Latest / HBCWestminster / 4.21.24 Acts 9:1-19 Pastor Danny Gardner

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4.21.24 Acts 9:1-19 Pastor Danny Gardner · HBCWestminster

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Thank you, Fran. Well done. Church, would you pray with me?
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Lord Jesus, we thank you for removing the scales from our eyes so that we can see,
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and we thank you for giving us your Spirit so that we can discern what is the will of God.
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What is good and acceptable and perfect, and Heavenly Father, give us strength and courage
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to live in a manner worthy of the Gospel. In Jesus' name, amen.
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Amen. Thank you, Church.
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Well, our sermon today has two points. They're easy to remember.
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We're going to call verses 1 to 16, I once was blind.
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We're going to call verses 17 to 19, but now I see.
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I once was blind, but now I see. And allow me to start with a question.
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What do you get when you cross an antagonistic atheist with a former Catholic
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and then sprinkle a little CU boulder over the top?
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It's probably not what you'd expect.
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I've continued hearing back from many of you,
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how the Gospel found you. I was especially taken by a testimony I heard this week from a man at our
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church who grew up in what he called an antagonistically atheist home. When he was in
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his early 20s, he was involved in a severe car accident. 2014, he sustained significant brain
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trauma, which affected his ability to speak. He began having speech and cognitive therapy
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up in Boulder from a profound, profound, profound, profound, profound, profound, profound, profound,
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profound, profound, profound, profound, profound, profound, profound, profound, profound, soft-spoken, Kyung,
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At CU Boulder that he called a hyper, hyper liberal professor therapist, whose therapy involved
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memorizing phrases and sentences. This particular doctor of cognitive therapy said in order for you
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to develop kind of thoughts and process thoughts in your head and then connect those thoughts to
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your mouth, we're just going to have you memorize phrases. And so what she said he needed was a book
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that had its passages outlined into small numeric batches.
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like chapters and verses and so she handed him a bible now granted she didn't believe the bible
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and nor did he but she assigned him small passages to memorize so that he could practice
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formulating sentences again session after session he worked his way through the bible memorizing and
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reciting passages until he says he finally came to the gospels and the story of jesus christ
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and he believed and he went home and he shared his newfound faith with his girlfriend who later
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became his wife she'd been raised catholic he said but had rejected that faith many years before
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and she believed and so what do you get when you cross an angry atheist with a former catholic and
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sprinkle over the top a little see you boulder certainly not what you'd expect you get a
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wonderful christian family who is worshiping with us here this morning with their three beautiful
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little girls and their first son and their first son and their first son and their first son and
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son on the way. What happens when you take a highly educated Christian hating Pharisee and
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stop him in his tracks? What happens when he's confronted by Christ himself and forced to take
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account of his wickedness? Can such a man, a man so wretched, be saved? Can such a man so lost be
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found? Can such a man so blind be given sight? We continue our study this week of the least likely
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people to be saved in Acts chapters 8 and 9, and I love our passage this morning because it describes
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the man who should never have become the hero of the story. Recall from a couple of Sundays ago,
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the Samaritans were considered to be the off-scouring of Judaism, and yet they received
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the Word and Spirit of God.
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As Samaritans, they didn't have to convert to Judaism first. Last Sunday, an Ethiopian eunuch
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walking through the land of the Philistines was surely beyond redemption, and yet when he heard
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the promises about the Messiah, he believed and was baptized. But these stories pale in comparison
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to the one we will encounter this morning. This morning, we read about a remarkable conversion.
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The man, honestly, whom the church at the time probably assumed
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was even less than the Messiah, was a man who was a Christian, and he was a Christian.
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Less likely to be redeemed than Samaritans and Ethiopians was Saul, the persecutor.
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Saul is proof that the darker the night, the brighter the dawn.
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Because, apart from the Lord Jesus Christ himself, the apostle Paul,
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the same man as Saul, the persecutor, is likely the most famous person in the New Testament.
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His biography and impact on the church loom largely not only in the book of Acts,
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but his writings have dominated the entire world.
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He wrote more inspired books than any other author. Matthew, Mark, Jude, James,
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and the author of Hebrews all have one. Luke and the apostle Peter have two. The apostle John had
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five, but Saul, who would become the apostle Paul, wrote 13 of the New Testament's 27 books.
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He penned the famous discipleship statement in 1 Corinthians,
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11 and verse 1, which says,
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And whether you recognize it or not, whether you even realize it or not,
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your orthodoxy, meaning what you believe, and your orthopraxy, meaning how you apply
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those beliefs to your own life, are both probably very Pauline.
