Passion City Church DC Podcast · Passion City Church

Am I Too Far Gone? | Acts 9

April 8, 2026·41 min·3 clips

Jesus appears in a light brighter than the sun to Saul, asking why he persecutes him, in the final resurrection appearance before Revelation.

1. Passion City Church DC pastor Ben Stewart delivers an Easter Sunday sermon on Acts chapter 9, the conversion of Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus. 2. Ben introduces the text by identifying it as Jesus's final recorded resurrection appearance before the book of Revelation — not in the gospels but in Acts, the sequel to Luke's gospel. 3. The sermon's central thesis is that the verbs of the salvation story belong to God rather than to the human seeker: God is on the move pursuing people, not waiting for them to find him. 4. Ben opens with the Sadie Hawkins race analogy from a Mississippi summer camp: he received advance notice a high school girl would 'chase' him, yet inexplicably sprinted away and had to be clotheslined before going to dinner — 'it was insanity to run from her, and it was her kindness to chase.' 5. He introduces Saul as described in Acts 9: 'still breathing threats and murder,' having leveled up from earlier persecution to requesting authority to travel over 100 miles to Damascus to arrest and execute both men and women who follow 'the Way.' 6. In Galatians, Paul explains his motivation: 'so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers' — religious achievement as the ladder he used to feel good about himself. 7. Ben illustrates this pattern with a story from his first year in DC: a media professional, when asked to describe Washington, immediately said it was 'a bunch of men with deep father wounds trying desperately to fill that void with significance' through money and power, collapsing into broken addictions when they fail. 8. Ben tells the story of George Palmer, a Melbourne gang leader whose father's death when he was young generated a cancer-like hatred of God; Palmer went to a Billy Graham stadium event with 10 gang members intending to shoot Graham during the altar call, but heard a voice ask 'what are you doing here, George?' and realized he was arguing with God about his father's death. 9. Palmer set his gun down and gave his life to Christ, along with nine of his companions — which Ben uses to parallel Saul's experience of being interrupted mid-persecution by a voice from heaven. 10. The Damascus road event is described: a light brighter than the sun flashes around Saul, he falls to the ground, hears 'Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?' — Ben notes the repetition of the name as Hebrew intensification — and Jesus adds 'it is hard to kick against the goads,' suggesting compassion for the pain Saul's pursuit was causing him. 11. Saul is left blind for three days without food or water, forced into silence — Ben reads this as God requiring a driven person to sit with the fact that the problem he's been running from cannot be solved by further effort. 12. Ben parallels this with his own experience of a herniated disc after chasing a phone thief in Dallas, leaving him unable to walk for weeks, watching Teen Wolf 2 at 3am, and hearing God ask: 'are you ready to deal with me now?' 13. Ananias is told by God to go to Saul; his response is to explain that Saul is 'straight up evil' with official authority to keep persecuting believers — God replies that Saul is 'my chosen instrument' and confirms it will involve suffering. 14. Ben notes the pattern: every time someone seems 'the last guy' to be reached — citing hunters from Beeville, Texas who later became church deacons — that is precisely the kind of person Jesus demonstrates his patience through. 15. Ben draws the theological distinction: 'Jesus didn't die to make bad guys good, he died to make dead guys alive' — citing Paul to the Corinthians that Christ died for sins, was buried, and rose on the third day. 16. The parable of the abandoned snake-filled pool in his grandmother's Beeville backyard captures the sermon's core image: Ben at four years old, unable to escape, his brother unable to help, crying — until a college-aged neighbor drops everything, jumps the fence, and lifts him out, leaving Ben speechless looking up at his rescuer. 17. For Easter 2015, Ben describes how a nurse at a routine egg hunt insisted he take his pregnant wife to the hospital, which led to full bed rest and a C-section; afterward, the nurse revealed his wife had had a uterine window — the womb wall so thin the baby was visible through it — and Ben was 'the thinnest layer away from losing her and the boy on the table.' 18. The Italy/Cinque Terre story illustrates the same principle through a different angle: Ben ends up carrying an injured woman up steep cliffs at midnight because she could not ascend on her own; her attempts to help by shifting her weight on his back made things worse, until he said 'stop — what you are doing is not helping, let me carry you home.' 19. The sermon is a single-voice narrative preached live to a congregation; it blends personal storytelling, scriptural exegesis, historical anecdote (George Palmer), and direct pastoral appeal in a warm, self-deprecating style. 20. This sermon will resonate with people who have experienced the limits of personal achievement or who feel disqualified from faith by past behavior; it will not connect with listeners who are not open to Christian theological claims or who prefer systematic theology over narrative preaching.

As heard by us

A plainspoken Easter sermon about grace that keeps the focus on Jesus.

Ben Stewart's Easter talk starts with a summer camp memory in Mississippi and a messy car chase, then lands on a plain claim: God came to get you. It says Jesus showed up, lived, died, and rose to save people, not to wreck their lives.

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Why you'd press play

Press play if you want an Easter talk that says God came to get you.

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