"To Him be glory forever": Paul

Showing posts with label Paul. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 27, 2017

Looking Back, Looking Ahead

Have you ever found yourself taking a moment to consider your life at present and then looked back at an earlier time and wished that perhaps you were there in the past, rather than here, in the present? I know that I have, as recently as yesterday morning. I know that I do this kind of looking back more days than not.

There is almost always a trigger. There is something that is giving me difficulty today, or is perhaps disappointing in some way. I look back and see a different set of circumstances, when something that is hard to do now was effortless then. I see a relationship that is challenging now was nothing but joy then.

In a sermon titled, "The Young Man's Prayer," Charles Spurgeon said, "We look back upon our younger days and think that they were far happier than our present state. We sometimes fancy that we used to be satisfied then, but I believe that our thoughts imagine a great falsehood."

Ouch! There is a lot of truth that touches me in those words. The satisfaction that we recall from the past, that we may find ourselves longing for in the present, was likely not as satisfying as we remember it.

This coming Sunday I am preaching from Philippians 2:9-11, where Paul writes,

"Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

In these verses Paul looks forward, to the end of history, where the lordship of Jesus Christ will be clearly evident to all peoples. Christ will be seen in a place of unparalleled honor and glory and there will be great rejoicing from his people. To combine the thoughts of Spurgeon and Paul, the "good old days" were likely not as good as we think they were, while the "day to come" will be more glorious than anything we can imagine.

We can certainly learn from our past, but we shouldn't seek to dwell there. Paul points us forward, to the glorious future promised to all people with faith in Jesus as Savior and Lord. Enjoy a look back from time to time, but set your eyes, and your heart, on the future promises of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Friday, March 6, 2015

To Thine Own Self be True

I used to belong to a Facebook group organized around issues of ministry. The people in the group shared prayer requests. They told stories about situations in their congregation and occasionally asked for guidance with those situations. And they shared blog posts and news items of interest.

I don’t know how many members the group had when I joined nearly three years ago but it had grown to somewhere over 7,000 today. A wide range of theological perspectives were represented, nearly all of which grew somewhere on the Christian tree. And it would be safe to say that if the various theologies were arranged on a Bell curve that the tradition I am a part of, and where I place myself within that tradition, would be between 1 and 2 standard deviations from the mean. One consequence of my understanding of my theological location within the group was that I learned to pick-and-choose what I posted and what conversations I took part in. Suffice to say that some conversations could become either quite heated (in a generally respectful way) or just generate so many comments that it was impractical, and nearly impossible, for me to participate in those discussions in a way that was fair to all involved. So for many threads I would read the initial post, perhaps follow the discussion, but only infrequently join in.

All of which is to set the stage for this event. Person A posted a brief video of Person B, without making comment on the video and just asking for people's thoughts. Myself, Person C, watched the video and offered a two-part response. Part one was my own brief understanding of the issue of the video, followed by my belief of the logical destination of Person B's thoughts would lead. Enter Person D, who instead of engaging my response, jumped all over me.

So I started to write a response. This particular person and I have disagreed before and my initial response was to go back to the issue. I'm not trying to be heroic in describing myself. It was the issue I was more concerned about than the attack. But as I worked on phrasing my response it occurred to me that I was spending time, perhaps too much time, on something that really wasn't very important. I have never studied Shakespeare but the quote of his, "To thine own self be true", started playing in my head. At first I heard it in regard to responding to Person D. But then I heard it differently, as some other familiar words went through my head:

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come."

Who is the self I should be true to? The self that quickly responds when provoked by confrontation, be it large or small? The self that can hardly help but to point out theological error in a diverse group of fairly highly educated people? Or perhaps the self who is a new creation in Christ? The self where the old has passed away and the new has come?

That didn't take much time to figure out.

Christ has claimed me as his own, and he is at work shaping me, and all who call on him in faith, to be more and more in his image, which means being less and less like the person I was before faith.

So deleted the response I was writing to Person D, and deleted myself from the group.

"To thine own self be true?" Yes, but only so far as that self is being shaped in the image of my Savior and Lord.

Saturday, January 31, 2015

Raising the Dead

"Why is it thought incredible by any of you that God raises the dead?"

Earlier this week I was reading Acts 26. The apostle Paul is under arrest and he has received an opportunity to make a defense of his case before two rulers, Agrippa and Festus. In the midst of his testimony he speaks the words I quoted, and when I read them I had to stop for a moment before continuing on.

That claim of Paul that God raises the dead is critical for everything we believe as Christians.