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So great was his transformation that everything about him changed. Even his very name changed
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from Saul, which was Paul, to Paul, which was Paul, which was Paul, which was Paul, which was Paul,
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which was a popular Hebrew name, to Paul, a Latin name, as he would become the great missionary
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to the Gentiles. But that is not where he started for that. We've got to look back at chapter 8 and
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notice verse 1. Chapter 8 and verse 1 says Saul approved of his execution, referring back to
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chapter 7 and the documentation of the very first Christian martyr, Stephen, the deacon of that
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early Jerusalem church, the newly appointed deacon. The deacon of that early Jerusalem church,
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after giving his seven-minute elevator pitch, all of the enemies of the gospel begin to pick up
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rocks to stone him. And this says in chapter 8 and verse 1, Saul approved of that execution. Notice
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verse 3. Saul was ravaging the church and entering house after house. He dragged off men and women
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and committed them to prison. Notice chapter 9 and verse 1. But Saul, still breathing threats
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and murder against the disciples.
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The disciples of the Lord went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at
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Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the way, men or women, he might bring them bound
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to Jerusalem. Notice the descriptors used of Saul. Approving. You're like, well, approving sounds
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good. No, approving of executions. Approving, ravaging, dragging, imprisoning, murderous,
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threatening.
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Binding. I mean, these are not good words.
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Now, let me ask you, what would it take for you to kick in someone's front door,
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tie them up, and then drag them out of their home? What would they have to be guilty of
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in order for you to do that? I've heard of some pretty harsh HOAs, right?
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Like, this is ridiculous. You can't tell me that.
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If I can have a shed or not, this is my yard. You know, nobody can even see it. You know,
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you got these crazy rules that HOAs have. But listen, I've never heard of an HOA
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kicking in doors, tying people up, and hauling them out of their homes because there were weeds
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in their flower beds or because they hadn't mowed their lawn. Do you see the point? Those aren't
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kick in the door and tie people up kind of infractions. What would it take for you to tie
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up your neighbor and drag them out of their home? What would it take for you to tie up your neighbor
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and drag them out of their house? Because whatever that is, that's how Saul viewed belief
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in Christ. That was, in his mind, that was how severe this crime was. He wasn't even content
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to merely drive the believers out of Jerusalem. Remember, that had already happened in chapter
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eight and verse four. They'd already left. He would not stop until the name of Jesus was
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gotten and Christ's followers were either imprisoned or killed. He was committed. He had
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become, in chapter nine, a Christian hunter, going from house to house with warrants from high
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officials, authorizing him to remove any disciples of Christ from their homes, bound in chains.
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In his later testimony to King Agrippa, Acts chapter 26, and I can't wait to get to Acts
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chapter 26. It'll be right around Halloween. The same apostle,
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in his own testimony, said, I pursued them, meaning Christians, even to foreign cities.
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As the church scattered, the apostle Saul, or the persecutor Saul, eventually the apostle Paul,
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would chase them. In his brief autobiography in Philippians chapter three, he called himself
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a zealous persecutor of the church. And I don't know what causes you to jump up and
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down and cheer, to stand up, to jump out of your seat and wave your hands and lift your voice.
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Maybe it's Rocky's home runs, which don't happen very often. Maybe it's Bronco's touchdowns,
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which happen even less frequently. Maybe it's avalanche goals. They're decent.
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Maybe it's Nuggets wins. They beat the Lakers last night. Can I get a witness?
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Right? That is great news. But whatever that is that would cause you to get up out of your seat,
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and wave your hands, and cheer for Saul, that was Christians being dragged out in chains.
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That was what it was. Can you imagine what a sick, what a sick individual this is?
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The title used in verses one and two, the way, any belonging to the way, that word,
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that title is actually used half a dozen times throughout the book of Acts.
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It's apparently what the earliest believers called themselves. It's descriptive of their
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of Christ as the way of salvation. So Saul sets out for Damascus on a mission to hunt down and
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capture any members of this new Christian sect, the way, and then to extradite them back to
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Jerusalem. But his mission was interrupted in verse three. It says, now, as he went on his way,
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he approached Damascus and suddenly a light from heaven shone around him and falling to the ground,
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he heard a voice saying to him, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?
