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Paul's Story - Formed But Not Defined | Holy Disruption
00:54:42
May 17, 2026 | Brew City Church | Shelly Schmor
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Welcome to the Brew City Church Podcast. We are a Christian church following in the way of Jesus and located in the heart of downtown Milwaukee. We're glad you've joined us, and we hope you enjoy this week's message. Good morning, everyone. Good to be with you this morning. I'm glad to be with you here on this spring day. I'm trying to have the attitude that Marianne had, but honestly, with spring, I'm like, you had your turn. It is now summer. Like, you had your turn. But I know it doesn't actually start until June 21st or something like that, so. Well, this morning we are going to be jumping back into the book of Acts. We've been in a series called Holy Disruption for a while now, and we are on all the way to Acts, chapter nine. Now, it seems like we've been in it for a long time, but there's a lot that happens in this book. Am I not wrong in that? Like, it is. There's a lot going on. We get introduced to a lot of different people, a lot of things happening, and it's exciting. And we see where God continually, through his spirit, kind of disrupts some things, unsettles some things, things that people maybe thought they had a grip on. He says, well, kind of, but. And as we know, even Jesus said in the Gospels, you've heard it said. But I say, right, And I think that continues. And so today we're going to be looking into this whole place, but I hope that as we do this, as we study, that we aren't just getting more cognitive learning. I think cognitive learning is great. I'm all about going to school. I'm all about taking classes. I'm all about reading. I have, like, books everywhere in my house, and I try to read all of them. And I think, though, that sometimes it can get so caught up in just knowing something, something that I don't actually let it be a mirror held up before me. And so this morning, that's what I want us to do. I want to let the Scriptures be a mirror that reflects us and how do we see ourselves in comparison to this word and into this teaching? So I want us to kind of come with that feeling, that thought that we're not just here to learn more, even though we're gonna. Because I'm going to give you some facts this morning, but I'm also going to challenge us, I hope, in some ways to allow the Scriptures to reflect back to us, maybe places that we need to change or we need to engage differently. But before we get Started into the text. I want us just to think about stories. You'll often hear me say, like, I love people's stories. I love to just listen to them, to understand more about where they come from, who are. Who is this person that I'm with? But what I want to say is I often use this phrase that our stories, our life stories, form us, but they don't define us. Let me say that one more time. Our stories form us, but they don't define us. And what do I mean by that? Well, I think we humans have a tendency to learn a little sliver of information about somebody and assume we know somebody, anybody. Do that. You hear one fact about how they grew up or where they came from, and you make assumptions, right? And you jump to conclusions. And I don't like it when people do that to me, right? When people hear one little thing about my past and go, oh, I know exactly who Shelley is, I don't like that. But I also know that I do, that I'm guilty of the same thing. I can hear one little piece of information and go, oh, I know what that person's about. And I think that if we would pause and not do that and actually sit with a person and ask some good questions, some clarifying questions, get to know them, hear their story a little bit, there would be a whole lot less hurt and pain in this world. I think there would be a whole lot less hurt and pain in this world. And so I know I'm guilty of it. I know that I can do it. But I also know that every time that I have sat down with somebody and actually taken the time to hear their story, I come out of that a totally different way. But it takes time, and it takes effort, and it takes just patience in doing that. And I need to be honest here, because for a long time, I did this to Paul or Saul in scripture. I did not like the dude. I'll just be honest. I didn't like him. I had his words used against me, taken out of context, mostly for being a woman, and I didn't like him. And I had all sorts of assumptions about who this guy was. And then I decided, through the counsel of one of my professors and some of my mentors, like, get to know him a little bit. Now, I couldn't sit down, obviously, and have coffee with Paul. That would have been the ideal, right? But I could spend some time getting to know him a little bit and seeing who he was, because everybody has a story. And Saul was not exempt from this. He had a Story. He had a part of his life that formed him. And so this morning, before we actually get into the scriptures of Acts, I want to just talk about Saul's history a little bit. His what formed him, where he came from, his backstory, if you will. Now, we first just started talking about him in the last few weeks. Where did we first see Saul? Does anybody remember the stoning? The stoning of Stephen? And what was he doing? He was sitting there holding the coats. I'm like, well, somebody had to do it. I guess it was a job. But he was there. He was there. He was watching it. He saw it all unfold. And then it says in chap. That was in chapter seven and in chapter eight, it says that he actually agreed with the stoning and he was ravaging the church after that, dragging off men and women and