Now Paul was selected as the chosen vessel of Christ to be the apostle to the Gentiles, but elsewhere we as Christians are called the chosen vessels of God as well. And each one here who is a Christian has been chosen by Christ to be Christ's instrument to do what? To carry His name to your neighbor, to your business associates, and to carry the name of Jesus in this day and age, can be weighty business indeed. Discovering the sovereignty of God, recognizing that Scripture teaches that God chose us before the foundation of the world changes how we live the Christian life and how we approach God in prayer. His ways are higher than our ways.
His thoughts are higher than our thoughts. So knowing that God is sovereign, how would you respond if God called you to pay a visit to a man you knew to be a persecutor of the church? Welcome to the Sunday edition of Renewing Your Mind, as each week we feature the preaching ministry of R.C. Sproul, the founder of Ligonier Ministries. This is our final Sunday in the book of Acts, so if you'd like to study Acts further with Dr. Sproul, be sure to request the hardcover edition of his expositional commentary on Acts while there's still time, by visiting renewingyourmind.org with a donation of any amount.
And remember, this offer ends at midnight, and it won't be repeated next Sunday. Ananias was called to visit a persecutor of the church, Saul. A terrifying thought that God had plans for Ananias and Saul to be vessels in his hands. And God has plans for us too. Here's Dr. Sproul.
Sproul. We're going to continue this morning with our study of the book of the Acts of the Apostles, and this morning we'll be looking at Acts chapter 9, and I'll be reading verses 10 through 19, rather than through 22. It'll be Acts 9, 10 through 19. Now there was a certain disciple at Damascus named Ananias, and to him the Lord said in a vision, Ananias. And he said, Here I am, Lord. And so the Lord said to him, Arise and go to the street called Straight, and inquire at the house of Judas, for one called Saul of Tarsus, for behold he is praying. And in a vision he has seen a man named Ananias coming in and putting his hand on him so that he might receive his sight. Then Ananias answered, Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much harm he has done to your saints in Jerusalem. And here he has authority from the chief priest to bind all who call on your name. The Lord said to him, Go, for he is a chosen vessel of mine to bear my name before Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel.
For I will show him how many things he must suffer for my name's sake. And Ananias went his way and entered the house, and laying his hands on him he said, Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you came, has sent me that you may receive your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit. And immediately there fell from his eyes something like scales, and he received his sight at once, and he arose and was baptized, so that when he had received food he was strengthened.
And then Saul spent some days with the disciples at Damascus. Let us pray. Father, how grateful we are for this record of your touch on the life of Saul of Tarsus, and of this particular interlude by which you restored to him his vision and filled him with your Spirit. Teach us this morning the truth that you have inspired, and apply it to our own souls for Thy sake.
Amen. Last Sunday morning we looked at the record of Saul's conversion on the road to Damascus, to Damascus, where on his journey, breathing out threats of murder against the early Christians, he was knocked to the ground by the burning bright light that shone at the noonday brighter than the sun. And out of the light he heard a voice calling to him in Hebrew, saying, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? And you remember that when he was hearing this voice he responded by saying, Who is it, Lord? He didn't know or recognize the voice, but he knew whoever it was who had appeared in such transcendent majesty could be no one less than his Lord. And the voice answered his question, It is Jesus whom you are persecuting. And you remember that instantly this Saul who was so filled with hostility against Jesus and against His church said immediately, What do you want me to do? He was ready in that moment to do whatever Christ commanded him to do. And we read how Paul was stricken blind and was led by the hand then into the city of Damascus.
And so there he stayed for three days, not eating or drinking and still remaining blind. So this morning we pick up the record in verse 10 where we read, Now there was a certain disciple at Damascus named Ananias, and to him the Lord set in a vision, Ananias. And Ananias responded with the words, Here I am. This is typical of the response of human beings as we read throughout sacred Scripture when God calls a person like Jeremiah or Isaiah or Ezekiel or Amos that when that call comes to them, the prophet immediately answers by saying, Here I am. I am all ears.
