Power to Save the Religious

Good morning. It is a great blessing to hear someone's testimony. A testimony is declaring how God has saved you as a sinner. It functions similarly as one testifying in a court. When you testify, you're saying something is true. You're wanting to make sure the truth is clear. A Christian testimony is declaring how God saved us, or you, as a sinner. There's something unique to each testimony. Because each of us are an individual that has a different personality and a different sin and God approaches in a very particular way. And so there's a beauty of hearing different testimonies because they're all so unique. But the real beauty of the different testimonies is that they all have the one thing in common. That God's gospel is powerful to save all kinds of sinners. Every testimony is unique, and every testimony has to have that one declaration in common. Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins, and He rose again. This morning, we're going to hear a testimony. We've heard read Paul's own, one of his many reflections on his conversion. But we're going to give, see the Luke's account of Paul's conversion here in Acts 9, as you just heard read. We're going to see the various stages of a life turned around very dramatically. We see in verses one and two that there's the setting. Saul is on mission against Christ. We see him opposed to Christ, and then we see, verses three to nine, Christ's mission towards Saul. Saul is fighting against God, he's breathing murder against his people, and yet Christ has a mission towards Saul. And then verses 10 to 19, Saul responds. He believes, he's baptized, he hears that word of conversion and he's saved. And then the very one who was on a mission against Christ, now he's on a mission for Christ. He who was trying to put down the church, he is now building her up by proclaiming Jesus is the Son of God. And then verses 23 through 30, the one who was bringing suffering for the church, he's now going to suffer for the church. There's a great and dramatic change that takes place in this story. The primary human figure, Saul. But as we'll see, the primary character in this story, the primary agent is Jesus Christ. Will you pray with me again? Father, as we look to see how you have changed this one man's life, We behold the way you love us, the way your grace abounds to us as sinners, so that we can know you, our Savior. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. The first section we want to look at here is verses one to two. We see Saul's mission against the church. And again, here's really a setting, but it's a pretty intense setting. Philip has left the scene very abruptly, if you've been with us. The last few stories have been focused on Philip, who has proclaimed Christ in Samaria, and then he goes out into the desert and finds the Ethiopian eunuch. He disappears very quickly, and now we come back to Saul. And we've been introduced to Saul a few times, especially in chapters 7 and 8. If you go back to chapter 7, verse 58, the witnesses that stoned Stephen, they lay their garments at Saul's feet. In Acts chapter 8, verse 1, he mentions that Saul approved of Stephen's execution. In chapter 8, verse 3, it tells us that Saul was going house to house, dragging away the believers, men and women, off to jail. If that's not enough, now in chapter 9, verse 1, look into the description. But Saul, still breathing threats and murder, against the disciples of the Lord. And he's not only wanting to punish those in Jerusalem, he's not only wanting to put down and threaten the church in Jerusalem, he now has gathered letters to the synagogues, to go to Damascus. So if he found anybody belonging to the way, that's how they refer to Christians. The word Christian actually doesn't exist yet. Those of the way are those who are following Jesus Christ, that he might bring them to Jerusalem to jail. We see a man on a mission, and his mission is to attack those who are believing and following Jesus Christ. He's a Jew of Jews, he's a man who committed to what he understands the law to be about, but he doesn't really see what Scripture's focused on. He believes the gospel is false, therefore he's attacking it. He's not like the Ethiopian eunuch, that they both are students of Scripture, but the Ethiopian eunuch is reading and saying, just tell me who this is so I can believe in him. Saul is attacking with murder. He's convinced of his own way. He's committed. He's very sincere, but he's wrong. As Paul himself says, he was a blasphemer, a persecutor, an insolent opponent, but God's mercy. Let's look to the next section. The setting is Saul. He's coming to attack the church in Damascus. And then verse 3 introduces us to his journey. And this is Christ's mission towards Saul. Christ's mission towards Saul. As we went on his way, he approached Damascus, and suddenly, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, a light from heaven shone around him. He is going to receive a personal revelation of Jesus Christ. Falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? We see here Saul is going about his way against the way. All of a sudden, Jesus stops him in his tracks and he asks him a very particular question. Why are you persecuting me? Saul here has to ask, who are you? There is a similarity to the Ethiopian eunuch. Who are you? Who is the one person? God is always bringing us to the one question, who is that one person we must understand that we're supposed to be worshiping and believing in? Why are you