Well, again, let me welcome you this morning.
I am, I've been loving this series in Acts because it's just, it's the kind of thing
that we have to come back to again and again and again as we think about what it means
to be the church.
And after this past year, I think it's just become clear to all of us that we need to be
reminded why we're here, what we're here to do.
And so for that reason, we're looking at this text.
The idea being that as we remember what the early church was like, the role they played
in Roman society, we can get clarity on what we're called to be like in D.C. society.
And as we look at the future of our church in D.C., one of the things that we are praying
for, one of the things that I'm praying for most is to see more adult conversions, is
to see more older children and adults, either people who have left the faith, people who've
never been exposed to the faith, coming in, falling in love with Jesus, giving their lives
to Jesus and being baptized.
And that's, I feel like God has just put that in my heart and I'm just praying and praying
and praying to see that in the years to come.
Now, I know that that statement probably makes a lot of people feel uncomfortable.
And it makes non-Christians feel comfortable.
And some of you are here and you're not Christians and you're like, man, this is the absolute wrong
Sunday to be here.
But there are a lot of Christians actually, maybe even more Christians than non-Christians,
who get really uncomfortable when we talk about adult conversions.
Because that whole idea of sharing your faith, convincing somebody else to believe what you
believe, is very taboo in our society.
It's just one of the things that civil people don't do in our society.
My sense of why we get so uncomfortable is that, at least in part, we have a lot of misconceptions
about conversion.
And I think that Christians and non-Christians alike have a lot of misconceptions about Christian
conversion, what it is and what it's not.
And so I want to clear up some of those misconceptions this morning by looking at, hands down, the most
famous Christian conversion in all of history, which is the conversion of Saul, the persecutor
of Christians, to Paul, the apostle who wrote many of the letters of the New Testament.
We're going to be looking primarily at the passage in Acts 9 that I read, but we're also going
to look a little bit at Acts 22 and Acts 26, where we see further retellings of his
conversion story.
And then we're going to draw from some of his letters as well and try to understand
what conversion is and what it's not.
And there are a lot of details that are unique to Paul's conversion.
We're not going to focus on those as much.
What we're going to do is to draw out three features of Paul's conversion that I think would
apply to any conversion out there.
So let's, with that in mind, ask the Lord to guide us, and then we'll open God's word
together.
Lord, we thank you for your word.
And as we will see today, your word, your gospel has its own power.
It doesn't depend on our rhetoric, our force of persuasion.
It doesn't depend on our production value.
Somehow your word, your gospel, goes out from you, accomplishes all that you intend for it
to accomplish in the power of your spirit in ways that are sometimes in spite of us.
And Lord, I pray for myself and for us that you would use your word to accomplish your will in us,
even if it has to be in spite of us, in spite of me.
And I pray this for your glory, that your name would be lifted above all others.
In Jesus' name, amen.
So the first thing we see as we look at Paul's story, his conversion,
one of the things that I think is very clear in this text from the outset
is that conversion begins not with us, but with God.
It begins not with us, but with God.
Luke opens by telling us three things in the first couple of verses.
He tells us three things.
Number one, Paul is still breathing threats and murder against Christians.
He's walking along and he's grumbling and fantasizing
about all of the horrendous things that he wants to do
to these Christians when he finds them.
That's the first thing.
Number two, Paul has gotten an extradition order from the high priest
authorizing him to drag any Christians he finds in Damascus back to Jerusalem for trial,
to bind them and to drag them back to Jerusalem for trial.
And number three, he's on his way to Damascus to do just that.
So Paul is not sort of seeking Jesus at this point in his life.
And Luke wants to make that clear.
He's not seeking Jesus.
The whole point of the story is Jesus is the one seeking Paul.
It's clear from the very beginning.
But there's more going on than that.
There's more going on than just this miraculous appearance on the road.
We often think of the Damascus road experience as this sudden dramatic event, right?
Somebody is on the streets and addicted to heroin and robbing banks
and then they meet Jesus and then everything changes.
And that's kind of how we think of a Damascus road experience.
But if you know Paul's story, God has actually been working in his life for some time.
Now, Saul is a Pharisee and the Pharisees were generally opposed to the teachings of Jesus and the early Christians.
