Paul and the Mercy That Saved Him

1:35 advertising a program called Master of Arts in Liberal Studies, and it listed all the seven areas in which you can get a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies, namely American Studies, Ancient Studies, East Asian Studies, Islamic Studies, Jewish Studies, Medieval Studies, and South Asian Studies. And Richard John Newhouse in an editorial spotted this and wrote and raised the question, where are Christian studies? Why can't you get a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies at Columbia University in Christian studies when you can get them Islamic studies and Jewish studies and Asian studies and so on? Why not Christian studies? And he ponders four possible reasons and he ends up with this reason. I'll read it to you. Nervousness is caused by the awareness that there are an awful lot of people who really believe in Christianity. The university is a cosmopolitan space where religious traditions can be subjected to critical examination, but are not to be taught as though they might be, well, you know, true.

2:43 Even in religious studies departments, faculty members who are Hindus, Buddhists, and believers in mystical crystals can quite openly profess their faith. Muslims and usually Jews can too. Nobody raises question about their proselytizing. Not so with Christians. The fear is that Christianity might be taken altogether too seriously. So the absence of Christian studies in the Columbia program, it turns out, is not an insult to Christianity. Those of the other faiths, however, might have reason to be offended.

3:28 Now, I think Newhouse is right. We live in a land where the rising tide of prejudice and discrimination against Christianity is a backhanded tribute. It is an honor. Giving Christianity a fair shake, a fair and open hearing, a serious focus of attention alongside other claims, makes secular people nervous. Because there are so many Christians who really believe it's true. And not only true, but true for everybody.

4:13 They believe there's one holy God. Everybody in the world has sinned against that God. The one holy God has sent his one and only son to die for sinners. Anybody in the world and everybody who believes on that one and only son may be reconciled to that one and only God and have eternal life with him forever or not and go to hell. and millions of these Christians think it's the most loving thing in the world to pray and witness and live so as to persuade other people to stop being what they are and become Christians.

4:55 And this is absolutely offensive to the secular mindset and makes them nervous. You can't have a Christian studies department. There are too many of those people who take it seriously, believe it's true, try to persuade others that it's true. You just can't have that sort of thing in the university. You can only deal with detached issues as though nothing really mattered, which is a great tragedy in our great universities.

5:24 Well, this is the way it's been from the beginning. Christianity has always been a converting religion. It's always been a proselytizing religion. Ooh, ugly word. Proselytizing. It's always been such that you try to get other people to change their religion and become Christians.

5:45 Because, Acts 4.12 says, there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved besides Jesus. Now, the Pharisee Saul that we read about a minute ago, the Pharisee Saul, who was later to become the missionary, Paul saw this really clearly and was threatened to the core of his being. We'll see in a minute. And he opposed Christianity with all his might. He was a very zealous opponent of Christianity.

6:23 Now, my aim this morning is to simply look at his conversion with you and point out three or four things. but I want you to see this conversion through a very specific lens. And the lens is found in 1 Timothy 1 that I read earlier and I really would like you to go back there with me. If you have a Bible and you want to turn there with me, it's 1 Timothy 1 verse 15 and 16. Here's the lens I want us to look through as we focus on the conversion of Paul because what I really want this morning is for you to know that God saved Paul for your sake. And God saved him the way he saved him precisely to encourage you this morning.

7:11 This is an awesome thought to me that God chose Paul for my sake and your sake. But let's read it and see if you agree with this lens. Right at the end of verse 15 of 1 Timothy 1, it says, I am the foremost of sinners, but I received mercy for this reason. Now, here's why God showed mercy on Paul. That in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience for an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. Now, that's you. I hope. The vast majority of you, I assume this morning, are right there in that text. Those who were to believe in him for eternal life, God says, I did it for your sake, that you might have a display. That's what I want to happen this morning. A display of perfect patience, long-suffering of Jesus.

8:07 So that evidently, having a display of long-suffering in front of you, something good would happen to you this morning. Evidently, Paul and God are of the opinion that you need that. You need a display of long suffering. So that's what I want to spread out before you this morning. A God who is perfect in patience or big in long suffering. Now, that's the way, that's the lens through which I want you to look at the conversion of the Apostle Paul this morning. Okay? So let's go back now to Acts chapter 9. That's the lens. It's for you that he saved Paul. For you that he was converted on the Damascus Road. So that this morning, January 9, 1991, I might have a display case of patience and long suffering from God to show you, because there's something in your life that needs that this morning. Something in your life needs that this morning.