Paul is not claiming that God merely has the power to raise people from the dead. If a person believes that there is a God, and then believes that same God created the world, then it would not be unreasonable to also believe that the same God who created life would also have the ability to restore to life any person whose life had ended. There is nothing inherently Christian in believing any of those things.

It is the fuller context of Paul's testimony that brings out the significance of the claim that God raises the dead. Paul's point is not just that God can raise the dead, but that in fact God did raise from death Jesus of Nazareth. Paul had a personal encounter with Jesus after the resurrection, a encounter that changed Paul's life from one of persecution of Christians to one of total devotion to Jesus as his Savior and Lord.

Like Paul, we are in a relationship with God through Jesus. We may not have seen him in the flesh but we believe, like Paul, that God raised him from the dead. And believing in the fact of the resurrection is all the proof we need to believe everything else the Bible teaches us about the significance of Jesus, for both this life and eternity.

Later in his testimony Paul says this is what Jesus told him would be the new purpose of his life's work:

"I am sending you to open their eyes, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me."

This task of opening eyes is one that belongs to each of us today. It is not easy work and there will be many times when it looks like we have been failures at it. But it is the work that all Christians are called to.

May we be people like Paul, people who continue to look for ways large and small, direct and indirect, that give us the opportunity to point people toward Jesus.

Wednesday, January 28, 2015

The One Thing That Matters

This coming Sunday I will be preaching from Colossians 1:21-23. Part of what Paul writes in verse 22 is this:

"…he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death,…"[1]

The 'he/his' that Paul refers to is Jesus, and Paul is teaching that reconciliation with God comes through Jesus' death and not by any other means.

As I was pondering this I was struck by the difference between the life and death of Jesus. The Gospels are full of stories of his life. They tell of his birth, his baptism, the calling of his disciples, the miracles he did and the teaching he did in groups large and small.

Imagine for a moment that you were one of those people close to Jesus during his life on earth. Imagine that you saw him work miracles. Imagine that you heard his teaching. One person asked him, "What is the greatest commandment in the Law?" And he answered, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

Imagine that you heard Jesus speak those words and you thought, "Yeah, I get that. That teaching is what it is all about and that is the way I am going to live, 110% of the time."

Well, that is a good teaching of Jesus' to hang on to, and it is a good goal to live a life that is obedient to those two commandments. But the truth is that it still wouldn't be enough to bring about reconciliation with God. The life of Jesus was a wonderful thing and there is much that we can learn from it, but it is only in the death that we are restored to wholeness with God.

Paul continues verse 22 like this:

"…in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach…"

Curiously, reconciliation with God is not found in the life of Jesus, but in the death. We move from being enemies of God to being reconciled with him when we believe that the blood of Jesus was poured out for us. When we believe that by his death, by the giving of his blood, our sin is removed, then we are joined with God as his dearly loved children.

Without the death, the living Jesus is a good teacher. By giving his life he is Lord and Savior. His death is what makes it possible to understand his life. At perhaps the most basic level, believing in the purpose of his death is the only thing that matters.

[1] In the Greek verses 21 through 23 are written as one long sentence. The passage is also translated as one sentence in several English translations, including the King James and the English Standard versions.

Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Prayer

During worship on Sunday morning we pray in our church. That may not be much of a surprise. Churches are supposed to pray, aren't they?

Now I am not certain, but I suspect that my church prays a bit differently than the average congregation from the several different branches of Christianity that I have been associated with in my lifetime. I have been Lutheran and Methodist, and I'm currently serving a Reformed congregation. When worshipping among different congregations of those groups, and also other branches of the Christian family, I have been in powerful times of prayer.

One of the things that stands out to me in our congregation is that each Sunday we ask for prayer requests. Each Sunday I walk into the aisle and ask if there is anything anyone wants to lift up. And each Sunday there are from perhaps 10 (rarely), to 15-20 (much more common), to even more, things that the congregation wants lifted in prayer. So I work those requests into our congregational prayer and then keep them as the things I pray over during the next week.

Prayer requests aren't that unusual but in my experience there are many congregations that won't do them, or if asked, people do not share them. I think it is a blessing to serve a congregation where people share what is on their hearts.

But not everyone wants to share every concern, and there is a way we handle that. There are slips of paper, like the one in the picture, where people can write down their requests and share them with me in confidence.

Disclaimer: I am not about to share a confidential request, nor am I going to share something that was contrived to make a point.

After supper this evening I went over to church to go through the sermon I have prepared for a funeral tomorrow. And as I walked into church I glanced at the little table where the blank prayer request forms usually are and I found the one in the picture.

