What a blessing to start this service with that testimony about the ministry in Japan. Tonight in our ministry in the Word, we'll be reading about Saul's conversion on the road to Damascus. Now, if that sounds a little familiar, it might be because it appears three times in the book of Acts. Our author, Luke, narrates it once back in chapter 9. Then he records two times in which Paul himself shares his testimony of his conversion here in our text tonight, and then later again in chapter 26 when he tells the same story to King Agrippa. Now, I think it's a basic principle of biblical interpretation that repetition is not accidental in the Bible. God the Spirit oversaw the writing of all the scriptures. and he has a purpose in telling it over and over again. Paul may have repeated this story because the circumstances he were in required it, but the Spirit repeats it in Scripture for other reasons. One of those reasons, I believe, is that the conversion of Saul into Paul tells all of us, not just those who see a blinding light and hear a voice from heaven, but all of us who are in Christ by grace alone, through faith alone, that our entire conversion to Christ, from beginning to end, is entirely and profoundly personal. Now it's true that the test of the validity of a conversion is not that it fits some preconceived pattern The true test of a conversion is whether it has resulted in bearing the good fruit which always accompanies faith, which John, the apostle, tells us about in his first letter, namely that one believes the doctrine of the gospel, that one obeys the commands of Christ, and that one loves the people of Christ. It wasn't long ago, a young woman called me and said she'd like to meet me. And she had been in our previous church. I'd known her for many years. And she'd always been a high-achieving, brilliant young woman, but very much plagued by doubts and overly introspective kind of personality. And she'd been through very difficult things in recent years. And she said, Pastor Dean, can we meet at Starbucks? I want to talk to you. And so we met. And sure enough, she once again was in a place where she said, I just don't know if I'm really a believer. I just don't know that I feel the Lord's presence like I once did. I want more joy of the Lord in my life. And I said, well, those are good things to desire, but I understand that you're feeling like you're no longer a believer. She said, yeah, I think it's come to that. And I said, well, let's examine this. If John were here, if the holy apostle John were sitting in front of you in this Starbucks, he would ask you three questions, which is the same three questions he asks over and over again in his first epistle. One, do you believe the doctrine of Christ? Do you believe Jesus was the Son of God, who came to save sinners, to live a perfect life, accounted to us, to die a perfect death, whereby our sins are atoned for, and that he is risen from the dead, ascended to the Father, and coming again in great glory? This is the Apostles' Creed, essentially. She said, of course, I've always believed that. I said, well, then, do you do you obey the commands of God? And those summarized essentially in the Ten Commandments. And we went through each of the Ten Commandments, and I kind of applied it to a young woman's life and the kind of issues that pertain. And she said, sure, yeah, that's certainly, Pastor. I mean, imperfectly, but I'm seeking to obey all those commands. I said, well, finally then, do you love the saints? Do you pray for God's people? Do you try to serve them in your local church? Well, yes, I do indeed. I do pray for them, and I do love them, and I do serve them. I said, well, let's get on with it then. Let's not overanalyze this. You're a Christian. You're converted. Stop fretting over it. Start living in it. If that fruit of those three tests is born in our lives, even imperfectly, then we are truly converted. And if we're truly converted, then we can be assured that that conversion was accomplished in a profoundly personal way. That's the title of my message tonight. It's personal. So I want you to hear now what Paul says again as we turn in our Bibles to Acts chapter 22, which you'll find on page 931 in your pew Bibles. Now remember that Paul at this point in the narrative has returned to Jerusalem and he's He's brought that great offering he collected from the Gentile churches back to the saints in the city of Jerusalem because that whole region had been hit by a famine and the brethren from around the Mediterranean were supporting the Jewish brothers and sisters in Jerusalem. And after working through some initial issues, which our brother Sean preached about recently, Paul was finally well-received by the local church there in Jerusalem. But there were Jews who were from Asia, from where those churches were, where those Gentile churches were, where Paul had recently been, who knew about Paul's ministry. They were on pilgrimage to Jerusalem. They didn't like what Paul was doing in their hometowns and those synagogues that were now divided. Some people believed Jesus was the Christ and others not. And they began to wave the bloody shirt in the temple by accusing the apostle of being against Moses, of being against the temple, and even against the Jewish people. Chaos ensues and the apostle is being literally beaten by the mob when he's arrested, and you can