Saul: Conversion and Calling
Gettysburg Presbyterian Church
David C. Wright
Acts 9:1-20
August 10, 2009
In 2007
Paris Hilton took a Bible with her during her incarceration in
the Los Angeles County Jail for drunk driving. In an interview
with Larry King following her release, Paris talked about how she
was a completely changed person and how helpful the Bible had been
to her in the slammer. Most people seemed to be skeptical
that Paris could make such a dramatic change in such a short a
period of time. The fact that she couldn’t remember
any specific parts of the Bible that were meaningful to her didn’t
help her case! What do you think? Can people really
change quickly and dramatically? This morning’s Bible
story from Acts 9 leads us right into the issue of conversion.
It concerns a man named
Saul, who was the #1 enemy of the Christian church at that time. Meanwhile 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 who belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring
them bound to Jerusalem. (Acts
9:1-2)
At this time the church
was seen as a sect of Judaism, because only Jews were a part of it. Saul,
a powerful Jewish Pharisee, regarded this sect as heretical and was deeply concerned
about its spreading influence. Filled with religious zeal, he sought to
stamp it out in order to preserve the purity of Jewish religion. So Saul
received permission from the high priest in Jerusalem to carry out a search-and-destroy
mission in the city of Damascus, about 125 miles to the north, in an attempt
to stop the church there. But God had other plans for Saul.
Now as he was going along and approaching Damascus,
suddenly a light from heaven flashed
around him.
4 He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, "Saul, Saul,
why do you persecute me?"
5 He asked, "Who are you, Lord?" The
reply came, "I am Jesus,
whom you are persecuting.
6 But get up and enter the city,
and you will be told what you are to do."
7 The men who were traveling with him stood speechless because they heard
the voice but saw no one.
8 Saul got
up from the ground, and though his eyes were open, he could see nothing; so they
led him by the hand and
brought him into Damascus.
9 For three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank. (Acts
9:3-9)
On the road to Damascus,
Saul saw a blinding light, which must have been pretty bright considering he
saw it in the desert in the middle of the day! He also heard a voice. In
the Old Testament these were classic signs of an encounter with God. The
divine voice asks Saul, “Why are you persecuting me?” “Who
are you, Lord?” Saul inquires. The answer would change Saul’s
life forever. “I am Jesus,” he replies. Jesus, who Saul
thought was dead and gone, is alive and now a heavenly being. And he accuses
Saul of persecuting him. Oops!
He tells Saul, blinded
and helpless as a child, to go to the city and await further instructions. So
away Saul goes, fasting for three days while he awaits word of what to do next. Fasting,
by the way, is usually a sign of repentance, which means to change direction. I’m
guessing Saul was thinking seriously about changing the direction of this life
during this time of darkness.
10 Now there
was a disciple in Damascus named Ananias.
The Lord said
to him in a vision, "Ananias." He
answered, "Here I am, Lord."
11 The Lord said
to him, "Get up and go to the street called
Straight, and at the house of Judas look
for a man of Tarsus named Saul.
At this moment 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 in Jerusalem;
14 and here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who invoke
your name."
15 But the Lord said
to him, "Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to
bring my name before Gentiles and
kings and before the people of Israel;
16 I myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name."
17 So Ananias went
and entered the house.
He laid his hands on Saul and
said, "Brother Saul,
the Lord Jesus,
who appeared to you on your way here, 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 his sight
was restored. Then he got up and was baptized,
19 and after taking some food,
he regained his strength. (Acts 9:10-19a)
Now the divine purpose
behind all of this becomes clear. Saul was commissioned, healed, baptized,
and filled with the Holy Spirit. And then the fun really begins! For
several days Paul was with the disciples in Damascus,
20 and immediately he began to proclaim Jesus in
the synagogues, saying, "He is the Son of God." (Acts
9:19b-20) Saul began to do exactly what God had called him to do. He proclaimed
Jesus as the Son of God. Saul is not just converted for his own benefit. He
is converted so he can get on with the work to which God has called him. And
Saul goes on to become Paul, perhaps the greatest Christian missionary of all
time and author of most of our New Testament! He was a radically changed
man.
This story raises a significant
issue for us, conversion. There is a lot of skepticism in the general culture
about the conversion of folks like Paris Hilton, but there’s also skepticism
in the mainline churches about anyone’s conversion! Following the
teaching of Horace Bushnell, who wrote and taught in the late 19th century, mainline
churches like us Presbyterians have believed that people should be gradually
nurtured into the faith by their parents, extended families, and congregations. Believers
nurtured into faith often cannot remember a time when they didn’t acknowledge
Jesus as their Lord and Savior. They are baptized as babies, taught as
children, and confirmed as teens, having no need for a dramatic, conversion experience.
Nurtured faith has been the expected process of becoming a Christian in our churches. But
now that has become problematic.
Starting in the mid 1960's
young people in our churches began dropping out. And when they had children,
their children often weren’t nurtured in the faith, or whatever nurturing
went on didn’t instill genuine, vital Christian faith in them. So
it’s not uncommon for many people to attend church today with virtually
no understanding of Christian faith. So our standard “nurturing” model
for people coming to faith in Jesus Christ now leaves an awful lot of people
out. That is causing many of us to take another look at conversion. We’re
probably not going to become like Baptists and other evangelicals who insist
that everyone must have a conversion experience, but we have become more open
to it for those who haven’t been nurtured into faith. So let’s
look at conversion in a little more detail this morning, because some people
need to be converted, maybe even you!