Now on this past Sunday, after worship, I had personally cleaned the church and put things away. This request was not present at that time. So it must have been placed there yesterday, at the funeral I preached yesterday.

I also had a funeral late last week, so tomorrow will be three funerals in eight days, at my church, and I am aware of at least one other funeral, today, in a different church. For a town of about 3,000 that is a lot of heartache.

One of the things that is "standard" in our congregational prayer is to pray for our community. It is something that I work into the prayer without anyone needing to bring it up.

In Colossians 4:2 Paul writes:

"Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving."

I am glad for this anonymous invitation to continue in prayer for our community. I am glad that God worked through someone, unknown to me but fully known to Him, to leave this slip of paper in our church. Someone who knows that the healing for our heartache will be found in God.

Tuesday, June 17, 2014

That Big White Light

Last Sunday I was watching some of the coverage of the US Open golf tournament. During the broadcast they showed a human interest story about Erik Compton, a professional golfer who has had two heart transplants, one at age 12 and the second at 28. He is currently 34 and his play this week was by far the best of his professional career. On one of golf's largest stages he played better than he has ever played before, finishing in second place.

Stories like this touch our heartstrings. They draw us in with their emotional power. A man with a heart so weak that he was on the threshold of death…twice. The narrator referred to the open door of death as "that big white light." Erik Compton was at that door, twice, and could easily have passed through. He was held back through the generosity of an organ donor and the skill of a medical team. And on Sunday he stood almost at the very pinnacle of his profession. A story of triumph over adversity.

The narrator of the story gave the sense that in receiving a new heart and the life that went with it, which for Compton has included marriage and a daughter since the second transplant, the best possible outcome has been achieved. But as a Christian I think there are a some other points to consider.

The Apostle Paul, writing from prison and facing the possibility of death, wrote this in Philippians 1:20-23,

"It is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better."

For Paul, the thing that mattered was that he gave glory to God. If he lived, he wanted it to be to the glory of God, and in the same way he considered the possibility of his death, that it would be a death that pointed others to God. And he knew that from the perspective of what was best for him personally, it was death, for he knew he would pass through death's door and into the everlasting presence of his Lord and Savior, Christ Jesus.

I know nothing of the faith of Erik Compton. Neither the Wikipedia entry or his personal webpage have any insights into that. If he is a person of faith then I pray that as a husband, a father, a golfer, a friend…that whatever he does in life is done to the glory of God.

And if he is not a person of faith then I pray that God may turn his heart towards Christ, so that in his life post heart transplant he comes to know the joy of eternal life. When he comes, for the final time, to that big, white light, I want him to do so knowing his Savior is waiting for him on the other side.

Friday, April 25, 2014

Facebook theology, part 4

"You make all things work together for my good."

I noticed the quote above floating through my newsfeed. I think the intent of the author is to give a word of encouragement to people who may be going through a difficult bit of life. And not just a word of encouragement, but a word of encouragement that has its origin in the Bible.

The quote above seems to be meant for encouragement, and derived from the Bible, but to what end? The quote would imply that "you" or God, makes things work together for the good of "me." Stated another way we could say, "God wants things to work together for my benefit."

But is that really true, according to the Bible? Is that true when we read the stories of various believers in God through history? Since the quote is derived from a New Testament verse I'm going to qualify "believers in God" more specifically as "believers in God as made known in the person of Jesus." To use the definition of a believer given by Paul in Romans 10:9, believers would affirm this:

"if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved."

Now let's take a look at the verse that lies behind the quote. It is Romans 8:28, also written by Paul, and saying this:

"And we know that all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose."

Here are the things I believe we should take note of. The first is that Paul says that things work together "for good." I think that "good" truly means "good" but it doesn't necessarily mean that they work together "for my good." Could these things that I am involved in work together for the good of someone else? Or maybe I need to take a deeper look at what the meaning of "good" for me truly is?

Secondly, Paul writes this phrase, "for those who are called according to his purposes." I think that this phrase implies two things. One is that Paul's words apply specifically to believers, as defined by Romans 10:9, and more importantly, that the end result for which these things work is directly related to "his purpose" or stated more clearly, "God's purpose."

So here is another way we could express Paul's thoughts in Romans 8:28, with my clarifications in brackets:

"And we [who believe in Christ Jesus] know that all things [be they good or bad, easy or hard] work together for [God's] good, for those who are called according to his [God's] purpose."

