“Trial by Fire (Acts 9:19-31)” | 4/24/22
Acts 9:19-31 | 4/24/21 | Will DuVal
“Why does God allow us to suffer?”
This question, perhaps more than any other over the last 2,000 years, has dominated the minds and the pages of both Christianity’s severest opponents, as well as her staunchest apologists. Many answers, aka “theodicies”, have been offered to this so-called “problem of evil”, but MOST of them appeal to suffering’s inevitability in God’s pursuit of some GREATER GOOD.
*Alvin Plantinga identified this “greater good” as FREE WILL: God’s creating a world in which we humans have free will logically requires the possibility of suffering, as a result of SIN.
*Thomas Aquinas identified the “greater good” as HEAVEN: “God allows suffering in order to judge and grant everlasting heaven or hell based on human moral actions and human suffering.” (Lumen, https://courses.lumenlearning.com/sanjacinto-philosophy/chapter/problem-of-evil-responses/)
*Gregory Ganssle argues that we are not ABLE to identify God’s “greater good” in allowing suffering; we must simply accept it on the basis of faith.
But most relevant for our purposes this morning was the early church father Irenaeus, who argued that God allows suffering in order to help us GROW, the so-called “Soul-building” theodicy. God’s aim in life is not to maximize our PLEASURE, and thus keep us from any pain; but rather, to maximize our PROGRESS. And what helps us grow more than suffering, hardships… TRIALS.
God’s word certainly endorses this explanation of suffering:
Hebrews 12:10-11 says, “God disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”
Or Romans 5:3-4 “we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character…”; it GROWS us, builds our SOULS.
James 1:2-4 “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”
Or one final passage, which inspired this morning’s sermon TITLE: 1 Peter 1:6-7 “you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”
Suffering and trials are God’s “refining fire”, which He uses to burn away the “dross” of our unbelief. He did it to Israel, in the OT: “Behold, I have refined you, [God declared through the prophet Isaiah] but not as silver; I have tried you in the furnace of affliction” → Sometimes we have to be brought to our knees so that the only place we have left to LOOK for help is the place we should’ve been looking all along: UP. To our heavenly Father.
And a refined, purified faith is ESPECIALLY important for those who would LEAD God’s people. That is the main idea of our passage for this morning, Acts ch9, vv19-31; that:
“We are prepared for MINISTRY through TRIALS.”
Why does God allow us to suffer? In part, because He wants to USE us as instruments of His love and grace, to reach those who don’t yet KNOW Him, but the sharpest instruments are the ones that have been through the hottest fire, endured the toughest beatings with the Blacksmith’s “hammer”. This is how God forms and FORGES us for ministry.
And we see it is SPADES in the early life and ministry of Saul of Tarsus. We met Saul back in Acts chs7 & 8, where he approved of the execution of Stephen, for his faith in Christ. But last week, in the first half of ch9, while en route to Damascus to expand his persecution of the Church, everything CHANGED for Saul, when he had a personal encounter with the Risen Lord Jesus. Saul was “born again” - death to life; he once was BLIND, but now he SEES, spiritually. And almost overnight, the #1 persecutor of the Church will become her #1 proponent and proselytizer.
But as we’ll see this morning in vv19-31, though faith in Christ secures for us ETERNAL life - “life to the fullest” that transcends the here and now - at the same time, belonging to Jesus in NO way insulates us from trials and suffering IN this life, in the “here and now”. In fact, Jesus promised all who follow him that “In this world, you will have tribulation.” (Jn 16:33) And in last week’s passage, the Lord said of SAUL specifically: “he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.”” (9:15-16)
NO ONE was more tested and afflicted than Saul, and not coincidentally, not unrelated, no one was more powerfully USED by God as his instrument, as a witness and minister of the gospel. Paul suffered in order to become the very sharpest instrument in God’s toolbox for reaching the lost.
And this morning, before Saul even gets STARTED, God is going to test and “TRY” him in 3 different ways here, in order to prepare him for 3 different AREAS of ministry. They just so happen to be the SAME 3 areas of ministry that we have identified here at West Hills as our driving purpose for existing as a church, our MISSION statement. So as always, we’re going to read OURSELVES into Saul’s example this morning.
I invite you to STAND… Acts ch9, vv19-31:
“For some days he [Saul] was with the disciples at Damascus. 20 And immediately he proclaimed Jesus in the synagogues, saying, “He is the Son of God.” 21 And all who heard him were amazed and said, “Is not this the man who made havoc in Jerusalem of those who called upon this name? And has he not come here for this purpose, to bring them bound before the chief priests?” 22 But Saul increased all the more in strength, and confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus was the Christ.