persecuting me? Saul recognizes he's dealing with somebody with great authority and great glory. Who are you, Lord? So Jesus tells him, I am Jesus, and you're persecuting me. Saul is persecuting the way, those of the disciples of Jesus Christ, but Jesus takes it very personal. You're persecuting me. Saul has seen the glory of the ascended and risen Jesus Christ. He hears him, he's been confronted. This is a real historical event. As we see in verse seven, the other men around him, they heard, but they couldn't see what was going on. Something really happened, but only Saul is affected in the way that Christ wants him to be because it's a special revelation for him. So Saul arose. His eyes were open, but he saw nothing. He's been blinded because of this event. And for three days he went without eating or drinking. This is a dramatic event. Saul has just been presented with earth-shattering, with life-changing truth. Something has happened and it's not yet clear that he knows exactly what this is. He knows the scriptures. He knows who Jesus Christ is. He's heard Stephen's sermon and now he's heard you've been persecuting me. You're blinded. Go and you're going to get further instruction. Truth has been presented to him and he's going to see the full implications in a moment. Before we move on, I want us to just meditate and stop on these declarations. Jesus says to Saul, you're persecuting me. I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. Saul's attacking the church. And Jesus sees this as Saul attacking him. Jesus identifies himself with his people. He is head of the body. He feels the pain of the persecution. He is with and he's for his people. We see this beautiful, wonderful connection that Jesus has with us. If someone is attacking the church, they're attacking Christ. If someone is serving the church, they are serving Christ. He has this intimate and personal connection with his body. Christian, this is good news. He's united with us. He loves us. He cares for us. He feels the attacks on us, the wounds we have. He takes that personally. And it's important here to realize something. Vengeance belongs to Jesus. And for Jesus, it's personal. He loves his people. We can trust him. When we are slighted or wrong, we need to realize something. Jesus also takes that wrong personally. And he will be the just judge. There's something very powerful in the story of saw who's attacking Christ and how what's going to happen to him and that God saves those who are enemies of his and the church. We want those who have personally attacked us to have to answer to Jesus Christ, but it is just like God to say, no, I'm going to show mercy upon them. Something that's very clear in this story, that the sin of Paul against Christ and his church, Jesus Christ himself died to pay the penalty for that. The only way Saul is forgiven for attacking Christ and his church is that Jesus himself said, I'm going to forgive you, and therefore the church cannot hold that against Saul. If you think about our own relationships, when we have enemies, we really want justice. We really want somebody to have to pay the penalty for what they've done to us, and we have to realize that God is the just judge. He is the one who will have his vengeance, and he will bring about justice. But sometimes that justice is Jesus saying, I'm going to pay the penalty for the person who's offended you. I am going to take upon the guilt. I'm going to take upon the suffering and the punishment that that person deserves. This really challenged me as I meditated upon a story of a friend of mine. His name's Mez. He was raised in a divided home. He had a stepmother and it was a very abusive relationship. And he was converted later. He became a pastor. He is a pastor. And he was reflecting upon the news that he heard that his stepmother was on his deathbed. The woman who abused him horribly. Things like putting cigarette butts out on his skin. Just nonsensical suffering that she put him through. And he delighted. God, she's dying and she's going to have to face the great judge. And then it hit him. What if she calls out right now in her deathbed and says, Lord, forgive me? And he had a moment of anger. What if she doesn't have to answer for all the things that she's done to me? And then he realized, this is the gospel that I believe. This is the gospel that I have to have for my own sin. This is the gospel that I proclaim, he says. He had to wrestle with his own desire for vindication and realize that Jesus Christ died for sinners just like himself and just like his stepmother. It led him to realize that the one he's wanting justice for, Jesus Christ, also pays the penalty for if she believes in him. This is where the gospel really challenges us in our forgiveness. The good news is that if we believe in Jesus, He pays the penalty for our sin. And it also means that we rejoice in anyone who believes in Jesus because that means He pays the penalty for their sin, even those who have set themselves up to be our enemies, or those who have personally offended us. So we think about this, especially as we're looking at the Lord's Supper. Are we willing to rejoice in the salvation and sanctification of those who offend us? of those who are our enemies. This is the mark of maturity. Seeing God's grace and His glory is what leads us. The Lord's Supper today is a great testimony. Christ's body had to be crushed for our iniquities. His blood had to be poured out to wash away our sin and those others around us. It is Christ's death that really