Notes:

• There are people in your life right now… People you’ve quietly given up on.
  • “They’ll never change.”
  • “They’re too far gone.”
  • “I’ve tried.”
• When you truly know what Jesus has done in you, you refuse to stop believing what He can do in others.
• But here’s the question Acts 22 forces on us: What if the only reason you think they can’t change… is because you’ve forgotten how much you’ve been changed?

If you do not see yourself rightly, you will see other people wrongly.

Point 1: Transformation Rewrites Your Story

1. Paul starts by saying “I am the problem”
   1. Wrong perspective would see Paul’s words here in the inverse. It seems like Paul is saying look how good I am… only to fall off the rails later.
   2. Paul starts by clearly stating:
      1. “I hunted Christians.”
      2. “I dragged them out.”

• “I approved of their suffering.”

1. Effectively saying that what the Jews tried to do to Paul unsuccessfully here, Paul had done successfully elsewhere.
   1. 1 Timothy 1:15-16 — “This saying is trustworthy and deserves full acceptance: ‘Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners’—and I am the worst of them! But here is why I was treated with mercy: so that in me as the worst, Christ Jesus could demonstrate his utmost patience, as an example for those who are going to believe in him for eternal life.”
2. Paul doesn’t minimize his past—he magnifies God’s grace.
   1. 1 John 1:8-9 — “If we say we do not bear the guilt of sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous, forgiving us our sins and cleansing us from all unrighteousness.”
3. ILLUSTRATION: Stanley “Tookie” Williams was one of the founders of the Crips gang—a man whose life helped unleash waves of violence that scarred communities for decades; in prison, he began to change, writing books to steer kids away from gangs, speaking against the very life he once built, and many people believed something real had happened in him—but there was a tension that never went away, because while he acknowledged the destruction of that world, he continued to deny responsibility for the specific murders that put him on death row, and for many watching, that created a dissonance: Has he really changed? Because something in us knows—real transformation doesn’t just point forward, it also looks backward and tells the truth—and that’s what makes Paul’s testimony so different: he doesn’t soften it, he doesn’t rename it, he doesn’t distance himself from it—he says, “I persecuted this Way to the death,” and in doing so, he doesn’t weaken his story… he gives it power.

2. We can soften our testimony:
   1. “I wasn’t that bad…”
   2. “I just made a few mistakes…”
3. The beauty and strength of salvation is in all the ways we don’t deserve it.

Point 2 — Transformation Comes Through Encounter

4. Jesus met me.
5. Jesus pursued Paul while Paul was running the other way.
   1. ILLUSTRATION: Hosea
6. Mark 2:3–5 — “Some people came bringing to him a paralytic, carried by four of them. When they were not able to bring him in because of the crowd, they removed the roof above Jesus. Then, after tearing it out, they lowered the stretcher the paralytic was lying on. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven.’”
   1. Jesus saw THEIR faith…
   2. Not just the paralytic. Their faith. Powerful Truth:
      1. Your faith can carry someone to Jesus when they cannot get there themselves.
   3. You cannot encounter Jesus for them, but you can help bring them into an encounter.
      1. ILLUSTRATION: Imagine those friends woke, knew Jesus was in town and prayed, “Lord, I hope our paralytic friend experiences Jesus this morning. I hope Jesus stops by him and sees him and he receives miraculous change.” The Lord would respond by saying, I do what you can’t do, not what you won’t do. You cannot transform your friends, but you can bring them to the only one that can. Sometimes we ask God to do the things, we refuse to do ourselves.
         1. The friends showed what faith looks like. Doing what you can, so that Jesus can do what you can’t
            1. praying when nothing changes
            2. loving when nothing softens
            3. showing up when nothing move
         2. ILLUSTRATION: One time Ashley while driving with a friend was asked, “What’s one thing that if God ask you to do, you might not say yes to?”
      2. God used Ananias for Paul, God used friends for the paralytic, God wants to use you today for people.
      3. God uses people in the transformation of people. God uses transformed people in the transformation of people.
         1. 1 John 4:19 — “We love because he loved us first.”

Point 3 — Transformation Gives You Vision for Others

9. They didn’t reject Paul because his story lacked credibility…they rejected him because it went further than they were willing to follow.
   1. The minimal facts of the resurrection.
10. Romans 10:12–13 — “For there is no distinction between the Jew and the Greek, for the same Lord is Lord of all, who richly blesses all who call on him. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
11. Timothy 2:3–4 — “Such prayer for all is good and welcomed before God our Savior, since he wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.”

ILLUSTRATION: The 1994 Swiss study, when a father actively and consistently lives out his faith, somewhere between two-thirds and three-quarters of his children continue in that faith into adulthood—but when the father is absent or disengaged spiritually, even if the mother is faithful, the likelihood drops dramatically, in some cases to just a small fraction; and the point isn’t to elevate one parent over another, but to reveal a powerful truth we often overlook—our faith is never just our own, it carries weight, it shapes trajectories, it influences lives around us, and whether we realize it or not, someone is being carried closer to Christ—or further from Him—by what they see in us. (Mothers have for more influence over emotional health, attachment and security, educational outcomes, daily formation and habits).