What does it take for God to get someone's attention? Scripture tells us that God often speaks with a still, small voice. But it's also true that when necessary God will do what it takes to get our attention. For some of us, it means hitting rock bottom before finally turning to God, just as the prodigal son had to find himself foraging for food among the swine before realizing the error of his ways and turning back toward his father's house.

But in Saul's case, things were going along fine. Here was a well-educated, well-regarded, upstanding citizen with a strong sense of traditional values. Saul was a faithful religious man, a Pharisee no less, schooled under the finest rabbis and steeped in the Hebrew Scriptures and traditions. Furthermore, Saul was a Roman citizen, raised in the university town of Tarsus and well-versed in the ideas and philosophies of Greco-Roman culture. He had drive and ambition, and he was zealous in what he believed was his service to God.

That's where the story of Saul's conversion is so intriguing. Saul wasn't a criminal. He wasn't an unbelieving heathen. He worshiped the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He wasn't just a "go-to-temple-on-Passover" kind of Jew; he was actively involved in his faith community. And he firmly believed this early Christian movement was a genuine threat to his society and to his faith. In this, Saul was as sincere and devout as anyone could be.

Which raises the question I often hear in our multi-cultural society today: "As long as someone is sincere and devout in their beliefs, isn't that what really matters? Whether you're a devout Jew, or a devout Christian, or a devout Buddhist, isn't that what's really important?" I would argue that the overwhelming witness of the Bible is that devotion or sincerity alone isn't sufficient for entrance into the Kingdom of God. What we believe does matter. Whom we believe is important. Saul was sincere. It just turns out he was sincerely mistaken. And God needed to get Saul's attention.

And it wasn't just that God wanted to tell Saul that he should be tolerant and accept those Christians as one of many valid belief systems. God wanted to tell Saul that he was sincerely mistaken on one crucial, central point: Who is Jesus?

One can find common ground in many of the world's great religions. Variations on the golden rule can be found in many cultures. But where religions differ is on that one, vital question: Who is Jesus? Muslims believe that Jesus was a prophet sent by God, but that Muhammed was a greater prophet. Buddhists believe that Jesus was an enlightened teacher who relayed some partial truths about the Divine. Secular humanists might believe that Jesus was merely a good person who taught moral values like love and kindness.

And Saul? Saul believed that Jesus was a heretic, an imposter, one who had been rightly put to death and that was the end of it. Let's try to get inside Saul's head a little bit: Saul, as a good Jew, believed that God would send a Messiah. But the death of Jesus on the cross proved, for Saul, that Jesus could not be that Messiah. In the pre-Christian Saul's mind, a crucified Messiah was a contradiction of terms. Crucifixion was considered a sign of being accursed by God, so in Saul's logic anyone who was crucified could not be the Messiah. The cross was indeed a stumbling block for Saul. And so he zealously set out to suppress and destroy in the name of God what he perceived as the harmful, false teaching of the Christians.

This is where we meet Saul in Acts 9 on the way to Damascus (to where many of the believers had fled after the stoning of Stephen in Acts 7). His intent was to forcibly arrest those who believed in Jesus and bring them back in chains to Jerusalem. Saul sincerely believed that what he was doing was right and in defense of his society. But he was sincerely mistaken.

So God gets Saul's attention in perhaps the most powerful way He could. Saul, on that road to Damascus, encounters a blazing light that knocks him to the ground. And then a voice from heaven says, "Saul, Saul." That got his attention! As a rabbi, he probably understood the glorious light and the voice from heaven to be a message from God himself.

But then the voice asks, "Why do you persecute me?" Saul was no doubt confused. He wasn't persecuting God! He was defending God and his laws! So Saul stumbles out, "Who are you, Lord?" In what must have been for Saul almost total disbelief, he hears the following reply: "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting."

Suddenly Saul's whole world is knocked upside-down. If Jesus isn't dead, then… just who is He? Saul's question, "Who are you, Lord," is the question. If Jesus is indeed alive, if Jesus did indeed rise again after being crucified, if Jesus was indeed addressing Saul in the radiance of God's glory, then there was only one conclusion Saul could reach!

This encounter with the risen Christ demolishes Saul's conviction that the resurrection was a myth or a fraud. When faced with the risen Christ, Saul can only conclude that the claim of the Christians he has been persecuting is correct: Jesus is indeed the Messiah.