really say rescued, by a Roman tribute. As he is taken by the guards up to the entrance to their barracks, which is right there in the temple complex, Paul explains who he is to the officer and convinces him to let him speak to the people who have followed him like a big school of piranha trailing the scent of blood. This is Paul's speech to the agitated citizens of Jerusalem who are standing right in front of him. Hear now the word of God from Acts chapter 22, beginning with verse 1. Brothers and fathers, hear the defense that I now make before you. And when they heard that he was addressing them in the Hebrew language, they became even more quiet. And he said, I am a Jew. Born in Tarsus, in Cilicia, but brought up in this city, educated at the feet of Gamaliel, according to the strict manner of the law of our fathers, being zealous for God, as all of you are this day. I persecuted this way to the death, binding and delivering to prison both men and women, as the high priest and the whole council of elders can bear witness. From them, I received letters to the brothers, and I journeyed toward Damascus to take those also who were there and bring them in bonds to Jerusalem to be punished. As I was on my way and drew near to Damascus, about noon, a great light from heaven suddenly shone around me. And I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? And I answered, who are you, Lord? And he said to me, I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting. Now those who were with me saw the light, but did not understand the voice of the one who was speaking to me. And I said, what shall I do, Lord? And the Lord said to me, rise and go into Damascus, and there you will be told all that is appointed for you to do. And since I could not see because of the brightness of that light, I was led by the hand by those who were with me and came into Damascus. And one Ananias, a devout man according to the law, well spoken of by the Jews who lived there, came to me and standing by me said to me, brother Saul, receive your sight. And at that very hour, I received my sight and saw him. And he said, the God of our fathers appointed you to know his will, to see the righteous one and to hear a voice from his mouth. For you will be a witness for him to everyone of what you have seen and heard. And now why do you wait? Rise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on his name. When I had returned to Jerusalem and was praying in the temple, I fell into a trance and saw him saying to me, make haste and get out of Jerusalem quickly, because they will not accept your testimony about me. And I said, Lord, they themselves know that in one synagogue after another, I imprisoned and beat those who believed in you. And when the blood of Stephen, your witness, was being shed, I myself was standing by and approving and watching over the garments of those who killed him. And he said to me, go, or I will send you far away to the Gentiles." Here ends the reading of God's holy word for this night. May he add his blessing to its exposition. Let's pray together. Our Father, when we come before your word, we are reduced into humility as children to come and learn. We are like the apostle who has been blinded by your magnificence and needs someone to take him by the hand, show him the way. So we pray by your spirit, O Lord, you would take us by the hands of our hearts and lead us to Christ anew tonight, that we might know him, that we might know how personal is this glorious redemption that we have in him. Bless us now, we pray, for Jesus' sake, amen. You know, Paul is not so intoxicated with heavenly thoughts that he's not wise to the ways of the world, to human psychology, and to the benefits of good rhetoric. He knows full well that the Jewish crowd will respond better to what he has to say if they realize that he is one of them. So verse 1 tells us that he calls them by the warm personal terms of brothers and fathers. Then in verse 2, we read that he was addressing them in the Hebrew language, and actually the literal Greek there is Hebrew dialect, and many scholars believe that actually means Aramaic, which would be the common language of the people in that day. He then goes on to describe his Jewish credentials in his birth and in his training, even his early career as a prosecutor or persecutor of the early church. But I think he does all this not just to build a sense of commonality with his accusers, it goes beyond that. Because Paul is about to relay to them the very personal encounter he had with a particular man who is also the one long-awaited Christ, Messiah of God, Jesus of Nazareth. And it has changed. That encounter has changed everything he knows about his native religion. So he's going to tell them about that in just a moment. He knows that. Unlike our day, just telling a story, however, about a personal experience does not automatically validate it as genuine and authentic and true in the Jewish mind. Now I think Paul assumes that the Jews in Jerusalem certainly care much about whether something is in accord with their sacred tradition, with their customs, with their great institutions like the temple. So he makes the case here that he is a Jew's Jew. He was a Jew born in Tarsus of Cilicia, a city known for its great schools. Paul adds quickly though that he was raised, he was brought up in the holy city itself in Jerusalem, trained