“Losing Sight to Gain Vision”
By Dayle K. Barrett
Sunday, August 23, 2026
Reading: Acts 9:1-19
We're coming to the end of the series on our favourite stories and a friend of mine, actually, I think it was Jason, pointed out to me that so far all of my favourite stories have been kind of adversarial. It was Israel versus Jericho, David versus Goliath, Elijah versus the false prophets. And this one here I might call Paul versus Jesus. Spoiler alert, Jesus wins.
As I look at this story, it's a great example of a situation where somebody walks into life with 100 percent certainty and not much clarity. Have you ever been in a situation like that? You are 100 percent sure of something, going at it with all your heart and all your zeal, only to find out that you were completely wrong.
I know I have. One that comes to mind, I was about 11 years old. Actually, I'd only been 11 years old for a few days. This was January 2000. We'd just gotten over the Y2K thing that was supposed to destroy the world. Do you remember that one? Yeah, it didn't happen. We were still alive in January. And while we were still alive in January, I was waiting for a heavyweight boxing match that I was really excited about. It was featuring a member of my church who I really liked. A guy called Julius Francis, who had recently become the heavyweight champion of the UK. This was the biggest, strongest man I had ever seen in my life. I was 100 percent certain that he was going to win this fight. Obviously, it was the big conversation at school. This local guy, Julius Francis, he's going to fight, and he's going to fight some American bloke. I was 100 percent sure if I had money, I would have bet Julius Francis is going to win that fight. It was obvious to me, because I knew him. He was big, he had arms the size of my head. This guy's gonna walk into the ring and give him the one, two, bang, he's on the floor. I know how this match ends.
So, when we all went to my cousin's house after church and watched the fight begin, and I saw what Mike Tyson did to that man, it really hurt my heart, you know. Like I didn't know who Mike Tyson was. All I knew was no one could beat Julius Francis. But it was it was horrible. He completely knocked him down five times in fewer than two rounds. I mean, I wasn't a boxing fan at the time, I was a wrestling fan, and Hulk Hogan would never do that to sweet brother Julius. I was devastated. But all the way through the match, I was talking smack. Because that's what I do, by the way. I'm a big smack talker. All the way through the match, I was like, okay, he goes down once, don't worry, he's gonna get back up again. He's gonna get his energy. One, two, bang, whoever this Mike guy is, is over. No. He was knocked down over and over again until the referee called off the fight, and I had to sit there and realize that I was 100 percent certain and 100 percent wrong all at the same time.
Not only that, but I was gonna have to go to school the next day and face all my friends who had seen the fight and knew that Mike Tyson was going to win. Sometimes it's really hard to let go of an idea we're really committed to, isn't it? Even though all the evidence makes it obvious that our way of thinking isn't right. We will double down and double down and double down until we see our dreams laying there on the canvas while the referee calls the count.
This is something like what Saul was doing in this text. Saul was talking big smack about Jesus' people. He was breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord. Saul was on an extradition mission. He was on his way to Damascus, outside of his own country, going all the way to Syria just to make sure that all the Christians there could be arrested. Because as a Pharisee, Saul was 100 percent certain that Jesus wasn't the way. After all, he'd studied, he knew the Torah front to back, he understood the oral tradition, he had it all figured out, and what he had to do for the good of society was stamp out this vile heresy called Christianity.
And God is so gracious to him that he sends Jesus to meet him, not when Saul had figured it all out, not when Saul had decided to change his ways, not when Saul had become a good person, but while Saul was still breathing threats and murder against the people of the way. Jesus stops him in his tracks and says, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?”
Saul replied, “Who are you, Lord?”
The Lord said, “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. It is hard for you to kick against the goads.” I've got to admit, I understood the rest of this story. That line made about zero sense to me. What's a goad? So, I looked it up. Interesting. A goad is a pointy stick that farmers used to keep recalcitrant oxen on their correct track. An ox is a stubborn animal, it might just decide to go off and do its own thing so farmers had these pointy sticks called goads, and they would prick the ox while it was going in the wrong direction to bring it back to where it was supposed to be.
