Saul’s Encounter with Ananias (Acts 9:10–19a)

Prepared and preached by Pastor Steve Rhodes for and at Bethel Friends Church in Poland, OH on Sunday, August 25, 2024

There is a current pastor, writer, and speaker, who in 1998 was a student at Virginia Tech. He writes:

On Halloween night, 1998, I threw a party in my apartment at Virginia Tech. I was 20 years old and was in the wildest season of my life. I had three girl roommates, a live in girlfriend, and I spent most of my spare time smoking weed, doing lines of cocaine and drinking.

On that Halloween night, I was geared up for what I expected to be a good time.

Because the party was going be so “unforgettable,” I invited an old friend from high school down for the weekend. Dave and I had played hoops and partied together over the years, so I was excited to see him.

When Dave arrived, I greeted him and escorted him back to my room where I proudly unveiled the welcome gifts I’d prepared for him. On my desk was a fat bag of weed, a 6’er of his favorite beer and I told him I had a girl he could get to know for the weekend.

But Dave didn’t respond like I expected he would.

Instead, he gently closed the door and sat on the bed. He looked me in the eyes and told me he didn’t do those things anymore. He said he’d become a Christian and that he loved Jesus now and the reason he came to the party was to tell me that Jesus loved me too.[1]

Within a few months, this now pastor, Garrett Kell, called his friend and accepted Christ. I’ll come back to him later. My point is that Jesus changes us. Changes transform us. In the passage we are looking at, we see how Jesus transforms Paul the apostle. The Gospel always changes us.

Acts 9:10–19 (ESV)

¹⁰ Now there was a disciple at Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said to him in a vision, “Ananias.” And he said, “Here I am, Lord.” ¹¹ And the Lord said to him, “Rise and go to the street called Straight, and at the house of Judas look for a man of Tarsus named Saul, for behold, 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 at Jerusalem. ¹⁴ And here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call on your name.” ¹⁵ But the Lord said to him, “Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. ¹⁶ For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.” ¹⁷ So Ananias departed and entered the house. And laying his hands on him he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus who appeared to you on the road by which you came 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 he regained his sight. Then he rose and was baptized; ¹⁹ and taking food, he was strengthened.

For some days he was with the disciples at Damascus.

3 applications:

1. Be an evangelist
2. Be a person of prayer
3. Be submissive to the Lord
4. The Lord is Sovereign
5. As we look at this passage, notice prayer.
   1. In verse 10, the text says the Lord visits Ananias in a vision. Now, I must tell you that the Lord is about to do something dramatic. He is about to change someone who has been making murderous threats against the church. Last week, we looked at the passage where Paul encountered Christ; now, this is the second half of his transformation.
   2. The Lord changes us through prayer. The Lord encounters Ananias in a vision. The Lord talks to him and says that Saul is praying. That is what he says in verse 11. Notice that Saul is praying. Saul has seen the risen Lord (1 Cor. 9:1) and is now praying.
   3. It is important that we pray. I will return to Garrett’s story later, but it has been said that no one comes to know the Savior without prayer. Saul is praying, and he sees a vision of Ananias (verse 12). At the same time, Ananias sees the Lord speak to him. When the Lord transforms people, it includes prayer. Garrett’s friend, who had become a Christian and had witnessed to him, was praying for him.
6. As we look at this passage, we notice obedience.
   1. Just notice that the Lord said to Ananias, and he immediately said, “Here I am!” There was no stutter or hesitancy.
   2. Later, Ananias immediately followed through and went to Saul. Later, Ananias called Saul “brother Saul.” He followed through with what the Lord called him to do. Certainly, Ananias made a few remarks and excuses, and I could understand that. Paul had been killing Christians!
   3. I can understand this. When I was in school, there was a kid named Denny Smith, who was the bully; if God had told me to lay hands on him, I would have been fearful. I dreaded going to school because of him.
   4. But Ananias was obedient.

• As we look at this passage notice God’s sovereignty.
  1. Just notice verse 15: The Lord says that Saul (remember that Saul is Paul) is my “chosen” instrument. God has a will. God is in charge.
  2. Know that there is no way that God cannot be in control, and so He had a will, and He has a will.

