YOU NEVER WOULD HAVE GUESSED...
The early Christian church was in turmoil. Peter, the leader of the 12 disciples and a few of the other apostles had been arrested, flogged, and released with the command never to speak about the name of Jesus again. Stephen was then seized by the Jewish leaders and stoned to death for simply preaching the gospel. And on the day of his martyrdom Scripture says that “a great persecution broke out against the church at Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria” (Acts 8:1). And even the Christians in those areas were being hunted down, arrested, and thrown into prison with little hope of ever to getting out. The early Christian church soon after the miraculous event of Pentecost didn’t look like it was going to survive for long. Congregations were split, families were forced to leave the city, and any organization was almost impossible. And so you never would have guessed what the Lord was about to do. In the middle of this violent persecution of his people, at a time of nation-wide arrests and unjust imprisonments, the Lord had in mind to spread his Word to the nations like he had never done before. He was going to use these events and people who were directly involved with them to bring about one of the greatest mission eras in the history of the church. And he was going to use a man named Saul to lead it.
You never would have guessed the Lord would pick Saul, would you? He was a Pharisee, for starters! From a religious group that had not only hated Jesus while he lived on this earth but was instrumental in getting him crucified! And on top of that, Saul was one of those who had watched Stephen be stoned to death and had approved of it. And to add even another qualification onto his ungodly resume: he was the main instigator in the arrest and imprisonment of believers throughout the country. Saul was anti-Christian! He hated the followers of the way of Christ and he had dedicated his life to hunting them down. No one would have ever guessed that Saul would be the one whom Christ would choose to spread his gospel to the world. But that’s exactly whom Jesus chose. Saul, who became the apostle Paul, went from searching for believers in order to arrest them, to searching for unbelievers in order to convert them. And nobody could have seen it coming. Not even Saul himself.
“As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’ ‘Who are you, Lord?’ Saul asked. ‘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.’ …In Damascus there was a disciple named Ananias. The Lord called to him in a vision, ‘Ananias!’ ‘Yes, Lord,’ he answered. The Lord told him, ‘Go to the house of Judas on Straight Street and ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul, for he is praying. In a vision he has seen a man named Ananias come and place his hands on him to restore his sight.’ ‘Lord,’ Ananias answered, ‘I have heard many reports about this man and all the harm he has done to your saints in Jerusalem. And he has come here with authority from the chief priests to arrest all who call on your name.’ But the Lord said to Ananias, ‘Go! This man is my chosen instrument to carry my name before the Gentiles and their kings and before the people of Israel. I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.’”
I’m sure Ananias never would have guessed what the Lord would tell him to do that afternoon! “Purposely meet up with Saul from Tarsus? Walk right up to the guy who had a hand in murdering Stephen and is intent on arresting every single Christian in the entire land of Israel? You gotta be kidding me, Lord! He’s probably faking his blindness and his sudden conversion so that Christians come out of hiding and he can gather them all up at once! Lord, I don’t think this is such a good idea for me to personally go and see the number one enemy of your church!” Ananias was understandably skeptical about this plan of action. But, of course, the Lord was not about to be talked out of what he had been planning all along. And so he told Ananias, “Go! This man is my chosen instrument to carry my name to the world. Go! I know this isn’t how you might go about it but I know what I’m doing and this is exactly what the situation calls for.” And so Ananias went. He laid has hands on Saul, he restored his sight, he baptized him, and there in the house of a man named Judas on Straight Street began the ministry of one of the greatest missionaries ever to walk the face of this earth. And Ananias found out that you can’t always guess what the Lord will do or when he’ll do it or whom he’ll use. Sometimes the Lord carries out his will in unconventional ways.
And that shouldn’t surprise us because the Lord’s grace is unconventional - almost by definition. God’s grace is not just undeserved love or unconditional love; it’s unconventional love. He loves those he shouldn’t love. He saves those he shouldn’t save. He does things for people he should have never even thought of doing. Who would have ever guessed that God’s grace would reach out to a man like Saul, convince his heart through the gospel, and mold him into a powerful preacher of the Word and an inspired author of Scripture itself? Who would have ever guessed God would love a murderer of his own people so much that he would do so much for him? And who would have ever guessed he would love us with that same kind of love?