First, what do we need
to be converted from? Our usual image of conversion involves a skid-row
alcoholic, drug addict, or prostitute who finds Jesus and is dramatically delivered
from those sins- like some of the folks at the Adams Rescue Mission. And
certainly some people need deliverance from these obviously destructive failures. But
that wasn’t really the case with Saul, is it? He wasn’t mired
in what we would normally think of as deep moral failure. In fact, he
was more religious than anyone sitting here this morning! (Except, of course
for Ron Hankey!) So what did Saul need to be converted from, if not from
moral failure?
In Saul’s case,
conversion had to do with a complete change in the direction and purpose in his
life. And that may be true for many people today, including some of us. You
may not be mired in deep moral failure, but you may still need a fundamental
change in direction. We live in a therapeutic, narcissistic culture that
makes the self the ultimate authority and purpose in our lives. We are
driven by our own desires, rarely stopping to ask whether those desires are even
worth pursuing! We see this self-absorption in popular culture’s
preoccupation with attractiveness and body shape, with having lots of material
possessions, with sexual pleasure, with getting ahead, with our feelings and
our rights. All of these pursuits are centered on pleasing the self.
Conversion is an admission that a self-centered life is a dead end. It
means turning instead to a God-centered life, believing that the One who made
us knows best what’s worth living for! It’s moving from an
autonomous (self-directed) life to a theo-nomous (God-directed) life.
Some of you may have heard
the story of a ship captain who saw faint lights in the distance on a dark night. He
told his signalman to send a message, “Alter your course 10 degrees north.” Promptly
a reply was received. “Alter your course 10 degrees south!”
The captain became angry,
so he sent a second message. “Alter your course 10 degrees north. I
am the captain!” Soon another message was received. “Alter
your course 10 degrees south. I am seaman third class Jones.”
The captain then sent
a third message, figuring this would settle the matter. “Alter your
course 10 degrees north. I am a battleship.” The reply came
quickly. “Alter your course 10 degrees south. I am a lighthouse.”
Conversion means that
we recognize the authority of the Lighthouse of God and alter our course accordingly. And
that means admitting that things may not be as we’ve always perceived them
to be.
That kind of admission
does not come easily for us. Even when it is obvious that things are not
going well in our lives, we continue to cling to beliefs and values which
are no longer working, like the battleship captain. We are so afraid of
the instability and loss of control that a conversion might bring, that we convince
ourselves that everything is just fine the way it is, pushing contrary thoughts
to the fringes of our minds. Only with God’s help is such a change
of direction possible. But what might conversion look like for us?
Saul’s conversion
gives us a picture of what our own conversion might look like. We might
be cruising along, relatively happy in our self-deception as Saul was, who was
merrily jailing and killing followers of Jesus. Then comes some kind of
crisis. For Saul it was that bright light and voice. For us it might
be an illness, a job loss, retirement, the death of a loved one, or just the
crushing realization that life isn’t going the way we hoped it would. The
crisis is often followed by a period of disorientation, a time when things
feel out-of-control. For Saul that meant three days of blindness and fasting. For
us, if we decide that the self is no longer the ruler of our lives, then everything
goes up for grabs. We face disorienting questions: What is truly
important in life? Where should I put my energy? What should I do
with my time, with my job, with my money, with my relationships? Finally
comes a sense of re-orientation around the new center point of our lives,
Jesus Christ. As Saul himself later wrote, “If anyone is in Christ
there is a new creation. The old has passed. Behold, all has become
new.” (II Cor. 5:17) Reorientation. We are
then better equipped to fulfil our calling, like Saul was.
In the movie, “Regarding
Henry,” Harrison Ford plays the role of Henry Morris, a successful New
York City lawyer, a self-absorbed, wealthy, cutthroat litigator who has little
interest in his own family. His life changes forever when he is shot in
the head during a robbery. His recovery takes months of intense therapy
and even learning to walk again is extremely challenging. He has no memory
of his wife and daughter or colleagues. Even his tastes in food and clothing
have changed.
As he resumes his life,
he is troubled to find that his wife had been unfaithful to him and he had been
unfaithful to her. He is devastated to discover that he once withheld evidence
in a trial that prevented a critically ill patient from obtaining a rightful
settlement from a hospital Henry was defending. In a climactic scene, he
meets his wife at the door.
“I’m sorry,” he says and then adds, “You were right. Things
were different before. I have something I need to tell you.”
“What is it?” she asks.
“I don’t like my clothes,” he says. “Maybe they used
to be my favorite, but I don’t feel comfortable in them any more.”
“We’ll get you new clothes,” his wife says smiling.
“I’m not done,” Henry says. “Eggs. I don’t
like eggs, or steak. And Sarah, I hate being a lawyer. I quit today,
and I told Charlie goodbye.”
“Whatever you want is fine,” Sarah assures him.
“I want us to be a family for as long as we can, Sarah. For as long
as we can.”
Henry is experiencing
a kind of conversion. There is a real sense in which he is lucky to have
had this crisis experience which forces him to question the life he had been
leading up until then. Now he can make the necessary changes to lead the
life he was designed for.
Some of you need a conversion
experience where you encounter Jesus Christ and commit yourself to follow him
with your life- an encounter which leads you to a whole new direction and purpose,
because the old ones simply aren’t working. You can begin your conversion
this morning with a simple prayer to Jesus. Others of us, who have already
made a commitment to follow Jesus Christ, need a kind of ongoing conversion of
our ideas, attitudes, beliefs, feelings, and actions- a spiritual renewal. I
think all of us need conversion.
I’m going to conclude
this sermon with an invitation to conversion. We won’t sing 50 verses
of “Just As I Am” like we did in my Baptist Church growing up. But
I’m going to ask us to pray in silence, giving you a few minutes to examine
your life and your own need for conversion. If you feel God at work in
your heart, pushing you to change your direction and purpose, simply tell Jesus
that that’s what you want and entrust your life to him. Following
the service, I would be glad to talk and pray with any of you about this important
decision.
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