15 But the Lord said to him, “Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel.16 For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.”17 So Ananias departed and entered the house. And laying his hands on him he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus who appeared to you on the road by which you came has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” 18 And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and he regained his sight. Then he rose and was baptized; 19 and taking food, he was strengthened.
Saul Proclaims Jesus in Synagogues
For some days he was with the disciples at Damascus. 20 And immediately he proclaimed Jesus in the synagogues, saying, “He is the Son of God.” 21 And all who heard him were amazed and said, “Is not this the man who made havoc in Jerusalem of those who called upon this name? And has he not come here for this purpose, to bring them bound before the chief priests?” 22 But Saul increased all the more in strength, and confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus was the Christ.
Saul Escapes from Damascus
23 When many days had passed, the Jews1 plotted to kill him, 24 but their plot became known to Saul. They were watching the gates day and night in order to kill him, 25 but his disciples took him by night and let him down through an opening in the wall,2 lowering him in a basket.
Saul in Jerusalem
26 And when he had come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join the disciples. And they were all afraid of him, for they did not believe that he was a disciple. 27 But Barnabas took him and 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 had preached boldly in the name of Jesus. 28 So he went in and out among them at Jerusalem, preaching boldly in the name of the Lord. 29 And he spoke and disputed against the Hellenists.3 But they were seeking to kill him. 30 And when the brothers learned this, they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him off to Tarsus.
31 So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied.
Footnotes
[1]9:23The Greek word Ioudaioi refers specifically here to Jewish religious leaders, and others under their influence, who opposed the Christian faith in that time [2]9:25Greek through the wall [3]9:29That is, Greek-speaking Jews
15 But the Lord said to him, “Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel.16 For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.”17 So Ananias departed and entered the house. And laying his hands on him he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus who appeared to you on the road by which you came has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” 18 And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and he regained his sight. Then he rose and was baptized; 19 and taking food, he was strengthened.
Saul Proclaims Jesus in Synagogues
For some days he was with the disciples at Damascus. 20 And immediately he proclaimed Jesus in the synagogues, saying, “He is the Son of God.” 21 And all who heard him were amazed and said, “Is not this the man who made havoc in Jerusalem of those who called upon this name? And has he not come here for this purpose, to bring them bound before the chief priests?” 22 But Saul increased all the more in strength, and confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus was the Christ.
Saul Escapes from Damascus
23 When many days had passed, the Jews1 plotted to kill him, 24 but their plot became known to Saul. They were watching the gates day and night in order to kill him, 25 but his disciples took him by night and let him down through an opening in the wall,2 lowering him in a basket.
Saul in Jerusalem
26 And when he had come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join the disciples. And they were all afraid of him, for they did not believe that he was a disciple. 27 But Barnabas took him and 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 had preached boldly in the name of Jesus. 28 So he went in and out among them at Jerusalem, preaching boldly in the name of the Lord. 29 And he spoke and disputed against the Hellenists.3 But they were seeking to kill him. 30 And when the brothers learned this, they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him off to Tarsus.
31 So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied.
Footnotes
[1]9:23The Greek word Ioudaioi refers specifically here to Jewish religious leaders, and others under their influence, who opposed the Christian faith in that time [2]9:25Greek through the wall [3]9:29That is, Greek-speaking Jews
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
Jeffrey Heine:
If you have a Bible, I invite you to turn to Acts chapter 9. Acts chapter 9. As you're returning there, I'd like to take the time just to thank, those of you who showed up for our last work day and and worked all throughout the community, I was stationed with my family to go to the hospitality house, which is, Birmingham's only family homeless shelter. And so we went there to serve with about 25 or 30 other people, and and while we were doing that, one of the workers there, a lady, she said, hey, you. Are you the pastor?
Jeffrey Heine:
She goes, you look like the pastor, which I don't know what that means to to look. Like, what was it? The bad haircut? Like, what what gave me away? And, she goes, how do you how do you get your people to do that?
Jeffrey Heine:
And she really wanna know. How do you get your people to do that? And I said, what do you what do you mean? And she goes, they're all serving so joyfully. She goes, look around, and sure enough, I looked around, and we had people scrubbing on the floors everywhere, and they were they were happy.