We are certainly no more worthy of his love than Saul was. Not only were we at one time God’s enemies before we were brought to faith in our Savior, but even now as Christians we are pitiful failures, aren’t we? Think of how many times you’ve blatantly disobeyed the Lord without a second thought! Think of how many times you’ve simply ignored what God wanted and did whatever you wanted! Think about how many times you’ve said things that would make your face turn red if Jesus repeated those words to you. Think of how many times you’ve hated others. Think of how many times you’ve despised others. Think of how many times you’ve wished that bad things would happen to others. Saul was unquestionably a murderer, but so are we. “You have heard that it was said,” Jesus himself tells us, “‘Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment” (Matt. 5:21,22). If you have ever had bitter or inappropriately angry thoughts about another person you are labeled a “murderer” by God’s holy standard. And so I don’t know about you, but I’ve been a murderer hundreds of times over. And I will probably murder a hundred times more before I die. Who would have ever guessed that Jesus would save a murderer like me? Who would have ever guessed that Jesus would save a whole group of mass murderers like us? And who would have ever guessed he would have saved us in the way he did?
Could you have ever guessed that in order to fix the problem of our sins God would actually take on the form of a human body inside the womb of a virgin impregnated by the Holy Spirit? Would you have ever guessed that this God in human form wouldn’t use any of his divine powers for his own benefit while on this earth but only for his people? Would you have ever guessed that the Creator would then allow his creatures to torture him and mock him and spit on him and crucify him as if he were the murderer? Would you have ever guessed that the immortal God would die? Or rise from the dead? Or appear to hundreds of believers afterwards? Or ascend into heaven? Would you have ever guessed that our salvation would have played out in the way that it did? It was so unconventional! It was so unexpected! We couldn’t get ourselves to heaven and so God came down to this earth? We couldn’t keep the laws he asked us to keep and so God subjected himself to his own commands? We deserved to die an eternal death in hell and so Jesus died in our place? There was no way we could raise ourselves from the dead and so Jesus arose to secure our own resurrection? And now we don’t have to do anything? We don’t have to contribute in any way to our eternal life? We don’t have to be good enough or try hard enough or want it bad enough? God has done it all? Believe in Jesus and we are saved? How unconventional! How remarkable! How truly breath-taking that we have a God of grace. We never would have guessed he would save people like us. And we never would have guessed that he would save us in this way. But he did. It’s true. And because he went through all that trouble and all that pain to save you, your Lord will never take that forgiveness or salvation away.
That’s sometimes a truth that is hard to believe for new Christians and old Christians alike. It’s so unbelievable that God would actually do something like that for sinners. It took a while for the Christians during Saul’s day to believe what the Lord had done as well. Not only did Ananias have doubts about what had happened, but many other Christians were still a little afraid of what Saul had been in the past and what he now had supposedly become. But over time they saw that what they would have never guessed was actually true: God had taken the arch enemy of the Christian church and had made him into its strongest supporter. And the church thrived because of it.
You too will thrive under God’s grace. He will continue to carry out his will in your life just as he did in Saul’s - sometimes in some very unconventional ways. He will do what needs to be done in whatever way necessary because God isn’t bound by human impossibilities or well-laid plans or careful budgets or tireless efforts. In fact, the only thing God is bound by is his love because his love is what he promises to us. His love is behind everything he does for us. And if he needs to show his love to us in unconventional ways, then so be it. That’s what he’s going to do. You might not expect it. You might not even think it’s possible at times. But the Lord will come through for you and he will make sure that you, his child, are secure and at peace. Even if you seem to be in a hopeless situation with no way out.
There will be plenty of times in this life when you seem to be in a lose-lose situation. There will be times when your health or your family life or your job or your relatives or your mental stability seem to be unfixable. I’m sure Ananias and the other Christians around Jerusalem in the 1st century felt the same way as they were being hunted down for their faith. But look at what God did for them when they did not know what to do. That’s when the Lord is at his best, after all: when we don’t know what to do, when we are lost, when we are helpless, when we know that we can never solve the problem ourselves. That’s when God is at his best because then we can see God’s grace. Then we can appreciate his love. Then we can marvel at his incredible mercy for us sinners who don’t deserve it. God will take care of his people. God will take care of you. Especially at those times and especially in those ways you would never have guessed he could.
Amen.
“The peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” - Philippians 4:7
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