An Unexpected Christian

Acts 9:1-20

Introduction

I want you to think about the person you would most be surprised to become a Christian. It could be someone famous, perhaps a musician or an actor or a politician. Maybe it was someone who is a known criminal or is had had a particularly immoral life. Maybe it is someone in your family or a close personal friend. Think about that person, the one you that you are thinking: “There is no way they are going to become a Christian.” I want to tell you that nothing is impossible for God.

I wouldn’t say I was the most unlikely person to have become a Christian, but I was pretty unlikely, especially in my teen years. I will tell you that I have been amused to see the reaction of people I knew in high school when they find out that I became a pastor. There is a very visible expression of disbelief. I know that the mother of one of my teen friend, who was a Christian, was pretty surprised when she found out I had become a pastor. While I know she was praying for me, sometimes we are surprised when God answers our prayers.

As we think about these unexpected Christians, there was never more of a surprise for the church as there was with Saul, who became known as the Apostle Paul. We are going to take a look at his story.

Saul Meets Jesus

Before we take a look at what happened to Saul, we need to reflect on whether he was a good man or a bad man. That is a complicated question. On the good side, he was someone who had a strong faith in God. He was zealous for his beliefs and they were not something that was just tagged onto the rest of his life. He was someone who cared about the truth and when he encountered those who, according to his perspective, were saying false things, he needed to respond. We would call Saul an active rather than a passive believer.

But Saul was not just a good man waiting to meet Jesus, as we will see with Cornelius in the next chapter. Saul’s zeal led to intolerance. Saul couldn’t just agree to disagree. Nor could Saul keep things on an intellectual level, debating people whether or not Jesus was the messiah. Rather Saul actively persecuted followers of Jesus, using violence and even being involved in killings. Zeal, even for the noblest purposes, is never an excuse to do violence against someone you disagree with.

Saul was on his way to do some more persecuting, feeling perfectly justified in what he was doing when something happened on the road to Damascus. Saul met Jesus. This is what I love about this story. There was no debate, Jesus didn’t try to convince Saul to follow. Jesus just informs him that Saul had actually been persecuting him and then told him what to do. And Saul did it. He went to the location he was sent to, blind after his meeting of Jesus.

The next part of the story involves a man named Ananias. While Jesus could have done all the work between himself and Saul, he chose to include other people. Despite our talk of a “personal relationship with Jesus,” we must eventually experience Jesus in community. Jesus sent Ananias to Saul and Ananias was understandably reluctant. While we might like seeing unexpected Christians, we may not want to be the one to test out the genuineness, especially if violence has been a part of the story. Here is the beautiful thing about this, despite his misgivings about Saul, when Ananias greeted him, he addressed him as “brother.” Imagine the emotions going on within Ananias. Now, imagine what it was like for Saul, to have a representative of the people that Saul had been persecuting, calling him “brother.”

What happened that day on the road to Damascus, not only changed Saul forever, it completely shaped the Christian church. While we are followers of Jesus, so much of what we do is based on how the Apostle Paul applied Jesus to the non-Jewish world. Without Saul/Paul, our experience of Christianity would have been so different.

We Meet Jesus

There are many people today that identify with Saul’s experience. The started off far from God, perhaps even living a violent life. They were that person who seemed to be the most unexpected to become a follower of Jesus. But they met Jesus in some way, some more dramatic than others. It was an instantaneous transformation. They went from one minute living for sin to the next living for Jesus. And they have never been the same. Perhaps you know such people. You may even be someone like this.

But what about the average Christian who may have been raised in the church? What about the person who has never done something really bad, at least not on the outside? What about the person who has always been respected and well thought of, who never had serious doubts about God?

Such people may look at Saul and think, “That’s nice for him but it has nothing to do with me.” I would say to not be too quick to dismiss the relevance of this story.

We often call this the “conversion” of Saul. But was it? Did Saul convert from one religion to another? I don’t think that Saul saw it that way. He believed in the God of Israel before the Damascus road and he believed in the God of Israel after the Damascus road. Saul was a Jew before and he was a Jew after. He was zealous before and he was zealous after.

So what happened to Saul? He met Jesus. Jesus changed everything. It was like putting on a pair of glasses or a hearing aid for the first time and discovering what reality is really like. Saul saw things clearly for the first time. That is why, I think, he had an experience of blindness and recovery of sight. What happened to him physically was an image of what happened to him spiritually. 

While we may not have such a dramatic experience, what’s to stop us from seeing Jesus in a new way. An encounter with Jesus doesn’t have to be just at the moment of “conversion.” We can be a good and dedicated church member for decades and then something happens that makes us see Jesus in a new way. And when we see Jesus in a new way, we see everything in a new way.

I believe that Jesus is seeking to interrupt us on the roads that we travel. He wants us to knock us out of our comfort zone. He wants to redirect our zeal to things that really matter.

Conclusion

Saul’s experience on the road to Damascus was life-changing and history-changing. Jesus did something amazing with Saul and he became an unexpected Christian. But this is not just Saul’s story. This is our story. Jesus wants to meet us. The truth is that there is still time for us to become an unexpected Christian. We can see Jesus in new ways, we can encounter him in such a way to change the direction of our lives. For some this is their conversion experience. But it can also be our discipleship experience. Keep your eyes open on the road of life. Jesus might be just around the corner.