Reading Romans 8:28 in that way takes the focus off of ourselves, and whatever we may think of as a good outcome for us, and places the focus on God, so that things in our lives, be they good or not, work out according to His purposes.

With that understanding let's turn again to Paul, this time from 2 Corinthians 11:24-27, where he writes of suffering for the Gospel with these words:

"Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure."

As we read of Paul's experience we see something that is quite a bit different from that suggested by the opening quote, and I would say that it is something much richer and more meaningful, for Paul was willing to suffer for the sake of something much greater, which was the glory of God. Paul endured his suffering so that people could better see how sweet, merciful and glorious his Savior was.

If you want to read a non-biblical account of suffering, to the point of death, for the good of the God of the Gospel you can read of Guido de Bres or Jan Hus, two of many people who staked their very lives on the goodness of God.

So I'll wrap this up with the words of Paul again, this time from 2 Corinthians 4:16-18,

"So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal."

Monday, February 3, 2014

A better question

Tomorrow there is going to be a debate of sorts. Bill Nye, of Bill Nye the Science Guy, and Ken Ham, of Answers in Genesis, are going to get together to publicly discuss this question: "Is Creation A Viable Model of Origins in Today's Modern Scientific Era?"

In the interest of public disclosure I'll say that before yesterday I had little awareness that this event was coming up and now that I have heard more about it my intention is not to pay much attention to it.

Yesterday I stumbled across this article in the Chicago Sun-Times, which brought the pending debate to my attention. What surprised me about the Sun-Times piece was the animosity of the authors towards Christianity in general, and Protestantism in particular. To my understanding of history they made some profound misstatements about the origins and intent of the reform of the church in the 15th/16th century and the descendants of that reform today.

Yesterday I preached from 1 Corinthians 1:18-31. My sermon was titled "Wisdom: Not What You'd Expect." One thing I tried to bring out of the passage was that there is a difference between the wisdom of the world and the wisdom of the church. Paul says that various factions of the world seek proof of God through either signs or logic. The desire to prove, or as in the case of the debate and the Sun-Times article, to disprove, the methods chosen by God to reveal himself to the world through logic continue today.

In contrast to the wisdom of the world Paul holds out what he calls "the word of the cross." Verse 18 says:

"For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God."

The "word of the cross" is a very brief way of saying this:

You and I are sinners. Our sin is not merely doing something wrong or making a mistake. Sin is rebellion against a holy God. And rebellion against God deserves punishment. Because God is holy, and you and I are not, we cannot possibly take the punishment that God's justice demands. So God, the Father, in his mercy, sent Jesus, his Son, to live a sinless life and take on his body the punishment you and I deserve. The Father found this work by the Son acceptable and raised the Son to eternal life. When, by faith, we believe what Jesus, the Son, has done, we receive the promise of eternal life. The punishment for our sin, all of it, has been paid by the Son, and our destiny beyond this world will be eternity with God.

What Paul calls "the word of the cross" is a message that no amount of logic will arrive at. There is no possible way to go from "A to B to C to etcetera" and arrive at "salvation in Jesus." It is a message that is only arrived at through faith in what God has done in Jesus.

Not faith in Jesus the good teacher. Not faith in Jesus the example of a better way. Only through faith in Jesus, the Savior.

I started writing this post with a somewhat negative opinion of tomorrow's pending debate. While I still don't have much interest in the central question that Nye and Ham will discuss, perhaps their discussion will touch some people in such a way that they begin to look more deeply into the central message of the Bible.

For me, a better question, or perhaps the only question that matters, is about Jesus, and it is this one, the one that he asked to his disciples:

"But who do you say that I am?"

Peter's response was this:

"You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."

Like Peter, I believe that Jesus is the Son of the living God, and so I find great comfort in what Paul called the "word of the cross."

How does that word speak to you?

Saturday, January 4, 2014

Facebook theology, part 1

I was on Facebook the other day and saw something shared by someone that I have seen before. The message was this:

"God has seen you struggling with something. God says it's over! A blessing is coming your way. If you believe in God, send/post this message on and please don't ignore it, you are being tested. God is going to fix two big things tonight in your favor. If you believe in God, drop everything and pass this on."

Wow! What a message! God not only knows I am struggling with one thing but He is going to fix two things…for me…tonight!

I'll confess that there is much I love about Facebook. I love staying in touch with people near and far, friends from years ago and people I have only come to know recently. I enjoy the somewhat random things people post that tickle my funny bone. I enjoy sharing little bits about myself and my family. And I enjoy the encouragement I find in unexpected places.

