The Conversion of a Wolf
Acts: The Mission of God • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
If a wolf were prowling outside of your home, you might have a few solutions to deal with the situation.
You might consider calling animal control.
You might consider a firearm of some sort.
You might consider waiting it out.
But here is what you would not consider:
You wouldn’t go out to the wolf and talk to it in an attempt to change its nature.
You would know that is hopeless.
The wolf is a wolf. It won’t stop being a wolf.
It wants to kill because that is what a wolf does.
And yet, this morning, we have a wolf prowling around the church.
A wolf seeking to rip the church apart and drag her people off into prison and ultimately to death.
A wolf who wants to eradicate Christianity from the face of the earth
A wolf with blood on its mouth and death on its mind
Surely this wolf could never change.
We might hope the authorities will stop the wolf
We might hope that we could evade the wolf
We might hope the wolf simply goes away
But we would not expect the wolf to change
But that is the power of the Gospel. The Good News of Jesus Christ can transform a wolf.
And this morning, we will see it do just that.
CONTEXT
CONTEXT
The last time we saw Saul, he was ravaging the church.
But Saul was ravaging the church, and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison.
He had approved of the death of Stephen, the first Christian martyr, and now he is seeking more destruction.
He has moved beyond Jerusalem to Damascus and he is working with the authorities to try and bring an end to this movement of faith in Christ.
But what we will see is that Jesus will interrupt Saul’s plans and that the power of Christ’s Gospel has wolf-changing power.
We will see that the Gospel can rearrange the entire direction of a man instantaneously.
All former plans are interrupted and ended.
All former desires are discontinued and destroyed.
All former pride arrested and annihilated.
Let’s read the passage:
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, 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 shone around him. 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 am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But rise and enter the city, and you will 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 opened, he saw nothing. So they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. And for three 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.” 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, 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 at Jerusalem. And here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call on your name.” 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. Then he rose and was baptized; and taking food, he was strengthened.
For some days he was with the disciples at Damascus.
As we study Saul’s life, we will have three teaching points about conversion this morning:
1. In conversion, Christ makes us into a new creation.
2. In conversion, Christ grants us new kinsmen.
3. In conversion, Christ gives us a new commission.
A NEW CREATION
A NEW CREATION
We start this morning by looking at the change that is wrought in Saul in this passage.
As we begin the text, there is no doubt that Saul’s character is polluted and depraved.
He is still breathing out murderous threats against the church (v. 1)
He has taken his persecution efforts to the next level by conspiring with the high priest to get letters authorizing him to hunt in the Damascus synagogues for Christians (v. 1-2)
When Luke says, “The Way,” he is simply referring to Christians (v. 2)
There are a few times in Acts that this title appears, and it seems to be a way that Christians describe themselves.
It refers to living in “way” of Jesus
It is another name for believers
Saul’s violent intentions are the fruit of his dead heart.
They are the natural outworking of a heart that is pridefully opposed to God.
They are the practice of the hatred that he harbors in his heart toward God and His people.
They are the produced fruit of the depravity within him.
For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”
This sin comes out of a man because it is what lies in a man.
When Adam sinned in the Garden and he fell, all of humanity fell with him and sinned in him.
Sin and death spread to all men.
Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—
This spiritual deadness is explained by Paul in Ephesians 2 and it represents who he was before he knew Christ:
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
See, there are a lot of people who make the mistake of thinking that Christianity is just the acceptance of some teaching and some morality that will keep you out of trouble and help you with your anxiety and ultimately get you to haven if you are a good enough person.
But that isn’t the case. The message is not, “You are a good person, who just needs a little help to get yourself together.”
The message is, “You are not a good person and your whole soul needs saving, if there is to be hope for you.”
In fact, what many fail to realize is that sin renders you totally unable to even respond to God.
Because of Adam’s fall, human beings are born cut off from God and not knowing Him.
But we know something is wrong, so from an early age, we start trying to do good works to atone for the sin we have committed.
We want to be nice and give things away
We want to be kind and help people
And yet the Bible tells us that even these attempts at good works are reduced to filthy rags before the Lord:
We have all become like one who is unclean,
and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.
We all fade like a leaf,
and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.
Our works are nothing more than rags before the Lord because our works are rooted in all sorts of awful pride.
The river of our souls is poisoned by our stiff-necked rebellion against God and any good thing that comes from our natural lives will be filthy before God because water is polluted at the source.
The nature of our souls is sinful and anything it produces will be sinful.