But the thing you have to understand about Paul is,
Paul's hatred of Christians went far beyond his colleagues.
It went far beyond his colleagues.
Paul's mentor, Gamaliel, had encouraged a posture of caution and leniency toward the Christians.
But Paul had broken away from his mentor and Paul had become a fanatic.
Paul saw Christians as pure evil, as heretics who were tearing apart the Jewish way of life.
And he believed that he was doing God's will by murdering as many of them as possible.
I mean, get that into your mind.
I'm glorifying God by murdering as many of these people as possible.
So you ask, well, why was Paul such a fanatic?
What's the source of his fanaticism?
Carl Jung, the analyst, once said this.
He says, fanaticism is only found in individuals who are compensating for secret doubts.
That's a really important point.
Right?
So then we have to ask the question,
was Paul's fanaticism due to the fact that he was compensating for secret doubts?
In Paul's own account of his conversion in Acts chapter 26,
at one point, Jesus says to him,
it's hard for you to kick against the goads.
You say, what does that mean?
Well, a goad is like a long stick with a pointy end.
It's like a cattle prod,
and you use it to get livestock to go in the direction that you want them to go.
So then you ask, well, what does this mean?
What were the goads in Paul's life?
What was goading him?
A few things.
Right?
Number one, commentators say it's very likely that Saul and Jesus were roughly the same age.
And so it's very likely, being in a small geographic area,
that they would have been around each other,
maybe even met earlier in life.
It's very possible that in one of the places in the Gospels
where you see Jesus and you see the Pharisees
kind of standing off to the side and grumbling,
it's very likely that Paul was among those Pharisees,
watching Jesus teach,
watching Jesus heal,
watching the way the crowds responded to him.
And these experiences may have goaded Paul,
punching little holes of doubt in his certainty.
Right?
And then there was the matter of Stephen.
We saw not too long ago
that Saul was standing there,
giving approval to what was happening.
He was overseeing the events of the murder of Stephen
when Stephen fell to his knees,
the rocks crashing into his body and into his head.
Stephen crying out,
seeing a vision of the glory of God,
Jesus at the right hand of the Father.
Stephen crying out in prayer,
God, please forgive the sins
of those who are killing me.
Please don't hold this against them.
And Saul,
this pious man,
had been taught to believe that Christians were evil heretics,
that they represented everything that was wrong in the world.
But this did not fit the stereotype.
Stephen had the face of an angel.
This isn't an evil person.
He's praying that God would forgive me,
even as I approve his execution.
Surely that haunted him in the late hours of the night.
Then there was probably moral doubt.
You know,
Saul was exemplary in every way.
No offense,
he was probably a better person than all of us.
He had kept almost all of the commandments
in word and deed his entire life
since he was very young.
But what about his heart?
What about that last commandment?
Thou shalt not covet.
You know,
all the other commandments
you can keep in word and deed,
more or less,
but coveting is different.
Coveting is not a word.
It's not a deed.
It's a feeling.
And I don't know about you,
but when I realize
that I am struggling with coveting something,
I don't remember making the choice to do it.
I catch myself red-handed in the act of coveting.
And that's how it often happens.
Had he really never coveted anything or anyone
in his whole life?
So Paul's fanaticism was very likely
an attempt to compensate for secret doubts
as the Spirit goaded him toward Jesus.
And you know, here's the thing.
Everyone, everywhere, struggles with doubt.
Christians struggle with doubt.
Non-Christians struggle with doubt.
Sometimes it's just doubt.
Human beings doubt.
It's kind of what it means to be a human being.
What this shows us, though,
is that sometimes,
for those people who are not followers of Jesus,
they're not just doubts.
Sometimes,
as a non-Christian,
when you are doubting your certainty
that Jesus is a fraud,
that Christians are wrong,
sometimes when that doubt creeps in,
it's actually the work of the Holy Spirit
beginning to goad you,
beginning to poke holes in your certainty.
Sometimes it's the work of the Lord in your life.
You know, I think of the example of Cy Gart,
who is a research biochemist.
He's been a tenured professor at NYU
and at Rutgers and University of Pittsburgh.
And he wrote about his Christian conversion.
And I love his story.
He talks about being raised
in a staunchly Marxist,
atheistic household.
