Who is Paul?

The Letters of Paul

Who Is Paul?

Acts 9:1-30

Intro: Think about the legends of the Bible. You have Old Testament heroes and New Testament heroes as well. After Jesus, Paul is the most prominent person in the New Testament. He had three major Missionary trips to the Gentile world, he took the Gospel message to another continent and he planted churches and raised up leaders to lead and teach the Gospel message. We have thirteen letters that are attributed to him written to some of those churches and read in other churches. Part of the reason we have those particular letters in our Bible is because they were widely read by many of the early churches so it was in part, a common starting ground for Christendom.

So we are going. Spend the next 13 weeks looking at the letters and their author, Paul. So it will be a letter a week except for the letters to Timothy and the Thessalonians.

But first, we are going to talk about Paul; who he was and how he became an apostle, when he was at one point, possibly the biggest enemy of the church.

Read Verses: 9:1-7

Main Idea: God took Paul from persecuting the church to being persecuted for the Church

I. An Enemy of God (1-3)

Luke introduces Paul back into the story from chapter 8 and says that he is still breathing threats and murder against the Lord. Paul asked for Letters from the High priest to go to Damascus to arrest people of the Way, that was what Christianity was called early on, to bring them back to Jerusalem and have them tried for blasphemy or other crimes against Judaism.

He was willing to travel about 150 miles one way to arrest people for believing that Jesus was the foretold messiah who resurrected from the Dead.

Interestingly enough, even in Paul’s anger and hate, he was helping to sew the seeds of the Gospel. He was just casting them out further afield. His persecution caused people to flee which took the Gospel into the wider world. Paul is unwittingly fulfilling the Lord’s command in Acts 1:8, moving the Gospel from Jerusalem, to Samaria, and all the Ends of the Earth.

Paul presumably gets his letters and permission to go arrest all the law breakers.

This is strictly an internal problem as far as he is concerned and So the Romans are not stepping in. Remember the Romans controlled all of the land of Israel, Palestine but they only got involved when it affected their rule of law.

Paul sets off onto the Road. he is motivated by what he feels is his duty and rights as a Pharisee to upheld Jewish law. He is hunting down people who think that Jesus is God and messiah.

Have you ever heard of Nicole Cliffe? Me neither until this week. She is a writer and was a self proclaimed happy atheist. In fact the Article in Christianity Today is titled How God Messed up my Happy Atheist life. She was so staunch in her unbelief that she says “No one could have in a billion years of their gripping testimony or by showing me a radiant life of good deeds or through song or even the most beautiful of books brought me to Christ. I had to be tapped on the shoulder. I had to be taken to a place where books about God were something I could experience without distance.”

She was on her path of life that she wanted to go down and she was completely happy in her ignorance, just like Paul, doing what they thought was right. Paul motivated by his zeal for God, and Nicole , like many of us, because it is what she and we believe was right.

But something happened that changed everything. And in Paul’s case it didn't just change his life, it turned the world upside down.

II. Stopped in His Tracks (4-7)

Picture this, Paul is walking with other people who are on this mission to arrest people. It is the longest police raid in history. He is nearing Damascus so they must have been traveling for a few days. One thing I looked up said it would take one to two days of walking, but my guess is that is walking straight through without stopping. He would have been able to make his way to the Road Called the Via Maris or way of the sea. One of the most important trade routes in the Middle East during ancient times was the Via Maris. The Latin term, meaning "Way of the Sea" is referenced in Isaiah 8:23 in the Tanakh (in the Christian Old Testament it is Isaiah 9:1) From the coast to Damascus, the route is called the Trunk Road. The Via Maris travels and is also known as the International Coastal Highway. The International Coastal Highway is still a major route in modern-day Israel.

Damascus was a key city so there were trade routes leading in and out of the city.

My guess is if a person walks about 15 miles a day it would take about ten to 14 days to walk there. Maybe closer to ten if he is still breathing hate murder because maybe he is extremely motivated to get there.

All of a sudden, a bright light from heaven and wham, Paul is on the ground. They people who are with him do not see anything although they heard the noise. But he Sees and talks to Jesus.