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And he said, who are you, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,
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but rise and enter the city and you'll be told what you are to do. The men who were traveling
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with him stood speechless, hearing the voice, but seeing no one. Now that Saul had encountered
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the resurrected Lord is absolutely positive. There can be no doubt what he later describes
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in second Corinthians chapter four and verse four as the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ,
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the image of God.
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The light of the gospel, the light of Christ was now shining directly upon his own heart
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for the very first time. And just a couple of verses later, second Corinthians four and verse
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six, he says that light shines out of darkness and has shown in our hearts, that same gospel,
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Jesus light shines in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in
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the face of Christ. He was seeing Christ himself once crucified, but now resurrected
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and resurrected again. And he said, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting, but rise and enter the
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city and we notice slightly ticked off. The head of the church now appeared to defend his own body,
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which Saul was persecuting. This is a good reminder to all of us. And perhaps I'm stating
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it too simply when I say that Jesus doesn't like when people persecute the church. He does not like
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it. In fact, this even implies that he takes it personally. Notice he does not say, I am Jesus,
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why are you persecuting the church? Why are you persecuting the way? Why are you persecuting
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Christians? The Christians at the time may have called the church the way, but Jesus did not.
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He says, that's me. Why are you persecuting me? What we learn here is that to injure Christ's
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body, the church is to injure Christ himself. It would be very easy here to assume that the
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only people who ever persecute and hurt the church are the ones who are persecuting the church.
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Are those outside the church? And that's certainly true, but that's not always true.
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Even we as believers have to be careful not to participate in things which would bring harm to
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Christ's body. We must be committed. You're like, well, I can't hurt the church. I'm part of the
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church. No, actually some of the most hurtful things that have ever been done to the church
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are by believers, people who profess the name of Christ and who claim the name of Christ.
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And we've got to be careful. We've got to be careful. We've got to be careful. We've got to be
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careful to apply the words of Ephesians chapter four and verse 25, which say, having put away all
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falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members of one
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another. We're members of one another. We're part of the same group of people. We belong to one
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another is what he's saying. So what sense does it make to lie to one another? It doesn't make
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any sense at all. He continues Ephesians chapter four and verse 29. He says, let no corrupting
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or corrosive talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up as fits the
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occasion that it may give grace to those who hear. Anytime the body of Christ is together, it is for
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the purpose of building up, not tearing down. That's what he says. So when people have conversations
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with us, be that on Sunday mornings or maybe on Tuesday evenings or Friday nights or Saturday
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mornings, or whenever it is, we happen to encounter each other. Our speech should be such that the
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person we're speaking to is built up as they lie to one another. And that's what he says. So when
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people have conversations with us, we happen to encounter each other. Our speech should be such that
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we happen to encounter each other. Our speech should be such that we believe. And boy, that's a
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convicting application. Can you imagine what if you really did reflect every time you got done
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talking to somebody? If you reflected and just said after every conversation, was that person
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built up? Did I do a good job building them up? Because according to Ephesians 4 29, that is the
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purpose for our gathering. The text continues Ephesians 4 and verse 31. He says, let all
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bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and sorrow and sorrow and sorrow and sorrow and sorrow and
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slander be put away from you, that is the church, along with all malice, be kind to one another,
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tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God and Christ forgave you. We've got to remember,
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brothers and sisters, that to injure the body of Christ is to injure Christ himself. And so the
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apostle has stopped. He's confronted by the Lord Jesus himself asking, why are you persecuting me?
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He has a vision of the glorified Christ and noticed that Christ's appearance to Saul had two
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effects. The first was temporal. Verse 8 says, Saul rose from the ground and although his eyes
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were opened, he saw nothing. So they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. And for
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three days he was without sight and neither ate nor drank. Saul was temporarily blinded.
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According to a later account in chapter 22 of Acts, Saul's companions did see some kind of light.
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They did hear.
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Some kind of noise, but they were obviously not affected by those things the way that Saul was.
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They could hear the thunder is how they kind of described it, but they couldn't articulate the
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voice behind it. And so the first effect of him encountering Christ was temporary blindness. The
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second effect lasted the rest of his life. It was transformational. Notice verse 10.
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There was a disciple at Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said to him in a vision, Ananias, and he
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said, here I am, Lord. And the Lord said to him, rise and go to the street called straight. And at
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the house of Judas, look for a man of Tarsus named Saul. For behold, he is praying. And he has seen a
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vision. He has seen in a vision, a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him so that
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he might regain his sight. But Ananias answered, Lord, I've heard for many about this man, how much
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evil he has done to your saints at Jerusalem. And here he has authority from the chief priest to
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bind all who call on your name. And he said, Lord, I have heard for many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints at Jerusalem. And here he has authority from the chief priest to bind all who call on your name.