9:02 So you figure out what that is, and I'll do my best to make the display. Four things about this conversion through the lens of 1 Timothy 1. Number one, the conversion of Paul was the conversion of an utterly committed opponent of Christianity. The conversion of an utterly committed opponent of Christianity. Acts chapter 8, verse 3, right across the page in my Bible, says, But Saul was ravaging the church, and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison. And then chapter 9, verses 1 and 2, Luke says that not only was he threatening, he was breathing out threats. Why do you think Luke says it that way? Breathing threats.

9:55 It's like persecution is the air that this man breathed. He's just breathing threats. He hates Christians. He is totally committed to opposing and eradicating this religion and murders. Breathing out threats and murders. Now, why? Why was Paul so zealously, radically, breathingly against Christianity? And I think the reason is, and this comes out of his later epistles, that he understood it better than many of us do.

10:33 Namely, that since it preached salvation by faith, apart from any meritorious works of the law, his whole life was garbage. That's what he says in Philippians 3. My life is just one pile of rubbish if this is true. I don't like my life being called a pile of rubbish. I don't like having devoted my whole life to Pharisaic strivings to make a name for myself and advance beyond all my contemporaries in Judaism and have these no-good, lousy fishermen telling me that they can get right with God and I can't.

11:12 And I'll have anything to boast about. My life is zero because of what they're teaching. I'm going to oppose this thing with all my might because I'm not a zero. I'm somebody in Judaism. That's what made this man so radically opposed to Christianity. It knocked the props of boasting out from under his life. He had nothing to claim anymore.

11:36 Well, he's going to export this. I mean, he is really against. So he goes up to Damascus, 150 miles away, and he is utterly opposed. Now, this is the kind of person who does not get converted, right? You don't get this kind of person converted. He's too committed. It's too deep within him. And besides that, he's gone public. I mean, when you go public with something and a thousand people know that you're committed to it, you don't change your mind, right? Too humiliating. Everybody would say, oh, look, he's fickle or something. So he's just too committed. He's too public. There's no way that he's going to change. So it would be like Molly Yard becoming pro-life and doing rescues in Fargo. Or Madeline Murray O'Hare believing in Jesus and pumping prayer all around the country. Or, this is the best one, Saddam Hussein getting converted and becoming a Christian missionary to Saudi Arabia.

12:39 Anybody praying for that? Well, it doesn't happen, right? It doesn't happen. You don't pray for things that don't happen. now this text and this story and this decree from heaven is here to tell us that sort of thing happens and we ought to pray about it that sort of person gets saved that sort of person can be changed god can do it that's the point and so when you look at it through the lens of first Timothy 1, it is written to display perfect patience to you this morning. The point is, you're not too hard. You're not far gone. You haven't done anything that rules you out. And you don't know anybody that's too far gone. And so don't stop praying. Here's number two.

13:34 Paul's conversion is sudden and unexpected. Sudden and unexpected. Verse three. Now, as he journeyed, he approached Damascus and suddenly, there's the word, suddenly, a light from heaven flashed about him. The whole thing we would say today came out of the blue, literally just out of the blue, boom, just from nowhere. Now, sometimes people say that Paul had been prepared by the Holy Spirit for this conversion by a long period of guilty conscience because he stood at Stephen's stoning and held the garments and listened to the speech. I don't think that's true. So I'm going against most everybody's preconception here. And I even read it in F.F. Bruce's commentary last night that that was what he thought. Let me just tell you why I don't think that's true.

14:29 I don't think Paul was saved by a long period of preparatory work. I think he was stunned out of his mind and that he had not been prepared in any way by the Holy Spirit spiritually for this event. And the reason I don't is because everywhere Paul tells his story about how he got saved, he disassociates it from preparatory work of God. He insists there was no preparatory work of God. For example, in Galatians 1, 13 and 14, he said, I was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers. I was advancing in Judaism beyond all my contemporaries until the Son of God was revealed to me from heaven. I was on my way. I had it made. I wasn't feeling guilty. I was against it. I knew it was wrong. to really make his case in Acts 23, at the beginning of the chapter, he says, I have lived in a good conscience up to that day.