This puts us at terrible odds with God and in danger of His judgment and that is just where Saul finds himself in Acts 9.
His murderous threats sound righteous to his own polluted ears.
He thinks he is serving God by trying to bind Christians and take them to Jerusalem.
But really these works before God are filthy rags and they are exposed for their rottenness by Christ.
As he is on his way, a light shines from heaven all around him (v. 3) and he learns that the voice speaking to him is Jesus.
He describes his conversion in Acts 22 and Acts 26 as well.
I persecuted this Way to the death, binding and delivering to prison both men and women, as the high priest and the whole council of elders can bear me witness. From them I received letters to the brothers, and I journeyed toward Damascus to take those also who were there and bring them in bonds to Jerusalem to be punished.
“As I was on my way and drew near to Damascus, about noon a great light from heaven suddenly shone around me.
Luke says that Saul fell to the ground upon seeing this light from heaven and he hears a voice speaking to him asking, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?”
In Acts 26, Paul adds in an additional question from Jesus:
And when we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew language, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’ And I said, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ And the Lord said, ‘I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. But rise and stand upon your feet, for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you as a servant and witness to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you,
The goad was a long pointy stick, used to jam in the back leg of an ox to get him going.
If the ox kicked back against the goad, it would only cause the ox more pain.
The pain of the goad when it is kicked into, as well as the pain the farmer continuing to prod with the goad until the ox would listen.
The message from Jesus is clear—if Saul wants to keep trying to fight Him by attacking the church, he will be miserable.
He will experience the pain that comes when a man tries to fight with God
He is given instruction to rise and go into the city and follow instructions.
He is rendered blind and he is led by the hand to Damascus
He spends three days in darkness and is not able to eat or drink
This is how he will remain until Ananias lays hands on him in verse 18:
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. Then he rose and was baptized;
The interesting thing about Saul’s conversion story is that you don’t really see him converted in the textbook sense.
He doesn’t cry out to God for salvation
He certainly doesn’t pray a prayer
And yet the fruits of salvation are not to be denied
He is filled with the Holy Spirit and he is baptized
You don’t receive the Spirit unless you are a converted man
And Ananias would not receive these instructions from the Lord for a man that is not regenerate
There is no doubt that from the beginning of the passage to the end, Saul has become a Christian.
1. In conversion, Christ makes us into a new creature.
1. In conversion, Christ makes us into a new creature.
At the beginning of the passage, Saul is haughty.
He plans to march into Damascus with his chest puffed out, ready to rain more wrath down upon the Christians and bind their hands.
But by the time he actually enters into Damascus, he is being led by the hands of others (v. 8)
He cannot see. He is not eating.
He has been reduced down to nothing.
And this is the perfect place for Saul to be in the hour of his conversion.
All these things my hand has made,
and so all these things came to be,
declares the Lord.
But this is the one to whom I will look:
he who is humble and contrite in spirit
and trembles at my word.
Those that are farthest cast down, are not farthest from God, but are nearest unto him. God is near to a contrite heart, and it is the proper seat where his Spirit dwelleth.
Charles Spurgeon
No man is saved by grace and brought to the heights of knowing God through Christ, without first being brought low.
FACE TO FACE WITH CHRIST
FACE TO FACE WITH CHRIST
We could consider all of the things God used to bring Saul to salvation:
The truth he had learned from the Scriptures
A faithful man like Ananias
The death of Stephen
But at the end of the day, nothing was more responsible for Saul’s salvation than meeting Jesus face-to-face.
When Saul hears Christ’s voice in verses 5 and 6, it is what we call a theophany.
It is a visible appearance of God.
When Abram was ninety-nine years old the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless, that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly.” Then Abram fell on his face. And God said to him, “Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations.
It is a coming face-to-face with the Holy God.
And that is ultimately changes Saul: Being face to face with Christ
It revealed Christ’s glory
It simultaneously revealed Saul’s depravity
And Saul turned from the persecution of Christ to trusting in Him
Before, Saul saw darkness in the face of Christ, but now he sees light:
For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
This changed everything for Saul.
I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
Saul is dead. A new creation has taken his place.
This new creation lives a new life by faith in the Son of God.
We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.
Same idea—the old man that was enslaved to sin is gone.
No long is Saul trapped in his old sinful nature
He has been given a new nature in Christ and he is no longer enslaved to sin.
Now he is free to serve God and offer His life up to God and it no longer is considered filthy rags because now he is no longer rooted in pride, but in Christ.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
Old man is dead and gone.
