Acts 9. 1-19... God knows what he is doing.

The book of Acts – the “Acts of Jesus, Part 2” – is a wonderfully woven, rich fabric of different colours and textures...

like the Harris tweed Kenny is weaving in the picture.  In Chapter 8. Luke has been telling us about the spread of the Gospel outwards, away from mainstream Jewish people, to reach Samaritans; and then, with the conversion of the official from Ethiopia, the gentile mission had already begun.  But then the shuttle goes in the opposite direction: this story is firmly planted in Jewish territory.  Saul is a keen young Pharisee, who believes he is doing the right thing by persecuting the disciples: he's 100% dead against Jesus. And even the Christians who support him are Jewish in background: Ananias is a Semitic name as is Barnabas. 

God takes the initiative.   Saul the persecutor (vv. 1 and 2) believed he was right in what he was doing; that the message of Jesus was a poison that needed to be removed from the world.  Persecutors always believe that.    Saul had been there when they stoned Stephen.  He had been a driving force in persecuting the Christians in Jerusalem.  But when they scattered, he decided to root them out wherever they had gone, so he got an arrest-warrant valid for Damascus in Syria. Damascus was an important city, 150 miles from Jerusalem.  It was self Governing under Roman authority and there was a strong Jewish population there. Saul went there, muttering about what he would do to the Christians in the the city,  when he caught them. This is the guy Luke now focuses on.  This is the guy God is now reaching out to. This is the life God is now going to reach into dramatically.  You see, God hasn't given up on this guy. He will later refer to himself as “the chief of sinners.”  While he is far away, God reaches out.  God takes the initiative.  All the bitterness, all the resistance to what he had seen (the amazing way Stephen went to his death for example), all the determined cruelty towards the believers... but God hasn't given up on him. 
When Satan tempts me to despair; reminds me of the guilt within;
upward I look and see him there, Who made and end of all my sin.

Let's be encouraged.  God takes the initiative, even when people are far away from him.  And God doesn't give up on us, no matter how badly we mess up.  That should encourage us when we fail, to know that God is still for us, still on our case.  And it should encourage us, when we are tempted to despair over someone.  It should encourage us as we pray for our society.  Nobody is beyond the pale.  Jews had given up on Jesus.  But Jesus hadn't given up on them.   We can't understand the relationship between God's initiative, people's freedom to choose or reject Jesus, and our desire to see them saved.  But we need to bring the three together in our prayers. God knows what he is doing.

The conversion Drama.  And it is dramatic!  As he gets near to Damascus, suddenly, a light from heaven flashes around him.  He falls to the ground and heard a voice speak to him.  Bright light, falling to the ground, and a voice from heaven are signs of God at work.

(Michelangelo tells us that in his own way in his painting!)  They are signs of God directly revealing Himself to someone.  The Voice says, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” In other words, this Voice was saying “Saul, you think you're just giving a bunch of wierdos a bad time, but you're not, you're persecuting me .” Saul asks the Voice who it belongs to. The Voice answers “I'm Jesus, the One you're persecuting.”  Saul realises that the One he has been hating and persecuting (thorough persecuting his followers) is One with a Voice from heaven. 

Just in case he was tempted to tell himself next day that none of it actually happened, when he shakily gets to his feet and the light disappears, he's in total darkness. He can't see a thing.  The crew with him have to take him by the hand and lead him into Damascus.  And so he can't shake the experience off, or tell himself he's been working too hard, or got sunstroke in the mid-day heat,  those with him heard the voice.  Saul is a totally broken man.  This isn't a calm, quiet, realisation that there is something in this Jesus business. This isn't merely an intellectual recognition that the Jesus Way is truth.  This affects Saul at every level of his existence.  Intellectually, emotionally, physically, socially.  That’s what conversion is.  It's dramatic!  It's God at work. “I am am new creation! No more in condemnation!”

Saul's response to that encounter, is to sit, in silence, or to lie on the floor, crying with groans too deep for words, neither eating nor drinking. He's seeing a vision of someone ministering to him so he gets his sight back. His life had been completely turned upside down.  He would have to learn to live the rest of his life upside down.  Conversion is about rethinking Jesus, recognising who he is; it's about encountering Jesus personally; it's about trusting Jesus totally; it's about surrendering to Jesus absolutely, letting him be Lord of our lives.  

Be Part of it.  Meanwhile, somewhere else in Damascus, a Jewish Christian called Ananias has a vision. God speaks to him by name and tells him to go and pray for Saul.  A matching vision to the one Saul has. (you can be confident about pictures and visions when one or two people have “matching visions”!)  God even gives Ananias Saul's temporary address. God knows what he is doing.
Ananias does what you do when God speaks to you in a vision – he argues back...  Sometimes, we think, God can be a bit forgetful.  He's a bit too busy to be aware of all the details of our lives.  He hasn't noticed there's been a financial crisis for the past five years.  He hasn't noticed that we're getting older.  But God knows all that.  He also knows some other things that we haven't noticed.    God knows what he is doing.   “Go! This man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel. I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.” (v. 15f)  God knows what he is doing.

So, to Ananias' credit, he goes.  He sees that God knows what he is doing, as he meets Saul.  He ministers the laying on of hands.  (I wonder if Ananias' hands were shaking in that ministry? God can use shaky hands, that are stretched out in obedience to him, even if we are scared.) He speaks: “Brother Saul, the Lord—Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here—has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.”  Isn't that lovely?  It's relational – Saul is now a Brother. It's Jesus-centered.  It's part of the conversion bundle.  It's generous, going beyond what God told him, to minister the obvious thing, that Saul be filled with the Holy Spirit. 

And, as Ananias steps out in obedience, eh has his part in the amazing big picture, that Luke is weaving together in his book; Ananias is part of the big picture that God is weaving together in salvation history: the mission to the whole world. And this Saul of Tarsus, who is crying out to God in Judas' spare room in Straight Street, will prove to be god's chosen vessel to take the gospel to the Nations., to further again the Gentile mission.  God knows what he is doing. And when we step out in faith and obedience, we can be part of it.

Conclusion: There are two kinds of people in this place today, symbolised by the two main characters in this story.  Some of us – like Saul – don't know Jesus personally. We may be really against Christianity or all faith; or we may be kind of tolerant and think Jesus was a really nice guy; but we don’t' know him personally.  And some of us – like Ananias – do know Jesus. We  may be afraid to talk about him; we may be fumbling and faltering; we may be eager to change the world; but we do know him as Saviour and Lord. And for all of us, Jesus is knocking at our doors.  If you don't yet know him, you're not too bad for him to love you; you're not too far away for him to reach you.  And if you do know him, he wants you to know that he knows what he is doing. And he wants you to be part of it. 


© Gilmour Lilly December  2013