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Acts 9:10-31: "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.' 11 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, 12 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.' 13 But Ananias answered, ‘Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints at Jerusalem. 14 And here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call on your name.' 15 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. 16 For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.' 17 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.' 18 And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and he regained his sight. Then he rose and was baptized; 19 and taking food, he was strengthened. For some days he was with the disciples at Damascus. 20 And immediately he proclaimed Jesus in the synagogues, saying, ‘He is the Son of God.' 21 And all who heard him were amazed and said, ‘Is not this the man who made havoc in Jerusalem of those who called upon this name? And has he not come here for this purpose, to bring them bound before the chief priests?' 22 But Saul increased all the more in strength, and confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus was the Christ. 23 When many days had passed, the Jews plotted to kill him, 24 but their plot became known to Saul. They were watching the gates day and night in order to kill him, 25 but his disciples took him by night and let him down through an opening in the wall, lowering him in a basket. 26 And when he had come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join the disciples. And they were all afraid of him, for they did not believe that he was a disciple. 27 But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles and declared to them how on the road he had seen the Lord, who spoke to him, and how at Damascus he had preached boldly in the name of Jesus. 28 So he went in and out among them at Jerusalem, preaching boldly in the name of the Lord. 29 And he spoke and disputed against the Hellenists. But they were seeking to kill him. 30 And when the brothers learned this, they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him off to Tarsus. 31 So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied."

INTRODUCTION

We are back in the great historical narrative of Acts this morning. One of the great joys of this book is its seemingly inconsequential detail from Luke the historian, yet in these details are found treasures if we're willing to dig a bit for them.

We've been on a quest to determine what it was that so captured the hearts and minds of the early Christians that it created such an explosive spread of the Gospel in such a hostile environment.

In AD 25 there was no Christianity, only a young hermit in the Judean desert whose younger cousin dreamt dreams and saw visions. Yet by AD 125 the force of Christianity had to be dealt with by Roman Emperors who tried to stamp it out through official policy to punish Christians.

Kings and emperors were being preached to in their own courts. Christian communities were being formed and churches were found wherever you would travel in Asia Minor. The unstoppable force of the Gospel frustrated the political leaders and the more they attempted to stop news of Jesus and what He accomplished, the more quickly it spread. The blood of the Christians was seed, as Tertullian (ad 155-230) said.

We are told from Justin during this period of time that "There is not a race of men on Earth among whom converts to the Christian faith could not be found."

By the end of the second century Tertullian could say, "We came on the scene only yesterday and already we fill all your institutions, your towns, walled cities, your fortresses...your senate and your forum."

All of this was during a time, Alan Hirsch says, in which Christianity lacked what we count on today for growth. This expansion of the Church came at a time when Christianity was an illegal religion which:

• Didn't have church buildings as we know them
• Didn't have the Scriptures as we know them
• Didn't have a professional form of leadership
• Didn't have military might
• Didn't have political power
• Didn't have intellectual status
• Didn't have social capital
• Didn't have seeker-sensitive services
• Didn't have youth groups
• Didn't have seminaries
• Didn't have commentaries
• And they actually made it difficult to join the Church
  

Most churches deem such things mandatory to grow in our day. Yet the faith of our early brothers and sisters who believed they were an entirely new kind of people because of what Christ accomplished, catapulted them forward towards each other and the world.

In their view, humanity was recaptured. During this Roman reign of power, the humanity of man was diminished to animal force and impulse in many ways. There was a loss of relationship which man had with himself. He no longer understood who he was and why he was there. He no longer understood his own identity. Man walked around in a hardened shell which kept him from true rest.

In this condition, Christ breaks in as a servant King to recover man's lost relationships with God, with other men, and with this world.

This reconnection of the severed tethers is and was the power for personal, local, and global transformation.

This morning we look at the effects of these changed relationships in the life of the once persecutor of the Church, Saul, who is now the Apostle Paul. We pick up just after his incredible encounter with the living Christ after He rose from the dead and while Paul was on the road to Damascus with letters in hand to arrest followers of Jesus.

The cause of conversion always has consequences in our lives, and this is what we've been unpacking these last several weeks in Acts.

Conversion brings us into new relationships. The effects of the reconciling power of grace brings us face to face with these new relationships and ushers in an entirely different way of relating to God, Christ's Church, and the world.

Paul is a model of our conversion and his story shows us what God has in mind for you and me as a result of grace.

STUDY

I. A New Relationship with God

We see in Paul's conversion a startling truth which we are rarely aware of; we are all by nature enemies of God until we are reconciled to him through the Gospel.

Our primary problem isn't just that we are failing God, we are actively fighting God. We not only fall short of being good, we actively resent God's control over our lives and we attempt to set ourselves up to be our own savior and lord.