There is a new man in his place.
SCALES FROM EYES
SCALES FROM EYES
What has occurred in Saul’s life is encapsulated by what happens regarding his physical sight.
In verse 8, he is blinded and those his eyes are open, he sees nothing.
This physical state that Saul finds himself in represents who he has been spiritually.
He has read the Old Testament through and through.
He has loads of education.
He is zealous as he can be.
All that knowledge—eyes wide open—but seeing nothing.
But in verse 18, after Ananias lays hands on him, something like scales fall from Saul’s eyes and he is able to see.
After meeting Christ on the road to Damascus, Saul stopped seeing the temple wrongly. He stopped seeing the Law wrongly. He stopped seeing the priesthood wrongly. He stopped seeing the Old Testament wrongly.
The scales fell from his spiritual eyes and He saw Christ for who He is--The very fulfillment of all of these things that Saul had so much blind knowledge about.
Satan had blinded him from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ.
In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
But no more—Saul was blind, but now he sees. The scales have fallen.
CONVERTED BY CHRIST
CONVERTED BY CHRIST
This is what every soul needs.
They need conversion.
They need to be rescued from the sin they inherited from Adam and death it brings.
They need to come face to face with Christ and repent of their sin and trust in Him for salvation.
They need the old man to die and the new man to be made alive.
They need a new heart. They need a new nature. They need a new Lord.
They need a new birth.
A NEW KINSMEN
A NEW KINSMEN
Let’s keep working through the text. As we get to verse 10, we meet a new character—Ananias, a disciple of the Lord at Damascus.
He gets a call from the Lord in a vision to do something very few of us will ever be called to do:
He is called by God to minister to a terrorist
And he has some reservations
In verses 11 and 12, Ananias is told to go to the street called Straight and at the house of Judas, look for Saul of Tarsus.
And he is told that Saul has had a vision and knows that a man named Ananias is coming to lay hands on him
Ananias responds with apprehension in saying that he has heard of Saul and he knows that Saul is in town to do more damage to the church.
But the Lord doubles down on the instructions for Ananias in verses 15-16.
So Ananias is obedient and goes to the home of Judas and when he finds him, Luke says this:
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.”
Brother Saul...
Despite his hesitation and apprehension, Ananias approaches this new convert as “Brother Saul.”
2. In conversion, Christ grants us new kinsmen.
2. In conversion, Christ grants us new kinsmen.
Ananias no longer sees Saul as an agitator of the church, but as an adopted brother.
And what this shows us is that while changes occur in conversion that transforms our relationship to God, there are also changes that transform our relationships to one another.
And that is because, when we receive Christ by faith and we are saved by grace, we are not just called out of the world, but we are called into the family of the church.
And here is the sort of family we find in the church:
We find people that God loves with a covenant love
We find sons and daughters that he has had his eye on from before time
We find people that love God
We find people responding to God’s love for them with a passionate love for Him that is reciprocated
We find people that are filled with the truth of God
They are not filled with the lies of the world
They are rejecting the world and filled their hearts and minds with the truth of God and they are being sanctified and transformed as a result
This makes the church unlike any institution on the face of the earth
It is royal priesthood filled with those whom God loves
It is a holy nation populated by those who love God
It is a body, held together by truth and ultimately grown and sustained by the truth
And so, as a Christian, when I come to the church, I find more family there than I find anywhere else on earth.
I have new kinsmen.
New brothers and sisters.
And however different we might be, we are family by God’s gracious salvation
This speaks to what AW Tozer called “The Two Brotherhoods” of humanity. One is the brotherhood we are all apart of as image-bearers, but the second is more special. It is the brotherhood of the church:
There is a brotherhood of man which comes by the first birth, and another brotherhood which comes through the second birth. By the grace of God, I want to dwell in that sacred, mystic brotherhood of the ransomed and the redeemed, that fellowship of the saints gathered around the broken body and the shed blood of the Savior!3
A. W. Tozer
BROTHERS AND SISTERS
BROTHERS AND SISTERS
Some of you were here a couple of years ago when I baptized my oldest son.
It wasn’t until we were in the water, and I something that is fairly routine for us as we baptize:
Then it is my joy, to baptize you as “MY BROTHER”
But as those words came out of my mouth, I realized that Beckett is not just my son anymore—he is my brother.
This is how powerful the Gospel is—it changes our relationships in an instant.