makes loving your enemy possible as a Christian. because you pray that Christ would lead them to salvation, knowing that he is just, knowing their sin would be punished, and knowing that Jesus Christ might save them too. Look at the next section. Jesus Christ has approached him, he's made it very clear, you are not just attacking the church, you're attacking me. And we have Saul's response to Christ. And it requires, Jesus Christ, he enlists one of his own disciples to be the instrument here. The turning point of the story is verses 10 to 18. This response to Christ. We see there's a man named Ananias. He's a disciple. He's in Damascus. Saul has gone there. There's been three days. And Saul has received a vision that this man is going to come to him. The Lord said to Ananias in a vision. Ananias responds like a good Prophet, after hearing his name, he says, here I am, Lord. He's a faithful servant. Whatever you ask, I will do. Verse 11, the Lord said to him, rise, go to the street called Straight, into the house of Judas. Look for a man of Tarsus named Saul. For behold, he's praying, and he has seen a vision of a man named Ananias. Come in and lay his hands on him so that he might again have a sight. Now, verses 13 to 16, we could look at this and say, Ananias isn't a man of faith, and I don't think that's the case. I think Ananias' response is entirely appropriate. Saul has a reputation. He's the primary persecutor of the church. He's dragging men and women away to jail who are believers, and so he does what God wants us to do, and he says, Lord, I've heard of this guy. I know what he's doing. Are you sure? You want me to go into his house and help him? This is okay. This isn't a lack of faith. This is saying, God, I have real fear. Will you align my faith with what you're doing? Will you address my fear so that I can trust you more? This is what God welcomes us to do in the Psalms. How long, oh Lord? He wants us to come to Him with our real fears and our real frustrations and our confusions so that He can say that it's okay. I will align you with My will. I will put your faith in practice and I will alleviate your fears. And this is the way God answers and annihilates His fears. Go. Go. He's a chosen instrument. I have a plan. You need to go. And as a faithful servant, Ananias trusts the Lord. He trusts his answer, and he goes. I also just want to stop here for Ananias. What a faithful servant. This isn't the safest thing one can do. He's going to go talk to the man who's been persecuting the church. He's putting himself out to go, and he's going to be an instrument of God's grace. He's going to go and embrace a new believer, and he's going to welcome him. He's going to be used by God because he is faithful. Now notice how he addresses Saul. He entered the house, laying his hands on him. He says, brother Saul. We already see a conversion is taking place, a change of character, a change of status. He recognizes that God has saved him. He is now brother Saul. Lord Jesus who appeared to you on the road by which you came, he sent me. The same Lord, the same God, the same Savior, Jesus Christ, he sent me to you so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Spirit. And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes. Saul, Paul regains his sight. He's restored in physical stature. He eats again, but most importantly here, he's baptized. He rose and he was baptized. The one who's been attacking Christ now identifies with Christ as a believer. The one who's persecuting and dragging away those who are baptized, he now is seeking to enter into that same salvation being identified with Jesus Christ. He commits his life to follow the one who was persecuted. This is a remarkable story in the sense that he received this very unique personal revelation. He's been turned from being a persecutor and he's gonna be a proclaimer for the gospel. We love rags to riches stories. We love to see these stories and hear about them, how someone turned their life around, how someone figured out what was wrong and they got the gut and the grit and they decided, I'm going to make a difference in my life and they turned their life around. This isn't one of those stories. It's better. God stopped Saul in his tracks. from running right into destruction and death. And he said, stop Saul. You're attacking God. Turn around and be my child. This is not a rags to riches story. This is a God turning him completely around from being a man acting out of foolishness and sin to being a man who now has wisdom from Christ and will proclaim Christ. This is a wonderful story of God's grace. Now as you look at this, it mentions that at the laying on of hands, Saul is filled with the Spirit. And this is a phrase we've seen a number of times. In Acts 2, the early church there filled the Spirit, and the sign was the flaming tongues and the languages. We saw the fill of the Spirit in Samaria. We don't know exactly what that looked like. Other than it appears to be similar to the Jerusalem account. We know that others are filled with spirit, and what I want to point out here is we actually don't see the same exact kind of thing happening to every believer. Saul doesn't appear to have that kind of demonstration, neither did the Ethiopian eunuch. The same spirit comes and fills each believer, but the manifestation, it looks different. It even happens in a different sequence throughout Acts. If we go back to the Ethiopian eunuch, I think the thing we see is that the fruit of the filling of the Spirit is him rejoicing