Jeffrey Heine:
And she goes, people do come in here a lot to serve, but nobody serves like this with such joy. How do you get your people to do that? And I said, well, I think it's that they understand grace, that the lord Jesus has saved them by sheer grace, and so they're not here trying to earn their salvation. They're here because Christ has saved them and changed their heart. And so out of joy, this is what they do.
Jeffrey Heine:
Then sometime after that, a college student came up to me and said, I do get community service hours for this, don't I? But but I'm sure it was still out of grace and love for the Lord. Grace is the song we sing as Christians. We began to look at this last week when we looked at the conversion of Paul, and we we got to see how the Lord met him on the road to Damascus, and, and that would become his song. That would become his testimony for the rest of his life.
Jeffrey Heine:
I grew up in a church in which we were often sharing testimonies with one another. And so as one of the reasons I like us sharing testimonies here, and when I go and speak places, I always get people to share testimonies, and and I'd gone to speak some place and I broke us up into small groups and said everybody share their testimony, just a one minute testimony within this group. And I went and I joined the group, and the guy right before me, he said, well, my testimony is, well actually I died once and then when I was brought back to life and I was like, time out. Because yeah, I mean I died. I was playing basketball, my arm went through a garage door, cut some main arteries, I bled out, They revived me and, and then the Lord used this to just really speak to me and draw me to himself.
Jeffrey Heine:
How how are you saved? It's like, you kinda feel that way when you look at Paul's testimony. I mean, can you imagine if Paul had been in that circle? He would say, well my testimony is pretty straightforward. I mean I used to kill Christians.
Jeffrey Heine:
I mean I used to like drag Christians out from their homes, arrest them, kill them, but then, you know, I met Jesus, and not like through a sermon or for the reading, like Jesus himself actually appeared to me, saved me. He also he also blinded me for a while and then restored my sight. So pretty much a straightforward testimony. How did you meet the Lord? It's one of those testimonies you just can't top, and yet your testimony, if you know Jesus, is no less miraculous than his.
Jeffrey Heine:
You once were dead, now you've been made alive, all because of Jesus. And grace is the theme that you will sing for all of eternity. That's really what this passage is about here. It's it's about grace. So let's begin reading chapter 9.
Jeffrey Heine:
We'll begin in verse 19, the second half of verse 19. For some days, he, that's Paul, was with the disciples at Damascus, and immediately he proclaimed Jesus in the synagogues saying, he is the Son of God. And all who heard him were amazed, and said, is not this man who made havoc in Jerusalem of those who called upon his name? And has he not come here for the purpose to bring them chief priest? But Saul increased all the more in strength and confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus was the Christ.
Jeffrey Heine:
When many days had passed, the Jews plotted to kill him, but their 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 let him down through an opening in the wall, lowering him in a basket. This is the word of the lord. It is to your heart. You would pray with me.
Jeffrey Heine:
Lord Jesus, I pray that we would never get over the grace that you showered upon us. Lord, that it would indeed be the song we forever sing. I pray that the boast that we have would always be in you, Jesus, in your work on the cross. Lord, and I pray just as Paul met you, we would meet you in this place. Lord, that the scales would fall from our eyes and from our hearts and minds and that we would see you clearly for who you are.
Jeffrey Heine:
I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore, but Lord, your words would remain and they would change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. As we looked at Paul's conversion last week, and we were reading through that in acts 9, I I kept wondering, what was going through Paul's head that entire time that he was blind? He just met Jesus and then he was struck with blindness.
Jeffrey Heine:
I wonder what was going through his mind during that time because just moments earlier, he was absolutely certain about his life and where he was going. He was 100% certain. There wasn't a doubt in his mind that what he believed and what he was doing was right, and he wasn't just betting his life on that. He was betting other people's life on that as well. There's no way Christianity could be true.
Jeffrey Heine:
I mean, every morning he got up and he would say the Shema. He would he would say from Deuteronomy 6. The Lord our God is 1. 1. Yeah.
Jeffrey Heine:
Listen to these Christians. They're talking about God the father and God the son. They're violating the very first command God's given us, that he is one and we worship him only. And besides that, Jesus was crucified and dead. Dead people don't come back to life.