His dad made sure that he was a staunch atheist
and a staunch Marxist.
And his dad taught him,
always ask questions,
question everything.
Right?
And so he grew up believing
in the power of reason,
the power of science
to sort of explain everything.
But then,
cracks began to appear.
Cracks began to appear
in his watertight worldview.
He began to see inconsistencies
in the worldview his parents had given him.
He writes this.
He says,
if humans were a blind product
of evolutionary chance
with no special purpose or significance,
then how could the stated goals of socialism
to advance human dignity and value
make sense?
He's like,
how can we believe
that humans have dignity and value
if we're just a blind product of chance?
And then he began to ask questions
that science simply could not answer.
He began to wonder,
where did the universe come from?
How did life begin?
What does it mean to be a human being?
What's the source of our creativity?
Of art?
Of poetry?
Of music?
And humor?
And then he began to meet Christians
who were highly educated.
He began to meet Christians
who were scientifically minded.
And his whole perception of Christianity
began to shift.
And what he would say
is that all of these were like cracks
in the ceiling of his worldview.
He had a nice, orderly worldview.
He knew the good guys and the bad guys.
He kind of knew what he believed.
And all of a sudden,
these cracks started to appear in the ceiling.
Light started shining through.
And he had to figure out
what to do with that.
Right?
That's how God began working in his life.
That ultimately led him to faith.
So the first thing that we want to make clear
is that conversion begins with God.
Right?
For some of us,
this happens before we have any conscious memories.
You know, some of you were baptized as babies.
You grew up in the church.
You never knew a day apart from the Lord.
And praise God for that.
For other people,
it begins when the Spirit of God
starts to put cracks in the ceiling
of your worldview.
Inconsistencies.
Questions you can't answer.
Unfulfilled longings.
So this is the first thing.
Conversion begins with God.
The second thing we see in Paul's conversion
is that conversion calls us not to moralism,
but it calls us away from moralism.
It calls us not to moralism,
but it calls us away from moralism.
Now when I say moralism,
you know, moralism comes in many forms.
Lots of different kinds of moralism.
But moralism basically means
believing that life is about being a good person.
And most people out there think
at the end of the day,
what life is really about,
whatever you believe,
what life is really about
is being a good person.
That's all that really matters.
Paul lived in a very highly moralistic society,
and religion in Paul's culture
was all about keeping God's law.
And it was especially focused
on keeping the external aspects of the law.
Be circumcised,
keep the Sabbath,
tithe.
I would argue that we also live
in a highly moralistic society,
and I would actually argue in some ways
I think we live in a more moralistic society.
Because we don't just have
one kind of moralism,
we have what we would call
a kind of moral pluralism.
There are lots of different
moralities out there.
And in our society,
we might think of
our moral pluralism
tends to generally fall along political lines.
Right?
So your politics, to a large degree,
shape your morality
for the average person in our society.
So roughly broad categories,
we can sort of think of
there's kind of red state morality,
and then there's like blue state morality.
Right?
So red state morality,
a love for freedom,
love for God,
love for country,
tends to hold to the kind of
traditional Judeo-Christian values
around marriage and sexuality.
But when you bring up things
like social justice,
when you bring up things
like structural racism,
people get really nervous
if they live in a kind of
red state morality society.
And then on the other side,
you have blue state morality.
And largely speaking,
you know, this is all
rough, crude categories,
but blue state morality
actually co-ops
a lot of the Christian values
around things like justice,
equality,
universal human rights,
care for the poor.
Right?
Very serious about ending
all forms of racism.
Right?
But it de-emphasizes
the need to believe in God
or really anything.
And then it swaps out
the Judeo-Christian view
of human nature,
which sees human beings
as sinful
and in need of grace.
And in its place,
it holds on to a kind of
post-enlightenment view
of human nature
that comes from people
like Rousseau,
Marx,
Freud.
It's a view of human nature
that says humans
are inherently good
and it's society
that's corrupt.
It says that our true self
is defined by our feelings
and that we're morally obligated
to express that to the world.
And it says that any traditions
or institutions
or religions
that get in the way of that
are oppressive
and need to be overturned.
Alright,
so this is kind of
two distinct moral worlds
that people live in
that are largely shaped
by politics.