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Now, in contrast with the Ananias of chapter five, who along with his wife lied to the Holy
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Spirit of God and dropped dead. Do you remember that Ananias? Different guy. Don't be confused.
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Okay. Like how did he come back? He didn't come back. All right. He's still buried there outside
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of the Jerusalem church. All right. New Ananias, but this Ananias is a faithful Christian man
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who was commissioned by God through a vision to minister to Saul.
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But he had heard of Saul. Everybody had heard of Saul. Remember least likely person in the world
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to be saved. Enemy number one of the gospel and the church. He had heard even why Saul had come to
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town. He had heard that Saul had been authorized by the high priest in Jerusalem to arrest
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Christians. And in simplest terms, Saul had come to arrest Ananias.
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No doubt one of those letters had Ananias' name on it, authorizing Saul to bind him, put him in chains
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and to extradite him to Jerusalem. And so initially you can understand why Ananias would politely
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refuse the Lord's request. I'm not going in there. I've heard of this guy. Everybody's heard of this
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guy, but the Lord would allay his fears and even challenge his faith in verse 15. But the Lord said
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to him,
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Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the
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children of Israel. Go, the Lord commanded Ananias, because I have chosen Saul to accomplish
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a mighty and painful work. In other words, he's saying what I'm commanding you to do,
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Ananias, is nothing compared to what I will commission Saul to do.
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Saul, he says, has become a chosen instrument, like a utensil, a tool in the hand of Almighty God
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to carry the gospel or to bear. I mean, it's the same idea as supporting or
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upholding the name of God to the Gentiles, many of whom would be very powerful people,
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many of whom, as you continue to read Saul and now Paul's biography, would also be very angry
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people. Do you happen to know what a
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diffuser is? I, as a bald man, would have no idea what a diffuser was unless I was married to a
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woman who blow dries her hair. A diffuser attaches to the front of your hairdryer, apparently,
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and kind of spreads out what was focused blowing hot air. It unfocuses it. It takes a focused
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stream of whatever it is attached to a hairdryer, right? It's hot air. It spreads it all over the
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place.
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In baseball, pitching charts are often kept so that coaches can show their players pitching
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tendencies, pitch selections on certain counts, and so forth. So this pitcher on a 2-0 count will
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be looking at an outside fastball, and they keep this thing. It looks like a box, and here's where
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that pitch hit, and here's where this pitch hit, and inside the box is a strike, and outside the
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box is a ball. And so you can look as a hitter, or you can look at your own pitching charts
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as a pitcher and say, man, I don't throw very many strikes, right? Because my dog,
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lots are all over the page. None of them are inside the box. This coach that my son's had many
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years ago used to tell pitchers who couldn't throw strikes, right? They walk everybody. He would say
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your pitching chart looks like someone sneezed on it with a mouthful of yogurt. Like, but you get
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the idea. There's nothing focused. It's like he loaded up his mouthful of yogurt and then spit on
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it. It's all over the place. And now the newly commissioned Saul's responsibility would be to
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take the gospel, which until now had been relatively focused, Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria,
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to take the gospel and spread it all over the place. It's like he's saying, load up the gospel
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yogurt and sneeze it all over the Mediterranean. Blow it all over the place. And when you read
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the life of the apostle Paul, that's exactly what he does. He takes the gospel from being
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very concentrated on the regions around Israel, Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem. He takes that and just
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goes all over the Roman empire. The newly commissioned Paul's Saul's responsibility
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would be to take that very focused stream of hot air and to diffuse it. And notice we pick up in
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verse 16. The Lord's still speaking to Ananias. He says, for I will show him how much he must
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suffer for the sake of my name.
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Persecuting days of Saul were now over. The tables are about to turn.
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The man who was so intent on causing the suffering of others would now become the one who would suffer.
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The phrasing in verse 16 is interesting because the Lord basically says, I am
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showing him in his blindness a little glimpse of what is to come.
