"God's Bad Choice" Sermon: Acts 9:1-19a

“God’s Bad Choice”
[Acts 9:1-19a]
January 17, 2010 Second Reformed Church

This morning, we return to our look at the book of Acts: we will remember that a great persecution had begun against the Christians, and they were fleeing out from Jerusalem into other parts of Israel and even into other lands. The disbursement began in earnest after the martyrdom of Stephen. And, as we saw in the ministry of Philip, the Gospel began to spread throughout the Roman Empire.

We will remember that there was a young rabbi, Saul, a student of the learned Pharisee, Gamaliel, who joyously stood by and encouraged the stoning of Stephen to death for claiming that Jesus is God the Savior – blasphemy, as Saul understood it. Saul was well on his way to be as famous as his teacher; Saul was zealous for the Law of God and sought to have anyone who broke it swiftly and thoroughly punished.

It was probably not long after the death of Stephen that this morning’s Scripture occurred: Saul would not have waited patiently by while these blaspheming Christians spread their blasphemy throughout the Empire.

So Saul, full of extreme rage, “breathing threats and murder,” “spitting mad,” desiring to destroy the disciples of Jesus and hallow the Name of the Lord, went to the Sanhedrin in his great zeal and asked them for letters to the synagogues in Damascus – in Syria – that he might act in the name of the Sanhedrin, capture, and bring back any people of the Way – (that’s what Christians were first called, because they followed Jesus Who said He was the Way) – any people he found – whether man or woman – to be questioned – and if they would not recant – put to death!

The Sanhedrin was impressed with Saul’s zeal and gave him the letters he requested so he might act in their name. So, Saul gathered a group to go with him – we don’t know if they were Romans or other zealous Jews – just that he had a number of men with him to help him capture and bring back Christians. And they headed out on the road to Damascus.

As they approached Damascus, a blazing light – the Light of the Glory of God – shone down out of heaven and centered on Saul, like a lightning bolt that came out of the sky and kept coming and shining on him. Saul was knocked to the ground. And he heard a voice saying, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?”

Let us understand, first, this morning, that our sin is always, ultimately, against God.

After David had arranged Uriah’s death and committed adultery with Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba, he repented and prayed, “For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against, you, you alone, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment” (Psalm 51:51:3-4, ESV).

And Jesus answered the “goats” when they complained to Him, “‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life” (Matthew 25:44b-46, ESV).

Saul had been persecuting Christians – seeking them out and having them brought to trial for blasphemy. But now a voice from heaven called to him, questioning why Saul was persecuting him. Saul’s mind must have been reeling – he was on the ground, light blazing around him, and he has just come to realize that he had not been hallowing God’s Name – he had not been keeping God’s Law – he had been fighting against God and God’s Plan all along! How could that be? How could he be so wrong? After all of his study – after the approval of the best scholars of his generation – how could he be so completely wrong?

But he had to be sure, so he asked, “Who are you, Lord?” “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But rise and enter the city, and you will be told what to do.” It was Jesus; He is God the Savior. Saul had been wrong, and now the True God had thrown him to the ground, blinded him, and told him to go into the city. So Saul got up, went into the city, and fasted and prayed for three days until he heard from the Lord Jesus.

Let us understand, second, that since we are sinners, we can make mistakes in our doctrine – in our understanding of the Scripture, so we ought to be very careful about what we say is necessary to believe and what there is room for disagreement about. The Apostle’s Creed was an early attempt at saying, “these are the non-negotiables,” and it is still one of the best summaries of what the Church has always understood and believed and agreed upon.

I was raised in a Bible-believing home, but my understanding of the Scripture was not the Reformed understanding – I did not understand what God’s Sovereignty really meant, until God was pleased to confront me in college about this issue and help me to see what the Scripture says. Now, I was a Christian before I had a Reformed understanding of the Scripture, and I was a Christian after, but I better understood the Scriptures after. We all continue to grow and learn and God is pleased to help us to understand all that He has revealed to us in His Word.

So, let us also understand, that when God helps us to understand something, we are to respond by immediately and humbly bowing and receiving the truth that God has revealed – especially if it is a matter of saving belief.

If someone has not believed in Jesus Alone for salvation and then comes to understand that Jesus is the Only Savior, as Saul did, he is to immediately believe and subject himself to Jesus. If a person comes to understand that Jesus is the Only Savior, it is an inappropriate response to refuse to believe, to refuse to submit, to say, “let me consider my options.”

Similarly, if we come to understand something in the Scripture that we have not understood before, our response is to be to submit and obey. It is inappropriate to say, “well, I see that God has said that, but I don’t believe it.” It is inappropriate to say, for example, “I understand that gossiping makes me just as guilty and worthy of the fires of Hell as does murder, but I don’t think it’s as bad, so I’m going to continue to gossip.”

Saul understood that Jesus is God the Savior, and he rightly responded to that understanding by humbly obeying and waiting on the Lord. Let us be quick to obey God in any and all things that we understand He has said.

Now there was a disciple in Damascus named Ananias – one of the believers in Jesus in Damascus was a man named Ananias. And the Lord came to him and called to him and told him to go to Straight Street – (which still exists today – it is a street that goes the length of the nation from east to west in a straight line) – to go to the house of Judas, where he would find Saul of Tarsus, who was praying, waiting for Ananias to come and lay hands on him that he might regain his sight, as the Lord told Saul in a vision while he was praying.

We can imagine Ananias shaking at this word, “Saul. Saul of Tarsus. Lord, I have heard about this man: he has commit great acts of evil against the saints in Jerusalem, and he has been given authority to come to Damascus and bind all the saints he finds here and take them away to the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem. Lord, do You really want me to go and heal this man? Do You know what kind of evil he will do once he is well again? Lord, are You sure?”

“Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel.”

What must Ananias have been thinking? “Lord, are You sure he’s the best choice for the job? He has acted as a terrorist against Your people – even if he has changed, and I find it hard to believe – don’t you think he’s a bad choice to represent You?”

Can we imagine similar choices? If God came to the thirteen colonies and said that He wanted King George to be made the first President of the United States. Or Adolph Hitler the Prime Minister of Israel. Or Charles Mason the Presidential Secretary on Mental Health. Or David Duke of the KKK the chairman of the black caucus. Those would seem to us bad choices. It would certainly have seemed a bad choice to Ananias to pick Saul of Tarsus to do anything for the people of God.

Let us understand, then, that God chose Saul to represent Him, first before the Gentiles, then kings, and lastly before Israel, because it pleased God to chose Saul and use him for that purpose. Yes, it is true that Saul was well-educated, he came from a cosmopolitan city, but he was also the last person anyone would believe had converted. Saul would have great difficulty convincing the saints that he was not trying to trap them – that he wasn’t faking his conversion. But God chose him for God’s Reasons.

Saul acknowledged this when he wrote, “But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles” (Galatians 1:15-16, ESV). God did not use him as the brilliant Jewish scholar he was, but sent him, for God’s reasons, to be the apostle to the Gentiles – the non-Jews.

Likewise, God chose you and me to be His for His Reasons. We are not to be prideful in the fact that God has called us to be who were are – to be His sons and daughters. We ought to humbly give thanks that God chose us, despite who we are – despite our sin. And we ought to receive anyone and everyone who confesses Christ, no matter who they were or what they have done. Our perception of a person or our knowledge of what they have done in the past is irrelevant, if they have truly come to faith in Christ.

Why? “For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of the darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

“But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies” (II Corinthians 4:5-10, ESV).

When I first went to seminary, I was being discourage from pursuing the ministry because my health was not the best and there is a great deal of work and stress in the ministry. But that is the point – one reason God uses us is the very fact that we are weak and broken and common, because it makes His Glory all the more easy to see.

So, when you look at me, I appreciate your prayers for my health and so forth, but I don’t want you to look at me and think, “Oh, there’s our pastor; he’s chronically ill.” No, I want you to look at me and say, “Isn’t our God great that He would work through someone like our pastor?” I desire to see you the same way: Isn’t our God amazing – that He would even work through you?

Jesus continued, “For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.” The word that is used for “show” does not mean that God revealed everything that Paul would have to go through as the apostle to the Gentiles – it means that God gave him a glimpse of what he would have to go through – a taste.

What did Saul go through? In defending himself against false teachers in Corinth, Saul wrote, “But whatever anyone else dares to boast of – I am speaking as a fool – I also dare to boast of that. Are they Hebrews? So I am. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they the offspring of Abraham? So am I. Are they servants of Christ? I am a better one – I am talking like a madman – with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, often near death. Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to fall, and I am not indignant?

“If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, he who is blessed forever, knows I am not lying” (II Corinthians 11:21b-31, ESV).

The Lord Jesus revealed Himself to Saul, received him and appointed him to be the apostle to the Gentiles, and promised him that he would suffer great things. “You’ve been known as the well-educated, zealous, cosmopolitan Pharisee – the Jew of the Jews, but I have chosen to reveal the Truth of My Salvation to you, and you will serve among the non-Jews and suffer miserably all of your life.”

Jesus says to each one of us who believes, “Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you” (John 15:20a, ESV).

O how great is the Gospel of our God and Savior If it were not, we should all be locked up. But it is that great, so Saul, humbled himself before God and received his call, and Ananias trusted God and went to heal Saul.

Ananias came to the place where Saul was staying and lay his hands upon him, calling him, “Brother Saul,” telling him that he had come at the directive of Jesus Christ, Whom Saul had seen on the road to Damascus, so he would regain his sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.

And Saul believed and was filled with the Holy Spirit, and “immediately, something like scales fell from his eyes, and he regained his sight.” And he got up and immediately was baptized in the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, now a Christian, and he ate and was strengthened.

What shall we conclude?

Hear the word of God record by Isaiah, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways, declares the Lord” (Isaiah 55:8, ESV). And as Saul, himself, would write, “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways ” (Romans 11:33, ESV).

We may look with our humans eyes and wonder why God did certain things. We may wonder why God chose certain people to serve Him. We may even think we know better than God or think that He made some bad choices. Some may think Saul was a bad choice to be the apostle to the Gentiles. Some may think God made a bad choice in calling me to be a pastor.

Saul understood his sin, and he knew he wasn’t worthy. I understand my sin, and I know I am not worthy. But the Gospel is not about Saul – it’s not about me – it’s about Jesus. And if God magnifies Jesus through Saul and me and you – through our sin and weakness – ought we not find ourselves eternally thankfully to Him? Submitting to Him and His Word in all things we come to understand?

Jesus calls us to make His Gospel known, through our frailty, through our aches and pains and disappointments and lack of understanding. An image I have used before: God puts the diamond of the Gospel in the litter box of our lives, because the glory of a diamond is better seen in a litter box than among other jewels.

Let us rejoice that God has made us His own through Jesus Christ and has chosen to use us to make His Gospel known.

Let us pray:
Almighty God, we are amazed that You have chosen the very people we would find last on our list – like Saul – to be Your people – to be the heralds of Your Gospel. Help us to humbly recognize our frailty and magnify You through it. Let us receive all those who confess Salvation in Jesus Alone and join together in worshiping the One and Only Savior. In Whose Name we pray, Amen.