Good morning and welcome to Tuesday’s 5MC. I want to start out this morning talking about chocolate cake. What? You must think I’m already snacky at 6:30 in the morning, huh? Nope, for once I don’t want to eat chocolate cake, just talk about it.
I mentioned in last Friday’s 5MC that we had some friends from Oahu over for dinner on Thursday night. We needed a desert for the dinner, so Margie swung by Costco and picked up a beautiful chocolate cake. Now this was no ordinary cake but a ‘very, very large’ chocolate cake. The thing must have weighed over 5lbs. I joked that it could have fed the 5,000 on the hillside! So, we had cake that night and sent them home with several pieces for later. The next day we had most of this huge cake still staring at us. There’s no way we could (or should) eat all this cake in a month, so what do we do? I texted our good friends and neighbors and said hey, ya’ll wanna come over and eat cake? They said yes (I mean who says no to cake?) As a result we connected with some friends we haven’t seen in a long while, what a blessing. After that we still had cake running out our ears. So, I texted another good friend yesterday and said, you wanna come over and eat cake with us? He of course said yes. We had a fantastic visit, another blessing. The point? This silly $16 cake has been responsible for us connecting with many great friends in the last week. It gave us a REASON to throw out the invites and it was a great reason for friends to say yes. I encourage you all to go buy a big chocolate cake and then simply reach out and invite several people that have been on your heart lately to come over and simply ‘eat cake’ with you. Like us, a chocolate cake could be the one thing that connects you to others in fellowship so that you can encourage, strengthen and share hope with them. (and you get to eat cake…)
This morning in Acts chapter 9 we have none other than the conversion of Saul who will later be known as Paul. The guy that wrote 1/3 of the new testament and who many consider to be God’s greatest missionary. He had a most strange history with Jesus and His church though, a testament that God can and will use anyone to further His kingdom.
In the beginning of Acts chapter 9, Saul is still bitterly ravaging the church. (Acts 9:1) Most of the Christians have fled Jerusalem but Saul is not content with this. He is such and enemy of the church and has such a hatred for Jesus Christ that he gets and edict from the High Priest allowing him to go to Damascus and bring back believers and throw them in jail. (Acts 9:2) It is for this reason that he is on the road to Damascus. An interesting side note on Saul’s hatred for the believers. How far would you WALK to bring someone back to jail? Damascus was 150 miles from Jerusalem. Saul’s hatred was so intense he was willing to walk 300 miles round trip to bring these Christians back to a Jerusalem jail! Even when misguided and lost, Saul had a passion for achieving his goals. God knew this passion, if used for His kingdom would do amazing things. He calls Saul into His service.
As Saul is approaching Damascus “suddenly a light from Heaven shone around him. And falling to the ground he heard a voice say to him, Saul, Saul why are you persecuting me? And he said, who are you Lord? And he said, I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.” What an exchange. There’s several things to look at closer.
First, when God wants to get our attention He can! Here Saul has walked almost 145 miles and is almost to Damascus, his Christian prey closer than ever. I can imagine that his hatred is growing with every mile he has to walk in the heat of the desert. This guy is FULL of hatred. Yet in the blink of an eye he is on his knees and calls Jesus Lord and immediately follows him in full obedience. My friends, this could possibly be the biggest turn around of a life in history! Saul went from killing Christians to serving the Lord in an instant. That’s the power Jesus has to change lives.
Second, I see the importance of noting that how we deal with Jesus is personal. Jesus is not an inaccessible distant God. He is not a myth or legend that is unattainable. He is real, He is our Savior and He desires a personal relationship with us. You can see this in His initial question to Saul, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? He calls Saul by his name twice. Jesus is not addressing anyone else here, just Saul. It’s personal. He says why do you persecute ME? Not why do you persecute random Christians. Not why do you persecute the church. But why do you persecute ME. It’s personal. He next says “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.” Jesus makes this a truly personal encounter. Ths is between Him and Saul.
Saul is blinded as result of the encounter with Jesus and sits in darkness in Damascus for three days and doesn’t see, eat or drink. God calls another man, a servant of the Lord, and tells him to bring Saul a message. This man’s name is Ananias and its important to see here that God uses people to reach other people. Now I love the exchange between God and Ananias after God tells him to go and deliver a message to Saul of Tarsus. Ananias is like, "ahh, God you know this guy kills Christians for fun right?" But God assures him and in obedience he goes. He delivers God’s message to Saul, and Saul recovers his sight. After 3 days without sight, food or water what’s the first thing he does? Gets baptized. Then he eats.
Now Saul was a VERY smart guy. He had been to the best schools, was mentored under Gamaliel, a tremendous scholar of the day, and was very educated in the Old Testament. He would have basically been like a super smart lawyer/preacher/philosopher/professor in our world today. Highly respected, a real Rhode’s scholar kinda guy. With all of this intellect and understanding, I often wonder what thoughts went through Saul’s mind as he sat in the dark for three days recounting his meeting with Jesus. Trying so desperately to understand what was happening to his heart and his mind. I bet that three days was a life time’s worth of soul searching!
So Saul is now transformed by Jesus to do His work, so what does he do immediately? He preaches. In typical Saul fashion he wastes no time and starts preaching so passionately that “all who heard him were amazed.’ (Acts 9:20) I can only imagine the people seeing Saul proclaiming on the street that Jesus is the Son of God and to repent and be saved. Wasn’t this guy killing Christians yesterday? People really couldn’t believe what they were seeing! But after many days of this guess what? Yep, the Jewish religious leaders wanted to kill him. What a change Jesus is already showing Saul. A few days ago, you were willing to kill Christians for claiming I am the Son of God and now you are the one claiming I am the Son of God and you are being threatened with death.
Someone tips Saul off about the assassination and some fellow believers help him escape over the city wall in a basket. He goes back to Jerusalem. When back, he goes to meet the disciples. Now this has to be an awkward exchange right? “Hey guys, I’m back, its me Saul, your best buddy in the Lord!” I can only imagine Peter and John looking at him and saying, “riiiightt, sure you are.” They of course severely doubt his claim to have been saved but Barnabas steps in and vouches for him and the fact that he was on the Damasuc road and saw the whole encounter. Now that’s he’s back in Jersualem he preaches up a storm and guess what? Yep, they want to kill him here too so the disciples ship him back to his home town, Tarsus. I bet it would have been something to hear Saul preach don’t you? It must have been unbelievably powerful as it didn’t take the Jewish leaders but a time or two of hearing it to say, ‘we gotta stop this!”
Saul would of course later become known as Paul and his missionary journeys and letters to the churches will build most of our New Testament. What a story in how God can use the most unlikely tool to further his kingdom. If you ever experience doubt (and I think we all do) about serving God, just think back to this story and how God used one his biggest enemies to do one of the mightiest works in the history of His church. If God can use Saul, He can use you.
Be obedient to God’s call and let Him use you today.
May blessings abound enough for you today that you can share with others.
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