15:25 Paul did not link his conversion with a preparatory work of God in his life. He didn't see his conversion as being led up to by years of feeling guilty for anything, or feeling frustrated for his life, or feeling scared of death or hell. He was advancing. He was moving. He was sold out to his religion. and suddenly God broke in this means that none of us should be despairing for those we know in whom there seem to be no signs of preparation. I want to warn you against something here as you pray for unbelievers. I think we're prone to pray for God to do something and then to look for the evidence that he's doing it. some kind of softening, some kind of openness, some kind of moral cleanup, some kind of interest in church, some kind of fixing things at home.

16:31 Show me an evidence that you're working here, God. And if we don't see any, we tend to feel discouraged that our prayers maybe not have even been heard. Now, Saul would have given no evidence to anybody that he was on the way into the kingdom. He was absolutely, utterly against Christianity and sold out to his understanding of the Old Testament. And he was right on the brink of heaven. He was right on the brink. So that as he left Jerusalem, I can imagine those Christians saying, gee, good riddance, we get a break for a while. And probably, I don't know, maybe they were more gracious than that, maybe very few saying, Lord, there's no evidence in this man's life, but meet him, meet him on the road. I bet somebody did pray that. God did it.

17:25 I often think that I'm sort of looking around for ripe people, you know, ripe for the picking. Here's a ripe person. And I just don't want you to be boxed in and limited that way in your praying and in your expectation level. Well, John Jinstead walked out of the room after the first service, and he said, I've got to tell you that this story of Paul's conversion is not just happening a long time ago. And then he told me about his friend who in California, I forget months or years ago, said he was just totally against Christianity, resisted everybody. And one morning, walking to work across the street, in the middle of the street, God saved him out of the blue. just blew his mind. He said, it all came true in a flash, this friend of John Dinstead. And there had been no evidence of softening or preparation at all.

18:22 And he went on to work and he started talking to his friends and they thought he was crazy and kidding. It just couldn't have happened that fast. So that's number two. Number three, Paul's conversion was a work of divine, sovereign grace. Paul's conversion was a work of divine, sovereign grace. I just love the way Jesus takes over in this chapter, in this man's life. He just took over on the Damascus Road. It's so exciting. It's so different than the way we often think about the nudgings and pullings and whisperings of the Holy Spirit to bring people to himself. On the road here, Jesus is not responding to anything that Saul had done to bring Jesus down. Nothing.

19:17 Saul hadn't done anything to win this intrusion into his life. It was utterly sovereign. And by that I mean it was free. It was unmerited. It was overwhelmingly authoritative. In fact, if there had been or if there was any resistance that Saul was going to put up, God knocked it down. God overcame it. God won him for himself. He did whatever he had to do on the Damascus roads and in those three days of blindness to bring this man utterly over to love Jesus and to give his life away for Jesus for the rest of his time on the earth. Now, let me give you three evidences of this sovereign work of God. Number one, the light shone out of heaven and blinded Paul. He just blinded. He didn't ask Paul, are you willing to be blinded? Are you willing to see this light? Are you willing to get out off your donkey?

20:12 He just did it. He blinded him. No questions asked. And he blinded him for three days and then he healed him. No questions asked. He kept him blind for as long as he wanted him blind. And I think the reason he blinded him is to show him what he's like. He's blind. So you'll live in blindness for three days so that you'll wake up to the fact that you're blind. You think you're seeing, but you're not seeing. You're blind, so I'll make you blind. This is the way you are. I'll let you deal with it physically so that you can process it spiritually. But he didn't ask him his permission. Boom, he just did it. Secondly, the voice. The voice says, this is amazing. Look at verses 5 and 6 here. I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. Rise, enter the city. I'll tell you, or it will be told to you, what you are to do. What? Who do you think you are, Jesus?

21:07 Telling me to get up? Telling me to go into the city? Telling me I'll be told what I'm going to do? This is absolute authority here. Jesus has taken over in this man's life. You will do what I tell you to do, and it will be told to you what you will do. Isn't that amazing? Way to get somebody saved. Thirdly, look at verses 15 and 16 to make this crystal clear that Jesus had taken possession of Paul, meant to put him in his service, will not fail. Ananias is told to go to him and Ananias is scared and doesn't want to go. So Jesus says in verse 15, go. Go. He is a chosen instrument. Wow. I've already chosen. He hasn't even believed yet and I've chosen him. he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings, the sons of Israel.