And here's the point
I want to make.
A lot of people think,
a lot of people assume
that becoming a Christian
basically means shifting
from blue state morality
to red state morality.
I can't tell you
how many conversations
I've had with people
where that's essentially
what they think
being a Christian is.
It's shifting
from blue state morals
and adopting red state morals.
Because I ask,
you know,
what's the hesitation for you?
And what they describe
is I'm just not sure
I can embrace
what essentially amounts
to red state morality.
Right?
And so it's all about
what morals you have.
And if we look at Paul's story,
we have to realize
this couldn't be further
from the truth
of what Paul experienced.
Before Paul met Jesus,
he thought very highly
of himself.
I mean,
in Philippians 3,
Paul says,
if anyone could have been
confident of God's approval,
if anyone could be confident
that when they walked
up to the gate,
God would say,
we've been waiting for you.
Come on in.
Right?
If anybody could say that,
it would have been Paul,
he says.
He says,
you know,
I was a Hebrew of Hebrews.
When it comes to righteousness
under the law,
I was blameless.
But then Paul comes
face to face
with Jesus.
And when Paul sees Jesus
in all of his glory,
when he sees that blinding light
that is so magnificent,
that is so overwhelming,
that it blinds him,
when he realizes
that Jesus is the Son of God
who has defeated death
and he is standing there,
in the flesh,
it changes everything.
Right?
And the first thing
that it changes for Paul
is the way he sees himself.
In that light,
he sees himself clearly,
maybe for the first time
in his life.
And his knees buckle.
And he falls to the ground.
In the light of Jesus' glory,
Paul sees the truth,
not just about himself,
but all human beings,
which he writes about
in Romans chapter 3.
He says, you know,
I used to think the world
was divided into good guys
and bad guys.
I used to think I knew
who the good guys were
and who the bad guys were.
And I knew by the morals.
I knew by the way they lived.
And then I met Jesus.
And I realized,
there's no difference.
There's no difference.
He says,
for there is no distinction
between anyone,
Jew, Gentile,
red state,
blue state.
There's no difference.
It doesn't matter.
He says,
here's the truth I realized
when I saw Jesus.
All of us have sinned.
We all fall short
of that glory.
I've never met
a human being in my life
who comes close
to what I saw on the road.
I've never met anyone
who could hold a candle
to that light.
It was so bright.
It was noon.
And the glory of Jesus
was so bright
that it blotted out the sun.
I've never seen anything like it.
But this doesn't lead
Paul to despair.
See,
that could easily lead you
to say,
well man,
it's hopeless.
Let's give up.
But it has the opposite
impact on Paul.
It leads him to a joyous revelation
which he goes on to say
in verse 24
in Romans 3.
He says,
therefore we're justified
by his grace
as a gift.
He gets it.
Oh,
I can't ever attain this.
It has to be given to me
through the redemption
that is in Christ Jesus
whom God put forward
as a propitiation
by his blood
to be received
by faith.
Propitiation,
what does that mean?
Here's what it means.
Jesus didn't come
to be an example
for us to follow.
He came to be a substitution.
He came to take our place.
To live the life
we should have lived.
To die the death
that we deserve to die.
To take our place
on the cross
and give us
his place
at the table.
Right?
Life is not about
being a good person.
Conversion is not about
shifting from
red state morality
to blue state morality.
Life,
the reason that you're here
is that you might
come to know
Jesus Christ
entirely through
the gift
of his grace
that he gives you.
That's the gospel.
And that's only possible
when you come
face to face
with the hard truth
about who you are.
Really.
And you need
a really bright light
to be able to see it
as it really is.
and most of our lives
we live in
very dim conditions
where we think
we can tell
who the good guys are.
This reminds me
of the story
about Dr. Kamesh Sankaran
who is a
physics professor
at Whitworth University.
Another physicist.
I don't know why.
Or another scientist.
But he has a great story.
When he was a PhD student
at Princeton
he says that he was still
a very devout Hindu.
And he was I think
one of the leaders
of the student association
for Hindus
at Princeton.
And he describes himself
as a very moral person.
Again, probably better
than most of us
in this room.
And he says
he writes that he had
a disdain
for Christians in the West.
