and Sarah when God told them that they would have a son in their old age.
E. I'm sure it didn't make sense to Moses when the Lord told him to go and tell Pharaoh to let the children of Israel go.
F. But all of these people trusted the Lord with all their heart, and God came through because our God is able!
Transition: In addition to being willing, we also have to be....
III. Faithful Prayer (17-19).
A. Brother Saul
1. Even though he didn't really understand, and even though he was a little bit skeptical, "So Ananias went and found Saul. He laid his hands on him and said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road, has sent me so that you might regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.”
A. Then Ananias obeyed, entered the house, and laid his hands on Saul, calling him "brother." By this he recognized that Saul was now a believer.
B. Then he explained that the Lord had sent him, and identified the Lord as "Jesus, who appeared to you on the road" to Damascus.
C. This explanation probably seemed necessary to Ananias, for the Jews normally used the term "Lord" to mean Yahweh, the one true God.
D. But it really was not necessary, as Saul had already recognized Jesus as Lord.
E. Ananias added that the Lord sent him for two reasons. First, that Saul might "see again"; second, that he might be "filled with the Holy Spirit."
F. Because some writers identify filling with the Spirit with conversion, they suppose that Paul was not converted until this point.
G. But Ananias did not ask Saul to repent and believe. When he placed his hands on Saul to encourage his faith, it was in order for Saul to be healed and filled with the Spirit.
H. In fact, "[n]owhere in Scripture is the laying on of hands presented as a means of imparting salvation (Horton, 184).
2. Then Luke tells us, "Instantly something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he regained his sight. Then he got up and was baptized. 19 Afterward he ate some food and regained his strength. Saul stayed with the believers in Damascus for a few days."
A. The healing was immediate. The physical blindness was gone. So was the spiritual blindness.
B. Luke records additional details later. By being baptized in water, Paul declared his death to his old life and his rising to new life.
C. Then he ended his fast, took food, and "regained his strength." After that he stayed some days with the disciples in Damascus.
D. Verse 12 does not tell the command of Jesus to lay hands on Saul that he might be filled with the Spirit. Neither does verse 18 tell how Saul did receive the Spirit.
E. Once again, we see that Luke does not repeat everything in every place. In effect, he indicates that Saul's experience in being filled with the Holy Spirit was no different from that experienced on the Day of Pentecost.
F. We can be sure he spoke in other tongues at that time as they did in Acts 2:4.
G. Titus 3:5-7 (NLT)
he saved us, not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He washed away our sins, giving us a new birth and new life through the Holy Spirit. 6 He generously poured out the Spirit upon us through Jesus Christ our Savior. 7 Because of his grace he declared us righteous and gave us confidence that we will inherit eternal life.”
H. Titus 3:5-7 confirms this by showing that the Holy Spirit was poured out on both Saul and Titus abundantly.
I. Each had his own personal Pentecost. Actually, there is no question about whether Saul spoke in tongues or not.
J. He told the Corinthians years later that he spoke in tongues more than they all did also shows he was a man of the Spirit.
K. Nothing more is said of Ananias. He undoubtedly continued living in humble obedience to the Lord and to His Word.
L. But Saul never forgot this godly man who was the first believer to call him brother (Horton, 185).
B. Prayers of the Saints
1. Illustration: Back in high school, before I met the Lord, I became friends with a guy named Steve. He was our high school's resident Jesus person. Steve never judged me for the way I lived my life, but he was willing to be my friend, even though I made fun of him like so many others. It was after I accepted the Lord that I found out that Steve had a home bible study group praying for me. I'm here today because of their prayers.
2. Your prayers make a difference!
A. Revelation 5:8 (NLT)
And when he took the scroll, the four living beings and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp, and they held gold bowls filled with incense, which are the prayers of God’s people.
B. There are some of you here today because someone prayed for you.
C. You know all those people you complain about? Maybe you need to pray for them.
D. Here's the thing; you can't change anybody. So if you want someone or something to change talk to the only one who can change them...Jesus!
E. Oh, what peace we often forfeit,
Oh, what needless pain we bear,
All because we do not carry
Everything to God in prayer!
i. Have we trials and temptations?
Is there trouble anywhere?
We should never be discouraged
Take it to the Lord in prayer.
Can we find a friend so faithful,
Who will all our sorrows share?
Jesus knows our every weakness;
Take it to the Lord in prayer.
Conclusion
1. Three things transformed Saul...
A. A Personal Encounter With Jesus
B. The Willingness Of A Believer
C. Faithful Prayer
2. Do you need a personal encounter with Jesus?
3. Do you need to be willing to go and do what doesn't make sense to you?
4. Do you need to be faithful in prayer for someone?
