In surfing there used to be a popular slang word which
surfers would use to label someone
who wasn’t a real surfer, but perhaps a poser. They would call such a person a hodad. If you ever are called a hodad, it’s
not a compliment. It’s actually a
derogatory word that was coined when surfing became really popular in the
Sixties due to the Gidget movies and the music of the Beach Boys. It was used to label guys who copied
the clothes and the talk and the mannerisms of surfers, but they weren’t really
true surfers.
I thought of that word as I was preparing for this message
due to the similarity of the word hodad to a Greek word in our text which is
hodos. But the meaning is nothing
similar, of course. However, in a
sense hodos can be looked at as an
antonym for popular Christianity.
Hodas is translated as The Way in our text in vs. 2. And I would suggest that in considering
how the word Christian has been co-opted today in popular religious culture to
bear little resemblance to the apostle’s doctrine, that we might be better off
referring to our faith as The Way, rather than as Christianity, in order to
differentiate what we teach from what is popularly believed.
Because I can assure you that many of the popular doctrines
of Christianity are vastly different than what was once called The Way. Today many polls tell us that more than
75% of Americans consider themselves Christian. And yet from what I see of our culture, there must be a lot of hodads out there
claiming to be Christian and yet are living a life that is completely at odds
with what the Bible teaches.
So what I want to show you today from the story of Saul’s
conversion, is what real Christianity looks like and what it consists of. I want to show through this scripture
what constituted Christianity in the first century, as it was still called The
Way, and how we can follow this example of Saul and come to saving faith in
Christ; which is radically different than what is being passed off in many
quarters as Christianity. Saul’s
conversion is unique, it is miraculous and there are some elements to it that
are unrepeatable. But at the same
time his conversion is representative of everyone’s conversion and there are
many characteristics of Saul’s conversion that are symbolic of becoming a true
disciple of Christ, as someone who is of The Way.
First of all then, let’s start by looking at why it was
called The Way and what that meant.
I believe it was called The Way primarily because Jesus said in John
14:6, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the
Father but through Me.” Jesus is
declaring the exclusivity of the gospel.
That there is only one way to God, and that is through faith in Jesus
Christ. He is the only way
to God. So if we are to get to
God, we must follow Christ. There is no other name given among men by which we
can be saved.
I think it’s interesting that hodos, or The Way, is
sometimes translated as a road. As
a highway. Christianity is not
just a pit stop on your way, where you pull over to get gassed up once a week
and then continue on the same way you were, but it is a different way, a different road altogether. It requires leaving the road you’re on,
and getting on a completely different road. And Jesus said in Matt. 7:13-14
that it is a narrow way. He said, "Enter through the narrow gate; for
the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are
many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that
leads to life, and there are few who find it.”
Secondly, I want to point out that the world’s way, the way
of all men before conversion, is enmity towards God. Let’s look at Saul as the premiere example. Saul, who had been the organizer of the
stoning of Steven in chapter 7, was now going outside of Jerusalem to the
neighboring regions and arresting disciples who were of The Way and bringing
them back to Jerusalem to be tried and possibly imprisoned or even
executed.
Some years later Paul would recount his actions in Acts 22:4
saying, "I persecuted this
Way to the death, binding and putting both men and women into prisons…” Our
text here in chapter 9:1 says that he was breathing threats and murder against
the disciples. Saul was an enemy
of God. He even thought he was
serving God by putting these disciples of The Way to death, but in effect he
was attacking God Himself.
In verse 4, a blinding light flashed from heaven as Saul and
his companions were on the road to Damascus, and a voice called out, “Saul,
Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” And Saul said, “Who are You, Lord?” And He
said, “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.” So Jesus confirms that Saul was an enemy of God.