putting them in prison and even to death. And by church there, they mean the followers of Jesus the way not just fellow Jews, but people who had said yes to Jesus. And Paul was ravaging them. He was like, he was all out to get him. And so back in my day of not liking the guy, I had to go, what is this guy's story? What is up with this guy who's there? He sees Jesus. What is he doing hurting his people? What causes that? What formed him to make him think that that was a good idea? Well, let's just get into a little bit of his past. First off, Tarsus was his hometown. Saul from Tarsus. Everybody heard that, right? Saul from Tarsus. And Tarsus was a city that was planted firmly in the soil of the Greek and Roman culture. And it could trace its history back about 2000 years. It had world class generals like Alexander the Great and people like Julius Caesar who recognized its strategic importance. And Emperor Augustus even gave it special and extra privileges. So this was a pretty important city that Saul was coming from. It was a cosmopolitan city. It rivaled Athens as the center of philosophy. I don't think sometimes we realize that, that we hear about Greek philosophy. Well, Tarsus actually rivaled Athens as far as having more philosophers. It was a city of industry thriving in a textile business. And it produced material made from goats hair to make shelters. So when Paul talks about being a tent maker, this probably would have been what he was talking about. He was probably. It was his father's business, most likely, and he was apprenticed in it and learned in it. And because of that, all tents obviously aren't made for just Jewish people. Right. A cosmopolitan city of many different cultures. He would have Been interacting with all sorts of different people. And so though Paul was very educated, most likely he was multilingual. He also was a student of the scriptures, but he was also a student of the philosophies that would have been within his culture. He interacted with them, he learned how to talk with them. And I find that really interesting because I think sometimes we can think he was just kind of off on his own. But no, he was actually in the center of this very bustling cosmopolitan city. And I know if you're like me and you spend any time in coffee shops or restaurants or bars or wherever, you strike up conversations with people, right? And I believe that Paul Saul did that as well. And it's interesting, Saul is his name, also known as Paul. And it's not like Peter, when Peter had that encounter with God and God and Jesus changed his name, like immediately, immediately. But in the moment he changed his name, that didn't happen with Saul. He was Saul for a long, long, long time and even well into his ministry years. But Paul was a Greek name for Saul. And so it goes back and forth. And so if I do that this morning, give me grace, because I've been reading lots of things this week on Saul and Paul, and it goes back and forth. But in Saul's day, the regions from everywhere, from Spain to Syria were made to worship the goddess Roma and also the curiosity Caesar or Lord Caesar. And that's because Augustus Caesar declared that his deceased adoptus father Julius was divine. And so that made him the son of the deified one. Kind of convenient, right? And so even in that in Tarsus, they asked for special permission to not pray to those gods, but rather to pray to the one true God. The Jewish people did this. They asked, can we pray to our one true God on behalf of Rome, but not to your gods and your goddesses? And they actually were granted permission for that. So they were outspoken people. And they were. His family would have been called one of the strictest Jewish schools, and that would be Pharisees. And I think Pharisees, that word, when we say that word, something kind of happens in you, doesn't it? Like, oh, there's such a Pharisee. Have you heard those kind of phrases tossed around? I know I have. And if you've been in church, I guarantee you've heard it at some point. And we quickly label someone, right? Somebody that's too fundamental or too this or too that. Oh, they're a Pharisee. And really it wasn't a derogatory like title. They were people who were very, very strict and faithful in following the ancestral traditions of Judaism. And they wanted to defend it and to keep it pure. And this is where Paul grew up. His father was a Pharisee. His family would have been considered Pharisees. And so living in this as a strict Jewish person, we can say that Saul was a student of scripture. He knew scripture. He studied them, he lived in them, he breathed them, he thought about them. Often they would sit together and read and have oral interpretations of things. The Torah would have been read on the regular. And he would have looked at this not as a bunch of rules. A lot of times we approach scripture and we are like, it's the guide to life and how you're supposed to live and all the rules that you're supposed to follow. And I don't think that's how Saul looked at it. He looked at it as this great story that we were a part of and that this great story was continuing to move forward. And so as a Pharisee, he needed to look at it as I have to keep everything out that will corrupt this. Anything that seeks to corrupt the moving forward of God's story needs to be dealt with, because we are on a path. We need to keep that path pure. And so I think his motives, in many ways were right and good. And yet we can give them such a bad rap. And today we just use different words. We don't necessarily call people Pharisees, but we call them fundamentalists or we call them whatever, radical crazies, whatever. But Saul was doing things that he believed were right. And