So he doesn’t know who Jesus is, he had most likely never seen him and he certainly did not see Jesus in his Resurrected Body. So when he says Lord it is in a Polite sense of a sir when you are talking to someone you don’t know. But also since the notice and flash came from heaven, he is thinking this is some kind of messenger or angel from heaven.

He is talking to the Risen Lord. The person he is persecuting and whom others follow.

Acts 9:3–6 (Acts (NAC)): They were a complete refutation of all he had been. He had persecuted Christians for their “blasphemous lie” that Jesus was risen, that he was the Lord reigning in glory. Now Paul himself beheld that same Jesus and the undeniable proof that he both lived and reigned in glory.

From this point on, Paul said nothing. He was completely broken. How could he respond? He had not persecuted a band of miscreant messianists. In persecuting the church, he had persecuted the risen Lord himself.

And now all he gets is told to go and wait for further instruction.

That is pretty final from God. Jesus gives Paul a command. In his letter to the Philippians, Paul would later describe his conversion as being “apprehended by Christ Jesus.”

Nicole Cliffe, our atheist turned Christian had a similar experience. She says “I was surfing the Internet and came across John Ortberg’s CT obituary for philosopher Dallas Willard. John’s daughters are dear friends, and I have always had a wonderful relationship with their parents, who struck me as sweetly deluded in their evangelical faith, so I clicked on the article.

Somebody once asked Dallas if he believed in total depravity.

“I believe in sufficient depravity,” he responded immediately.

What’s that?

“I believe that every human being is sufficiently depraved that when we get to heaven, no one will be able to say, ‘I merited this.’ ”

A few minutes into reading the piece, I burst into tears. Later that day, I burst into tears again. And the next day. While brushing my teeth, while falling asleep, while in the shower, while feeding my kids, I would burst into tears.

She says she is usually even keeled and not prone to just crying but all of a sudden she cant stop. She reads some more christian books and cries some more utterly broken and distraught.

Therefore, it was very unsettling to suddenly feel like a boat being tossed on the waves. I wasn’t sad, I wasn’t frightened—I just had too many feelings.

At this point, I reached a crossroads. I sat myself down and said: Okay, Nicole, you have two choices. Option One: you can stop reading books about Jesus. Option Two: you could think with greater intention about why you are overwhelmed by your emotions. It occurred to me that if Option Two proved fruitless, I could always return to Option One. So I emailed a friend who is a Christian, and I asked if we could talk about Jesus.

III. Dependent on Another (8-19)

Paul has to rely on those who came with him and then a man named Ananias to help Paul get around and then eventually see again. Paul is baptized. But it is interesting that Ananias says Are you sure Jesus, he is the guy trying to kill us all and he hates you.

But the Lord said to him, “Go, for this man is my chosen instrument to take my name to Gentiles, kings, and Israelites. 16 I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.”

Jesus gives us a foreshadow of what Paul’s life is going to be like. I wonder if Ananias tells that last part about suffering to Paul.

All of a Sudden Paul can eat and drink and his life gets back to some normalcy. And he begins his work.

IV. A Servant of God (20-30)

After getting training Paul starts to preach and tell others about Jesus. And he eventually goes to Jerusalem and has to earn everyone’s trust.

“It is noteworthy that Luke described Paul as preaching Christ as “Son of God.” This is the only occurrence of the title in all of Acts, and yet for p 239 Paul it was a central concept. In fact, Paul connected the term “Son of God” with his call as an apostle in Gal 1:16 and in Rom 1:1–4. Luke’s close connection of this term with Paul’s conversion and call would seem to be a rather accurate reminiscence of Paul’s distinctive views. The astonishment of his Jewish listeners in the synagogue furnishes a sort of “choral response” to the completeness of Paul’s conversion.”

Paul’s conversion is complete. His Journey has just begun though.

Nicole Cliffe had a similar experience. And finally led her to a phone call with a Christian friend to talk about Jesus. But the hour before the phone call, she knew, deep in her being, that God was real, Christ was who he said he was, and she was indeed now a Christian. The phone call was just icing on the cake. She still had someone answer questions about Jesus.