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His blindness, his humiliation in that blindness now being dragged around by the hand, this once
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powerful, powerful, powerful, powerful, powerful, powerful, powerful, powerful, powerful, powerful,
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powerful man now leaning on others for sight. These things are a mere preview of coming
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attractions, is what the Lord says. And so the Lord commands Ananias to do his part in going to
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Saul. And then the Lord promises that he will do his own part in giving Saul a taste of the
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suffering which he has wrought upon the church in the past, but will now endure for the church
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moving forward. He is going to suffer mightily, he says. Verse 17, so Ananias departed,
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and entered the house, laying his hands on him. He said, Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus who appeared
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to you on the road by which you came has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled
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with the Holy Spirit. Ananias sure changed his tune fast. And notice the title which he uses
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to address Saul. Do you guys see that in verse 17? What's the first word Saul hears from this man,
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who only three days before had been his enemy? Brother. What an interesting word to use.
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Brother Saul. The Greek could be rendered Saul, my brother. Saul, my brother. And Ananias laid his
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hands on Saul, and the power of Christ enlightened his eyes and filled him with the Holy Spirit.
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And then just as quickly as he came, Ananias disappears.
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No further mention is ever made of him again in the scriptures because the point of the story had
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been made.
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The point was not about Ananias. Saul was converted, but it was more than a mere profession
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or a declaration or a simple uttering of a sinner's prayer. Saul's conversion was one of will.
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His desires, his goals, his life purpose had been altered. His conversion was one of intellect. He'd
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been now given the mind of Christ through the illuminating power of the Holy Spirit,
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which meant he could understand the power of Christ. And he was able to understand the power of
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the new freedom he had in Christ.
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He could now discern the will of God
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in ways he never could before.
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His conversion even transformed his emotions.
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The things which had made him
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jump up and down before,
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he would now weep over moving forward.
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His fundamental purpose for being
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had been sanctified
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and claimed by the one and only living God.
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His purpose for being on earth
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had been robbed by Jesus
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and sanctified and claimed
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for the purpose of the gospel.
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Let me ask you, friends,
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has yours,
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has your fundamental purpose for being
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been sanctified and claimed
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by the one and only living God?
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In other words,
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are you living on purpose
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and with purpose?
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Do you know why you're here?
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Do you know why you wake up every day?
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Do you know why you go to work?
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Do you know why you think like you do
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and why you spend your money like you do
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and why you vote like you do?
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Have those things been redeemed
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and sanctified and claimed
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by the one and only living God?
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Many years ago, I was the manager
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at a tri-tip barbecue restaurant
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in Southern California.
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One of our servers,
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waiter's name was Rick.
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Rick was a nice enough guy.
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He was tall and handsome,
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but he was a pagan.
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And so he lived like a pagan.
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It seemed like every week,
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Rick had a different girlfriend,
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sometimes two or three at a time.
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I asked him about it one time,
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and I myself was only in my early 20s,
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21, 22 years old.
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He was actually older than me at the time,
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even though I was his manager
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at this barbecue restaurant.
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I asked him about it.
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Rick, why you always got a different girl?
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Why sometimes two or three?
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And he said this,
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well, the way I figure it,
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I'm just a hairless monkey.
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So he said,
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I might as well have
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as many one night stands as I can.
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And I thought, you know what?
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That actually makes perfect sense.
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If that's what he believes about himself,
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he's just the highest link in the chain,
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then why wouldn't he?
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That's how monkeys act.
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And I've been told I'm just a hairless monkey.
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So why wouldn't I act like one of these monkeys?
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Why wouldn't I do that?
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Why wouldn't I try to have
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as many affairs as possible?
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Why wouldn't I just seek
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the fleshly pleasure every single day?
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There's nothing else that satisfies anyway.
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So why wouldn't I?
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Why wouldn't I just live
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for my impulses?
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Now, let me ask you,
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have you been convinced yet
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that you are more than just the product
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of random chance and evolution?
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Have you been convinced
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that you are more
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than just a slightly smarter monkey?
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Are you still fumbling around in the dark
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like Saul here,
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with eyes open,
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but unable to see?
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If so,
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if you've not yet been convinced,
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then can I encourage you
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to let the light of the glory of Jesus Christ
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shine in the darkness of your heart?
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Man, Rick's life,
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he was not a happy guy.
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I knew him.
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I knew him.
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And according to many other young men,
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it seemed like he was kind of living the dream.
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I mean, this is what a 25-year-old would choose
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and yet had no fulfillment,
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no purpose.
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And if you will give Jesus Christ
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that opportunity to shine,
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shine that light in your heart,
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he will give you meaning and purpose and joy
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like you have never experienced before.
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Genuine, fundamental purpose for being.
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Notice, he once was blind,
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but now he will see.
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Look at verse 18.
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It says,
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and immediately something like scales fell from his eyes
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and he regained his sight
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and he arose and was baptized and taking food.