he thought that in the meantime, before this all begins to move forward and Jesus actually, not Jesus, that God actually moves his story forward, we need to keep things pure in the meantime. And so it was of utmost importance that he would fight and keep rigorously the Torah and the temple. And if you couldn't get to the temple, keeping the Torah was second best in that way. And so it was. You can just see how this was so entrenched in his being. And so in his home, the stories that would be told, the way his father would conduct business with him, the way that they would sit down and address the scriptures and talk about the story of the people of God would have been in his face and in his place all the time. So he was always thinking about it. And so he determined to set out and to live this story out with some zeal. He was a zealous person. We talk about it in scripture, we read it in scripture. It said it to Us, Right? In Acts, he himself describes himself that way. Later in Acts and in the book of Galatians, he talks about the fact that I was a zealous person. I was a zealous man. And I think that as he thought about zeal, I started thinking, where did that come from, though? Like, why so much passion? Like, I can read a book and get really excited and whatever, or I can hear a speaker and go, like, yeah, I want to do that. I want to be a part of that. But where did the zeal in him come from? It seemed excessive. The fact that he would go ravaging, wanting to kill people, that's excessive. I've gotten really excited about things, but I've never wanted to kill anybody for them. Well, maybe a little. No, I digress. But where did that come from? And I just want to say that, no doubt, yes, Saul's father would have explained every single Sabbath that the goyim, and that's a Hebrew word for nations or gentiles, not necessarily derogatory, but nonetheless, it makes a statement. The goyim, the people that were non Jewish, were a threat that was instilled in him over and over. If they're not of us, if they're gentiles, they are a threat to our tradition and our way of life. And so that would have been instilled in him probably every Sabbath. And if we let that happen, threat that would cause the hope of God's coming to be delayed. And so they fought with zeal. And Paul had signed on fully. Saul had signed on fully. He was a loyalist, he was faithful. And maybe you've met like those young teenage guys or early 20s who are just like hundred percent in for whatever it is they are, and they're always looking for action. Have you ever met anybody like that? I know I have. And I think that's how Saul would have been like, I'm here for it. I'm here for it. Tell me what to do. Tell me what to do. And whatever he was told to do, he was all in. He was a loyalist. And he would have grown up going to things like the great festival of the Tabernacles or Hanukkah. And he would have remembered great moments from the nation's history. He would have enjoyed Passover. There's one we hear all the time, right? We talk about Passover, this big celebration. Everybody makes a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and they come and he reads the story in the book that would be known as Exodus of what had happened and what would happen that this one God, what did he do when his people were enslaved? He liberated them. He liberated them and he overthrew the tyrants and he set his people free, bringing them out of Egypt and leading them to their inheritance, the promised land. God moved on behalf of his people. And Saul wanted to be part of the story. He wanted to be fully in there. He drinks it in. And he knows that a new and second exodus will happen, that God's story will continue forward to full and final freedom. And he was going to play his part with Zeal. But then there's all these, like, long moments of disaster and disappointment in the scriptures he's reading as well. And what do you do with those? How does that zeal continue when those are also part of the story that Saul would have been hearing and learning and sitting in? Well, the prophets, which he would also read, made it pretty clear they said it was because Israel sinned, that this wasn't moving forward. And so Zeal gets appealed to again. We got to get rid of this sin. We got to get rid of the sin of the people. We can't let the world in. Right? And you can see how this can just keep feeding each other and the ebb and flow of it. As he's listening to these stories, and again, his fathers and teachers would have also said it's because of the goyim. It's because of the world. We let them in, and this is what happens, because they run the world their own way. They don't believe in our God. They have all thousands of other gods that they believe in, and we keep letting them in. So that's the problem. We have to eliminate that problem. And therefore we, not just we Jews, but we Pharisees, we have to know the Torah. We have to say the loyalty prayer. We have to stay pure, and we must be ready to act when the time comes. That's a Pharisee mindset. Like, we have to be ready. And that's not all bad stuff, guys. It's good to know scripture. It's good to say prayers loyally and faithfully. Your own purity and morality matters. We need to give an answer and be ready. But can we take it too far? Can we take it with a limited mindset, seen as these are the only people that will be saved by it and the rest of the world? Oh, well. And I think Saul had some changing in his mind to do, and we'll get to how that happened. But I just want to think about a couple stories that would have formed that zeal. The first one is the story when the Moabite king sees the people of Israel coming into Moab at the end of their journey in