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September 2, 2026 | Sam Morris teaches on the radical conversion and testimony of Saul (Paul) from Acts chapter 9, emphasizing God's transformative grace that clears the 'scoreboard' of past sins. The message encourages listeners to trust in Jesus' forgiveness, receive a new purpose, and live as changed followers.
Bellevue Baptist Church Middle School Ministry
Amen. Amen. Praise the Lord. If you have a Bible, go ahead and hold it up. We like to bring physical Bibles to the mix. Come on, let me see them. Love it. If you don't have a Bible, you have a little talk sheet on your chair and that has all the scripture we're gonna go to tonight. And so if you got a Bible, open up to Acts chapter 9. Acts chapter 9. And so in the church, there's this word that we throw around a lot. It's a word we use a whole lot and it is the word testimony. Can anybody tell me what the word testimony means? Jackson. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So like in a Christian context, it's talking about how your life before Christ, when you met Jesus in your life after. What is it, what's another way that a testimony could be talked about? Like what does a testimony mean? Yeah, sure. Do you have an answer? Sure. You raise your hand. You got one? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's somebody talking about something that they've experienced, right? Yeah. A testimony is a statement or an explanation of an event given by somebody who could be called a witness, somebody that saw it. It's a story of what someone has seen and heard and what they believe to be true. And so last week we talked about Stephen and how he testified to the grace and the mercy of God, testified to the goodness of God and how he was wrongfully treated for the things that he believed. And so as we wrap up this series tonight on God working in the hearts of believers, I want to talk about a story of somebody who has a crazy kind of testimony, a crazy testimony. And that man's name is Saul. If you've been around the church, you probably know him by the name of Paul, because after this experience, a little bit after this experience, the Lord changes his name to Paul from Saul. And so Saul was a religious leader. And he was there when Stephen was executed, what we talked about last week. And in Acts chapter eight, verse one, it tells us that he actually approved of Stephen's execution. He was cool with it. And so tonight we're going to be taking a look at the testimony of Saul, later Paul, and how the Lord radically changes his life. So if you've got a Bible, you're in Acts chapter nine, say, I'm there. All right, we're gonna start reading in verse one. It says, But Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the way, that's believers in Jesus, any belonging to the way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. So this is pre-Jesus Saul in his prime. He's arresting Christians left and right, and he's taking them before the chief priests, and they're being judged for their belief in Jesus. He's like a mercenary. You guys know what a mercenary is? Somebody that goes and hunts down people, right? So he's like a mercenary for Christians. So he's hunting them down, and he's not playing any games. So he ends up going before the chief priests, and he's asking them for official papers saying that he can arrest anyone that he finds that's a follower of Jesus. And so with the authority from the chief priests, he starts heading to Damascus to go and to arrest anybody that even smells like a Christian. And so let's keep reading in verse 3. Verse 3 says, Now as he went on his way, he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven shone around him. And falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying 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. But rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do. Sorry, I lost my spot in my Bible. There it is. Yes, I'm good. I'm sorry, I got it. Rise and enter the city, you'll be told what you are to do. The men who were traveling with him stood speechless, hearing the voice, but seeing no one. Saul rose from the ground, and although his eyes were opened, he saw nothing. So they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus, and for three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank. So Saul was so locked in, and he was so focused on this mission of going and capturing these Christians and taking them to Jerusalem. He's so focused, he is a man on a mission, and out of nowhere, this blinding light shines down on him right as he's about to get to Damascus. So this super bright light, and he's terrified, and he hears this voice. So the blinding light shines, he hears this booming voice. Saul is terrified, and he calls out, who are you? Who is this that's talking to me? And the voice responds and says, I am Jesus, the very person who the followers of Jesus, the very person who Saul is persecuting, is talking to him and saying, hey, you are going against me. And what this makes me feel like, what it makes, what it reminds me of, is like a toddler who's like