But do you realize that all men are enemies of God before
their conversion? Romans 3 says
that all of us were under the bondage
of sin and at enmity with God before salvation. Vs. 10, “THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS, NOT
EVEN ONE; THERE IS NONE WHO UNDERSTANDS, THERE IS NONE WHO SEEKS FOR GOD; ALL
HAVE TURNED ASIDE, TOGETHER THEY HAVE BECOME USELESS; THERE IS NONE WHO DOES
GOOD, THERE IS NOT EVEN ONE. THEIR THROAT IS AN OPEN GRAVE, WITH THEIR TONGUES
THEY KEEP DECEIVING, THE POISON OF ASPS IS UNDER THEIR LIPS; WHOSE MOUTH IS
FULL OF CURSING AND BITTERNESS;
THEIR FEET ARE SWIFT TO SHED BLOOD, DESTRUCTION AND MISERY ARE IN THEIR
PATHS, AND THE PATH OF PEACE THEY HAVE NOT KNOWN. THERE IS NO FEAR OF GOD BEFORE THEIR EYES.” All men are by nature lovers of evil
and hateful towards God.
James 4:4 says, “You adulteresses, do you not know that
friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to
be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” So the second step of coming to be a
disciple of The Way is to recognize as did Saul that you are an enemy of God, that
we are all antagonistic towards God. We love darkness rather than light because
our deeds are evil.
So as we read in vs.3, in order to be converted, there needs
to be a light from heaven to illuminate our minds. “As he was traveling, it
happened that he was approaching Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven
flashed around him;
and he fell to the ground. You know, at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry He
preached a message in which He quoted from Isaiah 9 as recorded in Matt. 4:16; "THE PEOPLE WHO WERE SITTING IN
DARKNESS SAW A GREAT LIGHT, AND THOSE WHO WERE SITTING IN THE LAND AND SHADOW
OF DEATH, UPON THEM A LIGHT DAWNED."
Listen, the only way that Saul, this great enemy of the gospel,
could be saved and turned completely from the road that he was on, in order for
him to become a disciple of The Way, he needed to have the light from God dawn
upon him. It takes a supernatural
event to be saved. Did you know
that? You cannot be saved by
simply becoming religious or trying to be a better person or by doing some
ritual or ceremony. The only way to be saved is for God to first shed His light
on you so that you can see what before you were too blind to see. To see your
sinfulness and God’s righteousness. Paul was blind to the truth. He thought he was pursuing the truth,
but in fact as we noted he was an enemy of God. In order for him to be turned, God had to shine the light of
revelation upon him, revealing his condition before God.
John 1:9 says, Jesus “was the true Light which, coming into
the world, enlightens every man.” All the world is in darkness. No man can see unless the Spirit of God
opens His eyes and shines the light of Christ in their hearts. 2Cor. 4:4 says,
“the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they
might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image
of God.” We were all blind, helplessly lost. But then in vs.6 we read, but “God, who said, ‘Light
shall shine out of darkness’ is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the
Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.”
The next step that I want to show in becoming a disciple of
The Way is to hear the word of God.
Vs. 4, we quoted earlier, but here it is again; “and he fell to the
ground and 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 get up and enter the city, and it will be told you what you must do.”
True salvation requires hearing the word of God. Rom. 10:17
says, “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.” In 2 Timothy 3 Paul speaks of “the sacred
writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through
faith which is in Christ Jesus.”
He goes on to say that “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable
for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness.”
Well, I’m sure that when Saul heard the words of Christ, he
was not only rebuked and corrected, but he was convicted of his sin against
God. He realized that he was
persecuting the very Son of God.
That he was an enemy of God.
And I believe that because of the next verses which tell us that Paul
was led away, blinded by the light, and spends the next three days fasting and
praying. I’m sure during this time
he mourned over his part in the killing of Steven. I’m sure he mourned over those Christians he pursued to the
death.
That’s the next essential step of becoming saved. Repentance
is an essential part of conversion.
The message Peter preached back in chapter 3 was "Therefore repent and return, so
that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come
from the presence of the Lord.” I
don’t believe you can be saved without repentance. That’s why the first message that Jesus preached was
“Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.” John the Baptist preached repentance. Peter and John preached
repentance. And eventually Paul
will preach repentance, which he lesson he learns thoroughly as he sits in this
room in his blindness for 3 days, considering and mourning over his sin. Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount
that a requirement for entrance into the kingdom of heaven is to mourn over
your sin.
The next step to conversion to The Way is seen in God
dispensing his minister to go to Saul and explain the gospel to him. The Bible doesn’t say that Ananias was
a preacher. We know he wasn’t an
apostle. As far as we know he had
no official position in the church.