He saw Christians
in the West
as morally bankrupt
as debaucherous even.
But then he found himself
working 12 hours a day
as PhD students do
right alongside
another doctoral student.
And that guy
was a Christian.
And so what do you do
with 12 hours
shoulder to shoulder
working?
Well eventually you start
you get past
the nice small talk
and you start talking
about real stuff.
And so you start
talking about faith.
And so they talk
about different aspects
of their various faiths
and then they come
to the topic
of the cross.
And this Christian guy
begins to describe
to Kamesh
how Jesus
was willing
to take the sins
of the world
on himself
and to die
so that people
could be forgiven
and saved.
And Kamesh says
that he was deeply
offended by this idea.
He says
he writes this
he says
I was a deeply
religious person
diligently striving
to be good.
How dare this man
think that anyone
especially someone
like me
was a sinner
in need of salvation.
You know
he said this
because he was
a devout Hindu
but I think
most people
on the street
if you were to ask
would say
probably something
similar.
How dare you
think that I
would need that.
But then he says
all at once
he experienced
several catastrophic
failures in his life.
They were unexpected
but it was
financial failure
academic failure
and relational failure
all at once
the bottom dropped
out in his life.
And here's what he says
the blows came
from different directions
but their cumulative
effect was devastating.
By removing
the frail crutches
on which my life
was built
God exposed
the reality
of my profound
weakness
especially my
utter inability
to fix
relational brokenness.
I was in more pain
than I had imagined
possible
and I was devoid
of the props
on which I was
accustomed to resting.
Knowing no other
way out
I decided to
end my own life.
So this is his
rock bottom.
In the midst
of this darkness
a voice within me
spoke
this is why
Jesus had to die
for you.
All of a sudden
the offense
of the cross
made sense.
The cross
is a whole lot
clearer
when you look
at it from below.
it's really
hard to see it
clearly when you
look down on it
from above.
This happened
on a Sunday
morning
so instead
of killing
himself
Kamesh called
his friend
and asked
if he could
go to church
with him
and his friend
was just
getting their
family ready
to go
so Kamesh
comes to them
and that morning
thankfully
he heard the
gospel
and he ended
up giving
himself to
Jesus.
so the
thing that
makes you
a Christian
is this
if someone
were to
ask you
how do
you know
that you
are right
with God
how do
you know
that your
relationship
with God
that you
can have
assurance
that you
are right
with God
here's how
you know
you're a
Christian
you don't
point to
your Jewish
credentials
you don't
point to
your Hindu
devotion
you don't
point to
your red
state morality
you don't
point to
your blue
state morality
in fact
you don't
point to
yourself
at all
you point
to Jesus
you point
to the
finished work
the cross
his life
his death
his resurrection
so conversion
is not about
swapping out
one morality
for another
it's about
giving up
on moralism
altogether
the last thing
that we want
to see about
conversion
not only does
it begin
with God
not only
does it
call us
away from
moralism
as the
center of
our life
and identity
but conversion
joins us
not only
to Christ
but also
to his
church
the first
lesson
Jesus
teaches
Paul
as a
new
Christian
is that
he needs
people
isn't that
amazing
the first
thing that
Jesus
teaches
Paul
as a
new
Christian
is that
he needs
to join
the church
after his
encounter
with Jesus
Paul
is left
blind
this man
who knew
everything
right top
of his
class
Hebrew of
Hebrews
Pharisee
of
Pharisees
crawling
around
on the
ground
unable
to even
he has
to be led
like a
child
to Damascus
to the
house of
Judas
he fasts
for three
days
we can only
imagine
it says
later that he
was praying
during that
time
we can only
imagine
what that
was like
three days
of fasting
and repentance
and then
Jesus
sends a
man
named
Ananias
who is
a
Christian
in the
church
of
Damascus
and we
have this
amazing
scene
one of the
most powerful
scenes in
the Bible
Paul is
sitting there
completely
helpless
entirely at
the mercy
of a man
he had
planned to
kill
just a few
days earlier
if he could
and Ananias
lays his hands
on Saul
and says
brother
Saul
calls him
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 Paul
is filled
with the
Spirit
he regains
his sight
and immediately
they baptize
him