the wilderness. And he hires a soothsayer named Balaam. Anybody remember this story? He hires Balaam to curse the Israelites. And at first Balaam refuses, but then money gets in the way, and he gets kind of greedy, and he's like, all right, I'll do it. And he decides that he'll do this curse. And so he sets off to disperse the curse. And the donkey, his donkey sees what Balaam can't. And the angel of the Lord stands in the way with a sword drawn in hand. And you know the story. What does the donkey do? The donkey sees this, and he stops and he lays down and he won't move. And he gets really mad about it. He's like, I'm not moving. I'm not going. Can't you see what's going on here? And Balaam gets ticked and he's like, come on, I'm making money here. We need to get here. I need to do this curse. And the donkey finally answers in a human voice. And, you know, growing up, maybe reading my children's Bible, I don't know if it was the person reading it to me or what, but I kind of thought about donkeys voices like, Eeyore, like, oh, man, I'm not moving. And I don't think that's the way his voice sounded. I think his voice was like, dude, what the heck are you doing? Stop beating me. Can't you see there's an angel in our pathway? I don't think he was like, oh, am I just gonna lay down? And so instead of cursing the Israelites after this encounter with his donkey, Balaam instead decides to bless them. And so why do I bring up this story? Well, this story would have reminded Saul that God will take care of his people, and he'll even use an ass to do it. And I'm grateful that he's that creative, but he will use whatever it takes, and he will protect his people. He will always protect his people. And that would have been instilled in young Saul's mind. And then the next story right after that, in Numbers 25, where the ways of the goyim, again, the non Jewish people were influencing the people of Israel in sinful ways. And so they were at the end of their wilderness time. And some of the people walking in the wilderness, some of the men that had been wandering were probably kind of sick and tired of the strict sexual morality that was going on. And they would have been all too happy to have a Moabite girlfriend to hook up with some beautiful about white woman and relax all these things that were going on, all these rules that they were abiding by. But a good Pharisee would hear this and they'd go, that means disloyalty to God and his Torah, as well as to their wives. And it also meant worshiping Moabite deities and following their practices. And so I think it's safe to say here in this story that idolatry and immorality were going hand in hand. Marriage and divine covenant mirrored one another. And so in their mind, as they were listening to the story, they would have been kind of connecting the dots. And what happens next in the story is what formed and shaped the imagination of many generations to come, including Saul. And that's when things got out of control. People were running wild, a plague broke out. Heaven sent retribution, it seemed, but they didn't care. They just didn't care. And one man brought a Moabite woman into his tent in full view of everyone, including Moses, God and everyone else. And he just said, I don't care what the rules are. I don't care what we. If we break things, I'm done with this and I'm going to take this Moabite woman into my tent and have sex with her. And that did it. One of Aaron's sons, his name is Phinehas, took a spear. He followed the man into his tent. He found the pair already doing stuff. And as he walked in, his rage and his zeal seized up from within him and he took his spear and he thrust it through both people. That's some serious zeal, guys. Like, I'm not the strongest person in the world, but I pretty much figure out that takes some strength to pierce a spear through two human bodies at the same time. But he did. Phineas did this. And as he did this, it was a defining moment because the plague stopped, rebellion ended. And so what would a young mind like Saul's, as he's hearing this story, be hearing? Phinehas is the hero of zeal. And from then on, he was, even to the point. In Psalms, in Psalm 106, it delicately refers to this whole incident, saying, phinehas intervened, and it has been reckoned to him as righteousness, reckoned to him as righteousness. And that word there indicates a relationship, a committed covenant relationship. And zeal became the outward badge of the unbreakable relationship. Zeal was the outward badge of an unbreakable relationship. And of course, there were other stories of zeal where this would have been instilled in him and he would have been hearing and learning. But this story and how it changed in such a positive way by ending the plague and the rebellion, stopping it, would resonate powerfully in Saul's devout Jewish home and in his young, formative mind. And this was the air he breathed. This was the air he breathed. I need to be that zealous. I need to stop that which is stopping the covenant from moving forward, the story of God from continuing on. I need to keep things pure, whatever it takes. I need to be ready when I'm called to action. And so this was the mind of Saul. Zeal worked, and Saul was ready for it. And so this is just a little bit of understanding. I could have given you books and books and books of the history of Saul, but these are just some snapshots of what formed him. He didn't just one day decide if it was a good idea to start killing people. There were things behind him and in his story that formed him. Now, we know that Saul had a radical change, and we're going to talk about that in a minute. But I think sometimes we think of him only there, and we don't think