I am at attention. I'm ready to hear whatever you have to say, and Ananias was no different. And so the instructions came as follows. The Lord said to him, Arise, go to the street called Straight, inquire at the house of Judas for one called Saul of Tarsus, for behold he is praying. And in a vision he seen a man named Ananias coming in and putting his hand on him so that he might receive his sight. Now I told you last week that Damascus is one of the oldest cities in all of the world, and even to this day there still remains that same street called Straight. And there's a little spot at the end of the street where tradition has it, it was where Paul was visiting and where Ananias was instructed to go and to lay hands upon him.
And so that place has spanned all of history for two thousand years. It was a place of great importance in the life of the Apostle Paul. But we notice that Jesus gives these instructions, tells Ananias where to go and what to do. And Ananias obviously had never met Saul or Paul. I don't know at what point we're going to stop calling him Saul and keep calling him Paul, but we're talking about the same person. But I don't know at what point Ananias, you know, had first heard of Saul, but obviously they hadn't met. But the Lord had prepared Saul for the reception of Ananias, giving him a vision saying, I'm sending one named Ananias to come to you to lay hands upon you. And so you would think that the next verse would say, and Ananias arose and went to the street called Straight and entered into the home of Judas, and there he met the Apostle Paul.
No, but that's not what happened. Instead, there's a little interlude that I want to call your attention to. Notice this. After receiving his instructions, Ananias said, Lord, I've heard about this fellow. I've heard from many about this man, how much harm he has done to your saints in Jerusalem, and that here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call upon your name. It's as if Ananias is saying, Jesus, are you sure you know what you're doing? I mean, I know who this man is.
You're talking about it. The whole community of Christians has heard about what he did to the believers in Jerusalem and how much harm and violence he's brought upon them. And he's bound to determine with the letters of authority that he has from the high priest to bring in chains anyone who calls upon your name.
Surely you don't want me to go there. Shades of the prophet Jonah. Isn't it something how often in the Scriptures when God calls somebody to do something, they presume to instruct the Almighty of a better plan? Moses was like that. You don't expect me to be the one who goes and speaks to Pharaoh.
I'm not good at speaking. Jeremiah says, you have the wrong Jeremiah. I'm too young to preach your Word. But it's not just these personages from sacred Scripture who had the audacity to suggest that maybe God is making a mistake when He gives a vocation to them. But we are the same way. We argue with God. We debate with God. We resist the teaching of His Word day and night and think we have we have a better plan. We presume even in our prayers to suggest that God do things a little differently from how He's done in the past.
I mean, don't you listen to the prayers of the people on your behalf and consider them? This morning at the early service, my dear colleague and friend over there prayed for me that all of my ailments would soon be put to rest once and for all. I said, thank you very much. It's the first I've ever heard somebody pray for my death. But I noticed how astute he was in changing the wording of his intercession for me in the second service.
So, sometimes if we listened to our own prayers, we would be amazed. So, here with this unbridled presumption, Ananias is questioning the marching orders that he had been given from Jesus. One quick aside, he said how much harm he has done to your saints. Done to your saints in Jerusalem. This is the first time in the New Testament that the word saint or saints is used, and it doesn't refer to those who have lived such stellar lives of piety that they've been canonized by a pope or a church. But it simply means your holy ones, those whom you have called to yourself, those whom you have set apart, consecrated, have indwelt with your Holy Spirit and are making holy in their sanctification. That's what a saint is so that every Christian who is in Christ, who is regenerated by the Holy Spirit is a saint in the New Testament sense. Sometimes the saints in the New Testament don't behave very well. When Paul writes the Corinthians, he says, to the saints at Corinth, and then he goes on for several chapters, rebuking them and admonishing them for all of the wickedness that they're involved in, but he still addressed them as the set-apart ones.
And that's who we are. We're not saints with halos over our head, but we are the people of God who have been given His Spirit, who have been set apart for His ministry. And so during his instructions, Ananias reminds Jesus of the plight of the saints in Jerusalem. And then Jesus responds to them and says, Oh, thanks so much, Ananias. Since my ascension, I've lost touch of what was really going on there in Jerusalem, and I appreciate very much the information I'm getting from… Jesus cuts him off.
