READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:
Exodus 3:1-14
Acts 9:1-22
- St. Matthew 19:27-30
Mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.
Who speaks to you on this celebration of the Conversion of
St. Paul, saying:
“Truly, I say to
you, in the new world, when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you
who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes
of Israel”
Thus far from God’s Word written that we might learn of
conversion. That conversion is the sole work of the Holy Spirit. Conversion
means to be turned by something other than yourself and by it be regenerated to
something new. In this case, a Christian, that is one who is saved by grace,
through faith, for Christ’s sake alone. Becoming a Christian is only possible
by His work, this is why He promises to do His work among us.
We know this, because Jesus, the Second Person of the
Trinity, is among us as One Who serves. And as Acts taught us today, Jesus is
One Who intervenes directly in order that His Name be carried into the whole
world and to all people. In other words, God promises to use means, earthly
tools, to do His great work of Salvation.
In fact, we believe, teach, and confess that we “condemn the
Anabaptists and others who think that the Holy Ghost comes to men without the
external Word, through their own preparations and works”, thus far from our
Augsburg Confession (AC V). This is not just a Lutheran teaching. It is a
Lutheran teaching because it is a biblical teaching, that salvation comes from
Scripture Alone.
So if it is Biblical, then it means we can find it in the
Bible, right? That we can find the Lutherans in the Bible? That maybe even St.
Paul himself was a Lutheran?
Now I know that’s silly, but only 50% silly and only because
the Lutherans showed up 1500 years or so after St. Paul and the Apostles.
However, remember that being Lutheran just means being Christian. It means that
you believe, teach and confess that all of the Bible is God’s Word and that He
works His salvation through it and His Sacraments.
So let’s go and listen to St. Paul’s preaching in Acts and
see if it is in line with that.
The book of Acts is not just some historical biography of
the Apostles, as if all we can get out of it is examples of a good life and
good works. Instead, St. Luke’s intent, St. Luke wrote Acts, is to preach and
teach that we must all be justified alone by faith in Jesus Christ, without any
contribution from the Law or help from our works (AE 35:363).
St. Paul’s own conversion is a testament to this. For, how
did St. Paul prepare his heart and mind to meet Jesus on the road to Damascus
that day? By killing Christians? By persecuting the Church that Jesus
sacrificed Himself to create? Is that an example for you to have your own
“Damascus Road moment”??!
St. Paul was converted with no merit or worthiness within
himself. He was found on the roadside to be an empty stone jar, zealous only
for the law and Christ came and filled him. Filled him with what? Look in Acts.
St. Paul was filled with the Word first, “I am Jesus, whom you are
persecuting, he replied. Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told
what you must do” (Acts 9:15-16).
And go he does, blind as a bat, led into the house of Judas
(not that Judas) not eating or drinking for 3 days. On the third day, his
pastor came to him, though they didn’t know each other yet.
Ananias brought the Divine Service to blind and famished St.
Paul:
“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 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 was baptized, and after taking some food, he regained his strength”
(v.17-19).
Do you see the Church there as you know it, here, in this
place?? Preaching, baptism, and the Lord’s Supper? I do. In chapter 13 of Acts,
where we first hear of his name change to Paul, we get to hear his first sermon
in a synagogue at Antioch.
There, he appeals to the five books of Moses, Joshua,
Judges, Samuel, and Kings all to show that from David’s seed, “God has
brought to Israel the Savior Jesus, as He promised” (Acts 13:16-23). He did
not use cleverly devised myths or philosophical knavery, but Scripture Alone in
order to convert his own people. How very Lutheran.
He concludes his sermon with Grace Alone and Faith alone,
saying, “Therefore, my friends, I want you to know that through Jesus the
forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. Through Him everyone who believes is
set free from every sin, a justification you were not able to obtain under the
law of Moses” (v.38-39).
This is how he continued to preach until the day he was
martyred, spending “considerable time…speaking boldly for the Lord, Who
confirmed the message of His grace by enabling [him] to perform signs and
wonders” (Acts 14:3).
His sermons did not change no matter who he was talking to
or even if he was being tortured. In Acts 22 about to be persecuted, he made a
defense in order to not be recounting his conversion: “I studied under
Gamaliel and was thoroughly trained in the law of our ancestors. I was just as
zealous for God as any of you are today” (Acts 22:3). “The Law”, being
another way to describe the five books of Moses, Genesis through Deuteronomy.
