The old farmer claimed that he could command his mule with nothing more than a few soft words, no whips or prods necessary. She would respond, he claimed, with nothing more than gently spoken commands. So his friend down at the feed store asked for a demonstration. “Prove to me that your old mule will respond with nothing more than gentle language.” Out in the field they went the farmer, his friend, and the mule. As the friend watched, first in awe and then in horror, the farmer took a huge piece of lumber, a two-by-four about six feet long, and swung it with all his might, hitting the mule on one ear! When the animal stopped braying and bellowing and prancing around, the farmer then said, quietly, “Come here” and the mule came. “Sit”, and the whimpering creature sat. “Back up”, and she backed into the harnesses of a waiting plow and waited calmly for him to hook up. “You see? She’ll respond to a simple voice command”. However, his friend objected, “Whatever are you talking about? You said all you had to do was talk to her, but you hit her with this huge two-by-four! What do you mean, you just command her with words! That’s not what I saw!” “Oh, that,” said the farmer. “Well, first I do have to get her attention!” It seems to me that God often uses the proverbial two-by-four to get our attention, because without it we would not listen, nor would we follow. God has to do something dramatic, frequently, because we just do not notice that He is calling us. He is calling us to do something. He is calling us out of our mulish stubbornness and is summoning us to adjust our lifestyles. And we don’t even notice it until He smacks us hard. God desires the church to be a place where lives change, but the changes need to start with us. Some of us have to be hit hard to see what God is doing and what our response will be. Saul came in contact with God’s two-by-four in the form of a bright flash of light that most definitely got his attention. God’s wake-up call for Saul was a personal encounter out on the highway, a moment of truth that made Saul take notice and his life changed forever. Let us take some time now to discover how to be a place where lives change.
I. God calls each and every one of us to make major adjustments in our lives.
A. As the curtain rises on Acts 9, Saul was on a mission to Damascus.
1. Saul had been successful in driving out Christians from Jerusalem but that was not enough, he is still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples.
2. Saul was a very zealous man who actually thought he was doing God a service by persecuting the church.
3. Saul seemed obsessed with the idea of totally wiping Christianity from the face of the earth, so he sought authority to continue this crusade in Damascus.
4. Had you stopped him and asked for his reasons, he might have said something like this:
a. Jesus of Nazareth is dead. Do you expect me to believe that a crucified nobody is the promised Messiah?
b. According to our Law, anybody who is hung on a tree is cursed.
c. Would God take a cursed false prophet and make him the Messiah? No!
d. His followers are preaching that Jesus is both alive and doing miracles through them. But their power comes from Satan, not God.
e. This is a dangerous sect, and I intend to eliminate it before it destroys the traditions that our people have been raised with.
5. Despite all of Saul’s education and religious upbringing he was spiritually blind.
B. Saul must have found it very hard to change. His personality had been shaped by his training as a Pharisee.
1. Let’s face it human beings by nature are quite resistant to change.
2. There are just some people who are inherently conservative. They don’t like change. They don’t want to embrace new things.
3. The fact is that change is inevitable and change must come.
4. Saul had been steeped in the legalism of that tradition. He was from a privileged home.
5. Saul was raised in the university town of Tarsus, where the great ideas of the Greek world were all around him.
6. Saul discovered that God has a way of getting our attention. God calls us out of the comfort zone to make major adjustments and to join Him in His work.
II. What type of major adjustments does God expect us to make?
A. When God confronted Saul, he was called to make a major overhaul in his life stemming from the fact he had been getting it all wrong.
1. Saul discovered to his surprise that Jesus of Nazareth was actually alive! Of course, the believers had been constantly affirming this, but Saul had refused to accept their testimony.
2. Saul had to change his mind about Jesus and His message. He had to repent, a difficult thing for a self-righteous Pharisee to do.