in the hallway kind of sneaking, and they've got some markers, and they're like drawing on the wall, and then their parents come around the corner, and they're like, what are you doing? You're not supposed to be doing that. They get caught right in the middle of the act, and right as Saul is almost to Damascus with these letters saying that he can arrest any believer he wants to, God appears to him, and he says, why are you persecuting me? And so Saul has his whole plan changed in that moment. His plan takes a hard left. Jesus appears to him, he says, why are you persecuting me? And then as he goes to stand up from this encounter with the Lord, he realizes something. His eyes are open, and he can't see a thing. He's completely blind. And so Saul, who was on his way to Damascus to arrest these believers, he's now being led to Damascus completely blind. They get him there, he lays down, and for three days he lays there bedridden, blind, and he doesn't eat, and he doesn't drink anything. So let's keep reading. Verse 10. Now there was a disciple at Damascus named Ananias. Y'all say, what's up Ananias? Mm-hmm. The Lord said to Ananias in a vision, Ananias, and he said, here I am, Lord. That's always the right answer, by the way. Here I am, Lord. What do you want from me? What do you want me to do? And the Lord said to him, rise and go to the street called Straight, and at the house of Judas look for a man of Tarsus named Saul. For behold, he is praying. And he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay hands on him so that he might regain his sight. But Ananias answered, Lord, I have heard from many about this man. I've heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem. And here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call on your name. So God appears in a vision to a faithful man named Ananias. And Ananias, he is just seemingly the most logical person that I've seen in the Bible. He has such a reasonable reaction to this. God appears to him in a vision and he tells him to go to a street called Straight, to go to the house of Judas where he will find Saul who's been blinded. But the thing is, Ananias had heard that name before. He had heard about Saul. He had heard about the things that Saul had been doing. He had heard about the persecution and the arrests and the havoc that Saul had been creating among the believers in Jerusalem. And so Ananias' response to God is something like this. He's like, God, let me get this straight. Let me just make sure that I have all of my ducks in a row. You are telling me that I got to go to Straight Street, to Judas's house, and I am gonna find the Punisher and I'm gonna help heal him of his blindness.
Are you serious? Because from what I know about this guy, I think I might go down to Straight Street and never come back. It's making me really nervous. Like, I don't know if I can go and help him out. And so he knew what Saul had done. He knew the kind of man that Saul was, and he was scared. And so let's look at God's response to him. He asked a valid question. He's like, are you sure about this? And this is what the Lord says to him, verse 15. But the Lord said to him, go, go. For he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name. So Ananias departed, 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. And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes and he regained his sight. Then he rose and was baptized, and taking food, he was strengthened. God tells Ananias that despite the danger, he must go and find Saul because God has big plans for him. God has big plans in the kingdom of God for Saul, and he wants him to go before kings, and he wants him to go and take the gospel, take the name of Jesus to the Gentiles. He has big plans for him, and he's gonna use Ananias to start Saul's journey to help in the kingdom of God. And so Ananias decides to trust the Lord, and he heads to Straight Street to Judas's house, and he finds Saul. And he goes and he lays his hands on Saul, and he tells him what the Lord had told him, that he needed to come to him, and that he told him about the vision, and he told him about the fact that he had come to heal him. And so as soon as Ananias tells Saul these things, as gross as it sounds, something like scales falls from Saul's eyes, and immediately he can see again. And right after this, as incredible as this is, Saul takes his first step of obedience to Christ, and he is baptized to show that he's truly a believer in Jesus. So the man that three days ago was persecuting the church, three days ago had letters on the way to Damascus that he could arrest any believer he wanted to, that same man was just baptized, saying that he believed and trusted in Jesus. Complete change in Saul's life. And the thing is, the believers in Damascus are shocked by this. Let's look at these next few verses, and then I promise we're done reading. Verse 19, the second half of it says, for some days he was with the disciples at Damascus, Saul. He 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 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? But Saul increased all the