23 When many days had passed, the Jews[a] plotted to kill him, 24 but their plot became known to Saul. They were watching the gates day and night in order to kill him, 25 but his disciples took him by night and let him down through an opening in the wall,[b] lowering him in a basket.
26 And when he had come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join the disciples. And they were all afraid of him, for they did not believe that he was a disciple. 27 But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles and declared to them how on the road he had seen the Lord, who spoke to him, and how at Damascus he had preached boldly in the name of Jesus. 28 So he went in and out among them at Jerusalem, preaching boldly in the name of the Lord. 29 And he spoke and disputed against the Hellenists.[c] But they were seeking to kill him. 30 And when the brothers learned this, they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him off to Tarsus.
31 So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied.” This is the word of the Lord… Let’s pray…
Like Saul, we are prepared for ministry through trials, in 3 ways:
#1 - We are prepared for DISCIPLESHIP through SOLITUDE. (vv19-22; Galatians 1:11-24)
Saul had been CONVERTED, he was SAVED, back in v8 on the Damascus Road, when Jesus appeared to him and opened his spiritual eyes, and Saul finally surrendered in faith. But he regained his physical sight 3 days later IN Damascus when a brother named Ananias came and prayed for the scales to fall off his eyes, and for Saul to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Then Ananias baptized him and FED him, and apparently continued to house and provide for Saul for “some days”, according to v19b; we don’t know exactly how long. But we DO know that the synagogue leaders must have been pretty upset with Saul, considering they had brought him up to Damascus to help eradicate this “Jesus problem”, but instead, here he is exacerbating it! “Immediately he proclaimed Jesus in the synagogues… and [he] confounded the Jews… by proving that Jesus was the Christ.”
It’s a good thing the disciples living in Damascus received him, because Saul burnt all his JEWISH bridges instantly, those connections he had spent a LIFETIME developing; Saul had been a Pharisee, rising up through the ranks - it was all very political - but he had a good religious pedigree: he was discipled by the highly respected rabbi Gamaliel. But the moment he got saved - “the old has gone, the NEW has come” - Saul says, “whatever gain I had, I count as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” (Phil 3:7-8) He says, “I just wanna know JESUS!”
But to paraphrase Paul himself, from Romans 10: how can Saul know JESUS, without someone to TEACH him, right?
So now Saul is ready to be RE-discipled; trained not in the OT Law, but in the NEW covenant, in following JESUS. Saul’s been raised all his religious life to believe it’s all about who you KNOW; “who’d you train under”? So as a newborn infant Christian now, I imagine Saul latched on pretty stinking hard to Ananias. If someone prayed for YOU and suddenly you were healed of your physical blindness, and filled with the Holy Spirit, you’d probably want to follow that guy too, wouldn’t you? I shared a couple weeks ago my own conversion story, after a friend shared the gospel with me. Well, that was just the START of it, because I latched on and BEGGED him to disciple me, and we spent the next year and a half working through Scripture and praying together for hours every week.
That’s typically how we think about discipleship. Which makes what we read next in v23 all the more confounding:
“When many days had passed…”
HOW many days? And what was Paul DOING? Well, to fill in the gaps in the timeline here, we’ve got to go to chapter 1 of Paul’s letter to the church in GALATIA. Where we read: “I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man's gospel. For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it. And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers. But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with anyone; nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went away into Arabia, and returned again to Damascus. Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas [that’s the apostle PETER] and remained with him fifteen days. But I saw none of the other apostles except James the Lord's brother.” (Gal 1:11-19)
Paul is commending his own apostolic authority and credentials to the Galatians here by informing them that he wasn’t discipled by ANYONE; at least not any mere mortal. No, Saul received the gospel directly from JESUS HIMSELF! And not only that, but AFTER his conversion, he says, “I didn’t immediately CONSULT with anyone” then either; he stayed just a few days with Ananias in Damascus so he could witness in the synagogues there, but pretty quickly God sent him out to ARABIA. Here’s a MAP. Out to the DESERT, the Sinai WILDERNESS. And then eventually BACK to Damascus, which is where v23 of Acts 9 will pick back up - “When many days had passed” - 3 years, to be exact, according to Galatians 1.
Now, we don’t know how much of those 3 years Saul spent in Damascus the FIRST time, BEFORE heading to Arabia, and then again AFTER Arabia, before heading home to Jerusalem in v26. But what we DO know is that for SOME period of time in there, substantial enough for Paul to mention it, God sent him to the DESERT. Commentators have different theories on WHY - some think this was Saul’s first MISSIONARY assignment; he was sent to evangelize the Arabians. Not a lot of folks out there in the desert though, and there are no records of any new converts or churches starting. I think the BETTER explanation is that God sent Saul there to prepare him for his later ministry, by way of SOLITUDE. Seclusion. ALONENESS, with God.