Jeffrey Heine:
Paul was absolutely convinced, and then he met Jesus. Or as Jeff explained last week, Jesus met Paul. Jesus met Paul and and now everything he thought he knew that was correct got flipped upside down. And I'm sure he was filled with times of overwhelming joy and then also overwhelming sorrow as he was thinking back over his life, and he was wondering, like, how could he have missed it all this time? And I'm sure because he was a he was a scholar in the Hebrew scriptures, he's thinking through the old testament, and and he's thinking through the tabernacle, and through the temple, and through the Passover, and he's thinking, how did I miss the Passover lamb?
Jeffrey Heine:
Like, really? How could I have missed that Jesus was the Passover lamb? Or the Davidic covenant that David would have a son reigning forever. How how did I miss this? How did I miss all the words of the prophets?
Jeffrey Heine:
How did I miss what Isaiah said about the suffering servant? He's he's having all of these light bulb moments as all of these dots are being connected, and they all point to Jesus. So Jesus completely changed his mind as to who Paul thought he was. Something else fundamentally changed about Paul as well. Not only did he come to understand he was wrong about Jesus, he came to understand that he had been completely wrong about how someone relates to God.
Jeffrey Heine:
You see his entire life, he thought, this is how this is how you earn God's approval. This is how we build a friendship with God. You you keep the Torah. You you go to synagogue. You you become a really good person.
Jeffrey Heine:
You try to obey the law, and through all of that effort, God looks favorably upon you, and he had built his entire life working so hard to build up his his resume that he could present before God, so God would be pleased with him. And now he realized that he'd been completely wrong. He wasn't fighting for God. He wasn't working for God. He was working against him.
Jeffrey Heine:
And this entire time that he had been marching on the road to Damascus, he wasn't marching as a soldier for God, but against him. And he wasn't marching towards heaven, he was marching straight towards hell, and this hits him. It's like, how could he have been so wrong? But God met him. Sheer grace he is saved.
Jeffrey Heine:
Later, this would lead Paul to pin one of the greatest statements in human history. In his letter to the Ephesians in chapter 2, he says, but God, and when he says, but God, he's he's saying, here was my entire life before, but God push that aside now. But God being rich in mercy because of the great love in which he loved us, Even when we were dead in our trespasses, he has made us alive together with Christ. By grace, you are saved. By grace, you are saved.
Jeffrey Heine:
And grace would be the theme of Paul all his life. Never again is Paul gonna boast in what he has done. He's only gonna boast in the grace of God. Now the passage that we have it before us at first glance might not seem like it's about the grace of God, but it absolutely is. What you see before us becomes the boast of Paul.
Jeffrey Heine:
Last week, Jeff, he mentioned that, the text he preached from, which was about the conversion of Paul, was the text he tended to return to over and over again throughout the years. I wanna say that the text we read just moments ago is the text I've had to return to over and over the years. This text before us in Acts 9. I keep reading it over and over again because I needed to be reminded of these words. Well, let's unpack this text.
Jeffrey Heine:
Paul's converted and he immediately begins preaching. And we see this in in verse 23 says, I'm sorry, in verse 20 when it says, immediately he proclaimed Jesus in the synagogues. And then verse 22, Saul increased all the more in strength and confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus was the Christ. You know, you take all that understanding that Paul had the Hebrew scriptures and now you place in the missing link of it all, Jesus. And now he is armed and he goes and he takes on the Pharisees and the scribes and all the Jewish leaders of the day and he confounds them.
Jeffrey Heine:
And this is the Paul that we know. The one who immediately begins proclaiming the gospel, and nobody can refute him. And then we get to verse 23. Verse 23, we read when many days had passed, you just stop there if you wanna just right above it. That's 3 years.
Jeffrey Heine:
Alright. Luke has a very subtle way of saying, 3 years. This many days is 3 years go by. We know that because of Galatians 1. And just so you know, we don't really know what happens during these 3 years, and Paul will not be called to be a missionary until 14 years after these 3 years.