You see, Saul's fundamental assumption about who Jesus was needed to change. He is confronted with the fact that his persecution in the name of God has in fact been persecution of God. Up to this point, Saul had been perfectly devout in his beliefs and in his actions, but he had been sorely mistaken on one key point: Who is Jesus?

It took nothing less than an encounter with the resurrected Christ to get Saul's attention so that God could give him a new heart, a new direction, and a new purpose in life.

For God, we will find out later in Acts, had a plan for Saul. God had a plan for Saul that would take Saul from being the great persecutor of the faith to becoming the great propagator of the faith, from being the dogged pursuer of the church to becoming its most determined proponent. The legalistic Pharisee would become the great proclaimer of the grace of God. Indeed we're told in verse 20 that after only a few days, Saul's heart had been so changed that he began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues, saying, "He is the Son of God." This sudden change of heart raised eyebrows both among the Christians and the Jews! Saul's reputation had preceded him, and both Jews and Christians thought he was going to come in and slam the Christians into jail. Yet in verse 22 we read that he would confound the Jews in Damascus by proving that Jesus was the Messiah.

The Saul who showed up in Damascus was not the same Saul who had left Jerusalem a few days before. Saul the legalistic Pharisee had become Paul the Apostle of the heart set free, who declared that true religion is not about how devout you are or how well you follow the letter of the law, but faith in the saving grace of Jesus Christ.

What brought about this radical change of heart? Saul met Jesus. You know what's astounding? Saul didn't even seek God out; God sought him. Saul thought he was just fine; he was a solid, upstanding guy, like so many good, sincere people we know. Like so many today, he didn't even know he needed a Savior! You see, Saul had already experienced worldly success; but God sought him out and called him to a new life of spiritual significance in God's kingdom. And this one life had perhaps more influence on the Christian faith than any other human being save Jesus himself.

What do we learn from Saul's encounter with Christ? I have fourteen points… Just kidding-I have only four brief points:

• First, life really begins with an encounter with Jesus Christ. Saul's encounter was historically unique in that he experienced a physical meeting with the risen and exalted Jesus; we all don't experience a flash of light and a voice from heaven. But for us as well, at some point, in some fashion-in a dramatic way or in a quiet way-in a Billy Graham crusade or in a quiet prayer by the bedside-life really begins when we encounter Jesus not simply as a concept but as our living Lord. As Lloyd Ogilvie writes, "In our lives we are either being prepared for that encounter or we are living in the assurance of it." Being sufficiently devout and sincere in whatever isn't the key to entrance into God's kingdom; faith in Jesus Christ is. In Him is life.
  
  

• Second, God has a purpose for every life which we discover only after we have met him. Saul was very successful in what he did before meeting Christ. He was a moral, upstanding rabbi and Roman citizen. He was very successful, but His gifts were wasted, even being used in a destructive way, until that encounter with Christ that changed his heart and turned his energies toward Christ's service. Until someone meets Jesus, until they recognize Jesus as the Messiah, as the Savior, they may be living their life with some sincere purpose but they really don't know the joy of being a part of God's purposes. As did Saul, we discover our true God-given purpose as we meet Christ and encounter the love and grace of a living, personal God.
  
  

• Third, we learn that God can do whatever it takes to get through to an individual. In Saul's case Jesus personally and physically appeared to him on the road. That won't happen to you and me, but God is blessedly persistent in drawing those he has called into a relationship with him. Sometimes it takes the proverbial 2x4 upside the head to get our attention, like some major personal crisis; other times God gets through to us in softer, more subtle ways, if we're listening. Now maybe there is someone you know, perhaps a coworker or someone in your own family, who doesn't yet know Christ or is adrift in his or her faith, who is struggling for direction, who is maybe even antagonistic toward the Christian faith, and you don't know how God will ever get through to that person. Pray for that person, for if God could change Saul's heart, he can change anyone's. He might even use you to help do it.
  
  

• Fourth, the conversion of Saul teaches us that we must never underestimate the value of one person brought to Christ. One life, cleansed by God's grace and yielded to God's purposes, can bring about more lasting good than we might even realize. That's what keeps me going when I look at our missions work in Africa, or Mexico, or South America, or in our own urban centers. The problems are huge. We're never going to completely solve the problems of poverty and hunger in those places. But if through our missions work in Tijuana, or South America, or Africa, or the Crisis Center downtown, if God leads just one individual into a personal relationship with Him, if God changes just one heart, who knows how the effect of that one changed life will ripple through generations to come.

Amen.

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