about the forming of who this was that became Paul the Apostle. And so today, I just wanted to give us a little fuller picture, a little clearer picture, if you will. And so now we'll pick up the story in Acts where we find the zealous persecutor of Jesus followers, the one who watched Stephen be stoned and agreed with it. And we're going to look at just who he was and what formed him and what formed him from becoming, from attacking people of the Way, the Jesus followers, to one that worshipped the same Jesus of the Jesus followers. That's a big change that's going to take place. So let's just read and get a little bit of a picture of who this man is. So we're going to read in Acts 9, starting in verse 1, it says, Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord's disciples. He went to the high priest and he asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem. As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? Who are you, Lord? Saul asked I am Jesus, who you are persecuting. He replied, now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do. The men traveling with Stahl stood there speechless. They heard the sound but did not see anyone. Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes, he could see nothing. So they led him by the hand into Damascus for three days. He was blind and did not eat or drink anything. So Saul, when he first came to Jerusalem, most scholars agree that he's about two years younger than Jesus. So he would have been there for a lot and seen things. Growing up and being a Pharisee, being from a Pharisaical family, he would have been privy to a lot of the stuff going on. Not everybody in Jerusalem was, but his family, I think it's fair to say, was there. They saw things. They knew things that were happening. Saul was right in the midst of them. He would have been sitting with teachers who were steeped in the ancestral traditions. Gamaliel was one of the greatest rabbis who he would have been sitting under, who later they actually came to have some disagreements, which. Think about that. You can learn to disagree with your teachers. Like, that's pretty amazing. But he was sitting in places of learning that were beyond the common. Okay. He was sitting in places that a lot of people. Jealous, I guess would be the best word, that they wouldn't have had the insight to that. But he was so in with some of the religious leaders because of that. He got permission from the high priest. I don't know if you missed that line in the scripture there, but he went to the religious leaders, and he said, can you give me permission to go to Damascus and take anybody out that's a part of this way? Like, this is the connections that he had. Okay? So he's going in there with backing people that have his back in this, and then he's on this road, and bam, something happens. A light that they say was brighter than the sun shines. And this voice out of heaven comes and says, saul, Saul, what are you doing? And I think it's fair to say that moment changed him. And I think it changed him in some ways, but not always. And just bear with me as I stick with me as I think about this, because history is not just about the event. It's about the motivations. And what I think happened on that road is, yes, Jesus got attention, the attention of Saul, and he stopped him dead in his tracks. Said, what are you doing? What are you doing? I am the fulfillment of all that, and I Don't know all the words that Jesus said to him. We're not clear on that. And it says that then he was blind for three days. And I don't know the transforming work that was going on in Saul in that time. I can imagine. I think we all can. I wish Scripture would give us a few more details, but it allows us to think through what is the character of Jesus, what would he have been saying to him as most important. And so I think that Saul came out of there and we're going to talk about it in a minute of different mindset. But he was still Saul. And I think sometimes we forget that, that when we have a transforming moment with Jesus and we think, man, everything changes. I'm a completely different person. And then we think about the fact that things like tools, like the Enneagram and other personality things teach us, like, I'm a challenger. I've been one my entire life. My encounter with Jesus did not take that away. I'm still a challenger. And so he allows our personality to remain intact. And I think Saul's remained intact. I think Saul continued to be zealous. He just had a reforming of where that zealousness was directed. I think that God can use us just as we are. And, yes, transforming and shaping and changing. But he doesn't say, you can't be Shelly anymore. He's like, no. In fact, I want to take the Shelley part of you and redirect it in different ways so that you're passionate about the things I need you to be passionate about. And I think he did that with Saul. I think he did that with Saul. And so in this, I think Saul got a more complete picture. I think Jesus in his time with Paul Saul on that dusty desert road, he said, let me recalibrate just a little bit and give you a more complete picture of what's going on. Because you are zealous for God and it's beautiful. And I'm here to tell you, I think Jesus said Israel's God has done what he always said he would. He hasn't left you waiting. He hasn't left you empty. I think he told him, Israel's scriptures have been fulfilled in ways you've never even imagined. Can you imagine being so zealous for God all your life? And to say, like, yeah, now we're gonna tweak that just a little, because I need you to see that what you've been striving for, what you've been praying for, what you've been hoping for, has happened. And I