That would certainly fit the biblical pattern, of God’s calling to ministry. Consider MOSES, arguably the most important figure in the whole OT. He spent the first 40 years of his life in Pharaoh’s palace. But how did he spend the NEXT 40 years of his life, preparing to lead God’s people? He lived a quiet life out in the desert of Midian. And after a quick trip BACK to Egypt to free the Israelites from slavery, Moses spent the LAST 40 years of his life BACK in the desert, preparing God’s people to enter the Promised Land.
Or consider JESUS. What was the very first thing Jesus did after being baptized, before he even began his 3 year ministry? The Gospels say, “The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness… for 40 days” (Mk 1:13). Same wilderness as Saul. Same desert as Moses.
Why? To be TESTED… Tried... Trained, by God himself.
The Israelites failed their test - they moaned and groaned about their suffering, and an entire generation was forbidden from entering Canaan.
Jesus of course ACED his test - God even allowed Satan himself to perform the temptation, but he was no match for Jesus.
And while we don’t get any of the details of SAUL’S testing, his training for ministry, we do know that he too passed the test, as he would prove so powerfully throughout his decades-long ministry.
But the question I want us to consider here with point #1 is simply this: how much of his impressive ministry did Paul OWE to that time he spent, probably mostly ALONE, with God, being preparing for ministry out in the DESERT? I may have my “Master of Divinity” degree, but Saul earned his “Master of the DESERT”. And how formative were those 3 months… possibly 3 whole YEARS?!... in SOLITUDE out in Arabia.
Solitude can be TRYING, can’t it? It is perhaps the most overlooked of all the spiritual disciplines. Indeed, it’s one of the least RECOGNIZED, as even BEING a spiritual discipline. David Mathis, in MY favorite book on spiritual disciplines, Habits of Grace, says this: “It’s surprising how loud silence can be… Getting away from time to time has always been a human necessity, but it’s all the more pressing in modern life… By all accounts, things are more crowded, and noisier, than they’ve ever been.” (Mathis, 137-8) And most of us are addicted to noise. Give us a 15-minute commute and we instinctively flip the radio on; give us a 15-SECOND wait for the shower to heat up, and we’ll reach for our phone to check the social media feed. We have all but eliminated “down time”. Pauses. BREAKS. Quiet.
But there’s a reason that we in the Church often refer to the time we spend in God’s word and prayer as “quiet time”; because that’s what it IS, and that’s what we NEED. Even JESUS needed it; frequently throughout the Gospels, we find Jesus retreating by himself to “desolate places” to “pray alone” (Mt. 14:23; Mk 1:35; Lk 4:42, et al). And he invited his disciples to do the same; Mark 6:31 ““Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat.” And when it comes to our OWN daily discipleship, there is simply no substitute for sustained times of solitude with God.
Now, that doesn’t mean there’s no benefit to being mentored, discipled, by fellow Christians, more spiritually mature than you. I’m not saying “go quit your D-group, your Life group”. But I AM saying that it’s no replacement for your own time spent alone with the Lord.
In the Psalms, God invites us - He instructs us - to “Be STILL, and know that I am God” (Ps 46:10), and there is a causative relationship between the two: the days when we’re busiest, when we roll outta bed and hit the ground running and barely stop long enough to eat or BREATHE, much less PRAY or open God’s WORD, it’s easy to FORGET that He is God, on days like that.
Discipleship isn’t a PROGRAM. It’s not a curriculum. Our growth in Christlikeness, as disciples, ONLY comes as a result of our spending regular time - QUIET time - with Christ, in His word and prayer.
#2 - We are prepared for MISSIONS through REJECTION. (vv23-25)
Look back at vv23-25 with me:
“When many days had passed [3 YEARS; Saul is BACK in Damascus now, after his spiritual retreat in Arabia], the Jews plotted to kill him, but their plot became known to Saul. They were watching the gates day and night in order to kill him, but his disciples took him by night and let him down through an opening in the wall, lowering him in a basket.”