on his way back home to share the gospel. The fruit of the Spirit here with Saul is that he immediately goes out and he starts proclaiming Jesus Christ is the Son of God. It's not that the filling of the Spirit looks the same for every believer, but there has to be some fruit of every believer being filled with the Spirit, which means there's a repentance of sin. There's some demonstration of a new joy, a new hope, a new way of living. It doesn't have to look the same, it just has to look like what Scripture says. Here we see the next section. We've seen a man, his life's been turned upside down. He's been turned completely around. He was going to go fight Jesus. Now Jesus comes and led him to life. And notice what he does. And immediately he proclaimed Jesus in the synagogue. Saul now was going to turn his mission to being for Christ and promoting Christ for the church. He immediately proclaimed Jesus in the synagogue saying, Jesus is the Son of God. I'd like to step back in a moment in that if anybody had a reason to weep and grieve over their previous lifestyle of sin and take a moment to kind of say, I'm going to stop what I'm doing to grieve and weep over the sin, it's Saul, but we don't see him doing that. He's been so changed. He's been converted from death to life. He now must go out and proclaim Him. There's a difficulty in Christians in that we oftentimes go into despondency. Too quick and too deep. We oftentimes don't think about our sin enough, and we go to rejoicing without really thinking about the depth of sin. Here I believe Saul has a clear understanding. He's a great sinner who's been saved by a great Savior. He must go proclaim Him and worship Him. Here's the primary message. Jesus is the Son of God. This is not a unique message of Paul, but it is a unique declaration as Luke records. This declaration is extremely important because he's speaking to Jews. To say Jesus is the Son of God is to say Jesus is equal with the Father. He's fully God. This would be an offensive message for most Jews who say God is one, and here he's saying, yes, that one God, he's Father and Son. That's difficult for us to understand. That is very difficult for the Jews to understand. But here's what's to understand about that message that there is one God, He's Father, Son, and Spirit. It's not something we have to completely wrap our heads around. That is truth that is revealed by God for us to believe and trust so that we might understand. The beautiful thing about the declaration, Jesus is the Son of God, God is Father, God is Son, God is Spirit. These are the ways that we get to know God personally. Father and Son are the most intimate personal names for those two persons. And that's how we get to call upon God and know Him and know His love. How deep the Father's love for us. That He sent His Son to die for our sins. It's how we know the salvation. It's how we know Him. It's how we call upon. It's amazing. Him, the man who was going to go punish The people of Jesus is now proclaiming Jesus. Look at verse 22, but Saul increased all the more in strength and confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus was the cross. Now believe here that the increasing in strength has to do with his proclamation. He is getting stronger, not physically. He's getting stronger in his understanding and his articulation and his belief. If we just step back a moment, Saul has been prepared for this all along. In God's sovereignty, Saul received one of the best educations in the Old Testament Scriptures one could have at this time. He's a Pharisee. He understands the Old Testament before he becomes a Christian. He knows the Old Testament, but he doesn't quite see what it really means. He has a twisted understanding of it. But now here, since he's seen Christ, he now starts seeing what it really is all about. He's able to grow in understanding and grow in strength to see how all of Scripture has been pointing to Christ, how all the Old Testament is said, yes and amen in Jesus Christ. It's beautiful to see how Christ had already prepared him for the mission by making him an excellent student of the Old Testament so that whenever he sees what it really means, it's about Christ, he's able to teach. Next we see, he who is bringing suffering will suffer. He's been changed, he's gone on mission, now he's going to suffer. Verse 23, when many days passed, the Jews plotted to kill him. Those who oppose Christ, when they can't convince others, they kill him. It's a pattern for Christ, it's a pattern for his disciples here next. But the plot became known to Saul. They were watching the gates day and night in order to kill him. But his disciples took him by night and led him down through an opening in the wall, lowering him in a basket. Now, I want to stop here because as we look at this historical account by Luke, we need to also recognize that there's other information we have from the epistles and elsewhere that tells us what's going on historically. And if you go to Galatians chapter 1, 17 and 18, Paul says that before his first trip to Jerusalem, he spent three years in Arabia. That takes place here between 25 and 26. Luke doesn't record that, but here we see he's in Damascus. Galatians 117 must be inserted between 25 and 26. That's the three years he's in Arabia before he goes to Jerusalem. Let's continue. And when he had come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join the disciples, and they were all afraid of him. They did not believe he was a disciple. This is a real kind of