Acts 9 1-22 eSerm

God is About to Strike
Sermon by CARL HOEFLER

A brilliant light flashes. It strikes like lightning. Paul is shocked by a charge from heaven, and he is knocked from his horse. A voice vibrates about Paul which holds his attention in a vice-like grip. Paul is converted. The persecutor becomes the preacher. The surprising element of this event is the realization that the conversion of Paul was the conversion of a radically religious person. Paul was the best of believers. Paul was a master of morality. He lived out every letter of the law. He was a superior student of the Scriptures. He was a dedicated defender of the demands of the law. Yet - he was converted. For most of us, this fact undermines the very foundation of our understanding of the concept of conversion. From the social point of view, we associate conversion with rogues, reprobates, prostitutes, and law breakers. From the intellectual point of view, we think that conversion is what happens to unbelievers, agnostics, skeptics, and cynics. From the missionary point of view, we think that conversion is concerned with pagans, heathens, and idol worshipers. Religious conversion, in general, is for the ungodly, the wicked, and - sinners. The character of Paul fits into none of these categories. Paul's conversion was the conversion of an enthusiastic believer who was already totally committed to God. Paul's single ambition in life was to be a dedicated and an obedient servant of God's holy Law. Yet - Paul was converted. The explanation of this strange fact is that Paul's conversion was not a moral or ethical conversion; it was a theological conversion. It was a conversion from death under the Law to a birth of life in the Gospel. In order to more completely understand the theological dimensions of Paul's conversion, let us review the story of our text. A man, whose Greek or Roman name was Paul and whose Jewish name was Saul, had dedicated his life to the persecution and the actual killing of Christians in an all-out effort to destroy the church. Paul was on his way to Damascus, one of the oldest cities an the world. His heart was motivated by malice, and his mind was dead-set on murder. Paul was convinced that he was commissioned by God to destroy all the fool-hearted followers of the "Mad Messiah" - that pretentious peasant - that son of a village carpenter - that common "nobody" - who had made the blasphemous claim that he was the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Paul was just outside the gates of the city when, suddenly, a blinding light flashed like a bolt of lightning from heaven. It enveloped him with a glowing circle of light. It was noonday, but this light was brighter and more brilliant than the sun. Paul was instantly knocked from his horse, and he lay prostrate on the ground. Like thunder, after the lightning, a voice rumbled around him saying, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?" It was not an angry voice; it was the deep and resonant voice of profound and passionate concern. When the voice was silent, Paul broke the stillness with his guilt-induced question: "Who are you, Lord?" And the amazing answer came back, "I am Jesus whom you are persecuting." It is significant that, when our Lord identified himself to Paul, he used his earthly and human name - "Jesus." It is as if our Lord wanted it to be perfectly clear to Paul, that the one who spoke to him was the baby born at Bethlehem, the boy-child of the carpenter of Nazareth, and the young man who had been rejected and crucified in Jerusalem. It was the Jesus of Galilee, who had been raised and exalted by Paul's God, who was speaking to him now. The tremendous truth and the stark reality of this experience, that engulfed Paul like a tidal wave, was that conversion event which would sweep away all of the lies which had marked and motivated his life. Jesus reprimanded and charged Paul with the full force of the Law. Paul was judged found guilty, and executed. For all intents and purposes, Paul was experiencing a spiritual death that very noonday on the road to Damascus. It is often said that Paul was converted on the road to Damascus. Strictly speaking, this is not the whole truth. The truth is that his conversion-experience only had its beginning on the road to Damascus. The conversion of Paul, like all true conversions, came in the form of two acts. The first act was his experience of being struck dead by the Law. The second act was his being raised up to a new life by the Gospel. Paul had experienced the gavel of the law, as it hammered his haughtiness to a devastating death. Paul was personally experiencing what he would later proclaim in his preaching, "The law kills; the Spirit alone gives life." In the first act, the sign of Paul's experience of death was his blindness. Our text states, "... when his eyes were opened, he could see nothing." So, the irony of ironies is that the proud and the boastful conqueror for God, who had set out for Damascus with a mission to kill Christians and to eradicate the church, was led into the city as a poor and blind beggar. The second act of Paul's conversion occurred in Damascus. Having received the blinding death-blow of the Law, he was then prepared to receive the life-giving blessing of the Gospel. Ananias, directed by God, placed his hands upon Paul's head. He absolved him of all sins. He commanded him to no longer persecute Christians; rather, he commissioned Paul to preach the living Lord, Jesus the Christ. The Holy Spirit entered into Paul. The scales fell from his eyes. His sight was restored. He was baptized. He ate food with the disciples. Therefore, being fully nourished and strengthened by food and by the Spirit of Christ, Paul immediately went to the nearest synagogue, where he began to preach the crucified and risen Lord - the Son of the Holy God. Paul