The story told in our first reading this morning is a great story. The drama and the action of this story are captivating but what is even more amazing is that it is a story of how God chooses the most unlikely people, at the most unexpected times, and in the most unpredictable ways.
Saul was the last person you would have expected God to pick as a proclaimer of the Good News about Jesus. He was enthusiastic about the Jewish faith, in fact he was so enthusiastic that he had made it his personal mission to harass and persecute as many Christians as he could find.
Saul was a powerful, self-confident, influential person. He considered that he was in control of his life. He had a clear purpose. He stood by and watched when Stephen was stoned to death for speaking about his faith in Jesus Christ the long awaited promised Messiah.
From that moment on, Saul made it his personal mission in life to persecution all Christians. Acts records this, "Saul tried to destroy the church; going from house to house, he dragged out the believers, both men and women, and threw them into jail (Acts 8:1,2).
Then, at a most unexpected place and time, while on the road to Damascus, the resurrected Jesus appeared and spoke to Saul. Powerful, self-confident, in controlled Saul has fallen on the ground! The powerful and self-confident Saul is no longer in charge; he is a servant doing what he is told.
Another man whose life was amazingly turned upside down and back to front by God was a ship's captain, by the name John Newton. He was making a lot of money shipping human cargoes of Black slaves Africa to America.
Then God at a most unexpected time met him. Newton wrote "I can see no reason why the Lord singled me out for mercy unless it was to show, by one astonishing instance, that with him "nothing is impossible". He spent off-duty hours reading the New Testament and praying. God came to Newton’s cabin and dealt graciously and lovingly with the shameless, and immoral sailor. His life was radically changed and the ship’s cabin became a place of conversion like the Damascus road. Later John Newton penned these words that express what happened,
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretched like me!
I once was lost but now am found,
Was blind but now I see.
John Newton is expressing exactly what Paul meant when he said, "For I am the least of all the apostles—I do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted God's church. But by God's grace I am what I am" (1 Cor 15:9,10a).
There is no doubt that Paul’s life changed on Damascus road. Most of our own stories are far less dramatic than that. Most of us were brought up in a Christian home and went to church reasonably regularly if not every Sunday. Maybe you can’t remember a time when you weren’t a Christian.
Maybe your journey of faith doesn’t include a blinding light, a voice speaking to you and telling you what to do, a dramatic conversion to faith on a certain day and at a certain place. Maybe your faith journey has been a gradual awareness that God loves you and has plans for your life.
Maybe your faith has grown through parents, teachers, friends and pastors who have slowly and steadily nurture your faith to grow without the bright lights of a sudden conversion. It doesn’t matter finally how, when and where and how came we to believe in Jesus. What really matters is we believe that Jesus is Lord and Saviour.
There are three points that come from our text for and I would like to share that with you.
This story is about God’s grace. Paul is a Christian, not by his own decision, discovery, or desire. Paul is called, chosen by the action of the living Christ. His relationship to Christ was Christ’s idea long before it was Paul’s. So is ours.
Jesus once said, "You didn’t choose me, I chose you" (John 15:16). We are here today, as God’s people, because, God wants us to be members of his kingdom, to enjoy knowing about God’s undeserved love and forgiveness.
Paul didn’t decide for Jesus. On the Damascus road Jesus decided for Paul. In whatever way we have come into God’s kingdom, maybe at the baptismal font, maybe a gradual coming to faith, or maybe a dramatic conversion, it was God’s idea long before it was ours.
My relationship to God does not depend on what I do, it is something that God has done and is doing for me. From glory to glory God is changing me. I thank God for that! I don’t always think, act and speak like a Christian. But if it weren’t for the grace of God neither Paul nor us would have any chance.
The story of Paul’s conversion is about new beginnings. Paul was a ruthless, influential, self-confident persecutor of Christianity. On the Damascus road, he changed from a persecutor of Jesus to a proclaimer of the Good News.
It is true that God takes me "just as I am without plea". But he doesn’t leave us just as we are. He changes us and keeps on changing us from glory to glory. It’s a continual process as long as we live on this earth.
Someone once wrote, "In our lives, the church is the community of those being converted, being born again, and again, and again" (Source unknown).
Likewise Martin Luther emphasizes the ongoing changing process when he says, "Because we are baptized we should keep on drowning the old nature we are born with; everything sinful and selfish in us has to die. …And the new nature God has given us in baptism should come to life day after day. We should live as new people… (Small Catechism 1996 Openbook Publishers page 27)
This story about Paul’s conversion clearly tells us that his transition from darkness to light, from evil to God’s kingdom was for a purpose. Paul wasn’t converted to Christ to sit and do nothing. He was converted, called and then sent to tell the saving story of God almighty.
It wasn’t easy. Paul suffered the same things that we do – he was ridiculed for his faith, thrown into prison, endured storms and shipwrecks, was beaten, stoned. Life wasn’t easy as a follower of Jesus but he used none of it as an excuse for giving up.
It’s easy to give an overabundance of reasons and excuses – Peter was not going to allow the Gospel to be preached among the Gentiles. This was God’s news to the Israelites, God’s people. But that idea was soon changed.
No way would Paul have ever given a second thought to the idea that he would actually be promoting the church. Sometimes God calls us to work in his church, kicking and screaming. We may think we are the most unsuitable person for the job, but God has other ideas.
During the Second World War, a church in Strasbourg was destroyed. After the bombing, the members of this particular church went to see what was left and found that the entire roof had fallen in, leaving a heap of rubble and broken glass. Much to their surprise, however, a statue of Christ with outstretched hands that had been carved centuries before by a great artist was still standing straight. It was virtually unharmed except that a falling beam had sheered off both hands.
The people rushed to a sculptor in town and asked if he could replace the hands of the statue. He was willing, and he even offered to do it for nothing. The church council members met to consider the sculptor's proposition – and decided not to accept his offer.
Why? Because they felt that the statue without hands would be the greatest illustration possible that God calls his people to be his hands in this world to do the work he has given. And not only our hands, but also our feet, our lips, our eyes, our ears, our intellect, our abilities, our resources – God has given all of these to us to carry out his work. Christ has no body but ours.
Have you ever thought of yourself this way? Have you ever thought of yourself as the hands of Jesus? Jesus chooses to do his work through human hands. Sometimes they seem to be the frailest of hands, the least potentially successful hands, or the least qualified hands — but those are the hands he uses.
If he can use Saul who seemed to be the least qualified to be an apostle, he can also use you and I. If God can use John Newton a slave trader, he can also use you and I. If Saul and Newton can be his chosen servants, then so can we as well as those around us.
Just as Saul was converted, called, and sent so also have you and I been called and converted; changed and sent to do the work of God in the smallest way. You love me more than these.. feed my lambs, ….tend my sheep…. feed my sheep.
My friends, the God of the Bible is a
converting, changing and sending God.
Rev. Samuel King-Kabu
April 25, 2004