need you to see that clearly. Cause I got some things for you to do. And I think so often we're so tentative in those moments, right, where it's like, but I always believed this and it's really hard to let go of it. And he's like, let's just work on that recalibration a little bit. And I think he reminded them that temple and Torah were not the end alls, but rather they were beautiful signposts that pointed forward to the new heaven and earth reality that had come to birth in Jesus. So even in that, he was honoring Saul, he was honoring his personality, who he was, the things he had learned and saying. Now let's take it to the next step. Let's evolve. Let's have your faith evolve. And I believe that he remained fiercely loyal, a man of zeal to Israel's God, seen in fresh new ways, in a focus of Jesus. And he didn't exchange one religion for the other either. At this time, all the followers were Jewish. And he didn't say, I'm just going to walk away from Judaism and adopt Christianity. That wasn't. He was like, they're the same thing. Jesus is the answer for all of this. And so I loved even the way the worship team this morning focused us on Jesus is the center of this. We do all of what we do here because of Jesus. And then I just want to read a little further. In Acts 9, verses 10 to 19, and we're going to be introduced to a new character named Ananias. Now, this isn't the same Ananias as Ananias and Sapphira, because that Ananias is dead, but this one is still alive. And so we're going to learn a little bit more. It must have been a popular baby name at the time when they were all born. But it says here in Damascus there was a disciple named Ananias. And the Lord called to him in a vision. Ananias? Yes, Lord, he answered. The Lord told him, go to the house of Judas on Straight Street. That's a hard word to say. And asked for a man named Tarsus, from Tarsus, named Saul. For he is praying in a vision. He has seen a man named Ananias come and place his hands on him to restore his sight. Lord, Ananias answered, I have heard many reports about this man and all the harm he has done to your holy people in Jerusalem. And he has come here with authority from those chief priests to arrest all who call on your name. But the Lord said to Ananias 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. Then Ananias went to the house and entered it, placing his hands on Saul. He said, 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 him again and be filled with. You may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit. Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul's eyes and he could see again. He got up and he was baptized. And after taking some food, he regained his strength. And Saul spent several days with the disciples. Damascus. So who was this Ananias? He wasn't the dead one. He was alive. And he was part of a little group of Jesus followers in Damascus. Some perhaps refugees from the persecution that had been already happening in Jerusalem. And they knew, the people in Damascus knew that Saul from Tarsus was on his way and he was coming to put him in prison or to kill them. They knew that. They were clued in. And then Ananias, one of them, just one ordinary guy, gets a vision and he's told some things. And I would say he was a little bit reluctant. Would we not all agree that we would be a little reluctant to go address a person who you know has come to town to kill you? I'm not saying I'd go for tea with him. So it was a little bit, to say the least, he was a little reluctant. But God revealed some things to Ananias that were helpful in knowing but weren't for him to tell Saul. And I find that interesting that God entrusted some things to Ananias, but he didn't say, go tell Saul all these things. He had some things he wanted Saul to tell him. But he told him that Saul was praying. And he was in that saying that Saul's a praying man, he always has been. And even now he's praying, hopefully with a new focus as Jesus is doing his work with him. He also told Ananias that Saul was to be a chosen vessel through whom the message would go to the whole world, to the goyim, to the non Jewish world, and that Saul would have to suffer for Jesus sake. And Ananias had the discernment that that was good knowledge, good things to know, but not necessarily his to tell him. It wasn't necessarily his to go to Saul and say, by the way, you're going to suffer a lot. Like now, maybe his vengeful heart wanted to say that of like, you came to kill me, and I'm here to tell you, you're the one that's going to suffer. Right? That may have made him feel better if he would have said that. But he had the discernment to know that even though angel was telling him this, the one that was revealing these things to him didn't necessarily have that for him to share with Saul. But he did say some things to Saul. And the first thing that Ananias did and that he did say to Saul was two words. Brother Saul, two words, not, hey, Saul of Tarsus, I'm terrified of you. Just brother Saul. And from the teaching of Jesus himself, the members of this strange new group regarded one another as family. And immediately Ananias brings Saul into the family as a brother and actually calling him by a familial name. And Ananias recognized what anthropologists today would call a fictive kinship group, because at this point, all the followers are Jewish. So there's kind of a built in kinship. But he's like, no, this is a kinship that goes beyond that. You are family. And in the world that this would have been happening, family means a whole lot more than it does now. Here in our Western world, we think we understand family. We only have a small glimpse of how they would have viewed family. So for him