“The Damascus Road”

The Appomattox Court House Presbyterian Church Pulpit
Rev. Cameron S. Smith
The Lord's Day, June 25, 2006
Acts 9:1-22

AMAZING GRACE
     Once, when Billy Graham was driving through a small southern town, he was stopped by a policeman and charged with speeding. Graham admitted his quilt, but was told by the officer that he would have to appear in court. The judge asked, "Guilty, or not guilty?" When Graham pleaded guilty, the judge replied, "That'll be ten dollars -- a dollar for every mile you went over the limit." Suddenly the judge recognized the famous minister. "You have violated the law," he said. "The fine must be paid--but I am going to pay it for you." He took a ten dollar bill from his own wallet, attached it to the ticket, and then took Graham out and bought him a steak dinner! "That," said Billy Graham, "is how God treats repentant sinners!"
     Grace. God's grace. That is what its all about this morning! Pure and simple. Nothing complicated today. God's grace is a song that Christians of all stripes can sing together on the same page. In that encouraging story from Billy Graham, grace abounds from the judge to the guilty-as-charged preacher. Grace, my friends, is undeserved favor. In Reverend Graham's case, the judge didn't have to pay his ticket, or even take the preacher out to a steak dinner - but he did it because he was a gracious judge.

GRACE CONSUMES A PHARISEE
     But there's an even better picture of grace in our text from Acts 9. The conversion of a man named Saul on the road to Damascus. Before Saul took this "business" trip, he was by all counts, a successful member of the clergy. Listen to how he describes his own career: "If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh [translation: to boast!], I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee…as to righteousness, under the law blameless. (Phil 3:4-6). In another place, he said, "I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers." (Gal 1:14).
     There was only one small problem with this success story: This man was a killer! Saul is introduced at the end of Acts 7. He was the guy who looked after the garments of the men who took up stones to kill godly Stephen for his faithful preaching. Acts 8:1 inserts a telling biographical note that Saul approved of the execution. He was pleased that the troublemaker got his just desserts. Even by his own admission, he was vicious and tenacious towards the early followers of Jesus: "You have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it." (Gal 1:13).
     Luke confirms Saul's self-assessment of his condition at the beginning of our text in Acts 9, (which is a response to the continued growth of the Church of Jesus Christ): "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, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem." (Acts 9:1-2).
     Ananias, the man that God personally designated to bring the healing balm to restore Saul's sight and share the love of God with him, perhaps spoke for every believer in the region of Damascus, when he answered the Lord's request with these words: "Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints at Jerusalem. And here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call on your name." (Acts 9:13-14). Translation here: "Are you crazy? This guy is a bad dude! Why do you want him, Lord?"
     Now, here's a crucial point I want to make this morning: Saul of Tarsus was not a man deserving of God's grace. No where near it. He was confident in his own natural ability and intellect. He was successful by the world's standards. He was a self-made man. He had a bright future and he was ruthless in his climb to the top of the religious ladder. God was his job. In a crass sense, Saul thought God needed him, not the other way around!

GRACE AND TRANSFORMATION
     What a great story! An ambitious young Pharisee goes on the road to Damascus to arrest anyone caught promoting or professing the name of Jesus so that he might haul them back to Jerusalem for prosecution. But then in a flash, lightning strikes and the peacock comes face to face with the risen Lord. "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?" In an instant, Saul, who would later become known as the Apostle Paul, is a changed man. Everything he knew before; everything he believed before; everything he worked towards before; profoundly transformed. Transformed by grace.
     Paul's own words stand as a demonstration the power of this miraculous transformation: "But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ." (Phil 3:7-8). Paul threw off the charms and ambitions of his former life because someone of far more worth found him.
     Even more amazing is what happened after Paul's Damascus road experience was his response to God's saving grace. "And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and he regained his sight. Then he rose and was baptized….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?....But Saul increased all the more in strength, and confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus was the Christ." (Acts 9:18-22).
     The point I'm trying to make is that saving grace bears fruit. Saving grace doesn't permit one to stay the same. As Paul himself so eloquently put it to the Romans: "What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?" (Rom 6:1-2).
     And I want you to know, Paul's conversion was tested through many trials. In fact, in 2 Corinthians 11, he could characterize his own Gospel ministry to the Gentiles in this memorable way:

"Far more imprisonments…countless beatings, and often near death. Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in 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; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches." (2 Cor 11:23-28).

GRACE THAT WORKS
     As we leave this story of Paul's conversion and transformation on the Damascus Road; I want to reiterate some of the things that I want you to remember about that story.
1. God's grace is often univited:
     True to the definition of grace, that of undeserved favor from God, grace is not a state that on can earn! To the best of my knowledge, no one was praying for Paul's salvation. In fact, I think God violated his free will. Paul didn't want to be a disciple of the Way. In fact, St. Augustine used this same story from Acts 9 to refute the biggest proponents of free-will of his day, the Pelagians.
     St. Augustine himself was also a recipient of this univited grace. He was sitting in a garden at a friend's house, distraught over his own sinfulness when he heard the voice of a child saying, "Take it and read, take it and read." He rushed into the house and picked up the Scriptures. "I seized it and opened it, and in silence I read the first passage on which my eyes fell":(Confessions 8.12) "Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires." (Rom 13:13-14). From there, the rest is history.
     John Wesley, a down and out Church of England minister, who was at his wits end; picked up Luther's commentary on Romans and read. He remembers that he felt his "heart strangely warmed." Again, the rest is history. This is the way God's grace is: Always unexpected, but never unwelcomed.
2. God's grace is available to the worst of sinners:
     Perhaps this is the hardest aspect of God's grace to get our minds around. There is absolutely nothing: No sin, no crime, indeed, nothing that can be done in a long lifetime that can disqualify any man, woman or child from God's grace.
     I am always saddened when I hear people despair that they have just lived such a rotten life that God would never be able to forgive them. And so, they use that line of reasoning to keep them from the grace that He has offered to them in His Son. In a sense, it's sad; but on the other hand, it demonstrates the rebellious ingratitude on the part of humanity that we make light of the precious gift offered by God on Calvary.
     But the reality and the opportunity is perhaps best summed up in the words of King David: "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise." (Psalm 51:17).
3. God's grace is transforming grace:
     This is perhaps the most important point of all. God's grace never leaves you the same. You could see that right after Paul's own conversion, he was a changed man. He was not the same person. He went from zealous persecutor to building up and expanding the very Church he had once tried to destroy.
     I remember reading a few years ago about a Christian mobster. He got saved, but he maintained that it didn't have change his vocation! Friends, that's lunacy! There's no such thing as a Christian mobster.
     To be quite frank with you this morning, God's not going to let you remain the same if you belong to Him. It may take a lifetime, but you're never going to be the same!

FINAL WORD
     As we leave this morning, let me remind you of the main ideas that I want you to remember this afternoon and for the rest of the week: God's grace is univited but never unwelcome. No one ever goes dragging and screaming into a greater measure of holiness. God's grace is available to the worst of sinners -- even me, even you. I don't know about you, but that still amazes me, even to this day! Finally, God's grace is life-changing grace. You're never going to be the same ever again! You can never be the same again. Perhaps the words of a contemporary song say it best: "So long self, well, its been fun but I've found somebody else!"
     That's our reality in Christ. Praise God!