Paul shows us the lesson he learned when He came face to face with Jesus. He found that in all his religious effort he was really trying to be Jesus to save himself from his own sin through his own righteousness by keeping the law.

Paul had to be converted because he wasn't just persecuting Christians in general, he was persecuting the Gospel in specific, and therefore he was persecuting the central person in the Gospel, Jesus.

In Paul's theology, he had to work hard to live up to standards and prove to God that he was righteous.

Like Paul, each of us before coming to Christ had set ourselves up as persecutors of Christ and His Gospel. The most religious people who work and work to obey all that the Bible says are actually considered enemies of God as long as they attempt to save themselves by their goodness and holiness.

Unfortunately, many who consider themselves Christians in our day are not very different than Saul before he was converted. Our relationship with God can seem more like a boss/employee relationship. We feel like there are a number of things, a list of tasks, which we're suppose to complete and if we do then we're safe.
Now, most of us won't admit this, but it's how we act and how many us naturally tend.

Our relationship with God feels strained or without joy, it feels formal. This is what Paul experienced. To Him, God was a hard-charging task-master, a dissatisfied boss. If we're honest, many of us will have to admit the same, but we hide this feeling behind our works which we hold up as a trophy to prove that He should love us and that we're worthy of His favor.

Even the most irreligious people that claim they don't care what anybody thinks, are actually very religious. They believe that their life is good enough and that they don't need anyone to tell them what to do. In other words, they make themselves out to be their own lord, their own sovereign god. And all the while they live for something, some status, some approval, some standard they set for themselves which they fail at keeping.

Both religion, like Paul, and irreligion are ways to avoid Jesus. Both put faith in themselves. Both are trying to be their own lord and savior.

This cycle of keeping up and failing creates an undercurrent of hatred for God. We begin to see Him as a cosmic joy-killer. We never sense His smiling face and only feel His disapproval. When something bad happens to us we immediately think He's disappointed and is punishing us for something we did wrong. Do you sense this in your life?

Paul came to a new kind of relationship with God that radically changed the way he viewed God. Paul came to see that His struggling to live up was over and Christ put an end to his pursuit of his own righteousness. This gripped him so much that when giving advice to a people that were stuck in the same cycle, he says this:

Romans 10:1-4: "Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. 2 I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. 3 For, being ignorant of the righteousness that comes from God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness. 4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes."

This created an entirely new way with God for Paul. Paul no longer related to God as a boss but as a Father. Paul no longer saw himself as an employee but as a son.

What a profound difference it is to sense God as your Father-that intimate sense of God's loving approval of His own. To know that we are no longer God's enemies but His beloved children with whom He delights is everything. It's what we're made for, to love Him and be loved by Him.

It isn't that Paul didn't understand God was a Father theologically. The Old Testament taught as much. But it is only mentioned a total of 10 times in the OT and it is more of a position of authority. This doesn't mean that God did not love like a Father in the OT, but that His people didn't quite yet grasp the intimate relationship which was most fully shown in Christ, His beloved Son.

This is why the Jews were so startled that Jesus spoke to His Father with such closeness, as if He really meant it literally. They couldn't handle such intimacy because to them it seemed too relational and not formal enough.

They couldn't view God as a Father in this way because they were still working for a Boss, not being loved by a Dad.

Yet along comes Christ who not only calls God His Father but says that He is His "Abba, Father..." (Mark 14:36).

Paul's view of God changed so much that he tells us what our new status is:

Galatians 4:4-6: "But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. 6 And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!'"

The Spirit was sent to us to come breaking into our hard, work-weary hearts, so that we would cry out, "Abba, Father!"

Paul also says in Romans:

Romans 8:14-15: "For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. 15 For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!'"

In Biblical Hebrew ab is Father, but in Aramaic abbā is a word derived by baby language. A small child would often learn the word abbā (which means daddy) first before any other. It was a term of great intimacy and one of close relationship. It was used by Christ to show the warm relationship which we have with our Father. It's like calling God our Daddy, Father.

Even if we've had struggles with our own human fathers, even if they've hurt us or abused us in some physical or emotional way and we feel our father-child relationship is greatly strained, Jesus comes to redeem that view of a father through brining us into the relationship He has with His perfect Father. He comes to restore us to God and cause us to no longer work to find approval, but rest in our Abba, Father.

What distortion of the Gospel keeps us from seeing God as our Father?

Paul also was brought into a new relationship with Christ's Church.

II. A New Relationships with Christ's Church

Ananias is stunned that God would request such a thing as to go to the enemy and persecutor of the Church. This would be similar to a Jew seeking out a Nazi when those Nazis were hunting Jews down to murder them, and welcoming him into their family.