And what does He say? You go. Go. Get up and go. Why? For He is a chosen vessel of mine to bear My name before Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel.
For I will show Him how many things He must suffer for My name's sake. I don't have time in this service for a brief lesson in classic economics, but one of the fundamental principles in all of economics, that if you want to increase productivity, the best way to do it is to improve your tools. The reason why the American farmer can produce so much more food than the struggling farmer in Columbia is because nothing runs like a deer. The man who was down there pulling a plow with a donkey can produce so much, but nothing compared to what can be done with the tractors and the reapers and the cedars and the harvesters and the sophisticated equipment that we have here.
And that's the glory of what happens when tools improve the capacity of performance and production. I might also say that instruments that we use not only for producing goods and services are also vital to music. I'm going to tell a personal story on Olka. Olka was in Russia. She was a little girl. She had never seen a violin before. And one day she was walking down the street, and she saw a music store, and in the music store window was a violin hanging there, and it was for sale. And she was intrigued, and she walked into the store, and all of a sudden this violin started to talk to her. Now if you think this is crazy, you need to talk to this woman, because she tells me to talk to my violin all the time and have conversations with it. So far mine hasn't spoken to me.
I speak to it. But she said the violin said to her, pick me up and play me. And so she picked up the violin, took the bow, and the next night she was playing in the symphony in Kiev.
And if you believe that story, we have to have a conversation about some land I have in the wetlands. Now I look over here, and I see a viola, two violins, a cello, an organ, and a piano. And right now, as hard as I listen, I don't hear any music coming from them, because these instruments don't play themselves.
Somebody has to learn how to play them for them to give us the beautiful music that we enjoy from them. Now this is what Jesus is saying to Ananias about Saul. He is My chosen instrument.
The word there that is translated vessel, or instrument, or implement, or tool. From the foundation of the world long before you ever heard of Ananias, I elected him. I chose him, and I elected him for a purpose and for a task.
I wanted him to be an instrument in my hands. I didn't elect him for his own sake. I elected him for my sake. I elected him for a task that I wanted him to do. I wanted him to be a tool, and in this case, a labor-saving device. For what purpose was Saul elected from all eternity to be a chosen vessel by Christ?
Listen carefully to what the Word says. He's a chosen vessel of mine to bear My name before kings, before Gentiles, before Israelites. There are marvelous tools that we have to help us carry heavy burdens. I'm so glad we don't have to reinvent the wheel because we move things from place to place much more easy when we have wheels to roll.
I'm so grateful for the wheelbarrow, as simple of a tool as that is, so that you don't have to carry bricks a couple other times with your hands. We use tools and mechanisms and devices like this to help take the strain off of load-bearing tasks. And so Jesus chooses a tool to carry something, and that which this tool is called to carry is heavy.
It's perhaps the weightiest thing under the sun. The tool is chosen to bear the name of Jesus to kings, to Gentiles, to Jews. Now Paul was selected as the chosen vessel of Christ to be the apostle to the Gentiles, but elsewhere we as Christians are called the chosen vessels of God as well. And each one here who is a Christian has been chosen by Christ to be Christ's instrument.
To do what? To carry His name to your neighbor, to your business associates, and to carry the name of Jesus in this day and age can be weighty business indeed. And Jesus adds to this, and I'm going to show my instrument all of the things that He will have to suffer for my sake. My instrument, for my mission, for my sake, and He will pay the price for being a vessel that carries a treasure like this.
That was R.C. Sproul on this Sunday edition of Renewing Your Mind. I'm your host, Nathan W. Bingham. Today is our final time in the book of Acts. We've spent several weeks learning about Saul of Tarsus, the one we know as the great apostle Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles. But there's so much more to the story of the early church, so I do encourage you to request Dr. Sproul's line-by-line expositional commentary on Acts.
His pastoral heart helps this commentary not only serve as a study tool but also as devotional reading as well. When you give a gift of any amount at renewingyourmind.org or by clicking the link in the podcast show notes, we'll get a copy to you so you can add it to your library. But this offer ends at midnight tonight, and it won't be repeated next Sunday, so don't miss this resource by responding today.
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