by the great Rabbi Gamaliel I mean, there were three great rabbis in this day. There was Hillel, there was Akiba, and there was Gamaliel. But Gamaliel was considered the premier, the very best, most celebrated rabbi of that century. Paul says, I studied under him. What Paul is saying, essentially, spiritually speaking, is that he was a Harvard-educated man. He also says that he was trained according to the strict manner of the Jewish fathers, full of hot zeal for God. This was not a guy who was merely going through the motions of religion. He didn't just follow the old rules out of some kind of customary duty. He loved the rules. He enforced the rules with zeal, even to the point of persecuting unto death those innovators who were following the Nazarene. There was nothing about Paul's state of mind or spirit that was easily influenced or vulnerable to new ways of thinking or looking to adopt a new identity. He was not unstable, like some in our culture today, so unstable as water. This was not the apostle. He was, at least to his way of thinking, a Jew's Jew, and he would have had it no other way. until something profoundly personal happened in his life, a totally unexpected, unsolved, unasked for personal encounter between the person of Paul and another person, this person being the risen and glorified Lord, Jesus Christ. Beginning with verse 6, the story gets very personal. Indeed, a bright light appears on the road to Damascus. But it is not an impersonal or an artificial light. No, this is a speaking light. It's a voice calling him by his given personal name. Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting? God Almighty addressing a man is a person speaking to a person. That's what we see here. When God saves a man, it's entirely personal. It's a personal thing that happens. Here, God calls out Saul's own name. And when the Lord saves us, the Bible says, and we at Sovereign Grace teach, that he saves us through what we call an effectual call, a personal call put upon our hearts that we cannot finally resist. We don't come to faith because we think it's reasonable. though it's profoundly in tune with rationality. We don't follow Jesus just because our parents did. The Lord often uses that instrumentally in our lives. We don't commit ourselves to the king of kings because we were born naturally wise unto salvation. Far from it. We naturally hate God. We despise his commandments at heart, left to ourselves. Nonetheless, God personally calls us to himself by this secret call, this inward call, that work of the Spirit of the Lord in our hearts, which we ultimately cannot resist or deny. The old hymn is right. Jesus calls us o'er the tumult of our lives' wild and restless sea. Day by day, his sweet voice soundeth, saying, Christian, follow God's effectual call to salvation is his own work. We certainly don't call ourselves into salvation. Paul says in his first letter to the Corinthians, he says, God is faithful by whom you were called into the fellowship of his son, Jesus Christ our Lord. That's what's happening to Paul on the road to Damascus and in the events which followed with the church in Damascus. First, he's being called into the fellowship of God's own Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, the very one whose followers he'd been harassing and hating and persecuting. And he was being called not only into fellowship with him, but with them, with the church. This is an entirely personal reality, an interpersonal reality. You know, we ourselves, It's so obvious, but it's important to say at some point, we're persons. And you know why we're persons? We're persons because we're made in the image of the personal God. He's not a force. He's not a cosmic vibration. He's the God of triple personhood, Father, Son, and Spirit. The God of absolute personhood, eternal personhood. Last week, a court in New York State heard a case where animal rights activists made a claim that it was cruel and illegal to keep chimpanzees in cages because they have personhood, too, and therefore should have the exact same rights as human beings. Now, the reason the lawyers chose to frame their case for kindness to animals, and who can be against that, but they chose to make their case or kindness to animals in those terms because they knew that we have ascribed to human beings the highest measure of legal protection because we ourselves are persons. And I want you to understand that is the rich heritage of Christianity in the Western world that even now, despite everything, we're still drawing upon that deposit in our laws. Except, of course, in the most tragic case of the unborn. whose blood cries out from the ground to God. Chimpanzees, persons, unborn children. As part of this very personal encounter, Christ also called Saul to leave behind his sins as he came into fellowship with the Holy Son of God, Jesus Christ. I mean, the Lord personally addressed him about a personal offense Christ himself suffered because of Saul's actions. Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? When Saul jailed and killed the Christians, Christ took it personally, even as an offense to his person, because he had so identified himself with his people. When Saul did it to them, He was doing it to Him. Dear brothers and sisters, we have to see how Christ has identified Himself with us. This wasn't an afterthought. It began before the world was formed. He foreknew us, which means He foreloved us and chose us for Himself out of His mere good pleasure. And when He came into the world, He came to live and to serve and to die for us personally, intentionally, Christ's death is indeed preached to all creatures, to all of Japan, to all of Australia, to all of the Americas, all around the world, for any who will come. But we know from Holy Scripture that the only ones who will finally come through faith to Christ are those whose destinies have been graciously determined by the Lord of all grace himself in their predestination. This is what the Bible openly teaches. In other words, dear ones, it has been personal forever and ever. The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep. So salvation by God is not the same, you see, as a man selling a pickup truck. A man selling trucks may believe it's best for you to have his truck and may cut his price to the bone to try to tempt you to buy his truck. His ads may even tell you he's your personal friend. He doesn't know your name. He's just offering you and everyone else something and hoping that you have enough money and awareness of your need for a truck to come and close the deal one day. He can't do it without you. He's helpless to do it unless you help him. But if you don't come and close the deal by doing your part, it's quite possible that he'll sell no trucks at all and be a failure as a salesman. So if he has to beg you or plead with you or tell you a romantic story about how wonderful you are, How happy you'll be if you'll just buy one of his trucks. He'll do that, perhaps. He cannot compel you to come, but hopes to persuade and, if necessary, to manipulate you to come and buy. He may become a little desperate in this, but at the bottom of it all, it's not really personal between he, you. We all understand. It's just business. If you do not believe that God is truly sovereign in this personal salvation I'm describing, then Christ is, in the end, but a salesman of redemption. He's desperately hoping that you, out of your natural wisdom or remaining goodness, will choose to buy the product produced by his personal sacrifice and owned only through the currency of your own self-generated faith. He's offering salvation, but he's not personally saving anybody. He's really a salesman. not a savior. But thanks be to God, the Bible doesn't teach that. God's Word teaches that Christ is not a salesman of salvation but a true savior of his people. Forever he has personally known and loved a people. And he came to give his holy life for them, to ransom them from death and from the control of the devil into true life with personal communion with him and his father in the work of the spirit. The good shepherd, you see, he knows his sheep and they know him. It's personal between them. For them, for them and for them alone, he gives his life. And everyone given to him in election, every one of them he saves. Not one of them, not one of his precious sheep does he lose, praise God, John 639. It's personal and it's perfectly effective. Now, Saul knows he's being addressed personally on the Damascus Road, so he responds in personal terms. Verse 8 says, who are you, Lord? And the voice said to him, I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting. You know, my friends, every sin personally committed by you is personally committed against Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God. Above everything else, that is what makes sin so rotten, so sinful. It's not because you've merely hurt another person. That's bad enough. You sin against the Son of God. I sin against the Son of God. There was a controversy back in the year 2013 where a student at Florida Atlantic University was suspended from his intercultural communications class because he refused to do an exercise in which the professor required everyone in the class to write the name of Jesus on a piece of paper, put it on the floor next to their table, and step on it. Don't you just love what higher education is becoming in America today? That story inflamed the nightly news on the conservative news stations for about a week. But the truth is, every sin is a sin against the person of Christ. Samuel Miller, one of the great Presbyterian pastors of a previous generation, a professor, said about those ministers in the Presbyterian church, who, in order to be ordained, would swear that they affirmed all the doctrine of the Westminster Confession of Faith, but secretly did not believe, in fact, all the teachings therein, which thousands of mainline pastors still do today, by the way. And Samuel Miller said, if there be such a thing as lying to the Holy Ghost, here it is. It is destroying the very intention, he said, of a creed. See, all sin, is a personal offense against God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit, the community of eternal love. Yet in amazing grace, the Lord still addresses sinners personally and allows that sinner to address Him in that personal way as well. Paul addresses his God personally. What shall I do, Lord? And the Lord sends him into Damascus where a devout Christian named Ananias would pray for him and instruct him and charge him to go to be a witness for him. You see how personal that is? And Christ personally sends Paul to a person who will send him forth into ministry to other persons everywhere. It's all personal now. Paul's