to be welcomed in as family, even in his blindness still, because his sight hasn't come back yet, Ananias just goes up and puts his arm around him and says, brother Saul, Brother Saul. And I find it interesting that 15 years later, Paul the apostle would have wrote these words, there is no longer Jew or Greek. There is no longer slave or free. There is no longer male or female. You are all one in the Messiah, Jesus. And he would write those words 15 years after this incident. And so this became a part. This was formative in Saul's life when he was welcomed in with an arm on his shoulder as family. And then he explains that Jesus had sent him so that Paul would be able to see again and so that he would receive the Holy Spirit. And in this whole incident, when he touches Saul, puts his arm around him and then touches his eyes, I can't help but see the nurturing heart of God in that, the nurturing spirit as she comes and says, you are welcome, you are loved, I am here to comfort you. That's the promise of the Holy Spirit, our comforter. And she sent. The spirit is sent into that moment. And I can only imagine the turmoil that had been going on In Saul, can you imagine being really zealous, marching down the road, seeing fine, and all of a sudden your sight is gone and some radical things are being spoken into your spirit and into your world. And there was probably all sorts of turmoil and a lot of unlearning and relearning in three days. A time maybe of confusion turning into clarity. We don't get all the details, but it's interesting to me that it was three days the same, that Jesus was in the tomb. And I wonder if there's a reflection there. And Jesus said, I know it takes a little bit of time, so I'm giving you three days like I had, and we're going to relearn some things. But I just wonder how then in the midst of that, in those days of blindness and then in this moment of healing, the nurturing spirit of God was held in the body of Saul through the hands of Ananias. And he touches him. That's the other thing that I find really interesting, is that he didn't just say, you're healed, but he went over and he touched his eyes. And I'm guessing when it says there were scales that fell off, they could have just been symbolic, but I'm guessing something was kind of gross in his eyes. And to go over and touch somebody is such an act of love. When we can sit down and we can actually put our arm around somebody or give them a hug and allow them to know that they're not alone, that they're not so far removed and gross that we can't even touch them. But he touches him, and it says, then right after that, he's baptized. And there was no waiting, no test, no let's make sure this is approved, or make sure you jump through certain hoops. He was immediately baptized into this family called the Way, and said, welcome. We don't care what your past has been. We want you to be a part of us because we believe that Jesus has touched you and healed you and recalibrated you in all the things. And it was just like the Ethiopian eunuch that we learned about last week. It was immediate again, not having to wait and prove themselves. And then if you go on in the story, I'm not going to read the Scripture this morning. I'm going to let you do that. But if you look at verses 20 to 31, you'll see that Paul was rejected then. So he's in Damascus, and he preached at once for several days. The people are astonished. But then they start asking some questions, and they Get a little skeptical, a little leery of like, wait, isn't this the guy that was supposed to kill us? And aren't we supposed to just trust his word now? And they began to get skeptical and they plotted to kill him. And I just think, man, if I was like Paul, I'd be like, jeez, what's going on? Right? What is happening here? And he knows that that's a natural outcome, right? That sometimes people aren't going to believe just our word and they're going to have to see us and be with us for a time. But these people weren't giving him that chance. And they said, no, we just don't trust him. And they plotted to kill him. And the disciples and the followers that he had gained already there, they kicked into action and they got him out of harm's way and they actually lowered him in a basket out of the city, over the wall of the city. And honestly, I wonder even in that how that might been part of Saul's healing process. Because a man of his reputation as a Pharisee, it would be kind of humiliating to think I have to be lowered out of the place by a basket. Like, really, this is the big plan you have for me, God. And maybe he had to have some humility driven into him. I don't know. We're not given all of those. But I do know that the Damascus synagogue was not convinced that this hot headed guy had really changed. They didn't believe him fully. They were shocked at some of the things they were saying because they were pretty radical. But they were all so deeply offended that he would cross over, so to speak. And so then he goes, after he's let down and out of the city of Damascus, he goes to Jerusalem to hang with the disciples of the way there. And they're afraid of him. So he gets there and they're like, no, we saw you around Jerusalem, we know who you are, we know you have a hot temper. We know that you wanted to kill people of the way. Why should we believe you? And Barnabas actually advocates for him. And he begins teaching and preaching, boldly proclaiming Jesus as Israel's Messiah. Because Barnabas tells him, you can trust this guy. I know this is trustworthy, you can do this. And he conversed and debated with the Hellenistic Jews and then you remember there the Greek speaking Jews. And then they plotted to kill him. And so he