The message above could be considered one of that type, as a message of encouragement, but unfortunately it is one of many messages floating around Facebook that may sound good but which is really empty and meaningless.

This kind of message is basically self-centered, and mostly about the person who wrote it and not really about God at all. I am working on a sermon based on Ephesians 1:11-14, where Paul writes this in verses 13-14:

" In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory."

The writer of the Facebook message may mean well but God says something much more powerful in his word.

He knows I struggle, because I am a sinner living in a fallen world. He has sent the word of truth in his Son. In his mercy he has sent a Savior, one in whom my salvation is guaranteed. He has sealed me with his very Spirit.

If I believe in God then message of salvation is the one I should drop everything for and share with others.

And, as Paul notes, I should share it to the praise of his glory. Amen!

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Sandwich ministry

We live in Dulce, New Mexico on the reservation of the Jicarilla Apache Nation, in the parsonage next to the church where I am the pastor. In the 3½ months we have been here we have seen a lot of people passing through this piece of property, as our home is on a walking route between a residential area and the more central parts of town.

In the first few months we saw lots of people pass through. We spent a fair amount of time outside and always said "Hi." Every once in a while we had an opportunity to talk with someone. And there have been a few times when people have stopped at the back door, asking for help, which Robin has written about here.

Tonight was one of those times.

I was washing dishes after supper and the door bell rang. I went out and opened the door but no one was there. As I glanced around a man called out to me, standing in the dark a short ways from the house.

He asked for a sandwich. I said sure. Would peanut butter and jelly be okay? It would. What's your name? He told me something I couldn't quite understand. I invited him inside. He wanted to wait outside.

So I went in and made a sandwich and got him an apple from the refrigerator.

When I returned with the sandwich he was standing off in the dark. I walked out to meet him and gave him the food. We made brief small talk about the weather. Today started well below zero and is headed back there again tonight, although he didn't think it was that cold. He was on his way to a relative's house somewhere in the neighborhood on the hill behind the parsonage, and he quickly went on his way.

It is my privilege to lead God's people in worship each week. It is my privilege to dig into the Bible and bring a message from it to those who gather in church each Sunday. It is my privilege to meet with people in their homes and at the hospital and to pray with them there. And it was my privilege tonight to provide a neighbor with a small meal.

Some of these things I do with more skill than others. I hope that in each of these things, and any other way I serve God here in Dulce, that I am pointing not towards myself but to God, who has called our family to serve Him here among the Jicarilla Apache.

In the closing section of his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul writes:

"Let all that you do be done in love."

In his use of the word "love" Paul means something much deeper and richer than what we might ordinarily think of. He means a love that is distinctly flavored by the love he has received from God through Jesus Christ. He means something like this: "Let all that you do be done in love, the love that God has lavished on you and me through His Son, our Lord and Savior."

May this be the love that comes out in the big and little things of my ministry. And may it be the love that permeates the details of your life too, even something as simple as making a sandwich for someone at your back door.

Thursday, September 19, 2013

Laughter

We have been living on the reservation in Dulce now for three-and-a-half weeks and I have heard several times since we got here that having a sense of humor and not taking myself too seriously would be good qualities to have. I had thought that was the kind of person I was more-or-less naturally, and I've had the opportunity to do laugh at myself a few times since we arrived. When it happened today it caught me completely by surprise.

I went to the grocery store to get some things for the church. On the way in I saw a man who had been at our church on my first Sunday. He was sitting in the store's cafeteria with a man I had not met before. After making my purchase I went over to say "Hi" to them, and I was glad that I had correctly remembered the one man's name. A third person had joined them and I mentioned that another man I had met in town had told me that some men drank coffee and spoke in Jicarilla Apache at the store in the afternoons. "Are you the men?" I asked.

Indeed they were, and they said I could join them and learn. I said that I figured I was too old to pick up a language but one of them said that "no, I wasn't" and invited me to sit, so I did.

He said a word and I repeated it. He said it again and I repeated it again. Then he told me that it meant "white man." Okay, I thought. Then he said another word, which I repeated. He said it and I repeated it. This, he told me, was the word for "hello."

He said the words together and I repeated them. Then he asked "What did you say?" to which I replied, "Hello, white man." We all laughed, one of them gave me a high-five and I figured it was time to move on for the day.

Thinking about this on the walk home from the store I was mindful of the fact that my newly learned phrase would not have much practical use, given that there are very few white men living on the reservation in the first place. But my willingness to sit for a few minutes with some Apache men and laugh with them at my expense is something I was glad had happened.