1. As we look at this passage, we notice the importance of the Gospel.
   1. God’s plan was that Saul would take the Gospel to the Gentiles.
   2. God’s plan was that Saul would take the Gospel to the kings.
   3. God’s plan was that Saul would take the Gospel to the Jews.
   4. This all happens by the end of Acts.

God made us to worship him. Remember the testimony that I began with? Garrett Kell. He writes:

A few weeks later [after the party], I was at home on Christmas break and I was doing a drug called Ecstasy. Sometime after midnight, I became strangely sober and felt an overwhelming burden to call Dave.

So at 2:00 a.m., Dave came up to my house, carrying his Bible, with tears rolling down his cheek.

We sat down and I told him I needed to know more about God. He asked me if I knew what he was doing when I called him.

He went on to tell me that when I called him, he was doing the same thing he’d been doing every night since he left Virginia Tech—he was on his knees praying for me.

Over the next few days and weeks, I continued to read the Bible and have conversations with Dave.

He told me that God made me to love and worship Him.

He explained that the guilt I was feeling was God showing me that I was in rebellion against Him and was on my way to hell.

He explained that Jesus died for sinners like me and then rose from the dead to extend mercy to me if I would turn from my sins and believe in Jesus.

He told me that Jesus would forgive all of my sins, change my life and make me His forever.

I’m not sure if it was that night or in the weeks that followed, but God saved my soul.

I began reading the Bible and it was no longer a book of old stories, but now it was like a spotlight that searched my soul and showed me the depths of my sin and the even greater depths of God’s love for me in Jesus.

Dave made a stand for Christ that night at Virginia Tech. God used him to get a message to me that eternally altered my life. Now, every Halloween night, I call Dave and thank him for the stand. God used Dave’s stand to save my soul and my life from utter destruction.[2]

God changed Garrett, God changed Saul, and hopefully God changed us.

Review:

1. Be an evangelist
2. Be a person of prayer
3. Be submissive to the Lord
4. The Lord is Sovereign

Let’s pray:

[1] http://garrettkell.com/the-stand-that-saved-my-soul/

[2] Ibid.

Saul’s Encounter With Christ (Acts 9:1–9)

Prepared and preached by Pastor Steve Rhodes for and at Bethel Friends Church in Poland, OH on Sunday, Sunday, August 18, 2024

How did you come to know Jesus as your Lord and your Savior? To be a Christian, you must believe in Jesus, trust in Jesus, confess your sins to Jesus, and commit to Jesus.

I was born into a “churchgoing” family. We regularly attended Memorial Baptist in Dayton until I was about five. When I was five, we moved about half an hour away from that church, and my dad wanted to find a church closer to home. We went to Concord United Methodist Church a few times a year. We never became members or even attended weekly. My family was still guided by Biblical principles and morals, although until I was sixteen, I was never involved in church more than a few times a year.

The day of my salvation was when I was seven, and it was Christmas Day, 1988. My parents had given my brothers and me a children’s Bible for Christmas. When I was about to go to bed that night, I was staring at the picture of Christ on the cross. At this time, although no one was there to lead me in a prayer, God was there and changed my heart.  Looking at the picture of Christ on the cross, I moved with tears was thinking, “He did this for me!” I knew that I was a sinner in need of a Savior.

A few years later, my father had been taking my brothers and me to a Southern Baptist barber. My brothers and I always tried to get him to talk about the Bible because his knowledge amazed us. He was a strong Christian who was involved in prison ministry and even preached at church sometimes. One day, he told my dad how he led a man to salvation the day before. He actually told us the prayer, and I heard that prayer, and I said it that night and every night during my devotion time until I got involved in a church and realized I only had to say it once. That used to be when I thought I had become a Christian. Now, I know that was the verbal expression of my salvation.

Today, I wish to look at Paul’s conversion, and maybe this will cause you to reflect on when you became a Christian. I wish to teach you this passage, but I also hope you all will be challenged to engage Christ, be converted to Christ (if you have not been), be consecrated to Christ, and be in communion with Christ. The last two seem to be where the real struggle is.