more in strength and confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus was the Christ. Saul wasted absolutely no time. And instead of what he was doing before, instead of arresting and persecuting believers, he goes and he hangs out with them. He hangs out with them. He spends time with them. It says, for some days he was with them. He was a part of the group of disciples in Damascus. So the exact people that he had been persecuting, he now was hanging out with, spending time with, and it was a part of their community. And so they are shocked by this and honestly, reasonably a little terrified. And this change is radical and they're baffled and they ask, isn't this the guy who we were supposed to be watching out for? Like, isn't this the guy who like we're supposed to be like hiding from? Isn't this the guy that was doing all those crazy, terrible things to the believers in Jerusalem? Like, is this not the same guy? Like, what happened to him? That's his name. He looks like him, but he's not acting like him. He completely changed. Saul had been completely changed by his encounter with Jesus. He had been given a fresh start. He had been given a new purpose and the people who he was around could see it. I play softball on Tuesday nights. Anybody play baseball or softball? Y'all rock with it? Y'all good? Y'all like it? I love softball. I love baseball. Where's Gavin? Back in the back, he's on my team. Jonathan, wherever Jonathan's at, he's on my team too. And listen, we play every Tuesday night and we have a really good time, but we're not exactly the best. I know, I'm so sorry. I hate to disappoint. We have so much fun and we get out there, we have a good time, but we're not exactly the best in the league. And so we were out there last night and we had two games to play. And so we go into this first game and we're not like confident, but we think we could maybe squeeze out of it with a win. And so we're ready to play. We get out there and I play outfield, left field. So I'm right there by the scoreboard, right there by the scoreboard. So we're going through this game play by play. And I'm gonna be honest, we did terrible. There's really just no other way to put it. We did terrible. So I'm looking up play after play at the scoreboard is three, zero, eight, zero, 10, zero. We get to the end of the last inning, we finish up, we lost the game. Final score, 18, zero. We got cooked, we got cooked. So we finished up the game, 18, zero. And I go back to the dugout, our team, we go back to the dugout and we're kind of beat up, I'm not gonna lie. We're a little down, we're a little upset about it. And I'm sitting there, I'm drinking water, I'm looking up at the scoreboard, I still see that 18, zero. And I'm just bummed. I'm like, man, how did we lose that bad? How did we let that happen? Like, we didn't even get one run. How did we let that happen? And so we finish up resting, we finish up getting reset and ready for our second game. And so I'm jogging out back to the outfield. We're about to start the first inning of the second game. And I look up at the scoreboard and it says zero, zero. No outs, no strikes, no points. Zero, zero. And it hit me, because I'd been studying this passage all week, thinking about Saul, thinking about the ways that the Lord had changed him. And seeing the zero, zero, it reminded me of what happens when we experience the grace and the mercy of God and we confess our sins and we're saved by him. You know, each and every one of us, we sin and we got some points against us, right? Like us on our team, we had 18 points against us and no points of our own on the board. And that's each and every one of us. We all sin and fall short of the glory of God. We have points on the board against us. But Jesus shed his blood so that he could give us a fresh game, that he could give us a new first inning. And so when we meet Jesus and we confess our sins, we place our faith in him, he throws zeros on the scoreboard. All of our past sins, all of our rebellion, all of our mistakes and failures, they no longer count against us. If you believe in the good news of the gospel, then the past game is over. The first game's done so, 18, zero, gone. First game is over and we're in the first inning of a new game. If you believe that Jesus lived without sin, died, rose again to life, our sins have been paid for, paid for. Zeros on the scoreboard, no more points against you. 1 John 1, 9 says, if we confess our sins, he's faithful and he is just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And so even if we're like Saul, Saul was, he was rough. He was doing real bad. His score was worse than 18, zero. I mean, he was, he hated God. He was so against him and everything he was doing was against God. Living in the opposite direction. If there's forgiveness even for Saul and God can even change Saul, then there is forgiveness for you and for me. When Jesus died on the cross, he wasn't thinking about your highlight reel. He wasn't thinking about the best days of your life when you're living the most on fire for him. When Jesus died on the cross, he was thinking about your.