Even though Saul himself was discipled by no one, he has apparently been back in Damascus long enough to have won some converts and begun discipling THEM in the faith. But not EVERYONE is excited about his ministry there. Some of the Damascan Jews who had been “perplexed” 3 years ago by Saul’s conversion, are now just downright PERTURBED by it. They’ve had ENOUGH of him disturbing their synagogue services with his Jesus-preaching. They have presumably told him to STOP, as the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem had warned the apostles, back in ch4. But Saul has presumably replied, just as Peter and John did: ““Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, for [I] cannot but speak of what [I] have seen and heard.”” (cf. 4:19-20) So they’re at an impasse; Saul won’t stop proclaiming the gospel, but the Jews won’t STAND for it any longer. So they resolve to KILL him. The once-famous assassin of Christians has now become the Christian TARGET of an assassination plot.
Once again, Saul is just following in the footsteps here of other notable, godly-yet-REJECTED “missionaries” throughout biblical history; we can just stick right with our prior two examples: Moses and Jesus.
God sent Moses to talk some sense into the Egyptians, but Pharaoh hardened his heart, and would hear none of it.
Jesus was sent to his own PEOPLE, the “lost sheep of the house of Israel”, and even THEY rejected him!
And now Saul too is rejected by HIS own people, the Jews. But it’s not HIM they’re truly rejecting; it’s nothing PERSONAL. God had to reassure the prophet Samuel of that, in the OT, when the Israelites demanded a king to rule over them like the other nations, God said, “They’re not rejecting YOU, Samuel; they’re rejecting ME, GOD, as their king.” I imagine the Lord reminded Saul of the same thing here: “It’s not YOU they hate and truly want to kill here, Saul; they are rejecting ME, Jesus.”
But how could God possibly use such rejection to actually PREPARE Saul for ministry? I’ll offer THREE suggestions:
First, perhaps God used this rejection to TEACH Saul. We say in coaching that you “learn more from the LOSSES than you do from the wins. Saul wasn’t perfect. He didn’t evangelize perfectly. I’m just speculating here - the text doesn’t tell us - but it’s at least possible that PART of the reason these Damascan Jews rejected Saul could have been that he needed to LEARN a thing or two about how to most effectively share the gospel. LATER in his ministry, Paul would remark, “I have [learned to] become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some.” And we’ll even start to SEE that in Paul’s gospel presentations later in the book of ACTS - he witnesses differently to the Jews in Jerusalem, than he does to the pagan philosophers in Athens, than he does to the ruling officials in ROME. But for all we know, that could’ve been a lesson that Saul had to learn the HARD way, in preparation for ministry.
Second, perhaps God used this rejection to IMPASSION Saul, to kindle the flames of fervor in Saul’s heart, for seeing souls WON for Christ. Just as we LEARN more from the losses, they also have a heightened way of motivating us, inspiring us to get back in the gym and train even harder, to bring home the “W” next time. There’s another saying in coaching: it’s hard to beat a good team TWICE. That loss usually serves as a good kick in the pants to the losers; they want to AVENGE the loss, and they come back with redoubled effort in the next game. Conversely, the “wins” can tend to make us complacent. And that’s reason #3…
MOST significantly, God used Saul’s rejection here to prepare him for ministry by HUMBLING him. By showing Saul that if he was going to be successful in the task to which God had called him - the otherwise IMPOSSIBLE task of reaching hostile REBELS opposed to Christ with the good news of the gospel; the impossible task of seeing them converted, radically changed, transformed; lost to found, death to life, spiritually blind but now they see - if THAT’S gonna happen, it won’t be SAUL’S doing; that has GOT to come from GOD! And Saul’s rejection served to KEEP him humbly reliant, not on his OWN strength… power… giftedness… intellect… theology… rhetoric… charisma… relationships… winsomeness… but solely on the LORD.
Paul would later write: “what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord…. to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. ” (2 Corinthians 4:5-7)
What about US? Do we allow what seem to be missional “failures” - we reach out to the lost only to be REJECTED - do we let that DETER us, or does it make us all the more deter-MINED? Impassioned. Does it make us more humbly reliant on the LORD, to do the work that only He can do - changing the lepers spots, melting a heart of stone? Do we let Easter - we had 473 people here last Sunday; as far as I know, that’s the most EVER of ANY Sunday in the history of this church; over 150 visitors, many of whom I know were NOT believers - but not a single one of them came up to pray with myself or one of the other elders after the service. I didn’t hear of ANYONE praying to receive Christ. Do we consider that a failure? Let it DEFLATE us? Or does it MOTIVATE us, to pray all the harder, for those seeds of the gospel that were planted to take root in the soil of their hearts, and grow into faith in God’s OWN good timing.