Acts 9:1–9 (ESV)

9 But Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest ² and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. ³ Now as he went on his way, he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven shone around him. ⁴ And falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” ⁵ And he said, “Who are you, Lord?” And he said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. ⁶ But rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.” ⁷ The men who were traveling with him stood speechless, hearing the voice but seeing no one. ⁸ Saul rose from the ground, and although his eyes were opened, he saw nothing. So they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. ⁹ And for three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank.

1. Contact:
   1. In verse 3, we see Paul’s contact with Jesus. Notice he is still called Saul at this point.
   2. Paul was traveling along the road that led to Jerusalem. Paul was heading towards Damascus.
   3. Damascus was 135 miles northeast of Jerusalem.
   4. Now, think about that: Paul had all that traveling to do to imprison Christians.
   5. How hostile do you think he was? How much hatred do you think he had? For 6 days on foot, he was traveling to imprison Christians. I would think his anger would wear off.
   6. Paul was attacking Christians, and after Paul became a Christian, he needed to be forgiven, and he would be.
   7. As Paul approached Damascus, a light from Heaven suddenly surrounded him.
   8. In 1 Corinthians 9:1, he says that he saw Jesus (this same chapter, verse 27 and 22:14).

I like what John MacArthur said:

There’s another fantastic thing here, and that is this. The last guy before Saul to see the resurrected Christ was who? Stephen. He said, “Look at that, I see the Son of God standing at the right hand of the Father,” or Jesus standing at the right hand of the Father. And everybody heard it. Of course, that infuriated them all the more. But if it isn’t grace to realize that the man standing there, in measure responsible for the stoning of Stephen, was, in the grace of God, the next one to see His glory. That’s how grace operates.

And, you know, remember Stephen’s prayer? “Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.” God answered, and God was gracious unto Saul. The heavens are opened one more time, and this killer, Saul, gazes into the glory and the person of Him whom he persecuted. What grace, that Saul saw Jesus. Fantastic.

2. Conviction:
   4. Paul was convicted in verse 4.
   5. Paul fell to the ground. Remember the previous chapter? The Ethiopian was converted on a chariot. Now, Paul is converted in dust.
   6. Now, I think that is conviction and his conversion are both in the white space in between these next few verses.
3. Conversion:
   1. In verse 5, Paul calls Jesus “Lord.”
   2. This likely meant that Paul was calling him “sir,” but based off of the rest of this passage, I think he is being converted.
4. Consecration: (Acts 22:10)
   1. Look with me at Acts 22:10: And I said, ‘What shall I do, Lord?’ And the Lord said to me,‘Get up and go on into Damascus, and there you will be told of all that has been appointed for you to do.’
   2. I am sure you noticed that Paul asked what he needed to do. This is when the Lord told him that things were appointed for him, and he would find out in Damascus.
   3. I hope that you are challenged every day to say, “Lord, what shall I do?” The Lord has things in store for you. He has a plan. Pray for opportunities.
5. Communion:
   1. I heard the best illustration of Paul’s communion. This is not my idea, but I like it:
   2. What was the last thing he ever saw? Jesus. Have you ever looked in the sun, and then everywhere else you look all you see is the sun? Or you had somebody take your picture and all…everywhere you look, flash. They say if you look at the sun long enough, you’ll be blind. An astronomer tried it, and he was. You know what I think? I don’t think Saul’s blindness was the blindness of darkness. I think it was the blindness of light. I think for three days all he ever saw was the Son, S-O-N, that he couldn’t get rid of the vision of Jesus. That’s all he ever saw.
   3. So he spent three days getting acquainted. And I think that’s when all the old things died. And they died hard. And he didn’t yet understand forgiveness, either, and he would still have guilt. And I think it’s when faith and love and joy and peace began to be born in those days. Communion.

Here are some applications from this passage:

1. Saul responded to Christ with obedience, with consecration: Acts 22:10; We must do the same.
2. We must be obedient to the Lord with our lives, as Paul was. We must make Jesus Lord of our lives, as Paul did. He is the Lord (John 13:13; Acts 10:36; Romans 10:12; I Corinthians 12:5; Phil. 2:11).
3. We must call others also to consecrate their lives to Christ (Luke 9:23).
4. We must recognize that Jesus has a great plan. The church was likely worried about Saul and his persecution, yet this was God’s plan. Saul planned on going to Damascus to chain up Christians, but instead, Saul surrendered to the Christians.
5. We must trust in Jesus’ great plan.
6. We must have communion with Christ as Paul did. This will be with our life. We must look to Jesus so that we only see Jesus, just as someone looking at the sun can only see the sun.
7. We must pray for the Spirit’s conviction as Paul was convicted.
8. Paul fell on His face before the Lord. We must pray for that type of humility.