was converted by the Law and by the Gospel. However one more act needs to be added to this drama of Paul's conversion, and one more step needs to be stressed. It is this final act that points out what Paul's conversion means to us today. The third act, the final step of Paul's conversion, was the conversion of the word, that he had heard, into the energetic life of faith, that he lived. After, as well as before, his conversion, Paul was a student of the Word. It was the Word that was the driving force of his life. Paul was an energetic, an enthusiastic, and a dedicated "doer" of the Word. His conversion simply redirected his energies and transformed his enthusiasm from persecution to proclamation. The Word heard was a generator of energy that electrified his life and moved him into immediate action - both before and after his conversion. Now this third act of Paul's conversion - the conversion of the Word that he heard into his energetic life, which he then lived - is the conversion that we do desperately need. We all need the conversion of our convictions into actions - dedication into deeds. We need to let the power of the Word, the word that we hear, radiate through us into the energetic lives of faith that we live. It is like harnessing the gravity pull of a great waterfall into electrical power in order to light our homes. It is like harnessing the sunlight as solar energy to heat our homes. The power is there; it only needs to be transformed. It needs to be converted from one form of power to another. The tragedy of our lives is that, somewhere along the powerline, the energy of the Word gets short-circuited, and the conversion of energy never takes place. As transformers of the Word, we fail; and most likely, the fuse-blowing point of our failure is our pride. We are afraid of what others w1ll think about us or what they will say about us if we become too enthusiastic about our faith. Nobody wants to be labeled a "do-gooder," or a "fanatic," or a "religious nut." We do not want to be labeled or laughed at. So, we play it cool. We adopt an air of sophistication. We become blase; this causes us never to get excited about anything. Far too often, we go through life anxiously looking in the rear-view mirror to see what others are thinking about us; thus, all the while, we stay in second gear and never shift into high. No danger here! Only dullness. The power of the Word of God never converts into enthusiastic actions in our lives. Far too quickly, we short-circuit it into carefully worded, well-guarded, and conservative expressions of our faith. We never risk radical involvement or commitment. We avoid all overstatements and spontaneous expressions of emotion. We play it safe. This tragic short-circuiting of the power of the Word of God prohibits us from ever being converted into energetic believers, and it robs us, not only of knowing the full joy of a dynamic faith, but also of experiencing a truly Christian style of life. For example, take forgiveness, and love, and service to others - actions which characterize the active will of God in our lives. Without enthusiasm, these actions never quite measure up to what the New Testament is talking about when it uses these words. Forgiveness, without enthusiasm, becomes a duty that is grudgingly done. Love becomes just another law to be obeyed. Service becomes a slavish demand, which we practice like a dull discipline - rather than it being a deed we are delighted to do. Without enthusiasm, God's will becomes a series of tasks that we must do. We actually exhaust ourselves trying to do them. In reality, they are things that we can do joyfully, because we are plugged into a potential powerhouse of unlimited energy which constantly flows from the Word of God. Before this sermon ends, let there be no conclusions drawn that this sermon is a "you should" or a "you must" kind of sermon which makes an appeal - even a demand - for you to "do something." The intention of this sermon is to place no demands upon you as a listener - whatsoever. The intent of this sermon is to confront you with a "you will" message. The theme of this sermon is not a demand; instead, it is a declaration. It is a promise from God that he will not rest until the current is restored to our lives and until his Word flows through us and moves us to expressive actions of faith. In our text, Paul did not go to Damascus to be converted. Our text is not primarily about what Paul did; rather, it is about what God did to Paul. God is the aggressive actor in the drama of salvation. God writes, directs, produces, and stars in the drama of conversion. It was God who knocked Paul from his horse to the ground. It was God who blinded Paul with the judgmental word of the Law. It was God who restored Paul's sight with the gift of the Gospel. It was God who forgave, and blessed, and commissioned Paul. And, God is determined to do the same thing to you and to me. God will strike us, again and again, with his Word, until that Word makes contact and becomes active in our lives. The Word of God is like lightning. It does not strike when we want it to. We cannot, by any power of our own will or self-determination, cause lightning to occur. Lightning strikes when the conditions are right. So it is with the Word of God. In God's good time, we will experience the striking surge of the power of his Word in our lives; and, we will express our faith in action. Look up. The dark clouds are gathering. The wind is changing, and there is a refreshing scent in the air. The heavens are charged with power. Any moment now, there will be a bolt from the blue, and our lives will be radically changed. The Word of God that we hear will be electrified into new energies for the lives that we live. Warning! God is about to strike!

Mysterious Joy, CARL HOEFLER, C.S.S. Publishing Company, 1988, 1-55673-059-4