I have had a NUMBER of students from my time as a youth pastor in Culver, reach out to me YEARS later now as adults, to let me know that they gave their lives to Jesus. These were students I ministered to for YEARS, and prayed for, despite a few of them being the LAST students you would ever expect to surrender to Christ. And if I’m honest, with some of them, it had been YEARS since I’d even THOUGHT of that student, much less stopped to PRAY for them. I’d forgotten them. But God hadn’t. And sometimes I wonder: why didn’t God let me see the FRUIT of my prayers, my ministry, 10 years ago? But I don’t have to wonder very long: because it’s not ABOUT me - “MY prayers, MY ministry” - “the surpassing power belongs to God, not to us.” HE gets all the glory from saving sinners. And sometimes He’ll even save us from being tempted to STEAL that glory for ourselves.
God was preparing Saul to rely not on his OWN strength in ministry, but on the power of Christ at work within HIM. Such that Paul could write years later: “I will boast… of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” (2 Corinthians 12:9) May we likewise boast in our weaknesses, and rejection.
#3 - and finally: We are prepared for COMMUNITY through EXCLUSION. (vv26-30)
This one is most paradoxical of all! But we read in v26: “And when [Saul] had come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join the disciples. But they were all afraid of him, for they did not believe that he was a disciple.”
Imagine how Saul must have felt. He already spent 3 years ALONE in the desert. Then he returned to Damascus, only to be forced to flee for his LIFE in the middle of the night. Now he’s a fugitive - news of his conversion and escape has certainly traveled to all the synagogues in the area; he’s not welcomed there, to say the least. But the CHURCH is still skeptical of him too; they haven’t yet forgotten his anti-Christian Crusades of 3 years ago, their loved ones Saul helped round up and execute. But Saul’s got nowhere else to turn, so he decides to take a chance with the disciples down in Jerusalem. Only to be met with suspicion, fear, and exclusion.
Just like Moses, who endured an attempted, mutinous coup d’etat just on the heels of leading the Israelites out of Egypt; they tried to overthrow and excommunicate him.
Just like JESUS, who was rejected not ONLY by His own people, but by his own closest followers. Betrayed by Judas, denied by Peter, abandoned at the cross by all 12.
And now Saul too is excluded from the very community that God designed, the Church, to be so radically inclusive and life-GIVING. Why? THREE quick reasons:
1) So he can APPRECIATE the importance of an accepting, supportive community all the more. They say, “You don’t know what ya got til it’s gone”; til ya DON’T have it. Saul must’ve valued the Church more than ANYONE, having needed fellow believers so desperately for his survival in these early years, and yet having personally experienced the PAIN of being excluded. Related, then…
2) God allows Saul to be excluded to make him more empathetic. Later in his letter to the Galatians, Paul tells the story of having to CONFRONT Peter for excluding Gentiles from his lunch table in the cafeteria; it’s like they’re back in middle school. And the Gentiles weren’t COOL enough for Peter. Paul says, “Uh uh! That’s not the way of CHRIST! “There is now neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave[g] nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Nothing will make you fight for others’ inclusion like your own exclusion.
3) Thirdly, God let Saul be initially excluded to forge his friendship here with Barnabas. Who sticks up for Saul, vouches for him. And eventually convinces the other disciples. And Saul LOVES him for it; Barnabas would become perhaps Paul’s greatest friend and ministry partner, as we’ll see in the years and chapters to come.
So take heart when you feel EXCLUDED, brother, sister; God may be paradoxically forming you precisely FOR the very community you so desperately long for.
Take heart, when you are REJECTED by those you are trying to reach for Christ; God may just be humbling you, to keep you utterly dependent on HIS power and not your own.
And take heart, when you feel ALONE; you’re never TRULY alone; God may just have to remove enough distractions for you to finally look to HIM instead, listen for HIS voice.
And notice too how the passage ENDS? Not with loneliness, rejection, and exclusion, but in v31: “So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied.”
Peace. Edification. Sanctification. Comfort. Growth.
God BLESSES and REDEEMS our trials, and uses them, and uses a refined US, for the work of ministry.
This is the ministry of the church: discipleship, community, mission.
And God PREPARES us for it, through trials.
And by ministering TO us through our trials. This is the most important point of all; don’t miss it at the end: Jesus endured the most bitter suffering of ALL to minister to US, so that we wouldn’t HAVE to! He experienced the loneliest of solitudes, the harshest of rejections, the most terrible of exclusions of all: that of his own FATHER! “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” He experienced God’s forsakenness, rejection, abandonment, in our place, so that WE would never HAVE to. This is the gospel.
So if you’re going through a tough time this morning, take heart; Jesus is WITH you, in that suffering. And perhaps God is just getting ready to USE you in a mighty way for his own good purposes. Let’s pray.