frustrating place. And Saul is somewhat suffering the consequences for some of his actions because he was persecuting the church. But here, Saul, who is known as a disciple of Jesus Christ for this time in Jerusalem, he's going back where it would be dangerous for him. The Jews there would be wanting to kill him. He's also going back and wanting to be with the Christians. And they're afraid of him, and they won't go embrace him. He's a man left alone at some level at this point. I mean, the way Luke is explaining it, he's kind of a lone man who's wanting to be persecuted by the Jews and not being accepted by the Christians, and so what does he do? What does God do? Verse 27. But Barnabas. But Barnabas. Saul is by himself. The Jews want to kill him. The Christians want to accept him. So this one man took him, brought him to the apostles, and declared to them how on the road he had seen the Lord who spoke to him, and how at Damascus he preached boldly in the name of Jesus. So here we see this friend, and we've seen him before. Barnabas was the one who sold all of his land and gave it to the church. He's willing to now go out and befriend this man who is dangerous and everybody else is afraid of. He's willing to give up all of his land and his inheritance for the church because he knows his eternal security and his eternal life is in Christ Jesus. He believes in the gospel and it changes the way he approaches his property. Now we see him as a man willing to go out, out of his way, potentially to suffer. He puts his life at risk because he believes that the gospel is able to save sinners just like Saul. It's good to have a friend like Barnabas. to be effective and faithful is that you need a friend like Barnabas. Now everybody wants a friend like Barnabas who's willing to stick by you, to suffer with you, to strive to be connected to you. Everyone wants to be a friend like that, but how much of us are striving to be friends like that? Everyone wants to have a Barnabas who's going to stand beside them as a commitment, but how many of us are truly saying, I'm going to be a Barnabas? Someone who's willing to go out and sacrifice and suffer on behalf of friends. You have to be a friend of someone. You can't be a best friend to everyone. But we have to be friends of someone. It's a commitment, not a feeling. You need friends who are going to come and speak to you, speak truth in your life. They're going to serve with you and to suffer alongside of you. Friendship is important in Scripture. And here we see the importance of a friend like Barnabas. When you see something else here. A truth we could find from all the scriptures is that everybody who's saved is called to serve, and everyone who is saved is also called to suffer. And serving and suffering go hand in hand. It's very clear that it's part of this story because it goes back to Jesus talking to Ananias, I'm going to use him greatly in service to the Gentiles and the kings, and he's going to suffer? That's how he answers Ananias? And here we see, he's going to go and he's going to serve, and now he's suffering. Suffering is not unique to Paul. Yes, Paul and Peter both have great suffering, and they were used greatly in service to the kingdom, but it is not unique to them. Every Christian is called to serve. Every Christian is called to suffer. And those two are usually connected. The suffering we go through might be slander. It could be obstacles, it could be something physical. Sometimes it's suffering just for the ones we serve and that you're walking with them, participating in the pains and the joys and the difficulties that they go through. We participate in their struggles. Suffering may be seeing a dear loved one walk away from the faith. Suffering may be seeing someone walk away from their family. This is the beautiful part of being a Christian who is part of a body serving and suffering in that we get to come alongside of others. We get to participate in their joys and their sorrows. Think about where we are right now as a church. Right now, we're grieving with the Burks, with the loss of their baby. We grieve with them. We get to come alongside of them and serve them and love them and remind them and testify to them, God is good. This is hard, this is painful, but God is good. And Lord willing, soon we're going to be able to walk alongside the wolves and say, you have a new baby boy, God is good. That is the full life of the Christian who has other people that they're coming alongside and befriending and loving. It's the fullness of the life that reminds us this is not the way the world's supposed to be. Things are still wrong, and it's hard, and we need brothers and friends who are going to come alongside us and suffer with us. God still gives us good news. God still gives us things to rejoice in. We get to do it together. If you look at Paul, I do believe his calling is clear, so that as he suffers in this calling, he's convinced, he leads with conviction and he perseveres. Paul never doubts when he is suffering. He's the one who teaches us, rejoice in your suffering. He's the one who teaches us, persevere in your suffering. Count it a joy because it's going to lead to your godliness. Know that Christ is working all things for the good of those who love him. He never doubts in the midst of suffering. He sees it as part of his calling to serve the church and that's why he's able to persevere. Finally, we've come to the conclusion the wrapping up remarks as Luke ends this story and as we're about to go into the Gentile