whole legalistically bound way of life is being bulldozed by sovereign grace. And something new is being created in its place. Something full of life and vitality and joy. Back in verses 4 and 5 in this reading when Paul was describing his old way of life before Christ, some very grim words are used. Words like death. binding, prison, bonds, punishments. But now, after the personal encounter on the Damascus Road, he will go forth to tell of a God who graciously raises the sin-dead souls of his enemies into lively fellowship with himself, giving life in the place of death and free and grace-filled personal relationship in the place of alienation from God. That's what Ananias told Saul his mission basically was in verse 16, to be a witness for him to everyone of what you have seen and what you have heard. Instead of persecuting people in God's name, he is to share with people his own witness as to what Christ has done for him. That's why he tells his testimony over and over again in part. A personal witness about the person of Christ made to persons everywhere. Praise God, it's so personal now. The next verse is a place where I think many people have gone astray and missed the essentially personal nature of salvation. In verse 16, Ananias tells Paul to rise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on his name. From this verse, some people have concluded that the ceremonial act of water baptism is in itself something that washes away human sins. But I think that's not what the conjunction and means here. These are two separate but related acts. To have one's sins washed away is to trust in Jesus Christ and his finished work for you. I mean, if anything, the phrase, have your sins washed away, in verse 16, is more directly connected to what follows it, not to what comes before it. And I think the verb tense indicates that, calling on his name. Have your sins washed away, calling on his name. But baptism's important, don't get me wrong. Baptism is indeed the outward sign of that inward cleansing. You know, it points to the cleansing, it pictures the cleansing, it promises the cleansing, it preaches the cleansing, as we would say. So these things are connected in a sense like a wedding ring or an engagement ring is connected to being married or engaged. Yet the sign and the thing it signifies are not identical. I mean, you could have a wedding ring on and yet not be married, and you could be married without a wedding ring. Yet wearing a wedding ring can strengthen a marriage in the way it reminds the wearer to be grateful for and faithful to a spouse. Water baptism interacts wondrously with our salvation in a host of ways, but it does not establish it. Rather, as Hebrews 10 says, the believer's sins are washed away through the blood of Jesus, appropriated through the spiritual gift of faith. God, you see, personally washes us. He makes us clean from all sin. It's personal again. This Wednesday morning, if my daughter, Rebecca, doesn't have our granddaughter before then, she will have that granddaughter Wednesday morning this week. And we're excited about another grandbaby. I'm not nearly at the high water mark of this brother, but covenant children and grandchildren, no sweeter thing in our lives. And one of the sweetest things with a little baby, the littlest ones, is when you give them a bath. You know, you don't even put them in the tub. I mean, I was bathed in my mother's sink. Baby, you wash them. It's personal, intimate. That's the nature of salvation, brothers and sisters. Our Father washes us and gives us love. Dr. Sinclair Ferguson says that was what all but killed Christianity in Scotland. They developed a doctrinal sense of grace, but they forgot the personal nature of salvation, that it was in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. But brothers and sisters, still, this command to be baptized does help us by reminding us that our personal salvation is always connected to the church. That's why we plant churches. The people of the church, the worship by the church, on the Lord's Day, the church's sacraments of holy baptism and the Lord's Supper. When we're personally saved by the Lord, we are saved into a church community which has in her hands the Christ-appointed means to keep our personal union with Jesus lively and vibrant and refreshed. The preaching of His Word, the fellowship of the saints, the prayers, the sacraments. I guess what I'm saying is that while salvation is personal, it is not private. Salvation is actually not like that favorite sentimental old hymn in the garden. This is not a private relationship with Jesus in the garden where you go alone with him and enjoy that thing that nobody else has ever known. Now we may indeed commune with Christ by ourselves, but only as a kind of pivot point back into fellowship with others in him and receiving the means of grace he has appointed for us in his word held by his church. And the first thing the Lord did with Saul after he communicated with him personally on the road to Damascus, the first thing was not to go for a walk with Saul or now Paul in the garden, but to send him into the church in Damascus to receive instruction and prayers and baptism. Moreover, the reason that the message from Paul was rejected by the Jews in Jerusalem, you should know this, you should pay attention to this, this is significant. It was not because they