This is why in many ways Ananias is one of the forgotten heroes of the NT. Ananias heard reports about this man and it is likely that Ananias knew many of the Christians that Paul had captured and perhaps had killed. Yet Jesus repeated His command to Ananias and told him to go (v. 15).

What must Ananias have been thinking on this long walk to find this enemy? We get a glimpse of this when Ananias finally arrives and gently lays his hand upon Paul and utters the first words from a Christian that the blind Paul hears, "Brother Saul" (v. 17).

What a gesture of love. Paul may not have seen the welcoming smile on Ananias' face, but I'm sure by the pressure of his hand and the tenderness of his voice, Paul must have felt welcomed into the family of God.

What kind of love was this? Could the arch-enemy of the Church actually be welcomed as a brother? Was this hateful fanatic to be received as a member of the family? Yes, this was grace.

Ananias told Paul that the same Jesus that he met on the road, sent him so that he might recover his sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit (v. 17).

Verses 18-19: "And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and he regained his sight. Then he rose and was baptized; 19 and taking food, he was strengthened. For some days he was with the disciples at Damascus."

Could it be that Ananias prepared and served the meal, as well as baptized him?

Paul was not the only one who had understood that God was His Father. Ananias recognized that not only was God a Father, but also that anyone whom God lays His grace upon is his brother or sister. Paul is turned from a raging lion to a crying lamb, who cries out, "Abba, Father."

This teaches us that to become a Christian does not mean to join a social club, but to be welcomed and grafted into a Body, the Body of Christ. When we receive the Holy Spirit, we receive the Spirit of Christ who binds us to all other Christians by an incredible living link.

Conversion changes our closest relationships. Our new family becomes other brothers and sisters in Christ, regardless of our past failures or record, regardless of our social class, regardless of our economic or racial distinctions.

You see this same pattern continue when Paul travels to Jerusalem. We're told:

Verse 26: "And when he had come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join the disciples. And they were all afraid of him, for they did not believe that he was a disciple."

Everyone was afraid of him and thought he might be a spy. Yet someone vouched for him, someone came to rescue him. Barnabas, which means, "son of encouragement," did just that by stepping in to welcome him. Saul was accepted because of Barnabas.

For some of us, we need to follow in Barnabas' steps and welcome in others of whom many are leery. We need to be like Ananias and lay our hands upon someone and call them, "brother," or, "sister," and lovingly open our lives and Church to them.

This sense of family was powerful in the early Church and caused the spread of the Gospel because Christians knew that even if the world rejected them, God as their Father and the Church as their family would not.

What distortion of the Gospel keeps us from accepting others into the Church?

This created a new dynamic of power to go into the world.

Paul not only had a new relationship with God, and a new relationship to the Church, he had a new relationship and view of the world.

III. A New Relationship with the World*

Paul's view of God's favor being exclusive to the Jews only was totally reoriented. Paul began to see that in the Old Testament God chose and formed Israel as a people with a view to bring salvation to the whole world.

Against the backdrop of creation and human rebellion, God chose Israel for the sake of the nations. In Abraham, God chose to bring redemptive blessings to all the families of the earth. He chose Israel to reveal Himself to all nations. He chose David in Zion to bring God's rule to the ends of the earth.

In the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, God reveals and accomplishes God's final purpose of the creation's restoration. Jesus fulfils the OT story; He fulfils Israel's calling to bring redemptive blessing to all nations. He embodies Israel's mission in His life, and accomplishes salvation of the world in His death and resurrection. He gathers and renews Israel to continue that mission. And the Church is taken up into God's mission to continue the mission of Israel and Jesus.

The words of Jesus in John 20:21 define the identity and role of the Church in God's mission: "As the Father has sent me, I am sending you." As the Church is incorporated into Christ, they take up His mission and also the mission of Israel.

This mission takes a new form as the form of God's people changes. This gathered and renewed community is transformed by the work of Jesus and the Spirit into a multi-ethnic and non-geographically-based community. They are sent to take up their homes and their mission, as it were, in all the nations of the earth.

Paul begins to realize that the Church is not for itself but for the world, and this was God's salvation plan all along. He now reads the Bible in an entirely different way.

What distortion of the Gospel keeps us from loving the lost of this world, and the creation God has made?

THE RESULTS

Luke finishes this conversion story of Saul by describing the effects of these new relationships upon the Church.

The Church had now spread throughout Judea, Galilee and Samaria and it had five powerful characteristics to it.

1. The Church had peace (not just a cessation of conflict, but an active rest)
2. The Church had strength (was being built up), and was getting stronger
3. The Church was walking in the fear of the Lord (it was reverent of God)
4. The Church was walking in the comfort of the Holy Spirit
5. The Church was multiplying (growing numerically)

*Adapted from Michael W. Goheen’s Toward A Missional Hermeneutic article.