But he fulfilled the duty of every believer. He was a reluctant minister. When God told him to go to
Saul, he offered an objection. He
had heard of Saul and how he had
done great harm to the church and so he was afraid to go to him. But the Lord told him to go and so he
did.
I don’t know why God chooses to use frail, failing, weak men
and women to be the ministers of His gospel. But we know that he does. All that have been saved have been commissioned to go into
the world and proclaim the good news.
And many times we are told to go to those who seem the least likely to
be good prospects. We are told not
to go to the righteous, but the unrighteous. To seek out those that are lost, those who are the outcasts
of society. To proclaim the gospel
to those who are enemies of God. Rom. 10:14 “How then will they call on Him in
whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard?
And how will they hear without a preacher?”
In another passage some time later Paul recounts this
meeting with Ananias and I want you to hear some additional details he adds
about that conversation. Acts
22:14 Paul recalls Ananias as saying, 'The God of our fathers has appointed you
to know His will and to see the Righteous One and to hear an utterance from His
mouth. 'For you will be a witness
for Him to all men of what you have seen and heard. 'Now why do you delay? Get
up and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on His name.'”
I believe it is at this point that Paul is converted. He is repentant, he confesses his sin
unto God, and he calls upon the name of Jesus for salvation, for forgiveness,
and his sins are washed away. That
is salvation. Not only is he saved
from the penalty of his sin, he is converted from death to life. He is transformed from an enemy of God
to a friend of God. To be born
into the family of God. And that
happens as he receives the Holy Spirit.
In vs. 17, it says, “Ananias went his way and entered the
house; and laying his hands on him he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who
appeared to you on the road as you came, has sent me that you may receive your
sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” The Holy Spirit is who gives us new life in Christ. In John 6:63 Jesus said, "It is
the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have
spoken to you are spirit and are life.”
And that new life is symbolized in Saul’s life by the scales
falling away from his eyes and he is able to see. That is what
happens spiritually for all those who are converted, who call upon the Lord for
salvation. He gives sight to the
blind. He gives understanding
where they once was none. He opens
up our hearts and our minds to comprehend the Word of God. We cannot be born again without
the agency of the Holy Spirit. Ezekiel 11:19-20 "And I will give them one
heart, and put a new spirit within them. And I will take the heart of stone out
of their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, 20 that they may walk in My
statutes and keep My ordinances and do them. Then they will be My people, and I
shall be their God.”
John 3:3-6 “Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Truly, truly, I
say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.’
Nicodemus said to Him, "How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot
enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born, can he?" Jesus answered, "Truly, truly, I
say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the
kingdom of God. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which
is born of the Spirit is spirit.”
There must be a calling out to God for a new heart, a new spirit, that
we would be converted.
The next step of Paul’s conversion that I want to make today
is that he was obedient to do what
God told him to do. This really
goes back to what it means to belong to The Way. It’s not just a destination, it’s a road. It’s following the Lord in obedience in
the road or in The Way that He reveals to us. This is so important and so misunderstood today. Christianity is far too often looked at
as getting a new paint job on your car, but continuing to drive it in the same
direction, just now it looks a little brighter and shinier. But as I said at the beginning, this is
a new way of living, going in a new direction, with a new destination and a new
purpose, living for God instead of living for your self.
So Saul first of all is obedient, and that is evident by the
fact that he is baptized. He
didn’t have to pray about it.
Didn’t have to think about it.
The Lord said it, so he did it. He made public proclamation of his
faith. Baptism is an external representation of what has transpired inwardly. We are
buried in the water, that is we acknowledge that we bury our old man, the old
ways, in the water, and we are raised from the water, symbolizing that we are
raised into a new life in Christ.
Old things have passed away, all things have become new. We signify that we have left our old
sinful ways in the water, we have died to the world, and we are raised in new
life, to live by the Spirit of God.
And the next evidence of his obedience was that he was a
witness of the gospel as the Lord told him to be. Acts 9:20 “and immediately he
began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues, saying, ‘He is the Son of
God.’” He began to
conclusively prove to the Jews in the synagogues in Damascus that Jesus was the
Son of God. Folks, God doesn’t
need any secret disciples. He
doesn’t call us to be secret disciples.