Jeffrey Heine:
So there's 17 years of Paul's life that we really don't know what happened. From after his conversion till he was finally sent out. So if you feel like your life is on pause, 17 years in which Paul was probably making tents and just going around proclaiming the gospel. In other words, he worked and he told others about Jesus for 17 years, and then after that time, God calls him to be a missionary. And so that's gonna happen at the end of chapter 12.
Jeffrey Heine:
This is where we're introduced to Paul, then we're gonna go to Peter for a bit and we're gonna come back to Paul again, but there's gonna a 17 year gap there. So, here we we read, when many days, 3 years had passed, the Jews plotted to kill him, but their 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 let him down through an opening in the wall, lowering him in a basket. So after preaching for 3 years, Paul became so annoying. They're like, we just we gotta kill him.
Jeffrey Heine:
We gotta kill him. And he escapes by being lowered in a basket outside of the city and he runs away. This is a defining moment in Paul's life. I know when you're reading this, you're thinking how in the world can this, of all the things, how can this be a defining moment in his life? I mean Damascus was the defining moment.
Jeffrey Heine:
This was another defining moment here. But it's it's absolutely his his moment that he's gonna go back to over and over again throughout his life. He's gonna boast in this later, But not because he's so courageous. He's gonna boast because he was a coward and he ran proving once again he's saved by grace. Paul writes about this event later in life.
Jeffrey Heine:
If you have a Bible you could turn to 2nd Corinthians 11. I'll also have it up here on the screen, and as you're turning there let me just go ahead and set the stage for you. The church at Corinth had become enamored with these super apostles, these preachers, these super Christians who came in boasting and just how spiritual they were. They went around telling everybody, like, I mean, we're I mean, there's normal Christians, then there's us. Look at all the good we do, and they just were constantly boasting about everything they were doing for Jesus, And Paul finally has enough of it.
Jeffrey Heine:
He can't take hearing their boasting anymore. And so then we get to this text. Says what but whatever anyone else dares to boast of, I'm speaking as a fool. I also dare to boast of that. Are they Hebrews?
Jeffrey Heine:
So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they offspring of Abraham? So am I.
Jeffrey Heine:
Are they service of Christ? I'm a better one. I am talking like a madman with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death. Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the 40 lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods.
Jeffrey Heine:
Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked. A night and a day, I was adrift at sea. In frequent journeys, and danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers, and toil and hardship through many a sleepless night, and hunger and thirst, often without food and cold and exposure, and apart from other things, there's the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all of the churches. Well, just stop right there.
Jeffrey Heine:
Paul's like, you really you really wanna play this game about boasting. Really? Just look at me. Look at me. I never back down from opposition.
Jeffrey Heine:
If it means being beaten for Jesus, I'll be beaten. It means being stoned, I'll be stoned. Picture Paul at this point. He He has a 195 lashes. He's a walking scar.
Jeffrey Heine:
He's been beaten by rods 3 times, stoned. That means he's missing teeth. The guy looks like a wounded soldier for Jesus right in front of them. He goes, you really wanna play this game? You really wanna compare scars?
Jeffrey Heine:
Alright, we'll go at it. And then he says this, if I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. Next slide. The God and the father of the Lord Jesus, he who is blessed forever knows that I'm not lying. Basically says, you're gonna think I'm making this one up.
Jeffrey Heine:
I'm not. At Damascus, the governor under King Aretas was guarding the city of Damascus in order to seize me, but I was let down in a basket through a window in the wall and escaped his hands. Paul says, you you wanna know how great I am? And he's crescendoing up here. Crescendoing.
Jeffrey Heine:
This is the last one he gives. You wanna know how great I am? I once was so scared, I hid in a basket like a child and had to dangle me at night outside of the city gates and lower me where I could run away. You wanna think of the great apostle Paul, think of that. Friends, remember, I'm nothing.
Jeffrey Heine:
Christ is everything. It's absolutely astonishing to me that Paul chooses this. It's it's the climactic moment, The defining moment in his life. I mean, this is his boast of boast. He goes here.
Jeffrey Heine:
He had so many others to choose from. I mean he could have talked about his missionary journeys or, how about the time he raised Eutychus from the dead? Any of you ever raised somebody from the dead? I mean that's that's I would've put that right up there on my resume. Or or what about the time he was bit by a viper and he just kinda shook it off and threw it in the fire?