and all
of Paul's
letters
are filled
with teaching
about the
absolute
centrality
and necessity
of the
church
for the
life and
the growth
of Christians
came out
of his
own
experience
so it
doesn't
matter
how brilliant
you are
you're
credentials
are important
in one
way
but in
another
way
when it
comes to
God
they don't
matter
at all
it doesn't
matter how
gifted
you are
the most
important
lesson you
will ever
learn as a
Christian
is that
you need
the church
is that
you can't
do it
alone
I don't
think it's
possible to
have the
kind of
relationship
that we're
called to
have with
Jesus
apart from
his church
and I think
we kind of
see that
here
indirectly
in verse
four
Jesus says
Saul
what does
he say
why are
you
persecuting
my
people
no he
doesn't
say that
he says
why are
you
persecuting
me
now that's
profound
Saul had
not been
persecuting
Jesus
personally
he had
been
persecuting
the
church
and what
Jesus is
saying is
that he
is so
connected
to the
church
so present
with his
people
that whatever
Saul did
to the
church
he was
doing to
Jesus
personally
they're
inextricably
linked
and what
this means
is that
our
relationship
with
Jesus
is
inextricably
bound
to our
relationship
with
the
church
so just
think about
this
if Jesus
says to
someone who
is persecuting
his church
why are you
persecuting
me
how would
Jesus
respond to
someone
a Christian
who has
decided to
forsake
the church
who says
I'll follow
Jesus
I'll listen
to sermons
online
but
I'm just
not sure
I want to
be a part
of a
church
I don't
think it's
a stretch
to assume
that Jesus
might say
something
like this
why have
you forsaken
me
why have
you forsaken
me
right
this is
one of
the great
challenges
I think
of the
last year
when we
were prevented
from meeting
together
in person
technology
has been
a major
blessing
it's allowed
many people
to stay
connected
who otherwise
might not
have been
able to
be
connected
it's allowed
a lot
of new
people
to get
connected
to churches
like ours
that they
weren't
previously
connected
to
and we
thank God
for that
that's a
great use
of technology
but nothing
can replace
our physical
presence and
participation
in the local
church
there is too
much in
scripture
to argue
for this
case
that
this is
where we
are meant
to experience
Jesus
most fully
and that
our attitude
toward the
local church
is inextricably
linked to
our attitude
toward Jesus
himself
so biblically
I would say
that the idea
of following
Jesus
but being
in no way
connected
to the
local church
there's no
category for
that in
scripture
so these
are the
characteristics
of true
Christian
conversion
begins not
with us
but with
God
conversion
is not a
call to
moralism
it's a
call out
of
away from
moralism
and conversion
joins us
not only to
Christ
but also to
Christ's church
and with this
understanding of
conversion
I just want to
ask you to
join me
in praying
regularly
daily
to see more
conversions in
this church
more baptisms
more people
coming to know
and experience
the free grace
of Jesus Christ
let's pray
Lord we do
recognize that
because this is a
work of your
Holy Spirit
it's something
that you must
do
every Christian
and every
conversion story
I have ever
heard has been
a glorified
bystander
in your work
a lucky
providentially
present witness
to see the
culmination of a
renovation project
that you've been
doing
in many cases
for years
and years
in the hearts
of your people
and so we pray
this Lord
for our community
I pray that you
would give us
the boldness
and the confidence
to recognize
that you're
inviting us
into something
that you're
doing
and that you
would give us
the trust
and the faith
Lord
to be present
and to be willing
to speak
the words
of the gospel
recognizing
that somebody
might be
in the very
place that
Kamesh was
or Sygart
was
at a place
of all they
needed is to
hear the words
and you've done
everything else
Lord I just
pray that Lord
and I pray that
for those who
are hearing this
who may have
misunderstood the
gospel or people
who thought they
were Christians
but realized that
they're still
moralists like
we all are
prone to be
I pray that you
would make the
clarity of the
gospel and the
grace at the
heart of it
uniquely powerful
to them right
now that they
would that they
would if they
need to realize
that maybe they've
never heard the
gospel before this
very moment and
that they would
respond to you in
faith and with
gratitude Lord we
pray this in your
son's holy name
amen
wish for the
sake of
you