Now, I encourage you to go forth and be engaged with Jesus in a relationship consecrated to Him and in communion with Him.

Pray.

An Intro to Paul (Col. 1:24-29)

Prepared and preached by Pastor Steve Rhodes for and Bethel Friends on Sunday, August 11, 2024

I wish to talk about the apostle Paul. We will introduce Paul today. Paul was introduced at Stephen’s stoning and could have been in a better light.

Acts 8:1:

 Saul was in hearty agreement with putting him to death.

Verse 3:

But Saul began ravaging the church, entering house after house, and dragging off men and women, he would put them in prison.

Now, in Acts chapter 9, Paul becomes a Christian. By the way, Saul is Paul, and Paul is Saul. He is called Saul before his conversion. He now commits his life to the Lord. We will look at that in a few weeks. Today, I wish to look at Paul’s philosophy of ministry (A philosophy is a way of thinking), which can be found in Colossians 1:24-29.

Let’s read that passage:

Colossians 1:24–29 (ESV)

²⁴ Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church, ²⁵ of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, ²⁶ the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. ²⁷ To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. ²⁸ Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. ²⁹ For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.

As we discuss this passage, I want you to notice Paul’s passion for Jesus-centered, Gospel-driven ministry and his humility.

Now, what is the take-home today? I want to teach you about the apostle Paul. But what do you take home? God has placed all of us in a position of ministry. We are all in places where we can serve the Lord. These are not full-time paid positions. The follower of Christ is to serve the Lord everywhere and always. We are on the clock 24/7. Today, I am not teaching you about Paul’s life, I am teaching you about Paul’s philosophy of ministry. A philosophy is a way of thinking. This is Paul’s way of thinking about ministry.

So, your take-home application: I ask that we all compare and contrast our philosophy or thinking about ministry with the Apostle Paul’s. Maybe we will be encouraged because things line up. Maybe we will need encouragement because we are putting too much on ourselves and not trusting God. Maybe you will need to refocus. Remember, when I say ministry today, I am talking about the connections in life that God has placed you in for His purposes.

1. First, some things about Paul’s background.
   1. This comes from R.C. Sproul’s commentary on Acts:
   2. Much of Acts is a profile of this man, Paul—of his life, his ministry, his suffering, and his faithfulness to his Master. When we first meet him here in Acts, however, we do not meet the greatest pastor, the greatest missionary, the greatest evangelist, or the greatest man. We meet the early church’s public enemy number one. We meet a man filled with hostility and hatred toward Christ and Christ’s church, a man whose consuming passion was to eradicate Christianity from the face of the earth.^[1]
   3. Paul was born, according to tradition, in the same year that Jesus was born. He was born in Asia Minor, in the city of Tarsus; hence he was called Saul of Tarsus, Paul being the name he used in Gentile circles. His father was a Roman citizen and a well-respected merchant. The fact that he was a Roman citizen indicates that he likely had done something significant. Because Saul’s father was a Roman citizen, Saul was born a free man, and he inherited that citizenship from his father. Tarsus was at the extreme southeastern tip of Asia Minor, close to Antioch, just a little bit north of Jerusalem. Tarsus was on the trade routes, where all merchandise moved from Europe and Asia south through the Middle East, down into Africa, and back. In antiquity Tarsus was one of the wealthiest cities of that region. Tarsus had the largest university in the world at that time, bigger than the universities in Athens and Alexandria. Tarsus was a cosmopolitan city, a city in which merchants, scholars, intellectuals, and travelers from all over the world mingled.^[2]
   4. The young Saul grew up in that environment. Initially he followed a commonplace tradition of the time, which was learning a trade through apprenticeship. One of the most lucrative trades in that day and region was tentmaking. As a young lad, Saul learned the trade of making tents, which served him well throughout his life.
   5. At the age of thirteen, because of the prowess and brilliance that he had already displayed, he was sent away from Tarsus to Jerusalem to go to seminary, as it were, to study under the tutorship of the leading theologian in the world of that time, Gamaliel. (We were introduced to Gamaliel in Acts 5.) Saul studied under Gamaliel for seven years and received the equivalent of two PhDs in theology. It has been said that by the age of twenty-one Saul of Tarsus was the most educated Jew in Palestine. He had mastered the Old Testament and all the rabbinic interpretations of it, and his star had risen in meteoric fashion.^[3]
2. Notice Verse 25: The source of the ministry is God.
   12. Paul says that he was made a minister. Paul did not choose to be a minister. God gives ministry gifts out. You can read about these gifts in 1 Cor. 12 and Romans 12. We are in ministry for God’s Kingdom. I better be in ministry for God’s Kingdom.
   13. Notice Paul writes stewardship: This is still in verse 25. God gives us stewardship of a ministry that He calls us to. Do you know what that word means? It means “House ruler.” If you are a Christian, you are also house rulers, stewards of ministries that God has given you.