mission. So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up. Now it is interesting that if we go to chapter 8, Saul's persecution is used to scatter the church. God decided that there was a season, there was a need to have a season of persecution so the church would scatter. And now that primary persecutor saw he's one of the church. And it seems like there's a peace now. And the peace allows the church to be built up. God scatters the church and God builds up the church. And the circumstances and the times of what God is doing, it allows both of those to happen. We have to be careful not to say we really wish we had more persecution so we'd scatter or grow. or we wish we had more peace so we would go to, we need to say right now God has given us some peace, we need to be active. We realize at times and see God has given us a great peace right now, do not take it for granted, let's build up the church and let's send it out. We constantly think if only those things were different, we would be different. No, it's about being faithful right now according to what Christ is calling us to. This next sentence. and walking in the fear of the Lord, in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, and multiply. One of my favorite lines from Amazing Grace is the second verse. And the second verse says exactly what that sentence just says. It was grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved. They're walking in the fear of the Lord. They have a worship, they have a reverence, and the other fears of this world, they now have comfort in the Holy Spirit. Grace leads us to worship. Grace leads us to comfort and care. And when the church is walking in faithfulness, when the church is walking in reverence, when the church is walking in the power of the Holy Spirit, it multiplies. God's mission continues. The power of the gospel continues. As we conclude, I want to ask you a simple question. What is your testimony? We just saw a very dramatic story and a very dramatic change of a man who was running against God, fighting him, to someone who's now going to fight for God and be fought against by the world. Before he saw Jesus, Saul would have boasted that he was living a good life. He would have said, based upon my understanding, I'm okay. But then he saw Jesus and he saw what his life really looked like. It wasn't good. He was opposed to God. It wasn't until he came face to face with his life and God, he thought he was good. This is really true of everybody. Not just a zealous religious man, and not just a zealous Jew, but everybody, we think apart from Christ, I'm good. And think about why you determine that. We all come up with our own measure that we want to make sure we are good. Or, better yet, we find somebody who's not as good and we just make sure we feel better by comparing ourselves with them. It's not hard to walk around and make yourself feel good because you'll always find somebody you think you're better than. And we can always just say, well, here's my rules and here's how I keep them. But when we see Jesus, when we see true goodness, We see what the truth and the righteousness and the goodness that God has declared that's defined by Him. We realize we fall so short. We're wicked. We're mean. We're selfish. We're full of anger. We're full of lust. We don't even keep our own rules when we really think about it. But we have to come to that point, and it's not saying, I'm a good person based upon my standards. No, it's saying, I'm not a good person because of God's standards. And that's when you're ready to be changed like Paul. Because that's when you can say, I can't be good enough. And then you look to Jesus Christ, the one who was good enough. the perfect righteous man who never sinned, who lived a perfectly righteous life. He died as if a sinner so that we who realize our sin can look to Him and say, I want to believe in Him because my sin is too much for me to bear. The judgment and the penalty that I am going to get, I do not want to pay. I believe He died. That perfect man. I believe He died in my place for my sin so that I can now live. I can now be at peace with God. There's a sight change. I no longer see myself as someone who's gonna boast about himself. I see Christ and He's my life. He's the one I'm going to boast about. We're all sinners. We're all running the wrong way until Christ comes and stops us by letting us see who we are in light of Him. And then He lets us see who we can be in light of Him. Forgiven. Free from the enslaving power of sin. Children of God. Adopted. Welcomed into the kingdom. If you're not a believer, you must believe. You're a sinner. God will judge you unless you believe that Jesus Christ has been judged for you. If you are a believer, this is why we gather to rejoice. Will you pray with me? Father, we thank you for this story that in many ways is unique to Saul. But I thank you that we can see that that same gospel that saved him on that road with that revelation saves us today by the revelation you've given us from your Word and the illuminating power of the Holy Spirit. Lord, we pray that those that know you right now would be confronted with their sin. Help them to see who they are in light of your righteous standard and help them to see that Christ has come to die for them. so they no longer have to pay the penalty for failing to fall to come to your righteous standard. Help us all to rejoice, to be a people of grace who show grace and depend upon your grace. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.