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He was strengthened.
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I was inspired by our church history seminar last week.
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And especially Dr. Morgan's teaching on John Newton.
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I knew who John Newton was prior to our conference.
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His story is relatively famous,
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but I didn't realize,
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I mean, the meteoric impact Newton had.
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John Newton was born in 1725 to an English mother
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who was a dedicated Christian woman
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and who taught him God's word at every opportunity.
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She prayed earnestly that he would become a pastor
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when he grew up.
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She died.
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She died.
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She died when he was seven years old.
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When she did all of that,
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all of her effort,
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all of her prayers went dormant in her son's life.
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Newton's father was the captain of a ship.
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He was out to sea for many months at a time.
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And so when John turned 11 years old,
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he simply joined the ship's crew.
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You can imagine the kind of influence that would have
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on an 11 year old boy.
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It was not good.
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Newton became an absolute hellion.
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As a young man, he was prone to carousing,
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drinking, womanizing, and foul language.
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The British Navy at the time
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had an interesting recruiting method.
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They would scour the streets,
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arresting any young men they were to find
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in speakeasies and bars and brothels
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and force them into military service.
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They'd just go around, put everybody in handcuffs,
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drop them off at the nearest Navy yard,
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put them on a boat.
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By the time they could complain,
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they were already out to sea.
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And this is how they recruited young men for their Navy.
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And this exact thing,
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this exact thing happened to Newton.
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He was arrested.
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He was given to the British Navy to serve on a warship.
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And one day during a very long voyage,
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a fierce storm struck.
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And Newton was sure he was facing certain death.
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And although he'd been a sailor for many years,
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he had never learned how to swim.
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And as the ship was being overwhelmed by the waves,
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the Lord began to bring back to his mind
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the Bible verses his mother had taught him.
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And so he prayed to God for mercy,
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but then thought,
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what mercy can there be
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for a wretch like me?
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He began to confess his sin to the Lord
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and to ask for forgiveness.
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When the storm ended,
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Newton knew God had saved him from drowning.
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And so he professed saving faith in Jesus Christ.
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He stopped swearing.
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He stopped carousing.
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He openly spoke about the Lord,
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his savior to the other sailors.
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His eyes were finally opened to the truth.
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And in his later life,
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he did indeed become a pastor.
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Just like his mother had prayed,
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and he wrote the most famous song of all time.
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Amazing Grace.
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How sweet the sound.
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That saved a wretch like me.
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I once was lost, but now am found.
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Was blind, but now I see.
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Saul had been living in rebellion against the Lord.
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And like Newton, his eyes were open,
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but he couldn't see.
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In my opinion, the Lord Jesus,
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when he appeared to Saul and blinded him,
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it merely caused his physical sight
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to match his spiritual sight.
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And like Newton, Saul had been blind since birth.
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He just didn't realize it
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because his eyes were open.
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He could see.
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And in his zealous rage,
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he was blinded to the truth.
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If Galatians 5 and verse 1 is true,
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that the truth will indeed set you free,
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then Saul had been a slave his entire life
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to his impulses and his hatred.
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In his pride,
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he could stand.
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But once the Lord showed him his blindness,
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you realize what a wretch he truly was.
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He really was the least likely person on earth to be saved.
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And yet the Lord Jesus Christ reached down
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and rescued him
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and gave him new purpose
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and new meaning.
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And listen, friends,
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if the Samaritans,
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the offscourings of Judaism,
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can be redeemed
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by the word of God
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as Samaritans,
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without first converting to Judaism,
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if they can be saved,
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then certainly so can you.
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If an Ethiopian eunuch
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walking through the land of the Philistines
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can hear the truth and be saved,
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then so can anyone.
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And if Saul, the persecutor,
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can become the apostle Paul
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simply through a recognition
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of the lordship of Christ
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and obedience to his command,
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if he can be used
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in such a way that he can be saved,
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in such an absolutely influential way,
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not only for the church then
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in that first generation,
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but for many generations to come
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and even ours,
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if he can become such an influence
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for the gospel,
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then certainly so can you and I.
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Lord, thank you for your word.
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God, I pray a blessing over it.
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I pray, God, that we would not only be hearers of it,
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but doers as well.
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Lord, thank you for the example
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of Saul, the persecutor,
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who would become Paul, the apostle.
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And Lord, we look forward.
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To hearing many more of his stories
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in the Sundays to come.
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And it's in Jesus' name we pray, amen.