Suddenly, those that Saul was seeking to kill have become his brothers and sisters.
He wanted to drag them off into prison and separate them from their families, and now, they are his family.
He wanted to end The Way and now he is a part of the Way.
And that is evident in Ananias calling him “Brother.”
This is one of the greatest evidences of conversion—that you understand your place in the family of God.
We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.
By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.
We are family and when we love one another like family, it is a proof of God’s converting work in us.
The world hates one another, but not us.
The world lives by “might makes right,” but not us.
We forgive one another as Christ has forgiven us.
We give up the world’s goods to meet the needs of our brothers and sisters.
This is love in action.
After all, love is not a feeling or a sentiment.
At the end of the day, love is action.
And what a great act of love it is for Ananias to call Saul his brother.
Would you be so quick to do the same?
Would our church accept the repentance of such a renowned sinner?
The Gospel can make a killer a kinsman.
The Gospel can give a killer a whole new clan of kinsmen.
Do we believe the Gospel is that powerful?
A NEW COMMISSION
A NEW COMMISSION
Let’s head toward our conclusion this morning by looking at what the Lord says to Ananias in verses 15-16.
After Ananias reasonably questions whether or not he should be going near this Saul character, the Lord assures him that a great thing has taken place—the direction of Saul’s life has changed.
He is no longer on a mission to abolish the church, he is on a mission to advance it.
He is no longer committed to murdering Christians, he wants to make them.
For God tells Ananias that Saul is a chosen instrument to carry His name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel (v. 15)
And this work will be painful—he will suffer for the name he has persecuted (v. 16)
3. In conversion, Christ gives us a new commission.
3. In conversion, Christ gives us a new commission.
Saul’s new commission comes to pass in Acts 16 when he receives his Macedonian Call.
And they went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. And when they had come up to Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them. So, passing by Mysia, they went down to Troas. And a vision appeared to Paul in the night: a man of Macedonia was standing there, urging him and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” And when Paul had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go on into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.
In fact, Saul’s commission is what will ultimately see his name changed.
It was common in the ancient world to carry two names.
Saul was the Apostle’s Hebrew name.
Paul would have been his Roman name.
As God takes this brother further and further into the Gentile world, the use of his Hebrew name disappears.
But Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him
That is the last time you hear of Saul in Scripture.
His use of his Roman name was evidence of the commission God placed on his life.
His commission became his identity.
He was no longer living according to his own agenda or traditions. He was a slave to Christ.
Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God,
Servant = doulos
Literally means slave
Christ is the Master. Paul obeys the commands.
OUR NEW COMMISSION
OUR NEW COMMISSION
If you are a believer, Saul’s story is no different than your own.
You were living completely for your own agenda.
You always chose out of your own desires, which were born from your dead sinful nature, so every choice you made was driven by powerful Self.
Sure—there were acts of kindness and goodness along the way, but even those had a root of pride and not righteousness.
But being converted, we have been freed from slavery to our own sinful desires.
We have been freed from a life of being enslaved to ourselves and putting ourselves first.
And we can live for the commission Christ gave to us:
And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
THIS must become our identity.
THIS must become who we are.
Our decisions, our desires, our deeds—they should all by myopically driven by this new commission that has been placed in our lives.
There was a time in which we believed we had all the authority in our lives. We believed that the only thing that matters was our own name. Our own commandments.
But we have left all of that at the Cross. That old man is dead.
Now we live for Him.
We live to grow His kingdom by making disciples
Like Saul was destined to suffer, we may be destined to suffer.
It may cost us much to live out our commission.
But ultimately, the only thing that matters is being an instrument to the One who has chosen to play us and use us and make the music of the Gospel come out of our lives.
CONCLUSION
CONCLUSION
Some of you may hear this today and think it is a nice message for church people.
You might hear this and think that it is not for you and that you could never change.
You think you are too sinful to change.
You think you are too old to change.
You think you are too hard-headed to change.
Just remember—the Gospel changed a wolf.
In an instant, a voice from heaven filed that wolf’s teeth down.
In an instant, a voice from heaven took that wolf’s strong legs.
In an instant, a voice from heaven put that wolf on a leash.
And God made a Lamb from a Wolf.
God’s power and grace in the Gospel is so much bigger and greater and stronger than your past.
Stronger than your will.
Stronger than your sin.
Repent of your sin and trust in Christ.
You will be a new creature.
You will have new kinsmen.
You will have a new commission.
New life. New family. New purpose.
Come to Christ.