Jesus uses this analogy to say to Saul, “Saul, you're fighting against something. You're fighting against what's trying to guide you.” It's hard, isn't it? Kicking against the goads.
When we look at Saul's story, we find out that this isn't the first time he's encountered Jesus. Only a couple of chapters before, we see the gospel being preached by Stephen, who becomes a martyr. Stephen, a preacher of the gospel, starts his address by talking about the call of Abraham. Then he talks about the patriarchs in Egypt. He talks about God delivering Israel by Moses. He talks about how Israel rebels against God and how God's true tabernacle is amongst the people where his presence will reside and the people who heard him preach were so angry that they began to throw stones at Stephen. As Stephen the martyr continued to preach, he gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand and he said, “Look, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” They cast him out of the city and they stoned him.
He said, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit, and he knelt down and cried with a loud voice.” And while all this was happening, this is what the Bible says about Saul.
“Now Saul was consenting to his death. At that time a great persecution arose against the church, which was at Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. Devout men carried Stephen to his burial and made great lamentation over him. As for Saul, he made havoc of the church, entering every house, dragging off men and women, and committing them to prison.”
And that gives a bit of a different view to why Saul is breathing threats and murder against the people of the way. It wasn't just that Saul thought Christianity wasn't true, but maybe something about that story had hit him where it hurts. Maybe when he saw Stephen proclaiming the gospel and standing on his faith until his very last breath something pricked Saul right in his heart.
It made him realize that he may have been wrong and he had some choices to make. But like many of us, when you've devoted so much time and energy into one point of view, it's really difficult to realize that you're wrong, isn't it? It's really difficult to admit that it's time to hang up your hat and to accept the truth that you're being presented with. It's hard to kick against the goads.
Saul is on his way to Damascus, a wounded man. It seems like this is all about a fight between him and the Christians that he wants to wipe out, but really, this is a battle going on inside his own soul. The version of life he thought was true for all his days turned out to be false. He had a choice. He had to accept this Jesus, accept that he had been wrong and choose to follow the way, the truth, and the life. Or he could try to wipe out everybody who disagreed with him. And at first, he chose the latter.
Jesus meets him on that way. And it's amazing how close this is to people we know in our own lives, isn't it? Who knows one of those militant atheists? I'm not talking about someone who's like, I don't think I believe in God. I'm talking about somebody who wears atheism as a badge of honour. Not only do I not believe in God, but the idea of God's kind of stupid. We all know those people, right? You know those people who, when you see a beautiful sunset, you go, “wow, Isn't it beautiful that God created such a lovely skyline?” And they say, “wow, isn't it convenient that first there was nothing and then it exploded? And then over billions of years, over a random exchange of heating and cooling and the expansion of particles, the solar system was created with the Earth just the perfect distance from the sun. And then over millions and more years and some arbitrary collisions of cells, humanity formed, and there's a bunch of weird chemical things going on in my body that convince me that this is beautiful.”
That's a long way to go to avoid saying that God did something great, isn't it? It's hard to kick against the goads. But often when you do that, you find yourself angry, don't you? You find yourself wounded and angry against the ideas that oppose yours. There are people all over the world today who don't just disagree with the faith, but are mad at it, that want to see it destroyed, that want to see the church fall, because what it represents, the truth we proclaim, pierces the heart, and it's hard to kick against the goads.
Jesus reveals himself to Saul right where he is. Even while he's breathing threats and murder, even while he's wrestling within his own soul, fighting against the true and living God, God decides to stop him in his tracks and show him who he is. God reaches out in grace and mercy to a murderer and makes him the man who would write two-thirds of our New Testament. But first Saul had to go through a little something. He's trembling and astonished, saying, “Lord, what do you want me to do?” And Jesus tells him he has to go to that city. The same place that he was supposed to go and round up people of the way, he has to go there now to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ.
But he doesn't go there as a powerful man on his horse with a pile full of letters from the chief priests. No, the man who was rounding up Christians and sending them to their death now goes to Damascus as a blind little child being led by the hand. You see, sometimes, friends, God has to allow us to get powerless before we're willing to accept the truth of who he is. Sometimes God allows us to go through periods of darkness and silence and isolation so that he can form us into who he has made us to be.