could not fathom that Jesus of Nazareth had spoken to him on the road to Damascus. They knew that God could, in fact, speak to people directly. Their Hebrew scriptures had numerous accounts of that. This was not unfathomable to them. No, they could not fathom that the Gentiles would be included in the church now. He was calling all of Jerusalem to go to church in a new way, and they would have none of it. Next week, we'll see with the very next verse, that's when it breaks. I mean, it's exactly when he says that that all heck breaks loose. Salvation is personal, but it is not private. It is corporate in that sense. Now, finally, at Christ's command, And for your sake, I, as his appointed ambassador, didn't you love what John Payne said last week, that faithful churches are like embassies from heaven on earth, and that faithful ministers are like ambassadors of heaven? I believe that's true. So I'm gonna have to get personal, because that's the way the king does it, that I represent him. Do you understand that God saves you personally? Do you believe, do you really believe that God has come into your life and has personally, intentionally saved you? Whether you were one of those covenant children who never knew a time when you didn't love and serve and trust in Christ, or whether you were someone who's been saved late in life after a life of hard living and hard sinning, or whether you're somewhere in between, which is where many are. Whatever the case may be, If tonight you trust in the promise of God in Christ, then truly Jesus Christ from heaven has personally intervened and he has saved you. Or this gospel is not true. He has saved you. He's done it. And he's done it because he purposed to do it personally and particularly for you before the sun and the moon and the stars were set in their courses. Ever he has loved you. Out of that boundless ineffable well of divine initiated love, God has set his love upon you. And his love is effective. And that's why you've come to trust him. It's the fruit, you see, your trust in Him is the fruit of His love for you, which came before you trusted Him. Concerning you, it has always been personal with Him, and it still is to this moment. Or are you still in doubt about all this? Have you never been committed to the Lord before? Do you want to follow in this personal way of following Christ tonight? Or are you one who's always been in the church, but somehow you've never been of the church? You've never believed that Christ interposed His precious blood for you personally and particularly. Do you not believe it yet? After this, I'm tempted to say what the old hymn says, what more can he say than to you he hath said, to you who for refuge to Jesus hath fled. If you come to him, come personally, because he's coming personally to you. You must believe in the promise that he's done this for you personally, and you will only believe the promise that he has done it for you personally, because you have in fact come to know by his grace, through his spirit, his person, which is his great gift. This is not knowing about, this isn't the biblical sense of knowing, it's covenant knowledge, it's relational knowledge, it's intimate knowledge. Several centuries ago, I'll close with this. Several centuries ago, a great pastor named Samuel Rutherford wrote a list of objections that people typically made to gospel promises. Objections that he then provided the answer for. Objection number nine from Samuel Rutherford was this, I would believe in the dark if I only had comfort. In other words, I would believe the gospel even in the context of hard and inexplicable circumstances in my life, even if I didn't have answers to any of my suffering, if only God would just comfort me first, then I would believe. Do you know what Rutherford's answer was to this objection? It's quite bracing. incorrect in our day. That's why I love it. He said, and little thanks to you to swim when Christ holds up your chin. He said, the greatest praise to your faith, the greatest honor to Christ that can ever be is when faith walks upon the fewest legs, neither feeling or joy or experience or sight, but only this one. He is faithful. who has promised, so said my beloved Christ, and I will believe." If you know him, it is indeed so personal. It couldn't be more personal. He is faithful, who has promised, so said my beloved Christ, and I will believe. Christ is calling. Christ is calling you through the gospel. May you be given the grace to hear Let's pray together. Our Father, how we thank you that you still minister to your people through your word and spirit. And we thank you in this profoundly depersonalized world, so full of alienation, so full of loneliness, so full of shallow forms of virtual internet relationships. Oh God, thank you for the incarnate love of God in Jesus Christ, our Lord. Thank you that he loves us personally and he always has and he always will. Thank you that his spirit comes and invades our hearts and makes us new people, freed from the bondage of our prior life, to live in a lively communion with him and with one another. Oh God, this gospel is almost too good to believe. If it weren't you saying it, we would doubt it could be true. So, Lord, establish us in this grace, we pray. Make us ever new in Christ. Keep us faithful this week until we return into Your house again next week. For Christ's sake, we pray. Amen.