Jeffrey Heine:
Or he struck Elymas, the the, the guy who was annoying him to death. He just said, be blind and the guy was blind. I mean he did some pretty impressive stuff. He went and he healed entire towns at times. The one I love personally I would have put up there comes from acts 14.
Jeffrey Heine:
This is the image I have of Paul. It's a very similar situation what we read here in acts 9. He's preaching. He's annoying people. They want him to stop.
Jeffrey Heine:
They want to kill him. But Paul doesn't stop. And he keeps going and he keeps going. He's like, I don't care if you wanna kill me. And finally, they picked up rocks and they stoned him as as he was there preaching.
Jeffrey Heine:
So they stone him and they stone him so much they actually think he's dead and they drag what they believe to be his lifeless body outside of the city. And after they leave, Paul comes to who knows how many hours later, he comes to and you you literally read this. He got up, he shakes the dust off his feet and he goes back to the city. I mean, he's like the terminator. You can't kill him.
Jeffrey Heine:
Like you just can't kill the guy. He's absolutely fearless. Isn't that the image that you have of Paul? Isn't that it? The guy so captivated by Jesus.
Jeffrey Heine:
The one who so understands and believes in the gospel. Nobody's gonna shut him up. He runs from no one. Stone him, fine. He's gonna go right back in for more.
Jeffrey Heine:
And Paul says, don't you dare have that as your image of me. Don't you dare. You wanna picture me? Picture me hiding like a child, being lowered in a basket, and running away when things got tough. His boast is that he's saved by grace.
Jeffrey Heine:
It's hard for us to relate to Paul in this type of boasting. I mean it's not what we do. I mean, you know when you're at some dinner party, there's a lot of people you just have to kinda make that chit chat. You know what we do, you do the little humble brags or the full out brags. You you find ways to name drop.
Jeffrey Heine:
You know that you know so and so. You work at such and such place. You know, you say things like you know, well, I mean, I just got back from Italy the second time, this year. Yeah. I didn't get to go as much as last year.
Jeffrey Heine:
Yeah. I mean, I I got a promotion, but it wasn't big. It was it was only for the region of the US, like, it or you you talk about, you know, like, your your 10th or 20th these brags. And then you meet Paul. You're like, aren't you like the Apostle Paul?
Jeffrey Heine:
He goes, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's me. I'm that one who got really scared that time. Kid, lowered in a basket, ran away. That's what Paul wants you to think of him.
Jeffrey Heine:
That's what he tries to work into the conversation. Now don't make the mistake of thinking that Paul is just trying to exercise humility. Oh, we just we have to be humble, And so he's just trying to trying to do that. No. For Paul, this is all about the gospel.
Jeffrey Heine:
He's telling us where he finds his identity. And it is not in how he performs. It's not in what he does. That was his old life. He is not going back to his old life where he thought our relationship with God depended on what we did, how we performed, trying to build our resume.
Jeffrey Heine:
He goes, I'm not going back there. Never again will those be my boast. My boast is gonna be that Jesus saved me by grace. I did nothing to merit it. Never have, never will.
Jeffrey Heine:
He boasts in the cross of Christ. Is that your boast? Is it? Do you know how freeing it is to live that way? I mean, how freeing it is to not have to always be working on your resume.
Jeffrey Heine:
How freeing it is to be able to rest and in that kind of love, that unconditional love of Jesus. Where if somebody asks you, how do you know you're forgiven? How do you know Christ loves you? You don't point to any of the things that you do. You only point to Jesus on the cross.
Jeffrey Heine:
So I can't point to anything else that shows such love on display. I know I am loved by God because of Jesus. Not what I've done for him, but what he has done for me. And I will sing of his grace to my last breath. I pray we would all sing about the grace of Jesus until our last breath.
Jeffrey Heine:
If you would pray with me. Lord, may we never ever boast in our own works or righteousness As if in any way that can earn your approval or favor. We were enemies of you, Yet for reasons known only to yourself, you decided to show affection to us and love us even a great sacrifice to yourself. Thank you and praise you, Jesus. May we never stop singing that.