For three days, the Bible says, Saul is blind. He can't see anything in front of his own face. He doesn't know where he's going, and he has to be led. He doesn't eat; he doesn't drink.
He doesn't converse with his friends, he's completely lost his sight, but it's at this time that Saul gains vision.
When I was a kid, our cameras used to have these strange things in them called film. Sure, most of you remember. When you took your pictures of your event, you'd have to go to the pharmacy or wherever they were doing it at the time, and you'd give the film in and you'd have to wait for them to be ready and they'd send you a note and you'd come back and pick up your pictures and you'd be really excited to get them. But during that process between you taking the pictures and dropping them off, and you picking them up. There's this whole strange thing that goes on that I never quite understood. They take your photos, and the person who does this takes it into a special room called a dark room, and there's hardly any light in there. You can't see anything. And they use light to place the image onto this special piece of paper, and they dip it in all these harsh chemicals, and then they hang it up to dry.
Only then does the useless thing you gave them become the picture you were trying to present all along. I wonder if that's something like what's going on in this story with Saul and something like what goes on in our lives from time to time. That we sometimes we have to go through these periods of darkness where we can't see what's going on in front of us, where our truth, our idea of truth has been so shattered that we can't see a way forward. Where we feel completely lost and alone and isolated and hungry. And God uses this time to dip us and to change us, to hang us out to dry, to keep away all of the distractions and the noise and the things that might distort what he's trying to do, so that he might place his image in our hearts.
If you're going through a time today where you just don't know what's next, where you can't see what's in front of your face, and you don't know where to go from here, if your idea of the world looks like it's been shattered, and you're waiting for God to give you vision, know that in this time of darkness, God is developing you so that when you come out of that place, you might truly bear his image, that you might be what he created you to be.
Saul spent three days in the dark room. When he emerged, he was a new person, completely transformed and waiting for this man, Ananias, to come and tell him what to do next. Now, Ananias is like some of us in this room. He's a devout man. He loves God and he loves Jesus. He's part of the community. He does what he's supposed to do, but he wasn't quite sure about God's message to go pick up this murderer called Saul. When the Lord called him, he said, “Lord, I've heard from many about this man and how much harm he has done to your saints in Jerusalem. And here he has authority from the chief priest to bind all that call on your name.”
And listen to Jesus' response. He said, “Go, for he is a chosen vessel of mine to bear my name before Gentiles, kings and the children of Israel.” I'm gonna show him how many things he must suffer for my sake.
Some of the people we think don't deserve to be brought into the fold are chosen vessels of God. Some of the people out there with bad reputations, who have bad pasts, who have done horrible things, like me, are chosen vessels of God. Some people who we would write off and feel like we should be frightened of are chosen vessels of God. But are we willing to go to them? Are we willing to have our ideas of truth shattered? Are we willing to lose our sight so that we can gain vision?
He said, “I will show him how many things he must suffer for my name's sake.” You know what the amazing thing is about this transformation story? God does absolutely nothing to change Saul's personality. The same guy who was breathing threats and murder about the Christians, who had so much zeal for the gospel, sorry, for his way of thinking that he was willing to slaughter all the people of God. God took that same zeal, that same tenacity, that same obstinance, and used it to have him spread the gospel all over the world.
Maybe those things about you that you can't stand. Maybe those personality traits that have you feeling so horrible about yourself are the same things that God wants to use to transform your community around you. Maybe it's not that everything about you has to change, but that everything about you has to be changed into the image of Christ.
Saul goes from there a new person with a mission. He was baptized; he was filled with the Holy Spirit. And the Bible says only then was his sight restored. I want to tell you today that if you've been kicking against the goads, if you find yourself in a dark place, if there are things in your life that you need to change your perspective on so that you can see clearly. Only open your eyes to Jesus and be willing to take that step, and he will develop you and transform you and use you for his glory. That we like Saul might be his light to the world, as we lose our sight to gain God’s vision. And for these things we say thanks be to God. Amen.