22:01 I've got his ministry all planned out for him. He hasn't been converted yet. I know where he's going. I know the kings he'll talk to. I know the sons of Israel he'll save. I know the Gentiles he'll reach. We're just putting it together here now. I will show him how much he must suffer, not might suffer. I've got his suffering planned. you tell him he's going to suffer.

22:27 So Jesus chose Paul before Paul chose Jesus. Galatians 1.15, Paul says, He set me apart before I was born. So if you want to know when this choosing happened, you go back before his birth at least. And I think in Ephesians 1, and you just go back before the foundation of the earth, and you'd know where Paul was chosen for this awesome task. Jesus speaks of the great ministry that Paul is going to have to kings and nations and Israel. He doesn't speak of what might come true. Oh, if Paul just would respond properly. Oh, what will he do? Oh, I hope he responds. Jesus has taken over here. He's in charge. This man is coming in because Jesus wants him in. and so it's an act of sovereign grace, and I hope that you are encouraged by this.

23:27 You know what it means for us? It means that you can't look around in this room or at work or in your neighborhood. You can't look around and itemize anybody's distinctives and say, well, given those distinctives, they're not a candidate for grace. Given those distinctives, they're not a candidate. Free grace means you can't ever do that. Free, sovereign grace means God's free to intrude on anybody, anytime, anywhere. He chooses and he can write the agenda. So just pray that he do it and don't let anybody's condition, anybody's circumstances, anybody's distinctives say to you, well, he's likely not going to choose him. God doesn't act on our likelihoods. He's free. And it's a glorious truth for evangelism.

24:20 I will stand at the dome on Wednesday night knowing that God reigns. That's my only hope. God reigns as I hand out tracts. If I see people throw them down, God can cause somebody to pick one up. In fact, Carl prayed on Wednesday night. When people throw them down in the halls inside the dome, may the cleaners after the game pick one up and say, What is this? Finding the field of your dreams. And be saved. Because God reigns over the dropping of a tract. He's God. And we have no rights and no ability whatsoever to go around suggesting probabilities of where grace might succeed. He's free. And it's a glorious, liberating truth. This is number four. Paul's conversion was for your sake.

25:08 Now, I really want to close on a personal note here. God chose Paul at least before he was born, he said, in Galatians 1.15. and he He chose him for your sake. I am the foremost of sinners, but I receive mercy for this reason, that in me the foremost, Jesus Christ might display on June 9, 1991, his perfect patience for an example to all those who were to believe in him for eternal life. Let me get the phrase just right here now. Let's get a literal translation of perfect patience. Jesus Christ saved Paul on the Damascus road so that this morning I might display his whole long suffering. And the reason I like the literal translation long suffering, the Greek has those same two components, makrothomia, that long suffering is because that's what Jesus experienced from Paul all the years of his unbelief.

26:11 Do you feel that? Jesus said when he met him, why are you persecuting me? Now, we tend to think, well, every time he threw a Christian into jail, he was throwing Jesus into jail because he said, when you do it to one of these, you do it to me, both negatively and positively. And that's true. I want to suggest, however, that Paul's whole life was an assault on Jesus. Paul's whole life was a thumbing of his nose at Jesus. Paul's whole life was God abuse.

26:39 He abused God. Every day of his life, God had chosen him before he was born. He lived in the milieu of God-exalting revelation from the Old Testament. He saw, no doubt, much of what was happening in Jesus' life. He knew what these Christians believed. He hated it. And he hated God in that way. And all the while, Jesus said, this is my man. This is my man. This is my man.

27:10 That's what long-suffering means. And so the way to end this service is for you to simply say, have I gone too far? No. Have I done something too great? No. Is God the kind of God that operates on a hair trigger of anger like I tend to do? Well, no, obviously not. Or he would have been done with Paul a long time ago.

27:40 Well, then, you mean there's hope? There's hope for the likes of me? That's the point. That's the point of his conversion. God decreed Paul's conversion so that this morning I could display long-suffering. I wish I knew how old Paul was when he got converted. But maybe it's just as well we don't. So you can guess 25, 30, 40, somewhere in there, maybe. So 25 years or 30 years or 40 years of God abuse and Christ rejection and and and suffering heaped upon the risen Christ that he was rejecting day in and day out. And all the while, Jesus was saying.