worst day. The day that you messed up big time. The day that you've got 18-0 on the scoreboard. That is what Jesus had in mind when he died on the cross for you. That's what he had on mind for me when he died on the cross for me. He loved us at our worst in the same way that he loved Saul at his worst. And if God can change Saul, he can change you and me. And I want to speak to the people in the room who have a story like mine. You're not like Saul. You're like, I'm not persecuting Christians, bro. I grew up in a Christian home. I grew up at church. I grew up reading the Bible. I know all this stuff. I'm not a terrible person. Even you and me need the grace and the mercy of God. We all need that grace. We all need that mercy from Jesus. We all have sins. We all have things that we have messed up in some way and we need to be washed clean by him. So whether your scoreboard says 18-0 or 3-0, we all need to be made new and to be given a clean slate. So thinking about the story of Saul tonight, I want to ask you, where are you at? Where are you at? Have you had a moment like Saul? Now you probably aren't going to see a light in the sky. You probably didn't hear a booming voice. But if you had a moment where you realized in your heart that you have sinned, that you've got points against you, has there been a moment where you realized that you have sinned in your heart, that you've done things against God, that just like the rest of us, you've rebelled and our sin separates us from God? If you've had a moment where you've realized that and put your faith in Jesus, is that you? Have you done that? We need forgiveness, each and every one of us. And so if you have never had a moment like that, I want to tell you that you can do that tonight. And so I want to ask you to do something bold. This is not any different than any other time I've asked you about this, but when we start this next song, I want you to come to the back and I want you to find me and I want to talk to you about what it means to love Jesus. What it means to have your scoreboard cleared, what it means to have your sins forgiven, to confess your sins. Nobody's going to judge you for walking back. Nobody's going to point at you and I'm not going to make you do anything. I just want to talk to you about how much Jesus loves you and what it really means to be saved. And for the believer in the room, if you've decided to follow Christ, you've confessed your sins to him, my question is, are you living like your sins have been forgiven? Are you living like your sins have been forgiven or are you still living like there's points on the scoreboard against you? Sometimes it feels like I've done too bad or I messed up big time this time. If you've confessed your sins to Jesus and you've asked him for forgiveness and you've believed in what he has done, you are forgiven. The scoreboard's cleared. Zero, zero. There's no more condemnation for those who are in Christ. As a believer in Jesus, you are a new creation. And just like Saul, you have been forgiven. Your scoreboard has been zeroed out and you have a new purpose. And your purpose is to love him first and foremost, and to go into love your neighbor as yourself, telling them about what Jesus has done, sharing your testimony of the way that you used to be before Christ, whether it was 18 points or three against you, telling people about the way that you were before Jesus, how you met him, and how you are now, and the way that he's changed you. If God has forgiven you and me, we have no reason to hold on to the sins of our past. We've been set free and we can set those sins aside and we can follow after Jesus in the new life and the new purpose that he has for us. Just like Saul, who became a powerful force for the gospel, each and every one of you can too. You've been forgiven and you've been given new purpose in Christ. Let me pray for us and we can stand and worship. Father God, thank you so much for your word. Lord, thank you so much for your forgiveness and your mercy. Lord, thank you that even somebody like Saul, you can forgive. Lord, that he persecuted your church and you extended a hand of forgiveness. Lord, thank you that you extend that same hand of forgiveness to us. Lord, I pray that if there's anyone in here who hasn't accepted the free gift of salvation in you, Lord, that they would do that tonight. And Lord, for those of us who feel like we've messed up, that we're beaten down by the sins of our past that have already been forgiven, God, help us to feel your grace. Lord, let us let our hearts be at peace. And Lord, I pray that you would encourage us to go, to serve you, to tell the people about you and what you've done. It's in Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Y'all stand, let's worship.