3. Saul also discovered that he was a lost sinner who was in danger of the judgment of God.
4. Saul thought he had been serving God, when in reality he had been persecuting the Messiah!
5. When measured by the holiness of Jesus Christ, Saul’s good works and legalistic self-righteousness looked like filthy rags. All of his values changed. He was a new person because he trusted Jesus Christ.
6. None of his Jewish training could help him deal with the grief he was now feeling.
B. When Saul was confronted by Christ, he was called to move his life in an entirely different direction.
1. Saul obediently got up and followed the Lord’s directions to get up and enter the city.
2. The Hebrew of the Hebrews would become the apostle to the Gentiles; the persecutor would become a preacher; and the legalistic Pharisee would become the great proclaimer of the grace of God.
3. Saul during a helpless three days was forced to make a reappraisal of his life.
4. Everything that he had considered important, his great learning, his proud position as a Pharisee, his leadership in defending the Jewish faith, had all been swept away.
5. Saul would become a vessel of honor, the Lord’s “tool,” to preach the Gospel in the regions beyond. What a transformation!
III. We need to learn to accept the call to become a place where lives change.
A. Saul agonized over all that had taken place but God would not leave him without direction.
1. The Master he came face to face with had told him to go into the city and await further instructions, Saul dutifully obeyed but it has been three days and no word.
2. In a vision the Lord spoke to a certain man named Ananias, a disciple previously unmentioned in Scripture was dispatched to minister to Saul.
3. Ananias was available to do God’s will, but he certainly was not anxious to obey!
4. Ananias was a devout Jew who was a believer in Jesus Christ. He knew what kind of reputation Saul had and that he was coming to Damascus to arrest believers.
5. So Ananias melted in fear when he learned the task the Lord was calling him to accomplish.
a. Ananias probably feared for his personal safety.
b. He was probably quite hesitant to provide a helping hand to an enemy of the Lord’s Church.
6. To encourage Ananias the Lord told him about the mission Saul was being called to accomplish.
7. Ananias obediently goes to find Saul and provide the direction that the Lord had instructed him to give.
B. I believe we do know, down deep, what we as a church have to do to join God in His work.
1. Get up and enter the city. That is the word for those of us who need to make major adjustments.
2. Get up, enter, get to work. No procrastination, no fumbling about, no elaborate arguments; just accept the change I am calling you to make in your life.
3. The bright light and the voice from heaven were dramatic events, but the visit of Ananias was somewhat ordinary.
4. The hand of God pushed Saul from his “high horse,” but God used the hand of a man to bring Saul what he most needed.
5. God spoke from heaven, but He also spoke through an obedient disciple who gave the message to Saul. The “ordinary” events were just as much a part of the miracle as were the extraordinary.
6. We can never underestimate the value of an individual’s changed life to God.
7. God has given us a great opportunity to carry out His mission of reaching the lost of this world with the life-changing message of the Gospel, but the changes need to start with us.
Our world has changed dramatically in the past 100 years, and futurists predict that even greater changes are coming. Consider these facts:
We now watch as routine space shuttles that propel people into space and land routinely. Yet, it was under 100 years ago that the first airplane flew at Kitty Hawk.
The first mass produced Model T Ford came off the assembly only 80 plus years ago, yet we now have the first hybrid cars combining gas and electricity. According to experts, it won’t be long until we can purchase automobiles capable of getting 75-100 miles per gallon, that respond to voice commands, and that automatically avoid collisions.
Penicillin was discovered only 60 some years ago yet we’ve successfully implanted an artificial heart, and have made tremendous strides in cancer research.
Our world is constantly changing and what applies to our culture also applies to us as individuals. We move, we think differently, we age. Many of us are like the man who accepted the invitation to attend his 25th high school reunion by writing.. “I hope you’ll recognize me.. I’ve got the “5 B’s”.. baldness, bifocals, bridgework, bulges and bunions.”
But there is one change that is more important than all others. That is the change that Jesus Christ can bring into your life. He desires and has the ability to transform all of our lives from unrighteous to righteous.