In his first letter to the Corinthians Paul writes about his willingness to be flexible in how he lived with others in order to advance the Good News in Christ Jesus. He sums this up by saying:

"I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them its blessings."

It is my prayer that those few minutes today leads to more time with those men, or perhaps with others who may learn about me from them. And that more time with the Native Americans outside of our church will lead to them knowing, and better yet, possessing, the blessings of saving faith in Jesus.

Sunday, September 15, 2013

Stories, part 2

This morning I had the privilege of preaching from 1 Timothy 1:12-17. One of the things I brought out of the passage was Paul's description of his state before God, including both his state before, and then after, his salvation. Prior to his salvation Paul said that he was a "blasphemer, persecutor and insolent opponent" of God. But God didn't give Paul what one would assume would be reasonable in the form of a response. He didn't punish Paul for the way Paul behaved towards God.

In Paul's case God chose to do something quite different. In His mercy He poured out His grace on Paul. God's grace "overflows" onto Paul. God's grace was more than enough to cover every sin Paul ever committed against God.

God, through the way He treated Paul, gave Paul a powerful faith story. And as a result Paul had the ability to share the Good News of Jesus in a very personal way. He could say something along the lines of, "I was a sinner and far from God, and then God rescued me, and now I am different in these particular ways."

One of the key parts of this passage from 1 Timothy is in the center of verse 15,

"Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners."

The things that Jesus did in His earthly ministry, the healings, the teaching, the praying, the miracles, every bit of it, all pointed toward one purpose, the saving of sinners.

Like Paul, every person who has been touched by the saving love of God in Christ Jesus has a powerful story to tell. And the telling of that story may be the means used by God to touch, and save, the life of another sinner.

Where are you seeing the opportunity to tell your story? Who will feel the touch of God on their heart after hearing the way in which He has touched your heart?

(My previous post, connected to this, is Stories, part 1)

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Conversion

Last Sunday I had the opportunity to preach. The text I used was Acts 9:1-6 and the title I gave my sermon was “The Most Unlikely Convert.” The text is the conversion story of Saul. I talked about how unlikely it was that Saul became a Christian. I looked a bit at Saul from Acts 7 and 8, and also the accounts of his conversion in Acts 22 and 26. The account in Acts 9 is in Luke’s words, while in the latter accounts Luke presents Saul’s conversion in Saul’s words.

Saul calls himself the “foremost” of sinners. And the evidence presented in the Bible demonstrates that by any objective measure he was a pretty bad man. (In God’s eyes there is no gradation of sin. All sin is offensive to God. That is a topic for separate post.)

When we read the passage in Acts we see something pretty interesting. Verses 5 and 6 read:

“And he [Saul] said, “Who are you, Lord?” And he said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.

But rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.”

Right there, in between the end of verse 5 and the beginning of verse 6, everything changes. Saul has been taken from being a persecutor of the church to being someone who receives instructions from Jesus. In the subsequent verses, and throughout the New Testament, we see that Saul has become someone who loves and serves Jesus with all of his heart. He has crossed over from unbelief to belief, and he never goes back.

The other thing besides the simple fact of Saul’s conversion is that Saul was converted without any action on his own part. Jesus never asks Saul what he would prefer. Saul doesn't ask for faith in Jesus. Jesus just inserts Himself into Saul’s life, and Saul’s life is never the same.

In my sermon I talked some about the implications of Saul’s conversion for us today.

But the next day there was the bombing at the Boston Marathon.

The bombing was a heinous act. People were killed. People were injured physically. People were injured emotionally and psychologically. In our nation many emotions have been expressed, including outrage, sorrow, fear and calls for justice. Law enforcement agencies are working to solve this crime and bring the person/persons responsible to justice. There have been calls to pray for those affected by the bombing.

Amidst all that I have heard about the bombing over the past two days I have also saw a friend post this comment on Facebook:

“So, who is praying for the miserable bombers? May God redeem them and cheat the devil of their souls as He comforts their victims.”

I believe that this is a crime that will be solved, in terms of finding those guilty and holding them accountable. But I am also joining in the prayer of my friend, and praying for the salvation of those who committed the crime, for no sinner is beyond the ability of God to convert to faith.

Not the thief on the cross. Not Saul. Not even me.

As Saul’s story reminds us, conversion from unbelief to belief is not based on merit but on God’s gracious work. Every conversion story is the salvation of an unlikely convert. And all who are saved are saved by God, through an act of His gracious, merciful love, to His eternal glory. Amen.