When God Changes a Life
Edited directly from the sermon transcript of Matthew Miller’s message at Highland Hills Church of Christ on May 31, 2026. Adapted for length and readability while preserving his voice and message.
Think about your very first car. Was it a new car right off the lot, or one of those that I like to say has some character?
I think it’s healthy for a young person to have a car with so much character that it warrants its own name. A friend had a little green Geo you could hear coming like a mad bumblebee from a mile away. He called it the Green Bean. Another had an old gray Dodge with a top speed of 45, which is probably a good thing for a teenager. That was the Old Gray Goose.
I had a black Ford Ranger. In body style it was a small truck, but in heart it was a NASCAR. My friends affectionately called it the Danger Ranger. I won’t go into why. But I survived it.
When you get to drive for the first time, it gives you a sense of autonomy. All those things you thought you wanted to do, now you could go do. Whether you’re terrified or excited, the possibility is there.
Those vehicles get you to a destination. Each of us has something we think will get us to the destination we want to reach. Sometimes those things go assumed, unquestioned, unnoticed for a long time. Where did we first get the idea that this was what we needed to do and how we needed to get there?
In Acts chapter 9, we see how God can change a person’s life, and how that change can affect eternity. But God has to do something to our motivations, those things we think give us autonomy, purpose, and direction.
God can change anyone’s life. I believe that. The day I stop believing it, I have no business doing this. It doesn’t mean everyone will want that change. We know people right on the cusp of the change God wants, and some make it and some never do. But if we stop believing God can change anyone, that’s a dangerous place for our hearts.
Saul is breathing threats and murder against the disciples. He goes to the high priest for letters allowing him to bring followers of Jesus from Damascus to Jerusalem as prisoners.
On the road, a light shines around him from heaven. He falls to the ground and hears, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?”
“Who are you, Lord?” he asks.
“I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.”
Saul asks, “Lord, what do you want me to do?” He’s told to go into the city. When he gets up, he cannot see. Others lead him by the hand into Damascus, where he spends three days without sight, neither eating nor drinking.
What was Saul’s driving device? What was leading him toward the destination he thought he should reach?
We’ve already seen him witnessing and approving Stephen’s death. Saul has a reputation, and it isn’t a good one. Everywhere he goes, he invokes fear among those who follow Jesus.
But this wasn’t just someone with murderous intent. He fully believed he was doing what God wanted him to do. Religious zeal motivated his self-righteous hatred for the church, but at the core was a desire to please God. That was hard to see when you were afraid that if he knocked on your door, you would be next.
What he doesn’t realize is that everything is about to change.
When God changes a life, he begins by disrupting the way we see things. You might have seen a picture and been asked whether it shows a young woman or an old lady. People look at the same picture and see something different. It’s based on how you’re seeing things.
Saul’s narrative is, “I’m passionate for God. These people are telling a false message, and I have to eradicate them.” The religious leaders he respected and learned from had done this to Jesus. They were starting to do it to the disciples.
But while he was pursuing the church in rage, Jesus was pursuing him in love.
When Jesus introduces himself, Saul asks, “What do you want me to do?” There is a calling in this disruption. But it took blinding Saul to get him to actually see.
Some people hear the truth of Jesus and come gently and willingly. Others almost have to be brought in kicking and screaming. It takes finding what’s beneath rock bottom before they begin to look around and say, “Wait a minute. I’ve been down the wrong path for a long time.”
Saul goes from being the powerful one, the one persecuting others, to being humbled and needing help. Everything he thought he knew about God is dismantled in that moment.
But God doesn’t just change how we see. He reforms our identity.
God tells Ananias, a disciple in Damascus, to go to Saul. Think about how difficult that must have been: “Wait, let me get this straight. The guy who’s coming to kill us, you want me to gently lay my hands on him? Oh, I’ll lay hands on him.” No, not that way!
Ananias knows what Saul has come to do. But God says he has a purpose for him. Saul is a chosen vessel to bear his name before Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel.
We get a new identity in Christ. We are no longer lost, outcast, broken, and deserted. We are chosen, loved, redeemed, found, and beloved.
Here, the embrace of Christ’s love must come through the hands of Ananias. How humbling must that be for both of them? The man Saul would drag to prison and the man afraid of being dragged off or killed now have to be in relationship as brothers. Talk about tearing the walls down.
Ananias enters the house and lays his hands on Saul. I bet those hands were trembling. We’re not told that in the text; that’s just my thought. But how does he disarm the whole situation?
He says, “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.”
Something like scales falls from Saul’s eyes. He receives his sight, rises, and is baptized. This is his new birth, the first day of the rest of his life and eternal life.
The world bombards us with ideas, images, and feelings that make us feel the worst about ourselves. When you’re in Jesus, you come back and realize, “When I was immersed into Christ, I was chosen.”
God also reorients Saul’s purpose. After spending some days with the disciples, he immediately preaches Christ in the synagogues, declaring that he is the Son of God.
Saul knew the Hebrew Scriptures inside and out, but he was missing this one fundamental piece. When Jesus reveals himself, Saul recognizes the one who ties it all together. The man who went to Damascus to murder the saints now preaches the murdered Messiah. His life is reoriented around Jesus.
In Philippians 3, Paul describes everything that once gave him confidence: his heritage, his tribe, his place as a Pharisee, his zeal, and his righteousness under the law. He had the right pedigree, education, profession, and outlook on the future. But he says, “What things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ.”
He counts it all as rubbish so that he may gain Christ and be found in him. Jesus is now his pursuit. Being with him is everything. Whatever he has to leave behind, so be it. Extra baggage slows him down as he runs.
When God changes a life, we cannot help but share Jesus, no matter the cost.
My truck, the Danger Ranger, lived up to its name. One night, a friend and I were driving on the far outskirts of Bedford County. There was a faded stop sign that wasn’t even red anymore. No streetlights. I missed it.
We went over a 20-foot embankment, threading the needle between a telephone pole and a massive oak tree. The truck hit the bottom and caught fire. Thankfully, I was skinny as a wraith and could squeeze out of the door. My friend was stronger and kicked his open.
We walked away with seat-belt burn, but a changed perspective.
When you have a brush with the extraordinary, you can no longer be ordinary.
What did Saul ask when he encountered Jesus? “Lord, what do you want me to do?” That’s where the change starts. That’s where the next step begins.
If you’re not walking with Christ, you need to ask it. If you’re a newer believer, you need to ask it. If you’ve been a believer your whole life, that question still remains: “Lord, right now, what do you want me to do?”
Have you allowed Jesus in to disrupt, reform, and reorient your life?