In her story she says, ``Now, if you’ve been following along, you know already. I was crying constantly while thinking about Jesus because I had begun to believe that Jesus really was who he said he was, but for some reason, that idea had honestly not occurred to me. But then it did, as though it always had been true. So when my friend called, I told her, awkwardly, that I wanted to have a relationship with God, and we prayed, and giggled a bit, and cried a bit, and then she sent me a stack of books, and here we are today.”

She accepted what she already knew to be true in her heart in regards to who Jesus is. Now I will be fair or maybe full disclosure that Nicole Cliffe seems to be pretty liberal. So there are still things she may be working out or trying to reconcile. The article did not go into that level of detail. So I am not holding her up in the same light as Paul for that. But we are all not Paul and we are all working out our own path of sanctification. Killing the old person as much as it pains us and scares us to do so.

Application

1. God can use whoever he wants to make his agenda happen for The Kingdom.

Paul was feared and even after he was converted he was looked at like he was an informant or just trying to infiltrate the church to trick everyone or arrest them. The Leaders had to realize that God had Changed Paul’s heart. That there was true repentance.

But we need to give people a chance and take them at their word when they say they are born again and then we look for fruit of that statement. Actions and words should match up. We were all where Paul was at one point in our lives, an enemy of God.

God is a God of Redemption. jesus died on the cross in order to purchase His people. To Redeem them. He gives them a second chance at a new life. And if we are to be Christ like, we must also understand that we wee given a second chance a fair shake, so the new converts deserve the same treatment. In God’s eyes the only criminals or enemies are those who are not for Him and have not Repented of their sins.

2. Everyone’s conversion story is different..

Some people get saved when they are 5 and they stay on the road their whole long lives. Some people wait until they are 100 until they understand and hear the Gospel, even though they may have heard it a thousand times. Or just once.

They may be like Paul and see Jesus and other times it happens alone, in a room or in your car, or the Sunday Service or at a kitchen table.

It all means the same. That you have been arrested by Christ Jesus.That you have been saved by Christ jesus. Because it is His Story that is important. Not ours. Paul worked to advance the Gospel.

Paul writes in Romans 5:6-11 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— 8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. 10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. 11 More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

Paul’s story is no better than my story or your story other than Paul had to see Jesus to be considered an Apostle. No Paul was set apart with a bigger Job to be a missionary to the Gentiles. But you have your part to play as well. WE are all on the same team, serving the same Risen, Living Lord.

Romans 8:30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

3. We all need help in making sense of the message.

Paul waited and he was discipled by the Christians in Damascus for some time. He learned before he went out and started preaching the Gospel. Paul was smart, he knew His Bible, our Old Testament probably better than most, so maybe it only took a week to fill in the blanks. But Paul goes a way again to Tarsus to learn some more and he is there for about 7-10 years before he really starts going into the mission field. So between Acts 9 and Acts 11, there is this gap.

For us, it may take longer than a week. One of the qualifications for an elder is he can’t be a new believer. We need to learn, and then learn how to teach and constantly ensure we are teaching the correct doctrine and living the correct life.

As an aside, We may wish to be like Paul, saving lots of people for the Lord. Planting churches and travelling and suffering. But for most of the church at large we are like how Luke describes them, the Disciples in Damascus. No names, no number of people. Just a church doing its job by baptising and teaching the Word of God and How it points to Jesus.

Conclusion

FF Bruce, who is one of the prominent 20th century New Testament Scholars says this, with astonishing suddenness the persecutor of the church became the apostle of. Jesus Christ.

In our journey, we are going to look at how Paul used His understanding of the OT to explain how Jesus is god and how he is also the foretold Messiah. How He is alway quick to ensure that God is glorified and magnified and that Paul is actually minimized.

Paul glues together Orthodoxy, or right believing about God with Orthopraxy, or right practice These two are combined in our lives so we Glorify and Magnify God.

Paul also used each church’s context to help build the church from the inside out.

And along the way he commanded believers to persevere, and how they were fellow believers.

And what I want us to take away from this is not just doctrine but how our church should be built, how it should function and how we can reach our area using both first century methods and 21st century methods.

Doxology

Galatians 2:20 I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.