just couldn't catch a break. And so he gets sent away after that. The disciples send him away to Caesarea and then back to Tarsus. For a time. And there's different. Scholars believe that was for a different amount of time. But it seems as though it was quite a long time that he sent away. And maybe it's just, like, let things cool down. Maybe it was a time of like, you need to learn more about this Jesus, the one that you were persecuting, because you really didn't know him. And maybe you need to spend some time doing that. I don't know how he spent all his time, but I do know that we're going to meet up with him a little bit later in the book of acts, in chapter 11. And Barnabas will go looking for Saul in Tarsus, where he knows he was sent, and he'll bring him back, and his missionary journeys will begin and we'll learn about those. But I think so often we start there with Saul and later became Paul the Apostle. And we just want to sit there in all the goodness that he taught. But there was things that formed him. And Paul Saul was a very Jewish person who was passionate about his God and protecting his church or his synagogue, his people, making sure that the story of God would move forward in purity and that things of the world would not get in the way. And he did it with a passion and with a zeal that came and defined him in many ways. But as we can see, it formed him, but it didn't define him. It formed Paul. All those ways he was brought up formed him, but it didn't define him when he was known as Paul the Apostle. And the same can be true of us. And I just want to ask you the question this morning. What about you? We all have stories, stories that form us, but don't define us. Maybe we have stories of abuse or addiction that are part of our story that formed who we are today, but they no longer define us. And can we walk in that knowing that the transforming love of God can actually cause that to happen? Our stories that form us don't have to define us, and they can actually be reformed. And I just wonder, as that happens, can we get a bigger picture, a more complete picture, instead of maybe looking at one piece of the puzzle, begin to open our eyes to the whole puzzle and seeing how that one piece called our life fits in and what we're called to do in it. And the next question I want to just ask as we close out our time, is, who is our Ananias and who do we need to be Ananias for? Who's the person that came to you and put their arm around you and Said Brother Josh, Sister Cindy, come be part of the family. We want you here. We see you. You are known, you are seen, you are loved. Who do we need to be that for? And who has done that for us? Who do we need to say thank you, to thank you for welcoming me, for making me part of the family? Who is needing the touch of the Spirit through us today? It may be somebody you know. It may be somebody you run into on the street. I don't know. But who is it? Will you be that Ananias? And will you thank the Ananiases in your life? And the last one is as we change and as we begin to see a bigger picture, as we are transformed by the Holy Spirit, we won't always be accepted by those around us. Saul was no exception, right? He got put out of the city. They were plotting to kill him. He thought, wow, I had this big Jesus moment. We can think that, too. We had this big Jesus encounter. And I love him more today than I ever have. And the very people that I think should accept that and believe me, are the very ones that I have a broken relationship with who go, oh, I don't think so. I don't think Jesus. Is that not what you're saying? And we might be misunderstood and rejected because of who we accept and who we love and how we love. And those can be really painful times. I've experienced some of them. And it hurts when your good friends from growing up or your family member goes, I can't be with you. We need to put you out until you change your mind. That hurts. And yet Jesus says, but will you trust me in the midst of it? Will you continue on your quest of a bigger picture of who I am, the fullness of who I am, the fact that I am the beautiful fulfillment of the whole Israel's Messiah story? I admit it's going to cost us. And I just want to say, are you ready? Are you ready? And if not, what do you need to do to ready yourself in relationship with others and with God? So let's pray. Father, Son and Spirit. When I think of this story and even how my own heart had to be readjusted towards Saul, who would later be known much more as the Apostle Paul. I can't help but think of people in my own life who've gone through some changes, myself included. And sometimes we think that we have to have a big, flowery story with lots of drama. And yet if we think and listen and look closely, we see you are right there with us all along, which is what I believe you opened Saul's eyes to. So would you open our eyes this morning that our story, our testimony, is beautiful because of who you are. So would you help us to recalibrate, to refocus for you as the center? Would you meet us there when it's hard? Would you send Ananias into our lives? Would you that could help us along the way? Would you help us to be that for others? And, Lord, may our lives bear witness to you and your glory. Let us fade away as you become more glorified. But also let us remember that just as the song we're going to sing in a few moments reminds us that if I'm not dead, then God, you're not done. So continue your work in us. We submit ourselves to you and to you, Holy Spirit. Amen. Thank you again for being with us. We would love to have you join us if you are ever in the Milwaukee area. And we hope you have a healthy place to gather wherever you are from. Sat.