Encounters with God is a sermon series about the theophanies or divine appearances and how they reveal the stunning character of God and his heart for a world that is lost without him. The Apostle Paul (known as Saul) had a life-changing encounter with Jesus on the Road to Damascus. Paul began his trip on a mission to arrest followers of Jesus and ended his trip proclaiming him as the Son of God. What happened to bring about this dramatic reversal? He saw Jesus, high and lifted up. Recorded on Jan 2, 2022, on Acts 9, by Pastor David Parks.

Sermon Transcript

All year, we’re talking about The Greatness of God. And today, we’re continuing a sermon series called Encounters with God. After this week, we only have one more week in this series before starting a new series called The Making of Heaven and Earth from Genesis 1-3. The greatness of God is evident in the work of creation. But as we approach the end of this series, as we’ve said all along the way: in the Bible, when God appears to someone it’s known as a theophany or divine appearing. And these encounters are wild stories; God never seems to act how we would expect. But these encounters, reveal the stunning character of God, and his heart to save a world that is lost without him. Today, we’re making the big jump from the OT to the NT, but we’re jumping over the gospel accounts of the NT. Christians believe that Jesus wasn’t just a great man, but that he was the only one who is fully God and fully man. So the whole life of Jesus in one sense is very much an encounter with God. But given the fact that we spent all of last year focusing on the person and work of Jesus, today and next week, we’ll look at a few divine appearings of Jesus that took place after his resurrection and ascension back into heaven. These appearances are not the Jesus meek and mild of his first coming, but the Jesus high and lifted up of today, the Jesus who is seated at the right hand of the Almighty, the King of heaven and earth. So today, we get to unpack the famous encounter with God and the Apostle Paul, who was also known as Saul, on the road to Damascus. In this encounter, we’ll see that God is the great Redeemer, even of his enemies. If you have a Bible/app, please open to Acts 9:1.

Acts 9:1-9 (NIV), “Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples. He went to the high priest 2 and 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. 3 As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. 4 He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” 5 “Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked. “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied. 6 “Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.” 7 The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless; they heard the sound but did not see anyone. 8 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. 9 For three days he was blind, and did not eat or drink anything.”

Let’s pause here. Back on Christmas Eve, I said that Luke was a physician who became a Christian through the ministry of the Apostle Paul, likely in the city of Ephesus in Turkey. After becoming a Christian, Luke did a careful investigation into the life/ministry of Jesus by interviewing eyewitnesses who were there. This investigation resulted in the book of Luke in the Bible on the life/ministry of Jesus and the book of Acts in the Bible, which is all about what happened next. What happened after the resurrection and ascension of Jesus back into heaven, so much of which had to do with the man who is...