Scripture again.
“The God of our ancestors has chosen you”, he
concludes, “to know His Will and to see the Righteous One and to hear words
from His mouth…And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized and wash
your sins away, calling on His Name” (v.14-16). Baptism is only received by
faith in His Name, given to you by grace alone.
In Rome, in his last 2 years of life, St. Paul “witnessed
to them from morning till evening, explaining about the kingdom of God, and
from the Law of Moses and from the Prophets he tried to persuade them about
Jesus” (Acts 28:23).
St. Paul’s hope was not in his conversion experience, but
consistently and predictably in “What God promised to his ancestors” (Acts
26:6). Hope is trust, faith, and hope endured all the things St. Paul went
through, not because of his own mettle, but by the power of the Holy Spirit.
That hope, that promise is only found revealed in Holy Scriptures (v.7), and
can only be received by God’s grace (v.18).
St. Paul is not a riches to rags story or a privileged to
marginalized story. He has not come to lift up the poor and destitute to seize
the means of production from capitalist scum. He has come as a tool, someone
else’s instrument, to preach someone else’s message.
St. Paul does not get to use his life as he wants, not
because he is under contract or has been possessed, nullifying his free will.
But because the truth has constrained him. “For the love of Christ
constrains us”, he says in 2 Corinthians 5, “because we have concluded
this: that One has died for all, therefore all have died; and He died for all,
that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for Him Who for
their sake died and was raised” (v.14-15).
In other words, having received the complete truth of this
world, that Jesus has come in the flesh to save and forgive, nothing else in
all creation matters except that Gospel. “For I was determined to know
nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified” (1 Cor
2:2).
At this, all of the book of Acts and every epistle and
sermon from an Apostle confesses: sola fides justificat, by faith alone
we are justified. St. Paul’s life may show that it only takes one touch from
God to change a person, but what a touch! We now know what it means to be God’s
man on this earth. Not leading armies, starting cults, or gaining popularity,
but bearing the cross.
Going back to our Acts 9 reading, Jesus says, “I will
show him how much he must suffer for My Name.” (v.16). A true Apostle, even
a true believer, is marked by the presence of the cross, of suffering. Not
self-induced suffering, nor self-seeking suffering, but a progressive
recognition of sin in their lives.
Sin that needs forgiveness. Rebellion that needs
justification. A dead, sinful heart that need resurrection. This is true
conversion. That the sinner is wakened from his death-sleep, justified before
God for Christ’s sake, and stood again in the very life of Christ. This is why
God causes St. Paul to use these words in Romans 6: All of us have been
baptized into His death. “We were therefore buried with Him through baptism
into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the
glory of the Father, we too may walk in newness of life.” (v.4)
No human can initiate or instigate his own conversion,
because he is dead in his sin and dead men don’t do much of anything. However,
when they are raised to new life in Christ, when the Holy Spirit calls them by
the Gospel, when the Holy Trinity’s ultimate work of all eternity comes to be,
the sinner is forgiven.
And in the face of such overwhelming grace and faith, what
is there left to do but give thanks and live this life for Christ? There is no
payment to be remitted. There is no gift to be given. There is no sacrifice or
reformed life holy enough to merit. Jesus is on His throne and all is forgiven
in His Body and Blood.
Even though I would still call St. Paul a Lutheran, on his
way to Damascus, he was not planning on becoming a Christian. If it were not
for the intervention of the Holy Spirit, St. Paul would have continued as Saul
spreading murder, hate, and division, like internet Lutherans.
St. Paul called Jesus Lord, at his conversion, because he
knew and believed the Lord’s promises from Scripture alone. St. Paul was called
by Jesus directly, without any merit or worthiness in himself, but was given
merit to be the Lord’s instrument by Grace alone.
And only through faith alone, does St. Paul endure the life
beneath the cross of Christ, suffering for His Name’s sake, trusting in the
sure and certain promises of Him Who rose from the dead, that there is hope in
eternal life.
And St. Paul found all of that in the Lord’s Word and
Sacrament, just as you do today.
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