Before we move on, I want to emphasize again that in addition to learning about Paul, I hope that your take-home assignment is to analyze what and how your philosophy of ministry compares to Paul’s.

• Notice in Verse 24: The spirit of the ministry is joy.
  1. This is a tough one. This is tough because Paul is writing this from a prison. This is one of the letters called “The Prison Epistles.” Paul writes about joy in persecution.
  2. There are currently Christians in jail all over the world because of persecution.

Paul found joy from the Lord, even in suffering, do we? I wonder if I can? If the source of ministry is the Lord, He is the one responsible for the ministry, I serve Him, and He is responsible for the fruit. I am called by God to serve Him as a pastor, but we are all called to serve the Lord in various ways.

• In verse 25, the scope of ministry is that he might fully carry out the Word of God.
  1. We will see in a minute that this goes together with preaching. But notice that in Paul’s philosophy of ministry we see that he uses the word, “fully.” This is complete.
  2. What is our thinking about what God is calling us to do, how does it compare to Paul’s thinking here?
• Verse 28: The style of the ministry is preaching.
  1. Paul will proclaim the Gospel. This is like a herald crying it out.
  2. We must proclaim the Gospel as Paul did.
• Verse 28: Sum of the ministry, what are we after? What’s the goal? “So that we may present every man complete in Christ.”
  1. Paul’s goal was completion
  2. His goal was that everyone he served would be complete in Christ.
• Verse 29: The strength of the ministry. Who can do this? Who can fulfill all this?
  1. Verse 29 tells us the strength of it. “For this purpose also I labor striving.”
  2. Paul would work diligently.
  3. We see this idea reflected in the rest of the New Testament.
  4. By the way, this is Olympic language. The language here is comparable to an athlete striving for a crown. It is the language of a runner laboring toward the end.

Some of you know that I run. I enjoy running, I really do. There are days in the summer, especially late in the evening, when I can run faster. But when it is hot, I struggle. Then, I long for winter. But then, in the winter, there are times when the wind is so strong and so cold that I struggle. On a January morning last year, I went out running just before 6 am. I opened my garage and realized it was snowing. Further, there was an inch of snow on the ground. I started running and realized the snow was picking up in intensity. The wind was strong. The temperature was dropping. I was wearing shorts because it was about 20 degrees, but by the end of the run, it was 14 degrees. I recall running on 224 towards 680, and the wind and the snow were beating at my face. It was difficult. I had to push through. Maybe that is the joy of running distance. It is a labor of enjoyment, though I cannot explain it.

In so much a greater manner, we labor the Christian life for a greater prize in the end.

This was Paul’s philosophy of ministry. We should aim to minister in similar ways.

This is Paul’s philosophy of ministry; we are all called to serve the Lord in the church, in the family, and everywhere. Where does your philosophy of ministry need to change?

Pray

^[1] R. C. Sproul, Acts, St. Andrew’s Expositional Commentary (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2010), 138.

^[2] Ibid.

^[3] Ibid.