He calls us to tell others of the good news of Jesus Christ. To declare to whoever will listen, “I
once was lost, but now am found, was blind, but now I see.”
Finally, the last point of Saul’s conversion is that God
called him to suffer for His name’s sake.
As the Apostle Paul, he would probably suffer more hardships than any
other Christian before or since.
But what becomes clear as we study the life of Paul is that God used
Paul’s suffering to bring about the glory of God. We just get a little preview of his sufferinng
here. But God said to Ananias in
vs. 15, “Go, for he is a chosen instrument of Mine, to bear My name before the
Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel; for I will show him how much he must
suffer for My name’s sake.”
Listen folks, I never want to be guilty of sugar coating
what it means to become a follower of The Way. Becoming a follower of The Way is following a path of
suffering. Jesus said, “whoever
would be My disciple, let him take up his cross and follow Me.” Paul’s suffering was more than I can
ever imagine having to bear. We
get a glimpse of it starting almost immediately upon his conversion. Vs. 22 “But
Saul kept increasing in strength and confounding the Jews who lived at Damascus
by proving that this Jesus is the Christ. When many days had elapsed, the Jews plotted together to do
away with him, but their plot
became known to Saul. They were also watching the gates day and night so that
they might put him to death; but
his disciples took him by night and let him down through an opening in the
wall, lowering him in a large basket.”
From this point on, Saul is always having people plot his
capture or his death. He spends
much of the rest of his life in one prison or another. Towards the end of his life, Paul
recounts the suffering he experienced for Christ’s sake in 2Co 11:23-27 “Are
they servants of Christ?--I speak as if insane--I more so; in far more labors,
in far more imprisonments, beaten times without number, often in danger of
death. Five times I received from
the Jews thirty-nine lashes. Three
times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked,
a night and a day I have spent in the deep. I have been on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers,
dangers from robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles,
dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers
among false brethren; I have been
in labor and hardship, through many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst,
often without food, in cold and exposure.”
I hope that none of us here have to suffer the way that Paul
suffered for the sake of The Way.
But I will assure you that if you are a Christian you are going to
suffer in one form or another. One
thing we all must suffer is the loss of our pride. We must suffer the loss of
our worldly ambition if we follow Christ.
We must suffer the loss of our will if we are going to do God’s
will. We must suffer the loss of
our self determination if we are going to submit to Christ’s Lordship over our
lives.
But I trust that we can also say, even as Paul would one day
say in Phil. 3:7-11 “But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have
counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the
surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the
loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and
may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law,
but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from
God on the basis of faith, that I
may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His
sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.”
That is the goal of belonging to The Way. That we might receive by grace the
righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. That we might know Christ and achieve the
resurrection of the dead. Paul
would go on to say in Rom. 8:18 “For I consider that the sufferings of this
present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be
revealed to us.” One day, if we
have suffered with Him here, we shall be glorified with Him there. I hope when that day comes, you will be
counted as one that was willing to suffer the loss of all things in order to be
called one who belonged to The Way.
In the mid 1700’s there was a man named John Newton who
became a sea captain. And like many sailors of his day, he lived a depraved and
ungodly life. For many years, he
worked on slave ships, capturing slaves for sale to the plantations in the New
World. Eventually, he became the captain of his own slave ship. A combination of a terrible storm at
sea one night coupled with his reading of a testimony of a Christian planted
some seeds in his heart that eventually led to his conversion. He was miraculously
transformed from a depraved slave trader to a minister of the gospel. He went on to become a leader in the
spiritual awakening in the 18th century in England. He wrote his own epitaph,
which is inscribed on his tombstone.
It reads, “John Newton, Clerk.
Once an infidel and libertine, a servant of slavers in Africa, was, by
the rich mercy of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, preserved, restored, pardoned,
and appointed to preach the faith he had long labored to destroy.” He was the author of the famous hymn we are going to sing in
closing, Amazing Grace, a grace
that he knew first hand.
I hope and pray that you will take this opportunity to
examine yourself today in light of Saul’s conversion and ask yourself if you
are of The Way. Jesus has paid the
penalty for your sins if you will just repent of your sins and have faith in
His atoning work on your behalf, and call upon Him to save you. He is willing
and waiting to save those that are lost.
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